#the panopticon speaks with many tongues

[norkoartstuff]

Hello fellow drukhari enjoyer.

I want to hear all about Kalista and the Split Tongue. Anything you wanna tell me. She looks great and there's not enough dark eldar content on my dash :)

There's scant records and data-indent on the Kabal of the Split Tongue and very little on its leading Archon. Still we will share here what information we've recovered through infocytes and neuro-conditionned interrogations.

Ruling the sub-realm of Xhiv-Thabbas, the Split Tongue are a Kabal in nothing but name. Propped up by "Archon" Kallista as a formidable force of pirates, reavers, bandits and outlaws, the Kabal is actually formed of hundreds, if not thousands of smaller bands, gangs and crews operating within their own districts and plying their own murderous business. The sub-realms isolated nature lead it to attract many outliers of Commorite society and fostered a more covert form of the violence oh-so common in mainline Dark Eldar society. Being a port-city, the realm attracts plenty of oddities and is noted for having a substantial slave and xenos population thriving despite the danger.

The "heart" of the Kabal itself is found in Kallista's own personal cartel of loyalists and close allies; these include the Incubi of the Shrine of the Howling Tide; the Wyches and Reavers of the Cult of the Severed Hand; the Haemonculi of the Execrated; the scourges and hellions of the Crimson Harpies and the various mercenary clades of the Sslyth and freelance halfborns aeldari.

Kallista's true identity is a closely guarded secret, dozens of decoys, neuro-gelded copycats and body-doubles appearing to claim the name and title. Many assassins have claimed her death yet none of them have taken root, leaving her iron grip on the port-city intact.

The Archon's rise is not well recorded, with mostly rumours and whispers serving to cement the fear and awe in her underlings and competitors. Some say she made dark deals with the citizens of Aelindrach, explaining the presence of living shadows and dreadful mandrake protectors anywhere she threads; more speak of an unknown entity possessing bodies and enacting an impossibly complex agenda that would bring the realm into darkness; few speak of a simple courtesan who spun lies and doubts in the hearts of the Old Blood kabals that once ruled the port.

Whatever truth or lies there is to these rumours, the fact remain the same; the Kabal of the Split Tongue and its Archon Kallista are as wily as they are ruthless; none of their rival has succeeded at rooting them out of their stronghold and their web of deceit, half-truths and lies have cemented their reputation as noteworthy upstarts.

What this infocyte report note as fact is that we cannot predict nor counter raids performed by this particular Kabal. Predictive algorithm are beffudle and our best Panopticons remain useless in the face of the exact and precise nature of their raids; particularly due to the extreme narrowness of their operations and their willingness to suffer tactical losses to achieve strategic victories. While unable to bring to bear the firepower and numbers of the Great Kabals of Commoragh, they remain a threat to all assets and facilities.

~Panopticos-Alpha Seterack Vanus Clade LXVII

[xsadcorebenji]

observations_20230916

still without car in a town rather punitive to those who want to walk

on the lonely walk back i pass by

a parked car filled with belongings

i peek in and see someone sleeping, and can only think to myself what a relatable sight

sometimes wonder was i really better off not being in that position

but the lonesome confines of the car far and nowhere breeds monotony and in the depravity of the mundane stillness of time passing, a swelling sadness

on the wander back was a field and i wanted to lay down for a moment just to breathe the air that surrounds

yet all the signs that surround that scream

"private property" a harsh reminder that so many people would cast away their own agency for false security

comfortable convenience

on the pathway back, thought of my friend last night who drove me home, and his attempts to drive back several different ways back to break up routine

always fascinated by the habits of people who served wartime, as they seem to exhibit the same loneliness i do

the same cravings of breaks in routine

and the harrowing experience of abandon and the solitude and the waiting,

broke apart by a series of hyperactive intense moments only to be shoved back into a lazy calm, and an exhaust between the rapid shifts

was joined in the last bit back by a neighbor, we spoke a bit about nothing in particular and i welcomed the temporary companion

then wondered about how temporary and brief are all moments of cammaderies, companionship and otherwise

the harrowing taste of "nothing contains meaning"

well then why echo anything that gives the conscious being the emotion that they're "disposable"

everyone is "replaceable"

maddening aftertaste of a commodity culture

neighbor breaks asks if i understood his english and it was well spoken, but could only imagine the impatience he must've experienced from others to even ask

prior to writing this on the concept of writing i contemplated how rupi kaur really stained the taste of poetics on the tongues of many

and even then nothing feels more contrived than wax poetics which spells misery

as this was my solace prior to all these strangers invading my space and making a mockery of it

i write to conversate and connect

when you read my words do you feel anything at all?

do you feel close to me?

do you feel this all just a farce?

i miss the soft taste of spitting out my musings in an ethos without expecting echo just to be discovered and cherished by another

but now everytime i talk it feels like i am trapped in a shipwreck in a bottle

the pieces are all here

and it's easy to repair

but no one would dare

do words drink hallucinitory as

absinthe

in a vial so vile

with the afterwash of bile?

poetry demysterified and everyone can shitstain the airways with their clumsy words

and if any fury nestled in me

is watching those words get lauded over mine

and how dare you tell me to self-love

yet when i desire the same, you'd call me arrogant

then what should i do of invaded spaces?

i wonder if my words ever reached you

and i wonder if you felt like they meant anything at all

your perception of me is very subjective

and all i have is the mirror and my own perception of me.

a hall of mirrors in a solitude that rhymes to the beat of punitive solitary confinement

the prison panopticon must be everywhere then

well i just wanted the bittersweet taste of the unadulterated joy

that comes from shared hearts

could you carry me in two chambers of your heart?

and should i settle for half-hearted when no-hearted speaks abundant

all the therapy speak makes it feel like the half hearts are "healthy"

is it a miserable estate when i want to settled for three fourths your heart?

to health and other glass vases

[nothorses]

I think one aspect of "callout culture" and harassment campaigns that we really need to talk about more is the silence.

Not just the kind that happens when someone is forced to bend to the hate mob outright; I'm talking about the kind that happens even if you fight it, and even if you "win". Because these callouts aren't just about that initial attack and the individual, or even community-level response to the accusations contained in them. They're about doing long-term damage; they're about inflicting trauma.

It doesn't matter how many people you block, how successfully you ignore it, or how provably, laughably false their accusations are to anyone who gives half a shit or has half a braincell to work with. The point is not to get you to admit defeat, or even to acknowledge them.

It's to silence you, hurt you, and control you.

Weeks go by without a word more on the situation, and even though you're ostensibly fine, you are just... exhausted. It is completely and utterly exhausting to even think about speaking, and not just about the subjects that people were to angry about last time; about anything. Putting energy and passion into something only for people to purposefully misinterpret and weaponize it against you is tiring, no matter the scale.

You write with the knowledge that someone is going to twist your words this way or that way, you edit with every possible misinterpretation playing out vividly in your head, you hit post feeling every pair of watchful eyes on you, you scroll through your notifications looking for anything that indicates any potential bad-faith reading you need to guard against, and you check your messages dreading the threats, violent wishes, stomach-churning accusations, guilt-trips, and emotional manipulation you can never show anyone; not only because it's too senselessly violent for anyone to have to see, but because you know that anything you say in response will just bring around even more of each and every one of the things you were worried about before you started writing that post in the first place.

It's trauma.

It's been silent for weeks, but the trauma is still there; and it'll remind you of its presence, too. A hateful message here, a concerned "heads up" forwarded to you there, it doesn't matter. Just enough that you remember what will happen to you if you step out of line again: speak too loudly, talk to the wrong person, say something too casually or too quickly...

And even if you don't feel it, the people around you do. They see how bad it gets, and they're (rightfully) afraid of becoming the next target. Or they're afraid of even getting involved, of trying to untangle the whole mess, picking the wrong side by accident, or saying the wrong thing. They see the panopticon you're in, the weight and stress and trauma of it, and even if it's subconscious, they don't want to touch it. They stay away from the thing that might hurt them, even if they're trying not to give in. It's just instinct.

Some of them will taste the artificial shame your name now carries on their tongues, even if they know it's unreasonable. Some small part of them maybe thinks, "Maybe they deserve this, just a little. Maybe they did do something wrong." Because the alternative- the reality that no amount of genuine innocence will save them if the wrong person notices them the wrong sort of way- is much, much harder to stomach. And that uncertainty makes them hold just those few more words back.

The silence is a slow, creeping inevitability. It doesn't matter how it started; the silence is how it will end.

Because it will always be easier to just... not. To quietly withdraw and find something new to be talk about instead. To give up fighting after you feel like you've "won", but before you're exposed to more hurt. And aren't there other things that matter more, anyway? Sure, you were once passionate about this- but if you can fool yourself into thinking you're giving it up for some natural, inevitable reason, maybe you can sneak off into the relative safety of obscurity without having to think too hard about it.

And there's no shame in that. In fact, it's almost certainly the healthy choice. But the fact of the matter is that they still silenced you.

I don't know what the solution is, but I know that we need to keep fighting; even as the silence creeps in to replace the tangible, easy-to-fight threats. And that means we need to talk about it.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: the first hint that Cabaret Voltaire had a future on the dance floor, and weren’t meant to make hissing tape noises forever. Find out how The Crackdown took them from the industrial underground and into the (relative) spotlight. Full transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’m taking a look at Cabaret Voltaire, one of the most important acts in the development of “industrial music” in the late 70s and early 80s. They came up right alongside groups like Throbbing Gristle and Clock DVA, and their earlier work is strident and subversive, full of harsh, hissing textures, and dense compositions that almost dare you to make sense of them. This era of their career came to a head with 1981’s Red Mecca, an album inspired by political turmoil in Western Asia, and often considered their great masterpiece.

Music: “Spread the Virus”

While this earlier work was extremely influential, sowing the seeds of all manner of noise and industrial music to come, Cabaret Voltaire didn’t stick with this sound forever. That’s where their 1983 album The Crackdown comes into the picture. After founding member Chris Watson left the group to pursue a career in sound engineering for television, Cabaret Voltaire were reduced to a duo of Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder, and on this album, the two of them would push their sound into significantly poppier territory.

Music: “Animation”

Listening to the surprisingly bright synth effects on “Animation,” you can start to see why Cabaret Voltaire are sometimes remembered as more of a New Wave act, in spite of those rough beginnings. Much more focused on digestible hooks and melodies, The Crackdown saw significantly more mainstream success and appeal than anything they had done before. Still, it’s selling this album a bit short to position it as a straight-up pop record. It’s really kind of a transition point between their more avant-garde work and their more dancefloor-oriented output later in the 1980s. “Animation” is definitely a bit of an outlier, sonically speaking, and it’s also a bit buried in the tracklisting, only appearing at the end of the first side. By contrast, the album opens with “24-24.”

Music: “24-24”

“24-24,” and other tracks on The Crackdown, really lay out what I’d consider the “classic” Cabaret Voltaire compositional structure: they center around these repetitive grooves, which are quite funky, and catchy in a dark way, but also somewhat unsatisfying to listen to, never quite resolving like a pop song, but smoldering in the back of your mind. They’re just oppressive, smothering, lingering around like pestilent miasmas, weighing you down like something you’ve got to haul on your back. While a lot of the lyricism of Cabaret Voltaire tracks is pretty inscrutable, I’ve always thought of “24-24” as a representation of the withering grind of working life--where there once was “the old 9-5,” here we have the all-consuming “24-24,” a shift with no room for rest. There’s a similar theme of inescapable, constant pressure on the album’s title track.

Music: “Crackdown”

The title track of The Crackdown is also its closing track, and it’s yet another in the fine tradition of closing tracks that get to bask in a substantive runtime and spin an almost cinematic narrative. While “24-24” wears the listener down with its cyclical, repetitive, hamster-wheel structure, the title track is jumpy and uneven, giving it an unpredictable quality. Its theme appears to be that of the surveillance state, and the stress of living in a world of tension and paranoia, where the punishment of the titular “crackdown” could be lurking around any corner. Not only are individuals watched from above, by the force of authority, but also by each other, among themselves, enforcing conformity by ratting out their peers. But perhaps the most effective take the album has on that “oppressive” song structure is “Just Fascination.”

Music: “Just Fascination”

While tracks like “24-24” and the title track pit individuals against the larger mechanisms of society, “Just Fascination” translates that sense of struggle to something completely internal, portraying a battle between the superego and the id. The “private fascination” described by the song could be deviant sexual urges, morbid curiosity, or, really, any sort of vaguely heretical thoughtcrime you can think of. It’s pointing to a universal experience of nagging thoughts that hunt you down and refuse to leave your mind, and I think that deep relatability gives it a lot of power.

On the cover of The Crackdown, we see Kirk and Mallinder portrayed as photographers, and their lens is turned, quite defiantly, to look at *us.* This image plays with the roles of the observer and the observed, giving us a vision of artists who are not simply here to be seen and serve as entertainment, but rather choose to gaze back. When combined with the title, “The Crackdown,” and the theme of surveillance, one can read the tripod-mounted camera as an icon of the Panopticon, the classic symbol of authority’s watchful eye. The image appears both off-center, and washed over in lurid, unnatural colours, reminiscent of a photographer’s colour test printing. This effect adds a lot of general visual interest to the cover, and makes it stand out quite a bit more than it would otherwise, but it also casts Cabaret Voltaire back into the role of being observed, as the subject of photography themselves. It also hints at the way mechanical reproduction can fail, or be inadequate--the world doesn’t really appear in this colour palette, after all. Or at least not to human eyes.

Another bit of symbolism on this cover I find quite interesting is the compass, which appears on the right-hand side. While the compass visually rhymes with the tripod, it’s worth noting that it also has a long history as a symbol of God as the creator and architect of the universe, and divine order and symmetry. It’s also sometimes invoked as a representation of the need for proper conduct, and staying within the rules of good behaviour. Because of these associations, compass imagery has often been used by various ritual societies, most notably the Freemasons. Cabaret Voltaire’s usage of this symbol is probably as subversive and tongue-in-cheek as their use of the “all-seeing eye” of the camera.

Earlier, I mentioned that The Crackdown serves as a transition point for Cabaret Voltaire, and that their later works would see them push further into making dance music. If you’re in the market for more of that, and this album is still a bit rough around the edges for your taste, I’d recommend their 1984 follow-up, Micro-Phonies. Featuring tracks like their arguable greatest hit, “Sensoria,” Micro-Phonies puts more emphasis on that bouncy, funky, bass-heavy groove, and in many cases starts pushing closer to something like verse/chorus structure.

Music: “Sensoria”

My favourite track on The Crackdown is “Talking Time.” Between its whispering hook, “don’t touch,” a sample asking us to wait “five minutes,” and the fact that it ends in another sample that’s apparently clipped off mid-word, “Talking Time” really feels like a track that’s aware of the fact that it’s dragging us along as listeners, and toying with our expectations. It also has one of the bounciest synth sequences anywhere on the album, surprisingly enough. That’s all for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “Talking Time”

[titleknown]

“Well, this wasn’t the kind of creepy I was expecting” Quentin said as he went down the orange and purple tunnels of the moon with Ooky-Spooky. 

“I getcha, but the same time I don’t getcha...” she said trudging along.

It was bright in the tunnels, but not in the warm candlelight way she’d expected, but rather a cold; unpleasant light coming from everywhere and at the same time nowhere.

“Like, the way you described this place, I’d thought it’d be a party, a bunch of guests all here living it up with your kind of nonsense, but instead...”

The silence howling about the air said more than he ever could.

Before them were the accoutriments of Halloween, plastic monsters and bowls of candy sitting as if they had been put there just hours before and barely touched. The festive colors felt cold, none of the musical devices would play, and the “core” man in the moon was still nowhere to be found.

As they went down, the terrain changed. There were some decorations of... that other Holiday. Out of place tinsel and evergreen saplings clung parasitically to the walls, wrapped boxes in shiny paper and ribbons, that goddamn creepy panopticon-elf, it was there, but it was not at all festive.

Ooky felt an existential dread for reasons she could not explain, buut which Quentin damn well could.

Quentin had always hated the Christmas creep, the way in which the Yule intruded upon the year earlier andearlier, decorations filling the stores and music clogging up the airwaves. It felt like all of the commercialism and conformism of that time was coming to snuff out the rest of the time before itself, with none of the warmth.

Speaking of warmth, it was getting a mite chilly, wasn't it? That's when he saw the frost on the walls. The walls that were descending from orange and purple into red and green.

Ooky, naturally, took this opportunity to lick the wall. Her tongue ended up clinging to it and her hat had to help her extract herself as she yanked and pulled, letting out an exhortative “YUCK! This wall tastes like evil! Not the good kind of Chrimbo frost, I'll tell you that straight away.”

“You done that more than o-” Quentin stopped. On one of the many shelves, one lined from top to bottom with panopticon-elves, there was one in particular that caught his eye. Covered in red and green, colors that were brightly and nauseatingly twitching. Just like its eyelids.

And then it began to move.

It hopped off the shelf, growing gnarled icy vegetation with each step, down the hallway, whistling some unsettling tune. Quentin watched and Ooky's eye was drawn as well. Not quite to the elf, but rather to what it was running towards. A cold, blue light.

“C'mon Quentin we've got a lead!” she said as she grabbed him by the collar and yanked him along. Well, tried to yank him along, before a much larger; harier hand reached out from behind one of the boxes, grabbed her and pulled her behind with its owner

The leering, demonic form the hand belonged to loomed down on the both of them. “How the hell did you get here?! Don't you know that some serious shit is going down?!”

Quentin was stammering at its great shaggy bulk with massive ramlike horns, holding a sack and rusty chains in one hand, and a weathered birch staff crusted in maroon patches in the right.

But, all Ookyy could say was “The Krampus?! What the fuck is the Krampus doing here?!”

Yep, the villain of this “arc” is using the Christmas Creep for a nefarious purpose, though what the purpose and who the villain is, I shall not spoil!

If you’d like to support me, check out my Patreon or my Ko-Fi!

And, as per usual, the story itself is CC-BY-SA as regards direct adaptations, but the characters, setting elements, concepts, ect, are CC-BY, so feel free to use them freely as long as I, Thomas F. Johnson, am credited as their creator!

[ecotone99]

[SF] Panopticon

Twenty-three hundred days in hell is exactly what you’d think. Well, unless you anticipated screaming, and praying, and begging, and wailing and gnashing of teeth no…hell is nothing like the Old Testament. Hell is an eight-foot-tall, six-by-six cell. Three walls and a ceiling, all made of concrete. That fourth wall however, now I’m betting you anticipate “bars,” right? Seeing as I’ve described hell as a cell? Well here I am to burst your bubble ‘cause hell isn’t a cell per se. The fourth wall is just…open. Completely open to a four-story drop for me, even higher for the boys above me. And if you were to drop, you’d land and shatter your fucking femurs for one, but you’d land on the sandy bottom of a tall, dark, enclosed, circular building in the middle of goddamn nowhere.

The floor of this place is about the size of a football field in all directions and in its center…in its heart. Is the Panopticon. I can still remember the metallic voice over the unseen speakers as we each awoke, drugged, in our cells. It started off with a factoid. The man who first proposed the idea of the Panopticon described it as “A mill for grinding rogues honest.” We were to be the, “First ever maximum-security inmates to be housed within the ULTIMATE STRUCTURE OF SURVEILLANCE!” Like we were supposed to be goddamn excited for it. Like they were selling us something that we should be chomping at the bit to buy.

360-degree view from the tower in the center with about 150 open cells surrounding. No human face though, scowling out at us from behind it’s dark, cold plexi-glass. No human faces EVER. See that was really the thing about hell. I hadn’t seen another human face since the moment that screeching, tinny, robotic voice woke me up to tell me what I’d won, twenty-three hundred days and counting, in hell. The point of the “open cell concept” as I like to call it, is this, we all assume we could be the one being monitored at any given time so now, we self-discipline. No need for bars when we’re met with a bone crushing fall and motion-activated machine guns mounted on every curve of that tower. No sir-e. We’ll be the good little boys our mechanical overlords know we’ll be, because we have no other fucking choice.

Now how can a maximum-security prison operate without any human beings? Much like most things in this brave new, robotic world. Our three-square meals a day are delivered to us through a perfectly fucking sealed square hole in the wall and I know that it’s being delivered on a conveyor belt, assembled and maintained by machines because for the past 6 months my meals have been coming to me with the exact same mistakes, day-in-and day-out. If that doesn’t sound like a malfunctioning robot, electronic, or machine to you than you haven’t spent a lot of time depending on one. My breakfasts used to be nice and portioned off on the tray. The scrambled eggs had their square, the toast had his, and my orange slices had theirs. Now every single morning the eggs are no longer scrambled, they’re runny as hell and I hate runny. But what’s more is my orange slices are placed right in the center of that disgusting, thick soup o’ eggs. Like two orange, radioactive islands floating within a sea of yellow shit. And my dinners no longer include any meat, just the gravy for the meat. So, I’m just getting potatoes and steamed veggies every night for the past 6 months with nothing but the idea of meat.

It used to be that once a month a palm-sized touch pad would come through the food slot and you could make selections on any malfunctions or problems you’d been experiencing under certain categories and then back through the slot it would go and within a day or so the problem would be resolved. So, once upon a time I could rectify these mistakes or at least be given the illusion of having a voice. But I haven’t seen a touch pad come through the wall in well over 3 years and I don’t expect I’ll be seeing one ever again. I mean my lunch no longer even comes at all but from the feedback I’ve gotten from the fine gentlemen around me, everybody’s lunch stopped coming about 2 years ago so a certain programed protocol has obviously kicked in. What we all want to know is what it means…

Here’s what I think it means. The people running this place, the human beings meant to give mind to this machine of hell, are all gone. Something very, very bad happened out there in the world and we’re in here completely unsupervised, by man. But now we’re so dangerously supervised by the machines that this really is a hell, and we’ll all spending eternity in this place as more parts and pieces of it fall apart with no human beings coming to put it all back together again, and call the devil back to bed. Plus, the water has started to taste a little like battery acid.

We figured out I want to say two-and-a-half years ago that we could call out to one another and have conversations without anything happening. The first guy to finally shriek out into the abyss was Bluie my neighbor. He’s a totally innocent man and one night right as I was finally beginning to drift off into my version of sleep, I hear the first human voice I’d heard since before my incarceration. It was Bluie. And Bluie yells out,

“Aye, aye RoboCops! Why ain’t ya tuck us in no more!?”

The silence that followed…whew! Could have heard the drip, drip, drip of a robot taking a gasoline piss a football field away. But then…nothing happened. I mean absolutely nothing happened for one minute, then two minutes, then seven. In the hour that followed the event that I’ve so affectionately named, “Bluie’s First Contact” it was truly as if we were in hell, yet this time, we were the demons. The screaming and shrieking, swearing and cursing, the absolute thunderous, bellowing shouts of rage and sound that erupted from all 150 inmates after Bluie’s First Contact was the most hell-ish thing I had ever known. Myself, I just yelled every horrible thing I had ever heard or thought of throughout the entire course of my life until I tasted blood in the back of my throat and no longer had any voice to speak with.

But this ushered in great change. There were conversations for a few weeks. Men confessing, mostly men declaring innocence. Men sharing jokes, men telling stories of all the best and all the worst pussy they’d had before waking up in this place. We were a tribe. But with so many conversations happening all at once we couldn’t keep track of the fractures. The fissures, the silences. And soon there were indecipherable clicks with the tongue, and combinations of words which meant nothing. High and low shouts which gave away no inflection or intention. We all developed our own secret language to communicate with the men we really trusted. We’re split now, divided. Sound is all we have so we use it as secret forms of communication. The acoustics are fantastic in our Panopticon and so each level has developed their own secret means of communication so no other level can understand them. The highest level of cells, near the ceiling are rumored to still be receiving lunch, spring water to drink, and meat with dinner so of course it goes without saying that every level hates them. The bottom level, my level is rumored to have successfully gotten some of our boys out—escape. I know this is bullshit because several months back another guy, real quiet guy likes us to call him G, kicked his pillow right out the opening in his cell. You may have wondered how I knew the machine guns mounted on the Panopticon were motion-sensitive? At least three machine guns locked onto it and shot it as it was falling through the air, and completely eviscerated it once it hit ground. So began the escape rumors. We also know that if we come to close to the opening of our cells the machine guns lock onto us and follow our every move until we step back far enough. Once, I daggled a piece of cloth over the side and a machine gun fired and nearly blew my fucking hand off.

What I’ve been trying to get my guys on this level to understand, is that there aren’t enough machine guns to handle all of us. If only we conducted more “experiments” really figured out the way they work, even if just one of us could escape that one could go find out what happened to the world. Bring help. But Bluie says this is part of the Panopticon. This is how we’re meant to be kept here, in hell.

“Men built this,” he said, “men want this.”

G thinks what I’m suggesting involves sacrificing one of “ours”. Even if we got the rest of the 147 inmates in on it everyone would scream the same thing:

“The cocksuckers on the bottom have the lowest fall! They should be the ones to distract the guns while others try an escape!”

I think G is probably right. But no one has spoken a real, human sentence in so long, I don’t intend to be the first to break the “silence” and find out. But what I haven’t told you, or told anyone for that matter, is that I’ve been pissing blood for the last 4 months. I got to get up and take a piss at least 12 times a night. I knew I was terminal before they condemned me to wake up here, but I think I must be getting to the end. Yesterday morning I woke up to blood in my underwear, which is new. Bluie’s also changed, he talks about God a lot now and what he’ll do in the Kingdom of Heaven when he finally goes “home.” G hasn’t spoken to us in over a week. I think he may be dead but it’s real hard to cut through the smell of myself and 149 other poorly washed prisoners to detect the scent of death. Plus, I never really knew what cell was his anyway, it’s not like I can crane my neck out with a, “Yooohoooo! Still alive in there?!” and find out. I wonder how hard it would be to convince Bluie to let his body drop to that warm, sandy floor…let him get on “home” then. Or me, what about me? Smear myself in my own dirty blood and go screaming over the side the same way I screamed my lungs out a few short years ago when I knew for certain that this, this was hell, this was going to be the place in which I became a demon. This mill has finally ground me down. I am a demon of the Panopticon.

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[bastardsunlight]

Written by the ancient Sheikah, the archives of creation have been lost to history, until now:

Transliterated from the ancient tongue, which is somewhat subjective in nature

[ ] indicates translator’s best effort at deciphering

( ) indicates translator’s addition for clarity

// // indicates translator’s personal thoughts on the subject

To know the history of the Hero and of [Demise] is to know the history of the world, of light and of shadow. Evil has no place in this most innocent [dichotomy]. Without shadow, there can be no light. Without light, there is no shadow. The “land of the gods” has been called such for [eons], but there are gods in all lands, light and dark. When life comes, death follows. There is no existence without [void]—no presence without absence. Long and long have the people of the land of light, (Hyrule and the surrounding baronies), worshipped the golden goddesses of the [Triforce]. These three in one become Hylia, for whom the holy land is named. But there is another. There has always been another. //remarkable, this lends itself to my theories regarding the ancient Sheikah tribe and the possible schism that caused the royal family to turn on them in the early days of the kingdom, before the “split”—more on that later//

No presence without absence. //such profundity in old writing is the very reason I got into this profession in the first place. My family hardly approves, but I’ve got so much to learn, it’s easy to forget their scorn!//

In the first days, when Din’s strong arms churned the soil, Farore’s living breath stirred the wind and life-giving rain, and Nayru’s heartbeat brought the [sun] up over the eastern horizon, the seeds of life came from these three golden goddesses and their companion, he of death and the void. It is said that his seed produced all [sentient] life. And so life and death danced, hand-in-hand, as must they always. //could this be the missing piece of our beloved Triforce?//

To accompany the fertile soil, the [Fierce Deity] made the deserts and stony mountains, where little grows. As a companion of Farore’s blessed breezes and rain, he brought about winter gales and times of drought. For Nayru’s gentle sun, he formed the [septic] moon, whose cold light gives rot where the sun [preserves]. When the gods created the beasts and people who even now walk the plains and mountains, who soar the skies and swim deep in the seas, they gave both life and death in one union. //”Fierce Deity” added, as I could think of no other name to call the fourth godhead in our false trinity. Thank the gods the old zealous ways have died out or I’d be lynched for this! Anyway, I spoke with a salesman recently, a purveyor of masks, of all things. He told me the tale of a particularly dangerous mask, one that was obtained by the Hero himself in a strange nothing-land (his words, not mine), in order to defeat a great evil. He referred to this mask as the Fierce Deity. Gives me goosebumps just considering it.//

And so the land of light was born.

The goddesses grew restless, disenchanted with the death brought by their necessary partner. They [conspired] to rid themselves of his presence, hoping this would allow that which they created to flourish, unhindered. One dark night, while the cold moon hung over everything, and the [Fierce Deity] slept, the three golden ones chained him and cast him out of the land of light. Because they were vain, the goddesses desired a way to see him and so the [Mirror of Twilight] was created, Din using her blazing arms to melt sand, Nayru, her view of the moon to set a frame for the structure, and Farore, the chilly breath of winter’s wind to cool the great glass. And so through this, the golden ones observed their cast off [mate]. //how cruel. A panopticon of godly proportions.//

Again, the three grew restless. They were bored without their [mate], and frustrated that the pieces //literal translation here, could mean chess pieces, or how the goddesses might have viewed the people of old Hyrule… scary// of their world, [sentient and otherwise], continued to die. What the gods put in motion, not even the gods can stop, especially the particular forces of life and death, the strongest [polarities]. Stubborn as they were, the golden ones refused to start over and give up, deciding amonst themselves to instead create a new companion. To make a [mate] for themselves, the three goddesses took from what which the [Fierce Deity] had contributed to their world, pulling sand and clay from the deserts for a strong body, moonlight to chill hot blood, and that pulled from the undrinkable oceans, made salty by the tears of betrayal. The golden ones thought to remake their [mate] with as much of him as was left in this world. //even knowing what I know, this doesn’t seem like the wisest choice at all!//

The being which rose from this had no name, and did not require one. He was a toy for the goddesses, to serve at their whim and pleasure. Time was created and [eons] passed with little disturbance. But the creation of the goddesses began to learn, grow, become strong, and with that, came curiosity and a genuine need to know why he had come to be. With knowledge came bitterness, fear, and rage. The one with no name sought to build (in secret, presumably) an army and a great power, to conquer the goddesses and usher the [Fierce Deity] back into the world of light.

Amused with their worshippers and the world below as they were, the nameless one’s plan almost succeeded. //Demise’s first incursion//

He marched his armies right up to the very gateway that led to the [Sacred Realm]. Unguarded as it was, due to the hubris of gods, this was not difficult. When the three golden ones emerged, however, the slaughter began and, for the first time in their eternal lives, they understood what it was to bring death. It gave them no pleasure and they sought to slay their creation. The nameless one escaped, barely, disappearing to a far off desert, unknowing what fate had been set before him. The golden ones understood, however, that they had created an immortal. Without the [Fierce Deity], there was no death. Their new plaything could not be killed! //I hate to say I told you so, but…//

Rather than admit their mistake and invite him (the Fierce Deity) back to the land of light, the goddesses once more conspired to create another immortal, with more care and consideration to the consequences. So many of their faithful had been killed in the incursion upon the [Sacred Realm], the golden ones were desperate to make certain such a thing never happened again. From the light of the sun, the warmth of summer breezes and life-giving rains, from the fertile soil and all the life it promised, the goddesses created the Hero, giving him the form of a gentle-eyed youth. Where their nameless [replacement] mate had been large and angular, and hard, the youth was small and soft. Within a gentle shroud, the heart of a warrior beat, however, hard and strong, pumping warm, living blood and filling eyes, blue as the sky, with the spark of wild, eternal life. //the author must have seen him, the Hero. I can’t imagine what that must have been like//

The nameless one gave himself a name which is unspeakable, but means the end. To write his true name is to defy him, to speak it is to summon, so it is written. [Demise] rose from the shadow of the goddesses, angry and unrepentant, jilted and [abused]. His evil grew and reached to all corners of the land of light. This was the first evil in the world, a need for destruction born of vengeance and hatred, undiscriminating and uncaring. Maddened by his wounds and enraged at his lost, [Demise] reached out to the land that would be Hyrule.

It was then that the goddesses became one, Hylia, and raised her favored people into the sky to save them. At the same time, they sent their Hero to fight the beast, [Demise] and seal him with the blade of evil’s bane (the fabled Master Sword). When the Hero returned to [the sky land] (the ancient kingdom of Skyloft), he was battered, close to death, but victorious. The people asked their beloved goddess, who now walked among them, if they could return to their land so far below. Hylia told them that the land was still tainted with evil and that her champion, the Hero, was as yet unprepared to finish [Demise].

What Hylia left the people with was hope and the seed of her power. The child would be named Zelda and so too every girlchild thereafter who also bore the [ichor] (blood of the gods) which flowed within the golden ones. With Zelda came a teaching, an instruction to be vigilant for the return of [Demise] and of the Hero. Time passed, as time does, and the goddesses wrought the chains of the Hero’s entanglement. Along with Zelda, each race was given a [totem of power], which would be passed to the one amongst them regarded as the [sage]. //the word directly translates as “vessel of the gods’ will”, so I’ve taken some liberties here// Together with Zelda, the [sages], with their scrying pools and far-reaching wisdom //a spy network, maybe? Could the Sheikah have been involved here? I have so many questions// kept close watch over the land below, knowing that the rise of evil would herald the coming of the Hero.

[bastardsunlight]

Written by the ancient Sheikah, the archives of creation have been lost to history, until now:

Transliterated from the ancient tongue, which is somewhat subjective in nature

[ ] indicates translator’s best effort at deciphering

( ) indicates translator’s addition for clarity

// // indicates translator’s personal thoughts on the subject

To know the history of the Hero and of [Demise] is to know the history of the world, of light and of shadow. Evil has no place in this most innocent [dichotomy]. Without shadow, there can be no light. Without light, there is no shadow. The “land of the gods” has been called such for [eons], but there are gods in all lands, light and dark. When life comes, death follows. There is no existence without [void]—no presence without absence. Long and long have the people of the land of light, (Hyrule and the surrounding baronies), worshipped the golden goddesses of the [Triforce]. These three in one become Hylia, for whom the holy land is named. But there is another. There has always been another. //remarkable, this lends itself to my theories regarding the ancient Sheikah tribe and the possible schism that caused the royal family to turn on them in the early days of the kingdom, before the “split”—more on that later//

No presence without absence. //such profundity in old writing is the very reason I got into this profession in the first place. My family hardly approves, but I’ve got so much to learn, it’s easy to forget their scorn!//

In the first days, when Din’s strong arms churned the soil, Farore’s living breath stirred the wind and life-giving rain, and Nayru’s heartbeat brought the [sun] up over the eastern horizon, the seeds of life came from these three golden goddesses and their companion, he of death and the void. It is said that his seed produced all [sentient] life. And so life and death danced, hand-in-hand, as must they always. //could this be the missing piece of our beloved Triforce?//

To accompany the fertile soil, the [Fierce Deity] made the deserts and stony mountains, where little grows. As a companion of Farore’s blessed breezes and rain, he brought about winter gales and times of drought. For Nayru’s gentle sun, he formed the [septic] moon, whose cold light gives rot where the sun [preserves]. When the gods created the beasts and people who even now walk the plains and mountains, who soar the skies and swim deep in the seas, they gave both life and death in one union. //”Fierce Deity” added, as I could think of no other name to call the fourth godhead in our false trinity. Thank the gods the old zealous ways have died out or I’d be lynched for this! Anyway, I spoke with a salesman recently, a purveyor of masks, of all things. He told me the tale of a particularly dangerous mask, one that was obtained by the Hero himself in a strange nothing-land (his words, not mine), in order to defeat a great evil. He referred to this mask as the Fierce Deity. Gives me goosebumps just considering it.//

And so the land of light was born.

The goddesses grew restless, disenchanted with the death brought by their necessary partner. They [conspired] to rid themselves of his presence, hoping this would allow that which they created to flourish, unhindered. One dark night, while the cold moon hung over everything, and the [Fierce Deity] slept, the three golden ones chained him and cast him out of the land of light. Because they were vain, the goddesses desired a way to see him and so the [Mirror of Twilight] was created, Din using her blazing arms to melt sand, Nayru, her view of the moon to set a frame for the structure, and Farore, the chilly breath of winter’s wind to cool the great glass. And so through this, the golden ones observed their cast off [mate]. //how cruel. A panopticon of godly proportions.//

Again, the three grew restless. They were bored without their [mate], and frustrated that the pieces //literal translation here, could mean chess pieces, or how the goddesses might have viewed the people of old Hyrule… scary// of their world, [sentient and otherwise], continued to die. What the gods put in motion, not even the gods can stop, especially the particular forces of life and death, the strongest [polarities]. Stubborn as they were, the golden ones refused to start over and give up, deciding amonst themselves to instead create a new companion. To make a [mate] for themselves, the three goddesses took from what which the [Fierce Deity] had contributed to their world, pulling sand and clay from the deserts for a strong body, moonlight to chill hot blood, and that pulled from the undrinkable oceans, made salty by the tears of betrayal. The golden ones thought to remake their [mate] with as much of him as was left in this world. //even knowing what I know, this doesn’t seem like the wisest choice at all!//

The being which rose from this had no name, and did not require one. He was a toy for the goddesses, to serve at their whim and pleasure. Time was created and [eons] passed with little disturbance. But the creation of the goddesses began to learn, grow, become strong, and with that, came curiosity and a genuine need to know why he had come to be. With knowledge came bitterness, fear, and rage. The one with no name sought to build (in secret, presumably) an army and a great power, to conquer the goddesses and usher the [Fierce Deity] back into the world of light.

Amused with their worshippers and the world below as they were, the nameless one’s plan almost succeeded. //Demise’s first incursion//

He marched his armies right up to the very gateway that led to the [Sacred Realm]. Unguarded as it was, due to the hubris of gods, this was not difficult. When the three golden ones emerged, however, the slaughter began and, for the first time in their eternal lives, they understood what it was to bring death. It gave them no pleasure and they sought to slay their creation. The nameless one escaped, barely, disappearing to a far off desert, unknowing what fate had been set before him. The golden ones understood, however, that they had created an immortal. Without the [Fierce Deity], there was no death. Their new plaything could not be killed! //I hate to say I told you so, but…//

Rather than admit their mistake and invite him (the Fierce Deity) back to the land of light, the goddesses once more conspired to create another immortal, with more care and consideration to the consequences. So many of their faithful had been killed in the incursion upon the [Sacred Realm], the golden ones were desperate to make certain such a thing never happened again. From the light of the sun, the warmth of summer breezes and life-giving rains, from the fertile soil and all the life it promised, the goddesses created the Hero, giving him the form of a gentle-eyed youth. Where their nameless [replacement] mate had been large and angular, and hard, the youth was small and soft. Within a gentle shroud, the heart of a warrior beat, however, hard and strong, pumping warm, living blood and filling eyes, blue as the sky, with the spark of wild, eternal life. //the author must have seen him, the Hero. I can’t imagine what that must have been like//

The nameless one gave himself a name which is unspeakable, but means the end. To write his true name is to defy him, to speak it is to summon, so it is written. [Demise] rose from the shadow of the goddesses, angry and unrepentant, jilted and [abused]. His evil grew and reached to all corners of the land of light. This was the first evil in the world, a need for destruction born of vengeance and hatred, undiscriminating and uncaring. Maddened by his wounds and enraged at his lost, [Demise] reached out to the land that would be Hyrule.

It was then that the goddesses became one, Hylia, and raised her favored people into the sky to save them. At the same time, they sent their Hero to fight the beast, [Demise] and seal him with the blade of evil’s bane (the fabled Master Sword). When the Hero returned to [the sky land] (the ancient kingdom of Skyloft), he was battered, close to death, but victorious. The people asked their beloved goddess, who now walked among them, if they could return to their land so far below. Hylia told them that the land was still tainted with evil and that her champion, the Hero, was as yet unprepared to finish [Demise].

What Hylia left the people with was hope and the seed of her power. The child would be named Zelda and so too every girlchild thereafter who also bore the [ichor] (blood of the gods) which flowed within the golden ones. With Zelda came a teaching, an instruction to be vigilant for the return of [Demise] and of the Hero. Time passed, as time does, and the goddesses wrought the chains of the Hero’s entanglement. Along with Zelda, each race was given a [totem of power], which would be passed to the one amongst them regarded as the [sage]. //the word directly translates as “vessel of the gods’ will”, so I’ve taken some liberties here// Together with Zelda, the [sages], with their scrying pools and far-reaching wisdom //a spy network, maybe? Could the Sheikah have been involved here? I have so many questions// kept close watch over the land below, knowing that the rise of evil would herald the coming of the Hero.