Lost souls + A nightly convo
{Dialectics, what the blerrie Heck is it? Dialectics, a tool to help one analyze things as they ever-change and ever-evolve in the Universe, much like how Calculus takes care of the problems of infestimals and the complications of real-life geometry. Dialectics, a tool that respects “hard”/“lab-coat” science as it takes its empirical results and tries to figure the underlying properties of the results that allows the transformation of quantity (the numerical count of things) to a quality (when the quantities struggle against each other together) and the transformation back (which it will like before but more). Dialectics, a tool that honours self-discovery yet realizes the necessity of Others to complete every self-inquiry. Dialectics, a tool that’s underappreciated and bastardized a lot... The post has a huge chunk being independent, but not without being also part of @jayna’s 50-word tasker... Today’s music-aides: “Pirates of the Caribbean” [1.] and “Main Menu” [2.] (2Cellos, YT, and COD:WAW OST).}
- Lost souls -
“Where hast thou been?”
“Ole matey! I can nae tell yah.”
“Oh why, lost soulmate? Oh why, oh why?”
“My dear soulmate: if I tell, you may think-”
“Oh tell, please in Cap’n Morgan’s name.”
“Why, in Davy Jones's locker.”
- A nightly convo -
“So olde matey, that be me story and me interactions with them void pecks… So have at it with thy story with the Void and such. What hast thou seen in it?”
“Ah, before mespeaks Cap’n Wither, why hast thou gone oratin’ in third-person?... No, no. I get it,... just was ridin’ to much on this damn skull.”
“Hey what be that skippin’ noise?”
“Nae worry about that, probably Miss Ashley gonna enjoy a sight on top o’ Luna.”
“Hmm... a fair comment Octo, a fair comment. But I do suggest for yah: nae go gazin’ on top o’ Luna whence we commence the trip. Aye?”
“Aye Cap’n... anyways, lemme knock me story out for yah... but please hand me some rum if there be some... ah, where do I even start?”
“While I be maidin’, how about yah start a few scenes before the interaction? Save me the stories o’ yer fights on a later date, I’m sure to sit still while yah yap around.”
“And so I shall be far to that request, but I warn thee that I shall not deviate off course ‘til methinks it appropriate on the ending!”
“Quit thy whinin’ and I shall not whine back!”
“Fine! But let’s begin, shall we?... It all came after I had walked into the galaxy hopper and ended in a, let’s say, nice greenery. Oh how I could yap about the mighty, brown barks with their wavy branches. Oh how I could fathom a naturalist gettin’ high seein’ many species roamin’ about and bein’ merry. Oh how I could and I could but I shall not.”
“Dramatic, but ever-lackin’ the fine details. That poor Octopoid!”
“Piss off, yah charred corpse!... Anyways, I decided to stroll about, to listen how me boats squeaked in rhythm with the singin’ forestry. Yet, I spott’d an oddity to the normalcy, a black-stain on the greenscape, a mispaint on the forest mural. So soon I was an observer to soon becomin’ the forest’s inquisitor. I saw that pound, oh how unlit and unmovin’ ‘twas. No wonder the murkiness! Oh I saw that pond, how it scar’d even the Alpha predators and dehydrat’d critters. Must’ve been even lifeless underneath the charade of natural water!... *wheeze*...”
“Why’d yah stop, I love me a good screamin’ intro. Why Doc, I know what shall give yah the speakin’ stamina. Here, take this rum I manag’d to find finally.”
“Thank yah. Anyways, my morbid inquisition would soon be paid off. Aye, I did mean it. Yet, not the payment I so wished to receive. Aye, I knew was in a bad time. Nae, a bad time has honour. This made the bad times look like momentary transition periods ‘tween good times. Oh, yah should’ve seen the pound move that day. It danc’d like it been resurrect’d! Ho! Colours came to life in this dead and stagnant place! Ho! I say, and shall say it once: I say even steam flyin’ away like a speedin’ bullet, like some smoke in th’ water! Ho!”
“Ho! Indeed, I would be sayin’ grog right now, but what did the Void have to do with this? Specifically, what came outta that water?”
“I too would be sayin Grog, Cap’n oh Cap’n. But I must dare say, a chain emerged from those resurrect’d and still actin’ waters! Aye, it had the same steel-point spear on the tip and never-ceasin’ motion, lest it hooked to something and lock’d-on. Truth be told, Cap’n Wither: I dodg’d my first encounter but soon had to slime around the ground eruptions as many more chains came out. Oi, I say this as well: I hadn’t expect’d the chains to stop, or, more really, to be floatin’ in the air perfectly. Hey ho! The worst wsd the rattlin’ that soon follow’d it-”
“Yers shook as well! Tell me, where they of past slain enemies!”
“Grog! I drink to yah ever psychic abilities!”
“Hush it, Octopoid. The Void may hath modified me each time I died, but nae ever the gift to predict well.”
“Ha hargh! Loosen a bit, I saw the same void as well Cap’n. Anywho, as I unsheath’d me M1911s, so soon those damn buggers came out. But, I must say, I was nae expectin’ them to appear in corpse form. Yet I decid’d to protect Mother Nature and efface these scum o’ the past. So me HUD pick’d up-”
“HUD?”
“Heads Up Display. Anyhow, me HUD pick’d up on the total count and where best to place lead on their corpses. So, feelin’ the adrenaline rush, I advanc’d into their lines and bust’d many caps into them all. Heck, for the dodgin’ scum, I had merely shov’d them into the Void they all came from. One by one they all got capp’d or experienc’d flight for the first time thanks to me, and soon the chains stopp’d rattlin’. Indeed, now I wonder’d and scann’d me environments carefully.”
“What yah found in the scan?”
“Why, that the entire sky had became pulsin’ darker and darker. And in fact, that the entire forestry faded away. Ho! The trees were evaporating along with the water as well, the scene had just simply peck’d off elsewhere!”
“Hwæt! Me comrade, that happen equally as well when the Void first tormented me. It first brought some past terrors, I somehow easily evad’d them. Then when I hid away from the last horror, the closet I stuck meself in became more and more roomier ‘til I collaps’d unto the concrete below. Must say, not a fan o’ eatin’ concrete.”
“Hiccup ... ah, but the Void only began from there. As evident with this half-patch’d hole in me right tentacle here. Trust me, no sight that scar even a deathly scared morsel, but neither a sight to look at. Now the cause, why of course a chain that ruptur’d that damn tentacle and began draggin’ me back to where it came from! Ho! I tried holdin’ to the ledge for me dear life! Ho! I swear I fought the pain and even managed to win wrigglin’ the damn chain off, only need a few more seconds. Ho! But upon seein’ the furious rivulets of black blood leakin’ from my right tentacle, black bile raced from me mouth and that, alone, launched me into the Void itself.”
“Blerrie Heck! Lemme see that damn tentacle... Gotta say, whomever be this It creature, It did a good job healin’ yer limb.”
“Indeed. Anyways, yeah, let’s move on. That rustic chain soon flew me into the Void proper. Me Dutchman, though I had no freedom in movin’ about, ‘twas a sight to see all the other concrete islands in that black space in ‘tween. Yet my body would smash through concrete walls and end up like some contorted gymnast. Thankfully the damn chain unlocked itself and wriggl’d away, yet I would be seein’ blurs, feelin’ light, bleedin’ crazy and breathin’ heavy. How long I was like that, haven’t a clue. But I say the weirdest fate struck me; aye, weird ‘twas for me; pain I felt not at all. However, took me a damn while to steady meself, and, when I did, I look’d at me right tentacle. The bleedin’ stopp’d, yet I trust’d no sight like that and patt’d meself for morphine. Upon slappin’ that morphine pen, I yank’d it out, undone the cap and jamm’d it into me arm. The injection was soothin’ and clapp’d the pain away.”
“Lucky yah, yah got top o’ the art medicine. While there I was stuck permanently numbin’ meself so the Void couldn’t get pleasure in me sufferin’. Anyways, what happened after yah inject’d yerself?”
“Say, I then began self-correctin’ me body position. Takin’ it slowly to nae screw me body up anymore than this crook’d body already did for me. However, I finally manag’d it and laid on me back for a while, ‘til I saw a vestige of yah... ‘twas weird how that vestige heard me not as I was twistin’ about. So, I shout’d for thy name, the old name o’ course, and then I saw yer vestige shrink and tense up. Oh I shout’d again, but weakly this time as me voice box was burnin’, and then I saw yah. O’ course, not yah, but... when yah about-fac’d, the vestige had yer withered head on yer old scientist body. O’ course, yah were a good chap and approach’d me merrily; id est, after yah ask’d what was goin’ on with me...”
“And if the Void had turn’d yah into that... me Flyin’ Dutchman, are yah and I implyin’ we were there at the same time? O’ course it can nae be... lest, Oh Octo! So ‘twas nae a wretch’d nightmare o’ the past but I in the Void with yah as well. I did indeed heard yah, first time I’ve heard noise in me dreams so how could I nae be scarr’d? Ho! When I turn’d about, all I could see was a blerrie corpse that had the voice o’ an old comrade. Ho! O’ course, I want’d to assist yah, but then the Void phased me in and out o’ the room. Ho! The constant shreadin’ and reparations... how can one explain that feelin’!... yet, what did yah saw when I finally... disconnect’d with the Void and reconnect’d to this galaxy?...”
“Ho! Good comrade, fathom this! Upon thy last phase-in, yah puff’d into a cleanly half-split corpse. Ho! I began low-crawlin’ to yah, how could I not? Ho! Those darn chains had their performance end’d and decid’d to tear the stage up so another may be construct’d. Ho! Many a chains did pierce yer side o’ the room, and many began slowly tuggin’ back. Ho! I could see the spider-veins formin’ on the floor, inch by inch crawlin’ towards yah. Ho! Only a mere yard, my left tentacle could’ve slim’d for yer hand and gripp’d it tightly. Ho! Yet the spider-vein touch’d yah first and soon the room was torn apart and yer corpse fell into the Void itself. So late I was to even holdin’ on to a friend lost long ago...”
[2.]“Blimey!”
“Why are yah... ah. I seen yah been a patient figure, so come in and speak.”
“Thank you, Octo. Captain Wither, I see you furbished a good ship and made good on it. I see my investments hadn’t been squandered, but we can talk of that matter tomorrow night. Now, I was only here to hear both stories of your experiences with the Void and such... Seems to me the Void is older than we think it to be. I guess it hadn’t rebirthed itself some years ago, but decades is more appropriate... how it found itself reborn in this universe, ask me not. However, your mention of black blood, Agent, is rather worrying. I can’t promise a permanent solution, but, considering the first anti-Void war, maybe we won’t have to improve this treatment.”
“What medicine will we need to take exactly?”
“Wait, yer the infamous G-man figure... or so says the pirate taverns...”
“Heh, my human form helps no one see my actual form... but for the better. Anyways, this is an old treatment technique to root out the poison of that... place. Of course, this’ll help not Cap’n Wither - which hypocritically this treatment will... kill him. He already acquired a good immunity to the Void’s like most voidist, yet he’s not controlled by them to say the least... Not that they can attempt to, just that you escaped before they can steal and corrupt thy soul. So Octo, I suggest breaking off the magic crystals in small amounts and being sparse with it. For even the smallest of doses can send people far, in terms of another crew member of yours, Octo, I suggest waiting and seeing if Saddie will act up again. Of course, have the same effect she had last time. Otherwise, administer not that to her... But let’s finish the story now.”
“Indeed, Octo, finish th’ tale.”
“So, I slamm’d my right tentacle down hard and kept doin’ so even in the face o’ pain. I’ve lost a good comrade and lost even a chance to have their corpse taken away from the Void itself. However, the Void was nae done playin’ games with me. Ho! For the torn chunk, down below float’d a giant spider-limb vestige and, comin’ to me floor, stopp’d to scan the room. I laid dead, yet it lung’d forward to prick me; I was lucky to still be seein’ it as I barrel-roll’d to the left. I heard part o’ the ceiling fallin’ off while the limb lung’d down and then saw th’ floor explod’d where it pierc’d. While the floor and ceiling began formin’ spider-veins, it rose again ready for another chance to take me damn soul. However, ‘twas crafty this second time as it feign’d a prick and prick’d where I roll’d towards. Ho! Me belly was pierc’d and soon it retreat’d more down into the Void itself... By then, me eyes couldn’t stay open and so soon I thought I‘d enter’d into me eternal slumber.”
“However, this is was nae the case. Ho! Yah were sav’d from the blerrie dark place and well off as well!”
“Indeed the Agent was saved, thanks to the Shu’ulathoi searching for you, Octo, and those two teared open a galaxy hopper in time. As they did indeed saw one of Mulloch’s... heh Mulloch, why did I thought of him?... vestige limbs acting about. So they snuck to the roof of the building it was screwing about in and prepared to force-stab itself when it retreated down into the Void below. However, there was a problem: you were on its piercing needle. So instead, they opted to struggle to the death with it. They were indeed successful in stopping the spider-limb from moving, and, with that, they yanked your corpse off and force-stabbed the spider-limb by using the limb itself. By then, not wanting to be there anymore, they floated back to the hopper and closed it on time. With such, they began searching for me and well, then I finally listened and heard what came of you.”
“Octo, yah lucky son of a bun. Anyways, I think the night is fair for you to rest now. Say, G-man figure, want to retire to me room and talk a lil’ more?”
“I’m sorry. Truly. But this is where I get off for now, I have a pressing matter to take care of right now... involving a certain final will and red letter as well. So sorry that I must go, but ‘tis for the better I remain not here. ‘Til we meet again.”
And so, It or the G-man, straightens the purple tie and grabs the slim, black suitcase. Then, two steps to the door, their hand raises and dusts off the prussian-blue suit to then grasp and turn the door handle. Octo and Cap’n Wither cock their heads about as the blinding light was too much to handle, and still it was for their burning eye sockets. Yet the door was cracked back to its closed position and the light stopped pouring in, with that both of them slowly cocked their head back. The room was it was found, and not one thing set ablaze but their eye sockets. Turning to look at each other, they nodded and Cap’n Wither took off for the night, ensuring his pirate crew was safe and Octo to bed for a deserved rest after splintering a small crystal off that was consumed short after.
Short after, they enjoyed the night tune: one of the frog croaks, one of the flushing seas, one of the whistling wind breezes and one of the cricketing crickets. Yet so soon that tune was disturbed did Octo raised from bed, as the thunder of two hurried feet rushed across the oak-hard floor.
“Who could that... nae, it can’t be her? If it were Miss Ashley, she was runnin’ the wrong blerrie direction... O’ course, so it happens the Void does have an ill-purpose for Miss Saddie as well. Time to see where she hath end’d up at... a shard of this would probably prove useful. Blimey...”
And so it seems again that I might as well make this stock standard. Yet before I go, two things: “blerrie” as a word is awesome and the “ending” of PayDay 2 was saddening. Now unto the actual discussion: how to imagine a Dialectic and Dialectics qua works (of fiction and non-fiction).
I had given in me blurb above, I gave some of the main things the Dialectic is involved in. Yet what is a Dialectic, or really Dialectics. Dialectics is very much the Active image and force of Wissenschaft (or Science). Where it is built upon the “hard”/“lab-coat” sciences, knowledge, inquiry scholarship and, most importantly, lowercase “d” dialectics (everchanging building blocks and dynamic forces). Yet it goes forwards to set about the changes in the World, to help develop them were needed and to bring things to their absolute end.
To bring this to an example: fruits and plants. Not because the fruit is end-game of plants, but the fruit actualizes and guarantees the successful reproduction of plants. Yet the fruit is much a product and derivative of the plant as the plant is the guarenteering and highest form of seed (which that originated from the fruit). To bring this another level: double-helix being bombarded by radiation. The Dialectic is a helical structure where multiple variables builds the history/structure of anything, yet with radiation, or our contingent factor, it helps creates mutations/changes in a structure. For which, while we may have tons of universal qualities amongst ourselves, the contingent factors in us helps differentiates from each other. Yet, the fact that we can be differentiable helps us become more united and strengthens our individuality. We can be united because we can see how similar we are and recognize our differences. Which by uniting together we can strengthen instead of weakening our individuality. For if the individual that decides to work alone cannot be recognized for having a self-consciousness and results in feeling alienated/estranged as a result.
Yet, now with depression slightly settling in as I made conscious of an unconscious aversion, let’s move unto something of a semi-related but a connected topic. Why I do serialize/progress my works and not just revert to the sitcom tragedy we tend to like? Well while I could auto-analyze myself and spout gibberish, I rather focus on the former as a means to then answer the latter part of the question. See it comes with the conscious wish of mine to see things develop out. Or to be blerrie cruel: to make a death permanent and have meaning. This double movement of permanency and objectivity is the main concern of mine when making my posts. That things not only did happen, but they’ll justify their existence and affect the future forever. Even if they sometimes came outta nowhere; for which we’ll soon be unblind and see how they came about after the situation has fully developed. Returning back, to see a situation develop and have some sensibility in a series matters more to me and what I set out to do. For which, sometimes a good callback is needed, other times references to past events can be fun to make. But sometimes being quiet on such yet letting them course through is the ultimate form of respect for preceding events in any series (even sometimes used to suggest past events that have yet to be discussed about or events having differing views to the one already accepted).
As it pertains to works of Non-Fiction, they do have a long history: the first coming out from Heraclitus himself suggesting on the ever-changing nature of things. Others like Sun Tzu’s the Art of War for which Sun Tzu compiled Military Theory with his experiences to suggest a Universal line of action for which Particular stratagems can be employed, in a given area, to best utilize the Universal qualities. To purposefully go forward, Nicollò Machiavelli’s The Prince is a clever materialist outline on Italian Governance, history and Military structures in Italy. Which that can be even useful, back then, extending outwards to the HRE princedoms and Western Monarchies if their conditions are analyzed which then leads to theory being updated to best fit that area. And even now if we take a look at where Machiavelli fails with modern conditions and using that to update his political theory to the modern day, his work still works to great detail. While Dialectical works of the past may fail today, and that much anyone can admit. Yet those works still have many things we can learn to not only understand how a thing came about; but even understand how the Now reflects the Past, whether it be farcical, an extension of such or an actual update to such.
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Just read the 50 words part of your story and I liked it after I understood it (or thought I did.) Davy Jones was a great pirate.
UwU ~ Thanks for reading and thanks for the compliments! Yeah, pirate idioms are the best to use, and well ‘twas convenient this prompt stumbled into when I was making the indie story. Anyways, Davy Jones was one of the great pirates.
Nice 50-word story, @theironfelix. So the character who is telling where he has been has just gone back from the dead. Or perhaps he is a ghost!
One suggestion I have is to separate your 50-word story into its own post. I think you would get more Fifty Worders reading and commenting! Cheers!
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Those damned chains coming out on the attack again, I see! (Like the Nothing, the Void has a hunger.) Nice to have a handy HUD to let one know where to fire. How good of It to heal the tentacle! (Also, clever insert of self numbing to prevent the Void from having pleasure from the pain of those it loves to torture.)
Ah! Cap'n and Octo were in the Void simultaneously! Octo even recalled Cap's former name but to no avail on the recognition at the time. :^(
Here too we see the crystals to help stave off the sickness from the black blood, ironically which will kill the Captain. (Also the tie in to Saddie being infected and Wither keeping an eye on her need for possitble treatment as well as the Voids interests in her.)
Acknowledgment and respect of our differences (both strengths and weaknesses) is a blessing when working together in harmony with a group for common goals. However, sometimes miscommunication or a sour disposition from a tiring day or situation can result in an individual feeling out of place or unappreciated. When the care is given to revisit once everyone has had a chance to reclaim a calm, or to think of where and why the miscommunication/etc. occurred and all involve strive to reach an understanding and balance, it is a beautiful thing.
Also, there are those who enjoy working alone. This does not mean that they are antisocial or uncaring of the input of others, it can simply be that immersing themselves in a project in solitude - so long as it is by their own choice - is what is comfortable for them. - My two cents for that part but if it doesn't make sense or apply to your meaning, I apologize. - I'm tired. :^)
UwU ~ Thanks for reading and thanks for the compliments!
On the story itself: yeah, always great to have a HUD. Especially useful if things move faster than speeding leopards. Anyways, It is a sweetheart and dealt with the Void before in the Anti-Void War. And yeah, once immune to the sickness, the medicine kills yah! (It's like stroggification in Quake 4, yer able to become Strogg all the way but need to be "fully" converted to become a Strogg drone.) Because the medicine is basically the equivalent of a purging medicine! Anyways, this is probably the smoothest transition to having a Octo-Saddie scene.
On the end blurb: It doesn't apply to my meaning. I was more concerned about the ethics of and power recognition has. Even the self-made individual still is creating for an other, even if its an innocent third-party that they justify to but never can interact with. I was taking the Metaphysical I Individual and taking it to its logical conclusion of it being an estranged individual that cannot benefit in using the entire arsenal of being human nor create for anybody else. Even in a collective society, people still create things alone and have to live on their own; just the benefit of guaranteed recognition for what one is doing and knowing people do look out for each other. In fact, it's better that people can pursue their dreams since that'll raise the collective to new heights than what they were before. After all, the collective is just a bundle of individuals all working together to survive another day (just like most of human history). Regardless, those are just sometimes and not a thing to be pent up about - thankfully real-life was different from the internet and people actually could keep their head straight.