Category: Livejournal

In a Democracy, Liars Can Never Be Liberators

(“The only thing stronger than my hatred of war is my admiration of soldiers.” – Eric Bogle)

Both my grandfathers and my father are veterans. One lost his legs, another lost a wife, and the third said, “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever done.”

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Your soul is bound to the Burning Rose: The
Rapture.

“I go where my heart beckons me, and I go
with my head high. But sometimes, I get a need
until I bleed so my heart swims above my
head.”

The Burning Rose is associated with passion,
intensity, and desire. It is governed by the
god Eros and its sign is The Flame, or Physical
Love.

As a Burning Rose, you can get lost in the moment
if you let yourself. You are a very physical
person, be it in relationships, work, or play.
You may be driven by your hormones sometimes,
but you know it’s because you have to follow
your instinct.

What Rose Is Your Soul Bound To?
brought to you by Quizilla

First thing I learned as an addict: you can’t make someone else change.

No matter how hard you try, you just can’t. They have to make up their own mind to change the way they live their life, make their choices, and face their consequences.

Today, I have to confront a friend about making a change. Either he will, or he won’t. All I can do is show him the consequences of choosing not to, and that’s losing me as a friend.

I hate doing this. I hate it. And, at the end of today, I could very well be facing some dire consequences of my own. Good thing I’ve got a parachute lined up, just in case.

Cross your fingers.

By now, you’ve seen The Matrix Revolutions and you are saying, “Well, it wasn’t as bad as the second one.” You may even claim to like it.

Last week, I espoused the heretical notion that the movie actually sucked. And now, a week later, I’m able to tell you why.

It all has to do with resolution. Not “answers,” as many have told me I think I’m missing, but plain old fashioned resolution. I don’t need answers. I walked away perfectly happy from The Usual Suspects without them. No, what I want is something entirely different. And it’s something Matrix 3 does not offer.

For example, the entire focus of the first film was on humanity’s war with the machines. “We’re here to free these people,” Orpheus tells Neo. The whole point is to free humanity from slavery.

Here’s the problem: at the end of Revolutions, is humanity free? The answer, of course, is “No.” None of the millions of lives powering the machines are freed. They’re still there, being bred to be copper tops. Is this issue resolved? Is it even addressed? No. All those lives – billions of them – are still trapped in the Matrix… and we’ve been instructed by the film that they really weren’t important at all. The real issue is Agent Smith. Just forget about the whole point of the first film. That’s nothing. It’s Smith… all Smith…

Sorry, but that little hypnotic trick can’t fool me. I want to know what’s going to happen to all those people. I want to know how the machines and men are going to solve that problem. It isn’t addressed, isn’t resolved – it’s just a big, fat mess that the Wachowskis either consider unimportant to clean up, or they’ve forgotten about themselves.

And speaking of Agent Smith, just exactly how did he learn his little trick? How is he going around doing what he does? We’re told in the second film that we’ll learn this secret, that we’ll understand how he’s doing this. Of course, we’re never given a solution. We’re just left with the “trust me” answer. “He’s just doing it.” Sorry, I don’t buy it. I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t important. I’m like most people, I don’t need to know how a lightsaber works to believe it. But, I was told Smith’s “evolution” was an important story element, and that understanding that element is important to understanding the film. That was the promise. “Here’s a mystery, and it’s gonna be important later.” Well, guess what? We’re never told how Smith is doing what he’s doing or even why he’s doing it. He just is. So, the Wachowskis again have forgotten to add an important detail to the final film… just moments after telling us that same element was going to be important later. It isn’t important, and I don’t like people who break promises.

And what exactly does Neo do at the end of the film? How does that work? Why does it work? What clue are we given that Neo is also given that leads us to the logical conclusion that it would work? We’re given nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a sausage. “Trust me,” the Wachowskis say. “It just works.” Like reading an Agatha Christie novel, where at the end, the detective solves the mystery because he had some vital piece of information the reader never even saw, we’re cheated. What’s worse, in this case, the detective doesn’t even show the reader how he knows who dunnit. He just winks at us and says, “Trust me, I just knew.” Cheat, cheat, lazy cheat. No biscuit for you.

Finally, there comes a point in the film where the following conversation takes place:

NEO: Hey, Source of the Machines; if I kill Smith, will you leave humanity alone?
SOURCE: Uh… yeah.
NEO: Cool.

This moment comes when humanity is nearly defeated. Completely and utterly wiped out.

Neo destroys Smith (somehow – we’re never told how) and the Source decides to keep its promise – despite the fact that the machines have all but defeated humanity.

Someone tell me, for the love of machines and man, when this has ever actually happened in a war? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The answer, of course, is FUCKING NEVER!!!

I didn’t buy it. Not for a second. Not even a millisecond.

And so, like the Highlander series, there should have been only one Matrix film. Just one. It was fine the way it was, it didn’t need any sequels, and the sequels they gave us didn’t further the plotline, didn’t explore the theme, didn’t really do anything but give the Wachowskis the excuse to show the world they really didn’t know what the fuck they were doing this entire time.

I hear they’re gonna tackle Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta next.

God help us all.

… there will be Wumpskate!

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail88.html

http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/
http://www.rathergood.com/lightsabre/

I’ve set this journal entry so it can only be read by Grace and Rose. Let’s see if it works…

MARCUS

The Ice Man’s mule is parked
Outside the bar
Where a man with missing fingers
Plays a strange guitar
And the German dwarf
Dances with the butcher’s son
And a little rain never hurt no one
And a little rain never hurt no one

They’re dancing on the roof
And the ceiling’s coming down
I sleep with my shovel and my leather gloves
A little trouble makes it worth the going
And a little rain never hurt no one

The world is round
And so I’ll go around
You must risk something that matters
My hands are strong
I’ll take any man here
If it’s worth the going
It’s worth the ride

She was 15 years old
And never seen the ocean
She climbed into a van
With a vagabond
And the last thing she said
Was, “I love you mom.”

And a little rain
Never hurt no one
And a little rain
Never hurt no one

– Tom Waits, A Little Rain

“Marcus” was born David Felderjohn in the year of our lord 1845. His father was a wealthy plantation owner and his mother a house slave. When the master’s wife discovered her husband was sleeping with one of the slaves, she sold Marcus’ mother and sent the child into the fields. He grew up and worked there until men in blue uniforms came and “liberated” the plantation. He watched the union soldiers kill and butcher the household family, then was sent to the northern states where he served in the 57th Massachusetts (the third black regiment to serve in the Civil War) until the end of the war.

During the war, he learned to read and write from the black soldiers from the north. In return, he taught them the spirituals he sang in the fields, and discovered he had a talent for telling stories. He spent all his spare time (what little he had) reading every book he saw. When the war was over, he found work laying railroad ties, working his way down to New Orleans, and he stayed there until 1872. He met Mary Agnes LeFarbrea, a beautiful Creole woman who introduced him to the voodoun religion. At first reticent to participate in non-Christian rituals, his love for Mary overcame his fears. For three years, he lived with Mary, using his musical talents to eke out a meager living in New Orleans.

On December 10, 1878, David and Mary attended a visiting carnival/circus. On the way home, they were assaulted by a Sabbat Pack looking for soldiers. David and Mary were embraced, thrown into a common grave with a dozen other people, and buried alive.

Hours went by. David slowly clawed his way out of the hole using strength he couldn’t believe. His training as a soldier and the horrors he saw in the war steeled his mind against the terror of tearing himself from the earth. When he pulled himself out of the ground, he saw another figure – a giant of a man – fighting the seven Sabbat with his hands, feet and teeth. David joined in the fray, overcoming the raging beast in his brain for just long enough to fight back. When the fight turned against the Sabbat, they fled, leaving behind three of their companions, all too wounded to retreat. David and the giant looked at each other, looked at the broken bodies around them… and acting out of pure instinct, they diablerized them all. Both fell into an exhausted collapse of an embrace.

Then, David remembered Mary, still buried in the grave. He rushed to the loose earth, hoping to pull his love out of the ground, but by then, the sun was rising. He begged the giant to help him, but it required little convincing. It their combined might to pull Mary from the grave, but the creature there was only an animated shell of the woman he loved; the madness in her mind was too strong. The sun was rising, but David refused to let go of her. As his skin began to blister, the giant urged David to find a refuge. David clung to her burning body, crying and singing softly into her ear, praying his voice could bring her back to him. The pain overwhelmed him, and the giant grabbed his burning body, dragging him into a nearby cave while David watched his first and only love destroyed by the dawn.

That night, his body still burned by the sunlight, David learned his new companion’s identity… a man named Dimitri. This giant was a Russian performer with the visiting circus. Obviously, the Sabbat wanted Dimitri because of his size and strength. Together, the two of them set out to find and kill the remaining vampires. It took time, but over the course of a year, they destroyed each of them, but not before learning their secrets and their nature. They learned of the war between the Sabbat and the Camarilla and set out to join the enemy of those who created them. Through their travels, David’s skills continued to develop. Stripped of his natural beauty, he developed the only beauty he had left: his voice. His voice and his body grew with supernatural strength as he learned the ins and outs of Camarilla politics. For three decades, Dimitri and David traveled together, learning all they could about their new natures and the creatures they’d become. Of course, it would take a woman to divide them.

She called herself “Celedoine,” a beautiful woman with a stunning voice. Almost hypnotized by her beauty, David learned she was from a rare bloodline of kindred calling themselves “the Daughters of Cacophony.” David heard her voice and hoped to learn her secrets. Despite his brother’s warnings, David approached her, hoping his own voice would show her he was worthy of her gifts. All David proved was his own ignorance.

Celedoine heard his voice and smiled. She approached him, put her hands on his face, and began to sing. Pain flooded into his mind, into his body. Her lips came closer to his ear, her whispers pounding in his skull, shattering the bone, blasting the flesh inside. When the song was done, David was a broken man. Half-mad, he fled into the night, leaving his brother behind. David and Dimitri would not see each other for another century.

* * *

For one hundred years, David wandered the world. He sought death wherever he could find it, but where his heart demanded oblivion, his instincts demanded existence. He threw himself in front of danger at every turn, only to find himself at the other end, beaten and broken, but alive. Every pain he suffered further dulled his sorrow. Every pain he survived strengthened his convictions. Every defeat he endured taught him how to avoid further defeats. Finally, David came to a conclusion: pain is a lesson only those strong enough to survive can learn from.

This belief was fueled by a chance encounter with a renegade Tzimisce. Cast out from the Sabbat for her heretical beliefs, the Fiend introduced David to the faith of Lilith. Fascinated with the heretical faith, David followed the Tzimisce for nearly twenty years, studying the discipline of turning pain into strength. And for those twenty years, his spiral downward away from humanity led him to acts of depravity and despair. It wasn’t until he met the women who would become his “daughters” that his life would change once again.

* * *

After nearly a century of living with the Fiend, David’s morality had dropped as low as it could go without dipping into madness. The Tzimisce’s transformations of personality kept turning darker. Pain turned to torture, torture turned to mutilation, and mutilation turned to murder. The Fiend’s descent into darkness finally ended when she kidnapped two young girls. The Tzimisce had plans for them… and prepared them with terrible knowledge and pain. She told the girls secrets few vampires ever discover, just to drive their minds to the edge of ruin. She tortured their bodies to the point of breaking, then healed them with blood. David saw them, looked into their terrified eyes, and something inside him snapped. Memories of his mortal love flooded into his vision, memories of his humanity collided in his heart.

He broke their chains and told them to run. Not in time. The Tzimisce returned (alerted by its ghouls) and confronted David, transforming itself into a mass of muscle, blackened skin, and claws. The standoff lasted only a moment longer… and blood was drawn.

The fight lasted all night, both creatures fighting for the lives and souls of the little girls. For a moment, David was knocked senseless, and in that moment, the Fiend slashed the girls’ throats and drank their blood, preparing them for Embrace. David recovered, saw the Fiend’s blood on the girls’ lips and lost all control. He tore into the Fiend, smashing them both through the wall into the crimson light of early dawn.

The Tzimisce struggled to get back to shelter, but David would not let go.

Their bodies began to smoke, burning in the sunlight, but David would not let go.

The Tzimisce screamed, tore, bit, and did everything it could to break free, but David would not let her go.

The Fiend exploded, it’s blood and flesh sending black smoke into the early dawn. David fell back into the green grass, the wet dew sizzling as he hit the ground.

Another moment, he thought. Another moment, and it will all be over.

And at that moment, facing his own death without fear, remorse, or regret, he was free.

But then his face was covered, and his body drug back into the shelter of the building. When he opened his eyes, he saw the two girls, their eyes bleeding with tears.

* * *

Now, many years later, he and the girls have recovered from their wounds. David learned much from the Tzimisce, including the need to “re-invent” one’s self every once in a while. Calling himself “Marcus,” he presents himself as a scarred monstrosity. His daughters hide their faces, further creating an aura of mystique; another skill he learned from the Tzimisce. “It is all in the appearance,” she used to say to him. “Marcus” took those words to heart. Both he and his daughters maintain their image – employing it for effect and advantage.

Marcus always treads a delicate line between who he was, who he is, and who he may become. His time with the Tzimisce taught him the power of summoning the Beast, but his daughters keep him close to the man he used to be. He loves them very much, and will do anything to protect them. They saved his life – and his soul. Something he doesn’t perceive as “a debt,” but as a deed that he can never repay.

The Song

So far, about everybody has written something about the Coup. I’ve inspired people to write, and I think that’s the kindest compliment I can get.

Thanks, guys.

*hugs all around*
*excpet you, James. I punch you.*