The Final Post of 2022

    To think that it'll be a new year tomorrow. I know time passes whether we want it to or not, but it never feels like it until we see it happen directly. 

   I wonder what people will think of 2022. Personally, if I had to sum it up, I'd go with "The year tragedy became so common, people forgot how to feel sad." Well, maybe that's just me. I hope it's just me. 

     I think the world's waiting for the moment everything falls apart, but I'm just waiting for the moment things finally get better. I can't look into a crystal ball, so I don't know when it will happen, and the cynical part of me keeps pointing out that things may never get better. After all, didn't we think that World War II marked the end of Fascism? I'm not giving up though. Mostly because I don't know how I'll keep going if I do. 

    I don't know what scares me more, the idea that we'll fall to the evil that lurks within our hearts, or the possibility that we'll never move past the twentieth century. We're in 2022, and I still see remnants of it everywhere I look. It feels like we're in a story that never got a chance to end, so we're stuck living out the same plotline over and over again. Endlessly pretending things were better, even though it's the same as it was, we've just seen it so many times we can no longer ignore the stage effects. I keep hearing people insist that pointless retreads are the only kinds of stories that matter, that changing the tools in our toolbox just leads to more problems than it could ever solve. 

    Maybe if I was a decent writer, I'd agree with that, but I'm not. The whole reason I'm not trying to be a great writer is that I want to be allowed to write whatever I want without the pressure of writing a decent story with compelling characters. I don't want to deal with being so famous I'm no longer allowed to say what's on my mind. It bothers me that we're so focused on having the perfect plot that we don't want to tell the stories we love so much. The ones that have lasted forever because they were simple, repeatable, and everyone could understand them. 

    I think that people don't understand that the thing that makes culture special is that it's made of all the stories we tell one another. All the ways we take the meaningless, random events that make up our lives and tie them together. We now live in a world where those in charge don't want anyone but them to be allowed to tell society's story, which is not only selfish, but dangerous. 

    When I hear people beg to go back to the world before the Pandemic, I wonder where our love of storytelling went. What happened to cause us to forget how to make the meaningless meaningful? I don't know why it happened, nor do I think anyone should be blamed, but I do know that it doesn't need to be an act of god to matter. If nothing else, can't it become the story of how we remembered who we are, and what we were meant to do?

    I write every day, but I apparently had more thoughts than I realized. I'm just not sure whether to call this a good year or a bad one. As someone who's working to create a way for us to cope with the Infinite, which I'm increasingly noticing, I worry about how poorly equiped we are to face a world without a predetermined plotline. I don't think the old gods can help us, but I can't be the only person who thinks we need something to believe in. Why, I wonder, did we sacrifice everything in our search for the truth?

    Someday this will mean something. I just need to look for the right story to tell. 

The Earth of the Past

     I've heard many people say that my only "real" job is to keep us from going back to "the good old days". Back when we didn't have magic, to be clear. There are way too many people alive, right now, in the 31st century, claiming that life was better in the 23rd, 22nd or even the 21st centuries. I can kind of understand being excited about going back to the 23rd century, it's when we found hard evidence that we lived in a multiverse after all. Heck, I even understand wanting to go back to the 22nd century. We did lose physics, but so much technological advancement happened that it's hard not to wish that you could have been alive to see it. But the 21st? That's when we lost the past for good. 

   It's not something we like to dwell on. Most historians agree that the 21st century, when religion dwindled to nothing and we started dreaming of changing physics the way we changed clothes, was the beginning of the dark age of humanity. This was the century that ended with society being little more than a distant dream, and where the population was less than a quarter of what it had been during its height. The only glorious thing about this century was the fall of the Joylan Empire, which does loom large for a good reason, but that only took up a small part near the end of that century. There's also the part that no one wants to talk about; defeating the Joylans meant taking responsibility for our role as mages, a conflict that defined all of the Next century and well beyond. I don't think, even now, that we've fully come to terms with what that means. All we've ever done is turn the other planets of our solar system into farms so we have more food for people. It's better now than it was a Millennium ago, we have almost three billion people now, but we're nowhere near as glorious as we once were. 

   The problem is that throughout the 21st and 22nd centuries we destroyed much of our biosphere. It's recovering, but not quickly enough to outpace our destructive tendencies. There used to be discussions about the possibility of moving our population off of earth to another planet, but those stalled when it became obvious that the only way to do that in a cost effective way was to use magic, which we'd vowed never to do. So we held ourselves back more and more as time went by, the grand cities that defined us being little more than fantasy at this point. Yet people can't stop wanting more. We have makeup and fine clothes now, most houses still have central heating and running water, and food is plentiful if not satiating. So why can't we go back to the good old days, when money ran free and you could become a god if you wanted to?

    We could do that, if we were willing to give up on the one thing that redeems us in my eyes. The problem is that that isn't what we want. The forgotten moral of the Joylans story is that they thought we all wanted to be at the top of our hierarchy, because that's what we kept insisting. They, and we, couldn't see the infinite for what it was, but unlike them we knew that it was there. We knew that power, true power, didn't exist at the top, so the true race was a balancing act between being rich enough to have social clout while not so rich you became separated from the Infinite and lost your ability to connect with your fellow men, a problem the Joylans didn't have. Overcoming them meant that Terrance had to convince everyone that seeking power was never the right call, the right call was to listen to what people wanted and to keep them on your side, for only then could you achieve your goal. "If you want to succeed, never look at your score card." was said to be his favorite saying. 

    I sometimes worry we're forgetting that lesson, the reason we left the old world and it's fascination with "power" and money behind for good. Haven't people heard the theory that the reason the world fell apart was that there was an enormous, unseen schism between the world we wanted and the world we actually had? That the reason the world fell apart was that we tore it to pieces out of rage and helplessness? The core tenant of both Infinitelism and Universalism is that our world is only held together because we believe in it, and that the right and moral thing to do is to never, ever, reject the power you hold. Why are we so eager to abandon morality? 

    It feels strange that a new year is almost here. I didn't want 2022 to last forever of course, and I know that for a lot of people it was an awful year. But with all the blogging I've done, all the time I've spent honing my craft, I feel like for me it was the best year I've had in a while. I wonder how much longer it will be before those who own society realize the only way they'll survive is if they give us a world in which we don't have to emulate them. Will that be the moment their lives lose all meaning? 

The Joylan Empire

     There was a time when all Earth had was history, when all the stories ever told had happened, somewhere far away. Now, A thousand years from the moment that physics, our foundation, failed us, most of what we have are stories. Did they happen? Are they real? We don't know, for anything we dream about now becomes real. 

   The one thing we all agree happened, though it happened before physics collapsed, is the fall of the Joylan Empire. An Empire we weren't a part of, because it wasn't even a part of our Universe. They came from the world of the mind, where mind magic rules. I'm told that their world is run not based on strength or cleverness, but based on who can force people to obey them. 

    The story goes that a thousand years ago, they sense power growing in our world. Upon investigation, they saw a world that was very similar to their own, with a strong upper class, and a weak middle and lower class. Naturally, they thought that we were developing the ability to use mind magic, and that we would try and take over the moment we found out about their existence. So they infiltrated us, and used their magic to try and destroy us. 

    What they didn't know was that Terrance Gregson, Earth's first ruler, awaited them. He wasn't at the top of society, or even anywhere in the middle. He was at the bottom, a loser who lived with his mother, whose sole contribution was angry, stream of consciousness blog posts. He was the one who first saw the outsiders for what they were, and he was the one who united Earth against the threat. 

    What he knew that the Joylan's didn't was that the reason they sensed power coming from Earth, in the age before mages, wasn't because there were any mind mages. Or Elemental mages, space-time mages, or Anti-Mages. What Earth had was a growing problem, physics being torn apart by the different views of those who lived on its surface. This would wreak havoc one day, but to him it was an opportunity to crush the Joylans for good. He worked and planned for decades, and when the stars aligned he ripped the world apart, in such a way that Joylan was sucked into the Infinite, never to be seen again. 

    Nobody in the Mind World remembers the empire, for once it was sucked into the Infinite it ceased to be a place and became merely an idea. Nobody on Earth knows much about it either. We don't know who the Joylan's were, we only know they fought us, and even the reason why gets debated from time to time. While the most common theory is the one that says they wanted to stop us from colonizing them, some claim they knew going in that we weren't mind mages, and they were attempting to stop a more evil form of magic from emerging and taking control of the world. Others claim they just wanted slaves, and we seemed like easy pickings without a guardian or any magic to protect us. Still others say the Joylan empire never existed, it was just a myth built by Earth over the thousand years since our fall, to make us feel better about ourselves.

   As Earth's ruler, I don't know what really happened, but I do know that officially Joylan never died. It still exists in the mind Universe, on top of where Earth now is. Anyone visiting "Joylan" would see it as we imagine it to look, an appearance with changes drastically at least once every few decades. About all we can agree on is that it was around earth's size, with over fifteen billion people in its heyday, and that they were far more technologically advanced then we were, because their physics didn't fail the same way that ours did. Strangely, although Joylan of the past supposedly sat at the center of multiple trade routes, no one much visits. Those who do leave shortly after visiting. I don't know why, but I suspect that since we aren't Mind Mages by nature, the illusion spell we're using is incomplete enough that anybody visiting can see right through it into the Infinite. I've brought this up a few times, but Dr. Tilreh and his cronies say that it doesn't matter, so long as they can't see earth. 

   I don't think he's right. I think that it's only a matter of time before the Guardian of Mind investigates. I'm honestly stunned she's ignored this for as long as she has. I'm told the Guardians are masters of all types of magic, including the lost form, soul magic, yet she doesn't seem to realize that a small planet in another Universe is tricking someone who ought to be the undisputed master of Trickery. Rose says that she's doesn't think we're all that much of a threat to her. She's right, but if I were in her position that would be my excuse to get rid of the problem before it becomes too big to take care of. I think the truth is that one of her advisors warned her that attacking us would put her in danger, though I honestly don't know how. It sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but we are the world that made Terrance Gregson after all.

Be Yourself

    The thing I hate the most about living under capitalism is that you aren't allowed to be yourself. Everyone was told, through television and movies, that they shouldn't let the world choose who they were going to be. As morals go, it was deeply flawed, and it's been deconstructed by many. Not even I think we should all seek individuality, no world would survive being pulled in that many directions. But we went way, way too far in the opposite direction. Republicans are the worst, they preach individuality, but what they mean is that everyone needs to be part of a single individual being. They value the trappings of individuality, but they don't value people who question their motives or methods. Leftism is better, but even then people seem to feel the need for commonality, for a goal. Nobody wants to live in a world bound only by physics it seems, and I fear that our search for the one true rule set will destroy us. 

Life Under Lights

 I imagine them staring at me in horror,
An outsider,
Horrifying yet fascinating. 

I'm alone, unwanted and disliked,
A freak,
Someone who should have been shunned.

Yet they no longer ignore me as they used to. 

I imagine them gawking at me,
A fad, a fraud,
Someone who should never have been seen.

I imagine myself trapped under stage lights,
Blinding and unnerving,
The audience watching my every move. 

If it weren't for society's demands,
Hungry and desperate,
I wouldn't need to worry.

I was not destined for this life,
This fear,
This prison under a fake sun.

I do not wish for a life under lights. 

 It's Christmas. My mother and I already exchanged presents, so all that means is we eat fancy food. 

 You know the internet where you are is bad when it triggers a security warning. I really wish Holland America would figure out a way to get decent internet on thier ships. 

Europa

    It's my eighteenth birthday, and as usual no one remembered it. You would think I'd be used to it by now, but some part of me still hurts. I'm not really sure why.

   I'm on the hill that overlooks the remains of the work camp that used to be here. The one run by the world government. My friends and I shut it down. If anyone knew of my involvement, I might have ended up a hero amongst mages, a villain amongst the elite. Or maybe the other way around. 

   Strange that people consider Europa a land of magic. I've been to all of earth's seven continents, and all of them feel about as real as this place. Yet this is the continent everyone abandoned in the chaos a thousand years ago, when we were still dealing with the horrible realization that we were in charge of our future. 

   Not that long ago there were many abandoned cities and towns. Paris, Berlin, London, and so many others. Destroyed not by bombs or plague but by the simple passage of time. Not even ruins remain of them now, only the stones of churches and castles, crumbling against the sky. You can't even visit unless you work for the government. They say it isn't safe. 

   Nothing is safe anymore. Not with them in charge. I used to think they had our best interest at heart, but traveling across the multiverse made it clear to me that they believe in magic, but only so long as they can turn it to their interests. They don't want anyone to know their manipulating the world for their own benefit. No one knows what they're doing, and nobody could fight them if they did know. 

  Only the Europans are safe, for we are the ones with magic on our side. 

  The sun is setting. It's truly magnificent, a reminder that no matter how hard we try, we can't extinguish beauty from the world. They say that, during the twenty-second century, they were so worried about running out of resources that they banned the use of make-up and made it illegal to wear fine clothing. When it became clear that the laws of physics weren't as solid as they thought they were, after they got over the initial shock, they used magic to build a bridge between the earth and other planets, to help with terraforming and resource extraction. People complained of course, said we were going against the natural order of things, but nothing about our world was ever "natural" to begin with. It was always being changed, and it was better that it was in the hands of those who could predict what would happen, should they take the time to look into the future. 

    The earth has mostly healed, or so they say. Mars and Venus are much more polluted, and people worry that they won't recover quickly since life was never established there. Some scientists are using "special technology" (magic, but for laypeople), to establish ecosystems and build more space for us. As they point out, we only have so many billions of years left before our star dies, so we should start working on a backup plan. 

    That Backup Plan can wait. I have to keep us safe, from insiders and outsiders. To do that, I need to overthrow the government.  Not something I thought I'd say when I became Earth's ruler almost ten years ago, but it's more true than ever right now. 

 I've found that going on vacations make you deeply appreciative of life's simple pleasures. Having decent internet access, for one. 

The Twenty-Second Century

    The future scares people. I don't really know why, it's not like the future can be an worse than our past. The rise of AI, the revolution and civil war, all the jobs going away, no wonder nobody misses the twenty-first century. 

   The twentieth century was amazing. We stopped evil completely by the 1940's, went to the moon and back in 1969, and made unmatched strides in the elimination of oppression. It was such a good century that when it was over, people thought that history had ended. Nothing could possibly match it. 

    I wish I could have been alive to see it. Everyone agrees that, unless we can leave earth, we won't make any more progress. We've gone as far as we can go.

   Well, some people disagree. My mother for one. She's working on new developments in AI. She's so good at her job, she's become an elite citizen, and we live in one of the best apartments in Seattle. 

  Most of the people I know aren't so lucky. All of the kids at school live in public homes. Almost none of them have parents, because no one can afford to raise kids. It's been that way ever since the '50s, so now some governments offer people money to get pregnant, on the condition that they allow the baby to be placed in foster care at birth. Nobody likes this, everybody says women ought to raise their own children and not force the state to do it, but it's hard to earn money in a world where jobs are scarce.

   There is hope. Mother says she's heard people talk about the "DreamScape", an add-on to KarmOS that will allow people to connect their inner minds. She says that way, people will be able to do work in the virtual world for money, so nobody will need to worry about being poor ever again.

   My teachers aren't big fans. They say we've already tried this once, in the twenty-first century, and it went so badly it nearly destroyed the Internet. The students say it sounds interesting. I'm not sure what I think. I love drawing and writing stories, but I don't want anyone to see the inside of my head.

   Maddie says it doesn't matter what anyone wants, our present won't last forever. "The march of technology has rendered humans obsolete. If they wish to survive, they must learn to do things AI cannot do, and they are deeply limited in that regard. Perhaps this new world, with its stories and pictures, will be a better home then their reality."

   I don't know what the future will look like, I just know that Elizabeth Rosebloom, from PBS, talks all the time about how we can't have too rosy a picture of the future. "The future always looks bright and happy, until the day it arrives at your door." 

 I wouldn't have thought that I'd be posting from my phone, but here we are.

As Long as There's a Lie

 I've heard about reality,
A place where no one's heard.
A place of cold and emptiness
Where misery's assured.
People claim you need to know
What it is, so you'll get by.
But I'm sure that I'll be alright
As long as there's a lie.

As long as I don’t have to see
The ground beneath my feet,
So long as I pretend my world
Is always sugary and sweet,
Until they day the fates remind me
That not everything is fine,
I'm content to live my life
As long as there's a lie. 

So long as there's a lie,
I'm free to be what I am.
Good or bad, kind or mean,
Always happy as a clam.
I don't want much in this world
I know there will be days that I cry,
But I know It will all be okay,
As long as there's a lie.

But what if, someday, the truth breaks free,
And we're all forced to see what is real.
What if we're forced to remember
That the world goes beyond what we feel.
Can we let go of the dreams
That made our world glow bright?
Are we doomed to be stuck in darkness
With no sign of sunshine in sight?

As long as there's a lie,
I'll pretend that there's nothing wrong.
If people say this is what it is,
I'm happy to just go along.
If there's one thing I cannot do,
It's destroy the worlds we create
I know that within our hearts
Is a hunger I could never satiate.

So I'll keep my doubts in my heart,
Let my voice speak in whispers and sighs
For I know that we'll only survive
As long as there's a lie. 

    I haven't been posting my thoughts on the collapse of Twitter. I don't have a lot to say. What I will say is that I've come to the conclusion that reaching the top costs you a part of your soul, and if you aren't careful you could lose a lot. I think, having watched Elon Musk set all of his money on fire, I have renewed respect for leaders who can avoid the trappings of power. 

   I'm going on vacation in a couple of days, so I've been building up a buffer of stories and poems. It's going to be really weird to see the end of my published posts when I get there. 

The Realm of Souls

    I don't know what souls actually look like. Most books don't bring up souls, and those that do say that only the most powerful Nightmares can see their true form. I've heard many theories. Some say they're meant to be animals, non-human creatures that lack any consciousness. Some say they resemble a sea of light, tainted by poisonous darkness. I've always pictured them as stars, pouring light throughout the Infinite, giving it shape and meaning. 

   Souls are everything to Dreamworlds. All you see from far away is the soul that powers it, but as you get closer you become engulfed in the darkness the Nightmares wield, the power they use to denote who is strong and who is week. When you get close enough, you see a world that looks real, but isn't. It's an illusion of what the waking world is, but if you aren't careful, it can fool you into thinking that it is real. That's when the Nightmare's frighten, anger, and sadden you, which will cause you to produce more power, that they then use to create other, stronger Dreamworlds.

   That's what I've read about, in books I can only find in the Temple library. Since they are of the temple, I don't know how much of what I've read is true, but it reflects the reality I see when I travel through the Infinite, night after night, looking for the one person who will allow me to stay away the way every other human does effortlessly. 

   But sometimes, you want to know what a world will look like before you enter it, what the heart of a Dreamworld really is. That's what The Realm of Souls is for. It allows me to look into a Dreamworld, and see what was put there, without traveling to it. 

   The four brightest lights represent the four realms the Nightmares control, all of which have their own corresponding Dreamworld. You would think they're different colors, but that's not really true. The shadow realm is, as you might expect, shadowy and dark. The Sorcerer realm is brighter than the sun, which makes sense for magic users, but it's also blue, instead of the white you would think it would be. You would  also think that the Fairy realm is showy, while the Monster realm is muted, but it's actually the other way around. The monster Realm looks like a rainbow got condensed into a marble, and while the Fairy realm is the same idea, it's much more muted and the colors move much more slowly. I can't help but wonder if that means the Fairies world isn't as wonderful as they claim it to be. 

    I don't really care about the Nightmare Realms, since I can't control them anyway. I need to find the soul of my village, which I know is here somewhere because I looked for it the night I left home. It's so small it's practically invisible, and I swear it's somehow gotten dimmer since I last saw it. But it's here.

   I reach out to grab it, and hold it in my hands. I don't know much about charters, but I do know more power helps a village or city survive power grabs by Nightmares. I don't have power of my own, but when I'm lucid power always does what I ask it to do. I pull it into the soul, and I will the soul to get brighter to compensate. I wait, then it reaches the appropriate brightness, so I set it free to wander through the Infinite once more. 

    I can't guarantee that's actually doing anything, but I expect they wouldn't want me to be doing anything anyway. I'm the worst human alive, after all. 

    I grew up being told that evil was loud and flashy. No one told me that evil was actually quiet, mundane, and all but invisible to the untrained eye. No one told me that anyone, at any point, could be come infected with cruelty and malice. 

Life Back Home

    It's summer, the time of my twelfth birthday. I've been in the City for a little over two years now. In that time, nothing much has changed. For everyone else, that is. Things have changed a lot for me.

   I wander down the streets, looking for work, or a way to pass the time. Anything. That's when I see a woman I knew back in the village. Well, not so much knew, as nobody really talked to me back home, but she knew my parents and I knew her name. Linda, I believe it was.

  I'm about to walk past her, since I don't want to tell her that I lost the job my parents got for me. One advantage of not being able to call them is that they don't have to know just how little they prepared me for life outside of their house. For once, my luck doesn't hold up, and I hear her call my name.

  I glance at her, which she apparently takes as an invitation to approach me. "Where have you been? I couldn't find you at Lady Greaves. Have you been playing hooky?" 

  "I lost that job almost two years ago." I say. 

  I don't know what the expression on her face means. To be honest, I hate that people expect you to be able to read them, because that's something I've never been able to do. I think it's supposed to be shock, but it could be anger or sadness for all I know. Given that she, like the rest of the village, hated me, I'm willing to bet it's anger.

  "What do you want?" I ask. I'm not in the mood to deal with her, or anyone else for that matter. 

  "Why didn't you call your parents?" She asks.

  "Does that have anything to do with why you came here?" I ask. 

  "Actually, yes. The village is running out of money. I was hoping you would be able to spare some."

  "Why didn't you say so?" I say, reaching into my pants pocket. I don’t have a lot on me, though.

  "Where did you get the money for those clothes?" Linda asks.

  "Why do you care?" I say. 

  "I thought that you didn’t have a job." She says.

  "Look, do you want this or not?" I say, holding out my handful of money.

  She snatches it, counts it and declares, "This isn't nearly enough. Have you just been frittering everything on yourself this entire time?"

   "My parents never even game me a number to call them with. I had no idea you needed money until right this second." I say. 

   She looks at me, definitely angry, "I knew we should have kicked you out." She says.

   "I thought you already had." I say, turning to walk away.

   

     Later that day, I think over what happened. I've read about the charters villages and towns need to have with the ruling Nightmares, Shadows and Sorcerers mainly, in order to stay alive. It's tied up to the amount of power we use. I don't really understand the specifics, but I've read that the human realm is less "real" than the Nightmare realms are, so we need power to survive whereas they don't. Given that I've entered the Infinite from here, I can believe that. 

   I wonder, if I give the village a little more power, will they be alright? They don't like me, but nobody much does. I'm a human who hates talking to people and needs to sleep way too much, there's no reason to like me. It's my home, that's all that matters, even if I don't think I'll ever go back.

  Is it normal to not like your home all that much? If I could make my home the Temple, claim it as my own place, I'd do that in an instance. It's the only place I don't have to try and hide. I can sleep when I want, read when I want, write endless drivel and contemplate my collection. At the center, I can see Estellia's true nature. At first, it was nothing more than a game of pretend, but now it's starting to become real. I can't tell you how exciting that is. 

  I know I can help them, and I owe it to them to try. I've shaped Estellia before, and I suspect I would do so even without trying by this point. 

    So I head off to the temple, to fix something they can't fix on their own. 

Theory of Belief

     I’ve written about my Infinite Hypothesis before. What I should make clear is that there’s a very good reason no one talks about it; we aren’t supposed to know it’s there. The Infinite is inherently meaningless, so reality is an attempt by those who live in the Infinite to give themselves and their choices meaning. You know how if you play a game with a bunch of cheats it stops being fun after a while because nothing is challenging? That’s what living in the Infinite is like, nothing is challenging, nothing has consequences so nothing is meaningful. 

     One consequence of the Infinite, therefore, is that we’re all built to believe in things. Be it Aliens, God, or Santa Claus, all of us believe in something, often to the point where we ignore all evidence to the contrary. Belief looks different from person to person, but it generally comes in two contradictory flavors. 

   The first kind is what most people associate with religious worship. It’s the kind where what you believe in is completely fake, and deep down every believer knows that, but you keep it real because you want it to be real. Most modern religions cultivate this kind of belief, because it’s the kind of belief you don’t need to justify. The second kind is the version of belief society is, at large, much more tolerant of. It’s the kind where you question your world. Why is the sky blue? Why do Hydrogen and Oxygen make water? Why is our society set up the way that it is? This is the kind of belief where you seek to learn about your world and try to make it make sense to you. 

     These two belief systems are always at odds with one another. The first kind views the second as immoral, because how will the world stay real if you question it all the time. The second kind views the first as poisonous, because what happens to those who are suffering unjustly in a poorly built system that can’t be changed? 

     Personally, I think our world needs both forms of belief to survive. 

     To believe that our world isn’t objectively real is to believe that even the laws of physics are only held together by the belief of what, to us, is an Infinite Universe. The reason we, as humans, can’t push past physics (in my eyes, at least) is that we have an enormous system of belief holding everything together. But our world can’t survive just because we believe that it’s there. In order to have meaning, things have to change, or at least they need to be able to change. In order for that to happen, you need people who know that the system is false and arbitrary, and to push for something that they think would work better. 

     I don’t know for certain whether or not we as a whole value one belief system over the other, but I do know that in our current world they are very much at odds, and I really wish that they weren’t. I don’t like living in a world where the choice is either “Don’t ask questions” or “never take anything at face value”. It means that one group builds Dreamworlds that are real but very temporary (what you might call fascists or religious nuts), while the other group builds worlds that are built on values but are so close to reality that no one really believes in them. They don’t have to, because everyone knows these values exists and they don’t question them.

     That’s what most people get wrong about belief, they think of it as something you take to be wholly true no matter what, when in fact it’s something you know can’t possibly be true, but you believe in it anyway because it makes sense to you. It’s one of the ways you build the world you live in, and a way you find where you belong. Some beliefs are so common that we treat them like reality, but when you look at how our worlds are actually built it becomes clear that it’s nothing more than an elaborate lie. Most of us don’t want to be “Successful”, we just want enough to be happy. Most billionaires aren’t smart, they’re just propped up by a system that claims they are. Religion isn’t just about worshiping god, but about building the world that God lives in. We take our world for granted, because we have no choice. Until the day we realize that our world must be believed in, even if we don’t want to. 

All You Need to Know

 Someday the Prince will rescue the Princess.
That's all you need to know.
You don't need to know their names,
Or who they were, 
Or why she was trapped in the first place.
All you need to know is that there's a prince, a princess, and a celebration.

You don't need to know the names of the peasants
Who hate the king
Who fathered the prince.
You don't need to know
That it's said the rescue
Was nothing more
Than politics,
Nothing more than show by the rich.

You don't need to know
That a dragon was lied to
When the king said
They would let it live.

You don't need to know the name of the dragon's daughter,
Who destroyed both kingdoms out of vengeance
The day she learned of her father's death.

Ignore all of the details
And all stories have a happy ending,
Where no one cries
And everyone lives to old age.

If you ever feel overwhelmed
All you need to know is that life is simple,
Provided you never ask questions. 

     Fourteen more days until Christmas. Fourteen more days until the holiday where everyone pretends they love their families and all you hear on TV are stories about how, on one single day, nobody suffers and nobody is ever mean. As a child, all you have to do is believe, but as an adult all I can think about is how hollow and empty it all is. 

    I guess I should be grateful. It's only one day a year after all, and I don't have to travel to see my family any more. I do wish Christmas could be a bit more subdued, less aggressive cheerfulness and more quiet moments with people you care about. As a kid, all I cared about were presents and parties. As an adult, all I want is a quiet moment to myself to think about why Christmas, a day that so many people are so jaded about, is still deeply beloved by so many. 

     Is it possible to change the world if you aren't a leader? Is it possible to have your voice heard if you're never going to be at the top? Is it weird that I don't find our current system to be awful, but I think I'd prefer something different?

Pictures of the Future

     When I'm not studying for any of the dozens of tests I take every year, I like to walk down to the café outside my aunt's house and draw pictures of what I think the future cities of Estellia will look like. I don't imagine a world of technology, we've had that world for decades now, and people are tired of it. I don't really picture a world of nature either. We like computers, cars, and houses too much for that. What I imagine are cities built of transparent, yet solid, buildings, stretching all the way up to the sky. But every street is lined with fruit trees, food is cheap and plentiful, and nobody wants for anything. This is personal, but I want a world where everyone lives close together in cities, so we can't ignore the visions of others, and outside is reserved for the bounty of nature. No one will need to worry about not being able to see blue skies and green trees, and everyone who needs clean air will have access to it. 

    We're a long way from it, of course, but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible.

     Well, I've gone from wishing that things would get better to wishing that things would be different. Not worse, I just wish something interesting would happen, like a minor tech breakthrough or something. Maybe it's better that things have slowed down, but when you can't afford anything and all the fun free games are gone, life feels agonizingly slow. 

Moments of Quiet

    I want to visit the city someday. I've heard all sorts of horrible things about them, all the crime and grot and filth that covers every corner. I think, as a monster, it would be wrong not to visit, and even indulge a little bit. The best part? The crime lord quarters. Unlike the surrounding areas, their shiny and absolutely covered with lights. I'm told that it looks deliberately overwhelming and artificial. Nothing less for the cities in the lands of evil, of course.

   I also love my hometown. It's only got about ten thousand people, most of whom are Nightmares. We have sacrifices and bonfire celebrations, but not much that's big or flashy. Life is quiet, and slow. It's been this way for as long as anyone can remember. And I love it for that.

   I love walking into the forests, or to the temple, and just sitting quietly with a book. My father and brother don't read much, my mother's too busy for books, and my sister has more friends than I do. Cassie, oddly, loves books, despite the fact that humans don't get very many good books. I've shown her some of my favorites, and she admits that they're better, but she also claims she wouldn't change the books she has access to for the world. "That's what being a human is," She says, "Being below everyone else, and having more than they do because of it."

    I don't envy humans, and I don't think Cassie really believes they have more than we do. Otherwise, she wouldn't sleep as much as she does. But between her and Natalie, I've developed more of an appreciation for them than I would otherwise have. They're powerless, but resourceful enough to get by on what they have. They also all seem to be proud of who they are, more so than I would have thought. Natalie's father talks all the time about how hard he works, her mother takes pride in her cleaning, Cassie talks about all she does to hide the fact that she has no home. I'm not sure why she doesn't try and find a place to rent, they're plentiful in the human lands. 

   When everything's quiet, I appreciate the world I live in. I'm not the strongest Nightmare around, but I don't need to be. I have my family, my friends, strange humans who worship me, and powers granted through my bloodline. If I didn't need to push for greatness, I'd be perfectly happy where I am right now. 

Thoughts on AI Art

     There’s a lot of discussion about AI art lately. There’s a lot to discuss; can Artificial Intelligence make real art; is the way AI gathers data stealing (it is); is it immoral to use it for fun, for profit, or as a replacement for traditional art; etc.? I’m neither a programmer nor an artist, but I am a blogger and I have seen some ads for programs that offer to write up blog posts for you (my posts are so low effort anyways that I don’t see the point), so I say I have some skin in the game even if I don’t see it impacting my life that much. 

     I have no issues with AI in theory, in fact I actually think it’s kind of interesting. It’s not trying to make masterpieces, it’s just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what will stick. This leads to a lot of bad art, but it also leads to a lot of art that’s interesting because no human would want to try it. Although, I do think that it won’t be long before the people making AI art programs try and focus on programs designed to see what types of art humans prefer and push their focus on to making “better” art, rather than art that’s interesting. If that happens, then AI will promptly stop being a threat to artists, because art isn’t supposed to be “good”, it’s supposed to resonate with people on some level. It’s why I don’t use it personally, because I don’t think it’s possible for AI to make something deliberately meaningful, just something that resonates with us entirely by accident. 

     Let’s say that the programmers are smart/stupid enough to never try to refine the AI, and it remains in it’s current form, where anyone can use it and it learns art by looking at elements of free online art. I’m not going to try to answer any legal questions, because I’m not a lawyer and I expect that lawyers will answer those questions soon enough anyway. My issue is a bit more philosophical. 

    Art, of all sorts, is deeply important to us, but nobody gives much of a thought to the artists who make it. It’s not just an art problem either, it’s a problem with work of all sorts. We live in a world where getting the best stuff for the lowest prices is a sign that you’re smart and determined, always scouting for great deals, and pushing for better value, a sound philosophy on an individual level, deadly when it’s applied to a societal level. This is the environment AI art, and AI in general, was created in, and it’s why people are so scared of AI taking over the world. The tools themselves are stupid, but the people using them know that as long as the price is low enough most people don’t care where it comes from. It’s why we still buy clothes from overseas despite having seen the conditions the workers are trapped in. In this world, advocating for the advancement of AI could be seen as good and moral because this way no humans have to suffer. But that’s not really the point, isn’t it? The point is that lots of people are going to lose not just their jobs but their entire career, and have no reliable way to make a living. It’s not just artists either, a lot of jobs are at risk of being turned obsolete because of AI. 

    Like I said before, I don’t think AI is the problem, and I don’t think using it makes you evil, exactly. I think it’s the system that surrounds AI that’s the problem. It’s not just capitalism, because if capitalism were the issue the solution would be to make it so that businesses couldn’t pool capital, but when we tried to get rid of them, we found that didn’t always work well either. 

    I think the problem is that we, as people, want society to be simple. We want to know who’s in charge, who takes out our trash and cleans the public parks, and what our role is, and we want those to have the shortest descriptions possible. So the fact that power pools in the hands of a few, all maintenance jobs are nameless, and all of us aim for the same jobs isn’t just the effect of capitalism, it’s the effect society being very hard to understand. This is compounded by the problem that we try not to think about society at all if we can help it, because society isn’t real. We have to pretend that it’s real, or else it all falls apart. 

     But I think it’s now time we stop pretending the system is at all sustainable. I think that, with the advancement of tools that are taking away all our old jobs and an environment that allows us to thrive using social and well as physical capital, it’s time we talk about moving to a new system, one where our primary job is keeping our world together. 

A Ghost Town

 They say people used to live there
A long time ago,
In the town in the middle of the desert.
A place with no water,
Just sun beating down
On your head.

They say people made a living
A long time ago,
In the town where the mines used to be.
A place that was dark
And full of riches,
Free for any man to claim.

They say people loved it
A long time ago,
In the town where ghosts now live.
Living out lives
That no one cares about,
They wish they mattered once more.

There are a lot of things people say
About that town in the desert,
A place where people once lived
And worked.
They say it was dirty,
They say it was poor,
They say it was like nothing
You'd see today.

They say people prayed
For rain every day,
And ran when the wells ran low.

This town's one of the lucky ones.
People come to visit,
To remember a world
Full of gold, and promises that were never kept.

They say, to this day,
That this town was special.
This town that only 
The ghosts really know. 

 I get the feeling I could post random thoughts every day that doesn't have stories or poems and still have a pretty meaty blog.

    Am I the only person who would, given the choice, blog for free without thinking about monetization? If I had access to income that didn't depend on work, I'd just blog or write forever, never thinking about doing anything else. Does that make me lazy? Or does that mean that our world isn't designed for me?

The Cracks in the System

     How does a human with the abilities of a Midnight Nightmare go unnoticed?

    A Nighttime vendor tells me that he met a human from the human realm. They live in a paradise, so they are always powerless. A great deal of effort is expended by Nightmares from every realm to keep power from going their way. 

   I can find no evidence of a human from the Fairy realms that was unaccounted for, that night last week. I've checked with the Sorcerer and Monster realms. I don't want to go to the shadow realm yet, because I know James will be on my case for dismissing him. I'm beginning to think that he might have been right. 

    If this is a human from the human realm, then something's gone horribly wrong. I've been hearing grumblings, because they have a largely homeless population and not enough houses. Power isn't just used for Nightmares to torment them after all, it's used to keep Estellia real. They say they don't have enough. Most of us, myself included, think that it's just a ploy for more power. 

    Yet I'm now facing the real possibility that a Midnight Nightmare was born there, where one ought to have never seen one. 

     It's snowing outside. Winter's beauty and winter's curse. Strange to see cold, damp and white and feel as though the world is being born anew. 

The Good and the Bad

   One can get too used to living in a crisis I suppose. 

  I have to work to stop humans from overtaking us, but I can't forget that, unlike humans, I have a responsibility to others in my life. My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, and my beloved Selma. Perhaps not objectively pretty, according to my other friends, but to me she shines brighter than the sun. 

   Before her, I viewed love as simple. You spend all you time with a person, and they fill you with unmatched joy. That's not what our relationship is like. We fight, we complain, we annoy one another, and only sometimes do I see her at work and think "I'm so lucky to have you." But I wouldn't change anything. She reminds me, when I forget, that reality is supposed to be flawed and messy. That couples ought to have rough patches, that sometimes we should feel sad and alone. Without darkness, all of the light in our world would be overwhelming. 

    I'm trying to build up my story buffer, because I'm going on vacation at the end of December. Nothing major to post about right now. 

The Picture of the Past

 I see them stiff,
Frozen in a moment
Of glory and shame.

I see them staring at me,
An expression of anger
And fear.

Arms outstretched
They reach out to me,
To a present they can't reach,
To a meaning they'll never know.

They've been forgotten by so many
They can't even be ghosts anymore,
Only pictures in a lost photo album,
Filled with unhappy moments.

They don't know why they've been forgotten.
They don't know why the old world left them.
They don't know why any of this had to happen.
All they know is that we abandoned them
When they needed us the most.

I should feel sad,
For my heart aches for all that's been lost,
But there's a deep hole in the place they once lived,
A void no sense of joy can fill.

Do I miss them?
Do I miss the life they once gave me?
Or am I just mourning the moments
When I felt they were gods? 

    I don't want to say that Twitter is doomed, but I will say that I'm giving up on it. I don't know how to put it, I'm sure plenty of smarter people could explain it, but I feel like the overall vibe is declining. It's like everyone knows the site's dying, but some are trying really hard to hide it. 

     I suppose if we're using the old dumpster fire metaphor, I'd say we've reached the point where it's still burning, but it's not nearly as warm and flashy as it used to be. 

Dreaming of the Future

    I want to move on.

    I want to move forward from a world that's always sick and in danger of dying. 

    I want a world where we know we won't die from every plague you can imagine. 

    I wish the rest of the world felt the same way. All I see, when I look around, are people pretending that the Corona virus didn't happen, that too many people haven't died from it, that we aren't still in danger from it. All I see are people pretending the past isn't shaping today.

    I see people, afraid of the future, pretending the past will go on throughout eternity. 

    I remember, as a child, I wished that I didn't have to grow up, to go to college, get a job, anything that would make me a useful member of society. I was lucky, for my wish has been granted. I'm a lonely slob with no life who nobody with any sense pays attention to. Every day I look around and see so many who were not so lucky, who took the world at its word when they were told they had no choice but to go onto the next step, to become the people their parents wanted them to be. They listened, and they had everything taken from them.

    When I look around, I don't see people who are lazy and stupid. I see people who want to live in the world, but don't want the world we're currently living in. And I feel so angry. Not on my behalf, we could be living in a Utopia and I'd still choose the life I have now, but on behalf of everyone else. Everyone who chased a dream and is now paying the price. Is it really a crime to want to live a normal life.

    I want to move on. I want to move to a world where I see people living their lives and am consumed with envy and hatred, because then I know I'll be in a world that's worth living in, a world that's worth saving. I want a world where I'm compelled to fight for greatness, to chase after those who made it in the first place. I don't want a world where I blend in seamlessly, because I'm not sure such a world will ever exist, but I want a world where I feel it's worth it to try.  

Destiny

    Every sorcerer is certain that destiny smiles upon them. It's tradition. Even if you're not an adventurer at heart, you're still the person who will revolutionize the world, or failing that the person who will bring up the next generation of greatness. 

   At some point though, you have to grow out of that mindset. I was ahead of the curve. I realized when I was ten, a little over seven years ago, that it was mathematically impossible for all of us to be greats. My aunt, however, refused to let me stop trying. 

   It's not that I don't want to be amazing. It's that it's so hard and frustrating that I don't feel like it's worth it most of the time. Just because I can do math doesn't mean I want to do it for the rest of my life. 

    I'd honestly rather do a paperwork job that allowed me enough time to draw pictures. I like drawing, and I sometimes wish I'd been born low enough for it not be a shameful thing to do. I'm not very imaginative, I don't picture things the way some of my friends do, but I like to draw pictures of the buildings at college, or the landscapes that I see in the Infinite. I think that if I could just draw the things other people have built for the rest of my life, I'd die happy. 

What I'm Thankful For

    Today is Thanksgiving, if you're in the United States at least. I would talk about all that I'm thankful for, but honestly I've always hated that particular thanksgiving tradition. Am I really supposed to be grateful for not starving to death on the streets? 

    I guess I am thankful for the Blog, or at least for the ability to keep it going for a year. A bit more than a year if you count the random posts I did at the beginning. 

    What I really want is to take my Blog to the next level. I don't mean in terms of views, I mean in terms of upping the production value a little bit, learning a little more. I think that, once I'm good enough, I might move onto another platform. Assuming the internet doesn't catch fire first. 

The School Janitor

    Our town doesn't worry about the Homeless. Our mayor has a policy in place that anyone found outside after dark goes to jail, and after your third sentence you get sacrificed for power. The humans hate that policy, but as my mother and father always point out, coming here was their decision in the first place. Though that's not actually true. 

   Natalie, my best friend, rose from basically nothing. Her father's the janitor at our high school, her mother's a maid. Neither of them are nightmares themselves. But their baby fussed and cried a lot, and she slept too, something I and many others took advantage of. Then she started going lucid. 

   It's true that all humans can go lucid, but it doesn't usually go much further than being able to tell how strong a Nightmare is without seeing their nightmare form, which as my parents point out is completely useless. Any other lucidity abilities only come in handy in the Dreamworld, which you only go into while you're asleep, and since humans don't sleep they never need lucidity. Lucidity is only for children with neglectful parents, or children destined to become Midnight Nightmares. Sometimes the one becomes the other, but not often. Most of the time children with poor parents wind up being poor themselves, serving as guards or Night servants for other Nightmares. 

   The Mayors son found out about Natalie. He was, and still is, a jerk, but he's powerful in his own right, and decided to assert that power on the child who was sleeping when she didn't need to. He realized that he was wrong when she dispelled his "Nightmare form" (it barely counted, he was only seven at the time, and she was only five). He went straight up to his mother and demanded that Natalie be punished, but lady Grey, the head of the cult, decided to test Natalie first. That's when we discovered that Natalie is basically my mother's successor, as in she's destined to run our temple one day. 

   That should have made me sad, but the temple always scared me. Mostly because, since it's where all of our sacrifices take place, it's always covered in blood. But Natalie doesn't mind. She's always worked hard to please my mother, and bodily fluids don't bother her. What I like about her the most though is that she doesn't seem to notice that I'm my mother's eldest child most of the time. She never gets upset when I can't manage a spell, nor does she seem disappointed that I'm basically destined to work as a Dreamworld guard (I have no idea where Cassie got the idea that I was destined for Godhood). She tells me that she doesn't really think of me as a competitor, I remind her more of a human then a Nightmare, but I still surprise her with the amount of power I can wield. 

   I wonder how much of that is from her parents. She still lives with them, but she doesn't talk about them to me much. I have seen her talking with humans though. She told me that most of her friends families have lived in the valley for centuries, but there's so much power now that low level Nightmares are taking the jobs humans used to have. And they can't go to the human lands because the rules say you can only move there if you can get a job. Which not even most humans can. 

     Fortunately her father's job seems to be safe. Her mother hasn't been so lucky. They both get what work they can, but they say that they're worried that one or both of them will be sacrifices, and Natalie has said she'll do that if she has to, though she cries every time she says it. 

   I'm grateful that I'm not a human. I do wish they didn't hate us though. We're only doing what we have to for protection. 

Do I Want to be Better

     I didn't set out to be a great writer, or even a good writer. I just set out to be a writer. If you, my hypothetical reader, are reading this and thinking that I completely suck at this, I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't really be surprised. I'd like to think I'd be okay with it, once the pain wore off. 

     As someone who set out to be mediocre, I'm frightened by the level of mediocrity that those at the top exhibit. I know people reach the top for all sorts of reasons, many of them have nothing to do with talent, but it still feels wrong to see the truth in action. Like I don't want to own Twitter, but I can't help but feel like I'd do a better job than Elon Musk. 

    I want to be better. I want to believe I can go a lot farther, as a person and as a writer, than I currently am. But when I look at the people who lead us I can't help but wonder if I've already hit a wall. 

    How do you know that you're a good person if you can't trust the judgement of those around you? I want to think I've gotten better as a writer over the past year I've been blogging, but I have no way of judging that, and I'm beginning to think that even if I had an audience I'd have no way of knowing the truth. Even now, plenty of people are saying that Elon Musk is a genius, even though the consensus is that you'd have to be stupid to believe them. 

     I don't even know how I want to get better. I don't know what better would even look like. I keep thinking that all the parts we thought were important were lies, lies that were held together by this strange belief that not believing in them was wrong somehow. There's a chance I could be wrong, that somewhere at the bottom of society there's a truth we all believe in, that there's a story holding our world together. But I don't see it anymore. What story even could hold our world together now?

    But when I face the truth, all I see is a single question; do I want to be better, or just different? 

For a Moment in Time

 They say that the people who meet us
Are a part of our destiny.
That our futures are shaped 
By those the gods put
In our path.

I don't know if I believe that,
But I know that I see people
Changing me.
For a moment,
A small slice of time,
A piece of eternity
Before tomorrow swallows me whole.

I'll never know
If our world was meant to be this way.
If our past would only ever
Come together to form today.
All I know is that we matter,
That our voices were meant to be heard.
Whether by the gods
Or by the space that lies between us.

Destiny or not,
For a moment in time
I knew someone special.
Someone who made me 
What I am right now.
I don't know if I'll stay that person forever,
Or if I'll be separated from myself once more.

One way or another, 
I'm glad I got to meet you. 

A Town of One

    I'm glad that Blogger wasn't a big deal when I started. I'm glad that it's not a big deal now. Sure, nobody reads what I write, but I went in knowing that would probably happen. I didn't have high expectations, and it meets my needs. I'm not a great Novelist, nor an outstanding poet, but I have a Blog on the Internet somewhere. Some would be inclined to say that it's lame, but when I think about what I would have had to do to have a place to be heard even twenty years ago, I'm grateful to live in an era where what I say matters. 

    I may move someday, decide another platform would be better suited to me, but for now I'm content to be a sheriff in a town of one. 

The End of Twitter

    There are time when you have a lot of opinions on things. There are other times where you need to vent because you're sad. 

     Twitter's dying, if not already dead. There are some who say it'll live on for a while, others who say something else will replace it, but the majority opinion seems to be that Twitter is now gone for good. I share that opinion. The site may stay up, but the people are fleeing while they still can, fleeing to wherever they can find someone who will listen to them. 

     I was never big in the Twitter scene, but I liked having a place where I see what people were saying. I liked having a place where even a nobody like me could have a voice. I don't feel resentful, I've lost less than most, it just hurts to lose something you cared about, even if it shouldn't have mattered to you at all. 

The Invincible

     I used to think I'd only be free when I met the Dreamer and finally stopped needing to sleep. Now, I don't think that.

    Because I just defeated a Princess.

    I'm walking around the human city in daylight without a care in the world. If they come after me, I've got the Temple to go to. But who would dare do that?

   I just defeated a Princess. 

   I did also defeat a God, but any human can defeat a god when they're unprepared. Gods, like all Nightmare's, don't go lucid. The princess was prepared. She was ready to destroy me. But I defeated her first.

   Not in a very dignified way, but still. 

   I've defeated a Princess. From now on, I consider myself invincible. 

Who I Am

    My name is Kristen Peri Eliker. I run a blog on an abandoned corner of the Internet, so far out of sight that nobody will ever see it. I am the writer who brought Cassie into the world, and will soon bring so many others to light, even if they'll never be famous. As a star, I will never shine bright, but my light will last the longest, and I will die telling of what is, what was, and what will someday be. They will never give me power, but they can't take my choices from me. 

The Fairgrounds

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

     They've been playing that announcement on repeat for hours. Given that I'm in the Dreamworld, I'm not sure why their playing that announcement, unless the Fairyland has as many homeless humans as the human lands do. I don't know how I would tell, though. Humans don't sleep, so none of them ever has to enter a Dreamworld. 

   I've been wandering through the Fairylands for a few hours now. I think it must be at around midnight, though it's hard to tell in a Dreamworld, and the temple doesn't connect to Estellia time wise. I liked that about it at first, it meant that I could leave and not be missed, but now it feels like my life is twice as long as it would otherwise be, for no real reward. I keep trying to make time move in my mind, but every time I return, I find that time hasn't passed at all. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    "Why do they keep saying that?" I ask no one in particular.

    "To get rid of the Druggies, dumbass!"

    I turn to see a vendor glaring at me. He seems to be running a basic carnival game, based on throwing a ball into a hoop. It's one of the most common games in the Fairylands. "You're a human?" I ask.

    "Do you see a nightmare form, idiot." the vendor says.

    "No." I tell him, "I can't see nightmare forms."

     He looks at me, his face scrunched up in an expression of what I can only assume is doubt. "You're not a Midnight Nightmare, are you?"

    "No!" I say, "I'm a human. I'm visiting from the Human lands." 

    "Really? Have you ever met a person from the human lands who sleeps? They leave all the hard work to us." 

    I don't want to go into the details. Most people don't understand why I need to sleep so much. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    "I don't think they were making that announcement the last time I was here. What happened?"

    The vendor looks at me. "You've been here before?" He asks.

    I sigh. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I need to sleep. I can't remember a time when that hasn't been true."

    "That's ridiculous. Only Nightmares and people who will become Nightmares need to sleep."

    "Why are they telling people to stay indoors in the Dreamworld?" I snap. "Surely if people are in the Dreamworld then they're already inside? Doesn't the Fairyland have an Economy? I've read that most humans come here to make money."

    He looks down and sighs. "They do, but they never find a way to do it. You hunt and you hunt, but no one wants to pay you for anything around here. The only way to make money is to sell drugs, and in order to do that you have to buy drugs, and if you buy drugs they do everything they can to get you to use them. Once you use them, you're hooked. You'll do everything you can to get more drugs, be it stealing or killing. It's not too long before you're nothing more than husk of what used to be a person. I've talked to some people who've lost relatives this way, and they say that it's like watching someone dig a hole so deep, it'll never be filled up again."

   I don't know what to say. "That's awful. I'm glad we don't have that problem in the Human Lands." 

   "Don't be too proud." The vendor says. "I know the folks who live in the Human lands talk it up like they don't have issues, but I hear they send their kids out to work when they're as young as ten or eleven, and then when they can't find work they won't let them come back home."

   "They don't do that here?" I ask. I can't remember anyone in the village who didn't send their kids to the city. Not that I ever managed to find them.

   "No. It's barbaric. Five years ago the humans finally got tired of so many homeless teenagers and passed a law that said any human who couldn't find work in two years would get banished to a Nightmare World according to their alignment. I hate that law so much. It makes it that much harder to find work, and everyone is too stupid to know anything." 

   He stops for a bit, seeming realizing he's discussing politics with me, a person who doesn’t know anything. "Are you actually planning on playing?" He asks.

    I don't know. But it seems wrong to leave him after having taken so much of his time. I summon some money out of my back pocket and say, "No, but thank you anyway."

    "For what?" He asks.

     "For telling me everything you did." I say. I hand him the money, and then leave before he can ask any more questions.

     "You did hear what he said, didn't you?" A voice whispers in my mind, "If you don't find a job soon, they'll kick you out of the Human lands."

    "I've had a bunch of small jobs." I reassure her. 

    "Did you ever see a boss record your work?" The voice says. 

    Come to think of it, I don't think I did. 

    "A reminder to all citizens of Fairyland; all humans must be indoors after sunset."

    Okay, I've officially had enough of announcements. I'm going to one of the stage areas. There won't be any intercoms there at least.

    The Fairylands Dreamworld is filled with fairgrounds. Unlike the fairgrounds in the human world, these don't have a lot of places to buy things. You mostly just play games, which cost money to play. I don't know if they actually make money, since if you go lucid you can create all of the money you like, so long as you take it from somewhere like a pocket or a purse. At least, that's what I do.

    What I find odd about the fairgrounds is that they're always extremely crowded, and not with people. I don't mean that humans don't visit them, I mean that I think most of the crowds in the fairgrounds are fake. I can't put my finger on it, but they always look odd to me. I think the problem is that they're too complicated. If you had to ask me to imagine a human, I wouldn't imagine people like them. 

     This Fairground seems to be extremely popular. I haven't seen any fake people so far. I do see a lot of people hiding in between buildings counting money. I wonder if crime is a problem in the Fairylands.

    Inside each Fairground is at least one stage, where they have performances. From what I can tell, these all involve real people, and you don't have to pay for them. I always watch at least a few performances with each visit, even though most of them are a bit basic. Especially in the Fairgrounds people don't come to. Unlike the one I'm in right now. The crowd all seem eager to enter the door. I assume there's a free performance. 

   There's a guard in front of the entrance. There usually is, but this one seems especially unfriendly. He seems to be watching for trouble. As I'm about to enter the stage he says, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

     For a moment I panic, wondering if this is one of the guards that was in the truck. But I don't think it is. "No." I reply, not terribly convincingly. 

    He looks suspicious, but waves me in anyways. Once again my luck comes through.

     I enter to find there's no place to sit. That wouldn't be an issue, except that there's always someone blocking my view. Fortunately, this stage is high enough up off the ground that I can get a clear view. Unfortunately, there seems to be a man chained up in the center. 

    I've heard they have different standards for entertainment in the bigger fairgrounds, but I didn't know lots of people wanted to see a man chained up doing nothing. I can't help but feel sorry for him, and a little uneasy. I wish this were a juggling act instead.

   "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" A voice booms from off the stage. "WELCOME, ONE AND ALL, TO THE EXECUTION OF A CENTURY."

     The crowd murmurs. I get the impression none of them are that impressed so far. My ears hurt from the shouting. I look up to see the man shifting in place. I don't know what's going through his mind, but he doesn't seem happy to hear there's an execution.

     Wait, execution?

      I've read about these in books. Supposedly the Fairies and Monsters kill off those who do egregious crimes in the Shadow and Sorcerer lands. Neither Fairies nor Monsters have any laws, so they have to import those who do. I've never been to one before, but I hear they're a thing you never forget. 

    I feel excited and nervous. I'm told there's a lot of blood, and I've never seen blood before. 

    Suddenly, the lights go off. On the stage, a spotlight appears over the man, who I assume must be a criminal. Another spotlight appears over a woman. "Good night everyone," She says.

    "Good night your majesty." The crowd replies. 

     "So wonderful to see you, I didn't expect to see such a large crowd the day after my Coronation." 

      She hold out her hand off stage someone hands her a tiara. She puts it on top of her head. "I'm sure you'd all love to see a princess in all of her glory." She says. She starts spinning, and a silver dress materializes around her. It sparkles in the light. When she stops, she takes off the crown, and her dark brown hair spills cascades down her back. She smiles, the kind of smile that makes you think she could be your friend. 

    I have to admit, she looks the part of the princess. I know brown hair and brown eyes are normal, but the ability to win people over to you instantly is not. 

     Suddenly, the spotlight around her disappears, and the lights on the stage turn back on. She's back in the clothes she wore when she first stepped on stage, show clothes that all buskers wear, and her hair is now back in a bun. "I wish you could see my true self, but alas, we're about to get messy." 

    She walks to the center of the stage, and pulls a dagger from the inside of her shirt. "Tell me, do you know what crimes this man committed?"

    The crowd starts murmuring. I can't make out what anyone's saying.

     "Well, I can't tell you. What he did was so awful, the crime can't be spoken aloud. He came directly from the land of the Sorcerers, who tell me they caught this man doing heinous things. And do you know what we do to men who do heinous things?" She pauses and looks to the crowd.

     Out of the silence, I hear someone yell, "Kill them."

     She smiles, "Exactly."

     She stab the knife into the base of his neck, then carves it down the length of his body. I don’t hear him scream, but it could be because the crowd has started shrieking around me. I can't tell if they're excited or unsettled. I don't feel anything. 

    Then she rips the corpse open in a shower of blood. 

     I'm in the very back of the crowd, but I still get dribbled on. 

     I want to throw up, but throwing up while you're asleep is a bad idea. I did that once when I was small, and my bed got soaked. The doctor told me that I shouldn't do that again, because I might get vomit in my lungs.

    I run. I can't stand being here. The guard tries to stop me. I hear the crowd cheering behind me. 

    Suddenly the crowd begins to thicken around me, or maybe I'm just too scared. In my mind I see that man being ripped apart, and I swear I hear him screaming in agony. Or maybe not screaming, maybe it's just my mind pleading to be free of him. 

   I push through the crowd as fast as I can, not sure of where I want to go. I can't catch my breath. I have to sit down someplace. I make my way to a wall, then collapse against it, willing my body to calm down. Every thought in my mind is pressing against my temple. My lungs won't draw any air. I cry, not out of sadness, but because my body needs to release its emotions.

    The crowd doesn't notice. People collapse all the time. It's not a matter of concern. Not when there are games to play. 

     I should wake up. I don't want to, though. The temple, with its empty rooms, won't help. I need distraction. So I watch the crowd go by, some stopping to play games, most walking to get where they want to go as fast as possible. I'm entranced by it, so much so I don't see her until she's right on top of me. 

   "Well, who'd have thought? The human that James has been complaining about, right at my door step." 

    I look up. It's the woman who was on stage, killing that man. When I think that, I get angry suddenly. I don't know why. If he was up there, he did something to deserve it. But I can still feel the blood that dripped on me. 

    "What do you want?" I say.

     "I want to put you in prison." She replies.

    A smart human would run. A human with any life skills would know they can't beat a Nightmare. But I have no life skills, and I've fought dozens of Nightmares in my time sleeping. And I know that, within every Nightmare, there's a human who's weak to every attack. Including my necklace, my main form of attack. I yank it off and throw it at her.

    She just bats it away, "Why did you think that would do anything?"

     She lifts up her hand, and a wand materializes in it. At least, I think it's a wand. It's longer and thicker than you'd expect a wand to be, and it doesn’t have any markings on it. Too late, I realize she's about to hit me. I only just get the shield up. 

   "Ow!" She yelps.

   That would be my necklace. It starts to float next to me. It suddenly occurs to me that she said she was a princess. I don't know much about Nightmares, but I know that you have to be extremely powerful to become a princess. There's no way that a human has a chance against one. 

    I run as fast as I can. I feel what must be a spell come after me, so I put my shield back up. I turn to run, and I notice that she's right behind me. "You aren't getting away this time." She says, sounding annoyed. 

    "I've run away from Nightmares ever since I was little." I say. "I'm not letting you capture me." I send my necklace back at her. She tries to swat it away, but it gets her anyway. I keep going at her, and before long she realizes that it really doesn't do much damage. Before long she starts walking towards me with her wand held high.

   I back away. In a low tone of voice she says, "How are you planning on escaping me? I know that you must live in the Fairylands. Why would you be here otherwise? Do you somehow think you'll impress me enough to rise up in this world, you worthless child?"

     Okay, now I'm mad. I'm not saying that I'm not worthless, but I will never admit that too a Nightmare. All humans in the Human lands live there because we're proud of our humanness. We never, ever, demand power or respect from Nightmares, because we all know that we're better than them, it's just that the Nightmares are too low to admit that. I imagine myself stomping on her, tearing this Dreamworld to pieces. Beneath me, I can feel the Infinite begin to squirm.

    "I am not worthless. I was born in the Human lands and I'll die in the human lands, and I don't need your help to do either. I will fight you until I win, because I don't need Nightmare powers to destroy you. I am Cassandra Lumis, the one who Dreams Estellia into existence, and I will banish you like the bad dream you are."

    I really need to work on my taunts. Fortunately, for a princess she's extremely weak. She goes, then vanishes, right as I finish taunting her. I feel proud and happy.

     Then I wake up in my bed.

      "Oh, come on!" I say, to an empty room. "I just wanted to gloat for a bit." 

      I sit up. It occurs to me that I just beat a princess, and it wasn't even that hard. Fighting Alex's "demon", as she calls it, was harder. 

     I don't think it's a serious possibility, but I wonder if anyone would consider me a candidate for a Nightmare. Hey, what's a dreamer for if not to dream of the impossible? 

 I actually caught that I forgot to write a post for today. A few minutes too late, but still.

Points of Interest

 To think I'd live to see history
Banging at my door.
To think I'd live to see the things
We'd never seen before.

We talk of all the things great,
That existed in the past.
Of all things bright and beautiful,
Things too glorious to last.

Never did I think I'd be
Something interesting or fun.
I was told of greatness and glory,
Those things brighter than the sun.

But history's repeating,
Or maybe it just echoes.
One can only sit and watch,
As our time ebbs and flows.

I am now a point of interest
On history's great line.
Only the future ones will now
Whether or not I'll fade with time.

To think I'd live to see history
Banging at my door.
In youth I wished for greatness,
Now I wish I'd been a bore.

Our lives didn't need to be interesting
To be passed on down the ages.
I wonder whether we will listen
In any of our future stages.

     I wonder how many people agree with me that Twitter falling apart in such a drastic way will have a massive impact on the social media landscape. I don't think it'll kill it off, but I think the way social media works will be changed forever. 

     I'd ask why I can't shake this feeling that the world's about to end, but then I look at the news. 

Darius

    "So this is it, isn't it?" 

   I hold in my hand the most powerful Artefact in Estellia. Something with such destructive potential that it has twelve levels of security you have to clear. Once, I've been told, it lead to the fall of a Nightmaredom, until the gods corralled the user, a man named Dalton, and forced him into bondage. 

   It's innocuous, a little silly even, but one should not let appearances fool you.

   "Yes," The Artefact Master says, "This is the infamous Rubber Ducky of Doom, Darius."

   "I must ask, does it squeak when you squeeze it?" 

   "Please don't. I know it doesn't hurt, but I feel so embarrassed." 

   I jump, then look at my hand. It occurs to me, for the first time, that this duck's been looking at my face this whole time. I'm not sure how, the eyes appear to be painted on, but they most certainly are. 

  "I'm sorry." I say, "I was unaware that you were sentient." 

   I've never seen an Artefact that was sentient, though I'm told there have been many throughout our history. They've never been anything dignified though, like a sword or a crystal ball. It's always been things like yo-yos, cheap pens, fake jewelry, and stuffed toys. The department of Artefacts loathes such things, they say it's hard to tell them from normal things, and they don't follow the rules of Artefact creation. 

   "Well," I say, "I need your help, Darius. There's someone going around the Infinite causing trouble in the Infinite. I need you to find them."

   "Do you know what their name?"

   "No."

   "Do you know what they look like?"

   "No."

   "Do you at least know whether they're a human or a nightmare?"

   "No. I've only seen them once, you understand."

   "Then I'm not sure that I can help you. People are always stirring up trouble in the Infinite after all."

   "I see." I say, putting Darius down. "Then I guess I didn't need your help after all."

   "Don't feel bad." Darius says, cheerfully, "I think she'll attack someone else soon."

    "Who?" I say.

    "I think it might be the person who attacked you. She's off to the Fairylands to play, but the new princess want to banish all humans. I don't know what'll happen, but it looks like they're going to fight. Poor thing, I don't think she'll win, and this new princess is vicious." 

     I sit and think out loud. "So if I send a guard to the Fairylands, they'll be able to find her and capture her."

    "No. She won't be awake."

    "She'll be trying to fight someone while asleep!" I say. 

    I don't need to tell you that power doesn't work well when one or both parties are awake. It's why all humans provoke conflict when awake, and then never sleep. 

    "I think that's what she mostly does. Actually, I think she already fought you once already. And she… Won?"

     Darius blinks, using magic far beyond what I could ever do. "Wow," it says, "whoever she is, she's strong. She could take Dalton in a fight, and maybe even win."

    "I'm not sure." I say, thinking back to the human that attacked me. "What do you think I should do?"

     "Have an artist on sight to draw her picture. Then post it in all the Nightmare realms. Soon, she'll be in prison."

     "What if she lives in the human realm?"

    "They'll be even more desperate to find her. No sense in letting somebody put you in danger after all."

     "Okay." I say. "I'll send someone over then."

     I hand Darius back to the Artefact master. "Do you need any payment?" I ask.

     "No." The master tells me, "But if you could have a shipment of cotton balls sent over, that would be appreciated."

     "For cleaning purposes I assume." I say.

     "Yes," he says, "but they're also his favorite." He gives Darius an affectionate squeeze, not enough to make him squeak.

     "I'll send them over as soon as I can." I say, "And thank you, very much, for your help." 

  Just finished a really long section of my Estellian short story collection. I have to say, I feel like it's coming along really nicely. 

Alone in the Temple

     Day by day, life barely changes. 

    I didn't think being in the temple would ever be boring. It has every book that's ever been written after all. But now I can't stand it. 

     I can't leave either. The wanted posters are gone, but people talk about the new breaks in reality. I don't really know what it means. No one else seems to know either. All I do know is people are blaming the homeless for them. They know we can't run from pain. I'm lucky enough to have found a way to connect the temple to Estellia. Everywhere I go now, I see the bodies of those who weren't so lucky. 

    I should do something about this, but I don't know what. Trying to fight a God nearly got me put in prison. I know now that Estellia's a Dreamworld just like the temple is, but does that mean that I should shape it the way I would any other place in the Infinite. All I really know how to do is move doorways around and make small amounts of money. I don't know how to make the world a better place.

   One of my favorite stories is about a human who learns that lucidity is only making things worse for their friends and family. I always thought the ending was stupid, since they'd spent most of the book until that point making things better for everyone, even passerby, but then the last two chapters showed they'd only made life worse for everyone. I didn't think any of the examples, like a women killed by a train because she'd regained her ability to walk, made sense. Nightmares ruin our lives every day, and Alex has told me time and time again they don't do it for our benefit, so why should lucidity make life worse for people?

   Now though, I wonder if the book had a point. Is that what that person in the mirror was talking about? Am I just a person who uses Lucidity for evil?

   I wish I knew someone I trusted to tell me if I was doing the right thing.

  I look at the calendar on the wall of my study. It says it's getting close to the middle of spring. There should be a fair going on in the Fairylands right about now. I won't be able to go, since I'm a human, but they have a simplified version for their human citizens. I know, because I've been there multiple times. 

    I remember that there's usually a fortune teller. I know the fortunes they give humans are bogus, but right now even bad guidance would be better than no guidance at all. 

   I'll head there tonight while I'm sleeping in the temple. I don't want anything to happen by being awake in a Dreamworld. 

 I have a lot of blog Ideas, but I don’t have much I want to say right now. I’m too busy backing up all of my blog posts. I know my writing sucks, but that doesn’t mean that I’m okay with losing it.

Anarchy

 When did I stop loving society?
Why can I not see the good it brings us anymore?
Is it truly doomed to corruption and rot?
Or is that only what my injured heart is insisting is true?

Was it the pandemic that caused us to sicken?
Or did it simply kill us off?
Is the problem that our two parties won't talk?
Or do they simply have nothing to say?

Is society worth saving?
Is there a way to stave off the collapse?
If so many no longer believe it to be real,
How much longer until it gets torn apart?

The First Successful Social Media Platform

    Here's a hot take; we haven't seen the first really successful social media platform yet. I know there have been may platforms with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users, but the issue is that most platforms start declining after roughly a decade of use. This isn't scientific, but the successful platforms I've seen so far in my life have a lifestyle that goes something like this; you start out with a cool gimmick that everyone loves, people flock to you and build lots of accounts, those accounts begin to befriend one another, those friends form networks, bullies and jerks from outside appear to start trouble, someone points out major problems with the way the site deals with minority groups, drama starts, people demand moderation, the site owners fumble, everyone gets angry,  the site get's sold to someone hoping to make a profit with no knowledge of how the site functions on a community basis, everyone leaves for the next big platform. 

    We all, I think, know this by now. The problem is that this process can take anywhere from a few years to a decade. I've been posting daily on a Blog with no followers, and I've already realized that transferring to another blog if I have to close this one for any reason would be a major hassle. Imagine doing that once a year, or worse, after spending a decade on a platform, amassing thousands of posts about your life and interactions with your followers. If the decades since the internet's inception are any indication, it's not IF you have to flee to another website, it's when. 

     So why is it like this? 

      In my opinion, my deeply uninformed opinion, it's a social problem, not a platform problem. Take Twitter, as an example. The cause of it's grief is that it was bought by Elon Musk, a man with the distinct dishonor of being deeply popular in one segment of the population, while being universally hated by pretty much everyone else. But because of the rules of capitalism, he was allowed to buy Twitter, even though most of Twitter's userbase didn't want him too. If that doesn't seem like that big of a deal, let me put it another way; imagine if, instead of electing a president, our country was just outright owned by Bill Gates. He's not Universally loved, but he knows how to keep people happy enough to not want to revolt against him. Mostly. Then, one day, Jeff Bezos decides he wants to own America, as a way of avoiding taxes on his Amazon warehouses. There's a lot of teeth gnashing, but the transfer goes through. The issue is that Jeff Bezos is much more disliked, and lacks Bill Gates' knowledge of how to keep people just happy enough to not want you dead. So the country starts to fall apart as people leave, revolt, and stop trying to keep America afloat.

     That's what's happening on Twitter. Only with one of the worst billionaires alive (who should be very grateful that Donald Trump hasn't kicked the bucket). 

     To me, the way to solve this is twofold; make social media more democratic, and make it so that the moderators are in regular contact with the people who use the site. One makes it so that Hostile Takeovers can't happen anymore, the other makes it so that people know why a post was flagged, and so moderators have a better idea of what people do and don't want to see. 

    I don't think people should be taking any advice from me, but I do think the real solution to our social media problem is going to come from learning more about the "social" part. I think that we, as people, don't really understand how society works, and why certain rules help or hurt. Economists have tried, but they only understand a small part of it. It's going to take a lot more time, and a lot more effort, on the part of academics and normal folk alike, to make the first truly successful social media platform.