Ab Antiquo

Everly wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 14, 2024 10:27 pm

I learned things, the least of which was my new favorite word: fucktastic.

--Before you do anything, before you enter into any conversation, any negotiation, before you open your mouth and click send on that message, what do you ask yourself? If anything, what do you ask yourself?
--Why am I doing this and is it worth it?

Purpose. Clans existed with a purpose. Clans held up their place in the sky not too long ago, before you walked here, vampire. There were dozens: The House of Heorot, the Shadow Court, Archangel, Capadocious, Yggdrasil, Republic of RavenBlack, the Splinters of Dusk, the Church of Blood—look for their names. Look back at your roots. What they all had in common, these clans that make up our history, they knew their Why.

These clans rose, and they fell, they clawed their ways back up again—and again—and so the wheel turned. Because there was purpose. Because they knew the nature of the boulder they were trying to push up that god damn hill.

Why are you here? If I were to ask you to write a manifesto now of everything that you believe or believe you believe, would you be able to? Have you already? Are you sure?

--A few vampires—philosophers, thought leaders, orators, fabulists—helped shape our city and our clans by lending their words to a purpose. They wrote philosophies, manifestos; they gave voice to WHY.
So, today, we begin with Lucius.
Top of mind recently, Lucius.
Which is funny, because I have it on good authority he wasn't even around that long.
--You don't have to be around long to have an impact. Lightning can be devastating but exists for less than a second.

--I find Lucius’s Little Truths to be a particularly interesting time capsule of our history. Of how this city used to be. Some of his Truths, of course, are absolute drivel, but nobody ever accused Lucius of being the sanest vampire in RavenBlack City. It’s drivel and it’s not. It’s satire and it’s not. Schrodinger’s meaning. Let’s go through a few at random. Scan through the handout, please, and pick one out and let’s talk about it.
--Number 19. [Honor is like spread blood: it grows cold and stale after a while]
I've been hearing people go on and on and on about "honor" and it means something different to each person who uses it.
--It’s currency, just like most things.
--To be honourable, one must adhere to what is right. But what is right depends on who you’re talking to.
--Right. Honor. Honor is something that anyone can define, anyone with half a mind can dream up. Anyone can take it away from you if they decide your honor doesn't match their honor. So what is more important than honor. What is truly yours? Your why. Your purpose.

--Number 5. The one who speaks with anger makes his anger heard, but his words forgotten. I personally feel like anger is valid, but can never truly lead to a good result. So anything spoken with anger doesn't hold much weight to me. I don't feel it was thoroughly taken into consideration and given time to be processed.
--I don't trust my anger. I think it's blinding.
--Anger is very useful. But then that’s to me, not to the angry person.
--Negative emotions—hurt, anger, disdain, and specially their more advanced cousin, spite—they're as valid a reason to do anything as anything else. It's an engine, and it's a blade in the right hands, and it gives that blade somewhere to go. Rage must be purposeful, or it's wasted. If a blade isn't being used, then it's no longer a tool.
--I love me some knowledge - let me see what fuels your spite, my darling. No homo.
--Some homo.

--36. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. Well, in war, you can make allies.. thats' fucktastic... but easily one misunderstanding, one assumption. The friendship or ally can crumble and, like ..add to your enemy list easily. Like fuck... you break a mirror try to glue it, its fractured to pieces... if yanno that shit makes sense.
--Enemies have purpose - something countering yours. Petty bullshit creates grudges, not enemies.
--Grudges grow or remain, but when opportunity arises, they can come stab you. Don't they become an enemy then?
--Or you can get over it. But I’ve made a career of makings enemies and then turning them into friends.
--I wonder if Truth 36 poses a deeper question about the nature of the city. Alliances change and evolve throughout the course of war and warfare; the lines between enemy and friend and ally and kin have always been blurred here.
--It makes me think of 126
--Time is forbidden for our kind. We don't live in it. So we can't place our own kind into boxes like enemy, ally, friend, or whatever. It makes me think that is too human of a perspective. For our kind we are what we are supposed to be at the moment.
--I think there’s also a certain level of respect afforded someone you view as an enemy. An enemy requires some panache and wit to handle. Most people who hate me aren’t my enemies. They’re not even on my radar because they’re frankly not that interesting.
--I think [...] that no matter what, friend or enemy. Someone always has a reason for stabbing someone else in the back. Or a reason for hate. Dislike. But alot of the time they can never tell you why. They only follow others feelings or thoughts.

--Personally I think Lucius can get fucked by a nasty thing in the Dreaming for even writing number 13. Specifically for the second half of that statement.
--What's the Dreaming?

--I can't pick any of these out of the others but I must know. Did Lucicus and Cap ever finally fuck it out? Because god damn the sexual tension in these is thicker than concrete.

--...I'd like to point to number 84. A city of anarchy is a city of promise.
--The wheel must turn.
--Sometimes it needs to be wound up, though.
--I think a lot of people are doing great work taking advantage of the surge a conflict always brings though, which is... hopeful.
[...]
--That’s the cycle though. Things rise, they thrive, they die, and then something else takes its place.
--Whatever else can be said about Lucius, it can be said that at least, once, when writing his screed, he stumbled upon a Truth: that too much order and too much peace kills this city and stops the wheel.

--What's the middle ground?
--Finding a middle group between order and chaos. At that point we are debating religion aren't we?
--On the matter of "middle ground," as the wee one put it before. There can be no middle ground. I said this to my childe and my granchilde yesterday: Co-existing and fighting don't necessarily have to be opposing forces if they happen with the advancement of the whole in mind. Philosophies must be pushed. Mind sets must be argued, and fought over. Struggle must exist. This City, the truth of this City, is that it's a cycle of death and rebirth. Conflict is the driving force of it. The co-existing of several opposing forces is what drives this place.
--It all boils down to the fact that people do, in fact, wanna fight about it.
--Well, we want to fight about it. But then we also want to laugh about it.
--I don't want to fight about it. I think kindness and understanding go as far, if not further, than outright conflict. This place proves it.
--But this place is part of the cycle.
--This was created because there was a need to learn.
--We’re in the laughing part of the cycle. And, frankly, I wish there were more faces here who understood that losing a conflict isn’t the end of the world. I’ve been the one exiled often enough to know that sometimes you have to claw your way back. If you’re not willing to do that, if you’re not willing to try, then no one can help you even though the door is wide open.

--But that's the thing. That is why ideas and philosophies are important. So the vials have meaning.
--I'll fight if I have to. But I think seeking it out for its own sake poisons us. Natural conflict occurs, but forcing it is a venom. I've heard talk today about making people angry, getting upset, making them hate you. Enjoying it. That's seeking it out. If you're picking a fight just to pick a fight - why? You're all making great points. It just... doesn't feel kind. A lot of what was said here today. A lot of [here, the speaker flaps the handout] this.
--Because that's what makes people move, little one. Fear and loathing in RavenBlack. A film with as many sequels as there are years in this City. Some people need villains so they can justify themselves. Some of us, dear girl, are more than willing to be that villain so you can feel better about yourself. Is that not kindness?
--Kindness is shown in the how. I can take a chainsaw to wood and call it a day, or I can take the time to do it carefully and thoughtfully. I don't enjoy violence. I literally opened this place to, among other things, teach people how to be more violent, and yet I do not enjoy it. So I get it. I do. For the longest time, I actually refused to touch or use weaponry at all. I declared myself a pacifist. And yet, here I am. I find myself teaching it, and I have a reputation for it. Everly -- I don't do it without kindness. I do it precisely so I can do that: take care of my people. Our community. I want people to be able to stand up for themselves and others on fair, equal ground. I want people to have that option, and I want them to be able to do it and end the fight laughing and joking about it. I never fight because I feel like it. I don't war on my own.
--Being good at war ends wars faster, generally. It’s the path of least resistance…
--A kindness, really.
--Conflict scares me. Not the act - what it creates. The way it kills people, drives them from the city. But I love fighting. I enjoy hunting, dueling. I'm good at these things. I just... I don't know, what [...] said about being the villain? I don't think that's ever something I want to come close to.I'm happy to defend me and mine. I don't want to seek out fights, be the antagonist.
--You are scared of yourself?
--Gods, yes.
--And that's alright. Not everyone is okay with being the one to get the wheel spinning. I do think that is what I intended when I made this space, though. I've had a childe in the past who.. for lack of a better way of saying it.. She grew wildly and brightly and burned herself out over this place, because she tried too hard to model herself after the type of wars that existed in the past. Too personal. Too toxic. Too..

There's a lot of words I could say there.

But one thing I want to try to do with this place is make is somewhere where that cycle, that pruning, that use of force to keep things alive -- it doesn't have to be with that same cost. There's no reason things have to be so deep, so permanent. Conflict is necessary, but how we engage in it? That we get to choose. And by teaching others, by sharing this knowledge openly and for only the sake of doing so, I want to try to make it so the thought of keeping that wheel turning doesn't immediately result in people turning to poison out of their lack of understanding.

I do not war because I enjoy it. I war because the people I love need me to, and I would do for them so gladly. But that does not mean I do not show kindness to the people I war against, because I know they are coming from the same place.

So please understand: my sire, my family -- I respect what they do beyond words, because they are willing to be that Sisyphus and get the boulder moving, time and time again. I understand why they do it. I don't expect everyone to see that same vision or agree with it; that's not what we're here for. But I know for certain I wouldn't be able to accomplish what they do. I simply help where I can.

And that, to me. . . is nothing but kindness.

It’d be very dull if we all thought the same thing. … I suppose my own differing view is the idea of heroes and villains. How often have those viewed as heroic turned out to be rotten to the core? How frequent are we able to just have a drink with those chaotic madhatters? All of us are a bit of both. We span the spectrum because balance demands it. The city has those that try and maintain order, and those that spread chaos. Creation and Destruction require both. Lest the world stagnates and dies.