it’s a great time to be a hater, many things are bad and lots of stuff sucks. it’s also a terrible time to be a hater, because many people will insist that you have to like the bad thing because a company spent millions of dollars making it and it’s just not very nice to say it’s bad
hating is ultimately a philosophy of optimism. the knowledge that things could be better, and the desire to see them improve, differentiates it from the pessimism of idle consumption.
i understand all that shit about honor and knighthood and solemn vows but “kingslayer” is simply a bad insult. it sounds cool as fuck. might as well call him the landlord annihilator or the billionaire’s bane.
an old project i did for an experimental narrative class a couple years ago, set in the refracted light universe. i debated if i wanted to share it here, but i still quite like this little story about two big robots talking to each other across space.
(transcript below)
[a video of letters between candor and mosaic across three acts—eos, whalefall, pilot—played in tandem with selected portions of debussy's suite bergamasque, l. 75: III. clair de lune, performed by moura lympany, and ravel's miroirs, m. 43: la vallée des cloches, performed by jean-yves thibaudet. it is set over imagery of stars and nebulas and rosy pink and sunset and water. it is melancholic, from the perspectives of two deeply sad beings. the letters are formatted as a lightly interactive piece of text, where one could click through the pages at their leisure. at some point the text and visuals cut out, leaving only the music.]
refracted light;; selected letters between two ancient robots in space.
—
EOS
—
candor,
do you remember when the moon, eos, was whole? how the first light would shine over the horizon? do you remember how the moon would be set ablaze in pink? i have had cause to pass by its shattered corpse in recent days, and memories of its rosy light enamor me as i compose this message.
i remember when we, you and i, would come to roost there, to recharge the energy that fuels our ancient bodies, sunbathing as cats would in leisure. i remember how we would power down as we waited in the darkness, watching, watching until the light took us. do you remember how eos would sparkle? can you see the sunlight bending through its crystalline surface, how it would reach our bodies, reach through us, and set us on fire? you, your scales still smooth, nary a carving of the dead or the still upon you, shimmering in rose and orange and red. i, a giant then to what i am now, folded in on myself, then unfurling cell after cell to reach for the sun. oh, how eos made me sing!
do you remember how that rosy light would linger in you, candor? how eos’s light would trail behind you until it faded? do you remember how i could shine in no other colors for days on end?
i think of eos and i think of you, candor. i think of your scales ablaze.
i wish you would join me.
—
mosaic,
i do remember when the moon, eos, was whole. i remember how the first light would shine over the horizon, how it would set the moon and us ablaze in pink. i remember those days when we would come to roost, waiting, watching in the darkness until the light took us. i remember how eos’s crystalline surface would sparkle, how we would reflect its rosy light, and i remember how it would make you sing.
i remember how eos would linger in us, you and i, how you would take on its shifting colors and patterns for days on end. i saw how it would make you dance, mosaic. and, seeing this, quietly i too would sing.
i remember this, mosaic. i remember this and us on eos and its rosy pink. i remember a time before the Whalefall when i did not carry the dead and unmoving with me. i remember a time when you were large enough to engulf a small sun. but now i am covered in tombstones, and i can only imagine that you grow smaller still.
i think of eos and i think of you, mosaic, but you know i cannot join you. i cannot watch you throw yourself upon the rocks and shatter yourself as we shattered eos with our own hands.
i wish i could hear you sing.
mosaic, i hope you still sing.
—
candor,
as i compose this message, i think once more of the shattered moon, eos.
i think of eos, and i think of it whole. i think of a time when we, you and i, could roost upon its glassy surface and be overtaken by its rosy light. how it would bathe our aching mechanical bodies and set us ablaze with warmth. i think of how it would make me sing.
i think of eos and i think of it in a time before we, you and i, took to its skies and pinpricked its atmosphere with cannon fire, shot it through with rays of destructive light. i think of it as it was before its surface dissolved into glittering dust, before we carved pieces from it and tossed them into the quiet of space. before it became the shell i see now as i write to you.
i see this shell and i imagine a world in which worlds upon worlds exist in parallel, where each reflects the infinite outcomes of all that could ever be. where, somewhere, eos—our eos—is whole. and if such a world exists, perhaps i should take comfort that somewhere out there eos remains untouched by our nebulous war. i should take comfort in it, yet all i can do is weep. i weep and wonder why we, you and i, have been confined to this place, this time in which i write to you thinking once more of a shattered moon.
when we last spoke of eos, you told me, “i hope you still sing.”
i tell you now, candor. No longer.
—
WHALEFALL
—
mosaic,
have you seen a true whalefall? perhaps i have spoken of this memory before, but today i recall a time when, centuries ago, i dived beneath the waters of a planet that no longer exists and settled on its ocean floor. there i chanced to see the decaying carcass of a whale slowly falling into the deep sea. slowly, slowly, until it tucked itself into sediment. still. new life provided to single- and multi-celled organisms for years to come.
the soft tissue was consumed in a matter of months. reduced to skeleton as it supported those creatures of the deep. i watched as the bones began to decay. and then i watched until even they were gone.
i watched entire ecosystems spring to life around that dead muscle and bone, and i remained there in wonder for a decade after.
—
mosaic,
the memory of that day has not left me. a thousand, thousand machines and their pilots crumpled like paper, metal and wire and flesh and bone carcasses drifting downwards into the deep, sinking in their own detritus.
i consumed them all, mosaic, but no new life springs forth. machine and pilots all, dead and still within me. their memories do not live on, their voices only echoes, ghosts haunting the framework. each one a tombstone carved into my scales.
and what will happen when i am gone? those who would mourn us are dead or dying or still. when i, too, go still, who will hold them in their rest? or must i carry them with me for eternity?
i, a grave.
—
PILOT
—
candor,
word has reached me of the death of your pilot and oracle. i understand now why our silences have stretched on. i offer no words of ineffective platitude, only that you and i both know this loss all too well. in this, i grieve with you.
i know what you are like when you are pilotless. please remember that i am here. across the vastness of space, i am here.
—
candor,
it has been six months since my last transmission. i have not yet heard a sound from you. i know you receive these messages, and so i know you live.
candor, dear one, i expect no conversation from you. but please. tell me you hear me?
—
candor.
it has been a near full two years since my last transmission, and without a sound from you. i know you have gone silent. i do not wish to change this.
i only ask that you acknowledge me. i only ask that you not shut yourself away so completely. remember that i am here. across the vastness of space, across the shattered corpse of eos, across the whalefall, i am here.
tell me you hear me.
—
...
mosaic.
i hear you.
mosaic. dear one. forgive me. i hear you.
it has been a full three months since your last transmission. and,
i don’t have an and.
only that i still grieve. even as she is still with me, i grieve. i, with her permission, with her offering, consumed her as i consumed the Whalefall. she, with my permission, with my offering, remains a ghost that haunts my halls. i contain multitudes within me, mosaic, and aria is now among them. i hear her as i hear you.
eyes touched by starlight as all the pilots who came before her. sharp fangs and relentless pursuit. i grew fangs alongside her. steady and quiet. heavy footfalls. sure hands. fear of the chase. they found her and this time i could not save her. her blood still stains me. it will be subsumed in time.
—
...
mosaic. i will be silent for a while yet. but i will endeavor to leave myself open to you. i will acknowledge you. i will remember that across the vastness of space, you are there.
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