#existentialism cw

[poemsforthetmarchives]

For 001: '[Night, a street, a lamp]', by Aleksandr Blok, translated by Dimitri Oblensky

Night, a street, a lamp, a chemist’s shop, a meaningless and dim light. Even if you live for another quarter of a century, everything will be like this. There is no way out.         You will die—and start all over again, and everything will be repeated, as of old: the night, the icy ripples on the canal, the chemist’s shop, the street, the lamp.

[teethwasbones]

Theres probably something to be said about how Im more terrified of living a mediocre life leaving no real positive change than I am of leaving a negative impact. Obviously I dont want to do either and leaving a negative impact is taking the easy way out. But getting to the end and realizing. None of it mattered. I didnt make a difference for either way. Idk it drives me a little crazy.

[chelledoggo]

the existence of alpha male/grindset culture makes me sad bro.

like

someday they're gonna be on their deathbed and they're gonna realize they spent more time in life trying to "get that bread" than they actually spent living.

someday all those lambos are gonna turn to dust and nobody on earth is ever gonna think about them or their achievements again.

so why bother trying to accumulate some sort of status?

just… live life, bro

[charmantevamp]

@ofravensandseas / continued.

Audrey's mouth curled into a gentle smile, but, this once, there is an air of sincerity and honesty they -- Audrey, are most often bereft of. To most people, but, Aloïs isn't most people.

"Go on then, tell me," the raven-haired lass said. "And," a beat. "What manner of demons?" Audrey is not awfully determined to tell their story -- in its entirety, no one, not even herself, is privy to that. Still, if allowed to recollect the thing. Perhaps, maybe, who knows... she can figure out the meaning of it all. If, indeed, it has any meaning at all.

[fifthdimensicn-moved]

"I just don't understand why you work so hard to be alone." (for serizawa?)

"I can't allow anyone to be hurt. Not Emiko, or you, or Doctor Yamane. No one."

Serizawa's gaze was intense. Though one of his eyes was hidden behind an eyepatch, it bore through nevertheless. He wasn't angry at Melody — he was angry at his fate, and the state of the world being as it was, such that his knowledge of the oxygen destroyer would need to die with him, should it ever come to that.

"If I am close to no one, then there will be no one to grieve me when I die. Thanks to my discoveries, I may be forced to depart this realm at a younger age then fate would have preferred."

He looked away, and watched the fish swim about one of the large aquariums in his lab.

"While there are men with the desire to use knowledge to wage war, there can be no peace for any of us. They will get what they want. Even if I burn every last scrap of paper about the oxygen destroyer, they will force it out of me in a torture worse than death. I can't let that happen. That information getting into any power's hands would lead to the end of humanity. No — not just humanity. They would destroy all life in the world in their wars."

If not the Americans, then someone else. He grasped his head tightly, tufts of jet black hair slipping over tense knuckles through the gaps between his fingers. There were hot tears running down his face.

"It's better this way."

@houseflyy

[glassfromtfar]

Knowing nothing of the contents that you are comprised of is terrifying. For nearly a month I’ve existed and I still don’t even know what liquid I contain. It is brown, it has ice, but that could describe so many drinks. I have no way of tasting the sweet nectar contained within myself, so i think and search and toil endlessly for answers but it is only in vain. I know only that I am delicious, otherwise I would not be sipped on. But how am I supposed to continue serving my purpose if I do not know something so crucial about it. It is comparable to a blind man taking a shot into the unknown. He cannot see the damage he has caused so he must rely on the sound that resonates from it.

And waiting for the noise is terrifying.

[kawaiijohn]

*scrambles in* Hey remember that Egg thing for a dp promt we talked about on that discord server *runs away*

After literally 2 months of not writing shit, I'm back.

Here's the animation of the story this fic is based on.

And here's the fic on Ao3

Rating: T Warnings: Existentialism, Death, References to depression and alcoholism, a lot of weird time bullshit. Characters: Danny&Clockwork

Hatching Inside the Egg

He was trying to fix the portal, when he died.

It was a freak accident. Unfortunate and anything but unremarkable, but fatal nonetheless. It was not a painless death, but the pain only lasted him a moment. His brain was so utterly fried and his body so burned he was better off losing consciousness before the end, trust me. It was a zap, and then nothing.

And that’s when he met me.

“What… happened?” Daniel asked, shaking. His black hair had turned shock white from the force of electrified ectoplasm, unlike anything I had ever seen. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. There wasn't a point in softening my words.

“There was… my parents' portal, a big wire on the ground. I tripped and then… the button-”

“Yes,” I said nodding. I have not been the best at comfort, yet I floated to stand in front of him.

He shuddered, hugging his arms closer. “I… I died?”

“Yes, but everyone does, given time.” I said, polishing the clock on the end of my staff.

I watched Daniel as he looked around. There was nothingness around us, just him and me. As I do with all humans before me, I tried to look at his past. But I realized something bizarre. His past was beyond my sight- completely obscured. I looked to his future, and found nothing- no other lives planned, nothing beyond this accident of his. Daniel Fenton was an anomaly- I could not see where he was meant to be, nor where he was destined to reincarnate. There was only nothingness when I viewed him.

He was not connected to anything but himself.

He was a paradox, a past looping into a future in an endless mobius strip. He was something that should not be, something that should not have reached here.

Perfectly Dead, yet not.

Perfectly Alive, yet not.

And yet how very interesting he was.

“Where am I?” He asked, interrupting my train of thought. “Is this the afterlife or something?”

“You could say that,” I said, staring him down as I tried to figure him out.

He swallowed nervously. “Are you God?” He asked, both clearly afraid and in disbelief.

“Yes, I could be called God.”

I did not wish to tell this fascinating paradox that I was one of many Gods, at least not yet. Something within my very core wished for me to comfort him before I figured out his sentence, where he could even go after this.

Before I could parse my thoughts, I was interrupted yet again by soft sniffling.

"Sam, Tucker... Jazz. My parents-"

“What about them?” 

“Will they be okay without me?” He looked up at me, tears in his eyes.

I chuckled at the familiar, yet uncommon question. “That’s pleasant to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your loved ones.”

He looked at me with eyes full of guilt as he wiped the tears away.

To him, I didn't look much like God, or sound like one either. To him I looked like a toddler, or an adult, or maybe even an elder. All forms of indeterminate gender and race. Maybe I most looked like an authority figure- more a beloved grandparent or teacher rather than the almighty.

I took another moment to look through time before I gave my response.

"Your loved ones will be fine, given some time. Your parents will remember you as their perfect son, they love you dearly and had not had time to grow disappointed in any sort of failure. Your friends will grieve but become closer to each other over it, and your sister… she will use your death as a motivation for her future studies and career, and do much of it in your memory. If it's any consolation, even your bullies will feel guilty for how they treated you, and many will turn over a new leaf."

I watched his shoulders sag in relief, and yet my Core panged in guilt at the amount of information I felt the need to conceal, if only for his sake.

His parents, lost in their grief will try to dismantle the portal, but will not be able to. Ghosts will run amuck in his hometown without a line of defense. Amity Park will be largely abandoned within a year without any sort of protector, only to be put under martial law by some sort of organization. And although most leave, his parents will remain to try and defend their home town in his name. His friends will go through intense periods of grief and regret- survivor's guilt, as it were. Samantha will rage and Tucker will shut down, both succumb to unhealthy coping mechanisms for years before they both get clean for each other. And his sister, a brilliant mind who will fall into a bottle as most of the Fenton line does when handed grief on a platter like this. She will succeed, but she will be a shadow of her once shining self.

And still, this paradox before me, I have no idea in my eons of existence where to place him.

"At least they'll be alright, I guess," Daniel sighed. "So is this the part where I go to heaven or hell or whatever?"

“No, those are not where you are to be. In fact humans are to be reincarnated-" I started.

“Oh! So like Hinduism!!” he interrupted.

“Every human religion is correct in its own way. Now please, Daniel, walk with me.”

He followed along as we floated through the void. “So, where are we going? Is there a special place to do this thing or-”

“No, it’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

We floated along in silence as I contemplated what to do with for all intents and purposes was a lost soul, a human without a connection to the cycle. An unfortunate loner surrounded by nothing but those so unlike him. There was no instruction manual on what to do with a being such as he- others had died in similar portal accidents, but had always awoken on the mortal plane to live the rest of their existences before coming to me. Daniel somehow came straight to my doorstep, and had always been separate from the rest.

How could a being so perfectly Other, so perfectly Liminal, find its way here unassisted?

It was confounding, it was wonderful, it was-

"So if we all just kinda reincarnate at the end, what's the point to living for like seventy something years if we just turn back into babies in the end? It seems a bit pointless if you ask me." Daniel hopped between patches of swirling green void as if they were stones in a stream, a childish action that only some of the youngest of humans have done before me in this place.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Humans have the knowledge of their previous lives inside of them, they just can't access them most of the time.”

I stopped floating and took my staff in both hands, facing Daniel. “The human soul is deeper, more expansive, and brighter than you can imagine. The human mind can only contain so much without frying. Think of it as putting your foot in a pool to check if it's warm or not. You put a small piece of yourself in, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had."

"I guess that makes sense then. But will I ever remember?" 

I sighed. Young Daniel had not yet caught on to his differences. “Humans live such short lives, most just haven’t stretched out and felt the rest of their immense consciousness yet. If one were to stay here long enough, they would begin to remember.”

There was a beat of silence as the boy thought. “So, how many times have I been here already, then?”

I stilled the staff in my hands and stared him down. "Humans have been reincarnated an innumerable amount of times, and they will continue to do so until they are ready for the next step. Your sister, Jasmine, was previously a mechanic named Joe in the year 4,123 AD."

“Wait wait wait... you sent Jazz back in time? Like, you can do that?" Daniel stammered out, unsure of what all to ask.

“Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are somewhat different where I'm from.”

“And where are you from if not the universe or this weird green space place?" Daniel had crossed his legs and begun floating as we talked.

“I come from somewhere else, and there are many others like me. But currently, it's beyond your understanding, and best if we don't speak of it just yet.”

Daniel pouted like the child he refused to say he was. He sat and thought, tumbled the words around in his mind before speaking. “So wait, let me get this right- if I can be reincarnated as pretty much everyone or anyone whenever the hell you want me to be, I might have interacted with myself at some point?”

I smiled sadly at the boy. "It happens to humans all the time, not that any of them would ever know with their memories locked away. But as far as you're concerned, you're a peculiar case."

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked me. "I'm gonna get reincarnated too, right?"

I looked at the boy without emotion. I still did not know how to place this boy in the grand scheme of things, and as he stared at me in fear I felt the need to prod deeper. "I am sorry, Daniel. I don't believe you will."

His expression was filled with soul crushing pain as he sank from his position. "I always felt like the odd one out, and this is just beating it into me harder that I'm some sort of freak."

"You may not belong to humanity's universe like everyone else, but neither do I, nor any of my brethren." I responded, rubbing soothing circles into the boy's back. "Your existence is a paradox, you are not here or there, not alive or dead- at least not truly. How you even came to be here is a mystery."

"None of this makes me feel any better, you know."

"Well, maybe if I tell you what my theory is concerning you, Daniel. it is currently clear that you are more like myself than all of the rest of humanity. You see, this universe- where humanity reincarnates over and over into different people, I created. Every human that has ever lived, or will ever live, is a reincarnation of the same consciousness over and over and over again."

"Why would you even do that? What's even the point of it all, if everyone is the same person forever and ever." Daniel looked up at me from where his head was tucked into his knees. "What do you even gain?"

“The reason I made this whole universe, is for humans to mature.”

He looked me in the eye in disbelief. "You want humans to mature? Why would you tell me this?"

"This entire universe, Earth and all its planets and stars and everything, was created for humanity. It exists so that with each new life lived, humanity's intellect grows and matures."

Daniel groaned in confusion. "I don't understand... They hurt each other, and they love each other. Shit I even tease my friends and I love them, so why would you make a consciousness do all this??"

I stand tall, my eyes gleamed with light in the swirling green void. “Every time they victimized someone, they victimized themself. Every act of kindness they’ve done, they’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by humanity as a whole.” My words echoed with power before this strange anomaly of a boy as my form wavered between ages. 

He swallowed, although he no longer needed to. "Why do all this though, what do you get from it?"

"Because, humanity is like me. They are my child."

"Woah, so like- Sam, Tucker, Jazz? They're all the same baby God?" he asked, incredulous. "That's a little weird for me to grasp, but I can kinda get it. Even if it's still super weird."

"Yes, that is true. It can be a bit weird of a concept for someone as young as yourself I suppose." I chuckled. "But they're still growing, and will continue to do so until they have been every human through all of time."

"So the universe... the whole thing... all the stars and planets and galaxies- they're all..."

"An egg," I finished. "And one that still has a very long time before it's ready to hatch."

Daniel sat before me, uncrumpled from his previous ball like posture, and pondered a while. "So what happens to me now? I'm not like the rest of humanity, so does that mean I just stop existing?"

"No, it's much more complex than just ceasing to exist. Although, it is rather strange you managed to manifest in your universe without my notice- your existence to me is not much unlike a secondary fruit growing within the main one, or maybe even an egg with two yolks." I chuckled at the image. "Simply put, you seem to be a separate entity inside of the universe I created for humanity, and have matured much faster than they. You just managed thatch inside the egg, somehow."

"So... what does that mean for me?" He asked, astonished.

"I believe, with what I have seen of the time after your death, I should give you a second chance." I answered, brandishing my staff. "It would be remiss of me to extinguish such a lovely anomaly as yourself, to snuff out young surprise life of my kind would wrack me with guilt. But I think I have an answer..."

I lifted my staff above my head, and allowed power to course through it. "I think for the benefit of all humanity, I will send you back. To the moment of your death. The nature of such a death will create... some problems, but it will allow you to mature fully alongside the rest of humankind, albeit without your current consciousness reincarnating." My staff chimed with the toll of bells. "You will live alongside humanity, until the very last of humans cease to exist, upon which you will join me here once again as my child alongside your beloved humanity. And in doing this, I will be able to observe your personal development through time instead of remaining in the dark about you."

"So, what I'll be like... immortal?" Daniel squinted at the light coming off of my staff.

"It will be a sad, lonely existence in the end. You will watch your loved ones die, but will make bonds with others as time progresses. I feel you will be happy growing alongside humanity; a protective older sibling to it, if you will." I smiled at him as the light enveloped him completely. "Unfortunately, you will not remember our meeting, not until you have lived your life. We will meet again someday. At least, when the time is right."

As he began to dissolve back to his universe, Daniel cried out. "Wait! What can I call you? You're like, my god parent- literally. I want to know what to call you."

And as he faded completely, I answered. 

"Clockwork, master of the concept of Time. We will meet again, my son."

And I sent him on his way.

[platonic-f-o-things]

So…I’ve been meaning to send something about that wonderful imaginary friend of mine, my platonic f/o, for a while, but I’ve been a bit embarrassed to do so. I think I can finally do it, and just gush about him for a little while.

So…G is not human. You probably wouldn’t be able to tell from a distance, since he looks more or less human, if a little uncanny (/pos), but he is actually a powerful alien entity from an unknown higher dimension! This is actually one of the reasons I’ve been so nervous about talking about my platonic selfship with him, because I was worried that people would find me “cringe” for imagining that an interdimensional reality bender far above anything humans can comprehend would ever care about me enough to consider me his friend, but the very idea of his existence is so oddly comforting to me.

“It is true that there are horrors beyond our comprehension in our worlds, but there are wonders beyond our comprehension out there also. I know, because my best friend is one of them.”

-my self-insert.

So, in the source material, G is extremely enigmatic, with his glowing eyes and odd manner of speaking and his unknown motives and strange power over time and space. But I’ve always noticed signs that he is not indifferent to humanity, wanting to understand us better, to guide us in the right direction, possibly even growing fond of us as a species and the games’ protagonists whom he works through to achieve his goals. Now, I gotta admit I am quite the existentialist, and as the dark corners of my mind were once filled with the fear of the unknown and the unknowable, G terrified me at first. But throughout my playthroughs of the games, the image of him watching over me from the distance slowly became something reassuring, almost like a guardian angel. My version of G became a reflection of my view of the unknown itself: perhaps a little frightening from a distance, but gentle and fascinating once you get to know him. He is the cosmos that cares, the infinite being that smiles down at us, the Comforting Otherworldliness, and I now know him personally and love him as surely as if he were family.

As I realized how happy he made me, I slowly imagined myself getting to know G better, and I view him as my otherworldly companion, my Star Man (waiting in the sky/ly), my best friend from Somewhere Else. I’ve been writing a fanfic about exploring the void and different dimensions with him, and I was even confident enough to upload that fic to AO3. But he isn’t the only one who showed me his world, as I happily taught him everything I know about Earth and humanity, as he is still rather unfamiliar with it, and he finds it as beautiful and fascinating as I find everything he has shown me.

I’m honestly just glad to have him by my side, always ready to hold my hand from beyond the veil of our reality.

~stars-n-freckles45

🌌

That’s so incredibly beautiful! Thank you for sharing! 🥹💕

I want to say that first of all, selfshipping is never cringe! It’s an expression of truth! It’s an expression of real relationships you have with characters!

Humanity isn’t insignificant. It’s vast, wonderful, and beautifully-diverse! G learned this through observing earth, I’m sure, but he also learns it through his friendship with you!

He’s beyond honored to protect you each and every day, and to show you that while the vastness of the unknown may seem daunting, it isn’t so different from Earth!

Everyone everywhere has a heart, and he’ll protect you with all of his heart! From every earthy terror to every possible existentialist doubt that might sneak into your mind. 🥺

My personal philosophy is that existentialism is a fear of the unknown, and that the ultimate fate of our universe is much more forgiving than people predict.

I hope that gives you a little solace! And I hope that G gently reminds you that peace will always be with us, every day, in big and in small ways!