Right, then.

[silveradept]

So. Today was fighting off a bit of a headache all day - one of the new housemates is taking it to the ants... and using some of the stuff that might make your head lighten a little if you stay too close to it. Still, someone determined to win the war? We should stay the course on this particular conflict.

The preferred browser of extraterrestrials is Firefox. See? Even aliens like it better than IE. And since I'm an expert on the subject, you can't disagree with me! Fear my expertise! FEAR IIIIIIT!

Actually, don't. Don't give into the fear. Fear will make authorities hold an innocent man for five years after he is cleared. Fear makes it so that, even though there's no evidence Iran's involved at all in Iraq, what's like to happen is that there will be a search for terrorists... even if they have to be made up on the spot so that the agenda will continue, and people will live in fear. Don't give in to the fear. Give it the middle finger, instead. Also, keep an eye out - religion-related fraud is on the rise. Be wise with whom you tithe.

Eventually, diversity finds its way into all places. Either through the "Mostly Harmless" route, or through the changing of a guard, or through the simple act of a secular business/government going, "Yeah, you can buy the place. We could use the revenues" (crassly capitalist of me, I'm sure, but this is how things work.)

Retro comic adverts. Even then, people wanted you to spend money on pointless junk.

Evangelicals in Kenya want a museum to put its evolution exhibit in the back, rather than out front, where it probably belongs, considering the depth and breadth of the collection there.

It took the blogosphere to do it, but the RIAA is relenting on suing a dead man. This is, however, after the blogosphere picked up on it. While the guy was dead, they were still going to raid his estate and his family. Something's very wrong here. So we fully endorse The Pirate Party's ideas and hope the party and its planks make it over to the U.S. Perhaps it could get in virally through hijacking the Democratic party and transforming them into an actual leftist organization. You know, so that there are actually two parties with differing viewpoints, rather than two names for the same ideas?

And now, for original content! Whoo!

I'm beginning to understand why people would take on the sigils of the Heartless and the Nobodies. I know of at least one person who has one tattooed on each arm. It's not just because Kingdom Hearts is a fabulous game to play, but because of the themes it embodies. Light and darkness, both necessary, both usable. But also, the place in between, where there is nothing. In the places that never were, with the bodies that have no hearts and seek them. Those who are open to the darkness can use and control the Heartless, but they risk becoming Heartless themselves. The Heartless are and aren't named properly. A Heartless is born when a heart leaves a body and is transformed into a shape. The Heartless have no heart, but they are made of a heart. What they leave behind is a shell without a heart - a nobody. (Which is also a bit of a misnaming, as all the nobodies have physical forms, and thus, bodies. They are the truly heartless.)

I wonder what happens on the other side, as well. If someone became so filled with light that they drove out their darkness, what would they become? Would there be another monster, born out of the drive to destroy darkness, crafted from the heart fully of light? Would there be Nobodies that came about because their original owners immersed themselves too far the other way? Even Sora, who's probably the farthest along such a purification, has darkness in his heart. It's an interesting speculation to wonder what happens on the other end of the scale. And the end of both Chain of Memories and KH II suggests that the Way to the Dawn is, in fact, the most powerful of the three paths to take, although probably requires the most effort as well. If you'll permit a slight cross-pollination, perhaps this is the Key(blade) of the Twilight/Daybreak?

It's a little strange. Anyway, what I was actually going to get at in this strange in-joke style speculation was that I wonder how many people feel like they're losing to the darkness? How many people strive to be Sora, pure? How many people embrace their darkness and immerse themselves in it, lose their way and become Heartless? How many others lose their way and their heart, and become Nobodies, unable to feel at all? Are there people who can successfully navigate the Way to the Dawn? What does it take?

And where am I in all of this?

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Actually the second book in the long saga I'm constantly wqorking on touches on this issue. The big bad guy is a being made of light that uses light as a weapon in an attempt to wipe the world clean.

So have you beat the game yet, or still working on it?

[silveradept]

Beaten it. I've cleared all the things that I wanted to. A friend of mine picked up one last neat thing that I would like to have, but if it requires something like full completion of the challenges, then I'm not going through with it. At least, not without help and an army of people to play so that the boredom and frustration doesn't set in.

[sharkcowsheep.livejournal.com]

Purely on the Kingdom Hearts front, what happens to people with no darkness in their heart is canon already: they're the Princesses of Heart. Kairi's one of 'em.

So there's your answer--being all the way on the light side doesn't make you a Nobody, Heartless, or anything else. Mostly it just makes you a dull character.

[silveradept]

Really? Well, that blasts a potentially good metaphor out of the water. In some other ways, it still makes it work, but the effectiveness is pretty reduced.

Ah, well. This is what happens when you've got everything but one piece and decide to post it anyway.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

New icon?


The vinegar isn't working on the ants anymore? "/. That's a bummer.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

lso, you're not a nobody.

[silveradept]

Oh, the vinegar still works, it's just a temporary fix for most things. This particular person hates the ants enough to wage full-scale war on them. It should be fun to watch and/or participate in.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I've found that the Raid natural clove thing (they advertise it as a completely natural product using cloves rather than pesticides) works very well if used correctly. You probably have argentine ants (small and black/brown in huge numbers with well-defined trails). What you do is spray all of their trails and along all the cracks and the sides and floorboards contacting and killing as many ants as you can. Then DO NOT CLEAN UP THE BODIES. The ants that survive will 1) be disoriented by the smell and 2) be discouraged by the multitude of bodies. Repeat, waiting at least 12 hours between applications and after two days, they should be making a retreat.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

hehehehehe. I attempted a war on them, but I didn't want to use chemicals in your kitchen near your food. Personally, I like attacking them with vinegar, it's quite fun! :D

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) From what I've read of it, it's not that simple a spectrum: light seems to be in the direction of life and 'nature' living, while dark is in the direction of pain and separation.

'Kingom Hearts is light'--light is associated with hearts in bodies naturally, while dark is associated with the one being torn from the other. Of course, I could be wrong, but that's the way I see it.

A great deal of light's power is ideological, while darkness is more direct: or, to put it another way, construction and destruction. The most powerful are those who can wield both constructive and destructive power, but it leaves them teetering on the edge of a precipice, while those who embrace the dark for personal gain, casting away any light-related motivations, lower themselves into it, and are thus eventuially claimed by it, or can be. Xehanort... I wonder his origin.

'Apathy is death'... plenty of thoughts, of lessons come to mind. But all this doesn't apply to reality, it's just an ideological structure within a gameworld. Fine, I'll go on: many strive to be like Sora but turn out like Riku (at first) instead, even thinking they're going towards the light when they're actually embracing shadow, thinking that they're working to makes things better while actually making them worse and becoming worse. Plenty of people lose sight of their humanity, and are left using only empty words. Others embrace darkness and just stay that way, never quite becoming Heartless, or become Heartless, that being 'their way'.

I'd put you in Sora or Riku's shoes, trying to attain light. Whether you'll succeed or fall in your own delusions, or lose your heart and become apathetic is another matter, yet to be known.

You talk about dark, you think about it, but I don't see your feet in it. The Way to the Dawn--if you fall or other now, you'll have fallen without even trying to follow it.


For me, I claim the twilit road to nightfall. This is reality, not a game, and I have no more faith in the light.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

M) Or maybe just the twilight.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Modesitt's books come to mind, with Order and Chaos (black for Order, white for Chaos) at opposite extremes. As my sister says, though, the Kingdom Hearts multiverse may not treat things quite that symmetrically.