Redemption

... Is a lofty ideal, sought after by those who, for one reason or another, believe that in some karmic way, their prior actions, or inactions, are so damning that they must seek to make recompense with the world, a god, or themselves.

Some people search for their entire lives and never find it. Some people make empty gestures which they and others see as somehow excusing appalling behavior or grievous mistakes.

In my own case... My world and my deity are almost one and the same, and they'd have made much more noise if they didn't plan on overlooking my errors. That doesn't mean I can forgive myself, before I sate this desire to at least make a bid to do the right thing.

I've spent the last two weeks sifting through every media source I can find, compiling, condensing, listing. The simple answer is that in a world where everyone is connected, the loss of 6,000 people affects far more, numbering more like tens of thousands of people whose lives have been altered for the worse. These are the people I've put in danger, the people I've weakened, who have less resolve than they did before to fight the silvery voice of darkness that fills the city.

Those are the people I need to help and save. And they may never thank me, never believe me to have redeemed myself. But I owe it to them to keep them in the light, and not allow them to slide into darkness like that I created one fateful evening.

-Daniel

Damned if you Do...

The Alan Parsons Project song goes:

I ain't got a heart of stone
You haven't left me a mind of my own
But its got such a hold on me
I don't think I could ever be free

Santana said:

I've got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I cant see
That she's a black magic woman
She's trying to make a devil out of me

Fallout Boy:

Am I more than you bargained for yet
I've been dying to tell you anything you want to hear
Cause that's just who I am this week

and, Puscifer:

(Pray) 'til I go blind
(Pray) Cause nobody ever survives
Prayin' to stay in your arms just
Until I can die a little longer...

When these songs of old and new cropped up on the radios, or CDs that others had at college (Because, I'm sure some of those labels are banned back in the midwest...) I used to chuckle.. Women like that don't exist. When dates seemed a distant concern, you certainly didn't worry about dangerous, predatory, irresistible women... Because you assumed they were an urban legend...

It's like, You don't believe some idiot would tie weather balloons to lawn furniture.. until you Google Larry Walters.

You don't believe that the creatures of the night that have been the subject of songs throughout the last century are real either... until you hear about Veronica White.

I can't kid myself of the stupidity...

The Danger of even considering....

Everything is so obviously...

... But Fuck that. For all the danger, it's a chance... To change someone back from the wrong side of the tracks. Hell if I know what I have that could possibly do it, but...

Damn it all, I'm not going to give up without trying! I just have to hope that no one else who can see the danger, but not the potential finds out too soon... I'm playing with fire, baiting bears and walking on the edge of something far more perilous than a tightrope, I just need to make sure I don't fall in while trying to bring someone else out...

I'm going to start tomorrow. It has to work, somehow... If not, then someone had better find out enough to learn from my mistakes.

-Daniel

Beginning of the Daze.

Promethean:

Boldly creative; defiantly original.

It is possibly one of the best words to describe us.

The daze begin today, and it is to be quite the week. Renewal is the agenda. Progress is the goal. Out with the old and in with the new, on a scale that typical human new years resolutions cannot begin to approach.

On this first day, I begin evaluation... of myself, of others.. but, mostly myself. Today, Tomorrow, the day after, I will search for my flaws, my deficiencies, and render them null and void. Discover my boundaries... and then exceed them.

And then in preparation for the new year, I will look forward. With the benefits of the past, and the tools at my hands... Predict what I will be called upon to do for the next 12 months, and prepare.

It is something I've needed to do... Something I'm glad I can be with my tribe for, and receive their assistance in. Cockroach Guide me through my first Promethean Daze.. and let me come out better than I went in.

-Daniel

Thoughts Adrift

At first... it was falling down the rabbit hole. Removal from a normal life, isolation, and a flurry of activity that one could not follow clearly. But there was that hope to cling to, that it would be over eventually... things would settle. Things would make sense.

I guess I've gotten past that part. Now, every day is more like... More like a dream. A dream where I'm floating, I have trouble moving around. No tactile feedback, no firmness of reality to brace myself with to move on.

Nothing is... how it ought to be. My largest source of stress is my sept, and the largest source of anxiety my sept mates. The people I should feel protected by, trust with my life... are the ones I worry about at night, the ones I constantly have to keep myself from reacting, lashing out at...

It's becoming the nightmare I envisioned, pushed close to the edge, and walking the thin line where those memories of the comic books and movies want to surface, and I want to strike and rid myself of the evil wolves... Even if I realize I am one myself.

Some people just cannot be trusted... and their lap dogs stuff their fucking noses into everything. My life, secrets others were SWORN not to share... And then others can't shut up. They yammer constantly as I pass, beating conversations we resolved weeks ago, belittling each other and struggling for tiny victories of confidence or esteem to make themselves seem better than one another.

They are even wasting the time of people I trusted to remain level heads. it's all wasted time. Time no one can spend on my projects. Time I don't spend on my projects, when I think of the messes.

Then, there is that... My projects. With my friends stuck as punishment, my hands are tied... so I chose tasks to relegate, and others have stepped up to lead investigations I know my intuition and logical skills could help with. then, the shrine. A working puzzle with the simple task of watering plants, extrapolated to an artful riddle in Chimera's likeness. I guess.. we'll see how it turns out.

But the worst part... the worst part are the rumors. Five people have told me I am to go on my rite of passage. I don't want to believe any of them. The idea I would be the cub most suited to make the jump, when I've only been around for 3 months... it's just not sensible. I shouldn't be... I don't have anything to make me worthy of that honor, and yet everyone tells me I must...

Why? Why me? I don't understand how others are overlooked... How the people I respect, and the people I hate for getting away with things under my nose, aren't going first. Then again, even the Cliaths show divides, rifts that make them work stupidly, make mistakes, repeat information and get locked in loops... Maybe, there is something I have that can help all of this.

if there's hope of being a prestigious sept again, we need major debugging.

And, no one listens to a cub...

The Grind

Sometimes, It's hard not to stay up, twitching. And I know it's not just the caffienne.

It's that constant, nagging urge to create, to work, to micromanage and seek advantage, work work work. It's been getting me pretty bad, lately.

Alot of work. Projects, organization, deals with spirits, and field trips into the city. Sometimes alone. Sometimes after curfew. But I work dilligently to help out. I hope everyone sees it, and I hope none of them have ever been managers.

Because there is something any manager worth their salt can see. Dilligent workers are all just procrastinators, taking up tasks to avoid another specific one they are unwilling to face. It may be that I'm working hard just because... And it may just happen to help keep my mind off the hellish parts of these last two weeks, the unfinished business and the fears of dangerous liasons with bad men in black suits and fathers you'll never be able to face about the truth, wondering how long you can hide it all from a world trying to get in.

Trying to juggle, personal pursuits you won't even share with your roommates, delving into social engineering and secret manuevering and espionage-slash-information extruding...

Finding out who caught the worst fifteen seconds of your life on tape...

Finding out why you were left behind when you should've been brought along...

Facing a challenge everyone tells you is both crazy and noble to persue...

Facing a world of analogy and ephemera where your greatest allies lie underfoot.

Maybe it was a wake-up call, and maybe that's just the scarring talking. either way, things have changed. Not seeing that and fighting change is how you lose. Adaptation is the way that you continue, even in the absence of anyone who can help. Adaptation is what Glass walkers do. it's what I do, now. And if adapting to struggle means working my ass off for no pay and maybe a few whispered asides of praise, but in the silence that work makes one human's life better, one Garou's fight easier, one Spirit's brood stronger...

Well, then maybe it's all worth it.

-Daniel

Embrace (cross posted)

It's changing,
Everything is changing,
Technology is to blame,
It is spreading it's wire like tentacles,
Spreading into every aspect of my life,
of your life,
of our lives.
It's already changed me,
I love the change,
The transformation fascinates me,
Every day life as we know it will be no more,
Even the simple things have changed,
Rapid,
And irreversible.
Don't deny the coming,
Don't attempt to prevent the change,
Don't let it pass leaving you behind,
Don't fear that which is new,
Doesn't matter if you love it or hate it,
Just so long as you,
Embrace it.



I'm always hoping that everyone will see through the fears of change, and figure out how the world should have adapted, had it not been lead astray. That is our purpose here, to keep the call of the future mingled with the howls of the past among our brethren, and relight the path to Utopia and the rekindling of the Triat's balance... At least, That's my vision. If only there were more of you to share it with..

-Daniel

Bringing me Down

I was pretty sure I could only die once, that my life could end only on the night that I ended the lives of two people in a way that even those in my new existance wouldn't tolerate...

I couldn't have been more wrong. Dad found me, and the people I've wanted to trust me and I've done so much to prove myself to saw what kind of monster I am. Even he might know.

Alex, David... It takes too much effort to go out and face them right now...

I knew I'd screwed up and make msitakes. I should have stayed in Mira Mesa, kept in seclusion and treated how I was... It'd be better than this. I know exactly how they found me, but I didn't know about how much evidence they really had. How could I have not known... Photos, Sure, but... Motherfucking Godforsaken Video Tapes? Since when is SDSU London? There's no way they gave me the only tape, Either... The thought of a first Change on tape must be too valuable for them not to.

For Fuck's Sake, Faith in Technology comes with a price... There must be some way I can keep the thing I love from fucking me everywhere I go. So many places with tapes, so many places with my face... How am I supposed to deal with people if every mistake I made is recorded on magnetic media someplace, waiting to bite me in the ass?

Maybe the spirits can offer some advice... And maybe I can go deal with them before that son of a bitch Niela shows up. How dare she possibly complain about anything in her life, She doesn't have the fundamental fuck-up that all of us began our new lives with to haunt her, nothing to atone for.. I don't care what that sleazy shadowlord bastard does with her if it keeps her the hell away from me. Bloodless change... I hope she dies in a fucking fire.

Maybe I should leave and go back. At least with the walkers, someone can fix these things when I screw them up... No one here understands as well...

[Scared and Pissed]
-Daniel