one word at a time

👏 APOSTASY is the rejection of a faith after having professed it;

👏 HERESY is selective belief in only some of the tenets of a faith one professes, or belief in tenets contrary to those of a faith one professes;

But then. THEN. This fuckass twink descendant of my mortal enemies picks up my amulet. Takes right out of the sacred chamber. I guess it was finally a ruin now? Worse timing possible, too late to stop me going insane and right before the insanity could pay off.

Anyway I'm not going to kill him right away. Where's the satisfaction in that? He's the last descendant of my enemies (pretty sure) so of course I gotta drag it out. This is the only revenge I might ever get. I'll have to capture him. Keep him sealed away for a long time, see how he likes it. But like. In a nicer placed than that fucking chamber because unlike some long dead assholes, I have standards. Plus I'm also going to spending a lot of my time there too, menacing him and shit, so it better be nice for me.

I'm thinking summer house on an otherwise uninhabited island. I keep him there where there are no dragons or ogres or demon kings to interrupt, and I tell him all about the shitty things his ancestors did, to like. Demoralize him. So that he knows that even though I'm a scary evil creature that's going to be his ending, he doesn't get as much moral high ground as he'd probably like. I make him eat meals with me just to draw out the tension, and then I give him nightmares, making him twist and writhe in his sweat-soaked sheets while his heart hammers against his ribs and he wonders if this will finally be the night I finish him.

Maybe I'll even let them visit him in his woeful imprisonment afterwards as well. Just to really hammer the point home. They're not the worst company, at least. Not as annoying as heroes used to be. We can have them over for dinner while I lord my victory above their helplessness. Real power move to just let them come and see the guy that they are nevertheless unable to free from my dark clutches.

Those guys were supposed to be dead for centuries! And they're still ruining my life! Fucking. That fuckass other descendant managed to summon them and of course THEY are still not cool with me or my dark forces, although I'm going to be real, they weren't looking too noble and above-aboard themselves when they turned up. That was some hypocritical undead revenant bullshit.

Of course I ended up fighting them. They attacked first! Again! They were even trying to kill their own descendant! And those heinous bitches called me the monster. I've never tried to kill my own descendants. Probably because I don't have any but still. At least try and take over his body first or something!

Well actually they did try it, I think? But that hero of theirs had worn my amulet for so long that he was too corrupted for it to work. Ha!

Small victories.

I'm going to need to hang onto those.

Because now I'm sealed back in the fucking Chamber Eternal again.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING---!!!!

Okay.

Alright.

I'm not going to lie this isn't looking good. I'm not in the amulet anymore but the seals on the chamber are strong, made with the souls of those fuckdamn ancient heroes. All my power is left with their descendant on the outside now. My plans are thwarted. I'm going to languish in this minimalist hell of a chamber until those ancient souls run out of juice, and currently they're forming a dome of spiritual energy so flush with power that the ghosts on the moon can probably see it.

I was really confused at first because, why would my sworn enemy who I've been plotting vengeance against this entire time free me from the chamber? At great effort and personal risk, no less? That fight was absolutely brutal, I'm not sure I could have even done it myself in his place, and I mean his situation without even bothering was quite good. He had all of my power. His ancestors were likewise distracted with sealing me away. He could have ascended to become the next Dark Lord or, I don't know, ran around doing his Power of Friendship bullshit for the next ten thousand years largely uncontested. Not only does he not have a further use for me but if anything, I present a massive threat to him if I can regain enough strength to take my power back.

But I think that's it! That Power of Friendship bullshit! Somehow, this guy has mistaken me for an ally.

I can work with this.

As long as he doesn't suspect that we're actually enemies, I can bide my time, restore my power, wrestle control of my armies back from his grasp, and then get him back on his knees.

I'm almost starting to wonder if he really is descended from those ancient hero fuckers, he doesn't act like them at all. The apple must have rolled into a goddamn river and been carried off to sea after it fell off that tree.

Such a strong political alliance with the ruling family will further cement my hero's power in this region. Potentially, that will make it even harder to extricate him for my own purposes later on. Of course, it's not worth the risk if I do something too extreme and it gets traced back to me, so I can't simply kill the prince.

But I didn't study medicine at my grandmother's knee just to forget all the useful bits in my dark rise to power. That idiot won't be riding out to adventure alongside his 'sworn brother' tomorrow if he has too many embarrassing rashes to get into his saddle.

Cats are one of nature's most successful predators. Properly trained, a dark familiar is an excellent spy and helper, and I am in need of every advantage I can get right now. Everyone knows the best way to ingratiate yourself to animals is to get them young. Feeding kittens is a sinister action.

The only one allowed to strip him and put him in chains is me!!! ME!!! He's mine!!! I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FIRST TO DO THAT TO HIM!!!

Bastards! Hacks!

I downloaded the PDF to my hard drive and I open it again whenever I'm feeling too suicidal to do much else, but not enough to start booking a ride to the hospital. And every time without fail I only go up to a few pages before backing off and choosing to live another day just because suicide suddenly seems even more unbearable than whatever the hell upset me in the first place.

All the book really does is [I'm pulling a summary from GoodReads here as, again, I've read no more than 5 pages] "discusses the social aspects of suicide, the right to die, anger, loneliness, depression, stress, hopelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, the consequences of a suicide attempt, and how to get help."

But it also starts with the author kindly asking the reader to complete the book before going through with anything, and for some reason I'm compelled to really just try to read it all before finalizing everything. Despite not yet completing it (hopefully never will) I think I can safely say it's saved my life at least a few times now.

1. Not rushed. I can think of at least one book where it threw in the fact that a prominent side character achieved the same status as the protagonist in the last… 75 pages of the whole series? And I would have really liked to have that explored instead of summarized as part of the ending.

2. Doesn’t contradict any previous character development/choices. You’d think this would be a given, wouldn’t you? And yet we all know what happened to Game of Thrones.

In fact I’ll take it a step further and say

2.5. The ending should have only been achievable because of who the character has changed to be throughout the course of the story.

If character development has gone the way it needed to, it should be easy to imagine the Chapter 1 version of your character being confused, appalled, aghast, at the way their Chapter End self has acted.

But because we’ve been on the journey with them, it should make sense to the reader!