We experimented yesterday
Oct. 10th, 2006 12:55 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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alex_antonin's pessimism, negativity, anger, and hatred that even HE has told us he doesn't like about himself, we experimented yesterday with something. It was intended to put Alex to sleep until we could remake him. Now, some multiples may call this unethical, but in my system I am not one body sharing many minds, but rather one body with one mind that has many Faces, sub-Faces, and undercurrents. A mind united in its chaos, we all call ourselves "I" and we all consider ourselves part of a greater I. Through these two I's we see the world.
Just before work, Alex imagined a see-through cryo-stasis unit sitting in the middle of the dusty salt plain in my mind (protected from the elements by magic, I assume) and lay down in it. Then he closed the lid and turned it on, freezing himself. It was VERY quiet in my head for about an hour or so, aside from a combo of Tristan and Molly feeling sad about it and tapping on the glass, trying in vain to wake him.
It looked like it was working. Fayanora was at the front, doing Alex's job extremely well. Shao'Kehn even hung around a bit. But as time went on, Alex's consciousness started leaking out of the cryostasis chamber. Finally it got so bad we decided we may as well wake him.
Then we tried a compromise approach... Alex continued to lay in the cryostasis pod with the lid up. Whenever his irritation started to peak, he'd sigh, close the lid, and freeze himself for a little while. This worked very well, except for a buildup of pressure that we couldn't exactly trace. We thought it was coming from him, but he was being perfectly compliant. He went into this whole experiment willingly, we didn't have to argue with him at all, and we barely even discussed it. He just chose it. Still, there was a buildup all night long. Getting out of work relieved the pressure, though.
Or seemed to. Apparently the pressure built up during the night at sleepy time, too. Because even after we got used to the idea of being awake, Alex was no longer in the pod. Where the pod went, even he doesn't know. He was calm, though. I think we made some progress.
We believe we have identified the source of the pressure. A tiny fraction of it was Alex's basic nature, but the rest of it was the dark Undercurrents... the monsters and creatures of darkness that he has identified with over the years. They are not Faces per se... I call them Undercurrents because they all represent a way of thinking but none of them have their own personalities. The strongest of these, though, have something similar to personalities. They are sub-Faces like Fii-Maik the Nothingness (a truly terrifying Undercurrent, in that It is remorselessly cold, has a truly towering ego, supreme control of Its emotions, and considers humans to be "clever animals" like cockroaches who can do tricks). Or "Masks" as I sometimes call them.
Still, progress was made.
Oh, now, I forgot to explain the Nothingnesses.
Ages ago, I started writing stories with a species of shapeshifters called Nothingnesses in them. They are multi-cellular organisms like humans, except that they evolved from a predatory race (and are, themselves, predatory). They evolved on a planet where magic is very real and very powerful and anyone who doesn't believe in it is delusional or lives in a cave. Through a combonation of constant persecution and evolution that was aided by a natural magical ability to change their DNA and their body when necessary, they evolved from simple shapeshifters into something so alien that it's hard to explain. But basically, they have come to a point where every one of their cells is sentient and sapient in its own right, but they still function as collectives. Their intelligence towers so high above normal people that even Leutenant Commander Data would be considered dull witted compared to them. Because they use their cells and their entire body to think, and thus can think about trillions of complex things at once.
Once a peaceful race, the constant persecution finally drove them over the edge and they began to get egos as powerful as their intelligence. They elevated themselves through secrecy and lack of morals into something like living Gods (the evil kind) and started trying to elevate the other sentient races of their world to their level. Because no one ever saw them, but knew their most violent work when it was apparent (killing people who were dragging the species down because of their idiocy), folks started calling them the Nothingness race. They liked the name, and eventually started calling themselves that. And they even describe their philosophy (which basically boils down to thinking of humans and other sentients as domesticated animals they're breeding to try to make them like the Nothingnesses) they explain with the words, "From Nothingness will come Somethingness."
So that is what Fii-Maik is. And he speaks for his people. Thus, he is completely terrifying.
alex_antonin's pessimism, negativity, anger, and hatred that even HE has told us he doesn't like about himself, we experimented yesterday with something. It was intended to put Alex to sleep until we could remake him. Now, some multiples may call this unethical, but in my system I am not one body sharing many minds, but rather one body with one mind that has many Faces, sub-Faces, and undercurrents. A mind united in its chaos, we all call ourselves "I" and we all consider ourselves part of a greater I. Through these two I's we see the world.Just before work, Alex imagined a see-through cryo-stasis unit sitting in the middle of the dusty salt plain in my mind (protected from the elements by magic, I assume) and lay down in it. Then he closed the lid and turned it on, freezing himself. It was VERY quiet in my head for about an hour or so, aside from a combo of Tristan and Molly feeling sad about it and tapping on the glass, trying in vain to wake him.
It looked like it was working. Fayanora was at the front, doing Alex's job extremely well. Shao'Kehn even hung around a bit. But as time went on, Alex's consciousness started leaking out of the cryostasis chamber. Finally it got so bad we decided we may as well wake him.
Then we tried a compromise approach... Alex continued to lay in the cryostasis pod with the lid up. Whenever his irritation started to peak, he'd sigh, close the lid, and freeze himself for a little while. This worked very well, except for a buildup of pressure that we couldn't exactly trace. We thought it was coming from him, but he was being perfectly compliant. He went into this whole experiment willingly, we didn't have to argue with him at all, and we barely even discussed it. He just chose it. Still, there was a buildup all night long. Getting out of work relieved the pressure, though.
Or seemed to. Apparently the pressure built up during the night at sleepy time, too. Because even after we got used to the idea of being awake, Alex was no longer in the pod. Where the pod went, even he doesn't know. He was calm, though. I think we made some progress.
We believe we have identified the source of the pressure. A tiny fraction of it was Alex's basic nature, but the rest of it was the dark Undercurrents... the monsters and creatures of darkness that he has identified with over the years. They are not Faces per se... I call them Undercurrents because they all represent a way of thinking but none of them have their own personalities. The strongest of these, though, have something similar to personalities. They are sub-Faces like Fii-Maik the Nothingness (a truly terrifying Undercurrent, in that It is remorselessly cold, has a truly towering ego, supreme control of Its emotions, and considers humans to be "clever animals" like cockroaches who can do tricks). Or "Masks" as I sometimes call them.
Still, progress was made.
Oh, now, I forgot to explain the Nothingnesses.
Ages ago, I started writing stories with a species of shapeshifters called Nothingnesses in them. They are multi-cellular organisms like humans, except that they evolved from a predatory race (and are, themselves, predatory). They evolved on a planet where magic is very real and very powerful and anyone who doesn't believe in it is delusional or lives in a cave. Through a combonation of constant persecution and evolution that was aided by a natural magical ability to change their DNA and their body when necessary, they evolved from simple shapeshifters into something so alien that it's hard to explain. But basically, they have come to a point where every one of their cells is sentient and sapient in its own right, but they still function as collectives. Their intelligence towers so high above normal people that even Leutenant Commander Data would be considered dull witted compared to them. Because they use their cells and their entire body to think, and thus can think about trillions of complex things at once.
Once a peaceful race, the constant persecution finally drove them over the edge and they began to get egos as powerful as their intelligence. They elevated themselves through secrecy and lack of morals into something like living Gods (the evil kind) and started trying to elevate the other sentient races of their world to their level. Because no one ever saw them, but knew their most violent work when it was apparent (killing people who were dragging the species down because of their idiocy), folks started calling them the Nothingness race. They liked the name, and eventually started calling themselves that. And they even describe their philosophy (which basically boils down to thinking of humans and other sentients as domesticated animals they're breeding to try to make them like the Nothingnesses) they explain with the words, "From Nothingness will come Somethingness."
So that is what Fii-Maik is. And he speaks for his people. Thus, he is completely terrifying.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-10 07:14 pm (UTC)We dont think that is unethical but I think we understand because some people in our system started out that way. Sorry it didnt work exactly as you planned but if you feel it was progress that is good. I think it would be sad & hard to hmm "lose" anyone even if they not considered a seperate mind.
abby
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Date: 2006-10-13 06:03 pm (UTC)We at least calmed him down some, which is great. Lately he'd been in a towering rage that had been cut into pieces and jumbled up throughout the last several weeks. So he'd been worse than usual. So bad, in fact, that even he hated his own behavior.
I think the most I can really expect from him is to have him recognize when he's putting himself in a bad mood or expressing his negativity too powerfully, and stopping himself. Can't stop the momentary outbursts of cussing in gibberish, but at least that's preferable to actual words that could draw their effects towards us. He still hates dogs (because he fears them), and when they bark at him he barks back with gibberish. Still, it's an improvement, however slight.