Darren Holmes

“... the demons already won, a long, long time ago. They devoured the vast majority of the universe, and that's why the planets are so relatively small, compared to the sheer amount of nothingness. It's why we're so very tiny, in the grand scheme of it all.
But these things we erroneously call angels surged in strength, they spun out a complete universe from the scraps, and on select scraps, or on a select scrap, they prepared life to emerge."

Rose glanced out over the room.

"It would be easy to say that the universe is an unending repetition of creation and death. That this has happened before and it'll happen again, and this is the heartbeat of the universe. But in looking at the history of this world, both the clear history, and the one behind the curtain, something stands out. Us.

We're another force. And we're only still emerging. We're change. We're an equal to them. We just don't realize it yet.”
― Wildbow

“She’s confident in her abilities. But that’s not where I hit her. It’s called dissonance. You believe one thing deeply enough that it’s central to your identity. Then something, me, steps in to challenge that belief. It’s a hell of a leap of faith to go from believing something and understanding how much of the world works, to saying ‘I don’t know’. Some deny, and you can get stupid-as-hell behaviors from those who see something plain as day but deny it because it conflicts with something they believe. Some get angry, some distract themselves until they can figure out how to deal with it… but very few will turn around and throw themselves headlong into more questions. More dissonance.”
― wildbow, Twig

“Jamie leaned over. “And your perfect world?”

“Mmm,” Helen smiled. “Perfect is complicated. Hard to explain.”

“Give it a shot,” I prodded her.

“It’s… beautiful is the best word to describe it,” she said.

Jamie and I nodded.

“Everything that isn’t necessary to getting what we want is gone,” she said, eyes closing, as if she was vividly imagining. “There’s an abundance of it all, thanks to science. Food is everywhere and it overflows and there’s nothing to worry about because we have and we want and we take. We’re, and by we I mean people, we’re everywhere and we spill over into one another and we’re all knit together, physically and mentally. It’s an exquisite landscape of things that don’t ever run out to see and touches and tastes and smells and mating and eating and mindless fighting and eating-mating and fighting-eating and fighting-”

“Okay,” I said, interrupting. I paused, then when I couldn’t think of what to say. “Okay.”

Helen reached down to her plate, used a fingertip to wipe up a bit of frosting, and popped it into her mouth, sucking it off.

“Okay,” I said, still at a bit of a loss for words.

“That’s a mental image that’s going to be with me forever,” Jamie said, dropping his head down until his face was in his hands.

“I don’t see where ethics come into that world,” I said, more to see Jamie’s reaction than out of curiosity.

“No,” Jamie said. “Don’t-”

“The closer you get to perfection, the further you get from ethics,” Helen said, as if it was common sense.”
― Wildbow, Twig

“Can you live without charm, intimidation, or some form of influence over others? Without making others do your bidding on some level? You flirt, they react one way or another. Everything is manipulation.”
― wildbow, Worm