Right Where It Belongs

Pardon the blurriness. I got to working on this today and I felt... Felt a certain motivation. Enough so that I didn't realize my resource for this image was rather small. And it only looks good when it's blown-up. If I had but world enough and time, this would be the most beautiful thing I could create with Photoshop and a single screenshot. But I just can't go on. I guess that's what I get.

The whole gist of this, in fact, the whole pivotal thing behind everything, behind the tattered curtains of Sykin's mind (anyone who has followed me this far should know what I mean), was some form of control. And I never really swung towards the ominous "Deus Ex Machina" control which seems to be a part of everything in this accursed place. Throughout this story, Sykin's story, I made sure to drop plenty of hints that there was the "Other" besides whatever personality was not taking the stage at the time.

Oh yeah, multiple personalities, in case you were wondering. Yawn, yay, yargh. Whatever. A tried and true plot gimmick if nothing else. My original plan was to weave a giant tale with many different characters spanning across all the servers, across the Matrix, of all sorts of varieties and appearances and mindsets. Eventually it would've been found that they're all one and the same, but the amount of work such a thing might have took... It was more joyful to fantasize about it, I think. If I should submit to grueling work I at least like to see some payment from it. Anywho.

This is "The Poet." He is I, in a way, and I am... Not he. But he is the crux of this whole shebang. The Poet was never Sykin. Rather, he shaped what Sykin would do, say, and want in order to justify a fantastic "poetic" existence in an equally unreal world. The Poet, if you were lucky enough to meet him, retains similar facial features to Sykin, but wit and intelligence that far precedes the troubled anti-hero. In fact, his insight into matters is quite eerily divine and deep... As if he can see past the simple and complex workings of the Matrix itself (which he can).

Such a character I had to keep a valued secret. For my own amusement, really, because if I swung this guy out there like any other character he'd be swept away, deemed too "god-modey" for the likes of good ol' fashion vampire and wererarebit roleplayin' in the Megacity. God forbid I should impede on the wonderful laser-eyes and "Save...Zion...Machines...Pwn...lol...I mean...cough cough..." etc.

I wanted the Poet to be... A Poet, really. A modern one, though. Quirky and carefree. When it came down to it, down in it, I was the man behind Sykin, therefore, if I "roleplayed" (I've come to hate that word) anyone, it was the Poet. So... It's only fitting that the Poet bear the same likeness.

Perhaps you'll see the Poet again but in another world, another looking glass. All that could of been is merely a dream now, for you won't see me again in the Matrix (Online) come the 30th of June. Funny thing is... I've only been here for that long is because I activated that free 90-day card I won a while back. Yeah, you remember that? The In-game Ad Contest. I recall my Highway Crossing Frog 2 entry coming in first place... And yet, entries that never even placed were featured in-game. Void Shades, The Daniel Institute of Dream Interpretation... Yeah. Cool. No hard feelings.

No hard feelings about "LESIG 2.0" either. It's turning out to be, ahem, "ground-breaking" without the likes of me. Good show.

Anyways... Enough about this foolish jester that smiles as he pulls the strings. You, all of you... Well, many of you rose in place of the mighty personalities that left this place, but you aren't replacing them, I can say that much. Still some more of you seem weary but dragging on, rusty monoliths; I admire your spirit. But your luster has faded. I see newcomers. Good. Hope you enjoy.

And I see, I remember, those of you who were with me at the beginning. Inspiring me, pushing me, cheering my success, laughing at my failures in good fun. Nonetheless, you were here, probably for your own devices, your own dreams and visions connected with this fiction we doubly call the Matrix. For me, it shall exist as a vague memory, some bit of deja vu to breathe in after watching the movies again sometime in the future.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.