Your harmonium plays a chord
I can hear it and I can feel it
Across all time
And across all pain
- Archie's Fades (Xiu Xiu)
IMPORTANT: Everything you see in this article is intentionally written that way!! Please do not edit the article to attempt to fix the typos, odd tone, and placeholders!
Started writing this Sep 23, 2021.
Did ya miss me?
This is an odd one. This article stemmed from my personal dissatisfaction with a trend I was noticing of short form articles that attempted to tug on your heart strings. Specifically, ones that just display a sad scenario, practically spelling out to you "THIS IS SAD, CRY NOW". Some can be very substance-less and the scenarios they portray usually aren't very interesting.
So I thought to myself "what if there was an anomaly that made you feel this dissatisfaction"? That's where I got the idea to make this article.
This is short, weird, and probably won't connect with some people which I totally understand. It's also the first thing I've written that's of a shorter length than I normally do, which is something I've wanted to get better at. As always, I hope you enjoy this strange tale about a sad man set in the But A Dream canon.
Also, D-1711 makes another appearance here. He's more than just a reference to my extremely old art page now… I have plans for him.
I also hope that, aside from the typos (which you don't have to add) that this will be an article that is a lot more easy to translate than my other ones.
It should be obvious from the interview log that Sad Man was formerly Fred Johnson, but why did he become this? And why is The Foundation treating him in such an odd and unprofessional manner?
There is no reason. The reason was never written. Did his dog die? Did he go through an awful breakup? Was he killed tragically, coming back as a ghost? None of these are true answers, because the answer doesn't exist.
Fred Johnson is a man whose story is unfinished and poorly written. So badly to the point that his entire existence is incredibly hard to be interested in. To put that into perspective, the article you are reading is meant to be years of several researchers (143 to be exact) work into writing an article for Sad Man, and yet they still haven't even managed to figure out an object class or item number.
This disinterest-inducing ability has a pretty disastrous effect, especially considering the property of his tears. This has caused several people to become instances of -1, which is detrimental to The Foundation. The Foundation staff know this, and all desperately know how easy it would be to just contain this damn thing, but the incredibly strong disinterest-inducing ability makes it nigh impossible to care. It's torturous.
Okay. I- I'll try and… I'm… you don't have to… it's… oh…
No matter how much you try to feel bad for him, something gets caught in your throat. You can't manage to even pretend to feel bad for the thing. You can't even manage to pretend to feel bad for the people who have become lost to this thing.
(I won't tell you what Researcher wrote for the fourth question of the interview log, because I'm sure you could imagine what an enraged man unable to fully express himself would write out to an entity that is affecting him in this way.)
But anyway, to answer another question, why do Sad Mans tears do this exactly?
As he said, it's the only way. Specifically, the only way you'd be able to sympathize with him. Take a walk in his shoes, as they say. And the worst part is that he isn't even wrong. Once you become like him, you'll understand the indescribable feeling of not having an actual reason to be what you have become.
The note at the end was meant to be the explanation to his backstory. But as you can see, whoever is pulling the strings has been sitting on writing it for quite a while. Maybe they should get on that! Could save The Foundation some trouble there…
I can't remember many, but here's the few I can. Huge thanks to everyone who ever helps me on these articles, I have no clue what I'd do without y'all. If you helped me and don't see your name on here, let me know and I'll put it up as fast as I can.
ValidClay
Limeyy
PlaguePJP
itsokaytocry.jpg uses this image.
thenoteattheendthatexplainseverything.gif is my own work.
