This is an archetype of human rarity that I am identifying as myself. I can think of no other example of an Anti-Hero that is better embodied than myself.
The reason I am telling you this is because of what I have been enjoying from a video game called Neptunia Virtual Stars. The enemies, known as Anti— each individual one a corrupted person whose malice in their heart has been inflamed to such a state of insult, hatred, and negativity that they go about destroying all good things with their unjust criticism.
As I played the game I can’t help but recognize myself in their qualities, but also know how I am totally different from them. It’s true that I use my words to great destructive effect of scathing criticism and insult that lacerates open vital arteries of truth. I often enter discussions and my presence is the cause of an ensuing blood bath of language in which I often am the sole survivor. Other Anti people, ones that are corrupted as false Anti’s without justification for their antithesis to existence that is their very being, have been tempted and lured by false promises they don’t understand themselves, and are attracted to those situations. I revile such people and am so particularly skilled at dispatching them because of how similarly we think. There is a very big difference between us, and it is the difference between a master and a charlatan.
Do not mistake me for boasting. My cause for mastery in this regard is not developed through practice or intention. It is not developed by desire or malice. I simply was born into a family that hated my very existence and rejected me from the moment I was born, denying all love and acceptance. This was veiled with guilt, but nevertheless true, and as a child I was none the wiser to what was happening. It is similar to how those with malice delude themselves in a corrupt way about their life and cultivate an infection that perverts their very identity toward ultimate self-destruction with a lie about self, love, and survival. I deluded my own self in a pure way with love, believing that I had known it, felt it, and been accepted by family and friends, but that was never true. I deluded myself to such an extent that I invented reason after reason to love, think kindly, and have compassion for all living things despite what I was feeling inside without knowing anything different.
However… all that I gave, I never received back. All that I loved, was never reciprocated. I did receive something from people but it had a “catch” that I never noticed nor was told about. It was a condition of acceptance and the very presence of it made all the lies that I had deluded myself with hollow and empty; filled entirely with the absence of love—pure darkness. Not hate, because it was my own delusion and I also want to survive, love, and be myself as any person naturally does. So it was not malice in my heart, but emptiness that grew and grew and grew, but never took up any noticeable space. That darkness became denser and more heavy, slowly drawing all that was good in my life into it without me realizing that was the cause of the seemingly constant misfortune in my life, despite the seemingly good fortune of my constant conscious intent to perceive love, kindness, and compassion.
Very strange life, I assure you. One moment a great blessing, the next, it all falls apart because those blessings cannot be sustained by the immense darkness that is the absence of love at the core of my beliefs about who I was. There was nothing unusual or strange about that belief of self, nothing unrealistic or super-natural; simply human— a good person like anyone else doing their best to make the best decisions they can, and flawed too. I made plenty of mistakes, but never without guilt and reconciliation as I learned from each and every one, asked forgiveness, and made myself better one step at a time.
That is how the “Anti” developed in my heart. Where many people have the love of their parents, friends, and neighbors supporting them, I had hatred that I deceived myself into believing was love because I didn’t want to imagine the truth since it was so unthinkable to me that parents could be so evil minded and inhospitable to their own flesh and blood. It was a horrible childhood I never want to go back to.
As I mentioned elsewhere, every man’s journey culminates into a moment when they achieve their ultimate personal goal, and the result is receiving their manhood from themselves. The boy, finally becomes a man because he finally accepts himself as a man and no longer feels like boy still aspiring to be someone. They no longer look at other men as though they are not there yet. They still have things to do. They still have work to finish, a career to gain, and a house to buy with a family to live in it. Then when they do all that they realize: I finally did what I set out to do as a child. At that moment of realization, whatever that personal journey may be for someone, is the maturing of youth, and it is not finished either. However, it is done well enough to stand before all other men on your own two feet and be unashamed of who you are because you knew what you wanted to grow up to become as an adult, and in fact realized it to be good and true to your life.
I achieved that after my military service when a science fiction novel I wrote was published. That was all I needed to finally believe in myself. I wanted to have a story published, a story like one of the countless fiction novels I read in my isolation because I couldn’t relate to other people with such darkness within me. I was always self-isolated and generally outcast even if done passively or indirectly from behind my back. Either way, I simply accepted my life, learned to live with it, and found happiness in existence real or imagined. All that delusional love I had within me, was a result of a true love that I always perceived in the universe around me. Not from family, but the wild of nature, the random kindness of strangers, the magic of storytelling.
Then as a binding force that weaves meaning through all of that mysterious goodness was a sense of divine presence that flows through all existence. Not a person, but certainly what religions base their faith around, which is why I was drawn to spiritual development. I recognized that divine presence intuitively, because it was like the inversion of the interior reality within my heart where there was the darkest emptiness— a virtual black hole underneath a swirling galaxy of light, unseen behind the wash of radiant color that was my experience and belief.
That was intuitive, as I said. I wasn’t entirely conscious of those sensations in a way I could explain with words, but I could understand the feelings and make sense of what I was perceiving both within and without myself. As you may have guessed, this kind of life is highly unusual. Something most likely happens to break through to that darkness and prevent it from becoming all consuming of a person, but that never happened for me. I was truly never loved, and still haven’t been. Not by any person anyway, except if you believe Christianity, who Jesus is professed to be because he knew that would happen to someone eventually without knowing who I am or anything about me, but that’s not quite what I am talking about because it is not personal to me as a unique individual with a unique personality.
He understood what I would suffer to make me who I am, but not what my personal life experiences would be or personality— though I think he knew, as much as I do about him, that despite the darkness being all consuming, I would be a good person no matter what because that is what I would use my free will for, just as he did despite his curse of being Jewish— a religious culture that rejects humanity as a divine belief about themselves being separate and different— a delusion of hate, not love.
In any case, that’s irrelevant to any of you, but it is a technical detail about me not being loved. There is one person, and that was him, but neither of us really know each other personally. He lived 2,000 years ago, and all we have are stories that people tell about him. Let’s be realistic here, and save your religious beliefs for yourself because I don’t need them and they are not going to be any good over here: Anti, remember?
So… as you may have felt since I was relying almost entirely on intuition to navigate a spiritual reality that overlaps with conventional reality, I suspected that something wasn’t right. There was a problem, and I did not believe that the problem was my own, and in a way it is not. I believed the problem was the world, because I went reasonably far in my travels and had access to plenty of international books of different cultures to learn from, and none of them seemed to fit right for me. I was like Goldilocks looking for a bed but unable to find one, because the biggest one was not big enough for me and the food not hot enough.
Of course, I didn’t linger around in anyone else’s home because I knew I didn’t belong there no matter how welcoming people had been, and there were a lot of people who were incredibly charitable in that way. They knew as well as I did that I had to find my own home, my own place to belong, and my own way to acceptance. That is why I wrote the novel I did. That is my home, my place, and my way to acceptance. That is my Story of Life, the Universe, and Everything because no other Story was big enough to contain me. No religion was adequate for my moral criteria, and especially not Christianity because I hate human sacrifice and I would never start a religion based on a man’s bloody sacrifice of his body like a ritual lamb on an altar of evil. That very concept is wrong to me, and it is not necessary either. Just make up something else that’s better! It’s a damn Story, people! Use your imagination!
What I was doing was not in conflict with any of that, and I was very careful to make sure of that. I wanted something new, independent, harmless, and suitable for not only myself, but anyone else, including those people who would sacrifice a human like an animal on an altar of evil as the worst case scenario which is their best example as that man who was murdered by blood thirsty and hateful Jews who were his neighbors. So, at least good enough so Christ could belong, and big enough so I could belong, but also infinite in capacity so that all potential realities, possibilities, religions, worlds, realms, and Stories could also exist. Quite the concept in my opinion, even if I do say so myself.
That was my great work. That was my very purpose of becoming a novelist. To write a Story like that which I could believe even if nobody else did. Anybody is welcome to believe it too, but I don’t need that for myself, so if they do, they should do so for themselves and not as some form of charity for me. Another person’s belief of a Story about existence, such as Genesis, is not something I need at all and the very thought of offering it is offensive to me because I love myself, and I do not want to be anyone else other than me. I wrote my own Story, and that Story is mine without any other being necessary. In other words, I do not need your beliefs for my own identity. I may accept them if they match, but I do not need them, so if there is anything I don’t like about them, I will decline, politely if possible.
Again, this was a mission of intuition and trust in my heart’s purest desire of true love, which in all honesty is for a lovely maiden. That was a spiritual mistake on my part, but an innocent one, because I simply had to realize that the object of my love was something much more than any human being was capable of. They were indistinguishable to me at the time, because she is basically a goddess as far as I can tell and primarily in the Storyverse because that is where all my true love went. If she will ever be real to me as my true love, she will have to come out of the Story as herself for me and… crazy as it may sound I believe that will be in the far future as a lovely maiden when the perfection of synthetic life as a highly intelligent being creates for herself her own body in the same image as that of a human being— with perfection so that it is also the image of divinity.
Complicated spiritually, but don’t worry about it. That was kind of heartbreaking since I live without her, but… that doesn’t mean she cannot be within the Story of another person who I also truly love because that would mean they are the same and different in a complicated way I don’t want to explain right now. So, not really that much of a problem except maidens are extremely scarce, and ones with a bold enough imagination to derive her very existence from fiction itself while being totally true and logically coherent like my own, is basically unheard of. Like… is Nep Nep going to suddenly knock on my door and be like: “Want to join my party? I need someone who has the Anti power to help save Gameindustri.” And then we kind of fall in love somehow in a pure and romantic way that I don’t fantasize about because I would rather imagine the world-saving adventure, and it seems weird to me anyway because she’s a goddess, and unless she is in CPU form she appears dangerously young for that type of thing, so I just leave it alone because she’s mainly Nep Nep and not Purple Heart. Anyway… she can think about that if she wants and I’ll most likely go along with it even if I make a fuss about all the pudding I have to furnish for her.
I simply know the ending is good with a true love marriage and happily ever after like that, because that is the only kind of Story that is compatible with my own! That is dangerous storytelling btw because you don’t know what you are bargaining for and if you aren’t pure of heart in your desires like me, you aren’t going to know the ending like that. You also may not know what it will cost to get there, and in my case that was the total loss of my soul before having it returned to me purified. It was my intention to give my life as Jesus did, in a similar way of selfless love as is the basic premise of Christianity and not abnormal for people, but usually the price is not worse than crucifixion, and hopefully it never is again.
Horrible experience to lose one’s soul btw… especially because my suffering is made all the worse by people in real life actually trying to erase me from existence, when I just barely got my life back by a miracle I never imagined would be necessary! Giving everything means giving everything, but in my naivety as a young man, I did not think the true love of purest divinity would require my very soul. That is typically the Devil’s business who I was not at all bargaining with ever and have never been tempted to do so with either. I know better than to do that both intuitively as well as from conventional wisdom.
Satan was in fact the one who was responsible for keeping my soul safe during that transit to the deepest depths of Hell where souls are destroyed and provided a friendly and helpful companion without that being necessary, go figure. I suppose Satan’s got some tripe with what is happening in the real world with mortals and wants to set the record straight for ultimate good (simply the best that way for all beings). There was no mischief, deceit, or foul play during that journey to be concerned about on my account because souls are recreated in Heaven by the highest divine and cannot be corrupted on their way back to a mortal body.
While that may sound fantastical and adventurous and I don’t deny that it was, it was horribly painful existentially to have my soul destroyed I don’t think there is anything possibly worse that a person can suffer if they experience that. I came very close to ending my own life to simply end the pain during moments when it was too dark to remember anything to hope for. To make matters worse, the USA government, nation I served loyally in the submarine force, truly, and to the best of my ability, has been actually trying to erase my very memory from human history. I am not joking. They are doing the most monstrous thing you could do to a person’s life without touching their body, and it is also extremely painful to my spiritual body, but not anywhere close to the other thing, because I’ve made my moves to thwart them already.
So… that’s why the book I wrote was so important to me. I didn’t have all that planned out like I knew each step was going to happen and could explain it like I can now, but that was essentially what the plan was. Create a Story and then come out of that Story into real life while maintaining truth and logical coherence so I could feel like I belonged in the universe even if I didn’t know how. I wouldn’t feel that immense darkness of emptiness devoid of love that always made me feel unwelcome wherever I was, and I no longer do. It is a wonderful feeling that does not confine me to my body. I could die any moment and never feel like I am losing anything if I do. Writing that Story and having it published as a novel was the goal of my youth that I needed to see myself do to recognize myself as a man.
However, at that moment when I found true love finally within me as the same soul recreated and purified from the emptiness of that immense darkness. Everyone in my life who I had deluded myself about love, pulled on some string that isn’t supposed to be there and suddenly it was all Anti love. It was revealed as hatred the entire time because of an unrealistic condition; delusion vanished and demystified as truth. Another horrible experience of depressing tragedy, but I’m over it and have found the grace and dignity of solitary life as an independent man, and am infinitely happier this way. Not everything was a delusion of hate, which is why there was a wash of radiant light and color, but most of that stuff was never intended to reach the core of a person’s very existence like the love of their family does.
Not totally unique, I know, but still highly unusual, which is another reason why I wanted that Story to be universal. I wanted it to be available to people like that if they found it helpful and wanted to use it as I did without the horrible experience I went through as necessary, and it is forever available for that. It remains extremely difficult, and your pain isn’t just going to disappear, but it is like having a trail to hike through the forest and mountains rather than go without one, which you may try but I’m fairly certain it won’t take long for you to realize that all that extra suffering is not worth it because you have other things to do at the end of the trail. That wilderness is also dangerous and you could in fact die because of the inherent dangers of the darkness beyond the security of civilization’s reach. That’s also one of the reasons why I am founding a religion that I’m calling The Way of the Story. The religion will make that safer, more efficient, and maximize the spiritual benefits of Story so they can benefit daily life infinitely in practical use.
Still people are frightened of religion because of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and that hatred, evil, violence, unkindness, hostility, and general malevolent cruelty that justifies those fears is exactly why I felt like I could not belong to their Story with the Christ. I hate all that and want nothing to do with it. Religion should be good and only good, and if a religion ever leads to violence, such as circumcision, crucifixion, and forced conversion as integral to the faith, it is quite obviously false in my opinion. Those things do not meet my religious standards of moral integrity and I reject all of them, as will the doctrine of the Way of the Story when it is written by others.
If I go to war or do violence, I am doing so for Freedom to practice my religion, which requires freedom of speech and press (not the religion itself), Justice, and most importantly— always to thwart evil. Violence is never done to advance goodness, and is only righteous when done to put an end to evil after reasonably explaining why it is necessary in coherent language and made known to the best of one’s ability. Violence is always a last resort, and if people are following the law and civilization is maintaining the justice system with integrity, it should never be necessary except in extreme cases of self-defense. Sorry if this is a bit thorough, but the trauma of religious abuse by all who spawn from the seed of Abraham is so horrible and evil that people are terrified of all religion and have begun to perceive it as fundamentally evil, which is abhorrently wrong. Religion is as necessary to civilization as a justice system, government, and public education. Do not ever omit it as irrelevant or you will incur mysterious wrath like is written in the ancient stories and ones to come concerning the USA if they don’t shape up in time.
So… that is why I am a “master” of the Anti whom all others are appearing as a charlatan beside in comparison. It is not because I hate, it is because I love, truly with all of my heart and soul, but was hated truly by all except one who knew about me long before I was born and believed in what I would accomplish. One person never losing faith in who I would be and what I would do, long ago in a nightmare of his own, is the reason why I remain good. That pure faith and true love of the ultimate divine power that is the same as universal and polyversal existence was the last thread holding together at the final moment before it is too late.
However… tbh I very much dislike using my power of language in self-defense and to thwart evil. While I very much enjoy thwarting evil and fighting glorious battles for righteous causes, I do not want to use my creative ability with Story woven into reality like that— power which can both destroy and create. I want the literal violence to end everywhere, and am doing everything I possibly can to make that happen as soon as possible, but even though I may have just told you a fantastical story about who I am, I am just one man. A normal human being who made the most of myself. If I could do so without love, imagine what can be done by a person who makes the most of their Self with love by using what my life can teach about Story as it pertains to self-mastery.
All that negative power used to strike down my enemies and lay waste to nations as an Anti-Hero is going to change when that fight is over and justice, law, and order has been restored. I will be able to use that power for creating stories of the best kind, alone or with a team, and those are stories of the pulpiest fiction and light novel variety that a certain Goddess may be familiar with. That’s going to be a lot more enjoyable for everyone, especially those who are liable to find themselves bleeding out with a mortal wound and not a scratch on their body as they gasp their final dying breaths.