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Post by Jonathan Sanders on Sept 6, 2021 17:58:00 GMT -5
PRELUDE: MUCH MADNESS *Fade in. We open with an interior shot of an old mental health facility. Based on the décor, easily visible in the natural sunlight which streams through the open windows into the main foyer and waiting area we find ourselves in, it appears to be the early or mid-‘00s. This is confirmed by the calendar hanging on the wall behind the reception desk, which places us squarely in August of 2005. As we pan through the halls, our gaze falls upon a young adolescent boy - probably about 12 or 13 - being led deeper into the facility by a cadre of nurses. An older man, who we recognize as Jonathan Sanders’ father, is standing some distance behind the group, speaking with a doctor. The opening chords of the acoustic version of Marilyn Manson’s “Leave a Scar” begin to play over the scene, setting a calm and somewhat sombre tone for the proceedings. The lyrics of the song are muted, instead replaced by an all-too familiar voice narrating over the scene.*“Much Madness is divinest Sense - To a discerning Eye…”*The group continues their walk through the halls, passing other patients of varying ages - all children and adolescents, nobody over the age of 18 - going in opposite directions down the hallway, or walking out of or into rooms along the corridor. We zoom in on the boy with jet-black hair, whose steel-grey eyes harden into a vicious and dagger-filled glare as he turns to glance over his shoulder at his father.*“Much Sense - the starkest Madness - ’Tis the Majority.”*Here the feed flickers and jump-cuts, placing us inside a bedroom within this facility, where the boy is being ushered inside despite protests, struggling against the nurses and orderlies around him. They end up overpowering the child, of course, and strap his wrists to his bed to keep him in place as the doctor we saw speaking to his father earlier steps into the room, sticking a syringe into young Jonathan’s right arm and pressing the plunger. Sanders continues to fight but slowly weakens, eventually passing out entirely, and the doctor turns to leave, resuming his conversation with Sanders’ father as everyone shuffles out of the room.*
“So turn around, walk away, Before you confuse The way we abuse each other…” *As they shut the door and plunge the room into relative darkness, save for the light streaming through the small window into his glorified cell, the footage flickers and cuts again to see young Sanders standing up beside the bed. He throws himself against the door and pounds on it with both fists, shouting and wailing as he does, though we can’t hear this over the music. His fury soon devolves to sobs, however, and he slumps against the door, hanging his head and crying openly into his hands. The music begins to pick up as we see a hand suddenly reach out of the darkness and place itself on young Jonathan’s shoulder.*“If you’re not afraid of getting hurt, Then I’m not afraid Of how much I hurt you…” *We pan around to see the source of this hand, stepping out of the shadows, as none-other than the adult Jonathan Sanders himself. The Lost Cause kneels down to his younger self’s level, keeping one hand on his shoulder, and the other hand produces a lit match which he offers to the child.*““I’m well aware I’m a danger to myself; Are you aware I’m a danger to others? There’s a crack in my soul…” *We zoom in on young Sanders’ face, illuminated by the flickering flame, as his lips part and curl into a familiar, wicked grin. His face flashes back and forth a few times between young Sanders and his adult counterpart.*“You thought was a smile.”
*Out feed jump-cuts again into the hallway as the door to Sanders’ cell EXPLODES off of its hinges, a plume of flame erupting out into the adjacent hall. Orderlies, nurses and other patients scramble around trying to find cover and get to safety, as adult Sanders strolls casually out of the room, dragging his Collateral Damage Championship with him. He turns to face the end of the hallway, locking eyes with his father, and the footage flickers and cuts again to see the entire hallway engulfed in flames and young Sanders walking back towards the exit, shot in slow motion while the scenery around him collapses as a result of the blaze.*“Whatever doesn’t kill you, Is gonna leave a scar!” *The footage continues to flicker and flash back and forth between young Sanders and his adult counterpart as they stroll through the inferno, the doctor from earlier running by in the background engulfed in flames, flailing and screaming as he does.*“Whatever doesn’t kill you, Is gonna leave a scar! Leave a scar Leave a scar...”
*We cut back to the original room Sanders had been staying in, now almost completely consumed by the fire. There’s a small clearning in the centre of the floor where the flames haven’t touched, and we see the child version of Jonathan sitting there cross-legged, his hands held in the Baphomet pose and head bowed to face the floor.* “Whatever doesn’t kill you… Is gonna leave a scar.” *The footage flickers and cuts again as the music fades and we see adult Jonathan Sanders in the same position, devil mask on, and he slowly raises his head to face the camera.* “In this, as all, prevail - Assent - and you are sane - Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain...”*Fade out.*----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANTITHESIS: SHRINKING VIOLET*Fade in. We open with a shot of a run-down, dilapidated mental health facility - the same one, in fact, that we saw in the previous segment. Moonlight streams through broken windows, casting the interior in an eerie bluish light and throwing elongated shadows across the walls and floor. We track slowly through the cobwebbed and graffitied main foyer of this facility, where surprisingly-modern yet still indisputably outdated décor sits covered in a thick layer of dust belying the years it’s sat untouched. As we forge deeper into the spartan medical innards of the facility, we become aware of a faint humming echoing through the hallways. It is, as astute long-time fans might expect, the sea shanty “What Will We Do with a Drunken Sailor?”, a tune now chiefly associated with ANTITHESIS member and resident monster, “The Mad God” Dionysus. This, however, is not the focus of our shot, as the humming is quickly drowned out by a much closer sound - a voice, and a familiar one at that.*“Madness is a fickle concept...”*The camera whirls around now, but does not reveal the source of the voice just yet, sweeping instead through more of the hallways of the psychiatric hospital. We pass a nurses’ station, lined with cobwebs and hosting one empty chair and a single, lonely late-90s or early-00s computer, its boxy white monitor discoloured by time and neglect. As we pass this nurses’ station we see photos dotting the walls, memories of bygone staff and wealthy benefactors who have long since left this place to ruin.*“It is something...difficult to objectively define. For poets, it can be explored in the abstract. Offered up as a nebulous thought, a ‘theme’ to be parsed and dissected solely in the minds of those who read or listen to their works. For philosophers, it can be more prescriptive; an analysis of what makes us human, and which actions we ought not to take lest we should compromise that definition. But humanity does not seem content with those vagaries, and instead has gone beyond both definitions, into something altogether more sinister...though not, of course, terribly surprising.”*Moving further down the hallways now, we reach what can only be described as a derelict security checkpoint; an area which would cordon off the more violent or dangerous patients in need of treatment from those with minor personality or behavioural disorders. We face a set of doors on one end of the hallway, the sign above it long-since faded from legibility, and covered - as many of the walls and flat surfaces have been - by more graffiti. The humming is louder here, and we become conscious of some distant clanging and clattering sounds as well, and as we push through the double-doors we can immediately see we’re in the same hallway through which young Sanders was marched in the previous segment. We pan down this corridor a short distance before coming to a room on our right, notable because the floor immediately outside of it is stained with black soot, and as he turn to gaze into the room we can finally see the source of our voice, none other than PWS: Apex Collateral Damage Champion, “The Lost Cause” Jonathan Sanders. The self-styled Outsider is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, and the room around him is badly fire-damaged. He stares down at the floor beneath him, with the Collateral Damage Title draped over his lap, enabling us only to see his plain black leather jacket and “As I Lay Dying” t-shirt. His head remains bowed and shoulders slumped as we approach.*“Emily Dickinson wrote often of madness, in the prolific collection of works she penned throughout her years. Along with death and immortality, it seems the human psyche was a topic which often crossed her mind. And I cannot blame her. Dickinson knew well of the struggles which pervade those perceived as ‘different’ or ‘abnormal’ by society at large. She was well-acquainted with that deep, all-consuming darkness that afflicts so many of us who have seen the truest cruelties of reality. Dickinson knew what I have always known, what all my brothers in ANTITHESIS know, better than anyone else alive; that this system is broken. That humanity’s rules of what is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ are arbitrary facades, propagandist tools designed to suppress and control those of us who do not conform to a comforting worldview. Those who would see fit to challenge the status quo.”*Here, Sanders pauses, raising his face to the camera. His expression is oddly wistful, piercing steel-grey eyes softer and more vulnerable than we’ve seen from the Snake of Eden. He shuts his eyeliner-rimmed eyes and inhales sharply, slowly standing up as his face contorts from sad reminiscence into the characteristic malice that we’ve come to expect.* “547 days…”*Sanders opens his eyes again, glaring down the camera lens.*“547 days they kept me in this place, after my first attempt. After he took away my…”*Sanders trails off, inhaling sharply and slamming his eyes tightly shut once more. His hands ball into fists for a long moment before he exhales and opens his eyes again, lips curling into a sort of bitter smirk.*“For 547 days I was confined to this room. Held here for ‘observation’. ‘Evaluation’. To keep me safe from the darkest of my adolescent impulses...heh. But they paid no mind to safety here. No heed to WHY I had chosen to ‘act out’ the way that I did. They simply called me ‘dangerous’ and locked me away. They said I was ‘reckless’. ‘Anti-social’. ‘Disturbed’. And yet, how could I be otherwise? When all of my childhood had been spent surviving horrific, HOSTILE conditions; when any socialization had been meant with humiliation, punishment and RIDICULE, how could I possibly be expected to conform to THEIR standards of expected normalcy? How can you raise a child in Hell and then expect them to adapt to life on Earth? It’s neither possible, nor is it fair. This is what Dickinson referred to in her writings, when she warned us to ‘Assent - and you are sane’. Madness is not an objective concept, there is no intrinsic meaning to the word. Insanity, as with all such terms, requires an observer to give it credence. Emily Dickinson knew that ‘crazy’ is what we call anything we can’t quite wrap our minds around.” *Sanders pauses here, the bitterness falling away and his smirk taking on more of a derisive, sardonic nature. He keeps his grey eyes locked on the camera, beginning to move towards the door.*“Ask any linguist, they’ll tell you that it’s true. ‘Insanity’ as a concept only exists as a comparative term. It can only find its meaning when weighed AGAINST what is defined as ‘normal’. This is why it’s begun to fall out of favour in the psychiatric profession; because they know the term is meaningless on its own. They realize it is unhelpful to call a patient ‘crazy’ when you seek to help them HEAL from whatever it is you think has damaged them. They realize that the more you place these labels on a person, especially a vulnerable, broken, impressionable individual...the more they’ll come to believe it. And all the negative connotations that term carries with it. Just ask Dionysus. The Mad God himself has spoken of the effects this terminology can have on our very sense of self, and you have ALL seen firsthand just what kind of monster they can truly turn us into. But I place no blame on labels for the thing I have become; no, I know this inner darkness existed long before any medical professional gave me the words to define it. This is simply who I AM. It’s who, I think, I have ALWAYS been, deep down. And that’s why I should frighten you. THAT is why Jonathan Sanders is not a threat to be taken lightly...why anyone in their right mind should follow my advice and RUN whenever they come within striking distance of ANTITHESIS.”*Sanders pauses, running one finger through the soot that has caked around the doorframe. He grins a brief, malevolent grin in response, as if recalling a devious memory, then lets the powder slip through his fingers and returns his gaze to the camera, hsi expression serious again.*“And yet...tonight, again, I find another member of the PWS: Apex roster who simply does not seem to grasp that fairly basic concept. Another modern warrior who believes the warnings don’t apply to them. Violet Amelia Holt. Five Feet...of ‘Crazy’. Well truly, Violet, that must be the case, if you’ve agreed to a match with me. Truly you must have no reservations, no concern for your own safety, if the Plague of Professional Wrestling was your first choice as an opponent. But that isn’t REALLY true, is it, Violet? You use ‘crazy’ as a GIMMICK, as a PERSONALITY QUIRK, but I don’t believe it’s truly reflective of the girl you are inside. Let us examine your career, for example; how have you made a name for yourself in this brutal, withering business so far? It seems to me, Ms. Holt, that you haven’t. Not REALLY. Sure, you have a FATHER with some name value, and all your brothers and sisters are professional wrestlers too...but all THAT proves is this addiction runs in your bloodline. It proves that poor little Violet just wanted to fit in with everyone around her...which seems, to my mind, precisely the opposite of what someone who calls themselves ‘crazy’ should ever desire to do. So, then, why the sobriquet? Why choose to project this image when it so blatantly fails to align with who you truly are?”*Sanders shakes his head, stepping out of the room and into the burned-out, cobwebbed hallway.*“I know why, Violet Holt. I know precisely your reasons for trying to perpetuate this persona of being ‘Five Feet of Crazy’, a violent force of nature your opponents would rather avoid. It’s because you’re scared. You worry, deep down, that you don’t have what it takes to live up to the legacy Daddy has left behind for you. You don’t want to be the Holt that history forgets. But subsisting on just your father’s name is not enough for you, no. Sure, you may ride his coattails to some modicum of midcard success, but you have always wanted MORE. This is in your blood, after all, and no addict is satisfied with just a taste of the thing they truly crave. So you’ve adopted this...gimmick. This identity, the mask of the crazy, unpredictable psychopath who could rip her opponent’s head from their shoulders without a second thought. The loose-cannon, liable to beat a man within an inch of his life for daring to make a pass at her. I saw what you did to Richard Rider, Violet Holt. I saw how you tried to brutalize him, the tears you went on week in and week out when trying to find your next opponent. And yet...I also saw it all fade away. The attacks died down, Rider faced his punishment, and Violet Amelia Holt became just another face on the PWS: Apex merchandise website with a slogan to slap on a t-shirt.”*Sanders pauses, his lips curling first into a smirk, then a sneer as he continues to glare into the camera.*“‘Five Feet of Crazy’. Heh. Even I must admit, it has a ring to it. It’s precisely the sort of pithy, vapid one-liner that I’m certain would work wonderfully in a social media bio, or as the tagline for your personal event booking website. ‘Violet Amelia Holt; Five Feet of Crazy. SCW and PWS: Apex superstar. Business inquiries only’. It sounds impressive...until you realize there is no substance behind it. It’s a claim that sells action figures, but it is NOT one you’re capable of backing up with action. I know you can’t support it, Violet; as I said, I’ve SEEN you in the ring. You’re like the scarlet kingsnake, mimicking the markings of the deadly New World coral snake to deter predators and make them think you’re dangerous. But I am not easily deceived. I am an apex predator, I know you have no venom that can harm ME. You’ve SEEN what I can do to those who oppose me, Violet Amelia Holt. Ask Cleo Phillips how far Jonathan Sanders will go to destroy his challengers. Ask Shawn Young, or Heather Haze, if they believe I’m crazy. Compare what I have done - what ANTITHESIS has done - to all who stand in our way, then ask yourself if you truly deserve that nickname. Ask yourself if you could do the same things to your opponents - the same things to your OWN BODY - that I do on a regular basis. I am not a good person, Violet Holt. I am not here to sell merchandise. I am here to hurt you, to hurt EVERYONE in this company, to break your spirits one by one until the very BEDROCK of PWS: Apex crumbles to the Earth, and you all realize how pathetically futile your entire existence truly is. I am the Plague of Professional Wrestling, the apocalypse given flesh, and I did NOT earn that nickname lightly!”*Sanders pauses here, breathing heavily for a moment as he reins himself back in. He shuts his eyes and inhales deeply, his expression of rage softening into another bitter smirk as his gaze meets the camera.*“So if you truly wish to wrestle this match tonight, I hope that you’re prepared. I will take you further than anyone else you have ever faced, I will push you past your limits until I find the breaking point for your body and your spirit, and then I will keep pushing. I will SHOW you what it means to be ‘crazy’, Violet Amelia Holt...and I will leave you broken and forgotten, one more shrinking violet crushed between the pages of the list of ANTITHESIS’ victims.”*A beat, then Sanders turns on his heel, walking towards Dionysus who has appeared at the end of the hallway as we fade to black.*Fin.
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