Pop novology tells us that eruption occurs in a moment of Planck time and space where anything is possible, as if reality was written in binary and all of us, every one, were suddenly hackers. In that instant, we are the masters of time and space, of form and void. We can do anything. We are gods. And what’s the first thing we choose to do? Limit ourselves. Which, if true, might just go to show that we’re not as far from our primate origins as a lot of us would like to believe. I never said that novas were better than baselines, but you’ll have a hard time arguing that there aren’t some pretty radical differences. I guess Dr. Gould wins that bet, after all. Dawkins must have eaten his hat when he found that out. To be honest, I wasn’t really on the side of punctuated equilibrium, either.

So anyway. For the smallest increment of time we’ve yet been able to imagine, we’re all gods. And after our lizard brains put up barriers around our godhood just so we can feel comfortable and in control, our next step is to decide what particular manifestation our gifts will take. Limits upon limits, borders upon borders. Ostensibly, most people give themselves the tools to survive whatever trauma caused them to erupt in the first place: ways to deflect bullets, ways to fly, ways to compensate with Tequila benders, ways to kill muggers. Then there’s supposedly “wish fulfillment”, the idea that eruption gives the ugly ducklings of the world their comeuppance by turning them into beautiful, fire-breathing, radioactive, building-leveling swans. Some people – presumable the uncreative, dull, or stupid – end up with your standard spate of blowing-shit-up, deflecting-anti-tank-rounds, up-up-and-away bullshit (exhibit ‘A’ and his bald fucking pate, your honor). Maybe if you’re more interesting or just have your focus somewhere other than wearing spandex your entire life, you can control the weather or glow in the dark or turn into different kinds of animals. All fine and good abilities, and all backing up the established theory, what they’re calling ‘Planck’s Need vs. Desire Quantum Selection’ or to use the sound bite version, “Need vs. Desire”.

Of course, that theory doesn’t account for the Harvesters, or for the scores of nova scattered across the globe who didn’t erupt into Prom Queens. Geryon, for example, never said to himself prior to his eruption “Oi! I hate being a baseline chap with a normal musculature and a head proportionally sized to my torso! And I especially hate not having a revolving door of shitin’ weird-arse stigmata all over me feckin’ body, that’s for sure!” Nor do I think Leviathan ever dreamed of being a cthuloid monstrosity who has to have a ready supply of salt water nearby wherever he goes. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve known guys like that - you see a lot of them on 4chan – but not Leviathan. Nor is it Yersinia, the Plague Maiden, whose breath causes peoples’ skin to slough off in clumps.

Sloppy Joe, of course, is the ultimate proof against this idea. Here’s a guy who escaped months of gut-wrenching pain in a hospital bed and eventually a horrible death from brain cancer by erupting into a living puddle of acidic viscera. He spends every moment of his life in the kind of agony you or I can’t even imagine. He can’t even stand up or form himself into a vaguely human shape without supporting himself with a skeleton made out of tungsten rods that need constant replacement. He’ll never eat a good meal or get laid or know any kind of sensation other than crippling pain, ever, for the rest of his long, long life. There will be no happy ending for Sloppy Joe. He will be in agony until someone finds a way to kill him or until he’s caught in the corona of a collapsing star. I wonder how much of that was need, and how much of that was desire?

There’s a reason that one of the archetypes we have in Teras is ‘Monster’, and there’s a reason that the Harvesters tend to attract them. A lot of people from the outside seem to confuse that concept of monstrosity for some outward reflection: tentacles, a gaping maw full of razor teeth, fur and scales, claws, wings, oozing slimy pustules, an aura of palpable menace made manifest by bony, bleeding protrusions over ones entire body. People think you have to look like a monster to be a monster, and that blind spot is what allows guys like Ted Bundy or Adolph Hitler to be such efficient monsters. If Hitler was as ugly outside as he was inside, nobody would have followed him. On the flip side of that, you’ve got poor fuckers like John Merrick, better known as ‘The Elephant Man’, who was twisted and horrible in appearance, yet was known to be civil, genteel, and quite the gentleman, and was even friends with Queen Elizabeth. Merrick shows us that not all things that appear monstrous are monsters : Bundy shows us that not all monsters appear monstrous. It’s a theme as old as any you care to name, but if you want the most sterling example in recent history, you have no further to look than ‘King Kong’.

See, I think the doctors have it all wrong. Some of us pop and develop the tools we need to survive, or what we think we need to survive, sure. Not everyone survives their eruption, after all. But wish fulfillment? Desire? I don’t think so.

I think we erupt into what we believe ourselves to be. I think eruption peels away the mask that we wear for the sake of our own safety and security, and it shows the world not who we really are, but who we think we are. That’s why blokes like Pax don’t wash with me. No matter what he says or what he does, this is the thing he chose to become, the thing he sees himself as. Rhetoric aside, deep down, little Shelby Eisenfaust actually thinks he’s fucking Superman. And to me, that’s a hell of a lot scarier than a self-loathing man dying in a hospital who became the pile of shit everyone always told him he was.

And then there’s me. I’m not easily explained by the dominant paradigm, either, and it’s why guys like me can still be friends with guys like Geryon and Leviathan. Because I’m a monster, too.

A lot of the superficial types, the younger additions to our little circle of friends, don’t get that. Lash, in particular, does not understand me, or why the Harvesters consider me one of their own. That’s because of what Lash is, or more importantly, what he is not. Lash is a killer of men, a butcher, a sadist, and an overall sick fuck, but he isn’t a monster. He molds flesh like clay, twisting it, shaping it, turning people into grotesque parodies of humanity, creatures that would beg for death if they had mouths. He thinks this makes him a monster, because he chooses to use his powers to cause pain and destruction. All it really makes him is a pathetic bogeyman on a sadistic power trip.

In the age of novas, eruption has guaranteed that monsters are no longer what you do, they are what you are. Shrapnel became a monster in her life well after her eruption, but now her body reflects this, and it has become as twisted and grotesque as she is inside.

But still, people say that eruption is wish-fulfillment, dragging our deepest desires out into the sun, no matter how dark they are. What I am telling you is that in reality, what actually happens in that final instant is that we turn ourselves inside out, showing the world not the truth of what we wish for ourselves, but the truth of what we believe about ourselves. We monsters of the nova age should terrify you: not because of our appearance, or because of what we do, but because we monsters are the wretched dregs of humanity made into gods. We are the sad, the lost, the desperate, the self-hating. We are the truly ugly inside.

And now, the outside matches.