All posts by Emma Nervosa

Exit Bag

The idea that this thought occurred to me while listening to Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jespen now seems irrelevant. It didn’t seem that way before though.

Do you know what an exit bag is? It is a commonly used suicide technique,in which a patient who longer wishes to live has an airtight bag placed around their head with a flow of inert gas inserted in. These gases have a particular property, which prevents the panic generally associated with near-death experiences, and the pain associated with suffocation. Wikipedia tells me this is called the Hypercanic Alarm Response, and I trust that. This method was famously used by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a personal hero of mine, who has more mercy in his heart than anyone I have heard of.

There is a certain inert gas called Nitrous Oxide. It is commonly known as Laughing Gas, as well, and is sometimes used by dentists when performing oral surgery in which the patient must remain conscious. In this context, it is in a gaseous solution of both Oxygen and Nitrous Oxide, so that the patient does not die as in the case of an exit bag.

Nitrous Oxide is also recreationally used by many fun-seeking, experimenting, psychonautic youths seeking to quick, easy high. It is sold online, and in many stores in metal canisters containing 8 grams of Nitrous Oxide, under the guise of its use in making home-made whipped cream, and the utility of doing so in sexual encounters. I fail to see why someone engaging in sex involving whipped cream would not just use Reddiwip, but that is irrelevant.

In this context, the gas is often known as Whippits, which shares a referent with Laughing Gas, yet not a sense. We can thank Gottloeb Frege for the distinction. I am unsure whether or not each canister would be considered a single Whippit, and Whippits is the plural, or if the chemical in general is simply “Whippits” within such contexts.

Nitrous Oxide creates a sensation I like to describe as only being alive every other moment. It’s like a strobe light: alive, gone, alive, gone, alive. But so quickly after one Whippit is depleted the “gone” part of it fades more and more back to just being alive, until the strobe becomes a lantern. I imagine when using an Exit Bag, the opposite happens where the alive part slowly fades into the “gone” part until you are only gone.

The effect of only experiencing life every other moment is a relaxing change of pace, a dulled-down version of the usual onslaught of terror and boredom. I have been told that those who are on the Autism spectrum find sensations overly stimulating. Perhaps this is why I have been so consistently seduced by Nitrous Oxide and opoiods.

I have never understood why chemicals like opioids, which create a similar effect of not quite being so alive, are illegal, while Nitrous Oxide makes it passed the arbitrary sieve of the Legislative System of the United States of America. My current theory, which is backed up by empirical evidence, is that far less people care about the high from Nitrous Oxide, or at least, find the high from opioids far preferable. I disagree with this assessment.

Nitrous Oxide was once given to me at the dentist, which was, in this context, being used in the sense of Laughing Gas. This was perhaps my first chemically-induced state. It was my first kiss with my ever-returning mistress. I have since experienced many other chemically-induced states, and that first kiss still haunts me, even after the opioids.

I have always wondered, why then, does this sensation please and excite me so much more than the other psychonauts whom I am acquainted with? Perhaps the answer is the Exit Bag. I have always felt like the state induced by opioids becomes too regular, and then it becomes the same problematic state of life, where the unending experience of consciousness drives one to boredom and then to insanity.

But Nitrous Oxide is not like that, it does not bring one towards the calm, monotony of life. Instead it brings one to the ordered chaos of Death.

In Regards to a Certain Character’s Name

So, as some of you may have noticed, there’s a character in The Children of Lillith, named Kauc’baux. Some people might be inclined to find this humorous and pronounce it as “Cock Box”, something that had not occurred to me until very recently on account of me being really stupid, but I assure you, her name is not pronounced “Cock Box”, okay? It’s pronounced “Kawshubawzh” which is way cooler, and that’s totally how you should pronounce it in your head from now on.

It’s a different alphabet, not everything translates well…

~ Nervosa

A Few Minor Updates

So if you avert your attention to the Children of Lillith Bonus Materials page, you will find two new items. The first is a map I have drawn of the known world in which the Vampires live, which is known as Terrasia, by the way. It is also conclusive proof of why I should never be allowed to draw anything ever.

The second item, which may make more sense after viewing the first, is a description of the event known as the Great Shattering, which devastated Terrasia and brought forth a new era.

Additionally, there is a new episode of White Whine up, and it’s still hilarious so get on that.

~ Nervosa

The Great Shattering

In the beginning, Vampires and Humans lived on the same land, the Vampires living to the east, and the Humans living to the west. Since times long forgotten, the Vampires had feasted upon the Humans as was their right to thrive off of the land.

However, unknown to the Vampires, just as they could summon the power of Demons of the Infernal Realm, so too, could the Humans access power from the Divine Realm. Using this power, the Humans appealed to their god Deus, who provided them with a miracle, splitting the land into two Crescents, in order to protect His chosen people from their grim fate.

This event was cataclysmic, and is believed to have killed two-thirds of the population of Terrasia. However, civilization found its way back, and the world was rebuilt in a new era.

Since then the Vampires have only lived on their Eastern Crescent, with no local sources of Humans, additionally, the secrets of summoning Infernal power was lost in the Shattering (though some Vampires have since rediscovered it, is a closely held secret among these Magi).

Without easy access to humans, and especially the after the rise of the Shattered Islanders, it soon became impossible to gain access to the luxury of Human blood.

But there are forces, working in the mist, to undo this curse upon Vampire-kind, who are doing all within their power to ensure that soon, for the first time in over a century, they shall be able to feast upon the blood of Humans yet again.