#all the other characters are tragic and filled with so much existential pain

[thickest-antivirus-programs]

oh i just realised all steven universe ships suck

[secondhand-trash]

A/N: a softer actually kinda wholesome part of the wholesome ghost content uwu

Warning: brief description of death/violence, cheating(between side characters, ghost daddy would never uvu), break-in robbery, brief nsfw below cut (voyeurism, female masturbation)

Word count: 4300

Q:

Where does a ghost go on vacation?

Shinsou Hitoshi had never been one for leaving his house. Life was already stressful enough, he would much rather stay within the comfortable confines of this nice house he worked hard to pay rent for when he could take a break. Even with dismay from his parents and relentless invitation from his friends, he still turned them down with an obviously fabricated excuse every time. He had everything he needed here. If he could, he would not take one step out that door at all which was ironic because now that he really had no reason and no choice to leave the house, he would give anything just to even poke his head out of these four walls.

Contrary to popular belief, you could never really quite feel your death. Of course, there was this short period of struggling in his case, together with the pain that slowly spread through his body and the numbness that followed suit. But all in all, it really felt like he was just slipping into a heavy curtain, free-falling onto a large bed with a mattress that let your entire body sank in until your consciousness was just floating onto of the pillows.

He had yet to register that he was already dead when his eyes snapped open again until he realised that he had forgotten to breathe and it really didn’t matter to him anymore. There really was no existential crisis that could compare to what he felt when he looked down to see his own body lying on the ground. 

Such a ghastly sight, he would much rather not think about now that it was long gone. 

He had wondered what life after death would be like anyone else but in all honesty, it was very underwhelming. There was no guidebook, no reaper showing up to collect his soul, nothing but him in an empty house. He could not leave the damn house no matter how hard he tried. Every time he stepped out the door or leap out the window frame, he would always end up right back at the spot where he took his final breath like some cruel joke, and eventually, he gave up. Not that he had any other choice.

No one wanted to move into a house where someone had recently died there and during the time of the house’s vacancy, Shinsou had set his mind to test the limits to his newfound existence as a spiritual being. In his little quest to self-actualisation, he had discovered several things. He could pass through things, which was fun and he spent a good amount of time poking his head into random objects for a while. Making himself tangible took longer for him to grasp, but eventually, he came to the realisation that the key to it was to not think too much about it and just do it like he would if he was alive. He still had his senses to some degree, but things that would bother him when he was alive, like the feeling of fire right below his palm per se (yes he tried that too, it was not like he could die twice anyways), did not have much of an effect on him now that he wasn’t. People appeared to be unable to see him, much to his delight after realising that none of the passersby saw him standing in front of the window for several hours like some cheap cgi from a b-movie.

He was still pretty pissed that he could not float. But hey, who knows, maybe he would unlock that skill later on after he jumped off the table for enough times.

What he had concluded after a while was that being dead was boring. He had all the time in the world but there was no cable or internet so binging whatever show he never got around to pick up while he was alive was not an option. Besides, it would probably stir up quite the panic if the neighbours heard the sound of people talking coming from the supposedly empty house. He did, however, picked up several new hobbies. He learned how to play the grand piano that was left here in the living room by the last owner. He always played it as quietly as he could, he would be in so much trouble if people picked up the faint music at night. It was hard figuring out the notes and scales on his own but with the amount of time he had, eventually he got to the point where what he played sounded somewhat decent. He also discovered a stack of vinyls and a record player covered with cobwebs stuffed at the back of the attic, one of which was an audio tutorial on how to waltz that was from god knows how long ago. Shinsou had never seen himself as the waltzing type of person, but when you were a ghost who was bored out of his mind, anything you could get your hands on was worth a try.

He stopped counting how long it had been since he died at some point, burying himself within the keys of the piano and stumbling to figure out how to practice each step without a partner. For a while, he felt like he didn’t quite mind spending his eternity like that.

Then one day, the door swung to show a woman with a large smile on her face and a couple that looked like they would die if they did so little as took their arm out of the others’ walked in.

Turned out, people would eventually forget about the young man who died tragically in the house as time passed and land got more expensive. The new owner of the house was a newly wedded couple, according to what the wife said giddily to the real estate agent. Shinsou watched from a corner of the living room as the agent handed them the key, sighing as he realised that his silence in the house would never be restored.

For a while, he felt like he could get used to this. Both the wife and the husband would leave for work in the day, giving him the personal space that he desperately needed. They would come back at dawn together, carrying bags of groceries and laughing as they walked in. Shinsou had no part in it, but he decided that if he never got to have a family of his own then being happy for the residents of this place he was stuck in was the closest he would get. He liked listening to the couple talk over dinner, smiling and nodding his head as if they could see him at all. Was it lonely that he was in a world of his own despite watching people around him carry on with their life like he had never been in this place at all? Kinda, but Shinsou figured that he didn’t mind it all too much. At least these people were happy, and there could be nothing more tragic than being stuck with a miserable family in the house he could never leave.

Until one day, he picked up that the couple stopped kissing each other goodbye before leaving the door in the morning. Until that evening when he realised that they stopped coming home together. He saw it all too clearly, the outsider that could go through walls that the living could not see through, and he was worried that this peace would not last much longer.

Until that one night, when he thought that the husband and wife went back to their old ways as he heard the laughing from outside the door only to feel his heart drop when he noticed how that woman giggling sounded nothing like the wife.

They didn’t even bother going into the bedroom, immediately all over each other the moment the front door was clicked. Shinsou curled up at the corner of the attic that night, pretending that if he heard nothing, then whatever was going on in the living room right now never happened at all.

The wife still wasn’t back the next morning and against his better judgment, he took a lipstick out of the woman’s bag and put it somewhere he knew for sure the wife would see.

He wasn’t sure if he had done the right thing when he saw tears streaming down the wife’s face after finding the unfamiliar lipstick that was clearly not hers. He stood and watched as she slammed the door, her cries and screams still echoing through the house even after she left.

Shinsou decided that he would never meddle with the living again when he saw the man broke down sobbing, while he could only stand there and wonder if it would have been better if he was never there at all.

The couple that wasn’t quite a pair anymore moved out soon after that, and Shinsou was left to his own device in an empty house again. It was funny how things could be cleared out so fast and as the man locked the door for the last time, it was like they were never there at all. All the pictures and tiny knick-knacks that made the house alive were gone, with only empty spots on the walls.

Sometimes when Shinsou sat in silence at night,, staring at the vacant spots around a house that was too big for one lonely ghost, he felt like he was never there too.

The next occupant of the house he died in was a family of three. He watched through the windows on the second floor as the truck pulled up and an excited child ran towards the door. He could hear the laughing from the parents even through the thick walls. Shinsou was never one for children, they were too noisy and too unexpected. He sighed, watching as the dad picked the child up to twist the doorknob, the sound of innocent blabbering immediately filling the house up right as the lock clicked.

He didn’t really think that these people would make much change in his routine, it was not like they would notice him anyways. He nearly felt the blood that wasn’t there retreating from his face when his eyes met with the young son of the family, the way his round eyes slowly widens told him the one thing that he was most afraid of.

The kid could see him.

He was expecting the child to scream, to run to his parents, or cry even. But he didn’t, much to his surprise. Perhaps the child mistook him as one of his imaginary friends that happened to be a lot more real and a lot less imaginary? He would never know. You know children, you could never really quite understand how their world works after you grew up. 

The house was alive again, and Shinsou felt like he could get used to this, for real this time. The kid didn’t annoy him as much as he thought he would, and there were times when he didn’t even notice the smile on his face as he watched the boy ran to his parents to show them things he was proud of. They were good parents, Shinsou thought from his childless young adult perspective. 

He liked the kid, as wild as it sounded. He admitted that the young resident of the house was a cute kid, round eyes and wide smile, hair always tangled up in a mess quite like his own. There were times when he would creep down the stairs behind the adults’ back and when he placed a finger on his lips to signal the boy to not say anything, the child always had a hard time biting back a chuckle, shaking his head as his eyes sneakily followed the ghost’s figure.

The boy found a sense of pride in knowing something that his parents didn't, the purple-haired roommate was his friend and his friend only, a tiny secret that he shared with the young ghost who always gave him a thumbs up when he held up his drawings to thin air much to his guardian’s confusion.

Shinsou assumed that one day, as the kid grew up, he would stop being able to see him like the other adults. The idea made him feel lonely sometimes, but he was alright with it. If he never got to have a kid of his own, he supposed watching someone else’s grow up would be the closest thing he would ever get from having a family of his own.

For a while, he really thought that things would be set this time around and he would not have to be alone for a long time coming. Until that night when everyone was asleep upstairs and he being the ghost he was, decided to indulge in his ghostly lack of need for sleep to lounge around the living room, heard a rattling at the door lock.

He froze in horror when the door crept open and a masked man walked in, very careful with each movement and making no noises even though the wooden floor had a tendency to creak with the lightest of steps.

This felt all too similar. Someone breaking in at the depths of the night while everyone was asleep, unaware of the danger lurking just steps below. He could feel his blood curl at the familiar unfolding of events, and seeing the man snooped around made him recall the feeling of seeing his own dead body much to his dismay.

He thought of the parents, the good people who were just trying to live their lives. He remembered the child, so young and with so much potential, and the wide grin on his face. He had hoped to see him grow up, to see how he would look like years later when he got taller. His fingers trembled when he thought of what could happen to the family, of how they might end up just like him.

Shinsou clenched his jaw, hands clutching both in anger and in fear. The same thing was happening but something was different, this time he was here. Nothing would happen to the family as long as he was around, and he was bound to be around for a very long time.

The house was big, but one ghost haunting it was more than enough.

The mom screamed when she saw a man lying on the floor unconscious the next morning, with hardcover books and kitchenware all over the floor. The man was still alive, she realised after checking his pulse gingerly and woke her husband. The mask and the many tools in his belt hinted that whoever this strange man was, he was definitely not there for friendly inquiries. The couple was shocked and confused as to what happened for the burglar to be there, especially after looking around to see that no valuables were missing.  As for the child, he was barely awake as he made way down the stairs, rubbing his eyes when he saw the many people in his living room. He did not know what was going on but daddy and mommy looked very serious so he did the smart thing and left the scene, going to see if the purple boy wanted to see his new lego set instead.

The family moved out of the house as expected, you could not call somewhere home if you didn’t even feel safe in it. The child cried when his parents told him that they were moving, knowing that this meant leaving his new friend behind. Shinsou did not have the heart to say anything when the child strike up a conversation with him the first time, asking if purple boy could move with them too. Shinsou wanted to lie and say that he would be there with him, but he knew that it was better to not hurt the child even more when he would eventually realise that the ghost was nowhere to be found in his new home.

The kid was the only one who looked back before the family walked out of the door. Shinsou put on his widest smile and waved, despite really really wanting to cry.

The house was left unoccupied for a long while which made sense, murder and robbery didn’t exactly sound the most appealing. Shinsou had decided that he liked it better this way, no one around meant no one to get attached to. This time, even if someone did move in eventually, he was determined to not stick his head into a world he didn’t belong in. The living come and go, but he could not leave no matter how much he wanted to and he did not necessarily want to go through that again. 

He was pretty content with being alone, now being able to carry on with his newfound hobby of waltzing (badly) and playing the piano in minimum volume. Shinsou had a strong feeling that he was better of spending the rest of his eternity like that with no one around to disturb him.

And then you showed up.

You were unlike any other who moved into the house, the only one who was alone, much like him back when he stepped into those doors with a pulse. You were curious when you first walked inside, looking around in interest as if you had no idea what the house looked like prior. You intrigued him, someone closed to his age and bright-eyed, twinkling in interest when you saw something that you liked and scrunched your brows together when you didn’t. Poking your head through each doorway and quickly leaving to see the other rooms, mumbling under your breath about how one person could use so many rooms which he absolutely agreed.

Shinsou felt a weird emotion bubbling up in him when he saw that of all the rooms you could pick from, you settled moving your stuff into the one that he used to sleep in. 

Perhaps it was because you were young and single and very much so on your own, he felt way more of a need to respect your space than he did with all the previous residents of the house. There were many times when he stopped himself in the tracks as he was about to pass through the bathroom to get to another place, knowing that you were in there from the sound of water running. You were completely unaware of his struggles as you lounged around with shorts and thin thin crop tops, all sprawled out on the couch while the ghost was scolding himself to just take his eyes off you and look somewhere else. He was dead, but he was still young and filled with hot blood(?) no less and the fact that you looked so lovely with your hair wet and waist showing under the loose shirt did not help his plan to not pay attention to you at all.

But all inner struggles aside, you just seemed like a nice person to be around in general. He was always peaking behind you to see what you were reading when you were leisurely sipping your coffee on sunday mornings, slightly shocked and very approving when he saw that you had discovered some of his old books in the attic. You were the only person to notice that well-hidden trap door down the hallway, and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw you beamed in delight as you found the stack of records. He convinced himself that it was just his own loneliness talking and that he was only feeling that way because it had been too long since he came across someone his age, but something about the way you laughed when you were on the phone with your friends or the little dance you did when you were waiting for the water to boil made his heart flustered in a way he didn’t know ghosts could.

He wished he could talk to you.

His world was flipped upside down when you saw him for the first time. There were many times before when you would look past him, staring right past his ghostly existence, but he felt shivered running down his spine when you actually looked at him. 

Wonderful, he thought to himself as he froze in place, not knowing how to react as your eyes meet, there is no way they’re gonna stay knowing that I’m here.

It seemed like the living had once again outdone his expectations. You stayed in the house, much to his shock and delight, and you had started talking to him. He was very tempted to reply every time you greet him in the morning but refrained from doing so, remembering what happened the last time he interacted with the living. You had taken the liberty to test out different ways to provoke a reaction out of him, leaving sticky notes and pens around the house, going far enough to prepare food for him even though he never really sat down at the table. 

He thought you would give up eventually but you didn’t, and his will to steer distance from you was slowly faltering. 

The first time he did something for you was out of instinct, you forgot to take your clothes out of the washing machine and it was making him anxious because he had made the same mistake before, nothing could compare to the annoyance of having to do your laundries again. Your mouth hang open when you sprinted down to the kitchen after sleeping past your alarm to see your clothes spinning in the dryer, turning your head to see Shinsou sitting on the kitchen counter, looking anywhere but you as if he did nothing.

He could not forget how happy you looked as you thanked him, and he knew he was gone for.

You seemed to accept that you had a roommate and he was a ghost. Casually asking for his opinion on things despite never getting a spoken response. Your casual acknowledgment of his existence only made things more difficult for him. There were many times when he would think about you in a way that was everything but innocent while you were deep in slumber in the other room, his room. He could touch you if he just walked through the door and reached out, but he always managed to pull back before doing something he knew he would regret. He liked you far too much to risk driving you away and he would just have to handle this frustration himself.

He imagined the way you would sound as he caressed you when he reached down to palm himself through the fabric.

He was doing so well, pushing away any impure thoughts and acting as gentlemanly as he could in giving you space you rightfully deserved. But when he heard a moan from your room that one night, something inside him snapped. He stood in front of your door, the last bit of self-control pulling him back as the sound of your rapid breaths and wet noises which he did not need to make a guess to know its source filled his ears. 

You sounded even more heavenly than he had imagined, and he could feel his own arousal building up.

You knew he was here and still decided to went through with it, knowing that there was a chance he would notice. Then it must have meant that you wanted it to happen, right? Right? 

He waited for you to object, to scream, to push him away when he climbed over your naked form, soaking in your body that was displaying wanton lust as clear liquid leaked from your cunt all over the sheets, but you didn’t. Your pupils were diluted as he stared at you, face flushed and filled with desire.

He took your silence as permission to keep going, and he did not miss the way you mewled when he gripped your wrist.

“Let me take care of that.”

He finally did what he wanted and talked to you, along with many other things that he had only dreamt of doing.

“Ouch! You’re stepping on my foot!” 

A yelp broke him out of his haze and he snapped back when you hit his shoulder. You had moved the record player down to the living room under his request and right now, soft music was playing as he held you in his arms, one hand on your waist and the other holding yours.

“You were the one who suggested we do this so you better focus.” You sent him a glare and he smiled apologetically.

“For someone who said they have been learning how to waltz for quite some time now,” you hissed when he hit your toe once again, “you are really bad at this.”

“Don’t blame it on me,” he said pulling you close to him until his cheek was right against yours, “never had a partner to practice with.”

You snorted, mumbling something about him playing the dead card every time. He grinned, feet moving clumsily in unison with yours in each step as he gently swayed you.

You stumbled when he suddenly twirled you around, clicking your tongue in mock judgment before he eased your scrawl with a light peck on the lips. 

You sighed. “Good thing we have plenty of time to get better at this.”

Shinsou smiled, thinking that he had finally found a way and someone to spend all this time he had never asked for.

“Yeah,” he said in between kisses, enjoying your warmth as you hook your arms around his neck, “plenty of time.”

(Back to the masterlist)

A:

Maliboo

[seasaltmemories]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Review/Analysis

I have a complicated relationship with the Xenoblade franchise.  While I’ve played each game in the series, I’ve never fully finished one or ever fell in love the way I see others do.  Even its latest entry Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I bounced off so hard, it took a friend all but forcing me to continue playing for me to come back

Yet its the only game I’ve been compelled enough to finish.  I even played the Torna DLC which was another 25 hours on top of a 65 hour long play-through, so I thought I might as well go ahead and share my thoughts on what made it more compelling than anticipated in the end.

Lost in a sea of clouds, entire civilizations rest on the backs of Titans. As the giant beasts march toward death, the last hope is a scavenger named Rex—and Pyra, a living weapon known as a Blade. Can you find the fabled paradise she calls home? Command a group of Blades and lead them to countless strategic victories before the world ends. Each Titan hosts its own distinct cultures, wildlife, and diverse regions to explore. Search the vast open areas and labyrinthine corridors for treasure, secret paths, and creatures to battle and index. During these escapades you’ll get to know a large cast of eclectic characters, including the weaponized life forms known as Blades. Gather these allies, bond with them to increase their power, and utilize their special ARTS to devastate enemies. But to save the world of Alrest, you must first demystify its cloudy past.

One person once described XC2 as having the worst first impression in the world, and honestly, they weren’t entirely wrong.  There are a million little mechanics begging for your attention, yet its hard to tell what they do or their point, the lipsync is so bad, I couldn’t really bear watching characters talk, the character design and aesthetic even when it isn’t confusingly horny, never really comes together, and worst of all you have to stand fully still for the MMO-inspired combat to even work

When we got around to the prolonged anime fight cutscenes, I was ready to throw in the tower, but like I said, a friend wheedled me into sticking with it longer, and so I powered through

It takes until chapter 3/10 for me to feel like I have a grasp on the gameplay, but since apparently others took until endgame to understand that, I was ahead of the curve, the Xenoblade familiarity probably helped, but to explain as quickly as I can, its about building up specials and linking them in the right order for combos, not the most complicated stuff, but there are enough bells and whistles to keep me engaged in any fight and I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself for slowly getting a grip on things

And by the end of the chapter it finally felt there was some meat to the story as well, rather than try and artificially prolong a mystery about Mythra, they explain her existence quickly, and she proved to be the most interesting character yet, it’s not anything revolutionary, but the idea is compelling: an uncontrollable ball of power so dangerous, she willfully sealed herself away and constructed a safer, more palpable version of herself, in general, she brought this melancholy regretful mood to the story, which gave the story some texture

Probably the high-point came with chapter 5, when we not only started to dig into the shared painful past both Mythra and the villains face, but also learned of the tragic existence of Blades themselves, there’s the inherent consent issues of sentient weapons, but as Jin, who so far had been stoic and dull, angrily talks explains how they are actively kept from being able to form any soceity/history of their own, I couldn’t help but agree with him.  

However any grace it had managed to win started to fade with chapter 7, from then on the plot is so railroaded to the endgame, you have to actively fight it to really enjoy the open world mechanics, it has the most infuriating dungeon that takes away your ability to rack up specials, essentially sucking all the fun out of combat, the gatcha system of acquiring new blades, and most importantly Rex’s weakness as a protag

From the start his youthfulness is emphasized, as is his powerlessness in the face of most of his opponents.  The story is set up from the start to be a coming of age of sorts, but any potential that has is squashed by the fact that everything important to the plot basically already happened or is being pushed forward by ppl other than our party, he never really justifies his place in the narrative or why we should be following him besides generic chosen one stuff

Furthermore the party dynamics never really come together, it’s both small and large by JRPG standards (only five members but each of them has at least one blade, essentially doubling the cast) and in heart to heart’s there is good chemistry, but any chance to shine a light on an outside member falls pretty flat, the best we get is Zeke’s bitterness regarding the state of his home, the worst is Morag’s lack of character beyond an admittedly cool design and a her loyalty to an empire that is textually pretty bad news, a lot of ppl love Nia’s character, but I struggle to even call it an arc, it is the same plot twist almost every Torna member has had, that doesn’t really inform much about her as character or even the themes of story, just the there is this problem but oh now it is fixed

By the end it is clear that story is going for themes of existentialism, but all the weaknesses I’ve mentioned before really hold it back, there’s both too much attempts at in-story investment yet not enough strong writing to deliver in comparison to something like Nier Automata

Yet it’s hard to regret my time with it, the concepts it brought up of self-hood and memory, the flashes of brilliance it got when the gameplay all flowed together, the last thing you could call XC2 is unambitious or predictable

I played Torna DLC mostly to see if actually getting to go back to that shared traumatic past might give me the catharsis I wish, but now that the important lore-filled past is present, it once more failed to really deliver the emotional weight of its plot, pushing most hints of it to cutscenes right at the end, and what improvements made to the gameplay kinda canceled out with the oomph it together from combos

Still I can’t help but appreciate it for the inspiration it gave me to think about its themes and messages

[comic-panels]

Comic Review – Mister Miracle

Darkseid has often been presented as THE big bad for large DC Comics events. Much like how the Marvel Movies used Thanos (Thanos is basically a mashup of Darkseid and Metron). He is the existential threat, the final boss and because it's comic books he is an evil rock monster in space that Superman can punch. Darkseid can fill that role fine, but in comics I would say he suffers from overplay. It's hard to remain scary when you lose so many times.

More modern comics (Specifically Grant Morrison's work) have explored the Darkseid as a more internal threat. 

"Darkseid is."

Really playing on the pun of his name, he is the dark side of everyone. As with a lot of Jack Kirby’s work, Darkseid is both metaphor and supremely literal and frankly I think the magic of superhero comics lies in that duality. The part that’s metaphor allows them to be relatable and inspiring, but looking at them as pure metaphor and they break down. The X-Men don’t work as a representational metaphor because being gay doesn’t make you a living weapon who can murder people by looking at them, but it also can work because it can feel like that’s how the world treats you. Ideally there’s a balance.

Also there’s part where Darkseid is a joke.

My first experience with Darkseid was in Superman the Animated Series where he was a legitimately intimidating villain both because of the great voicework by Michael Ironside, and because the actions he took and their real impact.

But as a recurring existential threat he falls flat. Because he's pure evil, he's immutable. He's inflexible.

"Darkseid is."

Maybe that’s not fair. I think he can be a good recurring threat, but often isn’t because resolving a conflict with him takes a certain tact. As scary as he is, as powerful as he is, he’s a villain in Superhero comics. If it comes down to a fight he is going to lose. Superman will win that 1 on 1.

Darkseid as an in your face threat can fall flat because that pure good vs pure evil beat down is straightforward. Where Darkseid shines as a villain is in the shadows. The puppet master pulling the string. Because then Darkseid isn’t just a giant evil rock man in space for Superman to punch, he is also Granny Goodness, Desad, Kalibak, Lex Luthor, and every two bit crook along the way. He is every pain along the way, every compromise, every dark thought, every mistake, every failure.

“Darkseid is.”

But Darkseid is also a literal evil rock man in a skirt. And a joke. So the other way Darkseid really works is when he shows up on your couch.

“Darkseid is.”

Sometimes it’s just a comfy chair or handing you your McDonalds order but the point is he’s just there in the mundane part of the character’s life. His evil permeates everything and because he’s a literal evil rock monster from space sometimes that means an evil eight foot rock monster in a skirt is sitting in your house waiting for you when you get home. “Couchseid” he is sometimes called.

The reason I went through all that is that’s the thoughts and feelings I had about Darkseid going into this comic. The baggage of expectation and desire I had going in. And before I get into the details I just want to say that this comic completely nails this idea. In fact the entire comic embodies it, extending it out to the entire Fourth World. Contrasting the high fantasy war of good and evil Gods with the mundanity of normal life at every level.

Ok, now let’s dig into Mister Miracle.

Mister Miracle written by Tom King with art by Mitch Gerads and lettering by Clayton Cowles opens with Mister Miracle bleeding out in his bathroom having slit his wrists in a suicide attempt. That’s where we start.

“Darkseid is.”

Jack Kirby’s New Gods #1 opens with an epilogue. “There came a time when the old Gods Died!” That’s where we start.

Mister Miracle is a book about dealing with trauma and the trauma at the heart of The New Gods is the exchange; where Darkseid and Highfather exchanged sons to end a vicious war and bring peace to their worlds. This is the first comic I’ve seen question if that exchange was worth it. What does it say about Highfather that he was willing to sacrifice his infant son and condemn him to hell, even though that meant saving countless lives?

This comic can do that because this version of Mister Miracle, Scott Free, is so clearly suffering from abuse and trauma and PTSD and this version of Orion is such a jerk and unheroic.

For Scott and Big Barda the Earth is their home, they have an apartment there, they have normal domestic concerts. Being New Gods and fighting in that war is their day job. But for Orion that war is his life. He is single minded in his desire to destroy Darkseid and his own moral authority. He sees only in absolutes. He’s a cartoon, and in the real world that makes him a monster.

“Darkseid is.”

So there’s another aspect of Mister Miracle that I haven’t talked about that I love and that all starts with Funky Flashman.

Funky Flashman is Jack Kirby’s parody of Stan Lee. Well, of the public persona of Stan Lee. He’s out here shouting “ Excelsior!” and whatnot. Tom King and Mitch Gerads make the most of getting to have Stan Lee in their comic. The whole other layer to Mister Miracle beyond its plot is that it’s also a tremendous tribute to Kirby himself, including his work at Marvel. It’s extra crazy that that made it into this DC comic.

There’s Scott Free’s trial, which takes place in his apartment, that can be read as Kirby up against Steve Ditko’s objectivist beliefs. But the most blatant and amazing is a retelling of The Coming of Galactus and its place within this story. This is legitimately one of my favorite things in any comic I’ve ever read.

It just makes me so happy.

Mister Miracle is a comic I can’t get out of my head. It has so many perfect moments, whether they’re heartbreaking and tragic or uplifting and life affirming; emotional or frivolous, serious or hilarious. It knocks it out of the park on every front. It’s an unbelievable piece of craft.

Back to Darkseid.

In Kirby’s Fourth World Good is always stronger than Evil. That’s foundational. Superman is going to win. Darkseid eventually loses no matter how scary or intimidating he is. But...

“Darkseid is.”

He’s also pernicious and enduring. Ultimately, punches alone aren’t going to solve him. There is some catharsis in that. That’s how Superman: The Animated Series ended; with Superman pummeling Darkseid into submission. But it’s not quite what you want, or at least it’s not quite enough. What’s the answer to “Darkseid is?” What’s the counterpoint? “Darkseid is” is the setup, but you need a punchline.

At the end of Mister Miracle we get exactly that. It’s simple and perfect.

Mister Miracle written by Tom King with art by Mitch Gerads and lettering by Clayton Cowles is a masterpiece and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

So it goes.

Thank You For Your Time.

[obxfiles]

Why would you recommend the untamed to someone? I’ve seen all your posts and reblogs and I know you love it (I’m already intrigued and will watch it) but it’d be nice and fun if you could explain why you love it so much, because 1. I really want to know and 2. At least I love talking about things I love sooo I hope you don’t mind this ask 😬🥺

ooh okay i’m so bad at trying to put my thoughts into words but i’ll try my best. i’ll put it under a ‘read more’ because this going to be a long response, i feel. also let me just start by saying thank you. i love, love, love talking about what i love and sharing my loves with others; and i don’t always have people in my life to do that with. so it means so much to me that you’ve reached out like this and are asking me to do this. like, that just has made my day. also, please feel free to DM me if you’d like and we can talk more that way. alrighty, the rest is under the cut!

first of all, i was drawn to the trope. the kind of enemies to lovers (they’re not really enemies to lovers, but there’s still that kind of banter to it), banter and flirting trope that i am a huge sucker for. i knew nothing about it going into it, and when i learned that the wwx and lwj are canonically romantically involved and not just shipped by the fans of the show, that definitely caught my interest in a massive way. they are canonically soulmates and lovers. i decided to give it a shot and within the first few moments, i was completely immersed. some of the special effects come across a bit goofy but the cgi scenery is stunning and every scene looks and feels like a work of art. that’s something that really captured me.

then there’s the characters themselves. without giving too much away, let’s talk about them for a moment. wwx (wei wuxian) is every bit the playful, mischievous little monster who always has a smile on his face and is always ready to tease and make others smile. but his story is one of immense pain and suffering, and yet in spite of these things, he still smiles. in spite of his childhood, in spite of the people who raised him, in spite of so much pain he still smiles and giggles and flirts and teases. and the moment he sets his eyes on lwj (lan wangji), he’s pretty much completely smitten. he wants to befriend him and make him smile and have fun with him but lwj is so immersed in the rules of his clan that everything wwx is and does is so alien to him. but wwx is persistent. always smiling, always waving, always trying to do everything he can to get lwj’s attention on him and make him smile.

as for lwj, his brother says it best: he raised him very strictly, and wwj doesn’t have anyone besides him. his brother sees wwx as being good for him. he’s amused by wwx and thinks lwj having some like wwx around would do him some good. but imagine being lwj, in this very rigid society having known nothing else outside of rules and regulations and here comes this little gremlin to throw a wrench into it all; with his total lack of obedience and formality; however all at the same time still being your closest match both intellectually and when it comes to fighting. wwx catches his curiosity. there’s a point where they’re traveling together and lwj’s brother tells him he invited wwx along because he knew lwj wanted him to come along. all the while lwj still can barely make eye contact with wwx.

all the characters are extremely multifaceted. some will make you feel such genuine hatred and anger while at the same time, making you feel immense pity for the pain they’ve endured. the story that unfolds is so beautiful and you truly grow attached to these characters as you watch them fight and endure.

the love story itself is another huge point. i am a sucker for pining and kind of that pride and prejudice level of romance of secret gazes, soft touches, blushing cheeks, quickly turning away of gazes, stolen looks. it’s filled to the brim with those little moments. lwj is the very definition of Panic Gay and wwx is the very definition of confident gay (or bi). he isn’t afraid to strip out of his clothes without a care if lwj is right there, or pester him with flirting and teasing; all the while with lwj having a complete existential criss every single time lol also the soulmates aspect. at the heart of the story is the story of soulmates being reunited once again, years later. the story of how they first met, fell in love, came together, became tragically separated, and how they found each other once again. 

 the story of family is another huge point too. the brokenness of family and the relationship of wwx with his brother just guts me to my core. there’s such a conflict of both deep hatred and deep love. i don’t want to give much away about that, but it’s something i love deeply about the show.

lastly, the humor. this is a show that centers quite literally around death. there’s awfulness quite frequently. death, destruction. but there’s so many moments of such genuine humor and you’ll be crying one moment and laughing the next. it balances itself out so well like that. in so many ways it creates such balance. there’s fierce scenes of battle with blood and death and destruction and then beautiful scenes of nature and serenity and peacefulness. it’s like that with so many other aspects as well. it just all comes together in such a beautiful harmony. 

i’ve never found anything like this that has sparked something like this in me in such a profound way. and maybe my posts about it are a bit excessive and annoying to those who aren’t interested, but i haven’t been moved like this by something and i kind of want to metaphorically shout it from the rooftops and share it with literally everyone i can how beautiful and profound this story is. i really want to share it with so many out there and i do hope you take these things into consideration and do give it a chance. it’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

also, please feel free to DM me and we can talk more in depth and i can share some youtube videos with you that can help you test the waters a bit. thank you so much for reaching out and asking me about this  ♡

[echodrops]

How can I make a character‘s arc end tragically in a way that feels earned and not unsatisfying?

Tragedy is a special interest of mine, so I’m excited to answer this, although I might not be able to do it justice.

The first thing you need to hammer out is WHY you want to end a character’s arc tragically. Regardless of what the current streak of media might try to tell you, the default ending for characters in stories and movies is “happily ever after.” Any time you end a character’s story tragically, it is and will be viewed by the readers as a departure from normal expectations. This is why you have to “earn” your tragedies--because unlike real life, stories don’t typically end unhappily without good reason.

Why does your particular character’s arc need to end tragically? Are they a bad person who needs a little karmic justice? Are they a good person who needs some personal tragedy to motivate them to change? Are you trying to shock your audience or make them cry? Are you killing the character off to make another character cry? Are you trying to teach an aesop/moral lesson?

Writing a good tragedy starts with the “right” motivations. If you’re planning to write in a tragedy just because you want to emotionally pain your readers... Please don’t do that. If you’re planning to write a tragedy to get rid of the character(s) because you can’t think of anything else to do with them... Please don’t do that. If you’re planning to kill off and/or maim a love interest to wound your main character... Please think twice about that, especially if you’re planning on doing something tragic to a female/gay character to give your male lead something to angst about. (NOT saying this is what you’re planning, just that I have seen this particular brand of tragedy WAYYYY too many times.)

Some “good” reasons to write a tragic end for a character:

You carefully foreshadowed a tragedy for them from the beginning because a tragedy is necessary to move your main plot forward.

Allowing this character to get their way would mean another character loses out; it was a foregone conclusion from the start of the conflict that only one of the opposing characters in your story could come out the victor, even though both “sides” are sympathetic.

You’re writing a high-stakes plot in which it would be utterly unrealistic if at least one person did not die or get permanently maimed or something. (Nevertheless, be careful--readers don’t go into most stories looking for this much realism!)

By experiencing a tragedy, this character will learn something or grow in some way that they could not otherwise. (That second one is important--if you give someone a tragedy to teach them a lesson they could have learned in another, less tragic way, your audience will see the less-tragic alternative and they will be mad.)

The tragedy is the only “in-character” way of the character’s arc to end. Perhaps you have a character who just WON’T LEARN their lesson. Who just refuses to change their ways. At some point, it just makes sense for your character’s continual poor (or self-sacrificing) choices to come back and bite them.

I once had a long conversation with a friend in which I tried to explain the difference between a “sad story” and a “tragedy,” at least in my personal opinion. There are plenty of stories that make their readers or viewers feel sad. Titanic? Great sad story. A Walk to Remember? Great sad story. But there’s a difference between a sad story and a tragedy, and me, that difference is inevitability.

People die all the time. Bad things happen to people all the time. People are hurt, fail to achieve their dreams, and lose things that are important to them all the time. Sadness and misery are all around us. But what takes a story from "This makes me sad for these characters” to “This fills me with a deep existential pain not just for these characters but for myself, or my fellow humans, or anyone who has suffered like this” is the sense that the character’s story could not have ended in any other way.

In my eyes at least, to really “earn” your tragic ending, it has to feel like that tragedy was the only "correct” option. That sad end for the character has to feel like the most suited way to end their story. If a character dies, for example, I should not only feel hurt, but also think: “Of course. Of course they would go this way." The moment it becomes obvious to the reader that a tragic ending is coming in your story, they should be slapped in the face not by shock (because the tragedy is so unexpected), but by the recognition that the potential for this tragedy was there all along--that all the ingredients of this sorrowful ending were simmering slowly under your plot the whole time.

A “good” tragic ending feels like putting the last piece in a puzzle--suddenly you can see the big picture that was building from the very beginning. In a more metaphysical way of saying it, a “good” tragedy feels like fate. The character in question could not have ended up anywhere else or done anything different because every single choice that led up to the tragedy was natural and true to who they are as a person.

Basically, if you want to write a satisfying tragedy, I think the best thing to do would be to sit down and at least consider every other possible ending first. The happy endings, the neutral endings, any other possible endings that seem even remotely reasonable... And then you need to find ways to kill those endings. You need to go back and revise the story from start to finish so that each one of those alternate endings becomes “not quite right.” Not the most plausible, not the most “in character.” Only when the tragic ending you desire really feels like the only “honest” option will it leave a deeply satisfying feeling with the readers.

tl;dr: Your tragic ending starts with your story’s very first sentence.

[radrush]

give YOUR nge thoughts

this is gonna be super filled with spoilers in case any of my followers still haven’t seen this show for some reason

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching | might watch | currently watching | dropped | hated it | meh | a positive okay | liked it | liked it a lot! | loved it | a favorite probably my favorite show ever

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing obviously it’s very intense and the lore is very confusing but it’s so worth what it demands | 5 star recommendation I've watched nge numerous times but it’s just one of those shows that’s filled with such detail and rich characterization that I seemingly find new things to consider every time I watch it

fav characters: Asuka is the neurotic queen and is probably the most entertaining character to witness on screen because of it but it also makes her the series’ most tragic character in my opinion. While she ultimately faces the same existential conundrums as Shinji (a sense of loneliness and isolation caused by lack of familial support, an anxiety created by a lack of assurance in one’s own purpose that contributes to low self-worth, and a fundamental difficulty with relating to others honestly because of these factors), unlike Shinji she has a variety of coping mechanisms to deal with these issues which give her the appearance of functionality but which are ultimately unsustainable and don’t allow her to be honest with herself about her real emotions, precisely because they work to repress the emotions that are too painful for her to feel fully. In an attempt to overcome feelings of worthlessness caused by her family’s rejection of her, she throws herself fully into the role of Eva pilot, turning her abilities as a pilot into a structural pillar of her self-worth which comes crashing down when Shinji proves himself to be as capable as pilot as her. She also acts rudely and boisterously in an attempt to avoid rejection, pushing people away from her before they have a chance to get close enough to understand who she really is and then reject her afterwards. This is also why Asuka is NOT a tsundere as so many people claim. Her coldness and “high and mighty” attitude are not borne out of an embarrassment with her “true feelings” of friendship or romance towards Shinji, but are rather a defense mechanism that she uses to protect herself from the pain of intimacy. Her open displays of disgust towards him are not an act which she uses to hide a secretly harbored positive view of him, she actually just hates his guts. She’s all tsun and no dere.

Shinji is a character whose experiences highly resonated with me when I first watched the series as a teenager but I feel like even if i didn’t heavily relate to his emotional struggles I would still end up talking about him here because ultimately the series is focused on his struggle to define himself on his own terms and through his relationships with others. Because Shinji lacks the dysfunctional coping mechanisms that Asuka has come to adopt, and instead has a tendency to turn inward and engage in torturous processes of reflective self-deprecation when he feels emotionally challenged it makes sense that he would be the focus of the show’s thesis on relational psychology. As a sensitive boy with a great deal of familial trauma, Shinji is intimately familiar with the emotional havoc that humans can wreak on each other in their relationships. Not wanting to have to deal with the burden of this pain any longer, he is constantly running away from his commitments because he views his relationships with others not as potential sites for growth and self-fulfillment but as avenues which only lead towards greater feelings of pain and misery. You can hardly blame him for feeling this way because of what he experiences before and during the series, but ultimately he must learn as a part of his growth process that while his relationships with others contain the possibility of greater pain, to live a fulfilling life it is imperative to look past the possibility for pain in order to find the hope for meaning and love that makes life worth living. Shinji’s story teaches us that as long as we remain true to ourselves and are cognizant of our own emotional needs in our relationships, there is no need to live in fear of the pain that others might deliver upon us out of their own wounding.

In many ways Misato behaves like a grown-up, more apparently functional version of Shinji. While she is more readily able to form emotional bonds with others, these bonds are often entirely surface-level, as evidenced by her preoccupation with appearances (wearing flashy clothes, driving an expensive sports car, introducing herself to Shinji in the way she does). The dichotomy between her clean, confident exterior persona and the slobbish, lazy way she lives when removed from the gaze of others reinforces the idea that while she behaves a certain way in order to be comfortable in social situations, she is inwardly insecure and deeply troubled by how her attempts at meaningful relationships have turned out, having never been able to reconcile her relationship with her father before his death and having run away from her relationship with Kaji when his presence caused those unreconciled emotions to rise to the forefront of her psyche. I also love how the Jet Alone episode frames her lifestyle in two drastically different ways. At the beginning of the episode we see her guzzling beer and eating instant ramen for breakfast in her gross apartment and react to those behaviors according to the humorous and quirky surface-level reading of them that the show gives us, but during the episode itself we see her forced to deal with the stupidity and recklessness of others in her profession as well as the unique challenges she faces in those situations because of her femininity, on top of seeing her take responsibility during a life-threatening situation when no one else will, causing her to undergo a near-death experience. After all of this, the narrative comes full circle and we see her again the next morning in her gross apartment, chugging an entire can of Yebisu and realize how much her lax lifestyle choices are really shaped by the kind of emotional stress she is forced to deal with on a daily basis and a need to have a space where she can be unconcerned with those stresses.            

I like how although Ritsuko treats Misato as her equal in their personal relationship and they’re both at the same professional level, being heads of their respective branches of NERV, from the very first episode it’s clear that Ritsuko’s knowledge of the Evas and and the true purposes of NERV far surpasses Misato’s. As Misato begins to understand the amount of classified information that Ritsuko has access to and refuses to share with her their relationship effectively deteriorates until Ristuko can no longer shoulder the burden of her knowledge on top of her increasingly strained relationships with both Misato and Gendo and she essentially self-destructs.

Kaji is kind of a sexist jerk but he’s also the only character in the text who can operate as a positive male role model for Shinji because of how selfish Gendo is and it’s ultimately his advice to Shinji throughout the series but especially in episode 19 and the run up to it that spurs Shinji to take action instead of continuing to be a bystander while Rei and Asuka fight for their lives. I also like him because he’s a truth seeker. He does the bidding of Selee and Gendo because doing so allows him to get closer to the truth behind Selee, NERV, the Evas, the angels, and human instrumentality, and he eventually pays the ultimate price for his pursuit of knowledge.

least fav characters: I guess I'm supposed to say Gendo because he’s such a dick but even if he’s a shitelord he’s still a well developed character–consistently narcissistic and self-serving, only treating others as means to ends, not at all capable of the emotional vulnerability required to actually really love, although maybe he possessed it at one point in the past. He’s evil as fuck but ultimately a good character. I love how the first time we see him smile is when he gives the order to launch unit-01 it’s so good and makes me hate him so much.

Ritusko’s mom, Naoko, is like probably the only character in the show that i think is written poorly like it’s honestly just stupid to me that she would be so in love with Gendo and so heartbroken over him that she would literally kill Rei I and then herself over being taunted about the fact that Gendo didn’t really love her and was just using her but i guess bitches just be crazy amirite fellow redditors. Literally what is so great about Gendo that all these women keep getting involved with him?? Like for the credit you can give Anno for writing really interesting women in this series, he still is a bit of a sexist and it’s not just with Naoko.

fav relationship: Asuka and Shinji obviously have one of the most interesting dynamics in the show from the first time they meet. We know they’re not bound to get along well since Shinji is pretty reserved and not very confident and Asuka is incredibly boisterous and all too full of herself and in fact resents Shinji for his lack of self-worth and motivation. All of this is compounded by the fact that the source of Asuka’s massive self-esteem is her ability to pilot the Eva, a task at which she continually finds herself upstaged by Shinji, who at the same time can’t seem to decide whether piloting the Eva is something he even wants to continue doing. In episode eight she’s amazed when Kaji tells her that Shinji was able to sync with Unit-01 without ever having been inside it before but when Kaji brings it up again when all of them are together and openly praises Shinji’s “natural” capabilities as a pilot, Asuka is embarrassed and takes his praise of Shinji as an injury to her self esteem because being the greatest Eva pilot is so central to her self-identity. She vents this embarrassment by taking it out on Shinji, who meanwhile can’t help the fact that he has a natural ability to do this scary and dangerous thing he’s barely done before and doesn’t at all know what to do with Asuka’s frustration towards him. Rei operates as a kind of foil to this dynamic (is it still a foil if its three ways instead of two?) because she possesses very little of her own will in the early part of the series and merely pilots the Eva because it’s her designated purpose in life, what she was literally born to do. As all three of them grow through the relationships that they navigate with each other and the adults in their lives, these motivations, self-definitions, and reasons for being shift and evolve, are built up and broken down, and ultimately remain in flux because that’s just how that shit is

Shinji and Kaworu I obviously hold very close to my big gay heart because of how touching it is to see Shinji love and be loved by another boy but that being said their relationship is very intentionally one-dimensional because of the fact that Kaworu is less of a human character and more of a character representation of the abstract concepts of hope and love themselves. From Kaworu’s perspective too, his relationship with Shinji is just as much about knowing and loving Shinji as it is about knowing and loving humanity as a whole. Because Kaworu isn’t human, he doesn’t have any emotional needs or trauma which might preclude him from loving Shinji or make it difficult for Shinji to love him, which is why he appears to Shinji when he does: when Shinji feels most abandoned by those he feels he has tried and failed to form emotional bonds with and is in most dire need of someone who will attempt to understand him as he is trying to understand himself. In loving Shinji in the selfless, needless, and unconditional way he does, he gives Shinji hope that real love and real human connection are things that exist out there in the world for him to experience, even if his relationship with Shinji is only an idealized version of that. When Shinji is forced to kill Kaworu in order to save himself and humanity, this hope is momentarily shattered and by the next episode we realize that this has caused Shinji to lose his will to live, although ultimately Kaworu’s death is necessary not just for plot reasons but also because Shinji must eventually come to realize that while he can be in love and find meaning in his relationships with others, he can’t expect any other person to love him so selflessly the way Kaworu did because that’s simply not a reasonable thing to ask of another human being with their own emotional needs and trauma and baggage. In addition to his qualities of magnanimous selflessness, as a divine being in a mortal vessel who ultimately chooses to sacrifice himself to ensure the fate of humanity, Kaworu also operates as a sort of messiah figure within the narrative of the series. The fact that his love for Shinji is representative of his love for all humankind and that Shinji’s love for him is a reflection of the timeless and ephemeral concept of love itself, and the fact that Shinji must also bear the guilt of killing one he loved for the greater good of saving the souls of humanity also puts them squarely in the midst of a Judas/Jesus dichotomy.      

fav moment: the direction in this show continues to amaze me and  just the choices in the first two episodes alone are so fuckin awesome like I love how episode one ends on a cliffhanger and episode two begins with shinji recovering from the battle, completely skipping over the action and having us only deal with its fallout before finally getting to see how it unfolded when shinji is alone at night and has a moment to reflect on what he witnessed. also the shot during the battle flashback when the armor falls off of unit-01′s face and shinji looks out from the entry plug and sees the true reflection of the eva in the building next to him knocks me on my ass every single time.

in episode one when shinji gives misato the letter that his father sent him and its creased as shit and the whole thing is redacted aside from the words “shinji, come”

whenever gendo’s glasses reflect the massive screens in the command center

rei smiling after she and shinji defeat ramiel and he opens the entry plug hatch

“You’re just as much a kid as I am”

When Ritusko hacks into a human brain and honestly just the whole Magi design has such a killer aesthetic i don’t even know what to call it its like cyberbiomechanicalpunk but the cyber tech isn’t futuristic it’s like 1995 technology complete with ribbon cables on the keyboards

“You apologize to people as a reflex, so that you won’t have to confront them” “I’m sorry”

Literally everything about episodes 19-24

THE ELEVATOR SCENE

“I loved him too”

When Asuka synchronizes with unit-02 at the bottom of the lake in EoE and the whole fight with the eva series

Why not just say all of EoE cause holy shit

headcanons/theories: As far as the lore itself is concerned, it feels like there aren’t that many mysteries that haven’t been explained either through actual dialog in the show or peeks into what was left on the cutting room floor, it can just be hard for first time viewers to wrap their heads around it all because of the convoluted way it's presented in the show and how everything has dramatic biblical names (which do have meaning for the record, anyone who says all the religious symbolism in eva is fake deep is not paying close enough attention. the constant use of the latin and greek crosses in explosions and in various design elements like lilith’s crucifix are obviously not always rife with distinctly religious meaning but I already talked about how Kaworu is literally a messiah figure so give me some credit here). When I do see shit on youtube like “the 26 timelines of evangelion explained” though it just makes me roll my eyes. Also I think that the lore is really cool and well developed in general but a lot of it is somewhat tangential to the real dramatic meat of the series which consists of the development of the characters and their relations to one another so it is kinda lame to me that the popular view of the series for so long was focused more on the mysteries of the super weird convoluted world building than on the exploration of humanity that makes the show what it is although that might have changed now that more people have dipped their toes in the series with the netflix localization

one thing I’ve been thinking about recently is rei’s ghostly appearance to shinji at the beginning of episode one which I believe to be connected to the ghostly appearances she makes in EoE to the dead and soon-to-be sublimated (or i guess more accurately, liquified) NERV staff after she merges with lilith and ultimately to her final appearance to shinji floating above the lcl sea at the end of the film. All of these appearances are made by the rei that merged with lilith during EoE, even the one in episode one. This is possible because after merging with lilith, rei becomes a being with quantum characteristics, able to exist everywhere on earth at once to collect the souls of all humanity and gather them together. Since it’s also heavily implied that rei is a vessel for the soul of lilith in the same way that kaworu is a vessel for the soul of adam, this is likely lilith’s “true form,” having finally reunited her body with her soul. To those still alive for this process, she appears to them as a manifestation of their heart’s desire, bestowing upon each soul a momentary embrace of hope that will last a lifetime. This is what Gendo understood about instrumentality from the beginning and was always his plan to be able to see Yui again. I think rei’s final gift is also sort of a riff on modern scientific explanations for the experience of heaven, how we now understand that the chemicals that are released in your brain when you die can give you a euphoric experience that some might be inclined to interpret as heaven-like. But anyway, since rei no longer has to obey the laws of time and space, and she makes it a point to make a final appearance to shinji in her quantum form at the end of the film it feels right that she should choose to go back and make a first appearance to shinji to signify the beginning of the end as it were. After all, “the beginning and the end are found in the same place.” Anno himself has told us that “eva is a story that repeats” with reference to the pervasive visual and verbal self-references that are prevalent throughout the series and I think this is perhaps one of the most shining examples of that repetition.

Related: Also a fan of the theory that Gendo’s last words to Ritsuko were “I need you.”

unpopular opinion: Episodes 25 and 26 provide the necessary(?) conclusion to the show’s thesis on human relationships which make them more or less key to understanding how those ideas are present in the work as a whole but the last time I re-watched the series I skipped them and went right to EoE because that’s the better dramatic experience and also I think EoE works to wrap up the ideas from the show, albeit not as cleanly and moralistically.

this is also probably a popular opinion but the rebuild movies fucking suck. they completely gut like half the thematic content from the original series and they even feel bland visually at times like everything is so glossy and shiny i like the saturation, contrast, and thicker line art of the original series way more. literally there’s only one good part per movie in the first one it’s ramiel in the second one its the aquarium scene in the third one its piano kaworu and that’s it. I can hope the fourth movie isn’t completely gutless but i can also set myself up for disappointment but if evangelion teaches anything it’s that we can’t let the fear of disappointment or sadness bar us from seeking the joys and loves that life has to offer us so i’ll see y’all again in 2020 i guess

random thoughts:

[valiant-noble-soul]

Mun, whats your opinion on FMA 03 vs FMA:B? Do you like one better? Do you like them both? I would like to hear your thoughts!

~I think they’re both wonderful shows! A lot of people like to argue on which is the ‘good’ version, but I feel like they both have their strengths and weaknesses. Allow me to break them down for you:

03 FMA

TRIUMPHS 

>Better character development. This is due to the fact that the 03 series is less story-driven, so it has plenty of room for filler. This time is spent making sure every character is studied in-depth, including the villains. Backstories are explored, self-view is brought into question, and when someone has a change of heart, it’s well-earned and never feels out of place. That’s not to say that Brotherhood doesn’t have development as well, but there’s much less time dedicated to it. 

>More brotherly moments. I’ll be honest guys, when it comes to shipping, I’m pretty indifferent to all of them. The one relationship that makes me squeal and hug myself is the love between Ed and Al .They’re so different in every sense of the word, but they would die for one another in a heartbeat. Neither drags the other down. It’s very clear how much the two need each other, especially in this version of the story. It’s filled with small moments of brotherly love that just makes me melt. This is something that I sadly found a little lacking in Brotherhood. 

>Better soundtrack. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Brotherhood music, but wow the songs in 03 gives me chills! The tunes are so haunting, always reaching inside me and clutching my heart in a tight grip. In fact, it always brings me to last moments of the series where I spent a crushing night wondering what the hell I just watched and how was I going to survive the pain? I like Brotherhood’s music, especially with the openings and closings, but the score in 03 is the one that had the biggest emotional impact on me. 

FAILS

>Unfocused plot. While it was good to see a lot of the filler being used to develop characters, I can’t say every second was used wisely. A lot of episodes were dedicated to either stretching out a situation as long as they could, or showing Ed and Al going on a random adventure. Now the latter isn’t so bad if you don’t mind waiting five episodes to get back on to the main event. Now I love watching the brothers at work, so I enjoyed the episodes, but half the time I wasn’t entirely sure what the brothers were striving for. What was the overall plot? Were we still looking for the Philosopher’s Stone? Are we going to do anything about the homunculi soon? Sometimes you just have to be really patient with this show and not everyone is going to be willing to do that. 

>In hindsight, the homunculi don’t make a lot of sense. Now don’t get me wrong, I like the idea behind this version of our sinful baddies. They are what’s created when a human transmutation is attempted. They start out as ghastly figures, but after they feast on red stones, they begin to take on human forms. However, when you stop to think about it, there’s a lot of questions to this concept that needs answers. Why are they all named after sins? Are there others out there? Are you telling me human transmutation was attempted only seven times and then never again? In the entire history of alchemy? Why wasn’t Sloth....well, slothful? These are just a few of the questions that made the concept feel like it wasn’t thought out as carefully as it should have been. 

>It took a nosedive on how dark it got near the end. Okay, now this one is based on personal preference. There had always been dark elements to FMA of course. It started with the Elrics bringing back their dead mother, only to have their bodies torn apart after all. But near the end....woah. Suddenly it was giving AoT a run for its money! Believe me when I say the death count was just stacking up by the end. And don’t even get me started on what happened to Rose. Like where the hell did that come from??? And to have the brothers separated at the end? Look, I didn’t know Shamballa was a thing at the time! I thought they were separated for good. I think I spent the night staring at my ceiling, wondering how I was ever going to nurse my heart back to health. It just felt like all the fun and adventure was sucked out and replaced with, quite frankly, the darkest material I’ve seen in a long time. Usually I’m cool with that, but not when it comes to my Elric bros, thank you. 

Brotherhood

TRIUMPHS

>More fun characters. Funny with all the characters 03 introduced in their filler, the ones I find more enjoyable are the ones in Brotherood. Mei, Yao, Father, Selim/Pride, they were all a lot more fun to watch. Even our main cast seemed more interesting, such as Hoenheim playing a more heroic role in his departure, rather than just having him leave because his body was rotting away. While I don’t feel like many characters were covered more in-depth than in the 03 series, I do feel like the writing gave them enough material to capture our hearts and attention regardless. 

>More balanced, thought-out plot. You certainly don’t have to worry about anything dragging on in this version of FMA. The plot is brilliantly thought out, starting as a simple promise between two boys, and ending with a battle against a godlike figure for the sake of the country. Plus, this version has the right balance of drama and humor, and it doesn’t forsake the other at any point either. It never becomes too silly to take seriously or too dark to find joy in. It’s a story filled with hope and strength that will leave you feeling warm all over. 

FAILS

>Emotional development can sometimes be skipped/rushed. All the problems with Brotherhood can pretty much be summarized by this. Equivalent exchange, my friends. In order to give us a better-paced anime, the show had to gloss over moments that needed to have a little more time to grow. The prime example that comes to mind is during Al’s existential crises. I’ve seen three different versions of the key-point (live-action, 03, and Brotherhood), and I have to say the Brotherhood version is actually my least favorite take on it. It’s such a huge and tragic issue that needs to be explored, but the show decided to wrap it up in the span of five minutes and then never bring it up again. Not only does this rob us of a moment that should leave us reaching for our tissues, but it also removes some of Al’s development as a character.

 Another scenario that comes to mind is when the brothers reach the end of their journey and Al finally retrieves his body. Am I the only one who felt like something was missing at the end there? Like, here was, back in the flesh for the first time for almost half a decade, and all we got from the brothers emotionally was...smiles? This should’ve been the most heartwarming moment of the entire series! They should’ve cried, held each other, high-fived, something! Well, as my friend @alchemic-elric once told me, by this point the story was no longer about the brothers, at least not completely. Everyone’s story was fleshed out to a point where there were many loose ends to tie up, leaving no time to put extra focus on the brothers. This is great in terms of story-telling. Not so great for my Elric bros. BROTP heart though....

I wish there was some way to combine the development of 03 with the plot structure of Brotherhood. Then I think we would have the perfect FMA. Both series have their ups and downs, but if I had to choose a favorite, I would have to go with Brotherhood. It does deliver on everything, even if it’s not always to the extent 03 does. This doesn’t mean I consider 03 a bad series. Far from it! I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, especially if you just want some time to watch your favorite characters do their own thing. Just be prepared for a darker, grittier version of the story. The ride will be beautiful, but quite painful.~

[salavante]

If you're still doing the OC asks, Patroklos?

So Pat is actually @saltineofswing‘s character, so I drew him, but Jacob filled out the questionnaire. And it’s super duper beefy - it’s pretty much an entire rundown of what the Threnghelleon muses are, how Patroklos operates, what his powerset and backstory is. So if you’re in the mood for some world building written by my better half and Co-DM, indulge. (My questionnaire for Wybjorn was filled out like five months ago, before Patroklos existed in the fiction, so I’ll take the opportunity now to say that I also am very into Pat and Wybie as a couple). 

Full Name: Patroklos, Poetic Muse of the House of Camaraderie

Gender and Sexuality: Male, Bisexual

Pronouns: He/Him, but like with a couple of the other stranger members of the Threnghelen sphere of divines, probably wouldn’t be put off by They/Them

Ethnicity/Species: Patroklos is a Threnghelen Muse, a race of beings that were created by the Threnghelen Pantheon and tasked with bringing inspiration, hope, motivation, and sometimes madness to the mortals of Threnghelleon and its Dominion. The race of beings known as the Threnghelen Muse is assumed by all members of Threnghelen society (save a very select and clever few) to be some sort of lesser deity; in the same way the members of the Circle of Glory were born when Jovix Diocunigast first experienced various emotions and conceptualized various ideas, the Muses supposedly popped up when mortalkind began to conceptualize complex ideas.

This is not true.

The Muses are actually a strange race of ‘quasi-real’ beings from the Unknown that feed off of emotions and other similar existential experiences, which is hard to explain; they can’t manifest in the physical world and can only be seen by gods and other divine beings. They’re really more like tulpas than anything else. Threnghelleon has a series of Houses and Bloodlines into which the Muses are organized, based on the domain over which they hold sway (and therefore the things they feed on); the Bloodlines are Dramatic, Poetic, Sacred, Epic, and Tragic. The Houses are the House of Pain, the House of Conflict, the House of Camaraderie, the House of Love, the House of Lore (or ‘history’), the House of Innovation, and lastly the House of Fear. Muses of the Epic and Tragic bloodlines are naturally more powerful than the others due to Threnghelleon’s system of values, and Muses of the Sacred bloodline become more powerful when tasked by a divine being.

The Muses of the House of Fear are the oldest Muses on Threnghelleon... and are also the strangest and most powerful. They’re the ones responsible for creating the others, developing the lie about what their race actually is, and had some very interesting early influences on Threnghelleon. More about that another time.

Patroklos is, as mentioned above, the Poetic Muse of Camaraderie; he is Also, incidentally, the Sacred Muse of Camaraderie. It’s not super unusual for a Muse to have two domains, but Pat is a bit special because Sacred, Epic, and Tragic muses are rarely double-classed, so to speak. He also doesn’t know that he’s actually a descendent of an extradimensional eldritch thoughtform.

Birthplace and Birthdate: Some time in the early ages of Threnghelen mortal history, after the conveyance of a spark from the Flame of Kaer Rhûndor to mortalkind and before the Red Age that spiraled out of the Bloodbath of Warns. Like many other Muses, Patroklos was created when some of the members of the Circle of Glory had a ‘spark of inspiration’... in other words, the Muses of the House of Fear planted the idea in the heads of the Threnghelen pantheon. As far as the Gods know, the Muses were ‘crafted’ in a secret forge somewhere on the White Hill, aka purgatory. The truth is a lot weirder and more gross.

Guilty Pleasures: Patroklos is not a terribly guilty person. He is very Shakespearean (all of the Muses are, they’re kind of like a Shakespearean chorus) in his temperament and preferences, and has sort of a classical stage actor’s grace and manner. Patroklos is effectively a phantasm, a being that lives exclusively in the Veil who is unable to directly manifest on the Mortal Coil, and so he’s never experienced eating or drinking or sleeping or any of the things that flesh-and-blood critters require.

But, Patroklos is very fond of watching people; the Muses have nothing to do with their time besides watch people, and if that sounds creepy it very much is! Patroklos is very nosy, he likes to eavesdrop and is a bit of a gossip, and watches people he likes more than he probably should. Whenever Patroklos and Wybjorn talk, because it’s usually in a dream, Patroklos usually goes on one ‘You won’t remember this when you wake up, BUT’ tangent and gossips about stuff he shouldn’t. Patroklos likes to watch people living their lives and going about their day-to-day. It’s something he, as an incorporeal spirit, doesn’t get to experience, and so he lives vicariously through others.

Phobias: Dying! Patroklos is in kind of a precarious spot right now. Threnghelen Muses can be killed, it’s just very very hard to do – and not only that, you have to kill them not once but twice. First, a Muse must be killed, usually by a divine being or enchanted weapon. They then become a Choral Spectre, trapped in the Veil or the Astral Plane, and they slowly lose the ability to leech energy off of their associated domain. In this state, a Muse is not only vulnerable to all of the nightmarish beings in the Unknown (where thoughtforms are made as real as anything in the Unknown can get), but also slowly starves to death. Patroklos is Once-Dead after appearing to Ethem-Cailo in a dream and trying to convince him to return to a more righteous path, and Ethem-Cailo had a tantrum and accidentally ‘smashed’ Patroklos with Mjolnir. Now, Patroklos is trapped in the Unknown, hiding from both the Helmsman and the many ghosts, horrifying Leviathans, and other monsters that the Glorious Incandesca attracts as the Wild Hunt skips from dimension to dimension.

Patroklos is also deathly afraid of being forgotten, as most Muses are; this sort of ties into his fear of death, but a ‘Forgotten’ Muse will eventually become a Choral Spectre and die anyway. Patroklos and the other Muses of Camaraderie were mostly utilized by Ethem-Cailo during his glory days as the God of Aspiration, but Patroklos saw less and less play as time went on and Ethem-Cailo became more bitter and nasty until he stopped being called on by Ethem-Cailo at all. By the time the Wild Hunt rolled around most of the Muses went undirected by the Gods, doing whatever weird bullshit they wanted and inspiring mortals however they saw fit, and Patroklos was kind of seen as an oddball by his siblings because he never indulged that chaotic impulse and preferred to be summoned before meddling in the mortal world. As a result? Not a ton of friends.

What They Would Be Famous For: Patroklos is, as all beings in the Threnghelen Pantheon, revered by the mortals of Threnghelleon. Patroklos was one of the more popular Muses of the House of Camaraderie, especially before and after the Red Age, and had a couple of shrines devoted solely to him – an honor usually bestowed only upon Epic and Tragic Muses, and Muses that were direct children of one of the Circle of Glory. This is partially because of his frequent partnership with Ethem-Cailo; the two were very good friends, and Patroklos was the Muse responsible for helping him with the famous Squiring of Raske Callhand – an extremely famous championship boxer/wrestler and the first mortal to receive a favor from the gods.

Additionally, Patroklos was one of the main Muses who helped Ethem-Cailo to develop the Art of Bardic Knowledge ability, by which an individual can tap into the poetic narrative of a ‘real-world’ event and verbally convey it with a magical visual accompaniment. The other involved Muses – the twin children of Awnrah, Feste and Fidele, Epic and Tragic muses of House Lore – were plenty helpful and ostensibly more powerful than Patroklos, but Patroklos put in the most time and effort on the project, who really wanted to bring Ethem-Cailo’s vision to life. As a result, he is usually cited as one of the primary creators of the art, even to this day.

What They Would Be Arrested For: Trespassing, evading/resisting arrest. Probably can’t get ARRESTED for this per se, but he might be the type of person who could get in hot legal water for breach of nondisclosure contract.

OC You Ship Them With: Wybjorn, full stop. Patroklos had a thing for Ethem-Cailo way back in the day, an unspoken crush that he never acted on and then squashed when Ethem-Cailo began so aggressively and pointedly denying his attraction to men after the Raske Callhand Fiasco. He never really got over it, even when Ethem-Cailo joined the Wild Hunt and started becoming a shittier and shittier person; Patroklos sees Wybjorn as another chance to connect with an old friend, in a way, and Wybjorn has a lot of the best aspects of Ethem-Cailo that made them such good friends in the first place. When Wybjorn tells Jovix-Cailo that Jovix-Cailo is the one who ‘stole his life’, and not the other way around, Patroklos is one of the things included in that umbrella. Now that Wybjorn is free of Ethem-Cailo’s influence and is developing into his own person, Patroklos can reforge a relationship with a person he has missed dearly, and who has in turn missed him just as much.

Patroklos also risked his life to bring Wybjorn back from the boundary to the White Hill after Jovix-Cailo almost killed him in the massive battle at the end of the Hunt, painstakingly breaking into the afterlife to drag Wybjorn’s soul away from death like some kind of super-romantic Orpheus and Eurydice bullshit. As seen in this illustration. If Patroklos had been noticed by Yawg-Cherogmoth, Keeper of Souls and guardian of the afterlife, he would have been exorcised with extreme prejudice.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Ethem-Cailo killed him, on accident, in a dream – which as described above has actual consequences for a Muse. But aside from that, Patroklos spent a LOT of time hiding from the Helmsman and other gods who could see into the Veil or the Astral Plane; if the Helmsman had caught a whiff of Patroklos skulking about in the Unknown while the Incandesca traveled from dimension to dimension, he probably would have pulled Patroklos apart just for funzies. Wybjorn was also genuinely concerned that Corvicarius, the Head Bitch In Charge God Of The Unknown Everywhere on Road-Prime, might just squash Patroklos like a bug for having rode in with the Wild Hunt and being a foreign being. Corvicarius assured Wybjorn that, especially because Patroklos helped save Wybjorn, Patroklos was safe so long as he didn’t fuck around with anything too important.

Favorite Book/Movie Genre: Anything with an extremely strong through-line of friendship and camaraderie. Patroklos enjoys a good romance as much as the next person, but he just loves it when two characters have that Unbreakable Bond and don’t need to have a romantic tryst in order to validate their relationship or dedicate their lives to one another. It’s literally the equivalent of fine dining to him.

Least Favorite Book/Movie Cliche: When someone is only providing love, friendship, and support with a clear sexual or romantic motivation. That shit is scummy. He also doesn’t like when one person has a painful crush on their best friend, but lets it go untended and then dies or loses their chance and has to live with the heartbreak. That one just hits kinda close to home.

Talents and/or Powers: The Muses all have a really peculiar selection of powers, and Patroklos is no exception. Most of the Muses’ powers are more suited to subterfuge and manipulation, and don’t really lend themselves to an out-and-out fight.

For starters, Patroklos’s natural state is one of invisibility and intangibility; if Patroklos somehow makes his way into a physical body he’ll lose his ability to become invisible, but the ability to become intangible is one he’ll never lose. Even then, he’ll still be very talented in the art of astral projection.

As a Muse of the House of Camaraderie, Patroklos has an affinity for ‘inspiring’ others in ways that bolster friendships and forge bonds. Individuals may find, while Patroklos is around, that diplomacy becomes much easier to achieve, group infighting is at a minimum, and compromise becomes easy. He is good at soothing tense situations and his suggestions, as they pertain to building positive bonds/smoothing over aggression/stabilizing relationships, are supernaturally difficult to ignore. But that’s not all he can do – it’s just what he prefers to do. All Threnghelen Muses are capable of, effectively, performing inceptions on people; planting a seed of an idea in someone’s mind, so seamlessly and flawlessly that they can’t distinguish it from their own idea, is the truest and most sinister power of a Threnghelen Muse, and Patroklos has used this power to his advantage and the advantage of Ethem-Cailo liberally in the halcyon days of Threnghelleon’s society. A Muse’s silver (golden) tongue is nothing to underestimate. At their most powerful they could even ‘inspire’ oh, I don’t know, the most powerful and Glorious god in the universe...

Otherwise, Patroklos has a minor ability to manipulate certain probabilities; he can influence events to maximize the amount of ‘camaraderie’ that is displayed by the individuals involved, such as altering the path of a bullet just enough to keep someone from dying in the act of sacrificing themselves for another, or ensuring that a strike made to avenge or protect a fallen comrade hits true. He could influence the ease with which someone rushing to the aide of a friend or loved one arrives at their destination, or keep someone with ill intentions (or bad timing!) from screwing up a tender moment between friends by impeding their progress. This power is relatively weak and can be easily superseded by more powerful divine domains – such as Glory’s ability to never lose, or Derog’s influence on the outcome of a conflict, or Ethem-Cailo’s ability to ensure someone achieves their aspirations. But this particular ability skyrockets in effectiveness when he is tasked by a divine being... which is why he and Wybjorn/Ethem-Cailo made such a good team.

Patroklos is capable of appearing to people in dreams and, while doing so, can control their level of lucidity and what they do or don’t remember about what occurs while he’s visiting – as I mentioned earlier, he starts a lot of really catty gossip digressions with ‘You won’t remember I said this when you wake up, BUT–‘.

When it comes to stuff that doesn’t have to do with his House or Bloodlines, Patroklos is an incredibly powerful teleporter – he can teleport almost indefinite ranges across spacetime and, more impressively, interdimensionally. Patroklos teleported from The Veil outside of Road Prime all the way to the Threnghelen afterlife without making a pit-stop in the Threnghelen mortal coil, which is an extremely difficult and precision jump that he was able to pull off (there and back, in fact) intuitively, without assistance, and without screwing up.

(Fun fact: when a Threnghelen muse teleports, their body goes first, and their eyes and teeth go last – so for a moment as their body fades away like a ghost, their giant golden eyes and teeth remain hanging in midair before they, too, disappear.)

Patroklos is technically a race of being native to the Unknown, and not hailing from any particular planar cluster; as a result he has an innate knowledge of how to travel in the Unknown. Which might not sound very impressive, but consider: the Unknown is a literal nonsense place, where the laws of physics conditionally rely on the perception of the individuals moving through it. The Unknown works off of dream logic and is endless. If you get lost in the Unknown, you are doomed to wander aimlessly forever until you forget who you are, where you came from, and what you were doing in the first place. So, the ability to intuitively find your way in the Unknown is an absolute necessity to traversing it.

Touching on the above, Patroklos can also just... make people get lost. He discovered this ability while hiding from monsters in the Unknown. You could be standing in your front yard and walk to the mailbox... and then you’d find yourself saddled with the unsettling horizontal vertigo of not knowing where you are or where to go, and wander the perimeter of your lawn for an hour and a half until the fugue state wore off and everything was suddenly familiar again.

Patroklos is also a talented shapeshifter, capable of transforming into a near-flawless imitation of any person that he has seen before, regardless of how much taller or shorter they are (within reason); he can also mimic voices so long as he’s heard them, and although it’s not part of the power set Patroklos is a naturally gifted mimic – he’s good at picking up body language, verbal and physical tics, and mannerisms, and that’s just a personal trait of his. The one problem with his powers: no matter who he changes into, his insides will always be made of gold. This is an ability that didn’t see much play back when the Muses were confined to Threnghelleon, but out in the Unknown any advantage is an advantage. Patroklos does have a ‘True Form’, additionally; it’s something rather terrifying, to the point that Patroklos explicitly told Wybjorn not to look at him while he tore his way into the White Hill to save his soul from crossing over. Based on the horrific ripping, grinding, and clicking noises, Wybjorn gauged later that obeying this request was the right choice.

(We’re almost done here, I promise, but I’m a perfectionist with this stuff.)

As long as Patroklos is in a spectral form, he is actually capable of possessing a mortal or a weak enough divine being or manifested spirit. It’s a difficult thing to maintain, and he can’t do any of his other tricks while possessing someone, but even in his current state it’s very doable.

LASTLY, Patroklos is one of the best in the game at utilizing Bardic Knowledge. By invoking Bardic Knowledge, Patroklos is capable of tapping into the ‘narrative’ of an event, a conflict, or the history of a person/place/thing. In this way Patroklos has a sort of limited omniscience; he can ‘feel out’ how things are going to go, or why things have happened, especially as it pertains to interpersonal conflict between friends. Like a lot of stuff that is related to or touched by the Unknown, Patroklos is very good at Knowing Things He Shouldn’t as a general sense, but it has a lot to do with the choral element of his being and his Bardic Knowledge – the narrator needs to know a lot of what is going on, and when Patroklos inhabits the role of the Unseen Narrator he can grasp the narrative in a very complete way, even if he isn’t completely omniscient. This is also helped by his ability to invisibly watch people from the Veil and his ability to move from place to place almost instantaneously.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Patroklos is unfalteringly loyal, has a great (if slightly strange) sense of humor, and is extremely supportive and optimistic. He’s really FUNNY. He’s got a rapier wit and has a very complex grasp of wordplay and humor. He’s very charming and crafty, but he is not very pretentious or self-inflated and is quite humble. In familiar company he’s boisterous and fun-loving, even if he’s a little shy around new people. He’s very good at conveying information and loves to tell stories. Patroklos has big theatre kid energy, he’s very dramatic and playful. He tends to be very earnest, is open with his feelings, and listens very well, but he’s not blunt and does his best to phrase things positively instead of negatively.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Patroklos is a HUGE gossip. A detrimentally huge gossip. Although I think he could keep his lip zipped if somebody told him some kind of huge secret I think he would have a really hard time keeping it to himself. Patroklos usually gets away with this because he can make people forget the stuff he tells them but that’s only when he’s invaded somebody’s dreams. The downside to him having a very open and earnest personality is that he doesn’t hide his feelings well, which can be problematic if he’s also too shy or humble or nervous to voice an issue he has. He’s kind of noisy, which can rub people the wrong way – not everybody has a high tolerance for loud and high-energy people. He also goes through moods where he can be very eldritch and strange, displaying his fickle and fae nature and doing weird shit just to amuse himself (‘Here, hold this’, he says apropos of nothing, and pulls a live centipede out of his coat and hands it to you). He is absolutely the type of person who points and laughs when somebody does something dumb or embarrassing and wouldn’t be above talking circles around someone because It’s Funny.

How They Change: Patroklos has gotten quieter, for sure. He’s matured a lot after his ordeals in the Unknown, and although he hasn’t lost his goofy side he has become much more mild-mannered and melancholy. He’s also taken quite a hit to his bravery; I wouldn’t call him a coward, but he’s become much more practical and keen to avoid fights, for obvious reasons. When he lived on Threnghelleon he was very immersed in their culture, and since being trapped in the Unknown his strange side has really taken over. Patroklos doesn’t really miss his home, although he does miss some of his siblings and the people he was friends with. Overall, though, Patroklos is a very new character; I only created him about halfway through the campaign when we were kinda fishing for more content to stretch it out with. How he’s going to change is largely contingent on how he’s treated and what happens to him; Wybjorn is going to go on a very romantic quest to figure out a way to return him to life, so I’m sure that will also have an effect on him.

Why You Love Them: Patroklos is just a lot of fun! He’s kind of swashbuckling and dramatic – all the Muses are named after Shakespeare characters, and I did it on purpose to inform the kind of feel I wanted them to have. They’re kind of meant to evoke that strange, ethereal, fun weirdness that some of that old theatre stuff is so rife with. I also really enjoy playing around with his weird-ass powers and his nebulous, lovecraftian undertones and behaviors. Patroklos is also a really cool character to bounce Wybjorn off of, he brings out certain qualities in Wybjorn that I think are a bit underplayed when Wybjorn is in other situations where he’s not the main character and provides a very interesting pathos to play around with between these two ancient beings that, in some ways, have wrapped all the way back around again to young men.

[khstoryanalysis]

Chapter 2: Themes and Structure

I have seen many Kingdom Hearts fans pointing out that the series shares a lot of similarities with Star Wars. Most notably, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is pretty similar to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I will say that is true. Since I am a Star Wars fan, I also love Kingdom Hearts when I learn to understand its story, which is pretty similar to Star Wars. After all, Master Eraqus is voiced by Mark Hamill who plays as Luke Skywalker.

Star Wars is like a fairy tale. It is hopeful, optimistic and “it’s a film for 12-year-olds” as said by George Lucas in Star Wars Celebration 2017. He also said that Star Wars was designed to be a film like mythology. “This is what we stand for… you’re about to enter the real world.”

Star Wars, as a romantic fantasy, has the potential to serve as a metaphor for many aspects of life. Time and time again, what society needs to hear is simply love and compassion. A compassion-based love benefits both parties in a relationship and allows them to spread compassion towards others. Even though life is full of ups and downs, when you learn about compassion, you will discover a connection with others around you that you never thought possible.

Kingdom Hearts is the same – it is like a fairy tale and it aims for 12 years old children. Although most of the endings of the games are tragic, the story still remains hopeful and optimistic as the characters wait for their “birth by sleep”. They know one day, they will be freed from the hurt and suffering they are enduring, and be given a second chance to start over.

Kingdom Hearts also talks about love – not much of a romantic one, but a platonic one, which is friendship. It teaches you that friendship can strengthen one’s self and other people. For example, Sora is able to strengthen his heart through his ties with people. He treasures those memories with them and perceives them as friends. This allows him to wield a Keyblade despite he is just an ordinary child. Moreover, his connection with many people has also spread to others, teaching them to treasure friendship.

Star Wars has themes of love, forgiveness and redemption throughout the series. Kingdom Hearts has those themes too. The main difference is that the love in Kingdom Hearts is mainly referred to as platonic love (friendship), but it can be familial love (Master Eraqus and Terra).

Like Star Wars, the Kingdom Hearts lore is also a story that is finally becoming an adult. The first Kingdom Hearts game talks about a child setting off for an adventure, which is like a childhood dream. Starting from Kingdom Hearts 2, the story has entered the adolescence stage with the introduction of Roxas, whose personality is different from Sora. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts Re:coded are also placed in this stage. The four games highlight issues of existential crisis, emotional distress, a teenager’s stubbornness, confusion in life and one’s self, relationships with old and new friends, and curiosity of the outside world. The games also tackle on issues regarding responsibility and ways to understand pain and how to deal with it.

The series enters into adulthood starting from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance when the heroes are going through trials to prepare for the upcoming war. The decision in leaving your home, your family and your friends who are not involved in the war is a pretty mature decision as there is no way for sure to confirm that you would survive in the war. The stories in Kingdom Hearts X [Chi], Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X and Kingdom Hearts Union X [Cross] focus on the Keyblade War. We see how a united land became divided due to different ideologies of the Union leaders, which ultimately led to its demise. The main victims in the Keyblade War were Keyblade wielders who were just children and teenagers. Moreover, the world was destroyed as well. The games show us the devastating effects of a war and we must learn from the past to prevent it from happening again.

Kingdom Hearts has a story that can be served as a metaphor for many aspects of life. The Age of Fairy Tales, when the world was one and full of light referred to the past where the first humans lived together in one land. It was peaceful and harmonious. The Keyblade War refers to the battles and wars carried out by humans. The Keyblade wielders fought for ownership of light, while humans fought for ownership of land and sea. Those battles and wars led to a dark age. The Dandelions represent the survivors of the battles and wars, and they were the ones who rebuilt the damage caused to the world. The rebuild world is the world we currently live. The world that was once a united land is now split into different countries. The countries are separated by borders, similar to the barriers of light separating the worlds in Kingdom Hearts. Each country has its own rules and we are obliged to obey them regardless of our origin. Chaos may ensue if outsiders meddle with the rules of other countries. This is similar to the action in forbidding Keyblade wielders to meddle with the rules of other worlds.

But is there any way to unite the worlds and its inhabitants? In Kingdom Hearts, Xehanort wants to forge the X-blade, and with it, he will take down barriers of light and force the worlds to be united with darkness. With the worlds being united, Keyblade wielders will gather to fight for Kingdom Hearts, perhaps in hopes of saving their lands from darkness, which will create the second Keyblade War. Upon the death of the worlds and living beings, Xehanort believes that he will find Kingdom Hearts that is swallowed by darkness, and uses its power to create a world that has equal light and darkness.

We know Xehanort wants balance, and he is not wrong about it. But is his method in bringing balance to the world even right? He resorts to violence, fear and deception to get what he wants. He wants to destroy the current system of light and establishes a new order. But has he considered about the minds of the people? What if the people cannot change their minds and perspective of light and darkness? The conflict between light and darkness will be eternal and the war will continue to wage on. Even when Xehanort tries to threaten the inhabitants with his weapon the X-blade, there will still be headstrong people who will continue to rebel him. There will be no harmony and peace in the world.

The phrase “I don’t need a weapon. My friends are my power!” already hints that the way to achieve balance is through friendship. It may sound cheesy but that is what society needs to learn – to love each other. True friendship is to accept one another regardless of their social background, social status, gender, sexuality, race, religion, ethnicity and ideology. The borders and distance are not obstacles in making friends and maintaining the friendship. When people can accept one another unconditionally, their friendship can become a power that can change the world. A world filled with unconditional love brings harmony and peace. There is no need to use force to make others accept you as you learn to respect one another. By respecting each other, you have learned to accept one another, establishing a connection that you never thought possible.

The physical borders do not always need force to bring them down. Love is what unites people and makes the world whole, even when we are physically separated. The saying “One sky, one destiny” in Kingdom Hearts fits in our world as we all look up at the same sky that we share. The land and sea may separate us, but the sky always connects us. We all share the same destiny – to be present in this world and later to leave from this world. If you look through all the differences, you will realize that we are not so different after all.

In Kingdom Hearts, Sora makes a lot of friends and treasures his friendship with them. He still accepts Riku even though he did succumb to the darkness. He forgives Namine and is willing to protect her even though he isn’t happy with her messing up his memories. He remains loyal to Neku even though Neku initially is not fond with him and plans to hand him over to Young Xehanort. He even wants Roxas to be his own person despite everyone says Nobodies should not exist. Sora is optimistic, forgiving and always sees the good in people first. Sometimes, he even wants to help the antagonists. Ansem the Wise says that Sora can save the people from their pain and suffering. He is connected to many people and he understands them well. Once he learns to understand pain and how to handle it, he can save them all. All Sora needs to do is to be himself and follow his heart.

There are rumors talking about Riku being the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts 3. There are fans that are unhappy about it as Riku has been the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. They want to play as other characters such as Lea, Kairi, Aqua, Ventus, Master Eraqus, etc. If it is confirmed that Riku is the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts 3, I won’t be surprised or disappointed.

In Kingdom Hearts 3, the other playable character would give us a different perspective from Sora during the game play. Sora, Donald and Goofy are on an adventure to complete the seven Guardians of Light, save the people from suffering and forge the “Key to Return Hearts”. Meanwhile, Riku and King Mickey search for previous Keyblade wielders who are strong enough to face Xehanort. The previous Keyblade wielders are probably the ones that Sora needs to save: Aqua, Terra, Ventus, Roxas and Xion. Their story perspectives have a connection with each other, which would make Riku as a possible second playable character in the game.

The theme in Kingdom Hearts is friendship. There are many friendships being depicted in the series, but the friendship between Sora and Riku is the main focus. Sora and Riku are very different from each other: Sora is cheerful and easy-going, while Riku is calm and collected. Although they compete and even fight each other, they manage to reconcile their friendship. They do admit that they are jealous at each other and want to be like each other. However, they realize that there is something that they can never imitate: to have each other as a friend.

Sora is known by many as the Hero of Light. Riku is known as the Hero of Darkness by Vexen in Kingdom Hearts re:Chain of Memories. Sora is Riku’s light while Riku is Sora’s Darkness. They complete each other. Moreover, it is their friendship that has managed to foil Xehanort’s plans. In Kingdom Hearts, Sora and Riku work together to seal the Door to Darkness, and foil the plan of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. Later, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora and Riku work together to destroy the Hearts of Men and foil Xemnas’s plan. The theme of friendship is pretty consistent throughout the games, not just the numeral games. Could this mean that Sora and Riku would work together to defeat Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts 3? Well, we will find out soon enough.

[askwenjing]

Kingdom Hearts Story Analysis - 2

Chapter 2: Themes and Structure

I have seen many Kingdom Hearts fans pointing out that the series shares a lot of similarities with Star Wars. Most notably, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is pretty similar to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I will say that is true. Since I am a Star Wars fan, I also love Kingdom Hearts when I learn to understand its story, which is pretty similar to Star Wars. After all, Master Eraqus is voiced by Mark Hamill who plays as Luke Skywalker.

Star Wars is like a fairy tale. It is hopeful, optimistic and “it’s a film for 12-year-olds” as said by George Lucas in Star Wars Celebration 2017. He also said that Star Wars was designed to be a film like mythology. “This is what we stand for… you’re about to enter the real world.”

Star Wars, as a romantic fantasy, has the potential to serve as a metaphor for many aspects of life. Time and time again, what society needs to hear is simply love and compassion. A compassion-based love benefits both parties in a relationship and allows them to spread compassion towards others. Even though life is full of ups and downs, when you learn about compassion, you will discover a connection with others around you that you never thought possible.

Kingdom Hearts is the same – it is like a fairy tale and it aims for 12 years old children. Although most of the endings of the games are tragic, the story still remains hopeful and optimistic as the characters wait for their “birth by sleep”. They know one day, they will be freed from the hurt and suffering they are enduring, and be given a second chance to start over.

Kingdom Hearts also talks about love – not much of a romantic one, but a platonic one, which is friendship. It teaches you that friendship can strengthen one’s self and other people. For example, Sora is able to strengthen his heart through his ties with people. He treasures those memories with them and perceives them as friends. This allows him to wield a Keyblade despite he is just an ordinary child. Moreover, his connection with many people has also spread to others, teaching them to treasure friendship.

Star Wars has themes of love, forgiveness and redemption throughout the series. Kingdom Hearts has those themes too. The main difference is that the love in Kingdom Hearts is mainly referred to as platonic love (friendship), but it can be familial love (Master Eraqus and Terra).

Like Star Wars, the Kingdom Hearts lore is also a story that is finally becoming an adult. The first Kingdom Hearts game talks about a child setting off for an adventure, which is like a childhood dream. Starting from Kingdom Hearts 2, the story has entered the adolescence stage with the introduction of Roxas, whose personality is different from Sora. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts Re:coded are also placed in this stage. The four games highlight issues of existential crisis, emotional distress, a teenager’s stubbornness, confusion in life and one’s self, relationships with old and new friends, and curiosity of the outside world. The games also tackle on issues regarding responsibility and ways to understand pain and how to deal with it.

The series enters into adulthood starting from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance when the heroes are going through trials to prepare for the upcoming war. The decision in leaving your home, your family and your friends who are not involved in the war is a pretty mature decision as there is no way for sure to confirm that you would survive in the war. The stories in Kingdom Hearts X [Chi], Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X and Kingdom Hearts Union X [Cross] focus on the Keyblade War. We see how a united land became divided due to different ideologies of the Union leaders, which ultimately led to its demise. The main victims in the Keyblade War were Keyblade wielders who were just children and teenagers. Moreover, the world was destroyed as well. The games show us the devastating effects of a war and we must learn from the past to prevent it from happening again.

Kingdom Hearts has a story that can be served as a metaphor for many aspects of life. The Age of Fairy Tales, when the world was one and full of light referred to the past where the first humans lived together in one land. It was peaceful and harmonious. The Keyblade War refers to the battles and wars carried out by humans. The Keyblade wielders fought for ownership of light, while humans fought for ownership of land and sea. Those battles and wars led to a dark age. The Dandelions represent the survivors of the battles and wars, and they were the ones who rebuilt the damage caused to the world. The rebuild world is the world we currently live. The world that was once a united land is now split into different countries. The countries are separated by borders, similar to the barriers of light separating the worlds in Kingdom Hearts. Each country has its own rules and we are obliged to obey them regardless of our origin. Chaos may ensue if outsiders meddle with the rules of other countries. This is similar to the action in forbidding Keyblade wielders to meddle with the rules of other worlds.

But is there any way to unite the worlds and its inhabitants? In Kingdom Hearts, Xehanort wants to forge the X-blade, and with it, he will take down barriers of light and force the worlds to be united with darkness. With the worlds being united, Keyblade wielders will gather to fight for Kingdom Hearts, perhaps in hopes of saving their lands from darkness, which will create the second Keyblade War. Upon the death of the worlds and living beings, Xehanort believes that he will find Kingdom Hearts that is swallowed by darkness, and uses its power to create a world that has equal light and darkness.

We know Xehanort wants balance, and he is not wrong about it. But is his method in bringing balance to the world even right? He resorts to violence, fear and deception to get what he wants. He wants to destroy the current system of light and establishes a new order. But has he considered about the minds of the people? What if the people cannot change their minds and perspective of light and darkness? The conflict between light and darkness will be eternal and the war will continue to wage on. Even when Xehanort tries to threaten the inhabitants with his weapon the X-blade, there will still be headstrong people who will continue to rebel him. There will be no harmony and peace in the world.

The phrase “I don’t need a weapon. My friends are my power!” already hints that the way to achieve balance is through friendship. It may sound cheesy but that is what society needs to learn – to love each other. True friendship is to accept one another regardless of their social background, social status, gender, sexuality, race, religion, ethnicity and ideology. The borders and distance are not obstacles in making friends and maintaining the friendship. When people can accept one another unconditionally, their friendship can become a power that can change the world. A world filled with unconditional love brings harmony and peace. There is no need to use force to make others accept you as you learn to respect one another. By respecting each other, you have learned to accept one another, establishing a connection that you never thought possible.

The physical borders do not always need force to bring them down. Love is what unites people and makes the world whole, even when we are physically separated. The saying “One sky, one destiny” in Kingdom Hearts fits in our world as we all look up at the same sky that we share. The land and sea may separate us, but the sky always connects us. We all share the same destiny – to be present in this world and later to leave from this world. If you look through all the differences, you will realize that we are not so different after all.

In Kingdom Hearts, Sora makes a lot of friends and treasures his friendship with them. He still accepts Riku even though he did succumb to the darkness. He forgives Namine and is willing to protect her even though he isn’t happy with her messing up his memories. He remains loyal to Neku even though Neku initially is not fond with him and plans to hand him over to Young Xehanort. He even wants Roxas to be his own person despite everyone says Nobodies should not exist. Sora is optimistic, forgiving and always sees the good in people first. Sometimes, he even wants to help the antagonists. Ansem the Wise says that Sora can save the people from their pain and suffering. He is connected to many people and he understands them well. Once he learns to understand pain and how to handle it, he can save them all. All Sora needs to do is to be himself and follow his heart.

There are rumors talking about Riku being the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts 3. There are fans that are unhappy about it as Riku has been the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. They want to play as other characters such as Lea, Kairi, Aqua, Ventus, Master Eraqus, etc. If it is confirmed that Riku is the other playable character in Kingdom Hearts 3, I won’t be surprised or disappointed.

In Kingdom Hearts 3, the other playable character would give us a different perspective from Sora during the game play. Sora, Donald and Goofy are on an adventure to complete the seven Guardians of Light, save the people from suffering and forge the “Key to Return Hearts”. Meanwhile, Riku and King Mickey search for previous Keyblade wielders who are strong enough to face Xehanort. The previous Keyblade wielders are probably the ones that Sora needs to save: Aqua, Terra, Ventus, Roxas and Xion. Their story perspectives have a connection with each other, which would make Riku as a possible second playable character in the game.

The theme in Kingdom Hearts is friendship. There are many friendships being depicted in the series, but the friendship between Sora and Riku is the main focus. Sora and Riku are very different from each other: Sora is cheerful and easy-going, while Riku is calm and collected. Although they compete and even fight each other, they manage to reconcile their friendship. They do admit that they are jealous at each other and want to be like each other. However, they realize that there is something that they can never imitate: to have each other as a friend.

Sora is known by many as the Hero of Light. Riku is known as the Hero of Darkness by Vexen in Kingdom Hearts re:Chain of Memories. Sora is Riku’s light while Riku is Sora’s Darkness. They complete each other. Moreover, it is their friendship that has managed to foil Xehanort’s plans. In Kingdom Hearts, Sora and Riku work together to seal the Door to Darkness, and foil the plan of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. Later, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Sora and Riku work together to destroy the Hearts of Men and foil Xemnas’s plan. The theme of friendship is pretty consistent throughout the games, not just the numeral games. Could this mean that Sora and Riku would work together to defeat Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts 3? Well, we will find out soon enough.

[ecotone99]

[MF] The Death of Alice Grey

The last time I saw Alice Grey her body was strewn across the pavement below my office window. Staff were warned not to look outside after she had jumped from the roof. Driven by some unknown instinct, most ignored the advice.

A bristling, nervous energy developed as news of Alice’s death percolated through the department. The odd whisper and sob pierced the increasingly suffocating sense of disquiet. Many simply sat in silence, not sure what to make of what had just happened.

Told to stop working, yet unable to leave until the police had arrived on the scene I sat at my desk fiddling with a small roll of Sellotape. I was trying to see how far I could push it with the end of my pencil before gravity took over and pulled it against the desk.

The office manager Greg formally announced there had been a death outside the office, a fact we had all been aware of for at least an hour. His statement struck me as a feeble attempt to wrest back a modicum of control over events.

Seeing me sat alone at my desk, Greg took the opportunity to plop himself down opposite and ask how I was doing. It had been clear since our first meeting Greg was attracted to me. With a CV full of unexplained, gaping holes and a less than enthusiastic work ethic, it’s fair to say said attraction had a large part in my being hired and retained.

Greg and men of his ilk appeared under the illusion that talking to women as if we were lost children to be shepherded to safety was the direct route to our hearts. He shook his head and looked pained on mentioning Alice’s name. Whether this was a genuine reaction to Alice’s death or the slow dawning that an entire day’s business would be lost will never be known.

I watched the beads of sweat collecting around his pink forehead, before feeling his hand just below my shoulder. A slight rubbing motion quickly followed. He offered a forced smile and I managed to reciprocate with something similar. When he eventually removed his hand, I noticed my body relax as I finally allowed myself to exhale.

Once the police gave us permission to leave, I decided to walk home through the park for a change. There was a light, misty rain which felt as though it might wash away the claustrophobia which had enveloped me in the office.

As I walked in the fresh air, I noticed myself smiling.

My flatmate Suzi was curious about my early return. She seemed slightly put out by my presence, four hours earlier than usual. I mentioned Alice Grey’s suicide and she politely feigned concern before offering to make me a cup of tea.

*

I awoke from a nap with the sun streaming through the window. I felt disoriented, unsure of whether I’d been sleeping for minutes or hours. I glanced up to see Suzi standing over me, a look of concern on her face.

“You were calling out to someone. I thought it was me, but when I came in the room, I heard you saying Alice.”

I looked out the window unsure of what to make of Suzi’s words. I felt her hand on my shoulder and turned towards her as she was walked out the room. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, if anything. I felt like calling out to her.

That night I decided to walk back to work. It was late and the only hint of change was police tape cordoning off the entrance to the building. I stood with my hands in my coat pockets surveying the scene. I looked up at the roof, half expecting to see Alice peering back down at me.

A group of teenagers walked past, taunting me in an alien language. I probably looked strange to them, their future a decade hence. I felt the urge to tell them everything, warn them they were in danger, just like Alice and I. I realised attempting any such thing would be futile, so instead I smiled at them, causing a ripple of hysterical laughs as they walked past.

Feeling a shudder of cold I decided to go home.

I found the atmosphere in the office over the coming days unsettling. The slow, but predictable return to normality disturbed me. Long, icy silences broken only by whispers soon gave way to idle chatter and the odd ripple of laughter in reaction to the usual office ‘banter’.

I felt like screaming.

Inconsequential memories of Alice stored away over the previous four years returned to me. Our working in different sections and my avoidance of most of the office social events meant our interaction was minimal. Each day new memories of doors being held open and glances exchanged in the corridor rose up from the deepest recesses of my mind.

I recalled how annoying I found her general countenance. From overhearing some of her conversations around the office, she had struck me as crushingly uninteresting, constantly surrounding herself with others. I remember judging this as a likely attempt to make up for the character she so desperately lacked. I repressed such uncharitable thoughts, telling myself I had no reason to judge another person, let alone one who had recently died.

An email went around giving details of Alice’s funeral service. Greg made it clear anyone affected by the tragic events, or suffering mental health problems should feel comfortable approaching HR. The dark irony of anyone suffering an existential crisis being met by the charmless corporate lackeys Glenda and Mark did not go unnoticed.

As the rest of the office gradually returned to near normality, I felt a growing anxiety both at work and at home. I felt an urge to learn more about Alice Grey and how she came to the decision to end her life as she did. The fact that her suicide had so surprised everyone filled me with intense unease.

I had told myself I wouldn’t go to the funeral. I had even notified Greg of the fact, telling him it would be too difficult less than six months after my father’s death. This was a lie, but Greg was predictably understanding. This time I received a squeeze on the elbow to go with the forced smile.

The night before the funeral was sleepless. My mind and body were tense and alive to something I couldn’t fully perceive. Several times I awoke from strange dreams drenched in sweat. I forced myself to stay awake, until I no was no longer able.

In the morning I found myself seeking out appropriate funeral attire. Suzi asked where I was going and did her best to hide her annoyance upon hearing that I would be home after the service. She gave me a robotic hug, before wishing me good luck.

I nodded and felt sick.

I sat on the bus on the way to the crematorium looking at the people around me. An elderly woman muttered to herself between hacking coughs. A boy absentmindedly kicked the back of the chair in front of him, itself occupied by a tense looking man who kept nervously checking his watch.

I wondered how different these people were to Alice Grey. I also wondered how Alice might have looked on her way to work on the day she took her life. I pushed the thought out of my mind and watched as a man got on the bus and tried to talk his way out of being slightly short of the required fare. He got lucky and without saying a word the driver gestured him to join the glut of humanity squeezed into the main body of the vehicle.

I felt slightly nervous as I approached the crematorium, a building which at one and the same time appeared both fittingly and un-fittingly mundane for a place in which to mark the passing of human life. I felt the immense urge to turn around and be free of the whole thing and Alice Grey forever. I noticed some colleagues, but far fewer than I was expecting. I looked around for Greg but couldn’t spot him. I suspected the huddled sobbing were close family members.

I decided against approaching anyone, preferring to go unnoticed and avoid being drawn into conversation. Instead, I inspected the picture of Alice in the centre of the foyer area. She looked entirely normal. I don’t know why I was expecting otherwise. Everyone who takes their own life looks like everyone else, there’s no way of guessing. The Alice in the picture was neither beautiful nor unattractive, a half smile discernible on her somewhat flat face. She had straight brown hair and her pale face were home to large, almost pleading eyes. Something about her appearance continued to annoy me.

I managed to find a seat at the back of the room in which the service was held and listened to the speeches given by Alice’s family and a couple of friends. Her life, as described by her loved ones, struck me as utterly inconsequential. I wondered if these were honest accounts. Could so little be said for twenty-nine years of human existence?

Following the speeches, we all watched as Alice’s coffin made its way into the cremation chamber, before filing out into the foyer area.

I passed through the crowd and straight outside, where I succumbed to the urge to smoke for the first time in several months. I heard the crunching of feet on the gravel path and looked up to see the vicar approaching.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, with a kind, but rehearsed smile offered up to hundreds, if not thousands of mourners over the years.

I forced a smile in return. “Thank you, well I’m just a colleague, well, was a colleague of Alice’s. I didn’t know her very well.”

“Well it’s good of you to come and pay your last respects nonetheless. It’s a terrible tragedy when a young life is cut short,” the vicar said, almost as much to himself as to me.

My lack of response led the vicar to look at me expectantly and continue, “Don’t you think?”

No, I didn’t. But I knew that wasn’t what the vicar, or anyone else wanted to hear.

“Perhaps in her death, Alice achieved something she’d have never been able to in life. Part of me admires her for that.”

The words surprised myself as much as they did the vicar. I looked up to be met by his troubled expression, clearly discomforted by the inference of my words. He offered a slight nod and quickly turned back towards the entrance of the church as I exhaled the last of my cigarette and left.

I didn’t feel like waiting for a bus, so walked across town. The sun had come out and I enjoyed its warm radiance against my pale skin. As ever, the coming of spring felt like a new beginning, even if each passing year brought what, deep down, felt like less opportunities than the last.

I looked at the people I passed, their existence shaped by forces largely unknown to them and over which they had little control. With the end of her life, Alice Grey had eschewed the predictability which shaped most peoples’ lives. She had momentarily pushed back against nothingness, before being accepted back into it.

It was more than could be said for most, including myself up until her death.

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