#and squall as the mutual friend. like they both consider him as their friend but he does not give a fuck

[mekatrio]

i want a dissidia where tidus and zidane HATE each other but zidane is too civil to be outright scathing and tidus as a person who grew up in the public eye knows to just play along so every interaction between them is filled to the brim with passive aggressiveness while zidane says shit like this while in tidus' earshot

[the-badger-mole]

Hero to Zero

Sit down, kids. I want to have a rap sesh with y’all. 

There is no such thing as a perfect show. Even if you think there was a perfect show, it’s rare it holds up to multiple viewings. Still, Avatar: The Last Airbender probably got as close to perfect as any children’s show could hope to. All this to say that ATLA is a good show. A great show, even. But it is not a perfect show.  and they missed some pretty big opportunities.

Specifically where Aang was concerned. 

So, here are the Top 3 Opportunities ATLA Missed with Aang:

1. Having Aang actually work for his victory.

If you’ve followed me for literally any length of time, you know that I hate,hate, HATE the LionTurtle/Rock of Destiny Deus Ex Double-Team ( ™ ©  ®) in the last episode. Now, I know some of you think that I- and others like me- just wanted to see Aang kill Ozai. To you I say...

Look, some of my favorite superheros have a no kill policy. I have no problem with the idea of Aang capturing Ozai and having Ozai stand trial. What I have a problem with is the fact that Aang didn’t have to work at finding that solution at all. There were plenty of chances to set up the finale in a way that wouldn’t have made it a complete and utter cop out. It wouldn’t have even taken that much. Aang was confronted by the terrible realities of war all throughout the series. He knew everyone expected him to end the war. He was involved in the deaths a lot of Fire Nation soldiers at the battle in the Northern Water Tribe. At any point, there was room to have Aang face what was expected of him as Avatar and consider what it meant for him as the last Air Nomad. 

What I- and others like me- wanted was not for Aang to become a compunctionless killing machine. What I wanted was to see Aang realizing his duty and working to find a solution that would end the war and keep his values in tact. Instead, he waits until the last minute to consider what how he would end the war, snapped at his friends for pushing the obvious, and (until the magic Lion Turtle arrives) best solution to the problem that the world’s been facing for 100 years, and is rewarded for (let me be frank) his absolute laziness and refusal to accept responsibility.

Aang’s whole arc was supposed to show that he had to stop running away from his problems and accept his role as Avatar. The thing is...he didn’t. He had one moment where it looked like he was ready to stop running and do his job (DoBS), but that moment is robbed of any power by the finale. Why didn’t Aang have this moment then? Why wasn’t the rest of the series spent with Aang putting in work towards finding a solution? As the story stands, Aang looks inexcusably stupid, even for a 12 year old who didn’t grow up with a war. Not having Aang actively working towards a solution, freaking out over the solution presented, and then stumbling on the one being in the whole world that could help him undermines his entire journey. Aang was not the Real Hero of the series. Plot convenience was. 

2. Having Aang learn more about how the war affected his friends personally.

This kind of ties in to my first point, but Aang never really had a moment where he realized exactly what was at stake. Not just for the world in general, but for his friends. Heck, he never really reckoned with what happened to his own people (but we had time for a nonsense Footloose pastiche???). Had Aang made any effort to understand the war from his friends’ perspectives- particularly Katara, with whom he was allegedly in love- it might have occurred to him sooner what they expected of him. 

There’s no real moment of Aang understanding how much Sokka and Katara and even Toph have lost because of the war. He meets war refugees and is there when Katara rescues the earthbenders from the Fire Nation prison ship, but it never sinks in how much damage any of these people have survived. I don’t think I’m asking for that much here. I understand ATLA is a children’s show, but look how they were able to show us the devastation of war and abuse through literally every member of the Gaang except Aang. Even finding out that his mentor had been murdered washed over Aang like a summer squall.

It’s great that he had the perspective of someone who got to live in a world without war, and that he got to be a kid a bit longer than his friends, but at some point it would have been nice to see something stick to him. There were moments where I thought Aang was finally starting to understand the enormity of what the war had done and what it would take to end it (like in DoBS), but then the very next episode would have him goofing off (remember when Aang wanted to take off and play the day after a bunch of people- including the father of two of his “best friends”- sacrificed their lives and freedom for him? Pepperidge Farm remembers.) Nothing seemed to stick to him, which is why his refusal to kill Ozai and lack of preparation with another solution is both infuriating to me and honestly not that surprising at all. Aang is the most static character in ATLA (a show that included Mai, cardboard puppet brought to life by dark magic). He learns nothing. And honestly the fact that he stays the same from the beginning to the end of the series makes him look incredibly unempathetic. Who remains so unmoved by the tragedies of his friends?

3.Having Aang not get Katara and having the hero of a popular TV series handle unrequited love in a mature and realistic way.

Even less secret than my hatred of the Deus Ex Double-Team ( ™ © ®) are my feelings about Kataang. ( Shut up! You knew this was coming. Don’t act brand new). Now, normally, my focus is how bad Kataang was for Katara (the canon did my girl dirty, and I will NEVER forgive or forget), however this time, I want to focus on what the show lost by forcing this pair (Kataang was only developed if you only care about Aang’s feelings. Fight amongst yourselves. My mind is made up on this point).

Avatar: the Last Airbender was amazing in a lot of ways- groundbreaking, even- but it also perpetuates the idiotic myth of the Friend Zone, and those lucky fellas who break out of it. Throughout the whole series, we see that Aang is super into Katara, but the show also drives home pretty clearly that the feeling is not mutual up until that last scene (which makes it clear that the show runners didn’t give a crap about Katara). The showrunners had a golden opportunity here to show a young boy graciously accept that his crush isn’t into him, and remain good friends with her despite the fact that romance is off the table. Instead they chose to push the message that a guy can, through persistence, intimidation (lava fissure anyone?), and a healthy dose of arrogant entitlement, win the girl in the end. It’s not even that this was a terrible relationship for Katara and Aang; it’s that it’s such a boring and typical conclusion for this show to end on. Following through on Aang needing to let go of his unhealthy attachment to Katara would have been a much more powerful move. 

That’s not to say he had to stop being her friend. In fact, I think had he actually let Katara off of that pedestal he’d set her up on, they could have formed deeper bond based on mutual understanding and respect. Instead, we got “Hero Gets the Girl, Because...Hero?” Instead we got a pair that upholds the dangerous Fiend Zone myth, which arrested Aang’s development, turned Katara into a hollowed out trophy wife and produced three maladjusted adult children. It would have been a fascinating direction to take the story...if it had been done on purpose. 

Anyway, kiddos. I’m done here. If I pissed you off, call my lawyers. You can rebut me if you’d like (I’ll be honest,I probably won’t read it if it’s too long), but if you’re rude in my comments, I will delete and block you. Smooches!

[megabadbunny]

Cosmic Love and Monsters (4/?)

"Now don’t you do that,” he says, suddenly stern and very south-London, pouting at Rose in mock admonishment. “Don’t you do that Very Bad Thing. You’ve got to listen to me, I’m the Doctor! I’m a poncy self-righteous twat with my head buried so far up my cobweb-filled arse it’s been centuries since it last saw the light of day!" (sfw version on ff.net; full tags and info on ao3) Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

***

Chapter Four: Fear Him

Cold pain awake hurt

Why

Doctor—

Rose wakes with a gasp, flinching at the ache that flares dully through her head. Icy water drips down her face in rivulets, and she wipes the great fat droplets out of her eyes, gingerly pushing herself up to a sitting position on the couch—

Wait. The couch…?

Confusion mounting with every passing moment, Rose scans the room around her, discerning what little she can in the darkness; it’s that castle-place, still, from the looks of it. Stone meets her eyes at every turn, drapes stretching gently from column-to-column, swaying lazily in the night air, and it’s quiet in here, oh-so-quiet. The softness beneath her legs must surely be plush cushions and yes, the thing behind her is definitely the back of a couch.

She’s in a fancy dress. In a castle. Recovering from a fainting-spell on a fainting-couch. The only way it would be cheesier, she thinks, is if she were chained to a set of train tracks instead.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” drawls a voice somewhere out of the darkness, and Rose jumps. “Sleep well?”

Rose glares at the Doctor—no, not the Doctor, the man from before, that terrible man, pretending to be the Doctor, but how did he have all of the Doctor’s memories, how did he know so much?—and he steps out of the shadows, holding a crystal goblet in one gloved hand. Water drips down the goblet’s sides, splatting loudly onto the floor and the man’s shoes, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His attention is focused solely on Rose. He watches her, his face blank, impassive, eyes blinking just a little too slowly in the dim light, like a lizard. Like a snake.

The Master, Rose remembers, and she shivers.

“Hullo? Master to Rose,” the Master says, waving a hand. “I asked you a question. Do you care to answer?”

“Not really,” Rose replies.

The Master chuckles. “Rude, but then you never were a morning person, were you?”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, I’ve got my ways.” Dipping his gloved fingers into the goblet, the Master draws out a palmful of water and flicks it into Rose’s face. She forces herself not to flinch at the icy-cold deluge. “You’ll find that out soon enough.”

For a half-second, Rose considers making a run for it (or better yet, making a run at him), but she can just see the top of the sonic screwdriver sticking out of his jacket-pocket, and the memory of the pain it caused is still fresh, still raw. Unthinking, she almost raises her hand to the collar sitting heavy on her neck, until she catches the Master’s eyes, watching her patiently, almost gleefully. 

Do it, he seems to be saying. Do something stupid. I dare you.

Rose’s hand falls to her side and clenches stubbornly in her skirts instead.

“Who are you?” she asks sharply, shaking water out of her eyes. “Not your name,” she snaps before he has a chance to reply. “I already know that. I want to know who you really are, and why you’re really imprisoned here, and why you pretended to be the Doctor.”

The Master cocks his head to one side, inquisitive. “Well, aren’t you a curious little kitten?” he laughs.

“You’ve got two hearts, so you must be a Time Lord too, right?” asks Rose, almost speaking to herself, more than him. “But the Doctor said he was the only one left, after the War. How’d you survive?”

“Careful now, darling,” he replies. “You know what they say about cats and curiosity.”

“Enough bullshit. Cut to the chase.”

Tutting in disapproval, the Master shakes his head. “My my my,” he sighs. “What a nasty little mouth you’ve got on you. Surely you’d never say such a thing in front of your precious Doctor. You must know he doesn’t approve of such crude language.”

“We could always call him up and find out for sure.”

The Master barks out a laugh. “That isn’t possible for a variety of reasons, I’m afraid—numero uno being that your Doctor’s more than a little bit dead.”

Suddenly all the hurt in Rose’s body feels very far away. A vision of a gurney and a still hand floods her memory; she fights to keep her face calm and composed as panic surges in her chest, strangling her. A strange buzzing sound fills her ears like a nest of angry-buzzing wasps.

She is very, very cold.

Rose forces herself not to shiver. “I don’t believe you,” she says calmly.

The Master grins a Jack-o-Lantern’s smile. “You should.”

“No,” Rose replies with a sharp shake of her head. “If he was dead, you would said he didn’t approve. You said he doesn’t.”

“Well, I never!” says the Master gleefully. “Turns out you’ve got some cognitive capacity, after all! What a delightful surprise. Though to be fair, the truth was going to come up sooner or later, anyway. Only a matter of time.”

“So he is alive,” Rose says, relief washing over her.

The Master nods. “For the moment.”

Allowing her eyes to shutter closed, Rose takes just the briefest of moments to thank her lucky stars back home, all the ones that haven’t disappeared yet. “How do you know so much about him, anyway?” she asks. “How did you know who I was, back at the tournament? Just how much do you know?”

Humming thoughtfully, the Master considers for a moment, fingers tapping idly against the cup in his hands. “Nah,” he says, “I’m much more interested in talking about you, pet. Now tell me—” and here he plonks down on the couch next to Rose, ignoring how she shifts as far away from him as she can, “—just what will it take to get you to cooperate?”

“With what?”

“Well, with me, naturally.”

Rose eyes him warily. “Why? What do you want?”

“Just a smidge of your help.” The Master tilts his goblet this way and that, watching the motion of the water inside, as if it’s all terribly fascinating. “Well, that, and a decent cappuccino, but first things first.”

“I’m not helping you off this planet.”

“Nor could you,” the Master replies. “If I haven’t figured out a way off, then you certainly can’t, though it’s cute you thought that was a possibility. No; your assistance will be of a different nature,” he continues thoughtfully. “Something more along the lines of bait and switch, lure and hook, catch and release. Without the release.”

He shoots a sly smile her way. “Something to do with our mutual friend. Something a lot more personal, if you know what I mean.”

Rose shakes her head in confusion, running over his words in her mind. Then it dawns on her. 

“You want to use me,” she realizes aloud, “to get the Doctor here. To steal the TARDIS.” 

“Bingo!” shouts the Master in delight, clapping his hands together heedless of the water that sloshes from his cup. “Right in one.”

Rose stares at him. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Oh, I very much am not,” the Master says pleasantly. “I can’t get off this planet, but you know what can? A TARDIS. And guess who’s got one of those, along with buckets and buckets of horrendously boring and otherwise useless sentimentalism for a certain blonde and insignificant squalling little beastie?”

“No. No way.”

“Yes. Yes way,” says the Master. “And in another way, really, I suppose I should be thanking you right now. My other plan was to modify your little hopper, use that to get off this rock and track the Doctor down. But thanks to your Stone Age technology and your oh-so-elegant solution of stamping the thing to smithereens, now, we can jump straight to the end goal. No more wasting time looking for him—we’ll bring him straight to us!”

“I’m not gonna help you trap the Doctor,” Rose says loudly.

“Oh, come on. You barely know me—certainly not well enough to know all the reasons why you shouldn’t help me.” The Master pauses, thinking, as he wipes one damp glove on Rose’s skirt. “Granted, there are many, but there’s no reason for you to be so stubborn about it. So why don’t you just cooperate, like a good little girl?”

A harsh laugh. “How about you take this collar off me first?”

“How about you stop wasting my time?”

“Remove the collar or you get nothing.”

“Comply or I’ll kill you.”

“Good luck getting help from my corpse.”

The Master’s eyes flash and for a second Rose is so, so certain he’ll shift, fast as a blink, turning his sonic on her collar again or maybe even ripping it off so he can wrap his hands round her throat, fingers squeeze-squeeze-squeezing the life out of her, but instead he just grins.

That’s…unsettling.

“How about,” the Master muses, pretending to consider, “you give me what I want, or I kill all of your little friends? Hm? The ones you were helping out in the tournament. How about that?”

Rose doesn’t flinch. “They’re all gonna die in the tournament anyway.”

“Ooh, that’s cold!” laughs the Master. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but still. Cold.” 

He taps his chin thoughtfully with the goblet. “I could still kill you, you know. That option is very much still on the table. And what would your Doctor say about that?”

“He’d understand,” Rose replies firmly.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” says the Master, and if Rose didn’t know any better, she’d be tempted to label his tone soft. “But then again, maybe you’re right. So damned noble, the both of you. It’s such a nuisance, really.”

With a sigh, the Master sidles up next to Rose, as if they’re just two friends having a casual chat, mates gossiping about the latest celebrity news or office scandal. It’s a very strange contrast to the collar sitting heavy and cold on Rose’s skin.

“Don’t suppose there’s still any hope of convincing you I’m the Doctor?” the Master asks cheerfully.

“Don’t suppose there is. Didn’t work out the first time you tried.”

“And I tell you, it’s a damn shame, Rose. Just a real damn shame,” says the Master, shaking his head. “What a waste of a performance! I had so much more material. Here, look: Now don’t you do that,” he says, suddenly stern and very south-London, pouting at Rose in mock admonishment. “Don’t you do that Very Bad Thing. You’ve got to listen to me, I’m the Doctor! I’m a poncy self-righteous twat with my head buried so far up my cobweb-filled arse it’s been centuries since it last saw the light of day!”

He bumps Rose’s shoulder with his and the gesture is so reminiscent of the Doctor that Rose has to fight not to dry-heave. “Not too shabby, eh?”

“Positively Oscar-worthy,” Rose replies through gritted teeth.

“Thanks, I thought as much,” says the Master, beaming. “Now, back to my earlier question—because I won’t let up until I get the answer I want, see, so you might as well comply now, before I get bored with you. And as the people on this fair planet can attest, you won’t like me when I’m bored. So what’ll it be, love? Your life, or your Doctor?”

Rose doesn’t reply, just stares stonily ahead.

“Oh, Rose Tyler,” the Master says, heaving a disappointed sigh after several long moments tick by in silence. “Rose, Rose, Rose. A rose by any other name—”

“God, can we get on with the killing already?” Rose groans. “Cos honestly, I’d rather die than have yet another idiot feeding me that stupid—”

He aims the sonic at her collar and pain surges through her body with a nasty shock. Spasming backward, Rose’s head cracks against the wall behind her with a sickening thwack that echoes through the room while stars explode behind her eyelids. Copper-taste floods her mouth as blood wells up from where she bit the inside of her cheek. Her eyes start to water as the shock fades, before the pain sets back in, but it’s a short head start; the pain at the back of her head blossoms through quickly, and hard.

A sound of glass shattering on the tiles and suddenly a set of leatherclad fingers clenches her chin in a steely grip, wrenching her face sideways and forcing her to look the Master in the eyes. Despite herself, Rose gasps at the sudden closeness, the way the Master’s pupils dilate until his irises are nothing but a pool of lightless black.

“Surely by now, you’ve realized that behind this pretty face, I’m a monster,” the Master says, his voice chillingly pleasant for all that his smile is a thin-stretched grimace. “And monsters do bad, bad things to little girls.”

A chill runs down Rose’s spine and brings a violent shudder with it but Rose doesn’t reply and she doesn’t look away, just glares at him with all the hate she can muster, her mouth clenched tight against the swelling blood. You’re not the only monster in this room, she wants to say, but judging by the way he’s clenching the sonic, tightening until the leather squeaks against the casing, more and more as her silence stretches on—oh, leaving him hanging in the quiet is so much better.

“I can break you,” the Master breathes, chest heaving beneath the confines of his tailored suit. “I can break you, and I will, and it will be so, so very easy. And how do you think your beloved Doctor will react to that, hm? What do you think it will do to him, just how much will it tear him up inside, to see the bloody, mangled, twisted husk of a broken and empty thing that used to be the woman he loves?”

Rose spits in his face.

With a dark chuckle, the Master thumbs at the blood and spittle where it landed on the corner of his mouth, his tongue darting out to taste the traces left behind. “Iron-deficient,” he says. “You really should consider a daily supplement, sweetheart.”

He pushes off the couch and strides away into the shadows, crystal shards from his dropped goblet crunching beneath his heel. The click of a handle and splinter of light in the semi-darkness let Rose know that he has reached the door.

“Oh, don’t worry, darling; I shan’t be gone too long,” the Master says, pausing long enough to flash Rose a winning smile. “Wouldn’t want you to get lonely. Only be warned: the rest of our conversations might not be so pleasant. Next time you don’t give me what I want? Somebody dies, and they die nasty.”

“My condolences to your widow,” Rose shoots back.

Laughing gaily, as if Rose just told the most charming after-dinner joke, the Master leaves, the door clicking quietly shut behind him, locking afterward. Darkness and blessed silence filter back in, and Rose relaxes just the littlest bit, slumping back against the couch, wincing when her head touches the wall behind her. She doesn’t feel the telltale warmth of blood matting her hair, but she’s definitely bruised back there, probably going to swell, certainly going to hurt for the next few days.

Doesn’t matter. She’ll be fine; she’s had far worse. It won’t stop her from trying to escape. And it certainly won’t change her mind about protecting the Doctor. It doesn’t matter how badly she wants to see him, doesn’t matter how much the longing hurts even worse than the pain splitting the back of her skull. She will not do anything to compromise him. She’ll die first.

It’s what he’d do for her. He’d understand.

He will understand.

Willing her muscles to unwind, Rose lets out a long-trapped sigh, surrendering to the exhaustion that washes over her.

She sleeps.

***

Previous | Next (forthcoming)

[themattress]

Ah, see, a chapter from this crappy book was put online.

Many comments down below argue against it, point out what’s wrong with it, and deconstruct its main thesis....but I feel I can do it better, so that’s what I’m going to use this post to do.

When I played Kingdom Hearts II for the first time, one moment stuck with me above all else.

Wow, OK, so this one moment (the Sora/Riku yaoi bait moment) stood out above all other of the many magnificent, memorable moments in the game to you, did it now? Goes to show where your priorities are, and they are NOT where most KH players’ are. But yeah, you’re such a KH “expert” whom we should totally take seriously. After all, you wrote a book! 

Before the final string of boss battles, after reuniting with Kairi—a brief hug and the murmured words “this is real”—Sora prepares to continue his trek through The World That Never Was to find Xemnas. Ansem, tall and ominous in his black coat, watches this exchange from a dozen feet away. Silently, he turns and begins to walk away, only for Kairi to run after him and demand, “Riku, don’t go.”

LIE! This is NOT how the moment went at all. The hug was not “brief” - Kairi throws herself at Sora out of pure emotion, hugs him, says “this is real”, and then Sora, recovering from the surprise, closes his eyes dramatically and emotionally as she hugs Kairi back, tightly. This shared hug lasts long enough for Donald and Goofy, our resident in-game Sora/Kairi shippers, to nonverbally react to it with happiness. This moment is given respect and weight, and it only falls flat for you because you don’t care about Kairi or Sora/Kairi.  Sora also does NOT “prepare to continue his trek”, he and Kairi both only get snapped out of the hug when “Ansem” tries to leave. Also, let’s see how long it takes for you to gloss over Kairi’s role in making the reunion happen, even when you admit Riku would have left if not for her. 

(Btw, the hug and Sora crying on his knees both lasted the same amount: 20 seconds.)

Sora spends every free moment he has in Kingdom Hearts looking for Riku, inquiring with everyone he meets about his whereabouts and lamenting his absence.

LIE! This is NOT what Sora does with “every free moment” he has. There are other friends he genuinely wants to catch up with, other people he doesn’t particularly need to help but does, mini-games he wants to play...oh, and after Kairi is kidnapped, he also asks about her in addition to Riku, even to the point of getting on his knees and begging Saix to take him to her. Nobody’s arguing that Riku isn’t very important to Sora, but you are very deliberately and dishonestly slanting things to make it look like he’s all he cares about to boost your argument.

But the moment Kairi speaks Riku’s name, Sora’s face twists, displaying a confusion and pain we haven’t seen before. 

LIE! Sora’s face is first one of “WTF!?” surprise, and then of just-plain incredulous confusion - he doesn’t immediately believe that “Ansem” is Riku and is likely wondering if Kairi’s lost her mind. And really? We haven’t seen these expressions from Sora before? You need to replay this game which you believe yourself to be such an expert at that you write a book about it.

A slow, almost mournful song plays in the background as Sora closes his eyes, and looks past Ansem’s guise to Riku, the friend he has so desperately searching for. 

Aaand you neglect to mention that it’s because of Kairi’s powers that he is able to look past Ansem’s guise to Riku, and that as the song plays in the background, we see all three friends joining hands. Heaven forbid you imply that Kairi means anything to Sora and Riku.

Taking Riku’s hand in both of his, Sora falls to his knees. “It’s Riku. Riku’s here!” he cries, weeping and visibly shaking. “I looked for you! I looked everywhere for you!” The scene reminds me of a moment earlier in Kingdom Hearts II, where Saix kidnaps Kairi. Saix calls Kairi “the fire that feeds Sora’s anger,” assuming that harming the girl will rankle Sora, leaving him emotionally vulnerable. This statement is wildly incorrect: Sora’s fervor for Riku far outweighs his fervor for Kairi—or for anyone else in the game. Riku is Sora’s fire.

LIE! The scene it SHOULD have reminded you of is when Saix tells Sora that he has Kairi, at Hollow Bastion. Sora pleads with him to take him to her. Saix asks if she’s that important to him, and he replies “Yeah! More than anything!”  Saix says “Show me how important” and Sora...falls to his knees, pathetically prostrating himself before Saix, whimpering “Please.” 

When Saix then replies “No”, Sora jumps up, visibly shaking and with a sob in his voice as he yells “YOU ROTTEN...!” Very clearly, Kairi IS Sora’s fire just as much as Riku is, and harming her WILL rankle him and leave him emotionally vulnerable, which it did seeing as he had to fight his way through Heartless, despite knowing the consequences of doing so at this point, in order to reach her, and when he saw Kairi again he got distracted and was ambushed by Heartless that Kairi has to rescue him from. Leaving this info out is dishonest as fuck.

Sora and Riku’s reunion is the big emotional payoff of Kingdom Hearts II, while meeting up with Kairi doesn’t even get a fraction of this attention.

Because Sora and Kairi’s reunion in the original Kingdom Hearts was already ITS big emotional payoff. It receiving as much attention this time around would make no narrative sense given that Kairi was only until recently safe and sound, whereas Riku has been missing and presumed dead for a long time, and Sora never got to fully reconcile with him before this happened. You need to consider the context when making your conclusions.

That’s because there is no traditional romance in Kingdom Hearts.

LIE! See here. Note that it includes Sora/Kairi and Roxas/Namine.

Rather, we get a picture of intimacy between two young men, two best friends. It’s exceedingly rare that any kind of media portrays non-romantic love between two boys so deeply

Except for literally almost every shonen manga/anime/game in existence ever, you clod.

As Kingdom Hearts’s main storywriter, Tetsuya Nomura seems keen on positive portrayals of male intimacy. He worked on the main premise of Final Fantasy VII, which featured a handful of close and complicated relationships between male characters. Cloud’s relationships with Zack and Sephiroth—two former brothers in arms—color our experience in his shoes. In Final Fantasy VIII, the rivalry between Seifer and Squall is borderline flirtatious, with Seifer’s antagonism towards Squall nearing obsessive. These male relationships would continue to play a role in future Final Fantasy games even without Nomura’s involvement—the camaraderie between Braska, Auron, and Jecht in Final Fantasy X, for instance, or the budding mutual reliance and respect between Snow and Hope in Final Fantasy XIII.

Nomura DID have involvement in Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII, you CLOD!

The relationship between Sora and Riku is not the only intimate male friendship featured prominently in Kingdom Hearts II. There is also the bond between Axel and Roxas.

Oh, boy. Now you open up THIS can of worms. Why am I not surprised?

Throughout Kingdom Hearts II, we see the same flashback a handful of times: Roxas walking away from Axel and saying, “No one would miss me.” “That’s not true!” Axel shouts behind him, then drops his voice and murmurs, “I would.”

Um, we literally only see that flashback twice, and the part you referenced just once.

After encountering a brainwashed Roxas in Twilight Town, he is saddened to hear that his friend does not remember him. He becomes increasingly upset when Roxas continues not to cooperate with him, and in Roxas’s second fight with him it feels as though his anger is turned more on himself than on his former comrade. 

You just point out that Axel becomes increasingly upset when Roxas does not do what he, Axel, wants / needs of him, without considering at all whether it’s what Roxas himself wants / needs. That’s not a good thing. And no, Axel’s anger is absolutely on Roxas in the second fight. There is a glimpse of self-loathing as well, but he is able to overcome it and perform his duty as an assassin, willing to kill his friend so that he can avoid punishment from Xemnas. 

When we watch Roxas’s flashbacks of Axel pleading with him not to leave the Organization, we hear the sorrow in the latter’s voice as he says he’ll miss Roxas. Counter to everything the Organization has been led to believe, Roxas inspires true emotion in Axel: friendship, sorrow, understanding, compassion, love. If Nobodies can regrow their hearts, what emotion more powerful than love can jumpstart their reconstruction? Roxas is the driving force behind Axel and influences his every decision, even when Roxas no longer exists as a separate, complete human being.

First off, who said Nobodies can regrow their hearts? That’s not part of KH2.

Secondly, while it’s true that Roxas inspired those feelings in Axel, the fact that Axel lacks a heart means that he still is completely self-centered about them. Roxas himself is not Axel’s driving force, AXEL is Axel’s driving force. That’s the fundamental point of his character: that he pursues his own agenda above all else, and Roxas now being the main component of that agenda doesn’t change this. Your romanticized, whitewashed view of Axel is not canon.

While he calmly accepts responsibility for Naminé from DiZ

He accepted responsibility from RIKU, not DiZ, who wanted them dead. Clod, clod, CLOD!

Axel’s behavior shows that he sees his self-worth only within the context of his friendship with Roxas. Without Roxas, Axel does not value himself or his own existence, as evidenced by his readiness to sacrifice himself to save Sora.

This is partly true, but you’re a little off the mark. Axel doesn’t value himself only because of Roxas personally, but because of how Roxas makes him feel. Roxas inspiring feelings within him makes him feel like a complete being, like he has a heart. And like he says, Sora makes him feel the same way, so if he wanted to, he could have just stayed alive and stayed with Sora in order to get his feelings fix. The reason he sacrificed himself was because he had realized at last that his selfishness was wrong, that friendship is a two-way street, and after having screwed up with Roxas to the point of trying to kill him, he now wanted to redeem himself by giving to Roxas (and thus Sora): giving his life. This was a redemption, yet you’re skewing it to be “There’s no reason to live if I can’t have my boyfriend Roxas back!”

We never see this level of emotion in Sora’s reunion with Kairi.

You do remember that Sora pretty much killed himself to save Kairi in the first KH, right?

Roxas, who you were just talking about, wouldn’t have been a thing without that happening?

Are you that misogynistically averse to Kairi that you zone out whenever she’s a factor?

Sora crying for Riku, Axel crying for Roxas. The boys are the only ones who cry because their vulnerability is tied up with their dependence on each other. These are the believable relationships. These are the characters whose relationships players are never supposed to doubt. The emotion is raw and crystal clear in both of these scenes. We never see this level of emotion in Sora’s reunion with Kairi. It just isn’t there.

So boys crying ultimately places these relationships above all others, and every other relationship in the game (Sora/Kairi, Roxas/Namine, Roxas/Hayner,/Pence/Olette, Sora/Donald/Goofy, Mickey/Donald/Goofy, Mickey/Riku) can all be swept aside as irrelevant, doubtful and not believable because no visible tears are shed? That’s your argument?

Part of what makes Roxas and Axel’s relationship so beautiful is this outright rejection of their Nobody nature—they feel for each other and they let each other know it.

Here’s the problem - aside from that Axel crying scene which was not in the original version of the game, we actually NEVER see Roxas truly let Axel know that he feels for him. We literally NEVER see their friendship. It is a totally informed statement. We only see Roxas leaving and coldly saying “no-one will miss me” to Axel, and Roxas fully remembering Axel and being touched but still surprisingly blasé over what looks like (and originally WAS) Axel’s death in front of him. Yet this one-sided relationship is one of “the believable ones” to you?

And OK, let’s move away from KH2 and bring 358/2 Days into the equation. Even in that game, Roxas’ feelings of friendship toward Axel, while undeniably sincere, are nowhere close to the intensity of Axel’s feelings of friendship toward Roxas. Roxas actually has stronger feelings for Xion, and is willing to sever all ties with Axel, TWICE, because of something bad he does to him and Xion. This is not the paragon of m/m love you fangirls make it out to be!

Also, Roxas is 15. Axel is in his 20s. Just pointing that out.

Which is why the game’s ham-fisted implications of a romantic love triangle between Riku, Sora, and Kairi are so unconvincing. 

WHAT romantic love triangle!? There isn’t one at all in KH2, and in fact there never was one in the original game! It was always Sora and Kairi who liked each other that way. The official Character Report book confirmed that Riku did not like Kairi that way, knew Sora did and teased him about it, often acting as a potential romantic rival just to push Sora further and make Sora stronger - he’s the big-brother figure, it’s what he does. He only became posessive of Kairi and fought with Sora over her after he thought Sora abandoned him for Donald and Goofy (and the Keyblade). It was basically his way of saying “you throw away our friendship, then I take away your friendship / romance with Kairi, and she’ll stay MY friend!”

The implications are unconvincing because they’re a product of your deranged mind!

While the narrative wants you to believe these two are destined to become lovers, any implied Sora/Kairi mutual affection comes off simply as friends bound together by happy childhood memories. 

Right, because the Paupu Fruit (called “so romantic” by Selphie) is totally just a friendship thing, Sora killing himself in order to save Kairi and Kairi being able to bring him back because they are that close (in the present, not just in “happy childhood memories”) is totally just a friendship thing, the whole plot of CoM hinging on Kairi as Sora’s most important person (which he later re-iterates to Saix) is totally just a friendship thing, Sora imagining himself and Kairi in place of Jack and Sally slow-dancing is totally just a friendship thing, Sora and Kairi’s connection being able to bring Sora and Riku back home is totally just a friendship thing, Xion having Kairi’s face because Kairi is Sora’s most precious memory is totally just a friendship thing, this is totally just a friendship thing...I could go on. You. Are. DELUSIONAL.

Riku and Sora spend all of the first Kingdom Hearts looking for this girl, but at the start of Kingdom Hearts II it’s clear they are more invested in one another.

Which is probably because their goal in the first game was completed and Kairi is safe and sound on Destiny Islands at the start of KH2, while Sora and Riku are still in precarious situations. Once Kairi is put BACK in danger, Sora and Riku both become invested in her as well. Your constant lies by omission are bordering on sociopathic now!

Kingdom Hearts II begins with Kairi on Destiny Islands without Sora and Riku. Despite Sora’s promise during the ending events of the first Kingdom Hearts that he would find her again, he has still not returned home or even bothered to contact Kairi. 

LIE! His promise was NOT “to find her again”, he knows where she is, his promise was to come back to her with Riku, something she agreed to since, contrary to hateful fangirls’ portrayals of her, she cares about Riku too. At the end of KH2, he is finally able to keep that promise, plus the other promise of returning her lucky charm to her once his task was complete. Why the fuck would he return home without Riku, thus breaking his promise?

Instead, his search for Riku led him to Castle Oblivion and the events of Chain of Memories

Which, as mentioned above, his feelings for Kairi were instrumental to.

Meanwhile, that someone else is hopping from world to world looking for Riku, taking no time to stop by Destiny Islands to let Kairi know he’s okay. Everywhere he stops on his journey, he asks the same question: Has anyone seen Riku? Why not ask for directions back home to Kairi? Despite the game’s flashbacks and shoddily shoehorned-in visions of Kairi, she’s just not Sora’s priority.

Because, again, he KNOWS Kairi is safe on the islands so she’s not a priority, and his promise was to bring Riku back home so that the three of them could live happily together again. Why the fuck would he ask for directions back home when he’s made it repeatedly clear that his objective is only to return once he has Riku back, since that’s what Kairi wants as well? Also, once Kairi is kidnapped, she DOES become his priority and he asks about her / a way into the Nobodies’ world to rescue her just as much as he asks about where Riku is.

Sora’s constant search for Riku makes it clear that this is the relationship we need to be paying attention to. 

No, it’s ONE of them. Kingdom Hearts is made of MANY important relationships. His constant search for Kairi in addition to Riku once she’s kidnapped shows that his relationship with her is another one, and Donald and Goofy’s continuing quest for King Mickey shows that their relationship with him is another one. And let’s not forget the core one of Sora! Donald! Goofy!

You pushing Sora/Riku as the end-all, be-all is your agenda, not the game’s.

If there is supposed to be romantic love between Sora and Kairi, it’s not present in the writing. 

LIE! I’ve already pointed out why.

Their reunion is brief, and their conversation is clipped and bland. Kairi tells Sora she came looking for him because he never came home, and Sora’s reaction lets us know that he knows he screwed up. Sora apologizes to Kairi, and even as she hugs him, his response to her presence is anemic compared to the complete emotional breakdown he has when Riku is revealed.

This is your take on it, not a fact like you are presenting it as. Other views may differ.

Even after Riku’s abominable behavior, and even as he spends a majority of Kingdom Hearts II desperately avoiding Sora, his friend is still overcome to the point of tears when they meet. Sora does not rebuke Riku, he simply asks him why he has been avoiding him.

Um, yeah. That’s Sora. That’s his character, very easily forgiving. So what?

Sora is a benevolent guy throughout these games, but it’s not like him to give a free pass to his opponents.

LIE! See Maleficent and Pete, Axel, Beast when he’s under Xaldin’s control, Riku in the first game, Riku Replica in CoM, “Ansem” at the end of KH2...heck, he’s even OK going up and talking to Hades to sign up for the Paradox Cup even after all the shit Hades has pulled. He also is known to give opponents chances to back off and survive, like Vexen and Demyx.

Despite the atrocities committed at Riku’s hand in the first Kingdom Hearts, Sora still sets out in Kingdom Hearts II passionately searching for the lost Riku. He is the only one who gets Sora’s all-encompassing forgiveness.

Yeah, because they’re best friends, close as brothers. And they already had the start of a reconciliation at the end of the original game, when they closed the Door to Darkness. Exactly what’s your argument here? That if Kairi was to inexplicably go evil, Sora wouldn’t give her a pass or forgive her? Because if you believe that, then you’re a (bigger) dumbass!

The final boss sequence of Kingdom Hearts II could have easily pitted Sora solo against Xemnas.

Um, why? The previous final bosses didn’t have him go solo. Why would this?

One of Xemnas’s most common attacks involves grabbing Sora with an electrical field and holding him in place while he slowly drains the boy’s health. During these segments, players are given full control over Riku as he makes his way across the battlefield to rescue his friend. “Rescue” is even the word used for the command you must input to free Sora. It’s one thing to have these boys tell each other how they feel; it’s quite another to see them act it out in a climactic battle sequence.

Rescuing your friend is now apparently a big, earth-shattering deal. Um, OK.

You realize any character can rescue one another in battle, right?

The team-up offers an insight into the dynamics of their friendship. Giving Riku more of the heavy lifting in their combo attacks—breaking the buildings and hurling them at Xemnas as well as having to rescue Sora from the electrical attack—sets him up as the more protective of the two. Sora is active while Riku is reactive, and in the same way he spends all of the game trying to avoid Sora, he spends the final battle allowing Sora to set up powerful attacks for Riku to execute. And by having Sora be incapacitated and requiring rescue says something about how the developers want players to view their relationship. In the end, Sora will always need Riku. Riku’s presence makes Sora more confident, makes him stronger and more sure of himself. We see more of this feeling in Dream Drop Distance, where Sora fails his mission and needs Riku to bail him out, but the first seeds sprout in Kingdom Hearts II.

FUCK OFF. You’re falling into the common “seme/uke” yaoi stereotype for Riku and Sora here. For as much as you disparge Kairi for needing saving by Sora (while ignoring the times she saves him), you seem to actually get off on the idea that Sora always needs saving by Riku. I highly doubt the developers wanted you to think about the relationship like this, Nomura even said the main reason it happened was just because a lot of fans back then wanted to play as Riku, the same reason Reverse/Rebirth mode happened in CoM. Ironically, by the time of 3D, Riku’s popularity in Japan had died out, and the game didn’t sell so well.

Setting the boys up as partners in the final boss fight—literally your final act as a player—telegraphs to us that the game is about Sora and Riku’s friendship.

No. It’s one of the big themes of the game and what takes precedence in the last act, but to say that the ENTIRE GAME is about it and ignore all the other rich content that is packed into the game does it a disservice. I again ask why you even wrote a book about this game. Was it just to push your personal fangirl fantasies? We already have Tomoco Kanemaki for that!

You can’t tell either boy’s story without the other.

Tell that to CoM and 358/2 Days...or this game, where we hardly see a “story” for Riku.

Their friendship, Sora’s desire to find Riku, and Riku’s desire to protect Sora by only helping him from the shadows, is what drives the story forward and what lays down the game’s emotional foundation.

Really? Because it had nothing to do with Roxas’ story, or Axel’s story. Or the story of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. Or Organization XIII’s plans. Or Mickey’s own quest and connection with Ansem the Wise. Or many events in the Disney worlds. Or...yeah, you get the message. Once again, you simplify a wonderfully complex, multi-layered game and boil it down to a yaoi story. I doubt you’d BE a KH fan if not for the yaoi-bait given this pattern of behavior. I hate to play the “True Fan” card, but...you’re not a True Fan. You don’t get it.

Following the final battle, as they sit on the edge of oblivion, Sora and Riku confess their feelings to each other.

And you deliberately phrase it romantically. More lying.

This climactic scene isn’t Sora and Kairi confessing their love

You realize that 1.) There’s still a series to go for that to happen, 2.) Nomura doesn’t want romance and shipping to be the main focus, and 3.) We actually get a credits scene where Sora sees that Kairi has returned his feelings with the chalk drawing on the cave wall.

We see her again in the very last scene welcoming Sora back to Destiny Islands, but the sweetness of her homecoming words is outshined by this exchange between the boys on a dark beach.

Which is a fact, not at all an opinion. And this is not sarcasm, not at all!

They’ve won the fight, and they don’t know if they’ll be able to return home. 

And who ends up being the catalyst for them coming home and not dying? KAIRI.

While Riku and Sora are not in love, the boys’ friendship is one of the deepest and most moving relationships of any kind that I’ve seen in a video game. And part of why it works is because it’s not a romance. Without sexual tension or expressed desire of any kind, these relationships appear as the deepest forms of male intimacy: mutual dependence, connectedness, and respect.

LMAO! After all this, you’re now trying to claim you’re not a yaoi fangirl and that you understand and accept that Sora and Riku are not in love and their feelings not sexual!? 

You aren’t fooling anyone, Alexa. You’re the typical obnoxious, toxic KH yaoi fangirl. Own it.

Kingdom Hearts II is the tale of these broken bonds becoming whole and being used as power against the creeping darkness. As Sora says in the first Kingdom Hearts, “My friends are my power.” Kingdom Hearts II proves that for Sora and Riku, this will always be the case.

And for Sora and Kairi, and Riku and Kairi, and Sora, Donald and Goofy, and Mickey, Donald and Goofy, and Mickey and Riku, and Riku and DiZ, and Roxas and Hayner, Pence, and Olette, and Roxas and Axel, and...OK, I’ve already made this point before, I’m done now.

Bottom line: this so-called fan lies with reckless abandon, omits key facts, presents her opinions as truth, and completely maligns the entire rest of the game just to prop up the one aspect she feels dominates all others and that other players should feel the same way about it as she does. To all True KH Fans, avoid her, her book, and future writings like the Plague!

[aaluminiumas]

There’s Our Future Behind It

“Just don’t tell me I’ve been explaining it to myself.”

“As you wish, Tall-boy. I won’t.”

        Brewster gifted his friend, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, with a broad silly smile. His calloused fingers were now fiddling with a knickknack he had grabbed from a shelf – his thoughts indeed wandered around something else – some matter at hand Ben had mentioned in passing – but at the same time he was still able to contrive and add the details he missed. Strategy was his forte; Caleb seemed to succeed in what Tallmadge spent hours on. Brewster didn’t need either an outlined plan, or a site plan as he used to explore the surroundings all by himself. He used to lay an ambush on the enemy using a sidelong hill near the river simultaneously demonstrating the prowess of an experienced soldier. Furthermore, he was good with his hatchet – but this honed skill Major Tallmadge sometimes tended to disregard.

“Stop staring at me as if I stole your money after a night with a wench,” Caleb drawled swiveling his eyes to the bagatelle in the scratched fingers. “I might accidentally think you’re in love with me, Benny-boy. I’d be very much flattered but you’d better taste a woman before you try a guy!.. Let me not be the lucky man though.”

        “What a wise thing to say,” it was obvious Tallmadge got embarrassed by such a remark about his monastic private life, but the young man decided to ignore the comment hoping that Caleb would calm down. “But Caleb,” Major’s eyes slid across the avuncular bearded face, “did you get what I was talking about? The great significance of the operation, its upcoming impact on the…”

“Yup, yup, Major,” Brewster interrupted the stream of rebuke that was about to fall upon his head. “I got it. I just can’t understand why the heck we aren’t shooting them down at the river.”

“Because they have supplies, that’s why. If we use our cannons while the redcoats are on board, everything will drown. We will lose the chance to snatch the rations.”

        Not eager to discuss the wide range of problems the army had to face during the war, Tallmadge briefly mentioned the lack of supplies – and dwelled on some other things Washington dealt with. Although a cut and thrust in Congress wasn’t going to abate, Ben could easily imagine it had nothing to do with the circumstance in the country at the moment. Delegates jettisoned letters from the camp and used their agile minds only to contrive a new tax to levy on the emaciated nation. Working on Virginia’s court system, the sagacious congressmen operated in cahoots although normally they were at loggerhead with each other. They were incredibly unanimous when they needed a better way to ignore Washington’s orders and demands. Considering the fact they barely reached a compromise even talking about the comeuppance that was to befall the British for oppression and decimation, this was a worth mentioning achievement. The Congress was the first to yell about the knell heard in the distance – but the last to work out the kinks whether it was about a financial project, or the army.

        “True. Wet gunpowder is as helpful as a broken gun,” Brewster uttered, putting the bric-a-brac in its place. “You can hardly kill a foe with a ball of gunpowder… while he sure can hole your head with a bayonet.”

        Tallmadge nodded absent-mindedly – and glared at the unfolded map. The Congress didn’t even believe they were able to vanquish. Politicians never declared it openly, yet they undoubtedly would lick King George’s boots in case of defeat. Washington, the man, whose valor inspired people, was seen as an extravagant warrior putting effort into the wrong hobby: his endevors to fight destitution and hunger seemed silly and futile to the congressmen. Look, he was trying to challenge the mightiest empire wielding power all over the world! Strong, inflexible, General Washington revealing his deflating sangfroid, led the way to independence – and wasted time on the homesick Congress refusing to search for allies. His talents were evident – but he was all alone, and even the greatest needed confederates. That was what they could not quite fathom.

        “This is not my plan, actually,” Tallmadge said after a long pause. “General Rochambeau and Marquis de Lafayette offered it.”

        “General who and Marquis who? Those tall messeurs never leaving Washington’s tent?”

        “Correct. Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton wrote to them.”

        “So the French are taking over?”

        “To some extent. They suggest cutting the British off at sea.”

        Caleb nodded in agreement, already lost in thought. How did it turn out this way? He was standing here with his best friend, casually maintaining a confabulation about people they were going to kill by cannons, guns, bayonets and blasts. He barely speculated on the subjects like that, but this time the whaler suddenly caught himself thinking there was no way out. They were not to go back in time, and the childhood dreams they were so determined to pursue… went belly up. Brewster didn’t miss the younger years dearly, moreover, he was quite contented with his life, but… how did it change so quickly?

        Silence fell upon the tent. Tallmadge marked something on the map, wrote something down in his journal.

        “You know, Benny-boy, I never thought to see you such a burly man-at-arms. I mean, we’re at war. You, a Yalie, and Abe, and even our Annie. I mean… she used to treat your grazed knees all the time! Remember, how loudly you howled when you fell off a tree? I thought it was fatal. But then you squalled so loudly that we sighed with relief: the dead don’t shout at the top of their lungs.

        “I didn’t shout at all,” Ben got confused, “My Dad would give me a good scolding, I was wearing my new pants. Every child is afraid of the parents every once in a while.”

        “Well, Abe never was and never is,” Caleb japed amiably, “So as Annie. She came home scratched all over.”

        “While you were somewhere else!.. And then popped out of nowhere having some ‘intelligence of topmost significance’! Where did you take it, finagled out of a merchant’s son?”

        “Really, ‘intelligence of topmost importance’, you say?” Caleb let out a laugh, “Somebody had to brighten your smug prolixity! You’re grinding at English days on end, Woodhull’s having law in the head, cabbage on the head, dreams about his own farm in the eyes, and Annie can do nothing about you both. While one is expecting to have his elbow bandaged, the other…”

        Suddenly, Brewster fell silent. Tallmadge was about to mention his elbows had always been in great condition, but didn’t say anything himself realizing that his friend touched upon something bigger than just a childhood game. Abe got married, Anna did the same; but their mutual attraction did not subside a tad – and was clear to others. Devoted to their spouses, both Anna and Abe eluded greetings, even the slightest interaction that could awaken a maelstrom of emotion they strove to mortify. People did see the storm of those feelings; neither Mary nor Selah was blind dolls, and even though they possessed enough power to ignore and defy the obvious, they could barely miss out the glances, voices and smallest changes in the faces of those they loved. Jealous, Selah tried to prohibit his wife to meet his rival – and Mary suffered quietly; Selah nearly exploded in his room, accusing Abe of all the sins committed in the world – and Mary patiently waited, although knowing her husband was wandering around the tavern. Selah was direct – and Mary fought on her own, never letting the people of Setauket pry into her private life. Whatever they saw was not grounded, but how can you judge people for their desire to watch and to gossip?.. She took it as a duty of a home goddess she was not to shirk: the notion of the family she had in mind demanded to be indemnified from public conviction of any kind. Let them run their mouths, let them drive a wedge between the couple – she will never give him an opportunity to diminish the peace she has been creating for ages. She didn’t interfere – but didn’t plan to turn tail either.

        It didn’t work that way with Selah. He was put against Abe by those who craved for a show. Shouting that they ought to topple tyrants as quickly as possible, the same people morphed into the declared tyrants, who doused the lights and pretended to be blind – just to embellish the reality that never took place. The boisterous ire transforming into a perverted desire to faze and tantalize was another manifestation of war in which the world of Setauket had been beguiled into. And Selah still strove to resist – to resist waspish remarks that aimed to sully his family reputation. His fury was always genuine and unadulterated – and never addressed to Anna.

        Come to think of it, they used to call her Annie!.. That feisty girl who easily parried both jocular and acerbic comments! She was constantly the winner if Caleb made an attempt to play a trick on her and Abe; moreover, she managed to persuade Tallmadge not to do the same using the right tone of the voice – she mildly threatened him with a punch on the long nose and an embarrassing situation she would not help him with.

        The war derailed their plans.

        The war exposed the most sensitive places people tended to hide.

        The war impelled them to sacrifice themselves – their hopes and dreams.

        “It can’t be a mistake, can it?” Ben whispered, swiveling his sapphire eyes to his friend. “Everything. Those casualties, our past, dreams… How can we go on knowing there is… nothing behind it?”

        “There’s our future behind it,” Brewster smiled again and canted his head to the side. Now he was perusing the plan the French had offered. “And write this down, Benny-boy. You have a frightening tendency to fall into philosophy. Man up, Yalie, and let’s show the French how we can fight!”  

[walkinginsolitude]

Abby

It's some day of the week that’s wedged too far between days off to matter much.

I’m on auto-pilot.

Delivering packages via bicicleta in the cold winter air of downtown Manhattan.

My phone startles me with a noise that only exists in this world because a bunch of assholes sat in a room somewhere dragging nails across chalkboards and throwing kittens at drumsets and listening to brunch conversations about intermittent fasting until they engineered the single most obnoxious sound ever heard.

It's an alert that I thought we had all agreed was only to be used when someone stole a kid.

But no, instead this sound scares the absolute shit out of me in order to let me know that “a winter squall is approaching”. It might as well say a “scoopty poop is coming” because I have no idea what the shit that means.

Either way the sky almost immediately falls dark. The temperature drops. Winds pick up. Snow begins blanketing down, which is just the cutest of all severe weather unless of course you’re the idiot in your family who didn’t go to law school and so is currently riding his bike around New York delivering packages.

Okay. Fine.

An hour or two pass.

I’m cold annoyed and considering applying to law school.

But I'm alright. It’s what I signed up for.

Until some young meat popsicle who clearly attended business school walks directly into the bike path without looking which just has a terrible ROI as I'm forced to swerve brake slip and tumble across the pavement and into a gaggle of other business humans.

Okay. Fine.

I lay there for a minute more due to the cumulative shittiness of the day than the bumps and bruises of the fall.

I am a bit shaken up though.

Never fun to fall off your bike in the streets of NYC. It's sort of like the world’s longest, stupidest game of russian roulette.

Fine. The only way through the day is through the day. Back on the bike. Back to work. I can be resilient. Take it in stride.

I’m riding slower now. But not too slow because it’s absolutely freezing. The snow is still piling up with no signs of stopping. Thank God no children were actually taken, because you're not finding no kids in this squall.

So I’m working. Shaking off the gitters of the fall. Finding shelter where I can.

My phone goes off again. This time far too softly for the message it's delivering.

It’s a text that reads: “Abby is stopping chemo. She’s going into hospice. She’s not going to make it.”

………………. Shit. …….

…. Bu……

…………….

Fuck.

I get back on my bike again trying as best I can to compartmentalize my feelings. Not be overwhelmed. Don’t be overwhelmed, Don’t be overwhelmed. Focus up.

The snow doesn't matter. The physical pain doesn’t matter. You'll have to think about Abby later.

I can't.

I can't.

The harder I try not to think about her the more overwhelmed I become. Until she is ALL I'm thinking of.

I’m not even looking at the street anymore.

I fall from my bike again.

I’m crying.

Keeping my head down while delivering packages so the recipients won't see my eyes.

I can’t control my feelings. I'm drowning.

Thinking of Abby.

She's been battling ovarian cancer for some time and is now apparently preparing for the end.

To be fair her and I were never all that close.

We went to a small boarding school together had some close mutual friends kept in sparse contact throughout the years.

And in typical Abby fashion she never cried for help or asked for attention.

It was only when things got too bad to ignore that her friends betrayed her orders of privacy and let those who love her know her situation.

I’m thinking of this Woman. This Beautiful Vivacious Kind 33 yrs old Woman, who in every cliche way that people talk about the dying IS TRULY, HUMBLY, WONDERFUL.

In high school everyone seemed trapped in their egos. Consumed by insecurity.

Abby didn't.

She wasn't too cool or more mature, just refreshingly devoid of teenage self-centeredness.

She was always genuine. Inquisitive. Joyful. Real.

She has the type of smile that only free people have.

And she is.

A free soul.

Every step along the way that I've been fortunate enough to share with Abby she always seemed free. She always seemed connected.

And so I think of Abby with her whole life ahead of her. That bright, infectious smile. That spirit to really live. Going through this.

Falling ill. Getting the horrible news: You might die. Putting on a brave face.

But life looks different now.

All your friends are traveling getting married having kids going to the beach talking politics.

And you’re just surviving.

In and out of chemo. All the medication. The fear. The loneliness.

And I wonder, beyond all of this unimaginable physical pain and suffering she endured, when it was that she first truly allowed the possibility of dying to enter her mind. A young, vibrant, talented, joyous woman in her early 30s now coming to terms with the realities of her illness.

Think about that. It’s worth your real consideration. What it must be like to face that.

For no good reason your life might be Ending.

How does that feel? What do you do? How could she find the strength to fight with that looming over her? What did she think about every day? How insanely scared are you? It’s unimaginable. It’s not fair.

And now to know for certain that this Is the End.

At 33.

To go into hospice and literally prepare for death. It’s FUCKED.

It’s a concept that fills ME with so much anger and frustration and sorrow that I can barely breathe when I think about it and I’m just some asshole who knew her 15 years ago. This poor, amazing woman who I sincerely believe deserves to be alive more than I do if life was fair, has to actually go through it. It’s FUCKED.

And so I’m biking in the squall in the cold scraped and bruised crying thinking of Abby absorbing the news. I am miserable in a way that I haven’t known in a very long time.

But then I think about just what Abby would give to trade places with me in that exact moment.

To be riding a bike out in the world in the beautiful snow in a beautiful city with her health and her life ahead of her.

She would be smiling that bright beautiful effortless smile. She might be singing. She might stop to take a photo of the large white snowflakes falling in the light of dusk on the east river before getting back on the bike and navigating the world. Her beautiful blonde curls floating in the air behind her.

She would be living.

That realization helped me a bit.

There is a thing that happens any time we hear about tragedy. About death. When we are forced to acknowledge through other’s pain and suffering our own mortality.

To recognize that we are just a bunch of sentient organisms on a spinning rock with no fucking clue why we are here or where we go when we die.

Some time after I first learned about Abby having cancer I was thinking about her and I saw a beautiful flock of birds flying through the air doing that weird thing birds do where they all move as one through the sky in those quick erratic motions. It seemed unfathomable to understand how they could all know which way to go and when exactly to turn. How do they do it? Who's steering?

I watched them and thought about wedding rings.

This million or billion dollar industry that seemingly everyone has accepted is just the way we do things. So much so that a bunch of children in Africa are literally physically abused into finding shiny rocks in the ground that are then sent to these other parts of the world where people have running water and 3D printers. And they take these rocks and put them on top of this very shiny metal which, I’m sure, also has some fucked up back story as to how it got to be sitting in this display case at Zales somewhere in Rhode Island. And then this man (it’s a man because the bird flock decided this was the man’s job and so all the birds just instinctively turned left) goes into the store and buys this metal/rock thingamabob that costs something like 120 days of his life, which, again, like, who the fuck is steering? And he takes this shiny metal rock thing and brings it to a woman he’s known for two and a half years who likes the same netflix shows as him but doesn’t know that he occasionally does cocaine and he gets down on one knee at the fanciest restaurant in Providence and puts the shiny thing on this lady he kind of knows finger and they begin a promise to be with one another forever even though there are something like 2020 years of glaring statistics that the likelihood of all this working out or keeping them happy is like 1 in 40. All the other bird humans in the fancy restaurant get up and applaud. They kiss and smile at each other take in the moment and at the very-first-socially-acceptable-moment they announce their engagement online with a photo that is cute, subtle and funny, catches them both at their most symmetrical, supports the troops and only takes a full hour of attempts to finally get the shot where they don't look like they are trying. Then they reminisce about their relationship call their loved ones, buy a round for the birds sitting next to them, she cringes, thinking of how upset her older, unmarried sister will by by the news, he smiles thinks about all that blow they are going to do at his bachelor party, but more than anything they just keep looking down at their phones to see how many likes that engagement announcement got. It ends up being 324, and that feels pretty good.

And I just hope that something, somewhere is watching all of us do all of this saying “what the fuck? Why are they all doing that? How is it possible that none of them just stray off and do their own thing?” Which is exactly what I was thinking about watching the birds.

And then thinking of Abby. And Life. And Death.

What I took from it is that nobody knows what's going on. None of these systems or paths make any sense. Forget about a career. Or money. Or beauty. Or soul mates. Forget all of it. What do you want? For you? Not the flock. Because one day, sooner or later, you’re going to die.

So live you’re fucking life while you can.

I like to believe that Abby did that well. Maybe I only feel that way because she has passed now, but I don’t think so. I really believe that woman knew how to live and who she was. And if you don’t know her it would only take seeing a photo of her or by her to feel the same.

And so I’m left with a painful reminder of our mortality. Just how important and beautiful and fleeting life is. That even on your worst most mundane day in the middle of the winter in the middle of a squall with truly terrible news in your mind there is still beauty to be found lessons to be learned reasons to be present because your friend who is dying or that kid in a ditch in Africa mining shiny rocks would love to have that moment. Every day above ground is an insane gift. And that is an important lesson to continue to learn.

But it does absolutely nothing to change the fact that an exceptional young woman went through hell on Earth and is now gone.

Nothing will change that. And I certainly won’t do any justice in articulating just how tragic that truly is. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just unfair.

And so I’ll end by saying that I genuinely feel very fortunate to have had the pleasure of knowing Abby the little that I did. You were an amazing person and I am so incredibly sorry that you had to go through all of this. You deserved better. I wish I could have told you this in person.

Goodbye Abby Kraftowitz. And thank you.