#like 'no i need to repress this imagery immediately i can't believe the eater of worlds looks like someones quirky uncle at the bbq'

[kitwilsonsass]

I think the thing that's fucking with my brain the most is the separation of fact and fiction because it's like... we spent years being told that Bray was this unkillable character that would always come back no matter what, and now it's just like...I have to remind myself that in reality he was just a normal guy, it's weird.

It's..... yeah.

Okay - I'm gonna get real wordy and wax poetically and I'm so sorry I'm incapable of just talking and crying like a normal person.

It's like a big old layered burrito of denial on all fronts, right?

Because on the surface, we have a guy who was so young, and that seems so hard to get past in itself. We also have the fact that he was prone to injury at points and disappearing for... months at a time. He had been released and came back, what, a year later? In the meantime there were always a billion headlines with his name, speculating the worst, and it never had any accuracy or mattered. We were always *looking forward* to him returning and he always inevitably did because he had half his career ahead of him still and it always seemed like the best was to come.

And we have all these stories of what a beautiful person he was, a side we roughly knew of but never got to really experience ourselves as an audience.

But the person we saw was, as you said, this unkillable character. Literally unkillable. He told us from day one he could never die and would persist 5000 years from now when *we* were all gone. Because he was this personification of all the darkest bits of humanity and American society come to force us to face our sins. We watched him, silly as it was, get burned alive and come back a shambling heap of melting flesh and be completely restored. He was forever, he was a god, you could always find him and you could never, ever kill it.

And like, as fans, we kindle that kid in us that wants to believe in superheros and villains and we grow over the years with them. We go to events, and we sing his songs, and we thrust ourselves into that role ourselves of characters in a way. Like we were always *his*. Even if you didn't love him, you played into that for his entrance at the very least because it was such an undeniable experience. He talked and you, and every babyface, listened - whether you wanted to or not.

I'll never forget that one match on Raw, still early on, when the whole crowd was first singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" and just swaying, and then turning around and chanting "Bray is gonna kill you." Like, I remember Big E was in that match, and I'm pretty sure he was on the receiving end of that chant. He was over. He was beloved. And the whole crowd was singing hymns and calling for his demise for this literal cult leader that would speak in tongues and Exorcist walk across the ring, holding his heart and smiling with some masked sinister joy at it.

It's really really hard to reconcile he's not actually some biblical force of nature looming over everything and everyone even though we know better. And like, that fan in me that's that eternal kid in a way, is just stomping my feet screaming "but he CAN'T die!"

The end of Smackdown did, and still is, really fucking me up because I kept waiting for the lantern to go out. And like, I couldn't decide if I wanted that. Because on one hand, there's a symbolism there, and a kind of sad beauty, in the light going out. He was with us, and he's gone now, and he can rest (ahahaha I'm going to start crying again). The light fades. But ultimately I'm so glad it didn't go out because A.) I don't think I could've fucking handled it and was already bawling, and B.) It shouldn't go out. Or fade. His spirit of everything he brought to that world should stay with us and with every single performer who goes out there every night and throws their hearts into playing these characters.

And like... maybe, even though it's so hard now, maybe eventually there's comfort to be found in the idea that even though the vessel is gone - *He* will, somehow, always be there haunting us. Because "I have a thousand faces and a million names." We might not see him, but we can choose to believe every time a hero is forced to face their fears that he's there behind it - silently whispering into our ears, willing us on to indulge in every second of it.