#the best explanation I can come up with for why certain peeps become favorites is that. usually

[peapod20001]

What is it that makes an oc a favorite?

No, seriously. What is it

[ratspberry]

many naruto thoughts head overloading

ok im only like 20 episodes into shippuden and i skipped a Lot of filler in original naruto bc i do not have the patience </3 (i will come back to the filler one day though) and while i love this anime theres so much i wish... was not written how it is

first of all sakura... i love her sm and i just wish her character was given some more care like at this point in shippuden im actually really enjoying the direction shes taken but i heard a lot of her growth is sidelined when sasuke comes back into the picture and thats my biggest issue. im sorry but if youre going to introduce a TRIO of main characters i want to see that main group equally fleshed out. first going all the way back to the beginning i wish that sakura was allowed to fight??? like we KNOW shes super smart and has powerful chakra so even when at that time she wasnt the most skilled fighter (as far as we KNOW at least. given that we barely got to see her fight who knows!) she couldve in the very least played a similar role to that of shikamaru as far as leadership and strategizing. and ok her crush on sasuke should have dissipated a lot more after the chunin exams. even though i do hate to see her spend so much time fawning over sasuke when hes not even particularly kind to her i think a crush in the beginning could still work IF the moment of her cutting her hair (“sasuke likes girls with long hair”) and her battle w ino during the chunin exams were like an eye-opening moment for her when she was like “wtf am i doing i am going to work hard as a ninja to prove that i can do this to MYSELF and MY RIVAL first” (which. ok she does get to this point later and again i love her learning chakra and getting strong as HELL during her training w tsunade but again. i want to see that REMAIN parallel to the enormous power level leaps that sasuke and naruto make. also let sakura and ino have a fun friendship rivalry that has nothing to do w sasuke) . i think it would be better if she naruto and sasuke were just friends who ALL help and motivate each other. and so when sasuke leaves sakura is STILL super fucked up over it and maybe even has a hard time trusting naruto again after he comes back? (but ofc she eventually does bc power of friendship) like IDK loss of one best friend, then almost immediately after your other best friend (who u just learned secretly is sealed w the nine tails and the akatsuki is after him just like orochimaru was after sasuke) leaves you for THREE YEARS??? kind of a salt in the wound moment! also im simply not even going to touch on all the comphet marriages in the end

next im going to talk about rock lee my friend rock lee who i adore. anyways he either should not have foregone the surgery from tsunade or died from it. HEAR ME OUT! this surgery was good in showing how powerful tsunade is as a healer but like? was it necessary? after she brought naruto back to life??? as far as lees characterization his whole thing is that he may not have special jutsu or the same prodigal abilities as his peers but he can still be as powerful or more powerful! and idk i hate when characters have serious life changing stuff done to them and not seeing it fully explored in the story. like ok so we’ve got tsunade telling lee (who cant be older than 12? 13?) theres a 50/50 chance he’ll die in the surgery to heal him. and then guy ENCOURAGES HIM, HIS FAVORITE STUDENT, to go through with the surgery so he could then go on to be a ninja and continue risking his life?????? so i thought that was pretty screwed up. which leads me to the two paths that i think would be interesting to see play out: 1. lee doesnt get the surgery, but continues to train as a ninja. his injuries still exist but lee learns to fight WITH the injuries and creates a really cool badass unique fighting style and goes on to be a great ninja like he dreamed 2. lee dies in surgery. id hate it i would and i dont WANT lee to die but it might be a fuckin wakeup call to all these adult ninjas urging kids into warfare. lee is beloved by all so it would be a good moment of pause for everyone to think like “ummm so the systems that be are kind of majorly fucked up.”

those are the two main ideas i had but heres a few misc things:

-jiraiya can be the author of as many trashy romance novels as he wants but him hitting on younger women and being like a peeping tom and UGH the way he was introduced w narutos ‘sexy jutsu’ is just. not good. take it out.

-let tsunade look her age. like the whole “she uses her chakra to make herself look young”? i dont buy it. i dont care that you just didnt feel like drawing a woman who looks over 20. you will do it anyways bc i said so.

-i dont dislike n/ruhina as much as i dislike s/susaku bc at least its clear theres a mutual respect and admiration there but hinata, like sakura, has so much more potential to be explored. idk if its looked at in filler or later in shippuden (id sure hope so) but i think her parallel to sasuke is kind of interesting? both have intimidating, extremely powerful older brothers (i know neji is technically hinatas cousin or smth but whatever older brother figures. also i know hinatas sister is also supposed to be super powerful but idk her yet) who are held in high esteem by their families and have all this pressure on their shoulders to want to surpass them? given that neji didnt um. do the things itachi did clearly its not the SAME between hinata and sasuke but i feel like examining the hyuga family dynamics would be SO interesting in comparison to sasukes arc. i didnt mind seeing hinata motivated by naruto the first few times but like. there is SO MUCH MORE THERE than JUST hinatas relationship to naruto.

-all of these kids need therapy but ESPECIALLY sasuke like the signs were there. halfway thru the bell test thing SUPER early on sasuke went into a full-fledged “i am an avenger.. i have to kill a certain someone” monologue and given the fact that everyone knows his entire clan was killed and that sasuke is likely VERY traumatized... who thought it was a good idea to let him become a ninja before addressing any of that. my god. like i love kakashi and i know he has his own devestating backstory and that hes a product of the system but why the Fuck would he let sasuke take the chunin exams. give team 7 a year more of training and getting to know each other and give sasuke some time to create bonds and maybe even open up emotionally and begin to heal and then MAYBE we can THINK ab chunin exams.

-asuma and ino apologize to choji for telling him not to eat as much challenge? did asuma not know that chojis clan uses food to replenish their chakra? it would make sense if ino didnt know but chojis teacher?? either way still p fucked, leave choji alone

-speaking of ino i want more of her character tok. why was she not included in that mission to save sasuke that shikamaru, her TEAMMATE, led?? was there an explanation for that?? i feel like her not being there was a missed opportunity for some real growth/bonding between team 10.

-speaking of the last bullet point shikamaru being like “ugh women 🙄” is tired and boring. very misogynistic “i hate my wife” facebook dad humor. cut that shit out

-orochimarus coding and his whole um. intent as a villain is just very. Hm. i dont think i like that very much but im not going to go into it bc im sure its been touched upon a million times

[kendrixtermina]

I haven’t played all four routes yet but from spoilers I do know that Edelgard has some feelings for Byleth regardless of the route. While the shipper in me likes that detail, objectively from what I’ve seen of AM/VW so far I’m not sure why El would feel that way. I don’t want to chalk it up to waifuism right away. Any thoughts on this, since you’ve played all the routes?

Comments on the premise

(Scroll down for an answer to your actual question) 

First of all this “waifuism” thing is exceedingly cynical. 

Male antagonists in huge classical words of art are given a tragic crush or adorable little daughter/sister them all the time so  as to humanize them, give them internal conflict and expose some contradictions about them, and people get how it’s tragic and gives them dimensionality and no one ever says the only reason is so fangirls will think they’re hot. If anyone gets made fun of it’s the fangirls for “not getting the depht” as if that were mutually exclusive. Vulnerability, temptation, struggle for independence... you find that all over the best stories ever told. 

For every damself in distress there’s one dude (her boyfriend) who manages to be a full compelling non-satelite human being despite having romance as a motivator the problem isn’t romance it’s bad writing. There’s certainly a problem if almost every single female character in a setting were entirely by romance but the idea that liking someone is to degrade, flatten and cheapen yourself is just as toxic. It can coexist with other more complex motivations and in fact lampshade them.

You might perhaps call bad writing if it were one of those situations where the villainess has no other motivation than dudes, brings it up constantly or is so defined by it that it keeps her from acting in any self-consistent manner or just isn’t taken seriously as an antagonist.  Not saying she’s a villain at all but you oppose her on the other routes.

I pretty much all the characters like Byleth and express regret when they go up against them... They have a sort of heroic charisma that’s why they’re the main character. (not per se the other way around - you don’t point the camera where nothing interesting/extrordinary is happening. Few stories tell us about a sack of potatoes falling over or people sitting on chairs, and if they did they’d be about pointing out how potatoes or chairs are actually plenty interesting)

They’re described as accepting ppl just as they are with that having been an attitude impressed on them by their father who himself is cool with Byleth’s own oddities, and also described as one hell of a badass field commander.  Also you DO run around all day bringing everyone gifts, their favorite snacks lost possesions and listening to their problems/lifestories. 

It’s not like it’s super over the top in your face it’s like a handful of lines many of which you might not even hear if you’ve recruited certain characters or don#t trigger certain engage quotes, and it ties into her greater characterization as someone with consummate laserfocus dedication who has pretty much given up on anything that doesn’t further her goal even her own feelings.  - having a crush is just one example, she mentions how she’d have preferred a more peaceful life doing idle fun things and did enjoy her time at the monastery where she got to be just another classmate sand fight alongside everybody else as a comrade.

Though she enjoyed her time at the monastery, her resolve doesn’t waver... but now it hurts a bit more to go through with what she had planned all along since it means losing some of the relative normalcy she had not dared to hope for anymore

You actual question (ie what does she like about them)

Crushes, by nature, are just something that randomly shows up and can produce quite a bit of a reaction in a short time. 

Regardless of route you save her from a bandit and there’s all the explore time dialogue and basically lived in close quarters/ saw each other every other day. Even if theyd spend more time with their own class theyd still be around the place doing cool stuff. That would be explanation enough, I mean it doesn’t necessarily mean that something had to come of it, that she wouldn’t get over it or that you’re immediately soulmates or whatever, I mean you can pair her off with plenty of other peeps in her route. 

Which isn’t to say that the whole thing is just any old youthful crush. Crush or no crush she really wants them to be allies. 

First of all Edelgard has been describing as being drawn to/ sorta ‘collecting’ people she views as talented and exceptional so if you are a badass she’s gonna like you (just in general not even romantically), and if you’re a badass who’s also her ‘type’ that might manifest itself as a crush as well. 

She says pretty early on that she thinks they have similar personalities, and she clearly looks for like-mindedness in friends and allies as well, of the ones that she gets semi-friendly with even before the timeskip the only one with a significant different outlook/temperament is Dorothea, and everyone likes Dorothea, since she goes out of her way to befriend anyone who doesn’t resemble an arrogant dunce. 

Also, she probably finds the idea of having an ally who is “like her” very enticing. First because she’s used to being misunderstood and someone who is similar might “get” her and relate to her. (Conversely there’s a lot of dialogue where she’s like “I know you’re lying” or “wow you’re telling the truth”... she doesnt find them that opaque/unreadable compared to the other characters. so this also goes both ways... this occurs regularly enough that its even kinda used to hint at who the flame emperor is (”I can tell you dont actually want to join me”)) 

Byleth is just generally described in a lot of scenes dialogues and supports as someone whos pretty accepting of peolples weirdness and quirks. Leonie thinks they get it from Jeralt. That tends to be a selling point for most of their romantic options especially the house leaders

Likewise, due to various reasons relating to her natural personality, station and backstory she finds it hard to step out of business mode, and ppl tend to sort of flinch away from her because she’s uncommonly powerful and also the princess, and she doesn’t like that/tends to feel somewhat isolated because of it.  Even ppl who know Edelgard well enough to have significant insight into her (like Hubert or Ladislava) still speak of her with a kind of awe.

Due to their upbringing away from mainstream society, sorta unphased slightly flippant personality and their own considerable power/competence Byleth is one of the few who isn’t daunted to approach her like any ol regular person. They’re powerful enough for her to approach them on an even level, or even rely on them/ take pointers from them. 

You also see that to an extent with Lysithea (who is not just a fellow experiment victim but also has a similar ‘serious/focussed’ outlook and love of sugary things) with whom she also gets various “I wish you’d joined me/pity that we must fight” sort of dialogue. She’s Edelgard’s one inter-house support (suggesting a similar “I kinda can’t help wanting to get to know you even though I know we might become enemies” dynamic at play) the “free recruitee” on the CF route (whereas the other cases are in situations where they have incentives to flip - Lorenz is only with the empire out of opportunism so why wouldn’t he join the kingdom if they look to be winning? And Ashe was flat out drafted and is only with the Rowes out of obligation) and if you spare her she’ll say that Claude explicitly told her to waive the white flag if things get tough because he figured that Edelgard would be likely to spare her. 

[malcolmpeacock-blog]

There’s a Referee in my bed

Pray God you can cope. I’ll stand outside.

 It’s raining outside. It was raining when my dad died. It was pouring. My dad died in Towson in a hospice center on a Friday night at 5:21 pm. I was supposed to be seeing my friends, Bo and Karli. But I had forgotten to text them. They understood of course and I told them with such ease…guys, my dad’s about to die. When my dad’s mother called my mom earlier that day from the center, I was in the basement. Completely alone with the lights off for two days. I spent most of my time there in silence that winter on the winter break from college. I never really told anyone how sick my father had become. And I was also unaware of what was happening to me. I had already fucked up my sleeping during my first semester of school. And this whole thing of wondering when and if he was going to die was really not helping. It became evident that I wouldn’t be leaving Baltimore to head back to Richmond anytime soon. I began to isolate myself more and would spend hours online googling “hospice”. I was frustrated that I wasn’t being given answers to my fears. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that google could never answer questions that I’ve had all my life. At some point you really do have to figure things out for yourself. Of course, we are all here. And there is empathy. But, in order to feel it and to give it, I think we have to meet ourselves in a mirror.

 This woman’s work. This woman’s work. Ooooo it’s hard on a man. Now his part is over. Now starts the craft of the father.

I developed an intense relationship with death at an extremely early age. I think it’s hard for most kids to wrap their heads around. The idea that yes, it ends. Everything, physically, will die. As the artist Juliana Huxtable says, “There are certain facts that cannot be disputed.” Flesh, skin, all that, it ends. Now what extends beyond that is another story. Stories. But death and I met when Aaliyah Haughton died. Cheesy, but Aaliyah is really important in the scope of me understanding why I believe I am here. I could go on about how my family would sit around in the living room with our next door neighbors singing I don’t think you’re ready for this thing, this thing, this thing, I don’t think you’re ready this thiiiiing like many other Black people were doing during that time. And my sister doing the rock the boat dance or trying to at least and I don’t even need to mention that dress at the end when the goddess is immersed in the water (peep FKA Twigs for the tribute) but obviously I’m bringing it up because duh. There will never be another. It was hot that Saturday. I was on the computer strolling the internet, something I just enjoyed doing looking at images of my favorite singers. I heard my mom say, “Baby, Aaliyah died.” I searched Aaliyah immediately and I was confused. Died? How? I thought to myself, how do you die? What does that mean? I asked my mom for an explanation over and over. We watched some videos and sang like always and the reality or the myth rather, had still not settled in for me. I was rattled. My mom explained to me the best she could, that everybody dies one day. We all live and then we die. My dad was a loud man. And he was also soft. He had dark dark brown skin and usually a smirk on his face. He loved Aaliyah. He loved her to death. I think I was so confused because I couldn’t find language for what was happening. For the first time that I can recall, I only had feelings. No words. Raw, gut feelings. My father’s silence weighed down on my chest. He was never silent. My heart pounded viciously through that night as my head ran laps around itself in bed. I laid still thinking…I don’t want to die. I drew a picture of Aaliyah. Because I knew she wouldn’t let me die. And as far as I was concerned, she was alive. And I knew we could live forever.

 My parents would take my brothers and I to see our grandparents in Virginia when we were little. One of the rooms in the back of the apartment used to be my great grandmother’s. My grandpa, her son, would say sometimes he could feel a tug, just a soft one, on the sheets at night. He said this was his mom. When my great grandma passed I was in 2nd grade. She was my mom’s grandma. I think I remember it being winter. My mom and her grandma were close but she had Alzheimer’s and it really affected her memory. My mom was on the phone with her best friend one time and she said that it was nice to visit grandma Emily but it’s just not the same anymore and it sucks when someone you love can’t really remember who you are. My mom had sort of already begun a process of letting go of grandma Emily’s body. It’s crazy that people can slip out of their own skin. Before we know it, we’re holding a container. And we’re feeling so much that we hold and squeeze the container, hoping that we’ll get to touch that being’s magic one last time. It’s really hard though because (crying so much right now oh my gosh) if you’ve ever touched a dying person right before they go you know that’s it’s like trying to win a game of tug of war that you know you’re going to lose but you decide to play because you have to and you don’t even think about it and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We traveled to North Carolina for her funeral. My parents met in a tiny town called Chadbourn in the state when they were 11 and 10. My dad lived there and my mom stayed with her grandma in the summer. She lived down the street from my father. They spent time together on a basketball court. During the morning of the service, I sat at a computer screen in the purple room of my father’s childhood home. I worked for hours on a painting on Microsoft paint (every 90’s art kid’s dream) for my great grandma’s casket. My right hand on the mouse detailing the stems of the flowers and my left hand wiping the snot and tears that wouldn’t stop coming. I cried for days and my mom offered words she had given before ever so gracefully. But I still could not fathom a life underground. I asked her…so everyone else just keeps living and walking around while you lay under the dirt? I buried my face into my hands for days. Eventually, I could move on to different thoughts but some days my mind would wander and tell me: I’m gonna die one day.

 While the other kids played during recess, I sat on a bench watching them. I could see my body laying under the wood chips while everyone slid down the slides. I was quickly developing a relationship with death. An obsession that would seep its way into my bones. A fixation with a word that would become my entire being.

 I know you gotta little life in you left. I know you got a lot of strength left. I know you gotta little life in you left. I know you got a lot of strength left.

 My siblings and I did karate as kids and my dad got us involved. It was a family affair. My younger brother hated it and I fell in love with it. It was fast paced like I love, but it required patience. I’ve always sort of been a sucker for things that happen over time, changes, length, and transformations. We practiced under a man named Arnold Mitchell. And his instructor was a hardass. We met him once and he called every child in the dojo ugly. Mr. Mitchell loved us so much. 13 years ago on the way to the dojo, my dad pulled over on 83. He wasn’t saying much but different symbols and lights were blinking in the car. He kept saying come on, come on. He was confused and kept looking down on his side. It was early January and I had just gone back to school after winter break. The car was warm, a little unusually warm. And he said Mal we need to get out. We were parked and he hopped out of the driver’s side, and ran around to mine. He flung open the door and grabbed me and we began to walk through the cold. Maybe 200 ft away from where we left the caravan. We had a blue caravan. The only car I really knew. I would spend the next 20 minutes having what I believe was my first outer body experience. At the age of 9, I watched my family’s minivan completely set on fire on a Tuesday night. The pickup truck that we sat in had no heat. It belonged to a stranger who picked us up. Watching the car set on fire was kind of like a movie. It was so dark outside that the car began to disappear. The window wasn’t big in the truck so really, it looked like the flames were moving across a screen. Stretching their arms fearlessly, and rolling over and over and over until it tucked my van in for the night and for forever. I remember later my dad being pissed about how the man was talking about the situation. How he was embarrassed, and mad that the man sort of made a joke of it in front of me. How nobody should speak that way in front of a child. I recall the man saying, “That was all she wrote”. And my dad saying nothing back. I remember how tight I was being held.  That night when I got home I realized that we could’ve died in our van. I found my baby sister crying in the middle of my room. She looked like me. Have you ever met yourself in someone else’s life? I went to sleep that night like normal somehow. For weeks I thought to myself….how am I going to die? When my older brother would go play in the neighborhood with bigger kids or when he went off to school, I would cry and stare out of our bedroom window. My mom would say it’s okay you’ll be able to go one day Mal. And I’d say, “But I am a big boy!”.  I find myself thinking that now. I am a big boy.

 I should be crying but I just can’t let it show. I should be hoping but I can’t stop thinking.  All the things we should’ve said that I never said. All the things we should’ve done that we never did. All the things we should’ve given but I didn’t. Oh darling. Make it go. Make it go away.

 The day that my dad died I was sort of waiting for bad news. When my mom asked me if I wanted to go see him again because the doctor said that they think this may be the last day, I said yea sure. I sort of meant yea why would you ask that? My mom has this way of trying to be as peaceful as she can when she’s really one of the most peaceful people I have ever met. She has had a tough life and I don’t know if I’ll ever know half of the things about it. She asks me for advice on how to navigate certain things sometimes with others but it’s funny because she always has what I believe is the best way of approaching things. When we all got to hospice that day we sat around the room talked and laughed and my mom told us how the nurses said that the day prior my dad had escaped and set off the bed alarm. He had crawled to the elevator and said he was going home. He was about 90 pounds. He was going home. He was going to come home. A Black man crawling home.

 My friends were in and out through the night, which was amazing to have the support. Around 5:15 that night when we looked at my dad, my family and I noticed that his breaths were getting shorter and shorter and the gasps for air were not as quick and heavy any more. His head began to tilt more to one side and lay back some.  We surrounded the bed and my dad’s mom was next to me as we all held hands awaiting the inevitable end of this journey through hospital visits, broken oxygen tanks, and vending machine snacks. There was one more breath. One last give. His lips would part one last time as my grandfather called for the nurse. She arrived to take his pulse. By this point we are gazing at each other, maybe hoping that this is not it. That somehow he just needed a break.  She placed her finger on his neck as she looked down at the foot of his bed and nodded and said, “He’s gone.”

What was just as hard, but maybe harder than watching his life end was being the one to call my older sister to tell her that our dad had died and that I’d see her in a few days. When my friend Sam’s dad died, I called to tell our friend Jon. The sound that fills the space after the word died…is the sound that understands me the most.

 The rest of that evening and the days that would follow were so emotional that some parts get lost in translation and lost in the eating of the food gifted to us, lost in the ravens games, lost in the walks with our new puppy, lost in watching the sheets move on the hospital bed while I sat on the loft imagining his body in between them. Moving so slowly and so quietly. With urgency for a new day. My father lived up until the very last second. The death of my dad left me in shambles. The first year after his death was quite possibly the most heart breaking time of my life. One year earlier, a close friend and running partner who I spent the majority of the end of high school with lost his father. After I lost my dad, I started to try to think about what was going to happen with my degree and when I would return to Richmond. I didn’t know my new friends well. And now I felt like an alien in my own home. So I went back a month late and immediately found myself in corners on the 2nd floor of Johnson hall stuck in between two walls, sitting under a public phone. In the back of a large studio room at 2 in the morning with the lights off on Bowe Street. It took me a month of being in school to realize that coming back was the wrong decision. A year passed and within that time a close friend’s father committed suicide back home and when I made the call to tell another friend about it, he answered by saying that his mom was in ICU. She died two months later. I went to three funerals that year and the week after the last one, three of my friends and I were on a road trip to Cary, North Carolina and ended up in a car accident before reaching our destination. We all lived and we looked around and thought to ourselves…how is this real? Us? Everyone in the car had lost his or her father. Three of us within 21 months of each other. One year and 8 months later, my cousin would be killed in a car collision in Carolina. He was my dad’s best friend. The day of his death is the same day as one of my friend’s father’s deaths. Large trucks killed both of them. I couldn’t process or think or do anything that year that mattered to me. After my cousin passed, I was convinced that something was wrong with me. At the start of the next year I sort of looked back. I called my mom to ask her how she was doing on the day of her husband’s death two years after that night. She said she was doing a lot better than the year before. She said grief will eat you up if you let it. Grief will kill you. It’ll take over your whole life but you can’t let it. You know you can’t let it. You have to choose at some point how you’re going to go about the rest of your life. She said you can’t let one moment in time take who you are and crush you. You have to make a choice to live this life. My mom’s words pierced me. Because although there was another loss in the following year, I looked back and realized what happened. There was a day in January of 2014 when I said I needed to make a change. I needed to do something before I did nothing. Before I died. So I did and I started to figure out how I wanted to live.

 I had never been out of the country before. I really wanted to go somewhere to see a new place and to sort of have an experience that I had never had. I found round trip flights to Nairobi that I could afford and I asked my little brother if I should get them and he said duh you could die tomorrow. So I got them. And I went. And I had an experience. Sometimes it was awful. And other times it was…just…any words would underscore what happened to me consciousness. I came back to Virginia and realized how much I was missing out. I forgot about myself. I let go of who I was for so long. While I was in Nairobi, I went out. I had so much fun I just…I got to breathe. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t thinking about dying and when I was going to die or how or who would die next. I was meeting new people every day. I was laughing a lot and crying out of frustration with the racial politics that I was experiencing for the first time. But I wasn’t settled and I wasn’t stuck. I knew Nairobi was short and temporary but I knew I was going back. During the end of my time there I met a boy named Emmanuel. He was deaf and an excellent reader. He is such a beautiful boy. I told him I would be back. Emmanuel was hard headed and I taught him how to count to 300. We had a great time together and I almost extended my flights to be with him for longer. I sort of regret not doing it now. But I’m going back. Emmanuel helped me see a purpose and to have meaning for living each day while I was there. I’m going to go see my friends, I’m going to go out and dance and have so much fun I think. I’m going to go speak and have important, different, conversations that don’t operate on a crazy time system like we do here. I wonder what it’s going to be like. Now that I am living here. Before I went there, I was a zombie here. I attempted a marathon a few months after I returned from Nairobi. I didn’t finish but the bulk of the race that I ran was so well ran. At 18 miles, I had fell off of the pace significantly, but I was still in the top 10 of the Baltimore marathon. I never thought I’d try the marathon. But I had to. After you get so close to death, you sort of realize that time is on your side. And yes, there is no rush, but there is an urgency to see what your capacity is. To see if you can expand your capacity. I wanted to work through things that I was still dealing with after these deaths. So I wanted to run to see if it was possible to run outside of my body. In hopes of reaching another plane of existence. In hopes of connecting with whatever memories I had of those people whose bodies we had lost. I was hoping that their memories would lift me to a different space. Not heaven. But a space where I didn’t have to be afraid of being alive.  A place where I could be.

 Give me these moments. Give them back to me. Give me that little kiss. Give me your, give me your hand baby. Give me your pretty hands.

 The last four years have been so different than I would have ever predicted. I have this piece of paper on a wall in my room. It says what are you doing here and why? I’ve been thinking a lot about why recently. Why am I alive? I’ve spent years now hearing stories of friends and family both far and near. People like me. People that I confide in. Some young, some older, but all of them are living. From my lens, I look at them and I see these beings in the world. Traveling through time, trying to unravel experience in order to understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It’s tragic the amount of young people that I know who have experienced loss on such a grand scale. And it’s been so very beautiful to watch them emerge months and years later as their new selves. People who found their worth. Who chose to make a decision one day to not live in fear of what the rest of their life could possibly be. It isn’t that I admire these people because they have figured something out or because they’re masters of grieving or something else that’s calculated. I fell in love with so many peoples’ stories of death over these last four years because I saw vulnerable people who trusted in themselves. Decided that they wanted to know themselves on a more intimate level. Decided that grief could not possibly be what defined their existence. And instead of hoping that one day they would figure it out, they took a bolder approach and said I will figure this out and until then I am going to be. By being your presence is felt. Your existence, acknowledged. I wish I could thank every person who I know who has lost. And yes, I do realize that I would just be thanking everyone that I’ve ever met. But I think that living is a gift enough. We deserve to live. For ourselves and for each other.

 A year ago someone tried to kill me. I was sleeping on my stomach in my room on the second story of my house in Richmond, Virginia. It was January and I was exhausted. I was sick and wasn’t really getting better. I wasn’t able to nurse my body to health and I went to sleep thinking that the small infection I had was probably growing. In the middle of the night I heard my door creek and a shuffle across the floor. I turned over but stayed asleep, pressed to my sheets. Their breath was getting louder on my neck and then their legs straddled my back. I tried to move but didn’t want to out of fear of being killed. I lifted my head and as their hand slipped across my mouth I yelled the loudest scream that could leave my body. Hoping my roommates would hear me and come to find me. I was having a night terror. One where I was dying of an illness just like my father. Why so paranoid, Malcolm? My roommates asked in the morning if anyone heard that scream last night. I couldn’t even remember if it was real. It was. And it was me. Yelling for help. Yelling at myself. Yelling for myself. Yelling for my life.

 I knew immediately what happened. It’s more than just being afraid of being sick. It’s having to face the fact that someone you love, in this case, your own flesh and blood, your father, never spoke to you about who you are. It is the realization that your queerness was kept inside of an internalized void. Counting down the minutes, waiting to release itself when it finally had space. It’s facing the queer phobic upbringing placed upon you by the Black man who told you that you were his son. His son. It’s loving the man that changed himself for your brother but still fearing yourself so much that you projected your fears into his body. It’s hoping that you won’t die before you get to explain to him how sad some things were to hear and to see. It’s the longing to speak, to share, and to be whole and one with yourself before you meet him again. It’s knowing that there were so many moments when you felt like you didn’t belong. It’s knowing that this is your life and your life only. And that only you can be responsible for what becomes of it.

 Maybe love is just that. Maybe you experience it during the final holding of a dying person's hand and in the months and years after is when you are lost in its wake. But often this wake is described as death. Maybe love is knowing that despite someone's flaws and wrong doings, you are still willing to believe in who they are. And willing to face the reality that people are complex humans. And that our relationships with one another are so very complicated and always will be. And maybe love is accepting the fact that you could potentially be crushed by pain. Maybe love is knowing that the game of tug of war is not a battle but rather, an indescribable experience with yourself where death is the referee and not the opponent. An experience that you must be willing to completely lose yourself in if you ever wish to revel in it. Maybe love is being okay with the fact that you will spend the rest of your life feeling through the different emotions of your relationship with a person whose body you lost. And becoming more confident in knowing that the memories, stories, and thoughts of a person can yield their immortality. 

 Love is an absolute truth and we are all concerned with it. That is not debatable. Love and death are the roots of everything in and on the earth. At the age of 18, death knew me better than I knew myself. It saw me as a vulnerable child who was confused as to why death always seemed to be in my bedroom. A boy who was searching to find an answer to his only question: Why are we alive if we are going to die? 

 I recently walked for three hours to my first home. The sun was setting when I arrived. And when I made the right turn onto Streamway Court I looked out and around. The sky was bright orange and the head stones stood tall. Smiling and warm in this fiery glow. I grew up in a house surrounded by a cemetery. And I am just now realizing what my life was supposed to be. That this was the plan all along. In that house was where I found out Aaliyah died. In that house was where I found out my great grandmother died. So when death came back 4 years ago to ask me if I was ready to be completely lost, completely confused, completely depleted, and completely burned in a fire...I deferred. Instead, I slept for a year. And a year later I woke up from a slumber and was finally ready to accept an offer that death had placed on the table between us when I was a boy. An offer to open my arms. To take a deep breath. To take one last swallow of my own being before I would burn. Death held out a match between its fingers and with all my being I told it to set me on fire. I told it to watch my insides burn. 

 I miss my dad's body more than anything. But it's nice to know that time is no longer an issue. Being alive and living are not the same. We are alive so that we can choose to live. Being alive in the world is difficult. But living is a different experience. If I am going to live, then I'll completely lose myself. I made this choice to set myself on fire. When I dream, I am being smothered in my sleep. Suffocated. No oxygen reaching my brain. No thinking. No planning. Just feeling. My room is getting hotter and everyday, the temperature in here is rising. Come lay with me. I am dying in here. I am burning. And I am so so madly in love. Thank you mom and dad.