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pfreadsandwrites · 4 years

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不名誉・Ignominy・一 (1/3)

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warnings: description of suicide, depression, violence, death, angst, father-son relationships, one-shot, 7k words

i.father /ii. son (tba) /iii. legacy (tba)

不名誉（romaji: fumeiyo) - dishonour

Nothing is here. Not time, not space. Just the ghost of a father, waiting for the ghost of a son. What else would limbo be for?

親はなくても子は育つ

Even without parents, children grow up.

The flame is incessant.

It rustles and crackles, never wavering, the only thing of note, of light, in this eternal aphotic abyss. It’s comforting somehow, the warmth of the fire. Energising. Igniting his soul in a way that he doesn’t mind this place, wherever it is, however long he’s been here. Paradoxically, he doesn’t feel it.

A spark escapes, but he doesn’t make to evade it. His bleary eyes watch on hopelessly as it disappears back into the obsidian.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t begrudge it.

Limbo, is it? Sakumo figured. Certainly not the afterlife, not all of it. Bleak as it was, it was too… empty, too inconsequential, even for someone like him, someone who died like he did. He shouldn’t have expected anything more. He didn’t deserve anything more. It was fitting that even transferring from the physical realm to the spiritual isn’t straightforward, not for him anyway. It’d been too bold of him to assume he’d at the very least get that, even if he did only assume it for a moment.

When he considered the notion of his own death - and he had considered it - afterlife hadn’t really come into it. It didn’t matter, he’d decided. As long as he ceased to exist on Earth, what awaited him here was an afterthought. And he’d be remiss if he lamented it now, not after what he’d done.

There’d been no other way.

(But if that were true, why is he bound here? He knows nothing has ever been that simple. Surely there’s something missing, something he needs to atone for beyond his death? Or maybe-

The thought is snatched away before it forms fully, engulfed by the greedy fire before him)

Yes - no other way.

It’s of little comfort though, because it just means that he was always supposed to be here too, regardless. Waiting. He knows why. Ending things like that - no, how dare he be cryptic - when he plunged the blade into his stomach, swiped it along smoothly and keeled over. When he groaned in pain, torment and inure. When he expelled his guts and with it, his anguish and his anger - and his sins and his virtues, in the hope that no one else would bear them, especially not the little boy. When the the little boy that, despite acting more like a man, wouldn’t understand that this was all for him, the little boy that looked too much like him and too much like her, the little boy that meant everything, had discovered his father’s corpse.

Yes - no other way.

Necessary - incumbent, horrific, as it was, he has to take responsibility. Even if it means staying and suffering here for all eternity. He won’t let thoughts of regret enter his mind, let alone admit it out loud.

Whether what he did was fair, whether what led up to it was fair, is inconsequential. Justice doesn’t come into it. It’s honour. It’s what a shinobi does, what a man does, what a father does. If he can’t do even that for his son, then that flame can grow and swallow him up now for all he cares.

He owed Kakashi that much then, and he owes him that much now.

So he knows he can only accept, and wait. Morbid as it is to wait for your own son here, of all places, it’s the best he can offer him. It’s all he’s ever been able to offer him. He closes his worn eyes. The smoke from the fire envelops him and for a moment, it’s too real. He reminds himself there’s no point in coughing.

(How can he still feel so tired?)

Less than a fortnight after his own birthday, the child is born. He takes as much as he brings.

It’s quick - it seems barely minutes have passed before his wife’s cries were replaced with the newborn’s. Kicking and crying, a typical protest at being dragged away from safety and into this wretched world.

He waits outside (a shinobi has no place at a birth, after all), mission-worn, resting his bruised forehead on his clasped fists whilst his eyes are screwed shut. He knows better than to expect a perfect outcome, even if her determination wouldn’t accept anything less. But still, his ears strain of their own accord for the slightest hint of her voice camouflaged by the baby’s.

“It’s a boy. A healthy, beautiful boy,” the nurse says kindly, breaking him out of his prayer. Her eyes avoid his, and he can’t help but read too much into the hesitance in her words. So he attempts to ready himself for the impossible, but she continues. “Hatake-san, your wife-“

His breath hitches.

“She’s a fighter.”

The scene is alien, when he finally meets his new family, hunching over her bedside. She holds the infant close against her breast, nursing him with an exhausted, but enduring glow on her weary features. The tenderness that she’d previously only ever shown him seems to define her whole being now. The skill, the nonchalance, with which she’s transformed so flawlessly from a woman, from his wife, into a mother leaves Sakumo unable to do anything but watch awkwardly. It’s too pure an image, too different from all the ones he’s grown accustomed to. Completely natural whilst somehow equally ethereal. He knows he’ll sully it the moment he interrupts.

Luckily, she does it for him. She’s always been stubborn. Dragging him back for his sake, like she always does.

“Your son,” she states matter-of-factly, before dissolving it with a giggle. “Come meet him.”

He nods. Her smiles always were infectious. So much so that they both forget that it’s a miracle she’s still here. His large, marred hand brushes over the baby’s tiny head, his soft, clean silver hair, silver just like his. This is the son of the White Fang. Cruelly ironic, the visceral reminder that this boy was his, even in all his innocence and all his father’s battle scars.

Father - yes, he was a father. How long will it be, until his son sees his father for what he is? How long will it be until he turned out the same way? Fatherhood - his head suddenly feels too heavy to hold up, to bear it, just like his son’s.

As if she knows, she interrupts his internal doubt. “He looks just like you. If I were feeling just a bit pettier, I’d say it’s unfair,” she jokes. “Well, it’s not like it’s a bad thing.”

“No,” Sakumo dismisses quickly, and points to a mark next to the boy’s mouth. A black dot, placed so specifically it feels intentional. It’s easy to miss, but it’s there. Unwavering, unremovable. Just like her. “This is yours.”

Almost in agreement, the baby’s tiny fist clenches around his finger. His eyes widen, and she laughs. “Mm. And look - you’re his.”

He doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything - only marvel at how, for the second time, someone was just able to pull him away from himself and so close so simply and so impossibly.

He straightens his back.

“What do you think of the name Kakashi? You know, scarecrow to your crops?”

He grins. Strange how she always re-ignites his courage.“…It’s a good name.”

It’s dreamlike after that. The child grows quickly, and every day they both find new things to smile about, to love, about the baby and each other. Kakashi looks more and more like his father each day, and it exults his mother, even if she pretends otherwise. Each mission has Sakumo more reluctant to leave the sanctuary she created when she kisses him goodbye, but he returns quicker each time too. Their smiles are more motivation than he ever thought possible.

Nothing so idyllic would last so long, even if a child can convince you otherwise.

It isn’t long before her smiles disappear when she thinks his back is turned. When her colour disappears, her fingers tremble and she becomes lighter in his arms as Kakashi grows heavier in hers.

Her infinite determination is only finite at delaying fate. Suddenly the always blunt, smart-mouthed woman is reticent, subdued. She’s never been good at apologising, but it’s all she seems to do now. To him, to Kakashi - even he, with his curious, intelligent eyes, seems to understand more for his age than he should. He becomes equally silent.

“Look after him, for the both of us, Sakumo. Watch him grow up. Please.” Of course he assuages her fears, even as his world falls apart, and as Kakashi takes his first steps a little ahead of them.

It’s earlier than normal, but by that point they come to expect it. His tiny feet tremble, and he thinks he might stumble, but he doesn’t let his parents see. He doesn’t cause more concern than he has to.

She takes her last breath before his first birthday.

Less than a fortnight after his father’s birthday, the child turns one. He takes as much as he brings.

The grooves around his eyes become deeper. The smoke feels real again. Sometimes he wishes he could choke on it.

Still, he’s here. He’s waiting. Maybe he’s supposed to atone a little more before seeing her, too. The smile comes of its own accord, when he considers just what she’d say when she finds out he didn’t keep his promise quite like he was supposed to. Maybe she’ll forgive him, though not before scolding him. It makes the uncertainty of this vacuum more bearable, just barely. Afterlife, when he does let himself ponder it, is one thing.

Her.

He’s not so proud to pretend that he has the nerve to face her without having something more to tell her about Kakashi anyway.

Would things have turned out differently, if she - He stops himself. He won’t make excuses. He still would have taken the mission, and he still would have failed it. He still wouldn’t regret failing it, either. And it still would have ruined the village, and ruined it for them in turn. He still would have had to resolve it, resolve it in that excruciating way. He has no right to put that burden on her absence.

It’s so foolish, devoid of foresight - but he never considered that he’d be the one raising a child alone. It’s cruel, when the realisation bites him. He’d never let himself ruminate on it, but the assumption had always been there. Underlying every farewell, every strike of his tanto, every homecoming.

He’d definitely die first.

That would have been easier, selfish as it sounds, but then, he’s never been destined for ease. Neither had she. But he can even accept that, if it means, somehow, in some twist of fate - it’s too sentimental, but he grants himself an allowance this time - that Kakashi would have to bear a little less.

(Don’t get him wrong. He knows the fact that he’s here, that the fire is right there, waiting, to burn up his optimism incinerates that hope.)

The child catches on quickly.

Kakashi gives up crying for his mother, and soon gives up looking for her at all. It’s a response to that look Sakumo gives him, that maps his face involuntarily before the carefully chosen smile replaces it. It’s easier for them both if he pretends the last expression is the first.

Regardless, they manage, even if their home no longer feels like a home. There are sympathetic drop-ins on the poor widower and his baby, and again when the missions restart. Eventually he burns less food, Kakashi’s sleeping habits are less chaotic, and the house feels a little less empty. Soon, they’re affectionately thought of as the Hatake boys. You rarely see Sakumo without his pup.

The Hatake boys are nothing if not adaptable. Especially Kakashi. He grows quickly, too quickly.

He takes after his father, that’s what everyone says. And Sakumo lets himself believe it - the physical similarities are obvious, the boy is smart, precocious and he shows so much interest and talent for his pre-destined shinobi path that it’s mournful.

He knows he’s being idolised a little too much, but instead of quelling it, he succumbs to that wonder, that innocence in the boy’s eyes. God knows if this world has its way, it won’t be there much longer. And Kakashi’s in too much of a hurry to grow up, so he has to protect what little of it remains.

It’s no wonder, though. He tries to shield him, from the praises, the adulations - hero, legend, genius - but it’s futile. Just as he’s about to explain that such words are tentative, that they might have a time limit, they both hear it again.

“Look! It’s the White Fang!”

“And his son! I bet he’ll be just as great.”

It’s forever chasing them. Kakashi’s not the kind of boy to ever outwardly hesitate, but he’s thoughtfully silent now.

He insists on wearing a mask by the time he’s four. It’s bizarre, but apparently ‘the quintessential shinobi wears a mask’.

(How the hell does he know the word quintessential?!)

But his logic is sound. Still, Sakumo can’t help but think it’s a response, cleverly disguised like the boy’s already learnt to disguise so much. Did he want to invite less comparison? So far, it hadn’t really helped. Or had Kakashi caught him glancing at the black dot near his mouth one time too many, that unforgettable, enduring reminder of her?

Regardless, he doesn’t fight back, even though it’s damn near impossible to find masked shirts for children and his homemade attempt makes Kakashi chortle in an unusually carefree outburst. He’s never been good at denying him anyway, just like he was never good at denying her. That’s another thing - the more he looks like him, the more Sakumo’s reminded of her.

He holds onto his hand after pestering him to take him to the training grounds, and to the academy entrance exam - flooring the invigilators, to Sakumo’s pride and horror - and back home again, tugging on his shirt, a familiar demand to hoist him on his back when witnesses are out of sight. He has that uncanny way of making him and only him feel needed, even if he’s too proud to say it. Just like her.

Kakashi’s independent, mature, self-sufficient - even a little arrogant. But it’s impossibly endearing, just like her. He’s blunt, too matter-of-fact and never understands why it’s a problem, no matter how many times he’s reprimanded, but it’s chalked up to his maturity and his talent rather than a personality defect. He’s too logical, and causes adults and children alike to scratch their heads in confusion and infuriation. It’s all too familiar. His mother’s influence is just as enduring in him as it ever had been, but it’s as subtle as that damn beauty mark.

The mask, too. How typical of her, how perfect it is, Sakumo thinks, when it finally dawns on him. It’s his way of revealing himself to others on his - and only his - terms. He controls how much you see of him, whilst he sees right into you.

The child catches on quickly.

The fire rustles again, but it’s remarkably hearth-like now. Cosy. Sakumo lets himself smile, and open his eyes again. There was an optimism, a warmth, in those days as well. It still hurt, but they managed, even enjoyed themselves. They made quite a team. Kakashi seemed more like a man than a boy, even when he was that young. It seemed natural to others, and Sakumo supposed it was, partly. But he tried so hard too.

Things had looked up for a while, as they so often do, when you hold so much promise. When you’re not a pariah. It all changed so quickly. He knew it would, from the moment he turned his back on his duty, even if he didn’t know what it would entail. But it never felt wrong either.

It felt hopeless instead. He’d have been a bastard either way. Better to be a bastard who made a mistake, whose softness led to a screw-up, than a heartless bastard who’d throw his friends away for bureaucracy, for a convenience. For something as constructed as a code of conduct.

Kakashi could recite every rule of Shinobi Conduct before he even entered the academy (Sakumo doesn’t even remember letting him learn) but had only stared up at him blankly when Sakumo tried to tell him he needn’t worry so much. His rigidity, his insistence on his black and white view of the world - though he always used words beyond his years, it was a stark reminder that he was still only a little boy. A little boy that didn’t understand he was a little boy was a difficult thing. A dangerous thing.

Still, he trusted that the boy, little as he was, would understand one day. That he wasn’t leaving him behind because he regretted it. But because it was hopeless, because he’d become unfit for his purpose, both as a shinobi and a father, whether it was right or not. Because though it hadn’t felt wrong, he still had to deal with the consequences. Maybe one day the land they were expected to throw away their lives for would be more forgiving. Maybe it’d take his death for them to start to see it.

(Did he die for honour, responsibility, cowardice or anger?)

The child raises himself.

He’s the talk of the town now that’s he entered the academy. A prodigy, they call him. He’s set to graduate and be a full-fledged shinobi within the year. Classmates and teachers alike fawn over him, though he’s somewhat aloof to it all, which only makes them flock closer.

(He’s too young!) Her disapproval seems to float from that world to this one. And he can’t disagree, even though there isn’t much he can do about it. It seems Kakashi’s born for it, that he’d have nothing if he didn’t have this. So he supports it, fully. Besides, Konoha needs all the talent it can find.

Even if it means depending on children.

His self-reliance is bittersweet, but Sakumo won’t deny that it makes it easier to leave. That even if he doesn’t come home, he can worry a little bit less.

Isn’t that what fatherhood is? From the moment it’s possible, to help him feel his independence, feel every risk whilst concealing your own fear, so that he knows he might bear every pressure of this wretched world, prepare him so that he won’t collapse under it and, if he’s lucky, become a man that others can rely on too? He knows he can’t protect him forever. And that there’ll be a day, sooner than he’ll expect (it always is), where he won’t be there at all, because he’ll be damned if he has to go to his own son’s funeral instead.

Still, he would have liked to protect the boy’s childhood just a little bit longer. But he’s always so insistent on giving away what little of it he has left. It’s hard not to be bitter - when he sees the children of civilian families running around without a care in the world. But that’s the point, he knows that. Someone has to sacrifice so they can even exist at all. To be the one to do that is an honour, in one way or another.

The missions are relentless. The boy knows that each goodbye might be his father’s last. He doesn’t have to explain it. Kakashi is always calm, always accepting, always mature, careful to give him a casual send-off. It’s curious though, the intense, hopeful stare Sakumo feels bore into his back as he walks away.

The missions go well. Sakumo cements himself again and again as a hero, the revered White Fang, and invites commendation wherever he goes. Kakashi works harder, bearing pride and pressure on his tiny shoulders to meet his aspirations.

The mission is a failure. Behind enemy lines, espionage and destruction. It’s doomed from its inception. Mistakes pile up, and eventually his comrades get themselves captured. All his training has taught him that it can’t be helped, that he must carry out his mission and toss them aside. But he can’t abide. It’s never been in him to turn his heart to stone, not completely, but it’s even more impossible now. When the little boy’s at home, waiting for his own special report. When he’s watching and analysing his every move. When he’s picked Sakumo as the model he puts all his energy into emulating. He has to learn it’s okay to break the rules sometimes, lest he learns that lesson himself the hard way.

So, thanks to Sakumo’s doing, no lives have been lost. They’re grateful, for now. But experience fills him with apprehension. The worst is yet to come. There’s just something in the way his heart palpitates without explanation, why the journey home is forebodingly silent.

He’s right. The consequences are dire. Not just for Konoha, but through the entire land.

He turns from the Leaf’s White Fang to a disgrace overnight.

How precarious it all is, being a hero, he thinks with a sardonic smile. How fickle they are.

The smiles and praise become glares and blame, from strangers and old friends alike. Save for a few, but it isn’t enough to influence the rest of them. The close-knit community, the idyllic home he’d risked his livelihood countless times to protect almost seems an illusion now. Maybe it’s naive of him, that he never realised that ‘home’ could be conditional. That all the good you’ve already done could be wiped away so easily by one mistake that there was no point trying to do good in the first place.

He only indulges the bitterness for a little while. It’s immature. A man should take responsibility for his actions, good and bad. He knows what he did, and he knows it directly led to more damage and destruction. He knows it’s his fault. He knows he ended up hurting the very thing he was supposed to protect, and he knows it was him who elected to take on that responsibility in the first place. He knows he has no right to self-pity.

But he also knows he doesn’t regret it - the action, not the situation. He knows that if he had the choice to go back, he’d do it again. He knows wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he knew he was the kind of man that could turn his back on his friends, no matter what he’s been taught. He knows he has to set an example.

And an example he is. Kakashi’s quieter than usual, at first. He acts as if he doesn’t hear the angry muttering, he doesn’t notice that the missions are dwindling down, that the lines chiselled around his father’s eyes span further and that his clothes hang a little looser. That hurts most of all. That he’s suffering, but he refuses to dwell on it. It’s either for Sakumo’s sake or because that’s what a shinobi does. He doesn’t know which explanation is worse.

Everyone has their limits, most of all little boys. He should have expected this sooner. Kakashi doesn’t badger him to come to the training grounds like he used to, but Sakumo’s the one insisting this time. He still has to try. Even if it takes more from him than it ever has before. But he has to feel like he can still do something, anything. The range of which seems to decrease by the day. When the boy topples to the floor after a badly timed kick, he slaps away his father’s hand.

“Why?! Why did you do that? You went against orders, and everything went wrong! They all say these horrible things now! You’re not supposed to-” Kakashi stops himself, panting. His little body struggles to keep up with his rage and his words.

Strange, Sakumo thinks, as his dreary eyes meet the boy’s tearful ones. His reprimands match those of the adults he’s no doubt heard, but he’s never sounded more like the child he is. How can he understand? It must feel like a punishment, for all the pride and admiration he’s held for him until now. To have it snatched away like that. He can only apologise, but a father has no right to expect forgiveness from his son. Still, Kakashi lets him hold him close, just this once.

Then one day, it happens.

Cruelty is cruelty, no matter the source and no matter the recipient, and it isn’t long before the son bears the sins of the father. Kakashi does the best he can to take it in his stride, as usual, but when Sakumo asks if he can walk him to the academy, the sacred, persisting ritual comes to an end.

“I can go myself. Don’t worry,” he dismisses, gently enough, but he barely glances back before disappearing, before Sakumo even responds. It seemed so long ago, when he’d say the exact same words but he’d smile under his mask and grab his hand. Now he seems like an adult, resigned and reluctant. Hurt and tired. Bearing so much, for everyone else’s sake. For Sakumo’s sake

Whether it’s out of self-preservation, pity - or worst of all, an attempt to spare his father from the villagers’ scowls, it’s unacceptable. They all mean the same thing. Pretending he’s still needed, that his existence isn’t superfluous, is exhausting both of them. And he’s slipped one level further. Kakashi never mentions it, but he knows being Sakumo’s son is akin to damnation now.

He’s holding him back. Kakashi’s still the talk of the academy, but it’s opposite in nature now. There’s no more talk of his progress, of his graduation, of the illustrious road he was so sure to have ahead of him. It’s all snatched away in an instant. Kakashi has no future as long as Sakumo keeps breathing. What father can live with himself knowing that?

Everything is so difficult now. Standing takes all he has. He feels like a fraud for even doing that, for anything he says, anything he does. A soul-sucking, lacklustre performance. Every bodily function only spirals him down further into an abyss. He’s a ghost among the living. He’s always wondering why the hell he’s still here. He’s been able to convince himself, to a point, that he should still fight, he should still eat - but it’s undeniable now. He’s a burden.

And as burdensome as he is, the most important thing still remains.

He’ll do whatever he has to for his son. That much he can do.

Anything that Sakumo regrets is out of his control. He’s never been able to control anything where it counts. Not her death, not the mission, not sparing Kakashi from any pain. He’s even failing at his own modest goal - to ensure that the boy has the tools to bear anything and everything he might have to. So he can’t say he regrets this. What he regrets is far beyond anything he can express. This is the only thing he can do now.

Kakashi rejects his offer to accompany him before he even makes it. But he hangs on for a second, long enough for Sakumo to whisper one sentence.

“I love you, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

The little boy stops - silently studying his father’s expression. But he doesn’t have the same energy he used to either, to draw any real conclusions from it, to have the patience for his father’s random lamentations.“What are you sorry for? I’m fine. See you.”

It’s surprisingly easy to put things in order. The note is succinct, but it’ll do what it’s supposed to. Lift the sins that stick unfairly to Kakashi’s scrawny back, if nothing else. His possessions have dwindled, his paperwork is minimal, the deeds on the house are finalised. He’s determined to leave this world with as little fuss as he deserves, as he can manage. It’s the least he can do.

Then, Sakumo kneels, and takes out his tanto. The tanto that’d accompanied him as long as he could remember. Something he inherited from his father when he became a genin. Something he’d give to Kakashi as a graduation gift.

Who says a gift can’t be posthumous? It’s the same blade that’s going to wash away his and its sins. It’s ready for a reset with new honour, a new owner.

He inhales. He closes his eyes. He plunges the blade into his gut. It sinks in smoothly. The pain starts, spreading slowly and surely through his body like electricity. He exhales. He glides it along. It moves easily. Everything empties and he is exalted. His body, his being, his soul. His sins. His virtues. His love, his hate. His joy and his rage. His life and his death. He’s gone now, fading away into the whiteness. The warrior’s body is meek, inconsequential as it falls unceremoniously on its side.

And just like that, the boy is pure once again. He’s his own, as he should be. He’s no longer just the son of the hero-turned-pariah (maybe it was better to have never been a hero at all?), but Kakashi. Kakashi the prodigy. Kakashi the genius. Kakashi who he trusts will understand all this one day. That his father isn’t so wrong in what he did, but he knows he still has to do this, he still has to make up for it. They’re all just victims of circumstance. That he’s sorry, and that he loves him more than anything, but the last thing he needs is a father like him. He’s already doing so well. And he’ll do better now. After all, he’s never needed him.

The child raised himself.

The fire’s rustling becomes louder as the flames grow larger. A welcome distraction, Sakumo chuckles to himself. It’s almost as if he’s not supposed to concentrate on his mistakes and shortcomings.

(Or maybe the embers somehow know he doesn’t really want to)

Everything had seemed so urgent back then. Hasty. Not like now, where he’s neither here nor there, there’s no past and no future.

It must have seemed cruel, on the surface, he admits that. And his justifications probably seemed like excuses, like cowardice. He has the clarity to see that now. But it didn’t make them feel any less true, not at the time.

It was the best thing for Kakashi, how could it not have been? Not only that - he pauses, before he finally lets himself admit it. It was a relief. He was just so tired.

(But he’s still tired now. It’s just more bearable.)

Did any of it work? Or had it all been in vain? As much as he held out hope that when Kakashi did come here - and he would - he’d have been older, lived a long life of love. Where the village respected him, praised him, honoured him. Maybe with a family too.

(…Could any of that have happened if he’d stayed alive?

No. The answer has to be no.)

Or had he ended up too similar to his father?

Regardless, he knows why he’s here now. No matter how it turned out after, he did what he did. And he has to take responsibility for it. It’s all so much more demanding than he thought it would be. He chose death to take responsibility, and now he has to do the same for his death.

But then again, a father has no right to expect forgiveness from his son.

Especially not one like him.

The flame settles down. It’s calmer now, like its wish has been granted, like it’s satisfied.

It won’t be long now.

And as usual, he’s right. Soon, he hears footsteps. They’re measured, relaxed, but emphatic.

“That you, Kakashi?” Sakumo affirms, but he doesn’t know why. He already knows. Just like Kakashi doesn’t seem surprised to see him, or even be here at all.

“So this is where you’ve been,” Kakashi answers just as superfluously.

The deep voice should have thrown him, it should have been unfamiliar, but everything seems to make sense. Everything is natural. Everything is easy.

He’s a man now. Another superfluous statement, one Sakumo doesn’t voice. But here he is. He’s grown, a different person from the one Sakumo knew. But it still seems like he knows him, like he never really stopped knowing him. As if time has been the obstacle between them. He looks more like him now, even though he’s still wearing that damn mask. It’s amusing, the way his stubbornness appears to have persisted for no reason at all. It’s typical. There’s a scar across his eye. There’s a story there, as there always is. He carries himself with a rare combination of decorum and drudgery. Subtle acquiescence, controlled to his core.

“Will you tell me your story?”

He knows it’s only a pale substitute for not laying witness to it himself, but Kakashi seems happy to oblige. He agrees, joining him at the fireside. It rustles in approval.

“Yeah. But it’s a long one. I want to tell you everything.”

Sakumo agrees.

Kakashi’s smile is so relaxed, so wide that it’s visible - that he may as well be that same little boy again. It’s even a little bit contagious. “So, Dad…”

The conversation flows like water. Kakashi is unrestrained, serene, even as the terrible stories come out of him. Though they’re not all terrible. Some have Sakumo hanging his head in shame, others have him laughing out loud with a freedom he hasn’t had in years. Some are ridiculous. Some are stupid. He talks as if they’re not - as if they’re just that, stories. Happenstance.

But still, the terrible ones are the most memorable ones. It’s shocking, how much he’s been through. How many times he’s been failed, how many times he’s failed. How he’d been through more before puberty than most had been through by their deaths. The boy was always destined for that, though. He’d graduated not long after Sakumo died, and was promoted again within a year after. It’s only a few years after that that he makes jounin, the same rank as his father. Most everyone important to him is gone by then too. He’s made a name for himself as a legend, as a hero, even as the disgrace’s son. And he’s made sure to pass on all the lessons he’s learnt.

He doesn’t expect sympathy, or pity. He’s long made peace with it - well, to the extent he can. He’s just never had anyone to tell this to, without judgement. With ease. Where it’s streamed out of him without thought. Where he’s not using his pain as a warning for others, to try and protect others. Just the kind of acknowledgement you want from your father.

Gone is his cocky demeanour - Sakumo knew it would probably have to some day, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to go through so much to learn that lesson. Instead, there’s a humility about him, an ease. If she were here, she’d say Kakashi’s even more like him, and scoff at the injustice.

It’s like he’s happy to be here. Sakumo doesn’t know if it’s just the situation. Kakashi doesn’t seem like he’s ever done this before - but then, how could he? It’s the comfort you can only have with a father, and Sakumo’s grateful that he’s still considered one. But he can’t help but wonder if Kakashi’s smiling because he’s happier to be dead.

He acts older than he is, sometimes. He always did, but it has more weight now that he’s grown. Sakumo points it out, but Kakashi just chuckles.

“This job ages you. I feel older than I am.”

He can’t argue with that.

Soon, the conversation turns to other things. Philosophies, mutual experiences, women. He’s a little more subdued on that last one. He hesitates now, he’s more cryptic. There does seem to be one, Sakumo figures that much, though Kakashi’s reluctant to call it that. He isn’t as open out there as he is here. It’s no wonder. Everything that’s meant anything has been snatched away regardless of his will. Still, it seems that she’s a source of infuriation and confusion. She’s stubborn, but endlessly kind. She sees through Kakashi’s reluctant attempts at distance, and he’s drawn to her, whether he likes it or not. He shows absolutely no regret for being dead, but the only clue of it is when he talks about her. Sakumo lets it end there.

Eventually, they both have to acknowledge it. How miserable their lives have been, how they’ve died so young. A cursed pair. The burden of the suicide hangs over them both, their stories and their fates, like a cloud, in this strange place that has no sky.

“You did the best you could. You knew what the consequences would be, but you chose your friends anyway,” Kakashi says first. He’s only stating facts, but they’re heavy on his tongue. His gaze is locked on the fire ahead, and his voice takes on a gruff timber, one that ensures Sakumo of the depth of his words. He pauses. “And I understand you. I’m proud to be your son now.”

Sakumo’s eyes widen.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

It’s all he can say. After everything, it’s too much, too difficult to accept. It took hearing it to actually realise it, for the weight he’s carried on his shoulders for so long to begin to dissipate. It’s not entirely dissimilar to the first time Kakashi had wrapped his tiny fist so fiercely and as-a-matter-of-factly around his finger all those years ago. Where his confidence and courage promptly returned. He never knew he needed it so badly, that it would be more freeing than his death was - forgiveness - even if he was never going to ask for it.

It’s a miracle, but somehow, it’s happened. He’ll never admit it has anything to do with him, but Kakashi’s grown. He’s grown well. He’s learnt everything he hoped he would, and he’s more than he could have ever hoped. It wasn’t easy. Life had put him through the wringer to say the least - that much was obvious before Kakashi even joined him at the fire. But he did it. He managed.

A father’s most important and most horrible duty is to leave their children to the wilderness - was that how the old adage went? He can’t remember. But they have to, because he won’t be there forever, because the world will eat them alive if they don’t. You offer up your only son up to the world, in the hopes it won’t chew him up and spit it out, and that he might come out better for it. It’s as much of a horror as it is an honour. He didn’t mean to leave him that viscerally, and he’s still so sorry - but he can’t deny that for the first time in God knows how long, he feels lucky. He doesn’t deserve Kakashi’s forgiveness, for him to grow up to be the man he is, but here he is.

Still, Kakashi’s a little too eager to come here. It’s the most wrenching thing about this, that he seems too comfortable, that he seems to have been waiting for his death. It’s the only thing he can’t accept, as a father. He doesn’t want to accept that his son’s life has been that miserable, with so little to show for it. Even if he seems satisfied to be here.

Before he can even voice it, a light emerges, starting at Kakashi’s core and soon engulfing his entire being. The fire beside them stills for a moment, but then it sizzles with a vengeance. He turns to his father in shock, looking for an explanation in the wordless way a child does.

Sakumo provides it immediately. He’s not sure, but he wants it to be true. “My guess is… It’s too soon for you. There must be something you still have to do.”

He doesn’t offer any explanation as to what, but it has to be true. He should get more than he has. He can’t be so happy to come here. They both could’t have been in such a hurry to die. It’s too tragic, too terrible. A son shouldn’t be lonelier than his father.

Kakashi ruminates on it, and he suddenly looks like the young man he is. Not a tired war veteran. It’s even more obvious how untimely this all is.

But it hasn’t been meaningless.

“I’m grateful we had a chance to talk. Thank you forgiving me. Now I can move on, and finally see your mother again,” he continues. I’m proud of you too, Sakumo thinks, just like he thought so many times during the boy’s childhood, and countless times during this strange meeting. But he has no right to say it. Still, Kakashi looks at him with those same wide eyes from all those years ago, heeding his words with the same awe.

The harsh, green glow rips Kakashi away from this world and back. Just like his birth. Sakumo smiles and stands, the stretch alighting and aching through his soul - it feels physical, even though he’s no longer corporeal. Tall, encouraged, proud and determined.

(It’s been so long since he last stood.)

It won’t be long now. He has his own exit now.

The fire suddenly quickens, expanding, expanding, expanding, fighting for its last breath, its rustling turning into a desperate roar, sparks flying out past the wood - until at long last, its energy dwindles. It hisses in protest.

Instead, there’s a new warmth. Somewhere, somewhere far away yet somewhere so close. An amused, feminine hum of his name travels through his being and invigorates his soul. He smiles.

The flame flickers out.

親はなくても子は育つ

Even without parents, children grow up.

#sakumo hatake #kakashi hatake #naruto #hatake kakashi #hatake sakumo #kakashi #naruto fanfiction #fanfiction #pfwrites #anyway i'm finally done #i'm so sorry if you were expecting something super long given how long i've been talking about this #but consider that i'm stupid can't write and can't concentrate and it'll make sense #i would love to know your thoughts on this cuz i'm trying a lot of new things here #and this is a very vulnerable thing to share for me #because the themes and ideas have been in my head for so long #also read my author's notes in the ao3 link if you want more context because THEY ARE LONG #i'm thinking of writing a kakashi POV version which i'm sure'll be less depressing... probably #but not sure yet. let me know if you think i should #btw i know my music taste is extremely roast-worthy #also tmi but i have zero relationship with my father and i'm neither a father nor a son why do i have so much empathy for fatherhood???

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sonxflight-a2 · 4 years

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☯ Grave Suggestion ║ @kathexismania ☯

”Once you endure the passing of centuries, raised to believe you shall bear the fleetingness of earthborn... It is but a matter of time when you will start to wonder if you were ever living.”

The snow and gold of blooming kiku are painted in the hues of igniting dawn, docile to accept the tender caress of his coarsened fingertips as these words are detached to escape and be carried away with the odd gentleness of November wind. For a moment lasting they stopped their measured pace, only to find themselves in the middle of this floral sea, once resurrected out the smoldering ashes - a grant of simple wish, the morbid meaning of niveous doesn’t deny them of his affection, favored just as their golden kindred. Once an undeniable part of imperial gardens, how long it has been ever since he actually devoted time to their peaceful observation?... The wave of benevolent wistfulness rushes through, welcomed just as the erstwhile prince is beholden for this unintentional memento despite the ache it’s followed by, soon causing him to quietly unravel more of the silenced weight he trusts Hanzo to learn.

“I have known death and its sinister gait much earlier than I had to recognize its embrace, brief to last before my heart would start to beat anew, for my spirit carries the undeniable. I have accepted such an arduous fate... For if I didn’t, this world would cease to exist long before you were born and your clan was formed. The abominations you saw, their miasma perceived and shrieks you heard once their flesh was burned under the strike of my blade... They are nothing but an infectious echo of what once was dwelling within the very depths of Neither, hunger to consume the virtue of Earthrealm as much as their fallen kin. From all the variety of names, Aku was the one our nation called him by... And I will have no true rest until the affliction he is will perish once and for all.”

The visage even younger than one of his companion, it can never hide the contrasting irregularity of his eyesight, now revealing the authentic age of his exhausted soul in utter exposure - the very first beams of the rising aurora find their reflection in the gravity of his gaze when the immortal accepts their solace, just as he accepted the cost of dwelling within him light. How long it has been since he allowed his burden to be so acknowledged?... The tragic wonder he is, Ryou seeks no real answer when the depth of his exhalation soundlessly escapes his lungs.

“In the beauty of peace, most have forgotten these forsaken tales once being the sheer horror of reality... I did not. I never would, for I am not willing the others to experience what my passed family suffered along with our empire, first to know the agonizing scorch of his reign. That is why I will always refuse the kindness being ceased as many are wicked and cruel to create more evil on their own, making it perpetual...”

“That is why I understand your pain...”

#✧ 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕔𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕞𝕖… 𝕛𝕒𝕔𝕜 ✧ ║ ic #kathexismania #answer #✧ 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕖𝕤 ✧ ║ verse #{{ Ryou while holding the whole ass gourd of sake: betch me too the fuck }}#{{ kuudere boi didn't talk about this bs for eons and now he's emo too }}

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freefallingfox · 4 years

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A Woman With Laughing Eyes

As children, we grow used to hammering foreign names into our nimble minds. Exotic names, like Tutankhamun and Caligula. Grand names, such as the Sun King and the Iron Cardinal. Terrifying names, akin to Hitler and Stalin. Yet, beyond the textbook pages soaked in lamplight, thousands of human fates remain hidden from our sight. These past lives, with the lessons they harbour, continuously slip through our fingers and, like the finest grains of sand, disappear among cemeteries’ greying soil. However, there is one tale, which refuses its descent into the well of anonymity. Instead, it burns in the souls of those, who were entrusted with its contents. Soon, it shall blaze within your heart as well. For, you see, there is no forgetting a woman with laughing eyes…

It all began with collectivisation. Inherently, there seems nothing particularly ominous about this term. In fact, a foreign reader might be forgiven for not knowing of its existence, and, perhaps even gifting it with nebulous, positive connotations of teamwork and equality. By the spring of 1920, Anastasia Bukatkina knew better. In a single instant, the soil of her forefathers was literally torn from under her feet, only to be replaced by the shackles of marriage. The twenty-one-year-old was to be wed to a complete stranger. Their first meeting would transpire mere minutes before their fates were sealed together. The ceremony would be officiated by the commander of the local Red Army division in a sun-beaten field at the outskirts of their village. In short, Nastya* had the questionable honour of being a proper, communist bride.

He was annoyingly handsome. Tall and lean, with the communist ribbon proudly entwining his torso. Her appearance and inclinations were irrelevant. Nastya was the eldest daughter of a srednyak**, and her virtue just happened to be the price for her family’s escape from the frosty embrace of Siberian exile. Sadly, her hand in marriage couldn’t spare her parents the bitter loss of their hard-earned estate and their herd of priced mares. Still, she was determined to at least spare them their lives. As for her own existence, the bride couldn’t care less. Her mother had stamped out her daughter’s dream of becoming a nurse, before the aspiration could even properly take root. After all, no girl from a respectable family could be allowed to pursue a living in the capital with her brothers. Why, the scandal would immediately bring their family to ruin! Ironic, how Anastasia hasn’t managed to escape the fate of undermining her home’s repute in the end…

Interestingly, the bride was incredibly well-educated by contemporary standards. Having completed five classes of Orthodox schooling, she excelled in Bible studies, being able to recite entire passages by heart until her dying days. (Anastasia’s scholastic certificate, her single pride and joy, was eventually reduced to cockroach food, having been haphazardly attached to the izba’s*** walls with bread crumb. Tsar Nicholas II’s painted, regal countenance was essentially torn apart by ruthless insects in a morbid metaphor of his actual demise). Meanwhile, the groom couldn’t even properly sign his own name. Raised without a father, the young man had become his family’s breadwinner early on, with membership in the communist party representing a long-awaited escape from poverty’s grasp. The two newly-weds couldn’t be more different.

That day, the name “Fyodor” still tasted foreign on her tongue. Anastasia didn’t yet realise that this stripling would eventually become the beloved father of her seven children, the rock, which would help her weather a World War, and the elderly man that would make her laugh despite her raging diabetes and failing eyesight. Neither could she imagine to ever bearing her new last name, Suslova,**** with pride. At her wedding, the association with a gopher seemed too insulting, especially considering her short, plain stature. If only she could have read her spouse’s thoughts! The groom hadn’t lacked female attention in the past in his role as a dashing revolutionary. Tall girls, thin girls, curvy girls- he had a taste of many. They warmed his nights and vanished by dawn, as if washed away by the fresh dew. But she seemed different…Of noble class, and thus previously untouchable, yet coveted. Stoic in the face of sudden separation from her family. With soft hands, that had been spared the earthly toils. A waif from a different world, who despite the blows dealt to her by fate, remained standing ramrod straight. But most importantly her eyes… Filled with such mirth and warmth when looking out at the sun-kissed, kneeling wheat in the distance. Laughing eyes.

Fyodor caught his young bride’s gaze and never looked back. They remained inseparable until his death in 1989.

*Nastya is short for Anastasia in Russian

** Srednyak is a Russian term used to describe middle-class farmers, who, like their richer counterparts (kulaks) were stripped of all property and generally exiled by the Soviet state

*** Izba is Russian for a wooden cottage

**** Suslova comes from the word “suslik” which means gopher in Russian

#short fiction #short story #love #marriage #Russia #ussr #memorylane #history #tw: arranged marriage

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follyhodger · 5 years

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Hunger & Mastery

Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island is my favorite One Piece movie, but the ending confused and unsettled me. The terrifying loss of Luffy’s crew was wiped away -- it was all just a bad dream! -- but in such a way that I couldn’t help but wonder if the awakening itself was a delusion, with Luffy replicating the Baron’s illusory preservation of lost friends. The morbid ambiguity resembled the final top-spin of Inception (which came 5 years later), and it seemed very out of place in my merry little pirate show. But the dream turned out to be standard fare.

In the first chapter, Luffy’s personal demon (vanity) surfaced in the form of a bandit and a sea-serpent. A competing virtue (love for others) is illustrated as a willingness to allow one’s own self-image to be sundered. Thus in the second chapter, Koby’s own fear of death is manifest in Alvida, who obsesses over the maintenance of appearances: vanity is understood as a force for keeping oneself intact, in a general sense. The breaking of the body is analogous to the shattering of the self-image.

But the more general takeaway is that Luffy washing up on the shore of Koby’s island is akin to Cobb washing up on the shore of Saito’s fortress in Inception: Luffy has invaded a dream. The very real conflicts our heroes navigate therefore double as a map for the internal conflict(s) plaguing some dreamer(s).

Moving forward, the question becomes What Is Zoro Dreaming About? If Luffy and Koby were metaphorically bound to their islands by an inner conflict with vanity, what psychic turmoil ensnares Zoro? The villain of each arc has thus far been the embodiment of the dreamer’s key vice, but does the same hold for Captain Morgan?

The last question is the easiest starting line (Answer: Yes!), as the groundwork for it is laid out in the story of Gaimon. The gang stumbles on an island full of chimera: chicken-fox, rabbit-snake, and pig-lion. In each case, the creature is a fusion of prey and predator, an unconventional union between a hunger and the target of that hunger. The parade culminates in appearance of Gaimon, whose body has merged with a treasure chest, an irony upon his obsessive interest in treasure. The comparison of the chimera and Gaimon indicates that hunger is analogous to desire in general. This offer some rationale for why characters aiming for pirate king (Luffy, Blackbeard, Kidd) eat the most: their appetites match the scale of their ambitions. What’s more, we can infer that the satisfaction of hunger (fullness) is generally analogous to the attainment of (and unification with!) the desired thing.

If you look at Zoro’s story such an object, the immediate answer is swords. At Captain Morgan’s base, at Arlong Park, and throughout the story, Zoro falters in battle when he lacks a full set of blades, and he re-assumes the strength of his art when the set is again complete. The VIZ translation is a bit more on the nose: having acquired a sword-count of 3 in Loguetown, Zoro remarks that he feels “whole” again. By way of Gaimon’s fable, we can infer that Axehand Morgan (and later, the sword-bodied Mr. 1) express the fusion with one’s weapons implicit in Zoro’s recurring quest to reunite with his swords.

The idea that Zoro’s antagonists function as shadowy dream-mirrors of himself (as doppelgangers) allows some nice jokes to fall in to place: when Luffy and Koby arrive at the marine base, the townspeople react with identical shock to the mention of Zoro and Morgan not only because both are feared, but because on a dream level, the swordsman and the axe-hand are the same person.

So having established that Captain Morgan indeed continues the trend of villains being manifested from (or closely analogous to) the mental configurations of the hero(es), we can return to the previous question: what psychic turmoil ensnares Zoro, exactly? What traps him in his solipsistic island, spiritually?

The answer lies in the maxim Morgan espouses as he firmly regards his axe-hand: “Strength is Everything!” The view is shared by Zoro, who aims for the title of World’s Greatest Swordsman. But in the same way that Luffy was apprehended by two competing notions of manhood, Zoro attempts to reconcile two competing notions of strength.

The notion embodied by Morgan is that of domination and mastery. Just as the axe embedded in his arm obeys his mind, Morgan regards all those beneath him (which is everyone, for he is strongest upon his island) as subordinate to his will. The townspeople exist to give him taxes, the sailors exist to kill those he wishes to kill, as though the men themselves are mere axes within his hand.

The moment that Luffy (himself very arrogant) claims Zoro could not defeat him, Zoro is faced with an insult on par with the toppling of Morgan’s self-aggrandizing statue: his supreme greatness has been challenged. Accordingly, Luffy’s challenge results in the emergence of the embodiment of Zoro’s competing image of strength: Rika, the little girl with the riceballs.

If Morgan represents a strength oriented towards vanity (that is, a strength that offers a self/image that cannot be ruptured or killed), Rika is a strength willing to face its own death -- or rather, a strength willing to submit itself to the possibility of its own dissolution? Calling to mind the progress Zoro displays in laying his arm bare to a twirling blade at Loguetown, daring fate to end him. Koby (who already had his confrontation with immortal vanity) echoes Rika’s selflessness when he attempts to untie Zoro (and again still when he shows his willingness to die before Helmeppo).

As Morgan calls for the execution, Zoro is forced to confront that he will not be permitted to nobly endure upon his cross, that he will simply die -- and suddenly he recalls the swiftness with which his undefeated rival had her life taken away. Untouchable strength united with the image of ultimate human frailty... or perhaps, fate itself replaced Kuina as the unbeatable force to be overcome...? For her sake, as well as his...

Another confusing guesture: why does Luffy assume a stance akin to the form of Zoro’s cross when he blocks the bullets? It’s not an effective pose for shielding those behind you, but symbolically it suggests that either Luffy has assumed the role of Zoro’s cross (that to which he is bound, upon which he endures?) or that Luffy is kind of enacting a poetic rendition of Zoro’s execution, at once acting as both the hanged man and the gallows? A more morbid sort of unity... but is the master the man or the cross?

Zoro assumes the position again (arms spread, as though again unified with the cross) as he submits himself to the overwhelming might of Mihawk’s blade. (And again, when baring his arm to the might of chance at Loguetown!) Mihawk himself weilds not one, but two blades in the shape of a crucifix... Is fate the wielder of the cross, or is the cross itself a symbol of fate...?

And pointedly, Mihawk easily block Zoro’s Onigiri with his little crucifix knife. Why does Zoro name his technique after Rika’s gift of riceballs? Is every strike a confrontation with his own mortality, marching up to the cross to offer his blades, fully aware that he may die? And if the hunger analogy still stands, this is itself would then be the gesture towards become full, complete, whole?

I went into this essay hoping to lay everything out, but it’s clear that I’m still struggling to understand how the meaning is being woven in One Piece. Ideally as I move forward, further evidence will let me take some of the question marks off of these impressions.

#reading one piece

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ihfsttinuf · 7 years

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Screw It, I’m Making a Webcomic

So, as I made it abundantly clear on Twitter mere moments ago, I have a real honest-to-Glob New Year’s Resolution for 2017.

I am going to create a webcomic.

I am going to write a sequential art narrative which I will draw and provide various artistic accoutrements to and post it on the Internet. This is going to happen by the end of this year. I am doing this.

Perhaps this sudden outburst and declaration of artistic intent seems a bit out of left field, both in its overtones of grandiosity and relative lack of context given what most of you guys know about me. So let me provide some of that much needed context, both to show you why I am doing this and what I am really saying, which is probably even more ambitious (and maybe pretentious) than you think it is.

I’ve been writing weird little stories and drawing accompanying illustrations for them since I was a wean, as most of us did at that age, but since that point I’ve never really stopped. At a very young age I encountered not only excellent children’s books ranging from the charming and heartwarming to the downright mind-bending—Peter Sís and Henrik Drescher were big in my household—but also illustrated works whose contents and subtext were far too old for me yet entranced me nonetheless, particularly the works of the great New England illustrator and satirist Edward Gorey. By the age of six or seven, I had memorised “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” and would recite it with morbid glee to anyone who would ask (or didn’t). I discovered books through Gorey’s cover illustrations, first accidentally discovering the alternate history genre through his work on Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite series, and was only drawn deeper into John Bellairs’ junior Gothics when I discovered that Gorey had provided the frontispiece and dust jacket to every one of the entries in the series he’d written up to his death—which I mourned, with a mix of vague incomprehension, sorrow, and creeping disappointment. I was eight at the time.

Parallel to this, I spent a lot of time at my town’s local art centre, which provided free classes in all sorts of artistic endeavours. I took most to theatre and improv in particular—I was a wee ham; now I am a large ham—but what stuck with me was drawing and, to a lesser extent, animation. As I fixated on Gorey’s superficial techniques and aesthetics, the simple sunken eyes and odd little triangular noses, I’d also more subtly acquired his less obvious techniques: The way he used cross-hatching and simple, intense linework to suggest different textures entranced me, and indeed still does. I am told that a very strict art teacher, who I thought disliked me and of whom I was somewhat afraid, freely admitted that a sketch I’d done of a horned figure playing a flute on a rooftop by the light of the moon had taken her breath away.

Which is not to say that I was, or am, some prodigy of form, or that I lacked for more prosaic influences. The former, I will get to, but the latter is best expressed in the fact that a recurring scene which I have since revised and transfigured many, many times began life as... well, thinly veiled Darkwing Duck fanfiction, minus the duck part, given a sound twist of Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter”. I was maybe eleven or so at the time.

It was in one of these classes that this weird little scene deep beneath a ruined graveyard was born. It was also there that I made plans for an elaborate series of beast fables, set in a world quite unlike our own.

It is perhaps worth noting that one of the handful of these early sketches which sticks in y mind to this day was a tale of two young male lizards falling in love only to be torn apart by a disapproving society. Even at an age when I was functionally unaware of homosexuality and bemused or outright repulsed by what I knew of sex, a queer romance was perhaps the most emotionally intense thing that I had conceived of up to that point. But I digress.

The setting in question and certain characters in it would perennially re-emerge in my other writing, which I was quite certain would be my career path throughout late elementary and middle school. In seventh grade, I was part of an experimental programme where middle and high school students were allowed to enrol in a creative writing course at a nearby university. Only two students wound up attending: Myself, and a classmate of mine who had skipped a grade and would later become known in my high school as something of a mad and insufferable genius. (We got on pretty well.) After several semesters of studying poetry and short fiction, there was a presentation. One of the selections I made for my reading was a list-poem, from the perspective of an older character trying to live day by day with the memory of his deceased wife hanging over him, with the distinction that the final entry was a reminder to keep his claws neatly filed.

It was around that time that I began to come under the influence of Thomas Ligotti, and it was with this exposure to the refiner’s fire of such elegant horror—the kind that brought the same sort of visions into my mind that Gorey brought to the page—that I realised what form my true opus should take, at least in plot. I took it with me into high school, and beyond into the wilderness of these past six-and-a-half years of confusion. The polestar of this mad endeavour formed here.

I had been thinking a lot about epic high fantasy at the time—I was eleven when The Return of the King hit theatres, and I had read enough in the genre and in styles adjacent to it to be aware of the tropes—and it occurred to me that the moral framework and cosmology of a lot of such works rang a bit hollow to me, not because right and wrong did not exist, as certainly people do good and bad things to one another all the time, but because there was always this sense of certainty that the side one was meant to root for was indubitably in the right and some great objective force of Good deemed it so, blessing their struggle against a force similarly ordained by some great objective Evil. It was that last dimension which particularly irked me. It felt reassuring in the most painfully reductive and philosophically trite way possible. And so often the battles were so... literal. I never much cared for war films to begin with, and by putting such struggles in a fantastical framework, you subtracted the one thing that made war films kind of neat: The recognition that these were people doing the fighting and the killing. Not symbols, people.

Very middle school analysis, yes, and unfair to some things I quite enjoy, Tolkien included, but the ultimate conclusions were the important part.

Which is where Ligotti comes in. Much has been made of his non-fiction opus The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, but in terms of his philosophy and its influence on my thinking at the time, I’d rather stick to his fiction, as that was what I was reading and that is what made me. In brief, Ligotti is not a reassuring writer. The universe of his stories reflects his views of our own, which are, in essence, a wholesale rejection of the commonly held notion that human consciousness and life in general are good things that we should all be even remotely enthused about, instead proposing that the very idea that we are aware of ourselves and that we should think of ourselves as individuals for whom some higher power might just be watching out is more likely an obscene and sadistic joke on that hypothetical power’s part or else, more likely, a horrible accident. His stories are filled with personal totems and surreal motifs, the fates of his characters determined by blind chance or the detached malicious prankstery of a party with whom they cannot bargain or reason, the sadistic frenzies of Poe’s maniacal villain-protagonists writ large, often on a cosmic scale. There is the feel of a nightmare and yet also of the sleepless hours after, alone in the dark, thinking, where wakefulness and dream bleed between one another and all the world is a nightmare to which the hells of sleep might well be preferable.

If I’ve lost you, well, I’m sorry; but you and I probably have something to talk about if your first reaction to all this was, “I’ve certainly had *those* days.”

And if you’ve had enough of those days, the rest probably follows easily enough.

Wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, if one took that quest narrative key to so many epic fantasies, and put it through a world where the rules of the game were so utterly reversed? If our well-meaning hero—of course, as in Tolkien, basically some poor backwater schmo, by no means stupid nor necessarily naïve but very, *very* far from the classical man of virtue—were to bear with him some artefact of power that could, perhaps by its very existence, rend the veil of normalcy that should keep all of the sane and happy citizens of this world from confronting what writhes beneath all that they see, what might he choose to do with it, particularly if he were, say, by some inexplicable invisible bond, *tied* to it?

Now, what makes a fitting antagonist for such a tale? What sort of character provides the ideal foil for a kind-hearted soul confronted with all the horrors of what may be in a neat little package? Rather than some cosmic sadist intent on throwing us all under the bus, why not something a bit scarier: Another kind-hearted soul. Someone who has seen behind the veil their whole life. Someone who has seen the truth and the agony of this world and seeks nothing less than perfect closure

And there it was.

And then it began to get complicated.

For every character that I created to flesh out the story, another came into being, and I wanted to know more about them. A side-plot salvaged from some other silly project merged seamlessly into the new whole, and suddenly there were whole new plots, full of new characters with motives that I wanted to understand. Characters grew, changed, lightened and darkened as my thoughts steeped. Exposure to other writers through classes and forums and variably disastrous shared writing projects made me realise what I did and did not know, what I could and could not do.

It was also in high school that I began taking music seriously, first toying around in Garageband and singing in the school choir and then as part of a band with several close friends. I wrote a lot of poetry, and I sang a bit, so we had lyrics; I still drew sometimes, so we had art when we needed it, although we rarely needed it. I was always ambitious with my lyrics: One of our most successful songs was structured to simulate one character murdering another during a snowstorm in a glade where they had played and hidden as a child. Morbid character studies were common; I was always taking grim little vacations in people’s heads, my own or otherwise. Informed by my middle school studies of haibun and my lyrical adventures, my prose grew more experimental, collapsing into poems or switching into strange persons and tenses. My mind was full of images, yet where to go with them?

My path to sequential art was an odd and rocky one. As mentioned, I loved picture books and illustrated stories as a child, and while I failed to touch upon them earlier (mea culpa!), Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side were pretty important in their own right. I even attempted to create something of a running series at around the time I was in that poetry programme, mainly for the amusement of myself and a very affable art teacher who found the premise amusing. It was only a year or two later that I would read Doom Patrol—the first superhero comic that I would ever admit to liking, and still one of the chosen few—and realise that Grant Morrison, the bastard, had stolen my idea before I’d even been born: Of killing one’s own imaginary friend, only to be tormented by their vengeful spectre years after the fact at the least appropriate of times.

But the comic idea sort of fell by the wayside for the longest time, for the simple reason that I am, to my own mind, an atrocious draughtsman. I cannot reproduce figures to save my life. Hilarious, seeing as I can draw you a teeming alien cityscape, or a perfectly detailed mosquito in flames, but in terms of doing the same thing twice, I’ve spent years hanging my head in shame and self-loathing.

The secret is, though, not that I couldn’t learn this, but that for such a long time, pride had kept me from allowing myself to be bad at things until I was good. As someone to whom a lot of fairly complex ideas just come naturally, someone who just absorbs information like a souped-up Dyson vacuum, the idea of having to draw the same damned thing ten thousand times just to get decent at drawing that same damned thing was a horrifying prospect. It still is.

I got pushed into it. My own fictions put a knife to my throat and told me, “This is what needs to happen.” But it took two different interconnected experiences to understand how, both courtesy of my boyfriend being a huge dork.

The first was his recommendation that I read LAMEZINE 02, at that time the latest salvo from the wonderfully deranged comic artist Cate Wurtz, then going by the moniker Partydog; the second was his use of a Bec Noir avatar on a forum we’re both on, which got me to finally bite the bullet and read Homestuck.

Wurtz’ Lamezone comics are a trip. Her art style is by most technical standards fairly primitive, but it’s a very *refined* jankiness, part and parcel to her overall embrace of scuzzy punk ‘zine aesthetics, immediately recognisable and all-around immediate. Her approach to story and tone is just the same, at once surreal and ridiculous and incredibly emotionally potent, ranging in tone from giddy B-movie absurdity to crushing Carver-esque sorrow, composed of as many little side-stories that flesh out what sort of world these characters live in as of its “meat” and all the better for it. The way that her comics are often framed only adds to the ambience: DVD menus of hit TV series that never existed, tales from the everyday lives of people living on the precipice of madness (and/or suburban Kansas), the wild Lynchian adventures of a man who talks to the spirit of the good ol’ USA through Twitter while traipsing through other people’s comics and the comment sections on furry porn sites. She was even working on a video game at one point about a woman trying to battle her way through deformed iterations of her past selves while maintaining a sufficient ganja supply. I have no idea if that’s still happening. It looked awesome.

Homestuck has already had much said about it, so I’ll keep it brief. Comparisons to Pynchon are not unwarranted. It takes the hypertextual potential of the webcomic to the next level, and is longer than many novel series. The art is, quite intentionally, all over the place, and uses collage surprisingly effectively. The story is a beautiful mess that is, fundamentally, about the process of storytelling and how “things that happen” become “stories” in the first place. It’s very oblique about this, and generally quite funny.

And so I looked to the story I was writing.

I looked at the multiple plotlines growing out of one another, intersecting, snakes devouring their tails, thematic parallels on parallels, spirals of mental imagery with bits of torn wallpaper making the fabric of waistcoats and cathedrals made out of lines of scripture and trees bearing watches like fruit, and I went: “This should be a comic! A hypercomic, in fact, McLuhan-style! This should be a wondrous blend of visuals and text and...

“I...

“I can’t draw. Fuck me. I should stick to prose, like a good loser. Get rejected that way instead.”

So I waffled. For months. And then for years.

But you know what?

I’m done waffling.

Limitation is power in its own right. Ever since I learned of Oulipo in that long-ago three-person poetry class, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of innovation through defining what you cannot do, or what you must do, no matter what. Of forcing yourself to start from a set place or end at one, no ifs, ands or buts.

I am limited. Within that, I am omnipotent.

I am going to draw this comic. I am going to write it and I am going to draw it even if it starts out looking like total shit and the process drives me half-insane. If things that I love, in sequential art but also in music and painting and writing and animation and all sorts of other forms, can make a perceived deficit into a key strength, I can do it, too. Even if I can’t be a classical master, I can be the best at that crazy thing I do.

I guess this is also my grandiose way of saying “fuck last year,” where I made so much progress that felt so thwarted by external circumstances and my own failings, and where so much went wrong for so many of us. So I’m embracing this year as a year of progress. Even if everything else sucks, I’ll be running up that hill.

And just so there’s no mistaking it, I will still be making music and probably writing at least a smidgen of prose fiction and poetry on the side. In the former category, I might even start a band.

Oh, wait. We’re not doing half-measures any more.

I’m starting a band, too.

Tell your friends.

Happy 2017, everyone, and have a lovely rest of your night.

#Writings #my artwork #New Year's resolutions #important #rant #so many words my laird #DOING THE ART #comics #so many tags

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readbookywooks · 7 years

Text

Wreckage

And now comes the strangest thing in my story. Yet, perhaps, it is not altogether strange. I remember, clearly and coldly and vividly, all that I did that day until the time that I stood weeping and praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill. And then I forget.

Of the next three days I know nothing. I have learned since that, so far from my being the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, several such wanderers as myself had already discovered this on the previous night. One man-- the first--had gone to St. Martin's-le-Grand, and, while I sheltered in the cabmen's hut, had contrived to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world; a thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions, suddenly flashed into frantic illuminations; they knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, at the time when I stood upon the verge of the pit. Already men, weeping with joy, as I have heard, shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout, were making up trains, even as near as Crewe, to descend upon London. The church bells that had ceased a fortnight since suddenly caught the news, until all England was bell-ringing. Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched along every country lane shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair. And for the food! Across the Channel, across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn, bread, and meat were tearing to our relief. All the shipping in the world seemed going Londonward in those days. But of all this I have no memory. I drifted--a demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood. They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about "The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive!" Troubled as they were with their own affairs, these people, whose name, much as I would like to express my gratitude to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me, and protected me from myself. Apparently they had learned something of my story from me during the days of my lapse.

Very gently, when my mind was assured again, did they break to me what they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days after I was imprisoned it had been destroyed, with every soul in it, by a Martian. He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power.

I was a lonely man, and they were very kind to me. I was a lonely man and a sad one, and they bore with me. I remained with them four days after my recovery. All that time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was a mere hopeless desire to feast upon my misery. They dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them, and parting, as I will confess, from these four-day friends with tears, I went out again into the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty.

Already they were busy with returning people; in places even there were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water.

I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed as I went back on my melancholy pilgrimage to the little house at Woking, how busy the streets and vivid the moving life about me. So many people were abroad everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible that any great proportion of the population could have been slain. But then I noticed how yellow were the skins of the people I met, how shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that every other man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all with one of two expressions--a leaping exultation and energy or a grim resolution. Save for the expression of the faces, London seemed a city of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately distributing bread sent us by the French government. The ribs of the few horses showed dismally. Haggard special constables with white badges stood at the corners of every street. I saw little of the mischief wrought by the Martians until I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge.

At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of that grotesque time--a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the placard of the first newspaper to resume publication--the DAILY MAIL. I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on the back page. The matter he printed was emotional; the news organisation had not as yet found its way back. I learned nothing fresh except that already in one week the examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assured me what I did not believe at the time, that the "Secret of Flying," was discovered. At Waterloo I found the free trains that were taking people to their homes. The first rush was already over. There were few people in the train, and I was in no mood for casual conversation. I got a compartment to myself, and sat with folded arms, looking greyly at the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. And just outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, and on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins. To Clapham Junction the face of London was grimy with powder of the Black Smoke, in spite of two days of thunderstorms and rain, and at Clapham Junction the line had been wrecked again; there were hundreds of out-of-work clerks and shopmen working side by side with the customary navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying.

All down the line from there the aspect of the country was gaunt and unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least hurt of any place along the line. The Wandle, the Mole, every little stream, was a heaped mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled cabbage. The Surrey pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of the red climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, in certain nursery grounds, were the heaped masses of earth about the sixth cylinder. A number of people were standing about it, and some sappers were busy in the midst of it. Over it flaunted a Union Jack, flapping cheerfully in the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson with the weed, a wide expanse of livid colour cut with purple shadows, and very painful to the eye. One's gaze went with infinite relief from the scorched greys and sullen reds of the foreground to the blue-green softness of the eastward hills.

The line on the London side of Woking station was still undergoing repair, so I descended at Byfleet station and took the road to Maybury, past the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, and on by the spot where the Martian had appeared to me in the thunderstorm. Here, moved by curiosity, I turned aside to find, among a tangle of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with the whitened bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For a time I stood regarding these vestiges. . . .

Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found burial, and so came home past the College Arms. A man standing at an open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed.

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded immediately. The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening slowly as I approached.

It slammed again. The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn. No one had closed it since. The smashed bushes were just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago. I stumbled into the hall, and the house felt empty. The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs.

I followed them to my study, and found lying on my writing-table still, with the selenite paper weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder. For a space I stood reading over my abandoned arguments. It was a paper on the probable development of Moral Ideas with the development of the civilising process; and the last sentence was the opening of a prophecy: "In about two hundred years," I had written, "we may expect----" The sentence ended abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how I had broken off to get my DAILY CHRONICLE from the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the garden gate as he came along, and how I had listened to his odd story of "Men from Mars."

I came down and went into the dining room. There were the mutton and the bread, both far gone now in decay, and a beer bottle overturned, just as I and the artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long. And then a strange thing occurred. "It is no use," said a voice. "The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped but you."

I was startled. Had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the French window was open behind me. I made a step to it, and stood looking out.

And there, amazed and afraid, even as I stood amazed and afraid, were my cousin and my wife--my wife white and tearless. She gave a faint cry.

"I came," she said. "I knew--knew----"

She put her hand to her throat--swayed. I made a step forward, and caught her in my arms.

#WaroftheWorlds

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