The Swords of the Ancients

I’ve got a sickly green concoction in a glass in front of me. It’s mostly Mountain Dew Voltage. The rest is Kahlua.

I hate writing things in purely digital form. They’re not real enough for me. Ideas are too easily destroyed, words too easily unsaid. We live in a temporary world. Nothing we say or do is permanent anymore. We’re not permanent anymore. Just passing through on our way to wherever the hell it is we’re going. Words on paper mean something. Legally binding, as it were. Writing a story or a poem is like signing a contract with your creative side. On paper, there’s no backspace, no delete key. Sure, you can take an eraser to pencil and white-out to pen, but you don’t see the mistakes you made anymore. You erase your past with every mis-typed word. At least with paper, there’s some sign that something WAS there, even if it’s not anymore.

Superman is suicidal, but he can’t die. Think about it. He’s massively depressed. No one understands him, since he’s the last of his race. All he wants is to end it all and be with them again, see his REAL parents one more time. But he can’t die. Some freak coincidence with our planet’s sun makes him nearly immortal. What would you do? Why do you think he hurls himself into danger time and time again? He does everything he can to try to feel pain, but he can’t even BLEED under normal circumstances. He envies Bruce because, while Bruce too suffered loss, he will eventually die. He remains mortal, and so he has no fear. Clark, on the other hand, has no idea what physical pain even feels like anymore. He antagonizes Lex Luthor because he knows that Luthor possesses ways to obtain Kryptonite, the one thing in existence that can allow Superman to be physically harmed. Clark, then, is torn between saving his new friends and finally achieving what he’s sought for so long. Eventually, he will give in, Lex will win, and he can rest.

Things that I read make me wonder what kind of person Rime should be, personality-wise. I already know a few things about him. He’s a religious man. A priest of sorts. His beliefs are constantly being challenged, and he’s forced to question the very gods that make up the pantheon of his world. When he feels that his prayers are not being answered, he decides to take matters into his own hands. This is a driving force behind the quest he sets out on early in the story. He wants to prove that his devotion has not been pointless this whole time. He’s basically shouting “I EXIST!” to the night sky. Maybe at some point he’ll do this. I need to decide how prevalent alcohol use would be in his world. If he hides his emotions most of the time, maybe Arsus will get him drunk just to get him to open up a little. This could be a great spot to build off the hot springs scene I’ve been working on. It’s going to be a great sequence in which the characters (particularly Arsus and Rime) get to know each other better. I’m still debating who else will have joined in on their little adventure. I’m thinking no more than five total. I mean, that gives me a classic Five Man Band. Now don’t expect any of our little friends to necessarily perfectly fit any of those classic tropes. I intend to subvert them where it makes sense to do so.