A Marshmallow Gelato

I made this ↑ impulsively after FB memories showed me this ↓ old art I made and shared in way back 20 November 2019. I can't recall what compelled me to randomly draw this in the past. Though I think I wasn't quite sure in the past either.

Seeing the old piece while I haven't exactly recovered from the main story update AND freshly after I finished going through Charon's character story was.... quite... unsavory for the state of my mind. Vaguely told my friend about that but clearly mentioned how I lost the files for the older piece.

My friend asked if I was planning to redraw it... which made me immediately envision Charon in the same-ish composition. Or maybe specifically Paul. A dead soldier, before his corpse became a vessel for an entity whom most would think was still him. At least my own little non-canon depiction of that. I just had to draw it.

On a real world note, it's extra depressing to realize how much war and killings have continued to go on. More than a full century after our irl WWI ended. Worse yet is how some of these occurrences that are labeled as "wars" deserve to be described with harsher truths. Full-on genocides and one-sided killings. I think that's the greater part of why this latest update wrecked me. Bluepoch did a wonderful job being respectful in their depiction of war and the suffering it brings... and that makes reflecting on real life kinda feel much worse.

Experiencing the story in Sentinel's perspective gave this bitterfly hopeful mood of being able to make impactful actions that can indeed contribute to the end of their war. To a certain degree, I guess its subtle contrast to Charon's part of the story made me resonate a tiny bit more with Charon. Part of it is that feeling of powerlessness of knowing of the wars that continue to happen across the globe. But the other more personal part of it....

I may be fortunate enough to have been born and raised in a peaceful part of my country, but I'm no stranger to the injustices that continue to lead masses to their deaths. Arguably, the majority of the masses have lost loved ones thanks to this system. Rallies and protests have increased in occurrence lately, but the impact feels weak if not fruitless. It painfully almost seems like an act of violence against those in power is the only solution that can actually bring change, but I do not wish upon it... yet also, if things do come to that point, I don't think I'll find it in me to say anything in an attempt to stop it.

Hesitation. Powerlessness. A sense of being a broken cog forced to still be part of the machine. And when the best you can do when you're barely surviving yourself is to try extending empathy to the living, and to pay respects to the dead. There's a lot of completely fictional elements in A Long Long Way, of course... but, still, significant parts of the writing hit too close to home.

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