#3182

Aradia never wanted to put Sollux through this, but she felt helpless in the face of the overwhelming tide of fate. She's only recently begun to suspect she could have fought back, and that realization might have been more painful than the idea that she couldn't.

AA: i have t0 g0 n0w […] TA: you mean for good, wiill ii see you agaiin? AA: i d0nt kn0w that either AA: but i guess if y0u d0 AA: pr0bably n0t with y0ur eyes

It seems Aradia does think she might persist in some way, but not in the corporeal world.

Maybe she's going to become an even more ephemeral spirit than before - or maybe she'll show up as a projection in the Dream Bubbles, a realm you can only visit when your eyes are closed.

AA: 0_0 AA: i wish AA: i c0uld s0meh0w make that em0tic0n smile AA: 0u0 AA: n0 that l00ks stupid AA: 0h well

When we first met Aradia, I thought the tragedy of her character was that she could no longer feel.

I was wrong. The tragedy of Aradia's character was that she could always feel, but her feelings were just too painful to acknowledge.

Not until the very end.

And as Aradia goes boom, we still gain no insight into what destroyed her.

911 // Evan Buckley in 409