Stars Like Freckles

Stars Like Freckles

You're like the stars, did you know? Maybe you've heard it a couple dozen times, I'm sure, with your countless freckles mirroring the stars. I'm sure that you've been compared to those balls of gases more than thrice in your lifetime and, surely, it'll happen again. As long as freckles dot your skin like constellation tattoos mark the sky.

You shine just as brightly as the twinkling and glinting flecks in the sky. As I stare into the calm visage of night sky, my thoughts can only circle around you. I reach out my hand as if wanting to touch the stardust.

How idiotic.

As if one can merely reach the unreachable with sheer will and desire. As if anyone is worthy enough to touch the stars...especially someone so bathed in sin as I am, so covered in the filth that I cannot even distinguish where I am underneath the grime.

I stretch my hand out and tears prick the corners of my eyes. In the patterns of the stars, I see the silhouette of you. I see your ginger hair, flowing in the wind, your cloak billowing around you like some fairy tale hero.

You turn your head and I see your dazzling grin, the corners of your lips pulled taut with the joy pouring out your pores. How easy it is for you to smile as if I never see your eyes dim and darken with insecurities and doubts and fears. How easy it is for you to smile despite baring all the scars you do.

Ironically, I will claim, with all my arrogance and pride, that I know you better than those flocking to you. Maybe in another life I can be by your side as well. In another life, I can tell you that I see you and you see me. In another life, you'll direct that smile to me without snark.

But that life is not for this universe. And I will forever be stuck in a place where I can only admire you from a far. Where I can only smile as I see your smarts at play, or when I catch the fleeting whispers of your conversations. The way you blabber on and on about things and the way you'll scold your friends and be the moral compass.

Sometimes, I will watch you and be pulled out of my paradise with reminders of what this life entails. I'll watch as you turn to me, my heart will flutter for a milisecond and my hopes will soar like eagles and my life would seem brighter, and watch the way your grin drops into a sneer and your jovial eyes will narrow with hatred and anger.

You'll sneer at me and my heart will shatter into a million pieces for the millionth time and I will put it back again as I always do, with my heart gaining another crack as it holds on in all of it's cracked and chipped and broken glory.

In another universe, you'll turn to me and smile wider. My heart will flutter. Maybe I'll stutter. But you'll be happier.

In this universe, I can only stargaze.

"Some people start dying before they learn to start living."

INDIKA is a masterpiece, IMHO. It's a one-of-a-kind game with a one-of-a-kind story. It's a game that asks questions that makes you wonder. Honestly, I just vibe with Indika. I wish it was more mainstream because I want to see people's thoughts and opinions on the game as well as their analysis and essays on the game. It has so much potential for discussion

I know Sabo was a retcon and Ace's tattoo was originally just a misspelling of his name but retroactively turning it into a memorial tattoo for his brother actually hits so much harder specifically because it looks like an incorrect version of Ace's own name.

Ace's name, Ace's identity, the very essence of who Ace is, and he not only chose to physically insert Sabo's initial into that name in the first place -- thus representing just how much he viewed Sabo as a fundamental part of himself -- he then chose to cross that initial out, creating the illusion that Ace's own name was spelled wrong. It re-frames Sabo's death as a sort of amputation; that the removal of Sabo from Ace permanently mangled what was left behind into a clumsy and misshapen facsimile of itself.

There's also the fact that the crossed-out S looks like Sabo's Jolly Roger; an S with crossbones. The flag Sabo died trying to sail under. With that context, it almost turns the tattoo into a sort of skin graft; Ace marking himself with Sabo's dream, implanting it deep under his skin where he can carry it with him and keep it safe.

'Ideal Justice' of Khaenri'ah

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