I am aware that this is not travel related. But no one reads this anyway. This is more a diary than a blog, and so I can write what I damn well please.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1799623/chapters/3859159T
This nearly destroyed me. It's funny how words can do that. I was sent this link by a friend whom I trust (ed), and I was expecting something fun. I know people who would scoff simply because Marvel is comic books. And Comic books are childish, or nerdy or childish. And sometimes they're right. But not this time. Just because these people are fictional, just because their stories are told and retold, and their names a common house hold names, usually said with some mocking or derision, doesn't make the pain, or anguish in this story any less real. This isn't just a Captain America story. We tell stories with purpose, with meaning. And this one nearly killed me. It is equal parts sorrow, and anguish and greys mixed with small bursts of colour. To love so completely for so long, to have that missing part constantly forever, is something universal in its experience. Some of us are lucky enough to find and to have someone who loves us, and who we love. But for a lot of people, for far too many, it's a dream. Whether it's because the person they love doesn't love them, or because of society, or biology or just bad luck, we can't find that essential thing. And most of the time we don't notice. We go about out lives and we live them. But then something like this comes along. Something that reminds of the pain we feel. This might be a story about Captain America. But more importantly it's a story about James Barnes. It's a story about someone who felt a love more powerful than anything else in his life, more powerful than biology or technology, more powerful than science. And it's a story about self loathing and denial and loss. His pain resonates, because it is something we can all feel. I can feel. This story broke something inside me. It proves that however we dress up our characters, as fictional heroes or fantastical creatures, no matter how much critics may scoff at the incredible or mythological, it is the inherent humanity of the characters, the universal humaness of them that can reach through the pages, through time and distance and touch something inside of us.
THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR I AM THE EVILEST MOTHERFUCKER IN THE VALLEY.
