No one likes a cry-bigot

(Originally 4 March 2007)

Hearing anyone cry is hard on my ears, and reactions range from awkward silence to cringe-inducing irritation. Nothing pushes buttons more than hearing screaming babies, losers complaining about getting pwnt on TFC, the horde of emo kids lining the halls of my old high school at lunch time when I visited during reading week, and dumb anime characters.

Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora experienced a high point of irony when Kuu, the totally useless character who seems to enjoy wallowing in said uselessness by creating pools of tears to drown in, loses the one comfort she seemed to have: even though she was useless, she was at least a useless human. Anyone paying even the slightest attention to the story (as opposed to just watching for Chikane/Himeko, who clearly need more screen time) could have seen what was coming since episode one.

If you had any faith in humans (or anime characters?) then you might not have expected the reaction, but it makes perfect sense. I don't like it one bit, because there are tons of people with similar mindsets, that being the asshat mentality, and you should all by now what I think of asshats.

Here's the setup: Kuu is depressed (or emo). She's not good at anything, zero effort being a pretty plausible cause. Anyway, throughout the first half of the series she props herself up by pitying the Absolute Angels, because they are weapons, and since she's human she is by default better than them even though she can't (or doesn't try to) do anything, let alone blow up buildings.

Kuu is incapable of doing anything, so she props up her self-esteem by pitying those below her, and they are below her for no other reason except she's human and they are not. I suppose it's a notch better than wanting kill those below you but not by much. I despise those kinds of people, because they walk around all cocky and condescending, be it because they belong to some religion and you don't, or they went to some private school and you didn't, or they're rich and you're not, or they're poor (and thugging it, yo!) and you're not, whatever. Neither of these things are bad on their own, but when these become reasons for claiming some sense of existential superiority, then a serious smacking is warranted.

You could be smarter, you could be more cordial (you probably will be by default compared to such company), you could be more athletic, more musically inclined, more motivated, it doesn't matter, because their deity is better than yours (or they have a deity to your atheism), or their school has a better reputation than yours, or you just happen to be a cheater at TFC (because they said so), and therefore they will always be superior to you (even though they suck at sniper…and life).

Maybe it bothers me because I have an inferiority complex. Usually you can't actually take a swing at anyone lest it land you in jail and then they laugh at you more, so you just ignore it, and they sit smugly and inflate their own egos. Short of gagging them, banning them, or killing them, they will never shut up no matter how much you try to humble them, because they can never be humbled when God is on their side or something stupid like that. It's fortunate they live in this time, as opposed to the past, when such fervour would be rewarded by a position in the front lines, and they'd like it.

Just to drive home the point one last time, here's an extreme analogy. Joe Six-pack's a loser, dropped out of school because he was just too damn lazy. In effect, he's pretty worthless, lives in the basement of your parents' home, and can't be bothered to even write a resume, let alone apply for jobs. He sucks at life and may or may not know it, but it doesn't matter because at least he's not Chinese. Or Jewish. Or Black. Or handicapped. But he might just be retarded. I digress.

Kuu begins to bawl her eyes out, screaming that she doesn't want to be this. No name, no description, because, you see, to be an Absolute Angel is to be some abhorrent thing that defies qualification. One would think that this would be gratifying to watch, seeing her emotional prop kicked out from under her. It would be have been, if the irony was demonstrated in any other way. Instead, she drowns herself in more self-pity, which continues into the next episode.

Depressive paralysis is about the closest thing to suicide as you can get without actually trying to kill yourself. It's hard to see someone actively trying to not live, be it through self-pity or otherwise. At some point the hands just get thrown up, and I say fine, go hang yourself, just stop wasting my time by attention-whoring yourself out, because you just know that those people don't really do anything with help, or advice, or support. You can give it to them, but it will never change them because all of those things have the one thing that they do crave: attention. I stop caring and actively encourage self-destruction. Maybe that's just the biologically competitive side kicking in at the potential for resources (space, air, reduction of noise pollution) to be freed up.