I already have my music chosen
But
I need a matchup going. It can be overkill, it can be fair, doesn't really matter. (Personally, I'd like to see some updated takes on Akiyama or Baku, since I haven't seen the two in a while. However I'll edit anything if it gets enough upvotes).
The most upvoted comment will be the one edited!
Actually sharing an excerpt chapter from Section One Ishmael: Pt. 2 cos why not?————————————————————————————————————————
(RLQ: Section One Ishmael dominates a huge portion of his journey. Roughly 40%. His character in this part, although the same with later aspects, has more focus on other aspects that become dormant/differently interpretable in Section Two. Since his character is incredibly fractured, it makes sense the focuses on him are incredibly diverse later on. In Section One, however, several aspects remain consistent).
(I mean, he's already pretty dense in these few chapters. Considering the plot style is polyphonic and also vignettes, multiple characters are explored: but Ishmael has some of the most depth given to him besides a few select others).
(Also the concepts of beauty and expression for him gets really insane so I don't wanna get into that rn).
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CHAPTER FIVE EXCERPT, PT 2: HIS CHILDHOOD FEELINGS.
He was perfectly built in the manner that was pleasing to something that had beauty and was in possession something that was still to be properly relayed unto him as an aspect of beauty: pleasant, unsure, and the discussion of character clearly unto him shown as play-style, with the cast of thoughts and sets and actions somehow defined before they would be articulated: no sooner had he spoken then would it then become clear that there was a deception, in that he was a liar of this cast, of the actor-thoughts, and a liar to himself and others without realizing or regarding: if there was reality with him there was the inaction, the impossibility of implicating any serious crime other than being a statehood of un-actualization: this was not the case of a falsity of purposeful methodology, but rather an expression wholly separate and dependent on the former and his ability to actively feel and deny expression. It was, as a consequence of having been immersed in bodily and mental and spiritual awareness, and of this awareness the indication of individual facehood, a fault! He was tempted by expression and knew not of which of them and the endless multitudes would make him condemned.
Frankly, despite his growing awkwardness throughout with the prospects of this expression, of this empathy for the anti-empathy, for the empathy towards the deeper and more primal emotions, that of which had no grounding, only in them a strange magic, that he feared so, and that was feared by the strict upbringing about him, and by the laws of nature as seen fit by the sailors and their comrades and the artists: as emitted by these walkers, the daywalkers, he sought to capture their light and give it attention and properly inspect them, to inform of himself these warmths and coldness, and to accurately measure and convey upon himself his own projection of light that was sorely absent from him, as he did not beed this emanation of the day, for he was day, and he was night.
He felt compelled to actually reconcile himself with this expression of damnation. Or, precisely more, he was inclined because he had the curiosity present to attempt to understand why he was drawn to the things of desire beyond beauty, and beyond beauty he at times appreciated the beauty flatly, only in the sides, never round: rather it was beauty and now he was realizing that it was pain to try and seek it and preserve it with a violent awareness to it.
So whenever he would take to sea alongside his father Sćievh, and his older brother Řidem, he was consumed by the interests of this inward, soaring pain, that not of agony but instead of dullness, and in feeling it he was acquainted early with the discontent of the external world with his heart, and his mind, and his soul. For what purpose was held within the search of beauty when it seemed as though the permanence of it was ever gone and going and fleeing, not fearful of death but rather fearful of the way it was to be consumed and considered by those who had the capacity to live and simply be, and be in pain, and be in indifference to it, to itself, to themselves: was beauty present in anything as tumultuous as the sea, as faithless and fearless and wrathful and serene as the sea?
While the dancing circles in the evenings, in the stone brick centers, alighting the night with revelry, he was absorbed by the cultivation of the dancing members, giving them water quietly, and wondering why they danced. These dances would last throughout the night upon the holier days, and he was particularly unholy, because he was in a way illiterate in articulating his good heartedness in anything besides action, and so never saying much helped the priest's and the other youths of holier vocation, and would listen a great deal to all things: these buildings were gorgeous, built in traditional styles with steepled walls and round, fruit like tops, spinning to the heavens. He was not allowed to participate in these dances, for he was only ten, but he saw how lovely and graceful they were, and wondered if grace was with age, the earliest ages must be graceless: without beauty. Yet he was still compelled by some ancient, almost primal sense to love all and try to see all with new eyes.
What was beauty without pain, without ugliness, without anything that rendered it beyond simply pleasurable or pleasant? What made his beauty, that he saw in all things, until he would be tormented by the wish to revoke this grace from those he found in accordance of expression: beauty, as where he lived, and wished to live, amongst the beds and creaking floorboards and peeling plaster, was the opposite of the expression which dominated and articulated all factors of personal experience and existence, as it was in addition to fate, to consciousness, to the denial-fate, to the denial-consciousness.
And even though he was able to recognize this conflict, he subsided it and was never left from it: it grew separate, almost a tumor of the mind, in fact a disease that is innate, perhaps more extreme for him in its spreading throughout his spirit and body as a result of his wholly compassionate and heavily conscious person.
He was not isolated because of how he was or how he was surrounded, but simply was isolated because he did not understand this beauty he idolized and wished to preserve, and found his character inadequate, and destroying of it: the life particular to these souls, to this, to himself, is that of which is lacking in the emanation of purpose whilst containing this a very especial purpose that defies natural categorization; the isolated life, the life that is in seeking of this purpose, of purity, must as well seek to fully display and comprehend the magical essence that protects the matter of living in coolness and serenity and uncertainty.
This specific part of the city, this specific area, different from those of his own culture, was of sailing: and so he sailed, but always took with him what he could to remind himself of the land: not because he feared the sea, but because he was afraid of somehow forgetting the area, the place and their names, their scents, and the many foods and plays and sounds that came along. Why did he fear this forgetting? What was it? He did not know but he felt! And that was it, that was him: he did not know but he felt. It could have been meaningless yet he felt still, treated it as something that was of matter.
Yet in feeling he was tainted because he was enamored with the way the inanimate were endlessly beautiful: they had without any doubt the fallings of a conscious, tumultuous spirit, and without it they were oblivious to the turning of season and the commands of invisible forces, such as fate and her assistants: they were good, the inanimate, because they could do no evil, but also they were nothing because they could not recognize any faculties; and so he questioned, and was always a little trapped by his very questioning, living more prominently and excitingly in his mind. For despite his young age he was with special and warm eyes that had the capacity to become entirely apathetic, yet this was assaulted upon and prevented by the association of his heart with these questions, with the matter of expression, and with the matter of beauty.
He ate because he must: he felt for sleep and was allowed to snuggle into it: and no sooner would he eat or rest he was accosted by these disruptions in his otherwise serene and youthful mind. Why must he rest? Why must he eat? What was compelling him? This was expression, or something else? He did feel them, he felt is so acutely they were rendered in his mind as people, as light and dark, filling each others spaces, filling themselves, and dissipating whenever he looked upon them. Sometimes he would starve himself because he would question whether this was in accordance with his spirit, with the beauty: he was utterly exhausted by it, but felt himself entirely committed towards the actions, the method of how these unseen voices prevailed him and produced from his body many ways and thoughts of kindness, of simplicity, and of how he was un-simple, and how he wished civilization unto himself, and was defeated again by this basic necessity to commit anything of consolation.
He did not know but felt: and was sure as he consoled himself that, "The consolation is that acknowledging both beauty and expression, and both can be either, and both cannot do without the other."
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