(((I Will Outlive)))

I mean it’s kinda the real life tragedy of love exaggerated, innit? Irl people die young or one person dies old and another person dies even older. At the end of it all someone gets left behind and has to learn how to move on after that. And for the one who dies you know you’re leaving them behind. You know you’re dooming them to moving on and if you believe in an afterlife god only knows how long you’ll be waiting for them on the other side. The tragedy of the immortal loving the mortal takes those feelings we all know about and rips your heart out about it.

Thinking abt this reminds me of one of my favorite jewish things. “May their memory be a blessing.” Judaism doesn’t focus on an afterlife, and doesn’t necessarily believe in one at all. The person you loved is gone. There is no guarantee of seeing them again. All we know is they were here and now they’re not. And all we have left are our memories of them. In the end, that their memory be a blessing is all we can realistically hope for. That memories of us be a blessing is all we can realistically hope for ourselves too. And if someone is immortal, knowing that those they love will die. Well. They’ll die either way. Better for the memories to remain as a blessing after they’re gone than for them to be lost to a world of what could have been.

people like to bring up things like "all your loved ones would die before you" as a concern re: immortality. But the real danger for me would be that i'd literally never get anything done again. I'd adopt the elvish lifestyle immediately. Not doing anything in a week that could be done in a century. Not getting anything done in a century that can be done in 10 centuries. Spending the next 100 years reading 1 book very slowly because i have infinite time and don't care.

"sounds like a tomorrow problem! :)" - me several centuries in a row.

it's always "immortals always lose the ones they love!" and never "this family has had this incredible, powerful, loving figure present through generations of their lineage, all because they are descended from someone the immortal loved long ago" and i think that's a shame!!

"immortality sucks because all your friends die" all your friends die anyway. those we do not mourn are those who mourn us.

"immortality sucks because you forget who you are" we always forget who we are. do you remember who you were at four years of age? who you were at fourteen? "who i am" is a shadow cast on the wall.

"immortality sucks because" skill issue. skill issue. skill issue. give me your liver

I mean it’s kinda the real life tragedy of love exaggerated, innit? Irl people die young or one person dies old and another person dies even older. At the end of it all someone gets left behind and has to learn how to move on after that. And for the one who dies you know you’re leaving them behind. You know you’re dooming them to moving on and if you believe in an afterlife god only knows how long you’ll be waiting for them on the other side. The tragedy of the immortal loving the mortal takes those feelings we all know about and rips your heart out about it.

Telling a couple of versions of that story right now. It's a bitch to write, and one of the best things to inflict on people on the other side of the storytelling wall.

(see also the summary of The Door Into Sunset: "the final sacrifice... will confront him with a choice more terrible than anything he could have imagined: death with those he loves, or immortality without them."

Good thing about Hetalia: your fave can't die

Bad thing about Hetalia: your fave can't die