Dear US America/n
I See You
Specifically Millennials, Gen Z, and any future generations that might stumble onto this someday.
We're pretty in the shit, huh? Yeah, I feel it, too. I've cried a lot, too, over this last decade.
So, I created something. Well, kind of. It's been in the works my whole life, ever since my stepmom first started reading me Harry Potter, a childhood friend brought me back a shark necklace from SeaWorld (I wish I still had that...), and a false start back in 2015.
The world of Paracosm is us. The United States of America. (Because that's an important distinction.) It's the pain we've caused, and the expansion of Zuko's fire nation speech from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was crazy watching that live at, what? Ten? Eleven? Maybe thirteen? I remember thinking, "Wait, is this play about us?" Ember Island Players style.
Okay, I'll stop with the Avatar references. (No I won't, and you gotta deal with it.)
The Fall of Crows drops us in the year 3246, three years after a town called Whist was destroyed by three Templars from Ar'chon's Magistrate, and two Southern Providence Vultures (an ugly term for the unhoused in the nation of Rēock). These two groups clash when the weaves pull them together, and it ends in destruction, prison, a broken core, a shattered hand, and questions nobody can answer.
Path I: Noless De follows Cassius Baik'a, the youngest of the three Templars and creator of the Artificial Intelligence program, rREMI (Rapid Response Enforcement and Magick Integration), now under the Magistrate's control and rumored to be being turned into a weapon. And now it's his job to destroy it, even if it kills him.
It also follows the self-proclaimed Greatest Runecaster to Have Ever Lived, Atlastair Magnus Reid, one of the Vultures, who's one goal is to obtain the Philosopher's Stone. An artificial magickal core he plans to implant behind his heart to become a god. The key to it? The very same Templar responsible for Whist, and who Atlas now has to help destroy the program if he has any hope of obtaining the stone.
It navigates the harm they cause--to each other, themselves, the world that made them, and the world back onto them.
Path II: Raven Rise follows Elias Alexander Corvin of Baik'a, Cassius's adopted older brother (and the Capitan of their old Templar unit), Avander Matis Lucifuri (Playboy Millionaire and, as far as Eli knows, a traitor), and Raphael Silverton, Bookkeeper of The Gilded Isles.
Beneath it all, a singular god, The One Who Claims 'He', swims endlessly in the rotting water. Bored. Waiting for This Old Game to finally end...
The moment of time we're in is scary, and more than a bit fucked up. And between growing up Christian, the Towers and all that follows, suffocating myself within my own mind for over twenty years, my once favorite author calling me "disgusting" and "wrong" simply for existing, and watching what I was told was "The Greatest Country on Earth" take off its mask in real time (because we need to be honest with ourselves--how can we have ever been great when we're only here because of the blood our ancestors spilled?), I struggled. A lot. Bad. And I think you have, too.
So, this is my love letter to you; the ones who see it and are hurting. For all the queer, trans, and lost millennials who watched the towers fall, and grew up finding solace within the worlds of Harry Potter and The Last Airbender, and who are now disappointed by all the “creative remakes” of their beloved show, and by their once favorite author who somehow seems to have missed the point of her own story. I hope Paracosm can fill that void, even just a little.
To those who don't see what US America is yet, who voted because you were scared of people like me and other things you don't understand, who are racist (and saying "I'm not racist, I have black friends" IS racist, by the way), and who, until it impacted YOU, supported the buffoon; this is your mirror. And you're being challenged to look.
Best way to describe Paracosm: if Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender were written for adults, and then had a baby with Game of Thrones and the devil. 😉😈
“Welcome, all you who are weary and burdened, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to US. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your shores. For I lift MY light, beside the Golden Door.”
The moment is now.
With love,
Kairos
Tigger Warnings can be found here