The best stories are made of shattered glass.
They’re beautiful, they’re tragic, they’re sad, they’re hopeful, they’re so very bittersweet.
Whenever I experience a new story I always focus on the tragic side of it. Not because I like the despair, though that does play some distant and twisted role, it’s because of what the tragedy brings out in the characters. I love following their path, how they start as innocent children and slowly come to the horrific realization of what sentient beings can do. How even with the darkness they still fight, they still love, they still bleed...all for what they believe in, because they won’t just give up.
No.
They fight for life and freedom because it is right, and because no one else will.
Maybe that's why my favorite stories are so sad sometimes.
An alien who travels across time, galaxies, universes and multiverses. Who has loved and lost more than anyone should. Who cannot be alone because he might become exactly what he fights. Who fell in love with a woman who became trapped and married a woman he met completely out of order and died upon their meeting. A man who saves and sacrifices and hurts and bleeds and asks for nothing in return. When will his time run out? When will it stop being ‘one last miracle’?
An Ice cold detective and his doctor, who run around solving crimes that no one else can. A genius who feels so fiercely that he shuts off all emotion to avoid getting hurt - again. A soldier who came home empty and is horrified to find that he misses the war. He faked his death once, who says it won't be real next time?
Two brothers and their angel who travel across the country in an old impala, fighting things of nightmares that most believe to be myth and legend. Going against all odds, against their own people, for what they believe is right. An angel always willing to bleed for them, family that would end the world for each other. They’ve died many times. when will it be permanent?
A boy drafted into a war before he was even born, who had a lightning bolt scar and a destiny he couldn't fight, and blood on his hands before he was twelve. One who grew up too fast and learned too quickly that magic wasn't always the stuff of childish dreams. His best friend who thinks he's not enough, youngest of 6 brothers who feels like his achievements don't matter. And the Brightest witch of her age, quick as a whip who saved her boys again and again. They are all drowning in blood before they are legally adults, red-stained hands leaving sticky smears in their wake, staining everything they touch. They were child soldiers, willing or not. When will the nightmares stop?
A hero of godly parentage who went to war at 16 and then was put through another before he became an adult. A boy with a loving mother who never gave up on him, an amazing half-goat best friend who would face the worst of his fears to save his life, and a girlfriend who he would bend heaven and earth for. He’s faced gods and monsters that grown men would fear, killed things that have devoured men thrice his age, bested those terrifying things repeatedly. When will the Gods leave him alone?
A group from the FBI who have been shot at, cut, imprisoned, isolated, blown up, and tortured. A genius who became addicted, a media liaison who lost a child, an ex-lawyer who lost a wife, an author dragged from retirement, a man forced to confront his traumatic past, an interpol agent made to fake her death, a bright and happy technical analyst made to see horrors before her screens every day. They are beaten, bruised and broken. How many horrific ways can someone think of killing. Why must their lives be paved with the bodies of victims never saved?
The MCRT from NCIS who have been betrayed, manipulated and hurt. Who have seen teammates die and families burn. A marine whose wife and child were murdered, an agent with a frat boy mask who almost died from the plague, an ex-mossad agent of a cracked family, an MIT graduate who was woken to real life too soon, a peppy forensic scientist whose optimism became dull, a medical examiner with a sick mother and his insecure assistant. How will they move on if everything they love keeps withering away?
A team of enhanced human beings; some with magic, some with power, some with pure skill; who help people. The universe was full of aliens and monsters and horrors untold. They kill them and incarcerate them and save the earth again and again and again from people much smarter, stronger and way more powerful than themselves. How much luck do they have? When will they go on a mission and not come back?
A Demon and an Angel in a bookshop in Soho who prevented the apocalypse. A Demon who loves plants and stares at galaxies that he helped create, never able to visit again. An angel with a love of books and food who must ‘always obey’ ‘never fail’. Two celestial beings who gave up everything for humanity and each other, and would do so again in a heartbeat. When will that not be enough? When must they let go?
There are many more stories; some popular, some obscure; but it always comes down to loving something or someone so much that you would sacrifice anything, even your own life, for it.
And I love that.
Sure it’s sad, Kids killed. Dreams squandered. Hearts shattered. Souls bruised. Hope broken… But it has a sort of beauty, the fact that they keep fighting and loving and dreaming and helping despite that, because of that.
Because no one deserves to go through the same pain they did.