Par%l - Blog Posts

it is time once again to think about Par%l:

the non-binary alien in Immortal Hulk in the next universe, who is the very last being in their universe and dares to ask the unspeakable horror who murdered the universe to explain why, and perishes to fling a desperate hope into the past to prevent it all from coming to pass

what we see of their species is genuinely very alien and they would make an EXCELLENT xenofiction protagonist; the whole chapter is, in fact, xenofiction, as they have never seen a humanoid form. you see them, in the narration, struggling to make sense of a bipedal figure, describing an arm being pulled back as an act of incomprehensible strangeness. The sadistic grin of the One Below All is equally unfathomable to them (as Par%l’s people do not have faces to emote with), and you get a real sense of dawning horror when it realizes that the monster that did all this… enjoys the suffering and pain it has inflicted.

what we hear described of their species is apparently reproducing in trios, in a fashion heavily suggested to be completely nonsexual; part of their story involves them trying to reconnect with a former lover, both of them affected by the loss of the third, that is heavily laden with the sense of hopelessness and despair that pervades the issue as all the stars in the sky have, literally, been broken.

they’re deeply inhuman, and drawn to be completely unrecognizable by any human standard, and nonetheless they are people in a very obvious way, and its a terrible tragedy what happens to them, and what they end up doing is hoping that something prevents this all from happening