In conclusion, I mock because I love.

Kara no Kyoukai: Satsujin Kousatsu

A potential interpretation

By Nathan Turowsky

Shiki: I represent the horror genre. While I have an incredibly fucked-up, dark, twisted, hurting heart, I make the conscious choice to contain it and seek a better life.

Mikiya: I represent fans of the horror genre. While the things that I love about Shiki are her best traits, my willingness to tolerate the darkness within her and help her bear her sins makes society regard me as an enabler or even somewhat ‘creepy’.

Touko: I represent Charles Williams, creator of the urban fantasy subgenre and author of Descent into Hell and The Place of the Lion. My interest in Shiki has somewhat ulterior motives but I genuinely do care about her, and although I jerk around with Mikiya sometimes I care about him too.

Shirazumi: I represent Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse. My goal in life is to reach Shiki’s sick, twisted, dying heart and make it conform to my own nihilistic and unpleasant ideas about what it is.

Azaka: I represent Nasu Kinoko, the author of Kara no Kyoukai. While I think that it is possible to redeem Shiki and even Shirazumi, and in fact get along reasonably well with both of them, my protective attitude towards Mikiya makes me extremely suspicious of them most of the time.

Shiki: I should also mention that I am voiced by Maaya Sakamoto. You will worship me. Build a shrine to me now, geek boy.

Mikiya: Yes, my mistress.

What I realised

What the right wing of the Republican Party is telling Americans, and has been telling them ever since Barry Goldwater fell from grace and took whatever HONESTY was involved in American conservatism with him, is actually very simple. It's simple, and it's clear, and it's what people want to hear because we're so masochistically in love with capitalism in this country: 'You're not a person. You're not a real child of God or of America. You're just a factor to be solved for on a rabid graphing calculator.

'You're not a person. You're just the profiteer class's good little property, and we'll keep you placated with our talk of a 'freedom' that has no sense of either mercy or justice. Chaos except for the profiteer class. Sink or swim. Social Darwinism for everyone!--and by the way, the same theory applied to biology is Satanic. Tough on crime, except when it's by bankers or against women and minorities. It's perfectly fine to fool around with secretaries but if you dissemble and then apologise rather than just denying it we'll impeach you and if you're a homo we'll dehumanise you and use you as an 'issue'.

'America, America! Die for America! Only in America. An America of the banks, a kind of banking that would make Alexander Hamilton spew. America for the insurers who gamble on the right to good health. America for the people who two hundred years ago would have made it just fine in Britain or Germany or anyplace else.' What, then, exactly, is the point?

This doesn't necessarily apply to the right in other countries. Some countries, like Australia and Germany, have (vaguely) more moderate political consensus. Some, like Japan, don't even HAVE left and right, just different interest sections in the Diet. I'm not outright condemning conservatism and calling it inhuman. I'm only condemning American conservatism in the year 2010 and calling it inhuman. There is a difference, and it is chasmal in its depth and breadth and dolorous in the fate that it bespells for a perfectly acceptable word and concept that's being twisted into that special blend of radical libertarianism, I've-got-mine pillaging, and dehumanisation of the Other that, back when 'conservative' meant 'just kind of a killjoy' and 'liberal' meant 'just kind of a dick', Edmund Burke was trying to WARN us about.

Australian conservatives? Okay by me. British conservatives? Go nuts. Japanese conservatives? Fine. Mexican conservatives? Not my thing, but hey, if that's what makes you happy, go for it. American conservatives at other points in history? Probably right about some things.

Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Glenn Beck, Sharron Angle? It's not even clear that you even like this country, guys. You're certainly not willing to pay for its upkeep, for one thing. Even if you excuse yourself with American liberty you're just fooling yourself because liberty defined in the negative is a Julianic 'no-deed'. Seriously, if you really dislike America and American justice and American mercy so much, get the fuck out.  It'll be easier on us and on you.

My current Big-Ass Writing Project: The first several chapters.

(Don't orry, it becomes more interesting later on when memory-eating tapir spirits, ghosts that can travel at superluminal speeds, and think tanks that employ zombie goons become involved. This is just the NORMAL PEOPLE DOING NORMAL THINGS part at the beginning of any work in this sort of genre.)

1

When Mary Marguerite Cosgrove was twenty-five years old and just the last month ordained in the Church of England, she came to the opinion that she should rent a flat in Jerusalem for some time, from a few months up to a few years, before returning to her family’s home in Great Snoring. A decision like moving from Norfolk to Israel for a change of airs is not one that is or should be made lightly, and upon looking out over the line of brick houses and the weather-beaten war memorial for what would probably be the last time in quite a while, Miss Cosgrove heaved a great sigh. She bent down and picked up a piece of stone from the ground: Norfolk flint, which would serve as a reminder of home.

            Miss Cosgrove had several personal reasons for wanting to go abroad. First, going abroad, as an experience, had intrinsic merit, going to Jerusalem even more so. Second, her parents, Mr Plantagenet and Mrs Amelia Cosgrove (née Random), were both fifty-five years old and as such had seen fit to quit Great Snoring, move to the south coast of England, and leave the house to Miss Cosgrove’s older brother, Mr Henry Cosgrove. Fifty-five was a very young age to retire to the south coast but the elder Cosgroves had been in poor health for a while now and were apparently of the opinion, unfounded or not, that the Norfolk climate was not doing them any wonders. Miss Cosgrove did not think that the south coast would be that different, but her parents said that, well, they could feel it. It made their joints ache less.

            Miss Cosgrove felt a bit depressed sharing the family house with just her brother. Although she had been ordained she had been quietly taken aside and the Bishop of Norwich had told her as gently as he could that she probably would not actually have a parish for quite some time. And so this was the second reason.

            Third, Miss Cosgrove had had a bad relationship. It had never become physical beyond hugging and kissing—just Miss Cosgrove’s luck, no relationship in her life ever had—but it had been emotionally intense, and Helen’s betrayals and privations still hurt quite a lot. Miss Cosgrove did not even want to get into the whole ‘ordained lesbian’ thing. She thought that was part of the reason why the Bishop of Norwich was reluctant to give her a parish. The whole situation made Miss Cosgrove a little disappointed in the people and organisation she loved. So a break was in order.