/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

>>57833352
Ina sweep

Thank you to everyone who read and made me a 2vote writer. Now, as promised, I can finally go on my menhera ego arc and turn public opinion against me.

Before that, >>57832265 as promised here are some of the things I was thinking about while I wrote it. It took a few weeks to turn around in my head as opposed to Out of the Blue/Victory or Death which were more or less weekend pushes. I did want to use basically all of the themes for the contest and the idea basically sprung from there.

>theme prompts used: dream, embers, binding, seasons, ephemeral
>dream sequence at the start, plus the entire conflict behind whether Ina is "real"
>embers are referenced by the first dream ending, as well as Anon trying to keep his memory of Ina alive in general
>Anon is subconsciously keeping himself alive as well (binding) because he has not truly said his goodbyes to Ina. When he finally decides to let go, he is fulfilled and has unbound himself
>autumn is the season of grief/death as well as cyclical rebirth
>ephemeral: the truth of Ina, in this case, is never really spelled out and doesn't really matter to Anon by the end of it. It is something that can be perceived, but never truly grasped because humans are not fourth-dimensional eldritch beings
>"bird missing wings" symbolism call and receive in the graveyard
>sparrow symbolizes humility and companionship
>flashback death scene in present tense to better illustrate how good Anon's memory is of that day
>it takes 108 minutes for Ina to be taken away by the ambulance, which is the number of earthly temptations in Buddhism before you reach nirvana
>fic starts and ends at the park
>"keeping the bench warm" line symbolizes anon never letting go of Ina (hence the park being sacred in a sense), and by the end of the story he has said his goodbyes and no longer wishes to cling to the past

The fic goes to great lengths to argue that it doesn't really matter what Ina is, and I won't contradict that here half because it ruins the mystique, and half because I don't really know. The fact is that she's more real than a hallucination, which to Anon is good enough. Maybe Ina became an ascended being and merely thinking of her springs a little brain ghost into existence. Who knows. However, by the end, both Anon and Ina are dead for sure. Maybe that's a happy ending.