Weather Hackers☆

After a rollercoaster month, this is it. Hololive's Kiryu Coco has done her final stream in this persona. Much of it was heartfelt sharing from her on-stream co-workers from the different ``generations'' and what-not.

But that isn't the immediate focus on what I want to write about.

Legacy and self-identity. The decision to ``graduate'' (i.e. retire from the character she plays in kayfabe) has thrown up a whole bunch of existence-related questions. We know that ``Kiryu Coco'' is a character that the woman behind her plays (let's call her ``K-chan'' for brevity), with the vast numbers of archived (and unarchived) video streams, artwork, and social media posts acting as the observers' record and reaction of Coco. And from there, we all form our own individual opinions on who ``Kiryu Coco'' is, and generate a consensus on who ``Kiryu Coco'' is in the form of lore that is kept alive through memes, and content in various wikis.

But ``Kiryu Coco'' has always been a character that is played by K-chan, the woman behind her. ``Kiryu Coco'' also has an off-stream persona that also contributes indirectly to the lore, since the off-stream actions do alter on-screen activities, especially on business done in the name of ``Kiryu Coco''. However, how much of that off-stream action is ``Kiryu Coco'', and how much of it is K-chan herself?

The legacy that is left behind after K-chan retires from ``Kiryu Coco'', is it the legacy of K-chan, or is it the legacy of ``Kiryu Coco''?

Or is there a difference at all?

I find the situation interesting because it is the closest type of experiment we can have with the concept of separation of the soul from the body at the conclusion of the death of the body. In this case, ``Kiryu Coco'' is the body, the avatar that K-chan wears when she is performing as Kiryu Coco. When we say we like Kiryu Coco, we mean that we like the way ``Kiryu Coco'' is being played by K-chan, and I suppose that when we say Kiryu Coco has done a lot for Hololive, we are really saying that K-chan has done a lot for Hololive when she played Kiryu Coco.

So in this parasocial relationship, when we grieve, we are grieving about the loss of the Kiryu Coco character, which is the sum of ``Kiryu Coco'' and K-chan. So perhaps the legacy left behind is both of K-chan and of ``Kiryu Coco'' combined in the form of Kiryu Coco. And Kiryu Coco's statement of sending her off with a smile and informing us that she was ready to head off to be a super-star in another world is really informing us that ``Kiryu Coco'' has reached the end of its natural life, and its soul (i.e. K-chan) is heading out into a different world, and is very much alive.

The question then is if those who loved Kiryu Coco knows how to find K-chan again wherever she goes. Put back into our real world [instead of kayfabe], it's the same as asking if we who loved our loved ones know how to find our loved one's soul again when they are no longer corporally animated in this world.

Naturally, since we do not know who K-chan is, we call her by her last known name, which is ``Kiryu Coco'', even though after ``graduation'', it is a dead character. That's our chosen manner of identifying K-chan whose actions and portrayal in ``Kiryu Coco'' made Kiryu Coco.

Clearly K-chan no longer identified herself as Kiryu Coco any more, otherwise there wouldn't be a need to ``graduate'' in the first place.

Does this mean that if we voluntarily choose to leave our physical body through death, it is also a situation where we (as in our soul) no longer identifies with the body that it is riding in?

There might be some truth in that, to be had. Suicide is often thought of as a way to ``end it all'' for oneself; however this does not mean that any external factors that caused the situation that made one consider ``ending it all'' will be resolved. What is truly ending is the self-identification of this particular physical body with the soul that rides in it.

I talked recently about feeling as though I were a walking-dead, in the sense that I am just going through the steps to maintain [enough] life to fulfil obligations until the point where I have no more obligations to fulfil before just ``ending it all''. Maybe I (as in the soul riding in this meatbag) just don't identify with what this physical body is as determined by the behaviours and relationships that it had gathered as lore over time.

...which raises a different question. Is this notion of no longer identifying with whom I have seem to have been considered a type of self-loathing? I am uncertain about that because I don't hate being alive; I somehow tolerate it ambivalently. I say this because the thought of dropping everything and going to somewhere else to restart a new identity did not fill me with great enthusiasm---perhaps I have lots of baggage left to carry around, sometimes literally instead of metaphorically.

Eh, who knows. It's late night---I've been marathoning the Animorphs series as the temperature kept on being stupid high, and am feeling a little sad from the ending of Kiryu Coco the character. My right ribs feel like I might have bruised them somehow, since breathing seems to make them feel pain, as is gentle palpations of the spot.

Not likely to die, but definitely affected in many ways. Let's just call this a small rant and leave it till the next update.

Ciao.

P.S.: Weather Hackers☆