I’m Hearing: Type O Negative - How Could She?

Sean left for NS yesterday (Singapore army). :-( We’ve been listening to him rant and rave on IRC about various ways of crippling himself to prevent duty…for months upon months now, and during his last hours around, he seemed to have come to grips with it. His normally depressive ranting had turned into what seemed like calm acceptance, which was both relieving and unnerving at the same time. All of us knew the time was coming and it was unavoidable, but it came up so fast.

The channel just seems to me to have a weird fogginess hovering over it…it’s just not the same without him there. I fucking miss him! ;_; I mean, it’s not even been a full day since he left and I feel this odd emptiness without him. I ran some channel statistics on my logs from July 1 to yesterday and discovered he had typed a good 3000 more lines than the next person (which was me). He’s there almost all his waking moments, jabbering on about “fuck this” and “I have no love for…” and “coconut monkey” and “fuck those ___(insert anything here)”. His angst was just so….endearing. I can’t really explain why it was. I mean, normally angsty people get on my nerves like you wouldn’t believe; in fact, there are some people in the channel who really incense me.

But Sean…what can I say about him? I mean, it’s beyond words really. Sean is unquestionably one of the most talented artists I’ve ever known. His style is incredibly distinct and original…it’s gritty and dark yet infused with an incredible sensuality that makes me feel almost guilty for finding it so attractive (much the same type of feeling I get from Giger’s work, though the two have very different styles and subject matters). There is real passion and life behind it in a way that is contradictory to its mood (upon first glance.) I mean, the guy draws Goth Lolis holding bloody knives and teddy bears, looking half-dead yet with fire behind their eyes. When I think of the song “Living Dead Girl” I think of his art.

Besides being such a talented artist, Sean is incredibly passionate, and is a genuine person. He can’t help being who he is, and he doesn’t make a bit of effort to be what others expect him to be, and I truly respect that. But poor Sean has been struck with perpetually bad luck, and he does not get the respect and credit he so rightfully deserves.

I once helped Sean by voice-ing a character in one of his animation projects. It wasn’t really that big a deal for me…all I had to do was read a couple lines into my microphone and voila…but it really was a big deal to him. The animation itself was, of course, incredibly well-done…but I was strangely amused that Sean got so many compliments about having a real voice actor in his project rather than simply using a computer-generated voice. The fact that I got to be a part of that was really special to me. (Of course he sped up my voice to up the pitch in order to make the character sound “cuter”, but hey. :-D )

It wasn’t, however, until this morning that I realized just how much I was going to miss him. I mean…I literally spend hours talking to him each day…and now he’s gone. I’m not sure he’s comfortable hearing things like this, but I really have grown to love him in such a way that I would never want anything bad to happen to him, *ever*. In a way that I’d defend him at the expense of my own dignity in order to keep others from badmouthing him, that I’d pummel the shit out of anyone who teased him unnecessarily for things out of his control. If I’d had the money or power, I would have done anything to keep him from having to serve in the army (being that he was so much against it he threatened self-inflicted injury) but it’s probably for the best, as it is not only a requirement for being male in Singapore, but it will be an important life experience for him. Sean, the poor, tortured, sensitive, beautiful soul.

But it’s not forever. Only three weeks of training, then he’ll be back once a week for the next three years. So he’ll be here to lavish us all with angst and self-pity and rage, if only in small doses. Hachi has considered making a SeanBot for the channel so we’ll be able to experience him even when he’s not here. I’m totally for that idea. If he can’t be here himself, at least he’ll be here in spirit.

So Sean, I know you can’t read this right now, but I hope you know that I miss you and am thinking of you lots. I love you. :-)