I have a favorite character named Kiwi.

He’s a small, bright lime green bird with a feathery crest, standing 12 inches tall. 

He’s also a trans-dimensional, omnipotent, and overpowered immortal being that exists as one true entity across every single reality; each universe containing an instance of him that can think and behave on its own, but shares the knowledge between each other when needed.

How exactly did he come to be?

Well, there are many things that factored into his creation. I doubt that I have fully uncovered all the reasons for his being myself.

Mainly, Kiwi is a manifestation of unlived childhood adventures and innocence. He is a fantasy; he is who I wish I could be but the boundaries of human life do not allow. The freedom as a bird—an immortal bird—is something that I envy to the furthest extent of my own existence. He lives a simple, carefree life that he is content with; being able to fly around and explore to his heart’s desire. Kiwi has an insatiable curiosity and a fancy for the unknown, resulting in an endless drive to try and learn new things, which suits his eternal circumstances well.

Kiwi is also a manifestation of my fear. He’s an easygoing bird, potentially adorable and mostly harmless. No one would see him as a real threat. I myself fear being feared, and so does the little bird. So it is refreshing to just be a non-intimidating derpy NPC that at most insults you by pathetically calling you a drunk-sounding wooden lamp post. But be warned—he means it—it is just that us mortals are too unsophisticated to understand the merit behind his words. 

Kiwi is a manifestation of my comedy: a seemingly idiotic and unpredictable bird with no logical thought process. Though a powerful god-ascended being, he spends his time doing random things out of piqued curiosity, such as poking a tree with a twig out of nowhere to see how it reacts. His mind is rather… spontaneous, and he acts randomly without thinking. Technically, he isn’t overpowered since he is severely nerfed by intelligence. 

Kiwi is a manifestation of my own ideas about immortality. It was interesting to play as an immortal character, really thinking about what it means to never die, and how one would cope with such an existence. It allows me to practice empathy, being in the shoes of an entity so drastically different. Though it is extremely theoretical, it helps me see why some things are the way they are in the universe. 

… The green bird who I call Kiwi did arise after the death of my own. I had a bird once—he was young, pure, happy, and a bit enigmatic, full of energy and innocence. But his life was cut short when someone’s dog ran into our house, one day in 6th grade after I opened the front door to go to school. I was devastated as a kid, this being the first true loss of my life. I can still replay the scene clearly in my mind, the memory will stay with me forever. Kiwi is, in many ways, the spirit of that bird… and from that incident, something else emerged as well. 

A valuable lesson that I reflected upon; a lesson of hatred and forgiveness… I found myself wishing death upon that dog, for it had killed an innocent bird and taken the light out of my life for that moment. But after a few days of being able to do nothing about it—and remembering that I also liked cats—I realized that my hatred was, in the end, wrong. Cats kill way more birds than dogs do, meaning that I should really be hating cats more. Loving cats and hating dogs—that would ultimately make me biased. And so from there, I had two options to correct myself: Either begin to hate cats equally as much , or forgive the dogs. 

Deciding that it would be better to love rather than hate, I made the choice to learn and forgive—understanding that you cannot blame one for their nature.

Kiwi makes a point about life that is often overlooked. He’s not very bright in the head—well, that’s what anyone who knew him would say. However, his spirit and cheer remains unrivaled. His simple lifestyle is all that he needs to be extremely happy—he does not desire anything big or complicated. There is nothing that he wants more than to explore and follow his curiosity. There is a saying: “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Well, Kiwi is just too ignorant to even realize the other side.

He is the existence that keeps the youth in me alive.