[Kubo responds with a frustrated expression already on his face, a song all planned to illustrate this story, with no idea that he's about to delve straight into the realms of TL;DR.]

You're asking this in seriousness, so I'm going to answer this in seriousness.

[He plays a song in accompaniment, and his paper illustrates his words, but it's not a traditional story he tells. His feelings are a little intense, just yet. But he will be filing this away for future stories.]

When you grow up with something, you believe it's normal. It doesn't seem strange.

I grew up in a cave, with nothing. I had to prepare every meal, guide Mother through every action when the sun was up, since I was about 6 years old. She kept getting worse every day - drifting farther from me -

And when I try to tell people about it, they get very upset. They ask how I did it.

I don't know how I did it, except that it needed to be done, so I did.

Mother grew up in a place where emotions were . . . impolite, at best. Love and caring and kindness were indecorous. Embarrassing. She lived in that for so, so much longer than you and I have been alive. And when you insulted someone - you died. Or you killed them. There was no in between.

When my father had the chance to present her with a different way - a kinder way of living - she took that chance faster than I believe any of you would take any good thing offered to you.

That took courage. She had to know how my Grandfather would react -

And she did it anyway, and dealt with the consequences. My grandfather hurt her. He injured her beyond healing. He took my father from her, and mutilated him, and that was the family she came from -

And she raised me with love and kindness, taught me to act with compassion and to tell my father's stories with pride.

It took so much courage for her to leave that life, and if she is still more harsh than you want anyone to be . . . then I'm glad. I'm glad your world is so gentle. I'm glad your world isn't the burning heat of a star, or the destructive cold of empty space, with nothing in between.

But you'll never understand my mother, and maybe you'll never understand why I love her so much. But I do love her. She suffered and struggled. She had a seat in the heavens where she was powerful, respected, and she gave it up for love. And the price she paid for giving it up was so high . . .

So high that I . . .

[His fingers falter on the strings.]

I would understand if she . . . if given the chance, she wouldn't pay it again.

[Oh, he has to pause his playing to think about that. But he resumes, summoning his resolve.]

So yes, I love my mother, I love her for all that she sacrificed, all the wonders of the cosmos she could have had, but chose me and my father instead. It's not her fault she had a life that was mostly hard, and cold, and full of violent perfection. My grandfather wanted perfection, like you, and perfection always comes with a price.

The price you're asking her to pay is to have lived an entirely different life from what she lived, on the moon.

Maybe you should ask her if she ever wanted to live that life at all.

I'm not living the life she wanted for me. If that's "fucked up" like you say, then . . . I'm just glad fate has let you live a not-fucked-up life. My mother wanted the same for me. But she didn't get it. That's our difference. That's why I love her - one of the reasons I love her so much. Because she gave me as kind and gentle a life as she could, when she had almost no experience of kindness or gentleness herself.

Maybe she doesn't respond to you when you're rude and inappropriate the way you'd like her to, but . . . maybe you should also watch your language when speaking to my mother.

[He cuts his song, and the feed, short. Kubo out yo.]