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Caroline grooms herself and eats some seeds and doesn't say anything.

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Mhalir struggles against it for a long time. The horror is too big to fit into himself; it seems like it should be too much to fit into the world, it shouldn't make logical sense for it to be possible, but of course reality is reality and it is the way it is, and... 

Eventually he stops struggling, in some confusing metaphorical way that feels a little like giving up but also not like giving up at all. 

"I - can live in a world where that might happen," he says dully. "Because I am, right. That is what 'can' means, just - this is where I am, this is how things are." 

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" - yes. I think that's a good way to put it. You do live in a world where that might happen. Everyone does. There are better and worse ways to live in it but there's no way to live not in it."

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"And - living in it is better than not existing at all. I - maybe it is more sensible to compare it to the world where I do not exist at all and notice that existing is better even if I am very small, instead of comparing it to the world where I already fixed all the problems and - being afraid that I am not strong enough to do that and will fail." 

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"Maybe. I personally find that it is not really worth comparing my situation to any other situations other than ones I can go do if I'd like."

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"- I mean, I think I have to compare the situation I am in to other possible situations in order to notice that I want things to be different because I think they would be better that way? That is - what having goals in the world means, almost, that you are here and you want to be there and you chart a course between those points." 

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"Hmmm. I think that's not how I make goals but it does seem like a perfectly good way to make goals if it is working for you."

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"How do you make goals?" 

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"Usually I am curious about something, and so I decide to try things until I figure it out."

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"Oh. I do that too but I had not previously thought of it as having a goal, just as - being curious. It was - nice, when I had time and could afford to just do that, but it did not happen very often." 

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"It sounds like you were very busy."

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"There were always many urgent things to do." 

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"That is some of what I identified earlier as a bit like drowning."

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"...Maybe." 

 

 

 

 

 

"I did not feel that way when Seerow was alive. I - felt - I remember - it was like the world had opened into something vast and beautiful, it felt abundant, I thought we had all the time we needed..." 

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"Tell me about him?"

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"He was an Andalite scientist. He studied our planet. Realized we were sapient, no one had recognized that before. He thought it was tragic that we lacked more than rudimentary technology, so he shared theirs with us. He - I thought he was my friend - 

- he betrayed us. He had expressed unease before but nothing stronger than that - I had not been expecting violence at all... He died." 

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"I'm so sorry."

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"I miss him. I wish he were not dead; I want him back. But - I do not think that there is anywhere for souls to go when they die, on either of our homeworlds." 

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"That is very terrible. It shouldn't be like that."

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"It should not." 

 

"I - live in the world where that happened. I can exist here, obviously, because I do. But I am not sure I can be okay in the world where that happened and nothing I can ever do will bring him back." 

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"When you say that, what does not being okay mean?"

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"...That it will always hurt to live in this world where he is dead. That there will always be something I want and cannot have. Many things. He is not the only person who died in the war." 

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"Yes. I think that's probably true. It will probably always hurt, that there are people who are dead and cannot be rescued, that there are people we can't see again and roles we can't play in their lives anymore."

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It helps, somehow, hearing that; it doesn't hurt less but it feels less dissonant. 

"It did not previously stop me from wanting other things or having other goals? I am not sure why it feels so - in the way, right now." 

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"It might be that you are allowing yourself to have more feelings about it now that it is less dangerous to do so. Or that you are usually able to push those feelings into motivation to do things, and without anything to push them at they hurt more. Or that you should not be doing things right now, but your unconscious mind does not know how to communicate that to your conscious mind, so it makes random things loud in the hopes that'll get you to listen."

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