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futurology2016-11-11 01:46 am
dishearten) wrote in futurology2016-11-11 01:46 am
VIDEO | un: huntsman
( this post has been a long time coming. he's needed time to digest the news of the fate of the deemer, and that's even without a heart. it's uncomfortable to be faced with a legion of those that suffered as he had, only worse. by all intents and appearances, there was nothing left of them now.
does that make him lucky? that a part of him still remains, however dismantled from being controlled for decades?
lucky or not, it gives him perspective. a lot of perspective. and for better or worse, he feels the need to share it, in the hopes the rest of the team might understand a little better. )
By now I'm sure all of us know the condition of the Demeers. That they are being manipulated and controlled by a force outside themselves. All information we have indicates that there is nothing left to them after the Taxara infiltrate, their personality wiped and their body lost as a vessel for the means of another.
( he grimaces, unable to quite look the team in the eye as he continues. )
I hope that most of you do not know what it feels like, to not be in control of yourself. It is not a feeling I'd wish on anyone, because I've lived it. I was enslaved for longer than I lived freely. When I was young and foolish— ( some of Audentes can remember that man, thanks to the time shenanigans back in Oska. the Huntsman, full of heart, but full of anger too. ) —I made a promise I ultimately refused to keep. And I paid for it, when an evil queen stole my heart and used it to control me.
( he's outing himself, as the man Sieglinde is trying to help. Graham himself is starting to realize that is too much weight for her to carry; he'll have to broaden his search. but not now, not when there's more important tasks at hand. )
She made me steal. She made me hurt. She made me kill. She made me... do whatever would please her. And I could not resist, nor escape, though it didn't stop me from trying. I have been in the place of these people, for longer than most of you have lived. If it is true, that there's nothing of them left after these creatures took them over, then they are lucky to not have to witness their hands doing the work of another. But even if they are not, believe me when I say living as a slave to the hatred of someone else is a fate worse than death.
If we cannot save them, we owe it to them to bring them to rest.
( it's a negative perspective, and he knows it. but if he were in their place, and he has been in their place... he knows what he would want. )
does that make him lucky? that a part of him still remains, however dismantled from being controlled for decades?
lucky or not, it gives him perspective. a lot of perspective. and for better or worse, he feels the need to share it, in the hopes the rest of the team might understand a little better. )
By now I'm sure all of us know the condition of the Demeers. That they are being manipulated and controlled by a force outside themselves. All information we have indicates that there is nothing left to them after the Taxara infiltrate, their personality wiped and their body lost as a vessel for the means of another.
( he grimaces, unable to quite look the team in the eye as he continues. )
I hope that most of you do not know what it feels like, to not be in control of yourself. It is not a feeling I'd wish on anyone, because I've lived it. I was enslaved for longer than I lived freely. When I was young and foolish— ( some of Audentes can remember that man, thanks to the time shenanigans back in Oska. the Huntsman, full of heart, but full of anger too. ) —I made a promise I ultimately refused to keep. And I paid for it, when an evil queen stole my heart and used it to control me.
( he's outing himself, as the man Sieglinde is trying to help. Graham himself is starting to realize that is too much weight for her to carry; he'll have to broaden his search. but not now, not when there's more important tasks at hand. )
She made me steal. She made me hurt. She made me kill. She made me... do whatever would please her. And I could not resist, nor escape, though it didn't stop me from trying. I have been in the place of these people, for longer than most of you have lived. If it is true, that there's nothing of them left after these creatures took them over, then they are lucky to not have to witness their hands doing the work of another. But even if they are not, believe me when I say living as a slave to the hatred of someone else is a fate worse than death.
If we cannot save them, we owe it to them to bring them to rest.
( it's a negative perspective, and he knows it. but if he were in their place, and he has been in their place... he knows what he would want. )
no subject
regret meant little, after decades of abuse.
he nods to the assent — his history was not to garner sympathy, simply understanding. because that would help see the Deemer to rest. ) If there's an alternative, I would welcome it. In the absence of one, we should find a way to see that their suffering ends as peacefully as we can.
( as for the question, he actually lifts his head enough to catch the stranger by the eye, even across the distance of their communicators. he looks sad, disheartened perhaps, weary — but all together, not as emotional as one might suspect. )
I still don't have the heart she stole from me. She crushed it more than a year ago, now. Without it I feel little. In instances like this one, I suppose that's a mercy.
( the only mercy Regina ever gave him. and entirely unintentional, too. )
no subject
[His expression flickers a little at that suggestion--that it's a mercy. He has a thousand memories of hearts metaphorically frozen, his own and others. Moody Blues playing the past over and over again, guilt wrapped tight in a vice grip; a report of numb fingers drifting over a piano keyboard, projecting emotion and feeling none of it; his own dead eyes in a mirror for years and years and years.]
[Slowly, he shakes his head. Just a little.]
I don't mean to offend. But even in grief and pain, feeling nothing is never preferable. Even emotions that hurt should be felt.
[Or . . . no. He pauses, rephrases.]
Even emotions that hurt have the potential to heal, if you feel them for all that they are. I think that's more correct. Feeling nothing is a black hole.
no subject
( even fairytale worlds sometimes had to own up to the fact not everyone got a happy ending. he'd be delighted to perfectly rehabilitate the Deemer, but the likelihood seems narrow at best. not always is it kindest to force life to continue when the quality of it could only decline.
Giorno's words cause a bleak twist of his lips, some grim facsimile of a smile, vacant of any sense of joy. ) Someone told me once that not feeling anything was preferable, when what you felt sucked. ( absolutely not paraphrasing there, presenting the wise words of Emma Swan. )
After I remembered, for some time, I thought that was so. Now I'm more inclined to agree with you, but that's a matter for another day. I'd see the Deemer a resolution before I worry for myself.
( he's started on trying to find a way back to emotion and actually living again, no matter how little he has to look forward to. He needs to try harder at that. but he is at least stable; he can wait. the Deemer should not. )
no subject
There will always be someone to help before you help yourself.
[Not that it's an excuse. He doesn't believe that, if only because he doesn't know Graham well enough to make that sort of determination. Certainly not quite well enough to call him out on it.]
There are a lot of us. We can multitask.
[hey i just met you and this is crazy but heres some agency you can have some maybe]
no subject
( it's not exactly an excuse. he's already working on it, and he'll work on it still after this is resolved. if anything this has reminded him he needs to work harder. still, they had only so much time to help the Deemer. they had to be the priority. )
I have my freedom. Restoring my heart can wait until the Deemer have theirs as well.
no subject
[Backing off would have amounted to the same statement, but it's better to verbalize it, he thinks. There are too many people in his world, his city, who've been broken and left empty; there are people you can push, but not those people. Even if he could, he shouldn't.]
[All the same, he won't let it go for long. The moment there's calm, he'll turn up again like a bad apple. So to speak.]
I appreciate that you spoke up. I wouldn't have argued, but . . . I think it's difficult for many people to reconcile the thought that death might be a mercy.
no subject
I think it should be difficult. It should never be the easy choice. All the same, that doesn't mean it can't be the right one.
no subject
You're right. It shouldn't be easy.
[But privately, he thinks: sometimes it is. There are plenty of shoulds in the world, and ideally everyone would be able to partake of them. But he doesn't. He's never felt guilt about killing the people who deserved it, in the worst ways he could imagine.]
It would be oversimplifying to say that all right choices are difficult ones. But more often than not, I think that they are. Especially in this case . . . it's complicated, isn't it, to explain to someone who's never been there what it's like to give up control entirely.
no subject
( in the end, it's possible that people who have never felt it can never really understand. he hopes that his perspective is at least a bridge to that knowledge that nobody should be forced to experience themselves. )