✘ text | un: hound ✘

[ofobedience]

[Something like this-- it's really not his style. He's more accustomed to keeping his thoughts to himself, to keeping his own council. But bit by incremental bit, things have been changing in him, a slow and gradual unfurling towards greater acceptance of their situation, towards being a part of this team. He's accepted that he'll never see his world again - something that, rightly or wrongly, he believes down to the core of himself - had believed that, despite the hollow rawness it leaves him with, he's made an uneasy kind of peace with this 'knowledge'.

Only, the recent transfers have led to a renewal of his tendency to withdraw, and he's kept to himself since learning that so many of those he'd finally come to consider something akin to friends have now departed for other teams. It stirs up all the old feelings in him, a misplaced sense of betrayal-- more than anything, his own betrayal of himself for allowing these attachments to form. Everyone leaves, in the end-- it's something he should have known.

Still, it means something, perhaps, that he eventually brings his concerns here, rather than allowing them to eat away at him indefinitely. Even if he ends up doing it in a roundabout manner.]

I have some questions, if you will.

Why forge connections with others when they're only going to end up severed? What could you possibly stand to gain from it? Isn't it preferable, ultimately, to keep oneself separate from all that and thereby avoid the messy business of emotional baggage?

Such things surely only weigh one down. Create unnecessary complications. Weaken you.

Comments

un: what; this is not the answer gio was looking for 8(

[bladefaire]

[ The question speaks to him a little bit, pulls at a chord deep down inside that he works hard to keep hidden and forgotten. The reminder of it now sets him back on edge, and leads to an answer that's perhaps a bit more vehement than it ought to be. ]

I don't. I have no time for things that weaken me.

probably not, but it's what he's got!

[ofobedience]

Well. That would be the practical response.

How long have you been here?

[He doesn't recognise the username, but that doesn't necessarily mean all that much.]

[feytality]

So what are you spending your time on, instead?

text; un: wanda

[scarletcast]

[ She can't say she entirely disagrees. ]

What do you think is better? To have it and understand something new, only to lose it, or to never have known it at all?

[ofobedience]

The latter would save one an awful lot of trouble.

[But that doesn't quite answer her question, does it? It would make things easier perhaps, but then his most treasured memories are from back then, of Heine and Lily before bad changed to worse, and even though those memories are tainted now by everything that came after, the thought of losing them is still one that terrifies him.

Does the same apply to the memories he has of those who've transferred out? Hard to say.]

text;

[skelepun]

[Well, it doesn't take a big brain to see what this was about. Or any brain, in Sans' case.]

hey, you wanna go for a walk?

[ofobedience]

[Are you offering to walk the dog?

He wants to say no. Sans is just one more person who will, he thinks, eventually leave. More of that emotional baggage. But then again, how long can one stay holed up alone before the cracks and fissures start to show?

Still--]

Perhaps. But I'm a little busy.

[...busy lounging about in his room, staring at the ceiling, sure.]

text; un: white_lotus

[pummelling]

[He's only spoken to Giovanni a couple of times, and to say that they'd seen eye to eye on any of those occasions would be far more generous than he imagines either of them would be willing to reach for.

Still.

It's not like him to stay silent. Sucker for the tough cases he is, and all that.]

Because holding out alone is only practical for so long.

[ofobedience]

[Far more generous, certainly. Although perhaps, at the moment, alternate perspectives from his own is exactly what he needs.

Still--]

And why is that? It seems more practical than the alternative.

text | un: RHY5-W1NZ

[dbag]

Wow, this is like, the most cartoon villainy thing ever said.

[ofobedience]

What eloquence. Would that I had your way with words.

not here

[ex_mettacrusher33]

[But he sees this. And really...]

not here

[ofobedience]

[Silent commiseration is go.]

text | un: scottmccall

[banded]

If you treat every bond like it'll inevitably break, then you aren't living in the moment. People meet new people all the time. That's a part of living. You won't always remember the people you meet, but you might.

But if you're asking this, I think you know that it's too late to change.

[It might be unfair to add that last sentence, but he adds it anyway. Why beat around the bush about it?]

[ofobedience]

[Not entirely fair, perhaps, but not uncalled for either. Still, he'll continue to tiptoe around it, because that's what he does.]

Even when a thing is too late to change, it isn't too late for future preventative measures. Once bitten, and all that. One could call it a learning curve.

text; un: unseenshadow

[rebells]

People are interesting. Getting to know them is its own reward.

[ofobedience]

[In truth, he barely registered the existence of other people who weren't from the Below until relatively recently. Only ever saw them as props and extras and blurry shadows that existed too far outside of himself to count. And so--]

Interesting isn't the word I'd use.

text; un: d.cooper

[tibet]

All things in life are transient, not just relationships. Being fleeting doesn't make them worthless, nor does it mean the people who find value in them are weak.

[ofobedience]

I struggle to see the value in investing one's time in another person if they're going to consider it a finite transaction.

[Having never experienced anything approaching normal relationships, it's a difficult thing now, to start learning only to lose them again.]

TXT ( NN ).

[trueborn]

[ aw mr geepers ]

You miss them, don't you?

[ofobedience]

[...mr geepers...]

I didn't say that.

text; un: steelsamayarai

[feytality]

Because it's worth it. Even if it hurts to lose people, those memories you have with them are precious, for you and for them. It changes the both of you. Just because it can hurt doesn't mean it makes you weak. It makes you stronger.

Living your life alone, without anyone else, it might seem like the better choice, but that's more painful than anything.

[ofobedience]

Is it really, though? I'm not so certain of that. Living alone-- it's easier. Keeps things simple.

[Even though it doesn't. He'd never felt anything but hollowed-out misery and fear and a bone-deep loneliness that threatened to consume him, back there. Lived only for the past and for that one final reckoning with the very person who'd abandoned him to that dismal fate in the first place.]

text. un: schbrodingers cat

[12inches]

you've never been to school or worked in retail have you

[ Or... lived life in general. This is a genuine response, stranger, give him time. ]

[ofobedience]

No, I haven't. What does that have to do with anything?

un: wtfwhocares

[sadgay]

go get laid

like right now

[ofobedience]

What.

TEXT | un: p.parker

[webdesigned]

it depends on if you think knowing them was worth it

if you could forget everyone that ever mattered to you, the good as well as the bad, would you really want to? and if you did, would you even be yourself after?

to me, thats why its worth it. even if it hurts when they go. and i get it, people go more than they stay.

[ofobedience]

[Does he think knowing them was worth it? It's hard to say right now, with the wound so freshly reopened, too stark a reminder of things previously lost and feelings he'd tried to shut down and shut out ever since that time back then. he hadn't thought himself capable of caring for anyone who exists in the present, outside of The Below, and to realise he could, only for said people to leave him-- it hurts like a knife between the ribs, twisting ever deeper.

Forgetting that Lily and Heine had ever mattered to him back then is something he fears more than anything, but this? It's too soon for him to tell.]

I don't know. It's like I said before. Change is painful. And perhaps, sometimes, it would have been better not to change at all.

text; un: REAPER

[hellshot]

Connections are something people will say can make or break you.

Maybe I believed that at one point or another, too.

As I've gotten older, the opinion has changed.

Getting too attached to something knowing you'll one day lose it...

There's something masochistic about it.

If you're into hurting yourself like that, then go for it.

For me...

I'll live without that sort of complication.

[ofobedience]

[What's being said here, it all ties in with his own experiences, with having something meaningful for the most fleeting of moments, only for it to be snatched away. It's tiring. Cuts too deeply.]

Something masochistic. Perhaps so.

As someone living without those kinds of complications yourself, are you satisfied?

TEXT; UN: I CAN B UR DADDY

[moneyballer]

damn homie who hurt u

[ofobedience]

[...what is wrong with your username...also everyone. the answer is everyone.]

Just answer the questions.

un: shitpost king

[hedonistic]

because being alone is shit

[hello were you looking for an eloquent answer, that's not kagari's bag]

speaking as someone who didn't have a choice for a longass time

[ofobedience]

[Well. It's a comment that lacks eloquence, perhaps. But straightforward and to the point is fine by him, in this instance.]

One doesn't have to be alone, necessarily, to avoid connections with others.

[He'd never been alone per se back there in the Below, had just been isolated, locked inside of his own head. Presented only what those around him expected to see.

Still. He hadn't felt any less alone for it.]

text; un: ASCIIanything

[catphishing]

Having friends doesn't make you weak.
Even if you don't get to stay friends with everyone forever.

[ofobedience]

And why do you say that? Emotional attachment to others forms a point of weakness for many reasons.

[ofobedience]

The purpose of my life was always made clear enough. Its different for humans, born only on a parent's whim. Not so for creatures created with a specific goal in mind. But that's not what you meant, I don't think.

I'm not asking whether there's a purpose in general. I'm struggling to see how connections to others are worth anything, when they inevitably end in loss and betrayal.

TEXT. UN: LOKI

[selfimage]

Life is rather boring without complications.
It's like not eating a delicious breakfast of bacon and pancakes because it'll turn into a turd one day.

[ maybe before he would've agreed—another life, another time. he's been here too long, perhaps, or he's turned into something different.

both prospects he's pleased with. ]

Re: TEXT. UN: LOKI

[ofobedience]

[Well, that sure is an analogy. And at another time, not so long ago, he wouldn't have felt compelled to ask this question at all. Wouldn't have allowed himself to feel anything. Its indicative of the beginnings of a similar change perhaps, one that isn't quite there yet.]

I can't say boredom ever came into it. There was no time for such things, before here.

[loneliness though, that's always been a pervasive problem for him.]

text; loki.2

[mistruths]

What do you think of the responses you've thus far gotten? There's certainly a range, I'm sure.

[ofobedience]

A slight range, although most follow along the lines I was expecting from a group like this.

[Though that in itself says something, doesn't it? That he'd been expecting people all along to try and convince him of the need for close relationships.]

I don't know what it think of it all, just yet. It needs some consideration.