un: anonymous

[flightforfreedom]

[ There are some times that Poe is thankful for his powers. This, being able to ask his communicator to scramble his ID so that he can post anonymously, is one of them. He doesn't do this often. But something has been bothering him more and more, lately. ]

has there ever been something, or a multiple somethings, that you did that at the time you knew was right, and just, but then later - maybe after coming here - now makes it a little harder to sleep at night?

a lot of us come from places where we had to do a lot of shit we wish we didn't

but we could still tell ourselves we were doing the right thing

and i still think i was doing the right thing

but here i meet ghosts and i can't help but wonder if there wasn't another way

how do you deal with it, when you can't justify everything to yourself anymore? and that's not a rhetorical question, i honestly want to know




do you think earth has made you a better or a worse person

Comments

[loyal_soldier]

Someone important to me could have avoided a lot of pain if I had been more observant.

It wouldn't really have made a difference in the ultimate outcome, though. Thinking about it hasn't been very productive.

Earth has caused some more problems, including a lack of clarity. I'm not sure how to solve that from my position.

[flightforfreedom]

[It figures, that this is the first ID that sends a reply. The will of the Force, maybe. It makes him a little queasy.]

pretty sure that isn't on you
missing something, no matter what it is - that's different than an active choice

and yeah. especially if noticing wouldn't have changed things anyway
thinking about it doesn't help

earth definitely seems to muddle stuff
but maybe it was always that muddled and we just weren't able to see it

Text

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

Feels like I could have written this post in my sleep.

If by 'earth' you mean this Earth, I know I've learned a lot from being here. Including how to do better than I used to.

[flightforfreedom]

so what is it that you do that makes you do better

text;

[bespin]

When you've come from the middle of a war zone, like I have, there's a lot of things you might wish you hadn't done.

Seconds before I showed up here, I fired a shot that, on the one hand, helped win us the war, but on the other, killed countless people instantly. Many of whom were likely independent contractors, guilty of no crime besides just trying to do their jobs.

Do I regret it? No, because it will have been worth it to end the war.

Does it still keep me up at night, thinking about it? You bet.

[flightforfreedom]

[Lando's ID. He let out a breath. This was one person who would almost certainly understand exactly how Poe felt. Or if not exactly, pretty damn close.]

yeah

i don't even want to think about how many maintenance crew i've killed

but pretty sure my shot didn't end a war so much as ensure the start of one

[articulations]

How do you deal with it? You just do. Because nothing is going to change what you did. Nothing is going to erase the decision you made that cost thousands and thousands their lives.

And nothing is going to change the decisions you make in the future.

Has earth made me a better or worse person? I can't say. Being here, I feel like I don't know who I am. One might think we're living a lie.

[flightforfreedom]

[ Leia.... ]

honestly don't know what my count is

think i can safely put it above thousands, though


it didn't used to bother me

enemy combatants, right? we were fighting the good fight

and i still believe that - no matter how many deaths i'm responsible for, if i hadn't done what i did, it would have been a hell of a lot more

i know i can't change it
just kind of wish i could stop thinking about it




why do you think you're living a lie?

text; anonymous

[couldbebeautiful]

All the damn time.

The things I know were wrong now keep me up nights too.

I'm from Earth. A different version, but still Earth: same general geography, mostly the same history, same shitty cafeteria food. I think ultimately that last question is up to you.

[flightforfreedom]

yeah.

alright let me rephrase
since coming here

this place in particular

where we can talk to people who should have been dead

[bookkeeper]

The fact that you're even asking these questions, it makes me wonder if you're stuck in a PTSD cycle.

I'm from earth, back home. This one is just a different version for me. I don't think it's the planet that makes us better or worse, it's the decisions we make or don't make. I've made a lot of bad one's. Not here. But it was bad back home.

I only have myself to blame.

[ Nate could blame Sam, if he wanted. His older brother dragged him into things. Sam knew how to play him into getting him into wanting to tag along, that and it was either go the rebel route or end up in another orphanage or worse. ]

[flightforfreedom]

yeah, well
probably

keep meaning to find a therapist
promised i would
just never seems to quite work out


i don't really mean the planet, i use it as shorthand to mean here
this earth
the one where we can meet literal ghosts


what about decisions that you had to make
where you live with the consequences either of action or inaction
and there's just as much death on either side

[Text]

[faithfulson]

[ Well, this seems to be coming up a lot lately. ]

Like Lando said, destroying so many lives, especially lives of those that did nothing against us personally, but were just doing the job they signed up for, is never easy to accept.

War is hard. Suddenly stopping when you're right in the middle of it is even harder. There's no switch you can flip and say you're just a civilian now; it takes time, and it's up to us to learn how to use that time.

As for this place? I don't know what to tell you. It's less the planet itself and more the opportunities it presents to us; the chance to learn things that we may well have never known, to meet people that even the Force can't show us.

[flightforfreedom]

[Even more than Lando, Luke's parallel to Poe's own situation is extremely clear.

He has no idea how many people were on Starkiller, but he has to imagine it's at least as much as the Death Star. And Luke's shot didn't end a war.

He was hoping this post would help him feel better.

It isn't.]

i didn't even think twice about it, at the time
the stakes were too high

i figured a year would be enough time to adjust but i think it's just getting worse instead


and that's basically what i meant
not the planet itself but
the porter
the people on it

text

[knaval]

depends. getting bogged down in what ifs and imaginary scenarios instead of what was real and happened will only hold you back, though
sometimes you get forced into it as well
even if you think you had a choice

you have to come to terms with what happened and accept it as a mistake you won't make again, even if it was so bad that things will never be the same again

unless it was something like taking out a planet? then you're fucked and kind of deserve it, mate

private - - > un: poe dameron

[flightforfreedom]

okay but what if that planet had blown up five other planets like hours before that

[ aka: hi buddy please don't leave me out to dry like this ]

[pickledturncoat]

What if you can't even tell yourself you were doing the right thing? After you come to the sudden realization you are, in fact, a reprehensible person?

What if you still do the things you wish you hadn't, but now for the 'right' reasons? Does it make you any less reprehensible?


How to deal with it? You drink a lot.

[He types surprisingly well for a drunk person doesn't he?]

Earth is just another planet with plethora of cantinas. Whether you're a better or a worse person depends on you, not your location.

[ ... ]

Barring any life-altering cataclysmic events that is.

[flightforfreedom]

yeah, trust me, tried the drinking thing already
and the fucking every stranger i could find

not the healthiest coping mechanisms and i'm trying to find something else



i think the reasons behind actions make a difference

if they didn't, i'd be a monster

but i have to believe that taking lives to save more of them is a lot different than taking lives to gain power
i have to

[slightlyoffchilt]

If you're feeling reflective, you are asking a broken mirror on this Network.

[He doesn't include himself in that description, quite obviously.]

[flightforfreedom]

better than just asking myself eight hundred times

hoped someone had figured it out

not so much.

thinking you might be right about the broken mirror, at this point

text; anonymous

[applewatcher]

To another here, I am a ghost. And I have made my own mistakes, some I will not uncover until it is too late for me and mine.

Not all deaths come sweetly. Not all those killed deserve it. I've resolved to make the most of my time here, and bring something good to a brother I'll never live to see. It's the least I can do for my family.

[flightforfreedom]

that's worth something, though

doing good by someone else

i had someone like that here, but he's gone now






would have sighed pretty heavily at this post, too

( NOT HERE )

[tradecrafted]

[ he's keeping an idle eye on this post, in part because it's.. familiar. something he would have asked ten years ago, maybe, that he'd never been able to get an answer about. in part because he has his suspicions.

.. and in part because he can't turn off the part of himself that's always cataloging other people's weaknesses. ]

text

[am_i_a_monster]

I had things that I didn't think were right exactly, but I thought I had no other choice.

I did a lot of things I wish I didn't do.

I told myself that I had to do it. I believed I'd be killed if I didn't. But I was killed anyway.

Do you meet ghosts in your nightmares or something more literal? Around here, anything's possible.

I push the feelings away, force myself to think about other things, distract myself. But then I have nightmares. I've used psilocybin. I had a therapist once. The nightmares always come back.

I'm from Earth, a different earth. This place lets me be a person. Have freedom, have a life. I couldn't do that anywhere else. I think being a part of the world is better than what I was before. It has to be.

[flightforfreedom]

do you mean someone forced you to do things, or do you mean that not doing them would have resulted in your death?

and i mean pretty literal

i've met a lot of people here who died before i was even born
think that qualifies as ghosts


yeah. i get nightmares all the damn time. used to get them mostly about one specific thing, but lately they've been... branching out. getting worse. what's psilocybin? some kind of stim?


hey, sounds like it is
are the things you regret all from home?

have you been able to make choices you're proud of, here

text »

[perfectible]

If I'm being honest: therapy.

[flightforfreedom]

you find a therapist here?

anon also [text]

[justaskalice]

how about when you know you were wrong
and this shows you what could have been/had
if you had just been a better person


i have no answers for you that you haven't heard yet

[flightforfreedom]

then it sounds like earth has made you a better person

since you're starting to realise you weren't one

text;

[storyseeker]

Therapy. Seriously.

text;

[flightforfreedom]

yeah, so i've been told

there's just repercussions to openly seeking that, in my line of work

[codeofiron]

You still think you were doing the right thing.

[flightforfreedom]

yeah

i mean

sort of

i did the thing i had to, to save the most lives

and i know i would make the same decision again, if i was given it

mostly because there wasn't much of a choice in the first place.

it just doesn't mean my hands are clean

text; anonymous

[patchricide]

What's right is not what's easy, or simple, or fair, or painless. It's not always what you would want, if you could change the circumstances even by a little. Sometimes it's not even true to your principles or to yourself, but one compromise to avoid another.

And sometimes, it might be plain and simply wrong.

I try not to question if I did my best before today. Instead, I look for ways I can do better now.

Re: text; anonymous

[flightforfreedom]

that's probably a healthier way of doing it

the stakes just aren't anywhere near as high here and i have a lot of time on my hands to think over old problems


so how do you do better now