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

private

[flightforfreedom]

i mean you could punch me but it probably wouldn't be as cathartic

it was for the best
they used it to kill billions of people

still doesn't change that i blew it up
and the people who should have gone down with it were the ones that escaped



i met someone

and now every time i think about the people on that base, i just picture him instead

he wasn't on it, but people like him were

i used to figure if they didn't defect, then they were a casualty of war. they were on the other side, boom, done. there wasn't anything personal to it

but i didn't really realise how many good people could still be there
defecting isn't what would make them good

i don't know

fuck

Re: private

[knaval]

i don't want to punch you

sorry. i know how frustrating it is when you want to take down some people with a target area and they run away like the cowardly slag drippings they are.

war brings a special kind of mentality
all the decepticon mtos i killed were like me, too. they were just thrown into the battle with no chance to even really figure out their own name and fought out of fear and instinct.
here is a relative peace-time, you have to remember

i think there are very few options you get to make yourself in a war, ones we have here
if you had met those people, would they have open fired? or would they have put their weapons down and tried to make peace?
i could talk to a non djd decepticon here and probably find some level of getting along with them, but back home we'd immediately try to tear each other's heads off

maybe this good person you met would've tried to kill you back home too. even if they didn't want to.
it goes both ways.

[pickledturncoat]

Being healthy is overrated.

[Annnd he's just going to stick with booze, because sex would only remind him of Conder.]

Perhaps it depends on the actions.

[Torture being a bit hard to justify even for the 'right' reasons.]

As you should. And thus ends the therapy session. Feel better now?

[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.]

[bookkeeper]

So then you're looking for an import shrink.

I guess there's one small silver lining to all this: you don't remember when you go home.

Why even think about it in the first place?

[loyal_soldier]

Then it's supposed to be easy to say that you made the right choice, but obviously it isn't turning out that way.

If there were more knowledgable people here, it would probably be easier to process.

Those kind of thoughts aren't productive. I'd rather not focus on them.

[articulations]

If you're responsible then you're responsible. There's nothing that's going to change that. You know what you're doing when you go into war. You know the consequences. No one goes in thinking they'll win and escape the mental toll it takes on you.

The people that should've died, they will. It won't be when you want them to but their lives will eventually expire just the same. It'll be a long fight. Just have hope.

I'm not saying you are. I know, personally, how hard it can be.

If you'd like, I can meet with you. I can sit with you until you fall asleep. Company helps me when I suffer through the insomnia and can't shut my brain off.


Sure. It has its perks.

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]

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

[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

[slightlyoffchilt]

My sympathies, either way.

But from my experience, this process of grief, guilt, and existential crises is a process that varies as according to the individual. Yours would be a specific journey.

[applewatcher]

It is. I am glad for the presence of family, though I do not pretend that I might have them forever here, nor they will have me. For this reason, we seek new family here as well. When we find them, we will welcome them.

My brother saw me as an ideal figure he never met in life. I necessarily disappointed him. But I should think we have both learned something of expectations here.

( 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. ]

[bespin]

That, I can't speak to. I didn't join up with this war from the starting line. In fact, I spent years trying to ignore the fact that there was a war happening at all. Sticking my head in the sand -- or the clouds, specifically -- and pretending people weren't fighting and dying just a system away.

In the end, is that any better?

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]

yeah, well, specific journey or not, it's not like other people haven't been through similar shit

though granted this place definitely piles on the 'shit i didn't even know was possible' on top of everything else, but

i'd like to finish this particular quest as fast as possible

[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

[faithfulson]

It was the same for me; there was no second guessing, or going back once I was in the cockpit. I just had to do it. No one else could.

[ He knows who this is, but he’s not going to call him out. It’s up to Poe to come to him and talk to him about it face to face. ]

Sometimes even a year isn’t enough while grounded.

text »

[perfectible]

If I'm being honest: therapy.

[flightforfreedom]

you find a therapist here?

[flightforfreedom]

i keep making them and losing them and honestly i don't know how much longer i can do that

i never had any siblings so i can't say i get it, exactly

but i know how it feels to meet a legend and find a man instead

[perfectible]

I'm seeing Dr. Chilton.

Everything got to be too much. The things I had to do back home, things I thought were the right thing, haunted me to the point that I was having nightmares.

[flightforfreedom]

so is what i was doing
very overrated
so gotta find something else


i mean, yeah
there are somethings that just
that there's never a justification for
but i used to think there were less of them than i'm worried there actually are
if that makes sense


not in the fucking slightest

[flightforfreedom]

[Chilton. Weird, why did that name ring a -- oh. Because someone by that name had replied to t his post, already.

Huh.]

he any good?

yeah

you're the only one with nightmares
trust me

therapy has helped that?

[perfectible]

He's helped me.

I'm sorry you're going through that too. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I've had less. It helps to talk about it. It helps with the guilt I feel sometimes.