09 BRAINS ; anonymous text

[livable]

Back home, I had a purpose. I had focus. Something to make my life feel like it's not just myself I'm looking out for. Now that I'm here, I still have to do the same reprehensible things I did back home. The difference here is I have no way of making it a part of some greater good. I do what I can to give some good back to society to make up for what I have to do but it seems like all I manage to do things that make things seem more bleak. Add in the severe lack of hope I have for any lasting life changes here, the inability to actually have a future for myself or relationships, and living with the only person who could possibly make me feel worse, and I'm a bag of cheesy poofs away from living on the couch.

How does someone motivate him or herself here? How do I make up for doing something I know is terrible even if it's better than the alternative? How do I keep myself from becoming a monster who feeds on others and doesn't help anyone but myself when I don't have anything real to give in this world?

The one thing that made me "me," the one thing I was confident I could make a difference with isn't an option, so how do I define myself when I have no idea what makes me anything but disgusting?

Comments

anon text;

[vacuum_of_doom]

"You and I are a lot alike, it seems. That's how I feel about your words, at least."

anon text;

[livable]

Sorry if you're going through something similar then. It's not a fun feeling.

anon; text

[nofortunateone]

It might not be the same but you have to find something worth holding onto. I also suggest not living with someone who makes you feel worse.

Find something else you can do, or that you want to do.

I consider myself a monster, so I'm afraid I can't help you with what you think of yourself. That's up to you.

[Says the guy with no hobbies who just wanders around most of the time looking for some sort of purpose...]

anon; text

[livable]

It doesn't help that my friends and family aren't here. Unfortunately, the person I'm living with needs to be monitored by someone who's in the know. Lest he decides to find some way to make the problem worse and take advantage of it again. The fact that we've agreed not to try to kill each other is an honest improvement from our previous relationship.

Most of my life had been dedicated to one trade. When this initially happened, I had to use those skills to learn something in a slightly similar field that helped me get what I needed to survive without killing anyone. I'm currently working in a similar position, but the way this world works basically invalidates any good I can do. Magic and a bounty-hunting system instead of one based on finding facts and evidence make sure of that. The one way I've managed to use my skills here seems to just be making things worse.

Do you want to be a monster?

anon; text

[nofortunateone]

Sounds like we're in similar situations. I have yet to solve my own problems so I can't help with yours. All I know is how to kill.

I didn't ask to be turned into this. I just live with it.

[youfool]

I doubt whether anyone ever has to do reprehensible things. Free will still operates, doesn't it? I doubly doubt that such acts could ever contribute to a greater good. I don't think the universe accepts that kind of currency.

I agree with the one upthread; unless the one living with you makes you feel worse as a byproduct of truth or something, it would be best to part.

As for hope, it's the usual. It may sound pat, but hope is for things unseen. The only way to get it is to believe in it, and be justified thereby. I have faith that real good can be worked in this world, and so should you.

Don't worry about "self"; defined or not, disgusting or not. A preoccupation with self never once made men happy. What might is the sober fact that most people are dirty, myself included. But what is that? Good can be drawn from impure hearts. Indeed, that is usually where it comes from.

[These anonymous cries for help are distressing. Does no one have friends to talk to here?]

All in all, do not despair. I believe all fallen creation, this piece of it included, has need of the good, and that we can enact it. It hangs on faith, true, but that it what motivates me, at least.

[livable]

My free will is the will to choose between doing what I have to, dying- which isn't even an option here, or letting the apocalypse roll in for humans. There's no free will in being diseased unless I'm the kind of person who wants to let humans die out.

That person needs to be watched. I can't just let him out into the world alone when I have a chance to keep him from doing what he always finds a way to do.

Self is important to me. Without a sense of myself, I stop existing and what's left is the remnants of other dead people or a flesh-eating monster straight out of a horror movie. It's part of what I am now and without any way to cure it here, that's what I have to accept. It's not a selfish obsession, it's a matter of actually being a person.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by with the comment but I'm not really looking to have someone argue with things I know as facts from months of dealing with it. I'd rather try to find a way to improve it or solve the problem and find some way to pull myself out of this, not just try to write it off as okay because it's out of my hands. Because it's not.

[Text]

[fairysoul]

I'm not sure what 'cheesy poofs' are but it would be a waste to spend your days on the couch when there are so many things worth discovering out there.

Besides we all have something to give. Whoever we are, whatever our skills, our strengths and our weaknesses. I don't know you but I'm sure you're someone worth knowing. The simple fact that you feel bad about not helping others enough, at least in your opinion, shows you're a good person at heart.

We all go through moments of doubt... of despair, even. [Mavis remembered wanting to die back then, in that forest. And yes, there's not many people who like life more that Mavis does.] When you feel like that, there's nothing wrong with letting people help you out.

anon text

[livable]

They're food. Very bad for you health-wise, but comforting.

Having something to give and making up for doing something disgusting is very different. The skills I acquired in my world are ones that aren't any use here. Magic, the lack of death- they basically invalidate what I spent my entire life learning to do so I could make a difference.

I don't think I'm a bad person. I'm a good person. I know that. I've met monsters- I live with one. It doesn't make me any less disgusted with myself. What I'm looking for isn't some sort of feel-good "buck up, life isn't that bad" speech. I need to find something to make what I do okay. I need a way to motivate myself, not a way to suddenly be okay with something I don't want to be okay with because that's what would make me a monster.

[Text]

[fairysoul]

Wanting to make up for something disgusting implies you can't stop doing it. Is that the truth? ...That you're doing it despite yourself and you can't stop? [Like a Curse? Because that she could related to.] Because if you're disgusted with what you do or could do... It's not so easy to find something that could make it okay.[Short of wanting your own life to end.]

Did you use to save lives back in your world? If so, there's nothing preventing you from doing it here, not even magic or lack of death. Unless... [Mavis blinks looking at the screen. Is that even possible?] you somehow needed people to be dead to be able to help them?

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was saying you should be okay with the way your life is right now. That's not what I meant. But it is true that life isn't so bad. Especially when you're not living it on your own. It's not just a speech, it's truly what I think.

You need to find what could give your life a meaning, I agree. But you first need to genuinely believe that this thing is possible to find. You say you live with a monster: well protecting others from that person or helping them becoming less of a monster could be a start. It might not be as big a meaning as what you're hoping for but you have to start somewhere.

Text

[toogoodforwords]

Waaaaaah. Call a waaaaambulance.

not here

[livable]

[ Sorry Neo, Liv's not an idiot when she's not on a brain that wants to fight. She's not going to feed the troll. ]

[toogoodforwords]

[ Whoops, it works. Neo forgets about this and finds something else to do. ]

anon text

[hemoeroticism]

wait wait wait you feed on people?

let's get dinner some time :)

anon text

[livable]

Metaphorical feeding.

[ No it's not. ]

How do you get your food if you eat people?

Anon Text

[trenchturncoat]

I don't know, but it sounds like you only have two options. You can either keep doing what you're doing, and eventually snap, possibly at the wrong person, or you can deal with it. You found a purpose before, either find a way to adapt it here or find something else you're good at. It's probably not the best answer, but I never got what made the whole 'greater good' so appealing in the first place and I'm not the best person to ask. If it was that simple, I doubt you'd be asking all of us.

In the meantime, try finding a different place, and maybe some friends who accept what you've done or had to do. Drink until you can't see straight and buy a couch untouched by cheese poofs.

Anon Text

[livable]

It's not so much the greater good and more refusing to let myself become a monster.

I have a friend who accepts me. He's the kind of person who I'm sure would say I'm fine doing things as I am right now and to just keep doing what I can. It's hard advice for someone who doesn't accept themselves.

Also alcoholism? Tried it once. It didn't click with me.

anon text;

[truesmiles]

For me, it was a case of finding what I want. That is what motivates me here of all places. Like, people who you care about for example.

anon text;

[livable]

I want to not be what I am.

Since the ingredients to make the cure and the person who knows how to do so aren't here, I'm what you might call "SOL."

action;

[pathosis]

[ what was that about your roommate making you feel worse?? hi. he's coming to bug you in whatever room you're in when you get home/were already. also holding the kitchen trash because of some possibly annoying action. insert joke about him throwing himself out with it. ]

You know usually motivation starts by not sulking on the Internet. [ who else would've made this??? traces a smile over his lips with a finger. ] Cheer up, sadbie. We don't have cheese puffs left to cry into.

action;

[livable]

[ Liv holds up a bag of Cheetohs hot fries in response. She already got some, it's too late for her. ]

I don't exactly have anyone willing to spout out ideas who isn't going to tell me I'm fine the way I am or.. [ Well, Blaine. Part of the problem. ] I can't exactly talk about it with anyone besides you or David. He's too good of a guy and he tries to understand, but I don't.. think he does. You have the opposite problem. You understand and you just don't care.

anon text too;

[jerks22]

Fun exercise: count the number of times you said I, I'm, me, etc. Then stop. ain't all bout u gurl mirite

not here

[livable]

[ Having once eaten a guy who called himself the SIM Reaper? Liv doesn't exactly care to reply to trolls. She knows what they are and she knows not to feed them. ]

Private

[rulerofme]

Did you get any useful answers? [Come on, Liv. You already knew he would know it was you.]

Private

[livable]

Invitations to get drunk and have dinner. The suggestion not to discredit the effect I have on even one life, except the only people I'm helping here are soulless things that don't actually care so much as convenience and not getting in trouble, I'm pretty sure.

Sorry I didn't talk to you about this first. I assumed you'd be in camp 'you're fine the way you are, Liv.'