deernet | text | anonymous user

No need to apologize. Knowing how it affects others is useful. Knowing who isn't having the same problems I am is too.

I am sorry you haven't been sleeping well. It's been a difficult month.

[He's already been made once on this one. No reason to hide from the truth.]

It may be. It would be one explanation for my current condition.

But it's not something I'd heard of before as a symptom. Corruption mostly subtracts from your wellbeing. Doesn't add anything.

That's quite fair, a wise way to obtain information.

It's certainly felt like a very long one. I've had difficult months before, but I suppose I never expected it to really... manifest like this.

I don't think I've heard of that either. I suppose, given from experience, we're all unfortunately likely to be suffering our own unique flavours of corruption. Places like this tend to make things very personal. If adding would make you feel worse, then that's likely why.

[ But then it does make her wonder. ]

You don't feel? In general, I mean? I'm assuming you meant emotionally.

There's wisdom in that too. In saying that it may be different for everyone.

The Blood Minister I've spoken to wasn't familiar with any cases like mine. Why I asked the others here.

To call it personal as if the universe wishes me to suffer is a very foreign thought. It may make matters easier to explain it that way but I don't know I believe it.

[Ah.]

Very little. Emotionally. Despair and sometimes anger.

I remember what it is like to feel and how I would act on my emotions in a familiar situation.

Perhaps it may be worth searching the Archaic Archives for any books on Corruption. Surely there'll be plenty of history there, or casefiles? Finding things is a little tricky, but there's a knack to it.

Much like the dream saw into us, the forces of the waking world see into us here, too. It's quite a cruel thing, and unfair — but I believe it's the case.

[ Merlin, she can't imagine. ]

I'm sorry, I can't imagine. It must be very difficult sometimes. I'm sorry you've only been left with things such as sorrow and anger, too.

You weren't always this way, you were cursed?

It's difficult for me to research in the Archives. [Blind. An outspoken Disciple. Not really the most comfortable fit for the place.

Even if he's made a point of treating the Scholars with civility and willingness to reach out, there are tensions there.]

But it's a good notion. Also the one about the Waking World reaching into us. That I would believe.

I'll think about both of these.

[He may yet come to different conclusions but it's good to have outside input.

There is... some part of him that's benefitting from this, he notices slowly. He's already feeling a little more steady.

Which might very well be the corruption losing its hold on him and with it, whatever emotions it brought.]

You're kind to say so. The paradox is that it is least difficult when it's at its worst. [If he didn't feel anything he didn't care that he didn't feel anything. If he was murderously angry--that was its own kind of distraction from what he felt.

Despair fell into a trickier space, an emotion he noticed more by the inaction it forced him into.]

Yes. Cursed is an apt way to put it. I could feel things normally before.

Maybe someone could help you. Knowledge should be for everyone. [ Certainly Never Mind would agree with her. She's a Scholar herself, and while she's quite aware of some of the tensions between her fellows and the Disciples, she's not one getting involved in all of that (not that she'd know that this is one of the cases through it being anonymous).

Although being a Paleblooded Scholar. She's certainly not going to be winning much popularity with the Disciples, really. That's bound to come up at some point. ]

I... think I understand. It's clutching at any feeling at all, even if it's a negative one, right? [ Could one hardly be blamed for leaning into a negative emotion when one otherwise feels nothing else at all? ]

I don't know how long you've been this way, but is it possible it's something that can be broken? Remedied?

Maybe. There's a few Sleepers I know who would volunteer for the project. [Who should not volunteer for the project, but didn't know where their own boundaries lay.

Nor did they need to know the acquaintance they regarded so positively didn't reciprocate their feelings because he couldn't.

Both could be worked around, with time.]

Yes exactly this. Feeling something is better than feeling nothing.

[Even if he is now much of the way back to feeling nothing.

More clear-headed now, he can actually give her(?) question evenhanded consideration.]

Corruption is one remedy after a fashion. Which means there may be others.

I and others like me were given to believe it is impossible to fix. Irreversible. But it hasn't been long enough to make that judgment. We don't know enough.

We didn't have time to learn enough.

It wouldn't hurt to ask. [ Trust the nerd to gently encourage them into going. Even if she doesn't quite know the person behind the words, she's all for trying to encourage.

She's thoughtful for a moment. It's sad that Corruption itself is something that will shift their ability of feeling emotions, but the possibility that there's others is definitely likely. ]

It's possible you were lied to to destroy any hope of trying to fix it. I mean if I was whoever did this to you and I wanted you to remain this way, I imagine I would say anything to keep you in line. You don't bother trying if there's not the idea of possibility, you know?

But if there's one thing this place might afford, it's time. Not to mention resources. There's Sleepers from countless worlds here. Perhaps you might be able to discover what you need to know about your circumstances here. And I'm sure others would like to help you should you ask.

No. Asking itself wouldn't hurt. [Reserving space on his reservations for all that came after asking, though this other person isn't wrong. He's identified a problem in need of solving--or at least exploration--and should not let the ghosts of his trepidation keep him from that.

He weighs the words that follow against all he knew of the King of Eyes, and the Prince of Locusts, and their necromancers and generals. The situation posited is cruel; the reality was, in its way, crueler.]

They didn't need to do that to us.

They didn't need to lie to keep us in line. We didn't

We had no choice in the matter. All the rest of what happened to us was incidental to that. We thought. We think.

[He stops dictating for several seconds, noting distantly he's becoming emotional again. Not as free of corruption as he thought, then--or he's very, very volatile when it comes to acquiring it.

Terrible thought.]

What we know we had to learn on our own after. It would be kinder in a way if they had cared enough to lie.

[This other's right, though; he's not so overwrought he can't grasp that. Still and all, the idea of asking under his own identity hauls him up short. It would require explaining--so much--that should rightly separate him from the living world.

He'd told another Sleeper, once, that coming to Trench and losing his automatic recognition as a shrike had not been a vacation for him; he was well-adapted to being seen as that sort of monster.

But as one of the Unearthed? As a vacated husk of what he'd been?]

I'm sure as well. They are very quick to aid anyone who needs it. I could avail myself of that.

[Could isn't will.]

[ Of course she knows she can't force this person to go seek help, but she can only gently prod that way the best she can. At least placing the idea there is enough, something to think about. Sometimes a gentle nudging is more than enough.

Her shoulders sink a little as she reads, her brow pinching sadly: They didn't need to lie to keep us in line. She wipes at her face, it does sound crueller than she thought. ]

I'm sorry, I truly am. [ She can understand that. ] There is often comfort in lies, isn't there?

[ And even that wasn't something afforded to them. ]

It's one of the things I've learned a lot here. We're all thrown into this place, the world's too harsh. But there's kindness there, but we do work together. I really hope you might take that help.

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