it's possible to live

I think Dragon should be messy. I think he should be a shell built up around a tenderhearted teenager that’s still hurt, scared, and angry. I think he should be stuck knowing that he doesn’t have the time, energy, or security to heal. I think he should be putting his life on pause because he puts others’ before his own. I think he should be burying himself in his work to keep from having a mental breakdown. I think he should be feeling like he has to earn the things he needs. I think he should be feeling like he has to justify having the things he wants. I think he should be gentle and jaded at the same time. I think he should be isolating because he thinks it will keep his loved ones safe. I think he should be repressed for all his talk of choice and free will. I think he should be a hypocrite at his own expense.

the red wedding in asoiaf, the trojan horse in the odyssey, the backstabbing leading to the bloody baptism in the nibelungenlied, even oppenheimer and his atom bomb…. all stories about how the violent breaking of a certain social norm or law of warfare breaks the whole world apart on the psychic plane to reveal the blood roiling underneath. but this can easily be levied into a conservative, great-man, one single man or choice can decide our destinies sort of idea, even with good intentions…. what’s crucial in these stories is not that That specific event is the original sin of the world from which all other sins emerge, but that it is only a (uniquely remarkable) byproduct of the *existing* systems of that world, which reward and feed off blood! that there is no Good society to return to, no law of warfare that would make war acceptable

life feels exactly like this now