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greyhound-with-a-mega-wizard-hat:
greyhound-with-a-mega-wizard-hat:
greyhound-with-a-mega-wizard-hat:
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The ‘they came back wrong’ trope, but they came back a healthier, happier person, and now you can’t relate to them anymore
But also all your warnings before they went were catastrophically incorrect and they came back better because they didn’t listen to you
And you tore the world apart trying to bring them back and you’re even worse than you were, so consumed by your love for them that you can’t see that you’ve become a monster, and they’ve become a saint
And to make things worse, they still like you. They’re super nice and wise and want to be friends but in your bitterness you’ve become resentful toward them.
We’re onto something here
For sure, I don’t think the idea of someone bettering themselves reflecting negatively on people around them is very widely explored in storytelling. It’s a really specific feeling that’s difficult to describe; like a bad feeling you immediately acknowledge as also a stupid feeling thereby feeling worse.
Like watching them move onto bigger and better things, not resenting their happiness, but resenting the fact that you went backwards and now can’t keep up
Okay so that’s a vibe. Who are the Martyr and the Necromancer then, is the next question. Maybe a master and apprentice situation where the Necromancer starts to realize his pupil may rise to become a rival. The Martyr consistently underestimates themself because they try their best, but their master never seems impressed
I have a small excerpt I’m working on. I’ll post it when I’m done
for every step they have taken forward, you have taken two steps back. Even their attempts to reach back to you only take them further away.
That’s a nice way of putting it!
all you did while trying to bring them back was get your hands dirtier and dirtier, with mud and blood and filth, stained your very soul with what you’ve done.
They didn’t wash their hands of you, but htey did get cleaner while away from you, and how could such filthy, dirty things ever hope to hold something as pristine as their hand?
while you were busy digging your hole ever deeper, they rose up in the world, and it doesn’t matter how beautiful and pristine the tower is, those looking at it from the hovels blow can’t help but resent it.
The difference is you *know* they deserve everything they’ve acquired, every inch of stone and porcelain earned.
and you don’t even deserve the rotting thatch above your head.Yes! They were cleansed in your absence. Their soul and outlook purified. So happy and joyful and full of joi de vivre. Whilst you are filthy and miserable and monstrous. And now they are trying to pull you back up to their level, All the while you sink further and they rise higher
at one point both of you were digging holes together, oth of you were sad and unhappy, lashing out at the cruelties of the world around you, but the difference is that *their* hole was just the beginnings of a foundation, and yours has since become a pit.
They washed clean, but the kinds of things you’ve done leave cracks, and stains, and they go so deep that now the mud and blood are the only things keeping you together. If you get rid of them, what’s left of you?
You can see how they were refined into what they now are, but that process would leave nothing of you behind.
they were a lump of ore, and death was just the beginning of their purification, and now they are brilliant gold, gleaming in the sun.
They *are* a saint. and *only* a saint could forgive you for what you’ve done. But when they reach out their hand for you you have to show them your true colors, you have to smack it away, because the world hasn’t, and won’t, forgive you. It will grind you away to dust, just like it has been for years. They may try to save you from that fate, but you can’t let them do that.
then they might get ground to dust, too. yo ucan’t infect them with what you are, you can’t afford to stain them with your presence, no matter how desperate you are to let them try things their way.^^^^^^^
But also, alternatively;
You were never digging with them. You helped them, patched them up when their hands were rough and sore from the shovel. And when they died, you made it your life’s work to finish digging their hole for them. And when they’re back, you’re trapped in the hole, unable to accept their hand to leave, because they are so clean and you are so very dirty
all of this has been for them. you can’t… you can’t ruin what they are with what you’ve become. If you get them as filthy as you’ve become, how could you forgive yourself? how could anyone forgive you? It would be… sinful, to mar such perfection, such beauty.
and certainly they have to know that, too.Were they happier before? Have you ruined their death? How selfish you are! How beastly! The first relief they ever felt, the first time they were ever allowed to be clean, and you dragged them back into the mud and the filth!
Sure they’re smiling. They say they love you, they don’t mind getting dirty again in order to save you. But do they mean it? Or are they so selfless and clean that they’ll look past their resentment and save you anyway?
Do you know which would be worse?
you can let yourself dream about it for a moment. that kind of love, such care, even the thought of it is… its the single best thing you’ve felt since… maybe. maybe ever.
and that brief opening is a hole, and it makes the grief and hate and despair that follows it worse.
You can’t leave yourself open to that again. How selfish would you be, doing that to them?
Are you really so selfish that you could even *risk* doing that to them? You were so self centered that you made even their *death* about you. You thought… what? that when you brought them back things could go back to normal? after all that you’ve done?
The fact that they changed, too… it highlighted all the ways you were a fool. Things could never have gone back to “normal” after what you’ve become, even if they came back completely unchanged.
And maybe a part of you, small and quiet and easily ignored always knew that. It kept quiet knowing that, when they came back and despised what you were you’d be able to leave them in peace and go off to destroy yourself, and at least the one who *deserves* a second chance would have it.
but instead now they’re reaching out to you. They’ve grown past things like hatred. It’s as if a God to whom you are devoted has come down unto the earth and told you they would destroy themselves and all the heavens to give you a moment of comfort.
It doesn’t matter how willing or serious they are.
You don’t deserve it.
You try to push them away. You show then your evil, your filth. You scream and cry and hit the walls of your hole. You show then what a beast you are.
They reach out to stroke your hair and murmur tender comforts.
Their kindness hurts far more than any cruel word. You wish they’d just give up on you. You’re the monster that dragged them from their bliss.
You can’t bear the idea that they’d abandon you