006. And all the people that you hate will love you just the same because you're beautiful

[drydrown]

Those of you that have received physical changes from Retrospec, how long did it take before they stopped seeming fundamentally wrong - do they ever, or am I just going to be handling being mentally inconvenienced every time I try to do anything that involves mirrors for the foreseeable future? I admit that I don't have much to complain about, in the scheme of things - especially since I'm not opposed to the results - but apparently I'm going to do so anyway, simply just because such is social media.

Then again, this particular identity crisis is brought to you by the realization that I haven't seen certain members of my family in two years, and if they were to see me now they wouldn't recognize me on immediate sight. So I think I have some right to be at least mildly distressed.

Comments

[liberal_arts]

And of your other self? Are they the sort of politician people should trust, or no?

[drydrown]

He certainly liked to believe so.

[liberal_arts]

But do you believe so?

[drydrown]

I don't know. I want to have faith in my own past life as a leader, but I can't say for certain whether that's warranted.

[liberal_arts]

I can empathize. The lives of our previous selves were complicated, and may not exactly gel with what we think of ourselves.

[drydrown]

That's the problem most seem to be having with the entire process, isn't it? In one way or another.

[liberal_arts]

If it makes you feel any better, my other self was a tool used to kill 36 innocent vassals of the lord he was owned by. So that was something I had to deal with.

[drydrown]

My sympathies, then. Has it been difficult to come to terms with?

[liberal_arts]

In all seriousness, it was, for a time. The idea of being a tool, a tool which exists only to kill, was difficult to wrap my head around, particularly given my former master's madness.

[drydrown]

I'll admit that in my past life, I was generally the person responsible for ordering the killing.

[liberal_arts]

Out of curiosity, what reason would your other self have to make such orders?

[drydrown]

I can't actually say. He seemed to be in the middle of doing something that was important to him, but I've no idea how anything he was doing was supposed to further that goal.

So I have the idea that it wasn't entirely capricious on his part, but I don't know what he was trying to accomplish because I don't have the larger picture yet.

[liberal_arts]

I see. I imagine that must be quite frustrating, having an incomplete picture like that.

[drydrown]

Yes, to put it gently.

[liberal_arts]

It is difficult to fully comprehend the reasoning behind taking another life even in much more real-world ways of thinking, to be honest.

My other self's former master had wanted to make a point to his son about the weight of the lives in the care of a daimyo.

[drydrown]

I work in criminal prosecution. Understanding the reasons behind such things is something of a requirement of my job, though full comprehension is something I generally don't try for. The reasoning, absolutely; the deeper motivation decidedly less so. I've found it matters reasonably little anyway - what matters is the result. Whatever reason people have for it, lives were still ended either way. I doubt it matters much to the people that were killed, whether they died for a "purpose" or for passion or just because someone could.

[liberal_arts]

But he was my master. Understanding him is just as important as understanding myself.