for the ghost gods

Geta & Caracalla of the Paradox system. Yes, the ginger ones.

[dismanibus]

Quid est?

This is a personal blog for two introjects from the Paradox system, Caracalla and Geta. Both much alike and unlike our Gladiator II counterparts (and entirely unlike the historical), we made this blog in the hopes of making some contact to people outside our four walls. Anyone is free to follow, just be aware that the block button functions similarly to being thrown out of court, so behave yourselves. Askbox is open, and you're welcome to use it for whichever purpose suits you.

Further information under the cut.

Etiquette:

You don't have to follow any particular rules per interaction, aside from the usual and hopefully obvious baseline politeness. You also don't have to be informed on what systems or introjects are; we don't care, and have no issue answering questions on this. Just be aware that what we say may not align with widely accepted textbook definitions, as our experiences and beliefs are our own. How you regard us as people is up to you just as much: you can treat us as introjects, fellow fans, lost travellers from a strange parallel timeline, or as stand-ins for the film characters like you might on a roleplaying blog. Once more, we don't care - this is a Tumblr blog, which is about as far from formal and serious as things come. As long as you're interacting with us, anything goes, and we'll match... your "vibe". Everything is rebloggable unless reblogs are turned off, in either case we'll be mortified when this is done unless you're adding something to the post body. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to do it, just that it'd probably be easier on our egos if you said something also. Or you can just put us on blast and show everybody the things we probably shouldn't have been writing at all; your call. If you're here because we reblogged something from your blog and reading this post has made you cringe: feel free to block us also. It won't stop us existing, but it will make it easier for us to never encounter each other again. If you're curious, though, feel free to stay. Feel free also to tag us in posts you'd like us to see or chime in on. We'll otherwise avoid directly talking about ourselves in fandom posts, as typically we don't believe that this would be appropriate. (The emperor is not meant to see all that the plebeians say of him, after all. We respect this divide where respect is due.)

Askbox;

What kinds of questions do we accept? Shortly put, any. You can share comments, ask questions about us or our posts, or use it like anyone would an audience - is your ox stuck in a ditch and you're looking for ways to unstuck it? Do you have a particularly stubborn headache, and need council on which gods to appease to see it end? Consulting us is, surprisingly, free of charge. Our working hours might not be limited to mornings between the first hour and the sixth, but we do not guarantee priority to anyone, therefore your headache may well be gone and your ox unstuck by the time we get back to you. We formally apologise if this is inconvenient in any way, but that also isn't exactly our problem. It'll do also to remember that where we are from, it could take months for such correspondence to take place.

Disclaimer;

Neither of us is going to abide by any psychiatrically approved rules on how an introject is supposed to think or behave here. Reader takes responsibility for any advice they may heed and accepts that anything they may read is likely to be the flight of fancy. For legal reasons also, any murder or torture or reference to the practices of slavery or immoral sexual acts mentioned on this page are either purely hypotethical or took place away from the reach of a modern justice system. Speaking of, if you are under the age of majority, exit this blog now and ask your legal guardian to read whichever post you almost did to you, or have them convey your message to us in your stead. Only full citizens should approach the emperor in person without special permission.

Signed by;

Geta: Born first as the older twin, by a matter of a couple inches under an hour measured by a military standard water clock, in the city of Mediolanum, Rome, around the year 175 AD. My favourite way to spend time is to be repeatedly kicked down by fate and circumstances, but otherwise by reading and learning. I write often, often in length, though you'll rarely hear of it - I'm known to be introspective and prone to brooding and dramatics, but it works in my favour in performance and simply in being able to feel passion for a wide scope of things in life. More spiritual than capable of attending the rites that are important to me.

Calla: The twin that was conceived first thank you very much and I don't sound like I'm narrating Fiona's Tinder profile from Shrek when I'm writing about myself. The guy above really is a loaded pistol who likes piña coladas and long walks on the beach though. Insufferable. Anyway, I do grammar when I care enough or it's necessary for the bit and also most of the system's art and a whole lot of our writing also. In the system as a whole I'm the guy who's most often out and does most of our things in life, which is funny because before I wasn't allowed to do anything but now I do everything and have last say really on most things. Geta just looks fancy like he always has, and basically looks out for me. He also mostly runs this blog because it's his only outlet in life, he can't stitch a sentence together to save his life so he prefers writing to speaking. Always did by the way, which is another stupid thing what with him always being the one talking. I should probably be talking about myself more than him in my own intro huh. Well, done deal, I'm not rewriting this. Hit me up if you want to hear something about me actually (though that might also be about Geta then, no promises, he's my pet experiment.)

Tags;

Geta's: #g.

Calla's: #c.

If no tags, assume it's either generally applicable, mutually agreed upon, or too embarrassing to confess to. Any extra tags for summary purposes or commentary only at this time.

[luniidae]

My booooy ✨

If you're looking for his brother...

[luniidae]

Hey guys, I'm still alive and I have a new obsession

My booooys

[luniidae]

Well, there is this Roman emperor....

[dismanibus]

this seems like a scam but apparently for most if not everything that's wrong with us, part of the solution is just... feeling safer? and we'd like to do that, we'd love to spend more time with all of that, they call it visualisation and safe space practices, but it's like either we're avoiding it or we never find the time or have the energy for it. and sometimes it's just because that's... scary, I guess. trying to find safety and I guess we just don't want to find out there's none to be had. we wrote at... some point, about the place we usually go to, which is Geta's bedroom in Rome. that's still the safest place we know and I'm not sure why or why my bedroom isn't. maybe because I associate it with anxiety, and he was never strictly speaking welcome there because it was my space? but his space was always calm and organised and predictable so we both liked to be there. and for me, him being there to begin with was also a part of why it was calming to me.

but it doesn't always work for us. sometimes it's too scary there, too. because the city is still there and the palaces have other people and maybe we don't trust other people right then. sometimes other people is good and sometimes it's... not? but we have other safe spaces too and I keep noticing this in our fic that it's usually a bedroom, and they have a lot in common, particularly canopied beds, only one door, etc. just small spaces, most of the time. there's even a tool closet in one story that we haven't published, where we sleep on a straw bed in a tiny nook separated from the rest of the house by a thin curtain. and that's a safe space, too.

so for a while we've been talking about... maybe we could write more spaces like those in here? since writing actual full stories is hard, but doing this together in our imagination is also either hard or scary, maybe writing it here wouldn't be. so I'll try? and write about one we built early on, for when the city is too much and too crowded and we want to actually go away and into hiding. there's also the exile villa, which is kind of a midfield between these two, where we're not alone but we hand-picked the people we have there and we trust those people. and it's on an island that has a town, but the town is further away and the island is small, so it's still much less stressful than Rome when we feel that's too big.

anyway, this one isn't that. it's in the mountains somewhere. far up enough that it has coniferous forest, so maybe it's even further up north than the Mediterranean area (to me the area seems Romanian, in the Carpathian mountains maybe). it's not specified. part of the reason it's safe is that nobody knows exactly where it is.

there's a dirt path that leads up the slope of a mountain range. it's not in the mountains yet, it's on the edge, through a forest that's cleared enough around the path that you know it's been used, but it ends deep, deep in the forest, and no one is coming here for any other purpose than to visit the temple. it's Greek, and when we first found it it was barely maintained, partially collapsing, clearly abandoned but I think we should rebuild it, make it less exposed to elements, and more habitable. part of the reason we don't use it a lot is that it's not exactly nice to live in ruins. it's lonely and cold and the environment is too harsh. but it was like that when we first came.

needed a place to hide me, specifically. we were on the run and I was sick and this place was supposed to be healing. that's the legends, anyway. the spring water that flows from the fountain in the temple is supposedly blessed and has curative powers. but the whole thing's fallen into disrepair and out of favour so who will look for us there? after everything that went wrong, we're not welcome in the city anymore. but I still need somewhere I can heal. so we came there by cart, concealed with covered supplies, the way you might imagine smuggling people around. no big fanfare. nothing. there may or may not be a minor cult still tending the temple, but I'll go with not today because I don't trust them, so it's empty. we're there because - it's an alternative to execution. a mercy.

so we're left there, Geta makes a bed on the floor in the corner of the opisthodomos/posterior room of the temple, against the side wall and the wall with the door to the public areas of the structure so that we'll never be immediately visible from the doorway and will always see anyone coming in before they see us. there isn't a door, because of the state of the temple, which is strange considering how far we're going to disappear and be unseen, but maybe it feels too confined if there is a door? and too dark, because temples don't have windows or other sources of light, so without fires, it would be completely dark there. we do have a lamp, just one, a carryable oil light, but it's small and for night time. maybe there is a door but during daytime we leave it open? maybe. I don't like it being just open after dark, during the night. so there has to be a door. I'm debating the door too much.

the ceiling of the main temple structure is cracked and partially collapsed, so there's plenty of daylight there when we get there, at least. Geta's put me into bed first thing, covered me with blankets, then moves around nearby to unload what resources we have for us and to see what's about. we get more resources by cart to the end of the road but no one comes to the temple. that's just us.

and that's... really the whole thing. that's the place. I think we can restore it somewhat. fix the ceiling and make sure the place is structurally sound. install better doors, clean the marble surfaces, sweep the leaves off of the floors, fix the statues that are inside, restore the fountain so it's not cracked and dirty. make sure the door to the posterior room is both secure and lockable, with a firm latch to close it from the inside with, and the room itself we can make into a proper bedroom for two. it's a very small temple, nothing like a major city would have but one that's... big enough to awe when you walk through the main building but what's left to us is small. the room we have is split into two parts, one for our bedroom and one for storage above, where the food is kept and other necessities. if we had people we trusted and knew they could maybe also sleep up there, and be the ones to tend to the temple? the bedroom space for us got a little out of hand, very luxurious, very palaces-like, but darker much much much darker with black and red painted walls instead of the paler marble of the Palatine, and veins or streaks of gold for decor, and pictures of fruit-bearing trees and people picking them, and animals like boars on the frescoes, and so on. the bed is also upgraded from a few fabrics thrown over one another into a proper Roman bed, too, wide enough for the two of us, dark wood, a soft mattress, and I'm sorry but there must be a curtain that can be pulled over to separate it from the rest of the room. there's a chest by one wall and a desk to write on, because Geta would need his correspondence, he's always corresponding with someone. I think it might represent our communication with others in general? internally and externally. Geta likes to have the feeling that he can take his time and composing letters gives the right framework for him for that.

and a rug for the floor in the middle.

optionally, there would be up to five small wooden houses to the side with straw roofs and pens for chickens or pigs or goats there a stone's throw away from the temple itself, for the cult that tends the temple. easy to build and easy to tend to and easy to take apart and for now, this doesn't exist. but it's a possibility. if we'd feel safe again to let anyone else there.

otherwise, that's... more or less what it is. the main temple is lit with a few braziers that we can maintain and maybe we'll find a way to have just one window in the structure that casts light over the fountain at a specific hour, maybe dawn or sunset, or noon. for added light, so it's not all dark, always. but maybe it should always be dark. if we want daylight we can open the doors.

so, that's one of them. I do like it better when we can have a story associated with the place. this one's maybe too fantastical and out there. maybe that's why we don't really like it so much. but anything else feels too close to other people. maybe we could move it somewhere else? but then it's too close to people again. I don't know. I think that's why it was in ruins and abandoned the first time, anyway. so that it made sense that there was nobody else there.

[dismanibus]

It's been a terrible half a month. Not only by the measure of the sickness itself but by the reality that we now cannot remember the half of it. Has it been two weeks, or three? I couldn't tell.

A bit personal. But I do want to share it, either way.

I think we've somewhat shifted roles since last autumn, when we went through a major illness unexpectedly, and suffered a lot of pain, as this time. I feel that this might have scared my brother - he's drudged through a lot of the burdens regarding disability and sickness and pain before but he seems frightened now, and doesn't want anything to do with it. I understand; it's a harsh throwback to how hopeless life was before for him. I would not want to go through what he went through a second time, the slow breaking of the body around him, the decline of his mind and ability to think or even recognise himself, I understand this is frightening. So it seems I've taken the burden this time, which also makes sense, because it is a lot of pain and I... was made to deal with pain, it seems. One life to next.

Interestingly, he's taken to what used to be my role in our dynamic eagerly instead. He's flourished as a caretaker this whole time, seems to love tending to my pain as if it's a return home in some fashion. He was always, would always, be my carer when I needed him in our childhoods and as youths, and I think maybe that gives him a sense of control over our circumstances. It brightens him up to feel useful again, to be able to feel the stronger of us two, the one I need, instead of simply needing me always.

I've tried to make for a good patient, to be a grateful brother to him, to not be as bitter as the pain has made me, to try and not lash out from the fear of it. I've clung to him like a newborn to its mother, which was how he would do for me when he was afraid, too. Not a blissful submission, but a hard one. I don't like losing my control either, but I've been deeply afraid, and I've felt so powerless. His care and affection has helped me make through that darkness. I told him yesterday that without him, I would have never managed to grow up. I've always needed him, the same as he always needed me. Maybe it wasn't obvious sometimes but I have always, always needed him just as much as he needs me, and like I need air or water to live. That hasn't changed.

I'm grateful to have him. Gods blessed me when they did not send me here alone. Here, or in the before, or in any world or life we've shared. I am so lucky to have someone like him. Difficulties and all, of course. It is something you have to earn, an oath you have to keep, both ways. I want him and he wants me, to be bound as we are, to be loyal and devoted. We could separate at any time - anyone can - but it is the choice to remain, to be the best that we can for each other, even if our best sometimes is miserable and terrible and painful and toxic. Even then, it is a choice to stay. The good does outweight the bad. I can't imagine needing to find another being to be a fraction of what he is to me, for me. I am blessed to have him. I'd go through anything to keep that as it is.

Mandatory your mileage may vary and do not try this at home, most relationships are not like ours. If someone would tell me of the same - I'd tell them to run for it. It is different for us. This bond wasn't forged here or in any single lifetime. It's older than that, and deeper.

[shoyohnt]

sorry for how I acted when there were multiple noises happening at the same time

[inseparabiles]

[dismanibus]

From the recent conversation, I thought that maybe this might be a good thing to write about. "This" being... I don't have a name for it. The emptiness that should be me. It feels ridiculous to name it anything, when all it is that I am failing to be a person, but that is not what I want to write about. I thought I'd write about the things that I didn't fail at, and the parts I have help with.

When we came here, I had difficulty being myself in any other context aside from my brother. It took a few weeks for me to realise that it wasn't because I was having difficulty being myself here, but that I didn't have a myself to be to begin with. What led me to realise that was simply that - when we were writing, we had little issue characterising my brother, and he had little difficulty expressing himself and playing with that distinction and finding himself through those stories, his voice was always clear to him, and his desires, and everything else. And oftenmost when there is an issue with bringing a character onto a page, the easiest way to fix this is to dive deeper into the character: read their lines, their dialogue, listen to them in the source material, watch the movie from their perspective.

Have you ever done that - watched our film from my perspective? Have you noticed that it, too, is empty? What else is there except my brother? The irony of how I was suffocating him throughout is that only one of us has character, and it is not the one doing the suffocating. I am a blanket over a wildfire. I have no desires, I have fears; I fear abandonment, betrayal, oblivion. I fear no one truly loving me, I fear fading, I fear being no one, never finding my place in history.

What else is there? All my life I have been a shield, a shell. I have never been allowed desires or substance. I don't have a survival mode, I am a survival mode. My brother is the lungs and heart of us and I am the feet to run with and the arm to throw in front of us for cover. And I've had to find myself from those details, piece by piece, by questioning always what it means to feel anything else.

In all its complexity, my relationship to my twin is simple enough as it comes; I function in context to him, because we are one thing. I don't need desires as long as he has them, and he doesn't need to fight as long as I'm there to take a beating. So he has no fear and I have no joy; his fear is for me to fail before him and my joy is his enjoyment of anything at all, because I do not have my own.

But I had some desire. Some content. A longing to be recognised by others. A want to be seen by someone I admired. That's a start. I enjoyed some things for myself: a good drama, for one. The thrill of watching a champion chase victory on the arena.

After coming here, I had to build upon that, because my original context that made me look like a human being, a three-dimensional creature, was gone. I leaned heavily into being my brother's caretaker and his entertainment: I took him to places he wanted to see. I gathered what I needed to express myself as I had - plenty of makeup in gold and red and dark brown, contrary to the voices that told me we did not need those things. Piles upon piles of jewelry, and things that reminded me of home.

I found music that spoke to me, which was coincidentally quite different from the music that spoke to my brother at first. We found a common theme later - some overlap - and built our story together from the songs that reminded us of... us. Ourselves. Calla leans more into strange indie and techno, I lean toward rock and orchestrals. That is substance to each of us, not that he needed more of it, or more colour. But I was filling in.

We found our footing in writing also, in providing our own perspectives. The more he wrote his, the more I found myself understanding myself through his lens also. The more I was contributing in return - reacting, desiring, fearing, wishing, feeling. All of that became my substance also, not so much because it came into me but because I found it from myself and learned to recognise it, as if I'd been asked, repeatedly, how does that make you feel? What do you want? Why are you so afraid? What made you hurt?

If you'd asked me any of those things directly, I doubt I would have known how to answer. Maybe. But in writing, no one is asking, we are only recording it as it happens. I am feeling. I do want. I am afraid of - and hurt by - what is happening.

I've been here a year and though I still feel half a person, or less, at least I recognise my hollow shell. I see and feel things that are mine and I can point them out and say that I feel this, or want that, or fear this. This hurt me. I felt that. I can say it to my twin and I can express it at least to ourselves if something beyond us does. I can at least talk to him, even if I still haven't learned to speak to others. I don't quite know how to meet other people yet, and I seem to always do something wrong, but I'm happier knowing myself better with Calla at the very least. And he is much happier knowing me in terms that are not always so confusing and unpredictable. He has always known me better than I've known myself but hearing my inner experience of myself straighten out somewhat - become better illuminated and less murky - has made it easier for us to communicate with each other as well. He's often the first to read me and be able to tell why I feel a certain way, or to react to it before I know it's happening. Before, we could not do this. My brother is my service animal and my illness is that I cannot read myself. But I am getting better at it, sometimes or oftenmost with his help and with the way he is able to help me untangle myself, but sometimes just by myself as well.

What helps the most is that there has not been one instance since we came here when he would reject some part of me. He's more curious about me than anything else, as if he's discovering me for the first time, like I feel that I am. It's me who pushes him off oftenmost, when I can't bear being seen the way that he sees me, or when I'm not ready to have fingers in the wounds that are still bleeding. But he has never been disgusted or frightened by what he finds in me. Only curious, and then satisfied when he has learned it. I'm grateful for that. I've tried to be more worthy of it now than before. He tries harder, too, to be worth whatever it is that I give him. Security. Safety. Unconditional love. We do what we can for each other.

[dismanibus]

is this too dark? like, from me? it's not like the first time I've thought of it or anything but it's nice that whatever happens to us happens to us together. I don't need to worry about... any of the things that I maybe worried about before. like that my brother might want to live without me or something like that. or he'd do better without me. none of that really exists because we're so close now and I mean that not in any emotional sense but like... we're literally bound together.

so he can't want to leave or get rid of me, and if I'm sick he's sick also, and if I die or he does we both do so it doesn't feel so frightening or lonely.

which... maybe you'd think I'd hate that. that I don't have any chance for independence and I can't even die alone if I'd wanted to. but I don't really hate being tied up with him as much as I hate the idea of being tolerated or secretly loathed or something, and secondly the feeling of being controlled and suppressed, and these aren't the same thing. I don't do very well on my own honestly. this is a secret but

I get scared really easily and I don't trust overly easily (anymore?), I trust way easier than he does but it's kind of a testing trust, not an innate one, so for certain things it's not enough to just have anyone even if it helps, it's more, I need my other half for that. and I think I'm the most afraid that maybe I don't have one to begin with and maybe he doesn't feel the same way about me as I need him to or thought he did? and then if he doesn't love me then maybe it's better if we don't even exist together. like if it's unfixable I don't want to fix it I just want to be somewhere else and somebody else and be as if it never was.

I don't know if that makes sense. but just being stuck with him isn't bad I like being stuck with him for the most part. he makes me feel safer and he rarely doesn't care for me when I need it. and there's other things like, it's hard to enjoy things if I can't share them with him. it's just the fear that maybe he'd be better off without me. but I know he isn't now so we're much more content and happy coexisting and I don't feel like I need to test that or run away from it. besides like I've said before I mostly get all of the control now anyway and I guess a part of that is that he can tell my intentions and doesn't need to intervene anywhere near as much as he thought he needed to before? and also I guess he can also intervene in ways that aren't as controlling or bad for me either, because I can feel what he feels too and a lot of our compromising happens on a level I don't even notice. like if I wanted something it kind of mixes with what he wants and then we've come to a conclusion without ever even talking about it.

I like that.

it also makes writing more fun I think because we get two perspectives at the same time and it's interesting to see both his side of a story and mine. it's a lot like playing in a figurative sandbox with things and there's no real conflict about any of it.

feeling really sick today still so I'm thinking about all of these things but at least it's better with painkillers. also thinking that it's interesting how I don't really want to be sick at all so it's his illness now and not mine. I guess I've finally done my time with sickness so now it freaks me out a lot but he's still got some tolerance left in him to deal with it.

not sure if this is interesting but I just wanted to write about it

[dismanibus]

Question. I worry sometimes IRL about being perceived as being too childish. But I have realised that my childish tendencies are actually a protection mechanism that I had set up as a child and am apparently clinging onto. Because i know Caracalla can have childlike tendencies, I'm wondering if you relate? Or if for you it's the more simple reason of wanting the joy of it. I need to lean into the joy of it more tbh.

Highly. Had a brief debate whether this was any of my business to respond to, but we thought that maybe it's good that it comes from both angles. I'll just have to... remember to actually hand the message over to him also.

From my perspective - he has always had what childhood we could preserve for ourselves. That doesn't mean so much that he had it when we were children, but rather when it was safer to have a childhood, which is still ongoing. And that is, in my view, his right; we fought for this, to give him that opportunity, to give him the ability to be all the things that he can be which are as often endearing as they are infuriating. He is immature and juvenile in the negative senses of the words, incapable of handling responsibility, uncaring of consequences and other people's emotions, careless and always prioritising entertainment and excitement over necessity and need, as well as his own safety, and that of others.

On the other hand, he is capable of feeling unrestrained joy and enthusiasm, he is capable of wanting, he is excitable and always at something, he's curious about everything, and never stops trying new things and reaching out to new people, trying things on for size, finding out what he likes and what he doesn't like. He is resilient against stress and shrugs it off because most musts in life don't mean much to him: he doesn't care about it if it doesn't entertain him, and what other people think of him is none of his concern, because he is trusting that someone else is always looking out for him. He has that faith in others that I completely lack - that things, at their core, will treat him well, because he is lovable and deserving, and surely people see that too.

These are qualities that I'd sacrifice for nothing, and would endure anything to preserve. We didn't survive our childhood just so he could live in that same fear and under those same pressures forever. I never got to be a child and I don't know how not to be crushed by my own fears and my mistrust of the world but Calla does not struggle with this and I will do anything to protect that innocence in him.

... anyways,

I don't think I really ever recognised how much Geta is doing to keep us safe but even acknowledging that what he does is still insane to me because

you can't live like that. I can't imagine living like that. being stressed and afraid and tense all day all week all year and never even sleeping well because, what, someone thinks something mean about you? because you did or said something wrong like who the fuck cares. I don't. it's not my job to please everyone and it's stupid to always be stuck up observing yourself from the outside like oh no am I appealing to everyone. that's fucking ridiculous again WHO cares?

but I also honestly. I really fucking envy children sometimes for I guess the reasons of we never had a childhood like Geta said. it's not the same doing it now as it would have been if we weren't living in constant fear for our lives the first our entire fucking lives. I'm the only one who ever really pushed out of that shell and then oops Geta got punished for it again for some fuckass reason. and I was always hiding. so I don't know what my view of childhood actually even is. Geta seems to know what being childishness is like but to me "childhood" really is just like, a split between having stupid ideas and trying not to get killed by adults.

so maybe it's actually better he answered first? because he knows? but I really don't. the more I think of it the more it's like, I don't even know what a child is. or what it means to be like a child.

what annoys me is that it's also assigned to me as if I'm incapable of being an adult. I'm not? I'm not worse than him or anybody else or less adult because I don't subscribe to stupid rules about how you're supposed to be and all that nonsense about behaviour and upholding image and adhering to ritual like do you understand,

have you EVER thought about how exhausting that is, actually? every day you wake up to make yourself like everybody else and do the same things as everybody else and say the things that everybody else wants to hear. why the fuck should anybody do that actually? Geta is made of this shit and I am not I'm the opposite of it. I say whatever I want because I happen to think it and I don't pretend to like boring shit and if I have an opinion I'm going to say it and not just be palatable about it because we're all so fucking palatable all of the time nothing ever has any flavour and everything is pre-scripted and there's no surprise to being alive. is that childishness? or is that just like, not being dead inside.

people are so stuck up pretending to be cardboard cutouts that they miss on things that actually matter like real pleasures and how it feels like to not care when you're feeling something and what it's like to chase after things you actually care about and forming real actual relationships that don't stretch out to the end of the world just because you have some kind of a sunk cost fallacy deal going on with each other long after the light went out of that one, like, experience just doing things for the sake of doing them, tasting flavours to know what they're like and actually dwelling on it, going out and actually seeing the world instead of worrying if your clothes are on right or if you look stupid today or if you didn't pluck a hair out or literally why do we care about those things. people demand that nobody ever does anything or enjoys anything or experiences anything and we all just sit down quietly and listen while others are talking. WHY do we do this

anyway I don't know if that answers the question but that, I think, is the difference between me and Geta that he's trying to articulate and what comes across to other people as childishness, maybe.

Aside the harshness, I want to also say - which I don't think he would ever get to - is that he has a softness to him also which is unlike most others. I don't know how to describe this but he isn't afraid to climb up into my bed every night and come close and hold onto my shirt and tell me that he loves me, or that he's afraid, or he wants to be held, or he wants to hold me. There's a sweetness in him that he really doesn't show to most people but when you get to know him past the... all of that, he's one of, if not the most, warm person I know. He has a loyalty to him that is - very selective - about the people he wants to show that side to, but if you earn his trust, he shows love much the same way a young child would, or could, without reservation, and without pretense or performance to it. I don't know if it's hard or easy to see that about him, but he has a lot of innocence that he never burned through, unlike most people who become jaded over time and you would think in his position, with the things he's done and seen and caused and gone through and all of this, it would have shed from him. But even the worst things he's ever done, he's done them the way a child does something - without fully understanding why it hurt, and often finding that at the end of the day, he is also frightened by the things he did.

if we're tattling, then I'm just going to wrap this up by saying that there's a very literal child inside Geta also that he never lets out or talks about and likes to pretend isn't there because if you get to that you're at the core and could probably kill him by just moving too quickly in the wrong way. and it doesn't actually take that much to dig him out either. so all of that "oh I'm so mature" is actually mostly just the same old bullshit as it always was, but we don't talk about that here or anywhere, do we

[inseparabiles]

To Breaking Memories, And

Relationships: Emperor Caracalla/Emperor Geta Rating: E Words: 5 467 Chapters: 2/2 Warnings: twins/underage Tags: first person pov Summary: It is not so easy to talk to you. It has never been easy for me to talk to anyone. You have been the easiest, because words have never been needed. But maybe words are needed now. So I will tell you a story while you sleep, when you won’t grow tired of my clumsy narrative, and I won’t lose my words because speaking them becomes too hard. I will tell them to you in silence, while watching you breathe, while watching the shadows shifting in the room, and listening to the night: the neighing horse, the barking dog.

( AO3 )

[dismanibus]

one thing about being here is nice, though, and that's basically getting to just be with my brother

maybe this is sappy but it's pressure-free for the first time and I like that. I like being here with him (even if I'm not sure "here" is ideal). I guess we've said this a thousand times already? but it hits every now and then in a different way because we just get to be and nobody's feeding lies to us or telling us to do this or that or that things are our fault every time about everything and I know he hates not having control over things like - I don't know politics? but I'm fine doing nothing

I just wish things were neater and easier is all I guess. that it was easier instead of being so uncertain. because the uncertainty still feels just as unsafe as before but I don't know if it makes any difference knowing we can't much affect it. I wish we had ways to in smaller ways though. like even just little improvements.

but just being with him is nice and doing everyday things like having breakfast together and joking around and talking about inconsequential things and we basically never fight this way? there's nothing to fight about. he's not shitting on me constantly for not doing things right or kicking me aside from the way of his ego and I'm not fucking up anyway and I get all the freedom I need and it's just... better like this. getting the chance to just be us without pressure

anyway it was finally warm enough the other day to plant the things we couldn't on Luna's day and we did the rituals we missed in miniature form then. it still isn't raining (there's an actual drought going on and idk I guess we can fill a watering can to do it locally but) so we haven't put in the potatoes but I guess we should before it's too late? not even necessarily to eat (and honestly the moles might eat them instead) but it's just nice to see things grow

there's a quote from some guy who came way after us who then retired out of emperordom and surely this is bullshit but he basically started growing his own crops and the legend goes that when, after he'd left and put the state into chaos again, people went out to beg him to take his position back he supposedly said,

"If you could see the cabbages I grow with my own hands, you wouldn’t talk to me about the empire."

and yeah that's really what it feels like.

[dismanibus]

what if I showed up in your askbox and kissied you

you're actually allowed to do this, but you may get bapped in the process

[dismanibus]

Thinking about our (end of) childhood in Rome. (End of) because we came there at around 10 years old, after which we had a few more years of boyhood left in cultural terms but in terms of... where childhood ends and teenage starts, I'd give it maybe two to three at most. It's not that big of a difference but it's more the part I remember something about whereas for what came before I remember next to nothing.

And because it's getting to be summer again, even here at the edge of the world (things are so delayed and strange this far north, it still feels halfway to winter really), I keep just... thinking back to the dust and the boredom of sitting on stairs in the heat and trying to come up with things to do. It's weird how similar the right now is in some ways to how life was for us after we came to Rome, how much it feels like we're imprisoned inside a small interior of a kind and the world out there is like... whatever the world feels like to fish kept in an aquarium. An animated inaccessible background that has no real bearing on the stillness and sameness of your world. And I am so dreadfully bored by all of this. The repetition and the chains.

So I'm thinking of sitting on stairs and poking dirt with sticks and drawing figures in it. The way dirt paths mix into grass and the way leaves move in the breeze. I'm thinking of this one plant in specific but I don't know what it's called in any language. Bush type. The way the garden spaces were always wet and cold even in the heat and how the humidity stuck and by that alone you could tell it wasn't actually cold, because the humidity hits that way only when it's really warm. Actual cold is different and it doesn't form that kind of pockets around fountains and artificial shade.

After getting used to the place (more or less) we played a lot of hide and seek but it always needed to be confined into a specific area or we'd just never see each other again. I used to be afraid of getting lost and disappearing in there and I guess it seems unlikely now but people get lost in malls and die because they can't find their ways out and the Palatine was not a single mall, it was like twenty malls built together with so much corridor that there was bound to be some place you could get stuck or vanish in and nobody would ever know. Honestly I'm surprised it never happened as far as I knew. I grew less worried about that by the time we were men but then I got afraid of it again and to be fair I was right to be worried. But so we only ever played in given areas, or had a specific garden or a part of the building to use and couldn't go further. Do you know how boring hide and seek gets after a while though?

A lot of our time that we weren't cooped up in our chambers, we spent lying around in the grass in the gardens and getting wet from the fountains, because indoors was more accessible to other people, if you got found lounging indoors you were much more likely to be ordered to do something or attend someone and do something "productive". We also really perfected the art of vanishing from others and then getting beat up for it after when we had to come eat or whatever. But most of the beatings we got from people who weren't our father weren't half as bad, more of a nuisance, so I'm not sure if it was ever a deterrent. Geta can say whatever he wants but neither of us was ever a diligent or a willing student so much as we just wanted to be somewhere else and bored on our own terms. And our tutors didn't have the right to beat us to death so it was kind of inconsequential a lot of the time. Sometimes it was I guess exciting to go as long as we could without being found, we'd steal food from wherever and then hide again to eat it in secret. We muddied and ruined so many clothes and years were very long and very short at the same time living like that. The split between duty and boredom and finding excitement in all of the mind-numbing dullness of it. I don't remember us ever being really impressed with the bigness and luxury of where we'd landed so there wasn't a lot of enjoyment of that, ultimately it just felt like we'd been walled into an enclosure like donkeys or rabbits.

And it was only ever really us. There were plenty of other kids around of all ages but we weren't really mingling. I don't know if that was... ordered? Or if it was just a natural sense of they're not like us and we're not like them, or what it was, and I know a lot of it when we tried to make contact for whatever reason was that everyone was terrified of being responsible if we got hurt doing anything. And I think it mattered that we weren't trained for anything physical and everyone had this sense that I in specific was "weak" and "fragile" and "sickly" even though I hadn't been for years at that point really, or at least as far as I can remember there was nothing really wrong with me at that point, I just never developed the physique that I guess would have given the impression that I wouldn't get hurt and you obviously didn't get Geta if you didn't also get me so there was no chance. I'm sure they would have rather included Geta but Geta wasn't going anywhere without me. I guess that also contributed to the feeling that I was somehow about to shatter at any given time. Wish Father had had the same idea, really. Maybe the only person who didn't think I was about to die at a moment's notice so he had to put the fear back into me personally. But he wasn't around a lot.

We were pretty feral, all in all, I think. I don't feel like we had much of a choice in that. I do miss the heat and the gardens, though.

[dismanibus]

Bearing down with some pain again. Feels as of late like we cannot catch a break and it is wearing us down. Understandably: I feel like we spend all of our time fighting against our own being falling apart around us. Nothing much that we can do about it either, or so it seems - the irony feels great considering where we come from, how primitive any care for us was then, but now it doesn't seem like we are any better off per solutions than then.

So, lately, I've missed Rome in a manner that feels almost obsessive. Thinking about the streets and the late winter's cold of it, and the echoes of old stone laid across the city, the modernity built among the bones, like veins. Living, unlike the past of it. Visiting gave us the illusion of breaking away from all of this, the reality that is ours now, in exchange for the fantasy of what was before. Fantasy, because we don't think of the bad, only the could have been, the few moments of good scattered among the fear and... waiting for something bad to happen.

I shouldn't miss that when my present state, while it is painful for certain, is at least stable and mostly predictable. But I do miss it. Even the adrenaline, the tension, sometimes. I feel so useless here as I am. Still perpetually in wait of something yet I do not know what that something is.

In a turn which is likely to be boring to all whom are not directly concerned, we've as of late had something of a return toward a more diverse diet that feels... not entirely unlike our own, though still quite far removed. Summer is hard on us but perhaps with it, and these changes, we can be closer to home again in some respect. I miss the sun - the heat of sitting in the shade, squinting whenever I need to look elsewhere. The flavour of seasonal foods and the anticipation of rain on a day when the air hangs heavy.

My brother has been unusually calm and content this past week also, and it is not related to any adversity. He's in a good place. His contentness also means that I am more content, but I notice growing more afraid again, for no particular reason as usual. I need something to worry about, or else I will invent my own worries.

Would like to finish a story, but there simply has not been enough time to do so. It has been good for us to socialise, or, more precisely, for Calla to socialise and for me to nap, because nothing has particularly required my attention with his doings. Which is new to me: I don't need to worry? About him, about his company, about our company? Though it feels like time is flowing through our fingers like water and there is nothing to catch onto, so many things are peaceful now, and steady, and I am daring to trust this. Maybe it'll make me calmer as well. I feel like an old man waiting for summer and complaining about aches and pains.

Trying on a skin that was never to be mine either way. It seems so obvious now though I was in deep denial when it was still relevant: we were never going to last forever. Never more than a passing chapter. Never as much as our father, and not half the Marcus Aurelius before him. Not for our values, but for our position, for the turbulence of the era, for the climate, for all of it. It was never going to last. We should have left; I don't know when we might have possibly gotten such a chance, but I wish we'd ran.

Picture that. In self-exile, in some better place altogether; without any importance, there's little threat to one's life, or the lives of his loved ones. We could have handed over it all to someone else and... what good is an eternity that you will never witness? We were so young, and had ever chance of living a life worth living.

Or at least I did. I did. My brother never stood such a chance. Through no fault of his own although others like to think of it as his own failing, the consequences of his actions or some divine punishment, but he was a child when it all started. At least I could have given him a better ending. I could have tried.

I wish there was some ibuprofen left in here. My feet and hands both ache.

[dismanibus]

What kind of landscapes or views do you find most appealing? The gardens, the sea, the Colosseum maybe?

I seem particularly drawn to the sea. I find it calming. Which seems to be common enough, but I never knew that I felt this way before. It's only become apparent the past... I'd even say half a year. Maybe it started from actually seeing the sea, but maybe not. It has a lot to it - there's the side of opportunity and adventure, which I'm sure has always spoken to my people. Finding new land and challenge. But I'm far from immune to the other side, which feels prevalent in the modern era in particular, that... feeling of solitude and insignificance, which is a quiet of its own kind, an abandon that feels particularly good to me after having so much on my shoulders for so long. It seems like an opportunity to believe in my own smallness, like an impossible to ignore reminder that while I certainly do feel as if everything depends on me, I am nothing in the big picture of everything. No matter how big of a name I might make for myself - or might have - or even could have, it doesn't mean anything. Only select few people will ever hear of me. In their absence, no one will. The sea doesn't hear nor does it care. It's been here for far longer than I have, far longer than any of the mountains that I've seen my whole life have been there, too. It's constant and uncaring. I appreciate that.

I have difficulty convincing myself that I'm not the centre of the universe and I mean this in the least desirable way possible.

The Colosseum. For the grandeur of it. (Is that how you spell that word I'm not looking it up. Using capital letters doesn't translate to me spellchecking.)

I actually hate the picture of isolation Geta's painting above. I don't like it. I hate the silence and I hate that exact feeling of smallness that he claims to be craving, I hate all of it. I want to be surrounded by people and I want to feel the centre of everything and I don't want that illusion shattered by some big reminder of my cosmic insignificance or whatever. I hate all of that. Fuck that.

The modern Colosseum is a bit of a downer, too, but picture this: heyday and the games are on, it's summertime, some big reason like a war won or a bountiful harvest because the gods are favourable, any huge scale event rather than just mandatory appeasement of (me, and) the people. The dust isn't swirling because it's windy, it's swirling because 50 000 people are stomping their feet and shouting, the combined tremor shakes the whole thing up, the dust never settles. There's the smell of food in the air mixing with horse manure and sweat and perfume and mud and blood, you have all the important people in their own little containers, all the common folk and the less important important people over the rest of the seats. There's hunts of whatever kind of creature you've never seen or always wanted to see more of, with spoils being thrown back and forth between the arena and the audience. There's elephants having lunch like they're people, picking up cups with their trunks. There's sweaty dudes going three to three and one to one at it on the sands with whatever people invented to kill each other with and they're trained it's all like a dance. And the half-time of just killing people for the sake of killing people. You've never seen it like that. It's funny how people deny it's "human" but it's the most human thing in history - if it wasn't who we are we wouldn't keep fucking doing it. We wouldn't have websites dedicated to trading videos of people dying. We wouldn't have dark web murder rooms. We wouldn't have mass executions and genocide. It's just what we do as people. And the thing about the Colosseum and any proper arena showing executions mass scale is that we don't sugarcoat that to act like we're better than that. It's entertainment. I love entertainment. And it's fucking funny, too. Dress a guy up as Icarus and make him fall to his death. That's, I'm sorry, that's hilarious. Because it isn't. Because it is. Life is meaningless and I think that's probably my biggest difference with the above - Geta forgets this and I don't. Nobody and nothing means anything in the bigger picture. The only thing that matters is if you survive it or not. Watching others die is a celebration of your own survival.

Would you consider acting civilised? Even just for the appearances.

Again, nothing more civilised than this. But now that you mention that, also nothing more uncivilised. Cats play with their food, too. All kinds of shit is out there hunting solely for the joy of killing other shit. And again you and everyone pretending that isn't the case, that weasels and mice are natural best friends, and we close our eyes to where the meat on our plates comes from. Is denial civilisation? I don't partake.

To the contrary, I know that you partake in a lot of denial. And spend a not insignificant amount of your life trying to dull your senses so you can forget about everything you knew and saw before that moment, so you can feel - (things that I'm apparently not allowed to spell out so openly).

Forget the above. He does like the noise and the crowd, though. All the way until he very much doesn't anymore. His noise hangovers can last for days; he won't tolerate light, or touch, or anything else for as long as it takes to shed the celebrations.

I don't deal with it much better myself.

[screenshotsofdespair]