Timelines are odd. The idea of a branching web of all interconnected realities isn't all that difficult to comprehend, but the heartbreak that comes with such things is... unique, I'd say. Knowing someone, loving someone, losing someone, then seeing their face around the corner, only to be that of another person entirely——someone with their own complete inner life, yet in them you can only see the past, a past they don't even know, one they've never even considered. The inverse too, is true. I've seen faces from my worst nightmares smile at me with nothing but genuine kindness. My nervous system doesn't quite know how to cope, I suppose. Dead faces accompany walking bodies, faces of horror smile and lend a hand, familiar faces treat you with fear and suspicion, and strangers act as if they know you... to name but a handful of things. Don't know exactly how to tag this one. #existentialism , I suppose.
very relatable, y0u learn t0 live with th 0verwhelming presence. it's heavy, but learning t0 separate things and c0ntinue 0n is w0rth it. f0cus 0n y0ur 0wn life, and the rest that exists will 0nly matter when it needs t00.
D --> It's something I've had to come to terms with as well. I am an exception. I got to live and carry on with my life when everyone but Nepeta fell around us (and Kanaya by technicality, but her dying, despite getting "better", I consider a failure on my part). It was less common on our meteor, but sometimes we'd come across others adrift in space on their own paths, or course through a dream bubble and it was always painful. Old friends, familiar and new faces. Iterations where Makara was upstanding and kind despite him nearly tearing me apart in my timeline. The people that would look to me in confusion as I began to change, began to get happier with myself, some happy for me, others claiming I've changed too much. Now, I am here, and now there are dozens upon dozens of people that wear my dead friends' faces, or mine. Or friends I could've made had things gone different. I have my moirail after all of this time and I am forever grateful for her for sticking around through the worst of it all for me. But, it is lonely, knowing you are what's left in a sea of familiar but not-quite timelines.