awakenerd | Aurora - Rean Heart

"Perhaps, perhaps not. It won't color my affection for you, though it may make me believe you harbor more resentment for yourself than you do. Or believe you harbor the right amount, I suppose? It is hard to say."

Yeah, none of that is reassuring.

Maybe it should affect your affection. If you let yourself be mad when people are cruel. Spite can be a great motivator, and maybe it'll push you think of more ways to head off that stuff from happening.

It's their fault for going so far, but if you're going to be stuck anyway, anything that might push you could help.

"It is not that I do not get angry..."

But do you let that color your affection for someone whose gone off the deep end?

Edited 2020-02-11 23:01 (UTC)

"If I did, than I would never deserve to be loved myself."

There's a different between being deserving of love and not being a dick to someone important to you.

"Perhaps. Even so... Even when I am angry at someone, or cannot condone their actions, I would rather think the best of them to the end."

Edited 2020-02-11 23:18 (UTC)

That's also not mutually exclusive.

But if someone is going to hurt you, if they're not going to care about you, then they don't deserve your love. That's the thing about relationships. They're supposed to be give and take and if they won't give to you, you don't have to give to them.

If they'll give to someone else, then they have that, but it's fine to care about your own heart too, you know?

He kind of smiles.

"Thank you. I appreciate what you say. I also think that's usually logical."

And unusually?

"Sometimes people can care a lot about each other but have to clash because their ideals and methods are not compatible. That is a common thing even among people with free will."

There's a difference between clash of ideals and 'go murder this town for me and you don't get to say no.'

[FUCK that guy.]

"....Yes. And yet, I cannot hate him."

But that's what I'm saying. That isn't disagreement. That's him doing something that would hurt you without considering you.

That isn't just having different opinions. That's him believing it's okay to hurt you.

"Technically, that isn't wrong. I am a tool. If you kill with a sword it shouldn't argue back.

But I am also a person. I do know this. It does muddy the waters a bit.

Ultimately, however, I take my life force from my Awakeners in exchange for offering them my power. There is no part of the contract that allows them to rescind their connection to me, or for me to deny them their path. I will not claim anything so foolish as 'not being human doesn't make me a person' or the like.

But entirely free will is also not part of what I am. I do not particularly have to like it, but I also choose not to resent it. I exist for a purpose, until that is fulfilled I will experience good and bad, I will be free and chained, I will see ugly and beautiful. There is far too much for me to love and far too little time awake to waste it on resentment."

....

I explained AI's to you, didn't I?

"Artificial Intelligence. Beings that aren't human that have a will. Right?"

Correct.

Partnered with a human to fight for a greater good. But it'd be easy to see them as just a tool. Something to use. Not a person, not a partner, just a thing.

I've been wondering if that's the key. If that's why things went wrong.

Somewhere along the way that was forgotten.

All these talents soldiers, people who believed in the greater good, suddenly lost the ability to fight. To help.

Even the will to.

I stopped caring about winning the war, saving huanity, those years in the hospital.

"What do you mean?"

When someone starts to see someone they're close to, someone whose support, someone who is always there to help as nothing more than a tool.

As a means to an end.

Someone it should be easy to see as a person.

How long until they stop seeing everything as a person?

I think whatever happened started with the AI's, then moved onto the people. And in the end, what was a force of good was burned into the ground and made nothing.

If your Awakeners can't see you as a person....how do they see anyone else as a person?

What kind of world does that leave, when those in charge forget what people are?

"...I don't disagree."

Everything Dusk says is perfectly logical and correct.

I can hear a but.

"I suppose if there's any 'but' then... it's not really for me to decide how each new generation wants to steer the world. I gave up that right willingly.

Of course I'd rather be viewed as a person not a weapon. I'd rather people use compassion over cruelty. I'd like to be treated as a partner not a tool.

I am myself. I wish to be seen as such. Treated as such. Any person does, and while I may no longer be human I'm aware I'm no less a person.

But whatever happens... It won't help me to begrudge it."

....do you ever have fights with them? How do you handle the situation when it DOES happen?

"I argue or resist if I think the order is wrong. If they're reasonable we talk. If not... then I still have to do it.

I cannot harm my Awakeners. So I can only fight with words and will. But when it comes to that, I do fight."

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