Post-Event Reaction Log!
Who: Everyone. EVERYONE.
What: The event is over.
When: From 12:01 AM on the 28th to all day after
Where: All over da place!
Summary: With the event over, people will be waking up in whatever homes they moved into, perhaps next to someone they normally wouldn't.
Rating: I dunno it could get kind of steamy :o ( Read more... )
What: The event is over.
When: From 12:01 AM on the 28th to all day after
Where: All over da place!
Summary: With the event over, people will be waking up in whatever homes they moved into, perhaps next to someone they normally wouldn't.
Rating: I dunno it could get kind of steamy :o ( Read more... )
Even so, Robert can't find the hatred in himself anymore, can't find the anger or the violence in himself anymore - and even if he could, he'd be crushing it down, recoiling in terror and guilt and shame from it - to truly direct at the Malnosso. So it just stagnates quietly instead.]
... A choice...?
I-I... I always considered truth to be... objective. B-but... emotions are rarely c-completely objective...
[He chances a glance up at her, looking at her - or trying.]
... I... I s-suspect that... w-we'd have much to... r-relearn about each other.
... A-And. Perhaps you... w-wouldn't... w-wish to keep my company anymore afterwards. [Or vice-versa, though honestly Robert isn't even sure.]
...
I... I still remember everything... everything about that... false life.
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Well, his dogma isn't quite as strong as it has been.]
... I have... t-trouble using emotions constructively.
Perhaps you would remember that I had difficulty with even understanding them... [That had stayed mostly the same, except that false self had been more comfortable with people, to an extent.
He's used to making decisions based on cold, detached logic. To introduce emotion into them seems... foolish, and yet... That was how he'd decided to make friends here before, and so far that decision hadn't entirely screwed him over.
Perhaps it... was worth a shot?]
... A-At any rate... if y-you'd want to... p-perhaps try to build some sort of... legitimate connection...
...
W-Well, I wouldn't be opposed to it. [If you can smile, then you can't be entirely barbaric, can you...?]
B-But... much has changed, now. ... E-Even if I'm not sure how m-much of my own thoughts I can... trust, now. [Robert's devotion to his Terran values, or at least the Terran dogma of non-violence, has been weakened now, and it's left him with a profound sense of uncertainty that makes him decidedly uncomfortable.]
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Until now.]
... Continuing to process... drawing conclusions... refining one's own data.
... Perhaps... perhaps I... h-have been... wrong.
[Robert does not like to admit when he's wrong. He doesn't like to admit when he doesn't know something. But... but he'd rather learn than remain ignorant.
And Daisy will quickly realize, if she learns more about this little scientist at her feet, that he is essentially the poster child for non-human sapient respect and appreciation. She'll probably remember his brother-and-partner (now only partner) too, who is decidedly non-human himself.
He is the other side of the coin, representing what Daisy's universe could have been like if the encounters made with sapients were positive.]
...
... I... I know you can... fight.
...
Before... before I thought everybody who could fight, who could kill, w-was... was a barbarian. Wasn't... c-capable of anything other... other than hatred.
[His voice trembles slightly. It may be clear just how hard it is to actually say this, to try to put words to the dogma he's been fed quietly his whole life, to try to elaborate two hundred years of repression.]
... It's... it's... h-hard, hard to a-accept, but...
... B-but I've met people who... who are... more than that.
[Are you more than that too, Daisy?]
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... And you know my partner is a non-human sapient as well...
That was one thing that the alternate world could not change.
... I-I had never met cruel, heartless sapients. Not even human sapients. N-not until here... Until here I had never even seen a scientist capable of... of what the Malnosso do.
[This place has been full of truths for Robert as well, but they've been sobering, painful ones - mostly.]
... I hope that... th-that one day your world can... can be free of war.
Or... or at least that there can be less.
[Because Robert is beginning to realize that a state of no war seems very difficult for most places... even if he doesn't know why, and even if he doesn't know what makes it possible on Terra.]
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[He remembers now how he had told Helios magic didn't exist. And he realizes that it must have been hard for Helios to hear that at first.
... Likewise, there were many things it was hard for him to hear. But people had... tried to help him.]
... I... I think perhaps that because all of us... are in a shared situation, it becomes easier for us to be accepting...
...
... I thought I w-was accepting, but... [But maybe I'm not.
It's a sudden and a little frightening revelation.]
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[He shakes his head a little. It's a wonder he didn't go completely nuts. He supposes, on some level, that he's become inured to it, or maybe he just dismisses everybody as crazy until proven reasonably sane.] None of those things exist on Terra... as far as scientists could ever tell. The amount of evidence for naturalistic explanations was overwhelming. And I've even demonstrated a physics discrepancy between my multiverse and those of a magician friend of mine.
... But this place does tend to... change people.
[Maybe for the better.]
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