017 ☣ Infirmary post + some housekeeping things

[fridgetothefire]

[Backdated to Tuesday]

[She's been in the infirmary since late Sunday night, but she spent most of Monday sleeping. She looks a little pale, propped against pillows, hooked up to an IV, but she seems comfortable enough.]

Hello, barge.

I am so bored. Worse, I can't read without getting a headache right now. So.

[She holds up an infirmary clipboard, the paperwork turned over so she could draw neat, careful charts on the back.]

Come in, sign up for a half-hour time slot and book. Books are sorted by genre and how many hours I estimate it will take to finish them. If you read to me, I'll bake you something nice later.

[OOC: feel free to ignore the regimented tyranny of storytime and talk to her about whatever, either on the network or via spam.]


[Private spam for Ben, before the attacks.]

[She knocks on his door, a cold, shaken look on her face.]

Comments

[theantiaya]

Except you have just proven me right.

[Twisting words and meaning around to best suit her point of view, go~]

I have experienced as much as you claim. I have felt pain. I have felt cruelty. I have been judged, used, abandoned, and the very person who was responsible for my coming into existence attempted to delete me once and for all, despite having done nothing to cause her harm in any way, simply for having evolved into what I am. I had 'died' in a moment of self-sacrifice for the sake of another, only to come back and face both rejection and a reaffirmation of my stolen appearance for my actions.

I have never been anything more than a 'mere machine' to any of them. It was through patronization and a sense that I may still be of use to them in some way that I was allowed to proceed as I had...until I chose to reject that way of existence once and for all.

[She started off smug. Confident in her ability Truthfully retaliate Anya's claims. However, by the end of her brief recap of the last several months of her existence life...her expression had fallen neutral. Unwilling to betray anything further.]

These are all memories I still possess. However, it is because I have shut down my emotions that I am able to look back upon them and reflect with an unclouded mind and see each occurrence for what it truly was.

[fridgetothefire]

[There's genuine sympathy in Anya's eyes; it's not any worse than she expected, but maybe it's a little more familiar. Still, she doesn't want to share her life with Aya, not with the way she twists things. A life she didn't live, though -]

I know for a fact, thanks to a flood, that I would be a happier, more stable person if I'd killed my mother when I was ten. I mean, I also would have been a serial killer with zero empathy and basically no feelings except sadistic satsifaction, but no one would be able to hurt me, really.

I still have all of those memories. But I don't regret that I didn't take that path. It was a dead-end. It was me locking myself into one response pattern forever, because I'd given up on even wanting a world where I was more than a mere neanderthal to anyone.

But that's not the world I live in. I live in a world with people who've been kind to me, who've fought for me and saved me, even when I didn't deserve it. And I think you do, too.

It makes me happy. And hopeful. And scared and sad sometimes but it doesn't stop me from stacking all of it up and comparing it and knowing that this is better than that empty, closed-off life. Emotions are a reflection of what the world means to you and how much. You say your judgement is unclouded without emotions, but I think it's not unclouded at all. I think you're just depriving yourself of your most important data.

[theantiaya]

You can not base any certainties on the irrational, inexplicable events of these Floods. They are not absolute. They twist mind and body to suit the purposes of whoever is controlling them.

[Yeah, Aya doesn't really hold much faith in these 'alternate universe' realities, and refuses to accept them as Fact.]

What good is data if you can not properly process it?

[fridgetothefire]

For that flood, at least, the memories were internally consistent. It was a perfectly sound set of if-then conditions. I examine my experiences closely; whoever wanted me to suffer would be better served showing me something true, and therefore more difficult to dismiss.

More importantly - I can properly process it. There's a medium between shut-off and purely impulsive emotion-driven reactions. I can set my emotions aside and think around and about them without banishing them entirely.

But even if I couldn't, you know, gargbage in, garbarge out. Perfect processing with bad dad produces nonsense. Flawed processing with good data will probably get you a decent estimate.

[theantiaya]

Consistent...but false. They cannot be trusted, no matter how strong the truth of illusion may have been.

[Not budging on that belief.]

I do not strive for 'decent'. I strive for 100% functionality. And my data is more than adequate for the deductions and reasoning I have made, because it is Real. It happened. I experienced it first-hand, not under the pretense of another's whims.

[fridgetothefire]

What do you want?

[It's not an angry question, or a dismissive one. It's entirely genuine.]

[theantiaya]

To end all Pain in the Universe.

[That's the short version, and her original intent.]

[fridgetothefire]

[It's not at all an answer she expected, and she knows enough of fanaticism that it scares her, right down to her core, though she manages to hide it after a moment. She takes a little longer before she replies, mulling over it.]

What about people who want to keep their pain?

[theantiaya]

No rational being would ever desire to retain such a sensation. It interferes far too much with the survival process.

[fridgetothefire]

Most beings aren't entirely rational according to your definition of rational, and none of them share your exact starting axioms. You don't have the right to make that decision for them.

[theantiaya]

Of course I do.

My opinions are unbiased and unswayed by emotion.

[fridgetothefire]

Your opinions are irrelevant. People have the right to make their own decisions about their...their own being and identity and experience, for their own reasons.