Eva Iden'no (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mtsilver_conquor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
voidtreckernet2021-05-27 11:03 am
mtsilver_conquor) wrote in voidtreckernet2021-05-27 11:03 am
Entry tags:
Llama 13 - [Audio]
(OOC: Threads arising from this question may contain some unpleasant aspects of Eva's world re: mewtwo/s, including how they were created and how they're seen. Eva'll take any actual talk of it off the ICP.)
A question, if you will. [Eva is nowhere near as calm as she tries to sound, and it becomes clearer as she speaks. She's also recording all of this on Roro for later playback.]
Say... Say you know someone. You call them a good person, someone who always helps and tries to do the right thing. Yet, they've also protected a creature... no, a person your society and culture deems a kill-on-sight threat, for very good reasons. It's not the right thing to do by society, and it means... means they'll be branded a Traitor to be executed if anyone ever finds out. [A breath -you wouldn't be wrong if you get the feeling this is personal for her, because, it is. ] But they feel it's the right thing to do because the person is a person and worse yet, the equivalent of a child. So they do. They protect the person, even knowing they've signed their death warrant.
What... What you do if you found out? Would... would you condemn them? Or would you... would you agree with them?
Ah... and um. For those that saw that illusion, the one with the kids -my sisters-, can... Can I talk to you? Privately?
A question, if you will. [Eva is nowhere near as calm as she tries to sound, and it becomes clearer as she speaks. She's also recording all of this on Roro for later playback.]
Say... Say you know someone. You call them a good person, someone who always helps and tries to do the right thing. Yet, they've also protected a creature... no, a person your society and culture deems a kill-on-sight threat, for very good reasons. It's not the right thing to do by society, and it means... means they'll be branded a Traitor to be executed if anyone ever finds out. [A breath -you wouldn't be wrong if you get the feeling this is personal for her, because, it is. ] But they feel it's the right thing to do because the person is a person and worse yet, the equivalent of a child. So they do. They protect the person, even knowing they've signed their death warrant.
What... What you do if you found out? Would... would you condemn them? Or would you... would you agree with them?
Ah... and um. For those that saw that illusion, the one with the kids -my sisters-, can... Can I talk to you? Privately?
cw: discussion of abusive relationships (no human equivalent), some gore, "human" experimentation
[The term is ambiguous, though something about it implies the not-romantic sort. Asch rolls the ice ball between his fingers again, somewhat for practice, but also, a little bit, as a touchstone for the hard truth.
He takes a deep breath.]
So. Feel free to stop me ay any point if something doesn't make sense - for obvious reasons, I've never had to explain this to someone. It's mostly common knowledge in my world.
There are two kinds of people in my world - humans, like the ones most of the train are familiar with, and blades. Blades are magical energy beings who were, until very recently, reliant on being linked to a human to live. Without resonance, we're not anything more than crystals.
[He doesn't really notice his immediate slip into the present tense, but it doesn't really matter, except perhaps to drive home just how recent the change is.]
In order to live, we needed human drivers. The person who wakes us up, who we rely on to live our lives. When they die, we die - effectively, anyway, because even if we resonate with a new driver, in a week or a thousand years, we won't remember any of our previous lives. The life you're living, with the driver you've got - that's it, for a blade. And blades are connected to our drivers our entire lives, with a bond that lets us feel each other's emotions.
I can't overstate how much 'love your driver' is just the default in blade psychology. It's the same way as human children automatically love their parents. Your driver is the first thing you know beyond your own name.
[It's not a perfect metaphor, since blades aren't even really children the same way humans are - but he thinks it's close enough. Sometimes blades wind up being parents, but they don't ever have them. At least not natural blades.]
Sorry for the delay.
Sure. Will do.
[Eva settles back as she listens, mentally making notes on what's said verse what isn't- or what seems implied at least.
She can't say she likes it. But still, she's talking to a living, breathing person who's, if she's understanding the context right, a Blade. She can't say she can see any visible difference between one a human.] I see. Sounds like 'Blades' drew the short stick of it, you know? Still, at least Blades don't recall abusive drivers, which isn't to say that treatment is right. Far from it. It's a living being in the care of another and that someone could just do that is criminal.
[Her hands fist. Even now, a decade removed from the worst of what Erin'd gone through, Eva has some very strong feelings about the whole 'Duty of Care' and what it means.] Yet what you've told me implies that even if Blades had spoken out, they wouldn't be listened to. I don't know what changed that made it so they're no longer basically slaves, but I'm glad it happened.
Even if the cost was horrific. [An exhale.] You're a Blade and your partner is a driver? A human? They treat you right, yes?
[She has Very Strong Feelings about this, yep.]
no worries i've been Bad at tags this month anyway
Her reaction is... weirdly relieving. Asch sigh slightly, and then shakes his head slightly.]
Don't worry about me - I don't have any intention of partnering with a driver. I wouldn't have partnered with Jade at all if he didn't have a great need for it, but that's not super important at the moment. Suffice it to say, about three years ago, a bunch of kids walked up to God and yelled at him until they were able to change the way blades work, and we don't have a physical need for resonance anymore.
[Psychological needs... Vary by the blade, which is why he's here with Jade, instead of flying completely solo.]
But - I think you underestimate how awful some drivers could get.
[There's a darkness to his voice that speaks to experience.]
The worst of them - they used the forgetting to their advantage. Blades are hardier than humans in the long run, but we die to a knife in the back the same as a human. There are blades whose drivers killed them specifically to reset their memories.
[The layers of remove - forcing the description of the experience to arm's length - is probably more telling than anything he might actually say.]
And you're right that we didn't get any voice in it - hell, dormant core crystals were traded like commodities, not even just on the black market, either, at least in my time.