5.0 Truthiness

[no_fastolfe]

I hate you. I hate all of you. Except the ones that I don't but I'm afraid if I like them too much they'll abandon me. Even one of my own robots abandoned me and I loved him very much and he's dead. He wouldn't have died if he'd stayed with me and I think he must not have loved me. I was so sure he did.

Every day you show little pieces of your lives and I see how much you are individuals who seek to make the most out of your short lifespan and it terrifies me that there are billions of you on Earth and settling the galaxy because so long as you are insects you could never overrun the Spacer worlds but if you are people then your voices will drown us out and I will not have lived for anything.

I am so afraid of dying now and I hate that the last thing I know before my death will be fear and pain and I hate that there is nothing all Spacer advancement can do about it and I hate all of you.



[OOC: Vasilia is so affected. Not being able to lie to herself is being very damaging. On the other hand, for the first time since she was a weetiny thing she will completely trust people... whether that's good or not.]

Comments

[acid_rayne]

Ten points for not mentioning how often you masturbate.

[no_fastolfe]

I don't frequently and when I do I'm ashamed that I don't have the proper response to other people so I treat it like a necessary chore.

Everyone is talking about how much they enjoy sex and it makes me feel mentally damaged for not enjoying it in the same way and I have a very irrational conviction that they're all doing it specifically to hurt me. I have so many irrational beliefs and I am not sure how to control them so I treat them as if they were true.

[acid_rayne]

I shouldn't have written a word.

Look, sex should be about desire. If you want it, you want it. If you don't, don't. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

It's most likely 'cause you haven't found the right person to do the right thing, anyhow... Hang-ups like these are how wars get started, man.

[no_fastolfe]

I do desire orgasm although infrequently. I do not desire another person and all of my life I have been lead to believe this is abnormal.

I resent the idea that a 'correct' individual could fix me because it seems to invalidate my experience and also because it would make years of personal struggle irrelevant.

[acid_rayne]

Look, just...

Sounds like your biggest problem is you don't know how to relax. Period. Someone needs to help you get drunk, then you'll have no excuse.

Remember, you can revise assumptions. You can't change the past.

[no_fastolfe]

I find you very threatening and I think you are patronizing me. I am not sure if this is a reasonable response or an irrational reaction to being disagreed with.

I do not drink. No Spacer does and I treasure my mind most of all my assets and would be terrified if I could not use it properly.

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

I don't...understand, miss. Why do you hate us?

[no_fastolfe]

You are Earthers and I had a very simple idea of your behavior before I came here. Fiction and report assures me that you are dirty, infectious, stupid, and greatly unattached to your lives because there are so many of you that one life is lost in the noise. This did not precisely fit my experience with the Earther I met before I came here but he used very personal aspects of my life against me and I hated him too much to revise my opinions based on his actions.

I have to reassess my opinions now because there are people here whose company I enjoy who are also Earthers and it completely reshapes my view of morality and galactic politics and I hate change very much.

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

Change can be very difficult, but I think all of that sounds very positive.

[no_fastolfe]

But if it is true then I have been wrong all my life and I am terrified of being wrong. It angers me and it makes me think that people are laughing at me.

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

It's alright to have been wrong if you realize it, and strive to make things right.

I am certainly not laughing at you, and I don't believe anyone else is either.

[no_fastolfe]

You aren't?

I was very sure for a long time that everyone was.

Are you very sure you're not.

[strangehistorian]

Your opinion of the other people here has no bearing on whether or not you will be redeemed.

[On a normal day, this would have come out as 'i'm very sorry to hear that.]

[no_fastolfe]

I don't want to be redeemed because I assume the worst about what is expected of me and fear that I will turn into an entirely different individual. My greater fear is that the change will be harmless and better me in some way and that this will invalidate the rest of my life and prove me wrong. I can't stand to be wrong.

[strangehistorian]

You will get over it.

[ = "I'm sorry, but I'm sure everything's going to be fine."]

Why would it prove you wrong?

[no_fastolfe]

If I let my negative emotions fade I'll feel idiotic for having had them in the first place.

[Amazingly this is both objection and answer]

[strangehistorian]

Don't. Your emotions are largely a result of the circumstances of your life and upbringing, I assume.

[toldastory]

I'm sorry that you hate everyone aboard, because I quite like you. But it's true at the end of the universe, there were just humans looking for Utopia.

But that doesn't mean that you won't have lived. Each life is precious and wonderful and fantastic. Each life is worth having and loving and being loved.

Maybe you can change that last thought.

[no_fastolfe]

I am very fond of you and resent it because you cause conflict with my emotions. I hate being reminded that you have sex so frequently and I try not to remember that you are an Earther because I associate euphoric freedom from pain and a feeling of safety with you. I have an irrational desire to defend you from attack but my arguments are transparently based in my own emotion and not any knowledge of medicine.

Doctor Smith told me about dying and it was horrible. I wanted him to hold me like a child because he looks a little like Fastolfe, but not so much that I have the same negative reaction to him.

[toldastory]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to cause conflict with anyone's emotions, and I didn't realize that having sex so frequently was bad. I am also worried you have Erotomania, which is when a patient has feelings for their doctor.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be held like a child. I like being held like a child sometimes, and I hug people loads.

[no_fastolfe]

For both Earthers and Spacers both sex is normative and on Aurora it was a subject of gossip that I did not engage or desire it. Even that feeble little hairdresser Grenionis with his small estate and his facial hair held himself superior to me in that regard and I resent it so much that I resent the very idea. So while I of have what may be romantic feelings for you I would never act on them and I don't want anyone to know about it.

I want to be held but I still fear being touched.

[toldastory]

People are allowed not to want to have sex if that's what they feel. Arguing and gossiping about it with people is wrong. I'm sorry they made yoy feel that way.

I would never have noticed you had romantic feelings for me if you hadn't said if that helps any. I never notice this anymore.

I'm sorry you fear to be touch and I touch you sometimes. I can't help it, it's the doctoring bit in me.

[notrueking.livejournal.com]

I see no reason to fear humans, and I can't see why you'd consider them to be anything but rage-inducing if you're as advanced as you say you are.

[no_fastolfe]

We are advanced but not advancing at as fast a rate as the Earthers. Our culture and my style of life will disappear.

The only Earther I met before the barge was extremely rage inducing. He was hamfistedly emotionally manipulative and he should never have succeeded but my robot was helping him. Also he corrupted the programming of Robot Daneel Olivaw, I am certain, and Olivaw is the most terrifying being in my timeline.

[notrueking.livejournal.com]

Then you destroy them all before they get too advanced. It's not that difficult.

That seems to be common-one of my siblings joined up with the humans because he'd gotten too attached to them. I don't think he was manipulated, though-he was simply too avaricious.