one way or another

[computation]

Who: Closed event threads for Liv's characters -- Root and Toph.
Where: Various.
What: Root has a doppelganger and kills her repeatedly. Toph has a doppelganger and has to face some emotions. One of them is having a much better time than the other. Contact me if you're interested in a thread!
Warnings: All of the Root and Shaw threads will have direct discussion and sometimes depiction of suicide.

Comments

[computation]

Oh. You want to know what I believe?

[ There's still sadness there, still loss, but it shades bittersweet, Root touched beyond words that Shaw sees this part of her as something good, her ability to believe. Since she's been prompted, she doesn't hold back; the words pour out of her into the still air and she feels each one of them is true. ]

I believe there's no way my brain or an A.I. could guess that you would say that. I believe that we're all a collection of electrical signals in the end, and maybe a computer can't process things the same ways we do, but that doesn't mean it can't copy us. I believe that we're signals in a new environment.

If you took people from centuries ago and put them in a rocket and blasted them out of Earth's orbit, and they saw what's out there isn't God and heaven but a freezing vacuum filled with rocks and gasses, they'd ask if that was real, if they were even real anymore.

But there's something in us that is irreducible. A thing we are regardless of context. I believe that irreducible part of me is here, and so is that part of you.

[cactusy]

[Root is right: she doesn't believe it, at least not in the same bone-deep way that Root herself does. It's all just too existential and theoretical for Shaw, who does best with things that are concrete and black-and-white. But hearing Root talk about it with such certainty is comforting, even when it doesn't make proper sense to her.

She shifts a little in Root's arms, cheek digging against the pillow.]

Our shapes.

[See, Root? She remembers your weird tangents, even the ones that exasperate her because they're happening during gunfights.]

[computation]

[ Root had been fairly certain one or both of them was going to die soon when she initiated that discussion, just as she had been in the stock exchange. And hey, that last time, she'd been right. It feels so strange not to be under that gun now, to imagine a whole open expanse of opportunities to have these conversations with Shaw. She knows either one of them could disappear at any moment, but there's something different between that and thinking they might die. Here, in this simulation, they might come back.

She smiles at Shaw listening to her, at showing she's been listening, and cuddles in closer. She whispers from inches away, ]

Your shape is beautiful. I can still see it.

[ Maybe she thinks she's not real, either. That would make sense to be part of Shaw's doubts; why should her own nature and identity be exempt from what's in question? So she keeps going. ]

The part of you that matters, they couldn't take that away. It's right here with me.

[cactusy]

I can see yours, too.

[She can see it in a way that she hadn't in Samaritan's simulations - and whether that's because this is the genuine article or just a more sophisticated sim, it's not nothing.

And Root's reassurance serves a dual purpose - because Shaw doesn't worry about her own identity on a metaphysical level, but she does feel diminished in the wake of her captivity, broken and then pieced back together in a way that's serviceable, but still less than what she used to be.]

Mine's got some new broken pieces.

[She murmurs.]

But I'm working on it.

[computation]

Yeah?

[ That means everything to her, that she can still see some recognizable fundamental part of her in her, too. That's all Root could really ask for; it's all she needs. Root lives constantly in an ambiguous state of being, accepting all the existential and theoretical nuance a human being can handle, believing in all that complexity as something beautiful and worth saving. Samaritan would squash that, flatten it into something stark and plain.

Root loves the indefinable in the same way she loves Shaw. And being seen-- that's always been something very special to her. ]

None of the important pieces got broken. Not to me. [ She believes that completely, isn't just parroting a line; Root has interacted with Shaw enough now post-captivity that she's established that belief wholly. ]

But I'm still not going to let you go anywhere without me again.