"Those are different things, though. Whether things are bad and how we see them. I mean - I don't think the Feast of Dust was very bad. Wrong, absolutely. Terrifying, specifically because of what it meant for the memetic security of the barge. Intellectually, morally, I know that should never happen to anyone. But gut reaction - not very bad, as remembrances go. And my very bad gauge is sort of broken even compared to other people from the Hexarchate."
He picks at the edges of his gloves, even though there are no frayed threads at all.
"I feel like I'm being an asshole, trying to - prove it, or something. But it's like - it feels like, to me, that you halfway agree with us and halfway don't. And if we guess wrong we hurt you. So maybe we shouldn't guess at all? But to me that seems infantilizing. To just never talk about it. And maybe there's no way out of the stupid is-this-isn't-this parts, but. Why - why is insulting, for him to disagree with you about that? Why does it imply things?"
no subject
"Those are different things, though. Whether things are bad and how we see them. I mean - I don't think the Feast of Dust was very bad. Wrong, absolutely. Terrifying, specifically because of what it meant for the memetic security of the barge. Intellectually, morally, I know that should never happen to anyone. But gut reaction - not very bad, as remembrances go. And my very bad gauge is sort of broken even compared to other people from the Hexarchate."
He picks at the edges of his gloves, even though there are no frayed threads at all.
"I feel like I'm being an asshole, trying to - prove it, or something. But it's like - it feels like, to me, that you halfway agree with us and halfway don't. And if we guess wrong we hurt you. So maybe we shouldn't guess at all? But to me that seems infantilizing. To just never talk about it. And maybe there's no way out of the stupid is-this-isn't-this parts, but. Why - why is insulting, for him to disagree with you about that? Why does it imply things?"