wittingly | Meadowlark Inbox;

thanks
i wasn't trying to
i don't know
i wasn't trying to be defensive or attack you
i just think we have to meet some of this stuff on its own level, you know?
jimmy's technology plan was a disaster, and we kept glitching out the sim
and the displaced have been arguing about this stuff since way before you got here
since way before i got here
i get frustrated because sometimes it feels like a lot of us are trying to force this stuff into a box that it might not fit into, or one that might be harder to do safely
so when your first response was to remind me that we need to use technology too, it wasn't that i was feeling insecure
it was more
i want to try to utilize our powers on their own merits
try to take them as they are and see how far that takes us and what that means

I feel like you don't see that I'm trying to do the opposite of putting it into a box. I want to take it out of any box at all. I want to look at it from all angles.

If we can work together
You at the magic expertise side
Me at the tech side
The more we know, the more empowered we are

I don't want to repeat what Jimmy did
His shit was a disaster because he's a lunatic with terrible fucking intentions
I want to understand what he did, why it happened, and explore any possible way it could help us
Not by hurting anyone, or experimenting unethically, or risking anyone getting hurt

While we simultaneously also see what you can learn and teach us about the magic at play

I don't like the concept that it has to be an either-or, or the notion that we are in fact putting every single answer or puzzle piece into one single box: magic, unquestionably, without even room to consider anything else

i thought you did want to recreate jimmy's experiment
that's why i had such an intense reaction
i'm sorry
it just seems like we're never going to accept an answer as the real solution, because there will always be someone around to say there isn't enough proof
or that things worked differently where they're from
i don't mean anyone specific, i mean all of us
and i know you think i want this to be just magic because of what i had at home
but the way our powers work here isn't anything like how mine did
that's why i was so wrecked over losing them

i thought the god thing was stupid at first too, because gods don't exist where i'm from
or if they do, there's no proof
so i argued with clarke and loki about it like a million times
but more and more i've been thinking that i need to take this world as it is, not find an explanation that makes me comfortable
and if everyone here is calling them gods, even jimmy, maybe we need to drop our ideas of what gods are supposed to be or that they're only an explanation used out of ignorance or whatever

not put it in a box, just
stop viewing ourselves as totally separate from this world
we don't belong here, but the powers we have do

Edited 2021-01-04 16:15 (UTC)

I don't view us as separate from this world either
I want to be a part of it permanently, this place is all I have now
and I agree on the topic of gods
whether you call them that or call them aliens doesn't really matter so long as we all agree the entities exist and are something we have to learn more about.

I think in terms of proof for the skeptical, it's less to do with proving they exist in general and more to do with proving the theories about what they're responsible for. That's why people want proof for anything we talk about here, so they know we're not just making wild guesses with nothing tangible to back it. But that's just my opinion, I can't speak for everybody, and I'm definitely not one that needs convincing. I'm on board with the theory. Occam's razor.

And honestly, I didn't think you solely wanted it to be magic at first. I only started to think that because you were like really, really averse to any suggestion that we bundle science/tech into our theories or our research alongside magic. You told me I was your greatest disappointment, and I know you were joking just like I know the mad scientist thing was a joke. But that + the conversation you were having with Akechi about how stupid the idea was just

fucked with me a little

It was a little frustrating, to be honest, because I kept trying to include that I believed you re: magic being significant. At least, I feel like I did. So it threw that you were pissed at me like I was trying to negate you on that. It seriously felt like the other way around. I got too defensive.

Maybe I'm not good at this and I've been coming across wrong, but when we've been disagreeing on this I haven't been trying to talk down to you. I've been trying to find the right balance between making sure you know I support you but also sticking to what I genuinely feel is important, and explaining my reasoning why after you shot me down about it.

I know you're brilliant, it just
felt so fucking frustrating getting dismissed, I couldn't wrap my head around why we couldn't compromise so I kept trying to clarify why I felt that way and what evidence I had to back it, or how it could be relevant
and I wasn't trying to rub the tech thing in your face
it just
felt like you kept dismissing it even after we know now it was actually involved, I was still frustrated, it felt really validating to know I wasn't wildly off base

again I'm seriously not fucking good at this communicating shit
I've never done this before so
sorry for like rambling my ass off
I'm trying right now to be like
level and clear, and that's what I've been doing every time is just
trying to talk to you in a way that I didn't come across like an asshole & my tone couldn't be misconstrued but
I think in the process
I came across like an asshole & my tone got misconstrued

i'm not good at this shit either
i guess i never thought that that joke would stick with you
and sometimes i think i'm not sounding like an asshole, but i am
i got too defensive too
i really am sorry
when i started talking about learning to control our powers and your first response was that we needed to remember the tech side, it frustrated me
it was like
i don't know
like i was being told doing that for its own sake wasn't worth it unless we pulled the tech stuff in too

That's definitely not what I meant, or what I think

I think learning to control our powers is super important, and we should plan that out, and tech is irrelevant right now to that part specifically
it's definitely your area and I plan on following your lead, because even if it's different from your world it's still something you're crazy familiar with

it's that I think that it's relevant to the whole bigger picture
like
the mystery, the puzzle
the history or something we potentially may need in the future

thanks
i get it now
and you're right
we should work together

i think too many of us are afraid of our powers, you know?
i still am too
and some of us just treat them as this
novelty, or something to be avoided
i'm just really sick of getting fucked with, and since the aerie i've been kind of a mess
but i'm not
i don't mean that's an excuse, just
you know
i didn't want to hurt you

I fucking love my power
It's amazing
it was so useless at first
it's awesome now
fuck yes I want to do shit with it, I have like
14 ideas for things I want to try

we've all been a mess, I understand
like honestly some days I don't know for sure who I am anymore
so
it's okay
me too

yeah, i know
me too
do you want to talk about it?

Um
well for starters I think telling you all that shit just now wouldn't have happened before the aerie so

part of me is cool with it while another part of me is like
what the fuck are you doing right now man, shut up
also like right now, same thing
I'm thinking myself into fucking anxiety circles
I'm overthinking overthinking

ugh
me too
like, all the time
but it's good, right? that we're talking?
even if we still sometimes suck at it

Yeah
it's good
I was hyping it up in my head but we did pretty fucking well I think

yeah
i promise i'll rein it in
the network has been such a mess for so long i'm like
always on edge
but uh
even if all that aerie stuff is complicated
you know i still love you, right?