the animorphs

[instar]

Renée is gone in the morning, a pot of maple oatmeal for the girls and Trouble cooling on the stove and a note on the fridge, she's going to be gone all day on a day trip to Tucson with her friends.

Andi wakes up first. Bella's not far behind.

Comments

[aeskhyne]

"Okay, good."

[instar]

"It would still be good if I could avoid pissing you off."

[aeskhyne]

He shrugs. "Yeah. But - I don't know, I didn't know you were going to say the thing that set me off this time until you said it, I don't know how to guess what the next thing might be. Do you?"

[instar]

She shrugs. "Do you have a reasonable model of me being desperate, paranoid, overclocked, and some amount of traumatized? Because that's how I'm going to be for the foreseeable future."

[aeskhyne]

"Nnnot really," says Trouble.

[instar]

"Then that makes it harder to guess. And I can guess what I'll do but not which of those things will upset you."

[aeskhyne]

"...I could try to tell you what about that thing just now got to me," he offers, "if that'd help."

[instar]

"Potentially very much."

[aeskhyne]

"It's something like... it seemed like you didn't know that I'd think about what it might do to you before running off and planting explosives somewhere," he says. "Like you figured that was a pretty obvious thing for me to do and you had to warn me off it because I wasn't gonna get there myself unless you gave me a shove. And there's something about the way you said it, too, but that's harder to nail down - I could just say I don't like it when somebody tells me what not to do, but that doesn't get all of it."

[instar]

"You don't work the way I work. I don't know you the way I know my twin. I can model you, but sometimes I think my model of you is pretty terrible. I don't like to trust it if there's a way I don't have to. If you ran off and planted explosives somewhere thoughtlessly, it would - I wouldn't assume that it would happen if I forgot to mention that it shouldn't, but it would fail to stun me the way it would stun me if Andi did it."

[aeskhyne]

"Okay," says Trouble. "So... maybe say that? I mean, if something like that comes up again? There's a big difference between 'I don't really think you're gonna do this, but it's important enough to check' and 'I totally think you're gonna do this, so don't'. First one I can handle. What you said came off more like the second one."

[instar]

Bella writes this down.

[aeskhyne]

"Think we can dig up any more land mines this way?" he says wryly.

[instar]

"Maybe. I don't know. Can you tell me what else sets you off?"

[aeskhyne]

"...Well, there's the thing about being told what not to do," he says. "Rules. Threats. But not just threatening threats. Like - you remember when I made my first pie for you guys, I wouldn't eat any vegetables? It was 'cause someone was telling me I had to if I wanted any pie. Not much of a threat, but it counts. And on the flip side, not every time somebody tells me to do something is a show-stopper - I was all right with Elfangor telling me to run and hide."

[instar]

"What makes the difference?"

[aeskhyne]

He shrugs. "I'm not exactly sure. Something about - context, maybe. What it meant."

[instar]

"Renée wanting you to eat your vegetables meant that she was trying to play the role of the responsible adult who cares about your vitamin intake. Does that fit into some category that might generalize better? I mean, is it - per-case or is there a pattern I could learn?"

[aeskhyne]

"The thing that mattered about what your mom did is that she did it that way," says Trouble. "She wanted something from me, and even though she wanted it for my own good, she tried to get it by taking something away from me and holding it hostage. That's just never a good idea. Telling me I can only have this nice thing if I do this, or you'll do something nasty to me if I do that."

[instar]

"...How far does that go? Like, I don't have a specific real example in mind, but there are fairly natural consequences for all kinds of things that could look like a threat in that way - there are friendship-ending offenses, the end of a friendship means the end of all associated perks, how does that fail to fall into this category?"

[aeskhyne]

"...That's more like - telling me you can't open the peanut butter jar so if I want any I'd better do it myself. You're not really holding something over me, it's just that the way things fall out, you can't make it so I can have the one thing without doing the other."

[instar]

"This sounds like it's going to interact badly with how I work."

[aeskhyne]

"...What do you mean?"

[instar]

"What if I can make it that way, what if I can write my own mental programs in my little notebook and install them any which way I want, what if the only thing between me and being able to let you have the one thing without doing the other - or whatever - is an hour and a pencil and finding it necessary?"

[aeskhyne]

"—If we're talking about friendship, it matters what you want, too," he says. "Like - back to the pie. The pie was a lever. Your mom didn't, like, have a superstiton or something that it's bad luck to have pie if somebody hasn't eaten their vegetables, the pie wasn't her pie that she was trading to us for vegetable-eating, the point of not giving people pie until they eat their vegetables is that they want the pie and they'll put up with the vegetables if that's the only way they can get it. That's different from, like... if you don't wanna be friends with somebody who's nasty to you, and they have to not be nasty to keep being your friend. Even if you could make yourself put up with it. You could probably get the lid off the peanut butter jar, too, with a big enough wrench. Doesn't mean you have to go to the hardware store and buy one just 'cause I want some peanut butter."