"A little. I was encouraging him to be his own person, that's how we got close. I didn't realize that I was accidentally encouraging him to try and take over to be his own person."
"That wasn't really on you. Its more...its the problem of being a splintered existence," Wash said. "Its a risk of being a splintered existence, because Candid is certainly not the first to try that kind of move."
"At the end of the game," so after the monitors went out, "he told me that he thought he was doing the right thing because he thought that I loved him most, and he loved me the most. More than MK. I'm not sure it's as simple as 'this was the inevitable result of a fractured existence'."
"...it kind of is?" Wash said. "I think...I think the reason it happens is because the splinter remembers what its like to be whole. Even if their memories aren't clear, that feeling is still there. They remember what it means to be a full person. But they're not that, not yet. And they get desperate to be like that again. So they try and figure out a way to get there and that usually means focusing on the thing they value the most at the time," he said.
"MK, as a person, puts so much of his self worth on the people around him. And Candid, from my understanding, was meant to be a means of mending problems he thought he was causing in his relationships. So it stands to reason Candid puts even more emphasis on relationships, but he doesn't have all the other stuff in MK to help balance it out, so he went over the edge about it."
"I guess so." The logic works. "But I still should have seen it. We spent so much time together. I knew that he resented MK but I didn't check in enough about that. And if he thought that I loved him more than MK to the point where I wanted him to try and take over, I could have corrected that."
"I mean, its not like people are used to accounting for 'this splintered existence wants to take over the original or other insane thing to try and feel whole.' This is a pretty niche problem, I've just seen it several times because multiverse reasons," he said. So its not like it comes up A LOT, just happens sometimes in all of existence.
"You were dealing with the problem rationally, when things were far outside the norm."
"You were there to help Red Son pick up the pieces. Never discount that. Sometimes that makes all the difference for things like that," he said. And he's not just saying that to be comforting.
Losing Maine entirely had felt like the final nail in Wash's coffin. The one little spark of hope he had offered himself in his villain arc. That maybe Maine was reachable without Sigma anymore.
Then he had to throw him off a cliff.
If the Reds and Blues and Doc hadn't essentially bullied him into staying alive, he wouldn't be.
"I asked. You don't need to apologize for that," Wash said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "You're dealing with a hard, extremely rare situation. I can offer insight that's hard for anyone else to have."
"You can, and you're good at it, but I'm supposed to be helping you, not distracting from what you need with my own shit that's a month old at this point."
"I mean, to be fair, my shit is both new and years old all at once," he said. "Just..."
He pauses for a moment, tapping Macaque's shoulder.
"I think...you were expecting Candid to be a person all at once," he said. "Its important. Its good to treat a fragment like a person so they can grow as a person. But its also important to remember they aren't there yet. Its like a weird toddler. In some ways, they can be a competent grown person. In others, they simply don't know how to live right. They haven't learned the stove is hot because they never got close to touching it before."
He leans back a bit, studying Macaque. "He hurt you. You deserve to be mad and make him suffer the consequences for it. But it might be good moving forward to remember he's still learning what it means to be a person with memories that really aren't his own anymore, and emotions that still need time to grow. Right now, memory is the key for him to become someone new and that takes time."
He taps Macaque's collarbone. "And...it does help to say that, I think. Because Carolina like this, just...reminds me I need to remember. Who she is now isn't the person I know. So I need to learn to be her friend when she's this person instead of who she was going to be."
Macaque had been about to say something about how he's not mad at Candid, but then Wash makes a point about Carolina and Macaque can't bear to dive back down into his own crap.
"I know that you'll be a good friend to her no matter what. She might be different, but you're not. It's fine to be sad about the disconnect even as you make new connections."
"Just brushed over the rest of that," he said with a dry chuckle.
"I am different," he said. "From the person she found after the snow. Even from the person she saved from getting shot in the neck. Less different from that guy, but still. We were a lot closer to the same spot when she showed up again. Hard to trust, still tempted by revenge. I was just recently suffering the extreme consequences of it and a new support network and it took longer for her to let them in. Took a while for me to be the person you know."
"Hey, I listened. I don't disagree, I'm just not sure I'm in a place to get into it much more tonight."
He nods. "You said that, yeah. And if nothing else, being dragged through the multiverse and having repeated amnesia will change a person. But she's not bound up in you not being who you were, it didn't sound like. She trusts you despite the timeline confusion."
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Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"Well, yeah, there's the guilt, but I was just wondering if part of that was a reaction to potential personhood," he said.
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"At the end of the game," so after the monitors went out, "he told me that he thought he was doing the right thing because he thought that I loved him most, and he loved me the most. More than MK. I'm not sure it's as simple as 'this was the inevitable result of a fractured existence'."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"MK, as a person, puts so much of his self worth on the people around him. And Candid, from my understanding, was meant to be a means of mending problems he thought he was causing in his relationships. So it stands to reason Candid puts even more emphasis on relationships, but he doesn't have all the other stuff in MK to help balance it out, so he went over the edge about it."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"You were dealing with the problem rationally, when things were far outside the norm."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Yeah, he's still very much not okay.
"I know that I told him not to see me until he can tell me the truth. Ironic, I know, given his name. But I sometimes wonder if that means forever."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Losing Maine entirely had felt like the final nail in Wash's coffin. The one little spark of hope he had offered himself in his villain arc. That maybe Maine was reachable without Sigma anymore.
Then he had to throw him off a cliff.
If the Reds and Blues and Doc hadn't essentially bullied him into staying alive, he wouldn't be.
"He may not know what the truth is."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"Sorry, Wash. You don't need this junk right now. My bullshit will still be there tomorrow."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"You can, and you're good at it, but I'm supposed to be helping you, not distracting from what you need with my own shit that's a month old at this point."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
He pauses for a moment, tapping Macaque's shoulder.
"I think...you were expecting Candid to be a person all at once," he said. "Its important. Its good to treat a fragment like a person so they can grow as a person. But its also important to remember they aren't there yet. Its like a weird toddler. In some ways, they can be a competent grown person. In others, they simply don't know how to live right. They haven't learned the stove is hot because they never got close to touching it before."
He leans back a bit, studying Macaque. "He hurt you. You deserve to be mad and make him suffer the consequences for it. But it might be good moving forward to remember he's still learning what it means to be a person with memories that really aren't his own anymore, and emotions that still need time to grow. Right now, memory is the key for him to become someone new and that takes time."
He taps Macaque's collarbone. "And...it does help to say that, I think. Because Carolina like this, just...reminds me I need to remember. Who she is now isn't the person I know. So I need to learn to be her friend when she's this person instead of who she was going to be."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"I know that you'll be a good friend to her no matter what. She might be different, but you're not. It's fine to be sad about the disconnect even as you make new connections."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
"I am different," he said. "From the person she found after the snow. Even from the person she saved from getting shot in the neck. Less different from that guy, but still. We were a lot closer to the same spot when she showed up again. Hard to trust, still tempted by revenge. I was just recently suffering the extreme consequences of it and a new support network and it took longer for her to let them in. Took a while for me to be the person you know."
Re: Evening After Carolina Arrives
He nods. "You said that, yeah. And if nothing else, being dragged through the multiverse and having repeated amnesia will change a person. But she's not bound up in you not being who you were, it didn't sound like. She trusts you despite the timeline confusion."