[Kaneki had been weak; he'd always needed someone to look after him. After being that way for over eighteen years, after becoming painstakingly aware of it and how negative his influence had become on those who supported him, he had sought to change it.
He does miss it, though. It's an incredible weight, what he took on back home. It was also very lonely and, at his core, his biggest fear is being alone.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I'm not arguing with that.
I tend to bring trouble to those who take care of me, though. That's... what I'm trying to avoid.
[ Correction: she makes trouble. Though it still sounds strange to her, this whole being afraid for those who care for your well-being. Shouldn't that be a good thing? A win-win? ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I won't mind. But I can't guarantee an honest answer.
[ She always does aim straight for the jugular. There's too little time to be playing coy, which is why she's glad to know that he's been reading the instant profiles the CDC has provided them with. Whether or not they're accurate, there's fire where there's smoke. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
It means someone who has made a contract :)
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Before you ask, I don't know with whom, but I know the terms.
I... don't know. Several of them were under attack by investigators right before I was recruited.
I think I helped a few of them get away, but the rest... I didn't see.
[It's hard to remember. He'd started using his kakuja again, and by the time Hide had found him, it had started to eat into the last few holds he had on his sanity. He can't think about it. When he tries to piece together what happened, the more he becomes assured that he'd done something he couldn't forgive himself for—something which almost justified what Arima had done to him only minutes after.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I requested that the CDC keep them safe in return for my working for them. That's as much as I know now.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
A dictionary would tell me something similar.
How does it affect who—or what—you are, then? If you can say.
[He's mostly just curious at why it shows up in the same field as his distinction as "half-ghoul"—it must mean something more than just a profession.]
[ Because the CDC is capable of even the impossible and, as far as she knows, they take promises and contracts seriously. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Like any contract, there's something to be gained and a price to pay. They gave me the power to control time at the cost of growing younger.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Some say we are incapable of emotions and blind to morals. That we are lesser. Others say we are greater because a rational mind is a great asset in the survival of the fittest. What do you think?
It depends on how long our own contracts with the CDC last. We could have plenty of time to ask for plenty of things.
[So he'd have to start thinking about how to use the CDC to his own advantage. Hm.
As for what she tells him, well. It's a lot to digest at a singular point in time. A few moments pass before he replies. (And you asked him a question, Amber, so be prepared for the loquacious response. He was a literature major.)]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's a complicated question. In my experience, though, rationality has very little to do with survival. It tended to be the strongest that survived.
Back home, most people see ghouls as little more than mindless, ravening beasts. I'd thought so too, but... it's not true. Many were just as human as anyone else.
...Though that's probably not the best word for it. Humanity is subjective, right?
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I don't view either ghouls or humans as greater than the other. I don't believe a "contractor" would end up being any greater or less than a human, then, despite who might be stronger than the other.
I wonder if the Instructors have anything left to ask for.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Humans use the word humanity to decide whether someone is worthy or unworthy of being treated with dignity, when it also means greed, jealousy and vengeance.
[ Can you taste the spite in her words? ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
But someone fighting for something greater than himself would overpower any physical or supernatural strength. That, I think, is also a mark of humanity.
They've been doing this so long... somehow, I doubt it.
[He understands her spite. He'd had both humans and ghouls out for his head for months—makes one a bit bitter about both.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's funny, isn't it. People bestow that word on anything they find admirable or relatable, but they rescind it the second anything becomes unexpected, and suddenly that thing is completely debased.
You're right. Good qualities are not inherently human. Sometimes I feel it's quite the opposite, and humans strive against their nature to be something they are not.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
... Possibly, yeah. Well, maybe not "humanity," as what's intrinsic to people, but perhaps the idea of "humanity" that people have made for themselves.
But it's definitely not universal. Most ghouls I've met want nothing to do with the concept. I'm not sure if contractors feel the same.
[But for Kaneki, ghouls were an entirely different species. They viewed things different culturally than humans did.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
So you can... time travel, then?
[This power seems like something the CDC might find a bit taxing to deal with.]
Many Contractors want nothing to do with the concept.
[ Any suggestion that they are at all emotional or illogical is seen as an insult, even as the rest of society deems those as signs of humanity. She wonders what that says. There are chessmasters more cunning and more powerful than herself. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
A question, in return. Which is the human and which is the monster:
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Someone whose name and past were replaced with a gun, a blade, a grenade and told to kill. And so they do. Or someone who took that person's name and past, then kills them to stop the bloodshed.
[It's something he understands—most ghouls would sneer at a chance of being called "inhuman," largely because people, to them, are little more than sheep or cattle. Livestock, trying to devalue their predators by saying they lacked something humans themselves devised as a way to give things value. Didn't make an ounce of difference, in the end.
Because, in Kaneki's opinion, humans were just as grievously wrong in the situation as ghouls were. Not that it was really either side's fault—the world was wrong from the start, rotten to its core. He has no love for grand abstracts.
And it's funny. Months ago, he would've refused anything "ghoul," clinging obstinately to his "humanity." Things change.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It depends, doesn't it? The victim of the first might see that killer as a monster, but they wouldn't know anything about that person or someone pulling their strings.
For the two you've described, well. I've been thoroughly impressed with what people have been able to rationalize to themselves.
If you are asking me personally, though, I'm afraid I might not be able to give you a very good answer. I'd say both are human and monster simultaneously. People often do monstrous things for reasons that others would say are very human.
[Kaneki had been cobbled together into a Frankenstein's monster, forced into a way of life he could scarcely accept, one that necessitated others' sacrifice and death to keep him living. The man who had made him that way had claimed to do it for the greater good—and too bad that he didn't want to work together, he had been such a valuable subject to throw away. Who was human and who was the monster? Much of the reason why Kaneki couldn't answer directly was because he was still trying to work out the answer himself.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I wouldn't say that. I apologize; it's just very "science fiction" for me to accept immediately.
[ That's the perfect answer as far as Amber's concerned. For all that the humans have done to her, those of her kind, she can rationalize their intentions. Their fear of the unknown, of those supposedly more powerful. She neither blames them nor absolves them of the wrongs they committed. It's the future she cares about because that's what can still be changed.
An acknowledgment that both and neither of them are victims or villains. A chance to reconcile and to build a world where people aren't judged by whether or not they can bend the rules of physics. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
People certainly do monstrous things for very human reasons.
[It's good she could do that. Kaneki still couldn't sift through the bullshit that Kanou had presented him when he had demanded reasons for why he had turned him into what he was. "A key to unlock the world's cage"—what the fuck did that mean, and what place did it have in ruining a person's life? Usually anger was a cold thing to Kaneki, something which made his eyes grow cold and distance, words cutting, actions more-so, but Kanou... When considering the man, he feels his blood start to boil.
But he's aware that that man had justified it to himself. He would've loved the opportunity to justify it to Kaneki. He was just as much a monster and a villain as Kaneki was, considering what he'd left in his wake to find him.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
One can rationalize or justify almost anything. [God knows he did.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Oh, no, that wasn't my intention. Honest!
It's just not what I would expect. If you're paying a price for a power like that, I might expect... growing older, perhaps, rather than younger.
[Congratulations, Amber, you've flustered the poor boy. But, now that you've mentioned it...]
[It certainly would be easier with out all of that, huh?]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
People will find a terrible thing less terrible if they can identify why it was done.
[Which is why people would never offer the same to ghouls or contractors.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I see.
Okay... I'll take your word for it.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
You asked me about "peaceful coexistence" the last time we spoke.
Do you want something similar for people and contractors?
[It would make sense, why she had asked him how he felt about it. And why she had posed all of these questions about the split between morality and the concept of humanity.]
[ Amber doesn't care whether others believe her power to be true or not. It's better that they don't, that they underestimate her. Though not always. She sees little need to prove herself. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I thought you'd never ask :)
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Before I answer. Tell me, do you think it is impossible?
It's irrelevant to me whether or not they were justified.
[ Because she doesn't care about right or wrong, let alone what others think of her. She doesn't even care how her actions change Hei's view of her. What matters is the objective. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
But if, knowing that, you still decide to pursue a similar goal, then I commend you.
You don't feel as though your goal justifies them? Or do you not care?
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I worked at a café for a time. When I was working there, I was told by the manager that, to make a truly good cup of coffee, one had to separate the bad beans from the good.
Even a few left in would completely ruin the taste.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's just a matter of removing the bad to make way for the good.
I don't know if it's commendable, but it has to be done.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
No, not at all.
I'd prefer no one trouble themselves over my wellbeing, actually.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I... guess that's true.
I'm willing to learn, if you're willing to teach. I can't make any promises for how well I'll pick it up, though.
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Why? Isn't it pleasant to be protected? Looked after?
[ Sometimes it seems as if that's what all human striving ultimately seeks, no matter how futile the exercise seems from her perspective. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I'm patient, if nothing else. When we've both rested then.
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He does miss it, though. It's an incredible weight, what he took on back home. It was also very lonely and, at his core, his biggest fear is being alone.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I'm not arguing with that.
I tend to bring trouble to those who take care of me, though. That's... what I'm trying to avoid.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Alright. I'll let you know.
[A pause, then,]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Amber, do you mind if I ask you about something?
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Trouble follows me. It won't make any difference.
[ Correction: she makes trouble. Though it still sounds strange to her, this whole being afraid for those who care for your well-being. Shouldn't that be a good thing? A win-win? ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I won't mind. But I can't guarantee an honest answer.
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I tend to feel the same way.
But, ah... hopefully it won't end up the same for this unit.
[Because they were kinda talking about stuff back home, right? Sort of.
He can't fault her for that. There's a lot of stuff he's not exactly truthful about also.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
What does it mean, "contractor"?
[Let's just say he was reading up on his squad-mates...]
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What happened to your friends back home?
[ She always does aim straight for the jugular. There's too little time to be playing coy, which is why she's glad to know that he's been reading the instant profiles the CDC has provided them with. Whether or not they're accurate, there's fire where there's smoke. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
It means someone who has made a contract :)
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Before you ask, I don't know with whom, but I know the terms.
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I... don't know. Several of them were under attack by investigators right before I was recruited.
I think I helped a few of them get away, but the rest... I didn't see.
[It's hard to remember. He'd started using his kakuja again, and by the time Hide had found him, it had started to eat into the last few holds he had on his sanity. He can't think about it. When he tries to piece together what happened, the more he becomes assured that he'd done something he couldn't forgive himself for—something which almost justified what Arima had done to him only minutes after.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I requested that the CDC keep them safe in return for my working for them. That's as much as I know now.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
A dictionary would tell me something similar.
How does it affect who—or what—you are, then? If you can say.
[He's mostly just curious at why it shows up in the same field as his distinction as "half-ghoul"—it must mean something more than just a profession.]
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I'd be happy if you request the same for us.
[ Because the CDC is capable of even the impossible and, as far as she knows, they take promises and contracts seriously. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Like any contract, there's something to be gained and a price to pay. They gave me the power to control time at the cost of growing younger.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Some say we are incapable of emotions and blind to morals. That we are lesser. Others say we are greater because a rational mind is a great asset in the survival of the fittest. What do you think?
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Haha, we'll have to see.
It depends on how long our own contracts with the CDC last. We could have plenty of time to ask for plenty of things.
[So he'd have to start thinking about how to use the CDC to his own advantage. Hm.
As for what she tells him, well. It's a lot to digest at a singular point in time. A few moments pass before he replies. (And you asked him a question, Amber, so be prepared for the loquacious response. He was a literature major.)]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's a complicated question. In my experience, though, rationality has very little to do with survival. It tended to be the strongest that survived.
Back home, most people see ghouls as little more than mindless, ravening beasts. I'd thought so too, but... it's not true. Many were just as human as anyone else.
...Though that's probably not the best word for it. Humanity is subjective, right?
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I don't view either ghouls or humans as greater than the other. I don't believe a "contractor" would end up being any greater or less than a human, then, despite who might be stronger than the other.
[And after all of that, uh...]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Can you really control time?
[Seriously?]
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I wonder if the Instructors have anything left to ask for.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Humans use the word humanity to decide whether someone is worthy or unworthy of being treated with dignity, when it also means greed, jealousy and vengeance.
[ Can you taste the spite in her words? ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
But someone fighting for something greater than himself would overpower any physical or supernatural strength. That, I think, is also a mark of humanity.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Yes :)
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They've been doing this so long... somehow, I doubt it.
[He understands her spite. He'd had both humans and ghouls out for his head for months—makes one a bit bitter about both.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's funny, isn't it. People bestow that word on anything they find admirable or relatable, but they rescind it the second anything becomes unexpected, and suddenly that thing is completely debased.
You're right. Good qualities are not inherently human. Sometimes I feel it's quite the opposite, and humans strive against their nature to be something they are not.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
... Possibly, yeah. Well, maybe not "humanity," as what's intrinsic to people, but perhaps the idea of "humanity" that people have made for themselves.
But it's definitely not universal. Most ghouls I've met want nothing to do with the concept. I'm not sure if contractors feel the same.
[But for Kaneki, ghouls were an entirely different species. They viewed things different culturally than humans did.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
So you can... time travel, then?
[This power seems like something the CDC might find a bit taxing to deal with.]
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Many Contractors want nothing to do with the concept.
[ Any suggestion that they are at all emotional or illogical is seen as an insult, even as the rest of society deems those as signs of humanity. She wonders what that says. There are chessmasters more cunning and more powerful than herself. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
A question, in return. Which is the human and which is the monster:
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Someone whose name and past were replaced with a gun, a blade, a grenade and told to kill. And so they do. Or someone who took that person's name and past, then kills them to stop the bloodshed.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I can and I have. You don't believe me.
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Because, in Kaneki's opinion, humans were just as grievously wrong in the situation as ghouls were. Not that it was really either side's fault—the world was wrong from the start, rotten to its core. He has no love for grand abstracts.
And it's funny. Months ago, he would've refused anything "ghoul," clinging obstinately to his "humanity." Things change.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It depends, doesn't it? The victim of the first might see that killer as a monster, but they wouldn't know anything about that person or someone pulling their strings.
For the two you've described, well. I've been thoroughly impressed with what people have been able to rationalize to themselves.
If you are asking me personally, though, I'm afraid I might not be able to give you a very good answer. I'd say both are human and monster simultaneously. People often do monstrous things for reasons that others would say are very human.
[Kaneki had been cobbled together into a Frankenstein's monster, forced into a way of life he could scarcely accept, one that necessitated others' sacrifice and death to keep him living. The man who had made him that way had claimed to do it for the greater good—and too bad that he didn't want to work together, he had been such a valuable subject to throw away. Who was human and who was the monster? Much of the reason why Kaneki couldn't answer directly was because he was still trying to work out the answer himself.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I wouldn't say that. I apologize; it's just very "science fiction" for me to accept immediately.
And it makes you... grow younger? [Um...]
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An acknowledgment that both and neither of them are victims or villains. A chance to reconcile and to build a world where people aren't judged by whether or not they can bend the rules of physics. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
People certainly do monstrous things for very human reasons.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
No offense taken. Yes.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
But it's rude to ask a lady's age!
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But he's aware that that man had justified it to himself. He would've loved the opportunity to justify it to Kaneki. He was just as much a monster and a villain as Kaneki was, considering what he'd left in his wake to find him.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
One can rationalize or justify almost anything. [God knows he did.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Oh, no, that wasn't my intention. Honest!
It's just not what I would expect. If you're paying a price for a power like that, I might expect... growing older, perhaps, rather than younger.
[Congratulations, Amber, you've flustered the poor boy. But, now that you've mentioned it...]
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FROM: amber@cdc.org
Just as one can plead passion to lower their charges.
[ Being more emotional doesn't make one any more noble. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I know another Contractor whose price is to grow older. She could transform her appearance. She died recently of old age.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
I'm not immortal either, Kaneki.
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
People will find a terrible thing less terrible if they can identify why it was done.
[Which is why people would never offer the same to ghouls or contractors.]
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I see.
Okay... I'll take your word for it.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
You asked me about "peaceful coexistence" the last time we spoke.
Do you want something similar for people and contractors?
[It would make sense, why she had asked him how he felt about it. And why she had posed all of these questions about the split between morality and the concept of humanity.]
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FROM: amber@cdc.org
I thought you'd never ask :)
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Before I answer. Tell me, do you think it is impossible?
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I've learned someone I know is capable of time travel.
If working for the CDC has taught me anything, it's that anything is possible.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Is that what you're working towards, then? A world you can go home to where everyone gets along?
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FROM: amber@cdc.org
Don't be so sure. It takes only one impossible thing to disprove that.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
No. But to answer your question, that is what I want.
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I'll keep a wary eye for that one impossible thing, then.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
Some would call it a noble dream to have.
[Perhaps "dream" was not the right word. Aspiration, maybe.]
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FROM: amber@cdc.org
I have been called many things but never noble.
FROM: amber@cdc.org
Is that still true despite the methods I choose?
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FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's like what we were discussing earlier, right?
Someone's intentions can still be noble despite what methods they choose.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I've done plenty of things that many despised me for. I would do them again, though. They felt justified to me.
I assume it might feel the same way to you.
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It's irrelevant to me whether or not they were justified.
[ Because she doesn't care about right or wrong, let alone what others think of her. She doesn't even care how her actions change Hei's view of her. What matters is the objective. ]
FROM: amber@cdc.org
But if, knowing that, you still decide to pursue a similar goal, then I commend you.
no subject
You don't feel as though your goal justifies them? Or do you not care?
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
I worked at a café for a time. When I was working there, I was told by the manager that, to make a truly good cup of coffee, one had to separate the bad beans from the good.
Even a few left in would completely ruin the taste.
FROM: kaneki.ken@cdc.org
It's just a matter of removing the bad to make way for the good.
I don't know if it's commendable, but it has to be done.
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