[If people are just fonons and fonic resonances, then what's the point of anything? No way. Asch and his replica are different people, with different experiences. He doesn't care what Jade's emotional stuntedness has to say about it. But Asch also doesn't bother to go on, since Jade is still talking, and there's no point to that argument. Not right now.
[Not with those little bits of information Jade keeps dropping, bit by bit. Still better than Van.]
My body won't --
[He shakes his head. That's not anything he's been told before. And -- he lets out a sudden, scattered laugh, bitter and mirthless.]
So then it won't be me, then, will it? If his memories remain --
[And Asch's too, probably, but what difference does that make? They're different people. Asch's memories in the replica, or the replica's memories in Asch -- either one would destroy what made each of them different. No. No, no, no, no, no -- this is almost worse than just dying. The idea of spending the rest of his life with everyone looking at him, wondering which one he is, looking at him and seeing someone who'd consumed someone else's life, the life of the person they really wanted, and always being the second choice in their eyes, the one they had to settle for --
[No.
[Stone cracks, spiralling out under his feet. The cat's fur prickles and it leaps away, hissing.]
Stop it from happening.
[Asch's voice trembles, and his face is brittle, but he's otherwise more restrained than the fragmenting ground.]
Stop it from happening and I'll give you any help you want.
[Even a world where he has to live with knowing his replica is the better version of him is preferable to that.]
no subject
[If people are just fonons and fonic resonances, then what's the point of anything? No way. Asch and his replica are different people, with different experiences. He doesn't care what Jade's emotional stuntedness has to say about it. But Asch also doesn't bother to go on, since Jade is still talking, and there's no point to that argument. Not right now.
[Not with those little bits of information Jade keeps dropping, bit by bit. Still better than Van.]
My body won't --
[He shakes his head. That's not anything he's been told before. And -- he lets out a sudden, scattered laugh, bitter and mirthless.]
So then it won't be me, then, will it? If his memories remain --
[And Asch's too, probably, but what difference does that make? They're different people. Asch's memories in the replica, or the replica's memories in Asch -- either one would destroy what made each of them different. No. No, no, no, no, no -- this is almost worse than just dying. The idea of spending the rest of his life with everyone looking at him, wondering which one he is, looking at him and seeing someone who'd consumed someone else's life, the life of the person they really wanted, and always being the second choice in their eyes, the one they had to settle for --
[No.
[Stone cracks, spiralling out under his feet. The cat's fur prickles and it leaps away, hissing.]
Stop it from happening.
[Asch's voice trembles, and his face is brittle, but he's otherwise more restrained than the fragmenting ground.]
Stop it from happening and I'll give you any help you want.
[Even a world where he has to live with knowing his replica is the better version of him is preferable to that.]