bradley catchall

[outsidebones]

Comments

[battling]

I was killed in the school to keep everybody else from being trapped there forever. It didn't affect anybody back home.

[He looks tired.]

Aikawa's a kind person. Never wants to hurt anyone. Every time we talked about buyin' stuff from the gift shop, he wanted things that couldn't cause harm.

[outsidebones]

I know.

[...]

I suppose I have no right to say it, but I wish you'd told us about it. It scared me, and perhaps I judged him too harshly. But I understand why you didn't, and I can't say it would have made a difference.

I'm not a good person, Bradley. I'm not even a person at all. But I have caused suffering, and at least that I do regret.

[battling]

Say whatever you want to. It doesn't change anything. [He doesn't say it harshly. Just a matter of fact.]

You're not a person? [That's up there, one of the stranger things he's heard.]

[outsidebones]

No, not in the typical sense that others are. It's difficult to explain, and an unpleasant explanation.

There was a girl at the station who was a...computer program. Everything she knew and did was based on what she had been made to do. But eventually, she began developing more complex notions and wishes and desires.

I think of myself as a little like that, too. I have my own desires but that is not by design and they are somewhat irrelevant to my purpose, which is to defend my House from ruin.

[battling]

[There's a slow blink about this computer program girl, but he does seem to accept it. Murdergame life is already so weird, why not.]

That doesn't exclude you from being a person. People are complex and complicated, sometimes their desires and purposes don't align.

I appreciate gettin' closure.

[outsidebones]

Closure is not all it's cracked up to be, I think.

[battling]

Depends on what's gettin' closed. Some of it's worse than others.

[outsidebones]

Does knowing what happened make it easier to take?

[she doubts it.]

[battling]

's just one less thing I wonder about.