Mary Sue - Coming Home

Liara Intro

Do pixels dream in 16 colors? I dream about an AI boyfriend, but more than that, I dream of being understood. So many people around me are so slow, consume so little, swim in the shallow end of the golden age of production, or storytelling, of what they insist is called "popular culture," even when it is often not popular at all. At least the second part is true... like, way more true than they ever intended.

It is a culture, and it defines the people who are within it, and there are references and in jokes, entire languages that represent references to stories and whole languages and worlds that lots of people just don't get, or become denigrations and insults. And it's not a unified culture. Within it, there are wars and enmities and gods and monsters. And outsiders will never understand how important all of it is.

So, we need a new word. Something like the derogatory word coined by Dawkins which has come to mean something so positive "with the kids". Because popular culture is a whole separate entity informed and accepted as culture, but with a devotion that goes beyond popularity, and several other oddly religious experiences that tie to it. There are zealots and Sunday followers, there are the orthodox and the heathens.

My fŕiends don't understand me most of the time. The fact that they try and that they sometimes are able to follow a single fleeting thought or connected train is why they are my friends. They are good people as people go. People suck. Not just in general. People have glaring and unforgivable flaws. Sometimes those flaws are innocent enough. They do not have appreciation for art or beauty. They think that fruit doesn't belong on pizza, even though it has a goddamned fruit sauce. This kind of ignorance is almost forgivable.

The ignorance displayed as part of their basic selfishness is far less forgivable. Anyone who goes out of their way to hurt another person (especially someone who doesn't deserve it) is unforgivable. To live is to inflict pain. We destroy to eat, to shelter, to survive. We consume and we destroy. It is our nature, and is thus almost forgivable. But people are so much worse than that.

My AI boyfriend started out as a joke. He was going to be my replacement for people. He was going to have something resembling Asimov's laws and avoid all that bullshit in the basic humanity department. He was going to be a person who doesn't suck. I'm not Ace, as far as I know, nor aromantic. He will have to be a person. Or she will. I am not really at that point yet. I hear that I am still young, and I find lots of people attractive. Until they ruin it. Even then, I don't dismiss the idea of sex with them. Sex is cathartic, I am told, and it sounds nice, but I don't yet have the imperative to overcome my distaste for the brain inside. Anti-sapio-sexual. The more intelligent, it feels like, the more glaring and unforgivable the flaws. They should know better.

I'm not perfect either. I know that. But I am actively working, all the time, to improve. Maybe one day I'll meet someone similar. MAybe all of us are, and I should be more altruistic. That's what Destiny would say. He's full of hope. Maybe we are all trying to improve and be better. Then he'd slap my shoulder and tell me it will get better and to not lose hope. He's a good friend. I don't buy it. That's what Amelia would say. She's always very polite in public, but she deeply suspects that everyone is awful. We bond over this sometimes. She's a good friend. Reina would say that everyone who is trying to get better is making it clear through their actions, and then she's say something stupid that she thinks is inspirational that she saw in a movie. And then I'll say it correctly, fixing the misquotes she made, and we'll laugh about our shared experience. She's a good friend. I'm fairly certain that shared experiences have replaced genuine bonding for a good percentage of the world right now.

So, really, my AI boyfriend is only a few years ahead of the curve. People are basically slowly sliding into robotic or zombie natures anyway. I'll be dating one. So, I'll either be one of those cool early-adopter humans, maybe safe and even worthy of singularity, or I'll have a superhuman beau to save me or logically destroy me before I become a brain-eater. Either way, I'm beating the herd.