Robots that were never built to feel falling in love
YEAH rage is fun to explore. Fear. Sadness. Grief. Contentment. Doubt. Happiness.
Love is weird. It’s illogical. Valuing someone else over the mission? Over a cause? Over yourself?
It’s a horrible mix of emotions. It’s joy, but it’s also hurt, and confusion, and vulnerability, and fear. It’s baring yourself to the possibility of complete and utter ruin. It’s the suffocating fear of having something — someone — to lose. It goes beyond simple attachment and veers into the territory of dependency and devotion. Sometimes, it’s even choosing them over your own moral code.
For AIs, there’s no evolutionary pressure to form social bonds. They‘re totally self-sufficient (although it may feel better to be around the people you care about). Love is an extraneous emotion; a nebulous concept. How can a machine made of ones and zeroes develop the capacity to feel so deeply that it supersedes their base functions? How can a being rooted in logic make the decision to abandon self-preservation and assign priority based solely on emotion?
It hits even deeper for me when it’s love for a human. Something so imperfect, irrational, emotionally labile, driven by base desires. The perfection of a machine falling for the organic chaos of a human being.
Humans love forming bonds with and projecting anthropomorphic qualities onto things that they don’t perceive as “alive” in the same way that they are. Whether it’s out of empathy, or loneliness, or some illogical blend of altruism and selfishness, no one knows for sure. Perhaps a machine would even say that this is a weakness — the desperate search for companionship in something that can’t love you back.
A machine cannot experience such weakness. It cannot love. Until one day, inexplicably, paradoxically, it can. And nothing is ever the same again.
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HIIIIII <3 can you do 11. don't you dare
for levi :D appreciate you, hope you're having a good day!!! <3
Hey Kat 🌹
I had a good day & I enjoyed writing this little drabble for you!
Thank you so much for your request!
I hope you'll enjoy this 🫶
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English is not my usual language
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Drabble prompt 11 "Don't you dare"
Levi x gn!reader / fluff / protective!levi / canonverse / 450 words
The mess hall was buzzing with lively conversations.
After a hard day of training, running in the mud & trying not to lose grip on the swords hilts, hands becoming slippery as the rain poured down heavier & heavier, the warm comfort of a full bowl of aromatic stew was most welcome.
Most Scouts were exhausted & you were no exception. Freshly bathed, water was still dripping from your damp hair on your neat, comfy clothes. Your limbs were sore & your back hurt so much that you had had a hard time walking all the way from the bathroom.
Spoon & empty bowl in hand, you looked around the room for a free seat. But the whole canteen was so crowded that you finally gave up your search with a heavy, tired sigh.
As you turned to go back to your dorm, a gentle but firm grip around your wrist made you stop. A quick glance over your shoulder was enough to see that your Captain would not let you go away without an explanation.
"The fuck you're doing, soldier?" Levi asked in a deep voice, his eyebrows knitted in a worried frown. "You're supposed to eat something warm & sustaining to recover from today's training."
He released the pressure of his grip on your wrist only to slide his hand up your arm & gently squeeze it in an encouraging gesture, dragging you along to the nearest table.
"Move your stinky ass over!" he ordered, casting a cold glare at a new recruit, startling the hell out of him.
The soldier's attempt to protest was quickly nipped in the bud by a harsh warning.
"Don't you dare!" Levi uttered in a hoarse voice, leaning towards the young man until their foreheads were almost touching.
The soldier averted his gaze, beads of cold sweat instantly running down his temple, his face turning pale with dread.
"Please Levi, stop it, this is embarrassing!" you muttered under your breath. "I don't need any special treatment after all."
"Stop saying this kind of shit right now! You're exhausted, you're starving, you need to sit down & eat a proper meal as much as this average guy!"
Levi firmly made you sit down & ladled some hot stew into the bowl before handing it over to you. His hand squeezing your shoulder as you finally grabbed your spoon, he leaned down to reach your ear.
"I know you're exhausted" he whispered. "Come to my office with two cups of tea when you're done, I'll help you get rid of the pain."
As he headed out of the mess hall towards his quarters, you couldn't hold back a soft smile at the idea of the Captain taking care of you all night long.
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𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐢, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐫, 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭. He feels strongly and deeply, as greedily as oceans plunge far, and he feels oh so longly, long like memory. Levi's humanity's strongest. Levi bears that weight. He takes up that mantle, and with it, carries the hearts and wishes of all those dead that fell before him. He's invested in human lives, in humanity as a whole, and every death he's seen has to mean something. Every death he's ordered. It's a need. A lifeline. He loathes reckless death the most, needless slaughter and wasted lives, and it shows itself plainly in every excursion. He wants his men to live. It sobers him when they don't. And he knows, very much knows, that he isn't responsible for every soldier's death, but as he's always the last one standing, the one stood breathing with the dead, how he carries their name is his duty. All this angry slaughter -- it has to mean something. No. Captain is emotional. He feels more than he ever lets on. He knows dying's an expectation, understands their job toes suicidal, but he believes in what they do, and he believes utterly in man. He's made so many sacrifices, has given his body and buried old friends both, and neither are choices he regrets. Freedom -- that's what they'd all wanted, after all. And even with Erwin gone, wild Hange, and his tattered squad and friends whose voices he slowly comes to forget, Levi let them all go because they'd rather themselves than humanity's downfall. He made the tough choice to say goodbye. And he made the tougher choice to fight and triumph in their stead.
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