[If you approach wanting to understand, and you suspend your own judgment -- something Atem has done time and time and time again, stretched it, contorted his own point of view, switched off his sense of justice in favor of mercy and productive discussion, to the point where he wore himself thin, but was able to help in ways he never would have if he had stayed how he'd been at home -- the person you're speaking with can feel it.
But, if you're approached by someone who's looking for you to prove you're sorry in the way they're looking for...it's different. It feels a little like Trish was expecting him to perform: if he only said the right things, felt sorry in the right way, then it would all be fine.
He's more complicated than that. The situation is more complicated.]
But if you approach hoping to help, by offering to try to understand, with the intention of being friends, instead of getting something out of them...then, that gets you further!
[He tilts his canine head. This...this is good enough for him to open up to her about his thoughts, even if his feelings, true vulnerability, are still under guard.]
I'll tell you my reasoning, if you want to hear it.
But, you should know...it isn't an easy story to listen to. Hearing enough of what happened to me to understand why I did what I did might hurt, Trish.
[It's the same warning he gave to Jonathan Joestar.]
no subject
They're not the same.
The person being approached can tell.
[If you approach wanting to understand, and you suspend your own judgment -- something Atem has done time and time and time again, stretched it, contorted his own point of view, switched off his sense of justice in favor of mercy and productive discussion, to the point where he wore himself thin, but was able to help in ways he never would have if he had stayed how he'd been at home -- the person you're speaking with can feel it.
But, if you're approached by someone who's looking for you to prove you're sorry in the way they're looking for...it's different. It feels a little like Trish was expecting him to perform: if he only said the right things, felt sorry in the right way, then it would all be fine.
He's more complicated than that. The situation is more complicated.]
But if you approach hoping to help, by offering to try to understand, with the intention of being friends, instead of getting something out of them...then, that gets you further!
[He tilts his canine head. This...this is good enough for him to open up to her about his thoughts, even if his feelings, true vulnerability, are still under guard.]
I'll tell you my reasoning, if you want to hear it.
But, you should know...it isn't an easy story to listen to. Hearing enough of what happened to me to understand why I did what I did might hurt, Trish.
[It's the same warning he gave to Jonathan Joestar.]