[This is, Aradia is pretty sure, what friends do. At least, she's sort of pieced out that ice cream makes everything better, and she'd argue that it can only improve a situation, so.
And she is old hat at this sort of conversation anyway. This is not even a surprising train of logic, this is the Karkat Vantas Maneuver.]
There are always plenty of things you could have done. There are always plenty of things anyone could have done. But the one thing you couldn't have done is known it would happen. So why are you worried?
[She has to think of a way to say this as delicately as possible. This isn't Karkat, she can't just talk over him and sweep aside his objections because he's ridiculous anyway and she can get away with it and she knows she's right. Laura does not have the benefit of that understanding.]
You can try, yes. I don't mean that as a slight on your abilities. But it's not really possible for you take responsibility for everything that happens to everyone. There will be things you can't be there for, things you can prevent and things you can't, either because they have to go that way or there's a limit to how much you can do, how many choices you can make to insure an possible outcome. I know that probably isn't very easy to hear! But I think if you spend so much time worrying about what you could have done, even if it's understandable, it doesn't benefit anybody. Nobody would blame you for not being there but yourself.
[Time traveler logic. Of course this doesn't apply to her; in theory she could probably make anything happen, but there would be consequences and doomed timelines and she knows, sometimes, people die, and there's nothing to be done, and it's not easy.]
[ She takes another bite of the ice cream (oddly surprised that it does help a little bit), contemplating this in silence for a few long moments. When she finally does speak, it is slow and deliberate. She, too, is trying to find the right way to say this. ] But if I can do something, I should. I have done many bad things. I want to do good things. But you are right. I cannot do good things if I simply think about what I could have done.
Yes, exactly! You can't think about what you could have done, or what you should have done, because you didn't, and you couldn't be expected to know and you shouldn't be expected to save everyone. I could have prevented it, if I had known, but I didn't, and there's not really anything I can do about that-
[Probably, timelines are so odd here, she doesn't quite get how to navigate with her abilities so limited-]
- any more than you can now. I've been trying to explain this to Karkat forever, he does the same kind of thing. Everything that goes wrong, he thinks that it's his fault, and maybe sometimes it sort of is if you want to look at it that way, because he chose to do one thing when he could have chosen another. But nobody will hold that against him, and there isn't any way he could have known how it would turn out. So it's pointless for him to just sit there beating himself up for it. You never get anywhere if you do that, and you can't assume responsibility for everything and everybody's choices.
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And she is old hat at this sort of conversation anyway. This is not even a surprising train of logic, this is the Karkat Vantas Maneuver.]
There are always plenty of things you could have done. There are always plenty of things anyone could have done. But the one thing you couldn't have done is known it would happen. So why are you worried?
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You can try, yes. I don't mean that as a slight on your abilities. But it's not really possible for you take responsibility for everything that happens to everyone. There will be things you can't be there for, things you can prevent and things you can't, either because they have to go that way or there's a limit to how much you can do, how many choices you can make to insure an possible outcome. I know that probably isn't very easy to hear! But I think if you spend so much time worrying about what you could have done, even if it's understandable, it doesn't benefit anybody. Nobody would blame you for not being there but yourself.
[Time traveler logic. Of course this doesn't apply to her; in theory she could probably make anything happen, but there would be consequences and doomed timelines and she knows, sometimes, people die, and there's nothing to be done, and it's not easy.]
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Yes, exactly! You can't think about what you could have done, or what you should have done, because you didn't, and you couldn't be expected to know and you shouldn't be expected to save everyone. I could have prevented it, if I had known, but I didn't, and there's not really anything I can do about that-
[Probably, timelines are so odd here, she doesn't quite get how to navigate with her abilities so limited-]
- any more than you can now. I've been trying to explain this to Karkat forever, he does the same kind of thing. Everything that goes wrong, he thinks that it's his fault, and maybe sometimes it sort of is if you want to look at it that way, because he chose to do one thing when he could have chosen another. But nobody will hold that against him, and there isn't any way he could have known how it would turn out. So it's pointless for him to just sit there beating himself up for it. You never get anywhere if you do that, and you can't assume responsibility for everything and everybody's choices.