#so both the Ancient people and the Iterators have different relationship to gore and death than us because they are submerged in it

[spotsupstuff]

How did Gem become the terrifying witch she is today? Was she like that when she was was first booted up?

probably similar case to Murder of Crows

in the case of Crows, a Gen 3, her existence is explicitly filled with emotion cuz that's just how poor Gen 3s are. instead of the usual "going to anger/determination or joy", Crows' programming scanned through the starting info package and went clinical depression mode

Gen 1s are more callouse about emotions, robotical, usually fall back on logic in their first few years. Gem's programming scanned through the starting info package AND interacted with her elders- especially most likely Boreas and Disdain, two most morally complex Iterators currently online (Orion and Spore were sweethearts, Zephyr generally unavailable to anyone but Boreas and Orion)- and her programming concluded that morality is a choice she doesn't have to take to reach her goals- in fact it might actual hinder her progress- and deleted the stuff out of herself

cue typical growing up stuff in a society where death isn't taken all That seriously while still carrying the horrific effects on mental health like irl and you get Gem's brashness, lack of moral sense and readiness to dig through guts of still living things