spinoff thought from FFAV stuff, an antagonist concept

a race of magical creatures, like, from the fae realm or setting equivalent

being inherently magical by nature, they have a magical component to their existence and consciousness

in the form of the soul, a detectable spiritual Thing attached to them that serves as the center of their qualia, emotions, and self-aware existence

they meet humans

and think humans are like them until they do a bit of poking around

and realize that what we call 'emotions' are just patterns of neurons firing off chemical reactions in the physical brain

so they're like "oh! humans aren't actually alive"

"they're just very complex machinery"

"physical chemicals can't think"

"it's just a very convincing facsimile of a soul"

that is fucking chilling

"how can elevated levels of serotonin in the body be called an emotion"

so lying to humans is okay because you're just trying to manipulate its weird chemical brain into giving you the desired output, like you might program a computer

and killing humans is okay, like you might turn off a computer

and subjecting humans to emotional horror and torment is okay because they don't actually have emotions

anti-AI cruelty justifications except we're the AIs