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un: werther

This school boasts about forming a last bastion against Nightfall, but all I truly hear are tales of student-on-student violence and poor prevention measures for such incidents. I was brought here under the pretenses of 'channeling my talents more productively', but I can't help wondering if this isn't just a quarantine zone for those who are deemed potentially troublesome. Let them cause trouble for each other, rather than for those in power.

Not that I mind. I've never once considered using my talents 'productively'. That is just synonymous with 'for other people'. I hold no interest in becoming a tool for anyone.

in person option

[ Miach's been going to this school since the start of the semester, and she's spoken to exactly nobody since. She's just... around. A silent new presence on campus, always with a book in hand, never greeting anybody. If that's the kind of person you'd approach, you can find her anywhere, but most commonly in the library.

Note for faculty: Miach got transferred away from her last school for summoning a demon and getting students injured. Faculty would likely be informed of this ahead of time. ]

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[Nana's footsteps slow, a little, as she's walking along. She stands out like a sore thumb; white uniform with a red sash, skirts, epaulets, the works. She can't really hide who she is. Now, of course... Nana's pretty sure that's why.

She is, actually, reading Miach's words on the network. Her footsteps slow to a stop, before she looks up -- and spots the girl with the book. She'll reply to the message in a bit.

Instead, she waves at her -- getting in her way -- and smiles in that cheery, bright way that's so practiced.]

Ah! Hello, there!

[ Pompous. She's so incredibly pompous, Miach isn't sure if she isn't staring into one of those fairytale books she stopped reading when she was 9. Every bit of this girl is polished. Too good to be true. Miach has never liked nice people.

It's the rose petals landing on the pages of her novel that convince her to even make proper eye contact with Nana. Something this over the top may at the very least be entertaining. ]

Did you need something?

[Nana lowers her phone, then tucks it into her bag. Which is altogether incongruous with her uniform. Like a bit of normalcy next to something so fancy, bright, and shiny. The cool response to her question makes her smile flicker.

But like a light bulb deciding to not die after all, her smile is back on her face. Almost unflinching. Nana straightens her posture out, then extends a hand towards Miach.]

Oh, no, I was just saying hello! Ah, um—are you new here?

[ The hand is getting ignored entirely. Miach makes a point out of not living up to any kind of expectations and unwritten rules and she doesn't mind if this is an inconvenience to anybody else.

She does, however, close her book and begin playing with her little braid, a sign of attentiveness once you get to know her. ]

I was forcibly transferred this semester. Not that I mind, this place appears to be more interesting than my last school.

[Forcibly transferred...?

Nana's not, at this point, unfamiliar with that sort of sentiment. She visibly hesitates for a second. Her eyes flicker to the little braid (she wishes, for a second, that she could pull off that kinda hairstyle). Then she looks up, and nods. Her smile finally fades, and she lowers her hand.

She gets the picture. No handshake. Her hand drops back down.]

Well... interesting is certainly the right word for it. I hope it will be better than your last school. Ah--I'm Nana. Nana Daiba.

Miach.

[ Miach had briefly played with the idea of letting people call her by last name like most people did in Japan, but she doesn't feel connected to her family name in the slightest. It's simpler to give out her first name only and let conventions be damned. ]

You're someone of importance here, right, Nana Daiba? Is it your duty to welcome the wayward ones?

[Nana wonders, of course -- she's too much a product of a upper middle class Japanese upbringing to really miss that someone skipped their last name. Even if she's come to appreciate that different cultures handle it in ways quite unlike her own.]

Mm-hm. It is my duty. Well... maybe it's not one of the duties of the Student Council President that's spelled out. But...

[She smiles, again.] I think it's important, so I do it.

[ Miach has encountered this type before, she thinks. Maybe the only reason this one sticks out is thanks to the fancy get-up. There's always girls who want to welcome the outcast, make themselves feel better by contributing to the 'community'. This nebulous concept of people who allegedly care for one another. ]

You don't know me at all. There's no reason to go out of your way for a stranger.

Maybe I don't, but... I want to. I want people to feel at home. And to try to get to know them, as best I can.

[She's not wrong, really. Nana tilts her head again, and the smile's not gone, though it's almost a challenge.]

...Do you not like that sort of thing?

I think niceties like that are meaningless contributions to upholding the status quo. It's the safe way, the way the world expects us to be. Be nice, conform, let your niceness guide others into conformity as well.

[ Miach watches that smile very closely. By now she's gaining a playful interest in just how long it will remain when faced with adversity. Though it's not like Miach is going out of her way to be antagonizing - everything she's saying is just her genuine opinions. She doesn't believe in being nice or polite, after all. ]

I think it's silly. Censoring yourself for the sake of strangers, exerting yourself for the sake of strangers... It's a very elaborate system that I don't want a part in.

[That smile flickers a little. It doesn't vanish entirely; Nana looks thoughtful, rather than angry. Even if she feels a little annoyed. She breaks eye contact, the way she tends to when she's thinking something through.]

Maybe, but... the world expects us to be mean--mm, no, not mean, but professional and pragmatic. [She's an actress, so she changes her voice for each; drops an octave, makes herself more nasal, adopts a rougher or more refined way of speaking, to make it clear she means different people are saying these things.] "The world is ending." "We have to take this seriously." "There isn't time to enjoy things." "Smile if you survive." "With how bad things are getting, there isn't time to be happy."

[She tugs on her hair. Later, she'll realize that was entirely too honest, too much like how she really thinks. She shouldn't be saying things like that.

But, here she is.]

People expect us to be nice. But... they expect us to be gracefully miserable, too. I'd rather be nice and try to be happy.

Edited 2019-10-19 02:57 (UTC)

So you did put some thought into this.

[ There is honest surprise in Miach's voice. Most girls would have given up by now. In her old middle school, she'd experienced waves of people trying to befriend her, because she stood out so much and yet was always alone. None of them could weather her rejections.

'I'm not interested in mere humans' is what she used to tell people and that was the end of it all. But at this school, nobody really is a mere human, huh?

And the acting gives bonus points, it was fun to listen to. Now Miach's the one who is smiling. ]

But so much happiness is a sham. Collective happiness is built on restriction and suppression. Invariably, to make the group happy means to shun the individual's needs. And yet... you do have a point. By default, nobody here is happy. They don't have the luxury of obliviousness that is granted elsewhere in the world.

Is your smile your way of making a declaration, then?

[Nana smiles a little more -- a different one, too, like maybe she's happy Miach noticed or said so. Besides, it's nice to see her smile.

She relaxes a little; her left hand ends up on the back of her neck, as she thinks about that. Is what Miach says really true? She thinks about when she was younger; shy, in a classroom full of peers, and still feeling utterly alone.

Well...]

You're not wrong. A lot of the time, people are expected to feel happy -- at least, to act happy -- no matter how they feel. But... in this case... yes, I think it is.

I don't want to miserable -- or nobly self-sacrificing -- or anything else because it's the right way to respond to the situation. I think I'd rather smile, even when I don't really want to.

Well, I certainly don't want to sacrifice myself or my own needs either. We have that in common, Nana Daiba, if nothing else.

[ Though they've arrived at entirely different conclusions and behaviours, maybe the way they got there isn't as different as one might have assumed. Though she is loathe to admit it, Miach had never considered the idea of being nice for selfish reasons. It is palatable in a way that mere conformity is not. ]

As student council president, do you want to change the status quo? Make your way the right one?

We might have one or two more things in common, maybe. We'll have to see, won't we?

[Or: maybe, yes, actually.

But it's not the goal as much as a means, and not what she's setting out to do.]

Mm... not really. I don't really have a taste for trying to make people behave a certain way. I just want to give them a place where they can be themselves... and where they're as safe as I can make them.

Ah, but that's dangerous.

[ Miach is by now fully engaged in the conversation - this doesn't cause her to be any nicer or more willing to compromise, but it's... something. The best something Miach has to give at any rate. ]

You assume that people can simply coexist when they're being themselves, but that's not really true, is it? People desire to hurt themselves and one another. It's a natural part of being human - and an even more natural part of being a blighted creature. Not suppressing oneself, free expression... that means allowing people to make each other miserable. Are you up for that?

[Nana blinks a couple of times. The source of momentary confusion is soon made clear:] Blighted creature...?

[She hesitates a second, though, and then she looks down for a moment. She'd like to say yes -- but she's been too honest this conversation as-is. She swallows, eyes down on the ground for a moment more.]

...Not entirely. I know people will fight and argue and... worse, sometimes. But... as much as I don't like it, I'd need to find a way to try to manage it. So people can be as happy as they can, without hurting others.

So you're just back to the age-old question of how to structure a harmonious society.

[ Miach gives a small sigh. ]

Philosophers like John Locke have always been optimistic that in our state of nature, there would still be an inherent law stopping us from harming others, but... that hasn't really been proven true, has it?

Even though the state of nature is hypothetical only, societies have tried to achieve peace through most of the modern age. Yet there is pain even in the nicest suburban societies. People want to escape even a life in which they have to fear nothing nor fight for anything.

If you can create a microcosm in this school that escapes all the usual fallacies... I'll be most impressed.

[Nana blinks at the start of Miach's explanation. Oh, she follows. She has ideas about this. Opinions, even.]

Well... I think the problem is one of absolutes. Saying there is always a law is wrong. But... saying there is never a law, never something within people that stops them from wanting to harm others, is also wrong.

Sometimes people help, when it's dangerous and there's no reason. Sometimes people hurt each other. I think... the only real answer is that everyone defines happiness differently.

I see my job as trying to find a middle ground -- and one that protects the happiness of others, against all the things that would destroy it, or just trample over it in the name of expediency.

I don't think I'll succeed perfectly. But I think an imperfect success--that trying to do something--has to be better than nothing. Does that make sense?

[Then, a beat, and Nana turns red in the face and leans closer to ask in a whisper:]

But what does Final Fantasy 6 have to do with all of this?

[ Miach definitely had a response ready to all of this. It's a topic she thinks a lot about, albeit not nearly as solution-oriented as Nana. It's fun to find someone else who cares even if in a completely different and contrary way.

There's things to be said here about nature vs nurture and the question of how natural people's 'instinct' to help truly is...

... but it all comes to a halt with that final question.

Miach knows a lot of things, useful and useless alike. She can tell you about the cruelty of literature in every era of mankind, she can point out a top 5 of cruel paintings for the last 10 centuries, she can do many things..... But what she can't do is tell you anything about video games.

The seemingly completely disconnected question has her blinking. Miach Mihie is never speechless. Except now. ]

... Final... Fantasy ...6?

[There's a lot of things Nana could have said. Oh, she doesn't know classic literature, but she knows her plays; she's better with 19th and 20th century plays. She's a movie buff.

And she likes older things. There's something about the classics, about operatic things, like...

...a certain RPG she played a couple of years ago.]

The old video game, from the nineties? Ah... it's the one with the charismatic, power hungry emperor and the rebels who try to fix things, but everything falls apart because of a nihilist who decides that the only thing to do with ultimate power is see everything burn?

And the nihilist is a clown?

[ None of this means anything to Miach. She's... aware of the Final Fantasy franchise. On a very general level. But somewhere in losing herself to assumptions about her own educated and sophisticated nature, she's... completely missed the bus on a whole niche of contemporary pop culture. Even though she's very proficient with technology generally, the most she's ever played is Minesweeper.

And thus she continues staring as Nana explains, feeling like the rug has been swept out from under her. That should not happen. Although the context is as benign as can possibly be, it's leaving a stupidly large impression. ]

That... sounds like a very classic story archetype. Except for the nihilistic clown, that's more of a 20th century addition with the exception of some niche in the 1600s...

[ Okay, trivia dropped, she feels better. ]

What does it have to do with all of this, then?

[Nana's faintly embarrassed at throwing her off like that. Almost like she did something she wasn't supposed to. Though... it's endearing, somehow, she thinks. Seeing Miach stare, like she isn't sure what to make of this. She smiles after a second, tugging idly on some of the hair not caught in her banana-tails.

She tilts her head, then nods.] Mm-hm. It's... actually a very classic plot--it reminds me of a lot of films. The nihilistic clown is really what made it, though, I think? He had some amazing dialogue.

[Then, she blinks, and laughs.]

I-I never did explain. One of the characters was named Locke. So when I heard Locke, I just... thought of...

[ The explanation is so simple and now Miach feels a little less like she missed the bus on something important. It makes her laugh. ]

John Locke, born in the 1600s. One of the most important British social philosophers. The world owes a lot of how it understands humanity and society to him.

[ Which means he's of great interest to Miach, who may be pretentious but also has a genuine passion for finding out how groups of people function. ]

Considering the themes of your game, the hero being named Locke is likely not a coincidence. So there's our connection.

Ah...! I should read some of him, then. [She sounds interested, too. It's not too hard for her to be interested -- for someone who likes plays, movies, and literature, it's easy to get interested in where the ideas there came from.

Her brow furrows for a second, and her smile slips into thoughtfulness.]

I wonder if the writers were saying something about him. In the game, Locke's so caught up in the past that he, ah, is trying to keep a departed loved one's body intact until he can find a way to bring her back from the dead. Instead of moving on.

un: werther

in person!

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LUNA I'M SO SORRY

THIS THREAD IS SO GOOD!!

isn't it just?? I love their CR already!!

they got off to an amazing start ;w;

they really did!!

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