[RFC] Being You is Deculture

[Black Aeronaut]

No worries, still working on this.  I've just been skipping around, going wherever the muse is pushing me to go.

As a treat, lemme show you something that I'd like a bit of commentary on before I get too carried away with it.  Basically, I want to know if this still seems in-character for Minmei as I have her so far.

It leads off with Garrick saying that Kaifun's logic is flawed, even if the UN weren't exactly paragons themselves, though that's likely going to change soon thanks to the bomb he just dropped on the British Ambassador...

“Good.  Maybe things will change for the better, then.  Maybe I can come back here to Yokohama...”  Minmei fell silent at what she had just implied - that she would come and live here.

Without me.

I know she didn't really mean it like that, but I wasn't a fool, either.  I knew this was one of the possibilities, and she knew that I knew as well.  Even so, I could never punish her for having such a thought.  It's a very human thing to do, and I'm not about to go around trying to get people to be what they're not.

I looked to her and smiled wanly, giving her hand a squeeze.

We walked on in silence for a moment before Minmei broke the silence between us again.

“How can you be so calm about this?” she asked suddenly.  “Here I am, really, honestly thinking about leaving you, and it almost feels like you’re giving up on me here!”

I sighed.  “Minmei...  I don’t know what you want me to do here.  I’ve already shown you everything I can.  You know whats on the horizon.  You know what the possibilities are.  The only thing I can do now is wait for you to make your choice.”

“So... you won’t fight for me?”

“Fight for you?” I said.  “Against who?  Your family?  I’m pretty sure you were just about to tell your father where to shove it just earlier.”  I then sighed.  “You really were about to say ‘Yes’ back there, weren’t you?  And then Kaifun showed up.”

“What about Kaifun?” said Minmei hotly.

I took a deep breath because I knew this was something of a land mine for her.  “Minmei... I don’t trust him.  He’s read way too much Ayn Rand.”

“How can you tell?”

“His entire attitude screams it.  This idea that the entire world is supposed to order itself before you just because you think it’s... that it’s righteous, when really it isn’t.”

“I don’t get it, Garrick.  What’s so bad about wanting the world to be a better place?”

“What Kaifun wants is a logical fallacy.  Look, you confirmed that he’s read a lot of Ayn Rand, so you probably know about Atlas Shrugged.  The scene where the protagonist is being tortured, and he makes some bold speech about... I don’t know -WHAT- and somehow his torturers are suddenly in awe of what an incredible man he is?  That’s not how it works.  Real life?  They would have let him go on for a few seconds, and then laughed as they clubbed him halfway to death.”

“But it’s-”

“It doesn’t matter what the message is.  It’s fiction.  Real life doesn’t work that way.  I told you about everything that happened back when I was taken prisoner, right?  You think that my words had any effect on Budolza?  He almost killed the Lieutenant and I had to cut his hand off to save her.  That is real life.

“What Kaifun wants would be like trying to argue with a typhoon.  It’s not gonna care.  It’s going to come, and if you’re still there when it does, it’s going to wash you away with the storm surge.  And if Kaifun doesn’t watch it, that’s pretty much what’s going to happen to him.”

“How can you say that!  There’s no way Kaifun would do something so dumb!”

“Minmei, I’m sorry, but Kaifun is nowhere nearly as bright as he thinks he is.”

“And you are!?” she snapped angrily.

I stopped and turned to look Minmei in the eyes.  She was genuinely peeved at me.  In fact, she never said a word about when she slapped me earlier.

“I would like to that that me being as old as I am would at least mean I have more life experience than Kaifun does.  I’ll admit, I went through a similar phase when I was young, but when I was confronted with reality, I didn’t try to scream down the storm.  I learned and became wiser for my experience.”

“You don’t seem all that smart now, though,” she said with a glare.

Shit.  She was doubling down on this.  Before, I’ve always been able to get people to see reason, and in the times I couldn’t I could usually just stand back and let them learn from their mistakes.

But with Minmei?  Now?  Regarding this?  She was about to make a very poor choice, one that I knew she would regret for the rest of her life.  And I didn’t wish that kind of fate on her.  The only problem was how do I defuse this situation?  I had to take some kind of action because ignoring it was as  good as handing Minmei over to Kaifun, gift wrapped.

“I’m not about to sit here and try to prove how wrong you are about that.  You know already how wrong it is.  It was one of the things you liked the most about me.  And by the way?  You said that I wasn’t fighting for you?  Congratulations: you just gave me an opponent.”

“Is that so then?” said Minmei with an enraged glare.  “The only reason your not going back alone is because there’s no way I can get back there without you!”

“Alright then,” I said evenly.  “We’d better stop making a scene of ourselves and get going.  I promised your parents and Kaifun that I would deliver these letters, and that is exactly what I’ll do.”

“You had better if you know what’s good for you.”

And then during the flight back, Garrick and Katherine deconstruct what had just happened a bit...

The flight back was a quiet one.  But that was fine.  I needed the time to figure out how I was supposed to handle this.  I knew that Minmei loved her cousin, but I never imagined that she’d defend him so vehemently, even though he was so horribly in the wrong.

She really is angry, isn’t she? asked Katherine quietly.

Yeah, Sprout.  Don’t ask me how I missed this.

It never was such a big issue in the anime.  I mean, yes, she stuck to her guns about Kaifun.  But even then, she was also showing signs of getting tired of him.

Yes... but that took a while, though.  Katherine, I fucked up.  I should have seen this coming.

But what could you have done?

I’m not sure, Sprout.  But I would have thought of something.

By the way, we just got another batch of letters.  Do you want to read them now?

Thanks, Sprout, but I need to stay at least somewhat focused here.  I’d never forgive myself if anything happened now.

Alright, Gar-kun.

So, thoughts?