Shū Tsukiyama (月山 習) | ɢᴏᴜʀᴍᴇᴛ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
preybeforemeals) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
slowpoke_gif2014-10-13 01:50 pm
preybeforemeals) wrote in slowpoke_gif2014-10-13 01:50 pm
And if you'd like to talk for hours, just go ahead now
1. Leave a comment listing who you play.
2. Reply to one another, asking for details on CR/what their characters think of yours!
3. tl;dr at will!
Holy crap, it's so easy a Weedle can do it.
Have at and enjoy!
no subject
the social function is high but the words clearly are not doing so goodPART ONE OF WHO KNOWS
You know, what's kind of interesting in terms of the whole "we're never going to be friends but that's probably okay" concept is the fact that Kirigiri actually just said that to Celes recently, and it occurred to me as she was gearing up to say it that she probably never would have gotten to the point of being capable of articulating that to someone like Celes at the moment she was, had it not been for her CR with Ishimaru paving the way for it. It was more something along the lines of a larger group-level "we don't have to be friends or even like each other but regardless we're all interconnected in a given way that holds us together as a group, despite the character and transgressions of some of the people in that group", but still, it was a kind of really odd moment of understanding and clarity that she wouldn't have had without Ishimaru.
I think the thing that tends to trip Kirigiri up the most about Ishimaru is the fact that she forgets he doesn't tend to follow her cryptic way of speaking very well; with Naegi she's kind of used to the conversational model of referencing something and he'll just sort of fill in the end of the thought for her (thanks, game mechanics), but with Ishimaru you can't really...do implications, so as we have seen time and again a lot of their difficulties come from the fact that Kirigiri doesn't always know how to talk to Ishimaru (which is...not surprising considering I don't think she really knows how to talk to a lot of people period), and then Ishimaru in return has a tendency to hit some of the points and mannerisms that make Kirigiri get bristly.
That said, it's really fun to watch them in those rare times when they manage to both be on the same wavelength, which is usually the same point in which there is Shit That Needs Be Done; I've noticed that those tend to be the times when cooperating tends to reap Kirigiri the most appreciable benefits. I believe the alignment that I ultimately came to for her is Neutral Good as opposed to Ishimaru's Lawful Good; she's more focused on the thing needing to get done and less on how it gets done, which is where her occasional "the rules apply to everyone but me" perspective stems from. But when it becomes obvious that it's more productive to cooperate as opposed to going off on her own, then the two of them manage to work beneficially and actually Get Shit Done.
I also say, every time this meme comes up, that Kirigiri honestly does appreciate the role that Ishimaru fills in their class dynamic, even if she doesn't always appreciate him applying it to her specifically. It's very likely that the order he instituted helped to keep them all from spiraling downward into despair and murderous chaos from the get-go, and moreover she's spent a lot of time lately contemplating his general plan of "we need to bring all our classmates here and this will be our new safe home" — particularly because "all of us having a new safe home" was quite obviously something her dad wanted for them, too, and regardless of her feelings on her dad, that's kind of food for thought in terms of the lengths the guy went to in order to try to keep them all safe.
I think it's proooooobably likely that she'll continue to lightly tease him in the future? Not often, but I think she's sufficiently loosened up enough that it'll happen with slightly more regularity, if for no other reason than that maybe he'll be able to pick out a tell for "Kirigiri-kun is teasing me" and that'll be one small way they've become a little better at communicating.
...And she was actually completely honest when she said that she didn't so much care about the particular honorific as the thought behind it, though she might've misread his intention on that one a little — she took it as a slightly more personalized "I'm willing to treat you with the respect of an equal now as opposed to insisting on this vaguely passive-aggressive 'you are subordinate to me' remark", and since it was her birthday and all that was kind of a "oh what a thoughtful gift, Ishimaru-kun".
So basically if that wasn't his logic we should...maybe...not tell her otherwise...yeah. :|b
OKAY THERE
...Okay, Meridiana is kind of...in a really awkward sort of position with Tsukiyama right now, because her outlook on him is basically that sense of "we would never be friends (or possibly even associate with each other) were it not for this one thing that is kind of uniting us, but wouldn't you know it, that one thing exists, so...here we are."
Outwardly, he pretty much fits the profile of a decent gentleman: he dresses well in her estimation*, he addresses her properly, he generally treats her with respect and consideration, and so in a manner of speaking she's really got no foundation upon which to dislike him. At the same time, between the RULES OF NATURE thing and his personal struggles with facial expression and the fact that he didn't demonstrate a whole lot of empathy when she broke down crying in front of him, there's all these little twinges of something being off that she can't quite place, and it nags at her. I hate to pull the "she just gets a bad vibe" card, because it's not that, but it's more that she's subconsciously registering that something ain't right there, without being able to concretely say "it's this thing" or "it's that thing", so she's kind of penned in and forced to let it pass.
One of the semi-relevant things I feel like I need to point out about Meridiana here is that there's one point in canon where she makes an emotional appeal to Jezebel and tries to use the rationale of "but you love me, so...", which as you might expect hideously backfires on her. So I think some of that colors her experiences with Tsukiyama, too — if only in that she's been burned by equating courtesy and caretaking with affection and emotional attachment before, so as mentioned above there's this overall sense that Something Ain't Quite Right, but because she doesn't know what's not right, she can't really do anything about it.
That said, what she's been doing a lot of lately is flagrant escapism — she doesn't want to think about the life she left behind because it'll just make her break down and cry in a situation where she really doesn't have the structure or safety net to allow that, so instead she's kind of immersing herself in a very frivolous array of needs and concerns, like needing a gentleman to travel with because it's proper, and visiting entertainments because it's fun and that's What You Do, and at least some of the reason why she's still sticking with Tsukiyama is because she acknowledges that she doesn't really have any viable alternative option, so this one just sort of does for the time being?
...I realize this comes off as sounding kind of horrible but I think it kind of goes without saying that they're not really...friends so much, they're just kind of convenient for each other and pleasant enough to be around, and as you said, so long as we're keeping it on that surface level of courtesy and not peeling back the veneer to look at all the RULES OF NATURE underneath it all, it works out. She's kind of his pet curiosity and his presence in her life gives her a structure of how she fits in with this strange world she's been thrown into, and she's honestly very unlikely to say a bad word against him — on the contrary, she'd vouch for his reputation if anyone asked — but having been someone's doll before (rather literally, unfortunately), I think she can tell that things are fairly hands-off on his end and because of that she's sort of careful in terms of her expectations of him and how she handles their relationship.
* Look sometimes I read things about how Victorians felt about color in wardrobes and I got to this one article where it was like VICTORIAN MEN LOVED COLOR, TOO, THEY'D WEAR ORANGE AND GREEN AND CARMINE AND ALL SORTS OF SHIT (though probably not all at the same time) SO THEY WERE NO STRANGERS TO COLOR and I am just like .........god, you know what, okay then.