Character Mansion

Agustin looked down at the small, grey lizard standing to his side and his eyebrow shot up in surprise. A frown came to his face and he gave this strange creature a look-over. What was she? A kobold? He cleared his throat, clearly irritated at being addressed by her with so little tact, and said, “If there is some chance you hadn’t noticed, everyone here is from a different home universe. With that in mind, it would be nothing short of foolish and short-sighted to assume that your own historical experiences apply across all worlds. On Avanterra, racial conflict is and for all of recorded history has been the central and defining pillar around which events have revolved, so you’ll forgive me for doubting your supposed grand and universal success at fixing a problem that is inherent to the nature of the very concept of racial difference. Far more likely, your society has devolved into a hierarchical system with a single dominant race to which all other races are socially and economically subordinate- no doubt tricked into believing it to be the glorious vision you describe.”

edited 23rd Feb '13 4:24:24 PM by Gault

[Parlor]

Xavier sighed and massaged his forehead. "Look," he said to Agustin, "I'm not a sociologist. I don't know most of this stuff. I don't know why we went with one route and not the other. I just know we did, and it worked. It might seem unlikely to you, but that's the way it worked out. I don't know why, but shit happens."

He glanced at Krajn when she spoke up and said to Agustin, "But, as you say, experiences differ across universes, so why shouldn't species coexist completely harmoniously where Krajn's from? Or why shouldn't integration work in my world? I mean, racial conflict being the main cause for wars and such? Where I'm from, that'd be rather unlikely. There are much better things to fight about than the other person looking funny."

[Dining hall]

"Hmm," said Mai. "Times change, I guess." She could tell the conversation was probably going to get dark, so she decided to take another direction. "Now, China on the other hand I know about. The exact dates of the first human-chimera interactions in China aren't know, but it's probably some time before the Yangshao era. Pre-5000 BC. Whether through accident or design, it wasn't that long before we were revered." She paused for a moment to think.

"I think it might've been deliberate," she said after a while. "Get a population that looks up to you, and they won't question you as long as you remain suitably mysterious without being vengeful or angry. In later years, whether through shapeshifting or illusions, chimeras used some human disguises to better interact with humans. I may or may not be related to one of the chimeras who were reinterpreted as the Eight Immortals," she added.

edited 23rd Feb '13 4:37:55 PM by TeraChimera

Agustin’s voice jumped a quarter-octave and he rounded on Xavier. “But that’s just the point! You seem to think that another person ‘looking funny’ is all there is to this issue, but that’s simply not the extent of the difference! Even for someone who’s not a sociologist, you seem to have a much reduced sense of race-consciousness. Something the integrating government is responsible for, I’m willing to bet.” He shook his head, his frown momentarily turning into a scowl. “The difference between races extends far beyond simple appearance. Truth of the matter is, the fundamental gulf in biology and subsequent ability between races has a scientifically verified and socially corrosive effect on societies that racially integrate.”

Dang, ninja'd.

[Entry Hall]

Harry looked (and was) interested. "Long-term extraterrestrial presence in the double-twenties? Freaky. We never would have had that in my history if we hadn't met the qrtxians. I wonder why..."

He thought for a moment, and put on his best interview smile. "Got a thought: how about we get that drink together, and compare history notes? This is seriously fascinating" - the word had sincere emphasis behind it - "stuff. I've always considered myself to be a bit of an amateur alternate historian, and the double-twenties were a focus." Strictly speaking that wasn't actually true, but it was close enough to sound good.

He determinedly fought down the surge of paranoia that going off to get a drink (strictly platonic, but whatever) with an attractive woman brought on.

[Parlor]

Krajn made a clicking noise. She really should have known to expect something like this, especially given the primitive look to Agustin's uniform.

"That's being absurd - again. Yes, of course it's not a matter of looking different," she said. She stiffened slightly as she did so - this was not an area in which she was an expert. "But your scientific proof would be much more convincing if my reality didn't have hundreds of years of peaceful interspecies integration to go by. And please don't insult any of us with conspiratist 'it's-not-really-equal' droppings."

She paused for a few seconds to avoid getting angrier, and gave another birdlike tilt of her head. "Also, you shouldn't confuse coexistence with integration. There are some species in my reality who are different enough mentally or physically that ordinary life alongside them may not be possible. The dragosi, for instance, or the picilnk. But we don't have to engage in unending 'racial' conflict with them either."

edited 23rd Feb '13 6:18:53 PM by nrjxll

Agustin’s bearing gained an extra air of haughtiness, and he regarded Krajn now with open disdain. “It is unspeakably presumptuous to assume that our universes are similar enough to be able to apply the same dialectic. How would you know whether the laws by which our world operates aren’t fundamentally different from yours? Might I then assume that your world also has magic, for instance?”

edited 23rd Feb '13 6:30:32 PM by Gault

[Parlor]

"Well that brings me some relief." Ozzy said to Irilemi, a smile in his eyes. He put a hand over his mouth, turning to John, "Hypothermia? Hmmn... I suppose that does add up. I've been... wandering. A little lost." He seemed reluctant to say more, rubbing the material of the top of the recliner chair he had supported himself on and examining it with what looked to be forced interest. Looking back up, Ozzy continued, "I found this house— assuming this is the same house— out in the middle of the marshes, and when I came in, there was a woman, I believe— not you, mind." this last bit was directed to Irilemi. "I can't remember her name, or... anything that she said."

Ozzy thought for a moment tapping a finger against his mask. "She was kind of noisy. I must've passed out some time after that, but I can't remember anything. It was cold in the marshes, but I stopped noticing it after a while."

Ozzy's head turned with some surprise to the increasingly heated conversation, then back to Irilemi and John. Quietly he said, "Sounds as though somebody is becoming a little bothered." He looked back at Augustin and Xavier speaking with an almost jaded sounding grimness, "I hope this doesn't regress into one person dishing out a walloping to the other." He sighed, "That would not be a lot of fun right now."

edited 23rd Feb '13 8:20:57 PM by Ryuhza

[Parlor]

Xavier blinked. Was Agustin...? He was. For Kaln's sake. "Listen," Xavier said to Agustin, his voice low, "if you think universes can't have the same dialectic applied to them, then why the fuck are you doing exactly that?" He began opening and closing his wings slowly. "You talk of species as if it's an insurmountable barrier. Maybe it is in your world. But in others, it's obviously not. Can't you wrap your head around that? Why should your world be the standard or default form?"

Xavier realized he was glaring at Agustin, but didn't stop. He hated a hypocrite.

[Parlor]

Because he's from an Eggshell State - a group of unpleasant bigots convinced of their own cultural superiority because they have blocked out any other view, like the old ways and the Core. And because he's just a pretentious jerk.

Krajn almost - almost - said it aloud. But she liked Xavier (as well as she could on five minutes acquaintance, at least), and she had had enough experience with certain types of first impression lately that she had begun to take action towards avoiding them. So instead, she took a few moments to think, then said "Maybe we should start again with a different topic."

edited 23rd Feb '13 7:14:52 PM by nrjxll

Agustin drew back, raising both his gloved hands in a mollifying gesture, backing slightly away from Xavier. He did his best not to show it, but Agustin felt more than slightly intimidated. “Calm, now. I was merely attempting to demonstrate why making such foundational assumptions about how a given world works is such a fallacy. I personally believe Krajn when she says that her society is a successful example of racial integration- after all, she has no reason to lie. I was merely mirroring her own presumptuous perspective in order to make a point. An object lesson, of sorts. It was intended to demonstrate to her that the assumption she made was incorrect. If the laws of her world were the same as mine, then an exploitative social order where one race held dominion over the others would be the inevitable result- just as if the opposite were true, racial integration would be possible on Avanterra.” He turned to regard Krajn with a reticent expression, his jaw taut, his mouth a thin, drawn line.

After a moment, he turned back to Xavier and continued. “Indeed, in this particular respect, our two worlds don’t appear to be at all fundamentally different. She herself admits that both our native realms have races that are so biologically different that they're socially incompatible. The only practical difference is that that describes all of the races of Avanterra while applying to only two on her end!"

Agustin’s head snapped back to glare at Krajn. “-and I most definitely did not confuse coexistence with integration. I have a very clear understanding of what both terms mean. It is you who, in your unending arrogance, fail to understand. More than just the similarity between our two universes, you’ve been making a lot of assumptions- take for example the fact that I never once mentioned I advocated an unending conflict between the races, as you have so demonstratively said I have."

edited 23rd Feb '13 8:38:52 PM by Gault

[Parlor]

Xavier had a lot of things to say to that. Agustin's near-immediate assumption of a hierarchy in Krajn's world, for starters. Except, oh, he had apparently been making a point. Then why hadn't he said so when he was talking about it? It was far too convenient an excuse to fall back on. Much like "I was only kidding." Agustin's claim that his and Krajn's worlds weren't that different in this one regard barely held water; he was merely using the existence of species who were drastically different than the others as proof, rather than looking at the whole picture. It was like declaring that because this particular grain of sand was blue, the desert wasn't that different in color from Picasso's The Old Guitarist.

To top it all off, based on his body language, Agustin was apparently getting scared of him, so Xavier could press his point hard if he wanted to. And, by Kaln, he wanted to.

But he didn't want to create too much tension between anybody, and things would only get worse from here. Agustin apparently wasn't able to see what he was doing. "Yes," Xavier said softly to Krajn. He didn't take his eye off of Agustin. "Perhaps we should."

edited 23rd Feb '13 8:42:50 PM by TeraChimera

[Kitchen]

"Ah." Friedrich taps his hand against the wall. "Well uh..." He looks out on the kitchen, the robots are still working on his very odd order. He scratches his head for a moment then stops suddenly. "What are guns?"

[Art Gallery]

Lance blinks a few times, frozen. "Well uh." His eyes dart over the scars. "It's um Lance. Your gra..." he stops and corrects himself, "Wylfing." He clears his throat. "Well... I guess I'm trying to eliminate tariffs and open up our borders, perhaps get some railroads in, convince the king not to redo the palace... again." He bites his lip, "Well I guess there is the thing with my roommate, but it's not terribly interesting."

[Theater]

Bianca chews and swallows and continues to stare. "Hello Samira." Her voice falters, "I've... done some things. Big things." She looks down at the plate of pastries muttering more to herself than anyone else, "Necessary things."

[Entry Hall]

Nara grinned faintly, and there was a hint of the predatory about it. Something she was quite good at, since sometimes people found it alluring and so she'd been taught, or programmed, or however one wanted to put it, to do it well. "All right." She gestured around. "Where to, then?" He was agitated. She'd been designed to read human behavior very well. Lying? Maybe a little...still. He didn't seem terrible.

And it wasn't like the old days.

[Dining Hall]

Linna looked faintly amused. "Ah. Well, at least it's not Ieyasu." She shrugged. "Sorry. Japan doesn't think fondly of China after a few generations of mutual rhetoric. Even in 2020 when The Apology happened, everything about the Second World War admitted publicly, everything apologized for, reparations paid...China wouldn't forget. They demanded we tear down the Yasukuni shrine. And a nation that does not honor those who would and did die for it, no matter how wrong the cause was..." Linna shook her head. "Things were never civil. They've gotten less so."

[Theater]

Samira's smile faded, but she nodded in understanding. "Do you want to talk about them here? Or somewhere else? You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you think it will help..." Samira had heard a lot of people confess a lot of terrible things to her. She was ready to hear whatever "necessary things" Bianca had done. Samira couldn't, and wouldn't, pressure Bianca to tell her about such things if she didn't want to, but the fact that she hinted at them so blatantly suggested she wanted, at least deep in her subconscious, to get them off her chest.

[Parlor]

Irilemi shook her head, overhearing the political discussion and the attempts to quell it. She's been starting to almost like Agustin, in a worthy opponent sort of way, but now...

She shrugged and said to Ozzy, "no signs of any wallopings yet. Nothing guaranteed, though. Would you be thinking metaphorical or literal wallopings, though?"

edited 24th Feb '13 10:04:34 AM by KillerClowns

[Parlor]

Mai blinked and began looking a little nervous. "Well, um, actually," she said, "about Ieyasu..." She rubbed the back of her neck, paused, and said, "He actually... was... an astute, intelligent human." She chuckled a little. "Even in my own world, pretty much all historical figures are humans, whereas mythological figures may have had a history related to chimeras."

She frowned for a moment. "You know, your China kind of sounds like my Huaxia. In the early 80s, the paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, was advocating a loosened control over the economy and a détente of sorts with the US. Thing is, a lot of the more hardline commies didn't want that. After a few years of negotiations, a good chunk of China, mainly in the southeast, seceded, calling itself Huaxia. Huaxia continued to be quite Communist, while China itself began sliding towards a more open market, although there's still some big elements of Communism. China tries to be more tolerant to the rest of the world than Huaxia."

She sighed and said, "Although, to be honest, I'm not actually surprised China continued on the path it did, if Huaxia never separated. There was too much... inertia, I guess, for much change. I got disillusioned with China a while back, and Mao causing famines in the name of progress was the last straw, so I just up and left."

Agustin’s eyes switched from Krajn back to Xavier. He noticed the Chimera was staring at him rather intently. Even- he realized with a start, with hostility. A look of concern furrowed his brow. Worried that he might have misjudged the situation, Agustin stepped forward, regarding Xavier clearly and unflinchingly. “If you’ve something to say to me Xavier, then say it. You know that I’ve held nothing back from you, I think I deserve the same courtesy. Besides, as a general rule I prefer it if two men have the forthrightness and conviction to we be honest with one-another. If there is a disagreement, it is best if it is heard and resolved, rather than left to fester.”

[Kicthen]

Mary blinked in shocked. "You...don't know what guns are?" She rubbed the back of her head. "Uh...well...they're weapons, but you use bullets for them."

[Parlor]

"Oh." John said. He then fell silent as Irilemi talked to Ozzy.

[Theater]

Nathan went up to the project. "Okay so...." He tapped his foot, "Now where did they put those movies...?"

[Art Gallery]

Wylfing smiles. "At least you don't have to dance between nations that would like nothing more than let all hell break loose on each other. That was going to be my job before I ran away—the youngest prince always gets the worst jobs. Now I dance between a rebel faction and nations that couldn't give a damn about our cause if they tried. Diplomacy is more dangerous than you might think. Aren't you usually sitting at a desk, pounding out numbers?"

[Parlor]

Creases appeared between Ozzy's eyes again. "Physical." he said, as though the answer was apparent, "One person throwing physical punches at the other. I don't know what good throwing metaphysical punches would do anybody. Sounds like it'd be difficult to intervene in that... brand of conflict too."

Ozzy folded his arms beneath his cloak and continued to observe the tense conversation unfolding before them. The three involved seemed so wrapped up in it that Ozzy, John, and Irilemi may as well have been in another room. Still, the sight alone of these three individuals—so profoundly different from one another—sitting around and bickering with each other was so remarkable that it brought an uncontrollable smile to Ozzy's masked face.

[Parlor]

Irilemi looked over at Ozzy, shook her head, and said, "I said metaphorical, not metaphysical. Although it's funny you mention the metaphysical variant." She smirked. "I'm something of an expert in that — I'd tell you to ask all the mages and deranged spirits who have been on the receiving end of one from me, but they're all dead. Not necessarily from the punch itself, at least not among the mages, but the follow-up."

edited 24th Feb '13 4:28:00 PM by KillerClowns

[Entry Hall - Dining Hall]

Harry gulped slightly. See, six months ago I would have thought that was hot.

Moving on...

"Okay, then," he said, and walked over towards the dining room. He entered, took a look around, sat down, and signaled one of the flying brass clockwork insect waiters - no, really, man, what the hell? - to come over.

"Right," he said to NR. "First thing to do is to figure out where the point of divergence is. What happened, for your Earth, in 2009?" He flipped open a backup database screen as he did so - he'd probably need it.

[Parlor]

Krajn decided to ignore Agustin - it wouldn't be a good use of effort to try and convince him that he was wrong, especially when she probably couldn't succeed anyway. It was just where his culture was.

Instead, she turned to take her first real look at the others in the room. "I'm sorry if my behavior has been disruptive," she said. "I have certain special cultural reasons for disliking his" - a head jerk towards Agustin - "viewpoint."

[Parlor]

The invisible smile quickly dropped from Ozzy's scarcely-visible face. He looked at Irilemi, clearly taken aback, and had difficulty finding something to say, barring a confused, 'what?' Eventually— after about four seconds of silent blinking—he was rescued from trying to find an immediate response to the suddenly daunting woman's statement by Krajn, who had just recalled, so it seemed, that there were others in the room.

Giving a last strange look at Irilemi, Ozzy turned his attention to Krajn and said in a deceptively jovial tone, "Not a problem— I'm relieved that your dispute didn't escalate to something less reasonable."

He set his eyes back on Irilemi and spoke in a quiet voice. "Pardon me?"

[Parlor]

Irilemi grinned and said, "it's complicated, but very much a favorite topic of mine." She held up a fist and revealed her antimagical abilities by focusing them on her fist for a few moments. Then the energies dispersed and, once again, only the most sensitive would be able to sense anything odd about her. "Basically, I can punch ghosts, and punch the magic out of people. Or kick, elbow, knee, chop..." she studied her hand and right arm with a fond smile. "My entire body is a singular weapon against the oppression of magic, capable of bringing death to all who would wield it." A harsh smile came to her face. "The look on a mage's face, when the powers he uses to manipulate, torture, and dominate those he views as his lessers fail him, and he meets his end by something so simple as having his head dashed against a stone wall..."

edited 24th Feb '13 1:52:17 PM by KillerClowns

[Parlor]

"Punch the magic out of someone?" Ozzy's words hung dubiously. "And then kill them? Hmn..." Ozzy turned his head away, rubbing it with one hand and trying with difficulty to cover how disconcerted he looked. Though she may have had good reasons for it, the revelation that Ozzy was in the company of a killer who took great pride in her work and indeed seemed dedicated to it left him feeling quite wary.

"...well... well, I imagine that's... uh, quite the feat." He said at last, returning his gaze to the woman. He scratched the side of his head in front of his horn uncertainly. "Does... the need arise often?"

[Parlor]

Irilemi idly studied her fingernails as she considered how to respond honestly without terrifying Ozzy even more. "Well," she said, carefully, "if my nation wasn't ruled by a magocracy that tortures dissidents, murders so-called 'undesirables', and generally brutalizes its people, I suspect I'd be killing a lot fewer mages." She studied Ozzy with a thoughtful frown as her mind reached out and scanned him.

“By all indications,” Agustin began, turning his head to look down at Krajn, “you do not know what that viewpoint even is. I would be more than happy to explain myself were you to give me the opportunity, instead of hastily labeling me a simple bigot and plastering your absurd interpretations over everything. It’s an accusation us Raldists have, unsurprisingly, had to deal with before. But, such is life.”