scene xxv

[encored]

ACTION;
A) [In the morning, Charles can be found living up to his actual age, being an old man and setting up a chessboard in the park! Someone save him before he starts feeding pigeons and wearing sweater vests. He doesn't seem to have a partner to play with. Not until you walk by, that is, at which point he smiles and gestures to the other side of the table.]

Why don't you take a seat? Let's have a match. [SUSPICIOUS... No, he's just that bored and in a rare social mood.]

B) [Or maybe you catch him a little later on, after he's packed away his chess set and is out walking his, uh... Horace. The giant beast actually seems pretty tame, all things considered, only stopping to sniff moving things (like you, whoops!) and occasionally making gross growling noises and drooling on the ground. So majestic.

For the unfortunate citizens, these two losers can also be found in much less docile situations - Charles trying to shoo his droolbeast away from a drone it's attempting to gnaw on, or perhaps Horace lolloping down the road with a few geese in its mouth.]

PHONE;
[And carrying on with the trend of being utterly unruffled by everything that happened over the weekend, Charles will pick up his phone in the early evening with a question for the masses.]

I'd like to know your opinion on concerts. Proper orchestral performances, I mean. Who here enjoys them? If something with that sort of music happened to be available in the city, would you attend? [His little fancy cultured self is starting to feel more deprived than usual okay... Having at least one other star performer now, all that's left is to gauge the interest of a potential audience.]

Comments

[encored]

[he almost wants to say straight up "cain stop trying", but miraculously refrains from being quite so harsh.]

Are you certain you can't figure out the meaning from what you already know? It's not very complicated, after all.

[kinship]

[He bristles internally at Charles' tone, as though he is being spoken to like a stupid child. Not that he shows his annoyance.]

The meaning may have changed over the years, along with the rules, I'm interested to know how you perceive it first.

[encored]

[this problem would have been avoided if he had just sat down to learn a fun game!! Charles isn't a very bad teacher all things considered, okay, but now he's just going to be a smug asshat...]

It's a game of strategy, of course. It used to be a common game among war generals, who would practice their skills in matters of the battlefield by playing chess. [he taps the piece his finger is resting on] The king and queen are the most important pieces, and the game is over once the king is captured.

[kinship]

[Perhaps he will be defeated this time, but Charles better believe Cain will become a chess grandmaster just to defeat him next time.

His eyes are lighting up with interest, that... actually sounds pretty fascinating, and he has to wonder why he wasn't at least taught this game considering the skills it promotes.]

Unfortunately, it's no longer such a common game among strategists. Even the greatest military minds often haven't played it.

[Ego +12]

[encored]

[someone at this table has issues when it comes to competition!!

but wow he's starting to question whether or not Cain is actually bluffing... THE FUTURE IS BLEAK.]

I'll believe it once I see it, but it doesn't sound impossible. After all, they discard their roots and traditions when they become inconvenient, so practical and useful things like chess are bound to be lost. Rushing toward progress and the future as though they'll find the perfection that's so far out of their grasp somewhere within that... [shaking his head and muttering:] The mentality behind Đổi Mới is standard no matter the year. It's truly pitiful.

[kinship]

[It's totally Charles, he's so competitive... it's sad, really. He had been about to reply with an observation that much agreed with the other boy for once, he has no love for the 'progress' that causes pain for so many people, but he's stalled by that phrase he doesn't recognise.]

I assume 'Đổi Mới' means progress? I know it must be Vietnamese, but I'm afraid that's one of the languages I'm unfamiliar with.

[encored]

[so competitive he'd make up an entire fake history and rulebook for chess, yes, that's Charles for you.... and man the lifeboats, the world is clearly ending if Cain actually agrees with him on something!]

It means renovation, actually. It was a term used specifically to reference the start of economic reforms in Vietnam after the war. [he sighs and tips his king to its side in an idle gesture before setting it upright again.] But the thought behind it is obviously the same as any other movement of its kind. Renovation and progress are just pretty ways of saying they're intent on uprooting everything that has come before because it doesn't fit into whatever they're currently trying to create.

[kinship]

[He idly plays with the king as he listens, twisting it between his fingers with his eyes fixed intently on Charles.]

Uprooting the old isn't always a bad thing, depending on what the old was. Some practises, even ones that have been around for centuries, are damaging and pointless... replacing them is sensible and beneficial. Unfortunately, most people seem to believe that 'progress' and 'comfort' are synonymous, and so they give the highest priority to achievements that will improve their immediate quality of life, without much thought for what went before or what will come after.

[encored]

[he leans back in his chair, looking thoughtful. it's obvious he's more seriously invested in this topic than any of the previous ones.] Some, perhaps, but a great many are tossed aside for foolish reasons, and at the cost of the lessons they might have taught in the future.

Either way, I suppose that's about as much as one can expect from their kind. They were designed to do things with the least amount of effort, you know? It's in their biological wiring.

[kinship]

[How interesting... though not really surprising, Charles makes no secret of how much he dislikes the human race or how trapped in the past he is.]

Do you think so? I don't believe that it's biologically encoded into them, I think it's more an indoctrination of the social norms. Nurture rather than nature.

[encored]

Well, think of it like this. Humans evolved from something; some sort of prehistoric animal, or whatever you believe. [waves a hand dismissively, since this part is just a trifling detail to him.] In the early days, animals that escaped obsolescence and climbed the evolutionary ladder did so primarily for one reason. They were the most efficient at feeding themselves. And what is the most efficient way to feed oneself? Whatever way burns the least amount of calories while retaining the most. You see where this is going, yes? [hunters that don't need to put much effort into hunting have an excess of time, creatures that don't spend every waking hour trying to feed themselves will have the opportunity to expand beyond the small scope of life's most basic elements. thinking along those lines, it would seem natural for a desire to 'work smarter, not harder' to become biologically encoded.

he plucks his king from the board, examining it with a vague disinterest.] Of course, humans take this to the extreme and run wild with it, resulting in the lazy, short-sighted society they've built. But their design, at the very least, is completely natural.

[kinship]

[It's an interesting way to think of it, and the idea does have some merit. The world is surely about to end as Cain nods in agreement to Charles' theory, the two thinking the same way openly for once.]

Perhaps. However, some species have managed to out-evolve others by virtue of being the most proactive regarding their survival.

[encored]

[they agree on all of the worst things... not that Charles minds at all, since it's pretty difficult for him to find people who share a similar mindset when it comes to these topics.]

Being proactive includes using the daylight hours wisely, isn't that so?

[kinship]

[Cain is skirting the edges of actually expressing a distaste for humankind, and he would deny it if outright called on it.]

Of course!

[encored]

[repression is totally unhealthy, cain!! so much less healthy than, you know, openly despising an entire species...]

So it still somewhat loops back around to whichever manages to consume things effectively. It's quite tiresome spending an entire day looking for the next meal, you know. One achieves nothing if their lives consist of eating and sleeping.

[kinship]

Consuming things effectively can speak of intelligence and ingenuity, both of which the human race has displayed in spades.

[Albeit not the majority, but the occasional bright spark who propelled them forwards.]

[encored]

[which is something he definitely understands, since he raises a brow in a look of incredulous disbelief.]

A few, perhaps. Sometimes the ability to consume things effectively doesn't come with a greater intelligence or ingenuity, as sad as that is. [case in point: horace...]

[kinship]

[Not everything comes back to the droolbeast, Charles, sigh.]

Then those creatures are often hampered by a sub-standard survival instinct, or lacking in enough intelligence to understand when would be a sensible time to be afraid.

[encored]

[it's hard not to relate everything back to droolbeast when it's so... there.... all of the time.]

That seems to sum up the human race quite nicely.

[kinship]

[It just shows a lack of imagination, Charles, and Cain is very disappointed in you.]

I would have said the second part applied to others species more than humans.

[Such as chipoterans.]

[encored]

[gosh he will just have to work on expanding his list of comparisons then]

Hardly. Smaller or weaker creatures are usually quite quick to detect dangerous situations and react in a self-preserving manner, and larger or stronger creatures still know when it's time to withdraw. [which is why chiropterans are totally exempt okay, the 'flight' part of 'fight or flight' is unnecessary when you can swing around huge anchors for funsies and regenerate from just about anything...]

Humans do often scramble desperately to keep hold of their own lives but when things come down to it, their survival mechanisms on a whole leave much to be desired.

[kinship]

They don't have the worst survival instincts, I think you're doing them a disservice.

[Although it sounds like he's defending humankind, really he's just aware that they can be remarkably good at using one another (as well as other creatures) as effective meat shields.]

But I think a discussion on evolution is a little off-topic, giving the nature of the game at hand.

[encored]

[his nose wrinkles a little and it's pretty clear he disagrees with that statement, even knowing how desperate humans are for a way to keep their deaths at bay, but he's distracted by that second statement. glances down at the chessboard...]

It seems we veered from the topic a little. Well, it's the same either way, I suppose. It isn't as though we're actually going to accomplish a game if you don't know the rules and I don't know the future rules. [he might look for a second like he's trying not to crack a smile...]

[kinship]

[Oh no, that's just creepy... Charles never try and smile again, Cain will have nightmares for months about that.]

I could try and teach you the rules as they are in my time, but they're quite hard to pick up.

[Why yes, he is calling into question Charles' ability to learn a fabricated game.]

[encored]

[at least it wasn't the dreaded yandere smile!! but he's resting an elbow against the board again, using his hand to prop his chin up.]

I'm certain they are. [because, you know, they can be as convoluted and nonsensical as possible without rhyme or reason...] Care to explain some of the basics to me?