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[11:30] <Karo> Karo sagged on a bench just a few yards away from Satomi Lane Cinema, watching various shoppers bustle back and forth. -
[11:35] <Karo> Look at them all. So carefree. So wealthy. None of them probably had to weigh the last of their meager allowances between the price of two movie tickets and the cost of a new graphic novel. They probably had their own beds too, instead of couch surfing in shabby dorm room lobbies. -
[11:37] <Karo> None of them were wondering if the classmates they were hoping to meet tonight would even show up to watch the greatest movie of all time with them. It was possible that they did not even know the greatest movie of all time existed! What ignorant bliss. -
[11:39] <Karo> A small girl in pigtails skipped past with a large soft pretzel, and Karo stared dully after her with a mix of pity and resentment. -
[11:42] <Karo> It was just an hour after class had let out, but that would have been plenty of time for student to grab their stuff, give their apologies to any clubs they were blowing off, and make their way to the mall. If they felt like they didn't owe their clubs an explanation, like Karo, then it would have taken them maybe twenty or thirty minutes to arrive. -
[11:43] <Karo> Still, though, there was no sign of Umeko yet, and he was starting to get a little worried.
[11:47] <Minaplo> Suddenly, he'd feel a poke in the back of his neck.
[11:48] <Karo> Karo started slightly and jerked around.
[11:49] <Minaplo> Umeko was leaning on the headrest of the bench. She was wearing her school uniform- although, she hadn't been at school today…-
[11:49] <Minaplo> "Am I late?"
[11:54] <Karo> "Huh? Oh." He checked his phone. "The movie starts in ten minutes. So, technically, no." -
[11:54] <Minaplo> "Nailed it."
[11:55] <Karo> "Were you ditching today…?"
[11:55] <Minaplo> "Don't I usually?"
[11:56] <Karo> "Yeah," he admitted thoughtfully. "I need to follow your example. Class was so boring…"
[11:57] <Minaplo> "Speaking of which." She poked his neck again. "You are an exam-stealing fox boy."
[12:00] <Karo> "Oh, that?" Karo shrugged. "I just got lucky. There were a lot of questions on the Philosophy one that I knew."
[12:01] <Minaplo> Poke poke poke. "I let you into my house, shared with you my secret studying skill. All those hours of Evangelion, wasted. I can't believe this."-
[12:02] <Minaplo> "You're a tricky little cheating fox boy, aren't you?"
[12:04] <Karo> "You probably would've watched Evangelion anyway, just because you -like- it."
[12:04] <Minaplo> "It's a deep, complex meditation on human nature. You'd only watch Evangelion for girls in skintight suits, wouldn't you, foxy?"
[12:13] <Karo> "Girls in skintight suits are just a distraction from the things that really matter. Revenge!"
[12:14] <Minaplo> "And you like being distracted, don't you?"
[12:20] <Karo> "M-maybe you like being distracted!" Karo dared to poke her back. On the shoulder.
[12:21] <Minaplo> Umeko flinched away from his jab. "Touchy."-
[12:21] <Minaplo> "So are we going to see this movie or what?"
[12:26] <Karo> "Yeah!" He stood up, feeling somehow triumphant. "I already got tickets. I guess we could get some food too."
[12:26] <Minaplo> "Yes. Hot pot, please."
[12:30] <Karo> "How about popcorn? It's hot. Like hot pot."
[12:31] <Minaplo> "Popcorn isn't food. It's like makeup for your tongue."
[12:45] <Karo> "They probably sell dried sardines too. Maybe other stuff? Souvlaki?"
[12:45] <Minaplo> She sighed.-
[12:46] <Minaplo> "After the movie, can we go have hot pot?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a thick stack of bank notes. "I can pay."
[12:48] <Karo> "Oh! Yeah, sure. Why didn't you say so?"
[12:49] <Minaplo> "Because I figured you'd be paying for it. Didn't realise I'd have to rely on my emergency money."
[12:53] <Karo> "We could split it," Karo offered.
[12:54] <Minaplo> "Ah. That works."
[01:02] <Karo> Karo beamed. "How much do you know about this movie?"
[01:03] <Minaplo> "It's Gundam, so it'll probably be long-winded and have annoying female characters."
[01:12] <Karo> "The girls in this movie are actually pretty tough. One of them even makes a great pilot! I think you'll be surprised."
[01:13] <Minaplo> "I don't think piloting skill really has anything to do with it."-
[01:14] <Minaplo> At least the line for Char's Counterattack wasn't very long. Umeko had wisely bought a pair of vanilla cokes before entering the cinema, tucked cunningly in a little faded, worn knapsack she wore across her chest.-
[01:14] <Minaplo> Once they were past the bored ticket usher, she took one out and handed to Karo.
[01:30] <Karo> "Thanks!" said Karo happily. "So, here's the rundown. This movie is taking place after a couple of wars. It started out being between the world's united government and space colonies seeking independence, and then the successors of those two entities started fighting too, and they're both horrible and corrupt in their own ways because that's just how leaders are."
[01:38] <Minaplo> "Sounds… Compelling."
[01:44] <Karo> "It is! Also, this movie's gonna reference a couple of events that took place in the first three series of the franchise. If anything's confusing, just ask me and I'll explain."
[01:46] <Minaplo> "Sure, I'll do that." Said Umeko. "A lot."
[01:52] <Karo> The movie had everything… -
[01:52] <Karo> A great soundtrack with a distinctly 1980's sound to it. -
[01:54] <Karo> Long political and military discussions, which Karo quietly explained the foundations of. –
[01:58] <Karo> At least three love triangles, revolving around the same two grating teenage characters and at least one fully-grown adult soldier in each variation. -
[01:59] <Minaplo> "Argh."
[02:01] <Karo> And murder. Lots of it, amid explosions in the stars~ -
[02:11] <Karo> The story itself was simple. It was a struggle to prevent a faction of former colony rebels from dropping a massive asteroid base onto earth and killing billions. ("Again," Karo whispered. "It's not the first time.") Along the way, things happened. A girl with a penchant for falling in love fell in love a few times, ran away to join the antagonists, was manipulated into piloting a mobile suit that drove her insane, and then died horribly during the film's spectacular final battles. Then a good deal of the rest of the cast died too! Including the hero, who sacrificed himself to prevent the base from falling to earth after a gutsy battle with his longtime rival. -
[02:16] <Karo> It was a moving final scene, with Rebel and Federation pilots alike stopping their battle to join him a seemingly futile effort to push the base out of orbit, and being destroyed one by one. Finally, the hero succeeded with one last explosion of Newtype mental energy, and the world was saved. -
[02:18] <Karo> Then the house lights came back on, Karo's eyes were still bright with wonder. "Hell yeah!" he beamed, looking over at Umeko.
[02:20] <Minaplo> Umeko had been silent for most of the film. Out of the corner of his eye, Karo would've seen her ball her hands into fists several times, sometimes out of frustration, sometimes out of excitement.-
[02:20] <Minaplo> When he turned to her and proclaimed his hell-yeahness, she turned at him with a perplexed expression.-
[02:20] <Minaplo> "Hmmmmmmmmmm. So what was that about?"
[02:22] <Karo> "Oh. Uh." He cleared his throat, and tried to adopt a cooler expression. "It was pretty good. Don't you think?"
[02:22] <Minaplo> "No, I mean, the movie. What was it about?"
[02:30] <Karo> "It was about connecting to people, despite circumstances, like being in a war where you're fighting each other. And the connections were really messy, but they were powerful too. More powerful than an asteroid base, or incompetent politicians or military leaders. Sometimes they're based on hate and sometimes they're based on love, and sometimes they're based on a baffling mix of the two, and sometimes it's just recognizing that the other guy is a guy like you."
[02:31] <Minaplo> "Huuuuuh." Was that surprise?-
[02:31] <Minaplo> "What's better, then? To have no connection, or a connection of hate and pain?"
[02:32] <Karo> "I don't really know," Karo admitted.
[02:32] <Minaplo> "Hmmmm."-
[02:33] <Minaplo> "That's a deeper interpretation than I thought. And not the one I came to."
[02:33] <Karo> "What were you originally thinking of?"
[02:34] <Minaplo> "Human nature is spoiled and corrupt, and the only thing that will save it from being consumed by its own nature is the simplistic idealism of youth, but in the process the young are used up by that same nature."
[02:35] <Karo> "I mean, let's be honest. That was a pretty important theme too."
[02:36] <Minaplo> "Should we even bother connecting then, with a nature like that?"
[02:37] <Karo> "If we don't then the world is doomed, going by your interpretation."
[02:37] <Minaplo> "Humanity is doomed, not the world."
[02:42] <Karo> "Same diff- wait, no, I guess it isn't the same."
[02:43] <Minaplo> "Mm. So I guess the question is: what makes humanity worth keeping alive?"
[02:49] <Karo> "Not a lot. We wreck shit all the time. We hate each other. We're a mess. I guess you'd have the think about whether you believe all living things have value by virtue of being alive, or whether our souls make us valuable. Then we might be worthy. But then it's like… what even is a soul? What even is 'worthy'?"
[02:50] <Minaplo> "Do you think there are worthless people?"
[03:01] <Karo> Karo was quiet a moment. "There are people we'd be better off without. I dunno if that makes them worthless."
[03:02] <Minaplo> "Why not?"
[03:08] <Karo> "They have to mean something to somebody, right? Their mom or a girlfriend or their kids or something."
[03:08] <Minaplo> "What if they don't? What if they mean nothing to nobody?"
[03:22] <Karo> "Then that depends on whether or not you think a life is inherently worth something. And I don't know if it is."
[03:23] <Minaplo> "Yeah…"-
[03:23] <Minaplo> "Alright, let's forget what we believe. Does society work better if people believe life is inherently worth something, or if they don't?"
[03:25] <Karo> "Does it even matter? Like, most societies today think that life is worth something. But that doesn't mean people treat each other better. It actually makes crime like murder and stuff that much more horrible when it happens."
[03:26] <Minaplo> "Exactly… Imagine if people didn't care about murders."
[03:27] <Karo> "If people didn't care about them, then they wouldn't even be a crime. And, yeah, things would kind of suck. Especially if you or someone you knew was murdered."
[03:28] <Minaplo> "Right." Said Umeko.-
[03:28] <Minaplo> "So really, people believe life has inherent worth… Because it makes people less willing to hurt others, and so makes us safer. It's self-preservation."
[03:29] <Karo> "But does it actually have worth, or is that what we tell ourselves so we can feel safer?"
[03:30] <Minaplo> "No one can say if human life has worth or not." Said Umeko. "But do you believe it?"
[01:50] <Karo> "I think I'd have a hard time taking a human life, no matter whose it was… so sure. I buy into it."
[02:07] <Minaplo> "Then I guess that counts."-
[02:07] <Minaplo> "Ugh. Look at what this movie has done to us."
[02:08] <Karo> "It's made us think about the value of human life and gunpla. Exactly as its creators intended…"
[02:09] <Minaplo> "Gunpla? We didn't do anything about gunpla."
[02:18] <Karo> "-You- haven't. Did you see how cool those Geara Doga were? Of course, the best one was the red-colored one."
[02:19] <Minaplo> Umeko stood up. "Going now."
[02:21] <Karo> "W-wait!" Karo hurried after her. "Weren't we doing hotpot?!"
[02:22] <Minaplo> "Of course we are. The only thing I'm leaving behind is that boyish gunpla chatter."
[02:26] <Karo> "You'd probably change your mind if you tried putting one together. It's like creating art."
[02:27] <Minaplo> "You want me to try it?"
[02:27] <Karo> "Why not?"
[02:27] <Minaplo> She didn't say anything until they left the cinema.-
[02:28] <Minaplo> "Hot pot… Hot pot… Where exactly am I going to put a gunpla? How am I going to get the tools? I can't take them to my house."
[02:31] <Karo> "You could borrow mine. I'd bring them with me to school, make the hand-off, and you could work on it after or during class. Then you could return them when you're done for the day."
[02:32] <Minaplo> "And then I'd have to go back to school regularly…"-
[02:33] <Minaplo> She mulled over this as they found a tidy little hot pot restaurant. After ordering a big hot pot of spicy soup, pork, two types of noodle and rice cakes, she sat at the table and toyed with a soy sauce packet.-
[02:33] <Minaplo> "Fine. On one condition."
[02:34] <Karo> "Yeah?" His eyes were glued on the hot pot.
[02:40] <Minaplo> Alas, it was still cooking.-
[02:41] <Minaplo> "You have to learn some shrine maiden crafts."
[02:42] <Karo> "Like… sacrificing people?"
[02:45] <Minaplo> "Like making charms. Or learning a dance."
[02:47] <Karo> "Charms don't sound so bad. You're on."
[02:54] <Minaplo> "Hah. And where should I teach these to you?"
[02:55] <Karo> "You pick a spot. It could be school or someplace else."
[02:59] <Minaplo> "Do you have somewhere else?"
[03:05] <Karo> "There's this place where I've been crashing. A dorm. I haven't been assigned there, but the people there are mostly friendly."
[03:06] <Minaplo> "Sounds good." She said immediately.
[03:08] <Karo> "It's settled, then," he said, locking eyes with the hot pot again.
[03:10] <Minaplo> The smell…-
[03:11] <Minaplo> Meats cooking in a bubbling, spicy broth, mixing in with the juices of mushrooms slowly dissolving into it, glass noodles soft and toothsome next to ramen, now covered in a thin film of melting cheese…-
[03:12] <Minaplo> Umeko hurriedly turned off the portable stove, filled her bowl up and ate ravenously, heedless of the sauce that went in all directions as she did so.
[03:13] <Karo> Karo gleefully followed her lead. "This was a good idea!"
[03:15] <Minaplo> The two little soup goblins went to town…
[03:15] <Minaplo> The Priestess Arcana strengthens…

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