2022-05-02: Why are you doing this
- Log: Why are you doing this
- Cast: Ranka Lee, Yuliana Dispersal
- Where: Akihabara (OCU Tokyo)
- Date: 2022-05-02 (0096)
- Summary: Yuliana terrorises Ranka for no reason other than the fact she exists. Ranka doesn't need her intuition to realise it takes a pained sort of person to be such a bully.
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
In front of a model store in Akihabara, there's a girl drawing quite a crowd. Mostly it's an singing gig for advertisement, which are ubiquitous throughout Japan. What's unusual perhaps is the size of the crowd she's drawing. Not from fans, but from just her singing voice and her costume.
The girl who has obvious Meltrandi blood, is dressed as a Valkyrie, a variable fighter. There's a helmet with antennae on her head, plane wings folded on her back. A skimpy midriff baring purple top and bright pink short shorts. Instead of stockings, armor that makes her legs look mechanical sheathes them, with similar on her hands to give the appearance of gauntlets.
She's holding a fake gun as a prop as she dances on the stage with cutesy movements like an amateur idol.
"Boiling spirit of Chigokin
"A joy creating REAL HOBBY
"Assemble them gently with your fingers
"Please make them grow
"Unbelievable RARE ITEMMMMM!"
With a quick flip motion, her suit suddenly transforms as the plane wings folded on her back move overhead, and are now instead at her abdomen, arms included. Looking like a Variable Fighter in Gerwalk mode.
"Change! Transform! Combine! Dynamic!"
As she sings the final verse, she puts her fingers up to her face like a V, and gives the crowd of Otaku a big toothy grin as the crowd cheers, some starting to pour into the store to check out their merchandise.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana Dispersal, the REA's most alarming ace pilot, is currently...
Strolling through Akihabara eating some gelato out of a cup.
Terrifying!
Her short teal hair is swept over one side of her face; she wears a dark suit, punctuated by the bright colours of a pink-and-blue shawl, all coloured in baby shades. She ambles through the crowd; more than enough people, instinctively, part around her. It makes things terribly easy.
And from somewhere, a transmission...
"Hoo?" Yuliana wonders, as her head turns towards the music. What a sweet voice. Singing a song like that, it must be... ah, yes, she thinks, as she comes within eyesight -- a teenager. That explains why she's labouring in a terrible little job like this with a voice like that.
What do they call them, around here? 'Baitos'? Adorable.
Then again... with a hollow carved out around her like that...
The crowd filters in to the store to check out the merchandise. Towards the end of its dispersal is Dispersal -- and there's a terribly nervewracking feeling, as that woman saunters up. A brief horizon of danger, before she gets too close.
She doesn't, even, just yet, though she does pause in front of the shop, gesturing to Ranka with the spoon of her gelato cup. "That was some pretty sleek singing," she says, to the Meltrandi girl. "So! What's a siren like you doing slaving away at advertisements?"
Yuliana -- sounds friendly enough. But...
There's absolutely no feeling behind the warmth of her voice at all.
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
Ranka was about to clamber off the stage when... suddenly everything goes silent. That overwhelming emotion of enthusiasm, passion she kicked up is just... gone. It's not that it's not there. The crowd is still heading into the shop. It's just, she can't feel it.
"...what?"
Mind you, Ranka doesn't know what she is. She's never tried to fight in a capacity where her Newtype powers would truly awaken. She runs from danger typically, she doesn't stand up to it. All she knows is that she has a good instinct towards the emotional tenor that people are feeling, and she doesn't know why.
And right now that's just silenced. With an overwhelming feeling of unease that's taken over her. Wide-eyed, she looks around, feeling like she just got caught up in a violent attack. A bomb went off. Her ears are ringing with mild tinnitus.
"What's going... on?"
And then a woman's voice cuts through that and she starts. Plastering on a smile like she's just slapped a sticker onto her mouth. "Aha... thanks! I'm just glad you enjoyed it."
A beat.
"I'm... trying to debut as an idol. It's a lot of work getting there though. You have to be popular enough that people would actually want to go to your concert."
Despite not having her instincts right now, there's this false tenor to Yuliana's voice, and she doesn't know what to make of it. "Ah... do you happen to feel like... something is off?" She asks, nervously.
Noone around her seems to be uneasy, noone else seems to have noticed. Just her.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Ranka asks the void for an explanation, and Yuliana smiles.
Being fair -- some people likely do notice. But sensitive passers-by just tend to route around Yuliana, sensing well enough that something is wrong. Unfortunately for Ranka, she's ensnared in conversation, so it's somewhat more complicated to just leave.
(Besides. She's at work. The poor thing can't exactly run away without having some explaining to do to her boss.)
"An idol! Wonderful, wonderful," Yuliana polishes off the gelato in her cup, and with a glance behind her, tosses it over her shoulder. Somehow, entirely unfairly, it lands in a rare visible trashcan without any fuss which would give Ranka an out. "With a voice like yours, you'd have to try pretty hard not to succeed, I'm sure!"
It sounds like a compliment. It has all the essential components of a compliment, including a bright smile and a chipper tone. But...
When Ranka asks if 'something is wrong', Yuliana glances, furtively, back and forth. She steps in a little closer, which would only make it worse, really. In the crowd, here, they are so... isolated. "Do you think so?" She asks, voice lowering a little with concern which sounds real enough.
As if they're in this together.
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
It's true, while Ranka doesn't have another show for an hour because of the stipulations of her contract... (Elmo doesn't approve of idols straining their voice by doing continuous commercials for hours on end). She does have to remain on site. So she can't exactly run away, hide, like she actually wants to do right now.
"Thanks you... for saying so. I appreciate your support." Ranka says, it sounds genuine, just strained... she's obviously a bit stressed right now. "I'm going to need a lot of it. Ah... I have a website if you'd like to see more." As she takes out her cute orange salamander like phone, "Though it's been down a lot lately."
Though less so in the past few days. Two individuals might be fighting a war on her behalf, and winning. She doesn't understand there's a war going on at all.
When Yuliana leans in, the feeling grows stronger. Like all voices in the crowd just grow so distant. It's not that she's affecting the sound, it's just her perceptions are just so mixed up right now that she can't comprehend the background chatter as more than white noise.
"Y-Yes... I do. I can't... explain it... though."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana taps at her phone, and remarks, in dismay: "Oh, what a shame! Seems it's down again! Guess I'll have to check it out later, huh?" She will not.
Besides, that means she has no excuse to leave. And why would she leave when they're having such a good time? It's a little petty, ruining the day of someone with such a large absence carved around them, the space where information ought to go if she were the sort of wretch who could feel it. It's a little petty, but it's awfully funny.
Ranka can't even explain it!
"Yeah," Yuliana agrees, quite serious. "It's like... everything's gone quiet, right? What a weird feeling... it's so unintuitive."
She puts a hand on Ranka's shoulder, as if to steady her, or herself, in the wake of something so unsettling. This, if anything, makes it even worse. Her concern doesn't seem to register that part. "Do you think... people live like this? In this silence? It's scary, right..? I mean... what if someone's smiling without being happy?"
What if they're happy, but they're not smiling?
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
"Oh. I was hoping they'd started to fix it."
As Ranka sounds disappointed, it's a potential fan after all!
Yet Yuliana seems to understand, and Ranka nods nervously, "You feel it too?" Despite the feeling getting worse with every passing second that Yuliana is weird, to the point she feels a little faint, she doesn't... believe she's the source. Not at all. Placing a hand on her shoulder though she actually feels faint. And stumbles momentarily with a hand on her forehead. "Sorry... little dizzy..." Eyes a bit unfocused Ranka nods quickly, "Exactly... it's... I don't understand it at all."
And then she posits a question. "I... I don't know. I'd guess that most do."
She hedges a bit, mostly because she still doesn't know what this means. She always assumed it was just a weird... quirk of hers. Newtype theory wasn't so ubiquitous around the Macross Colonies since they were absent during so many Zeon and Neo-Zeon conflicts.
"A little... though I think it's more sad... that they'd be put in a position where they'd need to."
And then, from a side of the mostly open store, Ranka hears a small distinctly inhuman screech as her bag topples over. "A-Ah excuse me! Just one second..."
Ranka tries to walk away despite being dizzy, up to her bag, where she opens the zipper and stuffs her face next to it, whispering... "Ai-kun... Ai-kun it's okay. It's fine... I'm here." That seems to calm him down just enough and she zips it up she shoulders the bag and walks back over to Yuliana.
"Sorry my uh... pet cat... was getting lonely."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"It's okay, I've got you." It's not okay, but she does. She keeps a grasp on Ranka's shoulder to top her from toppling over. "Yeah... some people can just feel this sort of thing." Her assurance isn't, entirely, telling Ranka she feels what Ranka feels.
With a rueful smile, Yuliana listens to Ranka haltingly suppose that it's sad, the way humanity lives. It's a smile with a curled lip, as Ranka scrambles off to take care of her bag.
She's not, as it happens, actually sympathetic.
Ranka may find that things abruptly become -- just fine, as soon as she gets more-or-less six feet away from Yuliana. All the sound and light which isn't strictly speaking sound or light floods back in; this woman is worried about her marriage, that woman is anxious about buying a cute skirt for the first time. There's a man drowning in despair over the death of his beloved hamster, and another who is having a great time hanging out with his friends.
And then -- coming back to her -- it's all snuffed out, again.
The candle blows out, and all those flickering glimpses of features are plunged to darkness.
Unfortunately for Ranka, when she walks over to Yuliana, Yuliana approaches Ranka, too. Her smile seems entirely genuine, again. "Wow, you keep your kitty in a bag?" She exclaims, leaning down to look at the bag on Ranka's shoulder. "He must be awfully chill."
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
Ranka's in and out experience goes through a gamut of emotions. At first she's just so relieved. (Though she feels a spike of sadness from the man grieving.) Also Ai-kun calms down more easily.
Then when she approaches again... that silence slams her shut into another wave of nauseating sensory deprivation. Ranka goes wide eyed, as she looks around.
"I don't..."
Whatever thought she just had gets interrupted by having Yuliana ask about keeping her kitty in a bag, "He is! Though I shouldn't... let him out. That might cause trouble to the store."
Though then it occurs to her, "I don't get it... it's just happening..." Ranka suddenly looks at Yuliana with a dumbfounded expression, red eyes wide. "... right here..."
She doesn't want to believe this woman is the cause. She tries to believe the best in everybody. And yet, the evidence feels like it's right there and she's struggling with it.
There has to be some other explanation right?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana wonders if it's really a cat, and then decides she doesn't actually care if Ranka is a weirdo who keeps snails in her pencil box.
Unfortunately, Yuliana can't keep Ranka off her toes for too long. Finally, finally, she puts the pieces together.
Right here...
Like that enlightenment Ranka can't bear to look at, a grin dawns on Yuliana's face, razor-sharp and ravenous. "Didn't you say it, dear? The way the world lives is so, so sad..!"
She takes a step forward. She speaks quietly; the sympathy in the words rings far too false.
"But don't you think it's ugly to pity the world for its existence? Wouldn't you rather be normal? Unbothered by things which aren't your business to begin with, you would be able to forge true connections... built on bricks your friends were really willing to give you, rather than a foundation you've stolen from them."
Her fingers come to rest on the bare side of her cheek; when her head tilts, there's the glimpse of an old war-scar, hidden beneath her hair. "Dear little siren... do you think anything of the ships you wreck upon the rocks?"
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
And then there's that grin. Ranka shudders and takes a step back at the accusation. "No I...! I didn't mean it's sad how people live... I meant... it's sad people that... people are put in situations where... they would feel the need to hide how they feel with a smile."
Ranka takes another step back in horror every time Yuliana approaches now, though she still hears her quite clearly growing more and more anxious at the questions posed. "I... I don't... pity it. I'm... I wouldn't be normal... even if it wasn't like this... I don't even know what this is!"
Ranka Lee has unfortunately never had a normal life. Even in the more peaceful moments of her life, she was still isolated from most people as a result of feelings she couldn't explain, didn't know where they didn't come from, her amnesia looming large over her existence. She had a friend, sure, but... she mostly stayed away from forming relationships, kept her talents to herself.
And then she blurts out, normally she retreats from people pushing her boundaries, not wanting to be confrontational, but on the idea that her friends wouldn't be her friends if not for her strange insights... that's a step too far. Even as the war scar intimidates her, she puts her hands to either side of her head and looks away, "You're wrong! We - we didn't bond over whatever you think is going on...! They liked my music. Alto and Sheryl and Ruri! They're all encouraging me to do my best and to keep walking forward towards my goals! I'm not hurting them! I'm not!"
Though she sounds uncertain, like Yuliana has planted a small seed of doubt.
More meekly though she deescalates herself, removing her hands from both sides of her puppy dog ear like hair, she adds after a moment, "Why are you doing this...? What did I ever do to you? I just... I just want to sing."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
It's cruel, but no more cruel than the dichotomy they've enforced on humanity. If anything, Yuliana thinks, little moments like this are justice.
"And don't they have the right to hide?" Yuliana presses; Yuliana steps forward, with each step back. "Shouldn't it be their choice what they show, and what they leave unsaid? Don't you think it's so violent, reaching into the hearts of others and grasping tight?"
Of course, her accusations could so easily describe her own behaviour, with just a little step to the side.
But unlike this new type of being, Yuliana is justified.
"Oh, I'm sure you always know just what to say to them," she assures Ranka, without warmth, when she clasps her hands to her ears. "You're just an intuitive person, aren't you? Sensitive to the pain of others? Hmm... I wonder if they're fine with that."
Whether they are or not doesn't much matter, compared to asking the question.
But Ranka tries to de-escalate, and Yuliana chuckles, a hand to her lips. "Isn't it obvious, darling? I hate you! People like you," plural, "are just a mistake insult humanity has made, too arrogant and too cruel. A 'next step' which climbs over the heads of everyone unblessed... is a type of progress which only services the privileged few."
She straightens up, a hand to her hip.
"Buut... you do have a passing resemblance to someone I'm fond of," Yuliana supposes, opposite finger tapping her chin. "So, what do you say? Should I spare you?"
Her eyelid lowers; her smile widens.
"But how can I, when I don't even know your name..?"
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
Yuliana challenges her again, and Ranka thinks of such a long stretch of her life. "Yes. They have a right to. It's just... sad that they feel the need to."
If that isn't an indictment of how she feels about the past her before she met Alto and Sheryl and truly set out on this journey, hiding what she loves, hiding herself away, living with so many friendly acquaintances and only one real friend - not forming true and lasting relationships with others. She doesn't know what it is.
"Do you think I... confront them on them hiding things away? Of course I wouldn't!"
Yet the accusations keep coming. "N-No... it's... not like that. It's not..." And yet, she hasn't told a single one of them? Certainly there was a time when it felt like Sheryl and her connected. It was easy for both of them to write it off. What would happen if she told them though that she gets little intuitive flashes to how they feel? And for some people it's stronger?
She doesn't know how they'd react... and that self doubt creeps in.
'I hate you! People like you!'
Ranka looks shocked, wholly taken aback, she takes another step backwards, her hands clasped together, fingers wringing uncomfortably in dismay. "You really think... I'm a mistake? That I'm arrogant and cruel? I don't even know what you're talking about with 'next step'. I don't think I'm above anyone..."
Her resistance to Yuliana's arguments though definitely feel like she's starting to cave, due to this pure force of nature. To this deafening silence. Yet apparently Ranka reminds her of someone else, and she offers to spare her. "I... I..." 'But how can I, when I don't even know your name...' "... Ranka Lee..." Though in a moment of supreme bravery she follows up with, "What's... your name Ma'am?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Of course you wouldn't," Yuliana agrees, easily, when Ranka denies confronting the world, and turns it on her: "but you know. Don't you think it's a violation?"
It's a twisted way to view connection, but she introduces the idea as if it were so, so natural.
Again and again, Ranka insists she doesn't know. It would be kinder, perhaps, to tell her just what it was about her Yuliana hated so much. Yuliana could do that.
She doesn't.
It almost feels unfair, crushing someone as unsure as this; Ranka's a wild-type, Yuliana supposes, so she's probably been lost her whole life without scientists to tell her just what she's meant to do. But then -- Ranka asks her name, and Yuliana laughs, a hand to her forehead.
"Hahaha... and here I thought you'd be itching to run away right here and now! Not quite as much the coward as you act, are you?" She laces her fingers though her bangs, and shakes her hair out, for a moment. It falls right back into place, but that's where it's meant to be.
"Since you're brave enough to ask, I'll tell you. I'm Yuliana Dispersal." She leans over, lifting a hand to whisper, far too close for comfort. "... and no one will believe you."
She straightens up, and smiles. In her silence, it's only the little curl of her lip and the narrowing of her eyes which suggests it's anything but genuine.
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
"I..." Is it a violation? Is she violating their privacy? She just always assumed this was an instinct towards how people feel, that she was just extra empathetic. Not something so intrusive.
She doesn't answer Yuliana ultimately on that one.
Ranka was saved from a life of at least one scientist prodding her and studying her and using her. Despite how her relationship with Ozma has been strained lately, she truly does owe him so much.
Yuliana accuses her of being brave, and she doesn't think of herself as brave, for a while she doesn't answer. Silent... and obviously terrified. Yet she does in fact give her her name, "Yuliana... Dispersal..." She repeats that finally, though she's never actually heard of her. She'll look her up later.
"I'm scared." Ranka admits as she finally gets around to addressing her earlier accusation of being brave, "I've never had... anyone treat me like this." That's not entirely true, she has, just not for very long - not without some protector closeby. Ozma was super protective to an extreme. A helicopter parent in every way when Ranka was younger. Ranka wouldn't mind being rescued right now, by Alto or Sheryl or even Ozma. This is all too much... and yet... perhaps she is in fact braver than she thinks... because she says one other thing.
"I don't... know what's happening right now. I just know that... you're hurting too if you're doing this to me..."
Ranka says quietly, she doesn't need these instincts towards Yuliana's emotions to know this from just her day to day life, "...when people bully others like this... it's out of insecurity. So I think you should stop. And if you want to talk about why you feel this way... we can."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Is someone really coming to save Ranka -- from her very normal baito, which she seems so invested in using to grasp her dreams?
As for being used by scientists... well, it's for her own good, and the good of the Republic, or so they say. She can hardly fault them for such a thing, when it even features in her personal relationships. That part isn't in the news, though Yuliana is, sometimes: the REA's very own Minovsky's Woman, a melee specialist ace with a roughly eight-year combat record. She'll turn out to be a Captain, apparently, leading the Nega Force in various special operations for the Federation.
There are also certain rumours, if one were to dig far down enough. They're not in the REA's official releases.
"Never? Never ever? It's a big world, Ranka." The emphasis on that last syllable of her name emphasises the pejorative reading, in Zaftra. "There are plenty of monsters out there. Maybe you'll meet a few more, before the end."
Even so, even though Ranka doesn't know what's happening --
Do you think... people live like this? In this silence? It's scary, right..?
But don't you think it's ugly to pity the world for its existence? Wouldn't you rather be normal? Unbothered by things which aren't your business to begin with, you would be able to forge true connections...
Don't you think it's so violent, reaching into the hearts of others and grasping tight?
Don't you think it's a violation?
When Ranka says Yuliana is hurting too -- it's not something she needs any sort of intuition to grasp.
All it takes it looking at the very things she says... from a slightly... different... angle.
... someone this self-centred can't help but talk about themselves, even when they're talking about someone else.
"Ha...haha...hahaha!" Yuliana bursts out laughing, a hand at her neck, buried in her shawl. "Oh, that's rich! Isn't that always the way?" Her fingertips slip forward dig in under her own jaw, feeling the pulse of blood flowing through. It's painful, of course. "Your first instinct is to think -- I'm just some poor wounded dove who needs someone to understand her!"
Her hand drops. Her tone does, too.
"Pitiful," Yuliana evaluates Ranka's bravery, with an unamused scowl.
"I'll tell you this now -- you will never understand me."
<Pose Tracker> Ranka Lee has posed.
"I know... there are monsters out there." Ranka replies quietly, having been witness to one Vajra attack after another. Having had them menace her, try to fly off with her, get her thrust into the vaccuum of space, murder in front of her - and hurt her big brother and her friends. Her feelings about them are not in a good place right now. Not yet. "I just... when you're saying... you're one of those monsters... I can't agree."
And yet, to her insight on bullies - Yuliana bursts out laughing, and digs her fingertips into her jaw, hard. "I'd... never see you as that fragile. People see me as fragile all the time. I hate it... I just think you're in pain. You're... you're even hurting yourself right now."
Yet the hand drops, Yuliana scowls at her, and says she'll never understand her and the force of that glare causes her to take another step back, her heart racing. "A-Alright... that's... your choice." As she looks nervously from side to side, like she's looking for an escape route.
"I've... got to go. I've got to... get ready for my next show."
And then she turns and will likely start to bolt to the back of the store unless stopped - and the employee breakroom. She hopes she can remember the code.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Oh? Did I say that?" Yuliana wonders, loosely. "Maybe you've got it all the wrong way around..."
That isn't what Yuliana said, but Yuliana, who lives in a world of misdirection, is entirely the sort to give as good as she gets.
Yuliana absorbs, at least, that Ranka hates being thought of as fragile. She notices Yuliana's fingers, and Yuliana's lips curl -- it's that very point which causes her to drop her hand.
As if she wouldn't give her the satisfaction.
"The show must go on," she agrees, too easily, to Ranka's desperate excuses. "Run along, now. I did say I wouldn't eat you up, didn't I?"
She lifts a hand in an easy wave, as she ambles off, in the opposite direction to Ranka's scrambling. Enough people in the crowd part to give her an easy path through, even in a place as crowded as this.
Her head lowers, glowering forward, and she murmurs into the noise of the crowd, a thing entirely physical, entirely levelled around her.
"... not yet, anyway..."