Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-3991308-20150906100513/@comment-3991308-20151119084717

“Stay away from my prince then,” Yiannis suggested, more jokingly than not. It was one of the things servants tended to jest about – the terrible legal system royals so often followed. In fact, such terrible legal systems which ridiculous punishments based more on emotions than reason, were more common that Yiannis just thought of them as normal, that it was just the way people did things, that a King’s ultimate control over a kingdom was both reasonable and the righteous way to do things.

“Thankfully our region has gun control, or else I swear he’ll be more trigger happy than he is already,” he jested again, yet another demonstration of the normality of such things.

“Headmaster Grimm is power-hungry. That’s what they all say.” Yiannis pointed out. “But he’s brilliant! His family has managed a school without it terribly falling all apart, he and his brother are literacy geniuses, and he has more prestige than what monarchs dream of. And anyway, I’m sure destinies and whatnot – they’re more personal than worldly! Like the stories in our kingdom matter more to our region that other parts of the country, say.”

Despite the printed word and bound books and magazines and archives and computer sites, the oral tradition of story-telling was strong. Yiannis knew all the main fairytales not by reading about them, but listening to his mother tell him them, meeting all the influential figures at elementary, middle, and finally, high school. To him, it preserved something much more than words. Tale repetition was like living history.

“I can’t see myself following my destiny just because I might die. It’s far from that! It’s a family thing, it’s tradition. If you don’t do it, you’re shaming your forefathers and predecessors, and you’re not just taking the story away from the people in it, but the people who love it and read it and want to hear about it! It’s not right for one person to dictate whether a story exists or not!”

An outburst that might have been too far stretched from Sam’s commentary, but Yiannis said it anyway. After all, it captured his thoughts perfectly on the issue. Those who said the conflict was about personal choice were selfish, Yiannis thought.

“I think women are STRONG and AMAZING,” Yiannis crossed his arms, seeing the perfect time to let ‘Feminist Ally Yiannis’ show. “No hetero. I just think women are great! Like, they carry babies! They have personal weeks where they just bleed. The best fairytales are the ones where women punch or fight things or use trickery and smarts to save their brothers and lovers and sometimes even themselves. I mean, most girls nowadays can do manly things and girly things! They can do the things that they’re born to do – like look after children and sew, and then they do things that they shouldn’t do, but do anyway – like accelerated mathematics and physics courses, and book ball. While men like us only do manly things, but that’s alright, because we’re better at those things and it’s far superior to more… feminine disciplines and stuff like that. But they have more disciplines! And I think that’s important to have if you’re going to be a girl. Multi-disciplined.”

Unfortunately, Yiannis, more concerned about talking than listening, did not catch that Sam did needlework.

“Everyone is searching for an easy way out, definitely! What’s wrong with being happy with your life and social class anymore? It’s what you’ve been assigned with anyway. People just need to cheer up.”

At Sam’s shoulder pat and advice, Yiannis frowned, more at himself than anything. "That's oddly sage.“ Yiannis knew he was being an ass, sitting here complaining when he could be doing something MORE productive. When it came down to things, he did feel bad for complaining about his generation. After all, he was part of it. And would he have approved of himself complaining instead of getting things done? No! So he was glad that Sam pointed it out, or else Yiannis would have resigned himself to a bitter cynic.

“You want to get food?” Yiannis suddenly realised the two had been just talking (and looking at the birds, which Yiannis was always a little averse to). Nothing else. That was hardly what people would typically call a date. Even though it wasn’t a date, it was still a friendly meeting, and it deserved something more than just talk. It was nearly lunchtime anyway, and he needed his fuel.