paixaorpg | They are just pissing on us without giving us the courtesy of calling it rain. (Narrative/Openish)

Character(s): Grace Augustine. Narrative form, but open if anyone's brave or stupid enough to interrupt her
Content: Grace is pissed about the new dress code.
Setting: ...idk a random shop somewhere
Time: Midday
Warnings: Grace's mouth gets a big fat warning

Grace did not find out about the new dress code in the best way. No, she was actually dressed normally, in her favored green shirt with the camisole under it, her khaki slacks, and sandals. The only skin showing was on her hands, feet, and a little of her chest. God forbid. And yet, the second she tried to walk into a store to buy clothes of all the ironic things, she was shown the exit and vehemently denied entrance because she had "low morals."

Needless to say, this did not sit very well with her.

"Excuse me? Low morals? How the hell does clothing style have anything to do with morality?" she sputtered.

They still wouldn't let her in. Huffing out a breath of frustration, she pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep taste of the smoke before returning her temper to its rightful place.

"Okay, look. We're not living in the 17- or 18-hundreds in Europe or some other crap," she informed the shopkeeper with more than a little trace of annoyance. "Hell, we're not even in the 1920's! This may not be Earth, and we may be somewhere we don't want to be, but we all have our own dress codes back home and this is bullshit."

"But this is what we have to do-" He added in other crap that she only reacted to by waving the hand holding her cigarette at him.

"I don't care what bullshit you supposedly have to do, you can't force anyone to starve if they don't conform to your shitty standards."

She added in a few other choice words and phrases before taking another breath of the cigarette. He was really trying her nerves now and if they all were going to be insistent on this sort of thing, it was going to be a long, long stay.

"I. Don't. Care. Some of us aren't interested in what we look like or what people think we should be doing. We prefer doing our work to dealing with bullshit beliefs like this."

By that point, her voice had risen considerably, though she didn't care how many people heard or were watching. Grace cared little for stupid people. Especially stupid people who were rudely denying basic needs to other sentient beings, people or otherwise. It was bullshit, plain and simple, and Dr. Grace Augustine did not tolerate bullshit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For all that he had what essentially amounted to standing orders to leave the current mayor as he was, Zexion had to admit he had disagree with his last decision just on general principle. The change was hardly that would be taken well, even by the usual standards of nonsense that went on in the city. It wold divide the city in two, draw up the battle lines and generally breed ill-will. He could only hope that it wouldn't lead to battles in the street.

It shouldn't have been much of a surprise, then, that he stopped to listen when he heard Grace expressing very much the same things that he'd been thinking, if in somewhat cruder language. The mayor was a fool, duly elected though he'd been, and while the poor hapless citizens would be the one to bear the brunt of it, he found that really, he couldn't much care. Let them take it. Perhaps then they'd think again about their precious 'traditions.' Even better, it was something that this particular persona (brown-haired and bookish, with clothes one might expect of a college student) would agree with. He needn't worry about speaking up here.

"I quite agree."

It seemed they were at a standstill by the time someone else walked up and agreed with her. Grace merely glanced in the direction of the newcomer and took a drag of her cigarette again. "Nice to know someone in this goddamn city does."

The shopkeeper wasn't moving from the storefront, but neither was Grace at this point, she was mostly interested in seeing what this new man had to say about everything.

"Taking bullshit like this for an hour is an hour too long."

An hour was more than most people would have given it, he was fairly certain. There were other stores around, even if most of them would have likely given much the same answer. Conformity could be quite an ugly thing.

"They've been giving you trouble for that long?"

The tone of voice was one shading towards shocked incredulity. He could understand persistence in the attempt to protect one's traditions, but even there was a point at which it became too much.

"No," Grace snapped, taking yet another drag of smoke. "It's probably only been half that at the most. Don't tell me you came for the entertainment."

Because if he had, he was in for quite something else entirely. Grace merely let her eyes turn over the newcomer to see what kind of person he was. She was pretty sure she'd never seen him before and sometimes meeting a new person interested her. Occasionally.

For the entertainment? No, he hadn't come for that. If he had he would have either shown himself as someone else or simply remained unseen. For all he might have taken pleasure in other people's annoyance it was less than what he wished to portray in this seeming. If this one fell apart he'd have to spend time better spent elsewhere on creating yet another.

So he merely shook his head at the idea.

"If anything I came to lend my own voice to the discussion."

Grace raised an eyebrow at this new man, whoever he was. She recalled his agreeing with her vocalizing how much bullshit this was, but beyond that she didn't know his true opinion and was interested by now on what he had to add.

"All right. Lend away. What's your opinion on this new rule?"

"It's a policy designed to split the city in half. 'Us' and 'those not like us.' It will makes as outsiders in a city that barely tolerated us to begin with, if not worse. And should we chose to bend to their rules it makes us nothing more than sheep, idly bowing our heads to an intolerable yoke."

The lines in the sand had been metaphorically drawn. It only remained to be see which of the new sides would blink first.

"The mayor ought to have expected resistance, to be quite honest. It speaks rather poorly of him that he didn't."

"Should have expected an outright revolt," Grace agreed with another exhalation of smoke. "I don't see many of these so-called people with intolerably low morals taking this well. Most of them either don't like being called that or don't like the implied idea that they're a threat. Or they are a threat that should have been acknowledged."

Not like her, as much as she would have liked to have kicked these guys in the face. Violence wasn't her forte. She usually left that up to the trigger-happy morons in the army. She was just a simple scientist.

"Precisely," Zexion agreed with a nod. "That anger will only to serve to unite them under one banner, and not even the doors of his office will protect him from that. I have half a mind to join them myself, to be honest."

He'd need another appearance for that, but that was hardly a problem. He had time before anyone went knocking down the mayor's door. First the people would need to properly draw together, and thus far he'd only seen the first few glimmerings of that drawing together.

"Much as I'd like to be the one to tell this new mayor about his bullshit to his face, I'm not kicking any doors down to do it," Grace admitted, finally taking the last drag of her cigarette before dropping it to the ground and grinding it under her foot.

"I'll leave that to the gun-happy idiots." For now. She was worked up enough to find other ways to show her displeasure and considering her scientific background, she had ways to make him realize the error of his ways.

With another glare in the direction of the shopkeeper she'd been arguing with earlier, Grace decided this wasn't worth dealing with. So, she ignored him. Again. Soon, she'd be going back to her apartment, though. She was done with this.

"You won't need to," Zexion answered simply. "Given enough time, some bold person here will take the initiative on their own."

Some bold and reckless and hot-headed person. Someone who could barely see beyond the immediate effects of their actions and who was all to willing to start a war - possibly a bloodless war - in the streets of the city. Every city had at least one person of that sort. Sooner or later they'd bend their attentions to this problem and then things would be quite out of his hands, and he'd be glad for it.

He'd never much cared to dirty his own hands with that sort of thing anyway. It was distasteful.

"Lucky for me. There are enough idiots around here as it is."

Grace glanced back at the shop and turned to leave. "Time for me to try my luck somewhere else." His company had been better than she could have hoped for outside of Trudy and Ziva. But not being in the habit of doing all that crazy "see you later" crap, she just nodded to him. If he wanted to continue the conversation, he was welcome to follow her, but she wouldn't be sticking around this place any longer. She was done with the idiots in this godforsaken city.

"I quite agree."

But that did tend to help matters along, in the long run. Idiots could generally be counted on to remain idiots, come hell or high waters. It was the other varieties of people that you had to be more careful with. But no matter. That was for later.

As for their conversation, Zexion had nothing further he particularly wanted to say and so after a simple nod in return he headed back in the direction he'd been heading before. He had other things to attend to.

They are just pissing on us without giving us the courtesy of calling it rain. (Narrative/Openish)

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