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[CALL | Video | un: monokuma ]

[ A stuffed animal sits center of the screen.

The room he's in harbors just a chair, and looks isolated enough to be an interrogation room, if not for the dusty slats above him pouring in some light. It's a basement somewhere remote, but nonetheless, he seems to wave at the camera. However, his motor functions seem limited. ]

Hello! Good evening! Good morning! Whichever one you're feeling right now.

[ A slight, curious cock of the head. Once again, the mechanics seem off... and the voice doesn't seem to be coming from the stuffed animal. Someone is speaking for him behind the camera. ]

I think the best way to get to know everybody is to toss out a fun little icebreaker! Lesser-known facts! No one likes being the shut-in at a party. So...

[ "He" clears his throat. ]

Do you know what they did in Paris in the 19th century?
Oh, they definitely painted a lot of paintings and baked a lot of bread. But I mean... for fun?
Back in those days, 'fun' would count a lot on how much money you had. But resourceful Parisians could find it in other ways. For free. There was a once-of-a-lifetime opportunity that anyone in the city could get a ticket punched into! To be the star, or the audience. That's right! I'm talking about...

[ A brief pause. ]

... The morgue!

You see, life was so boring back then that people would line up to walk through the morgue just to see who croaked last night! The more grisly the victim, the more people came to visit!
People were excited to try and recognize the victims! Of course, this was originally just so people had access to claim the deceased, but it was a theater attraction of its own!
Upupupu...! Can you imagine if you didn't have the things you had today, what you'd resort to for fun?
The gawking joy that it brought people... but still, we slow down for car crashes today, don't we?

Hmm...

Do you think humans are really different from back then? From the public executions, to the public display of bodies, to the now?

I wonder about it a lot. I can't say I know for sure, because I am a bear. Would anyone like to try and guess?

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Upupupu... that's fair! Despair is only fun at arm's length, for most people. Sometimes it needs to be as distant as a television screen, or a friend of a friend. A shocked gasp! A curious need to pry for information... even when it's intimately causing someone pain, we need the deets!

[ The bear seems... content? For now. He's not displeased with your answer, Dio, especially not when it's that well put. He puts on a voice of slightly higher pitch, as if he's imitating a strawman. ]

'Haaa, your cousin died? But he was so young! How? Car crash? Suicide? Asphyxiation? Drug overdose? Aneurysm? Homocide? Had a nice trip, saw you in the fall down the stairs?'

[The bear appears to be more clever than Dio was initially willing to credit him with, but he's not willing to say that he's impressed just yet. He provides him with the opportunity to impress at least with a question of his own.]

And what sort of person do you believe violates that rule and would enjoy it even when it is inflicted upon them?

You'd be surprised! There are some real sickos in the world. Masochism's too easy of a target, though, even if we both know it exists!

[ Because that was an adult thing. What's something more banal, simultaneously present and invisible? It doesn't take Monokuma long to think of something-- after all, a certain rotten orange springs to mind an example. ]

Misery loves company! And people who are suffering comfort themselves with the pity they'll inevitably get for the pain-- sometimes, it's all the positive attention they ever get. So 'ah, ah, my cousin died, so everyone will be really delicate with me today and treat me super sweetly' can wind up being a relief in and of itself! Humans can be so resourceful! But then again, so is a vulture! Upupu!

[Well, well.]

[Dio anticipated that masochism would be named. It was really whether or not the bear would supply that — a plain, obvious answer that anyone with any sort of awareness of the world could feasibly identify — and only that. But the bear merely acknowledged it and moved along. It's one thing to play along with this little game, but it's another to demonstrate some mild but acceptable degree of intelligence.]

[Consider him mildly impressed officially.]

What about a bear? Clever and insightful is not the same thing as resourceful after all.

Resourceful, eh? I suppose I get it from my mom's side... you know what they say? That the moment you see a polar bear tailing you in the arctic, you're already dead!

[ Even as his laughter patters off at the visual pun, that's a good question to consider. ]

In all seriousness, though, I think the way I'm 'resourceful' with despair differs a lot from most humans. It's neither masochism or capitalizing on opportunity...

Edited 2016-08-20 02:57 (UTC)

There aren't many alternatives left when you eliminate those. At least not while working under the assumption you don't subscribe to the antithesis of survival.

Upupupu... upupupu!

[ A little raspier than before, with his mouth wide open. ]

It's more complex than that! But at the same time, I don't show my cards on the first draw! Sorry!

Pity.

You were just becoming interesting.

What a despairingly cold answer for dis' bear! You're gonna give me frostbite!

[ As long as Monokuma is acting for her stand-in, what she reveals about the bear doesn't necessarily reveal anything about Junko. Therefore-- ]

Alright. Because you weren't boring to talk to...! I guess the unknown of throwing over the poker table is fine too, huh?

[ Monokuma's voice ... changes. It's no longer a cutesy animal voice, but it still isn't very distinguishable, either. The puppet goes limp, and this is the first time the person behind the camera feels like they're talking into it. ]

You have to think outside of the box. What kind of person doesn't use despair like a masochistic vulture or like a sadist? That's very hard to answer if you're just thinking about an ordinary person, with ordinary goals and ordinary ideals. A human being is only capable of dishing pain or receiving it. We want to think that's the very nature of despair-- a weapon, to inflict or take damage from.

Hope is knowable. If you hope for something, you already have the vision within your head of the future you want. Someone with super-duper extra talent to make their dreams come true only needs hope and ambition. Hope is a prophecy only people with guts can fulfill.

... and fulfilling its role as the opposite, despair is an unknown.

[ Now her voice is feminine, though deep and serious. ]

What happens when something ripples the world in a way that you couldn't anticipate? When someone's despair, their desire to pull the trigger on someone important or to burn trees in droughted land, becomes everyone's despair? When someone prizes their ownership and power above the wellbeing of everyone else's 'hope'?

Despair is change, and pain is the only way humans-- no, anyone of sentient mind-- changes. But no one seeks despair, do they? No one seeks the very particular pain that would show them how badly they need to change. What they really desire. How badly they want it. Hope is the idea of becoming a great sculpture.

Despair is the chisel and mallet that actually shapes it.

[It's an interesting philosophy to say the least. Interesting enough that Dio's willing to give it some thought. Whoever she is, she is intelligent. At first, he believed that she was going to draw a strong distinction between weapons and tools despite the fact it really boils down to a combination of semantics and intention, making the lines arbitrary or even so far as irrelevant. But as the voice changes and she continues, Dio sees that she understands better that a tool used bluntly and with little imagination is, of course, nothing more than a weapon in the hands of such a person. It becomes a waste. But in the hands of the right person . . . ]

I would ask what exactly it is you hope to sculpt this city into, but some things are perhaps best left to the imagination.

[He also doesn't think she's foolish enough to reveal that much. Cocksure enough to reveal that she has any intentions of anything, but not foolish and perhaps not even stupid.]

A project of that scale, however, is not completed by a single chisel and mallet alone. It seems to me you'll need more than just drones. You'll need a real friend.

Ah, yeah.

[ Junko's voice sounds like a snake that shed its skin, more comfortable than the bear's voice. It's very boring to pretend to be another character for too long-- especially when she had held up Monokuma's facade, revealed herself, then died right after. For once, in her entire miserable life and death, Junko isn't bored to be just Junko-- at least for a little bit. Besides, if he expects this dreary, apathetic voice and ends up meeting 'another' Junko later, he shouldn't be too surprised. ]

I had so many good friends. A fair share of chisels and some really strong mallets...! But... they're not a lot of use to me now.

[ Mass suicide, global destruction, and a trash compactor made sure of that. The camera pans as she walks over to the chair the bear was sitting on, and a single, sharp red nail pokes into the stuffing of its head, toppling it over onto the floor.

She knows better than to show more of herself, yet. ]

But as of right now, I'm practically a tourist! Not even the dignity to call me a cab. I've been involved in better kidnappings.

Edited 2016-08-25 02:21 (UTC)

[Even with this more private form of communication, Dio refuses to part with anything related to his identity beyond the written word. He won't allow her to see or hear anything of him until he's far more certain of her utility and just how obedient she can be. She's clever, sure, but there's a quality to her that is unhinged just enough that it creates an unknown and unpredictable element. That's not something Dio has any desire to burn himself with unnecessarily. Not if the risk is not worth the reward.]

[Instead, he decides to prod her enough that he can gauge her pride and her tolerance for minor challenges. A subordinate who can't control themselves when met with criticisms is useless to Dio. If anything, they become an ineffective liability. Now that the line has been made private and she's no longer hiding behind that stuffed bear, she'll have less reason to filter and screen herself.]

Talk like that just sounds like complaining from someone who's sore she utterly and completely failed. Perhaps if you performed better and achieved something, you wouldn't be in this situation.

Sore...? Failed?

[ For a moment, she sounds kind of surprised. Not only because she's a bit baffled by the accusation, but also because she felt like she didn't feel them. Junko Enoshima was dead, yes, but she died so blissfully and happily after already having destroyed the world but for a minor and inconsequential resistance. The world might not have died with despair in its mouth, and y'know, that's a total bummer, but by her own actions, it and the human race will never truly recover.

... that's like, kind of winning. Especially when the terms she went out on were so delightfully, shockingly dreadful. ]

Edited 2016-08-25 12:13 (UTC)

Ahhh, I'm such a ditz! I totally didn't make myself clear because I wanted to keep things spicy. You know, like you tell someone too much about yourself and it's like, well? What will they keep learning? Making someone bored of your friendship from the get-go is so useless...

[ She sounds thoughtful, for a moment. ]

Let's see, let's see... there should still be a few photographs in my pocket from that. But I'm not going to show you every single one. Just one. For now.

[ She spent the last of her game dropping them around the school as cutely despairing hints, after all. One photo falls to the chair. ]

Are those legitimate results or just wishful thinking?

They're real. But it's not all of the landmarks, let's just put it that way.

[ Plus, there were the ones she merely toppled, not defaced... how many libraries of Alexandria can you burn before there's more rubble than wonders of the world? ]

So yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say i 'failed', y'know?

Seems to me then you're bound to become bored here sooner rather than later.

Everything gets old, trust me. One day you're drafting plans for defacing the Eiffel Tower, and whoops, it's done. That sure was something I did... some boring old thing that's now done and over with. Sure, the coup is always interesting, but it's so temporary and fast.

[ [ The camera moves with accordance of her making some grand gesture, even if it never turns around back on her. The room she's in is barren, even from this angle-- there's rope, a barrel, and meaningless, aged things lining the wall. It looks like a monster's haunt during the daytime. ]

I make plans and become bored, and then become bored of my own plan-making itself. It's so much... better when you turn yourself in to an unknown.

And how exactly do you become an unknown to yourself?

More like... an unknown variable. Trust me, there's no fun in winning unless you feel like it was winning versus another day in the park. You've probably met a hurdle like that, right? Most people do.

[ Everyone has to overcome something in their life. Would it still feel like a victory if it was just handed to them? If someone just rolled over and gave it to them? Or would it feel like 'oh, that wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it'd be' and move on? Accomplishing things was nice, but surmounting them against all reasonable odds was better. ]

They have been few and far between. It's difficult for me to find equals.

Tell me about it! It's like, every time you meet someone who's all, 'Duhh, yeah! I'm gonna kill you and take back our planet! Humans are soooo much more than what you think we are! We won't give into despair!', you start to get kind of excited about how they might have the firepower to back it up!

And then they just die as easily as everyone else! Like, boo hoo, your macho spirit wasn't enough to make you bullet proof or inflammable! It really pisses me off!

[ Even the Ultimate Hope ended up just being a kid who persevered and made a lot of good speeches. It's not like Junko doesn't acknowledge his victory, but when it comes to what Naegi accomplished and what she accomplished, she knows there's a disparity of power and influence. ]

Very few humans are willing to acknowledge the limitations humanity impose upon them. Those that do are scorned for it because to most humans, ignorance is bliss.

So, of course they react with bravado in the face of someone who has liberated themselves from humanity. But they'll never truly be able to match someone with that power because they willingly subject themselves to rules they haven't the courage to break. In the end, they make their self-righteous speeches for their own comfort.

Right? You can't count on willpower for everything. Even if you're soooo overcome with the feeling of vengeance for whatever reason, it's not something that gives you a super power. It doesn't change that a deck's stacked like way, waaaay against you, and you're still going to die if you go up against it. Even cowering in a hole would've been better in the long run.

But... you know, people like that, they die swallowing that anger and despair. They throw their entire personhood at something, their conscious mind and thoughts and memories, only to die knowing it didn't make a difference.

Aah, I wonder how powerless that feels...!

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sorry for the re-tag hjgfklhj i thought of a better one

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