birdwithoutasong | College AU meme [open]

College AU meme [open]

Pick one of my characters and I'll toss a college au scenario at you! I've got some rough descriptions below.

Alec: prickly as can be, likes to pick verbal fights with people stronger than him to show he's smarter, not really concerned with his own safety. Double major in mathematics and astronomy.
Annabel: cheery but socially awkward, prone to babbling. Kind of the mad scientist type. Major in biomedical engineering.
I-No: the bitchiest mean girl, she's loyal when she considers her loyalty earned but she's capricious and enjoys causing others pain. Major in business.
Ky: incredibly earnest, religious, repressed. Army ROTC participation and major in political science
Nyxnissa: practical and prone to arguing with people in a way to try to get them upset, although she doesn't really enjoy that, just can't help herself. Major in mechanical engineering.
Sol: grouchy, not very talkative, lazy but really smart. Major in physics.
Valentine: much more interested in drinking and partying than college classes, in fact pretends to be less smart than he is. Audacious and outrageous. Major in LGBT studies, as much to piss off his conservative father as anything else. Minor in business, because otherwise his father won't pay for college.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Naoto doesn't mind the dstyopian novel at all- which mans between each of their five picks, they only need two. She nods when he meets her eyes, handing him her notes on the subject.

The Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein- focusing on the struggle between emotion and intellect, which maybe is a bit close to home for Naoto-, Obasan by Joy Kogawa- Naoto's read more than a few books regarding her Japanese heritage-, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, House of Splendid Isolation by Edna O'Brien, and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson- by far Naoto's least favorite, since... she's not terribly fond of ghost stories, but it is interesting and well written.

Naoto surveys Alec's list, a little surprised by some of the options. She would almost go for Errors of Innocence, if analyzing every portion of it wouldn't take such a ridiculous amount of time. Little Women could certainly be interesting to do in such a setting, and it's not like they've been only picking well known books so far. "So far, we have a classic novel, a mystery, and a dystopian," she says, looking them over, "We're reasonably well balanced already; are there any jumping out that would fill in some gap?" Several of her selections talk about cultural politics, which might be a good addition.

Alec’s handwriting is actually carefully legible for this exercise, but Naoto’s doesn’t appear as though it was something he had to put that much thought or effort into. Some of the list in front of him he hasn’t heard of, but without a smartphone or having brought a computer, the only way to enlighten himself would be to ask his partner, something Alec is patently unwilling to do.

So he mentally crosses off a couple of them for that reason alone, which still leaves him with a couple of options off of the other list. Good options, if Alec were going to be honest, which he makes a point not to do when being honest particularly benefits someone else. The truth is another kind of weapon, after all.

“I suppose we can do House of Splendid Isolation,” he says, a shrug that implies it’s only the best of some barely adequate suggestions.

Naoto has a feeling she's going to have to learn to ignore Alec's tone, if she's going to not strangle him by the end of this project... she's fairly certain he's trying get to under her skin, and she is determined to not let him. Besides. House of Splendid Isolation is a good book, and if he doesn't think so then that's his problem.

"Alright," she consents, adding that to their list, "From yours, I'm inclined a bit towards Little Women, actually. We don't have any real recognizable, mainstream books on the list yet, and it would be interesting to look at it from an analytical perspective. If you object to that, maybe The Grandma instead?" She highly doubts he would object... he wrote it down, after all.

“If it’s necessary to entertain our classmates,” or give them something recognizable to latch onto, “then it’s acceptable.” It is his own suggestion, but he can still find a reason to be patronizing about it. Of course he can. At least this time he’s creating the idea of the two of them as separate, better, than the rest of their classmates.

“I’m going to have to read some of your books,” he says, like it’s his fault, or at least not his own. Alec is, as Naoto has probably noticed, quite adept at insulting other people. He considers it one of his best traits.

It truly is a skill he has, apparently. Naoto can't imagine how it's a helpful enough skill that he would have actually made the effort to cultivate it, but apparently being difficult is something Alec prized. She's starting to get more and more curious about him, which is probably a curse of her nature as a detective, but she has a suspicion she won't get a lot out of him directly. (That's what public records are for.)

Naoto arches an eyebrow at his other comment. "Is that a problem?" she asks, voice very neutral. She's not going to make him read of any of the ones they're not doing, after all.

There’s a lot, that can be found out about Alec. Well, not about him specifically — he has an older sister and his parents are fairly non-notable, enough that Naoto might have to do some real digging to find out more than the fact that his father is dead and that when he’d been much younger he’d won math competitions, before he disappeared from that scene (as much as that’s a scene). But his grandmother, his mother’s mother, is another story entirely. Alec might be an embarrassment, a liability to her senatorial career, if it weren’t for the fact that his mother and she hardly even talk, and he’s that extra generation removed.

“It isn’t as though I have anything better to do with my time,” he says in the tone of someone who has so many better things to do with his time.

Yes, Alec. Because that tone with those words make a great deal of sense. Sigh. Naoto's not even going to try. Hopefully they'll just be able to get through this project. At least right now they can talk about the books they both know, trying to line out what they can talk about (though they will certainly have more after reading or re-reading them all). Even if her partner is making a point of being hard to get along with, it's at least clear that they're not going to fail the project. (Not that this was ever really a possibility with either of them.)

Edited 2015-01-20 03:13 (UTC)

Alec says a lot of bullshit, but he is smart enough to know that it’s bullshit. He’s not, however, smart or brave enough to figure out a better way to communicate, and the fact that he’s supposed to work together with Naoto doesn’t really mean anything. He’s more comfortable with conflict anyway. It’s one of the reasons he’s sure it would have been better for him to just do the whole project himself.

They work for a while, Alec being typical himself, but there’s only so far they can go, or only so long his patience can last. “Let’s meet this weekend,” he suggests, although he regrets it as soon as he says it. Weekends are great for doing other things, after all.

Luckily, Naoto is also smart enough to figure out that it's bullshit, and she's also smart to figure out that, bizarrely, Alec seems distinctly more uncomfortable when they're actually agreeing on something. More reason to look into the situation and observe further. (...She catches herself in that thought. No, no. People are not just for observing. Sigh. It's still a harder mentality to get past.)

"Alright," Naoto agrees, opening her phone to find her schedule. It's not one of the weekends were it would be easy to get in touch with her friends, especially since most of them are so far away, so the problem is work. "It's possible I'll get called it, but unfortunately I can't really schedule around that. Saturday at 1, perhaps?"

“Sure,” Alec says, in a tone that speaks heavily of ‘whatever’. He gives her his email address — not the official school one, but seriously, who even uses that — aleclystory@gmail.com to allow her to cancel, he supposes, and then he’s going to wander through the library to find the books that he needs to look at. He’s arrogant, not lazy.

Although Naoto might be hard-pressed to believe that when he’s not there at 1. He doesn’t show up until one fifteen, and when he does he’s walking with the careful movements of someone who doesn’t have full control of his body and doesn’t want to reveal that. It had been a long rest of the week, and a longer Friday night, and Alec feels he’s entitled to a little relaxation, even if came in the form of alcohol. If it’s made him a little late, that wasn’t really his intent, but he can’t bring himself to be sorry either. “Hey,” he says, dropping the stack of books on the table.

Naoto has already settled in, and since she's done the work she could do on her own before arrival, she's typing up a case report (or at least, as much as she can do it for at the moment without being at the station). Fifteen minutes is hardly painfully late, but after taking one look at him Naoto has a feeling she knows exactly why.

"Hello," she replies, placidly- she's well aware of what alcohol does, even if she doesn't partake herself, "I see you had an eventful evening last night. Ready to work on this?" And that's all she's going to say about it, unless he decides to make something of it.

He greets her with an almost-smile, when it doesn’t make him paranoid, or jumpy, sometimes alcohol has a relaxing effect on Alec. Then he seats himself at the table, fingers tapping rapidly on the cover of one of the books before he flips it open to a passage, and sliding it along the table to her. “We absolutely need to use this passage,” he says.

After all, they’re both here to work, as she just reminded him, and that’s really all he wants. Social niceties are for other people.

That's certainly a better reaction than some people have to alcohol. It makes this easier, at least. Naoto takes the book and reads through the passage, nodding as she pushes it back at him.

"Alright," she says, taking note of the page number and the beginning and ending lines, "It should be good for comparing to the others, as well. It's pretty distinctive of her writing style, at least."

Alec makes a face. “We’re not going to compare similar or dissimilar paragraphs, are we?” Surely the differences of their writing styles don’t matter at all, compared to the actual themes and they way they treated what the authors saw as the more important issues.

“Maybe we can phrase it more like a conversation of theirs through their characters.”

"Writing styles can be used to make different points, especially considering the era of the different authors; but I was thinking more as a general idea, not by passages," Naoto replies, flipping through the book. Though... his comment does get her attention. "How so?"

“The views of the characters are far from necessarily being the views of the authors, particularly depending on the character. But we’ve been asked to talk about the books, not the author, so why not let the characters in them talk for themselves? We could arrange a conversation between Beth and your Violet Strange.”

~~Alec this is getting way too meta for me. Are you telling her to RP with you.~~

Naoto, for once, isn't entirely following this. Not because she doesn't know what he means (no one will ever find her mystery novel fanfiction from the age of 13), but because she's having trouble seeing how this would work in a project. "Alright..." she says carefully, not entirely sold but she'll let him make his case, "Did you have a particular method in mind?"

"I'd start with finding societal issues that multiple of the authors express an opinion on within the works, or, barring that, which they at a minimum portray." After all, that portrayal will probably give away something of the author's own idea on the subject, or how they expect their readers to feel about it.

That shouldn't be difficult, given some of their selections. There's probably a pretty fair layover of ideas between the mystery and dsytopia, and there can certainly be parallels drawn between the others. "That could be interesting," she admits, though unlike Alec she doesn't try to make it sound like an insult, "We might want to start with Valperga, then; I'm sure we can pull out quite a number of topics from the main characters alone."

Alec grabs his copy of the book in question to start to flip through. The alcohol hasn’t worn off yet fully, and he feels almost warm inside. It’s good, comforting, and it makes him more confident, which makes him act less arrogant. The look he shoots Naoto is almost playful, and his fingers dance as he turns pages, searching. “Race you to find the best one.”

It's... odd, but kind of amusing, and Naoto's not above a little friendly competition. Provided it stays friendly. (She's pretty sure she already knows of an example, anyway.) "Alright," she says, bemusement in her voice as she reaches out for her own copy. It's as good of a way as any to get this done, right?

Alec doesn’t, because he wouldn’t have thought of doing this while he was sober (or at least not the competition aspect of it) but he knows the book well enough, and he figures that it won’t take him long to find just the right passage.

Naoto has a couple of her own in mind, flipping through the pages and locating one of them. "How about this one?" she asks, moving the book across the table to show him the example.

Under other circumstances, Alec would probably have rejected it just to be contrary, or because he’s just that certain that the right one will be what he finds. Instead he reads it carefully — it is a little harder to concentrate on the letters right now — and nods. “I think it works pretty well.” Another glimmer of a smile. “There might be something better, so I’ll keep looking.” The race isn’t lost yet.

"Fair enough," Naoto replies. She's not sure how to feel about this situation- this is Alec under a slightly altered state (though likely not as altered as it had been the previous night), and she's finding his company not only tolerable, but slightly enjoyable. That's... not a relationship dynamic she really enjoys, though it does make her wonder if he's capable of behaving this way normally.

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