Flandre's Quest (Touhou) World - (Madness Quest)

[X] The musical movie first.
- [X] Watch both movies.


You stare at Ginga. "And you won't even give us the titles?" She smiles and shakes her head. "… Hm. Then I think we should watch the musical first." The red-headed sisters scowl, but they don't seem to realize that watching the musical first means the violent movie will be all the more thrilling.

"Ah, we should get some popcorn ready," Satsuki says, half to herself, but the Mid-Childans all stare at her in confusion.

"Popcorn …?" Satsuki seems to only just realize that she spoke out loud, but instead of getting nervous she gives Ginga a curious look.

"Yes, popcorn. For eating during a movie. … You … you don't know what it is?" The cyborgs all shake their heads, and Satsuki stares at them in shock before turning to you. "Flandre-sama, you know what it is, right?" She seems almost desperate, and you cock your head to the side as you try to remember if you have seen the stuff before.

"Er, do you know any other names for it? Or can you describe it?" She frowns.

"Well … um, we always got it at movies, and I don't think anyone ever called it anything else. But it's light and fluffy and …." She runs on and on with almost meaningless adjectives before sighing unhappily when she realizes you still don't know what she's talking about. Ginga makes a screen appear in front of her.

"Hey, Shari? Have you ever heard of something called 'popcorn'?" The technician grins and nods.

"Yep! I'm making some right now, actually. Hayate gets it whenever she can, and I borrow it whenever I want to watch something. Ah, is it a whole-group outing? I can make some more …." Satsuki straightens excitedly.

"Yes, please!" Ginga gives her a look and she blushes, but Shari chuckles good-naturedly.

"Alright, I'll make another batch. Should be ready in a few minutes, so you guys can get everything set up and I'll meet you there."

"Alright, sounds good." The screen vanishes and Ginga looks down at the game board. "Everyone up for one more round?" The red-heads groan in unison, but you grin and look at your holdings. Giltless seems to have been playing pretty well, although she did get into a few unwise bidding wars. Well, new experiences, and all that.

Ginga ends up winning, after Cinque's last turn ends with one of her more valuable paintings being labeled a forgery, and despite her relative lack of skill and focus on 'cute' paintings, Satsuki is only fourth. Wendi complains loudly as you walk into another room - not the game room, but one with thick, comfortable chairs. Shari wheels a tray in after you start getting settled, but Satsuki stares at her in horror. "What did you do?" Everyone else is confused, but Shari just crosses her arms.

"Look, there has to be some taste to it or it just doesn't feel right." You look down at the two large bowls on the tray - one is fairly dry and light, but the other has an almost absurd amount of butter or oil poured over it. Satsuki shakes her head.

"No, no, no! You can't do that! It's just -" Shari raises a hand and shakes her head.

"I've heard all the arguments from Hayate already. Every time, she complains about the butter and the salt. You're not changing my mind, and I think we should just let everyone else try some of both and come to their own conclusions. Okay?" She smiles cheerily, and Satsuki pouts before nodding. "Good. Then, what are we watching first?" The lights dim considerably.

"Alright, everyone, take a seat." Ginga seems to be enjoying herself, and you take a few pieces of the buttery popcorn - but even without knowing what it tastes like normally, you find yourself agreeing with Satsuki. It's far too much. Cinque and, oddly enough, Wendi both seem to agree with you, as they take small cups of the dry popcorn and find their seats. Nove shakes her head and adds more butter after a taste, much to Shari's amusement. You take a seat next to Satsuki and turn your attention to the movie.

More than just a movie from Earth, it's a movie in English - and American, if you understand the locations correctly. The subtitles the others are forced to watch because they don't understand English aren't always correct - at least, if you are interpreting the scenes correctly - but they are close enough to get most of the meaning across. Still, the movie isn't too bad, and at least it's courteous enough to give away the plot with the title - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It has pretty good singing, and you pay close attention during the frequent songs so you can sing them again if you want to, and even some good dancing. The brawl during the barn raising is even pretty amusing. Satsuki and Shari seem the most touched by the ending, with Shari even blowing her nose and trying to keep from crying. You're pretty sure you see Ginga sigh wistfully at the ending, too. And then Nove tries to skip the credits and Satsuki stares at her, shocked. Overall, you find the movie rather enjoyable, although parts of it are too obviously falsified for you to really like it.

"So … is that what it was really like?" You glance at Shari and shrug.

"I don't know. Wrong part of the world, wrong timeframe. Where I lived at that point in time, it was already civilized. And earlier, people had different attitudes toward a lot of things." She nods and munches her popcorn some more as Ginga switches the movies. The second one promises violence, and you sit up eagerly.

Parts of it bother you, perhaps more than they should - non-English parts that don't make sense or aren't even a recognizable language, or the parts in the church that don't fit what you recall of how a church should work, or all the slang and language changes you don't recognize. You especially despise the constant crudity of language; it's excessive and entirely unnecessary. But the real meat of the movie - the violence and bloodshed - that delivers quite well. Not perfectly, of course, but very close. It's enough to make Cinque frown unhappily through most of it, but you simply grin and tap your fingers excitedly, even if it is almost entirely gun-work. More worryingly are Satsuki's reactions; she embarrasses easily when the brothers are less than fully clothed, but when the blood flows she focuses entirely and utterly on the violence, shaking herself after the fighting is done. She smiles awkwardly and shakes her head when she notices you paying attention to her, but she still hyper-focuses on the blood. Overall, though, you have to rate Boondock Saints rather highly; it simply focuses well on matters you consider interesting.

"Er … are we supposed to be rooting for the brothers? I mean, they are killing a bunch of people, and they are the ones who seem to be deciding who lives and who dies … but they're being presented as heroes, so …?" Ginga frowns at Wendi's question; Cinque simply lowers her head rather than respond immediately. You glance at Satsuki again and she shrugs. Hmm … stay and discuss the movies, or see if Satsuki's really as fine as she claims?


What do you do?

[ ] Talk about how you think the brothers' actions are supposed to be taken.

[ ] Excuse yourself and take Satsuki outside to talk about how she reacted to the movie.

[ ] Other?

[X] Talk about how you think the brothers' actions are supposed to be taken.


You're a little concerned about Satsuki, but she isn't panting or clutching her chair so hard it breaks, so whatever's wrong should be something you can wait to bring up. If something is seriously wrong, and she's not bringing it up, you'll just have to scold her and explain that she shouldn't keep things like that secret if it's really a problem. "I suppose that depends on what you consider important." That earns you a couple scowls from the red-heads, but Ginga and Shari look more curious than upset.

"So you would get along with them, huh?" You grin at Nove.

"Up until they realized that I'm something evil and they tried to kill me. Other that that, I don't think there's anything about me they would disagree with. And while their actions are obviously in the wrong, what they're doing doesn't really bother me."

"Er … how do you know they're 'obviously' wrong in what they're doing?" You sigh at Ginga's question and shake your head.

"Because the end of the movie has them walk into a court of law and murder the suspect mid-trial. And the short interviews that played after the end of the movie were all about people arguing whether or not the brothers and their father were right, so the movie makers felt the need to make it clear that the brothers weren't necessarily right." Nove and Wendi don't seem to get it, still, but Ginga looks like she does. "Alright, you remember the first movie we watched, right? And how six of the brothers kidnapped their brides-to-be? That was specifically brought up as not correct behavior, but the movie then proceeds to gloss over the girls' lie about who had the baby. In that case, it's probably supposed to be justified by the fact that they all love each other so it's a 'happy ending.' With the Saints, though, there is no happy ending. The brothers and their father are going to keep killing people until they're done - "The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far is as needed?" They don't plan to stop, won't ever stop, because the world is not made up of good men with a few bad apples. So the question - whether you're supposed to believe they're right or wrong - depends on whether you believe that law should be paramount, or whether personal belief is enough to overcome it. And if you think belief is, then what makes the brothers any better than those they kill?"

"… Have you put a lot of thought into this? You seem really sure of yourself." You shrug and grin at Shari.

"Shari, I'm five hundred years old, and I watched a war that tore open the land I lived in. Sometimes people like the brothers are sometimes necessary - when the law cannot be maintained and those who would take advantage of its deficiencies are present, then you need people willing to step outside proper judicial channels and end the problem. My sister made that happen in Hesse, when she had to." You got to help, sometimes, but your … overly enthusiastic nature led to your being made to stay home unless the problem lay outside one of the cities. "Whether or not that's the case in the brothers' situation - whether the criminals are so prevalent and have so much power that nothing except raw, naked violence can stop them. Certainly, at least some of the characters believe it's true - the brothers themselves, and the agent who decided to help them. What I think is more likely is that, as their father implied, most people aren't willing to put forth the effort that would be needed to stop the corruption. People don't care, and the government won't step in. That puts the brothers' actions in a grey area - they aren't completely necessary, but the actions that are needed aren't being taken, at least not consistently. And they seem to recognize that they're going beyond what is 'right' - at least, in terms of human law. They are, after all, religious fanatics, and they hold themselves as not bound by the laws of the world and only by those of their gods. They have set themselves up as instruments of 'divine retribution' without that being clearly the case."

"You can't know that they aren't necessary, though. You can't tell how deep the problem is." You look at Cinque, as does everyone else, but she keeps her head down. "How many people would have thought that General Gaiz would be a criminal … would set his subordinates up to die? It's … it's not something you can't know just by looking at the society. How do you know when society is broken enough that people like the Saints are needed?" You stare at her for a moment; Nove looks shocked at her sister's reservations, and Ginga reaches out to pat her shoulder reassuringly.

"… I'm going to disagree with you - it is something you can know just by looking at the society and how it functions. Or fails to, I suppose. Are the common people living in fear? Are they immediately at risk from criminal - or legal - assault? Does the government bow to criminals or enshrine them? Now, the movie claims that there is a major issue with criminals not being punished properly by the law, although it fails to back that up with actual evidence - and being told that by a couple of lower-class brothers who are justifying their actions based on what they perceive isn't evidence. If it's not systemic, not epidemic - it's not something that needs criminals to solve. Reform, yes; but that sort of ruthless obliteration is unnecessary, and probably more of a problem than a solution anyway. You need to be actually superhuman to declare war on an entire class of people and have any hope of winning, and let's not forget that the brothers got captured by a handful of guys who were expecting them, men who were not exactly highly professional themselves. So they don't have a chance at actually winning their war, and the public sentiment isn't enough to force a government change, which means that their point of view isn't shared by a majority of the population, and likely not even a significant minority." It's hard to tell how much of an effect you had on Cinque - she keeps her head down and doesn't look back at you - but she seems to relax a little.

"So you think they're in the right, but unnecessary?" You shake your head.

"No, Shari, they're wrong. When my sister butchered those who would harm our people, it's because we were in the right to do so - the people we watched over, the land we controlled, were under attack, and we gave official warnings for those who were guilty to quit their activities and either leave our territory or come work for us. If they didn't, they died. The brothers? They have no official authority, only the belief that they are doing right, the belief that they are doing 'God's will'." You stretch languorously. "Don't get me wrong; vulgarity aside, I don't dislike the brothers. But that doesn't mean I think they're doing the right thing. The fun thing, yes. But insofar as human morality is involved, they're in the wrong, and they're only in the right if you accept the belief that they really are divinely inspired by an entity that is right."

"… 'Human' morality?" You shrug at Wendi.

"Humans do human things, youkai do youkai things. Of course they're going to look at things differently, put emphasis on different things, and consider different things to be 'right' or 'wrong'. I mean, if I looked at them from a youkai's perspective, all that would matter is whether they're creatures that are supposed to be doing what they're doing, because that's what matters as far as youkai morality goes. Humans have all sorts of different moral standards that aren't always clear and can contradict each other; I'm sure at least some of them would say that the brothers are doing the right thing even if they aren't divinely inspired. But at that point you're arguing over the validity of a system of morals and getting into full-blown discussions on philosophy and morality, and not just talking about whether or not the brothers are correct in their actions based on how people actually live." Wendi and Nove sigh tiredly, and Shari gives you an uneasy look. Ginga and Cinque look a bit less than convinced, though. You look at Satsuki and frown; she's staring up at the movie screen, although when she feels your eyes on her she jumps and looks at you, smiling nervously. You sigh and lean back when no one immediately responds to you; someone probably can debate you on the brothers' merits, but Cinque doesn't seem to want to, and her sisters look more bored by the discussion, anyway. And since they and Satsuki would be the most benefited by that sort of debate - and you can just give Satsuki a lesson on it in private if you feel like - maybe you should let it go.


What do you do?

[ ] Let's watch the flower movie!

[ ] Go teach Satsuki something.
- [ ] Politics.
- [ ] Etiquette.
- [ ] Morality.

[ ] Take Satsuki aside and ask her about her reaction to the movie.

[ ] Other?


DM Note: I hate it when I can't end an update cleanly :/