(no subject)
I've been having a lot of issues with Rude lately, mainly because he just doesn't like to talk, and so it follows that he's not going to like writing 150-word responses to topics. He would prefer to say one word and be done with it. I'm going to try some different ways of answering topics. Mainly by writing in third person, summarizing and expanding on what he's actually saying. Anything in normal type can be responded to, because it's what Rude is saying. It's just, y'know, with more words than he would have expressed it with. Anything in italics is something that he definitely did not say. Just trying it; I'll see if it works out.
P.S. - Still technically on hiatus, but since I had some free time, I decided to catch Rude up.
What is so important to you that without it, life would not be worth living? Why?
His mental capacity. Rude doesn't think that that's really what the question-asker was going for, but that's the only thing he can think of. If he ever lost it somehow, he knows right now that he wouldn't want to live. It's probably more of a possibility for him than for other people, given the fact that he spent years taking blows to the head, more years addicted to a seriously nasty narcotic, and his current job is one that often involves people trying to kill him.
Even Midgar's newsstations had been interested in the recent otherworld's fiasco in the form of an American woman in a vegetative state. After weeks of fairly intensive coverage, it was hard not to think about her situation and hope that nothing similar ever happened to oneself. The woman's parents had argued otherwise, as Rude understood, but he knows that he wouldn't want to live like that. It isn't living. It's just breathing and heart-beating, that's all. If he somehow got into a coma or a position where he couldn't think, he would want to die. He can't think of anything besides his mental capacity, where if he lost it, he wouldn't want to live.
Mostly because he has already lost the thing that was the most important to him, and he's still living his life.
If you could do one totally irresponsible or even bad thing with absolutely no consequences, what would it be and why?
Quit his job. If that counted as irresponsible.
The consequences are what are keeping him from quitting now. You can't quit a position in the Turks. You die in the line of duty, or you're killed, or you kill yourself, or you are mangled beyond use and are put out of your misery. Or, as was the case once, once in fifty years of Turks, you've been such a good, smart employee who obviously knows how to keep his mouth shut, that you're allowed to retire. There is no firing. No quitting. There's just killing. No matter how far you run or how well you hide, they will find you and they will kill you, both for what you know and for the audacity of trying to leave ShinRa. Nobody leaves ShinRa unless ShinRa wants them to.
He doesn't like what he does. He doesn't ache for blood the way Reno sometimes seems to. Rude is simply a man who made some bad decisions and can't get out of them. He's fucking stuck. So if he had a chance to do anything with no consequences? He'd quit his job. Move to a little house in the country somewhere, throw away all of his guns, live peacefully til the end of his days. God. A pacifist Turk. Reno would laugh at him.
But there are consequences. He doesn't really want to die.
So Rude stays.
What is your most treasured possession and why?
The ever-present sunglasses. They belonged to a friend once. A great friend. The man who Reno had replaced when the redhead had filled his job. Rude's old partner. The man had never taken the shades off; there had been a bad explosion several years into their working together, and he had lost some sight. Not all of it, but enough to make his eyes sensitive to light. The sunglasses were absolutely necessary. He was able to survive an explosion, but not a knife wielded by a terrified kid years later.
Rather than burying him with the sunglasses, Rude took them. From the day he died, Rude wore the sunglasses constantly. When he slid them off or raised them up, it was never done lightly. Even Reno could probably count on one hand the number of times that he had seen Rude's eyes. His only response when asked why he wore them was silence. Mostly because he wasn't sure. Was it a memorial of sorts? Was it to hide his increasingly disillusioned eyes? He didn't know. All he knew was that he wore them, and he didn't forget.
If you could trade lives with one person for a day, who would it be, and what would you do?
Rude would trade places with a man named Lance Davis. He writes and plays the most trite, idealized, bubbly songs for piano, and he somehow manages to make a living at it. Middle-aged woman everywhere buy his CDs. Rude doesn't want anything to do with that music. He just wants the chance to see--for a day--what it's like to be living a life that he could have chosen, years ago. Not that of a composer, no--he was always terrible at making up all but the most simply, plinky of melodies--but that of a concert pianist. Rude is good, and he knows it; he's not egotistical, but he's also not one for false modesty. With more training, he could have gone professional.
Plus, Davis would be in his life. And Rude would be perversely amused to see what kind of music would be composed after a day in the life of Rude Hearst. Nothing inspidly cheerful, he was willing to bet. Bloody and utterly freaked out and terrified, probably.
What is your worst character flaw?
Too many to choose a worst.
There are several ways to take that. But if you think of character as a moral or ethical type of deal--as Rude does--the answer is simple. His cowardice.
It's not meant in the traditional sense of cowardice. After all, Rude puts his life on the line at least a couple of times a week, and feels barely a twinge of fear anymore. And when he does feel the fear, it's usually not for himself. He's grown kind of immune to fearing for his own life; on a bad day, he might classify it less as 'immune' and more as 'numb'. But this isn't a particularly bad day.
No, it's that he sees bad things happening every day. Hell, he causes bad things to happen some days. And he does nothing about it. When you live in Midgar, you don't stick your nose in other people's business, he tells himself on the best days. You let everyone look out for his or her own. So when he sees something, well, he just continues on his way.
He sees incredibly fucked-up shit when he occasionally descends into the slums, that he doesn't even want to think about. He doesn't want to know. He sure as hell doesn't know how Reno grew up down there. But he sees it, and he leaves it alone. "It's not my business" becomes a constant silent mantra.
It's the unwritten law that you just can't do it. You can't save everyone. Most of the time, even if you try, you can't save even one person. Midgar just sucks them in and suffocates them, and you've just got to walk on past as if you can't hear the choking or see the pleading eyes.
Worse, though, is when he causes the bad things. He causes them and he doesn't stop himself. That's when he really hates himself and his paralyzing cowardice.
P.S. - Still technically on hiatus, but since I had some free time, I decided to catch Rude up.
What is so important to you that without it, life would not be worth living? Why?
His mental capacity. Rude doesn't think that that's really what the question-asker was going for, but that's the only thing he can think of. If he ever lost it somehow, he knows right now that he wouldn't want to live. It's probably more of a possibility for him than for other people, given the fact that he spent years taking blows to the head, more years addicted to a seriously nasty narcotic, and his current job is one that often involves people trying to kill him.
Even Midgar's newsstations had been interested in the recent otherworld's fiasco in the form of an American woman in a vegetative state. After weeks of fairly intensive coverage, it was hard not to think about her situation and hope that nothing similar ever happened to oneself. The woman's parents had argued otherwise, as Rude understood, but he knows that he wouldn't want to live like that. It isn't living. It's just breathing and heart-beating, that's all. If he somehow got into a coma or a position where he couldn't think, he would want to die. He can't think of anything besides his mental capacity, where if he lost it, he wouldn't want to live.
Mostly because he has already lost the thing that was the most important to him, and he's still living his life.
If you could do one totally irresponsible or even bad thing with absolutely no consequences, what would it be and why?
Quit his job. If that counted as irresponsible.
The consequences are what are keeping him from quitting now. You can't quit a position in the Turks. You die in the line of duty, or you're killed, or you kill yourself, or you are mangled beyond use and are put out of your misery. Or, as was the case once, once in fifty years of Turks, you've been such a good, smart employee who obviously knows how to keep his mouth shut, that you're allowed to retire. There is no firing. No quitting. There's just killing. No matter how far you run or how well you hide, they will find you and they will kill you, both for what you know and for the audacity of trying to leave ShinRa. Nobody leaves ShinRa unless ShinRa wants them to.
He doesn't like what he does. He doesn't ache for blood the way Reno sometimes seems to. Rude is simply a man who made some bad decisions and can't get out of them. He's fucking stuck. So if he had a chance to do anything with no consequences? He'd quit his job. Move to a little house in the country somewhere, throw away all of his guns, live peacefully til the end of his days. God. A pacifist Turk. Reno would laugh at him.
But there are consequences. He doesn't really want to die.
So Rude stays.
What is your most treasured possession and why?
The ever-present sunglasses. They belonged to a friend once. A great friend. The man who Reno had replaced when the redhead had filled his job. Rude's old partner. The man had never taken the shades off; there had been a bad explosion several years into their working together, and he had lost some sight. Not all of it, but enough to make his eyes sensitive to light. The sunglasses were absolutely necessary. He was able to survive an explosion, but not a knife wielded by a terrified kid years later.
Rather than burying him with the sunglasses, Rude took them. From the day he died, Rude wore the sunglasses constantly. When he slid them off or raised them up, it was never done lightly. Even Reno could probably count on one hand the number of times that he had seen Rude's eyes. His only response when asked why he wore them was silence. Mostly because he wasn't sure. Was it a memorial of sorts? Was it to hide his increasingly disillusioned eyes? He didn't know. All he knew was that he wore them, and he didn't forget.
If you could trade lives with one person for a day, who would it be, and what would you do?
Rude would trade places with a man named Lance Davis. He writes and plays the most trite, idealized, bubbly songs for piano, and he somehow manages to make a living at it. Middle-aged woman everywhere buy his CDs. Rude doesn't want anything to do with that music. He just wants the chance to see--for a day--what it's like to be living a life that he could have chosen, years ago. Not that of a composer, no--he was always terrible at making up all but the most simply, plinky of melodies--but that of a concert pianist. Rude is good, and he knows it; he's not egotistical, but he's also not one for false modesty. With more training, he could have gone professional.
Plus, Davis would be in his life. And Rude would be perversely amused to see what kind of music would be composed after a day in the life of Rude Hearst. Nothing inspidly cheerful, he was willing to bet. Bloody and utterly freaked out and terrified, probably.
What is your worst character flaw?
Too many to choose a worst.
There are several ways to take that. But if you think of character as a moral or ethical type of deal--as Rude does--the answer is simple. His cowardice.
It's not meant in the traditional sense of cowardice. After all, Rude puts his life on the line at least a couple of times a week, and feels barely a twinge of fear anymore. And when he does feel the fear, it's usually not for himself. He's grown kind of immune to fearing for his own life; on a bad day, he might classify it less as 'immune' and more as 'numb'. But this isn't a particularly bad day.
No, it's that he sees bad things happening every day. Hell, he causes bad things to happen some days. And he does nothing about it. When you live in Midgar, you don't stick your nose in other people's business, he tells himself on the best days. You let everyone look out for his or her own. So when he sees something, well, he just continues on his way.
He sees incredibly fucked-up shit when he occasionally descends into the slums, that he doesn't even want to think about. He doesn't want to know. He sure as hell doesn't know how Reno grew up down there. But he sees it, and he leaves it alone. "It's not my business" becomes a constant silent mantra.
It's the unwritten law that you just can't do it. You can't save everyone. Most of the time, even if you try, you can't save even one person. Midgar just sucks them in and suffocates them, and you've just got to walk on past as if you can't hear the choking or see the pleading eyes.
Worse, though, is when he causes the bad things. He causes them and he doesn't stop himself. That's when he really hates himself and his paralyzing cowardice.