[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Some really important person who now most likely is super dead once said that a room without books is like a body without a soul. If that saying is true, then the library is some crazy champion-huntsman that can snap its finger to make stuff blow up. With sparkles. The amount of knowledge once stored in this place baffled Holly when she first came to Haven. The sheer amount of words stored in this place were more than she could have ever dreamed off on the island. Entire histories of lost kingdoms, agriculture knowledge accumulated over the generations, and vast treaties about how to life once life to the fullest as a good and moral person. Truly a champion if that one’s guy saying was to be believed.[break] [break] Then Holly found out that her scroll was a God. [break] [break] Whatever knowledge was kept in the library, it paled in comparison to what could be found in the network that connected the world of Remnant. She could find every worthwhile fact; she could find every useless fact. She could read what the Atlas council thought about the most recent Schnee controversy, she could read what Daisy in Menagerie had for breakfast this morning. It was eggs, again. She could read how to treat every kind of injury know to man, and she could read how to make a bomb from 10 household appliances even you have in your home! Holly never found anything useful in a book that she hadn’t also found on her handheld device. Still, beyond the mere informational aspect her scroll had another advantage that a library would never have.[break] [break] Interactivity. [break] [break] In libraries you were supposed to be silent. Learning as a thing you do by yourself. On her scroll, Holly had the whole world…or at least the people on forums, to help her figure things out. You cannot ask a book a question, but you can ask random strangers on the CCT! It was Holly’s preferred way to get help with difficult homework assignments. And not even all of the helpful strangers ask for pictures of feet in return! [break] [break] Still, the CCT was an amazing way to get your name out there. Something that Holly was interested in. She was quite certain that she would never make a big name as a huntress for being a huntress. She wasn’t strong, she wasn’t all that good in a fight, and safeguarding the entirety of humanity sounded exhausting. So, she needed to be smarter. If she was going to get a network in place that could help her family, she needed to do more than simply punching Grimm. [break] [break] Holly needed a social media presence. She needed to be a Tattle-Telling Celebrity. [break] [break] Tattle-Telling, or TT’ing as the insiders know it as, was the newest, hippest, and most infuriating platform to share your personal life and secrets with completely unknown people. Holly could share almost everything she wanted and the legal code in the user agreement said it was fine. Well, it most likely did. Holly skimmed through it…with her reading the first word and the last word with certainty and the rest being a muddled mess of shapes as she scrolled downward to accept it. The girl had made her account a month ago, and she was proud at the work she had done. Her 17 subscribers seemed to agree.[break] [break] While 17 was an awesome number to have, Holly knew that she could do better. TouchingSpoons had nearly 100.000 people watching their content and all they did was touch things with spoons! Life is unfair! While Holly loved her little community of loyal viewers to her growing plants and talking about plant-related activities, Holly needed growth of views. Still, if this library is so great…it could maybe bring Holly all the knowledge she needed. Not in books no, but in people. [break] [break] Holly was seated at the computer desks as she looked at her profile, her eyes fixed on those 17 people. She needed either new people to ‘Smash that Like Button!’ or help Holly come up with ideas to become the Queen of Tattle-Telling. She needed new ideas to expand her portfolio, exciting ways to abuse algorithms, and the most devious plots to fool people into subscribing. Normally Kishka would be the number #1 person to go to…but Holly didn’t want to bother her with everything she needed her help with. Asking random strangers in the library was a totally valid alternative and not a total waste of everybody’s time. [break] [break] So, the girl was on the prowl. Wearing her school uniform (without shoes), she stood up from her desk to look around for people that could enrich the vapid but necessary whims of the day. They will subscribe to ‘WildHock’, or they will bring it to glory with a new approach![break] [break] Who even studied in the library anyways?

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 807, Thread Total: 807	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: F, Acrobatics: F.

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

Jackie always studied in the library. To her, libraries had always been a safe space, a place of refuge, somewhere she could go to be away from the world, where she could be free from distractions and where her efforts could be focused. She'd never really considered why this was, much in the same way that one does not often consider why a certain wavelength of visible light should somehow be one's favorite. It simply was and always had been for, so it seemed, as long as Jackie could recall. Forced to justify her predilection, Jackie might have posited the obvious answer, that libraries were quiet and therefore best suited to scholastic endeavors or academic betterment. Further exploration of this proffered explanation would reveal the flaw in its reasoning however. After all, Jackie's room was just as quiet, if not more so, and replete with every amenity which the Academy library had to offer. Research was another plausible explanation, for what was a library if not a repository of knowledge? Except that, as has been rightly observed, the net was also a repository of information, and one far vaster and more complete than any physical location could hope to be. The Net and its resources had their own problems of course, citation being one of them, but Jackie's studies had long ago evolved beyond any risk of her being taken in by the fallacious or pseudo-scientific in her field of research. So, if not for the quiet and the information, what benefit did the library have which Jackie could not just as easily have found int a more familiar, more secure setting? The truth was that there was none; There was no logical reason for why Jackie should prefer to write her research papers and study for her exams in Haven's library. The truth was that her reasons or doing so were much less rational than she was likely to admit, nor even suspect. For the Library was not simply a silent repository of knowledge, but a place with an association, ingrained by every form of media and personal experience imaginable. It was a place for learning and silent contemplation, a place for Jackie, a habitual introvert, wherein she could be a part of society while still remaining safely apart from it. It was a place where she could sit, surrounded by books, nostrils filled with the redolence of aged paper and leather, and feel like she was one step closer to what she desperately wanted to me. Jackie would never have admitted it, if she ever even suspected it, but she felt most at home, most like herself, only when she was surrounded by books. When she was embodying her personal conception of the withdrawn academic. The Library, therefore, shielded her from the realizations which became unavoidable when she was alone in her room, and a way for her to frame her anxiety and awkwardness and unwillingness to interact with others, not as some self-defeating character flaw, but as her merely obeying the expected societal strictures for a given locale. One does not speak in a library, after all. If Jackie, tucked with her back to a corner on the edge of the library's private reading area, had taken any notice of the pink haired girl standing on a table not far off, she gave no sign of it. Her eyes were fixed on her tome, its crystalline surface displaying a research paper recently published on the resonance activity of certain allotropes of Dust, one which tacitly confirmed an observation she'd made during her development of Mixture eight, though without adequately citing sources. The tome, like an oversized scroll, was large enough to display library's archives in a separate tab, and Jackie impatiently scroll the list while she continued to read the paper on the other side. She felt quite piqued that the subscription she paid to this particular journal, a not inconsiderable sum for a student without a source of consistent income, should permit for the publication of such terribly cited material and, were it not for the paper sharing similar observations to those made in her own experiments, she would not have even bothered with it after the second read. At last, her eyes alighted upon the title she'd been looking for which, as luck should have it, was apparently available in hard copy! She hastily committed the reference code to memory, collapsed her tome and stood up from her desk. The sooner she had the paper in her hands, a treatise on the peculiarities of certain fire dust compounds, the sooner she could get back to making Mixture eight field ready. Standing up from her desk, she was suddenly overcome with the wholly inexplicable urge to instead stand atop it. Jackie paused for a moment, surprised. Intrusive thoughts were far from a new thing to her, and seldom needed much, if any, provocation. They were usually related to breaking some sort of societal convention, especially if said convention seemed unnecessarily cruel or arbitrary, and, while there was certainly some sort of convention against standing on tables, it wasn't the sort her other half would be wont to contravene. A fretful thought intruded upon her then, and this one was undeniably her own, as Jackie wondered if this might be some new prelude to some hitherto unseen unhinging. She waited with baited breath, dreading to move lest she should find her own body unresponsive, lest she should follow the bizarre impulse and climb up onto her desk, wholly without wanting to. After several breathless moments, that dreadful disassociation abated, and Jackie was prepared to move. Clutching her collapsed tome to her breast, like some sort of talisman, she fled from her corner, urgent steps, eyes fixed now upon the floor, all the while trying not to think about the strange and otherworldly episode, with its skewed perceptions. Trying not to wonder what it might mean. Nearly two meters tall, with dark hair hanging lank about her face and pooling long and disheveled across her narrow and hunched shoulders, Jackie was the very picture of anxiety. Even her fretful strides, urgent as they were, had more of the hunted animal in them than the composed erudite. It her clothes fit her unevenly, bagging where they should have been tight, constricting where they ought have been loose, and all of it badly wrinkled like it had come from the bottom of the clothe's drawer. Or, more likely, from an unfolded heap on the floor. She pulled her ill fitting blazer which, whose cut was plainly meant for someone with much broader shoulders, more tightly around herself, and hunched her head into its collar as she walked, affecting an altogether hunted aspect, despite the fact that nobody in the library, so far as she was aware, was paying her any mind. She tried not to think, not to wonder if this all might be a prelude to an episode. Tried not to wonder how long it had been since the last one, as though thinking about it might make it happen. And while she knew thinking about it probably wouldn't make it happen, she knew stressing over it could.

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Words - 1,199
Total - 1,199

[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Holly was on the prowl. With the perseverance of a shrewd and soulless door-to-door salesman, Holly made sure that her first meeting would not be ruined by looking second-rate. What if her new subscriber was a neat-freak, or interested in make-up tutorials? Holly didn't had any make-up tutorials, but if it proves to be some new place to get content, it should honestly be a venture worth exploring. So, she straightened her jacket and made sure that her face and hands was clean of any smudges of dirt. Which she did by cleaning her hands by the frill of her skirt. Stay classy Holly. [break] [break] Being as clean as she could get, Holly looked around to see who she could approach. In this area of the library there seemed to be only one other person that Holly could see. Tall with long hair. Did she dropped something? Oh, no...she just looks to the floor while walking. Was she blind? No, why would a blind person be in a library? Does this library has audio-books? That would be dope, even for the not blind people! Listening is the new reading! [break] [break] As Jackie seemed to search for her book, the girl disappeared from view because she went behind a row of bookcases. Still, being smarter than the average baby, Holly knew that Jackie still existed even though she was out of view. There didn't seemed to be someone else within view that Holly could spot. It didn't matter. This tall girl will be the one! Holly was sure of it![break] [break] Haven's premier club president and online content-creator looked on from the far end of the row of bookcases as the tall girl was busy with some book. So, a reader then, huh? In the library that might not have been the weirdest place to find them. But the question was if this long-haired stranger was just a casual reader, or an avid reader. A bookworm, if you will. We are surrounded by the things, after all. Bookworms like the books. They love the books. Maybe Holly could convince this stranger to subscribe if she did a book review? Books are great, even if they were not as great as scrolls. Do magazines count for book reviews? Holly liked magazines. They had images. [break] [break] So, Holly was standing like some sort of creeper at the end of the row of bookcases, looking at Jackie from a distance. Having build up the potential future that she would be rejected and pushed that little thought bubble away, Holly made her move. With firm and determined steps, Holly strode forward. Making sure that there was no way to speak the other girl, she made her approach as audible as she could without resorting to stomping her feet on the floor. Stopping about an arm's reach away from Jackie, Holly introduced herself. Her voice almost sounded enthusiastically, and her face was almost made into a smile, as Holly spoke in a salesman-like pitch. Her volume was kept at a library-approved standard, being more than a whisper but less than a chatter.[break] [break] "Holly Hock, I like Plants, and if you could watch any of the following videos, what would you watch; 1. Book Reviews, 2. Gardening tips, 3. Touching noodles with spoons, 4. Political commentary, 5. Make-up tutorials? I am trying to expand my Tattle-Tale channel, and I want to know what my fellow students like to watch. Also, subscribe to my channel. I will give you a welcoming banana!" [break] [break] As Holly was speaking out the numbers, she made sure to raise her fingers to sign the corresponding numbers. Hand movements are important to keep your listeners' attention. Also, to make sure that they feel like they are getting something from the conversation. This fine listener would get a potential banana. That is a great deal for clicking a button! Some people would do far worse things for such high quality fruits! [break] [break]

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 652, Thread Total: 1459	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: F, Acrobatics: F, Stamina F.

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

It took longer than Jackie would have liked to track down the book she was after. Even with the reference code, simply finding the correct aisle among the stacks had taken longer than it would have, if she were still at the Academy. Though the two libraries ostensibly used the same system, there were still numerous quirks to Haven's filing which Jackie had not yet acclimated to. One would presume some amount of standardization when it came to filing certain topics, that Dust would always be referenced either in terms of chemistry or geology, but Haven also referenced it in terms of Aura and Soul. This decidedly holistic approach, at least when compared to the binary regard of appropriation and implementation adopted by Atlesian librarians, meant Dust could be discussed in terms of everything from the historical to the purely practical under the Haven system. This specificity, once she'd made note of it, had actually assisted most of Jackie's information gathering, but it was still difficult to get used to after nearly half a decade with the Academy Archives at her disposal. Not helping her search was the inescapable sense that, throughout, she was being watched. Jackie had always acutely felt the attention of others, but she'd also just had a very intrusive thought and could not, therefore, dismiss the possibility that she was merely being over vigilant or paranoid. There was, after all, only two sorts of people who paid any attention to her and, while both sorts were common enough back at the Academy, she'd not had enough time at Haven to cultivate quite so many. Jackie's expression clouded at the thought of 'cultivating', as if a word with such positive associations could be used to describe the notoriety and inevitable infamy she was certain to gain if she didn't keep herself under control. Her fingers tensed upon the volume she was holding, some random book she'd pulled from the shelf to check the decimal code on its spine. She felt the sudden, overwhelming urge to tear the book in half, a compulsion made doubly ridiculous by the fact that there was no reason she should want to do such and a thing, and no possible way she even could; The book was a heavy encyclopedia, with leather binding which might even have been as old as she was. There was no way she could do much more than bend it. She recognized the intrusive thought this time and, through the cold malice and disdain which roiled beneath it, recognized its source too. "No no no... Oh dear." Jackie whispered, willing her fingers to relax, feeling the creased leather creak back into shape. She didn't want to deal with this right now. She didn't want to deal with it ever, but especially didn't want to deal with it right now. The interference with her researches alone would be costly, and she felt so very close to a breakthough in Mixture Eight's development. Jackie was so fixated, her attention thrust so far inward, checking the locks and chains and bindings deep inside of her own mind, that she didn't immediately notice the other girl. Not that it was in any way difficult to notice her. It was the brazen movement, the marchers rhythm, that pierced though Jackie's distraction in the end, dragging her worried, mud brown eyes over to the strange approaching her. "Holly Hock," Said the stranger, by way of introduction, "I like Plants." It was an introduction so inexplicable, so much like a slap in the face, that Jackie's head actually flinched away from one making it. The speaker was shorter than Jackie. That on its own wasn't very notable, most women her own age were shorter than Jackie, but Holly was a quarter of a meter shorter, which put her a dozen centimeters under the Atlesian average. Come to think of it, most of the trainee huntresses were well below the average; Jackie wondered if Mistralians were simply shorter on average, or if it was Huntresses themselves who tended to be shorter. Perhaps a result of the mountainous terrain and the stunted growth common to those who were gruelingly physically active from an early age. Except that would have made most Atlesian Huntresses shorter too, and Huntresses tended to be above the average in Atlas. Which was all besides the point, because Holly didn't even have Mistralian coloring or a Mistralian accent. She actually sounded almost Vacuon, though Jackie was not familiar enough with western accents to be sure. Belatedly, Jackie realized that Holly hadn't actually stopped talking after her bizarre introduction. Mind playing catchup, reconstructing what the smaller girl had said, the Mantlian was sure she must have heard wrong. Had this whole interaction, immediately weird as it had been, really been some Tattle-Teller looking for views and clicks? It was almost absurd enough to make Jackie laugh, but the strangeness of it only made her uncomfortable instead. Jackie abhorred strangeness in all its forms, more so even than she abhorred social interactions, and the sudden anxiety of being forced to engage in a strange social interactions immediately tied her bowels into into a knot. And what was all that about a banana? Jackie wasn't sure she wanted to ask. Keeping her eyes averted, finding it especially difficult to meet the gaze of someone acting in a way she couldn't quite account for, Jackie wondered if she could just pretend she hadn't heard. Except she clearly had, had even half turned to face the strange little vacuon. Even if she wanted nothing more than to flee this weirdness, she found herself bound by the simple societal expectation to not be rude to someone speaking to you, even if that someone was maybe a little odd or unhinged. "I suppose I would pick a book review." She said quietly, without meeting Holly's eyes. She knew immediately it was the wrong answer thought. Not in that it was a dishonest answer, though she guessed she probably knew more about books in general than Holly did, but in that she shouldn't be engaging with the weird girl's narrative to begin with. The smart choice would have been simply to agree to subscribe to the Teller's channel, maybe even open up her tome and do so where Holly could see, before immediately excusing herself and immediately unsubscribing, hopefully before the weird girl could figure out what her username was. As was all too common however, Jackie only saw the smart choice after she'd made the wrong choice. By continuing to engage with Holly, she'd all but guaranteed this unfortunate interactions unwanted longevity. "What is your channel's name?" Jackie asked, trying to take the initiative, trying to sound interested, but instead simply sounding sick. She smiled unconvincingly, but couldn't make it convincing, anymore than she could make herself meet Holly's eyes.

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Words - 1,136
Total - 2,335

[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Holly wasn't sure what to make of this strange person. From a distance, all that Holly could guess was that she was just anti-social. This girl, she was...Jackie, right? Jackson? Jenny? That girl from the Red Class, right? Didn't she have that fight together with Nasrin against Kishka? Nah, can't be the same person. That person typed very aggressively in chat when she wanted to fight, and this person barely seems to keep it together in person. If someone's digital personality was a reflection of someone's real life personality, then this person couldn't be that person! Simple logic. [break] [break] This person just acted strange. Was it more than just being uncomfortable around other people? From the way she walked over towards here, from how she was now clutching that book like her life depended on it. She seemed to be uncomfortable before even Holly came over. Maybe the book was something important to her? Like an important book she needed for an assignment. Or maybe it had cool recipes on how to make something cool? Like a plane. Would this strange girl like planes? Nah, that all couldn't explain the discomfort. Maybe it was...a medical tome? Could it be that this person was not well and tried to find the reason why? Don't we have doctors for that? [break] [break] In all honesty, Holly became more and more convinced that the girl in front of her looked so uncomfortable because she was sick. it was the vibe Holly got from Jackie as she listened to the words she said and the general body language that she displayed. Holly simply looked up to look at Jackie for a moment. She was a tall person. A tall and sick person. Most people were taller than Holly, but most people didn't seem sick. A magazine she once read said that small girls were 'fun-sized'. It was a description that Holly loved. She was simply fun-sized, and other people were simply 'boring-sized'. She could fit into small compartments, and be comfortable wearing oversized sweaters. All good traits to being small. This tall girl? Maybe not boring, but certainly sick, yes! The reason? Was she pregnant? Did she have a fever? Did she eat too much food and wanted to throw up? All valid options that needed to be explored. As a self-proclaimed herbal healer, it was time for a lightning-fast diagnosis![break] [break] Holly had watched some educational material about pregnancy. All right, she had watched it last night...which was why it was the first thing she connected with feeling sick even though it was a far-fetched idea. It still was good idea to be prepared if either she or someone else was blessed with a child. Still, all the research she had done said that you normally only get sick like...way into the process. Big belly far. The patient was too thin to be that pregnant, so her ill demeanour couldn't be because of that.[break] [break] Did she have a fever? Holly didn't see any redness on the other girl's face. Nor did she seem to sweat. Holly's hands were kind of cold at the moment, so she couldn't use them to get anything near an accurate reading of the patient's temperature that way. Unless she could get a thermostat and shove it in the patient's mouth or bum, there was no way to get a definitive answer.[break] [break] What about a tummy ache? Holly hated having tummy aches, but she didn't actually know how to spot one in others unless fluids of any kinds were involved. Despite her discomfort, the patient didn't seem to throw up on the spot! That was at least good. [break] [break] Could Holly discern why the patient was looking sick?[break] [break] Nope![break] [break] Welp.[break] [break] Hope she doesn't die because of it.[break] [break] Holly had done this little act of playing doctor in the time Jackie took to finally open her mouth and answer the verbal survey. She took a few steps closer to Jackie when she spoke, almost not hearing the whispering tone from the distance she had. It didn't help that she didn't look at Holly as well. With the move forwards Holly had now officially breached the personal space of Jackie. Close enough to smell the faint herbal scent that hung around Holly since she had been busy with its production on a near daily basis. At least the girl made sure to have properly washed her hands and feet before entering the library. She was yelled at before for not doing so.[break] [break] The answer was a book review. [break] [break] Ugh, the boring option. Well, she could make it excitement. There were some young-adult novels that she might be able to review. Something romantic that made your heart beat faster? Or something that was educational? Like a book about plants? She was the target audience for both those kinds of books, right? Other young women might find it nice to hear someone their own age give her opinion about romance and plants! WAIT. [break] [break] WHAT IF...[break] [break] ...HOLLY WROTE A STORY ABOUT ROMANTIC PLANTS?! PLANTS FALLING IN LOVE![break] [break] THAT WAS PERFECT![break] [break] Just as Jackie had some trouble with catching up to everything that was said a moment before, now Holly took a long time to respond to what Jackie had been saying. Holly's mind was already trying to come up with an amusing three-act structure filled with love, action, family values, and everything else that she would want to see plants doing. It would be a video she made with her scroll in which she could use her plants to tell a story! She could move plants with her semblance, of course. They will be actors! Holly had seen other people making such videos with dolls! Plants were just as cute as dolls! At least prettier! The plants will be given googly eyes to give some form of human appearance. Maybe give them accessorise like bows and ties? She could do the voices! Would Ryan like to do the voice of a plant? Maybe Kishka? It was a few good seconds after Jackie had asked about the channel name, that anything of a response was given. Holly seemed to be speaking her mind aloud, as it seemed to help her think.[break] [break] "I can make the plants sing a love ballad..."[break] [break] Holly just seemed to be absorbed in her thoughts for a moment, before she remembered that she had just approached a person for a silly scheme, and was now going to involve this person in another one. Holly thought for a short moment on how to formulate her words, before she began. Her voice sounded more excited now, making the volume quite a bit above what would be socially accepted in the library. [break] [break] "You helped me with a new idea to get views! I am going to make my own video story! It is going to be about plants falling in plant-love. My semblance is perfect for it! If you were the target audience, what kind of emotions do you want to see plants portray most? Happiness, sadness, angriness? I know that you are currently not feeling well, but you did give me a really good idea! Thank you!"[break] [break] The small pink girl was now clasping her hands together, looking up at Jackie to given more good advice on how to make this new project even better. The small form of a smile appeared on Holly's face now as well, like this was the best idea ever. The whole idea, as well as the girl’s entire tangent about talking plants really gave of a particular image. Holly seemed to be either unconcerned if it made her look overtly childish, or she simply didn’t knew any better. [break] [break]

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 1275, Thread Total: 2734	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

This girl was a bomb; A pink haired ticking time bomb, wires exposed, waiting to explode. At least, that was how it felt to Jackie. She'd done her best to pick the 'right' option from the proffered list, and thereby defuse the situation. It looked for a moment like she might even have succeeded, too; Holly was quiet for several seconds after Jackie answered. Only then it became clear that, like an actual bomb, the only reasonable answer had been to flee as fast as she was able, rather than mucking about trying to disarm it. Instead, Jackie had made the matter worse. Much worse. Irrational and non-sequential, Holly started spouting off about plants and musicals, before asking Jackie what sort of emotions she would want a plant to express. The question was like a pale of cold water thrown over Jackie's mental processes, immediately freezing into a claustrophobic shell of unbreakable ice. She couldn't think, let alone answer, such a bizarre question, less still one which had come entirely out of nowhere. What emotion would she like to see a plant portray? What utter nonsense was this? Jackie glanced about worriedly, sure that someone must be playing a trick on her. Had one of the people she'd burned put Holly up to this? Were they, even now, hiding somewhere in the stacks, laughing at Jackie's stricken bemusement? Only then she remembered she wasn't in Atlas; She had made sure not to make enemies out of anyone at Haven. Except for... Jackie's eyes snapped back to Holly. Had she seen her before, hanging around with Kishka? She had, hadn't she? And wasn't Nasrin always complaining about some girl named Holly too? If she could have checked Haven Chat without making it obvious, she could have made sure, but Jackie was already as certain as she needed to be. This girl, this strange girl, making her anxious with her seemingly insane rambling, was Kishka's friend. This must have been Kishka's doing, a spot of revenge for what Heid-... what Jackie had done to her a few nights ago. Jackie's eyes flicked away, her discomfort suddenly redoubled. Was this all the revenge Kishka had planned? An uncomfortable exchange with a girl spouting utter nonsense, or was it merely the tip of the spear? Was Holly already laying some kind of trap for Jackie to fall into, at Kishka's behest? Should she play along, and would doing so only leave her more deeply ensnared? Should she run instead? Surely Kishka would have expected Jackie to flee; She'd said things in Chat about Jackie's fight with Colton, she obviously knew the sort of person Jackie was. Did she know Jackie well enough to anticipate her actions though? Probably. Jackie wasn't a very complicated person after all; She was simply an unstable coward with a mental disorder and an unusual semblance. It wouldn't be especially hard to predict her actions. Assuming, of course, she was not wise to the trap being set for her. No doubt Kishka was waiting for Jackie just outside of the library, and Holly had been sent in to smoke her out. A task the pink haired girl had almost accomplished too; She must be just as cunning as Nasrin said. Much as she hated to admit it, the only rational choice was to continue this farce of a conversation in the hope that Holly would soon grow bored and leave Jackie alone, or else regroup with Kishka to discuss an alternative strategy. All it should take was playing along long enough for Holly to see her tactics would not avail her. "Well, Holly," Jackie said, "With respect to Fiction, I am partial to dramatic theater. I suppose it would have to be sadness or, um, angriness?" She couldn't help but make it a question, as though there could be a correct or an incorrect answer to such a non sequitur as that particular question. Still, she did her best to be polite, or as polite as one could be without making eye contact. Not because she didn't trust Holly's intentions, but because she found it exceedingly difficult to maintain eye contact with anyone. Being the subject of someone else's full attention was uncomfortable enough without adding the burning pressure inherent to mutual gaze. She flicked her eyes up from the spot they'd found on the floor, and quickly examined Holly's expression before averting them once more. She certainly didn't look malicious, this pink haired oddity. If anything, she looked cherubic, childlike and innocent. That made Jackie even more uncomfortable, as it made her doubt the only rational explanation for this whole irrational exchange. It meant that Holly was either an actor of surpassing expertise, or else she really didn't have an ulterior motive to making Jackie as anxious as humanly possible. "I-I doubt I could actually be the target audience for such a show, however. I am not especially well versed on the subjects of botany or theater, and my interests in entertainment are relegated almost exclusively to the historical non-fiction."

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Words - 838
Total - 3,173

[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Wonderful plants doing wonderful things! Plants falling in love! Plants being betrayed, romance, tragedy, intrigue! Holly continued to picture her whole little video project in her head. People will love it; her views will be through the roof! If she was already that excited about the idea, how wonderful would it be for other people to watch? Everybody loved good stories, and Holly’s particular talents were plants! Combine the thing you love with what people wanted to watch! Oh, Holly could almost hug her new friend for this plan! [break] [break] Looking at Jackie again, the half-smile that had formed on the pink-haired bomb disappeared again. [break] [break] Was…was she not happy with the idea?[break] [break] Wasn’t her singular focus group of a random person she just met happy? Not even a little bit? Are you that sick, library girl? Holly started to look concerned at Jackie for a moment, before disregarding the thought. Hmm, it wasn’t sickness… was it?[break] [break] Holly just blinked her eyes a few times as she heard Jackie answer her question. Dramatic theatre. Sadness or angriness. Alright, Holly can work with that. A more precise and detailed storyline now formed in her head. It was a tragedy A plant family who had been very happy, but after one of the seedlings was uprooted and replanted things hadn’t been the same. The little seedling was now among strange plants. They didn’t like the strange little plant at first, and this made the seedling sad. And Angry. And upset. But you cannot show that you are sad or angry, because else the scary caterpillars will come and eat you. Caterpillars can smell fear. And sadness, and if you are upset. Also, other plants don’t like it when you look sad, because else you are going to get them eaten! So, the plant just made sure not to show anything. Even if it is hard, the little seedling just doesn’t show it.[break] [break] The seedling tries to fit in with all the other strange plant, but she doesn’t know exactly how. So, she tries different things. Try to start a plant club, try to find a plant love, try to talk every other plant they can just for the hope of trying to find the few other plants who want to talk back to you and not hate you. The plant even tries to start a video channel in the hopes that people leave those nice comments below the video that other plants are getting. [break] [break] Instead of asking for pictures of her roots.[break] [break] …[break] [break] Alrighty, even Holly was starting to get that she just recounted her own sorry state to a plant-based storyline. Not even very good. Ugh, why was talking to this girl getting Holly in a downer mood that much? No! Holly wasn’t going to become sad inside! She already felt sad at night! She was going to feel happy during the day! You deserve those subscribers, Holly! You want them to ‘Smash that like Button’! You want to establish that network for your later career! And you want to advertise yourself! You are a wonderful person just the way you are! You are going to make the plant video, and people are going to love it![break] [break] And then Jackie said that she was going to hate the video regardless of what Holly would do with it.[break] [break] Because she is a book nerd who likes books.[break] [break] Holly skewed her head for a moment, trying to look at Jackie again with a certain new perspective. Almost all of her prior enthusiasm had died out rather quick as the person who helped her get to the wonderful idea was already saying that it wasn’t going to be good. It is hard to be excited about anything if the person who you are explaining the idea to would rather wish you weren’t there. Holly started to realize it now. It wasn’t that this person was sick, she just didn’t want to be anywhere near Holly. It honestly made more sense. Almost nobody wanted to be near her. Sure, Jackie didn’t say it like that…but it felt like that. Jackie’s body language said way more than her words did. Holly just knew it. [break] [break] The idea wasn’t good. [break] [break] Plants are stupid and shouldn’t talk. [break] [break] I am not even going to tell my name to you. [break] [break] I won’t even look at you. [break] [break] You stink! [break] [break] I don’t even want to be near you! [break] [break] Ugh! Holly took a few steps back, giving Jackie at least a bit more space and breathing room. Looking around for a few moments, the girl was quite certain that Jackie and she were still the only two people in this part of the library. Holly’s expression didn’t betray any shift in tone as she simply blurted out the following line:[break] [break] “Should I just give up trying to make friends with people?”[break] [break] Her hands took hold of the frills of her outfit for a few moments as her eyes darted away to the ground. The girl looked a bit defeated standing just there. How many people who she actually tried to be friends with were a success? Holly had tried to make everyone like her! The people who actually did she could count on a single hand. Like a misbehaving child who just said a curse word she stood there for a few seconds before she continued. [break] [break] “Normally, if people look like they rather die than talk or look at me, it means that I did something wrong. Almost always they just walk away or tell me to buzz off, but you haven’t done either. You had the decency to at least respond to my questions, so I want to ask you another one. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I won’t hold it against you.” [break] [break] Holly took a sharp breath for a moment, before looking up to look at Jackie again. Seeming to have placed a lot of trust into another person who she had just met, she just continued to talk to Jackie. [break] [break] “I am the problem, aren’t I?”

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 1007, Thread Total: 3741	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

Jackie risked a few more glances up at Holly's face, desperate to glean some hint as to the ulterior motive which lay behind her inexplicable behavior. Each time she did though, she saw that more and more of the strange girl's good humor had melted off of her face. Left behind was not some malicious snarl, nor condescending grin, nor threatening grimace. Rather, the expression was one of confusion and something bordering on helplessness. It was an extremely vulnerable look, and exactly the sort that most people would not adopt except when they were in the company of someone they trusted. Jackie could not have felt more removed from someone whom Holly could trust, and she felt suddenly quite embarrassed on the redhead's behalf. "Should I just give up trying to make friends with people?" Holly asked. Not vindictively. There was no acid, nor bite in her tone. In fact, given the subject of the question, the girl's tone was inexplicably neutral; Inquiring, just as though she expected Jackie to provide an answer. Jackie could not. Though her mouth fell open, no sound came out. What was there to say to a question like that? But Holly did not wait for an answer. Instead, she made it clear that Jackie, as always, had done a very poor job in hiding her emotions. That she had noticed the taller girl's aversion and discomfort, and had made the only reasonable conclusion one could make when treated in such a manner. Jackie's embarrassment redoubled, as she felt ashamed for herself as well as Holly. Holly because, for however refreshing it was to hear someone speak about their feelings so openly, doing so to a complete stranger was as unbecoming as it was uncomfortable. And for herself, because she thought she might have been wrong. The paradigm had shifted, her context for this whole interaction was changed. She now wondered if she hadn't made a grievous mistake, if she'd not judged Holly and her antics both too quickly and far too harshly. If this was an act, meant to somehow ensnare Jackie, then it was artful in its execution. Jackie no longer thought it was, though. As someone who had so much difficulty making herself understood, who often saw her words and mannerisms misconstrued because they did not suit the expected archetypes for social integration, Holly's confusion and low key anguish were all too familiar. With a weight sinking into her stomach, Jackie realized she was guilty of the very thing she'd so often resented and criticized in others; She'd judged Holly harshly for no better reason than she acted in a way Jackie was unused to. Jackie lifted her eyes, and met Holly's her gaze similarly lifted from the floor between them. She didn't think it was an act, could not believe it was an act. The hurt was too genuine, too familiar, to be fake. It was an expression Jackie had often worn herself, when she had been much younger, before she'd decided to eschew social interaction as much as possible. It was the expression of someone who did not fit, who did not behave properly, and had only just begun to realize it. It was the expression of someone who knew what they were doing, how they were acting, was considered wrong, but lacked the context to understand why. A person with some fundamental flaw in their personality, some seminal difference in the way they thought, which made others a mystery to them. It hurt Jackie to see that look, and knowing she was the one responsible for it. If Jackie had entertained any doubts, they were laid to rest a moment later as Holly asked a question she'd so often asked herself. "I am the problem, aren’t I?" It froze Jackie's thoughts, numbing her mind, to hear that question from someone else and understand all the baggage that came with it. She felt echoes of it herself, a sympathetic resonance. Like she was a mote of Dust and Holly had just tapped her with her aura. She knew what it was like to be different. To be strange, and not understand how or why. To be incapable of the things which came so easy to others, to be so unable to function that even her best intentions were met with revulsion or disdain. She wanted to deny it. To tell Holly she wasn't the problem, and reassure her that it was alright, that her uniqueness should be embraced and celebrated. Yet how could she be such a hypocrite? She, who had spent so much of her life hating the way she was, wishing she could be different; So different, that she might be the same as everyone else. How could she tell Holly anything other than the truth? That they were the problem, too different to fit in. That they made others uncomfortable. That they were a nuisance, or an irritation. That they were a burden. That they were broken people, and society had no place for them. Jackie said nothing. She wanted to say it. Wanted to tell Holly all she needed to know, so that she could make peace with her strangeness, and so that she could stop trying, and stop being hurt. She wanted to tell Holly everything it had taken her years to learn, and save her from the embarrassment and anguish, the frustration and torment, of trying to make herself fit in. That she should leave society to other people, who weren't flawed the way they were, because that would be less painful for everyone involved. She wanted to say it, but Jackie was nothing if not a coward. A coward who, even knowing the truth, could not bring herself to inflict it upon someone else. A coward who, despite knowing the rot needed to be burnt out, would instead leave it to fester. It would hurt Holly, to not have her suspicion confirmed, to have to learn the truth of her presumption for herself, and more than it would have hurt Jackie to relieve her of any lingering doubts, but Jackie abhorred pain and discomfort almost as much as she abhorred the inexplicable behavior of others. Instead, Jackie made matters worse. She tried to meet Holly halfway. "I'm the problem too." Her face collapsed into a grimace, and her eyes flicked up to Holly's before just as quickly fleeing back to the safety of the floor. Maintaining eye contact was made harder than usual by the painfully stricken expression on the other girl's face. "You made me uncomfortable with the way you approached me before, but that is hardly unexpected; Most things make me uncomfortable. I find interacting with other people very challenging, and there are a number of things that make such interactions especially discomforting." Jackie swallowed, "Such as when people are standing too near to me, or when they disrupt my routines, or behave in a manner I find unexpected or inexplicable. None of which you could have been known to you before you approached. So, if blame is to be assigned, it is as much my fault as it is yours." Jackie forced a weak smile, her weakest yet, and worriedly glanced up to read Holly's expression. "Please try not to take my strange behavior personally. I am just as troublesome with everyone else, I can assure you..."

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Words - 1,206
Total - 4,379

[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Holly didn’t have the inkling of an idea how Jackie would respond. When Holly had just arrived in Mistral, she had spoken almost completely straight about her feelings and thoughts. It was honestly how she was raised, though Holly honestly only started to understand why he did it after she came to Haven. Funny how the worst place Holly has ever been brought her knowledge she didn’t even knew at home.[break] [break] Hamlin called it ‘Sharing’ with a capital S. It was honestly something that her father and drilled in Holly and her sisters, though he said that it was a game. You do not bottle up emotions, you do not hide your feelings, you talk about everything that upsets you, everything that makes you happy, anything that might be either a potential detriment or boon for this family. Either dad or mom would be there, and till would have something to eat and they would make it as fun as you can make a heart to heart talk like that. If Clair played a prank on Alba, they were placed down on the floor together and then they needed to talk about it all. If Delwyn didn’t do her choirs for the day and pawned it off to Holly, they needed to talk about it. Holly liked the game at first when she was little. She could talk about everything with her sisters. She didn’t like it that much later on. Delwyn didn’t wanted to play anymore when she got boyfriends, and Clair just didn’t want to sit down anymore and ‘talk like they were children’. Most of the time only Holly wanted to talk about it, but mom and dad were almost always too busy if it was just she who wanted to talk. Most other people lived too far away, so that wasn’t an option most of the time. [break] [break] Clever girl that she was, Holly just tried to talk things out for herself. Alone. Trying to get a sense for things just by talking about it out loud. She did it against the poster in the sleeping room (It was a vacuum cleaner advertisement), to the trees that she always climbed, or just to the clouds above. Mom said that it wasn’t good to talk too much to yourself, but what else could she do? Not talk about everything she felt even though she had been learned to do just that? [break] [break] With the knowledge that she has now, Holly suspected that her father just tried to find a good way for their family to protect themselves against the Grimm. Not trying to bottle everything up till it explodes, but deal with it by talking regularly about your mental state. Smart enough idea in concept, but it didn’t help Holly much in Mistral. Having all these new people around you was overwhelming. When you are the girl who addresses every person in the street and tries to talk with them about how Holly loved their bunny ears, or how she thought that they shouldn’t be that rude to their children, she didn’t exactly gained pats on the back for effort. You get insults hurled at your face, you get spat at by strangers, you get just plainly ignored as people passed you by. Some people smiled; some people gave a nice answer back when you were nice to them. Most people weren’t. Holly noticed. Holly adapted. And Holly felt miserable ever since. [break] [break] The people who she met at the academy that seemed to genuinely care about her had given the girl at least some faith. Not enough hope to stay in Mistral. Even Ryan, the person who she cared the most for as he jump-started her believe that not everyone saw her as rose-coloured garbage, would most likely never be able to keep Holly in this cold and horrible place. He did give her enough hope to get through her training and get back. Help her family with trying to get a Dust mine going. Till that happens? You just try to get by. You try to do everything right as you have been taught to do by trial and error. You try to stay active with projects and distractions just to keep your mind of things you don’t want to think about, you try to get enough people to give a shit about you in whatever way you think possible, you try to be the kind of person who people like to be friends with, just in the faint hope that they do. You look at other people who seem popular, and you just try to act like them. People you see online. People you see in magazines. They are always smiling. They are always happy. Holly wants that. Even if she cannot make herself to smile often, she wants that. She will be whatever you want her to be. She will change her dress, she will learn new words and things, she will try to reach out. She will network, she will set up clubs. Even if she didn’t know that she was doing all of those actions for that reason at the time, at this point in her life she had become aware of her past actions. Of how she tried to fill a hole. Again, Ryan had ensured that she became all too well known with the fact that she had all of this missing. Like shining a light at the edge of a tunnel, making you finally see how long and scary that dark pit actually is.[break] [break] With all of this as Holly’s mind-set, she had thought that Jackie would just ignore her. Maybe walk away with some excuse? She didn’t expect to get the response that she did. In more ways than one. Holly’s large magenta eyes just looked at Jackie as she spoke, her gaze unmoving as she was always there to look back when Jackie made contact again. The rest of her face looked unmoved for now, like she was processing this new information while trying to make sense of it all.[break] [break] She didn’t expected Jackie to tell her that she regarded the two of them as equals. Or well…admitting that neither of them was perfect. Holly never saw herself as perfect, not really. The again, she never claimed that she was. She always just tried to be the best person she could be while being comfortable in doing so. In this spirit of self-improvement whenever possible, Holly did the following: [break] [break] The girl took a few steps back while still facing forward towards Jackie. Looking at the floor now for a moment, she tried to judge if this was enough distance? Hmm, maybe another half step backwards? Holly made sure that Jackie had her space. Looking around for a few moments to see if nobody else was there, she began anew. With a very respectable tone, volume, and diction, she started to talk to Jackie. [break] [break] “Hello there! I am Holly Hock, and I…”[break] [break] Holly stopped mid-sentence. You need to do better! [break] [break] “I am Holly and we have a few classes together. I believe. I was here in the library, but I got lonely. I don’t like being lonely. It makes me miss home.” [break] [break] Holly stopped again for a few moments, as she seemed to almost give up on the attempt of a proper and non-threatening introduction. The girl breathed in and out for a moment, before she found the strength to continue again. “My home is far from here, and I haven’t heard much from my family since I came here. So, when I saw you, I thought that I would walk over and introduce myself. Have a chat. If you are not terribly busy, do you think that you could spend some time with me so that we…can get to know each other a bit better?” [break] [break] Not knowing too well what to say after this, Holly just began to play with the frills of her outfit again with her hands. What Holly had just said obviously felt forced. As if she had tried to talk and act in a way that she thought wouldn't upset anyone. She could adapt. She could change. She wanted to change, if it meant a friend. She ruined any chance she had to become Nasrin's friend because Holly didn't change to suit to be someone that she would like. She just tried to act weird, try to act how she really was. Nasrin didn't liked that person. It was foolish and dumb of Holly to have not seen that earlier. Almost nobody likes who you really are, so you just become a person who they might like. Holly should just have said that Nasrin's art was nice and that her own plants were stupid. She just needed to do what she had said and cut down her own plants or spray painted them or whatever thing Nasrin wanted to do. She shouldn't have said those things, about Nasrin being an orphan and didn't had the love that Holly grew up with, even if Holly thought all of that was true and wanted to help Nasrin by sharing how she felt. Nasrin didn't cared for all that, and now people got hurt because of it. Kishka got hurt because of that, didn't she? Holly's pride isn't worth all that. [break] [break] Holly didn’t actually avert her gaze from Jackie, but she did seem to at least not be staring as intently as before. Her face was still not too emotive though. The thought still crept in her mind that she just screwed up this conversation a second time. By not directly addressing something that was clearly hard for Jackie, Holly had tried to make things as easy for the other girl as she thought she was able to do. Holly had tried to do things better this time, but what if she had already ruined everything? Then she had not only made her own day sad, but also ruined this other person’s otherwise regular afternoon being strange in the library. [break] [break]

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 1667, Thread Total: 5408	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

As inappropriate as it was for Holly to be as forthcoming as she was being, Jackie found it quite refreshing to have someone express their motivations in so straight forward a fashion. What was more, Jackie actually believed the smaller girl. Not merely what she said about her home, or what she wanted from Jackie, but all of it. The affectation of oddness, the inexplicable behavior, both born from this desire to connect to someone else. And there was also the fact that nobody had ever asked to spend time with her. Even Nasrin, and Robin before her, only put up with Jackie. To them, she was an added annoyance, a necessary obstacle between them and the relationship they actually cared about. That was probably what sealed things for Jackie. Even if she found Holly odd and a bit discomforting, and even if she didn't especially enjoy social interaction, not even with the people she knew and liked, she was willing to put up with it just so Holly could feel less alone. So that, for once, she could, herself, be wanted and appreciated. It wasn't the most altruistic motivation, all things considered. "I appreciate your candor, Holly." Jackie told the smaller girl. She performed an curtsy, made awkward by the books and tome in her arms, and smiled her most friendly smile, which looked only slight nervous, "My name is Jacqueline, but you can call me Jackie if you like." As far as introductions went, it could have been a lot less awkward. Considering that Jackie was involved however, it also could have been a lot more awkward, so she was willing to count it a success. "If you give me a moment," the tall mantlian continued, "We can retire to the tables and, thereupon, converse. I just need to find a certain book first." Turning back to the stacks, Jackie replaced the heavy encyclopedia she'd been holding on the shelf, then searched carefully along the exposed spines for the numeric identification she was after. Her fingers found the book she was after, tapping it once on its decimal markings, before she tugged it off the shelf. Relief flooded Jackie as she concluded the task, and hugged the large book to her chest in quiet triumph. With the task complete, she was able to fully reorient her attention to Holly and her expressed desire to talk and get to know one another, free from distraction. "I am also very far from home." Jackie said as she lead the way to the tables she'd mentioned. There was a number of them scattered around the library, but Jackie aimed for the very same table she'd but recently risen. This, despite the fact that it wasn't even the one nearest to them. "My family are all in Solitas." She explain, feeling a little awkward about saying something so plainly, and not really sure where to go from there. Did she admit to Holly that she also felt lonely? With how easily the pink haired girl had said it, it struck Jackie how incredibly difficult she found it to make the same admission. It akin to confessing something distasteful about herself, like some horrible political view or carnal proclivity. Jackie wasn't sure why that should be and yet, despite being unable to rationalize her reluctance, found herself unable to boldly admit her loneliness like Holly had. Sitting down, after crossing the long way around the table to take the same seat she'd vacated a few minutes prior, Jackie laid the book and her tome down on the table before her. She risked a brief glance up at Holly, and only then realized hers was the only chair at this particular table. Jackie stood up immediately, "Oh, uh, oh dear..." Casting about, her eyes alighted on another chair, not dissimilar from her own, and she promptly grabbed it and pulled it towards the other side of her table. A bit too insistently, as it turned out, causing a dull clangor in the process. Jackie winced at the disruption of the library's quiet atmosphere by her clumsiness, and shifted the seat into place. "Here." She said, quite unnecessarily, before retreating back to her own side of the table. There was something about making a loud noise in a quiet space which thoroughly unnerved Jackie. Perhaps it was merely the disruption it caused, or the incongruity, but it left her feeling unnerved as she retook her seat. Not a good place to be when she was about to engage in an activity already likely to unnerve her. Smoothing down her blouse as best she could, Jackie then carefully arranged book and tome before her, so that the two were in line with one another and equidistant from either edge of the table. It made her feel a little better, but not much, and certainly not enough for her to escape the sense of rolling down a hill without any brakes. "So, um," Jackie ventured, without looking up from her hands, which were laid flat on the table before her, "What did you want to talk about?"

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[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] What does ‘candor’ mean? Holly didn’t actually know that word, but she didn’t want to ask what it was. She didn’t want to screw this up. It was most likely something positive, because else she wouldn’t be bowing afterwards. It made sense. She would look it up later though, and maybe use it in her word mix as well. You seem to be having some good candor, Kishka! Keep up the candor, Jack! Perfect. [break] [break] So, here name was Jacqueline, or Jackie…Well, it doesn’t matter that much what version Holly liked to call her. It mattered what Jackie liked to be called! A point that needed to be addressed, but it was rude to interrupt! She will bring it up later! For now, Holly just remained quiet, only nodding to whatever Jacqueline was saying. They seemed to be on a completely different level now, and Holly liked it way more. She wasn’t weirded out! Holly had talked, now it was time that Jacqueline talked! She seemed to talk so much easier now, so Holly didn’t want to interrupt her. [break] [break] To that end, Holly waited quietly as Jacqueline sorted out what book she needed from the library. Another reason why her scroll was better than this collection of paper. She could just type in whatever she needed to find; it was delivered right to her screen! Still, Jacqueline liked books, so Holly would remain quiet! Holly merely nodded as her new friend got her book, though she found it rather cute when she hugged the book.[break] [break] So, it wasn’t just Holly who hugged inanimate objects! Would she speak to them as well? [break] [break] When Holly was led towards the tables, she did break her little spell of silence. It was when Jacqueline addressed that her family was far away in Solitas. Another continent. The cold one. Holly honestly couldn’t imagine anyone who would want to live there on their own free will. A place that was always cast in ice and snow. What a horrid place to be, always struggling to huddle around the little warmth there was. Holly had heard stories about there being public systems to keep places warm, but how could that ever keep an entire city warm? It couldn’t! [break] [break] Still, it wasn’t the continent that made Holly verbally respond. It was the fact that Jacqueline hadn’t been with her family as well. Atlas was a region you could contact though, so hopefully Jacqueline could call them, right? That must be nice. Holly thought that Jacqueline was a bit taken aback after she said those words though, so Holly simply reinforced what she already thought. “Well, I hope that you get to talk to your parents though! A call is always nice!” She sounded even somewhat chipper as she spoke. It didn’t even occur to the girl that it could be possible that Jacqueline didn’t wanted to talk to her parents, or if she even had parents to call. She just assumed that it was the case.[break] [break] Arriving at the table, Holly didn’t seem that much troubled to be standing as Jacqueline sat down. She was…she was just happy to be included. When Jacqueline went to get a chair for Holly from all the way from another table, Holly commented on this. “Oh no, I do not mind to…you already got the chair…Thanks!” Well, Holly had a chair now. Go equality![break] [break] Now being upgraded to chair-status on Jacqueline friendship gauge, Holly remained silent for a slight moment more. Hard as it was, Holly allowed Jacqueline to set the pace. If she needed more time before she wanted to talk, that was fine. If she wanted to read that important book of hers, that was fine. [break] [break] Holly was glad that Jacqueline asked what Holly wanted to talk about.[break] [break] The pinkette’s eyes turned big for a moment, as if she wanted to bombard the other person with a million topics. With the willpower of a titan of old, Holly stopped herself the moment she wanted to open her mouth. Here eyes turned ‘normal’ size again, and Holly thought for a moment. [break] [break] Three topics seemed fair.[break] [break] Holly placed her hands on the table, trying to mimic the movements of Jacqueline subconsciously. Her voice also sounded more…well…dignified. Most likely unaware of her own actions, Holly was doing some fine mirroring. Not only with her body language and her words, but also with the whole structure of how she answered. Taking it as some form of essay she needed to write, Holly began in a manner that the book-loving Jacqueline would most likely enjoy.[break] [break] “I have, three things that I wanted to discuss with you, though there could be time for other topics.”[break] [break] Introduction to the main body down.[break] [break] “First, I would like to ask if you prefer Jacqueline or Jackie. I have no problem with either, though I do believe that it is up to the person to decide how they want to be addressed as a matter of…fairness."[break] [break] First friendship-argument made.[break] [break] “Second, I would like to ask what kind of book you are reading. While I believe that the topic would most likely… allude… me, I do wish to learn what your interests are." [break] [break] Second friendship-argument done. [break] [break] Holly took a little more time after Jackie’s response, before she would begin with the closing argument of the friendship thesis. It was the hardest one to make, but Holly wanted to ask it.[break] [break] “Lastly…do you ever feel like you do not belong here? That…that you are not even fit to be a huntress? I mean, I do want to help people, I guess…I…I am just not fond of fighting. It scares me, and I do not want to die.”[break] [break] The façade of trying to act as a composed and well-ordered adult didn’t last long. While Holly had tried to keep anything overtly personal out of this chat, in the end she couldn’t keep herself from speaking those words. It was by far not the worst option that Holly had on her list of a thousand other things that she wanted to talk about. A choice set of other conversation topics just to name a few:[break] [break] ‘Do you think that my family hates me for sending me to Haven?’[break] [break] ‘Do you think that my family is dead, and I just do not know it yet?’[break] [break] ‘Do you cry yourself to sleep as well at night?’[break] [break] ‘My boyfriend never told me that he loved me. Should I be concerned?’[break] [break] ‘I have a crippling fear of Rose. I freeze whenever I see her or hear her voice. Should I go to a teacher?’[break] [break] ‘I think that Nasrin wants me to die. I fear that she might kill me in my sleep one day. Should I lock my door?’[break] [break] ‘I have read that I am malnourished, and that I maybe will never be able to bear healthy children. Should I even wish to be a mother some day?’[break] [break] All in all, asking if Jackie felt like this was the place she really wanted to be was not the worst option. It was something that they could actually talk about. Holly looked exactingly over towards Jackie, her body language slumping down slightly. Hopefully Jacqueline would like the question. Hopefully Jacqueline won’t be mad about the question. Or cry about the question. Holly just wanted to talk about these things. She wanted to talk to someone who seemed book-smart like she seemed to be. Kishka was smart as well, but not booksmart. She was streetsmart. Holly never saw her loose sight of the roads or the best way to walk them. Still, hopefully Jacqueline was another type of smart, and maybe she would get another kind of perspective.[break] [break] A perspective filled with candor!

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 1274, Thread Total: 6682	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Jackie Bariole]

Much to Jackie's surprise, it seemed Holly had an answer to her question, which came as a great relief to the mantlian. She abhorred most conversation for the simple inconvenience and travails of the act, but she especially abhorred what was colloquial referred to as 'small' talk. It was a name which had always bothered Jackie because there seldom seemed anything small about it at all. It was all meandering and pointless exchanges, often going on long after all participants had lost interest in the things being discussed, should they have ever had any interest to begin with. Instead, Holly actually had things she wanted to talk about. Actual topics of conversation, enumerated and demarcated, to which Jackie could construct, or attempt to construct, some suitable reply. She considered expressing how grateful she was to the red haired woman, but decided it would be an unnatural and unnecessary addition at best, and a tangent requiring reply at worst. Best to stick to the declared topics, rather than stray from the beaten path into the wilderness of unguided conversation. And they were certainly topics demanding some thought from Jackie, a fact for which she was definitely less grateful. Perhaps not the first one, for it at least had a simple answer. Jackie would prefer Holly called her 'Jackie' to her proper name of 'Jacqueline'. Why she preferred the contraction was less easily explained however. "I prefer it if my friends call me Jackie." She said softly. Having already offered to let Holly call her Jackie, she hoped the other trainee could connect the dots herself. "As for this book..." Another simple answer with a deceptive depth of complexity hidden underneath. Jackie turned the volume up so that Holly could read the front if she so chose. It's unremarkable title, 'A treatise on the disposition of resonant particles', identified it as a scientific text to a layperson, and a text specifically relating to Dust to anyone who'd taken an alchemistry. Jackie doubted Holly was the kind of person to sit still long enough to discuss Schelle Models though, so she elaborated. "I read an article in 'Philosophical Transactions of the Solitucean Society' which talked about specific resonant qualities present in Fire Dust under certain conditions." She said, trying to be both succinct and complete in her explanation. The Journal article had also talked about certain reactive qualities during an aura resonance event where the actually point of effect changed position throughout the reaction. It was this extremely unusual quality which had brought the treatise to her attention. She rather suspected that such an indepth explanation would fly right over Holly's head, however, and, in fact, doubted that the red head knew the difference between point of reaction and point of effect. "Supposedly, this treatise collates the observations made over many years and many experiments, to explain some very atypical behavior in all different kinds of Dust," Jackie lowered the book back down to the table, then turned it would to examine it's weathered face, "I personally suspect Resonant Particle Theory is a misunderstanding of a much more basic property of Dust resonance, and would like to replicate some older experiments to test this conclusion." After all, if Resonant Particle Theory were correct, mixture 8 would have been. She'd checked all her conclusions and all her math, and they were both sound as could be expected outside of a double blind study. "Not that I expect Resonant Particle Theory to go the way of Aetheric Drift or Conventional Current Flow, but I would like to eliminate it as a possibility. It's far more likely my mistakes lie in bad algebra or a more fundamentally fallacious logic on my part..." Jackie blinked, realizing she'd said a great deal more than what Holly had asked for. Her cheeks tinted red, the mantlian ran her fingers across the old books aged face and considered the red head's final, most difficult question. A question which, up until that moment, Jackie had been trying not to think too hard about. She was, of course, capable of entertaining two parallel lines of thought, but it was the content of such consideration rather than the challenge of it which had forestalled her. Thinking about it now, she realized fully that it was the sort of question she'd usually avoid answering. It was far too personal and probative to be dropped into any kind of a casual conversation, and Jackie could feel the mood of their interlocution warping around the mere consideration of answering it. She continued to toy with the book's cover, tracing the many signs of wear across its face, and felt her own habitual quietness assert itself. She didn't want to answer. She didn't trust Holly enough to answer. She didn't trust anyone enough to answer a question such as that, no matter how self evident the answer was. What kept Jackie from shutting out any thought of answering altogether was the fact that Holly, demonstrably, was not like other people. Holly, in fact, had far more in common with Jackie than she thought she'd ever seen in another person. She direct and forthright, with an apparent need to express herself and an apparent lack of the must fundamental social awareness. In a way, Holly was Jackie, when Jackie hadn't learned how much being could hurt. From the way she'd talked when she finally let her guard down, Jackie guessed she was starting to learn that lesson now though. She probably came from a place which had celebrated or, at the very least, enabled her eccentricity. Now that she was away from that place, and surrounded by people who did not have the prior knowledge necessary to empathize with her, she was realizing that reality and society would not conform to suit her oddity. She'd been safe to say what she thought and now, with that safety taken away, she was trying to adapt. And, from the inexplicable manner of her initial approach, she was struggling with that adaptation. Jackie sensed that, if she were honest with Holly, that Holly might actually understand. She sensed this and, simultaneously, knew how much power she would be giving the red head with an honest answer. Power over Jackie. "I have never felt like I belonged anywhere." She said finally. It was an honest answer, and a safe one. Admitting she was different and felt different to someone so demonstrably different as Holly herself could not have been much safer. But she knew that wasn't what Holly had meant, and knew she had sidestepped the greater part of her question. Had Holly felt like she 'belonged' where she came from? Was Haven her first experience with being an outcast? If so, Jackie felt so incredibly sorry for her. Bad enough to find she didn't fit it, but how much worse must it feel when she so freshly remembered what belonging had felt like. How homesick had it made her? How did Jackie help her? Did she minimize Holly's pain, assure her that everyone felt that way, or did she confront the fact that it might be an experience unique to Holly? Because that was what Holly was really asking. On top of wanting validation that she'd made the right decision in coming to Haven and becoming a huntress, she wanted to know that someone else felt as strange and out of place as she did. And Jackie did. She knew exactly how Holly felt, or she knew something so close to it as to be functionally identical. She wondered what Nasrin would have said to the girl; She'd been very patient with Jackie, after all. Surely she'd have some wisdom to share, some worldly anecdote to contextualize Holly's pain. Jackie had no such anecdote. She wasn't worldly. She liked to think she was compassionate, but not to the point of endangering herself for others. She wasn't even especially patient. Lifting her eyes, Jackie momentarily examined Holly's face, at least until the feel of the other woman's eyes on her forced her to look away. "Ahm..." Jackie cleared her throat, and tried to mask her discomfort behind a cough. She didn't want to give Holly the wrong advice. She didn't want to say anything which would end with the red head feeling any more hurt than she already felt. "I think it's a rational thing to fear, dying. I also know the sort of person who enjoys fighting, and I don't think you should aspire to be like them." Jackie lowered her eyes in further, so that she could only see the book, her tome, and her hands before her. She felt awkward, uncomfortable, and utterly ill-suited to what she was presently being required to do. Who was she to dispense advice or worldly wisdom? She, who had made every bad decision conceivable since she'd had any autonomy over her own choices. She, who had taken the best thing in her life and broken it in three places. She, who had destroyed so much of what should have been good, because she was too cowardly and too crazy to control herself. It was farcical in the extreme to have someone as innocent and well meaning as Holly asking for her opinion on anything. "My reasons for being here are less altruistic than yours, I think. Wanting to help people is the right reason to become a huntress, but it's so seldom the reason people actually have." Jackie thought, inexplicably, of how easy it might be to break the table between them, and winced. She managed to keep the reflexive mutter that always came with such intrusions to herself though. "A good reason is not enough though. There are other ways you could help people which would not be as inherently dangerous as being a huntress. They are less glamorous and you are not as well compensated in most cases, but most do not come with constant threat of violence and death. I do not know why you pursued Academy training instead of such alternatives." Jackie trailed off. Everything about this felt wrong to her. She couldn't recall speaking so diurectly to anyone but Nasrin in the last few months. She shouldn't be trying to advise Holly. Not when she was demonstrably terrible at managing her own shambles of a life. Yet she didn't want Holly to get hurt. Her own education about society and the cost of not fitting in, though made distant by the intervening years, had been sufficiently painful for her to not want it visited upon anyone else. "I do not feel like I belong here. I am a terrible fighter and an even worse person. I do not deserve to be a huntress but, due to a quirk of genetics, I have the capacity to become licensed. That same quirk renders alternative options exceedingly scarce. This is my only way to help people more than I hurt them. I wish I could be like you, doing this just because it's the right thing to do. If that's why you're here, then you deserve to be a huntress, but deserving it doesn't make you obligated to do it. There will be other trainees like me, who have no other choice but to fight the Grimm for our place in society. You don't have to. You can do something else." Jackie looked up again, then hastily back down, too quick to even get a look at Holly's expression. She shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. She didn't know if this was the right thing to say, all that she'd just said, but she thought it was at least correct. "I'm sorry, none of that is particularly helpful, I know. I'm really not very good at answering questions like that, and I don't think I am the right person to tell you what you should do, if that is what you were asking. I..." Jackie shook her head, "I am going to be quiet now. I think I've said too much already. Sorry..."

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[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] Jackie, all right. Holly could do Jackie. She could do both name, but now she knew what she liked it was great to use what Jackie wanted to be called. Holly didn’t honestly like it when she was given nicknames. She had hated people calling her names to put her down in some way. Like Dirt-Girl, or even when people called her Pinkette. It felt…dehumanizing? Is that the word? She had a name that she liked. It sounded nice. Holly Hock. It sounded sweet. Easy to pronounce. Children liked to pronounce it. It was the kind of name that you placed in a storyteller book. The name you would give a sweet little pony who just wanted to find their place in this world, and eat hay and carrots. [break] [break] Even when Kishka used a name like Poison Ivy, it was honestly only tolerated. Because she liked Kishka, and because she was strong. She honestly should bring this up at one point, but this was Jackie’s moment.[break] [break] Holly didn’t actually understand everything that Jackie was telling about this book, and the girl would have a somewhat dumbfounded expression on her face. She didn’t know half the words that came out of Jackie’s mouth, and looking at the front of the book didn’t exactly help. It didn’t have any pictures that could have hinted at the meaning of the book. [break] [break] …People give pictures a bad reputation.[break] [break] Sure, Holly could read words, she wasn’t an illiterate hick. Sure, she didn’t understand the fancy words that someone way smarter than her thought of as being a good way to express ideas, things, and emotional states and everything else in existence. There was a certain level that Holly could follow, and a certain level where the girl mind just draws a blank. Holly could understand Jackie’s explanation enough that the book was about Dust, and that sometimes Dust does crazy things under certain conditions, and that Jackie likes to test if this was the case.[break] [break] She wouldn’t get that same idea at all just from the title of that book.[break] [break] But if you placed a picture on it with dust crystals?[break] [break] Holly would at least get that it was a book that discussed Dust.[break] [break] Was it so hard not to be pretentious with your writing and give a girl at least the basic pointers about the contents of your book from just looking at the cover? Ugh, writers. [break] [break] Still, Holly still looked awfully oblivious and a bit uncomfortable all till Jackie answered the final question, and she said that she didn’t feel like she belong anywhere. Holly began to sit on the edge of her seat now, looking with interested eyes at Jackie. Holly would not dare to make a sound as Jackie would have continued to speak. Anybody who had ever interacted with more than 30 people in their life could see that this all wasn’t easy for Jackie. She had trouble with speaking the words. Not as much trouble as she had before, but this didn’t seem….natural, to her? All the more reason to give Jackie her space and let her talk about something that seemed to be somewhat self-reflective to her. While Holly wanted this smart person to help, she was also very willing to help Jackie in return. While Holly wasn’t as smart, or learned, or academic, or…nerdy… she did know emotions! She did know how to empathise with people! All that Holly would do was give some slight nods to indicate that she was still listening, and one or two quiet ‘Hmm’ in between Jackie’s sentences. [break] [break] Holly waited quietly till Jackie excused herself from talking, the only movement that she made during the long reflection were her legs that dangled of the side of the chair, kicking slightly in the air back and forth. When there had been a pleasantly awkward silence between Jackie and Holly, the pink-haired girl began with sharing her point of view. Structuring her reply in an orderly fashion, she began to address the first thing that was said. [break] [break] “I 'belonged' back on my Island. I was happy, I believe. I knew my place, I knew my neighbours, I knew my family. I left because they asked of me to leave, to become stronger…so that I could protect them in the days to come. I am way stronger than my sisters, even though I do not like fighting.”[break] [break] Holly’s tone of voice was like she was just telling a friend a pleasant story about her day, though it had been a good day. Not a perfect day, some bad things happen even on a good day. You step in a puddle, your favourite magazine was sold out, and your favourite series didn’t have a great episode. But you also had a great breakfast, found something else that was a fun read, and you at least had a new episode of your favourite show and you could look forward to the next one. Holly liked talking about her family, and her home, even if it made her sad in private. She missed it, she missed it so damn much…but she also loved it? She could at the moment talk about her home like it was a pleasant memory, without having to feel overly sad about it in the moment. [break] [break] The girl wanted to address the next topic that Jackie brought up, but before she did so the girl seemed to stop herself. Think for a moment, and address something else. The girl lowered her head slightly. Not in shame, not because she didn’t want to look at Jackie. She did so, obviously enough after she had spoken her next few words, as a sign of thanks. “Before I go on, I…I wish to thank you. For speaking… ‘candorly’… with me. I appreciate it.” It was just a small gesture, and the girl’s use of condorly instead of candidly made it obvious that the word wasn’t a part of her normal lexicon at all. Still, Holly tried and wanted to show Jackie at least that she had appreciated the effort that she had shown. [break] [break] Moving on, Holly needed a moment to decide how she was going to present the point that she wanted to make. Wiggling on her chair for a moment, Holly simply started at the logical start of most her prior conversations. She sounded a bit like she was 12 and was giving a class presentation about her favourite pet rock. Weirdly enthusiastic about a mundane subject that most people would think was weird. “So, I said that I like plants and that I wanted to make them dance… That doesn’t really… explain the full range of my semblance.” Holly thought that she had just had the best idea ever. “Wait, I can just show you!” [break] [break] Looking around this part of the library, Holly tried to look for all things plant that she could utilize to just show her semblance. Her eyes quickly enough fell on a small vase that was filled with a few blue flowers. It were… cornflowers. They look like cornflowers, blue-purplish and pretty. They were standing on each of the other study tables… almost every one except the one that Holly and Jackie were currently seated at. The girl didn’t recognize growing these flowers, so they didn’t come from the Gardenin Club. Holly raised her finger slightly, as she stood up. “Wait here, I will be right back.”[break] [break] Holly waggled over towards the other study table to steal the small vase of cornflowers from its surface. Looking a bit sheepishly around the room, nobody seemed to have noticed the flower theft. Waggling back to the table that Holly and Jackie had occupied, the pink-haired girl placed the vase in between the two of them like it was some kind of prized specimen. Like she was giving a science presentation as a 14 year old, Holly gestured over towards the plant. “My semblance allows me to do something that nature would require months to do. It is a gift that I have chosen to develop, and it is a matter that is very much dear to me. Observe!”[break] [break] Holly touched the cornflower with her fingers, ever so gently, and she allowed her aura to flow out of her body and into the plant to make it grow.[break] [break] …[break] [break] She allowed her aura to flow out of her body…[break] [break] …[break] [break] …into the plant…[break] [break] …[break] [break] TO MAKE IT GROW.[break] [break] Holly was now repeatedly poking the plant with her finger, as nothing of note seemed to happen. Holly’s face turned white for a moment, as if she had just seen a ghastly ghost. [break] [break] Did her semblance not work?[break] [break] Was she broken?[break] [break] Did Jackie curse her?[break] [break] Holly was now touching the plant with her hand, letting her fingers inspect the delicate structure of the…[break] [break] Holly froze again for a moment.[break] [break] Before she face-planted her head on the table, her hair falling over her face like curtain. Holly would remain motionless for a few second, as if she had died on the spot.[break] [break] Then, without any warning, Jackie could hear a low but pleasant laugh from under the veil of pink hair. Holly raised her head up high again, and a pleasant smile would be on her face as she seemed to have had the most hilarious inner-moment of the past few days. Wanting to let Jackie in on the joke sooner than later, Holly pointed at the cornflower as she gave the punchline to this spontaneous goof.[break] [break] “This…this is a fake plant. I think it is silk…” [break] [break] She couldn’t do anything but keep laughing for a moment. A laugh of joy. Holly looked genuinely happy as a very realistic depiction of a flower had foiled her. She had honestly not been in the library enough to have noticed that they were using fake flowers. Even if Jackie would not see the humour in this little stunt, Holly would think it is weirdly enough one of the funniest things that had happened to her in recent memory. [break] [break] After having sufficient time to recover from her mishap, Holly would continue with the mirth still hanging on her voice as she hung over the edge of the table. “If this had been a REAL plant, I could allow it to grow. My semblance allows me to manipulate plants. I can use them to fight, yes, but I also can grow food. A lot of it. I don’t know if you have heard of the Gardenin Club, but they have supplied the school with a lot of its fruit and vegetables. Not everything, but quite some. I also have been selling some of it, and growing herbs and such. It is honestly my passion. Growing stuff, I mean. It just feels right. It feels like me.”[break] [break] The girl continued, but her voice had now lost that previous spark of joy. She had returned to the more serious tone that the two had previously used to discuss the topic of their shared misery in being in this place. “My semblance, it allows me to help people in multiple ways. But the only way that I can help my family, is if I use it to become strong. That is what is keeping me here. If I was honestly out there just to help as many people as possible, I would not have stayed here. I would have left and become a farmer. I would have a big farm with so many fields that I would need a tractor just to ride from one end to the other, because else my feet would get tired from walking so far all day. I would grow so much food that we could feed half of Mistral. People that are now out there, in dangerous places to grow food…they maybe don’t even have to be there in danger…because I would be here…growing food. Everybody would have a full belly, and they can do other stuff like make paintings and pet dogs!”[break] [break] The girl actually began to sound hopeful as she shared her little fantasy with Jackie. It would honestly be a very enticing picture in Holly’s head. Just, don’t put yourself in danger. Start a farm, be actually happy in what you are doing. Make people happy by giving them food. Sure, the girl didn’t address the fact that she might cost a lot of farmers their job, as she honestly didn’t do it for the money in her fantasy. She just wanted to make the world a better place. Holly dashed her own dream.[break] [break] “But… I cannot do that, I think. My family…they are on an island that is beset by Grimm. Never being able to live comfortably. We want to make it safe; we want to use the island to build a future. Nobody ever looked at Mato-Mato and thought ‘Let’s send Huntsmen there to help out the people and make their lives better.’ The only people that ever showed interest in it either wanted to keep Faunus there as some form of prison, or the Faunus themselves, wanting to use it as an outpost for their war. Nobody ever thought to help us, as most don’t even know that we are there. I don’t even know that you could look at a map and point where Mato-Mato is, and you are way smart.”[break] [break] Holly seemed to have talked herself in some form of downer mood the longer she had continued. Her face was now more wrought with worry and doubt, and her posture slumped down and would not be ‘quirky and energetic girl who was giving presentations to her friend’. At a certain point she would not even be looking at Jackie directly, and just looking at the ceiling above as she explains that she didn’t have much choice in this matter if she didn’t want her entire family to remain in their current miserable situation. Feeling like she had been talking way too long and only about her problems, Holly looked at the girl opposite from her again. Addressing the words that Jackie had previously spoken, she commented. Honestly something rather profound for someone this sheltered. “Well, you do seem to be happy surrounded by all these books. Ever considered to like…become a teacher? Share knowledge? All our current teachers were huntsmen and huntresses, even Mrs. Long and I think that she would break a hip if she fought now. You still get to technically be a huntress, and you get to be with your books. I don’t know your semblance, but if it makes you good in a fight, you can use it to teach students to fight as well, right?” [break] [break] Holly had almost only interacted with licensed huntsmen who were also teachers, so it came quite natural to her to propose that Jackie, a girl who wanted to become a huntress but also seemed to really like nerdy stuff, could combine her two passions in this way.

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 2491, Thread Total: 9173	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 97%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

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[Jackie Bariole]

Holly's semblance, from how it was described if not how it was demonstrated, might actually have been one of the more useful she'd ever heard of. It certainly had more wide applications than her own did, that much was certain. Jackie found herself more than a little jealous of the strange, red haired trainee, but it was clear from all she'd said that no small amount of weight was resting on her narrow shoulders. The sole defender of her home... Jackie had never wanted nor been trusted with such responsibility as that; Maintaining the social contracts of day to day life was hard enough for her. And yet, here was Holly, learning to fight monsters so that she could protect a place everyone else had overlooked. It made Jackie want to see her succeed, but it also made her sad that it had even been necessary. Because Holly wasn't wrong; With a semblance like hers, she could have helped far more people if she hadn't been required to help her loved ones first. Did that make Holly selfish? "An eventual career in academia and research was actually what I had hoped for." Jackie admitted, though she rather doubted she should be trusted with the molding of young and impressionable minds. Telling others what to do and how to live would have been more than a little hypocritical of her. Toying with her tome, adjusting where it lay on the table to get it perfectly centered between either edge, she considered the logistics of a life as a teacher. She wasn't sure she had the confidence to stand before a room full of students and tell them what they needed to know. Could she even be a teacher when she found it next to impossible to maintain eye contact or get near to other people? And what about her other issues? What about the biggest issue? How would her big sister take to a professorial career? Jackie winced at the thought, not needing to spend all that much time wondering over it. Heidi was about as well suited to teaching as a vial of fire dust was to gardening. Extremely narrow and specialized application could have benefits, but far more likely to ruin absolutely everything if injudiciously applied. Not that anyone would even trust her to teach, not if they spent more than ten minutes looking into her history at Atlas. Given the surprising verbosity of the red haired woman, Jackie's more selective reply seemed somehow inadequate, but she wasn't sure what else to say on the subject. She didn't want to have to explain to Holly why it was unfeasible for her to be a professor, why she needed unending excuses to use violence to solve problems, and why she was ultimately unsuited to the shaping of young minds. "If I had my way, I would have a laboratory in Mantle with as few staff and researchers as possible." She admitted after a few quiet moments, "Somewhere I could be surrounded by knowledge and experiments, and never need to see another person for days at a time." It would be lonely, living like that, but it would be safer for everyone, and she'd get more done, but Jackie didn't say so, not wanting to explain why other's safety might be a concern to begin with. "We take Dust for granted, and I've never been satisfied with knowing the little we learn about it in school. If I could spend my life unraveling its secrets, and finding new ways to use it that aren't just for killing, I think I could be content." There was a bit more longing in Jackie's voice than she'd intended, and her face fell. "But that life is not the one I get to live. I have a very dangerous semblance, one only good for a single thing, and that thing is not research." Jackie winced again, hearing her own words. What a martyr she sounded like, sacrificing her dream of quiet enlightenment to fight the things in the world's blackest corners. Of course she didn't mention that it wasn't a semblance she could get away with not using, that the academy and huntress training were a sort of balm for a much blacker, more insidious symptom. That fighting the Grimm was the only thing her semblance could be safely used to do. She risked a guarded look at Holly, wanting to say more, but trusting neither herself nor the effective stranger sat across from her. Holly might have had the context to understand her social anxiety and awkwardness, but she was too sheltered and innocent to understand the things Jackie was capable of. To understand Heidi. "It's better for everyone if I learn to fight, and then go somewhere far away from people and do just that."

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Words - 802
Total - 8,032

[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] All right…so Jackie didn’t find the plant thing funny. Maybe she didn’t like jokes, or plant-related goofs? [break] [break] Holly seemed at first happy with the answer that Jackie had given. Jackie would most likely make a great teacher! She loved books; teachers love books. She seems smart; teachers are smart. Still, the girl quickly realised that Jackie had said ‘had hoped for’, instead of ‘am hoping for’. Meaning past tense. Meaning that Jackie no longer wanted to be a cool and great teacher or researcher. With renewed interest, the pinkette made sure to set straight and listen to what happened to cause Jackie to give up on her dream. [break] [break] What she heard didn’t sound as great to Holly. [break] [break] Having a laboratory sounded awesome. Having beakers and flasks with weird bubbling liquids. Computers that did the beeping sounds. Weird eureka-moments of getting the answer to a problem. The fact that Jackie wanted to be alone and not with other people for days sounded horrible though. Sure, meeting new and strange people might be scary, but what about you being among other nerdy people? Other very smart people who were just as shy as you? You all could be shy and awkward together, but very smart and getting very good ideas to do science. Holly found it weird that Jackie didn’t wanted something like this, but the girl was given an unexpected answer to that question. [break] [break] So, it wasn’t that Jackie was too shy for her not wanting that lab, but her semblance? [break] [break] So, Jackie would rather be unhappy fighting monsters because of this semblance? [break] [break] Did she…did she explode things like Solomon? [break] [break] Did her semblance give her very bad breath so that nobody wanted to be around her? [break] [break] Was she surrounded by like…a sphere of bad luck that followed her around? [break] [break] Did her aura make other people mad? [break] [break] Holly honestly didn’t have enough clues to precisely guess Jackie’s semblance, other than it being dangerous to other humans. Maybe even dangerous to herself? The fact that Jackie didn’t tell outright what it was and just talked around the issue said enough about her not wanting to tell what it is. Maybe it is something that is awkward for her to tell? Holly was observant enough to notice the other girl’s body language, and just asking what her semblance was might be pushing a bit too much. With Ryan, Holly was great with talking about issues while not addressing the sore spots. She could do that now as well, couldn’t she? Holly could help her new possible friend! Help her with this issue that made her not follow her dream! The pinkette puffed her cheeks slightly as she considered what to say after hearing all this, and she tapped the table lightly with her slender fingers. [break] [break] “You know that Grimm are attracted to bad feelings. Grimm are often where people are. Almost always. Even if you become a crazy woods lady who just chops down Grimm far away from everyone else, people might still travel through your little tree home from time to time. Otherwise, Grimm would most likely not be there, right?” [break] [break] Holly wasn’t an expert on Grimmology. She wasn’t even a hundred percent sure that it was called Grimmology. She did know that Grimm liked to attack humans and Faunus, so it made sense in her mind that Grimm would be where humans are. Like how predators are where there is prey. Nice to eat and all that. Be where your food is. What the girl did knew was that Jackie would most likely do know more about Grimm than Holly. Jackie would know with certainty that Grimm would most likely be near humans and faunus, so most of what Holly said wasn’t a question of Jackie’s knowledge. It was more a statement that it would be hard to be a Huntress and not be around others at all. [break] [break] “I…I don’t know if you have met him. There is a student named Solomon Moon. All that his semblance does is explode! Like a big boom!” Holly made a big explosion gesture with her arms before she continued. “Very good for destroying things and hurting people. And that is what he did a lot, I think. There are stories about it. Many people die in such stories, and I don’t think that people would call Solomon a nice person for what he and his semblance have done.” [break] [break] Holly honestly sounded like a child telling a story about a bogeyman or some very bad person you might read about on the newspaper, even though he was a student who they went to class with and dined with. Like she somewhat knew what Solomon had done, but by no stretch of the imagination could comprehend the sheer destruction and atrocity of his actions. This latter point was reinforced by what she said next. [break] [break] “I…I think that he is not that bad of a person. Sure, he is violent, and he tried to blow me up once. I am fine! He was kind of nice about it afterwards. Said I was kind, and wished me a good night. I don’t think that he is all bad because of that, and I don’t think that you are all bad and horrible even though you say yourself that you don’t want to be around other people.” [break] [break] Holly looked up at the ceiling for a moment, wanting to give Jackie some examples. Having thought of the best selection of great Jackie-facts she just discovered in their quick interaction, Holly looked at the other girl and listed them, still with a smile on her face. [break] [break] “You thought me a new word, which is neat. You took the time to sit with me and talk with me, which is also neat. You didn’t have to do that, but you still did. You are so very smart and talk with me like I am also smart, even though I do not understand some things that you are saying. Most people just talk to me like I am dumb, because I didn’t went to school or such. Maybe you didn’t know that, but still. It made me feel smart as well. You also made me smile, or…made me make myself smile. I don’t often do that, so that is neat as well, as well. I… I like talking with you, and being around you. I don’t know your semblance, nor do I ask you to tell me what it is. That is fine. Just know that I will still want to be around you no matter what it is! I don’t think it can be worse than blowing me up!” [break] [break] Holly didn’t say anything about Jackie getting control of her semblance, or her learning to live with it in a way. A semblance reflected one’s true self, according to Holly. Solomon shaped his semblance just as much as it shaped him. Jackie’s horrible semblance, no matter what it was, remains a part of who she truly is. You could not change that in Holly’s eyes. It was just a reality of having such powers. Holly had an amazing semblance that allowed her to do amazing things, but she only developed this semblance because who she is. Had she been more aggressive, she believed that her semblance would have been different as well. If she had liked fighting, her semblance would not be what it was now. Someone who likes fighting couldn’t have a type of semblance like she had, at least in her eyes. Nurturing things takes time. Seeing life grow takes patience and a certain type of spirit. Holly was the right person for her semblance, and everybody who saw it only as a weapon would never be able to gain such an ability. It would be wasted on them. [break] [break]

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 1290, Thread Total: 10463	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 97%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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