fandomhigh | Debating, Friday November 2

Chuck glared at the kids sitting in front of him.

“Why aren’t you supporting our country? You’re all sitting around enjoying public education, ignoring everything outside of your middle-class bubbles, when you could be sneaking off to be underage recruits for the army.” He gave them all a derisive look. “You kids and thinking all of you should have public education. Goods across the board like that? That’s not democratic. That’s communist. You, kids, are communist.”

Chuck went to the board and wrote “False dilemma.”

“Something we’ve been working on in class this semester is simplification. You need to simplify your arguments down to the bare bones, and not let any silly little facts get in your way. Narrow down exactly what is wrong with the opposing side, be it the argument, the result of their argument, or the person themself. Figure out just how awful it could be, and stick to it. Above all else, do not let them convince you that there are shades of gray. That’s where the dilemma comes into play. There’s no way of compromising here, no way you’ll let them off the hook with any of their flaws. There is only their horrible option, or your straight-up, excellent one.”

He clapped his hands. “Pair up, and get to it!”

[OOC: ~~Just a minute...~~ We now return you to your regularly scheduled deathmatches.]

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Jeff was cowering.

Again.

Naminé leaned over and smiled, hopefully reassuringly, to the weird boy who always seemed to shout things about breasts. "Shall we pair up for this?" she asked. "Or I suppose it isn't a pair. Two and a half, possibly."

She nodded to the chicken who was peeping on her desk.

Jeff backed away like he'd just been hit by lightening. "You're a chicken!" he yelled, completely failing to actually notice Chickentine except on some subconscious level. "I mean, not physically or anything. I mean. You look very human for a chicken! Not that you're one, I'm just saying, on a fowl scale from 1 to 10, you look the most..." he paused, grasping for something, "...regular!"

Naminé blinked. Perhaps this had been a bad idea?

"I'm not a chicken," she said carefully. "Valentine is. We were just talking and suddenly, he was a chicken. Apparently, it happens here a lot?"

Chickentine sniffed curiously in Jeff's direction and fluffed himself up. This boy seemed very strange. Chickentine approved.

"Oh! Right!" Jeff laughed nervously. "Of course! I must've mistaken the both of you for each other!" Pause. Scramble. "Not to say you look like a chicken! You don't look like a chicken at all! 'Cos, obviously, if you were the chicken, there'd be a lot more fluff!"

He looked really earnest about it.

"Yes," Naminé agreed. "I'm not very ... fluffy ... at all."

She tried to smile cheerfully and not make any sudden movements.

And she tried desperately to think of something to say that wouldn't make things even worse.

"Have you ever been a chicken?"

... So much for that.

Jeff's heart sank all the way down to his shoes.

He groped for something sane to say. Something natural. Something rational.

"I'm really more of an otter," he replied.

"Really?" she said with a bright, forced smile. "That sounds fascinating. They have such cute hands."

"I'm sorry," Jeff choked, "I appear to have gotten stuck on otters. Which is a really awful place to get stuck in if you haven't got the flippers."

"I can imagine," Naminé said, nodding quickly. "Getting stuck without any flippers. On otters, no less. However would you ... find your way ... home again?"

No. She had no idea what they were talking about. She sort of hoped he did.

"Well," Jeff said, and he knew the moment he said it it was a 'well' of extreme danger. However, extreme danger, as always, approached him much like a truck would a young deer. Incapable of looking away, he doggedly continued the sentence, "I imagine my mother would leap into the ocean, scoop me up in her jaws and carry me back to the pride."

There was silence for the next several seconds. Except for the peeping of a Chickentine.

"How ... lucky for you!" she managed. "That you have a mother with ... such ... powerful jaws! I haven't got one. A mother, I mean. Because of not being real and all."

It was astonishing how quickly this was going downhill, considering that she hadn't realized that it could get any worse.

"You know what mothers are like," Jeff said. The nervous grin had grown upon his face like a fungus and wouldn't leave. "Actually, I suppose you don't. You know, not having a mother and all, must be hard."

It was just impossible to find any sane way to continue this conversation, but he was going to try anyway. "You could have my mother! The jaws are really... ... impressive, you know. Jaws. On mothers. Not that she's actually a lion, I'm certain that was just my imagination."

"I wouldn't want to take your mother," Naminé said quickly. "Not that I wouldn't want her! She sounds lovely, with the ... jaws and all. I mean I wouldn't want to deprive you. It sounds as though you're very ... close. And that's good. You should be, certainly. And perhaps she is a lion. You ... never know."

Dear heaven, it was contagious, wasn't it?

Some fifteen years into the future, a man named Steve could have told Namine stories of the danger of Jeff-internalization.

Alas, she would have to do without the warning.

"Honestly I wouldn't mind, you know," Jeff babbled, "I mean, mothers, eh? Easy come, easy go."

"Are they really so transient?" Naminé asked. "It seems like most of them are stuck on rather tightly. Not going anywhere without a fight. Not that I think you should ... fight your ... mother?"

Her head was starting to hurt.

So was Jeff's, but mostly from social embarassment overload.

"... Exactly!" he declared, groping around for another topic of conversation. "Like... fruit!"

Even she couldn't pretend that was a non-non sequitor. A sequitor, if you will.

"I don't understand," she said. "What about them?"

"Well," Jeff said, and there was another one of those 'well's - he was hopelessly lost, now, "It makes me sort of tense."

"Fruit does?" she asked. And then - because she could think of nothing else, and because she had no idea how bad this was, as a topic - she added, "Because of your mother?"

"She said fruit carries secret listeners," he explained helplessly.

Naminé blinked. "I can honestly say that I had never heard of that before."

Debating, Friday November 2

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