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sounds like you got this handled.

they're welcome to come. i already asked makoto, we're from the same place. we grew up together, some.

thanks, i'll let them know.
i didn't realize you and tachibana knew each other... you're from iwatobi too, then?

[it seems so strange to talk about Iwatobi, here]

yeah. we went to the same elementary school and swim centre before i went abroad for middle school. it's probably a pretty boring place, compared to where some of the people here come from.

nothing wrong with coming from a boring place. i think it's interesting to hear people talk about where they're from.

tachibana painted a kind of idyllic picture of iwatobi, all about a close-knit community and all that. its good that you have friends here, though... it can be kind of rough on us people who don't have superpowers, huh?

there's upsides and downsides to living in a little rural fishing village like iwatobi. makoto's suited to a place like that. for now, anyway.

[as for the rest]

how do you try and close the gap?

[because if there's one thing Rin has always struggled with, it's feeling like he's being left behind]

you're not...?

[Gotta ask that, because, well, he's curious. As someone who never had the chance to make meaningful connections with anyone growing up, Makoto's picture of Iwatobi had seemed perfect.]

as for closing the gap though...

trying to learn everything i can, i guess. right now i'm trying to learn programming, which is... honestly a little beyond me, i think. jake's teaching me to shoot, which is another thing i don't think i'm really suited for.

but i have to keep moving forward, you know? i've spent enough time sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

[Rin reads the first question about Iwatobi and goes back, wondering if he was somehow less neutral than he'd been attempting to be -- and then supposes that his first impression of Hinata, as a highly observant individual, was just correct]

not exactly. iwatobi's my home, too. we've just got different situations with our families, what we want from our futures. and i guess i was a more troublesome kid.

[Makoto's family isn't a little broken, or missing members, like his; Makoto never felt like a mistake, or heard talk about having an unlucky mother. Makoto was always sweet and calm, while he was always (is still) too gregarious, too emotional, too sour. the support net of a close community can confine as well as hold]

[it's easier to focus on that kind of rehash than the thing he's been struggling with every day since he arrived -- hell, even in the ride over. that is, his total inferiority and uselessness aboard the base, next to pilots, next to people who can fly and program machines and heal with their hands]

[Rin thinks it's brave that Hinata's telling him about his own struggles with trying to be more. or maybe he's just cracking a little under the pressure Rin can already feel, aching in his shoulders]

i think moving forward and learning everything's the only option, yeah.

[but that's not really the full truth; Rin believes in hard work, and always diversifying what you can do. he's not just a swimmer -- he works hard in school, at his health, at everything he sets his mind to. but the bars seem impossibly -- lethally -- high here, with skill base directly related to survival]

and maybe programming or guns aren't your thing, but everyone's got their own skills and talents they came with, too. it's just a matter of usefully applying them here, at least to start with.

[...]

i think i can understand that. wanting something other for your future than staying where you grew up.

[But that's hardly the most important thing Rin's talking about, here, and in spite of himself, Hajime can't help but feel like he's talking to a kindred spirit. It's tough, it's impossibly hard to be in this kind of situation and have nothing to contribute. Nothing about his experiences says I can do that, I can help in this kind of situation. It's different from the island, where none of them had the right kind of background for what they were subjected to. Here, there's clear differences between those who can, and those who can't.

At the mention of "skills or talents," Hajime freezes with the sudden jolt of anxiety. Skills or talents... he doesn't have anything like that. And maybe no matter how much he tries to learn... it won't matter. It won't be enough.

But if he's reading this right, it seems like Rin shares his uncertainties. And even if Hajime's fully aware that in his case, he doesn't have any talents that could give anyone something resembling hope... he can at least try not to impose that feeling on anyone else.

It takes him a long time to try to figure out what to say. Seconds pass, then minutes as he starts typing, then erases it, repeating that more times than he can count.]

that's a good way of looking at it. if we try our best and give it our all... i think that's the only thing we can do.

[He can't agree that everyone has their own skills and talents. He already knows he doesn't have anything like that. He can't apply what doesn't exist.]

Edited 2016-08-22 01:34 (UTC)

[Hinata may not be aware of this, but the communicator shows his starts and stops, the several minutes in which he struggles to put a brave face on what feels like a desperate situation. Rin watches, and waits, for the text to finally come through, and when it does -- he's not surprised that it's a kind of useless bandaid, a shoddy cover-up for insecure feelings that didn't make it through the filtering process]

[Rin isn't Makoto, who is soft and careful with other peoples' vulnerabilities, a warm bath of acceptance; he's the wave that crashes over the wall. he can't help being that person, even as full of unsure holes as he is]

huh? "try out best?" what is this, the first day of orientation? that's way too vague to be helpful.

[a screenshot suddenly comes through, of the program Dirk designed especially for him. Hinata can see some of the categories Rin's already input, and maybe Rin would be embarrassed to do this if Hinata hadn't admitted his own feelings first. some of the categories are things like Land Training Progress and Swimming Goals, expected of an Olympic hopeful like Rin. but other categories are more along the lines of Hinata learning programming, things like Combat Training, Base Repair, Exploration Progress, Local Lifeform Research, and Assistance to Clinic. more embarrassingly, there are the categories of Crew Dynamics and Appreciated Cooked Dishes and Social Connections Made]

ask dirk for a copy of this application. it's been helping me focus and locate areas of weakness, and figure out what i can accomplish every day to get better.

[you can't move forward without a plan -- that's just called getting lost]

[Hajime's honestly about to text back furiously, because what the fuck Sonia told them all to try their best, and that's what they'd been doing since they were forced into their horrible situation on the island. That's all they could do, as childish as it sounds. So he has to bite back a reflexive retort, an angry response, instead looking over the screenshot.

...Huh.]

how are you going to get good at one thing if you're spreading all your effort out like that?

[And that, maybe, is the fundamental disconnect. That someone without a talent could maybe be allowed to do many different things. That it would be fine to just have basic knowledge of many skills, instead of specialty in one.]

i'm already pretty good at swimming. in the long term, that's something i can probably use to best help the base. but in the short term, i can't do that unless i understand the local wildlife, or the explored areas, or how to defend myself and others, or make friends i can rely on.

[Rin's not looking to become a jack of all trades and master of none; he's looking to become someone that can be relied on in turn for something, whatever it ends up being. he wants to be good, and worthy of the extraordinary people he's already met, who aren't so vulnerable. he wants to be able to protect the people who are important to him, and be fearless about it]

only being good at one thing is a recipe for disaster. you can't adapt. animals that don't evolve don't go forward.

[It's different, he wants to say. You have something you're good at. You have something you can work toward. I don't have anything like that.

Instead he pauses, takes a deep breath. That's almost like feeling sorry for himself again. He doesn't want to do that anymore, even if it still feels like it's crushing him. First, he has to defend his friends. Then he has to defend himself.]

you say that, but you don't know the people i've spent the most time with and the things we've been through together. people with incredible talents. you can't look down on that.

anyway, i already said i'm going to keep working. your list has a defined goal, something you're working toward. i don't have anything like that. that's why i have to keep looking.

i know people with incredible talent, too.

[people he's admired, laughed with, fallen short to, loved, hated, cried over, beaten at their game, befriended, felt distant from, felt close to, ignored, was unable to ignore]

their skills are nothing to look down on if they have them, but talent doesn't necessarily have anything to do with achieving or surviving. some people don't even want to be talented, because its too hard to be special. others never get to use their talents, and it breaks something in them.

[Rin is thinking of two dark haired boys he hasn't seen in a while, and it hurts, a bit. but it feels right, to share his brushes against real, raw talent with Hinata, who sounds like he works every bit as hard as Rin, and maybe more, because he doesn't even see what his own worth is]

[maybe because he understands so well, he should be gentler, but he can't allow Hinata to say such directionless, unobserved things]

you can't be serious about not having talent, right? you're working towards fixing something every time i see you. if it's not helping the sick people, or making clothes for the newcomers, it's fixing the structural damage. and if it's not that, it's making a volleyball for a stupid bunch of teens who need a break.

when you see a problem, you work, and you solve it. how is that not a talent to be proud of? you're the one who's looking down on your own skills.

[He doesn't answer immediately; it might be safe to assume that thanks to a lack of text bubbles attempting to type while Rin is, Hajime may have just started to ignore his communicator to do something else. But while maybe that would be the better option, he's really just sitting there, reading it quietly to himself.

He's seen the way talent affects people -- it's hard not to think about Nagito, sometimes, and how his "luck" must have shaped that incredible malice Hajime and the others had experienced. Or the expectations of a yakuza learning about someone who might have been involved in his sister's death, or... the list goes on.

Before he could even begin to form a response to all of that, though, he reads the rest, just staring down at it. A... problem-solver...? On the island, he always felt like he needed someone like Chiaki or Nagito to help him find the truth. BUt these kinds of problems...]

i wouldn't call that talent. like i said... i don't want to sit around feeling sorry for myself. anyone would work to do the same, in their own way.

["Talent" is that thing that Hope's Peak scouts people for. Something like "problem-solving" might be a skill, might be something he's somewhat good at, but not to the point of being the best.]

but... thanks. i get what you're saying, really. maybe it's something i need to think about more.

Edited 2016-08-25 08:05 (UTC)

[he wants to keep pushing it, but he's been made quite aware recently that trying to force others into making the choices he believes are for the best is a pretty shitty, toxic habit; if Hinata says he needs time to think about things, then he needs time, even if Rin ascribes more to the "sink or swim" approach]

[after all, Rin knows what it's like to fail over and over again at meeting your own absurdly high standards -- he's aiming to be one of the best in the world at swimming -- and he can't imagine what damage could have been done, if he'd been pushed too hard while struggling through his own doubts and insecurities]

[he likes Hinata. he wants what's best for him, he does, but he'll have to come to his own conclusions (unless they're completely stupid, in which case Rin doesn't mind continuing to push, of course)]

i'm aiming olympic. i know what it's like to feel as if hard work and best effort won't ever be enough in the face of innate talent.

[haru is more talented than him; that's a fact that has both crushed and excited him his whole life]

so if you wanna talk about it more after you've had some time to think, i'll be around.

inbox - subnautica

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