[OOC][PLOT] The Fifth Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[robkelk]

Ben will want to stick around.  Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate will probably be using their devices to eavesdrop - they're very curious to see how Ben handles this so they know what to expect later on down the line.

Ben will be having a very empathic response to Mimi.  Unlike with Fate, this isn't a matter of abuse per se.  Rather, it's the whole thing where suddenly your world is crashing down around your ears and everything seems to have gone wrong.

And really, for Mimi, it has.

Once she was a normal girl who somehow got roped into being a horrible and spiteful villain - which was all the more terrifying because all that horribleness came from her - it just got amplified.

And now she's woken up from one nightmare into an all new one where absolutely everything she's ever known has just been upended - she feels very much that the proverbial rug was yanked out from under her.

When nothing at all is familiar to you, you'd be desperate to have something that is familiar.  Hypothesis: Mimi subconsciously chose this so she'd have someone who understands her completely so she wouldn't feel so alone.

Always good to have a Watsonian explanation to go along with the Doylist one (which is "Brent and Rob wanted to write the same character"). Especially one that opens up storytelling possibilities.

*something something "what were you thinking!?"*

"She didn't want to be alone," said Ben, his voice cutting through the conversation despite his soft tone.

"What?"

"Think about it," said Ben.  "It's just like my SI in Being You is Suffering.  Your entire life has been ruined, you feel powerless and alone, and then suddenly you find yourself in a world that completely invalidates everything you believe in.  Who better to commiserate with than yourself?  Sure, being able to pursue both options at the same time sounds like good motivation on the surface... But this goes beyond a simple desire to have your cake and eat it, too.  You don't do something that desperate unless you really are that desperate."

Which immediately takes the wind out of Rob's sails.

"You're right. Mimi, we can't have this discussion now - I'm still angry. Go get lunch. I'll be along in a few minutes."

And then later on, one of her is bound to corner Ben...

I'll PM it to you and see what you think first.

I like it. But I may play with it a bit to make it both Mimis who corner Ben - they're still essentially the same person on the first day of being twinned, after all.