(no subject)

[opening_act]

Who: Exael and the Unlucky Contestants
Where: The Game Tower
When: 86, Evening

[ Between one step and the next the walls (or streets, or open air) around you changes. The sight before you is a room inside the game tower, a new pressure at your neck. Reaching up or looking at the people around you reveals it to be a collar, titanium with a small green blinking light set in the center. ]

[ the screen flickers on, on your cellphone. It's a half-second, blink and you miss it— Exael, chewing on a nail, looking uncharacteristically nervous— then the moment's gone and she waves both hands and smiles for the camera. ]

"Ladies, gentlemen, honored guests! Units of all stripes and sizes! I come offering you a game and a few familiar words, rearranged for the occasion!"

Her carnival barker demeanor shifts for a moment as she lowers her head to say: ] "Glory to the highest, and on earth peace—" [ her head snaps up, her pigtails bouncing with it, and she's grinning again, all pomp and energy ] "even if we're not getting much down here! So let's kick up a ruckus, put on a show, and see how much good goodwill alone can manage! If you wish to save your fellows, now is the time speak!"

[ The rules appear on your phones. ]

[ Rules ] [ Rooms ] [ Results ] [ Endgame, Revivals & Winners ]

Comments

[inspiteful]

It brought out a lot of things for us in that room, apparently.

[ he sighs, seeming tired and...resigned, in a way.

He isn't sure if he should impose, but at the same time he can count the people he feels he can ask for some advice from or even simply just vent to on one hand. ]

...I-if you don't mind.

i fell off the map bc i am a Mess

[worthathousand]

Let's get away from this crowd, then.

[ She beckons gently, hand at his shoulder again, though not pushing. ]

Shh it's fine

[inspiteful]

...Alright.

[They head over to a quieter part of the game tower, still on the ground floor but where there's less people. Hopefully they won't be overheard, unless there are people looking for them.]

Is here fine?

[worthathousand]

This will do just fine.

[ taking a seat ]

It's really more important that it's a place you're comfortable talking.

[inspiteful]

Then, I think this will do.

[ He takes a seat nice to Amaranth, resting his hands in his lap. ]

Uhm, well...I suppose to start, this argument started over something one of my other unitmates said in the room. It was -- a bad joke, basically. About how maybe we shouldn't have made so many friends. He was trying to...cope with the decision we were going to have to make, and he was making fun of himself since he failed to follow his own advice? Bad timing, perhaps.

But she took it personally and scolded him for it, which I didn't agree with because I don't believe it was wrong of him to express it. So we ended up arguing.

[worthathousand]

[ She listens quietly, nodding every so often in acknowledgement of the events as he recounts them. ]

What did he think about it? Your unitmate who made the joke in the first place, I mean.

[inspiteful]

I...

[He thinks back to the room; where he might have expected Mars to be more defiant or at least put up more resistance, he didn't try to argue back with Hiryuu.]

He tried to explain how he felt about our situation and where he was coming from, but he didn't try to argue back. Personally, I think he's still trying to figure out how he feels about friendship and having bonds here.

...I don't think he was upset that she got angry with him, I just...I was uncomfortable that it seemed like she had already decided that his viewpoint was 'wrong'. And consequently my viewpoint was wrong too since I agreed that our friendships do make situations like this more difficult. It was like she stopped listening or trying to understand us at that point.

[worthathousand]

Hmm. [ she touches a finger to her lip for a few moments of thoughtful silence ]

In some ways, it seems like you were more hurt by it than he was, even. Hurt that she would even consider thinking something like that about him or about you.

[inspiteful]

...Yeah. I mean, Mars isn't exactly a nice person -- he can be pretty abrasive, actually. [ He shrugs, as if to say 'well, but by now we're kind of used to it'. ] It's just...it's not as if his reaction came out of nowhere, nor was it some kind of baseless fear. I don't think he should be shamed or scolded for feeling the way he did. Trying to insist on the value of friendship to someone who's panicking because those friendships are being used against him is just making it worse.

It was frustrating because it felt like she thought we were attacking her beliefs, when I was trying to explain to her where we were coming from.

[worthathousand]

Do you also feel that way? That your friendships have brought you pain here? You're grouping yourself in with him right now.

[ she doesn't sound judgmental— just... trying to make sure she's correctly connecting the dots here with his implication ]

[inspiteful]

I...

[ He's trying to figure out how to word this. When he speaks again, it's carefully neutral, like he's stripped out sentimentality to opt for what he considers to be the material facts. ]

I don't agree with the idea that because they can be...liabilities, we shouldn't try to make friends or form relationships with people here. People don't work like that. It'd just be difficult for us in a different kind of way.

But I do think there's nothing wrong with acknowledging how they can be used as a way to hurt us. Whether it's because they end up having to make decisions that put us on the chopping block, or because we have to make those decisions ourselves and watch the consequences. Denying it or acting as if it's a thought that shouldn't cross our minds is naive, I think.

So...yeah, I have felt that way before. It's hard not to.

[worthathousand]

You're trying so hard to sound neutral about all this. [ her tone gently insistent—indeed, his careful neutrality stands out almost more to her than his actual choice of words ]
...Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, knowing what I do about how you burden yourself with leadership of your unit.

[ a sigh, and she leans back on her hands, expression thoughtful ]

It also seems like the horrors of this place may be weighing especially heavily on the girl who lashed out, if she was willing to doubt her own unitmates like that.

[inspiteful]

There isn't really a point in getting emotional about it. [ Especially since getting emotional about it was why there was an argument.

He does however pause when she mentions 'leadership', wondering how did he manage to somehow give her that impression. HSS and leadership, haha.......... ]

...She's been through a lot, both here and back home. She is -- someone who values her relationships deeply, and would do just about anything for them because they are her support. The way of thinking that they can hurt, so some people may wish to try and distance themselves as a way to cope, probably sounds bizarre and harmful to her.

...Mostly I wish she didn't do things in the heat of the moment.

hi I am still here just slow

[worthathousand]

[ there's the slightest wry twist to her lips when he says, "there isn't really a point in getting emotional about it," but she doesn't comment; just lets him finish ]

Is this... a pattern with her? It sounds like this must go deeper than this one argument alone.

[inspiteful]

...A while back, I found out during that -- free-for-all battle 'game', one of my close friends ended up watching her kill someone dear to him right in front of him. He told me he had just started to calm that person down and could have dissuaded them from getting into another fight...but Hiryuu stumbled in on them.

[ He bites his lower lip, and his expression hardens somewhat as he recounts the next part of what he learnt from Cobalt. ]

Apparently they had fought someone close to her earlier, so she assumed the worst and provoked another fight to protect her important person too. While my friend spent the whole time trying to get them both to stand down. So, you know. I wasn't exactly happy to hear that.

And there's also...have you ever heard about a trial that was held in this place?

[worthathousand]

[ her brows press inwards, expression thoughtful but solemn ]

...No, I don't know that I have.

[inspiteful]

Uhm, well...just a short while before Lilis and Baritones showed up, there was this...thing that happened. People were literally turning gray and fading away into 'nothing'. It's complicated but basically the audience was losing interest in us, and it turns out we can only keep existing as we are right now because they're watching us on this 'show'.

But none of us knew that at first, so...someone in Bad End summoned a demon looking for answers, though I don't know a lot of details about that. King and Hiryuu tried to do the same, but instead they prayed to 'Heaven' [He says this in such a way that is meant to distinguish it from the Heaven both of them would know].

They met with a being claiming they were a messenger from Heaven, and offered them a way to resolve the situation. No price attached. They were desperate so they took this extremely fishy sounding deal.

So everyone on my unit sort of had our heads filled with new information and ideas and a desire to make everyone follow their unit 'image', which resulted in the trial where the units had to prove to us that they had been playing by the rules, so to speak. It, uhm...there were executions.

[He will elaborate if Amaranth asks but for now, let's not get into the bloody details. ]

...The thing was, King and Hiryuu hadn't told anyone about what they were doing. They kind of naively thought that if things went wrong, if we weren't in the know then we wouldn't get involved. So for the rest of us this came out of nowhere and we only found out after the fact.

[worthathousand]

(( just linking from here too, don't mind me ))