ENDGAME

[kentucky_mcgiygas]

[A wall panel in the green room slides out of view, revealing an elevator. Get in it and it will take you down to the hotel (description here), where your fellow contestants - alive and ghostly - await.

You may spend as long as you want here, ordering up as much room service as you like, but when you're read to go home, you'll find that one floor (new to the current hotel occupants) has nothing but doors with your names on them. Exit, and you'll show up exactly where you were when you left.]

((THANK YOU FOR PLAYING EVERYONE. Ghosts, feel free to materialize and talk to people. You may now speak about your prizes.))

Comments

[jinglebros]

No. Go back.

Think it through, Mom.

Rudolf's a fucking liar.

[meatitfeedson]

What's there to lie about? I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's what happened.

[jinglebros]

...

[ He thinks about telling her, but decides that she needs something untarnished. ]

Okay, Mom.

I'm sorry about what happened.

[meatitfeedson]

...I shouldn't have lied to you. That's what got me here.

[Blaming him isn't going to get her anywhere.]

[jinglebros]

Yeah, well. Now you lost and I won.

Isn't that enough of a punishment?

[meatitfeedson]

...Yeah, more than enough. Why, is there more?

[jinglebros]

I'm not going back.

We'll never see each other again.

[meatitfeedson]

...What?

[Did she just lose three kids today?]

[jinglebros]

My grand prize. I changed it.

It's still saving June, but it's also going home with Corrin and Niles.

I'm never going back there.

[meatitfeedson]

[She can understand why. He doesn't have to say it at all for her to know. He has to run from the law. And maybe even from June.]

...I hope you like it there, then. Rhys offered me a job at his corporation, that would be right up my alley. ...But obviously I can't.

[jinglebros]

Sure you can. We're allowed to go through other peoples' doors. Ronald says he doesn't care.

...of course, leaving them behind...

[meatitfeedson]

...Exactly. I can't go anywhere without Rudolf and Ange. It would be a great offer otherwise.

You might still exist in my timeline too.

[jinglebros]

Take good care of them, okay? Love them every day for me.

[meatitfeedson]

I will! I'll do something special for them every day, I'll give Ange a big hug the minute I get home, even Battler!

...But I'll miss you. I normally don't care about any other people than my family, no matter how close we are otherwise. So I thought I had a good advantage in this game because of that attitude. That there wouldn't be anyone I wasn't willing to kill. ...I just didn't think there would be anyone I would want to add to my family, why would I care about someone who isn't even my own child like that, you know? And yet.

[jinglebros]

Yeah, I know. I thought I wouldn't care about anything or anyone, not even myself - and yet, here we are.

[ He gives her a sad, sad smile. ]

Is there anything I can do to make you forgive me for the way things turned out?

[meatitfeedson]

[She wraps her arms tight around his shoulders and kisses his forehead.]

Just don't be like me. You really can start fresh. Don't hurt or take advantage of people, and cut it off right away if someone isn't good for you...

[jinglebros]

I'm trying. I was going somewhere else other than June, but then Ene got to me, and now I have to ask June to go to Nohr...

[ He shakes a bit. ]

I can't leave her alone!

[meatitfeedson]

She won't be alone. She has Junpei, and Lotus, Clover and Snake too.

[jinglebros]

Ene told me that an abandoned sister is still an abandoned sister, no matter the reason you do it for.

[meatitfeedson]

Well she's wrong.

[jinglebros]

Are you sure?

[meatitfeedson]

I'm certain. That girl goes ahead and believes whatever she wants, she never looks at anything objectively and tries to force everyone to conform to her own view by guilt tripping them or acting all high and mighty.

[jinglebros]

I did screw her some, but that doesn't mean she's right about everything with my life...!

[meatitfeedson]

I have a tactic that helps me figure out what my opponent is going to do. If you think about it like chess, where you're on two sides of a board figuring out the best move for your pieces, turning the chess board around to look at it from your opponent's perspective can easily show you what their best moves are. How they'll counteract what you do.

That's a calculating, economical way to look at it, but it's essentially placing yourself in another person's shoes. If you want, you can even see their side with empathy. What's lead to this, why they do what they do.

That girl doesn't try anything like that. She sees her side and her side alone. She can't understand someone else's circumstances because she doesn't make any attempt.

[jinglebros]

That sure makes her real rich then, with her talk about everyone else being selfish and unthinking!