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]

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!

[meatitfeedson]

Hah, that is a good one.

I'll be the first to admit I'm selfish, that can't be denied. But unthinking is laughable, especially coming from her. Anyone playing this game who didn't volunteer to die could be called selfish.

[jinglebros]

She was butt chapped over the fact I didn't talk to her over the fact she wanted to die. I realize I should have. I knew she was scared, I just never knew how to bring it up.

[ Shifts uncomfortably. ]

How do you even bring that up? "Sorry you're dying, tell me how much it sucks?"

[meatitfeedson]

That's way too much to expect of someone.

[She shakes her head.]

As if she's not selfish too for things like that.

[jinglebros]

I think everyone's a little selfish here.

[meatitfeedson]

Exactly. I think that's why I could get along so well with a surprising number of you. Genuinely I mean. People usually like me but I have to fake it, you know?

[jinglebros]

And you just happened to pick the best faker of all for your son... hahahaha....

[meatitfeedson]

What, you think that wasn't on purpose? Didn't I tell you I started to like you because you were like me?

But again, don't stay that way, okay? Go have fun with your boyfriends.

[jinglebros]

They live in a war torn country. I don't know how much 'fun' we'll be having.

Still, it's better than going home.

[meatitfeedson]

...You could come with me, you know. No one would be looking for you in the 80s. By the time you catch up to your own time, you'd be 60 so they still wouldn't know a thing. Plus especially after this, we have plenty of disposable income. You could have fun.

[jinglebros]

[ he shakes his head with a small smile. ]

I already made my promises. Don't you remember how I never break them? Not even once in a lifetime?

[meatitfeedson]

...Yeah.

[She takes up his hands and finally, finally looks him in the eye again.]

I'll miss you, Aoi.Thanks for everything, having a new son makes it easier, even if I'm losing him too.

[jinglebros]

[ Now that they have actual eye contact, he tears up, but tries not to actually let the tears fall. ]

I'll miss you too. It was great having a mother, even just for a little while.

[meatitfeedson]

I swear I'll find you so at least some version of you can have it! ...And I guess that's a little selfish too really, but.

[jinglebros]

If it's selfish, it's a version of selfish I like.