[well, it's after trial. she can be found out at the canals, giving off the impression of someone who hasn't slept in about seventy two hours. a little wired, like a wild animal that's hit the point of exhaustion but isn't safe yet.]
[ that's a familiar state. simon has collected money from the warehouse at this point and is planning to bring him over to the big park to run around — not like the monkey knows what just happened there, so he won't care — but he pauses and changes course when he sees ylfa. man, her whole team's had a rough couple of days. ]
Yeah, me too. I think it'd kind of feel like we all failed him if we got it wrong... though it still doesn't feel that great that we never figured out what actually happened.
It was for Haruka, though, right? Like, why go after someone who has a close friend from home here? That seems way meaner than doing it to one of us that doesn't have like, super strong connections or anything.
[ he is under no illusion that money would care if he died... ]
[ tuesday morning, simon will be at the counter at the diner, with the monkey on the stool next to him. they've got a plate of steak and eggs between them, though apparently money's the one eating the steak and simon's just eating the fried eggs.
[she skips into the diner. she looks a little nicer today; she has her hair in fresh braids, and it looks like she's actually washed them and combed out the tangles. someone made this feral child bathe. she's also wearing a jaunty little red bandana.]
you really dont have to thank me i still dont think you did it either at least when you were talking about how no one believed in you and you were worried you were going to hurt your team and they all stood by you i dunno i just dont think things like that are fake
yeah... i have a really good team even though it was kind of scary that they were all so willing to sacrifice themselves your team seems nice like that too, so i hope you don't get stuck having to make a decision like that either
...i feel really bad about hot mess though since that was so close to being us kind of feels like i screwed them over at the last minute somehow
wow sorry that was a horrible thing to say i just meant that i couldnt stand to see you guys suffer like that because you guys really care about each other and about everyone
[she watches this memory. it's very personal, and she should pretend not to have seen it to be polite, but luckily for us she has no such boundaries.]
Oh, Simon...
[she doesn't know quite what to say. it hurts so much. that feeling of wanting someone to save you, not knowing what you did wrong, why it turns out you didn't deserve to be saved.]
[ simon doesn't show much of an outward reaction to his own memory; even if this was a lot more vivid than usual, there's hardly a day that goes by where his mind doesn't drift back to that time at some point or another... especially since the last trial.
he frowns when he hears ylfa's voice, though, a near definite confirmation that she saw the same thing. this place really is just putting his past out there for everyone to look at, huh? ]
...Hey, Ylfa.
[ he looks up from his duckling with an apologetic smile. ]
Yeah. Sorry. [these damn pigs.] It's okay, you don't have to apologize.
[she doesn't know exactly what happened, but she can tell simon must have done something that made all of the adults very angry. it reminds her of a few different things. of all of the stories she knows where children are punished and taught a lesson for the crime of not following the rules made by adults who could never have comprehended the things they'd have to deal with. she's seen a memory a little like this before, and she says what she said then.]
...You were right. You were right to lie, and to run away. They didn't know what they were talking about and they couldn't keep you safe, so you were right.
[ somehow he's a little surprised by how firmly she says that, and it makes him wonder if she had to run away from something like that herself.
there's never been any doubt in his mind that running away was the right choice — almost certainly the only choice that would have let him live to see another year — so he's never needed anyone else's validation for it, but.
[more than anything, she's thinking of her friend, of pinocchio. sorry to compare him in my metatext to a magical puppet child, but it's the story of a little boy who was told by everyone that to be considered a real boy he had to be perfect and never tell a lie, and who was badly failed by the inadequacy of that black and white morality to prepare him for a grey world, but punished for being unable to live up to it all the same. anyway, that's what she told pinocchio, when she saw how everyone was angry at him for lying and misbehaving instead of listening to him when he explained why he had to. all of them were wrong and he was right.
because she knows all too well that sometimes the elders you're supposed to listen to just fail you. anyway, have a memory.]
he may have just been wondering a moment ago what tough kinds of things she might have gone through, but he wasn't expecting anything on that level... though the feelings that came with it certainly weren't entirely foreign to him either. being hurt and sad and furious all at the same time, wishing you could save something precious that's been taken away and wanting to burn it to the ground when you can't. ]
Ylfa...
[ he wonders if her psych felt like as bad of a joke to her as his did to him. ]
[ well he is definitely not here for bras but happens to pass by on his way to the weapon shop, and he briefly wonders as he stops to look at ylfa whether they carry silver bullets there. ]
[ unfortunately no bullets work across planes of reality so he's shit out of luck here regardless
yeah, she can see him. maid hours are over so he's just in a flannel shirt and jeans with his hair down. money's there too if she catches him at the right moment before he wanders out of viewing range. ]
I wasn't trying to commit to a whole pen pal thing when I wrote that, just to get a message across. I'm not really a big letter guy.
The thing is, every new detail I've learned in the past week about what everyone was doing to me behind my back's kind of just made the whole thing worse. So... maybe I do hate you, actually?
I mean. You basically tortured me for the last two weeks I was alive. I barely slept that entire time, convinced that everyone who said anything nice to me was lying to my face while secretly thinking I was responsible for both Lambda and Yakumo. That everyone was secretly plotting to kill me.
And then, wow, turns out I was actually right? Like, way more right than I'd even fully believed? Even the few people I'd thought I probably could trust were in on it.
Like you! I figured after you saw that memory of mine and acted so sympathetic about it that there was no way you'd just make me suffer through all that fear again if you were fully capable of stopping it. Never even considered you might've been the one who tried to make everyone turn on me in the first place! Wild how wrong I was about that one!
[...she really does just listen to him, serious. she doesn't flinch or act cowed. not because she doesn't care, but because really, it's sort of...unfair to do the sad little girl thing at him when he's not wrong.]
I think you're wrong about that. A lot of people did want to believe in you and defend you. Like Amelia, and Livio. If that changed, it changed after they found out other things, things you did.
[but the rest is pretty fair.]
I mean, yeah. What I did to you was horrible. It turned out way worse than I realized it would, but it's my fault for not realizing. And of course I wanted to tell you when I saw your memory and I saw why it was affecting you so bad, but the fact is, like...
When I decided to kill Lambda, it was before we knew we could save anybody but us. I did it knowing that I was choosing my own team over every single other person here. And once I killed her, I wasn't going to go back on that decision. Like, what would it say if I didn't feel too bad to kill her, but I felt too bad to save my own life after? [in her opinion, it would have been shittier than anything else she did, to decide to kill lambda and then change her mind about doing anything to win and throw her and lambda's lives away.] I didn't know if you would kill me if you knew, or tell people who might want to kill me, and I still don't really know that you wouldn't have. So...once it happened, it happened. I wasn't going to endanger my life to fix it, because I owed it to too many people at that point.
I think you probably should just hate me, because it happened and I can't fix it or change it.
Things I still wouldn't have done if I hadn't been cornered in the first place, but. You know.
[ like, yeah, he made some choices there, but also you can't terrorize an animal and expect it not to lash out with its claws at someone. ]
I do get all of that, and like I said, I would've done the same thing, but— honestly I think it's just infinitely more frustrating because I've been stuck watching everyone simp for your team so fucking hard like you're these precious selfless saviors who've been suffering so hard for everyone else's sake all along, and no one else could possibly do what you've done.
The double standards are truly insane. All these people are willing to forgive every shitty thing you do and bend over backwards to help you cheat your way to the top of the rankings, but anyone else who played the game gets shit for it. People cheer you on for destroying people's lives but then hold grudges against Libby, who only did anything because she was told her team would be erased if she didn't, and incite an entire fucking revenge campaign against me.
Makes me fucking sick that you're winning this after everything you've done, which my team helped you do. Maybe it's not your fault everyone keeps singing your praises, but you could have just stopped while Justice was ahead and let us win instead of rubbing metaphorical salt in my wounds on top of the literal salt Jonas and Setsu packed in there. Could have just not murdered that pair of morons who offered themselves up since we already had enough points, or given Livio the final blow on one of them.
I think the double standards are pretty bad, yeah. I don't think I'm better or nicer than you guys or Libby or whatever.
[no argument there.]
I wasn't going to stop, because I don't know how many points it takes to save everyone. I have no idea how many people we needed, and whether either of our teams ever even came close to the number. So it wasn't about beating Justice for me. If Livio and Amelia kept going too, that would probably have been a good thing, but they didn't want to! And I mean, yeah, I feel better knowing no matter what happens I'll save Rin and Gerard, but I also trust Livio and Amelia. But Netzach and Yuzuriha trusted us, not your team, for a very specific reason.
[she swallows.]
And - I've thought about it a lot, and you don't get to blame me for Zelda. You don't. I could just go around saying, well, if Count D didn't kill Rin, I wouldn't have killed anybody, so it's all his fault, but that's fucking stupid. I have to be responsible for the people I decided to hurt, and that's Lambda, and you, and Yakumo, and Fei Du, and Netzach, and Yuzuriha, and Shenhe. And the people who loved them and grieved for them. That's a lot of people. But you decided to kill Zelda and Fukuzawa. I don't think you're horrible for that. I even understand why you did it. But you don't get to blame me for your decision.
Yeah, but I actually kind of do, because I only thought their team killed Lambda because of evidence you left that made it look like Drift got used with those axe traps. I didn't just go after some random person, and they wouldn't have been anywhere near my first choice if I was just going off of who I actually wanted to get rid of. I only killed Fukuzawa because I needed to get back the sympathy you screwed us out of and make it so we weren't the prime voting target.
They were my choices, but specific ones that you forced my hand into making, so you still deserve at least a third of the blame for both of those, sorry to say.
And Money, since my killers still thought he'd helped kill Lambda. You know they straight up murdered him? Threw him into the lava completely on purpose because they thought he was a bad animal.
I wasn't even trying to make it look like Drift Aura, that was just somebody's theory! They weren't even traps! I just left those axes around and forgot they were there! Sorry you're so bad at solving murders that you thought it was her when I did it with my own weapon and my own psych! Anyway, go ahead and try explaining this to Zelda and Yuzuriha and Netzach, I'm sure they'll feel bad for you and be mad at me instead. Just kidding, I already know how that turned out.
[she'll accept the blame for a lot of this, but she's not going to accept this argument. she knows what it's like to be a cornered animal and to lash out and kill. it doesn't involve making a lot of complicated mind control plans.]
Money doesn't deserve that, though, so I'm sorry to him, too. I tried to tell TBD that it was definitely not you guys, and they didn't believe me.
[ he actually did feel a little bad about yuneyuze before last weekend but now he thinks netzach and yuzuriha are too incurably stupid to deserve to live after their pointless sacrifice so never mind ]
Because I trusted you not to frame me and Money — you were the only team I trusted that much, ironically — so I didn't even stop to consider your psych as an option when your team was the only one that had it. But yeah, that was extremely stupid of me, so I'll give you that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carisma_sensei
week 1; saturday
Date: 2023-06-25 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 02:28 am (UTC)Hey. [ ... ] We did it, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 02:45 am (UTC)Hi, Simon. I'm glad we found them.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 03:31 am (UTC)All the ideas we came up with seemed like they would've been pretty terrible... and it was really cruel to you guys who cared about him, too.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 12:52 pm (UTC)[ he is under no illusion that money would care if he died... ]
week 2, tuesday
Date: 2023-06-27 01:16 pm (UTC)the jukebox plays a classic in the background. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 12:21 am (UTC)[she skips into the diner. she looks a little nicer today; she has her hair in fresh braids, and it looks like she's actually washed them and combed out the tangles. someone made this feral child bathe. she's also wearing a jaunty little red bandana.]
Gettin' breakfast?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 12:54 am (UTC)Morning.
[ though even though he's smiling the emotional vibe here is just kind of flat and grey. that's fine. ]
Yeah, this place isn't bad, actually. The menu's kinda like McDonalds but better.
[ he takes a sip of coffee. ]
That's a nice little bandana.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 01:25 am (UTC)[she does look especially clean...]
Yeah, I'm a big fan of breakfast items. That sweet and savory combination.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 11:05 am (UTC)[ what do you say to that
but he nods. ]
I don't really like sweet stuff, but I don't mind it so much when you've got the savory part to balance it out.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-28 11:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, he does! I mean, he's not super picky in general, so I dunno if he likes them that much more than he likes other things, but.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 12:26 am (UTC)[ money doesn't know what's being discussed here but heard his name so he's looking at ylfa expectantly already. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 11:40 am (UTC)week 3, saturday... text
Date: 2023-07-09 02:17 am (UTC)it meant a lot
and i'm really sorry we still got it wrong
i really thought they were the best guess
i don't know what to think now
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 02:22 am (UTC)i still dont think you did it either
at least
when you were talking about how no one believed in you and
you were worried you were going to hurt your team
and they all stood by you
i dunno
i just dont think things like that are fake
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 05:00 am (UTC)even though it was kind of scary that they were all so willing to sacrifice themselves
your team seems nice like that too, so i hope you don't get stuck having to make a decision like that either
...i feel really bad about hot mess though
since that was so close to being us
kind of feels like i screwed them over at the last minute somehow
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 12:00 pm (UTC)maybe now theyll remember the erased
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 12:01 pm (UTC)wow sorry
that was a horrible thing to say
i just meant that i couldnt stand to see you guys suffer like that because
you guys really care about each other and about everyone
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 01:53 pm (UTC)anyway
i'm glad you could see that
you're a nice person, ylfa
uh even despite what you said there
i don't know if anyone would be mean enough to try to frame your team like this
but if they do we'll definitely support you too, ok?
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 05:24 pm (UTC)i shouldnt have said something as bad as that
im not that nice of a person really
you are
thats nice of you to say
week 4, monday
Date: 2023-07-10 11:34 pm (UTC)this would be a very cute scene if it wasn't getting interrupted by a pretty shitty memory. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-07-11 11:34 am (UTC)Oh, Simon...
[she doesn't know quite what to say. it hurts so much. that feeling of wanting someone to save you, not knowing what you did wrong, why it turns out you didn't deserve to be saved.]
no subject
Date: 2023-07-11 12:16 pm (UTC)he frowns when he hears ylfa's voice, though, a near definite confirmation that she saw the same thing. this place really is just putting his past out there for everyone to look at, huh? ]
...Hey, Ylfa.
[ he looks up from his duckling with an apologetic smile. ]
I guess you saw that too, huh? Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-11 01:09 pm (UTC)[she doesn't know exactly what happened, but she can tell simon must have done something that made all of the adults very angry. it reminds her of a few different things. of all of the stories she knows where children are punished and taught a lesson for the crime of not following the rules made by adults who could never have comprehended the things they'd have to deal with. she's seen a memory a little like this before, and she says what she said then.]
...You were right. You were right to lie, and to run away. They didn't know what they were talking about and they couldn't keep you safe, so you were right.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-12 04:04 pm (UTC)there's never been any doubt in his mind that running away was the right choice — almost certainly the only choice that would have let him live to see another year — so he's never needed anyone else's validation for it, but.
he doesn't mind hearing it, either. ]
I... um.
[ she gets a sort of half-smile from him. ]
Thanks. I think so too.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-12 10:47 pm (UTC)because she knows all too well that sometimes the elders you're supposed to listen to just fail you. anyway, have a memory.]
no subject
Date: 2023-07-13 08:31 pm (UTC)he may have just been wondering a moment ago what tough kinds of things she might have gone through, but he wasn't expecting anything on that level... though the feelings that came with it certainly weren't entirely foreign to him either. being hurt and sad and furious all at the same time, wishing you could save something precious that's been taken away and wanting to burn it to the ground when you can't. ]
Ylfa...
[ he wonders if her psych felt like as bad of a joke to her as his did to him. ]
I'm sorry. That... that really sucked.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 12:02 pm (UTC)it's a bad memory and she's sorry he had to see it.]
...You don't have to be sorry. I mean, it was worse for them than for me.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 01:06 pm (UTC)[that logic doesn't seem to hold up that much to her!]
Anyway, I'm not like that anymore. I'm better at controlling it now.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 02:02 pm (UTC)Well, that's good... it seems like it'd be really scary not knowing when something like that could happen.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 02:04 pm (UTC)[this is a mg don't just tell people your weaknesses.]
week 7; monday
Date: 2023-08-01 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 01:54 pm (UTC)yeah, she can see him. maid hours are over so he's just in a flannel shirt and jeans with his hair down. money's there too if she catches him at the right moment before he wanders out of viewing range. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 09:19 pm (UTC)...Hey, Simon.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 09:43 pm (UTC)[ he doesn't wave back, just crosses his arms and waits.
there's probably a bra display in a window right behind his head that he is blissfully unaware of. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-08-01 10:18 pm (UTC)[like, they can talk. but if he doesn't want to, that's fine?]
1/2
Date: 2023-08-02 02:24 pm (UTC)I wasn't trying to commit to a whole pen pal thing when I wrote that, just to get a message across. I'm not really a big letter guy.
The thing is, every new detail I've learned in the past week about what everyone was doing to me behind my back's kind of just made the whole thing worse. So... maybe I do hate you, actually?
I mean. You basically tortured me for the last two weeks I was alive. I barely slept that entire time, convinced that everyone who said anything nice to me was lying to my face while secretly thinking I was responsible for both Lambda and Yakumo. That everyone was secretly plotting to kill me.
And then, wow, turns out I was actually right? Like, way more right than I'd even fully believed? Even the few people I'd thought I probably could trust were in on it.
2/2
Date: 2023-08-02 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 02:46 pm (UTC)I think you're wrong about that. A lot of people did want to believe in you and defend you. Like Amelia, and Livio. If that changed, it changed after they found out other things, things you did.
[but the rest is pretty fair.]
I mean, yeah. What I did to you was horrible. It turned out way worse than I realized it would, but it's my fault for not realizing. And of course I wanted to tell you when I saw your memory and I saw why it was affecting you so bad, but the fact is, like...
When I decided to kill Lambda, it was before we knew we could save anybody but us. I did it knowing that I was choosing my own team over every single other person here. And once I killed her, I wasn't going to go back on that decision. Like, what would it say if I didn't feel too bad to kill her, but I felt too bad to save my own life after? [in her opinion, it would have been shittier than anything else she did, to decide to kill lambda and then change her mind about doing anything to win and throw her and lambda's lives away.] I didn't know if you would kill me if you knew, or tell people who might want to kill me, and I still don't really know that you wouldn't have. So...once it happened, it happened. I wasn't going to endanger my life to fix it, because I owed it to too many people at that point.
I think you probably should just hate me, because it happened and I can't fix it or change it.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 03:46 pm (UTC)[ like, yeah, he made some choices there, but also you can't terrorize an animal and expect it not to lash out with its claws at someone. ]
I do get all of that, and like I said, I would've done the same thing, but— honestly I think it's just infinitely more frustrating because I've been stuck watching everyone simp for your team so fucking hard like you're these precious selfless saviors who've been suffering so hard for everyone else's sake all along, and no one else could possibly do what you've done.
The double standards are truly insane. All these people are willing to forgive every shitty thing you do and bend over backwards to help you cheat your way to the top of the rankings, but anyone else who played the game gets shit for it. People cheer you on for destroying people's lives but then hold grudges against Libby, who only did anything because she was told her team would be erased if she didn't, and incite an entire fucking revenge campaign against me.
Makes me fucking sick that you're winning this after everything you've done, which my team helped you do. Maybe it's not your fault everyone keeps singing your praises, but you could have just stopped while Justice was ahead and let us win instead of rubbing metaphorical salt in my wounds on top of the literal salt Jonas and Setsu packed in there. Could have just not murdered that pair of morons who offered themselves up since we already had enough points, or given Livio the final blow on one of them.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 03:58 pm (UTC)[no argument there.]
I wasn't going to stop, because I don't know how many points it takes to save everyone. I have no idea how many people we needed, and whether either of our teams ever even came close to the number. So it wasn't about beating Justice for me. If Livio and Amelia kept going too, that would probably have been a good thing, but they didn't want to! And I mean, yeah, I feel better knowing no matter what happens I'll save Rin and Gerard, but I also trust Livio and Amelia. But Netzach and Yuzuriha trusted us, not your team, for a very specific reason.
[she swallows.]
And - I've thought about it a lot, and you don't get to blame me for Zelda. You don't. I could just go around saying, well, if Count D didn't kill Rin, I wouldn't have killed anybody, so it's all his fault, but that's fucking stupid. I have to be responsible for the people I decided to hurt, and that's Lambda, and you, and Yakumo, and Fei Du, and Netzach, and Yuzuriha, and Shenhe. And the people who loved them and grieved for them. That's a lot of people. But you decided to kill Zelda and Fukuzawa. I don't think you're horrible for that. I even understand why you did it. But you don't get to blame me for your decision.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 04:25 pm (UTC)They were my choices, but specific ones that you forced my hand into making, so you still deserve at least a third of the blame for both of those, sorry to say.
And Money, since my killers still thought he'd helped kill Lambda. You know they straight up murdered him? Threw him into the lava completely on purpose because they thought he was a bad animal.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 04:35 pm (UTC)[she'll accept the blame for a lot of this, but she's not going to accept this argument. she knows what it's like to be a cornered animal and to lash out and kill. it doesn't involve making a lot of complicated mind control plans.]
Money doesn't deserve that, though, so I'm sorry to him, too. I tried to tell TBD that it was definitely not you guys, and they didn't believe me.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 05:00 pm (UTC)Because I trusted you not to frame me and Money — you were the only team I trusted that much, ironically — so I didn't even stop to consider your psych as an option when your team was the only one that had it. But yeah, that was extremely stupid of me, so I'll give you that.
[ tbd is dumber than everyone though, jesus. ]
Anyway. Good talk.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-02 06:07 pm (UTC)[but that's not how it worked out. anyway, she'll let him peace out.]