backspacing | Camp: private conversations

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Respond here for a private conversation with Red! All comment threads are screened.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

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...

I can't speak for years before my time, but since I have been here, no.

[Seven years. Not a single survivor.

There's a reason this job gets to her.]

It would be nice if someone would make it, though.

From:

le_mat

But what then? I... I think I'd rather die then get out of here on everyone else's back. Or before this... thing... took over.

From:

backspacing

That's a little surprising to hear coming from you. I thought you would be one of the ones to make it to the end, get out of here, and then try to steal the hearts of everyone at my organization.

From:

le_mat

[he laughs bitterly]

Of course I plan on doing just that- I still have dibs on your heart too, Red. But I'm not killing anyone to do it. That's against our aesthetics. There's no such thing as 'acceptable sacrifices'. That's... That's what lead Akechi where he ended up. It would be a spit in his face to end this that way.

[it was what the fake Igor had tempted him with. And he had been so very close to taking it]

...plus I refuse to be anything or anyone's puppet ever again.

From:

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[So, fun fact: Red visibly tenses up when Akechi's name is mentioned. Like, to the point where she makes a mistake while painting Ren's nail. But she quickly recovers and moves to tidy up that mistake.]

You want to live, but you don't want to accept that living means someone else will die. That's quite the conundrum.

[A pause, and she will move on to his other hand.]

...

I hope you do survive. Someone like you might actually be able to change things.

From:

le_mat

People keeps saying that.

[he doesn't sound annoyed or even sad. Maybe a bit resigned, and a bit proud in equal conflicting measure. He let's her paint in comfortable silence for awhile. Thinking]

I don't know if Akechi and I were ever friends. I REALLY don't know if I was ever his- if he even could have one anymore at that point. We were enemies... Akechi was my enemy. But maybe Crow was my friend.

From:

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But this isn't the Metaverse, and Crow will never be here. Just like how Joker won't be here either. It's Ren who will sink or swim.

[As she finishes up his nails, she sets the red aside and pulls out a bottle of white. Time for some polka dots on the middle fingers!]

Those who make a difference rarely get to make that difference at the pace they choose. They have to act when the opening is there. When my world ended, nobody asked me if I was ready to act. Fate just handed me a sword and said 'fight, or be consumed.'

From:

le_mat

[He nods. She's not wrong - He had to make so many choices based on his gut at the end there when he couldn't retreat to his 'real' life to recharge his mind and soul.]

Joker is cool and collected. He takes what he wants. I'm not sure how much of that is really me, sometimes. Guess now I don't get the chance to debate it either way.

Edited Date: 2018-06-22 04:34 am (UTC)

From:

backspacing

I think you're better off as 'Ren' anyway.

Joker steals hearts, but Ren actually knows what to do with the hearts that have been stolen.

From:

le_mat

[That was something he had learned recently, in the prison of regression. Sure, taking out 'bad' people was fine. Noble even. But without cutting the root all he did was put them right back where they started.

Joker wasn't subtle. Joker was just who he wanted to be. Someone that could fight back against all the injustice he had suffered. Joker was, deep down, a wish for revenge as much as he was for justice. Maybe that was why he was so much more violent then Ren- he was just a part of who he could be, without anything holding him back.

Still, Red's words make him blush a little]

Hey now, I'm the one that's supposed to word things like that.

From:

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[Oh god he looks abso-fucking-lutely adorable when he blushes like that. Red almost wants to pinch his cheeks right now.]

I've been around a lot longer than you, so I get to say the cool lines sometimes.

[But only sometimes.]

From:

le_mat

Hmmm, saving them for the right moments. I get it.

[huffhuff]

From:

backspacing

Of course. Timing is everything for a musician.

[She knows you were in her mind and saw that concert, Ren. Get rekt.]

From:

le_mat

[He looks even more embarrassed - he's not used to being rekt gdi]

Maybe I should learn an instrument or something. You know, expand my horizons.

From:

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It's always good to expand your horizons. You might have trouble finding an instrument in camp, though. This isn't band camp.

From:

le_mat

... why IS it a camp?

[That's the question that's been bothering him for awhile, honestly]

From:

backspacing

Why do the metaverses you travel take the shape they do?

[It's a relevant question she swears.]

From:

le_mat

They're how the rulers see the world around them. Kamoshida 'ruled' the school, so he was a King in a Castle.

From:

backspacing

Exactly.

So why might this all be a summer camp?

From:

le_mat

Because it's how it's viewed... because we're all kids?

Fuck. You said before it works slower the older you are. Is that why we're all teenagers?

[He feels a little ill]

From:

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[HAVE FUN FEELING ILL THERE]

There has to be personnel on-site in case things go awry. What is the best way to make sure that the 'right' people are 'taken' first?

From:

le_mat

The only other place I can think of where you have adults watching a big group of kids would be a school. And that'd be way harder to fake.

From:

backspacing

Exactly.

That's why it's a camp.

From:

le_mat

...but you didn't even try to convince us that it was real. Stan thinks it is, and the...ones who died. But the rest of us know we're kidnapped. I mean, tch, a little memory tweeking and I'd probably buy that my parents shipped me off again - if it wasn't right before school starts back home.