Camp: private conversations

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

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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.'

[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.

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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.

[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.

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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.]

[le_mat]

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

[huffhuff]

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Of course. Timing is everything for a musician.

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

[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.

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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.

[le_mat]

... why IS it a camp?

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

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

[It's a relevant question she swears.]

[le_mat]

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

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Exactly.

So why might this all be a summer camp?

[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]

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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?

[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.

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Exactly.

That's why it's a camp.

[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.

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But who is it that we're trying to convince here?

[le_mat]

The only other people here are the hunters. I'd hope they wouldn't try and shoot us if they thought this was a legit camp.

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You aren't trying to convince the hunters, the campers, or the counselors.

So who are we trying to convince?

[le_mat]

... the voice...?

[He looks very Concerned]

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[Now you're getting it Ren.]

[le_mat]

[And this is before Kitten Time so he has no name for it yet but still, he looks pale]

It would go for a place that has a lot of kids normally. You have it contained here, don't you?

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The higher-ups have decided that a couple dozen lives is a small price to pay for keeping this thing here in northern Michigan, far away from other people.