It really is the weirdest day.

[ takes a bite of his burger, then looks down at it. ]

Wonder if this would still look like bugs to everyone else.

Hard competition with Tuesday though. As far as weirdness goes.

[ looks at the burger as well... ]

Probably? Unless the curse was weirdly specific about being at the party.

Yeah, I have no idea what the exact parameters for the illusion were. I feel like they deeply miscalculated who was going to suffer from it, though.

Really going to miss this immunity when it goes away tomorrow.

God, me too. If I get the pity curse again, I'm gonna to scream.

What is that??

Oh. If you get cursed three times in a week you get to pick from a couple sponsorships about it.

Oh. Huh. I guess it's nice that they at least give you a silver lining when you get hit with too many dark clouds, but damn. How many times has that happened?

Twice. Once early on, then again last week.

Oof. Don't envy your popularity in that respect...

[ well not that the emotions were GOOD, but they do drop down a bit. ]

Popular, huh... I guess you could call it that. [ ... ] Well, I don't mind. Everyone is using each other as free entertainment.

Yeah...

[ a bit of a bitter emotion at that himself because lmao his whole life is literally about being someone else's entertainment.

he takes a drink, pausing for a moment. ]

...How do you feel having people here who knew another version of you?

[ she doesn't think of herself as above being entertainment, and doesn't even think it's wrong to see people that way. she just feels like it kind of sucks to only be entertainment to people who she can't perceive as caring about her as anything else. ]

It's... I don't remember if I've told you this, but I was like—in a timeloop for a long time before I died? [ casual. ] And so I eventually got used to the reset. When everyone forgets you, and every good memory you've made with them, and suddenly you have to pretend not to know all the things you know, because it's only going to make them uncomfortable if you don't.

It's weird being on this side. Not remembering clearly the people who remember me.

It's also annoying, because they all, uh, would really clearly prefer whoever they knew before.

[ the time loop part is new to him, but he just accepts it without any questions. and what she's saying about the experience here... he nods. ]

Yeah. That's a lot like how it is for me too. Rosamund-san and Ichiban apparently thought really highly of the version of me they knew before for... some fucking reason, and it's like—

I don't relate at all to most of the stuff Rosamund-san gets emotional about even though she's clearly expecting me to. And I don't know how the hell Ichiban was ever even friends with me if he doesn't like people who lie and play dirty??

[ takes another sip, frowning. ]

It just sucks knowing you're the shittier version of yourself, and that they're either already disappointed in you or that they will be whenever they actually see you instead of whatever image they have of you in their heads.

I don't think people change. I think that—there are shifts and adjustments within a framework of what a person was always going to be. Different circumstances make different excuses for the same thing.

So either any version of yourself was always going to become as bad as you are now. Or you're capable of becoming better, like what they want you to be.

But you aren't.

[ ... this sounds way meaner than she's trying to be because it's just her projecting her own miserable perspective. so she does think to add: ] That's a—general you. Not you specifically. Me, maybe.

[ shakes his head. it's fine, it can be him specifically; he knows he sucks. ]

I definitely don't change, usually. When I'm home, I never become any better. It's not a time loop like what you were dealing with, but... certain things always sort of reset and aren't allowed to deviate too much in my world.

So it's like... I don't know, I was that version of myself a few times that one week, so it's not like the reasons behind the character development are a complete mystery. But I also feel like this version of me went through a lot more shit than that one did, and it just kind of pisses me off that I apparently came out worse for it.

It doesn't have to be a timeloop. Some people spend their whole lives trying to figure out how to grow and improve and put their life together, and they never ever manage. No amount of sitting there telling yourself you're going to change will make it a certainty that it happens.

[ god and that's a mood. she laughs kind of weakly. ]

Yeah. The memories from that week are blurry, but they're there. That Alex doesn't know what's ahead of her. And I remember being that stupid. I remember thinking I'd be different, and I'd be fine, and I'd keep it together so much better than anyone else.

But then I learned that I'd been wrong. And no one else did, or believes me.

[ winces... that's a hell of a cassandra situation. ]

God, that sucks. There's nothing you could tell them that would prove you'd already been through it and know what you're talking about, I guess... It's probably not as convenient as in the movies.

[ damn. he really hadn't realized she'd had to deal with all this. on top of losing her brother and everything too... it makes his own problems seem pretty pointless and stupid in comparison. (though he supposes that is part of the problem; pointless and stupid is what his whole life is written to be.) ]

It must have been really lonely.

The problem with telling people that you're in a timeloop is that they'll get really really stressed out about trying to fix the timeloop. But it's a waste of their time.

[ and she talks a big game about problems on a smaller scale than eternity being nothing, but—well. sometimes you are a liar. she feels like she can relate to the base of the problem, which is more than she gets from most people. she takes a drink, thinking about this... ]

Maybe. But it's lonelier outside of it.

In hell, you mean? Or...

Wherever.

Places are just containers for the stuff that happens there.

Mm.

[ he takes a small bite of his burger and chews in silence for a moment as he considers that. ]

...But sometimes the things that can happen are dependent on the place you're in. So I think it matters a little more than that.

True enough... Different things happened to you and—the other version of you, right? Even in a set up as similar as one of these games.

Yeah. I mean, you saw what a shithole the place we were stuck in was. No electricity and only one shower in the entire village. Which was haunted. That island where we made the soup was the only place we ever had that had minimally creepy vibes, and it disappeared after a week.

The spaceship where the other one was... was mostly fine, from what secondhand memories I have? [ aside from the flesh walls, but they didn't know that was a thing until late game. ] Had a nice bar and a food court and a place to get any clothes you wanted.

[ but he does also remember that the difference there was that the haunted house had always been full of lively people and felt like a home, while he was alone in a room on the spaceship after the first week. and everything happening in scawwy was at least going according to some sort of plan, while no one on the spaceship had any idea why people were dying. ]

Well, I'm a bad judge for that. I liked the creepy place. [ kind of joking, but this is true... ]

Still. It's like the difference between Heaven and Hell. One side gets all the easy comforts, uh, murder aside. But you were stuck in the dregs.

[ a bit of a laugh. ]

Yeah, well, touring it and living in it for eight weeks are very different experiences. That bathroom situation was dire.

But yeah, it's kind of like that.

[ actually a lot like that, heaven is less impressive than he was expecting. ]

And then home is something different altogether.

[ very mixed feelings because he loves his home more than he'd like to admit and he misses it but god is it ever holding him back. ]