[ haha!! mood!! ichiban is similarly deadeyed as he holds his own cup out, before dropping his face on the counter. ]

Share the love, Tot-chan.

Sure thing.

[ pours it in... then sets the bottle down and sits to do the same thing. ]

I'm so fucking ready for this all to be over. Not that I wasn't already on day one, but. God.

[ thank god. despite his insistence on the drink, though... it sits on the counter, untouched. ]

Yeah, just... what the fuck? I know there's never been any rule about shit happening any time other than Thursday night, but... that was just cruel. Watching her just... fall apart like that? [ he shudders. ] I'm not an easy guy to startle, but something about just seeing it happen was too much.

Yeah. The thing with the ink especially, that was...

[ existentially horrifying, the implication that the awful briars that had defined her life, as written by her author, were the only thing holding her together as a person in the end. ]

...It was fucked up.

...you think that was reminding us about what's supposed to be going on here? All that bullshit with the reports and scripts and everything?

[ confusion vibes ]

What? No, it—

[ ...oh. hm. well, they were both pretty secretive about this, weren't they. ]

Um. Do you know where she's from, originally?

The fairytale stuff? Yeah, I do, but I was thinking more, like... it was a parallel? She was trapped by her story, just like how we're trapped in this one now. And if we don't follow the script with the Australia shit, the same'll happen to all of us...

[ oh thank god, he didn't want to have to try to explain that without outing her. ]

Mm... I think it was probably more of a personal thing for her than something meant as a message for us...? At least that's how these trips usually are.

Though yeah, the parallels between that kind of thing and this scripted game show bullshit are definitely something we've thought about.

...........................

Least we've got a sweet tunnel, right.

It's a good tunnel. Yeah.