SO YOU WANT TO STEAL SOME CHILDREN (Endgame Catchall)

[facultwist]

Welcome to the container for your endgame! This will be the place where you can perform your polterheist (we really love that portmanteau), and where you'll be able to commentate on the final trial!

ICly, the whole heist will take place Monday, while the final trial watch will take place Thursday. For anything not related to endgame, please continue to use the main deadland post!

Comments

cw: emeto mention, necromancy stuff

[sweetsynergy]

[And then, uh, the last part of all this drops. Vanity's stomach lurches a bit, seeing the footage.]

What the FUCK-

[Emotions flicker through her rapid-fire, before settling on squirming, twisting anger.]

Oh fuck no, that space-bitch doesn't get to run off in my fucking body like some kind of goddamn skinsuit!

prev cws + decapitation, depersonalization

[goldendoll]

[ she's... conflicted at best, about a lot of what they're learning. not least of which is that once upon a time, the ideals of parentage would have spoken to something deep inside of her. now, it only serves as a reminder of how she's changed.

at the reveal of their bodies—the stitches encircling her own neck, a doll torn and sewn back together—hatsune's immediately caught between revulsion and a dark, maddened amusement. ]

... All that I remember being different is in the past year. And no matter what happens... even if I wanted it, Olivia can't give me my old life back.

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ ...... ]

I remembered meeting Kana-chan...but then she was a different girl than Kana-chan. Like...she was interchangeable. That's...

I wouldn't want to be that other me.

I wouldn't want...such an important person to me to be...hazy, like that.

[goldendoll]

[ "I will forget you. If it means I can be by your side, then... I will forget everything."

the desperation, the five of them keeping themselves in a gilded cage, a bubble of mutually enforced delusion—if that was what resurrecting mujica and defying her father took, then— ]

... Yeah. I... [ she closes her eyes. ] ... There's probably still time, for Misumi Hatsune to try to make up for her old mistakes out there. But I won't... I can't lose what I've found here.

... Whatever happens, Rinne-chan, she can't make us go back.

[trustheart]

…You’re your own person, Rinne. Never forget that, alright?

prev cws + decapitation, depersonalization, parental death

[sweetsynergy]

I only had the one dream, but-

[The rush of power. The familiar anger, but with the certainty that she could use it freely, not having to hide.]

[The ease with which her hand shot forward, through the body of her father- It had felt good.]

If the rest of you don't like me now, you'd fucking hate HER.

[goldendoll]

[ as hatsune glances over the spread-out letters, she pauses on one. the one in her handwriting, to olivia. ]

... Yeah. I think I was probably worse, too.

[bellpepperexercise]

You were from space?! I was just an idol!

[sweetsynergy]

I'm pretty sure, yeah?! I didn't PICK my weird-ass reincarnation or whatever the hell this is!

[bellpepperexercise]

Still! I feel so basic now! Everybody else is having dreams about being in space or fighting dragons and meanwhile I’m still in dramas that get cancelled and getting dragged to sing and dance on a stage. Am I just cosmically destined for that?!

[trustheart]

…

[ Once again, Chris has been quiet this whole time. But once she sees this, her eyes widen with fear, and she grabs for Rinne’s hand, squeezing it and not letting go. ]

This. This is wrong…what…what could have driven her to this? What about the old versions of us would make someone want this?!

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ Rinne does not hesitate to take it. Whatever her relationship with Chris—what it will be, what she wants it to be, what it could be—Rinne's found something.

She...doesn't want to watch life pass her by anymore. She wants to experience. She wants to live.

Or, well... You know. ]

[trustheart]

[ Chris clings to it as a lifeline. It’s real. It’s tangible.

She may be dead. But it’s something to cling to after everything. ]

What they must be going through…Having to suffer through that first game, and now this…

[ … ]

Olivia must feel so alone…

[ She’s felt alone too. ]

[sweetsynergy]

When you're trapped anything that lets you do SOMETHING can seem like a good idea.

[Her hand moves for a second, and then she folds her arms tightly.]

After that it's just telling yourself it'll all be worth it once it's done.

[thatsplato]

Don’t worry, Vanity. We won’t like her either. [… She’s not worried. She’s the original Misty. Obviously.]

[sweetsynergy]

...thanks Misty, we can always count on you.

[it is the vocal fucking sahara in here]

cw dissociation;

[eternalfuture]

[Usagi isn't even remotely in the room right now. She's dissociating, and heavily at that. Eventually she snaps out of it just a little, just enough to -- ]

-- she could have asked me. I - my previous me - could have healed this, I --

[She trails off, into that dissociation again.]

Re: cw dissociation;

[sweetsynergy]

....she wouldn't have been there, by the end. If the patterns were the same-

[Had it been deliberate, that time around? Another mass murder attempt gone wrong, or had that other Vanity picked what she thought was a pair of easy targets?]

that one's continuing

[goldendoll]

... Usagi-chan. [ resting a hand gently on both of her upper arms. ] Breathe with me for a second. In, out.

If the old you is here on campus somehow, even if it's just in spirit... do you think there's a way she could do something now? [ it's nearly impossible to imagine any version of usagi would want this. ]

Re: cw dissociation;

[trustheart]

…The story can’t change, Usagi. At least. That’s what Olivia thinks.

[ But it already has. Isabella is proof of that. ]

[banishedfromparadise]

If I could have brought her back...

[Of course Dorothy is horrified at the thought of some other version of her being squeezed into her body. But the merging thing Hawke's talking about...

She could never sacrifice someone else's life to save Tori's. She's certain the other version of her would, for her Pinne, but she wouldn't go that far. Not even after the dreams. But if there was a way to save her, without destroying someone else in the process...]

I... understand how she feels. She's desperate.

[Her voice takes on an intensity that it hasn't since she died.]

Don't any of you have someone you'd tear the world apart to protect? I know, what she did to us was horrible, it's cruel and it's wrong, and I can't forgive her for killing us just to replicate some sick game. But...

[... I might have done the same.]

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

[ ...... ]

Yes.

Yes, Miss Dorothy. I do understand. That's what I hate the most.

[trustheart]

[ … ]

Mom and dad. I’d give anything to see them again. Or at least, at one time in my life I would have.

[goldendoll]

... I get it too. A lot better than I'd like to.

[ she rests a hand on dorothy's forearm, briefly, giving it a light squeeze. ]

But it's like Rinne said.

[rosewitch]

I think . . . perhaps I did.

[It's just a thought. Not a memory, not a theory, merely an instinct. But — there is one person who would need it, and who would ask it of her.]

[It feels just out of reach, just beyond her fingertips. But she doesn't need to see it to understand: she would have broken the world for Akio, once upon a time.]