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

[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?!

[sweetsynergy]

You've got good stage presence..?

[Help. Help-ing..?]

[bellpepperexercise]

[…that actually does help, somehow.]

I mean, I guess there’s not much I’d wanna do instead of acting. Still, there’s gotta be at least one version of me with a higher success rate.

[trustheart]

Hey, I have no idea what the other me was even like! I could have just been a normal student or whatever.

[bellpepperexercise]

—-I mean, maybe? Not everybody would’ve been from space. It’s just statistics.

[trustheart]

I bet I was just from some slice of life type thing about school club activities or some bullshit like that. That’d be nice.

[goldendoll]

... Everything seems like it was basically the same for me, too. Except Ave Mujica didn't break up after... what I remember happening.

[ everything she'd thought she wanted. a life that she can't imagine going back to. ]

[bellpepperexercise]

Oh…that, uh, would make sense from…whatever the other me wrote to the other you.

[Not wanting Hatsune to end up regretting what she was going back to, because Kana didn’t want Hatsune to end up the same way she felt.]

cw uh. toxic group dynamics, cults, obsession, chai i'm sorry this is spoilers but vaguely

[goldendoll]

... She was right to be. We turned into a cult. [ she huffs out a breath. she hasn't... admitted this out loud to anyone. there's something self-hating, disgusted, to what she's saying now. ]

On stage, our theming changed. From abandoned dolls, to... the Goddess of Oblivion and her knights. We were... we made our own delusional bubble, it was a gilded cage we all kept ourselves in. We were all held captive by Ave Mujica. It was... it felt like...

It was a dream we wanted to last forever, and we trusted— [ saki-chan—

a breath. ]

We trusted Sakiko... Oblivionis... to make that happen, and show us paradise. And we would do anything to keep that dream alive against the outside world, even if we knew it was going to fall apart. [ a joyless huff ] Pathetic, right?

[ another glance towards where the old hatsune's letter to olivia sat. ]

... No wonder she thought Planetshine sounded beautiful.

[thatsplato]

I don’t think that sounds pathetic at all.

[goldendoll]

[ you know what, if this is what her life is now, sure, she'll just. nod in slightly grateful acknowledgement when misty says that. ]

cults cw is absolutely going to continue

[protomartyr]

[ Lottie, like Misty, doesn't think that's pathetic at all. What else is the wilderness, if not a dream of safety and belonging? We hear the wilderness and it hears us. A loving embrace in the eye of the storm. ]

Were you happy?

[goldendoll]

... I don't know. [ she huffs out a laugh, dry and desperate. ] I guess she must have been. She had... everything I used to want.

[ separating herself from that other girl, who wasn't forced awake. whose soul hadn't shattered and been painstakingly pieced back together. ]

But it makes me sick to think about.

cw: cults, evangelical christianity portrayed as the same, ableism

[protomartyr]

[ Lottie is quiet for a long time. Long enough that Hatsune gets to speak to Kana, which gives Lottie even more to think about.

As usual, her thoughts turn to Laura Lee, and what it felt like to be close to her. ]

I trusted Laura Lee for the same reason. She thought I was touched by her god. And the other girls, the rest of the team, they all thought I was a prophet. [ Now it's Lottie's turn to laugh at herself, and the noise she makes is thin and dry. ] A whole world where what was wrong with me made me special, where people loved me for it.

But I'd be just as lonely as their prophet, wouldn't I? A worshipper isn't a friend. [ Lottie looks at Hatsune, deep and earnest. ] I'm sorry that's what your other self became.

cw the same stuff

[bellpepperexercise]

[Kana’s eyes widen a bit in shock, then set to something a bit more grim.]

It’s sad, yeah. You all just wanted somewhere to belong, right? I know if somebody told me I was important and that they weren’t gonna leave me, I’d run myself ragged for their approval. [Kana gives a grim sigh.]

I don’t know what Sakiko Togawa lived with. But I feel like I’d hate her.

[goldendoll]

Please, don't hate her. [ her own feelings about sakiko are decidedly uh. much more complicated! than they used to be. but... ]

We... [ she presses her mouth closed, briefly. ]

Those other girls. They had nothing else besides Mujica... and Sakiko was the same. She didn't—they made her be that, for them.

Re: cw uh. toxic group dynamics, cults, obsession, chai i'm sorry this is spoilers but vaguely

[sweetsynergy]

Not pathetic. Creepy as hell, but not pathetic.

[goldendoll]

Well, that too...