I tried to get through to you

[archboxer]

[You know what that was? A fiasco. That was an utter fiasco. Three more people gone on a chance that may not happen! This is horrible. Even if some people dislike her, Rhea... is up to the challenge once more. This time she does it nearly herself: writing out the invitations, ordering the food and telling everyone to meet at the bar. In Ema's honor, of course.

She hands out the invitations herself and if she can't find you, she'll slide yours under your door.]

Comments

Arcade

[ladygeryon]

[Nira walks up while she's playing knock-off Mortal Combat.]

Want a second for that?

[nothingcanstop]

[ Unlike DDR, her skills on this have not atrophied. She's rocking it. ]

Nira. Yeah, sure. You play before?

[ladygeryon]

Not this game specifically. But Adam loves getting the family to play along with him, so I'm familiar with the genre. He usually wins, though. [But she says it in a fond tone. She's proud of her gamer son!]

[nothingcanstop]

Win, lose, let's just go a round. That sounds nice, right about now.

[ladygeryon]

That works for me. Got any particular opinions on what character you want?

[nothingcanstop]

Nah. I've been jumping around 'em. You pick first.

[ladygeryon]

Alright then, let's see how this does-[She picks a sword-wielding character, as might be expected, taking a moment to also look at the controls and practice using them.]

[nothingcanstop]

[ Della takes...something weird, one of those two-people-in-one designs. A grappler that's a young girl but also a giant monster. Those sort of things. ]

...How you doing?

[ladygeryon]

...tired. I was so glad for a moment when I realized I might be able to tell Piers that I'd look after his team, and then she had to take that happy moment and turn it into an excuse for what she did. [She punctuates the word "excuse" with an especially forceful push on the controller.]

[nothingcanstop]

[ Della breathes out and nods. ] It... She was probably trying to justify it in whatever way she could. She sounded desperate. ...Unable to accept compromise.

[ladygeryon]

Pretty likely. I haven't gone through what she has, so I can't say how desperate I'd be...I won't claim I could be stronger than her, but I wouldn't have had deflected so hard even after it became obvious.

[nothingcanstop]

...We'll never know now. Thinking about what-if's....there's no point in it. Isn't that what all this taught us?

[ladygeryon]

Yeah, sounds like it. Yet somehow no one seems to learn the lesson that killing someone and not getting caught isn't going to happen here.

[nothingcanstop]

Desperation does weird things to the mind. Make you think you can do anything. Even if you can't.

[ladygeryon]

Hah. She managed to get all the way to setting up that whole scene without getting caught, after all. Guess she was just coasting on momentum after that.

[nothingcanstop]

I...understand why they fight so hard, mostly. After doing all that, after...killing someone with your own hands, giving up... It probably looks harder. More scary.

[ladygeryon]

...probably. I can't say I've experienced that personally, but I've seen similar sentiments in others. Someone desperate will cling to any lifeline they might be able to find, even if it's just to delay things.

[nothingcanstop]

I'd say we're all a little desperate in some ways. She was angry. Her desperation came out in...that way.

[ladygeryon]

[Nira nods.] Everyone's different in how they express such things. I'm personally focusing all my anger on the Professor. Once we finally meet face to face and there's no more danger of his punishments, I'm going to let it all-out-on-him. [She punctuates those last words with several violent sword jabs in the game.]

[nothingcanstop]

Save some for me too. I have some things I want to pay him back for.

[ladygeryon]

Oh don't worry, I will. Long as you leave enough to drag to the authorities.