WEEK 7

[bathymetric]

Another Saturday gone and just like that you wake on Sunday, down five of your number. The largest dent taken out of you at once so far - it's surely noticeable, the head count being cut by a third. Almost enough to make you wonder how many of you will even be left by the next motive or two. Surely this isn't a sustainable rate for body counts to increase... right?

There's a new and, it looks like, final wing of the building to explore, bringing everything full circle. Maybe you'll get some more answers to some of the questions and mysteries of this place there - or at least, you can certainly hope for them. Time to turn your investigative eyes towards one last batch of rooms, who knows what you might find?

Angel remains around at night, her appearances much more common now that... well, she's certainly seen a downtick in necessary surveillance work, hasn't she? The app giving you a line to The Professor remains open, and well... whatever's going on with that ouija in the library continues to happen! You're not suffering from a shortage of leads, at least, even as things get more bizarre.

Something's going to have to give here, eventually. Right?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to your last player case week! AC is over here, regains as always are over here, and... well, enjoy! After this we get to take our big turn towards the Serious. ]

Comments

[hardnosed]

I'm not some bumbling oaf, [ she snaps, mere hours before shotputting a bowling ball across a room, ] I'm just big. ... Just give it here.

[ But she'll just take them from Rin rather than make her say, as is self-evident, that she's already "giving it here." Jasper holds the paper close to her face, her yellow eyes fixing on the words. Either she's reading fast, or she doesn't see good reason to read it too closely. ]

Hey. Sixteen is young for a human, right?

[mouflon]

[ That isn't what she meant — but after everything that happened during the last trial, Rin doesn't feel like starting an argument. She hands the papers off to Jasper and keeps quiet while she skims(?).

The question is unexpected, though, and for a moment, no answer comes to her. Rin is barely any older than Anna was, and she has already thought of herself as an adult for years. But, even so, on some level she knows that isn't normal; every time someone has known her by reputation and been surprised to find out how young she is, she receives a reminder of that. ]

It's old enough to do a lot. [ ... ] Still, she was the youngest one here for a reason.

[ Which is to say yes, it's young, but to admit that would be the same thing as admitting her own youth and vulnerability, and god forbid. ]

[hardnosed]

[ She appears to simply absorb the information and continue on. Jasper's concept of children is quite literally a month old at this point. Whether or not kids just miraculously become adults at some point between Rin and Anna's ages, or whether Rin is a child too, doesn't really matter. (Therion's only a year older, and he's clearly a mature adult with his priorities in order!!) She'll just take her word for it.

But, all that aside, it's striking that she was so... like that, so early. Aren't humans supposed to grow and change, after coming out with no true expectations put upon them? Isn't that part of what Pink loved so much about this garbage planet?

(She absolutely does her dumb jock chuckle when Anna says she doubts she could kill her, as things stand.)

After a bit more of this, she starts actually skimming instead of just reading fast. But the parts that catch her eye that aren't her own name, about how Anna needs to keep her focus, how nothing else matters... ]

She was still just a human.

[mouflon]

I'm not sure what you're getting at, Jasper. Of course she was human.

[hardnosed]

[ Her eyebrows furrow. ]

Maybe I don't know what I'm getting at. I don't even know why I'm here.

[mouflon]

[ Rin is probably the worst possible person for Jasper to have this conversation with, and in this moment, she is keenly aware of that fact. Her eyebrows furrow, too. ]

You two... didn't get along. But, still, maybe something about her felt familiar to you.

[ This is Rin's polite way of saying that they were both slavishly devoted to a terrible life, which they had convinced themselves wasn't terrible, probably because they would have nothing left if they admitted that to themselves. But, hey, the fact that she's being polite about it at all probably signals some kind of character development on her end. ]

That's why I'm here, anyway.

[hardnosed]

[ Her lip curls dangerously, exposing most of her horrible square teeth, and there's a rustling sound as she grips the papers harder, but that's all she does. This time last Sunday she'd have ripped them in half and yelled in Rin's face. ]

That's what I meant. The thing she was trying to be... maybe it was technically human. But that's not what it reads like.

[ She is trying so hard not to admit that, after six weeks, she's finally made the questionable character development strides necessary to realize that Anna does, in fact, have some traits in common with her (not a lot! just some!), and that's why they hated each other so much. ]

If — Ernesta, or whoever — was here. Do you think she'd have done it?

[mouflon]

In the beginning, at least, I think the idea would have been ridiculous for her. It seemed important to Anna that she prove herself by beating Ernesta in GRANBELM, and... And she didn't just want her dead. She wanted her to be erased. Killing her here wouldn't have achieved that.

But I think that might have changed after that last motive. She seemed like she could justify anything to herself, in the end. She would have listened to me talk about parallel worlds and said, well, this Ernesta is probably just an iteration from one that is very similar to mine, but not the same. [ There's a little scoff that goes along that part. ] Or... She probably would have just snapped and come at her with her axe, and tried to justify it to herself after the fact.

[ ... ]

My turn. If all that, [ she waves her hand in an open-palmed gesture toward the papers, ] doesn't read like a human to you, what does it read like?

[hardnosed]

A Gem.

[ There's a kind of unspoken "duh" to this, as if it just stands to reason that there would only be those two options. ]

One with a mission. One who's trying to stick to it. She thought she had a reason to exist, and it was taken from her. Of course she was willing to leave everything else behind trying to get it back. When something like that happens, it doesn't matter what else you have.

[mouflon]

[ She almost says and that's why you're here, but she decides against it. It's a roundabout admission of the very same thing Rin had implied earlier, and clearly, that implication hadn't made Jasper happy. ]

But you know, Jasper, half of what you just said describes me, too. I don't think humans and Gems are that different, in any kind of fundamental way. It's just a matter of whether or not a person accepts it, when someone tells us what our lives are worth.

[ ...Speaking of which... ]

Have you... checked Rose's room?

[hardnosed]

You're wrong about that.

[ And she knows, or is certain she knows, what her life is worth. Especially now.

But there's very little confrontation in the statement. Honestly, she sounds more aggressive when she says: ]

I got her letter, if that's what you mean. I saw her pictures.

[mouflon]

[ Well, now Rin really hesitates. But, it's sooner rather than later that she says: ]

I don't know what she left for you or anything. But... One time, she told me she wished you could understand that you're worth more than you think.

[hardnosed]

[ There's no sound, for a second, save the rustle as Jasper sets Anna's notes down wherever the nearest surface is. She did implicitly say she would give them back in one piece, after all. That's probably going to get a lot harder. She's silent for a few more seconds, and then she laughs. Considering Jasper's laugh is inherently a dumb jock "huh huh huh" kind of noise, it's kind of impressive how broken and unsettling this one manages to sound. ]

Everyone keeps on talking about worth, and deserving things. Maybe I can accept that coming from one of you. But her—!

[ sorry rin It's Happening ]

We're made certain ways, we're programmed to want certain things. She's the only one who really understood that. And she thought she could just tell me to want something else after making me and all the rest of them to fight in her war against herself?

If I ever deserved anything, I deserved answers.

[mouflon]

Yeah, you're right. If she didn't leave behind anything to explain herself to you, that was shitty of her.

[ She isn't sure what she expected, honestly. Thinking about it now, the idea of leaving behind some confessional that could perfectly answer everything Jasper must be feeling, it's ridiculous. But, did she not even try...? ]

But I do understand that. At least, I know what Rose told me, and I know what I can infer for myself. However you're programmed, it doesn't keep you from having free will. If it did, there wouldn't have been any Gems that joined Rose Quartz — that decided that they deserved better than having their worth determined for them.

[hardnosed]

They joined her.

[ The relevance of this statement remains unclear. She's just saying things to say them, mostly, but there is some truth to that — that Rose's existence as a Diamond must have made commanding other Gems easier, even if that's not what she would have called it.

But that's not what really matters. What matters is that other Gems might believe they deserve better, and that for 5,000 years, Jasper's believed she deserves everything she gets, nothing more and nothing less. ]

When you said half of what I said described you — what did you mean?

[mouflon]

I have a mission, too. If you think I don't know what it's like to have this thing the feels like it's the only part of you that matters, you're wrong. I don't even know who I would be without it. Not the person you're talking to right now, definitely.

The difference between me and her is that my mission isn't anything that was decided for me. I chose this life for myself.

[hardnosed]

[ In most ways that matter, so did she. But she can't admit that to Rin, or to herself, even now. ]

What happened.

[mouflon]

What do you want me to say? Nothing happened. Not all at once. I just... I saw how bad things are, for the average person the people in charge claim they're making life better for. I couldn't stand by and do nothing.

So, I didn't. I decided to fight back.

[hardnosed]

I want you to say what happened. If nothing did, that's the answer.

[ Though, truthfully, she did expect more. Nobody told her to do anything? Nobody destroyed anything she was supposed to care about? She just decided to do it?

Pink was in charge. Was that all it took for her? And if it was, if she had some change of heart almost 6,000 years ago, why does Jasper exist at all? ]

Anna didn't make that choice.

[mouflon]

[ yeah, Jasper, that part came later! ]

No, she didn't. Instead, she chose to be what we saw at the trial. I'm not trying to let her off easy, here. But she was told that she was weak and useless, and instead of rejecting the system that made that judgment for her, she decided it was the best she could hope for.

[ She could have chosen to reject that system altogether, and live by her own rules. Jasper could, too, though Rin doesn't voice that conclusion in as many words. ]

[hardnosed]

[ Even if all of this is six degrees of Kevin Bacon but for hard truths, it's not like a part of her doesn't get it. It's not like she doesn't bristle like an agitated cat at the thought of it all. ]

You didn't seriously expect something else.

[ It's one of those statement questions again. There's an entirely different direction she could go on this, ranting and raving about how the Gems that joined Rose were aberrations, the lowest of the low, and how what Rin calls rejecting a system is just another word for failure. But all of that hinges on the Diamond Authority's existence. It relies on them all being created to serve them. That doesn't taste the same in her mouth, anymore. ]

She decided what she wanted before she ever showed up here. You can divert someone like that from her purpose, but it never lasts, not as long as there's a fighting chance. The only way she was ever going to change was by following it to the end of the line — and failing.

[mouflon]

It's not about whether the hole she dug herself was too deep to climb out of. It's about whether she ever had to start digging in the first place.

But, whatever way you want it, every step forward we take is a choice. It doesn't stop being a choice just because the first time you made it was a long time ago. All you're doing is insulting yourself when you pretend otherwise.

[ Either you diminish your own strength, or you shirk responsibility. Neither one of those is a particularly good look, so far as Rin is concerned. ]

[hardnosed]

You think I don't know that?!

[ Yeah, it's not about Anna anymore. Or it is? ]

A decision is a choice. She decided her dream was more valuable than anything else in her life. She decided to chase it at every turn. She's not the only one who found out it destroyed her — but she and [ ugh, gross ] Rhea decided to change it by taking action.

But if she lived, after all that, then maybe Anna would have chosen something else to do with her life. Not like her.

[mouflon]

And look where that got her. She chose wrong. You can say they were making a choice to change things, but when you're shown that the path you're on is going to get you killed, maybe you should take the opportunity to reconsider a thing or two.

[ Rin is being something of a hypocrite about this, considering her own motive! But just because she's a hypocrite doesn't make her incorrect, okay. ]

[hardnosed]

Yeah?

[ There's no right and wrong about it, she thinks. There's just a choice that destroys you immediately and a choice that takes time. ]

What'd he show you?