graveyard part 4

[gamehead]

hunter's game the graveyard You wake up in an unfamiliar cabin. At first, it almost seems like you're in an entirely different place and that everything had been just a dream. The interior of the cabin looks nothing like the run-down, old-timey shacks that you had been living in before. Everything in here is sleek and modern, from the enormous flat-screen TV mounted on the wall to the fridge and mini-bars stocked with all your favorite foods. There aren't any individual rooms in here, just a common area large enough to house everyone comfortably, no matter how many more people join you...and there will be plenty more people joining you before the week is over. Because if you look outside the window, it quickly becomes clear that not only are you still in Prayer's Pass, but that you are no longer among the realm of the living. Judging from the tombstones directly outside, you're now in what had been the abandoned broken-down cabin in the graveyard. The cabin's not all that changed; the world outside has gone completely grey and everything you see appears to be faded and blurry. The only things that remain sharp and in color are what's inside the cabin, including your fellow ghosts. Occasionally, people who are still alive may enter, but it's clear that what they're seeing is completely different from what you're seeing. The door's unlocked; however, a mysterious force prevents you from stepping beyond the threshold, no matter how hard you may try. After all, this cabin is a cage for the dead - a gilded one, perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. On the flat-screen TV plays everything that is currently happening in the town. It will shut off once night starts...and something else will appear instead.

Comments

[speakveryclearly]

I think it's a deliberate decision on his part.

[Casually sitting somewhat near Kirigiri on the couch nbd right...]

Obviously it's a key coping mechanism for any prey. I'm sure you remember how it felt back when you were our protector. Numbers and methodology reinforce the feeling; not much else does, but then you have to face the reality of decimating a group containing over a dozen individuals.

[construe]

Selfish, smug victory is not what matters here. This is not a game of team versus team. Everyone's fate is in the balance here. Treating it so trivially is terrible. Wilful ignorance is even worse.

Had I remained the protector and not been converted, by now I would have more than realized that there was something more to things. To go this long determined to ignore all clues otherwise speaks of a remarkable ignorance in that boy. [ the 'boy' being Charles. ]

[speakveryclearly]

...it's really obvious by now that if we were allowed to know about the pack's secret - there would be no more competition. You're a heroine in either of your roles, somehow, that much I can believe.

What I don't understand is why the clues likewise lead to a wolf-sympathetic conclusion... but Lithuania, upon apparently discovering this fact and betraying the prey, was executed. Is that not what he was supposed to think? Why would Critter allow us to lay these breadcrumbs for the travelers if they can't eat the corresponding grubloaf?

[construe]

...

Think about it, Kanaya. Of all the things the creature can do... If it truly wanted to stop Lithuania, it would have, yes? It would have brought Hanekoma back to life just as before. But it didn't. It only got angry. Therefore... sacrifice... was not entirely against the rules.

...

Lithuania... understood that better than any of us. In a way, I am envious of him. He found a loophole in the game. He used it. But not everyone is brave enough to do what he did. They are fearful for their lives and will not defy the rules now.

[speakveryclearly]

Some of his peers were offended by the suggestion he was truly suicidal - but we've seen how much that means in this game - I think you're right! In that case... by his actions, the prey lost not one but two members at once!! It's undeniable that... if he thought the hunters were in the right then given the promise of death for all prey that their victory brings he could not have wanted to live...

[notyetlost]

[Listening to people talk about Lithuania when they didn't know him at all is just adding to Poland's malcontent at this point.]

He wouldn't do that, you have like absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[construe]

There was no reason for him to assume, at that point, that he'd ever return. It was an actively suicidal thing to do.

[notyetlost]

[If only looks could kill.]

He was not suicidal.

What's suicidal is not keeping track of how many freaking guns are floating around when your friend is the one giving them out.

[construe]

I could not 'keep track' of it, as you say, because that idiot- [ gestures towards Charles ] fooled Maizono into providing his group with weapons.

[notyetlost]

Are you kidding me, it's basic math! There were probably like ten or eleven guns made by the time yesterday rolled around, right?

Obviously if she wasn't giving the guns she made to you or any of the other wolves then she was giving them to the prey!

Shooting America, I get. Waiting until they had a buttload of guns to shoot America?

Everyone keeps lauding you as some genius savior or something, I don't get what's supposed to be so special.

[construe]

[ She stares at him blankly. ]

Aren't you supposed to be a centuries-old being? Such immaturity does not flatter you.

Were you even paying attention, by the way? The only two guns I was unable to account for were those given to Charles and Ciel- the other gun they obtained was taken from Mondo Oowada, who received one much earlier. By then, Maizono had stopped talking to me; there was no 'waiting'. That's how it fell into place. No more guns remain now, anyway.

Everyone is lauding me for a good reason. [ She says this factually, tilting her head at him. ] After all, I am the one responsible for deducing the identity of Rapunzel, for arming the hunters, and, on the reverse side of things during my work as the prey's protector, for taking out three hunters personally. Does it bother you that much that I am being lauded? It really shouldn't. How petty of you.

[notyetlost]

[Poland's just going to ignore all that sensible stuff Kirigiri just said because he doesn't actually want to listen, he just wants to start fights with everyone in the room.]

Oh yeah, if you're so great what are you doing here?

[construe]

I knew my time was up when Ada used her gun. Naturally they'd suspect me. But... that's okay. We did enough, and it was significant enough, to buy us enough time.

...

We're on the same team, you know. I am sorry your friend is lost... But we just have to hope for the best...

[encored]

I just don't like to see my work thrown back in my face. I couldn't care less about the rabbits or the wolves, to be honest. [ca...sually.....]

Well, like I said, it won't matter one way or another in the end.

[speakveryclearly]

Death for everyone who does or doesn't want it. It's like a corpse party.

[Sadly nostalgic somehow.]

[encored]

It's been a corpse party for days now, you know. [...] At least the food is decent.

[speakveryclearly]

That's true, that's pretty much all that goes on here almost by definition. We consume sustenance and television.

[encored]

We're a true slice of the modern day human population now, aren't we? [and then the cabin death party became the couch potato squad]

[speakveryclearly]

We really are. [Sounds sadder saying that SINCE THE APOCALYPSE DESTROYED ALMOST ALL HUMAN LIFE IN HOMESTUCK...]

[encored]

[the kanaya life is a tragic life....]

We might as well make the most of it while we're still here, then. Perhaps with luck - ah, good or bad luck, I suppose - we'll run into each other in the next city. I'd say something like "hopefully it will be less stressful than this one" but it seems to be a downward spiral, unfortunately.

[speakveryclearly]

I haven't done the city thing before. Or don't remember it, anyway. [Asylum, yes no. War, yes no. City? No.]

[encored]

You will, then. [...] Unless you're right about not recalling it, which is entirely possible. You're friends with the short screaming angry child and the blind girl who licks things and the pie-eating heathen, are you not?

1/2

[speakveryclearly]

The former pie-eating heathen, unfortunately.

2/2

[speakveryclearly]

[...!]

That's an exact description of the only other living members of my species!

[encored]

[makes an uncertain face... KANAYA WHAT HAPPENED TO GAMZEE WHAT DID YOU DO......

but that expression quickly smooths out and he nods once.] From the planet, ah— Alternia, was it? Like I said once near the very start of this mess, these games are nothing new to me. You arrive, you play, and chances are, you die.

But you don't stay dead. Even if you never wake up again in one world, you will always wake up in another. You see now? Even if we do all die here, it isn't detrimental to us in the long run. Anyway, I was in something like this that lasted for three years before arriving here so I do hope you'll excuse my desire to finish things as quickly as possible no matter how things are finished. [wait a second—] And why are there only four of you left, anyway? [...] Three, if the pie child is gone.