murder manor - reunion

[productions]

murder manor reunion



[You are in a darkened theater.

In front of you is an enormous cinema screen. On it plays video of the manor, accompanied by appropriate sound effects and background instrumentals when fitting. The seat you're sitting on is large and plush, and while there's many of them, there's enough room in the theatre for you to fully recline the seat into a comfortable bed if you wish.

Follow the stairs up and you'll reach what should be the projection room. There are no projectors in here, however; it is simply a large and well-lit room above the main seating area, and a good place to hang out with your fellow eliminated contestants if shouting at each other across the aisles proves too much to handle.

If you leave the theatre through the door in the back, you'll find yourself in a hall. On one end is a concession stand. It's stocked with standard movie snacks - popcorn, candy and the like - but if you're feeling the urge for something else, you'll be able to find it stocked somewhere in the back. On the other end is a table with thirty wrapped bags and a placard reading 'A star for our stars! Please accept these lovely giftbags as a token of appreciation for your hard work, sponsored by [illegible smudge]'. Each bag has a tag bearing the name of someone in the mansion; you will only be able to open the bag with your name on it. As soon as you open it, any memories that have been taken from you, including those of the other people in the mansion that you may have forgotten, will be returned in their entirety. Within the bag are also objects from your home that you may want for your stay here, though you will find no weapons.

There are no other doors in the hall save for the one leading back into the theatre room. There are also no windows; it is impossible to tell where you are and what is going on in the outside world. Any attempts to break out will fail. So in the meantime, why not sit back and enjoy the show?]

Murder Manor reunion week has begun! The next week will take place outside the game (and will not be remembered by the living characters). Once the week is over, the living characters will be right back where they left off, Sunday night in the manor.

All the dead characters and eventually all living characters will participate in this week, through Belarus and Yuzu will just be empty shells who cannot interact with the others. Dead characters (except Lithuania, who never arrived) will all be in the theater from the beginning, whereas living characters will only be brought in once specifically introduced, and will be given their memories at that time.

During the times when Doris is taking questions, characters will not be able to talk about things that are 'off topic.' They can talk and reunite with one another, but need to focus on things relevant to that week or topic of discussion. Any time they get off topic, they will find themselves stuck trying to make the words come out of their mouth and will simply trail off. There will be breaks where characters can talk without this restriction, but the same will happen to anyone who, at any time, starts trying to talk about anything to do with there being a Mastermind or player to benefit from the game or planted player who isn't Lithuania. Codes and other attempts to get around this rule will still result in trailing off.

Comments

[speakveryclearly]

[Innocently sitting here holding hands or something with her newly acknowledged not-not-girlfriend and then this comes on. She exponentially becomes mortified and then turns to her in all ardent seriousness:]

Annie, if you pity me, set me on fire, right now.

[#NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN]

[hollowheart]

I think Kanaya should have been smart enough to kill someone else. [ouch.]

[speakveryclearly]

Sonia was part of the group. I got sentimental.

I should have burned the goddamn gloves.

[hollowheart]

[She's still relatively bitter Kanaya went for her friend, even after all this time.] And never brought the sword with you. It was too obvious.

[speakveryclearly]

I never even figured out who to frame. And I didn't throw Touko underneath the large ground transportation vehicle either. As schemes go it really was stupid in so many ways. If the poker was going to be the weapon... neither of the items I picked apparently were even useful.

I had liked Rin well enough, and I still do, and I should have put on a better performance for her when pressing her into such a primary role. I failed her and you personally not to mention Susan and god knows who else. Never saw her as different from the others in some sense of mortal worth. I never even thought about her as a target until the rankings went out - Altman, actually, he was the one on whom I had my eye, but his involvement in the prior week's trial kept him off the lists and it took Sonia eight weeks to wrangle permission for that kind of crime. After that I just wanted to get it over with assoon as possible.

Maybe I should have been honest about my incentives from the beginning and thrown myself at their mercy. The only time I could effectively lie at all was when it was for you.

[hollowheart]

[Knees pulled to her chest over the chair, she's looking resolutely at the screen, almost sulking as Kanaya goes on explaining how things went. They hardly have had the chance to have that discussion at the trial. Most of all, it's Rin she feels sorry out of everyone. She can't even pretend not to care this time.]

Never mind. I was never a good liar, myself.

[speakveryclearly]

Humans are too good at it. They seem to think how they don't kill is what makes them different from us, but that's not entirely true, is it...? Not that us is the same in meaning for you and me, but I know I - didn't feel doubt for an instant when I had that poker in my hand. It's that they can lie... fake emotions like... indignation...

When they were reading Rin's computer and so upset about her scheme against Susan just for a guaranteed hit song - I saw their logic about the number of murders but didn't disagree with the motive. That is after all her own raison d'etre.

[hollowheart]

I don't want to believe the rest of the players are "bad" people. Deciding someone's goodness or evil on such shaky grounds is simplistic, at best.

But anyone who's willingly participated in this farce of a game is certainly a hypocrite. [she has strong feelings on this.]

[speakveryclearly]

It's a little like condemning the dragon in a toy set for grubnapping the heiress.

[hollowheart]

[One day they will have to have a cultural vocabulary exchange session.]

It doesn't change anything, you know, being mad at you. It doesn't change how I felt later.

[notyetlost]

You lied! You said Annie wasn't involved and she knew who did it the entire time?!

[speakveryclearly]

She wasn't in on the scheme! That part was true!

[notyetlost]

She knew the whole time.

[motheringnation]

She almost got another person scapegoated?

[What the hell. Never mind. Sympathy for Annie vanishing again.]

[speakveryclearly]

To be fair, as nobody smothering Spain has proved. There has to be a mystery every week and there would not have been much of one if she had told.

[CASUALLY HIDING FROM UKRAINE'S WRATH]

[notyetlost]

UGH!

I knew there was something more to this that whole time, you liar!

You two are the worst!

[hollowheart]

You were just cheering for us a while ago. [Really, Poland. How did you think they started flirting?]

[notyetlost]

I never said you didn't deserve each other.

[hollowheart]

Just like you deserv-- [She trails off, distracted by another thought before slumping in her seat, feet on the chair before her.]

[notyetlost]

AH--[Screw the censor Poland's plenty distracted now. He skitters backwards as if he suddenly got jumped by a complete stranger.]


I didn't know your face could do that!

[speakveryclearly]

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[WHAT'S AN ON-TOPIC COMEBACK...]

I'm worse. Than her. I went after her friend just because it was more convenient for me and squandered the opportunities granted to a deadweight's killer anyway. I could have even lynched Touko Aozaki to make it worthwhile but didn't do that just because of a shallow group affinity when her prize wasn't even as grand-scale as the rest of ours. And I didn't. I wasn't good enough to try and do whatever it took to succeed; just to try, in a fashion arguably greedier, a second chance as opposed to protection of what already existed in the presence. Basically I'm scum, not dirt; at least in the latter something can grow.

I want you to tell me just one thing, though, since this is the reminiscence episode and I'm not quite sure if my memory is failing.

Have you ever once, during any of our multiple moral debates, so much as uttered Rin's name? Because this is a discussion of Week Four, in case you'veforgotten, and she was the victim, whom I have done my best to recompensate with all the limited means available to me. Make all the moral judgments you like, please, as long as it's mourning Miss Kagamine. If you cared that she, specifically, died, and that we covered up her murder, then go ahead and express that vitriol.

1/2

[notyetlost]

First of all!








Has anyone ever told you have a like seriously convoluted way of talking? What the heck? [Give him a minute... to parse all... this... stuff.]

[notyetlost]

Um. Yeah I cared.

I like solved her murder didn't I?

[speakveryclearly]

You did do that. That doesn't really change my point.

If somebody baked a cake for someone else, and then I set that cake on fire, and then you threw out the burnt cake and scraped out the pan and found my fingerprints, that's not the same as baking that person a cake. It's not about the intended recipient of the cake, it's about the confectionary arson.

[notyetlost]

...

What?