homophonic: jonas

[camena]

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[westedge]

Hey, you never know. It could be a part of my super secret strategy. [ a bad strategy, but they both know he won't. they're so used to walking and talking he thinks nothing of it anyway. ]

What'd you find out from Red?

[camena]

[ she laughs a little at the joke, but it tapers off. ]

... That we aren't ghosts, necessarily. [ which is a relief, in a weirdly specific way. for reasons. ] And that anyone who gets... erased... just goes to whatever normal afterlife exists where they're from. Whatever that is. [ a relief for a totally different reason. ]

[ anyway ]

Oh, and if we do manage to tie in points, she doesn't actually know what happens. There might just be a tie-breaker.

[westedge]

[ there's a little dissipation of tension when she confirms they aren't ghosts, even if he was unaware he was tense at all. ]

So if people get erased here, they just get sent out without another thought. [ well. if they're dead it probably makes sense. ]

Does that mean there's never been a tie or anything like that before?

[camena]

[ congratulations we won't be slowly losing our humanity and memories over time!! ]

I didn't think to ask.

But I overheard that the games can be different, so... Maybe it doesn't really matter what's happened before.

[westedge]

They'd probably say it doesn't. [ things that don't matter: the past, apparently. ]

The girl I talked to tried to say it was only three of them, but I'm thinking there's double that amount. Three we haven't met yet and then the three from today. We'll be able to go more places with time, but if we lose our team that's it. We can't merge to create new teams with people left over or anything.

A lot of what I heard sounded like "wait and see."

[camena]

... So if your team loses anyone, doing tasks for points will get even harder.

[ bad ]

[westedge]

Red said that points are gathered up by individual effort. So...yeah. If you lose anyone, you have to work more to make up for the loss.

[camena]

Then we just can't lose anyone.

[ she can't quite get herself to sound optimistic about it, but. ]

[westedge]

We're not. [ bluntly. this isn't about optimism anymore, this is about being focused. ] We need to start thinking more about who we're bringing into this.

[camena]

God, it sounded like a ton of time to get to know someone, but it's really not.

[ she got to know jonas in one night, so with that as a metric, she figured picking teammates would be easier??? ]

... At least after all that we have a few people I know we don't want.

[westedge]

It's really not. [ he's not going to point out that what happened with them was really, really unusual. alex is better with people than he is, but he's not going to be the downer right this moment when they need to figure things out. ]

The guy outright asking about erasing people? Yeah, pass. I'll pass on the guy who asked about what we were trying to get home for, too.

[camena]

Yyyyeah. Pass on that guy. And the librarian is cool, but I have no idea what he's talking about half the time.

It might be better to team up with people with, uh. Experiences closer to ours. [ normies. ]

[westedge]

The librarian isn't motivated at all, so even if I understood what he was talking about I'd pass.

[ ... ]

But about that. Have you talked to Setsu much?

[camena]

Fair point.

Not a lot, yet. They seem alright from what I've seen, though. Why, you like them?

[westedge]

Besides that. [ so yes, but that's not the point. ] They, uh. Might have more in common with us than you think.

[camena]

[ she just assumes the wrong part. ]

What, like ghosts? Oh, Valerie deals with them a lot too. Apparently.

[westedge]

[ hold on. ]

That...explains a lot about Valerie. [ hm. he does not elaborate. ] But no, not that. I mean the looping thing?

[ it's questioning, like "are we talking about this at all, or are we pretending it's not real, too?" ]

[camena]

Oh.

[ huh. ]

Like... little loops like we've been having? Or the—bigger ones where we get sent way far back? [ or... something else...? ]

[westedge]

Both? They made it sound like it could be both. It might not be the same day. It could be a longer period of time or even shorter, but it's the same chain of events where something new happens.

[ so. he's not an expert in what was actually going on, but he kind of thought it was similar? ]

I didn't tell them about the island. Just agreed that I got what they were talking about.

[camena]

[ alex pauses for a very long time and nearly lets the dialogue tree expire okay.

but maybe they should talk about this. ]

Well... Why didn't you tell them?

[westedge]

[ a pause of his own. well... ]

Not really my thing to tell, is it? I could barely tell when the loops were even happening.

[camena]

But you're still there. You're still going through them. Most of them.

[ except sometimes he just fucking vanishes until she solves a stupid music puzzle but that's maybe not important? who knows. ]

[westedge]

And we know the ghosts were the ones causing it and that tuning in the cave is what made them wake up and piss them off, right, but it's not exactly the same, Alex. You still remember some things I don't about those loops.

[ but since she's asking: ]

Do you want me to be the one to tell them? Are we even thinking about telling people?

[camena]

I don't know, man. I hadn't really been thinking about it.

[ that's... obviously a lie because it could have come up multiple times and she veered away from it?

but she sighs. ]

I don't want you to—not be able to talk to people for my sake. So. You should tell people whatever you want to. With what's going on it's not like they won't believe us.

[westedge]

Really? [ said in a tone that says he does not believe her, but he will let it slide. it's not like he's really ready to talk about any of it yet either. does it matter? they're dead, so it's probably whatever. they have to focus on getting back and going home instead. ]

That's not what it is. It's... [ ...ugh. he stops again. ] Never mind. Just thought you should know since we had talked about maybe asking Setsu to work with us.