sweetdevil | 26th ♫ | scenery plastered with kind lies

26th ♫ | scenery plastered with kind lies

R2 OVERSEER AU CATCHALL POST

Yuuri goes by "Thorn" in this AU ~~for a Caligula reference~~ so hopefully distance herself and Not Be Attached to the Champions which as you can imagine definitely does not work! HOWEVER she won't be giving her name out willy nilly, assume that's some rank 8 social link and above shit
This version of R2 is ABSOLUTELY NOT IN ANY WAY as horny on main as the original, tragic as that may be. There's none of this The Bachelor business, but there's still a lot of emphasis on bonding and getting to know each other, and all sorts of Fun Activities on weeks where there's no motives.
The mansion is just the same as the OG version because i'm too lazy to come up with a new one BUT THERE IS ONE CHANGE: there's a little memorial tucked away in a quiet corner of the garden right from the start. and there's a little stuffed bear with it, because I Am Just A Bastard

There's some prompts below BUT you can also tag in and make shit up! YOU CAN EVEN TAG FOR BETWEEN-ROUNDS AND ROUND 5 MEMLOSS BUSINESS, JUST FOR FUN IF YOU LIKE

PROMPTS:

Office hours! Yuuri has private office hours in her little Overseer living space for a few hours every morning, so come bug her for private conversations and social linking!

MMMMMOTIVE!!! Yuuri herself is never the one who gives out the motives – that's the PAL expy A.I., HARU's job – but she's always present when they're offered up to the Champions if you feel you must do a Yell at her.

Afterparty!!! LET'S BE SAD ABOUT MURDER AND TRIALS. She definitely still cooks food for everyone and makes memorials in the gardens and is pretty clearly Super Fucked Up every time one of them happens.

STUPID BONDING ACTIVITIES. This sort of silliness happens every other Tuesday instead of a motive. Sometimes it's brunch, sometimes it's goofy pool parties, BASICALLY ANY SORT OF SILLINESS YOU CAN IMAGINE. Why not hang out with your Overseer. You know you want to.

I'M MENTIONING ROUND 5 AGAIN BECAUSE PLEASE IMAGINE WHAT A MESS THOSE SET OF MEMORY REGAINS WOULD BE WITH ME? THANK YOU

of course if none of those scratch the itch you can make some shit up GO WHERE YOUR IMAGINATION TAKES YOU I'M JUST HERE TO BE UPSET AND SO ARE YOU

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[ It's been week after week after week of this nonsense. They've lost so many, and Mira isn't sure she can keep on going the way she has been. She's not nearly as strong as the others who have died, who have been executed, who are still here.

All things considered, she's convinced she's the weakest link. Especially after their latest trial. It's left her pale and shaken, and she isn't sure she'll ever not feel the ache that's buried itself deep inside her heart.

She hadn't been able to vote, in the end. It'd been impossible for her to send Nari to her death.

She's here at the afterparty, but she's not really in the mood for much. Mira knows she should eat something, but... she can't. Her body feels so heavy, and her head hurts from how much she's cried. If she could stay here forever, she would, and not in the room she and Nari had eventually shared together.

>Approach? ]

[ It's never a good idea for her to get involved in their little afterparties. It's too much like rubbing salt in the wound and even though she knows it's probably a mistake to be here, Yuuri can't make herself not attend. It feels wrong to not be here after a trial, even if she's not in precisely the same position as her Champions and though she's sure it would be safer for her to be anywhere else, here she is.

And though common sense dictates she keep her distance, Yuuri finds herself setting down a chilled bottle of water in front of Mira at the table and sitting herself down as well. ]

Miss Mira.

[ She talks to all of them like that – polite formality and always from a bit of a distance. It's probably not a surprise to hear it now. ]

You should drink something.

[The actual round might not be nearly horny on main as a whole, but Finn is still one to latch onto anyone that treats him with a modicum of decency and personal respect. And, now, three weeks into this twisted social experiment, that includes Thorn.]

[It's taken a long time for Finn to warm to her, relatively. That first week was nice enough, but you'd have to be stupid to get chummy with the one keeping them all prisoner, right? But then, as the second week had revealed, she wasn't actually as in charge as she'd claimed. She might not be subject to rule seven, but she was as much a prisoner as they were. And it had only gotten worse. An accidental death -a basic painkiller unthinkingly given to someone whose biology made it fatal- and they'd had to condemn Prompto for it anyway.]

[It had been a bad day all around.]

[But by all appearances it had affected their Overseer as badly as the rest of them. She had joined their mourning, helped those who were worse off. Put up two more memorials in the garden.]

~~[Let's be real, the cooking was almost definitely what sealed the deal here.]~~

[So, finally, on the third Wednesday of their stay in the Fantasy Suite, Finn makes use of Thorn's office hours.]

...Hey.

[He stands a little uncertainly in the doorway, not quite stepping in yet. Hands clasped lightly in front of him, at waist height. A sort of instinctive at-ease position as he waits to be invited in.]

[ It's been a bad week all around, really. Yuuri had never expected this to be easy – but she remembered it getting easier the last time around, when she was a participant. Maybe it's because this trial had been an accident, or maybe it's because Prompto had been so sincerely trying to help someone. Maybe it's because this time she's not judge or jury – HARU might handle the actual killing, but Yuuri can't help but think of herself as executioner.

She's dreading Saturday already. If it's anything like this week, she's not sure if she'll be able to stand it. Like a fool, she'd thought she could handle anything as long as it was for Ruu. But it turns out, she's much weaker than she thought – she can't even give up on a group of strangers to save one little girl. Some big sister she is.

It's that gloomy train of thought running loops in her head Wednesday morning. She's waiting for someone to come drop by her office hours out of habit, rather than any real expectations and she's surprised when someone does actually turn up – even more so when she sees it's Finn. Hm. ]

Oh– good morning. [ Her brow furrows a little, but it's not an unwelcoming expression. ] Are you here to talk?

Yeah- it's all right if I come in, right?

["Office hours", more like "this could be a trap", right? And fellow captive or not, Yuuri still tends to carry an air of some kind of authority that affects him more than he'd like. Old habits and all that.]

[Still, he moves inside the door a bit more, in the lack of any immediate sign he should get out.]

I wanted to thank you, I guess? For being there. After- you know. After.

[ There's a pause following his words, in which Yuuri's unable to completely conceal her surprise. If she was expecting any comment on her presence at their get togethers, she thought it'd be closer to go away than a thank you.

Still. She can't let herself look too flustered. ]

I... you're welcome, I suppose? [ she gestures for him to come further in – there's a pair of chairs set up, in front of her little desk and she points to one. ] Here – sit down, if you like.

Thanks.

[He takes the seat with only momentary hesitation.]

...I was wrong, about you. When we first got here. I thought you were just another enemy. So- sorry.

I don't know why you're apologizing. It's a reasonable enough assumption.

[ And it's not exactly wrong, she thinks but rather wisely decides not to say. ]

What makes you so sure I'm not, though?

[So, um, the motive this week was sort of a doozy. If no one enacted rule seven by midnight, Friday, everyone would get to go home.]

[With the caveat of everyone you cared about at home forgetting you'd ever existed.]

[Oh, sure, anything you'd done would still be in place, we're not talking about rewriting history (yet). But. Credit would just sort of mentally shift over a few spaces. All phsyical and mental evidence that you'd ever been would just be gone. You'd be e perpetual non-person, HARU had promised, never quite sticking in the heads of anyone you cared about.]

[So, yeah, the Champion Cutting Edge is taking this prospect pretty hard.]

[She'd made herself scarce almost immediately after the threat had been delivered, sooner or later making her way to the most isolated corner of the garden she could find. A few galaxy pigeons have made her their perch, softly cooing to the tune of 'Who Wants To Live Forever', but Penny isn't paying attention. She's dully staring at her PIP, a short video playing over and over, Penny only moving enough to tap the replay button every time the footage ends. It's the video they were given a few weeks back as part of a hostage motive; featuring a young girl with a bright smile and a scythe bigger than she is.]

[Approach: y/n?]

[ This really is a good motive. Yuuri's almost impressed. Were she a Champion herself, she can't say she wouldn't be tempted to try it.

HARU's just smart enough, in A.I. terms, to keep the mansion running by herself and to get a good enough understanding of what makes people tick to hand out the motives. It's unnerving to Yuuri every time she does, when the thing she'd unthinkingly given her sister's name puts the gun to everyone's temples again.

It makes her wonder what the real Ruu would think if she ever found out what her sister had done.

Brooding on that thought is what brings her to the garden, even though experience tells her it's wise to stay out of the way on Tuesdays. She intends to sit at the memorial in the isolated part of the garden, think about nothing and everything, but what actually happens is that she stumbles over Penny, quite by accident. ]

... Miss Polendina. I'm sorry, am I– am I interrupting something?

[ disengage and escape, asap!! ]

Ah- Miss Thorn-

[TOO LATE, TARGET LOCKED, ENGAGE ANGST-THROWERS FULL POWER]

[Penny looks up abruptly, startled out of her reverie, frantically clicking off the PIP's video function.]

Not exactly, no. Just.

[She pulls her knees up to her chest, back against one of the garden's numerous flowering trees.]

Do you think she actually would? Or- no, she absolutely would.

[No need to ask 'who', probably.]

But. Do you actually think she could. Just make everyone forget us like that.

[ She's not really sure how to respond at first. As Overseer, it's her duty to steer the exercise in the right direction and she knows that 'steering things in the right direction' mean encouraging murder. If she gave Penny a yes here and now, would that give them an ultimate Champion?

Yuuri's not sure. And she's a little unsettled to realize that she doesn't want to find out, either. ]

You've all forgotten plenty of things before now. [ there. that seems like a nice, safe, non-answer. ] What makes you think she couldn't?

[It might net them an Ultimate Champion, but it probably wouldn't be Penny taking the title. It'd definitely get them a real shitshow of a trial, at least.]

I know, I know, but-

[There'd been so much she hadn't remembered, when they first arrived. Meeting Ruby outside the CCT, telling her her secret, all the trouble she'd gotten in for damaging that street and giving that poor old man whiplash-]

Just. Doing it to that many people, forever-

[It sounded impossible. She wanted it to be impossible. But weeks ago, she would've said getting into space was impossible, nevermind getting into space a few universes over, universes where there was no Dust, no Huntsmen, no GRIMM.]

...When we first got here. I would've loved for Ruby to be here too, even. You know, with the kidnapping. I thought she would've liked it, getting to be in space. Then I was more grateful than anything that she WASN'T. Now- I just want to see her again, but that would mean- either she'd have no idea who I am or that I'd- I hate this.

[ Yuuri stays silent. She feels slightly sick as she watches Penny, obviously rattled to the core, and she thinks that barely a few months ago, she probably would've been in Penny's place. Almost in pieces over the idea of being forgotten, wrestling with herself on if it could even be possible.

Or if she hadn't, she'd at least be able to offer some comfort. She'd try, however inept her attempt might end up being. Right now – well, that would be counter productive, wouldn't it? Even if Yuuri hates herself for even having that thought in the first place. ]

... I don't know what else you want me to say. You can choose to believe it or not to believe it. It'll be the same outcome, whatever you decide to do.

[ It became clear, early on, that Thorn didn't want to do this. That she felt guilt at every death. But unlike during another timeline, Takumi never had that important talk with this Overseer that made him see them as an ally.

Not sleeping with this one probably didn't help either, let's be honest.

So when he gains Mai's powers he spends his nights hunting the "demons". It's not strange to see him slinking around on the cameras. Not strange when he finds a place to hide, and set up an ambush...]

Edited 2018-11-09 21:25 (UTC)

[ It's late – too late for Yuuri to be out, with the way things are going this week. She's not sure if a motive like this is going to drive anyone to murder, precisely, but it's certainly prime breeding ground for some horrible manner of accidental death. The mansion's been in chaos and Yuuri hasn't felt safe since everything went topsy turvy.

But with it being so late, everyone's in bed or at least holed up in their rooms. It's the only time she can head to the garden in peace and even with the threat of demons, she trusts HARU to tell her where it's safe. Foolish as that might be.

So she thinks nothing of it, when she's finished with her duties for the evening – once all the flowers are watered and she's checked the memorials, Yuuri doesn't hesitate when she steps out into the corridor and starts heading back to her quarters. HARU would tell her if there was danger, so surely, there can't be anything to worry about.

Surely not. ]

[The Fuujin Yumi wasn't real, here. But Mai's powers made it real enough, and Takumi thanked her spirit for this chance. Like the real bow, the string and arrows were magical. Would only maintain their form as long as he had focus. And that had another, unexpected, side-effect: in battle, to keep his focus, Takumi's body was calmer, more steady. His PIP showed no signs of the rushing heartbeat or adrenaline. At least no more than it was when he was killing the demons or just the stress of this place.

By the time he took the shot, and HARU knew what his intentions were, Thorn would be dead.

So would he, of course. Surely the AI would fry him the moment the arrow flew. But that was fine. He was prepared. One breath, deep, then... let go.

....

Still, Thorn wasn't a bad person, he knew. So maybe what was intended to be a clear headshot wasn't quite perfect for once...]

[ It's close, though. Close enough that Yuuri doesn't even realize what's just happened or what's just whizzed past her, making her hair flutter and her cheek sting until she hears the dull thunk of the arrow impacting in the wall. And even then she has to really look until she realizes what she's just seen. And then she realizes what had just come within an inch of happening.

Her stomach drops and though she knows she should be running for her life, she finds herself frozen on the spot. She doesn't dare follow the line of fire to see who's there but... well, she already knows. Who else would it be, this late of night and with a weapon like that? ]

... T–Takumi. [ she fights to keep her voice steady, but it betrays her a touch. ] If you haven't run away, please come out.

[He doesn't come out, but it's not hard to find him... because the string and a new arrow appear slowly, casting the hallway into eerie green light, making their shadows dance. Reflecting in his amber eyes and turning them strange colors. Like a cat in the dark.]

I won't miss twice.

I know you won't.

[ To her credit, Yuuri stands there, unflinching, even if her voice does wobble as she speaks. She hasn't been hurt, so rule six hasn't kicked in yet – but it would be so easy. She would just have to say it out loud and before the words had even finished leaving her lips, he'd be dead on the floor with the shockwaves still running through his PIP.

It'd be so easy.

And it would be murder. Funny, how now of all times, that idea's suddenly so distasteful. But even though she'd just come within an inch of being dead on the floor herself, she can't make herself say it. Everyone here is going to end up dead anyway, but when it's personal like this, when she's looking him in the eye... it's so much harder. ]

But even for you, it's... hard to aim at something invisible. Right?

[ Her eyes are huge and glossy, her expression beseeching. Please, Takumi. She's giving you an out. Pick up what she's putting down, won't you? ]

[He stares her down, the bow not dropping. He's no idiot, he knows what she's doing. If he claims it's a 'demon', well... he's done nothing wrong. He's already missed his shot, it's over.

But he can't bring himself to lower his weapon yet. Part of him howls to take the shot regardless. Nevermind that he'd be dead before the arrow flew- at least with a sneak attack she'd go down with him, but that's impossible, now. Still... if he took the shot at least he'd die with his honor and pride intact. He'd die fighting back, instead of being sacrificed. Another victim argued over in that courtroom. He can't bear the idea of it.

Still, with her looking at him like that, he can't let the arrow fly, and his face screws up in pain, tears escaping and running down his face. Disgusting. Ryoma wouldn't hesitate.

...he wishes, suddenly, for the pain in his head from before. Because in the very least while he was being controlled he never had to worry about doubt. Or regret.]

I... was hunting the demons...

[ Coward]

Right.

[ And somehow, this feels crueller than killing him. She's no fool, she knows he must be desperate to try again, whatever the consequences are. And maybe he will – maybe next time it'll be a knife instead of an arrow, or poison or whatever other methods of death and injury are available to them all here. Maybe it'd be safer for her to put him down here.

But maybe not. ]

It's probably my own fault for being out so late at night when I know it's dangerous. When I know there's... demons. But just be careful, okay? It... wouldn't do anyone any good for either of us to get hurt.

[Did you think R2 being less horny on main would mean Arianna being less shipper on main? I hope not. Four people are dead, one of them her roommate (who may or may not have been a lineface sword girl in this timeline), and she just wants all her new friends to make out.

That is not why she's seeking out the Overseer today, though. That has more to do with the announcement yesterday morning, which she'd publicly responded to with a big speech about how people can change their fates on their own. Being able to sound confident about things like that when you really aren't is an important Sovereign skill.

Knock, knock.] Dame Thorn?

Arianna.

[ That's the greeting she gets, when Yuuri opens the door – because no matter what universe this is, Yuuri's complete inability to be guarded around the Champion Sovereign is just a reliable constant. ]

You're here to talk. [ an observation, as opposed to a question. ] Is it about the motive today?

[Arianna nods, and invites herself in.]

I trust you heard what I said about fate.

It was hard not to.

[ She says it matter-of-factly, her tone rather breezy, but she's careful to make sure her back is to Arianna as she shuts the door. It's only once she trusts herself to keep an even keel that she turns around again. ]

That was an impressive speech. I can see why they made you Champion Sovereign.

Thank you! I had to improvise it rather quickly, but I am quite proud of the result.

[For a moment her worries are forgotten, and she smiles cheerfully.]

[The moment passes.]

Would you agree that people can change their fates?

... why do you ask?

[ That's not an answer. ]

I simply wish to know what you think.

[Just asking, no uncertainty! Arianna is a great liar!]

... Well, it depends what you mean by 'fate'.

[ She's trying to say it matter-of-factly, but her expression is... off. ]

If you mean destiny or something like that, then I don't think there's any such thing. So there's nothing to change. But I think we have some control over the ways we die.

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26th ♫ | scenery plastered with kind lies

raises my gun and takes aim

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Office Hours

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aftermotive

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oh boy

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this ended up being both motive and office hours

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1/2

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