Endgame: Discussion

[lifeaftr_mods]

ENDGAME: DISCUSSION

Who: The gods...and you
What: The gods have a discussion with themselves, each other, and all you adventurers
When: May 3rd to May 17th
Where: Primarily Ensō
Warnings: Please mark anything as it comes up!

Keep Me In Your Clouded Mind

So, by now you're probably aware that things have shifted massively in the past few days. The Historian has arrived on LifeAftr's shores to spill a few mountains' worth of beans, and now all of you are stuck having to deal with it. But that doesn't mean that you're going to need to make this discussion alone.

The fate of LifeAftr - and the fate of all of you - is now in your hands. And while all of you decide what you will about how you plan to deal with that, the gods are busy having a long overdue familial argument. Consider this log a catch-all for you to discuss the fate of LifeAftr among yourselves, react to the various revelations, ask the gods questions, or just sit and eat some popcorn while they argue amongst themselves.

Remember - you have until May 10th to come up with any solutions that other player characters can vote on.

So think long and hard about where you want things to end up.

But Now the Stars Have spoken

Of course, you are always free to create your own individual logs and posts as needed. You may also use this log for characters to discuss and react to things with each other and argue amongst themselves; consider it a catch-all for IC endgame discussion.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them over on the Questions header on our Endgame Rundown post! If you come up with a solution that enough player characters agree can be voted upon and that is feasible for endgame, be sure to drop it on the Voting header on our Endgame Rundown post once voting opens!

Endgame Timeline

[ ♆ ] May 3rd: Discussion regarding the fate of LifeAftr begins.
[ ♆ ] May 10th: Voting for endgame begins.
[ ♆ ] May 17th: Voting for endgame ends.
[ ♆ ] May 20th: Preparations for endgame begin, and you deal with the fallout of any decisions.
[ ♆ ] May 31st: Endgame begins and lasts into June.

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[story_teller]

I know.

[They look up to meet him in the eye - or as close as they can come to it, staring at the visor of banded gold that passes for eye contact.]

I run out of time. That's what happens. Or I make a mistake...a mistake, a wish, something I do or say that I can't take back and so I set everything back to the start. And...

I'm sorry.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I'M WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE CAN'T STOP TRYING TO GET IT RIGHT!

[It explodes out of him in a sudden fit that even catches him by surprise. His chest heaves with the effort of it, though he doesn't need to breathe. Everything suddenly feels too big and too small all at once, and anger's easy, but this is so much more than anger, because there's grief, too. Grief for the things they didn't know were even lost. Grief for knowing the Storyteller must have felt like there was no choice. Cycles and circles and around and around, but he rolls with it, the words stumbling out of him in a chaotic avalanche.]

When someone can't stop meddling, when someone sees a shiny end goal and they think, hey, I can totally replicate that, I can totally get the thing I want out of this and--when it keeps happening, over and over and over again, trying something different but just doing the same thing and hoping this is gonna be it--

You get a broken piece of machinery that can't remember shit and has no god damn place in the universe! And every time you go back, you try to set things right, and no matter what you do...you end up at the same conclusion. Every time. The details might be different, but you've done this, and it ends, it ends the same way. You can't fix it. [The bomb always goes off. It always goes off. It always goes off. It always goes off. Every time it goes off until he finally fucking decided to just let it.]

I don't--I know you didn't bring us here, I-I know that was Mu, reacting, but--I don't belong here. A-and I'm grateful to be alive but. That's not my story. I don't belong on a--here, on a tropical paradise where I can't--I don't-- [He abandons that train of thought since it keeps verbally derailing.] I don't know all the details of what happened to me, you know? I don't know the specifics, because I don't remember them. I-I-I ripped my memories out of my own...fucking digital skull, and it isn't fair that you would make me forget, forget everything I've ever done here, with these people, with any of them that ever mattered to me--maybe we were friends! Maybe I--maybe I told stories before, regularly. Maybe we hung out, played some checkers in the sand with little seashells, o-or maybe Wash and I got on better and I didn't kill him and yell at him and treat him like shit, maybe Maine didn't leave, maybe I was like family with some of these people or maybe I hated their guts, I don't know, because you took that away, to wipe the slate, and you did it--every time, you made the choice, to do this to all of us and yourself.

...And you're sorry.

[He hates this. It twists his gut the way that this hurts, and he wishes all he felt was fire and blind rage, because that's easier, because it fizzles out quickly. This is just sad. It's all just so fucking sad, and he hates feeling sad about this. Hates feeling all of this.

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME-]

Are you only sorry because you care about us this time around?

[story_teller]

[The Storyteller shrinks a little at that. They hunch their canid shoulders and their tail drops between their legs. They cringe with every harsh word, looking for the world like a child being reprimanded by an adult for broaching a topic they should not have.]

...I'm sorry because I didn't understand. Every time this happened, I...I thought I knew best. Or I hated all of you, and lashed out, and you suffered for it. I never allowed myself to become this close to you before.

I've read through every iteration. [They paw at the tome lying on the ground beside them, the pages flicking slightly in the breeze.] And in none of them do I...dare call you my friends.

I don't want to forget.

That was never a reason that I hesitated, before. I always...I have read these pages, read them over and over, and in none of them do I read an ounce of regret.

But I don't want to forget.

I don't want you to forget.

You deserve to know me - to know all of me, the good and the bad. And whatever my past self might have done, they were wrong to rob you of that. To rob you of that choice.

I'm...

I'm sorry.

For all of it.

I know that will never be enough.

I'm sorry for that too.

[motherfucking_ghost]

[This is so exhausting, even though he's all charged up. It's emotionally taxing and he just wishes this wasn't happening. That they hadn't talked about regrets and guilt and memory before, or maybe he wishes they'd talked sooner, or--it doesn't really matter now, does it? Because the world is ending. One way or another, maybe.

Church lowers himself to his knees. It's not a collapse, but it feels like it. God, it feels like it. He puts a hand over the paw on the tome. My form is physical sorely for your benefit but he wonders if maybe there's some benefit to the meaning of the action, even if it isn't felt.

He feels very small in the face of something very big. But it's not the first time.]

Blubber Butt wants us to destroy your altar. To kill you so this world can finally just die. And if I'm honest, that's real tempting. But I don't think it's fair to make any choices without...talking to you.

So what are we gonna do about this?

[story_teller]

Perhaps you should.

[The words wobble. It's incredible that, in spite of everything, they don't want to die - they did this, all of this, because they didn't want to die, and that's still what motivates them now.]

If you choose that path...I won't stop you.

Perhaps I'm a fool to say it. After everything, after all this effort to prevent that very outcome...

But I don't want to.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I--

[No. Stop. Think about this before you say it. Think about the approaching wave of bright light, about Wash's resolve to end this, think about the fear, then think about the fear sliding away.]

I won't exist anymore if we do this. Moby Dick's gonna send us all back to our own histories, so I'll be dead. Real and actual full stop dead.

I think--I think I'm okay with that. I don't...know that it's a matter of wanting to die or not wanting to die; I think it's just a matter of-- I-I don't know, I mean of course I appreciate being alive, but I...

...

Aren't you tired?

[story_teller]

Oh, I'm very tired.

[Their shoulders slump a little as they look away, eyes closing.]

I'm so young, compared to the others. So young and yet - I feel the weight of every decision I've made, despite not being able to recall those decisions.

This world may be a dying, pale imitation of the past. Perhaps its time is up. I cannot argue that.

This world may be a mere echo, but you are not. None of you are. Your stories got to continue, be something other than what they were. And you... [They shake their head, tail drooping.] ...I do not want to send you back to your home merely to die.

You deserve better than that.

[motherfucking_ghost]

No I don't. I'm a dead man walking, remember? I'm an echo, just of...a really fucked up guy who wanted to end a war and see his wife again. [Church shrugs, looking away. He's more than just that, he knows it, but if he starts thinking that way, maybe he'll change his mind.

Would that really be so bad?]

Maybe there's something in your notes that can help. Something you overlooked or misinterpreted.

[story_teller]

Perhaps. I was so angry in so many of these past iterations. In some of them, I hated you. I wanted you all gone. I cursed you with such terrible things.

[It's remorse that hunches their wolf's shoulders, lowers their head.]

If nothing else, I would like...I would like to try and give you a better chance at things than you had at home.

If there is one thing I can do right, I would like to do that.

[motherfucking_ghost]

You didn't ask for us. We weren't part of the story. But you didn't have the power to send us away, either.

[He's not sure what a better chance looks like. Wouldn't that alter his story, change history? He died in a Freelancer facility with someone he thought he hated, a man who stopped being a man and more of a puppet, his friends on the run--

Carolina said they were good. That they were happy. Wash is proud of them. Thinks he'd be proud, too. If he gets a...a better ending, what does that change? What if he fucks that up, that chance that things work out for them all in the end?

But he misses them like crazy, too. Never got to see Tucker again before the end. Fuck, it's not like he hated the Reds, either. Not more than he hated anyone else, anyway.]

Anger's real easy. I know it. And sometimes you regret the stupid shit you say in anger because it's...so easy to let words get away from you.

You're kind of a piece of shit, y'know. For doing this. But, I mean, so am I. I've gone in circles, but I did it knowingly every time, so it's not like it's the same. But still. [He shrugs.] Do you think staying here is really the answer, though? The...fiction, the threads of some other planet's story all cobbled together, life on these wacky islands, you think it's a better chance?

I mean, better chance while I'm alive rather than none when I'm dead, but I just mean. More generally.

[story_teller]

Oh, yes. I'm aware of my...failings. My flaws. According to Stori, this would be one of them. My stubbornness. Gods are not meant to fight the fate presented to them. But my siblings and I, we didn't want to see all we had wrought go to ruin.

I suppose that was our biggest error. For all our dreaming and imagining, we were incapable of writing a story that differed from the one in which we already lived.

I don't know anymore. I know what Stori would prefer. I know they wish to see everything packed away into its proper place.

I am Stories. I am Memory.

If a better world were to succeed, it ought to have an identity of its own - not be carved as a cenotaph for something long dead.