dendroculi | [homophonic] catchall for jonas

I wouldn't put it past this place, actually. Sounds like Aika's got a funny sense of humor. [ brushes some confetti off. ] Have you talked to them much?

Not as much as I should.

[...]

The last time I did, I had been hoping to buy some cards and dice to teach Hikari how to play a game from Teyvat from them. But... I was told to check back with them later. Now every time I think about contacting them, I remember that I won't be able to teach him... so I guess I've been avoiding it.

[

and also i was cyoaing while trying to stay on top of my other tags so no one would be sus of me so i didn't have time cries]

[ glad you somehow found a way to make this sad anyway. ]

Oh. [ mm...now he feels a little bad. ] I get it. It's not always that easy to keep doing the things you wanted to do when they remind you of something a little sad. But I guess...think of it this way. Do you think Hikari would want you to avoid something like that?

[ mostly in that he didn't know hikari well, but he figures the guy would at least say he nahida shouldn't concern herself too much about him in this instance if it might help her. ]

[i'm taking a page out of the sumeru writers' book.]

No, I don't think he would. So... I'll talk with them again later.

[now that i'm not drowning in cyoa]

Good idea. [ fair and valid of you. ] They haven't been so bad. Willing to talk, at least.

They're just here to do a job, is all. It's unfortunate that they were put in a position that some of us might not be happy with them about.

I don't think Ive spoken to anybody that outright dislikes them yet, so...hopefully people can continue to be cool about it.

Hopefully. It wouldn't be fair for anyone to give them a hard time when this isn't their fault.

When you think about it though, has any of this been fair so far?

Not really...

[ deep sigh. ]

Just another thing we have to keep in mind, I think. Trying to be fair to us and to the reapers who're just doing their job for now.

..."for now". Do you think that might change in the future, Jonas?

I'm not sure yet. I'm still getting to know them myself, and none of them seem bad, but this is still their job and we're still in competition with each other. And now that we know the rules can be updated whenever, too,...it's like...fairness is going to be a thing that isn't the same as it was the week before.

[she nods slowly]

...it surprised me a little to see the rulebook updated, since the Reapers mentioned some aspects of the game on Sunday that weren't fully covered by the pre-existing rules and said that it was too bad if anyone wasn't paying attention to what was being said.

But I suppose a weekly rule is diffferent.

I've been trying to pay attention to everything they've been telling us, but some things are harder to pick up on than others. That's where it gets complicated. How much stuff is stuff they're actually telling us, and how much is stuff we have to read between the lines?

This weekly rule thing was never covered.

No, it wasn't. And it's... odd to me that it's only coming up this week. I suppose one might argue that we were just being eased into it last week, but... if that were the case, wouldn't it have made more sense to have it happen then so we would know what we were getting into?

[ he thinks about this. ]

...actually, no. It makes more sense to happen now so that we don't get too used to what's happening and to remind us that this is a game we have to play. It means we might see something else next week, too.

...maybe.

[the timing of it does still feel a little weird to her, but she doesn't know about cyoas yet, so she doesn't know just how many new things they're going to experience this week lol]

Sharing secrets at least... isn't difficult, once you've come up with something that would be considered a secret.

No, it's not. The good thing is that the people you're sharing secrets with don't have to know how secretive or even true the secret is. If it seems right, then you have plenty of options.

...but since a lot of us still don't know each other, it was probably a way to force us to learn more.

...I wonder how the rule was picked, then? To try to get us to learn more about each other... that seems like the sort of thing someone who wanted us to cooperate across teams would encourage.

But much of this game, at least the parts mentioned in the rulebook, has revolved around reminding us that we're in competition with each other...

That's a very nice way of thinking about it, but there's also the possibility that people could use what they learn against us. Or there might be people who just decide to take the punishment rather than share at all. It's still about what you think is most important.

That's true. I guess we'll have more of a sense of the intention behind it if we see another rule come up.

We can compare notes whenever it does. [ because he's not at all convinced it's not going to happen. ] And it might not hurt to see if anyone doesn't follow the new rule and see what happens to them.

...I already followed it, but if it turns out that we all have and there's another rule next week, I could always give not following it a try...

[experimentation!]

I...doubt anyone would let you not follow it just in case. Depending on what it is though you could probably find a different volunteer if you needed to.

(no subject)

dendroculi - 2023-06-26 18:48 (UTC) - Expand