WED BED BEHEAD: avante en garde

[idolpro]

[You wake alone with your unit in what appears to be a dressing room. There's nothing on the costume racks right now, but you have vanity seats and a couch to chill on if you like.

On a table in the center of the room, there is an ornate metal box with three slots on top. The slots are labeled with the names of three other units: LiliS, Heart Soldier Senshi, & AlcheME!. Next to the box a laminated copy of the IC rules is taped down, and beside it lie four cards:

♦ a green card with a picture of two linked rings and the word "WED"
♦ a blue card with a picture of a rose and the word "BED"
♦ a red card with a picture of a guillotine and the word "BEHEAD"
♦ a purple card with a picture of two circling arrows and the word "INSTEAD"

You have til 9pm PST to submit your votes.]

Comments

[worthathousand]

...Of course. Whatever we can do, as much as we can do, every time.

But...
Tsukasa, are you angry because I— all of us, really— because we aren't upset enough?

[heavyliesthecrown]

I am upset because I was essentially told that my preferences and important people don't matter in comparison to everyone else's. And that if I want to protect them in the future, that I will physically have to battle??

I don't doubt that the rest of you are distraught. Both Nemesis-san and Kohime-san have someone important on Heart. Shrike-san cares for Skylark-kun, and you have connections to liliS and the other two units too, don't you?

That is the one thing I do not doubt right now at all.

/2 again

[worthathousand]

[ gently resting a hand on his back ]






You know...

For the span of eight seasons, I was as a mother to LiliS. I watched them die more times than I can count. Do you know why?

I will tell you.

We were the newest unit to join this city, along with BARiTONES. It was much the same for us and them—we were the acceptable sacrifices. Because everyone plays the same way: they look at the lives of those around them, and they measure their worth against their own feelings. "These lives are worth more, and these ones less, because I do not know these others so well as the first." BARiTONES played the games viciously, to defend themselves, and were treated as villains for it. Meanwhile, on LiliS, we tried to be kind. But the only difference it made was that the others pitied us while they killed us. After the games where I had died; where my children had died, they would comfort us; they would say, if only this had not happened. As if they had not chosen it. As if an apology made us any less dead.


Now I am here, on avante, where we have many connections. I am... safe.
How lucky we are, to have such valuable lives.

[worthathousand]

[ finally—
gently, sincerely ]

....I am truly sorry that we have made you doubt whether we would protect your friends.

[heavyliesthecrown]

[ He's quiet for some time. Merely listens. Before, gently- ]

Do you want me to vote to spare liliS? If they have truly been on the receiving end of hardship for so long, I will change my vote for you.

[worthathousand]

....I want you to understand.

There is a cost to these things, and units like LiliS will always be the ones to pay it—for so long as games are decided on personal connections, rather than trying to minimize the suffering of all.

[ another pause ]

I think... regardless of how we vote, we should play "Instead" on the unit we send "behead" to. Any other choice would be like tearing out our own hearts.

[heavyliesthecrown]

That means sacrificing our own selves. It is the very thing that we are trying to spare Heart Soldier from doing.

[worthathousand]

Yes.

That is just my own feeling, though. You will have to decide your ideals for yourself.

[heavyliesthecrown]

I just... do not think we will help anyone by sacrificing ourselves in the place of another unit if that particular unit is already set on sacrificing themselves.

Taking our own lives isn't a better option. The option would still hurt others. And worst of all, it would harm the rest of you too.

[worthathousand]

The only unit in this group which would sacrifice themselves like that is Heart Soldier. I suppose I should warn you for the future that sensitIV and pep!pep! are both prone to it as well.

But... Kohime knows that too. It is surely why she is so desperate to lessen their suffering.

[heavyliesthecrown]

That may be the case, but she doesn't care how any of the rest of us feel on the matter.

[worthathousand]

[ still soft-voiced, though this time she doesn't bother with gentleness ]

.....Not more than she cares for her wife, no.

[heavyliesthecrown]

And? You and everyone else here have the right to feel the same way regarding your important people too.

If we are a unit that means compromising, not trampling the relationships of everyone else here.