Week 3.

[trustharder]

WEEK 3 Another week has passed; two more Survivors are gone. Pearl and Caren both had someone to fight for, someone worth killing for; perhaps it's for the best to hope that somehow they've found peace despite not being able to collect on the Kingmaker's incentive. Saturday is given to regrouping and sleep; there aren't any bodies to be found on Sunday morning. That doesn't mean the night passed easily, though - it seems another piece of your personal puzzle may have fallen into place while you slept... Following that spiral staircase up to the second floor will reveal something strange; those stairs definitely lead far higher than you remember, up to a previously inaccessible third floor. Go ahead and explore as much as you like; consider it your reward for a job well done. SURVIVORS REMAINING: 23

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
[OOC: Welcome to week two of Trustfell! Save your threads for coins and the coming week's activity check; don't forget to check in to this week's activity check and submit your memory regains!

The text and calling posts are still active, for the sake of contacting the jerk who's keeping you here, to be used at your leisure!]

Comments

music hall

[ratingspoint]

[Mettaton will find himself in here eventually, largely because he just sort of...keeps finding himself in here; it's good to have something familiar, and this is as close to familiar as it's getting for the time being.

He doesn't seem troubled at seeing Cherryblod in here, but it's enough to get him to draw up a bit short; he shakes it off quickly enough, though, even if he's a bit quieter than he usually is when he approaches.]

...Hello, darling.

[It doesn't sound any less affectionate than it usually does.]

[cherryblooded]

[That's good. He'd feel even worse if Mettaton treated him coldly, and he doesn't need that right now.]

Hello, dear.

[...After a few more random notes, he stops entirely. Serious conversation time.]

I'm sorry about earlier.

[ratingspoint]

[That...surprisingly gets a light laugh out of him, though it's a little dry.]

Well, I came over to say the same thing, and now one of us is going to have to change.

[cherryblooded]

I actually did what you said, yesterday. It's not a bad idea at all - tell your secrets on your own terms, and not let the Kingmaker hold them over your head.

...It just went particularly badly and I'm fairly certain one of us is going to hate me for the rest of their life.

[ratingspoint]

...It's not just the threat of it for me, it's just how things are. Celebrities don't get to have secrets - sooner or later, the public will find out, because they always do. And maybe you can own it and maybe you'll try to hide it. But the best-case scenario is having control over how it happens. And it's like that for me here, too.

Maybe it'll be a motive. Maybe I'll kill someone and someone will try to drag a confession out of me and I'll get so angry that I'll just say something. Maybe someone will murder me and everyone will just think it's all right to talk about things I said to them privately now that I'm dead.

So I've been open about mine because I want to control how that information gets out. It's just how things work for me. But it's not like that for everyone, and I get it.

You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I'm not going to hate you for anything you do tell me, all right?

[cherryblooded]

...Thank you. I trust you.

[If there's anyone he does trust here, at least when it comes to not holding things against people when he says he won't - it's Mettaton.

He breathes in, exhales.]

For about a hundred years of my life, I was involved in organized crime. The mob. During that time, I killed a lot of people.

...'A lot' doesn't really cover it. About the best thing I can say for myself there is that I don't think I've killed a thousand people - but it's up there.

That was two hundred years ago, and I haven't lived that kind of life or wanted to since - but I don't blame them for calling me as bad as the Kingmaker, either.

[Misa's reaction was perfectly understandable, even if it hurt him. Especially if it hurt him.]

[ratingspoint]

Ohhh.

[And that's...surprised, but it's mildly so - there's no shock or revulsion in it, just a general sense of "Well, I don't know what I expected" and a brief pause as he tries to get his thoughts together with regards to that.

Perhaps part of it is just that he lacks any genuine comprehension of "the mob" or exactly what said mob even does; it's not the number that's throwing him, because at first that just sort of makes logical sense. A thousand people is...well, okay, it's a lot but spread over a hundred years like that - that's only, what, ten a year?

...And as soon as that thought hits, Mettaton kind of has a moment - he's usually pretty comfortably at self-awareness zero, but once in a while something strikes him just wrong enough for him to realize that whatever just crossed his mind was probably very, very wrong in some way, and this is one of those latter times.

Most people go their entire lives without killing one person, right? That's why this is fucked up.

Right.

Okay.]

Well...I can say in all confidence that I don't hate you for it. Especially if it was so long ago... It's not like you were doing this right before you arrived here.

[cherryblooded]

[And that - gets a real smile out of him, probably one of the first of the day. A wobbly one, but completely genuine.]

I... I'm glad. Really, so glad...

The others are one thing - I don't know how I would have dealt with you hating me.

[ratingspoint]

[...Well, he doesn't really know what to do with anything that just left Cherryblod's mouth, if it's any consolation; he likes the implication that he's the most important person here, definitely. But otherwise that's just kind of- ]

Oh my god. Are you going to get over here and hug me or not?

[cherryblooded]

[Not only does he get over there and hug him, first he gets over there and stands up on his tip-toes to lightly kiss Mettaton's forehead. It's kind of weird, considering - metal - but you know who doesn't care one bit, that's right, it's Cherryblod.

Then it's hugging time.]

[ratingspoint]

[It's also kind of weird considering that Cherryblod is just...getting feelings all over him? There are a lot of feelings, and Mettaton is usually pretty solidly in the "I hate feelings, they make me feel weird" camp, but that doesn't mean that wasn't strangely nice anyway, and while he's still not the most comfortable thing in the world to hug on (because, again, metal) it's decidedly less awkward this time around.]

[cherryblooded]

[Cherryblod thinks feelings are pretty great, especially affectionate feelings he can spill all over his favorite people.

He lets go after a bit, still smiling and looking a little bit less like he might cry at any moment.]

Thank you.

[ratingspoint]

Don't mention it, sweetheart - and thanks for telling me.

[...And thank you for not crying. He's admittedly a bit used to tears, but they're never pleasant.]

[cherryblooded]

Well, you've been good to me. And I trust you.

[If you can't trust your relatively amoral robot son, who can you trust?]

If you ever need anything - anything at all - I'm always here for you.

[ratingspoint]

Oh, I know.

[And he does; it's a little flippant, but he genuinely does know that.]

I probably owe you a few secrets of my own by now, don't I?

[cherryblooded]

You don't owe me anything, dear. But I'll keep them if you'd like to share.

[He kept Caren's pretty well until it was revealed by a bucket of water.]

[ratingspoint]

Unless I did something really interesting during that period of time everybody's forgotten, the ones that are most likely to be used against me here are probably that I regularly murder people on live TV and that I abandoned my family for personal gain.

[...HE SAYS, LIKE HE'S DISCUSSING THE FUCKING WEATHER OR SOMETHING.]

That's it.

[cherryblooded]

[It had to be family, didn't it - but no, Mettaton's too young to have kids and he definitely doesn't have a spouse, so while that does get a frown it doesn't trigger Cherryblod's super high judgment.

If there were kids involved then there would be Words, young man, but as it is he gets a pass.]

I see. I won't tell anyone.

[ratingspoint]

Well, someone already knows about the televised murder, and Dr. Alphys and I are apparently joining you in the "people that somebody here thinks are just as bad as the Kingmaker" category.

Apparently that's just going to be the go-to insult around here.

[cherryblooded]

Is that better or worse than 'disgusting' and 'pure evil'? Which I also got.

[Again - not that he blames her, at all.]

[ratingspoint]

...Well, it's not like they're all that wrong with the comparison in my case. If I'm bothered by any of it, it's because they dragged Alphys into it.

[cherryblooded]

That's not fair to anyone. She doesn't control what you do - attacking her is just low.

[...he's awfully defensive of her for someone who abandoned his family, thinks the person who still thinks Alphys is basically his mom.]

[ratingspoint]

[...Cherryblod, oh my god, Alphys is most definitely not his mom- ]

Oh, but she doesn't stop me from doing anything!

As though that's not insulting to both of us at the same time. Really.

[cherryblooded]

[Look, when you say 'creator', he doesn't picture Mettaton's actual situation.]

Really. Would that even work if she tried?

[ratingspoint]

Are you kidding? She's terrified of confrontation.

[Although that's...probably not what was meant by that.]

And no, she can't order me around or anything. I guess she can try? But that doesn't mean I have to listen.

She has ways to shut me down if that becomes necessary, but we agreed from the start that there wouldn't be a way for her to do that remotely. She has to approach me for it, and if I don't want it, then she's out of luck.