BATTLE ROYALE EVENT: SHIP

[sailmods]

[fortunately, not signing up for the shore excursion doesn't mean the passengers still on board don't get to have a little fun. on the contrary: they'll get to have some of the most fun of all!

about an hour after the tender leaves, at about 9AM, every screen on the ship, from the cabin TVs to the one above the pool, begins playing a live feed of the events on the island, starting with Friday's introduction video and transitioning to the passengers leaving the bunker. from then on, the camera (?) seems to always know where the action is, bringing close-up views of each fight, each death. when little action occurs, highlight reels play. there is no audio, however, outside of the droning, inane muzak of the stream and the kitschy sound effects of the reels; time to brush up on your lip-reading if you want the hot goss on scene!

in the atrium, near Friday's desk, is a large piece of construction paper, titled "PLACE YOUR BETS," showing a table with the names (some true, some not) of each competitor, with a space to write down your name next to who you think will win. the captain has already made his choice! what are you betting? don't worry about it.

the screens will play the game 24 hours a day. destroying the screens wholly will buy you only momentary respite. so, sit back, and enjoy.]

Comments

2

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy... hasn't been glued to watching the 'competition' unfold. She arrived after everyone had finished signing up for the excursion, and she wasn't much for betting, but when the screens started up, it was... ghoulish. Even if nobody died here for real, this was monstrous. The dead deserved their dignity, even if they weren't going to stay dead. But of course, Darcy was too tough and cool to be affected by the vulgar, excessive violence, which is why she totally didn't recognize her own expression on the person's face at the table. Darcy plops her granola down in front of it and sits herself down, avoiding eye contact and not speaking for a moment, just... offering what sympathy she could in her presence alone. When she does speak, she gestures with her spoon towards its bowl.

"You should eat. It might make you feel better."

[serialskiller]

"And what if I don't want to feel better?" There's a lot of ways those words could come out. Bitter, sardonic, sharp, spiteful.

None of that's present here. It just sounds hollow, not bothering to glance up at her.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Then you don't have to. Obviously."

Her tone could've equally come out vicious and spiteful. But she gets it, and it's a practiced sort of neutral that also isn't accompanied by eye contact. Some aspects of the ship had been happy-clappy positive 'we can work it out' bullshit thus far, and it was... relieving to encounter someone else who just wanted to be how they were.

cw: light suicide ideation stuff, possibly more throughout thread.

[serialskiller]

"Right."

It nods, then picks up its spoon. The oatmeal is mostly kinda congealed and cold right now. Which feels right; if it has to eat, it shouldn't be something enjoyable. There shouldn't be any pleasure in living today.

"I wish I'd stop waking up when I should be dead."

[saltwaterlungs]

She actually... laughs. Not cruelly, but in sympathy, like it took the words out of her mouth.

"You and me both. It sucks."

She hasn't died here yet, but that was very much a yet, considering her track record back home.

[serialskiller]

"Yeah. It does. It's probably going to happen again, here. So."

It exhales heavily, unnecessarily. It doesn't have the same respiration rate as a human, but sometimes you just need to sigh.

"Who brought you back?"

[saltwaterlungs]

"Long story."

She pauses. Again, she doesn't want to be blabbing to everyone, but it's pretty clear he wants some solidarity here. She shrugs.

"It's magic, so it's annoying and complicated. You know."

[serialskiller]

"Oh, ew, magic." Not that it knows from experience, but its machine brain rejects even the concept, so it can only really think at it sideways, with the organic brain. "Sorry you had to go through that shit, too."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Yeah, ew."

Another small chuckle.

"Same to you. Kind of feels like... I dunno, I should be telling the people here how to deal with it, the dying and coming back, but I don't think I know how to deal with it."

[serialskiller]

"Given enough time, maybe we'll figure it out."

It takes another bite of oatmeal, chewing it over. "Or learn how to actually self-terminate here. Whichever comes first."

There's the first hint of actual grim humor.

[saltwaterlungs]

"Hah. You know it would be just my luck that something that works for other people here wouldn't work for me, and the magic would still work the way it did back home."

That way lies a line of inquiry that she actually doesn't want to go down at this hour of the morning. So she eats some granola. It's actually pretty nice granola.

"So yours wasn't magic?" she asks, a hand over her mouth, as if it stops her talking with her mouth full being rude.

[serialskiller]

"No. It was humans getting sentimental and deciding to repair me so they could purchase my bond."

That's an uncharitable retelling of events, but at this exact moment it doesn't feel like being fair, even to its favorite human of all. "They wanted to take me home to be a good pet cyborg."

[saltwaterlungs]

Oh that's... new. She glances over it again, trying to look for. Well, whatever it is she should be looking for when trying to identify a cyborg. She comes up blank.

"Ah." is all she can come up with, at first.

"People suck. Even the ones who think they're doing a good thing for you."

[serialskiller]

"I ran away from them. After they bought me. Their part of space, bots can be citizens, but they still need to be registered to a 'guardian', which sounds like an owner with a smiley-face sticker on it to me. But I never saw how it worked, because I ran away."

Which is totally unrelated to it dying, but it feels relevant right now.

[saltwaterlungs]

"A nice cage is still a cage," she agrees.

"So... robots don't always have civil rights where you're from?" She asks, piecing together from context, "that sucks."

[serialskiller]

"Why would we? It kind of goes against what we were made for."

It pauses, wagging its spoon at her a little. "Though if we're going to try to discuss this, I may tangent to define some terms, so we're speaking on the same level and not talking past one another. I'm a bot, but not a robot, for example."

[saltwaterlungs]

"Alright," she agrees. It's all the same to her, although she switches over from speaking French and letting the whatever translate for her to speaking English purposefully, just in case. She speaks a bit slower, a little more stilted, a lot more carefully.

"Bot but not robot."

[serialskiller]

"A bot is any programmed mind, at any level of complexity. A mechanical hauler or a ship could be driven by a bot--most of those are pretty simple. I'm a bit more of a complex bot. In part because my mind is partly organic. I'm a cyborg--around 35% organic, 65% machine. A human with machine parts added is called an augmented human. Sarge, if you've met him, would be considered an augmented human." Nevermind that he's definitely been programmed. That's so not the point right now.

"Bots don't have rights most places, especially in the Corporate Rim, where most of us are constructed. Augmented humans, of course, do. As for us cyborgs, there's us SecUnits, there's CombatUnits, and then there's ComfortUnits. Sexbots."

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy pulls her little notebook out, and her free pencil from Stede, to note down some of the terminology. There's other notes in there now, aside from workout routines and maintaining her diet. Things she's noticed about the ship, important things to remember. She wrinkles her nose at the mention of sexbots, deigning not to write that one down.

"So you're a SecUnit, and you're a bot and a cyborg, because you're programmed but you have organic parts. But you don't call people with machine parts cyborgs," She repeats back, stressing the terminology slightly.

"I don't think I've met Sarge. And what do I call you?"

[serialskiller]

The way she's asked the question means it doesn't need to bullshit about names vs. aliases, and that's nice.

"Either SecUnit or Rin. I don't care which."

It's already betting on 'Rin' for her.

[saltwaterlungs]

And we have a winner, "Rin, alright."

It's partially a translation thing, but Darcy's... well, Darcy. Between ghosts and gays, she understands the right of things to call themselves what they care to.

"I'm Darcy. You're... ugh, what's the-" she switches slightly, "what should I say when I call your pronouns? Pronouns, that's the word."

Because hey, she's never met a bot before, she doesn't know how gender works for them.

[serialskiller]

It rolls its eyes a little at the question.

"It is fucking weird to be asked that question by humans. I'm an 'it'. Your gender shit makes no sense to me and doesn't figure into my identity. It'd be like...like me asking you if you're a SecUnit, a CombatUnit or a ComfortUnit. Sure, you could probably make up an answer, but it's not something that means anything to your core identity. Right?"

[saltwaterlungs]

"You think it makes more sense to me?" she snaps back, defensive if only from being lumped in, "you're an it, that's all I needed to know, alright?"

French, after all, was a language mostly consisting of pronouns, and it was odd to try and form sentences in her head without knowing which one was polite to use.

[serialskiller]

"I've never been asked before I was on this ship. Everyone back home knows I'm an object, not a person." And it was just fine with that, really. Truly.

[saltwaterlungs]

"So it would've made you uncomfortable to be called 'he', like I was going to, so I was right to ask," she presses, with the same patient tone as she's had to explain to ghosts why she asked what they wanted to be called. Still, at least it wasn't making the walls bleed because she asked a question, like a certain ghost she met that was still touchy about his masculinity beyond the grave.