guess who!

[bronze]

what's this? it seems like there's a board game for you and a friend to play — one guess who, featuring all the guests currently in saltburnt! post a blank top-level with your character and play the game in the comments, keeping your assigned character in mind (you'll want a different character for each thread, fyi!).

for ease's sake, all threads will be outside of the au event 🖤

Comments

[mygoodsir]

Yes. It's a trick of movement, that's all.

Miss Shipman, you are giving me that look.

[diarists]

I never know when you're joking or not. [peevish, half joking, half not, shaking her head incredulously.] I know the 1800s were actually that weird, but -- didn't you have like. Normal games?

[mygoodsir]

I am rarely joking.

I'm not sure what counts aa normal. Most games were designed for groups, and often used as an excuse for flirtation. Have you heard of Blind Man's Bluff or Squeal, Piggy, Squeal? Both require some physical contact. But not too much, so there is no reason to think poorly of any young ladies involved.

[diarists]

Blind Man's Bluff, yeah. Kids play that at parties -- we did at Jackie's when I was like. Seven. [a pause to grabble with the fact that old-timey British people and second-graders have a lot in common.]

Well, yeah. You'd probably faint if you heard about the kinda parties we had. [a slouch back into her seat, huffing out a laugh.] Pretty sure I got pregnant cause of one.

[mygoodsir]

It's interesting to know that such games remain.

Would I? My goodness, you must think me very sheltered indeed.

Ah. Drink was involved, then?

[diarists]

Yeah, it's weird what sticks. Charades, people still play that. Uh...tag? Was that a thing in your time?

Well, lotta short skirts and booze. Beer, mostly -- shitty kegs and stuff like that. [slouching further in her seat:] A little. Yeah. Mostly just -- shitty choices were involved.

[mygoodsir]

Yes, it was.

You needn't feel poorly about that. We've all made poor choices before.

[diarists]

Huh. [plucking at the loose embroidery in a pillow where she sits:] You miss it?

It was Jackie's boyfriend. He got me pregnant. [it's too passive, too happenstance, so she rephrases:] I got pregnant by him.

[mygoodsir]

The 1840s? Oh, yes. I do. I know that must seem silly, what with all the advancements of modern life - and they are spectacular, truly, in every area - but sometimes I find myself... homesick, I suppose. If only because I understood how everything worked, there.

Ah well. It can't be helped. I can never go back.

[He has no poker face - his eyebrows go up.]

Oh. Goodness. Well. That is...

[A frown.]

People have very complicated relationships. I've learned that. And sometimes we make decisions that are not well considered and we must then suffer the consequences.

It doesn't make you a bad person.

[diarists]

...yeah. Things made sense, even if it was in a fucked up way. [the confined, steady rhythm of the village, the summertime chores, the mundanity...she misses it. more than wiskayok, even.

shauna tries to look unaffected, but her eyes flicker down and away, her shoulders tense.]

It kinda objectively does. [telling; that this is what she feels the most immense shame for. not the monstrous things of the wilderness, but this first betrayal, this most high school girl of conflicts.]

[mygoodsir]

Yes. Even... out there.

[It is tragically comedic that a teenage girl is the one best suited to understand that it is possible to miss being lost.

Harry very gently covers one of her hands with his.]

No. It does not. You did a bad thing. That's not the same as being an awful person.

[diarists]

[shauna twitches, drops her head, stares down at his hand over hers with her throat tight and her shoulders stiff.]

I did a lot of bad things. [quiet, simmering, deeply aware in a way that will eat a hole through her the rest of her life. here or the real world or somewhere in between – it’ll be with her forever.

still – it’s fresh enough that for the moment, there’s defiance in how shauna straightens up after a moment, shoulders squared.] When does it make you awful? Is there a – threshold you need to cross?

[mygoodsir]

[Harry thinks about that. Thinks about what he himself has done.]

I don't know.

I suppose... if we lose our capacity to care.

[diarists]

Do you still care?

[quietly, head bowed, hair veiling her face.]

[mygoodsir]

Yes.

God help me, but yes.