this is a musical game, but this doesn't have lyrics for a title

[catliketread]

[It's been nearly a week since everyone was brought here, so you know what that means. It's time to share information and discuss strategy!! Or something. Anyway, the Pirate King has gone around and told everyone (yes, even you!!) about the plans for a lunchtime meeting in the dining hall. You don't have to come if you don't want to and the Pirate King will not drag you there, but if you want lunch and you try to sneak by the room, he might notice you and drag you into it.

Once everyone is gathered (or most people, if some of you aren't showing up), he'll stand up and slam a hand down on the table to get everyone's attention.]

Gentlemen! ...And ladies. We have been in this establishment for nearly a week now! It's time we discuss our situation and what we've learned here. From my own explorations, it seems as though escape is impossible. None of the doors or windows will open no matter how much physical force is used! I would like to hear any ideas you all have about escape, but any information or plans in general would be wonderful!

[Let's get started, shall we?]

Comments

On Time and the Balladeer

[solomonjihad]

[.............

Slowly......raises her hand?]

[catliketread]

There's no reason to raise your hand! Just speak up! What do you have to say?

[dontfeedplants]

... You think maybe they'll let us out if we just don't kill anyone? Even if they spent a lot of money on this place, they can't intend to keep us here for the rest of our lives if no one gets killed, can they?

[catliketread]

I talked to the Balladeer earlier about that very subject! While he cannot guarantee anything, he said it did not seem likely that it would last longer than a month if no one were to die. It would lose all the dramatic tension! His words, not mine.

[look at that, the pirate king was useful]

[dieformymusic]

[Well from the looks of it they wanted them for an opera right?

"Sing badly."]

[catliketread]

[OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT, THIS IS A HILARIOUS IDEA AND HE LOVES IT]

While I would normally not agree to anything of the sort - since I do enjoy singing - that sounds like the perfect way to irritate the people who brought us here.

[trettende]

That's not a bad idea, honestly. If we put on a bad show, they'll kick us all out, perhaps?

[ Stranger logic has worked in Disney films before! ]

On the state of our arrivals (cw: strangulation)

[dechagny]

[Raoul, for the sake of being polite, will not mention the physical states of others he has heard tell of here. Instead, he will bring up his own.]

I believe that something has been done to us before we were brought here - whether in the form of items being taken from us or injuries, or something else. I myself...have discovered one such thing.

[Raoul undoes the first button of his shirt and pulls the collar down. They're a few days old now, but you can clearly see ropelike bruises around his neck.]

I discovered this on Tuesday, and though I do not recall anything happening before to create such a mark, I know I did not receive it in my time here. I did go to the Balladeer and ask if his "management" has done anything to us - he claims they have not. I do not believe him in the slightest.

[solomonjihad]

[...!

She almost runs to him when she sees the bruises. She does kind of like him...]

You--!?

[dontfeedplants]

[Seymour makes a noise when he sees Raoul's bruises and absentmindedly touches his own neck.]

C... come to think of it, in the picture of me, Audrey II is a lot bigger than when I last saw it. I thought I was just being forgetful, but god if we have amnesia...

[dieformymusic]

[He makes a sympathetic reach when he sees the marks on Raoul. Who would strangle such a nice guy?

"I didn't look like this before.

Someone did something to my face and voice."]

[allicareabout]

I hate to be the voice of dissent here, but I have exactly nothing of the sort going on. And I'm not the only one - Donna's also fine, she told me herself.

[...D-ne. He's talking about D-ne.]

[onthebusagain]

I felt better when I got here-- I should have had a killer hangover.

[irreprochable]

Memories do seem to be a problem in this place...

[which only leads to all kinds of other implications and other worries, of course.]

It is incredible that you would not remember being hanged.

[gosh javert theres more than one way to get a rope burn.]

[sunshineprincess]

[Those bruises look awful and Anna clutches her own throat. Raoul...

Her hand moves up to her own hair.]

I used to have a white streak in my hair. I've had it since I was little, but its gone. Like someone took it from me... and I arrived in clothes I don't remember ever owning.

On Certain...Resemblances and also the Playbill

[inforapenny]

[Billy is one of the ones who has to be hailed when he comes in for food, but he meekly sits down on the outskirts of the gathering, listening without much contribution.

But he chimes up eventually.]

I-is anyone else, um, bothered by the phrasing in this booklet? Like- like where it says, um.

Well, where it describes us like how somebody... somebody playing us should act.

[He blinks, hard.]

I-I wonder if we're here because of some kind of... experiment. To see if we're a product of our flawed backgrounds or if we have an innate nature that- that matches this observed description. If they're testing us to see if we're capable of- of murder when we get desperate, and maybe then they have a backup, um. A backup version of us to put through the same test.

...You know, now that I think of it, maybe it has something to do with our missing memories- maybe, maybe we're not actually who we think we are, maybe we're just copies that think that we're the originals. It's not impossible to copy people like that, all it would really take is a sample of our DNA and the right machinery. And they- they could have gotten the samples when we were all unconscious before we woke up here.

[His tone of voice has gotten more excitable as he turned the topic to science, real passion straightening his spine and bringing a fever-bright excitement to his eyes.]

[rockthistown]

What? There, there's no way! How would we still have our memories?

[dontfeedplants]

[What the hell Billy this is something he doesn't want to think about ever.]

Is... is that even possible?!

[onthebusagain]

Oh! That would, like, explain your twin! [It doesn't really make sense to her, but neither does time traveling, so she's not completely ruling out the possibility]

[breakingbread]

[...well he's not gonna even pretend like he understood all of that, but]

If that is so, why do you suppose the Inspector and I remember each other looking differently? Did they imitate one of us that badly?

[lifegoalsorwifegoals]

Y- you've, ah, just said a bit of a horrifying thing, Harris-san. Clones? [She's sure if A-ya was here, he could rattle off five different cloning urban legends from the past several years.] Do...do you have any ah, proof of the fact, or is it a...theory?

[Rumor.]

[allicareabout]

Okay, now you're talking about cooking people up wholesale - that's something they can actually do, where you're from?

[I MEAN he sounds a little incredulous, but it's not like it's something that he's entirely ruling out, either...look, at least one of these people here is from space and another threw "fucking magic" at him as an explanation for all this like it's a reasonable thing to say, so -

...Future people are weird. That's what this comes down to.]

[blackstache]

I'll be honest, boy, and say that was mostly gibberish.

[solomonjihad]

........we're missing memories?!

[WHAT.]

On cameras

[sunshineprincess]

The Balladeer mentioned something about people watching us through these things called cameras.

[Anna points to one of the objects that is clearly not supposed to be part of an opera house.]

We have an audience! [She frowns, shaking her head.] But I don't think they're going to help us. They would have sent someone already.

[rockthistown]

Maybe they don't know where we are!