Memento mori- remember that you will die.

[Chidori's voice is quiet, somber as always, but there's a lack of the usual note of resignation in her voice, a spare bit of determination.]

I don't... make speeches, usually. And I haven't kept up with whatever you've all been saying here, so if someone has said this before...

[Feel free to ignore it, is the implication.]

In any case, the main thing to remember is that we're all going to die. Permanently, I suppose I should say- and it isn't that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. We're not real, and I think by this point it should be obvious that the 'circumstances' under which we were supposedly brought here are a lie. Convoluted, well-crafted and well-enforced, but a lie nonetheless. I can only presume the dead versions of our worlds are programmed into us when we 'leave' and 'return', but that doesn't matter either. As I said, it doesn't matter that we will die...

But what will matter is what we each do before then.

So regardless of what they put us through, regardless of how we are 'punished'- because that's no more real than anything else, really- we have a year, right? The time I've had here is more than I was supposed to anyway- I've been ready to die for a long time.

So take my advice, and live so you won't have any regrets in the end.



After all, what's the point in holding anything back anymore?

Since my anniversary of being in the tower for a year is in three days or so...

How many other people have spent more time in the tower than in their own worlds?

[The feed cuts on to a frantic-looking Nazi who's struggling to smile.]

Look. No, okay, look, ja? [He holds his hands up to the camera in a "calm down" motion.] There are three posts about that silly collar thing. Talk in those. Let us do something else now, okay?

[He lifts up a book.]

We are going to read some stories, then we may discuss them. That is fun und unrelated, right? Here, I will begin.

[He clears his throat.]

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'

Does anybody know if there's some way to make the countdown thing go away? At least for a little while? It's really distracting.

[She speaks of course of the Countdown to Power Failure. It's giving her the creeps and at this rate she's going to want to use the terminals even less.]

( OPEN YOUR EYES )

[OOC: Signups for the MASS COLLAR BOYCOTT are here and run until the day prior til your next characters collar check.]

[She's been reading without commenting so far, but she sees disharmony and can't resist prying at that gap a little bit more.]

So a mass protest? It will probably fail, we will probably all die, anyone who joins in without knowing that is a bigger idiot than the one who started it.

But so what? We only have a year left, we have no plans, we don't even know how to prevent these people from turning us into mindless monsters, or drones, or whatever they wish to do to us next. Never mind working out a way to defeat them all and restore our own worlds and our own bodies and our souls and walk out of here alive.

It sounds like the ending to a rubbish children's tale.

So what if we don't know Ruana's true power? She has proven that she is loathe to destroy our souls. And what are our bodies but wireframe and illusion, death doesn't matter here and crying about dying doesn't help anyone.

It doesn't matter if we fight or don't fight. Nothing is going to change, they will still hold all the power, we will still be puppets with no free will. But we still have choices, and if the choices are fight or not fight, even when fighting means dying, then so be it.

If that means we are split then so be it, because in a year we will all be dead, and there is no use in harmony or friendship.

Nothing we do matters anymore so with that in mind.

Let chaos rule.