[Fin] The Murder-Free Hotel

[Florien]

Why not? Do you have a reason other than that your culture instilled fucked up values into you about respecting elders even when their wisdom just ISN'T, and their own ideas of what constitutes an abstract concept are broken beyond belief? Hell, you don't even have to kill them. Again, if you're as good as you claim, you could abandon the contract and they couldn't stop you. Of course, I would still recommend silencing those aberrations against good rearing of youths. They fucked your head up, quite plainly. It makes no sense why you choose to wallow in your own misery rather than free yourself. Hell, even if you're one of those people who feel guilt, the worst of that fades soon enough.

[Kennifer]

Vriska, who's totally been listening to all of this while munching on a 8lue8erry 8agel... uh, blueberry bagel, shrugs.

I mean, I had to kill my lusus. Not 8ecause of some dum8 contract or anything though, 8ut 8ecause my o8noxious neigh8or 8lew up half his hive and knocked a 8unch of de8ris down into her canyon, and I had to put her out of her misery. At least I was a8le to get a decent roll, 8ecause my luck was pretty shitty then! It was actually kind of a relief 8ecause it meant I didn't have to feed her any more. Of course, not supplying her with a steady supply of trolls to eat kinda cut into my looting, 8ut I'd already amassed a 8unch of loot strongholds 8y then anyway.

[SmilyCube112]

While all this happens, Angel, who drunkenly entered in the background, fell flat on their stomach and fell asleep, and was carried off by Moon, while Angel muttered: "Aye, let us tako boot that.................."

[wingedcatgirl]

"... I'm not going to take a stance on the killing part," Vivi says diplomatically, "but I'm gonna throw a plus-one on the recommendation to break the contract. As I said, you were too young to consent and so ought not to be bound by it."

[PointMaid]

...I have to agree a contract under duress, without the ability to consent shouldn't be enforcable, and what you described certainly qualifies as that. I don't know how it's enforced or what your culture's contract rules are, though.

[wingedcatgirl]

"Whatever Saotome's culture is, he's not in it anymore," Vivi points out. She frowns. "It's still 'he', I assume? This change wasn't your choice, so..."

[Florien]

I mean, really, culture should be irrelevant to the question. Hell, my native culture prioritized some WEIRD shit. Like, a lot of them were weirdly anti-lizard, the bardic council held WAY more power than a cluster of musicpeople should EVER hold based only on merit of music and song, etcetera. But the point is, I abandoned that, as was right. The world is anarchy to adventurers and nations alike, so why not exploit that? You have the power to release yourself from the contract and the aggressive social conservatism that holds you down. Laws stop applying at some scales, you know?

Kellensea pauses for a moment, quickly thinking of some way to sound vaguely diplomatic.

...oh yeah, I guess whether you were fit to comprehend what was going on in the contract should be considered part of it. That is also important. It's also a good reason to find your home culture and destroy it utterly, preferably with concentrated imitator attacks, standardization of language, and nationalist rhetoric. Obviously, the imitator would have to be foreign to your culture. I mean, I could do the job if I wanted, which I don't, but at very least, a more socially liberal imitator, like... not necessarily a Kyronil, but...

The rapid deterioration of the diplomacy in agreement into suggestions of how to best go about destroying a culture then deteriorates into jargon-heavy language presumably describing different types of leaders idiomatically, and thus, incomprehensibly. Whatever she's suggesting, it's probably fair to assume it involves extreme violence, considering that most of her solutions do.

[Kennifer]

Okay, you lost me. Too many words. Aaaaaaaanyway I should pro8a8ly get a room or something. I mean, that's how hotels work in the human movies I've watched, right? We didn't really have them on Alternia. At least, not that I really knew of, 8ut I usually just went 8ack to my hive 8efore sunrise anyway, 8ecause my lusus was such a pain.

[PointMaid]

Ruby grumbles. ...the only reason I brought up culture is because it's relevant to getting their people to accept a dissolution of the contract. Assuming Ranma wanted to go back and not wholesale slaughter his people. If they weren't going back and didn't care about what their people would think, the whole discussion is rather irrelevant, isn't it? Not whether it's ethical to dissolve it.

[Kennifer]

And Vriska wanders off to get a room. Or just claim an empty one, whichever.

[Florien]

Kellensea makes an odd noise. It might have been a derisive snort, or it might have been a sneeze, or something else entirely. It's impossible to tell.

Does it matter if his people accept it? It's not like they can hold him to it, again, if he is as strong as he insists he is. The entire government, unless they're actively stupid, aren't going to send their whole force against him if he violates a stupid contract made with a family member, shopkeepers can't refuse to deal with him because he can rob from them if they refuse and they can't stop him, basically, culture doesn't come into it when you deal with adventurers, or presumably, a stupid martial artist who insists his punches are so great.

[wahoothis]

Ranma shakes off the scalding feeling of the hot water. "Sure, my parents, mostly my dad, are technically responsible for my curse. And the contract. . . . . And most of the bullshit that happens in my life such as my dad being the cause of me having three fiancées because of his own stupidity and selfishness. . . But they're still my parents. And it goes against both my morals and my code as a martial artist."

[Caret]

Roof

All of the sudden, Bow accidentally warps onto the roof via the Aetheryte crystal in the lobby. I'm not the only one who remembers details! ;) She immediately starts to panic.

WAH! This is way too high up for my liking... wait a minute! What if...

The Eevee momentary warps back into the hotel and returns with the parachute she never got to use back at Murder U, and a wide grin on her face.

Kitchen

Ignoring the slap-fest between Ranma and Kellensea, Fawful takes a bite into a sandwich that is of course loaded with mustard OF DOOM!!

[Florien]

Yeah, yeah, but set aside your morals and code for a second. Why do you have them? Have you ever considered where you picked them up, why you have them, and why you adhere to them? Because you should probably think about that, then evaluate neutrally whether or not they're a key component of your constant stress, misery, etcetera. Maybe if you forwent them, or replaced them with something different, you'd have a better life.

She sounds more concerned than irritated.

Like, look. You can't necessarily build your optimal system based on what you see around you. Sure, some people will be happy with their stuff, pieced together through various prescriptive religions, weird societal mores, etcetera. But you can't know until you've evaluated and tried different things.

[Caret]

Roof

After ensuring to herself that her little bout of thrill-seeking isn't a stupid decision, Bow closes her eyes and jumps off the roof... and is greeted with the force of gravity.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

However, her terror quickly turns into laughter as the Eevee manages to deploy the parachute and starts to glide above the hotel.

I'm flying! Not really, but still!

[wingedcatgirl]

Kitchen? This is the kitchen, right?
Vivi nods at Kellensea's wise words. "Even if you for some reason do decide to stick with your current code, it's still better to evaluate for yourself whether it's a good one, y'know?"

You learned that from me, huh?

... You helped.

[Florien]

Yeah, Like I did! I used to do things one way, and see things through an archaic lens, and now I see them differently through a lens that works for me. Like, once I worked from the assumption that sapient life was special and unique and better, and then I learned about ants, and how they fight complex wars, farm, herd livestock, have complex division of labor, build enormous structures, and under certain circumstances, some species of them can create vast interconnected networks of colonies and form huge supercolonies that span entire countries, effectively creating a vast ant country with a federated, decentralized system of government!

Kellensea gets increasingly excited-sounding as she regales people with ant-facts leading up to her point.

Anyway, it was at that point that I realized that the only unique things I could think of that sapient sorts do is engage in proxy wars and invent external information storage technologies. Which, those things are cool, I've engaged in proxy wars myself, great fun, but I'm sure if you let ants do whatever long enough, a species of ant would evolve that would be capable of engaging in proxy wars, and artificial external information storage is kind of pointless for ants when they have automatic external information storage in their scout trails. So that's why I stopped thinking that sapient alive things are necessarily more valuable than not-sapient alive things. And if I'd never stopped to evaluate my worldview, I'd never have decided that!

[wahoothis]

"I'm pretty sure regardless of my age at the time, they don't care since they live by a code of honor. One they usually have to follow through. So it's not as simple as just going to some guy and saying "Hey, I was too young to give consent to this. Please get rid of my death pledge."" He said, ignoring Kellensea's comments on stuff like "where he picked them up."

[wingedcatgirl]

Front Desk
There is now a pineapple sitting on the front desk. How it got there is unknown.

[Billy5545]

Spongebob is walking when he comes across the pineapple. He's curious as he says, "huh, what's my house doing here?"

In the meantime, a mysterious being manifests. The being looks like a female squirrel wearing a diving suit, but the glass is shattered. In addition, her neck seems to be sitting in an angled position. However, she then realigns it with much pain and sounds of cracking. Once she is done, she spots Spongebob. Excited to see him again, she shouts, "Spongebob! It's me, Sandy! I'm back!"

Unfortunately, Spongebob doesn't seem to notice as he just briefly wonders, "I wonder who's that land dweller is? I feel like I remember, but I don't at the same time." Sandy's expression instantly turns to despair as she tries to shout his name. However to her horror, he doesn't react. It seems that Spongebob also can't see her presence. But on the other hand, she can be heard or seen by those who have died in one of the games before. Indeed, Suicide Squidward appears and says, "Hey Sandy, do you still like me?"

Sandy is taken aback as she says to Squidward, "how did you become like this?" She then gets a depressing explanation about his time at BSW. Then before Sandy can respond, Mr. Krabs suddenly appear, saying, "ahaha, I hope tis' hotel be cheap fer me. Don't want t' spend me money for th' vacation after a..." Mr. Krabs then gasps when he sees Squidward, thiugh Sandy is unseen, before asking angrily, "so tis' be where you have been all tis' time, Squidward. Ya ran away from me restaurant just t' slack off! I'll be cutting yer paycheck!"

Squidward then explains the story of BSW again, including why he applied in the first place.

Meanwhile, other people who haven't come to the hotel yet suddenly arrives. They comprise of FrostNova and Amiya, who come from separate portals. In addition, the door suddenly opens to Rosa, whose body looks taut, before she spazs again. It seems like she is still suffering from the effects of the strychnine injection by Ronnie. Desperate, Amiya decides not to talk about how she escaped from the Arena in an attempt to save Rosa. During this, FrostNova just quips as she refers to Patriot and Mephisto, "I seem to recall that girl's uniform. Is she from the school which my father managed during the occupation before he had to transfer his command to that boy?

[Kennifer]

Someone who might look... at least vaguely familiar to some of the hotel's regulars is now in the lobby. Instead of her usual long mostly-magenta hair though, her hair is mostly a stark-white (but still with that pesky bit of red, ugh) and... sticking out strangely in every direction, giving a bit of a mad scientist look.

"...fuck stairs, fuck elevators, fuck everything at this point..."

She looks around warily, as though expecting something very bad to happen.

[wingedcatgirl]

Front Desk
The pineapple frowns very loudly at Spongebob. "Do I look like a house to you? What am I, a house for ants? ... Cause I'm really not, please keep ants away from me."

[PointMaid]

Ruby, coming down from her room/lab, and seeing the new arrivals, just stares at the pineapple on the front desk. ...That just talked, right? I didn't imagine it?

[Kennifer]

"I must've hit my head more than I thought I did..."

Amanda walks unsteadily to a chair and sits down.

"Okay. I'll be okay. Maybe. First time I've died, so..."

[PointMaid]

Oof. Yeah, sit down.