vivarium | ambidex voting #8

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ambidex voting #8

A M B I D E X V O T I N G

Chop chop, everyone downstairs to the first floor! You're all done the puzzle rooms, so you know what to do. Well, most of you, but it's pretty basic, just enter any Ambidex Room you like (they're not elevators, you ignorant test subjects) then vote! How does voting work? Very simple! Pick Ally or Betray, and that's it! But with every round, there's always some prizes, depending on what you vote, so here's this rounds:

For anyone who chooses Ally, well, if your opponent chooses Ally as well, then 2BP for each of you. You get all that friendship, blah blah, whatever.

For anyone who chooses Betray, and gets a Betray in return, your BP doesn't change at all, but you might get some coins for your trouble, let's saaaay, 20? Generous, I know.

Now, the best part: for anyone who chooses Betray and their opponent chooses Ally, Calhoun will be very generous with his prizes, again! You'll get 15 coins and a memory! Also, as usual, those who pick Betray get 3BP instead of just 2.

But if you're the poor sap that chose Ally and got stabbed in the back, well, sorry, you lose 2 BP. At least you got stabbed for the greater good, right? And plus, you might get a little something. He'll talk to you later about it.

But anyway, happy voting! Calhoun will see all of you later with the results.

BASIC INFO ✖ VOTES + FORMS ✖ RESULTS + REACTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Heiji just. Wow, what an idiot. Like he'd kind of thought Enjolras was just a little annoying before, but -- "You warned him what could happen, though, right? Jeez, no wonder Kuzuryuu ain't trust him. He's real particular about that kinda thing."

He laughed. Wow what a thought -- Jake and Simon. "Yeah, maybe it is! You definitely can't mistake him for someone younger, that's for sure!"

"I tried, but maybe he needed to see it to really understand." Hershel tried, surely Enjolras won't do this again, right?? "He was very new at the time, it was his second puzzle room, I think. I'm sure he wouldn't do anything like that now that he's seen what happened."

Wow Heiji, rude and completely true. "Heiji, that's rude." He sounded amused though the fucking hypocrite. "I guess that's as good a guess as any, unless it is Mr. Enjolras. I think most of the candidates might be ah... too intense personality-wise for Simon anyway." Delicate flower that he was.

"Yeah, maybe," said Heiji, looking a little doubtful. Like what part of knives everywhere and barfing dolls was difficult to understand?

"Hmm, you think Simon's into the girly type, though?" Because Simon was sort of sporting that girlish pigtail look himself, and... well, it was a possibility. Maybe.

"Oh yeah. Uh, I gotta ask you something, and it's kinda serious."

"Hopefully he didn't do anything in Kuzuryuu's room, I'm worried about him." Hershel frowned. "I mean he still has those two stab wounds and he's so insistent on not getting help, then all the running around with the robots..." Motherhen mode engage. "It'd be nice if he had a peaceful puzzle room. I'm sure he and Snake were careful at least."

"I don't know... maybe he would be more into someone like Jake, he seems um... well, like he may appreciate stronger people." Polite way of saying Simon's a wuss and probably could use a stronger boyfriend.

But okay now he was sobering fast. "Of course, what is it?"

"It's about Sasuke. Seems like Calhoun accused him of something in his last room, and... well, maybe you should hear the details from him. But I hoped maybe you could talk to him about the time Calhoun was throwin' those accusations at you, y'know? This time, it didn't even sound like he had any proof to back him up, but Sasuke's takin' it pretty hard..."

And of course Heiji couldn't just tell Sasuke what had gone down. He'd promised Hershel he wouldn't. "It's not a demand or anything like that. It's just... you know, if you feel like it'd help him."

Hershel looked a little surprised before nodding pretty quickly. Honestly he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted Sasuke to know what Calhoun accused him of but if Heiji thought it would help Hershel was willing to suck it up. He just hoped Sasuke would be as understanding as Heiji had been.

"I can do that. He has been having a hard time since the knife throwing incident." He sighed softly, rubbing the side of his neck. "When I see him next I'll try talking to him. I think I can understand how he feels a little, at least about that incident. I tried telling him to remember how he's reacting and feeling now is more telling than anything else but that's not exactly easy to do sometimes."

Heiji nodded. "Okay. And... no pressure or anything, really. I know you ain't really want to talk about it that much, so... I dunno. I mean, I hardly told anyone about my thing, so I can't exactly put the screws to you here."

"Maybe you can just judge if it'd make any difference, and then decide? Basically, I just told him that a bunch of people got accused of stuff, and Calhoun presented a bunch of evidence that couldn't really be verified. That much seemed to help a little."

"I... honestly I think I trust Sasuke not to jump to the wrong conclusions." Hershel said after a long moment of thought. "He's a good person, the fact he's beating himself up so much about throwing that knife proves it to me. So... it's okay." He smiled at Heiji. "I think you're right, this might help and it's the right thing to do."

"But is he physically okay at least? His room didn't have any traps, did it?" Grey rooms sucked.

Hershel, you were a good dude.

"Yeah, he's fine, as far as I could tell. I think it's like the grey room from last time, y'know? The one where they asked a bunch of questions. Though who knows? Maybe you should warn Jake not to punch anything..."

Shounen friendship, dude. All the way.

"I think Jake learned his lesson." He better have or he was in trouble and that trouble's name was fussing. "I imagine whatever this grey room is it's as unpleasant and depressing as the last. I think I may actually prefer the puzzle rooms."

He shook his head. "At least he isn't hurt, that's better than the alternative."

Aww yeah.

"Really? The last grey room wasn't that bad for me. Calhoun just asked us a bunch of questions. And no one got all shirty about them, so no one got hurt, either." Which in Heiji's book was A-OK with him.

"Anyway. You ready for that haircut, or should we put it off a little?"

"It was unpleasant for us even before the explosion." Hershel answered with a sigh. "The questions weren't very easy to answer, but I suppose issues of morality never are. At least none of us got into fights about it, even though Ema, Jake and I didn't always agree."

Oh, right. "Oh, sure, if you'd like." He kind of forgot about that what with puzzles and stuff. "Could we go sit down somewhere though?"

"Sure," said Heiji. "Let's go down to the garden. That way we won't have to do a bunch of cleanup, either."

Not that they'd be the ones cleaning up. HA HA HA. "So what kinda stuff you disagree on?" he asked as he started walking.

"Sounds good." Hershel agreed, to the garden they go. Calhoun could clean up pieces of fro, screw him.

He considered as he walked. "Well, the first one Jake definitely didn't want the tall person to be excluded. I think if the prize was something truly important it'd be better to exclude the tall person for the sake of the whole, and Ema mostly just tried to rile everyone up with nonsense about revolution." Very serious puzzle room.

"Other than that... I think the mining one we had some differences in. In general Jake and I didn't always see eye to eye, but I expected as much. I don't think his views were wrong, they just weren't for me."

Heiji tried to stifle a laugh, but failed. "Probably because he'd be the one bein' left out, right? He'd be totally lonely waiting on the sidelines for everyone else to play!" Jake was too tall, he was a monster...

"For the mining one, I said I'd look at all the other options first. I mean, you can spin it any way you want, but lettin' the guy die would be the same as killing him."

"That's basically his angle, I imagine." He said with a small smile. "For once his height wouldn't work in his advantage, though he's probably just put people in 'time out' as a protest anyway."

But back to morality. "That's what I thought." Hershel answered, almost a little relieved. "Honestly I don't think it's right to decide that the injured man's life is worth less simply because he's the easiest one to sacrifice. He could have a stronger will to live than anyone, he should be allowed to be part of the decision on what needs to be done."

"I guess ultimately the point is someone has to die there for everyone else to live." He glanced heavily away. Rough shit. "That's why the room was unpleasant. The last question was one of the worst."

"The one about letting your loved one die?" asked Heiji. "That's not really anyone's choice to make, though. It's the person who's sick. Though I'm sure whatever you picked would take their feelings into account."

As they reached the garden, Heiji pointed to the small table with chairs. "Let's set up over there, yeah?"

"It would have been easy if we could know what the person wanted, but I guess the point was you don't." Hershel answered. "You know, in a way I wonder if the real reason for that room was to stir up trouble, maybe make people turn against each other. I'm glad it didn't seem to work if that is the case."

He nodded before heading over, pulling out a chair for Heiji and smiling a bit. "Do you want to go first?"

"Sure," said Heiji, sitting down in the chair without much fuss. Apparently he trusted Hershel not to make this a bloodbath.

"I thought Snake and I would disagree more, but we actually agreed on a lot." He seemed rather happy about this. "'Course, Clive was out at the time, so we didn't get to hear what he thought."

He'll try not to casually stab your eye out, even though eye patches were pretty rad. Heiji could be really dramatic detective then. Hershel grabbed the scissors from his sewing kit, regarding Heiji's hair for a moment as he tried to remember what it used to look like. "Do you want it much shorter or just a trim?" Boy he hoped he didn't ruin Heiji's hair...

He couldn't help a smile. "It helps to go in with someone you know like that. I trust Ema and Jake with my life, so even when we didn't agree it never felt hostile, really, just differences of opinion. I imagine it wouldn't be all that different for you and Snake." He paused. "It's an interesting coincidence, isn't it? You were in that room with the person you woke up in the elevator with, I was with the first team I went through a puzzle room with. I wonder if that was intentional at all."

"Just a trim. Don't worry too much; you'll get all tense and end up messing up. You know, just go with it!" Yes... great haircutting advice. But at least Heiji's hair was pretty hard to mess up on.

~~Don't say it like that, ok Hershel~~

"I'm not sure. Though if we were going with the original teams thing, we were missin' Zelos..."

"I didn't realize you had haircutting knowledge." Hershel teased but it was pretty good advice, so he'll take it. He started snipping here and there, trying to make sure everything was even and not a wonky mess. It was a puzzle or something, fifteen picarats.

"True... the other teams don't follow the pattern either, really." Then again Clive's original team was gone, whoops. He frowned a bit at that, he was kind of worried the whole fainting thing stressed Clive out and reminded him of that but hey, he'd go make sure Clive was okay later. Haircutting now. "I guess it is all random, or seems so. I still can't understand why we were chosen for this at all. Simon was telling me after the robot fiasco that he thinks he's here to... well, fail, I suppose, as if we were all individually chosen to add something different to the group."

"Guess it's possible," said Heiji as Hershel started to snip away. "In a game like this, even a small change in the makeup of the group makes a huge amount of difference in the way the rounds shake out. One action leads to another, creating a chain of events..."

He looked over at the trees. "If Jake hadn't betrayed Clive, maybe Zelos wouldn't have betrayed Jake and Clive. Then Clive would have had no reason to betray Piper."

Snip snip snip. "It definitely has been that way, hasn't it? I think back to those first three rounds a lot, if Ema hadn't told me to try to live in a way I'd be proud of I don't know if I would have argued for allying with Jake, and... well that would have went poorly." Hershel answered after a thoughtful pause. "If you hadn't been the way you are I don't know if anyone else would have agreed to allying at that point either."

"Everything's been built from such little details, the good and the bad. Still, I don't want to believe Simon's right in thinking he's here as some sacrificial lamb for the sake of whatever this game really is. There has to be more than that." Or so he hoped.

Heiji looked amused. "So what you're sayin' is, I'm a huge thorn in Zero's side? I'm okay with that. But you are, too, y'know."

He yawned a little. "Everyone's got their own strengths and weaknesses. But as for Simon, I don't think he's as hopeless as he always says. He got this far, right? Even people who look weak on the outside can surprise themselves."

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hershel did you want to have a talk about serious stuff

absolutely, let's do it

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