week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[anathemaw]

[ verso... ]

... Such a secret need not have been claimed.

[ he didn't have to tell everyone it was him. Messmer knows very well how much he's struggling with this particular factoid. ]

[reverso]

[Struggling, yes. But ultimately, this was the end goal, to let the truth be known, pieces at a time. Maybe production did him a favor, throwing it all into light so flagrantly — though he finds it hard right now to feel grateful for it.]

No… it’s fine. [He shakes his head.] Everyone here, who’ve treated me with nothing but understanding… they deserve to know.

[ … ]

Time’s running out, anyway, and I want to leave with as few regrets as possible.

[anathemaw]

[ that, Messmer understands. He'd felt much the same, even if he'd expressed it by pushing others away: the treatment he's received here is a poor match for the person he truly is. Verso is a gentler soul than he - he still believes this fully - and so, he can only imagine how it's tormented him. He hasn't had hundreds of years to grow accustomed to this reality. He dips his head in a slight nod, accepting.

That said, he feels... something. Some little twinge of sadness, if he dares to call it that. This was something Verso had confided in him in secret, and now it belongs to everybody. But that's far too selfish a thought to express, and he's mildly galled that he feels it at all. ]

Then for thee I pray this births no regrets anew.

[reverso]

[That self-hatred they share between them, it’s always deepened their understanding of each other. Ironic, that.

And though this secret is now privy to all, the shape it took when shared with Messmer was keener, more vulnerable. Nothing will replace that, nor the moment it embodied. It’s a bone-deep part of their bond now, indelible as far as Verso is concerned.]

It won’t. Even if it changes everyone’s opinion of me, I… I’m just tired of pretending to be someone I’m not, Messmer.

[Through lies, through his masks, through parental expectation, through an identity that he could never live up to. He’s tired. He’s tired of being tired, but Messmer knows this.]

I’ll be… all right. What of you?

[anathemaw]

Thou art he who standeth before me - neither more nor less.

[ he won't pretend he fully comprehends the extent to which Verso's been lying - how much is real, and how much is something he was made to believe was real - but that's why he feels he can respond at all. Messmer only knows the man in front of him, as he is, mistakes and all. That's the only "real" Verso he can imagine. ]

As am I. [ a beat. ] Thy concern is wasted. This is the role I was given. Messmer the Impaler is a cruel tyrant, to be hated. My moniker were known from the start.

[reverso]

[The man who stands before him, nothing more and nothing less. These words settle into Verso, and though they do not wholly ease the solemnness of this entire situation, it's still... a strange comfort to hear it. His truest self has been torn open and exposed willingly to Messmer, and it has been a long, long time since he's ever done that with... anyone.

He's accepted as he is, not as he's expected to be. Neither of them has room to judge, and it's been the foundation of the bond formed between them from the start.]

...I'm not surprised it doesn't bother you. [That his secret is known. Nothing will be worse than what Messmer's own heart puts him through.] Though I think with this group, there will be more attempts to understand before passing judgment.

[unless your name is aventurine]

[anathemaw]

[ Messmer scoffs at that. ]

Understanding will not change my deeds.

[ but he's sure Verso is right. They can do what they want. Messmer's already passed his own judgement - Verso is right about that, too. ]

Yet it is so. They are of tender hearts all.

[ spoken in a way that suggests Messmer doesn't necessarily think it's a good thing in this context... ]

[reverso]

[Yes, it's not hard to parse from his inflection that this is not a very good thing, at least in Messmer's estimation.]

And you'd rather have them pass judgment swiftly and immediately, non? Kind hearts might sometimes hurt more than they heal, but I'm glad we've a group like this, anyway.