GODLY AUDIENCES - TAKAOMI SHISHIMARU

[divus]

Comments

[divus]

Fine, don't tell us that again. But maybe tell some of them that.

[She huffs. By them, she means the participants.]

Even with the new rule, some people are just talking to Fortune when she's out there [on the public mingle] and calling it quits. Which works, I guess, since no one is aligned to her, but that's the easiest way of doing things and it doesn't actually teach them anything about the rest of us.

[bakaomi]

[ ... ah, he frowns.

taka is too much of a fortune stan for this. ]

She said that they just feel sorry for her...

[divus]

That's my point. They're just feeling sorry, and they're not getting any new information, so none of them are learning anything from this rule.

[bakaomi]

... well, I'll see what I can do.

It's just annoying if they don't try harder.

[divus]

It's ridiculous. Totally ridiculous! They'd better shape up.

[bakaomi]

Have your followers been talking to you at least...?

[divus]

They have. Well, most of them, anyway. I don't have any complaints there.

[...her voice actually softens at that? She likes her followers. Amazing.]

But at the end of the day, it's about the numbers. I need to keep my current followers and get new ones. But people find it off-putting if I'm too aggressive, so just ambushing them won't work...

[bakaomi]

[ hm ]

What do you think might be working for other gods?

[divus]

[you know what the problem here is? ambition doesn't know how to shut up when she actually thinks people are paying attention. so: ]

Well, Love is obvious. She's a friendly, touchy-feely person who has a nice-sounding name to boot, so of course people are going to gravitate toward her. She started off with a good lead and she's maintaining it. But she hasn't really gained any new followers, either, so who knows how long that's going to last? If people start ditching the gods with only a couple of followers and don't go to her, any of us could pull ahead.

Sincerity is another one of those feel-good names. People like thinking of themselves as being sincere people, even when they're lying to themselves. I hate to say it but he's got a good sense of fashion, too, so he's probably winning people over that way. [Grumbling:] People can get makeovers in my room too...

Piety went out of his way to stick his neck out for all of you. The only thing I'm surprised about is that more of you didn't join him after his stunt at the last trial.

Meanwhile, Fortune's playing the sympathy angle really well. I bet she'll have a bunch of followers on Monday.

[bakaomi]

[ oh that is a lot of information ]

Well, at least with Piety, people weren't even completely sure if it was going to work. It might be different now that we know it did.

[divus]

[yeah if you can deal with ambition long enough to get her talking she never shuts the fuck up]

Right. Even I have to admit it was pretty smart. [she hates admitting other people are smart...] The thing is, I'm not sure if it's going to work anymore. It was a loophole, but it's not in the spirit of the rules we all ended up agreeing to. It might've been a one-time thing.

[bakaomi]

We're not supposed to know if all the culprits are dead, right? Justice said he made a mistake, so I'm not sure how we'd even reach the point of being able to do it again.

[divus]

Some people would definitely try. If there's anything you all are good at, it's surprising us by trying a billion different things to get out of having to condemn someone.

[bakaomi]

Listen, I know we're not going to stay dead but dying still kind of sucks.

[divus]

Yeah, it sucks, but it doesn't change that it's happening.

[bakaomi]

... well. As long as we don't waste too much time on things like that.

[divus]

Talk about it if you want to, sure. Just don't, like, complain if you guys run out of time because you talked about that instead of who to vote for.

[bakaomi]

Someone has to try to keep things on track. For once.

[ if anyone is secretly cursed i swear to god ]

[divus]

Yeah, good luck with that.

[bakaomi]

Thank you for your support.

[divus]

You can't seriously say after the last two weeks that any of you are going to be very good at keeping on task, are you?

[bakaomi]

I mean...

We can make an attempt.

[divus]

It'll be interesting to watch.

[bakaomi]

Don't have too much fun.

[divus]

We all watch it. We have an interest in knowing how you're all going to vote, you know.