Bro, I'm stoked you're here, man!

[Namira]

((Stokes continued from I Carry Only The Finest))

Piece by piece, it began to come together.

Two pairs of hands were a valuable asset when it came to getting things done, especially when, just as an example, you weren't all that strong and weren't all that tall. Just an example. The restaurant had pros and cons for the plan; a lot of supplies, sure, but not necessarily all that much unique and seriously not that much that could be used as a weapon. Y'all are an arena sweeper, you ain't gonna leave kitchen knives laying around in the y'know, kitchen. Basic ass shit.

Still, still, still, still. As Stokes and Chris—that was Junior's name though she kinda split fifty fifty on it—worked, her giving him the directions, Stokes started to feel a lil bit of positivity seeping in. This wasn't a dumbass idea. It was out there, but it wasn't stupid. Doing something different wasn't usually—yeah naw honestly it often was—stupid. But sometimes out the box was what you needed and Stokes reckoned it was what she needed. Maybe Chris, too. Guy wasn't all the way convinced which yeah, had to keep an eye on, but he'd stuck where the others hadn't and he hadn't tried splitting her skull the second they were alone. Stokes figured she could rely on him for now. Later things went, more dangerous it got. So get started early. Get in... on the ground floor.

And that fit good, right? Ground floor.

The two of them had dragged a couple tables out in front of the restaurant, flipping a couple more onto their side to slot them against the others, making the arrangement the first thing anyone would see when they walked in. On top of this makeshift countertop was laid out, well, kind of everything that they'd managed to dig out around the place so far. Some dry foods, canned, cooking gear—pots and pans that kinda thing—as well as a bunch of other random utensils. Decent stock. It was a start. Hey, if Archie could kill a guy by flinging him from a height onto a whole jar of forks, you could probably do some damage with one single fork, right? All that could be counted for weapons was the handful of chair and table legs Chris had helped her break down. Better than nothing.

The rest of the place, they'd barricaded, creating a wall of furniture between the entrance and any access to the kitchen and the rest of the building. Behind the counter, there were a couple more flipped tables, places to take cover if they had to. Stokes had found a back entrance and they'd wedged a chair under it, stacked up a couple more tables, hopefully keep it locked up tight. Best they could do.

Finally, they'd torn up some boxes, found a sharpie and some tape, and lashed together a janky ass sign, which they'd taped the hell out of to try and get it to stick out front. Thing had more tape than Santa's workshop. Anyway, loud and proud, Stokes' store was marked on the goddamn map. 'TRADE'.

God but she was exhausted as shit.

Laying flat across three chairs behind the 'shop counter', Stokes yawned. She wanted to improve the storefront, make it a bastard fortress for any motherfucker thought they could step to the trading post, but her and Junior had both been going for hours. Needed to rest. Needed a buncha things. Better stock. More people. Couldn't go out yet, not with just two. One at home, one out? Just asking to get picked off.

Nothing now but to wait for that first customer.

Stokes started to hum Heart of Life's shop theme.

[Irina Ivanov]

((Chris Tyrell - JL09 continued from I Carry Only The Finest))

You know, this felt alright. It felt nice even! As nice as you could feel here anyways, as nice as you could feel hearing that god-damn Verity was in the game, and she finally decided to finally snap like psychos you see in like every movie ever. She'll probably slit her wrists or something by the end, so it didn't really matter, and he probably shouldn't care.

Luckily, he didn't have to care for the last few hours. Believe it or not, getting ordered around and only saying or asking stuff occasionally while weight-lifting with old tacky restaurant furniture felt pretty nice. Yeah, Chris wasn't sure why either. He wasn't sexist or anything, but getting ordered around by a girl shorter then you while was not usually a thing he tolerated without at least some jokes or sarcasm. He was probably just tired. Yeah, that must be it, and who could blame him?

It wasn't as...cathartic (Chris was pretty sure that was the word for doing stuff to get things off your mind? Ditching books for theater for the last few months surely didn't affect him that much) as pouring out his metaphorical guts acting or melting the ice rink with sweat but breaking legs, shifting tables, u-hauling the entire kitchen was pretty cool as well. Well, when he helped Stokes haul out the kitchen, Chris was surprised that a dang caravan had more stuff. You would think letting students have knives to uh....kill people with, would be well, you know, better for the game. He has asked if there was, and apparently the only way to get a good weapon was to go stealing or stabbing.

After a few hours of this, he was pretty ready to start complaining to the camera about that. Because you know, it was pretty hard to set up a shop when maybe half the people here have guns (No idea on the ratio, Chris wasn't a nerd.) and they were offering cutlery and beans. It felt sort of unfair you know? Maybe he could talk to that Jewel mentor person or straight up take it up to the cameras...

But fuck SOTF.

He sat near the front tapping his foot for the last hour or so, acting as both the guard and co-shopkeeper because clearly barricades weren't enough. Better safe then sorry, though, if a guy came in with a gun and demanded all the food and their lives, chairs and decapitated tables weren't exactly going to fly and knock him out. It got him some rest at least. He had to nap with one eye and all ears open but it was probably better then night watch or sleeping outside and constantly waking up. Probably. Nightmares were not nice, even if they were just annoying and not definitely scary or hitting too close at all.

"What's that from?"

Stokes was alright company. If Chris needed some big SOTF fan to talk to in the middle of being asleep, it'll definitely be Marion. But he was feeling too uh, dead to want more. Hey, at least his only chance of survival wasn't Matias, so Chris at least had a little bit of faith. Hopefully more then just a little, he was probably just really tired and unused to life in a death game right now.

He was also hoping people would come and buy their silverware, food and a Chris-placed fan service clothing set off in the corner which had no shirt and thus was completely useless as even protection from the weather.

Come on. He put too much work into this just to let it die. He guessed Stokes did as well.

[Sh4dE]

((Gustavo Thicke continued from cheesed to meet you))

Gus was walking around in his (or rather Jasper's) black tracking outfit, cannonball Carlson in his hand. No trace of Leslie anywhere. Not his corpse lying around anywhere, no blood traces on the ground, no cap floating in the water.

Maybe he just left. Maybe he didn't like them and just said fuck it to the escape group, which, sure, is fair. Gus wasn't like super into it either, but Leslie noticed that, too right? Gus hoped Leslie was not thinking he was super into the escape plan and abandoned him because of that. Gus kind of made it apparent to the others that he's not into it? That he is not like a escapist. Maybe Gus didn't distance himself enough from the escape idea. Hell, what if Fernando thinks he's like an escape sympathiser? Nando would hate it.

Gus was sad that Leslie didn't take him with wherever he went. Though it was also understandable that he didn't just go back in and go 'knock-knock, I'm abandoning you, but can I take Gus with me?', cause that would've been awkward.

Gustavo played with the idea of just returning to Jasper and the girl, so he did. Except, he didn't have a map because he was robbed and it got darker. How long has he walked around to search for Leslie? Where was he? The whole structure of the Flotilla was confusing. It felt like he walked a long time.

He eventually walked into the Floating Restaurant. Inside there were people! Stokes and Chris. Gus smiled. He wasn't sure why, though, because he was actually scared of both of them in this situation. Stokes being a known fan of the show and Chris being Chris.

"Hey, guys. Have any of seen Leslie Little running around by chance?"

He'd need to be prepared to run.

[Namira]

Chris overheard her. Stokes felt embarrassed for like a split second but brushed it off quickly. Not like it was any big secret she was a nerd. Could spend five minutes with her and figure that one out.

"Heart of Life. Plays on the unlocks menu."

For most of the series anyhow, but Junior prolly didn't care about the controversy that blew up when HoL 5 skipped it. Anyway product placement. Kaching, smell the dollars.

Would someone play as Stokes, someday?

Egh no hated that. Different topic please.

Thankfully, guy showed up just in time to switch things up. She sat back up fully. Stokes knew Gus but not much. Little more than Junior, but, uh, also a junior. Juniordwee and Juniordum.

"Leslie? Nah."

Beat.

"Welcome to the store I guess. Got some stuff if you need anything.

"Leslie a problem?"

[Tapey]

((Mateo continued from "Isn't it weird how we spend so much of our time preparing for when we get older? What do we do now?"))

After a few aimless strolling across the jetties, Mateo found himself stopping at the floating restaurant entrance, his gaze aiming towards the large 'TRADE' sign above the entrance. He finished the last bite of seaweed roll on his hand, which he got from Leah when they departed. His head was feeling much better now, and he was starting to get used to walking around on a floating arena. As the day got darker, he was hoping to find a more secure shelter to rest in, or at least someone to talk to, an ally.

Speaking of allies, he wondered what Leah was doing now. He could not help but to remember the conversation they had earlier.

About their personal issues and life.

About being in this weary situation they're currently in.

About Leah being unable to trust him and herself to not go for each others' throats.

It was a shame they did not reach a common ground and become allies, but it was what it was. In the end, even if they survived one of them had to be killed by the other anyway.

Without further hesitation, he went in and was met with more people, none of which he could recognize in a split second.

He noticed that none of them had the same bandana color as his. Of fucking course.

Though he did want to make an exit, he figured that it would be too awkward to just run away now. Besides, it's just a trading post. What could possibly go wrong? Better yet, maybe they'll give him a place to stay for now.

He patiently waited behind the guy with the black tracking outfit, waiting for his turn for a request.

Something told him that he was going to regret his decisions badly.

[Irina Ivanov]

Chris obviously didn’t care about the dumb controversy, on account that, that big SOTF dating sim where girls date dead people, killers and ‘parkers’, has had like fifty controversies. Hopeless teens gotta be complete ingrates about which dead meat they want to bone, for some reason. Chris was always single and he still wasn’t that desperate but okay.

His bag was quite close to him, so naturally, he immediately began to consider gunning for his axe once Gus waddled in. Not like Gus is a bad guy from what he’s heard, but this was SOTF, he was of course pretty paranoid. For good reason!

But on account of him having the rationality and intelligence to not scare off customers, he didn’t. Standing up with (attempted) smiles was what happened instead. Surely that wasn’t scary. A guy suddenly standing up and staring at you with the fakest smile. Definitely not.

Chris just stood, not very menacingly, at the side. He knew he could talk and he wasn’t sure Stokes could, but at the same time, he was the guard, and he didn’t mind quipping while guarding the store either. Like a badass guard from a medieval story. He did wish he knew more about the two who walked in though.

There was a sort of security in knowing people, as pathetic as that was. If RJ walked in, Chris would know to be less on his guard and probably not run for his axe. If Verity came in, Chris was ready to bloody beat her up the second she definitely caused trouble. But all he saw were passive but probably nice wallflowers. Who wouldn’t do something too bad. And that is what they said about school shooters!

“Les’s probably your first priority right now, but you know, you might want to get some food, or some utensils to restore your humanity ever so slightly with before you head out. Buttt, if you don’t wanna buy anything though, you should maybe let the guy behind skip the queue.”

[Sh4dE]

"Leslie's no problem! Well, the problem is that he's gone missing. He's my team mate!"

After both Stokely and Chris offered him to buy something, it was clear to him that this place must be some kind of shop. Food sounded like a great idea. He'd love to eat real food right now and not this seafood garbage they've been given. Maybe he could buy a knife as well to cut the cheese.

"No, no. I wanna buy something. But, uhm...I don't have any cash on me right now."

Chris had a point about him blocking the queue, though. Mateo turned up, too and seems to also want something from the job. Gus instinctively stepped back and gestured to Mateo to come forward.

"You can skip the queue if you want."

Gus hated being the reason for a long queue. Happened sometimes back home, because decisions were hard, y'know, but Gus got used to deciding quicker to not upset the other people by now. It was always an embarrassment, so that's why he instinctively offered Mateo his place to safe himself from the awkwardness as quick as possible.

Sure, this wasn't a real queue, like a normal one in a supermarket, this was a weird queue in a weird situation, so it felt weird to treat it like a real one. He never heard of anything like a shop in SOTF, but hey, why not. It would make sense to assign some people to offer goods to contestants to let them refresh from all the fights and stuff. It was odd that the shop was run by classmates, though, and both still wore collars.

"Wait! I still got a question."

He stepped in front of Mateo again to ask Stokes a simply question.

"You two still in the death game thing? Or are you like out of it, because of being given this shop by the game masters?"

[Namira]

Chris started off with a pitch which was actually pretty good shit, more initiative and buy-in than Stokes'd expected him to show. Hey, no complaints here, buy-in was the everything to this plan. If nobody took the trade post seriously then it was dead in the water. Pun a lil bit intended. Trade: a useful and more importantly neutral resource. Something you could trust and call on that broke away from the colours you wore or your friends from back home. A step separate from the game, you feel her?

'Cause set yourself up that way, and you'd be in a spot where nobody wanted to fuck around with you, 'case they walled themselves off from a resource they damn well needed to go deep in the game.

If the shop went deep? That... was for later on.

Stokes nodded in response to Gus's follow up comment about Leslie, but then shrugged. Like she said, hadn't seen him.

He kept going after that, and before she could clarify that the shop prolly wasn't gonna be using money—what were they gonna do with cash in a place like this—he followed up with a much, much more interesting comment.

Given it by the game masters—set up to leave the game?

Well. Shit. Wasn't a lie Stokes woulda thought of herself, but damn if it didn't stop her for a second. Pretty brave lie to tell; was it in the kinda area the mentors could call out as BS? Was that too direct for them? Ah but, if she wanted to pitch other people on it, then... yeah, it didn't make sense if you could just pull more people into being 'not appearing this game'.

Fuck. Woulda been good though.

"We're still in. S'about providing something you can't get otherwise, not without a fight.

"You don't gotta give us cash. Trade, not convenience store."

[Slam]

“Lol, the fuck is going on here?”

((Junji Yamada continued from I Get Knocked Down, I Get Up Again))

Unlike his previous meet and greets, where a cautious approach had been employed, Junji had simply walked in the front door of the resteraunt boat. After all, he had a gun now. Who needed caution when you could cap a bitch’s ass?

He was still holding the gun in his pocket, out of sight and small enough to go unseen, but seconds away from turning this place into a bloodbath. The thought of it made him smirk, but they didn’t need to know why that was yet. He had the advantage. He had the power. He could do what he wanted.

It would be much quicker than with Cristo too, whose face was still fresh in his mind. Crying. Dying. Much less awkward. Much less uncomfortable.

The fact that anyone else might have had a gun didn’t seem to matter right then, not when none were in plain view. The immediate danger, if it existed, was not apparent.

He looked around at the crowd gathered in the...whatever the hell this was. ‘TRADE’, according to the sign. What’re you buyin’? What’re you sellin’? Gay.

Mateo, who Junji didn’t actually know very much about. But he had an orange bandanna. That was interesting.

He rubbed the gun’s handle as it sat in his pocket. Gently, softly, subtely.

Gustavo: Mexican nerd pussy. No orange bandanna.

Gripped it. Felt it press back into his hand.

Chris, gay jockey. Great, another one. At least he didn’t play soccer.

Fondled it.

And last...Stokes?!

His hand left the gun immediately. How embarrassing.

“St-Stokes! Mah bitch! You’re alive!”

After the shock faded, he smiled for real. Fuckin’ A, dude. Fuckin’ A.

[Tapey]

Mateo was slightly taken aback when Gus stepped in front of him again to enquire more questions, something about if them still being in the game. He never really mind it though, Gus might be asking something important to him, and Mateo himself wasn't in a rush too.

Seeing as it might still take a few minutes for his turn, Mateo continued to patiently wait for his turn while giving a short glance onto the items on the countertop. A pan would be nice tbh, could have acted as both a weapon and a utensil... Maybe if he didn't get to stay he could at least trade something...?

Just then, a loud, energetic voice came from the entrance, interrupting his train of thought. The voice got his attention, only to see a familiar face.

Junji.

To be honest, Mateo never interacted much with Junji back in school, and honestly, even if he did, he doubts that the both of them would have cliqued. He did hear several rumors about him from his friends, though most of them were not really positive. He also heard that he was a SOTF fanatic, maybe he should look out for him...?

And it was then he noticed the orange bandana on his forehead.

That was it.

He found his first teammate. In the most unexpected scenario.

This game was full of surprises, wasn't it?

Should he go talk to him though? He could really use an ally right now, but he wasn't sure...

...

As he was still considering his options, he noticed Chris was just standing at the counter, not involving with Gus and Stokes' conversation. Maybe he could ask him for a place to stay first...?

"Heyy, Chris, right?" He approached Chris by standing next to Gus. "Just asking if y'all still have any rooms available? I just need a place to stay for one night."

[Sh4dE]

((Skipping because https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk))

Aw, the two of them still were in the game. Too bad for them. It would've been cool to hear about some of his classmates surviving this whole thing. Although...if he thought about it some of his classmates are surviving, aren't they? They couldn't abduct the whole school, could they? That would've been in the hundreds and Gus couldn't recall having heard of a two-hundred person season. Would be pretty confusing to watch to be honest.

Maybe Gus should look on the bright side and be happy about the classmates that were not picked. He didn't know who was in this game and who wasn't, but he was going to be happy for those who didn't have to face death. Gus hoped people like Billy Hansen weren't picked. He was a good kid, but who knows?

Then Junji came in, large japanese kid. He always seemed like a loner to Gus. Junji probably was a good kid, Gus didn't know much about him. He knew people didn't like him, but that was probably because he was overweight. High school kids these days really aren't nice to overweight kids like him. His schoolmates were probably super prejudiced against him, but Gus knew that he was probably a nice person. He didn't really tried to socialise with him either, which Gus had to admit was something he should've at least tried, but you know, Junji didn't seem like the guy that would have any shared interests with him.

But yeah, Junji seeming to be lonely at breaks was super unfortunate. Gus had to admit that some classmates can be assholes. Back when he was in the soccer team he noticed that, too. People were being mean for no reason and of course they picked on the fatter kids. Or the more feminine ones. If Junji had been in the soccer team, he'd have had a bad experience.

Anyway, since his questions had been answered, he decided to leave.

"Alright! I have something to trade. I'll come back to give you something of value. I left something special at my ship."

Gus needed to tell Shoshanna and Jasper about this trading place. Maybe they could like get escape utensils or so from this shop. Besides, Gus left the cheese wheel behind and gosh darn it, he wanted to eat the cheese. He was sick of the seafood they gave him.

Leaving the crowded room behind him, he walked back to Shoshanna and Jasper.

((Gus Thicke continued in The Taste of Salt))

[Namira]

Shiiiiiiiiiiit.

Aight, uh. Junji. Cool. Junji. Yeah. Junji. She could—godDAMN Junji—she could. She could. Work with. She could.

Shit.

Junji and her, they went way back. Friends. Good friends. Real tight. People were assholes to him, he was kind of an asshole back, but him and Stokes, they were good. Known each other like forever, helped her out with SOTF Abridged series (outta left field: that ever gonna upload again? That last episode gonna sit on her hard drive, never finished?). Shared games, shared anime, just been, you know. Best friends.

Thing was, thing was, Stokes had talked more with Junji about TV than any other person period and she knew him. She knew what he said he'd do, knew what his plan would be. Guy had even more of a sure thing in his mind than Lucille. Gonna be him and Stokes against the world, yeah? Stone cold killas, fucking up everything in their path. He never like, finished that thought though. It was all just about them going guns blazing, taking out everyone who'd ever fucked with him. Them. And when they killed everyone else it'd just be, well, sure they'd let us go for being just that fucking badass, duh. And sure Stokes'd gone along and made some noises and yeah sure in fantasy it was cool to imagine you'd fuck up all the competition but also it wasn't new for her to think that, uh, naw, her chances of getting out were not high and both of them? Changing the rules? Shyeah. OK.

And here was the fucking kicker, cause, they were finally in a spot where that was maybe possible. Teams and all? And

of course Junji was on A nother fuckin team.

"Bro!—uh yeah sure Gus—my man!"

The pause ran too long. Edit it out.

"Yeah! Yeah. Still both alive, huh?"

[Irina Ivanov]

You know, Chris was perfectly fine. He was working normally (By the way, unfortunately, setting up a shop did not give him immunity to death, as nice as that sounded.), he was talking normally! Everything was okay.

“Hahaha! I mean, I like,”

Okay, Chris, stop that drumming, you don’t have bloody ADHD or something.

“You doooo realise this is a restaurant, not a hotel? I mean, hotels usually have restaurants, but we don’t have hotels. But yeah, as long as you make your own bed or something like that. Uh, you hand in your stuff when you check out.”

Four years of improv acting gone to waste Chris, god you’re lucky no one is watching you. No one that matters. Dad-

Chris’s very no good, bad daydreaming was distracted by a large tubby figure. Junji Yamada. Okay, to be honest, if Chris wanted anyone to die in SOTF (Leah or other girls not counting on account they probably want to die), it would be Junji. About the only thing nice thing about him was his body, because it was nice enough to warn everyone in the area about him with a nice courteous 10-centimetre forcefield of pure STANK.

“Well, see you soon Gus, don’t let the killers pounce on you on the way back!”

Chris honestly was just trying to avoid talking to Junji, because obviously no one wanted to. Except Stokes. He understood anyone anywhere has a friend somewhere you’d like them, but he could not for the life of him see anything. Really, he wasn’t sure what to think of Stokes, like it was stupid to think of it but it still wouldn’t leave.

He could only laugh at himself. Chris laughed like he was forced to eat a bitter melon, and his chuckling sounded similarly bitter. It was about the only way he could stop all of the bitterness from seeping into his voice.

“So, you here to say hi or to do business, dude? Preferably both.”

[Slam]

Junji looked at Chris. Smirked at him with a dismissive snort. “Yeah, let me dig out my play money. That’s what people are tuning in to see, right?” He turned back to Stokes.

Damn, he was thrilled. Like, genuinely happy, even through the still cocky grimace Chris had left him with. He hadn’t expected Stokes to die any time soon, because she was Stokes and she was the one not-shitty person at Mangrove, hell in the whole damn town, but she still hadn’t.

It wasn’t a feeling he felt very often: something light being lifted off his shoulders. Nice.

“Shit, Stokes. I mean, it’s great to see you. Real fuckin’ ace.”

Shit, this was a really nice feeling. It was kind of weird. But he was still happy.

“...fuck, man. Way to stay in one piece. Seriously.”

He rubbed at his eyes, because they were a bit uncomfortable. That was all. Laughed behind his hand. Couldn’t stop smiling.

“So.. what, this all your idea? Doing the whole merchant shit?”

[Namira]

Stokes knew the pitch, right? She'd halfway made the pitch, not the wholeass thing but enough to explain, to Chris. She'd gave it good enough that Chris could do it himself, even! She knew that it made sense. Just was, y'know, lateral thinking. Not a normal way of getting through the game. Junji's ideas were all that. Point A to point B-nah, point A to point Z and fucking ay-nigh-hill-ate everything in between. So, like. So.

It didn't fit together with him here. It...

"Yeah. Same, man, same."

She said that.

"Hey found a good spot."

Come on. Make it. Make it worth something. At least a line. Like. A fuckin', gif. Or something. Just. Do. Anything.

"Uh, yeah, yeah! The idea's me. Y'know, the American dream baby. We TV wall street here."