Book Five, Chapter 17: Dissociation

Kimberly looked through the tropes and then stared back up at us, hoping that we would be able to encourage her decision.

We had discussed this a long time ago, back when we had nothing but time and the Carousel Atlas to look through. When it came to the Eye Candy archetype, there were no bad choices.

The Atlas made it a point to warn that the Beauty aspect required a lot of commitment because the Beauty had to juggle a lot of characters and interactions. That made them powerful in ways that might not be obvious.

Storylines in Carousel were, well, stories, after all, and it was true that the characters in them often got overshadowed by the plots, dangers, and fear. However, being able to connect with NPCs and fellow players and use those connections was quite valuable, even if newer players weren’t able to appreciate that yet.

The Socialite aspect was seen as incredibly useful for information gathering and manipulating NPCs in its own ways. Picking that aspect usually resulted in you being cast as some sort of famous person within the story world.

From the description, you ended up with a story kind of like Sinister, where the character is a famous author, and other characters all know who he is and either hate him or love him because of it. Socialite also had lots of perk tropes, and as we have learned so far, never underestimate perks.

That left the Celebrity aspect—one of the hardest to use and most versatile. If Kimberly chose the Celebrity aspect, it wouldn’t significantly alter which characters she portrayed. However, the treatment of her character in the film would change, as the role would now be played by a famous actress.

The benefits of the Celebrity aspect were numerous, though not particularly well-coordinated for any given strategy. It was a jack of all trades. Even trades you didn’t know existed. It required thinking on your feet and a willingness to go out with a bang.

When we got here, I thought Kimberly would have chosen Beauty or Socialite. Those were more straightforward. She had changed a lot in Carousel.

She looked at us and said, “Celebrity,” as if asking for permission.

“It’s your choice,” Antoine said. “We told you this before: we’re not going to be upset no matter what you choose.”

She looked down at the tropes she had been given as options and went back toward Silas, the Mechanical Showman, and returned two of them.

Upon doing so, I could see her plaque on the red wallpaper change. She was now a Celebrity-Eye Candy.

To her, it wasn’t just an arbitrary decision; it wasn’t even really about the roles or the abilities. To her, picking the more versatile option meant that she could take on more responsibility.

With Project Rewind and the deaths of so many people we cared about, none of us wanted to be the person who coasted.

After she made her decision, Antoine hugged her, and we sort of clapped as we finished gathering up groceries.

Then we walked back to Kimberly’s loft downtown. Antoine was kind enough to push the wheelbarrow. I didn’t know if that was out of kindness or out of some apology for his own perceived failures.

Why had he gotten no tropes from that storyline?

By all rights, he should have. From what I saw, he did great.

It was possible that his experience level was just at a particular place where he wasn’t close to being awarded another trope, but it seemed more likely that something else was going on.

~-~

“I hope you like it hot,” Isaac said as he put a steak onto my plate.

It had once been a pristine cut of ribeye. I couldn’t tell anymore.

I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or if he actually did think that torching the steaks was the right way to cook them, but none of us really cared. He seemed genuinely proud.

“I was always the cook in our family,” he said. Cassie didn’t seem to give him grief for it, so I didn’t either.

We sat on the roof of the loft and watched as the sun moved across the sky.

Even though The Final Straw was not the hardest storyline we ever went through, it felt like one of our biggest accomplishments. Most of the time, we had either been thrust into storylines or chosen them because we didn’t want to get axed (even though I was the only one who knew that would happen).

With The Final Straw, however, we were doing it because we needed to provide and survive. There was something very comforting in making our own choices and succeeding at them.

“So you’re really not going to tell us what it was about?” Isaac asked after he sat down with his own food.

Baked potatoes and steak were our reward. It probably wasn’t normal for a rural general store to have fresh meat, but we weren’t going to complain.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It took a while to get used to eating meat in Carousel and wondering where it came from, but we were past that.

“No, we’re not going to tell you what it’s about,” I said, “because you are gonna go run it next time.”

“You think we can do it?” Cassie asked. She seemed nervous.

I thought for a moment and said, “Well, maybe not the very next time, but eventually, you guys are going to go get groceries.”

There was a lull in the conversation as we ate.

“So, have you seen it yet?” Kimberly asked. She was wondering if I had watched The Final Straw on the red wallpaper yet.

“Yep,” I said. “You are the star. They cut my lines down by about half.”

“But at least you’re not bitter about it,” Isaac said.

“I’m just glad I survived,” I said.

I could see this lingering look in Kimberly’s eyes that told me she wasn’t really asking about the storyline.

She was asking about Antoine.

She wanted to know if I had seen what had happened that caused Antoine problems. I hadn’t yet.

Whatever had happened had been cut from the movie, but when nighttime came, I would get to see the raw footage or at least some of it, and I was betting that Carousel couldn’t wait to show me.

As night came, I couldn’t tell if I was dreading seeing it or excited.

~-~

I excused myself and retired to my room. On my way downstairs, I ran into Ramona.

“We have steak and potatoes up there,” I said. “I hope you like them medium well because Isaac thinks that’s how they’re supposed to be done.”

Not another awkward silence.

“I’ll go look,” she said. Then she stopped and said “So, you survived.”

“Yep,” I said.

“And what, we just do that over and over again?” she asked. “That’s our life now?”

“As long as Carousel allows it,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but it came out a bit more grim than intended.

After a moment, I added, “Nobody died in this one. You can’t guarantee that, but sometimes you get lucky.”