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THE MURDERGAME SHIPPING MEME V1.1

This is probably too straight to accurately represent most murdergame ships but like. We take what the stock image industry gives us.

So, you've been put into a murder mystery game where you're going to have to fight for your life! Every week another body or two, surrounded by strangers- Wait, you knew that? You actually kind of have your bearings? Well fine, here's a different problem - see that person over there? Yeah, that one. Wouldn't it be a really terrible idea if you fell in love with them right now?

This is a meme for that sometimes most fun of bad choices in murdergames: shipping. Leave a toplevel with info that might be in your character's profile (recommended, so everyone knows what your character is About), maybe a murdergame title (optional but encouraged), and any extra info you want to give along with whatever your shipping prefs are, then either pick from the prompts below or wing it and go tag around! Profile code and some prefs options below.

SETTINGS (note: absolutely not an exhaustive list)
1. Shopping Mall - Live your teen movie romance dreams! Sure, someone seems to get mcfucking murdered in the Starbucks every week, but that doesn't mean you can't go on a coffee date, right?
2. School - Live the... other party of your teen movie romance dreams! It's a little hard to be romantic when the only place for a dinner date is the cafeteria, but in fairness you are also constantly overcoming bigger problems than that here.
3. Generic Facility - Looking for romance? Try scenic Sealed-Off Building Full of Rooms! It's themed in some way - science, underwater - but the concept is the same. Surely there's some kind of bar or inexplicable amusement park in here you could use for a romantic evening, right?
4. Spooky Mansion - You know what they say about going on dates to scary movies, right? What if the scary movie was uh. The whole thing. The whole place. Where you live. And die, sometimes.
5. Romance Zone - I mean hey, maybe you're stuck somewhere literally built for both romance and murder! Pleasure and pain. Life and death. Smoochin' and stabbin'.
6. Other - If you can block off an area, you can put a murdergame there. Get creative!

PROMPTS (ship scenarios)
1. Confession (Fun) - Ah, the start of any good murdergame relationship. Maybe you've been dancing around each other for a week or two, maybe over the course of one thread and a lot of screaming your players decided you're gonna kiss. Time to figure out what these feelings mean while you're, you know. Here. Can be combined with some of the other prompts too, if you like.
2. Dating??? - Where do you even go to date in a murdergame? Is it even worth trying to hang onto this kind of normalcy when either of you could die any day now? It's probably fine.
2b. Dating+ - Can be combined with any other prompt, but somehow, some way, one of you is taking the lead in this date and getting a bunch of emotions in... because you're deathflagging. You're deathflagging hard.
3. Afterparty - Hey, that was a rough trial! Whatever it was! But you're both alive, so... better try to comfort each other, huh? Enjoy whatever kind of snacks you guys have available.
4. Confession (Unfun) - Oops, uh. One of you... seems to have confessed to murder. Better get whatever last moments in that you can before voting ends and one of you gets brutally executed!
5. The Couple That Kills Together - Okay, so maybe you did or didn't actually kill someone together. But at least one of you did a murder, and the body hasn't been properly discovered yet, so... time to talk this through? Make bad choices for love?
6. Deadland Romance - Maybe you've just reunited in the land of the dead, or maybe this is where you're trying to get your relationship off the ground. Either way, there's gotta be some weird emotions to "we're dead and trying to make it work."
7. Golden End Reunion - Great news! You beat up the mastermind (or befriended them, I don't know your style) and got all of the dead people back, including the other half of your ship! That's gotta feel good, seeing them again after however many weeks.
8. What now? - The game is over, it's time to go home. But... which home? If you split up, is there going to be a chance to visit each other again? Can you work that kind of long-distance?
9. Smut Option - Look. It's not generally onscreen, but hookups happen. Did you have to kick roommates out? Is this the fabled... you know, variant of option 5? Basically look, if you wanna use this meme for smut I'm not gonna say no, just tag appropriately.
10. Anything else! - Look, one of the fun things about murdergame ships is how many ways they can go in the emotional crucible inherent to them. I can't account for a lot of things ahead of the basics, so plot with your thread partner and have fun with it! Hell, maybe bring a good ol' murdergame polyblob into the mix, I'm not gonna stop you! Go with ur heart, assume other characters, live your truth!

PROFILE CODE (pilfered from the general murdergame meme):

PREFS CODE:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Wh - oh. The problem with saying the plan out loud before you've thought it all the way through is that Riley does better with clear, concise instructions. She's not a improviser, not really, but that's all Cairo does so sometimes she forgets to say things in the Riley Way and not the Cairo Way. God, Cairo loves this empty-headed girl. She's so ditzy sometimes and it's endearing.

A voice in her head that sounds an awful lot like Kate raises an eyebrow and says that's because you have no taste, but Cairo ignores it.]

I'll help you move the body. Then you have to trash the bridal shop because we're not going to be able to clean up the blood in there and you're already bloody. While you make it look like there was a huge fight in there, I'll clean up the ice cream parlor. [Clear, ordered.] Make sense?

[ One step after the other, that's how Riley likes it. She likes lists, she likes agendas. Especially when she's one half-step from a panic attack, teetering in the eye of the storm. She likes having someone tell her what to do, lest she try and handle it herself and, well—

Well, she finds something dark hissing, look how well you've done at that lately.

No, it's fine, it's going to be fine, they're both going to be fine. Despite everything, a thin smile flip-flops onto her face as she looks back at Cairo. ]

Yes! Yes, okay, that makes sense. Perfect sense. [ Perfect sense like following her own bloody trail back to the scene of the crime.

Not for the first time, she wonders as they pass the ice cream parlor how Cairo never figured her out. She's been too afraid to ask her, if she actually had and was just...not mentioning it. ]

[Cairo smiles back. It feels fragile, but it's the best she can do for Riley right now. Sometimes she wonders how she missed Riley's murders. Or if, maybe, she knew that Riley had done it and simply didn't want to believe it.

It doesn't matter.]

Okay. Let's do this.

[Cairo hangs behind, motioning for Riley to go first. She. She doesn't want to see the body where Riley can see her reaction. Whoever it is, they're already dead. No need for tears now.]

[ With Cairo behind her, it almost feels like Riley can do anything. That's what she was missing before. That's what she should have changed, all she needed was this, and she could— she can do anything, right?

Entering the bridal boutique...puts a damper on that. The whole place is a mess. A bunch of armless sewing mannequins are toppled to the ground, and laying on them, lifeless, is a boy just a few inches taller than Riley. It's weird that he's so silent, because he's always been a friendly, jovial presence, trying his best to make the younger of them feel safe and comforted, helping to run those little gatherings that have become a once-a-week occurrence.

But there's no mistaking it, especially with the amount of blood covering his front, coating the dresses beneath him.

Mitsuki Izumi is dead.

It sends Riley back down to reality. Her mouth is dry. Almost a little choked, she repeats, once again, ]

I... I really...didn't...mean to.

[ She liked Mitsuki. Against all odds, he was nice to her. ]

[......... Shit. Was Cairo hoping that Riley killed Forsythe? Yes. Yes, she was. She definitely knew that it wasn't, though. Riley wouldn't have been that distraught over someone like him, wouldn't have been in the ice cream parlor trying to be talked down. It had to be someone that Riley actually liked.

The fact that it's the worst of the worst options makes something in Cairo's stomach sink, but she breathes out. Fucking hell.]

Okay. [Cairo moves around to stand at his head.] You grab his feet and we'll take him down to the fountain.

[This is, uh. Eerily reminiscent of Mattie getting drunk and passing out. It's fine. It's fine, don't think about it. Sacrifice is worth it.]

[ Why would Riley ever do anything that could make this easy on either of them? That's so far from her specialty.

What she doesn't need to do right now is to think; Cairo's told her what to do, and despite her fear and worry...she listens, inching up to the other end of the body. ]

Okay. [ Even though her gaze is glued to Mitsuki's face. His eyes are still open. Riley reaches down and stops short. ] He...kept talking about his little brother. Cai, I... I don't know if...

[ The guilt of Chess and Farrah has been eating away at her for months. Having to actually talk about it with Cairo's made it all worse. She can't pretend she did the right thing anymore, can't pretend it fixed anything. She'd done this once with girls she knew for years, but now, it feels impossible. ]

[Cairo swallows.

She reaches down and closes Mitsuki's eyes, gently. A single kindness before they do a lot of terrible in the name of self preservation. God. He had a little brother. He had a family. This is all so fucked up.]

Don't think about it now, Riley. When we win, when this is all over, we'll find. We'll figure out some way to bring them all back. [Confident. Self-assured.] But first we have to get through this, you know?

[Some people might try to convince Riley through facts and logic. Cairo's always done it through emotions. If she projects herself a certain way, Riley will follow her lead. That's the way it's always been.]

[ More often than not, it works. It doesn’t blind her to rational, reasonable arguments, but it makes it a lot easier for Riley to follow along. Between the two of them, Riley listens, and Cairo plans. ]

This isn’t a fairy tale or a movie, Cairo. [ But still, this one’s a hard sell. ]

You've met people who can do magic here, Riley. [Cairo rolls her eyes.] Who's to say we can't get a bunch of pokemon to cry or whatever and bring Ash Ketchum back.

[The lie of Cairo's confidence is for Riley, of course, but it's also for Cairo herself. She just needs to believe they can through this. She just needs to believe and make it true.]

[ How utterly ridiculous that this makes sense to her. Between the two of them, Cairo is the one who's popular, the one who knows how to navigate a social situation with ease, and yet she's the one who remembers all the little silly things from their childhood, the one who would casually play the hottest video game and come back with a tidbit of information about it years later, completely out of nowhere.

Riley, meanwhile, psyched herself out of doing anything that she wasn't instantly perfect at and cultivated a limited but intense knowledge of cheerleading and her single celebrity crush, true crime and dystopian novels. Like Cairo's a fully realized person, and Riley is... ]

After this...we're going to fix it. [ She distills what Cairo's saying down to an easily repeatable mantra. ] We're...going to fix this, together.

[ Together is what she emphasizes. There's no way Riley can do this by herself. She's already broken once under the weight of it, after all. ]

Yeah, together.

[Cairo smiles. The thing about Riley that Cairo's always tried to get her to put aside is that perfection isn't perfect. Perfection is about easy, about the ways you can get other people to relax and listen to you. At least it is for Cairo.

Where Riley's always wanted to be perfect, Cairo wants to be effortless. It means she does a lot of research and memorizes facts that she can pull out whenever necessary. It means she practices smiling in the mirror, practices the way she tosses her hair over her shoulder. If people see those parts, then they don't see past them to the fact that it's an act.]

Okay, let's get him down to the fountain.

[ And just like that, Riley does as instructed. She gets the legs, Cairo gets the arms, and all the while she does not look at the multiple stab wounds that she inflicted on a perfectly nice young man's chest.

Mitsuki's blood has started to dry, but little bits still drip as they walk. If his torso dips one way or another, blood runs under his shirt down his back. They'll clean the trail up later, Riley tells herself. If they can make everything look chaotic, if they can keep their cool, then it'll be okay.

Or... Or maybe— ]

Cairo. [ A little breathless, as they're halfway to the fountain. ] Should...we try and frame someone?

[ The trepidation in her voice is palpable. It's not just the memories of framing Mattie, sending an innocent girl to prison for the crimes she herself did, it's that fucking jerk who tried framing Riley herself just two weeks ago. Cairo hadn't exactly been quiet about Riley's past...mistakes, and, well.

Joe Goldberg was nice to her.

Riley thought, perhaps, that kindness was sincere, until then. ]

[No one deserves this—]

Who are you thinking of? [Sacrifice is worth it.] I vote Forsythe.

[Yeah, uh. That doesn't make any sense, but she hates him so of course that's her vote. If he weren't fucking dead already, she'd say they should frame Joe in retaliation but oh well. She'll get revenge on that bastard some other way.]

[ Despite everything, Riley rolls her eyes something fierce. ]

Oh, of course you vote Forsythe. No, Cai, everyone knows he's your nemesis. No, it has to be someone...believable. Someone we don't...have a connection with. [ As she runs through everyone in her mind, she pauses for a moment.

Because there's an almost obvious answer, given who she's spoken with this last week, but she... Even if they're all going to die, she can't bring herself to throw Aria under the bus. ]

Medusa. Everyone's been- since Sparkles spread all our secrets. Everyone's been waiting for her to...do something.

[It's on the tip of Cairo's tongue to say We could frame Aria, but she stops herself. No, that. No. Cairo likes Aria and she doesn't deserve that.

Medusa, on the other hand.]

It would be her or Hannibal and he's too meticulous for this. [A beat.] No offense, Riley.

[Also he's a cannibal and............ gross? Gross. She's not faking that. Cairo has limits.]

[ From what they've heard about -A, Aria perhaps deserves all this the least out of everyone here—

Nearly dropping Mitsuki's body, Riley shivers at the mention of their resident people-eater. That was another secret she really, really could've done without knowing. ]

Please, I do not take offense to having differences between me and him.

[ It's creepy! He's really, really creepy!! ]

Have, um— how, can you...forge anything?

[ Before the cat was let out of the bag, sweet Dr. Medusa hosted one of their post-trial gatherings, after all. ]

[Cairo struggles under the weight of Mitsuki when Riley slips, but they get it back under control. Honestly? She can't blame Riley for feeling that way about Hannibal. The dude's gross. That's why Cairo was constantly trying to get him to stay the fuck away from Riley.]

Riley, my parents haven't signed a single permission slip for me since I was in elementary school.

[Is she good at forgery? Not especially! But she can probably fake it enough to cause some confusion.]

[ It's not Riley's fault that she flocks to whoever shows her the slightest bit of affection... ]

Excellent. [ That's what she thought. Her own forgery skills are...limited to just her own parents. ] ...And...we can...um...

[ For someone who loves true crime, actually attempting to frame someone in the moment is...very difficult. ]

Do you still have that poison from the other day? Maybe if I poison the ice cream, we could make it look like she lured him in.

[She doesn't actually know if Riley tossed the poison or not. Riley said she was going to toss it, but what Riley says and what Riley does aren't always the same. Cairo definitely feels like Medusa is a poison person, though.]

[ They stop in front of the fountain as Riley glances away guiltily. ]

Yes, I still have that poison.

[ She was going to get rid of it! Seriously! It just...you know...felt maybe...useful... ]

Okay. Where'd you leave it? I'll grab it while you make it look like she went crazy in the bridal shop.

[Cairo looks down at Mitsuki, then at the fountain. She's already feeling bad about this but, uh. They're already here.]

...My room. [ Cairo isn't scolding her, but the words drag from Riley's lips as if she is. ] Desk. It's- not like I was staying there anymore.

[ So it's positively become a horrible mess... Ugh, she really doesn't want Cairo to see that, but she also doesn't want to be standing here about to toss a dead body of someone she actually liked into a fountain! So we can't always get what we want. ]

Sh... Should we just...d-dump him in?

[Cairo just raises an eyebrow. They're gonna have to have a talk about that later, if they survive this. That's a problem for later Cairo, though. Right-now Cairo's problem is:]

We'll get wet. Let's just. Gently put him in?

[Oh god. They're the worst, aren't they?]

[ This is awful! They're awful! This is the worst!

Riley halfheartedly nods and starts to lower Mitsuki's feet into the fountain, a lump forming in her throat. Very, very quietly, she murmurs: ]

Sorry.

[Cairo lowers Mitsuki's upper half into the water and, once he's all the way in, just looks down at him for a moment before closing her eyes and breathing out. They just have to get through this. Just get through this.]

Okay. You go trash the bridal shop, I'll go poison some ice cream.

[D-E-F-E-N-S-E, tamper with a murder scene
Not the proudest thing we've done,
but Tigers fight until they've won]