Maybe you could name the bus.

After putting your laundry box back in your room, you sit down and work on your videos more. You still have a lot of... uh... the basic structure of a video done. A two-parter still sounds like a good idea as far as playing the algorithm with minimal effort is concerned.

. . .

Aside from that, you're still pretty tapped for good ideas.

You glance over at the two items you checked out of the library: a cat magazine and a book about haunted houses.

You're good at over-analyzing shit, which isn't a quality anyone seems to want real bad.

Normally, playing video games (and over-analyzing the hell out of them) is how you escape from real life, but now your life is getting so ridiculous and inexplicable that it's hard to stop obsessing over that. What means what in Crush Souls just feels... pointless right now. Reality has gotten so bizarre that fantasy no longer feels fantastical enough to take you out.

And otherwise you don't know what to talk about. You don't know what your other strengths are, or what would be a good video (never mind a two-parter). Not that it really matters--you've only been successful in the sense that you can afford to eat, barely. The bar's not incredibly high for you and a quote-unquote good video, so who gives a shit what kind of video you're good at making.

You're good at being mad.

Being a coward.

"I don't know what I'm doing with myself."

Being a liar.

"I don't know who I am. I don't know what my dungeon would look like, or who my bosses would be. I don't know where I'm going in life, I don't..."

Being an idiot.

A Fool.

. . .

Cici was an egg, then a yolk--a representation of how she feels, like a blank slate or like she's incomplete. You briefly wonder what your form would be if you didn't keep your human body in the dream. ...Or your powers. Cici's a fighter, she wants to grow up, she can manifest weapons and get bigger

. . .

if it's possible to reverse engineer or deduce aspects of people by working backwards from their dream powers like that, then throwing in names with the ring could be really informative. You're not sure how consistent it would be, but you might learn something by calling on the powers of, say, Temperance Walsh. ...Rill Parsons is probably an alias.

...Temperance Walsh might also be an alias.

Shit, you could just exchange names with random people. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone's a big, scary tarot like The Tower and they'll give you OP powers or something.

Hmm.

The Fool.

...You could try to be funny.

Like a... a blooper reel or satire or something. Something.

You have not tried your hand at much comedy.

That's SOMETHING.

You hear a small knock, followed by the front door opening.

"Aaanyone home?," Cici asks.

"That is one orange-ass shirt," you blurt out.

"And that's--" Cici pauses. She makes a face. "--Uh, a tanktop. D'I miss anything?"

"Weeell--" Might as well just "Franklin's in jail for breaking and entering and the bail's five hundred bucks."

Cici makes a different face. "...Was he breakin' into a bank, because there's no way bail's $500. Maybe the fine he could pay INSTEAD of going to jail but not bail--that doesn't make a lot of sense. That's like... felony breaking and entering. I don't even think we have felony breaking and entering in this state. Are you sure it's not a burglary charge?"

You shrug. "Hell if I know. You wanna be the one to explain how it works to the cops?"

There's a brief pause, like she's mulling it over.

"The way this week's been going," Cici finally says, "I might be the one to explain it to them yeah."