isocelesmonster: (GSV HSZWLDH OVMTGSVM)
◬ ([personal profile] isocelesmonster) wrote in [community profile] driftfleet2016-06-22 04:37 am

the devil in the details

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.

Although ostensibly the Golden has a new crew member, there's no new person in attendance at any meals. No new faces in the hall, nothing additional in the laundry. One of the standard crew cabins has been sealed up as tight as a tomb, the brass nameplate on the door unhelpfully scratched out with something sharp. No noises at all come from inside.

It'd take a careful eye to notice the only other change: the same sharp instrument has been used to carve little eyes of providence, no bigger than a fingernail, in strategic public places around the ship. They're shallow markings, not deep enough to interfere with any of the working parts of the craft, and no great works of art - each little scrap of graffiti is a matter of five lines at most. But they're there - and if sometimes the way the gold of the metal hull glints in the pupil is strangely canny, it's probably nothing to be worried about.

(It's not that Bill doesn't care about the flesh puppets that make up his new crew - oh, he does, they're all going to get very careful scrutiny over the coming days - but more important is finding out what his new playground looks like.)

When the fleet sleeps, their minds open and blossom like night-blooming flowers, each one illuminating a new section of the shared dreaming plane. For all of their poetry, few humans realize that the state of dreaming is as real an exploration as whatever meaningless actions they take while awake. It's irrelevant to their survival, most days, so evolution has never sought to provide that particular revelation. They're a young species. Five senses, auditory languages, limited psychic potential, and as far as they know when they dream they're just watching random electrical impulses fire in their brains. Ha!

(There's an expression about a one-eyed man's status in a land of the blind, and Bill intends to make it a reality.)

He steps sideways out of the material world into the closest dream as easily as a three-dimensional being can move along any of their limited axes. He makes himself invisible, at first, just to get his bearings.

[Bill is visiting dreams, as a way of saying hello! His permissions post for this ability is here. I am treating this ability on an opt-in basis. If you didn't give me the okay, he won't be spying on your character at all tonight ~but where's the fun in that~?]
ZOGSLFTS GSRH DVZP ZMW RWOV GSVNV
RH ML NLIV BRVOWRMT YFG Z WIVZN
DSVM NLIMRMT GZPVH BLF UILN NB GSIZOO
YV TOZW R OVG BLF DZPV ZG ZOO
axiomed: (You mean nothing to me anymore)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-19 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't say I have, though it sounds related to the concept of mimesis.
axiomed: (Always waiting)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-20 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
Not really, though I suppose some theories stuck when I was working on my thesis.
axiomed: (The life I knew by heart)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-20 11:07 am (UTC)(link)
[ He nods quietly. Part of that holds true, and it makes sense in terms of the progress made. ]
axiomed: (Feeling sorry is your favourite feeling)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-21 11:40 am (UTC)(link)
So you're saying you're what helps the connection, the passing down of . . . ideas.
axiomed: (Wasting my days)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-22 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
My universe has no records of magic being a thing beyond the fairy tales. It's only reasonable to dismiss it.

[ And mutants are founded on science, something he prefers over the strange magic always employed by these places. ]
axiomed: (Nothing could come between us)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-24 11:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles gestures. ]

By all means.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-24 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)
HM, WHERE WAS I?

[Bill taps his chin, thoughtful, and looks down at the chessboard.]

I THINK IT WAS YOUR MOVE! ANYWAY, HUMANS ARE PRETTY COMFORTABLE WITH HOW THEY THINK THE WORLD WORKS! THE MONKEY-BASED EVOLUTION MEANS THEY DON'T REACT WELL TO BEING WRONG - OR TO THE IDEA THAT THEY ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND A LOT LESS THAN THEY THINK THEY DO!

[He looks up to meet Charles' eyes, tired and sober.]

IT'S MORE THAN THAT THEY DON'T LIKE THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT - ALTHOUGH THAT'S TRUE, TOO! IT'S THAT SOME PEOPLE'S SELF-WORTH GETS CAUGHT UP IN HOW MUCH THEY KNOW AND HOW WELL THEY ADAPTED TO LIFE! WHEN YOU PULL ONE CARD OUT OF THE BOTTOM, LIKE TELLING A GUY THAT NON-HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED ON EARTH, THE WHOLE TOWER STARTS TO COME DOWN!
axiomed: (From the work of sorrow)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-25 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
Human nature is human nature. It can't be helped and it will always have its inherent flaws.

I don't blame them for that. It would be akin to blaming myself and I'm done with that too.
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV BLF)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-27 10:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Y'KNOW I USED TO THINK IT WAS JUST A QUIRK! POISON SOCRATES, CUT OFF LAVOISIER'S HEAD, BURN THE LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA, SURE, MISTAKES HAPPEN TO EVERYONE!

[Bill stares fixedly at a blank spot on the chessboard.]

I MEAN, HAHA, HUMANS WOULDN'T STAY SLAVES TO PARANOIA FOREVER, RIGHT? I LOST FRIENDS, BUT I COULD JUST GIVE THE SPECIES A COUPLE OF THOUSAND GENERATIONS AND IT WOULD BE WORTH STICKING WITH IT! HUMANITTY'S BETTER NATURE WOULD WIN OUT! AND I KEPT WAITING, AND WAITING...

[He reaches over and gently boops Charles' king's bishop, a thin brown-haired man in spectacles.]

AND THEN THERE WAS THIS ONE.
axiomed: (What turns we missed)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-29 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Waiting and waiting. Charles doesn't make eye contact. ]

And he is?
tetractys: (R DRHS R XLFOW HVV BLF)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-29 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
HE WAS A FRAGILE LITTLE MAN WITH A FRAGILE LITTLE MIND. [Bill growls. He crosses his arms and drums his fingers.

He's so angry he's shaking a little, which is not an act in the slightest. Oops. Maybe he got a little too personal with this story. Inside a powerful psychic's mind is super not the time to become a pillar of screaming hellfire.

Deep breaths.]


THAT - NARROW-MINDED, TERRIFIED LITTLE APE FOUND OUT FROM A FRIEND THAT WE EXISTED. THAT THE WORLD AS HE KNEW IT DID NOT FIT INTO A GREY LITTLE BOX WHERE HUMANS ARE THE ONLY ONES EXTANT. INSTEAD WONDER AND IMAGINATION IN THE FACE OF THE UNKNOWN, ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS GO BACK TO NOT KNOWING. SO HE MADE A WAY TO TAKE THE MEMORIES OF ALL OF IT OUT OF HIS OWN MIND. TO DELETE THE CONCEPT FROM HIS PERSONAL WORLD. DESTROY THE IDEA.
axiomed: (I forgot how to cry)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-30 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles waits until he calms down. He could take offense to the term ape, but he decides it's not worth the battle. ]

Some people can't handle it. That's not so strange.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-30 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
IT'S NOT STRANGE AT ALL. I REALLY SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING.

[Bill looks up. The anger is still there, but banked and cold.]

HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE'D DONE, BUT HE KNEW IT HAD MADE HIM HAPPY - SO HE STARTED USING IT ON EVERYONE ELSE HE COULD CATCH, TOO. THE COLLECTIVE I.Q. OF THE TOWN HAD DROPPED A DOZEN POINTS FROM THE NEURON DAMAGE BY THE TIME I FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS HAPPENING.

[A soft crackling, like the crunch of frost underfoot, precedes a layer of solid stone advancing up Bill's torso. He sits back and closes his eyes as it creeps towards his collarbone, immobilizing him.]

TAKE A WILD GUESS AT WHAT THAT KIND OF WEAPON DOES WHEN AIMED AT A GUY WHO LIVES IN HUMANITY'S IMAGINATION AND IDEAS.
axiomed: (The life I knew by heart)

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-30 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
[ Charles flicks it away. Sunlight pours through the window once more. ]

I don't need. I already know.
tetractys: (ZMW UVVO GSV DLIOW GFIMRMT)

er wait he didn't do anything to the windows

[personal profile] tetractys 2016-07-31 08:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Bill looks sympathetic.]

HEY, DON'T TELL ME YOUR TIMELINE'S GOT ONE. I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE IN THIS STUFF.
axiomed: (We laughed and cried)

I know, he's just making it brighter

[personal profile] axiomed 2016-07-31 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
My timeline has its own eccentricities. But that doesn't mean I don't know nature.

no worries!

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