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isocelesmonster) wrote in
driftfleet2016-06-22 04:37 am
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Entry tags:
the devil in the details
Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.
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
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
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[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.
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And he is?
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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.
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Some people can't handle it. That's not so strange.
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[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.
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I don't need. I already know.
er wait he didn't do anything to the windows
HEY, DON'T TELL ME YOUR TIMELINE'S GOT ONE. I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE IN THIS STUFF.
I know, he's just making it brighter
ah my bad <3
HEY, BELIEVE ME - IF ANYBODY GETS IT, I DO.
no worries!
[ No amount of affection for anything else would change that. And Charles knows - fears - creatures like Bill. Those who can get under his skin, who see his abilities as something special. ]
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[Bill looks tired and sad again, and fidgets with one of his rooks.]
ANYWAY, I MADE A BLIND JUMP AT THE LAST MINUTE AND HERE I AM. EVEN IF THE ATROMA'S GOT MY PHYSICAL FORM STASHED AROUND HERE, I'M NOT IN A HURRY TO TRAP MYSELF IN STONE.
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Stone?
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[The crackling sound picks back up again. Here we go, turning to stone from the feet up. Bill knocks on his chest when it gets that high - definitely solid rock.]
no subject
So you're physically made of stone?
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[ It would go against the element of entertainment they enjoy so much. ]
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[Bill shakes the stone off and flicks the little bespectacled man chess piece again.]
HIS STUPID INVENTION!
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He hides it by saying the opposite of what he's thinking. The smile he puts on is fond and rueful, perfect down to the involuntary millimeters that creatures who wear human flesh constantly can't ever really command.]
HEH. YEP, RIGHT AGAIN! IT WAS THE SAME INVENTION HE'D BEEN USING TO WIPE HIS MEMORIES! I DON'T THINK HE EVEN KNEW THAT FIRING IT AT ME WOULD KILL ME!
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He probably wouldn't. Who would?
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NAH, ON THE ASTRAL PLANE WE'RE ALL ENERGY AND IDEAS! FLESH-BASED LIFE DOESN'T END UP AS THE DOMINANT SPECIES ON EVERY WORLD, YA KNOW!
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YA LOST ME.
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