Skulduggery Pleasant (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
light_mischief) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2022-06-25 12:26 am
light_mischief) wrote in come_sailaway2022-06-25 12:26 am
[open] automated vacation message
Who: Skulduggery Pleasant and...??? You. Definitely you. Really you, right?
What: After his canon-jump and the confirmation that like, technically he is both real and unreal, Skulduggery has decided he is mentally checking out for the week. Yep, definitely an appropriate coping mechanism that will not backfire continuously and spectacularly.
When: After the camping trip through the last week of June!
Where: Tommy Bahama, Karaoke, the pool, also far away from it all
Warnings: Auditory & visual hallucinations, probably talk of extensive torture, eldritch madness, and general trauma. Some violence is possible/probable.
Notes: See this post for an idea of how Skulduggery might be different post-canon jump! New CR will be more likely to see a balanced, "regular" Skulduggery (since his hallucinations are strictly people he knows), while his current CR might notice him avoiding direct communication until he can prove you're really there. He might also try to throw things at you. You know, it's fine.
(I'll match tagging style!)
[locked to Darcy] I know what I think doesn't matter anymore, but I'd say his mind is gone
[It takes Skulduggery approximately an hour after his conversation with the captain before he starts to have a complete and total meltdown about it. Not that he would classify it as such; no, this is just... a period of adjustment to new facts. He tries his best to write it all down before he forgets, but the more he thinks about it the less sense it makes and --
It takes him almost a full day to get some sort of grip on himself, and in that time he comes up with what may be the stupidest plan he's ever had. Well, the stupidest plan he's ever had thus far. If reality is burning him out, then he simply must not engage with it any more than strictly necessary. That, he figures, is as close to a vacation as one can get aboard this godforsaken ship, and that's just what he needs.
That means: no theorizing, plotting or hypothesizing about current or future affairs; no concerted efforts to solve any problems; no worrying about the captain's plans or personhood or name or anything; and most importantly, no taking things too seriously.
But to do it all, he unfortunately must break the last rule almost immediately. There is an unfortunate side-effect to his sudden temporal upheaval that must be dealt with, first.
The gauntlets haven't changed since he last laid eyes on them, but he has. There's a distant singing sensation in the base of his skull now when he touches them, like a finger along the rim of a champagne glass. He wraps them tight in a towel. Doesn't help. Stuffs the towel in a bag. Still doesn't help. Just being in the room with them is enough to feel it. Throwing them overboard isn't an option; he can't guarantee who will find them. The only choice he has, as far as he can see, is to find someone he trusts to hide them for him. Somewhere he'll never be able to go, or never think to look.
Skulduggery takes the bag, wraps it in yet another towel, and avoids the mirror on his way out. No need to look at himself to recognize the guilt already brewing at putting this burden on somebody else. Maybe it wouldn't sting as much if he were handing them over to Jade, or Palamedes -- but the former would put the pieces together too quickly, and the latter would likely wind up hurting himself. Darcy, he surmises, has no necromancy in her background, and therefore is unlikely to draw even the slightest energy from the cold, dead metal.
She's going to ask a lot of questions, and he'll have to lie to her face about most of it, but at least he can trust her to help. He just has to hope that she's actually in her cabin when he comes knocking.]
1. [tommy bahama] There was a reason why I came here (but I guess now it doesn't matter)
[There is a six-foot-four skeleton in a full suit somewhere inside the Tommy Bahama. You can't see him from the front of the shop, but if you walk the rows long enough -- maybe fifteen, thirty minutes down the aisle -- you're bound to come across Skulduggery. He seems to be browsing the shirts at first glance, but his movements are a bit... Stilted. He doesn't react to any of the patterns or the quiet muzak or the fake lime scent pumped into the store. Truthfully, he isn't even aware of how far into the store he's gotten. He'd been mostly trying to outpace the obnoxious Valkyrie hallucination following him, laughing at the ugly shirts he's pretending to look at. She's the only other voice in the shop, which makes her the one thing ruining this place from being truly peaceful. The silence, the solitude... if he could destroy the speakers, it would be perfect.
"Oh my God," Valkyrie says, "You are totally pathetic. Do you really think a sunhat is going to fix all of this?"
Yes, actually. Skulduggery does think a sunhat will fix things. For one thing, he can throw them at the bothersome figment. For another, he's now left a trail of various hats and pieces of clothing as a trail for him to follow back to the front. (Or, perhaps, for other people to find him...)]
2. [chatterbox] There is a certain kind of feeling that you get, when you're totally helpless
[Karaoke seems to be limited to a single hour every night, but Skulduggery doesn't want to wait for nine PM. He doesn't have time to sit around waiting for things to happen. He needs to be throwing himself into this vacation of his full force, and no semi-sentient teleprompter is going to stand in the way of his good time, damn it.
Skulduggery sits on top of the karaoke machine itself, having the monitor pulled up right in front of him for easy access. He sits in silence a lot for somebody who's supposedly trying to sing, flipping through the catalog seemingly at random. In the audience, he only has to worry about China, who smiles and hums What is Life Without a Wife. She only stops when he uses the ship's translator to translate some of the now-dead language he'd learned. Mostly, that just leaves him shouting things like "Help, help," and "The pain is everlasting," into a silent room. But that's okay. It's fine. Now he knows what those words meant when they were being shouted at him by survivors of a now-dead alien race. The more you know!
When he does sing, he throws his chest into it, so to speak, and for what it's worth, it does seem that he's having a good time. Every time the machine tries to rattle like it might return to its closet, Skulduggery reaches down and punches the side to get it to stop. The truth is, Skulduggery is holding the damned thing hostage. And he knows it. Which is why he will occasionally hit it extra hard and mention,] I will set you ablaze, you know.
[It seems to do the trick.]
3. [the pool] I had a good, good, good, good reason (but I guess now you couldn't care)
[The only one of Gordon Edgley's books that Skulduggery can find is The Vanishing Knight, which is a fun story about teleporters and based loosely on Skulduggery's knowledge of the Grotesquery. Now that he's gotten a little more real-world experience with both matters, he's decided to settle in by the pool and do a little post-humous editing. This issue's got some simple grammatical mistakes, and Gordon always tended toward rambling sentences; on top of that, he certainly took some artistic liberties with the way things were handled.
Interestingly enough, despite being a normally chatty friend, Gordon is a quiet sort of figment beside him, just there to listen and silently chuckle at Skulduggery's asides. He thinks maybe he's just worried he won't be able to get Gordon's voice quite right. That's fine, though; Gordon's a nice, comfortable presence to have lingering around. He doesn't complain, not even as Skulduggery gets lost in rambling asides that are half-spoken and half-thought. This might as well be the closest to self-care Skulduggerys gotten in either a week or a year, depending on which angle you come at it.
He's wearing his suit, but of course, the hat has been replaced by a Tommy Bahama sunhat. Valkyrie has not bothered him once since he put it on, and so as far as he's concerned, this is his new look.]
[wildcard] I got pressure bearing down on me
(Have something in mind? Message me or just throw something up and see what happens!)
What: After his canon-jump and the confirmation that like, technically he is both real and unreal, Skulduggery has decided he is mentally checking out for the week. Yep, definitely an appropriate coping mechanism that will not backfire continuously and spectacularly.
When: After the camping trip through the last week of June!
Where: Tommy Bahama, Karaoke, the pool, also far away from it all
Warnings: Auditory & visual hallucinations, probably talk of extensive torture, eldritch madness, and general trauma. Some violence is possible/probable.
Notes: See this post for an idea of how Skulduggery might be different post-canon jump! New CR will be more likely to see a balanced, "regular" Skulduggery (since his hallucinations are strictly people he knows), while his current CR might notice him avoiding direct communication until he can prove you're really there. He might also try to throw things at you. You know, it's fine.
(I'll match tagging style!)
[locked to Darcy] I know what I think doesn't matter anymore, but I'd say his mind is gone
[It takes Skulduggery approximately an hour after his conversation with the captain before he starts to have a complete and total meltdown about it. Not that he would classify it as such; no, this is just... a period of adjustment to new facts. He tries his best to write it all down before he forgets, but the more he thinks about it the less sense it makes and --
It takes him almost a full day to get some sort of grip on himself, and in that time he comes up with what may be the stupidest plan he's ever had. Well, the stupidest plan he's ever had thus far. If reality is burning him out, then he simply must not engage with it any more than strictly necessary. That, he figures, is as close to a vacation as one can get aboard this godforsaken ship, and that's just what he needs.
That means: no theorizing, plotting or hypothesizing about current or future affairs; no concerted efforts to solve any problems; no worrying about the captain's plans or personhood or name or anything; and most importantly, no taking things too seriously.
But to do it all, he unfortunately must break the last rule almost immediately. There is an unfortunate side-effect to his sudden temporal upheaval that must be dealt with, first.
The gauntlets haven't changed since he last laid eyes on them, but he has. There's a distant singing sensation in the base of his skull now when he touches them, like a finger along the rim of a champagne glass. He wraps them tight in a towel. Doesn't help. Stuffs the towel in a bag. Still doesn't help. Just being in the room with them is enough to feel it. Throwing them overboard isn't an option; he can't guarantee who will find them. The only choice he has, as far as he can see, is to find someone he trusts to hide them for him. Somewhere he'll never be able to go, or never think to look.
Skulduggery takes the bag, wraps it in yet another towel, and avoids the mirror on his way out. No need to look at himself to recognize the guilt already brewing at putting this burden on somebody else. Maybe it wouldn't sting as much if he were handing them over to Jade, or Palamedes -- but the former would put the pieces together too quickly, and the latter would likely wind up hurting himself. Darcy, he surmises, has no necromancy in her background, and therefore is unlikely to draw even the slightest energy from the cold, dead metal.
She's going to ask a lot of questions, and he'll have to lie to her face about most of it, but at least he can trust her to help. He just has to hope that she's actually in her cabin when he comes knocking.]
1. [tommy bahama] There was a reason why I came here (but I guess now it doesn't matter)
[There is a six-foot-four skeleton in a full suit somewhere inside the Tommy Bahama. You can't see him from the front of the shop, but if you walk the rows long enough -- maybe fifteen, thirty minutes down the aisle -- you're bound to come across Skulduggery. He seems to be browsing the shirts at first glance, but his movements are a bit... Stilted. He doesn't react to any of the patterns or the quiet muzak or the fake lime scent pumped into the store. Truthfully, he isn't even aware of how far into the store he's gotten. He'd been mostly trying to outpace the obnoxious Valkyrie hallucination following him, laughing at the ugly shirts he's pretending to look at. She's the only other voice in the shop, which makes her the one thing ruining this place from being truly peaceful. The silence, the solitude... if he could destroy the speakers, it would be perfect.
"Oh my God," Valkyrie says, "You are totally pathetic. Do you really think a sunhat is going to fix all of this?"
Yes, actually. Skulduggery does think a sunhat will fix things. For one thing, he can throw them at the bothersome figment. For another, he's now left a trail of various hats and pieces of clothing as a trail for him to follow back to the front. (Or, perhaps, for other people to find him...)]
2. [chatterbox] There is a certain kind of feeling that you get, when you're totally helpless
[Karaoke seems to be limited to a single hour every night, but Skulduggery doesn't want to wait for nine PM. He doesn't have time to sit around waiting for things to happen. He needs to be throwing himself into this vacation of his full force, and no semi-sentient teleprompter is going to stand in the way of his good time, damn it.
Skulduggery sits on top of the karaoke machine itself, having the monitor pulled up right in front of him for easy access. He sits in silence a lot for somebody who's supposedly trying to sing, flipping through the catalog seemingly at random. In the audience, he only has to worry about China, who smiles and hums What is Life Without a Wife. She only stops when he uses the ship's translator to translate some of the now-dead language he'd learned. Mostly, that just leaves him shouting things like "Help, help," and "The pain is everlasting," into a silent room. But that's okay. It's fine. Now he knows what those words meant when they were being shouted at him by survivors of a now-dead alien race. The more you know!
When he does sing, he throws his chest into it, so to speak, and for what it's worth, it does seem that he's having a good time. Every time the machine tries to rattle like it might return to its closet, Skulduggery reaches down and punches the side to get it to stop. The truth is, Skulduggery is holding the damned thing hostage. And he knows it. Which is why he will occasionally hit it extra hard and mention,] I will set you ablaze, you know.
[It seems to do the trick.]
3. [the pool] I had a good, good, good, good reason (but I guess now you couldn't care)
[The only one of Gordon Edgley's books that Skulduggery can find is The Vanishing Knight, which is a fun story about teleporters and based loosely on Skulduggery's knowledge of the Grotesquery. Now that he's gotten a little more real-world experience with both matters, he's decided to settle in by the pool and do a little post-humous editing. This issue's got some simple grammatical mistakes, and Gordon always tended toward rambling sentences; on top of that, he certainly took some artistic liberties with the way things were handled.
Interestingly enough, despite being a normally chatty friend, Gordon is a quiet sort of figment beside him, just there to listen and silently chuckle at Skulduggery's asides. He thinks maybe he's just worried he won't be able to get Gordon's voice quite right. That's fine, though; Gordon's a nice, comfortable presence to have lingering around. He doesn't complain, not even as Skulduggery gets lost in rambling asides that are half-spoken and half-thought. This might as well be the closest to self-care Skulduggerys gotten in either a week or a year, depending on which angle you come at it.
He's wearing his suit, but of course, the hat has been replaced by a Tommy Bahama sunhat. Valkyrie has not bothered him once since he put it on, and so as far as he's concerned, this is his new look.]
[wildcard] I got pressure bearing down on me
(Have something in mind? Message me or just throw something up and see what happens!)
no subject
"I..." Am fundamentally changed on both a mental, spiritual and temporal level? No, that's going to require too much explanation. He could pull out his phone and show her the texts he'd sent, but again, too much explanation. He just wants to leave, he doesn't want to talk.
"Please don't ask exploratory questions, I'm trying to avoid them as much as possible. Suffice it to say that the captain has a less solid grip on our reality here than we thought previously, and I was -- mmmomentarily out of place, I think. I'm back now, or well," He never left, but that doesn't explain the skull, "I'm here in a way that matters. I think."
He doesn't know for sure, though.
"Please don't ask questions," because that bears repeating if he hasn't already said it. "The problem is that I cannot be around these anymore. I can't explain," he really can't, just the thought of talking about Vile makes him feel sick, "But I want you to hold onto them. Find a place that I would never look to hide them."
("Ah, the desperation is palpable," but since China is strictly stuck to the timeline for now, he absolutely can ignore her here.)
no subject
Fuck. The gauntlets. The weight in the towel feels about right for something made of metal. This most of all is unsettling to Darcy, the secrecy might be par for the course but she still remembers how angry Skulduggery was at her so much as seeing them. Why change his mind now? She clenches her teeth and flexes the muscles in her jaw. Darcy had one thing going for her right now, and it was that he was asking for her help. She shoves the bag back at him.
"I'm not taking these if you're not telling me what happened. I- I don't even know where to fucking start with this. You managed to get away from the ship? Is that what you meant? How?"
no subject
No, he can't. He ought to do this one thing as close to correctly as he can manage, so that he never has to worry about it again. The problem is, he doesn't even know where to begin. "At least we are of the same mind there. I didn't -- get away from the ship. I thought I had, because of the new skull. Ahhh... Friday called it a timeline whoopsie-daisy..." He tilts his head. "Have you ever seen Highlander?"
no subject
"A... timeline whoopsie-daisy," Darcy repeats with all the derision that phrasing deserves.
"No, I don't watch old people movies, and also, you literally could not have tried less hard to change the topic. Come on. I'm dumb but I'm not that dumb."
no subject
This is stupid. He takes out his phone, thumbing through his latest texts and quickly copying them. "Look. I -- everything is in flux, right now. I wrote down what I could after the conversation I had. I'll send that to you to help explain things."
But before then, he has to try and explain the gauntlets. "Those," he indicates, "Are... part of a set of armor that belonged to another sorcerer. One that I defeated during the war. The problem is that they still hold power in them. And that power is... like a drug."
It's actually almost the truth while being nothing but lies. He's almost proud of himself.
"It wasn't a problem until after the timeline upset. Which is why I was alright with them until now. And... you're the only one who knows about them, who I can trust to take this seriously."
no subject
Except...
She has no reason to doubt his explanation. No real reason, anyway. It's just... it doesn't make sense. He'd mentioned the war before, fairly openly in fact. A war trophy from an enemy was a weird thing to be so cagey over. And if they were dangerous, why would he give them to her now, when they were more dangerous? Why didn't he just tell her they were dangerous the first time? And how did they become more dangerous since the timeline bullshit, if Skulduggery was the one that changed? Did the gauntlets change too?
Her head was racing with questions. None of which she expected she could actually get answered. It was like pulling teeth just to get an explanation, and even if he was lying or withholding shit, it wasn't like he was going to own up to it.
Darcy levels him a suspicious squint that wrinkles her nose, just to let him know she wasn't buying it. But she wasn't going to call him on it, either. It would result in a fight, again, and the last thing she needed was to feel responsible for hurting him. Again.
"Fine. I'll hide them somewhere."
no subject
He knows it'll be a rainy day in hell when that happens, but it's the thought that counts.
"I'll send you the text now, and be off. It's all in there. Or, what I could remember after speaking to him is there. It needs time to settle before I can make complete sense of it, but you're smart and sane. You'll likely be much quicker about it."
no subject
"Had this argument, I'm not smart, but I'll look at it."
If there's nothing else to add, she shuts the door without ceremony, wanting to be alone with herself once again.