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
[Oh no, he sent Jade that text, and if Max knows Jade....... mmm, nope, not thinking about it.]
I don't know. Maybe. After all, there are worse things to suffer through than Tommy Bahama... What do you think, [He grabs an ugly blue shirt at random, holding it up to his chest,] is blue my color?
no subject
[A blink as he really looks at Skulduggery, now he's extremely concerned.]
Your skull is different.
[He almost takes a step back. Is this not Skulduggery? Is someone impersonating him? Did the Captain make a strange doppleganger?]
no subject
[It should make sense that Max can tell he's wearing a different skull. For a moment, however, he's surprised, almost pleasantly so. But there's no compliment to be had on his high cheekbones or the smoothness of his fibrous joint, just an accusatory sort of statement of facts.]
It... is a different skull. It's my original one.
[He drops the shirt, not bothering to hang it back up, and... well, sort of stands there.] It just... happened to me.
no subject
Like Friday.
Okay no, he is a little horrified.]
How did you get your original skull back? Did you die?
[No. Wait....]
It wasn't at the sundries shop was it?
no subject
No idea. I asked the captain and he didn't know, either. It wasn't the sundries shop. I didn't die. I didn't go anywhere. I just... [He lifts a shoulder.] Have it.
[And he'd been so excited to have his original skull back, when Valkyrie had given it to him. So far, the reactions he's had have soured him on the entire change. He'd rather have some stranger's face, since that seems to be the one everyone likes around here.]
There was a... thing. With the timeline. I've been trying not to think about it. [Max will surely understand that sentiment, since he's echoed some idea of it himself: magic sucks, and it hurts his head to think about this magic in particular.]
no subject
I like it slightly better, the structure is more balanced with how you carry yourself and the lines of your suit.
[But thats not the point. Actually, how dare this fake Skulduggery improve on the real ones stylistic choices.]
There was a thing on the timeline. I'm going to assume this is one of those situations that will turn into an argument because I don't understand how magic works?
Just tell me if reality has fractured because I'm not sure I'm ready for having multiple timelines converge.
no subject
[Everyone else is a cretin, obviously.]
I don't... think it's fractured, exactly. [...No, Max is from the future, he definitely wouldn't have seen a bad 80's movie.] I was taken from the timeline at one point, but then something happened and I... gained... [HATES using the guy's terminology] Some eleven months of additional memories. From a different point of me on the timeline. [That makes sense, right? Right??] And now I would like to pretend that didn't happen, because, and I'm sure this please you to hear: this magic, in particular, is stupid and it makes no sense.
no subject
[Is he keeping it in the drawer as a spare? Does that one talk too? So many questions.]
Were the situation different I might have asked you to record that for me so I could listen to it at my leisure. But lets back up a moment, you have new memories? A year of things you don't recall doing?
Well I suppose didn't recall doing, and now have.
[Okay he doesn't quite have the vocabulary for timeline shenanigans.]
Did you return home and come back? Or is this a different version of you? May I still call you Skulduggery?
no subject
A year of things -- [he almost wants to scream saying it like that] -- that happened to me. And it came over me -- yesterday? The day before. I can't remember. I only remember being here, and then being here again. In my bed. With my skull and all of this...
[("Trauma, that's what it is," Valkyrie calls from across the row, "Oh my god, you are so dumb.")]
...Extra baggage that I technically both did and didn't live through. It's complicated. I hate it.
[The question is -- a lot. He sort of freezes up for a moment, as his mind tries to separate the deep dread from a simultaneous feeling of acceptance. It's terrible that he may not be himself anymore. But it's nice to know some friends will take it in a stride.]
Please do. The captain said I never left the ship, so technically I am still the only me you've ever known. [This is clearly subject to change... But at least for now, he's certain he's a Skulduggery.]
no subject
That sounds horrid and well, more unsettling than anything else that's been thrown at us so far.
[He's having trouble understanding all this, which is nothing compared to how Skulduggery probably feels about it. But Max can't even parse how to continue here.]
So what I said previously about Ekko is true then? We're here and there's copies of us back home continuing on with our lives as if we never left?
[That means... the Overwatch training gear. oh no.]
You know you are right, lets not think about this, let's never discuss this again. And you can continue to be the Skulduggery that I've always known.
no subject
...How far do you think you'll walk, before you give up? [Moving one hand stiffly to gesture towards the forever-distant back of the Tommy Bahama.] I don't know if there's an end to reach.
no subject
[Okay. Subject change!]
I said an hour, and I'd report back how many meters it was. I've gone about twenty so far which is already much further back than the other stores go.
Maybe eventually it will start generating less awful clothes. All the way at the back.
[Like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. And equally as unattainable.]
no subject
That would be nice. I doubt we'd be so lucky, but at this point, I think I'd actually wear a tropical print suit. Anything with a cut that's more flattering than...
[Oh he's not holding that anymore. When did that happen?] Well, than the shirts I'm already dealing with.
no subject
I'm not sure how you'll explain that.
[He's not sure how to distinguish them now. Is the other one Skulduggery Prime and this is Skulduggery Beta?]
no subject
I don't think I ought to distinguish myself from myself. That might make things too complicated, with all the reflexive pronouns and whatnot. I just thought it might bring home the "I'm on vacation" energy I'm trying to encapsulate.
[Although, he does feel fundamentally different than he did before. That could be because he's far more aware of the connecting joints of his bones, in a way that feels more surreal than anything.]
Maybe just the hat, then.
no subject
Ah, well, I've never been on a vacation so I have no experiential advice to offer. That said, I think you're supposed to relax around a pool with a book and a drink with a little umbrella in it. Even though you cannot drink it, it adds something to the ambiance.
[He's seen the ads for trips to the Bahamas, he's aware of the ideal.]
no subject
Ah! You see, I was planning on doing that after this. A little karaoke, too, if the mood strikes me. [He's very proud that they both know how to vacation correctly] I'd say you should join me, but I'm certain you'd rather walk into the pool than sing anything.
[Who knows! Maybe Max likes singing, too? Unlikely...]
no subject
[Which is a shame since his voice is kind of musical anyway, but alas, he can't sing. ]
Well, I'll leave you to the important task of choosing a vacation hat. I should probably get this excursion over with before Jade thinks I ignored them.
no subject
Too bad he couldn't gain that ability through some strange contrivance...] Well, all the more's the shame. You strike me as quite the smooth crooner.[But, yes. Max is off doing important work for Jade, and Skulduggery is on blasted vacation.] Yes, of course. Let me know how far you end up getting. And do me a favor -- don't tell Jade you saw me here. I'm avoiding him until my vacation is over.
[That... isn't going to last but you know what, he can try!]
no subject
Of course. Enjoy your vacation. I hope it's quite relaxing.
[Sure would be a shame if your friends tied you to a chair and accused you of being a fake. That wouldn't be very vacationy at all.]
no subject
[:) sure is good to know you've got some solid friends who won't question sudden, strange eccentricities that you're trying to avoid the mental trauma of dealing with!]