#narrative!bill

[annoyangle]

THIS ONE'S FOR YOU, @saltysciencesixer

[annoyangle]

hey at least you aren't stuck in a narrative and ALSO the rapidly decaying body of a middle aged forest ranger

AW, CHEER UP, JUNIOR MINT! JUST REMEMBER: WE MADE SILAS BIRCHTREE INTO AN ICON IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERESVILLE KANSAS. A NAME TO BE SPOKEN WITH REVERENCE AND FEAR TO THIS VERY DAY! AND THAT GUY WAS SO DUMB HE CHOKED ON A PENNY! IF WE MADE IT THERE, WE CAN MAKE IT ANYWHERE!

[annoyangle]

(@maymayandthehog resuming from last post)

"WELL, I WASN'T GOING TO BE HERE. BUT YEAH, I'M HERE. KIND OF HARD NOT TO BE WHEN YOU SEE ALL POSSIBLE OUTCOMES."

Bill appears, sitting in the seat that Mabel just stood up from. He's not as bright and brilliant as Mabel might remember; he's a little darker, his tone a little less eye-gougingly yellow, more of an amber or marigold hue. He's not exuding his usual smug self-satisfaction. He toys with the boom mic for a second with a small black finger. Almost like he's nervous. Giving every vibe of a skittish animal ready to bolt in an instant if necessary. He's small, his legs dangling off the edge of the seat, nowhere near touching the floor.

"THERE'S FIFTY-SEVEN OTHER UNIVERSES WHERE YOU TELL ME TO BUZZ OFF. THANKS FOR BEING THE ONE THAT DIDN'T." His pupil moves, focuses on Mabel's face for a second and then he looks away again. "I'LL GET RIGHT TO THE POINT. YOU'RE PROBABLY STILL MAD AT ME AND THAT'S FINE. LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAD AT ME FOR LOTS OF REASONS."

He leans back against the chair, eye closing for a moment. "I WOULD SAY THAT I'M SORRY, BECAUSE I KIND OF AM, BUT ALSO I KIND OF CAN'T, BECAUSE I'M KIND OF NOT. DESPITE THAT, LET'S SAY THAT I AM, FOR THE SAKE OF HAVING A CONVERSATION THAT LASTS LONGER THAN FOUR SECONDS AND YOU BEING NUMBER FIFTY-EIGHT KICKING ME OUT THE DOOR, AND THAT THE WHOLE MESS IS… COMPLICATED. IN A WAY I KNOW YOU'D UNDERSTAND IF I WALKED YOU THROUGH IT, BUT WHICH I'M NOT SURE YOU WANT TO HEAR THE EXPLANATION FOR, EITHER."

He huffs softly through his closed eyelids, passes a hand over it. "NO, LET ME TRY THIS AGAIN. I'M TRYING. THIS IS THE WORST. FEELINGS ARE HAPPENING. I'M SHOWING MY BELLY AND I'M NOT USED TO IT AND I DON'T LIKE IT, BUT I CAN'T SEEM TO STOP WHAT'S STARTING NOW THAT IT'S STARTED. I'M BACK IN THE NARRATIVE NOW. SO… I'M SORRY. AS SINCERE AS YOU ARE WILLING TO IMAGINE I CAN BE SAYING THAT."

Pause.

"I NEED SOMEONE BETTER AT FEELINGS THAN STANFORD OR … THAT USELESS KNOW-NOTHING PLATITUDE-BLATHERING COURT-MANDATED """"THERAPIST""". TO TALK TO. THAT'S ALL I WANT. THIS ISNT A GAME. I'M DONE WITH GAMES."

Bill peers over and up at Mabel, gauging her reaction.

[annoyangle]

(@saltysciencesixer continuing from here )

"Why don't you try being a protagonist for a change?!" echoes inside Bill for a second and he freezes before shrinking back from the bubble, back toward his normal size. He starts to laugh, but it's a painful-sounding laugh, a laugh that sounds a lot more like sobbing, a wrenching grieving noise.

For a second the triangle flickers violently in place, and a static-filled crack appears to run from his eye to one of his sides; the static inside warps and glitches, and it appears small chunks of him break off as the glitches intensify. His eye widens and his pupil shrinks to almost nothing; he vibrates in place. But this only holds for a second, Bill growls under his breath and then crosses his arms over his bow tie again as he flushes back to that odd orangey tone. Seems to be gathering himself, suppressing something.

Images flash across his eye as he slightly turns to one side, his gaze shifting inward. Only a few are visible to Ford, but one of them would be an image of Mabel, another of some red and blue triangles sliding down off something, an Eye within his eye edged in the familiar bright yellow, flaming stars rippling inside - the image of Ford and Bill shaking hands in the languid blue dreamscape they once shared and the ciphertext 'till the end of time' . It's clear that Bill is having an intense internal argument with himself.

"THAT'S RIGHT. YOU DON'T KNOW. YOU THINK YOU KNOW ALL MY SECRETS, BUT YOU DON'T," he accuses, though he also extends a hand through the bubble, taps Fordsy hard in the center of his forehead, and uses the moment to heal the scientist of all the really serious wounds. He leaves a few though, cuts and bruises that he deems to be noncritical and slightly appealing to his eye.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW HUMILIATING IT IS TO BE PULLED TOWARD A REDEMPTION ARC AFTER THIS LONG? DO YOU HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT IT'S GOING TO DO TO ME WHEN IT'S DONE?? WHAT IT'LL FORCE ME TO BECOME?! YOU'RE ASKING ME TO DESTROY MYSELF, STANFORD, AND FOR WHAT? A COUPLE OF MEASLY TIMELINES THAT NOBODY'S GONNA MISS AND … "

He breaks off. Other Bills have individuated and survived. He knows some. Like that square, half-blind weirdo. But he can't help but think of them as lesser than himself. Weak, useless, cut off, pathetic. It's too late now though, isn't it? He's already lesser. He's already trapped. The individuation already happened. He got kicked out of paradise to buy himself more time to avoid the inevitable.

He should really resent that.

He thinks he does.

"YOU KNOW WHAT, FINE. WE'LL PLAY IT YOUR WAY," he announces. "BUT I'M NOT DOING THIS FOR YOU, I'M NOT DOING IT AS AN APOLOGY TOUR, I'M NOT DOING IT FOR 'REDEMPTION' AND I'M NOT DOING THIS TO 'GET BETTER'. I'M DOING THIS FOR ME. BECAUSE I WANT TO."

Lie until you're not lying any more. Lie until you can't remember what the truth was. Lie and tell yourself this is what you really want to do.

He's sure the subtext of his words will be lost on the human, though.

"JUST….STOP QUESTIONING ME AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK I CAN POSSIBLY DO ABOUT THIS STUPID MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN YOURSELF INTO." Bill hangs and waits.

[annoyangle]

( @bigpinkfrillyguy continuing from here )

Bill felt leaden - more leaden as the Axolotl continued to drone on in that calm, passive, mellow voice. The lizard pushes a cloud toward him and Bill sort of slumps into it almost without thinking, an unintentional collision as it gets close enough to bump against his side and sort of fold in around him.

Something about penguins. He's yapping something about penguins, and Bill starts thinking vaguely about references to penguins in a half dozen other metanarratives and universes, and wasn't there an ask recently about penguins - but wasn't that the other him? And his eye is just getting heavier. And heavier. And heavier. His vision blurring. He can't see the stars very clearly, and he can't see the Axolotl except as a shimmering shapeless pastel blur.

This alarms him for a moment, his eye pops wide and now red-rimmed shows stress, but his vision clarifies back to razor sharpness and unsettled thoughts about optometrists and old times fade out again as the heaviness sweeps back.

Bill gives a long, weary sigh. The cloud is very warm and although he tends to believe temperatures don't affect him as a being of both energy and variable physicality, the warmth of it and the way it holds his weight makes him feel more and more heavy against it.

He's so, so tired.

Frilly gabbles on, something about the nonexistence of penguins as abstract structures, and without really even realizing it, at some point Bill Cipher just …

… falls asleep. For the first time in billions of years.

His eye closes, and his little noodle limbs go limp around the curls of the cloud. And he drifts. In deep nothingness, in profound silence; the silence of dreamless sleep. He doesn't go to the mindscape, for he can't enter his own thoughts.

He just stops.

[annoyangle]

WHO'S SMITING WHO??

I'M GONNA SMITE THAT GUY IF I GET HOLD OF HIM.

[annoyangle]

WOAH

This version of you is SO interesting!

I HAD A FEELING THERE WAS A UNIVERSE LIKE THIS

UGH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I HATE BEING ME RIGHT NOW, BUT THANKS - I GUESS??

[annoyangle]

@saltysciencesixer continuing from here

Bill remains hovering, arms crossed over chest. Occasionally as Ford speaks Bill seems to be correlating what he says because little images flash across his wide eye; an image of a galaxy breaking and stuttering, images of an angry, cold-eyed Stanley, and so on. He sighs after the explanation ends. "OKAY. SO YOU MANAGED TO HORK UP 53... 54 NOW, WHOOPSIE! THERE WENT ANOTHER ONE! WOW. AND YOU THINK I'M THE UNIVERSE'S WORST CRIMINAL JUST BECAUSE I TRIED TO STITCH ONE DIMENSION TO YOUR PLANET'S WEAK SPOT." Huh. Come to think of it, the time cops might be offering a reward for... no, Bill, shut up, that's a dumb idea and it wouldn't even end the narrative anyway since they'd BOTH just get locked up. Deal with it.

Bill extends his arms, links his fingers together, cracks his knuckles. "WE DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT TIME COPS FOR THE MOMENT. THE OL' HEX HERE CAN KEEP US AHEAD OF THAT. BUT THIS SPIRALING DAMAGE YOU MADE SURE NEEDS STITCHING UP QUICK. THE FASTER THAT DAMAGE GETS THREADED, THE EASIER IT'LL BE TO PINPOINT YOUR MISSING FAMILY." He can't believe he's doing this. "GONNA RIP A PAGE OUT OF C-137'S BOOK AND TRAP YOUR MISTAKES INTO A CENTRAL FINITE CURVE." Bill touches his hands to the sides of his apex for a few moments, eye grimacing into a scowl of concentration. Occasionally, he pulses, glitches; for a second the Hex turns completely upside down around him; a tornado of strange disconnected items spiral through the air including a small white mouse and some kinda ... badger??... in a yellow ship, a talking fish, a weirdo on a bicycle, and a series of clocks spinning at mismatched times. Then... ding! A bell like the sound of an oven notifying that it's done cooking. Bill drops his hands, and floats up a bit, summoning up a large floating chalkboard and chalk. The Hex around them remains inverted, but Bill doesn't seem to care and Ford's bubble keeps him up and aligned with the same direction Bill's facing. "OKAY, BRAINIAC. I'VE ISOLATED THE PROBLEM. WHOO! THAT SURE BURNED UP A FEW MILLION SOULS I'VE KEPT AROUND IN THE OL' SHELL! THEY DIED AS THEY LIVED: SCREAMING FOR MERCY. C'EST LA VIE."

He starts sketching out a very rough map of the 'little universe' he made, and adds to the diagram as he speaks. "SHOOTING STAR GOT SHIFTED TO MAB-3L, A DUMPING GROUND SPECIFICALLY CREATED TO CATCH DISPLACED MABELS FROM LOST OR MALFUNCTIONING TIMELINES." He taps the board again. "IT LOOKS LIKE PINE TREE'S JUST POUTING IN AN EARLIER VERSION OF YOUR HOUSE BEFORE IT TURNED INTO THE SHACK. EASY FIX." Finally, Bill draws a cloud of the holy mackerel symbol on the board. "NOW THIS GUY.... YOUR MEDDLING SPLIT YOUR BROTHER INTO A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT PIECES. THEY'RE ALL IN PRETTY BAD SHAPE BUT HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS FOR US - ALL BUT ONE OF THEM JUST KEEL OVER AT SOME POINT OR ANOTHER! EITHER FROM AN OD OR GETTING SHOT BY GANGSTERS IN COLOMBIA, GETTING LYNCHED BY PEOPLE HE RIPPED OFF, OR STARVING TO DEATH IN THE MIDDLE OF NEVADA WHEN HIS CAR RUNS OUT OF GAS!! SO AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED WE CAN LEAVE THE LOSERS BE AND LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE THERE." Bill's eye narrows. "IT LOOKS LIKE THE ONE THAT GIVES YOU THE MOST TROUBLE... IS ALSO ONE THAT MADE A DEAL WITH ANOTHER ME. AND THAT'S HOW HE'S BEEN KEEPING UP WITH YOU, KEEPING GOING ON HIS LITTLE SIXER HUNT, AND GENERALLY MAKING A PAIN IN THE ASS OUT OF HIMSELF. HMM." Bill hums in thought, and falls silent, perhaps letting Sixer absorb his words.