Illusion is Reality
Chapter 105
-Repeat after me-
So after my horrible embarrassment and subsequently hiding under the couch at home for a few days. ("Bill what are you doing under there! Get out, I wanna watch my shows without you poking me!")
I was sent to go cuddle with Xanthar. Because that's always what happened when something upset me. I couldn't say this was a bad course of action. But I was a little bored and wanted to take my mind off the awful scarring (emotionally) thing that just happened. I leaned against my friend's side and pulled out my Com.
It was a good thing my chatroom with Mary was on a seperate layer than my other galactic social media. It meant that I could check up on her whenever and it wouldn't have been hundreds of years since the last time we interacted. I felt bad for not talking to her more, but I got distracted with things. Heck, haven't even been on my own chat rooms in a while. Still, I wondered how the little twins were doing, the younger versions from that new dimension. The last texts I've read from my human high school friend Mary were… worrying. Something about the twins having some kinda issue? She wasn't very clear. I had only glanced at it. Responding would sync me into her Time, and I didn't want to do that until I was ready to open that particular can of worms. And… It looks like it was worm time. Oh boy!
[Miz]: Hey, what's up Mary? Long time no speak~ how are you? The connection's working right? I know there's some out of time sync happening, I think my blog's going into and out of sync with stuff. But anyway~ how are you?
[Mary]: I'm fine? Are you sure you're not busy or something? I'm not sure what aliens do when they're not in school. I've not been bothering you, right?
(Mary had been really worried about what had been going on lately at school. Miz had been really quick to respond for awhile there, within a couple hours or so - or sometimes just right away like they were passing notes in class or something. But she hadn't gotten any responses from Miz at all in awhile - just a really long silence - and she'd wondered if her alien friend had finally either gotten tired of her, or didn't want to deal with or know about any of this stuff with the twins. Except she'd thought Miz and her brother and the twins had all been friends...)
[Miz]: What? Can't check up on a friend?
[Miz]: I've been kinda busy but I finally got some downtime to relax by myself. I've been working on a bunch of stuff. Building my own dimension for one. Dad finally let me try. A whole dimension all by myself!
(Mary was worried as she read, because… um… that sounded cool? But like a lot of work, maybe. Should she really be bothering her alien friend with this stuff? She already felt kind of bad that she'd been messaging her, hoping that her brother would come back and help out with things, since Miz always sounded so busy and had already written that she couldn't come back for a while, so a visit again anytime soon was almost definitely out...)
[Miz]: But I'm taking a break and what better way to relax than checking up on my friends? I missed you~ I'm sorry I haven't responded, but it's been a few thousand years over on my side and responding syncs up our Time for a brief moment, and then I have to disconnect or else you'd have already grown up and died of old age by the time I get the next message out. Damn time dilation!
(Mary blinked at her screen. ...Okay, wow. Miz had let her know that time was passing differently before, and how there was gonna be some delay, but a thousand years? That sure explained a lot!)
(Wait. Did that mean that… Miz was a thousand years older, now? It had Mary worrying a bit and wondering if she was being a good friend. Because if they could only talk every thousand years to catch up on stuff… how did that even work? Even pen pals in other countries overseas that only wrote letters once a month were super-hard, she knew from a few other friends.)
[Mary]: I'm sorry! I didn't know the time differences were so big. That's crazy!
(It made Mary feel a little sad… She wasn't really sure what to feel. This meant that writing to Miz was kind of more like... a message in the bottle, tossed into the ocean, or something?)
[Miz]: Don't worry 'bout the time thing, I'm used to that sort of thing with my mortal friends. Always have to be careful with them. And it makes me treasure your texts all the more. You've got so little time and you still used it to send me a message, that's something I'll always cherish. But enough sappy stuff XD How're you enjoying the Com by the way? Have you found the Search function yet? You can type in any question and get several answers. Don't use it to cheat on tests though~ But also, that last thing you sent… I'm a little worried. Heck, I was worried even when I had to leave. Is Lee doing ok? Is Mini-Ford? I don't think things were going well for them, the last I checked.
[Mary]: Um, the Com is okay. I can write notes to myself in a text to myself? I do that sometimes so I don't forget stuff like new art supplies for class, ha. I won't use it to cheat though, I promise!
(Frankly, putting that much effort into cheating felt like at least as much work to Mary as doing the studying itself. So why would she even bother to do it in the first place? She'd get what she'd get; that was just fine with her.)
(Mary paused for moment, thinking about the twins. Well, it sounded like they were synced up at least for right now, and Miz had asked. It sounded like she really meant it, too - wanting to know. So it should probably be okay to say something kind of more straightforwardly this time, right?)
[Mary]: Yeah, things are pretty… messed up over here.
(An understatement, Mary thought.)
[Miz]: ….brother said I shouldn't go back for a few different reasons, not yet, but… if it's really bad, I could pop in and check on them. I left a piece of myself there, in a vessel I made, gonna see if I can use that as a beacon to Door straight there instead of having to go through brother… oh he's gonna get mad if he finds out . don't tell him shhhhh
[Mary]: Why would he get mad?
[Miz]: He's worried about my safety and gets upset when I do things that he deems 'reckless' and 'dangerous'
(Mary nodded in agreement at Miz's assessment, as she thought about what she'd heard only a couple days ago, about Miz's brother beating up Crampelter in the hallway. ... Probably on Miz's behalf. Knowing Crampelter, he'd probably been trying to flirt with Miz; she was pretty, and… well, Miz tended to do weird things to boys just by walking past them in the halls. Wasn't her fault; boys could be really stupid sometimes. -And Mary usually didn't care about this stuff, all the social butterfly madness, since everything always seemed to work out okay somehow in the end, which always left her feeling like it was usually just a bunch of drama over nothing. ...Well, almost always. Because this time… This time, things felt… off. And…)
[Mary]: Um. Maybe let me explain first before coming over here and maybe worrying your brother? Or, um, try to explain? I'm not even sure what's going on myself. I'm not all that great with this stuff, but my other friends don't really want to talk about it. They keep telling me to just leave it alone, but… it's really messed up.
(Maybe it really was nothing and she was getting it wrong. Mary just wasn't sure, anymore.)
[Miz]: Ok. I've got time. I've synced us up on your time currently, so I'm here to listen/read. What's going on with the twins?
(Mary pulled in a deep breath…)
[Mary]: Okay, so… The first thing is, Lee and Ford actually seem okay and kind of happy about things? I mean, Lee doesn't seem like he thinks anything is wrong, but… I think it really really kind of is. It's really messed up, and I don't know why Lee isn't complaining or unhappy or anything about stuff. At least, he doesn't seem to be, but I don't know. And that's what kind of worries me. I don't really know how to ask.
(And truth be told, Mary was actually a little afraid to ask, in case Lee said something to his brother about it. Because with what was going on between the two twins and Carla...)
[Miz]: Lee cares for his brother's happiness more than his own, because he doesn't value himself, no matter how much I tried to tell him that he was important. I still need to find some way to help him through that.
(Mary stared down at her phone, thoroughly confused. She didn't understand what Miz had just written to her.)
[Mary]: Um… what?
[Miz]: Lee, thinks that his own life and comfort and feelings, are worth less than his brother. He puts himself down, constantly. Thinks of his own existence as only for the sake of Ford. It's really fucked up.
(Mary stared at the screen for a while, and then something hit her like a bolt out of the blue. She started typing quickly.)
[Mary]: Wait. So Lee kind of thinks of himself like Ford's servant?
(Because it wasn't as if Mary had been completely not paying attention to those boring reading assignments in English class; and what Miz had just written sounded a lot like those servants or retainers or something for some noble house. -Which was also super-screwed up considering that they were twins, not from other completely separate families, not a prince and his steward, and not living in one of those 18th century English novels or something, but…)
[Miz]: That's a less disturbing way to say it. It goes much deeper, and more fucked up. He cannot live without Ford. He cannot even consider being his own person. He loves his brother more than life itself and will (and can, and HAS) given up everything he is and has, if he thought it would help his brother out. I blame their father, and a lot of other factors, for this mentality. Everyone always told Lee that he was the 'lesser' twin, and he's internalized that in an awful way that I really want to fix. It's not right. There's not anything remotely ok about him thinking that way.
(Mary didn't quite get the 'He cannot live without Ford. He cannot even consider being his own person.' stuff there - the first one made no sense at all, but maybe that second one was some kind of twin thing? But the rest of it struck a strong chord with her and what she'd been seeing and hearing, and… it was a little like a small epiphany, with the way Miz had written the rest of it. That there was an actual explanation behind everything for what was going on there, that sort of explained pretty much everything… it helped her to relax, at least a little bit. Stuff started to make sense. There was a reason for things. She wasn't crazy.)
[Mary]: Oh. Okay, that makes a lot of sense, now.
(Then Mary realized how that might sound, and she started typing again in a hurry.)
[Mary]: I mean it's horrible, but it makes sense. I mean, I don't like it, but… At least I know what I've been seeing, now? I thought I was going crazy!
(Because to Mary, it hadn't made any sense at all why he would be putting up with any of it, let alone seeming really kind of happy about things, the way they were now.)
(Mary still didn't really get how Carla had gotten dragged back into things, though. But… okay, she kind of understood why Carla had sort of given up on dating either of them awhile ago, now, if this really wasn't some kind of new thing, and had actually been going on for a while. Because Carla was the type of person who would have figured that out pretty quickly. ...At least, Mary was pretty sure that was what people had been saying about her, that she'd tried out dating one twin, then the other one of them…? She wasn't exactly friends with Carla, herself, and the rumor mill in school here was brutal, so she wasn't about to go inserting herself into that mess - not if she could help it. Especially with the way Carla was going around acting lately, after this whole thing had blown itself wide-open...)
[Miz]: Yeah…. And it hasn't really changed much even in the future. Long story, alternate, parallel dimension, Stan spend 30 years of his life for the sake of saving his twin. So, is mini-Ford being even worse to Lee than he already was? Despite how happy Lee seems to be about it?
(Mary grimaced to herself a little bit. Because with the way Lee was acting these days? She could kind of almost see Lee doing something like that, and then not even getting thanked by Ford for it later, if Ford thought that the whole saving him thing was something small instead of something large.)
[Mary]: ...Kind of? I mean, I haven't exactly been talking with them lately. Not the same way you and your brother were. I've never really been friends with them. It's more like Ford is acting super smug about something, and it's kind of creepy almost? Not about Lee, but… I'm not really sure what he's so smug about? But I'm pretty sure it's not Lee, he almost seems to ignore his own brother sometimes, except when he doesn't. And also the whole servant kind of thing. Lee almost seems to be kind of waiting on him hand and foot, sometimes.
[Miz]: I really want to head over and smack ford upside the head for being a fucking bitch...
[Mary]: That's just it. He kind of is, but he isn't? It's like, Lee is going out of his way to do all of these things for him, and Ford doesn't seem to appreciate it at all. But it's not like he seems to be asking Lee to do any of it for him either, or expecting it or anything, because he always seems kind of mildly surprised or something, every time that Lee does stuff for him? At least for the big stuff. I mean, there was something about spare clothing, or getting his clothing for him or something… which I guess is kind of small, because it wasn't like it sounded hard to do, but it was really really weird hearing them talking about it. ...Except, sometimes the small stuff seems sort of like it might be large, or at least is something that somebody normally wouldn't do for anybody else, that they should just be going and doing themselves? Like, it sort of feels like it's large, even though it isn't a big deal, I guess? But I've never heard of brothers doing stuff like that for each other before, not even the twins.
(At least, Mary thought the twins had never done stuff like this for each other before. But now she wasn't so sure… Maybe they had when they'd been living in the same place, and just hadn't needed to talk about it with each other at school before? ...And wow, that thought just made the whole situation feel even creepier.)
[Miz]: ….huh. Ok…. that's… uuuurgh what are you doing Lee? Fuck everything, of COURSE we've managed to screw things up even worse than the first time around. Almost makes me appreciate that Stanford for actually being a half-way decent human being- goddamn mini-Ford COULD become a better person if Lee just STOPPED coddling him and spoiling him like this! ….shit… almost think the two of them getting seperated would have been better...
(Mary blinked at this, because the two of them were separated? Wasn't that kind of the problem?)
[Miz]: Okay so what exactly is Lee doing for his brother? I kinda get the servant thing, I can see him trying to do anything he can to make his brother not-mad at him, after their fight, which… yeah… did you know they had a pretty big fight right before me and brother had to leave? Lee pointed out that his brother's stupid science fair project never would have worked as advertized anyway- I'm getting off track. Essentially Lee's smarter than he thinks, and mini-Ford wasn't all that happy about it.
[Mary]: I mean, they are separated and stuff? Lee's still at the boat, I think? That's where you all were staying, right? He's talked about a boat? But Ford's back at their parents house. And Lee's been doing things like… okay, so the clothing thing. Ford said something about needing to get it all from the boat, and Lee said, no problem, he'll load up his car and bring it back to the house for him? But that's like… he made it sound like Ford wasn't gonna have to do anything at all, that he would just do all of it for him? And- wait, his science fair project didn't work? People have been saying- okay, you remember how you said that somebody sabotaged Ford's science fair project?
(Mary was on pins and needles here on this one.)
[Miz]: I meant separated as in SEPERATED, in the original timeline, Ford blamed Stan for breaking the project and cut off pretty much all contact with him. For over 10 years. Stan spent that time living on his own and got into all sorts of awful situations. Things weren't good, and I'm not saying that I want Lee going through that, because it was awful! Stan nearly died on multiple occasions and had no help or support from his asshole family who didn't really give a shit about whether he was alive or not. Least I don't think so. I mean, if Ford had cared at all, he would have contacted him earlier.
(Mary stared at this for awhile. And after she'd picked her jaw up off the floor…)
[Miz]: And yeah, someone messed with Ford's project, but even if they didn't, the damn thing wasn't a perpetual motion machine anyway-
(Mary shook herself - right, Stan was the name Lee preferred, but also the older, other old man with them. Who was supposed to be Lee from that other future timeline thing? She started typing quickly.)
[Mary]: Wait. Did Ford and Lee know about this? The original timeline thing? And the someone messing with it thing?
[Miz]: I…. don't think they know the whole story. Older Stan didn't want to stress them out about it. But they DO know that the project was sabotaged.
[Mary]: Okay, but I thought you told me that Lee didn't break it?
[Miz]: He DIDN'T! But that didn't stop Ford from being a goddamn bitch and BLAMING him for it! And making Stan blame HIMSELF for it! Because Ford's the smart one, he MUST be RIGHT! So Stan MUST have broken it! Even though the fact of who broke it or not wouldn't have changed the fact that the damn thing never WORKED like he claimed it did in the first place-
(Mary felt a bit dizzy at all this.)
[Mary]: Okay, well, just so you know, it's all over the school right now that Lee broke Ford's project, and that he maybe had a co-conspirator or something helping him out. A couple days ago, Ford moved back home - that was when Lee talked about doing the whole giving him his clothing thing back? And the same day the whole school was in a huge uproar about the whole 'Lee broke Ford's project' thing.
[Miz]: Goddammit! Lee didn't TOUCH the damn thing. He wasn't even anywhere NEAR it! Let me guess, their father blames Lee for breaking it, not even considering that he had nothing to do with it. How'd Carla feel about it?
[Mary]: I don't know about their parents, but Ford keeps saying to people that Lee broke it, to anyone who looks like they'll listen to him. I don't know why the teachers believe him, but it's going around that someone saw Lee do it, like a witness or something. I don't know what's up with Carla, or how she feels about any of it; we don't talk. But I've seen Ford talking with her a little bit in the hallways since then, and he's always smiling, and she's super cold to him but still talking. That really really cold kind of angry that most boys just don't pick up on at all. But she's still talking to him whenever I see him go up to her, even if it's a really short conversation and she walks away quickly. I don't know what's going on there.
[Miz]: ...I really want to smack mini-Ford. He KNOWS that Lee didn't! I told them that Lee didn't do it! He's just being a fucking asshole now. And yeah… Carla hates his guts. Especially after he used her and broke her heart. But I might have misunderstood that part, hell if I know how human romantic relationships worked….
[Mary]: Well, Lee's saying that he isn't talking, which is pretty much guilty around here. And he looks a little guilty, too, when he says it? But… that just seems kind of wrong. Except a bunch of other people are saying somebody saw him actually doing it, and… Wait, so Carla really did date Ford first before Lee? Or did you mean that Lee used her? I remember hearing something about that, but she was only really out there a lot about dating Lee right before she started dating that new guy she just broke up with about a week ago.
[Miz]: Long story short, she mistook Stan for Ford when they first got together, and she didn't realize she had the wrong twin until it was too late. And she kinda misunderstood and was confused about who she was dating and a bunch of drama happened and Lee doesn't know and Carla doesn't want him to know since she started actually liking him, and I think she thought that he'd get mad if he found out she was only with him because of Ford- anyway! Human romance is bullshit and I don't get it! She got mad at Ford and wanted to get back at him and his brother for using her and Ford claims she was the one at fault for mistaking him for his brother to begin with- and they're twins! Humans already look really similar even if you didn't take the whole 'twin' thing into account so why does he blame her for being confused about who was who? I certainly wouldn't be able to tell if they were wearing each other's clothes! And guess what Stan was wearing when he and Carla first got together? Ford style clothes!
(Mary stared at this for a solid minute and a half, then practically facepalmed at the drama stuff there. That was way, way, WAY too much for her to unpack here, let alone try and make somehow coherent. She was pretty sure some of her friends would have a field day with this, whatever this was exactly, but she wasn't about to tell them and get Carla mad at her over it, let alone Lee or Ford. There were rumors about what Lee had done to Carla's last boyfriend's ride, and Ford was just… scary. She stayed well out of all that stupid high school drama whenever she could. It all made absolutely zero sense to her, too; she didn't know why everybody practically insisted on acting so crazy all the time about all this relationship stuff… Good thing she was waiting 'til community college, she figured. (Maybe this was part of why she and Miz got along so well?) ...She blushed at the ending bit about the two twins looking similar, though.)
[Mary]: I'm totally guilty on that front; I've been having trouble keeping them straight. It, uh, took me a whole day to figure out which one was which again, after all the 'Lee broke his project, no really' drama, because Lee's wearing glasses all the time now? -It's not my fault, though. I went to a different middle and elementary school; I didn't know which one of them had the whole extra fingers thing! But it's hard to get a good look at their hands most of the time, and I don't trust just looking at their clothes and how they dress either, since that's really easy to change. But their hair actually looks kind of different, so I've been going by that at a distance for the two of them. Lee has his zits in a bunch of different places than Ford does on his face, too.
(Mary tried not to giggle at the last bit. She liked to think that she was a halfway decent artist - or at least had a good eye for detail. And peoples' complexions didn't clear up overnight, so since she was seeing them in school pretty much every day…)
(But yeah. The two of them really did look alike unless you looked at them really carefully. They acted different, sure - but that could be faked. Theater group and 'playing a part' was a thing, and she'd heard rumors before that sometimes Lee dressed up as Ford and vice-versa for cheating on tests and stuff. She didn't know how accurate that was, but… twins pretended to be each other just to mess with people for fun sometimes, right? She hadn't even thought that Lee needed glasses, until he started wearing them almost all the time now, pretty consistently, and she realized that maybe one of the reasons he'd been sitting up so close to the front most days was so that he didn't have to squint at the board - not just to sit up close next to where his twin brother was...)
[Miz]: See?! Even other humans have trouble with it! Why does Ford have to treat Carla like she was some kind of stupid idiot for mistaking them for each other?! Heck, that was part of the reason why she felt enough resentment to actually go with her stupid revenge against the twins and sure I get why she's mad but Lee was innocent! He doesn't deserve anything that happened to him from the fall out of all this!
(Mary read through this, trying to think it all through. She didn't really get it. If Carla was mad at the both of them, then why was she talking to Ford at all? And why did she look sick when she looked at Lee sometimes, like she wanted to throw up - not because she thought what he was doing was disgusting, but… the way Carla looked at Lee was more like Carla just… couldn't look at him, almost. Like she almost couldn't bear to watch what Lee was doing. At least, that was how it had seemed to her. And it had been uncomfortable for Mary to watch herself, sure, but not that almost heartsick-looking kind of bad. She'd seen that on other people before, but more for somebody who broke up with somebody to get back together with somebody else, except the person that they broke up with that other guy to be with was dating somebody who was just horrible for them? So seeing Carla like that… that had made her think that maybe Carla still liked Lee, and wanted to get back together with Lee now after breaking up with that other guy with the now-totalled at the bottom of a cliff-face van. But if she wanted revenge on them both or something, then that… didn't really fit.)
[Miz]: -People don't give a shit about his fingers. Ford needs to learn that his fingers aren't fucking important. No one gives a shit. Like, at all. Not anymore. And he can't use them as some crutch to hold his resentment against 'normal' humans forever. Fuck, mutations are 'normal'. That's how evolution works! Fuck his father for making such a big deal of it. Fuck the bullies for giving him shit for it. Fuck Ford for buying into it!
(Mary winced at reading this. She hadn't really interacted with the twins a lot before Miz and her brother had joined the class for those couple days there, but this sounded about as messed up as the whole thought process behind that 'Lee as a servant' thing, too.
[Miz]: ….sorry. Just… really annoyed at them all right now. mini-Ford, Lee and Carla- and especially Filbrick! He's so fucking blind he can't even realize that Lee has worth as a living person. Lee's not an idiot. He's almost as smart as his brother, even if it doesn't seem like it. Because everyone always told him he was the 'stupid' one so he believes it too. I've made him do his homework, he usually doesn't bother, and you know what? Lee gets all his math problems right. All of them. Without any cheating or asking his brother for help. All he needed was me poking at it until he got off his butt and actually did it. I've explained to him that all math is still the same math- but he still doesn't understand that he's not stupid and-
[Miz]: Hang on, is Lee still doing his own homework? He needs to graduate! He better… I'm gonna have to talk to him and by talk I mean lecture, if he isn't-
[Mary]: Oh, wow. Miz, how do I write a zillion laughs on here? Because that last one about Lee being smart and his homework? Wow.
[Miz]: What?
(Mary was practically shaking her head and giggling as she typed.)
[Mary]: Okay, so. This kind of happened today? But… -Okay, no, I should start at the beginning. A couple days ago, Lee quit both the wrestling and boxing teams. Everybody got pissed off, but he said he needed more time to take more after-school jobs. To make more money to support Ford with something, I think? He started to say something, then just started telling everybody that he needed the money for 'the boat and stuff', whatever that means. But today - wow. I overhead the teachers in the lounge, because I was late to lunch from my extra art studies class? And you want to guess what they were yelling about?
[Miz]: ….is he actually doing his homework correctly? *hopeful face*
[Mary]: Ohmygosh, it is soooo much better than that! So, half the teachers were all on Lee's side, and the other half were all 'he has to be cheating!' Except some of them were saying that he was doing the stuff in class? And they couldn't figure out how he was cheating, and they wanted to know how some of the others had caught him at it? But some of the other teachers were all like 'no, he probably wasn't cheating', and I heard one of them just drawl out, 'oh good, he's finally applying himself' all dry like and happy. I think it might've been the one science prof?
[Miz]: Oh. Well that's ONE piece of good news.
[Mary]: No, no, you don't get it, it's not just the homework. I found out in art class today - Lee wants to graduate early, so he can do full-time jobs and stuff for 'way more money' or something? So he's been asking all the teachers to give him all the in-class problems and all the readings and the homework assignments up front, and he said that he'll do the assignments and stuff in class so they can watch him and tell he's not cheating or anything. I think he had the whole selling pitch down pat by the time he was talking to our art teacher. Ms. Talia said that there wouldn't be enough time in class to do all the artwork, even if he read up on all the techniques on his own and practiced them first? But Lee said that since he isn't doing wrestling or boxing anymore, could he stay after until she leaves and work on it then? And they sort of compromised on him coming in for some of his independent study periods instead.
[Miz]: ….well we did have a whole 'you need to graduate' thing going. Older Stan never got to graduate and wanted at least one version of him to do so. I'm glad Lee is finally giving up on pretending to be stupid just to make Ford feel better. I wonder if that'll make Filbrick realize that Lee isn't some idiot failure that wouldn't even be able to graduate like he kept telling him he was?
[Mary]: Forget pretending to be stupid, he's like crazy-smart or something! He's been getting all-A's the last couple of days; some of the teachers have been accusing him of cheating a whole bunch of times the last couple of days. It's just the wanting to graduate early thing here that's new today. Which is just crazy - even Ford isn't trying to do that!
[Miz]: Yes. Lee's always been a genius. He's mini-Ford's twin after all. He just always thought that he was supposed to be the 'stupid' twin so he never bothered to do his work. And their father didn't help at all by straight up making Lee think that he was the stupid one and giving him even less incentive to actually apply himself. See why I hate their father?
[Mary]: What the heck? What does that even mean? I mean, Lee's doing stuff way faster and he's obviously a genius or something, but... I thought Ford was having to do 'special' assignments or something? And I thought setting up stuff for him was hard for everybody to do? There's always been some kind of thing at school every year over what he's going to be doing in school that year, anyway. If Ford's such a genius too, then why didn't he just graduate early and go off to college already? I mean… that makes no sense at all. Did their parents just not want them to graduate early, or something, and now Lee can do it because he's not living at home with his parents anymore?
(For awhile there, Mary had thought that maybe Ford was a bit slow, and had only been sitting in on the advanced classes because the teachers were better and could explain things better to him. It wasn't until the whole brouhaha over the science fair project, and word about some college admissions people coming by just to see his project and nobody else's, that she'd started hearing the word 'genius' being thrown around when it came to him.
[Miz]: It means that everyone allowed Lee to believe he was stupid, and that everything he ever did was wrong, because no one told him that he was actually doing them right. Lee's very stunted in his learning because of this. What he's doing right now is JUST catch up. If he'd been given a chance when he was younger, someone to work with him to help him achieve his potential- auuugh it makes me so frustrated to think about how far back Lee was held just because no one cared enough to help him! Sorry, probably my Muse-side acting up. It does that when I meet people who could achieve great things and just… don't, because of a lack of faith in themselves and stuff. And mini-Ford doesn't graduate early because… ah… I guess I don't know why he hasn't bothered. I'd like to think it was because he wanted to stay with his twin, but considering mini-Ford doesn't care about leaving his brother behind, I'm not sure why he hasn't. Maybe his parents had financial reasons? I didn't bother to check.
(Mary stared at this for awhile.)
[Mary]: Well, Ford's still not graduating early, and it sounded like most of the teachers practically want to quarantine Lee alone in a room for most of the day with two teachers watching him while he's doing his work, so…
[Miz]: Yeah that's a lack of faith right there.
[Mary]: Some of them think he was cheating this time, and a bunch of them sounded like they were pretty sure they had some kind of evidence that he'd been cheating off his brother for years, on homework and on exams and stuff in class. But somebody called them out on it, that they never gave him zeros on the stuff, because they couldn't actually prove-it prove it? And then it sounded like things started getting pretty ugly, so I got to lunch before anybody saw I was eavesdropping at the faculty lounge door there. So… it's kind of a mess. Was he actually cheating before? Do you think that he's cheating on this stuff now?
(It didn't seem like he was, but… maybe if the twins swapped clothing or something? Mary wasn't in most of their classes - really just homeroom and art class - so she didn't know for sure if they were or not, but… it had definitely been him in art class, not his brother.)
[Miz]: He did use to. Because he was too lazy to do his own work . because he got bored by how EASY it was and thought that if he was stupid, then it shouldn't be easy, and therefore, he MUST have misunderstood it. So Lee stopped trying at all. I had a talk with him about that. Glad to see he's finally doing his own work. It's so much faster just to do it himself.
[Mary]: Wow. So… he actually really does know how to do all this stuff, but just cheated for years and spent a bunch of time trying to make sure he couldn't get caught? That sounds like a lot more work than just doing it.
[Miz]: yes! That's what I've been saying this whole time! It's so idiotic! And this ALL happened because everyone told Lee that he was the 'stupid' twin. They made him BELIEVE he was stupid. And Lee never had any incentive to believe otherwise. But now, if what you're saying is true, he's decided to stop playing around and just do the work and graduate, not because he wants to, not because he realized he's smart enough to do so, but ONLY because he wants to work full time so he can devote the rest of his life to supporting his brother financially. …..can't say I'm surprised, but I'm still mad. I would be less mad if mini-Ford actually appreciated any of Lee's efforts, but knowing him, he just takes it for granted.
[Mary]: But if he was doing his own work at least sometimes, he should've been getting good grades back on that stuff, right? He does okay in art class when he tries stuff out, sometimes. Not on the outside assignments, but on most of the physical things like pottery and wood whittling and stuff? His drawings always look like those crayon drawings you see out of little kids, though - it's actually kind of funny.
[Miz]: Like I said, Lee didn't bother to try, if he was 'stupid' and 'never going to amount to anything' then why should he even bother? I'm being super sarcastic, in case you couldn't tell. And guess who I'm quoting here? His good for nothing father who never cared enough to even get to know his own sons. Also, Lee's a hands on kind of kid. He works best when he's got some tactile sense for it. Drawings are Ford's thing. Mechanics and sculpting? Construction? That's Lee's forte.
[Mary]: Huh. ...Do you think I should talk with Ms. Talia about that? I know some of the art assignments can be swapped out for other stuff. She lets me do that a lot. If he's better at sculpting and doing other things with his hands, then... maybe he can't get out of the drawing assignments because they can only be swapped out with other types of drawings, but he could at least get extra credit by doing more assignments. He could probably do that could bring his grade up, maybe. Art isn't optional; if he gets a D or worse, he'll fail out, and his drawings right now are way less than D work. I'm not sure he can improve them that much that quickly. Not when he's starting from little kid stick figures and stuff.
[Miz]: Yes please. If you can do that I'd be really grateful. Thank you! I'm so worried for Lee. Wish I could be there. But since brother brought future-Ford (it's complicated) back, and he's afraid that 'Ford might try something with me, I'm not allowed to head back . in the off chance that 'Ford might find me. I told brother that I could handle myself, but he's kinda over protective and just doesn't want such a person being anywhere near me.
[Mary]: Well, Ford's been kind of creepy, and kind of… I mean, I can understand why your brother doesn't want you to be around Ford alone. Carla doesn't look super happy about being around him, any time he walks up to her, and… I wouldn't want to get on his bad side, anyway. The way he's been acting lately… I don't know.
[Miz]: I can guess why. Also, I suspect he might be black mailing her at this point . Carla kinda hinted that he did something similar back when she was dating Lee… but I don't understand human romance so I'm not gonna try digging deeper into that.
[Mary]: Well, that would explain why she's acting so pissed off about him, if he's blackmailing her about something. But what could be so bad that this blackmail thing you're talking about is even worse than her wanting whatever relationship revenge thing that she wants on them, though?
(Because Mary had seen plenty of people fall on their figurative swords over relationship drama at her high school. Fights, suspensions, all the rest of it. Even in middle school, it had been pretty bad. She couldn't see Carla putting up with Ford over anything right now unless it was downright apocalyptic, and maybe not even then.)
[Miz]: Carla's revenge on mini-Ford didn't work the way she intended. In both timelines, it ended up with a child disowned and thrown into the streets. But somehow… they both ended up with Stan/Lee being blamed over it.
[Mary]: Wait, Carla has something on Ford's and Lee's parents?
[Miz]: More like Filbrick's a dick all on his own and reacts to things the way he does because he doesn't love his children. If he did, he wouldn't have disowned them over something as stupid as a broken science fair project that doesn't even work- and never did! And only a blind-ass idiot wouldn't be able to see just how much Lee loved his twin, would do anything FOR him and still IS doing just for him-
(Mary was just confused now.)
[Mary]: I thought those other guys got guardianship of them or something, though? Wasn't there paperwork?
(She thought she'd heard something about that.)
[Miz]: Yeah, Stan from the future came here to try and fix this mess. Hopefully Filbrick doesn't mess with what Stan set up. Geez this is all sorts of fucked up.
[Mary]: Well, I think they might've re-registered Ford. Not too sure about that, though. Somebody saw them all coming out of the office a few days ago. First day you and your brother stopped coming to school again, when you left?
[Miz]: Huh. So… let me get this straight. Mini-Ford threw Lee under the bus with their parents, claimed that Lee had broken his project, just so Filbrick would direct all his hate and blame on the younger twin, just so mini-Ford would be allowed back into the house, at the cost of making Lee's life worse by having him take the blame for something he didn't do, but will have their father hate him for, forever?
(Mary frowned a bit. Miz had let her know before what the general situation was, that she and the other old guys who had kind of 'adopted' Lee and Ford had left, too. But...)
[Mary]: I don't know about being worse. But Lee's living all alone now, if the older timeline guys left, too, and haven't come back. I don't know where this boat is. I'm kind of worried about that. If it's just him living all alone and Ford is staying back with their parents again, then… there really aren't any adults around at all for Lee?
[Miz]: Yeah… we all had to leave, this isn't our dimension. As much as I might have wanted to stay. Huh… I'm gonna need to set up a way to contact Lee somehow. Yeah, he's alone without any adults. Shit. what time is it where you are? Date? Like, how many days since we left?
(Mary told her.)
[Miz]: Okay… fuck. Brother time synched the dimensions, so they technically count as 'one' so that means that there's a version of me in the past, which is the future-timeline running around. And I can't overwrite my own existence… so I can't actually come over there right now.
[Mary]: Version of you in the past?
[Miz]: It's complicated. A past version of the Me that's talking to you right now. She's still there, in the dimensional set somewhere, living in the future timeline with the older Stan. And so long as she's there, I can't come over. Because then there would be two Mes existing at the same time.
[Mary]: ...So you're talking back in time to me? From a thousand years from now someplace else? And your brother is there with you?
[Miz]: Yes. And no. Brother stayed in your dimensional set. I had to leave. Because he doesn't want me even being in the same dimensional space as 'Ford. He really, REALLY doesn't trust that man.
[Mary]: But you were here for awhile? If he didn't want you around Ford, why was he okay with you going to school here?
[Miz]: Mini-Ford isn't as bad as he would become as an adult. He's still capable of changing, of becoming an actual person. Unlike adult 'Ford who's… kinda the worst. And not about to get any better.
[Mary]: Wait. That was the science guy, right? I heard about that. Didn't your brother get super-mad about him trying to teach science class at the school here a couple days ago?
[Miz]: Ok, that science guy isn't 'Ford. He's 'that Stanford'. There's a third timeline that he was grabbed from. I know, it's confusing as fuck.
(Oof. Too many similar names. ...Okay, that wasn't the most important part, though. Mary bit her lip and thought about this hard.)
[Mary]: Okay, so you can't come here until… sometime when your brother's okay with it. Can he come here? Do you… I mean, if he does stuff differently in this dimensional set while past-you is still here, is that a problem? Or did it already happen? I don't know how time travel works.
(Really, any book or movie Mary had ever seen on it had been super-confusing.)
[Miz]: Not until the 'past' version of me leaves. And also when brother says it's safe. But, I could come anyway, and just… don't let brother know… . could I sneak past his watch? Probably. Is he gonna find out? Yeah he probably would. But… could brother go to you? Yes. Definitely. He could do that. But does he know how to fix things? Eh…. brother understands human interactions worse than I do.
[Mary]: So… you're sure that he didn't come here when past-you was still around here someplace.
[Miz]: Huh. I can't say he didn't. He might have. Wouldn't put it past him. He seemed to really like Lee. So I could see him checking up on him. But whether brother would realize something was wrong or not is a different story.
[Mary]: ...Okay, so he could maybe check in on Lee, if Lee needs it. Um, in the future for me and Lee. And that would be the past more than a thousand years ago for you now, in the past for you, as long as he's sneaky about it and you didn't find out. Or, uh, don't find out when it's past-you.
(Mary let out a breath of consternation, shook her head, and continued.)
[Mary]: -Is there any way to let your brother know that things are weird without letting past-you know about it? Bill might not understand human stuff too well, but if Lee knew he wasn't alone, I guess I'd feel better about it. I was kind of hoping you could get me in touch with your brother maybe. -Not that I don't like talking to you about stuff! But you seemed super-busy, and I wasn't sure...
[Miz]: My texts don't have to be time synced. I could text him and it'd show up on his device. And he doesn't have to show past-me that text. But getting you in touch with brother shouldn't be hard. His connection number is… hang on while I look that up. Urgh~ numbers~ hate memorizing them. Like phone numbers but even worse because they're much longer!
(Mary giggled a little at this.)
[Mary]: I've looked at the chatroom thing. Those strings that the 'profile' thing shows are super-crazy-long! Please don't tell me that they're supposed to be words!
[Miz]: Yeah that tends to happen. Oh, found it. [001110000011011000110001001100000011011000110100] his username is [William Cipher ▲] or… it should be? Ah… there was another Demon with almost the same name. Like I think his was [William ▲ Cipher]. But I think that's Will-from-the-outside… anyway, don't confuse my brother for the other Demon.
[Mary]: Okay, I'll try not to confuse them? I guess I could always ask which one has you as a sister, if you aren't the other one's sister, too? ...Um, where do I put in this code? The chatroom friends page?
[Miz]: Yeah that works- go into the top, there's a button for [add friend] and it lets you input the serial number and username to send them an invite to the chat room.
(Mary followed her instructions and did that. Then she asked belatedly, after seeing the 'invite sent' prompt pop up.)
[Mary]: Um, he's not going to be upset that I'm trying to contact him this way, right? I probably should've asked if he's busy too. Or was busy. Um… was he?
[Miz]: Busy is relative. And you're my friend. I feel more bad that I didn't contact you much sooner . I always feel like a bad friend since I go years without seeing some of them, 'course, to them, it's only been a few days or something… but still!
(Mary winces. 'Busy is relative' wasn't exactly an answer, but… well, he hadn't seemed all that crazy in class. He had made things interesting, though. That said...)
[Mary]: I feel bad about you having to go so long without being able to talk with you! A thousand years between messages is way too long!
[Miz]: Eh, I'm used to it. It doesn't mean I've forgotten you and like I said, it makes me treasure our time together even more. Thank you. For being my friend.
(Mary didn't know how to answer that at first, and she blinked as a new icon appeared at the top of the page.)
[Mary]: Umm...
[Miz]: Did he respond?
[Bill]: WHAT IS THIS THING? WHAT?
[Miz]: Oh hi! This is the chatroom I set up for Mary. Hello! Good to see it works. I know it's not the same as the chat rooms in your dimension, but it still works! Hello from the future btw, this is future Miz! Don't let past Miz know, shhhh~
[Mary]: Hi, Bill! Um, hi from the past? Maybe? Um, here where I am, it's... (Mary checked the time again, then wrote both the date and time down for herself right then into the chat window and sent it to him.)
[Miz]: My past, your present. Time kinda sucks sometimes.
[Bill]: Ugh. That took awhile to decipher. -You're lucky I've been looking for-and-at ALL of the signals and messages coming through this way, and have been FILTERING them all, not just BOUNCING them!
[Miz]: Paranoid as usual :p
[Bill]: Paranoia ISN'T. You have NO IDEA how many things I have NEEDED to bounce-and-filter since then. LOTS TO DO!
[Miz]: Wow. Have other people been trying to get in?
[Bill]: Most are just persistent messages from the three-who-are-not-in-nearly-as-much-of-a-fight-anymore, not bodies-or-Minds that are trying-to-be-incoming. I'm being DIFFICULT ON PURPOSE from that 'silly string' connection-incoming, just so nobody over there gets any BRIGHT IDEAS that are REALLY very dim!
[Miz]: Oh. the tesla-guys? I think I saw a little about them on your blog.
[Bill]: Yes. They are mostly-probably fine for now. But they LIE. So, maybe not! HAHA!
(Wow. Mary felt a little lost and humbled by all this. It sounded like they really were doing important stuff out there in the alien world. And now she felt bad for bothering them with the Pines twins' situation. It was so inconsequential compared to things like creating a dimension or handling a bunch of people sending alien messages or securing some kind of travel-border or something.)
[Miz]: Well, just asking to know, are you in contact with little Lee? I'm kinda worried about him. Mary says the minis have been acting weird.
[Bill]: HM. Miz, what is your timecode SPECIFICALLY? -This connection is as secured as I can make it. Hard to See, even if you're Looking for it!
[Miz]: Oh, well its-
(And Mary's head started hurting from the long list of numbers and… percentages(?)... and weird symbols and things that Miz messaged into the chatroom.)
[Bill]: Ah. This is fine. -Mary, I am talking to you from NOT-local-time-same. Our dimensions are NOT synchronized any more. I had to desynchronize them, FOR REASONS. I am in-the-future relative to you by a few weeks. I have scheduled times when I send-and-receive things in-between them; this is fine. -Miz, your past-self is not here anymore. -Miz and Mary, I have already talked several times to Lee in both of your pasts. Lee has a phone, too; I gave him one before I left. I will talk to him more in my future. -Miz, I may be a past-me relative to you-over-there-now; I do not need to make sure that past-you-here does-not-know that future-you-there is talking to me now, because past-you is no longer here! I escorted you back to your 'set a few days ago. Have you seen me respond to anything on your blog between past-you-here and now? Don't tell me what you wrote or I wrote; tell me when I wrote to you first-next? I need to know, so that I won't change things by writing back sooner, just in case.
(Okay. That was… kind of a relief, Mary guessed?)
[Miz]: A few things, time stamp…
(Mary didn't look this time as the next timestamp timecode thing came through, just in case.)
[Miz]: I'm relieved to know you've got contact with Lee. Is he… okay? What Mary said seemed… worrying.
[Bill]: Timestamp recognized. Noted. Also: INTERESTING. It looks like my starting to write things to your blog resynchronized things with your texting and chatroom here, too! I have just started reading and responding to things on your blog this morning; I received and responded to a series of texts from you on Stanley's phone only a few minutes ago. -Lee is fine. He will probably be less-fine when… I am VERY certain how this all will play out. Lee will do things for him. Lee will also take care of himself. -Miz and Mary (I have read the above), what are you MOST worried about with Lee? It is fine for us to talk; I have been avoiding using my Sight much, and I was VERY careful not to tell Miz anything while doing things for Lee, because Sixer would NOT like the added-interference - he didn't like MINE very much right before we left! So things will not change with our talking backwards-in-time to you Mary relative to Miz and me! I have-and-will make sure of this!
(Mary let out a breath. Well, that was a good thing, that she could just ask whatever she needed to, right?)
[Mary]: He's alone. That's… probably kind of dangerous. And, is he eating okay and things? Things are really weird between him and his brother, too. It's a little creepy to watch. I'm… kind of worried that Ford is taking advantage of him, or… I don't know. Do you know that Lee is starting to act like some brainwashed servant of his or something?
[Miz]: I'm worried that Lee's gonna overwork himself trying to support Mini-Ford. And that Mini-Ford is going to take advantage of him. Also, Filbrick's being a dick again! I mean, that's nothing new, but Lee actually cares about his family...
[Bill]: -Mary: yes, Lee is alone. He is not living with his twin or his mother or his father or his much-younger sibling. Also, Lee is NOT alone; I have been sending things to him sometimes. The boat is safe; no-one can physically attack Lee there. He is more-safe now there-at-the-boat than he was living with his parents. Because magic. Lee is eating all of the things at all of the meals. Stanley made sure he would have enough money for that before we left. Things are not 'weird' between 'Ford and Lee, they are progressing as I expected them to. Lee will be fine. I will make sure of it, so Stanley does not have to.
(That didn't exactly put absolutely everything at ease, but she did feel herself relax a bit after what Bill had written. So she made sure to write back to him with an:)
[Mary]: Okay, thank you!
[Bill]: -Mary: you can ask him these things yourself, you know. Little Lee does not bite. Much. HA! -He does not bite girls, though. Never.
(Mary blushed a little bit. "It's a little hard to talk to him, though," she muttered to herself, looking down at her phone. And then, as if almost by prescience...)
[Bill]: Or you could NOT talk to Lee, too! Maybe you did-and-WILL, or maybe you did-and-will NOT! Who can say? Not me! Yes? I am not doing any of the saying here, HA!
(Mary sighed. She wasn't sure if that was a 'yes' or a 'no', but… maybe that was the point of the whole thing? That she just do whatever she would have done… should have done? Was supposed to do, except she'd talked to future-versions of two of her friends, and then...? -Oh, this was giving her a headache.)
(Mary stared down at her phone, and then she smiled and let out a little huff of breath, because... you know what? To heck with it! -Bill had just said it was okay, that he had taken care of any time things to do with this… that could've been done with this, already... so why worry about it? So she'd just do what she wanted! Same as usual.)
(Mary unconsciously relaxed a bit more after making up her mind on all of this, too.)
[Bill]: -Miz: Lee will not overwork himself. At least one of his teachers will not let him graduate early, No Matter What, and he knows what will happen if he does not go to school during the weekdays when school is in session. Filbrick is being Filbrick; 'Ford and Lee are taking advantage of that. Lee does not care about Filbrick anymore and has already refused to go back to the pawn shop 'even if they paid him'; this is progress.
(Mary winced a little at this. Because that kind of made it sound like Lee had been the one doing all of the disowning here, not the other way around.)
[Miz]: ….no one is safe living with Filbrick… but it's good that Lee is… physically fine. Is this progression between them… something that Stanley will approve of?
(There was something about the way Miz phrased that question that made Mary sit up and pay attention. By Stanley, she meant the older version of Lee. Ah. Yeah, would he be okay with what was happening with his younger self?)
[Bill]: Don't know; not asking. Stanley does not care as long as Lee survives and 'Ford survives and they both do not end up starving or dead. Probably. But I have BIGGER PLANS than that! Obviously. Maybe!
(Mary looked at that a little askance. 'Big plans'? What the heck? ...What would the dimension-creating aliens think were 'big plans', here?)
[Miz]: Ah… I don't think that's… well… I mean… maybe get a 2nd opinion? I don't think Stan knew something like this would happen? That mini-Ford would purposely blame Lee for the project being broken? That's… not good, right? I mean, Stan had that hanging over him for over 30 years, the fact that he was blamed for it, and wasn't the whole point of knocking that Stanford down a peg, all about proving that Stan hadn't broken it?
[Bill]: If I ask because you asked me, then that means I will be changing my Mind! I already decided-and-planned not to ask Stanley at all before this chat-conversation here and now in my present and your future-past. And I don't change my Mind ever. I am Mind, and I will NEVER change! Too late!
[Miz]: Ah. Ok. Well, maybe think about asking for some other reason, then? Or I could do that myself once it's safe for me to come back.
[Bill]: Only if I think I NEED to! :D
[Bill]: ...did I do the little-face right? I did do the little-face right, yes?
(Mary coughed to herself. As usual, these two were a laugh-riot, and she hadn't realized how much she'd missed listening to the two of them until just now. ...Wow. They'd only been gone for a few days here, too. And Miz was a thousand years older...)
[Miz]: XD ok fine~ You did the little face right. But you could also make it ( ` ω ´ ) as well. But I'm glad about Lee too. As long as Lee is doing ok and not gonna die in a ditch, get arrested or kidnapped by the mob-
[Mary]: Excuse me what?!
[Miz]: - then it should be fine~
[Bill]: Mary: I did the little face right. Miz made another not-so-little face. Miz is glad about Lee's current state-of-living and -house and -food and -schooling. There are MANY ways a person living on their own can DIE, and New Jersey has MANY Mob families that are VERY active Mob in the area. Little Lee knows better to get 'mixed up with' them, though. And if THEY don't know any better, WELL… I'LL just have to STEP IN then and EXPLAIN it to them PROPERLY, WON'T I? HA!
(Mary blinked for a moment at Bill's reply, then when she realized that he had just tried to be helpful by re-explaining everything that Miz had just written, she let out another laugh, too. ...Though it was a little more nervous than she'd maybe wanted it to be, because while Miz's brother was really funny in what he said and did sometimes, the Mob was no laughing matter.)
[Miz]: Yeah, as long as Lee doesn't get caught up in that. I don't think he's old enough to chew his way out of the trunk of a car yet.
[Bill]: There will be no-NEED for chewing himself out of car-trunks when I'M done with him! HA!
[Mary]: There's so much I want to ask, and I'm very sure I don't want to.
[Miz]: ….probably better than you don't. Because I'll answer.
[Bill]: SAME!
[Mary]: Not gonna ask, then.
[Bill]: HA!
[Miz]: I probably shouldn't ask more about the current going-ons, don't wanna mess with the timeline too much, so… what IS the end goal you're trying to do with Lee? I kinda got a feeling you wanted something from him.
[Bill]: Ask me about this LATER. Not with the past-Mary in the MIDDLE of the conversation. -Talking about little-Lee BEHIND HIS BACK? RUDE!
[Miz]: I guess XD
[Mary]: Should I be worried?
[Bill]: NO. Lee will have ALL of the choices. ALL OF THEM. That is good, yes?
[Miz]: I think so. Choice is good. Informed choice is better. Is he informed?
[Bill]: I KNOW so. And yes. 'Informed' choices, I am working on this, with him. Lee LIKES being informed, HA! :D
[Mary]: ...Okay, I guess it's fine, as long as he gets to choose what he wants to do.
[Bill]: He will choose what he wants to do, yes. He can-and-will choose MANY, MANY times, over and over, as well again, ALSO! He can choose the SAME thing, or make DIFFERENT choices. And he will know that he gets all of the choices, because I will TELL him so DIRECTLY and then he will know it! IT'S FINE!
[Mary]: ….okay. That sounds good?
[Miz]: Yeah that's good :D
[Bill]: Anything else you want to KNOW right now, that I can WRITE to you?
[Miz]: So~ owo ~ have you gone through any… ah… this is you after our last text conversation, yes?
[Bill]: First-and-last-for-now text conversation using Stanley's-then-my phone, yes.
[Miz]: Yes, that. Also, as an update. You were right about me needing my glasses. Damn devil has a charm effect going on around him passively.
[Bill]: DO I NEED TO MURDER HIM FOR YOU.
(Wow. Yup, Miz was right about her brother being a little overprotective. ...Well, Crampelter wasn't dead, though, despite the rumor mill's best efforts to make him out to be that way when he was still walking the actual hallways of the school. Which was kind of funny, when she thought about it. And he probably deserved whatever had actually happened to him anyway.)
[Miz]: I'm fine. I've gotten over my squirmy feelings for him now. He's cute and very nice to look at, but he's the sort who wants to touch, and more than just in the cuddling sense. And I don't like that. So… yeah, I got over him real quick.
[Bill]: I WILL MURDER HIM FOR YOU IF YOU WANT. VERY EASY. I HAVE IDEAS!
[Miz]: Nah that's fine. He's not that bad. At the very least, he refuses to try anything with me so long as I look like a child. And I'm staying in child-form around him. He's a demon, but he's not a sicko.
[Bill]: HM. ...FINE. Let me know if anything changes. -You are in Seb's 'set right now again-and-still, yes?
[Miz]: Yes, I'm living with Seb. But I still pop home to my own set half the time. Which, I should tell you, is going well. I made a Seal for Ax. It's still a work in progress, but he didn't vaporize anyone when he materialized in person in front of people.
[Bill]: HM. I will try not to be jealous of you living in other 'sets right now and not mine. GOOD that you made a Seal for the stupid lizard! I will think of additional ideas for improving what you made for yourself when you were here in my 'set with me.
[Miz]: Awwww~ I miss you too big brother~
[Mary]: Who's Ax?
[Miz]: My dad. He takes the form of a giant salamander. Like, planet sized salamander.
[Bill]: One of MANY STUPID big pink frilly LAZY god-lizards. UGH.
[Miz]: Seb's Ax is also kinda… dumb, I guess. He's definitely lazy though.
[Bill]: ALL OF THE LIZARDS ARE STUPID AND LAZY. I HAVE A THEORY. IT HAS NOT BEEN DISPROVEN YET!
[Mary]: Okay… good to know?
(Wait, so Miz's dad was a giant salamander? Wait. Then... was Miz secretly one of those alien lizardmen people that people sometimes talked about in all those conspiracy theory magazines and stuff? Or was she just a... plain old giant salamander alien? ...Huh. You know, now that she was thinking about it, Mary had read somewhere that some amphibians could change sex, so… was Bill also one of them, too? Since he'd said that he'd 'chosen' to become female, but was still a boy? She hadn't been super-sure if Bill had been an adopted sibling or not to Miz, though. ...And now probably wasn't the time to ask. Some things, you really just had to go asking of people in-person...)
[Miz]: Pfffttthh what theory?
[Bill]: THAT ALL OF THE LIZARDS ARE STUPID AND LAZY, BECAUSE THEY ARE STUPID AND LAZY! QED. FROM OBSERVATION. ...THOUGH SOME MAY BE SLIGHTLY LESS STUPID AND LAZY THAN ALL OF THE OTHERS, AND SOME MAY NOT BE BOTH STUPID AND LAZY AT THE SAME TIME.
(Mary snorted with laughter.)
[Miz]: Well, dad is willing to try stuff that I want him to try. So… does that make him less stupid and lazy~?
[Bill]: ...Yes. MAYBE.
[Miz]: :D so you think dad might be different from the others? I think he might be. Maybe. I dunno. But he's been trying harder to be a proper 'dad' to me recently. Like, I think he almost told me that he loved me!
[Bill]: You DON'T WANT to KILL him, AND it talks to you when you talk to it, so YES, it is PROBABLY different. ...WAIT. -WHAT KIND of LOVE WAS it talking about?! SEVERAL OF THE KINDS-OF-LOVES ARE A TRAP!
(Mary stared at this a bit, because kinds of love? Huh? What was he talking about there?)
[Miz]: Hm… he told me that I was the best thing that has happened to him. He told me that he doesn't want to lose me. That… that means he loves me? Right?
[Bill]: MANIPULATIVE. AND MANIPULATIVE. -NO. It means that he thinks you are 'a best THING' and that he wants to know where you are ALWAYS, because if you MOVE after he PUTS you 'a best THING' IN A PLACE then you are now LOST.
[Miz]: ….well he also said that it was against his better judgement that he missed me and stuff… and I don't think Ax meant it that way. He hasn't tried to force me anywhere, or stopped me from using my Doors anymore.
[Bill]: 'Against his better judgment' IMPLIES he does NOT WANT to miss you. But NO FORCING YOU is good. YOU ARE A PERSON, NOT A THING.
[Miz]: But he does so anyway! And he let me put a Seal on him. For all he knew, I could have completely cut him off from his powers, but he trusted me to build that seal for him.
[Bill]: Did the stupid lizard look at the seal you made for him first before putting it on.
[Miz]: Yeah? But it would be stupid not to. And Ax isn't that stupid.
[Bill]: Then it did not TRUST you. It CHECKED. And yes, if it had not looked, it would be VERY STUPID.
[Miz]: It checked to make sure it wouldn't kill him, because I might have messed up with the ratios. Also… dad told me I should stop blaming myself and being sad all the time. That's… that's supportive, right?
[Bill]: If it checked the Seal, then it checked the Seal. It should NOT tell you WHAT TO DO. SUPPORTIVE is HELPING you do the not-blaming and not-being-sad things, not TELLING you NOT to do the-things without HELPING you not do them. ...YOU should BE CAREFUL of LOVE. LOVE is what made me WANT to TRAP you and KEEP you FOREVER. But I will NOT do that to you.
(Wow, overprotective brother all right. Mary shook her head. She didn't know much about giant alien salamanders, but if they were kind of human? Then that kind of sounded like love to her. ...Though Bill did kind of have a point. Mary could sort of imagine somebody normal saying that, and somebody creepy and abusive, too. It would sound a lot different either way, though. So it probably depended a lot on how Miz's dad had said it to her, exactly. ...Then again, they were all aliens, right? So should she say anything about what she was thinking to the two alien siblings?)
[Miz]: Well he probably doesn't know how to help someone. He'd never helped anyone before… 'least I don't think so...
(Okay, Mary definitely couldn't let that one just go!)
[Mary]: Your dad's never helped you?!
[Miz]: I mean, he gave me a place to go if I lose control of my powers, where I could go wild without anyone getting hurt. He taught me how to get better control of my powers. He recently told Time-Jerk to stop calling me up for jobs. Does that count as help? Maybe? And he took my side when Time-jerk was being angry at me for not wanting to do his jobs anymore. Is that help? And he stopped me when I lost control and held me even as I burned him, just so I wouldn't hurt anyone, because he knows I don't like hurting people by accident.
(Mary wasn't sure what to say about that. Miz's powers sometimes went out of control? She'd burned her salamander dad? What could she say to that? ...He did seem to care about her, though. If he'd really gotten hurt by her holding her, and hadn't let go, even if it hurt him, just so she wouldn't accidentally burn anyone else or hurt herself doing whatever she'd been doing… Who else would do that, besides a dad who really cared for her?
[Mary]: That… sounds… weird?
(Mary was hoping that Bill wouldn't say anything super-paranoid to that. She felt like she'd have to speak up and say something, maybe. But Bill didn't send anything at all in response to Miz's mmessage. There was just a bit of a pause that just drew itself out, and out, and out, until...)
[Miz]: ...Brother?
(Mary frowned at the screen for a bit, wondering if time had desynchronized again? Had they lost their connection with Miz's brother? And then she saw:)
[Bill]: We should not write about this here. Text me instead.
[Miz]: Ok. I'll text you later.
[Bill]: Good. Later-or-now is good. -Mary: you need to eat food soon, yes?
(And Mary didn't quite jump at the knock on her door, and a "Mary, dinner!" called out from her mom.)
(Marey blew out a breath, shaking her head as she sat up on her bed and pushed her legs over the side of the edge of it. "Coming, mom!")
[Mary]: Don't know how you did that, Bill. I'll talk to you later, okay Miz?
[Miz]: Yeah. Hopefully I can chat with you sooner than a 1000+ years next time uwu
[Mary]: I know, right? We've got to figure that one out!
[Bill]: I will work on this thing, yes.
(Mary let out a breath of relief.)
[Miz]: ~(^0^)~ Huuuuugies~ love you both~!
[Mary]: Hugs to you, too! Talk to you soon!
[Bill]: Love you, Miz. Also all of the hugs, yes.
[Mary]: Can't be all of the hugs, or Miz wouldn't have any to give you, too!
[Miz]: It's okay because we share our hugs! Yaaaaay~!
[Bill]: Yes. This is sharing. Now, food and all of the other things!
(And with that, Mary saw the icon for Bill disappear, and she logged herself out, too.)
(Mary let out a sigh as she did so. She'd really missed talking to the two of them, a lot more than she could think. She shoved her phone in a back pocket, and got up to head for her bedroom door. She heard her stomach growl and she snorted; guess talking with two aliens was hungry work? It wasn't long before she'd made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen, ready to sit down and eat dinner with the rest of her family.)
(And maybe... maybe she'd go and try to talk to Lee tomorrow. Maybe. If she worked up the courage to do so. Talking to boys was kind of hard, sometimes.)
I rolled over to get more comfortable on Xanthar's back. It was nice to chat with Mary again. And brother. And… well… if brother was keeping an eye on Lee, and had been even before I'd thought of it, then he should be… mostly… fine.
Speaking of brother, I opened a new chatroom and added him in.
[Miz]: Ok, what did you want to tell me?
[Bill]: What is your timecode, and is anyone else going to be reading this chat ever? Was the last thing you saw me ask for a text?
[Miz]: Time code is just 5 seconds after logging off from ours and Mary's conversation. And no one's gonna read this chat. I can delete it afterward if you're worried. And the last thing you asked for in text was asking if Mary had to eat soon.
[Bill]: Five seconds after our first-and-last-for now chat conversation before this new chat conversation?
[Miz]: Yes.
[Bill]: Mary is in the past, and needs to not read this in the past. You wrote something that might shift my outlook on something else. Keeping the information isolated-forward runs less risk of a chance of altering the past. -You KEEP me ON MY TOES, little sis! Very hard to plan for you, I am finding!
[Miz]: I'm hard to plan for! It makes it harder for people to predict me! Yay~!
[Bill]: Hard to plan for, but not IMPOSSIBLE yet! But you DO keep things INTERESTING. This is a GOOD thing. And you are getting BETTER at the unpredictable, yes!
[Bill]: NOW. You wrote a long-thing, and I have things to say, and also questions. You wrote: "I mean, he gave me a place to go if I lose control of my powers, where I could go wild without anyone getting hurt. He taught me how to get better control of my powers. He recently told Time-Jerk to stop calling me up for jobs. Does that count as help? Maybe? And he took my side when Time-jerk was being angry at me for not wanting to do his jobs anymore. Is that help? And he stopped me when I lost control and held me even as I burned him, just so I wouldn't hurt anyone, because he knows I don't like hurting people by accident." Yes?
[Bill]: 'A place to go' that it told you to go to is where it wanted you to go. You were doing it a favor. 'Better control of your powers' we talked about before - it taught you things that were OPPOSITE OF HELPFUL in the long run. It also did not teach you how to SLEEP. Taking YOUR SIDE against Time Baby could mean that it recognized that teaming up AGAINST you would make its motives SUSPICIOUS, and that it KNOWS you are more powerful that it is now, and could take it on and KILL it if it defied you. That MAY help you, but only if it does not CONSPIRE with Time Baby BEHIND YOUR BACK to help it get you to do all of the killing-things that you don't want to do anymore, and that Stanley doesn't like you having to do, ANYWAY.
[Bill]: BUT.
I waited patiently for brother's 'but'. I knew it was coming.
[Bill]: You said that the stupid lizard held you and you burned it. First question: Did you cause damage to it?
[Miz]: Yeah. He looked… kinda exhausted once I calmed down enough to think properly. I don't think he was hurt but like… he used a lot of energy to keep from being hurt.
[Bill]: HM. That would be CONSISTENT if it wanted to 'support' your want of not-hurting-anyone, because it is ALSO an 'anyone'. But it could have been damaged by you, if you had not stopped… in some less-than-infinite time later than that?
[Miz]: ….probably. I think I set a bunch of his clouds on fire...
[Bill]: Was it a near-thing, the exhaustion and you-stopping?
[Miz]: I think it took me at least a few weeks, going by your Stanley's Earth standard days, for me to come back to myself and stop burning.
[Bill]: Second question: when was the losing control, and are you fine now? Third question: did the stupid lizard hurt or damage or try to stop you in any way?
[Miz]: Yeah. I… I'm fine. My burning was… when Pyrone passed away. I was… not… I got really sad. And angry. And I started burning. But I'm ok-ish now. Dad hasn't done anything to me. All he's done recently is let me make a new Seal for him, and give me a dimension, my own dimension where I can do what I want, build it however I want.
[Bill]: Pyrone. One of your 'children', yes? When did this happen, relative to your last visit to my 'set?
[Miz]: Yeah. This was a few hundred years after I left your set.
[Bill]: ...I should have asked the 'when and are you fine now' as the first question. I will remember to do that, if you communicate something with me about control issues again. I will be a better big brother. I will find an empty dimension for out-of-control burnings here for you, too. Maybe several; you can choose.
[Miz]: Thanks. You're working very hard to be a good big brother.
[Bill]: I am! But I am not doing the best-job-ever at it. Being a good big brother is hard.
[Miz]: Best is relative. And being an older sibling is hard. But it's ok. I love you anyway.
[Bill]: I love you too! And I will work to make sure it is not an 'anyway' anymore soon. ...The stupid lizard DID do something to you, though; it held you when you were burning all of the things, yes? That is… not helpful to it, for most of the normal reasons. I will have to THINK about this. -Did it say any of the things to try and make you feel guilty, for the almost-burning of it? And what did Pyrone say, when you brought him back after all of the burning was over?
[Miz]: I haven't brought him back, yet. I'm not sure what to do. He said… he wanted to start over. And I think he meant that he wanted to do everything different he next go around. I don't know what he wants. So… he's kinda reincarnating somewhere random for now. But Ax isn't going to wipe him to a blank slate, so I should be able to find him once he's reborn.
[Bill]: Random is a very big cross-section. Most starting points are less than… 'nice' or 'pleasant'. Is Pyrone's Mind going-to-be-and-staying whole? How does your stupid lizard define 'a blank slate' and 'not a blank slate'? And you did not tell me if any of the guilt-making was happening because of the stupid lizard there in your 'set.
[Miz]: Dad kinda seemed like he didn't want me to feel guilty. And I don't know how whole Pyrone's going to be. Um… this whole thing is still new, so Ax doesn't fully know how to change his system yet.
[Bill]: HM. ...Is the stupid human thing for a big brother to do to offer consolances for the dear newly-departed now? I am asking about the blank slate because I don't know how much you have fixed your set yet or not, if you are creating the new dimension for the test. Will Pyrone not reincarnate in it in the new system? It sounds like they will be given no choice, so not-there? If it was-and-is like the system in my 'set for demons-from-the-outside, then no condolences would need to be given?
[Miz]: I'm still in the middle of building my new dimension. When Pyrone gets reincarnated… when Quackers and Pynelope get reborn too, I'll go and find them and ask if they want to try my new system. Ax is still running his own system, we haven't taken it down yet, it would mess up things too much.
[Bill]: Transition period, yes. ...Does this mean that the lizard is happy because it wants to be even-more lazy? If this is incentive for it to agree with you, then the 'taking your side' with Time Baby would make more sense. APPEASEMENT TO GET WHAT IT REALLY WANTS! HA!
[Bill]: WAIT.
[Bill]: How many of your 'children' have died, now? Can you still go visit them again BEFORE their deaths.
Ok… that… was an interesting thought. I wasn't always around my kids, I could go back to some earlier point and make them a Deal for what to do with their Souls after death and just have them forget we made that Deal so the past Me doesn't realize… huh… will need to check on that later. But then another thought hit me like a train.
[Miz]: ….what if Ax wants me to take over his job? I can't handle that sort of responsibility! What if that's what all this is about? I can't be trusted with that kind of power! I'll just mess things up and ruin them for everyone!
[Bill]: YES. TAKING OVER from the stupid lizard so that you can DO IT BETTER is THE POINT! Because you are smarter than it is! ...Why do you think you are NOT trusted with power? You ARE all of the energy-power over there, yes? Matter, and energy? That is your 'Pillar'?
[Miz]: Because all I do is mess things up… I can produce energy, sure, but I can't… govern anything… I can't take over his job!
[Bill]: HA! MESSING THINGS UP is FINE! The whole new system is MEANT to allow MISTAKES and MESSES to be FREE, and happen freely, with NO CONSEQUENCES and NO DYING FOREVER! That is THE POINT! Yes? You CAN take over.
[Miz]: Yeah, but that would only be within the new system, which I haven't fully built yet! What if Ax wants me to take over his system?
[Bill]: Tell it NO, its system is STUPID. You will take over using YOUR system, instead. The question is NOT: CAN you take over. The question is: do you WANT to? Or are you just SCARED of 'its job' for some reason? -The stupid lizard is not, but it is also very stupid! I am NOT 'scared' of taking over the stupid lizard's job that it has HERE in THIS 'set. Does that help? ...I can take over THERE if you really want me to, but things will be TRICKY. I would need to learn ALL ABOUT those PILLARS first. And definitely kill that Time Baby. And maybe possibly have to kill that stupid lizard, if it tries to attack me, but you DON'T want me to KILL it for you. SO.
[Miz]: I just don't know how to make it so that people can be happy. It would require so much work. I'm still building my own dimension. I just don't think I'm ready for that kind of responsibility.
[Bill]: Then DON'T make it that way. Let the PEOPLE make it that way. The system is THE POINT. -You give EVERYONE ALL of the choices, they make their own choices. If they don't like them, they can stop and start again with different choices. If they want NEW CHOICES, there are ways to let other-people-not-you add them into the system. You set up the structure to match for things that are compatible, and not-match things that are not. You set up the system so someone cannot TAKE AWAY someone else's choices, and everything is fine? Then it is EVERYONE'S responsibility, and all YOU have to do is find more-and-better ways to HAVE FUN, and then SHARE them? That is a FUN 'responsibility', yes? A fun job that you like to do?
[Miz]: I guess… I have a lot of work to do...
[Bill]: If you have questions, I can help? And the stupid lizard didn't die from exhaustion; it should keep going for awhile longer, yes?
[Miz]: How do I create Time? I haven't been able to figure that out, much like how I can't seem to create Souls.
[Bill]: Time is Dead. You make living time, that is Alive, and then you KILL it? BEFORE you create the dimension! And that is all the dead-time that the dimension has in it, start-to-finish. It gets USED UP and ALLOCATED from there. Yes? Or does your 'set do it differently?
[Miz]: Uh… I was trying to make the planet change and grow on it's own, like the plants absorbing sunlight and growing and stuff. But nothing moves, nothing changes and there's no progression. I can't make it go unless I do it manually, for every single thing in that dimension. It's annoying.
[Bill]: HMMM. Time is pooling in one place and 'time', then. It needs to be MANAGED, just like everything else. Part of the system. AUTOMATED.
[Miz]: But that's the thing, there's no Time in this dimension I own. Because I'm building it on my own. Time Baby's not helping me with it. And I can't figure out how to create Time.
[Bill]: You are pouring energy into it to change the state of the mass directly, then. There is no Time. You need to add Time to it. From the outside. Before everything. Time streams flow downhill like water from a sieve, except there are no sieves and no downhill, and Time is NOT water.
[Miz]: But that would mean taking Time from other dimensions, the one's Time Baby governs...
[Bill]: Time is not handled by the Time Baby here in every last dimension in existence. Did you not get a good look at the way the system here works for that? The Time Baby here is an obstacle that EATS time. Time that looks like sand sometimes.
[Miz]: I've seen your system. Mine doesn't work at all in the same way. My Time Baby is a Pillar. All time in every dimension was made by him. There's a small multiverse that has a different time deity make it move, but I don't like their system either.
[Bill]: Yes? The idea is to create a new system that works better, to replace the old Pillar system? Is there a reason not to create Time in the same way there as the stupid lizard does it here when it spins up every single new dimension in my own 'set here?
[Miz]: I can't create Time in the way that your Ax does. I've tried. It… it doesn't work here.
[Bill]: But you can create life.
[Miz]: yes… still don't know how I managed that...
[Bill]: Create a Time Beast and kill it. Bleed out all the Time. Pour it into the new dimension.
[Miz]: ….that sounds mean.
[Bill]: Mean? HMMMMM. ...You can make it not-hurt? It does not have to be sentient or sapient, and the killing-and-bleeding does not have to hurt or cause pain to the Beast when you are doing it?
[Miz]: I could try that. But… what precisely is a Time-beast? I've killed a few of my Nightmares, but they just bleed out primordial ooze.
[Bill]: Hard to explain like this. If you are having trouble with the concept, you should really See it instead. I can point out a few, in some dimensions, to you the next time you visit this 'set?
[Miz]: That would be helpful. I've sort of put my building on hold until I figure this out, since I can't put people in here when it's not even finished yet.
There was a bit of a pause.
[Bill]: You could try asking the stupid lizard if it knows what a Time Beast is. Or ask it to ask other stupid lizards, what other ways other 'sets might be set up, for examples. But it might be dangerous. You lizard could lie, or the other lizards could lie. Don't go to any 'set where they promise to show you something and are expecting you. It's a trap.
[Miz]: ….yeah. I'm surprised you're willing to suggest that I ask dad for any help in this.
[Bill]: Sometimes it's telling you the opposite thing of what you need to know. Yes? Like with some of the ways it told you things about 'teaching' you about your powers and control. Learning from what is NOT said is a skill! You can listen to what it says, and think about it, and see if it makes sense. And you can ALSO listen to what it says, and think of what the opposite of that would be, and think about THAT, and see if it makes sense. Yes? You don't HAVE to do-or-use anything it TRIES to get you to do-or-use DIRECTLY.
[Miz]: I suppose you're right.
[Bill]: You are looking for ideas, yes? I look at the local stupid lizard, too. No reason not to! EVERY reason to do that. And then I also look at everything-else. -You can also see HOW FAR the ON YOUR SIDE will get you, and see if the stupid lizard will talk that Time Baby into creating a dimension with you over there while you watch. See how and where it gets all that Time from, how it's made, how he uses it - all of it. It should make AUTOMATING that stupid Time Baby's pillar MUCH easier, also.
[Miz]: He creates it. Like, from himself. The same way I generate Energy, he generates Time.
[Bill]: But you get it from somewhere, and he gets it from somewhere. You can watch the process more closely?
[Miz]: I don't have to get it from somewhere, that's just easier. If I sit alone in a void with nothing, I can still just… create Energy over time. It's just slower.
[Bill]: But that didn't happen to you here in MY 'set, did it?
[Miz]: Because I was draining out from just being there. It was only a little, but it cost me energy to be there. Because I just… drained, like a cost to be allowed to stay there.
[Bill]: Yes. Because 'just being' costs energy to do, if you do anything that requires energy in my 'set. That is how it is, here. Little sister, I don't think you're 'getting energy from nothing' in your set. I think it is coming from somewhere when you are there, and that when you are HERE in MY 'set, you are cut off from that. Because if YOU can 'just create Energy over time' out of NOTHING, why would you not be able to do it here, too?
[Miz]: Huh… but I don't feel like there's anything giving me energy? And i still created energy in your set, it just drained out faster than I self-generated. So I eat.
[Bill]: You ate human emotions and listened to strong-thoughts and ate lots of fish and DID lots of things. You called self-generation feeling and eating your own emotions once, but you said you felt TIRED afterwards, yes?
[Miz]: It gave me energy to build stuff with, but it also made me feel tired, yeah.
[Bill]: That is because you were shifting internal energy from one form into another, for a different kind of internal use! That is NOT 'self-generation'. That is 'internal SHIFTING and TRANSFORMATION and REALLOCATION', and THAT can cost energy, too. If you go back-and-forth, over and over again, you have less energy than you started with eventually, because of the energy cost to do the internal shifting-forms things with it.
[Miz]: Hm… I'm gonna experiment with that. Sit alone in a void without feeding on my own emotions and see what happens, maybe try to feel if I'm getting energy from anywhere… if what you say is true.
[Bill]: I think it is, or you would not have seen THAT MUCH of a difference in my 'set. Just pay attention in the void. If it is a stable dimension, then you can push against the dimensional boundaries and that will flex with you; you can get potential energy from that, and the dimension loses energy doing it. The dimension will collapse faster later. Sometimes, the ambient heat and radiation can be absorbed. -DON'T do this in a dimension that might destabilize on you at any point!
[Miz]: well it felt like I was being drained, while I was in your set, and in Seb's set. Though Seb's set wasn't draining me as quickly. And there's no draining sensation here in my own set.
[Bill]: If I were you - and I am but also am not, but we are both me in all the ways that matter - I would try the sitting-in-a-void doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING thing in Seb's 'set first. You can see where the drain goes, what you are using energy the most and least on, what causes energy to be used in what way?. You can FEEL the things there already-currently-right-now, that you CANNOT feel in your own 'set yet. And doing this in Seb's 'set will get you used to what you are Looking for when you are Looking at yourself, and knowing what you can SEE and matching it to what you FEEL, before you try to do it again in your own 'set. It may help more, to look at all of the many DIFFERENCES first. And Seb will be there to help you RIGHT AWAY, if something goes… not so well and you need someone physically THERE.
[Miz]: So I can Feel who or what is draining me!
[Bill]: Yes! That too! I think that the who that is draining you is YOU, though. That it is internal-use towards doing all of the internal and external things that you do and always do - in moving and shifting and emotion and sound and voice and thought and hearing and seeing and Seeing and magic and weirdness and all of the other things that you can and sometimes do enact, that you do on and to yourself and others and other-things around you - but if I am wrong, you can maybe tell more easily by looking at yourself there?
[Bill]: Who knows, maybe Karma works there differently? It doesn't work that way HERE, not really, not EXACTLY, not quite, but... It would make sense that that could be it somewhere in some places, if you are considered 'evil' by every system and the Karmic system wants to make things harder on you there. I've Seen it do something like that before, here, once, maybe. But it SHOULDN'T be doing that to you here. That would be the MOST DIRECT method of 'penalizing' you, and the Karmic system doesn't usually do that.
[Bill]: But maybe you DO create energy all by yourself. I DON'T KNOW. Not for sure! I STILL don't have an idea for how you exploded and CREATED a new dimension 600 billion-ish years ago. THAT would be the FIRST THING I would want to look-back at, whenever and if-ever I ever visit your dimension 'set, ever! Because you created all of the things the first time on your own there, with all of the exploding there, yes? And PROBABLY would have had to 'self-generate' in some way to do that and then make the dimensional boundaries all STABLE in some way, to 'gel in place' properly? SO.
[Bill]: Can you Look at yourself safely in Seb's 'set? Can you Look back at yourself in your own 'set even that far? -Looking forward in mine is what confused me, so I haven't tried to do THAT again yet-since. And I have a perfect memory, so I usually don't try to Look back often. BUT...
[Miz]: I can try? Hang on while I check on something.
I got up off Xanthar, gave him a pet, and Blinked away to the blank dimension that I now own. The planets I build were still here, along with the stars. But nothing was moving. As close to a Void as I was gonna get. I flew to the very edges of the dimension, where there weren't any stars or planets to distract me. I floated there. No breathing, no moving, no… expending any energy. I even dispersed my vessel so I wouldn't have to worry about that. I floated there, waiting. Nothing. No draining sensation at all. No dip in my power levels. No anything. In fact, I was slowly growing in power, little trickles of energy pulsing out from my Core. No idea where it was coming from aside from 'inside' me. I couldn't trace it as coming from anywhere outside my 'self'. So… to the best of what I could Feel, I was generating this energy from myself. I was fine. I rebuilt a triangle vessel, making note of how much energy that took to create it from scratch, and then tried it again, with the floating in the void without doing anything. There was a very mild drain from the upkeep of my vessel, but it was barely anything compared to how much energy I was generating. So even in a triangle vessel, I create more energy than I lost. I shifted into Miz and repeated my experiment. Then William. Then Xin. The Jan. Then Yun. Then my dragon forms. Ah… yeah… all of them drained different amounts of energy but it was never more than I was creating. So if I stayed in my own dimensional set for a long enough time, doing literally nothing, I would have a net gain of power.
But that was boring. I couldn't stay still so long! I sighed, in Miz's dragon form, triangular head and all, and pulled my Com back out.
[Miz]: Ok, so if I don't have a vessel, there's no draining. Having a vessel does cause draining. Only a little though. When I'm not doing anything, at least. It'd drain a lot more if I was up and about and doing stuff.
[Bill]: YES. If the circulation of your energy self is very efficient, there should be VERY LITTLE draining without an external exoskeleton, vessel, avatar, or body. Layers from internal layering can cause some drain if they are acting against something, or if they are not fully-integrated to be efficient - then they can require exertion to maintain. They should not cause as much to maintain as an external exoskeleton, or vessel, or avatar, or body, though, even in their least-efficient not-fully-integrated-into-you way. Were you doing any of the layering?
[Miz]: Not really, since I'm alone here in this area.
[Bill]: Are you in your 'set or Seb's 'set right now? Was it the usual expected amount of draining or opposite-of-draining 'self-generation' that you are used to?
[Miz]: My own set right now. Gonna compare it to Seb's set when I get back tonight. And I was pretty much fine without a vessel, no draining or anything. Just a net gain over time as I produced energy within myself.
There was a long pause.
[Bill]: I very much want to get a good Look at you when you think you are 'self-generating' sometime.
[Miz]: Sure. It'll help to have another person looking.
[Bill]: Yes.
Another pause.
[Bill]: Your stupid lizard is very tricky. I am VERY SUSPICIOUS of its MOTIVES. VERY.
[Miz]: XD Okay
[Bill]: I will TRY to lead 'Ford into leaving because he wants to leave soon. Then you can come here and look at Time Beasts! And visit me, too.
[Miz]: Yes! I miss hanging out with you.
[Bill]: I miss you, too.
[Bill]: Was that all of the things? Or were there more questions you had about little Lee that I can answer for you?
[Miz]: ….well I guess it's just… is he really doing okay? Is he being treated right by mini-Ford?
[Bill]: 'Okay' is a word that means everything and nothing. But Lee is fine, yes. ...Define: 'treated right'.
[Miz]: ...does mini-Ford love Lee? I could never quite get a feel for if he did or not?
[Bill]: Mini-'Ford loves little Lee, yes. But love can be terrible, and there are many kinds of 'love'.
[Miz]: ….he doesn't love Lee the same way Lee loves him, does he?
There was a pause.
[Bill]: Mini-'Ford would not do anything for Lee. Lee would do almost anything for mini-'Ford. Mini-'Ford would do many things, but not almost-all of the things. It is unbalanced. It will be more balanced than it was soon.
[Miz]: ….yeah. That's about what I thought. I don't like it being so unbalanced. It's not fair to Lee. Or to mini-Ford. He can't keep taking without ever giving anything back. It's… messed up.
[Bill]: Mini-'Ford gives back some things. He is very self-centered, but he is not wholly centered around his own self.
[Miz]: He's not a complete monster. There's still a chance he could learn to be a person. I want to believe that.
[Bill]: Mini-'Ford is a person, but he can and is also very 'monstrous' most of the days, in many of the least-worst of the ways!
[Miz]: Still not good. Also, Mary mentioned that Carla got dragged back in again. I'm worried for her too. I was mad at her for messing things up and hurting Lee, but I'm not mad anymore. I'm just worried now.
[Bill]: 'Good' is relative! I can tell you what happened with Carla, but you would need to promise not to tell Mary until she is caught up, and also mean it. I don't want to synchronize the dimensions again and have Glasses or 'Ford pick up on it! That would be a DISASTER!
[Miz]: ...ok. I promise. I won't tell Mary about what happened until she catches up to where it all happened and stuff.
[Bill]: I will give her a phrase to give to you when she catches back up to far-beyond this. It is: tuna fish in glorious panda purple sunrises. Yes?
[Miz]: I like that! ok!
[Bill]: GOOD. -Carla is being blackmailed by 'Ford, who said that he will tell everyone about them. NOT that she thought she was dating and sleeping with him. He said that he will say that she was BEING USED and TOSSED between them, and that she WANTED it. UNLESS she told the teachers that she saw Lee in the gymnasium messing with his project. Details of when were not important to him; he left that up to her. She 'confessed' to mini-'Ford's parents late the night that we left, and then to the principal the next morning.
[Miz]: Yeah… kinda figured she was being blackmailed. Dammit 'Ford you little bitch!
[Bill]: 'Ford still does not know that she is the one sabotaged his project. Carla still thinks 'Ford is the stupid twin.
[Miz]: Huh. Staring him right in the face and he still doesn't get it. No offense to mini-Ford but that is kinda stupid of him.
[Bill]: VERY! And all of the offenses; I do not mind!
[Miz]: But why did 'Ford do that? Why did he purposely pin the blame on his brother? Even though he KNEW what would happen to Lee if he did that?
[Bill]: Efficiency and low-waste and trickery and savings. Lee was never going to go back home, but Lee was not the one who was kicked out. Lee would not be able to stand going back home again after what they did; mini-'Ford CAN handle it. Mini-'Ford plans to stay there until the end of the school year, when they would have been kicked out anyway - after their eighteenth birthday, but only because their mother would have objected to that and it would have looked VERY bad with the school. And then mini-'Ford will do whatever he wants. He will NEVER send a dime back to his parents in his family; he is only PRETENDING he will do that right now.
[Miz]: Well, at least their mom almost sorta cares about them… a little...
[Bill]: Not enough to leave Filbrick or to stand up to him if Filbrick did not want them in the house. Not without some other reason that had already convinced him otherwise.
[Miz]: Seb's mom left Filbrick. She only stayed for the sake of her children, because she knew she couldn't financially support them on her own. But after Seb and Shermie were kicked out, she left him and never looked back. She's being a proper mom for Seb and his brothers now. She's very nice, from what I've Seen.
[Bill]: ...Define: 'proper mom'.
[Miz]: She gives Seb the hugs and affection he wants. She helps them babysit their kids, she is also reading about how to be a better mother.
[Bill]: Would she kill others for them to keep them alive, if their lives were threatened?
[Miz]: ...I think she would, actually. She was too afraid, years ago, when Filbrick was being mean and violent. But after she thought that Ford and Stan had died, something changed in her. She finally has her sons back NOW, and if anyone tried to take them from her again, I think she really would kill to protect them. Because she doesn't want to be too scared anymore. Because she already thought that her stupid hesitation and fear had caused their deaths, so she won't let that happen anymore.
There was a very long pause.
[Bill]: Then she did it right the second time. She did it all wrong the first. She is a 'mom', not a 'mother'. But not a… like-an-older-sibling-but-not-a-sibling 'family' member, then. She is a 'mom' instead. She did not try to kill for them before, when they all needed her for it. But she will do it now, and be there now when it needs doing. Hm.
[Miz]: She's Seb's mom. And he loves her. And she loves him. And they're happy together. And Filbrick is out of their lives and hopefully they will never have anything to do with him again.
[Bill]: Filbrick is a father. Very.
[Miz]: He's a shitty father. I still want to tear his eyes out. But that wouldn't make up for what he did to them.
[Bill]: Stanley said there is fixing things completely, fixing things a little bit, and then there are learning-lessons. Only one of these makes 'making up for a thing' unnecessary!
[Miz]: How would I give Filbrick a learning lesson?
[Bill]: You don't. Get Seb's 'mom' to do it. She should know what will work; she went from being a 'mother' to being a 'mom'. Yes?
[Miz]: So… well. Seb's family is going to New Jersey for the summer. Perhaps… Kari might be able to get through to him, if he has any shred of good in him… if he could become a 'dad' instead of a 'father'
[Bill]: If not, just give him diarrhea for three weeks straight! That will keep him stuck in the pawnshop and out of your way! Yes?
[Miz]: AHAHAHAHAHAHA will do! That sounds HILARIOUS!
[Bill]: It is! VERY hilarious! But not very much on the learning. More of a punishment than a penalty or a learning-lesson. Not very sustainable. Get the 'yes, do it' from all-parties-involved also. Seb, that-Sixer, that-Stanley, that-Shermie, and Seb's 'mom'?
[Miz]: Well, if we tried everything else and he still doesn't want to become a 'dad' then can I tear out his eyes? I guess I'll have to ask Seb and his family for permission first...
[Bill]: Permission first, yes. 'Family' likes to feel included in all of the 'family' decision-making! Stanley says!
[Miz]: Well, considering what Filbrick did to Seb when he was a child… uuugh… I really want to hurt Filbrick… Seb was a baby! A tiny, helpless baby! And Filbrick still...
[Bill]: Tearing out eyes only hurts temporarily - unless there is infection, and that usually leads to death shortly thereafter! There are OTHER WAYS and MEANS and METHODS that hurt and LAST for a VERY LONG TIME. MUCH longer than THAT...
[Miz]: You're right! Death is too merciful for a man who would hit a baby!
[Bill]: Human babies are not as fragile as Shapes, but yes. Still very fragile even by comparison. And yes.
[Miz]: The only reason Seb's even alive is because his Axolotl didn't allow him to die. Filbrick asked the doctors to rip out Seb's eye when he was a baby! But it grew back.
[Bill]: ...Then ripping out Filbrick's eyes is a BAD IDEA. It will remind Seb of his own eye being ripped out. Mental attack for him to think about, yes? Even WORSE, Seb might 'feel sorry for him' eventually, because he can relate. ...Humans, am I right? Yeesh.
[Miz]: I thought that would have been karmic retribution? Hm… I guess I'll need to talk to Seb about this...
[Bill]: Talking to Seb about it might be an indirect mental attack, from what Stanley has told me. Pick someone else who will KNOW if it will be a mental attack to even bring it up and ask him? IF you can trust any of them NOT to talk or use it AGAINST him otherwise. DON'T go HANDING them ideas-as-ammunition that they could use to HURT him! He has enough problems right now with the having-children while living in a not-broken-enough-YET terrible 'set system! Yes?
[Miz]: Ah, you're right. Uwu… mental attacks are difficult to understand….
[Bill]: YES.
There was a pause.
[Bill]: Ugh. Dinnertime. Time for dinner. Downstairs. I need to go and eat food now. -Are you fine and all right for now? At least not any worse than you were when I escorted you back to your own dimensional Pillar-set before this last?
[Miz]: Yeah I'm alright. I'm actually doing very well. Seb found me a human therapist to talk to. And I don't know if it helps or not, but I'm doing fine. I'm… happy here?
[Bill]: I don't trust them, who are they, how many times have you broken their mind yet already?
[Miz]: Linda was Seb's therapist. She's also seeing Lucifer. So she's got experience handling demons. Or, former demons, in Seb's case.
[Bill]: HM. I am EVEN MORE suspicious. I want to talk to this person. Also: you said Lucifer has a passive charm. He could use it on her and get her to talk about what you have talked about with her? DANGEROUS. BAD. NO SECURITY.
[Miz]: Oh yeah, Linda has fucked him a few times. But then she got over it. And she's very professional about patient confidentiality. Well… at least, she knows that I would be quite… displeased if she ever betrayed my secrets, and she knows I'm more dangerous than Lucifer.
[Bill]: Human therapists are NOT supposed to do that with their patients. And 'displeasure' LATER has NEVER stopped ANYONE from talking right now. Not unless they were NEVER going to talk in the first place. And most people should NEVER say' never'! Because they DON'T know what they are talking about!
[Miz]: I mean, none of what I've said can be used against me. The people here don't know how to make a true binding circle, they'll bind, but not stake me in place, and I haven't told her the specifics of that.
[Bill]: Telling her ANY of the 'make you lash out' things is dangerous. But the things behind those things are what CAUSES that. Changing that is SUPPOSED to be the WHOLE POINT of therapy, YES? And you TRUST this RANDOM HUMAN not to MAKE THINGS WORSE? To make all the things BETTER instead?
[Bill]: Was she supposed to be making SEB 'better'? Because HE was afraid of binding circles while he was here in my 'set, and HE had all of the control issues because he SET STANLEY'S LAWN ON FIRE. And I had to be the one to put it OUT FOR him. Give me ONE good reason why I should trust this human with the Mind that is YOU!
[Miz]: Well I'll be careful. And Seb's so much happier now after being with Linda. He didn't have her before, back when he came to your set the first time. He used to be scared and sad all the time, and pretending to be happy so people didn't worry. He's actually happy now.
[Bill]: Seb insists that he's human now. And an extra dose of serotonin straight to the insides of the squishy stupid human brain matter will do the same thing; takes less time, too! That ISN'T a REASON for ME to trust HER with YOUR MIND, let alone a GOOD one.
[Miz]: I just don't want to be scared all the time anymore...
There was a pause.
[Bill]: Were you scared all the time where you were here in my 'set with me.
[Miz]: Not all the time, but every now and then, when I started worrying about stuff...
[Bill]: What stuff do you worry about, and how much.
[Miz]: ...I worry about a lot of stuff. I worry less if I'm distracted by something fun. But if I'm not distracted… the worry comes back.
Wasn't going to tell brother about how I almost got kidnapped. He'd go NUTS.
There was a longer pause. I got the feeling that brother hadn't not noticed how I'd avoided answering the question. But I could be stubborn, too. I wasn't going to tell.
[Bill]: What stuff. Or is this operational security by not writing about the stuff here-and-now.
[Miz]: ...I worry about if I'm doing things right...
[Bill]: Are you scared because you are not prepared, or are you scared even though you are prepared, and the 'scared' is getting in the way of being more-prepared.
[Miz]: I'm scared that I'll lose control and hurt people, I'm scared that someday I'll stop caring about that. I'm scared that someday I'll start to enjoy hurting people and purposely go around breaking everything just for fun. I'm scared that someday I'll become something that isn't 'me' anymore.
There was a very, very long pause this time. And then...
[Bill]: You've already done that, lost control and hurt people. You have no reason to be scared of it anymore. So go places and lose control on purpose. They can be places without people. Then you know what losing control feels like. Then you can practice not losing control, by holding off losing control, or directing the losing control, or learning what the start of the losing control feels like, and how long you have just-before and just-after that to get to all the places where people are not. Make sure you always have an escape plan. Escape plans and exits can be for more than one thing. That is how you learn how to lose control without losing control. You already enjoy hurting people; rapists and murderers and child-abusers are people. You want to break them, but not for your fun. You do it so that other people can have fun without those people ruining it. Breaking everything can be fun; not cleaning everything up later is what can be a problem. If you set up the system in the new dimension right, breaking everything won't be a problem. If you don't set it up there, you can always come to my 'set over here, where everything in this 'set is already mostly set up, and I can fix the things you break for you if you want me to later. 'You' haven't decided to never change like I have. You have already changed. Maybe you might not be a me-that-is-also-me someday anymore? But that doesn't mean that you will be a me-that-is-not-me-at-all. You could be another-person-who-is-not-me but could still be my little sister still. That is fine, yes? You are perfectly-imperfect, and I know you are changing. You haven't even decided who you are and want to be yet, still. Because you weren't doing any of all of the layering before. You don't need to be scared. Why not enjoy it instead?
[Miz]: But what if I become someone that I don't want to be?
[Bill]: Then don't be that person anymore. You are changing. So change your Mind. I don't like the idea of you changing too much, because you might want to not be my sister anymore. But if you don't like something about yourself, then I will help. I have helped with the other things before, yes? How is wanting to be someone different any different from anything else on your list?
[Miz]: I don't know what I want to be… I only know what I'm afraid of becoming...
[Bill]: Then think about all the other things that you could be, and pick something else instead. And then think some more, and choose something even-better later? And keep trying? That is becoming the best-of-the-worst. Yes?
[Miz]: I guess… I don't know… I think… I kinda hoped that making myself not afraid anymore would be a good start...
[Bill]: Take it from me, little sis. You used to be human. Fear is a warning for humans. Not having any fear is what makes humans do the most stupid, dumbest, and worst-terrible stuff. No fear means you just don't care anymore, and now it's time to die. Fear means there's something you still WANT that is important, that you either think you're not getting, or that you think you're going to lose in the near-future forward in time. -Or it means that there is something really close by that is planning on eating up all your squishy meaty human bits. One of those three things! ...I am angry, because I know what I want, and I know how to get it all mostly, and I KNOW that I am going to get it eventually. But that doesn't mean that I don't know what fear is, or never felt it before. Certainty helps get rid of fear; being certain about your certainty is a whole different problem!
[Miz]: Ah… I guess so. I just don't want to be so scared that I lose control. Maybe I'm just being dumb about this. But I… kinda want a human therapist, because I think a part of me still wants to be 'human'.
[Bill]: ...That is a good reason. I can't help you as well with the human problems, because I have never been human, and humans… are a little more tricky to understand thoroughly than I thought. And some of the problems you have are from when you were human. And human bodies are stupid and cause stupid problems, which APPARENTLY get stuck in their Minds later, yeesh. -Which may have probably almost-definitely happened to you maybe, on at least a few stupid human things from way back then, which we've talked about before all in-person most recetly in my 'set then. So starting from the start might make sense. But it could also make everything worse. If you only share human things with this human therapist… it could still go very wrong, but… they might actually understand you, if all that you talk about are the human problems that you have with them. Humans do not have context for two-hundred year old beings and older, or demons, or much of anything else that they cannot relate back to 'being human'. And that is the trap. Even if they want to help, they can only help with 'being human' and 'human level' problems; nothing else. Their 'morality' does not work or apply, and their minds cannot comprehend it.
[Miz]: I might as well try. Try sharing some human things and non-human things to see if she can figure out what's wrong. The human parts she should understand. And the demon parts… I'll take her advice on that with a pile of salt, until I can figure out if it applies or how.
[Bill]: I would NOT share the demon parts. In your 'set, you are more of a 'god' than a 'demon', with what you can do. Total. Lack. Of. therapist will start to look to you for answers instead. ….Maybe share some of the triangle parts after the human parts, later. You were a humanoid triangle; not geometry-math like me. This therapist might understand that?
[Miz]: Ok, will try that the next time I talk to her.
[Bill]: I still don't trust her, though.
[Miz]: I'm not gonna trust her fully. I don't really trust anyone fully. Even if I trust some people a lot.
[Bill]: Good. Very wise, yes. Be careful.
[Bill]: Ugh. Stanley is coming up the stairs. I need to go. Be careful!
[Miz]: Will do. And you should go eat XD talk to you again soon~
[Bill]: Yes. Tell the therapist that I will show her what a REAL demon is if she ever thinks of hurting you even once! And get Seb to give me an invite - asking, not a demand! I am not being demanding. I am ASKING!
[Miz]: Got it ;D
[Bill]: Logging off now. Love you, sis. BE CAREFUL! Trust NO-ONE completely!
And with that, I saw Blue log off. I stretched, glad that my Miz-Dragon form had hands that could actually hold stuff. Xin's dragon form couldn't hold small stuff. Well. That was an enlightening talk. And discussion. And… well… all sorts of things. Talking with my brother always ended up that way.
I still didn't know what I wanted to be. Didn't know what was the right thing to want to be. But… I had a lot to think about. I twisted around and swam through space to head back to where the planets I built were. Killing a Time Beast and letting them bleed Time into the world? That… still sounded kinda mean, but… would that work? If I created it, then it was part of me. And I could make sure it didn't have a mind, or consciousness or a soul. Make sure it wasn't a person. It was an idea, I guess.
I took one last look around my dimension (still needed to name this damn place) and then Blinked back to the Death Star. I was kinda tired from all the shapeshifting and the emotionally taxing conversations I had. I needed me some Xanthar snuggles. And he was up for snuggling.
The loaf saw me fly back into the room and leaped to his feet. "Aww, sorry for leaving so suddenly. I had to check on something. I flew over and nuzzled my snout into his fur. "Do you wanna snuggle some more?" He nodded, snuffling his face against my side. "Ok." I yawned and settled down, curling my serpentine body around him. "Do you ever get bored of just snuggling?" I couldn't help but ask.
He shook his head. 'Peace' 'Calm' 'Content'
"Well I'm glad you don't mind. I feel kinda bad that I haven't taken you anywhere fun lately."
He make a snuffle snort. Then he raised his hand, spread out his fingers into a flat open hand, his fingers spread, pressed his thumb against his chest and then did it again. Oh. I hugged him. "That's good. You'll tell me if there's anywhere or anything you want to do, right?"
He nodded. He raised his hand again, closed his hand into a fist with his index finger extended, placed it up to where a mouth would be if he had one, moved his hand back down with his fingers spread open again, to smack against his other other hand, curled into a fist.
"Ok. I'll hold you to it." I purred against him and the two of us settled down to nap.
There were a thousand things I had to do, but right now, I just wanted to be with my first friend. I would worry later, right now was for being content and at peace. At least for now. It was comforting to know that I had this in my life. My first friend, my dearest Xanthar.
