WEEK 8

[bathymetric]

Good morning, passengers. Happy Sunday. Happy New Year.

Your numbers have officially dropped to single digits. One of you managed to kill the first of the major living obstacles to your collective freedom. A ghost or demon or something nearly killed you. It was a weird week.

The cruise continues on, roller coaster back up and running as ever, arcade free and clear of coins. The last free floor of the ship is open, as well as part of the top deck with... well, something you might expect to see way more on a cruise ship than anything else here. One way or another, you get a feeling you can't shake - things are going to end soon.

No rain yet, but the clouds are closing in fast above you. A cold wind blows during the night, sending the ship gently rocking. Around midnight or so, if you head to the deck, you can hear thunder in the distance.



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to week 8, everyone! Remember to turn in AC here and coins for regains over here! If you wish to get in contact with the npcs, Davy Jones is over here, and "The Captain" is over here! And as requested, profiles are accessible here. ]

Comments

investigation, cw: hallucination references

[magycks]

[ Early Tuesday morning, Magica takes the spear she took from Plumeria and heads on down to the workshop, where she promptly gets on top of cutting it down to size. This means you may, in fact, walk on her using a goddamn bandsaw, but don't worry, it's fine, she totally knows what she's doing. Eventually, with one end sheared off into its own little mini-spear and the shaft reduced to "tall by duck proportional standards", she starts aggressively sandpapering the new edges, and that's where she's at when her device lights up with the traditional summons to the theater. Smugly, to nobody, she says: ]

Knew it.

[ And that energy lasts for all of two minutes! Here is the thing about photos on devices that look like smartphones: you can just shut the fake phone down and only look at whatever's on it in moments of private vulnerability. Even if it eats at you, even if the motive is something that would upend your reason for being, you don't have to look it in the face constantly. Unfortunately, the entity inhabiting Jack's corpse is actually good at his job, and his curse can't be powered down and tucked into her cloak for later. It follows her out the theater and down the stairs, and there's absolutely nothing she can do about it.

So that means it's time to investigate the pub, right? That's what's this overwhelming sense of impotence and rage means? Search aside, she spends a decent while in there, because as long as she keeps inputting random songs in the jukebox there's something to keep her distracted, and the dart board... She pops over to the art room very briefly, then returns with a bunch of paper and various art supplies, which she sets up at the bartop and proceeds to utilize furiously for the entire afternoon. She's drawing picture after picture of Handsome Jack's face, but specifically dead Handsome Jack, judging from the liberal use of red. Also, there are a few incomplete workups of this guy mixed in there. Several hours into this, Magica has a glass of something non-Disney XD friendly off to the side, untouched, You Oughta Know is positively blaring, and any entrance goes unnoticed for a good long while — until she suddenly whips around, eyes wide with surprise, and says: ]

Couldn't possibly announce yourself or anything, could you?! [ There's a pause where a normal person would probably start to feel bad for snapping. Magica looks back down at her work, holds up a Jack portrait in each hand, and continues in a normal tone of voice, as if she hadn't snapped at all. ] Which one of these do you like for the dartboard?

investigation

[bathymetric]

[ Hey there, Magica! Where do you wanna start? ]

[magycks]

[ Well, since she's trying to not think about auditory hallucinations, she's definitely gravitating towards the jukebox first and going to punch in some tunes! Is this a "you might recognize some music from your home universe" situation, or...?

Also, if it turns out it's a normal jukebox, she's going to just crawl under the pool table like a goddamn gremlin and start poking around to see if there's anything taped to the bottom. ]

[bathymetric]

[ It is indeed a some music from everyone's worlds situation! We got Enya, we got Wrenya! We got Cobra Starship, we got Crowbra starship! That's probably weird! ]

[magycks]

[ Time to key in like 700 songs from well-known Icelandic songbird Bjölk Gjóðursdóttir, a pun I absolutely didn't spend a full 10 minutes on Icelandic wikipedia for! Are any of these songs particularly notable beyond that? Any sea shanties up in here? ]

[bathymetric]

[ Your power knows no bounds.

Oh yeah, we got shanties! You wanna see the Wellerman? Well, you can listen to some men sing about how they want that Wellerman to get over there.

There's nothing particularly notable about the song selection, but there do appear to be a few entries in the song history before you spam them down too far with all that Bjölk. ]

[magycks]

[ Well gosh, doodle let her go check on those first then! ]

[bathymetric]

[ Looks like a couple sea shanties at first...

But then it turned into just solid Taylor Swift for a while there. ]

pub; cw: allusion to hallucinations

[scouserer]

[Constantine has long since entered the pub when Magica finally notices his presence. With one hand, he leans against the pool table, and in the other, he holds a drink.

He ignores the echoes of those whispering to him, for the most part. Constantine is no stranger to being haunted, and these voices are just another way of it manifesting. Magica's outburst is enough to make him arch an eyebrow, however, and he casts a sort of withering look towards the duck.]

Hmmm. Personally, the one on the left really speaks to me, you know? I think.... [He raps his fingers against the felt, pretending to look thoughtful for a moment.] ....I think it's the usage of the color red.

[Both pictures provide equal amounts of red, but...you know. His tone is light as he speaks, the trademark Constantine Smirk seemingly plastered to his face.]

You know, at least you're takin' out your aggression in debatably healthy ways.

[magycks]

Don't you at least me...!

[ Apparently the last bit was more offensive than anything else? Like always, the second her doing anything vaguely less than awful comes up, she goes on the defensive. Unlike always, a voice only Magica can hear echoes through the subsequent dead air, as calm and sardonic as her own voice was loud and unhinged. Her jaw clenches.

Then she sets down the other piece of paper, rips the left-hand Jack portrait in half, and starts shredding the two pieces into confetti. You know, to calm down! ]

Look, I don't care if talking down to me is your own little coping mechanism, I am not in the mood.

[scouserer]

Oh, I'm flattered you'd think that you'd be the subject of my coping mechanisms. But the truth is, I'm just a bastard through and through. Honestly, I thought you'd know this by now.

[His tone is calm and flat as he speaks. He stands up a little straighter, crossing his arms and tilting his head to the side.

You're a real cunt, John, you know that? I mean, I knew you were always a bastard, but do you truly not have anything better to do than try and provoke people to have an excuse to get mad?

No. No he does not. Really, at this stage, the voices are just pathetic.]

Are you good at darts, then?

okay now it's not only cw hallucinations but also ducktales spoilers

[magycks]

[ Unfortunately, having only felt guilt for one thing in her entire life, which she then immediately redirected onto someone else, Magica is uniquely ill-equipped to deal with getting negged by a twisted refraction of the one person she ever listened to to begin with. She tosses the remaining scraps of paper into the air before her and glares at them as they drift to the floor.

Well, he's got a point, sister dear.

Shut up, Poe. ]

Oh, sorry. Hate to make you think I was assigning you undue importance, I'm sure you'd be just as disparaging to the other green one. Why don't you stand still and find out?

[ You're just setting yourself up for failure when you miss, you know. You were always good at that without someone to rein you in. Funny, isn't it? You thought I was holding you back, and look at you now.

Shut up, Poe. ]

[scouserer]

[Constantine has no idea what Magica means when she says "the other green one", but he can probably wager a healthy guess. Still, curiosity killed the cat and all that, and that doesn't stop him from making the very stupid mistake of asking Magica--]

I'm sorry, you're tellin' me that there's more than one green duck obsessed with magic in your world? Are they just as dramatic as you are?

[This is probably incredibly, incredibly stupid of him to continue goading her like this.]

[magycks]

[ In a classic Magica move, an attempt to be spiteful (Constantine didn't like when she called Chloe the blue one; Flayn is the only other person with a heavily green color scheme left now that Reika's gone; maybe if she just refers to her euphemistically that'll piss him off) comes back to immediately kick her in the fluffy green ass! Her bill falls open as she stares at him. ]

Wait, how did you know that? Can you hear him too?

pub (cw: hallucination references)

[scythegun]

[Well, that sure is a greeting, hi Magica. But she moves on quickly enough and Yeager is totally fine rolling with the sudden topic change like that didn't just happen. It's Fine, we're all a little on edge right now.]

Hmm... A difficult question, both of them look like they'd make for excellent target practice! Have you already put some of these to use?

[Darts sound like an excellent idea right now, and destroying something that looks like "Jack" sounds even better.]

[magycks]

[ yeager you are so goddamn valid it hurts ]

Mm, it's been in more of a drafting stage up til now.

[ This is Magica's way of not admitting that, in a stunning display of self-awareness, she thinks that maybe she won't be able to hit him as dead-on as she wants on the first try and will immediately lapse into a temper tantrum that's embarrassing even by her standards.

... Also, she's kind of too short to pin it up without dragging a barstool across the entire room. There's also that. ]

But if you'd like to do the honors...?

[scythegun]

[Honestly, Magica, that's so fair. It'd feel like letting him win, right?? Unacceptable.]

Absolutely. I think I can at least manage to hit him in the eye!

[Darts aren't exactly his area of expertise or anything, but if you can throw a dagger you can throw a dart, probably.]

So which one shall we set up first?

[Which of your lovely pieces of dead Jack media shall have the honor of dying terribly first??]

[magycks]

Mm, tough question... this one.

[ During the course of the ellipses Magica surveys not just the two pictures she's holding, but the entire spread on the top of the bar (including the duck), before just going with the one she's got in her right hand. ]

Admittedly it's more Jack than the other one, but I think it captures that certain something that really made you want to grind his face into a pulp against his own tacky flooring.

[ He's absolutely doing the Dreamworks face. ]

Ooh, maybe we could tape ketchup packets behind vital points. You think Filbo would donate some to the cause?

[scythegun]

Oh, you really did capture it well!

[the dreamworks face is absolutely the perfect target!!]

That would be quite entertaining! I think he'd be more than willing as long as we're kind enough not to tell him just what it's for.

[Filbo would still agree but like, then Yeager would feel marginally bad about being terrible in Filbo's vicinity.]

[magycks]

Good call. You could definitely still get him to say yes, but you know he'll be all dithery about it.

[ So pretty much the thing he just thought, but worse! Please take Dreamworks Jack off her hands, Yeager, you beautiful not-3'9" bastard. ]

Well, maybe later. Personally, I want to see violence enacted on his crude facsimile now.

[guffawsungraciously]

Ah, forgive me. This does seem to be a poor choice of venues to be moving with catlike tread.

[...he doesn't sound particularly sorry, but. You know.

...he's going to bring a thoughtful hand up to his chin at the question, though, since he did wait for Magica to finish speaking before apologizing.]

In any case, I find them both quite suitable. Why not switch the picture out for each day of the week? I actually have come across a few items I would be willing to donate for later, though I wish to show them to the others at our usual Wednesday get-together first.

[magycks]

[ Something else to focus on? All is forgiven! Magica sets down the papers and props her chin (bill, it's just the underside of her bill, but if you asked her she would absolutely refer to it as a chin and plunge this game even deeper into hell) up under a fist, affecting a posture of intrigue. ]

Ooh, do tell. I take it his disgusting visage is involved.

[guffawsungraciously]

[Jasper smiles and produces some of Jack’s selfies.]

It certainly is. They are, perhaps, a bit smaller, but that ought to add to the challenge, should it not?

[magycks]

Ohhhh, [ and the word itself kind of devolves into malicious laughter, so it's really more like OHHHhohohohoho ] that is perfect. Almost makes you feel bad for Jones.

[ god he's really just that waddle guy, but somehow a hundred times worse?? ]

... Well, almost makes me feel bad for Jones. [ It's been established (in Magica's mind) that Jasper is a squid simp! ]

[guffawsungraciously]

Does it not, though. One of them seems to contain some important information, but the rest do not seem particularly relevant to anything.