Duplicity Inbox

[bestofall]

You have reached Festival, king of entertainers and entertainer of kings. I'm fairly certain this device will allow you to leave a message. Best of luck with that.


Art by switalia

Comments

[compellingstatement]

The first time, I think they were both just desperate for a contract.
I have no idea why they contracted a second time.
Unless they're both secretly masochists.

[He does have a harder time arguing about Elias. Of course, he does.]

Tim and Elias are nothing alike.
Tim's little brother was murdered by monstrous creatures that wear the faces and voices of their victims to taunt people.
You took a sharp stick, salted it, and stabbed it directly into an open wound.
Don't make this about someone else.

But since you asked, yes.
I would have told you that wouldn't work.
And we would need to find a better way.

[bestofall]

[It's Festival's turn to delay, the little "..." indicating that he's typing flashing on and off the screen several times.]

I didn't do it to taunt him. Ideally he would have never seen me or known of it.

[compellingstatement]

Whether or not you intended it, that's what happened.
I'm not defending how he treats Charlotte.
Or you.
Or anyone else who isn't human.
That's inexcusable.
The way you went about helping Charlotte hurt him in a way very few people could have done.
And it's just going to make him dig deeper into his own trench.
There's someone here now he trusts, a friend from back home.
I'm going to ask her to help with him.
In the meanwhile, Charlotte just needs to hold out until the end of her contract with support from friends like you and not renew this time.

[bestofall]

[Wait.]

THAT'S why he was an ass to me when we first met?

[Festival, you lead by practically deafening the man for the crime of not wanting to make small talk.]

Is that really what all this comes from? He's racist?? I mean I knew he was racist but that's really what's happening with Charlotte too?

[Aaand missed the mark.]

cw: mention of parasites/burrowing insects, body horror

[compellingstatement]

[Missing the point by a mile. For god's sake, Festival.]

Literally everything that isn't human in our world wants to maim, torture, or kill humans.
Or worse.
Their source of power is abject terror.
They are designed to inflict it, feed on it, and relish it.
He has been personally victimized by multiple inhuman creatures in our world.
The Stranger's Circus of the Other and the Not-Them.
The Corruption's Hive.
The pockmark scars all over his body are from sentient evil worms attempting to burrow into his body and turn him into a flesh puppet to spread their disease onward.

He's barely had six months out from being attacked by the Hive.
He had absolutely no social support network after that attack.
Or after what happened to his brother.
Because no one would have believed him.
People don't believe in the real monsters where I'm from because most people will never encounter them.
We have.
We're working against every instinct that says anything that isn't human is going to hurt us.
I'm managing it better than he is, obviously.
And it's not an excuse.
But it's more complicated than 'he's just racist.'

[bestofall]

I'm not

[Well, that's all completely horrifying. The "..." appears again briefly, then disappears for several minutes as Festival has a brief internal crisis in trying to reconcile this information into his world view.]

What is a person, what is a creature, what is a monster, what is a god is not a black and white question in my world, but by any common measure I am well within the category of mortal man. Not a monster, not a creature.

I am not accustomed to seeing myself as anything else, nor others doing so. There are monsters in my world that would do such things, but


Do you struggle not to see me that way as well

[compellingstatement]

[Jon groans to himself and rubs his hands over his face a few times.]

It's not so black and white for me anymore as it is for him.
When I first saw you, I was afraid of you a bit.
But you've only been annoying, not evil.

Are you afraid of me?
I'm a monster from my world.
I've just told you what we're like.
I feed on terror.
That's what my archives are, all the people who suffer and fear.
Lunch.

[bestofall]

Praise of the highest order, thank you.

You said you intended to combat such forces. That's the purpose you claimed for the foundation and you've already paid me to destroy one source of fear and suffering. If that was a lie, it is a long-maintained and expensive one.

[compellingstatement]

[... He has a point.]

It's complicated.
I still have some measure of my humanity intact.
If I decide to let that go, I'll care significantly less.

[And it does seem to be a choice. Helen had made that abundantly clear in her taunting.]

Or when.
I suppose it's mostly a matter of time, depending on how long I exist.

On a less utterly depressing note, I do have another job for you, if you're looking for money.
It's to do with spiders, as a warning.

[bestofall]

You choose humanity, so I will treat you like a human. If the time ever comes that you choose to be a monster, I will take a different approach.

[He's getting out of having to actually answer the question and he's going to get a gig without having to explain why he needs money? Excellent!]

If this is in regards to the man who looks like an unusually shiny drider, I must inform you that he is not actually a drider. We had drinks. Regarding any other spiders, however, I am all ears.

cw: spiders, body horror, manipulation, hallucination

[compellingstatement]

[Jon sighs to himself and he's about to respond with something vague about Festival not being here very long when the next message comes in.]

He's still here?!

[It is still here? Christ! No. No! Calm down.]

It's not about him.
Don't bring him around me.
I don't like spiders.
However 'friendly' they pretend to be.

[Tim's not the only one with a few problems regarding non-human creatures. Jon's just less overtly violent.]

There's a woman in the Down selling 'spider silk' shawls at a small cart that runs around one of the parks.

[He sends along a set of cross streets for said park.]

Nancy Cirrus provided a Statement about her purchase.
Shortly after purchasing the shawl, she began to have dreams about spiders crawling all over her, slowly covering her in silk and using that to puppet her movements.
She wrote it off as bad dreams, but has recently begun to have vivid day dreams about the same and finds herself just suddenly doing things she wasn't even aware she wanted to do.
She left the shawl for us, and I've burned it, but I want you to check on the others and find out what's really going on.
It's mild at the moment, but if this woman is spreading shawls all over the place, it could be dangerous for people even more susceptible if they are being supernaturally manipulated.

cw: spiders, body horror, manipulation, hallucination

[bestofall]

[...Riiiiight. That's...quite the response. Sounds like Festival isn't the only one who's been terribly rude to Elcin.

But he'll let it go because there's work to discuss. Jon always does find the most awful things for him to fix.]

Questions:

It sounds as though she was able to remove the shawl without magical intervention. Is that correct?

Did anything unexpected happen when you burned it?

Has anyone spoken with her in the time since?

Have any other customers come forward, or is the first order of business to identify them as well as the seller?

cw: spiders, body horror, manipulation, hallucination

[compellingstatement]

Answers:

So it would seem.

Spiders didn't fall out of it, if that's what you're asking, no.
Nothing happened as far as I can tell.
I burned it outside in a bin, though, rather than inside anywhere.

I haven't spoken with her, no.

She's the only Statement I have about this particular situation.

text; un: carminecorvid

[chrisisofaith]

That fucker who threatened you on that dom finder, that the same person as one Tim Stoker?

text | un: a.fool

[bestofall]

That petty creature? That craven man frightened of any and all he doesn't understand?

Yes, that is one Tim Stoker.

[chrisisofaith]

What'd he do to have you on his case and him growling like a dog?

[bestofall]

[A brief delay, and then:]

You recall the small matter of the $2,000 fine?

I borrowed his face in order to free his 'partner' from their contract. It did not go according to plan.

[chrisisofaith]

Ah

He took offense.

Free them? So not a good time between them, then?

[bestofall]

As did the city, but Mr. Stoker has particular reason to be afraid of shape changers, which he now believes me to be. He's from Jon's world and all of them are terrified of anything remotely magical or inhuman, of course, but it's worse than the usual for him. His brother was killed by something that took his place and he believes me to be the same sort of creature and will not be told otherwise.

I

The apology I gave him was sincere. I did not intend to be needlessly cruel, yet I was.

But yes, he's a tyrant. She isn't allowed to spend more than ten dollars.

[chrisisofaith]

Cruelty done to you does not justify cruelty done to another. His past explains his present, it doesn't excuse it.

So, he's choosing to act the monster while fearing 'monstrous' things? Treating his submissive like property, calling SIN guards down on a submissive for talking to him harsh, threatening someone who ought be at his level at least per the city's rules he seems to favor?

Tyrant indeed.

I see.

[bestofall]

He called down the guards on someone with a line? Who? Why?

He's no fighter, so it shouldn't surprise me that he's using the city to fight his battles for him. He came after me with a knife and it was honestly just pitiable.

[chrisisofaith]

Wait he came at you with a knife? When??

Friend of mine. Jacob Frye. He threatened him for something and Stoker called the SIN guards. Heard it off a contact not long ago.

[bestofall]

When he saw me with his face on. I'm less surprised in hindsight than I was at the time. Really, though, he had no idea what to do with the thing. You needn't worry.

Let me guess: Jacob Frye isn't human.

[chrisisofaith]

Okay, I'll grant him that one. Can't say I'd react better.

Now isn't that just the thing? Human as I am. No magic. Nothing.

[bestofall]

So it extends to people he simply doesn't like.