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capeandcowllogs2011-05-29 04:21 pm
notagamblingman.livejournal.com) wrote in capeandcowllogs2011-05-29 04:21 pm
[Open] We don't miss a single step,
WHO: DOC SCRATCH AND YOU
WHERE: CENTRAL PARK, at the Chess House
WHEN: SUNDAY
WARNINGS: see permissions post for omniscient asshole
SUMMARY: Scratch is disconcerted and disoriented by only knowing MOST things. He slowly comes to terms with this and ponders his next step.
FORMAT: whatever you want; first post is TL;DR but I welcome action tags
Notes: Teal cannot play chess and sucks at it, so if your character actually wants to play chess it'll have to be handwaved.
He stumbled through the streets of the city, trying to gain some sort of composure, some kind of balance. Some anchor. The darkness sloshed about in his head, and the pockets of unknowning shifted like stormclouds, shafts of light piercing the gloom with almost painful clarity.
He already knows where he is, why he is here, and how he has arrived. He does not know who built her or for what reason she was originally created (he can make any number of guesses, though). He knows that he is mostly human now, that his skull is full of actual fluid but through a complex process he is still able to cognate, and yet that this advanced fluid dynamic computing does not allow him the degree of control over his omniscience that it did previously. Trying to focus on too many points of knowing at once is painful, and that, in turn, is distressing.
The hot dog he purchases and then consumes holds no pleasure for him. While he has never eaten food before, his knowledge allowed him to understand exactly what it was like, down to the smallest detail; nothing was a surprise. At the same time, it allows him to know with certainty that this is the one vendor in the area who cleans his tongs properly and that he likes his hot dogs with horseradish and relish but not with hot peppers.
Too much data, for once. That part isn't important. He's processing the influx of knowing in entirely new ways, and like most novel experiences it isn't exciting but rather troubling. He needed some way to slow down, to process this, to gain some sure footing in the new uses of these abilities.
He tossed the wrapper in the rubbish bin and squinted up at the tall buildings. He knows where Central Park is from here and he knows that there are public tables where he may play chess. He chooses to walk, though he could teleport it seems more right to take a walk. It doesn't take him long, and he finds (to his surprise) that there really is a difference between intrinsic knowing and the immediate experience of having photons interpreted by receptors in one's eyes.
He brought his own chess pieces; or rather, he reached subtly into space and borrowed a few fine hand-carved chess pieces from the dusty collection of a retired gentleman in Canada; he'll return them when he's done. He then slid into a seat, set up the pieces, and waited, also pulling a copy of If on a winter's night a traveler from the New York Public Library (again, he'll return it when he's done) to stare at. He had no need to read, of course, he already knew the book from start to finish, but, well. Little things. And the gesture was necessary. Eventually, a scruffy red-headed young man stood awkwardly for a few moments before he said, “If you wish to play, then play. Otherwise, please do refrain from standing there boggling vacantly. There are hardly even shenanigans to boggle at.”
The young man continued to boggle vacantly, at which Scratch raised an eyebrow. “Sit.”
He did so, and the game began. The first game he focused only on the moves themselves, which ones the young man would make in advance. The young man tried to make small talk, but Scratch answered only with noncommital sounds. The first three games were flawless victories.
But then he began to change it up slightly. Rather than focusing on the moves, he focused on the boy. Divorced parents; lived through the Godzilla incident, disconcerted by Imports but goes to Import rights meetings anyway as it makes him more attractive to that one girl in the club, or so he thinks, really she's not interested in him at all. Secretly masturbates to furry porn every night.
From there, he discerned the moves the young man would make. A little slower. A little harder. But much more instructive.
“You're going to leave soon,” he said, finally. The young man looked up at him, puzzled.
“You're going to get a phone call in a few seconds. Your mother's had an accident.”
As he finished saying the word, the young man's phone rang, and he went white as a sheet. Scratch watched him go. And then, the curious thing – he couldn't tell if he'd get any more challengers today, or who they would be. It was a blank slate, a mystery.
Then simply do not worry about it. This is less chess and more backgammon. Learn to improvise.
WHERE: CENTRAL PARK, at the Chess House
WHEN: SUNDAY
WARNINGS: see permissions post for omniscient asshole
SUMMARY: Scratch is disconcerted and disoriented by only knowing MOST things. He slowly comes to terms with this and ponders his next step.
FORMAT: whatever you want; first post is TL;DR but I welcome action tags
Notes: Teal cannot play chess and sucks at it, so if your character actually wants to play chess it'll have to be handwaved.
He stumbled through the streets of the city, trying to gain some sort of composure, some kind of balance. Some anchor. The darkness sloshed about in his head, and the pockets of unknowning shifted like stormclouds, shafts of light piercing the gloom with almost painful clarity.
He already knows where he is, why he is here, and how he has arrived. He does not know who built her or for what reason she was originally created (he can make any number of guesses, though). He knows that he is mostly human now, that his skull is full of actual fluid but through a complex process he is still able to cognate, and yet that this advanced fluid dynamic computing does not allow him the degree of control over his omniscience that it did previously. Trying to focus on too many points of knowing at once is painful, and that, in turn, is distressing.
The hot dog he purchases and then consumes holds no pleasure for him. While he has never eaten food before, his knowledge allowed him to understand exactly what it was like, down to the smallest detail; nothing was a surprise. At the same time, it allows him to know with certainty that this is the one vendor in the area who cleans his tongs properly and that he likes his hot dogs with horseradish and relish but not with hot peppers.
Too much data, for once. That part isn't important. He's processing the influx of knowing in entirely new ways, and like most novel experiences it isn't exciting but rather troubling. He needed some way to slow down, to process this, to gain some sure footing in the new uses of these abilities.
He tossed the wrapper in the rubbish bin and squinted up at the tall buildings. He knows where Central Park is from here and he knows that there are public tables where he may play chess. He chooses to walk, though he could teleport it seems more right to take a walk. It doesn't take him long, and he finds (to his surprise) that there really is a difference between intrinsic knowing and the immediate experience of having photons interpreted by receptors in one's eyes.
He brought his own chess pieces; or rather, he reached subtly into space and borrowed a few fine hand-carved chess pieces from the dusty collection of a retired gentleman in Canada; he'll return them when he's done. He then slid into a seat, set up the pieces, and waited, also pulling a copy of If on a winter's night a traveler from the New York Public Library (again, he'll return it when he's done) to stare at. He had no need to read, of course, he already knew the book from start to finish, but, well. Little things. And the gesture was necessary. Eventually, a scruffy red-headed young man stood awkwardly for a few moments before he said, “If you wish to play, then play. Otherwise, please do refrain from standing there boggling vacantly. There are hardly even shenanigans to boggle at.”
The young man continued to boggle vacantly, at which Scratch raised an eyebrow. “Sit.”
He did so, and the game began. The first game he focused only on the moves themselves, which ones the young man would make in advance. The young man tried to make small talk, but Scratch answered only with noncommital sounds. The first three games were flawless victories.
But then he began to change it up slightly. Rather than focusing on the moves, he focused on the boy. Divorced parents; lived through the Godzilla incident, disconcerted by Imports but goes to Import rights meetings anyway as it makes him more attractive to that one girl in the club, or so he thinks, really she's not interested in him at all. Secretly masturbates to furry porn every night.
From there, he discerned the moves the young man would make. A little slower. A little harder. But much more instructive.
“You're going to leave soon,” he said, finally. The young man looked up at him, puzzled.
“You're going to get a phone call in a few seconds. Your mother's had an accident.”
As he finished saying the word, the young man's phone rang, and he went white as a sheet. Scratch watched him go. And then, the curious thing – he couldn't tell if he'd get any more challengers today, or who they would be. It was a blank slate, a mystery.
Then simply do not worry about it. This is less chess and more backgammon. Learn to improvise.
no subject
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no subject
He looked down at the board, fragments of a nightmare he used to have far too often briefly haunting him. The board for the Egypt game, that sickening familiar laugh declaring the ultimate Dark Game....
He shook his head slightly to push the memory away.
"One of those that has real consequences?" he asked, interest visibly faded. He'd had enough of that sort of game to last a lifetime.
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"But of course, the rewards for those who win are equal to or exceeding what's lost in the playing. Depending on your point of view and how well you succeed at it, of course."
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"Inescapable?" Though, considering every Dark Game he was aware of had been a trap of some sort...
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"If you choose to play the game," he said, capturing one of Bakura's pieces and twirling it in his fingers. "It propagates throughout the timestream, ensuring that you will have always been meant to play it. The outcome is predetermined. Which isn't to say that your choices don't matter - they do. But thinking from a fourth dimensional perspective with the limitations of human intelligence, it can seem that way."
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"But the future can always be changed, can't it?" Or was that just because of the Items... His friends had more focused on the dramatic reversal when talking about Kaiba's duel against Isis than anything else... aaaa, he really wished he could have been able to watch that!
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"Check, by the way."
no subject