Dillon Cole || Scorpion Shard

orderfromchaos @ 2016-03-23T01:38:00

2018-03-23T05:39:05Z

( Video 10 for the Spoiler Alert Flood )

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orderfromchaos @ 2015-06-01T19:48:00

2015-06-02T00:02:12Z

[Video, public]

The next time someone dies, please tell me. I can bring them back with less strain on the barge and the people channeling it.

[Private to Ceres]

Hey, um. A little while back, Iris asked if I could maybe talk to you about powers. I'm sorry I've been hiding, lately.

If it's cool, let me know when it's a good time for you?

[General open spam]

[Dillon is mostly holing up in the infirmary, especially with Morgana gone, but he can occasionally be found grabbing a quite bite to eat or watching the stars from the deck. At one point, he finds his way down to the geometree and nibbles a hostess cake in between half-heartedly humming the 'happy birthday' song.]

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32. recrudesce (backdated to late on Wednesday)

2015-04-18T03:52:52Z

[Public Video, planetside]

[Before the feed opens, something happens, a pressure in the air, like a slowly burgeoning thundercloud finally loosing rain. The weight of weariness and doom falls a little bit lighter; withered plants seem slightly less desolate. The effect is uneven and spread thin, the farther from him it goes, but palpable in some places nevertheless.

Dillon looks wrong, in a lot of small ways. His skin is a little mottled, raw in places and leathery in others, new-made and not always with enough moisture to reabsorb, cheeks a little hollower. He's holding himself differently, a raw, skewed raggedness, shoulders sloping, eyes dark and intense. His voice cracks when he talks, vocal cords as new as the rest of him.]

Someone tell me what the hell is going on.

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[Intervivium] [CW for gore, sort of?]

2015-04-10T03:19:39Z

[People visiting the chapel regularly - if they haven't made it a point to avoid the scorched stain commemorating the spot where Jean atomized Dillon Cole - may have noticed that mark doing some strange things. For a few days, instead of an amorphous dark blot, the mark in the wood has become a perfect crisp silhouette against the floor, with the profile of Dillon's face and the articulation of his hands and the crisp line of his jeans and the worn toe of his sneakers all distinct and visible, like the blast stain in an old Chuck Berry cartoon.

Today, the smell is different - not ash or old blood, but fresh. The floor and the back of the pew are faintly wet to the touch.

In the next few days, the pale grey shapes of a skeleton will be visible, like an anatomy lesson sketched in grey chalk, and then like a scatter of stubby broken-toothed limestone stalagmites, coagulating glacially, drop by drop.]

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31. reliquary

2015-03-28T18:04:33Z

[At some point, as the sha are being mopped up, Dillon drops out of contact. It might be reasonable to assume he's just busy. But after his confrontation with Jean, he is nowhere to be found. He doesn't show up at meals, or his infirmary shifts, or his usual haunts on deck or in the 8th floor common room. His door won't open, and he doesn't answer his communicator.

In the chapel - which looks a little different now, the wood of the doors lighter and thinner-grained, some of the pews distinctly smaller, with layers of thin wood dust and the faint smells of ash and ozone. Near the pew Dillon usually visits is a dark, amorphous stain, sunk into the floor and furniture. An antique olive-pit-and-silver rosary is broken somewhere nearby.

Beckett - Dillon's blobby, levitating, excitable lavender pet, and the barge's friendly neighborhood maybe baby eldritch jellyfish - has taken up something of a guard position around the mark, making occasional sad coos and trills. It will try to hug anyone he sees as a friend, but may be unexpectedly ferocious if anyone tries to remove it or disturb the spot.]

[OOC Note: I will play interactions with Beckett if you want, or characters can react among themselves. Dillon got blasted to particles by Jean as of the conclusion of this thread, but is not tolling on account of his powers slowly reconstructing him over the next couple of weeks.]

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30. deja vu

2015-03-24T00:08:53Z

[Dillon has too many eyes. A pair on his forehead, almond-shaped and dull, dead. Two pairs on his face below his own grey eyes in different shades of brown, one on his cheekbones and one in the hollows of his cheeks themselves, alive, darting, glaring, as if with minds of their own. In his neck, a pair of hazel-green eyes that would be terribly, alluring beautiful if they weren't clouded with death as well, and a final empty blue pair set wide above his collarbone.

The bedroom behind him is a wreck; not like he trashed it, like a bomb went off, everything in splinters and shreds and smithereens. He grits his teeth, but takes a slow breath. When he speaks, he puts a little raw power in his voice, the power of order that finds the tiny chinks in the universe and exploits them, that brings things into line, and the subtleties of it carry even through the comm. It doesn't force people to believe - but it does make his words harder to dismiss, hard to rationalize away.]

You think you're going crazy, but you're not. You think you're out of control, or out of strength, or you were worthless to begin with - but you're not.

There are parasites here, feeding on the worst thing you ever felt. And like all parasites, the more you feed them, the more they grow. Starve them, and they die.

Whatever you're feeling, fight it. The feeling is part of you, but the parasite is not. Control it, instead of letting it control you. You can win.

[A long beat, to let that resonate. He knows perfectly well that for some people on the barge, it's a lie, but the force of the statement might help some of the people for whom it is not. In his own voice, but hard and shuttered and sure,]

Anyone who has magic, anyone with psychic anything, talk to me, I can find the people who are infected and not making trouble yet. If you need help beating it, call me, I can help. I've faced something like this before. It's so hard to fight, but it's absolutely vital. I can see the places they've grown, and I'm not letting a single one of these assholes survive.

[Feel free to assume he has tracked your character down if you want spam. He is completely ready to take people's doors off their hinges if necessary to get to people with despair!shas who can't get up to open them, or are otherwise resisting, he is really serious about wiping these things out. Dillon can't actually extract the sha on his own, but he will at some point be teaming up with Dean and/or Jean and/or others if you would like, and he can help someone on the edge find the strength to reach an acceptance vanquishing. Let me know if you want a particular scenario/solution.]

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29. juxtaposition

2015-03-21T15:38:12Z

[Video]

[Grumpy Dillon is grumpy. His clothes from over a month ago are unwrinkled, and he has no bedhead, but he manages to look groggy anyway.]

So, while I was unconscious for a month, Hangover ate all my socks. Or sucked the reality out of them, or whatever he does.

[The camera swings around to see a bobbing lavender jellyfish like creature, wriggling self-consciously on a few sad strands of translucent yarn. Squiddle shaming!

Back to Dillon.]

So can I borrow some, maybe?

[Filtered to Tucky, Dillon, Bucky, Jean, Iris, Abigail, Horatio, Chris, Helena, Gene, Snafu, and Scott]

What's up with you guys? Are you okay? I feel more out of touch than I did breaking out of prison.

[Spam for Merlin]

[Once he's checked in with people, he goes searching for Merlin, ends up discovering him in the infirmary which is, frankly, perfect, since he's stuck on shift. Dillon grabs a wheelie chair and scoots next to him, forcing himself to tamp down his anger. Just from the set of his shoulders, it's clear the guy is kind of messed up.]

Hey. Can I talk to you for a minute?

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28. dirge days

2015-02-19T05:38:24Z

[Public video, from the crenellated shade of the Very Geometric Tree in the 8th floor common room, ever so slightly backdated to actually-during-the-day on the 18th]

Does anyone else want to do a thing for Ash Wednesday?

I mean, we don't have a proper priest to bless the ashes, but we could still do the mark for each other if Simon made some? Or maybe have a service or just a discussion. I see more people coming in and out of the chapel lately but we never act like a community. I don't think we need to be one denomination for some people want to care about faith together. You know?

Anyway, I've been fasting at least. But I still don't know what to-

[And then instead of figuring out what to give up for Lent, he slumps over in a coma.]

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27. the clear pebbles of the rain

2015-02-07T04:05:24Z

[He tried this a year ago, when he was new. He was unconscious when it happened last. Maybe no one heard him because he wasn't capable of saying what he needed to say.]

Winston, Lourdes, if you guys can hear this. I know you don't trust me, I know you don't even like me. But all the souls Okoya took, all the souls he fed you - they're okay. They're...wherever they're supposed to go.

And I love you.

I'll be home before you know it.

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26. like oil and water

2015-01-28T05:12:32Z

[Video]

[He's in the common room on the eighth floor, curled up against the trunk of the freakishly geometrical oak tree that was once a coffee table. He looks - tired. Not much more than that. He's got a mug of something. It is hot chocolate.]

You know, I've done a lot of worse things than dying. And I'm still here. We're all here, one way or another.

Cheers.

[He's seen a lot of secrets. Maybe he should care about other people seeing his, but he doesn't, really. He's done what he's done. Other people knowing isn't any worse than him knowing.]

[Open spam]

[Feel free to run into him in the common room, the infirmary, or on deck. He will be hanging out super casually, emitting a small radius of mild calm.]

[OOC: dreams in comments]

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25. the driver was left-handed

2015-01-13T02:14:46Z

( confidential to Bush and Cassel )

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24. the many tangled ones

2014-12-31T03:21:11Z

[Public, video]

[Dillon looks a bit - frazzled. Which is kind of impressive, for someone whose hair is always perfectly neat and whose shirts are constitutionally incapable of holding wrinkles. He has managed to put his on inside-out, though, and his shoulders are sagging, and he has a gelatinous pastel-purple thing with at least four tentacles clinging to the the side of his face. It has no apparent skull but bright white human-like buck teeth, and abyssal black eyes from which no light escapes at all.

It giggles. For a moment there's a flickering, like static - only it's not the comm that's affected. It's like the reality of Dillon's room went momentarily on the fritz. And then it's adorable again. Still.]

...does anybody know how to train a baby eldritch horror?

[He KNOWS one of you gave him this for Christmas. He. Knows. But that's not important right now.]

[Private to the Admiral]

By the way, can I add one more thing to my gift list? Since you've been delivering them kind of staggered.

For the new girl, Tiffany. I'd like to give her a copy of the gospels - just the gospels - with like, really nice leather binding and gilt edges and stuff. I don't think she's had a lot of well-made things. A translation she'd be comfortable with, one of the modern-but-poetic versions. Jerusalem Bible or New KJV, maybe? You decide.

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23. the creatures in tide pools

2014-12-13T05:24:40Z

[Open spam in the chapel, since the kid flood, whenever.]

[When he isn't on shift at the infirmary, or trailing after Abigail like a concerned ginger puppy, Dillon is spending a lot of time in the chapel. Just - sitting, in the very front pew or the very back, wishing for saints and stained glass and stone, for something gaudy and familiar, the smell of sand and wood polish. But the chapel resists his homesickness, neat white plaster, well kept, effusively inoffensive. He tries kneeling, a couple times. But it doesn't feel right, and neither does prayer. So he sits, quiet, eyes forward on the Unitarian nondenominational emptiness, for an hour or two, watches the shadows from the little candles, tries to think about his mistakes, about his options, about nothing at all.]

[Private to Arthas]

I want to see you. Anywhere you'd rather meet?

[Spam for Jerry, backdated to after Allison's post, early the next morning on the tenth.]

[He's just sitting in the hallway, across from Jerry's door. He's not impatient. He's not even angry, really, just calm and steady. He was sloppy, he was absorbed with his own messes. But he made a promise. Allison's rambling plea for understanding as revenge didn't change that. Jerry made his choice, and now he has to face the consequences.]

[Private to Arkin, backdated to after the above]

I've turned Jerry human. I promised him he would, if he hurt anyone else outside self-defense, before you were assigned to him.

[Filtered to Abigail, Scott, Chris, Bucky, Gene, Helena, and Iris, backdated to after the above]

I turned Jerry human, and now he's threatening to leave my friends' corpses at my door like the worst cat in the world.

[He doesn't sound scared. He doesn't even sound mad. He is irritated, and a little disgusted. It was one thing with Okoya and Carter - there were actual stakes there. This is just Jerry being petulant.]

All of you could probably take him in a fair fight, but he's sneaky and mean, so keep an eye out, and kick him in the balls for me if he tries anything.

( Gift List )

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22. itty bitty christmas

2014-12-06T22:39:23Z

[Day one, text + voice]

9 1 1

Hello? Someone took my parents. And my house.

[Day two, spam]

[Did six-year-old Dillon find tiny old roller skates in the back of his closet? Yes he did. He is now about to crash into you, probably.]

[Day three, video]

[A tiny redhead is absolutely swimming in a vaguely blasphemous christmas sweater. He's in the chapel, and he sings Away in a Manger in a clear, lovely soprano. He bites his lip for a moment afterward.]

Are we going to have a tree? Will someone else come light candles? I'm not supposed to play with fire.

[Day three, spam]

[Find Dillon with excessive candy canes hooked into the collar of his oversized sweater, trailing tinsel, attempting to stack a chair on top of a ladder so that he can hang up mistletoe and wreaths almost as big as he is.]

[OOC: replies will come from inateacup]

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21. loose ends

2014-11-14T04:16:48Z

[Spam for anyone who would visit Abigail or Derek's rooms]

[He spends most of his time, outside infirmary shifts, shuttling back and forth between the two, with his comm and a few snacks and a big sketchbook. He sits at their respective besides for a few hours each, filling pages and pages, sometimes with surreal, twisted dreamscapes, sometimes with sketches from memory.]

[Private to Scott]

I think it's time I learned about Playstation.

[Spam for Bucky]

( Warnings for torture, cannibalism, and general hannibal )

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20. all things great and small

2014-11-05T22:05:40Z

[Public]

[He's seated in a hallway, with a flashlight. Hard to tell more than that.]

If you've got something that runs on batteries, I can replenish them. Restoring candles is trickier because the wick dissipates, but I can probably extend the lifespan on those, too. If you've got anything that's going bad without power, I can reverse it.

I'm at the end of the hall on the eighth floor if you want to bring stuff by, but if you need me to find you, I'll do that too.

[Spam]

[And sure enough, he's sitting where the door to the engine room used to be, eyes closed until he hears footsteps, most of his concentration focused on feeding restorative energy into the missing space, into whatever it is the barge needs to power itself and move.]

[Private to Elsa]

I've asked the admiral to restore your powers when he's around again. You needed them and you should have had them, and - you're ready. I think you're ready.

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19. the luminous pink jello affair

2014-10-24T02:33:28Z

[Spam for Steve + eventual takedown team + open]

[It's harder to catch people alone. You can't just lurk in a hallway or a stairwell without a maintenance crew noticing you. He can only extract one person from their bodies at a time, and although the obvious target would be the warden watching each group, there's no guarantee that any given batch of inmates would be 100% sympathetic and fail to take advantage of his diverted attention. People aren't nearly as afraid, so there's usually at least a few people loitering on deck. Places like the greenhouse and the art room are watched.

He waits in the laundry room. Sits on top of the dryer, in which his clothes are actually taking a second unnecessary spin, idly tossing a baseball up and down, like he doesn't have anything better to do but wait. He doesn't, of course, not really. He's just waiting for the right target.]

[OOC: this is the takedown/catch-all post for THIS plot, in which Dillon is eating some souls. If you are interested in joining in for some last minute spiritual trauma, feel free to tag in and get attacked prior to Dillon getting caught. Initial takedown is going to be Bianca and Blight and possibly Arthas, and others might be pulled in as things progress.]

[Private to Gretel, backdated to late Wednesday]

Hey, you have time for another game?

[He's bored, okay. Very bored. And he has a cheeky smile.]

[Spam for Bush, backdated to Monday]

[When he's done with his infirmary shift and his construction shift, he comes to Bush's cabin, a few paint drips (six identical drips, equidistant from a centerpoint on his shoulder) still on his inside-out shirt. He knocks, tries to strain the hunger in his head into something like nervousness.]

Captain? Can I, uh, talk to you?

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18. poison in a bottle

2014-10-19T02:51:32Z

[Public]

[A little contemptuous, mostly casual.]

While we're not all being helpful little worker bees, pool table's still free. Anyone up for a game?

[Neither Dillon has been able to play in years - once his aura got too strong, every shot rebounded into perfect endgames. It's a good way to gauge just how effective the admiral's control is. And how much people here know about him, about what he can do.]

[Work crew spam - assign yourself to his team if you want, or just swing by and taunt/gossip with him, whatever it's all good]

[Dillon is as good as Bush's word. He keeps his arrogance and his bitterness more or less under control, and the actual tasks of construction are soothing. After his time rebuilding the war torn swathe he cut through the Northwest under his parasite's influence, he knows his way around pretty much every aspect of the job.]

[creep spam]

[The rest of the time, he watches people. On the deck, in the common rooms, in the cafeteria. He sits somewhere just a little out of the way, occasionally with a sketchpad, and just watches everyone come and go, expression smooth and shuttered. The only time he really looks natural is when he's in the eighth floor common room, curled up against the trunk of the fractal tree. It feels like him. Like his power, like being properly alive, and he can't quite stay away.]

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16. i can feel this body dying all around me

2014-10-03T08:06:44Z

[Spam for Bush, backdated slightly]

[He doesn't really move for the first three days. He feels blind, dead, wooden, crushed impossibly thin, like a person rendered in two dimensions instead of three. The whole word is empty, arbitrary, veiled. He doesn't want to deal with it. He is above dealing with it. It will end. These things do, veterans have told him. A few days, five at most.

But he still has a human body, one he is being forced to inhabit more strictly than he has in two years. And eventually, as he acclimates, hunger wins out over horror and rage and pride. He stumbles out into the hallway, staggers along, dizzy and weak.]

[Public video]

[It's mirror Dillon. It's unmistakable; he's a little younger, unscarred, his hair messy in a way that's literally impossible when his powers are working. He's curled up in the shadow of a perfectly geometrically symmetrical, fractal tree growing out of the remains of an oak coffee table in the eighth floor common room, back against it's perfectly cylindrical trunk, ridges in the bark as even as links of chain mail. It feels familiar, real. A lost piece of himself, alive. He looks down for a moment, frowning, then stares back up, defiant, trouble.]

I've done some really messed-up things. But so has he. I'm pretty sure we both got trapped into some awful situations.

If any of you talked to that other Dillon - I think. Things went wrong for us in a lot of the same ways. But some different ones too. I want to talk to you about it, if you'll let me. The more I know what's possible, the better odds I have of fixing things when I get back to my world.

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14. the dam breaks

2014-09-26T17:53:13Z

[Open spam]

[Like Arthas, the barge's limits on him cut out the moment they enter the arena. Unlike Arthas, he's had a lot less practice handling his power at this level. He feels cracked open, feels every leaf and bramble and rock like ants crawling through his insides, placement and pattern and chaos. He can feel a lightning-blasted tree a wuarter mile away turning from dry wood to green, hollow and weeping sap where it was cloven in two. It's too many random wild things leeching at him, gravel turning to grids, fallen leaves turning crisp and new on the ground. It's too much information, raw and strange, the twisted false ecology of a forest that isn't really a forest, just scenery for a deliberately inefficient killing ground. The wall is like a migraine on all sides, blank and blaring, unreadable, an edifice of white noise.

Dillon whimpers and curls into a ball, eyes screwed shut, hands over his ears, tries to think about his own breathing, and not rabbits in their warrens, not the footfalls of hunters and hunted, not the static-y wrongness of it all.

Around him, things thrive, feel refreshed and strong. Wounds start to close on anyone who limps into his proximity. A faint sense of serenity presses on anyone who comes near, a sense of rightness in the workings of the universe, a purposeful rhythm.]

[Public video]

[When he's gasped and shuddered and finally managed to pull himself together a little - he still feels overwhelmed and profoundly uncomfortable, but he can breathe, hold the crushing awareness back just a little - he turns on his comm, not bothering to hide the scars his mirror counterpart never acquired. His hair is neat as ever despite a few hours twitching on the forest floor, but his eyes are shadowed and strained and symmetrical dirt smudges mark his cheeks.]

Elsa? Abigail? Helena? Are you guys alright?

Is everyone - if you're hurt I'll try to find you.

[OOC: So Dillon looks stupid vulnerable but he definitely isn't - he probably won't kill people who attack him though, because he doesn't want to be around corpses right now. Uh. Yeah. I'd love him to get attacked by a couple different mirror maruaders and fend them off, and I'm totally cool with wibbly time or spam set later in the week when he's on his feet OR curled up against a tree again. Also totally up for scared people gravitating to his aura, which is basically the size the plot requires, but somewhat larger than sight-range, probably. He is also available for reviving people you don't want to have to death toll.]

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13. Lucky penny

2014-09-03T15:34:28Z

( Narration + confidential to Ela, Helena, Abigail, Vin, Iris, Jean, Bucky, and Derek )

[Public video]

How many of you saw parts of your future back during that flood where all our timelines got mixed up? Or any other time, for that matter?

I mean. What are we supposed to do with that? Knowing it's coming, but not when or why or how exactly. Should we do anything?

[A frown, a glance away, not biting his lip but kind of wanting to.]

Do you believe in fate, I guess, is my question. And what does it mean if you do.

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12. Mea...culpa?

2014-08-03T03:22:53Z

[Public, video]

[They're the kitchen of Dillon's parents' house: relentlessly suburban, a few southwestern touches, from the touristy Navajo-ish vase on the table to the sepia color palette, well-coordinated. There are floral magnets on the fridge, and one Hannibal Lecter humming as he makes what appears to be gourmet tomato soup and fresh-baked bread. He's wearing an open lab coat over his suit that he grabbed while attempting to join an infirmary shift, right before Dillon hurriedly hustled him out.]

I kind of...fixed him.

[Not like you fix a car; Hannibal wasn't broken, he was himself. Like you fix a dog.]

I thought it would wear off but it hasn't, and his room is the same so it doesn't count for graduation but I don't. Actually know how to undo it.

He's not faking, either.

[Voice pitched more deliberately across the room, though he hasn't been been whispering or anything; Hannibal could have heard him before if he was listening.

Hey, Hannibal, say sorry to the nice people.

[Hannibal pauses, sets down the wooden spoon and turns to the comm, contrite, shifting, a little uncertain.]

I'm terribly sorry for what I've done. It seems almost unreal, but I do not mean to belittle anyone's suffering. I apologize.

[Dillon waves him back to the soup.]

[Private to Jean]

I'm pretty sure what you do is more. Versatile, than mine. I know it's a lot to ask, but could you check and see if you can reverse it?

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11. PSA + open spam

2014-07-27T22:29:23Z

[Public]

If you're hurt, call me, especially if you're stuck somewhere. I can get around okay and I have healing abilities.

[Private to Elsa]

Where are you? Are you alright?

[Spam, open]

[On the midway, Dillon is cheating. He spins the wheel and hits the jackpot every time. He is fairly well covered in confetti. He has a couple vials of what are, according to their garish font labels, antidotes for regrettably unspecified toxins, three small EMP-grenades, one very large stuffed unicorn that is neither a robot nor attacking, tall hot-pink galoshes that he will absolutely wear in the flooded areas, and an endless spring bazooka painted like an anaconda that he has, wisely, not yet opened.

At other times, Dillon can be found literally anywhere else on the barge, working his way through the levels, search for anyone in need of help. His presence has some downsides - damaged nanocreatures repair themselves much faster as he passes by - but he does what he can to help.]

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10. messages + open spam

2014-07-17T17:52:53Z

[Private to Elsa]

How do you feel about working on your powers wth Rogue?

[Spam for Helena]

[He talks to Cosima first, waits a day or two before turning up. It's unfair, maybe, using his presence - but his mirror self did it, and he wants the chance for his words to have at least as much weight now.]

Hey. Bucky said it was okay with him for me to visit. Is it okay with you?

[Open spam]

[Sometimes, Dillon just lies on his back on the deck, staring up for a few hours at a time, trying to understand the things his powers are trying to tell him about the stars, about whatever strange ether they're passing. If he understood it, really got what it was and how it worked, he's pretty sure he'd be able to get to the place between, with the red sands and strange ruins and Deanna's body. If he could just - reach.]

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9. humiliation spam + messages

2014-07-10T02:14:21Z

[Public, spam]

[Thanks to the Admiral's generosity, Dillon is definitely nabbing the A-cup Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bra currently hung on deck, labeled with his name, just as soon as he gets off his infirmary shift. The whole thing looks like the mask - blue - with the green around the edges and the nose between the cups, and eyes where his nips should be. Why god.]

[Private to Abigail, video]

Help me.

[Private to ~~Elsa~~ Kai, Text]

so uh this is your warden how are you today

[Kai probably remembers him as a perky girl named Leslie. Oy.]

[OOC: replies will come from tactmaster]

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