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ckret2 · 1 year ago

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Chapter 22 of human Bill's still putting up with being the Mystery Shack's prisoner (title tbd), featuring: Dipper's having nightmares about his spirit floating out of his body, just like the Bipper incident. (He's very sure they're only nightmares.) And Bill, kind and generous muse that he is, would love to help, and definitely isn't offering for secret evil reasons. After all, how could a dream demon benefit from telling his enemies how to control their dreams?

Even though Dipper already knew, intellectually, that dreaming about Bill didn't mean Bill was in his dreams, getting immediate physical proof was a relief. Any time he had another nightmare, all he had to do was get out of bed, go find Bill—sleeping, drinking, reading, meditating, watching TV, staring out a window—and see for himself that there was no way Bill could have been in his head.

So tonight, when he "woke" into another Bipper nightmare, his first instinct was to go gripe at Bill about it.

He'd floated through the bedroom door and hovered halfway down the stairs before he remembered that since he was currently having the Bipper Nightmare, dreaming that he was floating ghostlike outside his body, it meant he wasn't actually awake and he couldn't gripe at the real Bill; but then he decided maybe he'd feel better if he ranted at dream Bill anyway.

The TV glowed from the living room. At this time of night, it could be Abuelita or Bill. Dipper's spectral socked feet settled on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward the sofa—and froze.

Sitting on the sofa, legs curled feet-on-thighs in lotus position, was Bill—and he was surrounded by a brilliant light, yellow-golden against the dream fog gray. Like the halo of sunlight around an eclipse, or like a radioactive mass close enough to melt your eyes, or like an explosion rushing closer. The light danced around Bill like solar flares. Dipper had to squint his eyes against the light.

"Whoa," Dipper said.

The light dimmed to a faint yellow aura as Bill turned toward him. Dipper nearly jumped out of his skin, except that he was already out of his skin. Bill said, "'Whoa' what?"

No one ever saw Dipper during his Bipper nightmares. (But then, he supposed, it made sense if he dreamed that Bill could see him, didn't it? Since he'd been the only one able to see Dipper after he stole his body.) Dipper gestured vaguely at Bill. "You're, uh. Glowing."

"Aw, flattering." Bill laughed. "You look like a zombie trying to figure out if he wants to return to the land of the living. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Ha ha," Dipper said flatly.

"What, another nightmare? Are you here to tell me how your subconscious is my responsibility again?"

"Shut up." Imaginary dream Bill was just as annoying as the real one; but Dipper decided he'd feel pretty dumb for yelling at "Bill" for invading Dipper's dream while Dipper was still dreaming. (Maybe Dipper's subconscious mind was using the form of a snarky Bill to tell Dipper that he needed to seize control of his dreams rather than blame somebody else for them? That Bill might have caused Dipper's recurring nightmares, but only Dipper could do the work to end them? Huh. He'd look into that when he woke up.)

His gaze drifted to the television, which was displaying a man hunched over a bizarrely-angled desk in a black-and-white movie. (He could somehow tell it was black and white, even though colors were already muted and grayish during his Bipper nightmares.) It was like seeing a dream within a dream. "What are you watching?"

"The Counterfeit of Dr. Calligraphy," Bill said. "A hypnotist sends letters to a sleepwalker that have subliminal messages concealed in the handwriting. He brainwashes the sleepwalker into making fake money in his sleep. It's a comedy."

It didn't look very comedic. Dipper wondered how he'd dreamed this plot up. Anxiety about waking up from one dream into another dream, combined with memories of counterfeiting money last summer?

He leaned against the doorframe and watched the movie long enough to confirm it was not, in fact, a comedy, but rather some kind of gloomy noir-ish silent film; then sighed in boredom. His subconscious couldn't even imagine up a fun movie. "I'm going back to my body," he muttered, pushing off the ground and hovering back up the stairs.

Bill, eyes half-lidded, didn't look up from the screen as he sleepily muttered, "Mmkay."

It took a long moment before he said, "You're going to your what?" He leaned out of the living room and looked up the stairs; but Dipper was long gone.

Maybe he'd misheard "bed." He settled back in front of the TV; but he wasn't paying attention to the movie now.

####

"You look exhausted," Mabel said, ruffling Dipper's messy hair with both hands. "Did you stay up late reading again?"

"No," Dipper groaned. "I just slept badly. I had another Bipper nightmare. I dreamed about Bill making fun of me and watching a boring movie."

"Aw, Dipper. I'm sorry," Mabel said sympathetically. She fixed her headband for the day in the bedroom mirror and pulled on her shoes. "I dreamed about a car race where all the drivers are kittens!"

"Oh yeah?"

"It was really intense! Two of the cars crashed," Mabel said. "Everyone was okay though. The drivers were saved by a firetruck with Dalmatian puppy firefighters!"

When they made it down to the kitchen, Bill was already there, sipping burned coffee with his eyes closed. "Hey, twerps." He peeled one eye open a slit just long enough to figure out which set of twerp footsteps belonged to Mabel, and held his coffee mug in her direction. "Top me off?"

"You got it!" Mabel retrieved her pitcher of Mabel Juice from the fridge, refilled Bill's coffee with it, and poured herself a cup.

"What's today's flavor?"

"Blue!"

"That's exactly what I need." Bill took a deep drink, spat a small plastic horse on the table, and sipped more carefully.

"You look exhausted, too." Mabel poured herself a bowl of cereal and milk. "Did you have a nightmare?"

"I don't have nightmares; nightmares have me," Bill said.

Dipper, the person whose nightmares had Bill, scowled and leaned against the stove to wait for Bill to leave so he could get breakfast.

"But no—I was up late watching a German expressionist cinema marathon," Bill went on. "They don't make 'em like that anymore. Which is good, because I prefer my movies with colors and music; but there's nothing quite like watching five movies in a row about going insane in the middle of the night on twenty-four hours without sleep. Second most likely experience to make you see phantom spiders crawl across you skin." He cracked open an eye again and tried to steal Mabel's cereal. She smacked his hand with her spoon and stole it back.

He dragged himself out of his chair to get some proper food. "Get the fridge?" Mabel opened the door for him. As he rummaged around for something appealing, he glanced back over his shoulder at Dipper. "You missed the punchline, by the way."

Dipper started. "The what?"

"On Dr. Calligraphy," Bill said. "You went back to bed before the ending. The sleepwalker's counterfeits are so good that nobody believes the investigator from the treasury when he says they're fakes. He gets hauled to the looney bin—and then realizes the handwriting in all the letters from his boss is the same as the hypnotist's." Bill laughed. "I told you it was a comedy, didn't I?" He dumped some bagels, squirt cheese, and pickled jalapeños on the kitchen counter, then glanced at Dipper again. "What's with that look? Don't you get it?" He sighed and rolled his open eye. "Okay, so the joke is that both the main character and the audience will never know if he was set up, driven insane, or always insane—"

"I didn't go 'back to bed'," Dipper said, stomach twisting. "I—never got out of bed. I didn't watch a movie last night."

"You didn't," Bill said skeptically. And then, studying Dipper's face, repeated, "You didn't?"

Mabel was staring between Dipper and Bill. To Dipper, she said, "Was... that the boring movie in your dream?"

Dipper didn't reply. He didn't want to say anything with Bill listening—not when he didn't know what Bill knew. Or what Bill might have done. Maybe I just heard the movie from upstairs, Dipper thought—and might have believed, if not for the fact that it was a silent film.

Bill was silent for a long moment—longer than Dipper felt safe with. Like a cat sizing up its prey. "Well, how about that," Bill said. His smile was not reassuring. "Looks like Dr. Calligraphy isn't the only one with a sleepwalker on his hands."

####

"Do I sleepwalk?" Dipper demanded.

Bartholomew stared at him in perfect silence. "You can't tell," he said, "on account of the fact that I can't move; but I just did a confused double-take in my head."

"Do I sleepwalk!" Dipper repeated. "I was—I think I was sleepwalking last night—? If I wasn't sleepwalking, then that means Bill was—was in my head somehow, and I don't know how or what he was doing in there—so either he was in my head or I was somehow downstairs, or—I don't know, maybe I was out of my head—but I really need to know which it was, and Mabel was asleep last night so you're the only one who would know—"

"Dipper," Mabel said, shutting the door behind them. "Hold on. If Bill was doing something in your head, why would he just tell you about it at breakfast by spoiling the end of the movie?"

"I don't know!" Dipper said. "To terrify me? To let me know what he can do?"

"But if we know he can do it, that means we can stop him from doing it," Mabel said. "It doesn't make sense—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bartholomew said. "I wasn't up here last night. I was watching a picture show marathon through the living room vent."

Mabel laughed. "You call them picture shows. You're so old."

"'Move-y' sounds stupid and I'm willing to die on this hill."

"Was I there?" Dipper asked. "Did I come downstairs last night?"

"Yeah, during Dr. Calligraphy," Bartholomew said. "I could hear you talking to Bill. You said he was glowing. Which stood out to me as kind of weird, since he's always glowing."

Dipper heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay. Great. So I was sleepwalking. That's..." He paused, gave Bartholomew a funny look, and said, "Let's... let's unpack the thing about Bill glowing later."

"Suit yourself."

He looked at Mabel. "I was having a Bipper dream. Do you think I always sleepwalk during those dreams? Maybe that's why they're always about me wandering around at night?"

"Maybe?" Mabel shivered. "Augh, does that mean whenever you dreamed about trying to come to me for help, you were actually just standing over my bed watching me sleep?"

Dipper dragged his hands down his face. "Mabel. Sometimes I visited the neighbors' houses."

"Dipper!" Mabel laughed, but there was a nervous edge to it. "Have you been walking around in the street in your pajamas?"

"Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe sometimes I'm sleepwalking but sometimes I stay in bed. Last night I really wanted to go yell at Bill, maybe that... got me on my feet?" He dropped onto his bed, chin in his hands.

Mabel sat on her bed with her cereal, and handed over a banana she'd grabbed for Dipper. "We can start locking the bedroom door," she said. "So if you do start sleepwalking, at least you can't get out."

"What if I unlock it in my sleep?"

"Maybe Grunkle Ford could teach me the anti-door curse he put on Bill! And I could cast it on you at night so you can't get out of the room?"

Dipper shook his head. "That's not a long-term solution. What about when we go home? Or what if I need to go to the bathroom?" He gestured emphatically with his banana as he spoke. "I realized something last night, Mabel: I'm sick of these nightmares and I'm sick of just putting up with them. They were bad enough when they were just in my head, but now they have to affect me in real life, too? No! I'm just—not gonna have them anymore."

"Yeah!" Mabel cheered. "I like that attitude! I'm with you. I'm sick of being freaked out by my dreams, too. Do you know how hard it is to rescue kittens from a car crash when you've got to stop and ask yourself if this is a Mabeland thing?"

Dipper hesitated. "Um... probably pretty hard?"

"We'll do it together. We'll both stop having nightmares." She paused. "How?"

"I... don't know yet." Dipper sighed. "Our therapist's given me a few tools to cope with nightmares, but they haven't stopped them. I'm thinking our best bet is magic."

They looked at Bartholomew.

"Sorry," he said. "Outside my wheelhouse. I specialize in creepy dolls and necromancy."

"There's gotta be something in this town," Dipper said. "Maybe dream catchers? Do dream catchers actually work?"

"What about that spell to enter other people's dreams?" Mabel asked. "We could take turns entering each other's dreams to help fight each other's nightmares! That would totally work, right?"

"Except then we'd have to take turns not getting any sleep."

There was a knock on the attic door. Mabel called "Yeah?" and hopped to her feet to open it.

Bill was leaning with his elbow against the doorframe, cheek in his hand, one ankle hooked over the other, grinning broadly. "Couldn't help but overhear that you're having some dream troubles! Here, my card!" He handed Mabel a paper towel on which he'd poorly painted his triangle self with coffee grounds and signed his name in an alien language. "Bill Cipher, professional dream demon—at your service."

Dipper said, "We hung up a 'no solicitors' sign."

"I saw it and I ignored it."

"Bill," Mabel groaned. "Get out of here!" She tried to block him with her arms.

He dodged around her to enter the room with a laugh like this was some playground game, and then immediately tripped over a cardboard box. He recovered his balance by grappling with Mabel's bag of mini golf clubs and drew one out to use as a cane so smoothly it almost looked like he'd planned it that way. "Hey, hold on—I'm here to help!"

"Right," Dipper scoffed. "Like when you wanted to help me unlock that laptop."

"Or when you offered to help me extend summer."

"Or when you were going to 'help' our dimension 'party'?"

Bill said, "I did extend your summer and I did throw a party."

Dipper asked, "And the laptop?"

"No excuse for that! I was just lying to you, kid." Bill laughed.

"Yeah, no," Mabel said, "we don't want your help. No offense, but your help is super evil. Get out of our room."

"No." Bill plopped down in the middle of the floor, arms and legs crossed, mini golf club lain across his knees, smirking defiantly up at Mabel. "Not until you hear me out."

"No! Go. Scoot. Get out." Mabel attempted to shove him toward the door.

"Try it! I weigh more than both of you combined! Physics is on my side! I'm master of this room."

Mabel only succeeded in knocking him onto his side. Bill prodded her back with the handle of the club and said, "Seriously, just listen to me and then I'll go. I'm more or less the reason you're having nightmares in the first place, aren't I? C'mon! How can I make it up to you if you won't even hear me out?"

Mabel paused in her onslaught. "You wanna make it up to us?" Dipper rolled his eyes.

"Sure, why not? Do you think I wanted to traumatize a couple of kids? You just happened to stumble in the way of a force beyond human comprehension! Hey, I stuck you in a paradise bubble, does that scream 'deliberate attempt at psychological torture' to you?"

"You were going to kill me," Dipper said.

"You even left his suicide letter," Mabel said.

"Which was wrong of me," Bill said patiently, with an air that made it sound like he was the one who had to explain this to them, "but I can't undo that unless you want to give me that time tape you're hoarding. On the other hand, I can do something about the nightmares. Just hear me out."

Dipper had been climbing to the end of his bed to try to get past Bill and escape for adult reinforcements, but stopped to stand on the mattress and glare down at Bill. "And then once we've heard you out, you won't leave until we've accepted your offer—"

"There is no offer," Bill said. "I'm giving you information. No 'deals,' no favors, no magic, nothing. Just information. It's your business what you do with it. If you want to throw it away, I've already done my part!"

Dipper hesitated. "I don't trust you."

"You don't have to trust me. Go verify everything I tell you with someone else. Heck, you can even go ask Stanford about it, he'll back up everything I'm about to say."

The fact that Bill was suggesting he talk to Ford threw Dipper off. He glanced at Mabel to see what she thought.

Bill took the momentary silence as a victory. Smugly, he said, "Lucid dreaming."

Dipper blinked in surprise. "Hey, I know what that is. It's when you're dreaming and know you're dreaming, right?"

"You obviously don't know any more about it than that, or else you wouldn't be having nightmares." Now that Mabel wasn't attacking him and Dipper was actually listening, Bill perched on a crate and crossed an ankle over the other knee, getting comfortable. "Knowing you're asleep is step one of lucid dreaming. The next step is controlling your dreams. If you've fully mastered the techniques of lucid dreaming, you'll essentially be a god inside your own sleeping mind."

"Like we did in Grunkle Stan's head!" Mabel said. "When we beat you with kittens."

"And eye lasers," Dipper added.

"And stomach lasers!"

"And 80s music."

"And hamster balls—"

The corners of Bill's mouth twitched a little further down with each sentence. He forced a smile back on. "Right! Haha! You kids." There was friendly good cheer in his voice and wrath in his eyes. "Exactly like that. Except you weren't asleep at the time. That wasn't lucid dreaming, that was imagining. It's a lot easier to do inside of someone else's dreams. You've got to learn an entirely new set of techniques if you want to do it in your own."

Dipper dropped down to sit on his bed again. "Like what kind of techniques? Does it involve meditating, or...?"

Bill laughed. "And here I thought you didn't trust anything I had to say! What, do you want me to teach you how to do it now?"

"No."

"Didn't think so!" Bill grabbed a sparkly pen off Mabel's bedside stand and a scrap of notepaper off their table. "I'll give you some names of authors. Human authors. Experts on the psychology and spirituality of dreams. And if you don't want to trust these authors because I recommended them, fine, just find their books in the library and anything sorted on the same shelves will teach you the same techniques. But master lucid dreaming, and your dreams will be your playground. No more nightmares."

Bill offered the paper to Mabel, but his smirk was aimed at Dipper. "Just like I promised: no magic. Nothing that could invite the big scary dream demon into your precious little heads. All I'm telling you is where to learn your own species's skills. If you don't believe me, go ask for yourself."

####

Sitting back in the guest room's desk chair, Ford frowned at the list of authors Mabel had handed him and stroked his chin thoughtfully. The kids sat on Ford's bed and waited for him to render judgment on the Latest Bill Nonsense.

"That look doesn't look like a good look," Mabel said. "Is Bill up to something bad?"

"On the contrary, I can't think of any way that your learning how to lucid dream could benefit Bill," Ford said. "In fact, if anything, it would be actively detrimental to him. That's what has me so puzzled."

Dipper asked, "What do you mean, actively detrimental?"

"Lucid dreaming is the first line of defense against Bill's mental tricks," Ford said. "By itself, it isn't enough to drive Bill from a dreamer's head; but instantly telling the difference between dreams and reality takes the power out of most of his simplest psychic illusions." He nodded toward Dipper. "For instance, knowing you were dreaming might have saved you entirely from Bill taking over your body."

Dipper blinked. "Wait. What do you mean?"

Ford stared at him. "The computer," he said. "When Bill waited for you to nod off and used a dream to make you think the computer was going to self-destruct."

"He did what?"

"Dipper, Fiddleford never installed a self-destruct sequence on that computer," Ford said. "I... thought you figured that out?"

Dipper stared at Ford. He slid to the floor, lay down, and stared at the ceiling. Mabel leaned forward to pat his head.

Ford did not let himself grin at Dipper's reaction. Dipper had been through a traumatic experience, and finding out there was something else he personally could have done to avoid it all had to be devastating, and therefore—therefore—his dramatic reaction was not funny.

Ford cleared his throat and politely avoided calling attention to Dipper. "And—actively controlling your own dreams won't prevent Bill from controlling them as well; but it arms you with the same weapons he has—just like when you drove him out of Stanley's head. Plus, if there's anything in your dream you can't control, you can be surer that it's Bill's influence rather than a product of your own subconscious. Which... is what makes it so strange that Bill would suggest you look into lucid dreaming. I'm not sure what to make of that."

"Maybe he just told us to be nice?" Mabel asked. "Maybe he really is trying to fix some of his mistakes."

Dipper raised a brow. "Do you really believe that?"

Mabel briefly looked thoughtful; then cracked up laughing. "Okay, I tried! But nope, not for one second!"

Ford chuckled. "Attagirl." He propped his chin in his hand as he thought. "There's a chance that Bill might not be up to anything actively nefarious. I strongly suspect he can't invade others' dreams in his current form—and if that's true, it might not make any difference to him if you know how to defend yourself against attacks he can't even use. And the only thing he's told you is to go look up lucid dreaming—a technique invented by humans, for humans. He might be trying to ingratiate himself with us by offering up cheap information he suspects you could have found on your own."

Mabel said, "So he told us to be nice, for selfish reasons."

"I think that's the most likely explanation. He likes to offer little scraps of wisdom to his 'students'—and then hold them over your head later." Ford hated the possibility that Bill was trying to adopt his niece and nephew as his newest "students"—Mabel especially—but dancing around the uncomfortable possibility rather than pointing it out would just leave them more vulnerable to his tricks.

"That sounds like him," Mabel sighed. "Like the free birthday cake thing."

Ford tried to remember whether he'd mentioned how he'd gotten his cake when they'd been in Portland. "He told you about that, did he?"

"Yeah. While feeling bad for himself about not getting to go to your birthday party."

"Ha."

Dipper said, "So... you don't think there's any risk in learning how to lucid dream? Except that Bill might start bragging about how good he was to suggest it?"

Ford glanced again over the list of authors Bill had given Mabel. "Well... I don't immediately recognize any of these names; but I can double-check to make sure none of them are affiliated with Bill's known protégés or worshipers. But with that risk aside, I'm sure learning about lucid dreaming would be good for you."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist in the air, startling Ford and Dipper. "Time for Mabeland Two, Electric Boogaloo: Democracy Edition! Founded by the people, for the people, with one hundred percent less psychic police states and zero triangle dictators! All the disco coconuts and yarn castles you already know and love, but this time with open borders and free speech!" She ran from the guest room, opened a door, slammed a door; opened the door again, and yelled, "Grunkle Fooord, can you give us a ride to the library!"

Dipper grimaced and looked at Ford. "Uh... Should we be worried about that?"

Ford considered that with pursed lips, then stood and grabbed his keys. "If she starts napping excessively, let me know so we can stage an intervention."

####

Mabel trudged into the living room, lay face down on the carpet between Bill and the TV, and said, "I hate you."

"Sure," Bill said agreeably.

"I mean it. I really hate you." And she said it with such vitriol, such vehemence, that Bill was absolutely positive she didn't hate him at all and would probably never be able to hate him again.

"All right, I'll play," Bill said. "What did I do this time?"

Mabel held a thick, dusty book over her head. It was titled Sleeping Awake: A Meditation and Study Guide for the Initiate Oneironaut. "You gave me homework over the summer."

"Oh, is that it? That's the limit, is it? That's the worst thing I could possibly do to you."

"Yes," Mabel said to the carpet. "It's completely unforgivable." She paused. She lifted her head. "Um. You... do know we're joking, right? The joke is that we're pretending homework is worse than all the other stuff you did, when it definitely isn't? I'm stiiill not exactly sure what your moral compass looks like."

Bill said, "Relax, kid." Bill did not say that he understood that they were joking. "Here, lemme see how painful this is." He plucked the book from Mabel's hand, flipped through a few pages, and grimaced. "Oh wow. Oh, wow, this is drier than the Atacama. This isn't a 'meditation,' it's a textbook. Do they really spend a whole chapter talking about Frederik van Eeden? Gag me with a spoon." He flipped to the index, muttering, "Does this thing even go into milam, or are they completely reinventing the wheel?"

Mabel propped her chin in her hands. "Is it that bad?"

"Well, at first glance, it's not promising." He flipped toward the middle to skim some of the recommended exercises. "Pfff. I think the closest it'll get you to lucid dreaming is boring you to sleep."

Mabel groaned. "Dipper and I checked out like a dozen books on dreams and that was the least boring-looking one."

Bill shut the book and studied the cover. It showed a lush fantasy world with rainbows and colorful planets in the sky. "You know what they say about judging a book by its cover?"

"I know, I know." Mabel rolled over and flopped onto her back, staring at the ceiling. "I guess I'll try reading one of the other books." She let out a sigh. And then, deciding she hadn't expressed herself properly, she let out an even louder, deeper sigh.

Bill laughed, then considered the cover of Sleeping Awake again. "Ahh, what the heck," he muttered, "what else am I gonna do with myself today?" He waved the book at Mabel. "Hey. What if I read through some of them for you? Let you know which ones are a waste of time and which ones might be helpful?"

Mabel considered that. "Seriously? It's a lot of books and they all look boring."

"Sure, why not? If it's too boring to stand, I'll quit. But oneironautics is one of my specialities, I'll probably find the contents more interesting than you would. And, anyway—" Bill glanced away from Mabel self-consciously, voice dropping a tad, "anyway, I recommended lucid dreaming to fix a problem I caused, didn't I? I get why you kids won't let me teach you how to lucid dream—but it's not fair if I throw a couple names at you, make you do all the hard work, and pat myself on the back for helping out. The least I can do is endure a little boredom."

"Aw, Bill..." Mabel offered him a warm smile.

Bill looked at the ceiling. "Don't look at me like that, jeez. You're a sap, you know that?"

"You're the sap! You're like a tree: all bark on the outside and sap on the inside."

"I'll kill you if you ever say that again."

"I'll be right back!" Mabel sprinted upstairs; and a minute later, trudged back down, carrying a double armload of books. "Here." She dumped them in Bill's lap. A couple spilled on the floor.

"Whoa!" Bill scrambled to catch the escapees, and dropped another one. "Is this all of them?"

"All except the one Dipper's reading. The Encyclopedia of Dreams or something."

"That sounds like a waste of time. There's about as much overlap between dream interpretation and lucid dreaming as there is between astrology and astronomy. But hey, toss it my way when he's done with it. I wanna see what it says about dreams with pyramids and all-seeing eyes."

"Your ego's so big."

"Big as a universe, kid!" He started stacking the books beside him on the sofa, setting aside a promising-looking one that mentioned "Tibetan Dream Yoga" in the subtitle.

"I'll let him know. Thanks for the help, Bill!" Her afternoon now freed up, Mabel went upstairs to call Candy and Grenda and see what they were up to.

Bill listened as her footsteps ascended. He waited to hear the attic bedroom door shut.

And only then did he allow himself a small triumphant giggle.

He adored that girl. She was so trusting. He'd never have gotten his hands on this kind of educational material without her help. Finding her the most short-attention-span-friendly book was the least he could do as thanks; maybe he'd go the extra mile, leave bookmarks on the most useful chapters. Let her know just how good he could be to the people who did what he told them to.

He turned off the TV, cracked open the first book, and settled in to re-teach himself how to control dreams with a human mind.

####

(Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd really appreciate a comment!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #(for the art)#dipper pines #(for the fic)#gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #bill goldilocks cipher

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rubyvroom · 2 months ago

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Weirdly fascinating article. Is hypnosis real? And what is it really, actually doing?

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derrickwatkins · 1 year ago

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#hypnosis show #live hypnosis show #stage hypnosis show #live hypnosis events #hypnotist comedy #school hypnosis show #stage hypnosis #hypnosis show New Jersey #Derrick Watkins

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misscammiedawn · 2 years ago

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I have been tasked by EllaEnchanting to create a stage hypnosis routine

So let's preface this, I am going based on my love of the aesthetic of stage shows. I am aware of the discomforting ethics and bullyish attitude of the real world acts. It's a weird situation where the fantasy is alluring but the reality kind of makes me uncomfortable and that is a weird line to walk when stage shows are a real thing primarily and the fantasy is mostly held in the aesthetics.

In order to reconcile that I'll peak behind the curtain and say how I would approach it if it were a routine I ran at a hypnosis convention (I have considered doing this more than once).

The Lovely Assistant would be a plant and in complete collaboration with the hypnotist. They will act as a convincer and it means that the fantasy of the recruited assistant can be there for the audience without being dubious.

The volunteers would have been selected prior to the event and told the content warnings of the 5 acts and given the option to edit or opt out. They may not know how the acts will pan out but there'll be some element of control.

See the thing is that selecting "random members of the audience" is part of the convincer of the stage show environment, the idea that the all powerful hypnotist can weave their spell over anyone. Though there's tricks to get the right people and weed out the ones who won't work out. I would perform a routine like this at a hypnosis event. I don't need that element of the show.

Plus it'd save some time in going through the selection element of the show.

So let's get the show going.

Pre-talk.

The first part is to introduce The Dazzling Dawn to the audience. I've been meaning to update her outfit so just imagine wavy red hair, ruby red lipstick to match an equally garish crimson outfit punctuated by a top hat.

The pre-talk segment of a normal hypnosis show is part of priming the audience. Every word that they say is designed to train the audience's expectations. I've researched a number of different speeches and been able to point out stuff like language that introduces ways of processing suggestions to the audience and helps them identify theirs, ending with a claim that makes every member of the audience feel more confident that their version is the correct one.

In a real show this only needs to hit those who are eager/curious/interested. But it'll act as a convincer.

I've seen people do small little routines like the magnet fingers or "follow my words - touch your nose, touch your chin" etc moments to condition the audience to follow suggestions and then when they throw a curve ball by saying "touch your middle finger" while touching their index finger you get to see who is visually following and who is verbally following.

Hypnotism and mentalism are even more fun when you know how they work in my opinion.

Anyway. The convincer for my act would be selecting a lovely lady from the front row who is dressed casually enough. Bring her up, ask her name, run a quick induction and show how susceptible she is.

Now I can't physically be both the lovely assistant AND the dazzling hypnotist. I wish I could be, but I can't.

Incidentally I have an assistant persona too thanks to a Paul Dini Zatanna comic. The Sensational Sunrise!

But for this let's just imagine this assistant is one of my partners, already briefed on the routine.

Dazzling Dawn would bespell them for the audience and enthrall them to be a devoted assistant who may only say one phrase for the entire act "Yes, Miss Dawn!" which would be lovely for skits where I could be looking for a prop and ask my lovely assistant where it is only for her to shrug and chirp "Yes, Miss Dawn!"

Comedy is essential to an act like this.

We must let our imaginations work out how I would ethically get my lovely assistant into her new outfit. I am imagining her wearing it under what she is already wearing and going behind a screen and "transforming" but in reality it may just be a "leave the room and come back" moment.- I'm limited by the fact these ideas are ones I've tried to think of for a convention space. But I like imagining the walk behind a screen thing.

Huzzah. Pre-talk complete and now I have a delightful assistant who is pre-loaded with a single phrase.

Induction

Next is to select my audience members. I'd be upfront with the audience that the 5 or so people are pre-selected and negotiated with. Then I'd start the inductions by explaining that if someone consents to have my lovely assistant behind them I'll have them stand behind and delicately stroke their temples (obviously this would be arranged prior to the event and scrapped if no one was willing to commit to this bit) and repeat the word I say.

So as you stare at the hypnotic focus I will tell you that you're becoming more and more focused, and when I say focused my lovely assistant will whisper "focused" in to your ear to help you anchor that suggestion as we go on.

So I say "you grow more and more focused" and my lovely assistant will say…

"Yes, Miss Dawn."

…right.

Okay, we can work with this.

The idea will be for me to do my induction with Assistant husking "Yes, Miss Dawn…" in a hollow and empty hypnotized voice, making my every sentence more enticing and agreeable.

Mixing comedy with actually hot things? Yes.

Once the volunteers are all set in their lovely soft and susceptible states it will be time for the first skits. I will emphasize that all suggestions will last only for the duration of the show. That is important and will be pre-negotiated. For the sake of skits I want suggestions seeded early in the act to come back for payoff later.

I also think it would be a good idea to suggest my volunteers play different "characters" for the act. A brat, an overly enthusiastic extrovert and Sleepyhead.

Sorry, I meant someone who is so comically easy to trance that them dropping at seemingly inappropriate (but actually planned) moments would be part of the act. Perhaps get some splash damage of suggestions not meant for them.

So Sleepyhead. Though not neccessarily THE Sleepyhead. So we will use lower case sleepyhead for them. But I guarantee I am imagining the real one as I type this.

One of the initial suggestions will be a siren call. The idea will come back later, I think I'd go for the brat for this one because at any point for the remainder of the act I could start singing and they would lose all their resistance would fade away and they would be drawn to approach me.

Once we have enough rapport on the "stage" it would be time to start the actual skits and routines.

Skit 1

The first skit is called "It takes a village to fractionate a volunteer"

The idea would be to have everyone look to their left and hear what the person to the left says and then turn to their right and flip it for the next person in line.

"UP" "Down" "Up" "Down" "Up" "Down" "Yes, Miss Dawn."

"Down" "Up" "Down" "Up" "Down" "Up" "Yes, Miss Dawn."

Every time you are told Up they wake up (still following the skit programming) and every time they hear Down they drop again. Assistant would go along with it and sleepyhead would go up and down every single time.

Just have that wave along a few times and switch it up with different words. "Sinking/Rising" "Lower/Higher" and such.

To make it more fun I think I'd add in a round of holding out a hand and raising up and dropping down. Just a way of getting the chorous of volunteers to get everyone trancy.

Skit 2

At this point I'd count everyone down to start off "3-2-1 aaaand go!" at this point four of my volunteers would begin while Sleepyhead will drop in to trance from a countdown. I'll ask my lovely assistant to wake her up and she will go and have a side skit.

For this one I want to highlight the personalities of our volunteers. Bratty and extrovert especially.

I dunno. Dancing skits or something?

Meanwhile assistant will be trying to wake up our sleepyhead by lightly rousing them and saying "Yes, Miss Dawn" to which the sleepyhead will echo the phrase and slip deeper in to trance. The assistant becomes frustrated and tries harder to wake them and the more aggrivated her "Yes. Miss. DAWN." becomes the deeper the sleepyhead becomes.

At the end of the main skit I'll walk over and fix this and return the sleepyhead to their chair and thank my lovely assistant for trying.

Skit 3

I'd have them all hold their hands on an object, let's say an orb, and have them put their freewill inside of it. As long as they are touching the orb they get to have their freewill but the moment they let go they'll drop into a powerfully obedient trance and their will shall belong to the one holding the orb.

Then I'd let them all act out trying to keep their hands on the orb while avoiding me and I'd end it by using the siren song to cheat and summon my sleeper agent and have them bring me the orb of their free will.

At the end of the act I'd hand it off to my lovely assistant. What harm could it do, she can only say "Yes, Miss Dawn." (this is forshadowing)

I'd tell my volunteers that every time she says "Yes, Miss Dawn." that just tells your empty wills that Yes, Miss Dawn is a correct thought and you are all too happy to do what she says (for the remainder of the show).

Skit 4

With the amount of comedy we have had so far I feel like something that is actually salacious would be appropriate for now. It's important to not undermine my own dominance by making everything go comically wrong if only for a single scene.

Skit 5

And when I snap my fingers you and the audience will imagine I did something really impressive.

I am joking because I ran out of stamina for the post, but I have used that suggestion before. It's fun.

Ending

I would thank the audience and my volunteers and lovely assistant. They all did so well. Take a bow, Assistant, "Yes, Miss Dawn!"

I'd release her from her spell and let her come back to herself for her to see what she is wearing and go HARUMPH! and realize she has the orb still and commands the volunteers to "get her" in which the volunteers would restrain the hypnotist within their comfort and Dawn would quickly rattle off a "And you'll all awake free from all suggestions knowing you did so well on 3-2-1!" moment.

And that would be the true end of the show <3

Though there'd be some after-show aftercare, I'm sure.

I kind of ran out of stamina while writing but as we noted I am in surgical recovery.

#hypnokink #ella is enchanting #suggestion suggestions

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leekimdramas · 9 months ago

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Love Reset Review

If you want a bit of a pallet cleanser from the thriller films/dramas why not try this one.

No Jung Yeol and Hong Na Ra are on the brink of a divorce. However, everything changes when they get into a car accident and lose all of their memories.

I was not sure about the first 30 minutes. It seemed a bit all over the place and wasn't that funny.

When they lost the memories, I started to enjoy the film. It was interesting to see how they built up their friendship again and even helped each other.

Personally, I would have liked more of those heartfelt moments, for example when they were at hypnotist and later tried to understand each other better.

This film heavily falls onto the comedic side rather than romance. I think that is why I did not enjoy it that much.

Humour is a very subjective thing in every person. Specifically for me, some parts were funny but they dragged some scenes too much.

For instance "OMG he has lines" or something like that was repeated around five times. It just got less funny every time it was repeated.

It reminded me of a comedian from Running Man who said that comedy is all about repeating, so maybe I just don't understand this kind of humour.

The leads are great, they had a good chemistry together and I enjoyed their scenes.

My favourite character was Na Ra's mom, she was definitely the funniest one.

Overall, this is a lighthearted easy-to-watch drama. If you want to have a good laugh and relax this might be a good choice.

8/10

#love reset #korean movie #kmovie #review #spoiler free

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anhed-nia · 1 year ago

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BLOGTOBER 10/13-14/2023: THIRTEEN WOMEN, SVENGALI

I really loved this. I wonder what the book is like, I might have to read it! Author Tiffany Thayer sounds like a pretty interesting guy as per this collection of provocative reviews on Wikipedia:

I don't know about you, but that makes me want to read everything he wrote. THIRTEEN WOMEN concerns a circle of grownup sorority sisters who are beset by an anomalous series of murders and suicides. It so happens that all of the women recently received damning horoscopes in the mail from a self-styled New York Swami--but the Swami himself is just a pawn in a greater conspiracy masterminded by Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy). The master hypnotist has a bone to pick with these smug society ladies, which I am about to spoil so plug your ears if you'd rather watch the movie first (and you should! It's only an hour long): As a half-Javanese girl "saved" by a missionary who sent her to a western finishing school, Ursula believed the key to her future was to pass for white. Therefore, she's vowed revenge on the racist sorority that rejected her in college, and honestly the revenge she has plotted should have earned her an honorary PhD. It's hard to imagine that either a 1930 novel or a 1932 movie really mean to say "fuck racism" so frankly, but the sharp premise and Myrna Loy's incredible charisma make it hard not to side with the ostensible villain in this picture.

Some people have remarked that THIRTEEN WOMEN is an early iteration of the slasher movie, with its female ensemble (of sorority babes no less) being picked off one by one. To me it was more reminiscent of the cursed media motif familiar to J-horror. Maybe I'm just saying this because I rewatched RINGU this Blogtober and I was encouraged by the documentarians behind THE J-HORROR VIRUS to consider its influence on SMILE, which I also rewatched, and which I'm realizing I love. The victims in THIRTEEN WOMEN have signed a round robin chain letter, for which they each receive a star chart describing their imminent doom; the power of suggestion takes the place of power tools here, with Ursula's sheer force of will acting as a free-floating contagion that rots the guilty and weak from the inside out. I was reminded of movies like RINGU and JU-ON as much as of Jorg Buttgereit's DER TODESKING, an experimental horror film about a chain letter that causes its recipients to self-destruct. It's fun to think that THIRTEEN WOMEN is a progenitor of movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS, but I see reflections of it elsewhere, too.

I wound up pairing this with SVENGALI just because they're both hypnosis movies, but that movie turned out to have its own racial tensions. In George du Maurier's foundational 1894 novel Trilby, the evil hypnotist is explicitly Jewish; in Archie Mayo's 1931 adaptation, Svengali is referred to abstractly as "Polish or something", which seems to be a euphemism for a Semitic Eastern European identity. This might not invite such analysis if it weren't for the styling of John Barrymore as a swarthy, rodent-like embodiment of greed. When I say that, it sounds pretty negative, but I'd still insist that SVENGALI is a great movie well worth seeing for its perverse humor, surprising grimness, expressionistic design (courtesy Anton Grot), and unusual horror elements--in addition to Barrymore's unforgettable performance.

I guess there has been some debate over whether SVENGALI is properly a horror movie, and I refer you to author Tony Burgess who once said that if you have to argue about whether or not something is a horror movie, then it's probably a horror movie. The only causes to argue are if you insist on an extremely narrow definition of horror to guide your personal consumer habits, or if you're squeamish about admitting that you've ever enjoyed or respected anything that falls under the horror umbrella (and I tend to think the latter case is more prevalent). Admittedly, SVENGALI blends comedy, romance, and musical elements such that the viewer is never quite sure how dark things will get until the very end, but I think that anyone should be able to see the horror in the incredible sequence of the eponymous villain sending his disembodied consciousness through the CALIGARI-like city to possess the unwitting Trilby (played by Marian Marsh who must have been the most adorable person alive at the time). A few different visual effects are used to evoke Svengali's power, some of which are still modern-looking and scary, and the film's breezy humor and charm do not promise any particular safety.

On some level, the aura of antisemitism and xenophobia itself lets us know we're in horrific territory. This is the genre of fears, rational and irrational, where we face whatever society perceives as threatening. Today we're in the midst of a lot of arguments about whether or not "separating the art from the artist" is ever appropriate, with full cancellation of the art AND artist positioned as the only alternative, but both of these options suggest that we must never have to face immorality, ambiguity, or ambivalence in art at all; we're forced to either avoid it or ignore it. This denies us the opportunity to understand what these darker emotions consist of, and understanding is the only way to defang them. Personally, I don't think it's any more helpful to condemn e.g. Dracula or the Wicked Witch of the West for their bigoted elements, than it is to simply pretend those things aren't there at all. SVENGALI provides us with a similar opportunity to confront antisocial phobias, with its troublingly caricaturesque villain and the unavoidable fascination one feels when his hypnotic gaze projects itself at us from the screen. Recommended viewing.

#blogtober #2023 #horror #thriller #slasher #adaptation #racism #thirteen women #george archainbaud #tiffany thayer #myrna loy #svengali #trilby #george du maurier #archie mayo #john barrymore #marian marsh #pre-code #anton grot

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