closed;

[entreats]

Who: Ange Ushiromiya & Dipper
Where: Ange's room
When: During the event
Rating: Probably PG? Maybe PG-13 if something Gets Wild.
Summary: Ange falls back into the bad habit of talking to books, since apparently the second Harry Potter book taught no one anything.
The Story:

[ Honestly? Ange has found stranger things out of nowhere before than a book. Even if the book is kind of the fancy slightly older looking type, considering she has read many books that looked that way before in the past. At first she even wonders if she just didn't end up taking this one from the library and then forgetting all about it, but she's pretty sure she didn't see this book before today.

If not just for that pine on the front cover. What, is it supposed to be some sort of book about trees?

Still, Ange is pretty chill under the circumstances. She's pretty chill under most circumstances, yes, but "finding a random book in her room" isn't exactly anywhere near the top of the list of situations that are worthy of freaking out.

So she just casually grabs the book, flops down on her bed, and opens it to read it. Hey, might as well get some use out of it while it's here, right? Especially since it doesn't look like it's out to kill her. (Yet, anyway, for all she knows about this place and the weird things that happen in it.) ]

Comments

[krmvgivv]

[As soon as the book opens, words start to appear on the pages. Dipper's been trying to communicate since he... well, is woke up even the right word? He's not sure. But only when the book is open can he actually do anything about it.]

GSRH RH WRKKVI SVOK NV!!!!

[entreats]

[ ...

Well, scratch that casual afternoon of reading this neat new book she found. The writing in it is complete nonsense. That doesn't even seem to be some different language Ange just can't speak - there's no way that combination of letters could make sense in any tongue on Earth.

But.. it does almost seem as if the words are appearing in front of her eyes, right? ]

That's odd..

[ She muses to herself, but waits to see if any more words appear. Maybe she's supposed to move the book for that to happen? Ange shakes it a little. ]

[krmvgivv]

[Dipper can't hear what she's saying, but he can feel the book shaking.]

Svb! Hglk gszg!

[The words come out wobbly, like someone is shaking the book while he's trying to write. Rudely!]

[entreats]

Well, that sure didn't help.

[ At least Ange stops shaking the book now - even if it's not because she's realising she's not exactly treating a person gently here. ]

If anything, it's less legible now. Who writes like that in a book anyway? [ Although the words just appearing out of nowhere rather than having been there all along is weird to begin with. ]

[krmvgivv]

[This is so frustrating. Dipper rolls his eyes, or would if he had eyes, he supposes, then responds.]

R xzm'g svzi blf. R gsrmp blf szev gl dirgv yzxp.

[entreats]

Yes, merry R xzm'g to you too, book. [ It's a little less frustrating for her, considering the stakes aren't quite as high. It's why she sounds more deadpan than actually annoyed.

But at least the lack of progress is helping with something here. It makes her feel like experimenting a bit more. After all, this is just a book Wonderland gave her, who cares if she ruins it, right?

She grabs a pen, starting to write in the book below the text. She has no idea what to write though, so she just copies the garbled writing letter by letter, as if that might make her figure out if it's really saying anything useful. ]

[krmvgivv]

[...that's what he just said. Why is she just repeating what he just wrote?]

Blf'iv qfhg xlkbrmt nv. Blf szev ml rwvz dszg R'n dirgrmt, sfs?

[At least he can start to make progress because he can see what she's writing. So he underlines the entire sentence and circles dirgv yzxp.

Maybe they can figure out what the communication gap is here.]

[entreats]

[ This is both helping and not helping. It's a little more clear that the book is directly interacting with her now compared to the random way these "words" would appear in it earlier.

But then again, underlining something and circling something sure doesn't help when said something is total nonsense to begin with.

Maybe she just needs to write something actually intelligible? She writes on-- ]

I don't understand.

[krmvgivv]

[And now she's writing gibberish. But wait, it's gibberish he understands! R wlm'g fmwvihgzmw. He's pretty good at recognizing ciphers, and this is obviously an atbash one if he's ever seen one.

He writes back in kind.]

Normally I'd be thrilled to find someone else who likes ciphers, but is this really the time?

[entreats]

[ .. Hey, wait. That's actual text that makes sense. It manages to make Ange blink in surprise at it for a moment, since she truly didn't expect this book to produce anything but gibberish at this point.

Maybe it's learning from her as she's writing in it? Ugh, that's a weird thought. Not going to linger on that one for too long. Instead she just keeps on writing normally in the book. ]

You're still not making much sense. Although I guess you've finally figured out how to produce normal words, so I'll give you that much credit.

[krmvgivv]

[Huh. Time for an experiment. He writes the same line twice, first normally, then in code.]

Xrixov gsv hvmgvmxv blf xzm ivzw.

Circle the sentence you can read.

[entreats]

[ What is this, some children's activity book?

But sure, whatever! She'll go along with this weird book's shenanigans for now. Not like she has anything better to do.

She circles the bottom sentence without writing anything herself this time. ]

[krmvgivv]

[Right. That proves his theory. Very deliberately, he writes out a key:]

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N

[Then he writes another message, letting the book translate back to her.]

This book is running everything I say through an Atbash cipher.

[He draws an arrow to the key he's written.]

If you use the key, you'll see what I'm saying. See?

Sr R'n Wrkkvi!

[entreats]

[ Once the word "cipher" appears on the page, things do get clearer to Ange a lot quicker. It makes a lot of things click into place, but she still lets out a groan.

Really, puzzles? That's the level Wonderland is reaching right now? Her older brother sure might have been a puzzle lover, but Ange doesn't have the energy for these kinds of things. But she supposes she doesn't have much of a choice in this situation. ]

I get it. You're Dipper. [ Speaking of, when she was looking through the network while trying to figure all of this out.. ] Someone was looking for you. So this is where you were.

[ She's still writing normally since she figures Dipper is better at decyphering her words if they come out all garbled to him than she is. Otherwise it'd just take way too long to write out these messages. ]

[krmvgivv]

Was it Mabel? Where is she? Is she okay?

[Because that's his first concern. That and figuring out his way out of this.]

[entreats]

It was a boy called Wirt.

[ She doesn't know who Mabel is, but after thinking about it for a moment.. ]

He said he couldn't find you nor that Mabel person, so it's likely the same thing that happened to you happened to Mabel as well.

[krmvgivv]

Mabel's my sister. Wirt's a friend. A friend who worries a lot. I have to get out of this book.

[entreats]

Then let's get you out of there. [ There's not a whole lot of passionate determination behind that sentence, since.. well, Ange doesn't do emotions a whole lot. Or tries not to, anyway.

But she'd also rather not have some guy turned book in her room either, so this sounds like a win-win situation. ]

Do you remember anything at all about how you ended up this way?

[krmvgivv]

No. But I'm guessing it's the event. If it's running everything we say through a cipher, maybe that's part of it?

[entreats]

Clearly it's not about breaking the cipher then. [ Since he already figured that one out. ] Maybe we instead have to write something specific, but I have no idea what that'd even be. Maybe something related to you.

[krmvgivv]

Or to you. You didn't break the cipher. I just figured out how to make it so you don't have to.

[entreats]

Are you seriously telling me I have to try and write in that ridiculous way?

[ That's so much effort! You can't be asking this from her, Dipper.

.. okay, Ange isn't actually a bad enough person that she couldn't just not do it out of sheer laziness and not feel guilty for all eternity.

So even though it's appearing very slowly since it takes a bit to get the hang of writing in the cypher, she's writing them in said cypher on her end. ]

This is so dumb.

[krmvgivv]

[He can read it, at least. It's almost disappointing. He likes codes so much better.]

Maybe write something about me? I don't know. It has to be word related.

[entreats]

I don't know anything about you though.

[ Written the normal way again, but then she does make an effort again in the cipher after letting out a sigh. ]

Dipper is a book right now.

[ A pause, and as nothing happens she continues to write a few more sentences in cipher to see if they work. ]

I have no idea who Dipper is.

Wonderland turned Dipper into a book. That's pretty lame.

Couldn't they have given us a word hint.

[krmvgivv]

[There's a weird shiver that goes through Dipper when she writes 'Wonderland turned Dipper into a book.' Hmmm.]

How about instead of writing about me, write what you want to happen to me? Dipper stopped being a book or something like that.

[entreats]

That's a pretty dangerous thing to tell another person. [ You know, giving her free reign to write whatever she wants about Dipper and all. It's a good thing that Ange - despite her constant deadpanning and acting like she doesn't care about anything - is actually a good person deep down and wouldn't hurt a fly. ]

But fine. Dipper turned back into a human.

[krmvgivv]

[There's a slight popping sound, and then, just like that, Dipper turns back into a human.]

Huh. I didn't think it would actually be that simple.

[entreats]

[ Surprise slides across Ange's face for a moment as she suddenly watches this now-human kid standing in front of her. It had been easy to ignore the awkward parts of writing on or in someone when he was just a book, but now she's faced with an actual Social Interaction, the awkward hits a little harder.

Especially since she had him on her lap as a book. Ugh, weird. Better to not think about it too much. ]

You tell me. [ Thankfully she manages to surpress any social awkwardness under her usual thick layer of deadpan. ] Can't believe I had you here in my room all this time when it could've been done with so easily.

[krmvgivv]

Sure, super easily, if you knew anything about code.

[Why does no one but him care about how cool ciphers are??]

Have you heard anything from my sister Mabel? I have to make sure she's not stuck in a book somewhere too.

[entreats]

I haven't. There was someone looking for her though, so I assume she might be stuck as something else as well. [ Otherwise she probably would have been found already at this point. ]

You should go ask Wirt about it, he was the one looking for her. And for you.

[krmvgivv]

Right. Wirt's worried. [He bounces up to his feet and heads for the door.]

Um, thanks. For getting me out. Eventually.

[entreats]

.. Oh.

[ Ange's response seems a little awkward, and it comes slowly at first. ]

Yeah. You're welcome. I didn't particularly feel like being stuck with a creepy book in my room, that's all. [ It's half not knowing how to deal with actually being thanked, and half being tsundere wanting to look cool and detached. ]

[krmvgivv]

[Dipper just stares at her for a moment.]

...we are very different people.

[And then he's off running. Time to save the day!!]