- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Hello.

You've reached the direct line of Doctor Frederick Chilton. As I am not available at the moment, you might assume I'm quite busy with something pressing. State your name and business, and I will return your call."

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

You're either not listening, or you're gullible. I'd wager on both. This was awhile ago and it served to reveal what Crane really was. You had left, anyway, shortly after.

It isn't Will's sanity that's the concern. He has made a moronic decision. I've done what I can to help him, but it's now out of my hands.

[theminotaur]

[ she doesn't think it matters if she left or not but since he's not going to apologize, which she wasn't really banking on anyway, she just drops it. ]

A lot of his decisions are probably moronic. He was friends with Hannibal.

What is Crane?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Were you, too, not friends with Hannibal? Who wasn't friends with Hannibal? Lecter was a manipulative psychopath whose functioning remains unparalleled -- psychoanalytically speaking.

Crane is different. He hasn't the charm Hannibal possessed, and he isn't as scheming. Crane is a narcissistic sadist with an addiction. But that doesn't mean he isn't dangerous.

[theminotaur]

I don't think friends is the right word. He did murder my best friend to see how I'd react and made me complicit in faking my own death.

What's his addiction?

[ pls not be pretty brunette youths with bright eyes. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Fear.

I know, it sounds ludicrous. But Crane is nothing short of an emotional vampire with a very narrow palate.

[theminotaur]

Constant supply, at least.

[slightlyoffchilt]

He knows what you mean to Will. That isn't necessarily my doing. One just has to look at his behavior towards you.

[theminotaur]

Am I and my functional suicidal ideation going to be a target?

[slightlyoffchilt]

I imagine you already are.

[theminotaur]

Well.

Alana did always say I needed to regain some normalcy for myself. Guess psychopaths and psychiatrists are my normal.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Your new normal. Adaptation involves relativity.

Do you regret this life, Abigail?

[theminotaur]

Sometimes.

Sometimes I think if my dad had just cashed in his golden ticket and killed me at the start a lot of people could have been spared. I'm not narcissistic enough to consider my attempted murder in front of Will to have been important enough that the absence of it would have kept Hannibal from him or kept you and Alana safe, kept Jack off his radar.

But I do think I was part of Will's catalyst. Hannibal used me as the lure just like my father did, but if Dad had just killed me from the start he would have had to have found a new lure. And maybe he wouldn't have gotten as many bites.

So yes, sometimes I do regret my new normal. I was a chess piece that should have been taken out of play and instead I got to watch the entire board fall around me. Everyone's dead. I'm dead. It's not a life I welcome with open arms.

[slightlyoffchilt]

That's the trouble when the player gets too attached to the pawn. Doesn't bode well, does it, when that pawn outlives the queen.

How are you going to prevent that from reoccurring?

[theminotaur]

Die.

[ it's almost too bad he can't hear her bitter laughter from down the hall. ]

I don't know. Surviving is exhausting. I wanted to be able to live.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Then I suggest you start taking precautions against Doctor Jonathan Crane. And try not to isolate your allies in that effort, won't you?

[theminotaur]

The ally in question being you?

Follow up: what precautions? I'm like catnip for psychopaths, I can't just be less catnippy.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You haven't surrendered the Doctor Bloom routine, I see.

Very well. You might want to begin with learning his associates and surveying them.

[theminotaur]

I can't spend all day stalking him on the network like Will does with me, I have a job.

[slightlyoffchilt]

And here I thought your job was protecting Will.

[theminotaur]

I do more harm than good, I get people hurt. Defenestrated and shot and gutted right of me, because of me.

[slightlyoffchilt]

A readiness to accept responsibility of actions objectively beyond one's control.

Classic guilt complex.

[theminotaur]

Wow, gosh, I never would have guessed. Next you're going to surmise that that was sarcasm.

[ she doesn't frowny face emoji, BUT ITS THERE IN SPIRIT. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

I'm simply asserting that your melodramatic dwelling and budding self-hatred is tiresome. And vaguely selfish.

[theminotaur]

LOL budding. You're cute.

What's the selfless thing to do, Frederick?

[ oh shit, first name. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Put blame upon the one man who actively and aggressively sought to take from us and reduce us. The man who used you as a pawn, the man who stole away your agency.

Blame Hannibal Lecter. Don't deceive yourself with his fables. How could you be blamed for his manipulation?

[Ironic words, coming from a manipulator. But Chilton, true to his own perspective, blamed others before himself.]