If you happen to have experienced Wednesday, please write a detailed report of everything that had occurred. Yesterday we discovered that no one within the library actually remembers anything about the day, so if we can find anyone who does happen to remember the day, we can determine if this is a Stand attack and try to implement countermeasures. Thank you.
Writing’s on the Wall
Stand User: Wesley Wyndam-Price (Deceased)
Power: B | Speed: C | Range: S |
Durability: E | Precision: D | Potential: D |
Writing’s on the Wall is what could be described as a typical long-range remote Stand capable of following basic instructions (such as ‘target anyone that enters this area’), but targeting a specific individual requires work done beforehand, such as luring one person away from a group and ordering Writing’s on the Wall to target only those who enter that particular area. The Stand is, to some extent, indiscriminate; while those who know its method of targeting can avoid becoming a target, any mistakes can easily end in the death of a potential ally or the User.
Writing’s on the Wall has two different appearances. One is a ‘blood-ink’ in puddle form or ‘moving’ form in which it seeps like a liquid over a surface, although it will move in non-realistic ways, like flowing up a wall or moving faster than a slope would warrant. The second, when a target is selected, is when the Stand sets in on a wall or other surface the victim can see, and it will either have the note ‘Come play my game I’ll test you’ (in which case it will lead the target to a location in the first appearance type) or form two lines describing a manner of death (usually an unpleasant death). In this form it will appear like it is drying or it has dried.
Everybody in Place-The Stand can follow very simple orders, and will then prioritize targets based on the first one to speak. Note that the Stand has trouble ‘perceiving’ a target if the target enters a less well-lit area. It is unclear whose perception matters here. The deceased Speedwagon Foundation Agent Galanis suspected a Tulpa situation, in which case, it might not even be that the Stand can ‘see’ its target. What might matter if this theory is correct is whether the victim targeted can see, or rather, perceive the Stand (and thus, if a blind Agent or one with limited vision would have an advantage in such a circumstance). While this is no longer a necessary consideration for this particular Stand, what we are coming to learn from cataloging all these Stands is that it’s likely this will not be the only Stand whose powers rely on it being perceived. Similarly, if leading its target through a darkened location, it may lose track of the target, allowing them to escape, but in well-lit areas as long as the Stand can be seen in the periphery of vision it retains its control. Using this power (usually triggered by Come play my game I’ll test you, though if a group sees the same message, another exposure is apparently not necessary) it can ‘puppeteer’ lead its targets to a particular location, though this appears to be chosen at random by the Stand and not its User. The distance and time involved can vary, but it does apparently need to lead its victim at least a few steps (the exact minimum length has not been measured). From the images left behind in Transmissions from a Lonely Room (see Stone Temple Pilot), it is clear that not every Agent looked at the writing (specifically, Marchant did not), but possibly, since Vasquez read it out loud, that was enough to ‘perceive’ it and thus grant it the ability to target victims.
What Evil Lurks-Depicted above is What Evil Lurks, when the two-line message of death appears. The circumstances for the death do not have to be present—Writing’s on the Wall was able to manifest demons which disappeared after killing the victim and drown another with no liquid. It’s possible that the victim themselves manifests the manner of death based on the threat and feeling of impending doom/inescapability of the Stand, depending on whether or not the ‘Tulpa’ explanation, above, is the accurate one.
Voodoo People-A victim being targeted by Writing’s on the Wall in either capacity seems incapable of fighting their fate. They are capable of using their own Stand, should they have one, although the only likely method of actually interrupting the power is by attacking the User. Writing’s on the Wall has, as far as anyone can tell, disappeared since the death of its User, so theoretically if a victim being attacked could have managed to kill Wyndam-Price using a Stand before their own demise, they might have survived. (Tragically, it appears that this may have been the case for Agent Dunstan.) Other than preventing himself from being targeted by his own Stand, this also appears to be the reason why Wyndam-Price used his Stand far away from him, when he had the choice—to prevent himself from being possibly neutralized before Writing’s on the Wall could deliver the killing blow. It is, however, possible for another person to intervene—if the victim has the ‘appearance’ or ‘should have’ died, the Stand will move on to its next victim based on the order of who spoke and follows the simple conditions previously set.
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