synopsychic | I see dead people

Entry tags:

I see dead people

Greetings, aliens. I'm the Ψiioniic. You can call me Psii, but don't get cocky. [[ He immediately proceeds to get cocky. ]] Considering all the disturbing-as-fuck things I've heard on this Network since I got here, I have a proposition for you. Let's talk about dying.

First, no one's going to die in the immediate future. I think. Say, the next few nights? Second, I'm here to offer my... services... as a... clairvoyant. [[ A couple seconds' pause. ]] I have visions of future deaths. I can warn you or your quadrantmates about them. No, you can't prevent the hideous or embarrassing ways in which you will die. But you can do yourselves a favor and get your shit in order. I accept payment in food, electronic parts, and lessons on how to... make stuff out of thin air? That's a thing here apparently.

If the next Jaunt's as dangerous as you all say, it's going to be a bloodbath. Try not to die in stupid ways. I have to watch that shit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ok, so I really don't need to know when I'm going to die and how, because it'll probably be nasty or just really pathetic, but I do have a question.

... what do you mean by 'quadrantmates'? I haven't heard that term before. Also, if you wouldn't mind me asking, what sort of species are you? I'm... um. I'm an astroanthropologist and astrobiologist. Basically, I like learning about different sentient species.

... humans, I swear, are the most boring species in the universe sometimes.

You know... mates? Others you form bonds with to ensure survival of your species?

I don't mind you asking, not at all. Thanks for making me feel like a zoological display by the way, really appreciate that. I love being psychically stared at, because that's a thing now apparently. As if I didn't already get enough shit for how I look or the color of my blood. You're a real charmer.

[[ Psii, however, clearly isn't. ]]

Dude, have you actually tried? I can't peek forwards for fuckall.

I don't need to try. It just kind of happens. Real big pain in the ass. Though I am under the impression that either things are weirdly peaceful around here, or I'm in another metaphysical plane entirely and my visions may do jack shit. Won't know for sure until someone snuffs it. And before you ask, I'm not volunteering.

Okay, so I got like this weird ass time vision since my shit got all rewired and I'm supposed to be able to see forwards through unlimited timelines cuz apparently I'm a god now, but everytime I try I end up in space.

Only instead of stars its cubes.

I'm not the only one who's got their shit on lockdown so your visions might turn into a bowl of alphabet soup or someshit at this point, who the fuck knows anymore.

They can already get vague and jumbled, so not much different from the usual. Was it cubes like... pixel cubes?

I dunno. It was like a sea of blank white cubes floating in an immeasurable void of unhealthy insouciance that stretched on to infinity. Though I'd bet money that it doesn't actually and just loops back on itself like some ill begotten moebius strip of perpetual assetry.

Honestly, didn't hang out that long the couple times I ended up there.

I'd bet on the moebius strip, too. Nature and metaphysics are lazy, so why make an infinite linear space when you can make an infinite loop? Give yourself a reacharound again and again. Programming basics.

Liminal space works that way. Took an accidental tour once on a sports ball it was fucking stupid. It's like some plebes in their parent's basement trying to code some clunky as fuck indygame but spent so much time jacking off to Slenderman to actually figure out worldbuilding.

What's a parent?

-=he doesn't even skip a beat=-

People who squirt crotch goblins out through their genitalia.

Of the same species like live offspring, or a different parasitic one? The public needs to know. I'm not going to come down with a case of parasitic crotch goblins if I can help it.

Who says they can't be fuckin. Bro, those things latch onto whatever soft and danglies you got and proceeded to try to suck the shit out of you, leaving you a withered up dry husk of a dude.

And no one thought to post a notice about this epidemic of crotch goblins? [[ he asks dubiously. ]]

Oh it got noticed alright, like a horses dick by some adventurous dude's unfortunately now perforated intestinal tract. There's a whole business built around the care and management of the little shits.

Business? So, somehow it's profitable? Is there more to crotch goblins that meets the eye? [[ Still dubious. ]]

Just in case nobody told you yet, psychic new kid, we come back from bein' dead here. If it happens on the Jaunt, it happens quick, a day or two. Happens kind of a lot.

Don't let it happen in liminal. It's fucked up if you do.

I'll have you know I'm a full-grown adult, pupated and everything.

So that's the reason why it's been real quiet? People avoid offing each other in Liminal Space? Must be real nasty.

We don't really go around offing each other just for the hell of it, anyway. Kinda a thing not to kill your fellow Travelers unless it's really necessary. Some Jaunts nobody dies, at all.

But yeah, liminal space is especially off-limits.

Someone told me a person would get 'absorbed,' whatever that means. Considering they eventually return here, where their killer would be hanging out, we'd have a lot of pissed-off people around. Glad to see that's not the case.

Pulled into the floor, basically, until the Trumps can fix up whatever happened to 'em.

And usually we ain't tryin' to kill each other, to begin with. Keep that to a minimum, and you'll have less angry people. Most of the time, if it happens, it's on a Jaunt, and it's cuz one or both of the people involved ain't properly themselves, so usually we don't blame each other so much.

Yeah, uh. About that. How the hell is that even a thing? Am I gonna end up with a severe case of multiple troll disorder? As if I wasn't already off my goddamn rocker....

[[ He's trying not to let it bother him too much. He's already got a ton of things about arriving here to bother him. Like being enslaved again with no discernible way to return home. ]]

Nah. The personalities don't really stick with you after the Jaunt's over, and even the bits that do fade out after a day or two. Like you remember what happened, but it don't change who you are.

Sucks to be the ones being spied on. I feel bad just thinking about it.... Oh God, if I have to watch them pail, and pail badly, I'm going to have an ulcer.

...That's "have sex" for those uninitiated to Alternian slang.

[Riddick's just gonna roll with the weird slang and not ask how it came out.]

If it happens, you won't be seeing, you'll be doing. While you're infiltrated, you don't remember you're somebody else, you think you're them.

[[ It's always best not to ask about troll slang at all, unless one wants to be scarred for life. ]]

Even worse. I love immersive gaming and all, but this is ridiculous. So I'll spend most of my time here... losing time. Being someone else as the solar sweeps slip away from me.

[[ There's silence as he contemplates it. He's a lowblood, so he doesn't live as long as highbloods, but the concept of living hundreds of solar sweeps is not foreign to him. ]]

We don't know what'll happen when this shit is over. Some of the Trumps have said they'll send us back so nobody knows we were gone. Some of 'em said they'd send us wherever and whenever the fuck we want. Some want to keep going forever.

[There's a sense of a shrug.]

So you may lose time. You may not. It's all a big fuckin' unanswered question, at this point, until we find out who wins this shit and whether they're open to negotiation.

It's a given, but I'll say it anyway: Someone who thinks it's ok to trollnap people to play a game is going to continue abusing that kind of power at any negotiation table. It won't be a real negotiation. Just two or more parties trying to outsmart each other until someone decides someone else needs to die.

You're one cynical guy, aren't you.

[But he sounds amused rather than anything else. He knows the feeling.]

You don't gotta tell me. I'm just relaying what promises they've made the people they chose, and what plans they claim to have.

Is it a common thing among the Travelers, to throw in with them? Without being threatened or coerced, that is.

[[ He can't even imagine wanting to support those he viewed as slavers, but he knows it was possible. He wants to know what he's dealing with. He's seen his share, both in and out of captivity. ]]

People got different ideas on how best to get outa this situation with their skins intact and the universe at least kinda liveable, once this is all over. Some of those ideas include working with the Trumps, yeah.

Sounds interestin'. So you can pick who's death you see?

Nope. I just have to hope I'm awake at the time, and also that the vision or the voices aren't too jumbled. But you're in luck, I haven't had much sleep lately.

[[ Mostly due to not having a permanent place to sleep. He trusted no one, and he didn't own enough possessions with which to barricade a door. Sometimes he caught a few winks in one of the Workshop's studies.... ]]

So do you get paid after you have the vision, or are we just payin' fer the chance that you might?

After. I'm not a chump who can't fend for himself. It's just nice not having to worry about my next meal.

Kind of gives you an incentive not to die in stupid ways, doesn't it? If you die, you have to buy me dinner.

Well, hell, we're all gonna die some day. That means you get yourself a lot of free grub. [There's an amused tone to his voice though.] But I'll take you up on that offer - gotta admit I'm mighty curious about how I might go.

Yeah, but I don't expect to know you for quite that long, and most deaths are unnatural. At least, they are back home.

I don't know about here, since no one dies permanently, but where I'm from dyin' by violence or misadventure ain't exactly usual, unless you're from some place involved in a war. Where're you from, darlin'?

A planet called Alternia, though you may be more familiar with what comes from it, if you've ever been conquered by us trolls. Armed swarms are our biggest export. Um, sorry about that. If it makes you feel better, we're currently jacked deep in a large rebellion.

[[ He neglects to mention that his best friend had started said rebellion. ]]

Can't say our planet's ever been conquered by anyone. Hell, we ain't never even had no alien contact, far as I know, though I guess that could be bein' kept all hush-hush. Troll, huh? Like ... the big fellas with the long arms and big teeth and all that? Live under bridges?

Holy shit, what backwater planet do you live on? No contact at all? I mean, obviously you've never had contact from us. You'd definitely notice if we'd had contact. And we don't all have long arms and live under bridges, so you must be thinking of something else.

Oh, a clairvoyant? That's one magical ability that's always been quite outside my expertise. If someone dies it's usually either a surprise or something I did on purpose...

About how far ahead do your visions typically happen?

[[ He doesn't bat a psychic eye at on-purpose murder. ]]

Hard to say. I'm not able to warn most of the people in them. We kind of went crazy with the space travel. Being in psychic contact with all of you changes the game. I might be able to pinpoint the time better because of that, but I'm also working in an entirely new psychic environment here. I'll know for sure once people start dying, but until then, let's just say a few nights.

Oh, you're an alien who wasn't normally part of some kind of psychic hivemind/poorly understood analog of an ant colony? The science fiction writers from my version of Earth will be quite surprised.

You know, if you think of it that way, psychic hive mind might be one cause of me seeing people dying in horrifying and/or stupid ways. Don't know if it works as well with... whatever you all are. But yeah, talking to people in their brains is new for me.

We'll have to see how those two things interact, then. Normally I'd offer to help experiment, but I'd have to keep living with these people even after I killed one of them, and that level of recrimination bores me greatly.

Not volunteering, for the record.

Oh don't worry, I don't kill people just for fun and/or science. I'm rather out of practice anyway, for aforementioned reasons of recrimination.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I see dead people

no subject

/face in hands

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

oh god

now you done it

there's no going back

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject