synopsychic | Evening of November 1st, About A Day After The New Travelers Showed Up

Uh, hey. I've got a few things I need to talk to people about, that I've mostly been waiting on until we got a new shift of liminal space so I could share them with all the newbies and returning Travelers too. Uh, I'm Thorne, by the way, if you haven't met me before. Sorry if this gets to be long

Anyway, some of the shit I want to talk about is kinda heavy, so we'll start this out with a rage comic I made with an app on my phone to balance that.

[The voice switches to the viewpoint of someone looking down at a phone screen, in which the follow rage comic has been constructed on:]

[About ten seconds later, the sensory livestreaming switches off and everyone's back to voice.]

Okay. Now the heavy stuff. A lot of you guys know already that the woman I was Infiltrating as during the last Jaunt, Chouko, was killed the fourth week by an inexplicably insectile cyborg known as the Mantis. I came back as an Investigator and ended up 'haunting' my murderer.

What most of you don't know is that Chouko left a corpse behind, which Herr Doktor Blitzkopf found. He replaced her heart with a clockwork one, then used the lightning of the storms to reanimate her body, ala Frankenstein and his monster.

I didn't go back to being Chouko at this time, although she certainly did come back to life. I know, I met her when she came home to the embassy, where I was taking care of her brother, Min.

The people we Infiltrate as, our overlays... they have lives outside of us. Unless there's a Blitzkopf around, when we die as them, they stay dead.

[There's a short silence as Thorne lets that sink in for everyone.]

Uh, next thing! So, there's a secret I've been keeping from everyone, but my spirit animal, Selene, has been going around all doppelgangered and telling people anyway and I figured that if I made this announcement I could control how people found out.

So. Uh. I'm a vampire.

What this basically means is that I'm a talking, thinking, animate dead person. Well, undead person. Technically double-dead person. I got killed again after I got turned into a vampire.

I have to drink blood to survive, but you guys don't have to worry about that because I've already made arrangements with some people already to be regular blood donors and there's enough of them that nobody's should have to do it so often that it make them anemic or anything.

There's a lot of details about my condition, which I don't want to bore people with, but basically it's annoying but manageable. And so far as I know, I'm the only one of my kind here. [If you consider her kind to be Malkavians and now wodpires in general.] I guess you could say I'm a monster, but I'm honestly trying not to act like one.

And, uh, I just wanted to say to any other dead people here, if you need someone to talk to privately about it, I'm here.

Which brings me to the last thing I wanted to tell you guys about! As far as I can tell by the calendars people can agree on, it's gonna be November 2nd tomorrow. I'm gonna hold a Day of the Dead thing at Leo's and, like, build an altar in his yard and stuff and have food. People are welcome to come, living as well as dead.

Uh. That's all, I guess.

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Some might. I don't.

I couldn't say.

I can tell you that while there are curious discussions, there is no consensus. I can also tell you that when the Song was given voice in the flooded shop, the reflections there smiled, turned aside, and went dark. We have taken that to mean that those souls have achieved peace and a kind afterlife. And none of those who have been added into the Song have arrived in liminal space.

You're trying to save him. To be sure that nothing you do would keep him from being drawn here.

Yeah! Yellow-orange marigolds. They're traditional.

And, uh, I thought you and I could do that. Decorative skull paint. As, like, the hosts.

[She feels weirdly nervous inviting him to do it with her because, like, he's the whitest person she knows and there are definitely people who'd throw a fit about it because of that, under the idea that it wasn't his holiday--but he's also just as dead as she is, which means it actually is his holiday too, it's right there in the name.]

Gifts? Oh, my! I do not know what I did to deserve presents.

[She laughs, a cheerful and bright sound.]

However, please do come in.

[She turns from her desk, which is currently covered in any number of mechanical bits and bobs, as well as tools. There is something in the middle that is obviously being worked on.]

You are always welcome here, Alcuin, if you ever need somewhere that is not your usual place. Let me get a spare seat for you.

[Disappearing into the connecting room, she returns with a chair.]

Claudia will not mind. Please, have a seat. Would you care for some tea? It is not my usual, but it will do until I can make something that actually tastes like tea.

I cannot save him. No one can. This is not being saved. This is being pressed into labor against your will. This is being torn from your home, your life, the people you love and being told that your troubles are nothing compared to the troubles of worlds, which you must save without any instruction or scrap of prior knowledge. This is having your mind and personality overwritten and influenced over and over again until you can barely remember what you were before you arrived. It is being placed in jeopardy of what little time you might borrow being wrenched from you in the space between breaths. Of having your mind shredded like so much wet paper beneath the feet of a mob.

No, Joscelin. I am not trying to save him. But I can see that we need him. Not I. We.

Yeah, I know.

[She'll just think about it later.]

I dunno. The Trumps move in mysterious ways, dude.

Well, maybe you did and he'll wake up afterwards feeling like he was possessed by some dude with floppy hair.

[... she thinks you're the guy who was the Prussian prince guy, anyway.]

It's more of a Circus thing.

I still think that if you just want it for a few hours a more water-based face paint would probably be better than going for full on greasepaint like I use. If you want help actually putting the paint on I can help? I don't know what kind of designs are traditional but if you can give me examples I've got a steady hand and I'm really good at not accidentally poking people in the eye. I used to help the littler kids in my troupe put their paint on.

Technically, actually, I'm from Iowa. I imagine that's probably worse.

As long as your own terms are "over and over again", sure.

So what's the story, morning glory?

Oh yeah, you're probably right. And yeah, I can do that. Like, I should have some pictures in my camera of the last one I was there for in my world. I'd moved to New York by then, but there's people celebrating it somewhere in any big city, really.

And technically I've lived in Brooklyn for like a year, so.

... also Iowa isn't werewolf country like Jersey is. (This is because New York is a vampire town.)

Hmhm, I'll think about it, after I do some more research into how things really do work here.

Now, as for the next to last thing...tell me about Vampires. I've never had the opportunity to meet one, working mostly with demons.

Edited 2015-11-03 15:35 (UTC)

No, that's true, Iowa is sheep country, not werewolf country. But I wasn't a werewolf when I lived there, so I suppose it works out.

New York is a vampire town? That's new. I suppose it makes sense. Most of the vampires I know are fairly dramatic, so of course New York would suit.

Cool. Yeah, I'd be able to work with that. Should I come by early?

Torn away from his death. No matter to what Hell, it's salvation of a kind.

But I won't bring a picture of him.

Yeah! That works.

If there's anyone standing here who's had an easy time of it, they've just arrived and haven't realized what's happening.

I kind of meant before becoming a traveler. But... yeah. Ugh, I hate feeling sorry for her, but I do, kinda, now that we talked. Only for her, though. Fishface can rot in hell.

[ she is correct, of course. ]

And a much worse blasphemer than he already was. Okay, just have to hope we never go back there again. That aside...thank you, you're very informative as far as monsters go. I'm Ambrose.

Torn away from what comes after and the love that awaits him there.

It may make little difference. I have no idea whether or not this ceremony has a similar effect to the Song. Still... thank you.

Traditions should be upheld - I will see to those. We shall have as many bouquets as you think necessary.

I am not as steady a hand nor as artistic as Leonardo, but I will do my best! Will Kanji-kun be providing the skulls, then?

[Sorry Thorne, he hasn't quite figured out that she meant on... themselves.]

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Evening of November 1st, About A Day After The New Travelers Showed Up

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