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

[thornsofmalkav]

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.

Comments

Action

[willyousee]

Does one need a reason to bring a token of appreciation to a beautiful woman? Or indeed, any host?

[He swings the door mostly to, thinking perhaps she may not wish to discuss this where anyone passing by might hear so easily, and takes the chance to look over her desk with interest. Spending so much time watching Leonardo work has been paying off in small ways, at least, and what with all the technology so common last Jaunt, some of this seems at least passingly familiar.]

Thank you, my lady, if it would not be too much trouble, I would enjoy that. May I ask what it is that you are constructing? If it is not too rude to inquire of the piece before the artist is finished with it.

[seventhbullet]

I bet you'd get a lot of members. Are we counting everyone who's died ever, or only people who are dead right now?

[thornsofmalkav]

No, I mean. On us. Lydain is going to help with that. She paints her face for clown stuff anyway.

... Kanji will be providing skull for other stuff, though, yeah.

[thornsofmalkav]

We could make it for everyone who's died and the secret inner circle could be for current corpses?

Why, would you be one?

[thornsofmalkav]

Thorne. I remember you from that terrible dinner party we threw back at the Joseon-Uchinaan Embassy.

[seventhbullet]

Depends on who you ask. I'd say I'm pretty dead, though, by your standards. [She's more lively than Xigbar was, for sure.]

[thornsofmalkav]

Welcome to the club, dude. I'll let you know if we make tee shirts.

[Private]

[neverfeltthatway]

If you don't mind, I'd like to hear anything you found out from our, our 'hosts'.

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah. Vampires, I think maybe fairy types... and maybe ghosts? Yeah. Ghosts.

[Private]

[purseownerisme]

[She hates the Trumps due to things but the way she said it...Yua had to know instead of going on blind hatred. Even if her body was rejecting the idea. But as she asks, her voice sounds more small than the confident girl some knew.]

This line is private. I also have some protection on my end as well if you're worried. Can...can you tell me what happened?

[wholeheaded]

Oh, yeah, that was... a thing. It wasn't too bad though, any party you can walk away from is better than the alternative.

[mysunnydisposition]

[ There's the impression of a soft sigh before she starts speaking. ]

Cass already told me about the infiltrator thing. Thanks for waiting a little while so I could hear it from her. I think I was happier when I didn't know this, but... I'm glad I do now.

[ Yeah, she's thinking about Glory and Leviathan again, and sick with guilt over all of it. That's never going to go away, is it? ]

We've got to get better at looking out for each other.

[thornsofmalkav]

We do. And... it's no problem, really. I was kind of putting it off anyway.

[mysunnydisposition]

Yeah, but... getting information here can be like pulling teeth sometimes. I guess some people have just been around so long they forget we don't all know what they're talking about? It's a nice change to just hear things without having to ask a million questions to get there.

...was Chouko much different from you? When you met her?

[thornsofmalkav]

Well, yeah. I mean, first of all, she was ethnically Chinese and I'm, like, Mexican-American. And she was more mature than me, which makes sense since she was orphaned at, like, eighteen and had to raise her little brother who was ten. And, um, there were some personal differences.

[She liked girls more and sex less.]

But, like, if you're asking if she was all that different than she was when I was her? No. Not really?

[ofinspiration]

I can hear everything you're saying anyway.

But nice try.

[professorwolf]

I would think a ghost would be happier in Las Vegas. At least there would be something for them to vicariously live through, and a more all-encompassing night-life for them. Then again, ghosts where I come from can only manifest at night, so their options can be a bit limited.

[mysunnydisposition]

Heh. Yeah, that's... more what I meant. I'm...

Okay, honestly, I'm kind of wondering how much who we are influences what they do during the jaunts. You know? Would things have gone differently for them if we weren't borrowing their lives?

I don't... expect you to know the answer or anything. I just wonder.

[thornsofmalkav]

Well, when Charoite went Adversary for a while in Questing Country, I'm pretty sure me being there influenced the shape of her Adversary-ness. Like, she got kinda vampire-looking, if teen rocks could have vampires. And some of her powers were kinda familiar too.

[Those blood butterfly side effects were definitely based on Dementation.]

[mysunnydisposition]

Oh. Huh. I wasn't sure if some things like that were because they were alternate universe versions of us, or that we were actually influencing them. But that... definitely sounds like we're doing something in their lives. Which makes sense, or why bother having us infiltrate at all?

So I've definitely screwed up pretty bad. A couple times.

[thornsofmalkav]

Honestly, I think it's sort of both? Like, it would make sense that they are alternate universe usses, because both Charoite and Chouko felt like people I could have been in their world, if I'd had lived in their particular circumstances? But I could see small bits of influence on their lives like that too? It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both.

[mysunnydisposition]

Yeah. They were all... I could've been them. But that part doesn't really matter, I guess. I mean, it's cool to know if it's true or not but doesn't really change anything. The other part...

If we change their lives just by being in them, that means we're responsible for what happens to them. Even if we don't know who we are when it's happening. It's at least a little bit on us. Right?

[seventhbullet]

Haha, thanks, kiddo.

[doitforhim]

Wait, but if they drain all your blood, wouldn't you be too dead to eat any of their blood? If you lose more than 40% of your blood, you'll die, and that's the absolute most you can lose.

[ She's not questioning your info, Thorne, just thinking out loud. Er, so to speak. ]

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah, that's how it works. You die and while you're still warm, some of the vitae--uh, that's what we call vampire blood--gets shoved into your mouth by your sire and you come back to un-life as a vampire.