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

[protect_and_serve]

Tell me about the Day of the Dead.

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh! Uh, it's a holiday from back in Mexico, where my grandparents come from, that we celebrated out in California where I grew up too. It's about honoring the dead? Like, you build little altars where you put their pictures on and a little bit of the food you made and then you have a sort of little party where people eat and drink and share nice memories of the departed. You're really supposed to do it in the cemetery by their graves, but since we don't have one, I figured anywhere's good.

[wickedestwitch]

Being different doesn't make you a monster.

[comebewe]

Shouldn't someone look angry in a rage comic? And why are there ducks?

[he should, probably, be asking about something more important. But honestly he's not sure how to process that deluge of information yet. Also, they really want to know about the ducks]

[doitforhim]

Oh! Is it weird to be dead? OhmygoshI'msorry I didn't mean to-- I'm still getting used to this.

[ she mentally clears her throat ]

What I meant to say is that it must be really difficult to deal with a condition that impacts your life so dramatically! If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. My mom is a doctor, so I know a fair amount of basic medical information!

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh! Uh, I know that, really. I wasn't saying I was a monster because I'm different. It's because of some of the vampire stuff I didn't want to bore people with. Like, uh, traditionally we don't ask for volunteers on the blood thing, even though I've been doing that recently.

[thornsofmalkav]

It's called a rage comic due to the art style? The original rage comics had a lot more angry people in it.

And the ducks are there to represent the Trumps. I picked them for that purpose because we needed something and, well...

Okay, so there's this famous reality show guy named Donald Trump in my world? And there's also a famous cartoon duck named Donald Duck. And the rage comic builder had these Dolan and Friends images. Dolan's like a parody of Donald Duck. So it felt appropriate to personify the Trumps as Dolan.

[HER MIND WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS.]

[thornsofmalkav]

Thanks, Connie! I'll be okay, though. I've been dealing with it for a year. Just as long as you don't try to stake me and leave me out in the sun, I'm fine.

And don't like expose me to any surprise fires either. They freak me out and then I get dangerous. If I look like I'm freaking out, run the hell away, all right? And, like, call for Hajime so he can come in and subdue me. He's like a karate bugman guy and they're tough enough to deal with me.

Oh, and, uh, being dead's kinda weird, but you get used to it.

[wickedestwitch]

...and?

You still shouldn't think of yourself as a monster.

[comebewe]

[Matthew decides to tactfully not remark that the art style of rage comics appears to be 'really badly drawn']

That's...really complicated.

[Also they're kinda disappointed. They were hoping the explanation would be much more interesting, like maybe the ducks were actually feathery personifications of rage and vengeance]

But okay, the Ducks are the Trumps. Got it. Now...who are they?

[thornsofmalkav]

[Ducks are already feathery personifications of rage and vengeance, Matthew.]

They're the guys who brought us to liminal space and who send us to the other worlds to solve problems for them.

[comebewe]

[that's swans, not ducks]

Wha...why?! That doesn't...why the hell would something powerful enough to pull all of us here in the first place even need us?

PRIVATE

[thornsofmalkav]

... it's not just that. Uh. The thing I really didn't want to announce to everyone is that when you become a vampire you get this, uh, sort of demonic thing called a Beast inside you that keeps telling you it would be a good idea to eat and kill everyone you meet and you pretty much have to learn to ignore it all the time.

I'm good at ignoring it.

That's what I meant about being a monster.

... but thanks? It does mean something that you're saying that I'm not.

[Even if what you're saying is you might not have the best survival instincts.]

[thornsofmalkav]

We don't know. There's a lot we don't know about them. We're trying to find out? Someone of us are, anyway.

[comebewe]

What do you know about them so far?

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh man, you should really be talking to Naoto about this, not me. She's the big Trump expert. Uh, they're named after Tarot cards. Some of them are dead? Four of them. One of the dead one's the Star, I remember that. Sometimes they claim you and you end up with a wicked cool tattoo in some place or another on your body. We don't know what they're claiming people for. They don't usually interact with us directly, I don't think. Usually it's with some proxy or another.

[comebewe]

Who's Naoto?

And um. I'm sure the wicked tattoos look nice and awesome and all, but in my experience getting marked by mysterious mystical powers usually means that you are now doomed to a life people trying to kill you. Is there any way to not get any ominous tattoos?

[thornsofmalkav]

Naoto Shirogane. She's a friend of mine. And a private detective in her old life.

You should probably just make sure you never talk or interact with anyone you can't identify as a Traveler on Jaunts, then. Trumps don't mark people without at least some interaction through their proxies.

PRIVATE

[wickedestwitch]

What you do with it matters more than what's inside you or what you look like.

Monsters don't try to help people.

[comebewe]

A detective, awesome. [And he will totally be hunting her down and asking her more about these Trumps]

So...all I have to do is never talk to anyone, ever. Wonderful.

[creativefool]

[The comic to the head's got Kanji flailing for a moment-] What the hell's- is that meant to be us?

[He takes a moment to take the information she's giving in, though. He'd always kind of felt like that, ever since the Grid... but she's definitely got a whole new perspective on the situation.

And ... well. Some things suddenly make a bit more sense.] Was kinda worried that you were sick or something. Glad you've ... got things sorted out? Uh. [Is that the way to put it? Damn.]

What's the 'day'f the dead'?

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah, sorry. They lurk everywhere. Usually there's about, hm, around fifty of us Travelers at any given Jaunt, give or take whatever, so there's some people you can talk to, but it does restrict your social circle a little.

[shiroganeheir]

... what is so angry about that comic?

[timelessinventor]

As a general note to everyone, I had a very interesting conversation with one of our hosts while we were back in Nova Venecia. I will speak privately to anyone who wishes to know this information, however, considering the general tone of everyone's interactions with each other lately, I will not be sharing it publicly, as it is of a very personal nature to some.

Also, Thorne, darling, Mr. Stoker would have been very intrigued to meet you.

Re: PRIVATE

[thornsofmalkav]

Well. I mean. I'm trying to be an ex-monster. So. Um.

[Gosh, you're gonna make her blush. Like, really blush. She's getting enough blood lately that she can afford to use a little each day to fake being human.]

So, uh, like I said before, I'm Thorne. You?