maskormenace | 7th Trick

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7th Trick - Text

I always liked the fall. Nice scenery, good food, cool nights and mild days. Holidays right around the corner. Things always feel a little cozy in the fall. I died in the fall, too, so I guess I've got a special attachment to it.

I think people are getting a little out of control with the pumpkin spice thing, though. Was it really that good?

[That's your Manipulator: your occasionally poetic villain who occasionally makes thoroughly pointless network posts because he's eternally bored.]

I was a big fan of Halloween too. Nothing more fun than dressing up in costume and eating candy until you puke. Of course, that was a long time before I knew that ghosts were real.

By the way, you should probably keep that in mind before you cut holes in sheets and start running around making oooooo-noises, jerks.

In any case, I had a conversation the other day that got me thinking. Do ghosts exist where you come from? And if they do, what are they like?

If there's not ghosts, maybe there are monsters or something kind of like that. Whatever kind of spooky-type creatures you might have in your own dimensions. I'd kind of like to hear about what they're like in other places.

[You know, just in case someone has an idea he hasn't thought of yet.]

In before "ghosts don't exist anywhere." You're going to have a hard time convincing me of that.

((All replies to this message will come from "The Manipulator," and will only be in text or audio format.))]

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[Hahaha yeah he was going through a phase the other day, he's fine now!!! Really! :D]

Any good ghost stories?

And yeah, I think you mentioned something about those things before, somewhere. What are they?

Not really. Most recent one was 'bout these girls who'd been bullying another. [A pause- he's likely shrugging.] The one girl goes missing, and 'bout a week later, the girls are found passed out on the school grounds in the morning. Not responsive, just laying there, staring and shit.

People went on 'bout how the bullied girl'd died and her spirit got revenge, but it was all bullshit.

[because fuuka had just been locked in a extradimnesional, labyrinthine nightmare tower for 10 days instead, no big deal.]

I dunno for sure what they are, or whatever. Sure as hell not any kind've beast or animal. We called 'em Shadows, and the trouble with ;em really started when an experiment fucked up space/time a bit.

[Like ya do.]

They'd eat their victims... I dunno, minds or whatever. Leave 'em where they stand like a damn vegetable 'til someone found 'em or they got run over or died've exposure or something. That's what actually got the girls in that ghost story.

Edited (typing is hard) 2014-10-08 21:20 (UTC)

Shadows, huh? Some kind of... evil spirits or something? They sound creepy.

Is there any way to kill them?

Not really spirits. [There's a pause, as he tries to figure out how to explain them.] They exist. Definitely can wreck shit if we let it. They're just... whatever they are. Monsters may be the best word for it.

Only if you've got the Potential to be able to actually take 'em on- and can summon a Persona. Otherwise, you're shit outta luck.

We got a weird time distortion back home- kinda like an extra hour or so every day that most people ain't aware of. Time stops, that kinda thing. That's when they're active.

A time distortion? That is weird.

[Way to drop a bunch of random words there, Shinji.]

How do you defeat them?

Yeah. I figure this place is weird enough that it ain't a big deal to mention it, though. Back home, people'd think we were nuts.

[especially with the guns-not-really-guns and shooting selves.... bit.....]

Kicking their ass, pretty much. But they got a huge nest or something right we'd be exploring when we could. Got a hundred or so floors up, last I checked. Still dunno how much was left. So we'd take some out, and more'd show up. Been like that for years.

I'd have a hard time believing anyone here was nuts after the kind of people who come here.

[That sounds creepy.]

You were one of those special people, then?

Yeah- A Persona user. There's 'bout 10 or so that we know of back home, and a couple more that've got the Potential to experience it all, but can't fight.

Sounds complicated. I had no idea the stakes were so... stakey, where you come from.

I'm sure everywhere's got some high stakes if you're looking in the right place. Just that I had the 'luck' to be involved in ours.

Probably the most 'ghost-story' kinda part is how shit gets when time's stopped. All weird green glow, people locking up in caskets, water's got this red tint like blood. [There's a dry, empty laugh. Completely devoid of actual humor, more to fill the air than anything else.] I don't really remember a lot 'bout the first couple times I happened into it some years back. Scared the fucking piss outta me, though.

Ew. Sounds like a really screwed-up version of the Ghost World.

[A brief pause.]

Ironically, the Ghost World doesn't have any of that creepy crap in it.

Oh yeah? What's that like, anyway?

It's kind of like... changing the channel on a radio. You know how if you have the dial just a little off, you'll still hear the music from that station, but it'll be fuzzy, and you might hear some other stations too?

That's what the Ghost World is like. It looks just like the real world, but time is frozen. Everything is monochrome. You can tell which things are alive and dead, see through walls, find places for your soul to possess... that kind of thing.

Ghosts can't move in the real world. I have to "change the channel" to move from place to place.

[There's a delay as he tries to... imagine this. Because wow that sounds even shittier than he'd originally thought.]

So you gotta dip into there to do anything? Like- possess people or whatever?

This like how you mentioned you didn't really see through whatever you were in, but sort of viewing it from outside? [if.... he's remembering right. Who knows.] Or how'd that work again?

[he was busy watching his snake hork up eggshells at the time they had that conversation okay he was distracted.]

Yes. You can't see through walls or stuff like that in the real world. But ghosts can see it in the Ghost World. You just have to switch between the "channels."

[Yomiel should consider giving a speaking tour about the pros and cons of being a dead guy.]

So if I'm possessing Soba, I reach her in the Ghost World. Then I go back to the real world once I'm possessing her. I can... sort of see through her eyes, if I look, but I can also sense around her, sort of.

And that's how you get into and through things- since there's nothing physical to hold you back in the ghost world. And not having real eyes and ears as a ghost is why you can't see the same as us, I guess.

[...Still sounds boring and shitty. Though there's a pause as something (fucking finally) occurs to him.]

So possessing someone or something- it's like playing with a doll for you, yeah?

[Brows crease.] That why you can't just... pretend it's all normal? [He had known his other senses didn't work, but now he's finally cluing into the mainly-third-person perspective issues.]

Yeah. Exactly.

[Being in the real world, but not really being in the real world. Or something like that.]

It's... I can best describe it like... it feels like putting on a suit. A doorknob suit, or a snake suit, or a person-suit. I'm inside of it. I don't become it. If it's an animal or a person I can look out through its eyes and hear through its ears. If it's alive, I can just give it little directions, like walking here or jumping up there.

My own body feels like a suit. A big, dead-weight, dragging suit. I have to focus on moving it in a natural way.

[-Or holding up the DMV over there]

I know you've explained it a couple times- just it's so weird to try and think about. [Ghost problems. Also shit, he hopes that sort of ghost world doesn't exist for him back home.]

So is the ghost thing the only horror-story type deal you've got in your world?

Well, I didn't even think that ghosts were real until I turned into one.

Imagine how weird it was having to figure it out from scratch. There was one researcher back home trying to figure it out... but he didn't know about ghosts.

So he was like a ghost hunter without the ghosts?

[....Sounds like a terrible reality show. or a regular scientist.] So he was trying to figure out how you were doing shit... without knowing what you were?

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7th Trick - Text

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/sliiiides late tag in here