7th Trick - Text

[vengefulshades]

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.))]

Comments

[hoboagogo]

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.

[vengefulshades]

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.

[hoboagogo]

Oh yeah? What's that like, anyway?

[vengefulshades]

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.

[hoboagogo]

[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.]

[vengefulshades]

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.

[hoboagogo]

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.]

[vengefulshades]

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.

[hoboagogo]

[-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?

[vengefulshades]

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.

/sliiiides late tag in here

[hoboagogo]

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?