Merriment 25, late morning [video. ish.]

[morganizedchaos]

[The video starts out normally enough - Ghost is using the ICP in his cabin, and leaning forward in a way that clearly indicates that he's a bit Unhappy about something. The effect is slightly ruined, however, by the giant fluffy black cat who is currently in his lap and occasionally butts her head up into the frame to demand attention.

However, for those who haven't seen Ghost on video before, there's something interesting going on the lower half of the screen - a smartphone is held up in front of the camera, landscape orientation, mostly blocking out the cat, by some amount of telekinesis. And rather than speaking aloud, or what passes for 'aloud' for him, Ghost is just putting text onto the smartphone's screen, giving the impression of subtitles to those who are familair with them. The words appear very quickly, with a pause after each sentence to allow slower readers to catch up before the words scroll away up the screen.

Take that, lack of text posts on the ICPs. You can't stop him now.]

So. Got a bit of a favor to ask. For the new folks, hey, name's Ghost, resident weird alien hybrid speaking, nice to meet you, yes I am mute, don't make a thing out of it.

Some of you probably noticed on our 'vacation' that I was limited to kiddie pool level activities and adult supervision. Technically speaking, I'm the youngest person on the train. In every functional way, I'm thirty, but apparently that's not how the train counts things.

So if a bunch of people could drop messages on the train feedback encouraging her to reevaluate the way she decides who's an adult and who's a child before the next time we have some kind of age-restricted activity, I'd appreciate it. I don't even care about not having access to the train's booze stash, but having a bunch of resort workers descend on me like I was an actual lost child was kind of a pain in the ass.

[There's a pause, mostly because the cat reaches up to paw at Ghost's chin and distracts him. Given that he's not a big guy and she is a very large cat, the effect is fairly comical.]

Thanks, Rory, love you too.

Comments

[so_dark_a_road]

Oho, you chose your name yourself. Ghost. What was your thinking about that?

[ Curufin is working in the kitchen as he speaks. The ICP shows an image of him scrubbing a sink. He wears a t-shirt that has an image of a sponge with a cartoon face, and its facial expression is hilariously combative. The caption under that image is Kitchen Sponge of Doom. He alternates between the ICP and the sink. ]

I can see why the train would use a human baseline, but I don't think it works for everyone. There are children on this train, and if I had been pulled from my world at the age of 20, I'd have looked like a seven-year-old mortal. I wonder, would the train have considered me an adult and given me adult privileges?

[morganizedchaos]

Well, the kind of alien I'm based off is called a Phantom, and...

[He actually just kind of trails off there, because explaining all the reasons behind it, on the public network to a relative stranger, is pretty awkward. No thanks.]

I have no idea - I don't think there's anyone in that situation on the train right now, but I could easily be mistaken. There's a good handful of us who are 'younger' than we look, but...

[so_dark_a_road]

A Phantom, eh? Hence, the name Ghost.

[ No need for Ghost to make himself uncomfortable telling Curufin his story. But if he ever needs someone to talk to, Curufin is available, and he'll keep anything Ghost says confidential. Curufin nods and whisks the sponge around the various sinks.]

I don't know if there is anyone with that situation on the train. I used to go out on every platform day and greet as many new people as I could. But I don't do that every month now, and so it often turns out that I don't know some new people. It can take a long time for me to get around to meeting them. If there are people on the train who are younger than they look, I think it's possible that train might mistake them for the age they appear to be. Unless it has more access to information about us and our lives and our worlds than we think it has.

[morganizedchaos]

[He appreciates you cleaning up after yourself. As for the rest, hey, that's his job.]

I'm not sure exactly how much access it has, period. It seems to work almost more like - right, you probably don't have the internet where you come from. Like a research librarian, I guess? Where it only goes looking for more specific information when we ask for it, like someone ordering an item from their home world in the shop.

[so_dark_a_road]

[ Curufin, of course, is cleaning up after other people as well as himself. Orange Team got kitchen and bathroom cleaning duties this month. ]

It's true there's no internet in my world, but I'm familiar with it from those other two worlds I've lived in, and of course from the train. But as you say, the train seems to know how to get items from our worlds, so it must have some sort of. . . multiversal internet? And it must have talent as a research librarian, but how would this internet that can span universes even work? Weird.