voidtreckernet | Merriment 25, late morning [video. ish.]

Entry tags:

Merriment 25, late morning [video. ish.]

[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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Dress the cat up as a child and pretend to be its father. It would pass as a five-year-old. Nobody'd check your ID ever.

My daughter would have hated it, too. She was fully grown at three years old.

...well I was going to say I have friends who'd be in your position if they were here, but then I realized my family is an outlier of blades where not a one of us is younger than fifty.

[ Except, notably, Asch, who Jade notes the train listed as a thousand? Maybe blades wouldn't have this problem. Or maybe Asch is the exception to this rule, like several others. ]

Still, were I a hundred years younger, I'd find myself in your position and similarly frustrated about it. Nothing more annoying than being told what to do when you are perfectly capable of making rational decisions yourself.

Hi, Ghost! My name's Curufin Fëanorion. Are you called Ghost because you are one, or is that just an expressive nickname?

And that's very strange, that the train thinks you are a child. I wonder how that happened?

Well, she's needy enough.

[He is now holding Rory up to the camera for you. Look at this face. Who could ever hate this face.]

Well, you're not looking bad for a century.

[He just. Accepts this because what the fuck else are you supposed to do on this train?]

It really was the stubborn insistence that I needed someone to hold my hand that bothered me. I didn't have a childhood, I've never had anyone doing that kind of hovering over me. It's pretty fucking galling to have a bunch of strangers insist on it now.

Thanks, it's the being a blade.

[ Jade that's not helpful. He smiles like he knows that, though. ]

Fair enough. I'll lodge a complaint with a train for you - Though I suppose the staff is just as much to blame for sticking so strictly to the ages indicated by the bands. You don't look a day under thirty to me.

[ The not having a childhood comment doesn't even parse as weird. That's normal for blades back home-- why not aliens here on the train? ]

Neither, it's my actual name. Long story.

I'm pretty sure that it's just because it takes it off literal age from birth, rather than comparing any kind of maturity levels. Which in my case wasn't long before I got here at all.

[On-camera, Ghost sighs heavily.]

You need to have someone teach her the word "no" and that's all you'd need to pass her off as a believable child.

[Murphy could say no to that face but he's only powerful enough to manage it 2/3rds of the time. It takes strength of dipshittery he does not have.]

[Ghost snorts.]

She definitely has her ways of saying no. I think her voice is a little croaky for pulling off a kid, though.

[Rory twitches an ear at the camera before Ghost settles her back into his lap.]

Well, you know alien adopted kids these days and their scratchy voices.

[But aside from the teasing about the giant cat.]

Maybe the train is so used to this memory shit that for some people it doesn't count remembered experiences as anything other than borrowed. Like reading out of a novel. Some people, that is.

I'll put it in my daily complaint! Though do you mind me asking what you mean by alien?

And how would you want the train to evaluate us? By appearance?

[Because as a 30-year-old who looks like a teenager most of the time, that sounds like turning Ghost's problem into Shen Qingqiu's problem instead.]

It's your actual name? That must be an interesting story.

I don't know how the train comes up with its ideas about age. There are beings who age very slowly, such as my people, the Elves, and there are beings who grow up very quickly. You seem to be a mature man, so I don't know why the train doesn't take that into account.

It's probably just the literal age since 'birth,' whatever that is that counts for someone. Occam's Razor and so on. Which in my case, I was only two weeks old when I got here, so...

[He's gonna be boned on the age thing for a LONG time if the train doesn't take the feedback.]

[Like Ghost isn't going to remember that for future reference anyway.]

Thanks, I really appreciate it. The staff's just doing what they're supposed to - I'm sure that resort is some manner of corporate hellscape behind the scenes.

[If there's one thing in the worlds he knows, it's corporate hellscapes.]

Admittedly, I did choose it myself.

I think it's using a human baseline - maturity in the late teenage years and so on. Humans are the majority of the passengers and also the majority of the people in the worlds we've been to since I've been here, so it makes some amount of sense, but...

You have a daily complaint? You know what, that's actually kind of impressive.

Generally it means "something not native to this planet that came from beyond the atmosphere," though it's a little more complicated in my case. I think we do have a few legitimate space-faring types on board, but I'm not one of them.

[In Ghost's ideal world, there would be NO problem.]

Case by case basis for anyone who doesn't fit the human norm. I mean, it already handles exotic diets and the like for people who aren't fully human.

Gotta be dedicated to something.

... Wait, so does that mean we're... all aliens? To each other? 'Cause we all came from another planet or whatever and it was beyond the atmo... that's the air. Right.

And it should know you're not human unless it was confused when it pulled you.

....Train doesn't make sense. I dunno. Maybe it'll listen. It's gotta be somewhat aware 'cause it's not sending you formula.

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?

Your answer is reasonable enough, though it would also require whatever evaluates us to put in that extra time.

[And he doesn't trust most creatures to go out of their way when they don't have to, regardless of...species? Whatever.]

Do you really think it cares.

Well, I'm not going to change anything if I don't try.

[Have a little less fatalism, Rin!]

Even if they only did it in response to complaints, it'd be an improvement. And the train does seem to prefer us not-unhappy, the general feelings about being taken to other worlds unexpectedly notwithstanding.

I mean, you could sure look at it that way, if you wanted.

To me, there's also a certain amount of needing to be NOT the same species involved. Humans from one world aren't really alien to humans from another one, if that makes sense.

[He's not making any assumptions about who is or isn't human here, though.]

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...

Yeah, it seems to do some bare-minimum research stuff - I mean, I have my phone, that's the most important part in my case, but there's also your diet and stuff.

Hopefully it decides to take this into account, since we'll probably run into some kind of age-separated thing again. At least the train doesn't shy away from giving us a bit of vacation when it thinks we need it.

[make i- actually, don't, we're retracting that dare right now.]

Why do you even care about the kiddie pool?

I like to think of it as the train taking us for walkies.

[Because Murphy is a cynic.]

I realized if we get stuck in another place where I can't eat, I can't exactly take any volunteers from the crew. The bodies disappear soon after they die, right?

Not exactly a topic of conversation I've wanted to bring up. But uh... if we're in a tight situation and I start getting really hungry, can I chew your cell phone battery?

[Because that would oddly sate him for a while.]

Would YOU want a bunch of vaguely concerned adults following you around while you're just trying to live your normal, maturity-appropriate life?

[Trick question he already knows the answer there.]

Edited (tucking fypos AND THEN I CHANGED THE WRONG ONE) 2021-08-26 04:08 (UTC)

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.

Edited 2021-08-26 04:06 (UTC)

That's not what I meant.

What did you even want to do that you couldn't?

That's kind of my main objection, though. It's not about what I might or might not do, it's about having the ability to decide that for myself.

[Ghost pauses, frowns at the camera/Rin, and glances down to give Rory a scritch.]

It's insulting to be treated like a child and have my agency taken away like one. That's what I'm pissed about, really.

...That said, the answer was 'spend almost every one of the resort coins the train gave on chocolate' which was understandably frowned-upon from a 'child' and I had to get one of the other passengers play 'supervising' adult, so.

[-okay, that's actually something it can understand. Up to a point. As usual, the camera is pointed away from its face so it can't be seen; one can hear, however, the dubious sound it makes regarding, er, chocolate]

You're kidding.

[Yeah well he has normal human-range functionality for both his taste buds and his digestive track, so sue him.]

I am as serious as it is possible to be. It's not like we have a lot of chances to get anything better than cheap grocery-store-candy-bar tier.

[Most of it is stashed in his combat locker. It's not like he's got weapons in there at the moment.]

You can ask Siebren, he's the one who 'supervised.'

Edited (finishes tag, kia confirms handwave. edits. cries.) 2021-08-26 04:33 (UTC)

Not all of us eat. [Or do you want to hear about how it has to store food in a lung until it forces it back up.]

[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.

[Murphy is a cynic but Ghost is a zoomer. He 'grew up' on 'treat yourself like a zoo animal, give yourself enrichment' tumblr posts. He just nods at walkies.]

Define 'chew on.' Will it still be functional afterwards?

[Frysquint but it's ascii art goes here.]

I'd probably have to get you another battery. [He would outright chew up the battery for the lithium.]

But we're talking high emergency situation here. Not a casual 'hey I need a snack'.

[ 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.

I guess, but I don't know if I can fully agree or not—but I wouldn't have said alien in the first place. Just, you're different, or you're familiar, and that is what it is.

( he's dragon-souled, so he doesn't share the exact makeup of a human, though he has a human form, a fully human one, alongside his dragon-feature human form. )

Satisfying the lowest denominator in order to prevent greater unrest...I suppose that's not entirely unexpected.

Hopefully enough people will speak up for the train to consider them worth listening to.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Merriment 25, late morning [video. ish.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject