text | un: rin

[offinventory]

I had a thankfully dull moment earlier today passing ways with a fictional ghost—the Headless Horseman. Nothing else happened. However, I am not accustomed to seeing fictional characters, even ghosts, walking around Trench.

1. How normal is this experience?


2. Have you seen any other ghosts—fictional? From home?


3. If you have an experience as the month goes on, I would appreciate knowing.

The Entertainment Feed is going to screen two movies related to The Headless Horseman tonight. It is thematic to the month and solid entertainment. It may also serve as education and preparation should you be unable to avoid a violent altercation.

The plan will be to do the same for any such ghosts people see that are in available media.

Comments

text | un: rin

[offinventory]

That's... awkward.

If it's not available here and you've seen a ghost where you're from, recording a version of the story (text or audio), would be appreciated.

text post; un: peerless_hobo [small CW for reference to underage/developing sexuality]

[xiaoxiuya]

If you think just knowing about it is weird, trying being one of the people who used to read those stories for fun. It's like meeting a celebrity, but with an extra burst of surreality. 'Hi, I used to have you on a poster in my room! Sorry about that time your boss tried to electrocute your kid right in front of you but haha, no harm done right??' Awkward as hell.

[At least he hasn't met anyone he used to jerk off to. Mostly because he was never really interested in masturbation, a fact that used to bother him sometimes but not anymore, holy fuck.]

[offinventory]

I am suddenly grateful that my universe and its media is not popularly represented in Trench.

I do not wish to meet fictional characters as real people

[xiaoxiuya]

As the kids used to say: "God, I wish that were me."

Ironically there are stories about that too. 'Ooh, wouldn't it be cool if I was pulled into the world of my favorite book and got to meet my crush and fix the plot!' or 'Ooh, wouldn't it be cool if my favorite characters came to life and I got to show them around my hometown!'

But it's not cool. It's really not cool at all. (╥_╥)

[offinventory]

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. This place is more alien to me than you.

Yes, I've seen media like that. It does not appeal to me. I don't want to be in the media. I'm there to watch it, not play a part.

How do you know it's not cool?

[xiaoxiuya]

Alien how? What kind of world did you live in before this one?

I know it's not cool because I lived through it. Well, part of it. The 'pulled into a world like the story I was just reading,' part. Admittently it was a pretty shitty story, very low quality writing. Maybe if it had been better, my experiences would have been better too...but I doubt it. The things that make a story interesting can be kind of horrifying to live through, you know?

That's a big part of the reason why it feels so awkward, knowing there are people from the stories I used to know running around Trench...I know things about their lives that nobody has a right to know. It's like I'm some kind of voyeur. :/

[offinventory]

This planet is a version of Earth. You seem to be from a version of Earth. I did not live on a planet. I lived on space stations and spaceships mostly.

Then Trench is not the first time you have traveled between dimensions. In stories that wish to have depth of character arcs or plot, yes. Some of them are lighter.

What reason, if any, did you have to think they were real when you watched them?

[xiaoxiuya]

[Another Sleeper of sci-fi origins? Color him interested 83]

I'm from Earth, yes. Actually I grew up in a country called China. Were you familiar at all with Earth before arriving here, or was it unknown in your universe?

This is the second dimension I've traveled, to the third I've lived in overall. The stories I used to read would call this my second 'transmigration' or say I'm living in an 'isekai' plot, but honestly I prefer 'Sleeper.' It's more comfortable to be part of a group than it would be dealing with all this shit on my own.

I get what you're saying. They were just works of fiction in my world, so I shouldn't feel bad about having enjoyed them, right? You're not wrong, it's just...eugh. Emotions. So messy.

[offinventory]

I have no knowledge of it ever existing. It definitely wasn't in the media.

If you use those stories' terminology, you treat yourself like fiction. Sleeper is a nonfictional term used in Trench.

Emotions are terrible. To paraphrase what I've heard doctors say, emotions are what they are. Recognize they exist. Don't let them pilot the shuttle.

[ezra_of_lothal]

My stories about ghosts from back home are second hand, but I trust the source. You might want to ask Luke Skywalker.

I was a ghost of a similar type most of the July, when Mariana was angry. I died, and I didn't return in the usual way Sleepers to, immediately but Force sensitives or other psychics could sense me.

[offinventory]

Luke Skywalker, noted.

That's unfortunate. Have you died previously or since? Have you, or anyone else who may become that kind of a ghost, died and returned the normal Trench way?