001 ☼ video; un: ginko

[tenthousandmiles]

[So he's been given to understand this "network" is something like a bulletin board, except people can contact each other in real time, a bit like sending letters through the uro passageways but even faster. Honestly, he's kind of fascinated by the whole thing, but it's still a bit overwhelming, even if the notion of different worlds and planes of existence isn't entirely foreign to him. Hence ... why the video feed is a bit overly zoomed in, and starts out upside down before he realizes his mistake and rights it.]

Ah, it seems some of the creatures from my world followed me through the portal. If you're capable of seeing them, you might have noticed what seem to be ghosts or phantasms floating around--they're called mushi.

They're not sapient, and most are harmless, but some can cause trouble, so if you feel suddenly unwell or notice anyone exhibiting unusual behavior, don't hesitate to contact me. My name is Ginko. I am a mushi-shi, which means handling such incidents was my livelihood before now.

[There's a brief pause. He's not really great at this whole "meet and greet" thing, considering he never really stays in one place long enough for that to be necessary, but...now that he's gotten the business part of this out of the way there are a few things he's curious about.]

Has anyone seen the portal that brings us here? I've heard myths and legends about portals to alternate worlds, but I've never actually seen one.

I'd also like to learn more about these devices, and how they work. Where I’m from, we still communicate through letters, so this is truly astonishing to me. I could tell you some stories about my home, in exchange.

[ooc: Canon never really specifies what makes some people able to see mushi and others not. Believing in or being aware of spirits etc or having a connection to nature in some way probably helps, but honestly feel free to assume your character is able to see them, if that's something you're interested in! They look vaguely like this]

Comments

[franciscoramon]

Oh! Right, sorry. [ Cisco tries to remember not to use too much scientific terminology with new people before he knows if they will understand it, but he slips up sometimes. Ginko had already pretty much answered his question, but it would be rude not to explain, now that he's confused the guy. ] Genetic means passed down from parent to child, in the genes. Like hair color or height. I meant does it run in families.

[ But it sounds from what Ginko said like environmental factors are just as important as anything else. The sake story is amusing, but it's the mention of a near-death experience that answers the question Cisco had really been asking, which was why can I see them. If a near death experience could do it, dying in another timeline and then remembering it evidently could, too. Or maybe it's just his metahuman powers - seeing things he's not supposed to be able to see is kind of his m.o. ]

And you can do something to help? If people get affected by these things and start wandering around like zombies or suddenly getting the urge to collect baseball cards or whatever?

[ That's probably not a joke that's going to translate, but Cisco cracks jokes when he's nervous and honestly, the idea of these weird floating creatures influencing people's behaviors that broadly? It's pretty damn terrifying. ]

How would I know if one of them was influencing me? Is there some kind of- of test?

[ He wants to know more - fairly urgently - but he also takes the time to text the address of his workshop to Ginko, so that he can come by whenever he'd like and Cisco can teach him about cell phones and the internet. ]

[tenthousandmiles]

Aaah, I see.

[He gets the general gist, at any rate, though he's not entirely sure what genes are.]

To answer your question, then--sometimes. It's rare for multiple people in the same family to be able to see them, though, or even immediately succeeding generations.

But yes, I can usually help when trouble arises.

[His eyes widen when the message pops up on his screen, though, his mouth making a perfect 'o' of surprise--enough so that he almost forgets to answer the last part.]

Unfortunately, there isn't any kind of catch-all test I could offer you, but if you notice anything off about yourself at any time, I'll come take a look.

[He offers the young man a reassuring smile, then:]

There's no need to be afraid of them. Much of the time, they just coexist harmlessly with humans, and can even be beneficial. In my world, places barren of mushi were often also devoid of most life.

[franciscoramon]

[ From the sound of it (if this guy is to be trusted, that is), environmental factors are responsible for the difference between seeing them and not seeing them. He doesn't see why Ginko would lie about that - there might be some benefit in saying genetics were to blame and not the environment since, after all, he'd probably brought the things with him. But the other way around? No reason to lie that Cisco could see.

It doesn't pass his notice, though, that Ginko says he can usually help. Who knows what kind of percentage he is calling 'usual' - 70% of the time? 60%? And in any case, he seems to be expecting a lot of self-diagnosing to go on that might be difficult if little floating spirits or whatever were making people behave erratically.

Also, the whole thing could be some kind of elaborate ruse. Maybe this dude is some witch doctor or mad scientist who is cooking up this whole story about mushi to get people who feel unwell or troubled to come to him and let him experiment on them without any fuss.

(Needless to say, Ginko's reassurance that he doesn't need to be afraid of the mushi is not going to make much of a dent in Cisco's paranoia.) ]

And what does you helping people usually look like, anyway? Are we talking meditation? An exorcism? Surgery?

[tenthousandmiles]

[LOOK he's from the 1800s, what do you expect from him Cisco!!! Observing symptoms and offering diagnoses based on records by other mushi-shi and personal experience is about as scientific as you're gonna get in his time .....

At any rate, he's not bothered by the continued questioning from Cisco. This kind of thing is common for him in his line of work, after all, and he's happy to give someone all the information they need before coming to him for help if they need it. He shakes his head at end of the last one.]

Medicine, generally. There are other means to remove a mushi from its host, in individual cases, but never anything too invasive. Sometimes it's safer to allow a mushi to simply live out its natural lifespan, too.

[Ginko never forces it on anyone, at any rate. Sometimes people prefer to keep their mushi-related ailments, for whatever personal reasons they have. He just does what he can and then moves on.]

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco relaxes a tiny bit at that, at least. 'Medicine' was still pretty vague and could mean any number of things, but at least from the sound of it this guy isn't going around cutting people open willy-nilly. And the fact that he acknowledges that different approaches work for different patients is also a good sign. It was the same, with metahumans - no two were really alike, and they'd always had to figure out how to deal with them on an individual basis. ]

Have mushi always existed in your world? Did they come to it from some kind of other dimension? The way you came here, like through a portal?

[ He's thinking of the dimensional rift that had been torn by the particle accelerator exploding, how that had released the unknown energies into the city that ended up giving people their powers. Perhaps the same principle applies here. ]

[tenthousandmiles]

[Ginko hums noncommittally, at that. Cisco is both correct and incorrect; mushi were interwined into the very fabric of reality, back home--anywhere there was life, there was also mushi. They came from the River of Light itself, the source of all life in the world. And yet, their existence was separate--on a different plane of reality than their own, though there were always places where those realities intertwined, like the Path of Thorns.]

Saa...it's more complicated than that. Mushi are of a different existence than our own. They share our reality, influence it...and are tied inextricably to the source of all life itself. But they are not truly part of it, in the way we are.

[He takes an inhale from his mushi cigarette, then exhales, leaving a cloud of smoke that seems to repel a couple of the mushi that have started to hover nearby.]

They are living, like animals, yet inanimate, like objects.

[franciscoramon]

[ Cisco listens, torn between fascination and frustration. One of the challenging things about being in this place and encountering people from such different worlds is that it's hard to tell when someone lacks knowledge or is using unfamiliar (or in this cause, vaguely mystical) language to describe a phenomenon he knows, and to tell when something is genuinely different than anything he's experienced before. Maybe Ginko just doesn't have the language to describe these creatures scientifically, but they could be understood within the laws that Cisco knows. Or, perhaps, they operate under different rules than he knows, and trying to apply his scientific knowledge to them is a fool's errand. ]

Not sure I really get what that means. I don't get how something can be both.

[ It's just too weird to wrap his head around. Sure, there are some creatures that blur the line between alive and not alive - coral, bacteria, whatever - but he isn't sure that's really what Ginko is talking about. Coral didn't make people start acting erratically, and everybody could see it if they looked at it. ]

You gotta stop by my lab sometime and tell me some stories, and I'll teach you about your phone. Sound good?

[tenthousandmiles]

Hmm, can't you, though?

[It's not spoken unkindly or with condescension. Mushi are complicated existences, strange neighbors, as he once put it to someone he met along his travels. Even he doesn't know nearly all there is to know about them, only human as he is. The world of mushi is something utterly alien to those who have never experienced it; a sensory experience can never be adequately explained in words, after all. But Ginko has a lot of experience explaining these things to people who become affected by mushi, and he's patient enough to answer questions and offer analogies to at least get onto a common ground of understanding.]

Plants, for example. They're unable to move on their own, or feel the kind of emotions a human might, but none can deny they're as alive as any animal.

It's a similar concept, with mushi. [He offers the other man a smile.]

I would be happy to tell you some stories about them. I have rather a lot of them. Could you give me directions?

[franciscoramon]

That's true. But like, see here's what I don't get... plants don't impact human behavior. Not unless you eat weird mushrooms in the woods or smoke certain leaves or whatever, and even then, that's you impacting your own behavior using the plant, not what you're talking about.

[ Cisco isn't much having difficulty with the alive and yet inanimate thing so much as he is with the 'alive, inanimate, and capable of having a malicious affect on people'. But he's starting to think this is a complex enough issue that they ought to talk about it in person, so he types out and texts over some detailed instructions on where his workshop is and how Ginko can find it. ]

Come on by whenever.

[tenthousandmiles]

That's not entirely true. Plants can give off chemicals that affect nearby animals even without active consumption.

[His area of expertise is in mushi, sure, but you don't live as a drifter your entire life and not pick up some things about nature at large--especially when such things are often interconnected.]

Certain species of trees, for example, when attacked by caterpillars, will produce chemicals that attract wasps to drive them away.

[The instructions arrive, along with Cisco's offer for him to come by whenever he wants. And really...he has nothing better to be doing, so he asks--]

Do you have time now?

[franciscoramon]

Wait for real? That's kinda badass. I didn't know trees could do that.

[ Clearly, either Ginko's knowledge of flora vastly outstrips Cisco's (very, very possible), or the trees where he comes from are just way cooler than the ones in the little woods outside Central City. As far as Cisco knew until now, the crowning achievement of all trees was their capability of creating maple syrup. Which is still a pretty neat trick. ]

Yeah, I got time, come on by.

[ And with that, Cisco waits. ]