trans_9 | Hey, it's that void between worlds again [Open]

"Most of the blood elves tend towards culture and class," Mar said. "I, on the other hand, am out there hanging out with orcs, Tauren, the undead, and trolls, so in an effort to bridge the culture gap between them I usually stick with very, very bad puns. A bad pun is universal." Of course, so was getting slapped upside the head by... well, pretty much anyone who heard the pun, but it was a bonding experience, right?

"That does explain the visor, though. Here I thought it was just some fancy variant on a helmet. It's not THAT different from what some engineers wear."

"Oh, I don't know, It might be all in the delivery. It could be punny if you figure out just what jokes slay the Undead. The Orcs might be a bit more difficult, what with the anger. Who knows? It might become all the rage for them. (Can't believe how horribly corny I'm being right now) I'm thinking that maybe there's a language barrier between you and the Trolls for jokes, as pronouncing words with tusks might prove very different. They just don't get the point."

Oh, yes. A bad pun IS universal, as was just shown. Luckily a 'Tauren' was something she'd never heard of within any type of mythology or game and as such he was spared the inevitable 'cow' joke.

"Now that I've gotten all that (terribleness) out of my system...No helmet, but the visor is fairly essential. I'd prefer not to get around by hijacking others' optic centers as this is much (much) more convenient."

Maridian burst into laughter. Serious laughter than was hard enough to make him bend over, clutching his side.

After a moment, when he managed to get ahold of himself enough to speak again, he said, "Oh yes. I like you."

Mindfuck simply bowed as he laughed, a pleased smile on her face. "Thank you, Thank you. I'll be here all week (or year; who knows how long we'll be on this ship?)."

After he regained his composure, she spoke up again. "Well thanks, Crusader Do-Good, the feeling is mutual. I almost forgot what it was like to have a conversation that's not eclipsed by one's (egregiously gigantic) supra-ego."

"I'm sure we'll be on the ship long enough that, if you want, you'll have any more opportunities to remember what a conversation like that is like." He raised a finger in caution. "Not that I don't HAVE quite the ego at times, but it mostly related to enduring withering punishment from massive creatures of unfathomable strength, which I don't seem to be doing much of at the moment."

"Give me a few more hours to think up some (embarrassingly cheesy) puns and we can put your 'endurance' to 'withering punishment' to test. You might just be defeated," she replied.

"Though, since I have (no choice but) to be in the distant but still noticeable proximity of so many minds, I think I'll be taking advantage of the headaches and the company of others (in small doses)."

"Feedback from too many people, huh?" he said, sympathetically. "Well, it's a big ship, I bet you could find a place where there aren't as many people to spare you the headache. And feel free to tell me when you do... I promise I'll knock first," he added with a wink.

"Unfortunately. In groups of people it's comparable to standing in a room where they're all talking (yelling, rambling, screaming) in my ears. The 'babbleroar' was so bad on Earth that most (almost all) of my time on the Superhomeys was spent occupying their Space Station."

Mindfuck regarded him with a wry smile for his comment. "I've been looking into that, actually. 'The City' (and I hope they meant to use that name loosely) seems like one of the least inhabited places, here. And it's fairly huge, considering. It actually makes me wonder just what's making this (living?) ship fly." She paused and raised an eyebrow, "I'm sure you will, but with how active your cognisphere is, I'm sure I'll hear you coming from a mile away."

"So long as it stays flying I think I'll just accept that it does." That came with a brief thought of the Exodar -- a massive crystalline ship that the draenei people had actually plowed into an island, back on Azeroth. (And most of the memories involving it also involved charging in to, of all things, put out a fire while a swarm of draenei guards charged after him to end his life if they caught him.)

"I hope that's a compliment," he said, poking his temple consideringly. "Though if it isn't, it wouldn't be the first time I've been called loud and obnoxious... though usually those times came after a few puns of note."

She laughed. "Loud and obnoxious? Why, I never would have guessed! (Bad) jokes aside, I only mean to say that your mind is fairly active without focusing on mundane things, (like if you remembered to take out the trash, or neuter the cat..) which I can only assume is due to our very different lifestyles."

She went silent for a few moments before turning to look at him and suddenly speaking up, again. "Always the selfless type, huh?" She was remarking to his thoughts of the Exodar, although that wasn't readily apparent. "I suppose the blue, demonic (face tentacles? Really?) fellows chasing you are some sort of sworn enemy?"

"Mundane things for me are valor and glory! Azeroth is a messy, messy place full of people who would much rather stand around looking into the distance and pay other people to do their dirty work instead of do it their damns selves," he said.

What HAD he been thinking about? It was a bit easier for her to pick up than him, frankly. Draenei? He took a moment to conjure up the image more clearly, for his own benefit even if it helped her. "The draenei people are... complicated. They're very good people and they've even helped the sin'dorei in some serious ways. But they're part of the Alliance, and we're Horde, so we're technically at war. Even if that's mostly fighting over various resources around Azeroth."

So that had been what the Orc girl vaguely mentioned about an 'ongoing war between factions'. "So altruism only holds up until resources and other goods were concerned?" That didn't sound particularly 'good' but everyone was probably just out for their own survival, anyways.

"I can only assume things go much further than the standard black and white (slash) good and evil fight?" Things were usually just that simple on Earth and made 'choosing a side' that much easier.

"No such beast," Mar said with a shrug. "Sometimes your interests align perfectly, sometimes you're mortal enemies. Of course, there would be a lot less fighting between Alliance and Horde if we didn't get weapons and armor and so forth from doing it. It's certainly not black and white. For example, the draenei and the Tauren are generally the nicest sort of people you could come across, but the Forsaken have gone so far down the path of 'hilariously evil' it's a miracle they don't all have mustaches to twirl. And the humans -- uh, no offense, Azerothian humans -- are just jerks."

If it helps any, she's much cuter (in his opinion) than most human girls he's met on Azeroth?

"So it all pretty much balances out. Most of our real war effort goes to the obvious destroy-the-world sorts, anyway."

"None taken (though I suppose it helps the tiniest bit). I can't speak for normal humans, as they all tend to take a neutral-ish stance on things. 'Jerks' is generally where we suprahumans fit in, though there are some of us who are pretty selfless (the Purple Paladin for one) and/or mostly normal. I use 'mostly' loosely."

"So the people with the power are the last people you'd want using it?" What a mess of a situation. At least in Azeroth enough people fell on the side of good to make a difference, and the rest fell on the side of 'we'll do what people tell us so long as we get rewards', which wasn't quite jerkiness (but close, admittedly). Well, at least Mindfuck sure didn't seem to be a jerk. She actually came off pretty sweet.

...thinking these things is a little awkward, he thought, but on the other hand she probably ended up reading the thoughts of people who were doing things like undressing her in their mind, and that had to suck.

He shut his eyes, pressed his fingertips against them, and smiled. "Hey, I AM starting to lose track of what I'm saying out loud and what I'm just thinking!" But he seemed more amused than anything!

"Well...there is a clear 'good' and 'evil' side as far as superheroes and supervillains go. The only (only? ha!) problem is that when there are those who are exceedingly powerful compared to the common man, they tend to become egomaniacs. Even more-so when the common man depends on superheroes for 'saving the day' as it were and they're suddenly boosted to superstar/god levels of celebrity."

(Ahhhh...hm, how to expl- oops. Thinking out loud again!)

"It would be unfair to say they're all egocentric 'douchecapes' (as Thugboy so elegantly put), but even the superheroes know that the superhero community can be 'harsh' to their own. Think of it like a clique where other capes separate each other with a hierarchy like..." she paused. Okay, he wasn't going to understand 'high school'. "Er...nobles?" It was even more complicated than that, but she figured it wasn't worth mentioning the finer details.

Mindfuck offered him a sympathetic smirk and a pat on the arm. "Oh, it gets so much worse if you're only communicating with me telepathically. And yes, it does suck. Luckily, for the non-psychically inclined, I can just shut those thoughts off in their minds. But I was assured by another telepath on the ship that he didn't need to undress me with his eyes since he'd already seen me naked, he could 'perfectly imagine' me with no clothes on (I'd be rolling my eyes here if I still had them). Nice guy but a tad too honest in the wrong areas."

"So basically, it's a brutal hierarchy full of politics and game-playing, with anyone waiting to pounce and rip you to shreds the moment you fail?" That was his basic impression of nobility, though truth be told, the wars and the complete schism with Kael'thas Sunstrider had really loosened up Sin'dorei society -- relatively speaking, anyway. "But meanwhile the common people are inflating their egos a bit more than is quite healthy?"

He made a wry face at the comment. "I hope that was when you came out of the pods. Maybe he meant that imagining you with no clothes on was perfect? I could see that being the case."

Amazingly, despite the conversation at hand, he had managed to not fall into the trap of doing just what they were talking about. It was possibly iron will, but more likely just an odd manifestation of his general oddness.

She turned her visored gaze to Maridian and simply stared for a few long moments. A slow nod accompanied her stare before she 'spoke'. "Actually...yes. Exactly! Worded much better than my (admittedly embarrassing) jumble of thoughts."

It was the reason why superheroes like Elyssa were constantly berated and looked down upon. Sure, even she could admit that her friend wasn't the best at the superheroing business, but there was something to say about drive and persistence. She didn't think any of the Superhomey's would have continued on if their superhero career was one-fourth as bad as that girl's had been.

"Laying the compliments on thick, aren't you?" She joked with a lopsided smile. "But yes, it was in the caverns. When I awoke, disoriented and confused, I was overwhelmed by the other (disoriented and confused) minds in that place. I was a tad (a lot) bit at an even greater disadvantage, given I didn't have my visor at the time. I piggybacked the optics of the first person I ran into. Well, people." She shrugged a shoulder and laughed.

"Seeing your completely exposed self from someone else's (gawking) eyes is a humbling experience, I'll tell you."

"Oh this is hardly thick, I could be a lot worse," he said with terrifying honesty. Then again, elves could be a master of laying it on thick if they so desired.

"Completely exposed and covered in sludge. Well, just tell yourself it wasn't at your best for reasons out of control." He'd find it a shame for her, or anyone, to feel poorly about themselves because of an extreme situation like that. Of course, he was terribly used to being coated in horrific substances, so he could be quite pragmatic about it.

"Oh, no, it wasn't the worst thing that could happen (by a long shot!). I'll just say that it's an interesting thing to see yourself from someone else's position and 'hear' what they think about it at the same time. Maybe I'll hijack your senses and show you sometime," she said, grinning.

"Though...something tells me that you had no problem walking around naked in the caverns."

"That sounds pretty interesting, actually!" Maybe a normal person would find it odd or threatening to have their senses taken over? "I'd like that, if you feel up to it sometime. Somewhere not here, of course," he added with a look around the obs deck. Whatever it entailed it seemed it probably ought to be just a little less public.

"Oh, I've ended up naked and covered in horrific substances more times than I can count. In the course of my adventuring! Though some parties, I hear, can get pretty wild when the wine starts flowing... but I never get invited to those parties because I'm too busy wading neck-deep through felhound poop looking for some idiot goblin's keys."

"Your senses...not so odd. Honestly, it's much like if you were in this place's 'sensorium'. I can duplicate effects like that (in your head, of course). As for your voluntary motor controls? That's far more of a (terrible, horrible, scarring) threatening feeling."

She crinkled her nose and frowned in disgust at the plethora of fluids he'd seemed to have swam around in. "Your track record makes me very glad that there were very few missions where I was needed on the field."

"I'd rather not do that again," he said with a painfully distinct memory of the Arathi Basin cliffs -- specifically, his body hurling itself over the edge of one, plummeting to what HAD to be certain death on the jagged rocks below. "I've been through that one too many times. I have had priests look through my eyes, they have a spell can do that, but I never thought I'd have the chance to do that. So I'm game. I trust you!"

Of course, being able to invoke period of absolute immunity to all malevolent forces went a long way to making trust easy to extend... but he DID trust her.

"Er, I'm sorry. My mind probably isn't a terribly nice place to be in sometimes."

Painfully self-aware, that statement, as none of the rest had been up to that point. Sad and carrying with it the hint of horrors.

"Nothing to worry about, I assure you. I would never puppet someone against their will. It would make me too much like my (batshit insane) brother and I've spent the better part of my life avoiding that," she said with a deep-set frown.

"But it's more than fine, really! You're not psychotic or delusional, (which are very frightening places to peer into) your experiences are just exceedingly different from what I'm used to." She paused and furrowed a flaxen eyebrow.

"More like getting glimpses in the mind of a suprahuman. But since you are 'Crusader Do-good' (never going to get tired of calling you that), it really shouldn't be a surprise to me. You pretty much are the definition of a 'superhero' for your world, right?"

"You'd say that even if you would, wouldn't you -- oh right! The no-lying! Unless you were lying about that, but I really don't think you were." Just hypotheticals and ponderings of how an evil person might behave in her position. Towards Mindfuck herself he didn't hold a hint of suspicion.

"I wouldn't say that," he said, a bit embarrassed from the flattery. "Azeroth has lots of skilled adventurers. I wouldn't say all of us are unambiguously good guys, but we generally tend to share goals. I mean, when everywhere is in danger of falling to the Scourge, you kind of want to beat the Lich King no matter what, right?"

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