♬ 002

[parodies]

[the first thing that can be seen on the feed is a hand, moving away from the keyboard after having switched on the webcam]

[most of the rest of the video is taken up by a young girl-- she's standing with her back to the camera, and is close enough that all that can be really seen are her wings (colorful; very funky-looking and patchworked), and a few snatches of blonde hair]

[not much of the room she's in is visible, but if anyone looks closely, it's clearly a girl's cluttered bedroom: clothes, accessories, some toys, a guitar lying on a large semicircled windowseat]

[she stands still for a few seconds, then takes a shaky breath and speaks]

Okay.

I believe you now.

Comments

[parodies]

Have you been here for a long time?

[ghostshippingly]

About four years, now.

[parodies]

How old are you? If it's okay to ask that.

[ghostshippingly]

Oh no, that's fine! I'm going to be thirteen years old this July.

[parodies]

I'm going to be twelve in August.

[ghostshippingly]

Really? That's interesting. It's not really very often that I meet people that close to my age on here. Oh, my name's Pearl, by the way. It's nice to meet you!

[parodies]

You can just call me guitargrrl95. It's my username on the site I thought I was posting to when I first came here.

[... and she's not quite ready to tell people her real name yet]

Is this place mostly adults or something?

[ghostshippingly]

Is just guitargrrl fine? Adding a number at the end seems a little clunky.

Sort of. Some of them are hundreds and hundreds of years old, but most people are usually at least five years older than I am. I think that's been changing more as I've been getting older, though, mostly because new people keep joining and old ones keep leaving.

[parodies]

Yeah, that's okay. I would have been guitargirl if it hadn't been taken. Grrl is kind of dorky.

I thought people couldn't leave.

[ghostshippingly]

Ha ha, I suppose it is a little. I don't think that's a bad thing, though!

Oh, sorry. People can't, really... but I meant more that sometimes, people just suddenly lose their access to the community. No matter how hard they try, they can't get back on. And most of the time, those people forget about it sooner or later, too.

[parodies]

It'd be pretty hard to forget a place like this.

[ghostshippingly]

You'd think so, right? But somehow, it still happens.

[parodies]

You know that's really spooky, right?

[ghostshippingly]

Well, I'm a spirit medium, so it's sort of my job to deal with spooky things...

But you're right, it is spooky. It's really unsettling to think about.

[parodies]

You're like a psychic?

[ghostshippingly]

Oh, no! I can't read minds or anything like that. Spiritual power is all about being able to sense when spirits or ghosts are around, and being able to contact the spirit world and channel the spirits of the dead. I suppose they could seem quite similar, but psychic power and spiritual power are actually very different things.

[parodies]

That sounds like a psychic to me. Even the ones on TV don't say they can read minds, they just talk to your dead family members for you and stuff.

[ghostshippingly]

Oh, really? Well, I've never heard any of the mediums here say that spiritual power was the same as psychic power before... but maybe that's just because there's so many different kinds of psychic power that it's easier not to use that word when you're trying to teach students.

[parodies]

And the ones on TV are usually fakes.

[ghostshippingly]

What?

... I suppose they must do it for the money, mustn't they.

[parodies]

If you can get famous you're set for life. Some of them have their own shows, like the Pet Psychic.

[ghostshippingly]

Does that person really claim to talk to people's pets?

[parodies]

Only dead ones. I know a girl whose mom hired her when their cat died.

[ghostshippingly]

That's strange... I wouldn't claim to be able to channel someone's pet. I think that would only work if I was able to understand animals to begin with... or if the person who wanted their pet channelled did, I suppose. But I don't think the Kurain technique even works on animal spirits.

[parodies]

Her mom is a little loopy.