"Do you have...the Ghost Rider live action show? You would have heard of it, it's the only one with as much cultural penetration as the F4 movies. It ran for seven seasons."

"I have not heard of a Ghost Rider TV show."

"It's a nice bonus. Eclipse is going to save our world, and give us some new stuff to watch. Oh, and you probably have way more music than we do- that'll sell well."

"Why would we have more?"

"The process of getting a license to play professional venues is a nightmare- most musicians like to use Arouse in their work, so you need it. Some don't get the license, but they can't always get booked at the same rates- it's a weird artistic choice or a handicap to never use it."

"Huh. I mean, obviously none of ours has it, but if you just want sheer variety then I imagine we have you covered there."

"I think you guys will have had more creative freedom- people rely on Arouse to do the heavy lifting, and besides, licensing always scares off genuine talent. What's your favorite band?"

"I haven't designated one! I don't think my musical taste is all that interesting, I'm kinda one of the 'everything except rap and country' crowd."

"Are you into sports? I'm having a hard time picturing what free time looks like for a working psion. When you're not entertaining the magical, otherworldly visitor."

"I am not into sports except that I will watch Olympic figure skating and sometimes gymanstics."

"-Olympics, huh? International athletic competition?"

"You don't have the Olympics?"

"We've got something we call the Olympics but it's not primarily an athletic competition, it's a singing competition. There are athletic portions but they're more like sideshows. We might have figure skating, but not gymnastics."

"Huh. The Olympics is old, it's from Ancient Greece, and it was athletics then."

"We had it too, and it was athletics then. When we revived it for modern times, we updated it. People really like their singing competitions. We still have professional sports but not on the international level like that- do you have other international sporting events?"

"I... think so? Like I think there's international... soccer? But I don't really care about sports so I don't know whether there's anything as international as the Olympics is."

"Sorry, yeah. I'll look it up later. You've got me all curious what the differences are. How's your food?"

"Yummy, but I'm an eclipsed, I would say that."

"You do still care what you eat, don't you? Does the need for calories trump the concern for taste that us mere mortals are saddled with?"

"Hunger is the best seasoning and also we spend a couple years in virtuality never eating anything. - they have to feed us but they just kind of dribble nutritionally complete shakes down our throats while we're conscious only of the virtual world. So then you pop out, ravenous, and you haven't had a bite to eat in two years, and that kinda sticks with you."

"We'll improve on it."

Nom. Dottie will eat the rest of his meal quietly, trying to plan the lyrics for his next Triumph.

nomnomnomnom

He's got something that should work, he thinks. Whatever the issue was with the previous iteration, it likely came from not having a strong enough sense of precognition. Dottie has designed a version in his head, now. It won't be perfect, but the chant should take care of the rest. He'll have something.

"In the mood for some Triumph after this?"

"Sure! If you do lots in a row does it stack?"

"I should preface this by saying, as usual, I don't know how it'll apply to literal magic, but yeah, it stacks. As long as it's still the thing you'd feel most triumphant about, it works. Most of chanting comes down to lyric writing, rapport with your co-chanters, and emotional management. Speaking of, why don't I look over your lyrics this time? There might be some tweaks I can suggest."