- HMMM I would say yes! Her spirit has a longer tether to her physical form than is usual, is the best way to describe it -- I'll leave it up to you how that manifests in the context of a place where that's more detectable. It's subtle, though, she's not actually a ghost or dead or anything like that!
- Ghosts in Jan's world are usually very locked to place -- for example, Rosa couldn't leave the former hospital room where she'd died at all until Jan offered her pig's blood as a sacrifice, and even once she could move around more she needed a brick from the old hospital building to cling to. The tie to place, or the feelings remembered in that context, is what binds them there! By reaching out with her own spirit to touch the binding, Jan can feel what's holding ghosts there and pull up the root -- either by syncing with the ghost's spirit and interacting with their memories and feelings to relieve whatever pain or pressure has crystallized into the tie, or by just "outwardly" interacting with it and ripping it away with her own energy. Obviously one of these respects the ghost's agency more than the other.
She's never actually done this though! Annabel Williams, the near-revenant that Jan exorcised in the past, was a bit of a special case. Annabel was eating other spirits, which many people find kind of bad, as instead of just a regretful ghost contemplating your own lost life you become a huge hideous ball of everyone else. By the time she found Rosa again, she'd eaten so many other spirits that she'd extended the area of her influence to include most of Santa Rosa. In the meantime, her personality, humanity, and own memories were starting to disintegrate under the weight, because it turns out the weight of other peoples' death and disaster is bad. Annabel did not stay in the hospital (where she'd died) and instead deliberately anchored herself throughout Santa Rosa by obsessing in a really concerning way over three different locations that had meant something to her alive, and represented things she wanted to make foundational to whatever was left of her personality after she completed her revival -- if what came out the other end was unrecognizeable as her, so be it, as long as it still had these elements.
Instead of a "normal" exorcism, for Annabel, Jan had to tear away at all three of those strong ties before they could even face her. She did this by going physically to those locations and having one hell of a showdown with Annabel's spirit -- she tried to "enter" the ties to interact with them like she normally would, but Annabel was cognizant of the process and locked her in deliberately created nightmare landscapes; settings made of pieces of Annabel's past, plus things she'd folded into herself and already forgotten weren't really "her" due to being so fucked up. This is not usually how it works!! Think "mini heart game" versus "mini outwardly sadistic and malleable Judge-run symbolic dungeon run."
As a ghost, Rosa could help with these because she was also operating on a spiritual level, though she had to be fucking careful not to get eaten. (This may or may not still be true now that she's all incarnated?) Once those ties were broken Jan and Rosa were able to face down with Annabel at the hospital, Annabel's last remaining and strongest connection point. It was much more normal at this point though and Jan was able to uproot the tie via the "just grab it" method while Rosa used the high level "screaming tackle" method to assist. All done!
(Then [REDACTED] showed up and OH SHIT IT'S ALL METAPHYSICAL NOW, see Rosa's notes on religion -- but it's not likely you'll see them twice. With some messengers you only get one message per lifetime.)
That was a lot but hopefully explaining both the standard and the abnormal metaphysical cases will give you a better grip on things!
- Jan reacts to tension by... uhh honestly let me just link a thread. She can adjust to most things. She does worst with waiting and helplessness (she just can't and won't believe in helplessness, fundamentally, which can miscalibrate her reactions in situations where she is helpless) and does best with situations that will allow her any kind of forward momentum and, at the very least, the ability to swear at how fucking stupid whatever is happening has managed to be.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-11 02:59 am (UTC)- Ghosts in Jan's world are usually very locked to place -- for example, Rosa couldn't leave the former hospital room where she'd died at all until Jan offered her pig's blood as a sacrifice, and even once she could move around more she needed a brick from the old hospital building to cling to. The tie to place, or the feelings remembered in that context, is what binds them there! By reaching out with her own spirit to touch the binding, Jan can feel what's holding ghosts there and pull up the root -- either by syncing with the ghost's spirit and interacting with their memories and feelings to relieve whatever pain or pressure has crystallized into the tie, or by just "outwardly" interacting with it and ripping it away with her own energy. Obviously one of these respects the ghost's agency more than the other.
She's never actually done this though! Annabel Williams, the near-revenant that Jan exorcised in the past, was a bit of a special case. Annabel was eating other spirits, which many people find kind of bad, as instead of just a regretful ghost contemplating your own lost life you become a huge hideous ball of everyone else. By the time she found Rosa again, she'd eaten so many other spirits that she'd extended the area of her influence to include most of Santa Rosa. In the meantime, her personality, humanity, and own memories were starting to disintegrate under the weight, because it turns out the weight of other peoples' death and disaster is bad. Annabel did not stay in the hospital (where she'd died) and instead deliberately anchored herself throughout Santa Rosa by obsessing in a really concerning way over three different locations that had meant something to her alive, and represented things she wanted to make foundational to whatever was left of her personality after she completed her revival -- if what came out the other end was unrecognizeable as her, so be it, as long as it still had these elements.
Instead of a "normal" exorcism, for Annabel, Jan had to tear away at all three of those strong ties before they could even face her. She did this by going physically to those locations and having one hell of a showdown with Annabel's spirit -- she tried to "enter" the ties to interact with them like she normally would, but Annabel was cognizant of the process and locked her in deliberately created nightmare landscapes; settings made of pieces of Annabel's past, plus things she'd folded into herself and already forgotten weren't really "her" due to being so fucked up. This is not usually how it works!! Think "mini heart game" versus "mini outwardly sadistic and malleable Judge-run symbolic dungeon run."
As a ghost, Rosa could help with these because she was also operating on a spiritual level, though she had to be fucking careful not to get eaten. (This may or may not still be true now that she's all incarnated?) Once those ties were broken Jan and Rosa were able to face down with Annabel at the hospital, Annabel's last remaining and strongest connection point. It was much more normal at this point though and Jan was able to uproot the tie via the "just grab it" method while Rosa used the high level "screaming tackle" method to assist. All done!
(Then [REDACTED] showed up and OH SHIT IT'S ALL METAPHYSICAL NOW, see Rosa's notes on religion -- but it's not likely you'll see them twice. With some messengers you only get one message per lifetime.)
That was a lot but hopefully explaining both the standard and the abnormal metaphysical cases will give you a better grip on things!
- Jan reacts to tension by... uhh honestly let me just link a thread. She can adjust to most things. She does worst with waiting and helplessness (she just can't and won't believe in helplessness, fundamentally, which can miscalibrate her reactions in situations where she is helpless) and does best with situations that will allow her any kind of forward momentum and, at the very least, the ability to swear at how fucking stupid whatever is happening has managed to be.