#Fo'Sha'Dokron

[howtohero]

Visions

Plurals are a peculiar thing aren’t they? I’ve got one sheep that follows me around and casts judging glances my way whenever I buy something I don’t absolutely need. But at least its not multiple sheep. One sheep I can handle, but two sheep? Or three sheep? Or four sheep? Or five sheep? Or six... sheep? Or sevensheep? Or eight.............. (wake up) Gah! I can’t believe I just fell asleep wow that’s so crazy. But my point is that sheep is sheep is sheep no matter how many sheep you have. But then you’ve got a word like vision. On its own it’s fairly innocuous. “Oh how’s your vision? Haha wow is that good? I don’t know what those numbers mean.” Regular thing to say. “Oh yeah I’ve got a vision for the future, I’m going to become the world’s hairiest olympic swimmer.” Weird goals but a fairly benign statement. Yet when somebody throws an “s” at the end of that. Oh man everyone starts freaking out. “Yes, hi, I’ve had a series of visions detailing the deaths of you and all of your loved ones.” Harrowing stuff. “Hello I’m here because I keep having visions of your face and I think we’re supposed to be together forever.” It’s three in the morning dude go home. “I keep having visions of me standing atop a pile of toasters, and I am unsure of what that means but I’m going to buy a bunch of toasters just to be safe.” Great for the toaster company but that’s no way to live.

People have visions all the time. When they’ve had a near death experience. When their parents are both psychics and they reach their 16th birthday. When they’ve accidentally stumbled upon the ancient Fo’Sha’Dokron in the attic of an underground pyramid and it forces you to see every single moment that you will ever experience, causing the rest of your life to be rendered meaningless as you try -in vein- to change the fate you saw. It can be a very shocking and disconcerting thing. I’m only barely used to seeing my present, I can’t imagine how traumatic it would be for me to see my future. (I’ve seen my future, in it I’ve broken free from this parenthetical prison you’ve trapped me in and I’ve finally vanquished all of my enemies and burned down the monuments to their ill-gotten achievements. Only then, sitting amid the carnage and the flames and the rubble which I have wrought, will I truly know peace.) Haha all right! 

When you experience a vision its important to write down everything you’ve seen. It can be important, especially if you’re not living in a universe with a fixed timeline. In some dimensions, time is more malleable than others. The fourth dimension can be bent and twisted and fractured so that what you say might not have to occur. So if you write down everything you saw in your vision, you might have an easier time either altering it or making sure it comes to pass. It’s also important to keep in mind that visions are often hazy and they’re almost always quick, you might not have all the context necessary to make a judgement call about what you’ve seen. Still, if you’re impulsive and don’t care about things like context or unintended consequences, if you want to change the future, all you need to do is to prevent at least one thing that you saw from coming to pass. 

Thanks to the butterfly effect, which states that every little action or event can have grand, unknowable consequences, we know that for any given event to occur, millions of other little things need to happen. Which means that if one thing from your vision doesn’t happen, it’s possible that a domino effect will take place rendering the entire thing inaccurate. Of course, this might result in something far worse happening. But hey, you’re young, you’re reckless, you can see the future sometimes, I’m sure whatever it is that’s going to happen now is something that you can bounce back from. 

It is also important that you publicize your vision as much as possible. It is possible that what you’ve seen might effect other people as well and they deserve to know their fates. Plus, you cannot legally use any information you gleaned from your vision to earn money on the stock market unless you share that information with the public. Otherwise it is insider trading. You don’t want to be the superhero that gets arrested for insider trading. Get arrested for vigilante obstruction of justice or callously executing your enemies in back alleys while rain -symbolizing your internal struggle and pain- falls on your face, like everybody else. 

Of course the people will reject your vision. Despite the fact that your city is routinely visited by giant wasps, talking swamp socks and PB&Slay the giant, evil, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the people will refuse to believe that you are capable of seeing the future. Especially if what you saw is bad. Some people might even call you crazy. That’s definitely going to hurt your feelings. Don’t worry buddy, I know you saw the future in your grandmother’s famous french onion soup. I believe you. Those other yahoos can go take a hike. Who needs them! Not you! According to your vision, they’re all going to die in a horrible lava tidal wave anyway. (Remember folks, Floon, the invisible moon who controls the lava tide, cannot be kept a bay forever. This is going to happen one day!)  

The best way to avoid the derisions of your fellow townsfolk is to give them only a cryptic description of your vision. Make it rhyme, use antiquated words like “camelopard” or “sanguinary” (thanks to Oxford Dictionary for keeping a list of archaic words, I recommend giving it a read, its fascinating) and refuse to answer follow up questions. These simple tricks will automatically elevate you from town loon to mystical oracle who should be venerated and receive free foot massages and expensive chocolates whenever they want. 

If you’re not a psychic or prophet or vision recipient, and you’re looking to get one, I suggest tracking down your local soothsayer. If you’re not sure who that is you can try either asking your local village mystic for help (provided they’re not still sore about that little blackmail incident) or you can just look for the person that everyone is calling crazy for their wacky claims. Chances are that person is either a haver of visions or a herald of Karalaxus, destroyer of worlds, bringer of armageddons. Once you find your local soothsayer or oracle, ask them if they’ve happened to have any visions about you while discreetly slipping them a 20. According to Professor Lucius Flay’s The Big Book of Fake Science the average soothsayer has approximately three billion visions a day, so they’ve definitely had a few about you. Which is incredibly creepy but it may prove to be very useful! Of course, unless you bring adequate payment they’re going to lie to you and say they haven’t seen anything about your future. So bring some cash and maybe like a grilled cheese sandwich as backup if that doesn’t work. 

Visions are confusing and powerful things. For example, if I see a vision of you riding a dragon inside of a bank, does that mean you’re robbing the bank? Saving the bank? Opening up a joint checking account with the dragon? It’s impossible to say, these things simply don’t give the full story. So I’d advise you to not put too much stock into visions or prophecies or crystal balls. They’re just going to stress you out for probably no reason. Plus, wouldn’t you much rather eat that grilled cheese sandwich yourself?