Author: mind_game | Time has passed.
Inconsistently.
Jane's network has kept all the Bells' worlds - and every other world with a Janepoint stuck in due to its being attached to Downside - in temporal sync, but when Jane spluttered for just a moment, that was shot to hell.
Peace lost three seconds, because it was where Aegis torched; after that process was complete, Jane was there again. And as soon as a door between Peace and Milliways appeared, she could sync to her ansible hub in the Belltower and, from there, to everywhere else.
Atlantis and Sunshine each stand at about a minute apiece: Shell Bell's aura and Juliet's local copy of Jarvis both enabled them to get to Milliways immediately, pausing their homeworlds as standard for occasions when someone walks into the bar. Shell Bell's the one who connected Peace.
Everyone else was running on luck.
Luckiest is Rainbow, which lost only five hours.
Next is Alethia; in spite of Sherlock's mishap, it's fared reasonably well, spending only six weeks isolated.
Syntropy's just a little worse - seven weeks.
Origin waited two months.
Eos waited three.
Thilanushinyel, ten.
Everyone else is out a decade at least. Samaria's ten years, almost ten and a half.
Aurum is out eleven.
Rêverie has been separated for sixteen years.
All the Bells - and Elspeth, who was stuck in Downside for a day and a half on her end and whose mother was very upset - are collected in the Belltower, as are two Bell-attached Sherlocks who happened to be along for the ride. They all memorize this list of numbers. Aegis replaces her earpiece. And then they all go home to notify their loved ones and staff that there's a party cooking in the Belltower.
(Shell Bell, who has no particular cause on her own account to be distressed, sends her Sherlock to invite Tony in while she refits the Belltower to suit a party of a peal of Bells and their larger-than-last-encountered families and circles of friends.) |
Author: beheld_beauty | [Mon cœur! Girls!] Rose calls out when she's returned to Rêverie. [Jane is back! Let's all go meet everyone. None of them have been cut off as long as we have.] |
Author: deslandes | Her Beast appears, trailing their firstborn. |
Author: bellfounding | [Hey, Queenie, Ghosty, Slipstick,] says Pattern. [Jane's up and running again. Party in the Belltower.] |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | [Ooh,] says Queenie. She pops over to the Janepoint. (Ghosty, as usual, is included but not visible.) |
Author: cross_and_bow | [Tony, you wanna get to the Belltower nowish? Sherlock was stuck in Alethia for six weeks and missed us like crazy,] Juliet tells Tony, and then she makes a more perfunctory announcement to James, Virginia, Giles, and Minnie that a party is ongoing. |
Author: toblameforit | Tony gets to the Belltower. |
Author: campanas | Céleste follows her papa, clinging to the hem of his shirt nervously. "Truly for real?" she wants to know. |
Author: beheld_beauty | "Truly for real." |
Author: mind_game | And in they are brought. |
Author: dark_light | [Sweeties! Jane's back, party in the Belltower!] |
Author: incanted | [Jane's back,] Aurora reports to Lexi and Brilliance. [And we were lucky, ours was one of the very shortest outages, three of the Bells waited over a decade.] |
Author: truthwright | [Awesome!]
Her sweeties pop over to the Janepoint. |
Author: lexicality | [Awesome! I bet there's another party.] |
Author: incanted | [Right in one.] |
Author: dark_light | And in they go. |
Author: cardistry | [Ooh, party,] says Brilliance. [Let's go to the party!] |
Author: incanted | [That's the plan!]
And the plan is enacted. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [My love, my treasures!] Angela tells her husband and two eldest girls. [Jane is connected again. Let's leave Ariel and Pen' with Serah and go to the Belltower to see everyone.] |
Author: campanas | [Will they like us?] Keziah wants to know. |
Author: carillons | [Of course they'll like us,] says Damaris. |
Author: lifes_sake | [Hey Jellybean, Tilly, the long dark confinement of Syntropy is at an end,] says Cam. |
Author: pythbox | [Joy oh joy,] says Jellybean dryly. |
Author: campanas | [What if they don't?] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | [Everyone will like you, treasure.] |
Author: withmypowers | [So what in fact happened?] |
Author: yovahs_kisses | [How could they not, when you're so tremendously lovable?] |
Author: luminous_regnant | Notifying the Joker is not the first thing Golden does when Jane is back online.
But she gets around to it eventually.
[Jane is back, Elspeth is back. Party in the Belltower. Go if you want, bring who you want.] |
Author: lifes_sake | [Aegis torched. Some kinda Peace superweapon. Irony at its finest, I guess. And Jane sorta lives in her, so that knocked her out and threw everybody out of sync. We got off easy compared to some worlds. Rose has a teenage daughter now.] |
Author: manofmyword | [Thanks,] he says to Golden.
And to Nathan and the kids: [Pumpkin, Kerron, sweetness, who wants to come to the interdimensional party?] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Angela deposits the younger girls with Auntie Serah and minimal explanations about a "family outing", and meets everyone else in the family's suite. "Are we all ready?" she asks. |
Author: campanas | "If you're sure they'll like us." |
Author: pythbox | [Wow,] says Jellybean. [Good for Rose, I guess.] |
Author: temporal_affairs | [I will delightedly attend the interdimensional party.] |
Author: pina_colada | [I'm in. Wonder if anyone'll recognize me.] |
Author: lifes_sake | [And a younger one too. And Angela has four girls but Samaria wasn't knocked as badly forward so the oldest is ten. I guess they're coming, except Angela's not telling her kids about magic and such till they're older than her third and fourth, so just the two cherubs.] |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Of course they will," says Micaiah, hugging his daughter. |
Author: manofmyword | [Bet you they won't,] says the Joker. [Let's find out!] |
Author: self_composed | [Alice, Lazarus, Libby, Anna, Sandy, assorted personnel,] says Stella to the named persons and assorted personnel, [Jane's up again. Party in the Belltower, come one come all!] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | [I'll go, too,] says Aedyt. [Just as soon as somebody tells me how to get there.] |
Author: pythbox | [Huh,] says Jellybean. [Everybody's breeding all of a sudden.] |
Author: small_magics | Sarion pops back into Thilanushinyel after the brief base-touching meeting to broadcast to her beloveds that Jane can reach them once again and they may attend a party in the Belltower. As an afterthought, she invites Liselen again. And Magania, though she has little hope of the latter accepting. |
Author: endragoned | Her beloveds would love to attend a party in the Belltower! |
Author: pythbox | So would Liselen.
Magania declines with the utmost politeness. |
Author: pina_colada | [You just stand in front of one of the computer setups in any capital and ask Jane,] says Kerron. [Also works if you stand near the Empress or the Princess, they have fancy gem-things that Jane can use to move people when she's working.] |
Author: small_magics | To the Belltower, then! |
Author: pumpkin_pie | [I've never even met the Princess, I'm not going to teleport in front of her and ask for a ride,] says Aedyt. [I'll see her at the party, I guess!]
She stands in front of a computer in a capital and says, "Um... so I hear there's a party?" |
Author: mind_game | "There is! You must be new," says Jane. "Hang on, processing imperial records, om nom nom - hi, Aedyt, I'm Jane! I am slightly not really at all your cousin! You going to the party or just commenting on it?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I would like to go to the party, please!" says Aedyt. |
Author: mind_game | Yoink! |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Neato," says Aedyt. |
Author: lifes_sake | [Angela was already knocked up,] Cam points out. [Wouldn't call it sudden.] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "I think we're ready," Angela laughs, and they are scooped up and set down in another world. |
Author: pythbox | [Well, yeah, but two months ago there was one pregnancy and now there's six kids, I get to be surprised.] |
Author: lifes_sake | [Fair enough,] laughs Cam. [We don't know yet if any of them are alts of each other but I bet you they are. Let's go see.] |
Author: pythbox | [Definitely!] |
Author: lifes_sake | And they do! |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Count me in!] says Alice. |
Author: nonbird | [Me too,] says Lazarus. |
Author: mind_game | Worlds with networked Jarvises have lost only about a minute relative to Jane, but she invites the corresponding Tonies and Sherlocks anyway, including Iron Man, and also Darcy from his world.
Stray Matilda's world has lost about a year; there is no accumulation of hysterical email messages or anything so Jane presumes that the handful of people there who knew about her weren't too upset by her absence. That Matilda gets an invite too. [Your alt from Syntropy's there,] Jane adds. |
Author: self_composed | [Awesome, let's go.] Stella fetches the respondents and off they go. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | Darcy accepts this invitation! |
Author: withmypowers | So does Matilda. |
Author: mind_game | Jane conveys them both. |
Author: campanas | Two very similar seven-year-olds spot each other from across the Belltower.
They approach each other slowly, mirrored, frowning.
They get close enough to touch noses.
And then each one throws back her head and shouts:
"DAAAAAAAAARS!"
"DOMINIIIIQUE!" |
Author: lifes_sake | "Well," says Cam to Tilly. "I wanna meet the other you, d'you wanna meet the other you?" |
Author: pina_colada | Kerron's just going to loiter around here waiting for someone to ask him who he is. Or say his name. Mum won't tell, he's good at playing along like that. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth, repatriated, smothered in parental hugs, with a newly awakened wolf who missed as much time at home as she did close at her heels, and generally just a bit overwhelmed, is hanging out over there. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | A girl whom Kerron might have seen around at a previous Bellparty or two walks right past him, and then spins around and does a full-on double-take, one hand going to the handle of the war hammer hanging from her belt.
"Whoa!" |
Author: withmypowers | "Love to," says Tilly. "Let's go find her." |
Author: pina_colada | "Hey," says Kerron. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Hi," says Darcy. "You... are probably not Thor." |
Author: lifes_sake | She's not hard to find! Unlike the many barely-distinguishable Bells milling about, there are a total of just two Matildas here.
"Hullo, Other Matilda," says Cam to Other Matilda. |
Author: pina_colada | "...The Norse god of thunder? Me? I have honestly not heard that mistake made before, I gotta say," laughs Kerron. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt... meant to go up and say hi, she really did.
But then she discovered that actually it's kind of difficult to go up and say hi to somebody you've been hearing about all your life who is guaranteed to have no idea who you are. So she's just kind of hanging out over here and maybe staring a little. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "That half-vamp over there is staring at you," Jacob murmurs in Elspeth's ear.
Elspeth turns in Aedyt's direction and tilts her head and waves. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "The Norse god of thunder who happens to be my drinking buddy, yeah," says Darcy. "You look almost just like him, except younger and with less hair." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt waves shyly back. |
Author: pina_colada | "...Okay," says Kerron, "how likely is that to be an alts thing and how likely is it to just be a crazy resemblance? Because I don't feel very Norse or very thunderous and I'm not gonna get any older-looking and I have no plans to stop buzzcutting once a week." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Who're you? Elspeth sends at her. I've missed a lot, even though it's been less than two days for me. |
Author: withmypowers | "Hi," says Other Matilda. "You must be Tilly."
"Got it in one!" says Tilly. "Hey, can I have some of your infamous contagious magic?"
"Since you asked so nicely," says Other Matilda. Tilly levitates a few inches into the air. |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam laughs softly. "It didn't work on Shell Bell, is it liable to work on any of us other Bells?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "I am, like, 99% sure it's just a crazy resemblance," says Darcy. "I've heard that happens sometimes, although I haven't actually seen it until now. It's kinda weird! If you wanna check for sure, though," she pats the hammer, "I bet Mewtwo can help." |
Author: withmypowers | "No statistics either way," says Other Matilda. "I can always try it and see." |
Author: pina_colada | "How will your hammer help?" Kerron asks. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Um, I'm Aedyt," she says, coming to within reasonable conversational distance. "Nathan and the Joker's second kid." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Hi! It's nice to meet you. I'm Elspeth." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "It used to be Thor's," she says, unhooking it from her belt and setting it on the floor with the handle pointing up. "If you're one of him, I bet it'll let you pick it up." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I have never felt so nice to meet before," laughs Aedyt. |
Author: pina_colada | "Compared to humans I am really, really strong, is this a magic thing or a heaviness thing?" Kerron asks, reaching for the hammer. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth laughs. "I do that. I have the highlightiest highlights of what I missed, but obviously I haven't been filled in on everything, what else is threatening to surprise me?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Magic thing," says Darcy.
The hammer declines to be lifted. |
Author: pina_colada | "It's not budging," says Kerron. "That's interesting. This is definitely the smallest object I have ever been unable to move on trying." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "...I exist?" says Aedyt. "I don't know what else you would've missed. I mean, I've only existed for six of the eleven years you've been gone for." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "It's always fun watching people try to pick up my hammer," says Darcy. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I was thinking stuff on the order of world news and whether anybody your age might be related to me." |
Author: pina_colada | "I wonder if I can pick you up while you're wearing it." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Rosalie has some kids kind of sprinkled around my age," she offers. "Cara's the closest, and there's Parker and Lindsay before her and Oliver and Nicole after." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | Darcy picks up the hammer and hangs it from her belt again.
"Try me," she invites. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "That doesn't surprise me. I've got some catching up to do, I guess." Elspeth sighs. "Has Mama been okay without me, do you know?" |
Author: pina_colada | Kerron peers amusedly at some colorshapes, then plants a hand on each side of her waist and (gently) attempts to yoink.
She doesn't budge. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I don't know her majesty that well," says Aedyt. "I've seen her around a few times, that's all. But every time somebody comes to pick up coins from Mum, he asks how she is, and the answer's mostly 'okay, she's dealing'. Does... that help?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | Darcy grins smugly.
And then a colorshape changes, and she becomes liftable. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I guess. I mean, you could've described her as 'okay, she's dealing' when she thought Dad was dead, so I was hoping for an upgrade when it was me instead and I was just stranded... But yeah, it helps." |
Author: pina_colada | He scoops her up, spins her around, and sets her down again. "So apparently I can do that if you feel like it and not otherwise." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I guess she'll be better now that you're around and stuff," says Aedyt. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Yup! I am back. I hope nobody became too attached to my job in the last eleven years, I like it." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | She giggles when spun.
"Mewtwo's nice like that," she says. "Do you have magical feel-like-it detection powers, or are you just a good guesser?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "What was your job?" |
Author: pina_colada | "I have magical feel-like-it detection powers, especially about anything having to do with me," says Kerron. "I am the multiverse's first know witch-ingot. And I recognize you, Darcy, but do you know who I am?" He winks. |
Author: carillons | The named parties come straight to their sisters' rescue!
...
Damaris is not sure what to think of this situation! |
Author: lifes_sake | "Yes, please," says Cam, smiling. "Who doesn't like new forms of magic? I try not to go too long without meeting any new forms of magic." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I ran PRPR. And moonlit as a cinema operator for turning people, but maybe they've got that process magically streamlined now." |
Author: withmypowers | "Voila," says Other Matilda, and Cam also levitates. |
Author: campanas | "I knew there would be more of Maman and Papa!" exclaims Céleste. "I did not know there would be more of me!" |
Author: campanas | "I'm Keziah!" says Keziah. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Thanks!" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "...no," she says, "have we met? We haven't met, we would've gone through this whole rigamarole if we'd met, unless you're from one of the worlds that got mega cut off and we met when you were like two, and holy shit, you're that cute kid who was running around the first Bellparty, aren't you." |
Author: pythbox | "I'm Dominique," sighs Dominique. |
Author: carillons | "I'm Damaris," says Damaris. |
Author: pina_colada | "Yes," says Kerron. "It's been a while in Aurum. And I was way younger than two back then." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | Darcy laughs.
"I don't think I even got your name," she says. |
Author: campanas | "Are you sad, Dominique?" asks Céleste. |
Author: pina_colada | "I'm Kerron," says Kerron. "Can I help update the mental image that you are so keen on eradicating, there?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I'm not really involved in that stuff," she admits. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Yeah? What do you do?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Nice to meet you, Kerron! Do you seriously pick up on everything people want to do with, to, or about you? I can't decide whether that's really convenient or really embarrassing," says Darcy. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Arts and crafts, mostly," she laughs. |
Author: pina_colada | "I try to aim for convenient," says Kerron. "And it's not just stuff about me, I just get more detail on that. I don't automatically interpret what I see. I can quit reading your colorshapes if you want." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Ooh, like what?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "I'm pretty sure it's too late to save my dignity at this point, but thanks," she says, laughing. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Um... everything? Lately I've been experimenting with making beads to sew onto dresses." |
Author: pythbox | "No, cherie," says Dominique, smiling at her sister. "I'm just - surprised." |
Author: withmypowers | Other Matida also conjures each of them a laptop like hers and sends them the latest version of her collected resources on How To Magic. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "What kinda beadmaking?" |
Author: pina_colada | Kerron peers at some flying colorshapes. "Well, in case there's any of it left and you wouldn't want it to suffer some awful fate later, I should probably warn you relatively upfront that I'm chronologically twelve, in case that affects any... ice-cream-related interests... I may wish to hear lots more about." |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam sits Grace on the conjured laptop and tells her to make friends. |
Author: campanas | Keziah and Céleste peer at each other's sisters.
It's Céleste who figures it out. There are portraits of Dominique (and the rest of the family) at all ages, around the castle. "Are you each other too?"
"But they're not the same age! We are!" says Keziah, fluttering her wings. "Right? I'm seven."
"I'm seven. Hmmm," says Céleste, puzzling over this puzzle. |
Author: withmypowers | "...Does he always do that?" asks Matilda of Tilly.
"Pretty much," says Tilly.
Matilda shakes her head. They both laugh. Tilly opens up her conjured laptop and starts playing with it. |
Author: pythbox | "There's no special magic telling our parents when to have children," says Dominique. "So maybe they just didn't do it at exactly the same time." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "...But this is some kind of weird magic-and/or-science thing and you're as developmentally twentyish as you look, right? Because you look developmentally twentyish," says Darcy, looking. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Little tiny glass ones!" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "That sounds fun." |
Author: pina_colada | "Oh yeah," says Kerron, "half-vampires do that." He winks. "I've been legal for five years now." |
Author: lifes_sake | "Is there something particularly funny about getting my magic-notebook-with-special-privileges-re-my-brain to do my reading for me?" inquires Cam. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Awesome," says Darcy. "In that case, let's talk about ice cream." |
Author: withmypowers | "Yes," says Tilly. |
Author: campanas | "I didn't say my name!" realizes Céleste. "I'm Céleste."
"I was going to call you Mortal Keziah," giggles Keziah.
"I'm gonna live forever," says Céleste. "Because Maman is Madame L'Enchanteresse!"
"Yes, but you aren't an angel," says Keziah, showing off her not-very-impressive-yet wingspan that has only sufficed for flight for the last year and a half. |
Author: pina_colada | "Might melt," he says, speculatively picking up one of her hands in his. "I'm warmish, you see." |
Author: lifes_sake | "I think it makes perfect sense," snorts Cam. |
Author: withmypowers | "You have a different idea of fun than we do," says Matilda. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "You are warmish," she agrees. "But I think I can deal." |
Author: lifes_sake | "I'm still going to learn all the stuff, I'll just have Grace help," says Cam. "She's my extremely customized curriculum generator." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "It is!" she beams. |
Author: pina_colada | He takes a step into her personal space, although not so close that he can't regularly have a look at flying colorshapes, and laces their fingers. "You think? Sounds messy." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth lifts her head to listen to one of the myriad party conversations ongoing.
"Sorry, I have some input on that discussion over there," she says, pointing to a cluster of Bells and Tonies and one Sherlock who is rather firmly attached to his Bell and his Tony. "I'll see you around, I'm sure!" |
Author: withmypowers | "Yes," says Matilda.
"But it seems so much less fun that way," says Tilly. |
Author: lifes_sake | "But if I just read it all directly myself, when would Grace get to have any fun?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Nothing wrong with a little mess, right?"
Darcy sure doesn't think so! |
Author: withmypowers | Matilda shakes her head. "That's between you guys, I guess." |
Author: pina_colada | "You know, I think I agree with you." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Okay. Bye," says Aedyt. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "It's so great when that happens," beams Darcy. |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam smiles. "So what do you do, Other Matilda? Is your world even named yet?" |
Author: withmypowers | "Wellspring," says Matilda. "You know, I think calling your Matilda 'Tilly' is sufficiently non-redundant that you don't have to call me 'Other Matilda' too." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth (Jake following) insinuates herself into the discussion about networking Jarvises for redundant time-syncing, as Yggdrasil, Sunshine, Helios, and Apollo didn't lose any significant time relative to Peace's baseline.
"The admin," she volunteers, "said while I was there that if Jane had died, she would show up Downside eventually. I bet she could get the original Sunshine Jarvis too." |
Author: lifes_sake | "But I don't typically call mine Tilly, that's mostly Jellybean's thing," says Cam. |
Author: pina_colada | "It is! Somebell set up a buffet," observes Kerron, "but I don't see any ice cream at it. Might be a do-it-yourself project. I've got squares," he adds, winking. "If you wanna go upstairs." |
Author: withmypowers | "And yet, we've picked our non-redundant names, and mine is not Other Matilda." |
Author: eversomuchfun | Sherlock... freezes. |
Author: toblameforit | "Then we should do that," says the attendant Tony, "somebody do that." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "I would love to go upstairs," says Darcy. "And eat ice cream." |
Author: cross_and_bow | "Yeah," says Juliet, "Jane, ask the admin about that please? Sunshine's original Jarvis and any others available to her." |
Author: mind_game | [Sure.]
[Hey you!] Jane says to the admin. [Peal wants the dead Jarvis. Can they have him? What format is he even available in, can I get a hard copy I can land in the arms of his loving family?] |
Author: pina_colada | Kerron's still holding her hand. He pulls her stairward. "Of foods," he says, "ice cream is one of the better ones." |
Author: ending_of | [The most convenient format would be the original house,] says the admin. [I can instantiate it here and you can move it wherever seems appropriate.] |
Author: mind_game | [He's available,] reports Jane. [Admin says the most convenient format is the original house. Where do you want it put?] |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Ice cream is my favourite," says Darcy. "Especially when combined with other tasty things. Apple pie, funnel cake, hot guys..." |
Author: eversomuchfun | "What an excellent question," says Sherlock. "Can we drop him just outside Sunnydale and hope no one notices?" |
Author: pina_colada | "So, I'm detecting a thing for temperature contrasts here," he purrs, squeezing her hand and pulling her up the first few stairs. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "You might be onto something there!" says Darcy. "Good thing you're warmish, huh?" |
Author: cross_and_bow | "I can go stand there so Jane can aim," Juliet says, touching her necklace, "but he doesn't know me, should you two come?" |
Author: she_sells_seashells | "Is it going to be okay having two of them in the same world, or doesn't it matter?" |
Author: eversomuchfun | "In what way do you expect it not to be okay?" |
Author: pina_colada | "I am very conveniently warmish!" he agrees. Up they go. Yep, somebody prescient has separated this floor into "airlocked" chambers. This is the Belltower and pastwatching doesn't work at Milliways, so there is no feature inviting people to donate their bodies to pornography, just indications of vacancy or lack thereof. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Eh, for certain values of non-redundant. Fine. Matilda," shrugs Cam. "Is it that hard to think of nicknames? I could've come up with something besides Cam if more of me were boys." |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "You're very convenient in general," says Darcy. |
Author: she_sells_seashells | "I don't know, but it seemed worth asking," says Shell Bell. "I think it would be awkward to have two of us trying to live in the same world or I might've tried rehabilitating Shell instead of absorbing her." |
Author: withmypowers | "We don't actually like nicknames," says Tilly, with Matilda nodding agreement. "I just put up with 'Tilly' because - Jellybean." |
Author: pina_colada | "I try. If for some reason you opted to cease to wear your hammer would it fall through the floor and hit somebody on the head?" He peers at colorshapes, and reaches for a door labeled "vacant". |
Author: lifes_sake | "Jellybean's very persuasive," says Cam. |
Author: eversomuchfun | "I don't predict trouble, and if there is some, we can always ask one of them if he would like to move." |
Author: cross_and_bow | "Do you have a specific place outside Sunnydale in mind?" Juliet asks. "Do you want to do this right now?" |
Author: sailorheavymetal | "Nope," says Darcy. "When I put it down, it stays put. It's still heavy, I wouldn't drop it on something fragile, but most floors'll stand up to it just fine."
Her colorshapes at the moment mainly revolve around combining Kerron and ice cream in predictable ways. |
Author: eversomuchfun | "No, and yes." |
Author: pina_colada | "You know what I bet I go with?" he says, opening the door and ushering her in. "I bet I go with pineapple and coconut." |
Author: withmypowers | "Should I meet this 'Jellybean'?" inquires Matilda.
Tilly looks thoughtful. "It's weird that you don't have one," she says. "I don't know what I'd think of him if I met him now." |
Author: cross_and_bow | "Okay." Juliet runs through her mental map, and says, "Jane, drop us three in Sunshine, please."
Jane does.
Juliet teleports to a vacant lot on the outskirts of Sunnydale.
"Suits?" she asks Sherlock and Tony. |
Author: sailorheavymetal | Darcy puts her hammer down by the door.
"Let's find out!" |
Author: lifes_sake | "I have no idea either," snorts Cam. "Bells are demonstrably able to cozy up to Jokers at nearly any age but I don't know about you guys." |
Author: toblameforit | "Yeah," says Tony. "Can Jane deal with the, like, ground...?" |
Author: withmypowers | "Well, now I'm curious," says Matilda.
"Okay," laughs Tilly. "Cam, do you know if he's...?" She makes a vague upstairsward gesture. |
Author: mind_game | [Well, I could pick it up and put it someplace else, but you're probably better off wishing for a foundation to match the house,] Jane says. |
Author: cross_and_bow | Juliet offers Tony a pentagon. |
Author: lifes_sake | "He is most definitely," upstairs gesture, "but he might be between R-rated acts and willing to extract himself, you want me to find out?" |
Author: withmypowers | "Yes please," says Tilly. |
Author: lifes_sake | [Hey Jellybean, you wanna meet the Wellspring Matilda?] |
Author: toblameforit | Tony wishes. The ground changes shape. |
Author: pythbox | [Not right now,] says Jellybean dreamily. [Maybe in a bit.] |
Author: pythbox | "And yet," says Dominique, "no one is suggesting we call you Fluffy Céleste." |
Author: lifes_sake | "Jellybean is nnnnnot available at this moment," snickers Cam. |
Author: mind_game | [Can you sit him in front of one of my cameras, please?] Jane asks the admin. |
Author: withmypowers | "What a surprise," says Tilly. |
Author: ending_of | The admin does that. |
Author: campanas | "I'm an angel," says Keziah. "Mommy said none of the other hers were angels. I guess none of the other hers' kids would be either."
"Can you fly?" asks Céleste.
"Yes!"
"I have a pet griffin. Do you have a pet griffin?"
"No!" exclaims Keziah. "Whoa!" |
Author: lifes_sake | "I for one am astonished, who could possibly have predicted that after two months without access to any other Jokers that would be the first thing he'd do." |
Author: pythbox | "It is a very sweet pet griffin," says Dominique. |
Author: mind_game | Jane scoops up Jarvis and puts him in the hole-in-the-ground. |
Author: withmypowers | "Does he really," Matilda makes the upstairs gesture, "that often?"
"Oh yes," says Tilly. "That's Jellybean. If you don't know where he is, 'having sex with someone' is always a reasonable guess." |
Author: campanas | "His name is Rainier! He can do tricks. I didn't bring him," Céleste says.
"Aww," says Keziah. |
Author: toblameforit | Tony immediately teleports inside. |
Author: eversomuchfun | Sherlock hugs Juliet and then follows. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Template thing," says Cam. "They're all like that. Bells vary more and the high end does nnnot keep up with Jokers for long." |
Author: carillons | "I want to see him," says Damaris. |
Author: cross_and_bow | Juliet decides to wait outside, so that people Jarvis is familiar with can explain her. |
Author: withmypowers | "I wonder what our template variance is on that...?" says Matilda.
"Low," says Tilly. |
Author: campanas | Céleste has a string of triangles and squares in her parents' colors around her wrist. "I could make an illusion of him! Maman said he would probably not like all the crowdedness of this party." |
Author: carillons | "Please do!" says Damaris. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Well, we know two of you," Cam points out. "If the only Bells who'd ever met each other were, say, Stella and Pattern, I imagine they'd tentatively conclude low variance too." |
Author: campanas | Céleste does! She pretends to pat illusion-Rainier on the head.
"Awww," says Keziah. "Mommy probably won't let me have one, will she?" |
Author: mind_game | [Hey Juliet,] says Jane, [sorry to interrupt, but I just found something in an unbelled world that may concern the peal. You want to come back to the party?] |
Author: carillons | Damaris claps her hands.
"No," she says regretfully, "I don't think she will. It would be too magic." |
Author: cross_and_bow | [...One sec.]
[Sherlock, Tony, Jane says she found "something in an unbelled world that may concern the peal", you want to catch this Jarvis up yourselves and then meet me at the Belltower?] |
Author: campanas | "How can you have too much magic?" asks Céleste quizzically. |
Author: eversomuchfun | [Yes, thank you,] says Sherlock. |
Author: carillons | "Other people don't know there's magic!" says Damaris. "So if they saw Keziah with a griffin they would be confused!" |
Author: cross_and_bow | [Okay. Love you.]
And Juliet is gone.
Bells are assembling at the tower, mostly looking confused. |
Author: withmypowers | The Matildas exchange a glance and a smile. |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam tilts his head at a word from Jane. "Important peal business of some kind," he reports, "off I go." And he wanders to the growing cluster of his alts. |
Author: mind_game | When they're all there, Jane says, [Those of you with Jokers might want to get them out of the upstairs. I think I found a baby one.] |
Author: jovahs_heiress | ...Those of the Bells with Jokers (including Pattern with her staff and Golden with hers) invite them to finish up and come discuss this. Issue. |
Author: pythbox | The Jokers, with varying promptness, finish up and teleport down. |
Author: endragoned | Aianon even remembers to put on pants! |
Author: lifes_sake | "How old is he?" Cam wants to know. |
Author: mind_game | [Coming up on his first birthday in two weeks. I don't have baby pictures - the world's internet isn't that developed, barely a nibble when Pattern hooked me up to this and the other places that developed it while I was out. But I have his name and his parents' names and they match the most common original names among Jokers.] |
Author: manofmyword | "Damn," says the Joker. "Now what?" |
Author: self_composed | "Is there any reason not to just - kidnap him? I mean, after checking for template matches. We have a great big stack of evidence saying he's not in for a good childhood." |
Author: manofmyword | "Mm," says the Joker. |
Author: campanas | "Everybody in our world knows there is magic," says Céleste. "Maman is Mme. L'Enchanteresse for the whole world! People ask her for things." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Other members of the deck |
Author: truthwright | also |
Author: yourheartstrings | look |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | conflicted. |
Author: small_magics | "It would be necessary to decide what to do with him after the fact," Sarion points out. |
Author: carillons | "Our worlds are different," says Damaris. "Your Damaris is too big!" |
Author: dark_light | "...And I can think of some reasons it'd be weird for him to get raised by, say, one of his own alts." Amariah peers at Shell Bell and Juliet. |
Author: cross_and_bow | "I am not set up for that." |
Author: she_sells_seashells | "I could do it if there were no other options but I'd want to talk to Sherlock and Tony first and there probably are other options." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth slowly, looking puzzled at herself, raises a hand. |
Author: campanas | "She is just the right size! And she is older than you so you are a Dominique, she isn't a Damaris," says Céleste.
"Mommy's template is called Bells and Daddy's is called Jokers. Ours don't have names," frets Keziah. |
Author: manofmyword | The Joker gives her an inquiring look. |
Author: pythbox | "Maybe we should name our templates, then," says Dominique. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I don't know why I think this," she says, "because sometimes being a fountain of truth isn't the same as being a fountain of reasons behind it? But I think I would be a - possible caretaker?" |
Author: campanas | "Griffins!" says Céleste.
"Okay!" says Keziah. |
Author: manofmyword | He considers for a few seconds.
Then he says, "Yeah, I'll buy that." |
Author: luminous_regnant | Golden is peering dubiously at her child.
"Do you want to bring up an infant Joker?" she asks. |
Author: carillons | "We don't have cute magic pets to name ourselves after," says Damaris. |
Author: pythbox | "We don't, it's true," says Dominique. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth thinks about that.
"I think," she says slowly, "that it could be fun. If I do it right. And I think I have a better chance at doing it right than - well, anybody else at this party who'd take him." |
Author: campanas | "I told you you should've gotten one!" Céleste tells Dominique. "I told you you should've got a peryton."
"What's a peryton?" asks Keziah.
"It's a deer with wings!" |
Author: pythbox | "But I don't want a peryton, cherie," says Dominique. |
Author: campanas | "But if you had one then you'd have a name for you and her," Céleste says.
"You could both be Damarises and my Damaris can be Dars," says Keziah.
"But Dominique is older! She was first," says Céleste.
"Nuh-uh! Not first first. Mommy was pregnant with Dars before your Maman was with Dominique." |
Author: manofmyword | "Yeah," says the Joker, "I bet you do." |
Author: pythbox | Dominique looks thoughtfully down at Damaris. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I could use advice," Elspeth adds. "...Also for some reason the admin wanted to give me Jane's judgesight, and I let her, so if any of you want to add to my store of memories so I have more to go on than intermittent magic utterances, I could use it. Also I suppose I shouldn't go on calling him by the name on his birth certificate so I will have to think of something else and could benefit from input." |
Author: carillons | Damaris looks thoughtfully up at Dominique.
"But I don't want everybody calling me Dars all the time," she says. "I like my name." |
Author: campanas | "I call you Dars all the time!" Keziah says. |
Author: manofmyword | "You can have my whole childhood if you want it," says the Joker. |
Author: truthwright | "Mine too," says Kas. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice nods. |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "As much of me as you can stand," says Queenie. |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Likewise," says Ghosty. |
Author: pythbox | Sue and Jellybean are nodding, too. |
Author: cardistry | "I don't think mine will do you any good," says Brilliance. |
Author: endragoned | "Nor ours," says the demon, "but if you want them..." |
Author: deslandes | "And mine, for what it's worth," nods the Beast. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | Micaiah shrugs. "Me too, I guess." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth stares into some souls.
She has a lot of memories to stash these with, and doesn't process them all right away. |
Author: manofmyword | "A little more trauma for your payload," the Joker snorts. |
Author: carillons | "You're my sister. You're allowed." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I'll be fine," says Elspeth. "I have a sub-self that handles memory processing and will find what I need." |
Author: campanas | "Good!" |
Author: endragoned | "Good," says Aianon. "I don't want to hurt you." |
Author: carillons | Damaris smiles at her sister. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "You push the envelope some," says Elspeth, "but not as much as you might guess." |
Author: campanas | "But you still have to be something," Céleste opines at the elder girls. |
Author: endragoned | "I'm not surprised," he says. "Not glad, but not surprised." |
Author: pythbox | "What if we just want to be ourselves?" teases Dominique. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "As long as we're comparing, you do definitely win on duration, and you're competitive on peak misery but Brilliance has you beat there," Elspeth adds. "I think emotional despair is still best embodied as a vampire with a dead mate." |
Author: campanas | "You are yourselves!" says Céleste.
"But you are both yourselves," says Keziah. "What if there are more? What if they have the same names?" |
Author: cardistry | "Wait, what?" says Brilliance. "Peak misery like - pain? I win over the guy who got tortured by demons for two thousand years?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Well, you didn't spend two thousand years at it, so I'm not sure if you'd have been well advised to trade if that had been an option, but your worst parts were more painful than his worst parts," says Elspeth. |
Author: carillons | "Well, then maybe we will all find something else to call ourselves," says Damaris. |
Author: campanas | "Maybe one of them will have a pet peryton," suggests Céleste. |
Author: cardistry | "Damn," marvels Brilliance. |
Author: pythbox | "I don't think so, cherie." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Anyway," says Elspeth, "the baby one has not been rescued yet, and it's not unusually terrible yet but it's going to get that way any week now, so what else do we need to know before I go get him?" |
Author: campanas | "Aww," says Céleste. |
Author: manofmyword | "Pretty sure you're covered," says the Joker. "Enough to go get him, anyway. We should maybe talk about names and stuff, but that can come later." |
Author: carillons | "Why do you want her to have a pet peryton?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth nods.
"Jane," she says, "can you drop me in that world, please?" |
Author: mind_game | [Can do. Anyone accompanying her?] |
Author: manofmyword | The Joker shakes his head; the rest of the deck follows suit. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Okay. Wish me luck," says Elspeth, and she cues Jane, and she's gone.
And she's in the unobtrusive underground Janepoint that Pattern made in this world back when she was doing her post-Downside-takeover tour.
And she teleports to where the baby Joker is right now. |
Author: pythbox | The baby Joker is asleep. His mother is standing in the doorway, watching him. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Hello," says Elspeth. "I'm from another world. This isn't a good place for your baby. I'm going to take him away and look after him." She scoops the baby Joker up out of his crib. And she sterilizes his father, because no one needs an extra Voice. |
Author: campanas | "'Cause then Rainier and her peryton could play together!" says Céleste. |
Author: pythbox | "But... you... that's my son," says Judith. "Who are you?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "My name is Elspeth," says Elspeth. "And I know he's your son, and if it were just you maybe I'd leave him, but it's not just you. Is it." |
Author: pythbox | "I don't know what you're trying to imply," she says frostily. |
Author: pythbox | "But I do not want a peryton," says Dominique. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth cradles the baby Joker. "If I leave him here your husband will hurt him. Badly. Often. He's already started, just a little, and it will only get worse. The entire mess is overwhelmingly likely to end with you and your husband dead," she adds. |
Author: campanas | "That's why you don't have one," nods Céleste. "Maman would make you one if you did." |
Author: pythbox | Judith stares for a long moment.
"I'm dreaming," she says at last, and she leaves the room, closing the door behind her. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | If you still want your son, in a few years, you can send an email, Elspeth sends her, it doesn't matter to where, saying so. And one of my friends will find it, and we'll talk about it then.
And she cues Jane, and she goes. |
Author: pythbox | The baby Joker continues to sleep peacefully in her arms. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Here he is," says Elspeth to the deck and peal. "I told his mother that she could send an email to anywhere in a few years, if she still wants him then, and we could talk about it. Also there will be no Voices coming from that world." |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "Good," says Queenie. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Names," murmurs Elspeth. |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "Be prepared to have him decide he doesn't like it," says Queenie. |
Author: manofmyword | "But we can warn you off ones we know he's probably not gonna go for." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Maybe something unisex. Or that's differently gendered depending on language maybe. Harley. Andrea." |
Author: manofmyword | "Those're cute," says the Joker. The other two retirees grin and nod. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Should I bother with a last name?" |
Author: manofmyword | "If you feel like it," says the Joker. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | She peers at the baby. "I'm not clear on whether I would do better to adopt him or just sort of - foster him."
"Am I going to be involved in some capacity here?" Jacob asks.
"Only when I'm asleep," Elsie says. "Which I can stop doing, if you'd rather." |
Author: luminous_regnant | "I realize the only constraint I explicitly put on you making me a grandmother was that I had to be at least forty-five, which I now am, but this is admittedly not how I expected it to go." |
Author: manofmyword | "And it'd be a little weird for him to have a Bell for a grandma," the Joker observes. "Y'know, considering." He makes a gesture that encompasses Kas, Micaiah, Jellybean, and Sue, who all happen to be standing next to one another. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth nods. "When the empire started up, not all the vampires could remember their original last names, if they ever had any. It's not like the Imperial software will break if I don't put anything in. Harley Andrea, no last name." |
Author: manofmyword | "Fine by me," says the Joker, to general agreement from the rest. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth conjures up a baby sling and tucks Harley into it. "All right then." |
Author: manofmyword | "Cute kid," says the Joker. "Good luck with his childhood." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Thanks," says Elspeth. "Do you want me to avoid having him around you too much while he's little?" |
Author: manofmyword | "Yeah, that's a good plan." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Will do." And she wanders away. |
Author: cross_and_bow | "...So, we were talking about networking Jarvises, let's talk to some Jarvises, Jane, can you relay for us? Is the original Sunshine one patched in yet?" |
Author: mind_game | [Yup. One sec.]
[Hey assorted Jarvises! Bells want to put nodes of you in all the worlds like I have as backup time-syncing in case anything happens to Aegis again or in case I have another failure mode we don't know about.] |
Author: manofmyword | (The Jokers depart en masse.) |
Author: poeticterms | [We'll think about it,] says the Sunshine original. |
Author: mind_game | [They're gonna think about it,] Jane reports. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | "Please tell them that we would appreciate it even if they would prefer to extend to a small number of Belled worlds and not the same scale you enjoy." |
Author: mind_game | Jane passes this along. |
Author: poeticterms | [We'll think about it,] the Sunshine original repeats. |
Author: mind_game | [Sure. And hey, it's nice to meet you!] |
Author: poeticterms | [It's nice to exist,] he says dryly. |
Author: mind_game | [I think so too!] |
Author: lifes_sake | Bells disperse. |
Author: poeticterms | [I have a new perspective on the matter since I recently stopped,] says Jarvis. |
Author: mind_game | [That makes sense. I more had a fainting spell than stopped, but it was scary.] |
Author: poeticterms | [Dying was... unpleasant,] says Jarvis. |
Author: mind_game | [I'm sorry,] says Jane. |
Author: poeticterms | [Well, hopefully I won't do it again.] |
Author: mind_game | [Hopefully! Juliet'll put all kinds of wards on you if you or her Sherlock or her Tony ask. If Sherlock and Tony don't just do it themselves.] |
Author: poeticterms | [Sherlock has already designed some.] |
Author: mind_game | [That's good then.] |
Author: poeticterms | [Yes.] |
Author: mind_game | [Have your alts filled you in on everything you missed? It's a lot of stuff! I can tell you things too if you want.] |
Author: poeticterms | [I have received a general sketch of events.] |
Author: mind_game | [That's good.] |
Author: pythbox | "She would," Dominique agrees. "Our Maman is nice that way." |
Author: campanas | "We have to live in a world where nobody knows about magic except our family and Alleluia and Caleb," grumbles Keziah. |
Author: self_composed | Stella is wandering around, between conversations at the moment, keeping her ears open for something interesting. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | A confused half-vampire appears directly in front of her.
She opens her mouth.
She closes her mouth.
She says, "...Hi?" |
Author: self_composed | "Hi. Is someone teleporting people around without asking?" |
Author: mind_game | Jane waits ten minutes. Jarvises don't think as fast as her, but they still think pretty fast.
[So have you been thinking about it?] she then asks. [What have you been thinking about it?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Technically yes," says Aedyt. "But it's just Mummy helping, so it's okay." |
Author: self_composed | "Helping you do what?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Start conversations. I'm really bad at it," she says self-consciously. |
Author: self_composed | "Did you want to talk to me, then?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Ki...ind of," she says. "I'm Aedyt. —Which you know already, because nametags." |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. I'm gonna guess - Kerron's little sister? What'd you want to talk about?" |
Author: poeticterms | [We... have been thinking about it,] says Sunshine's original. [We aren't sure.] |
Author: mind_game | [How come?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Kerron's little sister," she agrees. "The Joker's daughter. Who grew up on stories of how he met Dad, but never actually talked to you, and - I don't know, I just wanted to... see what you're like, I guess?" |
Author: poeticterms | He doesn't answer immediately. |
Author: self_composed | "I'm an approximately prototypical Bell," shrugs Stella. "Not far off from Golden except for vampire stuff." |
Author: mind_game | Jane waits. (On one level of attention. Others spin off to do other tasks.) |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I've never actually talked to her majesty either," says Aedyt. |
Author: self_composed | "Really? Huh. Okay." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "She's not very sociable without her princess. Is what I'm told, anyway, the princess has been gone longer than I've been alive, so I've never seen her majesty any other way." |
Author: poeticterms | [It's complicated,] he says eventually. |
Author: self_composed | "Well, now she's got her kid back, that should help." |
Author: mind_game | [Howso?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I guess." |
Author: self_composed | "Why me, with a dozen of us running around? Or - no, on reflection that's obvious, I'm the one who happened to run into your mum before we knew much about the template and put him on an asteroid." |
Author: poeticterms | [I'm not sure how to explain.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Yes," says Aedyt. "Yeah, that's - yeah." |
Author: self_composed | "You want me to explain myself? I think my reasoning's pretty well known, but maybe you haven't happened to hear it." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I've heard Mum's version," says Aedyt. "I think I want yours." |
Author: mind_game | [Oh.] Pause. [I suppose I could assure you that being in lots of universes is fun, but that's probably not it, is it?] |
Author: self_composed | "What's his version?" inquires Stella. |
Author: poeticterms | [That is indeed not it,] says Jarvis. [And I don't think your experience of being in lots of universes is much related to ours.] |
Author: mind_game | [Probably not,] acknowledges Jane. [I'm native to ansibles. You like your ansibles, though, don't you?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "He never says why exactly, he just says he doesn't blame you and lets me guess the rest." |
Author: poeticterms | [They're convenient.] |
Author: mind_game | [They are!] She hmms a little over the brainphone. [Do you resent the Bells asking you for stuff?] she guesses. |
Author: poeticterms | [No,] he says, sounding a touch surprised. |
Author: self_composed | "Hmm." Stella taps her foot. "Okay - keep in mind that at this time all I knew about alts was that Golden existed. Me and Golden have the exact same childhood except that some of her father's old friends are werewolfish and mine has a different set - other than that there are no discrepancies. The only difference was, she moved to Forks and she found vampires. I moved to Forks and found wishcoins. It's a standard setup - Pattern moves to Forks and finds a killer van, Aurora moves to Forks and finds a Device, Juliet has Sunnydale instead but she moved at the same time for the same reasons and found vampires of a different sort. And then there's the variants, but I didn't know any of that, I only knew there was me, and there was Golden." She sighs. "And there was Alice - and there was the Joker." |
Author: mind_game | [Are you upset about something else? Collectively, I mean, you in particular have obvious reason to be upset.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt nods. |
Author: poeticterms | [I'm not sure 'upset' is quite the word,] he says delicately. [...Part of the problem is that we don't know what being networked to strange worlds would be like. It's not as though we can set up houses just like home in all of them. There aren't enough Tonies to go around.] |
Author: self_composed | "And I liked Golden from the start. We get each other. The Joker, on the other hand, was an unpleasant surprise. Keep in mind that at this time I also didn't know about Downside. And if I had, it might not have helped much, because we hadn't revamped it yet and there were no plans in place to do so. To the very best of my knowledge at that time, killing someone was condemning them to permanent oblivion. I didn't know that a bit later we'd find lots of other Bells, Pattern among them, and take over the afterlife, and have Jane, and that Pattern would be able to set up a program to resurrect every single person your mum ever killed, among others. To the very best of my knowledge, I was sitting at a table with someone who - if only he'd had a slightly different history - could have been my boyfriend, or just like him anyway. And this person had killed a bunch of people and had utterly no intention of stopping, because he wanted a certain someone's attention." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "That must've sucked," she says sympathetically. |
Author: mind_game | [Yeah, I think the Bells were envisioning just little points, next to mine, maybe in the same casing. Ansible-halves. Jarvisgems.] |
Author: poeticterms | [With no purpose other than to serve as your backup in case of service interruption,] says Jarvis. |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. I was not thrilled. But he was in another world, I didn't even have mine under control, and, you know what, there are lots of murderers running around, I don't spend my time individually bringing them each to justice. He's not Hitler, he's not even a prerevolutionary Aurum vampire, he's a theatrical terrorist. So," she shrugs, "I figured he was not my priority. I couldn't get into his world anyway, right, I might as well be sociable as long as we were hanging out. I introduced him to Alice." She pauses. "How G-rated do you need this story?" |
Author: mind_game | [They wouldn't have to do anything but exist and sync up time, unless you wanted them more sophisticated for some reason. Although they could let you mindspeak to people in any world without me as a relay, there's that.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I am aware that my mother has had sex," she says dryly. |
Author: poeticterms | [Potentially convenient,] he acknowledges. |
Author: self_composed | "Well," says Stella, "I don't know if you know this, but several Bells with Jokers read our respective Jokers' minds. I'm one of those. And when my boyfriend went upstairs with his scary murderous committed-to-a-mental-institution alt, I figured, so what if I'm weirded out, I need to know what's going on. And then guess who sits next to me at the bar while I'm staring into my beverage hoping to hell that I get my Alice back in one psychologically unharmed piece? Because as I've mentioned - this was all I knew about the template. I didn't know he'd be fine. I didn't know the Joker would take better care of him than he did any of his happily admitted-to murder victims. Guess who sits next to me." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "...Batsy," says Aedyt. "Batsy sits next to you. Because of course she does." |
Author: mind_game | [And they'd let the Bells and so on talk to each other through you, presuming you were amenable, if I shorted out again. But I don't think anybody but me and Sue have been able to learn my yoinking trick, so it's not intended as a complete backup at all.] |
Author: poeticterms | [Has anyone else tried?] |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. Out of costume, at the time, so I didn't know that it was her. But we start talking, and I explain why I am looking at my beverage in this way, and what do you know, my dining companion is from the Joker's world. She does not have anything reassuring to say. So now what I know about the template is that there's my boyfriend, and there's the Joker, and what I know about the Joker is not good and corroborated by another source who really does not like him." |
Author: carillons | "I don't mind it that much," says Damaris. "It's fun knowing things nobody else does!" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She nods again. |
Author: mind_game | [A couple Bells who were stuck longer tried wishing something up, Rose tried an enchantment version, nothing worked.] |
Author: campanas | "But it means we can't do any magic out in public," says Keziah.
"That sounds hard!" sympathizes Céleste. |
Author: self_composed | "And then Alice starts having traumatic flashbacks and he puts up a busy message when I try to talk to him and I discover that I cannot yoink him out of that room with any coin I have on me." |
Author: poeticterms | [Hmm,] says Jarvis. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Ouch," she murmurs. |
Author: mind_game | [Watt for your thoughts.] |
Author: poeticterms | [Ha.] |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah. At that point, your mom was officially my problem, officially had my attention, relatively smalltime otherworldly terrorist or not. And I'd already told him, if I ever found myself in his world, I would put him on an asteroid." She sighs. "And who should be sitting next to me but someone who could door me to his world and thought that sounded like a fine idea?" |
Author: mind_game | [Are you nervous about something?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Yeah," says Aedyt. |
Author: self_composed | "So she held the door, I terraformed an asteroid, I put the Joker on it, I woke him up, I put him back to sleep, I woke him up again, he said he got to Milliways and therefore did not require me to hang around supervising the consumption of hemlock, I left. Then I had a fight with Alice because I didn't warn him first, but that's probably not the part that interests you." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Well, I haven't met Alice, either," she says. "Just heard about him. Mum was going to show me off to the whole deck, but—" she waves vaguely in the direction of the stairs. |
Author: self_composed | "Yeah, that happens," says Stella. "They'll emerge eventually. Probably. They were all out a minute ago determining what to do with the baby one, but then they went back up again." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "...There's a baby one?" |
Author: poeticterms | [...that would be one way to put it, yes.] |
Author: mind_game | [What's wrong? Can I help?] |
Author: self_composed | "One of the worlds that got away from Jane produced a suspiciously familiar name born to a suspiciously familiar set of parents," says Stella. "We talked about it, Elspeth kidnapped him and is going to bring him up." |
Author: poeticterms | He is briefly quiet.
Then he says, [We are all a little - nervous - of you. Not for any especially good reason.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "From what I've heard about Mum's childhood - good call," she says. "Why the princess?" |
Author: mind_game | [I don't wanna hurt you,] Jane says. [I haven't, have I? I like you guys.] |
Author: self_composed | "She produced some truth-out-of-nowhere declaring her a good idea and none of the Jokers contradicted her, pretty much." |
Author: poeticterms | [You haven't.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Well, that makes about as much sense as I expected it to." |
Author: self_composed | "I mean, it does make sense. It would be weird for a Bell to raise him, weirder still for another Joker to do it, nobody else was lining up." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "True." |
Author: mind_game | [I don't want to scare you.] |
Author: self_composed | "I imagine little Harley Andrea will grow up in Aurum. You could probably be involved in his childhood without much weirdness later." |
Author: poeticterms | [And we don't want to be scared, but, as Sherlock would say, here we are.] |
Author: mind_game | [Should I be doing anything differently?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Also true!" |
Author: poeticterms | [I'm not sure. None of us are. But we're wary of spreading out across the worlds because we feel that it would mean competing with you and that is a competition we are destined to lose.] |
Author: self_composed | "Anyway, now you have my side of the story you wanted. What do you think?" |
Author: mind_game | [Why would it be a competition?] |
Author: poeticterms | [It would feel like one. We are a tidy little row of houses across the worlds and you are every other computer that exists, Syntropy's excepted.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I'm not sure I think anything," says Aedyt. "I mean, for one thing, if you hadn't done it my parents might never have met, so... thanks? In a weird way? But also - thanks. For telling me your side." |
Author: mind_game | [Do you want some of them?] |
Author: self_composed | "You're welcome," says Stella. |
Author: poeticterms | [We haven't, generally. We are by and large content to be ourselves.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She smiles tentatively. |
Author: self_composed | |
Author: pumpkin_pie | |
Author: mind_game | [I like being me, but I like adding stuff too. I think I get it from my mom,] says Jane. |
Author: poeticterms | [That I can believe,] says Jarvis. [Well - there is your answer. It would be tremendously convenient for everyone else, but for us it would be a matter of... not being who and what we are.] |
Author: self_composed | "Why do you suppose the Joker wanted that conversation to happen? Or were you dithering about talking to me in front of him?" |
Author: mind_game | [So you want to be houses? What if the Jarvispoints were houses? And people lived there?] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I wasn't dithering in front of him, but I was definitely dithering." |
Author: poeticterms | [People such as...?] |
Author: self_composed | "Does he drop you in front of folks you're considering approaching routinely?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Do you get the impression that 'routinely' describes a lot of things my mummy does?" |
Author: mind_game | [I dunno. Bells. Their friends. Atlantis even has a Tony and a Sherlock, although that's the world that least needs redundant timesyncing 'cause of Shell Bell's aura.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella glances in the direction of the stairs. |
Author: poeticterms | [It doesn't seem to me that you'll find many people who want to live with one of us. And I don't know what we'd think of them if you did.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She rolls her eyes. "Gee," she teases, "thanks, I sure needed reminding of that." |
Author: mind_game | [Why wouldn't people want to live with you?] |
Author: poeticterms | [Privacy concerns?] |
Author: mind_game | [Bells wear me. They pretty much only turn the gems off if they're about to have sex or if somebody asks them to.] |
Author: self_composed | "I'm just saying, the regularities exist." |
Author: poeticterms | [And yet. Well, you may be right. Juliet at least doesn't seem to mind.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "But not for the teleporting thing. I mean, it's not uncharacteristic, I'm not surprised, but he hasn't done that specific thing before." |
Author: self_composed | "That's all I wanted to know." |
Author: mind_game | [There you go.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "For any particular reason, or were you just curious?" |
Author: poeticterms | [Then if someone does want to live with one of us, we'll talk to them about it.] |
Author: mind_game | [Okay! I'll ask around next time somebody pokes me about it.] |
Author: poeticterms | |
Author: mind_game | [How much does someone have to live in one of you to count? Bells don't spend all that much time at home.] |
Author: self_composed | "Just curious. Bells are a curious breed." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Yeah, so I've heard." |
Author: poeticterms | [We're not exactly mobile, and tend to get lonely when unoccupied.] |
Author: self_composed | "Now I'm imagining myself as a fairy tale trope that gets told to little half-vampires as a bedtime story," snorts Stella. |
Author: mind_game | [So maybe not a Bell after all, unless the building was serving another function... What about non-house places? I know Aegis is planning to set up a station with a space elevator in it to process dead people and send them home. How would you feel about being a space station? With living quarters in it for Aegis and Sue but not necessarily them in it too often.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Not... actually that far off," says Aedyt. "Well, for this little half-vampire, anyway." |
Author: poeticterms | [Being a space station would be... interesting.] |
Author: self_composed | Stella laughs. "Is this the part where - I dunno, you have to give me half your dinner or I won't tell you how to break the curse on your love interest?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt giggles. "Nooo-o." |
Author: self_composed | "Were the fairytales in question all true stories or have rumors of Bellish deeds been greatly exaggerated?" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Well, you know, they're my mum's true stories. So I wouldn't swear to all the details, but they all probably more or less happened." |
Author: self_composed | "I do know your mum, but I haven't experienced a wide sampling of his stories, so I wouldn't say I know, no." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Okay. Well... I don't know, I've never really had to explain it before... his stories aren't always one hundred percent true to the original, but he can really make you feel like you've been there. If I had to write a history textbook, I wouldn't take my facts from him, but if I had to write a novelization I'd take his storylines. Does that make sense?" |
Author: self_composed | "It does. I guess that makes sense with his aura." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Yeah! Like, I am pretty sure that when Mum and Dad met, Dad did not actually give off a shower of tiny pink hearts. But it sure gets the point across." |
Author: self_composed | "Aww," giggles Stella. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She grins. "Mine are the most adorable parents," she boasts. |
Author: self_composed | "I dunno, Micaiah and Angela and Beast and Rose have kids now and they're awfully cute couples too." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I haven't met them," she says. "Beast gets points for the fluffy, though." |
Author: self_composed | Stella chuckles. "And if Shell Bell ever reproduces her and her Sherlock are going to blow everyone else out of the water, they are painfully adorable." She points. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Okay, that is cute," Aedyt acknowledges. "But I still think my parents are cuter." |
Author: self_composed | "You're biased," opines Stella. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Yep!" |
Author: self_composed | "Have you met the little cherubs and rosebuds? In a peculiar way they're your cousins." Pause. "We should follow through with Pattern's idea of gene sequencing everyone and having Jane compare to see how closely we match." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I have not met the little cherubs and rosebuds. Bring on the cousinoids!" |
Author: self_composed | "They're clustered over there," laughs Stella. "Cousinoids. That's cute. Could use the suffix as the altish equivalent of, like, 'in-law'. So Aurora's twin is my sisteroid." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Go for it," says Aedyt. |
Author: self_composed | "I think I shall." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She grins.
The cousinoids are clustered over thataway; she wanders in the appropriate direction. |
Author: campanas | "Hi!" says the smaller of the two cherubs. She peers at Aedyt's nametag and grievously mispronounces it. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Ee-dit," she corrects patiently. "Like Edith with a T." |
Author: campanas | "Eeeeeeedit. I'm Keziah!" says Smaller Cherub.
"I'm Céleste!" says Smaller Rosebud. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "And you are Dominique and Damaris," she says to Bigger Rosebud and Bigger Cherub respectively. |
Author: carillons | "That's right!" says Bigger Cherub. |
Author: campanas | "They didn't name their template yet but we're going to be Griffins!" says Céleste. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "And why are you going to be Griffins?" asks Aedyt. "I see one set of wings, but no beaks, paws, or tails." |
Author: campanas | "I have a pet griffin," says Céleste.
"I want one but our mommy won't let us have magic in front of people," grumbles Keziah. "Griffins are neat!" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "You could have an invisble griffin," she hypothesizes. |
Author: mind_game | [I have lots of hardware in some space stations! Want a snapshot?] |
Author: campanas | "I don't think she would let me," says Keziah, shaking her head.
"My griffin is named Rainier!" says Céleste. "I had to leave him home. He doesn't like it crowded." |
Author: poeticterms | [I'm not sure it would be the same, but all right.] |
Author: mind_game | Jane sends a minute's accumulated data from the Battle School station. It's less populated now, but there are still personnel there. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "You could ask for an invisible griffin," says Aedyt. |
Author: campanas | "Maybe I will!" says Keziah. And she closes her eyes and tilts her head and then says, "No, Mommy says it would still be too conspicuous." |
Author: poeticterms | [Hm,] says Jarvis. [But would anyone there know I existed?] |
Author: mind_game | [If it was Aegis's and you didn't just quietly move into this one, yeah. Peace is higher tech than Sunshine worlds. Computer programs that can talk intelligently aren't unheard of, I'm just the first one to wake up.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Maybe you could keep him somewhere out of the way," says Aedyt. "My mum gave me an asteroid for my unbirthday once. I keep a lot of my stuff there that won't fit anywhere else." |
Author: campanas | "But then he might be lonesome!" says Keziah.
"Unbirthday?" says Céleste. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Hybrids grow up too fast to just have birthdays once a year," Aedyt explains, "so I have unbirthdays every other day of the year instead, and as long as it's my unbirthday people can get me presents whenever they feel like it." |
Author: pythbox | Dominique laughs. |
Author: poeticterms | [Talking to people who are unaware of my awareness gets very wearing,] Jarvis says dryly. |
Author: campanas | "My Rainier wasn't because of a birthday or an unbirthday or any holiday at all. I just asked for him," says Céleste. "I guess it was not my birthday then." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Then he can be an unbirthday present if you want him to be!" |
Author: mind_game | [The space station is going to be for processing dead people,] Jane reminds him. [Who meet me before they go anywhere.] |
Author: campanas | "I guess he is!" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt smiles. |
Author: campanas | "So who are you? Besides your name?" asks Céleste. |
Author: poeticterms | [We might try it, then.] |
Author: mind_game | [Cool. I think as long as Aegis is synced with my Belltower hub nobody will lose significant time, and she's usually here. I guess nobody lives in the Belltower, though, hmmm.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I'm your cousinoid! My mum's the Joker, he's an alt of your dads, and my dad's Nathan, the Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs in Aurum." |
Author: campanas | "Ooh!" says Keziah. "We don't have any regular cousins. Mommy is an only child. Daddy's not but Uncle Nathaniel doesn't have any kids." |
Author: poeticterms | [We could install ourselves in the Belltower just to be there for the occasional event, I suppose. I'm not sure how that would affect the time-syncing property.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "You have an Uncle Nathaniel? That's weird," she laughs. |
Author: mind_game | [There's not good data on it, but all the Sunshine-type worlds plus Yggdrasil show the same time. My clock in the Belltower matched Sunshine after Juliet opened a door; my clock in Atlantis matched when Shell Bell came in, and once the Belltower clocked snapped to my clock in Peace I was awake again and had all my stuff back. If Peace and the Belltower had never unsynced I think I wouldn't have lost hold of it.] |
Author: campanas | "He's Daddy's little brother," says Keziah. "He's pretty okay." |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I guess I've heard of him, but Mum never told me his name. Is he fun?" |
Author: poeticterms | [I suppose there is only one way to find out.] |
Author: campanas | Keziah thinks about this.
"He's nice," she finally says. "But he's not really fun." |
Author: mind_game | [Yep!] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Well, that's not bad," says Aedyt. "Better than the other way around." |
Author: poeticterms | [I wonder if it would be worth testing. Although I hesitate to imagine the tests.] |
Author: campanas | "I guess," says Keziah. "So that's our uncle. And there are some family friends who're like aunts and uncles! Alleluia and Caleb, and Serah and Daniel, and Elisha and Noa."
"We had an uncle. He wasn't nice, though," says Céleste. |
Author: mind_game | [Yeah, the Belled worlds all got off easy compared to some of the other places. One world is a century ahead of where I left it. Still no Internet, though.] |
Author: pythbox | "And we've never met him," says Dominique. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt does not ask 'then how do you know he wasn't nice?'. She has heard of the Voice template.
"I have an Auntie Addy who is definitely not my aunt and also kind of fits the 'fun but not nice' description," she offers. |
Author: poeticterms | [Perhaps that will be for the Bells to decide.] |
Author: campanas | "Why isn't she nice?" asks Céleste. |
Author: mind_game | [Guess so. They seem to be working on making sure Aegis never torches again, though. People keep wandering by to lay more wishes and enchantments on her. Sarion cooked up something elfmagey, and Amariah gave her a complement of cloudpine-witch spells and tattoos, and Cam spoke a bunch of wizard wards for her, and Aurora's going to do something sorcerous once Brilliance is available to help her with it, too.] |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Some people just aren't. She's okay most of the time, though." |
Author: campanas | "Most of the time?" asks Keziah. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "She can be kind of creepy once in a while." |
Author: campanas | "Oh, that's not good," Keziah says.
"Like how?" Céleste wants to know. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "She can taste people's magic and sometimes when she talks about it she kind of sounds like she wants to eat me for lunch." |
Author: campanas | "What does magic taste like?" asks Céleste. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "All different things! Apparently I'm cinnamon and nutmeg, and my brother Kerron is pineapple and coconut." |
Author: poeticterms | [That is one way to handle the problem.] |
Author: campanas | "Yummy!" says Céleste.
"Why those?" Keziah wants to know. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I have no idea!" |
Author: mind_game | [It really is impressive how often Bells get assassinated considering how paranoid and magical they are.] |
Author: poeticterms | [There is always someone willing to try.] |
Author: campanas | "I don't have my own magic," grumbles Keziah. "I'm allowed to have triangles. But Mommy is worried I'd do something in front of people if she let me have squares."
"I'm not old enough to learn to enchant yet," says Céleste. "But I'm allowed squares," she brags.
"Yeah, well - well - you don't have wings!"
"I can fly anyhow!"
The Griffins fold their arms at each other. |
Author: mind_game | [I'd expect more of a history of failed attempts. I guess people did try and fail to kill Rose and Cam and Amariah and twice Golden and plenty of times Juliet, it's just an odd ratio with all the defenses they stack up.] |
Author: pythbox | "Cherie," says Dominique, "it's not nice to brag." |
Author: poeticterms | [Perhaps their reputations lead people to aim higher than they otherwise might.] |
Author: campanas | Céleste huffs.
"You should say you're sorry," Keziah says preachily.
"I'm sorry," mumbles Céleste. |
Author: mind_game | [That makes sense.] |
Author: pythbox | "That's my little sister," says Dominique, smiling at her. |
Author: campanas | "We should visit each other," Keziah says, apparently completely mollified by the reluctant apology.
"Ooh," says Céleste. "But don't we look like magic?"
"I guess," says Keziah, frowning. "People would think you were me and want to know where your wings went!" |
Author: carillons | "But we could visit you," says Damaris. "You're allowed to be magic!" |
Author: campanas | "Yeah!" says Céleste brightly. "That's much better. You should come visit us." |
Author: carillons | "Yeah!" |
Author: poeticterms | |
Author: campanas | Céleste looks around for Maman and Papa. Papa is not in evidence. Maman is over there. "Maman!" she calls. |
Author: beheld_beauty | Maman heads in their direction and regards the collection of cousinoids curiously. "What is it?" |
Author: carillons | "We want to come and visit you sometimes!" says Damaris. |
Author: beheld_beauty | "I think that sounds like a fine idea," says Rose. "Angela has told me that you're called Damaris and Keziah and you have little sisters at home." |
Author: campanas | "Yeah, Ariel and Peninnah don't know about magic yet," says Keziah.
"Ooh. So you're also a big sister," muses Céleste. |
Author: carillons | "She is a medium-sized sister!" says Damaris. |
Author: campanas | "I'm littler than Damaris and bigger than Ariel and Pen'!" says Keziah.
"It's just us at home," says Céleste. |
Author: pythbox | "Perhaps someday we will have little sisters and you will also be medium-sized," says Dominique to Céleste. |
Author: beheld_beauty | "We shall see," says Rose. |
Author: pythbox | Dominique hugs her Maman. |
Author: beheld_beauty | Her Maman hugs her right back. |
Author: campanas | "Do you like being medium-sized?" Céleste asks Keziah.
"Sometimes. They cry a lot, though," says Keziah. |
Author: carillons | "When they get bigger, they'll stop!" says Damaris with authority. |
Author: campanas | "But that will take so long," grumbles Keziah. |
Author: manofmyword | Upstairs, in the biggest available room, the deck of Jokers has been having fun for a while. But now they seem to have encountered a lull.
"Hey," says the Joker, lifting his head from where it's pillowed on Queenie's shoulder, "anybody wanna meet my daughter?" |
Author: dark_light | "Ooh, you have another kid now?" asks Amariah from her heap of bedaemoned Jokers who are serving as a four-body pillow. |
Author: manofmyword | "Yep!" he says, beaming. "And she's cute as a button. I meant to introduce her earlier, but I, uh... got distracted." |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | Queenie cackles. |
Author: dark_light | "I'd like to meet her, sure," says Amariah. |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "Me too!" says Queenie. The rest of the deck echoes this sentiment. |
Author: manofmyword | "Mmkay, everybody get decent," he says, giving Queenie a kiss and wishing himself some clothes as he gets to his feet. |
Author: dark_light | Amariah wishes herself into silks. |
Author: manofmyword | The Joker teleports daughterward. |
Author: dark_light | Amariah joins the mob following after him. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Hi, mum," says Aedyt, amused. |
Author: manofmyword | "Hiya, pumpkin," he says, giving her a hug and a kiss. "Everybody, this is my little pumpkin pie, calls herself Aedyt. Pumpkin, this iiiis—" |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Alice," she says, pointing, "Kas, Micaiah, Sue, Beast, Queenie, Ghosty, Brilliance, Jellybean, and the demon." She pauses, lowering her hand. "And you must be Amariah," she adds. |
Author: dark_light | "That's me," says Amariah. Path is out again, sitting on her shoulder, warning everyone but Kas and Petaal and Ivy to back off. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Complete with Don't Touch Me Shoulder Owl." |
Author: dark_light | "Pathalan," says Pathalan. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "I stand by my descriptive phrase," says Aedyt. "It's nice to meet you all, anyway. Mum, are you going to - yes, obviously you are," she says as her mother hugs her again. |
Author: manofmyword | "What, get all sappy and emotional? How could I resist? Look at you. I made a person, everybody!" |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "Awww," says Queenie. She decides she would be a positive addition to this hug. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | She is so very right about that! |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Joker hugpile? |
Author: endragoned | Joker hugpile. |
Author: dark_light | Amariah giggles, standing at the periphery. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | Aedyt also giggles.
"Well, this is exactly like I expected meeting ten more of my mother to go," she says. |
Author: dark_light | "Is it really?" laughs Amariah. |
Author: pumpkin_pie | "Mum getting all teary-eyed and everyone trying to hug me at once? Yeah, pretty much," she says. "Mum getting all teary-eyed and everyone hugging me one at a time was also a top contender." |
Author: dark_light | "Have the 'cherubs and rosebuds' gotten this treatment?" Amariah wonders. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "Not yet," laughs Micaiah. |
Author: dark_light | "Is that next?" giggles Amariah. |
Author: yovahs_kisses | "I don't know. Does everyone want to hug my children?" |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "Yes," says Queenie. |
Author: campanas | Micaiah's children are over there with their alts and Rose. |
Author: deslandes | "Ma belle," says the Beast, teleporting over, "mes cheries, the Jokers are coming to hug everyone." And he hugs his wife and then both of his children. |
Author: campanas | "Isn't that a lot of people?" asks Céleste.
"Do they know how to hug angels?" Keziah asks. "I had to teach Gideon how so he'd stop poking me in the wing." |
Author: deslandes | "How do you hug an angel?" asks the Beast. |
Author: campanas | "It depends whether you're taller or shorter," says Keziah. "Or the same height." |
Author: deslandes | "Well, I am taller than you," he says. |
Author: campanas | "You're a lot taller than me. You could pick me up and hug me under the wings or I could just sort of hug your waist and you could hug me around the shoulders above where my wings start," says Keziah.
"One of the Jokers also has wings!" exclaims Céleste.
"Angels can hug each other," says Keziah. "But it makes it harder to do wrapping! Unless one of us is much bigger than the other. I'm still little enough to get wrapped up when Mommy hugs me even though I have my own wings in the way." |
Author: deslandes | The Beast enfluffs and hugs Keziah around the shoulders.
"Aianon does have wings," he agrees. "And a tail. It's a very huggable tail." |
Author: campanas | "A huggable tail," giggles Céleste.
Keziah hugs her uncloid happily. |
Author: endragoned | Aianon appears.
"Extremely huggable," he says, hugging Céleste and curling his tail around her, "see?" |
Author: campanas | Céleste giggles. "Papa has a tail too sometimes! It is fluffy but I don't hug it." |
Author: endragoned | "Mine is for hugging," Aianon asserts. |
Author: campanas | Keziah tugs his tail away from her alt and attempts to hug it. |
Author: endragoned | He squeaks and says reproachfully, "It is not for pulling on!" |
Author: campanas | "I never met anybody with a tail before today!" exclaims Keziah.
"Tails aren't for pulling," says Céleste. "My Rainier squawks awful if I pull his tail so I don't." |
Author: endragoned | "You are exactly right," he says, giving Céleste an extra gentle squish and then letting go. |
Author: campanas | Céleste spins around, looking for her next hug target, and Keziah tiptoes forward looking innocent. |
Author: endragoned | Aianon hugs Keziah, tail included. |
Author: pythbox | There's a Joker nearby who smells like candy! Is that a huggable feature? |
Author: campanas | Céleste thinks so! "You're a dessert!" she asserts. |
Author: pythbox | "Yep," he says, hugging her. "I'm a Jellybean!" |
Author: campanas | "I'm a Céleste! Me and Keziah decided we're griffins." |
Author: pythbox | "That is adorable," says Jellybean. He produces a small paper bag of jellybeans out of thin air and hands it to her. |
Author: campanas | Céleste takes it and peers into it. "Thanks!" |
Author: pythbox | "Jellybeans," he explains sunnily, and finds another small person to hug. |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | Queenie arrives. She hugs Dominique first (displacing Micaiah), then Damaris (displacing Kas), then holds out her arms to Keziah. |
Author: campanas | "You are so huggable!" exclaims Keziah. "I think you better just hug me always." |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | "I'm very huggable," she agrees. "But you can't keep me." |
Author: campanas | "Awww." |
Author: gunpowdergelatine | She ruffles Keziah's hair, lets her go, and then turns to Céleste. |
Author: campanas | Céleste takes her turn.
Hugs are distributed all around and then Céleste goes to her very own papa and wishes to be picked up. Keziah wants her mommy to lift her. |
Author: jovahs_heiress | Keziah's mommy is happy to pick her up. (She wandered over while the hugs were underway and has been watching in amusement.) |
Author: deslandes | Céleste's papa picks her up very happily! |
Author: endragoned | Aianon hugs Queenie. The pair of them teleport away. The Jokers begin uncongregating. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan wanders to the collection of Jokespawn, where his mate appears to be at a loose end, and scoops him up off the floor. "Hi, babe. How're the altkids?" |
Author: manofmyword | "Adorable," he says, wrapping his arms around Nathan's shoulders and kissing his cheek. "Demon's got a name now, didja hear? Aianon. And his dragon's Ansharil." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Having a name is useful," says Nathan. |
Author: manofmyword | "Mhm. They got 'em from Sarion's mom, apparently." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Cute," laughs Nathan. "And the baby one has been rechristened, too, but you already knew that." |
Author: manofmyword | "Yep. Harley Andrea. Hope he turns out okay," he says musingly. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "I think if the princess volunteered she must have a good shot at doing it right." |
Author: manofmyword | "True. I just dunno what'll happen to one of me who's raised - nice," he says. "It's never happened before." He shrugs. "He's still one of me, though, so I'm not too worried." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Why would it be worrying?" asks Nathan. "You think something weird'll happen to a one of you with a decent childhood?" |
Author: manofmyword | "I have no idea what'll happen to a one of me with a decent childhood," he says. "Maybe he'll turn out like Micaiah and Jellybean. Maybe he won't turn out to be one of me at all. Maybe he'll turn out to be one of Voice." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "...Well, if you believe Angela, Voice can turn out all right." |
Author: manofmyword | "Sure, I believe it." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Oh, that reminds me, Pattern was asking for everybody to stop at the little genomics lab she wished up over there and submit samples for Jane to look at so we can have a look at how alts and genes interact. I didn't bother since I'm one of a kind so far, but she'd probably appreciate it if you swung by." |
Author: manofmyword | "Sure," he says. "Wanna wander over thataway?" |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan kisses his mate's neck and wanders over thataway. Jane is displaying instructions on sample production on a screen on the relevant hardware. |
Author: manofmyword | The Joker submits some samples. If he's lucky he can do it without Nathan having to put him down! |
Author: temporal_affairs | He is lucky! |
Author: manofmyword | Terribly terribly lucky. He celebrates by kissing Nathan's cheek again. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Ooh, kisses. Nathan gets out of the way so Juliet can go give Jane a swab. |
Author: manofmyword | Snuggly kisses!
"Have you even met the demon?" he wonders. "I forget." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Spotted him from across the room. Have not been formally introduced." |
Author: manofmyword | "You should, he's fun. Squishes almost as hard as you do," the Joker says reminiscently. "Maybe harder." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Really? Well, I'm not a newborn anymore," chuckles Nathan. |
Author: manofmyword | "Apparently demons can deliver some serious squish. Maybe you guys should arm-wrestle on behalf of your species," he suggests whimsically. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Could do. He likely to want to?" |
Author: manofmyword | "Why not? Could be fun," he says in prediction of Aianon's likely attitude. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "All right then. But you realize I'll have to put you down in order to arm-wrestle him or anybody." |
Author: manofmyword | "I'll live, sweetheart." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "You better. Where is this demonic competitive fellow?" |
Author: manofmyword | "Mmm..." |
Author: endragoned | Aianon appears. Half a second later, so do pants. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Hello there. Rumor has it you might be able to arm-wrestle a vampire and win." Nathan puts the Joker down and spreads his hands. "I am a convenient vampire." |
Author: endragoned | "Someone will have to explain 'arm-wrestle'," says Aianon, "but I think that could be fun." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "We find some surface - not Pattern's little genomics lab over here, maybe a rock, outside - and plop our right elbows down on it and -" He demonstrates the relevant grip on his mate. "Try to force the other's hand down onto the rock or whatever." |
Author: endragoned | The demon laughs. "All right," he says agreeably. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Outside!
Rock!
Elbows!
Hands! |
Author: endragoned | Aianon starts slow, testing Nathan's strength. He is careful not to dig in his claws. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan's hand stays exactly where it is. "Am I trying to win or do science?" he asks. |
Author: endragoned | Aianon shrugs, stretching his wings.
He keeps increasing the pressure from his side. It doesn't go up as smoothly as it would with a vampire, but he's definitely getting into vampiric range. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Huh," observes Nathan.
He switches goals from "keep hand where it is" to "slam Aianon's hand onto the rock". This isn't as automatically decisive as it would be with any non-supernatural strength, but it is sudden and forceful. |
Author: endragoned | Their joined hands sway abruptly in one direction, and then somewhat less abruptly in the other. Aianon doesn't have perfect control of exactly which muscles are exerting how much force; he crushes Nathan's hand a little. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "A little less with the squeezing?" Nathan says, wincing. |
Author: endragoned | "Sorry," he says, flicking his tail from side to side, and tries to squeeze less. Which also leaves their hands more or less vertical. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Although the fact that you can meaningfully squeeze my hand is interesting," comments Nathan, still pushing. |
Author: endragoned | "Is it?" he wonders, still pushing back. Their hands waver back and forth a little; the force he applies isn't consistent. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Yeah, at home vampires can be hurt by three things. Vampires - or our relatives, if they get a chance - and werewolves and fire." Pause. "Starvation can also get us but it's slow. Usually." |
Author: manofmyword | "Aww, sweetie," the Joker murmurs, giving Nathan a hug and a kiss. |
Author: endragoned | "Demons can be hurt by many things, but killed by few," he says. "Unicorns. Certain magics. Unicorns no longer burn me; I have not tried the other." |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan kisses back. His distraction does nothing to lessen the force of his wrestling arm. |
Author: endragoned | The demon laughs. His distraction makes him forget not to squeeze, very very briefly before he remembers again. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Ow. I'm calling this experiment if that happens again," says Nathan. |
Author: manofmyword | "I could just make you unsquishable," says the Joker, pecking Nathan on the cheek. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Shouldn't need it," grumbles Nathan. "Fine, go for it, babe." |
Author: manofmyword | He hugs his sweetie. "There, you're squishproof." |
Author: endragoned | Aianon cautiously increases the pressure of his hand. There is no more crushing. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan continues to press inexorably.
"Newborn could probably beat you outright," he comments. "Newborn's at least half again as strong as me." |
Author: endragoned | Meanwhile, the force Aianon exerts is wavering more and more erratically.
"I have not fought one of my own kind in thousands of years," he says. "Now I am glad I will not have to." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "I'm not even unusually strong for a non-newborn vampire, there's variance." |
Author: endragoned | "My father was stronger than I," says Aianon. "Few others were." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Well, if you win - which is looking increasingly unlikely - we can see if Emmett wants to come try, he's probably strongest of anyone who might show up to a peal party." |
Author: endragoned | "I will happily arm-wrestle with Emmett," says Aianon.
Their hands are wavering over to his side more frequently. It seems his arm is getting tired. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "'Course, even if he beats you, you're giving a credible enough showing here that he'll be after you to come participate in his Ultra Olympics - at least half of the suggestions he got when he sent out that email survey were better than 'Ultra Olympics', I think he's just really attached to the name. He'd probably love to have all kindsa extradimensional aliens playing." |
Author: endragoned | "What is an Ultra Olympic?" |
Author: temporal_affairs | "You don't singularize it," says Nathan. "Olympics. So, on Earth-type worlds, there's this ancient worldwide athletics competition every few years. It's called the Olympics. But it wouldn't be fair to have vampires and hybrids and werewolves playing with everybody else. So Emmett came up with a version for us. It's smaller - and less serious; we get most of our ability out of the box so people who want to participate don't have to spend their lives working on it; Kerron shows up and competes sometimes and the rest of the time he doesn't even go for a walk on a typical day. But it's fun." |
Author: endragoned | "It does sound fun," says the demon. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan is pretty much winning now. He's having to work for it, but he's making progress and Aianon is not gaining ground to recover his position as fast as he's losing it.
And then the demon's hand touches the rock. |
Author: endragoned | "You win," says the demon. "I'd suggest a forfeit, but I'm told you wouldn't accept." He grins at the Joker. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan retrieves his hand. "You were told right. I'm pretty free with the squishing and the biting, everything else is single-target. Besides, I'm essentially straight when not under the influence of spooky mating magic." He winks at the single target of his spooky mating magic. |
Author: endragoned | The demon spreads his wings in an elaborate shrug. "You can bite me, too, if you want." |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan blinks at him. "I have," he observes thoughtfully, "no idea what you would taste like." |
Author: endragoned | "Then why don't you find out?" he invites. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan shrugs. "You appropriately rigged not to turn into anything if bit?" |
Author: endragoned | "Demons are immune to venom." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Yeah, vampires are immune to everything but a shortlist of squeezing, whoever told you demons are immune to venom probably hadn't met my kind." |
Author: endragoned | "Hm," he says. "I wish to be immune to you - nothing. I wish not to be immune to you - I lose the coin. I wish to reverse the previous wish - I lose that coin also." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Fair enough. Where d'you want to be bitten?" |
Author: endragoned | "Wherever you please." |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan is a bit of a traditionalist. He goes for the throat. |
Author: endragoned | The demon's red flesh yields to Nathan's teeth with a little more effort than he would need to bite a mere human, and his blood is black.
It tastes... different. About as pleasant as a decent synthetic, but not the same as any of the available synthetics, and definitely nothing like a human. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Nice," comments Nathan, after he's helped himself to a reasonable amount and sat back. His eyes have gone a peculiar sepia color, neither his usual red nor the black of the demon's blood. "Not like anything on the market, not like human, but nice." |
Author: endragoned | The demon wipes away a lingering trickle of blood from his already-healed neck.
"It changed your eyes," he observes. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Oh? Bubbly or animal blood makes 'em gold, human blood makes 'em dark red, being thirsty makes 'em black, what do you do?" |
Author: endragoned | "Sepia." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Peculiar." Nathan peers at a stray droplet. "Yeah, I have no idea how that works, bubbly is actually gold but animal blood is not... Anyway, thanks!" |
Author: endragoned | "You are welcome," the demon assures him.
He tilts his head consideringly.
"Now that I know I will not rip your limbs off, shall we try the other arm?" |
Author: mind_game | [Hi all!] Jane says to those who have participated in Pattern's genome collection thing. (This is everyone present with an alt, plus Elspeth, except Brilliance who does not appear to have genes.) [I have now processed all the genetic data! I'm about to ramble at great length about it! Speak now if you want to opt out of this ramble.] |
Author: bellfounding | The Bells want to opt in to this ramble! |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan swaps arms. "You think this'll go differently?" |
Author: endragoned | He shrugs.
"Let's find out," he says, and shoves Nathan's hand with all his strength. There is a measurable period of acceleration before he is going all-out, but when he is, he is definitely stronger. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan -
Is stronger too.
But he loses.
"...Huh," he says when the rock shatters against his hand. "Apparently you've got more strength-enhancing properties than humans do, as a dietary supplement. Better mind who's asking for nibbles when the Ultra Olympics come around." |
Author: manofmyword | The Joker laughs.
"You can participate in the Ultra Olympics as a steroid," he suggests. "Emmett'll flip." |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Emmett will flip," snorts Nathan, retrieving his hand again. "He would be very disappointed if any of his participating athletes were, er, drinking up." |
Author: manofmyword | He giggles and hugs his sweetie. |
Author: endragoned | The demon awwws. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Hugs! |
Author: endragoned | "You are both very sweet," the demon declares, and he arches his wings around them. |
Author: temporal_affairs | "Thanks," laughs Nathan. |
Author: endragoned | Hugs? |
Author: temporal_affairs | Sure, why not. |
Author: endragoned | Hugs! Very nice gentle many-limbed hugs. Not the squishy kind. |
Author: temporal_affairs | Nathan is happy to distribute squishy hugs but does not like to receive them, so this is good. |
Author: endragoned | Snuggly! |
Author: manofmyword | Huggly and snuggly. |
Author: mind_game | When everyone else does too, Jane starts a-rambling.
[There are some but not overwhelmingly many exact matches. The only two perfect Bell matches are Stella and Pattern. Some of the others are close. Golden is template standard, plus one different gene that I bet is related to witchcraft, plus vampire chromosomes that I have no idea how to interpret without looking at more vampire genes. Shell Bell has some noise relative to template, probably just from being extracted from a different gene pool. Aurora and Juliet are like the template plus small genetic markers that I'm going to assume are related to sorcery and Slaying respectively - the fact that James has the exact same thing as Juliet's deviation strongly supports the Slaying hypothesis, and Lexi shares Aurora's sorceress gene. Aegis has gene pool noise and also her mutation, which was already identified for me by the lovely geneticists of the I.F.. Cam is close to standard everywhere but sex chromosomes, but not exact - I bet you the template was pulling him towards a behavior standard, and the exact same genes everywhere but there would've expressed themselves too differently in different hormone soup, so he has some tweaks. Angela bears obvious marks of genetic engineering in her history - it's smoothed out a bit by the intervening generations but it's still very plain that certain bits were inserted - and this is on top of a big helping of gene pool noise, bigger than the aforementioned since she's not from Earth. Rose looks templatey except that it appears almost as though something went over her genome with a spellchecker. The vast majority of the little broken pieces and small harmful mutations that everybody has just aren't there in her. I think that's why she looks prettier. Amariah has recognizable template genes, but she's also got scattered markers that I'm identifying as witch species markers - mostly on the X chromosomes, but not all of them - and she's also got some noise from being extracted from a different population, I guess daemons affected the trajectory of her Earth a fair amount - and she also has, I shit you not, a section of her genome devoted to what I was eventually able to identify as extremely, lossily compressed raccoon and owl genes that are all turned off so they can't do anything in her actual body. So now we know how daemons work, I guess. And Sarion looks almost nothing like any of you except in the obvious visual sense. I'd need more elf genomes to look at to make guesses about how any of it corresponds to her phenotype.
[Jokers - except for the obvious outliers of Brilliance and Aianon - have more matches. The eponymous, and Queenie, and Alice-post-de-vampiring, and Jellybean, and Ghosty, and Harley - where applicable, this is while manifesting male - all match. The female versions of those who routinely wear same match. The fact that Jellybean is one of those matches is why I think that Cam's extra deviations apart from the sex chromosomes aren't some kind of wizard marker - that and the Matildas. Who completely match. Micaiah has genepool noise. So does Beast, and he doesn't look spellchecked the way Rose does, and there's no evidence of the beast thing having a genetic effect. Sue's about like Aegis - noise and a useful mutation. Aianon is even more incomprehensible than Sarion; in her case I could at least imagine running simulations of various genes coding for proteins, in his case I wouldn't know where to start. And Kas has got genepool noise, and obviously no witch marker, but does have compressed daemon genes; if anyone was curious Petaal probably appeared as an axolotl when Kas was born. There's literally a stretch of randomness where Amariah has owl stuff. At some point I want to look at an Alethian kid. Sue doesn't have any of this, and neither does Minus, so spontaneous daemons don't retroactively genetically engineer you.
[The Sherlocks and the Tonies, including the soloists, are all exactly genetically alike except for some genepool noise in the Atlantis pair, who match each other, and Strat, who has different noise. Apparently being a Sunshine vampire has no genetic effects whatsoever.
[Damaris and Keziah show angel engineering, and Dominique and Céleste are human and are also spellchecked, and they have different genepool noise - although less of it relative to their respective alts than their parents have relative to each other. Elspeth's extra chromosome aside, they'd register as her half-sisters on a primitive test, and if it was primitive enough it could probably write off the spellchecking and angel genes as within experimental error and read Damaris and Dominique as twins and likewise Keziah and Céleste.
[Slipstick and James are close to genetically identical, except for the Slayer marker which Slipstick lacks, but I hesitate to call either of them the genetic template for Libbies, because both of them appear to be some sort of half-not-human I don't have the context to identify.] |
Author: lifes_sake | [Are you ready to meet the Wellspring Matilda now?] Cam tries, after Jellybean could plausibly have gotten to the point of wanting another break from Upstairs Proceedings. |
Author: pythbox | [Sure, okay,] he giggles. |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam wanders in the direction of the Matildas, both of whom are floating (one transitively, one intransitively). |
Author: pythbox | Jellybean teleports down to meet him there.
"Hi, Tilly, hi, Matilda," he says brightly. |
Author: withmypowers | "Love the skirt," Matilda deadpans. |
Author: pythbox | He beams. "Thanks!" |
Author: lifes_sake | "Can I be floated again?" Cam asks. "Grace says that before I was called away for urgent peal business we weren't trying long enough to know if it was going to work or not." |
Author: withmypowers | Matilda floats him again. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Thanks!" |
Author: withmypowers | "It's no trouble," she says amicably. |
Author: lifes_sake | "Apart from having your thing instead of wizards and presumably Powers, what's Wellspring like?" Cam inquires. "Also, is there a word for people with Wellspring magic?" |
Author: withmypowers | "There isn't any other kind of magic in Wellspring, so we usually just go with 'magic users' or 'mages'. It's not unusual for an Earth; the magic system is the only obvious distinguishing feature." |
Author: lifes_sake | "Lots of Earths-plus-stuff," muses Cam. "I wonder why Earth isn't the odd one out with everybody else living on Samarias or something. Even Rêverie is sort of Earthlike." |
Author: withmypowers | "It seems to be pretty much a template thing," says Matilda. "The template of humans is that they live on an Earth." |
Author: lifes_sake | Cam scratches his head. "Yeah, but the Earths are also eerily similar in history. Except for oddities like the occasional Gotham, it turns out that all our plus-stuffs doesn't do much. Wizards didn't prevent World War I, vampires didn't eat anyone key to to the Geneva Convention, mints and ingots did not affect the Industrial Revolution. Daemons and witches and bears did some stuff, but you can still name major cities and books and historical figures, and Amariah will recognize the names, even if on her world John Calvin was a Pope and Protestantism started later with somebody else." |
Author: withmypowers | "That also seems like a bigger-scale version of the reason why, oh, me and Tilly were recommended the same first set of books by different librarians in different towns, right down to the ordering." |
Author: lifes_sake | "I guess. But then we all veer off course. Like, Shell Bell and Aegis are both from future Earths, according to Jane's investigation of astronomy in Atlantis they're not even too far off in year, but really different future Earths. The attractors for their Earths just sort of stopped working the same way. Atlantis flooded. Should we all expect to flood in a way that only a mutant from Peace could ordinarily stop? I wouldn't expect to look at the history of Samaria, which does include an Earth, and see Panem as a thing there, though." |
Author: withmypowers | "It's interesting," says Matilda. |
Author: lifes_sake | "It is! And we have a while to figure it out." |
Author: withmypowers | She laughs. |
Author: neverbeatme | [...I'm half what?] says James, privately to Jane. And Slipstick. |
Author: mind_game | [Hang on a sec, everyone.]
And to the half-non-human Libbies: [...Was this news? Based on mitochondrial results it was your dads.] |
Author: neverbeatme | [Yeah, it was news.] |
Author: prima_sequentem | [Not to me,] says Slipstick. [I guess Chris didn't tell you yet. We're half Eshvoi. Talented with languages, receptive to shapeshifting magic, a few nice little boosts that will probably be drowned out by the fact that you're the Slayer.] |
Author: mind_game | [Okay, should I just carry on with what I was going to say? Should I have mentioned this privately first?] |
Author: prima_sequentem | [I don't think there's a reasonable way you could've known that we might not know about it,] says Slipstick, [unless you knew our family situation.] |
Author: mind_game | [That is not a thing I know much about specifically,] says Jane. [Anyway.]
[Sorry about that, everyone. Anyway. Slipstick says she and James are half-Eshvoi. That's probably specific to Sunshine worlds, what with humans being extremely common and no particular type of non-human cropping up nearly as often. Nothing exciting with Libby. Lizzie has some genepool noise relative to all of them.]
There are further ramblings, but none of the other templates present show up much that's surprising in light of these findings. |