intelligent nametags

[thaumobabble]

Jane alerts everyone to the existence of a new Bell, the nature of her wives and children, and the presence of her mother-in-law.

She stands ready to move in anyone who wishes to attend this new party.

Glass stands ready to receive them.

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Cool, let me know where I need to show up and what format you want my results in when you've got that. Anyway. And to avoid confusions like the one Aegis had about my mother-in-law being the queen, maybe an entry for tentative expected approach - or past approach, for when you all update your old profiles."

[jovahs_heiress]

"And perhaps we no longer need an entry for people with keys to the Belltower, with Jane operating it at her informed discretion. Although literal keys should probably still be kept on hand in case something happens to her again."

[thaumobabble]

"And local magic is worth knowing about, and inventing terminology for recurring species is a good idea - I think we're only ever going to see more than one sort-of-thing that needs an invented name if they're named in English. I think English is on some level a meta-language for our multiverse. 'Witch' needs clarification; 'sarion' doesn't."

They continue to fiddle with their profile template until they have something they all like.

[prima_sequentem]

Libby thinks this template is very reasonable!

[thaumobabble]

Glass inaugurates it.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela follows.

[dark_light]

Amariah takes the book next.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell follows suit.

[beheld_beauty]

Rose is the last of the committee to add something.

[prima_sequentem]

"Very tidy," says Libby. "Who wants to work with me on the Worldbook?"

[thaumobabble]

"I will, if you like. Do you anticipate needing much help?"

[prima_sequentem]

"It's always nice to get a second opinion on something like this."

[thaumobabble]

"Okay then. What are your thoughts?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Well, for one thing, has anyone else noticed that the Sunny worlds seem to be twins where everyone else is at most cousins? I wonder if we should be dividing up worlds by family."

[thaumobabble]

"Ooh." Glass closes her eyes, thinking. "I should visit the other Sunny worlds, real quick, and see if I can detect that and if there's anything else like it."

[prima_sequentem]

"Go for it," says Libby.

[thaumobabble]

"Jane," says Glass, and she disappears.

She's back a minute later. "I hate those worlds, I hate them, they're nasty," she says. "They're similar all right, and no others I've checked are that close, but there's a weaker resemblance between Aurum and Eos."

[prima_sequentem]

"Interesting. So a 'worldfamily' entry might be a little premature, but I think I'll put one down anyway in case we find more Sunny worlds and run out of cute sun-related things to name them after. Apart from that... a list of common intelligent species would be good, so we have some standardization for species names besides the ones that Bells happen to be. I haven't heard anyone coming up with a term for Aianon's species other than 'demon', for example, and that's also the generic term for nonhumans in the Sunny worlds. And there's some species overlap between this world and Thilanushinyel, as evinced by the two completely different types of dragons chatting over there."

[thaumobabble]

Glass nods. "I suspect Aianon's busy - I'll ask Sarion -" Presently she has a reply. "Thilanushinyel demons are also called 'Endarkened', is that taken?"

[prima_sequentem]

"Nope. See, this is the kind of thing that would go in a Worldbook."

[thaumobabble]

"I can ask Kexan what he'd like to call Chronicle dragons, but he'll probably lob the question to his grandmother; she's the king."

[prima_sequentem]

"As long as someone comes up with something at some point."

[thaumobabble]

Glass nods. "And we've also got unicorns here that aren't like the one I saw at this party, and elves. And dwarves and giants and all kinds of things, I'm not even sure I know them all, there could easily be some I haven't heard of from sufficiently faraway places."

[prima_sequentem]

"I'm not that worried about listing every single species as long as we've got distinct terms for all the ones that interact with the peal. Ooh, and there should be an entry for afterlife situation," she adds.

[thaumobabble]

"Syntropy and Alethia," nods Glass. "And maybe distinguish between worlds that were already attached to Downside and will have wakeful people there who Jane didn't wake, versus ones that were added later and will have only sleeping people or ones we've personally attended to."