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

[manofmyword]

[Once upon a time,] the Joker begins, [when I was younger and prettier, I met this lady who liked to dress up as a bat and beat and/or scare the shit out of criminals. I killed some people and blew up some stuff, all to get her attention so she'd turn some'a that lovely violence my way. Worked like a charm, too. She had me locked up and then I started dreaming my way to Milliways and I'm pretty sure the rest is history. Same deal for Ghosty and Queenie, but instead of finding Milliways they kept at it until they died.]

[thaumobabble]

Glass peers at the retirees again.

[Queenie and Ghosty differ by what happened when they died. Origin and the world Queenie came from were both hooked up to Downside all along, though - I think you found Milliways because otherwise you would have been a straight-up duplicate of Queenie. At least in terms of things that matter to your persons - she has a minor attractor that's on for her, she shares it with Micaiah and Beast so I assume that's the Voice attractor - but she didn't know about him, right? So it wouldn't have counted for much. I don't think our multiverse likes perfect duplicates, at least not interacting ones - you would never have run into each other till you'd accumulated distinctions, at least minor ones.]

[manofmyword]

The Joker chuckles.

[thaumobabble]

"Your attractors have a different character from Bell attractors, some of them," muses Glass. "You've got the same, intense, invariable undercurrent through all of you. We have our necessities split up between - more traits, which aren't indivisible, which can interact in ways that weaken each other under difficult circumstances. The analogy I want to make is that Bells all cast the same sillhouette but Jokers are all made of the same material. Does that make sense?"

[manofmyword]

"Y'know," says the Joker, "it really, really does."

[beheld_beauty]

Rose laughs. "What of the Sherlocks and Tonies?"

[thaumobabble]

"They..." Glass contemplates this, nibbling her lip. "Come out of the same mold. Their templates are making their circumstances do most of the work of pulling them into shape, instead of making them turn out the same way in spite of where they wind up; that might even be why so many of them come from that one worldfamily. If you kidnapped a baby would-be Tony and brought her up in atypical circumstances I have no idea what would happen, but I'm sure Harley's going to be one of you."

[manofmyword]

"Mm, that's good to know."

[lifes_sake]

"Hey," says Cam, "perhaps you can answer the age old question: why am I girls?"

[thaumobabble]

Glass blinks at him.

"Being a girl is a strong Bell default, but the template works - obviously - just fine in a boy, too," she says. "You probably won't be the only one forever but I think you'll always be a minority."

[gunpowdergelatine]

Queenie giggles.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden wanders by. "I hear you are reading templates."

[bellfounding]

"I heard the same thing," says Pattern. "How come we weren't invited?"

[thaumobabble]

"I was looking at the Jokers first," explains Glass. "...Huh, Pattern, you and the Joker are from the same world but you are not at all attached. I think metacausally you being from the same place was almost an afterthought."

[manofmyword]

"Not surprised," says the Joker.

[bellfounding]

"Yeah, me either, what with us never having met and barely interacting," says Pattern. "Can you answer the age-old question of which Bell is the template? I act like it's me, but I don't have a mental opacity..."

[thaumobabble]

"...You, and Golden, and Stella all have claims on different layers to being the template," says Glass slowly. "On the - the top layer it's Golden. Then Stella a layer down from there - they're weirdly interdependent, and then we all branch out from them in a dozen directions. And then - you're kind of an afterthought here too, I'm sorry, I can't think of a better way to put it - you're close to template baseline but - backwards. You're not the original Bell, you're the modal Bell. You're very close to the essence of Bells but we didn't start there, we started there-and-there in a weird confusing metacausal way -" She waves at Golden and Stella - "and the contingent extras got replaced as we propagated to other worlds."

[manofmyword]

(Aww.)

[bellfounding]

"Dammit."

[thaumobabble]

"There's nothing stopping you from acquiring features going forward by ordinary causal means," adds Glass, "but I don't see a particular attractor for it."

[luminous_regnant]

"If I'm the - or a - template, then why do I have the only unique significant other?"

[thaumobabble]

"That... is... a hard question," says Glass, squinting at her. "It might be easier if I got a look at him. Without, my guess is... something like... okay, some templates are attached to other templates. The Obadiah template is attached to Tony, for instance," she realizes aloud, "Bells' parents are attached to us, Bats are attached to Jokers, in each case one template is leading and the other is following. Bells and Sherlocks-and-Tonies, and Bells and Jokers, are sort of attracted to each other - I don't mean in the obvious sense, I mean in the template sense - but there's not a leader-follower relationship except in the obvious causal sense that Bells make and follow through with more plans. Edward is attached to you, but not strongly enough for the rest of us to have copies, and his template doesn't independently travel, insisting on cropping up in lots of places. I think that could change - although what 'change' means when this isn't working by anything I'd recognize as time I can't tell you - but right now he's a weak template attached to a very strong template, and that means he would only show up again if a stronger template didn't take his - place."

[manofmyword]

The Joker snorts.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden casts an exasperated look in her employee's direction.

[thaumobabble]

"I don't know what template strength means," Glass hastens to add. "Not with so few examples, not when I'm so new at this."