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]

[I don't know.] She turns around on the spot slowly, peering at the rest of the attendees of the party in case they're there.

[It's Angela. Something to do with her. But it's high-level, it's not something she did... Hey, Angela, over here.]

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela drifts over and puts her wing around her Micaiah. [Hmm?]

[thaumobabble]

Glass peers at the pair of them together, occasionally looking at the other Jokers for points of comparison.

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah snuggles contentedly into his angel's wing, flaring his aura (innocence innocence innocence) a little.

[thaumobabble]

[...I don't know your story and I'm sure I could put this better if I did, but what I see is a lot like - Shell Bell's special circumstances. Angela was a certain way, and you were supposed to meet and be together, and you needed to - suit her.]

[jovahs_heiress]

[...What did I miss?]

[yovahs_kisses]

...Micaiah hugs himself and leans on Angela and appears Generally Upset.

[thaumobabble]

Glass summarizes for Angela what she missed.

[jovahs_heiress]

[I - oh, love,] sighs Angela, hugging her Micaiah and peering into his thoughts to see what the matter is in more detail.

[yovahs_kisses]

Does that mean that if he had been she couldn't have loved him because that is terrible, that is the worst thing, why is that true.

[jovahs_heiress]

[Oh, love. I don't know. I don't know what she's seeing.]

And she summarizes for Glass the story of how they met.

[thaumobabble]

[I think,] Glass says, picking her words carefully, after she's heard this story, [that something about - the ways it would've changed you, the person it would've made you - would have - thrown off the way Angela's template attractors are trying to interact with stuff about your world. I'm not sure if you couldn't have wound up together. It could have affected something else. But I don't think it would've been as easy for you to be together, if you'd fallen into the attractor.]

[her_imperial_radiance]

[Imagine,] says Elspeth softly, [if instead of you, she'd met another Joker under the exact same circumstances. How do you imagine that would've gone?]

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah thinks about the other Jokers.

Then he snuggles into Angela's wing and cries.

[pythbox]

"Sad," Harley Andrea observes.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Glass is telling us about some grownup things," Elspeth murmurs to Harley, petting his hair. "It won't help you to hear them right now."

[pythbox]

He yawns agreeably.

[jovahs_heiress]

[I was so young then, so sheltered,] Angela says. [It was a challenge to adjust even to you. I was always on the - naiver end of the Bell spectrum, especially back when I saw Jovah's hand on everything.] She swallows. [If you had been any farther away from - me, my understanding of the world - then I might have found the glow in our Kisses as incomprehensible as I later found Ithiel's deformities, I might have come to my crisis of faith earlier, and I don't know what I would have done about you, then, if I hadn't loved you as quickly as I did and then I didn't believe that we were divinely intended.]

[yovahs_kisses]

...well then.

Micaiah continues crying.

He loves her so much, and even though it didn't happen, it hurts that this one little thing could have come between them.

[jovahs_heiress]

She hugs him. [I'm so sorry, my love.]

[yovahs_kisses]

Hug. Hug hug hug. Hug hug cry hug.

[thaumobabble]

[...Maybe I should be more. Judicious about saying things? No one should rely on anything I say, I'm bewildered about everything, I just keep being inclined to say stuff.]

[manofmyword]

[Go ahead and say stuff,] says the Joker. [We wanna hear it, even if it's gonna do - that.]

[yovahs_kisses]

Micaiah nods, sniffling.

[thaumobabble]

[Okay... you three,] she gestures at the Joker and Queenie and Ghosty, [are all a cluster up to a point, then you branch off, I think most everything after you two died and you met Stella is regular causality and not meta-causality except for the fact that you all did get to meet everyone else. The meeting each other thing is mediated by meta-causality but since I only seem to be able to make pronouncements about people I'm looking at I don't think I can help us locate more of anybody... Insofar as you're the same you're all also template-y. I think Harley was going to go through a story like yours but the attractor is thwarted, more thoroughly than the other ones I mentioned.]