synopsychic | (no subject)

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If anyone is in need of it, there is an entrance to the Workshop through my front room for anyone who has need of it. I managed to put an entrance on either side of the wall between the groups up in the balconies.

I do not care whether you consider yourself friendly towards me or not, all are welcome to use it to access the other side or reach the Workshop. I will do what I can to maintain the dual entrances for as long as we are divided.

[There's a bit of a pause to indicate his shift in subject.]

I have been thinking on the nature of our time infiltrating as well, the parallels and differences between ourselves are difficult to ignore. It cannot be random who we end up overlaying with in these worlds.

I wonder if any of you have thoughts on this matter as well. It is something we may as well discuss.

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Good to hear. We need as many crossovers as we can get... Thanks.

And wondered about the overlay stuff myself. I mean, there's the 'look like you' thing, but ... that ain't all of it. Can't be by a long way. I get told mine kinda have ... common personality streaks with me, anyway?

You are welcome.

[He's not going to be an asshole for the sake of it when there's something beneficial he can do. Even if he does dislike people.]

Appearances are subjective, I mean... I can turn in to a sparrow. But yes, pieces of our personality seem to be... brought in to focus.

[Well, Kanji understands the temptation there, at least...]

And half of mine were shiny, so ... gotta point there. I kinda wonder if there are some folks who other people coulda overlayed on, sometimes, if the looks aren't a thing?

[Looking at you, Mako. Though he's not the only one.]

Mine seem to be a bunch of 'gonna get their thing done' people. Just the thing they're doing varies.

Mine are... unshakably loyal to what or whomever he puts his faith in. Not that it cannot be shaken, but the consequences of it tend to be unpleasant.

[Not at all like himself. Nope.]

They also share my willingness to do whatever it takes to see something done.

Yeah. I know what you mean.

[And he's still asking plenty of questions about how far his own goes...]

They're like a whole lotta ways of looking at bits of the same thing.

The question is... what are we supposed to learn from it, if anything?

There's gotta be things. I know I've learned ... what kind of person I could be, guess you could say.

My room's set up to bridge the barrier too. It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses.

As far as infiltrating goes, mine have more similarities than differences. Joshua's usually accounted for in some fashion, and if there's a secret society available odds are I'm part of it.

Good, the more options people have the better.

It is the differences that have cause of interest I think. Why not be nearly identical to ourselves? Why highlight something we are not?

Who knows, dude. Unless it's that a difference is what someone needs to blend in without being eaten alive. So to speak.

Besides, sometimes it's less 'something you're not' and more 'something you've had or wanted to bury that needs attention.'

That would explain why I am rarely myself.

[He knows he sticks out too much sometimes, like when he didn't know what a pokemon was.]

There are plenty of things I would like people to pay actual attention to, I am fairly certain that they have yet to be.

Having something pointed out to you from the outside doesn't always have the same impact as living it for yourself.

Portals work as well, for those who can create them. I'll be adding a back door to my mansion for the same purpose.

As for Infiltrations...I thought it was self-evident that aspects were shared, although in some cases more than others.

I am not looking for the obvious, Beatrice.

Clear away those things and what is there to be had from these experiences?

[As usual, she doesn't like his tone, but she recognizes a question she should ask herself when she hears one.]

Hm...well, all of mine have had altered circumstances that changed their perspective more than any inherent differences. One married my bitterest enemy and then lost him to accident, another ruled a fiefdom but had only ambition for company.

Perhaps another pattern is seeing how our realities could be changed by changes in circumstances?

[Welcome to dealing with Malik.]

Changes in perspective can lead to a change in how something is viewed entierly.

If you only ever see someone from behind, you have no idea what their nose looks like.

You play chess, right? Or the Persian equivalent? "Turn the chessboard around" is the maxim I learned to play with - see things from your opponent's perspective, and you'll see how he'll move.

"Imagine your pieces on a backgammon table" isn't useful to playing chess, but perhaps it is to whatever it is we're meant to be doing here.

You may need to review that lesson, you are remarkably terrible at seeing things any way but your own.

I could say the same, but I thought we were being polite today.

I am more than willing to change my opinion when given actual evidence to the contrary that is not someone stamping their feet and yelling.

Still going back to that, are we? You have impossibly high standards for teenagers. Or was it different in the Levant, that someone disqualifies himself from freedom of conscience when his emotions get out of hand?

I'd imagine it's a combination of emotional or experiential resonance, and proximity to whichever events we're expected to interfere with. Too far from ourselves, and the process might not work; too far from the action, and the exercise is pointless.

Or it is because as ourselves we would be a hindrance to whatever they seek to resolve?

Realistically, we would be of more use as ourselves if given information on things.

Not necessarily. Insiders have an edge that even the most well-informed of outsiders lack - there's no overstating the value of connections, for one. Even if they were less reliant on Infiltrators, they would probably still need a few to stack the deck.

Thank you. I will do what I can as well, with my Vishuddha.

[Lupa pauses as well.]

I believe they are probably other lives. Reincarnations. Sera had doubts, but until it is confirmed one way or another it seems to me the most likely answer. If nothing else, the similarities we share with them--sometimes to near complete mirrors of our lives in a different place--imply that the core data is either the same, or complimentary in a way that allows us to be merged that way.

Reincarnation.

[There's a pause as he mulls it over.]

It does hold some weight, there are things to learn about ourselves in these other versions of ourselves and death is not permanent here either.

The other lives I've experienced have taught me a lot, but I may be a unique case. It's good to hear that I'm not the only one who's learned things.

[A relief, in a way, to know even if he has disadvantages, others are still learning too.]

I've only had the four, so there's not a whole lot I can say about it.

I did end up spending a while trying to figure out how the hell I didn't end up infiltrated in January. Some of my friends were busy running a liquor store, and that's definitely something I know well. But... I think one of them needed to be me more than I did, in the end.

I have only been myself three times since I was brought here, so I have the opposite perspective from you.

I am not sure that occupation is something that is as important as the rest. I was myself in Nova Venezia, and there were... those who were very close to my occupation.

Maybe it isn't, but I've had two bars on these things. The other two times a bar wouldn't have been practical. One of those played on my medical interests and the other... had really bad social anxiety? I'm still not completely sure what the connection was there.

[A crowded spaceship is a really, really bad time to not cope well with overcrowded surroundings.]

The bigger constant is my sister. She's always been accounted for in some way, usually dead.

...I am not sure what social anxiety even is.

[Sorry, middle ages is rough.]

I am sorry to hear about your sister though, I know what it is to lose a sibling.

Complete, utter panic at the idea of having to deal with people. Not really an ideal situation on an overcrowded spaceship, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it came down to the sheer amount of sensory input Gorgons have going on.

And I'm sorry for your loss. It... it weighed me down for a long time. And no matter what, I think that dynamic might be key to me being pulled into a given overlay - she was barely a footnote in space, but there were kind of bigger things going on there. [That was also the first time he infiltrated after he really started processing the closure he'd been given.]

It is something you will always carry with you, no matter how long it has been, but it does not always have to be a heavy thing.

Exactly. I wouldn't be where I am now if it hadn't happened.

[Sometimes he wishes the kick in the ass had been something different. But it wasn't, and there's no way to change that.]

In any case, footnote or not, she's had some kind of presence every time. That much is definitely a pattern.

I'm usually some variation on hunter/bitch when I infiltrate.

[There is a trace of dry humor in there that she's aware might be hard for anyone not Malik to get.]

I do not think you are a bitch.

You are a minority opinion. [look even SHE thinks she's a bitch.]

I don't either.

Two a majority does not make.

But it's a bigger minority?

This is not the point.

I usually am, it does not make my opinion of you wrong. Just different.

Fine, then. Usually a hunter.

I write. That's the one constant for mine. It's not always in a professional way, but I always write.

I'll be making a bypass of my own when I find the right place. Look for theatre doors.

What else? There is more to you than writing, Thorne.

... when I'm human, I'm always from a colonized people. Chouko/Cho Ling was ethnically Chinese, originally from the part of Joseon that used to be part of the Middle Kingdom. Newport's Thorne and Charlene Fruosino were both Mestizo in heritage, like me. Hell, even Carolina Acantha's mother was from Egypt under Roman rule.

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