festive rainbow mirror summoning!

[incanted]

There are now one dozen Bells.

They and most of their friends are all here on Planet Rainbowsand II, to celebrate the addition of Sarion, the elf one, and Aurora, the one with a sister.

Comments

[bellfounding]

"And we both have a long time to pick up distinguishing features!"

[toblameforit]

He giggles.

[bellfounding]

"My world isn't exactly standard Earth, so there's that, I have a Gotham and most places don't. It's just nonstandard in a way unrelated to my pre-pealing backstory."

[toblameforit]

"A Gotham?"

[bellfounding]

"It's this city. It's not very pleasant or safe, several Jokers come from there. I think the nearest equivalent elsewhere is New York City, except we also have New York City, it's just not very big or important."

[toblameforit]

"Oh, huh," says Tony. "Okay. That's weird, to have one city different between the worlds like that."

[bellfounding]

"I think it's just the one. I mean, there's suburbs, too, but I haven't run into anyone talking about other major geographical or political differences that aren't chalked up to Bell activity."

[toblameforit]

"That is really weird, which worlds have it and which ones don't?"

[bellfounding]

"Origin does, Ghosty's original world does, Queenie's original world does. I didn't check all the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds for it - Jane?"

[mind_game]

[Two of the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds have Gothams, the rest don't.]

[toblameforit]

"Weird," says Tony.

[mind_game]

[If Jokers are going to appear in them it won't be soon. One is currently experiencing 1877 and the other one 1908.]

[bellfounding]

"I guess we have time to figure out what in the world we'll do if we become aware of a baby Joker. I should ask one of the grown ones about that," laughs Pattern.

[toblameforit]

"I, uh, haven't had a lot of social contact with the Jokers," says Tony, "except at that one party. Would a baby one be some kind of problem?"

[bellfounding]

"They have terrible dads," says Pattern seriously.

[toblameforit]

"...Like, 'my misery will make a funny story in ten years' terrible or 'take the kid away right now' terrible?"

[bellfounding]

"Um, considering how Jokers are, those are not wholly incompatible, but I would pretty much not feel right about not kidnapping any baby Joker of whom I became aware."

[toblameforit]

"Gotcha," says Tony. "Okay."

[bellfounding]

"...Now I'm wondering what to do if Jane notifies us of some world's Renée and Charlie getting married. Like, the standard Earth version get divorced. We don't have unhappy childhoods really, but it seems like it would be nice of us to warn that Renée and Charlie."

[toblameforit]

"...If you did warn them, though, would that mean a you not existing who could've?"

[bellfounding]

"Presumably, yeah, but, like, all kinds of people could exist who are not existing for good reasons, most saliently it not being a good idea for their theoretical parents to have a kid, and whether 'you are overwhelmingly likely to get divorced' is a good enough reason or not shouldn't necessarily change based on whether they'll get a Bell if they have a kid before doing that. Besides," Pattern shrugs, "Aurora has a twin sister, so maybe they sometimes get a Lexi instead."

[toblameforit]

"I don't know," says Tony, "if I heard there was a twelve-year-old me about to clone himself, I would, like... probably give him a hug, but I wouldn't stop him. I don't think Sherry'd want me to."

[bellfounding]

"Okay, but, like - Angela's pregnant. They're probably going to have a bunch of kids because of angel cultural stuff, let's say it's six. And based on what we know about how templates work, that's a very good piece of information for all the other Bell-Joker pairs about how they'd have kids if that happened. I bet Jane doesn't count, although if Angela manages to have a little winged biological Jane I will be super impressed with template attractors, like, as a force in the multiverse. So say Rose meets all of Angela's kids and she doesn't get along so great with kid number three. And say that Rose would've had three kids, but decides to stop at two because she doesn't like Angela's third kid. I think that would be a good thing for Rose to do, to stop at two, even though somebody who presumably likes existing doesn't get to exist a second time. I think it would be good for us to warn a standard Renée and Charlie. But they could decide from there."

[toblameforit]

"I guess," says Tony. "Man, this shit is complicated."

[bellfounding]

"And you were worried about me getting bored," scoffs Pattern.