[ Riz just stands stock still, staring at Fabian like a spooked animal ready to take flight as it registers that Fabian isn't going to start throwing some sort of hissy fit (if you could call righteous indignation at the state of their shred spaces a hissy fit; Riz may be a bit of a maniac, but even he knows when he's let something get out of hand), and is instead asking what's going on. Which is -- which is a lot, honestly. It's a lot. His mind feels like it's been crammed full of thirty different warring concerns, and this time, he didn't even sign up for it. It just happened. ]
I -- it -- it...
[ Bouncing it off of someone else would be helpful, actually. There's just so much. He takes a deep breath, speaking rapid-fire, as though hosting some sort of horrible auction instead of trying to convey matters of extreme existential importance to his best friend. ]
So I posted on the network as a census, kind of? We've all noticed how pretty much everyone here is human, and we've run into so many people whose worlds are only made up of humans that I wanted to figure out the biases of Aurora and what those implications are for all the worlds out there, 'cause if we're to take them at face-value, because as it is, the emphasis on humans would create a system where they're going to prioritize human worlds, right? But then I found out that not only are most people here human, but they're also from different versions of the exact same place. Nobody here has heard of Spyre, but I would ballpark about 80% or higher being from the planet Earth, but different versions of it, which I've got -- I've got those outlined there, there and there. Some of them are almost certainly from the same Earth, which I have divided by shared terms even if I'm not totally certain that they are? There's Earths with metahumans, Earths with parahumans, and Earths with none of the above, but speaking distinctly, I think maybe I've counted eight or nine possible different versions, taking into account the ones who've discussed aliens as their only exposure to non-humans.
[ He begins to tear down one of the clue boards from off the wall with quick, systematic efficiency, placing them all into one of his massive folders -- to be recreated in his own bedroom, no doubt. He needs to redo them anyway. There's no consistency here, no organization. He can do it better. ]
They're so racially homogenous that they see humans having any sort of magical abilities as being non-human as a point of, like, cultural significance, even if they're all more or less the same species, which is insane, but we gotta respect it. And as soon as I started going down the rabbit hole of representative races and shared worlds, I found out that -- [ he pauses, swiveling his head over to look Fabian in the eye as he says firmly: ] I don't actually think we're not real. There's better explanations for it. But you have to exhaust all options to do good detective work. What I discovered is that in these racially homogenous worlds, they still know about us, to the extent that when I shared a photo of my Dad to make sure nobody here could see Kalina - [ one person could; he's not getting into that right now ] - they were able to recognize him as being a Goblin. And how is it that they can do that when Goblins don't even exist in their worlds?
[ He jabs one finger at another clue board across the room, charting out mentions of different races, absently grabbing a cold cup of coffee to whet his mouth before continuing. ]
Because even if we don't exist in their world, they still have stories about us. They think we're fictional creatures. And that would be one thing if they shared like, just the words? But their versions of us are so similar to ours that they could recogize Dad as a Goblin on-sight. And more than that, the idea of us as fictional races is so universal that they use words from our races to mean different things as shorthand that fit with the same racial stereotypes from home? Like, Troll as a word is used as a derogatory term, and their view on Goblins is pretty much the same -- some people seem surprised that Goblins even could wear suits and, like, you know what they say about us back home, right? The view on elves seems a lot more charitable which, again, pretty consistent with our social norms. Not only are we stories in their worlds, but their fictions are at least a little bit consistent with our realities, and this is consistent across several different types of Earth, so. So.
[ So he spiraled. Some ideas are too existentially terrifying not to consider. He takes a deep breath. ]
My best guess is that we're dealing with some sort of dimensional bleed, or maybe we did exist and then somehow went extinct in those worlds and only stories of us remained, or maybe there are non-humans living incognito, or maybe we live on different planets as extraterrestrial life and there was enough crossover there for people to talk about us even if the humans who lived there didn't believe us, or -- it's all on, um, those clue boards, right over there. But the whole fictionality thing had to at least be considered.
[ He looks around at the wreckage of their apartment, a little crestfallen by how far he'd managed to get. Normally, he would have either have been stopped at home by his mother before it got this far, or he'd be doing this at his office, and would have gotten his requisite four hours of sleep in privacy before reconsidering things in the early hours of morning. ]
I am so sorry this is so long to both you AND fabian LMAO PLS IGNORE HIM
I -- it -- it...
[ Bouncing it off of someone else would be helpful, actually. There's just so much. He takes a deep breath, speaking rapid-fire, as though hosting some sort of horrible auction instead of trying to convey matters of extreme existential importance to his best friend. ]
So I posted on the network as a census, kind of? We've all noticed how pretty much everyone here is human, and we've run into so many people whose worlds are only made up of humans that I wanted to figure out the biases of Aurora and what those implications are for all the worlds out there, 'cause if we're to take them at face-value, because as it is, the emphasis on humans would create a system where they're going to prioritize human worlds, right? But then I found out that not only are most people here human, but they're also from different versions of the exact same place. Nobody here has heard of Spyre, but I would ballpark about 80% or higher being from the planet Earth, but different versions of it, which I've got -- I've got those outlined there, there and there. Some of them are almost certainly from the same Earth, which I have divided by shared terms even if I'm not totally certain that they are? There's Earths with metahumans, Earths with parahumans, and Earths with none of the above, but speaking distinctly, I think maybe I've counted eight or nine possible different versions, taking into account the ones who've discussed aliens as their only exposure to non-humans.
[ He begins to tear down one of the clue boards from off the wall with quick, systematic efficiency, placing them all into one of his massive folders -- to be recreated in his own bedroom, no doubt. He needs to redo them anyway. There's no consistency here, no organization. He can do it better. ]
They're so racially homogenous that they see humans having any sort of magical abilities as being non-human as a point of, like, cultural significance, even if they're all more or less the same species, which is insane, but we gotta respect it. And as soon as I started going down the rabbit hole of representative races and shared worlds, I found out that -- [ he pauses, swiveling his head over to look Fabian in the eye as he says firmly: ] I don't actually think we're not real. There's better explanations for it. But you have to exhaust all options to do good detective work. What I discovered is that in these racially homogenous worlds, they still know about us, to the extent that when I shared a photo of my Dad to make sure nobody here could see Kalina - [ one person could; he's not getting into that right now ] - they were able to recognize him as being a Goblin. And how is it that they can do that when Goblins don't even exist in their worlds?
[ He jabs one finger at another clue board across the room, charting out mentions of different races, absently grabbing a cold cup of coffee to whet his mouth before continuing. ]
Because even if we don't exist in their world, they still have stories about us. They think we're fictional creatures. And that would be one thing if they shared like, just the words? But their versions of us are so similar to ours that they could recogize Dad as a Goblin on-sight. And more than that, the idea of us as fictional races is so universal that they use words from our races to mean different things as shorthand that fit with the same racial stereotypes from home? Like, Troll as a word is used as a derogatory term, and their view on Goblins is pretty much the same -- some people seem surprised that Goblins even could wear suits and, like, you know what they say about us back home, right? The view on elves seems a lot more charitable which, again, pretty consistent with our social norms. Not only are we stories in their worlds, but their fictions are at least a little bit consistent with our realities, and this is consistent across several different types of Earth, so. So.
[ So he spiraled. Some ideas are too existentially terrifying not to consider. He takes a deep breath. ]
My best guess is that we're dealing with some sort of dimensional bleed, or maybe we did exist and then somehow went extinct in those worlds and only stories of us remained, or maybe there are non-humans living incognito, or maybe we live on different planets as extraterrestrial life and there was enough crossover there for people to talk about us even if the humans who lived there didn't believe us, or -- it's all on, um, those clue boards, right over there. But the whole fictionality thing had to at least be considered.
[ He looks around at the wreckage of their apartment, a little crestfallen by how far he'd managed to get. Normally, he would have either have been stopped at home by his mother before it got this far, or he'd be doing this at his office, and would have gotten his requisite four hours of sleep in privacy before reconsidering things in the early hours of morning. ]
I swear all I wanted to get was a census.