un: theball | text

[stresstokens]

Hey. Hope everyone's recovering from that stupid maze okay.

I'll just get right down to my point of inquiry. For a place that claims that we're meant to save the universe, I've noticed a pretty dramatic human-bias around here that strikes me as kind of odd, considering how diverse the universe actually is.

So I'd like to get a show of hands. Who here is from a world where humans are the only sentient species around, and who here is from a world with more than just humans kicking around? What other sorts of species are around? I'd like to know how much of it is selection-bias based on who's running this place and how much of it is them drawing from places that just don't have any non-human populations. I wouldn't mind hearing about what sorts of non-humans you have around either, but that's probably less important, statistically speaking.

Lastly... what do you see when you look at this picture?

[ Inserted is a photograph of a suave looking goblin man in a tuxedo with a pencil-thin moustache. He's holding a champagne flute towards the camera with his arm around -- something. If you've been infected by the curse, you'll see the goblin man's arm is around a black tabaxi woman, but if not, his arm looks as though it's simply hanging in mid-air. ]

[ OOC NOTE: due to the extremely low likelihood we'll ever get kalina in-game, the picture is just for flavour! if you'd like your character to be infected by the shadowcat and thus able to see her image in the photo, it would be due to any circumstance in which any of riz's bodily fluids were absorbed into their own body in some way, i.e. blood or saliva. feel free to handwave a circumstance in which that could happen, even if it's riz's blood lingering on one of the labyrinth's traps that then got into an open cut of theirs, a glass in the labyrinth he drank from that they then used, etc., etc.! Please see this comment for more information! ]

Comments

[pangzi]

It is Earth. Though it may or may not be the same Earth as other people have mentioned. As far as I'm aware, there are multiple parallel Earths being represented here.

For curiosity's sake, what would I be seeing if I could see what I'm not seeing? Or am I better off not knowing?

[stresstokens]

Definitely multiple Earths. Everyone at least seems to have slightly different terminology and definitions for a lot of common concepts. If everyone could put their heads together, I'm sure we could identify just how many.

[ If they really wanted to. Which Riz doesn't think they do. People around here can be a bit cagey. ]

You'd see that he's in the picture with a Tabaxi woman. That's basically a humanoid cat, if you don't know the word. There's really nothing very sinister about it unless you're like involved with the whole thing.

[pangzi]

Mapping the universes present would certainly be an interesting project. If maybe a futile one, if we take our hosts' word for it that some of our universes are going to be destroyed.

[ It would be a waste of time, in Baixi's mind, to try to map out universes when some of those universes are going to stop existing. ]

Got it. Some kind of hybrid cat-human who can hide herself from being caught on film. And... is this relevant to our current situation?

[stresstokens]

I don't really take their word for it. But even if they were, I feel like it would be worth remembering them in some way, even if it's just some data point on a clue chart. But I'd rather not count my universe-destroying chickens before they hatch, you know?

It's not relevant to our collective situation. Just my own. And the results are pretty unsurprising, so there is that.

[pangzi]

Maybe so. I think I'd rather focus on ensuring my universe's survival than memorializing any that might be lost.

[stresstokens]

It's more of a two-birds-one-stone kind of situation. If I'm gathering clues anyway, then it's easy enough to remember them too. It's not like I'm doing this instead of saving my universe, if that really is what we're doing here.