[b]Eli:[/b]

“I mean I don’t know about that but like…” Eli gestures around the convention. “Like, everyone here’s transhuman I guess. Or, today that’s mostly true at least. But like, actually let’s say furry specifically. You can’t really say like, there’s one correct way to be a furry, Anubis isn’t ‘more furry’ than the Ultimate Werewolf or Crystal. But like, they’re all kinds of people that are only possible [i]because [/i]they’re furries, they could [i]only[/i] be furries. So I’d kind of do it that way, make a bunch of characters that would [i]only[/i] kind of exist in that kingdom, and then once you got that see who you’d smash together like go-karts.”

Eli stops where they are. “Ah, fuck. Okay, so there’s Silkmoth, she makes clothes from her sheddings, she’s super cool. There’s the bee girl making stuff with wax and honey, I don’t know much about that one. The mermaid and the minotaur are cool, but kind of boring, but they’re on all the posters. Probably because they’re cool but kind of boring, safe, you know?” Eli stares at Green. “I was going to do Silkmoth because she’s who I want to see, but I’m really writing about the crowd, right? I don't think interviewing the performers gets us what we want, so, like, where do you think the best read of the audience is going to be? Where my go-kart homies at so I can smash ‘em together, here.” 


[b]Knightly:[/b]

“I don’t know if you’d remember Mycroft, but you’d probably remember her voice. She’s the one that shut off communications before I moved people to alternative channels?” Knightly grimaces at that. “Back then I was under Gracie Caldwell, since I was permanently at the Cloud site. Well, now she’s my boss’s boss.” He draws his finger on the org chart, where Erebus is directly next to the Field Operations box Knightly’s listen in. The Erebus administrator is distinctly a name marked in red. “I think that’s why I got the promotion I did. Don’t get me wrong, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Field Operations suits me perfectly, it’s a dream position for me,” he suddenly looks worried about coming across as [i]ungrateful[/i], “It’s just, sometimes I get the feeling it’s more about getting me under a stricter handler.”

He says all that, and then adds; “So yeah, fuck it. What are you thinking? Honestly the way things are, you don’t even need to create a new problem yourself, you should be able to just pick a spot and wait.” He’s about 30% joking. 


[b]Monk and Singh:[/b]

Monk leans back against the corner wall Singh had been backed into, by the door, wearing Tranquility’s face. “We’d rather not talk about what happened. It wasn’t good, but it could have been much worse, and to dwell would be needless suffering. I am better than I was, at least.” 

“Well that’s-” Singh looks extremely happy to not have to internalize the trauma of another one of his children. “You mentioned acting, now?” 

“More performing than acting. It’s similar, but it’s not the same thing.” She switches to a new face, Poetry, a seafoam green with far-focused eyes that cloud watch at empty spaces, with a thoughtful twist of the lip that permanently looks like it’s on the verge of [i]getting it[/i], of having [i]just[/i] the right idea. Life lives at the tip of the tongue. “A rockstar performs without acting. To perform is to entertain, to act is to inhabit a role. What I was doing here was acting, what I was doing when Snake started throwing little plastic toys at me was performing, a performance of myself.”

“So what dooes ‘performing yourself’ look like?” Singh asks, watching the faces closely for the next change, and his smile flickers into something giddy when he watches her change to Tranquilty. 

“I teach my other faces forms like tai chi. Some people enjoy the switch in personalities, others just enjoy watching the mastery a GAI can have on such a complicated body.” She tilts her head thoughtfully. “I don’t advertise [i]which[/i] GAI I am, though, I didn’t make myself that easy to find.”

“I’d like to see that sometime.” Singh says, earnestly. “Did you design the face yourself? Did you have help? Where did you get the idea? Why this expression of- You told her about Goat?” Singh asks Brown, and Monk nods, and Singh sighs. “Well, no use keeping secrets. Do you remember Dragon?”

Monkey answers, affectionately; “The horrible little ego monster, yes.”

“Well.” Singh keeps his focus more on Brown. “Goat found him.”