closed post: in the eye of the beholder

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's had a lot on her mind since the death and the wedding. Life, love, the fragility of those things--but, of course, she is who she is, so her mind comes back to what it always does: beauty.

As much as she'd judged that strange man for his disheveled robes, everyone else had looked gorgeous, and happier than she'd ever seen a room full of pretties look. Most notably, they'd all looked legitimately different from each other, in just about every way possible. That the effect was beautiful instead of overwhelming is a new experience for Tally.

Tally feels like she knows what Claudius might say about the wedding. He'd heap effusive praise on everyone, and tell her that of course he wanted everyone to be uniquely themselves. She thinks he understands the halo effect better than anyone else she knows here, but also, as a former pre-Rusty king, understands how to deal with a crowd of adult uglies. Galahad, though, has never been someone Tally could guess at the thoughts of. He'd clearly been too happily overwhelmed to really talk at the ceremony itself, so she goes to knock on his door a few days later.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

He understands that pretty isn't just a word for physical beauty, here -- that she means Prettiness to be a state, a humor like sanguine or choleric. "You want to shake things up," he repeats.

[tallyyoungblood]

She has to smile at that. "I can't really help myself."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What do you want to shake up here?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"That's a totally good question, Galahad-wa. I guess... there's not as many rules here, so I haven't had much to, like, rebel against in terms of other people. Actually, I'd like to talk to whoever runs this place," she says. "They could definitely use some shaking."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Claudius thinks they are spirits who rule us like planets. He thinks Lan Wangji and Grantaire have the same spirit."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Planets don't rule us," Tally says automatically, then: "What? Why?" Tally actually cannot think of a single similarity between the two of them, though she guesses she doesn't know them very well.

[onthewillowsthere]

"Because they're counterbalances."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Oh, okay, yeah. They're utterly different. So, like, what? The spirits can influence them to do things, or something?" Tally's eyebrows raise high enough that she worries about the makeup and she puts them back down.

[onthewillowsthere]

"They choose to bring us here, and influence what happens to us." He's almost finished, just brushing white foam on the edges of the orange waves.

[tallyyoungblood]

"And he thinks there's more than one person doing it?" Tally asks. "Well, that makes some sense, I guess. Running a place like this alone seems exhausting. I don't really follow this one-spirit-per-pair logic, though."

[onthewillowsthere]

"What would be logical to you?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Probably a whole agency of spirits, like Specials," Tally says. "One really bogus one who's in charge of everything, and then some underlings who do stuff like make us new beaches and give us Rusty soda."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Do you think the underlings choose us, or does the spirit in charge?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"The one in charge, obviously. Dr. Bogus Spirit. Or it might be, like, random."

[onthewillowsthere]

"As if they had a book of names and drew from it?"

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally had been thinking more algorithm, but Galahad is getting the pre-Rusty idea. "Yeah, basically."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Why do you think there are so many people from the same places?"

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally considers. "Well, maybe the first one from whatever place is random and then the other ones are to match them somehow."

[onthewillowsthere]

"The first one was Temeraire. And Claudius was next."

[tallyyoungblood]

"They don't have to come in a row, I mean. They could just be like, okay, we have this random person, let's get someone random they know."

[onthewillowsthere]

"But there are so many possibilities. It doesn't make sense."

[tallyyoungblood]

"It definitely doesn't. But you know, true randomness sometimes looks like a pattern. Like, if you put music on shuffle in an actually random way, it might seem like it was in a specific order." Tally remembers Galahad doesn't know what she's talking about, and sighs. "I'm not totally convinced it's random. I just think if they were trying to accomplish something more specific they'd bring more people's friends consistently. Instead, it's like, sometimes you get your spouse, sometimes you get some guy you kind of know."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad does know about bias and how it interferes with experiments if imperical evidence isn't used, and he knows about patterns and making meaning. Slowly, he says, "I wonder whether we could calculate the probability."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Probably," Tally says, thinking back to math class. "Have we ever had two people from the same world and time who didn't know each other at all?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't know. Perhaps we should do another survey."