There should be an Effulgence thread

[DanielH]

I’m guessing the feelings would be more complicated than Miles’s equivalent ones for Mark, but be approximately the same in summary?

[Kappa]

Mileses have a range of how they feel about their attached Marks where applicable. A Miles whose Mark is his twin was the previous high end for 'considers his Mark's version of him to be a valid instance'. Solvei is going to be a new record. As far as she's concerned, the Solvei living in this JokerSherlock's head is her very close alt.

[DanielH]

That is… amazingly accurate. Why is she so much more accurate than the others, especially since some Marks have actually met their Mileses and she hasn’t? Even the original Mark had more real data on the original Miles, didn’t he?

[atheistcanuck]

I continue to want to punch Kyubey in the face, even though the smug bastard has not said anything since yesterday.

I have not actually seen the show, but I have been spoiled enough to be pissed off at Kyubey on principle.

[DanielH]

I am in the same situation as atheistcanuck, except that it’s possible that Kyubey will prove to really be just trying to fight entropy by all means possible, and will be perfectly nice once the Peal comes by with casual perpetual motion and matter creation/destruction. Just like Empress Aelise was perfectly fine once the world was no longer in peril.

I don’t find this likely, but it’s possible.

On a mostly unrelated note, how smart are Syntropian black holes? White holes are approximately human-level intelligent in canon (I’ve only read the first few chapters of So You Want to Be a Wizard, but that seems relatively safe to say), but I don’t know how much that implies about black holes.

[PlainDealingVillain]

Kyuubey seems more likely to be eventually friendly than Iggy. But that's not saying much.

[Kappa]

The degree to which a Mark's rendition of their Miles is true to life doesn't really vary. They are all perfectly accurate. I'm not sure how little information you'd have to give a Mark about their Miles before they'd be unable to construct a perfect replica, but Solvei's JokerSherlock clears the threshold by plenty. In fact, in some ways she had the advantage over Nexus Mark because she was working based on feedback from someone who had personally met Solvei and knew her pretty well, granted mostly from stalking her like a creep, but that's still a closer view than you get from spy reports and the occasional holovid.

What's unusual about this JokerSherlock is how active her inner Solvei is compared to most Marks' inner Miles. They can all be Miles but very few of them ever talk to him in their heads. That's what makes the difference from original-Solvei's perspective.

The 'valid' in 'valid instance' does not refer to accuracy; it refers to the Miles's personal feelings about whether the rendition in question counts as one of him or merely as an accurate impersonation of him.

Regarding Kyubey and Iggy, a general hint: Kyubey is run as green and Iggy is run as purple. I have a strong tendency to make any character who is even as limitedly sympathetic as Iggy turn out to have an achievable benign state, although as we've seen, that state is not always successfully achieved.

[MaggieoftheOwls]

Honestly the impression I got of Iggy was at least potentially less "devil" and more "designated devil's advocate"

[Ezra]

So it looks like Kyubey's going with a combination of "teenage girls are the most emotional" and "I don't know why, I just detect them." Which doesn't really answer the more interesting questions.

[DanielH]

I read it as not necessarily being the most emotional, but as having compatible emotions.