Sandbox Discussions

[DanielH]

I don't believe the doctors because template attractors.

On a different note, what are Sunnyverse!Theos and how are they ignorant of Things?

[Throne3d]

I don't believe the doctors because template attractors.

On a different note, what are Sunnyverse!Theos and how are they ignorant of Things?

Future Theo plot spoilers

---

The Theos aren't exactly the same between the Sunnyverse with Marri (morning assembly) and the Sunnyverse with Pedro (A fresh start), so there are actually two Sunnyverse!Theos, but they're pretty similar.

Theo is a part-demon with some abilities (I don't really want to say what they are yet, but it fits template attractors) and the things you can use to identify his type of demon are: sharp nails, pointy teeth, and weird grace. (Huh, kinda like a vampire. Except for sunlight. And presumably holy water. And the lack of a soul. Weird!)
Since he's only part-demon, his teeth are only slightly pointy, and very much within normal variation, and his weird grace isn't ridiculously weird, just kinda weird (especially as seen in the basketball game if you already know about weirdness). Full-demons of his type presumably have other things you can use to identify them, but he doesn't. I don't think Theo in Marri's Sunnyverse has the pointy teeth.

He's ignorant because he doesn't know he's a demon, and that is definitely an ignorant thing. He also doesn't know how weird the teeth, grace and nails are.

... How did you know Theos were "ignorant of Things"? I don't remember mentioning that anywhere, so was it just a guess...?

Edit:

Minor spoiler about Theos, template nicknames

---

Theo in Buffyverse with Marri is now called "Nails"
Theo in Buffyverse with Pedro is now called "Teeth"
Theo in Cardverse with Pedro is now called "Dash"

Edit 2: New name in the above spoiler ^

[DanielH]

Response to question

---

I didn’t notice that Nails and Teeth were slightly different except for scheduling.

I knew that they were ignorant of Things because they made it obvious. Both Alli and Sadde would have provoked a reaction if they had known anything about magic, vampires, demons, or anything else; neither did. They could have just had really good poker faces, but as Alli thinks, “There's poker face, and there's actually oblivious. The second theory is gaining traction.” If it’s a template attractor or something, I didn’t know that but it seems reasonable to guess.

[Throne3d]

~snip~

Your spoiler box is broken - try removing the speech marks from inside the BB-code.

Response

---

I'd actually forgotten about Alli hinting towards everything all the time. But yeah, it's sorta a template attractor to be ignorant. It's a template attractor to be ignorant of magic, for sure, up until they're suddenly not.

[Ezra]

On a somewhat related note, Throne and I rephrased a couple of things over the end of the battle and the hospital to make some things clearer; I'm still not 100% happy with the result but I think the reason why Sadde thinks Theo's acting weird might be a bit more obvious.

It's still not obvious to me, but it's less out-of-nowhere.

[Marri]

Response

---

I'd actually forgotten about Alli hinting towards everything all the time...

Alli does not do subtlety. She thinks she does. She does not.

[pedromvilar]

I don't believe the doctors because template attractors.

She won't die yet.

It's still not obvious to me, but it's less out-of-nowhere.

Yeah, the thing it's supposed to be is that Theo kinda stops... really showing emotions? Any emotions. Body language stops, eyes, go dark, it all looks like an act.

[Throne3d]

~snip~

Alli does not do subtlety. She thinks she does. She does not.

:P

It's still not obvious to me, but it's less out-of-nowhere.

Yeah, the thing it's supposed to be is that Theo kinda stops... really showing emotions? Any emotions. Body language stops, eyes, go dark, it all looks like an act.

The reason behind Theo acting weirdly isn't supposed to be obvious, but it should definitely be clearer to the reader that Theo's acting weirdly.

Sadde's only really picking up on it because Theo's usually pretty consistent about those things (plus the fact that Sadde's good with people).

If you'd never met Theo before, and he came up to you and started interacting with you like this, you wouldn't realise that he's being weird, unless you were really good at figuring people out. He's acting mostly like a normal human being, albeit someone who's not very lively. If you've met Theo before, though, you can probably guess he's acting weirdly, and if you've met him while he's been sad before, it's very obviously not that.

[DanielH]

1. Thanks, Adelene. I knew spoiler boxes were finicky and when I wrote it I planned to hit preview to make sure it worked, but I forgot.

2. The changes definitely helped, but I was still not clear exactly what it was. It seemed more like he was taking charge in an emergency (where you are supposed to tell individual people what to do, like him telling Sadde to go flag down the ambulance and undo the change). He was also faking at the time in a way Sadde knew about, for the benefit of the paramedics. I would not have been as put off as Sadde was about his behavior; I would have attributed it (not quite correctly) to some combination of the two of those.

3. I am surprised about your saying “She won't die yet.”, but I’d already figured that the last word of that was important before you said it. Was Sadde just not aware enough for that to apply?

[Ezra]

"Does your dom not buy you stuff?"

Oh nooo, is Jackson going to magic school for an M.R.S.?