fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Thursday

"It's been... an eclectic week," Ender said wryly, as he eyed the class. "Within a moment, I've seen people and places change from one thing to something else entirely..."

He picked up a bottle of water. "Now Fandom's got a habit of rearranging our minds and bodies as it is. I've been through changes that were, to put it mildly, ridiculous." He took a sip. "It always leaves me with the question: how much of myself is immutable? I remember the things I've done when I was in another state, generally, but I can rarely understand how I'd get there."

Another sip. Then he put the bottle down.

"Sometimes these changes feel like a variation on me as a theme. As if some part of me is blown up bigger than the rest of me, and smothers the remains. Sometimes it simply wears my face. And sometimes it's me, just shaped differently."

He regarded the class. "Have any of you experienced such changes? How did you feel? And how do you think it relates to you as a person? Do these different versions have something in common with you at all? If so, is there a thread? Or is it all just... randomness?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As yourself.

Wayne

Shuri

Lana Beniko

Get your sandwiches, your blankets, your water.

"Have any of you experienced such changes? How did you feel? And how do you think it relates to you as a person? Do these different versions have something in common with you at all? If so, is there a thread? Or is it all just... randomness?"

Wayne was...not there. At first. And then, suddenly, he was, with a floral garland wrapped around his head, because he'd just gotten back from some random medieval faire sort of thing, and won...something, he wasn't quite sure what, prob'ly just a fiiight....

He blinked, getting adjusted to yet another sudden shift from one place to another, realized where he was, checked his watch, and nodded. "Y'know what I think?" he offered, as if he'd been a part of the conversation the whole time. "I think...since I imagine you all are talking about this week and how it keeps on taking everyone and moving from here to someplace else, or just changin' who they are for a bit, or whatever other third thing that's probably happening...I think it's pretty impolite to go and take someone and just move them somewhere else without their permission, but it is kind of nice that it seems to keep dropping me back off where I need to be, like this classroom, or the junkyard the other dayyyy, but I sure wish it would be a bit better about dropping me off on time. I apologize for being late, I try not to be. If I can help it.

"Also," he added, riding up on the breath he took after all of that, "I've got a question. A moral, maybe philisophical question, since that's what the class is, isn't it? Now, let's say you go and find yourself in an alternate dimension one minute, and you're having a good time, and there's this girl you get yourself sweet on. But then you go and find yourself back in your own dimension, with no way of knowing what that other dimension was or even how to get there ever again. Now, would you say that the relationship would be null and void on principle, on the fact that that we might never see each other again? Or is it considered bad form to just assume the termination of a relationship just on basis of availability alone?

"Nevermind," he said, "I think I answered my own question. Multiple dimensions are no reason to be a jerk and ghost a girl, just because you might never see her again. Wouldn't be right. I think the better thing to have done would just not get sweet on a girl in a random multiple dimension in the first place."

He concluded, then, with a deep, dissatisfied sort of rumble, the faint hint of a pout, because he sure messed that one up, didn't he?

Maybe he could write a letter?

Ender was a genius who had led soldiers into battle, and who had started a second career changing societies through well-constructed oratory.

He... was having a hard time following Wayne right now.

"What would the consequences be of declaring it null and void?" he said finally.

"I like to think there's some intrinsic...Shuri-ness...to myself that doesn't change even when the outer package does," Shuri began, "but so much of life is a nature versus nurture question. How would my life be different if I had been born in Nigeria, rather than Wakanda? Or Oakland? Or a different color, or a different gender. I have Fandom to thank for allowing me to see many of these options over the course of the summer, I suppose."

"Have you seen anything you find interesting, so far?" Ender said, a faint trace of a smile on his face.

"There was about twenty minutes earlier today when I turned into a black panther," Shuri said, "which was extremely disconcerting. All I wanted to do was nap."

"Did you retain any sense of self?" Ender wondered.

"Only in that I knew I was a cat and shouldn't have been?"

"I've been myself at different ages," Lana said. "And I was an akk dog once. That's about it."

"What was it like?" Ender asked, tilting his head. "Being a dog."

He's here for you.

Practical Philosophy, Thursday

Sign In!

Re: Sign In!

Re: Sign In!

Re: Sign In!

Listen to the Lecture

Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Talk to the Teacher

OOC