Going Swimmingly

[palmerthing]

 *Palmer has found a lake today and is giving it an uncertain kind of look. Not only is such a large outdoor feature a bit unexpected when there appears to be nothing in particular dividing it from the couches and chairs in the main area of the nexus, not only would he probably start turning into something aquatic on automatic as soon as he tried swimming, but he's fairly sure that he saw Gollum from The Lord of the Rings swimming in there and that's just too much weirdness for him. Not that he has any room to talk, but he's not up for that meeting yet. So he sits on the beach and watches the waves. Hopefully there won't be any merfolk or cartoon fish, one fantasy character at a time is bad enough.*

Comments

[save_us_alice]

Well, I'm basing this off my own experience, and I admit -- some days, for me, it does feel weird still that I've ended up in such a good place.

[palmerthing]

Good enough I guess.

[save_us_alice]

It is -- it's a good weird. Better to be weirded out that you're in a happy place than by any of the alternatives, right?

[palmerthing]

Oh, much better. And I have the fun bonus of being one of the weirder people here, so that's nice. Not many of the creatures around here are gonna scare me, you know?

[save_us_alice]

Oh, I do know. You're probably the most prepared out of all of us for anything. Granted, it's been much quieter here in recent years, but -- you never know when something unusual might pop out of a door. Or the sky. Or the ground. Or -- you get the picture.

[palmerthing]

Well yeah. I'm something unusual.

[save_us_alice]

[laughs] Quite so. Again, reasons why you'd be the most prepared out of all of us for anything.

[palmerthing]

God, the stuff I could tell you about . . . I mean, you've seen the movie and shit, you can probably start to imagine what kind of creatures we've encountered before Earth.

[save_us_alice]

Mostly "lots of teeth" and "very weird bendy limbs," yes. I imagine in general Things have had a lot of adventures through the cosmos.

[palmerthing]

*He laughs.* Those tend to be rather useful, yeah. And I'm not sure if it's adventuring so much as getting picked up by unfortunate explorers and ruining their lives, but I suppose the difference isn't that big.

[save_us_alice]

Depending on environment, yes. And right, good point -- it's adventuring in the sense of the adventure is taking over everything in your path once someone finds you.

[palmerthing]

Yeah. Which is . . . kinda a sucky adventure, don't you think? I mean, man.

[save_us_alice]

[distracting a bored Chester with the spoon] It is rather, isn't it? Have you -- ever tried to talk to whoever you've come in contact with before? Or has it always been "infect as soon as possible?"

[palmerthing]

There have been a few times when we were just intelligent beings meeting other intelligent beings. But mostly something happens to cause problems, although what exactly it is differs. The most common one is simply that we're not often capable of . . . I think the word is metacognition? The ability to think about thinking. It's surprising how much plotting you can do without ever wondering if you need to do it. *He shakes his head.* The dogthing, for example. Definitely smarter than a real dog, capable of plans within plans, but the idea that someone might not be a threat to it? A real dog would be much more capable of figuring that out. And the idea of trying to explain itself never occurred to it at all that I know of.

[save_us_alice]

I see -- so mainly Things run on the principles of "how best can I keep myself hidden until I can infect" and "how best can I infect as many lifeforms as possible," and only occasionally have the brainpower capable of going ". . .do I NEED to hide and infect everything in sight, or can I actually make friendly first contact?" [pause] That sounds wrong given how you spread by touch, but you know what I mean.

[palmerthing]

Yeah, more or less. It made it that much weirder to suddenly be a pacifist.

[save_us_alice]

I can bet! I assume that's a major part of the reason why you're like the way you are now.

[palmerthing]

Yeah. *A wry smile, followed by a sigh.* Sometimes I still get an itch to start taking over, which is very annoying. Especially since I have people here I like, such as you for example. There are enough universes that connect to this place that I see the occasional new species, I mean.

[save_us_alice]

And it just triggers the old -- "fight or flight" doesn't seem quite right with you. "Eat or hide" response, perhaps? I'm glad so far you've been able to tamp it down.

[palmerthing]

Yeah. Kinda makes me hate seeing new things, if only a bit. Keeping it quiet is stressful.

[save_us_alice]

A shame. Though I think this is a pretty stable and quiet part of the Nexus overall, so -- hopefully it's not too much of a worry.

[palmerthing]

Yeah, it's been pretty nice so far. Nothing too eye-catching, but I'm not bored either.

[save_us_alice]

Well that's good to hear. A happy medium is really about the best anyone can hope for in life.

[palmerthing]

As opposed to an unhappy medium?

[save_us_alice]

Hah -- though, thinking about it, that's probably what I had while in Rutledge. Trapped inside my head to fight for my life and sanity; trapped outside it with whatever passed for medicine those days.