I dunno, this is working out pretty well for me.

Right. Talking about this question requires talking about canon!Marethyu, who is alternate!future!Josh before I get to current!Josh, because Marethyu is the one who actually did that stuff as opposed to facing the prospect of doing it. And although a lot of stuff about Marethyu is extrapolation, I think there's a lot of evidence that he really did value free will; that he believed in freedom of choice. He gave people choices almost always, even when his power would have let him choose differently. Often he knew the probable outcome of those choices, yeah -- but he didn't try to force them except in one or two instances (getting everyone back to help the twins hold off the army of anpu being the one that sticks out). He definitely far preferred to work with, if not actually revealing all his information, at least some degree of informed choice; he told people things he definitely didn't have to so that they would be able to make that kind of choice. And Abraham, his close collaborator, was of like mind -- all the messages he left were basically "you have a choice coming up and it's big, I trust you to make the right one".

Obviously there is some tension between a belief in self-determination and the careful timeline-pruning in which he found himself engaged! I think he resolved that by having faith in people making the right choices given the right circumstances in which to make them, and setting himself up to a) create those circumstances and b) make sure other people *coughISIScoughOSIRIScough* couldn't arrange circumstances to their liking. He interfered a LOT but in general he didn't compel people to do things, he taught them things or gave them things or protected them, and then left it up to them to decide what to do.

So then we turn to Josh, who is the inheritor of this whole mess. Aather has really only strengthened his belief in self-determination, but I think he will still recognize the necessity to set up circumstances that favor the results he wants. (I mean, he definitely will, otherwise he might paradox himself out of existence, but whatever, time travel is complicated.) He's not really at that point yet, but the distinction between manipulating people and manipulating circumstances is going to be important, I think. (I mean, sometimes manipulating circumstances means manipulating people...it's kind of a complicated tangle.) But basically, the way in which he operates and in which he's free to operate because of being a time-travelling death god allow him to hold both beliefs simultaneously, and his ability to do that is also a sign of a really strong...faith in people, in a way. Faith that they'll make the right decisions if he gives them the chance and the circumstances to. (Note, though, that "right decision" is slippery since history still has to happen...)

I ACTUALLY...DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH SENSE THAT MADE feel free to ask followup questions. But I am going to ask about Jill's thoughts on Narnia and Aslan.

Because that's not a broad topic at all!!

Narnia and Aslan have become pretty separate in Jill's mind at this point, although they used to be tightly linked. Now that she has remembered Aslan's Country or the "real world" or interdimensional onion heaven or whatever you want to call it, that's the place she associates with him. Narnia is its own separate thing, more to be associated with Eustace and the Pevensies and Puddleglum and Tirian and so on. Also, Jill still feels like Aslan betrayed her trust, but Narnia never did. Narnia was never trustworthy to begin with; it was beautiful and unsafe. It was taken for granted that Narnia would hurt her, but it would be worth it. Aslan was never supposed to be safe either, but he was supposed to be true and right, and that turned out badly.

Anyway, let's start with her thoughts on Aslan. His whole draw, for Jill, was that it was impossible to help believing him and obeying him when he was there in front of her. So finding out that he was either wrong or lying and that in either case he broke his promise to her (the promise that she would be able to stay in "the Real World" forever) was a negation of everything she believed about him and was shattering and unacceptable. And once it became obvious that he was wrong or lying once, a lot of his other behavior suddenly becomes really, really questionable.

Jill's had some time to process all of that, though, and she has by this point come to the conclusion that she just wants to talk to him again. She can't worship him again—she wouldn't use that word, but that's what she was doing before—but she still wants to try and understand him if she can. Even if he's not infallible, he still gave her a lot and his love still matters to her and she wants to learn more about his motives and, as Lloyd put it, see if she can trust him as a friend even if she can't have the kind of faith in him she had before. She wants to see if she can forgive him, although she wouldn't put it that way either; it still hasn't occurred to her that forgiveness can go in that direction. This is Aslan we're talking about. He is the one who is supposed to do the forgiving.

Now onto how she feels about Narnia! The primary answer is "nostalgic." Jill loves Narnia. She will always love Narnia, but it's dead, and she knows that. It's also... I said it's not really linked with Aslan anymore, but I guess it would be more accurate to say it's not linked with her current view of Aslan. Narnia will always be associated with how she felt about Aslan before everything got confusing and strange. She wasn't always happy there, but her time in Narnia was the time in her life where everything seemed the most certain and she felt she had the most purpose. So she'll always remember it sort of through rose-colored glasses.

Anyway! Tell me more about how Josh defines "the right choices" in general and in terms of shaping history, whether or not they're the same.

This question has a pretty simple answer that might expand into something complicated, WE WILL SEE. Basically "the right choices" are, when you get down to it, "the choices that lead to a future I want" -- I was going to add "and doesn't paradox me out of existence" but I'm pretty sure he's far enough out of his timeline that that's not going to be a factor. (Which is good because he definitely shanked both his parents.) But the complicating factor -- I knew there'd be one -- is that that future only has to exist -- and time streams branch and coexist with each other. So what he's actually doing is pruning a branching decision tree very carefully so that the outcomes he wants are statistically likely. He doesn't have to go as far as forcing them -- as long as they could happen, he can follow them down to the next.

Tsalalagal mentioned that Marethyu and Abraham were in the business of promoting Auspicious Threads, timelines which had an unusually positive outcome, and I think Josh would still do that now that Marethyu has accomplished his goals. In general, he wants to give timelines where outcomes are good (for humanity in particular, as a whole) the best chance they can to prosper -- I suspect that there are levels of existence to timestreams, and that they can re-merge or become less "real" or otherwise order themselves by precedence. Universal quantum physics is complicated! But there's a concept of a timeline that's "dead"/"impossible" and ones that are more "alive"/"possible" than others.

The point of that digression is that Josh wants humanity to prosper in general, and wants the modern world he came from to exist in specific, but it can be said to exist as long as it lies down a possible path of decisions. So what he's curating are a) that that possible path exists, so Sophie has something to go back to and b) making futures where humanity prospers more likely.

In terms of in general life, Josh pretty much doesn't consider that he has any idea what the right choices are. He thinks we decide what's right for us every time we make a choice, and he's pretty sure that everyone has to do that for themselves. He hasn't really thought about this a lot, though. It's kind of overly philosophical for him at this stage of his life.

...okay, we've been talking about this all evening but seriously, talk to me about Mau and Edmund.

I will have you know that I have now typed and deleted, "Mau and Edmund are a pair of repressed idiots and there is nothing more to talk about," into this box four times. Ahem.

Mau and Edmund have an interesting relationship because, although they have a lot of similarities, they tend to respond to each other in somewhat volatile and unpredictable ways. Some of the time they'll end up having a discussion that becomes very honest and personal uncharacteristically quickly, because they're resonating strongly on a topic; sometimes in a situation that could go that way, they'll end up both getting really cryptic and distant, because they know they're capable of reflecting each others' feelings more than seems safe. Sometimes they can talk each other through moments of personal or ideological crisis with uncanny empathy, but sometimes it's an issue that they're too similar on or that they're both struggling with too closely in that moment and they just spiral further into crisis. Or sometimes they don't quite mesh and it's bizarrely more frustrating than not being able to communicate with a friend, because it's a little too much like not understanding your own thoughts. At least, that's Mau's experience of his more intense interactions with Edmund.

This is complicated by the fact that Mau is really not very self aware about any of this. He's had moments of being almost self-aware! There was one time back in Wonderland where they were both trying to do nice things for each other and neither of them wanted to let the other give him anything, and eventually Mau was just like, "Okay, but can we stop playing this game? It's tiring and I don't want to with you of all people." So when they get really ludicrous he can at least recognize it in the moment. But he hasn't spent any time examining his patterns of behavior around Edmund, so all he's really aware of is that he and Edmund are friends, and it's really nice generally, and Edmund can be pretty great to talk to about leadership and stuff, but sometimes it's puzzling and frustrating for reasons he doesn't understand. For the amount of time they've spent together, Mau feels surprisingly close to Edmund, but also surprisingly uncomfortable around him.

So yeah, Mau and Edmund are bros, and their friendship is usually mutually beneficial, but it's characterized by a metric fuckton of unresolved tension. I think this is why we are all fishhandsing at them OOCly and yelling "NOW KISS!!!!" at regular intervals? Because genuine regard for each other + affection + unresolved tension = makeouts! It's kind of a standard recipe.

Except not only are they both repressed, emotionally cautious, highly preoccupied, workaholic, kind of messed up questionably teenage boys who frequently struggle with whether or not personal happiness is even a valid goal for them at all, but I don't even know what kind of unresolved tension we're talking about here. I don't! I know it isn't sexual, although I do think it has the potential to turn into that under the right conditions (and I wish I knew what the right conditions were, because at this point I shamelessly ship them), but... aside from that, it's pretty undefined. And I think that for two boys who are typically quite reserved, it's a little bit alarming to be friends with someone who occasionally causes you to be weirdly demonstrative in public (eg. hilarious ticklefight, disney princess bird scene, etc).

Anyway! So that's how it stands at the moment: lots in common, lots of moments where they click very intensely with each other, lots of undefined, unresolved tension, but also an unfortunate ability to hit each other where it hurts and put each other on the defensive without meaning to or even really realizing. So I honestly still don't know where this is going to go or even what conclusion Mau will come to once he's thought things over... but at least now he is going to think things over.

I feel like I should talk about the kiss here, some. Mau was being very honest with how he explained it to Edmund after, when he said, "Mostly I was thinking... sometimes talking isn't everything. I wanted to give you a true and real answer for the stuff I wasn't talking about. And that seemed... right." He was also being honest when he told Josh it was a weird thing to do. He'll sometimes affectionately kiss people on the forehead or the cheek, but usually it's Cassie (who started it) or Apple (as a form of teasing, because she flusters really hard), or maybe sometimes Ven (who is super touchy-feely anyway). This is the first time he's kissed someone out of nowhere on the corner of the mouth, though, or done anything that physically forward at all.

It probably sounds pretty unconvincing to say it wasn't an expression of attraction, but it wasn't. It was, however, an expression of how Mau recognizes and appreciates that his relationship with Edmund is unique. It's different from any other friendship he's ever had, because it's more intense, because they keep seeming to reach strange truths about each other too quickly. Maybe it's more fair to say that there's emotional attraction without there being sexual attraction. A part of Mau really likes hanging out with Edmund because it's not like hanging out with anyone else, and that's the feeling he was acting on when he kissed him.

There's more I could say about how I think things could go, but that's how things are. And really in this relationship, there's so much potential for so many different outcomes that it's hard to predict. So we will see!

Tell me more about how Josh is handling Mau and Edmund and how that resonates with how he came out of the Ven/Roxas thing.

Honestly there's not much to handle on his end of things. I mean, ultimately it's their business if something comes of it. He'd like to see Mau happy because he knows he's lonely; he'd like to see Edmund reach for happiness, and feels kind of bad because he himself belongs to Ven too completely to manage offering that. (Not that bad, more like..."I'm sorry the fact that I'm constitutionally incapable of this makes your life less fulfilled than it could be, but I'm not sorry I'm incapable of it because it's who I am"...anyway.) He's not...invested in any particular specific outcome? If they get together, fine, if they don't get together, also fine.

What matters to him, and pretty much the sum of interest in the situation, is that they're happy with the choices they've made, and that's where he ends up stepping in to beat people with outside perspective. He thinks they might be good for each other if they decide they're interested in each other, but he's aware he's not really a judge of other people's romances? And he really would never presume to be or want to be, unless he was cheating like crazy and actually prophecying, which he can't do in Aather. (And even then he'd use the smallest intervention possible, because seriously.) I'm really just mentioning this because I recall him nudging the Flamels slightly, Perenelle in particular.) The point is, even if it might seem like he was pushing it a little with Mau, he was pushing him mostly to make a conscious choice, whatever the outcome happened to be. And to choose whatever would make him happier! The same for Edmund, a little less explicitly, with a side of "also don't just assume things about other people's choices because that's a little dumb, bro".

I guess the resonance there is that it arises from the same phenomenon? Josh really wants his favorite people to be happy. He wants them to be free to reach for things that make them happy and believe in their own happiness. I think arguably he wants that more than he wants his own happiness, at least subconsciously. He kind of has a thing about helping people, looking out for them, being active, etc! (Which is tempered by self-determination feelings -- a lot of which have arisen from the experience of being powerless and being powerful, now that I think about it. But he wants to act for the better.) And also, in general, he's got it pretty good and he knows it and he wants other people to have it as good as he does. That kind of thing was threaded in among the keyboys thing and a significantly less personally difficult expression of it is basically driving what he does about the possibility of Mau/Edmund.

How's Nick handling Camelot?

Honk?!?!


Actually what I mean is I'm afraid I can't answer that question properly because of mysterious plot things.

He's fine though! He's not out of his element, much; it's not a draining place for him to be. He hasn't made much personal progress, but that's also because I haven't really been playing him, and all the things I'm planning to do with him depend on factors YET TO BE REVEALED.

Same for Echidna? And/or, what does she think of all these ~personal monsters~ people have been beating on?

I will just pretend a mysterious plot essay was there.

The thing about Echidna is that she's almost always in her element. She's probably not going to be a Persona with a huge character arc; she is what I conceived of her to be and I'm happy with that, even if it means she's kind of static. Her focus isn't on place so much; it's on the heroes and what they're asking her for and how they strive. And honestly, she's loving that. People are going out and throwing themselves against the Darkness, they're coming to her regularly to test themselves against her children, everyone is striving to become more and better than what they were. And that's kind of the core of what she is, that striving. So she's loving it.

The personal monsters thing is basically a really deep expression of that. When you can't confront something within yourself in an ordinary way, but you want to, she can change the context and present it to you in a form you can challenge more effectively. So of course she loves the people who come to her for it, and is happy when they succeed.

Personally, she thinks everyone is a sweetheart in general (people who aren't tend not to tag her, probably fortunately) and wants to grandma at them all. The weather and the supply shortages are annoying but nothing she can't work with -- she's kind of wistful that she can't easily bring out wine or just randomly feed people, and that her quest rewards are less good than they should be, but Camelot itself is an environment that by its nature forces people to strive in all ways, so that's a bonus for her.

What's Jill thinking of doing when she gets all her memories back?

That depends heavily on what Edmund does. Jill's preference would be to Legacy; she knows Eureka got pretty upset about the idea of her leaving, she wants to support Amethyst, she doesn't want to leave Sakuya, and she's invested in saving Aather. Part of that is just because she has those kind of ideals, but part of it is really personal... she's homeless except for Aather right now. She does eventually want to go back and confront Aslan and try to get to Eustace and the Pevensies, but that's not going home, it's just... the next mission after the Darkness is defeated. She's pretty sure she's going to get to do this, too! Edmund has mentioned that he wants to stay and help Aather, and she's definitely not leaving as long as he's still here.

If Edmund outright rejects Jill as a knight, though, it'll probably be increasingly difficult for her to be around him, so if she gets all her memories back before he does (which is pretty likely, since she only has like eight left or something) and he rejects her, she might Good End instead. Or if he got all his memories back and actually acknowledged her as his knight, if he Good Ended and wanted her to come with him, she'd go with him. She'd still stay and Legacy if he Good Ended but was fine with her staying to support Amethyst, though; she doesn't need to be right by his side to be his knight, and if that was the assignment he gave her she'd be okay with it. She'd be torn! But she'd be okay with it.

Anyway, that's all kind of short term. Once Aather is saved, like I said, she's planning to march back and yell at a God Lion and try to give her friends a more complete picture of what's going on. Beyond that, it is once again up to Edmund, but ever since the Loveless game, she's had fantasies of traveling across different worlds and helping people with him.

Okay. Give me the list of gods, Personae, and general assholes on Josh's Eventual Punching List and why they made the cut. Also, if you're so inclined, what his battle strategy would be with them once he'd had a chance to size them up, and how the interesting fights would likely go.