"Sloppy? Rushed? We haven't spoken in forever and the first words out of your mouth to me are an insult?"

The irate, and quite frankly surprised Aether, appeared in Affection's domain only to stare in confusion as she found Rou seated on a large, plush beanbag chair - fashioned after his memories of it from Affection having looked them over and made one. On Rou's lap was Affection, on her side a little and cuddled against him, content simply to enjoy his company and by this point, the two rather cozy day in and out.

Rou felt awkward and then huffed out, "Apologies, I wasn't trying to be rude or confrontational about it. Just…"

Affection yawned, having been napping, only to look between Rou and Aether and add non-chalantly, "Hear him out, yeah, Aether? I'm sure he has some point or another."

Aether just /stared/ at Affection, and Rou, before commenting drolly, "Well you certainly have /her/ wrapped up in that tail of yours. Defending you without a need? I guess the clingy one I knew really is gone by this point."

Having a tiny understanding of Affection and Aether's previous friendship - something that Affection still thought was exactly the same as it was - Rou felt a tiny bit bad for it but didn't find it his place to speak up. Instead, Affection simply kissed under Rou's chin playfully and stuck her tongue out at Aether. "Well, you're the one who set us with the title of betrothed, it's your doing."

As much as Aether wanted to retort… she was correct. Aether was one who created that title. And gave it to them. Despite Aether being a high-dimensional being without a body, just energy in a vaguely person-shaped form… he almost felt like she deflated slightly as a result?

–

After an awkward, overly long silence, Aether finally spoke, "Go on then. What was your problem with the Screen system?"

"Oh, uh… may I be blunt?"

"You weren't already?"

A guilty chuckle left Rou as he finally made his claim.

"It all seems rather hastily slapped together from way too many parts, with no real regard to making it all fit together so much as just… had a little bit of everything. A numerical representation of our 'stats', if they even really exist and aren't simply an approximation. Alphabetical representations of those stats as well. Modifiers such as plus or minus, A B C D E F and G, but also S, SS and SSS? It seems like you… based it off things from my own world but picked like ten different methods and went 'enh good enough' and threw them into a pot and stirred. Soul sublimation, percentages of completion, perks and flaws, titles, statuses, even a version number - which was only at 1.03 before I came about and is now at 1.04 presumably because of the quick removal incident from a bit ago?"

Aether just sighed and hovered over in front of the two, "Then what would you do?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, I was just curious."

Affection squawked in amusement, cackling and shaking from laughter as she could realize just how angry Aether was at his response. Of course, Rou wasn't trying to be upsetting, he was just being honest!

"Look, let's start with… let's start with just me. Name, works, race, assumed - not needed. Age? Not necessarily needed. Can avoid basic descriptions. So title and name. What's the point of titles? Sure, having many is fun and all, but it's not like you can pick out any one to use. Do they have a purpose? Is it just 'bookkeeping' as you lot keep phrasing it? Of course, not everything needs to have an actual beneficial or detrimental purpose, so there's no HARM in them just being decorative."

"And what about the stats? Sure, it's nice to know where you rank, or where others rank, and how far you've come or have to go, but… given you can hide and adjust what others see, no fault of Curiosity didn't you say their name was? Is there even a point? Of course, it did allow me as having a goal to pursue so I can't complain. But… it seems to overlap in general with sublimation. I mean… let's say the stats are simply a numerical representation of how much sublimation you have done to your body in general. So instead of having numbers and ranks and modifiers and all that, couldn't you simply leave it at a Sublimation counter by default and track and display it that way?"

"Also…"

Aether and Affection both just listened to what Rou was saying, unable to really counter what he was making a point on.

"We in the low dimension are aether-leaning, yes? We can interact with aether, but not high-dimensional energy. So… if you put high-dimensional energy over here on the left…" he moved his left hand over, then used his right to stretch it out to the right, "And aether on the right, assuming a starting point in the middle… everyone sublimates slowly and goes towards my right hand yes? Replacing flesh and blood over time with aether. Going further and further to a point of complete sublimation where one would be, in theory, a being of complete aether. Or at least close enough for what matters. Of course by that point they would cease to exist in a tangible fashion, right? So some flesh and blood has to remain. So instead of full aether, it's less complete and utter sublimation and more… integration towards a sufficient point of nihility."

Apparently Rou had given this a /lot/ of thought. Enough that even Creation was listening in with interest, Curiosity as well and several other Gods who had since come to realize he was postulating on the topic.

"Affection, think you could make a visual for me?"

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"Yes, dear." and with a kiss, she began to follow along with his leading, making little graphics in the air accordingly to what he was feeling and thinking. They shared senses after all, this was rather easy for her.

"So presumably you high-dimensional beings screens wouldn't reflect the same thing our low-dimensional, mortal stats represent, right? If my strength is at C 50+, with my sublimations being in aether, would it be safe to say were I high-dimensional that stat would be pointless, or at C -50+? Or would it also be C 50+? It seems a bit… odd. So my suggestion by default is having some kind of visual slider starting at 0 or 1 for mortals and going to like, 100 or 999 or whatever. And for the gods, you can assume the other, as rather than aether, you are pure energy beings. Then again you probably don't even /need/ to use screens, but I know Affection here has at least one title, so you do use it?"

Rou shook his head at this point and clearly wasn't entirely sure what all was going on with this.

"I'm guessing the original purpose of this was so you could safely interact with the lower world, yes?"

Aether nodded at him.

"Interact safely, yes? To avoid… rippling if I heard the phrasing right from Creation bringing it up a couple times?"

Aether didn't respond this time. Instead, Creation appeared and stated, "That is correct."

The three looked at him, but simply nodded and continued.

"Then the system is more a means to an end that you tried to have some fun with. If that's correct, Aether, I'm sorry if I came across as mean-spirited, that wasn't my purpose to try and call your baby ugly."

"I did make you a tester so it is my own doing. But yes, it was both."

Rou nodded and took a moment to hug on Affection to think before finally adding, "Then… there are also classes, right? I haven't had the opportunity to mess around with that. And levels and a whole lot of thi–"

"I get the point already damnit, boy, it's cluttered." Finally Aether snapped slightly and Affection instinctively hugged Rou to protect him, thinking Aether was going to punish him in some manner, But as she saw Affection do such, a wave of frustration ran through her and she floated further back away from the two.

"What was your point in asking all this, Rou? You've brought up some things we never told you about, that you've clearly only guessed on listening to conversations and putting contextual bits together. Because I don't believe Affection even knows these things either given she was our most recent high-dimensional being, the only one coming after our worlds creation." Creation spoke up.

"Oh really?" Rou asked, looking at Affection. "Mm hmm. I came into existence near this world and Creation dragged me in the moment I did as apparently I was a danger to them all wandering around ignorantly and freely."

"That is true, you were."

"My ultimate point though was to try and ask if there is a better way to go about things. I am trying to catch up on my education, especially as I took fifteen years off, but it's all terribly complicated. Then again if it was too simple where would the fun be? What about offering a setup with tabs and menus instead so it isn't quite as cluttered, but still offers various options to display ones pursuits and passions? For instance, there doesn't seem to be any indication of what magic proficiencies someone has. At least elementally. My parents knowing fire and wind, and fire and light respectively, or myself being loosely familiar with several in passing, I haven't seen any indicators. And stats for me are entirely pointless, but to others might mean quite a lot. Then again, there's no point to really reinvent the wheel. Mm… why do you even need this system as an in-between instead of just… doing so directly? Rippling and all…"

The gods were silent for a while Creation ahem'd softly to break the silence.

"Well, as you have put some things together, there is no real harm in letting you know. We high-dimensional beings are not at the top of the food chain so to speak. There are things out there that will consume us, energy beings, for sustenance. As of the moment, on our dimensional level, you know it as low and high. But there are higher rungs to that ladder. Denser, older, grander, extra-dimensional beings."

Rou listened intently as Creation explained.

"Let us think of this world as… a tiny puddle in an infinitely long and wide flat plane. In this puddle is our encapsulated world. The mortal world, wrapped in high-dimensional space that has been sealed and cut off from everything else. Nearby, your old world, much the same with your worlds 'gods', like us, having sealed themselves in a nearby puddle. Now… not every puddle has fish in it. In fact, there are infinite puddles towards the horizon in every direction. Two-dimensional. Infinite vertical. Three-dimensional. Infinite in the corner of your eyes. Four-dimensional. They weren't there before, but are there when you look, or might not be. They aren't in planes, but at points in time. Then there are layers of planes with equally infinite puddles in the four dimensions, for a fifth and so on, it goes on and on."

Affection was learning a little too, but was still making a visual explanation out of habit because she'd been asked to and hadn't been asked not to, something Rou found cute but appreciated regardless.

"Now, in that infinite existence, there are… existences that hunt extra-dimensional beings for sustenance. Some for pleasure. Some simply because they can. Some because of instinct. One such being has decided to make its home relatively nearby in the grander sense of things. Nearby enough that it can not see every puddle simultaneously, but it can still see a great many. It wanders aimlessly, trying to find anything, any life, any… fish it can. And how it finds fish? By coincidence if it picks a puddle and consumes it. By accident, if it stumbles through a puddle and causes the residing fish to panic and expose themselves. Or by observing, if the in-puddle fish accidentally cause… rippling. It's a term I came up with but it fits."

"I… see. It's all a bit much but I can understand the premise. So your system is simply a way for you to interact with the mortal world, a world of aether, because the act of transitioning between lower and higher pocket spaces using high-dimensional energy causes rippling and any fuck-ups can alert whatever that thing is in this region of existence?"

"You caught on strangely easily. And you aren't afraid?" Creation inquired.

"Oh, I'm quite freaked out, Affection can attest, I simply… internalize a lot."

"That is true." Affection kissed his cheek a few times and nosed at Rou trying to comfort him a little. "And that eater-of-energy cannot sense or consume aether?" he asked curiously.

Creation seemed thoughtful before admitting, "I cannot very well say for sure, but best we can tell, it has passed by us several times in our long, long existence, and it has not noticed anything from either your old world or ours. Of course, your old world is much less aether-dense than this one. Without getting into details, aether is naturally formed and can grow from high-dimensional seeds that we can create as we like. The path from you to us is one step, then the path from us to above us is the growing of a world, sublimating it into us, and then a whole high-dimensional being who has merged into a world can raise its existence further yet."

Rou leaned up and looked at Creation. "But as far as I can tell, you are the only one here with a world. This world. The world you built. All the other high-dimensional beings here?"

Silence. Creation closed his eyes and chuckled softly. "You truly are too clever for your own good. Prisoners, in a sense. We are all a danger to everyone else. If I let them wander freely, and they alert the predator, we all die. So some stay willingly, others against their will. And if by chance one day I raise my dimensional existence, one of them may choose to pick up where I left off or they can do as they like as it no longer concerns me. But… as long as I exist, there will be no other creation and sublimation of world souls."

The other high-dimensional beings, gods, said nothing. A few briefly appeared in Affection's domain as if to show a point of solidarity with Creation's wording. Siding with him. Others appeared on the other side, surprising Rou, as if opposing him. "But at the end of the day, boy…" Creation continued. "...prisoners or not, we all understand that it is better to be trapped in a puddle than trying to flee and killing us all. Frustrated or otherwise, none of them, not even together, can oppose me on the matter. And I doubt they even want to despite their displeasure of it."

Creation soon shifted positions from where he was to in front of Rou, in his orb-like body, "And you, boy, have you anything to say against that?"

Affection clung around Rou as if to protect him, but Rou gently stroked her hands to calm the fox goddess down.

"Have you ever been fishing?"

"???" A unique confusion shared among all of the gods, only Affection understood his thoughts and joke, causing her to sputter cackling.