selfhelp | [Voice / Action]

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[Okay, so. Several things need to be dealt with here, one way or another. First being the fact that he has a facetwin hanging around who is pretty damn hard to explain, though Tommy being more or less okay with the "brother" title helps with that. Second is that he knows the truth about his heritage now, which is, in short, a huge weight off his shoulders. Third is that his strength is mostly back in his arm as long as he doesn't bend or twist it in a way that stresses his brace too much, which admittedly doesn't mean much, but it does mean that he's able to finish the sketches he'd promised to Pepper's art gallery.

Thus, since it's so warm and dry today, he'll be heading out to deliver a set of hefty-sized rolled sheets of drawing paper to Pepper's art gallery, and then to swing by Tony's house to catch up on some work and maybe fill his... sort-of employer in on the recent developments. Mainly the kid with Billy's face who is probably going to hate him for a while. Tommy's not as keen to forgive as some people.

His last stop will be the plaza, armed with a miniature sketchbook, and props himself up against the side of the fountain to draw whatever comes his way. Occasionally he might have to stop and give his hand a frustrated shake, but hey, there's no physiotherapy like a good work-out, right?

At some point while he's out, though, he'll be doing what he told himself he'd get done: a journal entry that is better late than never.]

[Voice, locked from Tommy]

Hey, it's Billy. Just wanted to get it out there that if you see anybody with my face - or hear my voice, I guess - that's Tommy, my... brother. Kind of. It's complicated. He might be a bit tough to deal with sometimes, but he's not a bad guy, so just try to put up with him, if you can. He could use some friends.

[....]

Just don't let this get back to him, I'd never hear the end of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Just enough that he needs a PSA made for making friends. Yep.]

Well, if I see him I'll be happy to be his friend. My name is Ion.

Thanks, Ion. He might not act like he'll appreciate it, but everybody needs friends, right?

Of course. [Smile.]

Actually, your brother sounds a lot like someone I know. We're like brothers... but I guess that's a little complicated as well.

Oh wow, really? I didn't think there'd be other people in my kind of situation, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised... the universe is pretty big, after all.

It's not as uncommon as you might think. Why, there's someone else here from my world who could very well say the same.

...Whoa. [Just how many of us are there D8] Does it happen often where you're from, or are you guys just the exception?

[Because he's never heard of it happening before in his world.]

The technology for it has been around for a number of decades, but it's only recently that it was put into use. It wasn't something that many people were supposed to know about, either...

[But he's not about to lay out all the politics surrounding replicas and Auldrant here in this entry.]

If you don't mind my asking, how did you find out about it? Unless it was something you always knew...?

[Technology? It's done with technology instead of magic in his world? That's kind of cool, if a little scary. What kind of tech could summon and purify wandering demon souls?]

No, I didn't find out until around a year ago. I met Tommy, and besides our hair colours being different, we looked exactly alike. And then someone told us what really happened, and it just kind of clicked.

I imagine that must have been quite a shock.

[He can't help but wonder if one of them is a replica and the other an original, or if both were created from the same person...]

I've always known the circumstances of my own birth, but even so, I never thought I would have gotten the chance to meet Sync... or Florian, for that matter. There's actually three of us here.

....Three of you? That's... some family. Wow.

[Oh man, if he'd found out that he and Tommy were triplets or something, hahaha... no thanks. One surprise brother is enough.]

How'd you find each other?

I didn't meet Florian until after he arrived in Luceti. As for Sync... we had met before, but he usually wore a mask to hide his identity. No one was supposed to know about us, after all... and he didn't want me to find out who he was.

[He'd probably get mad at Ion for including him in this conversation at all, but... this was a fellow replica, right? So that made this okay!]

Sync and I don't exactly get along very well...

[Understatement.]

Maybe there's some unwritten rule that people who share faces are supposed to fight.

...do you and Tommy get along?

That's still to be determined.

[Things are better than they used to be, though, he's noticed.]

Well, for what it's worth, Florian and I get along. So it's certainly possible.

I'm glad you can at least get along with one! That's better than nothing.

Just means you both have to keep working on the third, though, right?

[And maybe if he keeps working on Tommy, it'll eventually feel more like a real sibling relationship.]

Yes... though to be honest, I think I'd settle for at least being able to hold a conversation that doesn't end in being almost thrown out a window...

[Well okay it didn't quite happen like that, but he's pretty sure the thought had crossed Sync's mind at the time.]

Thrown out a-

[Wow. Um. That sounds...]

...Geez, now I'm thankful Tommy and I get along a little better than that, at least... that's rough.

He has his reasons. I'd like to think things have gotten better now that we're in Luceti, but we really only ever spoke once or twice before... there isn't very much to compare to the way things are now.

[...you know, he hadn't really thought to ask, but is he talking to a replica or an original? They could be brothers in the same sense Luke and Asch are like brothers, after all. But that's not the kind of thing to just ask out-right, so perhaps he should just stick to the family analogy here.]

...if you don't mind my asking, which of you is the "older" brother?

Older? I don't think either of us know for sure. Tommy believes that he's the older one, but that might just be his ego talking.

[Not that he's older or younger by any great amount of time. As far as he knows they were born within the same small amount of time. It had never occurred to him to ask if Tommy's birthday was different than his own.]

You mean you don't know...?

[Did he misunderstand his question? Hmm...]

I'm the youngest, myself. Though with the time I've spent in Luceti, I believe I'm technically older now.

...but even so, I can't help but think of my original as being the oldest out of all of us.

"Original"? Is that what you'd call a firstborn?

[Weird term for it. Then again, different universes and all that.]

"A firstborn"? Not at all, I--

[...]

...I'm beginning to wonder if we're really talking about the same thing or not.

I'm still talking about brothers, here.

[What in the world are you talking about, kid.]

Oh...

I'm sorry, when you said it was "complicated" I must have misinterpreted. Although the three of us look like brothers and could be considered related on some level, we're not actually brothers at all.

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