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see you in another life kids
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Blather is a society existing on a small, but diverse, blue planet. Although the only common ground between its dwellers, or blatherskites, is language, due to the quite ridiculous cultural differences, many impressive dialects have been invoked. What you, as the visitor, must know is that while your consideration of perfect speech will make complete sense to one blatherskite, another will ask you to rearrange your letters into smaller rows, splurge on alliterated adjectives, and have widespread imagery and develop mood and tone so that he or she might comprehend it. Be duly warned, for some might have quite rigorous stylistic elements, requiring twisted iambic pentameter, wild dissertations, small nuggets of diamond-hard logic, and so forth. Other have done away with the traditional forms and prefer to speak their minds through extensive code. Some communicate, albeit a little cryptically, only by quoting the words the others. It is quite curious.
Language barriers, unfortunately, are not even quite the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The blatherskites often muse (sometimes to the point of violent musing, or argument) about the origins of their planet and, more significantly, its purpose in the potentially infinite dimension of which it exists. While some blatherskites believe their planet is a forum of complete free speech, others draw lines at where “free speech” fades in word pollution, obscenity, and pornography. A particularly troublesome puzzle for the blatherskites is whether destruction can be a form of communication, if it involves destroying the past words of others. (In blather, words cannot become unsaid. It seems that while words can be forgotten, attacked, hidden, concurred with, or even never read by another soul but the author, proof lies in the planet’s memory that the words were said. Their planet answers the “If a tree falls in a forest…” question in the affirmative.) Such a crisis often only irks and arouses the wrath of those the destruction most targeted, while leaving other blatherskites saddened and lost. This can be remedied, although never undone, usually by a blatherskite who is gifted in the way of blather, who will spread knowledge.
Notably, the blatherskites are also often caught up in sporadic, opinionated debates about religion and politics, being a highly sensitive and easily instigated bunch, but these small wars either go on eternally in blather or die out swiftly. While some blatherskites foster hard feelings, others forgive and forget any slights easily, and some avoid involvement at all.
Aside from differences in language and beliefs, blatherskites often express their individuality in a more physical way. Some have differently coloured text or pages which can alarm other blatherskites and are highly controversial. Some blatherskites are short and concise, others are tall and verbose, some are thin and specific in their scope, others are positively obese with thought. Many are pregnant with ideas. Blatherskites can often be recognized by the way they dress their body of words. They often receive judgement in this form, and even more often by their content. A blatherskites’s content involves a heart, or soul, surrounding by a fleshy layer of explanation and elocution, and topped with a mental pattern. Notably, some blatherskites have no bodies and exist as spirits, watching the progress of the planet and investigating the bodies of others, without becoming corporeal themselves. Although they cannot be seen, their vibrations reverberate through blather. Sometimes they indicate their presence with extreme subtlety, often by pressing a round, tiny pale blue fingerprint on the forehead of a blatherskite’s body. This is a signal for other blatherskites to see the body has been marked and pay it close attention.
Numerous studies have taken place on how such dissimilar characters can all be classified as the blatherskite species. Blatherskites as creatures themselves are increasingly intriguing. They all seem to experience love, pain, happiness, sadness, loneliness, grief, anger, euphoria, and so forth. All have at some point been quite vulnerable. Many struggle with a war between insecurity and pride, life and death, love and indifference. All the blatherskites are irrevocably connected through words, through simply existing on the blue planet. While some blatherskites deny that others feel this, and thus claim these strangers to be aliens who should be removed from blather, this is usually because of a failure to see that often blatherskites psychologically wear masks or hide aspects of themselves, sometimes for the purpose of progression in communication, sometimes out of fear or simple exhaustion.
In conclusion, blather is a lovely place to visit. It is often receptive to immigrants, so long as they follow general unspoken laws of respect. It can potentially become a vital home for its inhabitants, a place of beauty and mixed tongues.
Most blatherskites are willing to fight to protect it.
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