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"If you care so much about what people want to be called, why do you keep calling Mama 'Goldie'?" Elspeth inquires quizzically.

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"She hasn't asked me not to."

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"She doesn't like it," Elspeth says.

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"Well, that's her business if she wants to ask him to stop or not, but the Jokers want 'Joker' on their nametags and are saying so," shrugs Angela; her wings ripple with the motion. "I'll see what I can do to convince Stella if you'd rather not approach her yourself."

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"Much obliged," he says to Angela.

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Angela crosses the room, finds Stella, and brings her over after a brief discussion.

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"The lot of you are all agreed on this?" is Stella's first question. "Everybody wants to go by the blowing-things-up clown handle, up to and including the telepathic child soldier and the benign Edori and my Alice who actually has 'Whistle' incorporated into his name and whatnot?"

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"Yes," the Joker enunciates.

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"I don't think it really matters if it's to our taste," Angela tells Stella.

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"Suppose not," sighs Stella.

The nametag changes.

Stella turns to wander off.
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"Thanks," he says quietly.

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"You're welcome," Stella says over her shoulder.

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"Even if you're the most central example of the template," Angela says after a moment, "I'm not sure why that makes your name the best name. Pattern is the most central example of our template except for not having any magic - that's why she's called that - and the next best candidates are Stella and Golden. And they all go by Bella. But we're Bells instead of Bellas because that's what we have to cut it down to in order to include everyone. We're all Bells even if the only one actually named Bell is from a bit off standard."

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"Mm, that's not quite it," he says, shaking his head. "It's not that we're taking the name because the name's mine and I'm us. It's that me and Ghosty and Queenie all took the name because the name is us."

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"I don't understand," says Angela after a moment.

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He glances at Elspeth. "Little help here, or are you lost too?"

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"I - hm. I can't always do that sort of thing on purpose. Let's see." Elspeth closes her eyes. "The name Joker was chosen for reasons and in a way that are about the core features of the template in a way that none of the other names on offer were. If you had to symbolize Bells with a picture, symbolize and not just refer, you wouldn't do it with a bell. You'd do it with a pen, maybe, or a crown or with some culturally appropriate marker of self-knowledge or mental opacity - Bell is a sound where Joker is a meaning - Angela, you might not have the background for this, but in a deck of cards as used on standard Earths there's a pair of traditionally wild cards called jokers, in the deck but not part of it for most conventional games." Elspeth opens her eyes again. "How'd I do?"

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"Pretty damn good," he says. "Thanks."

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"You're welcome!"

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"A wild card," muses Angela. "Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

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"Doesn't it just," he agrees.

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"I think if Elspeth had explained that while Stella was here Stella would have proposed that you call the template 'Wildcards'," Angela says. "To avoid redundancy."

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"We wouldn'ta gone for it."

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"Why not?" Elspeth asks.

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"Only tells part of the story," he says. "Picked by somebody who's not one of us."

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