"File it under 'backhanded non-hyperbole'," he says. "It describes my emotional reality, not my actual beliefs."

"And as far as I know none of us have managed to teach anybody else how to make those things match when they want, like we can, so it could easily be a waste of effort to try."

"I actually have practiced a kind of self-modification, but it was demonstrably unable to get me out of this fucking fix."

"How does yours work? Besides 'evidently not well enough'."

"Worked," he says. "Past tense. I can't imagine doing it again."

"Speaking of turning oneself into Sherlock Holmes, does Strat have this problem?"

"Strat has slightly less of this problem, but Downside brought it out in full."

"Downside fucks with people. I have a vague horrified curiosity about how well Shell could ever have recovered if she hadn't folded back in to her liveling counterpart."

"Downside does fuck with people. Well, it did. Hopefully it now does it less."

"We're working on it - luckily we only lost a couple of days there - but yeah."

"I love you," murmurs Bella. "I wish you could love you too."

"I used to love me," he sighs. "But I do love you. And Tony. And the various incarnations of Jarvis."

"If we don't figure out a nice well-rounded fix soon I guess I'll talk to Shell Bell, but I suspect the answer to how Shell Bell deals with it is just "she occasionally despairs, and also she didn't ever get used to hers being any other way'," sighs Bella.

"Does it really provoke despair?"

"I don't mean, like, sitting alone in a dark room waiting for the universe to end, kind of despair, I just mean determining that there is a bad thing in the world and nothing to be done about it presents itself and it's time to stop beating one's head against the wall and permit the bad thing to continue to be until further notice, damn it all. Arrogant busybody Bell type despair."

He snorts. "Ah, that's more like it."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm in any danger of getting turned into Shell or Sarion just by virtue of you not liking yourself. It'll just - make me sad when I think about it."

He hugs her.

"Guilt, mostly. But he's used to it. I started out that way, after all."

"Yeah, like - the obvious etiology is the mindset around being a clone, except then there's Pearl and Strat."

"Pearl has a different reason. Strat has less reason and, perhaps relatedly, less of the problem."