"I mean I can still do this too, unless it gets more extreme – it just means, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go look at a situation and be like… 'Know what'd be a thrilling solution to this? It'd be poking the threads'."

"But if we were like that instead and just asked you to do it?"

"I mean, yeah, and I might think of it on my own anyway, I just – I dunno, wouldn't think of it straight away maybe?"

"But that also sounds weird, like, if you had a test tomorrow you'd study for it even if it's boring and there are less boring ways of acing it."

"But if the less boring ways have pretty good chances of making me ace it without undesirable consequences I'd probably rather those?"

"Well sure, but maybe there aren't, and you can also use this to figure things out?"

"I mean, yeah, I'm still – probably – going to use it for things."

"Can you tell what a thread does before touching it?"

"I can tell what things they're between but I haven't guessed what it'll do yet."

She tries looking at some threads in case they care to give her information after being boring.

There is no "after" they are always boring.

Can they stop that? Is there a thread clearly labeled 'makes threads boring to Evelyn', can she stop that thread from being so annoying, that'd be cool.

Doesn't look like it.

Okay well can they just give her information while being boring? She's not really sure how that'd work, but still…

Mm there's definitely a difference between the different threads, even those connecting the same things. Something beyond how boring or thick they are, almost a flavor. The flavor doesn't actually explain itself, though.

(And 'threads' is inaccurate anyway, they're laid out in many more than just  one dimension each and several of them connect more than just two things.)

"It's really annoying they're so boring," she comments.

"—you know, this is kinda making me think that I might have more control over my shapeshifting than I think."

"It might be messing with your head, yeah."

"I have no idea how to even, I dunno, start going about this. I've had it since I was one."

"Does it feel like anything when you shift?"

"Nnnnnot exactly? It's more an absence of feeling—like it's totally normal and expected that I should look like this and not something else and it doesn't even make sense to imagine otherwise?"

"… Even when you change color for emotions?"

"Yep."

"Huh. Pretty sure I don't usually feel other colors."

"I don't feel other colors, that's the point, it doesn't really feel like anything."

"Ah," he responds. "But looking male or female is presumably different?"