"Some of us are still sorting out our forms for Islands! You know, in the metaphorical character editor. Hitting 'similar form' over and over and hoping it reaches something fun!" Cheyin was explaining. He'd never deviated much from his chosen symbolism of solar wolf and golden peacock, and, as always? Was mostly just mixing them together. The hip-wings were new though.

"Why s'like all of you dogs," Chimmering was laughing. "Like. Okay you and S/V I get it, y'were a fox and a wolf back in the day, s'classic, sure. You all have a LOT of dogs."

"I'm still a tiger," Leina said. "Or like. Serval. Caracal. Iunno. Ssssslime mostly. The slime is the important part. You have to imagine a cat so tired it's melted? You don't have to imagine it, I'm doing it."

"It was our little clique! We had a theme!" Cheyin was saying! "There were a lot of, you know, other kinds all around. There was a bear? Lots of humans--"

"Which is boring," S/V interrupted. "Speaking of, congrats on Loti for not being a human this time. Four-armed something or other?"

"I can have a little fun, now and then," Loti said. "Consider this my... concession! I am going to try to be a little bit fun."

"I see Hephy is going back to wolf," S/V said. "But like, unicorn now? That's new."

"My edgelord arc is over," he agreed, "I'm on that noblebright kick."

"You're still tryhard as all hell."

"That means I got it right. Maybe I need another head? Two heads? Three heads? I was flirting with being impaled by swords, but do you know how annoying that is? It made going up stairs the worst. They'd hit every step, and I'd feel it in my gut. I don't want to have to outlaw stairs on my island."

"Stairs are great, no, yeah," S/V agreed. "The first sign of true civilization is having stairs. You want to go up? Animals crawl. People walk up the stairs. The first symbol of civilization right there it is."

"I liked my subdued sparkledog," Del said, "but seeing half of you with wings or multilimbs? I need to put in more effort, I think. It's that moment when you leave the character creator, proud of what you've made of yourself, and then you see everyone else, and it's like... well... I guess there were sliders I hadn't found, huh. Where's the multilimb slider? Metaphorically speaking."

"You were literally just a dog with like, some jewelry last time we saw you," S/V agreed.

"I'll get weird with it," Del agreed. "We didn't coordinate this time. Last time we all agreed to just be canids. It was easy. Cheyin and Hephaestion were wolves, S/V and Dauto were foxes, I was a dog. Now it's more anything goes?"

"Always recommend wings!" Cheyin said! "They're a lot of fun. You can knock stuff over when you turn around and no one can stop you."

"The other sign of civilization," S/V agreed. "Having stuff that you can knock over by accident. The first true sign of civilization."

"I think," Del said, "the first sign of civilization is actually that. The opposite of that 'no one can stop you.' I think you get civilization when someone can stop you."

"The rule of law truly is--" Loti tried to start.

"Stop signs," Del interrupted. "Obviously I'm talking about stop signs."

"Sure," Chimmering said. "I guess I can see why you hung out with these nerds like five layers ago. Islands, huh."