@all | before the event

[industries]

> ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ wall "People's memories of this place"

[ Anyone unfamiliar with computer terminals might be taken aback at the mechanical font that scrolls across their vision, though the jumps and starts in typing speed leave no doubt that a very human brain is behind the text. ]

> Broadcast message from ts@abraxas-proxy (tty/1) :
> People's memories of this place
>
> Don't normally crowdsource, but
> has anyone out there ever heard of someone who got home and actually
> remembered their days here at the renfaire?
>
> Not looking for peer-reviewed analysis.
> I'll take crumbs
> or
> whatever else we've got here on Mind-Reddit.

Comments

[very nice very medieval handwriting]

[northerndragon]

I am sorry to say that I have been here in the past, and have kept no memory of it.

What is a renfaire?

— Jon Snow

[industries]

> A place where people pretend-joust and eat turkey legs
> Light wizard LARPing
> So,
> this place, basically.
>
> Anyway, same boat here. With going home and coming back.
> Figure it's worth a shot to ask, though.

[aquilus]

If anyone has managed to leave this world at all I would like to know who and how.

[Also.]

What is a renfaire?

[industries]

> Me. I have.
> Couldn't tell you how, but
> that's what I'm here to find out.
>
> Renfaire. I'm told it's somewhere you find woods and trees, and free folk, and white walkers, and the old stories, but
> I'm still thinking it's mostly turkey legs.

[harmonian]

[In almost excessively elegant cursive.]

What a strange way to ask a question.

[industries]

> What an unhelpful way to write a comment.

private ∞

[gynvael]

[ Because he prefers strangers not mind-eavesdropping. ]

Two.
Upon their return.

[industries]

ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private gerald.msg
ERROR ENXIO - No such device or address
ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private geralt.msg
> Long time no see.
> Two?
> But you're saying they still didn't remember until they got back here.

[catholica]

Haven't gone home to get you the answer.

What answer are you hoping for?

[industries]

> One that would let me send a message back home.
>
> Ideally.

[princessvegas]

Don't write like that. This isn't fucking Codecadamy. You just look like a dick.

Anyway, do you mean "got home" like left the world entirely, or do you mean "got home" like they went on one of those overnight mind field trips and woke up here, but with new memories?

[industries]

> This also isn't an invitation to a Georgia garden party, but you don't see me making a stink about it.
> Either. Salient point would be whether, at any point when home, they were able to communicate about things that happened here in Medieval Times.

[provenforce]

[ Rey's handwriting is a little scribbly but neat in the way someone who has written to entertain themselves is ]

There's a person here who is from roughly 50 or so years before my time, and the things that we've told him would significantly impact history, so I think it's safe to say our memories don't remain of this place when we go home. I didn't think it was even possible to return home.

[industries]

> Oh, it's possible – in a manner of speaking.
> But
>
> huh.
> 50 years, that's
> the biggest gap I've heard of.

[ McLargehuge's infinite timeline theory is starting to sound more and more plausible. That, or–

No.

He went home, in some way, some form. The alternative is unacceptable. ]

[thearchangel]

People have gone back to their worlds?

[industries]

> Yeah.
> Sort of.
> It's complicated.

[itookashot]

I think the obvious answer is no, you can't send a message back, because we don't control how we get here or how we get back. The only people who might have answers about that would be the people who took us in the first place, since they know where we came from. Since we don't know what makes people leave (Singularity? The kidnappers?), that's not likely a way to do it.

[industries]

> Sure, that's the obvious answer.
> But I'm looking for something less than.
> Let me put it this way – if we figured out how to preserve someone's memories of this place
> then it wouldn't matter WHEN they got sent back and forth through spacetime
> they'd still be able to communicate about things that happened here when they got back.
> Send a message.
> That's all I'm after.

[ It's flimsy. Flimsier, with every new point, every new reminder that time isn't linear, or absolute, or unbroken. That everything he's stated so far is simplistic and far-fetched and subject to a thousand unknown variables, but–

He just. He just wants them to know. ]

private

[carmesi]

[she debates replying to this for a very, very long time. her first thought is that this is tony, and he's probably going on about something mechanical or sarcastic or whatever. then some of the messages stream by her thoughts—and it sounds like tony has experienced what wanda has, in going home and coming back here, changed, older.

broken?

wanda sends him a message days later.]

I do not know what is more appropriate to say: welcome back or I'm sorry that you are here after what happened.

[industries]

[ Similarly, Wanda's message remains unreplied to for a good while before a response comes in, slow and methodical. ]

ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private wanda.msg
>
> Kind of you.
>
> I'm sorry too. About Vision.
> About everything.

[photophobic]

[In beautifully even, calligraphic hand:] They summoned my grandfather from a time when he was younger than I am, before my mother was born. I don't believe we go back.

[industries]

> That sounds
> awkward.
>> I don't believe we go back.
> Listen, I don't believe Macklemore should have gotten two Grammys, but that doesn't make it true.
> Case in point: Just came back from a five year stint.
>
> Of home, not
> mediocre hip-hop.

[subhuman]

I've got to say that the machines taking over wasn't the end I was picturing for this world.

[industries]

> Not a machine, just the guy who builds them.
>
>
> Know that probably sounds like the kind of thing a machine would say.

private! (me crawling from the dark void)

[piqure]

Mister Stark...
It hasn't happened to me, so I don't know if that's possible, personally. I mean, I left this place, and had absolutely no memory of anything ever happening. I only re-remembered everything when I came back.
( did tony know he was a repeat summoned? well, he does now! regardless...it's sometimes easier to talk through mind-reddit than face to face about things like this, isn't it? the stream of consciousness doesn't stop him from saying: )

If I remembered this place, if I came back to our universe knowing the stuff I did from this one, about everything that was still going to happen...I would've tried to change it.

[industries]

ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private peter.msg
> I know.
> We all would try to change things, but
>
> that's not going to happen.
> You know that, I know that, the guy in the red cape knows that.
>
>
> wait
>
> you mean you woke up overnight after going back home for a while, or
> something else?

private.

[sorser]

[It's likely that Stephen's message is one of the most belated that Tony will receive in regards to his missive sent across the mental network. He's spent too long, you see, trying to decide how to reply to it.

In the end, nothing sounds satisfactory. Everything sounds too impersonal or too trite. And so, he finally just gives up and pulls the proverbial trigger, resigning himself to whichever direction the conversation will flow.]

Am I back to being the last person you want to hear from?

I'll answer your question, anyway: No. I never remembered anything from this world after I had "returned", if you can even call it that. Years of being back home only equates to a very long nap here.

There was even another Stephen Strange here before me. Because the multiverse can't keep anything simple.






How are you holding up?

[industries]

[ The response comes in slow, lagging behind the speed of more familiar, off-the-cuff ripostes. Something in the emotions behind the text feels – mixed. Complicated, maybe even more than before. ]

ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private strange.msg
> Think there's someone a little bigger and purple who hangs around the absolute nadir.
>
>
> I'm
>
> How do you think I am.

very deliberately anonymous. private

[ushiri]

[ Feeling some kind of empathy toward this person, whether this is helpful or not: ]

I haven't returned home from here, but I've passed between other worlds before coming to this one.
Protections were needed so that I wouldn't be torn to pieces or end up losing too much time in between the crossing.
When I lacked them and attempted to cross, most of my memory was in shatters and ten years had passed.

It could be something similar happens to those who unwillingly travel back and forth from this place.

[industries]

ts@abraxas-proxy:~$ open reply -private anonymous_001.msg
> Well, that sounds
> awful.
> Wait, so you've hopped through other universes before this?
> We talking serial interdimensional kidnappings of one very unlucky dude, or
> you did this
> voluntarily, somehow?