Letters from the past

[vkandis-son.livejournal.com]

Well, as we established today, the Sorting Engine in the Fandom Post Office is awesome (as is Mr Pratchett, but we already knew that). What this means, apart from having a way to find out where and when people went, is that people who have been sent to the past can send letters to their loved ones in the now (or hated ones, or indifferent ones - love's not a requirement!).

There are going to be some strict parameters on this, just to keep the whole time travelling thing as un-confusing as possible:
-your letter can't arrive until you have actually been abducted. You can have it arrive on the same day,once you've been angelled, if you want, but not before. This is to keep Mr Paradox as far away as possible.
-it needs to be kept only to personal, not plotty, things. Life stories, declarations of love, bitching about OMG NO BOOZE: good. Any information about the angels, beyond what has become common knowledge IG with Zoe's announcement: bad.
-if you are going to mention another victim character, talk to them first and make sure it's all right.

How it will work

Each day, from Thursday until Saturday, we'll put a post up for delivery of the letters. Post either your letter, or a link to your journal where it's posted, in a comment with the recipient's name in the subject header. (This just to keep things all tidy, and make it easy for everyone to read the letters.)

The recipient can either pick it up there and react, or link to the comment and react elsewhere. You could also use these letters as a way of telling the story of what happened to your character in the timeline where they grew old and died, and weren't sent into stasis.

ETA: Remember, once the victim characters go into stasis, changing their timeline from the one they were in when the letters were sent, these letters will disappear, and no one will remember anything about them or what they said.

Questions? Comments? Tasty angel food cake?

Comments

[blessed_twice]

Question (just to be difficult ;) -- why would people in present time forget the letters? Wouldn't that cause a paradox because then they'd forget that they knew what had happened to the missing people, and therefore wouldn't be around to get them out of stasis?

I could see the people who wrote the letters forgetting them, because they didn't write them in the new timeline, but for the people in the future, their knowledge hasn't changed. Or am I misunderstanding something?

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

OW, MY BRAIN. D:

[blessed_twice]

AMMIRITE?

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

I DUNNO. YOU HURTED MY HEAD AND NOW I AM CONFUSED.

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

Will get back to you in a sec. There's been some confusion and we're just trying to work out the kinks (not dirty). We've all gotten tongue-tied and brain-tied. Side effect of time travel plots, yo. Never agaaaaaain.

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Much like Sokka, I'm having an MST3K moment over here ("Just repeat to yourself it's just a game, I should really just relaaaaaax....")

But if I can make a suggestion from the peanut gallery: can we just ditch the whole AU timeline? Plenty of canons out there deal with the whole "But if so-and-so went back into time to save the day, how did so-and-so ever know to go back in time in the first place??" thing via the magic of "Handwave handwave DO YOU WANT THE COOL CGI OF TERMINATOR 2 OR NOT, DAMN IT???"

I realize it is waaaaaaaaaaaay late in the plot to be making suggestions so feel free to ignore me. Just seemed like a possible solution to the overall headachey problem.

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

Bit late yeah, but no more time travel omg. I'm about to put a post up that will hopefully clear things up and provide just enough logic so we writers can justify it all to ourselves.

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

*nod* And in case it wasn't clear, I do love the overall plot and how it's going so far. I'm just a "Doc it hurts when I do this" "Well stop doing it then!" kind of problem solver when it comes to plots. =)

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

It got big. Rly rly big. I miss bash-and-smash BDEs today.

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Hey, for the next BDE go simple: we solve the Middle East crisis.

[multiplez]

Yeah, that's pretty much why I dropped out of the plot. I was like, "My brain is no longer able to comprehend what's going on here; I concede the game."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

It's a PARADOX. Just go with it. If you think about it too closely, the waveform will collapse, and we'll all be swallowed by the eddies of subquantum foam!!!

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

Mmm subquantum foam.

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

OKAY. It got long and really deserves its own post. So I'm gonna go post that on the OOC comm. If anything's not too clear after that, feel free to ask questions over there and I'll get back to you ASAP.

[the_merriest]

I could be misunderstanding your question, but I thought this post was about random bits from Timeline A, like, So-and-So lives to be an old painter and dies in Paris and first sends a letter to his old sweetheart in Fandom, and not the urgent "Plz fix us" letters that were sent to Zoe. The second category will cease to exist once Timeline A fizzes out, but if the first group were sent before anybody goes into stasis, then those letters exist in both Timelines and are free to not disappear and therefore went to Zoe as intended.

Also they'll be forgetting about the letters further down the line, like months from now, gradually, and not immediately, and immediately is when they go get people out of stasis. Like this weekend or so, I'm assuming, so everyone is back for classes on Monday. Um. Right?

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

This post is about Timeline A where all the old painter stuff happens. Those letters will not be the urgent ones that got to Zoe, right. They're just harmless letters from that timeline that some people might want to play out (we had a few requests).

The timeline up to the point in time where folks get the notice about Hartdegen and stasis continue to exist. Any that would have been sent after that time fizz out of memory with Timeline A.

Forgetting will happen over the course of Sunday. Come Monday, business as usual, Timeline A is gone as far as we're concerned.

[the_merriest]

Awesome. Thanks!

[blessed_twice]

I was indeed speaking of "letters to sweethearts" and such. My personal preference is that, while I agree and understand that the people who went back in time would forget what happened in the alternate timeline since it didn't happen from their POV, the letters sent are paradoxes and remain in existence in the future. Mainly because I foresee (and actually intend to cause!) emotional roleplaying and character development that's a shame to wipe out with memory loss. However, I'll just send letters pre-stasis to work around that.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

because I foresee (and actually intend to cause!) emotional roleplaying

Why the hell would you want to do something like that?

[blessed_twice]

*cackles* If I don't make you cry, I haven't done my job.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

*wibbles*

[the_merriest]

Ooooh, okay. Sorry, I was addressing the paradox bit, where people would then forget to go get them out of stasis - the forgetting doesn't happen until after the rescue, and those letters are safe anyway, etc. Mmmm, timelines. So yummy.

[blessed_twice]

Hee -- time travel + logic =/= OTP. ;) The paradox could apply to both sets of letters, but in specific I was concerned about the personal letters.

[ismyhairout.livejournal.com]

In order for the current explanation of temporal physics that we're using here to work, it's all or nothing in regards to Timeline A stuff, I'm afraid. I understand wanting to play with this some more, but we're trying to keep it as simple as possible with as few plot holes as possible. The way we've decided to do that requires all of Timeline A to fade away, even personal stuff.

[blessed_twice]

I understand!