maskormenace | [VIDEO]

[The video feed presents an older british gentleman at his desk, surrounded by stacks of history books. He looks up into the camera and smiles warmly.]

Good evening, my name is Walter Strickler. I'm a new arrival here, and I thought it best that I introduce myself. More than that, actually, I was hoping to ask a question.

I am in the midst of familiarizing myself with the history of this world, and how it differs from my own... Most of the discrepancies have been fairly minute, others less so, but it lead me to wondering about other worlds. Your worlds, and the histories theirin; if you care to share them. I suppose I'm just curious, is it common for most of us... "imports" to be from worlds that are similar, or ones that are vastly different? Is there anything here that has struck you as odd?

[There's a small pause, an aside glance, as he arranges the wording of his next question carefully.]

And, are 'powers' common where you're from? Whether it be mutations, magic, or anything of the sort. Are these things familiar to you?

Please do forgive me if I take a moment to understand anything you have to share. I must admit, I am still attempting to process all of this... But I would not want to have anyone feeling put-out for my misgivings. Thank you. I look forward to getting to know you all better.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's kind of half-and-half for mine. I'm not a history scholar, but it seems like a lot of events here match the ones in my world, until they didn't anymore. Plus where I'm from, any kind of special power is something out of a comic book.

[He nods.] That's been the case for me, as well.

I'm finding that the most disturbing aspect of all is when things are almost exactly the same as you know them to be, but the details are wrong. Have you had that experience?

Edited 2019-01-06 02:26 (UTC)

Call me a coward, but I haven't looked too hard into any of that. I'm not sure what it would be like if I went to see where my house is supposed to be and it's not there.

I wouldn't recommend it. [His tone makes it clear that he's already made that mistake.]

Ah. [He gets it.] I won't, then. Or at least I'll put it off. Right now it doesn't feel real that I could go there and not find my wife waiting for me.

Exactly. I didn't have to travel all the way there to find out. I was able to search the address online, but... nothing came up.

We're all better off treating this as a clean slate.

Yeah. I don't know about that. Better off not tormenting ourselves, sure. But I've got kids back home--my wife just gave birth to twins. So there's not much clean about this that I can see.

I'm terribly sorry. You're right, a 'come what may' attitude isn't really appropriate for everyone, especially not in cases like yours.

If it's any consolation, I've read that time passes differently between this world and our own. When you return, everything should be as you left it.

That's what I'm counting on. There's a lot of milestones I want to be there for.

[It doesn't help that he hadn't actually attended the birth, thanks to the deal he'd struck with the government. Only heard it from afar.]

Besides, twice the number of diapers to change? Lois would kill me if I didn't come back to help with that.

Hah! Well, I'm sure she would. Congratulations, by the way.

Thank you. It was a long wait, getting ready to meet them. I suppose I'll just have to be patient a while longer...or try to be.

I'm sure it will be worth the delay. Though I do hope that you'll be able to go home sooner than later.

I think we all hope that. Judging by what I've heard, though, we shouldn't get our hopes up too high.

Very true. Though we can all try to make the best of it.

Ah, I've just realized, I've forgotten to ask your name...

Oh, that's right. [He gives a little sheepish smile.] I'm Clark Kent. Still pretty new.

[There's a very quick brow raise, but Walter doesn't give away his surprise at Clark's name beyond that.]

It's been good speaking with you, Clark. I've mentioned in the content of my initial video, but my name is Walter. My friends call me Walt.

Good to meet you, Walt.

[Well, they're friendly at least.]

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