maskormenace | 006 ✿ Video

One year ago today, I arrived in this world. One year ago today, I shared a fateful drink in De Chima with the man who would become the love of my life. One year ago, there were different faces in this world -- different people to greet me upon my arrival, but many are and have remained the same.

[ Raina smiles a sappy smile. She is genuinely happy for the experiences she's had here and people she's met. ]

There have been a lot of ups and downs, especially as of the past few months. But I would be lying if I said that being in this world hasn't been a largely positive experience for me. And while it's sad to think all of it can be gone and forgotten faster than we can blink, that just means we should try to appreciate what we do have here all the more, doesn't it?

[ She leans forward, warm and inviting. ]

So I'd like to hear about your positive experiences. What are some of the best things that have happened to you here? What opportunities have arisen for you here that you would not have gotten back home? What friends did you make that you never would have met otherwise? And for people who have ported in recently, what opportunities do you hope this world will bring you?

We're so focused on the bad things or getting back home to our responsibilities or the people who aren't here that we often neglect to stop and appreciate the little things. Even if it's something as simple as getting to taste strawberry ice cream for the first time. So let's take a moment to share our experiences with each other.

[ A pause. ]

Also while I have you here -- a few months ago I was speaking to a friend of mine and we were talking about how it's possible to port out and return without memories of ever having been in this world. I brought up the idea of writing a letter to ourselves detailing our time here and he proposed that we try to see if the government would include those in the files we're given upon our arrival. If people overall think it's a good idea, I can talk to a few representatives to see if it can be done. I just know that there are people and things here that I would not want to forget, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same.

And I think that's about all I have to say. I look forward to hearing your stories. Even if we can't have our letters included in our files, maybe this post could serve as a little something for our future selves to look back on and see how happy we once were if ever there's a time when that is forgotten.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think you overestimate us, Dr. Chilton.

I've been abandoned and forgotten enough times that having the barrier of memories is my best shield against the inevitability of the phenomenon. I've had to live with my own brother revert past every step of progress we've ever made together, to the point that we felt almost like strangers to each other. I can't even imagine how I'll need to handle Rose, if she ever returns. That they could be allowed to know, in only intellectual terms, what they left behind with me, with no emotional resonance to the information? That doesn't lessen how much I would need to navigate with them, it increases it.

Perhaps their iterations will understand their prior experiences here, but it will be to the detriment of the rest of us. Which doesn't even account for the potential to abuse it.

Imagine someone like Norman Osborn returning, with the full details of what he's done, a list of everyone who he had wronged, and who had wronged him? The potential that it could dredge up old vendettas in a continual cycle, not because of anything that anyone directly experienced, but because past iterations long ago had passed their ire to the next generation.

That is a bit hyperbolic, but as you said, not everyone here is kind, and those who aren't tend not to be in very hyperbolic ways. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Osborn had left a trail for his future self already.

I have overestimated this populace before. It certainly isn't unheard of.

[Jeff Winger and April Ludgate come to mind, not to mention Saul Goodman.]

But some learn from vendettas. Some benefit from the insight of their unravel destruction. Imagine what choices a man or woman might make when they have the logic of hindsight as well as distant emotion to better inform their decisions.

[This is why he keeps making the mistake of trusting Will Graham; Frederick Chilton, at his heart, is an optimist. Such is his tragedy.]

Assuming our future iterations are logical enough to make those better choices. Imagine I'm thirteen again, still seething and fresh to death, heart still burning for vengeance. I liked to think I was logical then, but it was mostly anger steering me then. There's no hindsight for that.

That sort of warning, under volatile enough circumstances? Blood would run.

Perhaps I'm putting too much fair in you -- as a specific case study, mind -- but I do think you would make logical choices. Vengeance taken into consideration.

For what it's worth.

I think you are. You know me now, but there's a wide gulf of restraint and prudence I've learned since then. I know her very well, I was her once, I know what it feels like to have my blood boil the way hers does.

I can't help but think there are many other imPorts who might be in similar straits, but may overestimate the reaction of their pasts, not considering how far back the Porter could reach.

Surely there are some. Statistically speaking. But just as surely, you might admit there is a chance you are projecting.

You have always been so hard on yourself, Kanaya. Are you worried that sentiment might ever bleed over?

Maybe I am projecting. But I think the whole proposal has some projection at its heart, wanting to form the lives of our other iterations into those we live today.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like if you were imPorted at my age?

I would be far more optimistic than what my current experience affords me.

[Before his personal dreams were crushed and reconfigured from the ashes, of course.]

But that isn't quite what I'm asking. How well do you think you'd be equipped to hear a warning from your future self?

Quite well, given time to adapt to the multiversal circumstance -- a time which varies, given how some are already familiar with a multiverse. I doubt Raina wouldn't account for that in her mere proposal.

But if you had been given the introduction that all new arrivals are, and then, before you've even set foot off the base, were handed a video and said it was from your future self in the past?

That doesn't quite allow for any time at all.

Imagine a choice -- they wouldn't be forced to watch the video, or perhaps they would choose not to altogether. But offering that option with the sage advice to resettle yourself first, however long that may take depending on the individual, could be of some comfort to certain people.

We at least like the idea of choice.

006 ✿ Video

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