video, at the end of october

[friendlyflower]

[A weird, half-dead sunflower seed with dilated eyes and sweat rolling down its shell appears, shouting at you from the clinic.]

THE VOTE IS CLOSE!!!!!!! VOTE FOR UMBREON NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[He grabs the Grumpearl with a vine.]

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT VOTING FOR LURANTIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nurse Chansey from the clinic visibly tries to wrestle the Grumpearl away from him. He shouts various curses that Emporio taught him. You may or may not have a headache now.]

Comments

[consequerer]

Yes, that is a common response. That such a thing cannot happen, so therefore time travel is impossible. Or, perhaps:

Another option. The time travel was always meant to happen. The time traveler's actions in the past were always meant to be, and not a distortion or disruption, because they are what created the present that the time traveler hailed from. A cycle, then, with no clear beginning.

[ They can recognize his discomfort with the topic, at least; it only makes sense that he would be, all things considered. Hence their segue to the stable time loop theory instead. ]

It might be the happiest interpretation, perhaps?

[offtracks]

...perhaps so. It does bring up some interesting questions about fate...

[ Though, if he concludes it was simply meant to happen...well, Ingo thinks that would probably upset Emmet. ]

[consequerer]

Doesn't it? Quite the cheerful thought.

[ They could take the knife and twist it, see what he makes of it ... but then again, if they were going to do that they would have done so already.

In any case, the kind of time travel they're discussing is something on quite a much larger scale than the SAVEs and LOADs and RESETs that were employed in the Underground ... yet the principles are the same, aren't they? And they have seen quite a variety of different outcomes, trying to see what happens, find that better ending, even if the overall shape of things might have resembled each other superficially. Some of them ... ]

You said your brother is here, correct? Then at least you can know that you probably haven't done anything to change things to the point that he no longer exists.

[ Probably. They are not going to bring up the possibility that they are no longer from the same timeline at all, if they ever were, or that this place being Somewhere Else exists separately from the concept of a continuous, self-consistent timeline elsewhere. ]

[offtracks]

Ah, I do not think that would be possible in any case! We are twins!

[ There should not be one without the other!

........barring like some really sad and specific scenarios we don't gotta think about! ]

[consequerer]

You had not considered the potentiality of being an only child?

[ Or, well, making himself such? ]

Did you have such conviction before you came to know of his existence?

[offtracks]

I didn't know if I had any family at all, before.

[ Ingo doesn't even engage with the other question, for all that he doesn't protest either. ]