un: junpei | video

[coolerjunpei]

[The video opens on Junpei in an office chair - in his Secret Club Meeting Room (read: generic office building conference room) although this is not a secret meeting. This is Junpei spinning slowly in an office chair while he holds the camera up, tilting as far back as he can without tipping the chair over. So it's going great.]

So, city-zens, [.....ahem,] I've got some miscellaneous questions for you.

First, time travel: real? Let me know. [......,] I mean, you know— Before you got here, that is. Like how experienced are you in the realm of quantum... quantum-y goodness? I just thought that maybe it would be real for somebody else by now, but I dunno... Let me know that one instead.

[Cough. Anyway.]

Second, are we all just, uh... hanging out now, I guess? Um, like— who's trying to clip through the weird fog and get out still? Anybody? I'm looking for group, or whatever you call it. We can do code names.

[Junpei is not a gamer.... don't believe this... he's just cringe and thinking about half-press-A-ing through the universe, to wit as he spins faster in his chair:]

Third, whoooo's all in for simulation theory? [as dryly as possible, womp...] Eh? Woooo yeah... simulation theory...!

[The video tilts as he lets go with one hand to hold up... a pinched-fingers hand puppet 🤌... it's still fine, he's doing great. He pitches his voice up higher for the puppet, because of course he does:]

But Junpei, how is this a simulation? Well duh, why else would this place be like a city that doesn't know what a city is supposed to be like? And all the weird loading fog? C'mon! Buuuut Juuuunpei, are we all full of tubes and stuck in goo pods like in that movie?— [Ah, ahem, cough. He puts his hand down.] Maybe.

Or uh, whatever else is in the theory pile. Half the people I was messing around with about theories went and disappeared, soooo... Well, I'm gonna get serious cabin fever if I can't figure something oUT—

[Local Man Tips The Chair Over and Totally Wipes Out, stay tuned for updates. The video ends when the phone drops face down onto the floor, bye.......]

Comments

1/2 not here yet

[gripper]

( kromer losing her shit )

2/2 okay. audio, un: Kromer

[gripper]

( okay, she's good. she's calm. she's got this. hi junpartner. )

I'll still help out however I can, Junpei, but I've gotta say... I learned a few things in the past few weeks, so I'm not really all that inclined to get back to where I'm from.

video, un: librarian

[worldexecute]

( okay unfortunately angela is also not really rushing to get back to her city either for complicated reasons, but she at least has more to contribute here than. the above.

she's in her office (read: a small room in her bookstore that's crowded as hell with knick-knacks she's been given, most prominent on her desk is a a silly mug. probably says like, "big duck energy" and has a rubber ducky on it or some shit) as well, though she is Not pulling the same stupid chair stunt as junpei. her chair is too big and comfy for that. )

I've been considering this may be a simulation myself, though what the point of it is remains to be seen.

( ... )

And... I suppose I have some experience with time travel, in a sense, yes. While I can't disclose much due to company confidentiality, ( also crimes against humanity and, uh, yeah ) I can say I'm familiar with it.

[coolerjunpei]

[Librarian... from the Library... and people think Junpei's naming sense is basic, hee hee. User Name Junpei judging where he has no room to, again--]

Oh yeah? [He perks up!! Here meaning he sort of half sits up and then gives up and flops back down. This is the time traveler rep....] So do you know about the other histories, or are you a one-quantum-direction-only type?

@DONQUIXOT3, video ofc

[icanfixer]

[ on cue, ]

If thou hath suffered a concussion, I can help. I have had the same affliction before.

[ as a note!!! hi bestie ]

As ever, though, I agree it is a simulation! It would make the most sense, given thine experience and knowledge of it. I simply do not know how we may "break out" of it.

[ ... she doesn't look at other people's conversations, how is she to know the above... ]

[coolerjunpei]

[bestie. thanks as always for the unyielding support.]

I'm probably not concussed, [.....,] but what am I supposed to do if I am? Not go to sleep, right?

[He is on team #donesty so he doesn't necessarily agree with that bold accusation up there quite yet, so in the meantime--]

If you want to help me try and clip through the walls and get past the fog, I've got some interested parties. Uh, I think. It'll kill an afternoon, anyway.

Text | Un: Ouroborosed

[inlovewithmycar]

Leaning more towards this being a pocket dimension, personally, but to each their own.

Also time travel is very real. Or it was. Once we wrapped up pre-aging the planets, we had to install a closed-loop failsafe mechanism into time in case the humans ever figured out time travel and turned the universe into an oodleplex of paradoxes.

Nowadays it's just starting and stopping - no going back and forth unless you're real high up on the Heavenly pecking order.

Gonna go out on a limb and say that people in your world figured out a work-around?

[coolerjunpei]

you only get one history? damn, that's rough.

[He has... some feelings about the callous disregard of all the histories that aren't the potential Golden Timeline, but still - just one must suck! Maybe he's been a quantum leaper for too long.]

but uh no nobody figured it out on purpose, at least i don't think so. i guess i was kind of.....born like this? i didn't know i could do it until about a year ago, though.

un: hidden | audio

[matermali]

[ Time travel? She'll pass that buck. ]

Have so many halted their escape attempts?

[ She shouldn't judge, as she has been in a situation with a broken spirit, too. Not this time though, pal. ]

I have been attempting to find ways through at various points in the barrier, though I'm certain no one is surprised to hear that I've found no success.

[ Okay she's going to regret this but: ]

—goo pods?

[coolerjunpei]

[why doesn't anyone want to play with him in this space (and time)]

I don't know about everyone else, I'm kind of out of it. My... people, I guess, keep vanishing every time we try to build a drone or make a plan or whatever. So now I'm shopping around. You want to take another pass at the barrier? I'm free.

[Grim... mostly because his homies keep disappearing from the city, more than the grimness of being here for so many months on end. At least this place could let him keep his homies... sigh, woe, etc.]

As for the goo pods, it's in this movie. Everyone's in a goo pod with a bunch of tubes and a computer hooked up to them and they live in a simulation until this one guy- [heheh] -breaks the system. Buuut none of us have big hackerman powers now that Wr-- uh, that one anonymous guy is gone. At least, I don't know them.

...So yeah. Goo pods.

video; un: rabbit_ebrooks

[reaperrabbit]

L.M.A.O. Dork.

[brOOK that is RUDE and he potentially has no room to talk, what with willingly saying LMAO out loud.]

You still alive?

[coolerjunpei]

[Thanks buddy!! Junpei gives a thumbs up from where he remains sprawled on the ground, once he gets his phone back in hand.]

I'm good. Probably not concussed but still waiting. You know, you can just laugh like a normal person.

@keter, audio

[gradenine]

That happened to me last month too. The fog. I dunno how to explain it.

[ IT WAS NOT A GOOD TIME, BESTIE ]

Also, what the hell kinda movies have you been watching. You're letting it get to you, man.

[coolerjunpei]

[oh good his besties are all accounted for now, he doesn't need to add to his mental sadness chart,]

You know if you go in on purpose it'll spit you out again in the same spot? Bullshit.

[Now as for his great taste in films--]

That one's a classic. The simulation's barely a weird theory!

@samsa, video

[anthropophagite]

Ah-- are you alright?

[coolerjunpei]

[Hey dude, have a thumbs up!! From here on the floor, after a minute, once Junpei rolls over to get his phone.]

I'm... conscious? No, I'm good. Something definitely cracked in this chair, though.

text; un: armand

[rescinded_vow]

I know nothing of time travel other than theories, but I have seen this simulation theory mentioned before. My question however is: Have we been brought here completely? Are we missing from our own worlds?

[ This has uh, become rather relevant to his continued sanity. ]

[coolerjunpei]

i've got it on good authority that if we disappear from here and go back home, we go back to the same moment that we left. like "home" is waiting for us to get back.

[And he's chosen to believe this completely, because to believe otherwise - that he, the previously-quantum-leaper, has simply been swapped out with another version of himself and will never get out of here and no one has noticed him missing - is indeed too much. He's a believer in the On Pause theory.]

which means that time travel is absolutely real, but maybe not the other histories. for everybody.

audio; un: loveless

[limbical]

[SIGHS.] Do let me know if you get symptoms for a concussion, Junpei.

[coolerjunpei]

[Hi Daan, and also, sorry Daan... Junpei remains on video, so he can deliver his nth thumbs up from the floor.]

Will do, Doc. [...,] Remind me what those are?

( voice ) un: 46

[cranekin]

Eh? You're a time traveler?

(How interesting.)

Where have you been?

(Let him get some feelers out before he confirms or denies his own experiences.)

still video...always video

[coolerjunpei]

Well, it's not like the movies... Uh, it's not like every movie.

[Junpei's copyright-free summary of Back to the Future as previously originated by his gf incoming-- no, not yet. Maybe later.]

I mostly go to the same place I'm already in, just replacing the 'me' in another history. So something like... 'the history where the coin flip was heads,' maybe.

video; un: ayana

[androphobe]

[Well she doesn't LIKE responding to a guy, but--

She raises a hand as if waiting for a teacher to call on her]

Well, the simulation thing is probably true. I was in one before I came here, but I still look exactly like I did there.

[coolerjunpei]

Oh yeah? Now we're getting somewhere! You had an avatar or whatever? On purpose, I mean.

[He is going to... write this down, actually, so excuse his camera work going horribly for a moment as he flops himself around on the floor of this conference room to find a pad of paper and a pen.]

@vogel, video.

[halbird]

[ username junpei........ is continuing the trend of walking the tightrope of sanity and concerning username vogel, who also walks that tightrope.

but, uh, nice to see junpei's okay. or, well, maybe not? there's so much here, but emil mostly has to focus on— ]

H-hello? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?

[ DID HE SHIFT ]

[coolerjunpei]

[god if only he could shift by falling out of chairs, this shit would be soooo easy

But. Username junpei is absolutely probably fine... or at least he's only channeling his problems in to conspiracy theories about wall textures. He's definitely fine here on the floor, where is when he gets the video back on, giving a thumbs up way too close to the phone before he picks it up again.

sooo hey,]

You should see the other guy. [....,] Which is, uh, this chair. I'm fine!

video, un: netzach

[abstractart]

[sup. he's painting, while he answers this, but his work's not in view.]

Messing with time's definitely real.

I'm not really the type for theories and stuff, that kinda goes over my head at some points... but I guess I've wondered if it's just always been us. If any time we think somebody else might've been here before, it was us, and we just don't remember.

[coolerjunpei]

[Hey homie, Junpei is on the floor now once he's got the phone in hand again. He has given up on moving from this spot for at least another hour.

He is, however, HYPE for this theory!!]

Oh yeah, the memory loss theory! I thought that's what was going on back when our old stuff starting showing up in the bank... That was pretty early on. It really felt like a hint...

[And now that he thinks about it, did anything ever disprove it? Not... really. Memloss theory is still on the menu.]

video

[aceslow]

Magic, time travel, simulations... why not? It doesn't seem as though anything is impossible here.

[ Which is to say, no, he hasn't experienced any of it back home, but he's willing to believe it now. What the hell, right? ]

I'm no paranormal investigator, but I've at least been trying to keep track of the laws of this place, to see if there's any hints there. Not that I've had any luck. I'd still like to try to get a birds-eye view of the place, though. If it's a simulation and the rest has yet to... load, or whatever, that would be something of a lead.

[coolerjunpei]

[That's the spirit!! Anyway, huh, a birds-eye view is the magic word, as Junpei perks up some from where he's now on the floor—]

Do you know how to build a drone? My drone team keeps disappearing on me, so...

video — un: munson

[thefreak]

Whoa, time travel? Have people actually experienced that? That's so fucking cool. ( Eddie looks excited and is imagining Back To The Future right about now. ) The closest I've experienced is an alternate dimension version of my town stuck in the year 1983. But I don't think that was time travel.

( He considers the other questions. The thought of trying to brave through the fog gives him the creeps. It reminds him too much of the Upside Down.

And then Junpei completely falls off his chair, sending Eddie into giggles. That’s probably rude, but he needed a laugh after last month. He clears his throat and pulls himself together into a more neutral expression. ) Ahem. It could still be a simulation or, I don't know, some kind of experiment with us as guinea pigs. If it turned out to be a simulation, though, what then? Would knowing even make a difference?

[coolerjunpei]

[Another point for Junpei amusing the people, he supposes... The video comes back on to him on the floor, still not having rolled away from his collapsed chair and cleaned any of this up, but like, so it goes. This is just how things are sometimes.]

Let me tackle those in reverse, I guess, so uh... Three: yeah, I think so. If we know how this place works we can start making it work for us, you know? You can't break the rules until you know what the rules are. I've been around this block before.

[Kinda-sorta-ish. Never mind.]

Two: if you ask me, 'experiment' is a given. I have to agree with that.

One: you're from the 80s? That's forever ago. But that means... Well, for me, time travel is more like what happens to that kid in that movie with the car and the professor. [yeah it's literally Back to the Future they're both thinking about, actually,] You know it?

un: yukixoxo, video

[unimportant]

Oof.

[ yeah that tip over gets an empathic wince... careful boy! yuki is just sitting on the ground cross legged next to her bed, hand on her cheek as she hums and ponders all that he's laid out. ]

Simulation makes the most sense to me. Though the weirdest part so far is how people I know are dead or otherwise... locked away, for lack of a better term, are appearing here too. And from different time periods as well! Unless we're just being picked off from a sliding scale of timelines, but that kind of creeps me out.

[coolerjunpei]

[Thanks, that's more sympathy than some people are giving him... He's fine, on the floor now, but Fine. He will not be getting up.]

Sounds like you're not from a place where time travel is real. [If it's creepy... well, he supposes it could still be creepy, but he's coping.] I'm pretty sure whenever we're from doesn't matter here. The year and all that, I mean. Maybe this place is outside regular time—a simulation could do that easily.

Uh, is that better or worse?

video; un: yesod

[wordchain]

[ Leaning back like that was unlikely to end well, but at least it seems that Junpei has recovered to continue his discussion... ]

I take it that the drone project remains on hold. The view from the carnival's ferris wheel was also limited.

[ And since Angela and Netzach have already contributed to the conversation around the "realm of quantum-y goodness," Yesod won't repeat the same information. ]

[coolerjunpei]

[Greetings Purple Guy, he's doing just fine here on the floor. It's great actually.]

Well, Wrench disappeared like a month ago... He was my big tech guy in, soooo. I'm recruiting some more. Or, uh, trying. Glad to see you didn't up and disappear, though.

[Sigh, one more disappeared pal, woe,] What's the ferris wheel view like?