Erik's Email

[NeverSlender]

Jesus, shit like this reminds me why I left. As you managed to miss my point so spectacularly, have an internets.

No authors do not roll dice to determine what happens, but characters are the way they are because of the authors. Your right people do change. But not in their world. You think just because Sweeney's changed here, it'll be the same when he goes back. No. His story will not change. You can read the book, see the play, watch the film, it's the same as it always was. The stories wtitten to send them back won't change that. If they stay then they can change. To continue using him as an example, anyone can see that this world is having a positive effect on Sweeney Todd. Send him back and that all disappears.

As for staying in game, what happened to you? When were you ever against meta thinking?

Genuinely gonna try sleep now, even if I have to hit my head against the wall until I'm unconscious. Highly doubt I'll post another response.

[Tohrinha]

We have a chance to let them change, without the possible risk of letting them stay in this world. Writing them back across the wall will not send them back to their stories; the stories are meant to be set in their world, but this only stipulates a setting. We can change plot as we need. It will send the fictionals back into the fictional multiverse, but not into their universe of origin.

[Sicon112]

Jesus, shit like this reminds me why I left. As you managed to miss my point so spectacularly, have an internets.

No authors do not roll dice to determine what happens, but characters are the way they are because of the authors. Your right people do change. But not in their world. You think just because Sweeney's changed here, it'll be the same when he goes back. No. His story will not change. You can read the book, see the play, watch the film, it's the same as it always was. The stories wtitten to send them back won't change that. If they stay then they can change. To continue using him as an example, anyone can see that this world is having a positive effect on Sweeney Todd. Send him back and that all disappears.

As for staying in game, what happened to you? When were you ever against meta thinking?

Genuinely gonna try sleep now, even if I have to hit my head against the wall until I'm unconscious. Highly doubt I'll post another response.

First, about the sending them back thing, I think I see the problem. You haven't been watching the whole plot very carefully, so you probably missed where Mr. A said we just need to send them back to what amounts to a similar version of their world. Essentially, we are creating AU spinoffs of their stories with these refics, therefore, the original story holds no sway over the Sweeny that is here.

As to the stay in character thing, it's pretty much a given that all of us realize that there couldn't be an apocalypse, but there isn't any real point in bringing it up. You said it yourself, the GMs will do what they want with this game. Even if most of us don't cooperate, some of us are still gonna send in fics, and the GMs will use them if they want it to end that way. Normally, I do plenty of meta-think, but in this case, it really isn't useful at the moment. What this amounts to is trying to figure out where this plot is going. If the GMs end up passing out more evidence that the world will end, then we pretty much know where this is going. If we press them and evidence starts to appear for Erik's side, then hey, we know where it's going too.

It really amounts to a scientific theory. Try as hard as you can to disprove it, then, if you can't, hey, you got a theory.

[TheJester]

I side with him on this issue. I find the Cabal's motive's honorable and understandable. I don't trust Mr. Administrator enough to keep this up. I choose the Cabal's side. This means I am completely useless here. Well bye then.

[AMimsyBorogove]

To those who say that the characters in question are the mere toys of their authors, who have gained their freedom and now would metamorphose into something completely different, something they were not allowed to be before now, I give you this.

You who would assume that characters, their personalities, their hopes, their dreams, their goals, and their accomplishments are all meaningless arbitration and constructs devised by some omnipotent, authoring force thereby remove all purpose and meaning from those characters. Such people who would assume that a writer can simply "deny" his characters' ability to feel and think thereby also assume that no purpose exists in a story whatsoever. Such individuals have no reason to, and, dare I say, have no business in picking up a book to read. A tale is not some mere jumble of words in which a god imposes his whims upon helpless puppets. A tale is the story of living, reasoning beings who have their own hearts and their own minds. To call it otherwise is to deny the most fundamental tenets of that which we call literature.

[Dryunya]

Now for the danger to reality. This is a meta response.

Because of the fact that there may be a split, it is entirely possible that the ARG would end with characters still here. Then what? The GMs post a video or a forum topic saying "And then there was an apocalypse. The end". Nah. It's way beyond the budget. They have to have a plan b in case that happened. So the threat to reality is a load of bollocks. As for the echoes, they can't be detected by humans, only by layar. They are just there. They have no negative effect. They prove nothing.

I think I raised that point even before you left. The problem is, it works both ways. Just as the GMs can't destroy the world for meta-reasons, they can't leave the characters here, because they'd have to maintain the evidence of their presence. I've mentioned that they can make them disappear and keep a low profile, but that's not a perfect solution, and, as Erik showed with his play, not their intention (and even if it was, a talent like this would be noticeable). Which is why I say the characters won't stay in the long run. (Or they make a topic or a video saying "and they lived happily ever after. The end", which is pretty much the same as the apocalypse scenario.)

Also, about the echoes. For some reasons everyone assumes they are what harms reality. When I speak of the harmful effects, I mean the tropes, plots and Personal Rain Clouds. It is pretty much proven that all of this does bleed through, and that is dangerous. I don't even know what the echoes are to speculate upon their harm.