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Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:I add to that that if you contact us, stating that you do intend to write your own story, we, the Metaguards, categorically agree not to write stories for you ourselves, so that, in the absence of any alternative, Mr. Administrator will have no choice but to elevate your story to canon.

Mr. Administrator wrote:THIS IS AN ADMIRABLE EFFORT. IF WE CAN FIND A WAY TO BRING THE CABAL TO THEIR SENSES, THIS CRISIS WILL BE RESOLVED.

Dear Erik,

To begin, I would like to say thank you. You came to us and spoke to us as human beings, believing us both rational and capable of understanding an emotional plea. I hope this is the beginning of many further talks. I know there’s a pretty good chance you’re just trying to appeal to our emotions but you still make relevant points.

This whole thing has bothered a great many of us for a while. We do not relish the idea of causing suffering to any of you. On the contrary we are very fond of the fictionals who came through. That's arguably why they had the strength to come through in the first place. The Wicked Witch might be... well, wicked, but I’d be lying if I said she was a thoughtless employer. Adam is kind, noble, and talented, easily deserving of accolades. Sherlock Holmes and Poirot have actually saved lives while here, something their own writers could never have hoped for. And then of course there’s Morgana, and Moriarty, who love each other...

I'm glad you have acknowledged that we do NOT relish the idea of taking that away from you. We do not relish the idea of sending Romeo and Juliet to die, or Adam back into a place where he is called A Monster. The very idea of it hurts like a hole in the head. My brain is constantly at war between my inner writer, and my humanity. But right now, I’m doing something that I, again, have always had to struggle with: confronting my moral, personal desires with logic. It’s really hard. Please be patient with me. I’m not a naturally logical person. I think with my heart, first and I don't always think things through enough before I do them. You could call me Sicon’s opposite number in a way, although I'm very fond of him, and it seems we often come to similar conclusions anyway. Go figure.

I don’t wish to repeat anything that other letters have already said. I would like to mention that I take similar attitudes to Dryunya with regards to your attitude towards this world being the ultimate reality, and any world we created for you being a prison: in short you don't know that. And similar attitudes to Sicon with regards to your lines ‘would you condemn so many on an uncertainty?’ – If you are wrong and your existence here does harm our world, then you are condemning far more than we would be. That’s the ultimate equation in all this. Can you honestly ask us to risk our entire world based on your desires and word alone? Would you kill an entire country just to save a single child, even if you werent 100% sure it would make a difference? Perhaps you would, if it was your child... but we can’t do that, sir . I’m genuinely sorry, but we can’t. We just can’t take the risk. Mister A probably knows that, of course... now all we can hope for is his honesty.

However this is also where you have your most valid point: we DO require proof from Mister A that the damage he claims is occurring IS occurring. If it were not the case... I would oh so happily let all of you stay, and admittedly not entirely for unselfish reasons. I want to see Adam’s play on stage. I want Sherlock and Poirot to be able to solve their crimes and improve peoples lives regardless of where they are, I want Romeo to grow up and figure out what this love thing is really about. I want Juliet to go home, as she wishes, and become a painter and, more importantly, I want all of them to live. Because regardless of how they began, as stories or otherwise, you are alive. You always were. That's the power of fiction, that's what draws people to stories in the first place - they show us another world, where anything is possible.

I also draw attention to your line: It is not our character, but our context that defines who we are.

...This is true to an extent. After all, to use an extreme hypothetical example, if you have a woman who murders her child because she hates being a parent and wants her social life back, she is obviously far more morally questionable and deserving of punishment, than a woman who kills her child during a terrible famine where it is going to starve anyway, and her religious orientation means that she believes he will be reincarnated and returned to her in better times (I got that idea from a book). The latter could strike as just as evil, or at least as ridiculous, but the moral centre of the woman completely changes the context. This is true.

But your idea is still flawed. It is NOT just your context that defines who you are, Erik. It is what you DO with your context. Who you were or are now does not change our dilemma.

You have admitted that you and the Cabal made mistakes since you got here. So have we. We made assumptions based on what little we knew, but OUR assumptions of your guilt were spawned FROM your actions here in the real world, not what you did in a book. Your actions have consequences. That does not change just because you are no longer being penned on paper. If you can stay will you be willing to take responsibility for those letters? Responsibility for any less than positive acts you have done?

I am sorry your life was as hard as it was. Perhaps that was because your original writer wished to create a specific horror for which your existence was the price, or perhaps you already WERE in existence, and your writer merely channelled your being into their fiction via some kind of... natural, almost psychic ability, the thing that you and we alike would call ‘inspiration’ (in which case your point about being controlled in that world may also be flawed –it all depends on which way the power was flowing and we cannot know the source of your writer's inspiration anymore than you). But you likewise cannot hide from your responsibilities. Too many people in our past have used, for example ‘the devil told me to do it’ or ‘I was coerced by my employers’ or ‘I was just doing my job’ as an excuse for their crimes.

However it is not strictly that which motivates us now so much as the fact that we still have no choice. This has already been mentioned to you by others. We have no proof either way of Mister A’s trustworthiness. There is only one thing which has changed in your transferrence between your world and ours - in that world you were a villain, albeit a sympathetic one. Here, you are just another man. From black and white, to grey and slightly darker grey.

We ask then, that you try to provide us with proof – evidence that you are not damaging the world. I admit I am aware that this is a very difficult for you to do, perhaps impossible and I'm sorry to ask it of you, but again: what else do you expect us to do? Likewise we will question Mister A for proof of his own. In the meantime... perhaps, if the others are willing, we CAN adjust our current methods. We already wish to open dialogues with you guys. We can request that those who WISH to return home be sent back first by our refictionalisation efforts. This alone should buy both us and you some time.

There are words I read once in a book written by a man whose stories have always been very important to me, and those words have remained with me ever since.

1. This is not a game.
2. Here and now, you are alive.

We are not just playing a game here, sir. I’m sorry. I really do hope you can provide the proof of what you claim. We are grateful for this attempt at communication and perhaps it’s not too late for either side?

Sincerely,
Scarab

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:I add to that that if you contact us, stating that you do intend to write your own story, we, the Metaguards, categorically agree not to write stories for you ourselves, so that, in the absence of any alternative, Mr. Administrator will have no choice but to elevate your story to canon.

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:Yankee, remember, I'm not suggesting we don't send them back.
I'm suggesting that if they're willing to send themselves back, then we won't interfere.

(And if inspiration strikes, go ahead and write your story-- just don't pass it on to Mr. A)

Qara-Xuan Zenith wrote:(This letter is in response to Erik's email to us, but applies to all fictionals)

Dear Erik (and others),

Having read your letter, I and my colleagues were deeply touched by your plight.

And your argument is sound; while I still trust Mr. Administrator's insistence that your presence in this world tears at the fabric of our reality, it remains unconscionable to forcibly return you to a world, and a story, that you deem to be a prison.

Therefore, I have a proposition to make, which I feel must be optimal for everyone involved.

As you no doubt are aware, if you have-- as I suspect (with no hard feelings) is the case-- been monitoring our forums, the process for sending your kind to your own worlds is by creating a piece of fiction starring yourselves, set in your world, with a satisfying ending (or lack thereof), the best of which will then be "elevated to canon" and made real by Mr. Administrator.

My suggestion, therefore, is this: I offer you the opportunity to write your own stories. If you do so, you would have as much or more freedom of self-determination as you have in this world, with the added benefits that we would no longer be working at cross-purposes, and that the destruction of all reality would no longer be imminent.

I add to that that if you contact us, stating that you do intend to write your own story, we, the Metaguards, categorically agree not to write stories for you ourselves, so that, in the absence of any alternative, Mr. Administrator will have no choice but to elevate your story to canon.

I understand that you are suspicious of Mr. Administrator, and may fear that he will not be honest with you or us. It has been suggested by one of my associates that you may fear Mr. Administrator will lie to us, saying that the process will not work if you yourself write your own story. Therefore, I provide to you another option of recourse: As I have heard you are aware, we now have a chatroom. While the chatroom itself is public, private chats between two members are totally private and unlogged. If you wish to write your own story, but do not want Mr. Administrator to know that it is you who write it, then contact me or another known Metaguard (I will try to update this post with a list of those who are willing to aid you in this way) in this manner with your intention. I (or whomever you contact) will make sure everyone is aware of the moratorium on attempting a story for you, and will submit your story to Mr. Administrator under my own name, so that he will not declare it invalid on the basis of some grudge between himself and you.

I hope this suggestion proves amenable to everyone; please be sure to contact us with all due speed if you intend to take us up on our offer.

Sincerely,
Qara-Xuan