$5 -- video;
[Anya is wearing a cute little sundress because she’s reporting from one of the beaches of Mon Cal. Behind her stands Andrew with a large screen thing and some sort of electronic marker. He is helping.]
Hello fellow dimensionally-displaced persons! I have noticed a lot of new people, and, well, not-so-new people too have expressed confusion about how all this is possible. How can we possibly be living in a Star Wars movie and spending time with fictional characters like Wolverine? And even if none of the people you meet exist in works of fiction, it’s very clear they don’t come from your world. Or mine, specifically.
[Andrew takes this moment to scrawl a very crude stick drawing of Wolverine with great attention drawn to the claws. This is him being simultaneously professional and a fanboy. Look, Wolverine is important.]
And that’s not even including the people who are from the future and find it necessary to tell you about horrible things that are going to happen to you. [Not that she’s... bitter. Whatever. Have a forced grin to cover it. Then she continues.
In the background, Andrew coughs and writes “Rule #1: Don’t ever tell anyone about their future” at the very top of the board. And underlines it. Twice.]
My former job as a vengeance demon allowed me to travel between dimensions fairly frequently, not to mention use them to punish men in various horrible ways. There are an infinite amount of these dimensions, some vastly different from our own, some nearly exactly the same. For instance, there’s the universe of perpetual Tuesday, and the upside-down dimension, and the universe entirely without shrimp. Not to mention the many heavenly and hellish dimensions that can be found. Apparently souls sometimes go to those when you die. [Shrug.
Andrew has written something about “Hell dimensions = bad” and something about Groundhog Day Paradoxes in a corner. Don’t even ask. He’s a college freshman note-taker and this will all make sense to him. His drawing of a dancing groundhog is a nice touch though.]
It’s very difficult for humans to wrap their brains around these alternate dimensions, so just try and stay with me. These dimensions are all very, very tightly packed together. You’re probably touching several, though you’d never know it. But touching isn’t the same as traveling between them. That requires some sort of portan, and the energy to open one of those is... a lot. Hitting the correct one at the correct time takes a lot of difficult math and concentration. That’s why people so rarely come from exactly the same time, and why upon return, no time will have passed. Apparently.
[An extremely complicated equation is drawn out in very large letters under the note about not telling people about their future. Andrew stares at it, erases some bits, adds some bits, and then finally scribbles “The math is really more theoretical” underneath it. His head hurts.]
There are three other questions I will address. One, the whole fictional part, two, why there are people from other dimensions with identical faces to other, unrelated people, and three, why there are so many people from certain dimensions and so few from others.
[Rule #2: NEVER TELL SOMEONE THEY MIGHT BE FICTIONAL. Underlined. Circled. And enthusiastically pointed at. Andrew is very intense about this rule. Possibly because... He has always held true to the belief that somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, all his so-called fictional heroes are real.]
It’s unsurprising that the same faces appear in different universes. It makes sense. There are a lot of different faces that can be made with the current gene pool, but there aren’t infinite possibilities for genetic make-up, and there are infinite worlds. Doppelgangers are to be expected. Why they tend to show up here where there aren’t infinite people can probably be explained by the same reason Revan tends to bring so many people from certain worlds and not any from others. Transporting people across universe boundaries takes a lot of power and a lot of very complicated math to make sure you don’t screw up. Transporting a person or from a place you’ve done it before saves a lot of energy. I myself used to reuse dimensions all the time when I could get away with it. It’s simply easier. Especially the shrimp world. I don’t know why. [Another shrug. Dimensions are weird. So are shrimp.
At this point, Andrew’s zoned out and doodling shrimp next to the groundhog. He understands the importance of Anya’s discussion. Really. He does.]
The fictional part can be explained by dimensional leakage. I suspect either there is no such thing as imagination, and all fiction is created by people who manage to glimpse into other dimensions, or alternate universes are created when someone writes a fictional work. Most likely, it’s some sort of combination, or something else entirely different.
I think that’s it. Any other questions?
[RULE #3: DON’T HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. PLEASE. ….He points at it, makes sure everyone sees it, and then quickly erases it. Seriously, Anya, he adores you, but you’re turning into Buffy with the speechiness... Granted, this is educational... But still. His arm is cramping.]
Hello fellow dimensionally-displaced persons! I have noticed a lot of new people, and, well, not-so-new people too have expressed confusion about how all this is possible. How can we possibly be living in a Star Wars movie and spending time with fictional characters like Wolverine? And even if none of the people you meet exist in works of fiction, it’s very clear they don’t come from your world. Or mine, specifically.
[Andrew takes this moment to scrawl a very crude stick drawing of Wolverine with great attention drawn to the claws. This is him being simultaneously professional and a fanboy. Look, Wolverine is important.]
And that’s not even including the people who are from the future and find it necessary to tell you about horrible things that are going to happen to you. [Not that she’s... bitter. Whatever. Have a forced grin to cover it. Then she continues.
In the background, Andrew coughs and writes “Rule #1: Don’t ever tell anyone about their future” at the very top of the board. And underlines it. Twice.]
My former job as a vengeance demon allowed me to travel between dimensions fairly frequently, not to mention use them to punish men in various horrible ways. There are an infinite amount of these dimensions, some vastly different from our own, some nearly exactly the same. For instance, there’s the universe of perpetual Tuesday, and the upside-down dimension, and the universe entirely without shrimp. Not to mention the many heavenly and hellish dimensions that can be found. Apparently souls sometimes go to those when you die. [Shrug.
Andrew has written something about “Hell dimensions = bad” and something about Groundhog Day Paradoxes in a corner. Don’t even ask. He’s a college freshman note-taker and this will all make sense to him. His drawing of a dancing groundhog is a nice touch though.]
It’s very difficult for humans to wrap their brains around these alternate dimensions, so just try and stay with me. These dimensions are all very, very tightly packed together. You’re probably touching several, though you’d never know it. But touching isn’t the same as traveling between them. That requires some sort of portan, and the energy to open one of those is... a lot. Hitting the correct one at the correct time takes a lot of difficult math and concentration. That’s why people so rarely come from exactly the same time, and why upon return, no time will have passed. Apparently.
[An extremely complicated equation is drawn out in very large letters under the note about not telling people about their future. Andrew stares at it, erases some bits, adds some bits, and then finally scribbles “The math is really more theoretical” underneath it. His head hurts.]
There are three other questions I will address. One, the whole fictional part, two, why there are people from other dimensions with identical faces to other, unrelated people, and three, why there are so many people from certain dimensions and so few from others.
[Rule #2: NEVER TELL SOMEONE THEY MIGHT BE FICTIONAL. Underlined. Circled. And enthusiastically pointed at. Andrew is very intense about this rule. Possibly because... He has always held true to the belief that somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, all his so-called fictional heroes are real.]
It’s unsurprising that the same faces appear in different universes. It makes sense. There are a lot of different faces that can be made with the current gene pool, but there aren’t infinite possibilities for genetic make-up, and there are infinite worlds. Doppelgangers are to be expected. Why they tend to show up here where there aren’t infinite people can probably be explained by the same reason Revan tends to bring so many people from certain worlds and not any from others. Transporting people across universe boundaries takes a lot of power and a lot of very complicated math to make sure you don’t screw up. Transporting a person or from a place you’ve done it before saves a lot of energy. I myself used to reuse dimensions all the time when I could get away with it. It’s simply easier. Especially the shrimp world. I don’t know why. [Another shrug. Dimensions are weird. So are shrimp.
At this point, Andrew’s zoned out and doodling shrimp next to the groundhog. He understands the importance of Anya’s discussion. Really. He does.]
The fictional part can be explained by dimensional leakage. I suspect either there is no such thing as imagination, and all fiction is created by people who manage to glimpse into other dimensions, or alternate universes are created when someone writes a fictional work. Most likely, it’s some sort of combination, or something else entirely different.
I think that’s it. Any other questions?
[RULE #3: DON’T HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. PLEASE. ….He points at it, makes sure everyone sees it, and then quickly erases it. Seriously, Anya, he adores you, but you’re turning into Buffy with the speechiness... Granted, this is educational... But still. His arm is cramping.]