028. [Text]

[explosivecombat]

[Well. The previous night's sleep was absolutely hideous, for reasons that Kimblee really doesn't want to discuss, especially not with the network as a whole; however, the lack of contact with people is possibly the last thing he wants.

So. Polling the audience time again. Let's do this thing.]

While I know that this world has a tendency to pull some strange sorts of mayhem when it comes to bringing people here, have any of the rest of you found people from a different version of the world you came from? I'm not talking about different points on the timeline - though if any of you have experienced anything particularly strange on that front, I'm interested in hearing about that as well. What I'm referring to are instances of the world being identical up to a point, and the subsequent differences led to the timeline of your world and the timeline of this alternate version being entirely different.

From what I understand, this can lead to things such as another version of you living out an alternate version of your life; an example of what things might have been, if you made different choices. I know that it's a popular theory, philosophically, but have any of you received irrefutable evidence that that's the case in whatever reality you came from?

Because I have.

Comments

[doubleornothing]

I wouldn't put too much stock into it. Fate had merely dealt twelve others and myself a difficult hand. Mine was a dismal domicile; a dreary dwelling for those who had lost their hearts and merely eked on as shells of their former selves. It was quite dull.

[explosivecombat]

Were you tasked to do anything in this dismal domicile of yours, or was it simply something you were expected to deal with because the world deemed it so?

[doubleornothing]

More of the latter than the former, though I had my part to play in the game as well. A pawn moves to the whims of the player; what he desires is of little concern.

[explosivecombat]

Yes and no - what the pawn desires is of little concern until the day he decides that he desires to no longer be a pawn in the first place.

[doubleornothing]

Every game needs pawns. And in the end, aren't we all subject to the greatest puppet mistress of them all? Fate is a difficult and fickle mistress to please; she deals you a hand and expects you to play by the rules of the game. But what exactly are the rules? And what is the game? When all is mired in mystery and masked from sight, aren't we all merely stumbling along with every pull of her strings in a masque ball, held to honor the machinations of Fate, with all of existence dancing to her whimsical waltzes?

A pawn may advance to be a Queen and even topple the King, but in the end the pawn is still subject to the hand that moves it. Many perish for their dreams, but only a chosen few reach the precipice. The best laid plans are nothing more than childish fancies in the face of Fate's games.

[explosivecombat]

Ah, but that line of thinking relies on the existence of Fate in the first place. I won't deny that there are certain...powers-that-be, let's call them, that keep us in line, as otherwise we would have found ways to break reality; however, I don't believe that the will of the world extends so far as to dictate our actions - those are our own, otherwise we wouldn't have people attempting to break reality to begin with. I've seen my share of those who have tried.

[doubleornothing]

But that's the rub. How do you know if it was Fate's calling for you to embark on your journey, or an action you made out of your own volition. You could even say that Fate had placed you in a certain household, to live a certain upbringing, all so that once you were grown you had come to adopt a certain mindset and outlook on life.

What we perceive as 'challenging Fate' is actually nothing of that nature at all. You merely swim against a current set none other by your fellow man. After all, who determines the limitations and possibilities of man, but man himself? Fate said nothing of what you can do; she merely nudges you in her own subtle ways of what you were meant to do.