aren't you glad this was the first video post

[britbrat]

[ Badgernet's video function is broken in today by a disconcertingly close-up pair of blue eyes and a muffled: ]

- oh, blast -

[ Some fiddling and repositioning later, the eyes are revealed to belong to a boy no older than eleven, wearing an unusually green suit and an expression of astonishment. ]

I say, this really is a marvelous little device, isn't it? Right, then:

[ He straightens up to his full height of... not very tall, rearranging his face into a practiced superciliousness. ]

It's all well and good to go around claiming to be angels and devils and what have you, but clearly this gadget's more than just an elaborate typewriter, isn't it? I suggest you all show yourselves! Look, I've done so first, as a gesture of goodwill.

[ And definitely not because he hit the video button by accident while snooping! Luckily(?), internet stranger danger isn't a concept in his time yet, so he continues: ]

And shall we take a roll call while we're at it? You may call me Valmont, and at present I am located in San Francisco, in the year 1976 A.D. Are all of you people really from the future - ?

Who are you talking to, sweetie?

Oh, double blast -

[ A hasty rearranging of the camera view, and a brief close-up of the inside of an expensive suit pocket, before the feed turns off. ]

Comments

[lightnovelexperiences]

I mean.

When I claim to be a foxgirl punchwizard it's really only in the context of an MMO.

[britbrat]

[ Well, he's certainly not going to stand around video-ing at someone who won't video back. Valmont switches to text mode and spends a minute getting the hang of his new phone's keyboard. Wow, these letters are tiny. ]

If you insist on using what I assume to be future or otherworldly terminology, you might at least explain its meaning for the uninitiated. And I am giving you the benefit of the doubt by not assuming that you're speaking gibberish. What is an MMO?

[lightnovelexperiences]

Fair cop, I'm from my Earth's 2047. I think that massively multiplayer online games were from, like, the 1990's though? Once we had a mature-ish or at least Wild West-level Internet.

I don't suppose you know what a roleplaying game is?

[britbrat]

A satisfactory explanation, although I'm still not entirely clear on what an 'Internet' might be in the first place. It's something like the network on which we're currently communicating, correct?

Roleplaying game? Do you mean like that 'Dungeons and something' I've heard talk of?

[lightnovelexperiences]

[and on the other side of the screen comes a deep exasperated sigh from someone who likes indie RPGs.]

Basically computer game versions of them with hundreds of thousands of players at once, mediated through a network a lot like the one this website is on, yes.

[britbrat]

[ Look, D&D's only been out for two years, it's impressive that he's heard of it at all okay ]

Hundred of thousands? It all sounds rather... complicated. So you mean to say that when you engage in this game, you take on the role of a 'foxgirl punchwizard'? And this sort of thing is common, in the future?

[lightnovelexperiences]

Technically the name of the class and kith is "Vulpecian Invoker," but my latest character for Another World Online is in fact a female fox-like humanoid who channels magic into hitting harder with barehanded attacks.

One of my friends basically plays herself as a knight type. Human Oathsworn to a sun goddess. My roommate plays a catgirl thief.

I'm not sure I'd say it's, like, the most popular past-time on Earth? But it's common enough, and most people play video games even if they don't play ones with that large of a playerbase. You get everything from single player to 1 v 1 to 5 v 5 team modes to 64 man deathmatches to half a million dudes on a server at once pretending to be foxfolk, cats, dragons, flying potatoes and superintelligent shades of blue.

[britbrat]

How utterly involved. I don't suppose it's possible to play using one of these devices, is it?

[ Because while this does definitely sound like a pastime for the common people... it's also a future pastime, and he's curious. ]