OMG THANK YOU FOR READING!! And aaaahhhh for noticing and commenting on the type of time travel! Not gonna lie, I’m pretty proud of the mechanics of it and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it anywhere else (unless I read it somewhere and completely forgot about that fact - entirely possible, I have the memory of a sieve). I am also obsessed with time travel and knew I wanted to do something with Stobotnik for it, but had been mulling over what to write while I was working on GP. Then I saw this picture of a software engineer from the 1980s and it like, ignited my brain and I was like WHAT ABOUT YOUNG ROBOTNIK??? I sort of started with the premise of him missing 3 days of memories as the reason to build a time machine in the first place because otherwise I don’t think even he is willing to mess with the possibility of screwed up timelines or the universe exploding (Which I also think is something unique to Robotnik’s character as there’s not a lot of others in the any fandom who would be smart enough to actually build a time machine and have it be plausible lmao). I love thinking about the implications time travel has on free will and choice. I wish I could have got more into it in this one, but I didn’t want to bog the story down too much in philosophical discussion haha. Plus I like the idea that because neither Stone nor Robotnik had any idea what happened during those three days, Stone only has the memory of Robotnik being back in his office at the end as the potential only condition for him being able to go home. And I think that Stone, unlike young Ivo, is not someone willing to test out theories that may get him stranded in an alternate timeline or something if he misses the window of opportunity.
The scientific reasoning actually came a lot later in writing this story. Originally, I think i was going to handwave it as Robotnik fucking up the invention. But then I was trying to wrack my brain about how Stone would be sent back (e.g. terminator style naked hahah) with his stuff and also have it return so that there was effectively no trace of him being in 1988 (well, unless someone took a picture or wrote a second-hand account). Then I was like, wait, Robotnik wouldn’t let himself go back naked lmao and it could work with the same reasoning for him losing the memories in the first place. The rest of the solution with like, the time and space targeting of Ivo sort of made more sense from there. The time loop isn’t complete until the moment Stone returns in 2023, therefore nothing on the molecular level that he takes back can remain in 1988, including his cash and stuff and any memories of him with other people. I like to think that those agents wrote a report and then lost the memories like a day and a half later and GUN was left with this unexplained cryptid occurrence (I wonder if their brains try and make up a story instead, or invent new memories to describe what Stone looked like cause the human brain is weird like that. I reckon Ivo only lost all his memories because he was with Stone the whole time). Makes me laugh to think that Leaf and Bark are going to get those horrifying memories back in 2023 while they’re chilling in retirement hahahaha.
Baby Ivo was a joy to write. The sunburn moment is auto-biographical hahahhaha so sorry Ivo, but he had to suffer the same fate I did as a redhead. Ahhh I feel so blessed that you loved this so much (and cried!?!?!?! Hopefully not too much)! <3 Thank you so much for reading and leaving me this wonderful comment <3 <3 Happy new year!
Comment on That’s not how time travel works
Jakallx Wed 31 Dec 2025 12:04PM UTC
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