Ret-Gone/Web Original
< Ret-Gone
Examples of Ret-Gone in Web Original include:
- SCP Foundation:
- SCP-268 is half this trope, half Unperson. Instead of only erasing records or removing people from history, the wearer is erased from all memories after prolonged use and becomes practically invisible to everyone, but paper and digital records remain.
- When the writer Fishmonger was banned from the site, he demanded that all of his content (which included some of the more iconic SCPs and stories) be purged from the site, to the point where none of them are even mentioned anymore.
- Also, SCP-3999, an evil creature with near-godlike Reality Warping powers and seemingly infinite cruelty. Presumably created (or at least discovered) by the Level-3 researcher James Taloran, the SPC broke free and mercilessly tortured Taloran in a variety of ways, including changing reality to cause Taloran's family to be executed by firing squad, then their corpses nailed to a wall and then set on fire, all while forcing the poor researcher to watch. Only some forensic evidence of its existence at the destroyed containment site remains, leading the Foundation to believe Taloran somehow managed to create a Grandfather Paradox that eradicated himself and SCP-3999;
- In the Paradise setting, humans are randomly, permanently changed into Funny Animals by causes unknown—and some are gender-switched at the same time. As the "Reality Distortion Field" that keeps these changes Invisible to Normals begins to wind down, gender-bent Changed discover all extant documentation about themselves is retconned as reality itself is edited to reflect their new gender. Their driver's licenses and other identification have newly-feminine names, and all photos all the way back to when they were babies will show a girl instead of a boy (or vice versa). Hence, as far as the world is concerned, the character's original gender is "Ret-Gone"—records will show that the former "he" has always been a "she" (or vice versa). (Memories of those who knew them before are not affected, however. Also, while people who already know them will continue to see them as their original gender, strangers they meet will see them as the new one.)
- Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction hangs a lampshade on this concept: after the Reds delete the Blues from the Command database, Caboose disappears. Simmons panics, thinking he may have deleted Caboose from existence. Turns out Caboose was just using the bathroom.
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Grif: Come on dude, tell us more about the reality bending computer. I'm hanging on your every word. |
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- Taken Up to Eleven in The Book of Stories (Original Character Tournament), where the Book's Unwriting could make not only individuals go Ret-Gone, but also to worlds and possibly to reality itself.
- Back to Ret-Gone