General Discussion

Just what it says on the tin. It's a fun hypothetical that doesn't get asked as much as it should.

Personally, I'd go back and record videos of old films. A surprising number of historic films only exist today in a sorry state. This is partly because, especially in the really early days of film, stuff was filmed on silver nitrate, which was super flammable to say the least; if a fire started in a storage area (or, unfortunately, a projection room), the films within were inevitably lost. Later, many early color films were reproduced for black and white television, and the original color copies were discarded afterwards, and reading about the amount of Technicolor Process 2 & 3 originals that got trashed by Technicolor themselves just for the sake of storage space made my heart ache a little bit. Even just bringing my phone (Google Pixel) back in time and recording a projection would be better quality than nothing.

I don't want to undermine the work of film restorers today. I've seen some incredible work done by film restoration workshops in theaters, from small releases for silent festivals to things as big as They Shall Not Grow Old and Apollo 11. But amazing pieces of film have been lost to flame, trash, and... time. It's a pity we can't appreciate the work of the people who made some of our favorite movie hits possible as much as a century later.

What about y'all? If you had a time machine, what would you do with it?

I would go back in time to 10 minutes ago when I still had a bowl of ramen.

Go back to see the dinosaurs, because I would love to see them alive and study their behaviors and movements. We only see them today in media through CGI and whatnot, so our brains are kinda set to imagine dinosaurs in "CGI", so I'd love to see a real one and how it reacts to the environment!

Go back and see the dinosaurs with my camera, adopt a microraptor, write down a bunch of stuff, then jump ahead to august 21st of this year, skipping summer entirely

Nothing. I'd honestly be way too scared of the butterfly effect and how it'll affect my life from that point on. I'd rather live without getting to see the past/future, than potentially destroy the universe.

I would come back to watch great battles like Trafalgar, Waterloo and The Battle of Britain!
Probably would like to see Titanic departing from Southampton too!

Ideally: Collecting pictures and documents from varying time periods, including the future.

Realistically: Going to the future to see new episodes of my favourite shows, watch new movies and play new games.
And also going back to the past whenever my social incompetenence screws me over, to try again.

bring early humans tea and see how they react. butterfly effect my heck i'm going to make my ancestors even further back drink england water

alternately, if i do care about the butterfly effect, travel forwards to august 25th, and escape reality in favor of JRPGs


also i'd probably want to join fr earlier than i did before either ruining reality or escaping reality

Oh my gosh, go back to the 1800s and go to some fancy ball in a lavish dress with my hair done up, and dance and let the fabric swish around like flower opening it’s petals to the breathe of spring!
Or dress up as a guy, cause man I also love 1800s men’s clothes, and start a fricking revolution in France, or chug some rum on a windowsill in Russian, or get a beautiful, witty girl with gorgeous hair to dance with me.
Maybe go back a tad bit further and see some Shakespeare at the Globe Theater
Or better yet preform Shakespeare even though that would be a lot in memorize

No matter what though, I’d steal some dresses, coats, and military uniforms cause man those are really beautiful and I love them

HOO BOY MY TIME HAS COME (Sorry for the wall of text)


You can travel anywhere:

I go back to the Mesozoic to enjoy all the majestic archosaurs in their natural time period. Then, I'll grab as many as humanely possible (The TARDIS is bigger on the inside!) and return to the present. Now, I have a small, but diverse non-avian dinosaur and/or pterosaur population!!

You can travel only to human history:

Welp, Cenozoic y'all!!! Probably travel some Megalania to the present. Plus the Volkswagen Beetle turtles as well. I just need my giant reptiles in the present. Maybe some mastodons as well, reverse some possible ecological problems. *Shrugs*

You can only travel to post CE history:

Alrgihty then, time to travel to Maya! I'd really like to learn more about the less upper-class people, due to less being known about them. It'd really be interesting to also see their economy, due to being an massive civilization with little/no money involved. Also, I'd enjoy the lovely art.

You can only travel to Anglocentric history:

Well, you're no fun :/ Well, anyways, time for my ultimate trolling behavior to kick in. First thing I'd do is to travel to either 1700's Britain or its colonies.

British Scenario: Travel like a pop! Before proceeding to screech my queerness out to the world. Considering no one knows what I'm saying due to modern American English being VERY different, everyone thinks I'm yelling out my cheerful strangeness about how I just don't want to kiss people along with some weird questioning of something. Hopefully I can't get arrested due to Time Traveler's Privilege. After that, I'd probably skidaddle over to London and be like "Yo, you know this Empire thing and whatnot is a really bad idea from where I'm from." Cue the confused looks while I make even more creepy foreshadowing remarks. Then I'd visit the Tower and enjoy the birds before disappearing to the present.

Colonial Scenario: (Dangit, unlike the main island, there are multiple colonies so ye multiple paragraphs) for someone who knows a ton about former British colonies, I sure do snark about them. Probably because I'm from the emo one, haha (Looking at you, America). Anyways, first things first is travel to the West Indies and do some sea-serpent spotting. Then, I'd give a TRYSS* to my mother's mother's relatives (Aka literally anyone with the surname Douglas or Hamilton). ("What. The. Freaking. Heck. Dude, out of literally ALL the reasons I could have these genetics, you doing this freaking thing was the worst way possible.) Then, considering Britain was just like "Okay I don't like gay people but I don't want to execute them either, so I'll just send them here." personality, I'd probably hang out with them to a moderate degree, and secretly troll the government by foreshadowing the generally more acceptant view in the future. Then I'd troll the government even more by literally calling out the racist/sexist/heteronormative viewpoint, before backflipping out if anyone attempts to attack me. Now, considering it is around the 1760's now, time to visit the colony that would be Canada!!!
Oh yeah, Seven Year's War (Actually not seven years)... this is going to hurt. Avoiding the chaos and all of that, I'd be traveling to what later be British Columbia, which had a few dragon sightings, so I need to explore those. I'd pretty much just try to avoid people after all the chaos that was the West Indies, although eventually I'd be seen as a cryptid by European fur hunters due to just popping out of nowhere and giving cryptic quotes about colonialism. Eventually in 1775 I'd notice a Spanish ship coming over and being like "Look what I found y'all!"
Wait... what's going on in the British Colonies?
Aw crud, not again. Well, in order to finish our salt and dragon-spotting, we must eventually go into another war. This time, we're apparently arguing over taxes? Well, they ain't gonna like the modern USA. Quickly stop at Massachusetts to enjoy the Green Dragon Tavern. Okay, that's a lot of fighting. Oh well, time to roll over to Maryland. Time to troll "Mary-land" it is now "Maril-lund" in terms of pronunciation. Alright, Snallygasters, yaaay! I gotta love my three-eyed dragons. It's horrible that there's slavery everywhere though. The poor dragons don't deserve it. Once we go down to Virginia, time to troll the future governor by dabbing behind him every five seconds... no, I don't care he wrote the Declaration of Independence. The dabs must be done, my friend. Anywho, probably go back up north and visit the rest of the states along with New York City (the British aren't as bad as everyone says). Then go to Georgia and transport Button Gwinnett to the future just to troll. After that, back to Virginia to enjoy the The Battle of Chesapeake Bay, although I'd prefer to just enjoy the little crabbies and other animals in the bay. Finally, I'd just go down South for the last time and start to troll everyone to an unholy degree. North Carolina? Troll the heck out of the delegates. South Carolina? Oh yeah, last stop, it's 1782 now? 1781? Time travel's hard. Anyways, probably got find the closest soldiers and start to argue about pronunciation. It's "galley" in the future, so sadly you're wrong in the modern world. Oh well, then I'd probably start ripping the heck out about South Carolina being so religiously tolerant and yet being freaking horrible about everything else. Y'know, like a "Thanks a lot for being so hesitant! Now we have to deal with your problems in the modern day!" stuff. Maybe I'd enjoy some South Carolinian dragons an fauna, along with finding some small river to draw and paint. Maybe I'd travel to the Combahee River during the Civil War and enjoy the first ever battle led and planned by an American woman: Harriet Tubman. Or enjoy the origins of the US political parties in Philadelphia (gotta like chaos)... Or I'd just stop and chill at New York/New Jersey and enjoy the Palisades. After that, I'd travel back to the present and acknowledge I just sent fifteen different people from the past into the present. Oh welp, I did what I had to do, haha.
Tl;dr Requacy spends sixteen hours arguing with some South Carolinians on whether it is "galley" or "gallay"

*The Reason You Such Speech