Hello Ri of loz-chainsofcorruption I just read your Wars head-in-hands suffering fic and left a huge comment BUT I wanted to ask a question (which felt misplaced and also too loaded so I didn’t want to go into it in the comments section there) so I’m here now and here’s my question:
You wrote that it had only been one month for Cap’s timeline in his absence, so now my curiosity on how you think the time works for all of them has amped up. I posted a question post about how the time works for their timelines during their adventure a while back, and the general consensus was that time indeed moved forward in their respective timelines, but I didn’t get an answer about just how much. They get and send letters, but how relevant to time are those deliveries made? So like: if they’re in Sky’s timeline, and Wind writes a letter to his grandma, the postman has to go way into the future to deliver it, and hop way back to the past to deliver a response, but when does the initial letter get sent? And how do we know how long each Link is missing from their timelines? I feel like this is definitely a collaborative answer that the fandom puts together themselves since only JoJo could really answer that (I think), but I’m curious to see how you think it works because your thoughts are awesome B)
Honestly, I think it depends! I think it depends on when the portal drops off the postmen (and then the Chain themselves), and possibly depends on each era specifically.
The way conversations went with Time and Malon, it gave me the energy that it's probably been at least a little while for them both (all of these pics from the Malon arc, got the pics off Instagram bcuz it's easier for me to navigate through than Tumblr for things like this, sorry 😅), because multiple letters have been exchanged, enough time on Time's side passing for him to get to know the boys better to have some things to share about them, and enough on Malon's side for her to both reply, and for her father to start looking for new hires.
Now this could mean that several weeks at least have passed for Time (getting to know the boys, having the time and opportunity to write and send letters), but what about Malon? If she was receiving one letter per day or two, it could have only been maybe one week for her. How long does it take between Time leaving and coming back for this visit for her dad to start looking for new hires? The way she words it, it sounds like it could be as little as two days all the way up to multiple weeks. Her excitement in YOU'RE BACK! could indicate a decent amount of time has passed, several weeks or more, but they're also both just very in love people, with Malon having shown herself in other panels to be worried about Time taking his best gear on a dangerous trip. Seeing him even after just three days could be a huge relief.
And who is to say that the same amount of time for Malon is passing, say, for Tetra and her crew?
Let's make up a pretend timeline just for fun:
The boys all write and send letters at time point A1.
The postman goes to deliver those letters to everyone's eras. We'll say them receiving the letters is time point A2.
Let's pretend, just for the sake of ease, that friends and fam all write back immediately.
The postman returns - but the next time a portal opens up to where the boys are for him to use is two weeks later for the Chain. It's now been 2 weeks for them since A1. Again, for simplicity, we'll say they read and respond immediately. We'll call this sending of letters B1. So from A1 to B1, it's been 2 weeks for the Links.
Postman takes the letters and goes to all the eras via portalling system however he does.
But the time each era receives the letters from the boys (which we'll call B2) could vary.
From A2 to B2 in Malon's time could be one single day.
From A2 to B2 in Tetra's time could be 4 days later.
For Four's friends and family, one week could have passed.
Heck, for all we know, a whole month could have gone by for someone's family/friends since they got a return letter from one of the Links, even though both parties read and responded asap.
Alternatively, the portals all sync up so whenever he returns to someone's era to deliver a letter, the exact amount of time that's passed for Malon since getting a letter last will have passed for every other friend and family member of each other Link - and we could go the extra step to say he then returns at regular intervals for the Links, though I'm going to say that's very likely not the case or they'd all have been like "welp we've been traveling a week, today is letter day", anticipating the mail rather than just accepting it whenever it happens to come.
It depends on at what time throughout the entire timeline the portals drop off the postman. Theoretically, he could even be dropped off at a time before he should, delivering a letter meant to be a response to a letter that someone hasn't even sent yet 🤔
We don't know how the portals work for the postman, is the thing.
Maybe he chooses when and where to open them. If he did, he'd probably be delivering and sending asap bcuz the postmen in LoZ seem to take great pride in their work, which would probably result in the Chain's family and friends getting letters back very very quickly after the boys send them (albiet some time may pass before they can find a mailbox to send them through, assuming they don't have one prepared to hand back to the postman asap), and the boys receiving replies very quickly after those are sent back (probably within just a few days), so I kind of doubt it, not only because I feel like we'd maybe have seen the guy more often than we have, but even more because.....How ???? What kind of powers... Postman....??? How would he be able to do that..?????? But that doesn't mean I haven't written with the implication that the postman just does as he wants, because in the fic Letters, I had someone in Wind's era pay more for extra speedy delivery to get a letter to Wind asap, because I tend to write whatever is convenient for the plot.
If it's random when/where the portals take the postman, any amount of time can pass for either side. A letter sent from Malon could reach Time five weeks later for him, and a response sent back could reach her three days after she had sent the previous, or vice versa.
And regardless of letter time, portals can drop someone off at any given point in time! If we really wanted to get convoluted with it, a friend or family member could be receiving letters from a Link for weeks after that Link has already officially come home lol
AKA: as much time as is good and useful and suitable for a fic can pass on each side depending on what the writer wants 🤭
For the fic you're talking about specifically, as you said, I chose a month to have passed in Warriors' Hyrule despite him having traveled for much longer from his perspective. A month is not necessarily my headcanon - I don't have a specific amount of time in my head for any of them - I just thought it felt like the right amount of time for my purpose: long enough for there to be some changes and upset at his absence, but not so long that TOO much could have happened, putting Warriors back into an environment pretty similar to that which he left.
When it comes to fics, I sometimes swap out various headcanons, ignoring canon or using canon, or whatever it may be for whatever serves the plot best.
So if it's better for someone's fic or headcanon or whatever for Wind to be an entire year older and an inch or two taller by the time he gets back to his crew only to find out he's been gone for only two weeks from their perspective, so be it! Want Time to adventure with the boys for three months while Malon has been without her husband for eight months? Go for it!
It's a really flexible sort of plot point, and I kind of doubt JoJo will ever get into the exact details of how long things have been from everyone's perspectives. If she does, then I guess we'll find out then!
Or if she's gone into this somewhere in the discord or elsewhere already, or I just missed a post somewhere and anyone who reads this knows about it, please do let me know!
Extra thought: Sky complains he still hasn't gotten a letter from his Zelda. Maybe from his perspective, he's sent several letters and been waiting weeks and weeks for a reply.
Maybe from Sun's perspective, she just got five letters from Sky dumped on her within the span of two days and is still working on her lengthy reply because now she has so much to respond to! And whenever she does finally send her response, it could still be multiple weeks on Sky's end before he receives it, despite her letter sounding like "wow hi you've been gone for two days over here but I guess a lot of time and things have happened for you??? Uhhh I did my best to reply to your recounting of multiple weeks worth of events sorry it took so long." Of course the spicier and possibly more angsty option is that something else is going on but yk. Technically it's possible.
