#time travel shenanigans would do it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arkhavens · 2 years

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hello and welcome to another vague fic idea i will probs never do anything with!

obiquin timetravel au <3

Essentially: After the end of Kenobi s1 Quinlan and Obi-Wan find each other on Tatooine and after a very cute little reunion fall asleep together in Obi-wans bed, tangled in each others arms.

Then they jolt awake 30ish yrs in the past(bc long-term obiquin is something that i see not nearly enough of and its one of my most beloved concepts), tangled together in the jedi temple.

theres kinda a moment of "why the fuck are you 17?" "why the fuck are YOU 17??" and then all the usual time travel realizations of "we're definitely in the past", "how the hell do we act 17 again", "what do we do about the future", "this is a remarkably inconvenient age to time travel back to", "oh shit what was i doing the day before" etc etc

theyre both sort of freaking out right then. yes, theyre back before the end of everything, and all the friends that died from the war or from order 66 are alive, and they have a chance to fix things!! but they cant do anything immediately, can they?

the clones havent been made yet, they dont know if sidious is even the sith master right now, anakin was probably only Just born and they have no clue where shmi even is, Naboo+Maul arent for several years at this point.

and even then, they still have to consider the ramifications for the changes they want to make. do they have the right to stop the clones from being made? would that even stop the clone wars from happening? what if this time the war drafts citizens instead? If they try and have obiwan knighted earlier, what would that do to naboo? if they go and find anakin earlier, will the trade federation control ship still go down? What can they do? what can they risk? what is even possible to change?

all they can do is wait. and go about their lives as if things were normal.

whatever happens after that is honestly up in the air. if they tell someone else or not, what they change, how they change it, what comes of that etc. be it a fix-it or a fuck-it, it turns out better than the first go around.

#obi wan kenobi #obiquin #quinobi #star wars #star wars legends #obi wan #fic idea #sw fic idea #||#it just felt interesting to think about a time travel fic in which there isnt anything immediate to do #bc most of em drop obi wan right b4 bandomeer or naboo #that ive seen at least #its also obiquin bc i like time travel with buddies<33 #the weight of the future does NOT rest on your shoulders alone my friend!! your boyfriend is stuck in hell too!#in the star wars canon i ascribe to obiquin were sorta friends in the creche #(not like close-close but enough to shenanigan together sometimes)#but got super close following the stark hyperspace war like in the comics(wld b roughly age 13-14)#and they got together properly at 15ish #bc the idea of them being in a 20ish yr long relationship and just Entirely not hiding it #while anakin is 4 ft away and going obiwan would rat me out to the council if i told him about my marriage:((( id get kicked out:((#is so fucking funny to me #you know maybe one of these days ill write out all of the headcanons n shit that i have bc i have a LOT of them #my posts

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demobats · 1 year

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In a scale from 1 to 10 how crazy would it be to write a choose your own adventure harringrove fic? 😳

#listen. listen I know fanfiction absolutely does NOT need that and literally no one asked for it #but… I want to do it #for fun #I could code it and make it all pretty 🥺😩#what would the story even be #I was thinking steve time travel shenanigans but idk #I can also throw eddie into the mix. metalsandwich for the win #are they traveling to s2 or 3 though aaaahhhhh #harringrove #watch me lose all motivation in like 2.3 days 🤡

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whelmed-knight · 2 years

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I’m thinking about the next episode and oh god who’s going to find Nightwing’s body

I don’t want to believe the Bioship group are dead but who’s going to find them

#(i hate that i have to say this but if the answer is out there right now Please Keep It To Yourself)#yj spoilers #me talking #4x25 #4x26 #i can’t tell if it’s more heartbreaking that i thought of ‘maybe no one does’#like if they really do time travel shenanigans and it just gets overwritten #i would say who’s going to find rocket but i don’t think she’s dead- just transported somewhere—#and also she may be the one Doing The Finding 👀

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kostektyw · 2 years

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i hate liking still ongoing shows bc i can still have my heart broken and honestly i dont even wanna watch that new season but i actually kinda do but i dont

#anyway i just finished the new season of tua and i have complex feelings about it #which i will not talk about hee bc it would require me to reveal the identity of my blorbo and thats too much emotional vulnerability #i keep my true blorbos close to my heart and hidden in my private ao3 bookmarks #... yes i have issues #anyway the season was fine and thee were fun and even really cute moments #but also i uhh did not care much for most of it #im not personally much into time travel shenanigans and yeah its kinda what the show is really centered around but ahh #you know i think they could do a season #that is more something else for a change #and while my blorbos plotlines were ehh ok i admit i actually liked most of them #glad they got at least a little bit of what i wanted for them #couldve been more tho just saying #kostek original

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lennythereviewer · 10 months

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My favorite Kingdom Hearts fact is that one of the biggest plot-holes that Nomura has never been able to meaningfully retcon or write his way out, a plot-hole so big that it fundamentally breaks the very rules the series is written on...

Is the existence of Steamboat Willie

Let me explain for the uninitiated:

In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a small detour in the story involving Maleficent trying to invade Disney Castle, the home of King Mickey. She can’t step foot in the castle due to an artefact of pure light that wards off darkness locked in the basement.

Pete, who is working for Maleficent, opens a door into the past (Before Disney Castle, this land was known as Timeless River) and decides to remove the artifact from it’s place in time so it won’t be there to stop them from getting in.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy chase Pete into the past thanks to another magic door provided by Merlin, and through some shenanigans involving old cartoons and teaming up with Pete’s past-self, they lock the door the villains are using, and return the artefact to it’s proper place so it can exist in the present.

You with me so far? Pretty straightforward-ish time-travel plot right?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

Time travel would go on to become a staple of Kingdom Hearts going forward and would come with a very strict set of rules over how it operates:

1. You can only travel to a point in time where a version of yourself exists

2. You basically give up your body to do so, and travel as a disembodied soul unless you have a vessel to inhabit

3. You can’t alter the past in a meaningful way, what’s going to happen will happen

4. You lose your memories of said trip once you return, but your actions could leave a lingering instinct on your other self that could influence their decisions

“Wait” you may be thinking “Why should anyone go through all those hoops? Wasn’t time travel super simple that first time?”

And you’d be totally right, because the existence of Timeless River completely renders all of these rules and restrictions meaningless.

There is no version of Sora that existed in Timeless River before he step foot there, everyone kept their bodies, the trio and Pete were able to mess with the timeline as freely as they pleased, and they all very much remember their trip.

Nomura has never been able to meaningfully explain this super simple, easy way of time travel and the more convoluted method co-existing other than a cheap-throwaway line from one of the villains saying that Merlin “broke the rules”

The hilarious part about this line is that it implies that PETE of all characters is actually more powerful than the actual villain of the series, because Pete opened a door into Timeless River through sheer willpower and nostalgia for “the good old days”

But the all-knowing chess-master of a villain who had an evil plan several decades in the making with countless moving parts and contingencies to account for had to use the roundabout, more complicated method of time travel where a lot could go wrong.

Pete though? Dude just casually broke all the rules of time travel because he felt like it. He's just built different.

TL;DR: Steamboat Willie breaks Kingdom Hearts lore in half, Pete is more powerful than Master Xehanort, and I fucking love this beautiful trainwreck of a series you guys it means so much to me

I love Kingdom hearts so much.

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wileycap · 5 months

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Crackfic Idea:

30-year-old Zuko gets randomly flung back in time to his 16-year-old self. For a couple of hours at a time. At the most random times imaginable. Imagine the potential.

Zuko assumes that it's a dream or a vision, but definitely not real. He tries not to freak everybody out too badly, but he's also fully enjoying himself and seeing all of his friends as their young selves.

ZUKO, as he and Aang circle each other at the South Pole: I've spent years preparing for this encounter. Training, meditating. You're just a [Spirit Shwoop Sound] ... baby Aang!

AANG, confused: Well, more like preteen Aang. How do you know my name?

ZUKO, looking around: Wait, where are we?

AANG: Um... this is the-

SOKKA: Don't answer him! He's trying to get information out of you. You can't give away our location!

KATARA: Sokka, he's standing in the middle of our village. I think he knows.

ZUKO: We're here? This is so weird. I was just here for the Annual Penguin Race.

AANG: THERE'S AN ANNUAL PENGUIN RACE?!

ZUKO: Well, yeah, it was your idea... you gave a whole speech about cross-cultural cooperation and friendship, but I know you just wanted to go penguin sledding with a bunch of people...

AANG: Well, I-

SOKKA: Stop giving him more information! He already knows about the penguins!

Everybody else is confused, bewildered and even befuddled except for Iroh, who assumes that it's Spirit Shenanigans™️ and just fully accepts that his nephew likes tea and hugs and Pai Sho sometimes while being his usual shouty surly traumaball self at others.

ZUKO, stepping into the cabin: Hi, Uncle. I brought you some ginseng. How about a game of Pai Sho?

IROH, tearing up a little: I would love that, my nephew.

ZUKO: I wish we could do this more often, but you live so far away...

IROH, mentally calculating that he lives exactly three doors away from Zuko, and nodding sagely: The rat-viper may never climb the mountain that a hog-monkey can, but the monkey does not know what lies underneath it.

ZUKO, sighing sadly: I know, Uncle. I do appreciate my position in life, even if it has disadvantages.

IROH: Hmm. Your move, nephew.

The crew of Zuko's ship is terrified by the fact that whenever it happens, Zuko is somehow even more hyper-competent, seems to be weirdly calm about everything, and most unnervingly of all, he's polite.

SOLDIER: Here is a report on the best teahouses within three days travel of our current location, Sir. And, uh, Commander Zhao sent a messenger hawk.

ZUKO: Excellent. Thank you very much, Sergeant. I think we can ignore whatever Zhao has to say. In reply, I want you to send him a list of the most famous officers in Fire Nation history, and point out that none of them had sideburns. I want to see if he shaves them.

SOLDIER, sweating nervously: O-of course, Sir.

As a matter of fact, the whole fic could just be Zuko trolling Zhao. It would be glorious.

#atla #atla spoilers #atla fic #avatar the last airbender #crack fic #time travel #atla zuko #atla iroh #avatar aang #sokka #katara #zuko #atla zhao #iroh

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justhereforthemeta · 8 months

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Romantic expectations and the story we didn't see: A magic trick hiding in plain sight

Here's a hopeful meta for all my fellow celestial brainrot sufferers out there. Cheers! :)

This idea started as a dead end, trying to track the movements of Crowley’s sideburns/tattoo because I thought time travel shenanigans were afoot. I had to abandon that theory when it was pointed out that David was simultaneously filming as the sideburns-having Fourteenth Doctor, and in-universe Crowley can do whatever he wants with his facial hair whenever he feels like it. But hey - null findings are still findings!

On the bright side, pausing the show to make notations in a spreadsheet forced me to slow down and notice other changes I'd overlooked the first time around: acting choices, costuming choices, references to book lore. And possibly a few surreptitious flicks of the wrist, in places where we’re meant to be focused on the magician’s other hand.

@amuseoffyre and @ineffablefood had a great exchange recently about romance and “the significance of misdirection and three-in-one (magic) tricks” throughout the show. I suspect Neil has done something brilliant with the audience’s long-standing expectations (since the 1990s, really) for the love story between Crowley and Aziraphale to develop. And while it is a wonderful story indeed, playing to this expectation lets Neil distract his audience from the blink-and-you'll-miss-them seeds he's planting for the final chapter.

Continued below the cut...

Let’s start at the beginning of Episode 2. First, context: In the previous installment, Crowley stormed out of the bookshop, was whisked away to Hell by Beelzebub where he learns about the Book of Life threat to Aziraphale’s existence, then returned to the bookshop to dance a little apology dance and hide Gabriel with an unintentionally massive joint miracle. In S2E2, we and Shax catch up with Crowley as he's snoozing in the Bentley.

Shax: “You’re in trouble”

A. J. Crowley, cool as a cucumber: “Obviously. Former demon, hated by Heaven, loathed by Hell. How will our hero cope?”

Interesting! Sarcastic? Yes, absolutely; but that’s also a good 4500 years and an averted apocalypse away from “I’m a demon. I lie,” wouldn’t you say? Someone is sounding a whole lot less depressed and aimless and navel-gazey (do snakes have navels?), and a whole lot more like he’s got a project to focus on, since his "what's the point?" ruminations on the park bench in E1.

And of course we all noticed the costume change right away. Hello, black turtleneck. Feeling cute today, thought I’d cover up my graceful long neck? That sounds unlikely. Let’s put a pin in this one.

There’s also an interesting acting choice going on here. Crowley speaks to Shax in a funny, drawling, too-cool-for-you voice that we haven’t heard in a while. Specifically, not since 1967. If you go back and give the S1E3 scene in the Dirty Donkey a listen, you’ll hear it (and if you know of another instance of it that I've missed, please let me know!). In S2E2, he keeps up this odd voice (if anybody knows what kind of affect this is supposed to be, please do tell!) throughout this dialogue with Shax, except for the brief moment when she first surprises him about the joint miracle having been detected.

1967 was a fun year. Crowley masterminded a heist! And seemed like he was having a ball doing it, right up until his little caper was called off after Aziraphale brought him the thermos of holy water. Crowley spoke to his co-conspirators in that same funny, very 60’s-caper-film voice. He wore a hip 60’s turtleneck. He bought petrol for the only time ever, so he could get those sweet James Bond bullet hole decals for his car (per the book, seen on the Bentley in the show).

Those James Bond bullet hole decals would of course have been part of a promotion for this 1967 release, which you just know our film-enjoying demon went to see in the theater:

Starring this suave, be-turtlenecked guy:

And now - begging your forgiveness - a brief rant.

There are a number of posts out there that refer to Crowley’s S2E2 turtleneck as a flirtatious sartorial choice - actually, ‘slutty’ seems to be the favored accusation. There are even a few posts floating around commenting on how sweet it is that Crowley swaps out his slutty, kinky, throw-me-over-your-desk-and-take-me turtleneck for a more dressy and appropriate collared shirt specifically to attend Aziraphale’s Jane Austen ball.

Now this is all in good fun, and Crowley does indeed look fantastic here, and I do love a good fangirling sesh as much as the next person. However, fandom’s collective tendency to interpret what we are seeing on the screen through the lens of romantic expectation can, at times, give rise to a kind of blinkered enthusiasm that obscures the original text in a haze that is part Mandela Effect, part unrestrained horniness, and part in-group code talking and identity reinforcement.

Respectfully, Crowley’s black turtleneck does not appear at all in S2E5: The Ball. In fact, it never appears again after the end of S2E2.

For Someone’s sake, let’s collectively pull our heads out of the romantic fog/gutter for a moment and focus on what we are actually seeing in the book and on the screen. For Crowley, this is an uncharacteristic within-period costume change. There is a surreptitious flick of the wrist happening here, out in broad daylight, and we are all missing it.

So here’s a thing. Aziraphale appears to have settled comfortably into life on Earth, his neighborhood, his books, using Crowley as an outlet for sharing his good deeds that he would once have reported to Heaven. Meanwhile, at first glance, Crowley appears stuck in a rut. There he slouches on a park bench with Shax in S2E1: a guy who lives in his car, stagnantly clinging to old familiar habits, mulling over the pointlessness of it all.

Setting aside the bit about living in the Bentley (I’m going to attribute this to well-documented issues between him and Aziraphale, discussed in many other excellent metas, and move on), Crowley has at least two very good, proactive reasons for maintaining his contact with Hell through Shax. First and foremost, it’s a source of information he can use to keep ahead of potential threats to Aziraphale and himself.

But also, I would posit…he kinda likes it.

Recall that book GO was first conceived as a parody, with Aziraphale and Crowley as spy-against-spy (but not really) field operatives in an ages-old cold war between Heaven and Hell. Their entire book dynamic is rooted in the trope of two opposing agents who have been in the field for so long that they now have more in common with each other than with their respective head offices. Their St. James’s Park meetings among other spies and ministers trading secrets are a sendup of what was once a well-known Cold War-era cliché.

Our contemporary Crowley still likes slick outfits and hellaciously expensive watches and high-performing vintage cars and pens that write underwater while looking like they could break the speed limit. He coaches Shax on how to blend in as a demon on Earth, and he helpfully redirects the wayward contact looking for the Azerbaijani sector chief. He loves improvising and getting away with shenanigans under the institutional radar. And boy golly was he impressed with Jane Austen: master spy, brandy smuggler, and mastermind of the 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery.

And if you look at it a certain way, for as long as Crowley has considered himself to be on “[his] own side” - going at least as far back as Job - he could almost think of himself as a sort of double agent. It’s actually a very romantic sort of notion, befitting our hopeless romantic of a (professedly former) demon; but it’s romantic in a very different way than we, the audience, have been primed to watch for.

In other words, in a very “on my own side” kind of way, Crowley really gets a kick out of being a spy. Or at least, dressing up and accessorizing as one, and moonlighting as a good-doing double agent when he can get away with it. And also being a plotting criminal mastermind. Two sides of a coin, really. Just look at Jane Austen.

My point is: No, Crowley did not wait around for Shax to come find him in a turtleneck so that he could go flirt with Aziraphale later. He’ll flirt with Aziraphale no matter what. No, this:

is actually this:

Much like the one he wears to the Dirty Donkey in 1967:

whilst holy water heist-plotting. Here's a clearer shot with gratuitous Bentley, because I love them:

…and which he'll wear again, with appropriate camouflage, while infiltrating Heaven in S2E6:

That is the 1967 planning a HEIST turtleneck for committing ESPIONAGE and STEALING THINGS in. Because turtlenecks are what modern human master spies wear to get their hands dirty - after all, he saw it in a movie once.

Crowley dons his tactical turtleneck sometime during the first major break in the action (which doesn't happen until after the joint miracle to hide Gabriel) after he learns about the threat the Book of Life poses to Aziraphale. Loverboy started mentally preparing himself to go after that book immediately upon learning that it was in play as a genuine threat.

Now let’s pick up at the S2E2 Dirty Donkey scene, reading the story from this angle. Of course, Crowley enables Aziraphale’s delusions about Heaven by hiding information from him, and does not disclose the Book of Life threat when they meet again. They go into the pub, Aziraphale shamelessly paws Crowley’s chest like the seductive Bond Girl he is, and Crowley gets to act all smooth and suave and intimidating as he chases off the interloping Mr. Brown (or Mr. Collins for the Pride & Prejudice fans, take your pick).

Ergo, theory: beginning in S2E2, Crowley is already thinking of himself as a Jane Austen/James Bond action hero (“How will our hero cope?”), psyching himself up to rescue Aziraphale by getting his spy game on and stealing the Book of Life.

Now, watch closely...This is where Aziraphale and Crowley brainstorm their plans to solve the problem they both know about: getting Maggie and Nina to fall in love and thereby get Heaven off their backs. Crowley’s vavoom plan is drawn from yet another movie (“Get humans wet and staring into each other’s eyes - vavoom, sorted. I saw it in a Richard Curtis film.”). But Crowley also implicitly shares his solution to the problem he hasn’t told Aziraphale about. And true to form, Crowley’s Jane Austen solution isn’t the same as Aziraphale’s Jane Austen solution.

Two solutions that fail by the end of Season 2, and a secret third one that might still work...and there's our magic trick of three.

‘“I’m lost. Am I doing a rainstorm?” Yes, babe. And a heist, too - just not until season three. Can I get a wahoo!?

I won’t spend time on A Companion to Owls during this meta, except to note that in all three minisodes, we get to watch stories that involve Crowley acting as a double agent on “his/their own side” - successfully making Hell and Heaven think he’s fulfilling their will while saving Job’s goats and children; failing to fool Hell when he does a good deed in Edinburgh; and of course, collaborating with Aziraphale whilst evading detection as an infernal turncoat during the Blitz.

(Because this is getting long, I'll also skip over Crowley's interrogation of Jim in this episode - I'll probably come back to that in another meta. But interrogating is a rather spy-ish thing to do.)

When we catch up with Crowley again later, he’s already slipped out of the bookshop, having left Aziraphale to his biblical reverie about Job. He saunters snakily down Whickber Street as usual, but with a very pointed and swift glance over his shoulder (see pic above). This demon is up to something - possibly something we didn’t get to see, something that may have happened offscreen while he stepped out. In any case, knowing there’ve been unfriendly angels in the neighborhood that morning, he’s rightly concerned about being spied on.

From this point until the beginning of episode six, there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for Crowley to make any next moves. He babysits the bookshop, during which time he manages to wring some crucial information out of Jim; he follows his Crowley’s Angel around like a puppy, and downs a bottle of red like a good old fashioned lovesick boy once that’s been pointed out to him. If any plotting or scheming is underway, this occult being is keeping stumm for now.

This has been a long one, so I’ll wrap up with Crowley’s infiltration of Heaven with Muriel. The turtleneck disguise works (Archer fans, be vindicated!) long enough to gather some information that will be crucial not just to the denouement of S2, but also to Crowley’s journey in S3 (previous post on Crowley's Fall, Saraqael, and memory wiping). And Aziraphale gets to enjoy that view exactly zero times. The point isn’t oh, a turtleneck! How flirty! So cunty! So cute! Y’all. Everything matters. The costume change was a deliberate choice. In-universe, Crowley’s decision to wear his special spy turtleneck for spying in is a signal that he is out doing spy things, even as we watch.

In sum: Beginning in S2E2 and continuing through the end of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley are actively living out the scripts of two parallel, concurrent, and completely different Jane Austen stories. But you and I, dear fellow audience member, we came here for a comedy with a hefty jigger of romance, and that’s what Neil gave us to focus on. And right up until the Final 15, that was the only story we saw.

Meanwhile, Special Agent A. J. Crowley doesn’t have time to mope around at the end of S2E6. He’s kicked down, but he’s not out. He's got a Book of Life to steal, a very serious bone to pick with a certain memory-wiping angel, and his Angel and the world to save.

“‘Heigh ho,’ said [romantic, optimist, former demon, hero, master spy] Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.”

#so honestly #I think the biggest mark against this conclusion is that Crowley sees his mirror Maggie taking a nap at the end of S2E6 #there is a strong chance of a depression nap before any further spying gets underway #but I am counting on Muriel to be a dorky ray of sunshine and snap him out of it with Clues #good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 #crowley in a turtleneck #demon bookseller plantdad spy

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