#again I get confused by timelines and retcons

[thesummerstorms]

So based on the timeline I'm using, several of Dick's team have either living or deceased kids by the time Annabeth shows back up.

I don't fully follow all the retcons, so possibly some of those kids should have been written out, but-

The Titans (superheroes) finding out about CHB, the Titan (immortal) war, and the average age of combatants would be something is what I'm saying.

[cubedmango]

[suddenly sits back up 5 seconds before i was abt to fall asleep] kurosawas resume says he graduated from uni in 2014 but he was working at toyokawa in 2013 what does this Mean

e: wait no the resume also says he joined toyokawa in 2014 so they messed up the og dramas timeline dang..........

e2: also when adachi's booking his flight back to tokyo before the mess happens it says feb 19 2022 .......... his calendar also says 2022............ what in the hell is going on w the yrs in this movie

[malfiora]

More jaydick rambles because @normal-nightmare told me to:

I think the intimacy between Dick and Jason can't be overstated, regardless of if you ship them or not. Excluding Bruce and Barbara, these two have known each other the longest in the Batfam. More importantly, they've seen sides of each other that subsequent kids haven't. Going back to the OG timeline, Jason had met Dick as Robin, and then witnessed him retire and ultimately become Nightwing. On the flipside, Dick met Jason as a kid, gave him the costume, and then had to mourn him. None of the others got this side of them: even by the time Tim joins, Dick's identity as Nightwing and as a mentor/big brother figure had already solidified, and Jason comes back as a vengeful Red Hood, and it's just like that from that point on.

So I imagine that when Dick looks at Jason, he sees the eager thirteen year old trying so hard to be just like him. Jason looks at Dick and sees this cool older guy who believes in him for some strange reason. And there's just. So much fondness in that. (And guilt for my fellow angst lovers, hehehe.)

So hang onto that for this next part.

I haven't even come close to reading every single piece of Batfam media, and I doubt it's even possible. However, I still get confused when fans (and now even the characters themselves) claim that these two have a contentious relationship because...where is it? From what I read, they generally like each other and pretty quickly fall into a mentor/mentee (or older/younger brother) or partners dynamic. The two biggest examples of true conflict I've seen are Battle for the Cowl and the imposter Nightwing arc in Nightwing (1996). In Cowl, they are having a values-based conflict that resolves pretty quickly. It's not necessarily personal. And don't get me started on the imposter Nightwing thing (again).

Instead, let's consider that about a decade after Jason's debut and soon after his backstory was retconned, the Nightwing (1996) Year One arc featured a new rendition of Dick and Jason meeting for the first time. They go from fighting to partnering up in about five minutes and then very quickly settle into that older/younger dynamic:

(#105-106)

Keep in mind that about 20 issues later in this same series, adult Jason pops up pretending to be Nightwing and wanting to play dynamic duo with Dick (i.e. imposter Nightwing arc).

For my fellow shippers:

Anyway, due to the intimacy between these two that starts with this vertical dynamic, I can't help but think of them as entering a sort of erastes/eromenos relationship, akin to Apollo and Hyacinth. (And this myth is extremely fitting since Hyacinth dies tragically and Apollo is made to believe that it was his fault.) There's a mutual kind of awe and devotion that's just lovely.

[altocat]

Oh lord of FF7 lore I beseech thee once more.

What was it exactly that led to Genesis defecting, and what did he do afterwards? I played Reunion but honestly both of those things eluded me. I know there were Genesis copies and those Raven things (the AVALANCHE knock off SOLDIERs made by a knock off Hojo) but like, what was Genesis doing during that time? And also why did Lazard defect? One second he’s there the next we’re told he’s also deserted the company.

Also, Wutai. What the heck was going on there? Apparently Rebirth says that Rufus was funding them in addition to AVALANCHE, which if I recall was situated in Wutai and might’ve been working with their government, but in terms of the war effort were they just losing the entire time?

Fair warning I might occasionally bombard you with lore questions because I’m writing a fic and want to get the details right but it’s so confusing figuring out the plot and sequence of events sometimes. This game is so convoluted 😭

Genesis left because he was pissed. Simple as that. He finds out that the company he gave everything to is the reason why he's dying. He was angry. This is his revenge. He takes a bunch of loyal soldiers with him as his "followers" and they end up being converted to Genesis clones thereafter. I assume as a test of loyalty or something idk. Or maybe as an initiation. Hollander is producing them so it's possible he mutated them without their consent. Genesis is "working" with Hollander, but only because he's trying to find a cure.

Lazard defects because he's always hated Shinra and was actively working against them this entire time. He was using company funds to help boost Hollander's research and, upon realizing he was close to getting caught, bailed. It's a long story there--Lazard has held a grudge against Shinra for years as a result of drama from his past.

Wutai is an ongoing quandary as lots of its historical conflict is being retconned in the new Remake timeline. Rufus has been acting as a double agent on multiple ends as a means of undermining the current Shinra presidency. It's basically just sneaky power moves on his part. Wutai itself entered a brief ceasefire at the beginning of Crisis Core following Zack's mission to Fort Tamblin, but gets stirred back up again by Sephiroth's meddling years later in Rebirth.

Hope that clears it up! I'd suggest checking out the official timeline on the wiki but atm there's a lot of contradictory information there. So I'm going off of pure memory here as a makeshift FF7/Crisis Core "historian" lmao So if anyone has additional info to add, please by all means expand on this.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

I’m not 100% sure I get the connection between John byrn viewing magneto’s political belief’s as “old and outdated” and viewing religious beliefs as fairy tales, aside from “belief’s old therefore bad”

Dear anon,

John Byrne didn't like Magneto's backstory either but he WASN'T antisemitic (he did come up for the visibly Jewish design for Kitty Pryde) he just didn't like the timeline of Magneto being so old or the optics of making the supremacist character a Jew. Claremont waited until Byrne quit X-men to pull the retcon.

you are confusing Byrne with Grant Morrison who is a know racist.

the canard that Jews are delusional and kill people over their "book of fairytales" is of course also thrown against christians and Muslim but again it's mostly used to shut down viewpoints or even traditions of people you dislike as "crazy"

Like most things in the Morison section it's a bit of a reach.

any other questions?

[digimonadventurezero]

Well...

Not sure how many people are still following this blog, or rather who's still interested on those headcanons + ideas i had in the past...

But Rui's existence goes against ▽ events and i'd like to clarify that i don't think it's a TOTAL RETCON like a ton of people are either celebrating or complaining.

I'd like to give you my own "solution" to keep Maki and Daigo + their group existing in the timeline.

First, the frustrating part about working with ▽ events and them is that there's no information about their respective ages, and we saw them in Uni as well. A friend of mine pointed this out as the biggest problem to use ▽ as it is. You either pick it or 02TB. My research about the said backstory scenes in pt4 led me to discover that... those scenes also are hard to know when they take place.

Not even the ref sheets has a single age or grad to get an approximated age for them, or when those scenes took place. They only state that those two designs are from "Elementary School" and "University" -- but the Elementary grades are not even here!? Unlike the Adv'99 & 02 kids' profiles in their respective series, which listed at least their school grades so you could know they're around their 10s.

But we know the original lore from Adv'99 + 02 -- there were other groups before Taichi & Daisuke's. One of them were depicted in Adv'99 anime and novel -- a group of five kids, and four of them got their partners evolved into the Holy Beasts (according to the Adv'99 novel). This is also used in ▽ pt4, at least. They changed a few details alas, but my point is... Until here it's everything OKAY, right?

The problem starts with the Uni scene and them being Data Bureau agents in 2005. It could mean they're way older than Taichi -- including Rui (who's a leap baby from 1992!) and this would get in conflict with their own Digi-Adventure flashbacks. Many people believed they weren't from the 90s but before the 90s because of that. You could then think they had no relation to the math lore or something, but then the presence of Homeostasis in that cold-opening for pt4 and the digivice model makes things EVEN WORSE to work with.

But like i said, i love both Maki-Daigo and Rui so i want them to co-exist. Hence why i'm believing in a partial retcon in terms of those two's ages. And it's quite recently that we all got more info about the math lore, and more confusing statements in the end...

Anyway, my solution is:

Maki-Daigo's group is indeed the quintet mentioned in Adv'99 & Novels. They were around Adv!Taichi's age when they went to the DW but possibly the other three in the group were either 2 or 3 years older. Maybe they're like the 02 kids, and weren't chosen exactly in the same year? Possibly the oldies were the other 3 who got mons alongside Menoa (she's the same age as Taichi and got her mon in 97), But Daigo and Maki got their mons in 98, alongside other 7 people...? And their Adventure was indeed in 1998.

Daigo's love confession scene has no calendars or anything to point the year he had confessed his love for her, besides being SNOWING outside -- so it's probably Winter. They're said to be Uni students, so my conclusion is...

... That the Data Bureau possibly recruited them around that time, and they're not even in their 30s in ▽? They might be even 19 years old, and only got high roles in the Data Bureau because of their title as Chosen Children and connection with Homeo + Gennai.

They aren't the first ones, but actually they might be the first group of kids who went to the DW instead.

This is my own solution for the problem. Again, I'd prefer to believe in a soft retcon or changes from the events -- in which said events in the timeline weren't presented as it is to us. Therefore i'd prefer to believe my awful people OTP is still alive and they can meet my sad potato someday.

I'd like to simple just retcon their ages from 1998 adventure and make them be 13-14 years old there, so then you could have them be in their twenties when they were recruited by the Data Bureau...

Anyway, i understand when some peeps say they can't make ▽ work with Adv'99/02/Kizuna/02TB as it was presented to the audience, because it's a hard task orz

[misc-obeyme]

something i haven't understood in obey me so far playing is what year it's set in? did I miss the amount of years stated somewhere?

like we have the D.D.D. which is like a cell phone. But then we get sent back in Nightbringer and we still have D.D.D. And anime. And heavy metal, probably. What year is it again?

No way it's been like centuries, which is how they make it sound. I'm not even sure it's been a whole decade into the past. How long does it take to get a school up and running, Diavolo?

-a confused player

Dear A Confused Player,

Don't worry. You are all of us.

You didn't miss anything about what the years are because they've never stated anything about that.

They kinda explain everything away with the "time soup" but even that isn't really an explanation at all. They mostly just don't talk about it.

It's generally accepted that the Devildom is behind the human world technology-wise. There's proof of this in season three of the OG where the brothers don't know how to use some pretty basic kitchen appliances. The idea is that in the Devildom, they have magic to supplement their tech needs, so they don't need as much tech. This is pretty standard for fantasy worldbuilding. It's the idea that magic essentially does a lot of the stuff we use technology for.

But then yeah, Nightbringer happened. And that's supposedly thousands (millions? they don't state specifics) of years in the past. So presumably, the technology wouldn't be as advanced as it is in OG. Which would mean we wouldn't have things like D.D.D.s and there was also the wasted potential of old school outfits.

Since things seem to be about the same in Nightbringer tech-wise, the question becomes why?

Either Nightbringer is set in a timeline that's so drastically different that this tech was developed a lot earlier than in the OG timeline OR it's always been that way and the OG timeline was actually taking place far into the future for us. Another possibility is that the Devildom actually developed all their tech before the human world developed theirs, but at some point their development just stagnated. Meaning it stayed at about the same level from Nightbringer to OG.

And then there's the RAD founding discrepancy. In OG, they make it sound like RAD has been around since way before Lucifer & co fell, but this was mostly portrayed through old Devilgrams. So they just straight up retconned that. I think RAD's development has only been happening for a few years in Nightbringer and then it's established before MC leaves.

All of this is to say, the time is wonky and makes no sense. You can speculate about it for hours and still come up with ??? because any of these options could work. Due to them fucking around with time travel, timelines, and "time soup," anything goes at this point.

Time travel is a risky thing to include in a story for many reasons. And this right here is one of them.

We might've been able to suspend our disbelief on the time frame of the OG, but now that they've tossed in this time travel to the supposedly distant past, it's a lot harder to just go well, it's a fantasy story so I'm not gonna worry about it!

Just one of my many complaints about the writing of this game lol.

Anyway, that's the best I can do, I'm afraid. I might have gotten some details wrong because I forget things sometimes, but this is how I've always interpreted things. I hope that helps a little, but in the end it's kinda up to you to headcanon whatever you like!

[gffa]

The absolute worst thing about Batman comics is that trying to just lay the groundwork instead of having a single good starting point, is kind of a nightmare.  Like, I have to explain the mindset going into them! I have to explain that stuff doesn't always "count" as a canon!  I have to explain the different continuities and constant retcons! The thing about DC comics is that you can't approach it the way you would another source material, there is no one "true" source, there is no one "true" author of the characters, there is no one "true" canon. There is a central timeline, but it's constantly being rewritten both in-universe and out-of-universe. You have to jump into it accepting that there's no good starting point in terms of reading the story unfolding in sequence. And you have to accept that, even googling "best Batman comics to start with" has a list of comics that kind of made me moan in horror, like noooooooo those comics will not hook you and so many of them are comics that are stand-alones because they're plays on the tropes and established status quo, like The Dark Knight Returns or A Serious House on Serious Earth won't really work unless you're already familiar with Batman stories and also they're absolutely not what fandom will be posting about. I mean, I'm not your mom, you can start there if you want, but I personally think they're pretty difficult places to start. Instead, if you want to get into what the fandom is into (which may be very different than what think pieces write about), instead I think it helps to find someone who knows comics reasonably well, ask them some questions you have about the lay of the land (ie, "So how do these Robins all work? Why are there so many of them?" is a question I answered for a friend recently because I love to talk about this stuff, most comic fans do!) and then get yourself some recs once you have a general idea of who's who and why they're going around as the costume they're in. (You can always ask me, too!  I'm happy to nerd out about helping gain traction with a lot of these things! I may not be able to answer finely detailed questions yet, but I can give you a bird's eye view that'll get you on your feet, too.) You'll also want to get an idea of what era you want to read in, because there's this thing called the "New 52" (or Nu52) and it's kind of a line in the sand, a "before" and "after" that's helpful to keep in mind whether or not something "happened" to the character. So, in 2011, after many many decades of convoluted comics history, DC decided that they wanted to completely reboot their entire universe so that new readers could jump on and not have to read a thousand backissues from the 70s and 80s or earlier.  All existing books were cancelled and an all new lineup of 52 different comic series were announced--hence, Nu52. In theory, an idea with potential! The problem was that they gave too much free reign to the creators and not nearly enough collaboration, so nobody knew what was still part of a character’s backstory and nobody knew what anyone else was writing. And it cut out a lot of elements of the stories that people were really invested in, so despite the initial splash it made, sales slowly dropped and dropped because people just didn’t care. So, what does DC do?  Basically, since then they’ve had company-wide events that have been slowly chipping away at the divide between the “before” the Nu52 and the current storyline, that they’ve had multiverse-level events that have absorbed some of people’s favorite stuff back into the storyline, so some stuff now has happened again. And that makes it extremely confusing to just pick up an issue of a comic and know whether something “counts” or not, so you kind of just have to roll with things and understand that there is no one “true” canon set of events, it’s constantly shifting, and you just gotta read for the things you enjoyed reading. That’s kind of a high bar for entry and I hope this isn’t scaring you off, it’s genuinely an attempt to explain the lay of the land so you know what to expect when you pick something up and can enjoy it for what it is!  Once you get a feel for the set-up, I think it’s really easy to just pick up any comic at any time and start reading! I’m assuming there’s a fair amount of basic cultural osmosis for Batman, but if anyone needs a 101 course, let me know!  In the meantime, this list of recommendations will assume that you’re familiar with things like, “Dick Grayson is the first Robin after his parents are murdered, but eventually Bruce fires him because Dick got shot by the Joker, then eventually he became Nightwing and now he and Bruce have a complicated but generally good relationship, nobody holds the family together like Dick Grayson does.” or “Jason Todd was the second Robin and he died, but then Superboy Prime punched reality so hard that Jason was jolted back to life (or at least that’s the version I go with, I don’t care for the one where Talia dug up his lifeless body) and he was real mad about it for awhile but he’s getting better” or “Tim Drake was the cutest super genius stalker who ever was and he’s got his issues but also I love him DC LET HIM KISS CONNER YOU COWARDS” or “Damian was raised by his mother in the League of Assassins and that fucked baby bird up pretty good until Dick took Damian under his wing to be the Robin to his Batman for awhile and showed him that Damian didn’t have to prove himself to be worthy of being loved, he was loved just because he was Damian, not because he was a Wayne or an al Ghul, and the others are coming around, but those two will always be the most special to each other��. Some good places to start imo: (Note:  Pay attention to year numbers and authors, because many of these titles have earlier runs that are not the ones I’m recommending as good starting points!) - Robin & Batman (2021) by Jeff Lemire, a three-issue mini series set during the early days of Dick’s training, when he and Bruce are still getting the hang of understanding each other, featuring some truly gut-wrenching emotional moments and absolutely stunning art. - World’s Finest 2022-current by Mark Waid, an on-going series of Batman and Superman working together and being friends, the current volume is set during the young-ish days of Dick being Robin and it’s utter joy so far, so many good moments of Dick and Clark bonding by being the most annoying people Bruce has ever had to work with. - Robins: Being Robin by Tim Seeley, a mini-series where the various Robins (Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, and Damian) are all working together on a case that’s tied up in the story of the role of Robin, featuring some top-tier sibling dynamics that had me howling with how much I love these idiots and a story I genuinely liked. - Nightwing vol 4 2016-current, started by Tim Seely, currently by Tom Taylor, which skips over a lot of the timeline, but I think it’s a better starting place.  Dick’s solo title is usually pretty entertaining for me (and I do like the previous volume, from 2011-2014, but I think the 2016 one is a better starting place) and is has some absolutely gorgeous art and a good amount of Dick working with other superheroes that are friends and/or family.  The writing is fun, charismatic, and just a good ride.  (The wiki has a list of trade paperback collections with their titles to read them in story chunks instead of flinging yourself at individual issues.)  You can also start with “Leaping into the Light” if you want to read something more current and skip over some of the middle issues that are a bit of a slog.  (The 50s to the 70s are not the greatest time on this run.) - “Court of Owls” and “City of Owls” by Scott Snyder are from across various Bat-related titles (like Batman and Nightwing and Batgirl and such) and you can find the two collections/tpbs under the quoted titles.  I’m currently reading this one so I can’t comment on the whole thing, but I’m enjoying the interaction between all the various Bat-family members immensely and it has a really strong story at the center of it, and it’s just a solid place to start for stories in this universe, rather than just characters. - “Batman and the Night of the Monster Men” by various authors is another tpb with a self-contained story that’s kind of wild (comic book logic is basically “Wheeeeee!”) but had some excellent Batfamily interactions and some fun fights against giant monsters, and was an all-around self-contained good time. - “Batman: Cold Days” by Tom King (from the Batman series) is probably a bit of a controversial rec, I know so many people who dislike King’s writing, but I had an amazing time with this book, because it’s the lead-up to Dick getting shot in the head, so there’s extra emphasis on his interactions with Bruce, to really rub salt in the wound of how necessary this kid is to Bruce’s life.  Only background context you really need is: Bruce and his long-time love interest Selina were about to finally get married, but she stood him up at the altar for various reasons, and he’s in a dark place because of this.  Dick comes along to annoy Bruce into a better mood, but one of Batman’s villains is trying to destabilize him so that he can take over Gotham and Nightwing is fucking up his plans by making Batman too stable, so he has KGBeast shoot Nightwing in the head (which will lead to Dick’s amnesia arc, which is not the greatest time for us readers), and the emotional stuff of it was great.  Includes flashbacks to Dick’s early days in Wayne Manor that were really good for me.  (I also enjoyed “Batman: The Rules of Engagement” by the same author, set just before Bruce and Selina’s marriage, it’s the run up to it, and it had a lot of great family interaction stuff, including Selina’s take on how she loves Bruce in a way that really sold it for me.) And a final semi-rec:  While the characterizations might differ a little and the dynamics aren’t a 1:1 match for the comics, the Young Justice animated series from 2010 was a lot of fun, included some great characters, had some genuinely good stories, and you can actually watch it in order!

[bleue-flora]

same anon again, sorry if im bothering you.

It seems like the ending it isnt a retcon and people took it wrong.

https://www.tumblr.com/bluest-of-bells/765560231716683776?source=share

so this is more of a epilogue to after what happened on the nuke ending

I am so confused... maybe it's just too late for words to make sense to me, but I don't get it... what's this one life business?... but also more importantly, ccTommy is one of the reasons season 2 died in the first place by stirring up drama so if he and ccJack decide to do some role play, why should we feel inclined to accept it as anything?... like ccSam and ccDream have done plenty of "prison roleplay" with varying degrees of acceptance as canon, mind you up until the freaking finale, so... meh? Let's call it a dream or a screw up or the boys just wanted to have some fun or a variant timeline. Call the TVA!...

[phightinghottakes]

hi flower field anon! thank u for responding to my ask, i love disscussing stuff w people and seeing your take was very interesting

i do agree that a lot of the lore in phighting is pretty incohesive at times (i talk about why in the second paragraph), i mentioned in my ask that i had a few personal issues with the lore of the game (particularly the cult getting most of the lore so far. i love the cult and i think its quite interesting but i wish they'd finally get around to shifting lore focus on other characters), but i disagree with it "never being good unless they retcon a lot of stuff" because we quite literally dont know enough about the lore and story so far to truly decide if its good or not, especially w a lot of things being changed because its so incomplete. i dont have a true opinion on the lore of phighting being good or bad because of this, i think it has a lot of potential and a lot of flaws in it but i dont have a true conclusion on what i think of it so far if that makes sense. not saying you have to think the same way as me, i just find it odd that we're immediately deciding the lore is bad just with the small parts and tidbits we have so far (i apologize if this sounds rude, this is not my intention)

i also disagree that they're pulling stuff out of nowhere for lore, i recall that they have a whole lore document and its likely soda could just be pulling answers from that but because of the different kinds of questions shes getting it makes it very confusing and incohesive (except for like, really small and highly specific fun facts, i do think soda just kinda bullshits those because they're so incredibly specific). but i do think they should make a public timeline or something of the lore so its at least a little more cohesive for people who want to learn the lore, especially for newgens (because a lot of lore info that still holds up is very old! like. 2022-early 2023 old.)

also, may i ask where you got soda retconning the old demons horns thing from? ive been in the fandom for a very long time and i dont really recall her retconning it like that, just her saying that older demon's horns have difficulties growing back and leaving it at that, so im genuinely curious where she may have said that (i dont really watch her streams super often and especially not in full so maybe i missed something)

sorry for the long ask, i just enjoy discussing things like i said. thank you again for giving me your take on things flower field anon! have a good rest of ur day

-👾

.

[purpledusty]

I was washing my hair and thinking about how Scorpion's story with his family in the original timeline doesn't make a lot of sense (or it just wasn't written well, or i'm just a dumb blonde, who knows)

*I'm fully aware that the story was written while the games were being released and that some things may have been retconned but still...*

In the first Mortal Kombat (1992), Scorpion's arcade ending says that he left his wife and son behind and that even though he is the champion he cannot return to them, this sentence implies that they're still alive (at least i understand it that way)

And both MK2 and UMK/MKT endings involve Scorpion and Kuai Liang, not bringing anything about the family:

Then, we get in MK4, where Scorpion finds out from Quan Chi that his wife and son were killed by Kuai Liang, which causes them to fight at the end and when Kuai is defeated, Quan Chi reveals that he was the real killer.

Okay, in a narrative way this makes sense, Scorpion was killed and left his family but a few years later he was resurrected and had the chance to kill his killer but never got to see his family again, some time later he's tricked into believing that the man who he's protecting killed his family only to find out the truth at the last moment. Everything is perfect, it suggests that his family lived a long time, but Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub-Zero exists and in that game we see how Scorpion died and we discover that the Shirai Ryu (along with Scorpion's family) were killed by Quan Chi a request from the Lin Kuei at the same time, so Scorpion was unaware of this to still believe that his wife was alive but this scene happens:

Bi-Han and Hanzo meet in the Netherrealm, Hanzo doesn't seem to be angry that he was murdered, but rather that his family and clan died...

Huh? First, how does he know this? Quan Chi showed him what happened or something???? Second, if he knows that it was Bi-Han (at least in his view) who killed his family then how the fuck years later does he believe it was Kuai Liang????? Did he forget about it? Did Quan Chi do something and mess with his head?? WHAT HAPPEN????

Both Mythologies and MK4 were released in the same year just a week or two apart, but there's this discrepancy between them when it's about Scorpion that really confuses me (or i can just blame it on my hair color again for not understand)

[leathr-blr]

somebody who’s more up to date on what’s stated to be retconned or whatever help me out, because i’ve been rewatching phineas and ferb (again) and just finished rewatching the finale (last day of summer) and it got me thinking about all the timeline implications and what’ll happen in the next two seasons. because i’ve also seen all of milo murphy’s law and this is breaking my brain

i much would PREFER if the pnf finale stayed canon because i really love it (destroying a time loop for the end of a formulaic sitcom also including a lot of status quo changes is pretty genius) and also i hate what mml does to doofenshmirtz’s story for a lot of reasons

but it kind of donned on me once doof vowed not to be evil in last day of summer how much this confuses everything. like milo murphy’s law happened after the phineas and ferb summer (right?) and he was still evil then until the season one finale. not mention doof mentions he invented a time machine to put in the bathroom in the finale, which messes up the whole him not knowing how to invent time travel yet thing in milo murphy’s law

i also get confused about how candace against the universe fits into the timeline, because that came out way after the finale, and then candace has the development about not wanting to bust her brothers anymore, i’m assuming that happens in the middle of that summer pnf takes place in since doof is still evil. but i guess i can kind of wrap my head around that being some alternate universe “what if” scenario deal, and it is a kickass movie (or maybe she just relapsed… which… fine)

i also couldnt see them changing the status quo so much in the next two seasons that candace isn’t compelled to bust her brothers plus doofenshmirtz not being evil, even though i’d hope they would

even then, if they did do that or went with the mml timeline, wouldn’t that be confusing for pnf exclusive watchers (who would probably be watching on disney+ like me when the new seasons drop and would have almost definitely seen the s4 finale) be confused on why everything doesn’t line up??? is the mml timeline non-existent now since it’s cancelled / a different show???? has this ever been addressed. i don’t know. somebody help me my autistic brain can’t stop game-theorying about this cartoon sitcom for babies.

i probably messed something up since there’s hundreds of episodes of this show but i trust myself to be somewhat accurate in my assessment as that guy who’s seen all of pnf 3 times and watches it everyday

[speedofsoundsketches]

@megajulitox

Sure, time travel can lead to things getting confusing, particularly with generations retconning classic sonic into a baby sonic.

But the shift from classic to adventure was just an art direction change, not a retcon. Sonic's age and personality didn't change, only his appearance. It was an attempt to remove him from looking too cute like Hello Kitty into something more visually appropriate to aim at teens (which was always the intended audience) yet it still embodied much of the classic's tone and original direction.

But that doesn't suddenly negate the entire basic premise of the lore in this series. The original trilogy had a PLETHORA of lore accompanying it in the game manuals of the time. These manuals were necessary because game limitations back then only allow so much space to fully explain a backstory when it was more important to just dive straight into the game. It frustrates me tho because even without the manuals, you can play the games and see a clear, consistent story being told through them all. It's why this series blew my mind as a child because unlike games like Mario and such, the rich visuals, story and unique personality in Sonic was a stark contrast to what was the norm of the time!

The shift to the Adventure style didn't retcon or upset this at all. It was a natural progression and even up until 06, that storyline stayed consistent throughout. Just because a game maybe was more aimed for babies like Heroes versus a serious story like Shadow the Hedgehog, doesn't mean they're somehow "different continuities". And same for quality. A game being poorer quality then the one preceding it doesn't suddenly make it non-canon!

This is the same issue ppl have towards 06. They hate that game and act like it never happened and use the ending as an excuse except subsequent games afterwards CONSISTENTLY refer back to it. It was never forgotten and the Japanese audiences never once considered it not part of the proper timeline.

The games lore was never always a "mess." It had consistency. It had continuity. It would pick up from where a last game started off. Things Matter! There are a couple of awkward spots like "How in the world did Blaze actually end up in Sonic's dimension but got warped into a princess of the Sol Dimension?" but again, goofs in time travel/dimensional rifts like that don't mean the entire story of the series is suddenly disrupted or dismissed.

The argument that the movies or really, any western adaptation, had "no canon to work off of" is just a big lie. A lie that is so annoyingly passed around as an excuse for any western adaptations that failed to care to build off any of the lore established in the series from the beginning. You literally could even just play the games and figure things out from there!

People claim it's some kind of mess but as a kid who grew up alongside these games and played them, I never got a sense of that. Things made sense to me and it's part of why I love it so much!

Why do people insist that the original Sonic Team's incredible hard work and passionate dedication to this series mean absolutely NOTHING to them to feel inclined to claim there was no story or intentional progression? Why do we dismiss the creative brilliance of this team that made this franchise in the first place? I just don't get why some western fans do this but it seems to only come up when they want to prop up their preferred western version of Sonic, which just....

*SIGH*

[carolmunson]

hey beautiful

i'm obsessed with your rockstar!eddie series , i absolutely loved the angst with the boxer!steve crossover stuff but i know that's not really relevant to the timeline anymore... anyway was just wondering if you could kind of explain the timeline a little bit pls?? now that it's changed i mean. no problem if not!! love ur work carol, can't wait for another rockstar!eddie chapter <333

yes! i know it gets a little confusing. short lore below the cut:

so, they meet in summer of '89 but don't start oficially dating until fall of '89 (sweet you rock, sweet you roll). whirlwind romance, unaware that he's using to start. once it becomes clear that he's using, he's in and out of rehab (mentioning being off 'smack' in 'party favors', but also caught using by steve in @rustedhearts 'got it bad' in 1990). after back and forths of in rehab and out of rehab, you (stella) has had enough of the back and forth. it's either he gets clean for good or it's over. he's caught using after his 'final stint' at rehab in january 1992 where she leaves him and he goes back to his house in hollywood and she stays in the hills. stella (you) leave your ring behind for him to hold onto as a reminder of what he lost. in that time he goes and works on himself and meets up with steve (which we are retconning them hating eachother because the timelines have changed obv lol) to work on his shit. goes home to hawkins for a little, starts like -- getting his shit together. in september of 1992 after the MTV awards they see eachother again and reconcile but she's not ready to commit fully to him because she's just...not sure yet. he's made so many promises before. november 1992 after a bit of them trying to work things out back in the hills house he pulls a grand gesture as a reminder that he's eddie munson and he is so dumb sick in love with his girl that he flew everyone out to celebrate thanksgiving so that she wouldn't be sad. (not givin' it up part 1 and part 2).

they are married in late 1993, the sex tape leaks in january 1994 (video killed the radio star) and eddie is on leno soon after. this is also the year that eddie destroy's howard stern's studio after howard says some rude and lewd things about you in regards to the tape. (this is alluded to in alive with the glory of love but is also mentioned in the old timeline).

the twins are born in late 1994. we have some stuff brewing about eddie potentially being caught using a little after 'feeling mighty fine' in 1997 when the twins are still little. this causes a pretty big fight between steve and eddie since he is a new father now, too. but this is tbd! eddie goes back to rehab some time in 1998/1999ish after a slip up (referenced in an upcoming fic). he also struggles with a creeping cocaine addiction in the mid 00s.

fast forward to 2023 -- everyone is living a pretty cool life. :) (alive with the glory of love)

[where-theres-smoak-2]

I keep seeing posts saying that the sylki kiss from 1x06 was retconned. Obviously I don't know for 100% certainty, the writers/show producers would have to confirm if anything was retconned or not for us to be certain. But I don't think anything was retconned. It is a bit confusing with all the time skipping etc, you've also got the fact that when Loki went back and spoke to OB in the past it changed things in the future. But when he went back in 2x06 to speak to Mobius and then Sylvie after those timelines dissolved away, so what's the difference? Well here's how I see it, and I am going to try my best to explain it using a metaphor and hope it makes sense. So Loki at the end transforms all the timelines into a tree, so lets run with that imagery and look at time like its a tree. You've got all your branches, that's the different timelines, then you've got your leaves on that branch which represents different moments in time. These moments/leaves exsist on multiple branches. Here is a diagram for you, I apologise for the crudeness, I was only able to put on coat of paint and it is not to scale:

I think we see Loki travel two different ways on this time tree I think when he goes back and speaks to OB he is jumping between different points on the same branch like this:

When he jumps back to speak to OB it kind of rearranges slightly the branch from that point forward, so now future OB remembers the conversation but everything else stays the same.

HWR says the way the loom works is that it deletes anything that isn't supposed to be there and just keeps the sacred timeline aka the events that HWR wants to happen. We know that the events of season 1 and 2 were what HWR wanted to happen, he says he paved the way, which is why I think after speaking to past Mobius in 2x06 the timeline dissolves. I think the way Loki is time-slipping in this episode where he is trying to find the right actions that will solve the problem and save the day is more like he is skipping between branches as opposed to the same branch, like this:

Only when he skips out of that the branch falls off and dies like after he spoke to Mobius and Sylvie.

When it comes to him repeating the same moment I see as him kind of bouncing from say his branch to that same moment on a different branch:

When it fails he slips back to that same moment and tries again. And its the same with the citadel. I suppose it would look more like this:

With that moment as a sort of fixed moment.

Actually another way of looking at it (and probably a simpler way if I am honest) is like every time Loki skips back after a failed attempt he's hitting the return to factory settings button, when you do that on a computer it erases everything you have added, everything you have done. In this case the factory settings are season 1 and season 2 up to 2x4.

So the sylki kiss and citadel moment weren't retconned or erased, neither was that first interview with Mobius in 1x01 because when Loki slipped back to the loom room for the last time he had hit the reset button. So the events of season 1 and 2 up to ep 4 stay, they are the in universe canon you could say. So the Sylvie we see talking to Mobius at the end is the same Sylvie who kissed Loki in 1x06, and went through all of season 1 and 2.

So what parts were retconned/ erased. Anything between the end of 2x4 and the end of 2x6. So sadly we have lost the bar scene from ep 5, we get to keep the kiss and the pie room scene though. The other scenes that got erased in this episode is Loki's conversation with Mobius where he asks how to choose who lives and dies. Also the conversation with Sylvie where he tells her he might have to kill her to stop her killing HWR is gone too. Though to note Loki still remembers it all.

Anyway that's my take on it, I hope it makes sense.

[xsoulxsilencex]

New spoilers dropped and out of it, only one seems rather interesting.

So, ep 135 will have Yudias duel Kuaidul because he senses something evil from him? And then he witnesses "several different worlds"? PLEASE, this has to mean that GR and 7s don't have to be on the same timeline. I've talked about it before but Go Rush already has things from the start that clearly go against what Sevens established especially the whole Sogetsu (and Nanahoshi) story. Like how the hell did Gakugen "invent" gakuting (still hate that they retconned it to not being Gakuto's own thing) but now the "manaming" of Manabu is also somewhat tied to Gakugen/the Sogetsu's iirc? Yeah, nah. I really hope this episode will confirm we deal with different timelines/AU.

Also notice how the one writing the script for ep 135 is Takeuchi Toshimitsu who usually is just writing for the arc finals in Go Rush? The only non-arc final episodes he wrote were Yuna vs Yudias (where Yuna beat him with Yuga's deck) and the Ohdo's going to Goha City as cats where Luke meets Yuga again from what I know. Also Kondo Nobuhiro is working on the episode who is the director of Sevens and Go Rush so yeah, seems to be a pretty plot-relevant episode. Ep 135 talking about different worlds, I can't help but think that we will see the Sevens world again. Who knows, that episode might also confirm if Yuga really managed to reach his time or not. If not, he's so coming back. If yes, he's still coming back because I don't trust GR letting go of him especially with Yuna still being delulu about him. Ep 136 even is called "The Door to That Guy" and Yuga's the only one being called "That Guy". Unless ep 135 might also lead to us seeing the Creator again and he's "that guy"? Ep 137 is "Dark Otes" so uh, is Yuhi getting actually evil or the "real" Otes shows up? Will Creator have anything to do with it since he's supposed to be Otes' Earthdamar?

Btw: Ep 137 being also written by Takeuchi probably means it's the start of the arc final. Considering that Go Rush is supposed to end with 151 episodes (which would fit when considering the break during New Year so the show ends on March 30th), arc 11 is either just 11 episodes long so arc 12 can have the regular 13 episodes or it's another 12 episodes arc which would mean a 3-parter arc final. (unless Takeuchi isn't bothering with the arc final like he didn't with the arc 5 arc final)

I'm still confused about Yudias randomly freezing like why just him? This better have a good explanation and wasn't just done because his VA was sick or absent so they had to make Yudias unable to talk.