#also idk u yall can tell

[khickuwa]

Dear God, won't you look at me? Even for a moment, won't you let me pretend you're mine?

[aurieeeeeenyx]

time travel mechanics in link click — intentional inconsistencies? closed loops and parallel timelines (theory)

Back in 2021 or so, I wanted to make a post about the time travel mechanics in Season 1, and how they seemed to be inconsistent in certain episodes. I never ended up making that post, and the idea slowly faded from my mind, but I want to make that post now (armed with all the new information we've received since then) before Bridon/Yingdu arc episode 4 comes out because of the episode preview when Lu Guang says this:

In Season 1, the time travel seems to operate on the principle of a closed loop. This is especially evident in the Doudou arc, when Cheng Xiaoshi sees himself in the past (while he's in Doudou's body) and realizes that he was always there; the "changes" he inflicted weren't really changes, because by the time he dives back from the future his actions in the past have already happened. This is also demonstrated when Xu Shanshan walks into the photo studio and interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi in S1E8, and we later find out that it was in fact Cheng Xiaoshi in Xu Shanshan's body interacting with himself. And again, with the ploy to use Xu Shanshan in order to lure Liu Min/Red Eyes to the photo studio. We also see this closed loop phenomenon happen in Season 2, for example when Cheng Xiaoshi possesses Lu Guang's body to go save himself in the past.

So I've always been a little bothered by the earthquake arc in Season 1. If the dives into the past have already happened, why does Chen Xiao come to the photo studio in the first place? If Cheng Xiaoshi (in Chen Xiao's body) won the basketball game and gave those kind words to Chen Xiao's loved ones, why does Chen Xiao remember otherwise?

I've wondered before what happens to the clients when Cheng Xiaoshi is possessing them—do they just not remember anything? Are they even aware of themselves being possessed? Why is no one concerned about missing memories for hours at a time or not being in control of their own body? Emma sort of skirts around this when she tells Cheng Xiaoshi, "So you were the one who sent that message" in S1E11, implying she's aware it wasn't her who sent it. For the sake of argument, though, I'm going to pass the general non-reaction of the clients to being possessed as a handwavey "the brain justifies it somehow later" thing and ignore it.**

That brings us again to the question: Why does Chen Xiao remember the past differently to the one Cheng Xiaoshi experienced/changed? Maybe the past isn't set in stone after all? Maybe, instead of just being a closed loop, the time travel in Link Click is operating on multiple systems?

In 2021, right after I watched Season 1, I was going to dismiss this as just an error. The writers slipped up and bungled their time travel mechanics a bit, and therefore the earthquake arc is different on accident. But we've learned since then that nothing is unintentional in this show, so why is that arc different from the others? (Also, I want to note, there is that moment in S1E4 where Lu Guang's face does that weird warping thing; coincidence? Maybe, but maybe not...)

My theory is: the time travel abilities that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang have operate differently.

DISCLAIMER: My knowledge of photography and film is extremely limited, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

There's always been a lot of film imagery in this show—obviously, since the whole premise is based in photography—but as early as the Season 1 OP, "Dive Back In Time," we can see the repeated use of rewinding film rolls as a metaphor for going back in time.

Note also: Lu Guang dropping the photo and it transitioning into a film roll, and Cheng Xiaoshi being tangled up in film rolls and being "inside" the film in the background/trapped in the frame. I'll get to this later.

The thing is, once you record something on film, you can't change it; you can only rewind and play it again. This tracks with the closed loop theory: no real changes can be made, because they have already happened. So how is it possible that "changes are still happening," as Lu Guang says in the YE4 preview? It's likely that Vein (and Liu Xiao and Xia Fei) are involved, but I don't believe that's the root of the issue. And, I don't think it's just the ever-nebulous "butterfly effect," because in YE1 Lu Guang says this:

I used to think that even a flap of a butterfly might cause a hurricane strong enough to ruin the world. I was wrong. The power of time is still far beyond our imagination. The future may not change due to a ripple of the past. Not at all...

(Yes, Lu Guang is a notoriously unreliable narrator, but I've decided to trust him on this one. Not to mention, butterfly effect shouldn't exist in a closed loop system.)

I've seen lots of excellent analyses illustrating the discrepancies this season, from the very first scene of YE1 (different furniture positioning, cracks in photo frame glass, bloodstains, presence of curtain, etc) to the changing positions of clothing, buildings, time of day, food, and so on in YE2 (go check out hyperfaexation's excellent YouTube video on their Shattered Memories theory for more details). The fandom is constantly theorizing about how many timelines there are. But while we've been asking ourselves how many timelines exist (five, ten, more?), we forgot to stop and ask: why do they exist?

The existence of multiple timelines doesn't fit into Season 1's time travel premise. In Season 1, it was always Cheng Xiaoshi that we were watching. Whereas Cheng Xiaoshi could be said to live "in" the film when he dives, perhaps Lu Guang is cutting the roll short at the point which he dives back to and splicing a new roll onto it. This could explain the scene from "Dive Back In Time" that I referenced earlier, with Lu Guang outside the film and Cheng Xiaoshi in it. It's not exactly that Lu Guang is diving back in time; it's more like he's diving out of time, into a parallel timeline and leaving this one behind. Maybe this season, we'll get to see more complicated time travel mechanics that result from the intersection of different powers. (And, while we're at it, maybe we can get an answer to why Cheng Xiaoshi has golden eyes for a few frames in YE1 when they're running away, because seriously what's up with that?)

**Another explanation for the non-reaction to the clients' possession could be the interaction of different timelines, but I'm not really sure how this would pan out so I'm not going to elaborate too much.

What does this have to do with the earthquake arc? Why would Lu Guang have a (slightly) different power than Cheng Xiaoshi, if he inherited it from Cheng Xiaoshi as we are led to believe? What happens to the discarded film, the abandoned timelines, when Lu Guang casts them away? Can Cheng Xiaoshi ever be saved? I don't have answers to any of these questions, and maybe I'm overthinking (ha) all of this and it really is just a writing inconsistency after all, but I want to believe Link Click's writers know what they're doing with this and all we can do is wait for the reveal.

[botlabyrinth]

the percy jackson tv show is actually great when there isn’t a little shit in your ear telling you it’s not “book accurate”

[bsotted]

ok well. unfortunate news: sometimes ur niche is so niche u've already niched the niche. this is exactly the same as the feeling of hitting the end of ur ship tag in ao3 🥲

*edit: sorry i accidentally named like every character ever in the tags so ppl are Seeing this post who dont have the benefit of so much as a single crumb of context. if i accidentally namedropped ur blorbo its bc of this post:

anyway. i was excited for recs bc i also enjoy this genre of fictional character. unfortunately as above the niche is niched, it turns out. at least for me, content enjoyer georg, who has apparently already seen or read everything anyone else has already seen or read except for a small handful of specific media properties that i do not wish to see or read for various personal reasons and also not literally everything ever... just the same things as everyone else has already seen and read... u get the idea. ok thnks 👍🏻

[oh-cramity-its-amity]

i love my friends so much. i feel like yesterday i had a lot of shit going on in my head and i woke up to my friend explaining things in a way that put my mind at ease. i dont feel as anxious anymore because i know i was overthinking. i think my dad said it best when he told me that he thought my wonderful brain of mine just wants to think problems are bigger than they actually are. he is right! im just inexperienced in life and half of the time im scared im doing something wrong but- HEY. i need to be more confident in making mistakes. making mistakes doesn't define me as a person!! i need to stop worrying about doing life right and just live for the sake of living and doing what makes me happy!!!!!!!

[crazycoven]

Cant wait to dye my hair porple mwuahahahah

[millionyearhearts]

if i see ONE (1) more person call a friendship/dynamic with a slight age gap a "parent and child relationship" im going to HAVE A TANTRUM !!!!! i hate the idea of a person being friends/acquaintances/coworkers with someone only like 3 or 4 years older than them and is unironically like "haha ur my mom/dad goo goo ga ga" STOP WITH THE PARENTIFICATION OF FRIENDSHIPS!!!!!

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

Hello may I interest you all in literally the roughest comic sketch I have ever made in my life

Yuko has very thoroughly burrowed herself into my brain so I wanted to quickly sketch my idea for her and Kiryu meeting after TEN YEARS IN THE-

[chintzwife]

the amount of media i have consumed in one week of being sick . . . . i am horrifying myself thinking about it

[illithidprone]

💀💀💀

(Edit: for the tentacles space, its 'likes tentacles' btw)

[jamesbukkakebarnes]

🦔

[unjorts]

if you notice something watching you, would it not be polite to Look back and say hello ?

(do not actually say hello or acknowledge it in any way if you do not want to invite its presence into your life.)

[bibleofficial]

so the majority of my building seems to be chinese so i’m just going to learn mandarin via cultural osmosis

[chisungie]

.

[rpsense]

not the lost tomb anon but replying "if you think having a diversity rule forces somebody to play a poc then idk what to tell you" when they specifically said that in regards to lazy and inaccurate portrayals is incredibly oversimplifying the topic. remember when turkish fcs first started getting popular and all the white roleplayers were using them for characters like karen smith from utah? there's a lot of white roleplayers who accept diversity rules & join rps with those, or even put those rules in their OWN rps, but still erase any speck of cultural heritage on their characters, because they don't actually wanna play that character as a poc and consider what that entails, they just wanna have the diversity brownie points that comes with it. often times they'll play the same 5 OCs that all have a standard white fc but depending on diversity rules, get changed into a fcoc with no changes to the background whatsoever. it's very performative but unfortunately also very common, and i don't blame the other anon for wanting to avoid that.

i was trying to be nice but imo, it's a stupid ass reason for not wanting a diversity rule because there is a very simple way to avoid people like this. in addition, it's a tired excuse to not having a diversity rule i've heard plenty of times. - x

HI IM ADDING TO THIS

can i be honest with you ... PERSONALLY i would prefer if someone using a south asian faceclaim just wrote them the way they'd write any other muse rather than make them a caricature of their culture without doing proper research. and oftentimes what you find on the internet is largely just tropes and stereotypes. unless you actually have friends belonging to that culture it's hard to know where to draw that line between taking bits and pieces from the culture vs making their entire personality the fact that they're south asian. again, personally, this is how i feel in regards to south asian muses at least, people can have other opinions on the same topic. idk if i explained what i mean well enough but i think this whole discussion on writing diverse muses is a very complex one tbh with a lot of differing opinions on how best to approach writing someone from a different culture than what you yourself belong to, ykwim. - o

[a-strawbebie]

lalala