Dec 3: Time Travel
The prompt of the day is Time Travel, suggested by meesasometimes.
This was written for the Daily December Rant meme - I still have some days unclaimed, so go forth!
(I would like to also share that I'm at my parents' house right now, told my mother I was coming down with a cold, and she gave my sister and I "special medicine." I have just realized that is why I feel so weird right now. So now that I have written this ramble, I'm going to go lie down until said special medicine wears off, la dee dah.)
Time travel
I have very mixed feelings about time travel as a plot device. I realize I tend to assume it's lazy writing or a throwaway plotline that won't address all the complications and consequences of temporal cause and effect. That said, I really enjoy time travel when it's the main plot, rather than a means to an end. I like watching characters try to negotiate and use time travel, and watching appropriate fall-out and mistakes.
Some of the places I've enjoyed time travel are:
"A Sound of Thunder"
This creepy short story about hunting excursions brought to the past to kill dinosaurs demonstrates the butterfly effect literally when a character stepping on a butterfly in the past changes the entire course of history. Reading the story in middle school convinced me at a young age never to try time travel.
Read a PDF of it here
Time Machine
I read this and War of the Worlds in a couple days, both of which really freaked me out. But I've always loved sci-fi, and Time Machine was a quick read and super engaging. That's pretty much all I remember!
Time and Again
I really recommend this book. In it, there is a time travel agency that sets up perfect replicas of life in the past and hires people to live completely immersed in select moments in history. The main character lives as if he's in the late 19th century I believe, and eventually manages to wake up in the past.
I love this idea of history being layered and I remember loving the very detailed, meticulous way this book was written. I did read it when I was sixteen or so, so maybe it's not as great as I remember it being, but it is definitely worth checking out. There are old-style, hand drawn portraits in the middle too, along with old photographs.
Harry Potter
I loved Hermione using the time turner to take more classes, and I loved that she was constantly harried and had her own life going on. I definitely was uncertain when time travel was introduced, but I liked the plotline enough to ignore all potential plot-holes.
Doctor Who
Although I love many DW episodes, time travel isn't usually my favorite part of the show. For instance, it allows for less consistent characters and I don't exactly get how they're not meddling with fixed points in time and space. But I love the show for what it is and I love when characters find ways to reunite despite being torn apart by time and space. Basically what I said above holds true here, I love when you see the positives and negatives of time travel, and I try to ignore the inconsistencies or for the sake of the greater, often wonderfully tragic, story.
Some favorite episodes off the top of my head are "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink," "Silence in the Library," and "The Beast Below," all of which really highlight the positive and negative effects of jumping through time. For instance, I love, love, love that the queen in "The Beast Below" thinks she's young, but in reality has been going on the same journey of trying to find out the truth of the ship for years, each time realizing she was the one to set up the system in the first place. She then has to choose whether to discontinue the system or press the giant "forget" button.
I love the exchange at the end where Amy admits she's using time to run away from her future (such a crazy, lovely idea):
Amy: Have you ever run away from something because you were scared. Or not ready. Or just... just because you could.
The Doctor: Once. A long time ago.
Amy: What happened?
The Doctor: Hello.
The show often deals with the gravity of being alone in time and space, like the ridiculously over-the-top revelation that centurian!Rory waited for thousands of years for Amy (I CRIED OK?) or people trying to find their place in time.
Very old and very kind, and the very, very last - sound a bit familiar?
Back to the Future
These were the movies of my childhood. They are gloriously wacky and fun, and I'm going to go do have to do a rewatch so I can revel in what they thought the 2000s were going to be like. I also have memories of ten year old me with a very intense older-woman crush on a woman named Clara in the third one, I think? It all feels very steampunk in my memory, probably because there was a train involved.
Supernatural
Show definitely blows all of my potential dislikes out of the water. I love pretty much everything about s1-5 especially, and I love the angst delivered in the time travel episodes. "The End" was creepy as fuck, all launched off with their phone breakup at the beginning, Sam's heart OBVIOUSLY BREAKING at Dean saying OUT OUD, "Love, family, whatever it is." I loved the post-apocalyptic mess that I think they might still be going toward in the show even now. I loved Lucifer!Sam's white disco suit. I love that the entire eventuality is based on Dean not calling Sam.
Dean meeting his grandparents and seeing his mom and dad before shit went down. I love how we find out along with Dean that his parents' lives were not what he'd been told. Mary being a hunter and how she never wanted things to turn out the way they do. Her telling Dean that she doesn't want her kids to grow up as hunters was so beautiful. I love angels meddling in the affairs of humans, trying to undo fate but ultimately failing. Not to mention how much incest show delivers in these episodes for really no reason other than that is how it goes: "Mom is hot...I'm going to hell, again." and seeing how much chemistry Dean has with his dad, buying a car at Rainbow motors. And YED!Sampa kissing Mary. IDEK guys.
Finally, the cherry on the top of all time traveling sundaes:
Le Visiteur du Futur
This is by far one of my favorite shows. It's a French web series with incredible acting and character development, that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. The first few episodes (a couple minutes each) are delightfully formulaic, and then a greater plot unfolds. Each episode is better than the last, and I promise you will love it. It now comes with English subtitles so you have NO EXCUSE NOT TO WATCH IT.
WATCH IT HERE (remember to click season 1)
All that said, I may have misunderstood the question completely, and if in the event that meesasometimes was asking about real life, then yes, yes I am a time traveler. There, I said it.
Dec 4: My first fandom love >>
This was written for the Daily December Rant meme - I still have some days unclaimed, so go forth!
(I would like to also share that I'm at my parents' house right now, told my mother I was coming down with a cold, and she gave my sister and I "special medicine." I have just realized that is why I feel so weird right now. So now that I have written this ramble, I'm going to go lie down until said special medicine wears off, la dee dah.)
Time travel
I have very mixed feelings about time travel as a plot device. I realize I tend to assume it's lazy writing or a throwaway plotline that won't address all the complications and consequences of temporal cause and effect. That said, I really enjoy time travel when it's the main plot, rather than a means to an end. I like watching characters try to negotiate and use time travel, and watching appropriate fall-out and mistakes.
Some of the places I've enjoyed time travel are:
"A Sound of Thunder"
This creepy short story about hunting excursions brought to the past to kill dinosaurs demonstrates the butterfly effect literally when a character stepping on a butterfly in the past changes the entire course of history. Reading the story in middle school convinced me at a young age never to try time travel.
Read a PDF of it here
Time Machine
I read this and War of the Worlds in a couple days, both of which really freaked me out. But I've always loved sci-fi, and Time Machine was a quick read and super engaging. That's pretty much all I remember!
Time and Again
I really recommend this book. In it, there is a time travel agency that sets up perfect replicas of life in the past and hires people to live completely immersed in select moments in history. The main character lives as if he's in the late 19th century I believe, and eventually manages to wake up in the past.
I love this idea of history being layered and I remember loving the very detailed, meticulous way this book was written. I did read it when I was sixteen or so, so maybe it's not as great as I remember it being, but it is definitely worth checking out. There are old-style, hand drawn portraits in the middle too, along with old photographs.
Harry Potter
I loved Hermione using the time turner to take more classes, and I loved that she was constantly harried and had her own life going on. I definitely was uncertain when time travel was introduced, but I liked the plotline enough to ignore all potential plot-holes.
Doctor Who
Although I love many DW episodes, time travel isn't usually my favorite part of the show. For instance, it allows for less consistent characters and I don't exactly get how they're not meddling with fixed points in time and space. But I love the show for what it is and I love when characters find ways to reunite despite being torn apart by time and space. Basically what I said above holds true here, I love when you see the positives and negatives of time travel, and I try to ignore the inconsistencies or for the sake of the greater, often wonderfully tragic, story.
Some favorite episodes off the top of my head are "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink," "Silence in the Library," and "The Beast Below," all of which really highlight the positive and negative effects of jumping through time. For instance, I love, love, love that the queen in "The Beast Below" thinks she's young, but in reality has been going on the same journey of trying to find out the truth of the ship for years, each time realizing she was the one to set up the system in the first place. She then has to choose whether to discontinue the system or press the giant "forget" button.
I love the exchange at the end where Amy admits she's using time to run away from her future (such a crazy, lovely idea):
Amy: Have you ever run away from something because you were scared. Or not ready. Or just... just because you could.
The Doctor: Once. A long time ago.
Amy: What happened?
The Doctor: Hello.
The show often deals with the gravity of being alone in time and space, like the ridiculously over-the-top revelation that centurian!Rory waited for thousands of years for Amy (I CRIED OK?) or people trying to find their place in time.
Very old and very kind, and the very, very last - sound a bit familiar?
Back to the Future
These were the movies of my childhood. They are gloriously wacky and fun, and I'm going to go do have to do a rewatch so I can revel in what they thought the 2000s were going to be like. I also have memories of ten year old me with a very intense older-woman crush on a woman named Clara in the third one, I think? It all feels very steampunk in my memory, probably because there was a train involved.
Supernatural
Show definitely blows all of my potential dislikes out of the water. I love pretty much everything about s1-5 especially, and I love the angst delivered in the time travel episodes. "The End" was creepy as fuck, all launched off with their phone breakup at the beginning, Sam's heart OBVIOUSLY BREAKING at Dean saying OUT OUD, "Love, family, whatever it is." I loved the post-apocalyptic mess that I think they might still be going toward in the show even now. I loved Lucifer!Sam's white disco suit. I love that the entire eventuality is based on Dean not calling Sam.
Dean meeting his grandparents and seeing his mom and dad before shit went down. I love how we find out along with Dean that his parents' lives were not what he'd been told. Mary being a hunter and how she never wanted things to turn out the way they do. Her telling Dean that she doesn't want her kids to grow up as hunters was so beautiful. I love angels meddling in the affairs of humans, trying to undo fate but ultimately failing. Not to mention how much incest show delivers in these episodes for really no reason other than that is how it goes: "Mom is hot...I'm going to hell, again." and seeing how much chemistry Dean has with his dad, buying a car at Rainbow motors. And YED!Sampa kissing Mary. IDEK guys.
Finally, the cherry on the top of all time traveling sundaes:
Le Visiteur du Futur
This is by far one of my favorite shows. It's a French web series with incredible acting and character development, that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. The first few episodes (a couple minutes each) are delightfully formulaic, and then a greater plot unfolds. Each episode is better than the last, and I promise you will love it. It now comes with English subtitles so you have NO EXCUSE NOT TO WATCH IT.
WATCH IT HERE (remember to click season 1)
All that said, I may have misunderstood the question completely, and if in the event that meesasometimes was asking about real life, then yes, yes I am a time traveler. There, I said it.
Dec 4: My first fandom love >>