Time Travel Ruins Everything.

I just watched a vid that criticized Futurama for retcon-ing the tale of Seymore the dog. It went on to examine retcon in other works, and of it, and remakes, and followups long after the original... suck. And hard the original works that we've grown attached to, and don't need having had messed with.

Here's that vid: https://youtu.be/nxDroU9WAmc

Eh. A lot of good points. Though I had a different take. I don't have time travel in any of my writing. I feel in falls into deus ex machine pretty easily, and once an audience/reader knows Tim travel is in play, the question will often hang in the air if anything they've seen so far will matter, or be wiped away in an instant. If told well, it's not that extreme, and can be done well, but... meh... Tolerance for time travel varies from person to person, but when I heard Avengers: End Game was going to be a 'time heist'.... ugh... I enjoyed the flick well enough, but... but every time I consider watching it again, remembering the great moments, I also remember I have to go through all the time stuff first. And the Hawekeye stuff. And the... ugh. And I end up re-watching Castlevania or something.

So... Time travel ruins everything. Ok, not everything, but a lot. I'm not so concerned with Seymore's retcon, the initial episode hit hard, and it's not like it was retconned next week or anything. It was left to simmer, and if we're of a Time travelly mindset, we can merrily accept that both outcomes are simultaneously true. Time travel makes that mindset very possible.

As opposed to Rey kissing Kylo. We can hate it, we can wish it didn't happen, but in a time-travel free world, the fanfic-est mind needs to accept that it happened in canon.

What happened in canon if Futurama? Yes. It all did, none of it did, because the time travel factor exists. A wild card that is theoretically unceasing. This is also true of say... star trek. They love the time travel, but are less trigger-happy with it.

Star TREK microwaves don't accidentally cause time tra... .. yet.

Futurama's a lot more loosely goosey with time. We can hate it, or accept the freedom it supplies us to accept alternate timelines. Like we accept Rose Tyler getting a photocopy of the Doctor to keep for herself. But then Trek had that Romulan thing that we have to accept, because rules are rules, and timelines are flexibly strict, and we have to ignore accepting adherence to the solid fluidity of the rules of infinite choices we have only many of, but none.

..... time travel ruins everything.