#i need to make different life choices | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whetstonefires · 7 months

Note

“The Justice League and the Avengers are very different teams”

In what respect? Like, how would you say both teams differ in terms of overall function, how they respond to threats, how they’re viewed by their respective publics, etc?

😂 who even are you?

anyway, these two teams have been reformed and rebooted so many times and are the flagships of the two juggernauts of their industry, so their natures have evolved and influenced one another heavily over the decades as you see armies tend to do in prolonged warfare, so there is probably not one single statement you could make about either one that's always true.

it would be crazy to try to explain the difference in diegetic terms, because those aren't goalposts they're hockey pucks. the difference in kind exists at a publishing level.

fundamentally, the Avengers was designed to rest, in narrative terms, on everyone's personal relationships and neuroses, and develop soap opera subplots and office drama around how these intersected with each other and various villains. because in the 60s Marvel was launching the Big New Thing which was heightened naturalism and relatability in comics.

(spiderman and the whole genre of underdog superhero who can't catch a break rather than slyly winking at the audience as the world looks down on his secret identity, not knowing how impressive he really is, dates to this pivot of Marvel's. both Superman and Captain America did the latter in their early days, which is highly dissonant from Cap and Bucky looking at them today, but Cap was retired from print for like 20 years and got heavily rebooted for the new age.)

they had an actual mansion they could all live in, and many of them did, for a solid chunk of time early on. there's a reason people swung so hard for the 'everyone lives in stark tower' scenario foreshadowed at the end of Avengers (2012)--that's how the Avengers are! you bang the action figures together and give them angst and bonding about it!

they fractured repeatedly under the weight of all that drama (because psychology and because stories that don't end are unable to make any narrative sense, and breaking up a team is honestly a half-decent substitute in the Eternal Now of big comics) and at this point the current avengers is much more impersonal and even pays salaries, like basically the commune-underwritten-by-rich-buddy has reincorporated as an NGO.

but it still runs on the same types of narrative tensions mostly--huge epic stuff will be happening, but the Avengers tension comes down to whether everyone really hates T'Challa this month for that thing he did. and what this is doing to group cohesion.

the Justice League on the other hand was not built for character-driven story.

they've done plenty of them, after it became the done thing, and even imitated the Avengers and did the diegetic collapsing and reforming arcs and so on. but it's not fundamental to how a Justice League runs; you could do a super long run where the interpersonal tensions never rose above B-plot status and it wouldn't be tonally dissonant.

it would be weird for many of the Justice League to live together--when a character is shown living in Justice League facilities it is usually to signify that they are isolated and don't have a life and this is Bad. the Martian Manhunter and Maxwell Lord dominated era was deliberately aping the Avengers imo and came out weird as a result, and Lord turning out to be a mind-controlling supervillain was not unrelated to how weird most people felt it was.

the Justice League is like. joining a club rather than a frat. like being on the board of an NGO, rather than taking a full-time job there.

you know? the type of commitment is different. the level of intimacy is different.

cap and iron man's relationship has generally played out primarily in the context of their positions within the Avengers, even though it spills into their own titles, while superman and batman have had entire joint books just for them, and their friendship has not usually been allowed to take up much page time in Justice League issues. because that would be indecorous.

commercially speaking, Justice League is first and foremost an easy-buy showcase for high-profile hero characters and anyone you want to burnish up by displaying adjacent to them.

They've totally gotten messy with it over the years but like. I think the seminal Justice League internal dramas were 1) that time Barry Allen killed the guy who'd killed his first wife and was about to kill his second one and they put him on trial 2) that time Wonder Woman killed a dude who told her under truth compulsion that the only way to stop him from mind-controlling Superman to murder people was to kill him and they put her on trial 3) blah blah Batman paranoia exploited by eeeeevil (barely counts imo) and 4) that extremely oogy time it turned out the Justice League had been using magic to forcible reform criminals and erased Batman's memories of this being a thing when he found out and objected because ethics wtf.

That last one was sufficiently story-breaking they started pretending it hadn't happened as quickly as possible. Which was amazingly quickly considering Identity Crisis was the basis for things like killing off the presiding Robin's remaining parent. They actually soft-reset the whole world fairly soon after by timeskipping over most of a year and being like ahem anyway the past is in the past. And then the universe just kept serially ending for over a decade, so it's been weird.

Justice League has reliably gotten a shiny coat of polish with every reboot tho lol.

(Still not over the way they were like, okay we're wiping Green Lantern back to Hal but now we don't have the token black guy everyone who saw the cartoon expects, let's promote Cyborg people know him because of that other cartoon, ah shit he doesn't work without a partner to do bits with. well we can't put garfield logan in the justice league it's too prestigious, he's from the doom patrol for a reason, yeah i know we've had folks like plastic man shut up this is a Cool Sexy new reboot where Superman and Wonder Woman are fucking, we're not using friggin beast boy. how about Captain Marvel? yeah ok shazam is An Silly Joker now and besties with this 20 year old who may or may not know about his elaborate cognitive situation. i don't actually think they put even this much effort into it but otoh maybe they debated really hard and this was the compromise.

........actually vic could probably work up a decent oppositional patter with eel o'brien ik they were never gonna use plastic man but i don't hate it.)

Right. There was a point.

Obviously I'm probably missing a few big dramas here, but the point is DC was trying to keep up with the fantastic dysfunction of the Avengers because if it bleeds it leads, but even in the Dark Age they could not dive in groin first without tarnishing valued brands. The Justice League is simply not built to tell the same types of stories that the Avengers are.

In Justice League stories the narrative will typically be split in focus to a varying degree between the problems created by the villain and the personal emotional situations--the problems--of the heroes. Usually the villain leads and provides the emotional stakes. Only occasionally, overall, do problems between the heroes rise to the same level. Even when they're having them canonically in some other book Justice League tends to be ruled not the right place for that.

Secret identities are traditionally kept to a minimum in the League and League stories, though what this means in practice has gone through some shifts.

This is not just the difference between DC and Marvel house styles, though of course that's part of it, nor is it the League being older, because it isn't by any significant amount. It replaced the Justice Society of America in 1960. Other teams, even the Titans to an extent which was just the junior wing of the League at first, were allowed to get more into the grit sooner, and have the experimental story of Speedy's career-ending heroin problem happen and intra-team dating drama take the foreground, and all that. Doom Patrol was all about the dysfunction, god.

But the Justice League is simply not designed to be that kind of a team book, and when it's occasionally written that way the seams usually creak.

#ask #hoc est meum #Anonymous #despite racing to the bottom of the pit in many ways #dc has never stopped being fundamentally more conservative than marvel #somehow even now that marvel is disney owned #like partly that's just dc being in internal meltdown mode #but also like the incredible hulk got to be a hellacious horror comic under disney etc #soon i will be out of quarantine and these asks will stop working #comics #damn i spent so long writing this shit i almost lost my duolingo streak #i need to make different life choices #i'm putting away laundry and going to bed

103 notes · View notes

carnivalcarriondiscarded · 6 months

Text

helloooo have a messy scribble page of oc concepts. unfortunately, im in love and will now proceed to ramble At Length

but before that! rudimentary height chart!

all i know rn is Mairy - the cow - is about the same height as Howdy/Barnaby/Poppy (around 8ft), Hettie & Daisy are in the Wally/Julie/Sally category (around 3ft), and Jesterly is more Frank/Eddie (around 4ft). Derry Drake is fuckoff huge, and Casey is... idk really. tall but not That tall

so. rambles. i... have those, yeah

Mairy Love - she/her - lesbian a gorgeous white/blue cow! originally she was gonna be pink/white, but blue/white is my favorite color combo and honestly? it's dairy colors to me. she's big! she's strong! she's very gentle and sweet but also takes shit from no one, even though she doesn't like confrontation much (unless its playful roughhousing! jokes fly completely over her head! i'm thinking she tends to a lovely orchard of various fruit trees, and probably cultivates some crops for fun as well. maybe seasonal ones? pumpkins for the spooky season, fir trees for those snowy days, etc.

Casey J. Mittens - he/him - aro this orange fella is scaredy cat central! unfortunately for him, he's also curious to a fault! curiosity killed the cat, and he fears the day that rings true for him! he'd rather curl up at home or in a cozy tree, crocheting something cute from one of his many balls of yarn than do anything else. he tries to be a voice of reason, but is too easily convinced otherwise. he's that friend who says "we shouldn't be doing this" as he wholeheartedly assists in the shenanigan in question.

Hettie (currently undecided) - she/her - bi true to her honeybee heritage, Hettie is a florist! she boasts an impressive array of flowers that she tends to like her life depends on it. she's always running around to make sure they're all getting the best care - and she's always checking in on her pals to make sure they're taken care of, too. she's a busy bee who wouldn't know a day's rest if it stung her on the ass! It takes a lot to make her mad, but everybody better watch out when her wings start buzzing

Daisy Hop - she/him - pan i actually created Daisy as a supplementary character for a certain au, but realized i could find a place for her in this little group. i'm thinking he runs a little shop - a roadside stall, more like - where she can both sell her own homemade candy & his friends' stuff! she's the only one in the group that can keep up with Hettie's energy, and even surpass it at times. though unlike Hettie, Daisy knows how to take (and appreciate) a break!

Jesterly - whatever/is/funniest - Derry a menace. they love pranks above all else, oftentimes at the expense of others. he's always up to something and is never not scheming something! there's always Someone to bother! in all honesty she's more like an annoying stray cat that no one can get rid of... and they better not try, or they'll face the wrath of this fool's Very large partner! The jester's cap never comes off, and neither does the mask!

Derry Drake - they/them - Jesterly there's no sugarcoating it - Derry is a big lazy grump! it's almost impossible to get them out of their cave, or off of any place they decide to nap. the only thing that can reliably get them moving is the promise - or prospect - of food. it's a wonder how they've accumulated such a hoard of random things in the back of their cave, seeing as they rarely get up at all. they're incredibly nearsighted and bite first, ask questions later - after all, who knows if the colorful blob in front of them is food or not! better to be safe than hungry!

currently in my mind they have their own little community deep in the woods. Daisy lives in a modified burrow, Maisy has a cute farmhouse, Casey lives in a cozy treehouse, Hettie has a small cottage, and Derry & Jesterly live in a cave. within their community, they share practically everything. want a snack? pluck something from the orchard. need a new pair of mittens? ask Casey! i suppose you could say they're communists <3 (except for Daisy. she won't charge his friends, but anyone else is free game)

Mairy and Hettie have romantic tension, Daisy and Derry are the only ones who can tolerate Jes, Mairy wants Jes dead, Casey is terrified of Derry, Daisy's rapid-fire speech confuses everyone but Hettie, etc. i should make a chart for funsies...

#if i want to get realllly out of my comfort zone #i could talk about how my brain automatically started going 'ok this is how they interact with The Neighbors'#but i think. ill save that for now #listen listen for my whole life ive always kept my fan-ocs expressly separate from canon characters #i either put them far away from the action or in a different point in time entirely #but i can. i can have fun? with this maybe? its just a silly side thing... im playing with dolls...#i have Thoughts...#scribble salad #wh oc #welcome home oc #mairy will sometimes crush Difficult To Crush things to intimidate choice people #she's intimidating and she knows it! she'd rather be nice but sometimes a bitch has to get smacked #mairy: im a pacifist #mairy: *loading shotgun* however-#derry often steals casey's yarn for their own hoard #so casey has to go steal it back (or ask for it. either way derry makes a fuss)#I LOVE THEM. FUCK #i dont need any more ocs please... i already have several hundred...

197 notes · View notes

uselessnbee · 5 months

Text

what i wish people would also explore more when it comes to Percy is the other side of his feelings about his mom about family and his childhood but this fandom is too afraid to paint Sally even in the slightest bad light (even if it's not bad just acknowledging her flaws because she's a human being and not perfect) that no one will touch on that subject. like yes Sally is the best mom but she also isn't and that's the thing! She isn't perfect! but she tried her best but her best still got Percy hurt and it isn't her fault at all but that's the tragedy of it. i want Percy's feelings about this explored. how he grew up with a loving mom but an abusive step father. how his step father would humiliate him and call him stupid but then his mom soothed him and told him he's not the things Gabe calls him. how Gabe would hurt him and Sally would be there to make him happy and loved but at the same time she stayed with him. i want Percy's feelings explored about how he knows his mother loves him but her absence still hurt him. she would work so much to have money to raise him she did that for him but at the same time it meant Percy was left alone or with Gabe. Sally gave up so much for him, she sent him away to protect him but at the same time he was sent away from his mom. she's the only parent he has because his father is absent and Gabe is not actually a parental figure at all but she's also often absent in his life too and that must have left him with such mixed feelings because it's not all black and white! Sally's love protected him but also hurt him. Percy loves his mom so so so much but there's also this deep-seated bitterness and hurt and anger he never let himself feel and then the guilt for having those feelings because his mom loves him he knows that and she gave up so much for him and she married a monster that abused her to protect him, he knows that but it doesn't make it hurt any less. the mess his emotions are because he knows his mom suffered for him and did it from her love for him but he still desperately wishes she never married that monster that he wouldn't have to have the childhood he had with him that he wouldn't have to live with the trauma he was left with. this all is exactly what makes their relationship so fascinating and also heartbreaking.

or the idea of Percy having weird mixed feelings after Estelle is born because that's his little sister and he loves her with his whole heart and would do anything for her and wants only the best for her but there's also this little jealous monster deep down that wonders why she gets to have a loving mom and a loving dad and a happy normal life but he never got that. why does she deserve it but not him? why couldn't he have that too? doesn't he deserve that too? he was just a child too so why why why??? and then the guilt of feeling that way too it makes me want to scream. emotions are fucking messy and they can be really ugly and they can make you hate yourself and there's no way Percy's feelings aren't a mess when it comes to this and i want to see it explored so badly!

and with Sally too! her feelings about Percy because she did so much and tried her best but sometimes unfortunately your best isn't good enough and it still got her beloved son hurt and she hates it and feels so guilty but she just has to live with that but she can't help to wish it was different. that their lives would be different. better. normal. she can't help but to wish she didn't have to do the things she's done, didn't have to suffer so much just to protect her child. can't help to wish she didn't have to worry so much, didn't have to be so scared about Percy, didn't have to be terrified that one day he won't come back home to her, that she won't be able to hold her son anymore because he will be gone, she just wishes he didn't have to suffer so much, she just wishes and wishes and wishes

and i just wish people weren't so afraid to explore this because it's so heartwrenching and yes if you want something do it yourself but unfortunately i cannot write nor am i able to handle this topic in a way it deserves so i am left only with rambling about it on here thank you

#i am not trying to victim blame or anything i love Sally and she did her best and didn't deserve any of the crap life gave her #but there's just something so tragic about the fact that she married a vile man and suffered abuse to protect her son #just for her decision to hurt him anyways just in a different way but the only other option would probably be Percy ending up dead #so she can't really truly regret it but she just wishes those weren't their only options #that she didn't have to do this just so that her child could stay alive #thinking about it makes me go feral #they had no choice but to suffer there was no way for their lives to be without this much hurt and trauma and it's terrible #and they didn't deserve it but there was so much love too #but the horrible thing is that that love just wasn't enough to save them from all that pain and i need to be sedated bye #percy jackson #sally jackson #pjo #hoo #percy and sally #percy jackon and the olympians #whatever you do don't think about a six years old lonely Percy sitting in a corner waiting for his mom to come back home from work #and he knows she loves him but he misses her so much when she spends so much time in work and that hurts #don't think about a ten years old Percy being sent away to a boarding school and he knows his mom loves him #but what if she's sending him away because he's just too much? or not enough? and what if she doesn't want him anymore?#and he knows that's not true but what if?#i'm thinking it #okay i think that's enough

99 notes · View notes

dramarants · 6 months

Text

Wanting more homoeroticism in the tension between the show’s leads as the narrative introduces greater intimacy and higher stakes between them, especially in a landscape that lacks queer representation who isn’t a villain or dies within one or two episodes, but also recognizing that core values/motivation for these characters lie in their relationships with one of two major female characters in an on screen sausage fest where the only other woman is a morally reprehensible femme fatale and erasing and/or vilifying female leads in favor of conventionally attractive males is a common practice observed in fandoms that’s rooted in misogyny and justified under the guise of rejecting heteronormativity, thinly veiled double standards, or claiming the woman is simply not interesting enough and not wanting to bolster that mindset

#the worst of evil #you know who’s not interesting enough? haeryeon!! bibi’s acting the hell out of her and slaying while doing it #but idk anything besides she’s willing to subvert her dad for dick and values money over everything else #and also she’s hot which is great for me!! but also the male gaze #and I also get it - we don’t know much about euijeong in her limited screen time besides her relationships to junmo/kicheol #but she is given so many traits that are silently conveyed like compassion and bravery and sacrifice #she brought a fucking gun to her date with kicheol like the conflicts and motivations here are SO JUICY #her exasperation guilt and despair with the investigation; esp after listening to the voicemails #what’s the self respecting thing to do; do I still love my husband if he loses himself; can I continue a game I never wanted to play #at the cost of my life or my family’s life?#even though a lot of her choices are for her marriage she’s using whatever agency she has in her own terms #kicheol works to be an honest man and make a difference partly bc of her #not trying to place the burden of fixing men on her but ignoring her impact in the boys’ lives is wild #ship whoever you want hate whoever you want but don’t deride a woman just cuz ‘she’s in the way’ ya know #all this being said; kicheol bringing junmo home after he RAMPAGED seemingly on his behalf - literally who else is doing it like them #the yearning all around - I get it now; we need gangster mob!throuple to get any shit done around here (and for all 3 to stay alive 🫣🙏)#but the reality next week is gonna be so so bitter

32 notes · View notes

cienie-isengardu · 5 months

Note

Quan Chi's bio states he was basically born to be a slave in the mines. With Shang it's at least debatable whether he 'chose' to be poor of it he was just unlucky but I don't think Quan Chi chose to be enslaved since he was a child and mined minerals for OutWorld's government.

This seems awfully deliberate, like how Liu Kang had a hand in Smoke's family dying as a way for him to join the Lin Kuei. Like Liu Kang gave Mileena the life most iterations would kill for and whilst he did cripple Shao, Shao got the better deal compared to Quan and Shang.

I don't think there's a really good way to justify that one. It feels like Liu is punishing an incarnation of Quan Chi for something he didn't even do. Unless someone wants to make the assumption that Quan Chi was born evil...which doesn't make any sense since we literally see a good version of him and Shang fighting against Titan Shang Tsung.

Even if he was born evil, erasing him probably would've been preferable than subjecting him to slavery given how slaves are treated.

Last time I checked mortalkombat.com there was no official BIO for Quan Chi so I can’t address something I did not read yet by myself - not that I don’t believe your word, I just like be familiar with officially released source material and context before I start throwing the stones at any characters, especially since MK1 already proved with Shang Tsung that BIO, story mode and intros may approach differently character’s origin.

That said, I don’t have a doubt that Liu Kang is biased when it comes to certain people as it is visible in story mode alone how he interacts with the Royal Family or his Champions he considered his friends and for example Lin Kuei serving him and Earthrealm from centuries. He on purpose get involved with characters lives, be it choosing Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao and Raiden for Earthrealm’s Champions or deciding that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi won’t get a chance to obtain any power (magic) however the same story mode proved that Liu Kang’s plans could be - and in fact were - foiled by actions of others. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi learned magic due to Titan Shang Tsung’s scheming, Kenshi lost his eyesight again, despite Liu Kang’s hope for different means for his bonding with Sento

so it is not like every character’s life is set in stone and the once made Keeper of Time’s decisions won’t change due to outside forces.

My main problem with accusation that Liu Kang intended Quan Chi to be born in slavery or Shang Tsung in poverty is the implication he intended slavery and poverty to be part of his new era in the first place - and with that he chose to doom billions beings to unimaginable hardship solely to punish two people he personally dislike for things done in previous timeline steered by Titan Kronika who cared only for balance between good and bad, not for the living beings who were her own creations.

Because Shang Tsung is not the only character we could see living in miserable conditions, as the Edenians infected with Tarkat sickness lived in literal poverty, banished and shunned by society, with little food or basic goods to survive on their own. Quan Chi may be a slave working in mines, but we have the whole Umgadi system that literally takes away freedom from the first-born daughters of edenian families, who from childhood are trained and indoctrinated to put Royal Family’s best interest before anyone and anything, because apparently the monarch is more important that the lives of common people.

If we agree that Liu Kang in fact decided to include slavery and poverty in his new timeline just to punish two people, following that logic we should also assume that by making Johnny the USA’s famous movie star (with all the references to Hollywood and pop culture we know from previous timelines and our own word), he also allowed history to repeat itself with the European colonization of Americas and coming with it irreversible destruction of native cultures followed by unjust and cruel treatment of the indigenous population and ever further consequence: the Atlantic slave trade and the racial segregation that was part of America’s history preceding the official independence of USA (and racism being part of its history for another ages). All just to put Johnny in comfortable life as close to what his friend had in previous timeline.

What frankly, does not sit well with me knowing what kind of person Liu Kang was once and is currently as Earthrealm Protector. He was not a flawless human and definitely he is not the flawless and all-knowing god now - he doesn’t pretend to be one either. And sure, some of his decisions led to bigger tragedies but the fact he stepped down from Keeper of Time’s position to be just a mere Earthrealm’s deity implies he truly wished to allow people make their own choices. Because as Keeper of Time he could manipulate time and events to his own liking at any given time, but as a mere deity he is forced to play alongside the unfolding events and mortals choices - he may guide people, he may punish those disturbing the established peace, but he does not fulfill characters’ wishes or demand to erase the problems of their world because he did not give himself such power, as intro dialogues suggest is the case:

Li Mei: Why permit crime to fester in this timeline? Geras: It was beyond Liu Kang's power to prevent it.

Liu Kang: It is beyond my power to prevent all injustice. Li Mei: Then it shall always fester.

Scorpion: As Time’s Keeper, you could have abolished kombat. Liu Kang: Even a Titan’s power has limits.

Kenshi: With Liu Kang's help, maybe they'll find a cure. Baraka: If he could've helped, he would have done so by now.

Baraka: If you're a god, then cure me. Liu Kang: I did not give myself that power.

Baraka: Tarkat is a cruel fate, Geras. Geras: As Liu Kang has told you, we cannot cure it.

My point is: when a god gives mortals a free will then he must also accept that people will choose the wrong, even outright evil things. Not because anyone is born inherently good or bad, but because things like greed, pettines, fear, curiosity, ignorance or love exist and emotions are as strong an impulse, if not stronger, as is common sense.

As much as I would really like if Liu Kang gave everyone the same, fair chance for a good life, I think we need to take into account that each character's life does not exist in a vacuum and was preceded by hundreds of lives and choices of other people that lead to this point in time. Choices that could get in the Keeper of Time’s way and push events in different paths that he intended. Like Smoke’s family - did he truly decide to kill them to get Tomas into Lin Kuei as the best way of action or did the Lin Kuei warriors, who found outsiders on the protected by them territory, acted too aggressively on their own and their choices lead to unplanned tragedy? Or Shao’s sickness - was it Liu Kang’s choice to prevent the possibility he will raise one day against Sindel but the plan was foiled by one stubborn father who wouldn’t accept his child’s sickness as it was or the iron discipline of father was a part of the plan from the start? My point is, it is hard to tell where Keeper of Time’s will ends and where start the will of mortals that make each day their own choices, for good or bad.

Sindel is the best example, as Liu Kang intended her to rule Edenia as a firm yet fair queen and for all we know she indeed is one compared to the previous rulers. Yet what we learn from story mode and intro dialogues put a great shadow of doubt on whether she was truly so great Queen, if the sick Edenians are banished and forced to live in poverty, as their assets were taken according to Sindel's own edict, and in general treated like unwanted trashes. Not only that - Li Mei's intro dialogues says that Outworld has organized crime and Sun Do's beauty hides its darker side as it is far from the peaceful city Earthrealms think it is. Since people often are pushed into crimes by the bad circumstances (poverty, seeking refuge from persecutors) rather than inherent evil, should we accuse Liu Kang he planned such misery for those mortals or we accept that Sindel - generally seen as a good person, even admired by vast number of characters, including Liu Kang himself - made a choices that in fact have endangered or literally destroyed hundreds of innocent lives for ages? The Royal Family got rich off the harm of others, its power was secured by people deprived of their own civil freedom (Umgadi, the Palace Guard). Who should we blame for that? Liu Kang who destined Sindel to be Queen or Sindel herself, who had a power and free will to decide?

Like I said, no one lives in a vacuum and there were countless numbers of mortals before our main heroes were even born. Kenshi is dealing with his ancestors’ desperate choice to join Yakuza for protection and born out of it shame and crimes; their choices affect who he is and what drives him. Bi-Han is affected by his father’s decision and decisions of Lin Kuei Grandmasters before him that shaped reality in which Bi-Han lives now and considers an enslavement, because someone in the centuries old past chose to pledge their clan to serve Earthrealm and by extension, Fire Lord. Did Liu Kang intend such a turn of events or is it an effect of countless choices made by mortals preceding Bi-Han and Kenshi existence?

And so we come back to Quan Chi and the question, did Liu Kang decide to introduce slavery to his new timeline solely so Quan Chi could end in one or did mortals (Edenian aristocracy/government) at some point make the choice to enslave other living beings, including Quan Chi’s family, for their own gain? Because for Quan Chi to be born in slavery it means:

his parents or at least mother - and that alone may implies Quan Chi's being a result or rape - would need be a slave in the first place and

mother was punished for her son’s crimes he did not commit - and if Liu Kang’s plan had succeeded, he would never have committed either.

We can go on with questions like that but I think it comes down to this one matter: do we believe that Liu Kang would intentionally damn a billions of innocents to either punish Shang Tsung and Quan Chi or secure the well-being of his favorites like Royal Family and Johnny or not.

The game and intro dialogues won't give us a definite answer to that and each of us will need to settle this dilemma for themselves. I myself still debate whether to believe or not that Liu Kang sat down eons ago and wrote out how numberless generations will live so a few certain characters end in miserable (Shang Tsung & Quan Chi) or happy setting (Sindel). I do however believe that within Liu Kang's timeline, the Keeper of Time's choices shaping people's destiny and free will of characters can and are co-existing. I won't cross out yet the possibility that Liu Kang indeed decided to include slavery just to fuck up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi's lives - and I won't do it at least until I read the new source material. However, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that slavery and poverty are the outcome of bad choices made by mortals living before the heroes and villains were born.

Of course, this is still not the best scenario and there is no denying Liu Kang wanted a meaningless life for both sorcerers and that he did interfere with events and destinies of mortals. But if he set all life in motion and then immediately step down from Keeper of Time’s position, we need take into account that A) he gave up control over people voluntarily and B) he did it eons before Shang Tsung or Quan Chi - and their families - came to alive and for such a long period of time, many bad things could have happened without his participation or ill will (is Tarkat even part of Liu Kang’s plan or did it happen spontaneously, as a result of the actions of unforeseen forces? As the “forces of nature” balancing things out?). The characters already asked Liu Kang why he did not prevent injustice, why he did not abolish violence, why he did not cure the horrific illness, why he did not make his timeline the better place… but I think to do so he would need to take away the free will, so no mortal could commit a crime again or go against his plan. Which is the total opposition of what he wanted and Liu Kang is aware his world did not improved as he hoped:

Liu Kang: This timeline has not improved as I had hoped. Geras: Thoughts like that led to Kronika’s madness.

But I guess that is the problem with free will, it allows bad things to happen. There is no win-win scenario and someone will always be harmed - if not by their own choice, then by someone else's, because people do not live in a vacuum.

So, unless Quan Chi’s Bio (that I still didn’t see for myself) outright says Liu Kang decided to made his former enemy born as a slave, I’m willing to give Liu Kang the benefit of doubt that slavery and poverty weren’t on purpose added to his new era just to fuck up two people he didn’t like - even if his dislike is well-understandly considering everything that happened.

It is easy to look at MK1’s story mode and blame Liu Kang for the characters' background but that is looking at this specific point of time the way we look at NRS and blame them for messing up our favorite heroes for drama’s sake alone. In-universe though? There are plenty of factors outside Liu Kang’s control that shaped the world before any of them came into picture. Like I said, it may not be so easy to determine how much for things to be the way they are now is the fault of god and how much of mortals alone.

Also, in regard to why not just erase them from the timeline, I too myself wondered about that. Or why not make them born in Earthrealm, whereas as mere humans they would pose a threat for a 100, maybe 120 years at best and then be safely tucked in the afterlife. Or why let them both live at the same time and not separate them by ages. My working conclusion for now is that erasing people is not such an easy matter, as people - their histories and relationships - are too well connected threads on time fabric. MK11’s Jacqui ending showed that changing one thing may lead to much more serious consequences. She wanted to spare her father from death at Sindel’s hand and following it the life of revenant. But when she removed that event from his history, in result she erased her own existence, as Jax did not meet Jacqui's mom and thus Jacqui wasn't born. Original Shang Tsung and Quan Chi brought more pain and despair to people than anything else, but since we don’t have an idea how time fabric works or how much it is influenced by the countless erased timelines, maybe Liu Kang couldn’t erase them without erasing more innocent and/or important people? Just a thought to think about.

#mortal kombat #my replies #liu kang #quan chi #shang tsung #destiny vs free will #as you can see i have a lot thoughts about liu kang's choices and the free will given to mortals #i won't say liu kang would never on purpose fuck up shang tsung and quan chi's lives #because powers corrupts and endless time make you look at things from different perspective #i do however have a serious problem to think liu kang would include slavery and poverty and damn billions of people to such hardship #solely to fuck shang tsung and quan chi's lives #also if he stepped down from his keeper of time's powers did he still could make the decision that yes this is fucked up enough misery #for those two bastards to be born right now #or did he could shape destiny eons ago to happen exactly as he wanted? because that cross out the free will of mortals #i guess each of us need to decide what fits our understanding of this new timeline #and is liu kang a kind god or control freak type of god #also a side note: between shao shang tsung and quan chi I too would make quan chi life the worst if i had to pick that life for one of them

18 notes · View notes