#unchanged future

[paigemathews]

Something that I feel like is an important aspect of unchangedfuture!Wyatt's character is this petty and cruel desire to basically. play with his victims tbh. Canonically, wouldn't it have made more sense for him to kill Bianca outright for her betrayal? Sure, it's useful to send her to try to retrieve Chris, but ultimately, we see that she has to bring him back with force, so it's not as if another demon could've done it. Especially bc I feel like a large part of why he chooses Bianca is basically as a taunt to Chris (which is actually something I want to dive a little deeper into now, someone remind me of that later please).

And then in the attic in the future, it's debatable on if Wyatt is trying to kill Chris or not, but it genuinely doesn't matter bc either way, Wyatt could shut it all down instantly. He's just playing with Chris, letting him try to struggle when they all know that Chris has no ability to win against him. Wyatt could have incinerated him instantly if that's what he wanted; we outright see that power with changedfuture!Wyatt. There's no need for him to use telekinesis to choke Chris out while summoning an energy ball. Hell, at the very beginning of the scene, Wyatt outright says that neither are a threat to him, which can translate as either another way to dismiss Chris and Bianca or as a factual statement that he just so epically outclasses them both combined (and reminder that we literally just saw Bianca straight up outmaneuver the Charmed Ones).

Plus, there's his obsession with power specifically, and I feel like letting him play with his victims lends to that in he's demonstrating his power. We know that he's dramatic as hell, because he outright acknowledges that the Manor is left standing as a memorial to his power and the power he came from. He's someone who wants to display and show off the power that he has, which his kind of cat and mouse antics allow him to do.

Beyond a character perspective, I feel like it's necessary from a narrative perspective bc I mean. I've said before, the only option was to clear the board before the game ever started, Wyatt was basically unstoppable. If you want to write him, I feel like you have to have that pettiness bc otherwise, he basically could win nearly instantaneously, which is just really boring to watch/read. (Look, fiction is full of choices to make the story interesting, and so I'm going with that to actually allow some kind of drama or stakes in this bc they established Wyatt as too OP initially and that's what we're working with.)

[ourunsungheroes42344]

New(ish) Charmed Fanfiction

Title: Does He Even Notice?

Fandom: Charmed

Character(s): Chris Halliwell, Leo Wyatt, Wyatt Halliwell

Rated: T - for canon typical violence

Chapters: 1/1

Summary: Rewrite of a story I wrote in 2015 - now completely reworked and beta’d by the lovely @sarabahama Set mostly in the Unchanged Future. Chris is injured hunting a demon and calls out for his Father...

Tags: Songfic, Whump, Flashbacks, Unchanged Future, Leo is a Shitty Father, Chris-Centric, Canon Compliant, Emotional Whump, Angst, Spoilers for Season 6

FF.Net Link

AO3 Link

[paigemathews]

Honestly, I’ve always been kinda curious about why Chris, uhhh, sucks at using a sword when Leo attacks him in Valhalla, because I find it hard to believe that Wyatt didn’t use Excalibur (physical proof of his superiority, power, and authority) in the unchanged future against Chris. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar situation (trapping Chris into a physical fight against him without powers, just to prove his superiority instead of get answers) didn’t happen between Chris and Wyatt.

There’s also the fact that both Piper and Leo canonically know how to sword fight and are actually pretty good at it. Wyatt, while not confirmed in canon, is the heir to Excalibur, so he definitely learns and is pretty deadly with a blade. (Phoebe also canonically knows, but isn’t super relevant here.) That’s all of Chris’s immediate family right there.

Between those two factors, I feel like it’s weird that he doesn’t know how to use a sword. So I have two different theories as to why:

First option: swords are a trigger. After seeing Wyatt kill people with Excalibur or even having to face him himself, it’s probable that they’re an element in his trauma. Chris clearly wasn’t expecting Leo to get this far, so being abruptly put into a dangerous situation with a trigger like that and Leo (whose presence could also be a trigger for him or just a stressor or whatever else) could have caused his response. (I think that Chris’s response would have been different if he wasn’t in the past with Leo, whose supposed to be a pacifist Elder, because I don’t think he was expecting this at all, especially if he’d thought Leo’d gotten out his anger by attacking him earlier.)

Rewatching the clip gives off this vibe to me, tba. There’s the element of panic in Chris’s voice when Leo tries to first make him fight. When he finally picks up the sword, his voice sounds younger when he tells him, “I didn’t do it.” He loses his composure when Leo points the sword at his throat, seeming to struggle to take in deeper breaths and his eyes are shiny.

Second option: purposely not defending himself to keep his cover. Whitelighters are pacifists, so sword fighting isn’t exactly something they teach. Along with that, Chris has already established that he’s from the future and the odds of swords coming back in as a weapon isn’t likely. Logically, he’d have to justify why he knows to use one.

On top of that, it’s clear that Leo already views Chris as a threat. The entire situation happens because Leo thinks he’s a threat. Showing that he’s able to fight, in an uncommon way especially, only gives Leo more reason to be suspicious of him. He’s already going to have enough issues with his cover with Leo as-is and doesn’t need to give him anymore reasons to distrust him, so he goes with it.

[paigemathews]

Wyatt should have killed Bianca with Excalibur and I will stand by that.

[paigemathews]

I know that we didn’t really get a ton of information about the unchanged future, but I love that the fact that time travel is the best plan kind of shows just how fucked everyone is.

Like if the only strategy left is to reset the entire damn board to prevent the game from starting...Well, you’re definitely screwed.

[paigemathews]

How do you feel about Chris killing the Valkyries? I felt it was very out of character to the character he was shown to be personally, like he wouldn't have it in him to do something so wrong.

How do you feel about how fast Chris forgave Leo? I know by the time he found out who Chris was they didn't have much time to make it all spaced out but I do feel it was a little rushed for how much Chris had against Leo..But perhaps it's just me?

As always, general disclaimer that I haven't done a full rewatch in a while. (Y'know what would negate the need for a disclaimer, is if I just rewatched the show like I've been meaning to for the past two damn years.)

In regards to the Valkyries, I actually disagree, I feel like it's very in-character for him. (It helps that it happens in one of the first episodes, which are typically pretty foundational for characters', well, characters.) Chris is incredibly dedicated to his mission, ultimately dying for the cause, and I don't really think it's out of character for him to be willing to cross a line that others wouldn't (murder) to accomplish his goal. Admittedly, this is in the context of said goal being preventing the world from being subjugated by an evil, ultra-powerful tyrant. It's clearly something that he did not enjoy doing, by any means, but it was a necessary evil at the same time if that makes sense. I will say though that it's a pretty common interpretation that Chris was actively working against Wyatt in the UF, to varying interpretations, but I mean. Very few people are engaged in a war without some kind of blood on their hands and Chris already knew that he could kill the Valkyries by using his powers like that, which wasn't something we'd seen other good characters do before. I don't necessarily think that was the first time that Chris killed someone for the sake of the mission.

At the same though, I think that part of the issue is that Charmed is very much a show that is... I guess black and white with good and evil is the best way to put it. We as the audience don't really have a good framework to interpret Chris's actions in-universe because of that. It also doesn't help that a) it really isn't ever brought up again and b) Valkyries are cast in a weirdly antagonistic role, despite presumably being good beings? Chris also makes mention of an agreement, but we never get anything more about that. Honestly, it's very much an instance of the show not really knowing where they're going with him at that instance.

For Chris and Leo, I'm gonna be honest, I really don't know because I haven't seen those episodes for quite a while. With how season six is written, I'm inclined to agree that it was rushed. At the same time though, I think it's interesting that it's Chris forgiving Leo when he tries. Chris continually shoots him down, but Leo keeps trying, which is a stark difference from Chris's experience with UF!Leo, who was never there for him. It also might be that Chris actually realized that he was holding Leo accountable for things that he hadn't even done yet, and may never do which. Isn't exactly a stellar precedent when the tiny baby he's trying to save originally grows up to be a murderous tyrant, y'know? But you're definitely not alone in thinking it's a bit rushed, I still feel like season six was a bit more by the seat of your pants than it probably should have been.

[paigemathews]

In the unchanged future, it’s canon that magic is exposed with demons being able to walk freely while witches are (implicitly) persecuted. None of this seems like a part of the Grand Design, like it was meant to happen. I mean, magic exposed, the balance between good and evil so skewed, the world looking destroyed, etc. It’s clear that something went wrong. Obviously, Chris went back in time to change all of this, but the only force or power actually working to stop him is Wyatt.

Admittedly, Wyatt is powerful in the future as the Twice-Blessed and ruler, but he isn’t an agent of the Grand Design. Not in the way that the Angel of Death, the Cleaners, Angel of Destiny, etc. are. Obviously, none of them attempt to stop Chris in his plan, but more interestingly, they apparently didn’t do anything to stop Wyatt in the future, even though he went directly against some of their purposes. (Specifically, the Cleaners and exposing magic.)

That’s why I think that uf!Wyatt did the seemingly impossible and managed to kill the Cleaners and Angels of Destiny when they tried to stop him from interfering. I think that it wasn’t just Wyatt’s raw power, but also that he found a way that he’d be able to kill them. I also think that, at least for the Cleaners, that he absolutely used bodies as an intimidation tactic. If even the most powerful beings in this universe couldn’t stop him, who could?

[paigemathews]

I’m always intrigued by the fanon unchanged future everyone has kind of crafted, because it has a lot of the same similarities for everyone, despite none of it technically being canon.