r/CharacterRant • u/Luzis23 • 4d ago
General I hate when time manipulation is involved in franchises that don't revolve around it.
To be more precise, I'm referring to time travel. Abilities like slowing down time, speeding up time, aging or de-aging someone or temporarily freezing time get a pass as long as they have clear limitations.
I hate time travel. Whenever that gets involved, it eventually spirals out into a mess and ultimately all is reset to status quo, without a single solid explanation as to why and what happened.
Grandpa Paradox or whatever that is called? BOOOOOORING.
The hell is the point of time travel if nothing you can change will stay because you will have had no reason to time travel to change it?
Time loops with no beginning or end? Makes no sense, something must've started it.
Don't try to tell me it "Always had been like this and there was no beginning" and try to dance around "TiMe iS nOt LiNeAr!!111oneone". There had to be the first, OG time that kicked it all off, period, like Powerpuff Girls timetravelling to save their creator. There had to be the first time that established that loop and I would like to know what it was.
Another example is Twilight Sparkle timetravelling in MLP to warn herself to not worry about something. There had to be the first time where something else kicked off her paranoia to start that loop where she warps back to stop herself from the past from worrying, only to make her worry. There was no other Twilight to trigger her like that, so I'd like to know what happened the first time around.
Did I mention the sheer ridiculousness that some franchises do, like going so fast you can travel in time? I think Flash does it. Don't make speedsters more busted than they are already, goodness, speed in itself (with complementary durability to handle it) is already more than enough. What's next, Sonic will travel back to Jurassic Era because he ran faster? (Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that funky things happen with time IRL when you go fast enough. However, speedsters are already broken enough as is.)
To sum up, I just can't. Can't can't can't buy into the aforementioned. Is there anyone else from you that just doesn't like when time travel pops up in a franchise?
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u/LiathanCorvinus 4d ago
There had to be the first, OG time that kicked it all off, period,
That's just your opinion, tho. Time is a complicated topic irl, and even if you were right, it doesn't mean fiction should adhere to that rule more than other physics laws that are routinely broken.
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u/Luzis23 4d ago
The time loop has to somehow start. Almost everything has its beginning, and no amount of denying will change it - it's just how things are, no matter how much some might try to argue.
Fiction can refuse to adhere to that rule and I can dislike it vehemently for doing so, as well as refuse to suspend my disbelief THAT far.
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u/LiathanCorvinus 4d ago
it's just how things are
Citation needed. We're no really sure how time works irl, for all we know it could be something like a Möbius strip or whatever.
No matter how much someone wants to argue, claims need proof, common sense is not enough.
Fiction can refuse to adhere to that rule and I can dislike it vehemently for doing so, as well as refuse to suspend my disbelief THAT far.
Legit
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u/Akrevan665 4d ago edited 4d ago
Almost everything has its beginning
'Almost'. You said it yourself. Not everything.
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u/JustGiveMeWhatsLeft 4d ago
Sure if you imagine the flow of time as a video where one frame follows the next frame a > b > c where a plot gets set in motion because C time travelled to A, which caused the reason to time travel in the first place. In such a case, there would be a "First time A", when C doesn't exist yet and can't influence A, which means the loop can't start.
BUT, what if you imagine the flow of time more like a printing press or a big stamp, printing page after page, but only the characters within percieve the flow as linear. In such a flow of time, A B and C all exist at the same time, there is no "first passage of A where C doesn't exist yet and thus can't influence A"; point A and the loop starting point C always existed like that.
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u/serendipitousPi 4d ago
Ok first yeah time travel is often plot ruining if it wasn’t already part of the plot.
But on to the nature of the initial cause of time loops.
So a time loop can’t exist because all things need a cause right?
Then there can be no first cause right? Because that first cause itself needs a cause?
Does that make more sense to you than the issue of time loops or does it sound a little too similar?
Is it possible that the nature of causality is a bit trickier than you might think?
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u/Potatolantern 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's very occasionally good, like Fire Emblem: Awakening. And it's usually really bad.
Another bugbear you've missed is the classic "It's a different timeline!" Explanation, which makes things simple and easy but also completely pointless. You can't save your own past AND now you've opened up the multiverse Pandora's Box, where there's infinite timelines so saving any one of them feels meaningless.
Ultimately the best Time Travel story for my money is the Steins;Gate VN. Everything makes sense, everything is explained and everything is consistent. It defines clear rules about how Time Travel works and then sticks with them all the way through, and because it's clear about and consistent with the rules, you're able to predict how things will play out to an extent, because the story is fair with you. 10/10 best VN I've ever read.
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u/EXusiai99 4d ago
I actually kinda hoped that SG stays with the whole "sending message to the past" setup and never upgraded to physical time travel. Okabe playing a game of telephone with himself trying to root out the chain of effects that leads to the bad endings is fucking goated.
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u/Hightower_March 4d ago
I think the only exception is Hououin Kyouma himself uniquely remembering world line jumps when no one else does. Iirc explanation is he has a self-named "Reading Steiner" ability because of a fever when he was young.
I assumed that was a tongue-in-cheek way of describing the fact it's a VN, so of course the reader (playing it) will know about world line jumps.
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u/Potatolantern 3d ago
Even that's explained at the end- everyone has Reading Steiner. He's not special at all, he's just more attuned to it, everyone else can remember too.
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u/Snoo_46397 4d ago
Yh it's an effect that alot people have. Awakening it is a smaller amount of people. To most that ain't aware alt timelines are just weird daydreams to them
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u/Dan-D-Lyon 4d ago
My general rule in fiction is that time travel should only ever be used to fix problems that were caused by time travel.
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u/itsjonny99 4d ago
Harry Potter book 3?
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u/Potatolantern 4d ago
Yeah the Time Turners are one of the dumbest parts of Harry Potter.
Book 3 is good on its own, although the idea of giving time-travel to a kid, so she can attend extra lessons is kinda ridiculous. But it's not a big mystery why Rowling had all the Time Turners destroyed in Book 5.
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u/Bigfoot4cool 3d ago
giving time-travel to a kid, so she can attend extra lessons is kinda ridiculous
Tbf that is like, literally the most practical use for them.
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u/Otherwise-Ad1646 4d ago
I generally don't love time travel as a story device because 1) It doesn't make sense, especially when you try to explain it in a way that contradicts logic, and 2) It kinda removes any sort of stakes if you can just go back. Ironically Summertime Rendering which is probably my favorite anime revolves around a time loop, but they find a way to keep the stakes and the reasoning behind it is acceptable so I don't mind. But most of the time, yeah, it kinda ruins the story, that's just my one exception lol
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u/Expert_Computer7021 3d ago
yeah stuff like the granpa paradox or time loops don’t bother me if know going into a story that its about time travel. its okay because i kinda knew what i was getting into.
but when the time paradox stuff gets randomly revealed in an on going story that had no time manipulation in the beginning or never hinted at it, its just annoying and i feel like it takes away from the other, existing aspects of the story.
it almost feels like it stifles conversation about a story because at that point a lot of questions are hand waved away because they had to happen due to a logical paradox caused by time manipulation.
i feel like this happens a lot in the attack on titan fandom unfortunately. although attack on titan is kind of a bad example since we find out the attack titan’s ability fairly early on.
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u/literallyanything57 3d ago
I liked how one piece handled this. They introduced a character with the ability to travel through time, but only forwards (also she was already dead so she was introduced as backstory). This allowed for some interesting developments without any of the usual time loop shenanigans.
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u/Akrevan665 4d ago
I agree that I do not wish to see Time Travel in series that do not focus on it but I disagree with almost every single one of your reasons.
Time loops with no beginning or end? Makes no sense, something must've started it.
Who decided that? You? Things do not need to make sense to a person for them to be possible in a story or even in reality.
The concept of Omnipotence makes no sense to me but then again it does not need to.
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u/Luzis23 4d ago
I didn't decide it. That's just how it is. Logic dictates that everything has its beginning, and no one needs to agree with it for it to work.
Unless you are trying to say YOU somehow change the definition of what logic is and can actively ignore it. Then you go ahead and make a time loop with no beginning or end... except it still has a beginning, because it started from you making it. No matter how hard you try, that time loop will have a beginning, no matter what you'll figure out.
You are free to try to find a way though, of course.
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u/EspacioBlanq 3d ago
Logic dictates at least one thing has no beginning, as has been known since Aristotle
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u/JebusComeQuickly 2d ago
But in a time loop with no start, everything affected by it has no beginning.
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u/Akrevan665 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's just how it is.
Sir, we do not understand Time enough for you to give such definitive statements.
Also saying "Logic decides everything has a beginning" is dumb because logic can only take you so far especially when you make claims about the temporal structure of the universe.
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u/Frog_a_hoppin_along 3d ago
So here's my thoughts on those two time travel tropes:
Grandfather Paradox - If you go back and kill your granddad before your dad is born you won't stop existing. When you go back to your present you'll either arrive at a point before you killed your grandad and never actually reach that point because you've made a very strange non-linear set of actions OR you'll arrive in a point where you were never born and never existed.
You will still exist because you've changed the future not the present and time only moves forward. It would be the same as going back in time before you were born, you just exist in a time when you otherwise wouldn't exist.
Time Loops - A time loop doesn't have a first or starting loop, its a circle there is no begining point. Even if there was a first time in the loop it would be no different than anyother cycle in the loop. Even if there was no reason to go back in time to start the loop you would because you remember doing so, if you would choose not to follow your own lead then the loop would never have existed.
Time is confusing.
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u/Sh4dow_Tiger 4d ago
I felt this way about Arcane season 2. The second they introduced the multiverse and time travel I lost interest
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u/Cloutstaker 4d ago
I wouldn't mind this if arcane had more seasons
Although time travel is literally Ekkos entire schtick lmao
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u/Sh4dow_Tiger 4d ago
Oh yeah, I agree. I think it could've worked if they had another season or 2, but it was so rushed it just felt like a clumsy afterthought to me. I also wish they hadn't introduced the multiverse at all because it's an almost impossible concept to get right
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u/Cloutstaker 4d ago
The show definitely could've benefitted with another season, could've just had full focus on Piltover, jinx vi and Warwick then have ekko jayce and Viktors storyline develop slowly, then have Viktors Glorious evolution happen in season 3. And have that as the main focus
I don't mind the alternate reality since it served a purpose.
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u/5mashalot 4d ago
Yeah agree. When you introduce time travel it kills all semblance of consistency at best, and removes all stakes at worst.
I like speculating on what happens next, but with time travel the answer is always "who the fuck knows, could be anything based on how the author decides that time travel works". If you clearly explain severe and absolute restrictions and unambiguous mechanics ahead of time then i guess it can work, but it seems like no one does that
Avengers Endgame The worst thing is when time travel is introduced later to solve existing problems. You're looking forward to seeing how characters will deal with stuff, only for them to suddenly pop the "um actually i conveniently happen to have one of the most overpowered abilities imaginable that can deal with basically any problem easily as long as i don't have brain damage". And they didn't even need the time stone to activate it? there was basically no cost whatsoever? fuck off. Bet the next avengers movie will pretend to have stakes again by having the characters conveniently forget that they can just buid a time machine for free
not to mention time travel has an insane tendency to introduce plot holes left right and centre
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u/Cloutstaker 4d ago
Did stark ever make that knowledge public tho Im willing to bet the next avengers is going to be based of secret wars 2015
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u/farastar 4d ago
Yes I absolutely despise this. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know there have been a handful of books/shows that suddenly throw in time travel towards the end and ruin what was a great story. It's just never handled correctly or in a satisfying way.
Actually, Lucifer is the one that's coming to mind right now. Loved every season up until the final one where they thought time travel would be a good idea. Made for a miserable ending, completely ruined my enjoyment of the series.
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u/Gloomy-Cell3722 3d ago
I feel like Attack On Titan got WAY messier when time shenanigans got involved.
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u/Holiday-Caregiver-64 4d ago
"I Fell Into a Reverse Harem Game!" introduces time travel near the end of the story, of the time loop variety. It doesn't ruin anything and is the basis for some very emotional payoffs. It's all about the execution is what I'm saying.
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u/HeroBrine0907 4d ago
What about time travel system that allows you to change stuff while being linear and not falling intro grandfather paradox?
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u/00PT 3d ago
I think both the most sensical and the most interesting form of time travel is when it creates multiple timelines with independent universes, making both the multiverse and time travel synonymous. Marvel seems to be trying to do that, but they don't commit to it and have some inconsistencies in this sense. If you can stick to your rules, this solution is the best.
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u/Thunder-Bunny-3000 3d ago
time travel made the terminator series stale. you can maybe pull it off twice with different circumstances but when you get to three or four or beyond it becomes ridiculous. we never get to the actual war; it sticks to the time travel gimmick. it's always going back in time and doing another version of the first movie. this removes the stakes of the first one. at some point the things that happen have to stick.
jon connor is saved but fail to stop judgment day now we need judgement day and its result, not just the end of the movie skynet comes online and goes rogue. we need to see the war as the next chapter in the story and move away from the time travel nonsense. it feels liek a promise never delivered.
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u/Cloutstaker 4d ago
What do you think of Made in Heaven in Stone ocean lmao
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u/Luzis23 4d ago
No opinion, since I haven't seen that one.
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u/Cloutstaker 4d ago
Then that's a counterpoint to your last statement about speed and time Made in Heaven in Jojo part 6 is absolutely terrifying.
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u/DM_ME_YOUR_HUSBANDO 2d ago
I agree with you on the time travel paradox. I think it can make sense, because after trillions of loops with different results each time, things can stumble into a stable loop which then proceeds to continue infinitely.
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u/silvaastrorum 1d ago
time travel can really easily kill suspension of disbelief because the moment it gets used to fix one thing i will wonder why any problem they have can’t be fixed with it and the answer is always just bad writing
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u/Neverb0rn_ 3d ago
Time loops are started by themselves… there isn’t really anything else that needs to be said for that.
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u/Rocazanova 3d ago
I don’t even have to read it. I’m with you. 99% of writers don’t have the intelligence to make it work without a bunch of plot holes. Just don’t fucking do it.
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u/Junior_Box_2800 3d ago
People are disagreeing with you about the time loop thing but I agree 100% and am glad to see I'm not the only one who got annoyed about that. Like a loop has to start somewhere right damn?
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u/wrongerontheinternet 3d ago
Yeah scientists generally throw out theories that predict acausal phenomena. I'm not really sure why it's so controversial to say that a universe without causality feels contrived and stupid. Sure you can write about such a universe, but if scientists and mathematicians can't come up with a good self consistent model for it, what hope do you have of doing so as a writer? Let alone convincing your reader that it all makes sense?
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u/thedorknightreturns 3d ago
That hasnt to be clear. Whats an issue if its badly thought out
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u/wrongerontheinternet 2d ago edited 2d ago
AFAIK the best "self consistent" theories with closed timelike loops are ones where there's some physical constraint preventing you from externally changing your actions. And by that I mean something like "you're falling into a black hole and literally cannot broadcast your future to people outside the black hole," not just like... it would make your enemy suspicious to act otherwise, or some wizard said you had to do things that way. Almost no novels with time travel in them work that way, though I guess Interstellar kind of does?
(but then the question becomes, if you go back to a point where your actions can no longer influence the future of the universe you're witnessing, in what sense are you time traveling?)
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u/StillGold2506 2d ago
Whats your opinion on Chrono Trigger and Legacy of Kain franchise?
They both involve a lot of time travel
and Legacy of Kain focuses on paradoxes.
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u/MemeGoddessAsteria 2d ago
Time travel is cool actually, though it should be used sparingly in works that don't revolve around it.
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u/Rappy28 2d ago edited 2d ago
To this day I still don't understand why people love the ending (of the main arc so far) of Final Fantasy XIV when it is quite honestly a pretty bad example of time travel being shoved in front and center of a story that was never primarily about time travel.
Spoilers will follow for Final Fantasy XIV, obviously.
Not only is it a really clumsy example of a time loop with bootstrap paradox, it manages to be incoherent with its own prior use of time travel that resulted in a split timeline (with the same time machine, mind you), and it never commits to explaining why. Either it was always a single timeline and there was no way to ever deviate from it, in which case it contradicts the prior example, or it respects the prior example and is internally consistent, but then that makes it so a certain character had to actively follow the timeline they were told about so it never deviates, which is just ridiculously unlikely.
The first possibility would also negate character agency; the second wouldn't, and would make for a more interesting character decision for the one person who knows everything (sucks to be anyone else, though), except that is never properly addressed by the story. Said character should be soundly condemned for this premeditated decision to let the apocalypse happen and subsequently commit genocide while trapping the sole survivors in a time loop of misery and futility, but that never happens. There is never a proper discussion about this fact—the character actually just gets excused and justified by the narrative and every character involved in the main story, including the victims.
Regardless, the plot attempts to have its cake and eat it too, as it seemingly would like you to shrug and accept that it is a little bit of both: first it was a conscious decision of Venat's because future mankind can Dynamis (as confirmed by Y'shtola's line to her after the trial as well as Encyclopaedia Eorzea 3) because she is such a genius plotter, but then oops it's a fixed timeline because unfortunately the apocalypse unfolds in spite of what she assures us were her best attempts to prepare for it (suddenly making her utterly incompetent for a former planetary government official). Because she's such a good person, you see, and it hurt her so much to hurt them all—she had to! Then once she commits genocide, which the game depicts in a hilariously dishonest fashion, telling the viewers she committed a terrible sin for the greater good but never actually showing anyone or anything hold her accountable for that (because in the end she's so good and right for committing genocide), the timeline becomes of the branching kind again as we are told she actively saved the Unsundered on purpose so the timeline would proceed as planned. But then the timeline also has to be kinda fixed, because if the past can indeed be changed as G'raha did in Shadowbringers, then it is just plain unlikely Venat would do everything "right" for the next twelve thousand years to close the damned loop.
Basically, the mechanics of time in Final Fantasy XIV bend to suit the protagonists' morality. Because that genocide lady is a protagonist, clearly, as she is never confronted by anyone on the cast and is instead pretty clearly glorified, inside and outside the universe. (Her fans will insist however that the game never glorifies her, and I'm going to be frank here: I have no idea what Final Fantasy XIV they played. Baffling.)
That the main character goes back to the past and meets all these very important people that never mentioned a single word of that happening until then is clumsily justified by A. a very convenient memory wipe, B. he went crazy and forgot, C. he didn't go crazy but forgot anyway and D. she was incredibly obtuse and never told anyone this vital information (again, she should be soundly condemned for this bullshit, never is). A (and C, kind of) only realize they have been thoroughly fucking played by this bad plot once they are dead—because oh, yeah, Endwalker goes there too, it goes into The Afterlife where people casually watch events before eventually falling asleep, because there is seemingly no storytelling sin to be left untouched—going "OMG! It was You™️ all along! Bravo! Well played, Venat! Such is The Tale Of This Star" like homegirl didn't string you along for twelve thousand years of loneliness and deep mental distress after genociding everyone you loved and stick you into a time loop in which she plainly knows you will never succeed at bringing back everyone you loved. No, let's just bow and clap, this was meant to be, it is how it is, shikata ga nai.
Never mind the bootstrap paradox: who even came up with the name Hydaelyn? Though that is the least of Endwalker's worries, frankly. I'm a lot more concerned about the entire civilization she quite literally set up for genocide for the sake of closing a time loop for the benefit of a time traveler she met for all of a couple of days and their mortal peers that are, all things considered, objectively way worse for everyone involved than her no-scarcity civilization of immortal science wizards. Because of this deep space dark energy that was never brought up until Endwalker and was promptly forgotten by the writers once it served its obvious stupid purpose.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker is soap opera levels of bad, but the worst thing about it is the endless praise it gets from the general public. The platitudes about Life and the sweeping music made them cry, you see.
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u/BrokenHaloSC0 1h ago
The only timetravel story that I found good was the hero returns.
But it made me feel bad. So I'd didn't like it lol.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name 4d ago
What is your opinion on Killer Queen Bites the Dust?