Future Me Scares Me: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Hiro:''' I look upset.
'''Ando:''' Go [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|talk to yourself]].
'''Hiro:''' No way! [[Trope Namer|I scare me]]; you do it.
|''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', "Five Years Gone"}}
So you're a [[Time Travel|travelin' in time]], as you do, when suddenly! Ooh, it's future you! Only... you're different. [[What Have I Become?| And not in a good way.]] If you were cool, maybe The Hero (or the [[Alpha Bitch]]/[[Jerk Jock]]), then you discover [[Future Loser|you've become really lame]]. Conversely, if you're the [[Plucky Comic Relief]] or someone similar, [[Future Badass|older you is a badass]]... a ''scary'' badass. Or worse ([[Good Is Dumb|arguably]]), your future self could be ''[[Face Heel Turn|evil]]''. Milder versions simply result in a persona change which bugs you.
Alternatively, you're the same as ever, and boy, can meeting yourself make you see why others are [[The Scrappy|annoyed by you]]. Maybe it's not ''you'' that bugs you so much as [[Fallen Princess|your change in social standing]]. This may lead to you arguing with yourself.
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Commonly used in concert with [[Bad Future]]. See also [[Mirror Universe]], [[Evil Me Scares Me]], [[Future Badass]], [[Future Loser]]. Compare [[Amnesiac Dissonance]], [[Other Me Annoys Me]] and [[I Hate Past Me]], where your own past shocks you.
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==▼
▲== Advertising ==
* A few of the Montana Meth Project ads have serious examples of this (i.e. Bathtub, Laundromat, and That Guy).
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80bBqPdjBAs This commercial] for ''[[Heroes of the Storm]]''; [[Time Lord]] Chromie is able to form a team with different versions of herself from different timelines, but is unnerved by her "super creepy future" self.
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* The title of this trope fits ''[[Noein]]'' perfectly (the series is even subtitled "To Your Other Self"). Karasu, the [[Future Badass]] version of the present-day Yuu, [[I Hate Past Me|is disgusted by his former cowardly self]]. Yuu, on the other hand, is scared by how intense and cold Karasu is. However, both are able to reconcile their differences when it comes to protecting/rescuing Haruka.
** The title character, {{spoiler|who is [[Evil Counterpart|another future Yuu]] that [[Love Makes You Evil|turned evil when he watched helplessly as Haruka died]] and became a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned]] [[Nietzsche Wannabe]]. The meeting between the three did not go well, obviously}}.
* In one chapter/episode of ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' Shutaro Mendō travelled back in time and very literally scared his younger self—the child Mendō acted like such an obnoxious brat to his future self that he provoked the latter into attacking him with a sword. The young Mendō hid in a jar until the older Mendō returned to his own time, but that experience was what gave him his claustrophobia and fear of the dark ("WAAAN! KURAI YO SEMAI YO KOWAI YO!"). [[Stable Time Loop|And what's more, the reason he travelled back in time in the first place was to prevent himself from getting that claustrophobia and fear of the dark.]]
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* In a [[Story Arc]] of the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' comic, the Titans get dropped ten years in the future, and are more than a little disturbed to find that, in addition to [[Sidekick Graduations Stick|replacing their mentors]] and becoming [[Darker and Edgier]], their future selves are the dictatorial rulers of half of what used to be the United States. The future Titans are equally disturbed by meeting their "naive" past selves.
** This leads to a sequel arc where those future selves go back in time to [[Make Wrong What Once Went Right]] and stop their timeline from being erased.
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** Played straight with his sister Valeria in the same story and her very similar adult self.
▲== Fan Fic ==
* Though it's never outright addressed in the canon during a real meeting between the two versions (that I remember), in some ''[[Heroes]]'' fanfiction, both Peter Petrelli and Claire Bennet are depicted as mildly disturbed and/or fearful of their future selves, both of whom tend to be Types III and V (or something like that), respectively, on the [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes]], especially sometime during Volume 3. Conversely, {{spoiler|Gabriel Gray (i.e. Sylar)}} has calmed considerably by the time the episode Butterfly Effect rolls around, and even {{spoiler|has a beloved son}}.
* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', Kyon's future self is consistently rude and derogatory toward him. Of course, that's only because [[I Hate Past Me|his past self is incompetent]].
* Played for laughs with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMY-3Uh-xkU this comic/animatic] based on ''[[The Owl House]]'', specifically the episode "Elsewhere and Elsewhen". Luz finds a portal that lets her view a future where she and Amity are getting married. Later, Amity finds the same portal, looks into it - and is ''furious'' to see Luz with a "purple haired witch"!<ref>For those who aren't fans, Amity has green hair in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen", but would dye it purple in a future episode.</ref>
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Lost Christmas]]'' has {{spoiler|Goose and Anthony. Goose thinks Anthony is a nutter because of his powers, but they're really there to make sure Goose (good future) exists and Anthony (bad future) doesn't.}}
* The ''[[Lost in Space]]'' movie had Doctor Smith who thought he was rather evil until he met himself 20 years in the future {{spoiler|as a half-mutated spider bent on destroying all of humanity.}} His future self is also less than impressed with him: "I never liked me, anyway."
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* ''[[Triangle]]'' is pretty much made out of this trope. A woman on a boat trapped in a series of time loops {{spoiler|becomes convinced that time only loops whenever everyone else on the ship is dead, so to save all her friends she has to kill all her friends. Naturally, Killer Jess comes off as an utter nutball to First-Time Jess}}, yet it seems like the [[Sanity Slippage]] is inevitable...
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Serves as the main plot of [[William Sleator]]'s ''[[The Green Futures Of Tycho]]''. Tycho finds a [[Time Machine]], doesn't like his future, and tries to fix it by changing the present and the past, only to make it worse. He repeats this until his future self is a tyrant selling out humanity to the aliens and planning some sort of invasion through time. He finally realizes why {{spoiler|(the time machine and the power it gives him over events is corrupting him)}}, but not before the tyrant version {{spoiler|(who still has the time machine)}} starts chasing him through history, to prevent him from fucking up the tyrant's plans.
* Double-inverted in ''[[The Time Traveler's Wife]]''. Henry DeTamble rarely travels forward in time, but he is often zapped into the past randomly and without warning. On one such trip, he meets up with his future wife, then-girlfriend. He begs her to have patience with him, because he remembers how shallow and immature he was as a young man. Seeing how mature future-Henry is, Clare is reassured.
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* Doctor Impossible of ''[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]'' mentions meeting "the original villain team" The Delinquent Five when they came from the Fifties to seek help from their present selves, assuming they would be wealthy, powerful rulers by now. Dispiritingly, the heroes and governments are still in charge. He notes "Maybe that was the beginning of the end for them."
* In ''[[Altered Carbon|Woken Furies]]'', Takeshi Kovacs, the [[Anti-Hero]] of the sci-fi novels by [[Richard Morgan]], finds himself up against an illegal copy of himself made when Kovacs was a good deal younger. More vicious and less world-weary, 'young' Kovacs is noticeably unimpressed that his future self hasn't made more of his life, like becoming a crime kingpin or suchlike.
* Averted in [[Simon R. Green]]'s
** Done straight in a case where Taylor must help a man who's being pursued by his apparent past selves, who are disgusted by how his life turned out, and by future selves who either want to ensure he'll become them, or prevent him from doing so. For the past selves, he's this trope; for the future ones, he's its inversion.
* ''Of Two Minds'' by Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman. It's established from the beginning that the protagonist is a [[Jerkass]], and becoming more so as she exploits her [[Reality Warper|Reality Warping]] abilities. {{spoiler|The [[Big Bad]] is another reality warper, with an oddly familiar appearance . . .}}
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* ''[[Skulduggery Pleasant]]'' has Darquesse, a mysterious figure who has been seen my many seers to destroy the world, and it turns out she's {{spoiler|Valkyrie (or at least Valkyrie's true-name empowered alter-ego)}}.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Hiro Nakamura in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''; see the page quote (in fact, [[Trope Namer|the trope is named based on it]], with a clarity tweak).
** Most of the future heroes are pretty scary. The exception is {{spoiler|Sylar}}, who is [[Heel Face Turn|considerably nicer]]...and is rather afraid of reverting to his past self (in one future, anyway; in another, he's {{spoiler|''President'', and has just about everybody else's powers, and is about to top even himself by committing super-genocide}}.
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[Kazran turns around and sees his twelve year old self looking back at him, with eleven different types of freak out written on his face]
'''The Doctor:''' Is this who you want to become, Kazran? }}
** [[Doctor Who/Recap/
** {{spoiler|Amy}}, when meeting their ruthless, [[Jade-Colored Glasses|cynical]], [[Future Badass]] self in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E10 The Girl Who Waited|The Girl Who Waited]].
* In ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' story "The Mad Woman in the Attic", the titular character is a future version of Rani, who is appalled at the sight of her.
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** [[Sixth Ranger|Second Rider]] [[Yuuto Sakurai]] has a very uneasy relationship with his [[Mysterious Watcher]] future self. The series treats them as separate entities for the most part, referring to the younger by his first name and the older by his surname.
*** During the episodes leading into the first movie, we have several moments where "Yuuto" yanks Ryotaro away seemingly at random and then drops him back where he came from. Ryotaro is obviously pretty upset, but when confronted Yuuto insists he hasn't done anything. Then it turns out that the version of Yuuto from a few days in the future is the one to blame, and he confronts his slightly-more-past self to explain the situation.
* [[Supernatural (TV series)|Dean Winchester]] gets sent into the future in Season 5, and meets his future self. They're more or less alike, except that the future one has finally ''completely'' [[Break the Cutie|snapped under the pressure]] of all the crap that is [[The Woobie|constantly raining down on Dean]], and abandoned all his remaining morals and standards. Seeing as Dean is already a quite pragmatic and cynical person, you can imagine [[Knight Templar|what that looks like]]. (He meets future-Castiel too, who also scares him, having gone from a guy who wouldn't know a joke if it bit him to a drugged-out sex guru.)
** Not forgetting that in that episode, Sam has been possessed by Lucifer for the last 5 years and is orchestrating a full on [[Zombie Apocalypse]].
* In ''[[Timeslip]]'', Liz and Simon both meet future counterparts of themselves. Neither of them thinks much of Liz's first counterpart, who has become inhumanly cold-hearted and clinical in the "Ice Box" research center of the far-off year 1990. Liz prefers her "hippie" future self from the alternative "Burn-Up" future of 1999, though she's troubled by her future self's seeming inability to act responsibly. Simon's future counterpart has given up his name in favor of an number, and has become opportunistic and ultra-rational to compete in the emotionless clone-dominated scientific community of the future. Simon, for some reason, likes and respects this future version of himself, until he turns out to be a bit of a tool.
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* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' has an example of Future Me Annoys Me: {{spoiler|Even though he is unaware of his true identity, Shirou}} has enormous problems getting along with {{spoiler|his future self, Archer,}} on a purely instinctual level (although the great personality differences may have something to do with it too). The future version, on the other hand, has some ''very'' well thought-out reasons for despising the other.
* It's a spoiler to ''even be on this page'', but here goes: {{spoiler|At the very end of ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'', just before he dies, the [[Big Bad]] Kessler reveals to Cole that ''he's actually Cole from the future''. This [[Incredibly Lame Pun|shocks]] Cole, for obvious reasons.}}
* [[Video Games]] can hide that they use [[Time Travel]] as a motif quite well. Like the above example, just reading the title of this game on this page is a spoiler in its own right. Proceed at your discretion. {{spoiler|In ''[[
* In the first ''[[Marvel Ultimate Alliance]]'' game, [[Doctor Doom]]—in addition to being being the [[Big Bad]]—is also a [[Downloadable Content|downloadable character]] or can be gotten through the Gold Edition (both exclusive to the X-Box 360). If you have the playable Doom in your party when you meet the boss Doom, it's revealed that boss Doom is from the future. As mentioned in the examples in "Comic Books", playable Doom wasn't happy with his future self.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat|Mortal Kombat 11]]''; the younger versions of Liu Kang, Kung Lao. and Jade are pretty terrified of [[Our Zombies Are Different| their older, revenant selves.]] Kitana goes so far as to say her revenant self is worse than [[Evil Twin| Mileena.]] Raiden is even more disturbed by the idea of Dark Raiden, and makes a point to avoid turning into him again.
* In ''[[Spider-Man Edge of Time]]'', {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] is revealed to be Peter Parker's future self, who has gone insane due to the death of all of his loved ones and the use of an anti-aging drug he used to allow himself to be alive in 2099. He planned on reshaping the universe in his own image in order to fix his past mistakes.}}
* A bizarre variant occurs in ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army]]'': {{spoiler|the villain is ''a'' [[Legacy Character|Raidou Kuzunoha]] from a post-[[Shin Megami Tensei II]] future, trying to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|prevent said future from coming about]] by turning Taisho-era Japan into a world superpower through supernatural means.}}
* In ''[[Super Robot Wars Z]]'', during the [[Turn A Gundam
* In ''[[Tales of Maj
* Even {{spoiler|1=Dr. Robotnik/Dr. Eggman}} gets this in ''[[Sonic Generations]]''. Even though the two of them are working together and are collectively the game's [[Big Bad]], {{spoiler|Robotnik looks at Eggman's behavior with puzzlement and asks "Wow. Will I really get that crazy?"}} At the very end of the game {{spoiler|when Robotnik learns that Eggman ''has never defeated Sonic'', he gets depressed and decides to go for a teaching degree instead.}}
* [[Played for Laughs]] in [[Yoshi's Island|Yoshi's Island DS]]: {{spoiler|Baby Bowser throws a tantrum upon learning that, when he grows up, he'll still be a loser wanting to take over the world.}}
* In ''Superosity'', character Boardy (an amnesiac super-being who isn't sure if he's an alien or a robot) has met a future version of himself who is a crazy, obnoxious jerk, and a further future version who is pure unadulterated evil. He was alarmed to find out the first future him is, according to it, from a very near future, and there have been signs recently in the comic that his sense of right and wrong is beginning to slip. These are only a couple of the futures the cast has visited; Boardy always seems to be either evil or dead. He's remarked on how annoying this is.
* Subverted in ''[[Fans]]!'', where the present day characters encounter their past selves, and their past selves mistake their present selves' character development as being a [[Face Heel Turn]]. The present characters then wipe the floor with the past characters, taking advantage of everything they've learned.
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* ''[[Narbonic]]'' parodies this with Mell's reaction to her [[President Evil|future self]]. She wants to avoid that future happening not to save the world, but because {{spoiler|she thinks that her future self looks lame with contacts.}}
* Played with on multiple occasions in ''[http://www.tru-lifeadventures.com TRU-Life Adventures]''. First, upon meeting his {{spoiler|alternate}} older self, Bob's disturbed most by {{spoiler|the fact he's bald}}. Later, even Old Jack gets annoyed by his younger self.
* In the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131028050221/http://comics.shipsinker.com/archive.php?arc=10doctors fanmade online comic special] ''[[The 10 Doctors|The Ten Doctors]]'', the ninth Doctor at first refuses to believe that Ten is his future self ( {{spoiler|"Where's Rose?"}}), the first Doctor has no respect for ''any'' of the others besides the tenth, Three thinks Seven and [[I Hate Past Me|Two]] are complete dunces, and ''nobody'' likes Six.
* In the ''Bad Karma'' arc of ''[[Magellan]]'', time-traveling superheroes come back to Magellan Island to stop two [[Super Villain|supervillains]]. The first-year cadets are impressed. But these time travelers are some of the main characters, just aged and tempered. Bill is horrified to meet his future self and discover {{spoiler|chronic hair loss.}} Kaycee Jones finds out that her future self {{spoiler|went Darth Vader and killed a supervillain, was discharged from the team, went rogue, had half her face burned off in a superbattle, ...}}
* During the 'Surreptitious Machinations' arc of ''[[General Protection Fault]]'', Trudy Trueheart encounters her future self - a ruthless empress who rules the world with an iron fist. While [http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20011226 she IS scared] by what her future shows she is capable of, her first reaction - much to Empress Trudy's annoyance - is to be horrified by how OLD she's gotten.
{{quote|'''Trudy''': I have to start coloring my hair... and a diet, got to lose weight... plastic surgery... facelift... got to fix [[Most Common Superpower|THESE]]...
'''Empress Trudy''': I LOOK MARVELOUS FOR MY AGE, MORON! }}
* More like "Alternate Me Scares Me", but [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-01-06 here's Lord Tedd]. Courtesy of ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''.
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* [http://i.imgur.com/94ePv.jpg This kid.]
* In a sort [[Spyro the Dragon|The Legend of Spyro]] fan comic, ''[http://fav.me/d14z2u1 Cynder's Final Battle?]'' presents a situation were it turns out {{spoiler|Spyro's evil future self is really the Dark Master come back in time}} needless to say {{spoiler|Spyro}} [[Despair Event Horizon|doesn't take this well]].
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' got Yaeyoefui, Oafan "librarian" resurrected from a [[Brain Uploading|memory backup]] was [[Knight in Sour Armor|not quite a ray of sunshine]] already. And gone suicidal from the news that his original version that migrated (which is different from upload in that the mental processes are transferred directly, thus remain as contiguous as it gets) to [[Cyberspace|mindframe]] of their habitat have committed genocide of the rest of his species by forcibly transferring all of them to disembodied existence as well (and then gone insane from grief and guilt, though mostly recovered after being found by the current galactic civilisation). For a while, anyway.
{{quote|'''Iafa''': He's still disappointed that this future version of himself is a murderer with no poetry, but we seem to be getting on okay.}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
▲== Web Original ==
* [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Classic Amy]] is shown to be less than pleased with her modern self in [http://dhim.deviantart.com/art/CRYOCH-MACHINE-Amy-and-Amy-215805015 this] [[Lady Lumps VS Boy Bumps|CRYOCH Machine]] animation.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** A variant is the episode "Future Tense," where Goliath has a horrifying vision of a future dystopic Manhattan about to put under the control of a older, megalomaniacal {{spoiler|Lexington}}. Fortunately, series creator, Greg Weisman, [[Word of God|has stated]] that he is safe from turning into that in the true future, however {{spoiler|his clone, Brentwood}} is liable to go that way instead.
* The ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' are disappointed by elderly selves in an episode of the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|first animated series]].
* The ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' [[Made for TV Movie]] "Ego Trip" involved a [[Future Loser|weak, wimpy future Dexter]] that the present Dexter is greatly disappointed by. Later in the future, though, he finds that he transforms into a [[Future Badass]]—but then degenerates into a feeble, senile old man, albeit one revered by the entire world. (Interestingly, we actually get to see the point of [[Took a Level
* In the fourth season of ''[[
* Although it was technically a [[Mirror Universe]], when Coop meets his alternate self in the last episode of ''[[Megas XLR]]'', it's still a dimension a decade or two in the future relative to his own—and Coop is a tyrannical (and muscular) despot. However, the regular Coop is unconcerned about turning into him—maybe just a little ''too'' much so.
* In ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'', Jimmy is shocked to find that his future self is not a renowned scientist as he had hoped, but a [[Future Loser|stay-at-home slacker]] who, worst of all, is married to Cindy! Of course, this is because he accidentally changed the timeline to create a dystopia.
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* In an episode of ''[[Duckman]]'', Duckman meets his future self, who warns him not to go to his sons' science show, telling him something bad will happen. Then ''another'' future version of him appears and tells him something bad will happen if he ''doesn't'' go. This happens several times, back and forth, until finally, he's afraid to do ''anything''.
* An inversion is done in ''[[Static Shock]]'' when Static is sent to the future by mistake. After hearing so much about how responsible and powerful his future self is, he begins to feel rather inadequate. Until he manages to save the day and win approval and all.
* One episode of the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series has Donatello be transported to the future, where the Shredder has taken over. It's more "My Future Brothers Scare Me", especially when he sees that Mikey, laid-back and sweet in the present, is a [[Took a Level
* Averted in [[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]], despite a fairly typical [[Bad Future]] episode. While all the Titans (except Starfire) have fallen into decay (much to the dismay of their past counterparts when Starfire recounts her solo adventure), Robin is fairly pleased with [[Took a Level
{{quote|'''Robin''': So… "Nightwing", huh?}}
** Beast Boy is pretty upset when he finds out he's going to go bald.
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[[Category:We Will Not Use an Index In The Future]]
[[Category:Future Me Scares Me]]
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