#Winx Alt Con season 01 overview

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

Winx Alt Con: Season ONE Recap:

Previously: (b.y.s.) 00, 01, 02

Week 03: Episodes covered – 08, 09

The day before Magical Mother's Day (The Day of the Rose) is a half day for Alfea students (as is the day after, to permit for travel times and inter-planetary time zones.) After seeing off Flora and Tecna, the remaining trio start planning what to they're going to do on the Day of the Rose.

Stella begins telling Musa and Bloom about a festival in Magix, mentioning the Red Fountain boys were planning to enter a race (which she knew courtesy of Sky). When Musa declines the invite, Stella asks why she's staying at the school. Bloom's staying for research, Stella's own parents are divorcing (something Bloom found out on her trip to Stella's wardrobe), but why is Musa staying?

After an insensitively worded question by Stella, Musa lashes out angrily, taking a swipe at the princess, the fairy of music confesses that her mother is dead, and after telling Stella to 'shut up,' Musa flees.

Stella looks like she wants to punch herself for her insensitivity, but Bloom talks her out of it, making a plan for Stella to apologise later, once Musa's calmed down. In an effort to cheer up the blonde, Bloom agrees to going with her to see the boys race.

While something seems a little fragile around the edges, Stella smiles happily and begins making plans, talking clothes, transport and festival sights.

The morning of the actual Day of the Rose, Bloom jolts awake, the question 'remember what' spilling out of her mouth before she has a chance to even realise she's awake. Stella pops her head into the room, already dressed to impress, and wanting to know who Bloom was talking to. (Apparently she'd heard Bloom calling out a few times from the next room and come to investigate.)

Bloom tells Stella what she can remember about her dream while she finds her own clothes for the day. (A strange glowing woman calling to her, telling her to remember. The voice familiar, like she'd heard it recently but can't quite place it.)

Out in the dorm's main room, they run into Musa on her way to breakfast and Stella quickly apologises. Musa, looking more worn than angry, accepts the apology, admitting she knows Stella didn't mean what she'd said how she'd said it. Musa goes on to mention that she was a little jealous of the other Winx all having their mothers, even Stella who, even though her mother wasn't sticking around in the same capacity, wasn't losing her forever.

The girls hug, letting their embrace translate the last unspoken words of forgiveness and support.

After Musa declines to join them again, Bloom and Stella let Musa know she is still welcome to join them at any time, or if she isn't up to crowds but doesn't want to be alone, they can absolutely cancel or cut short their plans.

Musa replies by shoving them out the door towards the breakfast hall.

In Cloud Tower the Trix seethe over their punishment, and decide to try again at revenge. (“They're first years! We're seniors! I won't let those pesky winged ***** get between us and the Dragon Fire AGAIN!... Darcy? What are you doing with that scrying mirror?”/ “That boy from Alfea, the one with darkness in his heart... he's going to the festival today.”/ “So?”/ “So, I think I'll go introduce myself.”)

In Magix, the two girls meet up with Sky, Brandon and Riven. They make their way through town, looking at various sights as they head closer and closer to the place the boys need to be for the start of their race.

While watching one of the early races, Riven takes a chance to proclaim his upcoming victory, and while Sky tells Stella he'll have to put the pedal to the metal to beat Riven, both Sky and Brandon treat Riven's declaration as nothing more than empty bragging, which annoys Riven who becomes increasingly hostile as the group approaches the starting point.

While Stella and Sky make goo-goo eyes at each other, Bloom and Brandon make awkward-shy eyes. Sky and Brandon begin taunting Riven about not having anyone to cheer him on, and the girls give the boys disappointed looks, telling Riven they'll cheer for him too.

This doesn't go over well with any of the boys, and before any of them can stop and think about what they're saying, all of them blurt out horrible things, the worst of which is Riven, who decides to jab at the sore point Bloom and Stella's words have revealed in Brandon's holier-than-thou attitude.

Riven declares that he'll not only win the race, he'll be escorting both fairies to the ball later in the day. Still riled up, Bloom enchants a vase to spill water over Riven, and only after he runs off, the other three laughing at his retreating back, does Bloom realise a line has been crossed.

Slowly it dawns on the other three, and the quartet stand there feeling a bit sick at their own actions.

It comes out that, as long as they've known him, Riven has always resented Brandon and Sky, and despite being one of the best in the school, Riven always acts like he has something to prove.

Bloom tells them they need to find Riven and apologise and the group heads out.

(Unseen nearby, Darcy laughs victoriously.)

While looking for their lost companion, Bloom is separated from the others, only to run into Timmy. Something in Bloom's instincts pings faintly, but she lets Timmy guide her back to the Square where their group was supposed to be gathering. On the way, Timmy asks what Bloom is so worried about, and the fairy tells him about the fight with Riven. Timmy offers Bloom a high-tech helmet to give Riven as a piece offering. Once Bloom accepts, Timmy points her in the right direction and tells Bloom no to tell anyone that he (Timmy) had given her the helmet.

Upon finding the others, who had found Riven in the meantime, Bloom admits to getting lost and (since it wouldn't be break her word exactly, and being suspicious AF) tell the others that Timmy had pointed her in the right direction. The others give her a funny look before telling Bloom that Timmy had gone home for the Day of the Rose.

Yelping, Bloom drops the helmet case and tells the others not to touch it, before explaining its origins. Riven scoffs “you think I need technological assistance to beat these losers?” Annoyed all over again, Riven leaves for the starting line.

Stella helps Bloom run a scanning spell, which alerts them both to the presence of dark magic in the device. Sharing a look, the remaining quartet try to figure out who would want to sabotage Riven. The girls come to a conclusion right away, while in the shadows, Darcy seethes, and decides to enact 'plan B'.

Riven, Brandon and Sky spend the majority of the race in the lead, until, right near the end, another competitor catches up, getting in the way of both Sky and Brandon, and letting Riven win by a landslide, the mysterious entrant comes in a close second.

While the boys were racing, Stella and Bloom went looking for the Trix, trying to figure out what the witches wanted, so they miss Riven's first real meeting with Darcy. (“Nice riding hero.”/ “Just nice?”/ “Well, (flirty look) when compared with the rest of you. (smoulder)”)

Unable to find any trace of the witches, the fairies head over to congratulate their boys on their race results.

That evening, the quartet enjoy themselves as the Rose Ball, while Riven and Darcy spend the evening getting to know each other, and staying far away from the others.

Waking in the middle of the night to a desperate shout, Flora finds Bloom shifting back and forth between her human and fairy form, calling out to someone in her sleep. Thinking quickly, Flora sets her phone camera to record, points it in Bloom's direction, and runs for Stella.

Despite being tired and cranky, Stella is more afraid for her friend, having never heard of someone 'partially' transforming their sleep before. Awoken by Flora's knocking on Stella's door, and curious about the lights on, Tecna and Musa come to see what's going on. Also unable to even guess what's going on, the four friends stand by Bloom's bed, uncertain whether they should do anything or not.

Bloom wakes up with a shout of 'Daphne!' to find her friends standing around her bed looking very worried. When she asks what's going on, Flora hands over her phone with the recording of Bloom's wavering sleep transformations.

The group debate whether or not to go to Faragonda with this, but after realising the time, decide to wait until morning.

Armed with a sketch of 'Daphne,' (drawn by Bloom because she is an artist damnit) Bloom and the others seek out Faragonda. In her office, Faragonda is shocked by the girls' accounts of Bloom's sleep transformations, and startles when she recognises her former student, Daphne, from the drawing.

Faragonda explains that Daphne was the Crown Princess of Domino, and a 'Nymph' of Magix until the Siege and Destruction of Domino roughly 150 years ago. When questioned what it all means, Faragonda admits she has a suspicion, but it seems highly implausible and she doesn't want to influence Bloom's perception of events concerning Daphne's attempts to contact her. (and possibly causing confusion with Daphne's intention.)

Faragonda directs Bloom to the Library to research Daphne on her own, telling her where to find the old year books from that time if she's interested in more personal aspects of Daphne pre-graduation.

After school, the girls head into Magix to check out the frieze of the Nymphs in the town centre, learning little in the way of new information, before returning to the school.

Where they realise they've been so preoccupied with Daphne, that they've neglected to study for their upcoming exam in the magical simulator room. The girls hold a study party and make sure they're prepped for their day long exam block in two days. (Bloom calls Brandon to cancel the 'not a date' they had planned, they agree to reschedule, school work being very important.)

The girls go over air, water and soil purification, magical fertilisation, plant growth, weather adaptations and so forth. By the time the exam arrives, they all feel they're as prepared as they can be.

Week 04

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

Before You Start:

Winx Alternative Canon Season One Recap is presented in SUMMARY FORMAT. What does that mean? It means it reads like a synopsis found on wiki pages that cover the episode plot, but go lightly on the details and contains very little dialogue.

These are not fully fleshed out fanfictions of each episode. I just don't have the time for the full season, and if I tried, you'd be waiting for three years for me to finish one season.

There are things I skimp on, the season recaps cover mostly plot points but you are encouraged to assume there are things going on in the background.

What is this madness?

Winx Alternative Continuity (Winx Alt Con) is the project I originally created this blog for, it's a retelling of the Winx Club series with an altered timeline and a slightly expanded universe.

What's the point?

This started as me ask 'why would 'character' (not) do that?' as I was rewatching various seasons, then snowballed into an attempt to patch some plot holes, and expand the universe a bit. It does operate on reverse continuity, which means things that exist in later seasons have been considered while writing the earlier seasons.

How's the Timeline?

Winx Alternative Canon does operate on a faster timeline than canon, where season one took (allegedly) a whole school year.

While the pre-series timeline was stretched to about 1600 years pre-pilot episode, the first season has sped up to fit into ten weeks. This might feel a little cramped for some people, but I felt like the Trix weren't going to be waiting around for weeks at a time before trying something new to find the Dragon Fire, or to do something that found them facing off against the Winx.

Certain events have been swapped up, and the Winx Club are given a little bit of maturity, based on the fact they're in their mid-teens and training to be guardians of the Magical Dimension.

Honestly? Season one of Winx Alt Con alone was supposed to stretch for a full semester (half the school year), instead it covers a term and a bit. (Slightly more than half a semester, I'm Australian we have four terms divided into two semesters, and Bloom's canonical week long break happened at roughly the right time to be the holiday between terms, so it just kind of made sense to use that format for the school year's timetable.)

This feels like you half-assed a Gritty Reboot.

That's fair, I did try to add a little bit of political existence into the series, and to make stakes more permanent. I understand that Winx was for kids, but as a young adult I kind of wanted to look at the show as a more 'realistic' take on things, which, even in such a fantastical setting, means that death is not a hand-waved, rotating door when convenient.

How's the continuity?

I'd like to think it's pretty decent, but I am expecting there will be things that might need to be retconned later down the road as snowballing effects of earlier changes crop up. (like Mirta's involvement in season one because I made Sky less of an absolute asshole, only it didn't occur to me when I wrote my initial notes for the Alt Con until I was typing them up.)

All up the series does intend to follow the major beats of the show, just with a bit of padding thrown in. (honestly the biggest visible change is probably the lack of Love & Pet in season four).

I am going to draw from the various source continuities, but primarily it will be running off the 'good' translation of the English version of the show. (season two will see a cameo by a comics mini-story arc, just because I really liked it.)

Can I get some clarification?

Sure, I think? my ask box is... a thing? (I don't blog much, so I'm still figuring out how to tumblr.)

Season One Winx Alt Con:

Week 00: Episodes 01, 02, 03.

Week 01: Eps 04.

Week 02: Eps 05,06,07.

Week 03: Eps 08, 09.

Week 04: Eps 10, 11.

Week 05: Eps 12.

Week 06: Eps 13.

Week 07: Eps (partial 14), 15, 17.

Week 08: 16, 18, 19, 20.

Week 09.1: 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.

The exact week several of the episodes belong to once the Army is summoned gets a bit hazy, because it's happening near the end of the week, and there are multiple locations where things are happening, and everyone is too busy trying to not die to worry about where one episode begins and another ends. (seriously, the battle all just sort of happens over about two days and it's literally the end of the week and I changed up some of the events so it just... kind of got divided by timeline and by page count... sorry...)

(Once I've finished posting the various weeks, I'm thinking about doing a timetable for season one, for those who don't want to wade through 25+ pages of synopsis, if that's something everyone (anyone) would be interested in. To give you an idea the timetable would be set out:

Week 00: Eps 01, 02, 03 Day 01: Bloom's birthday(?? she got a birthday present), Bloom meets Stella            : Hunting Troll Battle, meeting the Specialists Day 02: Arrival at Alfea, meeting Flora, Tecna and Musa Day 03: Exploring the city of Magix Day 04: Dress fitting at Solaria, Welcome back party

Uhm, so yeah, if that's a thing people would be interested in...)