#dhmis tv show timeline

[dontronicbisexual]

new timeline. new comic

[eievuiisms]

ok so im finally just gonna infodump about that dhmis au i just randomly started posting like a week ago almost, which ive just referred to as the dollhouse au. anyway infodumping under the cut lmao

so as i mentioned in the og comic for it, it was kinda inspired by ‘inside a mind’s theory abt the dhmis webseries but likeeee mostly for the aspect of red guy being the main focus + having some level of responsibility irt the situation, but anyway i mention this since its the basis of this au more or less

so the trio were all humans once, & were all connected in some sort of way. i havent determined the extent of their relationships but they def knew each other, and werent like borderline strangers. in my mind, red & duck were coworkers + friends (and potentially working on getting to be more than that, but never got there) and red & yellow had a familial, brotherly type of relationship (ive tossed around the possibility of them being maybe step-brothers or smth like that, idk like i said i havent determined the extent so take that w/ a grain of salt)

(also fyi yellow’s an adult & is younger than both red & duck by a somewhat significant amount, but he’s def just a neurodivergent adult man. theres not any plot significance, i just figured i’d say lol)

now these 3 definitely all have struggles in their lives, some of which have been reflected in the show (red’s inability to connect with others ‘like him,’ duck not actually liking being alone, yellow having a poor relationship w/ his dad, etc etc). their lives arent exactly horrible but its far from sunshine & daisies

(ive kinna debated the idea that maybe a significant event happened that negatively affected red in particular but idk i dont think i wanna make it melodramatic so lets just leave it as ‘their lives arent Perfect’ for now lol)

so at some point, red comes across an antique shop that’s never been there before, one that holds all of the puppet props as well as the dollhouse from the TV series, which red is given with the claim that it ‘belongs to him’ (& yes, the person that gives it to him is lesley). so red is just kinda like ‘ok ig’ & takes this totally normal dollhouse that won’t cause him problems in the future home w/ him. what could possibly go wrong

anyway i figure some time passes after he obtains the dollhouse but basically to make a short story shorter, he - & the other 2 - wind up getting trapped inside the dollhouse as puppets, so theyre stuck in there & then in the normal world theyre obvs labelled as missing. while they’re trapped in this dollhouse, they dont remember anything from their prev life - they do not remember being human, and they do not remember knowing each other as closely as they once did.

so before proceeding, i will say that in this au, both the webseries & the TV series occur in the timeline, & they do indeed occur one after the other, so the webseries is ‘season 1′ & the TV series is ‘season 2′ (& i think i will be referring to them as such throughout the rest of this dump bc its easier than specifying ‘webseries’ & ‘TV series’ each time lol)

so during s1, red guy is in ‘control’ - in the absolute loosest terms, bc obviously these puppets cant control SHIT, but all i mean by 'control’ is that their surroundings are reflective of a certain individual. in the case of s1, it is red. because of this, the trio is a little more self-aware (as red particularly was in s1), and they remember each incident that happens between episodes. obviously, things go downhill reaallllyyyy badly because red doesnt have a grip on anything, so we get some pretty nasty incidents. additionally, the world all around looks more realistic & uncanny while red has the reins

eventually, red accidentally leaves following dhmis 4, and this leads to him going into a version of the real world (obvs not the actual real world. whatever forces that have put him & his friends there aint done with him yet), which, as we all know, eventually leads to him pulling the plug on the world. now, he did this with the expectation that he & the other 2 would finally be free. but no, all it did was take the control out of his hands and put it into the hands of someone else

enter s2, i’m actually going to go ahead & say that ‘transport’ is the first thing that happens chronologically. so here we have red coming freshly out of s1′s events which were clearly traumatizing, and who also expected to be free of this hell puppet world only to find himself right back in the thick of it, so yeah, he’s a little on edge and stir crazy and wants to be free. but here’s the real kicker: none of them fully remember the events of s1. yellow & duck certainly dont, & red only has hints of feelings remaining from it, enough to make him frustrated, but not enough to remember the gory details. this is meant to be the hint that the ‘control’ has switched hands, since as i mentioned previously, they could remember what happened between incidents under red’s control. by the end of ‘transport’ whenever yellow reacts to hearing lesley’s voice, that’s the reveal in this au that yellow’s the next person to be ‘in control’

ways in s2 that show that yellow’s now control: things are definitely a lot softer, while still having their darker moments (compare this to yellow’s brain friends & how cute they were, then how that eventually went downhill) + the trio only have vague recollections of previous events (yellow evidently has some memory problems according to ‘friendship’), among other things. but basically, just judging on how the show treats yellow in s2, its reasonable enough to say in this au that he’s the next one in control of the dollhouse after red, who was evidently seen as an inappropriate fit

anyway thats about all i got atm lol, ive just been rotating this au in my brain for a while so i figured its abt time i like. actually write out most of the details gkjfhgjk. especially bc ppl seemed to like the lil drawings ive done for it, so < 3

[adobe-outdesign]

How do you feel about fan service in general? I don’t see it as a bad thing, as it can be fun and silly when done right, but I think there needs to be restraint and things within the narrative should still make sense without fandom context, nor should the service be intrusive and out of place in the plot. Nostalgic pandering shouldn’t be the driving force behind everything or impede new ideas.

I like how it was done in the DHMIS tv series: the old teachers are there but feel right at home, and aren’t largely featured at the expense of the new elements and new teachers of the show, and it makes sense for Roy to show up in an episode called “Family” and his cameo in the opening is fun and appropriately creepy to spot in a show already full of fun and odd Easter eggs. His former villainous role is also necessarily toned down, despite its fan popularity, as the show proves to be bold and willing to introduce a new character and puppet master (and a human amongst puppets, at that!), Lesley, which I say has paid off judging by her popularity in the fandom!

As for a bad example of fan service and pandering…I feel like some episodes of the G4 MLP show may qualify? I dunno, it seems like the show just lost something to me as the seasons went on and some characters, like Twilight and Fluttershy, lost their quirks, presumably in response to adults complaining about the “audacity” of children’s cartoons characters not instantly getting over their flaws after one moral at the end of an episode in a show aimed at teaching friendship lessons to a young audience…and the brony fanservice always felt out of place to me, like all of the 100th episode and the alternate timelines in the Starlight Glimmer redemption episode just didn’t seem to fit the show’s tone for me and seemed unnecessary in the end? It could all just be me, I know a lot of people love everything about that show to bits.

Depends on the show and the context. It's usually fine as long as it's not overbearing or distracting from the main plot. DHMIS did it well, as all of the old teacher cameos are in spots where they make sense (like there's a computer in episode 4, why wouldn't it be Colin?).

[flyingfishflopsthings]

Trying to figure out the DHMIS tv show timeline like

So what I do know so far is that 1. Electricity happens before Transport and Death, 2. Friendship happens after Death. Evidence for this being Duck's newspaper, and Yellow Guy's Dream in the opening song of Transport.

This has some fun implications to me with regards to how Duck and Yellow Guy both have ways of remembering things that have happened before- Duck reads about them, and Yellow dreams about them. Its kind of interesting to me bc the popular viewpoint seems to be that Duck is the least aware of what is happening to them, but he's the one who has the paper- granted, I don't think he ever makes his own references to things that happen in other episodes, but still. Also interesting that it doesn't seem like Red Guy directly remembers things either even though he is probably the most suspicious of things and most eager to break the loop.

[dontronicbisexual]

A nightmare, an old man and and a mysterious being walk into a bar.