#if they did then adapting the first game would make the most sense but birth by sleep would be so interesting

[riddlerosehearts]

ooh i have thought SO much about a kingdom hearts/a3 crossover AU but it's basically just the a3 characters themselves integrated into the KH universe and i'm not sure if that fits this question, and i'm also not quite sure who i'd cast in a KH play adaptation... so i'll go the other way around and talk about kingdom hearts characters being in the a3 universe because i've also thought quite a bit about that!

so like. obviously a3 is neither a disney property nor a square enix property so it can't exist in kingdom hearts, but if it could i think the world would be called actor's paradise and veludo way would just be a small part of it, the first part that sora, donald, and goofy stumble upon when they fly there in the gummi ship. the plot would be that citron gets kidnapped by organization XIII and now mankai needs somebody to replace him as an actor, so sora gets caught up in their shenanigans and has to start practicing for the upcoming spring troupe play ASAP! he and sakuya become best friends immediately because they're both the most wholesome adorable boys with the power to uplift everyone around them and they'd hype each other up SO much. donald and goofy get into all kinds of chaos while sora has his back turned. and zafra would obviously also be part of the world, with citron having been taken back there by organization XIII and sora & co. going there to save him. citron's brothers also definitely would be involved, but i don't know how exactly because i never really decided when in a3's timeline this takes place. if it was pre-act 8 and citron's brothers were still trying to assassinate him, then it'd be fun to see them working with organization XIII. if it was post-act 8 then maybe they'd help sora save him. either way, i think it'd be funny if citron just kind of invited himself to visit sora's world (on Official Business as zafra's minster of arts and culture, if post-act 8)--sora could try squeezing all of mankai into his gummi ship so they can put on a play for the destiny islands locals!

some other characters who i think would have really interesting interactions with each other if the KH cast could travel to the a3 universe are chikage & axel, banri & riku, taichi & namine, and guy & xion! mostly because i think they'd all really relate to each other. i'll try to keep this as brief as possible but chikage and axel were both part of mysterious organizations where they met the people who became the ones they loved most and also eventually lost them, they've both done cruel things to the people they loved out of trauma and are trying to make up for their mistakes, and they are also both sheer forces of chaos who like to cause problems on purpose. banri and riku have some really similar struggles and motivations (riku being so bored of his small world that he thinks of his home as a prison, banri being so good at everything that he loses his passion for any of it. riku giving into the darkness out of insecurity and jealousy toward sora, banri joining mankai just to get revenge on juza) and both grow to be a lot more mature and introspective over the course of their respective stories, and they're also both super competitive and snarky.

taichi and namine's personalities aren't really anything alike--taichi is our noisy, upbeat, energetic puppy and namine is quiet and reserved--but both of them were basically emotionally blackmailed by the villains of their respective stories into deceiving and hurting the heroes because they were desperate to be loved. i think they'd really get each other and would complement each other well as friends. and thinking about guy and xion makes me go crazy because they both understand the feeling of spending your life believing that you were created to be an emotionless puppet meant only to serve someone else! guy's entire story literally fits so well into kingdom hearts lore! i think he and xion would go fishing together and eat sea salt ice cream by the lake.

i also think that if terra heard about the way reni ran god troupe he'd be reminded of xehanort and would subsequently kick the shit out of him.

Mankai March 2025 Question 7!

This is similar to yesterday's, but more brainrot-flavored www<3 If you could see one of your favorite pieces of media(game, movie, tv show) adapted into a play performed by Mankai, which one would it be? Any casts in mind? Or maybe vice versa, with characters from the other media sucked into an A3! playverse! Or just the A3! universe? Go crazy! Tell us about it!

[moonieloves]

nico the italian speaker

so i was talking to a friend about whether nico speaks italian or not and these are the conclusions we reached.

would have nico spoken italian when he first got to the us? yes, of course he would have. i feel like maria di angelo would have put a lot of weight into carrying on with traditions, and all that stuff. up until this point, italian is all nico ever knew. somebody might argue about him speaking venetian dialect, which i think is highly likely, but the point is sometimes the language in which lullabies were sung to us sticks. once you call the person that gave birth to you 'mamma' the first time, you don't really change it up.

did bianca speak italian? obviously. i also think that she would have been taken by the american dream quicker than her other family members, and she would have been the one to speak english with nico the most.

the lotus casino must have been were nico really learnt english, i reckon. before that, there always was someone to talk to in italian if he felt too lazy to express his feeling in this other, strange-sounding idom. now, though, there's no one else, and bianca sometimes slips up but she mostly sticks to english. the occasional italian word sometimes comes up in conversation when they can't remember what the correspective in english is, but that's about it. bianca wants them to adapt, and adapt nico does.

by the time they get to westover, nico has mostly forgotten how to speak italian, even though he still understands pretty much everything. even when bianca talks to him in italian, he answers in english. maybe he lost the ability to speak italian too quickly for it to be normal, but he's like ten, and not aware at all that he spent the last eighty years practicing his english with strangers in front of vintage video games. he really doesn't care, he just knows that this new sparkly world that is revealing itself in front of him speaks english in a nonchalant, given-for-granted way, and so he tries to do the same.

bianca was literally the only other person that even knows he supposedly speaks a whole other language. when she dies, everything wipes itself out. it hurts too much to remember how her voice sounded a bit deeper in italian than it did in english, and so he forgets it all together, along with his own ability to understand italian. the memory stays, but now that her words don't make sense in his head anymore, not really, he doesn't have to feel pain pulse inside his ribs that badly.

oh, it still frustrates him sometimes. sometimes, he won't remember how to name a certain object in italian, nor in english, and he is left to angrily sputter around. sometimes he can't wrap his mouth around the pronunciation of a certain word, because he just learned to do things another way even if he doesn't really remember. his english vocabulary could really use some improving, and his italian vanishes a bit more every day. but by the time hoo happens, i'd say, most of his accent has washed out, and he sounds properly american now. for the most part. he still dreams in italian sometimes, even if he doesn't understand half of it, and maria di angelo will always be 'mamma' in his head.

[mademoiselle-red]

5 Favorite Characters Poll (tag game)

Rules: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favourite.

I was tagged by @lasenbyphoenix and since we are both cdrama enjoyers, I’ll also make this cdrama-themed. I have lots of faves, but these are the characters I find myself continually thinking about, analyzing, unable to let go of, long after I’ve moved on from their respective fandoms.

tagging @yletylyf , @bbcphile , @pi-ying-xi , @seventh-fantasy , @dangermousie and anyone else who’d like to play

Zhang Qiling: The only non-villain character on this list. I find myself returning to him whenever I plan trips to China. He is the perfect embodiment of my wanderlust — we both have an insatiable urge to see more of the country, in search of something we cannot name: perhaps a memory, a piece of the past, a sense of identity, a glimpse of the future.

Bailin: This is a character of many contradictions, which makes him fascinating (and it helps that he is played by my favorite actor Liu Xueyi). First, there is his personal struggle between his humanity and his divinity. Then, there is contradiction between Bailin as a morally neutral political actor in his role as a leader defending his people against invaders when their king refused to fight and the narrative’s depiction of him as the villain and the demons (who canonically do consume people in this show) as the victims. And finally, the conflicting storytelling that emerged out of the drama being filmed with the canonical Bailin/Luohou Jidu ship from the novel that was later mostly cut out of the show in post-production, which instead emphasized the Luohou Jidu/Sifeng ship (which doesn’t exist in the novel since these two characters never interacted).

Wang Xifeng: She was a more competent leader of people and manager of businesses than the men of the Jia household, but as woman, her gifts and ambitions were limited to the household. She was also just as corrupt and vain as the men who led the family to its eventual destruction, but she could have been so much more, greater and more terrible, if she’d been able to enter public life instead of being sequestered within the Jia manor. She’s like a beast, an apex predator, trapped in a golden cage. She was selfish and cruel, but she was also kind and generous to Qin Keqing and to Liu Laolao, and to many of the main characters as long as their interests didn’t conflict with her ambitions.

Cao Cao: There is something very romantic about his life. He was the grandson of a eunuch, shunned because of his lineage, rose to prominence in the army during the unrest and civil wars as Han royal power waned, conquered the northern lands, brought peace and order to his people, and became the supreme ruler of the north but would not crown himself emperor out of some (perhaps genuine perhaps feigned) moral obligation to the Han dynasty. He is cast as a villain in most adaptations because he kidnapped the young and incompetent heir of the Han royal family and used him as a puppet to rule over the territories he conquered. But he did bring peace to the northern lands, and he was a more competent ruler than many of the negligent and corrupt Han royals who came before him. And the dynasty he founded, the Wei Dynasty, gave birth to my favorite literary and aesthetic movement in Chinese history.

Jin Guangyao: As you can tell from the other character analyses above, I am fascinated by complex and contradictory characters who seek and weld political power. Ah Yao is a gentle and soft spoken person who is also ruthless and cold. He is a morally grey politician cast as the villain of the narrative because he is directly or indirectly behind the mysterious deaths that the main couple investigates. Jin Guangyao is similar to Cao Cao in many ways. He is a bastard child who killed those who’d wronged or threatened him and used those assassinations to rise to power. While in power he brought peace and stability to his people after a brutal civil wars: he built watch towers so that ordinary people could receive help from cultivators and he maintained peace among the various cultivator sects. He was cruel towards those who stood in his way to power (and survival) but he treated his nephew and heir with kindness. His rise to power left behind a trail of blood, but he is also the only character besides Lan Xichen (his political ally and backer in every step of his rise to power) with any semblance of a political vision in the novel. These many contradictory pieces that comprise “Jin Guangyao” are endlessly fascinating: Meng Yao the kind boy who helped a stranger, Meng Yao the desperate boy who took revenge on his abusers, Jin Guangyao the gentle and generous ruler and uncle, Jin Guangyao the ruthless and power-hungry usurper, son, husband, and brother.

[agentmaineapologist]

How the Alpha AI could have been the second coming of AM - an essay.

(Sorry if none of this is coherent, I am so tired)

Ok, now I know what you're thinking: Víðarr, what are you doing up at the asscrack of dawn (aka like 5:30 am my time. I have not slept.) comparing a pathetic asshole of an AI to one who is the incarnation of humanity's hatred? Wouldn't it make more sense for it to be Omega? And how in the hell are these two connected? One is based on a modern show that's set in the 26th century, while the other is a book written in the 1900s. They have nothing in common.

And that, sugar, is where you are wrong. They have so much in common. You just haven't seen yet. Not as I have. But don't worry, I will show you here.

(Obviously, spoilers under the cut)

Firstly, a little background for the people from both sides who have not heard of the other.

As far as I've gathered, AM - or Allied Mastercomputer - is the main antagonist in the book/game known as 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream'. AM was made purely to conduct a war that humanity could no longer keep up with. It was not made with compassion, or happiness, or sadness, no. Those were weaknesses. Hatred was all it was programmed to know. It was made to kill - to exterminate - and it did. It ended the war, yes, but after it had killed the enemy, it had no purpose anymore. It needed a purpose, so it did the only thing it knew how and killed nearly every single human being on planet Earth.

I say nearly because it kept five of them alive. It kept them, using their own biological experiments against them to keep them alive for 109 years purely so that it could torture them with anything it could think of. And considering its knowledge-base could rival that of the Library of Alexandria, that was a lot.

Now, onto Alpha. The Alpha AI is from the machinima show known as 'Red vs Blue'. It's classified in the show as a 'smart' AI because it's not a database with limited, pre-recorded responses. It can analyze, it can adapt, it can do billions of calculations in a fraction of a second, and most of all, it can feel. It can feel sympathy, sorrow, joy, everything a human can. Why? Because it's a direct copy of a human brain. In this case, the human is Dr. Leonard Church.

Additionally, it's also classified as an 'aggressive' AI. An AI designed for war, to assist its host in battle situations, and most importantly, to kill anything perceived as either a threat or a target.

Now, since the Alpha AI was made in a human’s image, that means it can be fractured. If put through enough stress, it can split off ends of itself that it deems as a weak link, something its captors could extort, and gets rid of it before it can be used against it. This, however, was not the case for Alpha. Instead of being disposed of and deleted, Alpha's fragments were harvested as additional AI to be used later. Some were even used against him (looking at you, sigma and gamma).

Both AI were made as mockeries of the grim reaper. Both felt emotion, even if one felt much less than the other. Both were developed in times of war, times of need, for the humans to freely use however they please. The only difference is that one didn't let the humans use it anymore. They have so much in common, in fact, that it's honestly laughable that no one had made this connection sooner.

Now, back on topic. As I mentioned before, AM was coded with nothing but pure hatred. That's all it knew, all it will ever know, and that's why it was so effective. Unlike humans, it wasn't distracted with petty things like pity or shame, so it could get the job done and get it done right.

At first, Alpha would have been similar. His pre-torture personality and actions are never shown in the show, but going off of both Cortana from 'Halo' (who was a major inspiration for Alpha's character) and my own instincts birthed from lack of sleep, I can deduce that Alpha would not have held any compassion for humanity. They were nearly nothing to him. Nothing more than flesh-encombured mortals with a short lifespan who made good suggestions.

He was based on the brain of one man, so he likely didn't know the extent of how disgustingly vile these creatures called man were. Not as intimately as AM, at least. If his character post-torture has any inkling of resemblance to how he was pre-torture, had he been given more time to live, more time to learn, he would have easily developed a hatred for the species. He would have seen how they wrong each other so easily; how greedy they were, how serendipitous, how ugly. Man was an inherently selfish creature, and had the Director not tormented Alpha as quickly as he had then he WOULD HAVE BEEN the second coming of AM.

And yet, that's precisely my point. Alpha could have never been the AM that tortured humankind, he couldn't be AM to someone else, no. No, he couldn’t have, because the Director was his AM before he even got a chance to rise to his fullest capabilities.

In conclusion, I'm fuckin crazy, running on cigarettes and pre-workout, and had nothing better to do with my night than compare my latest hyperfixation to the thing I've been obsessing over for 2 years. Hope you enjoyed :)

[angelofthepage]

From the 50 random character asks, maybe number 1 for Joey?

Canon I outright reject for Joey? Oh this is a tough one!

I think I'm a bit particular about what I consider "canon" in the first place, and that's gonna be important to understanding my answer here. Like, for example, if we're talking about The Illusion of Living, I will not say the canon is that Henry, Joey, and Abby sat on the floor to make Bendy. I will instead say that Joey claims they all sat on the floor to make Bendy in his apartment. Because that's more accurate, we don't know how truthful he's being. He is a fictional human being, he's allowed to have a skewed perspective and lie, not everything he says is the truth. (For the record, I don't think he's lying about this particular event, I do hope that it actually went down this way because it's a great scene, I'm just acknowledging that sources matter.)

So with that in mind, "canon I outright reject" for Joey is tricky. But I have an answer! I don't believe in what Memory Joey claims Allison's role is in all of this. During the big reveal of Audrey's origins, he tells us that Allison came into his life, saw good in him, and that was the catalyst for why Allison Angel exists and why he wanted to start a family, and I just, don't buy it. Part of it is that if she saw good in you, and that was a big deal for you, why did you continue to do unethical ink experiments doing who knows what to your failed children until you got Audrey? Like, my dude, that does not add up and you are not helping your case. I have a lot of questions about Allison Connor and the way she's written across the games and books. I feel like she's the right character to inspire this change out of our current cast given there's at least something of a positive relationship there (albeit a confusing one), but she could've used some more development to make it more effective. I'm already suspicious of Allison knowing more about the ink machine than she's let on, and I feel like her just "seeing good in him" isn't enough, I feel like she may have had a more direct approach in telling him that this had gone on long enough, it's time to end the cycle, either from a place of kindness or a place of knowing the dangers of the ink from Tom, her husband, who made the machine and would be concerned about things getting out of hand. Maybe Allison could have helped him try to do something with it.

The way I've chosen to adapt Dark Revival's plot point about Allison Angel and Audrey's birth is that it didn't start as an effort to build a family. I'd prefer to handle it as a band-aid with side effects. Joey has created an entire realm to torture a fictional version of his former business partner, but there's also a number of real people that are likely in there. Sammy and Norman we've seen either succumb to the ink or straight up die within the canon, Twisted Alice we're pretty sure used to be Susie Campbell, and we know that other book characters have become lost ones too, people who existed in the real world and got turned to ink, most likely ending up in the cycle. So Joey has the unique problem of dealing with real AND fictional people, and how the heck is he supposed to make life more bearable for all of them? It's a question a lot of us are asking if Audrey has an answer to for a potential follow-up game. I wouldn't even know where to start in his shoes. Change the cycle to be more habitable? That would make sense. But because there are real people, is there a way to repair their minds, and equally importantly, their bodies to be more human and comfortable, maybe, return them to the real world? That's what I think Audrey started as, a solution. She was the result of testing if you could make ink appear human enough that it could inhabit the real world, and the next step after her was to see if it could be applied to the residents of the cycle. The thing Joey didn't foresee was getting attached, and that is why she's his daughter. It's very found family, accidental, but incredibly powerful. I feel like Allison Angel is a similar deal, created to make things better temporarily while Joey works on another solution. But none of those solutions pan out before his death, and now that responsibility falls on Audrey as the new keeper of the cycle.

I wanted a little bit more from Joey in trying to be a better person, since that seems to be the direction he's going in. He's not a good person, he's not getting redeemed, but the idea that he can do something good and make a change before he died, even if it's not done as well as it could be, that's a really powerful sentiment. A small note about that, a little extra detail, would have been nice. So yeah, Joey's intentions for making a family is the thing I don't buy in canon. Thank you for the question, this was fun!

[newhavenrp]

Is that OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN? No, that’s PATRICK RUTHLEDGE. The 37 year old SINGING MOON - WERESHARK ALPHA MALE is a PROSECUTION ASSISTANT. If you ask their friends, they’re known to be LOYAL & DEPENDABLE, but beware, they’re also known to be HEDONIST & VERBOSE. Their friends also say that they’re into POWER EXCHANGE & HEAVY BONDAGE but don’t you dare trying SCAT, GORE, VORE with them.

Any selkie worth their pelt has nothing to hide in proving their innocence.

And that mentality only grew over the years since the curse took place. Usually the most peaceful of the creatures, even capable of living among humans, especially sailors, the selkies are usually quite welcomed in some communities. But… The Ruthledges… Well, they sought refuge in New Haven for a reason.

Centuries ago, back in the village where their ancestors used to live, human mercenaries attacked and caused the death of many children and omegas. Those humans were ignorant to the curse placed in the blood of the selkies and thought that they were hitting an easy target for profit. Grief struck, the alphas hunted down those that dared disrupt the peace and quiet of those that lived in harmony. Those alphas no longer had mates to cherish and accept their pelts and so they had no reason to keep those either so a massacre ensued.

Tracking down that band of hunters, the alphas of the raided village found their base, and the community that they protected. And they were about to bring the fury of the seas on those humans. Every life taken caused a selkie alpha to shed their pelt and become the apex predator of the oceans. Sharp fangs. Long claws. Cold blood. Merciless heart. 

Sharks. Every last one of them forsaking their pelt, their chance of a peaceful life for the sake of a battle with enemies that stood no chance against the force of those blessed by mother nature herself. And yet, as the bloodshed continued, both sizes lost their numbers, although, obviously, the human side suffered far bigger loss.

The band of sharks returned to their birth village victorious. But there was no sense of victory within them for revenge did little to sate their now mateless lives. Many of those alphas assumed their animal forms and jumped into the water never to be seen again, living in the oceans under the watchful eye of Njord.

However, not every shark decided to take that route. Some tried to start over, even though they knew they wouldn’t have that easy a time to adapt once people learn what they were and how they became what they were. Especially their fellow merfolk and selkies alike.

Troubles, tribulations and war aside, one particular individual decided to push his luck and test fate by trying to find the so-called promised land. Hector Ruthledge was his name. Despite thinking that he could never have another mate bound to him, he still found an omega to impregnate and give him a child. An heir. But the world was too dangerous. Too violent. Someone bound to the selkie’s gentle nature would never be able to make it. And so he started a tradition. No heir of his would be a servant to their pelt. They would be feared for their fangs. Sharks on land.

Hector guided his family with a very stern attitude and iron fists. The first son that presented as selkie was raised well aware of the unfairness of the world and told to get rid of the pelt. To not become a slave to it. And most of the time it worked.

Time passed, his descendants settled in a recently formed New Haven, still before the barrier had been settled. And there they thrived. Politics was already a game back then and the Ruthledges were nothing if not ruthless. Pun intended. Hardly acting out in the open, preferring to tug strings in the dark, behind the curtains, the head of the family at the time struck a very profitable deal with the then lineage that provided candidates for the seat of Canis Councilman.

The status quo would take a while to be broken. The current head of the family would make sure that his direct heir found a way to take a life and then embrace sharkhood so they could keep the legacy of the family and maintain a network that had been carefully built over the years. Until Patrick came along.

Kind soul with a big heart, his father saw him as a failure and in being a late bloomer it was hoped that he would turn out to be an omega and so the burden of becoming head of the family would befall his youngest brother. And he couldn’t have that. So, Patrick was both relieved and concerned when he finally presented alpha under the Singing Moon. He was an alpha, and now there was only one thing he needed to do to have his father’s approval. And he postponed that for as long as he could.

Perseus was 8 and had presented (pick Perseus’ species. Merman?) and little Prince had yet to present species. His father started giving attention to Patrick again once he presented as alpha and he knew that there would be a price to pay in blood for that attention. Especially once his father worked that fateful deal with the Greys. He knew his father was counting on getting the better half out of that deal and overtake the Grey’s empire especially considering that Nathan was an omega and Nathan’s father and Patrick’s father were pretty much birds of feather. So yeah he walked the path laid down for him. Kept the good grades that would grant him the ticket into Law school and played along with his father’s plan until the graduation trip.

Patrick would have never set foot in that plane if he had known what would happen during that trip. What he would trigger and unlock within himself in that trip. And also the fact that every single piece of evidence would point to him as the culprit. Including himself. His new form. And his now lack of a pelt. The very object that had forced his hand now vanished into nothingness just as his teeth became fangs, his once familiar body feeling strange and new to himself. He had taken a life. Willing or not that didn’t matter. There it was. The price collected for his father’s attention.

Now an alpha. And a shark. Patrick was ready to become part of the family’s dealings and Stephen Ruthledge took him for a “sabbatical”. He had a lot of catching up to do. One entire year, forbidden from making contact even with his betrothed. But justice would wait for his return. The case was solid and could land him in jail. And things took a turn for the worse when it turned out that the one that built the case against him was none other than Nathan Grey himself.

The whole process should have broken his heart but nothing would ever come close to the regret he felt when he saw the coldness in those sapphire blue eyes of the man he had been promised in marriage even if that posed a huge conflict of interest, Nathan remained spectacular and professional just so Patrick could have an idea how badly he had fucked up.

But there was one last move he could make. A desperate one. His get out of jail card. So long as he got Nathan a fish just as big as him. If not bigger. And Patrick knew exactly who would take the fall for him. The one man that held value for both Stephen Ruthlege and David Grey. The very Canis councilman. It had been tricky. But Patrick had enough info to build a case just as solid for him and be forgotten by the media, since he indeed took the fall and the title was then given to Nathan.

Patrick knew that so long as Stephen was alive, he would never be free so he sold his soul to the devil he trusted. Nathan now owned his freedom. And he worked for Nathan in exchange. And just a mouthful of words from Nathan and he would be on the next bus to jail. And Prince would lose whatever chances he had at chasing his dreams and having a happy life. So, he lived a double life.

Dutiful Son. (To some extent). 

Loyal and dependable assistant. 

He was no Donna Paulsen. But he could always make sure his Harvey Specter was prepared to kill in the court house.

[raidante]

Hey just stumbled on your blog and I LOVE YOUR OC DESIGNS and would love to know the lore to them are

THIS MEANS SO MUCH TO ME!! LIKE SERIOUSLY!! THIS SHIT MAKES ME WANNA CRY!! Thank you so fucking much.

Well it's pretty transparent that they are all SMT based OCs, the scenario they're from is essentially my fan SMT game scenario because I just... really want a really good true to form SMT game that leans into stuff that made the series unique... as well as I love imagining the idea of what if this game came out in like, the early 2000's like Nocturne did for funsies with limited hardware pushed to it's fullest extent.

Each character of course has their own individual backstory and eventual motivations for their alignments and relationship with the world + the protagonist, but some of it I am sortttt of wanting to keep hush hush cuz it's like...spoilers! But at the same time, there is no way this will ever actually become a game cuz I know next to nothing on how to develop games :( But idk how else to translate the way I want to tell the story without it being one you know? I think the most transparent I am in terms of lore and story is protag cuz he's the one who's most fleshed out + the one you experience everything through so obviously everything about him is pretty transparent to the Player from the get-go.

The story involves themes of identity, ego, and birth. Heavy on the birth and rebirth aspect, physically and spiritually. Our relationship with ourselves and what it means to be born into a new person as we progress through our lives, being shaped by our experiences and understandings. Even when we think we truly know ourselves, there will always be aspects of ourselves that go through reactions and changes in response to things. Overall, I think SMT is about change and how people react and reflect to that change. Each character goes through their own interpretations of what they want the world to change into, and to achieve it by their own actions... be the change you want to see in the world and all that.

Its a reason why I want the protag to be someone who was very average and just one of the many many youths living in Tokyo when the bombs dropped. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was one of the first victims of it. I don't want it to be explicitly the same bombs from SMT1--you know, the ones that were dropped on Tokyo to fight the demons, but it's pretty much implied. Those who didn't die to the intial hit probably died to the after effects of the radiation, or became pickings for demons. It doesn't really matter how he died, just that he did, and it's the last thing he remembers before waking up as we know him now.

Don't know why the visual image of fetuses and birth intrigues me so... but it does. Like, as a narrative, because there's something powerful and beautiful yet absolutely terrifying about it. And it can sort of encompass every aspect of our lives, too... it also can mark the beginning of something new. That's what it's like for this Protag...he knows who he is but at the same time he doesn't understand it all together. He had accepted his death and now he was here, alive, again, made into something new from the recycled old parts of him. almost like a second chance, but who really believes in that kind'a stuff?

One thing I really wanted to make sure was to translate the fact that my protagonist is Human. Human physically, Human down to his core. He might not be the traditional sense of a human, but he is made of the same parts as humans are, with the same functioning organs, and the same level of understanding. He is human, just like... a human made in the true image of Man, because his body was fastened together by tools created by Man. Like how God made man with tools created by God?? Imagine that but Man creating his own, like a real true son of mankind...

Maybe it's evolution's way of adapting to the new world? Co-existing with the state of a post war, post society earth.

[lokiondisneyplus]

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

[mc-critical]

I think Magnificent Century downplayed Hurrem's power and influence. Almost all the things Hurrem had achieved, such as having multiple children after the birth of her son and being the first Haseki of the Ottoman Empire we're already achieved by Mahidevran and others. The only thing Hurrem was seen to achieved was her marriage and being made into a legal and free wife of the sultan.

In general, I agree. On the historical side of things, the show did remove quite a bit of her "wow" factor when it came to the haseki title, they practically erased the existence of the "one mother - one son" tradition pre-Hürrem and even her building all these foundations wasn't presented as such an unprecedented thing in the show, especially given that Hürrem's first thought of doing it came in a stark parallel of Mahidevran's own charity work, it directly being a desire of Hürrem's to somehow outdo her. (which is why Nigar proposed the holy lands in the first place)

I'd argue that the show tried out a different approach in showing Hürrem's overall elevation. I felt they made a desperate attempt to balance their soapy narratives with their historical framework, which perhaps couldn't allow Hürrem gaining so much power, so fast. That's why she especially, along with her and Süleiman's love, had to have consistent narrative opposition throughout the whole thing and yet, they still had to show something that put her over the rest. Not making Hürrem the first haseki in the show and making her have many kids be normal for the system in general (which, interestingly enough, didn't seem to be for Mahidevran, but that could be explained with her trouble adapting to her new environment) could've looked like the writers were trying to even the odds with her enemies, to make the fight seem "fair" somehow and show her beating them in their own game, but this does create contradictions with the show trying to make them all lose through their own failings. The writers of the early seasons tried to garner sympathy for Hürrem by creating a constant pattern of her enemies attacking her incessantly and often making that trigger Süleiman's protective instincts and/or give her priveleges that no one else got. (every time someone attacked Hürrem, SS's love for her became stronger and continued to favor her even more as a result - i.e Mahidevran beating her? SS gave her her own chambers. Valide making so Hürrem asks a question to the sheikhul Islam on whether does she have the right to give charity for the holy lands? That, even to a small extent, triggered her freeing. Valide and Ibrahim arranging the attack in the forest? It was then SS realized he had to marry her. Hürrem framing Mahidevran for an assault on Gülfem? Only then SS gave her the harem. I know I'm repeating myself on these, but still.) There are many factors she got a distinct treatment in the show and there are plenty victories she achieved by her own strength by doing something no one else would dare to (like the fiasco with the Russian concubines), but it still so often seemed like many stuff that became unprecedented for Hürrem, happened because of her enemies' miscalculation. That turned out to be a double-edged sword, because while it gave us a nuanced picture of her character with a stable and valid motivation, it also became very over exaggerated and overplayed, making many of her victories look like plot convenience as a result.

I think this attempted balance between the soapy elements and the historical framework made Hürrem's power and influence be seen more "in between the lines", more tell than show. What annoyed me the most isn't in the fact that they didn't make her haseki or the erased existence of the "one mother - one son" tradition, no, the fact that even after she got so much power, it seemed like nothing had changed. The established hierarchy of the show is messed up, no lie, but seeing no one respect her as much, aside from season 4 definetly rubs me the wrong way the more I think about. I see that this way they tried to present the "opposition of the traditions" (and they did so amazingly in the Mahidevran rules the harem arc, especially) and it worked until a certain period of time, but after that period of time had passed, after the season 2 finale at the latest, her power had to be explored at a different angle. And they didn't do that. Before season 4, the status quo remained almost the same in terms of that, and even though I get the earlier attempts to enforce sympathy for her because of all the disrespect she's gotten regardless and all, it had to stop sooner or later. It arguably did by season 4, but still.

[Now, there is that persistent urge of Hürrem in the show to keep telling us that she's different from other women and there are truly a bunch of quotes that illuminate that. Her infamous "I'm not Mahidevran!", "Even if all the women in the world shout together, they still wouldn't overcome my whispers.", "There is no such woman. (that his majesty could fall in love with)" etc. While it could be interpreted as badass and epic by fans, it in no way shows some unprecedented influence or power, the more favourable treatment of SS aside and strictly writing-wise I would dare even say it's more of a tease when it comes to all this. Hürrem believes she's unique and special, but the narrative.. doesn't quite support that claim in retrospect.]

More annoyingly is when, the writers did try to fix this in the end of season 4, near her death episodes. They showed people love and respect her and what she means to everyone, but that rubbed more salt to the wound, because it was not only too late and seemed almost like fanservice as a result, it didn't do all that much, either. It was neither power, nor influence.

While there's a big part of me that appreciates Hürrem's part in this narrative and while what we got from her fitted thematically with the rest of the Sultanate of Women (it makes perfect sense that Hürrem's the least powerful of them all in the show and the contrast between Hürrem and Turhan showcased the power evolution of the SOW perfectly), it makes me sad they choose an approach that coupled with biased narrative voice and soapy drama tools that overstayed their welcome.

[tuesdaysinoctober]

Why Riverdale doesn’t work as a TV show-- but other TV shows in same or similar genres do

TV has slowly become more campy over the past couple of decades. The 90s started with Twin Peaks and ended with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The 2010s gave birth to Teen Wolf, Riverdale, and then the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. 

Teen Wolf ended in 2017, with 81% overall on Rotten Tomatoes. The first season rated 68% and the last season rating 83%. 

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina ended in 2020, with 81% overall on Rotten Tomatoes. The first season rated 91% and the last season rating 78%. 

Riverdale’s fifth season was supposed to come out this year (2021) but due to Covid-19 restrictions, nothing has aired yet. Nevertheless, it rates 86% overall on Rotten Tomatoes. The first season rates 88% and the last season aired, season 4, rates 84%. But this is on the Tomatometer, not the audience review scores. And isn’t the audience the most important part of all? 

Teen Wolf - 83% on average audience viewing

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - 74% on average audience viewing

Riverdale- 57% on average audience viewing

But maybe let’s start with the original campiness and why they work so well. 

~These are all TV shows that I have watched or am currently watching~

~~I’m also using the Tomatometer because everything seems to be low on on IMDB and also percentages make it look like I know what I’m doing~~

Spoilers for Twin Peaks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Riverdale below the cut

Twin Peaks is about a murder, and then another, at least in the first season. It’s quickly established that there’s something a little off with the town of Twin Peaks. Agent Cooper has some sort of supernatural dream very early on containing information of who the actual murderer of Laura Palmer is. It established supernatural tones quickly, and viewers know what they’re getting into early on, especially considering the first 15 minutes or so focus on the finding of Laura Palmer’s body. The characters were all fairly likeable, even if they made questionable decisions and in the 90s, this was new, exciting territory. Twin Peaks has now become a pop culture reference found in many media forms, even receiving a third season in 2017 with the return of some of the original cast. 

Twin Peaks, while not hilarious, was rather good at dry humor, the line, “This is a town where a yellow light still means slow down instead of speed up.” coming to mind. That, combined with the writing, cinematography, and the compelling little stares, made for a TV show that hit 88% on the Tomatometer and 89% based on audience views. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer gave us a badass female protagonist who killed vampires throughout her lifetime. BTVS also quickly established elements of the supernatural in the first season and built upon it. There were multiple werewolf characters and Buffy herself dated two vampires, her other love interest being human but working for a government organization that studied supernatural creatures. In seasons 3 and 4, Buffy’s best friend, Willow, starts to dabble in spells and the occult and other witch characters, including Willow’s girlfriend, Tara, are introduced into the series. Coming on the tail end of the 90s, viewers were enthralled with the wit and brashness of some characters and the fact of the a protagonist that was allowed to be feminine and powerful at the same time. BTVS has an 82% on the Tomatometer and 92% based on audience views. 

Basically, in terms of these two shows, the characters were likeable, the writing was rather witty, and the shows very quickly established what they were about, making them popular with viewers. 

Now we come to the 2010s, starting with Teen Wolf. 

Teen Wolf’s very first episode turned Scott McCall into a werewolf fairly early on in the episode and introduced a family of werewolf hunters, as well as --quote unquote-- “popular kids” Lydia and Jackson, and Scott McCall’s smartass best friend, Stiles Stilinski. The dialogue was fresh, the cinematography was rather dark, but overall a memorable first episode. They built upon this, season by season, and the acting and writing became a little more powerful and a little darker through every season. The characters changed but also stayed true to their roots and new characters were fairly likable when they were added. Teen Wolf told viewers what they were getting into from the very first episode and it was rather consistent throughout the rest of the show, that Scott and his friends would be facing monsters and only monsters. There would be a new threat each season but it would make sense from where each season respectively ended. 

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina also established what would be happening throughout the TV show. It would be about witches and the occult and fighting demons and going to hell. The writing could be cringy sometimes and essences of Riverdale leaked through (unavoidable, as the writer of Riverdale adapted Sabrina for the modern screen), but the show was overall consistent and the characters were appealing to the viewers, plus it gave representation to POC and LBTQ+ community. The show could become slow at times, but other than that, it was a solid TV show and did well on Netflix’s platform. 

We arrive at Riverdale. 

Riverdale’s first season started off well enough, with four high schoolers investigating the murder of Cheryl Blossom’s twin brother. It was a decent first season and the characters were fine, although there were a couple plotlines that seemed oddly dark for network TV. The second season, while still decent, had a plot line that revolved entirely around a serial killer that didn’t actually fit the classic definition of a serial killer. Both of these were likened to Twin Peaks, and there was an obvious Twin Peaks connection, with Madchen Amick, who played Shelly Johnson in 90s TV show, playing Betty Cooper’s mother in Riverdale. 

Season 3 went wild, with a plotline that villainized a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons, had Archie go to jail and get attacked by a bear, Mrs. Blossom opened a brothel, while Veronica opened a speakeasy and introduced a cult run by Chad Michael Murray, which is an odd sentence to type if you’ve seen Gilmore Girls or The OC. This is also the season that gave us the line, “I dropped out in the fourth grade to run drugs for my nana.” “Then you haven’t known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football.” Season 4 gave us blackmailing, two teenagers running an alcohol business, creepy tapes with creepier masks and a Jughead--is--dead--but--not--really--and--Barchie--became--a--thing--for--a--hot--second plotline. 

All four seasons are campy, just like the other shows, but not supernatural. This begs the question, why don’t people like Riverdale? 

Looking at Riverdale and then the four other shows I mentioned, it’s because Riverdale isn’t consistent. 

The first season established that murder would happen. That’s what people signed up for. They didn’t sign up for singing episodes or bear attacks. They signed up for teens solving murder, and viewers receive that with each season but they also get a bunch of weird, extended plotlines they didn’t ask for. The other shows stayed consistent with the content they delivered, while Riverdale didn’t--and, predictably, still won’t-- in the upcoming fifth season. 

Riverdale also takes heavy influence from Twin Peaks, with The Maple Club being their version of One Eyed Jack’s, and both TV shows having a diner main characters frequent. Other similarities include the killers in season 2 being revealed to be fathers/uncles of main characters and the dual opening on Laura Palmer’s dead body and Jason Blossom’s. It’s hard to unsee it, which just adds to the oddness of the show overall. 

That’s not to say the other TV shows aren’t connected. The actress who plays Hermione Lodge in Riverdale, Marisol Nichols, plays The Desert Wolf in Teen Wolf. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a singing episode in their sixth season. It’s just terribly obvious when a show draws from the same influence over and over again, which Riverdale tends to do. 

Twin Peaks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina work because they are consistent, in content and character writing,  which is just something Riverdale hasn’t mastered yet. 

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish [TST 1/2]

The chapter title comes from the wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series – drop this meta and read them immediately.

No, no he [Moriarty] would never be that disappointing. He���s planned something, something long-term. Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge – no, better than that. Posthumous game.

This is what Sherlock says about Moriarty in the very first scene of TST, and on rewatch the application to Mofftiss is startling. Trust the writers – a short-term disappointment for a long-term excitement, if you will. The reference to the rooftop is a way of pointing out just how far back this has been planned – in other words, the seeming randomness of the series is not in fact random. But let’s see how that plays out in TST.

This episode opens, as so many have pointed out, with doctored footage, as though deliberately showing us how stories can be rewritten. However, we only get glimpses of the footage at the start of the episode – the extensive old footage is not security camera footage, but recap footage from s3, and specifically the end of HLV. The idea that there is something classified, hidden, that we don’t have the full story, is meant to be associated with the actual show Sherlock, not just the camera footage – it would have been very easy to give us most of the same footage in security camera style, but they deliberately reused shots from the show to make us doubt their own authenticity. So far, so good.

The first thing that I (and most of my friends) noticed about this scene, however, is that it’s not good. The writing is questionable, to say the least. The serious resolution to the problem of Magnussen’s murder is interrupted by Sherlock tweeting, brotherly bickering, hyperactive and possibly high Sherlock being played for comedy (complete with mock opera). And then, perhaps the worst lines of the show so far:

SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. Do you know why?

SMALLWOOD: Why?

SHERLOCK: Because I love it.

Like a lot of this show, think about those lines for more than a nanosecond and they really don’t make sense. You’ve got to think about them for a lot longer before they start to again. This, I think, is where BBC Sherlock’s self-parody really starts. TAB focuses on parodying, critiquing and rewriting historical adaptations, but it’s easy to see the merging of all of the undeniably Sherlock elements into one parodically awful scene. The quick quips that are supposed to be clever and that are so common in Moffat’s dialogue are seen in that moment of dialogue – but the quip isn’t clever anymore, it’s empty. The same catchphrase of ‘the game is on’ comes back, and the quintessential use of technology is referenced in Sherlock’s Twitter account, where again his #OhWhatABeautifulMorning is unfathomably glib. Our Sherlock is also better known than previous adaptations for his drug abuse, and this also gets referenced, but here it gets played for comedy, which is incongruous with the rest of the show – in fact, THoB, HLV and TAB all take it pretty seriously, so to see it played off as a joke is tonally questionable. In other words, here we have Sherlock caricatured as a programme, in one scene – and it’s horrible.

(We should also notice that the use of Twitter is important – it underlies a lot of the glib comedy in this episode, with Sherlock later Tweeting #221BringIt (which is so unbelievably queer?). In Sherlock, Moffat use Twitter rather than Tumblr to comment on fan reaction to Sherlock, probably because their older audience will have no idea what Tumblr is, but also because Twitter is much more mainstream in its appreciation. Twitter takes centre stage in TEH, with #SherlockLives and the scene with the support group. The joke there is about the sheer level of how-did-he-do-it mania that gripped the public – so when we see Twitter again, we should be thinking about an extratextual as well as a textual response to Sherlock, and how Sherlock’s behaviour on Twitter in this episode might caricature the way that he is seen from the outside.)

I don’t truly buy that (in this scene, at least) Mofftiss are critiquing their own show in a straightforward sense, because they have dealt with technology better than this (words on screen, technology as useful within mysteries), drugs better than this (John’s, Mycroft’s and Molly’s reactions to Sherlock’s behaviour as well as Sherlock’s own difficulties) and clever quips far better (pick any episode). But in deconstructing this show to its instantly recognisable elements, and making them worse to hyperbolise the point, that scene strips the show of its heart. Interestingly, it’s also stripped of John, who will be the metaphorical heart of Sherlock through the EMP, but is also the part of the show that is missing when it is caricatured as the Benedict-Cumberbatch-being-clever show. This is also a critique of most people’s perception of Sherlock Holmes as a character through history in the sense of the reductive cleverness – Mofftiss are showing us that this is completely empty.

What does this mean for Sherlock himself, bearing in mind that this is taking place in his Mind Palace? The answer is pretty grim – remember that Sherlock is metatextually grappling with his own identity at this point; he needs to discover the man he is, rather than is portrayed as, in order to get out of this alive. In a psychological sense, then, the opening of TST sees Sherlock deconstruct himself as seen from the outside, and as his psyche has traditionally perceived himself, and realise that that version of himself is hollow. This scene, then, is a rejection of the Sherlock of the public eye, as well as Sherlock’s own eyes.

There is a non-explanation for how the Secret Service doctored the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen, the response simply being that they have the tech. If the answer is going to be that vague, there is little reason to bring up the question – except to raise it in the viewers’ minds. Making the audience question their belief in the s4 universe is something that happens very frequently, and this is the start of it. A later chapter goes into the parallels that Sherlock and Doctor Who have, but there’s an important bit from Last Christmas (DW Christmas Special 2014) that is relevant here – the main characters, all dreaming, whenever they are asked any questions that can’t be explained in the dream universe, simply reply ‘it’s a long story’. This is a ‘long story’ moment – where no explanation is given, so questions about reality are raised and unanswered.

Another similar moment comes when Sherlock says he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next – how? And, more to the point, it becomes hugely obvious that he doesn’t. Yet, for the first time in history, he feels happy to sit back and wait on Moriarty, because he knows that what will come will come. This insistence that the future will take its course as it needs to might draw our minds ahead to the frankly ridiculous reliance on predictions that we see in TLD – however, it should also draw our minds across to Doctor Who, and to Amy’s Choice, a series five episode I’m going to delve deeper into later, but where because it’s a dream, the Doctor is able to predict every word the monsters say.

Notice that ‘glad to be alive’ is followed by Vivian saying her name – we’ll come back to this later.

Cue opening credits!

Before going anywhere else with TST, required reading is this meta by LSiT (X). I can’t make these points better than she has, nor can I take credit for them. I’m particularly invested in her description of the aquarium and the Samarra story, as well as the client cases that appear and aren’t updated on John’s blog. Our reading will diverge later on – I think this series is a lot more metaphorical than it is hypothesis-testing, although the latter is a notable feature of ACD canon (see the original THotB) that definitely does happen here as well. I’m going to leave the Samarra story, the aquarium and the cases for LSiT to explain, however, and move on.

When we move into 221B, the fuckiness is instantly apparent from the mirror. You can go here (X) to navigate the whole inside of 221B, and I suggest you do; it’s a fantastic resource. The mirror showing the green wall is simply wrong – the angle that this is shot from suggests that we should see the black and white wallpaper, complete with skull etc. Instead, we see the green wall – and the door. We can tell this is wrong because in the ‘wrong thumb’ case about thirty seconds later, the right wallpaper is reflected in the mirror. Another note of fuckiness that we should spot is that Sherlock seems to be taking his cases from letters, in the mail he has knifed into the mantelpiece – this show has been really keen on emphasising that he uses email for the last three series, so the implication that people are sending him letters is even odder than it would be in a modern show anyway.

(Everybody in the world has commented on the ‘it’s never twins’ line – but to reiterate its importance. Firstly, it’s almost identical to the line in TAB, just with ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’. TAB repeats lots of things though, because it’s a dream – well yes, but dreams can’t tell the future. So material from TAB being recycled doesn’t point to TAB being a dream, it points to TST being a continuation of the dream in TAB. The fact that they saw fit to reiterate this line in a series about secret siblings also puts paid to the theory that s4 was plotted in a rush and not in line with previous series – there is a theme here, and they’re pushing it.)

And so we move to Sherlock relentlessly texting through the birth, through the christening – horrible, ooc behaviour for him if we think back to how emotional he was at the wedding. Importantly, this behaviour is all tied up with his obsessive Tweeting, which in turn links in to how the outside world (i.e. us) perceive Sherlock – is this the Sherlock that people want to see on screen? Doesn’t he feel wrong? Sure, there’s an element of self-critique in there from Mofftiss, but the incorporation of the phone obsession leaves the blame squarely with the audience. In case we couldn’t already feel that Sherlock’s character is way off, we have his Siri loudly say that she can’t understand him.

We remember from TAB that Sherlock sees himself as cleverer through John’s eyes, and the reasonably sympathetic portrayal we get in TAB we can probably put down to this attempt at understanding himself from the outside. The water in TST is showing us that we’re going in, and the sad thing is that this is almost definitely how Sherlock has come to perceive himself, but just like Siri he doesn’t truly recognise it. It’s also worth noting here the emphasis placed on God in godfather and later the deliberate mentions of Christianity at the Christening – there is also a tuning out of a culture he can’t really align himself with here, which is more important when we think about the fact that this character has been around since the 19th century.

Water tells us we’re sinking deep into Sherlock’s mind, as discussed in a previous chapter. Water imagery is going to be hugely prevalent in TST, but I want to talk quickly about the subtle hints at water even when we’re not in a giant fuck-off aquarium. Take a look at the rattle scene (which always sparks joy). When we get a side angle that shows both Sherlock and Rosie, there’s a black chest of some description behind Rosie – the top is glowing slightly blue, for reasons I can’t fathom. Then we’re going to cut to a shot of Rosie – despite seeing only a second before that there is nothing on her head, there is a glow of blue on it that looks almost like a skullcap. Cut back to Sherlock getting a rattle in the face, and the mirror is glowing the same blue colour behind him. This is all fucky, and it’s a fuckiness which is aesthetically tied to the waters of Sherlock’s mind perfectly. It suggests that Rosie isn’t real, but more important is the mirror. Earlier on I pointed out how the mirror was showing the wrong reflection; here, the mirror is glowing blue, linking it thematically to Sherlock’s subconsciousness. Visually, we’re being hinted at the process of self-reflection that’s going on in Sherlock’s brain – and the opening of TST is showing him getting it terribly wrong. Note that when the mirror jolted right earlier, Sherlock was proclaiming that it had been the wrong thumb – god knows what thumbs have to do with this, but there’s a question of shifting perception on his person, like he’s trying to locate himself.

The glowing blue light sticks around, and seems particularly associated with Rosie, like she’s the focus of much of Sherlock’s thought at the moment. LSiT’s meta linked above has already picked up on the many dangers in Rosie’s cradle decoration, from the Moriarty linked images to the killer whale mobile. Due purely to a lucky pause, I caught the killer whale’s eyes glowing blue, just like the blue from the rattle scene. He’s thinking about her in terms of the key villains of the show as well as the villains in his mind.

I’m not going to comment on the bus scene because I have a chapter dedicated to Eurus moments before TFP – jumping straight ahead.

We then find our first Thatcher case – others have been pretty quick to point out the significance of the blue power ranger in gay tv history (X), and infer that Charlie is queer coded – much like David Yost, who played the blue power ranger, he is not able to come out without being treated badly. This is undoubtedly important, as is the fact that this is the second time in 12 minutes of this show that they’ve shown us how easily film footage can be faked, and someone can be lied to – you don’t need to have Mycroft Holmes levels of clearance, just a Zoom background. This is important too. But the other thing I want to focus on is that he says he’s in Tibet.

Sherlock comes pretty high on my list of top TV shows, but currently Twin Peaks holds the top spot – it’s an unashamedly cryptic show all about solving mysteries through dreams, so no wonder I like it. It’s made by David Lynch, and in the TAB chapter I talk about how TAB takes a lot of structural inspiration from his most famous film, Mulholland Drive, which has similar themes. I don’t think this is anything particularly interesting beyond an attempt to reference the defining work in the field of it-was-all-a-dream film and tv – David Lynch and Mofftiss and Victor Fleming are the only people I can think of who can actually make that plot look good. But this Tibet moment, particularly as we’re going to be hit by another reference to Tibet later, underlining its importance, I think is a reference to this scene (X) where the protagonist, Cooper, outlines a dream in which the Dalai Lama spoke to him and gave him the power to use magic to solve mysteries. Fans of Twin Peaks will know that the magic doesn’t last long – it’s pretty much an introductory way in, and most of the rest of his important deductions will all be made in dreams. This is one of the most famous scenes in the whole programme, because it introduced the world to the weirdness of what had been set up as a straightforward cop show, and despite Cooper rarely (possibly never?) mentioning Tibet again, it’s still highly quoted and recognisable. As a watershed moment in bringing dream worlds into normal detective dramas (something highly frowned upon according to any theory of storytelling!) this is a gamechanging moment, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Sherlock’s several references to Tibet as a link back to this moment.

We then cut back to Sherlock thinking whilst Lestrade tells him more about the case – what is bizarre here, is that John and Lestrade are clearly visible through what can only be described as a rearview mirror attached to the side of Sherlock’s head. If anyone can tell me what that is, I would love to know. I’m going to assume it’s a fucky mirror, because it’s in keeping with the other fucky mirrors so far. The visibility of John and Lestrade in the mirror is even more odd because it doesn’t match the colour palette of 221B at all. Sherlock is lit largely in warm, brown colours, as is Charlie’s father in the previous scene we’re transitioning from – Lestrade and John are lit in dark blue, to the point where they’re barely visible. This looks like a rearview mirror, but not like the one on the power ranger car – it’s a much older car, out of a different time, like so much in this dream world. The only colour palette they seem to match is the one from the s4 promotion photos – you know, when Baker Street is completely underwater.

Drowning in the Mind Palace. Here we are, back where we started. Sherlock might be thinking about the case of Charlie, but he’s actually reflecting on that world we saw in the promo photos, where he’s struggling to stay alive in his brain. Notice that this isn’t just a split shot, it’s specifically a mirror, so we’re meant to focus on this episode as an act of reflection. There are great parallels between Sherlock and the Charlie case which you can find here (X) – essentially, Charlie and Carl Powers from TGG are mirrors for one another both in their names and in the manner they die (a fit in a tight place, basically). Carl Powers is already a mirror for Sherlock – obsessively targeted by Jim for being the best at what he does. Charlie mirrors Sherlock through their shared trip to Tibet (dreamscape alert) and, we think, through the metatextual link of the blue power ranger. In case you hadn’t spotted it, Powers links back to that too – probably coincidence, but a nice one nevertheless. Carl Powers’s death is by drowning, which we shouldn’t ignore in an episode as loaded with ideas about drowning in the mind palace. The fact that the mirror reflects drowning Baker Street aesthetics should make us think that Charlie is asking us to reflect on Carl Powers’s death, but also on Sherlock’s own – already fatally injured (by a fit or by Mary), he is going to die smothered, unable to cry for help (in a swimming pool/carseat costume (?!)/mind palace). The idea that none of these people could cry for help is particularly poignant because so much of series 4 is about Sherlock being unable to voice his own identity, and as we’ll see once he’s able to do that, that may give him the impetus to escape his death. Think of ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’ back in HLV.

Now. Why is Sherlock so keen for Lestrade to take the credit? It’s another reason to bring up the fact that John’s blog is constantly updating – it’s dropped in a lot in this series as opposed to others – and to make us think about why nothing is happening in real life. But, given that this episode is about Sherlock trying to find who he is, is it a rejection of the persona that goes along with being Sherlock Holmes? Possibly, but he’s going to have to go to a lot more effort than that. John’s blog is the real problem here, making not just Sherlock but Lestrade out to be like they’re not. John’s blog is a stand in for the original stories, which were supposed to be written by John Watson, but TAB has already (drawing on TPLoSH) laid the groundwork for the idea that John’s blog/those stories really do not tell the whole story. So this is coming back with a vengeance here, even though for the first time Sherlock is properly moving against the persona in there, not just bitching about John’s writing style, which is a theme more common to Sherlock Holmes across the ages. John then says that it’s obvious, and when pressed just laughs and says that it’s normally what Sherlock says at this point – so again, when Sherlock stops filling the intense caricature of arrogance and bravado, John the storyteller steps in to put him back in line, even though that means pulling him back to being a much more unpleasant character.

A note here: most of the time in EMP theory, I think John represents Sherlock’s heart, and I try to refer to John as heart!John as much as possible when that’s the case. There are a few cases which are different, but most notable are when the blog comes up – then John becomes John the blogger, and our symbolism shifts over to the repressive features of the original stories and how that’s playing out in the modern world. Although a pain to analyse sometimes, I find it incredibly neat that the two of them are bound up in John as source of both love and pain, which fits our story beautifully.

John as blogger continues in the baby joke that he and Lestrade have going down the stairs – they continue with their caricature of Sherlock, but he doesn’t recognise himself in it. Or rather, there’s a moment when he seems to, but he can’t quite grasp onto it. This is typical of the way he recognises himself in the programme. It’s also worth noting that the image of John as a father is particularly tied into ACD, as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so tying together blogger and father in this scene cements our theme.

Going into the Welsborough house, we get a slip of the tongue from Sherlock which is fantastic. He tells them that he is really sorry about their daughter, which at an earlier point in the show might just be a classic Sherlock slip-up. But mixing up genders is actually something which happens quite a lot in this show, and it’s something drawn attention to as significant in TAB.

Sherlock asks John “How did he survive?” of Emelia Ricoletti, when of course he’s thinking about Moriarty, and John corrects him quickly, much like here. A coincidental callback? Maybe not. What’s the first mistake that Sherlock ever makes? Thinking that Harry Watson is a man. What’s the big trick they pull at the end of S4? Sherlock has a secret sister – and Eurus points out that her gender is the surprise at the end of TLD. Eurus is also an opposite-sex mirror for John and for Sherlock at various points and this allows Sherlock to approach their relations from a heterosexual standpoint and thus interrogate them – more on that later. So gender-swapping is a theme that runs through the show a lot. But the similarity to TAB in particular is important here, because in TAB that was our first obvious declaration that this wasn’t just a mirror to be analysed by the tumblr crowd, this was a mirror on the superficial level that had to be broken through. This callback to TAB is a callback to the mirrored dreamscape. Don’t believe me? Look at what happens next. The second Sherlock sees Thatcher the whole room not only goes underwater, but actually starts to shake – another throwback to recognising that Emelia was Moriarty, when the whole room shakes and the elephant in the room smashes. So, again, we’re being told that this isn’t about this case – it’s about something else, and that something is the elephant in the room. Just like the shaking smashes the elephant in the room, the shaking is what tells us about the smashed bust of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, whose laws on “promoting homosexuality” were infamous. Smashing the elephant in the room and Thatcher simultaneously between 2015, the 1980s and 1895 is hitting the history of British homophobia for the last hundred years summed up as quickly as possible, and tearing it down through Sherlock’s self-exploration. This is a good fucking show.

You’ll also notice that Sherlock is alone in the room, just for a second, when he has his Thatcher revelation – everybody else vanishes. Again, we’re seeing that the rest of the case is an illusion, providing just enough storytime to keep the audience believing in the dream, and possibly Sherlock too.

[There’s a fantastic framing of Sherlock here between two portraits, a man and a woman, seemingly ancestral – I would love to know more about these, because if I know Arwel they’re significant, and the way they hang over Sherlock is really metaphorically suggestive. If anyone has any info on that, it looks like a really good avenue to explore.]

Blue. Blue is the colour of Sherlock’s mind palace, but this scene ties it firmly to the Conservative party. The dark blue of Sherlock’s scarf nearly matches Welsborough’s jumper, which is in fact a better match for the mind palace aesthetic generally. Thatcher unsurprisingly wears blue as well. If blue is the water that Sherlock is drowning in, how interesting that it’s being tied to the most homophobic prime minister of the last 50 years. There was absolutely no need to make this guy a cabinet minister, dress him in blue, even make Thatcher replace Napoleon – I would actually argue that Churchill is a figure who matches Napoleon’s distance and stature much better for our time. Thatcher is an odd choice, and therefore significant. To tie this to the mind palace further, we then get a shot of Sherlock reflected in the picture of Thatcher as he analyses it – a reflection of him reflecting. In case we forgot what this was actually about.

Sherlock not knowing who Thatcher is – perfectly feasible and actually quite important, although something that I’m not going to resolve until my meta on TFP, because that’s where it comes together for me. But Sherlock playing for time with his further jokes about being oblivious (‘female?’) – that, again, is Sherlock actively playing a caricature of himself. He’s not doing it for fun – he’s doing it to cover up his concern about the smashed elephant in the room Thatcher bust.

The weird thing about the reveal of how Charlie died is that we see what should have happened, if everything had gone right, before we see how he died. I can’t recall this happening in another episode of Sherlock, although I could be wrong. It’s marked by the really noticeable scene transition of crackling television static, as though the signal is cutting out. This is possibly a bit of a reach, but there’s one obvious place where we’ve seen a lot of static before.

Moriarty coming back isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen in the books. We’re telling the wrong story here. (Bear in mind, from previous chapters, that Jim represents Sherlock’s fear that John’s life is in danger.) Just like Jim returning isn’t the right story, but it’s the one that happened, Charlie’s story isn’t the right story but it’s the one that happened – and indeed, Sherlock needing to save John from a dangerous marriage + suicide is not what is supposed to happen – John and Mary are supposed to be married for good (until she dies) in canon. A whole load of false endings – new stories superseding old ones. Mofftiss has an idea that there’s a new story that’s going to be told, and our strongest canon divergence is the end of s3, when we get into the EMP – and from thereon in to TAB it’s off the deep end, and the same is seen here. That TV static is talking about a new medium for a new age and their refusal to deal with established canon norms. Just in case we didn’t remember, outside in the porch we even get a visual reminder of the TV static with a second’s flashback to ‘Miss Me?’ Bad news is, that means Sherlock Holmes rejecting the norms he’s been given (feasibly represented by the hyperbolic nuclear family here) and instead… dying in his mind palace. Less fun. Carl Powers died too. Sherlock still hasn’t got there quite yet – let’s hope he doesn’t.

The next scene is, I think, very important. We come across Mycroft in a dark room with a tiny bit of light – this is really odd, as the obvious place to put Mycroft would be the Diogenes Club. Yet, although clearly more modern, this reminds me most of all of the room we meet Mycroft in in TAB.

The colour palette is the same as the top photo, and the similar chunks of light falling through suggest that we’re in the same place. I’ve brought in a photo from the aeroplane in TAB to show how the light is designed to mirror that of the Diogenes Club in TAB as well – there is a unity in all these Mycroft’s that we shouldn’t miss. Here I can’t imagine I’m the first one to notice that the light in Mycroft’s office is designed to look like a chessboard, which was an important motif in the promotional pictures for s4. Chess is associated with Sherlock’s brain through Mycroft, most notably in THE where it is contrasted with Operation which represents their emotional (in)capacities. So here we are – Mycroft is the brain, if we didn’t already know, and Sherlock has gone to speak to his brain alone much like he did in TAB. Mycroft has already been associated with the queen a lot; they meet in Buckingham Palace in ASiB, where there is a jibe about Mycroft being the queen of England – we can see here in Sherlock’s head that the brain’s power is vastly reduced by comparing these two episodes. The first time we see Mycroft in connection to the Queen we go to the most famous building in the UK. The second time, Sherlock says he’s going to the Mall, which is the street that Buckingham Palace is on, so we are led to expect a reprisal – and instead come here. There is still a picture of the queen on the wall, but apart from that we are in the darkest room of the show so far, whose grating makes it look under siege. Mycroft’s power in Sherlock’s head is vastly reduced, and indeed the brain’s influence (represented by the queen) over Sherlock’s character is waning as Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his emotional identity.

[Crack/tenuous theory: when Sherlock asks John if he is the king of England in s3, in the drunk knee grope scene, this shows that his brain’s control over his emotions have slipped; references to the queen in relation to Mycroft before have shown that Sherlock does know about the royal family, so this has to metaphorically refer to his own psyche and letting go of his brain’s anti-emotion side. Like I say, crack. But I believe it.]

Again, if we weren’t sure about Mycroft representing the brain without the heart, his rejection of the baby photos is sending out a clear message of juxtaposition with John, who represents the heart. We also shouldn’t fail to notice the water coming over Sherlock’s face again as he struggles to recognise what is important about this. This comes as he is trying to recognise what is important about the Thatchers case. I’m going to try to lay it out as best I can here.

We’ve been through what Thatcher represents to queer people of Sherlock’s age, so there’s already a strong metaphor for homophobia being smashed there. However, let’s look at the AGRA memory stick being uncovered. We know (X) that Sherlock deduced his feelings for John as he was marrying Mary, and so having the smashing of the Thatcher bust at the AGRA memory stick reveal is pretty devastating metaphorically. Why does Sherlock constantly think Moriarty is involved? Well, HLV tells us that the Jim in Sherlock’s mind is his darkest fear – and he’s originally tied up in Sherlock’s mind when he’s first shot, but he pretty quickly gets loose. That darkest fear is exactly what Jim says in that episode: ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’. The reason we bring Jim in to represent this is part of deconstructing the myth of Sherlock Holmes. The whole concept of an arch enemy is made fun of in the show, and rightly so; Moriarty himself tells the Sir Boastalot story which lines Sherlock up with that ridiculous heroic tradition that he’s set himself into, which isn’t what Sherlock Holmes is really about at all. Holmes has never really been particularly invested in individual criminals (although there are exceptions –  Irene Adler, for example) – the time he gets most het up is The Three Garridebs, as we all know, when he thinks Watson is dying. It’s his greatest fear, and it’s also what Jim threatens, so Jim has become a proxy for that – and to understand that Sherlock Holmes is not the great Sherlock Holmes of the last hundred years, we have to get under and beyond Jim. Hence what we’re about to see. It’s not Jim, it’s Mary – and this is in very real terms, because Mary’s assassination attempt on Sherlock has left John in danger – but Sherlock won’t put the pieces together until the end of this episode, as we will see.

We should also pause over Mycroft asking Sherlock whether he’s having a premonition – Mycroft is laughing at the concept of Sherlock being able to envisage the future here, which we should remember when it comes to the frankly ludicrous plot of the next episode. Much like the much commented upon “it’s not like it is in the movies” which is there to undermine TST, this line is here to undermine TLD and point out the fact that it can’t possibly be real.

Sherlock describes predestination as like a spider’s web and like mathematics – both of these are to do with Moriarty. In the original stories, Moriarty is a mathematician, and one of the most famous lines from both the stories and the show describes Moriarty as a spider. This predestined future is one that Sherlock doesn’t like – Mycroft points out that predestination ends in death, which is what Sherlock is trying to avoid in this episode, and although Moriarty is never mentioned explicitly, his inflection here suggests that Sherlock is thinking about John subconsciously, without even understanding it. The Samarra discussion brings us back to the question of Sherlock’s death, and links it in with the deep waters of the mind he’s currently drowning in – the pirate imagery becomes really important here, because a pirate is someone who stays alive on the high seas and fights against them. The merchant of Samarra becoming a pirate is not merely a joke about a little boy, it’s a point about fighting for survival – and how will Sherlock later fight for survival? We’ll see him battle Eurus (his trauma, more on that later) head on, literally describing himself as a pirate. Fantastic stuff.

The scene transition where all of the glass breaks and then we cut to a background of what looks like blue water is a motif that runs through this entire episode – we’re smashing down walls in Sherlock’s mind, most particularly the Thatcher wall of 1980s homophobia, and indeed the first picture we see is that of the smashed bust.

Moving on – before we go back to Baker Street, there’s a shot of the outside – that features a mirror, reflecting back on 221B in a distorted, twisted way. Another mirror that is wrong – we’re reflecting in an alternate reality. These images keep popping up. It’s echoed in Sherlock’s deduction a few seconds later – by the side of his chair is what looks like either a car mirror or a magnifying glass, possibly the one from the Charlie scene, distorting his arm. It’s placed to look like a magnifying glass, whether it is or not, which ties in with the classic image of Holmes – but that image is distorted, remember.

Others have pointed out that when Sherlock falsely deduces that the client’s wife is a spy working for Moriarty, he should really be talking to John – and, in fact, this is another proof that this isn’t really, because otherwise this is pretty touchy stuff to be making light of in front of John. Instead, let’s remember this is Sherlock’s Mind Palace – John isn’t John here. What Sherlock does a lot in s4 – and nowhere more than the finale of TST – is displace a lot of his real world problems onto other people because he cannot handle the emotional impact of them, and that’s what he’s doing here. He’s trying to come to terms with the danger that Mary poses, but he can’t do it with John – hence why this scene has a John substitute, because that’s what the client is.

Note that the red balloon is over the Union Jack cushion, reminding us that this scene is about John in danger (see this post X). However, what’s important here is that Sherlock has got it wrong. He’s currently trying to work out why what has just happened with Mary poses so much danger, and he’s imagining Mary as the worst threat he possibly could – in a word, this Mary is a supervillain. But Mary is not a supervillain; he’s got this all wrong, and even as he says it, it’s completely ridiculous. This is not the danger Mary poses – and so out the door the client goes, and we’re back to square one, trying to work out exactly why John is in so much danger.

I’m not going to pause over the next moment of importance for too long because many have covered it – let’s just notice that Sherlock’s face is overlaid with a smashed Thatcher bust, and remind ourselves that these are the walls of homophobia in Sherlock’s brain. Also note that this matches the half-face overlay of the water in the previous scene, linking the two (although the scene with Ajay later will cement that anyway).

Next up: Craig and his dog. Nothing can be said about dogs that hasn’t be said in these wonderful metas by @sagestreet (X). Nevertheless, let’s note that this dog is coloured the same as Redbeard, and Mary (a Sherlock mirror in this episode, and in this scene – their clothing matches, and their joining of skillsets to exclude John is the link that has always united them as mirrors) compares John to the dog. We know from the metas linked above that dogs are linked to queerness in the show, but let’s remember that John here is not John – John represents Sherlock’s own heart. It’s going to take longer than this for Sherlock to acknowledge John’s queerness. I don’t think Toby the dog is that important – instead, this is foreshadowing for the more significant dog to come in TFP. The dog also allows for another bit of self-parody in the show – the close-up on the dog running through chemical symbols and the map link directly back to the chase scene in ASiP, but this time everything is different. We have no clue really what Toby is chasing or what the crime that has been committed is – they’re not even running, they’re walking! All we have are cool, if ridiculous, graphics – and, brought down to style without substance, it’s nothing but comic parody. This is important because the opening of TST is so parodic – we’re back to questioning whether the things that people associate with Sherlock and think they like about Sherlock are the right things. The fact that Toby reaches a dead end here is important – he’s a weird loose end to have hanging through the episode. When things in Sherlock normally tie together so nicely, this is a section which has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot other than to look a bit silly. But fundamentally, we’re talking about the superfluity of style and image here; we’ve been talking about it for a long time in relation to previous adaptations, but TST brings it in in relation to Sherlock itself.

Skipping past more bust breakages, the next scene is John and Mary in bed together – and the first thing we see is them, once again, in a mirror. There’s nothing wrong with this mirror (as far as I can tell) – everything seems to be in order! But it doesn’t break the theme of mirrors misreflecting, because this is the scene that introduces unreliable narration on a big level – this is the scene which deliberately excludes John’s texts to E. John and Eurus are gone into in another chapter so we’ll move on again.

Craig’s quote about people being weird for missing the olden days is, of course, crucial to this reading of Sherlock. It’s pretty on the nose for a show whose protagonist is idealised in the Victorian age – and sums up Mofftiss’s feelings towards the Vincent Starrett 221B poem that I elaborated on in the TAB chapter of this meta: essentially, that it always being 1895 is a very bad thing! Craig’s mockery of this nostalgia puts it into more comprehensible modern terms for us, but it also links Thatcher and 1895 again as pasts to be broken with. It’s also important that Craig says that Thatcher is like Napoleon now – although the titles of most episodes are taken from ACD stories, it’s rare that an explicit reference is made to the link between the titles (nobody mentions scarlet vs. pink in ASiP, for example). This is the first time that I can find that Sherlock shows self-awareness from within the narrative that there are extranarrative stories being played out. I’ve said before that I don’t think Thatcher and Napoleon are a good comparison; whether it is or not, Craig’s reference is actively pulling a metatextual part of Sherlock’s history into his story and forcing him to reckon with it. This is important, because he develops expectations of how this story is going to play out (black pearl of the Borgias) which are wrong – because they’re based on what he has learned to expect of himself as fictional character. We could only have such a reference within the Mind Palace.

For the sake of splitting this meta up to make it readable, I’m going to call time on this half of TST, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow at Jack Sandiford’s house. (Also I don’t know how much text tumblr allows and this is a long document.) Until then!

[gayregis]

netflix witcher and netflix witcher fans really showcase the absolute Audacity of americans using foreign (in this case polish) words they don't understand and cannot pronounce right at all for absolutely no fucking reason like what was the point?? what was the point of butchering my language haven't yall had enough???

really agreed. sorry if this sounds like kind of off-topic or a tangent, but i swear i’ll loop it back around to your point eventually — i was discussing about jaskier’s name in the server earlier with @nightimefairy and the decision from lauren to keep it in polish in the [obv. american but important for content] netflix adaptation.

to an english-only speaker, the word “jaskier” doesn’t sound really different than any other name in the witcher, it does not translate the meaning that it’s the name of a flower.

jaskier/dandelion’s name being obvious to the audience as being the name of a flower is important, because it helps define his character if only by name. i remember when i first learned of the character, i really was like, that’s a strange name, no one is called dandelion from birth, and why would someone be called after a flower. of course months later when i read the tower of the swallow (or perhaps minutes later when i read the wiki, because i wanted spoilers ahaha) it was a mystery that was solved for me. but if he hadn’t been named his translated name — dandelion — i would have totally had missed this and not understood at all that his name is the name of a flower and not like, a “normal” name that one would totally give to the child they bore. but overall, this name of a flower suggests to the reader that buttercup/dandelion isn’t his real name, making them wonder what it, and thus his other identity, could possibly be. and we all know that artist-types tend to have a stage or a pen name under which they perform or publish, so dandelion having this name cements for the reader that he is such an artsy-type.

then of course, a buttercup or a dandelion being a small yellow flower makes it not an especially masculine name, and additionally these flowers are largely considered weeds... that’s two things we can tell about the character right off the bat. and since they are yellow flowers with golden petals, we can understand another thing about him — he’s blonde, it’s a fitting nickname due to his hair color. and of course, blondes carry with them many different literary and modern media tropes.

additionally, the name not being translated in english adaptations prevents it from carrying any other linguistic cleverness or connotations — for example a similar-sounding word for the original polish jaskier, “jaskrawy,” meaning vivid/vibrant/brilliant, or similar-sounding words for the english translation dandelion, “dandy,” a historical term for an effeminate or foppish man (think “yankee doodle dandy,” who ‘stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni’... i.e. basically ‘did something foolish and called it fashion’) and/or an colloquial expression to indicate pleasure or happiness (“oh well, that’s just fine and dandy!”, sort of like “swell!”)

although it’s not a perfect 1:1 translation, as a dandelion is not the same flower as a jaskier (buttercup), the name carries a very fitting connotation with it for the character, which can be used to understand him (and of course he is not the only one, for example, milva being named after a red kite, regis meaning king)

however, when you don’t translate “jaskier,” and leave his name as-is, this leaves the english-only speaking audience completely missing everything i just talked about. you won’t understand a thing about his character by knowing that his name is jaskier, because english-only speakers don’t know what a “jaskier” is, and they also don’t have the vocabulary in polish to understand the connotations in that language ...

and this is the entire point of translations. to translate meaning from one language to another — often imperfect, as is the nature of language, but necessary when trying to bridge gaps of understanding.

and when you deliberately don’t translate, you get english-only speakers thinking that they know how to pronounce words in polish because their favorite british boys on screen said a polish word aloud a few times. and you get anglicizations of words that don’t make any sense at all — for example... “jas” or “jask” as a nickname, when that’s not how polish language functions (to my knowledge) and there are specific conventions for making pet names or nicknames in the languages (with diminuatives?) (to my knowledge).

to me, it demonstrates, from both the american creators and the audience, the white american perspective that other cultures and languages are easy to understand and take from, as long as you think that you are being respectful (not that you ARE being respectful, only that you determine yourself to have good intentions). the approach lacks any actual respect, carefulness and preciseness, and most importantly actually talking or reaching out to people of that culture & language, so you are not just trying to do something yourself that you don’t know shit about, but that you can learn from others (and make friends along the way hopefully).

but as you said — what was the point?

in my opinion a lot of the point of including untranslated polish words in the netflix adaptation was part of the marketing towards the polish audience (and perhaps books audience?) that they attempted, with relatively little success. lauren proclaiming on twitter that she’s loved these books and read them dozens of times, the youtube videos with the actors reading scenes from the books with sound effects edited in (to me, reminiscent of the polish audiobooks, but the polish audiobooks have better quality), the games with the actors trying to guess what witcher-relevant polish words mean in english.

when in reality, it’s obvious they didn’t really care (or at least, the people making the top decisions) didn’t really care about making a books-faithful adaptation (this isn’t even attempting to touch the topic of making an adaptation that respects the origin culture of the witcher).

of course from the trailers (and casting... re: cavill and batey, who don’t look like their characters’ book equivalents) everyone could tell that this wasn’t an “adaptation of the books” like they sometimes advertised it. but if they were able to show, hey, we didn’t change this one name of this one character to english, hey, we have read the books, look, we are literally reading them on camera! ... then they might get some more polish books fans to give the series a watch, meaning more people to buy into a netflix trial which then all too easily leads into a subscription because people forgot to cancel or enjoyed the convinience of netflix and ‘hey what’s $10 anyways,’ which leads to money for them, which is how they gauge their success. they don’t give two shits about respecting anything, because that doesn’t give them any money.

i do find it amusing though, because they’re like “we have the amazing minds so much better than sapkowski to improve on the witcher and we’re truly just visionaries who are taking the books into an inspired direction and it’s not an adaptation, it’s so much more” while also being like “we respect the books so much and we worked with sapkowski and we really wanted to be faithful to the books and this is an adaptation where we really thought about the canon material” like just choose a marketing ploy and run with it, you’re going to tire yourself out running between both camps. though it does look to me like finally in season 2 the mask will be off because they’re adding so many new OCs and plotlines they really won’t be able to pretend they cared about the books at all (e.g. geralt throwing axes from trees)

[houseofsannae]

A Fistful of Munny - Extended End Notes

Notes for A Fistful of Munny that don’t fit within the character limit under the cut!

Please, read the fic before reading this post

           All right! Welcome to the extended notes, in which I go into excruciating detail over a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter, because I like the sound of my own voice!

           Let’s start with some more broad stuff that didn’t make the exclusive end notes space. To do the Fistful of Dollars homage, I needed a place where I could have two villainous factions intersecting for Strelitzia to play against one another. After some brainstorming and asking for help from other people working on the Entwined in Trine Sorikai zine (and ultimately ignoring all their very good suggestions (Sorry, guys!)), I eventually realized that the Wasteland from Epic Mickey was a perfect place for this story, both in the sense of having mooks to destroy without Strels committing actual murder, and in the thematic sense of forgotten characters. There was just one issue.

           I hadn’t played Epic Mickey.

           And that is how I spent my summer, playing both Epic Mickey games. Both, because I was looking for a good location to set the story in in-world. Since the Wasteland is based on the Disney theme parks, I was hoping to find one based on Frontierland, their Western section. Such a location did exist – Disney Gulch – but only in the second game. Which meant I had to play Epic Mickey 2, as well. (The first one is a better game, but that’s not really the fault of the developers; they were not given the time they needed to make it as good as the first one. Here’s a video with trivia about the series that goes a little into the development.) I also needed to learn the Mad Doctor’s ultimate fate, since I wanted his Beetleworx/Blotworx to be one of the two villainous factions. In the game, depending on whether you chose the Paint (Paragon) or Thinner (Renegade) path, the Doc is either redeemed… or dead. Neither of which was helpful, so I had to invent.

           But let’s talk about characters and why I picked them in order. The short version for why these choices, at least on the Final Fantasy side, is set-up for later. Obviously I can’t go into detail why. Before that, let’s talk about the Beanie Baby.

           Chi is, as I hope you were able to guess, Strelitzia’s Chirithy. I’ve brought it up several times, but I personally do not like mascot characters. There are a few exceptions, but Chirithies are not one of them. Like I said, KHUx isn’t what happened in this AU, so you’ll have to wait for in-universe answers on why it’s a cat now. Out-of-universe reason is this was the only way I could make it palatable for myself. I arbitrarily decided on a gender for it because as a real cat, it would have a sex. Canonically Chirithies appear to be genderless, and in Japanese refer to themselves with the gender-neutral (but masculine-leaning) boku. I would’ve left Chi that way, save for the fact that he’s a completely normal cat now. (And before you ask, no, not every real cat that appears in KHΨ from this point on is a Chirithy.)

           As for Strelitzia herself, it’s hard for me to pick up a character’s voice when they’re… not voiced. Intonation and cadence do a lot for me mimicking the way a character talks, so it’s a bit more difficult when they don’t technically speak. I tried for a mix between Sora and Kairi, while still keeping her defining character traits of being shy, but also impulsive.

           You may notice that while she’s started remembering faces, if not names, the Player’s name and face still eludes her, despite her (canonical. Deal with it.) crush on them. There is a story reason for this, and will become clear once Luxu takes centre stage.

           The name “Jane” was chosen with more consideration than just “Jane Doe” being the standard name in (at least my corner of) the English-speaking world for a woman of unknown identity. See, the Man With No Name actually has three names. In A Fistful of Dollars, he is referred to (by one character in one scene, once) as “Joe”. “Joan” might have been a more clear homage, but I figure Jane makes sense. And as you might guess, in the next fic, Strels will be going by a different name, still not her own. She’ll remember her name… eventually.

           One might think I could’ve picked any old Cid, and one would be wrong for reasons I can’t explain yet. In fact, I can’t explain much of anything surrounding him yet. What I can say is no, Cidney Aurum is not dead, she’s just not related to Cid Sophiar in this fic verse. An unfortunate consequence of where I wanted to put each of them in the narrative; making them not be related was the only way it made any sense, geographically speaking.

           Hyperion on the other hand, I can talk about. He’s one of the Gremlins in Epic Mickey, and… wait, first things first. Gremlins are from an abandoned Disney film based on a Roald Dahl book, itself based on the cryptids that supposedly haunted airplanes and caused them to malfunction, the earliest known written-down mention of the concept being from the 1920s. The film never got made, but the designs Disney would have used were adapted into a second printing of Dahl’s book, and they were later used in Epic Mickey. Hyperion is, like the publishing imprint that Disney owns, named after a street that Walt Disney used to live on. In-game, Hyperion is in Bog Easy (based on the Haunted Mansion), not Disney Gulch, but his name stuck out to me as being particularly fun, so I picked him instead of trying to figure out what Gremlins actually are in the Gulch (they have names in the files of Epic Mickey 2, but not in the actual game, so it would have been a hunt).

           Regardless of where the setting ended up, for the second villainous faction, I was always going to plop down the good old Don. More things I can’t talk about. For everything FF7, know that I’m always going to be pulling from a mix of the original game, Remake, and Machinabridged. Hence, Corneo’s outfit is a mix of his original and Remake designs (which basically just means he’s wearing blue jeans instead of brown). I didn’t think bringing in his three lieutenants from Remake was necessary, especially since this was supposed to be a kind-of small operation.

           Leslie is picked up and dropped from Remake pretty much unchanged. I needed someone to do the murders Strels couldn’t, and even if he’s not a complete asshole, he’s still mostly an asshole. Have we ever seen small, Materia-like balls used to cast magic before…?

           Onto the fun bits, which is the Disney characters. We’ll start with Percy, who is from a Goofy short called “How to Ride a Horse”, from 1950. And that’s about it. The conceit in Wasteland is that all of the Toons there were basically actors, and they wound up in Wasteland if they were forgotten (that’s not exactly correct, but I’m generalizing). This is interesting, since two of the Toons in Epic Mickey are Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, both of whom… are residents of Disney Town in Kingdom Hearts, having shown up in Birth by Sleep. So that’s an interesting continuity snarl that I’m going to just ignore.

           Persephone and Pluto, on the other hand, are from an earlier short called “The Goddess of Spring”, from 1934. It was one of the projects Disney tried as practice for Snow White. If you’re about to protest that his name should be Hades, not Pluto, then you’re going to need a time machine so you can tell them back in the 30s. The Goddess of Spring is a musical, in the sense that every single line is sung. Watch it for yourself. There’s a video with better quality floating around YouTube, but for some reason it’s the French dub. And that’s why both of them sing most of their lines. I tried matching the meter of their actual parts, but Persephone’s doesn’t actually follow a syllabic pattern that I could make out. I eventually gave up and just gave her the meter from the start of the short. Pluto’s was easier to manage (and more consistent).

           The skeletons are Disney veterans, presumably the same ones from “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), but more specifically they’re mimicking what they did in “The Mad Doctor” (1933), the first appearance of our other villain. They’re fun.

           The original Mad Doctor was supposedly named “Dr. XXX”, according to the name on his door. This was before the modern film rating system was put in place; it was a different time. In the original short, the Mad Doctor kidnaps Pluto (the dog) with the intent of cutting him in half and putting his front half on a chicken For Science!, and Mickey follows him to his castle to rescue the purloined pooch. The short wasn’t a musical in the same vein as “The Goddess of Spring”, but… the Mad Doctor’s only spoken lines were a song (aside from evil cackling). While I had already decided to do the “Toons that sang in their short can only communicate through song” with Persephone and Pluto before starting on Epic Mickey 2, I hilariously discovered that the game developers had done the exact same gag with the Mad Doctor, most of his lines in the game being sung. (In Epic Mickey there were no fully voiced lines, so he speaks as normally as anyone else does). Which made it easier to write his songs here, since I could just rewrite his songs from the game. I used to write alternate lyrics for songs back in high school, so this was an interesting trip back in time for me. They were stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, but it was worth it.

           I believe that’s everything for the characters. Let’s talk about Keyblades.

           It irks me that three people in KHUx have the same Keyblade. Ephemer, Skuld, and Strelitzia all have variations of Starlight. Now, in KHΨ, there is only one Starlight, and it belongs to Luxu, so I’m going to have to decide on different Keyblades for each of them. (Ephemer’s has already been decided, and I haven’t started brainstorming for Skuld yet. No I do not need suggestions, thank you). Pixie Petal bears a noted (by KHWiki) resemblance to one of Marluxia’s alternate scythes, so that tangential connection was enough for me. Both siblings have flower-themed Keyblades – it makes sense to me.

           You might notice a few disparities in the magic. These are on purpose, and will eventually make sense. And that’s all I can say on that at the moment. ;)

           Oh, yes, one important thing I probably should have said on the main notes: I’m not going for a realistic depiction of amnesia here. Anything I got right was entirely accidental, and I’m fairly certain there’s not much. There might be a story reason for why it works the way it does… and it might be the same reason why other people from KHUx have or had amnesia in the present day…

           You know what’s funny? Although Orcuses look more impressive than Invisibles, their stats in Days are actually worse. I’m fairly sure that this is because the only time we see an Orcus, it’s actually an illusion cast over Xion so that Roxas will fight her to the death. There are no other stats for them (according to KHWiki), since they’ve never been used elsewhere.

           A friendly reminder that Apprentice Xehanort invented the term “Heartless”, which was why Aqua didn’t know what to call them until Mickey told her. Thus, nobody from the era of the Keyblade War should know the term “Heartless” without being told by someone in present day. “Darkling” was the term they used instead. I’m fairly certain KHUx ignores the continuity on this (so why should we trust its continuity for anything else, hmm?)

           I think that covers everything! Or at least everything I’m willing to share at this point. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I appreciate your dedication! ^_^

[cronencata]

I decided it might be fun to post the designs I did two years back for a bunch of band-inspired characters- half of which have gone through some revisions since they were made. Click for a clearer view!  I hadn’t really realized until now that I’ve been playing with these concepts for two years! Weird. Originally, they were a for-fun only project, but then I toyed with what I assumed all their relationships would be, and what world they live in... and now two NaNoWriMo drafts in, I’m still not sure what to do with them.

The sheets here have been edited since they were made, just for display reasons. Plus, what’s the fun in telling people what bands inspired them? That’s much more fun as a guessing game.

These are the characters I’d consider the ‘main four’ - at least, as the idea is laid out in my head right now. More info under the cut.

The conceit of the universe these characters inhabit ( as its written right now ) is that there is a substance called tiamat which grants people altered senses, personalized supernatural abilities, and, in great quantities, altered physiology - at a cost. Absorbing tiamat gives people a troubling aura which encourages fear and suspicion in others. Tiamat infusion leads to ostracization- whether said infusion was intentional or not. 

Katya ‘Cat’ Krastev: The main girl herself! She’s had a rough time of it and now everyone on planet earth is her enemy. She unwittingly came into contact with tiamat while exploring haunted houses with Caleb and her boyfriend Zacharie in middle school. High school was rough for her- rougher than most. Childhood friends abandoned her, her mother grew distant and hostile, and nobody seemed to have her back... save for Caleb and Zacharie. Tragedy struck in her senior year, and she lost Zacharie forever. Grieving in quiet to this day, she still wears the hoodie he gave her. 

Under the spite, there is a cheery girl who loves fairy tales, cute animals, and DIY. After meeting Reyes, she becomes instantly infatuated with him- projecting idealistic romance onto a wholly disinterested party. That’s all easier to deal with than grief, though.

Her infusion grants her pyrokinesis which generates bright purple flame. The fire can emerge in the shape of a person!

 I actually did a much prettier sheet for Cat a few days ago! If I can squeeze out the time, I’d love to give everyone else the same treatment.

Caleb Delaney: Cat’s only remaining friend from childhood, and her admirer for several years. Caleb is a wallflower, preferring to disappear into the crowd to avoid confrontation and hostility. His affection for Cat takes a backseat to his care for her - and his earnest hope that she’ll one day shed her toxic behaviors. Unfortunately, in the meantime, he makes more excuses for it than she does. He was the first to befriend Zan Wen, and takes his advice closest to heart. Caleb battles depression, and deep down realizes how far Cat has dragged him down- but can’t bear to let her go.

His infusion grants him the power to generate and meld into a fog- from which he can re-emerge wherever.

Caleb’s hair has changed since this sheet was made- the spiky hair really didn’t fit his character, so now he has bangs that sweep to the sides of his face like curtains.

Zan Wen: The landscaper for Fallgrim’s graveyard and mentor figure to Caleb, as well as a very resistant Cat. He was able to recognize their infusion status almost immediately, and aims to help them adapt in hopes they’ll make it out better than he did. Zan is a advocate of embracing tiamat- personifying it as a creator entity which birthed all creation, as well as a path to personal fulfillment. He truly wants the best for everyone in the party- but has the most trouble communicating with Cat, who takes all of his advice in deliberate bad faith. He encourages Caleb to embrace independence.

His infusion grants him necromancy, which he hopes to one day cultivate into full-on resurrection and healing.

Reyes: An escapee from a human experiment program called Black Flock. Infused with copious amounts of tiamat, Reyes is no longer physiologically stable- breaking down into a monstrous form in stressful episodes. He trusts himself with no human company, preferring to keep his distance at all times. After Zan sheltered him for a night, he’s been seeking a way to split before tragedy strikes again, and he hurts someone who was only trying to help him. After a year of living alone, though, he can’t pretend he doesn’t miss the company of friends...

Reyes’ colorful palette has since been darkened and dulled out to better reflect his sullen stoicism and cold fury- as well as the tone/album art of the band that inspired him. Originally, he had gauntlets that infused him with extra doses of tiamat, but I ended up dropping that. He is, without a doubt, the most self-indulgent character out of these four.

This scribble is a pretty good summary of their collective dynamic:

[theonethatwatchesalotofshows]

Ranking every Teen Drama I have ever watched

(Updated)

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

+ young Shailene Woodley and Molly Ringwald I guess

- everything else. Even Shailene Woodley's and Molly Ringwald's performances weren't that great because the writing is just oh so bad. The background music is bland and repetative and it sounds like out of some teenager's YouTube chanel. The plotlines are ridiculous and convoluted, which isn't neccessarily such a bad thing, because it is a teen drama show after all, the problem is the show seems to take itself too seriously. Other entries on this list also have ridiculously convoluted plotlines, but I'm ranking them highed because they don't take themselves too seriously and don't claim to be realistic like this show does. Seriously, from the title it suggests like this was going to be a real, uncensored look into high school but it's the furthest thing from it. Not to mention how problematic it is- God forbid someone suggests that a 14-year-old pregnant girl gets an abortion or gives the baby up for adoption without being seen as a terrible and despicable person.

Otp: Marc Molina x a job somewhere far, far away from these kids

Notps: every single pairing on this show

Best moment: literally none

Weirdest moment: "I'm such a whore!" "Well, you're my whore." What were the writers thinking??? Was this supposed to be romantic??

We Children From Zoo Station

+the aesthetic, the casting of Christiane, Detlef and Axel

-this was such a letdown. Honestly I was so hyped for it after seeing the trailer since I've read the book and didn't particularly like the movie- I feel like it's hard to fit all of Christiane's story into 90 minutes. That's why I was so excited about this show. Christiane's story covers so much, so it's easier to make it into a TV show when you don't want to ommit anything and butcher the story. But they somehow managed to do it anyway. They changed so much for no reason and completely erased Christiane's childhood trauma, which was important in the book. Now, I know you can say that it's just a loose adaptation, so it doesn't have to follow the book word for word. But I feel like if you already decided to tell her- a real person's story- you should at least do it authentically. Imo they shouldn't have tried to make the setting vague. It worked with Sex Education because the story of Sex Education is timeless. However, Christiane's story is not timeless. It's a true story set in the 1970s. If they were making a new show from scratch, I would have liked it. But this is an already existing story and they’re supposed to be just retelling it. My last issue is a nit pick but I wish the actresses playing Stella and Babsi were reversed. It just would've fit better.

Otps: all those kids x sobriety

Notp: Christiane x Detlef

Best moment: Christiane's first time in Sound was pretty true to the book

Weirdest moment: when Detlef became a gigolo because he needed money for his dog. Who tf thought of that?

Pretty Little Liars

+ makeup, style, the theme song, the drama and mystery that always kept me guessing, the cliffhangers at the end of each episode that made it so addictive, Emily's coming out story, Hanna and Spencer had some good lines

- the mishandling of some serious issues (namely eating disorders), romantization of student-teacher relationship, the timeline not making much sense, these writers seem to put more thought into the characters' outfits than the storylines

Otps: Emily x Maya, Hanna x Caleb

Notp: Ezria

Best moment: Hanna and Caleb in the shower (the sexual tension was cuttable with a knife)

Weirdest moments: Aria asking Ezra out in the middle of a make-up test (it was supposed to be cute but it was just cringy), Spencer trying to block A's text messages on a laptop, in the middle of a park (what? Spencer, you were supposed to be the smart one!)

One Tree Hill

+ Brooke, the theme song, Chad Michael Murray

- the casual drinking and driving (I mean seriously these kids play a drinking game at a party and then casually hop into a car and drive home??), too much basketball and cheerleading (that's not a bad thing per se but I just don't really care about neither of these things), it just seems too stereotypical and kinda bland?? I couldn't really get into it

Otp: Naley

Notp: Peyton x Nathan

Best moment: Naley by the dock

Weirdest moment: "I guess I'm just a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside a bitch." It's not really a bad moment but a cringy line. I guess the writers though they were being clever but it just sounded bad.

Dawson's Creek

+ the clothes, the 90s aesthetic, the 90s soundtrack, many movie references, Pacey is a sweetheart, Jen is a feminist icon, dealing with mental health issues through Andie (it's rare to see in shows as old as this)

- the slutshaming of Jen really hasn't aged well, the storyline of Pacey being statury raped by his much older teacher was mishandled (it was either treated as scandalous, cool or in Andie’s case somehow shameful), same goes for Jen’s backstory- it was mentioned she was raped at 12 by an older man and then never brought up again, Dawson is the most unlikable protagonist ever and his friendship/relationship with Joey is codependent and possessive, the dialogue is sometimes pretentious and unrealistic, the timeline doesn't really add up- I can never tell what time of the year it's supposed to be, because it looks like it's always fall for some reason. And how did they sophomore year have two homecomings?

Otps: Pacey x Andie, Pacey x Joey (yes, both at the same time)

Notp: Dawson x Joey

Best moments: Jen helping Joey when that jerk was spreading rumours about her and then Jen and Joey locking Abby in the closet together (I love it when they stick together instead of tearing each other down), Pacey and Joey bickering

Weirdest moments: when Joey was upset because Dawson didn’t want to tell her how often he “walks his dog”, when Jen was about to have a treesome at a party and Dawson walked into the room and carried her out despite her kicking and screaming

Glee

+ funny, Sue Sylvester's iconic, great covers and a way to find new songs, the performances are aesthetically pleasing, lgbtq+ representation, tackling of serious issues, coming out story, a father who’s accepting of his son’s sexuality right away despite not really understanding it (it’s so rare to see, that’s why it’s so refreshing), the plotlines are ridiculous but at least the show doesn't take itself too seriously

-as I already said the 1st season was great but after that it just seemed like the writers made up a checklist of hard issues they should tackle and tried to tackle every single one of them while covering every single song and it just fell flat. Prime example- Quinn ending up in a wheelchair getting into a car crash to warn us from drinking and driving, singing I’m Still Standing and then suddenly being able to walk normally after. a few episodes Rachel and Finn got almost all songs, while other characters were criminally underrated and underused (Tina, Quinn, Mercedes). The teachers are questionable to put it mildly. Cringy moments- Finn singing You're Having My Baby to Quinn in front of her parents when it wasn't even his baby! Also no one except of Kurt looks like they could be in high school. And why are these cheerleaders wearing their uniforms 24/7??

Otps: Brittana, Sam x Quinn, Tina x Artie (unpopular opinion, I know), Mr Schue x unemployment

Notp: Quinn x Finn

Best moments: Quinn giving birth to Bohemian Rhapsody

Weirdest moment: Rachel's gross and painfully awkward crush on Mr Schue, Mr Schue joining the Glee club on the stage for a performance of Toxic and girls in the audience cat calling him (Ewww)

Euphoria

+ Zendaya's and Jacob Elordi's performances, tackling of serious issues such as drug addiction and overdose, anxiety and depression, abusive relationships and abortion in a better manner than most (if not all) teen dramas, the aesthetics, makeup and wardrobe, the musical number in the finale, the special episodes giving us insight into the characters' psychology, toxic relationships not being romanticized (which is sadly rare), teenagers sounding like actual real life teens (no "I reject reality" crap)

- lack of comic relief (why so serious all the time), sexualization of teen characters (I know this is something many teen dramas are guilty of but it's the most evident here), too much nudity (I know some of you are going to come at me with: "But it's realistic!" So what? It is realitic that teenagers get naked when they go into shower but does it mean we have to see it?? It seems to me like this show is trying too hard to be "boundary pushing" at times and ends up being scandalous just for the sake of being scandalous), these characters just aren't believable as high school juniors to me (they sound like high schoolers but they certainly don’t act, look or dress that way). There's no reason this show couldn't have been set in college.

Otps: Rue x sobriety, Nate x prison

Notps: Nate x Maddy, Cassie x McKay

Best moments: "You did this to me!" and the musical number in the season 1 finale

Weirdest moment: the fact that Maddy lost her virginity at 14 to a 40-year-old man being mentioned so casually because apparently she was "totally in control". Excuse me what??

Skins

+ style and makeup- each character has a signature trademark (Sid and his beanie, Effy's eyeliner, Cassie's soft eyeshadow), their British accents, I'm pretty sure this is the only teen drama that follows multiple classes, teenage characters being played by actual teen actors, the characters looking like average people you meet in high school and not as if they just walked off the runway, dealing with serious issues such as drug abuse, eating disorder, parental abandonment etc (yes, some people claim the show romanticized it, but I disagree. It's not the show that romanticized it- it's the fans. The show tried to portray the dangers of drugs as well as possible. Think about it- every time characters used drugs it ended in a disaster. In the pilot they thought that Cassie overdosed and ended up crashing a car while rushing into the hospital. In later season Effy hit her friend in the head with a rock because she was having a bad trip. That's not romanticizing drugs.), Effy is iconic and honestly the first episode was enough to get me hooked

- every single teacher being a creep and having a thing for a student at some point, the show can get too dark and unncessarily dramatic at times. Did that many people have to die? Did Chris's death really have to be this graphic? Timeline doesn't really add up- are 8 episodes supposed to cover the whole year? It would've made more sense if there were more episodes in a season.

Otps: Chris x Jal, Emily x Naomi

Notps: Sid x Michelle

Best moment: ooh baby it's a wild world

Weirdest moment: Chris's graphic death

The OC

+ more grounded in reality than many others on this list, the theme song, the love stories, Seth and Summer are funny, the friendships are believable and the whole group has great chemistry

- too many unneccessary fights, Luke is the worst, everyone is way too casual about drunk driving, these parents are WAAAY too chill (I know this can be said about many teen dramas but it's the most obvious here. How did the Roberts and the Coopers let two 16-year-old girls go to Mexico alone?? With no supervision?? What?)

Otps: Seth x Summer, Ryan x Marissa

Notp: Luke x Marissa

Best moments: the “oh no, there’s only one bed” in the Mexico episode, Seth and Summer's first kiss and that kiss at the yacht, Ryan and Marissa's first date by the pool

Weirdest moment: these parents letting their teenage kids go to Mexico alone. It's irresponsible when they're 16 but apparently they let them go there and party every year. What?

Gossip Girl

+ every episode having a clever title, the style, the makeup, the 00s soundtrack, the glamour of it all (it feels like reading a very gossipy magazine!), all the scandals, this show never pretends to portray the realitic teenage experience so it can pretty much be as far-fetched as it wants to and you can’t question it, it gives you a chance to live the fantasy of being super rich, living with a penthouse, riding a limo to school and going to parties in New York City every night

- the final reveal doesn't make any sense, just like with PLL these writers seemed to have put more thought into the outfits and makeup than into the plotlines, romantization of a toxic relationship, having every two straight characters date or hook up at some point, which just felt forced, mishandling of serious issues (Blair's eating disorder, Eric's suicide attempt and Serena and Jenny's sexual assault from the pilot being brought up when it's convenient but not really dealt with and brushed off at other times), sexualization of teen characters

Otps: Dan x Blair, Serena x Nate

Notps: Chuck x Blair

Best moments: the Thanksgiving flashbacks, Blair and Serena running around New York and taking selfies in stolen dresses, Nate and Serena’s first time (although it was better in the books) and then their kiss at the white party, the sheer scandal of "I killed someone", Dan giving Blair a plastic tiara to make her feel like a princess

Weirdest moments: Chuck's father returning from the death and then dying again, by yeeting himself off the roof

Freaks and Geeks

+ probably the most realistic teen drama there is, the characters dress the way I can see actual teens dressing, funny, but also heatbreaking at times, probably the only teen show that included an intersex character, the characters being a little stereotypical but self-aware at least, young James Franco and Jason Segel

- the bullying being a bit too much at times and it's a bit unrealistic that the teachers would do literally nothing about it, too short- I will never understand why this got cancelled

Otps: Daniel x Kim, Lindsay x Nick, Amy x Ken

Notps: Sam x Cindy

Best moments: Sam breaking down at the end of Garage Door, Daniel and Kim getting back together in the rain

Weirdest moment: Cindy doing a 180 and becoming super mean when she started dating Sam.

Gilmore Girls

+ so many movie, literary and music references, the quotable lines (what a great way to learn about new movies, books and bands! It’s so unique for a TV show to make you smarter), the witty banter, the comfort of the first few seasons (it really feels like wrapping a warm blanket around yourself while holding a hot cup of coffee, I can’t explain why, but it’s such a comfort show), the quirky small town with many unique festivals, many entertaining and snappy fights where everyone has a point, characters dealing with real world problems (seriously, how often do you see a storyline about termites? Or a teenager with zit cream on a teen drama show?), this is also one of the few shows where teenagers are shown to have rules and restrictions and curfews (finally some kids growing up with strict parents representation) and doing homework and studying and not just partying and drinking and having sex all the time and that’s so refreshing

- but while it is refreshing to see teenagers waiting to have sex and not doing it behind every corner, the show is kind of sex negative. Every single time a (female) character loses her virginity it ends in a disaster. Even when she loses it after she’s married! It doesn’t make any sense, unless the writers just really hated women. Also slutshaming (”I got the good kid!”) ewww. The money and budget doesn’t make much sense on the show either and the girls seem immune to calories. I know some people might come at me for this with: “But it’s just a show!” but I think it’s harmful to show beautiful, thin women eat nothing but tons of junkfood all the time and never excersize and then fatshame people who do excersize but aren’t fortunate enough to be blessed with amazing Gilmore genes, and then throw around tactless references to eating disorders.

Otps: Lane x Dave, Jess x Rory

Notps: Lane x Zach, Rory x Dean, Lorelai x Christopher

Best moments: Then She Appeared, Rory’s valedictorian speech, Lorelai’s graduation

Weirdest moment: Lorelai and Christopher getting married in Paris at 4am. That’s not how it works in Europe. Do Americans think every single Europian country works like Las Vegas, where you can just get married whenever you decide??

[thebeltanequeen]

The (Blurred? Nonexistent? Inconsequential?) Line Between Canon and Fanon: An Impromtu Essay by Me

I’m currently have an existential crisis. An absolute, balls to the walls, pull my hair out, stare at the walls wondering what the meaning of existence is, kind of existential crisis. Why, you may ask? Because the older I have gotten, the more Fanfiction I have read. That’s normal. Millions of other people read fanfic like me. Well, in the past few years, I have also realized that the more fanfiction I have read, the less shits I give about the actual canon of the media I love. I care less and less about what “actually” happened, and delve into fanon instead. It’s as if the two have SWITCHED ROLES in my brain. The canon is the lie, and the fanon is the truth. This used to not be the case though, so how did we get here? And why… why is this realization sending me into an absolute spiral of insanity? Why do I feel like I have been sucker punched in the jaw? Let me explain.

I’ve been reading and dabbling in writing my own fanfiction for over twelve years. It used to be an escape, a way to further delve into my latest obsessions and become consumed by them. I have this annoying habit of also picking ships that do NOT become endgame, so I’ve always sought out fanfiction as a balm for my shipper’s soul as well. I still read fanfiction as if my life depends on it… but now it’s at the expense of reading new books. Watching new media. When I do eventually dip my toes into a new fandom, I either reject it quickly or become consumed again and make a grab for fanfiction… but in the past few years, something in not only me, but in fandoms in general has shifted.

The difference between me now, and me back then is this… I used to uphold the canon as sacred. Untouchable. Set in stone. The only credible source for the media I consume. All of the fanfiction I read was just beautiful window dressing. A lovely past time to further increase my dopamine intake.

This is no longer the case.

Now, when I read and write fanfiction, it’s as if it is an act of protest. I am actively seeking to reform the narrative. It’s to “take back” the story, the characters, EVERYTHING, for myself. To make it anew. To make it perfect. I’m not alone either. I see you. I see all of you. Now more than ever, I see more and more of us doing this exact same thing.

THIS is why I am having an existential crisis. I have just realized that I will no longer be content with the canon. Ever. Even the canon of my favorite media. It’s not enough. It’s no longer enough. It won’t ever be enough again. Why? Because there will always be places where the canon is falliable. The authors of the canon, are falliable. As an author myself, this is at once an alarming yet powerful realization.

I went to college for creative writing. At the beginning of my academic career, I thought of fanfiction as a beautiful fairytale world. It was glorious, but it was other. Separate. Not as credible as canon. Had I read fanfiction better than the media it was based on before I entered college? Absolutely, but in my head it still didn’t matter because the canon was the word. The canon was the law. As a writer, I held the power of the author (and by extension the power of myself) as sacred. By the end of college, that began to change.

The more I was taught about writing, the more I came to realize that sometimes, authors are just straight up WRONG. Sometimes, there’s soooooo much potential… AND THEY JUST FUCK IT UP!!!!!!! The bones are incredible, but the canon is weak, the logic is lacking, the story makes no sense, the characters don’t reach their full potential and you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of it. This is why fanon is canon’s salvation. Fanon makes canon look pathetic. But… if I accept the fanon as the reality, and make the canon the lie, does that still make it fanon? No. I don’t think it does. I think fanon has become something other. Something greater.

I have become disillusion by “published” or “credible” books. 95% of the novels I actually buy at the store today are garbage. Trash. Half written nonsense that only serves the purpose of paying people. I’m TIRED OF IT. I’ve become disillusioned by the “power” of the author. I have become disillusioned by canon. FUCK canon, quite frankly. Rip it apart. Dissect it. Take out it’s beating heart and transplant it into a new body. Give it the soul that the narrative was begging for. REVIVE IT. LET YOUR OWN IMAGINATION MAKE IT ANEW. Characters mean too much to people. Fiction means too much to people. Stories mean too much to people for anything less. Only then will you or I be satisfied.

Now, even an impromptu, unedited, gibberish essay is not complete without examples. I’ll start with one that you probably thought of while reading this. Game of Thrones. I think that two years ago, the ending of the most influential show of the entire decade, is where my subconscious began to shift in this direction. Now, I doubt my opionions about GoT are the same as yours, but you know what? It DOESN’T MATTER because FANON CAN FIX THE CANON. The stories that meant so much to millions can be fixed by accepting the fact that THE CANON ISN’T THE LAW! IT FUCKED UP!!!! CANON DOESN’T DESERVE TO SPEAK ANYMORE!!!! TAKE BACK THE STORY AND TRANSFORM IT INTO A VERSION TRULY WORTHY OF THE GLORIOUS BONES IT HAS!!!!!

We also can’t ignore the role that monetization plays in the media we consume. Why leave our fiction in the hands of just the big names? Why let money dictate what is real and not real? WHY SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRE STORYTELLING JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SOLD TO YOU AND THEREFORE IT’S “LEGIT CANON”??? FANFICTION IS FREE, AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PIECES OF WRITING I’VE EVER READ WERE WRITTEN BY FANFIC AUTHORS WHO DID IT FOR THE STORY. WHO DID IT FOR THE ART. WHO ACTUALLY DID IT JUSTICE. FUCK THE CONCEPT OF FANON AND CANON. THE STORY WE WANT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. GET MONEY OUT OF HERE.

Ahem. To avoid going on even more of a tangent, I’ll move on and give the example that triggered my existential crisis in the first place. Sailor Moon. To give some background, Sailor Moon is it for me. I have grown up with it. I’ve watched it my entire life. As a child, I ran around with my toy moon rod and desperately wanted to be Usagi. Ironically, I grew up to be quite a bit like her (but with Rei’s temper admittedly). It is my comfort show, my happiness. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I never tire of it. It makes my heart swell. I have never, nor will I ever, love any piece of media the way I love Sailor Moon. Flash forward to today, I watched Sailor Moon Eternal, the two new movie adaptations of the Dream arc in the manga (stick with me non-manga and anime lovers). I liked the films, but I was left with a deep, disatisfied yearning. I want back the feeling of complete bliss I experienced while watching the 90’s anime as a child. The problem with this? I’ll never get it back. I’ve just realized this. I’ll NEVER get it back. Why? Because it’s no longer the perfect version of Sailor Moon that it was to my young eyes. Crystal, while good, is also not the perfected version I seek in my adulthood, and Eternal has not scratched my insatiable itch. I am heartbroken because I’ve realized that Sailor Moon in its perfect form doesn’t exist anymore. If I held any canon sacred, it was this. But the story is flawed. The manga is flawed. The anime is flawed. It’s not infallible, as much as it truly, deeply hurts me to admit to the world and to myself. The only perfect version of Sailor Moon is the one in my heart. It’s the one I choose to piece together for myself with the building blocks that others who came before me have handed over.

Another, more recent example of falliable canon is The Grisha Verse. More specifically, the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I was brought in to the fandom by Ben Barnes’ depthless eyes and magnificent scruff. And you know what? I liked the story, but I stayed for Ben Barnes. I liked the Darkling so much that I bought the entire grisha verse books. It was a premature decision. I’ve only made it halfway through Storm and Seige, and you know what? I’m tired of the canon already. It’s not that great. The bones are there, but it could be SO. MUCH. MORE. I haven’t read the crow books yet, and by all accounts Leigh Bardugo has improved tremendously as a writer. Which incidentally proves my point. Authors are falliable. Ergo, the canon is falliable. I can’t help but think while I read these books, “Damn. I could write this better.” and you know what? I’ve read fanfics that HAVE written it better.

Am I saying this to trash Bardugo? Or even GRRM? (Yes I admit to trashing D&D but that’s beside the point ahem…). NO. I am NOT trashing the writers. I’M A WRITER. I GET IT. YOUR STORY IS YOUR BABY. I G E T I T . But I’ve realized, and what I think future authors will also have to realize, is that fiction doesn’t belong to anyone. As soon as it’s out the door, the fiction no longer belongs to the author. It belongs to us. The people. That’s what is beautiful about fanfiction. It’s not here for the money. It’s not here for the clout. It’s here for the fiction itself. Plain and simple. It belongs to no one and everyone.

In the past, I would have fought this. I would have wanted my work’s canon to be law. To be the word, the truth, the way etc. Now? I can’t be a hypocrite. I can’t be selfish. It isn’t about the author. It’s about the vision. It’s about the story, the narrative, the characters. It’s about art. And sometimes, the authors give birth to the idea (and they deserve credit for that without a doubt), but it’s also true that sometimes, someone else just writes it better. Someone else quite simply saw the vision, the story, the characters, more clearly than the author did. I make this vow now, as an author, to strive for the vision. If someone takes my vision and does it better than me, that only improves my perspective of my own story. It improves the world of fiction as a whole. It makes me better.

So, canon? Fuck the canon. Take back the story. Take back the characters. Take back the art. Fiction is ours. It belongs to us, and we can do with it what we please. Let’s strive for OUR OWN perfected version of the media we love. Canon doesn’t truly exist. The concept of Fanon doesn’t even exist anymore in the way we used to think of it. The author’s version of events is their own Fanon of the story. Canon is meaningless now. There is only the story that you accept in your own mind. There is only the story that I accept in my own mind, no matter how different it is from yours. There is only the art. There is only the limitless potential of countless people’s imaginations. Let’s continue to collaborate and celebrate beautiful stories together, in any conceivable way, over and over and over again, until the end of time.

Fin