Friday DE: Starbucks and mustaches

[bjornwilde]

So, got any canon inconsistencies that you’ve turned into plot or character points? 

Comments

[cottoncandypink]

All of them.

Bit of an explanation, now that I'm on a real keyboard:

His canon has always been inconsistent from day one, for a variety of reasons. Initially, he was a joke. There was a single sketch, playing on the idea that Slenderman has done horrible things and needs to pay for those crimes. There was never any intention for there to be more than that, so a lot of weird shit got said. Wilford had an afro in the past, Mr Markiplier was dead, and had been for a long time, etc.

Except, whoops. He was popular, and accidentally became the channel mascot. More videos were made that completely ignored the fact that he was ever a news reporter. He was some weird, quasi magical being, able to pull weapons and items out of nowhere. Then he got killed, but that didn't stop videos with Wilford from happening. The next one, he was a reporter again. And got killed again, and now the inconsistencies became an entire meta. Mr Markiplier also came back from the dead, only to be killed again.

Then he got shelved as a character for being abjectly stupid. Which he is. He didn't fit in with the direction Fischbach wanted to go with his career, there were some outside forces at play, and Wilford disappeared from the channel.

When he came back, he was still stupid. But he wasn't the feature anymore. He took the back seat to other characters, showing up in places he shouldn't have. Mr Markiplier became Mark the Actor, but he's also still Mr Markiplier again, other characters who were even more stupid than Wilford were brought back and rolled into a single project, and it made zero sense.

At this point, the fandom was going apeshit trying to figure out what it all meant, because nothing fit together. Fan theories were getting more and more involved and intense, over things that were never really meant to fit together in the first place, and then were forced to fit together.

So the whole thing got retconned. Wilford is now an army colonel called William J Barnum, new characters have been invented, old characters have been re-imagined. One character appears exactly as he was before and after retcon, which really drove people nuts. Wilford suddenly has an afro, and Mr Markiplier is dead and has been for years. Post-retocn, the intent was to not make sense. The retcon itself contradicted itself. In Wilford's final episode of the new continuity, Wilford leans hard on that fourth wall, talking about getting too caught up on things that don't matter at the expense of missing the important details (I linked to this scene yesterday).


What I've done is taken every one of these inconsistencies and contradictions and just changed their context. The retcon came out after I'd started playing here, so I took the built-in inconsistencies and twisted them to where it makes logical, in-universe sense to happen out of order. Throw away lines became plot points, plot points became throw away lines. My canon is inconsistent at its foundations, so I'm under no obligation to do anything else.

[skyhigh_seance]

Klaus being able to see at least one (1) ghost while at least somewhat high/enebriated. Still figuring out if Ben is a special case or if the drugs don't remove the ability to see ghosts, just the ability (??) to care about them being around.

[cottoncandypink]

I've always wondered that too. During their fight, right before Ben slugs him, Klaus seems to act like he can make Ben disappear any time he wants. But he spends a very considerable amount of canon at some state of non-sobriety, and Ben seems more to come and go as he pleases.

[skyhigh_seance]

Yeah, during the attack on the Academy, Klaus acts like he can't hear Ben, even though he's visible to us - so is Klaus ignoring him 'cause he's high AF and really can't be bothered, or can he really not hear Ben, but we get a clue that Ben is always there anyway?

[cottoncandypink]

And canon is just weird enough that the ambiguity could very well be intentional.

[bjornwilde]

My take, for a fan of Ben, is that he is always there, regardless of if Klaus can interact with him or not. And he chooses to be there rather than being pulled by Klaus' powers...however they work.

[skyhigh_seance]

I want to believe Ben is always there, at least as much as he wants to be. I just wish they'd spell out a little clearer just what all those drugs do to Klaus. Just a teeny bit. The way Ben and Klaus talk about the Russian lady makes me think that ghosts disappear when he's high (but then why can Klaus see Ben???) but the way he talks after they find Allison makes me think the ghosts don't disappear from view, Klaus just... doesn't give a damn. But! Similar drugs (I assume) work for (spoiler) so....................................


Ugh.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Maybe it depends on the drug/the combination of drugs/how pure the drugs are? That could cover a lot of inconsistency since I doubt he has the exact same combination of drugs in his system very often.

[amiable_horror]

This makes perfect sense to me.

[bjornwilde]

I don't know if this is right or not, but I feel like Hank hasn't been wearing his glasses the past couple of movies and wears them inconsistently in Days of Future Past, so I've decided he doesn't actually need them since the change in First Class and holds onto them only to cling to a sense of normality.

ETA: There's also a whole bunch with Viv Vision, which I wrote out here. Mostly it's inconsistent depictions of her powers, which Varadia casually points out "Whatever the story needs" is the best rule of thumb for comics. = )

[angry_friendship_wolf]

I'm trying to think if there are any major canon inconsistencies in Yamato's canon, and I think the answer to that is 'frankly, Adventure is so vague and laconic with a lot of its story details that it's impossible to know what's an inconsistency and what's intentionally oblique.'

So while I'm maybe not capitalising on any inconsistencies, I do spend a lot of time grafting together different parts of the four or so retellings of canon to try to get something satisfyingly cohesive.


Eden's canon, meanwhile, is honestly more inconsistency than it is actual plot (even moreso than the rest of Kingdom Hearts), so by its very nature, if I want it to make any kind of sense, every inconsistency has to be spun out into some kind of plot point, or else I'm just -- I'm just left with nothing, man. Nothing at all.

[irish_vagabond]

Cassidy is not as competent a fighter as the pilot episode of Preacher makes him out to be, nor is he as supernaturally strong. The writers had to roll back his abilities when they probably realized he was too super-powered, and they wanted to get him down to a more equal level with Jesse. They should've thought about that in the first place! But then again, they most likely didn't think the show was going to exist past the first season. My explanation? He was taking lots of really good drugs that heightened his reflexes.

In any case, as of now, Cassidy is just indestructible (except for direct sunlight) and he can heal quickly from injuries as long as he has blood to drink. This also has inconsistencies in the show, namely the speed with which he recovers. My explanation is that it depends on the quality of the blood. If it's fresh and human, the quicker he heals. If the blood's been stored or if it's from an animal, he heals a little slower. The seriousness of his injuries also factors in, but there are loads of inconsistencies there, too. Blood loss, disembowelment, severed limbs, burning to a crisp in the sun...

And another thing that I just remembered: his heavy drug use breaks his body down, so he has to have blood once in a while to keep himself alive. So when he goes without blood for a long time, which he often does, it takes even longer for him to heal when he does get injured.

cassidy why are you so complicated just be a fucking vampire

[aberration]

The Rebels writers threw in that Hera had had a brother who died young, which they clearly made up in the moment as it had never been mentioned before not even when they literally went to her home on Ryloth and saw a family-portrait-thing, and I ended up inventing some complex Twi'leki cultural practice around naming children.

And like I think a lot of people we went with the headcanon that Hera is the actual leader of the the Ghost crew but Kanan pretends to be to protect her, to try to reconcile canon's dithering between what was clearly the original intended "Kanan's a guy and human and Jedi so he's the leader" and the later realization that Hera makes way more sense in that role.