#also the final point in this timeline is: 2022 it all comes full circle and I become a furry with a Pikachu fursona

[pikachugirltits]

I have a very spotty memory about my personal life, especially my teen years. But that post about middle school anime (and having to Google how old I would have been in 7th grade to figure out what year it was) got me wondering about the exact timeline of how I went from "gets into anime" to "realizes I'm trans." Thankfully I still remember most of the websites I used as a teen and my usernames so I was able to do some sleuthing and I think I've assembled the timeline of how my egg cracked.

1998: Pokemon debuts in America and a very young me is instantly hooked. This would lead to a lifeline obsession and also interest in such shows as Digimon and Monster Rancher.

2002: As I enter middle school, I learn the term anime for the shows I was really into as a kid. I begin actively seeking out anime and get into Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha at around the same time. At the same time, puberty starts to rear its ugly head and while I can't put my finger on the why I am immensely uncomfortable with the changes happening to my body.

2004: As I begin to spend more time online I start getting into fanfic and make a fanfiction.net account. One day, while browsing Inuyasha fanfic I stumble upon an InuyashaxRanma 1/2 crossover. I look up what Ranma 1/2 is, and something clicks in my brain. I start getting really obsessed with stories where guys get turned into girls. I seek out fanfics and web comics about it.

2005: I make a Gaia Online account, with a male avatar.

2006: I change my Gaia avatar to a girl. I make a journal entry about this that's evasive about why. From my best recollection, this is about when my egg started cracking. I think at this point I'm still thinking of myself in terms of "A guy who wants to be a girl" and at least on Gaia I'm still referring to myself as [Dead name]

2007(?): Exact timeline is inexact because Super Smash Bros Brawl had a long pre release cycle, but during a joke topic on the GameFAQs message boards for Brawl I claim to be a girl. This is one of the first times I call myself a girl on the internet, and being called a girl and treated like a girl by others kind of shifts my internal self perception to "I am a girl" finally.

Honestly, there's something really comforting about being able to travel back down memory lane and hunt down my past online presence like this because just looking this stuff up helped me recall all this, and for someone who struggles to remember stuff from back then... it's nice.

[leliosinking]

Okay wild thought, but what if after Avatar 4/5 are done filming.. Bailey came back? But hear me out.. what if she was recast as Merrick? Like the character would have to be massively overhauled, but imagine the surrealist potential of having both Bailey and Delainey on screen and using the séance/possession sequence to essentially alternate the role within the space of that scene? Like they would still be playing separate characters but they would also both be playing both roles? I’ll try to explain.

I should say that this will only work if you ascribe to the theory that 2022 Dubai is occurring in a hybrid of the Merrick and Prince Lestat timelines. But essentially imagine Armand filling in for David Talbot (and we would be scrapping the grooming) and Louis would be working towards the séance. It would also immediately give him something significant to do once his primary arc is finished after season 2.

So I was thinking about how you could essentially film the summoning scene 4 times, and then use the edit and lighting to strategically alternate between Bailey-as-Merrick conducting the ceremony, Bailey-as-Ghost!Claudia posessing Merrick (maybe even in Claudia’s costume???), Delainey-as-Ghost!Claudia, and finally Delainey-as-Possessed!Merrick.

And they could really play this up throughout the course of the season. Like maybe when Louis initially encounters Merrick he confuses her with Claudia (similar to Joel mistaking strangers for his daughter in The Last of Us) but you can also play with the audience’s perception, as by this point we will be more familiar with Delainey as the character and occasionally having either actress fill in for the other could add to a deliberate sense of confusion and mysticism that comes with the character.

Louis and Merrick’s relationship could also be more of a surrogate father/daughter thing, rather than romantic, thus filling in more of Talbot’s excised role (but again, without the grooming) while still keeping an air of mystery around Merrick.

I guess I was just thinking about how Game of Thrones was able to recast/upgrade Dean Charles Chapman from playing Martyn Lannister to playing Tommen Baratheon and this could be a similar opportunity to create a sort of full circle moment for an OG cast member, while sort of winking at the audience.

Or maybe it would all be annoyingly meta I dunno lol.

[twh-news]

'Loki' Full Season 1 Review: The Most Frustrating Thing Is How Incomplete the Story Feels

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Loki, "For All Time. Always."

[TWH-NEWS note: Tom is NOT confirmed to be on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness even though the article so claims. Marvel hasn't confirmed it.]

The Loki season finale is perhaps one of the most vexing episodes of television I have seen in quite some time. The Disney+ sci-fi drama, tracking the events following Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) escape from the pre-established timeline, was never confirmed to be an ongoing show versus a limited series, with rumors of a second season on the horizon from the beginning, so the biggest twist delivered by "For All Time. Always." ended up being confirmation of a Season 2 with a post-credits title card.

However, while there were other key reveals made during the episode, those reveals left behind plenty of story to explore in future seasons. Too much story. There's a difference between a few dangling plot threads and a mess of string, and the staggering number of questions left unresolved by "For All Time. Always." crosses a line when it comes to completion — especially given the fact that there's no clear sense of when the show might return, and the real story being told is much bigger than the fate of one mischievous scamp.

In general, every episode of this show was beautifully made, with immense credit going to director Kate Herron, head writer Michael Waldron, and the creative team. The cast of known all-stars like Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, blended with new all-stars like Sophia Di Martino and Wunmi Mosaku, did a remarkable job of grounding even the most fantastical moments in raw humanity, and the writing popped with verve and wit. Also, Loki does come full circle on what was its original raison d'etre — the redemption of a character who literally was plucked out of the timeline at his worst, having attacked Manhattan with an alien force so destructive that the Earth needed a whole damn team of superheroes to stop him. On this score, the show was wildly successful, breaking down Loki's sense of grandeur and purpose in the first episode and then slowly but surely rebuilding him into a man capable of evolving beyond his past. Loki did more to examine a single character's psychology and motivations than we've ever seen in the context of the MCU, and all of the progress and growth made by the character, as a result, feels truly earned.

However, if Loki's redemption was the only thing this show had been about, it would have been a very boring show, and Loki was far from boring. The official theme of the series was "What makes a Loki a Loki?" but the real issues being raised were far more existential; in so many ways, this was a show about faith and free will, an undercurrent that deserves more exploration and frankly appreciation, especially after the questions and themes left dangling by the last episode.

This element proved to be key to so much of the show's construction, especially when it comes to the TVA, which basically functions as a religious order — its devotees slavishly sacrificing their lives to the cause of protecting the Sacred Timeline. It's not subtle, especially when the dark side of it is revealed, those devotees learning that their service happened against their will. "We can't take away people's free will, can't you see that?" Mobius pleads with Ravonna in their final scene together, before she walks away in something resembling agreement with him, telling him that she's going in search of free will herself.

Loki Season 1, by the end, becomes a show not just about a crisis of faith, but about an apocalypse. Every time a story about apocalypses comes up, I find it impossible to forget that the Greek word from which the term originates actually means "revelation." That's why the part of the Bible about the world ending is called the Book of Revelations, but beyond that, the definition serves as a reminder of why endings can matter. Endings are beginnings, in some ways. A painful breakup reveals the flaws in what might have seemed like a loving relationship. Extreme climate change is a revelation regarding humanity's callous attitude towards its impact on the environment. For the characters of Loki — perhaps the entire MCU — the apocalypse they're facing following the destruction of the Sacred Timeline also means the revelation of what lives they left behind.

Certainly there's a ton of room for speculation as to what lies ahead for these characters, but the fact is that the next chapter of Loki's journey won't even be told on Disney+, as Hiddleston is reportedly in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and there's no telling when we might return to resolve the events of the Season 1 finale. Cliffhangers are one thing; anyone who grew up watching '90s TV learned the hard way how to handle the dramatic season endings of The X-Files or Star Trek: The Next Generation. But Loki didn't dangle its characters off a cliff — it pushed them off the edge, leaving them suspended in mid-air for who knows how long.

Back in the days of The X-Files you at least knew that whatever jaw-dropping cliffhanger the season finale had just delivered would be addressed by the season premiere in just a few months. (Maybe as many as six months, depending on the baseball season.) That's a sense of certainty that Loki fans do not have the luxury of enjoying; based on where the conversations around a second season currently stand, it could be a while before the contracts are even signed. Conservatively, at this point, it feels unlikely that we'll get a second season of Loki until near the end of 2022, and given that the first season took over two years from its announcement to now to actually debut, 2023 doesn't feel like too much of a stretch. Maybe Owen Wilson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw get to make cameos in Doctor Strange 2 as well? Nothing is possible and everything is possible. We just have to wait for the answer, and in the meantime stew in dissatisfaction.

"Only one person gets free will. The one in charge," Ravonna tells Mobius — implicitly referring to He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). Who, speaking of, is now dead, Sylvie having completed her one primary quest to revenge herself upon the ones who took her life away. That, combined with the Wizard of Oz parallels, makes this a show that's fascinating to parse (Sylvie literally killed God!), but frustratingly incomplete in its themes. Literally as the episode officially ended on the visage of Kang enshrined as the ruler of the TVA, I said out loud "Well, there's going to be a Season 2," and I suppose that thanks are owed to Marvel and Disney+ for not leaving that element in suspence for more than two minutes and two seconds.

But if I have a religion, it's my belief in the power of storytelling, how the myths we create for ourselves and others can shape lives and hopefully make them better. One tenet of that is the idea that great stories deserve some sense of completion. So, the first season of Loki committed a pretty grievous sin.