#i decided to rewatch tfp and this is the result

[stephart09]

One Shall Stand

[quetzalpapalotl]

Best TF continuity: GO!

Well of course I gotta mentio IDW1, my beloved, which is a mess, but a mess I hold dear. The one I think about the most, it has a lot of boring-bad stories that I can nevertheless pull through because I'm so lore obsessed and I just need one writer to do a character right to like everything they appear in by default and work with it. Also Aligned, because TFP is just a good show that I love and I'm always up to rewatch and also I don't really like anything else in this continuity. There is Earthspark which I'm eating up, there is Cyberverse, so fun, etc.

Really all continuities have something going for them and they all go for very different things so is unfair to compare them. Also, they all suck. IDW2 is the best one, no question.

For one, IDW2 is the one that feels more congruent, unlike... yeah, everything else. It feels like a world that exists on its own right, and not like its facets are only there for the sake of the plot. It has the best worldbuilding. This is where Ruckley's background as a high fantasy novelist shines. Even JRo introduces stuff with seemingly no regards for its universe implications, even when Barber is known for wrangling continuity he sometimes makes it messier. IDW2 had great direction and it was mostly developed by a guy who knew what he was doing.

And it's a great world!! It introduces fascinating concepts! Even people who don't like it are eating the mentor stuff. It has a lot of focus on Cybertronians relationship with organics which is one of my favorite things. How scary these beings are. Exarchon as a punishment a la IDW1 Unicron. I love the conflict. I love that Cybertron decided expansionism was not very cash money actually, and the Deceticons went "we want it back, actually". A great take on the default "Decepticons exploit other planets, Autobots stop them" without the weird cold war stuff. I love that Megatron is a fascist manchild that commits terrorism and then blames the goverment for it. The Autobots aren't perfect, but they're still very much the good guys. The political landscape makes sense for them being alien robots.

And all of the stories in it are good. Yes, the main comic kind of drags at the beginning as a result of Ruckley still writing like he would a novel. But is easy to get through when you don't have to wait for it, and it gets really good once he gets the hand of serialized comics. The later battles felt pretty exciting, and I'm not much of one for actions because I struggle to follow along. I like the ensemble cast. The side stories are lovely and really enrich the world. It makes you care. Like, every product of of this continuity is of quality. It managed to stick the landing despite cancellation. But on the plus side, it has now been sealed as a relatively small and straighforward continuity.

Anyway, if you excuse me, I will be forever crying that Ruckley never managed to do so much of what he had planned. Specially all that stuff with the Cybertronians and organics and finding humans in space and who sent Exarchon (the quints) and the mythos and all that.

。゜゜(´Ｏ`) ゜゜。

[firebunnylover]

LoSH S2 discussion

I love Legion of Superheroes. And i love season 2, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about how it could have been improved. In terms of quality, it varies more than season 1. Some parts are top tier while others… eh.

Season 2 is darker than season 1. And there’s the inherent stigmatism that darker means better. But it’s not true.

A horror schlock film is not inherently better than an animated film.

I don’t blame the staff on all its shortcomings. Kids WB was on its deathbed, so they probably had less time to work and iron out ideas. And executive meddling.

The second season had a lot of good elements, but there are things that weighed it down. I am here to discuss how to improve said things.

Heads up: ended up editing part of this post after rewatching the episodes.

This first bit is more of a personal preference, but instead of the 41st century, maybe move the original source of conflict to a farther region of space, one that the UP doesn’t interact with, and has been growing in terms of turmoil until they finally resort to bringing the Legion over. In other words, it has just been put aside by everyone else to the last minute.

Parallel to Brainy’s relationship to Brainiac. He doesn’t want to deal with it. He never brings it up. But maybe if he did, he wouldn’t have gotten corrupted.

This place still has plenty of old documentation of the original age of superman, so Kell is disillusioned with the ideal glory days. Keep Kell Edgy.

Kell’s home and K3NT still gets destroyed - reflects Krypton’s own destruction.

SPEAKING OF KELL:

Make his story more apparent that it’s one realizing that kindness is not an inherent weakness. And neither is being soft. He was raised for fighting and killing Imperiex, and was taught to think that they were weaknesses. Have him realize his identity can be beyond the Clone of Superman made to kill Imperiex. Or rather, have him react more to realizing that he’s moving beyond his given identity.

To clarify; they do address his development in the show a few times, but I want more continuous development instead of the rapid nods we get. Have him try to interact in a more humane way with others. Especially with other members of the Legion. Where they have to take a double take in seeing him acting not that edgy. Maybe offer more flashback of him fighting Imperiex in comparison, and how he treated allies then.

Also put K3NT’s story under the microscope. I doubt Imperiex just came out of nowhere with his attacks. Plus the fact they went far enough to send a hitman after a fucking child? That screams yikes and maybe we need to double check the story.

And an overall issue to be addressed is what rights do robots have and what conditions need to be met? Because let’s face it, we make robots to do complex work for us. But Colu is a culture where the main people ARE robots. Like in Transformers. What line do we draw between non-sentient robots vs the sentient ones in the 31st century? And what about cyborgs/people who give up their original bodies for robotic ones?

Plus Imperiex himself came to be because of the perfected combination of organic tissue and robotics. This topic of robots and individuality/personhood could have been a fun topic to explore.

Don’t sideline the girls. Leave TG alone. 

Don’t put SG in a coma for nearly the whole season - seriously it’s the reason why the guys make one bad decision after the other. Although with that said, it’s because she’s not around we got the majority of s2 plots. She’s the goddamn mom of the squad. Just make her busier and unable to keep an eye on her idiot boys for the plots based on bad decisions to happen. 

Or have her deal with after-effects of what Esper did to her. Maybe after a whole season of being the emotional support character, have her be the one in need of emotional support or not being able to help directly, especially when the group needs emotional support. Emotional support paradox.

Maybe don’t make Cosmic Boy appear as much as a dick in the episodes where he does show up. He’s trying to hold this goddamn team together, and there’s a goddamn tyrant trying to conquer the galaxy. HE’S FUCKING TIRED AND STRESSED. AND IM SURE THERE ARE A BUNCH OF JERKS WHO WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO DISSOLVE THE LEGION. Better yet, throw in some more backstory with him and his little brother Pol!

And in regards to Imperiex… The dude has a lot of potential. I like his voice actor, Phil Morris. The guy voiced Dr. Sweets from Atlantis.

But his writing needs help.

In the original DC comics, he’s the embodiment of Entropy. Anyone who’s seen Madoka is probably familiar with what that is. But if you're not, here’s a definition: “ the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work...” He’s the embodiment of that energy that cannot be used for anything. And Entropy grows over time.

Another definition of what Entropy is “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

In the comics, he’s more of a cosmic being as a result of him being an embodiment of unusable energy. He’s been in existence since, well, the beginning. He had destroyed the universe and recreated it multiple times. Okay, so that lines up with how the show portrays him. And technically, he does get the universe to reset itself in the 41st century when he alters the 31st century enough.

But I personally feel that making him a cosmic being is kinda… meh?

I personally prefer more personal villains most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, an Eldritch being done right makes a great character, but I can’t see Imperiex as one. At least not LoSH’s version.

Plus I like it when the protagonist sees the villain has a point and has changed as a result for the better.

You know, over a year ago, I used to think that it was impossible to make a tyrannical villain who’s presented as real evil seem complex.

And then… I was introduced to TFP Megatron.

Now for you LoSH fans who haven’t watched Transformers Prime, Megatron was once Megatronus. A low caste member who worked in the mines and Gladiator games. He wanted to fix the growing corruption of Cybertron. To make things better.

But his worse personality traits took over, and he lost that good motivation. Now he’s just fighting to win and defeat Optimus Prime. 

But despite the change of goals and ideals, he doesn’t want to simply abandon his relationship with Optimus. He and Optimus, or as he used to be called, Orion, were fighting for the betterment of society. And they meant something to each other. Megatron doesn’t want to just get it over with. He wants fanfare for his victory over Optimus. And he doesn’t want anyone else to rob him off that. But he isn’t opposed to getting Optimus/Orion back on his side. It’s because of this you can still argue that there is a remaining shred of good in him.

They were the best young lovers anD NO I AM NOT CRYING OVER THEM!

Also, the fact we know he was part of a minority group in the form of the lower cast  that was enslaved can make us sympathize with Megatronus of the past, as well as understand how he came to be.

It doesn’t mean we forgive him for his actions - and he has done a lot of shitty things. And I mean a lot.

But his history is more understandable. TFP Megatron’s a fall from grace.

OK I’m done dissecting TFP Meg’s writing.

We know Imperiex was a slave, and was originally organic, who’s from a society where his purpose is literally just to fight, and was gradually stripped of his original body. He was originally stripped of any agency before then though.

But he says this was a good thing. Calling his original body a weakness. And refers to his old self as a pathetic slave.

He gave up whatever softness he had.

Also, this is where K3NT’s story needs to be reexamined. Imperiex was made during what K3NT described as “A Time of Extended Prosperity”. That time had freaking slaves. And K3NT says that when Imperiex did rise up, they were unprepared. So… they were prosperous, but lacked defense to prevent anything like that happening? Or perhaps those who were in charge were that unpopular that it was easy for Imperiex to start the war.

What made him decide conquering the galaxy was the next thing to do after he had every bit of his original self stripped away? Why go as far as destroy it?

What I’m trying to say is that they could borrow a few pages from the Megatron book. Maybe he was once trying to better the society he was part of, but he decides to play the violent card at some point. And somewhere along that strategy, he starts to lose sight of the initial goal. With that, being the victor and in control becomes the main one.

Or perhaps he has grown cynical of the galaxy as it is and decides it just needs to go all together, and then start from scratch.

Like the second definition of Entropy, he gradually declines in predictability and descends into disorder.

Maybe to juxtaposition the fact that Brainiac became the main threat at the end, make him the opposite or foil to him. Rationality or logic do not serve as first-or-second influences to decisions under pressure. Emotions and his own perceived ideas do.

Speaking of Brainiac, maybe offer more of the OG Brainiac. Give us more of that smooth-voiced Corey Burton. 

Or TFA Megatron.

Seductive Bastard.

I’m sorry I have fallen for the shady-business-mafia-boss-but-morally-grey robot.

Also, the members of the legion that only get one episode focus? Give them more screen time. You can’t just introduce superman’s new adopted son Karate Kid and just not bring him for another speaking role again!

Actually, that brings me to another point.

As @spandexinspace​ pointed out, his episode is not the best, and is arguably the worst written of the whole series. Things that are issues do get brushed off to the side.

So a proposal on potential rewrite:

First, have the legion look over its current rules and what exceptions/changes they need to make.

Explore the subject of kids having to participate in these fights.

To clarify, kid shows are meant to be escapism for kids.

Shocking, I know.

So it makes sense that some characters would be the same age as the viewers. 

But while this is good representation, as you get older, you find yourself going “WHY WOULD THE ADULTS LET THEM ENDANGER THEMSELVES?!”

Kids having to fight at that age does have consequences. Batman Beyond certainly addressed it. So did Steven Universe Future.

Steven ended up being responsible for so much, that when he no longer needed to take care of things, he was unsure of who he was. And then there’s the fact he ended up with PTSD because of him having to fight so much. Then you have the fact that Greg and Rose never intended to raise him like their caretakers did... but as good as their intentions were, they still caused damage. Rose for… all the gem stuff. And look, Greg is a great dad, but not enforcing anything for Steven when he’s growing up still has it’s cost.

With Batman, he’s obviously going to do his damn best to keep kids safe, including the Robins. But sometimes, it’s not enough. He wasn’t able to keep Tim safe in the event with the Joker in Batman Beyond. Where he was held captive and tortured.

But the Batkids are never expected to resolve this stuff by themselves. Because Batman knows how much you can get screwed up as a kid. He fucking cares.

And to be fair, in most continuities I’m aware of, the other sidekicks came out pretty okay overall.

Except Jason Todd.

So my proposal?

Have Val originally with Grimbor, as a sort of Protege. But have the legion capture him, only to go “uhhh this is a child with no powers”. And Superman, being the good, wholesome paragon we all love, takes him under his wing.

In all honesty, I want Superman pulling a batdad for Karate Kid in his intro episode the whole time. That was the best part of the episode for me.

Plus after the events of “Cry Wolf”, the Legion should examine the no-killing rule. Because they do need to kill Imperiex to save the universe. But that goes against the code. But they can argue it’s a necessity. But Mar Londo is also a monster. He’s the everyday monster some of us have grown up with.

When do you need to make exceptions to kill someone?

And my final main suggestion:

Add more Mekt.

What the heck were you guys expecting? You all KNOW me by now. I LOVE MY GARBAGE BOY.

Joking aside, here’s what I would do.

Have the Chained Lightning episode pushed back, but have Mekt with Imperiex earlier. Most of us would yell “Why the heck would you join the guy whose main goal is to destroy the galaxy?!” But this is one of the easiest things to address.

Explore more of his past. Use the comic sources with him being outcast for being a solo on Winath. With that in mind, him deciding to side with Imperiex can make sense.

Why try protecting something that has done nothing but hurt you?

There’s actually a pretty good reason why he would side with Imperiex, as seen in Champions and Lightning Storm. Remember, Mekt was willing to cheat to get ahead of the sports competition he was introduced in. And also was thrilled when fighting Garth and was beating him on his own. He likes being in power.

Imperiex offers him that.

As for why Imperiex would bother with Mekt? That’s a little harder to answer. He knows that Mekt has a soft spot for his brother, and in turn sister, which proves to be the reason why the Tachyon Cannon fails. You’d think Imperiex would remove a huge fatality.

But he doesn’t.

Maybe he could hold another type of value for Mekt. Perhaps... nostalgia?

I’m still sold on the idea that they were sleeping together.

Also, give us a conclusive answer on where Mekt stands with the LSV. In the comics, he was the leader, but that role was given to Tyr in the cartoon more or less.

OK I think this has been polished enough for me to post now. What you guys think? Feel free to add on!

[ebaeschnbliah]

________________________________________________________________

Last week I read another one of @sagestreet 's wonderful metas. Darth Vader ('Sherlock')  In my comment I refered to the Klingons and the Cowboys in black hats, who are also mentioned in that scene in TFP. If 'Darth Vader' is of meaning (which I'm convinced of) then the Klingons and the Cowboys with the black hats are most likely of meaning too. This thought wouldn't leave my head. Until I remembered having already seen a Klingon wearing a black hat .... Lieutenant Commander Worf from the starship Enterprise. I rewatched the episode where this occurs and now I'm a bit blown away.

Some keywords ...

Klingons - black hats - fathers and sons - the android who desires to feel emotions - positronic brain malfunction - empath in the role of the mysterious stranger - the Wild West - a son in prison - a son abducted - crossdressing - inside a created story - suddenly it's not a game anymore - character shifting - reluctantly wearing a hat to play a role - no, no, no, this is too easy - Spot the cat ....

Favourite Quote: Data when asked about Geordi's slowly growíng beard:

"As is the case with many natural growth processes, it is difficult to envision the end product based on an intermediate stage."

In case you are interested, feel free to engage in Star Trek TNG, Season 6, Episode 8:

A Fistful of Datas

________________________________________________________________

About Lieutenant Commander Data

Data is an android - a machine - who desires nothing more than to become human one day and to experience emotions. Data is also a great admirer of Sherlock Holmes. Especially of his ability to solve mysteries by careful examination of the available evidence. He loves to quote Holmes (x  x) and he played that character on the holodeck (x) However, Sherlock Holmes doesn't feature in this episode .... but maybe the episode features in Sherlock BBC. Unless, of course, it's just coincidence ...

.

A sheduled appointment is postponed for two days. Many members of the Enterprise are taking advantage of the delay to pursue their own projects.

La Forge and Data get the permission to experiment on a new interface between Data’s positronic brain and the ship’s computer. This would allow Data to act as an emergency backup in the event of a ship-wide systems failure. Soon it turns out that this experiment causes some computer problems. Parts of the ship’s computer get altered and are replaced by Data’s personal programming. Systems affected by the malfunction are the library, the replicator selection and the recreational programming ... the holodeck. Nothing critical, it would seem.

As a result ….

a piece of Mozart changes to Dvorak’s The Slavonic Dances, because Data had been analysing the collected works of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak.

a theatre play is replaced by Data’s poem 'Ode to Spot’, dedicated to his cat.

the replicators on some decks are producing nothing but the cat food Data had been formulating for Spot. (X)

an interaction between Data’s personal programming and the programming of  the holodeck occurs. It replaces parts of Data’s memory structures with the files that are currently activated. Files related to the nineteenth century American West. Suddenly Data's behaviour changes and he starts talking like someone out of that time, using terms like ... 'Howdy, Commander' ... 'You got it, partner' ... 'Vamoose, you little varmint' ... 'Commander. You just sit tight. We'll have this all fixed up in time for supper'

About Lieutenant Commander Worf and his son Alexander

The relationship between father and son is a difficult one. Alexander was raised by his mother K'Ehleyr, a half-human half-klingon embassador of the Klingon Empire. Worf, an orphan himself and raised by humans on Earth, didn’t know for years about the existance of his son. Soon after K'Ehleyr revealed the truth to Worf she got killed. Worf acknowleded his son but sent him away to Earth to be raised by his own former foster parents. Some time later Alexander is brought back to the Enterprise. Worf learns that there are difficulies, problems with adjusting, that his adoptive parents feel too old for the challenge to deal once again wth a Klingon child … in short, Alexander needs his father. At first Worf doesn’t feel ready nor competent enough to deal with the new situation. He decides to send Alexander away again. This time to a Klingon school. Then he reconsiders the decision and both - father and son - agree to face their relationship problems together. This is why - one day - Alexander programmes an adventurous play on the holodeck which he can take on together with his father …. who is not very enthusiastic about it.

Deadwood. Nineteenth century Earth. The Ancient West

WORF: What is our function here? ALEXANDER: You’re the Sheriff and I’m the deputy. WORF: So, we are in law enforcement. ALEXANDER: Right.

And so the programme starts like many Western stories …. a little town under a glaring sun ... a sheriff and his deputy are walking slowly down a deserted main street.

The sound of a gunshot from the saloon ... a man on the piano ... poker players ... a mysterious stranger ... some bad guys who aren’t really a match for sheriff Worf. Alexander doesn't like it.

ALEXANDER: No, no, no. Computer, freeze programme. WORF: What is wrong? ALEXANDER: That was too easy. It has to be harder to beat the bad guys. Otherwise, it’s no fun. Computer, increase programme difficulty to level four. Go back to where my father and I first walked into the saloon. Come on, Father.

Alexander and Worf leave the saloon and the programme starts once more. This time the bad guys are clearly more dangerous and not as easy to subdue. The owner of the saloon is a woman called Annie.

Unexpected for Worf - not for Alexander - they receive help from a woman with a gun. She is DeannaTroi, who serves as  ship’s councelor aboard the Enterprise. As a half-Betazoid, Deanna Troi is capable of extra-sensory empathy. Alexander asked her to join them because Counsellor Troi loves Western stories.

TROI: My father used to read me stories from the Ancient West when I was a little girl. I must admit, I always wanted to play the part of the mysterious stranger. 

Eli Hollander, the bad guy, gets arrested. Sheriff Worf, deputy Alexander and Durango, the mysterious stranger, lock him up in the prison cell. As it turns out, Eli Hollander has a dad as well.

ELI: Frankly, I don’t think I’ll be around here that long. Not after my old man hears about this. WORF: What old man are you referring to? ELI: My pa. When he breaks me out of this tin can, the gravedigger’ll be working overtime.

At this point things start getting out of hand because of the experiment Data and La Forge are cónducteding. Deputy Alexander goes missing.

In the saloon sheriff Worf meets Frank Hollander, Eli’s dad, and learns that the man has abducted his deputy. Most alarming is the fact that Frank Hollander looks like Commander Data.

DATA-FRANK: I ain’t in the mood for games, Sheriff.

And indeed, this isn’t a game anymore. The holodeck safeguards are out of order. Worf gets shot in the arm and is actually injured. They are in trouble and it gets worse. When Worf comes back to the prison, Eli Hollander has also transformed into Data. 

Desperately but without success they try to end the programme. There is only one hope.

TROI: We have to remember, even though the holodeck safeguards may be off, this is still a programme. If we can just get to the end of this story the way it was designed to play out, the programme will automatically terminate.

And so they play along as best they can. Data-Frank Hollander visits his son Data-Eli in prison to comfort him and to propose an exchange with the abducted deputy Alexander.

DATA-FRANK: You sit tight, boy. I’ll have you home in time for supper. (to Sheriff Worf) I’m going to give you one more opportunity, Sheriff, to avoid a ugly situation. Release my boy. WORF: I have reconsidered your offer. I will release your son in exchange for my deputy. DATA-FRANK: I thought you might have a change of heart. Meet me in two hours. You be in front of the saloon. I’ll be in front of the livery station. Strangers ain’t invited.

Two fathers and two sons meet under the glaring sunshine in the middle of a deserted main street.

Deanna Troi’s warning words turn out to be true … that villains in Western stories can’t ever be trusted.

TROI: They’re not concerned with honour, Worf. This is the Ancient West. There’s a gunfighter out there who has the speed and accuracy of an android. And in two hours, he’s going to try to kill you.

Data-Frank Hollander doesn’t come alone to reclaim his son. Another two outlaws are lurking near the street … behind a door, on top of a roof … waiting to interfere. And both of them have turned into Data’s as well.

Then the gunfight is over. As mentioned by Deanna Troi, the computer programme should automatically end now. Surprisingly, it doesn’t. It seems the story isn’t quite over yet.

To Worf’s utter shock and surprise, Annie, the lady who owns the saloon, approaches him. She hugs and kisses the sheriff enthusiastically …. and she too looks now like Data ….

DATA-ANNIE: Sheriff! You’re as handy with a shooting iron as you are with a woman’s heart. WORF: (panic-stricken) Computer, end programme! Computer! Now! 

After that strange adventure Alexander heavily doubts that his father will ever again engage with him in a similar play on the holodeck. Turns out … he is mistaken …

WORF: The town of Deadwood may face danger once again. If they do, they will need a sheriff and a deputy.

And back in the main room ..... in front of the mirror .... :)))

.... while the Enterprise flys off into the sunset of an alien star ....

Some intersting background information

The director of this episode is Patrick Stewart.

The episode title is an homage to the Clint Eastwood film A Fistful of Dollars.

The original title was The Good, the Bad and the Klingon, a paraphrase of the title of Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The plot is a homage to Rio Bravo.

In an interview Stewart mentions that for this episode he watched the movie Shane for inspiration regarding westerns. A scene from Shane was taken by Stewart and copied as the one where Alexander looks out of the bottom of the saloon doors.

I leave you to your own deductions.

Source of script (X)   Wikipedia (X)   Memory-Alpha (X)

Mai, 2018

@gosherlocked @sagestreet @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat @221bloodnun @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow

[may-shepard]

probably unpopular opinion but

Ever since my tfp rewatch, I’ve been developing a sneaking suspicion that it might turn out to be one of my favourite pieces of media ever. I am not kidding about that.

This is a direct result of my decision, sometime yesterday, to try applying the mind bungalow keycode to the episode, a la @the-7-percent-solution: Eurus is John’s repressed desire; the episode is John’s tab, etc., etc. It works so beautifully, shot for shot, the whole thing becomes a complex machine ticking its way toward one conclusion: John is desperate for Sherlock to save him, in every possible sense of that verb. 

But it isn’t only the fact that tfp works so wonderfully in this reading that makes me love it so much: it’s that you have to dig through the rubble of the text itself to find this beauty. I’ve been struck, since yesterday, with the way that mofftiss somehow managed to make a thing that is so ugly on the surface, so repellent, so grotesque, nonsensical, ridiculous, that the primary response to it will be to look away, hate it, and never reconsider it. 

In the history of storytelling, this is a very weird achievement. The storytelling me wants to sit down and pull it apart, and try to figure out how it was done. (I suspect the real answer to that question involved a lot of giggling and possibly a few dares, alongside, one hopes, some serious talk about the symbolic network the episode meticulously creates on a subtextual level. But, who knows?)

My point is, I hated tfp so much on first viewing that I returned my theatre tickets. (Still don’t regret that--I’m not making any predictions with this reading, and if the whole thing goes to pieces in the coming weeks, and they leave us with the cliffhanger of textual mess / subtextually dying John, well, that’s not something I want to support with actual dollars, however I might admire it as a singular piece of storytelling.) I could never have imagined that I would pull such a hardcore 180 when, yesterday, I sat down, and went through the episode carefully, beat by beat. (I would never have given it another look if it weren’t for this fandom. So grateful for you all.)

My suggestion is, if you can at all stomach it, give the episode another look, and see how the mind bungalow keycode reading works for you. 

I’ll close this already too-long post with some thoughts on what re-reading and reinterpretation can do, and why I’m motivated to promote this particular reading (besides that it’s just, you know, neat). I’m not fully tin hatting, although I want tin hattery to be true, and I’m super excited by the possibilities. I started the rewatch from the point of view that tfp did not sit well with me, and the idea that my experience of it certainly couldn’t get worse with a second viewing. I wanted to see if there was indeed anything to the idea that the episode might make some kind of sense. In other words, I wanted to see if I could make myself happier about it.

This from another iteration of the tfp rewatch post, in response to someone who said that they wished the mind bungalow reading were “true:” 

Here is my entire point. It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to work.

An interpretation of a literary text has value insofar as it creates meaning and is consistent with that text. This one does, and is, to a shocking degree. I’m quite pleased with it.

Other readings (like the one I had yesterday, that the show is confusing trash), can also create meaning, and be consistent with the text. Fortunately we get to decide which one we like better. We can let ourselves be persuaded by the stronger reading, or, heck, the one that makes us happy.

The really important thing here is to take it for what it’s worth, and use it if you want, to help you reframe the episode for yourself. That’s what I did today, and it helped a lot. That’s how you become an empowered member of the audience.