#obviously with my background being animation and to a more general sense film i'm going to make reference that more often

[starlightshore]

i'm trying to add some elements of literary/film allusions to my work because honestly it's just fucking cool and if someone wanted to analyze things they can try to figure out why it's included. that'd be baller

like, even if the audience doesn't understand why i add these references, they still add a layer of context and meaning that'd the story wouldn't have otherwise. how effective this is i have no idea! but i like to think it adds up.

that said i doubt my small audience (specifically to my new fanfic, i'm sure it'll grow eventually) is going to do so myself. this is probably self conceited but whatever

in chapter 2 i set up some references. spoilers to my fanfic obviously:

first two are set up for brick jokes and those don't fully work as references, but they'll have their own pay off.

Three Stooge Dudes - The Three Stooges. Punchline in a future chapter.

happy birthday cake - it's ironic since Danny's just died. Also missing it's punchline.

Back to the Past - Back to the Future. Foreshadowing this is a time travel story

Not mentioned by title, but the static TV is a reference to Poltergeist. Relevant for obvious reasons but specifically the house has become "haunted" by messing with the (un)dead. Something-something about the suburbs masking the horrors below paralleling making a portal to hell in your basement, to which the Fentons will later exploit without respecting the dead.

Also, they showed this horror movie to an 8 year old (dozens of times since) and said it was "milestone of both culture and science.” which is like, a completely unhinged thing to do frankly

Alfonse Hitchbock's Psychoed - Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. While the story is famous for it's incest/cross-dressing twist I'm not referencing that specifically. (Danny doesn't even watch the movie past the shower killing) it's more to do with transition from day to night, from "innocence" to the "underbelly" of the world. The scene is what moves us from day (having a childish, happy dinner) to the nigh-time horror about to happen soon.

And, most obviously, it's to build up/reveal the WDTAT incident being a stabbing.

I'll be honest when I started writing the chapter, I was only really inspired by the idea of a time loop. It's been a h/c I've had for this AU for AGES and this was my attempt as incorporating that in a self contained chapter. The symbolic implications of this weren't set out originally, but I realized it near the end of writing. (It was mostly written as a stream of consciousness, a vague idea of beginning-middle-end.)

It's a time loop. Timelines and the breaking of the universe's "rules" by merging the worlds of the living dead etc. that's all very important. the story is about transitioning, questioning the world and once's existence and our place within that.

Danny's repressing his ghost half. He denies his own ghost half and Gate's existence, he ignores the Shadow-Man until he breaks and attacks it. He doesn't embrace it, he alienates it and assumes it's hostile. He's literally destroying and demonizing himself.

I wrote a passage on how like, you can read the ID/ego/super ego reading of Psycho and pull a similar trick to this story, but I'm honestly not the MOSt read on the topic and also hate Freud for being a gross hack. anyway: basement = id = body = ghost half. whatever Danny's repressing id = the living room/kichen. The "normal" Danny he shows to people. superego = brains = bedroom. Danny reasons destroying his ID (ghost form) will purify/moralize his ego.

obviously Psycho's is a lot more twisted and nasty but it's probably(?) the most famous symbolism of the film. while the repression is vastly different, both end in stabbings

The ghost half could represent whatever the reader wants to self-project to. Be it a queer/trans lens, nerodivergency, general "otherness" from main western society. danny's 14, he's dealing with some shit. didn't we all?