Elcia's Diary

He tells Jinu he can be "good enough". Presumably, leaving Jinu to fill in the blanks with assumptions concerning what that means in practice. We see this by the way Jinu tells the story. The first time we get it, it's told as "I sold my soul to get my family a safe, hunger free, comfortable step up in the world". I think THAT is what Jinu believed he was signing on for. That was what he was willing to sacrifice. Himself. For his mother and sister to live, and live better than if he hadn't.

That is not what he got and it's the negative emotions therein that Gwi-Ma used to control him for so long. Which is probably why he gets his soul back the second he DOES manage to sacrifice himself for someone he cares deeply for/wants to provide a better life for/wants to protect.

As Jinu repeats the story we are subsequently allowed more steps back to see a clearer picture of what actually happened. And I think the shock of how fundamentally wrong he'd been is the biggest thing holding him back. That moment where his mother drags his crying sister away. The soldiers' weapons come down and he is hit full force with "I've fucked up". You see it in his face later around that food filled table where the other court boys were having a good time.

I don't think he wanted to let them go. I think he was so stunned by the depths of his 'I've fucked up' it paralyzed him into inaction. A perfectly normal human response. We have turns of phrase to describe it. "Moving in slow motion" "couldn't drag my eyes away" "like watching a train wreck" It's the unreferenced third option to fight or flight... "Deer in the headlights"

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

It's sooooo cool.

For folks who don't know, more than one culture has a variation on a similar old theme: A group of 7 people, usually women, sisters, have some sort of issue that usually renders them reduced to only 6.

The story of 7 Sisters' is associated with a star cluster which today only has 6 visible star. But ancient humans weren't stupid they were just describing a change in their environment. At some point a particular generation lost the ability to see the 7th star. And a story to explain it ensued.

It's just that... That happened... 10,000 years ago... Humans watched a star stop appearing in the sky 10k years ago and explained it via story. Very very very similar stories.

I've got a head canon.

Disney's 1991 Beauty and the Beast movie is secretly about the Lost Dauphin. The Beast's name is Charles, Louis Charles. It's post revolution France. The costuming says so. *Waves metaphorical receipts

If someone uses this idea, remember to be kind and credit @elcias-diary for the inspiration!

I have just enough of the right kind of niche knowledge to know that the movie costumes are best described as simplified turn of the 19th century clothes. The concept art is squarely mid 1700s, the live action clearly ran with that 1740s look. But the animation's ballet flats, tiny puff sleeves, cutaway and tail coats... I could go on and on. Don't get me started... Are all late 1790s - early 1800s in their looks. Only odd piece out is the gold ball gown which reads much more mid 1800s.

I literally have a painting saved of three girls from 18-o-something¹ that scream the town triplets right down to wearing three different colored dresses. Their aprons in the animated movie could be the excessively sheer variety that was popular for a time.

I could probably design character sheets for a Lost Dauphin angle. But I would need to do so much more research in order to write about the era properly. At least to do it any kind of justice and not embarrass myself.

But ..... Yo..... Do you know anything about the Lost Dauphin? I did a rabbit hole expedition a few years back where I read everything wikipedia and any history blogs I could find had to say about the boy. And being cursed in a fantasy historical fiction piece would fit his story perfectly. His birthday is in March which I feel would even work perfectly for the animated BatB.

I'm conspiracy theory red string board meme levels of feral for this head canon y'all don't even understand!!!

Holy shmolly…

Lets not forget metromans—

And Roxanne’s loft (love the blue atmosphere)

Ciro Nieli ("Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!", Warner Bros Animation "Teen Titans", Marvel Animation "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes", Nickelodeon Animation Studios "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Hasbro Entertaiment "Transformers Earthspark") shared concept art of a proposed "Gargoyles" reboot/sequel series that he pitched at Disney Television Animation in 2020.

Sadly the project would get passed due the COVID-19 cuts at Disney Television Animation alongside an original show idea he had "Weirdo Pizza". These cuts also affected other scrapped projects like "Weird Waters" by Jacob Hair and Bob Bowen, "Planet Runaway" and a Untitled "Lockjaw/Marvel" project by Ben Balistreri as well a yet to be revealed project by "Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil" and "Gravity Falls" alumni Sage Cotugno.

A live-action reboot of the series for Disney+ is currently in development at Disney Television Studios and Atomic Monster with Gary Dauberman (Warner Bros "Anabelle" franchise, Paramount Pictures "Street Fighter") as showrunner and James Wan and Michael Clear (A24 "Backrooms") as executive producers. Dauberman would mention that the project was still alive in April 2025 during Wondercon 2025.

"Back in 2020 I was working at Disney TV Animation development. One of the projects I touched upon was the now classic, Gargoyles. My pitch was a respectful and simple continuation of the series: Canmore, with the Grimorium Arcanium, casts the Gargoyles back into a deep sleep while he overtakes the 5 Burroughs of NYC with crime lords and monster beasts. 25 years later, in 2020, once police commissioner, Eliza Masa, raises the Gargoyles from their spell and the fight to take back the city begins. The art choice was a streamlined look, because I wanted full 2D animation and was reluctant to change the established core aesthetic. Unseen here is Goliath had lost his arm and replaced it with a cybernetic one." - Ciro Nieli

This pitch just sounds very Ninja Turtles and not very Gargoyles, to me. One of the core parts of Gargoyles, from episode one of the show, was "don't judge a book by its cover" as in "these things that look like scary monsters are actually sweet and kind." They didn't generally fight monsters on the show, one of the main villains of series was the rich handsome seemingly nice guy billionaire intentionally positioned as a Bruce Wayne type for them to rug pull you on when it turns out he's the main villain. The "monsters" of the show were the seemingly good people who were in fact exploiters. And also bigotry, that was the big monster of the show, and at the end of season 2 we saw that's where the series was going with the Gargoyles being outed to the world with bigots ready to kill them in their sleep.

So a new series that's about them fighting monsters and crime lords just doesn't sound great (imo the least interesting minor villains of the show were the mobsters).

And that's ignoring the canon mistakes in this pitch (the Grimorium was destroyed, Canmore's one goal is killing Gargoyles as revenge and not sending them to sleep nor ruling a criminal empire), and that it sounds more like a follow-up to the non-canon terrible 3rd season "The Goliath Chronicles" than anything from the original series.

Duke's dad was abusive and neglectful. Even when Duke thought he was taking his life into his own hands his father sets it up so that Duke stays right under him thumb. Even the few occasions he does show up its only to convince Duke to become a serial killer, he didn't care how he just wanted the bloodshed to continue.

Nathan only had his father for most of his life. While he knows he cared to some extent he was never emotionally avaliable, which can be seen and a typical toxic man trait, it isn't helpful when your sons trouble is what it is. He's one of the main reasons that Nathan's trouble effected his emotions to such and extent. To make matters worse its revealed that he lied to him for most of his life, and then he died without really any explanation resulting in Nathan having to do the same thing as Duke and look into the mirror of himself that does nothing but hurt people. Both options for Nathan's father seemed like bad ones to him for a long time because of this.

Every idderation of Mara's (I hate that I have to use her as the base but in this context she is) personalities had one thing in common, they all saw Agent Howard as a sort of father figure. This makes it all the more hurtful when every single time, its revealed to her that he's not on her side. He's just there to make sure she gets to Haven and then into the Barn. He'll threaten everything she loves just to get him to do what he wants. Which is both great foreshadowing and extremely manipulative. So when Croatian shows up doing almost the same thing, acting like he cares just to get what he wants, its actually not much of a surprise that Audrey believes that he's changed his ways so quickly. That thought process is unhelpfully ingrained in her.

"Howell Jenkins played rugby for Swansea University, and his doctoral thesis was on Spells -- his first degree was in Philosophy (probably Philosophy with something-or-other, but his interest was philosophy). One day he found himself being pursued by the four brothers of a young lady he'd played ever so slightly fast-and-loose with (no surprises there) who were chanting "Blood for Blod!" as they chased him down the street. Each of them was a huge forward who seemed to plan to use Howell's head for a ball.

Luckily a wing can generally run faster than a forward, and he stayed ahead of them as he made for the shelter of his sister's house, galloping up the steep streets and skidding on the corners like a centaur. He wasn't a magical practitioner in Wales, but he had been reading some particularly interesting spells that week, and as he ran he recited one of them; his hand on the doorknob of the house he intended to take refuge in, he cried out the final word of this spell, and as the door opened found that instead of his sister's hall, it opened into Mrs. Pentstemmon's foyer.

Since the pursuit was hot on his heels, he didn't hesitate, but dived through the door and slammed it behind him.

So now we know. That's how he got into Ingary. Of course, once he had demonstrated such powerful and completely untrained magical ability, Mrs. P had to train him, or there was no telling what trouble he might cause by accident.

Like??? It has EVERYTHING -this show is about a found family of criminal anti-capitaliststrying to decide who they are and what kind of people they want to be.

It’s about identity, and follows the conflict between who people used to be and who they are. Almost every main character has to decide if they want to go by a chosen name or their given name, and their reasons are all very different and interesting imo.

There’s betrayal, there’s a whole arc centered around royal court machinations with lots of swordplay

It’s also a space western!

There’s duels AND shootouts AND epic space battles

also some romance if that’s your thing but if not dw it’s there but not treated as like… more important than other relationships yknow?

It is ACAB all the way. there’s queer main characters AND one of the best autism/ND robot allegories I’ve ever seen.

Like seriously, if you like science fiction and stories about identity and belonging that are really fun and really cool you should watch dark matter you won’t regret it.