Topic of conversation: world domination
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@moonlightreal
Topic of conversation: world domination
all you new fandom members need to QUIET DOWN oh my god you're going to get us KILLED. we're happy to have you but if you keep talking about BULLSHIT like PUBLISHING fanfic for MONEY, Anne Rice is going to come back from the dead to KILL US. looking at YOU, maurauders fans, heated rivalry fans, byler fans...out here giving out interviews to news channels SHUT UP. we're going to have to start setting off firecrackers to keep the rent down.
I'm not saying companies should crack down on fanartists, that's the last thing I want, but I am saying that anyone who hears "you can't make money off fanfic, you can't make money off fanfic, you can't make money off fanfic" and then walks through a convention's artists alley might experience some extremely reasonable confusion.
LJ Smith's fanfics?
So this turned up n the facebook:
I don't know if this is true. I don't know who any of these people are. I don't know if they knew Ms. Smith 30 years ago or if they are internet randoms making stuff up. LJ Smith was pretty young when she started getting published so there's not a huge window of time for her to write a lot of fanfic beforehand.
But google does bring up two titles: Witness and The Blink of an Eye, both published in the fanzine "Oblaque." Oh look, they're quite reasonable on ebay. The two stories are both dated 1990 on fanlore so... *checks release dates* after Night of the Solstice but before the first Vampire Diaries.
Looks like you may be able to read them here.
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction series, made about the time that Tom Baker was being Doctor Who. Blake is rebelling against the evil empire, gets captured, and is being transported to a prison planet or something when a mysterious alien ship appears. Blake and some other prisoners escape to the alien ship and find it empty with only a talking computer for company, so they use it to escape and continue their rebellion. It's not totally unlike Firefly if firefly was made at that time and without Whedon's banter writing.
Blake's 7 is notable for the fans yaoi-ing the heck out of Blake and the dark and grumpy Avon. They were such a popular ship that I knew about it before I understood the concept of shipping.
And Blake's 7 is being remade! It'll be a few years and it may still flounder as so many TV projects do, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.
(and seriously, if they do not get Morena Baccarin to play Servalan that'll be such a missed opportunity...)
Not sure what else to make of this other than damn it's tragic. If Ms. Smith was queer, and if she wanted to write queer stuff, she couldn't then but she could now except she can't because she's no longer with us. And she can't see if this Blake's 7 reboot's gonna be any good because she's no longer with us. Seriously grim reaper, this lady had stuff to do still you shouldn't've taken her.
Rainbowmoon's art
I just like this guy's stuff.
More ponderings
Chewing over things in the pilot that don't make sense, possibly starting to repeat myself, madness impends... I'm loving this so much.
Watching Hazbin Hotel like "I wonder how many pop culture magicians out there trying to work with Alastor and how that's going for them."
Those are weird powers
I have a job now! It’s manual labor, so while my manos are laboring my brain can spend my whole shift trying to think of a good explanation for Tia and Ben’s powers. Because they’re weird. Why did the writers pick these powers?
More thoughts
I had more thoughts. Of course I had more thoughts.
Easter Eggs and making a real Witch Mountain story
Easter eggs they should’ve did:
-Ben’s harmonica. Seriously writers, there is no reason Ben can’t have a harmonica. Playing music would give him the vibe of the “soulful bad boy” which is I think what the writers were going for with him anyway, and be a clue to the audience that he is Tony. It wouldn’t have to be anything to do with his powers, he could just play it. They could give Corey a casual instrument too.
-put movies with The Rock on in the background if the diner has TVs. I’m sure Disney owns a few movies with The Rock that they could use.
-Tia’s star box is an item that only appears in the book and the first movie, and it’s the only object the kids have that came with them from their planet. In the movie it’s just a decorative thing Tia carries with her and the map is engraved in metal under the star decoration.
In the book it’s much more practical, it’s a purse and since Tia can’t talk she carries little notebooks and pencils in it so she can communicate. It has a false bottom and under that their people hid money and a scrap of a paper map giving them clues where to go.
In the series the star box could be an item in Tia’s house that has a hidden compartment where her father hid something to give them clues. Probably a journal that he uses to remember their culture on the alien planet, maybe plans to escape the town, maybe warnings he writes for Tia in case he isn’t there when she grows into her powers. Or it could be a macguffin they need for the plot, like a stolen key to get into the secret base or an alien doodad that does whatever the kids need.
The box could be anything with the double star symbol on it. Could be a purse sized case but it could also be something Tia’s dad made. A big pottery jug with the macguffin baked between layers of clay to be revealed when the jug is smashed, a wooden box or desk with a secret compartment and the double star symbol carved on the side.
The double star could also be a secret logo the aliens us to identify themselves to each other and be a reminder of where they came from. Tia and friends are investigating the town and finding agents spying on them and making sure people don’t leave, but they could also start finding people who help them and may also have special abilities, and those people could use the double star.
I’m imagining the small group of aliens trying to hold onto their true selves and their true culture while being not allowed to talk about it and stuck in this town, I’m not sure if the real show would’ve gone that route but I like it, it works as a plot and has emotion to it.
-A Winnebago RV. Obviously needs to be the mode of transport if the kids escape the town going to travel to another settlement of aliens.
-Give Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann a cameo! Only in one episode, since I don’t think they’re acting as a career anymore. If there’s a scene where the kids get into the base under the mountain and find Tia’s dad and Ben’s mom, Kim and Ike could appear as other prisoners who also get released. If the kids go on a road trip, Kim and Ike could appear somewhere they stop, and help them on their way and give the agents false information, like their appearance in Race To.
But... Easter eggs are fun, but then there’s the bigger level, how could this show work in the deeper themes of a Witch Mountain story?
-Reverence for nature should be easy to fit in, since Vermont where the story is set and Vancouver where it was filmed has lots of gorgeous forests and maybe even some mist. It’s cold and foggy, not warm and foggy like Appalachia where we really should be, but good enough!
-Animals are hard, since working with an animal actor is a challenge and really expensive, especially for a long series instead of a short movie. So I can see why they didn’t decide Tia’s power should be animal communication, though I hope they thought about it. In the book Tia is beloved by animals, they are drawn to her-- not as a “power” but more because Tia is a magical creature herself. But you can’t really have that kind of character as your protagonist because you have to see all your protagonist’s fears and confusion
But Winkie is a black cat, so she could be played by several black cats... this seems do-able, Disney!
-A Witch Mountain story is a journey story, but while the kids go on a physical journey to Witch Mountain they’re also going on a figurative journey to knowing who they are and where they come from. That second type of journey would have happened in the show, but I wish we could have had the first type too. And maybe we would have in a later season. Once the kids figured out everything that was going on in their town they would’ve left to find their true home. In that way the series would have been a very Witch Mountain story, it just happens before the journey begins.
-The rich guy. And in the opposite direction, the series happens in the middle of a Witch Mountain story. The kids are, figuratively, living at Mr. Bolt’s house having a nice time but slowly realizing that they’re in danger. Or this could be an alternate story in which we see what would have happened if Mr. Bolt’s plans had succeeded! So in a way, we could have seen a ‘what if’ version of the story. Cool!
With these reflections I think the series could have been a very Witch Mountain story, a new take on the same themes. Though I have a feeling it would have enough shipping to make me roll my eyes... ah, I wish it hadn’t been canceled. I wish the pilot would get leaked. I did risk my computer by checking Pirate Bay just in case, but no joy. It had a million torrents for Race To and no torrents for Purple. C’mon guys, the real use of piracy should be to provide stuff that you can’t get legally! I’m disappointed in y’all.
This may be all my thoughts about the pilot. Or maybe not. But the other question is: to write a novelization or nah? I was going to do one for the show and I’m sure I could just skip the middle step. And a fanfic version would be a fanfic and wouldn’t disappear if Disney’s lawyers come for whoever posted the script.
powers, the spaceship, and the other kind of ships
These are the posts I wanted to write since 2022. If it hadn't got cancelled there would've been liveblogs for each episode too, but at least i get to write these.
The alien planet and the ending
Last post I put together an explanation for the mysterious town that works, whether or not it would have been canon in the show. (And you better believe I googled “Witch Mountain Disneyplus show bible”... but no luck.) But we need to figure out more stuff! Why did the UFO crash and drop the aliens here?
Witch Mountain 2022 ponderings
So Witch Mountain 2022 was what I was expecting. It’s just an alien kids story. A cool one, and I am so bummed we don’t get to see it, but not terribly Witch Mountainy.
The other reason I say this is “just” an alien kids story is that the original Tony and Tia... kind of aren’t aliens. I mean, they literally are aliens, they’re from another planet, but figuratively the people of Witch Mountain are implied to be more like advanced humans. Their natural way of life seems to value music, learning, and living in harmony with nature. They don’t understand money since they’ve achieved a post-capitalist society where people’s needs are met. They have learned to use the mysterious powers of the mind.
If you read Alexander Key’s other books, especially the Golden Enemy and The Magic Meadow, he has this Utopian vision of people living without cities in small towns in harmony with each other and with the natural world. I think Alexander Key believed this was where humankind was going to get to with a little more time including the mental powers. Which, looking around right now, makes the guy look endearingly naive. ^^;
Reading the script answered one question I had been wondering about: whether Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards would get to have a cameo in the series. They got one in Race To, and it’d be cool if they got one in this show. But if the writers thought of it, there was no mention in the pilot script. Maybe they would have gotten to appear in a later episode.
How’d that script get there? It is indeed there if you google “Witch Mountain Disney pilot script” and it’s on a squarespace page but I wasn’t able to cut off bits of the url to get the main page it was linked from. So I don’t know whose page it was on. Lots of people had the script since the pilot was made, and I like to think that perhaps one of those people felt pity for us fans and thought we should be able to see what we were missing. That was nice of them.
So 30 years ago we had, presumably, adult aliens who know they are aliens. And now we have teenage aliens who don’t know they’re aliens. How did this break in knowledge happen? It’s hard because we have parents. Knowledge is passed from parents to children, to disrupt it you have to not have parents. Like the “residential schools” in our real world where Native American children were separated from their families and forced to talk, dress and believe in the ways the colonizers wanted.
I think both the kids are only half alien. I think Tia’s father is an alien but couldn’t mentally handle his powers so the government agents faked his death and whisked him away to a cell inside the mountain. I think Ben’s mother was also an alien and also whisked away and Ben’s dad went downhill after his wife died/ran off/whatever the cover story was.
But the alien parents are the right age to have been the crew of the crashed UFO so they would have full memories of their lives before coming to earth.
Ok, I think I’ve got it. The ship crashes. Government agents scoop up the survivors, figure out that they have cool powers, and decide these people are a resource that must not be allowed to wander free. So they set up a town where the aliens can live, and let carefully selected humans move in. The aliens are forbidden to tell anyone about their true nature, but other than that they can live normal lives. The government agents set up jobs for them, they have houses and whatever they need, they can even get married. But the town is under close surveillance to make sure the secret doesn’t get out. Any alien who spills the beans, tries to escape, or uses their powers openly gets whisked away to the secret base under the mountain where they’re locked in a cell. Any human who finds out the secret gets disappeared. So the alien survivors can have physically comfortable lives, but they must live in constant fear and cannot be honest with the people they live with and come to care about. No wonder they may suffer from shaky mental health in that situation!
Sooner or later it is discovered that aliens and humans can have children together, and that the children also have special abilities. Perfect! Young people can be kept in a controlled environment and raised to be used by the government for their shady plans. Since the government wants emotionally stable agents they let the kids grow up normally with loving families, but once their powers show up then... the next step begins. Not sure quite what the next step is; the agents didn’t immediately whisk Tia and Ben away to cells inside the mountain, but something should start happening to begin shaping them into whatever the government needs in a super-powered secret agent.
I’m assuming the final goal is to have loyal aliens who will use their powers to do spy stuff. Stealing secret plans, assassinations, whatever. For the protection of the country maybe, or just for money. The Mr. Bolt characters in the movie and Purple are keen to use the kids to find oil deposits and stuff like that.
I think this theory is probably more or less right. It makes sense, it explains things mostly. It does not explain why Ben and Tia were born on the same day... well unless the government agents were sabotaging people’s birth control to schedule when babies would be born, which ew creepy but maybe they want to create pairs of agents to work together or breed for more super powered babies.
More likely the reason is more mystical. Maybe the aliens are born in pairs who have a special connection with each other. This could be a callback to Purple, where the people from the other dimension are always born as twins. Purple isn’t the most beloved entry in the franchise but a lot of people including me have a soft spot for it.
Other possibilities I thought of that didn’t work as well:
-An alien had a memory-erasing power and was compelled to use it on everybody. This would explain things but... it’s dumb.
-Some adults do know, but are under pressure not to share it with the younger generation. Audrey may suspect what’s going on with Tia and she’s just not sure when to spill the beans. But would the government agency need to do so much sneaky spying if the adults in town know about them? And is it realistic that no parent would tell their child the truth?
-The UFO didn’t contain living aliens, only bodies or some mysterious alien genetic potion. The government organization infects people with alien genetics and waits to see if they develop powers.
-The “evacuate the babies first” theory. The UFO contained dying alien adults and living alien babies, who were given to parents in this town to raise. This doesn’t explain the timeline-- teenagers when the ship crashed 30 years ago-- and doesn’t really explain things between Audrey and Tia. Audrey could tell Tia that she’s adopted, and then she wouldn’t have to fear inheriting her father’s mental illness.
I kind of like the idea of this show being a sequel to the original movie, that this is THE town of Witch Mountain where the aliens settled, 50 years later. That would mean the peaceful settlement was invaded and I hate that idea as much as I love the idea of connecting the two stories... and I can’t figure out how it would work as a plotline anyway.
Witch Mountain sillyness
Some years back Ike Eisenmann got a bunch of people from the Witch mountain movies together to make a silly video.
Ike seems like a fun dude, I gotta say.
He also wrote a book. Just recently so I haven't read up yet, but if you're curious about the behind the scenes of Witch Mountain it's probably worth looking up.
Catching up with our girl Nancy
I was not expecting such a banger of a song in a Nancy Drew game! I also noticed that the voice actors had quite Northern names, so HERInteractive learned their lesson after Shadow at the Water's Edge suffered from having not-actually-Japanese voice actors with varied levels of skill at doing the right accent. ^^; I think Sea of Darkness was great all 'round! Good characters, lots of puzzles only a few of which were really annoying, you could buy souvenirs, and some cute Ned/Nancy. They are peak couple energy, Ned's unwavering support for his hilariously danger prone girlfriend.
and because I play them in random order I wasn't expecting to follow the song with the preview that is all that remains of the original Midnight in Salem.
Not exactly lost media because, there it is *gestures at Midnight in Salem* but underneath the really quite mid game you can see the bones of the better game we could have had if HER hadn't imploded.
Now we've read it
But is it any good?
Kind of. It vibes a lot more Tomorrow People than Witch Mountain to me. No animals, no music, no reverence for nature. The show kept the theme but stripped out the mood and the soul. But I would’ve watched it.
There may be more on tiktok but I ain't gonna log in.
found the pilot script and I will DIE mad this got axed https://static1.squarespace.com/static/67cf4ebc4eb0ec579f246fd9/t/68013a68a9b0600094ee36d2/1744910952563/WitchMountain.pdf
Oh my god. Oh my GOD. *explodes* I am hyperventilating. I never thought anyone would find any more about this show how did you FIND it?! I thought it was going to be lost media forever, I guess the video still is but a script is almost as good. O_o I am amazed.
Ok I'm not going to read this yet. I was going to the print place to print some stuff today so I'm going to print this and then read it in a binder and then make a post of thoughts sometime in the future
Thank you a million times for turning my boring day into an exciting day! :-D
*waves fist happily and shouts to the heavens* See Disney, the power of fandom beats you agaaaaaaaain!