#mod inbox

[twilight-princess-link-official]

*sobs in CRK spoilers*

yeah fr fr

[relentlessanalysis]

i have also heard you like paul blart, the mall cop who doesn't like musicals

(he rides a segway around everywhere. that's the only change)

91 long minutes later, Phil concludes he had the wrong DVD. The clues were there. He was simply being optimistic.

(I do indeed, anon! Funnily enough I have both a time loop AU for Guy, and a """"Coffee Shop"""" AU for Groundhog Day. They'll likely never get out of my WIP folder, but I'm happy to share the details if it interests.

I have also seen both Paul Blart and its sequel in its entirety. I remember none of it. Only that the experience was so bad I had to mail my copy across the ocean to be free of the curse.

-Mod)

[relentlessanalysis]

hellooo it's that one anon again (i have a weird sideblog situation going on that's why i'm always anon). yessss i love your comics thoughts sm,,, a comic adaption of ghd with this stuff would go so hard. also phil vs the panels is a really nice spiritual successor to the stuff tim minchin said about how he's kind of the guy who doesn't want to be in a musical lol. imagining day one phil being partially aware and annoyed by all the comics conventions like the sfx bubbles and getting cut off by the edge of the panels. but then when he ends up drifting outside it with no way back in it starts freaking him out

(No prob anon! I've been on this website for a decade. I know your pain. (Plus this is a sideblog I made to be vaguely anonymous myself, lol.)

Love the way you think. There are a lot of comic conventions I hadn't considered yet, partially because of the fic's text/css elements.

But you're right. Whatever the medium, Phil will find a problem with it. Because the medium is where he is, and he's also in Punxsutawney, and boy howdy does he have problems with Punx.

From the mild annoyances of Day One...

...To realising there's an actual problem in Day Two.

There's so much visual gag potential.)

[relentlessanalysis]

TIME LOOP GUY. YES IT INTERESTS (for both)

(i'm not mall cop anon but mall cop ask was inspired by an irl conversation where we kept mixing up phil connors, phil collins, paul matthews, and paul blart. so)

(previous)

(Oh I've been there, anons. Which is really quite impressive given I have never called the groundhog "Punxsutawney Paul". Phil and Phil share a name! It's a plot point! Who is paul and how did he get here.

Anyway: here's what I could scrounge from the depths of my drafts. Hopefully it makes sense.)

Da Capo Al Coda - The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals Timeloop AU

Da Capo Al Coda is a fic I started writing back in 2020, and have since firmly dumpstered. To put it into context: that was after I watched Black Friday's digital ticket, but before I knew about Nightmare Time (particularly Honey Queen), the Lords in Black, and everything we've since come to learn about Hatchetfield's canon. So, like, yeah. The fic was never going to survive six years of headcanons being proved wrong.

Anywho, the gist is Paul blows himself up trying to take out the meteor. Some awful fuckshit with the Black & White happens that causes him to keep reliving the events of Guy over and over again. Pretty standard setup, except I wasn't going to focus on Paul. Like, at all. Nor was I going to tell the audience he was time looping.

The gimmick was that I wanted to use the butterfly effect of Paul being off-script as an excuse to explore how other groups of characters would handle the Apotheosis.

Each chapter would start at the beginning of the loop. Paul would do something slightly off in the background, and that would affect who the longest-surviving member of Hatchetfield is that day.

Sometimes Paul doesn't show up to work, and the CCRP crew gets picked off by Mr. Davidson. Sometimes the Starlight "mysteriously" catches fire, cancelling Mamma Mia -- but making emergency services the first victims of the Apotheosis instead of the actors. etc etc.

You can find an unedited archive of my initial ramblings on Google Docs here. Of the scenarios I spitballed, I only wound up putting wordcount into the cursed Emma + Zoey + Sam teamup. You can read a bit of that here.

---

Philaharmonic - Groundhog Day """Coffee Shop""" AU

Something I've always wanted to do is cold drop a six-chapter fic on AO3 tagged as "Coffee Shop AU", that starts normal but slooooowly gets overtaken by the Apotheosis. Because what is Guy, really, if not a slice of life romcom that's violently overtaken by a different genre?

(I probably won't, by the way. That would be a dick move to genuine coffee shop enjoyers, particularly in a fandom as small as this. But the mental image of a fic tagged as both "coffee shop au" and "graphic depictions of violence" kills me.)

Nevertheless:

The action largely takes place in Pittsburgh, about a year before when musical would've happened.

Phil is still the local weatherman. Rita is an intern at the station. (This is based on an exchange from the revival productions, where Phil faintly recognises her from her prior internship.)

Since the internship is largely unpaid, Rita also works at a Beanies coffee shop Phil frequents.

Rita recognises him while she's on shift and says hello - genuinely pleased by the development. Phil hits her with the "thanks for watching." and goes back to his phone.

Rita, confused but not deterred, asks Phil if he recognises her. He mentally plays a game of did I sleep with this woman or is this a business thing and promptly loses.

Rita's just like. hmmmmmm. ok. well. now i'm not gonna tell you how we know each other on principle.

Their first meeting ends bad, but Phil gets his coffee and goes to work.

Per coffee shop au rules, most of the other cast have presumably been transposed into Pittsburgh. Ned's down here with the kids (possibly came back to town for his wife's funeral?), Debbie and Freddie are fans who spot him on the street, Jonathan's here because...

...there's a meteor shower soon! Wow! Phil films some segments for it in the studio and is fucking bored out of his skull. Someone in the studio tries to convince him to go, like, film some night footage or something and he reminds them night shoots are not in his contract or something.

Meteor hits Pittsburgh. waow. Phil doesn't give two shits he's a busy man.

He goes to Beanies the next day, noting that the crabby barista is gone. Well, good riddance. Gets his coffee, gets in his car without taking a sip.

Tries to drive to work but traffic is mysteriously backed up. His producer calls, they have an argument via hands-free.

...Looking outside, it appears he's driven into a flash mob. Phil watches them dance away down the street. Some people abandon their cars to join them. It's unnerving. But he's got work to do, so he puts it out of his mind and goes to the station.

They get halfway through setting up the next shoot when an intern brings him his coffee. Rita manages to get there just in time to go DON'T DRINK THAT and slap it out of his hand.

Phil, still not quite getting it, is more surprised by the fact this is where he knows Rita from than what she actually did.

Soon after, the rest of the station starts getting infected and going to shit. So now he, Rita and Larry have to deal with the horrors.

That's about where my outline stalls out. I never decided what direction to take things in after that, because effectively that's the point where the "oh shit this isn't a coffee shop au, this is a tgwdlm au" punchline has run its course. And then it's like. Shit. I still gotta write the rest of the story. Which is surprisingly hard.

The horrors in Groundhog Day are ones of stagnation. There's the literal stagnation: being locked into one day that will never change, unable to die, leave, or feel warm again. There's also the personal stagnation: Phil's fear he is incapable of change, incapable of knowing others, being so deeply unhappy with himself and not knowing what to do about it. In the end, Phil learns he's not quite as stuck as he thinks he is. Making connections with other people allows him to grow, find peace, and eventually break the mid life crisis-- I mean time loop.

The horrors of Guy are the death of individuality. Knowing what you want, but not being able to act on it without something taking advantage of that to get to you. Paul is content with his life, sans one tiny part, and it's that desire to know Emma that breaks him in Let It Out. In the end, there is no escaping the Apotheosis. There is only the inevitable death of all individuality, as everyone is absorbed into the hivemind.

So - yeah. After a certain point I feel like I'm trying to cook dinner with toothpaste. How the hell do I make these flavours work?

I do think it'd be funny to hit Phil with the one million years timeloop on top of all this though. Like, yeah, conceptually that's straying into All You Need Is Kill territory. But Phil is Phil, and depending on how slow the spread of the Apotheosis is, the shenanigan potential of him time looping while having access to all of Pittsburgh would be off the charts.

I really should just stop overthinking it and put my favourite characters in self-indulgent, goofy nightmarish scenarios. however ☝

[relentlessanalysis]

hello mod, you're really good at drawing phil. like wrt appearance, but also you just capture his whole vibe really well. somehow i've never said this before, but it's true and it's been true since the start of the blog. have a good day!

(oh shit this thing's got other colours

Thank you, anon, I appreciate it! I've mostly given up on making Phil look like his actor(s); that sort of stylisation is a weak point of mine. So I like to focus on body language and composition instead.

Can I draw Andy Karl or Bill Murray? Not really. Not yet.

Can I draw an asshole who channels his energy into getting through a day that won't end? Hell yeah I can.

Side note, it's really funny going through my pre-fic sketches. same level of dead inside in this batch, but gradually evolves into the current fourth wall breaker)

[relentlessanalysis]

not paul blart anon here. id like to clairify neither of us (me and paul blart anon) have seen the paul blart movie. movies? they made multiple of this thing? We just think this could be a generationally funny bit. I am very sorry

(i regret to inform that paul blart mall cop 2 is, in fact, real. i remember more of it than i do the first movie. this is not a compliment.

all you need to know is that it's 4% fat jokes, 95% advertisement for a casino, and 1% paul blart's mom getting vaporised by a milk truck. thats not a joke btw i think the actress just wanted out of her contract)

[relentlessanalysis]

oop i think the images broke on ao3 </3 rest in peace cool scrolling phil png

(ffs. hold on)

(I swear this happens every wednesday. give it a rest dude closing the tab doesn't do anything)

[relentlessanalysis]

oh ur right phil is a great art warmup. i will be exploiting this fact :)

(hell yeah anon. so far the only drawback is i am running out of text posts)