Once Upon a Time is one of my current favorite TV series.  The first image in this discourse's gallery is a poster for this show.  In this image, only three fairy tales referenced in the series are represented, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and Pinocchio, but there are many more.  Characters from Cinderella, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood, Frankenstein, Jack the Giant Slayer/Jack and the Beanstalk, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Perseus, Alice in Wonderland, King Midas and the Golden Touch, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest have also made appearances or become regulars in this series.  In order for these characters to cohabitate within the settings of Storybrooke and The Enchanted Forrest, the writers had to use their artistic license while remixing ([spoiler] Rumpelstiltskin takes the place of Beast in the Beauty and the Beast reference, and the genie in this series becomes the spirit inside the magic mirror of Snow White's evil queen [/spoiler]).  And then to make it "new" the writers added a few original characters (most notably the lead characters, Emma and Henry, but also Neal, Tamara, Greg, Johanna, and some others who still have the potential of becoming characters from fairy tales).  

    I include this series in this discourse because it combines my fantasy writing ambition with the concept of fantasy remix.  The writers of this show (who also wrote for Lost), were very ambitious in attempting a remix/mashup of this scale.  However, by using fairy tales, which have been written and rewritten to the point where the writers had many version to pull from, they have been able to successfully produce three seasons and a season of a spin-off series.  Because of Once Upon a Time's scope, much can be learned about what I call the "line of offense."  This is the fine, hardly visible, line that successful remixers must be conscious of in order to keep their products from being considered boring, fan-service material, or offensive.  If I become a fantasy writer, I will need to know this line, and know where it is weak or easy to step on the wrong side.

     I chose this image to represent the series because it was the only image that I could find that was not a Photoshop collage and had the most fairytales represented, I did not want a Photoshopped collage because it would suggest that the show is a joke that should not be taken seriously.  Unfortunately, the image that I have ended up using, while providing a sense of continuity and seriousness, evokes a slightly over-dark mood.  This darkness is probably supposed to allude more to the mysteries in this series than to the threatening fates that the characters will have to face and battle against. 

    Some of this dark mood comes from the characters' facial expressions--my punctum in this image.  Mary-Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin in the plaid dress) in particular, who is one of the most hopeful and emotionally shining characters in the series, seems to me to have the darkest expression.  Her expression is similar to her character's, "I'm watching you," sort of expression, which suggests that this series takes a dark twist on its characters.  Henry's character (Jared S. Gilmore) is another emotional bright spot in the series, and is constantly pushing his birthmother Emma to be who she was destined to be.  In this image, Henry looks somewhere between ambivalent and miserable, which does not make me want to relate to him or his goals.  Of these characters, the one that is closest to smiling is Emma (Jennifer Morrison).  This is strange because, during the season represented by this image, she is probably the most miserable.  In the story, her son that she gave up for adoption, Henry, finds her and brings her to his hometown where she has to stay in order to offset the adopted mother's lack of love.  In addition to dealing with the misery of butting heads with Henry's adopted mother, she also has to manage Henry's belief that she is the savior character from his book of fairy tales--which happens to be the true, and then has to struggle as (and after) she realizes this truth.

     But what does this punctum mean for this mystory?  With regard to my burning question of, "where is the line of offense (and how do I avoid it)?" it suggests that what I might perceive as a sign of successful remix might actually be a failure.  On IMBD.com, Once Upon a Time was given an average 8.1 out of 10 rating by 101,753 raters.  Of the seven "prolific reviewers" (a reviewer who has written over 100 reviews) only two gave the series less than 5 stars and both gave the series only 1 star.  One had this reason for the low rating:

Don't mean to be harsh here but you need to draw a line in the sand, even if the sand is actually fairy dust and you draw it with a magic wand. Once upon a time (a-ahem) when the world was green and TV was new, there was a hit series called THE FUGITIVE about a man wrongly accused of murder. The show was well-acted, well-produced, well-written. It was a hit. On the final episode after a wonderful run, the real killer was finally caught and the hero was vindicated. But that was not the real ending. The "real" ending was that, with the villain caught, viewers lost interest in watching the series in re-runs, and much income was lost, at least to the producers. And a valuable lesson was learnt -- never resolve any story, if you can avoid it. OK, flash forward a half century. In today's world viewers have somehow become a lot more comfy with paradox and ambiguity and, seemingly, can now watch for hours on end -- literally -- without ever knowing or caring how the story ends. Which is the premise of this show, reduced to the bare bones. Instead of making the fairy tale about the ending, make it about the story. Use quality actors, scripts, production values, knock yourself out. But -- here is the key - like another fairy product from Hollywood, prophetically called THE NEVER-ENDING STORY, just make sure each episode ends with more problems than solutions. If you dig deep through the 100s of IMDb viewer reviews here, you will find others who have noticed the exact same thing. Just when you think an episode is about to resolve, it instead spirals out of control. Clearly, this is not enough to dissuade viewers -- OMG, they have spun off a sister show! -- but for historians of the future, it does raise issues about the attention span of the modern TV watcher. For breaking just about every basic tenet of core narrative fiction, albeit profitably, this show is just plain wrong. I don't expect much agreement, but I need to point out the obvious. And here is a footnote -- you have to wonder aloud if the two Jennifers each initially read for each other's parts. Narrative aside, the show would have been more interesting had the roles been switched. (A_Different_Drummer, 2011)

The claim that the series is a "NEVER-ENDING STORY, [where] each episode ends with more problems than solutions" (A_Different Drummer, 2011) is quite true.  For example, there was a mysterious wolf at the beginning of the series that caused Emma to wreck and may have been the huntsman's loyal companion, but the greater story behind this wolf has yet to be revealed.  Considering how the story has changed since the beginning of the series, I suspect that it never will be revealed.  Like A_Different_Drummer said, I am "comfy" with the idea that I my never find out the wolf's larger story because there are larger, time sensitive concerns that continue to hold my attention to this series.  While A_Different_Drummer complains about this feature of the series, I think that, if this series did not have this quality, then advertising that this series was written by two of the writers from Lost would have been pointless.  

     The other negative "prolific" review joins the chorus of seven other non-prolific, 1 star reviews in that it essentially finds the story boring or ill constructed, and the actors unfit for their characters.  I can also relate to this critique as I'm constantly sharing similar ones with a fellow fan of the show, but I still love the concept of the show, and I'm still looking forward to how they connect things.  One might say that I even look forward to critiquing the series as well.  This joy of critiquing and finding fault with the series may be what my punctum might be hinting at.

     The next image in this gallery represents a video game series that has a similar remix scope, Kingdom Hearts.  This game combines Disney movies and Final Fantasy characters with a few original characters and settings to create an interactive adventure about friendship and the light and shadows of the heart.  This game has a remix scope that is similar to Once Upon a Time, but is probably more accurately considered a mashup as most of the game characters, settings, and primarily location-based plotlines are the same as the Disney movies and Final Fantasy games they pull from.  The Kingdom Hearts world is analogous to a Disney World park where, instead of rides and exhibits, players get to explore miniaturized (primarily Disney movie) settings.  To create the game feel within these settings, the game makers invented heartless, nobodies, and dream eaters that pop up for the player to defeat.  These creatures are part of what connects the different (mostly) Disney movie worlds together to form a "new story."  These creatures (and the villains that control them) are what causes the Disney stories to change in a way that threatens the happy endings and requires that new heroes arrive to restore balance.  These heroes are rarely able to completely undo the damage to the movie plotlines, but are almost always able to put the characters and settings back on course towards their happy endings.  Because the movie and game outcomes are the same, there is a suggestion that the playable character's presence really has little effect on the world.  Despite the superficial feeling this causes, the game tries to play with deep themes such as memory, consumption/addiction, and the definition of evil.  Again, these themes are handled with kid-gloves, but on occassion a glimpse of the depth is revealed which gets me eager to see the next installment.

    I chose to include this series in my gallery because it actually preceded Once Upon a Time, and it answered a musing side question that I was having of "what would a remixed game look like if it was going to be something other than a battle royale, like Mario Smash Brothers or Final Fantasy Dissidia?".  Interestingly enough, it wasn't until I asked the musing question that I even remembered that this game fit my criteria for this discourse--which might speak to the game's shallow mixing, or it might indicate that it has been too long since the release of their last game.  When I chose to include it in this discourse, I searched for an image that showed more than just the games' original characters and the main Disney characters (Donald, Goofy, and Mickey) that work with the protagonists.  This image was perfect because it showed Final Fantasy characters, additional Disney characters, and the important original characters from the second installment of the series.  So then came the question, what is my punctum?  In this image, it would have to be Auron's mouth and lack of sunglasses.  This change in look alone changes Auron's character which angers me.  He looks more like a smug yet pouty cowboy, which is how Kingdom Hearts portrays him (despite having the same voice actor from FFX).  This punctum raises the issue about being true to characters while remixing. While Once Upon a Time was able to almost completely stray from the Disney movie versions of the fairy tales, Kingdom Hearts did not have that luxury.  The degree to which each story could stray from the movies was largely dependent upon the appearance of the characters.  Because the writers of Once Upon a Time used live actors, a noticeable degree of difference was already in place.  It was then up to the writers and costume designers to choose how similarly the characters would resemble their Disney counterparts.  As the the characters appeared more and more similar to their Disney movie counterparts, so did their personalities.  In Kingdom Hearts, with the exception of 3D graphics, the characters look almost identical to their Disney movie (and Final Fantasy game) counterparts.  Because Kingdom Hearts is not a parody of the movies/games, the characters are expected to have similar personalities.  Although I do not like what the game makers did with Auron, his character might still fit his character in Final Fantasy X, if the Kingdom Hearts version can be thought of as Auron post [Spoiler] death by Yunalesca, [/spoiler] but pre-journey with Tidus and Yuna.  Even then, I think he is a little more cocky than he should be, but my vision may be skewed as much of Auron's character is left to imagination.

     The next image in this gallery is a piece that was inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower series.  I include this series because it too is remixed.  It takes much inspiration from westerns, Arthurian legend, and more to tell a fantasy story that is supposedly connects to our reality.  This series is; however, a cheat on remix as much of what King mixes are figures and settings from his own works.   As someone who has only read King's Dark Tower series and "Weeds," I can't attest to how well he maintains his remixed characters/settings, but it is unlikely that he would have strayed too vastly.  While the remix of King's works is one draw to the series, another is the mysticism behind reoccurring symbols and puzzles.  The door in the image is one such puzzle that serves as the studium of this image.  My punctum for this image is the skulls among the roses.  The skulls represent those who were sacrificed to allow the protagonist to reach the Dark Tower.  They also serve as a reminder that we can't have everything.

     If my burning question for this mystory is, "where is the line of offense (and how do I avoid it)," the answer is that I can't avoid it.  Someone will be offended, just as I was offended by the smug cowboy-ish portrayal of Auron in Kingdom Hearts.  I have to be willing to sacrifice my comfort by accepting negative reviews along with any positive reviews, if I hope to be a successful fantasy writer, and I know this very well.  My hope in asking this question is to learn what I need to know to keep people from feeling so offended that they start "book burning" parties in response to my work.  Granted, some messages need to evoke such strong reactions, but, as a beginner in the field of fantasy writing, I'd like to avoid being crucified for the time being.

    There are other examples or facets of remix/mashup that I would like to cover here (most notably Pokemon/Digimon and Lord of the Rings), but if I continue this trail further, this mystory won't go beyond this discourse.  As such, let me conitinue to the Final Fantasy X related images.

Final Fantasy X Connection

     As has been said in many different places on this site, Final Fantasy remixes many symbols from various religions and mythologies; however, this is not the only level at which remix occurs.  Take for example the next image in the discourse gallery.  Here, I have an image of Yuna and three images of traditional Japanese clothing that have inspired Yuna's appearance.  The two images beside Yuna are of the traditional clothing worn by Miko.  Miko are Shinto shrine maidens that generally wear red hakama (a pleated skirt or trouser that resembles a skirt) and white haori.  Yuna's pleated skirt and white colored top greatly resemble the Miko's traditional wear.  Based on the bottom Miko image, the gradient coloring and sleeve length might have also inspired Yuna's sleeves.  The sleeves are particularly interesting to me because their length and Yuna's yellow obi initially suggest a kimono's influence in Yuna's design.  There are around ten different types of kimono.  The uchikake (which is more of a robe than a kimono), susohiki, hikizuri, and furisode are the more decorative types of kimono and have sleeves that often reaches the woman's ankles.  The maiko, or apprentice geisha, in the right image are wearing one of the latter three types of kimono.  The remaining six types of kimono have varying levels of decoration, but their sleeves only reach to the top of the woman's thighs.  Because Yuna's sleeves reach her knees and the bottom image of the Miko also have sleeves of this length, I have resigned to the belief that Yuna's sleeves were more inspired by the Miko's haori than by the kimono.  However, Yuna obi, or yellow sash, is clearly influenced by kimonos.  The exposed back and boots are definitely not part of traditional Japanese wear; however, the exposed back may be a nod to the Geisha tradition of exposing the napes of the necks (which was traditionally considered erotic).

    While I do not have that much of a problem with Yuna's exposed back, I do have a problem with the black bra.  Final Fantasy X does a better job than many video games when dressing their female characters, but they still have room for improvement.  Yuna's bra is one such instance.  I'm certainly glad that she is wearing a bra, but there is no need for this bra to be showing and there is no reason that this bra could not have been a tank top.  By having the bra visible and having it a color that contrasts nicely with her white halter top light skin, it makes this part of her design seem like fan service for male gamers.  This punctum lends itself only a little to the idea of remix and fantasy writing in that it suggests that in my writing, I need to consider how much I will cater to the supposed desires of fans.

    The last image in this gallery is another representation of remix, but one that is more similar with the religion-mythology type of remix.  In this image, Yuna, representing Shintoism, and Shiva, representing Hinduism, fight Anima and Seymour.  Anima does not have a direct connection to any one religion but one game theorist believes that she is connected to the Roman Catholic concept of anima sola or lonely soul in purgatory (The Game Theorists, 2013).  

    In this image, Seymour is the punctum.  I don't like him, and I don't want to look at him.  I'm also not sure what religions or myths inspire his appearance.  I've said on other pages that his robes remind me of the Pope's, but there is enough difference that there are likely other inspirations to his appearance that I have not found.  This punctum suggests that if I want my remixed sources to be recognizable, I need to do a better job than the people who designed Seymour in choosing the features that I will include.