Chapter Text
Introduction:
This story takes characters, concepts, and images from the FX network TV show Legion and fits them into the beats of the 1939 classic movie The Wizard of Oz.
Legion tells the story of David Haller, an omega-level mutant from the X-Men universe, a massively-psychic reality bender, basically a god—or he would be if he weren’t hampered with serious mental health issues at least. Though he spent most of his life believing he was schizophrenic, the Voices were just the side effect of being psychic. The REAL problem was the Shadow King, the psychic parasite that took up residence in his mind as a baby, tormenting and gaslighting him, and leaving him with severe trauma issues and an extreme case of Dissociative Identity Disorder—hence, he is Legion. And “The Magic Man” is another name he gives himself, sometimes.
The Wizard of Oz is—well, I think you know that one. We’re starting our story beats with Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, because we’re pretending here that David basically had a psychic freakout and sent everyone to Oz, which means there IS no black-and-white “ordinary” world except their world as it is.
Oliver Anthony Bird is another powerful-though-not-quite-as-much psychic mutant, who founded a haven for mutants called Summerland. At the time the show begins, his mind has been lost on the Astral Plane (in a giant ice cube, since his body is in cryostasis) for over 20 years. This has caused some lapses in his synapses, and though he’s still extremely intelligent, he often forgets things, from words to concepts to his wife. The first paragraph, and indeed the whole concept of his being narrator, is based on his first appearance on the show, in which he is—introducing the evening’s episode. Oliver is the most fourth-wall-breaking character in this universe.
Now, L. Frank Baum is the man who wrote the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I thought it would be funny if Oliver couldn’t quite remember the name “Bird” and kept naming specific bird species instead. I asked my friend Vovat, who is a bit of an expert on the Oz books, if there were any particular birds that might be associated with L. Frank Baum or his books, and he suggested maybe either Geese or Storks. I went with both.
Scene 1: Munchkinland Vermillionland
Sydney “Syd” Barrett—named after the Pink Floyd founder—Floyd has a big influence on the show, and not just in the soundtrack—so that’s another link with The Wizard of Oz! Pink Floyd soundtracks!—anyway, Syd is David’s girlfriend, another mutant with mental illness—she switches bodies with anyone she touches, even accidentally, which has lead to her developing antisocial tendencies and a phobia of physical proximity. Starting in Season Two, she has a cat she practices her powers on in an attempt to build tolerance and control. The cat does not canonically have a name, but Versaphile called it Matilda in their epic fic “When My Fist Clenches…” so that’s now her fanon name. At least among the people on the Summerland Discord.
There is a mysterious floating orb in both WoO and Legion, so it’s only natural they get merged. Only, the one that kidnaps David at the end on Legion Season One is a lot more mechanical than Glinda’s enchanted bubble. Still. Mysterious floating orbs.
Wherever the hell does Legion take place? No one knows. Definitely not Kansas, though. Too many trees. But that’s nothing on trying to pinpoint WHEN Legion takes place, so don’t.
Melanie Bird is a psychologist dedicated to helping mutants reach their full potential, and is the leader of Summerland in her husband Oliver’s absence. Ironically she’s the only one there who is not a mutant, but she is Glinda-y enough even without magic powers. I don’t think she’s ever said “You’ve bought into Division propaganda. You’re going to have to unlearn everything you think you know,” exactly in canon, but she’s certainly said a lot along those same lines.
The Divisions, most dangerously Division Three, are an anti-Mutant government entity and the nemesis of the folks at Summerland, up until they realized the Shadow King was a bigger threat and they’d need to work together to stop him. The Vermillion are a collection of androids connected to the Mainframe at Division Three, a hive-mind who also speak for Admiral Fukyama, a mutant who had the Mainframe implanted into him as a child and now acts as the human decision-maker mediator of the Mainframe. He does indeed appear to do nothing under a basket.
“Us and Them” is one of the songs that play during the scene in Munchkinland if you’re listening to Dark Side of the Moon at the same time. (Though not at this moment. Later. “Money”’s on now). It also describes the initial feelings between Summerland and Division Three, though Melanie has finally grown past that by Chapter 25 (episode 3.6).
Probably in reference to the Vermillion’s hive-mind, Division Three headquarters does have a repeating hexagon motif. They also have an interrogation room that is built upside down.
Toward the beginning of Season 2, a disease sweeps through the combined Division Three/Summerland Team headquarters that traps everyone in a loop in their own minds. Syd’s loop starts out in an igloo. It’s actually a symbolic representation of the womb and probably additionally says something about her relationship with her mother, but I’m just using it here because it’s the only small structure associated with Syd that could theoretically be swept up by a tornado. There’s a reason she herself is confused by its existence!
In the Summerland Discord, panAcademic was really looking forward to the Vermillion all singing the Lollipop song. How could I refuse? Particularly when it makes for a perfect introduction for:
Lenny Busker, David’s once-and-future best friend, whom he met at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital (or did he), and who probably wouldn’t have any qualms with someone calling her a Wicked Witch, but she wasn’t EVIL until, after dying in a massive psychic accident, the Shadow King hijacked her identity/ghost/whatever and used her as a mask through which to further torment, confuse, and cause mayhem for David. Yellow is the color associated with the Shadow King, particularly the yellow eyes that indicate someone is currently possessed, a reference to the “mask” that freaks David out the most, The Devil with Yellow Eyes. But LENNY, whether fully human or possessed, does also have a penchant for candy of all types, particularly lollipops. She even intended to name her unborn daughter Lollipop. Lollipop Violence Busker. Naturally a chant all about lollipops could summon her.
The World’s Angriest Boy In the World is another of the Shadow King’s masks, allegedly the title character of a particularly morbid, Edward-Gorey-esque picture book from David’s childhood (but whether the book actually exists or not is up for debate).
And now what will stand in for the Ruby Slippers in this universe? Something the Shadow King wants that Syd has? The only thing I could think of was David’s heart, which, yeah, is a lot more metaphorical, but Sydney DID once find an actual beating heart on the Astral Plane that someone had metaphorically lost, so it does sort of have precedent in the show. Plus, it is what David needs in order to stop the Astral Story Reenactment, symbolic of his humanity. Plus plus, hearts are red, like rubies.
Would Lenny non-ironically say “I’ll get you, my pretty”? Maybe not, but she probably would call a girl she (allegedly) just met “pretty” as an insult. That’s where Pretty Chickie came from. It just seemed more Lenny-esque.
Next question of appropriate cross-universe symbols: the Yellow Brick Road troubled me a bit, because on Legion the color yellow CLEARLY symbolizes the Devil with Yellow Eyes and the Shadow King by extension. It would not be the ANSWER to anything…I thought, until Summerland Discorder Shysan reminded me (in answer to a completely different question) that, in the opening to season 3, time-traveler Switch is tasked to “follow the yellow bus” to get to David’s cult’s commune…which, we’ll get to David’s cult when we get to the Emerald City, which is David’s cult in this universe, which is where Syd is going right now. It was perfect! The twist: when Switch’s bus arrives, it turns out to be a red bus with a sign on it that says “YELLOW.” So I gave the Yellow Brick Road the same twist, and the hexagon motif of Vermillionland lets me do a whole rainbow of plain gray brick roads to choose from!
*
Scene 2: The Crossroads in the Scarecrow’s Cornfield
Although he presumably is out of his Astral Ice Cube by the time of this story (which would be…uh, best not to think too hard about time in Legion), I picture Oliver doing his narration from the Ice Cube anyway, thanks to his opening scene. His drinks do have a tendency to freeze up there.
Oliver also has completely lost his sense of time on the astral plane, so he would definitely have trouble coming up with time-based words. Also, as the opening scene of Season 2 points out, Oliver tries “never to have conversations about time.”
Meet Cary Loudermilk, PhD-multiple-times-over (and one half of my favorite character!), cofounder of Summerland and head of Research and Development. Like the Scarecrow, he’s the one coming up with ideas and solving problems and inventing things, but being the smart one just makes clear to him how much he doesn’t know. He’s a mild-mannered, soft-hearted genius. Plus, he's played by renowned clown/mime Bill Irwin, and honestly, if Bill Irwin has NOT at some point actually played the Scarecrow in some stage production of the Wizard of Oz, something is very wrong with the universe. He was made for the part.
The conversation between Sydney and the Scarecrow here seems very familiar to me, but it’s from neither The Wizard of Oz or Legion. I think I might have been channeling Alice in Wonderland. I’m not going to go look it up because then I’ll get completely distracted. Alice is one of my favorite books.
And now we meet Cary’s other half, Kerry Loudermilk, fierce warrior and definitely Cary’s self-appointed protector—literally, if she is, as seems most likely, a dissociative identity of Cary’s who has somehow managed to manifest her own physical body whenever she feels like coming Out. It’s complicated. I wrote a whole essay outlining all my theories about them if you care.
But yes, Kerry is the living embodiment of the meme with the guy whose “No Fear” shirt is edited to read “ONE Fear”: being separated from Cary. It really messes the ruthless warrior up in Chapters 6 and 7! (And became one of the main focuses of my retelling of said episodes, if I can butt in with another link). She has catlike reflexes, too! So naturally, this AU’s Cowardly Lion has to show up just a little bit sooner than the original…
Instead of vanishing inside Cary like Kerry does, the Lioness just burrows in the Scarecrow’s straw. Discord user hc_silver, 4/3/23: “Just imagine a ferocious lioness snoot poking out of Scary's chest and try not to smile at how cute they are. You can't, it's impossible. Pictured: Lioness Kerry 0.2 seconds away from leaping out and kicking someone's ass"
I never understood how Dorothy and the Scarecrow go from being unable to decide which way to go, to turning confidently left to march off singing “Off to See the Wizard.” But having written this, I figure it’s because Dorothy hadn’t yet TOLD the Scarecrow WHERE she was trying to go when he offered directions at first (Cary is far less silly, and knew he had to ask first), and he probably knew all along that the Emerald City was to the left, if she’d only just SAID that.
It was also hc_silver who made the “out standing in his field” joke.
*
Scene 3: The Apple Trees and the (P)Tin Man’s Grove
So, Walter. Walter is a shapeshifting mutant who originally parted ways with the Summerland crowd when he showed a bit too much thirst for vengeance. Or, just violence in general. He became a mutant hunter for Division 3 instead. Do not let his massive bad perm fool you into thinking he’s not dangerous. He fancies himself an apex predator and keeps making wolf references—he keeps quoting Little Red Riding Hood at Kerry in Chapter 6, like so. He does take a machine gun to our heroes at at least one point. And he DOES, as is a trope with bad guys, always seem to be casually eating apples. Several members of the Summerland Discord have their own colorful theories involving Walter and apples. But luckily, he doesn’t make it out of Season 1 alive, so he only gets a brief cameo here. Good riddance, Walter!
Oliver has good reason to specify that the plug Sydney finds is “not a bath plug,” because she DOES in fact find a huge bath plug right in the ground in Legion Chapter 18 (Ep. 2.10).
But in THIS story, this is where we meet Ptonomy the-P-is-not-silent Wallace, a Summerland mutant with a perfect memory. He cannot forget anything, ever. He has managed to hone this ability into a therapy tool at Summerland, by actually taking fellow mutants into their own memories and walking them through them. But when he’s killed in a fight in Chapter 15 (ep. 2.7), the Vermillion plug his consciousness into the Mainframe with them—which actually does look like they plugged him directly into a tree in a forest. Cary eventually builds him a robot body to inhabit, but by that time he’s been part of the mainframe so long that he’s just not quite the same. I have taken the liberty of keeping his personality a lot closer to his original flesh-and-blood personality, though!
The conversation about our travelers feeling like they’ve already been friends all along comes pretty directly from the movie here. Because they have been—Ptonomy and the Loudermilks for much longer than any of them with Syd, but still. Ptonomy, who is Nothing But Memory, is not going to entirely forget a thing like that.
*
Scene 4: The Spooky Forest
“Ease On Down the Road” is actually (the only song I know) from the Oz musical The Wiz.
“And now you're trapped in this no-place…,” though, is something Oliver said in Chapter 4. All of his seeming non-sequiturs in this scene are his actual lines from Chapter 4, except for the bit that comes from the future of this story…
So yeah, what I have done here is combined the most nightmare-inducing monsters from each story into one horrifying-but-very-fun-to-write species: Flying Monkeys Time Eaters = Time Monkeys! The Time Eaters show up in Season 3 when Time has been messed with too deeply. They actually look a bit like live-action Blue Meanies except a million times creepier. And they mess with the format of the show itself, not just slowing or speeding up time, or skipping things, or repeating things, but in Chapter 23 (ep 3.4), the whole show flips back to a scene from fellow (but much older) FX show The Wire instead.
So obviously I had to find a way to play with the format disorientingly in print instead!
Conveniently, this makes a perfect excuse for the travelers to meet the Lion(ess) (again) here in the forest like the original story.
*
Scene 5: The Field of Poppies Smoking Frogs
Now we get to the drug-referencing part of the story. Back in his *cough cough* self-medicating days, David and who-he-thinks-was-Lenny had a bong shaped like a cigarette-smoking cartoon frog. They’d use it to diffuse a precious blue liquid they called simply “vapor” (if not just The Blue Stuff). Later, when David’s gotten control of his reality-bending powers and is chilling out on his commune in Season 3, he creates the Blue Stuff with his mind and laces the whole house with it, basically keeping his cult devoted and docile that way.
But when David gets angry, all the Blue Stuff he’s created turns red, and whoever indulges in this stuff becomes aggressive instead of docile. It’s definitely portrayed as the Bad stuff, but as Oliver says, in this case? Our heroes needed the drive, not the complacency.
I enjoy Oliver trying to narrate when nothing is happening. He does like his metaphors, so he would try to fill the space with them, but eventually he is just going to get bored.
And although he is known to forget exactly who Melanie IS, he never stops finding her absolutely captivating, which I think is lovely so yeah I’m going hard on it.
*
Scene 6A: The Door to the Emerald City
There is something oddly Legionesque about the huge doorbell and knocker on Oz’s Emerald City, as well as the argument about whether to ring or knock with the doorman who has already opened the door anyway, and the sign and such. So naturally I just completely subverted it and had nothing of interest happen at all.
Clark Debussy is a high-ranking operative at Division Three who spends most of Chapter One interrogating David (and trying to get his attention with his iconic “DAAAAAAA-vid” summons). When the team from Summerland breaks David out of his clutches, Clark is left for dead in a fire—but he survives! With serious burn damage! Which is why he now has half a face! And with grudging respect he eventually becomes an ally. Basically I just thought he and the doorman had similar sarcastic manners, and I could utterly see him greeting whoever came to the door in this way.
*
Scene 6 Proper: Welcome to the Emerald City
Now we finally arrive at Season Three David’s commune, which is modelled very much on a hippie cult, but with a whole line of David-themed merchandise as well! There is the aforementioned Blue Vapor. There’s a tree growing in the living room, there is for some reason a pig the size of a room, there’s at least one inexplicable giant toothbrush.
Salmon is Lenny’s girlfriend, and the baby is also apparently Lenny’s, despite this being physically impossible. Salmon sees this as one of David’s miracles, a gift from the dream-come-true man. I’m not entirely sure what Lenny thinks happened, but she’s cool with it. (Salmon does not let her name the baby Lollipop, though. And it’s Violet, not Violence).
Anyway, it is Salmon who greets Switch when she arrives in the commune in Chapter 20 (Ep 3.1), with the very same words she uses on our heroes here.
But Switch had to get through a bit of a maze before she got that far. In the dry cleaner false-front to the commune, she was basically assaulted by the band Superorganism singing their song “Something For Your Mind” at her, while shoving a bunch of clothing racks around. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found something unsettling about the denizens of the Emerald City sweeping the travelers off for makeovers as soon as they arrive, also shoving clothing racks around, incidentally, so I couldn’t help mashing the two arrivals together.
“His thoughts are magic. He's the Dream-Come-True-Man!” is another direct quote from show-Salmon to Switch.
And she is very confused every time someone claims that salmon are fish.
But Squirrel never calls her “Fish Girl”—mostly he just calls her “New Janine” I think (because she replaced whoever previously replaced Janine in their friend-group). Squirrel is also not a squirrel, just a squirrelly man who used to deal Lenny’s drugs but now hangs out on the back porch of the commune giving people inexplicable nicknames.
But I wasn’t actually thinking of the commune’s back porch as the entrance to David’s chambers. I was thinking of the friendly cottage porch David actually keeps inside his private sanctum for friendly chats. As opposed to…
*
Scene 7: The Wizard’s Chamber
David’s private sanctum does look a lot like the inside of a pot. It’s meant to channel psychic energy better.
The giant floating wizard head looks like comics!David, at the suggestion of hc_silver. Comics!David has hair that sticks up ridiculously high, and he also tends to go shirtless, which you can’t tell here because he’s just a head.
The titles the great big Legion-head gives for himself are all titles David has been given in-show, except “Devourer of Waffles,” which panAcademic gave him since waffles are his comfort-food.
The thing about Dorothy’s companions is that they all end up actually exemplifying whatever trait they think they lack. This was an easy enough matchup with easily-flustered genius Cary and fierce-warrior-as-long-as-she-knows-Cary’s-okay Kerry, but while he obviously does lack a flesh-and-blood heart for the second half of the show, Ptonomy isn’t exactly known for his kindness or sensitivity. I have chosen to express his innate Heart through his high social-emotional intelligence, instead. Although no stranger to battle, Ptonomy often assisted Melanie with psychological counseling at Summerland and sometimes even handled it on his own. He’s good with these sorts of sharp insightful questions he’s laying on the Wizard here.
Although the movie Wizard sticks to his giant head apparition throughout this scene, the book Wizard cycles through a few different masks. And in this AU we’ve got a Wizard with Dissociative Identity Disorder, so it seemed like a perfect time to cycle through some of his alters.
The first one—or second if you count comics!David’s head—is one of his main alters, Dvd, who holds most of the anger and vengeance for the system.
The next is Davey, whom I’m not sure is intended to be an alter, exactly, in show, but more just his inner child? Whatever. Anyway, he’s asking after his older sister, Amy, who’s always acted as a third parent to him, even more so since their parents died. Now, when I was writing this, I hadn’t thought of what I’d do with Amy in this story, but here was Davey up and asking them to rescue Amy completely to my surprise. It took me a really long time to figure out exactly how this was going to work, but I did know one thing—Lenny and Amy ARE linked, in a way I’ll get to later, so I guessed they WOULD have to rescue both of them.
And finally, my favorite of David’s alters, Rational David, whom David creates in Chapter 7 to help break him out of a mental trap of the Shadow King’s (“Why are you British?” “Like I said, I’m your rational mind”).
*
Scene 8A: Back to the Woods
Not much to say here, except that Cary is always coming up with quick ideas just like the Scarecrow, so here’s a way to address the fact that the frogs are supposedly still there. Also, you may recognize this as the source of the random line from the future Oliver spouted in the first Time Monkey scene. The Witch really does seem to get more annoyed with the Scarecrow than anyone else in the movie, probably because he keeps having ideas to thwart her, and she is meeting with the leader of the Time I mean Flying Monkeys at this point in the movie.
*
Scene 8: Attack of the Flying Time Monkeys!
Syd and Cary really do have the “Don’t tell me—” conversation in Chapter 25 (3.6), which is also the source of most of Oliver’s nonsequiters this time around, except for the one about time, which as previously mentioned comes from Chapter 9 (2.1), and the later ones are actually out of my own fic, “Exploration of the Astral Plane”! And how perfect, for the scene where the Monkeys shred the Scarecrow, that Oliver actually DID proclaim about the mightiness of straw in Chapter 25 (bragging about his straw house’s ability to withstand Big Bad Wolves), and Oliver ALSO actually did announce the arrival of a fierce lioness in a fic I myself wrote two years ago!
And indeed, here she is. Kerry is a beautiful fighter, but the show never lets her win nearly often enough (and as I avoid writing fight scenes, I haven’t had much opportunity to counter that). It was important to me that not only would the Lioness show her latent bravery in a dramatic battle—in protection of (S)cary of course—but that she’d triumph. In the movie the Monkeys succeed in kidnapping Dorothy here, but dangit, no, this time Kerry gets an uncontested win!
And it’s a lot more fun to write a fight scene in a completely different format than straightforward. But I had no idea how to format this to be read on a screen instead of on paper, beyond, like, pasting an image in, but that would ruin the effect especially if someone was reading in dark mode. So I thank “How to Make and Fix a Series on AO3” by Charles_Rockafellor—specifically the unrelated section at the bottom about formatting indentation—for teaching me how non-collapsible space codes work.
Of course, now I’ve written myself into a bit of a corner—if Kerry kills ALL the Time Monkeys, then Syd doesn’t get kidnapped, then what the heck is going to happen in the Witch’s castle?
I read the transcript of these scenes in the movie over and over, looking for places the Legion crew could break in, and the first thing I noticed was that Toto gets to do some heroic leading here. Time to make use of Matilda! As I said earlier, Syd has the cat to practice controlling her powers. She’s starting to like wandering around as Matilda, and has used her for espionage before. Now’s the time!
*
Scene 9: The Witch’s Castle, ie the ‘Works
It’s embarrassing how long it took me to decide that the castle of the Wicked Witch of the ‘Works would indeed look like the actual ‘Works, ie, Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital, which is a bit of a fortress anyway, being that it’s high-security.
It’s even more inescapable in Chapters 6 and 7, when the characters find themselves trapped in an astral recreation of the hospital. As the illusion begins to break down, though, the other patients do turn into swarming zombies. (And yeah, orange sweats are the Clockworks uniform for patients. Clockwork Orange, get it?)
Syd’s the first person to see through the illusion of the hospital, and her first big clue is an out-of-place wooden door at the end of the hall, which is breaking in from the room their physical bodies are actually in.
And now I’ve finally figured out what to do with Amy! SHE’S the one the Witch is holding prisoner! I loved the image of the big red hourglass that supposedly would somehow kill Dorothy when it ran out (? Never quite understood that part, to be honest). It seemed very Legiony. But I put sunflowers in this one, which makes it even more surreal an image, because yellow-which-is-more-thematically-evil-than red, and because Amy dropped a bunch of sunflowers when she was captured and sort-of-murdered…because Lenny had begged the Shadow King to let her free to live again, but being that her body was dead, the Shadow King said he’d have to use another body—so Lenny’s DNA was forcibly merged with Amy’s, and now Lenny’s got control of the body but Amy’s still haunting the back of her head… I mean, it’s weird, and probably one of my least favorite choices in the show, but it works here, that the merging of the two of them might grant access to the Wizard’s Heart, and yay, Syd STOPS it before it can happen so that BOTH women can be rescued from the Shadow King in their own whole selves!
*
Scene 10: The Rescue Mission
This conversation isn’t quoting anything directly, but it is so very characteristic of Kerry, Cary, and Ptonomy together that it might as well be. As usual, the Scarecrow’s got the plan. As a Cary fan, I approve.
When the Witch hisses, “Where is it? Where is it?” I’m actually hearing her—it—the Devil With Yellow Eyes—hissing “Where did he put it?” over and over at the beginning of Chapter 7. But he-she-it’s actually looking for the Heart here, so I had to change the wording.
Kerry always knows when there’s gonna be a fight, trust her word. Ptonomy would prefer a nice friendly tommy gun. Please observe Kerry absolutely rocking a staff in Chapter 18 (2.10). And the only offensive weapon Cary has ever employed is a bottle of lemon cleaning spray to the eyes (unfortunately, he got David with it, Chapter 11 (2.3)).
My husband the weapons geek would like you all to understand that one CANNOT wield a mop like a quarterstaff because it’s weighted all wrong. But a) he’s assuming this universe actually makes sense; b) he seriously underestimates Kerry’s fighting prowess; and c) it doesn’t matter anyway because the Witch, possessed as she is by a powerful psychic, has telekinesis. For the next minute or so anyway.
(It also might be relevant that in Chapter 15 (2.7), Clark points a gun at David and David turns the gun into a mop, which, points to my husband for the mop-is-a-useless-weapon reference).
Yes I know I’m biased toward Cary, but the original Scarecrow DOES seem to have the most direct interaction with the Witch. And it is at this point that she sets him on fire, and that’s what prompts Dorothy to throw water at her, spelling her downfall. Only how does that have any resonance with the Legion universe? Finally I went with the lemony fresh spray, because it's Cary-centered, it’s funny, and he deserves it.
Also it’s yellow, which again is symbolically relevant, and it’s a disinfectant, which fits with what we’re trying to do here! We don’t want to kill Lenny, we want to get the unclean spirit out of her!
And the fact that the Devil with Yellow Eyes is incredibly bloblike made it a perfect candidate for “melting, melting!”
“What just happened?” –exact quote from Kerry, Chapter 27 (the finale), after a similarly inexplicable and somewhat anticlimactic battle ending.
The whole Bleeping conversation was inspired by hc_silver posting this “F-bomb alignment chart” on the Discord server and the ensuing conversation—there was much disagreement, but the one thing everyone agreed on was the size of the “LENNY” in the top box.
I have given Lenny the power to be aware of Oliver in his ice cube (hence the “Frosty”) not only because it’s funny, but because she and Oliver do share an odd unreality, having both been possessed by the Shadow King at the same time at one point.
And she’s still the Wicked Witch after getting dispossessed. Just not an EVIL Wicked Witch.
*
Scene 11: Back to See the Wizard
Awww, Lenny and Salmon are reunited.
Lenny does frequently call David “kid,” despite being approximately the same age, though this may also have something to do with being possessed by a much older being for so long.
Syd stopped the Shadow King from possessing David through careful use of her swapping powers by kissing him in the first season finale, Chapter 8. Seemed like a good way to get the Heart into David’s hands.
Having god-like powers while at the same time being just, you know, a guy, is such a very Marvel Superhero concept in general, but it does fit David particularly well.
So the first time Cary tried to give David a brain scan, the Devil with Yellow Eyes started taunting David and freaked him out so much that he psychically yeeted the MRI machine into the woods outside. Much to Cary’s chagrin.
Now, would a cell phone really fix Kerry’s problem? The Summerlanders canonically have holographic smartwatches, so it’s not like they’re lacking in that respect. But like the movie-Wizard’s gifts, it’s the thought that counts.
On the other hand, David is a reality-bender, and though nobody ever seems to realize this in-show, Versaphile does make it clear in “When My Fist Clenches…” that David COULD make new bodies for anyone who’d lost one, if he’s in a good enough mental state. So there. We got Ptonomy back.
But David rarely is in a good mental state, and he’d love if he and Syd could just live happily ever after in an astral plane world of their own design, where also, incidentally, they’re actually able to physically touch without setting off a mind swap. Canonically Oliver and Melanie DO go this route together eventually themselves.
And here’s the final payoff to the Bleeping discussion, based on our ultimate decision that Oliver avoids cursing because he says it’s crass and beneath a poet like himself, but, in the words of hc_silver: “I feel he'd say he doesn't curse, but when he does he's either saved it deliberately for this specific moment [my emphasis], or he's just that tired/frustrated.” Or, as the Roger Rabbit rule goes, only when it’s funny.
“The Lovely Linda” is a song Paul McCartney wrote for his wife, and goshdarnit, I believe Oliver DOES appreciate the Beatles, despite his general leaning toward jazz. He’s just a music lover.
And now for Switch! Switch the time traveler, whose real name is Jai-Yi (Squirrel of all people gave her the “Switch” nickname and everyone just took it up, darn anti-Asian bias), only shows up in the third and last season, and I like her quite a lot, even though, ultimately, she was a deus ex machina (it turns out in the finale that she is literally a Time Goddess, not a mutant after all). It felt wrong not to put her in the story, but her Oz analogue was clearly The Good Witch of the South, who isn’t even in the movie version, and it also felt wrong not to bring Melanie’s Glinda back. So I compromised. Plus, the Good S. Witch pun is right there.
Her speech is a mash-up of the actual speech she gives the characters in Chapter 27 (the same scene Kerry follows up with “What just happened?”), Glinda’s speech in the movie, and a few appropriate lines from Melanie to Syd in Chapter 25.
Her glowing rectangle door is how she time travels in the show.
I have brought them back to Summerland! They never do return to Summerland after leaving at the end of Season 1, but it’s such a lovely place—filmed at an environmental center in the forests of British Columbia—and our Discord server is named after it, that I feel like it is the most No Place Like Home location most of the main characters have in the course of the show. Summerland it is!
And They All Lived Happily Ever After. “I'm glad that they did!” Frimfram put in her beta comments here. I’m not entirely sure the line holds true in canon, but that’s the beauty of the Legion universe—it’s a mess of alternate realities and anything could be true. They All Lived Happily Ever After is legitimately one of them.