John Smith (TV Series)/How It Became (Footnotes / Meta)

> (This section is a WiP, so a lot of the main Tab's footnote numbers are not yet explained.
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> This section, itself, is mostly just for technical details and fun design snippets / writing thoughts)
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## What We Become, Part II: Character Prelude (Short Story)

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### One: "Librarians are Notorious Liars"

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#### Two: "The Elevator" (Omitted)

> **(1)** "The Elevator" was omitted, partially, in diversion to "Librarians are Notorious Liars." As John's introduction into What We Become follows an tale which is not affirmed canon, as it primarily exists within the context of the character's 'ideation' stage (it took several character versions before John, himself, even became a somewhat consistent identity within What Remains, due to general writing errors. )The sidequel diverts even more from the character.
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> "The Elevator" was also omitted for another reason: It was incredibly violent. Unlike other sidequels created under the (hopeful) presumption of horror fiction, "The Elevator" attempted to portray particularly sinister characters via a close-quarters, third-person semi-omniscient viewpoint.
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> **(2)** This meaning, itself, was intended as the following: That history, unfortunately, tends to repeat itself—but that  our understanding of the past, ultimately, is skewed. This mode was intended to provide deeper context into John's past role in Erie, wherein, for several years, the Crows were suggested to have been poisoned by The Deadlands.
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> **(3)** While the narrator might originally be presumed to be that of "Librarians are Notorious Liars," or even John's backstory foil, Jerrick--neither are the case. Yet what remains, still, is a connecting piece within the first story, itself--which indicates an entirely separate character having seemingly impacted the events to unfold between John, Betty, and Jerrick, many years later during the apocalypse.
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### Three: "Knick-Knack"

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## What We Become, Part II: What Remains (TV Series)

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### Intro: Non-Character Entry

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#### "Cat's Ladle," Draft I (Short Story)

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### "The Key"

> John Smith is introduced in S1E8, "The Key" as a highway traveler of Monroe's north outbound. Having traveled from Lake Erie, his three-month venture is presumed to have involved many side-treks. It is known that two weeks were spent in Rochester, yet the journey's remaining time-frame is never clarified. Of note, however, is that several extended 'detours' were necessitated by an unexpected threat somewhere along Interstate 490: The appearance of, and subsequent assault by, a previous Erie Flock member turned bounty hunter: The allegedly 'self-titled' ex-flock member, 'Tan.' Said to have been a cohort to the Erie chieftess's murderer, Tan is not given a visual description. Neither the Interstate 490 conflict's details nor outcome are given.
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> In present time, John reaches his home, a stilted house alongside a river's dirt road, to find it ransacked. Windows shattered, and with a yard marred by slightly overgrown tire-tracks, the lot's damage is presumed to have been locally caused. Strangely, a number of John's then-possessions, consisting mostly of old travel clothes and garden equipment, were reacquired from a household down the road--having been neatly stored within an otherwise empty living room's large, wooden laundry chest. (WiP)
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#### "The Key" Sidequel: "Knot In Tow"

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### "The Third Door"

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#### "The Third Door" Sidequel:"Phasmophobia"

> The night spent in The River West House, seemingly, had taken quite a toll. Windows re-boarded, and makeshift camp buckled down, John waits out the sweeping, green tide's reach across The Barrens. True sleep ever-elusive, what arrives instead are a number of hypnagogic phantasms. Despite Maude Ma's teachings buffering the brunt, psychosis in full-swing would soon descend: Severed head a bobber in the living room's dead-eyed limelight, any semblance of humanity present was simply what had remained of the residential tomb's slumber--the splayed bodies.
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> Onwards into the Barrens, radio-chatter's tale continued to unfold. Monsters at the Monroe gates, it'd seemed, were not so easily rid of. To this, John stood once more: It was very late, and even the Green Fog's glint against what light existed would not persist long enough to provide adequate travel light. Even so, one utility existed which might ward the airborne toxins enough to press forward--to the CPF station, perhaps, before consciousness was finally lost. In worst-case scenario, it might yet save him if Rubrum Nebula had arrived. From the vapor itself, at least.
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> John removes the utility from his rucksack, applying what little had existed. A risk worth taking, the application would nonetheless be rendered worse than ineffective. The Dogmen's haunts, simply, had taken too much of a toll--and the surrounding atmosphere, laden with corpses and notes from their killer--would not heed the meditative state required for success.
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> The very same utility, which would later be used successfully in S2E3, "The Long Dark," had failed. Without so much as a step towards the front porch's crooked door, John falls.
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> And the worst of his past's memories, soon, arise (WiP)
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#### "The Third Door" Sidequel 2: "Static Pop" (Omitted)

> "Static Pop" recounts John's encounter with The Dogmen of S1E6, "The Key," in conjunction with the previously alluded to events of Lake Erie. While complete in form, it was ultimately omitted (mostly), for structural reasons: While the tale was grounded in unaffected prose in the event's depiction, about half took form in stream of consciousness. This was done to 'phase in' the descriptions of Dogmen attacks upon the character's psyche--yet the story's placement between "Phasmophobia" and "Applesauce" resulted in higher degrees of incoherence within an already affected approach to prose, in general. While "Static Pop" might've been placed elsewhere, it was further left by the wayside due to the story's content, itself, which explained the Erie events a little too quickly. The story was also framed by John's implementation of infrasonic radio signals while speaking with another unidentifiable character, ambiguously dubbed, "Friend," on the hillside of a graveyard, overlooking the landscape: As the two reminisced about past happenings in Rochester concerning an attack upon a (presumably) Crow-protected water tower, the story would soon divert to the city's waterworks system, itself: A scene intended as an allusion, later on, during "Phage Rhizobia." Mid-Section of "Static Pop" *"...In the filtration junction there are four in-line coolers not three but four but the metal’s production, (“blood,”) add-it-ives are gas-cooled none-the-less, (“Nonetheless, John,”) and a secondary coolant solution—in-line salt piping prevailing, (“who is to say…”) yields temperature regulation equal to, (“you did not murder her…”) that which remains, (“as a Rachter…”) Maude Ma: a daughter of Mother, (“yourself?”) they will call composite valve: Cospline; (“Three of us.”) yet prime equals—yes—Spline Triumvirate; (“You should have known,”) tangential Crow-talk is not becoming of Tian-Tan’s flock, John Smith; (“we’ll call,”) It a-wake! There, (“her,”) is the Dogman’s, (“Ma de,”) jaws they, (“Maw,”) consume the, (“Ma…”) mind, (“De-mawn!)* *Daytime thicket.* *Nighttime s’-swell.* *Maude Ma is no Rachter, salt-sweat-salt, Dogmen’s frigid—no Friend.* *No Maude.* *No Tian-Tan. Or Spline.* *Cospline.* *It is Monroe County. Around midnight. Monroe County. Ten or so tan tents hang ‘round every tree trunk—corners tatters. He’d been walking. North—to Rochester. To see the good folk: Audubon’s under-awning crowd. To deliver produce.*
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#### "The Third Door" Sidequel 3:"'A' is for Applesauce"

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#### "The Third Door" Sidequel 4: "Haunt"

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#### The Third Door" Sidequel 5: "What We Become"

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### "Rebirth"

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#### "Rebirth" Sidequel:"The Other Side"

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#### "Rebirth" Sidequel 2: "Cat's Ladle, Part II: Phage | Rhizobia"

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### "Questionable Ethics"

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### "Oppressor"

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### "The Long Dark"

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## Killed Victims

This list shows the victims John has killed in What Remains. For the main series, see the main article: John Smith (TV Series)

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