Micah Kolding

Through the Plot Hole Micah Kolding

Long ago, the fourth wall of a slapstick animation collapsed, and a cartoon cat got a glimpse of a "real world" beyond his Sisyphean existence. Now he roams the Diegesphere via "plot holes" that take him from one story to another, always hoping that his next plot hole will be the one to free him from fiction entirely.

In every story, "the Cat" finds new followers: mentors, minions, tokens, villains... characters doomed to die in aid of their fiction's protagonist. And in every plot hole journey, the deathless toon has to watch more of them meet their merciless ends. Finally, after a particularly disastrous job that ends in an animated fairy tale, the Cat and his band of "Disposables" agree to give up and retire in relative comfort. Archetypes like them need to accept what they can get, after all.

That's when Princess Elana finds the Cat at the bottom of a bottle. This musical ingénue claims she is bored with her story, and talks the Disposables into one more plot hole job. For the first time in a long while, the Cat has hope; this is the only protagonist ever to join the crew, he reasons, and fairy tale protagonists lead charmed lives. If the team can get past their long-standing distrust of protagonists, and if the PG princess can adapt quickly to the R-rated problems outside her own realm, they may have a shot at becoming more than what they were written to be.
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