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Conniving Puffin

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Mozart: What on EARTH is going on? Someone tell me ANYTHING!
David: This is not real! You must escape at once! Death in here allows physics to be...well...bent...
— The Puffin Gains Lift? (1x02)

Conniving Puffin is a Web Series created by the Canadian Youtuber The Theorizer. The series follows a young man named Mozart Sanderson, who appears to have a perfectly normal life at first, living with his two parents, Jamison and Antionette. However, things become strange when his parents try to torture him, and it quickly becomes clear this is no normal family. Mozart eventually learns that his parents are psychotic alchemists, who use their supernatural power to inflict suffering. The series follows Mozart's life as he becomes an alchemist, fights his family, and learns the truth about everything.

The series is often told out of order, with a non-linear story where the audience constantly flashes backwards and forwards in time, although a chronological order of the series is available.

The first episode of the series was released on 22nd October 2016 and there are currently 19 seasons, which add up to 226 episodes to watch.

The Theorizer has written 27 seasons so far, so there is lots of story still to be released.

Tropes related to Conniving Puffin as a whole:

  • All for Nothing: Ginger spends her entire life torturing people and causing chaos all to get revenge for her family, only to be told by the Elder of her family in the Zeroth Dimension, that they are horrified by her and she is a disgrace to the family.
  • Anachronic Order: The episodes are out of order, and constantly move around in the timeline.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • Mozart and Antionette being trapped in a mirror version of their reality, and forced to live their life in there endlessly on a loop, with each repeat becoming more horrifying.
    • People trapped in Limbo and Deep Limbo are trapped in an empty void, unable to do anything, eat or drink or sleep at all.
    • The Zeroth Dimension is even worse. There, souls are trapped for eternity in pitch black darkness, being tortured endlessly by Ms. Finch and Ginger Macfiphenschall, and being struck by lightning.
    • Ginger eventually dies, but the afterlife has been temporarily blocked, so her soul is forced to reside in her rotting corpse, unable to leave or communicate.
    • Mildred is pushed off the top of a skyscraper, her soul latches onto a robot, she then is cut into pieces and made into several metal products like a fridge, a microwave and a toaster. These objects share her hive mind.
    • The alchemic sword. Once it decapitates it's victim, it uses alchemy to keep the head aware and conscious for days, so they can continue to suffer helplessly.
    • Being trapped inside someone else's soul. It is red, scary and full of monsters, with no way to escape, ever.
    • Being turned into an Opposoul. Having your body being turned into a demonic black shape, and forced against your will to consume the souls of others by your Queen.
  • Anyone Can Die: Almost all the main characters die at some point.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • In early seasons, alchemy seems to be more powerful, as beginners like David can create worlds in the Fourth Wall, whereas in later seasons, planetary scale alchemy would be restricted to only the most powerful.
    • There was often talk of a 'negative dimension' where souls broken apart go to, but we later see Mandy and Charles having their souls broken apart and neither go to the Negative Dimension.
    • Early seasons were extremely out of order, with almost no straight timeline, whereas later seasons were told in a mostly linear order, with the only exceptions being flashbacks.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Earth is blown to pieces by Mandy in The Great Puffin Plight-Part Four (7x06)
  • Foreshadowing:
    • David refuses to tell Mozart anything about his biological mother, hinting he is keeping things secret, which makes more sense when it is revealed he was evil all along.
    • Mildred is harsh with David and comments that "he can keep his secrets", which makes more sense when it is revealed he is as evil as his parents, and that David and Mildred used to date.
    • Mildred is aware that the robot blew up, despite not being there to see it, and is uncharacteristically angry at Mozart, which both hint that Mildred is being hypnotised by Antionette.
    • There is a 4th wall painting in Marina's house, hinting that Mozart is trapped in the fake world. The physics of the world are also shown to be different, with Mandy's Bulley bouncing off a wall and back to her head like a bouncy ball, and Mozart surviving a fall of a skyscraper into the lake, which all implies this world isn't real.
    • Mandy claims that the grave she mourned over was empty and it was all an act, but the grave clearly had an inscription on it, foreshadowing that there really was someone buried there she loved.
    • Mandy sings about the Mother of Death, several seasons before Ms. Finch reveals herself to be her.
    • Roberta Andrews can be seen spying in the background between Season 5 to Season 9 , before she is properly revealed in Season 10.
    • Po tells Mandy that he had visions of a woman with a burnt face slamming a group of people against a wall. This eventually comes true with Ginger Macfiphenschall in The Puffin Prophecy Comes To Pass? (15x07)
    • You can see Gladys Finch escape the Zeroth Dimension separately to, and in a hidden way to everyone else, in The Puffin Is A Witness To An Alchemic Outburst? (18x07) hinting she is more than she seems.
    • Jamison is scolded by Antionette for sending Mozart away, and for spoiling her plan, which hints Jamison is not the overarching villain, but merely a pawn.
  • Ironic Echo: Mozart is defeated by being told that 'we're all equal in Limbo'. He later uses this logic and quotes this to steal Mandy's powers and escape and strand her in Deep Limbo.
  • Magic by Any Other Name: Alchemy in this series is essentially just magic with a different name, something the The Theorizer confirmed
  • Oddball in the Series: Most of Season 11 is spent on a single flashback scene.


Beware the mother of death. She'll run you in circles like meth. She'll take you and make you and certainly break you. Forcing your soul into rest

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