#ALSO WHAT WAS I THINKING 'jonah may not have been aware about x thing' like did i...did i forget. me 2 hours ago was dumb as rocks | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soveryanon · 4 years

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Reviewing time for MAG167!

- I did appreciate a loooot that little “break” to deal with (past) interpersonal problems and how they intertwined with the Fears. Characters-of-the-day in this season have been feeling mostly interchangeable since they’re rewritten/decontextualised from their past lives, and the narration covering multiple individual nightmares doesn’t really help, so… It felt safer and more comforting to go back to characters being themselves, even when that also ended miserably?

- I got super excited on first listen because !! New names!! New random tiny tidbits of lore regarding the past of the Institute! Pre-Gertrude era!

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “When she first joined the Archives, she took the place of a man named Angus Stacey, whose face was torn from his skull by a creature of masks and smiles. Gertrude had thought of it as “The Grinning Wheel”, and it was one of the first things to fall at the hands of the Institute’s new avenger. Appropriately enough, Gertrude used fire. […] Angus Stacey had, in the long tradition of Institute Archivists, been a disappointment to the man whose eyes then sat in the smirking face of one ‘Director Richard Mendelson’. Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen and, in trying to do so, burned through his resources; his luck; and ultimately all but one of his assistants. When Gertrude was appointed to the role, there was a single survivor left in the Archives: a woman by the name of Fiona Law.”

So:

* Angus Stacey was the previous Archivist, killed by a creature of The Stranger… which, aouch (Gertrude wasn’t killed by one, but had spent a good amount of time thinking about their ritual before her death, didn’t feel like she was putting out as much energy against The Dark honestly? And Nikola wore her skin during The Unknowing. The Stranger was all around there at the beginning and at the end, uh…).

* Interestingly, Angus was aware of Smirke’s taxonomy, and so was Gertrude at least towards the end of her life (since Gerry mentioned that he liked to use his classification in MAG111); I wonder if there used to be documents about it in the Archives, potentially by Smirke himself, before Jonah possibly hid them away to ensure that Jon would be kept in the dark about it…? (It’s also possible that such documents exist and Jon didn’t have the time to stumble upon them: he’s been Head Archivist for only three years).

* OOFT that the Archivist pre-pre-Jon wanted to “revise” Smirke’s classification… which highlights, once again, that that classification was subjective and an interpretation, but not something set in stone – despite what Smirke was attempting to do with his architecture.

* Confirmation that Gertrude knew another one of Jonah’s identities when she began to work in the Archives! James Wright was Head from 1973 to 1996, so that had always been a possibility. When Elias commented about how “Fifty years is a long time! [CHUCKLE] End of an era.” in MAG158, it really wasn’t an exaggeration. Gertrude lived through three of his identities.

- I’m really glad to know that, since Jonah used to be a “Richard Mendelson”… his nickname must have been “Dick”.

As Jon, master of redundancy, said in MAG096: “Cocky prick.”

(My only regret is that Tim didn’t live enough to know that. He would have made Elias’s life hell about “Dick” TT__TT)

- Laughing very hard that Jonah’s main characteristic is definitely… his way of smiling.

(MAG092) ELIAS: Now, you have something to ask me? BASIRA: Go for it. DAISY: Before I strangle the grinning bastard.

(MAG108) PETER: I have a meeting with him today. He suggested… I’m sure he’s watching from his office, grinning from ear to ear.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “Angus Stacey had, in the long tradition of Institute Archivists, been a disappointment to the man whose eyes then sat in the smirking face of one ‘Director Richard Mendelson’.”

HOW the heck did he manage to attract and to give that aura of seriousness to his peers back in the 18th century? Is it a case of arrogance being perceived as confidence back then, when it’s just making Jonah obnoxious and insufferable nowadays? (It’s also SUPER FUNNY that Elias was, at the beginning, identified as kind of… bland and unremarkable, passive, a bit lazy, thanks-for-nothing-dude? While, once he reveals himself, it seems to go hand-in-hand with grinning/smirking faces. Gods. Basira, you should have punched him some more.)

- I recognised the name “Fiona Law” on the spot, since MAG029 was one of the first episodes to mention past details of the Institute, with the Elias Timeline Problem! Statement of Nathaniel Thorp, left on June 4th 1972:

(MAG029) ARCHIVIST: Fiona Law, the research assistant who took the statement, passed away in 2003 from complications following a liver transplant, and with two exceptions no-one else working for the Institute at the time is still employed here. Gertrude Robinson was there, of course, but we can’t exactly ask her, and Elias was working as a filing clerk at the time. I followed up with him, and he does remember there being something of a commotion around that time about someone self-harming while giving a statement – rumours said they’d cut off their finger or something – but he wasn’t directly involved and didn’t know much more about it.

Regarding “Elias”, since he’s meant to sound “middle-aged” (and not “old”): I’m still choosing to assume that MAG049’s information was correct, and that Jonah slipped up and mentioned a time when James Wright was working as a filing clerk, since he would become Head of the Institute the following year and that’s probably when Jonah took his body. The strange thing is still that Jon just accepted without a question that Elias was 20+ years older than he looked, but eh.

The HILARIOUS and accurate detail is that, regarding Fiona’s tendency to pass out when in danger?

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “Fiona was the most fascinating combination of curiosity and cowardice, pushing forward and forward into the unknown, until the very first moment of threat… crystallised. And then she was away. Of course, retreat is not always possible in such a line of business, and when that proved to be the case, there was a single trait which Fiona possessed that saw her surviving encounters which had killed far braver souls than her. Because when she was pushed to the very limits of her terror, Fiona Law… would faint. And while there are those things in the dark that would kill you as you slept, most get no real delight from it, unless you are awake enough to know what is happening. And so, through cowardice and unconsciousness, Fiona had survived an entire generation of Archivist.”

It may have been A Thing that happened in MAG029!

(MAG029, Nathaniel Thorp) “The end, I suppose. Thank you for indulging me, you’ve been very patient. I’m well aware I came in to tell you my own story, and instead have rattled off some old folktale, which you’ve dutifully taken down. I do feel now, though, that I’m at a place where I can tell you of myself. But for one final bit of context, I need you to watch this. Pay attention.”

ARCHIVIST: Archivist’s note: After this point the rest of the page is covered in what appears to be a large bloodstain. The statement resumes on the page afterwards, in a somewhat shakier hand.

“Apologies for that. A bit dramatic I know, but I always feel a demonstration is best in these situations.”

She might have passed out and then resumed taking the statement when she woke up x”)

- Sarah Carpenter took me a few more seconds on first listen, but given that Paul McKenzie had been put back on the foreground with MAG146, the name still quickly rang a bell (statement given on August 24th 2003):

(MAG027) ARCHIVIST: When this was originally logged, apparently we did send a then-member of the research staff, one Sarah Carpenter, to take some readings of the house. Apparently she felt there was little enough danger to justify an overnight vigil at the place, but like everyone else in Mr. McKenzie’s tale, she encountered no strangeness or intruders on the upstairs landing, or in any other part of the building. […] The only other thing that stands out from this as strange is that Sarah Carpenter, the researcher originally sent to look into this back in 2003, took some rather detailed photographs of the interior and layout of the house. Looking through them now, it strikes me that the bedroom door, to which Mr. McKenzie refers so often, does not appear to have a keyhole, or any sort of lock.

“Research staff” (Fiona was also identified as a “research assistant” in season 1) but, given that Jon didn’t even know that Gertrude used to have assistants by MAG080, it’s likely that the data about (past) Archives staff is… hard to get / hidden a bit.

HEAVY SOB IN GERTRUDE/AGNES that the thing Gertrude saw in Sarah was her “fire”:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “Eric was replaced by another assistant, not so young as Michael, and hardened with some encounters of her own. She was eager to prove herself, and exactly the sort of person to intrigue the ageing Emma. There was a fire to Sarah Carpenter, perhaps the one which led to Gertrude hiring her, and Emma’s curiosity ignited once again, this time keen to find out exactly what it would take to break this brave investigator of the unknown.”

Like, wow, Gertrude, please, you had a type.

- I love how, with just tiny brushes, it really felt like Emma-Eric-Fiona-Gertrude were indeed once upon a time a team, with their own dynamic?

It gave me season 1 flashbacks, with Tim&Sasha commenting a lot about Martin being jumpy, Jon groaning about Tim’s April Fools Prank, etc. Own team with its own flavour.

It also reminds me that Jon had mentioned that some files were in better order:

(MAG060) ARCHIVIST: The mid-to-late 20th century seems marginally better filed than most of the archives, so we haven’t seen as many rogue statements cropping up from that period.

So: Emma-Eric-Fiona-Gertrude used… to do the work, back then, probably? Eric, at least, had the qualifications.

- I was really hoping that we would learn about “Emma” since Eric had mentioned her, Jonny had announced in the season 4 Q&A that we would:

(MAG154) ERIC: You know, you were never actually that nice to me when I worked for you, Gertrude. Not like Michael, or Emma.

But WOW, I. wasn’t expecting her to be that bad. It’s really strange, because for the first half of the statement, I thought that Emma was the quintessence of Beholding? Scheming bad things to experiment and observe them from afar? And turns out she was going Web?!

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “But Emma had a sickness. As much as she might have despised the ageing Fiona, it was the same one that plagued her: curiosity. That desperate, grasping need to know. […] The experiments were simple enough. When a statement was close enough, and real enough that finding its source seemed a possibility, Emma would volunteer herself and Fiona to investigate it. […] Once out near danger, Fiona would always find herself… ever-so-slightly ahead; always seeming to be inexplicably the first through the door. And more often than not, it would close behind her. By the end, the poor woman genuinely believed spontaneously locking doors were a tell-tale sign of the supernatural. Emma would do her best to observe from safety, making notes, only retrieving the often unconscious Fiona when the danger passed. She watched, as her poor guinea pig stumbled through a maze of whispering grubs; she timed the intervals at which Fiona emerged from a hungry fog; and recorded her barely escaping the Sandman, who came to take her eyes. Poor Fiona never suspected a thing. […] When Emma came to tell Gertrude what had happened, she found the first of the cobwebs in her hair, the ones she would wash from it every morning for the rest of her life. And Gertrude mourned the first of many losses, and did not suspect the truth. […] And all through it, Gertrude could not see what was happening. And certainly the Spider smoothed things, elided questions, wiped away evidence, but it barely had to. Far better to feed Gertrude a steady string of plans to foil, and rituals to derail. […] When Emma Harvey awoke to the searing heat, she knew she was already dead. As the fire took her, and left her flesh running off her bones like oil, all she willed was not to give it the satisfaction of being afraid.”

* Down to the detail of Gertrude dealing with it with fire, when it’s been highlighted by The Lightless Flame that The Web is vulnerable to it (Eugene’s statement in MAG139, Agnes against Fielding at Hill Top Road, the spiderwebs burning in Jack Barnabas’s flat when Agnes was waiting for him).

* It’s interesting that Emma didn’t seem to be aware that she was going Web-y? Or, at least, had no particular devotion towards The Web as a concept, and felt like she was simply doing her stuff – like she got involved with the Fears, and they twisted natural traits into something terrible. Or is it that The Web was using her and hollowing her out without her being aware?

* We know that Raymond Fielding’s house burned on Hill Top Road around 1974, and that Annabelle was “created” (shortly?) before November 2010. There was a gap in Web avatars/activity in that time, potentially filled by Neil Lagorio (culminating with Annabelle visiting him in 2012). But Emma’s activity does coincide nicely in-between Fielding and Annabelle – was the Web focusing on her in that time, until the tree got uprooted at Hill Top Road?

* It was already a surprise in MAG145 to learn that The Web had been active in the Archives during Gertrude’s youth (it didn’t arrive there with Jon and Neil Lagorio’s original cuts), I’m even more surprised to learn that it had rooted itself this deep and so close to Gertrude back then. It couldn’t have been closer to an Archivist than by touching an assistant! (Well. Or by touching/marking/digging its roots into an actual Archivist. *squint at Jon*)

* Emma really reminded me of Leitner experimenting on his assistants, and of Annabelle’s creation? It’s interesting that “arts/stories” and “experiments (on humans)” seem to be the two main Web-related activities. It’s also interesting that Emma’s experiments… led to Fiona and Sarah being touched by multiple Fears (and just barely escaping them), as if prepping the modus operandi for Jon?

* I’m still REALLY surprised that Emma didn’t turn out to be the Quintessence of Beholding budding associates; Webholding…?

* … My main question being: if Emma turned out to be Web, HOW COME Jonah Magnus is officially of the Beholding. I MEAN.

(MAG092) ELIAS: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett: he retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came. Bones that you can still find in my office, if you know where to look. No, it was because he was curious. Because he had to know, to watch and see it all. That’s what this place is, Jon, never forget it.

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “When Smirke first gathered our little band – Lukas, Scott and the rest – to discuss and hypothesise on the nature of the things he had learned from Rayner… I felt what I believe we all felt: curiosity, and fear.”

Down to the “curiosity”?? Sacrificing people just to see what would happen??? That’s textbook what he did??? (But then, I’m REALLY not sure that part of Elias’s head hasn’t been filled with cobwebs for a loooooong time.)

- I’m gonna laugh for a looong time that Elias gracefully allowed murder as long as it didn’t take place within the Archives.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “It was a trivial matter to convince the man who now watched from the skull of Elias Bouchard to allow it, so long as the deed did not take place within the Archives itself. But it didn’t need to. An employee’s home address is a simple thing to acquire.”

Too much paperwork to fill? Or afraid of fire in the Archives? (I was surprised that he allowed it in the first place, because… what were his feelings towards Emma? Loving that little monster? Annoyed that this little shit was killing off employees and that he had to work on the cover-ups? Frustrated that The Web had invited itself within his Institute? Irritated that their methods looked so alike? With MAG145/MAG158, I had gotten the feeling that Jonah might have tried to smooth over his relationship with Gertrude with the death of James Wright – since Gertrude had identified that he was spying on them, and that Elias&Gertrude seemed to collaborate from time to time afterwards (Gertrude had realised he was Jonah, but Jonah only understood that right before killing her). So maybe it was just to appease Gertrude?)

- Regarding the “curiosity”, really loved how it felt like a form of disease taking hold of the assistants and pushing them to their dooms (taking risks / experimenting on them):

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “Fiona was the most fascinating combination of curiosity and cowardice […]. She had never got deep enough into the mysteries that plagued her to slake that burning curiosity. And she never would. […] But Emma had a sickness. As much as she might have despised the ageing Fiona, it was the same one that plagued her: curiosity. That desperate, grasping need to know. […] There was a fire to Sarah Carpenter, perhaps the one which led to Gertrude hiring her, and Emma’s curiosity ignited once again, this time keen to find out exactly what it would take to break this brave investigator of the unknown.”

And… crying a bit about Sasha and Jon, once again ;;

(MAG026) SASHA: I should really quit, you know. We, we all should. I don’t think this a normal job. I, I don’t think this is a safe job. ARCHIVIST: You’re probably right. Do you want to quit? SASHA: No. I’m just… I’m just too damned curious, I suppose. You? ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever’s going on, I… need to know. Get some rest.

“Curiosity” was something Jon&Sasha both shared… if Sasha had stayed around for longer, would she have turned like Emma over the years/decades…?

- The episode’s title seemed to refer both to Emma (and the assistants)’s “curiosity”, and to Martin’s own – Martin deciding, after the story, that he didn’t want answers to some of his own questions (he learned! ;;). But also, it puts to mind what Jonah had said about Gertrude:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “More than once, I thought [Gertrude] must secretly be of The Hunt, but there was never that sick joy in her, that thrill of predator and prey. She had simply decided that this was her position in life, and went about it with a practicality that even I found disconcerting at times. I once asked her… what drove her, what had started her down that path. She told me The Desolation had killed her cat…!”

Curiosity Kills The Cat. (Though: in this case, it was The Web/curiosity which “killed” Emma.)

I’m also CRYING because this exchange took place in 2013-2014, so after Gertrude had already got rid of Emma:

(MAG162) GERTRUDE: Find anything [ITEM FALLING ON THE GROUND] interesting– GERRY: Oh…! GERTRUDE: –back there? [DOOR CLOSES] GERRY: Yeah, sorry, I was just, hum… yeah. GERTRUDE: Curiosity is a very dangerous trait in our line of work, Gerard. GERRY: So is ignorance.

And what did Gertrude THINK and FEEL when she saw Gerry trespassing and taking an (unauthorised) look at her things? When he looked like he himself was succumbing to “curiosity”?

- Regarding The Web’s threads being involved in the derailing of rituals…

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: And Gertrude wanted to stop [the rituals]. At… any cost. GERRY: She worked out they’d all be happening quite close together. She’d already been doing it a while, and the Unknowing was the next on her list. That and the Watcher’s Crown.

(MAG134) PETER: There are two Powers that, to my knowledge, have never attempted to fully manifest, never had followers set them up for a ritual: Mother-of-Puppets, and Terminus. The Web, and The End. The Web, I’ve never really been sure about: if I were to guess, I would say it actually prefers the world as is, playing everyone against each other, and so on.

(MAG151) SIMON: And honestly, the idea that this is all some… “grand cosmic joke”, thousands of us running around spreading horror and sabotaging each other pointlessly while these impossible, unknowable things just lurk out there, feeding off the misery we cause… [INHALE] I find that interpretation quite appealing…!

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “By this point, Gertrude was fully lost to her plots and plans and struggles, and as long as her assistants played their parts when asked, she paid them no more mind. And the frequency of genuine encounters grew, as the season of hurried rituals came nearer. […] And all through it, Gertrude could not see what was happening. And certainly the Spider smoothed things, elided questions, wiped away evidence, but it barely had to. Far better to feed Gertrude a steady string of plans to foil, and rituals to derail.

Was it to ensure that they wouldn’t succeed? Or was The Web having its kick with organising and derailing the rituals around? It really reminded me of Simon’s words, the idea that even if rituals weren’t successful… they were still feeding the Fears with the overall commotion.

- Was the man who killed Sarah Diego Molina? He fits the description:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “He was bald, dressed in dreary office clothes. To a cursory examination, unfit and unremarkable, save for his peculiar surroundings. […] He split open like a flower bud blooming, and inside there was only the most terrifying heat. She had no time to run, and by the time she thought to scream it was too late as the thing enveloped her, closing tight – until she was simply more ash, trapped forever inside that charred and hollow shell.”

… And ;_; Gerry killed Diego Molina in December 2011. One or two years before Gertrude would contact him and offer to free him from Mary, and they began their collaboration. Did she feel some gratitude that he had avenged Sarah, back then…?

- Regarding Gertrude’s collaborators, I’m surprised to see Salesa included in the list:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “And with that, Gertrude Robinson was without assistants. She never hired another. She worked with those that seemed useful until they were no longer so: Leitner; Dekker; Keay; even Salesa on occasion. But she never again allowed herself to trust.”

From what we know, Salesa was occasionally selling items to the Institute and had given a few statements (MAG115), but I don’t recall clear-cut examples of them working together. Are we meant to learn a few more things about Salesa…? There is still the mystery of his death (?), the explosion (MMMMM…), the absence of body and the camera being retrieved in Floyd’s statement (MAG141)…

- Alrighty, elephant in the room with this episode: ~*timeline problems*~!

This is the information we had so far regarding the chronology of events surrounding Hill Top Road, Agnes, and the Archives/Institute drama during Gertrude’s tenure:

* Since 1957: Raymond Fielding inherited a house on Hill Top Road, where he raised teenagers for spider egg sacks material. (MAG008)

* In the mid-60s, in the middle of a winter: Agnes was send to Raymond Fielding’s house by The Lightless Flame. (MAG059, MAG139)

[* For the estimated date above: Ronald Sinclair was born in the late 40s and saw Agnes’s arrival before he turned 18; he lived for three years with Raymond Fielding, just managed to escape after Agnes broke the threads binding/puppeteering him. He gave his statement on November 29th 2005. (MAG059)]

* 4th of June 1972: Fiona Law took Nathaniel Thorp’s statement, and Elias “was a filing clerk at the time” – possible slip-up of Jonah who had trouble recalling which body/identity he was using at the time. (MAG029)

* 1973: James Wright becomes Head of the Institute. (MAG049)

* In 1974, a five-year-old named Henry White goes missing near Hill Top Road, is not found; the house burns down shortly after, and Raymond Fielding’s corpse is found, missing its right hand. (MAG008)

* Shortly after (since Gertrude was around 25 years old): Gertrude found “a tin box in the ashes of Hill Top Road” containing strands of Agnes’s hair and, thinking she was working on a counter-ritual, was manipulated by The Web into binding her existence with Agnes’s. (MAG145)

* 1991: Elias Bouchard began to work at the Institute, in Artefact Storage. (MAG049)

* 1991–1996: Eric managed to quit the Archives, before getting killed by Mary Keay a few months afterwards. He had crossed paths with Elias before he became Head of the Institute, and remembered Emma and Michael fondly; Gertrude was already suspecting (and had shared that information with at least Eric) that James Wright was spying on them through eyes. (MAG154)

* 1996: Elias Bouchard became Head of the Institute / Jonah Magnus body-hopped from James Wright to Elias Bouchard. (MAG049, MAG154, MAG158)

* 1999: Statements were leaked to the public, deteriorating the Institute’s reputation. (MAG068)

* 2003: Fiona Law died “from complications following a liver transplant” according to Jon’s follow-up. (MAG029)

* August 2003 and some time after: Paul McKenzie left his statement on August 24th 2003, and Sarah Carpenter was sent to investigate, took pictures of his house. (MAG027)

* Autumn 2006: Jack Barnabas went on a few dates with Agnes Montague, as described in a statement left on March 18th 2007. (MAG067)

* Mid-November 2006: Ivo Lensik reported the strange occurrences happening in a house on Hill Top Road, crossing paths with Father Edwin Burroughs. He left his statement on March 13th 2007. (MAG008)

* 23rd of November 2006: Agnes Montague and Jack Barnabas went on a final date; on an impulse, Ivo Lensik hit Hill Top Road’s tree, which started bleeding, and then proceeded to “destroy” it. He found a wooden box containing a green apple, which turned into spiders; Agnes made a phonecall about a “tree falling” and gathered members of the Lightless Flame in her flat in Sheffield, one of them bringing a container full of tiny spiders; Agnes told Jack goodbye, kissed him at his request, and was later found hanged in her flat, with a human hand tied by a chain to her waist. (MAG008, MAG067)

* 30th of November 2006: Eugene Vanderstock was sent on Arthur Nolan’s behalf to tell Gertrude about Agnes’s death. (MAG139)

* 2nd of September 2007: during one of Gertrude’s recordings, her assistant Michael is heard on tape. (MAG099)

* 3rd of July 2008: Mary Keay visited Gertrude in the Archives, left Eric’s page with Gertrude. (MAG062)

* 21st of July 2008: Gertrude invoked Eric’s page and had a conversation with him. Eric mentioned that Emma and Michael were “nice” to him when he was working in the Archives. (MAG154)

* June 2008: Gertrude fed the Vast-touched Jan Kilbride to the pit, stopping The Buried’s ritual. (MAG097, MAG126)

* October 2008: Gertrude, with Adelard’s help, stopped The Flesh’s ritual. (MAG130)

* 2nd of February 2009: Arthur Nolan was ~invited~ by Gertrude for a talk, and they discussed amongst other things Agnes’s death, Eugene’s report of it two years earlier, Gertrude’s protective ritual having been disrupted and things having gone badly for the trespasser. Gertrude told Arthur that she had never met Agnes. (MAG145)

* “in the middle of February” [2009]: Jason North discovered and disrupted Gertrude’s ritual hidden in a forest in Scotland, was cursed by The Desolation, left his statement on August 6th 2009. (MAG037)

* Early October 2009: Deborah Madaki reported having received an invitation to assist The-Worker-In-Clay in Sannikov Land. She left her statement on October 11th 2009 and said she had received the letter a week earlier. (MAG126)

* ??? in-between: Gertrude took Michael to Sannikov Land and used him to disrupt The Spiral’s ritual, making him fuse with The Distortion. (MAG101)

* By 2011: Gertrude had lost all her assistants – Leitner mentioned in February 2017 that he had met Gertrude “about six years ago, after she’d lost the last of her own assistants”. (MAG080)

* 14th of August 2013: Adelard Dekker sent a last message to Gertrude, informing her of his incoming death. (MAG157)

* Around 2013: Gertrude and Gerry began to work together, for two years until Gerry’s death. (MAG111)

-> Michael replaced Fiona. Since Eric had left before Elias became Head of the Institute and worked with Michael, it means that Fiona was imprisoned by the Coffin before 1996 – although she was reported dead in 2003 from complication following a liver transplant (MAG029).

Proposition: anyway she was a prisoner in the Coffin, so there was no body found, and the operation-thing was just a cover-up. Back then, seven years were necessary before a missing person was presumed dead; so she could have disappeared anytime, and the Institute/Elias finally decided on a cover-up years later, when it was safer, to clean the records. (+ given how Jon asked Elias directly in MAG029, it’s possible that Jon got the information about Fiona’s “death” from him, and he could have falsified/provided whatever).

-> … really really more bothering: the idea that Agnes and Gertrude met after Gertrude had fed Michael to The Spiral. Considering that the day of Agnes’s death was reported multiple times as being the 23rd of November 2006; that Michael-as-an-assistant was recorded in September 2007; that the Great Twisting happened after October 2009. So, when Agnes had been dead for three years.

Jonny’s allusions to it doesn’t feel like it was intentional, but rather that it was a genuine mistake, which ;; (What is the fun in trying to unravel some mysteries if some information is accidentally contradictory, aarrrrg…). If it were to be intentional, I would suggest that Agnes… actually managed to free herself from The Desolation by self-sacrificing for them (in the same way that Eric quit the Archives by blinding himself), and hid from them afterwards? Or that she was a fire ghost, or that Gertrude met with her at Hill Top Road, where we know from Ivo Lensik and Anya Vilette that time is weird (Anya experiencing time differently, Ivo meeting with a young Ray Fielding and catching a glimpse of Agnes as a kid)?

If the Great Twisting indeed happened circa late 2009-2011, and Gertrude met Agnes “in some manner or shape” afterwards, it would mean that her declaration to Arthur in February 2009 wasn’t a lie:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like?

Since she would only meet Agnes after making that statement.

- SOBBING a lot about the concept of Gertrude and Agnes meeting, since:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “The rage she felt was ice-cold. And so, Gertrude went to the one person she was certain she could trust on the matter. Agnes Montague and Gertrude Robinson only ever met once in their lives. Even if The Lightless Flame had allowed it, what would there have been to say? The bond between them, real as it was, was no one’s choice but The Web’s, and neither of them were keen to play its game any further than they had to. Their discussion was brief, and tinged with a melancholy, an awareness of mistakes, of their choices and duties and destinies. Neither of them smiled. But Agnes did confirm what Gertrude knew, and the details of Sarah’s suffering only sharpened that deep and wounded hatred.”

It’s so powerful and beautiful and sad? My shiiiiip…

- Speaking of fire ghosts: could the one mentioned in MAG100 actually be Emma…? (Since it didn’t match with the location of Agnes’s flat.)

- I really liked how this statement humanised Gertrude: season 2 had shown her more in control than Jon previously thought, aware of what was happening around her; season 3 cemented that she knew how to navigate and survive around the Fears, cruelly efficient (feeding Michael to The Spiral and then able to protect herself from him, being work-orientated in Gerry’s eyes…); season 4 had shown her in control, but also needing to think and discover things (learning that The Slaughter didn’t need to be one of her concerns in MAG137) and not immune to getting manipulated (The Web binding her to Agnes in MAG145). I like how this episode really conveyed that Gertrude… hadn’t grown out of thin air; that, yes, she impressively managed to survive for so long in that world (around fifty years!), but that what we heard from her… was mostly her last twenty years of life. She used to be young! To operate slightly differently! She made mistakes, and hardened herself, and even though she traded sentimentality for a form of “efficiency”, it wasn’t perfect, she made her choices and they had consequences:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: “Alongside this inherited survivor, Gertrude would add two more assistants: Eric Delano, and Emma Harvey. They were young, like her, keen to delve deeper into those strange secrets that back then were spoken of more openly. To them, Fiona seemed something of a joke; a middle-aged chatterbox who told stories of the Blitz and jumped at the long shadows in the corners of the Archives. Emma in particular was Gertrude’s confidante, the one whose knowledge and instincts she trusted, and the only other member of the Institute who ever knew of the strange bond between Gertrude and Agnes Montague. […] This time, Gertrude did have an inkling as to what was happening, but had her own escalating conflicts to concern herself with, and recognised the potential in a truly ignorant assistant. […] By this point, Gertrude was fully lost to her plots and plans and struggles, and as long as her assistants played their parts when asked, she paid them no more mind. […] And all through it, Gertrude could not see what was happening. And certainly the Spider smoothed things, elided questions, wiped away evidence, but it barely had to. Far better to feed Gertrude a steady string of plans to foil, and rituals to derail. […] And with that, Gertrude Robinson was without assistants. She never hired another. She worked with those that seemed useful until they were no longer so: Leitner; Dekker; Keay; even Salesa on occasion. But she never again allowed herself to trust.”

True, Gertrude worked as an Archivist wayyy longer that Jon; he probably would have worked differently over time too, experienced more losses, changed his mind about a few things over decades. But it’s interesting that Jon’s trajectory, right now, has been the reverse of Gertrude’s; where she decided to stop trusting, he…

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: Still, it does sometimes make it hard to… fully trust them, I– [SIGH] You– you know what, no. I’m… I’m done with that. No more paranoia. It’s almost got me killed more than once, and… Georgie was right. If I am… slipping, then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an–anymore, so… I’m making a decision. I trust them. All of them.

(It wasn’t pitch-perfect trust: he dissimulated that he had been attacking people from Daisy&Basira&Melanie in season 4. He trusted Martin but ultimately decided that the news of Adelard being dead and acknowledging that he might have been wrong about The Extinction was a deal-breaker and that he needed to help/save Martin from Peter’s plans. But he also decided to save them at all costs: rescuing Daisy in the Coffin, sharing the information about how to cut oneself from the Archives to Basira and Melanie, allowing Melanie to escape, and saving Martin in The Lonely.)

- Aaaaand the answer to whether or not Martin was going to immediately tell Jon about Annabelle’s call seems to be… no. Since Jon used his powers to find out about it.

(MAG167) [CLICK–] [FOOTSTEPS] [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Help us with what? MARTIN: ‘xcuse me? ARCHIVIST: Annabelle, help us with “what”? Our–our, our journey, killing Elias, vanishing the Entities – what? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] MARTIN: Please don’t do that. ARCHIVIST: Do what…? Oh! Oh. Right, I, I see, yes. [STATIC FADES] Well, I– … [FOOTSTEPS RESUME] Sorry.

But it was apparently still on Martin’s mind, so… even if she had told him things he already knew, it had been enough to make him insecure/ill-at-ease. And to not share with Jon. (Because he feared that Jon would panic over The Web and what Annabelle was doing, trying to second-guess and getting lost in interrogations? Confirmed by the way Jon erupted into questions as soon as he Knew about the exchange.)

- The fact Jon did another breach of privacy, while confirming that he had more control, felt very well-handled to me?

(MAG167) MARTIN: It doesn’t… feel great, having someone looking inside your head…! ARCHIVIST: You can… feel it? MARTIN: No, but that’s hardly the point– ARCHIVIST: Oh! MARTIN: –Jon… ARCHIVIST: No, I see. Sorry, hum… Alright…< MARTIN: I mean, I don’t want to keep secrets from you, but– ARCHIVIST: You should at least… be able to. MARTIN: Basically, yeah…! ARCHIVIST: I–I suppose that’s fair. […] MARTIN: You said you could control it now. ARCHIVIST: I can, I–I just… It… [INHALE] You’re absolutely right. I will refrain from knowing anything about you. MARTIN: Thank you. ARCHIVIST: Unless you’re in danger. MARTIN: Physical danger. If I’m in danger of being mad at you or something– ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] MARTIN: –you’ve got to figure it out the old-fashioned way. ARCHIVIST: Fine, agreed.

* “It doesn’t feel great having someone looking inside your head” => HI. REMINDER OF WHAT ELIAS DID TO HIM IN MAG118. It’s trigger-potential territory for him, so Martin honestly took it kind of well, considering his own experiences?

* Mmmm, setting up a situation where Martin will be in physical danger and Jon would have to use his powers to try to reach him again…?

* ! Jon messed up on his first instinctive preoccupation (whether his powers were hurting Martin and/or whether the subject could feel something when he did), but he quickly understood the nature of the problem – that Martin should have the freedom to choose to keep things for himself, that there is an imbalance, and that, plainly, it’s making Martin uncomfortable so, if Jon values Martin’s comfort, he should stop. I like how it felt like both of them worked on finding a consensus? Overall, I really liked how Martin managed to express his discomforts and when Jon’s powers were bothering/frightening him; he didn’t shame Jon for it, but didn’t fall in the trap of bottling up his feelings either. At the core of it, he still has the fear of losing Jon – so, it’s good that he was able to convey his discomfort.

(I feel like next step should be about Jon’s own discomfort about using Beholding powers to murder monsters, but I feel like they might be laying groundwork for this and for Martin to acknowledge that Jon… is still ill-at-ease with it and about his situation, and that clinging to his discomfort has also prevented him from going full-monster until now. We’ll see!)

- There is a discrepancy about Martin’s description of Annabelle’s call, and the call itself, and I’m not sure what to think about it:

(MAG166) MARTIN: Hello? ANNABELLE: Hello? Is that Martin? MARTIN: Don’t do that. ANNABELLE: What? No stomach for games? MARTIN: Well, your “games” aren’t exactly fun for everyone, are they? ANNABELLE: Very few games are…! MARTIN: [SIGH] Look, look, look, I’m talking to Annabelle Cane, right? ANNABELLE: You never gave me your name – so why should I offer mine? MARTIN: Just, what do you want? ANNABELLE: I want to help you, of course. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … No. Thank you. ANNABELLE: It’s a hard place to find yourself in, maybe I can be of some… assistance…! MARTIN: You can assist me by giving the… “creepy phone” thing a rest…! ANNABELLE: He is more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? [PAUSE] And you’re not sure what that means for you. MARTIN: [INHALE] I’m hanging up now. ANNABELLE: Does he even need you at all? MARTIN: Bye! [BEEP]

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … So. What did Annabelle say? MARTIN: She offered to help, but she didn’t say what with; she… asked us where we were going. I didn’t tell her, but… [SNORT] it was pretty obvious she had a good idea. ARCHIVIST: Did you… feel like she was… influencing your mind at all? MARTIN: I don’t think so, but I mean… who knows? ARCHIVIST: I could. MARTIN: But look. She didn’t control me into asking you not to look into my head, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s all me. ARCHIVIST: Martin, I’m not… looking for a l–loophole. MARTIN: Well, good! ‘cause this isn’t one.

Jon had already uncovered the bit about Annabelle offering her “help”; but after that… on the one hand, Annabelle didn’t ask about their destination at all (contrary to what Martin said); and on the other hand, she needled Martin about Jon’s powers and whether or not Jon needed him (which Martin didn’t mention at all).

It could be faulty memory – that Martin got the impression she was probing about their destination, and that it became part of the exchange for him. It could be to test whether Jon was still using his powers (he wasn’t, we didn’t hear static, but Martin couldn’t have known). It could be a deliberate lie.

Personally, I would lean towards the interpretation that Martin was indeed checking whether Jon was still using his powers (it’s not a damaging lie: Annabelle knew when and where to contact him, so they’re quite clearly monitored already and Annabelle probably does know where they’re heading to and why); and didn’t mention the other part of his exchange with Annabelle because… he managed to get his answers in his own ways, without having to “involve” The Web in his discussion with Jon. If Martin had mentioned that Annabelle had asked him whether Jon needed him, would Jon have answered this easily that Martin was his reason? Or would Jon have panicked, thinking The Web might be manipulating him into saying it?

- Anyway, I feel like this episode might have been exactly what Annabelle was trying to instigate last time, which is… to get Jon&Martin to talk about their feelings, and for Martin to get a reassurance from Jon that he wasn’t managing to ask for, and that Jon had trouble wording without being pushed by the context.

(MAG167) MARTIN: [INHALE] [SNORT] Ssso. If you say Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to go on without a reason… ARCHIVIST: Yes, Martin, you are my reason. MARTIN: Just wanted to make you say it…! ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: Cool.

Not sure that it was what Annabelle was aiming for, but it’s a possibility: that she needed Martin to be reassured before they would reach The Lonely’s domain or something, because she wants them to get through.

(I loved Jon’s tone! I pictured him rolling his eyes because there was no way to say it without sounding too sappy to his own ears =D)

- Jon The Theatre Kid confirmed.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: … Methinks the Spider doth protest too much…! [BAG JOSTLING] MARTIN: Jon. ARCHIVIST: Joking! Just joking.

(Fun fact: in the play, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is pronounced… by Queen Gertrude. Jon, please.)

(It’s a joke, and a bit of truth and self-derision at the same time: how The Web… made Jon second-guess everything. When The Web tells you to go into X direction, is it reverse-psychology? Reverse-reverse psychology? So Martin denying being under influence could just be the proof of influence, or genuine. No way to know! But Jon has made the choice to trust him.)

- I felt like Martin was still… touched-by-Beholding in this one, mainly because of his probing, but also learning to keep his own curiosity/questions in check to not fall into the Fears’ influence?

(MAG167) MARTIN: [DEEP INHALE] Why did it have to be us? ARCHIVIST: You’d rather be a bystander? Trapped in… one of those places? MARTIN: I don’t know. “No”…? I just… [INHALE] I bet Gertrude would be able to do this, you know? She, she would eat a hellscape like this for breakfast…! [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I… don’t think she would have done very well here… MARTIN: No? ARCHIVIST: No… MARTIN: Do you… know that…? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: [DEEP INHALE] “To say that Gertrude Robinson never had a friend would not be true. […]” MARTIN: Well, let’s… try to avoid that next time…! ARCHIVIST: … Yes. Quite. MARTIN: [EXHALE] So, what? Without assistants, she’d be bad at the apocalypse? [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] ARCHIVIST: Wi–without… trust, without a, a reason… Gertrude needed both the purpose her mission gave her, and the control her position allowed. To be here, like us, without a, [INHALE] a reason, without someone to ground her, she… She’d have power but… no control. No real… purpose. Perhaps she’d dedicate herself to a, a doomed quest like us, but– … [QUIET] No… I think this would have broken her. And she’d have resigned herself to… ruling her domain. MARTIN: What domain? [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] ARCHIVIST: We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us. MARTIN: Oh. [PAUSE] Where’s yours? ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] I mean, we’re… traveling towards it. MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Hum… What about me? ARCHIVIST: … Would you… like me to… ? MARTIN: No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. ARCHIVIST: … Okay!

* I felt like there really was a progression from Martin, from asking and asking (and accidentally making Jon spill about Gertrude’s life) to… refraining himself and choosing that he would rather not know about things that are not impacting him right now.

* ;; So, Martin has a “domain”, “the place that feeds us”. I’m… not sure about what Jon meant by “us”: monsters and avatars? That would be acknowledging that Martin indeed is regarded as one after his involvement with The Lonely? Or is it about everyone, and the places are “feeding” people through their own fears? After all, they don’t need to drink or eat or sleep – what is sustaining them? Are the Fears “feeding” them in turn through the pain they cause to each other, following the “feed it or it will feed from you” that Jude had told Jon?

* If Martin has a domain… Where? Hill Top Road? The Panopticon?

(MAG158) PETER: It’s a significant site of power for The Beholding. From the tower in the centre of this room, you can see everything. MARTIN: But there’s nothing in the cells…! PETER: [CHUCKLING] I don’t mean the cells, Martin – I mean everything. […] I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what it’s doing, where it’s manifesting. Then we can stop it. MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”. PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate. MARTIN: I suppose I am.

“Both Lonely and Watching”, so…

* I really loved how that episode made it clear that… right now, Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to do what Jon & Martin are doing. That Gertrude was good at some things, bad at others. That there are things that only Jon&Martin can do, that they don’t have to live in her shadow. It follows what Jon said at the end of MAG162, that Gertrude didn’t think there would be a way to reverse the apocalypse – but also that they’re not her, and will try to find one themselves.

(* I’M WORRIED, THOUGH, THAT JON SAID THEY WERE ON A “DOOMED QUEST”? NOT VERY OPTIMISTIC ARE WE ;;)

- Gertrude might have crumbled if she had been plunged into the apocalypse, and Jon&Martin aren’t since they have each other… So there was this part of relief, of removing one’s guilt a bit about not being “enough”, that we also found with what happened this episode:

(MAG163) MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: They sit here – [STATIC RISES] the image of everyone they hold dear locked in their mind, knowing they’ll never see them again. Waiting for the order; dreading the bullet or the drone or the barbed wire that will tear them to shreds and leave them nothing but a bloody– [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things.

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: I… don’t think she would have done very well here… MARTIN: No? ARCHIVIST: No… MARTIN: Do you… know that…? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: [DEEP INHALE] “To say that Gertrude Robinson never had a friend would not be true. […] . But she never again allowed herself to trust.” [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] [STATIC] ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I, I–I’m sorry, I–I didn’t, hum… MARTIN: No! No, it’s, uh… I–it’s okay. [COUGH] I just… I couldn’t… not listen, or interrupt, or… ARCHIVIST: I–I–I promise I–I didn’t know I was going to do that…! MARTIN: I, I understand…!

Back in MAG163, Martin had managed to interrupt Jon, which was not the case this time around – probably because he didn’t recognise what was happening as a statement soon enough? But since Martin was “trapped” in the flow of the story… it’s also confirming something that wasn’t addressed, but could have been a cause of guilt on Martin’s side: the thought that perhaps, if he had been there in MAG160, he could have stopped Jon from reading Jonah’s letter. If this episode was any indication, no, he wouldn’t have been able to. His not being there didn’t change anything.

- Reaaaally curious because the way Martin described it reminds me of Jonathan Fanshawe in front of Albrecht:

(MAG127, Jonathan Fanshawe) “Again he ignored me. Instead, he took the seat opposite me, and started to tell me… a story. And then another. And another. A stream of… strange tales began to pour out of him, and I just sat there, transfixed, [STATIC] desperately wishing I had the strength of will to stand and leave, but all I could do… was listen. […] He told me so many terrible things. [STATIC FADES] And at the end of it all, the only thing I could think to ask him… was where he read them. […] [STATIC] ‘You do not understand,’ he said to me in German. ‘I do not read the books. They read me.’ [STATIC FADES]”

Was Albrecht Jonah’s first attempt at creating an Archivist…?

- I’m still wondering WHO is narrating in Jon’s statements this season… a few “you” and “I”:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: [DEEP INHALE] “To say that Gertrude Robinson never had a friend would not be true. She was close in her way to many people but, looking back, [STATIC FADES] I wonder if she ever realised just how strongly she herself reeked of The Lonely.”

Is it Jon-as-an-omniscient-entity-that-might-be-The-Archivist/Archives? Is it something else…?

- I feel like this episode also brought an interesting contrast to season 4 overall. On the one hand, we had Jon admitting that Martin was his “reason” (anchor?) to not crumble, to keep moving forwards as long as they’re together; that’s… a healthier approach than Jon being Martin’s “reason” in season 4:

(MAG158) MARTIN: I… When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil, and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me. I told myself I was trying to protect the others, but honestly? We didn’t even like each other. Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed. And then… [SHAKILY] Jon came back, and… and suddenly, I had a reason: I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control, so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away… so what? I’d already grieved for him, and if it meant now saving him, it was worth it!

… where Jon was Martin’s “reason” to push forwards into sacrificing more bits of himself. (A shift might have happened with Jon making Martin see him in MAG159, but I wonder if we’ll go back to Jon-as-Martin’s-reason too, and whether Martin has changed his opinion about it. In what aspect is Jon “Martin’s reason”, nowadays?)

The other contrast is about Jon’s self-destructiveness – I’ve seen a lot of discussion about it, but I didn’t really feel like the end of episode was tense, or horrible for Jon, or that Martin was being insensitive by twisting the knife in a wound?

(MAG167) MARTIN: Oh, ju–, uh, just, uh… Before we do. ARCHIVIST: Mm? MARTIN: A moment ago, when you were talking. ARCHIVIST: Right. MARTIN: The old Archivist, Angus. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: You said Fiona was… “released”– ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] MARTIN: –when he died. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. MARTIN: If you had died… ARCHIVIST: [FAINT EXHALE] MARTIN: … Would the others have been able to quit? ARCHIVIST: … Yes. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] I didn’t know. MARTIN: If you had… would you have told them? Would that have, have changed what happened? ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] I don’t know, Martin. I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. [BAG JOSTLING] [FOOTSTEPS] [CLICK.]

… I actually felt like it was Progress regarding Jon, and how he valued his own life.

First of: there is a possibility that Jon didn’t want to answer Martin because he knew, was convinced, 100% sure that he would have killed himself to free the others, with or without telling them first. But I find it interesting to think that Jon answered genuinely, that no, he truly doesn’t know if he would have! That he’s slowly admitting to himself… that no, he doesn’t, and has never wanted to die, even when he was ready to take risks, harm himself, endanger his life:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] No, you don’t. Not really…! Everyone’s alone, but we all survive. ARCHIVIST: I don’t just want to survive! MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: Martin… Martin, look at me. Look at me, and tell me what you see.

I still feel like Jon has always clung to the hope that he could make it out somehow, and the end of season 4 had him… acknowledge that he didn’t just want to “survive” – that is, he wants to “live”. He wants some quality of life. He wants something out of living.

But more importantly: season 5 began with a string of interrogations of hypothetic scenarii. What would have happened, if Sasha had been chosen as the Archivist? What would have happened, if they had listened to Gertrude’s testament at the beginning? Here, Jon was able to tell that one of the “what if” scenarii (Gertrude being thrown into the apocalypse) wouldn’t have been better; so him also admitting that he didn’t know whether he would have told the others… might be saying that no. He can’t know. It didn’t happen, since he didn’t know. And if he had known, maybe it wouldn’t have changed a thing; maybe it would have made things worse, too. I feel like it’s more optimistic than “I regret that I didn’t know, because then, I would have done it in a heartbeat”? So, I don’t know, but I felt like Martin’s probing was a way to try to get Jon to acknowledge that… maybe Jon telling the others would have changed things, maybe it wouldn’t have; but mostly, things wouldn’t have been necessarily better if Jon had chosen to sacrifice himself.

(I’m not convinced that Jon would have done it, and I’m not convinced that the others would have tried to kill him (even Tim!), and I’m not convinced that it would have made things better for everyone – by the time there were tensions, Tim probably wouldn’t have wanted to feel like a murderer when he had just been accused of being one, and would still want a shot at revenge for his brother; Melanie was already curious about the ghosts and was already infected by The Slaughter when enrolled; Martin didn’t have many other options for a job and wouldn’t have had a reason to not fall into The Lonely with Peter’s guidance; Daisy would have still been under The Hunt’s influence, and Basira involved with her.)

MAG168’s title is MMM again. I really love how last titles make a lot of sense in retrospect but were so hard when trying to guess! It feels like a lore-heavy one, but probably not twice in a row? But if it’s the case, it could relate to the Institute, to Jon, to Jonah, to Martin.

Fears-wise: could be The End (it has… a connection); I’m obviously thinking about Hill Top Road/Albrecht’s end again, so could be Web-y…

#the magnus archives #tma season 5 #mag167 #tma liveblog #long post/#tma spoilers/

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hellzyeahwebwielingessays · 4 years

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The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 3: The Birth of Mysterio

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Master Post

Before we dive into specifics of Amazing Mary Jane, there is a large chunk of context we need to establish about Mysterio’s history. Specifically who he is and some of the crimes he’s committed over the years. I will generally be emphasising stuff that Mary Jane would likely or definitely be aware of; or at least could easily learn about with a little research. This is important to bear in mind when we look at MJ’s attitude to Beck in AMJ.

For starters, let’s consider how and why Beck ventured into a life of crime in the first place.

Life before Mysterio

Quentin Beck before he became a criminal had a college education to some extent and had major technical and chemical skills at his disposal. He became an accomplished special effects artists and stuntman and had regular employment. Long story short, he got bored and after failing to transition into acting (though he obviously had some acting talent) he was inspired to get involved with costume villainy.

Due to retcons in BND, it was established that he went back to work in Hollywood. However, he later got blacklisted when one of his effects injured someone. As originally presented and intended though, he basically turned to villainy out of boredom and frustration.

After being blacklisted Beck undertook his first major campaign against Spider-Man, whom (due to other retcons) he resented for foiling some of his crimes during his first foray into villainy.

Whether you look at him as originally presented or in the wake of all these retcons it’s clear that Beck didn’t get pushed into crime. It was a pure ego trip for him. Even with the retcon in mind realistically his skills and intelligence would garner him legitimate work elsewhere. In fact in the ‘Guardian Devil’ arc of Daredevil it’s established he was instrumental in developing certain technologies and processes that made advances in film making possible.

In short Quentin Beck became a criminal because he LIKED it. He is 100% not a tragic figure like the Lizard. He is not someone who’s environment made it difficult for him to be anything but a criminal, as is often the case for people in poverty stricken parts of the world. He wasn’t even someone like Doc Ock or Norman Osborn whose minds were (arguably) inadvertently affected by some kind of extenuating circumstance. Nor is he someone diagnosed with some kind of anti-social personality disorder like Cletus Kasady or Eddie Brock.

Regardless of whether you feel such mental conditions mitigate those villains, my point is Beck DEFINIETLY cannot be excused for his choice of becoming a criminal.

Virtually every crime he ever committed were the actions of a sane, rationale and intelligent person who happened to also be selfish, egotistical, greedy and often nasty. Maybe not nasty the way Carnage or the Green Goblin are, but nasty nevertheless.

I’m saying he’s not just ‘a villain’ but also an outright bad person.

And he’s been a bad person since basically the start of Spider-Man’s superhero career. That’s anywhere from 10-25 years, depending upon whose math you want to use.

The 1960s: Making an Entrance

Were we to take retcons into account, Mysterio’s first crime was his involvement with the Tinkerer way back in ASM #2, circa 1964! This was literally the fifth ever Spider-Man story to be created.

However, retcons not withstanding Mysterio’s first major crime was impersonating and framing Spider-Man, back in ASM #13.

He then went on to bill himself as a hero and defeated Spider-Man.

These events were a huge news story at the time and thus it’s not unbelievable that MJ would know about them via osmosis. Granted, there is leeway on that because MJ was not living in NYC at this time but she was making sporadic trips there and had taken a casual interest in Spider-Man’s adventures; this was partially because she knew Peter was Spider-Man.

However, one would imagine that it’d likely come up in conversation with Peter over the years given how this was his first (known) encounter with Mysterio and MJ was present for several consequent ones. It’d also be believable given that it’s just common sense for Peter to inform MJ of any enemies who could possibly impersonate him. Forewarned is forearmed (as arguably Gwen’s death proved) so knowing about Mysterio could help MJ ensure the safety of herself and her loved ones; for example MJ’s Aunt Anna and cousin Kristy.

Furthermore it is important to note that Mysterio’s very first major solo effort was a form of identity theft (there is probably a more accurate descriptor but I don’t know of one). The crime was intentionally designed so that he could build up his own reputation off the back of someone else’s. Does this perhaps remind you of another time Mysterio might’ve tried to selfishly benefit at the expense of another person’s reputation, not caring if he damaged it along the way? Like for example any female-led comic books released in 2019 for example?

The next time Mysterio duelled Spidey he used highly convincing robot duplicates of the (3 of the original 5) X-Men.

So, Mysterio is an expert in robotics and can create loyal and dangerous robotic servants. These robots can also trick people into thinking they are a real person, including Mysterio himself. Thus it’s very possible for Beck to convince someone he’s in one place when he’s actually in another, or alternatively get his robots to do something on his behalf when he’s otherwise indisposed.

Mary Jane 100% knows about these robot duplicates because versions of them (plus Iceman and Jean Grey) appear in Amazing Mary Jane #1.

It would suuuuuuuuure be illogical for MJ to just presume Mysterio would definitely NEVER misuse such robots for any nefarious schemes, or use them to slip under the noses of the press monitoring the movie. Or if he or his crew maybe used them to violate/evade justice somehow…

Also, just for the record, Mysterio was potentially risking damaging the reputation of the X-Men/mutants in general by creating duplicates of them. Yet another example of Mysterio is selfishly cavalier with someone else’s reputation.

Arguably (because I’m not an X-Men expert) this was especially awful because of how the general public already hated and feared mutants, who were of course chiefly allegorical to African Americans back in the 1960s. In this sense Mysterio could be viewed as exploiting societal bigotry or at least caring so little about it he doesn’t realise he’s potentially going to make it far worse. *

Mysterio’s third major encounter with Spidey was in a lot of ways one of his most twisted efforts.

His plan was to learn Spider-Man’s identity by convincing him that he was mentally ill…yeah…

Posing as psychiatrist Doctor Ludwig Rinehart, he convinced Jameson to publish an article claiming Spider-Man was heading for a major mental breakdown.

To make this more convincing he used his illusions to make Spider-Man believe he was seeing things that weren’t really there. His efforts bore fruit as Peter genuinely began to doubt his own sanity.

Beck’s endgame was for Spider-Man to seek out treatment from ‘Rinehart’ and in his vulnerable state divulge his secret identity. It was only through Jameson’s inadvertent intervention that Peter’s secret (and loved ones) remained safe.

I’m not suggesting Mary Jane necessarily knows about this incident; though it’s possible Peter told her. It’s more relevant because it illustrates what a twisted person Mysterio is to try and get to Spider-Man in such a way. It also illustrates the distress his illusionary skills can cause to people, both mentally and emotionally. This is a fact that Mary Jane need not have studied psychology to grasp; it’s just common sense. She knows Mysterio’s M.O. is tricking people into believing things that aren’t real and she’d know how believing something uncomfortable or frightening (even if it isn’t real) can be a dangerous and unhealthy thing. Her friend Harry Osborn had mental health problems that caused him to believe things that weren’t true and (for a time anyway) it destroyed him and harmed his family.

If you still think this is a concept MJ wouldn’t have grasped, then Mysterio’s next exploit would’ve likely convinced her.

During the course of Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1-2 Mysterio intentionally attacked the mind of MJ’s acquaintance J. Jonah Jameson. He did this by tricking Jonah into believing he’d been killed and gone to Hell. Simultaneously he also framed Spidey for Jameson’s alleged murder.

Events from this story formed part of the screenplay for Mysterio’s biopic. Proof of this can be found in ASM v5 #29 wherein Peter and MJ are rehearsing Mysterio’s script and the dialogue is almost verbatim from the Webspinners story in question.

As such it is very possible that MJ would know about what Beck did to Jameson. One would imagine Peter would at least tell her about that in the course of rehearsing with her.

We are skipping ahead a bit, but another instance of Mysterio using his illusions to cause terror can be found in ASM #66. In the issue he hijacks TV airwaves and essentially delivers a terrorist message to the city at large. He depicts scenes of New York decimated and threatens to make them a reality unless Spidey confronts him. The incident upsets Aunt May (a woman with an underlying heart condition) and realistically would’ve distressed other people too. This might’ve included MJ’s Aunt Anna who was living with May at the time.

Given the public nature of this broadcast and the distress it caused Aunt Anna’s roommate, the chances are MJ would be aware of it. Even if she failed to catch it initially she’d have heard about it via sheer osmosis.

Even if you disagree, it’s yet another example of Mysterio selfishly and callously causing distress to people for his own ends. If one buys into Marvel’s sliding timescale these events also pack more of a punch since they would've happened post 9/11.

The 1970s: Scamming Seniors

We’re skipping ahead again all the way into the 1970s.

In ASM #141 Betty Brant and Ned Leeds inform Peter that Mysterio died a year earlier in prison. This horrifies Peter because he fought Mysterio earlier that very night.

This was public knowledge meaning there is a chance MJ would’ve heard about it in the news. But even if it wasn’t widely reported or if she just missed it, she’d have still likely heard about it. After all she was dating Peter at the time and was also very friendly with Betty (even serving as her Maid of Honour not too long after this). This is important to remember for the next section.

As it turns out he actually battled a new Mysterio, Danny Berkhart. Berkhart believed himself Beck’s friend and inherited some of his equipment after the latter’s death. He decided to take down Spider-Man out of respect for Beck.**

Much later it was revealed that Beck hadn’t really died, he’d merely used Berkhart to fake his own death. In the guise of Doctor Reinhardt he took over a nursing home. Consequently he swindled vulnerable elderly people out of their life savings, amassing almost $8 million. According to this inflation calculator, in 2019 that’d be about $40,780,313.20.

My, what a sympathetic individual…

This scheme snowballed into Beck faking Aunt May’s death on behalf of the burglar who killed Uncle Ben.

To be fair to him, The Burglar was threatening his life. However given Mysterio’s technology and intelligence it’s highly unbelievable that he couldn’t have taken the Burglar down if he wanted to. He does exactly this in ASM #198 once he’s learned the Burglar was after a fortune hidden in Aunt May’s old home, opting to seek out the fortune himself (see above).

It goes without saying how devastating it was for Peter and May’s friends (chiefly Aunt Anna) to believe she’d passed away.

It beguiles belief that, between MJ’s closeness to Peter, their mutual friends (like Harry and Flash), Aunt May and Aunt Anna, that MJ wouldn’t at some point have learned about May’s ‘death’. By extension she would’ve learned of the circumstances of it being faked and surely have been at least miffed about it! Thus she’d have deduced that Beck had faked his death, as she’d likely have heard about his alleged death in prison.

Even if MJ didn’t hear about any of this during the incident itself, considering that this was all a matter of public record and would’ve been reflected in May’s medical history MJ realistically would have learned about this at some point. This would especially be the case because May’s death was faked a further two times; and that was when MJ married to Peter.

After all, if it was public record that May’s death had been faked before then her consequent ‘death’ (it was actually an imposter) in ASM #400 would require a degree of verification that’d go beyond most patients.*** And it’s highly unlikely that Peter and MJ wouldn’t have been informed about this process. ; or that they themselves didn’t inform the doctors that they should triple check given May’s history. This is literally the reason the actress impersonating her in ASM #400 was specified as being ‘genetically altered’ so her DNA would read as Aunt May’s.

All this means that there is simply NO WAY MJ wouldn’t know Mysterio caused this kind of harm to two of the people she loved most in the world (Peter and May).

The 1980s: Old Tricks

We skip ahead again all the way into the 2010s, albeit an untold tale set circa the 1980s. In Symbiote Spider-Man #1 Mysterio’s attempts to rob a bank inadvertently led to an innocent woman (with kids no less) being shot and killed.

Now to be fair, this wasn’t intentional and he felt bad about it. But it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t committed a crime in the first place. He also wasn’t exactly turning himself in due to remorse or giving up a life of crime. MJ might not have known about this but it’s the first time (to my recollection) Beck was involved with someone actually dying. So you know, he’s definitely a killer and is unwilling to face the consequences of his crime. Real sympathetic right?

I will admit this is something of a contentious example as this series doesn’t exactly fit into continuity and so could be arguably discounted. Nevertheless it definitely offers food for thought. An insight into how Mysterio likely would act under these circumstances.

Jumping back to the 1980s proper, in a much later encounter with Spidey Mysterio once again attacked Peter’s mind. This time he tricked him into believing that an innocent person had died on his watch.

MJ again definitely knew about this because a guilt-ridden Peter talked to her about it before he learned the truth. Later she tried to talk him out of his guilt ridden state.

I think I will leave it there for now. We’ll continue our look at Mysterio in the next post as we enter the 21st century.

*I’ve got no place for this in future instalments so I’ll just say put it here as an aside.

MJ to my recollection has no experience with the X-Men (sans Wolverine), but she is definitely no anti-mutant bigot. Wouldn’t it be logical for her to be wary or at least conscious about how Beck is playing with the optics of the X-Men/mutants in general in his vanity project?

Not to mention their inclusion I’d imagine would be in reference to ASM Annual #1 where he tried to use them to kill her boyfriend. She has no qualms about the guy responsible for that recreating that event on film in an effort to glorify him self?

On the other hand we don’t know exactly how they are being used in the movie so I’ll let that slide.

**Berkhart isn’t all that relevant at the moment but he will be in the next instalment, so bear him in mind.

***Alternatively one would imagine in a world where the fantastical is a matter of fact, death would be checked to a greater degree than practiced in real life.

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#Amazing Mary Jane #Mysterio #Quentin Beck #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Spider-Man #MJ Watson #peter parker #Symbiote Spider-Man #Betty Brant #Ned Leeds #Tinkerer #Brand New Day #Marvel #Marvel Comics

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walkerduchess · 5 years

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A Game of Hearts - Chapter Ten: Split (The Royal Romance AU)

Pairing: Drake x MC [Liam x MC]

Notes: Again I took too long whith this chapter, sorry. The next should be out faster since I’m off from work for the next 10 days. No flashbacks in this one because SO MUCH HAPPENS. I hope you like it, and if you read, please tell me what you think!

I do not own these characters, they belong to Pixelberry.

Summary: Princess Sapphire’s secrets still hangs between her and Drake, while tensions are rising in the kingdom she’s left.

Word Count: 4579

Tagging: I’m tagging everyone who asked me to. If you want in or out the list just let me know! @confessionsofabrokegirl, @museofbooks, @stopforamoment, @annekebbphotography, @queenodysseia , @drakewalkerisreal

Chapter Ten: Split

His eyes search hers, his lips slightly parted, awaiting for her to say something.

It is a foreign feeling, at least for the princess, to look into someone’s eyes and finding oneself recognized in them. It’s a sentiment similar to that she had upon meeting Hana again, after all those years. It’s alluring and overwhelming at the same time. Her breathing is uneven, and she gives him a small, careful nod.

“How?” He breathes out, “why-- what are you doing here?” His rushed words register the turmoil inside his brain, where a multitude of questions scream at the same time.

She opens her mouth but she doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have dropped all of these questions on you.” Drake says, uncharacteristically soft. “It’s just…” he seems to search for the right words, “you were gone.” His voice doesn’t sound accusing, but rather pained.

Elia doesn’t have to ask to know what he means. She used to see him every morning at sword class and then her father decided she didn’t need further lessons. Without even a chance to say goodbye, she simply never went back.

“I know,” when she finally speaks, her voice is weak, “I was forced to--”

“I asked Max about you,” he blurts out before she can end her sentence, “he… he never gave me direct answers and kept changing the subject, so one day I... stopped asking.” His gaze shifted from her to the ground in front of him.

“I’m sorry, it’s just,” the woman begins, but she knows she cannot give him the truth. She tries to dismiss the thought, a futile attempt in waving away the irrefutable conclusion - a decision, made deep in her conscience, to disclose to this man only the part of her that is easy to accept, the part of her he used to like once, that doesn’t involve any title with a bigger meaning such as Promised Princess or Builder, instead is simple as… Elia. Her face falls and her features turn somber as she speaks words that, despite being true, don’t really give anything away, “some very complicated family things.”

“I gathered it was something like that,” he looks up at her, eyes sympathetic yet clearly waiting for further explanation.

She can only look away, biting her lower lip. It’s not that she doesn’t want to trust him, she simply can’t. Instead, she chooses to change the focus, just a little bit. “I asked about you, too,” she speaks truthfully. At the beginning, every time she’d see Liam, the princess would ask about Drake. Of course she asked as if it was nothing, for she had way too much pride in her pre-teen years - not that it has ever gone away - to admit how much she cared. And she cared a lot. As the years went by, time took him away from her mind for days, then turned it into weeks and even months and years in a row. But she never truly forgot him. And, she realizes now, she also never really stopped caring.

He gives her a small smile, that don’t reach his eyes. She responds with a similar one. They gaze at each other for a while, only the crackling sounds of the fire breaking the silence between them. It’s comfortable, however Elia starts to fear he may ask more questions if they stay there longer, or worse, she fears she might spill it all out just from staring into the abyss held within his dark eyes.

“I better go to sleep,” she gestures at the tent behind them, her voice breaking the moment, “you can wake me or Jonah when you’re tired.”

Drake watches her make her way into her tent and mutters a quiet “good night.”

The Council room is large, yet right now it’s almost claustrophobic, with the voices inside higher than usual, most of them resonating at the same time. Liam closes his eyes and rubs his temples, his elbows resting on the big wooden table. He is exhausted. Even in the few nights he was able to get a good sleep, he’d still wake up feeling drained.

The prince spent the past month in a lethargic state. For the first time in his life, his future isn’t laid out in front of him. He doesn’t know what to do really. He repeats to himself, day after day, that he needs to stay strong for his people. That he can do. He chooses to focus on that, instead of thinking Sophie is gone, and now Drake, too. He couldn’t even tell his best friend he didn’t need to go searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found - again, Liam remembers with a pang of guilt - because Sophie asked him not to tell anyone.

Council meetings have been held daily since Sophie left, to no avail. The Promised Princess was still missing, the war was still happening and everyone in the kingdom seemed to be distressed. The holders clearly don’t know what to do, only repeating the same questions, concerns, search parties’ updates and any other futile idea to solve the situation. At the beginning, Liam felt bad. He knew the princess wasn’t kidnapped but he had to respect her wishes. He can’t say he hasn’t entertained the idea of telling the truth, many times. But something in his heart keeps telling him Sophie must have a very good reason for not wanting people to know she left willingly. She must have a marvelous reason for leaving. Liam is afraid to let himself think otherwise.

“Prince William?” The voice makes him open his eyes to find Lord Hakim glaring at him through his glasses.

“Yes?” He forces a casual tone, straightening up in his chair.

“I just said,” the man’s large shoulders tense and he exhales before continuing, “there is word of a traitor in the South’s army. Other than the Builder, that is.”

“The Builder is likely out of the picture,” Lady Olivia speaks up, “it’s been about a year since their army last showed new weaponry.”

“That does not mean--” Lord Bertrand tries to cut in but Liv is not having any of it.

“Besides,” the red haired woman speaks the word louder, shooting daggers at Bertrand with her eyes, “the odds shifted in our favour again. I say it’s time to attack with full force. I could send resources--”

“Thank you for your assessment, Lady Olivia.” King Brandon stops her war talk, to which she frowns but shortly lets go. “But we are, in no way, attacking our enemy while they have Princess Sapphire.”

The king’s words are cold, but there’s a hint of new moisture in his eyes that doesn’t get past Liam. King Brandon was never the same after Queen Aurora died, everybody knows that. He became somewhat smaller and grimmer. Now, after Sophie left, he only leaves his chambers to go to Council meetings. And even then, it’s as if he’s lost his strength.

“Please, Lord Hakim,” the prince decides to get to the point, at last, “tell us what you know about this traitor.”

Lord Hakim clears his throat then, “My spies reported they heard some talk from the South’s soldiers. They call their commander ‘The Cordonian’ and also mentioned that he is ‘no stranger to castle life’.”

“That could be anyone,” Olivia speaks again, “a guard, a servant…”

“Or a holder,” Hakim adds cautiously.

“What are you implying, Lord Hakim?” King Brandon asks in what seems an unpretentious manner, yet his full attention is turned to the man.

Hakim brings one of his hands to adjust the glasses in his face, “I am just saying,” he speaks hesitantly, “we should take into consideration that Prince Leonard has been gone for eight years, and we are all familiar with his rebellious attitude--”

“Not this again!” Former king Constantine exhales, letting his annoyance show. “We have absolutely no evidence of Prince Leonard’s whereabouts, and therefore no reason to make these assumptions.” The tinge of worry in his voice probably goes unnoticed by every other person in the room, but not to Liam. He knows his father all too well and he knows that, despite all the criticism and dismissiveness when it comes to his eldest son, Constantine loves and misses Leo. Entertaining the idea that Leo could betray his kingdom is painless compared to an infinitely more terrifying one - the idea that Leo could betray his own family. Liam can’t believe this either. He won’t.

“Well,” Lord Landon is the one to speak this time, “Prince Leonard has had exceptional war training his whole life, so it would not be a stretch to say he could become the command--”

“No.” Liam’s voice comes out strong and even, and before he can realize it. The prince is often quiet during the council’s meetings, especially lately, so all eyes turn to him after he speaks. After a brief moment, he sighs, standing up. “My brother has always been… impulsive. But he is a good man. I will not have we defining him a traitor,” his voice is commanding, in that tone the prince knows very well how to but almost never uses. The holders will acquiesce to whatever he says, yet they will be very much aware of how biased he is, so he adds, “not without clear evidence.” He sits down again, closing the matter.

Elia wakes with a light tap on her shoulder. The sky is already lightning up and Jonah is mumbling something to her about going to sleep before he disappears to his tent.

The young woman sits up and stretches, quietly so not to wake the girl sleeping next to her. They’ve been putting up three improvised tents every evening now: one for her and Nora, one for Jonah and Elliot and one for Drake. The sheets she brought aren’t big, so they don’t have much space in the tents, but since Elliot and Nora are small, they can share with someone else without preventing a good sleep.

Stepping outside, Elia proceeds to inspect the leftovers of their meal from the past evening - boiled potatoes and chicken - to see if they can still have it for breakfast. They’re cold, so she manages to light up some branches that have fallen out of the fire the night before to heat the food.

She sits while she waits, humming some made-up melody to herself in an attempt to push Drake-thoughts out of her brain. She focuses on the bright side of things: the Device is finished - thankfully she did it before Drake arrived, with the help of the children -, they have no shortage of food and water, and they’re advancing South.

As if she can’t get the man out of her mind for five minutes, Drake emerges out of his tent and promptly joins her. “Good morning,” he declares, voice hoarse from sleep.

Before her mind can make sense of it, she catches herself smiling at him.

“So you can finally light a fire,” he gives her a side look, the ends of his mouth perking up, “if I keep successfully teaching you things, soon enough I’m going to be sparring you in the field instead of Jonah.”

Elia smiles, joining his tone, “yeah, and I might even beat you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, now.”

“Hey!” She gives him a light punch in the shoulder, “I did beat you.”

“Once. Over a decade ago. It doesn’t count,” his voice sounds different somehow, lighter. His smile isn’t big, yet it’s contagious nonetheless, and she can’t help but smile too.

Soon enough her smile changes into a wistful one. He remembers too. She hugs both her legs in front of her, resting her head in her knees, face turned to Drake. She wants to say how much she misses those simpler times, however she keeps the thought to herself.

Drake’s smile slowly fades and the princess sees one of his hands twitch slightly towards her, as if he is struggling with himself whether to touch her or not. “Why did you leave?” He finally asks, voice a little lower than before.

His eyebrows are knitted together and his face looks somewhat troubled, in a way that makes it almost physically painful to deny him the answer. But she won’t tell him, so she shifts her head, positioning her forehead in her knees so that she doesn’t have to look at him.

Elia swallows, searching her mind for the right words, but there are none.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened but,” he speaks again and she feels his hand settling on top of hers, between them, “I’m here.”

The princess brings her head up to stare at him again, “I want to, I just…” And it’s true, and she has to make a huge effort to remember why, for his touch on her skin has fogged her mind. “I can’t now.”

His gaze is almost pained, as if it hurt him to leave her alone with her burdens. She holds it, however, in a way of asserting how certain and strong she is, despite how much his eyes burn through hers right into her soul. He takes a moment before speaking again, nodding shortly, “alright.”

Lord Bertrand massages each one of his temples with two fingers with his eyes closed, trying to make his headache go away. When the car stops, he barely acknowledges the “good evening” his driver wishes him, jumping out of the car in a hurry to finally have a good bath and then sleep. He didn’t really need a car, for Thorngate Castle is hardly ten minutes by foot away from Ramsford Castle, but Bertrand isn’t one to walk as if he were a youngster.

Climbing up the stairs, he wills his mind to stop worrying with problems he cannot solve - at least for today - and, especially, wondering what consequences will come upon them all if Sapphire isn’t found soon. It’s been long years since he held a close relationship with his cousin, yet he can’t help but worry about her wellbeing. Of course, Bertrand will not show this weakness, instead he can very well put on the façade that his concern is only for the fate of his kingdom. Besides, his brother is mournful enough for both of them.

Upon remembering his brother, the older man makes his way to Max’s chambers, meaning to check how the tasks he left for him in the morning went. Bertrand usually sticks to his manners, but he doesn’t have enough patience for it tonight, and definitely not with Max. Therefore, he simply barges in through his brother’s doors, in time to see him standing by an open bag, already filled with clothes and some other belongings.

Bertrand’s expression turns confused, “where are you going?”

The younger man turns to him, a bitter look in his eyes, not unlike the one he has ever since his parents died, but this one just looks… defeated. “Away,” he snarls.

“What does that even mean, Maxwell?” Bertrand runs a hand through his face, “It’s certainly too late and it’s been a hard day, so if you could not pull one of your pranks--”

“I’m not a child!” Max interrupts, almost yelling.

It leaves Bertrand brother gaping, thinking for sure something must have snapped inside his younger brother, for he has never in his life spoken with such rage and firmness.

“And you needn’t worry,” Max continues, in a calmer tone, even though his face remains in a scowl, as he turns his attention back to the bag on the floor and begins tying it closed, “I won’t be bothering you or smearing our family’s reputation.”

Bertrand just stands there, pathetically so, while his brother puts the bag in his shoulders, brushes past him in the door and proceeds down the stairs.

The front door shutting startles him, bringing him out of his stupor, and before he knows he is running - the Lord Bertrand running, and he is glad there’s no one but a servant to see it - down the stairs and out the front doors.

“Wait!” He calls when he sees Max struggling to place his bag inside a car outside, aided by the driver, his voice above the appropriate volume, “Maxwell! Wait!”

He stops in a halt beside the car, breathing hard and placing a hand in his chest in an attempt to dull the ache in his lungs.

Max turns to him, “yes?” He’s got the same cold, bitter tone from before.

“Are you leaving? Where to? Why?”

The younger man’s expression softens a little. “Sorry, brother. I made up my mind. There’s nothing for me here.”

Bertrand still doesn’t understand. “Is this about Sophie?”

Max sighs, shaking his head. “You don’t get it. It’s not just Sophie, it’s mum and dad, it’s Leo, Sav, and even Drake now. They’re all gone!

“You have me!” Bertrand yells, not knowing where this came from. But, as he finishes saying it he realizes… it’s true. He does want Max to be with him.

“You have your duties and your council. I won’t drag you backwards anymore.” With a last, somewhat sorrowful glance, the younger brother gets in the car and shuts the door.

It feels like being slapped in the face. Before he can even say anything, the car starts to pull away. “Max!” He screams after the car, pitifully hoping it would turn back around. “Max!”

A week has passed, and Drake’s been nothing but understanding. Elia would never have guessed, in a million lifetimes, that the suspicious and stubborn boy she used to be friends with would give her space instead of pressing her to tell him everything. She doesn’t think he would act this way before he knew she is Elia. The notion of it brings a painful twinge to her heart. Drake is actively choosing to trust her, and yet she won’t do the same for him.

Which is not to say their relationship hasn’t changed. They exchange smiles often, talk more - sometimes even about people they both used to know - and of course, tease each other all the time. It's one of the times like these - when they’ve just eaten and are getting ready to resume travel, talking casually - when he asks, “have you been wandering for long?”

It catches the princess by surprise, because in this moment, in the softness of early morning, she’s let her guard down. A heavy weight settles in her gut again, yet she can’t tell if it’s from guilt or another, more primal feeling that climbs up her throat and threatens to spill from her mouth - betrayal. It causes her eyes to go wide, looking into his for ulterior motives, any hidden wickedness to show how he’s been out to get her this whole time, but the only thing she can find there is care.

He must have noticed her starting to retreat back into herself, for with one step he is close, so close to her and his hand finds hers. “Elia…” His eyes search hers, in a desperate and silent plead. “I don’t know what happened,” he uses his other hand to brush a strand of light-brown hair behind her ear and cups the exposed skin of her cheek, “but you can tell me.”

Her mind screams at her to flee, to not give in to the warm feeling spreading from where his hands touch her. For a second, she listens to it, pressing her free hand to his chest in order to push him away, but, before she can realize it, something switches inside of her and she uses no force, instead just rests her hand above his heart.

Standing close, like this, she has to bend her head up to look at him, his gaze soft and bare just inches away. Elia notes the distinctive movement of him reaching down, incredibly slowly, and she doesn’t really have to think to know what happens next. His lips are inviting, so is all of him, yet in a flash of better judgement she holds back.

“You’re right,” it comes out in a whisper since their faces are less than a breath apart.

Drake knits his eyebrows and she takes it as an opportunity to leave his embrace. Elia takes a deep breath before continuing, “I have to show you something.”

She can’t be sure whether she’s completely out of her mind or simply making a bold move. A leap of faith, like people from before would say. She has to tell Drake or she’ll go insane, she tells herself to soothe her nerves while she fetches the Device from the inside of her bag. The children watch, apprehensive and without saying a word. Maybe she is, indeed, crazy.

When she places the heavy yet compact mechanism, carefully, in the ground, Drake stares at it for a while, looking as concerned as the kids, before finally asking, “what is this?” His eyes are not soft like moments ago, they are straight back to being the cold suspicious ones he had when they first met at the abandoned building.

Elia swallows, summoning up all the courage within her. “This is a device meant for cleaning the poisoned water in Cordonia,” she explains, voice deadpan.

Drake’s expression turns even more perturbed, “and what are you doing with it?” He looks a little scared of the thing, and Elia does not miss his hand going to the hilt of his sword.

“I…” she says carefully, “I built it.” She emphasizes the word on purpose, so he can truly understand. She may be a coward for not speaking the plain truth already, but she holds his gaze throughout the seconds it took him to grasp what she just said.

“You…” he mumbles, and Elia recognizes bewilderment turning briefly into hurt before his expression hardens again. Without saying a word, he unsheathes his sword, causing her to panic a little.

“Drake, this is not a weapon,” the princess holds her hands in front of her, trying to make him listen.

He stares at her then, and there’s a fire in his eyes she has never seen before, so intense that Elia thinks he may rip her head off her body just by looking at her.

“Are you the Builder?” He asks, voice stern but somewhat composed.

“Drake--”

“Answer me!” He almost shouts, and the princess doesn’t miss the littlest of trembles in the man’s hand while holding the sword.

She gathers up her courage. It’s not as if she has much of a choice now, “I was," she chose her words carefully.

“Give me one good reason for me not to end your life right now.” His voice is almost bitter, sword pointed at her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jonah stepping ahead, hand reaching for the hilt of his own sword.

“Jonah, stay back,” she orders. He opens his mouth to protest, but she doesn’t let him speak, “stay with Nora and Elliot. They need you.”

The boy reluctantly steps back then.

The princess has to take some quick breaths to keep her calm, but she is determined to get to the bottom of this. She started it, right? She’s imagined this scenario in her head, multiple times now, and Drake reacting like this is perfectly predictable. Only the hard part begins now.

“My name. My whole name,” she searches his eyes to make sure he is listening, “is Sapphire Aurelia.”

Realization downs upon him when he recognizes the name. He chuckles is disbelief. “Right… you’re the Promised Princess,” he speaks in a sarcastic tone.

“It’s true!”

The fire in his eyes seem to fade a little, giving way to something else… disappointment. “I trusted you, Elia. I let myself be vulnerable around you and--” he stops himself, shaking his head, “I never should have.” And just like that, the fire is back, and he steps a little closer, flawlessly sharpened blade reflecting the sunlight in a threatening gleam.

Although, Elia is not afraid, at least not of being killed. “I’m telling the truth and I’m going to prove it to you.”

He could call her bluff… but Elia sees the hesitation in his eyes even before he speaks, “how?”

Well, there is the problem of the lack of physical proof, so she proposes the only thing she can, “ask me anything! Something only Princess Sapphire would know.”

He chuckles again, shaking his head. “This means nothing.”

Elia did not foresee a moment such as this would become her newest mini-existential crisis. What makes her the Promised Princess? What makes her who she is? The prophecy may say it’s her blood, and her time of birth, and such things, but she lived in hiding for so long it would not surprise her if she came home and there was an impostor in her place. No one would know, she’s certain. So no, this is not it. What makes her the one and only Sapphire Aurelia, the Promised Princess of the Last Prophecy, true and irreplaceable if not for what she knows and what she has lived? No one can take that from her. “This means everything.”

He seems to read the certainty in her expression, because it doesn’t take long for him to decide. “Fine.” He takes a breath and straightens himself, lowering his sword a little.

She knows it’s a small victory, and her lips threaten to pull back in a small smile, yet she holds it back, not wanting to push her luck with Drake.

“Where could Liam always find you?”

It takes her by surprise, for she wasn’t expecting the interrogation to start right away. It’s an easy one, at least, “the library.”

“What game did you love playing so much you inserted you and your friends in it?” Despite Drake’s impassive tone, Elia can’t hold back her smile now. She can’t help it, she’s too fond of the memory and Drake’s wording is amusing.

“Chess.”

“What piece were you?”

“The knight.”

“And Liam?”

“The rook.” She’s impressed. Drake doesn’t even flinch nor takes time thinking of the next question. Elia wonders if he ever really interrogated someone. He must have. And he knows so many details. In her mind, she tries to picture Liam telling Drake about his day and it baffles her how much Drake kept in his mind, even what must surely be boring details for an outsider. “Did Liam tell you all of this?”

“I’m asking the questions.”He did not seem amused by her distraction. “When did you find out about the undercroft?”

She couldn’t possibly forget that day. “Right after mine and Liam’s engagement party.”

He nodded his head, as if he’s at the brink of reaching a verdict.“When did you and Liam first have sex?”

Ah, a trick question. Or - no, Liam wouldn’t have lied to his best friend, would he? “We didn’t.”

Drake purses his lips and Elia can almost burst from the anticipation of not knowing what’s in his mind.

After a moment, he nods to himself, “very well, Princess.”

Elia’s brows shoot up at his words, half of her optimistic about him believing in her, and the other half apprehensive because his threatening posture still hasn’t changed.

She should have seen it coming, she really did, but for some reason, Drake’s next words catch her flabbergasted, as he brings his sword up again and towards her, “gather your things, you’re coming back with me.”

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comicbookuniversity · 5 years

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Lessons for the MonsterVerse

by Bunnypwn Gold

I have always been a big fan of Godzilla. I’ve been watching the movies since I was a kid. Now that they’re making new movies again, there’s a lot to be excited about and look forward to. Recently, I re-watched the newest one from the American MonsterVerse, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as well as the last film from the Millennium era, Godzilla: Final Wars. Both films are big, ambitious, and include some major flaws, one of which they have in common, or at least they have flaws with overlap. While the MonsterVerse, so far, is great and is on track to continue that trend, Final Wars suffered greatest from this shared flaw, and so I am here to set out what the MonsterVerse needs to do to avoid self-destruction: take itself seriously.

Briefly, I want to provide a review and synopsis of King of the Monsters. So spoilers, it’s really good. Five years after Godzilla made landfall in San Francisco and fought against the parasitic MUTOs, Monarch is struggling to figure out what it wants to do with the Titans, as the monsters are now known, while the government and military are pressuring Monarch to kill them all. At the same time, one of their own scientists, Emma Russell, betrays them to assist ecoterrorist Alan Jonah in awakening the Titans with a bioacoustics device called the ORCA so that the Titans can spur regrowth in the environment and undo anthropogenic climate change. They revive Ghidorah in Antarctica, who then awakens all the other Titans still sleeping around the world at once, thus precipitating a conflict with Monarch and Godzilla for the crown. The film sets out to cover a lot of narrative ground while introducing several important elements to the series, and all the while it held together some solid character work for its main cast. Based on the new, expansive mythos that this film lays out—with the many new Titans and the abandoned Hollow Earth society discovered in vast underground caverns which used to live in harmony with the Titans—it looks like things will only get more exciting, and the future of the MonsterVerse is set out effectively and in grand style.

Godzilla: Final Wars is also about a large amount of monsters fighting for control of the Earth, feature monsters trapped in Antarctic ice, and ends with Godzilla fighting Ghidorah, but that’s where the similarities end. Final Wars was released in 2004 as the commemorative 50th anniversary film for the franchise. In it, the Earth has been defended from monsters for decades by the Earth Defense Force, who managed to trap Godzilla in ice in Antarctica years prior. All the other monsters around the world attack at once in the present, and the EDF was unable to keep up until the Xiliens arrived from space, removing the monsters and promising to make a peaceful alliance with humanity. In reality, the Xiliens were invading the Earth in order to herd humans like cattle because they need to eat human mitochondria to survive, and they were secretly controlling the monsters. So the heroes free Godzilla so he can help them fight the aliens and their army of brainwashed monsters. The plot also involved mutant humans and a fake rogue planet that was also somehow an actual asteroid that Godzilla later blows up. It’s a mess of a movie. That aside, it’s clear the film is trying to borrow elements from the three previous eras of Godzilla movies. It took an edgier look from the majority of the Millennium movies (from 1999-2004). The use of serious, formidable super vehicles is like the various super planes from the Heisei era films (1984-1995). However, the element borrowed from the Showa era films (1954-1975) is where it falters: campiness. The difference in this film compared to the Showa films being that they purposefully made Final Wars campy, despite the opportunity they had and despite the tone of the Showa era movies.

The original film, Gojira, is a very serious and tonally heavy film depicting the horrors of the modern era, with rapid industrialization in post-war Japan, the advent of the Cold War arms race, and the reason for that arms race, nuclear weapons, with the one man capable of killing Godzilla horrified by the devastation such an ability would grant. This movie and its first sequel were the only Godzilla films made in black and white, which impacts the way they look and how their special effects come across. After a several year hiatus, Godzilla returned to the screen to fight King Kong, this time in color. Seeing those monster suits and the limited special effects capabilities in 1960 of a B-list sci-fi flick in color really emphasizes how phony it all looked at the time. Throughout the Showa era, Godzilla shifted from an entirely villainous character to an erstwhile hero, and though the movies never stopped being presented as dramatic, they were made with an acknowledgement of how they look despite the drama and seriousness the creators otherwise wanted them to have.

Over time, of course, special effects improved. Starting with the Heisei era of films, Toho was able to produce much better suits and visual effects, and so they resumed making their movies with the kind of drama and seriousness that they had wanted all along. The Millennium era began in response to the 1998 American Godzilla, which depicted the titular monster with CGI, in contrast to the Toho tradition of using suits. The Millennium era was the last hurrah to suitmation effects, and these films, overall, looked great, probably the best that a giant monster movie can look with people in suits. Accordingly, they also hold up the more dramatic tone of the Heisei era while allowing each creative team the freedom to make the standalone Godzilla movie they wanted to make. The exception to this is Final Wars, which, as previously said, was not serious at all. Despite the successes of making serious, dramatic monster movies since 1984 and the ambitions of the Showa era’s large and imaginative canon, Final Wars decided to celebrate five decades of filmmaking by using cheesy comedy, camera work that screams “we had to edit heavily to make our actors look like action stars,” and what may very well be the least convincing acting of the entire series. The only person on set who seemed to understand any of this is alien commander X, who looked like he was being goofy on purpose, instead of on accident like the rest of the cast. Final Wars had the same opportunity as the rest of the Millennium era had to present a serious, dramatic battle for the fate of the Earth, and wasted it with aliens that seem completely unqualified to invade another planet and cramming most of their monsters into throwaway fights with Godzilla that lasted on average less than a minute.

This purposeful camp and goofiness of Final Wars is presumably meant to provide a lightness and humor to the film. This is where it overlaps with King of the Monsters, which ventured into the modern era of ironic, self-aware humor to provide levity. Borrowing from the MCU, King of the Monsters cracks wise during dramatic moments relatively often, in an attempt to lighten them up. Unfortunately, the jokes they go with are the weakest material in the film, and they do more to undermine the dramatic tension than enhance the film or provide levity. It’s like the scene in Thor: Ragnarok when Korg says they can rebuild Asgard, and then it blows up more, so never mind; or Hawkeye explaining how ridiculous his fighting robots with a bow and arrow is to Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron. Maybe those are funny jokes, but they do more to undermine the dramatic tension than they add in humor, and both have the capacity to turn parts of the audience off by poking holes in the premise. It’s rather insecure and shows a lack of confidence in the work to stand on its own merits despite critics or easy jokes from the peanut gallery. This brand of humor gave us moments in King of the Monsters like Sam Coleman mishearing Ilene Chen saying “Ghidorah” as “gonorrhea.” It’s really not that funny, it wasn’t a moment that needed lightening up, and there’s no reason he would have misheard her since he was standing within ten feet. It ultimately undermines a moment in the film for an Asian woman to demonstrate her expertise by locating vital information about the threat at hand. But yes, Sam, I guess monsters sometimes have slightly silly-sounding names, like Ghidorah, which is based on the Japanese pronunciation of hydra, a very popular and well-respected mythical dragon.

The 2014 Godzilla film that started the MonsterVerse was enjoyable, but didn’t quite live up to its potential. That’s part of the reason I delayed seeing Kong: Skull Island far longer than I should have. When I did see it, I was amazed. I expected it to be good, and I heard great things about it, but it was far better than anything I could have imagined it to be. It was a truly great movie. After seeing it, my hopes and expectations for the MonsterVerse skyrocketed. I don’t think these expectations have been let down yet, and I expect them to be satisfied moving forward. However, the one thing I wanted most going into King of the Monsters was for them to lean into the tone and style of Skull Island more. In certain respects, I think they did, and the ambitious mythos being built here is far more substantial than anything in the Godzilla franchise so far, which usually has stuck to “monsters keep showing up and fighting.” The dramatically absurd tone, though, was what they lost by using the ridiculousness of what’s happening to make quick, weak, sometimes self-aware jokes instead of to highlight the intensity of the drama experienced by the characters. In Skull Island, when the squad had to fly their planes through a permanent thunderstorm, Sam Jackson’s character started quoting a speech about how the righteous men will win by not backing down and so inherit the Earth. The speech makes the whole thing feel even more ridiculous than a permanent thunderstorm already is, and in doing so amps up the drama and tension. This ultimately makes the arrival of a giant gorilla, which the audience is expecting to see, much more impressive and intense. That’s what I wanted for King of the Monsters. Yes, there are ridiculous aspects to giant monster movies, but the characters are living it, not watching it and thinking, “This crazy.”

Having this more serious tone is also important in really hitting the audience with the larger thematic power of the film. In Skull Island, the way Sam Jackson didn’t want to back down from killing Kong, even after seeing that it’s pointless and even detrimental to the troop, is reminiscent of the way America is currently stuck in multiple seemingly never-ending wars. At least part of the reason people don’t want to leave Iraq and Afghanistan is because they don’t want to create another Vietnam, the war that this film centers around on purpose. Having that tension of a dedicated army colonel who was just forced to “abandon” his war amplifies the drama of the other characters wanting to understand the problems of the natives and come to a real solution to their problems, and it all works because of how it resonates in the current political climate. The Godzilla side of the MonsterVerse so far is focusing on climate change, which, while abstract for far too many, is also a very real and pressing concern for a lot of people, paralyzing at times. Seeing the dramatic steps needed to fix the problem almost makes Alan and Emma’s plan in King of the Monsters feel heroic. The film is filled with images of crumbling, flooded American cities, and Ghidorah, an alien creating imbalance in nature a la humanity thinking itself separate from nature, is literally a living hurricane. There’s a lot of strong, serious, intense potential to make such a movie really meaningful. If they had taken themselves more seriously, it would have had this level of impact. It really is sad that they squandered this potential on silly jokes and a story arc for their generic, useless white man hero, Mark Russell. Like I said at the beginning, it’s still a good movie, but I can so clearly see how much better it could have been, too.

To me, dramatic movies making fun of themselves in important scenes always comes across as insecure, like filmmakers can’t simply make their movie first, they also have to preempt the internet to protect their egos. As the MonsterVerse moves forward, my biggest piece of advice is to do what Skull Island did and take itself seriously. We live in a time when a lot of previously niche franchises and genres are getting more spotlight due to the demands of studios wanting more high-action, effects heavy movies to sell huge on the international market. As these genres, once mired in cultural neglect and seen as silly and childish, come into the limelight, they both prove they always were to be taken seriously and poke fun at themselves to prove they know they shouldn’t be. I get the appeal of ironic, self-aware humor and wanting to be silly at dramatic high points, because it can be very fun and, when used properly, be incredibly funny; look to Thor: Ragnarok for an overall great example. But besides issues of improper use, this kind of humor is arguably at saturation at this point. It’s being misused and overused to the detriment of otherwise good movies in an attempt to compete with Marvel, who remains the poster child on this. So MonsterVerse, let Marvel, Disney, and all those imitators try to outdo each other by proving they can make more fun of themselves before Honest Trailers get to them. Just have fun making movies about giant monsters with the kind of drama and seriousness only modern special effect can give them, and use the ridiculousness of it all to amp up that drama instead of undermine it. Get over people calling you a nerd and just do your thing. As they say, being cool is all about confidence.

#Godzilla #king of the monsters #kong #skull island #titans #ghidorah #final wars #movies #monsters #giant monsters #marvel

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81scorp · 4 years

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Constructive criticism: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

(Originally posted as an editorial on Deviantart Dec 7, 2016)

Ah yes... Spider-Man, one of my favourite marvel superheroes.I remember that there was talk about making a live action Spider-Man in the early nineties and James Cameron was gonna direct it. Some time later in the early twothousands I started to get confirmation that a live action Spider-Man movie was indeed in production. (Directed by Sam Raimi though, but he directed Darkman, which I liked, so he seemed like a good pick.) Before this there had been mostly DC in the cinema when it came to comicbook superhero movies, and pretty much only of two of the most wellknown heroes DC had, Superman and Batman. And it was mostly Batman. In both cases the franchises started good but got dumber and worse with every sequel. It seemed like Hollywood just couldn`t make good superhero movies. Then an X-Men movie came out. Maybe not perfect but at least it understood the sourcematerial. Then came the Spider-Man movies. After waiting for ten years was it everything I hoped it would be? Not quite to be honest, but don`t get me wrong, I did like it and it was good. It had all the basic things that Spider-Man should have; webswinging, a colourful supervillain (both metaphorically AND literally), Mary Jane, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, fights, people being saved, badassery and great powers followed by great responsibility. I would have preferred a different look for Green Goblin though. Give him a costume closer to the comics, but with pants instead of bare legs.Then came the sequel and I liked it even more, it felt like the logical next step for the characters of the first movie to take. Then came the third movie... maybe not bad per se but it felt like a step down from the second movie. If you like it I can understand, it has some redeeming qualities but still... it had more subplots and characters than it knew what to do with. It seemed like Hollywood, once again, just couldn`t make good superhero movies. Anyway, it`s here now on my constructive criticisms. So let us see, in my very subjective editorial, how I would have done it differently.

With great power comes great SPOILERS Sandman, Gwen Stacy and the butler Lose them. As much as I like Gwen, she wasn`t necessary for the story. She was only there so that MJ could get jealous, and it just feels like a step down from how MJ was written in Spider-Man 2.I do like the moment where Flint Marko has been turned into sand for the first time. You can tell by his body language that he`s thinking: "Dear god. What have I become?" But his story takes time and focus from the symbiote plot-line that, in many ways, is the spine of the movie.The butler wasn`t in the first two movies, not noticably anyway, but that`s not the problem. If he knew that Spidey didn`t kill Norman why didn`t he tell Harry that sooner? On the fence: Topher Grace A part of me thinks that Topher Grace was a bad choice for playing Eddie Brock. I would have prefered a little older actor because I think that the idea of Eddie competing against Peter, a much younger and more successful photographer, would only add more fuel to his inferiority complex that would drive him to become Venom. On the other hand: Maybe Topher Grace would have been better as Eddie if the script had been better. So: either keep Topher Grace or replace him with (and this is just some of my personal picks) Jeremy Renner or Nathan Fillion.

Story: The beginning is pretty close to the beginning of the movie that we got: things are going well for Peter and he goes to see MJ perform on stage. In my version however her performance isn`t singing but acting. She performs in a stage version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (she plays a supporting role, but it`s a wellwritten and important role). After the show is over Pete congratulates MJ and meets Harry Osborn who he tries to reason with but Harry is still hellbent on revenge. Before Pete meets Aunt May to tell her that he plans to propose to MJ he bumps in to Eddie Brock who is in a hurry and doesn`t have time to chat with him because he`s "chasing a big scoop". A masked terrorist named Sin-Eater is mentioned a few times on newspaper headlines, he`s kinda like the unabomber in this universe. (Yes, Sin-Eater is gonna be in this one, but he doesn`t play a big part.) Pete gets attacked by Harry Osborn and they fight, but instead of Harry knocking himself out and losing his memory he chases Pete into an abandoned old building that he demolishes with lots of grenades. There`s no sign of Pete in what`s left of the building but Harry knows that he must`ve escaped. Since Harry knows Pete`s secret identity Pete knows that Harry might use his loved ones to get to him, so he tells MJ to get out of town with Aunt May. MJ reluctantly agrees to this and tells Aunt May that she thinks it would be good for them to get a little time of their own for a little female bonding. They leave early the next morning. Pete does his usual shtick, superheroing as Spider-Man and selling his photos to Jameson but all the time doing so while looking over his shoulder, fully aware that Harry is out there. (Yes, I know that he has spider-sense that warns him, but still.) When Pete`s at the Bugle he bumps into Brock who has just finished talking to his dad on the phone, or rather, his dad`s answering machine. Here`s where we get a little human moment from Brock where he tells Pete that he and his dad hasn`t talked to eachother for some time. He then runs away to "chase his big scoop". We get one scene where Harry visits Aunt May`s house to find that no one is home (thus validating Pete`s paranoia). He smiles confidently and shakes his head. "You`re a clever boy Pete, you knew what I was gonna do." Meanwhile at Aunt May and MJ`s hide out: May realises that there`s something odd about this very sudden "female bonding" trip that MJ practically forced her to join and wonders if there`s someting going on that MJ doesn`t want her to know. Is it about Peter? Is he in trouble? MJ tries to calm her down and says that there is nothing of that kind going on. Aunt May pretends to accept MJ`s explanation but senses that she`s lying, MJ herself feels awful for lying to May. Later that evening at Pete`s apartment: Peter collpapses on his bed after a long day. The black goo that attached itself to his moped on his date with MJ (Yes, I`m going with the movie`s version of how that happened.) comes out of the shadows and devours Pete. Spidey wakes up hanging upsidedown outside a building, looking at his reflection in the window. He feels more confident and powerful. He goes out swinging and finds a masked terrorist who`s about to blow up a mall. Spidey beats him up and uses more violence than necessary. He stops himself from killing the terrorist, webs him up and leaves him outside a police station. Pete doesn`t like what he just did, he almost killed that man. Criminal or not, that`s just something that he shouldn`t do. Could it be the suit? Is it making him more aggressive? But then the suit clouds his judgement and he tells himself that he has everything under control, what happened was just a one-time thing. The next day the police arrests the terrorist who turns out to be that Sin-Eater that has been mentioned in the news. Since Sin-Eater has been caught Brock reveals to Jonah what "the big scoop" that he chased earlier was. All this time Brock had been telephone-interviewing Sin-Eater who had told him a lot about his life-philosophy and about how "decadent he thinks our secular society is". Jonah likes it, it`s extremely in depth. Brock could win the Pulitzer prize for it. Hearing this makes Brock beam with pride. That same evening Spidey is out webswinging and runs into Harry. They fight. At one point Harry uses a sonic grenade and here`s where we learn that the black suit is vulnerable to loud noises. Spidey gets the upper hand, goes really violent and almost beats Harry to death. Harry manages to escape and all of this has been caught by a guy with a video camera. It later ends up on the late news and is seen by MJ. Once again Pete feels bad for going too far and once again the suit makes him think that it wasn`t a big deal.The next day Brock`s interview is published in the Bugle. Jonah congratulates him in his office when Brock`s phone suddenly rings. It`s Sin-Eater! But wait a sec, isn`t he in jail? Maybe he used his one phone call to call Brock? But then Brock (and Jonah) finds out that the man calling doesn`t know that Sin-Eater is in jail, the man calling isn`t even Sin-Eater! All this time Brock was interviewing a mentally ill man who pretended to be Sin-Eater. (The man also has no TV or easy access to the news paper, that`s why he didn`t knew that the real S-E was behind bars.) This is bad! Todays newspaper has already been printed! Jonah fires a distraught Eddie Brock. Later that day MJ comes to Peter`s apartment. (Yes, Pete told her and May to stay out of the city to be safe from Harry, but right now Harry`s not much of a threat compared to Pete.) She saw Spidey`s and Harry`s fight on the news and thinks that he went too far. They start to argue and Peter pushes MJ into the wall... just as Aunt May walks in and sees it. Pete realizes what he`s done and runs out of his apartment to be alone. He sits on top of a building to think, sees a church and gets an idea. He uses the loud noise from the churchbells to rid himself of the alien suit. Eddie Brock happens to be in the same church at the time. After the suit has been separated from Pete it looks for a new host and finds Eddie... who turns into Venom. Pete returns home to his apartment (with clothes that he has taken from some church-charity thing) where May and MJ are waiting. (It`s his apartment after all and they don`t have the key, so they can`t leave it unlocked.) After some talking MJ forgives Pete and a few minutes later May does the same. After this Pete (as Spidey) swings over to Harry to patch things over with him as well. (He is of course smart enough to realize that it`s not gonna be a walk in the park.) When they meet we see that Harry`s face has been damaged from their latest fight and he doesn`t want to reconcile with him. He doesn`t want to fight him either but he wants him to get the hell away from his property. Somewhere else: Venom kidnaps Jonah, takes him to a construction site and soon gets Pete`s attention thanks to the news. Spidey suits up, swings to the site and tries to reason with Eddie, but Eddie won`t listen. He says that he and the suit has a "symbiotic relationship" and after that he starts to refer to himself in plural ("we" and "us"). He knows that Spider-Man is Peter because the suit told him that. Spidey and Venom fight. After a few blows have been delivered Eddie says to Spidey: "Can`t sense when I`m coming, can you? That`s right! The suit knows all about your little extra warning sense! And it knows how to not trigger it!" Harry sees their fight on the news. Spidey manages to incapacitate Venom long enough to break away from the fight and rescue Jonah. But then Venom gets the upper hand and knocks Spidey out. He`s about to kill Spidey when... Harry comes to the rescue! Harry and Venom fight, Spidey manges to regain consciousness just in time to see... Venom stabbing Harry with his own hoverboard! Spidey fights Venom and defeats him (or "them) the same way he did it in the movie. (Harry is strong enough to still be alive, he pulls out a grenade that he throws to Spidey that Spidey throws at the symbiote.) Eddie isn`t desintegrated by the blast, just knocked unconscious by it. Pete and Harry say their good byes and Harry dies with peace in his heart. The next day Peter visits Aunt May, gives her the ring back and says that he`s not ready to marry MJ yet, maybe some day but not in a near future. The next day Pete, MJ and Aunt May go to Harry`s funeral. Next we see MJ and Pete (in Spider-Man costume but without the mask on) on the roof of a tall building staring at the sunset.

The End Mid credit scene: Eddie is in the hospital in a coma. We get a re-play of the moment when the explosion killed the symbiote and knocked him out. A close up shows that a small piece of the symbiote managed to escape. Back to Eddie in the hospital: the symbiote is outside his window, it sneaks in and devours him. We get a close up of one of his eyes as he wakes up from the coma. Yes, I know, my version is not much better than the official version. Even in this one Venom doesn`t appear until the third act. But with Sandman and other distractions gone we at least get more time to explore Eddie and understand his goals and motivations. When I first came up with this I was originally not going to have Venom in it. I was gonna use Lizard since he had already been mentioned and shown in the first two movies and it felt like a waste to not use him.

And no: I`m not gonna do a CC of the The Amazing Spider-Man movies. Because A: I don`t want my gallery to be filled with thousands of editorials. I want my visual art to outnumber (or atleast be in equal quantity to) my written stuff. B: Spider-Man 3 has been on my CC list for a couple of months while TASM 1&2 haven`t been on the list at all. (Not that they don`t have a few things in them that I would like to change though.) If I were to give them the CC treatment I would sum it up like this: a: Don`t reboot them, make them sequels. It is possible to make sequels with a new director and a new cast. Just saying. Or b: Just stop after Spider-Man 3 and let the rights revert back to Marvel.

#81scorp #spider-man #marvel #constructive #criticism #sam raimi

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