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soveryanon · 3 years

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Reviewing time for MAG199! ;_;

- That discussion was a lot, and raised a lot of interesting points, but wooftie did the beginning show characters going back to their bad reflexes out of habit and stress. Melanie and Jon were quick to get snappish at each other, and we know from MAG186 that Martin making tea is also his way of avoiding conflict:

(MAG186) ALSO MARTIN: We could. [SIGH] But we both know that loved ones make the worst therapists. They’re too wrapped up in trying to stop you hurting, to actually help. But hey: we know all about that, am I right? MARTIN: There’s nothing wrong with comforting people. ALSO MARTIN: A cup of tea isn’t a resolution. At best it’s a… a plaster; at worst… a muzzle.

So the fact that the sequence began with Martin asking about tea?

(MAG199) MELANIE: … So… ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. [UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE] MARTIN: Anyone want another cup of tea? [SOMETHING WOODEN SCRAPES ACROSS TUNNEL FLOOR] Well, heh, I say “tea”, it’s har– GEORGIE: We can’t keep putting it off. We need to talk about this. About what we’re going to do.

Aouch. (I wonder where the tea came from: from the London supermarket? Or were those the bags he had packed before leaving the Scotland cabin?)

- Meanwhile, Basira was providing out-of-the-box ideas or possibilities and Georgie acted a bit like a debate mediator, laying options down and trying to keep things on track. I’m especially glad that she was the one to point out that there were actually three options, counting inaction (letting the world slowly die out) as one, since, as she pointed out, she had felt guilty for not having helped Jon back in season 4 – she had told him so, she had to reexplain to Melanie again this episode.

- Although he had begun the season correcting Martin about Elias actually being “Jonah”, Jon mainly used “Elias” to refer to him this season, until they reached London and he was oscillating between the two. But since Jon told Elias Bouchard (the real one)’s statement, it’s been “Jonah” without hesitation, to the point that he corrected Georgie about it:

(MAG193) ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die.

(MAG194) ARCHIVIST: Look. Right, when I said that I would “replace” Jonah in there, that’s not… I m– … That place, the centre of The Eye, i–it’s… it wasn’t made for him.

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: I see. Destroy the Panopticon, and you release its power. Kill Jonah, and you cut the connection between the Fears and the world.

(MAG198) ARCHIVIST: Had a blazing row? MARTIN: I, uh… eh… Yeah, that. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: About what we should do with Jonah. With… the Panopticon. BASIRA: Oh, about whether you should, uh…?

(MAG199) GEORGIE: One. We follow Annabelle’s plan. We destroy the Panopticon, kill Elias– ARCHIVIST: Jonah– GEORGIE: Whatever– ARCHIVIST: –Magnus.

It feels like knowing about the real Elias helped Jon distinguish the two, since he could now put a story and a personality on “Elias”?

(I’m still laughing a bit that Jon had to be That Person and interrupt Georgie. Not the point, not the moment, Jon.)

- Overall, I like how we could clearly see what was prioritised by everyone amongst the options they explored and how they approached the problem. Basically, the unknown factors came to whether other worlds were already impacted by the Fears or not, and whether the Fears would contaminate all of them or just a portion, which led to a few scenarios showing what they feared and hoped for the most:

-> Keeping the Fears in their world and sacrificing it in the process: hoping that the Fears were intrinsically tied to this world in particular, that this option would mean their absolute annihilation, and fearing that other worlds getting contaminated by them would lead to these other worlds experiencing their own apocalypse, thus perpetuating a cycle they could have stopped.

-> Throwing the Fears into other worlds to save their own: hoping that the Fears already existed in other worlds, that it would only impact some amongst an infinity of worlds, and fearing that sacrificing their world would be a pointless sacrifice if the Fears happen to exist elsewhere anyway.

Jon was behind the first plan, with a few variations (offering to accelerate the death process if necessary… which, indeed, was chilling, and Basira’s firm opposition against actively contributing to people’s murder was very necessary, but made sense as an option if the scenario was to doom this world). The others federated for the second with various priorities: Basira sounded like she could have accepted the sacrifice of this world if it came with the certainty that it would eradicate the Fears everywhere (but they do not have that certainty), while Melanie insisted on people’s own responsibility when it came to bringing around an apocalypse and the fact that hypotheticals could go both ways, while Georgie seemed more receptive to what would happen to this world for sure vs. the unknown in other universes, while Martin was refusing Jon’s option to take Jonah’s place and was receptive to other ideas. From Georgie&Melanie, there was the additional fact that they had recently witnessed the survivors, who trusted them and were under their protection, getting snatched away without them being able to do anything; from an emotional point of view, it might have pushed them to… do something, anything, that could indeed save people, while they hadn’t been able to be active until now.

* I really like that Basira was the one to point out and reiterate how unfair it was of them to take this decision, that they ultimately were very privileged compared to the main victims, trying to find ways to get people involved in the process. It does feel like she’s learned during the journey…

* Jon’s voice (weary, miserable) when he explained that he already knew what people wanted, and that it was for their suffering “to stop”, broke my heart into pieces ;_;

* Martin’s main argument (“I’d rather live the rest of my life lying awake wondering if I made the right choice, over… lying awake listening to the screams of everyone on Earth being tortured!” really echoed what had happened with Annabelle on their journey to Hill Top Road: that he couldn’t help making additional stops to relieve people’s suffering for a bit, and that he briefly lamented Salesa’s death despite Annabelle pointing out that he had made victims, since Martin “didn’t know them”. Martin reacts more strongly to what’s in front of him, uh…

* Georgie felt very End-touched this episode? “until the end”, “towards the end”, just like Beholding avatars had occasionally been punning about their patron…

* Melanie, sayer of “fuck” /o/

(MAG131) MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?!

(MAG199) MELANIE: But if you think that’s all I care about here, then frankly you can fuck off out my tunnels on your high horse.

Jon still in the lead with four over the course of the series, we’ll see if anyone else takes the lead with MAG200…

- Overall: what was the most striking was how, at this point, Jon was indeed too disillusioned to hope for any possible positive outcome. They all made good points, about what they knew and didn’t know, about the worst and best cases scenarios – but from Jon’s point of view, it feels like the guilt has been heavy enough already, and that he couldn’t stand to add to it anymore.

(And ;; It’s especially cruel that he stuck to his line of trusting the others, that he shared the information with the others and counted on them to make a collective decision… but that he was the only discordant voice in the end. That was the risk! And it just cruelly (for him) turned out this way.)

- Amongst the points that weren’t mentioned, I’m curious that the followings didn’t come up:

* They barely talked about The Web or Jonah as, well, being the main factors resulting in the current apocalypse – as the people who wanted it to happen and worked for it. They all were ready to take the blame but… the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened if The Web hadn’t wanted to control its escape by backing up Jonah to make it happen, and if Jonah hadn’t worked for it. Yeeting the Fears into other worlds also means yeeting The Web, who now knows for sure how an apocalypse can happen, which means it will search for a crack to widen as its next escape pod as soon as it arrives somewhere else, thus repeating the cycle probably much more faster…?

* They all seem confident that once the Fears leave, they’ll be gone forever. But Gerry had raised the point in front of Jon that nobody can tell really which came first, if the Fears originated from people or caused their fears. What if the problem in the TMA world is that the Fears are produced by people – what if they would be recreated as soon as they leave (especially now that people are left traumatised and hurt)?

* They weren’t sure whether the other worlds would be very similar to theirs (“Assuming time even works the same in different dimensions.”) but… the two examples of people crossing the Hill Top Road line had come from very familiar worlds: Anya’s was almost identical (except that there was no Magnus Institute in hers – maybe no Jonah Magnus at all?) and Eowa was killed by the same army he had tried to flee. The examples both Jon and Martin read about felt really similar to their world; those could be drops in the bucket, but still…

* There was absolutely no mention of the people they lost in the course of the series. It’s a strange feeling, because when it came to it, their conclusions seem pretty disconnected from everything that had happened to them, to the point that Melanie could blurt out “We all lived with monsters in the shadows, and we just got on with it.” without being countered by anyone – although it was the most obvious lie ever (and Melanie had to be aware of it, given how she blinded herself to escape The Eye). Melanie knows in detail how her father suffered because of The Corruption at Ivy Meadows before dying. Georgie lost Alex and her ability to feel fear. Basira had to hunt and kill Daisy after she got lost to The Hunt. Jon was traumatised as kid, witnessed Helen Richardson getting taken by Michael in front of him; Martin was preyed on and groomed for The Lonely for months by Peter; Jon&Martin both lost Tim and Sasha. They know how damaging the Fears can be even at the lurking stage. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, even taking this into account, they’d still have gone with the plan to yeet the Fears (since in the best case scenario, Fears would already be present in other worlds anyway, or whatever inhabits them would be insulated to them), I’m just surprised that the topic of the people they have lost didn’t come up as a potential counter-argument, especially since we’re at the end of this journey.

- Oh gods, Jon leaving for a smoke…

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: Fine. I’m going for a cigarette. [DEPARTING FOOTSTEPS] [CLICK.]

… sounded like a very bad omen, given how las time he had left people alone to smoke, it had gone, uh, pipe-murderly:

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… [DOOR OPENS] Don’t. [DOOR CLOSES]

Surprised that nothing bad happened when he left; if it had been at the end of an episode, I would have panicked for a week about the Watchers coming back for the others while Jon was away.

- It was the first time we’ve heard Jon smoke on tape! We knew he did thanks to a few mentions (him announcing his cigarette break to Leitner in MAG080, the fact that Daisy had found Silk Cuts in his bag in MAG091, when he had tried to give a cigarette to Gerry in MAG111) but we hadn’t heard him taking a smoke.

* … How long has Jon carried these cigarettes? Did they come from before the Change, did Jon restock at Salesa’s, did he get some from Leitner’s stashes of stuff? Or does his own stock never truly deplete, The Web providing an infinite supply of cigarettes just like the recorders keep spawning?

* We could hear the whirring sounds and the drones, Georgie joked about an “indoor smoking ban”, Jon commented he could think better here, we heard Georgie climbing stairs to reach him, so I’m guessing he was at the bottom of the tower? I like how this scene managed to feel nostalgic despite of it, with Jon being somewhere between inside and outside and hiding for a smoke – we don’t know for sure where he used to go to smoke, but Gertrude had mentioned the Institute has a courtyard.

* And just the location highlighted Jon’s situation: not “human” enough anymore to be in the tunnels, but refusing to embrace what is at the top of the tower. So, alone in that in-between.

- Gods, the Georgie and Jon scene began so adorably?

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [LONG EXHALATION] GEORGIE: You do know there’s an indoor smoking ban, right? ARCHIVIST: They’ll make an exception for me…! GEORGIE: [FAINT CHUCKLE] ARCHIVIST: Besides, I can’t really think down there. [DRAG ON CIGARETTE] That’s not true, I can, it’s just… exhausting. Puts me in a foul mood. [INHALE] It’s better up here, close to The Eye. Thoughts come quicker. GEORGIE: … If it’s any consolation, you seemed pretty on the ball earlier. ARCHIVIST: It isn’t really but… thank you.

Friendly exes! It really took me back to the familiar bantering they shared in season 3 – except that, back then, Jon was trying to hide what was truly happening to him, and this time around, Jon was shown more open and direct about what was on his mind.

- Again, I love and hate what the scene said and showed, reminding us that… even if the plan they have chosen goes accordingly, Jon won’t be okay, as Jon had explained to Martin:

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Uh, these last few days I–I’ve been… getting weaker. Dizzy spells, vagueness, you’ve seen it. Being cut off from the Eye, i–it’s not good for me. MARTIN: Yeah, but if… [INHALE] If you’re that connected, that… dependent, what happens if we actually, y’know, do manage to– ARCHIVIST: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I just need us to be moving on.

(MAG191) MARTIN: … Jon. If… When we defeat The Eye, the Fears… What happens to you? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Nothing good. I think it depends on what actually happens. […] If, however, we… find a way to destroy or, uh… eliminate the Powers… I’m not going to be okay. There’s… too much of me that’s part of The Eye now. I don’t… know what would be left of me without it. Maybe I just… die. Maybe I survive, but I–I lose… something. My identity? My mind? My… memories? I don’t know.

(MAG197) ANNABELLE: Most would simply lose whatever power they have been gifted. Jon would lose much of himself, the parts of him that are The Eye. But he would survive. And perhaps, more importantly, he would remain who he believes himself to be. [TAPE SQUEALS]

His moment of rest consists of coming up under Beholding’s radar again; but if they succeed, there won’t be that anymore. At best, Jon would be like he was in the tunnels, at worse, he would wither away like he did at Salesa’s, losing grasp on his memory and unable to focus. It wasn’t mentioned as a factor in their discussion (Martin and Jon had already covered this privately earlier in the season, after all), but it’s likely not something Jon has forgotten.

- Oh GODS, Georgie, no!!

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … Can I have a cigarette? ARCHIVIST: [AMUSED SNORT] … Sure. [PASSING ONE OVER]

(MAG001) ARCHIVIST: “I picked myself up as best I could, checked I hadn’t seriously injured myself, no broken bones or anything, and decided to roll a cigarette to calm myself. That was when I heard it. [STATIC RISES] “Can I have a cigarette?” [STATIC FADES]”

Given Jon’s reaction, he had picked up on it. You either die an Archivist, or you live long enough to see yourself become the Anglerfish’s victim.

- Georgie used to smoke, and Jon knew that about her! They might have been smoking together as students, given Jon’s official chronology regarding smoking?

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: I’m going to have a cigarette. Don’t… [DOOR OPENS] Don’t. […] Sorry, I’ve been quit for five years now, but th– [STUNNED SILENCE] … Oh. Oh god… I need to… Uh… I need to, um… [TRAILS OF ALMOST INCOHERENTLY]

MAG080 had taken place in February 2017, so five years ago was 2012, which is roughly when Jon joined the Institute (in MAG051, he had mentioned “One of [his] first cases as a researcher for the Institute in 2012”). Although, well. Jon saying that he had “been quit for five years” wasn’t super convincing when he apparently had cigarettes on him at that moment, but it’s a bit difficult to guess when Jon went back to smoking in the series (Elias’s “He’s not smoking again, is he?” in MAG039 could have been referring to him knowing that Jon used to smoke, or to Jon having started again as soon as he got the lighter; and Tim’s “I don’t mean like ‘sneaking a cigarette’ bad” in MAG079 could have been a random example, or referring to the fact that Jon was indeed having cigarette breaks in season 2 and not being super subtle about it).

- Aouch about the theme of shattering illusions and your heroes being people above all:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: I thought you quit? GEORGIE: I did! For my health. But… it’s already the apocalypse so… I’ll need a light too. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [LIGHTER SNICKS OPEN] [GEORGIE LIGHTS UP] GEORGIE: I tried to avoid it in the tunnels, when we had our, uh… When the others were here. […] ARCHIVIST: You didn’t want to tarnish the image of the prophets? GEORGIE: Just didn’t think they wanted one of their “revered leaders” puffing away in the corner. ARCHIVIST: [MURMURS AN ASSENT] GEORGIE: Saw a bishop smoking once when I was a kid, full Easter regalia and all. Really weirded me out.

The comparison hurt a bit by likening the survivors in the tunnels to… children who can’t really tell decorum apart from reality, but there sure was an interesting theme of Georgie being aware of how she was seen, and trying to not hurt the survivors while at the same time indirectly feeding their perception of her as “holy”.

- Okay, so. Probably what felt the biggest, most important thing in this episode was… Georgie taking the lighter, how it happened, and whether or not it will be narratively relevant.

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … Can I have a cigarette? ARCHIVIST: [AMUSED SNORT] … Sure. [PASSING ONE OVER] I thought you quit? GEORGIE: I did! For my health. But… it’s already the apocalypse so… I’ll need a light too. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [LIGHTER SNICKS OPEN] [GEORGIE LIGHTS UP] GEORGIE: I tried to avoid it in the tunnels, when we had our, uh… When the others were here. [LIGHT METALLIC SOUND] Nice lighter. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Hmm? [STATIC FADES] […] I should probably quit myself, then. [LIGHT METALLIC SOUND] GEORGIE: Then, you won’t mind if I hang onto this? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: [DISTRACTED] Hmm. [STATIC FADES] GEORGIE: … I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: I know you hate what we’re doing.

* Static when people mention the lighter and Jon not being able to focus on it is far from new:

(MAG111) GERARD: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then? ARCHIVIST: What? Oh! Er, n–no. I–I, I never really, uh… I never really thought of it. I–I’m Jon. I’m with the Magnus Institute. … I–I’m the Archivist.

(MAG136) DAISY: [SCOFF] She’s… Web. Spider’s sneaky like that. [PAUSE] Like that lighter you’re always using. Where’d you get that? ARCHIVIST: Mm. [STATIC RISES] Good point. We should keep our eyes open. [STATIC FADES] Anyway, how’s Basira doing?

(MAG162) MARTIN: You said this place, the–the cabin was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It, it’s feeding on us, right? ARCHIVIST: Yes… MARTIN: … So should we… destroy it, before we go? […] We’re not even gonna try? We, we’ve got your lighter, maybe we could just– ARCHIVIST: We can’t fight the world, Martin.

(MAG197) ANNABELLE: And it just so happens that the perfect tool was once delivered to you as a token of appreciation. Though you really do need to learn to keep better care of it. Somehow, it always seems to slip your mind, doesn’t it? ARCHIVIST: What…? BASIRA: Jon, it’s that stupid lighter of yours. ARCHIVIST: [INDIGNANT] My what? I… [STATIC RISES] [PULLS THE GOLD LIGHTER WITH EMBOSSED SPIDERWEB FROM POCKET AND FLICKS IT OPEN] Oh? … Oh. [STATIC FADES]

What is surprising is that it still happened even after Annabelle pointed out the purpose of the lighter. If Jon is supernaturally compelled to not pay attention to it (by The Web, to ensure it stays with Jon? By Beholding, out of self-preservation, like it tried to push Jon away from Eric’s tape that explained how to quit the Archives?), how the heck was Annabelle expecting him to use it in the tunnels to explode the Archives with the gas main?

* At the end of the episode, the others explained how they would proceed, and it’s presented as a given that Jon wouldn’t be in the tunnel team – but rather, that he would go with Martin, despite being unnecessary since Martin would take care of the Jonah murder. It’s rather strange that the others didn’t ask for the lighter directly, but that Georgie took it in the flow of the conversation and in a way Jon barely noticed… as if she wanted to take hold of it sneakily because it was necessary that Jon didn’t really notice. Plus, as was explained, Melanie is supposed to be the last person standing to ignite the gas main: Basira is supposed to be a planned distraction, and Georgie is a back-up distraction in case things go sour. If the point was to get the lighter for the gas main, then Melanie should have been the one to get hold of it.

(* It’s additionally rather strange that Georgie said she had “tried to avoid it in the tunnels” when the survivors were around, implying it was a conscious choice but she might have been smoking outside when patrolling with Melanie… yet had to ask Jon for a cigarette and for a light, as if she didn’t have these things on her.)

Overall, I see three options:

* Total coincidence, red herring, Georgie just didn’t take her own lighter along because she wasn’t planning on smoking.

* Since the beginning of the episode implied that Jon&Martin&Basira had given a complete recap of what had happened to Hill Top Road before the tape recorder clicked on, Georgie took the lighter on purpose to free Jon from The Web’s potential influence. She hasn’t gone back to smoking during the apocalypse; she lied about it to lower Jon’s guard by telling a convincing story, given that Jon knew she used to smoke. Likely meaning that Georgie&Melanie&Martin&Basira have another plan in Jon’s back, but couldn’t share with him due to both the tape recorders and Jon’s connection to Beholding – if Jon knows something, then Beholding might be knowing about it too.

* It’s… actually an End thing. There was a feeling of finality when Georgie took the lighter, as if she might be taking a step that would irrevocably lead to her own death? (“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”) She said the exact same thing (“Nice lighter.”) as Gerry, who was dead when he said it; she took the lighter for a dangerous mission; she pointed out her own regrets due to her inaction, and was the one to mention that they had to pay the cost, whatever it was, for this plan to succeed. I don’t know, I got the impression that things might be slotting into place, that her own mechanism had set into motion – that things in the tunnels will go awry, and that she won’t make it out.

- Overall, I like the different approaches characters had about their own guilt and Jon’s in this episode:

(MAG199) GEORGIE: … I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: I know you hate what we’re doing. ARCHIVIST: I hate all the options, I just… It’s all my fault, you know? GEORGIE: What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. GEORGIE: We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going– ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: –to affect the whole world…! ARCHIVIST: They were still my choices. GEORGIE: … Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really. ARCHIVIST: Hmm.

For Jon: what was the most apparent is that he was adamant about presenting what happened as his choices. It could be a remnant of Elia’s gaslighting about it (MAG092: “You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean. But we make them nonetheless.”), but also a sign that Jon had been struggling about (what he perceives to be) The Web’s hold on his life: if The Web had indeed manipulated him all his life, since he was eight, puppetting him like Francis or the kids at Ray’s house, then what is left of Jon? What is his, who is he? Jon clinging to his own guilt, his own responsibility, the idea that he made his own choices at every turn, might be his way to not fall into the other extreme, the idea that he has been nothing but the Web’s marionette all along and that he’s nothing without it.

It’s also striking that the others have told Jon that the apocalypse wasn’t truly his fault, that they knew Jon hadn’t wanted it, but that Jon redirected the blame on him every time anyway. Georgie tried two other approaches in quick succession: taking The Web into account, with the idea that Jon’s particularity was that he was preyed upon by it, that the consequences were only more dramatic than regular “bad choices” because something was planning to use them anyway; and then, something that resonated more strongly with Georgie’s own experience. As she told Jon, she had regrets about not helping him, felt like she had failed him and had contributed to the steps leading to this apocalypse: she knows what it is to carry that sort of guilt, although on a smaller scale. (And her last sentence felt… extremely End-touched, too.)

- The moment of Georgie introducing that Martin (“your next appointment”) was there and that it was her cue to leave was so sweet ;_; Jon’s ex to Jon’s current partner, and both Jon & Georgie being cool about each other’s new partner in their lives…

- And gooods, Jon&Martin’s conversation ;_;

(MAG199) GEORGIE: He’s all yours. MARTIN: Thanks. [GEORGIE’S FOOTSTEPS DESCEND AND FADE] … You all right? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. Sorry it got so heated in there. MARTIN: Don’t be. I’d have been more worried if you were super calm about it. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. MARTIN: … I’d understand if you hate me right now. ARCHIVIST: What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will, and I know you love me too, I mean… [SIGH] That’s it, isn’t it? That’s… the real core of it. You want to save me. MARTIN: I want you to save yourself.

* The fact that Martin was ready and understanding that Jon might hate him for the option Martin defended, that he was expecting Jon to hate him for it, and that he still stuck to it… Oh, Martin… (It’s not the first time a Magnus moment made me think of the When They Cry series but… this one was peak Federika’s poem: “Don’t be sad. The world may not forgive you, but I do. / Don’t be sad. You may not forgive the world, but I forgive you. / Tell me. What must I do to earn your forgiveness?”)

* So many “I love you” coming from Jon this season…

(MAG161) MARTIN: I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: No, it’s– [SIGH] I love you, I just… I need more time.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “The screams may linger on the distant breeze, and your eye may wander beyond the curtains from time to time, but you and the one you love are, it seems… safe. […] There within the thing that pretends to be a cabin is the one you love. […] The one you love is always near, so close that refuge sometimes feels a prison.”

(MAG183) MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.

(MAG191) MARTIN: … I promise. I love you, Jon. ARCHIVIST: [FOND HUFF] I love you too.

(MAG199) MARTIN: … I’d understand if you hate me right now. ARCHIVIST: What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will, and I know you love me too, I mean…

I really wasn’t expecting it when season 4 ended, and yet!! Jon has been so soft and open about it with Martin this season…

* I really like the nuance Martin insisted on, that he mostly wished that Jon would want to save “himself” – it’s not necessarily that Martin is right about it but… from his point of view, he might still be suspecting that Jon is still pretty much self-destructive (although in indirect ways), as Daisy had pointed out in season 4, and that his way of engaging in dangerous missions is still tainted with guilt, with the idea that he has to compensate for something:

(MAG142) DAISY: Not like there’s… “normal” trauma, you know? But it’s pretty common. The most important thing becomes control, engaging on your own terms. Even when it’s stupid or dangerous. Anything to not feel helpless. MARTIN: Oh, god… DAISY: And of course, for Jon, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive. MARTIN: Yeah, well. We’ve all had trauma. DAISY: And everyone’s changed.

(And gods. Maybe the problem this season for Jon is that Daisy wasn’t there anymore to at least point out these things. She hadn’t really managed to take Jon’s mind off of it (and he hadn’t opened up enough with her to confess that he had been attacking people) but she might have been able to lay it out, at least, if she had been there…)

- I’m really glad about the contrast between Jon and Martin when thinking about hypothetical scenarios!

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: … Sometimes… I imagine if none of this had happened. If we had just… met. Been together, w–without… all of this. MARTIN: [SOFTLY] Me too. … But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together, I mean. ARCHIVIST: Huh? W–what do you mean? MARTIN: Well…! We had that, didn’t we? Almost a year of just working a normal job together and… you hated me. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t “hate” you. MARTIN: No–no, no, no, I listened to those tapes. At one point, you explicitly said you’d be fine with me being chopped up by that old jigsaw lady. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god, Angela! Ha! She’s still about, you know? Lording it over a nasty little Flesh domain. Anyway, I didn’t explicitly say it, I… implied it. MARTIN: Face it, Jon, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible.

* Jon truly is the romantic in that relationship.

* I’m very glad for Martin pointing out that he remembers how Jon used to treat him, and that he doesn’t really believe that they could have gotten together without the circumstances they experienced. I don’t think we’re meant to take Martin’s words exactly at face value (the circumstances allowed them to open up to each other and get closer, they didn’t necessarily turn them into whole other human beings), but it makes sense that, from his perspective… it’s hard to romanticise the past:

(MAG014) ARCHIVIST: I sent Martin to look into this “Angela” character, not that I want him to get chopped up, of course, but someone had to. Apparently he spent three days looking into every woman named Angela in Bexley over the age of 50. He could not find anyone that matches the admittedly vague description given here, though he informs me that he had some very pleasant chats about jigsaws. Useless ass.

Jon was absolutely awful to him back then, and ranting about him on tapes was textbook workplace bullying since he knew the tapes were semi-public (as in MAG032, Tim reported to him that researchers and students had been pointing out mistakes in his recordings). Off-tape, just from Martin’s point of view, we know that it was so pervasive that he remembered about it when left alone, tormented by his worst memories and feelings:

(MAG170) MARTIN: … Oh, I, I met someone! Did I tell you? He’s… [SHUFFLING] I, I don’t know. I like him. He doesn’t like me, though. Not really. I don’t blame him. I don’t like me sometimes, and I am me! Plus, he’s… he’s my, my boss? Is that right? [CREAKING] Ei–either way. It’s probably for the best? Wouldn’t really be appropriate, eh…!

(MAG186) ALSO MARTIN: Or… does it just keep paralysing us, make us shrink back and wait, hoping things work out? Like with Jon when we thought the worms had got him. MARTIN: Hey, to be fair, he still kind of hated me back then. I’m really not sure it would have been the best time to take my shot. ALSO MARTIN: … Fair. He was projecting hard.

Season 1 is not a time Martin would be eager to go back to, because it’s when Jon was at his worst against him (and Martin lived in fear of his fake CV being discovered), while for Jon… it was before Prentiss attacking the Institute, before his scars and before losing Sasha. It makes sense that Martin would want to defend what they got, to defend this world over others, given that from his point of view, it might be the only configuration possible that made his relationship with Jon possible – which, once again: might not be necessarily the truth, but makes sense from Martin’s point of view.

* Though, Martin, sweetie, the “normal job” included you getting besieged by Prentiss for two weeks and having to eat canned peaches. It’s never really been a “normal” job.

- Jon lightening up at the mention of Angela and immediately infodumping about how she was doing was so bittersweet to me, since it emphasised (once again) how deep Jon is in the Fears’ society by now. Those are familiar names, familiar figures, doing terrible things, but it still feels like his own universe when he mentions them, when he explains what he knows about them. Once again, it makes me wonder what will be left of him once all those things are just… gone.

- Martin listened to so many tapes, uh?

(MAG142) MARTIN: I listened to your old statement. Wasn’t your partner down there? DAISY: Yeah. Didn’t find him.

(MAG188) MARTIN: Plus, I… I was a little bit jealous as, well. ARCHIVIST: Of what? MARTIN: Of Helen. Well, the, the real Helen. I found the tape when you were on the run and… I don’t know. Something about the way you two seemed to connect when she came in. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] Before she was eaten by a door. MARTIN: Well, yeah. It certainly seemed to have a pretty deep impact on you.

(MAG199) MARTIN: No–no, no, no, I listened to those tapes. At one point, you explicitly said you’d be fine with me being chopped up by that old jigsaw lady.

He listened to the one involving Angela (MAG014), to Helen’s statement (MAG047), to the events that got Daisy section’d (MAG061) – that last one being even more interesting since it explicitly mentioned that Basira&Daisy were giving Jon the tapes, which means it was from the stash Jon was recording secretly. I’m back to fearing a bit about Martin as a back-up Archivist: he used to read statements and to take a few live ones, Annabelle made him read her statement in MAG197, he’s been listening to tapes… just like Jon.

- Martin has been good at finding loopholes in mutual promises:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] That’s very sweet of you, Martin. Sort of. … Thank you. MARTIN: Wherever you go, I go. That’s it. ARCHIVIST: You promised to let me go, if I had to. MARTIN: And you promised not to go if there was any other choice. And there is. So that’s the deal. ARCHIVIST: … That’s the deal.

Martin said that he wouldn’t “doom the world” over Jon: he’s still respecting that in a way by prioritising Jon and this peculiar world (and as the others had pointed out earlier, they weren’t sure whether their actions would doom others or not).

I’m super afraid about that “Wherever you go, I go” which sounds like something that could suddenly come to a stop. Martin had pointed out multiple times that he was “following” Jon (MAG170: “I was following, al–always following, never leading; never leading.”), but recent episodes have operated a bit differently – Jon didn’t follow Martin to his domain, respecting Martin’s wish to confront it alone, and Jon followed him to Hill Top Road. At this point, Jon has been following Martin, too…

- I got a first impression of Martin’s words before understanding that it could actually be referring to multiple things:

(MAG199) MARTIN: I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? [SAD CHUCKLING] I try, but I can’t actually imagine… ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you. And it… It hurts to know you can.

At first, I thought Martin was saying that he felt like Jon would be ready to sacrifice Martin or his relationship with him for a greater good, while Martin definitely couldn’t (as he pointed out to Also Martin, his limit would probably be to sacrifice Jon), but… it could also be a reference to Jon’s self-hatred, the fact that Jon would sacrifice himself so easily. In that case, it’s a bit hypocritical of Martin indeed (since he had told Also Martin that he was ready to sacrifice himself too), but I still feel like there might be a difference between the two – Martin would do it to save the world or Jon (or to not live on the pain of his domain’s victims), while Jon… would likely do it out of self-hatred and because he feels like it’s his responsibility to make up for the apocalypse.

- The contrast between Georgie’s scene and this, when Jon finally broke ;_;

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: I hate all the options, I just… It’s all my fault, you know? GEORGIE: What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. GEORGIE: We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going– ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] GEORGIE: –to affect the whole world…! ARCHIVIST: They were still my choices. GEORGIE: … Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really. ARCHIVIST: Hmm. […] You didn’t damn the world, Martin. MARTIN: [SIGH] We all– ARCHIVIST: [HARSH] No! “We all” nothing! I… I’m the one who caused all of this, that’s just the truth of it! I’m the one whose whole life has been nothing but one – long – setup – to this. MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: [WITH SADNESS] You didn’t speak the words! You didn’t feel them move through you, vomiting out of you like…! [SHAKY BREATHING] … I did this. It’s my fault. And I don’t want… I can’t let anyone else feel that, that… helpless, enormous guilt. Ever.

Both Georgie and Martin beginning by “We all”, but Jon’s reaction being so hugely different when he heard it for the second time.

* I wanted Jon to have a breakdown, I got the breakdown, I’m still sad about it ;_;

* Jon had been very susceptible to the rhetoric of being “chosen”: he had wondered about it in season 3 and 4, until Jonah had concluded that if Jon had been “chosen” in any way, it was by him when he decided that Jon’s Web mark made him prime for his plan and that it was mostly just due to Jon’s “own rotten luck”. It might have been easier to swallow for a while, technically, until Annabelle reactivated all those fears about being “chosen” but from even longer – since childhood, since he was eight, since he was just a kid who just survived a Fear encounter. I do feel like there was a lot of bullshit in what Annabelle told him, in the way she framed it; she had also told Martin that a web couldn’t be “precious about a single strand” and I feel like it was more likely that there were multiple potential Jons, or that The Web had already tried to get someone (Gertrude? Her assistants, with Emma pushing them into danger?) marked and prime for the final ritual. But Jon has been very vulnerable to the idea that there could be something wrong inherent to him, that things he had no power over had to be his fault somehow, such as not being able to rescue his bully, or Sasha getting killed by the Not!Them, or the apocalypse (while he had more trouble accepting his own blame for things he was directly responsible for).

* I was wondering recently if Jon might have finally accepted that he wasn’t responsible for the apocalypse, that it was Jonah’s fault (since he hadn’t mentioned it for a long while at this point) but… nop. He didn’t really change his mind about it since the start of the season, just got better at hiding it:

(MAG161) MARTIN: Jon, it’s not your fault… ARCHIVIST: Martin, can we not do this again. MARTIN: Sorry. ARCHIVIST: I’m just… I’m mourning a world I killed…! MARTIN: I know… ARCHIVIST: And we’re all trapped in its rotting corpse…!

* ;_; My heart broke when Jon recalled the experience of reading Jonah’s letter, and how traumatising the mere action was. We could hear him struggle and try to stop speaking in MAG160, and yet the letter was following its course…

* Just like with The Web’s clutch on him yet Jon still defending that he made those “bad choices”, it’s heartbreaking how Jon seems to be stuck on the paradox of being conscious that he couldn’t stop reading the letter, that something awful was done to him, yet still defends that it’s his fault and his responsibility. Jonah was barely mentioned this episode (and not as the man who chose to unleash that apocalypse), but he was still… very present in the multiple ways he fucked Jon over.

* It’s extremely sad that their current plan requires to trample on precisely the thing Jon didn’t and doesn’t want (to inflict what he experienced over someone else)… and yet, as sad it is, it also needs to be seen in the whole situation. Is guilt the worst thing that someone can experience? What about the people currently being tortured in their domains? (Or is there something coming up, such as Jon’s guilt being one aspect of his “domain” all along?)

* But still. Sobbing over the fact that Jon didn’t even blurt out out that he couldn’t allow anyone else to be hurt and fucked over by another Jonah like he was, but that the worst thing, for him, still was this “helpless, enormous guilt”. Not the pain, not the constant anguish, not the people he lost, but the guilt of having been used to end the world.

- There have been a few mentions revolving around Jon’s voice lately:

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: As far as I can tell. I–it’s hard to s–… If I look too closely at them, my own voice, things get… recursive. Hard to follow. […] ANNABELLE: [CHUCKLING] I am sorry you find them irritating! They’re a side effect of the very specific way this web has been spun. I thought you liked his voice? MARTIN: I do when it’s his voice. I’ve never liked the statements. It always felt… Yeah. ANNABELLE: Well… you can trust me when I say you’ll be hearing his real voice very soon. […] We found the one we believed most likely to bring about their manifestation. We marked him young, guided his path as best we could. And then, we took his voice. ARCHIVIST: No… ANNABELLE: His, and those he walked with. We inscribed them on shining strands of word and meaning, and used them to weave a web which cast itself out through the gate and beyond our universe. So that when the Fears heard that voice, and came in their terrible glory, they might then travel out along it. [TAPE SQUEALS] Or be dragged.

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: [WITH SADNESS] You didn’t speak the words! You didn’t feel them move through you, vomiting out of you like…! [SHAKY BREATHING] … I did this.

And once again, there was the “For the silence” coin Albrecht discovered in the tomb of what was likely to be an old Archivist. Whatever happens in MAG200, I wonder if Jon won’t lose his voice in the process? Wouldn’t be the worst thing and, anyway, he will lose his voice symbolically with the end of the podcast (even in the case where he wouldn’t be straight up dying) but… I don’t know. The end of the episode had Jon exceptionally withdrawn and silent while the others discussed, so it already felt like he was falling “silent” in a way, and I wonder if he’ll lose his voice in a more literal way during the crisis, especially if the Fears are following “his voice”…

- Martin was so soft… and the Fabric Rustled again.

(MAG158) MARTIN: I see… [INHALE] I see you, Jon. [BREATHLESS CHUCKLE] [PRESENT, ECHO FADES] I see you…! ARCHIVIST: Oh, Martin… [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: I w–I was on my own…! I was all on my own…

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: You know I’m here for you. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] … Yes. Yes I do. [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: All right. All right. ARCHIVIST: Thank you.

(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: [CLOSER] Oh! Martin, hold on, I–I–I’m coming, I just… [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] [FOOTSTEPS] Oh, Martin! Thank god, I, I was… I–I thought you were behind me. [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: I thought you’d left me behind…! Gone on without me.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. [SILENCE] MARTIN: [SIGH] It’s okay. I understand. [BAG JOSTLING] [FABRIC RUSTLES]

(MAG183) MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.

(MAG187) ARCHIVIST: [GROGGY] Oh. Martin, good! [BAG JOSTLING] [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: Wh–, wh–wh–what happened? Th–th–there was the hotel and then…

(MAG191) MARTIN: No, I, I know, I know. I’m sorry, it’s okay. [SIGH] [FABRIC RUSTLES] ARCHIVIST: … Bad dream? […] Maybe I just… die. Maybe I survive, but I–I lose… something. My identity? My mind? My… memories? I don’t know. [FABRIC RUSTLES AS THEY EMBRACE] MARTIN: [LONG EXHALE]

(MAG197) ARCHIVIST: Martin! [FABRIC RUSTLES] MARTIN: … Oh god, I’m sorry, I– ARCHIVIST: It’s fine.

(MAG199) MARTIN: Hey. ARCHIVIST: [SNIFFS AS IF TEARING UP] MARTIN: Hey, hey, hey, hey, come here, come here. [FABRIC RUSTLES] ARCHIVIST: [SNIFFS] MARTIN: We’re going to fix it. ARCHIVIST: No…! [HUFF] … We’re just going to pass it on…! MARTIN: You don’t know that.

It might have for the last time ever…

- What was that sigh, Martin.

(MAG199) [SILENCE, AS THEY BOTH COMPOSE THEMSELVES] ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Come on. The others will be waiting. [SHUFFLING] [FOOTSTEPS DESCEND] MARTIN: [HEAVY SIGH] [CLICK.]

Was it “just” the sigh of knowing the current plan is making Jon miserable, or is it the sigh of someone who knows that something could comfort Jon, yet can’t share it with him yet…?

- Logistic of things in the next scene was that Jon&Martin came back to Georgie, who explained to them that Basira&Melanie had gone scouting, and the tape recorder clicked on when Basira&Melanie arrived:

(MAG199) [CLICK–] GEORGIE: I’m not sure, they said they were out– Oh, hey. [DOOR CREAKS, FOOTSTEPS ENTER] ARCHIVIST: There you are. I was getting worried. MELANIE: We were scouting. I was showing Basira where we think the gas mainline is. MARTIN: And? BASIRA: Not good. You know those Eye things? ARCHIVIST: The old Archivists? BASIRA: Yeah. I think they know something’s up. The place is crawling with them, it’s like they’re looking for something. MELANIE: Or patrolling. MARTIN: Hmm. GEORGIE: That’s why the stairs were unguarded? BASIRA: It looks that way.

* I’m still not sure what the point of the lighter is in relation to the tape recorders and The Web. Annabelle implied that the lighter had acted as a tracker or would act as a tracker (MAG197: “A little anchor of our power, so that we, and our tapes, may follow wherever you go.”) but we’ve had various examples showing that it wasn’t exclusively the case: the tape recorders had turned on and off in the Archives and in Elias’s office while Jon was away in season 3, they turned up around Martin and in Elias’s cell in season 4, one popped up to record Melanie&Georgie at the end of MAG191 while they were walking in London. What it might be able to do, however, is allow the tape recorders to reach places that should be insulated from other powers (such as within the Coffin, or when Jon was Nikola’s prisoner, or at Upton House)? I’m not sure. Anyway, Georgie took the lighter, has the lighter, and the next scene included Georgie, so I wonder if something will change in the POV of the action next episode, or if the team wasn’t suspecting that The Web still had another use for Jon.

* Why are the Archivists acting up? Is it because Beholding is getting impatient and wants Jon as its pupil? Is it because Beholding is sensing that something is threatening its position? Is it because Jon knows about the plan and the potentiality of Beholding losing its hold over this world, therefore allowing Beholding to know about it and making it react in self-defence? Are Jon’s own feelings about the plan influencing Beholding? Jon said that he didn’t feel like it could think but, if The Eye was indeed behind Jon’s difficulty to listen to Eric’s tape, that showed that it still has instincts and a capacity to try and protect itself.

- As mentioned above, I’m surprised that the last person standing to ignite the tunnels is supposed to be Melanie:

(MAG199) ARCHIVIST: So what’s the plan? MELANIE: I reckon me and Georgie go for the mainline, and hopefully they won’t notice us. GEORGIE: I’ll need a torch. They might notice that. BASIRA: I’ll give a diversion. I’ll try and draw them off. MELANIE: And if they see Georgie’s torch, we just go to Plan B. She becomes another distraction, and I go solo. GEORGIE: I don’t like the thought of you going on your own. MELANIE: And I don’t like the thought of you being chased by manky old archivists, but there it is. MARTIN: Okay. [EXHALE] So what are you going to do when you find it? GEORGIE: We’ve got some old tools. I guess we just… mess with it until we smell gas, and then… back off, set something burning and leg it. It can’t be that hard to break a valve.

… since Georgie had been the one to take the lighter, and didn’t present it as an element she would require in their plan. It’s possible that she’s going to give it over to Melanie and just retrieved the lighter for that goal but mmm, I’m still having doubts about it.

* I love Melanie’s “manky old Archivists”, I’m going to miss her so much ;_;

* … screaming a bit because GEORGIE, if you smell gas, it’s TOO LATE to ignite something without getting caught in the middle of an explosion…………. It’s gonna go very wrong, isn’t it.

* Sob, Melanie&Georgie had been resolute about doing something in MAG191, and Georgie still wanted to be careful about the old Archivists at the beginning of MAG192… but now, they’re really ready to risk everything, uh…

- Melanie was way more careful (and less confrontational) with Jon now that they had to establish the plan, and I wonder if Georgie asked her to tone it down or if Melanie made a conscious effort since they needed to pool their resources and collaborate? I’m really curious about Jon’s wording here:

(MAG199) MELANIE: … Jon, you’re sure about this whole gas main thing? It just seems… I don’t know, really mundane. ARCHIVIST: It’s what Annabelle said. And she wasn’t lying – at least, she didn’t think she was. BASIRA: Well, it’s a bit late for second-guessing.

Because what Annabelle thinks and the reality of things could be very different things. I’m still having some doubts about Oliver and her explaining how their patrons work and presenting them as Fears-that-can-think – it’s fitting in a way but… we also had examples of older avatars (Simon, Arthur) pointing out that they couldn’t guess what their patrons wanted except for some cravings. Something I could see is about the relation between avatars and their Fears (between humans and fears): the idea that the Fears might be… whatever people project on them, and them modelling themselves in turn. Could The End kill people in this world if Oliver wasn’t convinced that it could do it? Could The Web feel so omnipresent and powerful if Annabelle and Jon weren’t projecting their own fears on it?

- Georgie gave me so many red flags this episode…

(MAG199) GEORGIE: Well, we’ll do what we can but… this is it. Whatever it takes, right? If there’s a price, we pay it. No hesitations.

And that one was especially bad by itself, but it also echoed Gertrude’s last instructions to her potential successor:

(MAG161) GERTRUDE: You are entering a new world, a place I’ve lived for most of my life. A place… [SIGH] A place that will often demand a high price from you. Pay it without hesitation, because one way or another, the world is now on your shoulders.

Basically paraphrasing what Gertrude said? Bad sign. Baaad sign.

- There might have been a small misunderstanding between Melanie and Jon there ;;

(MAG199) MELANIE: Sure he can! Just magic-laser-eye zap him or whatever, same as with all the others. MARTIN: [SIGH] MELANIE: Like he did to Helen. ARCHIVIST: Listen, Melanie, I– MELANIE: It’s fine. If we all get out of this, we can talk it through, and, if not, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? ARCHIVIST: I suppose not.

Since Jon had been unaware that Martin had broken the news to her already, and that Melanie already knew that Helen was bad news… but had learned from Basira that Melanie used to be close to her:

(MAG190) MELANIE: Oh! Oh, I nearly forgot! Careful of Helen, if you see her. MARTIN: Mm? MELANIE: Uh, she turned up a while back and tried to eat Celia. MARTIN: She was here? MELANIE: Yes… A few times. [INHALE] Looking back, I was so stupid! MARTIN: Because you kind of liked her? MELANIE: Yes. Yes… Honestly, I had started to think she was on our side. MARTIN: Yeah. MELANIE: [SIGH] MARTIN: Jon killed her. MELANIE: [SPLUTTERING] Uh, sorry, what?! MARTIN: Yeah, she tried to– I wasn’t there, but they got into a standoff and he… he destroyed her. MELANIE: He can do that? MARTIN: Mm! MELANIE: Well! I mean that’s… that’s interesting to know.

(MAG195) ARCHIVIST: … I also killed Helen? BASIRA: Oh! Right. ARCHIVIST: Yeah… [CONSIDERED ROWING] BASIRA: Didn’t expect that. ARCHIVIST: She was dangerous. And not like the others out there. It was only going to be a matter of time before– BASIRA: No, no, I get it. Honestly, it’s kind of a relief. How did Melanie take it? ARCHIVIST: Melanie? BASIRA: Yeah, she and… she and Helen were pretty tight back when, uh… Oh… ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Back when you were in your coma. ARCHIVIST: I see…! Well, I haven’t told her yet, so… I suppose I have that to look forward to when we get back.

So: from Melanie’s point of view, she used to be close to Helen but learned independently that Helen wasn’t her friend and was actually dangerous for them. From Jon’s point of view, Melanie used to be close with Helen and might have just learned that he had killed her (and might be sad about it). But Melanie was dry about it and it came as an accusation, which immediately made Jon defensive about it. They can’t really manage to interact without making a conscious effort to not rub the other the wrong way, uh…?

Cries, still, because they’ll never talk it through, uh. ;;

- I am REALLY concerned about Martin being adamant that Jon couldn’t be the one to kill Jonah because of the potential consequences…

(MAG199) MELANIE: And it’s hardly going to be a picnic for you either. You’re going up that tower to kill Elias, and if we muck up the timing, you’ll be up there when it blows. MARTIN: … Jon can’t do it. ARCHIVIST: What? […] MARTIN: You’re not listening. I mean, if he kills Jonah, then knowing our luck he’s just gonna end up taking his place in the Panopticon, isn’t he? GEORGIE: [SIGH] Good point. MARTIN: He can come up with me, but when it actually comes to Jonah… BASIRA: You’ll have to be the one to do it. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: Martin… I don’t– BASIRA: Have you got this? We can trade if you don’t think you can do it. MARTIN: No. No, I can do it.

… because it’s not what Jon had said:

(MAG193) MARTIN: So not that then, but… wh–what about something, like… physical? ARCHIVIST: I… What? MARTIN: Look, I know it’s all about… dream logic and metaphor and all that… stuff, but, you know, what if we just… what if we just grabbed him and, you know, pulled him down? Or, or just threw something heavy at him? ARCHIVIST: Uh… […] You were right. MARTIN: About what? ARCHIVIST: His body is vulnerable. A��at least to me. MARTIN: … What’s the catch? ARCHIVIST: I could kill his body, sever the link, break The Eye’s power, and… Jonah Magnus would die. MARTIN: Okay, that sounds good but…? ARCHIVIST: But… that wouldn’t actually harm The Eye itself. And with him gone it would… it would choose a suitable replacement. MARTIN: Oh. ARCHIVIST: If we kill Jonah Magnus… I take his place. MARTIN: Oh, god… ARCHIVIST: And I think… that’s exactly what it wants…!

Jon said that killing Jonah would lead to Beholding taking a replacement, not necessarily the person who’d kill Jonah… and regarding “suitable replacement”, Martin was emphasised as Eye-aligned this season (and Lonely):

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means… MARTIN: [QUIETLY] That one of them belongs to me. But that’s… Ho–how can I be a “Watcher”? I, I didn’t even know it existed! ARCHIVIST: But you’ve suspected for a while now, haven’t you? MARTIN: Maybe? But that’s not “watching”! ARCHIVIST: Do you want me to tell you about it? MARTIN: No. … Yes. N–no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know. [SIGH] [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely.

And was supposed to take Jonah’s place at the end of season 4 precisely thanks to his connection to Beholding:

(MAG158) PETER: 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. […] You’ll have to dispose of the current occupant. MARTIN: Curren–… [QUICK FOOTSTEPS] [SHARP BREATHING] … Who is that? PETER: Jonah Magnus! His… body, at least. Sitting here; watching; binding it all together; growing ever older. If you want to take his place, well… MARTIN: … I’ll need to kill him. PETER: Yes. Don’t worry, though. I brought a knife. […] Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

Jon hadn’t mentioned whether Martin would be able to hurt Elias (just that he could), but we’ve seen that dream-logic could be a factor to hurt each other: Basira could kill Daisy, Daisy could hurt Jon through their connection. Given that Martin was once expected to kill Jonah (did Jonah fear that Martin would choose this?), and that Martin has felt guilty all season about the fact that he feels like he could have stopped things if he had just knifed Jonah:

(MAG174) MARTIN: All those lies you told me… You helped to do this, you turned the world into your… your playground! SIMON: Hum… Not to be a pedant, but if you recall, I was actually doing a favour for Peter. And if Peter had won, none of this would have happened.

(MAG186) MARTIN: [HEAVY SIGH] If we’re glad, why do I feel so… ALSO MARTIN: Guilty? Because you feel guilty about everything. MARTIN: That’s… That’s not– ALSO MARTIN: […] The end of the entire world? MARTIN: If I’d done what Peter had asked… If, if I’d not chickened out, and just killed Elias when I had the chance…! ALSO MARTIN: Really? Really, that’s how you’re choosing to remember it? “Chickening out”? MARTIN: I remember it was the wrong choice…! ALSO MARTIN: You choose to remember it that way, and so the guilt– MARTIN: [SIGH] I–I get it, all right? But I need it, I, I choose the guilt, because… ALSO MARTIN: [LEADING] “Because”? MARTIN: Because it motivates me to do better!

I could see Martin managing to hurt him thanks to this. But regarding what could come afterwards:

I’m concerned about the fact Jon tried to object during the discussion and that nobody listened to him… as if Jon was already anticipating something to go very badly because he knows something the others don’t. Overall: what if Martin can’t kill Jonah? What if Martin kills Jonah and Beholding takes Jon anyway? What if Martin kills Jonah and Beholding picks Martin as a replacement?

(Mental picture of Jon screaming “Take me, not him!”, since we’ve been in the season 1 nostalgia this episode… ;_;)

- Aouch for Melanie falling back into old habits…

(MAG199) MELANIE: Make sure it hurts. MARTIN: Oh, I will. MELANIE: … Good enough for me.

(MAG117) MELANIE: I have my own stuff to take care of, they think they’re giving me a chance to “face my demons”, by helping to take down Elias. They don’t get that the only way to deal with something like him is to watch his eyes go dead with your hands around his throat. [SHAKY INHALE] I’ll… play it their way, for now. But when it comes down to it… I want – to see him – dead. […] [INHALE] So… yes. That’s it. That’s all you’re getting, because it hurt like hell to live through, and I didn’t do it so you could stroke your chin and call it fascinating. … Good luck, Jon. I do hope you win. [INHALE] But I also hope it hurts…!

- So, resting time:

(MAG199) GEORGIE: Okay. Sounds like we’ve got… something like a plan. MARTIN: [SOUND OF ASSENT] BASIRA: Makes a nice change. [VARIOUS SOUNDS OF ASSENT] MELANIE: [BRIGHTLY] It does, doesn’t it? Eh! Uh… so. When do we actually do it? GEORGIE: First thing tomorrow. That’ll give us time to prep and rest.

Georgie had already explained how they evaluated “tomorrow” in the tunnels and without any clock:

(MAG190) GEORGIE: Look. We’re all tired, and you still seem a little… disoriented by the tunnels. Let’s get some rest. We can talk about next moves tomorrow. ARCHIVIST: And how do you know when tomorrow is? GEORGIE: We generally err on the side of caution and sleep in…! ARCHIVIST: Sounds good.

So they’ll probably do the same ;;

- Basira thanking Jon for helping her with Daisy (and for helping her personally) made my heart break a bit and really made it sink in that it was likely the last time some (most? all?) of them would talk to each other, or that they won’t be in any state to discuss things like this afterwards. It was also fitting that Jon got his private moments with Georgie, with Martin, with Basira… but not with Melanie. That bridge burned, uh.

- Overall, although with interesting points and heart-wrenching and bittersweet and tender and intimate moments, it was… quite a depressing episode in the whole scale of things?

* The episode gave the impression that it was validating everything about The Web: that Jon had indeed been “Chosen” as the bringer of the apocalypse and had been a right pick for it; that Annabelle had been right when she told Martin that she just needed to tell them the truth for them to do what she wanted; that The Web scheming for centuries to open the crack and prepare its escape, and bringing the apocalypse about just to escape and infest other dimensions… worked. That everyone, regardless of their motivations and feelings, has indeed come to the conclusion that arranged The Web and served its plans, that The Web… is very casually winning just as planned.

* The episode didn’t talk about what would come after, for the characters. Jon briefly explained to Martin what was likely to happen to him, Annabelle confirmed it, but… the episode gave the impression that characters weren’t truly expecting to come out of this alive in the first place.

* Jon’s silences in the last sequences were so sad? He barely managed to sneak in a few words. He couldn’t contribute to the plan. Martin presented him as optional while others are taking care of the action. Yes, it used to be all on Jon but the fact that he couldn’t even contribute and that others ignored him when he tried to object about Martin being the one to kill Jonah was just so heartbreaking, as if he was already silenced and once again not in control of things that would happen…?

- I want to err on the side of caution but, despite it, I can’t help but wonder if some of the Team Archive interactions weren’t… staged a bit for the tape recorders. It’s very suspicious that they apparently got updated on the Hill Top Road situation, but that nobody commented about the tape recorders turning on (although they now know that it means The Web is spying on them and/or that their tapes will be heard by other people in other worlds and associated with the Fears). Melanie and Georgie had taken notice of them when Jon&Martin had arrived in the tunnels for the first time, Melanie was good at hearing the tape recorder turning on… but nothing this time around. Is it possible that they’re planning something else, too, and that it required The Web and The Eye (the tapes and Jon) to not know about it, a bit like how the assistants had put on a show in front of Elias in season 3?

(MAG116) ELIAS: Now! If you’ll excuse me. [DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES] BASIRA: Do you think he bought it? MARTIN: We’ll talk about it later. ARCHIVIST: I doubt we’ll get time, we need to go. MARTIN: It’s fine. We’ve got this, okay. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Okay.

Is it why Georgie took the lighter?

I don’t want to bank on it but the fact that nobody has commented about the tape recorders since Annabelle revealed what they were and their purpose has been any nagging at me, so, mmmm…

If MAG200 actually shows the action as it happens, I’m wondering about a few things:

* How are they planning to time up the explosion and the Jonah murder? Jon couldn’t know about the tunnels when he was outside of them, and according to what we’ve heard in MAG192, climbing the tower was a very long process. It’s possible that Jon actually has some awareness of the tunnels as long as he’s in the tower (since both are connected), or that they’ll go for the murder once they hear the explosion coming to them, but how would Georgie&Melanie coordinate to not do anything before Jon&Martin are the top? (When I’m wondering about it, I can think of a few options: Jon&Martin dropping something once they’re at the top, to convey they’ve arrived, or maybe relying on whether a tape recorder clicks on, as a signal that Nothing Interesting Is Happening Up There And It’s Your Turn To Do Something, etc.)

* Will we hear Rosie again? Jon&Martin might have to pass in front of her again to reach Elias. Will they evacuate her, will she stay with them?

* … Surprisingly and yet fittingly: we might hear Jonah/Elias in the last episode. (And funnily enough: it would be the 4th episode where he would talk this season, which means this wouldn’t even be the season with the least amount of Elias appearances! He was in 3 episodes in season 1 (MAG017, MAG039, MAG040) and in 4 episodes in season 2 (MAG048, MAG060, MAG067, MAG080). Season 3 was an outlier that really got us used to hearing him a lot.)

* I’m still squinting about the fact that Annabelle told them to “destroy the Archives” and that they translated it into “destroy the Panopticon” while both Jonah and Oliver designated Jon as the “Archive(s)”…

* If they succeed, and if it all goes accordingly, I am really wondering about the state of the world post-Fears – and it might not be something we’ll get to witness. But mostly, I’m curious/concerned about the complicated cases: if people do remember what happened to them and who were the rulers, wouldn’t it be likely that things turn into chaos as people get back at the people who hurt them? What about the cases Basira mentioned of rulers who hated being in that position? What about, for example, Callum? (Who is currently doing horrible things and… is also a traumatised kid.)

* I wonder if the episode will have an actual date as the case number, and if it would correspond to another world’s timeline or this one. “0181810–B”, as things pick up from the point Jon had read Jonah’s letter (MAG160’s was “0181810”)? “0212503” to play with the release date, since it’s the same release date for everyone for once (no early access for Patreon)? “0111507” to play with the date of Jacob’s statement, heard in the very first trailer? Something beginning with “015” as, in another world, someone (Jon or Sasha or someone else) becomes a new Head Archivist after Gertrude’s death?

* If The Web succeeds and leaves with the tapes, will they be like the Fear Books used to be perceived in this world? Will Jon’s voice be perceived as a bringer of disaster and tragedies? What will happen to Jon’s voice is an interesting question given that this episode ended with… Jon being withdrawn, barely being part of the conversation, trying to object and not being heard, as if his voice was already partially silenced by the others.

* Technically, since the tapes are supposed to leave with The Web, the series might cut off with the tapes leaving, but… other configurations are possible. We could finally hear something without the mediation of the tapes. We could get a new point of view from another world, inheriting the fears. We could be deprived of the action, since the plan was laid out, and have someone (Martin?) recalling what happened, much later, etc.

In previous seasons, the 40th episode was more about the aftermath of the action and posing elements that would be fundamental during the next one: MAG040 explained how Prentiss had died, what had happened to Jon&Tim, but also confirmed (to the audience) that something had replaced Sasha without the others noticing, and revealed that Gertrude’s obviously-murdered-body had been found in the tunnels, leading to Jon’s secret investigations in season 2; MAG080 showed Leitner explaining to Jon who was likely to be Gertrude’s murderer, what the Institute was about, that Jon was now a servant of Beholding and that a Fear ritual was incoming, leading to Jon’s quest to stop the Unknowing; MAG120 confirmed who had come out of the Unknowing alive, revealed what Jon’s dreams were about, had Peter replacing Elias as Head of the Institute and confirmed Peter’s interest in Martin; MAG160 had Jon&Martin running away, Jon receiving Jonah’s letter hidden amongst the statements (and a few tapes likely sent by The Web) and being forced to read his incantation, provoking the current apocalypse.

MAG200’s title has been made public on twitter, so – “Last Words” it is. It sure feels like the series is ending ;; It’s fitting for both the characters and the podcast itself, and I’m screaming that it had appeared in the first episode of this season:

(MAG161) ARCHIVIST: Hang on, have you been recording this? [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] TIM: Oh, yeah! I… just thought it might be nice, you know, something to look back on when we’re all old and sick of each other…! […] Now, all right, all right; fine! Look: I’m turning it off. Any last words for your future selves?

… in the specific context of leaving a message for the future.

#yaayyyy i posted it more than 17h before the ep release! (shhhh that it would be Late if we had gotten an EA release)#i have absolutely no idea how i'll manage to get 200's done given how i had finished the last episodes pre-hiatus #at the end of every hiatus every time. i'll try but. deadlines are my worst enemies and my best friends.#mag199 #tma liveblog #tma season 5 #long post/#the magnus archives #overall: CRIES CRIES CRIES i'm gonna miss these nerds.............#and WorriedTM.........

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cloveroctobers · 3 years

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GENEVIEVE ALIU —

IG info/bio: @/genevealiu1 | 19k followers | currently on a journey as a junior doctor living in 🇦🇺🤎 | blm.card.co🖤 | sk💛

26 years of age

Born and raised in Glastonbury, England

Pisces sun? + libra moon?

Mother is Guyanese and works for a non-profit organization

Her father is Nigerian and works in property management

has one older brother who is a Prosthetist and resides in Nigeria with his pregnant fiancée

She can’t wait to be a auntie!!!

And a younger sister who is a medical laboratory technician

To say the least, their parents were happy that their children fell into the medical field. Based on their cultures it was a honor to have their children in these professions

Vieve grew up with a sassy demeanor and her parents have old videos on their camcorders to prove it lol, it never fails that the pair brings out the embarrassing vids during the holidays but vieve genuinely appreciates them

Although thanksgiving is a RACIST American thing, vieve never misses the opportunity to share what she’s thankful for in life and counts all of it as blessings! But it’s still fuck the pilgrims

Has held a friendsgiving before, loves any moment where she can host gatherings or attend them! either is quite fine. She loves being around people

the only time she likes to look back on the past is to see how she and her family carried themselves then and how the evolved into who they are now, it’s interesting to see

Loves “how it started vs how it’s going” posts and might have participated in a few

Always knew from a young age that she wanted to help people in some way, she was always doing something to help around the house and especially her aging/sickly grandparents

Felt offended that many people around school that she thought were her friends would stab her in the back labeling her as this “fake saint” since she rather spend her time volunteering instead of going to house parties in hs

Don’t get it twisted, she still went to those too & had her fun but definitely felt like it was the same routine and nothing ever felt fulfilling at these functions after awhile

Well known with all the cliques around school but had her own group of friends that fit into many of those cliques but she never felt obligated to stick to one social group. If you were nice and cool with her, she was the same to you, if you weren’t? Depending on her mood, she’d ignore you/say things under her breath or be “fake nice” as a form of being the bigger person

Has a curly hair routine that she consistently follows (after struggling to find the right products to make them flourish) and gets annoyed with if her curls don’t turn out the way she knows they can, it’s always frustrating when things don’t turn out the way you want them to but isn’t afraid to at least try

Three times is the charm! Is one of her mottos

loves bright colors, flowy attire, big hats, brimmed hats, bucket hats, berets, etc...

Has faced racism/prejudices and bullying growing up in public spaces—mostly school/uni & some of those same hatred actions online now that she’s dating seb

Because of that there were times where she felt insecure but deff grew to forgive, heal, and rise above the hate, she knows her worth

Has never been happier in a relationship than she is with seb, he’s her “moody long-haired, soft-hearted bby”

they’re both complete fools for each other and vieve is more vocal about her being in love/finding her soulmate whereas seb doesn’t mind showing it rather than speaking it—even tho he’s on a podcast but we mind our business okay?!

Seb is thinking of moving to Australia with vieve, he’s ready to risk it all for this woman, HIS woman 🤩

canon: gives more than she should/taken advantage of/not reciprocating in relationships... ex) how she dated a guy that she did everything for! especially financially and also struggled to find her worth but once she did? Her aura shined brighter than before— Ik chill out there Rocco

Also believes in loving yourself first to attract what you need in this world and found that in her career and seb. I hope they’re endgame! Since they’re the only couple I rooted for this season? Except for tai & ciaran maybe? They’re probably not endgame but whatever

They still get nervous/shy around each other even tho they’ve been together for months now + are in a long distance relationship which is too cute! I think since they’re in this for the long game they can look back on moments and still feel the way they felt in that moment. You know if you get the chance or have already heard elderly people talk about their relationships and how they get all starry eyed? That’s vieve & seb, that shit gets me right in my feels ew

Vieve’s love language is quality time, it’s what she shows and likes along with acts of service from her partner

Makes the best jollof rice & her fav dish is Metemgee

Trying to be on a plant-based diet only but will have her cheat days on occasion—mostly when she’s drunk and forgets her diet plan lmao that’s me getting double cheeseburgers or anything with dairy drunk af

now living in Australia, she tried to like vegemite but...the it’s a no for her, respectfully ofc! She never wants to disrespect anyone

besides the food, the atmosphere is much nicer since she feels like she’s on a holiday almost everyday and that there’s much more to see and do when she has the time

Loves the beaches and is thinking about surfing lessons

yes she enjoys those doctor shows and can agree that most scenarios are not the same as rl ofc but great question!

Since she’s a junior doctor now, and on her way to graduation! She feels so accomplished and having this chance to complete what she’s wanted her whole life in a different place, makes her super emotional

All those stressful all-nighters will be worth it. She mostly did it on her own but is nothing but humble and Is thankful to those that have helped her along the way, what kind of person would she be if she didn’t mention them?

and when COVID hit, she was one of many already on the frontlines. Her studies became altered but this wouldn’t stop her for her mission on this earth, this was her purpose and she knew we would conquer it all—but definitely has empathy and gets angry with how it’s being handled from time to time

She’s been exposed to it first hand which aboustely worries her parents, seb, her friends, and friends from the villa

Keeps up to date when all medical news, has a whole app dedicated to health

Learning French with some of her free time and is doing well at it

It was only natural for her to become closer to elladine since their men are homies and have a podcast together

They’ve hung out a few times on a double dates before the boat vacation & once just as girls before vieve left to Australia

Vieve is always offering advice but knows that every relationship is different and what works for her and seb won’t work for elladine and Nicky, she loves them together and knows everyone has bumps in the road

feels there’s some sort of tension between her and Harry now? Which she found a little off putting since they were supposed to be friends but she realizes that Harry has a condition but it’s also not an excuse for him to treat her shitty sometimes which he does and feels like it comes out of nowhere most times but he always apologizes yet vieve is slowly getting tired of this unhealthy habits

So they’re talking less these days, which he notices!

She wants Harry to find his happiness too! If he hasn’t found it in mc first that is

has met Tim— he’s a great laugh and seems like a nice guy—they follow each other, talia and jake in person when she was out with seb—they were also super nice and congratulated them on their win, she went up to miles once on a night out—he’s still a arsehole, priya reached out to her via dm about her new boutique that she wanted her to model in someday, Hope was just as stunning in person along with Siobhan, Chelsea & mc s2 were also kind, and a couple of the guys also wished her and seb well

She’s also noticed some of the shit talking coming from Elisa, Allegra, Lucy, and mc s1 (subtle shade from mc, basically about how vieve reacted if mc decided to give Harry a go but that was only brought to her attention thru fans) online but again, vieve peeped it and felt majority of it didn’t require a response. She was too happy in life rn and she had a man and they don’t

Plans to get a komondor, thinks they’re super cute! — seb does not “if you love me, you’ll love our child.” “It’s a bloody mop dog! And I’m a cat dad, you know that!” “Don’t talk about him like that, he’s got feelings just like your cat babies!”

I feel like she’s a matcha & Frappuccino lover, tries to keep her drinks simple and feels guilty when she has to make adjustments but the heart wants what it wants

Mini Countryman owner, she also drives like a “granny” better safe than sorry! She hates fast drivers, there’s absolutely no need for it!

Minimal makeup: eyeshadow, moisturizer, & a nude lip and she’s good to go

Secretly obsessed with among us, second life, and SIMS!!!

Celeb crushes? Heath ledger, Tyler posey, KENDRICK SAMPSON, Jordan fisher, Algee smith, Donald Glover, Mack Wilds, Khleo Thomas, Robert Ri’chard, Tahj Mowry, & Hasan Minhaj

Listens to: DaniLeigh, ABIR, Mary J. Blige, TORI KELLY, Us the duo, 11:11, Jacob Latimore, fifth harmony, joya mooi, & Greentea Peng, etc...

Anthem: The Cheetah Girls — Cinderella

#litg #litg3 #litg s3 #litg genevieve #litg moodboard #litg headcanons #litg headcanon #litg seb #litg Harry #litg mc #litg oc #litg elladine #litg Nicky #idk if I did her justice but my apologies to her and y’all if not lol #litg Tim #litg talia #litg jake #litg priya #litg hope

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laughingpinecone · 4 years

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Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ: The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ‘moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

#letter

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homestuckexamination · 6 years

Text

The End of Homestuck: Rapture

Alright then, as I’ve mentioned, I wanted to debate a few points I’ve heard about the Ending, consider it a sort of bonus celebrating over 2000 Posts and 1000 Followers!

But before I say anything, let me preface this by saying: This is not trying to make you like the Ending, rather it’s trying to make you realize why you dislike the Ending. There’s very valid criticisms to the Ending and the Story as a whole and you can just dislike the direction it took- But what I want is debunk a few things the Fandom seems to have really clung to that I think are extremely hollow and just, outright false at times.

So let’s begin, shall we?

The Retcon created a Timeline where everyone’s struggles had been solved, and the characters in it were vastly different from how they used to be.

This one is sincerely one of my biggest Pet Peeves, and I’ve talked about it partially before. A general consensus is that the Retconned Timeline solved every single key problem the Characters on the Meteor had, destroyed Character Development shown for those Characters, and thus, created versions of themselves that were vastly different. Vriska planted herself as a Miracle Solved and everyone lived Happily Ever After.

Except this really is not the case, at all. Vriska’s presence was ultimately extremely useful to disable Jade without killing her. For everyone else, no problems are fixed, and the conception that they do is, I feel, a heavy misunderstanding of what the characters actually struggle with. Let’s go one by one.

Rose and Alcoholism

This is a major one because we see Vriska literally smack a glass right off of Rose’s hand and slam it. Many people don’t even know why Vriska would do something like that, but they just straight up assume this deterred Rose from getting drunk, and instantly fixed every problem she ever had. This is an awful misreading of where Rose’s true problems lie.

“ROSE: And it was all mixed up with feelings of conflict and remorse over my mother.

ROSE: I sort of ran with it too? ROSE: The habit, I mean. For a while at least. ROSE: I was still distraught about losing her. And wanted to understand her. ROSE: To connect with her, in some way. And I guess that was the only idea I had.“

“ROSE: This almost makes it official. ROSE: I have no comprehensible path. There's nothing to overcome, no lesson to learn, no cathartic light at the end of this preposterous tunnel. ROSE: Not for me, at least! ROSE: I seriously have the DUMBEST arc anyone could conceivably imagine.“

“ROSE: I think my quest was fundamentally bound to the nature of this land, which was customized to the profile, needs, and potential for growth of a thirteen year-old girl. ROSE: But I'm not that person anymore. ROSE: What if I ROSE: What if I just ROSE: Didn't bother doing it? ROSE: Like, ever? ROSE: Would anyone notice my dereliction? ROSE: Would the powers that be strike me down where I loaf? ROSE: What if I just said fuck it?“

“DAVE: she sees this quest all neatly laid out for her wrapped in a bow DAVE: fuck it even looks like its made for little kids with like pink turtles and rainbows and shit DAVE: like here you go princess its babys first quest DAVE: almost like it was designed to piss her off DAVE: sburb says here, self improvement delineated and made comprehensible enjoy your cookie cutter odyssey DAVE: so because shes rose she goes no fuck my quest DAVE: literally starts wrecking shit DAVE: and maybe that itself was always her quest“

Rose’s problems aren’t with Alcoholism. They’re with her regret over her Mother, what she has Done up until this point, and her Purpose to the overall story she finds herself in. Alcohol is a way for her to ‘connect’ with her deceased mother, to prepare herself to meet Roxy, and at the same time, to take a weight off her shoulders, to not have to Think about what she’s supposed to do. She’s stressed, anxious and has severe doubts about her Self. Vriska just wanted a functional Seer for the Upcoming Battle, but this underlying unease that’s what drove her to Alcoholism in the first place is not gone.

Terezi and Gamzee

Post-Retcon, Terezi never gets together with Gamzee. Vriska keeps her in check as her Moirail, Gamzee is tied up and suppressed, she never falls for his abuse, nor does she unblind herself. However if you think this solves Terezi’s problems in the slightest I don’t know what to tell you, really.

“GC: 1 DON'T KNOW WH4T 1S WRONG W1TH M3 GC: TH4T 1 C4N'T JUST S4Y STUFF L1K3 TH4T, D1R3CTLY TO P3OPL3 GC: TH3Y C3RT41NLY DON'T 4PP34R TO H4V3 TH4T PROBL3M

GC: 1 W4S JUST P1SS3D 4BOUT YOUR 4TT1TUD3 OF C3RT41NTY GC: 4ND 4NGRY 4T MYS3LF FOR NOT H4V1NG 1T GC: 1 TH1NK 1T'S SOM3TH1NG 1 N33D3D 1N MY L1F3 GC: 3V3N 1F 1T C4M3 FROM SOM3ON3 3LS3

GC: 1 N3V3R F3LT WHOL3 GC: 1 ST1LL DON'T GC: 4ND YOU M4D3 1T SO 1 D1DN'T H4V3 TO F4C3 TH4T F33L1NG GC: FOR 4 WH1L3 4T L34ST GC: 4ND NOW TH4T 1 TH1NK 1 KNOW TH1S 4BOUT MYS3LF GC: 1 TH1NK 1 G3T 1T GC: TH3 F33L1NG W1LL PROB4BLY N3V3R GO 4W4Y GC: ONLY COV3R3D UP 4T MOST, M4YB3 GC: W3 COULD W1N TH1S F1GHT GC: CR34T3 4NOTH3R UN1V3RS3 GC: SUCC33D 1N 3V3RY W4Y POSS1BL3 GC: 4ND 1'LL ST1LL F33L 1NCOMPL3T3“

“TEREZI: OH PL34S3 TEREZI: WH4T COULD YOU POSS1BLY N33D M3 FOR?

TEREZI: 1 DONT TH1NK 1 W1LL B3 V3RY US3FUL

TEREZI: 1 DONT H4V3 MUCH TO OFF3R 3V3N ON MY B3ST D4Y”

Just like Rose’s issues, Terezi’s run deeper than just her getting together with Gamzee and ‘fixing’ her blindness. It’s a deep insecurity about herself, which exists there both Pre and Post Retcon, and being with Vriska is but a Temporary Fix. She needs to experience what Game Over Terezi did in order to even bring herself to join the final fight, and even after that, she still goes to track after Vriska, after everything is done.

Karkat, Relationships, Leadership.

So, Dave and Karkat get together in the Post Retcon Timeline, so there’s no Relationship Drama with Terezi, and Vriska takes over the Meteor’s leadership, leaving Karkat to chill. This seems uncharacteristic of him, even, except that, of course, he doesn’t just give up to his role as a Leader.

“KARKAT: WOW! HAHA, HA, HAHAHAHA! ME LEADER?? TOO FUNNY! KARKAT: I AM ENTIRELY AND SINGULARLY BAFFLED THAT IT COULD STILL EVEN *OCCUR* TO ANYONE TO ENTERTAIN THE NOTION THAT I MIGHT STILL BE PLAYING *ANY* ROLE EVEN WITHIN SNIFFING ORBIT OF A LEADERSHIP POSITION OF THIS RIDICULOUS PARTY. KARKAT: WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I DID *ANYTHING* OF A LEADER-LIKE NATURE, WITHOUT BEING TRUMPED BY VRISKA'S MACHIAVELLIAN LIMELIGHT GLUTTONY? KARKAT: OR FOR THAT MATTER, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THERE WAS ACTUALLY ANYTHING LEADERY *TO* DO, THAT DIDN'T INVOLVE SNUGGLING UP ON THE COUCH TO WATCH "GOOD LUCK CHUCK" FOR THE FIVE HUNDREDTH TIME?! KARKAT: I HAVE SERIOUSLY JUST BEEN ASSUMING HER COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF ALL LEADERSHIP DUTIES WAS SOME FAIT ACCOMPLI SHIT FOR THREE SOLID YEARS, AND HAVE SINCE BEEN ENJOYING THE PEACE AND QUIET OF ZERO RESPONSIBILITIES, WHICH IS WHY QUITE FRANKLY, I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO KEEP MY BLOOD PRESSURE DOWN, AND NOW RESEMBLE THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF PEACE AND FUCKING TRANQUILITY WHICH PRESENTLY BASKS BEFORE YOU IN A STATE OF FROTHING, EUPHORIA-HOBBLED TURDVANA!!!!!!!!“

He’s extremely obviously bitter about being left out of the loop, and hurt about not being the Leader anymore. He jumps at the opportunity to go beat Lord English up without a second thought, and leads the initial charge, which doesn’t end exactly well for him. Echidna does, however, imply that Karkat will have an important part in actually leading the new Troll Civilization. Karkat is not the best leader when it comes to a War-like battle scenario- But if his conversation with Terezi after finding her Unblinded is anything to go by, he’s a great Emotional Leader. Even Pre-Retcon where all the Problems Happened and there was Terezi Drama, he provided support to her and got along with Dave, even if it took a little while. Being cast from his position as a Leader Frustrates him heavily, and digs deeper into the Doubt he displayed after he started having the realization that the Cancer was his fault. He’s frustrated, more impulsive than before, and even though he has Dave to back him up, it’s still tough.

Dave. Just. Dave.

Honestly, there’s not much of a difference between Game Over and Post Retcon Dave, is there? He’s dating Karkat, sure, but there’s not much else. If anything, the major difference comes later on, with the Dogfight vs the Jackfight. We learn from his talk with Dirk about his hatred for Bro, his dislike for fighting, the sound of metal, the sight of blood. His hatred of Heroism because of him, and it ties well to him not wanting to use his Time Powers or Fight Jade- Training him to become stronger, Grimbark Jade basically wanted to do the same to him as Bro had been doing since he was born. But he does grab his weapon- When he knows he can bring Jade back, if he just snatches her away from the Dogs. This leads to his Death. On the other hand, though, when he fights the Jacks, he has managed to actually have a Heart-to-Heart with Dirk, and vent about everything that’s been tormenting him. This fight, too, ends with him breaking the Unbreakable Katana and Decapitating Dirk, before warping him away from the fight so he could be put back together by Jane afterwards. There’s a Catharsis for Dave, but as he tells Dirk, it’ll probably just keep building back up for a few years before needing a feels jam again. He got enough of a resolution, but his problems weren’t gone, and even if they were gone, they’re not gone by the nature of the Retcon, rather, by the nature of Meeting Dirk, which he was actively prevented from doing so in the Game Over Timeline. This is a development we also see on-screen, so there can’t be much of a complaint about it, right?

Kanaya

Without Rose Drunk and with Gamzee restrained, Kanaya’s focus post-Retcon returns to the Matriorb and rebuilding Troll Civilization. This is a tricky one, because you could say that Vriska did help Kanaya with this, and it is true that, by proxy, Kanaya didn’t have to do as much in the Meteor. But, these aren’t her Problems, rather they are things she helped with, and furthermore the presence of Vriska in general poses a problem for Kanaya. Still bitter about her old Red Crush on her, and with her being Meddlesome and butting in on her and Rose, she expresses explicit distaste when talking to her. Vriska is just up in everyone’s business and being a nuisance more than she’s an actual help. As for the Matriorb, well, with the issues leading up to Game Over they didn’t even have the possibility to focus on Troll Repopulation, so it’s a thing that’s brought up exclusively in the Post-Retcon Timeline. This is solved effortlessly, which actually brings new thoughts and issues to the table!

“KANAYA: So Instead Of All That KANAYA: Its Just KANAYA: Handed To Me KANAYA: Like A Nice Present ROXY: yes KANAYA: I Dont Know What To Say KANAYA: This Changes So Much KANAYA: About Everything I Thought I Had To Do”

Kanaya suddenly isn’t as sure about fighting, with the responsibility she suddenly has- Yet Roxy encourages her to go take down Condy. This is paralleled by Davepeta telling Jade to just do what she wants to do! But more on this later.

Vriska vs (Vriska)

The hottest topic of the Retcon. Vriska’s Character Development is absolutely ruined by her being brought back, and you know what? I do agree with this! But that’s the thing though- I think this is good? Like. A lot of people complain about Vriska coming back and fixing everyone’s problems and being glorified, but as I’ve just displayed up above, Vriska is anything but Glorified. She’s forced everyone to do what she wants without actually solving any problem, she’s pushy, she’s cocky, and then we have a literal confrontation between her and (Vriska)...

“VRISKA: 8e quiet. I'm talking. VRISKA: Look at you. VRISKA: Just looooooook at you. VRISKA: How completely pathetic. (VRISKA): What? (VRISKA): What's your pro8lem?! VRISKA: My pro8lem is you make me fucking sick. “

“(VRISKA): I'm not a loser though! (VRISKA): I LIKE who I've 8ecome. (VRISKA): I actually feel happy and good a8out my life for the first time in... may8e forever?? (VRISKA): Like, ACTUALLY good a8out my life in a way that feels real, instead of forced. Don't you realize that's what it was like for us? VRISKA: You don't have a life! VRISKA: You're DEAD, remem8er?”

The Vriska vs (Vriska) interaction is one of my favorite parts of the entire Webcomic, because we have the Cocky Vriska that never actually developed positively, facing the Vriska that actually did have personal growth. Furthermore, neither the Plan to fight in the Session goes as she planned, nor does she gather the Army, or even lead it for most of the part, and ultimately her contribution to the Final Fight is to literally open the Juju Chest. She Steals the Spotlight, and the only ones to actually glorify this are the people in the Fandom. Everyone else within the story actually suffers more than they are actively helped by Vriska’s Actions, and that is what makes me absolutely love her leading towards the Ending. She’s the Savior Figure that comes back from the Dead to fix everything stereotype, except she actually barely fixes anything, and is an actively toxic force for most of the characters. Meanwhile (Vriska), after Aranea leaves them, actually does introspection about what she’d been doing and positively changes, culminating with a reunion with GO! Terezi. That is the culmination of Vriska’s Character Arc, Terezi Remem8er, and Vriska going for Lord English is ultimately detrimental for her Character. You can dislike that Vriska’s character ended up like that, but that’s the thing, saying that’s a bad part of the story is subjective, because it’s the obvious intention of the story to display this duality between Vriska and (Vriska)!

Not only that, but all I’ve said about these characters, about Pre vs Post Retcon, is entirely taken from canon statements by the Characters, straight up saying their problems in one way or another, and by the way their actions shape the stories. Both Pre and Post Scratch display the effects of the Characters’ deeper issues in different situations, how they cope with them and how they work towards solving them. You know why they all seem to fix their issues more Post-Retcon than Pre-Retcon? Because they don’t Die. It’s not that they’re even that differently developed, they simply get further. Rose was already talking to Kanaya about her issues before Game Over, Terezi was working towards fixing things and ultimately led to John’s Retcon Quest, they had different issues, stemming from the same main struggles, and that did not change at all.

I’d like to close this section with a quote by Hussie on Character Writing.

“I think writing in voice is pretty simple. It's mostly about consistency. Choosing a set of parameters and committing to them absolutely. [...] The advantage in being so obstinate with the profile you choose is then any deviation you make will be very noticeable. This is to your advantage, if you can control these deviations with purpose and precision."

And honestly? Dave still feels like Dave. Rose still feels like Rose. Terezi still feels like Terezi. The deviation from their core character is minor, and these deviations are, in turn, explored and talked about with their interactions, putting some context to what they’re doing and what they’re striving for. Honestly, I feel a lot of the issues with Game Over and the Post-Retcon Timeline come from the fact they were the... Post-Gigapause Updates, and a lot of people just forgot a lot of stuff. But let’s move on, this first section has gone on for WAY TOO LONG.

Act 7 wasn’t a satisfying conclusion to the story. Plot Threads and Character Arcs were dropped entirely, and everything was left incredibly ambiguous.

Let’s start this by pointing something out: Act 7 wasn’t actually the End of Homestuck. One of the reasons Act 7 might feel bad is the fact that a lot of things aren’t solved. And that’s alright, because Act 7 isn’t the Ending of the Characters’ Stories, nor is it the end of everything that happens. Act 7 is the culmination of Calliope’s purpose, the Finale brought to Lord English’ Alpha Timeline, and the Ending of the SBURB Session the Kids have played. Hell- The Credits, without even going to the Post-Canon Snapchat Updates, shows us that there’s still obviously more going on. Terezi is still looking for Vriska, Aradia, Sollux and Davepeta are missing too, John is depressed because he has nothing to do, Caliborn is being an asshole through Snapchat occasionally.

The thing is that a lot of Plot Threads weren’t actually solved in Act 7, rather they were solved before Act 7, sometimes even extremely unceremoniously, like with Caliborn’s Masterpiece. And most important events in Homestuck? We’ve actually seen how they begin, and how they end. There’s ambiguity in the way you go from point A to point B, as well as some Timeline Weirdness with some things, again, like Caliborn’s Masterpiece.

Additionally, a few things about the Final Battle, the fate of Vriska and Lord English and Paradox Space, have been left ambiguous, and this is not unintentional. You may dislike ambiguous endings, and that’s honestly, perfectly okay? The ambiguity, or the ‘anticlimax’, you can dislike it, but the spite held against the Ending is, mostly, subjective tastes?

This however, doesn’t even touch one of the most important things about the Ending, and that is, that we don’t have the Epilogue yet. We’ve been left with nearly the whole picture, nearly the whole Puzzle of Homestuck, laid out before our eyes, and there are still some pieces missing that could come from the Epilogue! But even without it, I do believe we have enough pieces to put most of the picture together, enough that the rest of holes becomes sort of, obvious, or easy to interpret in different ways? The Epilogue could offer closure to the things we don’t know about, but what I’ve seen around, mostly, is that instead of trying to give closure to these open questions about the story, people have rather resorted to getting angry at the whole of the comic! This is, really, the aggravating attitude that’s made me make this post in the first place trying to debunk some of the more popular Ending Criticism. If you have any specific ‘We don’t know how this happened!’ question, feel free to send me an Ask and we can talk about it! In fact, let me answer to one of those Asks right now.

“What happened to LE?” Unless the Epilogue does pull a switcheroo, the Ending obviously assumes he has been defeated. The symbolism of the Treasure taking the shape of a Cueball and LE’s eyes becoming 8-Balls, with the Breach as the ‘Pocket’ certainly implies he’s been cast into the Black Hole, but there could’ve been more of a fight! Does the Treasure open to free the Souls of the Kids? Does it just Attack Him? That is something that’s left up to the imagination at the very least until the Epilogue happens, and instead we’re left with the image of the Kids Happy on Earth-C- It doesn’t quite matter how he’s defeated, because we know that he has been defeated, and the Kids are living happily post-ending. This could change in the Epilogue, yes, but if it does change, then we’ll have more of the story to go, which will mean that wasn’t the True Ending to begin with, yet still leaving us with the tools to build an actual Happy True Ending. That is the beauty of ambiguity in a story when you DO have the pieces to build what happens until the story continues post-canon!

“Does caliborn still turn into LE?” He needs to do so to become Lord English, however the Masterpiece also implies the possibility of our Caliborn and the Caliborn that becomes Lord English being two different Caliborns. This is, again, left ambiguous in the same way LE’s defeat is. We do know he HAS to become LE, and we also KNOW how he becomes LE. But then the seed of doubt is planted- Is it the same Caliborn? And that is how speculation, talk and theories about the Ending spark, still giving a satisfying conclusion because we know it has to happen somehow, but leaving us to ponder about the specifics, without holding back on important pieces of information that we NEED to know.

“Where’s Vriska?” That’s what Terezi is trying to find, and it’ll likely be one of the main points of the Epilogue. The fact she’s still looking for her however, implies that she’s been missing for over three years. She has accomplished what she went out to do, defeat Lord English. Now the question is, will she come back and redeem herself? Or did she fall with Lord English into the Breach, as a Karmic Retribution of all the bad things she has done? Does she deserve the same Fate as the Villain? Or is there still hope for her? For a character as controversial as Vriska, I honestly love that her fate has been left ambiguous so far.

As for Gamzee, I mean he’s extremely devout to LE and he’s fated to become part of him, granting him a Plot Shield. We do know why he’s so hard to kill, and we also know exactly in what way he ends up becoming part of LE. There’s some weird things left Ambiguous, like his Ghosts, but even that it’s speculation that doesn’t necessarily influence the Ending Result.

As I mentioned above? We have most of the Puzzle Pieces, and the ones we don’t have are intentionally left out for us to fill the hole with our own headcanons and theories. I can’t think of any important thing we don’t see the origin or result of, leaving just certain bits in between to the speculation.

But some of the Characters had their Arcs Dropped, didn’t have their problems solved, or were shafted entirely by the story.

Here we start to get into more messy territory with the Criticism Endings, because rather than misunderstanding, a lot of these are opinions! For example, I do agree I would’ve loved seeing some more Jane towards the ending. However I really don’t think anyone was ‘shafted’ by the story. In fact, I’ve heard people mention how Davepetasprite and Jasprosesprite were, somehow, attempts at reducing the amount of characters towards the ending, and like...

What? So you’re saying reducing the amount of characters towards the ending is accomplished... By making new Characters that present us with really interesting nuances and takes on the world of Homestuck? Are you sure about that? Hell, if Hussie really wanted to reduce the amount of characters, he would’ve killed off every Sprite Pre-Retcon, and not brought Rose back from where Roxy buried her. Were Davepeta and Jasprose afterthoughts that weren’t planned? Purrhaps. But they add onto the story, they are not an attempt to reduce anything. That being said, a lot of people that say this also call the Ending ‘rushed’, somehow. Listen buddy, you can’t simply. Rush something like the Ending of Homestuck. It took way too much time to make for it to not be completely premeditated.

A lot of characters, too, have more Depth to their Arcs than people give Hussie credit for, and while they do suffer or while they don’t interact with someone else as much as other people may, that doesn’t mean they are shafted by the story.

But let’s do this one at a time. Let’s begin with Dead Characters, and just let me say that, straight up, having everyone survive at the end wouldn’t have been as satisfying as you may think. Could Equius have learned to stand up for himself? Could Feferi have done more? Yeah, sure. Could the Dancestors have been more developed? That’s also true! But Death and Conflict happen in Homestuck, and you cannot give every character an equal amount of attention. Furthermore, expecting every character to develop positively is also unrealistic and, honestly, bad? The Trickster Arc is a parody of this, in fact, an accomplishment of the innermost desire of have your problems go away, share everything you want to share and just do everything you want! That problem-less happiness for everyone feels forced and uncanny, having everyone come back happily and develop positively would be worse than having some of them die off. The Dancestors, too, are precisely the way they are as examples of stagnant Character Development. Even Aranea and Meenah, which are the most developed of the Dancestors, follow this same tend. Meenah mentions how Aranea acting the way she did is not unlike the stuff she always did, and Meenah struggles with the fact that she cannot change the way she is, and follows after Vriska and not (Vriska) because it’s in her nature to Do Shit. It’s fun to write about further development and AUs! But in the canonical story of the magnitude and with the themes Homestuck touches, you simply can’t develop them all equally and positively. And while they could’ve been given more screen time, also, well. With so many characters it becomes hard to balance time and interactions.

Jade is another character that many feel was shafted by the story, but honestly this is not true? She suffered the 3 Years on the Prospit Ship and Struggled with her nature as a Space Player and what she was supposed to do- Just like most characters struggled with something. And in the end? Against what she thought Paradox Space had stored for her? She woke up happily to a letter by Dave about missing her. She tried to pacify her dogs and played with them the way she wanted rather than being put to sleep or fighting them. She did what she wanted to do, not what she thought she was ‘supposed’ to be doing.

Jake is also a very complex character towards the ending. His insecurities are pushed on him over and over until he nearly gives up his friends- Note, this is the boy that died to protect Jane without a second thought in the Game Over Timeline. Vriska pushes his insecurities and Tavros really doesn’t quite help at all. And in the End? He manages to prove himself to not be a useless fuck-up by defeating the most amount of villains in the Final Battle, rising victorious on top of a pile of defeated, Time-Warping, Meddlesome Felt Members. The task Vriska had given to him as she thought was the least important, and that happened to be one of the most difficult battles without a single doubt. Here, I would’ve personally liked to see more dialog about Jake finding out more self worth? But the sweet reunion with everyone else and with Dirk leading to Act 7, and the return of his Adventurer Persona by the Credits still expose development.

Jane is also mentioned to have been shafted at times. I would’ve loved to see her hug Dad when they reunited, but I’d say we got even more with her clinging to him in Earth-C during Act 7. Other than that, though? One of the things Jane has suffered for the most in the comic is being repressed and controlled. Condy, Jake shoving her in a more than desirable situation for her... However, her meeting with Jade and Callie bring some excitement and fun after being Mind-Controlled for a long time, and her encounter with Nannasprite reinvigorates her with confidence about being a Heroine herself, leading to the final Battle where she proves to be both a powerful healer and aggressor! And by the end, not only is she finally able to do what she wants, she takes over Crockercorp to make it her company as she wanted, and ends up with two lovely Girlfriends.

Indeed, there could be more to them, there could be more dialog, more is better after all! But I don’t think their Arcs are cut short, nor that they’re shafted by the story. Rather they showcase different struggles with reality and with themselves, that they need to overcome? And as Dave told us, Humans don’t have Character Arcs. They build up confidence towards the Final Battle to finish everything, to win the game together, and then they reunite one last time before passing into the New World. And here they will still have problems, for sure. But at the very least, the Game is finished, and they can leave behind a very unpleasant stage in their lives. Jade was Isolated, Jane was Corrupted, Jake was shamed, but in the end they reunited again, made amends where they needed to, and continue their lives with their unique sets of nuances and problems. John and Terezi, which are given some of the most development, are the two that end the most unhappy, in fact, with John having no purpose anymore and falling to depression, and Terezi obsessively chasing after Vriska still, but this doesn’t mean John’s character was ‘shafted’. His friends still encourage him, Jade still wants to visit him for his Birthday, everyone misses Terezi, they have each other and they all love each other, but internal struggles continue. As the Trickster Arc taught us, it’s something to work on, progressively, not suddenly have it all be fixed, and going through a bit of suffering to reach a happy end doesn’t mean being shafted, either.

The story conveys what it wants to convey with the characters. Whether you agree with what they convey, or if you’d want there to be more about them, now that’s an entirely different can of worms, and that’s why Fanfiction exists and why you’re not only allowed, but encouraged to give your take on the characters and the story!

The problem with the Ending is that it tried something the Story wasn’t. The ‘Meta’ elements, the ‘Symbolism’, it’s cool, but ultimately feels tacked on/Wasn’t conveyed properly through the story, and as such, made the ending feel bad.

This is honestly one of the criticisms I dislike the most about Homestuck when people talk about the Ending, when people say that Hussie didn’t convey his intent, and trying to make the Ending more Meta is detrimental to the Story as a whole and what ‘got the fans there in the first place’, or the thought that somehow more Meta elements and actual Storytelling can’t coexist.

You can definitely not enjoy thinking deeper about a story! If you just want to check out something different and not dig deeper into the content, that’s absolutely okay! However, I’m sorry, but that is not the kind of story Homestuck is. This is a story that’s been acclaimed by the Fandom for its complexity and its weirdness, and now you’re telling me that the thing you dislike about the ending is that it’s weird and makes you think about the story? That’s paradoxical on its own. But let’s leave that behind. Whether you enjoy the more Meta aspect of stories or if you prefer a story one way or another, it’s all subjective. Let’s go to the main point here.

Hussie. Didn’t convey the kind of story it was? And it’s a disservice to the Fandom to have the Ending be something you have to dig in deeper to understand? Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about this, because this is not even like subjective opinion or disliking the ending, this is a complete misreading of the Canon, of the way the story Explicitly tells us how things work. You can interpret a lot of things in Homestuck in different ways- But you cannot say that there’s nothing to interpret and the Ending is bad because it pretends there is.

This is the story that the Author himself has called both a Creation Myth- Explicitly telling us the point of the story is a tale about Reality and living in this Reality, with explicit in-comic talk about the place people have in a Universe with Predetermination, Existential Struggles of just about everyone. This is the story the Author called “A story that is also a Puzzle”- Inviting us to read through the story while providing some deeper bits of lore we could piece together to get a wider image of what truly is behind Homestuck. This is a story where the Author himself is a Character- Miss me with the ‘not Meta’ stuff, Hussie is a character, explicitly, in-comic, that affects the story extremely directly. Jade escapes literally through the Fourth Wall. Caliborn takes over the literal narrative of the setting. Homestuck acknowledges itself as a story multiple times.

You can dislike this. You can absolutely dislike this, it’s a preference, but call it what it is, you just not enjoying this kind of story, or not enjoying the direction the narrative took in general compared to your expectations. The intent and symbolism of the comic is exposed, canonically, pretty blatantly, and even more blatantly by word-of-god with Hussie’s old Formspring and Tumblr answers, and I bet it will be even more blatant as the new Books with Commentary come out.

By blaming Hussie and the Comic on your general interest in the deeper themes of the narrative, you’re outright misinterpreting Authorial Intent in order to make you feel better about not understanding a story, and at the same time, refusing to even give it a second thought! You’ve reached the Ending, so I’m assuming this a story you enjoyed. If you enjoy it, do you really want to just walk bitterly away without giving it a chance?

That’s yet ANOTHER thing I don’t quite understand about this kind of criticism, and it is... Okay, you get to the Ending, and are disappointed that a lot of stuff you wanted to see happen didn’t happen, but- And this is not as true anymore, but back during the Act 7 Days, there was militant dislike about the Ending to the point of saying it ruined the rest of the story? It honestly feels extremely childish that an Open End to a story as complex as Homestuck could make you hate the entire story instead of wanting to know more about it, to see if you missed something else!

I sincerely do believe that a lot of people just dragged themselves through the Ending because it was an old Fandom they were in and they wanted to see how it ended, but just weren’t invested in the story anymore at that point, so they went in remembering and taking the shallow details, leaving the depth behind, and then were disappointed when their own lack of interest sabotaged their view of the comic.

Homestuck is dense, it is a Story with a ton of Symbolism and a lot of weird themes, but it’s also incredibly charming with its narrative and its characters. And for that, I am not saying that ‘You SHOULD enjoy the Ending, god dammit!’. I’m not saying that at all. As I’ve said multiple times, you can dislike Symbology in Stories, you can dislike the directions the Story took, you can dislike anything about the comic itself!

But do understand, when you give criticism of the Ending, try not to tangle actual criticism about the Story or the Narrative with Subjective Opinions. You can say you dislike how dark Blade Runner is, but you can’t say Blade Runner is a bad movie because it’s dark.

So if you don’t like Act 7, more power to you. But if you prefer to have something you apparently enjoy enough to have gone through it to the ending, ruined by your headcanons, and leave you bitter instead of seeing if there’s something more to the story or if there was something you missed, well. I feel that’s a little bit silly?

But whether you enjoy the Ending and want to dig deeper into the story and what actually happens in Homestuck, or you think I’m just a dumb fangirl reading too much into a dumb Webcomic and would like to tell me, feel free to send me an ask! I sincerely do enjoy debating about the Comic and what happens in it as long as it’s done in a civilized manner.

Thanks for Playing.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Ending #Upd8 #Act 7 #Rapture #Epilogue #Credits #HSE

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years

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New top story from Time: A New Wave of Horror Films About Women’s Deepest Anxieties Is Perfect Viewing for Our Summer of Discontent

Even if most horror movies, until fairly recently, have been made by men, women are still central to their impact and meaning. What would King Kong have been without his tiny captive inamorata Fay Wray, or Frankenstein without Elsa Lanchester, his bewigged, wild-eyed bride? Sometimes women represent fragility and innocence in horror movies, symbols of purity worth saving; other times they’re sympathetic companions or spokespeople for misunderstood monsters.

But their allure goes further and deeper than that—especially when it’s women who are doing the looking. Today, the term “the male gaze” is thrown around more loosely than its originator, filmmaker and film theorist Laura Mulvey, intended. Even when there’s a man behind the camera, the lens doesn’t always simply cater to man’s desires. Women love watching other women; we identify, we admire, and sometimes we feel a frisson (or more) of desire. Other times we recoil, though that may only intensify our fascination. So what happens when women filmmakers take control of the horror genre themselves?

Women filmmakers have been making horror movies since, well, the beginning of movies—Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber contributed to the genre early on. But what’s notable now is the growing number of women filmmakers who are exploring expectations and anxieties specific to womanhood, as well as the mysteries of female erotic power. In the past two months alone we’ve seen a raft of horror movies made by women—Natalie Erika James’ Relic, Romola Garai’s Amulet, Josephine Decker’s Shirley and Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow—that are keyed in to women’s experiences in canny, unnerving ways. To define all of these films as horror, in the classic sense of the word, is admittedly a slight stretch: some are more strictly psychological than supernatural, less studies of things that go bump in the night than maps of the turmoil in our heads. But even that is a reflection of what horror, seen through women’s eyes, can mean: the things that scare women the most are already inside them. For years, male filmmakers have been concocting outlandish scenarios for us, while we’ve been storing up material for centuries.

Rob Baker AshtonImelda Staunton and carla Juri in ‘Amulet’

Horror movies made by women and specifically addressing women’s anxieties or hyperreal strengths aren’t new—Karyn Kusuma’s Jennifer’s Body (2009), Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (also 2014) are just three noteworthy examples from the past decade or so—though it’s still surprising there haven’t been more of them. No one could have foreseen that the summer of 2020, a mini-epoch during which many of us have been confined largely to our homes, unable to socialize in the usual ways and freer than usual to nurture our own personal neuroses, would provide the perfect soil and weather conditions for a new wave of horror movies made by women to flower so fully. Some of the current crop are more effective than others, but all share one trait: They’re about vulnerability but not necessarily victimization. Most of the women in these movies aren’t heroic in the superhero sense, but they’re also not the girl who needs to be saved.

Amulet, the directorial debut from actor Romola Garai (who also wrote the script), may be the most technically ambitious of these films, and through the first two-thirds, at least, it’s jaggedly compelling. An ex-soldier from Eastern Europe, Tomas (Alec Secareanu), has taken refuge in London, working odd jobs and sleeping in a flophouse. A nun with a seemingly generous spirit (Imelda Staunton) finds a place for him to live, in a decrepit house inhabited by a young woman, Magda (Carla Juri). Magda’s ailing mother is kept locked in an upstairs room—it’s dutiful Magda’s job to tend to her day and night, and the responsibility is wearing her down.

Garai layers the plot with so many feverish ideas and images that you wonder how, in the end, it’s going to come together. There’s a woman who can’t escape horrific memories of wartime rape. And Tomas, who seems to have fallen under the spell of a strange little goddess statue he’s dug out of the earth, needs to come to terms with his inflated view of himself as a protector of women, when his own interests are clearly all that matter. For him, the house itself appears to be a moist, sticky trap: It’s at first a place he doesn’t want to be, though it soon becomes one he can’t leave. Magda, meanwhile, appears to be the trapped innocent, the woman who needs saving; she’s also a fabulous cook—but what, exactly, is she serving up? Garai has some grim fun with notions of what men expect women to be vs. who they really are. The movie is marred by a confusing coda that only muddies its already too-vague ending, but it does feature one enduring image: a squirmy, newborn bat-looking thing that emerges from a womb with all its teeth. If that’s not a childbirth-anxiety metaphor, I’m not sure what is.

Sometimes the scariest things we give birth to aren’t, at least literally, living things. In Shirley, directed by Josephine Decker and based on a novel by Susan Scarff Merrell, Elisabeth Moss plays a fictionalized version of Shirley Jackson, the author of one of the most elegantly chilling ghost novels of the 20th century, The Haunting of Hillhouse, as well as the “The Lottery,” a whoppingly effective short story that was for years a nightmare-inducing staple of junior-high literature classes. In Shirley, Moss’ Jackson is the wife of a seemingly jovial Bennington academic (Michael Stuhlbarg) who actually exerts brutish control over her. He invites two young newlyweds, Rose and Fred (Odessa Young and Logan Lerman) to move into their comfortably ramshackle Vermont home, but really, he’s just looking for cheap labor: Shirley, neurotic almost to the point of being incapacitated, is incapable not just of keeping house but of performing basic tasks, like getting dressed for the day.

Shirley is controlling and manipulative in her own way, but she’s also deeply charismatic. She has a knowledge of witchcraft and folklore, and an affinity for the Tarot. But most of all, she’s blazingly intelligent, and Rose, who has had to put her own studies on hold with the birth of her first child, is drawn to her. Shirley’s lack of suitability for the real world—she’s treated as an oddity and a pariah by her husband’s university friends—means she lives in a world of her own, one in which she drinks too much and stays in bed too long, unable to move and, worse, unable to write. When she confronts a blank page, she’s really staring down a demon. She’s so difficult, in her husband’s eyes, that he’s taken up with the ostensibly more attractive wife of a fellow academic—so her sexual power has been diminished too. Shirley isn’t a horror movie in the conventional sense, but it’s a picture that stirs up the murk of so many women’s fears: If I can’t create something of worth, does that mean I too am worthless? If I have a child, what part of myself do I lose—and how do I ever get it back? This movie has a strange, heady earthiness, like an alluring perfume sourced from an enchanted, and somewhat treacherous, forest.

If the season’s most memorable horror movies have been made by women, that’s not to say men aren’t capable or interested in shaping horror scenarios from a woman’s point of view. In Leigh Wannell’s The Invisible Man, released in February, Moss played a woman stalked by the controlling boyfriend—cloaked by an invisibility suit—she’d thought dead. And Janelle Monáe stars in Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s upcoming Antebellum, playing a successful modern-day writer who suddenly finds herself living a very different life, in what looks like the pre-Civil War south. Never underestimate the power of the sympathetic imagination, and remember that women are free to explore the dimensions of men’s inner lives, too.

But even though men must feel just as much stress as women do when it comes to doing right by an elderly parent, I’m not sure a man could have made Relic. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote play Kay and Sam, a mother and daughter who drive out to Kay’s mother’s house, way out in the country, when they learn that she hasn’t been seen for days. They let themselves in and poke around her things, tidying up and taking stock of all the placemarkers we use to track exactly where our parents are at as they age. There’s some shriveled fruit stacked in a bowl; little Post-It reminders (“Turn off the stove,” “Switch off the light”) abound, most of them exactly the sort of thing that a person whose memory is failing might write to herself. But among them is one that reads, “Don’t follow it”—a suggestion that she’s being stalked by something, as opposed to someone.

The next morning, Kay’s mother—and Sam’s grandmother—appears in the kitchen, as if she had never gone missing. But something is clearly wrong. Edna, played by Australian actor Robyn Nevin, is herself—yet not herself. One minute her eyes are dancing with warmth; the next they’ve gone cold, as if her own family members have suddenly become hostile strangers. She gives Sam, who’s always adored her, a ring, only to later angrily accuse her of stealing it. Kay, who’s filled with mostly unspecified guilt—does a daughter’s guilt ever have to be specified?—recognizes that she hasn’t been in touch with her mother as often as she should have been. She also thinks it’s time she found a safer place for Edna to live. She visits a nursing home, where the manager says with businesslike cheerfulness, “Think of it as independent living with the edges taken off.” It’s the most chilling line in the movie.

Courtesy of IFC MidnightEmily Mortimer in ‘Relic’

Director Natalie Erika James—who co-wrote the script with Christian White—uses horror-palette colors to explore tensions endemic to mothers and daughters, both between Edna and Kay and between Kay and Sam. Tempers flare over the smallest things; at one point or another, each of the three bristles when she senses another is telling her what to do. There’s nothing supernatural about any of that. But something is happening to Edna—she’s changing in ways that alarm Kay and Sam. Anyone who has watched a parent age—who has seen the number of selves one person can inhabit in a lifetime, moving from one stage to another in a gentle gradient spanning decades—will recognize Kay’s anguish. Relic’s ending is an embrace of terror and tenderness. So many horror filmmakers start out with great ideas and don’t know how to wrap them up. James caps off her debut feature with a quietly intense operatic flourish that feels earned.

If our imaginations are capable of conjuring great horrors as well as wonder, here’s a question: Can we pass our most acute fears, virus-style, on to others? In her shivery, evocative and sometimes surprisingly funny existential thriller She Dies Tomorrow, writer-director Amy Seimetz burrows deep into some of our dumbest 3 a.m. fears and wonders aloud, What if they’re not so dumb? Kate Lyn Sheil plays Amy, a young woman who, as she’s moving into the house she’s just bought, becomes seized with a fear she can’t explain: She’s certain she’s going to die the next day. In a panic, she calls her closest friend, Jane (Jane Adams), begging her to come over. When Jane finally shows up, she tries to talk sense into her friend—only to return home, get into her PJs, and suddenly feel paralyzed by the same fear. When Jane confesses her anxiety to others—to her brother (Chris Messina), to the doctor to whom she goes for treatment (Josh Lucas)—they too downplay her distress, only to find themselves captive to the same debilitating panic minutes later. The whole movie is like a game of telephone in which an urgent message is passed along from one player to another, fuzzy at first before emerging into disquieting clarity.

Courtesy of NeonKate Lyn Sheil in Amy Seimetz’s ‘She Dies Tomorrow’

She Dies Tomorrow takes place in a world much like the one we’re living in right now, one that feels untrustworthy, not fully readable. It’s also a place where we might feel regret about some things we are capable of controlling: at one point, Amy tells a guy who appears to be a fairly new lover (Kentucker Audley) that she once ended a pregnancy. His face clouds over as she elaborates; the information seems to trouble him more than it does her, even though she’s the one who will carry the knowledge of the act forever. She notes that her life would be so different if she’d kept the child; she probably wouldn’t have been able to buy this house. Her practicality is the opposite of coldness—she knows the cost of her choice, because it lives inside her every day.

And what if it’s not the greater world but ourselves we can’t trust? Our certainty that we’ll have a tomorrow amounts not to everyday optimism but to a kind of arrogance—though we probably need that self-reassurance to survive. This is less a movie about death than one concerned with how we go through life without giving too much thought about its stopping, though that’s a certainty for all of us. Even when we think we’re thinking about death, we don’t really know what to think: No one trustworthy has yet returned from the other side to tell us what it’s all about. She Dies Tomorrow is all about the unreclaimable yesterday, the day before we knew. It’s a thoughtful movie with no jump scares; its jitters are baked all the way through.

Fear of death isn’t specific to women, obviously—the male characters in Seimetz’s movie are susceptible to it too. But maybe, given women’s often complex relationship with aging—which includes the fear of losing sexual allure—our fear of death has a slightly different tenor from the way men experience it. In Shirley, the aging, matronly protagonist is not only unable to write, which is her chief measure of her own self-worth; her husband has also taken up with a supposedly superior woman—and isn’t the moment we lose faith in our own magnetism itself a small death? Watching our parents age, as Kay does in Relic, is the ultimate reminder that we’re next; it’s also a test of our mettle when we see the traits that have calcified in our forebears begin to manifest themselves, in smaller ways, in us. In Amulet, the exhausted Magda has a different problem: she’s simply waiting for her mother to die, so she can be free. All of these movies were conceived and made before we had any sense of how a worldwide pandemic would shape and circumscribe our lives. But all, in some way, speak of constricted freedom, of carrying on with life until it decides it’s through with us. They’re about all the things we can’t protect ourselves from, what we used to call, in more innocent times, fear of the unknown. Now we know what to fear, only to realize that knowing isn’t necessarily better.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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