#swift malevposting

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

they're mainly traced from dragon curves, actually!! the effect might get a bit lost because i simplified/stylized it for the art haha, but that's where they're from originally. the white outline was definitely also inspired by the mandelbrot set tho hehe

god and the devil, they are one and the same or whatever it is kellin said

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i have given this ten seconds of thought but has anyone else contrasted the image of lillith coming into arthur's bedroom after killing his parents (and this being referred to as "sparing" him) with the image of kayne coming into the bathroom to turn off the tap for faroe

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

"malevolent" is such a funny name actually. yeah this is my favorite show right now, it's called This Thing Is Evil And Wants To Hurt You. Podcast Of Sinister And Devious Intent. you should give it a listen

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

“the only version of myself that I like exists only when I’m with you” is an insane relationship dynamic btw

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

an addition

Despite everything, it's still me but it's not you.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

arthur talking to literal gods:

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

my longshot theory about part 52 is that the "threshold" that kayne was referring to, that noel's at, is addison.

a couple reasons i think this Would Be Neat:

throughout all of s3, after he learns where he is, arthur is constantly emphasizing how addison isn't far from arkham. it's one of the main things he gets fixated on: if he gets out of there, he can go home. given how insanely circular this podcast's dialogue tends to be, and how much kayne in particular loves to make jabs at things jarthur have said or will say, i can very easily imagine "somewhere awfully close to home" being a nod to arthur's obsession with Going Home in s3.

i mean literally, compare and contrast the first time arthur learns they're in the hoosac range, in 22:

ARTHUR (thrilled): Yes, it's – it’s west, far west of Arkham! A couple hundred miles, but that means we’re close to home!

and where kayne says he sent noel, in 52:

KAYNE: Oh, he’s somewhere familiar. Somewhere awfully close to home.

it's the same. exact phrase. "close to home." hello.

also, most of the other options (leerie, the pelican lane house, etc) i've sort of wondered why noel was... apparently still there? like he can leave. those places. why opt to stay where kayne put him? has time not been passing in middle-c? is he laid up in the same hospital arthur was in during the coma? did kayne put him on house arrest for the sake of the Bit?

BUT a key factor in the beginning of s3 is that you can't feasibly get out of addison during the winter without a car, and arthur took larson's car when he left. meaning the only one left that we know of is the surveyor's, which may or may not even still be around. given that it's really not been a ton of linear time since s3 happened, i would not be at all surprised if the way out was still too frozen to go on foot.

and also, according to irvine (the guy in the red right hand in 22), "Addison tends to hold on to you until it is done [...] You’ll leave Addison when it lets you leave." he claims he's been trapped there for ten years without being able to leave. so that would be a very satisfying answer to why noel hasn't gone back to nyc or something yet. addison isn't done with him yet.

SPEAKING of irvine, we STILL don't really have closure as to what the fuck exactly he was talking about when describing the town.

MAN: There’s a place, on this Earth, where light doesn’t touch. It’s a place of unfathomable depth. Where the crashing waves and churning, nightmarish storms are but memories. Darkness so black, so all consuming, that light can be… only dreamt of. Only hoped for. This place exists, friend. ARTHUR: Addison? MAN: Some call it Addison, sure. But there are many names it goes by.

is it possible this is just a dropped thread, or tone-setting that There's Something Weird Going On In This Little Town. yes. but also. golly gee mr. irvine that sure does sound reminiscent of the dark world, doesn't it. and if noel is at "the" threshold, not just a threshold, i would not be surprised if it was a threshold with relevance to the other world that kayne was actively prepping to send jarthur directly into.

also re: loose ends in addison, there was a very good post going around a little while ago theorizing that the larsons were worshippers of nyarlathotep, and. if that were the case. it would be rather ironic and appropriate for kayne to snap noel away to a place dedicated to his old self. wouldn't it.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

semi-related to my other post about working together, and this is something i'm probably never gonna have the time to actually do bc it's so niche and hard to search for, but i kinda wanna go back and look at the, like. immediate practical directions john gives arthur over the seasons. bc i feel like more recently he's been making way more obvious judgement calls, and with very minimal pushback from arthur. like, "thee's a cave here, it'll hide us" or "we can't run away from this thing, just play dead" or especially "use the lighter on this guy who's trying to kill you." like it's not directly talked about but there's no guarantee that he's actually correct in any of those being a good idea.

i feel like if john gave those kinds of directions early on, he'd probably get more heat for it, either in the moment or (if it's not practical to stop and argue right then) later on in retrospect. but lately arthur has just taken it on faith that he 1) hasn't failed to notice or mention anything important and 2) is making the correct assumptions wrt what action will be best for them at this moment. both of which are far from guaranteed and speak to a LOT of trust in his decision-making. especially for a guy who hates doing what he's told as a general rule. he's become so much more willing to listen to john's advice & act out his commands on way less evidence. i think.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

if you all will allow me to overanalyze and ramble nonsensically for a minute, but my first instinct wrt arthur saying "our name" is, like. it feels like a degradation of his own individual identity. or a dissociation between himself and his name, and body, and everything that anyone other than john uses to identify him. sort of an extension/conclusion of the way he identifies his body or possessions as belonging to the both of them, even in contexts where that doesn't strictly make logical sense.

like, ok. lemme try to put it into words. john has his own name, obviously. i don't think arthur would ever lay claim to john doe. at least, not without that being immediately being recognized by both of them as a massive overstep. that's a separate identity, a separate person. but arthur lester is the name associated with their body. i mean, that's why he expects it would be on the headstone. and in general, whenever anyone says "arthur," tries to have a conversation with him, they are also, consciously or no, speaking to john. so john has some claim to the name arthur lester in the same way that arthur has ceded some of the ownership of his body, in order to make space for him to exist in. it's their name because it's a joint identifier for an entangled existence.

which is further interesting, because it seems to imply that arthur has less of an identity than john does. john exists under a part of this shared name, but arthur is no part of john doe. like a further reflection of all of the things that have been carved away from him in the name of surviving.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

it's funny in general, in retrospect, how much of the shit john says in part 1 is just a blatant fucking lie. "my book came from the dark world" (no it didn't) "in my world, i died" (no you didn't) "what i am is something you wouldn't believe" (you do not remember what you are) and all of this only works bc arthur naively assumes the entity that came out of the cursed book knows more than absolutely jack shit about said cursed book and also itself.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

the insane psychological warfare of kayne repeatedly showing john other versions of arthur. as an infant, as a small child on the last (semi-)peaceful night of his life, and after the end, the whole orchestra to a man broken in like disobedient dogs for kayne's passing amusement. like choosing the most dramatized examples to show off the downward trajectory of his life. and usually right before trying to aggravate him into doing something stupid out of guilt. fucking brutal. do you think he did something similar before their deal post-part 20 or

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

compelling arguments however: the human sacrifice

Let's play a game~

I saw posts both from larson lovers and haters and im lowkey curious how many of us there is on each side lol

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

actually so funny that arthur's like "well maybe this spooky monstrous thing will want to be friends with us. or at the very least we can try to ally with them for mutual convenience? i think it's worth a try i mean we can't just dismiss everyone we meet based on your distrust of the world, john, that's a really harsh way of looking at things. just because it looks scary and different and said 'arthur lester i am going to eat your brains' in a voice like broken glass doesn't mean we need to dismiss it outright. FUCK cultists though if i see any bitch that even LOOKS like a cultist it is ON SIGHT"

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

part 13:

coda:

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

re: re: arthur accusing lillith of having been "indoctriated" by her dad. bc i'm Still not over that. and the fact that she does emptily parrot his tone when speaking of humanity ("personified viruses" in 52 -> "You dig yourselves into the earth like ticks, drawing every last drop of blood from it until it is dead and then you consume more" in 51).

what if the thing lillith saw in arthur that made him her favorite was. kinship. what if she was just as frustrated and angry with the whole cult worship situation, trapped in a worldview forced on her, and latched onto this kid whose nightmares felt so close to her own mind. what if. what if that.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

ohh wait sorry but this reminds me of another convo from much later in part 26:

because for one thing, john accepts the blame for eddie's death fairly readily ("i killed him because he attacked us!" without any real objecting to the premise).

but for another thing, this time arthur accuses him of secretly wanting to kill someone when we know for a fact that faust was arthur's decision. which is that moment in that early episode almost perfectly in reverse.

(for bonus points he actually kind of does it twice in rapid succession, considering the widow was also almost definitely 100% his decision:)

Arthur's questioning that killing Eddie was his decision vs John's insisting that it was is kinda interesting to me

Like, John might be telling the truth here, given Arthur does kill people sometimes, and there obvious is some overlap in their minds especially/at least early on. But John also has every motivation to be lying and deflecting blame onto Arthur, just like with Parker's death, so it's really suspicious for him to be going "oh yea it was you're choice. your idea. you were so on board with it. I mind-readed that from you actually. I can totally do that. yeah no really, for reals."