#(<- adding that for the rb tags eeeeeee)

[jazzically]

MAG 32 HIVEEE BABYYY!!!!!!! oh my god this one. this one is sooooooooo fricking good. i loved every single word of it when i first listened to it and i still do now. its written SO GORGEOUSLY

just the simple fact of this literally being a firsthand account of someone being taken over by the corruption, the infiltrator, that utter terror that comes with every disgusting thing thriving under rotted floorboards makes the concept beautiful by itself

cause jane wrote this just after she became too far gone, fallen helplessly to the worms' song, but before she was completely incoherent due to the lovely harmonies formed by the slithering of thousands of individual bodies through her vital organs. you can hear her despair manifesting, those last dredges of what she truly was struggling through the cloudy haze of unearthly love. and she lets it speak through her so beautifully. remember this is the making of an avatar transcribed. she describes how her relationship with the hive grew into something far more personal than a threat to her safety or sanitation. it's about the confusion that drops in on you at the beginnings of addiction and the combination of desire and sunk-cost that makes you want nothing more than to sink deep into its open arms and fully give yourself over to the only thing that says it can save you.

and throughout it all, she somehow makes this Crawling Rot — this mysterious thing that we know to be inherently gross and despicably filthy, that jeopardizes the security of the archives and its staff — sound hypnotic, in its own twisted way. enticing, even. that is the true horror. that is the most terrifying part, to me: that we are suddenly able to see where she is coming from. it's kinda like how jon spoke on how it unsettled him that the distortion said it wanted to help them instead of hurt them.

plus!!!!! i mean!!!!!! its so viscerally horrible and i love it!!!!!! its literally the corruption its the bending and destruction of things we find familiar and safe (ooOOo stranger and desolation overlap?) like its not just plain old disease and dirt yknow? its the SYMBOLISM of that disease and dirt and what it means to people whose lives become infected :3 love how jonny prolly went "hmm what are people afraid of? bugs? sickness? germs? what does that tie into? ah yes corruption" i feel like this specific statement was a great opportunity to really showcase how the corruption affects the mind and jonny maximized the writing to that effect. that was a lot of unnecessary words but basically what im trying to get at here is that jane prentiss's statement didnt reframe the corruption and her worms for me, it took the whole situation and flipped it on its head, upside down and inside out. it made the flesh hive seem so graceful.

umm not to mention the way the statement drops foreshadowing for the institute being eye-aligned omgomgogmgfndibf

EDIT...

OLIVER BANKS!!!!!!!!!! OOOOLLLLLIVERRR

edit 2 :3

I KNEW THAT IT WAS NOT SO SIMPLE AS TO CALL OUT TO WELL-TRODDEN GODS!!!!!!!!!!

god that line has stuck with me ever since i first heard it. it's SO GOOD. it is a perfect way of putting that feeling

RRRAAAAHHHH the web and the hive are so awesome when taken together

AND THIS. the Hive, more infinite than it can describe itself, is beautiful in a way most will never understand, for beauty is subjective. its indescribability alone is astonishing. the radiance of its power, seen as simple and dismissed without true understanding ever permeating its frothing membranes, is far more than we could ever deserve

i think this paragraph is just SO well done dude like go listen to it feel the impact of those words again because it's so raw: i see now why the hive hates you. you can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. you rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.

that bit was introduced and explained perfectly. its so satisfying nnnnrrrrrgggghhhhhfnkkffncnnfr

the sheer poetry of this series never fails to amaze me. oh my god

also i love how when jane is addressing gertrude it's done more vaguely so that it's almost like she could be talking to jon and the institute of the present day

poor jane she mustve been suffering for a very long time