#Therein lies the tragedy

[elapsed-spiral]

Also remain proud of:

[ardentpoop]

remember when sam signed up for the exact same fate with lucifer and everyone around him agreed that sacrificing himself was Correct since the apocalypse was His Fault

remember how he spent the entirety of s5 being made to feel utterly worthless and not a single person in his life intervened or even asked him how he was coping

remember how he DID spend an eternity trapped with lucifer and michael who had nothing to do to entertain themselves besides torture him (and adam, oops)

[macklesufficient]

i have watched. the latest episode of the vampire program.

[sohelish]

tfw you realise that Hel's father was basically doing eugenics stuff...

like idk why, but I think I never called it that? even though that's the thing. I guess I was just too focused on the family's interpersonal drama to label what her dad was doing lmao

[trisshawkeye]

I can't now find where I mentioned it earlier but I wanted to expand on a thought about Black Sails as a tragedy. It's not so much about individual characters reaching particular endings. Rather, I think the central tragedy is that there is this fight - this war against the world, against civilization itself, which is the driver for everything Flint does and arguably the entire plot - that then doesn't take place. The story goes right up to the brink of this conflict, and by the end it's not just Flint raging alone against the world with whatever pirates can be persuaded to follow him, but it's Madi and the slave revolt and an entire people driven by what has been done to them and to their ancestors, it's something so much bigger than the individuals involved, with potentially world-changing consequences, history-changing consequences, an entire overturning of the colonising powers in the Americas.

And therein lies the tragedy, because we know the history, and we know that this story isn't just a Treasure Island prequel, it's interwoven with historical individuals as well and places itself in that context, and invites us to imagine what could have been while at the same time haunted by the spectre of how history actually plays out. The tragedy is that the war never happened. We know from the beginning that the war against civilization could never have been won in this story, but it still invites the imagining - what if, what if?

And so the audience is forced into the position of Silver, who is confronted with this vision of the future so ardently pursued and believed in by Madi and Flint, and cannot imagine it playing out. Silver, because he never believed in this fight to begin with and only knows that he will lose the ones he loves to it; us, because no matter how much we may believe in the cause, we know that they don't win, that there never was a slave uprising and pirate revolt that overturned the entire New World. Silver cannot bring that future about. All he can do is end the story.

Black Sails asks us to imagine, what if the treasure was not just a chest of gold, but an entire possible future that was killed and buried in the ground on a lost and forgotten island?

[padawan-historian]

If you are talking about the human tragedy and climate disaster impacting Hawai’i ONLY in relation to tourism or your (postponed) vacation plans . . . therein lies the problem.

Hawai'i is not an "eat, pray, love" trip nor is she a cultural theme park.

Hawai’i is a collection of communities with deep indigenous roots and ancestral identities (many queer + colorful) that American + European colonizers once attempted to eradicate.

In the present day, empire-builders and colorblind colonizers are attempting to gentrify and commodify these ancestral spaces, not to benefit the indigenous, diaspora, and immigrant folks (folx) who steward and preserve those waterways and lands, but to protect the interests and properties of billionaires on vacation

Afronaut Note: This is not a discussion about policing language or shaming folks in your neighborhood who are sharing vacation pictures or lamenting their travel plans. This is about expanding our horizons to center decolonized, ancestral, and communal spaces. Imagine if after the Japanese tsunami (2011) or Hurricane Katrina (2005), people shared vacation pictures and complained about having to cancel their graduation trips.

Original post from @seedingsovereignty

——

"Our culture has to be the core of our mana." Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask (1949 – 2021)⁠

A leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement & a fearless leader.⁠

Her memory is needed during these times. ⁠

Support the People of Hawai’i

[vitospaghetta]

Leon's flirting in Infinite Darkness

This scene has, since day one, been one of my favorites in Infinite Darkness. The series did an excellent job at bringing a lot of aspects of Leon's character to the surface. Things we were already very familiar with, like his kind and attentive nature, but also darker aspects of his character he generally tends to keep hidden, such as his anger, his resentment, and the extent of his trauma regarding Raccoon City. What I love about this scene is that it is also a prime example of one of those darker aspects of Leon's character. One that is integral to understanding who he is as a person — his desperation.

I've seen the idea of his flirtation with Shen Mei in this scene being interpreted as platonic become popularized. For some people, choosing to ignore what is being presented here is easier than accepting that Leon S. Kennedy would ever be okay with going on a date with someone already in an established relationship. Though I think that idea discredits the deeply human sentiment present in this scene. As morally objectionable as Leon's actions are here, there's something incredibly authentic about them. Unknowingly, he's disclosing his desires, and not just sexual ones.

It's very clear that Leon is asking her out to dinner with romantic intent. This comes down to my own personal life experience, but I've come to understand this as a universal truth: when a man you hardly know asks you to do anything with him, it's a date. He is asking you out romantically, guaranteed. In the case of Leon in this scene, when you take the context of Shen Mei being in a relationship and Leon's lifestyle into account, you can paint a clear picture of him not only asking Shen Mei out on a date, but he's doing so to get his foot in the door, so-to-speak.

He's not looking for longevity, he's doing this with the sole intention of sleeping with her. That's why he disregards her relationship — approaches this with a shameless 'I'm willing to be the mistake she makes at least once' mentality — because he's not looking for a relationship. He's desperately yearning for pleasure; for the burdens of his life to melt away, even if the moment is fleeting. Even if it comes at the cost of someone else's relationship. An act of selfishness — something we don't often see from Leon — but desperation has a way of making people act impulsively. I think this speaks volumes about his character.

Leon lives a life that doesn't allow for him to be able to settle down. Given how compassionate and empathetic he is, he more-than-likely views relationships as impractical at best. He'd constantly feel like his happiness would come at the cost of his partner's, and that's not something he could live with, so he submits to loneliness. It's practical, it's fair, and it's the only option that makes sense given his career. A long-term committal relationship is just another opportunity his service to the government has taken from him, and while he can have it, he will not willingly drag someone else into a relationship that would surely be filled with disappointment to do so.

So instead, he seeks momentary pleasure. He flirts with women like Shen Mei and Hunnigan while on duty. He self-sabotages by pursuing emotionally unavailable women like Ada. One could argue that flirting with Shen Mei and Hunnigan are also him self-sabotaging, as they are also women that are most-likely going to reject him due to the professional nature of their relationship. He's going out of his way to avoid genuine connection, and therein lies the tragedy of it all.

At the end of the day, he craves normalcy. He yearns for a life he can't have and deeply resents being denied it. Moments like this are just displaying how Leon navigates the circumstances of his life, actively denying himself a happiness he is so deserving of, but deems as unfair to others. He wants to feel needed and appreciated in a way that makes him feel like anything other than a weapon pointed at the government's problems — to feel loved, in the most intrinsically human way possible, even if it's only for one night with someone and ultimately means nothing in the end.

This moment perfectly encapsulates something that has always been a crucial component of Leon's character, the extent of his tragedy — the lonely and isolating nature of a life he didn't choose.

[valtsv]

we don't know what VAL was like before she became VAL, and therein lies the tragedy of her, but something that eats at me is that what we do know of her life doesn't suggest that she was much better off before. i don't doubt that part of her motivation for joining the war effort was probably rooted in that hateful, ignorant patriotism that hurts everyone and everything it touches; misguided faith in the propaganda she was sold, and perhaps even a capacity for cruelty that already lay festering within long before her transformation. but she volunteered. she wasn't a soldier returning to the active duty she'd trained for. and even if she didn't know that she'd have her personhood flayed from her to make room for a god of lies, she knew she was signing up for war. and happy people, those who are genuinely content with their lot on life, aren't generally in a hurry to throw that all away to serve on the front lines. we hear in the podcast about how even the truly desperate are more afraid of conscription than of going hungry. which begs the question of how utterly miserable the woman who became VAL must have been, how desperately alone, to see signing up as her only way out.

[proosh]

the thing is I don’t even really think Gil recognises himself as a person and not some kind of dog or weapon or automaton and therein lies like 95% of his tragedies and weirdnesses as a personality

[foreststarflaime]

Ok so I was translating the Iliad for fun last night as one does and oh my god it’s them?? Genesis Rhapsodos is a homeric hero in this essay I will

“Sing to me, goddess, of the accursed wrath of Achilles son of Peleus, who caused countless pains for the Acheans, and sent forth many stout souls of heroes to Hades, and made them spoils to dogs and to every bird of prey, and the will of Zeus was accomplished, from when first the son of Atreus ruler of men and divine Achilles stood apart in strife.”

-Homer, Iliad, I.1-7 (translation is my own)

But like the more I think about it, the more it just…fits him perfectly? Strap in boys this turned into a long one, I’m putting my ‘useless’ degree to good use

So a huge drive for Homeric heroes is pursuit of kleos (κλέος, meaning glory), it’s what their societal values are built off of, and it’s what Genesis builds his life off of too. It’s why he can’t let himself coexist peacefully with Sephiroth—for Genesis’ glory to spread, it can’t be eclipsed by Sephiroth’s. Kleos is earned primarily through being remembered in song, and you don’t see Shinra making any propaganda with Genesis in it (at least disproportionately not as much as Sephiroth).

And that’s another thing—Genesis’ desperate will to live. A big part of the appeal of kleos is that it grants you a sort of immortality, to live forever in the minds of humanity as long as the songs about you persist. There is a way to earn kleos without being the best hero around, and it’s to be killed by the best hero around—in passages where heroes go on killing rampages, there’s little catalogues of everyone they kill, like little graveyards of poetry that let them live on after death. It’s not a dishonor to them, rather the opposite since they died bravely fighting someone they just couldn’t beat.

This isn’t the way Genesis wants to earn his kleos, though, and he’s desperately afraid of it. We see in his reaction to degredation that he will do anything to avoid his own death, lashing out against everyone in pain and fear. He wants more than anything not to die, but he doesn’t want to end up a footnote in the rampage of someone greater. He wants Achilles’ fame, but fails to see that this fame was conditional upon his death. The most famous part of Achilles’ story that survived, after all, was his heel.

And then there’s how his friends fit into the story. As you can see in the quote from earlier, Sephiroth fits well as the Agamemnon to Genesis’ Achilles. Agamemnon leads the assembled Greek forces because he has the most men, the most fame, but Achilles (putting aside the matter of whether he is or not) doesn’t want to be seen as inferior to him, and is infuriated when Agamemnon does something he sees as a slight against his kleos. From Genesis’ perspective, this fits Sephiroth exactly. From Sephiroth’s perspective, naturally this is not the case, but therein lies the problem—he’s in a different genre from Genesis, one that becomes incompatible when put in the context it’s in, and this dooms them to tragedy.

It’s a similar problem with Angeal. Honor and glory are similar enough to be the best of companions, but they are not the same thing, and it’s something that is easy to forget. The difference is most clear, again, in the context they’re in. Genesis is so busy chasing immortality in kleos that he forgets that honor is not immortality, and Angeal’s will to live fails when his honor does, and he loses him.

Angeal and Sephiroth are both their own genres, causing misunderstanding and ensuring the tragedy that occurs, but they fit in just enough with the context of Homeric heroes to not let Genesis see his mistake.

Important for him also is the definition of monster to a Greek—two different creatures mashed together in a way nature isn’t supposed to go. That’s it. And by that definition, he is a monster, though we’d still call him human by our definition. And that’s just…ouch. In the fundamental rules of his world, he is inarguably a monster.

But the tragedy of that is that he’s just so painfully human, as are all Homeric heroes—so horribly, humanly flawed in such a loud way that the world cannot ignore it, and is pulled down with him.

Okayy wrapping it up with a few fun facts because this is turning into the essay I didn’t mean it to be, his last name Rhapsodos (Ῥαψῳδός) is a Greek word that translates roughly to bard, and specifically to a bard that recites epic poetry. Like the Iliad. It’s so unbelievably perfect for him, good job square enix! And the fact that this quote from the Iliad has goddess instead of Muse like the Odyssey, it was fated! Also, not that noun genders really mean anything, but the Greek noun genesis (γένεσις) is actually feminine, so win for genderqueer Genesis propaganda

Anyway where did my afternoon suddenly go, this was supposed to be a short fun thing, I should really be working on my thesis (which coincidentally was inspired by him, I’m in too deep send help) if you read all this I love you forever lol bye

[rocks-in-space]

TRUE FRIENDS

1. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara // 2. "Ribs," Lorde // 3. "Catalog of Unabshed Gratitude," Ross Gay // 4. Unknown // 5. "Contradictions: Tracking Poems No. 28," Adrienne Rich // 6. @kit-tempo // 7. "Ribs," Lorde // 8. You Don't Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding Feminism, Alida Nugent // 9. "It Will Come Back," Hozier // 10. Unknown // 11. The Snow Queen, Hans Christen Andersen // 12. A History of My Brief Body, Billy-Ray Belcourt // 13. Us Against You, Fredrik Backman // 14. "The Essence of Peopling," Sarah Perry.

The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One web weaves:

Eursulon Suvi Ame

[Image IDs:

Image 1: Text reading, “Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn’t this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle?”

Image 2: Text in all caps reading, "You're the only friend I need / sharing beds like little kids / and laughing 'til our ribs get tough / but that will never be enough."

Image 3: Text reading, "I just want us to be friends now, forever. / Take this bowl of blackberries from the garden. / The sun has made them warm. / I picked them just for you."

Image 4: Text in all caps reading, "Let's go to the garden. / Let's be kids again. / I'll chase you if you / chase me."

Image 5: Text reading, "We'll dream of a longer summer / but this is the one we have: / I lay my sunburnt hand / on your table: this is the time we have."

Image 6: Text reading, "The trauma unmakes me at the end of the summertime,"

Image 7: Text reading, "This dream isn't feeling sweet / We're reeling through the midnight streets / And I've never felt more alone / It feels so scary getting old."

Image 8: Text reading, "You still crave lemonade, but the taste doesn’t satisfy you as much as it used to. You still crave summer, but sometimes you mean summer, five years ago."

Image 9: Text reading, "I've known the warmth of your doorways / through the cold, I'll find my way back to you."

Image 10: Text reading, "What now? What comes / after the tragedy? / What choice is there but to keep going, despite? / You remember the good times, I know you do. / That beautiful summer we met in. I've lost my / tenderness since then, don't you agree?"

Image 11: Text reading, "And they both sat there, grown up, yet children at heart; and it was summer, - warm, beautiful summer."

Image 12: Text reading, "To love someone is to firstly confess: I'm prepared to be devastated by you."

Image 13: Text reading, "The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways."

Image 14: Text reading, "In conclusion, drink tea, together with your friends; pay attention to the tea, and to your friends, and pay attention to your friends paying attention to the tea. Therein lies the meaning of life."

end ID.]

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! Thank you all for your generous work in the community! after s2 I need some really fluffy fanfic because I ache,

I need something very very fluffy, totally non-explicit, asexual, I love some fat aziraphale related fluff, maybe a length of 4k-50k? It can be more or less. I have read everything from ineffablefool. human au are preferable, but if it isn’t it’s also fine.

Anyway, thank you very much for your time, I appreciate all you do <3 :)

Hi! We have tags for all this: #fluff, #asexual, #chubby aziraphale, #human au. Here are some fics that may or may not have already been recommended...

with the help of a cat, or two by whicorzoo (G)

In which the cat in the window of the flat right across from Crowley's is unfairly perfect, so on a particularly whimsical night, he decides to put up a sign in his window to tell his neighbor as much. By morning, he's forgotten about it, until he sees it in his window and regrets the decision entirely. He expects to have his cool, intimidating facade never taken seriously again. He does not expect a response.

The Art of Human Nature by IneffableDoll (T)

Crowley is a painter who has only ever had an eye for nature. That is, until a client named Aziraphale commissions her for a painting to boost her self-confidence, and Crowley discovers that her client is as beautiful as the Earth itself. Then she goes and catches feelings, because she’s a disaster.

Therein Lies The Beauty by BlackUnicorn (NR)

After receiving an unexpected invitation to his brother’s wedding, an unfortunate realisation about his old suit, and the inconvenient news that his trusted tailor had closed down, Azra Fell finds himself in Devil’s Wear and his world turned upside down. OR Two trans tragedies accidentally steal each other's hearts and then simply never give them back.

Around the World in 80 Cakes by cookie_full_of_arsenic (T)

This is a queerplatonic love story between Aziraphale and Crowley. Or possibly between Aziraphale and cake. There will be recipes because I'm extra.

Across the Line by hope_in_the_dark (T)

Ezra is a student in his final year at University College London, and he’s in love with a man he’s never spoken to. For months, Ezra has been tipping (and pining after) a musician named Crowley every time he sees him. He thinks that Crowley hasn’t noticed him, but Crowley has. A love story that begins with, of all things, the saving and handing over of a book.

Do I wanna know? by KissMyAsthma (M)

Aziraphale and Anathema are both closeted queer people, and they decide to do what any sensible closeted queer people do - they form a fake relationship, to shut the mouths of their families and shoo away unwanted suitors. Their comfortable arrangement is put into question when a school reunion makes Aziraphale reconnect - or connect, really - with his school crush, Anthony Crowley. But past is past, and now that they’re both adults, Aziraphale is just glad to make a friend. If the friend finds himself interested in Aziraphale… Well, there’s nothing for him to do since Aziraphale is taken, right?

- Mod D

[notori]

Everything going on with Delilah right now is bringing me back to the emotional state at the end of C2 with BeauYasha and the red eyes. I spent the last however-many months of that campaign so stressed out of my mind because I thought the eyes would rip Beau and Yasha apart in tragedy and I so badly wanted for them to be happy.

These are very different ships, of course, but both involve people pulling themselves out of the muck to find love again when it seemed impossible. Laudna giving in to Delilah is much like an addict, and Beau continuing to read the book was integral to her curious nature. Both indulged in a type of compulsion that bit them in the ass.

But in the same vein, I feel like Delilah's presence is narratively very similar to the eyes. This device exists to stress the fuck out of the players, the characters, the audience - to cause angst and tension. But, like the eyes, like addiction in general, it is not a death sentence by itself. It is a fucking intense hurdle, but it can be overcome.

I am most afraid of Laudna dying (whether literally or on a mental/spiritual soul magic level) to Delilah because it would confirm to her, in character, what was supposed to be a funny joke out of character: That she was simply not designed to be loved. That would destroy me.

This isn't to criticize player choices! Honestly, brilliant RP and acting and wonderful storytelling. It's just the gamble you have with TTRPGs because it's impossible to know how it ends. Even the DM has only a framework and an idea, the players and the dice do the rest. We can't just flip to the end of the book to know if there's a happy ending, we can't ask our friend who watched the series last year if it has a happy ending. We just have to gamble with our emotions and the story and therein lies the rush. But omfg. I need this to end well - regardless of the middle where there's all the Delilah fuckery - I need it to be something they overcome rather than lose to.

[picturejasper20]

I found a pretty good character analysis of Vlad's character on Danny Phantom subreddit from user RagnarDethkokk that summarizes his character pretty well and it mostly gets well the point of his tragedy as a villain in the show. (It is from around three years ago)

¨When I watched the show as a teenager back in the day, I didn't look too far past the cartoonishly evil figure that is Vlad in the show. But with the benefit of time, there's a lot I picked up on that I wasn't seeing before. Though Vlad is obsessed with Maddie, along with gaining power and control, at his core it seems what he really wants to be loved and to have a family. Throughout most of the show he shows this by wanting to adopt Danny as a surrogate son so he can teach him and shows genuine happiness the few times Danny pretends to accept him. Also with his surprisingly touching relationship with his cat Maddie. He primarily used his powers evilly, for selfish gain, but the strange thing is he really didn't need to (at least, not past maybe gaining some seed money for his own company.) Based on his lab, ghost portal, cloning experiments, and the equipment he provided to both Valerie and later the Masters' Blasters, he's clearly a genius and a highly competent inventor and engineer. When you take away the ghost powers, he's basically a more suave version of Elon Musk who really likes the Packers. He blames Jack for the accident that caused his powers, when he really should have been thanking him (something he finally does acknowledge in "Phantom Planet.") Obviously, it has more to do with the fact that Jack ended up with Maddie, whom Vlad deluded himself into thinking he had ever had a chance with, ghost accident or not. Thing is, I know what it's like to be in love with someone who doesn't love you back (sadly most of us do.) It really does poison you and the way you treat people (especially the one who "stole" them from you) but ultimately it's on you to move on and recognize that you have to look for happiness elsewhere. Therein lies the true tragedy. If he could have found it in himself to let go of the woman who didn't love him back, he would have had an amazing and fulfilling life. He's a silver fox billionaire, it's not like his dating prospects would have been lacking. He could have easily had a family and children of his own, if he so wanted. More to the point, he also would have been a welcome and happy part of the Fenton family as well. All Vlad ever had to do was be the guy Jack Fenton believed he was (right up until the final act of "Phantom Planet" anyway,) and he would have been so happy. He'd have had two best friends, and visits from "Uncle Vlad" would have been relished by both Jazz and Danny. He could have provided mentoring and positive role-modeling to both of them, for Jazz's school/career ambitions and Danny's superhero life. And he even acknowledges all of this (not in so many words) in "The Ultimate Enemy", where it's shown that both by losing his ghost powers (although personally I really think it was less about simply not having them and more about not using them to be a selfish asshole) and caring for a Danny who came to him willingly, Vlad realizes his mistake. I think this proves that the spark of "Vladdy", the guy who Jack Fenton thought the world of and would do almost anything for at the drop of a hat, was still buried deep in there the whole time. Side Note: Someday, I would love to see these characters revisited in a live-action adaptation, but with more adult tones. And if they did that, I personally, would prefer a genuine arc for Vlad that shows him coming to his senses and becoming a valuable and beloved member of the family rather than his megalomania and cheesy villainhood ultimately resulting in him ending up alone and adrift in space, hated by everyone on Earth including the people he cares about the most. It's a fitting ending for a tragic figure, but I think in general it'd be interesting to see a version of the show where all of the recurring ghost figures are less 1-dimensional generic evil props and more complex characters, with the chance to dive into their backstories and either eventually find a way they can co-exist with humans or be helped to move on intead of just repeatedly "getting banished to the ghost zone until next time, DANNY PHANTOM!" ¨

Link to the post:

[toooldforthisbutstill]

So, since I got two different translations of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, I decided to start by reading the older one - from 1947 - which is an abridged version, it seems. And I find the translators (they were two) note at the beginning... quite puzzling.

Like, drawing parallels between Anne Brontë and her heroine is one thing, but deciding to re-name the book La Recluse de Haworth is another. ("It is not betrayal, but quite the opposite, for the sake of faithfulness" wut)

Then there's the way of presenting the characters and the story itself...

"(Arthur) is the scapegoat. Anne wants to depict a rascal, a gambler, a lecher who will die from his vices.

Truth be told, Anne doesn't really manage to get this point across. Arthur Huntingdon is likeable, even more so during the scenes of his agony when Helen's true nature is revealed with a scary harshness.

Arthur's biggest crime, let's say it, is loving women. More serious: Arthur is amorous, a lover. Helen wouldn't be able to forgive it. She could do with 'less caressing and more rationality'. Everything is an excuse to deny him, with virtuous satisfaction! the conjugal room. The myth is crystal clear."

Of Markham, they said:

"Anne has wanted to confer (Gilbert Markham) manly virtues and rectitude. However, he's almost dull and he provokes, insults, knocks out savagely a friend he mistook for a rival. Anne spends a lot of time on this aggression. Her pleasure is obvious and her motive no less clear: Gilbert, the devoted admirer, bows down before Helen Graham, who dominates him with her personality"

About Helen:

"It can be said that, by giving life to her heroine, Anne Brontë made a desperate effort to free herself. In vain. Helen Graham doesn't love. She stays haughty, despising, stuck in her pride, in herself, recluse. Therein lies her tragedy."

Then come words of praise for the novel, and as a conclusion:

"This novel is a delight to the reader, to the psychanalyst, a document."

Well. I don't know yet about the novel, that's true, but I'm sure this note is already some kind of document.

[myfandomscollide]

Some TMA thoughts.

One of the greatest things that I enjoy in regards to The Magnus Archives is the meta tragic humor that is the existence of Elias Bouchard. I don't mean to belittle his importance to the plot and certainly recognize that his situation was unfortunate. It's funny how everyone views Jon Sims as the antichrist, when this also applies to Elias too. He was certainly just as chosen for a role as much as Jon was.

To those people angry about the synced ao3 tags of Elias and Jonah, therein also lies tragedy. The funniest thing about that situation is the fact all the blame, hatred, disgust, and fear, all falls back on a name; the final remnant of a person who cannot and could not fight back. In universe, it's a corruption of great proportions, the usurpation of a man unprepared for what he sought. Jonah wholesale subsumed Elias's life, and this ripple effects the way we view Elias in real life. Concurrently it is another twist of a knife that drives further irritation deeper when one attempts to assign the proper credit for the events transpired. Deliberate misattribution of critical events is horrifying too and is so effortlessly executed by Jonah, almost like an inverse plagiarism. Seeing people frustrated about that in tagging delights me in a way, that if one chooses to engage meta-contextually, the acts perpetrated by Jonah bleed upwards into our reality and afflict it too. Continuing to hate Elias in general, you perpetuate the narrative established by Jonah. The Magnus Archives as a podcast written by Jonny Sims is creative and all the more chilling as a result.