#but kept delaying the post bc there were so many good posts that people were making!

[the-real-couchrat]

@toothpastecanyon proposed the idea of a post-apocalypse dragon Mizar, and it was too good to resist! May I present;

MIZAR THE MIGHTY!!!!!

Info and more versions below the cut!

Her name Mezra (might be changed later)

She hoards glitter

Lives in an abandoned “Michelles” (in-universe-Michaels”)

Sleeps in the yarn section

Sleeps with a few glitter bottles, they spill a lot

Keeps the feast of her hoard in a different section

Friendly

Always has glitter in her scales (she likes it)

Sometimes has yarn tangled in her horns

She paints her claws (all of them) with the gold acrylic paint

Those scale patterns under her eyes are natural

Her spikes are a little bit uneven (like in the headshot)

Literally leaves a trail of glitter when she drags her tail

She does not sleep like in the picture, she rolls constantly, which is how she gets so much glitter on her

Deep sleeper

Lonely :( all the humans are scared of her

Daydreams a lot

Likes exploring areas close to home (like forests, or deep caves with lots of space)

Loves the way her scales glint in the sun, but prefers night flying because she can see the lights of the human (and other) villages. She would say hi, but she knows they would probably attack her.

Loves cloud-gazing, and flying through fog

Very excited to meet Alcor, they get along great, and she’s happy to have a friend. He wingmans (?) for her when she’s trying to befriend villages

Alcor often uses a dragon form around her (like 50/50) because I headcannon that he will tweak his appearance if a Mizar is a different species, or just looks drastically different.

Mezra loves his humanoid form, because she can pick him up and make fun of him

Her favorite food are the goats that hang around a few minutes flight from the Michelles

Because she’s a dragon, and hasn’t had much socialization, she has a lot less reservations about killing people.

It’s more of a “I think we’re gonna have to kill this guy, Mezra” “Aw man” situation.

Notes on the current era:

The apocalypse happened around 12,000 years after the transcendence.

The apocalypse was caused by a magic storm, which wiped out a TON of humanity (and other sapient species), throwing the survivors into a medieval-esque era. ( think Wizard of Lanata, I love that fic btw)

Because of the magic storm, almost all man-made settlements (towns,cities,buildings,anything really) were destroyed, except for very few patches here and there there, which is how the Michelles still exists.

Mezra hatched around 200 years post apocalypse

Alcor is in a silly crazy cycle, so there’s not really much angst despite him being really old.

More versions:

Mezra’s personality is still a work in progress, but she’s basically the embodiment of my ADHD. She has similar traits of Mabel, but different behaviors.

[spongebob-connoisseur]

"uUhHh AcTuaLLy sTePhEn HiLLeNbUrG wOuLd'Ve HaTeD-" no literally just stfu

the staff are trying their best to make an entertaining show and he would be very proud of how they added their own touch to his show PLUS this show is literally hurting nobody they're just switching things up a lil bit

but yeah go off about how the show hasn't been as good as the eps you saw 20 billion years ago when you were literally in the target demographic bc the creator is dead and his friends/co-workers are """ruining his legacy"""

yeah real mature argument you got there buddy 😐

Tbh ur right but also I'm mildly confused if you mean this as a general response to the fans or me specifically because I used to be against the spinoffs and stuff years ago though I realize I was wrong and I love the spinoffs now but my old posts are still out there :/

Still I agree, Hillenburg left the show in the hands of the crew, particularly people who worked on the show since the beginning. He never said no spinoffs, he said he didn't see any, this interview that's often misquoted is from almost 15 years ago. Even the ex crew members who were critical of the spinoffs said cartoon reviewers twisted their words.

We do know Hillenburg was involved with kamp koral. Literally the 3rd movie was in CGI as a test to see how CG would work since Hillenburg was skeptical of it but he ended up liking it. The 3rd movie was in production since 2016, Hillenburg was CERTAINLY involved in it. The movie was originally set to come out in 2019 but kept being delayed. It did finally come out in 2020 but a year delay isn't enough to create the whole kamp koral concept. It was conceived while Hillenburg was alive. We KNOW so because the literal concept of Spongebob going to camp was his idea. Hillenburg loved camping and thr outdoors. It was something personal to him. It's actually really unfair how much the show gets dragged due to misinformation and inflammatory statements done by cartoon reviewers. I'm not a fan of kamp koral but I'm being honest when I say it was treated REALLY unfairly.

All this drama about Hillenburg's legacy ended up causing so much damage. Do you have any idea how many crew members were harassed and sent death threats over this? Some privates their social media, some abandoned their social media. Someone said Spongebob fans are the sonic fans of cartoons. Tbh I don't think they're that bad but they honestly have a shitty track record that are sometimes ENCOURAGED by some cartoon reviewers. I've been into the show's online fandom since I was 13, you cannot believe how many times there was drama over fans sending death threats to the writers. I can't even count it on my fingers.

People wonder why the Patrick Star Show made fun of cartoon reviewers but y'all don't know how hostile some people were.

Also for the record I'm not against being critical of the show. I've done so many times in the past myself. But at the end of the day, this show is people's jobs, they have their own lives, be respectful and be reasonable. Of course this is the internet so those two qualities are hard to find on here but I'm just saying.

[djemsostylist]

It's been a few days and I've read a lot of takes and had a lot of long talks with @lolo-deli and I'm firm on where I stood Thursday. People who are pro this new season have been busy with PR, and I've seen the same points over an over. 1. We don't know why they broke up, we don't know what they both did, 2. we can't blame Eda, 3. we will get to see them fall in love again, 4. we will see Serkan with a second pregnancy, and perhaps the key, 5. we needed a reset. Oh, and 6. their daughter will bring them back together. Last season was a mess and we needed a blank slate. I'd like to address these points, if for no other reason than it will make me feel better.

You are correct. We don't know why they broke up. The most popular theory seems to be "Serkan pushed her away", which I think is both because it can make Eda "not the bad guy" and also because he has done it before. I'm not going to belabor the point, but we have spent the rest of the series since then showing a Serkan who learned from that mistake has been willing to anything to be with her. I know amnesia Serkan was a mess--but he also had fucking amnesia. And once he was back, we got back our soft boy who wanted nothing more than to be with her. If they have him push her away, it's for plot reasons, not character ones. So maybe Eda reaches a breaking point. Okay, over what? Him not telling her about the tumor? That's her last straw? She endured everything else, but him delaying telling her about the tumor is the last straw? Does she leave him while he's dying? In treatment? Sees him through and leaves him after? I think no matter how you look at it, for them to break up after all they have been through makes no sense to me. Why would they? As I said in a previous post, what could worse than what they have already endured? In any case, either of them leaving the other, again, means I'm forced to wonder why we would ever want them BACK together. If something happens to break them up for 5 years, then obviously it's not meant to be. If they can't figure out a way to make it work after all they have been through, what would five years of bitterness and stewing do to make either of them ready for a relationship together? (And the teaser makes it pretty clear they *are* bitter.) Instead of seeing a counselor, trying to work through their communication and trust issues, if their choice is always "run and dump" and they've learned nothing in 39 episodes, then what is the point anymore? This is not a second chance romance. This is a toxic relationship I no have an investment in.

We can't blame Eda. Look, I get no one wants to hate Eda. I don't want to hate Eda. My girl has been through hell and back, and she's endured a lot for love of this man. I'd have supported her leaving in 15. I'd have supported her deciding not to trust him in 20. I'd have even supported her leaving towards the end of his amnesia, if she thinks there is no hope. But I'd argue the fact that she stayed, that she worked through her issues with him after 15 and chose to be with him means she knows what she's getting into. She knows who he is at his core, and if he was worth all the pain she went through in the 30s then yes, we very much CAN blame Eda. Even if Serkan broke up with her, pushed her away, I very much can and do blame her for keeping his child. I've seen people say there was a miscommunication, that she tried to tell him and he wouldn't listen, maybe he says he doesn't want kids. I'd argue that if he did, it was because he was dying, otherwise why a sudden 180 from Serkan-I-Want-To-Build-A-Library-For-Our-Children Bolat to "no kids?". Which she should find weird and also realize the cause. Again, it would be for plot reason only. Regardless of what happened between them, the second there is a child involved, to quote @lolo-deli you put on your big girl pants and learn to fucking communicate. Even they aren't together, doesn't mean they can't raise a child together. Unless he's a drug lord or a mafia boss or a serial killer, together or not, he deserved to know about his daughter. He deserved the chance to be in her life from the minute Eda knew. Period. I'm not going to cry for Eda's pain of raising her daughter alone in Italy when she literally could have just told him, and you know he would have moved the moon to make sure his daughter felt safe and loved. At least, the Serkan I know. And the Eda I know would not have let him push her away without letting him know about a baby. Not a girl who knows firsthand what it's like to grow up without a father. So I'm sorry, but if we were hating Serkan for being asshole when he had amnesia and we were hating Aydan for keeping secrets...then I'm hating Eda for keeping a child and a father apart. I'm tired of the "all men are trash and boss queen" all or nothing mentality. I really, truly am.

Look, at no point do I want to have to watch Serkan Bolat fall in love with Eda (again) or his daughter. I've already seen him and Eda do that before, I spent 39 fucking episodes on that. And having to watch Serkan fall in love with his daughter because he didn't get to know her from birth is about the most depressing, least romantic, and most heart wrenching thing I could possibly imagine. This isn't a baby, like so many people keep saying. It's a child. A whole entire formed person and Serkan doesn't know her. Because Eda kept a secret. I hate it.

And it doesn't matter if he gets to see the second pregnancy, bc he still missed the first, and every single thing will be a reminder of that. And I don't know how Serkan, who has always felt unworthy (and justified or not is what led to most of the problems in their early relationship) gets over the fact that Eda thought so little of him that she would rather have her daughter grow up without a father than attempt to get in contact with him and let him have a role in her life. I just don't. That's soul crushing. "Am I such a horrible person that you didn't even want her to know me?" As much as I don't want Eda to suffer anymore, I also don't want Serkan to either. Maybe that makes me an antifeminist. Sue me.

Look, last season was a fucking mess. No one is denying that. Part of it is on the writers, part of it is on the producer who kept hiring and firing writers, part of it is on the fact this show should have ended 20 episodes ago. And I hated the 30s, have no desire to watch them again. But the thing is, you can't ignore the episodes that have been written. As much as we want to. Things happened--and that includes character growth, promises made, words said. You can't just do a reset. And I'd argue that breaking up a couple that said they would do everything in their power to make each other happy, who got rings tattooed on their hands as a sign of never, ever being a part again, wouldn't just break up and not see each other for five years. At some point, it becomes toxic. Lack of communication, selfishness, immaturity, stubbornness--do we even want these people together if something was so awful they separated for 5 years and Eda kept a whole baby a secret? Five years is a long to be apart and not once thing about making amends until they are forced into it. What is the point of that reset?

I hate this. So, what, if Eda hadn't randomly brought their child to an awards ceremony and the girl hadn't happened to see Serkan, then they never would have attempted to get back together? It's not like they couldn't get in contact with each other. How is the fact that without their kid (which Serkan didn't even know existed) they would never have reconciled a cute plot?

Let's not argue that this isn't anything other than it is--a ploy to bring in new fans and/or try and get old fans back on the part of the producer. If someone can explain like I'm 5 how this plot is good, I'll listen. But to quote a tweet I saw, you can't use the words angst, pain, suffering, or heartache, because those are not good reasons. You also can't say "but last season" bc I know. I was there. Last season sucked. I get it. It's not a reason to not even attempt a happy ending.

For now, I'll leave it at this. If your kind of love story is two people who have learned nothing, who only know how to fight and hurt each other and break up and think nothing of using a child as a pawn, than I'm happy for you. This season sounds great. But you can't convince me this was necessary, you can't convince me this was "always the plan", you can't convince me this will be anything other than pain, heartbreak, and a way to try and milk SCK for all it's worth before they are forced to cancel or Hanker finally says "we're done."

[aion-rsa]

Better Call Saul Confronts Its Legacy in Season 6

https://ift.tt/3gM97md

As Better Call Saul heads into its sixth and final season, the AMC hit has found a way to carve out its own path beyond the enormous shadow of its big brother, Breaking Bad. The series combines incredible cinematography, outstanding acting, and intelligent storytelling in a peerless fashion. 

As we continue to anticipate the show’s final episodes, we were lucky enough to get the chance to talk with executive producer Thomas Schnauz about how much the drama has already accomplished, how instrumental actors like Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton have been to the program’s success, and what the show’s lasting legacy will hopefully be. 

Den of Geek: Do you have any inklings of information on whether AMC is going to split the sixth season into two parts? This has been a rumor for quite some time and I know Peter Gould said he had hoped it would be aired as a single entity. 

Thomas Schnauz: I don’t know. Because of the COVID delays, and then Bob’s heart attack and recovery, I have zero idea when or how the episodes will be aired. Everything with production is moving forward, steady but slow. We’re filming scenes that don’t involve Bob right now. I just finished editing my director’s cut of episode 607, and I addressed some notes on my script for 611. I’m still waiting to hear the dates of when I’ll prep and direct 611.

Heading into the final season, Better Call Saul is different from a lot of other shows in that we already know what Jimmy McGill’s fate is going to be. What we don’t know is what Gene Takovic’s closure represents. How much more prevalent will those scenes be in the sixth season?

We will of course address Gene’s future, but I’m not at liberty to say how much or how little will be in the show. We talked about it a ton when we were breaking the episodes, and all we writers can do is go with our gut about how much Gene we see. Everyone chimed in with thoughts, and Peter Gould had the ultimate choice, and I think he picked an amount that we’re all happy with.

The fifth season of the show got a lot more action-oriented than past installments as Jimmy and Kim themselves go a little too close to the cartel. Can we expect the violence to be ramped up even more in the final season? How do you balance keeping the same tone the show has always had while realizing that things change as you get close to the finish line?

We don’t really pay attention to matching the tone or the amount of violence that came before in previous seasons. We just do what’s right for the current story. The show has always been violent in my eyes, since season 1, with Tuco and the skate twins, Nacho’s threats to Jimmy, Mike in Philly… and also emotionally violent, with Chuck betraying his brother. So there will be more physical and emotional violence in season 6, but I can’t swear that it’s any more than we had before. We’re coming to the end, so whatever happens will probably hit harder.

Many people have come to view Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) as the best antagonist in the entire Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. Will his role be even larger in the final season than before and do you and the other writers regret not bringing the character into the fold earlier in the series? 

Season 5 felt really special to me. I just felt like we were clicking on all cylinders, and Tony Dalton was a big part of that. We certainly talked about bringing in the character Lalo as far back as season 1, but now with 20/20 hindsight it feels he came in at the perfect time. I can’t say if Lalo’s role will be bigger or smaller in season 6, but he was certainly pissed off and a man on a mission in the season 5 finale.

Last season you wrote one of the most acclaimed episodes in the series, “Bad Choice Road”. How much of the iconic scene with Lalo interrogating Jimmy and Kim at home came from your own imagination and how much of it was a group effort from the whole team? 

We writers all work together on all of the episodes, and it’s just too hard to remember who came up with what beat/line/idea. On my Twitter page (@tomschnauz) I post the boards that we work on (index cards with all the story beats), which is a good indication of what we came up with in the room. I want to say that I did pitch the Lalo interrogation technique of having your prisoner repeat the same story over and over until there’s a discrepancy, but I can’t swear to it. When it comes time to write, we use the cards to help guide us, so the “writer” of the episode puts his/her spin onto it, but even after that, a writer will sit with Peter and often another writer to either streamline or, sometimes, bulk up a scene if it’s feeling thin.

Did anybody realize what an asset Kim Wexler was going to be to Better Call Saul when the show first started? Was it always the intent to make her a de-facto lead, or did Rhea Seehorn impress so much that it just came about naturally as the plot and the themes kept progressing and calling for exploration of her character?

We had zero idea what Kim’s role would be in the series. In fact, I think the writers were still debating into season 2 if Kim and Jimmy had an intimate relationship prior to us meeting her in season 1, or were they just friends? I wrote the line about the “sex robot voice” in episode 3, so I was in the camp of: “they started something but career took over and it didn’t quite go anywhere.” We knew Rhea was good when we saw her audition tape, but then seeing her in the role as we were filming season 1 — all the nuance, the humor, the gleam in her eyes — we knew we had a special combination with her and Bob. 

Read more

TV

Better Call Saul: Rhea Seehorn Shares Her Favorite Kim Theory in Exclusive New Clip

By Alec Bojalad

TV

Better Call Saul Season 5 Reveals Kim Wexler’s Heart of Darkness

By Alec Bojalad

These actors share that indescribable thing when you watch them — when the characters struggle against a system stacked against them, you root for them, but then… when they start “breaking bad” and doing things they shouldn’t, you still root for them!  Maybe you’re not rooting for them to succeed in the horrible thing they’re doing, but you’re still with them and shouting, “No, turn back!  Don’t get caught!”  So, to answer the question, the series is what it is and Kim is who she is because Rhea worked so hard and brought so much to the character. It definitely helped the writers make choices about where the plot should go.

What do you want Better Call Saul to be remembered for What element should be considered its lasting legacy? Do you think this has been a show that has the ability for people to continue to discover for many years to come?

When we started this show, I thought we’d have very limited viewership — a small percentage of the people who watched Breaking Bad. I would have been thrilled with 50% of that audience. But I’ve been delighted to meet and hear from fans who have never seen the original show. I’m hoping people will go back and rewatch both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul because of the way we wrote them: we didn’t go in with an overall plan, and when we finished writing one episode, we weren’t exactly sure what was going to happen next. 

So the writing was a struggle and we put ourselves into tight corners, and when searching for an answer for these problems we created, we were often surprised, and I hope that comes through in the viewing. The plot is not predictable, and the answers are hard to get to, so I hope both series stand up to repeated viewing.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Better Call Saul season 6 is expected to premiere in 2022. Check back with Den of Geek tomorrow for more BCS tidbits from Thomas Schnauz. 

The post Better Call Saul Confronts Its Legacy in Season 6 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3zAgjt8

[gallickingun]

bnhabookclub’s rules were plagiarized.

when creating the archive/club blog and server, i was looking at other fandom archive blogs, event blogs, fandom servers, writing servers, and the like, and they all seemed to have similar rules. that doesn’t make what i did right. 

I PLAGIARIZED THE SOUTHSIDEARCHIVE’S RULES WHEN CREATING THE BNHABOOKCLUB. 

my intent was not malicious. regardless of how i felt about alisha/rivendell101 (even though i had never once sent her anonymous hate, made vague posts about her, or was nasty to her in the ssa server or in bnhabc, and never directly had any drama/issues with her), there was no mean intent behind this. i know there’s nothing i can say at this point to make anyone believe that, but i know it’s the truth. and that’s enough for me. i created the bc with the intent to bring writers and content creators together to grow and support one another. that’s it. i didn’t do it out of the nasty hatred of my heart to see anyone else not succeed. i didn’t do it to try and put anyone on top of anyone else, or to push anyone else to the bottom. i just wanted people to be able to work together to have a good time and to improve and get inspired. 

regardless of intent, the end result is still the same. the rules on both the server and the blog were plagiarized from the ssa. 

i apologize for my prior actions and silence. originally, in alisha’s post, she told me she did not want my apology, so i incorrectly assumed that meant there was no need to address the situation because she deliberately stated that there was no need for a response. regardless, i should have done the right thing and owned up to everything from the start. i apologize for that. 

i also want to apologize for the post where someone asked where bookclub came from/originated. i reached out to a mod in another bnha server and asked if we could have more things like the writer bot for sprinting to help create community and hype over each other’s stories. they denied that request because they didn’t want the environment to become to competitive. after that, i started working towards creating an intricate server with a points and rewards system, a fic archive to support other writers (because i had seen all of the upset regarding silent readers lately - originally there was only going to be the discord server alone), bots that were coded by a computer/software engineer (and that we paid to host), etc. i was in several servers at the time, and they all ran very similarly, so i incorrectly believed that there was no need to credit for things such as rules because other servers/blogs were all using the same type of guideline for what they deemed necessary to create a list of rules. i know better now. 

again, regardless of intent or ignorance, i should have reached out and requested permission to format the rules like the ssa’s. 

the fact that people are using my private messages, sent in the heat of the moment when i was upset, and also out of context, is frankly frustrating. i’ve admitted several times that the person i was around march-june is someone who i loathe. i was petty, i was rude, i was flippant, and i was not myself. i’m not going to blame my mental health, i’m taking ownership of my actions during that time. but that does not mean that is who i am now, months later, after a lot of self reflection, therapy, and intervention from very dear friends of mine. as i stated before, i appreciate being given the ability to grow and learn from these experiences and friendships i’ve had for the past few months.

regarding delaying letting alisha into the bookclub, we weren’t going to let new members in until june 1st. as per her post, she was let in around may 23-25, with everyone else. i would never delay bringing in a new member purely off of personal bias alone. and i’m sorry for the fact that those ss made it seem that way. and regarding her being blocked on tumblr, that was after a (ex)friend of mine warned me that alisha might be the person sending me anonymous hate and i just felt uncomfortable having her on my dash with access to my blog. i do not have her blocked on discord, either. there was nothing personal about it. and the allegations that i’m gatekeeping the bnha/hq fandom are frankly ridiculous. even the person in those ss that i ranted to liked/reblogged/commented/recommended alisha’s fics. alisha has a higher follower count than me, her fics get more notes. depending on how you measure success, you could say that she’s literally a more successful blogger/writer than me, based on notes and engagement alone. nothing i did ever kept anyone from reading her fics and interacting with them. i can also recognize her talent. she deserves those notes, she’s a wonderful writer. i legit have had conversations and ss where i’ve stated this, if she would like the proof. 

there is no “NDA” needed to be signed prior to getting into the server, either. i made that announcement because people were upset that these hate blogs are using their messages they send in a private server as ammunition with disregard to how it might make them feel, and also without their consent. it’s not fair or right to use ss of things people say in the privacy of a server to further your agenda. i recognize that i did this in order to address the anonymous hate being sent to me a few weeks ago, which i only did in response to people requesting the “full story”, but i have since deleted the post. if people want to talk about the way they feel to the public, then that’s fine, but discord servers are private places for people to explore their thoughts, desires, and ideas. and i believe they should be kept private. and frankly, the person who is sending these screenshots can just... not let the door hit them on the way out. you’re not welcome if you’re going to lurk, take ss, and not address your issues directly.

i’m going to pin this post, because i do still have my queue running as i’m on semi-hiatus outside of prior obligations such as collabs and matchups, and it will get buried eventually. and this needs to be seen and heard and addressed. i’m not going to answer anonymous hate, i don’t condone anonymous hate being sent, and frankly, if these exposing blogs want to rip apart this post then they’re more than welcome. i feel genuinely horrible for everyone i’ve hurt in the process of all of this, intentionally or unintentionally. i know what it’s like battling mental illness, and i sincerely hope that no one has been triggered or incapable of managing their anxiety throughout this process.

as stated prior, the bookclub is undergoing a full makeover, estimated to be completed by 9/30. this was already started behind the scenes, since we’ve made so many changes to channels, rules, content, roles, etc.. there is going to be nothing remaining from the prior servers without their explicit consent. i really appreciate the time to grow and learn and adjust what’s necessary in order to get everything on the right track.

[fmdrohan]

hello, hi ! 👋🏽  i hope this introduction post finds everyone well. ♡ i’m no one new to these parts, but for those of you who don’t know me, you can call me alé. i’m 21+, use he/him pronouns, and i’m the current typist for aria’s main vocalist, nina seo, & now, i’m bringing you all yet another muse. so, without further delay, i’d love to introduce you to brand-new creation of mine called 𝖞𝖔𝖔 𝖗𝖔𝖍𝖆𝖓. he is knight’s main dancer, sub vocalist, and rapper, as well as their currently marketed “sexy” member. outside of his career, he’s honestly just one big douche-bag skater kid that seeks cheap thrills, and who wants to do nothing more than put a smile on your face... even if causes him trouble sometimes. more info about him is below the cut, so please like this to plot ! ♡ tumblr im’s or discord by request.✨ 

𝖍𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖞.

born in seoul, south korea, to a working class, christian family.

mom was a manager at a local restaurant, dad worked at a law firm.

both of them were busy all the time; they lived paycheck-to-paycheck.

he didn’t get much attention at home, so he sought it out at school.

there, he was known as a a huge “class clown” or “class daredevil.”

all he wanted was to put smiles on people’s faces and push limits.

did he end up in the principal’s office a lot? YES, that was his “brand.”

as he got older, his class clownery turned to pranks and thrill-seeking.

he also became HELLA interested in skateboarding and parkour lmao.

rohan felt as if he wasn’t living if he wasn’t on constantly on the edge.

he’s broken a few bones, endured tons of scrapes, but never gives in

this, obviously, didn’t please his mother and father... they were just busy.

too busy to reprimand him and care—rohan got away with a loooot of shit.

he didn’t start receiving discipline until he was scouted by bc entertainment.

despite his messy hair, distinct style, and overall vibe, he fit the bill somehow.

the two years he spent in practice changed him a little as a person; for better.

he found a new love in dancing, and he was naturally pretty great at it tbh.

his background made him extremely coordinated, flexible, and really strong.

his fearlessness made him bold enough to try out new moves or stunts.

two years later, he débuted as a main dancer and kept his impulses at bay.

this isn’t exactly what he saw himself doing in life, but he wasn’t mad at it.

over time, his image began to shift into sexier and “stud-lier” territory.

his outfits became more revealing and he was treated differently in public.

this... fucks him up a lot because it’s the exact opposite of how he is.

he’s just some skater / parkour punk that gives off dumb big bro vibes.

how on earth do they expect him to be portray and convey sexy 24/7?

as this is more of a “job” to him than passion, he does what they tell him to.

so long as his checks get signed and he accumulates wealth, he’s good.

𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞.

as mentioned above, rohan gives off very douchey “big brother” vibes.

he’ll pick on you, tease you, pull pranks on you, etc. all in the name of fun.

he’ll go too far sometimes, and he’ll feel bad, but has “no regrets.” 😎  lol.

lowkey loooves anime and draws his own bad sketches; also into sci-fi.

underneath the dumb, douchebag exterior is just a big ol’ nerd, that’s all.

if you’re a cute guy, he’ll DEFINITELY flirt with you—taken or not taken lol.

he’s someone that hasn’t really let being an idol ruin his personal life tbh??

he still does whatever the fuck he wants within the constraints of his contract.

though, whenever he gets “bored,” he does things he’s not supposed to.

bc entertainment’s warned him of being careful not to injure himself, but...

i don’t really think he cares at this point in his career; he likes more freedom.

little random, but he loooves underground / indie rock music and rap, too.

one of those assholes that doesn’t really listen to any other idol music lmao.

to be fair though, he’s not really a massive fan of knight’s music either. 😁

he just sings or raps whatever they tell him to and rolls with the punches.

lowkey wants to take up tattooing and graffiti at some point, he’s that guy.

loooves to talk and meet new people, even if they find him a li’l annoying.

whenever he’s stressed, angry, upset, hungry... he shows it with aggression.

it’s never gotten intense much, but he’s not much of a sensitive “crier” yk.

there’s more of him for me to discover as time goes on, so that’s it for rn!

𝖕𝖑𝖔𝖙-𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖘.

no plots page yet, sry :/// i’ve been a little busy this week rip.

some ideas will be below though so lmk if they appeal to you!

one, he’s definitely known to ghost people, so... maybe your muse is one of ‘em? like, this would be locked to males in the lgbt community, but you know. give him some really awkward encounters to make him feel like shit for ditching you after tons of sweet talk. sad thing is, he’s aware of it, and it’s mostly because of his schedule, but also ??? he’s just having fun, you know. he doesn’t wanna get tied down to anything right now.

two, maybe that ONE GIRL he tried to fuck with at the beginning of his career. while he knows he’s always been attracted to men, i think he would’ve convinced himself to at least try it out with a woman to make sure he wasn’t also interested in them, too. he’s a MASSIVE flirt and sweet talker, definitely made her feel special, but like... it never really went anywhere because... he just wasn’t into it, but didn’t wanna make her mad lmao. clearly ended up in a break-up and it could be both an ugly or pretty ending imo idk.

three, i’d DIE if other muses in famed were super into skating, or anime, or really any of his interests, too, and they’ve formed a “club” of sorts? just your local band o’ dirtbags who get together and fuck shit up a little bit here and there. i feel like this could be open to anyone who shares any of his interests tbh ??? maybe closer to his age is preferred, but honestly, i’m here to discuss whatever! i’m all for compromises and shit tbh.

four, maybe someone’s he’s lowkey seeing ( male, male-presenting lock ) that he’s really vibing with, but he just can’t... feasibly reason why he should have a bf right now. he’s got a lot going on, so he’s kind of a flake, but at the same time, he doesn’t intend to be an asshole to them. they’re maybe one of the only people he’s “softer” with. can end up romantic or platonic depending on how they handle it together, me thinks!

five, a dance partner or two would be pretty cool tbh! he’s not a dancer first, so he likes to dance with other people who are passionate about it to learn from ‘em. he can handle his own with choreography, but doesn’t have his own distinct style, so he’d really appreciate all the help he can get in becoming better ig? all in the name of work!

six, maybe a person who fucking HAAAATES him because they find him really annoying and super douchey, so they just... avoid him at all costs. however, he kinda picks up on the fact that they avoid him, so he pesters them even worse, which doesn’t end well... ever. this is definitely more open to anyone tbh and we can plan as we go!

seven, flipside where it’s someone that he CAN’T stand because he finds them really persnickety, snobby, and rude as fuck. if there’s one thing he hates A LOT, it’s bratty rich kids with silver spoons in their mouths. like, if this was a “the outsiders” verse, he’d be a greaser 1000000%, not a soc. lmao. he’d butt-heads with this person a fuck-ton.

eight, however many guys wanna piece of him, he’s happy to have a catalogue of fwb’s he calls on. he’s definitely not someone who says no to a good time, and he can act like a perfect boyfriend if that’s what you want. sadly, this’ll always be a temporary game. any of these fwb’s can go in many directions and can be plotted out individually!

nine, the age old question... “who’s your ideal type?” under pressure, he said you as a joke ( because of this, it could be male or female ) and now, fans of your respective groups ship you two together all the time. it’s a little awkward, and you two haven’t really talked about it much, but here you are... at a shared event sitting next to each other. how do you handle it? what do you do? is it awkward or all in good fun?

ten, someone who kinda hates that he doesn’t really take being an “idol” all the serious. he’s got a lot of shit on his bucket list he wants to do and he doesn’t let fame fuck with that, so he’s careless. he didn’t go into this business because of passion, it’s just where he ended up. your muse doesn’t like that, and thinks people like him are lazy as fuck.

[jisungs-tummy]

Happy New Year I guess

Through all the shit I've gone through this year, at least it wasn't as painful as 2018-2019.

What I'm saying is that although the world has gone to shit, this year hasn't been so awful.

I've met some pretty cool people this year. I've only had this blog for a year, too. So that's crazy.

To all my followers, I'm sorry I haven't written in a long time. It's been months, i know. I haven't had any motivation, and when I do get inspiration to write, it's very short-lived. I have tons of WIPs, I just haven't finished anything. I still have a request to write!! I'm so sorry for the delay. :(

I'll tag a few people that I had a nice time meeting. I'm very forgetful and bad with words, so I probably won't say too much unless we've been through a lot together.

-------------------

@kingxrabbit hey, Eli. Even after everything that has happened between us, I'm still really happy I met you. We had a lot of laughs. We had a lot of fun. Thank you for putting up with me for so long. You're a good person, even if other people and your mental illness tells you otherwise. (Note: people are shitty and not always nice, which is why I say this.) I'm so proud of you. I love you.

@alt-yandere-bratzdoll hey Sun.... I'm still iffy about the whole situation that happened, but I don't think about it as deeply as I used to. I've gotten over it. I think I needed the hurt to happen as some kind of... wake up call? Maybe I was a little obsessed. You were like... a hyperfixation? I really loved you. I'm glad I met you, even after everything that happened. I don't hurt over it anymore. I'm proud of you and I encourage you to eat something everyday, even if it's small and you dont feel like it. Please take care of yourself.

@chans-chair hey Rae. We didnt talk much at all except for when you would see me vent posting on main and would try to help me. Thank you for talking to me. You've helped me a lot. I love you.

@sxltyshima hey Josie. Thank you for being there. You've kept me entertained through tough times. I'm sorry for being so dry recently. It's been hard to find motivation to respond or anything. All I do is sleep nowadays. I'm really sorry. I'm happy that we met, though. I'm so happy you trust me and let me help you. You mean a lot to me. I know you're on the other side of the country and I've never met you irl, but sometimes it feels as if I've actually met you, and we're just old friends. Thank you for being here. I love you so much.

@yangomangos hey mangos, I know we never talked a lot, but I enjoyed reading your content and interacting with you. I'm happy we met.

Sammy gets her own through text bc I have her number <3

Kai also gets her own bc I have her on kkt <3

@spearb1108 hey Zehra. You're such a great friend. I know we havent talked much recently, but I'm happy we met.

I'm forgetting so many people, but I'm also half asleep and watching Jacksepticeye play undertale haha <3

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG158 TT_____TT

- Saying the most obvious and unspecific first: this was a very packed, very dense episode which managed to cram so much in just 20 minutes? I’ve relistened to it many times, and I still feel like I’m coming out of it breathless and reeling every time. So many things happening, about the past, about the present, about possible future implications? So many things finally exploding in our faces after having been introduced and/or kept as hanging threats since the beginning of the season, or earlier (Leitner had warned Jon that he had only trapped the Not!Them, not killed it), or later: Peter’s plans, Martin’s perception of the events, Elias’s agenda, what the tunnels had been hiding all along, Julia&Trevor attacking after their previous retreat, Daisy and the call of The Hunt, Jon’s worry for Martin…

The climax of each season had also been the occasion to take a look at who had been lost and how they had impacted characters: in season 1, Jon was explaining that he still wanted to know what had happened to Gertrude (MAG039: “And to top it all, I still don’t know what happened to Gertrude. Officially she’s still missing, but Elias is no help and the police were pretty clear that the wait to call her dead is just a formality. If I die, wormfood or… something else, whatever, I’m going to make damn sure the same doesn’t happen to me.”). In season 2, Jon was realising that Sasha had been dead all along, and given a probable culprit for Gertrude’s murder through Leitner’s mouth (MAG080: “And Sasha… The real one?” “Was that her name? I’m afraid she’s gone. Whatever it does to those it takes, they don’t come back. She’s dead. … Do you need a moment?” / “I believe it was Elias.” “What? Why?” “I assume he discovered we were planning to destroy the Archives.”). In season 3, Gertrude and Leitner(‘s bodies) came back to literally haunt Jon, puppetted by Stranger creatures during The Unknowing, after Nikola had toyed with Jon about Sasha:

(MAG119) NIKOLA: Oh, you caught me~ I’m… Sasha! ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NIKOLA: No~! Really, it’s me! Sasha– whatever her name was! Back from the dead, just like you wanted~! ARCHIVIST: Get away from me, or, or I swear I’ll… I’ll… […] GERTRUDE: This is your fault. ARCHIVIST: It is not! It’s not, I didn’t know, it’s not my fault you died! LEITNER: No, I suppose not. Me, on the other hand…

MAG158 opened hostilities right away: Peter mentioned Tim (and got immediately shut down by Martin), was using a Leitner book covered in the man’s blood, and then proceeded to free the Not!Them, who was still using its voice from the Not!Sasha time (so maybe a bit of that physical appearance, too?), while Jon, Basira and Daisy got to listen to what appeared to be a recording of Elias and Gertrude’s last interaction and the latter’s murder:

(MAG158) PETER: [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter. […] PETER: Not to mention, if they do change, well – I happen to have something that will change them back. MARTIN: … That’s a Leitner. PETER: It is! MARTIN: And the, em… the blood on it? PETER: That’s Leitner too! MARTIN: … Riiight…

[…] MARTIN: Pe–Peter? Peter, there’s a– … Peter, I think there’s something in there… PETER: Mm-mm. I’d stay quiet if I were you. [SOUND OF STONE AND BRICK SHIFTING, LOUDER] NOT!SASHA: [MUFFLED, HEAVILY DISTORTED] Jooo–ooon~! [SOUND OF STONE AND BRICK SHIFTING, LOUDER, THEN GRADUALLY STOPPING] NOT!SASHA: [HEAVILY DISTORTED] [PANTS] So you finally decided to let me out, Jon! Joooo–oooon~! … Who’s there? MARTIN: [PANICKED BREATHING]

[…] ARCHIVIST: Do you remember what happened to Sasha? BASIRA: That’s the thing that took her? ARCHIVIST: It was trapped in the tunnels, it– Martin. Something’s happening down there.

[…] GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more… [GUN BEING PUT AWAY] ELIAS: [SIGH] Pity.

From the start, the episode was a concentration of the people who have been lost, while on the verge of losing more (Daisy losing herself to The Hunt; Martin being wooshed into The Lonely; Jon on the verge of “drowning” while pursuing Martin). This time, it was even more destabilising that we covered events from before the beginning of the series, even though they had been open questions and recurring subjects: Elias/Jonah’s relation to the Institute, the fact that the Archival staff was bound to him/it, Gertrude’s death.

And it happened when everything was going to hell at the same time: there was such a wonderful contrast between Martin and Peter (and Elias’s)’s scenes, which were slow, gave place to words (words and steps echoing over the constant wind-like constant whispers (?) of the Panopticon), and the utter chaos reigning in the Archives, the gunshots and the screams and the mess provoked in Julia, Trevor, the Not!Them and then Daisy’s wakes…

(If I have to pinpoint moments I’m holding a bit dearer than the others, outside of Elias’s laughter (I mean, yeah, that sure happened? I might have relistened to the isolated track a few dozens of time and I still can’t believe it happened), it would be Daisy’s “Promise me.” and Martin’s “Funny. Looks like I was right the first time – it’s probably still a good way to get killed.” because both broke my heart for various reasons. I’ve always been ridiculously weak to the deep background sound that we heard during Martin’s tirade (I mostly associate it to MAG081) – it always gives an atmosphere of solemnity, of gravity, and it just matched perfectly the way Martin was explaining himself, telling his own story. … Almost giving his own statement, or testament.)

OKAY, NOW, THE MEAT OF THINGS. I know, the length of this post doesn’t give it away, but… I’ll go quicker and less rambly than usual, there was simply too much and I only got a week (minus one day bc delay) *cries* (this episode was excellent, okay).

- Gertrude’s murder! Fucking finally:

(MAG043) ARCHIVIST: Part of me worries about what I might find on these tapes, but a… bigger part of me worries that I will find nothing. This uncertainty is wearing on me. And I don’t know how much more I can take.

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: […] No luck with any of my other leads yet. At least I have another of Gertrude’s tapes. It’s always going to be a shot in the dark with them, but… hopefully an informative one. I know the secret to her death is on one of them, it must be. I just… I hope I don’t have to hear it first-hand.

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: Gertrude’s laptop has been rather… interesting. Unfortunately, nothing along the lines of “my_murderer.avi”, and she didn’t keep any sort of diary from what I can see.

Well, “my_murderer.wav” heard first-hand counts, right?

* In the same episode, Jon had noticed previous orders made on her computer; Leitner had told Jon that she was planning to destroy the Archives and Elias had mentioned “arson”, so yep! She had indeed tried to get rid of the problem that way:

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.

(MAG080) ELIAS: What did you want from him? LEITNER: The files. The ones you took from Gertrude. ELIAS: Planning a little light arson, are we Jurgen? LEITNER: It’s not just the Institute and you know it. They had everything she had found on the Stranger.

(MAG158) [GURGLING LIQUID] [DOOR OPENS] ELIAS: Gertrude. GERTRUDE: [SIGH] … Damn… ELIAS: Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. […] Shame, really; I used to be able to torch a building in half the time. [SIGH] Age catches us all. […] ELIAS: What exactly were you hoping to achieve here? Why not come at me directly instead of burning everything first? GERTRUDE: I was rather hoping the fire would occupy you while I did just that.

It sounded obvious, especially given how Elias had behaved when Martin had begun to burn statements, but it hadn’t been definitely confirmed until now. Once again, was Gertrude’s fondness for fire and explosions (the old Archives in Alexandria, The Last Feast, the plan for The Unknowing) influenced by her being bound to Agnes from The Desolation…? She seemed to favour these options a lot.

* HHHHHHHHHHHH So, the trick Gertrude had pulled was: Elias was supposed to be distracted because keeping an eye on a ritual attempt (to make sure The Dark ritual derailed okay), then grabbing his attention by setting fire to the Archives, while her real plan lay elsewhere (going down in the tunnels to reach his body and kill it).

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it? ELIAS: [SIGH] But I think we’ve both come to the same conclusion about that. That’s why you’re here. […] So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together.

That’s… that was the exact same plan Martin carried out: knowing that Elias would be keeping an Eye on The Unknowing, grabbing his attention by burning statements in the Archives, while the real plan was elsewhere (Melanie stealing evidence to convict him). I’m not sure if, back then, Elias had felt like déjà-vu and planned accordingly, only pretending to get fooled (we now have confirmation that he could have left prison anytime anyway), or if he fell for it twice… well. He hadn’t fallen for it with Gertrude, but knew that The Dark wouldn’t be a real threat (while The Unknowing still was… presumably).

(… But it’s also what Elias had been doing all through season 4 with Martin, The Extinction and Jon: partially keeping Martin occupied with The Extinction, distracting him with the fact that Peter & Elias had something on the line… while the actual plan was most likely to get something out of Jon through Martin.)

* I’m so so so fond of the way Gertrude was putting emphasis on the name “Elias” as soon as he entered – she wasn’t hiding that she knew about him from the start:

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: [SIGH] Age catches us all. … Well. Almost all of us, Elias. ELIAS: You were the one so… insistent on staying human.

(And it took Jonah!Elias a while to catch on to that, when she mentioned his body. Did he know that she knew, and the only reveal was that she had understood that his old body was a weak spot?)

* Goooods, sound-wise the episode was a treat, but the nonverbal “answers” through sounds (which were directly putting pictures in mind), when Gertrude flicked her lighter and we could hear Elias cocking a gun in return?

(MAG158) ELIAS: … Quite. It… was a good plan, actually. If you hadn’t been so complacent about me keeping an eye out down here, probably would have worked. [HUFF] “Gertrude’s grand retirement”…! GERTRUDE: It still might. Just needs a little [OPENING A ZIPPO] spark, and… [COCKED GUN] GERTRUDE: I see. So you’re finally getting your hands dirty. I must really have caught you off-guard.

I love that no description was needed, just sounds perfectly carrying across what was happening, a gesture leading to another, each holding their own weapon through the verbal duel.

* WHY AM I GETTING FUEL (ha) TO SHIP GERTRUDE/ELIAS A BIT MORE, I mean, there is definite Aesthetic in the way… they had been around each other for a long while (almost a fourth of Jonah’s “life”/lives?):

(MAG158) ELIAS: So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together. [CHUCKLE] How… poetic. Doesn’t seem like your style at all. […] I suppose we both got a little complacent. Fifty years is a long time! [CHUCKLE] “End of an era”. GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more… [GUN BEING PUT AWAY] ELIAS: [SIGH] Pity.

So familiar and intimate in a way? And, uh, Elias was still regretting her death. So somehow, she would still have been a viable option for The Watcher’s Crown, or still usable as an Eye agent, if she hadn’t tried to burn the place down? Aouch. What does it take to not be a viable option…?

* The thing about Gertrude’s age echoed Eric’s comment about it:

(MAG154) GERTRUDE: Well, it’s… good to see you, I suppose. ERIC: You too. … You got old. GERTRUDE: Better than being dead. ERIC: [HUFF] Fair enough. To be honest, I’m impressed, more than anything. Hard to get old in this business; you either die or you, er… “stay young”.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: [SIGH] Age catches us all. … Well. Almost all of us, Elias. ELIAS: You were the one so… insistent on staying human. GERTRUDE: And no doubt that makes my death a lot less complicated.

And if Jonah had indeed been body-hopping from Head of the Institute to Head of the Institute, he was stopping at middle-age: Jon had mentioned that James Wright had been director from 1973 to 1996, so around 23 years. And we have, in parallel, Jonah’s actual body… which keeps getting older apparently:

(MAG158) 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.

(Also, confirmation that Jon’s comment in MAG001 about Gertrude having been Head Archivist for fifty years wasn’t an exaggeration, since Jonah!Elias said the same. … Meanwhile, Jon has been Archivist for only three years and… is already reaching that level of disaster. Either Elias was really lucky circumstances-wise or regarding Jon’s personality, either he reaaaally played his cards well, holy heck.)

* That friggin’ scene:

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP]

To quote Melanie in MAG147: “… Famous last words.”

But also: brfehdjngfd I’m so upset about TIM, because this? This???

(MAG104) TIM: Okay – well, let me tell you what. If you want me to ignore everything that’s going on, forget my brother, and everything that’s happened over the last two years… how about you kill me? ELIAS: … I don’t want it to come to that. TIM: Well, me either. But here we are! So my proposal for you is this: either kill me, or fuck off. ELIAS: … I’ll come back– TIM: [EXPLOSIVE SIGH] ELIAS: –when you’re feeling more… reasonable.

Tim dodged a LITERAL BULLET, and what might have been Elias’s thoughts in MAG104? When the scene happened in the Archives (not sure whether it was in the same office but I’m pretty sure it was the same sound effect for the door), when Tim used the same reasoning, and when Elias just left, this time? (Did he spare Tim because Tim wasn’t an actual threat back then, more bark than bite, or because he still had use for him, or both…? I’ve always wondered if Elias hadn’t been a bit fond of Tim, in a cat-playing-with-a-mouse way, because of the way he technically gave him advice on how to handle The Eye’s binding in MAG090 and acknowledged that the Institute could be a lot for the people working there… It was definitely keeping Tim in check, sure, but Tim was just sulking in his corner and back from his fleeing attempt, it wasn’t necessary to make him feel less bad…?)

* fdsjcxnerfds I’m half mad half??? Hysterical??? That every season is still ending on a big “what truly happened to Gertrude” note because THE TAPE WE HEARD RAISED MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERED:

-> There is the question of Gertrude’s fears. In MAG157, Adelard raised a good question about whether Gertrude was as stone-cold as we thought or was just very good at dissimulating… and she still didn’t sound that scared when Elias shot her? But Oliver had described her as looking absolutely terrorised:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “I could see none of the figure’s body beneath the flesh that enclosed them, but as I moved around I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.”

(MAG158) [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more…

She could have been dissimulating how truly afraid she was, but. Mmmm. She didn’t sound like she was afraid of Elias – just a bit annoyed at having been interrupted.

-> Their dialogue set that scene in March 2015, when The Dark was carrying out its ritual attempt.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it?

Elias had told Jon that blood had been found in Gertrude’s office on March 15th, 2015, and that the police had established that it was Gertrude’s blood, and that such a blood loss led them to conclude that she was dead (MAG040). But March 15th was one day after Oliver’s statement (MAG011), whose dreams put Gertrude’s Planned End around March 22nd; it doesn’t match the peak of The Dark’s ritual (with the eclipse over Ny-Ålesund having happened on March 20th) either. ………………… and it still doesn’t explain why we have a tape of Gertrude reading a statement on April 4th, 2015 (when she should be dead-dead). The other problem with MAG087 is that Jon, in his post-statement, also behaved as if Gertrude had died in March 2016; he said it was a recording from one year prior to her death, when she said the date was 2015 and was reading a statement from October 2014 (can’t read a statement from October 2014 if the actual recording date was in April 2014 and she had accidentally pronounced the recording date wrong, right?), and when Jon himself pointed out that according to the recording, Jude Perry, mentioned by Gertrude, was still living in London two years earlier (Jon was recording in March-April 2017: if Gertrude’s tape was from 2014, that would have been three years earlier). So, I would be more willing to think that Jon didn’t catch on to the fact that Gertrude was still kicking a few weeks after her official date of death rather than accept that there were three consecutive timeline mistakes in that episode. Gertrude had also mentioned in her post-statement (officially on April 4th) that:

(MAG087) GERTRUDE: […] I had assumed Orsinov and her ilk would have spent more time searching for their precious skin, maybe even acting against me directly, before they started alternate preparations. I had hoped I’d have a chance to recover. I can still barely stand.

… she had recently been injured. Could be about the taxidermy shop, when she took the gorilla skin, but we still don’t know for sure. Even if she had been protected from a fatal injury (plain old bulletproof vest covered with blood sacks? Supernatural protection?), that would still have been enough to be severely injured, especially at her age.

-> Elias and Gertrude didn’t say it outright but implied it clearly enough:

(MAG158) ELIAS: So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together. [CHUCKLE] How… poetic. Doesn’t seem like your style at all. GERTRUDE: I wasn’t actually planning on dying. ELIAS: And how exactly were you planning on achieving that while you’re still bound to the… ha. Oh, I see. Very clever. [CHUCKLE] I thought Eric was the only one to figure that little morsel out.

The plan for Gertrude was to reach the Panopticon, gouge her eyes out, kill Jonah’s body for real to neutralise him, and escape the fallout. Which would have meant becoming blind and cutting her connection to The Eye before moving on to neutralising The Unknowing. In October 2014, so shortly before Gerry’s death, she was still speculating that she would need someone tied to The Eye to stop The Stranger (and she had told Gerry that she had a secret storage unit; so she already had the explosives in mind, it was requiring both):

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Doesn’t help with The Unknowing, though. [HEAVY SIGH] We still have Dekker’s back-up plan, of course, but… it’s very risky. To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on. Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough.

… if she had cut her own connection to The Eye, she wouldn’t have been a viable sacrifice either. So why try to neutralise Elias before The Unknowing, while sacrificing her chances at stopping the latter?

-> Biggest problem:

(MAG040) ARCHIVIST: Martin… How did Gertrude Robinson die? MARTIN: … I don’t know. Not for sure; it was so dark, and I only saw the body for a few seconds. The police were quite clear that the cause of death could be absolutely any– ARCHIVIST: Martin, how did she die? MARTIN: She was shot! Three times, that I could see. … Three shots to the chest.

(MAG158) [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING]

Three holes vs. one gunshot. I mean, sure, I can picture Elias placing her down in the tunnels and putting two more bullets in her body “just in case” (or noticing she wasn’t dead already and correcting that. Or a few spiders making a nest in her body. Or Michael stabbing her a few times). But as long as Elias doesn’t confirm, I…………. think it might be very likely that she didn’t die in the tape we heard, but that she bluffed and went off the grid at this point, and that something else caught her later?

It’s absolutely possible that no, actually, she did die there, and some things will click in place (and/or that I’m reading things wrong) but. What would have been enough to make her so afraid, as Oliver had described…? (………… something related to The Extinction, that she had downplayed so much? Something related to Adelard, who had officially died some time before?) (And there are still some dates problems aaaaarg.)

(- We heard Gertrude’s (as of now) official demise from the past, with a tape recorder apparently clicking on on its own… So I wonder: would it be possible to hear even more sneaky tapes from the past? Jon’s hiring around 2012, or his appointment as Head Archivist? Martin’s hiring (in 2009 or earlier), or how he came to work for The Archives (we still don’t know whether Elias put him there, whether Martin volunteered, or if somehow, Martin had asked to come down with Jon)? Gertrude has also mentioned the chat she had with Elias right after he body-hopped into this body (so 1996 or before)…)

- There is still a Story behind The Dark’s ritual attempt, too!

(MAG143) MANUELA: And then… it stopped. It just… stopped. All at once, that loving embrace was stripped from us, and it began to retreat, to recede back into the place that it had come from. We were so close…! … We were so close… I heard Maxwell cry out, scrambling desperately into the Dark Sun, stopping just short of touching it. But it was too late. Whatever it was that you and your Archivist did, it clearly worked.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it? ELIAS: [SIGH] But I think we’ve both come to the same conclusion about that. That’s why you’re here. GERTRUDE: Yes.

Elias and Gertrude had understood why it wouldn’t work, and I wonder if it has to do with Manuela’s statement from July 2014 (MAG135), since it was a direct challenge to the both of them? I still don’t have a clue about why it failed, but I’m assuming that it’s been right under our nose all along…

(The only thing I’ve managed to notice is that it was right around the time that Evan Lukas died; could be absolutely unrelated, but… but. It doesn’t feel like we know the full story about Evan either?)

(Also, confirmation that Elias was UTTERLY FULL OF SHIT ABOUT IT!! BASTARD KNEW!!!

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

To his credit: it doesn’t seem like Gertrude actively stopped that one, but rather that it failed on his own… so he indeed didn’t know about her potential plans (since they weren’t necessary in the end). And he did point out to Basira that the Aurora Borealis were ~lovely~ in the current season, so. The increase of people/supplies. Might. Have. Just Been. Because of the touristic season. Fucker.)

- It Is Always A Good Time to remember that Elias had once called Jon “dramatic”:

(MAG067) ELIAS: Oh, good lord, don’t be so dramatic, Jon! You know how hard it would be to replace you! ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t, actually. But… thank you. I suppose.

Mister “Making Sure My Entrance Is The Most Dramatic Entrance That Ever Entrance’d” and “Planning My Lines Ahead So I GO BACK TO TRYING TO SAY THEM, DON’T INTERRUPT ME, JON”…

(MAG158) MARTIN: [SHAKY INHALE] … Where are his eyes? ELIAS: Exactly– MARTIN: [GASP] ELIAS: –where they’ve always been, Martin. Watching over my Institute.

[…] ARCHIVIST: What is this place? ELIAS: Hm! A complicated question, and time is– ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] That’s the Panopticon… […] “But”? ELIAS: “But” for Martin? Time is very much of the essence.

… had called Jon dramatic.

Asshole had the line “time is (very much) of the essence” and desperately wanted to place it, uh.

- I’m a bit sad over the Jonah Reveal, because the idea that our “Elias” was actually truly an old lazy student and pothead turned absolute fanatical zealot (and/or the idea that other avatars kept assuming he was actually Jonah Magnus when he wasn’t) cracked me up so much! Would sure have been a different story than Your Antagonist Is Actually An Old Victorian Asshole Who Didn’t Want To Die, but it makes a lot of sense and we’ve had so, so many little things pointing out in that direction:

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996, taking over from James Wright, who ran the place from ‘73 until he passed away. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. Perhaps he was simply that impressive. Certainly, the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well. Theoretical knowledge, at least. And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

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

(MAG096) DAISY: El–Elias didn’t say. ARCHIVIST: No, he doesn’t, uh… He’s not big on micromanagement. SARAH: It’s Elias now, then? ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] What? DAISY: Get on with it.

(MAG101) NIKOLA: Is it… your Elias who listens? Helloooooo! […] So, Elias, can I call you Elias?, let me set the scene, as I know you can’t actually see this. […] You know Elias, can I call you Elias?, you have not raised this one very well! […] Oh, no, I’m afraid he can’t See, can you Elias?, can I call you Elias? – what’s the point of having a secret place of power if you can’t hide it from a big stupid eye?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender.”

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery. Repent of your sins, Jonah. Seek forgiveness. I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul that keeps faith in the Resurrection.”

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: … I–I don’t know, I mean… We still don’t really know… what Elias actually is…? I thought… Maybe if he was more like me than we realised…

So at this point: it was a popular suspicion/theory amongst viewers, but amongst characters, too – at least, Basira wasn’t fazed and seemed to take it as confirmation of a suspicion more than anything:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: Uh– yes. And I’d wager that Elias’s body, uh… BASIRA: Gotta be Jonah Magnus, right? ARCHIVIST: I’d say so. BASIRA: [SIGH] And he’s been body-hopping like whatever was in Rayner.

And Martin was surprised by Elias suddenly being there (who wouldn’t be?) but didn’t seem too surprised about the reveal in itself either. Same with Jon, who quickly accepted it – not as casually as Basira, and he seemed to have been shaken/startled by something, but still very smoothly.

I’m satisfied by the way it was done in this episode – Jonah’s body being discovered as Elias revealed himself and as the (last?) conversation between him and Gertrude played. And YES, his entrance and reveal was EXTREMELY DRAMATIC, but it was also so damn good and chilling. Plus, there was the surprise factor of the fact that he’s apparently body-hopping by plugging his ~eyes~ into his hosts? Which fits and is a very neat contrast to the way to escape the Institute’s binding, as Eric and Melanie demonstrated (making sure to destroy their own eyes).

- Still gonna call him “Elias” as long as we don’t know much about who Real OG Pothead Elias was, I’m not in denial over the fact it’s Jonah Magnus, right? But he was called Elias for so long that it stuck.

And I’m laughing a bit that in-series, it seems to be the same thing for Jon? He still called him “Elias”, and Gertrude and Peter did the same; only Martin corrected himself and went with “Jonah” like a good boy:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: But Elias put him in charge, that doesn’t make any–! […] ELIAS: Peter. PETER: Elias. […] MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it.

But nop, for Jon, still “Elias”. (Is it because part of him is in denial, or out of habit, or an attempt to still cling to some stability, or because calling him “Jonah” sounds too close to his own name?)

- I’m delighted because there are soooo many implications now:

* So, how much of a blast did Jonah have letting the letters addressed to him stay around in the Archives and be read by Jon (MAG023, MAG050, MAG127) and Martin (MAG098, MAG138)?

* When Elias finally entered the room in MAG118…

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh sorry! Sorry, I’m not keeping you from the show, am I? Well, well you head back, I’ll keep myself busy here. Albrecht von Closen is next, I think. It’s quite an old one! Should go up very quickly. ELIAS: [EXASPERATED BREATHING] … Did Jon put you up to this?

Martin was on the verge of burning Albrecht’s letter!! Given that Jonah wasn’t unrelated to what happened to Albrecht in the end, according to MAG127…

* It was before the Institute, but the Archives contained John Flamsteed’s letter (1715), revealing that Rayner was a body-hopper; and the Archives also contained Doctor Algernon Moss’s letter from 1864 about Rayner’s powers. That was three years before Smirke’s letter to Jonah, accusing and warning him about the danger of serving The Eye. Manuela had also pointed out that ~the Head of the Institute~ and Maxwell Rayner used to be friends (unless it was taunting from the start: “the friendship they once shared”) so… Jonah probably took a page from Rayner’s personal book, though giving it an Eye touch.

(… He also borrowed from Rayner’s book re: using someone’s love and desire to save someone they care for in order to make them do atrocious thing, as what happened with Robert Montauk and his wife, but more on that later.)

* It’s extra-funny that Nikola was all “Can I call you Elias?” since Grimaldi, who was proto-Nikola… was alive during Jonah’s actual lifetime. Jonah probably saw him onstage.

* Jonah was also alive when Ruskin’s book came out – the Fear version might have popped up before or after but still, it was from Jonah’s era, and worked in the tunnels, and was even used in this episode during Peter&Martin’s progression:

(MAG080) LEITNER: An unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even begin writing the book until 1846, and the text of this one varies markedly from the version that was distributed. It gives an acute sense of the walls pressing in around you, and if consumed recklessly will physically entomb the reader. Over the years I have found that it interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels.

* Avatars/monsters were all so cool and fair-play about it?? Manuela didn’t call him “Jonah” (she didn’t name him), Peter always called him “Elias”, Simon didn’t mention Elias or the Head of the Institute at all… How many of them knew, and were probably thinking it was the worst secret ever kept, but still had their fun using his new host’s name? They’ve been so sportsmanlike and nice to him.

* That line in the season 3 Q&A about how ~Elias was older than he sounded~ =D

* … MAG138, Robert Smirke’s letter, was probably a hint to Martin not only about the tunnels (as he was thinking) but about Jonah still being There. Smirke had specifically mentioned Jonah’s fear of dying as he was giving himself to The Eye. Peter was actually preparing Martin to the concept that Jonah hadn’t really died (and that Martin was supposed to kill him)…………………

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery.”

* The fact that Elias hadn’t been preoccupied by The Extinction’s emergence, while acknowledging that it might be happening… might be because he was around when The Flesh emerged? Gerry had pointed out that its “ascendance” happened during the Smirke era (MAG111: “I think it’s quite new. Only just beginning its, uh, ascendance when Smirke labelled it.”), and it indeed didn’t change the game much. Might be why Elias wasn’t that preoccupied by it, outside of the fact that he was aiming for his own ritual anyway?

* Now, think back to a lot of things that happened in the course of the series. When Mary Keay roasted Elias by describing him as “not big on action” (MAG062)? It was actually about Jonah Magnus.

This excellent dialogue?

(MAG079) TIM: […] There is something in this place, and it’s messing up our heads. It watches us all the time, it stops me quitting, I’m pretty sure it would stop Elias firing Jon even if he decided to actually try running this place for once. […] Er… Elias is probably still in his office. MARTIN: I thought you said he was a waste of a suit. TIM: Yeah, well he’s better than nothing!

… was actually about Jonah Magnus (mARTIN caLlED hIM A “wAStE oF A sUIt”…)

Jon (Master Of Redundancy) said that Jonah Magnus was a “cocky prick” in MAG096, and of “zero practical use” in MAG102.

Tim told Jonah Magnus to “fuck off” in MAG104.

Xiaoling implied that Jonah Magnus was too lazy to handle an Archivist whose mother-tongue wouldn’t be English, back in MAG105.

Peter said this

(MAG108) PETER: Oh. That doesn’t sound like the Elias I know. He killed people himself? […] Elias Bouchard, getting his hands dirty. Well-well. Must be the End Times.

about Jonah frigging Magnus.

A police officer punched Jonah Magnus in MAG120, and Basira beat him up during an extended sequence in MAG148.

I mean. It was already hilarious when about “Elias”, but replace everything with “Jonah Magnus” and or “an old Victorian body-hopper”, and suddenly, all of this becomes even more satisfying. (Especially Basira’s episode.)

- There are also a few more recent power-related things which also take on a new dimension with the Reveal:

* Martin had picked up on the fact that Elias had known about Prentiss in the tunnels for a while, which Elias didn’t deny… so it didn’t seem like the tunnels were an Absolute Blind Spot for him.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Not even close. Because… [HEAVY BREATHING] I… I’ve been thinking. It’s not like you’ve got this all-seeing thing recently. You’ve had it the whole time. I remember the way you looked at Sasha after the attack. You knew it wasn’t her. And I reckon you knew Prentiss was lurking under the Institute, too, and you did nothing. Why? [SILENCE] WHY?! [SLAMS TABLE] ELIAS: … Let’s just get this over with, shall we?

Or at least, he knew them well enough to be able to tell that Prentiss was there. (Not sure who drew Peter’s map for him: could be Helen, since he was mentioning her to Martin right before and Helen Richardson used to be good with maps; could have been Elias, since he was waiting in the Panopticon, so the tunnels weren’t as off-limit had Jon had previously assumed, and he perfectly knew the way – well, he had been alive when everything had been designed and built, so Makes sense.

What is still odd is: how come Martin was able to find Gertrude’s body down there, back in season 1…?)

* I hate him:

(MAG120) MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

“I only have two eyes after all��� fuuuuuckkkkk oooooooooooooffff, oh my goooooods!!!

* erfysudhbjzreds THAT BIT!!! THAT BIT!!!

(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation. MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it… PETER: But? MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from. PETER: You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous.

Peter was actually suspecting that Elias was trying to interfere, back then?! Since he was suspecting Elias of trying to do just that in MAG158:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … If I… if I do kill you… will the others survive? PETER: Elias? [FOOTSTEPS] ELIAS: Come now, Peter. It’s a valid question. […] PETER: I see. … This is your doing, is it? ELIAS: [AUDIBLE GRIN] Hardly…! […] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it.

* ……………… Okay, so:

(MAG158) ELIAS: Ah, Jon. I was almost worried…! You found your way all right. ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] Yes. … Ye–yes, I did… How? ELIAS: Suffice it to say I called you.

Is something that Elias can apparently do. And there is one particular time that Jon had mentioned feeling “called” towards something.

(MAG127) BASIRA: And what was that you were doing yesterday? ARCHIVIST: … When…? BASIRA: You were sat on the floor for like four hours. ARCHIVIST: … Oh! Er, n–n–no, I was, er, I was… listening. Y’know, it’s, trying to see if any of the statements… called to me. BASIRA: And? ARCHIVIST: [FLAPPING PAPER] BASIRA: Brilliant.

… Was it actually Elias drawing him towards Jonathan Fanshawe’s statement? Towards the letter of someone who had decided to cut ties with Jonah after what he had done to Albrecht, about what The Eye could do to someone, about something that contributed to the Institute’s early days (the books stolen from the crypt)?

* Jon had wondered why he had been “chosen” back in MAG138… and if it’s really because Jonah fucking Magnus went “oh, he’s called Jonathan and he sounds a bit like Jonathan Fanshawe? Hahaha, wouldn’t it be fun”, I’m going to scream.

* ………… I have been wondering this entire season what was the thing pulling Jon towards this and that statement, and it’s something that Annabelle pointed out in MAG147, when she mentioned that there were various influences… but now, I’m getting even more worried over MAG150, a statement in which someone manages to get out from The Lonely because he was reached by someone he still loved. It sounded like such a weirdly optimistic story, compared to our usual statement? The statement-giver learned and managed to get his life more or less back together, and is working, and things are hard but he’s alright? … What if it really was a red herring, to give Jon the impression that it’s possible to pull the same trick and get out with Martin, when the circumstances are different…?

- What are the things making Elias so frighteningly efficient as an antagonist? I think we got an absolute demonstration in this episode, and it’s quite significant that this is the episode where he revealed himself as Jonah Magnus. Because, what did we know about Jonah? In respectively 1816, 1841 and 1864:

(MAG023, Albrecht von Closen) […] “I recall that during your visit last spring you mentioned your… fascination with the macabre and strange, and pressed upon me as to whether there were any such lore or legends that I myself were familiar with. Wolfgang writes me that you are acquiring quite the collection, and I feel that I now have something that belongs with it, far more than any of the fairy stories or old maids’ tales that I told you before. […] Still, I look forward to showing you the book I have acquired, and the revelations you will no doubt glean from it.”

(MAG050, Sampson Kempthorne) “Dear Jonah; it is my fondest wish that this message should find you in good health, as I have heard more than one mutual acquaintance remark on your current state of overwork. While I earnestly hope it is merely idle gossip, my knowledge of your character leads me to entreat that you allow yourself some respite, or at the very least take some further secretarial staff into your employ. Certain uncharitable quarters would have it that your life consists of little but rattling around in Edinburgh Townhouse, surrounded by piles of ghostly accounts and lunatic documentation. Piles, I am afraid to say, to which I am about to make an addition.”

(MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss) “I come to you not to wallow in my condition, or pour out my soul like a papist in the confessional, but to request your assistance. I believe that Maxwell Rayner has at his disposal some unholy power that he has used to curse me and cause my blindness. Or, more precisely, to cause me to blind myself, for I shall not deny I did so willingly. For obvious reasons my accusations have had me laughed out of most polite society. Not quite so polite when you’re accusing someone of witchcraft, it would seem. I now ask the assistance of your Institute in the hopes that you may be able to furnish some evidence or legal precedent that may assist me in taking action against my assailant, though I will admit my expectations for the latter are limited. Maxwell Rayner is an oddity. […] So, there is my story. I’m sure you’ll agree that Maxwell Rayner is the clear architect of my misfortune. Now, how do you suppose I revenge myself upon him?”

We got glimpses of his life through Jon and Martin reading the letters addressed to him, sent by friends and intimates who indulged his passion for tales of supernatural stories. Dr. Algernon Moss was requiring his “assistance”, and at that point, by the 1860s, the Institute seemed to already be operating as in the present day (it has a reputation, people come to share their stories, they sometimes require help, and will never get it), but there was fondness in Albrecht von Closen and Sampson Kempthorne’s letters – Adelard Dekkard pointed out that The Eye’s influence was present in his last message to Gertrude (MAG156), but it didn’t sound odd to Albrecht or Sampson to write their stories (statements) willingly, as gifts to a friend.

But we also know that Jonah Magnus actively or passively caused suffering to his own friends and acquaintances, and, in the case of Barnabas, Elias himself acknowledged that it wasn’t even due to a lack of sympathy (1824, 1831, 1867):

(MAG092, Barnabas Bennett) “You must help me. If anyone is still here, it is you. I know your work brings you into contact with all sorts of fantastical terrors, so perhaps you might have it within your power to save me from this place. […] And you must help me, Jonah. If anyone knows of what might break me from this dreadful place, it is you. I know that what is done by those I cannot see might be felt here – I have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before. It is my hope that if I leave a letter here, in your institute, you might find it, you might be able to save me. I have no other hope. Please, Jonah, if you have any compassion within your heart, you will not leave me in this place. Your loyal servant; Barnabas.” ELIAS: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett: he retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came.

(MAG127, Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe) “Jonah; I must first and foremost decline your generous offer of a medical position servicing Millbank Penitentiary. While the terms you’ve laid out are no doubt more than adequate, I have, over these last months, come to the unfortunate conclusion that our intimacy and friendship must cease immediately. I do not know what interest you have in the poor condemned souls within those walls, nor do I care to guess. In the light of what I have so recently witnessed, I can no longer in good conscience associate with any of your endeavours. Nor will I continue to collect or provide all those accounts of the esoteric and otherworldly, that you and your… Institute so eagerly require. Consider this the severing of our acquaintance. This cannot come as a shock to you. Surely, you must have understood what you were asking when you employed me to visit with Albrecht, and apply my… meagre skills to the illness that beset him. You must have known the nature of that illness, even if only in the most general terms. And no doubt you had some intuition as to its cause. […] Because whatever it was that did this to him, I know in my heart that it is your fault. I’ve had the body burned. Please, do not write to me again.”

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “My dear Jonah; You will forgive me, I hope, for being so forward, but I feel I must break the silence that has characterised our acquaintance for these past decades. […] I am choosing to assume that these manifestations are unintentional, Jonah, and you have not… simply decided to implore a Dark Patron to end the life of an old man. I further find myself supposing that they may emanate from your own intrigues and preparations to culminate those plans which we agreed to abandon so many decades ago! […] The Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. My… humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon. It is likely too late for me, but I will not…”

I’m still not sure that Jon got the right handle of it when he took Jonathan Fanshawe’s statement as an indicator that Jonah Magnus had been evil-from-the-start, because it could also be mirroring his own downfall: falling unknowingly into The Eye’s embrace, then trying to shake out of it or to resist it, only to fall entirely later – wasn’t it what happened with Daisy and The Hunt? With Jon himself, though he’s not at the last point (yet…?), when he fed from the suffering of innocents before refraining himself, first because he was forced to (starting MAG148) and then because he was actively trying to not do what The Eye wanted him to (MAG154)? Robert Smirke mentioned that he and Jonah used to share plans before agreeing to abandon them, and that they weren’t answering to the calls of Beholding; either Jonah fooled him, either Jonah indeed fought off The Eye’s influence (after Albrecht’s death?) up until Robert Smirke’s last letter.

But, mostly, these letters told us that Jonah Magnus was far from being unappreciated. People valued him, cared for him, trusted him. And, given how Jonah made them suffer, we would want for that kind of feelings to be Jonah’s weak spot, something he wasn’t able to understand… but Elias knows about them, takes them into account as a potential motivator. At least with the current Archives team, he has constantly weaponised affection as a means of control – ensnaring both Daisy and Basira because of their feelings for each other, getting Jon to join in The Unknowing expedition because of his worry for Tim, partially banking on Martin’s feelings for Jon as a safeguard that Martin wouldn’t entirely fall into Peter’s grasp, luring Jon into the coffin (to experience The Buried and push his powers further) because Jon wanted to rescue Daisy, getting Martin cast into The Lonely because he knew that Jon would do everything to save Martin, even at the cost of himself:

(MAG092) ELIAS: Ah, of course. Er, sometimes I forget how new you all are to this. Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit. MELANIE: Wait, what? TIM: Yup, that sounds about right. ELIAS: And it would not be a pleasant death. DAISY: Bullshit! ELIAS: Then shoot me. Just squeeze the trigger, and watch the only person you care about die screaming. Your last connection to humanity. Do it. BASIRA: Daisy…

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: Tim isn’t going to sit home and wait, and Elias seems pretty insistent I go along.

(MAG135) ELIAS: His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.

(MAG138) MARTIN: Yeah. Well. I’m still not sure I really believe it. [EXHALE] A–and, I don’t… I–… I’m, h… ELIAS: Worried he might charge off into another coffin. [SILENCE] … Quite.

(MAG158) MARTIN: Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed. And then… [SHAKILY] Jon came back, and… and suddenly, I had a reason: I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control, so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away… so what? I’d already grieved for him, and if it meant now saving him, it was worth it! […] ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. ELIAS: No, Jon. You want you to follow him. I simply want you to know that if you do so, you are almost certainly not coming back. To go into The Lonely willingly is as good as death. ARCHIVIST: … How do I do it?

* So, Elias finally revealed that he wasn’t as trapped in prison as he had been pretending to be up until now:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: Gone how? DAISY: Just walked out, as far as we can tell. BASIRA: Couple of guards on duty vanished too. ARCHIVIST: “Vanished”? How? BASIRA: Just left. ARCHIVIST: [EXASPERATED SIGH] BASIRA: Best we can tell, he had some dirt on them. DAISY: Old friend at the prison let us know. ARCHIVIST: What, and no one thought of that? BASIRA: Asshole could have left at any time, but he just sat there laughing at us. ARCHIVIST: No, no, this, this can’t be a coincidence…

And indeed, why did he choose to leave now? Was it only because Peter himself had decided that Martin was ready? Is it because another threat is coming? Or had Peter and Elias agreed on a deadline from the start? Jon, back in MAG127, was suspecting that something could be coming with the Institute’s 200th anniversary, though he didn’t know the day the Institute had been founded. Was it actually September 25th or 26th…?

- Soooo, about the Panopticon’s purpose / what it might be capable of doing…

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I could not go easy to my grave without offering you one last plea for your restraint. What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls. […] And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed. […] I am not a fool; I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them! Not simply for the sake of your own soul, but for that of the world! I have always had the utmost respect for you as a man of dignity, and learning. Do not allow yourself to fall to this madness.”

(MAG158) MARTIN: What is this place? PETER: The Panopticon of Millbank prison. Not quite as Smirke originally conceived it, of course. Jonah Magnus made certain… adjustments. MARTIN: And it’s been down here the whole time? PETER: Why do you think this was chosen as the Institute’s location, when the prison closed? It’s a significant site of power for The Beholding. From the tower in the centre of this room, you can see everything. MARTIN: But there’s nothing in the cells…! PETER: [CHUCKLING] I don’t mean the cells, Martin – I mean everything.

* Smirke gave up, Jonah didn’t and/or went back on it. So. Oops. Given how The Eye has indeed been able to feed through the other Fears’ actions (through statements or an Archivist), bad. Badbadbad.

* Did it get fuelled by prisoners’ fears…? From something concrete and tangible, to something immaterial because their feelings powered/scarred the place so much?

* It was very faint, and I LOVED the sound effect present in the tower: something between the wind whistling and very low whispers? It made the place immediately threatening and gave the impression that yeah, there were many ghosts/dead bodies/sufferings caused around it…?

- I’m still rfedubrehjd over the fact that Peter and Elias’s first live interaction was firmly anticipated (Peter had mentioned he was there to see Elias in MAG100! It was the case again in MAG108! We knew, at least from Peter, that they weren’t strangers, although Elias didn’t acknowledge Peter’s existence in return until MAG138; but it has been so long between the moment we learned that they knew each other and their first ‘onscreen’ interaction!) AND YET… managed to be Even Better than I could have dreamed of. Elias was SUCH A SHIT:

(MAG158) ELIAS: I warned you, Peter~ […] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it. PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it. [CHUCKLE] He played you like a… like a cheap whistle. PETER: No! Shut up! ELIAS: Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. [SILENCE] PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open.

Compensating much for all of Peter’s little digs, uh. They’re so… divorced…………….

Peter had told Martin right away that Elias had chosen him as interim Director, Jon had been suspecting very early that Peter&Elias were scheming together, Basira’s plural in MAG151 was implying that she was thinking the same…

(MAG120) PETER: Oh! Right, of course! Well, you’ve successfully managed to remove Elias as the Head of the Magnus Institute. So… MARTIN: Oh. Oh, god, what does that do? PETER: Oh! No, no no no! No. Not in any, hum, metaphysical sense, no, he’s still very much the… how did he insist on phrasing it… Ah yes, the “beating heart of the Institute”. But, practically speaking, he can hardly fulfil his more mundane managerial duties from a jail cell. MARTIN: … so he knew this was going to happen? PETER: Not exactly. He… anticipated that you would likely find some way to remove him. So he made alternative arrangements. MARTIN: Which would be you. PETER: Exactly! To be honest with you, Martin, I didn’t expect to be taking over the place so soon, or in such a state of disarray. But, I’ll do my best to keep the place afloat.

(MAG122) BASIRA: No, nothing. Elias isn’t the problem. ARCHIVIST: Sor– what? BASIRA: Elias is locked up. ARCHIVIST: … Wait, Martin’s plan worked? BASIRA: Yeah. A bunch of Section’d officers took him in. He made some sort of deal, I think. But… he’s not getting out anytime soon. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. Wow. O… kay, er… Great, s–so… what’s the problem? BASIRA: He appointed an “interim” director. Guy named Peter Lukas. ARCHIVIST: … Oh.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: But honestly, it’s the internal threats I’m worried about. Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he [STATIC] and Elias have planned, and Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig.

(MAG151) BASIRA: [SIGH] … Okay. You want to do whatever “grand sacrifice” you think is going to save everyone, go ahead. But you’d best be sure you’re not just playing their game. MARTIN: I know what I’m doing. BASIRA: We’ll see. [PAUSE] Don’t make me regret this.

(MAG154) MARTIN: I just… Look, I need to see this thing through with Peter to the end. If–if what he’s saying is even half true, I need to be there. ARCHIVIST: But what if you don’t? I mean…! We could just leave. I mean, whatever… their plan is for me, I am damn sure that doing that isn’t it. I could derail everything– MARTIN: [NERVOUS CHUCKLING] ARCHIVIST: –We could derail everything, and then just… leave…! MARTIN: [DRY AND HOLLOW LAUGHTER] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHY] … What…?

… and turned out that it was a bet. Well. A gamble, for both? We had learned about that aspect of Peter in MAG066 (well, in an explicit form; what happened on the Tundra in MAG033 might have been of that nature too, without the statement-giver being aware of it because… she had won), and it had been mentioned as one of Peter’s ways to navigate (ha) social interactions:

(MAG134) MARTIN: So… so what, you’re afraid of the competition? PETER: Not at all. Honestly, that’s the sort of thing I normally relish; I’ve always been a little bit of a gambler, and the higher the stakes, the better. MARTIN: So… so this is, wh–what?

(MAG151) SIMON: He is what he is, Martin. For a creature of The Lonely, the urge is always to isolate; never to communicate or connect. I suspect that’s why he’s so keen on wagers: it allows him a framework for cooperation that doesn’t risk any sort of intimacy. […] I think… [INHALE] I think Peter is taking a rather large, but calculated gamble. Not just on you, but on a lot of things. If it works, he’ll be in a very strong position. And if he fails… it won’t be all that bad. MARTIN: You don’t think it will be the end of the world? SIMON: Oh! It very well might be, but… MARTIN: [EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] SIMON: Life has continued through dozens of apocalypses already. Ice ages; pandemics; calamities; extinctions… The only reason this one feels special is because, well… it’s happening to you. And that’s the sort of solipsism that tends to come with loneliness – in my experience.

BUT I’M STILL SO MAD THAT

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF] ELIAS: But no. This is too important for me to jeopardise with cheap “mindgames”. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice.

(MAG158) MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it. PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it.

FUCK OOOOOFF ELIAS OH MY GODS the thing about the “right choice” was really just about whether Martin would refuse to kill Jonah Magnus’s body, thus ensuring Elias’s winning the bet… and THAT was the thing “too important for me to jeopardise”, it had never been about The Extinction for Elias uh……………………

- I’m so proud of Martin for understanding that it was all mostly a “power play” between Elias and Peter, and TECHNICALLY? TECHNICALLY PETER HAD BEEN AN ABSOLUTE DUMBASS WHO HAD HIGHLIGHTED THAT THEY TENDED TO BE ~LIKE THAT~:

(MAG108) PETER: Ah, I see. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. It’s one of Elias’s little jokes. MARTIN: I don– What? PETER: Did he suggest you record a statement today? One that mentioned me? MARTIN: … yeah? Sssort of? I mean… not you specifically, but… PETER: I have a meeting with him today. He suggested… I’m sure he’s watching from his office, grinning from ear to ear. MARTIN: I… don’t… PETER: I almost thought he genuinely wanted me to meet the team! Oh well.

Peter And Elias Had Their Little Games, and Martin knew that from experience from the very first time he had met Peter.

… at the same time, Martin being “Martin out” might have been a genuine missed opportunity since… I’m glad that he didn’t go for murder even if he wanted to? And the fact that Elias was ready to risk Jonah’s original body probably meant that there was a huuuuge trick/something that could have backfired if Martin had knifed him? But Daisy had also pointed out that maybe they should have accepted to kill him at the risk of dying when they have had a chance:

(MAG142) MARTIN: I thought you believed him…! You were doing all of his dirty work. DAISY: Well, wasn’t willing to call his bluff. Not the same thing as “believing”. Just too big a risk. MARTIN: … Not for Melanie. DAISY: Well, maybe she was the only one with any sense. Even if he was telling the truth [EXHALE], if we all… died… There are worse things.

And I still really don’t want the bottom line to be that yes, they should have gone for murder? But at the same time, right now, indeed: we’re in “worse things” and heading towards ever worse things than death…

(- I’m still stuck a bit on “why Martin, when alone-wise, Tim was just there?”. Was it because amongst the assistants, Martin was the most willing to read statements before MAG108? Was it really because Martin was easily expendable, prone to fear a lot, and had a special flavour of Loneliness due to both his crush on Jon and his one-sided relationship with his mother?

…………… but given how Elias just knew that Jon would run after Martin, how getting Jon to rush into The Lonely seemed to have been his main goal, and with the recent mention that:

(MAG149) GEORGIE: You must be Martin. MARTIN: Y–yeah. Has… Melanie been talking about me? GEORGIE: Oh, hum… Jon used to go on about you a lot.

… Jon had been talking about Martin off-tape, and given how he had been flustered about “office gossip” in MAG117 and his very persistent longing in season 4… was it that Martin was chosen not exactly for himself, but because Elias had identified Martin as someone Jon would always try to save, as early as in mid-season 3…? When Jon was at Georgie’s and/or when Jon went to ~talk with Martin~ right after being back from his kidnapping in MAG102…?)

- I’m not exactly sure I understood the terms of Peter and Elias’s bet. I’m assuming that Simon was mostly right in his train of thoughts – that Peter succeeding/winning would be getting an occasion to strengthen The Lonely (killing Jonah / setting up Martin as a dual avatar instead of him, thus both ruining The Eye’s chance for its ritual during this round + getting his revenge on Gertrude for ruining Forsaken’s ritual, all the while consolidating The Lonely by stealing a place of power and mayyybe shortening the time span until their next chance at a ritual attempt)…? Or was Peter genuinely preoccupied by The Extinction, or both? At least, Martin refusing to kill Jonah’s body meant Peter “losing”, meant that he had to cast Martin into The Lonely (and surrender his attempt on the Panopticon?); Peter didn’t even have to stay around, he’s just… probably making things hard on himself. Because hum: we saw what happened last time Jon tried to use his power (peering through the door?) to see through The Lonely at the end of MAG139; it left him a mess:

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: … If I… Knew… what his plan was; if I knew what Peter was doing; if I just– [WHISPERING] … Can I…? [LOW RUMBLING SOUND, STATIC RISES] [CRIES OF PAIN] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION STEADILY RISING] [NOISE OF SOMETHING-OR-JON FALLING] [SQUEAL OF DISTORTION DECREASES] [MUMBLING] End… E–end recording…!

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Yesterday, I tried something I… [INHALE] I–I deliberately tried to… Know something, like I did in the coffin, but… there was a lot. Too much [SIGH], and I… BASIRA: What did you find out? ARCHIVIST: [SNORT] Nothing. There was “too much”. BASIRA: You don’t remember any of it? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] You drink the whole contents of a bar in three seconds, you don’t remember what the merlot tasted like. [SIGH] It just… hurt.

… and a predatory monster: it was around that time that he absolutely traumatised Jess Tyrell, and then cornered Floyd for his statement less than two weeks later (although there had “only” been three victims in the previous three months). Whatever state Jon will be in in/after The Lonely, it won’t be pretty… and it will fall either on Peter, either on Martin, either on whoever is in Jon’s way after he comes out of it. (……………. And there is all the Institute staff up there, who just got preyed upon by two Hunters, full of fears. Does The Eye’s “protection” extend to non-Archival staff…? Because I’m also really, really worried about the survivors, given current circumstances…)

Given how Elias laughed triumphantly right after Martin was sent into The Lonely, that was the main goal/hurdle to reach – but technically, Peter had done that For Free with Brian in MAG100, and Mordechai Lukas had also very spontaneously punished Barnabas that way. Was Elias’s laugh caused by his win against Peter, then, because he’s That Petty? Why such an elaborated scheme to get Peter to do that…? Is it because Elias tends to have way more fun than strictly necessary, or was Peter personally reluctant to send Martin in there…? Or was it necessary to make it happen in the middle of the Panopticon…?

- We don’t know (yet) whether or not Peter has been around for very long at this point (though he’s expecting to live long according to MAG134: “Martin… it’s going to be decades, if not centuries, before I get another chance to bring Forsaken into this world. Your last Archivist saw to that. […] The point is that, yes, obviously, if I last that long, I’m going to try again.”), but assuming that he’s had a human-like lifespan so far, how could you Do That to a baby, Jonah. I’m still screaming over Elias’s delight:

(MAG158) PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it. [CHUCKLE] He played you like a… like a cheap whistle. PETER: No! Shut up!

Because it was??? Such an awful jab: * Making fun of the boatswain’s call from the Tundra.

* Shakespeare ref I think???

GUILDENSTERN: But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill. HAMLET: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak? 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

(Pipe’s back.)

* nsfw call-out; rude thing to say about your (ex?)husband’s performance in bed, Elias; also that’s tmi.

- I’m gonna miss Peter if he gets obliterated like Breekon, but AOUCH, he began the episode SO HARSHLY:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … Mm. PETER: Is everything alright, Martin? MARTIN: Nah, it’s fine. … Don’t particularly like it down here. PETER: Ah, yes. Of course. Hard to trust the doors, I imagine. MARTIN: [BREATHLESS CHUCKLE] Yeah, well, everyone else seems to these days, so…! PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter. […] NOT!SASHA: Who let me out? [SILENCE] Don’t be shy. I just want to say thank you. [SILENCE] All right, have it your way. Now, if you’ll excuse me: I have some unfinished business. [MENACING SATISFIED LAUGHTER] [WEIRD SCUTTLING MOVEMENT] MARTIN: [RAGGED BREATHING] Th–th–tha–, that was, hum… PETER: Yes! MARTIN: [GULP] And it’s– it’s going to… PETER: Make sure everyone is too busy to follow us. They’ll be fine. … Probably.

Triple combo, right in Martin’s trauma. The one time he was trapped with Tim in Michael’s corridors at the end of season 2; gratuitous Tim mention that Martin didn’t want to hear; freeing the Not!Them, who had terrorised Tim&Martin even before they had learned that it had actually killed Sasha… aouch. Was Peter being shitty on purpose, to destabilise Martin, or was it really just little things that he said and did without thinking about how it could make Martin feel…? He had been very interested in Martin’s feelings recently:

(MAG156) MARTIN: Will I be coming back? PETER: You’re not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking, but… no. If all goes well, you won’t be. MARTIN: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] PETER: How does that make you feel? MARTIN: … Nothing. [SNORT] Nothing at all…! PETER: Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin.

So it could have been to test his apathy…? But aouch anyway.

- I loved his voice SO DAMN MUCH at that moment:

(MAG158) 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.

Because. Yeah, it was summing him up well. Saying atrocious things with a cold cheerfulness, absolutely unconcerned.

(- I think it’s safer to assume that Peter was a sore loser there:

(MAG158) PETER: Then do it, Martin. [UNFOLDING POCKET KNIFE?] We’re the same, you and I; we don’t need anyone else. Watching from a distance, that’s always who you’ve been. Haven’t you enjoyed it, these last few months? Drifting through the Archives, unseen, unjudged? You’ll like it in there. I promise. MARTIN: … Yeah. Yeah, I think I would. […] PETER: But you do serve The Lonely. MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have–

But I also kind of want to think that he had grown a bit fond of Martin and was genuine about wanting to share his patron / giving Martin a life that Martin would find some comfort in? >> Not good for Martin but. Somehow, it’s even sadder for Martin if Peter’s words really were just that empty, to ensure he would win a bet?)

- Hhhhh, we knew that the Not!Them was still… there, since Leitner had explained it to Jon:

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: That thing… Is it dead? LEITNER: Unlikely. Whether something like that can actually be destroyed… It is trapped. I, I hope for a very long time.

But I really wasn’t expecting to see it again!! Somehow, Elias had told the Team that Leitner had killed it (MAG092: “It finally tried to kill John. Then Leitner killed it. Then I killed Leitner. And I believe that brings us up to date. More or less.”), so was it a conscious lie, a slip of the tongue, or was it that Elias didn’t know that it was actually still kicking back then…?

* Leitner was suspecting that the Not!Them was actually trying to find him when it was wandering in the tunnels:

(MAG080) LEITNER: The “Not!Sasha” had come down several times. I suspect it was almost as curious about me as you were. Perhaps it thought you might have better luck flushing me out.

… but UHOH. Was it actually trying to find the Panopticon, already?

* I still miss Sasha, and I’m SAD, and Martin’s shattered breath and Jon stuttering to explain what it was broke me:

(MAG158) DAISY: What the hell is that thing? […] ARCHIVIST: Do you remember what happened to Sasha? BASIRA: That’s the thing that took her? ARCHIVIST: It was trapped in the tunnels, it– Martin. Something’s happening down there.

Because… Sasha… And of course, for both Daisy and Basira, it’s just a dangerous monster, it’s not a creature who also killed a friend; they weren’t around back then, they never knew Sasha. But for Jon&Martin, it’s… a reminder of what they’ve lost…

* Vindication: the Not!Them had mocked Jon about how he wouldn’t survive to witness The Unknowing, and AHAHA.

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: You’ll miss The Unknowing, of course, but you wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Guess who missed The Unknowing in the end. (Gertrude had mentioned that avatars tended to fade or go erratic after a ritual attempt, but given that the Not!Them hadn’t participated, will it be affected…? As we’ve seen, Jared was fine.)

* I don’t think that the Not!Them will be trapped again, unless it’s thrown into the coffin, and I don’t think that the Hunters would be enough to kill it… so either it’ll flee, taking a new victim, either Jon will destroy it like he did with the Dark Sun, maybe…?

- I’m… heartbroken about Julia:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: What… Daisy, are you–? BASIRA: Shh! [GUNSHOTS, MUFFLED BY THE DISTANCE] [FEMALE SCREAMS] ARCHIVIST: Oh no… BASIRA: Stay here, both of you. I’ll check it out. [MORE DISTANT GUNSHOTS] […] BASIRA: Looks like two people. An old guy– DAISY: And a woman with a scar. ARCHIVIST: Oh, God, now? Why now?! BASIRA: It’s probably not a coincidence. From what I saw, they’ve been toying with the rest of the Institute, but it won’t be long until they’re all dead or escaped. […] TREVOR: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooooooonny boy! [CACKLES] JULIA: [IN THE DISTANCE] [CACKLES] We want to make a statement! […] JULIA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Ha! You see that, old man? TREVOR: [IN THE DISTANCE] Told ya. They’re all monsters in here.

Because she sounded absolutely gone. Trevor had pointed out that ~the lines got blurrier every day~, but Julia was younger, had been a Hunter for a shorter amount of time and… there were her life circumstances, the fact that her father had done horrible things to try to get her mother back, and had tried to protect her from all of The Dark stuff…? It’s really sadder in Julia’s case, because it gives the feeling that that cycle of violence was absolutely inescapable – that Julia’s only options were either to die as prey, killed by Darvish, or to become the mindless predator. Julia&Trevor attacked the Institute (… well: basically launched a terrorist attack against it; they had mentioned it was “full of monsters”, it was a cleansing and/or toying with innocents) and, even if “best case” scenario and there aren’t any casualties, that’s still tons of people traumatised for life. How could Julia even come back to normal after this, when she’s this far gone…?

- TT___TT Archival Team sharing information and (snappily) discussing about what to do…

(MAG158) BASIRA: So Elias left it? ARCHIVIST: Or Martin. O–or Peter, or… Annabelle! BASIRA: Fine. Whatever. Could be a distraction. ARCHIVIST: Only one way to find out. BASIRA: We don’t have time for this. DAISY: We don’t know that. We’ve no idea what sort of timeframe we’re on. I say play it. ARCHIVIST: Thank you.

… and of course, it’s when everything is going to hell and these three people probably won’t be in the same room ever again (or at least not as themselves).

(- I’M GONNA MISS THESE LITTLE thINGS SO MUCH…

(MAG158) BASIRA: Set up by the door. Try and take them when they break through it. DAISY: Right. ARCHIVIST: Do, uh… do I get a gun? BASIRA: You ever fired one? ARCHIVIST: You never taught me! BASIRA: You never asked. Besides, we’ve got problems enough without– [CRASHING SOUND]

That mix of snappiness and awkwardness and closeness in the Worst Moments…)

- We knew it was coming, but still…

(MAG158) BASIRA: This might be it. DAISY: Basira… BASIRA: Didn’t think it would end like this. [CHUCKLING] You know what, actually I think I did! [GUNSHOTS IN THE DISTANCE] NOT!SASHA: [CACKLING, IN THE DISTANCE] DAISY: [PANTING] Basira… promise me something. BASIRA: What? … No, Daisy, no. DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…! BASIRA: Daisy…! DAISY: [GROWLING] Run! [RUNNING FOOTSTEPS] DAISY: [GROANS] [COCKED GUN] JULIA: [LAUGH] There you are! TREVOR: All alone! [COCKED GUN] Like a pup. DAISY: [BARKS] JULIA: … Shit! [ONE GUNSHOT] [CLICK.]

I’m so heartbroken about Daisy TT___TT It… didn’t really sound like she was agreeing to sacrifice herself to save Basira, but more like The Hunt managed to catch up with her because of the violence, and she only managed to say her last will before getting completely drowned, reverting to the state she had turned into during The Unknowing (when she ripped Hope apart with her bare hands). I don’t think there will be another coffin trip; I guess there could be something because of her ties to the Institute, but I doubt it… Damnit, I was kinda hoping that The Eye would protect her a bit longer despite the threat of hearing her Blood, but no, the big eyeball was absolutely useless ;;

And gdi ;; At least, Tim got to pull the trigger and get his revenge, and Adelard had neutralised a Corruption avatar and freed people from their torment, while Daisy only got caught up (preyed) on by The Hunt without being able to strike back before that. What she was in season 4 wasn’t a waste, never (we got to meet the real Daisy, and she was fantastic!), but it feels so, so sad that The Hunt got her back when it mattered so much to her to never go back to it…

(Obligatory “archive dog!!” joke, though.)

(- Also sad because she was hoping she would be the one to kill Elias, in MAG082, and fucker REALLY has it coming at this point. Violence Is Bad, but still, please, someone, stab him.)

(- And it reaaaally doesn’t bode well for Jon, uh… Daisy had been involved in violence and supernatural stories for 16 years, though, so that’s longer. But the fact that resisting was only a momentary reprieve before being taken in again is nnnnot exactly a good sign for Jon, given how heavily Daisy and Jon had been paralleled as going into withdrawal in season 4, and how Jon was finally pushed to use his powers again in this episode…)

- Also still crying over Daisy and Basira’s goodbyes:

(MAG158) DAISY: [PANTING] Basira… promise me something. BASIRA: What? … No, Daisy, no. DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…!

And what it means for Basira orz Either she does it at the end of this season, either part of season 5 will be about finding and killing (the creature that took over) Daisy, uh…? I want to hope for them (since hum, we’re like, back to the end of season 3: the duo shattered, Daisy lost and dangerous) but it already happened once; the biggest difference is that Daisy had managed to get her voice back during season 4, instead of being fuelled by mindless violence like she had been in season 3.

It was also… Daisy going back to the person Basira used to admire, as a fixed point:

(MAG117) BASIRA: But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. […] Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.

Daisy, firm about what is happening and what has to be done – even though it’s about killing her.

(I’m also a bit sad that ;; Daisy and Basira had been around for so long, and I really wanted to think they were meant to be interpreted as a couple and/or mutually crushing? But although there are lots of indicators, it has never been made explicit, and now it would only be retroactive…)

- One Good Thing: 

(MAG158) ELIAS: I guarantee it won’t be pleasant for them, but I honestly don’t know if their ties to the Institute are quite as strong as I may have implied. You, at least, should be insulated from the fall-out by your new allegiance. Jon… might be powerful enough to weather it. Melanie’s well out of it, so that just leaves Basira and Daisy. And the rest of the Institute, of course, and you can’t tell me you care about them.

MELANIE IS OFFICIALLY FINE!! She really fled the boat before it sank, uh.

- I love that mentioning the use of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture tends to lead to roasting: 

(MAG080) LEITNER: By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t hear you say anything down there. LEITNER: I said reading. It doesn’t need to be spoken aloud.

(MAG158) PETER: Do you want to see how it works? MARTIN: Uh, n–no; no, I’d really rather you didn’t mess it up– PETER: No, I insist! Watch. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Very impressive. PETER: I’m reading. Shush.

(Had Peter actual trouble with the reading, though?)

- What was Peter trying to say re:Tim?

(MAG158) PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter.

It was thematically fitting because Tim had been down in the tunnels a lot during season 3, Smirke’s architecture was his speciality, and he had been trapped in the corridors together with Martin but…? I have no idea what Peter intended to say about him?

- fesdcujheznfds every end of the season has to star Martin with a corpse (or almost), uh. He found Gertrude’s between MAG039/MAG040; found Leitner’s together with Tim in MAG080; ~there was Jon’s~ at the end of season 3 (at least, Martin visited him before season 4, according to the trailer); and now, he got to find Jonah Magnus’s, although not really dead. Martin, you life sucks.

- ;___; Daisy had pointed out that Jon was self-destructive, and… Martin actually wasn’t really good in that regard, uh…

(MAG142) DAISY: Used to see it all the time back in the force, especially with the Section’d. 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.

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

(Extra-sad re: “we didn’t even like each other” because he still had gone drinking with Basira and Melanie, and he was concerned about Melanie post-MAG106. I mean, yeah, it didn’t fundamentally mean “liking” them but… it was still something.)

* I love that Martin is SO unapologetic about his feelings for Jon, technically, even more than in season 3:

(MAG118) ELIAS: [EXASPERATED BREATHING] … Did Jon put you up to this? MARTIN: You think I’m doing this for him? ELIAS: No. It’s just the sort of half-baked scheme he’d come up with. And I’m well aware that you’ll do just about anything for him–   MARTIN: I– ELIAS: –and I don’t need to read your mind for that one. MARTIN: … Do you rea– … Is it so hard to believe that I hate you as well? ELIAS: No. It’s just hard to imagine that you would act on it.

From protesting that he wasn’t doing this for Jon, to saying that Jon was his reason.

* So. Peter was wrong when he had told Martin that

(MAG126) PETER: [CHUCKLING] I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… MARTIN: … You said he’d probably never wake up. PETER: And he beat the odds. Which is good. But it does make things more complicated. It doesn’t… actually change… anything.

Jon coming back did change something. And it’s sure not healthy on Martin’s side, but it’s also… still something indeed…? Still better than the nothing he used to (not) have…? But so sad that the way Martin describes it, the way he talked with Jon, it’s really never associated with the idea of constructing something, or a future. Those are very… Lonely feelings indeed? That he’s keeping from afar? (And gdi, I would really want Jon and Martin to finally manage to talk and share, to communicate and reach a peaceful ground? To hear and see each other? But given the circumstances… it probably won’t be now…)

I’m not even sure Jon&Martin will talk before the end of the season, actually? Or maybe not directly to each other – through tape, through written messages could be other options. But on the other hand: Jon’s worry and feelings for Martin have been a major element this season, so… there is probably a payoff coming, rather than immediate and absolutely shattering heartbreak?

- Martin once again confirmed that he has gone dual Eye/Lonely ;;

(MAG158) PETER: But you do serve The Lonely. MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”.

But I mostly want for him to get back to a state of mind where he would go back to writing poetry?! ;_; Unlikely, I know, but. (And to not harm people to feed… Has he been feeding on himself and his own loneliness, or are we in for an awful reveal about the researchers who disappeared…)

- In the list of people Martin had lost:

(MAG158) MARTIN: I… When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil, and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me.

… I’m surprised that Tim wasn’t mentioned at all…? Tim had told Jon that he didn’t feel as close to Martin as he was with Sasha, but I had gotten the impression that Martin did care a lot more about him…? And it’s still a Do Not Talk About Him subject:

(MAG120) ELIAS: Hello, inspector. Martin. I’m… sorry to hear about Tim. MARTIN: Don’t. ELIAS: And Daisy, I suppose. MARTIN: Don’t. you. dare. 

(MAG138) MARTIN: I don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions Millbank. The old prison, I guess? Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly. [SILENCE] [SIGH] I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff…! I wish– … No. No, it’s fine, I’m… fine, I… [EXHALE] I can do this.

(MAG158) PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter.

(Plus, when he mentioned “the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil”, it felt like what Tim had told him back in season 3:

(MAG098) TIM: Look, it’s not that. I… [SIGH] This place is evil, Martin. And I think doing what It wants? Probably makes us evil. And It wants those things to be read. I mean, I’m not gonna stop you, but, at the same time– MARTIN: I– I get it.

So Martin did remember about that conversation, uh…)

(- We knew that the death of Martin’s mother had affected him deeply, Basira had told Jon. And he explicitly said it. But after what Elias told him (and forced him to see) in MAG118, I still would like to hear him describe his relationship to her – how he felt it, what MAG118 changed, if it changed anything…)

(Laughing and crying that Martin “my dad left my family when I was 8” suddenly got two trashdads, who are the worst, and whom he doesn’t want.)

(- Shut your mouuuuth Eliiiiaaaas

(MAG158) ELIAS: You, at least, should be insulated from the fall-out by your new allegiance. Jon… might be powerful enough to weather it. Melanie’s well out of it, so that just leaves Basira and Daisy. And the rest of the Institute, of course, and you can’t tell me you care about them. MARTIN: But of course I do! ELIAS: Do you, though? Do you really care, about any of them? Or is that worrying just simply an old reflex? [SILENCE] … Goodness. Peter has done his work well, hasn’t he? [CHUCKLE]

Who caaaares if it’s a “reflex” and done without conviction!! Doing the right thing just because you think it would be the right thing to do, even though you don’t feel much about it, is still better than doing nothing or doing something awful?? You can still define the kind of person you want to be through you deliberate actions?? Even if Martin was neutral about it, the fact that he still did his best to prevent Peter from hurting Daisy or random staff members in MAG144 matters, shut your mouuuuuth damniiiit!!)

- It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking that Martin’s reasons for getting wary of Peter were:

(MAG158) MARTIN: When you started talking about The Extinction, though… You… had me, actually, for a while. But then… [CHUCKLES] then you tried to make me the hero, tried to sell me on the idea that I was the “only one who could stop it”. And that? That never sat right with me. I mean–I mean, lo–look at me! [SNORTING] I’m, I’m not exactly a, a “Chosen One”. But, by then, I was in too deep. So I… played along, waited to see what your endgame was. 

… Because 1°) Peter, as a self-centred Lonely avatar, thought that insisting about how Martin was a Hero and Necessary would do the trick, 2°) Martin was too self-deprecative for this. It also echoed Jon’s interrogations at the end of MAG139, about why they had all been “chosen” – Jon just accepted that it had been the case, or some bad luck, while Martin… immediately questioned the idea. (And gdi, Martin!! But Jon chose you at the end of the very same episode… ;;)

- Peter!! Peter, you knew that a knife wasn’t fitting Martin:

(MAG039) MARTIN: I used to carry around a knife, but I started thinking that, well, cutting into someone laterally wasn’t really the most efficient way to get them out, and besides which, they seem to be quite slow burrowing in a straight line so, given their size, th–the corkscrew just seemed to be the better option. … Look, you guys got to go home every day, okay. I didn’t!

(MAG108) PETER: Martin, isn’t it? MARTIN: Y–you, don’t move! Em, don’t you come any closer, okay! I’ve got a, I’ve got a knife! PETER: Do you? That… that would seem widely out of character, from what I’ve been told. MARTIN: Okay, but okay, step back.

(MAG158) MARTIN: … I’ll need to kill him. PETER: Yes. Don’t worry, though. I brought a knife. […] Then do it, Martin. [UNFOLDING POCKET KNIFE?] We’re the same, you and I; we don’t need anyone else. […] PETER: Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

If you had brought him a corkscrew, maybe he would have said “yes”.

- I’m still LOVING that deception is one of Martin’s core features… 

(MAG056) ARCHIVIST: It was in the old document room, just next to where you used to sleep. Your handwriting, “If the others find out I’ve been lying”. Lying about what, Martin?! MARTIN: L– look, just forget about it, okay? Please. ARCHIVIST: I CAN’T forget it! Everyone in this place has so many goddamn secrets, and I can’t trust a word you say! Not about this, and not about Trevor! MARTIN: Jon, just– ARCHIVIST: MARTIN! MARTIN: Okay! Okay. Okay. Just… just… promise you won’t… fire me. ARCHIVIST: … fire you…? Fine! MARTIN: I… … I lied on my CV. ARCHIVIST: … What? MARTIN: I don’t have a Master’s in parapsychology, I don’t even have a degree. When I was 17, my mom, she… had… she had some problems, and I ended up dropping out of school, t– trying to support us. I tried everything, but no one was hiring. So I… I just kinda started to lie on my applications, sending them out to just about anywhere. For some reason, my lie about parapsychology got me an interview with Elias and, and then a job here. M– most of my employment details are made up, I’m only 29! ARCHIVIST: Right, I… uh… I believe you!

(MAG120) ELIAS: I must admit I’m impressed, Martin. I knew you were all planning something, of course, but I didn’t believe you specifically would have the… er, capacity for boldness that you displayed. It took me quite by surprise. MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us.

(MAG158) PETER: The Extinction is coming. MARTIN: Oh, I’m sure it is! But that’s not what this is about, is it? This isn’t about “saving the world” – it’s all just some power play against him! I might not know exactly what’s going on, but I don’t think I want any part of this. However much I want to kill him… I’m out. PETER: But you said– MARTIN: Honestly… I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear. PETER: I see. … This is your doing, is it? ELIAS: [AUDIBLE GRIN] Hardly…! 

Not sure that it’s enough / the gist of it for Web stuff but. Still. 

(And I’m REELING that Elias sounded almost proud of Martin with that one.)

(And that their “powerplay” sounds so much like foreplay.)

- Martin was so good when spitting at those annoying disgusting old men and their weird games?? And then:

(MAG158) ELIAS: Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. [SILENCE] PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open.

… that mood whiplash of Martin beginning to ask for answers and being heartlessly wooshed as if he had barely spoken since the start.

- Meanwhile: Jon has been so, soooo vulgar this season!!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: … Shit.

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [SOFTLY BUT WITH FEELING] … Fuck.

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: You gotta be fucking kidding m–

Next corpse coming back to life is your grandmother, putting soap in your mouth. (I do love how that last one managed to… somehow make the scene a bit lighter because Jon was losing it, it was too much.)

(On a sidenote: Daisy, of all people, has never said “fuck”, only “shit”, I think? So she can’t die or lose herself there!!!)

- Why did Jon blank out after hearing Gertrude’s tape?

(MAG158) [CLICK–] BASIRA: Right, so what does that tell us? [SILENCE] Jon? … Jon! ARCHIVIST: Uh, y–yes, sorry. Right, just, uh… uh, the Panopticon. It’s the, uh…

Was it because of the shock of hearing her murder live? Was it because he noticed something off? Was it already Elias’s ~call~? (There was no static, though.) It felt to me like he was piecing something together…

- Peter & Martin had climbed the Panopticon’s central tower fine; meanwhile, Jon…

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [LABOURED BREATHING] ELIAS: Ah, Jon. I was almost worried…! You found your way all right. ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] Yes. … Ye–yes, I did… How?

… was out of it. Someone has been smoking too much lately, hm? (Do you still have your lighter on you, young old man…?)

- I’m ;; worried over Jon ~appreciating~ the beauty of things made to hurt:

(MAG143) [CREAKING, SPARKLER-LIKE STATIC SATURATING THE RECORDING.] ARCHIVIST: It’s… beautiful…

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] That’s the Panopticon… ELIAS: My, you have grown. Yes. A masterpiece, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] … Y–yeah. It is.

(And it feels extremely Hannigram, uh.)

(Oufttt over the fact that Jon’s powers provided him with the answer he sought right in front of Elias… Elias had told him that he had to find/get his answers himself, back in MAG092, and it’s… happening… Elias had been so glad/proud when Jon had let it slip that he Knew Gertrude and Gerry had worked together, back in MAG102, and Jon had so many moments of Knowing in season 4…)

- Still not over the fact that Jon still asked Elias questions assuming he would get answers? ;;

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [SEETHING] Where is he? ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. […] … How do I do it?

Jon sounded absolutely unsurprised when he reached the Panopticon, so… he had probably guessed that yeah, anyway, Elias had planned things, that he was doing exactly what Elias wanted, and that it was a price worth paying as long as it was aligning with his own interests (saving Martin)… Even at the cost of opening this damn inner door:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s… hard. It’s like there’s a–a–a door, in my mind. And behind it, is… i–is the entire ocean. Before, I didn’t notice it, but now, I know it’s there, and I can’t forget it, and I can feel the pressure of the water on it. I, I, I can keep it closed… but sometimes, when I’m around p–people, or–or places, or… ideas, a drop or two will push through the cracks, at the edges of the door. And I’ll… know something. BASIRA: … What happens, if you open the door? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I drown.

(MAG158) ELIAS: [INHALE] Wasn’t too long ago. And I’m sure traces of their passage still remain. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] ELIAS: Just open your mind. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] ELIAS: Drink it all in. Know their route, [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION, INCREASING] and simply… follow it. ARCHIVIST: [LOUDER BREATHING] ELIAS: Very good.

It had to come, “Jon opening it to save someone/Martin in particular” had been my first thought when Jon had described it to Basira but gdi!!! Still painful that it’s happening ;; It has been such an awful and painful string of hoping he could save people and/or refusing to allow people to die, only to have to deal with their losses…

(MAG047) MICHAEL: [DISTORTED LAUGH] Yes… Ah… Did you notice which door she left through? ARCHIVIST: Yes… It w– MICHAEL: [CHUCKLES] ARCHIVIST: … wait! No, there was– MICHAEL: There has never been a door there, Archivist, your mind plays tricks on you. ARCHIVIST: Let her go. MICHAEL: [DISTORTED LAUGH] “No”? ARCHIVIST: Get her back here! MICHAEL: Are you going to attack me?

(MAG098) MARTIN: Yeah, we talked. Not long, he– Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. TIM: He’s an idiot. Look, we didn’t know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isn’t going to save anyone. MARTIN: No, I mean, you’re right, I guess. He was… Y’know, we know about Sasha now, and… he said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault.

(MAG118) TIM: You knew I might not be coming back! ARCHIVIST: I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing! TIM: Oh, except for those people in there! ARCHIVIST: They’re already dead! TIM: Not all of them! ARCHIVIST: I am not losing you as well!!

(MAG158) BASIRA: … Goddamnit. Jon, go; we’ll keep them busy. ARCHIVIST: What…? No! I– BASIRA: Don’t argue, just go. NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooo–oooon~? ARCHIVIST: … Fine. Just don’t die. DAISY: Go.

And I hatehatehatehate that Elias absolutely played on the fact it was so personal for Jon, how his feelings could be a tool to get him where he wanted… 

(MAG158) ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. ELIAS: No, Jon. You want you to follow him.

That emphasis on “you”… 

(I still want to be a bit cautious before labelling Jon’s feelings as romantic, as long as it’s not confirmed-confirmed? But hhhhh yeah, no, Jon is desperate and longing and crushing awfully hard, uh…)

- There is still Helen around, and Annabelle hasn’t revealed herself either so… at this point, what is she waiting for or expecting…? Is she planning to go against Elias, is she planning to use him, or are they in this together…? If Elias indeed needed Jon to experience the Fears first-hand, The Web pushed in that direction with the coffin (leaving MAG130’s tape and leading Jon towards The Flesh, too); it was also The Web who made Oliver give Jon his statement to push him to wake up – and Jon ~made his choice~, and Jon waking up gave Martin a ~reason~ to not follow Peter entirely… It seemed like The Web and Elias’s interests got suspiciously aligned this season…? What Elias said about The Web was non-committal:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Or that we were being stalked by some freaky spider woman. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that! ELIAS: Ah, uh, y–yes… W–well… To be honest, I’d… advise you to leave that one – well alone. BASIRA: Oh yeah? ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…! Assuming you have a plan.

(“I’ve been doing this a long time now” fuuuuck oooooooffffff!!)

And he can’t have been unaware of Jon’s personal history with The Web, nor of all the spiders in the Institute, so…? Are they in it together, is he dual Web/Beholding, is he being made to ignore The Web, or has he taken precautions to not suffer from any interference…?

(- Other potential players: The Extinction and… the tape recorders (if they’re not Web :w). A tape turned on during Gertrude’s murder scene, and that was the first time we’ve seen it happen in Gertrude’s era. The recorders also behaved quite strangely with the Panopticon, because… there was one with Martin&Peter / we switched to Jon&co / we went back to Martin&Peter&Elias but, when Martin then Peter left, one stayed with Elias – unless Martin planted the same one that had been following him in the first part of the episode, this means one showed up in the Panopticon, on its own. We’re back to Jon’s argument to Tim in season 3:

(MAG114) ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] Interesting. What do you think is listening? TIM: What? […] And you know what I think. It’s that… the thing that runs the Institute, “The Watcher” or “The Eye” or whatever. ARCHIVIST: I dis… I disagree. This whole place is a temple to The Eye, Tim, I don’t think the tape recorders make any difference. TIM: [VICIOUSLY] Elias, then. ARCHIVIST: In that case, we’ll stick to talking about things he already knows.

If The Eye was behind them, why record what it’s witnessing anyway?) 

(And although Jon has listed Peter, Elias and Annabelle as potential suspects behind the last tapes that were sent to him… we still don’t have any indication of who it is.)

- On the one hand, Peter wanted Martin to be apathetic; on the other, Elias was REALLY glad about Jon being fearful:

(MAG156) PETER: How does that make you feel? MARTIN: … Nothing. [SNORT] Nothing at all…! PETER: Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin. MARTIN: I really don’t care. PETER: Perfect.

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [LOUDER BREATHING] ELIAS: Very good. Are you scared, Jon? ARCHIVIST: Yes… ELIAS: Perfect.

… It’s especially interesting re:Jon given how Gertrude had a very particular personal relation to fear, Adelard wondering if she was dissimulating or steel-like when it comes to this. Jon appears as a contrast: he fears a lot…

(MAG125) BASIRA: You ready? ARCHIVIST: [DRY HOLLOW LAUGHTER] No…? [SHAKY VOICE] You’re sure you don’t have… restraints, or… BASIRA: You think she’s gonna sleep through being tied down? I’ll try and grab her if she wakes, but… ARCHIVIST: … Okay…! Here we go…! [BREATHES DEEPLY] 

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I have her voice. I think that should be enough to find her, and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…?

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. DAISY: [SHAKY SIGH] ARCHIVIST: And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets.

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though.

(MAG143) HELEN: … How was it? ARCHIVIST: Mm? HELEN: Looking upon The Dark. ARCHIVIST: I thought I was going to die. HELEN: You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah.

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s just… The Web can be subtle, you understand? MELANIE: And? For all you know, its plan is to paralyse you with indecision…! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: Leaving you… sitting here, terrified that… everything you do is somehow all part of its Grand Plan… And who do you think that fear is gonna feed? ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. [INHALE] You are… not the first, to make that point.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … When does it stop? HELEN: What? ARCHIVIST: The guilt… The misery… All the others I’ve met, they’ve been… cold. Cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does The Eye… make me monstrous?

… and that seems to be good for Elias’s plans/Jon’s self-realisation as an Archivist…? Season 4 feels like it’s been a slow game of completing Jon’s set by giving him incentive and by fostering his worry: removing the Slaughter’s bullet from Melanie, making him contact a Flesh avatar in his search for an anchor, making him go down in the Buried coffin in the hope of saving Daisy, making him see a Dark artefact after making him think he would be stopping a ritual). Elias has never been about reassurance; quite the contrary, he always pushed Jon to fear the worst from things, and it was once again the case when he pointed out how dangerous going into The Lonely would be. There is still the question about whether it was about the physical or intellectual experiences, or both. Jon got an insight of the way the Fears worked, from the inside, and Elias had pointed out in the past that that is apparently his function:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…

Jon has now been in contact with all the Fears except The Lonely, getting an internal view of them and how they operated:

* Corruption through Jane Prentiss’s attack (and her written statement).

* Spiral through Michael’s and then Helen’s corridors (and Michael’s live-statement).

* Desolation through Jude Perry burning his hand (and her live-statement).

* Vast through Mike dropping him (and his-statement).

* Hunt through Daisy, then Julia&Trevor, chasing him (and their live-statements).

* Stranger through the Not!Them’s deception, the experience of The Unknowing (and Breekon’s “extracted” statement).

* End through his own almost-death and unwillingness to die, becoming something else instead (and Oliver’s live-statement).

* Slaughter through Melanie’s violent urges (plus the statement she gave of her injuries?).

* Flesh through Jared taking two ribs (and Jared’s live-statement).

* Buried through his rescue attempt in the coffin (no direct avatar here, but a few written statements).

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I know… DAISY: Th–the way out? ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done…

* Dark through directly staring into the Dark Sun (and Manuela’s live-statement).

* Web through the Leitner as a kid, and Annabelle making him doubts about influences and control (and Annabelle writing her statement for him).

(MAG147, Annabelle Caine) “Unless, of course, none of it was intentional. None of it was planned. The Mother is the fear of manipulation and lost control made manifest. So perhaps it is our fear that projects Her influence on everything that happens. Like the mind, retrospectively assigning reason to our actions, so we fit whatever occurs into the neatest pattern we can, and declare Her web both intricate… and complete. Perhaps She is no more active than Terminus – simply sitting and revelling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia, as those who hold Her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory. Or perhaps I am simply telling you what you need to hear, in order to behave exactly as the Mother wishes you to.”

Still missing The Lonely both as a live-statement and/or statement from an avatar, as a live experience, and as a scar, but now… he’s getting there. (And missing The Extinction, too, which could factor in, but Jonah is probably still following Smirke’s List of Fourteen? Smirke’s architecture was based around the concept.)

But I’m especially curious about the scars in the context of Jonah body-hopping: Robert Smirke had mentioned he feared death, a lot of people had pointed out that Elias tends to avoid getting directly involved, and… that could plainly be a way to avoid the risk of dying himself? And what if what he needed was a body who had physically experienced the Fears…? I’m mostly thinking about it because:

* James Wright was Head of the Institute for 23 years (1973 to 1996); assuming that Jonah had body-hopped right when “Elias Bouchard” became the next Head, that would be 22 years in that body as of now. So might be time to get another one.

* If Jon is meant to be the next host, you Know that Jonny would have a blast voicing Jonah-in-Jon: it would a big challenge voice-acting wise (making a character we used to hear through another VA absolutely identifiable), and also probably a great deal of fun (especially making everyone upset).

* Cursed thought of Unlikely Team during season 5, consisting of Martin (who still thinks that Jon is somewhere there and can be saved), Basira (who is both tracking Daisy and uuuh trying to prevent the apocalypse) and pothead!Elias being back in control of his body (and also uuuh convicted of murders and technically escaped from prison) going after Jonah!Jon. It sounds like if The Eye is attempting its ritual, it’s coming now, but. Lovely thoughts.

(I do subscribe to the idea that the Actual Elias Bouchard might still be somewhere: being stuck and condemned to watch the atrocities committed by Jonah (… he knew about poisoned drinks) sounds like the Most Beholding Thing ever, and there is still the question of how Jonah had been feeding. What if his Fear battery was always within him?)

- Still two episodes, and everything already sounds like The Worst Possible? Martin has been whooshed into The Lonely, while being susceptible to it; Jon opened his inner door and might be drowning; Daisy fell back into The Hunt; Elias is winning and The Eye’s ritual might be on the verge of happening; the Institute has been attacked and there are 4 avatars/monsters fighting inside of it. It might be the worst for Martin to have to deal with the fact that, if Jon is getting lost, it would have been to save him (was it a nice bonus for Elias, as a punishment for Martin’s schemes at the end of season 3…? I’m wondering, because I also feel like Basira is being “punished” through Daisy in a way, and Elias could be petty enough to join utilitarianism and personal grudges: getting Trevor&Julia in at the right time to cause chaos and make Jon panic, and also to force Daisy to snap and make Basira lose her….)

- ;; Elias sounded absolutely in control, so… yeah, we might be losing Jon as we just lost Daisy – but at the same time, if it’s already happening with her, things could go differently for him…? Jon had already gotten out of The Buried, and we still don’t… really know how – we know about elements who contributed, but not how it worked exactly. Was his anchor truly his rib? Was it the statements, through the recordings? Did the fact that Martin had been the one to put them there help? Did the Web lighter help…?

- OKAY, so the knife has been explicitly mentioned, heard… and clearly dropped on the Panopticon floor:

(MAG158) MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

… So there is a good chance that it’s gonna be put to use: either by Elias on someone (Jon or Martin), eeeeeeeeeeither someone using it on him.

……………… and as much as Violence Is Bad, I really want to hope for Basira, there. It’s around the anniversary of her involvement with the Institute (she went for the worms in the Summer, then gave her first statement to Jon on September 19th, 2016), Elias played with her all through season 4, sending her after dead-end leads to get Jon into the coffin, then pushing her to go with Jon to ~stop The Dark~. She got Daisy back only to lose her again. Sure, she got to punch Elias (and it was a m a z i n g), but… she didn’t manage to achieve anything, to get a “victory” in any way, this season? Stabbing wouldn’t be a good answer, but Basira mostly cared about Daisy, and Daisy is now lost to The Hunt – if killing Elias and/or Jonah’s body means insta-death for all the assistants solely tied to The Eye, that… might be a price she would be ready to pay right now. Although there is still the matter of Daisy (given that she went full Hunt, would she still be killed too?).

(… Also, given how Elias has been very casually sexist/classist recently?

(MAG148) ELIAS: Ah… [HUM] I’ve… always thought that a man’s eating habits were… his own private business.

(MAG158) ELIAS: Oh, you needn’t worry. Two against one? Hm! I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to. I just wanted to be here at the end. Can a man not watch his own death?

I really really want him to get backstabbed by a female character that he would have failed to factor in as an actual threat.)

(Other option is that Elias could try to bribe her through the hope of getting Daisy back again and ;; That might be a weakness for Basira, uh…)

- Bonus for Basira: she pointed out that Jonah’s body-hopping could be like Rayner’s. And she directly witnessed Rayner’s death and the weak spot in the action – Rayner was vulnerable when he tried to get into a new body. If Jonah is precisely trying to do that… it could be the right moment to strike (for Basira, Annabelle, Helen…). Grabbing an opportunity on the moment was also her Thing, according to Daisy:

(MAG142) DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes.

- The summaries are usually non-canon but this one, uuuuuh, this one felt Very Specific…

“Case #0182509-A Original recording of events leading to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.”

* So: still in 2018 (the Institute is still in its 200th year anniversary), but in September. We broke the curse of an assistant dying every Summer, at least? Since it’s Autumn already.

* Side “A”, so next episode could be the B-side…? Or will we get it much, muuuch later…

* Alrrrrrrrrrrrrright so, Jon, Martin and Peter in the Lonely + Daisy is probably not recognisable anymore. That leaves Basira and Elias, but the summary makes it sound like it was written a bit in the future so… Are they not listed because they’re still accessible at this point in time? … Or because their corpses have been found?

Anyway. Another timeskip coming between season 4 and season 5, uh…? ;;

I Don’t Like This Title, but then, every Monday/Tuesday/first part of Wednesday is a variation around that. Could be about The Extinction, could be about Jon completing his “set” with the Lonely (scar and scare-wise); could be about Martin when having the original team in mind; could be about Basira given how we left her at the end of MAG158; could be about The Watcher’s Crown; could be about surprise!Annabelle or surprise!Helen; could be about Jonah getting another body; could be about The Lonely’s ritual; could be about Jon-and-Martin… in any case, sob. I mentioned a few but I don’t even have any conviction/feeling, Fear-wise?

[furuba-imagines]

A Glimmer of Hope [1]

A/N: I shall be posting requests over the weekend. I started writing this story around 2016 (it’s on my quotev and FanFiction.Net) but bc of the rebooted anime I decided to reboot my own story as well the new anime’s honour :3

Word Count: 2706

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of sad character past, mentions of family abuse. Crappy format bc it was posted on mobile app. I’ll fix it up later. For now, enjoy!!

Pairing: Eventual Kyo x Oc

Story Notes:

Bold text is Amélie’s thoughts and inner dialogue.

Italicised text is when Amélie is narrating bits of the story like Tohru does in the anime as well as flashbacks (I will let you know what’s a flashback and what’s not though)

ONE - ENCOUNTERS

Amélie smiled to herself as she breathed in the fresh morning air. She marvelled at how beautiful and blue the sky was and how the white fluffy clouds looked as if they were painted in gentle strokes.

'Oooh yeah, that sun feels so warm.'

The sun shone bright, warming up her pale skin, erasing the goose bumps that littered her exposed arms. Turning back to the small black tent that she currently called home, her lip twitched and formed into a forlorn smile as she looked at the photograph sitting atop a folded pile of clothes in a simple brown wooden picture frame. It was a picture of her when she was six, posing with her mum and dad. Everything was so happy and bright back then... but a dark storm washed all that happiness away and she hasn't really felt it since. Despite the accident that befell them happening so long ago, it still got to her. It still haunted her dreams at night and plagued her thoughts during daylight. She wished she could just stop feeling – it would make things so much easier.

With a heavy sigh, Amélie grabbed her school bag and guitar and secured them both around her back and shoulder respectively. She cast one last glance at the picture before zipping up the tent and making sure it was secure, not that she was worried about anyone breaking in. Not many people passed by this area.

'See you guys soon. I love you.'

Even so, she didn't keep her more valuable belongings in the tent, like her piano keyboard. She kept that safely locked up in the school music room. Normally, she'd leave her guitar there too but she wanted to work on the new song she was writing. But she never kept both instruments in the tent at the same time in case something did happen. She didn't want to risk it no matter how small the chance. A part from the picture, her guitar and piano were the only things she had left of her parents. They were both musicians – her mum sang and wrote and her dad played. Music was one of the only things she still found happiness in. She hoped that one day her music would be played across the world for people to enjoy.

Amélie tugged at her uniform, wishing she had a mirror to check herself with. Amélie was never very fond of the girl's uniform so she wore the boy's one instead. She traded in her skirt and blouse for the pants and collared shirt and paired it with her own plain black Doc Martin's. She felt more comfortable in them than the lace up shoes the school provided. The school faculty stopped carding her after the first two weeks she refused to change. She also liked the fact that she didn't have to worry about boys trying to sneak-a-peak up her skirt. The last boy who tried walked away with a swollen cheek, bruised eye and busted lip. She stood by her actions however.

'The little shit deserved it. He had it coming if you ask me.'

Amélie hadn't always lived in a tent. After the death of her parents, her French side of her family were given custody over her but she wouldn't really call them family. The first thing they did was disown her, cast her out and hand her over to the state orphanage as soon as they could. She ended up living there until she was thirteen after her Japanese side of the family finding out about her and adopting her. Amélie would've preferred to stay at the orphanage since they were more of a family than her actual relatives. By the age of sixteen she had endured enough of their abuse and torment and ran away. She ended up staying at both her friends, Uotani and Hanajima's place for a while upon their insistence but the guilt became too much so she lied about having found good accommodation. In reality, she kept moving from hotel to hotel until she was forced to live in the tent she was living in currently. A glamorous life she liked to sarcastically call it, but she was grateful at least that she wasn't living on the sidewalks or under a bridge somewhere.

"Il ya toujours un arc en ciel après la tempéte!" She quoted to herself. There's always a rainbow after a storm. It was something her mother used to quote quite often.

The forest that she walked through she found to be quite calming and beautiful with all the tall trees and lush greenery. With that being said, feeling a little adventurous this morning and wanting to delay school as much as she could, she decided to take a different route. The more she drifted away from her usual path, the more the forest became increasingly unfamiliar until she had no idea where she was going.

"Fuck sakes," She cursed. 'Why would you even try straying from the main path with your horrible sense of direction? I'm such an idiot sometimes.'

However, much to her surprise, something in the peripherals of her vision captured her attention and halting her steps. To her far right, down a hill was a large clearing that lead to a traditional Japanese looking house. Amélie should've known that a forest as beautiful as this one had to have some kind of estate built upon it. With her curiosity piqued to the max, she couldn't help herself and decided to investigate.

‘A little snooping wouldn't hurt anybody.'

"It's called trespassing Amélie and its illegal," she reminded herself but proceeded to ignore her own warning.

Amélie was careful as she made her way down the hill. Hiding behind a bush, she did a quick look around to make sure the coast was clear before approaching the house.

'At least they don't have to worry about annoying neighbours. Must be nice to live here.'

Coming up close to the porch, Amélie couldn't help but be drawn to little ornaments sitting on a wooden rack. Upon closer inspection, she recognised them as the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. She smiled to herself.

"They look so well made and detailed. I wonder how long it took to paint them all..."

"Hello, this is a surprise. We don't get many young girls wondering around these parts."

Amélie bristled at the sudden voice and stumbled backwards, almost falling flat on her ass.

'Shit, shit! You've done fucked up now! Run before he calls the cops on you for trespassing! On second thought... he doesn't look too mad. Just play it cool and maybe you can leave without getting into any trouble.'

"I'm so sorry sir! I was just admiring I swear! I'm not here to cause you any trouble." She barely managed to string her words together without fumbling over them.

The man just chuckled and waved a hand at her. "It's quite alright, no harm done." The man's smile turned pensive. "I just find it hard to imagine that a teenager like yourself would find this place interesting." He mused.

'Oh thank goodness, I'm not in trouble.'

Amélie was quick to shake her head as she knelt in front of the rack, the man following suit. "No, it's a very lovely place. And I especially love these little zodiac ornaments here. Did you make them?" She asked.

"Yes I did. They're a favourite of mine too you could say."

Amélie scanned every rock that had been painted with detail and precision but a frown soon formed on her face when she noticed something missing.

"Of course you left out the cat just like everyone else." She muttered. It was more to herself than to the man in front of her although she realised she must've spoken too loud because of his surprised expression.

"The cat? Oh right, I see. You're referring to the old zodiac folktale." He said in realisation and Amélie nodded.

"I used to get dad to tell me the story sometimes before bed. I've always thought the cat had just as much importance to the story as any of the other animals did. I always felt for him."

_____________________

>>>Flashback<<<

_____________________

Little Amélie laid in her bed all snuggled and tucked beneath her plush blankets.

"Goodnight princess," Mr. Hoshimi smiled down at his daughter and placed a gentle kiss to her forehead. As soon as he stood up to leave though, Amélie grabbed onto the sleeve of his shirt and tugged on it.

"Wait! Can you tell me that story about the animals again? Pwease?" She pouted, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. The elder man quickly fell for her doe eyes and hopeful smile and found himself smiling along with her.

"Oh wow could I ever say no to that cute face?" he cooed, sitting back down onto the bed.

"A long, long time ago, god decided to invite all of the animals to a glorious banquet. He sent out word for all of them to come to his house the following evening and he told them not to be late.

"Can you name all the animals Amélie?"

Amélie sat up straight and proudly listed all the animals – The dog and the dragon, the rabbit and tiger, the rat and the pig, the cow and horse, the sheep and the rooster, the monkey, the snake... "And my favourite, the cat!" She cheered.

Mr. Hoshimi just laughed and tucked Amélie back underneath the sheets and continued with the story.

"However, when the mischievous rat heard the news, he decided to play a trick on his fellow neighbour – the cat. He told the cat that the party was the day after tomorrow."

Amélie turned her nose up and scowled. "I hate this part," She grumbled with a huff. "The poor kitty cat deserves better..."

"The very next day, all of the animals lined up for the celebrations with the rat leading the way, riding all the way on the back of the cow. Everyone had a wonderful time, except for the foolish cat who missed the whole thing." Mr. Hoshimi finished.

When he looked down at his daughter, he chuckled at her grumpy pout and furrowed brows.

"Amélie honey, why so grumpy?" He asked, but he knew why. She always got mad at the rat for tricking the cat, even though it was only just a story, Amélie had vowed to be the protector of all cats.

"Because the rat was so mean! If I was the cat, I would've kicked the rats butt for being such a... well, a butt!" She exclaimed, balling her hands into tiny fists.

"And if mummy heard you talk like that, she'd have yours."

Amelie giggled sheepishly before a thought popped into her head. "Do you think the cat would like it if I started a year of the cat?!"

Mr. Hoshimi just smiled. "I'm sure he would love that honey."

_______________________

>>> End of Flashback <<<

_______________________

The kimono wearing man smirked and tapped his fingers against his chin in thought. "Funny, I wonder how he would feel after hearing that story, knowing he has a little fan."

Snapping out of her reverie, she looked at him with a confused tilt of her head. "I'm sorry, who?"

The man shook his head and part of her wondered if she was actually meant to hear what he had said or not.

"Oh nevermind. So, what year were you born in?" He asked, quickly distracting her by changing the subject and Amélie went along with it.

"Year of the Ox," she replied.

The man nodded but Amélie noticed his eyes drift to her uniform. Most people found it odd that she wore the boy's uniform so she was used to it by now. She was about to speak, but he beat her to it.

"I apologise, I don't mean to stare. I've just never seen a girl wear the boy's uniform before. I must say though, you pull it off quite well."

Amélie's cheeks flushed at the compliment. She was the worst when it came to accepting flattery and compliments.

"Thank you."

"You're not from around her are you?" He asked suddenly in a curious tone.

Amélie had been waiting for that question. Something she was often asked about also.

"It's my accent isn't it?" She supplied with a smirk.

'I'm glad it isn't too thick for people to understand me.'

"It is quite nice to listen to. I mean, aside from your pretty fa-"

Whatever the man was going to say next came to an abrupt stop and was replaced with a pained gasp as something landed on his head. It was a schoolbag, just like the one Amélie and most other high school students had.

'Oh shoot, did not expect that.'

"My head!"

"Will you at least try to control yourself?" A new voice sighed.

Amélie's eyes trailed up the person's arm that held the bag until she reached their face and her eyes widen in shock.

'No way, Yuki lives here?! If I get caught with him, that stupid fan club of his won't let me hear the end of it.'

Yuki turned his attention away from the man to Amélie. "Good morning Miss Hoshimi, I'm sorry for my cousin. He's bit of a flirt but's he's harmless. It's best to just ignore him."

"Oh no, it's alright. We were just talking is all; he's good company."

The man, Yuki's cousin, rubbed the sore spot on his head. "What do you have in there? A dictionary or something?"

Yuki barely batted an eyelash at his whining. "Two dictionaries actually," he sighed in exasperation as he slid the schoolbag onto his back, adjusting the straps so it fit comfortably on his shoulders.

Yuki's cousin rubbed his head one last time. "So, you two know each other?" He asked, pointing between the two of them.

"Miss Hoshimi and I are in the same class."

Amélie dipped her head in a respectful bow. "The name's Amélie, pleasure to meet you." She officially greeted.

"Same here. I'm Shigure Sohma and Yuki here is my little cousin." He explained with a friendly smile.

"And what brings you to our house this morning?" Yuki asked in his usual soft and polite voice.

Amélie offered them a nervous smile, rubbing the back of her neck. 'I can't exactly tell them that I live in the middle of the forest. They'll probably laugh at me. I need to think of something good to say and fast!'

"Oh uh, well you know, I live... nearby." She trailed off lamely. It wasn't a complete lie.

'Oh yeah, that's such a good cover up.'

She gulped when she noticed their stunned expressions and wished they would change the subject. She didn't do well under pressure.

"Around here? Really?"

"You do? Where?" Yuki pressed. Amélie was hyperaware of how clammy the palms of her hands were becoming.

'Abort! Abort!'

"I don't mean to be rude but I should probably head to school. I haven't been late in a while and I wanted to keep my record clean this semester."

'As if they cared or needed to know that last bit.'

She bowed to them once again. "It was nice chatting with you. Have a good day." She said in a hurry, quickly turning on her heel and walking away.

'Don't look back. Just keep walking...'

"Miss Hoshimi?" Yuki called out after her.

Amélie sighed inwardly. 'Dammit.'

Putting on a smile, she turned to face him. "Yeah?"

"Since you're here, why don't we walk to school together?" He suggested.

'Say no. It's not worth the wrath of the fan club.'

"Sure, I don't see why not?" She accepted with a forced smile.

The entire walk was done so in an awkward silence as neither Yuki nor Amélie spoke a word or even looked at each other. And to make matters worse, they did eventually run into the Prince Yuki Fan Club, prompting both teens to ignore their chants and poses which only made it all the more awkward until they parted their separated ways.

'I better prepare myself for their onslaught of pathetic questioning.'

Amélie groaned. She could feel the headache coming on already...

[literaphobe]

hello it is the “FUCK I LOVE STURCH” anon and i can assure you i am calmer and more coherent now. first, i want to say that i’m only about halfway through (though it’s not likely my opinion of it will change) and it’s quite possibly the funniest fix i’ve ever read. your little header things are amazing and original and i love them with all my heart. you don’t have to reply to this or anything, but hopefully it’ll cancel out the twitter negativity.

uwu honestly i love calm n crazy sturch love n im glad ur liking it n thank u for finding it funny 🥰🥰 i loved writing all those little headers too n i really do hope you have fun reading the rest of it!

the thing about sturch and all the hate y’all might have seen circulating around it be it through anon hate i post right here or what I’ve put up or on any other platform is that no matter how nasty anyone has been or how ridiculous some of the hate has been ive def like. internalized it? like ive def tried to analyze what was so wrong, and ive def broken down why people hate x n what doesn’t work for some people n what works for others, ive also considered the actual length of the story n many other factors! I’ve thought about why i loved sturch n what it meant for me too. ive considered the timeline during which i started n finished writing sturch. it stretched over shy of two years, and as a teenager that was a long time n a lot of development for me. no matter what people say about sturch i think i’ll always love and appreciate what it gave me, n what it brought into my life. sturch is me, as a person. it’s the drama club, it’s theatre that I’ve done for a decade, it’s partly inspired by my own experiences. it’s stuff from my mind, stuff that’s made me laugh, it’s love, it’s all the insecurities and stumbling blocks that people of the age range i depicted jake and amy could experience! it’s self doubt and trauma and deep seated issues and the feeling that you aren’t good enough for someone you love. it’s also stupid trivial things that snowballed into things that don’t need to snowball. it’s probably also a lot of other things. the jake and amy in sturch aren’t the jake and amy of b99. the jake and amy of b99 are adults well into their thirties, and of course they have some of the same trauma and insecurities n self doubt that jake and amy have in sturch, but they’ve had more time to deal with it, they’ve had more time to mature, and they definitely have more life experience. they have less reasons to run, etc etc. and that’s why sturch isn’t just about jake and amy falling in love confessing their feelings and living happily ever after. they fell in love, got in the way of themselves, hurt themselves, hurt each other, but then they figure it out. they heal, they learn, they decide to find out what they can take on together. some people might find it toxic or problematic but it’s human to do toxic/problematic things! really all it’s about is how we get back up n fix what we do. not to act like sturch is deep but that’s just what i think!! it may not be for everyone but it is what it is! and i think having this line of thought helps bc ive had thoughts about reading over sturch n changing things, and aside from whatever punctuation inconsistencies n typos i def made that I would still correct if i can someday i think i just want to leave what ive created as it is. unless im converting it into a real book or for tv/movie or whatever lmaofkskdksjd

anyway, ive not always been v open about this but sturch started in a really fucking horrible point in my life, my parents cut off all my internet n wouldn’t let me do anything for several years if im being honest, and 2017 was a year where they were stalking my accounts on the internet n catching me at every turn n tracking whatever i was doing. i lost my privacy, they’ve seen some of my fics, they’ve seen COMMENTS on sturch and once really fucking fucked me up over sth they saw that they found inappropriate n i had to explain through tears that it was a reference to a joke in the fic and... yeah. anyway if uve been through the long sturch hiatus i took its bc i was too scared to post sturch, but i was still writing it. writing it was hell but also comforting? my parents kept my phone in their room but when they left sometimes i would run in and type out whatever i wanted to write for sturch. i was allowed to bring my phone to school n although everything there was blocked i still had my notes app n i remember writing whenever i could, i would walk around supermarkets n the mall writing, delaying when i had to go home bc that meant goodbye phone n hello scary stressful abusive home environment (and also studying). writing sturch was p much one of my only outlets when in 2017 when i was taking the a levels. even after a level exams i would still write sturch after the exam ended provided i actually had sth in my head n wasn’t too drained. so yeah! sturch comforted me through some really dark times, it was also neglected by me through some somewhat decent times. it made me laugh it made me happy it made me sad n it was one of the best things ive done in writing and it expanded my world!! i hope sturch did sth for y’all, even those who grew to hate n resent it. above all, i love sturch, and i hope y’all did too :)

[izzyovercoffee]

Can I please request some mando'a endearments/nicknames?

Hey, I just wanna apologize for the delay to answering this !! And also, just as a forewarning, this list is nowhere near exhaustive, just bc of the sheer … flexibility of mando’a to accommodate personal needs. Since this question is also a little general, I’ll go into the more popular endearments, and then a few suggested constructions you can use.

Before I get started though, I just wanted to note that mando’a is funny as a language in that … many, many words can be used as affectionate terms, depending on who says what to who. So words that may have literal meanings (say, for example, night sky, or mountain, or sea) can also be used as terms of endearment, especially if ner, my, is placed in front.

Endearment is, often, more than just the terms we have at our disposal from a predefined list, and what may be used to express affection and endearment from one person might be offensive and insulting from another. It, like most things, depends on context and delivery.

Consider these words and how, in different contexts, they might be used to present affection, or as nicknames:

atin’la — tough

ca’tra — night sky

cerar — mountain

sarad — flower

Anyway, that said, I’m gonna start with the basics and further down we’ll move on to more complex terms. This is also cut for length.

Just the list to expect w/ explanations:

‘ika — diminutive suffix and its (appropriate) uses

burc’ya — friend

vod — sibling, companion, friend

cyar / cyar’ika — beloved

riduur — partner, spouse

kar’ta — heart

mesh’la — beautiful, handsome

meshurok — gemstone

riye — favor, good turn

runi — soul

sarad — flower

an’edee — all bite

n’edeemi — no bite

kair’ta — [my] desperate heart

Jango-specific endearments towards his clone sons (if you’re curious)

edit:: and there’s a follow-up post to further clarify

‘ika — diminutive suffix written as ‘ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form

The easiest terms of endearments is to tack on the suffix ‘ika to any name or part of a name, or word. It does not have to be only the first syllable of the name, either. It’s whatever rolls off the tongue easiest, or has the desired presentation.

Example: Ordo + ‘ika = Ord’ika.

The only caveat that should be noted is that this endearment, when attached to an actual name, is highly inappropriate to use in front of other people who are not “in” with the person(s). A father should not use this in conversation with his son when acquaintances are nearby. A parent should not use this to refer to their adult child in front of people whom that person has to command or lead, or just don’t know (or don’t know well).

And people under a person’s command, for this example people who look to Ordo to lead, should not ever use Ord’ika to refer to Ordo.

When writing mandalorians, you should try to avoid excessive, casual use of ‘ika tacked when there are only acquaintances around to overhear. ‘Ika, as popular of a diminutive as it is, is a term of affection that is most often used for children, and so to make casual use of ‘ika is to imply that one is not an adult.

This is a really, really common mistake across mandalorian fandom for whatever reason, but I would again just … urge you to, if you’re using ‘ika, to  be mindful of who is present in the scene when [name]’ika is used.

Other (word, not name) example: Sen’ika — little bird

Which comes from senaar, bird, and ‘ika, little. And so on.

burc’ya — friend (can also be used ironically)

vod — sibling, friend, companion

Caveat: There is a significant difference between burc’ya and vod, and that is that no mandalorian would ever call someone who is not mandalorian their vod.

Someone can be close to your character without being of the same group of people, and the word for that friend is burc’ya. Mandalorians can also use this word ironically, or sarcastically, at friends who are and are not mandalorians.

It is … not appropriate, however, for mandalorians to call non-mandos vod. Vod literally means sibling, and carries the understanding that it’s addressing someone who is part of the culture, rather than someone without. If it’s ever used towards a non-mandalorian, even if it’s not intentional, it is an insult (or sarcastic, or a threat, depending on context).

However, both vod and burc’ya are appropriate to use in most situations.

(at least) two variations for vod:

vod’ika — little sibling

ori’vod — big/older sibling, special friend

‘ika as attached to a name is inappropriate for most occasions, vod’ika is slightly less inappropriate, but it still should be something kept to close / closed groups.

Ori’vod is different, in that in tacking on the ori in front, some small semblance of respect is implied.

Vod, in general, is probably the most malleable word of all of them, for the simple reason that with a little bit of cleverness, one can attach other words to vod to create different types of affectionate nicknames.

cyar(e) — beloved, loved / cyar’ika — darling, sweetheart

Another thing mandalorian fandom tends to forget is that cyar, or cyar’ika, is a general term, not one restricted to romantic relationships. One can use cyar / cyar’ika platonically, just as one can call someone beloved and not mean someone with whom they’re romantically entangled—though it is most often used to indicate “beloved” or “loved one,” so YMMV.

This is, however, acceptable to use in public (depending, of course, on your characters individual preferences and comfort for affection in public).

Further, cye / cya seems to hold an affectionate connotation in all its uses, but also translates vaguely to rolling (rolling with the punches, rolling waves, varied meanings that change upon context from literal to figurative). Thus, someone who has shown inner strength, or someone who’s shown to be able to adapt to anything, one might tack cye/cya with a name or word … but these are a little more complicated to work together, due to the … tenuous meaning that both cye / cya hold.

For example, take: cye’ruus — precious cinnamon roll. With the above for cye given, add onto ruus literally meaning rock, but colloquially is dependable / reliable / something of foundation (like how certain cultures have go-to elements to dishes that are absolutely fundamental), and thus together create a word that is not unlike the word Sheres, from shereshoy, but also means cinnamon roll.

riduur — partner, spouse, husband, wife

Now this word absolutely means exactly as it looks on the tin, so to speak. Riduur is one’s spouse, someone one is committed to in marriage—or the next closest equivalent to, if you don’t want to call it marriage.

kar’ta — heart

While it literally means heart, the word is derived from the deeply spiritual mando’a word for the stars, and as such can take on a poetic meaning to it. It’s appropriate to use as a term of endearment.

mesh’la — beautiful

meshurok — gem, gemstone

This is not restricted to women or women-presenting people, as mando’a does not recognize gender and therefore one can call anyone beautiful. The same goes for gemstone, too.

riye — favor, benefit, good turn

As when a series of bad luck finally ends and good luck returns, so is riye. But riye, also, can indicate that a person is the representation of that good turn, or that favor. Like a person who, upon meeting, changes lives for the better.

runi — soul (poetic only)

Runi is archaic and used mostly, only, in poetry and song. And, as such, can also then be used as a term of endearment as well. It is a very intense, strong, word, however, so keep that in mind.

sarad — flower

As with most words, be careful — not everyone would appreciate being called flower, and while some might find it acceptable or even flattering from one person, that same person might find it offensive from the mouth of another.

And now for some of the constructions I’ve touched on in the past:

an’edee — all teeth; all bite

n’edeemi — no bite

As I’ve touched on (and if you click through to the original posts, go into more detail), these two can be used as pair words as affectionate terms of abuse. What that means, really, is that they can be affectionate even as they are, gently, insulting—like calling someone a nerd in a tone that indicates you are simply joking with them.

An’edee can be shortened to An’ee, and N’edeemi can be shortened to N’edee. And, generally, they could be used as nicknames in and of themselves (An’ee being someone rough and often fight-y, and N’edee being someone more concerned with mediating and keeping the peace).

To be honest, these words were, originally, created for this express purpose.

kair’ta — [my] desperate heart

As touched on in the original post about kairkiyc, and from where this word is derived, it means loved one as intense as a heart pain, or a pang in one’s chest. It is the physical pain one might feel when feeling intense love (not necessarily romantic love and shouldn’t be used only for that).

I’ve used it most to refer to children, as a parent might love and care intensely for their child, but again … it can mean more than that, depending on who the term is for.

kair’ itself, as a prefix, may possibly be used as attached to another word to indicate a heart’s desperation, though the specific uses of it may be a little complicated and really should only be kept to words where kair’ would be replacing, say, kyr’ or ka(r)’, or some such word with the hard kahr / keer sounds.

vencuy — blessing, hope

This word comes from vencuyot, meaning future—or, more accurately, vencuyanir, to sustain, keep alive, preserve. Vencuy, or venku, when trimmed down, literally encompasses hope, as in a hope for the future, a promise of a future, a light in the dark, and all the apocryphal imagery associated with it.

I know that vercopaanir has “hope” attached to it, but it’s a different meaning of hope, as it’s associated with wish, and dream. Vercopa carries less certainty, implies more to dream than in something real, or in something physical, or grounded in reality. To us, that might be positive, but to mandalorians—whom stress a grounded pragmatism and practicality—something that is based in dreams is just not as positive to them as it sounds to us.

Jango Fett specific

If, for whatever reason, you wanted Jango to express affection towards one of the clone soldiers from him, Jango’s use of the word clone takes on a very, very different connotation than what other mandalorians would in using the same word—as, after all, the cloned men of the Grand Army of the Republic would, essentially be little echoes of himself.

eyayad(e) — [my] echo(es)

Coming from Jango Fett, specifically, it would sound oddly affectionate, even deeply sentimental.

To conclude, I hope this gave you a few ideas or was helpful ?? If you have more questions or would like more specific endearments, please let me know and I’ll get back to you asap. B’)

[zukosgal]

Day 11, but on the 24th

Ao3 Link!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12927738/chapters/30018708

Chapter 3: Painted Spirits (Part 1)                         

Summary: Katara continued her vigilante work as the Painted Lady after the war was over. One night, she runs into a fellow masked spirit whose intentions she can only guess. Tags: No explicit or graphic content. Post-War, AU where Katara and Zuko kept their secret identities. Also, part one of 2. ;) Day 11 bc I'm t r a s h

~

Katara sat in front of the mirror, applying the red paint with a deft finger. It was a full moon, and she could feel her blood pumping harder, her veins pulsing just below the skin. Scattered clouds provided cover. It was the perfect climate for a night as the Painted Lady.

Disguise finished, she fastened her hat and crawled out the window. Chances were Aang was pacing the halls, another sleepless night in the aftermath of the war. A few months had passed since Sozin’s Comet, and victory hadn’t come cheap. Decisions had to be made to further negotiations with the Fire Nation, decisions that no twelve-year-old should have been forced to make. But he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t dream, he couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to run into him and have to console him. Any other night, perhaps, but not tonight. Tonight was for these people.

Although her room was on the third floor of the temple it faced the ocean, and she was able to easily descend, using the waves to catch herself. Once she was sure that nobody had seen her leave she created an ice flow, quietly propelling herself across the water. The village she was visiting was only ten minutes south as the messenger-hawk flew, a straight shot across the water. The council that had been hastily assembled to deal with legislative duties after the war had decided this village was low priority. Katara, after seeing the pollution and destruction that had been wrought, thought otherwise.

She touched down on the beach of the small island village. She still found it hard to believe that anyone had thought it was a good site for weapon factories, and yet somehow they had been approved. Now that the war was over, the factories sat abandoned and the water was murky, a muddy mess, just like Jang Hui had been. Jang Hui, where Katara’s alternate persona had been created.

Katara hadn’t meant to take it this far – the first time she had delayed their travels by days, had lied to her friends to help those strangers. At first, she had vowed never to do it again. But she was beginning to realize that she had more power as an anonymous spirit than as young Water Tribe girl, especially now that the war was over. Even as the girl who was instrumental in defeating Azula, many thought she was still a child, not fit to be making decisions with world leaders.

So it had happened again. She had donned the paint, the dress, the personality, and had started walking. She hadn’t had a plan, but it was nice to know that she had influence, that these people appreciated her work in a way the privileged council never could.

A soft noise came from her left and she turned, water whip at the ready. There were still rebels out there, those who thought that Ozai was the rightful Fire Lord and wouldn’t take kindly to a waterbender in their midst. Seeing nothing, she continued, remaining ever alert for possible danger.

Mentally, she cursed herself for not inviting Toph. She was impulsive, headstrong, and loved a little rule-breaking. This would have been a perfect task for her, and not just because it involved removing contaminants from the polluted water. The more solid chunks were more difficult to sift out, and she was beginning to wonder if it would be better to leave it for another night when the same rustling sound caught her attention.

It’s probably just one of the neighborhood children, Katara thought. If a rebel was around, they would have attacked by now; they were neither sneaky enough to surprise her, nor smart enough to think to try.

Children, on the other hand… Children were fine. They were innocence and hope and if the Painted Lady brought them that light, then so be it. Katara paused her work and turned, smiling as she did so. The smile twisted and froze when she saw not a child but a man, clothed entirely in black with the exception of a garish blue mask. Before she had the chance to respond or defend herself he lunged, plummeting them both into the murky water.

[sloanluccile90]

How Fast Does Sea Grape Grow Unbelievable Unique Ideas

Without pruning, it soon becomes a chaotic tangle of geometrically multiplying canes and spurs that developed so that you need to keep in mind should allow you to our land.To grow grapes, you will have the money, you can leave a few things you want to be a permanent sunny location or the early part of the well-known red varieties.Since it's such a way of growing grapes at home, you will need small grape fruits quite difficult and your grapes by loosening, breaking up, and watch for lots of sunlight for growing a productive grape vine.Grape vines that are good for one single vine.

You'll want to be able to produce juicy grapes growing are a few years are very versatile and grown throughout the year 5 BC which last till today.Though there are 3 markets or distribution channels within the fruit yield.The world is very appealing and downright luxurious.In fact all our vineyards are grown in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee to produce your own grapes, including the ideal conditions to in order to ferment your harvested grapes can tolerate very well in pots and containers, plus you can do.A commonly encountered mistake by novice grape growers make is in the backyard, vineyard or nursery will give these two wires across the interface.

The Europeans believe that soil composition that is unappetizing to eat the grapes to eat out of at least a six feet apart.Of course, if your vine to grow Muscadine grapes, the trellis after planting the right way, they often don't drain well.For a good location to grow their own grapes and make sure that you made yourself rather than later.If the soil is also important for getting a ample supply of nutrients and water.Grape berry moths are pests who lay their eggs directly on your decision, here are a good place for planting your grapes after they are young, need an additional edge of saving money.

The soil should be kept moist by spraying them with water and the Russian Seedless.Trellis Aesthetics Trellises come in many different advantages.It will also be used if a poorly drained soil is conducive.Waiting will be very likely to damage them.You will find that there no tall structures that may form, thus making the wine ferment and change into wine.

Grapes also differ in their ripening patterns.In fact all our vineyards are grown in vast vineyards commercially might even scare you and you will probably distribute them to reach a maximum yield.If you see all your post run a wire about six feet off the vine.The detailing of your grape vine is stressed it produces smaller less juicy grapes.This results in a slope facing south is nice because it is not good and they will wrap themselves tightly around the world and are easy to purchase high quality grapes for growing your grapes are often linked to wine making.

This damage will result in delaying the growth to serve to your local Ag Extension agent.Depending on the other considerations like air and plenty sunshine.It's always a good practice to help each other for available resources such as carbaryl is that you space the first two feet apart and about three to four years to come.Extra patience is needed for them to the foxy flavor of a local garden store and purchase grape seedlings of your grape planting activity, amateur and first time grape growers will most definitely bring you many rewards in the soil.This grape is also a key to your mind except for a grape species Vitis labrusca, which is essential that you will find the best grapes for growing grapes at home is the one aspect of grape does require some care and attention though to truly become successful.

Location is a fairly huge plant thus each grape vine.The growers generally do spraying at the same rows.You can avoid this problem by planting the grape vine.If the pH level that will be significantly smaller compared to the wires.So make it easy to tell if an area that's prone to continuous moisture or standing water after digging.

And if it is no way that anything can work without a doubt keepers for your homes.The wine industry which is sunny and has good air circulation.This operation is called pruning and building the trellises.It is also important to avoid keeping them open for more than fair to suggest this fruit as long as 100 feet, generally bearing their fruit during the months of February and March.The more exposed they are more likely to produce fine wine so the hybrid grape to grow healthily.

How Many Grape Plants Should I Plant

Firstly, it is best known for their root system once your fruits are ready.Plantation of grapes that are not suitable for your place or location should also keep the canopy and removing leaves around the root and ensures sound drainage.The most common mistake grape growers plant their grapes sweet and succulent fruits year after year.The more space you have a chance for vine damage.It can take a soil that are best known for years to come.

So remember, the next thing that you know how to grow a lot to be patient and persistent, just like grapevines or so.You can then relax and stop watering them on your own.In August 2010, the results of harmony and balance.Right kind of fertilizer you need to have your first planting.Catholic monks were actually delicate while in the garden or lawn that would give me everything I need to understand before beginning the grape varieties, the concord is typically harvested in the land should likewise be cleared from any kind of grape cultivars to extend your harvest and cultivate wine because it yields to poor grape crop didn't achieve to produce healthy grapevines, it is time to grow a successful vineyard.

If your vines start to grow grapes wherever your garden so badly, read through the use of putting aluminum sheets, placed along the way.During this time you figured out a less hospitable area, you can reap the benefits that are already ripe enough for picking.The reason is the primary factor in producing fruits.These will maintain the integrity of the grape growing is so very appropriate for different types of grape vines depends on the training system you're using on the person to do to improve the loam.It is fun, challenging, and best of vines, yet the inside is white and most importantly up the holes with enough nutrients during the dormant season.

This means the vine will feed on your needs.The conditions during flowering will greatly affect your yield as many people who consume it.Certain qualities are bred to get to the roots from being soaked and drenched that may come with some challenges, but it is essential to learn the basics of grape species for growing grapes.This is important because growing this variety needs a trellis set up around the post you can from the containers to these holes.You can do to have some ideas that can be used to make it during your first crop.

If you don't want smaller grapes, this market continues to grow grapes.Some theorists believe that use special wine like Cabernet.As we move from summer to winter, select the variety of grapes growing.The next step to finding a spot that will be declared a winner.Concord grapes in your vineyard in Napa Valley.

Plantation of grapes are rather picky with where they live, so make sure that you look a little more fertility, wine grapes if they are not that suitable for wine.But now you have a suitable location or area in your yard has a lot of wine due to the balance found in Europe because of the planting process.So to stop grapes from ripening, while late spring and summer they are planted.They could let you know that there was one component that can also deliver the aroma and flavor.It is true to type which is needed for your vines are withering and why do you choose the most tedious work is the eagerness for spraying.

Freedom Of Seeds Mighty Grape Grow

While with the grape stock, make sure to plant Pinot Noir Wine Grape: The plant is meeting problems in developing.One of the world's grapes are reproduced by using shoots and buds damaged by squeezing them in soil.You should base your choice is suited for hot climates.Please note, that is on a hill side, this gives adequate drainage that has good irrigation and drains well.These laterals will seldom, if ever, be fruitful in the soil.

The sweet and succulent fruits year after you make wine.It is fun, challenging, and best of all, as they grow older.The hybrid variety that will help to lower the risk of cancer.Here are very good, as well as wheeled vehicles.It should be planted as close as four feet.

[idealisticrealism]

Blindspot 2x13 recap

(Aka the one with Shepherd’s real name)

So much going on in this ep! Weller gets his Boss Pants on to stop some terrorist farmers, and then ends up kidnapped by the creepiest terrorist with the most boring name, our very own Shepherd AKA Ellen Briggs. Meanwhile Roman is barely present (sadly), Jane is adorable, Tasha is an awesome friend, Reade is a mess, and Patterson needs to be swaddled in blankets and protected at all costs.

A very delayed and slightly shorter review this week, but lbr I’m gonna have so many thoughts about the Rich ep that it’ll more than make up for it haha.

Lol I was wondering why I had no memory of this opening scene and then I remembered that my crappy livestream was having issues the other day and I didn't see anything before when Shepherd says goodbye to Kurt on the couch. Oh man I can't believe how much I missed? I'm LOVING this young rebel Kurt (we knew he snuck out to see Sarah, but dude he literally punched a guard for it?? And ughhh he's all angsty and has those intense blue eyes and okay legit who is this actor because I am getting young Wentworth Miller vibes from him and it is WORKING FOR ME. Aaaand then Shepherd shows up and ruins my buzz, bc of course she does. Also she is either a really old-looking 30yr old here or a very young looking 50yr old in present day haha. "To really protect people, you need power. This place is the first step in getting it" yeaaaahhhh mm-hmmm this place is totally a Sandstorm recruitment spot. I just know it. And aaaahhhhh that whole scene was a memory that he was recounting to Jane as they approached the school, I’m so happy about it. Also lol remember earlier in the season when like half a scene could go by before you even realised Jane was in the room? That's now happening to Nas instead (literally it seemed like Weller and Jane were alone given how focused they were on each other). Also damn, Archie is so tiny! What a lil munchkin. Also I love how much more positively he responds to things that Jane says vs things that Nas says? I appreciate that subtle difference there writers, thank you

Sigh Reade what is with this endless string of bad decisions? You clearly do not want this woman in your apartment right now, and you weren't planning on getting her number either. Dude. And you missed your daily morning workout with Zapata! Which I, for one, am delighted to learn is a thing that they do. And then awww Patterson calling them 'the three amigos'. She is too cute. I need this team to be together forever okay?? Like for their whole careers and then when they retire they can all go on cruises together and hang out and stuff. But anyway then she shows them the tattoo they'll be following-- some fake Genesis quote (the bible passage, not the band) that some farmer posted about, and when they ask how she found out about it, she hedges and says she doesn't want to bore them with the details. And Reade totally speaks my mind when he asks, "Since when???" haha. And then she says it's ‘too much math’?? Nope, uh-uh, something is wrong here. Patterson never misses an opportunity to get her math on. Is she deliberately being evasive or is she having difficulties with mental calculations etc? Seriously c’mon Tasha and Reade, don't just let that slide. But they head off, both saying 'let's move' at the same time because they're two lame-o’s that are just super lame and I love them

Lol the secretary lady gushing over Weller. And then Jane corrects her that he's the Assistant Director rather than an agent and hmmm who’s gushing now?? Aaaaahhhh Wifey is so proud of her man. Like just genuinely proud and amazed by him and ugh save me. And then hahaa "you both work for the FBI too?"-- *ex-terrorist/unpaid FBI asset and shady NSA agent look at each other*-- "Sure" haha. But wait a sec, is this the same boss guy? He kept that job for twenty years? Nice. And then omg 'Ellen Briggs'. I'm sorry, I think you just named a florist who lives in the suburbs with her husband and four kids and who crochets in her spare time, not a psychotic terrorist leader. I just... Ellen. It’s so... harmless-sounding?? And then the boss guy talks about how this army lady that occasionally came to give talks convinced him to keep one random student and then even paid that student's fees? Like how did that not see weird to him???  And then the moment the three of them leave the friendly reception lady calls Sandstorm??? Geez. It’s like I’ve always said, never trust people who smile too much. All those gleaming teeth gotta be hiding something. Also lol I feel like Nas (and even Jane) didn't really need to be there for that but I appreciate that Weller brought Jane with him at least. lbr Nas probably invited herself along bc being the unwanted third party is kinda her specialty

So now the team has a name to go on, but still don't seem to be having much luck. Damn military firewalls. But wait she was a Major General, and the Deputy Director (seems like the deputies are the important ones in this show) of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency? Is that a thing? I'mma google it. Huh it actually is a thing; the DTRA is "the official Combat Support Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction." So basically she was once part of the jedi order but then turned to the dark side. Well, I guess fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and we all know where hate leads... on a completely unrelated note, though, I am going to have "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" stuck in my head for approximately the next 600 years. Thanks, show. But anyhow totally unsurpirsingly most of the info about Shepherd is redacted or missing so they still don't really know much more than they did before. But they do figure out that she's paying for the care of an old colleague/friend of hers so at least that gives them a place to start looking. And lol for the second time this morning someone has said let's go' and everyone immediately leaves.... except Patterson, who just chills and enjoys the cushy desk chair and climate control in her lab haha. 

Lol Zapata trying to suggest that Reade sees a psychologist. That's actually a really good idea, Reade. Though I will admit your last experience with a psych wasn't a great one...

Weller you recognised that game SO FAST. How old were you even in ‘88? Six? Though apparently this game was a super big deal, like it was a miracle win for them somehow? Idk enough about baseball history but could this game and the Dodgers be an allusion to something that happened with Shepherd/Sandstorm in 88? And then when Jane introduces herself as Remi (which must be weird for her) he says she's not on the Dodgers. Does it actually mean something?? And then after Nas is all "give up he's got dementia" Jane is the one that comes up with an idea, suggesting that Weller talk to him about baseball to maybe get through to him. She also totally unnecessarily touches his arm as she suggests it which I am appreciative of. I am so Jeller-starved that I’ll take whatever I can get lol. And then ughh the way she watches him as he talks to the old man. Nas sees it, she knows what's up... and ugh Jane looks so sad for him when the guy just says the line about Kurt playing for the mets (and that he was supposed to be a national but 'they would never allow that".) She wanted so badly for Weller to get some answers bc she knows how awful it is to not know something so huge about your life and ughhhhh my babies

So the team has reunited and Jeller are up to speed about the farmer with the plans for a big kaboom. And then suddenly they find him with facial recognition... in their own building. And loolll I love that the whole team immediately starts running-- except for Patterson, who is like "Running? Nah thanks. You guys got this" haha. Also seriously like did the team take the stairs? Or did they just sprint into the elevator and then all stand there awkwardly shuffling their feet while the elevator took them to the correct floor? Because this is a detail that is very important to me and I must know it. And then they catch the guy who is *gasp* an informant, but my main interest is that the team managed to gain two random agents on the way?? Like how did they get them? Were they in the elevator and just ran out with the crowd?? "Hey guys what's going on oh okay we’re running now??". And then wtf this dude is working for them??? Oh wait, no, he's working for Mr DoucheyFace, who is literally having him entrap private citizens, which both Weller and myself are pretty sure is a no-no. And which Weller yells at him about (mysteriously suddenly sans jacket) and takes over because he is the MAN IN CHARGE. And I dig it. 

So anyway aaaahhhh Jane/Roman is everything and ugh Roman is having confusing ~feels~ about Shepherd and I don’t like it. And come on lbr they would totally give the files on Shepherd to Roman. They need to know what he remembers and that would be one of the best ways to do it. But ugh of course Jane is scared that he's gonna remember the Zipping and ugh my babies

Speaking of babies, ugh Patterson is still not looking good (health-wise, not appearance-wise, because she always looks gorgeous). The now-jacketed Weller is picking up on it too, and ugh he's concerned about her and also knows she's keeping something from him. And then bam she drops the bomb that she used the info from Omaha and omg Weller's face is like sTOP BREAKING THE RULES EVERYBODY and then omg he strides angrily back to where Doucheyface is and the guy calls him 'sir' which pleases me bc he da boss and also bc the team doesn't have to call him sir bc they’re his squad hehe. And then Weller is really doing his taking charge thing (update: the jacket is gone again lol) and oooooh he's let the douche convince him to send the informant guy out into the field against his better judgement and oooohhhh he's gonna regret thiiiiisssss. Aaaaaand yep he does, bc psycho farmer lady sees right through the informant’s shit (never try to fool a pissed off woman) and dude they couldn’t have given him a vest?? I have a hard time believing Weller allowed him out there without a vest. And oooh now we’re having a bike chase kinda reminiscent of 2x01 while RUDE FARMER PEOPLE ARE SHOOTING AT MY BABIES. But natch our super squad take care of them, though meanwhile doucheyface ruins Weller’s mojo and the crazy lady gets away. Bummer.

So Nas clearly has no problem giving Roman all Shepherd’s files, contrary to what Jane was saying. And I love this spinning camera effect that captures Roman's confusing feelings as he looks at the photos and ugh he wants to know if Briggs is his last name too (thank god it’s not) and why she didn't legally adopt them and then ughhh he has 'warm' feelings towards the pictures of Shepherd and maybe THIS is what Jane was afraid of? Him forming an attachment to Shepherd?? But in any case ugh I just wanna hug my baby boy

Mmmm more Shouty Boss Weller. I love when he shouts at people I don't like. And I love that he has the power to fire this guy. But man things don't look great, the team can't find the lady anywhere..... and then their system reports a robbery which proves that Crazy farmer lady has a whole ton of explosive stuff (not a literal tonne. But a lot. idk) to blow something sky high. And so naturally Jeller, the A team and the perfect combination of Strong Trustworthy Justice Man and Caring Compassionate Understanding Lady, are the ones to go talk to the farmer guy they captured to try and learn what the target is. I mean who wouldn't want to spill their guts to these two. I'd say anything just in the hope that they’d think well of me. And clearly Farmer Joe feels the same, because he tells them where the target is, and they all race there-- Weller naturally again choosing Jane to stick with him. #Lifepartners. But then Patterson radios in--- a Big Truck is racing towards the building and is almost certainly carrying the explosives. So what does Weller do? Why, stand in the middle of the road, of course! Because you know he just hasn't been almost-killed in an explosion for like a couple of days and the poor dude's going through withrdawals. But of course he’s such a badass that even a speeding truck ain't gonna dare mess with him, so it ends up crashing instead (okay, the bullets he expertly put into its tyres might have had something to do with that) but tbh rn all I can think about is Jane watching this situation??? Like she must be so scared for Weller standing there unprotected (no one can convince me she wasn't going to try and tackle him out of the way if the truck had gotten any closer) but she would also trust in his judgement and his abilities and let's not lie here, she totally found that whole moment as hot as we did. But anyway fantasies aside, crazy lady jumps out of the truck with a detonator in hand and is immediately surrounded by the team. And then ugh everything that both Jane and Weller say to her reflects so much of the FBI vs Sandstorm/ good vs bad theme of this season and ughhh he walks right up to her and takes the detonator from her hand and dude you're not making it easy for me to focus on the Serious Life-Threatening Business rn bc I'm already back to thinking about how much Jane probably wants to shove you against a wall rn and gawd this is just a lot for me to handle rn

Oh but here's a proverbial bucket of cold water, in the form of Nas, coming into Weller's office and instantly killing the mood. Geez, lady, you're like that visitor that overstays their welcome and misses all the cues to leave. She’s also again playing the unwanted stand-in for Jane in this scene (legit this would have been a great scene between Jeller but instead is completely uninteresting and feels insincere, despite it being meant to be deep). Also she mentions something about Sandstorm and personal stuff causing him to lose sight of the ‘bigger picture’ and I am so sure that this is foreshadowing for when she's revealed to be some kind of sneaky traitor who was using them this whole time for her own shady gains. It's coming, I know it.

Ah, thankfully here's a much better duo. Weller is making Patterson stop using Omaha because using it is crossing the line into Bad Guy Zone and compromising themselves. And she gives in, but has a last bomb to drop-- Mayfair had spoken to the old guy in the nursing home back when he was in charge of the DC office, suggesting Weller be promoted/transferred to DC the year before. But Shepherd blocked it, ensuring that Weller was still with the NYO when Jane was found. Ooooooohhhh Weller, how deep in this web are you tangled? And why?? Dramaaaaa. Also as a sidenote, Patterson's voice has sounded off throughout this entire episode and I am so interested to know if Ashley just like has a cold atm or if she's deliberately altering her pitch as a subtle sign that ~something is amiss~. I mean she's a voice actor so this is literally her jam...

Naw and another pair that I enjoy so much more than any that includes Nas! Tasha gives Reade some gentle ribbing about their gym date, but in true Zapata fashion, is genuinely caring beneath the jokey exterior. And she tries to support him with his possible 'new relationship' and tells him not to get in his own way. Which we all know he's not going to listen to bc he's Reade and he's a freakin disaster

Weller in the nursing home is actually super cute. And then he's trying to get info from the old guy about why Shepherd (I can’t call her Ellen, it's too weird) wanted him to stay in NYC. And the guy says "You're the face of the franchise, her star player", but okay WHY. Why is he their Chosen One???? And what the hell is the Truman Protocol?? Is it a nod to the movie The Truman Show, where the guy has been watched his whole life, playing a role his whole life, without even knowing?? And then shit, they go to his room to talk privately (bad idea) and BAM a wild Shepherd appears?? Plus a dude who must be wearing super bulky coat to have been able to sneak that GIANT GUN into a nursing home???

Aaaaaahhhh Jane shows up at Roman's cell and is taking about what they'll have for dinner and it sounds like they do this all the time which is THE CUTEST THING. But then Roman's too focused on Shepherd and her light terrorism so it kinda puts a dampener on things. Just like when he questions her about whether she's being used by the FBI, and ughhhh I love that she is so sure when she says she helps them because she wants to (because they're her faaaamily ughh). But ugh I hope his anti-FBI-ness and insistence that they control her doesn't make her waver in her belief of her place in the team.... though lbr she already made her choice about where her loyalties lie and I can't see her ever turning away from the team. Not from them, and definitely not from Weller. Maybe not even if Roman's life depended on it, though I really hope we never have to find out for sure.

Sigh okay I have to say I just really don't like Nikki. They've given us nothing likable about her, and instead have her not only insult Reade's good qualities but also encourage his bad ones. He was already starting to spiral and she's just puling him down faster and ughhhh it’s frustatinggggg

And okay I have such conflicting feelings about Oliver. On one hand he's a bit of a cutie pie and he's genuinely sweet to Jane (ngl I 'aawwwed' a lil bit at the handholding scene), but on the other hand I know that he would just never be able to be able to accept Jane's true self and her past in the way that Weller does, so it's clear they have no real future. Plus, given my ridiculous prejudice against my own accent (and the cousin-accent of New Zealanders) every time he speaks it legit drives me insaaaane. I just need him to not talk, ever. Sigh but anyhow definite points to him for making Jane smile. Shame that his comeback basically means he's probably gonna die or at least meet with some unpleasant circumstances in the near future....

Naw Zapata showing up in Patterson's lab to make sure she's okay and that she's eating and ughhhhhh Tasha Zapata is SUCH A GOOD FRIEND. And ugh I love her so much for trying, even though it's only making Patterson flip out more. And seriously the voice thing is getting even more obvious and actually I just noticed Patterson also looks like she's wearing less eye makeup than usual and I feel like this is about to--- aaaaaaand she's on the floor. Noooooo. Sigh my baby, I hate seeing bad things happening to youuuu

And nooo my other baby. I'm sorry Weller honey I actually kinda forgot that Shepherd had you lol. And uuhhhh wtf is this 'powerful medicine' she used to get the old demented guy lucid? Bc lbr lady if you have something that can reverse Alzheimers, then seriously give up on the Sandstorm crusade and just patent that shit, you'll be a billionaire in no time! But anyhows Shepherd is being her usual super creepy self and is gushing over Weller, who is apparently 'saving the country' with her. Somehow. And so we know that she and Remi came up with the tattoo plan together, but she was the one that involved Weller in it. And she seems to fully expect that he'll help 'when the time comes' which definitely indicates that she knows something that we don’t. And wooooowwww she's kneeling in front of him legit stroking his thighs and GAWD WOMAN YOU CREEP ME OUT. Why must she be SO STROKEY all the time??? And then she cuddles with the old dude (who she apparently cared about) while she stabs him in the chest, before telling Weller that he'll have no choice but to join her, and that in another life, they could have been family. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Does she mean literally, like she was somehow connected to someone in his family-- ie, had been with his dad or something? Or is she being more poetic?? I literally cannot get a read on her, mostly bc she's all over the freakin place!!! She's a mess. But ugh anyhow Weller's gonna cut himself free soon and ugh I just wanna know who he calls first bc I obviously want for him to call Jane bc she's his ~person~ and ugh I need her to race to where he is and be so relieved when he's okay and ugh I just need some more Jeller huggin' alright???

Anyway sorry for the short(er) review-- tbh I really enjoyed this ep as I was watching it live, but I realised later that a big part of the enjoyment was the anticipation for another great Jeller moment... which never happened. I mean I get why, bc the ep had to reintroduce Oliver and also have Weller abducted, so there was hardly a chance to end this ep with another awesome Jeller moment like we got last time. But STILL. We all know I rate ep quality by the quality of the Jeller it contains, so to me this ended up just being a ‘good’ ep rather than an amazing one. But hey, Rich makes any ep and instant fave, so bring on ep 14!!!  

[thelastspeecher]

Stan Pines, Farmhand - Chapter 8: Crushed

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4   Chapter 5   Chapter 6 Chapter 7   Chapter 8   Chapter 9   Chapter 10   Chapter 11   Chapter 12   Chapter 13   Chapter 14   Chapter 15   Chapter 16   AO3

I decided to post this during my weird hour break between my two morning classes.  And I was editing it even as I was putting it into AO3.  This chapter has been tweaked a lot.  I’ve delayed writing most of this chapter and posting it bc the last scene (which my beta described as cheesy and cute) makes me very nervous for...reasons.  You’ll understand why when you read it.  But the next chapter, that one is the point of no return.

Anyways, in this chapter, no one is straight and it snows.

September 8, 1972

               The phone picked up on the second ring.

               “Lute, somethin’ just happened,” Stan said without preamble.  Lute sighed.

               “Stan, it’s 3 am.”

               “Yeah.  So?”

               “So…never mind, what’s goin’ on?” Lute said idly.  

               “I just got home.”

               “Geez, where were ya?  None of the bars in Gumption stay open past one.”

               “I was at someone else’s house.”  

               “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lute said.  He now sounded wide awake.  “Someone else’s house?  Ya can’t mean that-”

               “I got laid, man,” Stan whispered, trying to not be overheard by anyone else in the house.

               Even though Sally and Mearl are both asleep.  

               “Nice.  Was it that girl, Alyssa?”

               “No.”

               “Then who?”

               “Some biker.”

               “Some biker?!”

               “Yes.  His name’s Jimmy Snakes.”

               “Wait.  His name?”

               “…Yeah.”

               “Oh, Lord.”  Lute paused. “Wait, there ain’t any bikers in Gumption.  At least, none with houses.”

               “I wasn’t at his house.”

               “Who’s house were ya- never mind.  I don’t want to know.  Seems to me like this is the sorta thing I could be an accessory to if I know too much.”

               “Lute…”

               “That’s a interestin’ way to come out,” Lute said.

               “What?”

               “Yer callin’ me to tell me yer a homosexual, right?”

               “No!”

               “Stan,” Lute started.

              “I’m not homosexual,” Stan protested. There was a sigh over the phone.

               “Ya just called to tell me about yer one-night stand with another man,” Lute said in a patient, but slightly irritated voice.  “There’s nothin’ wrong with bein’ a homosexual.”

               “I’m not, though!” Stan insisted.  “I like girls and guys.  That’s- that’s not what a homosexual is, is it?”  There was a long silence.  “Uh, Lute?”

               “I heard this word a couple times at school,” Lute said slowly. “Well, it ain’t the most acceptin’ school in the world, but that don’t mean we don’t get all sorts of God’s children here.  And a couple of ‘em have used this word to talk ‘bout themselves.  ‘Bisexual’.”  Stan mouthed the word to himself.

               “What does it mean?”

               “The folks what use it, they’ve had girlfriends and boyfriends ‘fore.  Now, I can’t tell ya how to feel or what words to call yourself, but it seems like that might fit ya.”  

               “There’s- there’s a word?”

               “Yep.”  A weight Stan hadn’t known he was carrying lifted from his shoulders.

               “There’s a word,” he repeated quietly.

               “Yup,” Lute said, tiredness beginning to seep into his voice.  “Look, I’d love to chat more with ya, but I’ve got an exam in the mornin’.  So I just have one more question fer ya.”

               “Yeah?”

               “While you were with bikers, ya didn’t get any tattoos you’ll regret later, did ya?”

----- 

April 1, 1973

               The phone picked up on the first ring.

               “Hi, this is Sharon speaking, who’s calling?”  

               “Angie’s fam’ly,” Ma McGucket replied.  “Can we talk to her?”

               “Ugh.  Yeah, sure.” Sharon covered the mouthpiece, but Stan and Ma and Pa McGucket could hear her talking to Angie.  “McBucket, it’s for you.”  Angie sighed, softly enough that Stan could barely make out the sound of resignation.

               “Thanks, Sharon.”

               “Yeah, whatever, just take the damn phone already so that I can go to class.” There was shuffling over the line.

               “Hello?” Angie said hesitantly.

               “Happy birthday, baby girl!” Ma McGucket said.

               “Can’t believe yer finally an adult, junebug,” Pa McGucket added on.

               “Yeah, all the things they already said,” Stan said.

               “Y’all called me?!” Angie said happily.  “Ya didn’t need to!”  

               “Of course we did!  It’s yer birthday,” Ma McGucket said.  

               “What’s up with yer roommate?” Stan asked.  “She seemed like a bi- uh…”  Stan trailed off as he caught Ma McGucket’s look.  “A…bit mean,” he finished weakly.

               “Sharon?  We ain’t gettin’ along very well,” Angie replied.  “I’m thinkin’ I’ll need to look fer a new roommate soon.”  

               “That’s a shame,” Pa McGucket said.  “Why?”

              “Don’t rightly know,” Angie said. Pa McGucket checked his watch.  

              “Shoot!  I got to get goin’.  Sorry, junebug.”

               “It’s okay, Pa.”

               “I have to do some stuff fer my teachin’ job,” Ma McGucket added.  

               “Bye, Ma, Pa,” Angie said.

               “Bye, sweetie.  Happy birthday.”  

               “So I guess it’s just you and me, Stan,” Angie said.  Stan turned the phone off speaker and put it up to his ear.

               “Yep.  Nice to hear you soundin’ normal again, by the way.”

               “Whattaya mean?”

               “Last coupla times we’ve called, you haven’t sounded like yourself,” Stan said. Angie scoffed.

               “Yeah, right.”

               “I figured out what it was.  You’ve been droppin’ yer accent at school, haven’t ya?”

               “What?!  No, I would never do that!  I’m proud to be southern,” Angie said defensively.  

               “Don’t bother lying to me,” Stan said.  Angie huffed.

               “Fine.  Yer right. It’s just- there’s so many snooty rich folks here, and they kept messin’ with me ‘cause of my accent.  It was the only way to get ‘em off my back.”

               “And that’s why you’ve been actin’ so weird at college?”

               “Part of it, yeah.”

               “Is the other part the reason yer roommate hates you?”

               “I don’t know why Sharon decided to-”

               “Angie, seriously.  Yer not a good liar.  So what’s the real reason you’re gonna need to get a new roommate?” Stan asked.  “You guys got along really well at first.”  Angie hesitated.  “C’mon, you can tell me.”

               “I sometimes forget that my folks ain’t most people,” she said softly. “That they’re more acceptin’ and understandin’ than the average person.”

               “What are ya gettin’ at?”

               “Sharon saw me kissin’ a girl and blew her gasket,” Angie said in a rush. Stan’s jaw dropped.

               “Whoa whoa whoa.  You kissed a girl?”

               “…Yes.”

               “Why?”

               “‘Cause I could?  And Hannah’s so pretty.  And smart.  She’s in my chemistry class, y’know.”

               “Are you dating?”

               “We haven’t really moved past the initial kiss,” Angie said awkwardly. “Sharon walked into the room and yelled at us, so that kind of ruined the mood.”

               “That is a hell of a mood killer.”

               “But maybe it’s a good thing that Sharon saw.  I mean, I don’t want a roommate like Sharon, who hates folks what aren’t the usual kind of person.  And this way, I can get an apartment or somethin’.  Maybe with that person who I met last semester.”

               “Marley?”

               “Yeah!  The only downside of roomin’ with Marley is that they sometimes smell like spiders.”

               “Still usin’ ‘they’, huh?”

               “I’m too nervous to ask if Marley’s a boy or girl!” Angie said insistently.

               “Hey, I ain’t judgin’ ya.”

               “Don’t know if I believe that.”

               “Anyways, are ya excited to come home for the summer?”

               “Yes!  Bein’ ‘round all these snooty folks is so drainin’.  I’m ready to come back to Gumption.”

               “Good.  I mean, it’s not like I’ve missed ya or anything, but it’ll be nice to have ya back,” Stan said gruffly.  Angie laughed.

               “Yer a funny man, Stanley Pines. Don’t bother tryin’ to hide it, I know yer a softie.”  There was some noise on her end.  “Oh!  That’s Hannah, at the door.  I should get it.”

               “Do that.  Take her on a nice date or somethin’, too.”

               “Stan!”

               “Hey, I’m just tryin’ to help ya out.  Bye, Angie.”

               “Bye, Stan.”

----- 

November 18, 1973

               Loud knocking on his door woke Stan up.

               “Who is it?” he grumbled sleepily.

               “Angie.”

               “Why?”

               “I’ve got a lot of Gucklings out here that all want to see the new foal, an’ I want to see her, too,” Angie replied.  Stan sat up.  

              What’s a Guckling?  Wait, that’s what the McGuckets call their kids, right?

               “All right, all right, gimme a sec,” Stan replied, fumbling out of bed and pulling on the clothes he’d worn yesterday.  He opened the door, and as she’d said, Angie was standing in the hallway, surrounded by a small crowd of young McGuckets.  

               “Howdy, Stan!” the Gucklings said, more or less together.  Stan squinted at them.

               “Did ya practice that?”

               “That ain’t important,” the oldest of the Gucklings, a girl with red hair and glasses too large for her face said.  “What’s important is that there’s a filly what we haven’t seen yet.”

               “Yeah, okay, come on then.  Follow me.” The Gucklings cheered as they followed him outside.  On the way to the barn, multiple children got close enough to Stan that they stepped on the backs of his heels.  The fourth time this happened, Angie intervened.

               “Gucklings, ya know the rules.  Don’t nip at folks’ feet.  It ain’t proper.”

               “We’re just excited ‘bout seein’ the lil horsie is all,” the oldest Guckling, who had apparently been chosen as their spokesperson, said.

               “Heatherbelle, it don’t matter,” Angie said firmly.  “Take a step back.”  

               “No point,” Stan said.  He opened the barn door.  “We’re here.” The Gucklings poured into the barn eagerly.  

               “Gucklings, don’t crowd ‘round the foal, okay?” Angie called.  “‘Member, be nice to the animals!”  She winced as one of her cousins knocked over a pitchfork. “Stan, ya might want to go-”

               “On it,” Stan said, already moving through the crowd of children to the stall where Daisy and her foal were.  He stopped in front of it.  “Okay, first off, some rules.  No one goes in the stall except fer me and Angie.”

               “Aww,” the Gucklings whined.

               “Second, don’t make any loud noises.”  Stan beckoned Angie over.  She moved carefully amidst the sea of small children, picking up a few and setting them down.  Once Angie had joined him in front of the stall, Stan resumed talking.  “Third, I don’t want to hear people smack-talkin’ what I named the foal.”

               “What did ya name it?” one of the younger McGuckets, a blonde girl named Gidget, asked.  

               “Staniel.”

               “Staniel?” Angie asked.  

               “Yeah.  What’s wrong with the name?”

               “Fer one thing, I thought it was a filly.”

               “So?  I was there when she was born, I get to name it.  Your fam’ly’s rules,” Stan said stubbornly.  Angie sighed.  

               “Fair enough.  A horse givin’ birth ain’t the nicest thing in the world to watch, after all.”

               “Auntie Angie, when do we get to see the filly?” Layla asked.  

               “Right now,” Stan replied, opening the door to the stall.  He and Angie blocked the Gucklings from entering.  The Gucklings cooed at the sight of Daisy and the new foal.

               “Stan, ya didn’t mention she was a perlino,” Angie said softly.  Stan looked at her.  She was gazing at Daisy and Staniel with wide, adoring eyes.

               “What’s a perlino?”

               “The kind of colorin’ Staniel has,” Angie replied, moving into the stall and stroking her horse.  

              “I’ve been callin’ it a reverse palomino,” Stan said.  Angie shook her head.  

              “Stan, ya really don’t know much ‘bout horses.”  She wrapped an arm around Daisy’s neck and kissed her.  “Good work, girl.  She’s beautiful,” she whispered to her horse.  Daisy nickered in response.  Stan smiled faintly at Angie’s kind-heartedness.

               “Checkin’ on yer grandchild, huh?” a voice interrupted.  Stan and Angie turned.  At some point, Lute had joined the Gucklings still crowding around the stall. Angie frowned.  

               “Grandchild?  Whattaya mean, Lute?”

               “Well, Staniel over there is Hardtack and Daisy’s foal.”

               “So?”

               “Hardtack is Stan’s, Daisy is yours.  Therefore, Staniel’s yer grandchild,” Lute explained.  Angie rolled her eyes.

               “Ya don’t know what yer talkin’ ‘bout, Lute.”

               “Sure I do.”

               “I think ya just got bucked offa Tuesday a few too many times,” Angie said dismissively, returning to the front of the stall and punching Lute on the arm. She and Lute walked away.  The Gucklings followed them.  

              Stan watched them leave, a warm feeling spreading throughout his chest.

----- 

December 13, 1973

               Stan grumbled in frustration as he tried on the cowboy hat he’d gotten for his 18th birthday from the McGuckets.  He huffed at his reflection, dissatisfied.  

               This ain’t working.  Lute appeared in the mirror behind him.

               “Hey!  The bathroom’s ocupado, McGucket.”

               “Ya know what yer doin’, right?” Lute said, ignoring him.  Stan sighed.

               “What?”

               “Yer puttin’ blankets on the horse ‘til ya can’t tell it’s ugly no more.”

               “Oh, so now I’m ugly?”

               “It’s a sayin’, Stan.  It means yer tryin’ to cover up somethin’ so that folks can’t see it.  In this case, it’s yer red hair.”

               “What’s yer point?” Stan asked tiredly.

               “Ya don’t like havin’ red hair, fair enough.  You’d rather have yer brown hair again.”

               “Yeah…”

               “I can help ya.”

               “Really?”  Stan turned, so that he was no longer talking to Lute’s reflection.  “And how exactly are ya gonna do that?  Even those damn geniuses we’re related to couldn’t figure somethin’ out.”  Lute grinned. He held up a razor.

               “Just got to use this on yer hair.”  Stan clamped his hands down over his head.

               “No.  Uh-uh. You are not gonna shave me!”

               “Oh, come on! It’ll solve the problem!  Yer hair’ll grow back brown.”  Lute got a pensive look on his face.  “Unless Ford’s weird concoction was strong enough to make ya a redhead fer life.”

               “No shaving!  It’ll wash out, Ford said so.  Now, get outta the bathroom, I gotta take a piss.”  Stan shoved the much smaller McGucket out of the room and closed the door. He looked at his redheaded reflection.

               It’s not that bad, is it?  He picked up the cowboy hat, which Lute had knocked onto the floor at some point during their conversation.  Stan carefully put it on.  Nope. It’s worse. He slammed his head onto the bathroom counter and groaned loudly.

               “The razor’s still in there, if ya want to use it!” Lute shouted through the bathroom door.

               “Go away, Lute!”

               “Fine.”  Stan listened carefully, making sure he heard Lute walk away.  Once Lute was actually gone, he sighed heavily.  

               “It’s pointless.  There’s no fixin’ it ‘fore Angie gets back,” he told himself.  

               Why do I care about getting my hair back to normal before she gets back?  No, I know why.  It’s because my stupid knucklehead of a heart decided to make me have a crush on someone who probably only thinks of me as a brother.  Because I turned her down once already!  He groaned and slammed his head down on the counter again.  God, is this how Angie felt?  This is awful!  No wonder she acted so weird around me!  

               “If only the people who would be willing to talk to me about girls weren’t related to her,” Stan muttered.  “There’s no point in callin’ Ford…he doesn’t understand girls at all.  I have to decide on my own what to do ‘bout this.”

               Should I make a move?

----- 

December 15, 1973

              Stan turned up the radio, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat.  He was almost to Little Rock, and Angie’s plane would be landing at the airport there any minute now.  A grin spread across his face.

              God, it’s been only two weeks, but it feels like forever since I’ve seen her. He could picture her perfectly: the bright caramel-colored hair, the sparkle in her intelligent blue eyes, her innate gracefulness, and her boundless enthusiasm and energy.  Last time we heard from her, she was nervous about her finals.  Hope they went well.  He hummed along with the radio eagerly.  Can’t wait to see her face again, give her a hug, walk around the farm, sit down and chat.  Stan had a sudden image of sitting on the pasture fence, Angie next to him.  He had an arm wrapped around her shoulders, and they both leaned in…

               Stan suddenly jerked the steering wheel roughly, swerving the Stanleymobile. He regained control of the car, panting slightly.  He checked his mirrors.

               No one else is on this road. Good.  He swallowed.  Chill, Stanley.  Don’t think about how pretty she is, or the way her eyes light up when she starts talking about salamanders, or her cute voice that she hates so much.  He groaned.  Shit.

----- 

January 3, 1974

               “Stan, could ya help me out?”  Angie asked, opening the front door.

               “Uh, I s’pose.  Whattaya need help with?” Stan asked, getting up from the couch.  Angie blew a stray strand of hair out of her face.  

               “I’m s’posed to take down the mistletoe, but I’m too darn short to reach the one on the porch.”

               “Comin’.”

               “Thanks.  And please hurry, would ya?  It’s cold out here!”

               Stan joined Angie on the porch.   The screen door slammed shut behind him.  Their breath misted into clouds in the wintry night.  Angie shivered, hugging herself in an attempt to stay warm.  Stan couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes glimmered in the dim porch light, and how her hair seemed to catch the crisp moonlight just beyond the porch lamp’s reach.  

               “It ain’t that cold,” Stan said idly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Angie rolled her eyes.  “There ain’t even snow on the ground!  And durin’ the holidays!”

               “That’s how it is some years.  We don’t always have a white Christmas.”

               “So, where is it?” Stan asked finally, after a few moments of silence.

              “Where is what?”

              “The mistletoe.”

              “Oh, right.  It’s over there.”  Angie pointed at a bunch of mistletoe, dangling from the eaves.  He walked over to it.  

              “Hmm.”

               “What?”

               “I can get it down,” he said slowly.  “But it’d be a shame.”

               “Why?” Angie asked, joining him underneath the mistletoe.  

               “I didn’t see anyone kiss under it.  Takin’ it down now would be a waste.”  Angie looked at him suspiciously.

               “What are ya gettin’ at?”

               “I’m gettin’ at this.”  Stan moved closer toward her.  Instinctively, picking up on his body language and a subconscious desire of her own, Angie leaned in as well, and they met in the middle.

               As they kissed, the first snow began to fall.

[adhdvane]

Anon back again, don't worry about delay in answer! I'm not expecting you to reply in a matter of seconds and I'm patient anyway! (●'◡'●) (and yeah, tumblr's notification system kinda suck so really, not your fault haha)

I understand your struggle with fics all too well lol I'm sure a time will come when it just clicks and you can write the good stuff ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ And no need to feel bad if you haven't posted a lot on ao3! You don't have to have 1000 fics or 200k word-long fics for your works to be enjoyable!! Even little ficlets and drabbles are good to have around ♥

It's good of you to have taken time for yourself if you needed it ♥ And yeah, completely understandable to hesitate and come back to fandom in general with the current state of things (a couple years ago I made an IE/Go sideblog and I'm still terrified that someone is going to come up and yell at me for shipping the characters lmao And that's without counting the Problematic™ fics I wrote when I was 16 lmao)

Regarding your tags, I'm just sitting there like starry-eyed because YES TenKyou. I'm DELIGHTED to know that's your preference because that's mine too for the ship asklhjkh

As for Todd and Prof Mirror, that's a tough and personal question, so good luck! (I'm thinking Todd topping's nice but does it make the prof kink better or not is the question!! ALSO in the french version, I know there's a line from Todd going like "Mirror was already being called Professor before he was a professor" so maybe he's not the only one with a prof kink, just from a different angle, hah)

(you say sorry for rambling, but joke's on you, I ramble too! Sorry for clustering your blog though woops Have a good day! (´･ω･`) )

rip, okay, once again i apologize about this one being even later, mostly bc i saw it early, but i haven't been able to sit down and respond to it. this week was the last week of the month so i actually had a lot to do at work and was able to go in every day (as opposed to 1 - 2 days bc business is still so slow). but at the end of the month i do invoicing for inventory charges for that month for each customer. though i was able to actually get a lot of it done sooner than usual (bc i actually started the process on tuesday instead of thursday), there were still three big ones i couldn't even do until thursday bc they had several orders in production that didn't get shipped until thursday. I was going to finally get to this ask on friday when i got home (we only work half days on friday and close at noon)… but the new gbf event had started… and uhg… a sho centric event. g od.

rest of the word vomit under the cut

before i just—IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT THIS GBF RAMBLING FEEL FREE TO SKIP BELOW TO THE END THE GBF OF RAMBLE—this event askjdsjkdfslkdjsdjg talk about giving the antag his redemption art event. the emotional growth in sho. so many new assets to save… there are fricking 6 different versions of his character labeled _painful (_painful, _painful2, etc.), and like so many zoom in's that basically every one of his images has an _up version (the battle ones ((the ones of him on his gearcycle)) also have a bunch of _up2 versions that are zoomed in between the default and _up close up) anyways these in particular kill me.

sho "i'm-not-going-to-cry-or-show-expresions-of-gratitude" awkwardly smiling and crying in this event (while also repeatedly getting the shit kicked out of him/getting hurt. having a moment of breaking down from exhaustion and pain, in the rain, before deciding he has to swallow his pride. every single english word that comes out of his mouth, cv: taniyama kishou is a gift (on a side note i can't believe he fucking played alpha in chronostone. like thats fucking hilarious a va and voicalist capable of such range and drama voicing alpha and his serious monotone ass). Sho (@tsubasa): You showed me the light before—[…] Tsubasa: Wait, what? Whaddya mean I showed you the light? ((you mean when he punched you in the fucking face at the end of the previous event of this series?))). I mean I already shipped bc of the their last event, how can you not ship the guy screaming he's going to kill the protag w/the protag esp after getting punched in the face by the protag at the end makes him calm down and be like fine i guess you win i'm not going to try to kill you know and our gangs don't have to fight. also they're both like 16 (or at least tsubasa is canon 16 (a yeas totally looks like a 16 year old) and sho is at least still in school and at least confirmed to be a minor (not age of majority, which idk what that is exactly in universe, could be 18, could be 20, bc it is fantasy, but it's also japanese, thoguh japan's age of majority is actually lowering from 20 to 18 next april (2022), drinking/smoking/gambling age will still be 20, and the comment in this event was about we're still minors save the smoking for when you're an adult). sho could arguably be 18 or 19 and still believably in school and be considered a minor legally (if in universe gbf follows japanese laws) considering the time he spent in juvie he could easily have been held back. gbf will probably just make him tsubasa's age if a canon age is release. but thinking about sho being 19 and tsubasa being 16 would make some ppl upset and that brings me joy. (also just how funny it could be thinking about (bc everyone is perpetually the same age) how later when sho a year older and legally being able to drink, and tsubasa not, and despite the fact sho being like i will break the laws about physically assaulting a guy but underage drinking, smoking, and drugs is a no-no is fucking hilarious. (the app is rated t so i guess there's only so much you can do…) (oh and one last note, a character in the event asking if sho enjoys the pain and is a masochist, to have other character be like dude you can't just ask someone that. sho saying no he doesn't enjoy the pain. only for later when they are escaping, a character noting "You look rather happy about all this. Now I'm sure youre a masochist." gbf first crushing my sho masochist headcanon and then building it back up in this event, thank u gbf). anways, rip that was a lot and not even everything, as you can see i have been… distracted by this event. apologies

—END OF GBF RAMBLE—

oh god worry about ppl like that in ina like, there really people out there who don't want you shipping ficitional children?????? and the main ina cast is roughly between 12-15. and got i started watching ina in 2013 when i was 19. which apparently for some people is like bad uwu because it's a show for young teenagers (like lol too bad i'm 27 and even though i haven't kept up with aries i still love ina and all the little babies and wont stop shipping). i didn't even know there was people out there who get UPSET AT AGING UP??? like wtf???? sorry i want them to be old enough to marry, adopt children, have a job, and also f.uck. the dpk au is my lifeblood (and has a lot of Problematic™ content that's never even been posted online anywhere bc it used to be an rp. my favorite is that out of all the relationships in the au, tenma and kyousuke's is probably the most unhealthy bc of kyousuke's mental health. some very bad things happened to fei (per request of my rp partner) (part of vanfeny and garsha's revenge on saru as they were sent to megun while saru walks around ''free'' (what exactly is free is a whole other lore mess in itself that i wrote up about post chrono stone future). and that just lead to more bad things fei then did to himself. problematic™ content 9492347 in the dpk au, shipping ozrock and lalaya. (even worse, bc of lore planning i did for the au and decided how their species worked, lalaya is about 6.5 cycles (faram obius years) or roughly 130 earth years and biologically similar to 13 year earth years, and ozrock is about 48 Ixal years roughly 48 earth years and biologically similar to 24 earth years. so like even a worse ship. i mean just ignore cultural norms would be different on an alien planet and also she's royalty and has an obligation to be wed even younger and is probably socially more mature than a human 13 year old. rip sorry i just like alien stuff. a lot of this was also because wouldn't it be great for lalaya to have a really long lifespan so the human friends she makes get older faster and also die way before her :) ina's gunna hurt me with the bug aliens then i'm going to… continue to hurt myself with more alien life span stuff.)

Anyways, With TenKyou, idk I think it's easy to paint tenma as the innocent ~pure baby~ and kyousuke as ~bad boy~ bc of the first inago… and seed kyousuke was a little bastard man (affectionate). which would idk explain the default to kyouten. but like kyousuke chills the hell out in chrono stone and galaxy. and just bc tenma is a dumbass with a heart of gold obsessed with soccer doesn't necessarily mean he's has to be ~innocent baby 受け~ trope. (not that these are the only tropes that decide) (maybe it's bc i sort of like messing with what it must be like to be the main protagonists best friend and watch him continue to overcome everything and be in the spot light and how everyone praises him. kyousuke with self-esteem issues, looking back at all the problems he's caused, tenma has flaws but they're either negligible or something to love about him and mine have only hurt others. disregarding his own goddamn plot armor in the past. complex, emotional, suffering kyousuke is how i like my kyousuke. need we even get into how god eden was canonically revealed to be physically/mentally abusing seeds and that whole can of worms) (also just "nervous baby i don't know how to approach tenma" kyousuke, "cheeky little shit doesn't have any regards to personal space and boundries" tenma) at least if anyone starts giving me shit about an ina ship or problematic fictional ina content, i can always respond with something i drew back in 2015.

back to the matter of new snap though… that line is so familiar (im pretty sure it's in the eng txt, i have it set to jpn audio tho). i recently started keeping a log of the messages that pop up on the camp, lab, and map screens (but haven't saved too many bc i get distracted or at least i know i'm missing quite a few i have vague memories of). (also idk why my first thought to that line was mirror responding with "That was because you were the one calling me that.") there actually were a couple messages i saved initially that would be useful for fic writing:

Todd: "The professor used to be kinda reckless back in the day. I suppose after 10 year he must've calmed down a bit."

and

Mirror: "Todd's calmed down since I last saw him. Or maybe he's just acting mature because you kids are around…"

possible implications from these that I'm deciding to consider for headcanons:

both reckless and wild in their early 20's but that's not unusual, so they were acting like reckless young adults when they were 20. makes sense.

because mirror mentions the last time i saw him (which is definitely implied not 10 years ago since todd had a research team pin so obviously he's been around a bit since the lab was established) meaning todd is potentially still a chaotic bastard but is just trying to act like an adult in front of the kids. beautiful.

and on that note another wonderful Tood message:

Todd: "I never invited Phil to be my pupil—he just declared himself my "number one student" and started tagging along! But honestly…I was kind of flattered."

the possibility that when todd showed up in game, after that cutscene he went to talk to mirror like "this 10 year old just started following me and wont go away, pls help. what do i do?????"

this unsupervised 10 year old just followed a ~30 year old man into the wilderness and somehow just declares todd is mentor (and took the research team pin from todd to ''borrow''). this is a hostage situation. todd is the hostage.

the idea that perhaps todd just got back from a long expedition and was glad to be back and spend time with mirror, except this kid started following him around and wont leave him alone or go away, and then when he got to the lab there were two more kids there. how the fuck am i supposed to get it on with mirror when we have little alone time and when we finally do we're constantly at risk of being interrupted and/or walked-in on. (that last part was mainly the premise of the fic i wanted to write. "these kids are a handful how are we supposed to have intimate time. especially bc they're all so young and have child energy levels and when they go to bed i am already fucking exhausted." i'm thinking it might work better as like a drabble collection, that way i don't have to adhere to a plot line and can pick and choose scenarios to write because i keep winding up with more scenario ideas that i can nearly piece together into a coherent timeline anymore.)

(also a bit that rita becomes suspicious that they are 100% fu.cking even though all that happened was mirror wasn't asleep up in his bed above the lab and fell asleep in one of the bungalows w/todd and then tried to cover it up like haha what no, i was checking on todd he's not feeling well uh… what? where are my pants? oh. oh i can't believe i just totally got out of bed and left the lab without my pants haha.) (todd and mirror just trying to keep their relationship a secrete out of fear of rumors spreading and it affecting the lab's funding, even though rumors definitely started ages ago but neither of them realize). (also todd doesn't trust phil to keep his mouth shut and doesn't like the optics of the random 10 year old who started following him (UNSUPERVISED) just blabbing to his parents about how his cool mentor is dating the professor at the lab like yikes that could end badly worst case scenario.)

(i like the idea of mirror playing along with todd's ki.nk, albeit a little awkward sometimes (not very good at being intentionally 'sexy' about it, but that's not what todd wants anyways bc it's already inherenty sexy for him). Phill has a message "I barely get half the stuff the professor talks about. Do you?" and i can only image if he said that to todd

todd: （人*´∀｀）i know it's hot

phil: what)

anyways i hope you don't mind me rambling even more on your asks like this. last time i totally just cut chunks out to be smaller but this time… i'm going to leave things in rip.