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oh1thehorror · 7 months

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So…Hi tumblr. This is a fic that I’m posting here so… enjoy it? Eheh.

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category: Gen

Fandoms: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson, The Glass Scientists

Relationship: Edward Hyde & Dr. Henry Jekyll

Characters: Edward Hyde, Dr. Henry Jekyll

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Self-Harm, Blood and Injury, Murder, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Breakdown, Panic Attacks, Toxic Co-Dependency, mentions of mental institutions, Disassociation, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Hatred, Non-Graphic Gore

Language: English

Words: 3,603

Not beta read

Summary: Alas, the most he can pray for is time. Is a chance. Never forgiveness, never redemption, or mercy or goodness. He is long past all of those, quite thoroughly drenched in sinfulness and all the evil in human souls.

Nothing parallels him.

Not even Satan, he is sure.

OR The aftermath of Hyde murdering Carew, but I mashed it with Glass Scientists.

OR OR Can I really call Jekyll my favourite character if I haven't torn him apart first?

Reap your self-destruction

Fuck.

This is atrocious, and despicable, and really in no way good for him at all. Dead- there on the street, sights for all to see; dead. Dead. Rotting and never coming back, hacked to the pulp of an unidentifiable, red mess, there in the street, half way in the moonlight.

Bloody, and messy, and all over him because he’s a murderer now.

Shit.

This is only half the issue; the fact that he’d murdered a man and that man is never ever ever going to come back to life, and that he’d see it, all the gore, and it was undeniably him who had done that-

He’d done it all with Lanyon’s cane. The cane he got gifted for his birthday some years back from his closest friend, such a tender memory, was the very same cane he’d used to beat Danvers’ body to fine, scarlet mush as it screamed. The thing had snapped with the bones and he’d lost it in the wreckage, carrying back with him the bloodied other half, all the way to Soho. There were no officers on his trail, at least, but he could not go back to the Society- not like this.

No; he’d rushed to his apartment, hands surprisingly steady, breathing calm as possible, (he is a psychopath, a madman, really. He was breathing so normally when Danvers could never breathe again, lungs collapsed in and it was all his fault, and he’d done it with Lanyon’s gift and-) uprooting notebooks and papers from dusty draws, feeding the fire to feed his desperation and ensure there was not a splotch of evidence against him.

Jekyll’s voice stuttered frantically in his ears, the entire time, and Hyde was distinctly aware of his incoherent rambling, no doubt consumed by the gruesome sight they’d both caused. He is only Jekyll’s anger, after all.

In any case, nothing was being helped, but he’d prefer it over silence. He did not want to be alone with what they’d done. At least Jekyll could provide the understanding they’d never get in the gallows-

No, no; they’re not there yet, they won’t get there, he promises, he promises, he promises!

The papers were stained with his fingerprints, bloodied with impressions of scarlet blood that didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t think too much about it, or he’d stop what he’s doing and get caught red-handed (literally) by the police. He didn’t have time.

With this thought, he threw the remainder of the papers to the fire, watching the angry thing rise with a defiant cackle and eat away at his sins. He’d doused the other half of the cane with gasoline- ‘reserved specifically for emergencies,’ Hyde had said when he’d brought it and right now was a fucking emergency- and fed that to the monster too.

It had flared madly, but there were only ashes left of his crimes. He’d killed the flames with water- pure, clear, safe; something he’d never be ever again- and not thought once before downing that wretched draught in his pocket. It’d swirled bright red then purple then green in mockery and he’d taken every last, bitter drop until he’d felt himself heaving.

Now, everything is too tight and too bloody, and the glass has shattered onto the floor and he’ll have to clean it or that’s proof against them and he’s putting them all in danger, all over again because he’s so reckless-

His bones pop disgustingly into place, bringing with them the sickly nausea that comes with the unnatural feeling of his insides turned out and replaced to make an entirely new man. Innocent, he could claim with this face and this voice. Innocent-

But his hands are still bloody! He has to get the blood off; just so it won’t stain Jekyll’s clothes, he tells himself- certainly not because it’s stifling and spreading and unstoppable.

Of course, he is completely logical, and sane; so he scrubs his hands over a basin of cold water hard enough that he thinks the skin will start to crack. The water is red. Not pink- not just stained- but so fucking red that he thinks he can dye something with the water and it’ll come out the deepest maroon.

That’s bad.

He needs to get rid of the water. It’ll stink up the place if he leaves it- well, it already is; the air is shimmery with a metallic scent that he swears to heaven will haunt his dreams. He doesn’t plan on coming back here, it’s not really his problem anymore; but the thought of leaving the water to go stagnant and rotten, with such a pungent odour as to tell the whole world what he’s done, makes his stomach churn.

So, he dumps it over the ashes in the fireplace, now clumped together, and watches the dirt drink up the river of red he’d made. It was all him, always him, every single part- the anger, the blind rage, the stab through the body, the cracking of the bones; every last bit of it is all him.

It might still smell, but at least the basin of blood is out of sight. At least it’s masked with the scent of something long burnt and no one can tell where the smell would’ve come from because there is no obvious source, no liability. Just that the room is a mess, and the fire has been put out with too many ashes, and some human is clearly missing from this place.

But that is not his issue ever again: he is human- he promises- not an animal, not a madman, not the devil. No; he is Henry Jekyll, in the blood-stained, ruined clothes of Edward Hyde- with whom he is in no way associated- and the tightness of his shirt makes him want to scream. Frantically (there is no time to waste, no time to waste, Hell is at his heels), he flings the doors to Hyde’s wardrobe open, shifting through the few clothes to find the only ones that could possibly fit him.

Again, safety measures- he kept an outfit of Hyde’s, Hyde kept an outfit of his. Just in case.

But, here, he had to be careful. If he left his clothes in a mess, he might give the police reason for suspicion.

‘Calm down.’ Hyde urges, though his voice is anything but calm, stuttering at every other vowel like a nervous child. ‘Do this logically. Don’t give the coppers a reason to suspect anything other than an escape.’ Yeah- that made sense! He could do that.

Henry’s hands shake quite violently when he looks down at them- they have been the entire time; it’s a surprise he didn’t spill the water earlier- but he’s sure he can do it. Just; take the clothes he’d messed up and fold them coherently and properly. It feels wrong doing such a mundane task when, not even an hour ago, he had murdered a member of parliament.

‘But it’s ok.’ Hyde pacifies, trying to keep his own voice calm. ‘You’ve done this before- it’s not difficult.’ No- he certainly hadn’t murdered someone before, thank you very much. ‘Folding clothes. Focus on folding the clothes.’ And he does. It’s messy and disorganised, but it can be arranged in a way to make the closet seem untouched. He heaves the biggest sigh since that body lay in moonlight, as he closes the closet doors. Nothing was taken. These clothes are his, he is fine.

‘The glass.’ Hyde hisses, just so Henry doesn’t forget. How could he? The shattered remains of the phial drip with hot, green formula, glittering in the streaming light like explosive stars. Where would he put the glass? He had pockets- pockets. The police wouldn’t suspect Jekyll to have proper connections to the murder- not after that fire.

Ok. This would all be ok.

He kneels on the carpet, just where he’d stood last as Hyde- the last time ever as Hyde. He would never come out again; Jekyll couldn’t afford it- neither could his other. Or the Society. Or everything else relying on him surviving this night. Then, with careful hands because he doesn’t want to nip himself (‘That pain would be inviting? The punishment we need. The punishment we must-’) on the glass and get even more blood stained to him, he’d had enough of the accursed substance tonight, he starts picking the shimmering shards from the ground.

Collecting the glass off the floor is easy- he just hopes to God (‘If God will listen to us anymore.’) that nothing about the few drops of potion on the carpet gets noticed. Otherwise, his pocket gets steadily heavier with the tinkling of the glass as it drops in, and soon enough, the last piece is in his hand (it’s shaking again, shaking with his breath, shaking because he knows there is only one way forward, one way to run, but he should be in the gallows, hanging like the murderer he is, all to Hell).

It’s no use. He can drop the last piece in with the remainder of the phial, but the edge cuts his fingers, slices clean into the skin and stings as red starts welling at the wound.

The careful facade of his calmness, of fixing his breath just until he’s out of Soho, shatters like the phial in his pocket.

There is blood on his hands. It’s red- it’s everywhere because he’s just murdered someone. He’s just murdered someone and they bled so much. He was a doctor- he knows how much a person can bleed before they die, that they bleed after they die too, that blood gets everywhere and never comes off and it won’t come off him because he’s bleeding and he’s a murderer and he’ll always be a murderer and nothing will ever change that.

Red. On his hands. He needs to stop it. ‘You’re bleeding.’ Hyde informs him, in some vain attempt to wake him up. ‘It’s your blood. All you need is a handkerchief.’ Right. A handkerchief to press to his finger then he can get out of here, leave this place forever and go home-

(‘The walk to your punishment?’)

No time to be hysterical. Just remember that. Hysteria gets you killed- or you end up in Bedlam. You don’t want that, Jekyll. I don’t want that. No.

He fumbles for a moment at the desk, searching for one, and finally breathing that shaky sigh of relief once he pulls one from the drawers. He presses it to the cut, watching as the scarlet invades the white of the cotton, trailing up and up through the fibres until he thinks the thing is doused.

Ok. Now, he can go home. Just- ‘My clothes are still on the floor.’ Mutters Hyde, somewhat urgently. Jekyll clenches his fist, squeezes his eyes shut as he nods- cannot force his breath to calm at all- and scoops up the bloody pile. He can take it outside to throw away somewhere. Yes.

It’s all so simple, if only he was calm-

He bundles the soft cloth between his arms; it’s drying stiff in the patches that are far bloodier. The roughness is a horror- instead, he tries to keep the softer parts running between his fingers, just to calm him until he can discard the wretched garments. Besides, the therapeutic feeling helps with the steady pain from his cut finger, handkerchief still clenches around staunching the blood.

For the last time, Jekyll turns his back to the room, surveying the wreckage he’d left behind, eyes shimmering in the fractured moonlight slipping in through the window. A wreckage like the body, discarded for the rats and writhing maggots, all done with such a holy gift that he had ruined. How dare he?!

There were still papers scattered to the ground, the last frantic writings of a madman. ‘Not enough to take us to court.’ Hyde promises; something softer, a hint more certain in his voice. Jekyll trusts him; blindly- what more can he do? For now, Hyde is the only one who knows, who will ever understand, who will ever get the feeling of his disgust and anger and pathetic self-loathing. When he hangs, Hyde is the only thing left to say goodbye to.

But with that, a murderer leaves his room, and stalks out into the thick mist of London night, hands bloodied beyond reparation.

He is breathless when he arrives at his street. The clothes (Hyde’s clothes. The last clothes Edward Hyde would ever be spotted in) have long since been abandoned in the back alleys of the city, a good distance away from his apartment in Soho. He’d stalked out of the borough on brisk legs, not risking getting a cab until he was rid of the wretched weight of ruined cotton in his arms. Besides, the walking had helped. Cold air in his lungs whilst it rushes through his hair was the blessing a sinner like him did not deserve, no matter if he found it polluted like the inner clockwork of his soul.

Alas, the most he can pray for is time. Is a chance. Never forgiveness, never redemption, or mercy or goodness. He is long past all of those, quite thoroughly drenched in sinfulness and all the evil in human souls.

Nothing parallels him.

Not even Satan, he is sure.

He takes his key from his pocket, hand grasping the cool metal press of his door handle, a grounding weight to the inner dwellings of panic still clutching at him because there is still blood on his hands, he is still a murderer, Danvers is still dead. What is changing that? What is changing-

With a snap and a click (the breaking of bones, the snap of a cane, the click of his brisk footsteps away from the scene of a mutilation), the door stutters open uneasily, and, thankful at last for this one small shelter from the eyes of the world, for the heaving anxiety lifted off his shoulders of the police following him down, he steps in with a breath.

‘To your punishment.’ Hyde’s voice curdles sickly, reassuringly in his mind. After all, Jekyll knows he is right, has seen this coming from a long way. It was one of the genuine reasons he’d rushed home (does a reprobate have a home? In hell, perhaps? With the moulding images of rotten, unrecognisable bodies, ever consumed by mycelium and fungi?), with the throb of the cut gently increasing, Jekyll had- at some point- become desperate to inflict the harm on himself purposefully.

There had been a moment of respite between the cut and his loss of composure, between the initial slash and the blood flooding through, skin opening to his darkness, inviting all other monstrosities to peek in and cower at the evil in himself. Of course there had been. There always was this feeling of pride, of calm. Knowing you did well because you punished yourself, you got what you deserved, without bothering someone else to do it for you.

That is all waiting for him now, in the depths of this cold house, with his cold blood and rotting heart ever consumed by illogical fear. Who must he be afraid of? He is the murderer, after all.

He unclips the cloak around his shoulders, maybe the last thing holding the faint lines of his soul together in a clutch of vile tendrils, moving through the shadows to his room, and only then letting it drop when the door clicks behind him. With the stuttering of some broken, sick thing, he, frantically, stumbles to the ground near his bed, no longer desperate to keep the emotions threatening to consume him trapped in, no longer concerned with anything besides raw truth and the hot tears burning their way down his cheeks, and the wretched voice in his head.

He looks down, at the bloodied cotton pressed to his hand, focuses on the sting of it when he presses too hard. But, this is all he does in the moment, all he can bring himself to when he is the spluttering mess of a last breath gone wrong. ‘Now, you know what we must do, Henry?’ Hyde mutters, and it's all Jekyll can do to make himself nod along, to lift the sleeve of linen from his forearms, a patchwork of silver spider webs stalking up it on the underside, from days when he’d been obsessed with the concept of human pain and what it truly was.

No need for morbid curiosity anymore, not when he was intimately familiar with the causes of human pain, and how to make it, and what it did to one and his mind. ‘It sends someone to Bedlam. They should’ve done that to you so long ago, because look where we are now. Henry, isn’t the glass of our broken phial so pretty?’

To Bedlam. He doesn't want to go to Bedlam, he doesn't want to be locked up with the horrors he deserves because they are the horrors he’s caused. At the end of the day, he supposes Hyde is right- a man, human and whole, would never have reason to wonder about something so horrid as suffering, lest he was mad, and Henry is far past that.

He takes a shard from the heavy pocket at his side, with those ever shaking hands, and looks at it cradled so softly in his palm like it was something new and innocent and fragile and all that he never ever would be. It was pretty, he supposed, with the way the moonlight caught it, filtered in through the windows, making it sparkle like the last wings of an angel, and with its sharp edge gleaming in the anticipation of smooth skin. It would, obviously, look a lot more prettier doused in red, dripping down to the floor, stained with all the sinful stuff inside of him.

With a shaky breath, and a screaming desperation, he brings it to press cooly against the delicate workings of his veins, and closes his eyes stained with glass tears, wrists quivering because he knows he can't do this, can’t fall back into such a habit that had eaten away so hungrily at his life.

‘Having second thoughts? Then give me the control, give me your hand. What awaits us but the punishment you cower from, coward?’ That voice spits, in all its stuttering truth.

Jekyll knows he should be fighting for control, he knows he should be doing all in his power to deal logically with this, to not hurt himself, to lay his head down and sleep and hope that will fix the wrongs he’d caused. But none of this fixes Danvers’ body, lying still in the streets, blood splayed around him, left for the rats; none of this fixes the phantom feeling of blood under his nails and ribs cracking beneath his hands. No, logic is not for him to take right now, sleep is not his luxury, the only thing he must do is this.

So, he lets Hyde do it to him (lets him do it to himself), sits idly in his body, staring as the impressions of far rougher, crooked hands ghost his, and guide the edge of the glass down words into a sloping arch. Blood blooms from the cut with intricate pain, red and the last drips of green hissing into each other as they run down his arm in a careful rivulet. It’s not enough.

He brings his hand down, Hyde following his every move, once more on his skin, watching the edge of the glass get coated in thin scarlet. An adjacent cut mars the flesh, and tingles with the delight of sweltering pride in his chest. His heart clenches at the thought of this being his downfall, of this being the thing that finally snubs his disgraceful flame from the face of the world. He’d frowned at the thought of death, but musing it now, as Hyde cuts again and again and blood pools steadily into wood with each droplet, brought by hands that are (deniably) undeniably his, it is a simple thing. Maybe even right.

Again, the heavenly edge (a devil-send) of that curved blade comes to quietly stained flesh, where his tears fall and mix with the pain of his fear and rot and peace all slipping away from him.

Another cut befalls him (he brings the blade on himself). ‘Is it not so easy?’ Says Hyde, the haze in Jekyll’s mind too sweet and simple and painful to ignore the way his words curl like the body of a snake on its latest kill. And would a death like this, for him, not be so simple? All it would take was the careful positioning at the one place he’d been avoiding, to carve the final breath from his deceitful lungs. He could fall to hell so easily, he could destroy it all now and not have to reap the consequences because he doesn’t have to look to the future.

He can die, and rot here alone for days, with a body unfound and all his blood drained. It would be so easy.

The haze grows thick like honey, seeping into the crevices of his thoughts and clogging them with undeserved, unnerving peace. He can’t feel the pain anymore. Why can’t he feel the pain anymore? Why isn’t Hyde speaking to him?

Why is the floor so red?

With the quiet plink of a shatter, in the earliest depths of a winter morning, a shard of glass splays into ten, bloodied fractures.

#fanfic #fanfiction #the glass scientists fanfiction #the glass scientists #tgs #tgs jekyll #tgs hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #dr jekyll and mr hyde #writing

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lindalofbroome · 9 months

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14 - Foreshadowing

But always, just as he was about to fall asleep, the other, darker thoughts came creeping back, and made him afraid to close his eyes. Finally he did sleep — a shallow doze filled with nightmares. He was back in Sheba's hut. But now its four walls were made of rock, dripping with water and slime. And Sheba was huge, her nose long and pointed, her hair greasy grey tails swinging like thick ropes around her grinning face, her eyes red and piercing. Strong Jonn and his mother stood there with him, but they made no move to help as the Witch bent towards him, closer and closer, till her face was all he could see and her breath scalded his cheeks. "If you are the only one afraid, skinny rabbit, you are the only one with sense," she croaked. And she opened her mouth to scream with laughter, but she had no tongue, and the inside of her mouth was as yellow and smooth as cheese. ROWAN OF RIN Ch 3 The Heroes

i was planning on doing one of sheba's prophesies because those are always 😘👌 idk theres something so fun and i guess also satisfying about having a cryptic riddle foretelling the future and having it slowly unfold over the course of the story

the fate's hand prophesy in Zebak is probably my favourite because i looooove the symbolism of the group as the hand and also what a cast of characters 😌💖

the plot arch of Travellers is also one of my favourites and big fan of the secret enemy prophesy too. big fan of all the themes of change to embody metamorphosis throughout the whole story!!!

i just did a maris art so i didn't want to use the prophesy in Keeper of the Crystal and honestly when i chose sheba i honestly was envisaging the one in Bukshah where she and unos were huddled in the hut with a raging fire and the whole intense atmosphere, piercing eyes of intent, her snarky wisdom.

but i ended up going with the original, the first, the beloved, probably for nostalgia lol. Rowan of Rin was my first rodda book but thats not the only reason it's one of my top tier favourites. i love its story and its themes of bravery and how the saviour of the village was not a mighty warrior, but a gentle and kind soul.

but oh my god before i started sketching i randomly remembered rowan's dream after visiting sheba and like. ive read this book a bajillion times okay. but i only jUST saw a parallel?? i dont think it's a coincidence??? but i remembered that sheba's eyes were described as piercing and red, and i remembered that because i was like woah thats intense. aND YOU KNOW WHO ELSE HAD RED EYES. THE DRAGON. i remember this only because of when i drew the dragon of the mountain that one time.

so i go back to look at the dream scene. obviously this whole scene kinda went over my head the first time because i was like. eight. give or take. but when i picked it up again when i was older, i quite liked how kinda whacky it was? and i was like wow this is the weirdest and truly the most dream ive ever read lmaoo. i was like wow rodda really wrote things that rowan experienced recently and was thinking about aND made it whacky and weird.

and something i always thought was the most weird was that sheba is described to have a mouth full of cheese, and i always took it as yeah. rowan gave her cheese. it's haunting him now lol. but now?? with my eyes opened??? cheese = food, stuck in her mouth. you know who else had food stuck in its mouth?? the dragon of the mountain.

i was intending of drawing the dream itself but it was going to be a whole thing lol so i just drew when rowan was helping the dragon hahaha but behold my madman red string connection parallels ✨

He was back in Sheba's hut. But now its four walls were made of rock, dripping with water and slime.

mountain top cavern, snowy and icy and probably a bit gross

And Sheba was huge, her nose long and pointed, her hair greasy grey tails swinging like thick ropes around her grinning face, her eyes red and piercing.

ngl i've found this description to be a bit [raises eyebrows] because stereotypes, but now it's like. oh maybe big nose is actually just dragon snout.

sheba definitely has an intense gaze normally, but a red and piercing gaze is like the intimidating but pained and fearful gaze of the dragon.

i got nothing for her hair. could just be description for her. could be folded wings maybe. maybe the dragon of the mountain is an Eastern dragon type even.

Strong Jonn and his mother stood there with him, but they made no move to help

jonn is, of course, weak and pinned to the wall by this point and cannot help.

i don't think jiller is as literally relevant, but we can kinda say that she cannot help also because she had to stay behind to look after annad etc

the Witch bent towards him, closer and closer, till her face was all he could see and her breath scalded his cheeks.

drawing rowan's attention to the face, uh. divine? guidance towards the answer.

sheba's breath was hot like the dragon's fire breath.

"If you are the only one afraid, skinny rabbit, you are the only one with sense," she croaked.

im choosing to interpret this as like, his fear gives him pause and allows him to consider. he seeks knowledge, before he acts, in contrast to his elders who act first, know later. kinda like benefits of Deer In The Headlights mode O-O lmao

could also just be a reminder, even affirmation that he and he alone can solve the villages problem and save it from disaster

And she opened her mouth to scream with laughter, but she had no tongue, and the inside of her mouth was as yellow and smooth as cheese.

perhaps opening her mouth to cackle can parallel the dragon unhinging its jaw, looking like it's about to eat you whole, but doesnt

cheese stuck in mouth = animal bone stuck in mouth

..oh my god??? i actually think this is just my headcanon but at the end of Bukshah sheba says "that the medallion she gave [rowan] may look like base metal, but it is made of pure gold, and she expects it back the moment she returns. she says that you could not take her place in a thousand years, whatever you may think" via allun, and idk when it happened but i think i did in fact imagine that rowan would be the wiseman some day. due to his insight, his experiences, his level-headiness and stuff like that.

sheba could just be messing around, enforcing being a spiteful and jealous old woman, but just passing on the message that she wants the medallion returned.

but also. maybe she knows he's gonna take her place someday, and she is hinting at it to him. i would imagine this definitely going over his head at the time, since he's you know. a child. but who knows, he's pretty discerning. anyway

it could perhaps be argued that sheba gave rowan the dream alongside the map, but i doubt it. i choose to believe it's his own. maybe im grasping at straws here about it being a supernatural dream, but if it is,,,,,,,,, it could be just the beginning for rowan.

#roddacember 2023 #roddacember #lyn's roddacember prompts #postlyn #postlyn art #emily rodda #roddaverse #rowan of rin #jonn of rin #dragon of the mountain #//#maybe thats why sheba tells her riddle prophesies #she gets whack ass dreams and she's doing her best to translate ;-;#she's trying #sheba misunderstood mean bitch my beloved <3 #i would be so scared of her if i lived in rin but as a character i love her

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braininatankwithalaptop · 11 months

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I have torn thoughts on Red Robe's characterization in Mother of Learning.

On the surface, one can draw a parallel between his villainous motivations and those found in lazy action movies. "The bad guy is the radical extremist trying to destroy an unjust system instead of doing nothing like the good guys." But as I thought about the protagonists, Zach and Zorian, I found the parallel isn't the same. Zach and Zorian really aren't defenders of the monarchy, the noble houses, or the status quo. Zach ends the story fighting a legal battle to right a wrong done to him and Zorian ends up as the ambassador to the aranea to help them establish official diplomatic relations with Cyoria. Sure, neither character is specifically politically ambitious, but that seems to be from a sense of humility or desire for rest than actual satisfaction with the status quo. So, what is the actual foil between ZZ and Jornak?

We don't get a lot of specifics with Jornak's characterization, but two details stand out to me. 1) Jornak discovered the deepness of eldemar's/ikosian empire's corruption during a time loop that he had to cheat to retain awareness of. 2) Quatach-Ichl betrays Jornak partially by revealing his plan to hold Zorian's friends and family hostage because Jornak believes that the first ikosian emperor used the time loop to ascend to power and wants to use the same power to conquer the continent. Let's start with the first detail. Jornak discovers in his research that the injustice that happened to him was a result of systemic problems. He couldn't fix those in a month by himself in increments, which is the only time frame he had within the time loop. But he could support the invasion, he could leverage it to destroy *everything* standing in his way and be free to start over from scratch. The only way he could feel like he was making progress was by consolidating more personal power and perfecting the outcome of a horrific invasion. And he knew that the "boon" of the time loop was not designed with him in mind. It was made for Zach in mind and Jornak was terrified of being cut out of the picture and exploited like he exploited everyone else and was exploited. So he had to make a deal with Qautach-Ichl and Panaxeth, further committing him to the invasion as his only course of action. So, his actions are extreme but kind of understandable and sympathetic? But if we look at the second detail of Qautach-Ichl's worries of him we see he's making the same mistakes that he claims are the reason for the systemic injustices today. Jornak wants to "follow the cycle" as it were, and become emperor like Shutur Tanara with his boon of the time loop. He consolidated immense magical power, skill, and political/psychological insight of important actors in the world. All he had to do afterwards was become emperor and instead of being bad like him, be good. Easy, right? But for that to work he still has to conquer the continent which one can't and shouldn't do without committing so many atrocities and compromising so many morals. He may not establish the same systemic injustices but if he doesn't he will make different ones. Jornak sees the cycle of the time loop being an unfair advantage and allowing one madman to reshape the continent as they see fit and decides he's going to ensure he's the madman in hopes of making the world better. And here we see ZZ truly promising something different by not doing that. It is a repeated character motivation of Zorian's and Zach's that they wish to pay people back for the support they received in the timeloop. They consolidated power and then worked on ensuring others got the benefits of it too. The two of them aren't planning on being the singular most historically important people to culture and civilization, they want to give their own (partially) realistic contributions and help their friends do the same. Zorian isn't going to be the one that publishes revolutionary medicinal and alchemical techniques, but Kael might. Zach won't go down in history for single handedly hunting down and dismantling groups of necromancers and cultists, but Alanic and his sect of the church might. They are so committed to helping their friends, and Zorian especially seeks to achieve their goals not through dominance, but through diplomacy. Zorian and Zach's diplomacy and "political" intrigue are so integral to how they win in the end that I'm tempted to say the author read On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace or something similar. Zorian secures an alliance with Spear of Resolve by proving his trust and alluding to helping a rival. Zorian gets important information out of Qautach-Ichl by making a cogent and good faith argument for him to not support the invasion. Zorian gets Oganji to flee the battle by giving up valuable artifacts in a bargain. And most importantly, the angels cut a deal with Zorian and Zach to not enforce certain clauses of the law if Zach and Zorian can skirt the letter of it.

I think if you really comb over how Zorian and Zach interact with antagonists, how others try to get what they want, and characterizations of conflicting people/organizations, politically speaking the story is about how important it is to compromise your goals in the name of results and your ethics as opposed to compromising your ethics in the name of your goals. ZZ break a cycle of exploitation by refusing to forget others and paying back debts. Jornak's bitterness and despair push him to make a deal with the "devil" (primordial) and fight for the short term, corrupt solution. I think this is the most good faith interpretation I can have about the character dynamics and themes of the book but who knows? I might be wrong due to projections.

#mother of learning #mol #red robe #zorian kazinski #zach noveda #mol spoilers #jornak dokochin #quatach-ichl #political intrigue #fantasy worldbuilding #literary analysis #I also had so many thoughts on how raynie's background and character arc parallel to this and zorian's story specifically #but that's a post for another day #I need to learn to be more succinct

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sailorshadzter · 11 months

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Can you write a parallel with canon where Dani is Cersei, Viserys is Joff, and Sansa is to marry him. Jon could be in Jamie’s role as royal bastard. I live for salty teen, angst with happy ending!

okay anon

so hear me out

this has been in my inbox for.... well... forever. lol.

i apologize for the amount of time its been & for the lack of angst??? but i think??? this could span a second chapter???? or more??? i really love this setting & its not one ive done yet. so i can easily be tempted to do a little more to it.

anyways. i felt compelled to write this randomly so here's what i have for you SO FAR. be on the lookout for more! and anon, if you see this (or anyone really), feel free to request more, if you even remember sending this lol

send me prompts

The South is unlike her home in every way possible.

She looks up at the daunting Red Keep before her, knowing that after this day, everything in her life was to change. The eldest daughter of the Warden in the North, she’s come to King’s Landing to marry the young King Viserys Targaryen, a madman some might say, spoiled and prone to violence when he doesn’t get exactly what he wants. Her father had been against the match of course, but when the King sought your daughter’s hand, there was little he could do but bring her South and hope for the best.

And so, as they climb the steps to the double doors, they’re already swinging open, revealing to her and her entourage the young and beautiful Targaryen princess, Daenerys. She’s soft-faced, with violet eyes and silvery hair that she wears twisted back in braids, gems sparkling in the sunlight. Her powder blue gown is of the latest fashion, with long sweeping sleeves and an elegant waistline. “Welcome to King’s Landing,” she says with a glittering smile, eyes sweeping from one face to the next before they settle upon the redhead she knows is the girl who will marry her brother. “Lady Stark, what a pleasure it is to finally meet you.” She says these words but somehow, Sansa doesn’t think she quite means them. But, she smiles and dips her an appropriate curtsy, as she knows to do. Her manners are that of a well bred, noble born girl, a girl who had perfected her curtsy at three. There would be no one at court who could rival her in courtly demeanor. “Come, let me bring you inside…” She gestures for the small group to follow after her and they step inside the castle, which to her delight, is as beautiful as she imagined it would be.

“Thank you for the welcome,” Sansa finally speaks as she turns to face the Targaryen princess, surprised when for the first time she notices another standing there. It is a young man, perhaps only a little older than she is herself, with dark hair and eyes that remind her of home… Why, she knows at once who this young man must be, her very own cousin Aegon, born of her aunt Lyanna Stark and the famed Rhaegar Targaryen. A bastard son, but a royal bastard, raised there among the Targaryen family he had left in Viserys and Daenerys. Some might even say he was the real claimant to the Iron Throne, but the boy had never seemed interested, and so it was Viserys who ruled as King of the Seven Kingdoms. There were some who even whispered rebellion in his name, but such whispers had yet to reach the palace spies.

Aegon looks solemn as he stands there in all black, opting to leave behind the finery his aunt wears, wearing instead something that could have been homespun for all she knew. He is every inch a Stark born man, looking more like her own father’s son than even Robb looked, his features reminding her mostly of Arya. At once, she feels a twinge of homesickness, for the North would never be her home again. “The King is waiting for your arrival,” Daenerys is speaking once more, drawing her attention away from her cousin and back to the present. “I will have you shown to your rooms, so you may rest and refresh, then I shall have someone bring you to him in the throne room.” Sansa nods, pushing away the flicker of fear, holding her head high, like the queen she knows she must become. A queen would not be afraid.

A queen would be strong.

[ x x x ]

He can’t believe how beautiful she is.

Of course, he’s seen her painted portrait, but even that did not do her justice, certainly not when she smiles. From where he stands beside his uncle’s throne, the young bastard watches as she appears in the doorway to the throne room, on the arm of one of Viserys’ nobles. She’s in a new gown, one of gray damask, sewn he can see in a fashion more like the South than the one she’d arrived in. Her red hair, so vivid, so long, is pulled half back, a knot of braids pinned into place with a dragonfly comb. The rest of her hair falls long and loose down her back, nearly to her waist, and his fingers ache with the need to know just how soft it must have been.

“Welcome my lady,” his uncle speaks from where he sits, violet eyes sparking at the sight of the young woman that now approaches the dais. Viserys too notes the beauty of the girl before him, with red hair and eyes so blue they are unlike any color he’s seen before. She sweeps him a beautiful curtsy, dipping so low he wonders how she could ever rise back up, but she does so in a fluid motion that would put even his most noble women to shame. “I am delighted to finally meet you.” Their betrothal has been a long time coming, that was for certain, with many months of negotiation and delay. He rises up, surprising her, to come down the steps from his throne to stand before her, reaching to take her hand and bring it to his lips for a feather soft kiss. From behind him, his nephew wonders who has replaced his uncle, for this was certainly not the man he’s known all of his life. “You are a beauty.”

She blushes beneath his compliments, dimpling prettily when she smiles. “Thank you, your grace,” she murmurs in a soft, but Northern accent. “I am happy to finally be here,” she goes on with a flutter of her lashes, her hand still in his, daring to give it the gentlest of squeezes.

“I know you have met my sister, Daenerys already… This is my nephew,” he turns, gesturing towards the young man that looms behind his throne. “Come, Aegon and meet your future queen.” Though he looks as if he’d rather do anything but, he comes down the dais as well, offering the young woman a bow. “Aegon will be captain of the queensguard, you know, so I imagine the two of you will become fast friends. Show her around, won’t you Aegon? And tomorrow evening we shall have a banquet to celebrate your arrival.” He’s smiling, but much like Daenerys, Sansa feels as if what he says, or in this case, what he does, doesn’t really equate to the truth. But, she smiles and nods all the same, for this was her life now.

This was her family now.

[ x x x ]

Aegon turns out to be more like a Stark than he knows.

He’s sullen, quite like Arya tended to be, and that thought alone brings a smile to her face. “This way, my lady,” he says, speaking for the first time, gesturing for her to follow after him. Instead, she falls into step at his side, as was her right, and he casts a sidelong glance her way as they step out of the halls and into the bright afternoon sunshine, to visit first the gardens.

“Oh! How beautiful,” she says as they step into the lush greenery, the floral scents overwhelming as she sinks down to the nearest of bushes, simply to breathe in the sweet scent of the flowers growing there. From where he stands, Aegon watches her, surprised by this seemingly uncharacteristic act, for she seemed like the perfect courtier, never slipping from the role she’s taken on. But here in the garden, for a split second, he realizes he is seeing her for who she really was. “The gardens in Winterfell are never in such a bloom,” she says as she stands upright, brushing off her gown with a smile. “I’ve never seen such beautiful flowers before.”

“This is only the beginning,” he says as they continue on their way, passing only a few others as they go. “The season has only just begun, after all.” Her eyes widen and she seems delighted by this knowledge and Jon leans over, plucking one of the blooms from the bush, simply so he might tuck it into her braids. “Come, there’s more to see,” he says next and she cannot help but to giggle at his expense, hand to his elbow so she might once more walk alongside him, her skirts sweeping across the stone walkway as they go.

“We are cousins you know,” she says after a moment, her turn to look sideways at him. He’s already looking her way, those gray eyes dark, eyes that seem to stare right into her very soul. Aegon nods, he knows this information well enough, his uncle never ceases to remind him that he’s only a bastard born son. “You look like my father, like my sister.” She goes on as they cross the path, his steps leading her towards a stone bench that sits in a far corner.

“I have heard,” he says, for another thing his uncle has never let him forget was how un-Targaryen he looks.

“I never met her, but you must look like your mother. My father always says that Arya is like Lyanna in all ways but the gown wearing and you have her likeness.” She thinks of her little sister left behind, never close, but certainly loved, and wonders what she was doing right then, right now. Probably causing trouble of some kind. “I wonder…” She trails off, tapping her chin in thought, head tilted back just enough that her hair cascades down her back, prompting him to wonder just how soft it might be beneath his fingertips.

“You wonder what, my lady?” Aegon asks when she doesn’t finish what she’s started.

When she turns her face back to him, her blue eyes are quite serious in their gaze. “I only wonder what you’d have been named, if you’d been born in the North.” She doesn’t mean to offend, but for some reason, his Targaryen name just doesn’t seem to fit.

He’s surprised by these words, for all of his life he’s struggled with an identity that never felt as if it belonged to him. Aegon, though his name for nearly eighteen years now, has never felt as if it was truly his. As if it fit who he was supposed to be. Aegon, the name of his dead half-brother, a stolen name his uncle sometimes says in a rage, a name he does not deserve. “Well, had I been born in the North I’d be a Snow,” he replies to which she nods, staring at him as if she were inspecting him.

“Jon,” she finally says with a smile.

“Jon?” He questions, to which once again she nods.

“It would be Jon, most certainly. Jon Snow.”

“Jon… Jon Snow,” he tests it out, the name feeling familiar upon his lips, despite only just hearing it now. Somehow, this name seems to fit far more than his given name has ever. She’s smiling triumphantly, clearly proud of herself, and he finds he’s grinning himself, a strange warmth flowing through him.

She opens her mouth to speak, but is silenced by the approaching footsteps of another. It’s a woman that stands there now, a little older than even Jon, with dark hair and eyes, dressed in the traditional garb of a handmaiden. “My lord, your grace,” it takes Sansa a moment to realize the woman is speaking to her with such a title and she reminds herself that she was queen to be, as good as married, considering the binding betrothal contract. “My name is Shae, I’m to be your handmaiden,” the woman continues only when she’s swept them both a curtsy. “The King has asked me to return you to your rooms before supper,” she adds, shooting a quick glance at the young man beside her.

“Oh, yes, please let us go,” he gets up alongside her, issuing her a quick bow as she turns to go. She turns back only once and when she’s gone, he’s left there wondering why he feels so empty without her by his side.

#jonsa #actuallyjonsa #jon x sansa #anon asks #writing prompts #this gives me so many ideas lol #i wrote this #my writing

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hey-sherry · 1 year

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Act VIII Ending this... SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Let's save the world \o/

(acting chipper, but I am writing this after finishing the game and haha I AM NOT OKAY)

Puzzle solving with Watson, weee! The PoV switching was fun, I loved their banter, I wish Watson had actually kicked me, poking fun at all of the tomb raiding from two British men was fun fun fun.

The cave labyrinth - so creepy. We got so much distressed Sherlock in this one, poor guy! And yeah, he died once because I insisted on exploring... as I said, we ignore the main objective in this house.

This was such a haunting moment, and we could maybe stretch it into Sherlock's disdain for the solar system...

I was so distraught in the moment, I didn't even notice the SHOULDER GRAB we've all been waiting for. Well! We love a good parallel, yes good good.

My beautiful mad boy. I had to laugh out loud when he chastised Watson for killing the man - after I watched Sherlock die three times in a row because I can't aim to save my life.

Big "For me, it's always like this" moment imo, especially after looking at the Void painting. (Will I ever stop drawing parallels between Silent Hill 2 and every other game I see? No. It's good!!)

This happened BACK TO BACK, what perfect timing! My beautiful pure perfect boy. I miss him so much. :'(

UM!!! Screaming inside.

Nothing like a gritty, bloody Holmes and a complete madman having a dialogue battle in a raging storm. I selected the wrong answers a few times just to see what happens, which brings us to... a problem:

This. This, a QTE in the year of the Lord two thousand and twenty-three, dampened SO much of my feelings and enjoyment for the final moments of this game. It wasn't fun, it didn't make me feel smart or scared for Sherlock or... anything. It took me out of the whole thing and reminded me that, yeah, I am playing a videogame. Introducing a new gaming mechanic (a widely disliked one at that) at the very end of the game is the real insanity here. I'm really disappointed by this.

The beam puzzle itself was fine and I had fun figuring out where to point the beams. Just not the crowd part.

I will not mention that other game I love to draw parallels to, but I did think of it. A bit too on the nose this time, mayhaps!

This poor man :'(

I could be posting screenshots of the dialogue all day, really - so many famous quotes, references, all the while making it very clear about a cycle that repeats itself, ha.

OOF.

Yeah, so.

We have to talk.

About being lulled into a sense of safety.

Before everything you think you know and believe about people gets flipped upside down.

Because...

WHAT THE FUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK

????????????????????

My friends, the way my jaw fucking dropped. I-- Watson-- WHAT????

This game was dark enough as it is, well - expectedly. This, however, I did not expect in the slightest (I don't think ANY of us did). This is so bloody dark?!

So, I half expected Sherlock's addiction to be mentioned in the beginning of TA - in the 2008 game he is just kinda melancholy, in Chapter One the 7% solution is presented by Vogel, so I think most of us assumed he used it at some point after Cordona to cope with all the stuff - but then it just wasn't. Instead he used Watson's syringes as pins. If this is meant to be how the addiction actually starts, then I really don't know what to think of it.

The implications are really dark.

I need another game.

#shta diary #sherlock holmes the awakened #sherlock holmes #my screenshots #shta spoilers #spoilers

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invinciblerodent · 3 months

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I don't want to go off on someone else's post, but I just read one that reminded me of how I'll be really, really interested in just how much of a range the Inquisitor's emotions will be able to have in Veilguard regarding Solas, especially outside of a romantic context.

Like I've never done a complete Solas romance playthrough, but the dynamic with an Inquisitor who used to care for him as a friend? Is just so fascinating to me.

Because, well, my Ray obviously wasn't in a romantic relationship with him. They weren't even particularly close, as far as friendships go- Ray enjoyed much more the company of raucous, down to earth, boots on the ground kinds of people, like Bull, or Sera, and Blackwall, and he always placed more regard on Dorian's opinion on matters of magic (for obvious reasons): so he and Solas, they more or less just shared a warm, cordial, collegial relationship. They weren't really in a "ride or die, it's you and me against the world" kind of friendship, but, Solas was responsible for keeping an eye on the Anchor, and yes, that meant that their relationship was important, and Ray trusted him fairly implicitly: he respected Solas, and that respect was -as far as he knew at the time- returned.

He even said to Solas after the Temple of Mythal (paraphrased of course), that he thinks that if you fail, the best you can do is shake yourself off, and try again, which is... pretty much exactly what Solas is trying to do now, only on a larger scale.

So, Ray feels not only blindsided, used, and betrayed by one he thought of as his friend (with enough grief to temper the feelings, but not enough to grant Solas the benefit of a doubt), but most importantly, he feels responsible for the events of Trespasser and beyond. He feels like his callous words (the ones that he had regretted for personal reasons many times over) may have been something of a catalyst for this large-scale destruction, and he finds that absolutely unacceptable.

On top of the personal betrayal of finding out that his pain was originally caused by the one who quelled it, that the main reason he even is the Inquisitor, this larger than life figure squeezed into a chokehold by his very mantle that he -by that time- kind of hates, is Solas...? Feeling very much personally responsible for letting the "pure, free-range insanity" of one he once called his friend, raze Thedas in search of a utopia that may or may not have even ever existed, all on top of finding out that he had been holding a snake in his bosom, that he had been deceived, lied to, used and discarded when he ceased to be useful?

Oh, my boy is fucking furious. And betrayed, and bitter, and insulted, and devastated, and following that conversation at the Eluvian, he would go as far as to say that he straight-up regrets not having run Solas through right then and there.

Ray doesn't believe, for one second, that Solas' plan could have any positive outcome. He's just a human, no magic, no true connection to spirits or personal stake in the "glory" of ancient Arlathan, not one to get misty-eyed over the distant past- he's just a shemlen who lives and dies by the sword, and though a romantic about the past, he isn't more concerned with old glory, or ancient magics, than he is concerned with the little people, and those alive right now.

My Ray can't, philosophically can't, conceptualize what great "good" could ever be worth the devastation that Solas would be willing to cause to the present, and he, as he is right now in my head, can't think of Solas as anything more than a duplicitous madman who -if the first round of words fail- he'd kill without much hesitation at all. (He'd feel like shit about it afterwards of course, but it wouldn't even be the first time he had made the decision to execute a mage too dangerous to continue drawing breath- that "honor" belongs to Livius Erimond.)

And I quite like how this parallels Solas' own guilt for even erecting the Veil in the first place. I think it all dovetails really nicely into how Ray undoing what he thinks of as his mistake would in turn stop Solas from undoing his own, and vice versa, and as the way things are right now, the both of them physically cannot both end up "winning" this.

I really like how there is no win-win ending, no compromise: if it can happen the way I'd like it to, one of them will, most likely, end up needing to die in order for the other to succeed in fixing what they view as their biggest mistake, and though Ray is technically a very small part of what Solas is thinking about, likely neither of them cherish the thought of needing to become the other's undoing.

If the game doesn't allow for that kind of... "friendly affection tainted by a fundamental and irreconcilable difference and impossibility of coexistence" type of relationship (you know, that one, in every piece of media ever lol), I might pivot on that and alter/simplify it a little bit, but I don't really want to do either plain rage and hatred, or plain sorrow and affection.

Because Ray is not Varric.

The Trevelyan family motto is "Modest in Temper, Bold in Deed" for a reason, and Ray embodies this down to his very core.

As I am thinking about it right now, for eight years, that rage and betrayal and sorrow had been simmering, and concentrating, quiet and restrained, in Ray's belly- and if and when the time and opportunity comes, he will not hesitate to do what he feels must be done, even if it's staining his hands with the blood of a friend.

Solas must be stopped at any cost, and the time for rational thought and words has long since given way to the time for blades. That thought has had time to crystallize in his mind, and if I'm given the opportunity, no matter what my Rook might wind up feeling, that will be his utmost priority.

#squirrel plays dragon age #squirrel plays da:tv #oc: raymond trevelyan #veilguard #just musing on my boy's little psyche #he's been on my mind a lot; i've been thinking about how Ray would change from a naturally gregarious and knightly 24-26-year-old #to the more mature and bitter 34-year-old he'll be in Veilguard #I thought of him as very young in Inquisition for a reason; because i wanted him malleable and easily changed; naive even #but now.... those changes; he has to live with #he was a young and idealistic; devout hero who slowly lost his faith and idealism throughout DAI #he gained a lot of insight and wisdom and learned many lessons that aren't taught by tutors and trainers and nannies #but that means that now he's a bitter (and disabled) ex-hero with severe PTSD and a complicated relationship with faith ykwim

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fae-iii · 8 months

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Meowstic Postmortem

I don't think the timelapse does it justice how much friction I was feeling starting this piece. I spent a whole day with Aseprite open and a single line drawn, lol. But after that, it felt really fun and I've been able to focus more lately.

You see Oliver's right eye stay in one direction for most of the process only to flip towards the end to match with the normal Meowstic's face and after posting the completed piece I've decided I like it with the eye the way I had it, so I swapped it back so they're not identical to the standard Meowstic's eyes and edited the posts (except BlueSky, annoyingly no editing there). Also you can see I struggled with the shape of his neck ruff, so I just went with something more plain and I think it works just fine.

Pet theory about Espurr and Meowstic origins; it's known that they're almost definitely partially based on the Scottish Fold breed, from which it gets the folded ears the shell-shocked look (as an aside, it turns out the cartilage issues run throughout the whole body and result in lifelong chronic pain and breeding them is not cool 😿). I haven't seen, though:

That Meowstics unfurled ears might be based on the American Curl (which appear to be a generally healthy breed, at least on my surface-level research 😺). I guess it's not so weird that maybe the designers just independently came to the natural conclusion that "when this cat unleashes it's powers, the ears unfold as much as possible," but it's at least a neat parallel.

I thought Oliver up a couple years ago, cuz, like- maybe this should go on my alt- I never really had any friends up to that point and it sounds really pathetic but I was kinda going through some weird stuff where it would've been helpful to, like, have somebody who I felt like I could talk about it with, so I made him up for the purposes of talking though things. So idk if that makes him an imaginary friend; self-therapeutic mental device; the machinations of a madman; or, like, something else. He was really helpful to me then and I've since been brave enough to make some big decisions with his help and more to come. So I guess I can't feel too embarrassed.

Not sure about my game project, I'm just not really having fun with it at all right now and I think it was probably a bad idea for me to work on something that I'm unfamiliar with during my job's busy season. I think I'm just gonna shelve it for now and have fun drawing more pokemon during my off-time; maybe other creatures. Still wanna make something eventually, just now's not the time.

I might give more of my guys proper drawings. I think Riolu's definitely due one of good size and there's some improvements I could make with another iteration of Fae. Hm, there's maybe other guys I could draw that don't regularly take up as much room in my mind.

#Meowstic #art timelapse #pixel art #pokemon

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mentalblabbermouth · 1 year

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I tell myself I am free to be silly and that includes feeling good about posting another ramble from my google docs

So anyway aside from Mario, I am also really into BATIM and when BATDR came out I lost my mind. Like 2017 me came crawling back from the depths of my mind and binge-watched Superhorrorbro Mike's gameplay when it came out. Distinctly remember having to pause at the biggest plot twist and just pace around my senior studio, rambling like a madman. (Little did I know someone was right outside the door, so whoever heard all that um no you didn't)

(From 9 Dec 2022) (Disclaimer: this is pure brainrot I guess but if you manage to read all this thanks so much! I get insecure about it, but I also really want to share my ramblings in the hopes of someone getting it so yeah)

Shut up I’m still thinking about Audrey, I have thoughts and questions like did she start out as a baby? How long did she even get to grow up with Joey before he died? If her story starts in 1973, and the first game was in 1963, and she has to be in like her early twenties, and Joey died in 1971, then what? That’s two years! Had she always known and just forgot when she entered the machine? Did he put her in an orphanage when she was little? And how did she even end up at Archgate?

Maybe she did get to grow up with her father and forgot when she entered the machine and she rediscovers the book with his notes, not understanding its true meaning. Nathan had promised to look after her, which is why she’s an animator at Archgate. She probably told him what happened to his son and after the damage the machine did, it hit the news and Gent got word and secretly took it away.

Come to think of it, Allison works at Archgate, so maybe Audrey later realizes Allison Connor and Allison Pendle are the same.

ALSO! Audrey didn’t recognize Henry, but she has the drawing he gave to Joey, so what? Does she put two and two together later on? Did she never get to meet the real him? Did Joey never talk about him?

THEORY TIME: There’s also the whole “uncle” thing. I feel like, bear with me here I promise, Audrey’s somehow connected to Henry. Think about it! She’s a talented animator and hard worker, literally employee of the month at Archgate. He originally created the toons and you know Joey basically took the credit. And the whole soul thing. You can’t separate the creation from the creator no matter what, and I think it’s parallel between Audrey with Joey and Bendy with Henry. Look at this weird family. Audrey’s soul was made, maybe from a piece of Joey’s soul, and a part of that was given to Bendy when they made it to the real world.

In “Dreams Come to Life”, Joey mentions how he shared his soul with Henry, so obviously the two were close, and whether they like it or not they influenced each other. What I’m getting at is that some of that artistic talent and creativity may have seeped into Audrey. If the Ink Machine is like a pen or canvas, and ink stains, then who's to say that in creating Audrey, parts of her are composed of the important people in Joey’s life: Allison and Henry? Writing it down kind of makes sense. Now, of course similar dialogue lines are probably just references to the first game, but what if?

As a treat for making it this far and while I have the confidence rn, here's some old-ish art technically from last year? I just like the potential between strained character relationships, the drama of it all ✨🤌.

Now, of course neither of the games are perfect and the storyline itself is kind of mixed up/confusing in some places, and this all may be a bunch of hogwash, but that's the beauty of fan work I guess, filling in the pieces and connecting dots like that one Charlie Day meme.

Once again I cast my lot into the digital sea of content like a note in a bottle, hoping to be uncorked and read by a stranger in the midst of multitudes, received not with scorn, but acceptance and understanding.

Anyway that's all for today, as always, thanks for reading!

#batdr #batdr theory #its theory time #bendy and the dark revival #bendy and the ink machine #my art #my writing

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whoaskedgottem · 3 years

Text

My take on Deltarune and its connection to Undertale.

i am a funny man. i make funny pictures. but sometimes, i'm not so funny, and i make theories and fanfiction fuel instead. this is gonna be a long read, okay?

I've seen multiple ideas flying around on the significance of the Undertale/Deltarune parallels and what they mean for the story, and how these two games connect together. I'll do my best to present something new to the table, while organizing disparate factoids and thoughts into a well-formatted outline for the timeline of what could've been a kick-ass fanfiction or fan comic if I actually had the drive to be a Real Artist.

Please note that I don't think this is really a proper 'theory' or 'prediction' as much as it is what I would do if I had to write the rest of Deltarune, with what Toby Fox has already made.

That [sweet, sweet] [Freedom Sauce.]

Let's start with a quick recap so I can give you a little concept I haven't seen anyone bring up yet.

Deltarune has a pretty heavy handed approach to communicate its themes. Toby Fox has come out and said that it'll only have one ending, throughout Chapter 1 you're constantly reminded of a very central concept to the story:

"Your choices don't matter."

In fact, throughout that first chapter, the game's mechanics reflect this at nearly every step of the way. Your vessel is discarded, your choices are constantly disregarded or skipped over by the characters in fake-out sequences, the game's entire battle system and ending hinges on the fact that no matter whether you spared your enemies or not, it all still ends in much the same way, with only minor changes to show for it.

No one really missed this. Every single person discussing the themes and significance of Deltarune has brought this up before. Boring, I know. Stay with me.

Chapter 2 expands on this concept in an unexpected way. The game actually opens up. A lot. We're given plenty of chances to make choices that do matter. Mechanically, battles matter again. If you spare enemies, you can turn them into friends and bring them to your own town. If you don't, they'll be gone forever. If you're particularly chilly, you can make some [Frozen Chicken] with your [Hochi Mama.] More interestingly, though, we're introduced (well, we're shown that it's actually important and not just crazy rambling, because we had seen it in Chapter 1 with snippets of Jevil's dialogue that seemed like madman ramblings at the time,) to the concept of freedom.

The resident trashman, tiny awful gremlin, trade deal extraordinaire, needs no introduction. Nor do his themes of seeking freedom. We don't have to touch on this much just yet, but keep this idea in your mind that, thanks to Spamton, we now have a very defined idea of what the Tumblr Sexymen of each chapter in Deltarune have in common with each other.

Arcane, mysterious knowledge of their own existence, and their (lack of) freedom.

Now. Let's recall back to Undertale, because this talk of Freedom and being trapped remind me of something.

The Delta Rune in Undertale is said to be long lost imagery for an ancient Prophecy in which an angel will descend from the surface and bring freedom to the monsters.

We can start drawing parallels in Undertale and Deltarune's themes now. Or rather, name an overarching concept that's being explored in both games. The characters in both games are trapped in their own sets of boundaries. Whether that be imposed by the player, humanity's barrier, the knowledge of their limited existence in a game, a time loop, monsterkind's king's plan, or the closed doors and cut-off internet of a town, everyone is trapped in one way or another.

And everyone wants some freedom.

"hey. i know the feeling, buddo."

Let's move on. The games can be thematically connected, but that's lame. We're looking for some answer to what the hell's going on. We know the obvious things, like this being a 'parallel story,' an AU of sorts, separate from Undertale. We know the characters in Deltarune seem to lead separate lives, not having much knowledge of certain things we'd take from granted in Undertale. And despite broad strokes still being there-- their personalities are still left mostly the same, nobody seems to be exactly the same in this world.

Well, almost nobody. We don't have to get into how Sans doesn't seem to fit in with everything else in the game, everyone's already walked that path already. We also don't need to analyze too deep into his dialogue in Undertale, so let's paste it in for the sake of really good looking formatting.

Yeah, we've all seen it a million times. Sans seems to come from somewhere else, his circumstances in the Underground being something he wanted to escape from to go back to that "somewhere (or 'sometime,') else," and the world of Deltarune seems to be the most likely answer to that whole mystery.

So, mystery solved, right? Sans Undertale is ACTUALLY Sans Deltarune, and we're looking at the alternate timeline from which Sans came from, with a whole new storyline to give us context to this new world. A prequel of sorts, while still being separate.

I'm not sure about that.

The man who speaks in hands.

The presence of Gaster is obviously the biggest piece in this whole puzzle, and ignoring it would be foolish. I'm going to assume everyone's already poured as many hours as I did theorizing and reading up on as much about the bastard goop man as I have, so let's skip over defining who he is, his connection to Jevil and Spamton, his possible second identity gig as a Knight, and get to the heart of the matter.

I believe that the 'timeline' for these games is a little trickier than what someone might think at first, and far more connected than what Toby Fox lets on; while still most definitely being able to be seen as two separate worlds.

Deltarune is both the prequel and the sequel to Undertale.

The world of Deltarune, with its prophecies and characters and story is, chronologically, the prequel. After all, Sans (and Papyrus?) needs to have come from it, and for lack of a better option for his mysterious origin, the world of Deltarune is the best fit for said origin.

That said, that doesn't make sense with what we see in the game. His store is very clearly Grillby's, scribbled over. His house is very clearly the one from Snowdin. It doesn't look like he came from here. In fact, it looks like it's the other way around. And, although this doesn't prove anything, he's the only one that has just moved into town in the game, in a small community in which most people know each other.

Funny how we, the players, just got there too.

Now, I get that it sounds like some weird Schrodinger's Sequel conundrum when I put it like this, so let's revisit some previous dialogue and try to make sense of the whole thing.

HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN.

It's important that we fully understand that Gaster seems to know of our presence and contact us directly. Whenever a new Deltarune chapter comes out, it's Gaster that hijacks the Twitter account, and Gaster that links us to the file to connect into the game. The very SOUL we control in the game only appears once we 'establish a connection' with him at the start of the entire game.

The reason why is it's important, is that once we establish that he's responsible for our presence in this world, we can look into Gaster's tweets to see a very specific line that I need to highlight for the timeline to make sense.

This is the closest thing we have to Gaster's motivations in the entire narrative. This single tweet.

Creating a new future.

It sounds like a slogan, but mind the wording. A 'new' future. Obviously pedantic to write down, but that implies the existence of an old future. Or would that be the past?

What exactly is the future we're trying to create in Deltarune? why a new one? did something go wrong?

Speaking of which, why did Sans get stuck in Undertale's situation?something must have driven him out to get him stuck there, wishing to go back.

What if the original world of Deltarune fell prey to The Roaring?

Even in Ralsei's prophecy, The Roaring does happen. The Earth draws her final breath. Only after it do the 'three heroes' show up to save the day.

How about this: Gaster's motivation is creating a new future in which The Roaring doesn't destroy the world for good.

Entry Number 17.

(Or, how I ran out of image slots for this post and learned to write the rest of this out.)

It's a cool motivation, but there's a problem with it.

If he wanted to do that, then it'd be awkward that he's simultaneously the Knight. Why would he go around opening fountains, potentially causing The Roaring, if he wanted to prevent it?

This is where it gets a little weird. I'm relatively confident of everything up until this point being... fairly natural or obvious to follow a plot thread on without straying too far from what might feasibly happen in the game. Gaster's plans and motivations are a complete mystery, and most likely key to the entire game's unreleased story. To be honest, I've no idea.

I can make a guess, though. Take it as less of a prediction or theory and more of a fanfiction. What I would do with this as a writer if Deltarune was a writing prompt.

DARK. DARKER. YET DARKER. THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING. THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER. PHOTON READINGS: NEGATIVE. THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT. SEEMS. VERY. VERY. INTERESTING.

WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?

Gaster exists as a character in the world of Deltarune, and came to Undertale along with Sans and Papyrus. In the 'original' timeline, he experimented with the Dark World, opening fountains left and right in some arcane research he was conducting. My best guess is that, as a clueless Lightner who'd only just now discovered the Dark World and its properties, Gaster became the Knight without knowing the full extent of what his actions were doing. He told different people about his knowledge of the Lightner world in which they were toys in a game, and carelessly created fountains everywhere he found interesting. This eventually catches up with him, and the world is then enveloped in Darkness, causing The Roaring. Three heroes stand up to the catastrophe, but they either fail, or their fate is left unanswered. They seem to have been important, so Sans (or Gaster) keeps a note of them. A reminder for some other time, where maybe they can help.

This is when him and the others escape to (or the Darkness creates the world of--) Undertale. We learn through Queen in Chapter 2 that the power that allows Lightners to open Dark Fountains is Determination. The DT Extraction machine's blueprints and the mysterious machine in Sans' basement were designed to investigate and extract Determination from humans so as to find out the mechanics of the Darkness, Determination, and quite possibly find a way to return to their previous lives. In the process, they discover the timeline anomalies and other mechanics of Undertale. Whether the CORE was related to this or just another creation made by Gaster in his time in Undertale, which machine he fell into, and what follows is up in the air and more in the realm of Undertale theories than anything else.

Deltarune, the game we play today, is Gaster's recreation of this world after spending years spread across Undertale's code and in whatever meta-space Toby Fox has created in which the guy can post tweets and speak with the players. A world in which Kris, one of the three heroes, is controlled by the player. An attempt at creating a new future in which The Roaring is stopped with our help, reversing the mess that Gaster once made. Even if Kris has no idea what's happening, and is terrified at this weird presence suddenly possessing them and taking their free will from them.

Also I guess Sans got carried over to... like... oversee this whole thing and make sure the kids don't get lost eating chalk or stuck in a fridge somewhere.

Bonus Meme:

There's also a fun idea to play with that could be the fact that Gaster's actions as the Knight, despite being counter-intuitive, actually help us achieve the best ending. Even messing with Jevil and Spamton, teaching them of the game mechanics and instilling the concept of freedom in their minds, could be argued to be all for the goal of giving us powerful Darkners to get Shadow Crystals from. Whatever is made from them could be the key to defeating the Ultimate Enemy. Or he could just not be the Knight at all.

Also, the idea that Undertale is what could become of the world of Deltarune if it were to be shrouded in Darkness is quite a fun idea for me as well. A fantastical version of the world in which all the bits and pieces of the 'real world' of Deltarune get turned into a whole ass indie game darling hit from 2015.

#deltarune #undertale #sans #spamton #gaster #dr gaster #gerson #theory #deltarune theory #deltarune fanfiction #i can't make up my mind about which one of these two this whole ass thing is...#deltarune spoilers #deltarune chapter 2 spoilers #undertale spoilers

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ask-seth-and-clones · 2 years

Note

Seth do you ever wonder what the 4th period is like and do you also think about traveling to it one day?

Seth shook his head, his smile still resting on his face.

"The fourth period in our reality was conceived by a pair of twins who knew nothing but the "third period". The simple conclusion you can draw is that the "fourth period" is destined to be very similar to the third one. You see, dear fan...I've lost every interest in the "third-period" a long time ago. That's why I continued my research on traveling to a parallel world. The most exciting part of all of this is that because of "sickle", the parallel worlds suffered many changes that differentiated them a lot from the "third period". Why should I pass up the opportunity of new exciting adventures and instead go for a world that would be so similar to the one I've once known?

Aahahaha, it makes no sense, isn't it?" In the meanwhile, Keel looked at Seth as if he was a madman, understanding only a part of a speech.

#evillious chronicles #evillious #seth twiright #ask seth and clones #ask box #keel freezis

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flowers-of-io · 3 years

Text

@eri-223 you brought it upon yourself, now I won’t shut up c:

OKAY SO

I can’t really draw neat straight lines between the two, but there’s so much aesthetic similarity to me, particularly with Toland and the Hive-Ascendancy thing. Maybe it’s just me dying for the vibes (or loving POTO in general since I was 9), but it struck me today how Eris/Toland--when it’s made a Working ship--is basically everything Christine/Erik is not. There is so much to be said about Christine/Erik alone, but to me it’s an epitome of why gothic-novel-esque dynamics don’t really work in the long run when they don’t move past being just Gothic and Tragic. And hear me out. A goodhearted, elfin woman at her vulnerable point (grief over father) meets a honey-voiced stranger and has this secret thing with him, this music they share in the dead of night, and it’s intoxicating because music *is* her passion (and something she has deep emotions over in itself, the thing that is most hers in the world) and it’s secret, and a whole other world to what she’s facing in the daytime. The mystery is intriguing, and that’s intoxicating too. And there’s an uncomfortable power imbalance but it doesn’t bother you just yet, because there isn’t really any attraction between the two--not in the romantic-as-in-love sense at least, rather this romantic-as-in-romanticism pull all dark beautiful secret things have.

And here we can shout a fucking thank you at Erik for completely ruining that beauty by being an absolute creep. But Chrissie doesn’t know that yet. And so he leads her deep down into the dark, into his world of darkness and secrecy and yet twisted beauty, and she is living the mystery now, she’s in this nighttime world they would share in secret. And she’s close enough to take a peek behind the mask, something she was so violently curious about and attracted to, a glance into the dark abyss of his soul that is so intriguing. And so she does peek, and what she finds is terrifying rot.

And this, THIS is the best moment of the entire thing to me. This story could be well off without Raoul (whom I deeply love and cherish but he ruins the gothic) because he adds this romantic tension of a love triangle (which I absolutely loathe because ugh. love triangles.) to what could have been a tale of a girl torn between the world of day and night rather than two men who each love her in a different way. There’s so much of Persephone-sque struggle in Christine’s soul that has been shunned by the story imo, and would have made the whole thing better in the long run (and maybe less grossly-abusive on Erik’s part).

So let’s circle back to Toland, another pale, bony, possibly disfigured brunet in a dark coat with a living room full of skulls and candles (the vibes, huh. he probably owned a boat and a horse too). If we take Eris/Toland as starting off before the Hellmouth (I’m really starting to tentatively test my ground on this hhhng), it feels like the same story slightly to the left. Granted, Eris has more agency, but there’s still a huge power imbalance in her and Eriana coming to Toland--an exiled genius|madman with an evil black crow (Guren) perching on his shoulder--and asking him for help, laying their and their team’s lives at his feet - him, who could probably kill them in seventeen different yet equally fancy ways were he more invested! And there is so much darkness here already because how dark it must have been in Eris’ soul to agree on this revenge fantasy, what an abyss Eriana’s eyes must have been hiding; how desperate they must have been to come to him, to even consider this, to choose a possibility of painful, screaming agony in the Hellmouth over the ache they were feeling now. And so there’s vulnerability, too, in a way - because they’re desperate, because they’re hurting, because everything has been taken from them and they have nothing else to do but this ridiculous, mad plan. And oh he can abuse this void, he can make them do whatever he wants and they’d do it gladly, and I have a feeling both Eris and Eriana are aware of that.

And so they work, in secret, cracking secrets of the Hive, tasting the rot of the forbidden fruit, hiding from the daylight with their dark, heretic, nighttime folly. I think there is a threshold at wherever it is they are meeting--be it a room or a house, Eriana’s kitchen or Toland’s disturbing “lab”--in the doorway, between the bright but empty world of patrols and strikes and dead friends and this horrid, twisted, yet fascinating realm of promised vengeance. And I think Eris learns, hungry for secrets, hungry perhaps for Toland’s eyes on her because all dark beautiful secret things have a pull, and she can’t tell if she’s more drunk on the adventure, or the heresy they’re so blatantly committing, or him. And maybe he reciprocates in his own twisted way, maybe they talk or kiss over the parchment pages, and she cannot tell--she cannot tell if his eyes are truly for her or the Hive, the mystery, the thing they’re doing. I’m thinking of what you wrote, how “he wanted Ascendance as badly as she wanted him”. But despite that--or maybe because of it--she allows herself to be led deep down into the dark, into his world of darkness and secrecy and yet twisted beauty, and she is living the mystery now, she’s in this nighttime world they would share in secret. Is it the Hellmouth? Maybe, though I think it’s a process that spans between their secret studies of the Hive and the midst of their descent, when Vell is dead and maybe they’re all doomed, and Toland’s eyes twinkle in the dark and it’s such beautiful madness she cannot help staring. And the checkpoint has come, time to show cards--and she’s close enough to take a peek behind the mask, something she was so violently curious about and attracted to, a glance into the dark abyss of his soul that was so intriguing. And so she does peek, and what she finds is terrifying rot.

I think this is Ir Yut, or maybe a little bit earlier, but nevertheless the bubble bursts and Eris is left in the dark alone and betrayed. That’s of little concern, of course, when the Hive is hunting you down and all you hear is your friends’ dying screams, but it still hurts, it’s still bitter, it’s still so, so wrong. I like to think he comes to teach her then, maybe give her the journals, and it’s a whirlwind of madness and horror and fury and gore, but he’s whatever comfort she can hope for at this point. It’s twisted, it’s awful, it’s dark-gothic rotten, it’s as wrong and horrid as Erik/Christine is as a whole.

But then they’re given the chance Erik/Christine never got. They’re allowed to outgrow the rot. There’s so much dysfunctionality and disturb going on in most gothic-esque “love” stories because it’s not love, it’s attraction taken for a spin and often grossly abused. Love is growth. I like to think of what must have been going on in Eris’ head (and Toland’s too, perhaps, though I doubt he had one at that point) when they were exchanging the letters, the dearest Eris right next to did you watch me carve out each eye; now that she’s wiser, and scarred, and not so stupid anymore--but there’s still that dark pull she can’t help, now even scarier than before that she knows him for what he really is, now that she’s seen the rot. There’s so much hurt to be outgrown, so much betrayal, but she finds he’s yet again whatever comfort she can hope for (that entry *is* called A Light In The Darkness, huh). I could wax poetic about this whole process but I think you captured it so well in STM I don’t have much else to add.

I wanted to throw quotes into it but couldn’t quite fit them into this, uh, essay (which I didn’t absolutely re-read), and I guess Music of the Night would apply here but it’s ripe with uncomfortable sexual tension?? And aside from that (which is in its entirety a trip) just consider these ah

this whole moment

also this

He'll always be there singing songs in my head Is this Eris in the letters phase? maybe. I performed a vibe check and it showed positive

Wandering Child for how unhealthy-twisted and beautiful it is (ignore Raoul, I have no metaphor for him in this au)

For either way you choose, you cannot win It’s just a good quote y’all

Farewell my fallen idol and false friend / We had such hopes, and now those hopes are shattered

Angel of Music, you deceived me / I gave you my mind blindly (HOW SHE WHISPERS THAT LAST PART IN THE MOVIE OK)

Stranger than you dreamt it now you’re stranded in the Hellmouth good job

What warm, unspoken secrets will we learn / Beyond the point of no return

The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn

Down that path into darkness deep as hell but Toland smiles while he sings this

And of course the classic, And in this labyrinth where night is blind / The Phantom of the Opera is here inside my mind

Wow! I didn’t even get to the Dreaming City! It’s way more vague than the whole Eris/Toland thing because of course ships take up 80% of my brainspace but idk I just find it so incredibly fitting when it comes to paralleling Savathun/Dul Incaru terrorising the Dreaming City with what Erik does to the opera. Like, everybody knows he’s There but no one can do anything about it, he sends vague threats and kills people but nobody can catch him, and the place is just a giant playground for him to have fun and achieve his personal goals in. And whatever the hell is going on in Masquerade, like

Masquerade! Seething shadows breathing lies Masquerade! You can fool any friend who ever knew you Masquerade! Leering satyrs, peering eyes Masquerade! Run and hide, but a face will still pursue you

wow that sure is subtle. Seething shadows breathing lies, huh. Run and hide, but a face will still pursue you :) And then he crashes the party in a fucking Red Death costume. If this doesn’t have huge Dul Incaru/Siren of Riven energy I don’t know what has.

And of course the shitshow only starts when we kill Riven but the seeds have been planted long, long ago. If you listen closely, you can hear Petra screaming in confusion somewhere under box five.

I know most of this second part is a stretch, BUT! this is my au. And for the record, I know there are very mixed feeling about the 2004 POTO movie but to me personally it was a formative experience, first watched on a very crappy TV in music class at the age of 9 and not even in its entirety, but I was already captivated and shaken to the core, and there’s still, after all those years, something that screams at my soul when I hear the first notes.

And, as a treat for those who suffered with me until the end of this essay,

#i may or may not be singing up to three poto songs next tuesday on a concert #which may or may not have been my teenage dream #reply #eri-223 #phantom of the opera #toland the sarky #eris morning #eris/toland #destiny 2 #npc talk #what is this even #i have no idea how to tag this #headcanon #ships #ir yût #dûl incaru

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doomedandstoned · 3 years

Text

Scarecrow Ups the Wow Factor with Frenetic, Bluesy ‘II’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Album art by Igor Odincov

The last time we encountered Russian doom-rockers extraordinaire SCARECROW, they'd just wowed us all by appearing from out of nowhere with a self-titled full-length year before last, which grabbed a foothold on the Doom Charts, premiering at no. 9 and held on tight. Subsequently, they contributed "Madman" to the breakthrough overview of the contemporary Russian heavy music scene, Doomed & Stoned in Russia (Volume 1), which came out earlier in 2021 and is slated for a sequel next month.

In October, the mighty Scarecrow once again spreads its wings over the planet, as the soulful three-piece -- raised in the region of snow leopards and Amur tigers -- takes flight with eight new songs nestled in the inauspiciously titled LP, 'II' (2021). Fans will be elated when they hear just how contagious the vibe of the new record is. If you're a newcomer to their sound, don't worry! You could start here and work your way back to Scarecrow's eponymous debut and lose none of the impact. The first two singles alone are a marvelous introduction to the band's groovy balance of powerful Ozzyesque vocals with proto-metal blues, all situated in a monster retrofitted sound machine of doom. Their bio says it best:

Instead of forming in post-war England like the first wave of British heavy rock, Scarecrow’s members grew up in the hopeless chaos of 1990s Russia. Their new album II uses those experiences to transport listeners to wastelands of earth and mind. Like their contemporaries in Graveyard, Uncle Acid, and Witchcraft, Scarecrow imbues proto-metal and classic rock with dusky occult doom and heavy electric blues.

It is said that Scarecrow could pass as one of the heaviest bands of 1969. Nay, I say heavier still. Think Sir Lord Baltimore or better still, the big dogs themselves, Led Zeppelin. What if Sabbath came first, then Zep hatched from that egg? Now you're coming closer to conceptualizing the stylistic proclivities of Scarecrow. But you shouldn't stop by drawing vintage parallels, for the music on II continues to surprise us as the record spins along. Dig the epic wall of sound that opens "The Moors," shifting us back to the realm of Candlemass following several up-tempo hard rock footstompers. We find ourselves falling into a psychedelic timewarp between past, present, and the uncertain future.

There's a whole lot of "wow" on II, for sure. Throughout the record, frontman Artyom "Artimus" Nikitins expresses a vocal range that is nothing shy of impressive, reaching high notes effortlessly and with power to boot (see: "Blizzard"). You get the sense that he might even be holding back on some more "umph," but he's doubtless holding that back for just the right occasion. Artimus gives us some background on how Scarecrow's disparate influences fuse with the band's own songwriting proclivities and creative hunches.

"I would refer to predominantly English classical rock bands - Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Budgie, Leaf Hound, Steel Mill, Black Widow etc. I can go on forever. They are very close to us in spirit, because they were all ordinary guys from the provincial cities of England destroyed by the bombing. When they started their journey, they did not believe that they would become great, and did not hope for it. They just did the best they could, despite the circumstances and the hostile environment surrounding them. And this is what makes us related to them."

"Frenzied stubbornness against the background of a complete lack of hope for the best is the same fuel on which we grew up. And this is what is very well heard in our music. You know, I'm sure - the audience will not be fooled. It's one thing when you compose your music in the sampler on a brand new MacBook, between eating a muffin and drinking a smoothie in a trendy corner restaurant, and quite another thing when you are on sleepless dank nights, when 30 outside the window, sitting in your tiny room and torment your a cheap instrument, grinding riffs and passages hunched over the notes, trying to create something really worthwhile, turning your soul inside out, pouring out all your pain, fear, anxiety, despair, hopelessness, anger and hatred through your music. Only then do you get the right to sing about love, faith and hope. Only then does the music become "honest." And this essence is always heard.

Look for the new album 'II' (2021) to drop October 22nd on Wise Blood Records (pre-order here), which will also be reissuing 'Scarecrow' (2019). A must-spin for fans of Black Sabbath, Early Man, Purple Hill Witch, Goatsnake, and Electric Citizen (to name a just a few bands top-of mind) and a welcome companion to such genre-defying bands as Mr. Bungle and Boss Keloid. II will knock a lot of folks right off their high horses. Must-listen fare to break through the haze and apathy of pandemic delirium. And because we love you so much, Doomers & Stoners, we're giving you a first listen to the new single, "Magic Flower," which Doomed & Stoned is premiering today!

Give ear...

Scarecrow II by Scarecrow

Some Buzz

The Russian city of Perm is surrounded by impenetrable forests, cold swamps, and the ruins of prison labor camps. The region has a bloody history of close supervision and surveillance that started during the second World War. While the members of doom rockers Scarecrow grew up in the ‘90s, they acknowledge a “haunted prison mentality” endures in Perm to this day.

“[The ‘90s are] associated with widespread lawlessness, the dominance of crime, widespread poverty and lack of confidence in the future,” shares Scarecrow vocalist Artemis. “The country was simply divided among themselves by numerous criminal groups. The corruption in the government was monstrous, people were literally robbed and killed right on the streets, and wars were constantly going on in the periphery. The ‘90s ended long ago, but their traces do not disappear anywhere to this day. Of course, the generation that grew up in such conditions was doomed.”

While Scarecrow are part of that doomed generation, their music feels like it was pulled from the age of unrest in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Picture Led Zeppelin if they had a doom phase, or if Leaf Hound got into occult rock and Black Sabbath instead of shrooms. Contemporary bands like Graveyard, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, and Witchcraft have explored their own versions of heavy and haunted electric blues. Scarecrow embodies the first wave of English heavy rock, and their new record sounds like one of the heaviest albums of 1969.

“[English proto-metal] is very close to us in spirit, because they were all ordinary guys from the provincial cities of England destroyed by the bombing,” Artemis explains. “When they started their journey, they did not believe that they would become great, and did not hope for it. They just did the best they could, despite the circumstances and the hostile environment surrounding them.”

Scarecrow II by Scarecrow

Scarecrow’s second full length—simply titled II—elevates the band’s skill and songwriting even beyond their impressive 2019 debut. The songs are familiar but fresh. Artemis wails with power and purpose. The riffs conjure treacherous weather but can radiate warmth at will. Scarecrow’s rock ‘n’ roll majesty indulges excess without losing compositional strength. The epic scale of II begins with the rumble of waves and leads the listener on a journey to wastelands of earth and mind while ruminating on the motif of time.

“[Time] does not just flow away from us like water,” Artemis writes, “it crushes us like ocean waves crash ships.”

Scarecrow’s doom rock will lure you to the ocean when Wise Blood Records releases II digitally and on Digipak CD within the United States on October 22nd. Scarecrow’s debut will also finally be available in the states. Make time and listen to Scarecrow summon the sunset.

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#D&S Debuts #Scarcrow #Perm #Russia #doom metal #Wise Blood Records #D&S Reviews #HeavyBest2021 #Doomed and Stoned

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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

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TOP TEN OLDER MAINSTREAM COMICS I READ THIS YEAR

I kept track of all the comics I read this year, and not all of them were new. I have no idea who this will help or benefit but at least the circumstances of me only listing the completely arbitrary older work I read for the first time this year will deter anyone from arguing with me. However, for the sake of possibly being contentious, let me mention two comics that fall outside the top ten, because they’re bad:

Trencher by Keith Giffen. David King did a comic strip about Keith Giffen’s art style on this book in issue 2 of But Is It... Comic Aht that everybody loved, and made me be like, ok, I’ll check it out. But it’s basically just a retread of Lobo in terms of its tone and approach, but without Simon Bisley. I don’t really know why anyone wouldn’t think Bisley is the better cartoonist. Also, those comics are terrible. Thumbs down.

The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, and Steve Oliff. I bought the first year of these comics for a dollar each off a dude doing a sidewalk sale. Found them sort of incoherent? I haven’t liked a new Grant Morrison comic in ages, with All-Star Superman being really the only outlier since like We3. This is clearly modeled off of European comics like Druillet or something, and would maybe benefit from being printed larger, I really dislike the modeled color too. But also it’s just aggressively fast-paced, with issues ending in ways that feel like cliffhangers but aren’t, and no real characters of interest.

As for the top ten list itself, for those who’ve looked at my Letterboxd page, slots 10-8 are approximately “3 stars,” 7-4 are 3 1/2 stars, slots 3 and 2 are 4 stars, with number one being a 4 1/2 star comic. The comics I’m listing on my “Best Of The Year” list that’ll run at the Comics Journal alongside a bunch of people are all 4 1/2 or 5 star comics. This is INSANELY NERDY and pedantic to note, and I eschew star ratings half the time anyway, because assignations of numeric value to art are absurd except within the specific framework of how strong a recommendation is, and on Letterboxd I feel like I’m speaking to a very small and self-selecting group of people whose tastes I generally know. (And I generally would not recommend joining Letterboxd to people!) But what I mean by all of this is just that there is a whole world of work I value more than this stuff, and I’ll recommend the truly outstanding shit to interested readers in good time.

10. Justice Society Of America by Len Strazewski and Mike Parobeck. Did some quarantine regressing and bought these comics, a few of which were some of the first comics I ever read, but I didn’t read the whole thing regularly as a kid. Parobeck’s a fun cartoonist, this stuff is readable. It’s faintly generic/baseline competent but there’s a cheap and readable quality to this stuff that modern comics lack. Interestingly, the letters column is made up of old people who remember the characters and feel like it’s marketed towards them, and since that wasn’t profitable, when the book was canceled, Parobeck went over to drawing The Batman Adventures, which was actively marketed towards kids. It’s funny that him and Ty Templeton were basically viewed as “normal” mainline DC Comics for a few years there and then became relegated to this specific subset of cartooning language, which everyone likes and thought was good but didn’t fit inside the corporate self-image, which has basically no aesthetic values.

9. The Shadow 18 & 19 by Andy Helfer and Kyle Baker. I’d been grabbing issues of this run of comics for years and am only now finishing it. Kyle Baker’s art is swell but Helfer writes a demanding script, these are slow reads that cause the eye to glaze over a bit.

8. The Jam 3-8 by Bernie Mireault. I made a post where I suggested Mireault’s The Jam might be one of the better Slave Labor comics. Probably not true but what I ended up getting are some colored reprints Tundra did, and some black and white issues published by Dark Horse after that. Mireault’s art style is kinda like Roger Langridge. After these, he did a crossover with Mike Allred’s Madman and then did a series of backups in those comics, it makes sense to group them together, along with Jay Stephens’ Atomic City Tales and Paul Grist’s Jack Staff, or Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, as this stream that runs parallel to Image Comics but is basically better, a little more readable, but still feeling closer to something commercial in intention as opposed to self-expression. Although it also IS self-expression, just the expression of a self that has internalized a lot of tropes and interests in superhero comics. If you have also read a lot of superhero comics, but also a lot of alternative comics, stuff like this basically reads like nothing. It’s comfort food on the same level of mashed potatoes: I love it when it’s well-done but there’s also a passable version that can be made when depressed and uninspired. But drawing like Roger Langridge is definitely not bad!

7. WildC.A.T.S by Alan Moore, Travis Charest, et al. I wrote a post about these comics a few months ago, but let me reiterate the salient points: There’s two collections, the first one is much better than the second, and the first is incredibly dumbed-down in its nineties Image Comics style but also feels like the best version of that possible, when Charest is doing art. Also, these collections are out of print now, a friend of mine pointed out maybe they can’t be reprinted because they involve characters owned by Todd McFarlane but Wildstorm is owned wholly by DC now.

6. Haywire by Michael Fleischer and Vince Giarrano. I made a post about this comic when I first read a few issues right around the time Michael Fleischer died a few years ago, but didn’t read all of it then. This feels way more deliberately structured than most action comics, with its limited cast and lack of ties to any broader universe, but it’s also dumb and sleazy and fast moving, and feels related to what were the popular movies of the day, splitting its influences evenly between erotic thrillers about yuppies and Stallone-starring action movies. The erotic thriller element is mostly just “a villain in bondage gear” which is sort of standard superhero comics bullshit but it’s also a little bit deeper than that. The first three issues, inked by Kyle Baker, look the best.

5. Dick Tracy by John Moore and Kyle Baker. These look even better! A little unclear which John Moore this is? There’s John Francis Moore, who worked with Howard Chaykin and was scripting TV around this time, but there’s another dude who was a cartoonist who did a miniseries for Piranha Press and then moved on to doing work for Disney on Darkwing Duck comics. Anyway, Kyle Baker colors these, they’re energetically cartooned, each issue is like 64 pages, with every page being close to a strip or scene in a movie. I’m impressed by them, and there’s a nice bulk that makes them a nice thing to keep a kid busy. (For the record, my favorite Kyle Baker solo comic is probably You Are Here.)

4. Chronos by John Francis Moore and Paul Guinan. I was moving on from DC comics by the late nineties, but Grant Morrison’s JLA was surely a positive influence on everyone, especially compared to the vibe there in the subsequent two decades. These are well-crafted. There’s a little stretch where it uses the whole “time-traveling protagonist” thing to do a run of issues which stand alone but fall in sequence too and it’s pretty smooth and smart. The art is strong enough to carry it, the sort of cartoony faces with detailed backgrounds it’s widely agreed works perfectly, but that you rarely see in mainstream comics. The coloring is done digitally, but not over-modeled enough to ruin it.

3. Martha Washington by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. A few miniseries, all of which sort of get weaker as they go, but all in one book it doesn’t feel like it’s becoming trash as it goes or anything. When Miller dumbed down his storytelling in the nineties it really was because he thought it made for better comics, the tension between his interest in manga and Gibbons’ British-comics classicism feels productive. I do kind of feel like the early computer coloring ruins this a little bit.

2. Xombi by John Rozum and JJ Birch. Got a handful of these on paper, read scans of the rest. This is pretty solid stuff, not really transcendent ever, but feels well-crafted on a month-in, month-out level. I read a handful of other Milestone comics, and a lot of them suffered from being so beholden to deadlines that there are fill-in issues constantly. This is the rare one that had the same creators for the entirety of its run. There was a revival with Frazer Irving art a decade ago but I prefer JJ Birch’s black line art with Noelle Giddings’ watercolors seen here. They’re doing an early Vertigo style “weirdness” but with a fun and goofy sense of humor about itself. I haven’t read Clive Barker but this feels pretty influenced by that as well. (The Deathwish miniseries is of roughly comparable quality. I read scans of the rest of that after I made my little post and, yeah, it does actually feel very personal for a genre work, and the JH Williams art with painted color is great.)

1. Tom Strong by Alan Moore, Chris Sprouse, etc. I got bored reading these as a teen but getting them all for cheap and reading them in a go was a pretty satisfying experience. It’s partly a speed-run through Moore’s coverage of the concept of a comic book multiverse seen in his Supreme run, minus the riffing on Mort Weisinger Superman comics, instead adding in a running theme of rehabilitating antagonists whose goals are different but aren’t necessarily evil. It’s more than just Moore in an optimistic or nostalgic mode, it also feels like he’s explaining his leftist morality to an audience that has internalized conflicts being resolved by violence as the genre standard.

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viktor-noctis · 4 years

Text

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll McSh*tFace

This is my review for the film: The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll McShitFace.

Enjoy.

Tagging @christopherleefan because I think you might enjoy this? Also, I wrote a fic for Taste of Fear (or Scream of Fear for us Americans), and you can expect one for this film as well.

Pre-face: Okay, okay……………………………… Let me compose myself.

………..

………………..

……………………….

……………………………..

Alright, hit the play button.

London 1874 – I paused just to be sure this was the actual date when the book was written.

It was originally published in 1886.

We’re off to a roaring start.

Ew. Children.

Playing in a garden, yep, this is about what I remember.

Little boy shoves girl’s flowers to the ground, and McShitFace talks about “dumb human animals” when referring to children. We agree on that, at least.

“Play out when they cannot speak out.” Jekyll McShitFace suggests they’ve mentally blocked the ability to speak, due to the fact that they are letting another part of them be free to express itself…. What a load of garbage.

You resigned? Here I thought they fired you for being a creep. The fact that Ernst believes he really is a genius makes me want to punch something.

They’ve been married for six years??

No servants, no friends, and Jekyll has cut all professional ties to study the mind… Like a madman. Yeah, I can see Kitty hating this.

Beyond Good and Evil? Beyond the reach of society?

“A very dangerous man, my friend.” No shit, Ernst. Jekyll is suggesting the ‘higher man’ is the one within, while Ernst suggests that the weaker man maybe the ‘evil’ one. Or what we deem ‘evil’. Jekyll, like some, has come to some crackpot conclusion that by drawing out the ‘evil’ man, the ‘weaker’ man within him, that he can isolate and destroy him… Or something to that effect.

Jekyll never answers Ernst when he asks if he’s used it on anything other than a monkey and I find that telling.

Paul is here. Ernst is leaving.

Jekyll is quite charitable to Paul, if nothing else, and Kitty is putting up a marvelous front. Kitty even tries to get him to spend time with her here, but I have a feeling she knows where this is going. She’s probably done this a million times. This is another for the till.

I can tell Kitty is tired of this. Jekyll spends night and day in the lab. All the time. Yeah, that’d wear on most women. Considering the time period, this is all very strange. Then again, this is a ‘Strange Case’, or it was supposed to be.

Kitty telling him about Jekyll shouting to himself in his room, along with a strange voice that wasn’t his own, for an entire night… “Married to a man of great talent.” Ernst, my dude…

Kitty’s asking if he is insane enough to be sent away. Ernst says he isn’t: “we must both try to help him.” Right.

Christopher Lee! Damnit, he’s so tall. How tall is this actress?

They’re so cute. Terrible, but cute.

The top of her head reaches his nose or so. He’s a damn good kisser…

Kitty looks lovely in blue.

And is an extrovert.

Jekyll is an introvert.

Still hate him.

Don’t bash the girl for liking to go out. Or ask her to: “take the evening off”.

“I need you tonight, Kitty. Stay.” That’s not creepy. After years of being ignored, that’s not creepy in the slightest.

Okay, this might be just me, but… I see Kitty’s perspective. I sort of see Jekyll’s? It’s a grey area. I’ve paused it to explain my reasoning –

Kitty, is an extrovert, as I’ve stated. She gets her energy from going out, being around people, and having a good time. That’s great. Good for her, you have fun girl, and take your boytoy (he really is, as often as he gets in money trouble) with you. Jekyll is decidedly not. To say they are incompatible would be an understatement.

Kitty is the type of woman who glows under attention, who craves it from both her partner and others. But mostly, her partner. Enter Paul, who’s proven to be attached to her mostly through money, but there’s so much more there. Again, I love these two, because they’re so terribly flawed, but so clearly in love.

Jekyll, meanwhile, cut all attachment to “live like a hermit in the center of London”. Ernst’s words straight from the beginning of the film. I bet you Kitty was stifled, for years, before Paul came along. Now, not much is revealed of the how Jekyll became friends with him, when he did, or even why he did, but I want to bet it was during University or something. That seems the most likely theory, given Jekyll’s nature.

The Jekyll side is a bit more convoluted. Again, I don’t think Kitty is being unfair here. There’s no telling how long she stayed lonely, cooped up in that house (reference back to when Ernst talked about no friends, no company, and no servants), and was just… bored, sad, and upset.

Ernst even mentioned the house being ‘in ruins’.

She calls him selfish for making it such an issue. I get the feeling he sort of deserves it. Also, she’s in love with Paul now, so that adds another layer to their relationship not working and being incredibly strained.

“I’m not going to insult my friends for the sake of your whims.” Is what her argument amounted to. Again, the movie is making her sound like the selfish one, but you really have to take into account the history, nature, and aspects of each character. In doing so, I don’t really think she is. I think she’s in love with another man, bound to a farce of a marriage, and is doing the best she can by not staying near her creepy husband.

And yep, human experimentation time.

Yeah, go ahead McShitFace, sit at your desk and wait to become The Literal Worst.

Party time. I’m shuddering. Too. Many. People. Ew.

They’re both terrible.

I love them.

Awful.

Paul complains of being bored, and yet she is bored doing the things he likes. They jab and jibe. He looks at another woman. They jab and jibe some more.

They’re bickering like they’re already married.

Get a room.

Terminate their relationship?

They bring up their attachment, again, always with the money. Kitty likes a man free of shame, Paul thinks he might lose her to a man who had even less. Hahahaha. You nerds. You’re in too deep and you both know it.

The Literal Worst has arrived. And he’s uglier than ever.

The Sphinx? That’s the name of this trash heap ballroom?

Hyde looks like a Tool. Barely two minutes on screen and he’s got the Creep Smirk going.

Hoes do not stand together, I see.

Paul and Kitty smiling at each other, having a grand old time. I love them.

Hyde showing his true colors already, by eyeing up Kitty, while dancing with another girl (though I’m pretty sure she’s a prostitute. Or just a woman who gets around, living off other men’s money). Wow, he also says some not-so-nice things to her before heading after Paul and Kitty, who’s having a hell of a time. Paul can also be a jackass –

“Don’t drink too much tonight, my darling.” She says it with such tenderness, while taking the glass from his hand.

“Cunning little kitty cat. Rather a dull husband than a drunken lover, eh?” Paul’s already slurring. He’s entered cad mode. Feel free to kick him to the curve, my dear. He deserves to nurse his hangover by himself.

She just looks disappointed.

Kitty’s creep alert is going off. Listen to it, honey. Run. Run, far away.

She’s trying to take Paul home.

Then going to dance with Hyde. Fuck. Kitty, listen to your Creep Radar.

Friendship with Kitty? Honey. No. Run. “Can I trust you?”

?? Kitty. No. Do not trust the creep.

Prostitute girl is back, claiming Hyde tried to force her, and some dude wants recompense. Kitty just wants to go home. Paul refuses to leave, to help Hyde.

Has common sense become a commodity that only Kitty is buying??

“Give the lady a few sovereigns, and there’ll be no trouble.” Yeah, sounds like a prostitute. Kitty bids them all goodnight. Paul looks sad to see her go. Should have thought about that before you acted the bastard.

Hyde tells them to go to hell and take the trollop with him. Dude dives at them, Paul knocks him out… And Hyde keeps hitting him. Paul stops him, telling him not to kill him, and then asks him if he’s ill.

“Let me alone, Jekyll. Let me alone.” Dumbass. Jekyll voice coming out of Hyde. That’s not creepy. Paul looks amused by the creep show. Hyde leaves the place, screaming, and being weird.

Lots of voice changing. This actor is actually really good. Jekyll realizes what he did, because Hyde says: “I will be back, Jekyll. I will return.”

Jekyll: “Never. Never.”

So he knows this was a bad idea?

Goes into Kitty’s room, whose reading, and she starts talking about her ‘party’. She wants to go to sleep. Jekyll still comes closer, being a creep. Creep Radar is blaring.

“I need you, Kitty. I need you desperately.” And he comes in, trying to kiss at her, mouthing at her neck. Like a creep. I know this is a parallel to later in the film (yeah, it’s terrible), when Hyde is in control, but I still hate this.

I had to pause during the next scene to do a deep character analysis –

Kitty pushes him off, telling him she’s tired, and even says “please”. As if she should have to beg him to keep his damn creep hands to himself. He still has a wild, crazy look in his eye, and asks: “What are you really like, Kitty?”

“I’m your wife, that’s all I am.” She answers it with such evenness, barely disturbed, and it reminds me of what Paul said to her –

“From perfect wife to perfect mistress, and back again to perfect wife.”

This movie has a lot to do with the masks we wear. We change them, depending on who we’re talking to: family, friends, strangers, lovers, etc. All the different relationships we have require a mask, shadowing the core of who we are, because letting someone see everything of ourselves is too terrifying to consider. We don’t show our true selves out of fear, pride, or some other convoluted mixture of emotions.

However, every mask has a basis, a template of origin.

I feel as if, at some point, Kitty really did love Jekyll. She must have. She married him not for his intelligence, not for his money, but because she genuinely loved him. Kitty loves too deeply, too strongly, and has all the hallmarks of a woman who has been burned by that depth of attachment.

“It’s my fault, a woman who shows her feelings always loses dignity.” Kitty says this during the first bit of the dance she has with Paul, which reveals so much of her character. She doesn’t look at him when she says it, the pain of her admittance is too much, and she shies away from anyone witnessing it. Even Paul.

Her relationship with Paul is strained right now. It’s weird. It seems like neither of them knows where it’s going, too afraid to continue, but even more horrified by the prospect of letting the other go.

When speaking of breaking their ‘arrangement’ (look up ‘affair’ in the dictionary), Kitty suggested Paul wouldn’t be able to get along financially without her. Paul rebuffed her, saying that Jekyll and he had been friends for years, and she was just his dutiful wife… despising him.

There’s an ease between them that feels years old, yet I doubt it was from the get-go of hers and Jekyll’s marriage. No, she probably did hate him quite a bit, in the beginning. But there’s a thin line between love and hate, one that can be crossed with loneliness. I like to think it was physical at first, a build up of tension between a woman caged in a house, and watching this man go out and spend her husband’s money.

It was probably Paul who convinced her to come out with him one evening. Fuck it. Jekyll wants to stay in his lab all night? Well, why should you stay too? Kitty probably said no at first. Why would she go out with this smarmy bastard, who gambles, who sleeps with anything that has legs, and drinks himself silly? But then there’s the wanting, the listening to her husband tinker away, watching life go by without her…

She probably went to Jekyll. She tried to talk to him, have dinner with her in the house that night. Without any servants, she’s learned to cook. He makes a point of trying to be nice but talks about his work… Always his work. She asks him to kiss her, as if that’s something she should have to nearly beg for. And what did he do? On the verge of some great breakthrough?

“Not right now, Kitty. I’m busy.”

Kitty, who is strong, vibrant, and beautiful, is not enough to stir a man from the wake of progress. From pride.

Humiliation and defeat, a loathing that breaks through love, stuffs her chest and nearly throttles her on the spot. Retreating, glassy eyed to her room. She probably cried, mourning her broken heart.

After that, she demands to go with Paul.

There’s probably a touch of shock, then a knowing smirk. He’s probably seen lots of women with husbands who ignore them, falling into his kind of life, dancing and drinking and laughing their nights away.

He’s not ready for this one.

Alright, hitting play again –

“But the woman inside of you, is that woman my wife?”

No. No, she’s not. She belongs with Paul.

Stop shaking her. She’s right. Get out.

Take your: “Who am I?”s and get the fuck out.

Cut to Paul being a cad again. Ugh. Go home to Kitty, you absolute tool bag.

He and Hyde are sitting at a table in The Sphinx with two bimbos. Wonderful.

Hyde is a creep. I will say that no less than ten times in this review. I probably already have.

The fuck is this?

They’re doing something weird.

Really weird.

A snake charmer dance.

Am I to assume they wish us to believe that snake is venomous?

Okay, to be fair, all snakes and spiders are venomous, but the potency of their venom varies in such a way that they effect most human bodies on different levels. I say ‘most’ because you can be allergic to something, and receive a far more harrowing experience than 98% of the population.

However, that does not excuse the fact that the creature in question is a ball python and is therefore basically harmless. Minus some swelling and bruising.

I had to pause to write that, okay, playing again –

Yeah, this poor animal is being abused by being forced into a ‘sensual dance’ with this woman. ‘Tigress’, they call her, kill me now. Paul says she’s exclusive to the elite. Kill me twice over. This dance is the worst. That poor snake is confused.

Paul is looking worriedly at Hyde as he stares, transfixed, at this woman. Dude, he wants to get bitch slapped, let him.

Christopher Lee’s eyebrows are doing things to me. Paul is the real eye candy in this shit show.

UGHASDKFJASDKFNAMSDKFJNASDKF

Jkljasdfklajsdklfansdkfnj

Klasjeirkmaskdfnjkasdjf

Klasdmfnkasndf

JKLASJDKLFNASKLDFNJ

UGH

SHE

SHE PUT

THE SNAAEK

HEAD

MOTUH

WHY? WHY? WHY would –

WOULD uuo –

That poor animal.

Tell me that was fake.

She did not really put that poor creature’s head in her mouth.

This is abuse.

Not to mention, really gross. Salmonella, and a million other diseases could potentially exist on the skin of a reptile. Do not handle reptiles and then touch your face, or eat, or put any part of their body inside your mouth. Wash hands after handling, thank you.

Disgusting.

And people are clapping. And cheering.

Is this what passes for ‘exotic’ in the 1700s????

Maybe it’s my modern cynicism, but I am not impressed. I am shuddering in revulsion.

Mostly because of the snake in mouth bit.

Gods.

End me.

I’m about to shriek.

“Forget it, dear boy. She’s not in the prep-school class. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Paul. Paul.

Have you ever considered:

She’s blind.

You’re gorgeous.

And you have a gorgeous woman waiting on you at home.

Why do you bother with the bimbos?

Girl on the right is pretty, okay, she’s like… an 8. Chick on the left is… also pretty, but like a 7.

Kitty is a damn 16, she blows them out of the water. There is no competition. When you’ve already had it all, why bother even looking at anything less? She gets bumped up to a 30 for the fact that she has a brain, she snarks, she jabs with the best of them, and is not afraid to leave you to your well-deserved hangover.

I will fight for Kitty’s honor.

Paul. I’m about to throw down.

He calls the dancer over – Maria – and I can already tell he’s going to –

Yep. Be a bastard.

“She only uses Christian names in bed.”

He deserved that drink to the face.

Even Hyde looks surprised. Then impressed.

Pft – HA! I have to quote this:

“Well, ladies, it seems that I must entertain you both.” He says, while soaked with what one can assume is scotch. “I trust that you will not be too disappointed.” Girl on the right looks like she expects to be disappointed. Ms. Left has her game face on.

“Oh, we’ll just have to manage.” Left is already up and at it.

“Somehow or other.” Right is playing along for now.

“Thank you for your confidence.” Paul’s reply does not sound confident in the slightest. He follows them through a curtain doorway. I’d say, ‘poor bastard’, but he doesn’t deserve my sympathy right now.

Hyde is creeping on Maria now.

“Keep away from him, he is dangerous.”

Yeah. To medium sized rodents.

Actually, considering Hyde is nothing more than a big, smelly, greasy, slimy rat –

Nah, wouldn’t want to give the poor thing indigestion.

“Your friend talked to me like a common whore.”

I assumed you two knew each other? I don’t know, they are weird and vague on that. Alan says he’s tried, then claims what names she uses in bed, and she did throw the drink on him afterwards. I’ve no idea.

I will give this to Hyde: He is a smooth talker. He is also, however, still a bastard.

And the makeup they used on this actress is not flattering at all. I’ve seen pictures of her, and she was beautiful. They somehow made her look hideous. ‘Impertinent’ is a word, though not quite the one I would use for this piece of garbage.

I love putting subtitles on. They’re so dumb.

(Soft sensual music) my ass.

Of course they shag. Why wouldn’t they?

She’s given him an in, now… “You do not buy, you do not beg.” A man who ‘takes’. No, do not give him that.

“A nice, cold wife.” I’m so furious.

They do have a servant! An old woman. Probably a concession after years.

“Mr. Hyde.” Creep.

‘Nanny’.

“Lately, this house has become unused to visitors.”

“The wife of a recluse…”

Trying to sweet talk a woman in love will not go over well for you.

Paul’s??? Paul’s friendship. What a save.

“The question of trespass hardly arises. Mr. Allen has no property rights in me.”

And as for Henry: “Henry leads his own life. He doesn’t seek my approval, and I don’t seek his. Is that wrong?”

OOOOOOFFFFF.

Sweet talk till you talk like that.

“To the boredom of being a neglected wife, and the humiliation of being a rejected mistress.”

It almost felt like she was into the flirting till he said that, but I still get the feeling she wouldn’t have slept with him. You can enjoy flirting, some people do it for a living, but not the act that comes after. As I said before, Kitty wears many masks. This one is short-lived. Hyde has insulted her, and the change in her demeanor is like a switch.

Kitty loves too deeply, to be reminded of her first failing, and the possibility of her loss of Paul is a kick in the teeth. Is she not worth loving? Is science, money, knowledge, other women – is she just no match? Can she have nothing out of this?

“I must say, you are honest. A trifle obvious, perhaps, but honest.” And too close to the surface, too close to the proverbial nail. Kitty is genuinely afraid of losing Paul, and it shows. She’s clinging onto something she feels she can’t hold onto, whether for her already damaged pride or because she doesn’t want to be hurt again. Her face only really started to shift when he said mistress.

“My great affair has already begun.” She’s pulling herself so easily from his arms. He talks about great love since he felt her in his arms, and she just turns away with this casual walk of a knowing woman.

“It was well advanced before ever you appeared on the scene.” She looks almost proud, though there’s still this edge to her. She expects it to crash and burn. She’s just waiting for it.

“I wonder what is the special quality in a man as weak, unscrupulous, and utterly unreliable as Paul Allen?” This really bothers him. Hyde is essentially Jekyll unchained, a copy of the inner, dark urges of one man laid bare, and given free run of the place… And he’s a total rat bastard.

And Kitty is smiling. Kitty is overjoyed.

“I don’t question your description, Mr. Hyde.” She’s radiating with delight. Even that description of Paul in all his awful glory stirs nothing but happiness in her.

“Well then, but why…” And he’s reaching for her, stroking his fingers over her back. It’s this odd mimicry of how Jekyll tried to hold her that night. Ugh.

“I merely happen to love him.” Yes! SHE SAID IT!

“Love? Love is an idiocy!” And she’s laughing again. I’m beginning to believe Kitty uses laughter to cover her pain. Hyde/Jekyll McShitFace uses rage.

“An idiocy of mine, perhaps, but a fact.” Then we get this beautiful close up of her face, the vindication with which she says it has me living –

“I love Paul Allen.” Love, you must be so blind and so wonderful.

(Ominous music). As Hyde descends back to his basement to turn back into Jekyll. Back to the sewer, your garbage monster.

Ernst is here. Okay, something weird is happening again. Jekyll has a heightened metabolism. Probably from sustaining two rat bastards instead of one. I’ve no idea how much time has elapsed, but quite a bit I’m guessing. A week? A month? Another year? Nah, probably more like a week or so.

Jekyll’s life is “burning out at a much faster rate.”

Kitty is fed up with being Paul’s ‘bank clerk’. Yeah, let’s bring Henry into this. ‘Let him deal with life’s little problems and leave us its gaiety’? You are a cad. Why do you love him again, Kitty? You can do better.

She’s sick of being used.

“How can you talk of our love in this way?” Love? Is this the first time you bring it up to her? While asking for money? Aklsjdfkasjdf

Men are annoying.

“You hypocrite!” Thank you.

Debts of honor, my pale ass.

He’s going to Henry.

Ernst knows he’s addicted to something. He says it’s more damning, whatever it is.

At least Paul is honest. Jekyll is being cold to him now. He knows about him and Kitty now. He goes back to his work desk. ‘Going away’. Right. Run.

Paul gets nothing. Notes something must be wrong with him.

Kitty is worried about Paul now.

And fuck – Jekyll is giving full power of his shit to Hyde. His estate, his money, his assets, everything goes to Hyde. This happened in the book, of course, but this completely cuts Kitty off as well.

Also, he even says he’s using Hyde to ‘learn all he can’. You pretty much know it all. Kitty, your wife, is in love with your ‘friend’, Paul. It’s not that hard. You’ve effectively been gaslighting them from the beginning.

“For do I want to return to a life of frustrated isolation and loveless misery?”

I have…

So many problems with this statement alone.

You left your wife, even said it yourself, neglected. For years. So much so, that she’s alone as well. Of course she searched for something beyond you, when you chose to isolate yourself first… And you know what? I’m happy for Kitty, she found something, someone to love and love her in return. Is it perfect? No, but –

Anything and everything can be traced back to you, you sorry sack of literal shit. I’m about to lose it. He’s reaping what he’s sewn, and now he’s trying to escape it.

I’m so pissed off.

He drinks more stuff. Great. The return of The Literal Worst is upon us.

Wow… Never heard Christopher Lee say that before –

“Damn bad luck you’ve been having, I hear, Allen, old man.” Some man comments on the state of Paul’s life, which has gone to hell in a handbasket.

“Damn bad luck.” Paul’s agreement seems to taste as bad as the cigarette he’s smoking. I wonder how many are his, in that overflowing mound of ash and stumps, at the center of the table.

“Oh, well, luck’s a bitch, old boy.” Not sure that was a saying yet, but maybe this is the one that starts the trend.

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.” Paul looking like he’d like to swallow down the rest of the decanter on the table, with Hyde being the creep that just walked in. “I’ve always had the best possible luck with bitches.”

I just about spit my tea. Not even kidding.

“Almost always, anyway.”

You’re terrible. Kitty should leave without either of you.

How is this review over 4K words? Who’s still reading this?

“Women aren’t a weakness they’re a recurrent necessity.” Paul. Paul. What are you doing?

‘Oldest mistress’.

Paul. You’re awful with money and it’s obvious.

They’re going to go out on the town. Like bastards. Hyde is The Literal Worst.

Snap shots of London’s underbelly during the 1700s… Brawling, lots of drinking and bad singing, and… smoking? Opium? Hooka? Who the fuck knows anymore.

Paul’s out. Hyde is doing the 100-yard Creep Stare.

Paul is out making debts again. ‘Honorable’ ones, at least.

Now he’s out of ideas. It’s been a week. He spent all that money – 5,000 in a week. Ouch. “But you, are a fool.” We agree on that. That is the only thing Hyde, and I will ever agree on.

“And I’ll try Kitty.”

Ha.

Haha.

You can see the wheels turning unpleasantly in Paul’s head. His brow is doing that furrowed thing when he’s confused.

“What the devil do you mean, Hyde?” You know what he means, you just don’t want him to go on. You’re hoping he doesn’t mean what you think he means.

“Well, that should be simple enough for even you to understand.” Again, insulting people while mixing in kind words, though his next ones are far from kind: “I am telling you to obtain your mistress for me.”

Paul is rising out of his chair. His brow is still doing that furrowed thing, but it has gotten even deeper. The rage is coming, a wave that was slow to foam, but quick to rise.

“You unspeakable devil.” There’s still some disbelief, but there’s no denying the shock.

Hyde is doing the creep laugh with a – “How very amusing.” Now you can see the anger, it’s chiseling its way into his features, hard and sharp.

“Paul Allen, breaker of every law in the moral code, is shocked into morality.”

Full blown: I’d punch the ever-living hell out of you. I’m about to.

“You vile, disgusting degenerate.” His lips are quivering. He’s barely holding it together.

“Be rational, my friend.” You’re pushing him far beyond ‘rational’. “I’m asking for the temporary loan of a proven adulteress, of whom you yourself have grown somewhat tired.”

First of all: fuck you. Second of all: Kitty already said he has no property rights to her.

“You go back to hell!” Paul. Punch. Him.

Oh… Wait… Yeah, he’d probably get in trouble for that. And then be sent to jail. And I doubt he wants to be in there while Kitty is out here with this lunatic. Yeah, running out before you lose it seems wise.

Still should have throttled him a bit.

Now what is The Literal Worst doing? Going back to the house…

And sneaking into Kitty’s room. You creep. I’ve never wished to jump through a television screen more.

They only have one servant, ‘Nanny’, is her name.

He’s blackmailing her. With Paul’s notes. Fuck. ‘Buy him back’.

She’s laughing. Yes, that is Kitty’s response to being uncomfortable.

“You utterly repel me.” YES! Go girl! She laughs as he storms out, tossing the notes away. Then she closes and locks the door, pressing her back to it. She was probably more than a little terrified.

Hyde assaults a homeless man, shoving him down, and steps over him. That was in the book… Then back to some cesspit that Paul showed him.

There’s something weird going on here with Hyde and this girl.

Cut to Kitty and Paul snuggling. And kissing. This is the quality content I came for. He’s wearing the same shirt from earlier… Which means he probably took a good long walk, had a small conniption, and then went straight to her.

“Why does love make us behave so hatefully to one another?” Yeah, well, Paul has been the terrible one here.

“Because we’re cowards, my darling. We want everything.” I’m not sure what Paul’s deal is, why he is the way he is… He could just be an ivy league guy who grew up, not knowing how to handle money, he might not come with as much baggage as the rest of them.

Why can’t they just be happy and cute?

Go away? Start a new life? Yeah, do that.

Right now.

Leave.

Before Jekyll McShitFace gets back.

Ah, they planned to mug Hyde, using the girl as a means to dupe him. Seems about right. Also deserved.

Ah, Kitty is leaving Jekyll. About bloody time. Also, the wrong time, considering the whole Hyde business.

Jekyll has destroyed his drugs, though admits that Hyde’s grip is too powerful. Right. As if Ernst didn’t warn you it was an addiction. “No degeneracy is low enough to satisfy him.” You mean you, right? Because, he is, after all, you.

The kids are back in the garden. This can only end well.

Oh, they’re leaving. Good…

Paul and Kitty are making out again. Good for them.

Jekyll shoved a kid. Bad for him.

Same little girl who’s always trying to give him flowers. Yeah, he’s losing it. Rushing back into lab to pen a last will and testament one can hope –

Nope, no such luck.

‘Exorcise him’. Right.

Handwriting switch. Interesting.

Paul admitting to Kitty he’s in trouble with Hyde.

If looks could kill.

Hyde lures them with an invitation from Jekyll, about their last evening together being ‘gay’.

Kitty doesn’t want to go, she’s frightened. Listen to your gut.

Paul wants to stay, because they think he’ll settle. Kitty agrees.

Fuck.

Cabaret. Ugh.

Someone get me out of here. Lots of underwear. This is painful.

Hyde making plans to meet with Maria before meeting with Paul and Kitty, who’s dressed for a funeral. Paul. Don’t. Go. Of course, he does.

Up to Maria’s room. Piss it.

More cabaret. I’ll hand it to you ladies; you can cartwheel and front flip. That is impressive. Also, I’m completely serious, because the amount of muscles it takes to do that are insane. Flexibility is also key. Congrats ladies.

Paul meets with Hyde.

“Surely we can keep Kitty out of this.” He knows something’s up and didn’t want to involve her. Smart, but also stupid.

“Hardly.” Hyde’s reply sets my teeth on edge.

Paul. Don’t go into that room. To meet him in private. Fuck me. Backwards. Paul.

A ball python. How dangerous. Paul. There’s a table right there. Squish the fucker. I mean, I’m against animal cruelty, but in the case of the story, that thing is supposed to be deadly. Squish. Squish. Otherwise, leave him the fudge alone and he’ll leave you alone.

Kitty… Don’t go with the creepy man. Listen to your Creep Radar.

Paul’s dead. Kitty doesn’t deserve this. Don’t –

I hate this. I hate this. Paul is literally dead in the other room.

I’m writing so much fix-it fic for this, you won’t believe.

This review is 18 pages long. If you’ve made it this far, may the gods have mercy on you, because my wrath at this point is endless.

Maria is in Jekyll’s house. He told her to go back to that house, put on Kitty’s clothes –

“The pattern of justice is complete.”

Rot. In. Hell.

Paul and Kitty deserved better. They deserved each other.

Kitty waking up, gods’ I hate this. She’s a wreck. Her hair, her clothes… You can tell she’s about to be sick. She’s barely holding it together. There’s a fucking note… A note leading her to the snake… She finds Paul dead. She’s already shellshocked. Out onto the balcony…

“Paul.” Her last word.

She plummets over the balcony, through the glass roof, and –

Cut to Maria saying: “I love you Edward.”

“I can’t love.” We can agree on two things. Those two things.

“I must be free.” Right before murdering Maria.

Jekyll finally takes back over, rightfully horrified, and runs back to his lab. With three corpses under his belt.

What an interesting mirror effect…

“Why must you destroy?”

“I must be free.”

Then we go back-and-forth, about who murdered, who revenged, and who was wronged. They weren’t in Hyde’s way, but Jekyll was. He doesn’t ‘feel’. Yeah, right…

Hyde is every dark, terrible impulse Jekyll has had, given life and form. His desire to be free, to run rampant, has been a desire of Jekyll’s since the beginning. Free the beast so he could kill it… Then proceeded to twist it to gaslight his wife, his friend, and everyone else. He was living a life, a lie, a sham. The desire for freedom from persecution for our desires, to be allowed to do what we want, when we want, without judgement has been an overarching theme in all of society. People are persecuted for what pronouns they want to use, for how they eat, how they dress, how they talk –

However, because Hyde is merely a reflection, one can assume his desire for freedom is mirrored in Jekyll’s continued desire for the same. Jekyll wants to continue to exist, so Hyde must desire to exist in turn. He’s still composed completely of Jekyll’s desires.

He says he doesn’t feel, yet there is a desperation, a fear in his voice when he says: “You must lose, Jekyll.” Because he’s afraid he won’t. He’s horrified by the idea of being trapped forever, of their relation being found out…

Cut to Inspector being on the case at The Sphinx.

Wow, a lady in gentleman’s clothing runs The Sphinx. Nice.

Jekyll trying to leave a letter to Ernst. Yeah, that’ll go over well. He calls a street cleaner over to take his note to Ernst, but of course, Hyde has to upset that plan.

Again, I give props to the actor for the massive amount of voice switching, and playing the ‘tortured’ scientist, and the King of the Creeps.

Hyde is about to kill this street cleaner. Mate, why did you come into this guy’s house to randomly move something for him? He shoots him in the back, of course…

The Inspector arrives! Not in time…

Hyde is about to torch the place. Of course he is.

He puts up a performance for the police, saying Jekyll is nuts… Whole place is on fire, with street cleaner acting as a sub-in for the body of Jekyll.

I swear, if this fucker gets away with this, I will riot.

Is nobody seeing the Creepiest Grin of the Century?

No, of course not, they’re trying to fight a raging fire.

And of course, there’s a court hearing over the whole thing. Jekyll went nuts. True. He was addicted to drugs. Also true, though it’s not any kind ever seen before. Sought vengeance for imagined slights. True again.

“Fortunate to have escaped – “

Screw you.

Death by suicide. If only.

Do not tell me this is how this movie ends.

“A fine man. A fine – “

Shut up Ernst.

“The higher man.” Shut your face hole, Hyde.

Jekyll is coming out.

“I must leave immediately.” Oh no, you don’t, you bastard.

“Help me.” Keep talking, Jekyll. Get out of there. Confess. You deserve it.

Lots of struggling here. Again, props to the actor.

Inspector, Ernst, and everyone are watching. Do it now, you bastard.

He turned back into Jekyll!

Finally! You did something useful!

He looks really old. Apparently being Hyde aged him decades.

You can still rot in hell.

“I have destroyed him.”

“And yourself, my poor friend.”

“Only I could destroy him.” Dramatic pause. “And I have.”

He’s arrested.

Abrupt Hammer Horror Ending.

Kitty and Paul deserved better.

This review is 20 pages long, over 6K words, and it took me 4 hours to get through it because I kept pausing and rewinding to quote.

You’re welcome.

#The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll #McSh*tFace #I'm So Tired #Christopher Lee #This Took Way Too Long #Movie Review #Kitty and Paul Deserved Better #So Much Fix-It Fic To Write

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