#malevolent podcast meta

[go-to-the-mirror]

JOHN: Why did you want to leave her?

ARTHUR: It felt wrong, John. She was an amazing woman, I loved her, she was attractive, and-and kind, and… on all levels, we worked, but. She wasn’t the right woman for me, I…

JOHN: I don’t understand.

ARTHUR: I don’t know if I did either, I… I suppose it all just… fell into place without me realizing: the relationship, the child, the marriage… if you can call it that.

JOHN: You didn’t… love her?

ARTHUR: She deserved someone to love and she chose me. And… so I played the part until I couldn’t anymore.

(Part 33 - “The Father”)

Arthur saying that Bella was an amazing woman, attractive, kind, someone who theoretically he would have worked with feels a lot like what I (aromantic) have felt like when thinking that I had a crush on people. Also, the mention of attraction points to him being allosexual. His thought process feels a lot like “well, I’m attracted to her, and she’s nice, and I love/like/??? her, so… romance?”

This is pointed out in a previous episode, can’t remember which one, with I believe the King in Yellow calling Arthur and Bella’s relationship something along the lines of “falling in like”. I think that happened, probably.

And then with John, it’s like… love, yknow. Maybe. A lot less restricted, a lot less obligated, a lot less trapped by not wanting to hurt someone you care about and 1930s hetero and amatanormativity.

Anyway, I like John and Arthur’s relationship, I think, as an aro person, that’s really amazing to have a completely platonic relationship being given the main focus, and also the lack of romantic relationships? I just like it. Also, alloaro Arthur rights.

[physical-manifestation-of-spite]

I keep thinking about Arthur's regression at the end of Season 2 and then into Season 3. I keep thinking about how victims of trauma tend to get worse once they escape their traumatic situation. How their body and mind start to crack and shake under the weight of the horrors, now safe enough to escape the survivorship mindset but now forced to endure the fallout.

I keep thinking of how hard Faroe's death hit Arthur. How his guilt and grief were so intense that he wanted to kill himself, so low that he drank himself into a stupor for who knows how many years to just dull the pain. I keep imagining how hard it was to pull himself out of that, to work with Parker and find a new meaning in life, to walk away from his guilt of killing his daughter, and instead to help people.

(I keep thinking of how Arthur finds a vial of alcohol in the Dreamlands. How he sniffs it and recoils in disgust.)

I keep thinking of how long it took for Arthur to build himself back up from his lowest point, to tuck the guilt of Faroe in the deepest corner of his mind just so that he has enough room to breathe, to live, to be a better person. (And yet, Faroe is every facet of his life. It's his first memory in Season One, when he plays Faroe's Song, when he doesn't even remember his own name. It's the last name on his lips when he dies on that boat. It's his only memory when John is torn away from him.) I keep thinking about how Arthur is consciously repressing her every second of every day just so that he can keep going.

And then John pushes, and asks, and asks again. And finally, after almost dying twice with this entity, after surviving time and time again, he thinks he can trust him. He thinks he can share his deepest secret, to pull open the wound he keeps stitching over to protect himself. How he risks feeling the grief he's suppressed for years to trust someone. I keep thinking how John seizes it and, because he is ancient and young and inexperienced, childlike in his tantrums and his fears of responsibility and consequence, he uses it as a weapon the moment he's backed into a corner. I keep thinking of how not only the trust is torn away from Arthur, but how his wound is stretched and torn, and not only does his guilt and grief come back, but it's like a tidal wave that he cannot suppress this time. He's opened that wound and John has pried it wider, and now Arthur can't shut it. He survives in those pits, but she is all he thinks of. He escapes those pits, and ("Goodbye, Faroe.") she is all he thinks of. He slits his throat and she's all he thinks of.

He enters at icy cabin (a small gurgle, a bundle of blankets in his arm, a warm hum rumbling in his chest as he lulls his whole World to sleep) and he thinks of her to keep going.

And then Yellow enters, a blank slate, a John before he was John, and the pain is too fresh. This is the thing that tortured him. This is the thing that starved him. This is the thing who asked who his daughter was, and when he told him, the thing called him a killer. John and Yellow and the King are all the same in that moment, and Arthur's too fucked up and traumatized to separate them tangibly, as much as he insists that he can. His hatred grows and grows, all from himself, until it bleeds into Yellow, and he remakes this entity in his image, in his self-pitying hatred.

So when Yellow finally calls him a monster (and Arthur knows, he's called himself that the moment he saw the water spill from the bathtub onto the tile below), Arthur holds it close to his chest, and becomes it.

[sparrow-in-boots]

thinking back on ep31 cus. it's Arthur. it's All Arthur, and not entirely but it is. yes we get Larson referencing what his nightmare self said, and that speaks of Arthur being such a good read of character more than any supernatural chicanery.

when Larson says "John is gold. he's a gift.", that's Arthur's thoughts of him. John is deeply precious to him, a trusted friend and a miracle. a fracture of an unknowable deity from another dimension, that just so happened to meet the one person who could survive being bound to him, and show him the marvels and tribulations of human existence to him to boot. Arthur marvels at the situation, even if subconsciously, is even humbled by it.

but also, "nothing gold can stay." Arthur is, so so afraid of being alone. of losing another person, someone who he learned to care about and treasure. nobody he's ever cared about stays, or to put it in Arthur's mentality, survives knowing him. being loved by Arthur is a curse on both parties, and he's so deeply insecure and unsure of being Enough for John's sake. he's already failed Yellow and he knows it too, who's to say he won't fail John too, or worse, has ALREADY failed him and the shoe has yet to drop?

and when John begin to fade and falter, we can see Arthur retreat from him. mourning what he hasn't yet lost, trying to leave first before he's left and desperately reaching out to others to cope with that. seeing himself and his own mistakes in others like Oscar and Noel, trying to find redemption with Daniel, and seeking the life he had before John. desperate for a lost normalcy in case John is gone and he's left stranded like in the cabin in S3. he's on damage control mode before anything hits the fan, and it's soooooooo painful to see.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

kayne is so interesting in that his entire backstory is about acquiring power, sure, but not for the purpose of control. he was just so god damn curious. and so bored.

other than that, i do also think there's an element of wanting to be unique. to be the only one of your kind. ceasing control over how you're perceived, avoiding being understood. wanting to be unpredictable and unknown and someone no one can truly understand. that's why he got so genuinely pissed off at arthur implying he could manipulate him into helping them.

he rejects the idea that anyone could be like him, which is why he's so fascinated by arthur, who is, in a way, exactly like him.

[goponylover]

Omg I just realized

Arthur is going to be questioning whether or not John's desperation to save him in Addison was actually out of care for him or because he knew if Arthur died, he'd go back to the Dark World.

😭😭😭😭

Arthur is going to be questioning everything now. He's going to wonder whether or not Jon's just been USING him this whole time!

[cookinguptales]

Finally caught up with Malevolent, and while I do still believe that John's attempts on Oscar's life had more to do with whatever his deal with Kayne was than pure jealousy over Arthur, I think it's so funny that Arthur believes that John loves him with such a childish and possessive desire that he's willing to kill anyone else who might get close to him and is just like...

welp, I guess I'll indulge that.

I mean, I know from his perspective he's like "well, John is my responsibility and I love him and if I don't keep others away from me right now, John will kill them and I couldn't stand that" but from my perspective it sounds an awful lot like "you'll kill anyone I start to love as much as I love you? fair enough!"

I do really think, though, that John understands how much it hurt Arthur to give up Oscar and he wouldn't have made him do it for as petty a reason as Arthur believes. I think John was very much telling him the truth when he said that all that matters to him is Arthur and getting to the Fallen Star. I just think that the latter is probably in some strange service to the former.

Like I do think there's definitely some selfishness in his deal with Kayne, but I got the impression that whatever he chose to do, it was at least partially for Arthur's sake. I could be wrong, of course, but that was the vibe I felt.

...though, to be fair, I do think that John does feel deeply insecure about Arthur's relationship with Oscar. He does dislike sharing Arthur's trust with a human who might be able to give him more than he can; I just don't think that was his primary reason for trying to kill him. Also, I really don't think we're seeing the end of Oscar, who seems to believe that Arthur is his life's true purpose handed down to him by God himself. Oscar asking about John just makes me think that's not nearly as over with as John seems to think. So John may still very much have a rival for Arthur's affections, and one whom he's now given a reason to hate him very much!

[gwenboucharddidnothingwrong]

i think we can all agree that it’s not gonna be as simple as ‘arthur gets his daughter back, john and arthur get to live separately’ right? but what if it was? (well not quite but hear me out)

kayne has shown that he’s able to interact with faroe in other timelines, and also transport people (john and arthur atleast) between those timelines, but would he really be capable of creating a whole new faroe for arthur even if he is telling the truth? or of giving john his own body? i don’t think so.

i reckon that, for kayne to bring back faroe in the ‘middle c’ universe, he’d have to take her out of another timeline, which would cause all sorts of problems elswhere. (although tbh i wouldn’t put it past kayne. he doesn’t seem all that bothered as to what effects his actions have on other timelines). even if arthur got faroe back, would he just be forced to let her go/have her taken away from him because of some interdimentional reasons beyond his control?

also, what’s so special about the arthur in our timeline? i mean, kayne is most likely not even from the ‘middle c’ timeline, and the whole ‘darkthur’ thing shows he’s been following what’s been going on in the other timelines. who’s to say he’s not been making empty promises to every other arthur and john? AND IF HE HAS WHAT WOULD THAT MEAN (does he need the same thing from multiple timelines?? tbh i don’t think this point is particularly likely, but just putting it out there)

and as for john getting his own body - he wouldn’t be getting his own back. unless kayne is planning on reuniting him with the king in yellow, where the hell would he be getting that body from? would it be human? would it not? (OR HE COULD JUST PUT HIM IN PARKERS DEAD BODY SSJSJDJGJKFJGG)

the promises he made them are really vague which makes me think he’s definitely not giving them the full picture of the deal they’re making (i mean considering it’s kayne we’re talking about i guess that was a given but still).

also i get that, considering the threats that kayne has made, they don’t have much of a choice but to do what he’s told them to, but what about the repercussions of giving kayne what he wants? it’s clearly not gonna be anything good, and now i come to think of it we know next to nothing about his actual motives. so far he’s pretty much just showed up, killed people, and caused problems.

i’m gonna be real i wasn’t paying that much attention at this point in the episode so i can’t actually remember exactly what he wanted arthur and john to get, but considering the threats he made to make sure they didn’t have any option but to do what he wanted, it’s gotta be really important to him.

and tbh, i’ve got a feeling kayne is working for someone, or atleast being made to do this. he went to some pretty big lengths to prove to john and arthur not only how much power he had, but to make it clear what he was willing to do with that power. i don’t actually have much evidence to back this point up tbh but IVE GOT A FEELING ABOUT IT OK

and also why does he need arthur to do it? is it arthur specifically that he needs for whatever reason? i mean that would make sense, why else would kayne be forcing him to do it, and why else would he have gotten john to try and make arthur get that stone (was that what it was? again, i’m bad at following for the whole hour) in new york.

but has he made them do whatever it is because he knows something will happen? has he made all those promises to john and arthur knowing it won’t matter either way because they aren’t going to make it back?

tldr, even if kayne were to give john and arthur what he said he would, there’s no way it would be as simple as he says it is

(wow, didn’t expect this post to go on for so long, well done for reading if you got up to here, have an unrelated doodle i drew in my physics book below the cut and go drink some water or something)

(his name is jumbo!)

[yamikakyuu]

Thinking about Arthur Lester.

Thinking about how his parents were alcoholics. Thinking about how it's implied he was either one or very close after Faroe died. How he spent many nights at The Jack's Bar "pickling his liver" as he put it. Thinking about how Parker saw this and got Arthur to talk by offering to buy him drinks until it wasn't needed anymore.

Thinking about how Arthur’s parents killed themselves. Thinking about how Arthur wanted to kill himself after Faroe died. How he wanted to die but couldn't bring himself to inflict that pain on others.

Thinking about how Arthur's life in so many ways parallels his parents yet even though he fell into alcohol and deep depression he somehow managed to keep going. He could have given up so many times. But he says he never gives up not after his parents died, not after Faroe died.

He's flawed, he's made a ton of mistakes, he's endured so much.

But he has promises to keep...and miles to go before he sleeps.

[samglyph]

Final compiled thoughts for part 35!

I feel like you guys are gonna get tired of me saying this but… I really enjoyed this episode. Partially because all of my predictions/desires for the episode ended up being accurate! so I feel quite vindicated. I’m happy how things wrapped up with Daniel, and I have to say Harlan did a good job with the tension this episode. I was on the edge of my seat during the hospital standoff.

So first of all. Scratch. SCRATCH. First of all, totally called it, and also I love her and his weird crush on Arthur. Now we have an evil magic rock. Good for him.

John’s memory is definitely getting worse, and I’m wondering if the deal he made with Kayne some how had a timer that eats away his time with Arthur— maybe he’s being siphoned back to the dreamlands or the darkworld the longer he takes to get Arthur where Kayne wants him? Because he’s definitely worse than he was in 25-31.

Noel is DEFINITELY not who he says he is— when he quoted Adam from back in part 5 my immediate thought was that he was a kiy puppet or similar, but I’ve seen a lot of interesting theories going around already. But yeah. I don’t trust him.

Oscar was like. Surprisingly wholesome? And also mvp of this episode, took care of Daniel, took down the butcher, man really stepped up. Proud of him. I also liked Arthur getting a hug (at least I think that’s what the sound implied) the man needed it.

My one slight critique (not really a critique, im just not sure about it) of this episode is I don’t know how Arthur is going to internalize Daniel’s little pep talk. I want Arthur to aspire to being a good person, but I also think he has to be able to do that while also being honest with himself about fucking up. Arthur tends to have two modes which are “I’m the worst person alive I’m inherently evil I’m a monster” and “everything I’ve ever done is justified, actually” so Im kinda hoping (likely in vain) that he might eventually learn a bit of dbt theory and get out of those extremes. He seems to be doing a bit better in terms of being honest with himself, but idk if receiving that sort of praise is going to help. It might! We’ll just have to see.

[spiciestmarinara]

Based on my own wack face claims/headcanon because that part of season 4’s finale made my jaw drop.

[creed-of-cats]

Diversity is important in podcasts, but i think it makes a lot more sense for Arthur to be a white man then anything else.

Throughout the podcast, he has a sense of entitlement, and a black and white view of morality. They are stringent boundaries until his own hypocrisy is concerned. And yes, a lot of it is due to trauma and his guilt and self loathing.- but some of it sounds so ties into his viewpoint. A white british man from the 1930's, middle to high class, used to profiling everything around him.

He doesn't think of people being there before the US. Arthur calls cultists monsters, in that they give service to a violent god. But as John recently pointed out- what does that make John and Arthur? What does that make a man who made a deal with a devil to get his own, private god back?

I took a class called Narratives of an Empire. It was about British Imperialism through the lense of their own literature. And what you find is that the descriptions of the people they subjugated was often just a reflection of the colonizers. Their own guilt, shame and horror about what they were doing projected onto the people they committed this wretched acts upon, because they did not understand them, and their ego got in the way of trying.

Gothic horror is at its core, when it was first written, about the uncomfortable parts of self. What you are afraid to look at. Eldritch horror is realizing you are a small bit of something so large you cannot comprehend it. The more arthur finds, the more he realizes the world around him is a connected web of horrible things and people that want to kill him for no reason. Abandoned homes and towns and hotels, glory days long gone and just having to deal with it.

(Not to mention that one of the most notable authors of this type of horror was H.P Lovecraft- who was extremely racist, and many of whose stories focused on the horror of the "other." Which arthur is almost always initially scared of. )

Arthur is like the places he visits. He is not in his prime. He is not a young man. Exploitable and once used up, gone and empty. Arthur is subjected to the horror of the reality of white supremacy, through mundane and fantastical ways. Rarely does his empathy from these experiences extend to those who hurt him, but neither does it often extend to others as vulnerable and in similar positions to him. Again and again he makes horrible choices and hurt people because it reminds him of himself.

And John, who is learning humanity, who is not the privileged party here, who has barely any bodily anatomy, is learning from someone who has an inherent sense of entitlement. He too is learning what it is to be small and worthless in the eyes of something greater.

Arthur too, of course, slowly loses his bodily autonomy in ways he can't control. There is of course the hand, but most obvious are his eyes. Arthur only really tries to be independent of John when he's angry, proclaiming he doesn't need him. But he has in fact grown dependent on John. The "parasite" is his main source of seeing the world around him. When Arthur is drop kicked back into the world without him, he thinks himself as absolutely helpless. While I do think he brings John back because he loves him, he also brings John back because he needs him. Arthur constantly falls back on dehumanizing John in his worst moments- but he needs this other, this unacceptable being, to survive. White men degrade minorities, saying they got to where they were on their own- but take away the supporting labor, and suddenly they are helpless.

In terms of disability, his eyes, and solely his eyes in the beginning is an interesting choice. Arthur has to see through the gaze of someone outside of his experience. He spends much of the current podcast trying to get his sight back.

But then he doesn't want to anymore. I'm not sure I'd say he is welcoming, but he's come to accept it and the company this strange arrangement provides him.

"You took the only thing in my life that loved me."

What happened to the rest? Why are the friendships of white men generally based on work or violence? He never processed Faroe's death because nobody ever got close enough to help- not even Parker. It literally took an entity in his head ages to get him to talk. Because the relationships white men are expected to have are also limiting. If you are not expected to depend on anyone but your wife, well, why share anything at all? Why not tumble into loneliness and work and fear until backed into a corner?

John becomes Arthur conscious, the "other" he argues, concedes, and learns to be better from, and learns to forgive himself from. It's a Great dynamic- but I will say that it falls on the "other", especially in the latest episode, to guide the white man through the wretchedness of his own world. (Discounting the dreamlands, which I'm not even sure I can examine coherently rn)

And that's why I think this podcast, whether it meant to or not, is about the inescapable horror of the reality white supremacy has built.

[nellasbookplanet]

Today I’m going absolutely bonkers thinking about stories where the medium itself becomes so interwoven with the narrative that the two are inseparable and the story borderline unadaptable into other formats.

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Portal and listening to the Malevolent podcast for perhaps the third time, and as any slightly obsessive fan who desperately wishes for more when I run out of story I find myself thinking ‘man someone should adapt this into a movie/tv show/novel/etc’. And then I stop and think, ‘wait a minute, how?’

How could you possibly adapt the puzzle aspect of Portal into anything other than a game? Sure you could make some cool action sequences out of it, but that would get old quick, and you never get any chance to solve the puzzles yourself. And how could you adapt it without them, when the tests are a deeply intrinsic part of the narrative? You would end up with a vastly different story.

And Malevolent. Malevolent! Rarely have I experienced a story that so masterfully not only gets around the limitations of its medium, but uses them to their full advantage. How do you explain your lead constantly speaking out loud to themself (since the dialogue-only format doesn’t allow for internal monologue)? Why, put a possessing entity into their head, so that they’re literally never without a conversational partner! How do you fit visual descriptors into the story, since characters explaining their surroundings out loud would be weird? Make one of them blind and the one possessing him his seeing-eye entity, of course!

How could you possibly adapt any of that into, say, a movie? Having the entity describe visuals the viewer can already see would be distracting, but having him not do it would break suspension of disbelief because why is Arthur not constantly bumping into things? Of course, you could remove the blindness, but aside from being a shitty thing to do it would also remove the delicate balance of power between him and the entity that forces the two to co-operate.

I’m thinking about these two stories especially because it’s where my obsession lies right now, but there are lots of examples of similarly interwoven narratives and medium. Think of epistolary books, webcomics with animated images and music, webnovels so adapted for a digital format with links and gifs and layout that actually printing them would take away from the experience (everyone go read What Football Will Look Like in the Future and An Unauthorised Fan Treatise right now, you can thank me later), or other podcasts that give their narrator an intrinsic reason to speak and describe everything aloud, such as The Magnus Archives and The Mistholme Museum (which I need to catch up with, by the way). It drives me insane! The medium is the message!

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

paired like a fine wine and cheese

[sparrow-in-boots]

so i think we can agree to some degree that, the carrot is a lie. right?

(Intermezzo spoilers ahead!)

we know Kayne is perfectly capable of keeping his deals, but we also know that he's far more capable (and willing) to Not keeping them. and even of proposing deals that he has no intention of going through with.

Arthur getting Faroe back isn't a real deal. just because he stopped one Faroe among countless from death, doesn't mean that deal won't have consequences. he did say "even try continue being friends", which implies A Lot.

first of, what happened to that universe's Arthur? surely nothing good or stable. who's to say Kayne won't put John inside that Arthur as "a body" for him? and also, Kayne has made it very clear he's got access to all the strings here, he can very easily keep toying with them Just Because, making their lives actual hell.

John and Arthur don't have their divorces over nothing, Shit Happens and it causes them to react poorly due to any number of issues they have in their own noggins, but we've seen that a good number of them have been thanks to Kayne's meddling in some way or another. One could even say that all of S3 happened because of him.

"no matter what I throw at you, you just seem to come out better for it", wasn't it?

but also, we can just as fairly say that the stick is also a lie. sure, Kayne's anger is nothing to scoff at, he's a god given greater power than any god in this universe had any right to after all. BUT, he still needs Arthur. he has very little to gain from impossibly torturing someone who he knows has something Special (plot armor) that keeps him from going under entirely, might even become greater than he can handle because of said torturing.

Arthur is at the end of the day, just a human, but he's also an anomaly that he can't grasp, and Kayne isn't an idiot.

it's all smoke and mirrors, lures and trickery. his hard power is very real, Kayne is an entity of his own caliber, but his soft power, it's all on keeping people on their toes around him and go along with his schemes to keep him appeased. that's what the whole bit with keeping Arthur playing because "he didn't say stop" is, flexing that he can keep Arthur cowed enough to keep doing what he says. and that was also why he proposed that deal for John too, to keep him on thin ice and scrambling over pacifying Arthur rather than let them both scheme over how to one-up him when he isn't looking.

carrot or stick, you dont actually need either. sometimes, the illusions of a gift or a punishment are enough motivators, even if they are lies. Kayne never ends a deal freely, there's always Something More, a twist of the knife that he sprinkles in at the end. he has no intention giving Arthur and John a happily-ever-after, and i also think he has no intention of dooming them to turbo Hell or whatever.

if you ask me, the fact that we don't know what exactly he does plan however, is far more disconcerting and scary.

[organchordsandlightning]

Lighters in Malevolent

Hello, folks! 

So, as loads of people have noticed, there’s some hinky stuff going on with the lighter in Malevolent.  As I was going back through transcripts to see where it popped up, I thought it might be helpful to have a reference of all the lighter appearances so far (a sentence that sounded a lot more hinged in my head than when I typed it out.)

Obviously, there will be spoilers from EP1-26 under the cut. 

Bold: Arthur obtains a lighter. Regular: Arthur uses a lighter. Italics: Relevant but not directly related to lighters.

For brevity purposes, I’ve also omitted repetitive lighter uses. (For example, if Arthur flicks on the lighter four times to guide himself around some tunnels, I’ve only noted the first go unless something has drastically changed in the meanwhile.)

(This is more of a reference post than a theorizing post, but IMO, a lot of the more Compelling lighter red-stringing pops up in later S2 + S3.)

Season 1

EP1: Arthur uses the lighter while exploring the ritual/sacrifice basement.

EP2: Arthur finds a flashlight in the trunk of his car. He leaves it after the crash.

EP3: Arthur uses a matchbook to light a candle, found in the Mansion.

EP4: Arthur steals Kellin’s lighter from his bed.  He briefly drops it, and then lights Kellin’s bed on fire.

EP5: John remarks that they have nothing after the hospital, excepting clothes and several hundred dollars from the Lost and Found.

EP6: Arthur remarks that they need to get a flashlight and matches, which they buy at the gun shop.

EP7: Arthur searches for a lighter on his person to re-light the lighthouse wick. John responds that they have one, but it refuses to light in the heavy wind. He re-lights the lighthouse keeper’s supernatural lamp.

EP9: Officer Collin has a lighter at the start of the episode. Arthur takes both a lighter and a flashlight on the police boat, after the monster attack. He uses a lighter to start a fire on the beach.

EP11: Arthur uses the lighter for illumination and.to construct a torch. 

EP12: Arthur uses the lighter to illuminate the hotel basement.. He initially refuses to light the boat lantern, but eventually does use the lighter to both burn the tadpoles and smash a lit lantern against the boat.

Season 2

EP13: Arthur finds his lighter in his bag while dealing with the Trader. He uses it to cauterize John’s wound. 

JOHN: You said something back there. ‘This too shall pass’. (NB: In reference to Arthur comforting John before biting off his little finger.) ARTHUR: Yes. JOHN: Why did you say that? ARTHUR: I don’t know, it’s just a comforting thought. JOHN: It’s written on our lighter. ARTHUR: Oh, that’s right! (He pulls it out and flicks it.) That’s the one I had with me from... the office, way back when. Crazy to think it’s made it all this way. It’s not even really mine. JOHN: No? ARTHUR: No, found it in an old desk drawer when we moved in. JOHN: Interesting.

EP14: Arthur refers to the lighter when talking with the Three Soldiers.

EP15: Arthur uses the lighter to illuminate the tunnels.

EP16: Arthur momentarily drops and recovers his lighter. He uses the lighter to ignite the supernatural bullseye lantern.

EP17: Arthur lights and extinguishes the lighter per John’s wishes. He also uses the lighter to make his Molotov Cocktail.

EP19: Arthur barters back his lighter from the Trader after his imprisonment.

EP20: Kayne lists his things, but neglects to mention the lighter. In panic, John suggests the lighter to help with Lilly’s bleeding.

Season 3

Coda: Arthur uses the lighter to light a fire.

EP22: The following two exchanges -

As Arthur enters the washroom to bathe:

(The door shuts behind him. Arthur searches through his pockets.)

YELLOW: What are you searching for?  ARTHUR: Our lighter. YELLOW: You have a lighter?  ARTHUR: Of course, don’t you … you saw it.  YELLOW: No. ARTHUR:  You must’ve, you said – (NB: Reference to Yellow saying ‘This Too Shall Pass’ at end of EP21.) YELLOW: I didn’t see your lighter, Arthur.  ARTHUR: Fine, must be in the bag. Any way to light the stove? We need to heat the water. It’s freezing in here.

After Arthur sees Uncle rummaging through his room:

ARTHUR: Oh. Um. (He starts to speak, in the same cadence as Kayne’s original rhyme. The main theme starts to play.) The glass, the stone, the mask, the books, the tooth, the coin, the wallet and … (Normal cadence) Some hooks. Um, the shaving kit, and my … uh, lighter should be in here, somewhere. YELLOW: What lighter? ARTHUR: The lighter, you – I used it... oh! (He flicks the lighter.) YELLOW: What?  ARTHUR: Oh, it’s here, in my – in my … in my jacket. W-Wait! Didn’t I just…?

EP23: Yellow tells Arthur to pull out the lighter to illuminate their way in the estate. Arthur refuses.

EP24: In the mine, John asks Arthur where his lighter is. He finds it in his jacket again. He lights a lamp.

EP25: Arthur lights a torch with the lighter. 

[this-is-such-a-bad-decision]

Now that episode 24 of Malevolent is out I can finally talk about the conversation that’s been eating my brain for a month (spoilers for ep 24 below obviously):

“You do remember her, right?”

“I- I’m not going to say her name.”

“Say it.”

“I promised, Arthur.”

“It’s okay.”

“...Faroe.”

“She brought you back, John. The same way she did me. She saved us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her song it was- it was what made you remember. It’s what saved us, it’s what saved you from wherever you were.”

“I owe her a lot, then.”

“We both do.”

AAAAHHHHHHHH

Ehem, anyway.

You know that post about ghosts in a narrative? (Gerry TMA, I’m looking at you.) Faroe to a T. She is so important to the events of the story despite the fact that she is years dead, her influence is felt in everything Arthur does. By proxy this influences John, whose whole world is filtered through Arthur’s existence, but this episode is (I think) the first time John has said anything linking himself to Faroe. And that makes me feral with tragedy feelings because

Faroe’s impact on John's life is immense, and yet John will never meet her.

(Cue me writing 8000 words of these two interacting in one day)

And Arthur! Arthur made John swear to never say Faroe’s name again, but now he wants John to engage with the idea of her. I think it means so much to Arthur that it was Faroe’s song that brought John back; it’s tangible proof that Faroe is important to John, too, and I think that makes Arthur love him even more.

Anyway, that’s why I wrote the gods AU and why most of my fanworks will probably focus on John & Faroe for a while.