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spockandawe · 3 years ago

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Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting.

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned.

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao’s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.

#jiang cheng #mdzs #the untamed #disk horse #long post/#abuse/#only tangentially #but better safe than sorry i hope

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0aurelion-sol0 · 3 years ago

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Yo~

What's your opinion on the Will Byers DID theory? If you like it, which version do you like better? Both interpretations seem cool to me, though I personally like strangertheory's version better ^.^

Hi!

That's a very interesting question. I want to start by saying that I am a singlet, so I don't have DiD or OSDD. My knowledge of this condition is primarly known through medias I consume or some more "advanced" psychiatric documents or researches.

DiD is a condition that hasn't been always best represented or accurately represented since this condition varies from people who have it and so while there are similarities, the experience of it is very much unique and personal. It is also something that in a fictional setting with different genres, themes and tones is very hard to pull off or represent unless you go for the very realistic take on it.

It is bound to be, like many other things in fiction, dramatized. And speaking from a singlet perspective, who also had particular problems represented in fiction, I think it's okay as long as it's done right, in the setting, tone and genre it is in.

For example, we have today a lot more LGBTQ+ representation and like everything, unless you go for the fully realistic route, it's going to be simplified and dramatized. There's so many gender identities and sexual orientations today, you have to simplify it. And that goes for many other things that people care about in media, it has to be done right, but the writers still have a story to tell and unless that subject is the focus of the story, they're not gonna always spend their time talking about that. There is a story to tell.

Secondly, if it is the main focus of the story, that is where people have to do their research and really represent what they are talking about. Not some half-baked representation with dull arguments and points that come from a capitalist and conservative worldview. (Looking at you Disney.)

Now what you are referencing are @strangertheory 's and @kaypeace21 's theories which are about the show being about a DiD system where we see different alters evolving in said story with the host being Will Byers.

There is a lot of evidence pointing towards it, I'm gonna let you go see their posts and read it.

But their theories are very different in the way that they see the show portraying DiD, I have actually find quite a great way to describe the two takes.

@kaypeace21 's take is that elements of the DiD system have been externalised through science-"fictional" or supernatural means. Similar to Legion from the Marvel universe.

(David is a powerful mutant with DiD where each alters, if I remember correctly, has a different power or powers. (Which to this day is still one of the most BADASS thing I have ever come across though it must be quite terrifying for David.))

@strangertheory is an internalised POV on the DiD system existing in the show. She believes that what we are seeing right now is what is exclusively happening INSIDE the DiD system and that what we are experiencing is not our standard definition of the "real world". As in the physical world we all know. This would be in very vulgar terms happening inside Will's self, head, mind or brain. In a sense, it would be a more accurate representation of what DiD is about. A Shyamalan twist if you prefer.

(Though right now I don't have any word for word examples of such take, there is a show called MR.ROBOT that fits a bit of this description since there are moments in the show that we are seeing are only happening in the DiD system itself.

I recommend this show A LOT. It still is a bit dramatized but from what I know the DiD representation is quite accurate and pleased a lot of people with DiD. Also some people on the Stranger Things crew worked on that show.)

Now do I love the DiD theory ?

Heck yeah, I fucking love it! And with a big L! (Am I right "The First I love you?").

And I Love both of the takes and I think each one works at explaining the mysteries of this story. I even think that in some ways both could work well together.

I believe that DiD can be, without the meaning of being used, like many things a powerful storytelling "device" since it is connected to so many themes and other writing tools and is linked literally to the psyche, emotions and personalities of the characters.

I can understand why some people like both or one or respectfully and logically dislike both or one of the takes. But it is close to my belief about what the show is about or were even before I came into this fandom or on the internet, not as complex and thought out as the theory itself but pretty close in the overall themes and aspects of it.

(Though it bewilders me how much people lack imagination or are scared of such twist when I have seen so many of those types before whether it's done well or not, accurate or not.)

Now both @strangertheory and @kaypeace21 are intelligent people with very nuanced takes. And they had their fair share of completely unjust controversies coming from either rabbid ignorant shippers, far too sensible people or downright ignorant stupid people, most of the time 16 year olds. I am not saying that they are perfect, no one is, but the hate they have received is completely unjust.

And I am gonna lay it down right here, they are begging for an accurate representation here, they are not doing this because it just sounds cool and is edgy, they are actually wanting that The Duffers pull this off well. They would be very mad if they use all the imagery just to make it look cooler or scarier.

They are not bringer of truths, they are just like us. They are theorists, they believe in something that they think can explain the story they love and are experiencing. And so far, they have a pretty damn good track record.

They are analysing, dissecting the show because it's what they want to do and they believe in it and they believe the Duffers wants them to do that (I mean how come no one believes it when watching a show like that set in the 80's with so many references ?).

It is also supposed to be fun. Have fun for God's Sake! You can disagree with it but calling names and being disrespectful because somehow they don't agree with very basic, lazy and cliché theories (and no it's not being hypocrite, a lot of people barely do the work.) or are not on board with your creepy projection over the characters IS not okay.

And no, they aren't supporting p*d*philia as some people have claimed. How can you read these theories and come up to that conclusion ?

Most people haven't even read the DiD theory or have gone all the way through with it because they are lazy, easily bored people who don't have the time to just relax, process and think.

Stranger Things is not a kids show, some dumb teenage romance drama show with cool monsters! It's a very mature show, with real problems that are treated, out of which is trauma and mental health. Kids are killing people and even dying on this show. There is sexism, racism, abuse both physical and psychological.

It is a very mature and dark show. And you are being disrespectful to the Duffers when you say they are not that smart or that isn't that important. They are putting a lot of thoughts into this and the fact that no one really recognises this annoys me.

Or people only think it's important when it is only about the things they enjoy in the show. (Which is more hypocrite to me.) OR people are very stupid if they truly think that or are just jealous, bitter that two women have more imagination together and individualy than all of them or that person alone.

Color and costume choices, subtext, context, camera angles, directing, VFX, music, editing, sets, props, script, acting and editing are very important. All must be carefully done or you get very bad or generic stuff if you don't. If you love and you are passionate about the work, you put all the details you can into it.

And the Duffers and all the people working with them have already referenced those sort of things AND the practice of what we do on the internet. They are aware, they know because they have been in the same place too. They grew up with stories too, they made theories too whether it's on the internet or not.

At the end of the day, it is just a theory. An explanation of what is unfolding, may unfold or may have unfolded. I believe in it, I think it is reasonable, it has logic and it makes sense. It also has a lots of elements backing it up.

And the Duffers don't even have to go with DiD or mention it. Will creating some of the characters and supernatural events from his trauma is also similar and more accessible to the masses. But a Shyamalan twist can also work if it is done well.

And I am also open to other possibilities and theories, if they make sense and have enough elements IN THE SHOW and everything connected to it backing it up.

If the Duffers write something completely different but it is as good and also explains even better than this theory than I'll be okay. I love being wrong, it makes me learn new things and enhances the way I approach stories in the future.

If the Duffers only used this as some very inaccurate and disrespectful scary/abstract subtext without commiting to it. That is where I will have a problem.

Or write something completely incoherent with the rest of the show with a bad plot twist catering to the main public masses to sell the story even more and just make money so that they are safe with a fallacy of a work of fiction. Because they are cowards who didn't know how to manage themselves and baited entire audiences or listened to some crappy executive who didn't understand shit about the story. (wink wink, looking at a certain something...)

So yeah, I do love the DiD theory and both of it's takes and if it happens and is done right, with of course my perspective on the thing and PRIMARLY the perspective of people who have DiD or know a lot about it, I'll be pleased with it and I think it could be something very important for stories, people, the world and "art" in general.

Thank you for the question it was really fun! I hope I described the theory and the condition in the right way @kaypeace21 and @strangertheory and also the people who are concerned or know about it if I didn't let me know. Also, if you disagree with what I said, the way I said it or the subject itself let me also know IF it's respectful of course.

#stranger asks things #stranger asks #did theory #the did theory #will byers #will the wise #willel #stranger things

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thebeltanequeen · 4 years ago

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The (Blurred? Nonexistent? Inconsequential?) Line Between Canon and Fanon: An Impromtu Essay by Me

I’m currently have an existential crisis. An absolute, balls to the walls, pull my hair out, stare at the walls wondering what the meaning of existence is, kind of existential crisis. Why, you may ask? Because the older I have gotten, the more Fanfiction I have read. That’s normal. Millions of other people read fanfic like me. Well, in the past few years, I have also realized that the more fanfiction I have read, the less shits I give about the actual canon of the media I love. I care less and less about what “actually” happened, and delve into fanon instead. It’s as if the two have SWITCHED ROLES in my brain. The canon is the lie, and the fanon is the truth. This used to not be the case though, so how did we get here? And why… why is this realization sending me into an absolute spiral of insanity? Why do I feel like I have been sucker punched in the jaw? Let me explain.

I’ve been reading and dabbling in writing my own fanfiction for over twelve years. It used to be an escape, a way to further delve into my latest obsessions and become consumed by them. I have this annoying habit of also picking ships that do NOT become endgame, so I’ve always sought out fanfiction as a balm for my shipper’s soul as well. I still read fanfiction as if my life depends on it… but now it’s at the expense of reading new books. Watching new media. When I do eventually dip my toes into a new fandom, I either reject it quickly or become consumed again and make a grab for fanfiction… but in the past few years, something in not only me, but in fandoms in general has shifted.

The difference between me now, and me back then is this… I used to uphold the canon as sacred. Untouchable. Set in stone. The only credible source for the media I consume. All of the fanfiction I read was just beautiful window dressing. A lovely past time to further increase my dopamine intake.

This is no longer the case.

Now, when I read and write fanfiction, it’s as if it is an act of protest. I am actively seeking to reform the narrative. It’s to “take back” the story, the characters, EVERYTHING, for myself. To make it anew. To make it perfect. I’m not alone either. I see you. I see all of you. Now more than ever, I see more and more of us doing this exact same thing.

THIS is why I am having an existential crisis. I have just realized that I will no longer be content with the canon. Ever. Even the canon of my favorite media. It’s not enough. It’s no longer enough. It won’t ever be enough again. Why? Because there will always be places where the canon is falliable. The authors of the canon, are falliable. As an author myself, this is at once an alarming yet powerful realization.

I went to college for creative writing. At the beginning of my academic career, I thought of fanfiction as a beautiful fairytale world. It was glorious, but it was other. Separate. Not as credible as canon. Had I read fanfiction better than the media it was based on before I entered college? Absolutely, but in my head it still didn’t matter because the canon was the word. The canon was the law. As a writer, I held the power of the author (and by extension the power of myself) as sacred. By the end of college, that began to change.

The more I was taught about writing, the more I came to realize that sometimes, authors are just straight up WRONG. Sometimes, there’s soooooo much potential… AND THEY JUST FUCK IT UP!!!!!!! The bones are incredible, but the canon is weak, the logic is lacking, the story makes no sense, the characters don’t reach their full potential and you know what? I’m tired. I’m tired of it. This is why fanon is canon’s salvation. Fanon makes canon look pathetic. But… if I accept the fanon as the reality, and make the canon the lie, does that still make it fanon? No. I don’t think it does. I think fanon has become something other. Something greater.

I have become disillusion by “published” or “credible” books. 95% of the novels I actually buy at the store today are garbage. Trash. Half written nonsense that only serves the purpose of paying people. I’m TIRED OF IT. I’ve become disillusioned by the “power” of the author. I have become disillusioned by canon. FUCK canon, quite frankly. Rip it apart. Dissect it. Take out it’s beating heart and transplant it into a new body. Give it the soul that the narrative was begging for. REVIVE IT. LET YOUR OWN IMAGINATION MAKE IT ANEW. Characters mean too much to people. Fiction means too much to people. Stories mean too much to people for anything less. Only then will you or I be satisfied.

Now, even an impromptu, unedited, gibberish essay is not complete without examples. I’ll start with one that you probably thought of while reading this. Game of Thrones. I think that two years ago, the ending of the most influential show of the entire decade, is where my subconscious began to shift in this direction. Now, I doubt my opionions about GoT are the same as yours, but you know what? It DOESN’T MATTER because FANON CAN FIX THE CANON. The stories that meant so much to millions can be fixed by accepting the fact that THE CANON ISN’T THE LAW! IT FUCKED UP!!!! CANON DOESN’T DESERVE TO SPEAK ANYMORE!!!! TAKE BACK THE STORY AND TRANSFORM IT INTO A VERSION TRULY WORTHY OF THE GLORIOUS BONES IT HAS!!!!!

We also can’t ignore the role that monetization plays in the media we consume. Why leave our fiction in the hands of just the big names? Why let money dictate what is real and not real? WHY SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRE STORYTELLING JUST BECAUSE IT WAS SOLD TO YOU AND THEREFORE IT’S “LEGIT CANON”??? FANFICTION IS FREE, AND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PIECES OF WRITING I’VE EVER READ WERE WRITTEN BY FANFIC AUTHORS WHO DID IT FOR THE STORY. WHO DID IT FOR THE ART. WHO ACTUALLY DID IT JUSTICE. FUCK THE CONCEPT OF FANON AND CANON. THE STORY WE WANT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. GET MONEY OUT OF HERE.

Ahem. To avoid going on even more of a tangent, I’ll move on and give the example that triggered my existential crisis in the first place. Sailor Moon. To give some background, Sailor Moon is it for me. I have grown up with it. I’ve watched it my entire life. As a child, I ran around with my toy moon rod and desperately wanted to be Usagi. Ironically, I grew up to be quite a bit like her (but with Rei’s temper admittedly). It is my comfort show, my happiness. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I never tire of it. It makes my heart swell. I have never, nor will I ever, love any piece of media the way I love Sailor Moon. Flash forward to today, I watched Sailor Moon Eternal, the two new movie adaptations of the Dream arc in the manga (stick with me non-manga and anime lovers). I liked the films, but I was left with a deep, disatisfied yearning. I want back the feeling of complete bliss I experienced while watching the 90’s anime as a child. The problem with this? I’ll never get it back. I’ve just realized this. I’ll NEVER get it back. Why? Because it’s no longer the perfect version of Sailor Moon that it was to my young eyes. Crystal, while good, is also not the perfected version I seek in my adulthood, and Eternal has not scratched my insatiable itch. I am heartbroken because I’ve realized that Sailor Moon in its perfect form doesn’t exist anymore. If I held any canon sacred, it was this. But the story is flawed. The manga is flawed. The anime is flawed. It’s not infallible, as much as it truly, deeply hurts me to admit to the world and to myself. The only perfect version of Sailor Moon is the one in my heart. It’s the one I choose to piece together for myself with the building blocks that others who came before me have handed over.

Another, more recent example of falliable canon is The Grisha Verse. More specifically, the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I was brought in to the fandom by Ben Barnes’ depthless eyes and magnificent scruff. And you know what? I liked the story, but I stayed for Ben Barnes. I liked the Darkling so much that I bought the entire grisha verse books. It was a premature decision. I’ve only made it halfway through Storm and Seige, and you know what? I’m tired of the canon already. It’s not that great. The bones are there, but it could be SO. MUCH. MORE. I haven’t read the crow books yet, and by all accounts Leigh Bardugo has improved tremendously as a writer. Which incidentally proves my point. Authors are falliable. Ergo, the canon is falliable. I can’t help but think while I read these books, “Damn. I could write this better.” and you know what? I’ve read fanfics that HAVE written it better.

Am I saying this to trash Bardugo? Or even GRRM? (Yes I admit to trashing D&D but that’s beside the point ahem…). NO. I am NOT trashing the writers. I’M A WRITER. I GET IT. YOUR STORY IS YOUR BABY. I G E T I T . But I’ve realized, and what I think future authors will also have to realize, is that fiction doesn’t belong to anyone. As soon as it’s out the door, the fiction no longer belongs to the author. It belongs to us. The people. That’s what is beautiful about fanfiction. It’s not here for the money. It’s not here for the clout. It’s here for the fiction itself. Plain and simple. It belongs to no one and everyone.

In the past, I would have fought this. I would have wanted my work’s canon to be law. To be the word, the truth, the way etc. Now? I can’t be a hypocrite. I can’t be selfish. It isn’t about the author. It’s about the vision. It’s about the story, the narrative, the characters. It’s about art. And sometimes, the authors give birth to the idea (and they deserve credit for that without a doubt), but it’s also true that sometimes, someone else just writes it better. Someone else quite simply saw the vision, the story, the characters, more clearly than the author did. I make this vow now, as an author, to strive for the vision. If someone takes my vision and does it better than me, that only improves my perspective of my own story. It improves the world of fiction as a whole. It makes me better.

So, canon? Fuck the canon. Take back the story. Take back the characters. Take back the art. Fiction is ours. It belongs to us, and we can do with it what we please. Let’s strive for OUR OWN perfected version of the media we love. Canon doesn’t truly exist. The concept of Fanon doesn’t even exist anymore in the way we used to think of it. The author’s version of events is their own Fanon of the story. Canon is meaningless now. There is only the story that you accept in your own mind. There is only the story that I accept in my own mind, no matter how different it is from yours. There is only the art. There is only the limitless potential of countless people’s imaginations. Let’s continue to collaborate and celebrate beautiful stories together, in any conceivable way, over and over and over again, until the end of time.

Fin

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melias-cimitiere · 5 years ago

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LHP, ATHEISTS AND SPIRITS

I see at times so many attempts to define or to "purify" what the LHP is, while forgetting perhaps that the truth of it is not in simple dissections or refutations, but in a greater understanding that encompasses all the undercurrents.

For example, the classic opposition between Noetic (or Philosophical Approach) versus Spiritual (not blind faith). Why do these have to be mutually exclusive? By all means, it's like condemning a part of the self to favor another. It makes no sense to me. There is a place for logic and philosophical arguments (without which we would be like animals) and there's a place for the spirit. I am all in favor for experimentation but this doesn't have to be in opposition to magic for example. I totally don't get why some choose to set themselves against the belief systems of their supposed brethren, even if they are quite close.

Perhaps my own understanding of LHP is at fault; I know that by being solitary perhaps one may mistrust groups/guidelines, but on the other hand, it's a Path - meaning that it is a Way of Life, a Practice and something that integrates certain sets of behavior with belief, evidence, practice (ie ritual) and many more depending on the definition. So for a LHP person to call another person or a group not LHP just because they are focused more on the magical/ritual element instead of the noetic, seems absurd to me. I know that it is quite trendy to go against the theistic principle or anything that resembles faith or a spiritual system, but surely any person that would refute that as LHP would have to discredit the Yezidis, the demonolater communities everywhere, those who accept Set as a distinct Entity external to us, those that practice draconian magic, the Vodou and so on... there are simply too many examples of LHP that the materialist or overtly sceptical tends to discredit all too easily, in favor of what? his mind?... and why would this be More LHP than those who practice on the Path under the tuition of demons, for example?

I personally think that all modalities of thinking have their use, much like the Aeon of Horus has/d its use but that doesn't mean that the Aeon of Set for example is not the prime example of xeper and deification. So why would anyone seek to adopt a certain stance that only would be useful in serving as a modality and not as a universal tool? Crowley's Thelema and La Vey's attitudes certainly served the LHP well, but to become stuck on these is to limit oneself while there are so many more things to experience and to explore. And in private conversations I have lately heard the same old argument, that faith stems from christianity... I would like to remind that faith predates christianity (or other monotheistic religions) for dozens or even hundreds of millennia (depending on whether one studies ancient Egyptian - Kemetian scripts or Sumerian including the Isin King List). Faith is much like logic; it's a tool. Faith, in the right hands can achieve certain altered states and access different experiences that could transform the self. Of course, we have seen the misuse of faith all throughout history with the fanatics, the burning of the libraries of the ancient world, the crusades, the inquisition etc... but just because monotheistic religions perverted faith and spirituality, doesn't mean we have to throw away traditions predating them since the Dawn of Man.

Evidently there are many LHP practitioners who are atheists and who simply choose to exalt the Self as the centre of everything in their universe. Whereas the Self is indeed very important in freedom, choice, and consequence, I never was an atheist nor do my personal experiences validate a cosmic paradigm devoid of spiritual presences. I also do not subscribe to the notion that all Deities/Entities/Spirits/Demons are parts of our brain. I believe that they correspond to areas of our brain (like linking to old phrenology charts) but that is all; correspondence is not the same as Identity, so through my own experience such entities have a truly external Essence and Identity. While correspondence to brain parts is probably essential in order to sense something that would normally lie outside the realm of human senses, I am certain that they do exist externally to me. The Self is important for many things such as initiation, becoming/xeper, constructing an interface with reality, however I don't accept that the Self is the only deity there is.

For example, let's take Set. I have significant personal evidence (but not proof to convince cynics) that this deity is Indeed a true Deity, external to me. Some would argue that Set is the only true deity, others could say there are others (neteru or something else) that are also true.

So assuming that one accepts the existence of deities that are superior or external to Self, there are different stances/ paradigms as to dealing with this: demonolatry for example would worship or offer ritual honors to such entities. While others would seek to control them for own gain using grimoires/demonologies etc which is something entirely different. Some would attempt to use such energies in order to "harvest" specific results for themselves, either as part of self-transformation or as part of micromanaging life with its problems. On the other side of the spectrum, RHP would use parts of this knowledge to attempt to exorcise these deities (for them they would all be classed as demons anyway).

Something metaphysical truly exists beyond the Self, whatever that is. Any model of self-transformation does not contradict to the existence of said deities/spirits/demons nor do I see any issues with tuition from such immaterial beings.

As for the other worlds and their denizens/ deities/ daemons etc, I accept the existence of a mental stratum acting as the interface between the entities and the mind. Even if the Otherness is extreme so that the entity cannot be easily discerned, this mental interface allows for it to be "clothed" in a particular disguise that is somewhat acceptable within certain parameters of the socio-cultural paradigm as well as the era in which one lives. Perhaps from a different stance all worlds are one in essence, despite their individual differences, much like hues in color in a vast and incomprehensible painting. If such entities / creatures of Otherness are known to exist, there must have been some evidence in the works of those that worked with them, such as Michael Aquino when contacted by Set, Aleister Crowley with regards to Aiwass etc. These Beings were described in such a way as to imply independent existence and individuality. Whether these voices were symbolic, or partly covered in archetypal forms, or actual Entities, matters very little since they had tremendous impact on the entire LHP spectrum. In terms of validity, it's almost impossible to discern whether these are actual Beings external to the Self, but even though LHP people like to believe in total freedom, they commonly accept what widely known figures such as LaVey, Aquino, Crowley say as authorities on the path. But even their words would have to be validated through personal experience. And here the endless arguments take place, hopefully eloquently and politely and with mutual respect between those who support the archetype theory or the beings from another world/dimension. Even if the conversation takes place with the best of intentions, I doubt whether much will be gained from it due to the fact that each side tends to be firmly entrenched and frankly it's quite difficult for experienced people to just change their mind. It is true that there's no clear yes or no to these things; for example demons could be true actual beings from another dimension, or they could be shells, almost robotic in nature, or they could be an Order's egregore, or a thought-form, etc. All these could be argued that they could produce results, but for different reasons / mechanisms. And sometimes this makes all the difference.

To me LHP is about the only type of Spirituality that can access and harness the power needed to break the chains put on us by monotheistic paradigms for millennia. It frees the mind from many illusions while redefining social cohesion under a new light, while assisting the individual achieve Luciferian Gnosis and at the same time, xeper as in Becoming and a state of being initiated all the time.

#LHP #left hand path #atheists and devil #sprituality #spirits #demons

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fortunatelylori · 6 years ago

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Oh, the Jonsa of it all!

Jonsa is a puzzle. Anyone who has ever started shipping these two at any point in time since about 100.000 years ago when this show started, knows that. It’s all about digging for clues, starring at gifs for unhealthy amounts of time, comparing and dissecting until your brain turns to mush. Not that I’m complaining ... I love that shit.

But, to be honest, I’ve been wrecking my brain to come up with a cohesive explanation for Jon and Sansa’s reactions to each other in this episode that does not include some sort of romantic subtext and I just can’t avoid adding one.

That’s because Sansa looks desolate through most of this episode and Jon is taking everything Sansa does extremely personally, even though when you analyze the scenes, you can see that Sansa at no point goes against him. She’s snarky and cold towards D*ny. She challenges Tyrion both in the Great Hall scene and in their one on one scene. And yet it’s Jon that ends up feeling the most hurt by her actions.

Unless we introduce the explanation of the unspoken tension of romantic feelings, I just don’t see why he would be so affected by what she does in this episode as well as feel the need to mention her to third parties.

For Sansa’s part, while I loved her snarky remarks , it does feel very odd to me that she wouldn’t hide her emotions better and pretend to be on board with D*ny’s presence in her home. Sansa has already danced this dance plenty of times: with Joffrey and Cersei, with Littlefinger and Lysa, as well as with the Knights of the Vale and the Boltons.

She knows how to play the whole “conceal, don’t fell, don’t let it show” game and yet when faced with D*ny, who would fall for that kind of trick far more easily than Cersei or Littlefinger, she can’t do it. Unless I speculate that Sansa isn’t as in control of her emotions around D*ny because of her romantic feelings for Jon, I can’t really reconcile these reactions with the girl that at 13 managed to keep her feelings in check though out most of her stay in King’s Landing.

The “Honey, I’m home!” scene:

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There’s a couple of things that make this scene interesting from a Jonsa perspective:

The first one is that they actually cut the Jon/Sansa reunion differently from the footage we were shown in the teasers:

(gifs by @stark)

From the scene in the episode and the shots from the teaser, it becomes obvious that they cut out the close-up of Jon’s face as he approaches Sansa.

They have also cut the medium shot of Jon looking at Sansa when she greats D*ny:

and replaced it with a shot of just D*ny reacting to Sansa’s frosty reception:

The question is why? While there might be a host of different explanations having to do with how the scene was set up, blocking or trying to focus in on the emerging conflict between Sansa and D*ny, one thing these exclusions do is that they make Jon and Sansa’s reunion less romantic and far more ambiguous because we don’t get as much access to Jon’s reactions and state of mind.

We don’t see Jon starring at Sansa as he walks into her open arms like a love starved fool. We also don’t get to see that through out the whole of Sansa and D*ny’s interaction, all of Jon’s attention is directly on Sansa and not on the woman he’s spent the last however many weeks having earth shatteringly boring sex with.

It’s also interesting that they chose not to replace these shots with, let’s say, less romantically charged looks from Jon but rather they just cut them out, which in turn just amps the ambiguity factor, as opposed to put to rest the possible romantic subtext. This plays into the whole of the episode where the choice of not focusing in on Jon’s non-verbal reactions keeps Jon’s POV hidden from the viewer.

The other interesting thing about this scene is how Sophie Turner chooses to react to greeting Jon as opposed to greeting D*ny. This is how she looks at Jon:

We know from the beginning of the episode that Sansa is not happy. She’s actually downright sad:

And you can see that same emotion being echoed here as she looks at Jon hugging Bran. However the moment Jon looks at her, she can’t help but smile a little. It’s a shy but warm smile and it makes me feel like perhaps she can’t really help it. It sort of just comes out because, as we know from season 7, despite her frustrations with him, Sansa missed Jon very much.

It also can’t really be a polite or for show reaction because Sansa ain’t about that life in this episode as we can clearly see by the way she greets D*ny:

So, in just a few seconds, Sansa has made two things abundantly clear: while she’s apprehensive, she’s genuinely happy to see Jon and she hates D*ny’s guts.

Which in turn should raise questions. If Sansa’s animosity towards D*ny is strictly political, than surely the same type of animosity would be directed at Jon as well seeing as he’s the one that brought her to Sansa’s home in the first place.

One thing that I was struck by watching this scene is just how awkward it is. In the Jonsa fandom we have speculated that it was going to be awkward because of the teaser shots of Jon looking at Sansa and them hugging for what felt like an eternity while D*ny looked on from afar. However, since they excluded that shot, the hug itself doesn’t feel that odd.

However, Jon makes sure to turn this whole simple procedure uncomfortable for seemingly no reason. All he has to do is introduce his sister to the queen:

Jon: Queen Daenerys of House Targareyen. My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell.

Seems simple enough ... why, then, the long pause after saying “Sansa Stark”? Why the bowing of the head and all the fidgeting?

Since Jon’s POV is hidden, there is no conclusive answer to this. Instead, I propose a little mental exercise:

Let’s say that you’re in love with someone ... Someone you’re not really supposed to be in love with. Let’s also say that, for whatever reason, you decide to start a relationship with someone else. At some point, these two people in your life are forced to meet and you have to introduce them:

(gifs by @athimbleful)

How much would you be shitting your pants that your partner is going to figure out you’re in love with your sister/cousin/light of your life/air in your lungs/sole reason for your existence?

The “Threesome” scene:

youtube

Can I just get “love triangle” for 100, please?

(gifs by @arin-arryn)

Honestly, they’re not even being subtle anymore. This whole scene is blocked as a visual love triangle and this interaction, in particular, is interesting because the whole conversation regarding the dragons diets was sparked by Tyrion. The logical way of setting up this scene would have been for Sansa and D*ny’s shots to be combined with a shot of Tyrion. Instead, we get this medium shot where the focus just shifts between Sansa and D*ny, while Jon sits in the middle trying desperately not to kill himself.

Another important aspect is Jon’s tense conversation with Lyanna Stark, which starts with Jon instinctively looking at Sansa for whatever reason:

This has become a bit of a trend with Jon, with the first time he did it being at the end of season 6 when he was proclaimed King in the North. He does it again in this episode in the first scene they have together after Bran “reality check” Stark decides to unload the glorious news of the wall falling and the Night King having a dragon.

In both of these two scenes, it would have made a lot more sense for Jon to look at D*ny in these tense moments. In the first one because D*ny has just found out that her beloved “child” is now a zombie and also because Jon and D*ny lived through the wight hunt together.

In the Great Hall scene, romantically, it would make sense for him to look to the woman he loves, seeking emotional support. So I guess, scratch that. Jon is looking in the right direction after all.

The fact that Sansa refuses to offer him that support and his conversation with Lyanna Mormont:

Lyanna: Your Grace? But you’re not, are you? You left Winterfell a king and came back a … I’m not sure what you are now. A lord? Nothing at all?

Jon: It’s not important.

leaves Jon momentarily looking like this:

I’m not a gif-er but there is a subtle change of expression from his “It’s not important” smile to this that has Jon’s eyes going cold really fast. It looks like he’s reeling and angry but he conceals it very quickly. If someone has a gif of this, I’d love to see it.

This doesn’t get a pay-off here but actually becomes significant later on in the episode as we’ll see in the following two scenes:

The Jon/Arya reunion or as, I like to call it, the “deadbeat dad” scene

Fun fact: in my Jonsa fic, I actually had Jon mention Sansa in his first private conversation with Arya. The reason why I made that choice was because I wanted to firstly highlight the difference between the way Jon approaches Arya and the way he approaches Sansa and secondly because it’s an easy way of telegraphing to the audience that despite Jon’s outward behavior, Sansa is very much in his thoughts.

So maybe I’m being biased here but the fact that the writers chose to do the same thing tells me they’re approaching this from a very similar mindset.

I’m not going to lie. I didn’t particularly like that Jon felt the need to try to gain an ally against Sansa in Arya. It felt as if I was watching a father trying to antagonize his kid against her mother, which is such a low thing to do.

However, if you judge Jon’s lines within the context of the Great Hall scene, it does change the perception of where Jon is coming from, for me at least.

Jon: Where were you before? I could have used your help with Sansa.

Could he have though? I mean, was Sansa really Jon’s biggest problem in the Great Hall scene? Because from where I was standing it was Lyanna Mormont that decided to rip Jon a new one, not Sansa. Sansa’s conflict was with D*ny, not Jon.

Arya: I’m defending my family. So is she.

Jon: I’m her family too.

Aaaaa .... so Jon came out of that meeting completely stepping over the fact that his vassal called him “nothing at all” and proceeded to sulk in front of a heart tree because Sansa gave him a non-supportive look and made no attempt to defend him. That, for whatever reason, was the biggest takeaway from that meeting for him.

A takeaway that plays straight into Jon’s biggest insecurity when it comes to Sansa: that despite everything they’ve been through, despite the cloak she made for him or telling him he’s a Stark to her, she doesn’t truly care for him or consider him part of the pack which leads us to:

D*ny: Your sister doesn’t like me.

Jon: She doesn’t know you. If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t like me either when we were growing up.

I mentioned in my J0nereys meta that Jon sharing this with D*ny stung when I first heard it in the scene. Of course there’s multiple things going on in this conversation, not least of which that Jon seems to be trying desperately to make sure D*ny doesn’t turn her love of a good emolation on Sansa.

However, when looking at Jon’s conversation with Arya, doesn’t this line feel like it’s coming from the same place of insecurity for Jon? What else can Jon base his fear that Sansa doesn’t consider him family but on their fraught relationship as children? She’s given him absolutely no reason to believe that since they’ve been reunited. So, rather than this being proof that Jon holds a grudge for baby Sansa, it feels more like he’s resurrected their childhood distant relationship in order to drive himself nuts with worry that she doesn’t care about him anymore.

Can I get an awwww, everyone?

There’s also another strange parallel between these two scenes that I want to briefly touch upon.

In the Jon/Arya scene, Jon says this:

Arya: She doesn’t like your queen, does she?

Jon: Sansa thinks she’s smarter than everyone.

Why would Jon say that? We know from season 7 that Jon thinks Sansa is smart so it feels OOC for him to disparage her intellect. Also, if this was him being angry that Sansa was mean to his lady love, why didn’t he burst out into a rant about just how amazing D*ny is and how unfair Sansa’s treatment of her is?

I think this Jon line is there for two reasons: the first is to signal Jon’s concern that Sansa antagonizing D*ny might result in either Sansa or someone Jon cares about getting hurt and secondly as foreshadowing for someone outplaying Sansa. I don’t want to read “kidnapping plot” into every scene but this line feels pretty ominous to me.

As does the fact that the creators made a point of including a shot of Alys Karstark in the beginning of the Varys/Davos/Tyrion scene. There was no reason for that to be there unless to establish a future plot point and who else could that plot point be about but Sansa?

The “what is this fight really about” scene:

youtube

This scene is less than 2 minutes long and there’s so much going on here, that it’s difficult to know where to start.

So I suppose we should start with the opening shot:

I find it supremely interesting that for their one on one scene, the writers chose to open it with Sansa reading a scroll. When’s the last time Sansa read a scroll on screen?

youtube

Oh, that’s right! The scene where this happened:

Littlefinger: I’ve heard gossip that the dragon queen is quite beautiful.

Sansa: What does that have to do with anything?

Littlefinger: Jon is young and unmarried. Daenerys is young and unmarried.

This conversation that Sansa and Littlefinger had in season 7, ends up informing the entire Jon and Sansa scene, even though the point that Littlefinger was trying to make is that because Jon and D*ny would be difficult to defeat together, Sansa should unseat Jon as King and take the crown for herself.

The whole unseating of Jon by Sansa is never brought up in this conversation.

Instead, Jon proceeds to unload his anger at Sansa’s lack of enthusiasm for his successful work trip:

Jon: I brought two armies with me. Two dragons.

Sansa: And a Tragareyen queen.

Now, if they didn’t want me to read jealousy in Sansa turning around and flinging the word “queen” at Jon, they could have replaced it with something more neutral, such as:

Sansa: And no crown.

Sansa: And a new Southern ruler.

Or any other number of things.

However Jon doesn’t understand the distinction so he keeps pushing his “there is only one war that matters” speech:

Jon: Do you think we can beat the army of the dead without her? I fought them, Sansa. Twice. You want to worry about who holds what title. I’m telling you it doesn’t matter. Without her, we don’t stand a chance.

Jon might think that the problem of the titles is what’s really bothering Sansa but, considering we’ve already established that this scene is framed around the potential romantic entanglement between Jon and D*ny, I think this face that Sansa makes:

has more to do with Jon going on about how they’ll all be dead without D*ny and how she might interpret that as Jon being in love with her. Now, looking at Sansa’s face, the pain of that thought is pretty evident.

Luckily, Jon stops himself before Sansa jumps out a window and instead hits her with:

Jon: Do you have any faith in me at all?

Coming back to that scroll, Jon seems to be unaware of the fact that the only thing he’s offered in the form of an explanation for him bending the knee prior to this conversation was:

Cersei Lannister has pledged her forces to our cause, as has Daenerys Targaryen. And if we survive this war, I have pledged our forces to Daenerys at the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. We are both coming to organise the defence of the realm.

So his anger at Sansa’s bitterness seems rather misplaced. In normal circumstances, it would be perfectly normal for Sansa to tell him that. Instead we get this:

It’s official, ladies and gentlemen! Jon Snow has a superpower! And that superpower is called: puppy dog eyes! In this episode, Sansa Stark has faced off against the Mother of Dragons, brushed aside Tyrion Lannister but has been thwarted by Jon’s warm, chocolately gaze and completely forgot why she was pissed off with him in the first place.

However, Jon being Jon, decides to remind her with this gem:

Jon: She’ll be a good queen. For all of us. She’s not her father.

Aside from having a superpower, Jon also has his own version of kryptonite and that’s called: being an utter and complete moron.

As far as defenses of your heart’s desire go, that was one lame ass attempt. However, when you’re a woman in love, it sounds like the end of the world and looks something like this:

How does Jon respond to this attack on the character of his “beloved”?

Makes sense ... I mean if someone compared the love of my life with a better looking version of Hitler, I’d be giggling too. Which prompts Sansa to finally say what’s on her mind.

Considering how this episode played out, they could have had Sansa go back to the food question and ask Jon if being a good ruler does perhaps involve figuring out a way to feed your people. Or perhaps challenge him on what D*ny’s credentials are that have led him to believe she’ll be a good queen for all of them. Or perhaps get really personal and remind him that their brother, Robb, died for Northern Independence.

Instead ...

So while Jon might believe that the loss of title is what’s bothering Sansa, what is keeping the girl up at night is whether or not her “brother” is in love with their new queen.

From a non-romantic POV, why would she even ask this question? Ultimately, for her, it shouldn’t matter why Jon bent the knee. The result is the same: the North has now pledged to House Targareyen. So why does Sansa want the answer to this question? Why is it important to her? It’s only if you add a romantic motivation to it, that it begins to make sense.

Also, it’s important to note how the scene ends. In the leaks that came out prior to the premiere, people were saying that Jon and Sansa are interrupted so Jon never gets to answer.

However, that’s not what happens. No one interrupts this conversation. The creators made the choice to cut it before Jon answers, which means that it’s pretty safe to assume he did say something. We just weren’t privy to it.

That being said, only two questions remain:

1. Why do the creators want to play up the ambiguity of Jon’s feelings for D*ny, when we’re assured in all the interviews they’re the great love story of the series?

and

2. What does Sansa now know that we do not?

That’s about it from me, guys. Thank you for reading.

None of the gifs are mine. Thank you to the content creators!

#jonsa #actually jonsa #jon x sansa #jon x sansa meta #got 8x01 #my got meta

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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG133 /o/

- As far as I can tell, this was the first time that someone had stayed in the room while Jon read a statement? We know that Basira was revealed to have been there all along after Martin had finished MAG095’s statement, but I’m pretty sure that no similar case happened with Jon? Sssso… if something Spooky happens when Jon does his readings, Daisy will probably tell us about it in a few episodes. (Extra eyes? Feeling of being watched increasing to a suffocating level? Jon forgetting to blink? Jon not even reading the pages?) Maybe nothing weird is happening… but maybe there is something, and in which case, we’d learn about it through Daisy.

- Jon got to discuss a statement with someone!! He wanted to do this a few episodes ago!

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights. [SIGHS] I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…?

And it’s with DAISY, of all people!! … Though she had some trouble answering or understanding why he wanted her contributions on the matter and, towards the end, she tended to breathe quite heavily before answering – panicking a bit due to discomfort…?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: I–I understand. Ho–honestly, er, I’d actually appreciate your insights, er, for this one, just… You know, keep quiet during the statement and that. […] What do you make of that, then? DAISY: … Dunno. Why? ARCHIVIST: Oh! Well. You’re, er… You’re a Hunter, right? Well– DAISY: [GROAN] ARCHIVIST: I… just wondered. I’ve been looking for evidence of, er… a Hunt ritual. Er, to see if it was one of the ones Gertrude stopped. And this is the closest thing I’ve been able to find. DAISY: Could have been one. I think.

Joooon, I think you used the wrong tense here: “you WERE” a Hunter would probably have put her in better dispositions. Well! Daisy wasn’t cross at him, she didn’t leave the room, she didn’t threaten, but… quite clearly, the reminder that she’s affiliated with The Hunt wasn’t pleasant. And on the other hand:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: But it didn’t work. … I don’t even know how it was meant to work? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: … But why…? There was no outside interference, no other Powers; even indigenous tribes who could theoretically have derailed it seemed to stay away. So why didn’t it work…? DAISY: I don’t think it was about that. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I understand? […] Hm. You don’t think The Hunt would let its ritual end? [PAUSE] You don’t think it would let them find the… culmination? […] Hum, one of the bits I managed to decode from Gertrude’s notes, it references something she calls the, er, “The Everchase”. You think that might be it – the, the ritual that never ends because The Hunt is all in the pursuit?

Jon’s inquiries, his questions, his soft voice when a bit lost in thoughts, trying to understand the logic hidden behind the statement… felt awfully Beholding from him, even more than usual? I get the frustration of not having been able to discuss things out with people who were experts in fields he wasn’t, and it’s indeed a strategical thing for the Archives team to check which rituals Gertrude had stopped and how, in order to potentially neutralise the ones that could still be running (… Jon still hasn’t mentioned anything about The Watcher’s Crown but. He knows it was coming, Basira confirmed it was still a possibility, it’s still a hanging sword); but the way Jon is pushing to understand and to dissect is also… a demonstration that yeah, he’s truly from The Eye, uh.

- And at the same time, I love that Jon kept trying to make it a discussion even though Daisy had trouble essentialising her experience to help him understand the broad picture (she kept referring to very concrete examples), and Jon sometimes gave the feeling that he was talking to himself more than to her – at the very least, he was… the only one who was invested and interested in that talk. But he did hear what she had to say in answer! He pursued her ideas! He tried to reassure her when she felt she wasn’t contributing!

(MAG133) DAISY: [BREATHING HEAVILY] I–I don’t know. You’re the expert. ARCHIVIST: No, no, I–I like it, it–it’s a good theory!

I’m just? Would season1!Jon have reacted like this, awkwardly insisting that it was Daisy’s own ideas, when it’s technically Jon who managed to reach the conclusion? SWEET BEAN??? He would have it in him to be a good pedagogue??

Daisy wasn’t at ease at all, but I felt that it was probably a good idea from Jon to push her to talk about her past experiences? Yes, it wasn’t something she wanted to think about, clearly, but at the same time… Picking apart how she used to function under The Hunt, identifying what were the parts of her which were maybe influenced, might help her to be more conscious of her choices in her future actions? Jon explicitly told Basira that he was aware of Daisy’s current line of action (“She is trying to keep a clear head. Stay away from The Hunt as much as possible.”); it might… help, to talk about it, even if it’s hard? And she indeed managed to explain why she used to act like she did, the mechanism behind her actions and decisions? … And yes, they all need therapy (as long as it’s not financed by Peter fucking Lukas), and Jon is not a professional, but it’s the closest thing to therapy-talk that a character has ever been given in this series, technically?

(And Jon demonstrated that a bit with Basira afterwards, too, by trying to clear up Basira’s feelings regarding Daisy’s return and why she seemed so… unsatisfied by the whole situation. Not shaming, not diminishing what they were feeling, and trying to expose to Basira how her stance could become a danger for herself?)

- I’m overall so, so, so fond of Jon&Daisy interacting… they had funny bits in season 3 and it’s been two episodes in a row that they’re just… delightful? Yes, Daisy was clearly awkward and uncomfortable, but even then, Jon could throw a joke and Daisy would laugh! And Daisy would reference something that should be a trauma for Jon and yet feels like an inside joke between them nowadays!

(MAG133) DAISY: […] You know what my least favourite part of a case was? ARCHIVIST: Police brutality lawsuit? DAISY: [LAUGH] Arresting them. […] Sometimes I lost purpose because I let myself get too into it. Gave an opening just because I wanted to keep chasing. Like with you. ARCHIVIST: [HUMOURED HUFF]

They’re just fantastic and Jon is such an adorable idiot for laughing at these horrible things he experienced himself but, at the same time, I’m so glad that he is in the mood to laugh about it with her! =D ~You tried to kill me; well, it happened; no offense taken.~ FRIENDSHIP!! Someone getting Jon’s shitty sense of humour!!

- I… do like, although it makes me very sad, how after the worry-then-euphoria of managing to save Daisy, we’re also back to down-to-earth concerns about that return. No, the fact that Daisy is back and alive is not the end of her story; and yes, there are consequences around it. Same as with Melanie, Daisy needs to recover right now, and… it might take time physically, since Basira mentioned muscle atrophy and Daisy admitted that her legs weren’t quite fine at the moment; and it’s something that Jon experienced, too? (MAG050, Tim: “You were at physical therapy.” -> after-effects of the worms.)

On the mental side, it was also made clear that Daisy… didn’t want to be on her own or alone anymore, since she hanged around Jon for that reason:

(MAG133) [CLICK–] DAISY: You sure? ARCHIVIST: No, uh, it’s, hum. It’s fine. DAISY: It’s just… Basira’s busy. […] I, I can do quiet. ARCHIVIST: Right. Er, oh, do you want a chair? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: Oh. Okay. DAISY: I’m trying to get my legs right again. ARCHIVIST: Oh – of course. DAISY: Just ignore me, I… I’ll stand in the corner. […] BASIRA: [FAR, WITH SOME ECHO] Hey, there you are. You’re meant to be doing your exercises. DAISY: … You were out. BASIRA: [IN THE ROOM] You could have done them alone. DAISY: … Sure.

I wonder if it’s only due to The Lonely hitting her hard, or simply… Daisy’s personality. We know that she actually had trouble operating alone:

(MAG082) ELIAS: And then they don’t ask any questions, as long as you keep it far away from official police channels. Except your partner leaving has made you sloppy. No notes, no proper interrogations, no back-up of any sort.

(MAG112) DAISY: Elias is keeping me busy. Hunting. Takes a while. [FALTERS] I’m used to working with a partner. … It’s fine. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: It’s fine. BASIRA: Right. But it’s not, though, is it? DAISY: […] Maybe you could ask Elias if you can join me on a case?

(And once again: how do I HATE that once again, Elias had been spot-on about someone :< He had immediately pointed out that Daisy had been deeply affected by Basira leaving the police – it was still a fresh wound, Basira had quit just one week prior.)

Even putting aside the lack of emotional care from Basira… Daisy’s situation is legally a mess? Officially, she could have died in the explosion; we know that Section 31 were searching for her and would want to make her disappear if given the opportunity (since Elias demonstrated that he had ~ample proof~ of her activities). Daisy can’t really risk being identified publicly anymore. She isn’t even an assistant: she isn’t under Beholding’s “protection” (she still had the dreams with Jon) and… doesn’t have an official status in the Institute, won’t get a salary nor anything? … I don’t even know if Elias “We really don’t have the budget for that” Bouchard was giving her a salary when he had coerced her into working for him. In summary: she had no existence whatsoever and would be best kept hidden. Still recovering and indeed… needing protection, from the exterior world and from The Hunt’s call?

(And I’m extra-worried that if Elias is Watching, then he knows she is back; and although he rarely blackmails… we know that he isn’t above it, ~nor above threat~. Basira could potentially become VERY vulnerable if Elias were to highlight that he could just tip the Section 31’d officers that Daisy is hiding in the Institute… ;;)

- Though, actually, Elias didn’t get a Perfect Score on profiling Daisy, since:

(MAG082) ELIAS: If you’re smart, you’ll go back to the police station and put forward some half-baked cover-up for what happened to your mystery corpse, and leave it at that. But I don’t think you are smart, so in many ways I’m excited to find out what you do next.

(That was still SO AMAZINGLY RUDE, EFF OFF ELIAS W O W.) (Watching over Jon during season 2 must have been a hell of a ride, uh.)

A bit like with Martin, I feel like Elias might have completely underestimated her…? I still wonder if the “idea” he had about a new Defender for the Archives in MAG127 was Daisy (assuming they would manage to get her out) and, in this case, whether he had any idea of the state she would be in. On the one hand, The Eye couldn’t access the coffin (as Breekon mentioned), so he shouldn’t have been able to know; but did he connect the dots and guess that, deprived of The Hunt, Daisy would probably choose to turn her back on it? In the case that it was all a scheme to get Daisy out of the coffin, was he expecting her to indeed be usable as a defender, and will we get to witness a battle of hissing rants between Basira and Elias next time she visits him (pLEASE); or did he have truly have someone/something else in mind, and it’s just that this plan hasn’t come to fruition yet?

(- On a happier note: Daisy wants company, is quietly staying in a corner while Jon read a statement, is told to go do her exercises… Archives!dog is achieved??? And Jon even has a bone (a rib) to throw at her if they want to play.)

- Historical statement! Percy Fawcett and The Lost City of “Z” weren’t part of my general pop culture package, so I learned a few things here and there, and laughed a lot because his statement:

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “Perhaps you’ll have read reports of my disappearance or death, constructing wild theories of violence at the hands of Kalapalos tribesmen, or a lack of adequate supplies or preparation. I can only wish my hubris had been so mundane. […] I awoke back in Dead Horse Camp. Some of the Kalapalos had found me collapsed in the forest and had taken pity on me.”

… sometimes sounded like a direct answer to the Wiki page retracing his life and speculation about his death, with major theories feeling rooted in colonialism. I think it was during the season 3 Q&A that Jonny described very enthusiastically the Mechanical Turk and how spooky the whole thing already was to start with? And in Percy Fawcett’s case, once again: I love how Jonny only needed to add some extra bits to an already very spooky story and how the final statement is almost (LET’S HOPE.) reality-compliant /o/

- Percy’s story highlighted similar patterns in Hunt-related statements: first, obviously, the vampires, but also… the idea that even if Hunter start out by going after bloodsuckers, the line grows thinner and they quickly begin to target “monsters”, predators, humans indiscriminately.

(MAG010, Trevor Herbert) “I have killed five people that I know for sure as vampires, and there are two more that may or may not have been. There is one man I have killed, unfortunately, who I am now sure was human, but I also know he was a violent criminal so I try not to feel too badly about that. […] I always kept my eyes open for them, although sometimes I was too eager, as was the case of Alard Dupont who I killed in 1982 and later discovered was a human.” (MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “There’s a sharpness to them. They’re hunters. But over the years… I’ve become a hunter as well, and maybe predators recognize each other. All I know is, these days, I can almost smell the blood coming off them. That’s not to say I can’t be wrong though. I can be very wrong indeed. […] In retrospect, I should have realised that this didn’t exactly match the vampires I’d met before, who’d never displayed any sort of mind-reading, but I was aching for a kill. […] I will never forget the moment I heard Alard Dupont scream. It was such a piercing sound, and something I’d never expected. In a moment, everything I’d built up in my head over the past couple of days shattered, and I felt a sudden panic at what I’d done. […] And then he was quiet. And everything was horribly still. He just lay there. I’ve never felt anything like the shame and disgust I felt at that moment.” (MAG109) ARCHIVIST: I read your statement, you know, you… you– you don’t kill people. Only monsters. TREVOR: The lines get blurrier every day.

(MAG061) ARCHIVIST: Ah, oh, yes, er, it’s just– Do you know anything about vampires? DAISY: … Yeah. […] I take care of it in a dozen or so precincts. I cuff the suspect’s hands and legs, drive them out into the middle of Epping Forest, and burnt it to ashes. There’s never enough left to be a problem. I don’t know if they’re vampires exactly, but that’s what we call them. ARCHIVIST: Good lord… H–how many have you… taken care of? DAISY: Hm… Five? In the last nine years. (MAG082) ELIAS: “Six years ago, Calvin Benchley became the first human being I murdered. […] He was harder to get rid off than the vampires, but I managed it. And nobody asked any questions at all. He was a scumbag, and nobody wants to risk getting a Section 31. He was the first human I dealt with like that, but he certainly wasn’t the last.” (MAG132) DAISY: […] The, The Hunt was me, b–but I don’t, I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need… it… I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life.

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “[Raleigh Rimmell] simply told me he had inside him a strong and enduring hatred of bloodsuckers. Jack nodded, as though the statement were in some way profound […]. Now [Eduard von Toll] and his crew were pinning the things that looked like men to trees, with long iron spikes. They thrashed, and struggled, and a long bulbous tongue hung from their throats, pinned by the iron of von Toll’s men. “I cannot stand bloodsuckers,” Raleigh said approvingly, as he conversed quietly with Baron von Toll in French. Two of the figures pinned to the trees screamed in pain. They had no tongue, no distended belly filled with stolen blood, but no one seemed to notice – or if they did notice, no one cared. In the joy of The Hunt, they had been seized, and that was that.”

………………………. I’m still so glad that Daisy was able to take a step back and was allowed to look over what had happened during her life (Trevor had mentioned that “there is always an urgency to the hunt that has, for the most part, stopped me from doing much investigation”, in MAG056 – The Hunt doesn’t want you to think about what you’re doing or pursuing, uh.), but I’m also so worried that she’ll fall back into it ;; Though now… she is aware that she has options, that following The Hunt is not her only solution.

- Another new question to the list: did Maxwell Rayner’s interest in John Franklin’s expedition in MAG098 have to do with the fact that polar territories might be Dark-affiliated, given that we know that Ny-Ålesund is a Special Place for them (MAG025: “That far north… during the winter… nights can last for a very long time.” + Basira confirming it in MAG108), or was it because Rayner was trying to meddle with The Hunt? Algernon Moss, the statement-giver from MAG098 (May 14th 1864), had mentioned that Rayner hadn’t been too pleased about failing to get his hands on some documents related to John Franklin, hence Rayner sending The Sandman after him:

(MAG098, Algernon Moss) “His passion appears to be polar expeditions, and it’s rare to attend any social gathering with him where the subject does not eventually come up. In particular he seems to share that peculiarly specific mania regarding the fate of John Franklin and his lost expedition. I would assume he was intending to accompany such a party himself, were it not for the fact of his own blindness. […] I outbid him at an auction. It was nothing of note, so I assumed, though perhaps I should have considered his particular obsession. It was an oilskin packet of documents, supposedly from the log-books of Franklin’s lost ship, the HMS Terror.”

It really sounds like a coincidence and two interests converging (John Franklin got seized by The Hunt, while Rayner was more about the… place that Franklin was searching, ironically, but for Dark-related purposes), but then, it’s The Magnus Archives and coincidences are so very rare :|

- The fact introduced by MAG133 that Hunters could encompass explorers and people pursuing a place felt wonderfully logical, and even more with the idea that The Hunt wouldn’t want a culmination since it’s all about the chase… because there is something to be said about expectations grounded in fantasies, imagination and projection rather than tangible things? The more progress Percy’s expedition made, the more engrossed Jack sounded in an ideal that could never be fulfilled by reality and… indeed, it helped to conceptualize a bit more what The Hunt was about (and what it wasn’t about), as Daisy explained afterwards:

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “The ancient ruins, the statues and hieroglyphics, the sheer unrivalled beauty of it all. […] The world was changing with every day we marched forward, feverishly hunting for a destination I was no longer sure of. Raleigh hadn’t mentioned the city of “Z” for days, and Franklin at no point indicated any destination other than the Northwest Passage […]. And so the expedition began again, with no sign of progress or clear destination, only the pure focus and wild excitement to find… “it”. Whatever “it” was, wherever “it” might be, they would not stop, would never stop until “it” was found and taken. […] The most painful part was Jack, who would spend hours walking beside me, telling me of all the wonders we would see, all the delights we would be part of when we’d finally found “it” – or caught it, or killed it. Whatever it might have been. […] DAISY: I don’t think it was about that. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I understand? DAISY: Just a feeling. When I was– … You know what my least favourite part of a case was? […] Arresting them. I hated the handcuffs. The, the click. It meant the chase was done, the Hunt was over. Satisfying on a good day, sure, but… boorish. I never really wanted it to be over. ARCHIVIST: Hm. You don’t think The Hunt would let its ritual end? [PAUSE] You don’t think it would let them find the… culmination? DAISY: [BREATHLESS] I don’t know. … Maybe…? Sometimes I lost purpose because I let myself get too into it. Gave an opening just because I wanted to keep chasing. Like with you.

I wonder what prevented Percy from being seized by The Hunt, though? Was it his concerns/love for his son, acting as an anchor? In his case as with Lucia Wright, they both hid the fact that they weren’t actually willing participants of… whatever was happening around them, and made the conscious choice of deceiving the people surrounding them in the hope of making it out (MAG130: “I made the decision that… whatever was happening, my best chance to make it out was just to keep doing as I was asked.” / MAG133: “I sometimes thought I might burst out laughing, though I knew that would quickly change to sobbing and I would be exposed. I had felt my safest option was to feign that same obsession that gripped Raleigh, that had taken my son.”). Both Lucia and Percy shared some common interests with the other spook-fuelled people doing their ritual (the sense of religion, the obsession with finding the Lost City) but they managed to stay conscious and to not feel like they were part of the Grander Things happening, though they were direct actors: I wonder if there is something behind this? If they had something in them (anchoring thoughts maybe?) that prevented them from getting pulled into it? Or is it simply, once again, “the bias of survivorship” and… technically, a lot more people happened to be unwilling spectators and faked it so well that the statements we got failed to recognize that the others were in the same situation as them? Or is this a hidden commentary on passiveness leading to reluctant condoning and participating in witnessed wrongdoings, crime and injustice, instead of fighting them? I don’t know! (In Lucia and Percy’s cases, though: they were indeed at risk of getting killed; thrown into the meat pit or staked through.)

- On the 2nd of September 2007, Gertrude had mentioned that there were suspicions of The Hunt’s ritual taking place in North America. That might have been why Jon paid attention to this one, to clear up the question of Gertrude had gotten involved against it or not?

(MAG099) GERTRUDE: These additional researches have further cemented my belief that North America is going to be the focal point for the Buried. Now it’s just a matter of narrowing down the specifics of geography, and that may just come down to monitoring the right movement of supplies and people. I’m still not completely sold on the US for the Hunt, but that’s unlikely to be quite as urgent.

There was the infamous Hunter-creature from Lawrence Mortimer’s statement, prompting Jon to explicitly deny any interest in the matter (MAG031: “‘Wolfmen in America’ is too far-fetched and too far away for me to care about.” I doubt that comment was part of his Sceptic Act.); the events described happened in late November-early December 2010. We also know that Julia and Trevor (well. Mostly Trevor.) decided to go to America in the pursuit of a wolfman and had been stuck there for two years when they gave their statement in June 2017, so they arrived there around 2015. Both were posterior to Gertrude’s comment so… she got her suspicions from other sources or stories. It sounds like a lot of Hunters end up in America, indeed, though they might have “officially” disappeared from other places? Or was Percy’s jungle… a non-space at all, not more in the Amazon than in any other place?

- With the mention of Eduard von Toll’s expedition, which had disappeared in the pursuit of Zemlya Sannikova, at the beginning of the XXth century, I thought at first that… The Spiral had managed to derail The Hunt’s ritual by hiding the location point and/or by messing up with the explorers’ mind to ensure that they wouldn’t find their final destination? Since both Eduard von Toll and John Franklin were from a different timeframe as Percy, and Percy himself started losing track of time of space despite his attempts at putting some bits on paper (“This is where things started to turn, and my memory begins to fragment. I kept a journal, but the entries were… sporadic, and shaky, the dates no longer make sense: at some point I realized that there were no animals around us anymore, that the Amazon had become… strangely quiet. But I don’t know whether this was before or after I found the pile of dead birds in Raleigh’s tent. It must have been before; but my journal is not clear on the matter.”).

It’s really not a Spiral-only thing, though, indeed; we have had cases of… multiple entities twisting statement-givers’ sense of reality – or at least, examples in which what the person experienced didn’t seem to match the world as they knew it and as it should have been objectively. The Mysterious Tree at Hill Top Road had been uprooted by Ivo Lensik in November 2006 (MAG008), but Anya Villette reported seeing it in April 2009 (MAG114) while cleaning up the new house built on the property (+ Raymond Fielding, although officially dead by 1974, had been seen by Ivo in 2006, together with the glimpse of pigtails in the house, which matched young Agnes’s description + Anya found a basement in the new house, although there wasn’t supposed to be any, and it had cobwebs, like Raymond’s old house + Anya gave her statement on April 22nd despite asserting that she had cleaned the house on the 23rd and that it had been two weeks after the events). The Spiral attempted its ritual in Sannikov Land, which doesn’t exist, and Gertrude and Michael found it and temporarily walked on it despite that. Andrea Nunis got gradually “lost” in Genoa before she managed to come back to the normal town (MAG048). Vincent Yang’s watch “no longer matched the lock in the break room” after he was freed from the wooden crate, and he remembered spending four days inside of it by tracking time and light, despite coming out from it the day after he had gone to bed normally (MAG066). Craig Goodall got three fingers cut, and he saw them severed from him, but he came out of the experience with his hand whole (MAG072). I wonder if these cases are a fore-taste of what the world would feel like if one Fear managed to pull its ritual through, bending reality enough?

- There is something bittersweet but also comforting in the fact that Jon finally agreed to accept that they’re all changing? Comforting because he sounds less tortured about it and gives the impression that he has learned and has been listening to others, from being told the message to repeating it himself:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: […] I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…? […] I want to say I’m the same. But I don’t… really know if that’s true. I know I’m different. I feel… more real, somehow.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] Everything’s changed. … [SIGH] Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.

(MAG131) HELEN: Not this again. I’m not “wearing” anything, Archivist. I am at least as much “Helen Richardson” as you are the “Jonathan Sims” that first joined this institute. Things change. People change. It happens. ARCHIVIST: … We’re not “people”, though, are we? Not anymore. HELEN: Names, categories… it’s all so important to you, isn’t it? You do know none of it is actually real. It’s all just… meaningless boxes.

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Daisy… you should know I’m… If I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh… I’m even less now.

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES] She is trying to keep a clear head. Stay away from The Hunt as much as possible. You valued her purpose. Her resolve. The sort of things– BASIRA: I get it. It’s her. ARCHIVIST: … We’ve all changed, Basira. BASIRA: Yeah, I just… I didn’t realize she’d change into someone who… can’t look after herself.

It could be worrisome (if you just accept that people “change” and that’s it, then what about them becoming worse, terrible, actively hurtful to others and fine with it?) but I don’t think that Jon meant it that way? More like… people change, and you can decide to stay by their side, because you feel that they’re still the person you liked or because they still bring you something, or you can leave it and go your own way and there is no point in dwelling on how they’re not the person you thought they were or liked to have by your side – and all of this is also valid for your own stance about yourself? The thing with Basira sounds like she’s been projecting her expectations of Daisy onto the Daisy who came back, and they were mostly revolving around Daisy’s potential “usefulness”. But the question should be more: does Basira like the Daisy who came back for herself, is she still the person Basira valued?

And indeed, they all have changed? Melanie has been reconsidering her anger and how it has fuelled her, but also harmed her. Helen became The Distortion. Jon “made his choice” and became The Archivist (whatever that… encompasses: we know about the added powers, we don’t yet know the downside of it except for going higher in Spook territory). Basira, who was so prone to calling people out, to gathering and sharing information, to gossiping and to devising plans with others, became the protector with the side-consequences we know. Daisy decided to become “better” and wants to stop being a Hunter. Martin has made a decision and is sticking to it (for now), going into self-sacrifice territory.

……………… I’m not sure that Martin will accept that people from Team Archive have “changed”, though, although he himself has. Because according to Tim:

(MAG086) MELANIE: […] I… I just feel like you two don’t want me here. TIM: We don’t. Martin’s not big on change. I don’t want anyone to be here.

So I’m really not sure that Martin will take well the fact that… The Distortion is now an ally, or that Daisy is back and will stick around and is someone that they need to protect a bit, or that… Jon woke up and got deeper into Beholding, got more powers, and is more ready than ever to take risks and injure himself if it means saving the people he cares about. (Well, it isn’t that different from before; just with added communication about it.)

- Despite what Jon told Daisy about his Insights:

(MAG133) DAISY: [BREATHING HEAVILY] Basira said you could just… “know” all this now anyway. ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… I–I can’t really… control it.

… if feels like he’s been better in that regard, lately? He hasn’t mentioned Martin for a few episodes (since he came to talk to him again in MAG129) and, officially, he has managed to stay out of Basira’s activities:

(MAG133) BASIRA: I told you not to look in my head. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. This one is just me.

Though I’m a bit suspicious about the fact that Jon used the word “defender” specifically, since:

(MAG133) ARCHVIST: You were hoping for a defender.

(MAG127) ELIAS: I believe you’ve recently lost Melanie. BASIRA: … We saved Melanie. ELIAS: As a person, yes, but as a defender… […] it would seem you’re in rather dire need of another option.

… Elias had been the one to use the term before. Not “(body)guard”, not “protector”, not “shield” or anything: defender. So either Basira had specifically worded it that way to Jon at least at some point, either Jon might not be exhaustively honest about what he knows (… either Elias is slipping into his mind, and that would be another source of dread), but I don’t feel like it was a coincidence.

- AOUCH did the Basira+Daisy heartbreak hurt, right away, as soon as Daisy mentioned that Basira currently wasn’t there, and… even more when Basira found Daisy, only to make her understand she wanted to talk to Jon alone (thus sending Daisy to do her exercises… alone, when she had precisely come to Jon for company). I feel like there might have been something of an echo, between the impossibility for Percy Fawcett and the other explorers to find a destination that could ever be as high as their expectations and the thrill of the chase, and Basira’s… own expectations regarding Daisy’s return? The atmosphere just grew colder when Basira came in, so much that even JON, OF ALL PEOPLE, picked up on it:

(MAG133) BASIRA: [IN THE ROOM] You could have done them alone. DAISY: … Sure. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Everything alright? BASIRA: Yeah… Daisy, could you… give us a minute? DAISY: Oh. Should I… BASIRA: Yeah, please. DAISY: … Sure. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: A–are you–

If Jon is able to tell that there is Drama Between Two Women, you know that the situation is very serious.

I’m trying to joke about it but: I’m heartbroken, it hurts, it hurts to see Daisy… clearly subdued and saddened that her current relationship with Basira is the way it is? They barely exchanged a few words and yet, you could definitely understand that Daisy is perfectly aware that Basira is not looking at her with joy or reassurance. I wonder if Daisy will try to endure it or will quickly reassert herself? Second option would probably be best but… given that Daisy is now aware and upset that she has done wrong things in the past, I fear that she could try to perceive Basira’s coldness as… something she deserved, or at least can’t complain about. As a form of retribution.

;; And I’m so glad that Jon took her defence and highlighted that Daisy had suffered hell, because she did, too? And aouch aouch at the obvious parallel between… the way Jon was expecting Martin when he woke up, and the way that Daisy was clearly expecting more warmth from Basira too.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine… Fine. Haven’t seen Martin about yet? BASIRA: Yeah, he comes and goes. He’s busy. Well, he seems it. ARCHIVIST: Working for Peter Lukas.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Wh–where have you been, I–I mean, I–I–I thought– MARTIN: N–no, no, I’ve… I’ve been here, I just, er… Y’know. Been busy. ARCHIVIST: Busy. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: … Right. Working for Lukas.

(MAG133) DAISY: It’s just… Basira’s busy. ARCHIVIST: I–I understand.

Basira and Martin are both “busy” and… working for/with terrible people on the side (well, it’s still not totally clear if Basira has indeed been following Elias’s leads, but that’s the logical assumption right now.)

As usual in this series: I just love (even when it breaks my heart) how you quickly understand where the characters stand and why they’re acting the way they are, and how they could feel like the whole situation is unfair to them. Daisy got stuck in the coffin for eight months, unable to die and with no hope of getting out (“… I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira…”) before Jon managed to find her; she’s physically and psychologically affected; she has to remain careful and to try not to fall back into The Hunt, despite the fact that her “last connection to humanity” (MA092) would have rather liked to get a Hunter back; and Daisy confessed to Jon that she wanted “to be better”… but has yet to find a way to achieve this except by being the most passive and neutral she can. On the other hand, Basira spent six months keeping the Archives afloat while Jon was in a coma, barely managing to convince herself that Daisy was dead (MAG122: “They still haven’t found her body. Probably never will. I thought for a while she might’ve… but. It’s been months. She’s gone.”); she witnessed Martin’s fall, she more or less contained Melanie; she suffered Jared’s attack; and she kept doing her work alone, to the extent of listening to Elias, without getting stellar results (at least officially). Nobody had a great time and nobody was there for anyone else – although Jon is pushing more and more in that direction nowadays.

- ;; It’s especially sad, regarding Basira, considering that… Trevor had described The Hunt as an addiction, something you couldn’t easily escape, something that would always pull you back to it:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “In the early 80s, I was deep in the grip of my twin addictions. As I mentioned, after a while, the hunt became an addiction of its own. Of the two, I’ve always found heroin the easier one to quit. […] But the hunt… the hunt is a purpose. It’s not just a way to get through the day, it’s a reason for there to be a day at all. […] Ah, it’s a shame I’m on the way out. I will miss the hunt.”

And it should be a good thing that Daisy has decided to call it quits, to try to free herself from it! And she would need support for this! And it’s something that Jon heard and kept in mind, although he’s awkward about it (making her talk and telling her she is a Hunter when she would like to keep it in the past)! But the way Basira reacts, I can’t help but fear that Daisy is at risk of falling back into The Hunt and losing herself, out of a desire to be useful and valuable to Basira once again… I wonder if this is why Jon quickly took the reins of the discussion with Basira and insisted on Daisy’s situation and on the way Basira was coming close to extreme (and harmful or self-destructive) past examples, namely Gertrude and Tim? Because he fears that Daisy, too, could take a wrong turn in that context?

At the same time, given how… Daisy had accepted her Fate when she awoke in the coffin (MAG132: “Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it…”), and how she accepted to leave when Basira told her to, although clearly distraught… Daisy is beginning to skyrocket in my list of people who could die soon (YES, ALTHOUGH WE JUST GOT HER BACK): by sacrificing herself to protect people – not even Basira specifically – while stopping another ritual, or another threat, out of her own free will. She’s lacking a drive right now, and that could really well serve as a new goal to… make up for her previous hurtful actions, in her mind. I don’t want anyone in Team Archive to die (I’M STILL MOURNING SASHA AND TIM, ALRIGHT???), but that could feel narratively satisfying? ;;

- Random screaming because:

1°) Basira, if your “good intelligence” was what Elias told you in MAG127: put that in the trash where it belongs, p l e a s e, you’re better than this ;; 2°) … I can’t even tell “who that reminds me of”, Jon. Are you talking about yourself and how you handled things until the second half of second 3 (and with the coffin recently)? Are you talking about Tim stalking the circus? Are you talking about Martin’s current Mysterious Activities? I have no idea. There are too many options about that one.

- … Shockingly, it’s also, technically, the most… actual “boss” that Jon has felt since the beginning of the series? Making sure that people under his authority wouldn’t make each other miserable?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: And give Daisy a break. She was there eight months. [EXHALES] I was only in there for three days, and I– BASIRA: Yeah, I know. I just… ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Nothing. I’ve got work to do.

(AND GUUUUH… I FEEL LIKE EVEN THOUGH BASIRA MANAGED TO KEEP HER MASK ON ALL THROUGH THE EXCHANGE, she… began to slip with that “I just…”: suddenly, there was something underneath, with that aposiopesis, something Basira is not telling, refusing to tell, feeling like she can’t allow herself to tell. I wonder why: if it’s because she doesn’t want to be heard by Jon, by Beholding/Elias, or if she simply doesn’t want to exteriorise a few feelings because then, she would have to act on them when she… feels like there should be other priorities.

I wonder if Basira is not driven, overall, by a fear of… feeling powerless? She quit the police after witnessing something she deemed unfair, in a situation she wasn’t able to do anything against (MAG075: “They’re covering it up. Altman’s death. Saying he was dirty. That he got stabbed in a botched drug deal. […] I mean, I didn’t know Leo well, but… it’s not right. And they seemed happy enough to get me out the door.”), and Elias had recently played on her sense of vulnerability (MAG127: “I would have thought you would want all the help you could get, or… have you forgotten what happened last time you lay your guard down? […] Then again: you are beset by enemies on all sides, Basira.”).

At the very least: it hurts, Basira hurts, the fact that Daisy is hurt by Basira hurts… but Basira clearly isn’t an emotionless robot. She cares (“No, she still sounds like her. Says things Daisy would say, laughs like her. […] I would never abandon Daisy and, having her back is… [SIGH]”). And despite the similitudes with Gertrude (YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE COMPARED TO HER, Jan and Michael and the people in Alexandria say hi), I’m really not sure that she would be ready to sacrifice people other than herself if necessary? She has been trying things out alone, it hasn’t succeeded (at least officially: she came back from her three weeks-trip without anything to show for it), I could easily picture that her frustration would make her even more adamant about going solo… but Jon might have struck a chord with this episode. We’ll see ;;

- Looks like the episode definitely confirmed, although implicitly, that Jon had listened to the assistants’ testaments from MAG117, since:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: […] You valued her purpose. Her resolve. The sort of things– BASIRA: I get it. It’s her.

=> sounded like a nod to Basira’s perception of Daisy:

(MAG117) BASIRA: […] But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. We go in, we plant bombs, we leave, we blow it all to hell. Or we die. I don’t think I’ll ever have clarity like that.

And the comparison to Tim:

(MAG133) BASIRA: […] But right now, she’s dead weight. And I need to be able to travel light. ARCHIVIST: … You’re starting to sound like Gertrude. BASIRA: Good. As far as I can see, Gertrude Robinson was the most effective person in this place. ARCHIVIST: … That’s what Tim said as well.

=> sounded like a direct reference to:

(MAG117) TIM: […] From what I can tell, there’s only one person who’s ever managed to hurt them, to reaaally hurt them. And that’s Gertrude Robinson. She was cold, ruthless, and she hit them when they were vulnerable, and she sacrificed a lot of people to do it. Honestly? I hope that Jon learned something from her, because… because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it, well, he better have the guts to do it.

(And the nod about Gertrude was from Gerard’s description in MAG111: “She travelled light. Left things behind.”)

I… am glad that Jon quickly saw the pattern repeating and called Basira out on it? Bad experiences from the past are not forgotten, and could help to… avoid another disaster? And yes, maybe something even worse will strike, but at least, it’s giving me the feeling that… Tim’s spiralling downfall wasn’t exactly for nothing, if it can serve as a counter-example and a demonstration of how things could go wrong?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: […] Look, I’ve… been where you are. BASIRA: Have you? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I have. Like you’re the only one responsible for everyone, the weight of all their lives on your shoulders: it leads to bad decisions. BASIRA: Yeah, well. When I get myself kidnapped three times in a row, maybe I’ll look to you for advice. ARCHIVIST: Bad decisions, like wasting three weeks chasing dead ends and false leads, rather than talking to us about the plan. BASIRA: I told you not to look in my head. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. This one is just me. You’ve not mentioned anything about where you were, avoided talking about what you might have learned, and that file that you were studying clippings from? Empty.

(Jon said “us”!! There is still a “us”, it’s not only about him!! ;_;) (Also, COLD, BASIRA, COLD.)

Jon told Basira she was reminding him of Gertrude and Tim, while Jon himself has been studying and following Gertrude’s notes and actions. I feel like there was really something about Jon… learning from the past: from what objectively happened, but also from the mistakes and the tragedies he witnessed or committed – being now ready to weaponise them? He honestly was… very very good, when talking with Basira: pausing and summarising Basira’s own feelings, and Daisy’s, and… pointing out that there were actually other options when Basira acted as if there were none?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: You were hoping for a defender. BASIRA: I was hoping for someone I can trust to share the load. Because right now, it’s all on me. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES, SLOW] It doesn’t have to be. BASIRA: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’re not happy she is back.

Calling for teamwork and joined contributions! Jon really upgraded himself this season, overall? He gained in patience, he seems to understand that his words have effects and that situations can get out of control if he says the wrong thing; he’s able to apologise, to step back, but also to be a tiny bit provocative and to dig where it could hurt but… not to destroy people, but to point out the threat and risks in their train of thoughts? He told Martin that he was worried about him working with Peter; he told Basira that she was becoming closer to Gertrude, which is something that we could feel and fear previously, and pointed out that her methods weren’t working so far, putting her… on the defensive. He adapted to her reasoning, and yes, it feels sad that he didn’t manage to get her to trust him, and that he seems to exclude the idea that she could, but I do like that he’s not giving up on the possibility of them collaborating.

(MAG133) BASIRA: Maybe I found something and I’m not sharing. ARCHIVIST: You didn’t, though, did you? BASIRA: I had good intelligence. ARCHIVIST: Which you charged off to investigate without telling anyone. You know who that reminds me of? BASIRA: Drop it. ARCHIVIST: … Fine. I don’t care if you trust me, but I think I’ve proven at the very least that I’m useful. So use me. Because if you go it alone, you are going to die. Even Gertrude worked with people. We make bad decisions when we don’t communicate… BASIRA: [HUFF] You literally just jumped into a spooky coffin without telling anybody! ARCHIVIST: … Case in point. BASIRA: [EXHALES] Okay.

He managed to get a few points across? They can still be on the same wavelength even if Basira chooses to not trust him? It feels like a lot of what Jon tries to offer is with the intent of… keeping people alive, whatever their relationships might be. And compared to the beginning of season 3, it’s not by pushing people away; it’s through a mix of allowing people to follow their own path, preventing them from repeating his own mistakes, and insisting that they factor him in and what he can offer, on their own terms. Jon has been very good at communication? And he’s giving me… hope that things could get a bit better, since he’s gradually managing to get on better ground with people around him, and saving them in some ways – Melanie’s bullet was removed, although she isn’t fine at the moment; he told Martin that he missed him and was worried for him (and Martin hasn’t stopped, sure: but at the same time, words of concern and care might help, on the long run, to repel The Lonely’s influence a bit?); he managed to get out of the coffin with Daisy; he got a few points across with Basira. It’s not ideal, but it feels hopeful, in a way, because characters are aware of the past mistakes and are ready to fight to prevent a repeat. Though I don’t know if it’s meant to lead to something (Jon is managing stuff! Jon is a bit more in control and aware of what is happening around him! There could be a non-heartbreaking ending to this situation!), or is currently giving us a false sense of security before something strikes and makes Jon realizes that, no, the situation has always been out of his control because there are other people with more experience and knowledge on the chessboard.

- What a treat, lately, that we’re getting answers fast about Jon’s new injuries or traumatic experiences! Same as with Melanie stabbing him (happening at the end of MAG125, location explained during MAG127), I wasn’t expecting to learn so quickly how long Jon had stayed inside of the coffin:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: And give Daisy a break. She was there eight months. [EXHALES] I was only in there for three days, and I–

(I always remember how it had taken us from MAG047 to MAG053 to get the confirmation that Michael had indeed cut Jon quite deeply since it required ~five stitches~. It’s like Jonny has understood our Priorities and chosen to indulge us a bit.) Also, always a good time to remember Peter’s words:

(MAG126) MARTIN: … When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission. PETER: Martin… when it’s over, you won’t want to. MARTIN: … Mm. PETER: But he will be safe. They all will.

Jon: *gets visited by an agent of The End in his hospital room, stabbed in the shoulder in the tunnels by a Slaughter-affected person, aggressively visited in his office by the remaining half of a Stranger monster, followed and led around (and likely manipulated) by Spiders, enters The Distortion’s door again, gets two ribs taken out from him by a Flesh avatar, spends three days stuck in The Buried’s coffin* Peter “if ‘Elias is very protective of his people’ then lol what does it say about me regarding employees who are not even My People” Lukas: This is fine Martin. When you put this into perspective, Jon is going to be daijobou :)

- Daisy went to Jon because she didn’t want to stay on her own; Basira keeps investigating secret things without opening up to anyone about them; Jon felt “alone” and “lonely” when he went back to the Institute… y e a h, sounds more and more likely that The Lonely is messing with them a bit. … Are Melanie and Helen more-or-less safe because they seem to be mostly staying in the tunnels?

- I still wonder what the deal was with the tape recorders at the end of MAG132: it doesn’t sound like Basira did something? Was it only in Jon’s office, or did it happen over the entire Institute? Do Peter and Martin know about it?

- Jon’s main line of study seems to still follow Gertrude’s notes and to investigate how she stopped rituals. He hadn’t sounded especially enthralled at the prospect of learning more about it when he remembered the notebook, when he got a little more information about the preparation leading to The Spiral’s ritual? And then, it was a mix of spooky Beholding powers giving him Knowledge about The Buried’s, and The Web sending him a tape from Gertrude gift-wrapped in cobwebs about The Flesh’s, so not… exactly Jon’s conscious and explicit decision:

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: […] … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook; we found it alongside the plastic explosives […]. It… it’s borderline incomprehensible, not because of any code or cypher – there’s every chance I could read those; just simply because… most of it is… numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but… well, not to me. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hope something from it would just… come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement, which is… useful background, and perhaps gives some insight into how Gertrude formulated her counter-rituals, but… not much more.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: Even as I say it, I can feel the knowledge, pushing in my mind. Eager to find a way in. But I don’t want it. I don’t want to know. … I don’t want to see. … No more than I wanted to see how Gertrude stopped The Buried and their ritual, but that came to me as well.

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me […]. At least we know for sure that these “grand rituals” can be disrupted by conventional means, though a more… nuanced approach will be needed for some of them, I’m sure. Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time. […] ARCHIVIST: Even so, and… leaving aside the matter of Gertrude’s actions for a moment… what is it trying to tell me with this? Is it about… rituals? About getting Daisy back? About… about an anchor.

However, in MAG133, it was absolutely explicit that Jon was indeed conducting his own investigation about The Hunt’s ritual attempt:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: I… just wondered. I’ve been looking for evidence of, er… a Hunt ritual. Er, to see if it was one of the ones Gertrude stopped. And this is the closest thing I’ve been able to find.

So he’s indeed investigating the counter-rituals right now, whether it’s the only thing he feels like he can do at the moment (since Martin is out or reach and Daisy is recovering and Basira is not ready to rely on him yet) or he just downplayed his interest before. Jon used to work with middle to long-term goals: re-ordering the Archives (and learning a bit more about Jane Prentiss’s intentions) in season 1; discovering who killed Gertrude, why, and what Gertrude’s activities exactly entailed in season 2; finding out what he was becoming and how to stop The Unknowing in season 3. Currently, there is still no mention of whatever Jon’s plans or intentions are: it seems safe to assume that it involves ensuring that no other ritual succeeds, including The Eye’s, but Jon… technically still hasn’t said anything. He seems almost content just learning more about them, right now, which, oops, looks like a very Beholding behaviour ;;

(At the same time, yeah, uh, it’s prrrrrobably safer to not mention anything about planning to wreck any chance of Beholding’s ritual attempt in Beholding’s own temple? Better to stay absolutely neutral on the subject, like Basira did in MAG123 when she explained to Jon that Beholding was one of the few that hadn’t had a chance at its ritual yet during this round.)

So, amongst the ones that Gertrude was confirmed to have stopped or studied a bit, we now have:

* The Buried: “The Sunken Sky”, 17th June 2008, in Bucoda, Washington (USA). Stopped by Gertrude by throwing pieces of Jan Kilbride’s Vast-touched body into the pit (MAG097, MAG129).

* The Flesh: “The Last Feast”, October 2009, under an old Gnostic temple near Istanbul (Turkey). Stopped by Gertrude and Adelard Dekker thanks to a bunch of explosives (MAG130).

* The Spiral: “The Great Twisting”, somewhere between October 2009 and 2015, in Sannikov Land, which does not exist (somewhere in the Arctic). Stopped by Gertrude by sending Michael Shelley with a map inside of The Distortion, to fuse with it (MAG101, MAG126).

* The Hunt: “The Everchase”, ongoing for at least the past two centuries, aggregating Hunters in America. No culmination (MAG133).

* The Stranger: “The Unknowing”, 7th August 2017, at the House of Wax in Great Yarmouth (UK). Preparations to stop it begun by Gertrude with Adelard’s help; effectively stopped by Basira, Daisy, Tim and Jon thanks to plastic explosive (MAG118, MAG119). Previous attempt was in October 1787, at the Court Theatre of Buda, Hungary, and was stopped by an agent of The Slaughter (MAG116).

Status absolutely unknown at the moment, as far as I can tell (bearing in mind that according to Gerry, some might not have a ritual at all):

* The Lonely (though Peter Lukas transported Gertrude and Michael Shelley to stop The Spiral, so Gertrude probably didn’t meddle with the Lukases, at least before that, or not too obviously?)

* The Web (but somethingsomething what the heck happened at Hill Top Road, what happened on November 23rd 2006 with Agnes’s death and the Tree and Ivo Lensik, what happened to That Table for it to go here and there)

* The Slaughter (but Gertrude went to the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing to read a statement about this one, in 2004)

* The Vast * The End

Some that Gertrude referenced, or was cautious about, or was preparing to stop, or might have stopped already:

* The Desolation: apparently stopped not so long before October 2014 (MAG087, Gertrude: “It interests me that Jude Perry would be involved. I was unaware that The Lightless Flame had had any contact with the Stranger’s ilk, but I suppose it makes sense that it would be a possible ally to the Devastation, especially since their own plans have so recently, erm, gone up in flames.”), and the fact that Jude really had no love lost for Gertrude in MAG089 also implied that Gertrude might have indeed actively messed with them. Their ritual attempt might have had to do with the site with the bottles containing Gertrude’s pictures in Scotland, near Loch Glass (MAG037)?

* The Corruption: Gertrude’s laptop revealed that she had bought pesticide (MAG066: “There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable, in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.”) and there might have been something attempted during the Prentiss siege against the Magnus Institute on 29th July, 2016, due to some worms forming a “ring” in the tunnels (MAG041: “Then I found the circle of worms. […] a few were still embedded in the wall providing the clear outline of a circle. The ceiling was higher here, and all told it must have been about… ten feet in diameter. Its size was not the most disconcerting thing though. Inside the circle, the stone was… wrong somehow.”)

* The Dark: Gertrude’s laptop revealed that she had bought many, many torches (MAG066: “The torches would make sense, if it wasn’t for the quantities in which she ordered them.”), which gave Jon the idea of telling Basira to take a lot along when the police went after Maxwell Rayner (MAG072: “Bring torches. […] As many as you can get your hands on.”). Unclear as of now if the People’s Church of the Divine Host attempted their ritual in Hither Green Chapel on May 15th, 2015, the night Gertrude officially died (MAG025) and roughly when a full solar eclipse was happening in Ny-Ålesund (MAG108), or on February 10th, 2017 in the industrial complex up in Harringay, with the kidnapping of Callum Brodie (MAG072, MAG073); Jon thought that someone had tipped the police about that last operation – we still don’t know who (Adelard? Elias?). Jon spotted people sporting the symbol of the cult recently (MAG125: “I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host”).

* The Eye: “The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown”. According to Gerry Keay, it was the next one on Gertrude’s list together with “The Unknowing”, and she had already devised a plan to stop it (MAG111: “She didn’t tell me much about that one, just that she knew how to take care of it”), which might have involved reducing the Archives to ashes (MAG080: “I assume [Elias] discovered we were planning to destroy the Archives.”, “Planning a little light arson, are we Jurgen?” / MAG092: “So. For the avoidance of any doubt. I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives.”).

I would say that we’re more likely to learn about The Desolation or The Corruption next? We previously got some info about their activities and we haven’t heard a statement involving them yet in season 4. Aaand those two had a connection through Arthur Nolan, member of the cult of the Lightless Flame, who was Jane Prentiss’s landlord and knew that The Hive was in his property and had “mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far” (MAG055) when Jordan Kennedy had taken care of it, before putting himself on fire…

The Dark might get cleared up (ha.) when we’ll meet one of its avatars, since we’ve never heard one live yet and we know that some people from the cult are lurking around. … Plus, Jon is missing an Experience (and a scar) from The Dark, as of now. So they might attack soon-ish, I guess ;;

(And/or maybe Jon will get another perspective from Daisy about the Callum Brodie case? Basira stated, when recounting the operation in MAG073, that Daisy had been amongst the sectioned officers sent after Maxwell Rayner.)

Titles of the week are out, I DO NOT LIKE MAG134’s godsdamnit!!! No idea about what it could be about except from regular “Mmm maybe uncovering one of the Mysteries: Adelard’s researches? Peter’s agenda? Jon’s intentions? Elias’s plans? Basira’s investigations? What the heck happened at Hill Top Road? What was the deal with Agnes? Did Gertrude really destroy Eric Delano’s page and is he indeed Gerry’s dad?”, but I can’t help but get reminded of Peter’s “Must be the End Time!” from MAG108, or feel like it could maybe be about… The Dark? For the irony of it? Don’t know, I was totally off the mark for MAG133, but once again: I’m WORRIED :|

#where are you the admiral; you have another target to comfort #long post/#mag133 #tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4 #tma spoilers/

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cousinslavellan-archive · 7 years ago

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Rose and Rainer Pt 5

Naermi has antihistamines, but also uses Rose as a test subject for another med before requesting help with something - something that’s going to require Rainer’s help, as well.

Rose is certain she’s pissed off a God at this point, because how else does she keep getting into these situations?

Eventual turian oc x human oc. Shenanigans! More build up here guys :D Exciting things to come! Enjoy! ♥

Rose

As a general rule, Rose steers clear of her teammates’ lab - both out of respect for their work, and because she’d really rather not see their dissections up close, thanks.

So now that she’s there - sitting on the end of one of the work-benches at Naermi’s request, the only clear space in the damn lab - she takes a look around, wary but curious.

The salarian is mumbling to herself as she gets the antihistamine shot ready, apparently oblivious to Rose for the moment, so the brunette hums and squints at things, trying to identify them.

There’s a live Kaerkyn in a tank towards the back of the lab, along with a live Drall from Havarl in the tank beside it - the only way to study them, since they explode on death - and an empty tank to the right of that, which makes her pause for a moment.

The rest of the lab is either dissected specimens - the corpse of a Shemrys lays momentarily forgotten on the workbench opposite her, dropped when she’d come to ask for medicine - or remains kept for studying, such as the spines from a Challyrion, and plates from the Galorn they’d stumbled on hours before leaving Havarl.

And notes scrawled everywhere, as is Naermi’s way. Rose muses with a grin - then jumps with a curse at a sudden prick of pain in her arm “Ow, Naermi, warn me, fuck!”

“Assumed you heard me approach, my apologies.” the salarian blinks once, withdrawing the empty syringe and returning to her workstation, “Don’t move, need to let it take effect - you’re lucky your reaction was so mild, Rose. Could have been much, much worse.”

“I know, trust me - I haven’t had allergy testing in years, so it’s my own fault.” Rose sighs, quirking a grin, “Just didn’t expect to share a canteen with a turian, I guess.”

“Hmm.” Naermi’s silent for a moment, fidgeting with something, and Rose mentally prepares herself for the imminent teasing when she says “Small amount of dextro proteins, small reaction: makes logical sense. Simple mistake, not to worry.”

She slumps in relief, “Thanks, Naermi.”

“You know Malee won’t buy it, though. She’s already convinced you’re ‘sneaking around’ with the turian.” Naermi glances at her for a moment, blinking, then going back to her work, “Just a heads up.”

Rose groans, putting her face in her hands, “Why am I not surprised? He’s literally just come along to bother me, that’s it.”

“Hmm, must not be all bad, or else you’d have refused to bring him along again.”

“He’s an ass.” Rose mutters, considering, “But he’s a half-decent lookout, and somewhat entertaining to talk to, I guess.”

“Don’t say that to Malee, or she’ll never shut up.” Naermi nods to herself and walks back over, another syringe in hand, “Oh, one more thing; I want a spit bug.”

“You want a - OW, Naermi!” Rose hisses when the salarian injects the needle, yet again with no warning, “What did I just fucking say about warning me?!”

“You’ll get over it.” Naermi withdraws the syringe and eyes the injection site for a moment, looking incredibly pleased with herself, “There, that should do it - you’ll need at least two more shots, though, spaced a day apart, each.”

“I need that many antihistamines?” Rose rubs her arm with a wince, noting that the skin feels tender, “I thought my reaction was small?”

“Oh, only first shot was an antihistamine. This shot is preventative, a formula to familiarize your body with dextro proteins so you don’t need to worry about having another reaction.” Naermi gives her what would be a human duh look, “Need at least three treatments, will need to test reactions after that. Uncle developed formula - managed to acquire it before going into stasis.”

“And why is it necessary for me to be your test subject?”

“In case of circumstances such as today, Rose - so that sharing a canteen, or anything else, with Rainer, will not lead to allergic reactions. Not important, back on topic - spit bugs. They amass at the Monolith you visited today, did they not?”

“Hold on a minute here, who says I’m going to - wait. Waaaait.” Rose’s eyes narrow, grip on the table tightening, “I didn’t say a thing about spit bugs, or the Monolith.”

“Oh, didn’t you?”

“Did you hack my comm?”

“Perhaps, but that is irrelevant. I need a spit bug-”

“Naermi!”

“-in order to study the Remnant’s effects on them.” the Salarian gives another slow blink, unperturbed, “For that, I require help.”

“Malee can help you get a corpse, I’ll mark the Monolith on your map-”

“Ah, no, do not want a corpse. Need a live spit bug. Need you, Malee, and Rainer to help, if what I’ve heard of their acid spray is correct. Turian seems competent, going by conversations over comm.” Naermi’s moved away again by this point, heading to the tanks at the back - and now the empty one makes sense, “Don’t worry, tank is fortified, will resist acid. You’ll ask him, yes? We should go tomorrow.”

“If only because I know I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t ask him, fine.” Rose hops down off the bench, more than ready to retreat to her own lab, “Am I good?”

“Yes, yes, though warning, you may feel nauseous for several hours; tea should help.” Naermi waves over her shoulder, fiddling with the tank, “Also, Malee ran to the supply unit - checking for deliveries and picking up more food.”

“Alright. Thanks, I guess.”

“No thanks needed. Be ready for tomorrow.”

Rose hustles out of the lab as quickly as she can, making a brief stop in the bathroom before slipping into her own space and sighing in relief.

Fuck me, she groans, stripping out of her armor and flopping face-first onto the couch, mumbling into the pillow, She wants a live goddamn spit bug. This is gonna suck.

She just lays there for a moment, listening to the sounds outside the windows - perking briefly when Malee sings out a greeting on entry, fidgeting in the main room before her voice gets further away - curling into a ball when the aforementioned nausea rears its ugly head.

Should get some tea. She thinks, making zero effort to move. In all honesty, she could probably just fall asleep - forget about Naermi’s crazy request and her allergic reaction and just drift away into dreams.

Still need to get those soil samples sorted properly, Rose sighs, pushing herself up, Microscope isn’t here yet, but may as well be prepared-

The thoughts interrupted by her omni pinging suddenly, and she squints at the call for a moment before blinking. Huh. Well, saves me calling him.

“Hey, Rainer, something happen?” she asks once the calls active, tucking her legs beneath her.

“Ya alright?” comes the turians voice, serious for once, and Rose just stares at her omni for a moment.

“What?”

“Yer reaction.” Rainer says, exasperation singing from his sub-vocals, “Did yer teammate have meds?”

“Oh, yeah, she did, it’s cleared up; I’m good to go.” she pauses, smirks, “Were you worried about me, Rainer?”

“Maybe.” he grumps.

“Aw, tough old Rainer, worried about the wittle human.” Rose coos, using the same simpering tone she’d used before - with all the needling she’s gotten from him, she can’t resist.

Rainer growls on the other end. “Yes, Ah was worried about ya, Princess - Ah might be an ass, but Ah wasn’t tryin’ta hurt ya. There, happy?”

Rose freezes at the confession, surprised and… strangely, happy. Examine that later, Rose.

“I’m okay, Rainer. Honestly. Naermi had meds.” Rose leans back, grinning wryly, “But, if you want to make it up to me… I need your help.”

“That so?”

“Yuuup. Naermi wants a spit bug - but not a dead spit bug, she wants a live spit bug.”

There’s silence on the other end of the comm for a moment, then “Is she crazy?”

“That’s what I said, but regardless, that’s what she wants. And I feel like having all four of us there might give us a better chance at actually surviving this encounter. Or at least, not getting covered in acid.”

Rainer sighs, humming, then “Alright, Princess, Ah’ll accompany ya girls on yer expedition. Let’s jus’hope they’re good at takin’ care a’themselves.”

“They’ll be fine - meet you at the Nomad at 10:00 tomorrow.”

“Got it. Sweet dreams, Princess.”

“Night, Rainer.”

It’s only once they’ve hung up that Rose realizes she hadn’t rebuked Rainer once about calling her Princess, making her pause and scowl.

No, you know what? Don’t dwell on it. You’ve just somehow managed to make friends with an asshole turian and you’re getting used to him, that’s it.

Rose forces herself to her feet at that, shaking the thoughts away as she pads quietly out to their little kitchen and makes herself some herbal tea - one of the last batches I brought with me, shit, hopefully someone on the Nexus brought some to sell - before returning to her lab, booting up her terminal.

There’s another email from Vorn, and this one catches her by surprise.

Rose,

Told Kesh about the progress you’re making with the Blooms! She’s decided to assign you a bodyguard to make sure nothing kills you. Bit rough around the edges, but a good guy; he’ll find you tomorrow. Keep me updated! No word on Meridian slots opening yet, but Eos should be clear when you’re ready to move.

Vorn.

Typical Krogan, straight to the point. Rose hmms, leaning back in her desk chair and tapping a finger against her lips, Bodyguard, huh? Should be interesting - as long as he and Rainer don’t rip each other’s throats out we’ll be good. Though if Rainer’s been staying with the krogan, maybe he knows the guy? Hmm… guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

Her mind's buzzing with questions that she doesn't have answers to, so Rose grabs her notebook and flips to the page with her current sketches, hitting play on the second file of her audio player before settling in to add to the sketches.

Morning, Rosie! Sorry we had to leave so early - had to head back to Base for a briefing, but since I didn’t get to say goodbye in person, thought I’d leave you a log!

Need more purple, Rose thinks, reaching blindly for her stash of coloured pens and making a noise of triumph when she grabs the purple one, Delicate veins, designs like the Remnant-

“Mom and Dad are the same as ever, huh? I mean, we’re both out on our own, doing awesome things, and they still act like we’re teenagers! Don’t listen to them, okay? You’re doing such important work! We’re always discovering new planets - going to need to know if the plants are edible! They’re just too old fashioned, is all.”

-and blue lines, here, light blue, not nearly as dark as Rainer’s markings. Markings that seemed very very vaguely familiar, if she’s being honest, but like from a newspad or something she’d seen on the Citadel, not anyone she’d met in person, Familiar but different, like an off-branch or something, or however the hell their markings are determined-

“I’m sooo glad you like Nate! He really likes you, too! You’ll do it, right Rosie? You’ll be my maid of honor? We’re going to get married before I get reassigned - I’m leaving you both behind for the front lines soon, hah! Should be interesting! Don’t worry about rushing out and finding a boyfriend, either - let Mom and Dad have their complaints, it’s your life, and we’re only twenty-six!”

“Anyways, transports here, so we’re off - take care of yourself, Rosie! Love you lots!”

Rose finishes her sketching in silence, lip caught between her teeth, thoughts divided between the present and the past.

She’d said yes, of course. How could she ever say no to her twin? Lily had been her only true source of support for years, until she’d befriended Malee - even then, her twin was irreplaceable.

She looked beautiful that day, too. She always looked beautiful, but that dress made her glow.

Rose blows out a breath, setting the notebook aside and glancing at the framed pictures - eyes drawn to the portrait from her twins wedding.

Lily had been glowing, so happy and excited and alive in that moment, that it broke her heart to look at it, now.

“Rest well, sis.” she mumbles, “I’ll do my best to make you proud, out here.”

Vorn

Vorn sends the email off to Rose and then pauses, squinting at his terminal while he thinks.

Alright, gave her the heads up - now, who to send as a bodyguard? Hmmmm. He grumbles, then starts typing, Ragh can do it! He’s been bitching that he’s been bored lately, anyways.

It’s only once he’s hit send that a thought clicks, making him curse and start typing on his omni, Idiot! Rainer’s going to be with her anyways, since he’s having so much damn fun annoying her. May as well make his position official.

“Vorn. What happened this time?” comes the turian’s sarcastic drawl the moment he picks up, sounding otherwise happier than Vorn’s ever heard him.

“Got a job for you - or rather, making your job official.” Vorn smirks, even knowing the other man can’t see him, “Congrats; you’re Rose’s bodyguard. Don’t fuck up, alright? Or Kesh’ll have both our hides?”

There’s a pause on the other side, then a burst of laughter. “Shit, ya mean Ah get ta spend m’time annoying th’Princess, and Ah’m gettin’ paid fer it? Ah’m in.”

“Figured you would be. Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

Rainer hangs up without another word, but that’s always been his way; Vorn just continues to smirk, turning back to his terminal to email Ragh back and cancel-

-jumping back instead when a video call opens on the screen and he finds himself stared down by one very annoyed Kesh.

“Kesh? What’s wrong? Is everything alright-”

“Dad! Story!”

“We want story!”

“STORYYYYYY!”

“Your children are refusing to go to bed without a ‘story from papa’,” Kesh grumbles, hoisting the three toddlers higher in her lap, “So, Vorn - it’s storytime.”

“O-of course, Kesh.” Vorn clears his throat, trying to think of a story, still endlessly bewildered in the face of his children.

And completely forgetting to email Ragh back.

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salosion · 4 years ago

Text

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robertogreco · 7 years ago

Text

Strict Forms

This is a thread from last month that I've been thinking about ever since, but never got around to posting here. It starts with a series of tweets from Guillermo del Toro:

Tweets on why I am interviewing Michael Mann and George Miller (2 weeks each) about their films this Sabbatical year.

I sometimes feel that great films are made / shown at a pace that does not allow them to "land" in their proper weight or formal / artisitic importance...

As a result, often, these films get discussed in "all aspects" at once. But mostly, plot and character- anecdote and flow, become the point of discussion. Formal appreciation and technique become secondary and the specifics of narrative technique only passingly address[ed]

I would love to commemorate their technical choices and their audiovisual tools. I would love to dissect the narrative importance and impact of color, light, movement, wardrobe and set design. As Mann once put it: "Everything tells you something"

I think we owe it to these (and a handful of filmmakers) to have their formal choices commemorated, the way one can appreciatethe voigour and thickness and precision of a brushtroke when you stand in front of an original painting.

Aaron Stewart-Ahn responds, in particular to the final paragraph above:

Our media literacy about movies tends to prioritize text over subtext, emotion, and sound vision & time, and it has sadly sunk into audiences' minds. I'd say some movies are even worth a handful of shots / sounds they build up to.

To which I added:

Our education system prioritizes text. Deviation from text is discouraged.

“To use the language well, says the voice of literacy, cherish its classic form. Do not choose the offbeat at the cost of clarity.”

“Clarity is a means of subjection, a quality both of official, taught language and of correct writing, two old mates of power; together they flow, together they flower, vertically, to impose an order.”

That comes from “Commitment from the Mirror-Writing Box,” by Trinh T. Minh-Ha in Woman, Native, Other (via):

Nothing could be more normative, more logical, and more authoritarian than, for example, the (politically) revolutionary poetry or prose that speaks of revolution in the form of commands or in the well-behaved, steeped-in-convention-language of “clarity.” (”A wholesome, clear, and direct language” is said to be “the fulcrum to move the mass or to sanctify it.”) Clear expression, often equated with correct expression, has long been the criterion set forth in treatises on rhetoric, whose aim was to order discourse so as to persuade. The language of Taoism and Zen, for example, which is perfectly accessible but rife with paradox does not qualify as “clear” (paradox is “illogical” and “nonsensical” to many Westerners), for its intent lies outside the realm of persuasion. The same holds true for vernacular speech, which is not acquired through institutions — schools, churches, professions, etc. — and therefore not repressed by either grammatical rules, technical terms, or key words. Clarity as a purely rhetorical attribute serves the purpose of a classical feature in language, namely, its instrumentality. To write is to communicate, express, witness, impose, instruct, redeem, or save — at any rate to mean and to send out an unambiguous message. Writing thus reduced to a mere vehicle of thought may be used to orient toward a goal or to sustain an act, but it does not constitute an act in itself. This is how the division between the writer/the intellectual and the activists/the masses becomes possible. To use the language well, says the voice of literacy, cherish its classic form. Do not choose the offbeat at the cost of clarity. Obscurity is an imposition on the reader. True, but beware when you cross railroad tracks for one train may hide another train. Clarity is a means of subjection, a quality both of official, taught language and of correct writing, two old mates of power; together they flow, together they flower, vertically, to impose an order. Let us not forget that writers who advocate the instrumentality of language are often those who cannot or choose not to see the suchness of things — a language as language — and therefore, continue to preach conformity to the norms of well-behaved writing: principles of composition, style, genre, correction, and improvement. To write “clearly,” one must incessantly prune, eliminate, forbid, purge, purify; in other words, practice what may be called an “ablution of language” (Roland Barthes).

See also Keguro Macharia on strict academic forms (and various other posts on linearity and academia):

Proposals for radical ideas in strict academic forms. Radical thinking requires radical forms. It’s an elementary lesson. Perhaps more academically inclined people should co-edit with poets. Figure out why form matters. I am most blocked when I resist the forms ideas need to emerge.

Update [7 January 2018]: To go with the above, I think it makes sense to add this passage from Ryan Brown’s “Fred Moten: A look at Duke's preeminent poet”:

As for how he thinks of his own writing, Moten explained to the literary journal Callaloo that he doesn’t see poems as neatly wrapped ideas or images. Instead, he believes that “poetry is what happens… on the outskirts of sense.” What do you think?

This unorthodox approach to writing extends beyond Moten’s own projects, spilling over into his teaching philosophy. In a Fred Moten English class, a standard essay on a piece of literature might be replaced by a sound collage or a piece of creative writing reacting to the reading. It’s an attempt, he said, to get his students to write like they actually want to write—not the way they think they need to for a class. What do you think?

“School makes it so that you write to show evidence of having done some work, so that you can be properly evaluated and tracked,” he said. “To me that degrades writing, so I’m trying to figure out how to detach the importance of writing from these structures of evaluation.” What do you think?

Second year English Ph.D student Damien Adia-Marassa said this means that Moten’s classes are never the same. Last Spring, Marassa worked as a “teaching apprentice” in one of Moten’s undergraduate courses, “Experimental Black Poetry,” for which he said there was never a fixed syllabus. What do you think?

“He just told us the texts he wanted to study and invited us all to participate in thinking about how we might study them,” Marassa said. What do you think?

But is Professor Moten ever worried that students will take advantage of his flexibility with structure and content? What do you think?

Actually, he said, he doesn’t care if students take his courses because they think they will be easy. What do you think?

“I think it’s good to find things in your life that are easy for you,” he said. “If someone signs up for my class because they think it will come naturally to them and it won’t be something they have to agonize over, those are all good things in my book.” What do you think?

In the Spring, Moten will switch gears as a professor, teaching his first creative writing course since arriving at Duke—Introduction to Writing Poetry. But whatever the course title may imply, he won’t be trying to teach his students how to write, he said. Instead, he hops they’ll come away from his class better at noticing the world around them. What do you think?

And he hopes to teach them to that, in order to write, you first have to fiercely love to read. That’s a skill he learned a long time ago, out in the flat Nevada desert, when he first picked up a book of poems and started to read, not knowing where it would take him.

Update [23 February 2018]: Here come several more passages that fit with this theme of breaking forms.

First, Fanta Sylla on “Metrograph Celebrates the Inventive Truth-Telling of St. Clair Bourne”:

Let the Church is so free of form and spirit that, presented without context, it could easily be seen as a fictional piece. It is not clear how much the scenes are staged, or, indeed, whether they are staged at all. Right from the first interaction, in which what seems to be a religious teacher laboriously explains the purpose of a sermon, there is a distance with the people filmed (broken on occasion by extreme zooming and direct address), as well as a writtenness and theatricality in the dialogue that can be delightfully confusing. What one learns while watching Bourne is that there are many ways to enter a subject, and one mustn’t refrain from exploring them, especially not in the name of nonfiction convention.

And now “Hilton Als on Writing,” in an interview with T. Cole Rachel:

T. Cole Rachel: Your essays frequently defy traditional genre. You play around with the notions of what an essay can be, what criticism can be, or how we are supposed to think and write about our own lives.

Hilton Als: You don’t have to do it any one way. You can just invent a way. Also, who’s to tell you how to write anything? It’s like that wonderful thing Virginia Woolf said. She was just writing one day and she said, “I can write anything.” And you really can. It’s such a remarkable thing to remind yourself of. If you’re listening to any other voice than your own, then you’re doing it wrong. And don’t.

The way that I write is because of the way my brain works. I couldn’t fit it into fiction; I couldn’t fit it into non-fiction. I just had to kind of mix up the genres because of who I was. I myself was a mixture of things, too. Right? I just never had those partitions in my brain, and I think I would’ve been a much more fiscally successful person if could do it that way. But I don’t know how to do it any other way, so I’m not a fiscally successful person. [laughs]

[…]

I believe that one reason I began writing essays—a form without a form, until you make it—was this: you didn’t have to borrow from an emotionally and visually upsetting past, as one did in fiction, apparently, to write your story. In an essay, your story could include your actual story and even more stories; you could collapse time and chronology and introduce other voices. In short, the essay is not about the empirical “I” but about the collective—all the voices that made your “I.”

From a profile of Lorna Simpson, by Dodie Kazanjian:

Lorna graduated early from SVA and was doing graphic-design work for a travel company when she met Carrie Mae Weems, a graduate art student at the University of California, San Diego. Weems suggested she come out to graduate school in California. “It was a rainy, icy New York evening, and that sounded really good to me,” Simpson says. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into.” She knew she’d had enough of documentary street photography. Conceptual art ruled at UCSD, and in her two years there, from 1983 to 1985, Lorna found her signature voice, combining photographs and text to address issues that confront African American women. “I loved writing poetry and stories, but at school, that was a separate activity from photography,” she says. “I thought, Why not merge those two things?”

Arthur Chiaravalli in “It’s Time We Hold Accountability Accountable”:

Author and writing professor John Warner points out how this kind of accountability, standardization, and routinization short-circuits students’ pursuit of forms “defined by the rhetorical situation” and values “rooted in audience needs.”

What we are measuring when we are accountable, then, is something other than the core values of writing. Ironically, the very act of accounting for student progress in writing almost guarantees that we will receive only a poor counterfeit, one emptied of its essence.

“How to Teach Art to Kids, According to Mark Rothko”:

“Unconscious of any difficulties, they chop their way and surmount obstacles that might turn an adult grey, and presto!” Rothko describes. “Soon their ideas become visible in a clearly intelligent form.” With this flexibility, his students developed their own unique artistic styles, from the detail-oriented to the wildly expressive. And for Rothko, the ability to channel one’s interior world into art was much more valuable than the mastery of academic techniques. “There is no such thing as good painting about nothing,” he once wrote.

Update [10 July 2018]: Here’s a great thread from Dr. Lucia Lorenzi on form in academia, but also on the value of silence and pause.

I have two academic articles currently under consideration, and hope that they'll be accepted. I'm proud of them. But after those two, I am not going to write for academic journals anymore. I feel this visceral, skin-splitting need to write differently about my research.

It just doesn't FEEL right. When I think about the projects I'm interested in (and I have things I want desperately to write about), but I think about writing them for an academic journal, I feel anxious and trapped. I've published academic work. It's not a matter of capability.

I think I've interpreted my building anxiety as some sort of "maybe I can't really do it, I'm not good at this" kind of impostor syndrome. But I know in my bones it's not that, because I'm a very capable academic writer. I know how to do that work. I've been trained to do it.

This is a question of form. It is a question of audience, too. The "what" and the "why" of my research has always been clear to me. The "how," the "where," and the "who," much less so. Or at the very least, I've been pushing aside the how/where/who I think best honours the work.

In my SSHRC proposal, I even said that I wanted to write for publications like The Walrus or The Atlantic or GUTS Magazine, etc. because this work feels like it needs to be very public-facing right now, so that's what I'm going to do. No more academic journal articles for now.

With all the immobilizing anxiety I've felt about "zomg my CV! zomg academic cred!" do you know how many stories I could have pitched in the past year alone? SO MANY. How much research and thinking I could have distilled into creative non-fiction or long-form journalistic pieces?

It's not like I haven't also been very clear about the fact that I probably won't continue in academia, so why spend the last year of my postdoc doing the MOST and feeling the WORST doing my research in a certain way just for what...a job I might not get or even want? Nah.

Whew. I feel better having typed all that out, and also for having made the decision to do the work in the way I originally wanted to do it, because I have been struggling so much that every single day for months I've wanted to just quit the postdoc entirely. Just up and leave.

In the end, I don't think my work will shift THAT much, you know? And I've learned and am learning SO much from fellow academics who are doing and thinking and writing differently. But I think that "no more scholarly journal submissions" is a big step for me.

I also feel like this might actually make me feel less terrified of reading academic work. Not wanting to WRITE academic articles/books has made me equally afraid of reading them, which, uh, isn't helpful. But now I can read them and just write in my own way.

I don't want to not have the great joy of sitting down and reading brilliant work because I'm so caught up in my own fears of my response having to replicate or mirror those forms. That ain't a conversation. I'm not listening if I'm already lost in thinking about how to answer.

That's what's so shitty about thinking as a process that is taught in academia. We teach everyone to be so hyper-focused on what they have to say that we don't let people just sit back and listen for a goddamn moment without feeling like they need to produce a certain response.

And we wonder why our students get anxious about their assignments? The idea that the only valid form of learning is having something to say in response, and in this way that is so limited, and so performative, is, quite frankly, coercive and gross.

As John Cage said, "I have nothing to say and I am saying it." When it comes to academic publications, I am saying that no longer have anything to say. I do, however, have things to say in other places to say them.

My dissertation was on silence. In the conclusion, I pointed out that the text didn't necessarily show all the silences/gaps I had in my years of thinking. I'd wanted to put in lots of blank space between paragraphs, sections, to make those silences visible, audible.

According to the formatting standards for theses at UBC, you cannot have any blank pages in your dissertation. You cannot just breathe or pause. Our C.V.s are also meant not to have any breaths or pauses in them, no turns away, no changes in course.

I am making a course change!

Update [7 March 2019]: Maya Weeks makes this point on Twitter:

i'm so over the fetishization of language!!!! not every1 is ~good~ at formulating thoughts thru words & we need systems that reflect ppls' various strengths! prioritizing work done in words (rather than literally any other action, like dance, or organizing) is elitist as hell!!!

u might think i'm kidding about this but i'm a professional writer with 2 degrees in language (linguistics & creative writing); i have been thinking about this for 12 years

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fqtoxicity · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on My Quin Story

New Post has been published on http://www.myquinstory.info/is-fluoroquinolone-brain-fog-actually-chemobrain/

Is Fluoroquinolone Brain Fog Actually Chemobrain?

Decades ago, women who had bravely fought breast cancer and survived, started describing various adverse symptoms long after completing their course of chemotherapy. One of the most predominant adverse symptoms was cognitive impairment or “brain fog.” For a long time, most women who brought up these symptoms found their concerns dismissed by doctors (1). Brain fog wasn’t considered a valid medical condition and a narrow way of thinking prevented doctors from connecting disparate symptoms and for along time prevented doctors from recognizing it. This is despite the fact that ALL the women had chemotherapy as the common factor.

The medical community has a long-standing reputation for dismissing patient complaints that fall outside standard paradigms. It is the old adage, “can’t see the forest through the trees.” This behavior isn’t unique to just a certain select group of chemotherapy patients, this dismissal of patient complaints is fairly universal phenomenon.

Despite the fact that common sense should have prevailed, Julia Rowland, Ph.D., director of NCI’s Office of Cancer Survivorship said that doctors are starting to realize that “you have to understand what the consequences of therapy are and that very few if any of our treatments are entirely benign,” something that patients have known for a very long time.

Chemotherapy Brain or “Chemobrain”

Like previously mentioned, one of the major phenomenon that these aforementioned cancer survivors were describing was cognitive impairment or colloquially coined as “brain fog.” Since they were all chemotherapy recipients the moniker “chemobrain” was coined. One of the predominant symptoms they experienced was cognitive impairment, but researchers fully admit that the patients experienced varied impairments, with cognitive impairments, fairly universal.

Because of the sheer number of chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment reports or complaints, the phenomena is now becoming increasingly recognized as a significant complication of cancer chemotherapy (2).

Despite the increased attention this issue has garnered from the clinical and research communities, the mechanisms of the resulting cognitive impairment are not fully understood but are thought to be caused by the peripheral toxic effects of chemotherapy drugs that lead to downstream structural and functional changes in the brain.

Topoisomerase Inhibition

It is determined that chemotherapy exposure causes changes in global genome DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation. These changes directly exert epigenetic pressures and change gene expression in areas that are important in health and disease. Of these areas affected are cognitive regulation, memory and aging (3). These Central Nervous System (CNS) adverse events effects “aka Chemobrain” have been reported in several forms of chemotherapy, but interestingly enough one of these is topoisomerase inhibitors (3).

Now let’s make some logical connections:

Fluoroquinolones are topoisomerase inhibitors (4).

Fluoroquinolones affect not only bacteria but are cytotoxic to normal “mammalian” eukaryotic cells (5, 6).

Fluoroquinolones affect methylation and epigenetics in “mammalian” eukaryotic cells (6).

Fluoroquinolones cause CNS adverse events, so much so that the FDA required a class wide labeling change to list CNS adverse events in their own ‘mental health” label classification (7).

Of these FQ CNS adverse events “brain Fog” is a commonly reported adverse event, whose duration can vary from short to long term, and in some cases be quite debilitating (8).

It is my contention that FQ induced “brain fog” is, at its very essence, Chemobrain.

Let’s look at some compelling causes…

How FQ’s Could Cause Chemobrain

In October of 2018 an excellent research paper hit academia on the negative effects of FQ antibiotics. Published by Oxford Academic in its Nucleic Acids Research, the paper entitled “Ciprofloxacin impairs mitochondrial DNA replication initiation through inhibition of Topoisomerase 2” the paper damningly discusses how Ciprofloxacin impairs mitochondrial DNA replication (9).

Researchers found that mitochondria contain two forms of Topoisomerase 2. The isoforms of Topoisomerase 2 are Top2α and Top2β. These isoforms have specialized roles in the maintenance of the nuclear genome and mitochondrial genome. For our discussion we will focus on Top2β.

It is imperative that Top2α and Top2β function correctly to maintain mitochondrial homeostasis which allows for damage to be repaired to a certain degree. Their research documented that Ciprofloxacin caused a dramatic effect on mtDNA topology, causing various insults to the DNA such as blocking replication initiation, reducing copy number and inhibiting mitochondrial transcription. Additionally, it also stops the cleavage/re-ligation reaction of type II topoisomerases midway, generates double-strand breaks, creates persistent protein–DNA adducts, and reduces also the overall enzyme activity (10).

Interestingly, their researchers found that Top2β, affected by the FQ’s, exists in brain mitochondria at far higher levels compared to other tissues. Let me repeat that, Top2β, affected by the FQ’s, exists in brain mitochondria at far higher levels compared to other tissues. This suggests a specific demand for mtDNA topology regulation in the delicate neural cells. This would logically explain why we see a whole host of neuropsychiatric effects of FQ’s, including brain fog or or FQ chemobrain. These adverse events are commonly seen and reported by many individuals in the FQ community, acknowledged in case reports (8) and recently researched and documented by Dr. Bennett (11).

Dr. Noble’s Research

In 2006, research from a team led by Dr. Mark Noble, professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, revealed the shocking extent of the chemobrain problem: common chemotherapy drugs used to treat breast, ovarian, and colon and rectal cancer, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, were more toxic to multiple kinds of brain cells than the cancer cells themselves.

Dr. Noble has worked with the FQ community in the past at our behest. Our team initially contacted Dr. Noble in 2010 due to his research with chemotherapeutic pharmaceuticals such as 5FU, chemo brain, and the capabilities of his lab. We noticed strong similarities in the adverse events of fluorouracil (5FU) and that of FQ’s. This information can be read here and here.

A later study by Noble’s team done in mice showed that another commonly used chemotherapeutic drug caused damage to oligodendrocytes, the cells that cover axons with myelin. Myelin helps expedite messaging among nerve cells, or neurons. When oligodendrocytes are damaged, myelin breaks down, disrupting communication among the nerve cells vital to brain functioning.

From Dr. Noble to our FQ team in 2010…. To put our findings on Levaquin in the context of our previous work on chemotherapeutic agents, the outcomes of the Levaquin experiments are disturbingly similar to the kinds and levels of toxicity that we initially found in our work on 5-fluorouracil. When clinically relevant drug concentrations exhibit such toxicities in vitro, this is very troublesome.”

Dr. Noble found the same disturbing toxicities to the myelin–forming oligodendrocytes of the CNS when exposing them to Levaquin (FQ’s), just as if they were negatively affected by commonly used chemotherapeutic drugs such as 5-fluorouracil.

Other researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center hypothesized the drugs that cause chemo brain are those best able to cross the blood-brain barrier. Which as most people know, is no problem for the FQ’s (18).

How Common is FQ Chemobrain?

Very common. I would call it a class effect. Almost all floxies suffer from it to one degree or another in their timeline. Anecdotally the data on brain fog is all over the place in terms of onset, duration, and severity with some individuals barely bothered by it, while others are incapacitated by its brain numbing effects. The one thing that is true is that it happens very frequently.

For me I suffered from it in a period two years post floxing and it lasted moderately for about a year. I still occasionally get bouts of it when my CFS symptoms are bad. I was blessed that I maintained my IQ although I have had reports of individuals who felt they were ‘dumbed down’ by the horrible affects of the FQ’s.

For the majority, especially those experiencing an immediate adverse event, FQ Chemobrain shows up quite soon after the adverse event ensues, but we have had reports of cases showing up as long two years or longer post floxing. Then there are the others who have reported cyclical FQ Chemobrain manifestations.

Common Cause, Uncommon Trajectory

Despite the fact that brain fog could, at its core, be easily caused by Top2β inhibition or Dr. Noble’s nerve damage findings, what follows after FQ exposure is a study in chaos theory. Like branches in a tree, the tentacles of FQ pathology could encompass a vasts array of options. In floxies we have found mast cell activation, alterations in neurotransmitters, dysregulation of blood pressure and/or blood sugar, poor quality sleep, toxin overload from SIBO or Candida, and much more which can all contribute to brain fog.

Because of this brain fog, especially in floxies, is very hard to universally dissect. Although each floxed person could have similar brain fog symptoms, the underlying pathology, despite being initiated by the FQ’s, can be wildly variable.

The good news is that, in time, the symptoms of FQ Chemobrain, for many, seem to lesson. Because the symptoms and severity differ from person to person, treatment for brain fog tends to be quite personal. For some, finding a professional that could work with them to develop an individualized approach was one of the best options, but also one of the hardest to do. These professionals ranged from neuropsychologists to Naturopaths, but according to the opinion of many, finding care is easier said than done. Unfortunately it has left a majority of floxies to experiment on their own to find out what works and what doesn’t work for them.

To reiterate, since there is no one-size-fits all solution, finding substances to help with brain fog is very individual. In the next section I will list a few supplements that came in as being higher rated as help some individuals.

What Helps

Please Note: this brain fog help list is not all inclusive nor is it listed in order of effectiveness or importance. It was compiled by information supplied by floxed individuals.

Rhodiola Rosea

Clinical trials involving Rhodiola rosea show that it fights brain fog by energizing the central nervous system. Animal studies involving Rhodiola indicate it also repairs damaged neurons and stimulates brain cell growth in the hippocampus. (12)

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving 60 adult men and women who reported symptoms of mental fatigue, Rhodiola rosea increased attention, reduced fatigue, and improved cognitive function. Researchers concluded that, “Rhodiola, acting as an adaptogen, increases attention and endurance in situations of decreased performance cause by fatigue. (13)

Rhodiola is best known for its mood-boosting, stress-busting properties. For mental fatigue and brain fog caused by burnout, Rhodiola’s mechanisms work to protect the brain from the effects of stress and repair damaged cells.

Citicoline

Citicoline is considered a powerful all-around brain boosters. There are several clinical studies that show that citicoline boosts mental energy by improving cerebral blood flow and protecting brain cells from free radical damage. This nootropic is so powerful that it’s used to enhance cognitive function damaged by neurological disorders or brain trauma.

Citicoline boosts acetylcholine levels, a neurotransmitter closely involved in learning and memory. Citicoline contains CDP choline, an active component of phosphatidylcholine, a phospholipid that preserves brain cell membranes, protects memory, and facilitates neural communication.

A study investigating a certain form of Citicoline, called Cognizin® found that citicoline can mitigate the effects of mental fatigue by increasing frontal lobe activity brain energy reserves.(14)

There are some cautions that need to pointed out. The FQ’s interfere with acetylcholine levels. For instance, the FQ’s are contraindicated in those with Myasthenia Gravis because they exhibit a peculiar nerve blocking capability. The exact mechanism by which FQ’s affect neuromuscular transmission is not entirely understood; however, a main theories are that they inhibit acetylcholine release presynaptically and/or they have a direct toxic effect on the acetylcholine channel. I lean towards the latter.

Another caution is that some floxes have reported that too much CDP choline can actually worsen brain fog. Even the study mentioned above showed that research participants benefited more from a lower dose. More is not better with this nootropic.

N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine

It is theorized that brain fog can appear in floxies after the depletion of catecholamines like dopamine and norepinephrine that your brain needs to stay sharp and quick. Again, another effect of the FQ’s.

A lot of floxed individuals report that after floxing when the put some stress on their brains, a downward cognitive spiral results in crippling brain fog.

N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine (NALT) combats brain fog by boosting catecholamine levels. It can help some meet the demands of stress and protecting cognitive functions.

Animal studies show that tyrosine supplementation lowers stress levels, enhances catecholamine synthesis, and protects the brain from neurochemical depletion. This multi-faceted approach staves off brain fog by preserving cognitive functions like learning and working memory.(15)

Phosphatidylserine

Phosphatidylserine a phospholipid and is a component of the cell membrane, seems to have a positive affect on short-term and long-term memory functions like learning, recall, and attention.

It works by protecting the myelin sheath that surrounds nerve pathways and cell membranes. Studies show that its protective mechanisms can safely slow, stop, and even reverse nerve cell deterioration. Better nerve cell integrity and communication improves concentration, problem-solving, communication, and language skills.(16)

Human studies show that phosphatidylserine is effective for preserving cognitive activity, protecting against cognitive aging, and retaining optimal cognitive functioning abilities. This was personal favorite of mine years ago when I suffered from brain fog. It also had the added benefit of helping me to have less disturbed sleep by cortisol spikes. There is also a soy free variety, for those sensitive to soy.

Magnesium l-threonate

Magnesium has mixed reviews among floxies where some have touted it as a miracle cure to others who feel much worse after they take it. There is a lot of questionable information floating around about magnesium and floxing in general and the theory that magnesium, or the lack thereof, plays a role in floxing is still controversial. Some misinformation about Mag is pushed by those selling ebooks. The problem is that different forms of magnesium do different things in the body. For instance magnesium glycinate is the best form to help with sleep. Magnesium plays a very important role in the many metabolic reactions but that is not our focus right now. Anyway, Magnesium l-threonate is not your run of the mill magnesium either. Many individuals are very surprised by this supplement after given it a try, even by those cynical individuals who have tried other forms of magnesium in the past with little to no effect.

According to an MIT, this form of magnesium, albeit rather expensive, was shown to be effective at loading magnesium into the brain and at enhancing brain function. Their results were that As a result, studies show that magnesium-L-threonate improves brain plasticity, leading to direct and significant improvements in memory, learning, and cognition (17). Some floxies have reported this form of magnesium has help their brain fog considerably.

On average it takes while for Magnesium l-threonate to build up enough to start working but again this varies greatly from person to person.

Phospholipids

Lipids are a key cellular component in our body. Phospholipids, a class of lipids, or fats, are especially crucial to the health of both cell membranes and neurotransmitters. Brain cell membranes are rich in two phospholipids in particular: phosphatidylserine (mentioned above) and phosphatidylcholine (also, mentioned above as well in the form of Citicoline), with PC accounting for the larger percentage.

There is something called the gut-brain axis in our body where the brain and GI tract constantly communicate with each other by sending signals. Many of these signals involve both initiation and halting of inflammation. With excessive inflammation initiated in the brain, it can lead to a “leaky brain”, which mostly translates to slowed mental ability and brain fog.

Some individuals have found success in using standard lecithin to help combat brain fog. It is usually much less expensive than some of the more ‘tailored’ supplements and contains necessary phospholipids for brain health. Regardless of whether it helps with the brain fog or not, I believe lecithin is a good foundational supplement for overall cellular health.

Obviously this list is not all inclusive. I am sure that there are many other individuals that have found supplements or treatments to help their brain fog. If you have used something that has helped, please be sure to share it with me so I can supply that data to others.

Conclusion

Until the medical community understands that FQ’s are, in essence, chemotherapy (and that is not too likely anytime soon) we will see these adverse events treated as disparate pieces of information and not connected to one another.

Do you know of a loved one, a friend, a co-worker, or someone else who suffers from brain fog of unknown origin? If so ask them to do some detective work and search their medical history, and not necessarily their immediate past. Tell them that FQ’s are often given during surgery, often without the patient’s knowledge.

If you are faced with potential antibiotic use, for yourself or a loved one, please become informed as to the choices that you have available. If antibiotic use is necessary, there are generally safer alternatives than the Fluoroquinolones. Discuss all concerns with your doctor about treatment to help you choose the safest possible method.

#Brain Fog #Chemobrain #General Medical #Methylation #Supplements

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