#From episode 158: the episode that pissed me off so much the first time I watched it

[ygoartreviews]

Monster Reincarnation

This card caught me so off guard when it popped up in the anime looking exactly like this. There was only three years between the first English version episode (the censored) Monster Reborn appeared in versus the first episode this card appears in. And apparently in that time frame they just decided that ankhs were okay??? Or was it just not worth it to change this art that shows up during two separate filler arcs? Speaking of the original Monster Reborn though, when compared with this art, I actually like this art a whole lot more. The angle of the ankh and the sunlight streaming down onto it through cloudy skies creates a sense of drama here that Monster Reborn just doesn’t have. Seriously, it’s so good.

Rating: 7/10

[bibliocratic]

Soulmate au for jm prompts? Any kind you want

soul-identifying marks, jonmartin, episodes 158-160 spoilers

(this prompt came into my home and beat me over the brain.)(it might not be exactly what you were after, hope it’s ok!)

–

Martin’s waging a passive-aggressive one-man war against an excel spreadsheet when the temperature, risen to bearable by the grunting old radiator in the corner, swan-dives into shivery.

“Peter,” Martin says, not exactly a greeting, as frayingly cordial as he can manage. Not absolving Peter’s intrusion with his attention, triple-pressing the right mouse button and hissing an irate oh come on when the computer refuses to bend to his will and instead freezes again.

Peter will say whatever mysterious bollocks he’s come to imply and hint at and implicate, scattering his bloody breadcrumbs. Martin will be left just as pissed off and in the dark as he was before, so he might as well get it over with so Martin can actually get some work done.

Surprisingly, Peter doesn’t say anything. That’s actually what makes Martin turn round.

Peter’s slate-shingle eyes are observing Martin’s exposed lower arms. Sleeves rolled up haphazard out of his way, folded over in messy and unmatching bunches at his elbow.

He’s studying the designs that blemish the sun-ditched pale of his freckled arm with an interest Martin baulks at. Traces with his eyes the blocky wood-cut patterns in precise and abrupt black lines that start at the line of his watch, sprout up and under his clothes. Idly, he takes his time to let his gaze traverse over the open pages of tomes unfilled with words and unbroken by ink; the landscape of woodland and tree lines and shadowy hollows of roads mysterious or untaken that mar the faint curve of his lower arm. The lantern swinging on the bough of a wintry tree, its candle recently blown out.

The eye, thick and wide, staring out at the crease of his elbow.

Peter flicks a glance up, and Martin reads something like pity there. His face heats.

“The Archivist?” Peter Lukas asks. His voice isn’t mocking. Martin isn’t sure what it it.

He hates the tone of it.

“Do you want something?” Martin responds curtly. Frosty. Tugging his sleeves back down pointedly.

Peter’s expression is ever so proud.

–

When Jon wakes up, he charts the changes death has wrought on him. Sitting on the small bed he’s set up in document storage, swaddled in the uncomforting comfort of his archives, he chronicles the new damages done. The rough tissue of scars on his arms, upper legs, chest. Pitted marks from shrapnel and debris and being in the radius blast of an explosion.  He supposes it could be worse.

He thumbs at the faded, almost unrecognisable nazar just below his shoulder, the crossed compass and ruler nearby in the same state. The colour bleeding out of them like they’ve been left too long in the dark. He doesn’t think about his parents much. Not in a long time. His memories sanded down to an uncertain rote recollection that his brain is equally as likely to have invented as not. He doesn’t recall enough to miss them, but there must be something there for him to still bear them on his skin.

There’s a bleary shape splotched on his inner wrist. Forming like the build-up of sediment, the slow grind of tide, and it has been doing so for months, since before he died.

It’s almost fully realised now. He rubs at the shape of it tentatively  as though the colour might run if he’s too rough with it. The delicate fawn-brown of its wings, the beaded black circle of its eyes.

He knows who it represents. Impossible not to, really. It’s his representation after all. The complex understanding of a human being realised as imagery and flowering on his skin.

He stares at the nightingale for the longest time.

–

When Martin was nine, struck by the well-echo hollow in his chest, unable to articulate the shamed and hot tears his mother would scold with a cluck of disappointment, he tried to clean the clock off his right leg. Sitting in the bath with the water gagging with too many bubbles, he scrubbed at the cogs and mechanical intestines of the thing, seeing the lies of his father in how it was wound, not wanting it, because surely if his dad had loved him then he wouldn’t have left, and if he didn’t then why should Martin boast his love so obviously. He held and scrubbed until his skin was pink and scalded and he’d started to wince. But connection doesn’t work like that, and so the clock never disappeared, and Martin tried to ignore it every time he took a shower.

Turns out the Forsaken was good for something after all.

–

“How’s the poetry?” Jon stammers at him, so obviously, earnestly angling to drag out their impromptu meeting. Martin wants to be anywhere else but here.

“Jon, I really need to – ”

“Oh. Yeah. I – sorry, I-I know you’ve got… your thing with Peter Lukas.”

“It’s not like that – ”

“I-I know, I know, sorry, I didn’t mean…” Jon stops. His eyes – and were they always so gaunt, so hungry in his face? – have stopped trying to both catch and avoid Martin’s gaze apparently simultaneously, and they’ve snagged instead on Martin’s collar. For a moment, something too thirsty catalogues the pale and vacant skin of his throat, where the purple hooded bells of monkshood usually thronged. Their leaves had grown spikier as he’d aged, stretching out to his Adam’s apple in a bid to form a collar of choking vines.

“Martin…” Jon stares at empty skin, and his expression blooms into something comprehending and distraught.

“I have to go, Jon,” Martin says forcefully.  He doesn’t give Jon much of a chance to reply.

He doesn’t want Jon’s sorries. Doesn’t need his worries or his understanding.

He just wants him to be safe.

–

The nightingale sings entangled by coarse and insidious brambles. Jon’s taken to holding his hand over the pattern, like shielding with a careful hand a wind-tossed, guttering flame, when the hunger starts to gnaw though him like frostbite.

It doesn’t stop there. The emblems grow into iconography, twist into tableau. The pictures grow and spread simply as moss, and Jon doesn’t despair because he doesn’t have the space for it any more.

Jon’s evidence has always been discrete. The stamped shapes for his parents like memorial images were all he held for the longest time. Something started to flourish for his grandmother, when she took him in, and he tried to show her the blotched shape in a childish effort to bring them closer. She hadn’t needed to stay anything. She pursed her lip and strained an apologetic glance and he knew even at that age that there was nothing, would be nothing in kind, decorating her skin for him. That choked the image like weeds, and it faded quickly as the passing of inclement weather.

The space, at his jutting hip-bone, was only later taken up by Georgie’s mark. That one never faded quite like the image for his grandmother or for his parents, but it went sun-stained and overexposed long before they broke up.

Martin’s imagery is not so subtle.

It swallows up his arm, roils over his shoulder-blades, infects the untouched skin over his collar bone.

Jon takes to wearing longer sleeves.

–

Martin’s skin has always taken easily to marking. Some people do, he guesses. Wear their hearts on their sleeves, on their throat, on their stomach. Martin’s a scattered museum of loves that he’s tended to over the years, unrequited affections or spluttered out romances.

He’s pleased, in those early days, that nothing ever bruises on his skin for Jon. He likes Jon, even fancies him, for a long time. And it’s annoying, because Jon can be a real arse, but it’s manageable. Jon doesn’t make him go hot at the nape of his neck or make him stumble over his words. His presence encourages harmless daydreams and flights of fancy, but Martin’s under no illusions.

And then Jon listens to his statement. Sits him down, and believes him, and doesn’t break eye contact the whole time.

And Martin had felt, dazedly, Seen. For the first time in a long time.

The first eye had opened up around then like an unclenching fist under his ribs. He’d seen it a week later. Had thought oh and had quickly dressed to cover it.

It’s not the first mark this love leaves him. In time, it scores him with tooth marks and sailor’s knots of worry, and eyes, always eyes, blinking open over his flesh.

He loses the one on his ankle first. Scratches at the space where it was, touching the crease where his sock has dug a band around his skin, right where the line used to bisect the thick and dark pupil.

Then the one on his lower back. His upper thigh. His left wrist.

It’s for the best, Martin, Peter says when he catches him looking at the undamaged patch of skin these absences leave behind.

Martin doesn’t disagree.

By the time Lukas banishes him to the mercy of Forsaken, thwarted and cheated and feeling something almost human, Martin’s skin has already been entirely washed clean.

–

There’s a nightingale on Jon’s wrist. It’s one of the first things that catches his vision, that refocuses from blurry in this undemanding nothing. The colour is too vivid, lurid in this desaturated landscape.

The bird is nestled, or maybe caught, in a twisting of brambles but its beak is open in song.

“Look at me, and tell me what you See,” Jon asks him, and Martin wonders if maybe Jon’s been carrying around his own heart on his sleeve for a while now.

–

His mother’s flowers don’t grow back when he vacates the Lonely. His father’s clockwork finally cleansed from him. The leaves and keys and umbrellas of the numerous small loves and connections he’s now lost the taste of.

Martin’s skin remains unblemished and clear, and he wonders if the Lonely took this capacity from him.

Jon’s hand is dry in his. And nothing blooms on Martin’s arms but a sensation like prickling, like pins and needles, settles under his skin, and Martin holds on just as tightly.

–

There was a downpour on the way back to the safehouse. The sky splitting with a cascade of rain, sheets moving in waves and quickly transforming dewy grass into boggy swamp-land. Their waterproofs, such as they are, have done a poor job and failed to live up to their name, and Jon is dripping a cloud’s-worth of rainfall from his hair alone as he crosses the threshold. Martin, no different, water draining off him like guttering, tuts. Helps him strip the sucking, soaking outer layers off, frigid fingers fumbling with the pull of the zip. Jon awkwardly gets in the way in his efforts to return the gesture, making a face at the sodden slump of Martin’s waterlogged woollen jumper as it hits the floor. Martin catches his t-shirt on his nose as he tries to pull it over his head, trying to unbutton and kick off his clinging trousers in one motion. 

He doesn’t feel embarrassed. Doesn’t cross his mind to be. It’s hard, when Jon’s snickering as he nearly trips over his own legs in his efforts to shake his legs free, when they’ve been clung to each other like tethered buoys each night, coddled by the unbroken dark.

“I’ll get dry clothes,” Martin says, the first to have divested himself of most of his clothes, and he bounds upstairs, damp feet squeaking and slipping, longing for a hot shower as he trails puddles into the bedroom. He throws on thick pyjama bottoms, is half wrenching on an errant t-shirt before he realises it’s Jon’s and has to rifle around for a spare one of his own before he slips it on. He collects some clothes for Jon and rushes back.

Jon’s managed to get off his own trousers, slopped in a pile of fabric by his feet, the skin goosepimpling and dark hair standing stark from the chill. He’s pulling his sticking vest off over his head as Martin returns.

Martin sucks in a gasp. Jon blinks, confused for a moment before a reddening mark stripes across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, splotches at the dip of his neckline.

“What…?” Martin starts, staring at the tapestry on his skin, and he can’t help it.

Before, Tim would joke that Jon loved his job more than he loved people. Was probably conservatively decorated in little stylisations of his perpetually present tape-recorders, probably had a library over his heart. It was something he said as a joke at the beginning and hissed as a recrimination by the end, and Martin and Sasha (and later only Martin) would tell him off, tell him to keep it down, that it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t his business. But if Jon had been marked, they wouldn’t have known. They were hidden under crisp shirt sleeves and well-placed collars even in summer.

The nightingale, wings scratched by thorns, was the first image Martin had ever seen Jon wear. He’d expected that to be it, had hoped such an emblem was meant for him, but it, well, it is dwarfed in comparison to the harmony of colour struck over Jon’s body like a collage.

Every piece of skin that is not torn up and jagged with scars has been brought into the striking shock of deep blues and blacks that slide and ring over dark skin. A choir of imagery that Martin can’t decipher immediately, like a jigsaw he has to step back from, the artworks all wrapped up in each other, each feeding off the other. There are nightingales, some grounded on thin wind-touched branches, some held mid-flight; these become a stylised compass pointing north. There’s the solid structure of a lighthouse taking up most of his gangly upper arm, its lower levels painted in a sea bound mist, or it could be the curling wisps of inviting steam. His stomach, curving concave, is overwhelmed by the imperious crags of icy cliffs, the rocks dashed by high foaming waves, above which hangs the ribboning line of northern lights.  On the sea, a sturdy boat tipping on the water, its spinnaker puffed out and billowing in defiance.

There is so much, so much of Jon taken up, painted in testament, and for a long moment, Martin doesn’t understand.

Jon looks at his feet, and then glances, almost shyly, at Martin’s unpainted throat, his blank arms. Visibly steels himself, moves his gaze up to meet Martin’s.

“It…” he begins, before he breathes in, sets his spine straight. “You. It’s – it’s you. In case, in case you didn’t know.”

“Can – ?” Martin asks, and his fingers are twitching, yearning to trace the lines, to memorise their shapes, and Jon blinks again and then makes a nervy nodding motion.

Martin’s about to reach out before he remembers that Jon’s half-naked and dripping wet in the hallway, that the stone flags will be frozen on his feet, that now is perhaps not the ideal time.

Later. After they warm up, after they shower and the gas boiler grunts and complains and then near-burns them with hot water, after they dress in pyjamas warmed on the radiators, after they go upstairs. Martin runs his hand reverently, shakily over the lighthouse, the compass, the boat, the birds, wonders if this is how Jon sees him, how Jon understands him, wonders why he’s taken up so much space. Looks at all the pictures that are both isolation and sanctuary, song and sorrow and strength, tries to decipher what Jon sees in him.

“There’s so much,” he marvels softly, scarcely believing, hovering the pads of his fingers over the horizon line of a lightening sky, the peaking gleam of a sunrise at Jon’s lower back, the anchor bound in twisting rope around his ankle bone, the up shoots of snow-drops and lily-of-the-valley not far away. Most people get one image, maybe two or three, as proof of meaning to another person, as a tangible reflection of connection. Martin has an entire gallery exhibited across Jon’s body.

“You mean so much,” Jon says softly in response, like that explains it. Maybe for him, it does.

He charts the other bold designs he finds. Realising that for all his earlier pretences, Jon has not, and never has been an island. There’s Daisy’s faintly rusted golden chain caked in mud and blood around his other ankle, Gerard Keay’s thick leather-bound book, its open pages wreathed in fire, the near-vanished marks for his parents, for Georgie, the scant others who came into his life and left their mark.

There might have been an eye, wide and open and unyielding, and it would stare out at the bottom of Jon’s throat if it wasn’t for the rush of wild-flowers also grown there, snow-drops and holly-berries obscuring its vision.

Jon asks him, falteringly, as though unsure of forming the question in his mouth, what Martin had. Before the sea-salt wash of Forsaken cleaned them from him.

And Martin points to where his mum, his dad, his old loves left their remembrances on him. Carefully, honestly, he tells Jon about the tooth marks clamped around limbs like he’d been bitten, because it was not always a kind love Jon made him feel. The eyes that near the end had swarmed like frog-spawn around his middle, slashed across his back like a constellation. The forbidding forest on his arm, the lantern.

Jon strokes the places where he would have seen these things.

“If they don’t come back….” Martin says, and Jon hums.

“They might not,” he says. “That’s… that’s OK.”

“But…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jon says, and he touches at the space where he would have marked Martin ever so kindly. “Something new might show up. In time.”

“Yeah?” Martin croaks, and it’s not a question of if it will or not. Jon’s looking up at him, a smile on his face, his whole body inked with how much he feels, all the words he finds so difficult to express writ large on his body. Martin’s heart feels too big for his chest. And he wonders what meaning they might make of each other together.

[smallestclowninthecircus]

Season 4 notes

Ep 121: mmmm tape recorder turning on without them knowing goes brrr. AAAhjhdsjfhjdf "do you mind if i call you jon" its like "can i call you elias?" is this the dream guy with the tendrils? who wants to bet the boat is captained by peter lukas? big man if it killed yall how are you still here. oh boy the tape is doin that thing. who do we think it is? did he wake up? hmm. ep 122: lol jon. 6 months!?!? bruh quit movin big man. he just Knows things sometimes you know how it is. nah b/c i can relate to feeling like other ppl/ things arent real, thats the biggest mood BUT i think it is kinda pretentious to entertain the idea that youre the only Real person. If you dont see a body dont believe it. i'll hold out hope for a bit. theres not a new archivist is there? surely i wouldve heard about that. oh god peter what changes did you make. ep 123: web development. hope its about spiders. she blames him. bruh why. if they hadnt done anything the world would've ended piss off melanie. why are ppl acting like he chose to be in a coma for 6 months. we know this they just appear. no longer "head archivist of the magnus institute, london" now he's just "the archivist" covered in spiders? cuz ik the spider has to do with controlling what youre doing and all this stuff but i cant think of how this connects to that. ep 124: ugh vertigo. is michael crew an old man? oooh. fairchild. how did he know it was martin? hmm. GRR I LOST MY NOTES AGAIN. FROM EPISODE 125 - part of 131. ep 131: bruh he's so hard to understand big man ur voice is so low. Jared Hotworth. the boneturner. "the ones i helped find their proper bodies" name a better top surgeon? our favorite trans ally? ep 132: woo field trip into the coffin! static lol. he says "chill out im just poppin in for a quick recall mission" is the rib thing actually gonna work? bruh it feels so odd and contrived but he's an odd man with some odd powers so idk. rip that archivist ayyy statement time. voices? recordings? are those tape recorders? was it the tape recorders? did they pull him back? i hope so b/c if the rib thing actually worked im gonna be so disappointed. ep 133: predicting the lonely? tundra. like the lukases. hmm. sanikova! like sanikov land. so its the hunt? i suppose? yeah. so daisy's clearly rejecting the hunt, which makes sense cuz she doesnt seem to like the entities that much. wait so are we just not gonna talk abt all the tapes playing on the ground?? no? ep 134: not an archival assistant anymore? Adelard Decker (or however you spell it) i recognize that name. 15th power. i was right there are 15. the extinction? im trying to remember what ive heard. oooh spooky. no i gotta be real i dont understand this fear but i'll believe you that its a thing. ew lukas is so squealy. lukas can turn invisible? oh boy. oooh martin put the tape recorders there. lol lukas is worried he's gonna be an avatar of the eye. ep 135: yoo its the third Daedalus statement! maxwell rayner (reiner? reigner?) i dont know who that is but ik its somebody. is he the cult leader guy? church of the divine host? 4 people?? what? did they kidnap somebody and keep them up there?? oh dear jon are you dying? did he try to See or Know or whatever? why does everyone call basira detective lol. ep 136: he was the one from the spider movie that ate ppl right? the special effects artist? is it annabelle cane? "its a joke jon" lol. hmm they wanted to record the therapy session with melanie? i wonder who that is. i almost wanna guess annabelle cane but im not sure. ep 137: this is the one! he went to the other place and read the war statement but it wasnt the one she took. not the music again. sounds like the slaughter. who the heck is eric lol. "the watcher's crown" like the crown of eyes we saw in the piccrew ep 138: oh boy Robert Smirk time. is that elias? as unhelpful as usual. if new powers can be "born" can others die out? did jonah magnus wear the watchers crown? maybe they were born from our fear or maybe our fears were born from them. ceaseless watcher does ceaselessly watch so. idk what you want

big man. yeah jonah for sure did something. ep 139: agnes!! lol that one dude threw off all their plans thats so funny. BUT this does tell us something. the tree in the backyard of the hilltop house? not made by her. it going down didnt kill agnes. im guessing gertrude tied agnes to the house using the tree? u good jon? cuz every time you try to Know smth intentionally it seems like it causes you great pain. how come he can do it accidentally with no problem but the second he wants to know smth of plot relevance he gets a headache or whatever ep 140: lol pagan exultation. classic. "oh thats my rib" lmaoo. ppl are always so mad at jon and his Eye powers except when it benefits them. they're like "oh you shouldnt do that its not right" and then all of a sudden they want to know something and its all "oh cmon jon its the only way" ep 142: oh god jon what did you do. its interesting she's giving her statement in the way that they do when jon Asks. did he see her in the Coffin? and so he's following her? ok cmon jon you're supposed to let them come to you. lmao ikr martin. "start to hear the blood" "suure." lmao ep 143: lol that awkward moment when gertrude is already dead. big J if you die im gonna kill you. bruh. ayo helen? i guess it worked? ep 144: lol this reminds me of that one edgar allan poe story where he kills the old dude with the weird eye. spooky music stuff. lol thats my favorite symptom of a heart attack its hilarious. so its smth abt the location probably? bro i feel like you should write down the numbers idk. 162830165049 564846474827. seems like the distortion? like the kinda thing that causes you to go crazy because of the numbers. oh boy is it the extinction again. bro what?? im?? his dad just died and he's like eh. martin dont be mean. he's being all lonely again. big man ur pushing ppl away. oh god its fucking squealy boy. ep 145: that almost sounds like breekon/hope... Arthur? agnes. aah was he from the lightless flame cult. a tree. lol he's just ranting rn. hehehe fuck landlords amirite. yay someone tells jon outright to go to therapy. now do it big man. ep 146: oh great! the distortion! i'm making a spiral themed building in mc right now! jon maybe accept you did a bad? nah this goes back to what i said before. they're fine with him compelling ppl when its convenient for them but otherwise its "no jon you cant, youre a monster jon" the tapes didnt turn on. i spose that means its not important? i agree with daisy, this seems unecessarily dangerous. ep 147: is that a tape? the first tape? well that went better than i expected tbh. BAHAKJASHDJKF she did the "can i call you jon" like nikola says "elias, can i call you elias?" damn annabelle is such a girlboss. oh! the one thing from the picrew. its been a while since ive connected smth to that. lol all the other avatars always talk abt their patron so lovingly and the jon just. absolutely hates the eye. ep 148: lol thats the most elias thing. "i just like the way it sounds" ep 149: did he disappear? bruhh. ur lonely powers are popping off i guess. oops i accidentally deleted my notes for 150 - 152 ep 153: thats the cult right? yeah. it doesnt sound like the church of the divine host? idk. if it is the church of the divine host then they worship the dark right? so is the eleventh the dark star or wtvr? it almost sounds like the corruption b/c of the oil or grease or whatever. oh dear what happened. oh its the hunters. theyre so annyoing. not an "it" he has a name. he's a person. is this a page from the skin book? ep 154: oh shit this is gerry's dad! oh shit he quit! oh dear god. jon don't you do it. haha martin. yeahhhh... is he gonna tell the others? cuz you know theyre gonna get mad if he doesnt. oh also picrew connection! the bandages over the eyes? yeah thats this im guessing. ep 155: oh good he told them. oh my god what did you do. lol i have no mouth and i must scream. nah you get none of my sympathy you're straight up murdering ppl. its like the desolation, destroying lives to sustain your own. ok but taking their statements doesnt

kill them. oh... bye melanie. ep 156: lmao imagine if the tape recorder spoke back. oh boy decker! i swear we got a statement from him already. oh god mirrors scary. They're gonna eat the body arent they. Yup... sounds like the flesh or the slaughter, but I'm not sure. Could be the extinction for sure. Smth at the center! Like Helen mentioned. God Peter you dick. Ep 157: peter's just so :/ another decker statement i see. a statement about the corruption? hmm. maybe its not abt the corruption. the extinction. lol pandemics. topical. John Amherst. helen? lol i can hear admiral purring in the background. oh cmon helen dont be like that. im trying real hard to like you but you make it so difficult. ep 158: did they fucking free the stranger? im gonna lose it. you absolute dumbass. im sorry who is that? jonah magnus? my guy. peter. you absolute dickhead. that's elias. (im p sure i had this spoiled for me that elias is jonah) oh dear this is her death. god peter you prick. i hope this is a pop off martin moment and not a "martin you idiot" moment. i hope the hunters kill the stranger entity. or she kills them. furry daisy pop off! yeah fuck you peter martin can make his own decisions. you know that clip from Twisted where jafar says "ok what the fuck was that" martin D: ok like i know its gonna work but still D: D: ep 159: peter you bitchboy. because if im alone i cant hurt anyone else. imnotgonnacryimnotgonnacryimnotgonnacry do it do it do it do it. pop off jon. ok its a pretty good idea for a ritual i gotta be honest. she didnt even have to blow it up lol. oh dear that was certainly a noise. "he gets you" did he not have jon already? he's back! our boy is back! awwww thats so cute. ep 160: oh right this is the thing in the safe house. i love him. "obviously im going to tell you if i see any good cows" martin my beloved <3 :)) oh boy who is this. fuckin. people. jonah you dick. gahh. you can tell he's trying to resist so hard lol. ohh. hehe keep an *eye* on him. altho if the extinction is a real thing he needs to be marked by that right? lol he sounds so intense im sorry- i want martin to just burst in and be like "look at this cow i saw!" its so dramatic and for why.

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 6

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day 151: Great hour or so last night around Foggy’s. When I got home I watched World War Z and some stand up by Nate Bargatze and drank and smoked loads. Today, I got up just before 2pm and felt soooo unmotivated. I was going to have a day of doing fuck all but had a change of heart around 7pm so did my stair climb then walked for over an hour (7km) and got home at 9:30pm!

Day 152: Typing on day 153. I popped up and saw Foggy last night. One of the reasons was I wanted to take him a beer to say thanks for looking over my mitigation statement for my impending court hearing for speeding. He liked what i wrote but has given me some key amendments. Basically free solictor advice and I am very grateful. While there he hit me with the news that Ham’s sister, Preeya, has died (last Friday 14th August) from Covid 19. To say i was gobsmacked is an understatement. She was 49. The family could only talk to her over a loud speaker and had to say good bye that way as her life support was swithced off. Fucking hell, it’s terrible. And, what makes it worse, is how complacent I have become about the disease while it’s causing so much tragedy. As I said to Foggy, it’s important to renew our efforts in combatting this disease so that Preeya’s death at least means we learn. I also feel guilty for not realising that many people have passed like this - just because I (sort of) knew Preeya doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel any less sorry for the dozens of people dying and many more affected everyday. My emotions are in turmoil and yet I’m not directly affected.

Day 153: Typing this on day 154. Gone midday before I woke up. Beers in the evening and watched Den of Thieves. Great film.

Day 154: Woke up at 2:37 pm FFS. Just done a walk and I feel like shit (booze induced).

Day 155: Went to bed at about 4am yesterday but was up at 10am today so, usual Monday correction of sleep patterns. Two long walks today plus a little housekeeping on photos, sharing to the Oundle chatter group, so, quite constructive. Hoir chat with dad plus a chat with a recruitment agemt about a helpdesk manager role in Peterborough.

Day 156: Typing on Day 157. I saw Karen sitting with TTP (and two others I couldn’t make out) at the T&K on my second walk. Why does that piss me off so much? I am being like Jack in Midnight Run. I need to let go.

I am also getting wound up with Tumblr - I can only make entries on this diary blog on the PC - when I try on the Android or Apple apps, they pop up with ‘post too long’. Trying getting info from Tumblr’s online help on that though - fucking not happening. I think I might move this to a Google Blog...it’s not like anyone else reads it. I’m not sure I’d want that - it’s far more a private diary now rather than the cute ‘blog’ idea it started out as. It is now a disciplinary exercise more than anything.

Day 158: Feeling less sorry for myself now. It’s 10pm and I am having a midweek beer as I wait for tea to cook.

Day 159: Decided I will split this diary into 30 day sections to appease Tumblr. My second walk today was at 8pm ‘cos it was pissing down from about 4pm ‘til 7:30pm...very dark and so wet. Home by 9.15pm.

Day 160: I went shopping in Corby (Tesco and Asda) - I only really went so I could get blue eggs. £75 on booze! I was going up to Fog’s tonight but at around 6pm it started to piss down. So, I shall drink at home. It’s 9.15pm, I think it’s going to get messy.

Day 161: Not sure when I wnet to bed last night but I didn’t get up until 2pm. Nice long walk (9km) in the rain!

Banners and Sam G went to London to have a few with Andy P. I’m a little flabbergasted, it’s like there’s no Covid19 all a sudden.

Day 162: Bank holiday Sunday so I am having a beer or two. Tea’s cooking, gonna watch The Accountant on BBC1 at 10.30pm. Today I got up at 1.55pm and managed to have a shower and be downstairs to see the start of the Belgian GP. Hamilton won, pretty easily. I then did my stair climb and a 9.8km (6 mile) walk.

Last night I watched a rather quirky, entertaining comic horror film called Ready or Not and then Ricky Gervais - Fame. That’s the tour I saw him live after seeing Henman’s final tennis match at the Davis Cup at Wimbledon. Bloody funny - the recording could even be the show Karen and I were at. Bed at around 5am, hence not egtting up ‘til way past midday!

Day 163: Bank Holiday Monday, just like a Sunday. I am making this entry on my phone as I'm now able to due to breaking up the diary blog into 30 day sections.

Molly's Game, a film I've tried to rewatch several times but it's never been free, is on BBC2 tonight. I'm recording it right now but actually watching Seinfeld from the start on All4. The first couple of episodes are a bit ropey if truth be told. Luckily, I know it improves.

Day 164: Managed to get hold of Michelle via her daughter Daisy to place a nice big order for C. Just as well ‘cos Tim’s ignoring me!

Rang and spoke with Barry Haddon today to check he’s OK.

Day 165: Picked up C from Michelle’s in Yarwell. While there I was mauled by her over friendly Staffordshirebull terrier getting bit on the thigh. Twice in six months I’ve been bitten by dogs.

Karen WhatsApp’d to see if I’d seen Miley Cyrus on the Live Lounge!

Day 166: Forgot to say that yesterday, I also bumped into and chatted with Pete Gilder. We mainly talked about (getting caught) speeding.

Today I did over 22k steps and I am fucked. 

I replied to an email from Shirley at work HR. After the furloughed staff call on Thursday, which I didn’t attend, they want us to cash in some (more) hoilday, which is fine by me, but I have also asked if we are any clearer as to what happens on 1st October, when the rentention scheme ends. I await her reply.

Day 167: Another 20k stpes today. Just 24k needed to have completed 1m steps since the start of July.

It’s Friday, about 9.45pm. I’m going to watch Molly’s Game and have a few beers.

Day 168: Got up at just before 2pm. It’s now 10.15pm and I am just having my first beer, Today was a lazyish day, completed 12k steps.

Day 169: Completed the 1m steps with 24 days to spare. Woohoo. Now, I am unsure whether to reduce the walking I have got so used to doing? I think I might keep up an average of 11k steps a day which is all I would have needed to accomplish to reack 1m in 3 months.

I’m pleased I did it today since I :went to bed a nearly 5am this morning!

Day 170: Actually typing this on day 171. Feels weird having done the 1m steps, almost like I’ve nothing to do. However, I am of course going to keep walking but not quite as hard/much. I did feel liek I was walking myself into the ground all in the name of finishiong the task ASAP. So, today I only had one walk, did 11,5k.

Yesterday’s Italian GP was a cracker. Hamilton had a penalty and ikt ended up with Gasly winning. Full of incident including a red flag so the race ‘restarted’.

I completely forgot ot make this entry on the correct day?

Day 171: I have decided to press on with the walking - not quite so urgently as before - to see what I can achieve steps-wise in 3 months. So, today, an unusually hot day for September, I did 18k steps plus cleaned the bathroom, hoovered my room and stairs and hallway. I am fucked!

Today I have bought a set of smart scales and a new pair of Skechers. The Skechers were almost free (£69 reduced to £30ish which I had in Paypal) and the scales were £20. Still, I shouldn’t. I don’t know what will happen at the end of October when the CJRS ends plus I don’t know what punsihment will be dished out, any day now, for the speeding offence! Fuck it!

Day 172: An eventful day. Boris has restricted gatherings to no more than 6 people and will use ‘Covid Marshalls’ to police this. It’s causing a stir amongst the online community. I have set up accounts with Gurushots and Picfair to showcase my snaps. The latter offers the opportunity to sell them. I watched Anchorman 2. It was pretty good. I also postd on the Oundle chatter group about walking in front of a car the other day - the driver, a yound lady, was enchanting the way she just smiled and let me pass - I used it as an opportunity to ask about George Higgins saving a child from near death at the hands of a lorry, the post about which has disappeared.

Day 173: Lots have seen my post re: my car incident but the bait hasn’t been taken.

Sarah Haines made a nice comment about my photo posts on the Oundle Chatter group also saying that she doesn’t know me but, it turns out she does. She is James Watson’s ex from when I first moved to Oundle so we caught up on Messenger.

Rachel Harris posted a meme slating Boris about the fact we were all encouraged to go out and about (inclding the Eat Out to Help Out scheme) and now we are being sent back to ‘our room’. Some of the comments continue to slate the government. I couldn’t resist commenting that, had the royal ‘we’ maintined social distancing and remembered there’s a fucking pandemic, perhaps we might not be under impending severe lockdown, as it now looks like. I also mentioned photos I have seen (one posted by Rach herslf) whereby you could be mistaken for thinking that there isn’t a pandemic. I have finished the comment with a line about we can only blame ourselves, not the hapless government! I wonder what reaction that will get!

Day 174: Scales were delivered today. If they are accurate I am a little over 11 stones, from 12st 7lbs before lockdown. Can’t quite believe it. I have a yearly diabetic review with Lynne in October so i can check then. If the scales are wrong, I’ll be livid on 2 scores!

Friday night beers as I type. Been looking forward to them since last Saturday!

Day 175: I do not trust the new scales. I get a different reading each time I step on them and by 10-12 lbs. Fucking things. Boots arrived today - they’re going back as well. Footy season started today. Posh lost away to Acrrington Stanley. “Who are they?”

Day 176: The GP was reflagged again today (a new track at Tuscany. A red flag two races on the trot is most unusual. Hamilton won.

Day 177: I managed to get the scales working. I’m pretty much the same weight I was prior to ld (about 12.5 st). This leads me to believe that if I wasn’t doing all the walking I am, I would be as fat as a fucking house. On that note, Google Fit is playing up. It loses the step and heart point count for each walk (although the workouts retain the route map info) Wtf?

I think K and TTP might be a thing from a post I saw on FB whereby some chap (who I don’t know) commented on TTP’s post that it was nice to see him and K. Kinda gutted if it is true but I shouldn’t be. That’s all I will say on here.

Day 178: Jim contacted me today to let me know he’s leaving RCI. He was quite secretive about why and what’s going on but, there it is. He went on to say that HR will be contacting me shortly to call me back from furlough. Sueanne is taking over as team leader but that’s temporary. and that they will most likely promote from within. I struggling to think what it would be like if Mark was boss! The way RCI are and how disjointed it is with Jim as boss, I shan’t take it as read until HR do contact me. Also, I dunno how I feel about it...I have got so used to not working. But, and it’s a big but, I doubt I’ll have a job after the retention scheme finishes so, if this does pan out, it’s good. I’ll be back to job hunting while in a job, as per before the pandemic.

Also, I received an email letting me know the punishment for my speeding offence was 6 points and a £233 fine, plus costs (£90) and victim support (£34), £357 in total. More than I expected. But, no ban, so I’ll suck it up. 

Day 179: Having midweek beers. I'm in that sort of mood.

Day 180: I WhatsApp’d Jim to let him know HR haven’t contacted me. His garbled response went from telling to give them a shout and let them know he is leaving, to which I asked ‘don’t they know?’, he then said hold fire (on Sueanne’s instruction) and she has said for me to sit tight and then, finally, that HR will contact me! Fuck knows what’s going on! I had a diabetic review with Lynne today. When you go to the surgery you have to let in, which I was by Keren. It was nice to see and chat with her. She is back with Ronnie which was news to me. Then Lynne came and got me. It was nice to see and chat with her also. She weighed me and I’m 12st 3lb. Apparently in Jan last year I was over 13st!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 1: Can We Just...Ignore the Apocalypse? Let’s Just Ignore the Apocalypse.

Ah guys, we’re back, it’s a new season! Sort of! It’s a filler arc that probably won’t make a huge difference on anything in the plot but bro has promised is hella weird so lets dive into it.

Remember all the stuff we were talking about last season, and how I had to like basically carry around a notebook and take character notes like for the first time since my High School English class when we read Shakespeare? Remember how freakin complicated everything got?

Well the writers for this season decided to do a soft reset on all of that mess. Apparently they’ll get back to that crazy stuff we spent a whole season building up but with a new season they’d get a new audience of viewers, and maybe they didn’t want them to be confused. Because, lets be honest, nearly all of the latter half of S2 would be unwatchable if you did not know what was happening.

They also knew they had a problem, especially since they were waiting for the manga to catch up to the show at this point so they couldn’t accidentally step on the manga’s shoes and invent things that later negated the manga entirely. They had to edit. They had to stay as far away from the manga points as they could. And they did it in the most ridiculous way.

Y’all don’t even know this blog was *almost* a SeaQuest DSV blog. But it was pulled. So then it was almost a Kolchack the Nightstalker blog. But that got pulled. Yugioh was my third choice. Much like my dating life.

That’s right, we’re going to do a soft reset by adding a whole new set of characters! A whole new plotline to keep track of! To show us this tantalizing view of Kaiba island and then just.......detour.

It’s honestly, a welcoming thing for me, a reviewer, because I was getting hella lost and now it’s back to basics. Although, there are certain things they just...didn’t even address.

Cold as ice, Yugi. Cold as freakin ice, like way to appreciate your most interesting friend. Like maybe put that house fern where Bakura died or something. Anything.

What teenager finds out their other teenage friend freakin died last night and is like “well...that happens” and of all teenagers--especially Yugi Muto. Yugi is usually so freakin extra but he doesn’t really...seem to be freaking out. I’m so used to this kid having a melt down so often, that when he’s not having a melt down, I assume there’s something absolutely wrong with him.

Yugi kind of glazes over the more complicated parts of Season 2 in some flashbacks, and then the blimp starts shaking violently to get us right off course in both location and plot.

(read more under the cut)

We did not get a peek at anyone’s mirrors to see if the giant mystery purple bottles are still around. A shame.

Also, guess what time it is, just by looking at this image. Just guess in your head, knowing that all these people went to bed at like 3AM last night.

Yeah it’s canonically 5 AM. In grand Yugioh tradition, all these kids, mostly a bunch of really gross boys, who are still in clothes from the day before, who miiiight not have showered, are now going to continue their adventure, just piling on the gross as much as possible until this season ends. It’s like every little kid’s dream honestly.

Anyways, we’re gonna fly right into a plot dump that is maybe one of the most insane dumps this show has ever dumped--and y’all we’ve had some nuts dumps--but this one is especially weird because it actually makes sense within the continuity.

Just remember when you hear this that we are in Season 3. It is Season 3 and this has never once come up, not even once before. That one guy on the writing staff who really, really, REALLY stans Seto Kaiba apparently walked into work the day when they were making this episode and was he like “wow, everyone called in sick to work today and no one’s here but me and I can go home or I can finally just go NUTS.”

So this entire time, the Kaiba’s were basically the Patriots. OK.

I mean, it actually makes so much more sense as to why these children know how to ride a helicopter and why Seto randomly knows CQC. I never thought I would ever get a proper explanation for this but here it is. Kaiba was being honed to devote himself to the...war economy...but then he said “actually nah, because that’s too effed up even for Yugioh” and then to spite his father replaced every weapon with trading cards.

And then...accidentally weaponized trading cards in the process thus turning into his own Father. 

I guess that’s why people are legit dying in this tournament and Seto and Mokuba are like “Yeah? This is what happens?” since they were literally raised by some Hideo Kajima mini-boss. They probably have no idea what children’s games are supposed to be like, so when Yugi loses his nut and starts Shadow Realming they’re like “hm. Is this what kids are into? I’ll go along with it. See Dad? I am blending into kid culture real well. Really good at kid stuff.”

Like, it’s a good layer of irony that these two decided to bring peace and harmony to the whole earth by replacing weapons with games you’d play with children--but then they chose the one game that will absolutely end the Earth quicker than a weapon of mass destruction. Congrats. You did it.

This show, man, sometimes I’m not sure what it wants Seto Kaiba to be. Because, yeah, Seto just showed us a very nice thing he did as he randomly does--he’s basically won a Nobel Peace Prize by default--but he’s still a complete asshole. Like did he just feel like he has to show up Yugi again for saving the Earth last season by reminding us that Seto has already done that before this show ever started? That he dissolved the freakin Patriots before this show ever began?

Like Seto single-handedly fixed the entire plot of Metal Gear. Like this is the child that ended how many wars with getting rid of the ammunition? This is the child the writers chose? Seto freakin Kaiba?

And then he turned around and essentially put cards into a bunch of guns and you wear them on your wrist what the hell is even going on with this kid?

But don’t worry we won’t get even five seconds to register this plot dump, much like that time they told me that Seto freakin Kaiba has a dead soulmate from 5000 years ago who is now four separate playing cards and also probably his Great^nth Grandmother.

The Seto lore is rapidly getting more complicated than the Yugi lore and Yugi Muto is two people. Just saying.

Anyway, lets meet our new villain.

So the theme of this arc seems to also be a theme that the writers are currently wrestling with. You got Yugioh which has a very--INTERESTING background, it’s this horror manga turned effed up anime turned much more tame child’s anime and it’s like, that’s a lot of pressure for this team. Kinda feels like every time they try to do Yugioh there’s going to be people that are pissed off because it wasn’t like what came before it. And so this whole story of Kaiba trying to get out of his problematic Father’s shadow is almost like the entire writing team at this point just begging us to please let them do a thing without having to do 158 on-screen murders.

(JK, they’ll murder off more people in this very episode.)

And so this arc they decide to make this character who, as bro mentioned, is a throwback to Season Zero Kaiba, but with better hair. Sort of. Honestly, I mostly only see the white shirt as a reference but I can see what bro is getting at, especially since their hair shape and eyes are like...VERY Kaiba-ey. Anyway, I called it right away before we saw this kid that he’d be a distant relative here to claim his cut of the Kaiba inheritance pie so, because his hair is Mokuba blue-green, we’ll just make him a Season Zero green. Because it looks like no one else’s font color.

Honestly, hopefully that won’t get too confusing if he and Mokuba are speaking at the same time but I have changed Mokuba’s font color once already and now I might have to change it again...

They’re already kidnapped, right? Like all of these people on this blimp have absolutely been kidnapped by Marik and are at this moment at his mercy? (mercy meaning “he just doesn’t feel like it right now”)

So yes, Noah kidnapped them, but at the same time he’s just borrowing hostages from Marik for a little while. He’s just babysitting some other person’s kidnapees from how I see it.

Also, his name is Noah and he lives on a very big ship. That’s uh...a little on the nose there with the naming conventions, Yugioh. As far as villains go, at least this kid doesn’t live underground and get tortured with back tatts. But, with the way this show is going, I would not be surprised if all the Kaibas got Agent 47 serial codes on the back of their heads.

*I love a good Star Trek tractor beam, don’t get me wrong, but never in my life did I think I’d see a sci fi tractor beam being used on a freakin party blimp*

Marik, PS, is still standing here on top of this blimp saying “this will be very interesting to just let another villain waltz in here on my territory while I just chill on the couch for a little while. I am tired.” which was...actually pretty true to Marik. This kid will let anyone else do his job for him if given the opportunity. Such a lazy villain. In a show where all the villains have been pretty lazy.

Now, Noah insists that everyone get the hell off this blimp, but Seto was like “Really, honestly, I just want to keep one secret today. Just any secret. Lets just have this conversation in private and everyone else, please don’t mind my family issues. No need to call the cops, it’s just a light kidnapping, no big deal. Family, amiright?”

So because they’re getting shot at, they stubbornly get off the blimp.

And then Marik wrote himself right out of this arc. At least according to my bro.

So, in honor of blimp, lets give that blimp a good send off. One last time, for blimp

I will miss you, blimp.

So, down a hallway and in a room of so much bloom they run into...these guys?

I had to like really think for a while to remember who the hell these guys were, it feels like 10 years ago since that one-off MMO arc that I figured would never come back.

Apparently time doesn’t work the same, much like in Narnia, so the Big 5 are just straight up insane now. Got it. Really glad I get to try and keep track of the names of 5 new people, don’t hold me to it, I’ll absolutely forget the name of every one of these mini-bosses. Anyways, while they were strapped to Kaiba’s game for 2 months, they freakin died.

Yeah, what?

Wow Yugi killed 5 people and it’s not even Season Zero! Like this is a Yugi kill, right? Like Yugi did this entirely? Like that whole game would’ve been a lose if Kaiba wasn’t told exactly what to do by Yugi and Pharaoh? Nice.

And then they got...the digital version of Shadow Realmed.

Ah the digital space. We can go anywhere here. Any environment. Anywhere. lets see where they go.

Man this show and it’s obsession with island climates.

I say that, forgetting they’re all from Japan.

Apparently every season of Yugioh contractually has to have at least one reference to Tristan’s enigmatic ass. Thing is--assuming they’re all hooked up to sensors or whatever---is there just one that covers...farts? Like there’d have to be, right? Google, stop whatever weird self driving car glasses you’re making and get on that.

After Kaiba proves that you can’t actually touch anything in this universe, Tea immediately sees a great opportunity and just starts touching all the stuff that she can’t touch, too. So she goes over to the bushes and sees this looking back at her. From a bush.

This still doesn’t answer the question of why the hell there was a clone in the bush!

Anyway, apparently Kaiba has made hundreds of clones of himself so he could play cards since he had no friends growing up and that wasn’t even the weirdest Kaiba plot dump this episode. Kaiba and his Clone Wars just feels so tame now.

So they go over rules--it’s a lot of words all right. Whatever, we don’t go into duels here, but overall they have to choose a mascot whenever they play to act a King in chessboard. So if their mascot card dies, then they lose.

Honestly they could just kill everyone straight up but youknow, it’s Yugioh so we’re gonna throw some honor into this murder by making it card murder. It’s fine. Don’t think about it.

Ishizu just slept through everything, right? Like she looked outside, saw all this go down and was like “NOPE” and then went right back to bed? I mean...that is also sort of what she did for half of last season.

And no, Yugi never ever once mentioned that Bakura freakin died last night. Amazing.