#also i know amy's a different person but if i found out magical creatures existed and I was just a simple human

[bookwyrminspiration]

How do you think Amy was affected by being the only living human to know of the elves?

-🦢 anon

We've seen a little of how it affected her--for example, she'd mentioned keeping an eye out in the news for happenings that might be Lost Cities related. I'd imagine she's also constantly wondering if what she knows (history) is the truth, and comparing her home to the cleanliness, crime-free (mostly), vibrant Lost Cities. That she's more critical and questioning as a whole

I think for her this is also very tied to being the only one to remember Sophie, which is even more impactful. Not only is she keeping elves/ogres/etc. secret from everyone, including her parents (who she has a good relationship with). She has to live with the fact her parents don't remember they had another daughter, that said daughter is in constant danger--they don't even remember their own kidnapping.

So any emotional turmoil Amy has from her parents being taken and tortured while she lived alone with strangers she has to deal with on her own--or to reach back out to the elven world, but she's not supposed to have a lot of contact.

She lives playing a role that is both her and slightly not. Responding to a different name, with different friends, and a family that will never be what it used to. Acting like it's all she's ever known.

I imagine the immersion means she loses herself in it sometimes, but other times she wonders if everything's okay with Sophie. If the elves are at war, and if it'll reach her world. What she can do if it does

She's in a position of immense powerlessness, and she knows it. She tries to overcome it, but the world is so much bigger than before now, and she can only do so much. That has to take its toll, even if its worth it to remember who she is

[ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife]

MAG 018 - The Man Upstairs

Summary: Jonathan reads the statement of Christof Rudenko, regarding “his interactions with a first-floor resident of Welbeck House, Wandsworth.”

Obligatory confession of American confusion: This episode is about 23 minutes long, and it took me until somewhere around the 20-minute mark before I had my light-bulb moment about Toby Carlisle being a “first-floor resident”. By “first floor” he means “SECOND floor” in American speak. Yes, that’s right - I spent almost the entire episode confused about which floor this guy really lived on. (For anyone not in the know, in the U.S. the “first floor” is the floor that you walk into a building on, that you don’t use any steps or stairs to access. It is also called the ground floor - they are the same thing. If you go up one flight of stairs, you are now on the second floor, not the first.)

The first-floor-second-floor thing was pretty much the only mystery I solved this episode though. I definitely enjoyed the episode (despite feeling like throwing up myself at some of the descriptions), but as with most of the episodes, I’m left with far more questions and tantalizing clues than actual answers.

Christof describes the odd, unpleasant odor around Toby Carlisle as “halfway between the smell of the pavement after a rain on a hot day and chicken that’s starting to turn”. The second part of that makes sense, given the state of Toby’s apartment when Christof enters it at the end, but I’m having trouble placing what exactly that first part is supposed to smell like. More interesting to me though is the fact that the smell was already there when Christof moved in, even though the banging from Toby’s apartment didn’t start until almost two years later. It seems reasonable to assume the banging was Toby nailing the various meats to the walls, floor, ceiling, etc., but if that’s the case, then where was that smell coming from for the years prior to that? Did it originate with Toby himself, or did his excess meat problem cause the smell long before he actually started nailing them to the walls?

When Christof returned the incorrectly delivered package to Toby’s apartment, we get possibly the most detailed description of any part of Toby in the entire episode: “The hand was thin and pale, with long, filthy yellow fingernails. On the back, I saw a single dark red mark that might have been a cut or a lesion, but it was gone before I had a chance to see it in more detail.” The “single dark red mark” is likely the beginning of the “puckered, septic lesions and holes” Christof sees in Toby’s dead face at the end of the episode (some part of me wants to say it reminds me of Jared Key’s eye tattoos from episode 12...but I’m trying to ignore that possibility), but the fingernails are what really piqued my interest. Christof tells himself for most of the episode that Toby just has a severe hygiene issue, but if it was straight-up uncleanliness, his fingernails would be primarily brown or black, caked with dirt or grime, that sort of thing. Instead, they are yellow more than anything else. This is the first of five mentions of the color yellow in this episode - the second is the color of the growing stain on Christof’s dining room ceiling, the third is the color of the liquid that oozes out of the hole in the ceiling after it collapses, the fourth is the color of the rotting meat covering Toby’s apartment, and the fifth is the color of the “fluid” that “oozed” from the creepy af pile of meat in Toby’s kitchen. The similarity in the colors indicates a direct connection between Toby himself (that is, his body) and the rotten meat. But the pieces of meat that lined his apartment were, in Christof’s estimation, pieces of various non-human animals - so if we take him at his word, the rotten meat wasn’t literally from Toby, so something external caused both Toby and the meat to excrete that sickly yellow rot.

So what made it target or infect Toby? No clue, since we don’t have any background on him, but I sure hope it wasn’t done by touch alone: Christof got some of that yellow slime on his jacket sleeve when Toby snatched the package from him. He said he couldn’t get rid of the smell and eventually threw the jacket out - but then he accidentally touched the stuff while fumbling for the light switch in Toby’s apartment at the end. When they followed up with him, he said “he had had no further experiences he believed to be linked to these events” and I don’t have any specific reason to disbelieve that - except that that means Toby wasn’t infected by just touching the wrong thing (or person). This isn’t a Jane Prentiss-type infection. So what’s Toby’s story?

And just what was in that package? “The envelope was thick and soft - it must have been mainly full of bubble wrap or other packing material.” So...it wasn’t meat? Because that would have been two puzzle pieces fitting together quite nicely, canceling each other out, and I’m more than a little irked that that wasn’t the case. It’s like Jonathan said at the end: “Where was he getting the meat?” At first, the sheer quantity of meat reminded me, vaguely, of the bag of teeth from episode 5. Both were a multitude of body parts. But those teeth were human and the meat is (apparently) from animals, and all the teeth were identical, whereas these meats are all different cuts from different animals. Notably, they’re all animals that are typically eaten by humans - Christof mentions steaks, chicken, and lamb among them. This seems to be more of that theme of rotten food, although in this case I think the “rotten” is more important than the “food”.

Despite all these questions I have, none of these things are directly harmful. Sure, Christof’s ceiling caves in, but no one besides Toby dies or gets hurt (that we know of). But that pile at the end...I got some Seriously Bad Vibes from that. To recap, Christof found in Toby’s kitchen “a pile of discarded meat and bone stacked almost as high as a person. It seemed almost less decayed than the rest of it, though that foul yellow fluid oozed from it, and…when I looked at that heaped pile of meat…it moved. I don’t know how - I don’t know quite how to explain it, other than it opened its eyes. It opened all its eyes. The next thing I remember is the police’s arrival” - and then suddenly the pile of meat was gone. There are two things here - inherently connected, I’m sure - that I’d like to point out.

First is the eyes. Creepy or out-of-place eyes have been mentioned every few episodes so far in the series: in the painting on Mary Key’s wall in episode 4, in Wilfred Owen’s death in episode 7, in the eye pendants in episode 9, in Jared Key’s eye tattoos in episode 12 (as well as the eye in the security camera in that same episode). And with each new appearance (particularly the one in this episode) I’m starting to get more and more worried about whatever being or creature or presence the eyes belong to.

Which brings me to the second thing. One of the recurring themes in these stories has been what I’ve taken to calling “altered reality” - when things appear one way but, we find out later, were actually quite different. When Graham is confused by Amy mentioning his nonexistent window box in episode 3. When Laura tries to reverse out of the squeeze in the cave in episode 15 and her foot hits solid rock. When the pile of meat straight-up disappears in this very episode. I want to be clear - those examples of “altered reality” are not what I’m talking about when I discuss a new (to me) theme: the incomprehensible. This pile of...whatever...in Toby’s kitchen is literally incomprehensible to Christof. He can’t even put into words what he saw. It’s like either the words don’t exist to describe what he saw or his brain can’t comprehend it - or possibly both. He says, “when I looked at that heaped pile of meat…it moved. I don’t know how - I don’t know quite how to explain it, other than it opened its eyes. It opened all its eyes.” Being unable to trust your senses due to some “altered reality” is terrifying, but to experience something that is literally incomprehensible and indescribable is just another level of terrifying. And the one thing most clearly intertwined with this incomprehensibility Christof experiences? The eyes. Specifically, the eyes opening.

We’ve seen this incomprehensibility before, albeit in slightly less terrifying (IMO) situations. In episode 3, Amy describes the creature entering Graham’s window: “When I say it moved, that’s not quite right - it shifted. Like when you stare at one of those old magic eye paintings and you change from seeing one picture into seeing another.” But much more blatantly and recently, in episode 17 Sebastian describes reading an excerpt from The Boneturner’s Tale: the Boneturner “crept up to the Miller while he slept. It described him silently reaching inside him and…it’s a bit hazy. All I remember clearly is the line ‘and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took’. And as for the rest, I don’t recall in detail.” The second example concerns me much more than the first. I feel bad for Graham, of course, and I really want to know what that creature was...but The Boneturner’s Tale was a Leitner and seemed to have the power to deform anyone who touched it.

By themselves, it doesn’t appear that the eyes are doing anything. They’re just eyes, after all. No limbs, no body. But I don’t know if they really are just watching, or if their form and actions are so incomprehensible to humans that the people in these stories essentially can’t perceive it. And if they are just watching...what are they watching for, and what’s going to happen when they see it?

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!

[sleepymouses]

tagged by @littlepetbee, thank uuuu <3 i spent way too long thinking about htis lol,

Rules: pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions, tag a bunch o ppls to do it too (if y’all want to, supes no pressure or anything!)

Natsume yuujinchou  (a teenage orphan who sees spirits/monsters sets out to free the spirits who were bound in magical contract by his grandmother after he inherits a powerful book, aided primarily by a spirit who appears as an exasperated fat cat (who is just as fun as he sounds). Titular character is like my Fave boy in the whole world, he’s so kind and soft despite all the hardships he’s faced, the series has very gentle pacing/character development, and each episode is a carefully crafted lil story that have often moved me to tears, chuckles, or outright chinhands of fondness as u watch natsume slowly find a home in the world and amongst the humans &spirits around him. big focus on friendships, there’s like no romance with any of the main characters, lots of cool different creatures (most of whom arent all that scary once u get to know them), its just literally everything i could ever dream for in a show and it exists! <3)

Leverage (team of modern day robin hoods ruin rich peoples’ lives via  delightfully crafted spy cons to give back to the regular folks the rich people hurt. Extremely good, strong found family vibes, and v cathartic)

Brooklyn 99 (follows diverse cast of character who make up a NY precinct. Hilarious, immensely wholesome & groundbreaking, & probs the most lighthearted crime show besides like psych tbh)

Blackspot/Zone Blanche (spoopy french/belgium crime series set in a small village way out in the mountains surrounded by misty, mysterious and murdery woods. eerie and atmospheric, but also like one of my fave characters (everyone calls him teddy bear) keeps a pet guinea pig at work, so it’s not entirely grim and bleak)

Longmire (a modern western crime drama centering around the titular sheriff and others in their small town wyoming county, well written and lot of chracter development revealed alongside some really good case mysteries bc i love trying to figure out whodunits apparently based on a book series well adored by dads btw)

who is your favorite character in 2? (leverage) ahhh,,, this is hard... Eliot maybe? like Hardison is baby ofc, but i relate to elliot a ton (i think if i was on a team i would want to be the hitter tbh?) and love the subversion of so many action hero tropes that he is, also endlessly amused by how very put upon he is despite all his rad/random skills

who is your least favorite character in 1? (natsume yuujinchou) oh seiji matoba for sure, he can go eat a mouldy tree stump. absolutely evil nasty dude

what is your favorite episode of 4? (blackspot) the end of the road. great opening, didnt end up too devastating unlike a lot of the cases, Hermann was gr8, cool twist i hadnt super expected in the plot which was neat.

what is your favorite season of 5? (longmire) probs 1, walter reeally started to piss me off being Such A Man in later seasons, also me being extremely anxious about Henry and his life choices later, that creepy stalker storyline starting up with Someone and when Someone else in the main cast got died really suddenly and upsettingly later on as well, also when a weird relationship started between some of the characters that i really aint feeling so. before all that happened was nice (also sorry if this is super vague, im trying to avoid spoilers)

who is your favorite couple in 3? (B99) Besides Jake/Amy and Holt/Kevin (bc oviously theyre gr8) uh.. i know it was a long time ago and didnt last very long, but i thought rosa and marcus were really sweet? it brought another layer out to her character, even when they broke up that helped rosa starting to show emotional vulnerability and all, even tho it ended it was still just, idk, i liked them.

who is your favorite couple in 2? (leverage) Does trio count, cos Parker/Eliot/Harding 4 life yo

what is your favorite episode of 1? (natsume yujinchou) i have sooo many faves ahhh!!! i dont think i could pick just one on pain of death, every episode is acrefully cosntructed gem all on its own and i have too many that i love and adore to pick jsut one :((

what is your favorite episode of 5? (longmire) Dog soldier!! ive rewatched that one a ton, so so many good bits, really satisfying resolution of the case despite the shitty system that was revealed, and i rmr getting chills by the end the first time i saw it.

what is your favorite season of 2? (leverage) i guess season 1? just, idk, everything being set up and watching all these grumpies/less grumpies who have no plans to stay together start working together as a baby team, and just the joy of seeing their first heist together with the first plot twist, just.. such a delight, but all seasons that ive seen so far were all excellent, it’s a stellar show

how long have you watched 1? (natsume yujinchou) oh idk exactly, like years and years man... defs the longest out of all on this list

how did you become interested in 3? (b99) i think it was just on netflix way back in season 1 and i started watching it, loved it and never stopped? i think that might have even been before it got rlly popular lol

who is your favorite actor in 4? (blackspot) i dont rlly know any of these french peeps? but teddybear’s one of my fave characters, so hopefully the person who plays him is also cool, in which case hubert delattre (if not, Suliane Brahim does a v good job as the lead)

which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5? (natsume yujinchou, leverage or longmire) um... real torn between natsume and leverage here, they’re both such lovely gems that do found family so, so well.. leverage is a team of modern robin hood-esque spies with brilliant writing and exciting heists and multiple delightful plot twists every episode and great character building and so much catharticism in ruining evil rich peoples lives.

but natsume’s title character is one of my very favorite characters ever, hes been through so much but he becomes the most kindest and thoughtful boy ever, and its so, so soft and gentle in its development of characters and their slow build of getting to know each other and becoming friends, and the interactions with the paranormal world are very rarely entirely malicious/scary, and there’s pretty well no romance, at least like no romance for plot/with the main characters anyways, and there’s lots of female characters who have important roles but arent sexualized/killed off for man feels/exist for romo (which sadly cannot be said about a lot of media, especially manga/anime tbh, even leverage does not win entirely on that front).. its defintiely my favorite anime ever (i dont watch loads, but literally no other one can ever come close to topping its perfection),

i guess tho, leverage is over, and natsume is still technically ongoing, so i guess for that then i have to go with natsume?

which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3? (natsume yuujinchou or b99) Natsume for sure, they’re so short its easy to power thru like half a season in an afternoon

if you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? (blackspot) i would probably want to be someone who didnt live in villefranche actually haha uh, it’s a pretty spoopity place.. even some of the characters i do like make some Bad decisions that are v bothersome. Dr. Leila barami seems to have a good head on her shoulders tho, so if i Must be a character here then let’s go with her

would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? (b99 or blackspot) oh god... the cheery upbeat department at the 99 meet up with a grim, misty tiny mountain forest village with bleak day to day life, solving crimes amidst small town paranoia and weird maybe cult-related conspiracies and honestbhly something/s paranormal and menacing going on in the woods?? i just... cant see any of the characters even interacting lol, im just picturing jake’s confused befuddled face when he hears something weird but like x 10000

pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple? (natsume yujinchou) hm... i mean, one of the things i love about Natsume is that there arent really any romo relationships tbh? at least not with any of the main characters in the main storyline (so far), just like the odd one-off of minor characters (and takashi’s adopted parents ofc, but that’s different). so, yeah, i cant really think of one (although i think the big fandom fave ship of takashi and his worst enemy is rlly.. nope, and i dont know what’s going on there? takashi and tanama however, that would make sense, tho it is not unlikely so i cant answer this question with them)

overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? (b99 or longmire) b99! cos ya know my annoyances with some of the stuff happening later on in longmire lol, b99 just got better n better as it went along, and it’s still going :’)

which has the better theme music, 2 or 4? (leverage or blackspot) blackspot has a real good eerie atmospheric theme which is gr8 and i love it <3 (leverage’s tune is like, elevator music/cheesy jazzy spy tune, which does suit it tho lol)

and idk, anyone bored and stuck at home who wants to do this? no pressure if ur like nah but if u wanna go ahead.... @creepy-friend-of-darkness @anna-wa @rhinky-thingz @rexbasileus @aeolian-harp @warrenkoles @softbrobarnes @damnitttana @cluelesswolf @moondoggiestyle @blloodorangeisthenewblack @my-nail-beds-suck @frankiecolours @savvylikeyeahhh @lake-effectkidx @justhugharry @casualmisandry @j4ya @galaxygalpals @thesecondwarm @dealwright @knipperdollin @curlycombover @kaspbrakeddie (and if i didnt tag u and u still wanna do this, consider yeself tagged)