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soveryanon · 5 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG165! X_X

- I really wasn’t expecting to hear the calliope music again one day! That took me back to the end of season 3 – it felt like another (successful) Unknowing, a glimpse of what would have happened if the Circus had pulled through in MAG118/MAG119?

Also, confirmation that Tim definitely got his revenge and blew up the Circus to pieces, including Grimaldi/Nikola:

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: [LOW] I’m hoping if we’re quick, we can avoid her notice. MARTIN: “Her”? [SILENCE] J–Jon, please, don’t tell me there’s an evil clown doll down there– ARCHIVIST: No– MARTIN: –because… ARCHIVIST: N–no, Nikola died with The Unknowing; it’s, uh… [INHALE] An old friend.

At least, Tim got that T__T

- The pattern of beginning the statement with “There is…” already got broken with this one:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: … Wha…? [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] … “There is a place, deep in the heart of Fear, where you trap yourself and claim that it is safety. [STATIC DECREASES] It was once a cabin, and professes still to be such, but as with all in this new world that promises respite… it is a trap.”

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: … Alright, then. [INHALE] [SIGH] [STATIC RISES] “There is a wound in the earth. [STATIC DECREASES] A bayonet gouge, scored through the soft and sodden mud for uncounted miles. A trench that marks the front line of a war that has no name. It has always been raging, deep in the hearts of the powerful and those that thirst to see bodies piled high in their name.”

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “There is a sickness in this village. Perhaps you would not see it from a distance and the faint sting of rot on the breeze is easy enough to dismiss; but as you get closer, that infectious feeling of wrongness is harder and harder to shake. The grass is not the green of nature, the buildings are warped by more than age, and the voices that come from behind the inhabitants’ masks… are hoarse, and wet. They move with exaggerated casualness, a parody of idyllic village life.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] … Right. [STATIC RISES] “Your face is not your face is not your face [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES] around the curling carousel, it twists in place to take from you and all the tattered stolen souls whose sense of ‘me’ is swollen and distended into nothing.

Could be because The Stranger (/the Circus/identity thieves/I-Do-Not-Know-You) is Like That and can’t conform to little boxes, or could be because there isn’t really a “pattern” to begin with, we’ll see with the next nightmare pockets.

Consistency-wise: the use of “you” (as a way to include/pull the listeners in?) went through the roof, but was understandable – “you” is “something/someone who isn’t me, in front of me”, and doesn’t need to be as personified as third person. Jon once again used “End recording” at the end of the ~statement~, which is… a reminder that 1°) these aren’t really statements as we knew them (Jon has never labelled them as such; actually, the only times characters have mentioned “statement(s)” this season were dead people mentioning them in the tapes Jon was listening to in the first two episodes); 2°) there is still that recording/pouring-into-the-tapes thing going on, that Jon is aware of, even if the tapes weren’t relevant in this episode for themselves. Unclear whether Jon had any influence on the tape recorder clicking on both times in the episode, or whether it autonomously reacted to stuff (Jon&Martin approaching the Merry-Go-Round, Jon&Martin walking along the edge of it while the Not!Them was coming close… or just because Jon&Martin were chatting about personal things?).

Still *squint* at what the heck is happening thanks to/through the tape recorders at the moment – it still reminds me of Albrecht von Closen pouring out his stories to Jonathan Fanshawe, there is still the possibility that Jon is feeding the tapes themselves to create something even worse, and mmmmm… (New kinds of Leitner books?)

- I’ve already forgotten almost everything I used to know about English poetry, but lots of iambic constructions (up and down) combined with lots of ternary syntactic structures (round, circularity)? My references are mostly French, but the work on sounds really reminded me of Antonin Artaud’s – though way faster, fittingly, since it was also a relentless chase in which selves kept getting stolen and lost (and so was my attention). Beautiful piece, but ooft did it keep losing me before I was picked back up and forced to run with the words again.

Lots of themes that we had seen with the Circus in previous manifestations:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you. […] Tim… TIM: … Grimaldi. NIKOLA: Once, a long time ago, before Orsinov made me. And sometimes, even now, on special occasions. Like your brother!

(MAG128, Breekon) “When we left our destination, the mule whining at the new weight behind it, he would reach behind us and find a face, sagging, sloughing off its skull, and would pull it to him. He’d place it over the one he wore already, and he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Sometimes it fell off. Sometimes it stayed for weeks. I kept the face we chose, but I loved him for our levity, and the corpses piled ever higher. […] But with the Circus we were amongst our own kind at last. They all had names, true enough, but none would dare pretend that names were real. Faces changed more often than clothes, and nobody truly knew who anybody was, save for their function within the show. […] We didn’t like the puppet, when Orsinov began to carve it. It seemed wrong to us to try and bring one like us about; to create or remake it in such a solid, static shape. We were wrong, of course. When Orsinov carved into the thing that had once called itself Grimaldi, and fed the pieces they didn’t need to the shuddering organist, even we found ourselves impressed. And when the faceless puppet peeled its creator and moved itself with their tendon strings, he looked at me… and laughed… and laughed…”

Identity loss, the loss of self, permutability. But it’s interesting that it fit so well to the other Circus members we had encountered and… still was incredibly Hunt-y, with the premise of an ongoing chase where the victims become the new mob of predators (who may become victims once again if they are successful, etc.), taking place in a circular space, where things can never truly end. Really reminiscent of the concept of The Everchase, I feel? Fears bleeding into each other, etc.

(There could be something about a “(word) chain” of Fears, since MAG163 was mostly Slaughter/War and had bits of Corruption with the medical malpractices, then MAG164 was Corruption with what was identified as “strangers” being targeted more heavily, then MAG165 being Stranger with very a Hunt logic, which would lead to MAG166 going for Hunt… But I’m not really feeling it.)

- It wasn’t clear in MAG164, but this one also made explicit that people in the nightmares can’t really die-die – either they seem to respawn (or get stuck in a nightmare inside of a nightmare inside of a nightmare etc.?), either they just… can’t:

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “There is a rumbling in the earth around him, as a tank speeds along its unstoppable path, and Charlie is immediately pulled under its tread. He has a moment of shocked horror, before being reduced to a smear in the mud. […] Next to his bleeding corpse, Charlie wakes from what passes for sleep in this place. A sergeant is yelling at him, screaming for him to take his gun and get into the waiting transport.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “And so they fall to frantic terror and conflict, just as vicious as it was when it was bearing down on you. You lie there in the fugue of vivid pain and feel that gentle rain from violence overhead, as some fall dead or close as this place lets you lie, for truly thus to die would be too eager an escape; and listen to the ebb and swell of slow, melodic wail that well you know conducts the flowing rhythm laced into this endless, faceless dance.”

Does The End feel cheated, or is the fear of dying (or the fear of not being allowed to die) enough to feed it? Will we meet a pocket mostly dominated by a facet of The End…?

- I wonder if we’ll meet people not yet taken by a “place” since we got a couple mentions of an outside/inside and people still coming in…

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “And people do still come to the village, for however thick the paranoia, however terrible the disease, there are worse things beyond.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “But no, for all the dreams of bounding, leaping off into the great Unknown, you see the ring of broken mewling wretches who have shown the sting that comes with such rejection of the truth, so seldom spoken yet inside you all, that there is no – way – off the merry-go-round. […] It’s not the same as what you had when first you climbed the brightly painted stairs, but not the worst “who” you have been.”

Are the places making people feel like they could leave/that there are newcomers, when they’ve actually been stuck here forever? Or are there people who are still “free” until they’re taken by one of the places? (I mean, outside of main characters: we already know that Daisy is tearing through these places, and that Basira is following her (though that… sounds like a Hunt nightmare in itself), and Jon was unable to tell where Melanie&Georgie were – so unless they’ve been taken by a Dark nightmare, they’re probably outside of the boxes somehow.)

- I’m still trying to narrow down what is making me feel uneasy this season so far, and it’s sadly not something that will be warned for in the content warnings: it’s… about the whole ideology regarding free-will, agency, guilt and responsibility.

So far, all the “nightmares” we have encountered made it clear that it was, yes, people prisoners of a nightmare tailored to make them suffer, but also in which… most of the violence was committed by people against people:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Something moves outside, struggling to crawl upon a hundred reaching grasping hands. It shudders, and grips the earth, pulling itself along as nails rip free and skin scrapes loose. It is afraid of what it has become, and where it might be going. […] Outside, it is raining. Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all – it sinks into the dry cracked ground, and from the mud faces struggle to push themselves free and breathe. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] They cannot breach the surface, as the slick soil flows down their throats.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “Ishaan had been afraid, terrified that they were going to strap him to it, pin him to the Goliath’s hull like all the other flayed flags of war, striking fear into the hearts of the enemy. But instead they fed him to it, tossed him into its burning innards and sealed the hatch behind him. Now, his body has contorted itself to fit, his fingers clutched around the firing lever; pulling it frantically is the only thing that will reduce the impossible heat even for a moment. From the tiny slit in the metal, he can see other soldiers: baby-faced friends and the monstrous, pig-faced enemy, both falling beneath his iron coffin’s advance. He tries to cry, but his tears turn to steam. […] Hasanna’s eyes fall on the entrance to the tent, and she sees the line of civilians, stretching away into the distance. They are no less maimed, their agonies no more bearable; but there is simply no room. She tries to apologise – but instead, she closes the tent. […] Far in the distance, she sees Alexei look out over the battlefield, and her stomach turns at the detestable wrongness of his face. Alexei in turn looks out from deep in the trench. He catches sight of the enemy, their shrivelled rat-like heads causing the bile to rise in his throat.”

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “It is, alas, those who are unblemished that suffer worst. So incomprehensible is it that any from outside could be clean, that there might be another source or vector, the inspectors devise another theory: an invisible infection. A hundred Typhoid Marys spreading mildew and decay. […] For no one would speak up if Gillian Smith were to mark you infected, or declare you foreign. No one would lift a finger as they dragged you to the green. […] What Mrs Kim is… is scared. Scared of her neighbours, scared of her friends, scared of the moment when someone will smell the spreading patch of darkness on her back and decide she is infected, or remember she has only been in the village since her grandfather’s day, and judge her to be an outsider. Should she accuse someone else? Send them to the village green? Perhaps she might petition to join the council, though that would invite their attention as much as anything might. Even through the masks, Mrs Kim knows the looks she gets in the pub; but what can she do? When she hears the shouts outside and sees the smoke pouring from the thatched roof, she knows it is too late.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “The world in which the carousel will twirl is not the hollow hell you fear; it is the world. Just the world. A world where if you’d wish to have a name, it must be stolen, carved and pulled full-bloody from the frame of others who would wish in vain to hold their selfness close. You want a face? Take it. There are so many here; and those who cannot hold them, well, whoever chose to give them such a gift must take the blame, knowing they could never keep it in a world of so much thieving strangeness. […] You feel the last of names and “who” you might have been be torn away and borne towards new bodies. New pages, blank; determined to be people. […] then comes the briefest flash that surely now it’s done, so much, perhaps… the pain will be somewhat lessened. There’s no way it could hurt as much as you remember. But it does. And so of course, you scream, and scream; and curses, foul, obscene will tumble garbled over where there once sat other people’s lips or yours now gone, and teeth that once shone yellowed ivory a crimson in the flowing sanguine flood. And as you lie in agonies and fading dreams of personhood, of knowing who you were and what that might have meant, you hear the bitter whisper of recriminating seekers, who have found the treasure of their eager dreams, but see, it seems there’s not enough… for all. And so they fall to frantic terror and conflict, just as vicious as it was when it was bearing down on you. […] You are, of course, a faceless thing as well, and so should quickly match the pace of those who chase the self-same prey. But now, it is too late, they’ve gone. Their chase will not abate until their former friend is ripped apart in turn. And you have learned to wait. For there are many faces out upon the carousel, and many names that you might be. So bide your time a while and wait the coming of another one whose fate and face might sit upon your grinning carmine skull.

And I feel like there has been a shift compared to statements in previous seasons: it used to be monsters or eldritch things going after people, but we also got people trapped in these oppressive systems, who could have chosen their survival over others’… and still said “no”. Is that even possible in the nightmares? Are we assuming that people are constantly remade in order to keep the circles of violence going (in order to serve them) and that it’s going past a mere influence, that it’s erasing any responsibility in their actions? Or is it still an individual choice and are we heading towards the idea that anyone (or 99.99% of people) would choose to inflict direct violence against others if it means lessening their own pain? (I’m honestly super uncomfy about the latter idea, because it feels bleak and edgy to me, because it’s hard to forget that in this reasoning, marginalised people would always have it worse, and because it narratively feels like “cheating” to have Jon&Martin on the frontline, who are super fluffy and obviously wouldn’t push the other under a bus for their survival… while other people would just be eh, people. ;;) In summary: can people currently be held accountable for their actions, in the same way Daisy took responsibility for her Hunt-influenced actions, or are they deprived of any choice?

Interesting, though, is that in these nightmares, we… have never seen families or groups of friends, so far (Charlie had one, who seemed to exist just to get killed? The fungus village had neighbours who didn’t seem to know much about each other?). It feels like in rewriting reality, the Fears have also isolated people, fractured their previous social links to impose new “societies” with their own rules and mechanisms? Jon, at least, still labels them as “victims” even when aware of what is happening:

(MAG165) MARTIN: Because, uh… [LOWER] I really don’t like the look of those riders. ARCHIVIST: Would you believe me if I said they were the victims? MARTIN: … At this point, I’m not even surprised.

But I’m kind of wary and expecting an argument to be made about how Human Nature Is Fundamentally Selfish or something like this, precisely when The Web is lurking around and had such a knack for the theme of free will… ;;

- What does Jon know that he’s not sharing with Martin? He confirmed that they needed to “experience” these places to reach the Panopticon:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: Martin… It’s going to be a hard journey. MARTIN: [RELIEVED EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: One– MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah– ARCHIVIST: –in which we… MARTIN: –so, I’ve actually had a couple of bags packed for a while, now! [HEAVY ITEM DROPPED] ARCHIVIST: Oh! MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between. […] Nightmares. [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] Come on – that trench is our first. […] MARTIN: Jon… I’m scared. ARCHIVIST: … Yes… That’s the idea…!

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: We’re fine. MARTIN: A–are we? I mean, that place is– … I don’t, I don’t feel fine, okay, and you were there a long time doing your… y–you–your guidebook, which, you know, I get it, but that place is… I–it’s–it’s infectious, and, I don’t– ARCHIVIST: We’re not infected, Martin, that place, it– … It isn’t for us.

(MAG165) MARTIN: But. You said we needed to go through these places. … Is that even going to work here? ARCHIVIST: Uh… [EXHALE] We need to go through them… metaphorically. MARTIN: Mm… ! ARCHIVIST: Psychologically, we need to… “experience” them. MARTIN: Hm! [SILENCE] D’you think we could get that experience just… walking along the edge?

And his explanation of what they need to do is getting a bit more precise every time.

* It’s not only about Jon experiencing the places, it’s about them experiencing the places. Makes sense since they’re on a journey to the Panopticon, but still interesting: Jon gets overwhelmed by the places to the point of needing to do his “guidebook”; Martin doesn’t, past his discomfort/casual fears, but it’s working anyway. What is happening with Jon…?

* Fear.jpg because “experiencing” them had been mentioned by Elias/Jonah as a way to prepare Jon towards his goals:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well… ARCHIVIST: It doesn’t please your master? ELIAS: Our master, Jon.

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Because the thing about the Archivist is that… well: it’s a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named “the Archive”. Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon – you are a record of fear. Both in mind, as you walk the shuddering dread of each statement; and in body, as the Powers each leave their mark upon you. You are a living chronicle of terror.”

So what is happening exactly…? Is it because Jon simply needs to “experience” the various layers of the new world before reaching the centre of the storm? Are these steps actually “undoing” — or furthering — something…?

- Also confirmation that Martin&Jon seem immune to what is happening, as long as they don’t push their luck:

(MAG161) MARTIN: … Are we still safe? ARCHIVIST: Y–yes, it… it doesn’t want to harm me. MARTIN: And me? ARCHIVIST: I won’t let it.

(MAG163) MARTIN: Good. Good. [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY PANTING] … J–J–Jon, Jon, w–we’re not alone. ARCHIVIST: I–ignore them, they’re not… Just ignore them. MARTIN: … They’re not… real? [VOICES SHOUTING IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLING] No…! They’re real; they were… normal people before the– … Before me. But now they’re here, meat for the grinder. I just mean there’s no point… talking to them. MARTIN: Don’t be a prick, Jon. Hey! I’m, I’m sorry about him. He’s–he’s going through a lot – well… we all are, I suppose, but well… “Hi”, I guess. [SILENCE] Hello? ARCHIVIST: They won’t hear you, Martin, they’re all… too busy waiting to die.

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. […] MARTIN: You, you sure? [CHUCKLING] I could speak to an attendant! ARCHIVIST: [CAUTIOUS] I would advise against doing that. […] MARTIN: Jon, do we– do we need to run? NOT!SASHA: Oh, yes, Martin, you very much do. I’ll even give you a head start! ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: You’re bold! [FOOTSTEPS] I’ll give you that. NOT!SASHA: [HISSING] Last chance…! ARCHIVIST: Desperate for one last morsel of terror from us? NOT!SASHA: [HISSES] ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] A final sip, and then we’re gone! Somehow we manage to keep just ahead of you and get away. NOT!SASHA: [SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: God forbid you actually catch us. NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: Doesn’t bear thinking about…! MARTIN: Jon, what are you talking about? NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: She can’t touch us. We’re so far beyond her now. NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: She’s just like everything else here, ruled by The Eye. [CHUCKLING] And she hates it…!

Is it only because Jon is the Archivist, is it thanks to their connection to the Institute/the Eye (… after all, Basira apparently wasn’t taken)? What would happen to Martin if he were to be separated from Jon?

Also curious that both the Not!Them and The Distortion are what I would label “monsters” (as Martin&Simon did in MAG151), and yet the Not!Them was shown trapped… and Helen is roaming free. Did The Distortion lie about its own contentment in the new world? Did it get a better seat thanks to its connection to the Institute, since its Door had often appeared in the tunnels? (Helen had told Jon that this is how she knew a bit more about the tunnels, back in season 4.)

- Martin’s poetry is back as a theme! (Not included: Tim recording over one of Martin’s poems in MAG079.)

(MAG042) ARCHIVIST: I’m glad [Martin]’s moved out of the Archives, as it gives me a chance to work here without his constant presence. Also because he managed to leave some of his possessions behind. For the most part it’s just a few books of… relatively awful poetry… There are a few pieces I feel could almost have been affecting if his style wasn’t so obviously enamoured with Keats […].

(MAG124) MARTIN: Uh, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m… I’m alright, uh… Everything’s… fine. ARCHIVIST: … Right. Hum. … H–how’s… How–how’s the poetry? MARTIN: Oh, uh– Well, I haven’t… exactly had a lot of time recently, so… ARCHIVIST: Yes, uh… Of course… MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’ve been busy. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: …

(MAG165) MARTIN: So was it any good? ARCHIVIST: U–uh… What do you mean? MARTIN: Was it a good poem? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know! “No”? You’re the poetry expert, Martin, not me…! MARTIN: Well, did it stir any feeling in you? ARCHIVIST: Yes! “Nausea”. Because of the horrible things in it! MARTIN: That’s not quite what I meant. ARCHIVIST: Then I don’t know what you mean, Martin, I’m not a poetry person, I don’t… “get it”. I never have. MARTIN: That’s… That’s fine, I understand…! ARCHIVIST: Look. I’m better than I was; I used to think all poetry was bad. MARTIN: Sorry, what?! ARCHIVIST: I mean, I just thought of… [SIGH] I sort of thought it was pointless! Just… write some prose and stop… wasting everyone’s time! MARTIN: Hm! What changed? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know, I just… mellowed on it, I suppose. MARTIN: That’s… kind of weird. ARCHIVIST: In my defence, there is a lot of bad poetry out there.

* With this new information: it’s actually BIG from Jon that he had qualified Martin’s poetry as “almost affecting” given his personal feelings about poetry in general.

* Obviously, I want to tease Jon mercilessly about the idea that he began to mellow down on poetry since someone he was developing a crush on liked it so much… But also, just simply, people’s tastes change.

* … Okay, so if Jon managed to survive uni without getting poetry at all, either he did really well besides that, either it rules out that his degree might have been in literature. (History could fit him well?)

* … I find it interesting how Martin somehow managed to… not say anything about himself in this episode? We learned a few things about Jon – that he had fond memories of the London Zoo carousel, that he was in a bad mental space at a point before the Institute (break-up with Georgie? Being thrown in a new city for his academic studies, leaving Bournemouth? “Regular” student stress?), that he doesn’t get poetry but that his opinion has changed on it a bit.

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. MARTIN: Fine – by – me, eh! Never really liked merry-go-rounds anyway. ARCHIVIST: No? You… gone on any recently? MARTIN: What? Uh– No, I don’t think so, not since I was a kid. ARCHIVIST: Hm! I actually, uh… There’s one at London Zoo – uh, was one at London Zoo. Big old thing. Went quite fast, actually, su–… [CHUCKLE] Surprisingly thrilling. MARTIN: [BURSTS OUT LAUGHING] ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: Seriously? ARCHIVIST: It was years back, before the Institute, I… I was in a weird place. Had a good time, though! MARTIN: [CHUCKLES] Well! ARCHIVIST: I mean, obviously I wouldn’t want to ride this one, we’ve got… quite enough thrills already. MARTIN: You, you sure? [CHUCKLING] I could speak to an attendant! ARCHIVIST: [CAUTIOUS] I would advise against doing that. [SILENCE]

But Martin? Asked questions for Jon to answer, but managed to avoid having to tell anything about his own past. It’s not really surprising, it’s kinda fitting – Martin has probably got into the habit of not telling much about himself because of his fake credentials and his fake age? But still, I wonder if he will talk about himself at some point… (I still feel like we’re missing his own perspective on his mother or Tim, for example, since these subjects were mostly mentioned by other people and Martin only even mentioned his mother’s death when he poured his heart out at Peter&Elias in MAG158).

- I randomly really really love Martin’s nasal “Fine by me”:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: What about Daisy? MARTIN: Don’t see her much. Which is fine by me. [UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE]

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. MARTIN: Fine – by – me, eh! Never really liked merry-go-rounds anyway.

Martin…

- … So, hearing Not!Sasha like this confirms that she didn’t “take” Julia or Trevor! (I guess that one of them could have died from her attack or Daisy’s, but… at the very least, the Not!Them didn’t take on a new identity through them.)

- There are various ways of interpreting what the Not!Them said about Martin:

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: And what if I let you choose this time, which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks very comfortable, positively roomy; oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist~?

… and my favourites are either that Martin indeed big, either she was making a tease about them (aND THEY’VE BEEN ROOMMATES).

- Jon Has Upgraded – the Not!Them used to call him “Jon” as a taunt, and now…

(MAG078) NOT!SASHA (HEAVILY DISTORTED, DISTANT): Jooooonnnn… ARCHIVIST: Er… I… [SOUND OF A CREAKY DOOR OPENING] MICHAEL: You – need – a door.

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): Jooooonnnn… ARCHIVIST: Oh Christ. […] NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): Jooooon… Jooooon… Come out, come out, wherever you are. ARCHIVIST: [SCARED BREATHING] NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): It’s okay Jon; it’s Sasha. Reliable old Sasha. Nothing to be afraid of. … You seem stressed, Jon. You’ve been under a lot of pressure. You should talk about it. Have a real good chat. You like talking, don’t you, Jon? … I’m going to wear you, Jon. […] I’m glad we got a chance to run, Jon. It makes it so much more satisfying.

(MAG158) NOT!SASHA: [MUFFLED, HEAVILY DISTORTED] Jooo–ooon~! [SOUND OF STONE AND BRICK SHIFTING, LOUDER, THEN GRADUALLY STOPPING] NOT!SASHA: [HEAVILY DISTORTED] [PANTS] So you finally decided to let me out, Jon! Joooo–oooon~! … Who’s there? MARTIN: [PANICKED BREATHING] NOT!SASHA: Who let me out? [SILENCE] Don’t be shy. I just want to say thank you. [SILENCE] All right, have it your way. Now, if you’ll excuse me: I have some unfinished business. [MENACING SATISFIED LAUGHTER] […] [CRASHING SOUND] NOT!SASHA: Hello, Jon. DAISY: Oh, shit! ARCHIVIST: You gotta be fucking kidding m–

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Eh! My dearest colleagues…! MARTIN: Just get back! [THUMP] NOT!SASHA: I can’t believe you’d decide to pass through my neighbourhood and not say hello, to – dear – old – Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Just ignore it, Martin. NOT!SASHA: Oh, you wound me, Archivist. And we used to be so close! […] And what if I let you choose this time, which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks very comfortable, positively roomy; oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist~?

… it’s “Archivist”. He’s really had a special status/power-up, uh?

- So, The Distortion is having a blast in the new world (MAG164), or so it says… but it’s not fundamentally the case for all monsters/avatars out there. It makes sense for The Stranger since it had been presented as opposed to The Eye:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: So the monster got its friends to carry the table all around, and it still got to take faces and scare people. Then one day it was sent to the house of its enemy, which had the biggest eyes you ever did see. The monster was sent there to steal all its secrets, but it was sad because it couldn't scare anyone any more.

(MAG092) ELIAS: The Stranger is antithetical to us. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH HEAVILY] ELIAS: We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown. If you are to stop them, you need to get better at seeing. And my explaining things is simply not enough.

(MAG119) SARAH: You… idiot! Do you really think the world will fare any better under the Watcher? You think you’re saving anyone?

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: She’s just like everything else here, ruled by The Eye. [CHUCKLING] And she hates it…! NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master! Do you know how it feels? To be… anonymous, and yet known? To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned Eye! I’ve suffered enough!

So people from the (survivors of the) cult of the Divine Host probably won’t be extremely happy about it either – we know that some were still roaming around, Jon had mentioned seeing people with the pendant at the beginning of season 4. Martin mentioned their lack of allies in MAG164, are we heading towards them getting some “help” from unsatisfied avatars…?

- ;; I said I would put the Not!Them amongst the “monsters”, but technically… the victims in the carousel felt like proto-Not!Them themselves? And Not!Sasha had enough reasoning to try to go into denial – pretending that it could still catch and hurt Jon&Martin, while it knew that it couldn’t anyway, but ready to create the illusion that it could. That’s some very human mental structure…

- Sob, but also:

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Pathetic. [SHRILL SCREAMS] Martin, let’s go. NOT!SASHA: Not as pathetic as your little friend when I ate her life…!

… I really like the description of what she did as “eating Sasha’s life”: it was not only that it killed her; it’s that it erased and reshaped her whole life as a memory and a possible influence on others…

- ;; I’m even happier that we got Sasha’s tapes at the beginning of season 5, because it brought her back as a presence, as an existence, and not only as the concept of “the friend we lost but can’t really remember”. The Not!Them getting killed closes a very long chapter: Sasha’s murder at the end of season 1, which was a wound that kept being reopened (Jon realising that she had died long ago, then Martin&Tim having to learn about it; Nikola teasing Jon about her during The Unknowing; the Not!Them getting freed during the season 4 climax), the fact that the Not!Them had been spotted and described as soon as in MAG003, and also… the first time we heard of Adelard Dekker was when he imprisoned it within the Web table?

I’m especially ;; that The Stranger regularly used Sasha’s murder against Jon, and that it has always been a sore spot… until he snapped:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): … I’m going to wear you, Jon. I’m going to wear everything you are. Like you never existed. Noone will even know. And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NOT!SASHA (CLOSE AND DISTORTED): There you are. […] ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] I’m sorry. Martin, Tim… Sasha. I’m so sorry. I should have… I didn’t… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.

(MAG096) ARCHIVIST: He was a–a tax inspector. He came here, and Daniel Rawlings, or his replacement, showed him something he claimed to be the oldest piece of taxidermy in the world. Gorilla skin from Carthage. SARAH: Heh, was this when you sent your “Sasha” to interrogate us? ARCHIVIST: Don’t you dare talk about– DAISY: Sims. Sims. Shut up and focus.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Who are you?! NIKOLA: Who am I? Tim, of course! Who else would I be! ARCHIVIST: You’re not– you’re not… Tim. NIKOLA: Oh, you caught me~ I’m… Sasha! ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NIKOLA: No~! Really, it’s me! Sasha– whatever her name was! Back from the dead, just like you wanted~! ARCHIVIST: Get away from me, or, or I swear I’ll… I’ll…

I mean. Yes, if Jon had to lose his temper and go terrifying due to feelings, it would be about Sasha’s murder ;;

- It’s also jarring how Jon used to be terrorised and victimised by monsters, and took the upper hand this time: the dynamic between him and the Not!Them in this episode was an extreme reversal of what had happened at the end of season 2. I’m also curious about how “Jon using his powers against other monsters” has felt more and more threatening over time:

(MAG091) ARCHIVIST: What, I? I–I didn’t– [RUSTLING NOISES] Plea– Please don’t shoot me… [SOUNDS OF PANIC] [STATIC] W–why are you doing this? Tell me! [GURGLES MORE AS DAISY GRABS HIM ROUND THE THROAT] DAISY: Stop – asking – questions.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: I had hoped that you would stop the Unknowing first, destroy the workings of I-Do-Not-Know-You. But instead you are here, and may bring it about faster. So better your death happens now…! ARCHIVIST: I… [STATIC] Is there anything I can do to stop you from killing me? MICHAEL: [LAUGHS] If you scream loud enough the Circus may take notice of me, but… I promise you will die far more pleasantly with me than with them. [MORE LAUGHTER]

(MAG119) NIKOLA&GERTRUDE: A terrible new world and it’s all your fault. GERTRUDE&LEITNER: Though I suppose you never really had a chance ARCHIVIST: … I see you. NIKOLA: Do you, now? ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you.

(MAG128) BASIRA: Get. Out. [STATIC RISES] BREEKON: Make. Me. [RATTLING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Stop. [HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING SOUND OVER STATIC] BREEKON: What’re you doing? BASIRA: … Jon…? What are you doing? BREEKON: What’re you– Stop it… Stop it! ARCHIVIST: [ECHOING] No. BREEKON: [STRUGGLING, BUZZING INCREASES] Enough! Stop… looking at me! [SCREAMS] [DOOR SLAMMED OPEN, FLEEING FOOTSTEPS WHILE BREEKON IS STILL SCREAMING, DOOR SLAMMING SHUT] ARCHIVIST: [PANTS] [HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING SOUND FADES] BASIRA: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: It’s fine…!

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: … I, I don’t understand. PETER: And you won’t. Not from me. I’m done. ARCHIVIST: Tell me. [STATIC RISES] PETER: I’m. Not saying. Another. Word. [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Tell me, or I will rip it out of you! [STATIC INCREASES] PETER: [STRUGGLING] No…! ARCHIVIST: Answer. My question! PETER: NO! Leave – me – ALONE! [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: TELL ME! PETER: [GROANING SCREAM] [RIPPING, EXPLODING SOUND] [STATIC FADES] ARCHIVIST: … Stubborn fool…

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC INCREASES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] […] I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! MARTIN: W–wow, okay… ARCHIVIST: But, when I thought it… the–there was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] There was something else. Th–this place, it… it didn’t want me, it… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] didn’t want us to go.

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Not as pathetic as your little friend when I ate her life…! [RUMBLING SOUND] [THE CALLIOPE MUSIC DERAILS, TAKES A HIGHER PITCH] ARCHIVIST: … What did you say? [STATIC RISING: LOW AND SPIRALLING, PRESSURING] NOT!SASHA: [SHAKY BREATHES] I’m–I’m sorry… MARTIN: Jon? ARCHIVIST: You were wrong, you know. NOT!SASHA: [GASPS] [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: There is more suffering than you can ever experience, so much more. The horror of your victims… NOT!SASHA: [CRIES OF PAIN] ARCHIVIST: Their constant, senseless agony… NOT!SASHA: [CRIES OF PAIN] [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Feel it now. Understand it. You have drawn out so much despair, and now finally, it’s your turn. [STATIC INCREASES] [DIGITAL GLITCHING SOUNDS] Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing! [STATIC INCREASES, WITH MORE PRESSURE] NOT!SASHA: No! No, please, no…! [DIGITAL BURSTING, RIPPING SOUNDS] NOT!SASHA: [FADING] No…! [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES] ARCHIVIST: [PANTS]

Jon used to rely on compulsion to try to struggle his way out (when it was his only weapon), in a panic. But since MAG119, it has begun to feel as if something was coming out from it, as if he were possessed? It really feels like something is trying to come out (and we precisely began the season with The Eye wanting the cabin to be his “chrysalis” and Jon announcing that “he” would emerge…). There also had been a clear escalation in his use of his powers: from giving Tim the tools to prevent Nikola from achieving The Unknowing, to stopping Breekon when he was ready to fight Basira, to compelling Peter to death while Peter was resisting, to… an execution, triggered by his anger. Jon had made a point to tell Martin that the Not!Them couldn’t harm them; it was a murder purely motivated by anger. The Not!Them had it coming, and it’s really interesting that Jon weaponised the suffering of the Not!Them’s victims to force it to feel pain (so, a case of… forcing empathy on it?), but… still a murder, still scary, still concerning that Jon did that when Martin and him weren’t threatened, and that it happened when Jon’s feelings got out of hand.

(Jon, you’re just a shounen anime protagonist gdi.)

- And Jon did nooooooot feel fine with it:

(MAG165) MARTIN: … Whoa–oh–oh! ARCHIVIST: I, uh… MARTIN: What was that?! ARCHIVIST: … I–I destroyed it. [ECHOING CREAKING SOUNDS] Ki–killed her. MARTIN: Are you kidding me, you–you obliterated her! You… you smote her! [ECHOING CREAKING SOUNDS] ARCHIVIST: We, we should go. MARTIN: What about the merry-go-round? With her gone, is it, is it still th– ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know! MARTIN: [CHUCKLING] Yes you do! ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t… want to know, plea– We need to go. [SHUFFLING] Please. MARTIN: Oh, oh, okay. A–alright. Alright. Lead on. [CREAKING SOUNDS]

* Martin sounded… kinda very very into it (mARTIN), not surprised – Martin was already ready to use whatever he can even if it means compromising himself. Jon sounded more upset, so I’m half-expecting them to discuss this at some point?

* It had already felt a bit like it with Peter (when Jon mentioned the powers of The Eye in relation to The Lonely), but it was way worse here: … Jon really felt like an actual priest of Beholding when he obliterated the Not!Them. As if he was accepting it as a god, and himself as its agent, able to channel its powers.

* It was also SO CLOSE to what Elias did to Melanie and Martin, with the whole implanting memories/truths in someone’s head to make them suffer… oofffft ;;

* ;; I’m. Also very concerned about the fact that the end of the episode seems to imply that Jon made it worse for the victims in the carousel, since we can hear it creaking. Has he just condemned these people to an actual death, or to worse doom? If it turns out that Jon has powers allowing him to have an effect on these nightmares, the fact he chooses to remain an observer and only “uses” the place to experience them will feel iffier and iffier… ;;

- Welp, it does clear up right away why The Web hasn’t tried to contact Jon directly. On a scale from calling his partner while Jon himself is further away to directly taunting him, how much self-preservation instinct do you have?

MAG166’s title is… interesting, because?? Corruption?? But it also feels too easy?? (And would be the biggest Middle Finger at something Smirke mentioned in MAG138.) I see a way in which it could potentially be Hunt, or Flesh, or Vast, or Buried, or End, or Web (well… it’s more like there’s an existing connection for that one + RQ’s teasing about Web stuff this week), but, wow. Bold move.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #mag165 #tma season 4 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma spoilers/#long post/

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saundraswriting · 4 years ago

Text

Need Some TLC Chapter 5: Groceries

SUMMARY: Steve and Bucky decide to step in for your health and a third conspirator joins the ranks

WARNINGS:None

Masterlist // Previous // Next

You stood looking at your front door for a moment or two before smiling and shaking you head. Glancing around, you noticed that your kitchen was clean, but the living room needed tidying up and the bathroom, your bedroom and laundry needed finished. "No time like the present." You muttered to yourself, deciding the living room would be a good start and quickest, you got to work. You straightened the throw blankets and small pillows and cushions. the knick-knacks were organized and DVD's were put away, in their proper cases. you bagged up all the trash and recycling and moved on to the next room.

Laundry was started once more, the bathroom scrubbed and you changed your sheets in your room. You cleaned up the dirty clothes in your room, both you not scrub hamper and scrub hamper, and gathered the old dishes and long-dismissed wrappers and protein shake bottles. You put away all the laundry in your clean laundry basket and dusted your hands off. "Done! That's it!" You cheered to yourself. You transferred laundry once more and got a few things ready for work and meals for the next few days. The clock read 8:00 PM. You had near 20 hours until you had to go back to work again, and your apartment was clean and safe and welcoming again, not the pigsty it was hours ago.

'Watch a movie? or Settle in early?' You thought to yourself. As you looked between your TV and bedroom door a buzz in your pocket distracted you.

'You still up for a pizza and a documentary? We don't want to impose.' The text was sent by a known contact with the name "Bucky". You changed it to Sgt. Barnes. You thought about it and after everything that had happened today, the walls that had come down and the fire and finally being off, you realized you wanted company. 'Yeah, I can go to bed once we are done. Won't be too much later than usual.' You thought.

'Yeah. Come on over! Both of you, you have a key.' You texted him back.

"I nor Steve would abuse this privilege. We won't use our keys willy-nilly."Sargent Barnes replied.

'I only meant that you could let yourselves in. I know you won't abuse it. Jeez, didn't mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.' You send your message with a few smiles to not offend.

'I will be no more offended than you when I tell you that we already have pizza and am currently trying to get into your apartment.' He replied.

'Confident?' you texted back.

"Yeah, a little. Can we watch and ocean documentary? With Attenborough? Please?" Sargent Barnes asked pushing his way through the door, keys slipping into his pocket.

"Yeah, I have a Blue Planet on Blu-Ray and with my TV it is almost like being there. Where did you learn to text? Not to bad Sargent." You sassed at him grabbing plates and cups on the counter, Sargent Barnes brought over the pizza while Captain Rogers looked for Blue Planet in your expansive collection.

I love this documentary. I just turned it on this morning when I got home to listen to, but I fell asleep too quick. Also after dinner cause it late-ish and I want to get a good night's rest, I am going to take my sleep aides. Just some melatonin. I want to be ready for my next stretch." You told the men in your living room. Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes looked at you, brows furrowed and lips pursed.

"More meds? Is that a good idea?" Captain Rogers paused loading the first disc.

"Melatonin is naturally produced, I am only boosting my supply a little bit. The Advil will help with the sore legs and back I am sure to get. I want to relax cause I have some aide shifts coming up. I always hurt more after aide shifts." The three of you settled with your pizza and drinks.

"Aide work? What is that?" Sargent Barnes asked.

"Yeah, I am a registered nurse. But my job includes helping the aides-or rather patient care techs as they are called now-but sometimes there are not enough aides scheduled for a shift, usually the evening shift, and I will fill in. Aides or PCT's help with the activities of daily living, toileting and dressing and rehab and bandage changing and the like. I personally like doing both jobs cause it makes me appreciate what they do more and help connect with my patients on a deeper level." You explained. Not many nurses shared you opinion, thinking aides and PCT's were below them, they didn't realize that many programs and curriculums required clinical hours before and during the programs to be accepted. Most aides and PCT's were nurses-in-training.

"Oh. So with the short-staffing you really have to do everything huh? That is insane." Captain Rogers' awe was heard in his tone.

"Nope, When I go in for a nursing shift, I have 26 Patients and my 2-5 aides can have 13-15 patients. Also it builds up aide/nurse loyalty and report. You all know what each others knows and needs to keep track off and become a better team for it, give better care for it. It makes me better and them better." You were firm in your opinion, eyes lit with a determination and fire the men did not often see. They could tell this is a fight you have fought before.

"Does not everyone agree with you? That all makes prefect sense to me and Steve. Why would people not agree?" Bucky asked, hesitant.

"NO! They don't. I have too many aides and nurses come through my unit with this...this...chip on their shoulder. Like they are owed something for picking this job. We all work shitty hours and weekends and holidays. We all miss birthdays and parties and recitals. No one is missed for that, especially in healthcare. I don't get how you can go through schooling and testing and lectures and labs and still come out of this expecting something that you won't get. How can you start this career without knowing what you are getting into? Or staying in this field knowing what it is? You are to help people, They don't want to be here any more than you do. I'm sorry, we get paid well but not that well that the money can overcome the cancelled dates and missed appointments." You were ranting wildly, hands waving and hair flying. Bucky and Steve were in total agreement. They did share a look of confusion and empathy, they were unware of your temper that was hidden under all the pleasantness. You noticed and calmed down significantly. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. I was ranting. You can start the show. if you need anything, help yourself." You shimmied down deeper into the couch, eyes blinking blearily at the TV.

"No! it is fine. I like seeing you open up to us. You are in the right. We get it too, not like we have great hours either." Captain Rogers said. You blinked at him and smiled. "If you fall asleep we'll close up for you. Okay?" He said it like a question but you knew it was a statement. The men turned their focus to the documentary and knew that for now, you had lost their attention.

You only paid half attention to the program. The warmth of your blanket and apartment, the relief in having it clean and the silent company of people in a shared space lulled you quickly to a fugue state. Partially formed thoughts swept across your mind but disappeared before they fully formed. Thoughts about your schedule and patients; should you make more meals? The fear of a missed alarm pulled you to awareness enough to check you phone.

Minutes passed. The episode ended. Another one started. You still stare unseeingly into the TV, blinks and breaths slowing and lengthening. The calm narration and soft spoken comments from your friends easing your muscles even more.

You fall asleep between one breath and the next, succumbing to you body's demands with one last thought about packing a lunch for tomorrow.

"Bucky looked over to see you curled up on the couch, quiet and still-pardon your rhythmic breathing. "She's asleep. Finally. I am going to put her to bed in a little bit. She needs to sleep. I looked in her fridge, she didn't have much. What little bit she had, she probably meal-prepped it. She neglects herself too much." Bucky said. He was so worried, over the time of knowing them they'd seen your weight drop and skin pale.

"I don't know. We could order some groceries. Have them delivered using Tony's service? I can handle him afterwards. You can cook like a pro, we can freeze it and meal prep for her." Steve suggested. He saw Bucky's hesitance. He shook his head and sighed. "Buck. Please do it. I know for certain she wants someone who will take care of her, and you want someone to take care of. She has been alone too long. You can change that. I will handle Tony. I told you earlier, do something, do anything. This is both." Steve continued.

Bucky smirked knowingly. "You'll handle Tony alright. You tell me to move but you freeze every time he comes near you." Bucky lost his smirk. "I guess this is something I can do for her." Bucky picked up his phone and put a call into the grocery service that stocked the Avengers' Tower and Compound and their private places. They took calls at all times to accommodate their unusual clients. He ordered tons of meats and veggies, pasta, dairy products, deli things, and junk foods too. He ordered and ordered and ordered. He wanted enough to make enough food for three meals and two snacks for two weeks. He also ordered plastic containers for all the meals and freezer. He billed Tony and gave the address for Your apartment.

"They said in an hour, they pulled everyone together that was available to make it happen so quickly. I am going to put her to bed that way she doesn't wake up. Then we are going to make her food. and a lot of it. Hopefully it will last for two weeks if not it should be a good start." Bucky addressed Steve but was looking at you. Eyes lightly brushed over your figure worried his gaze would wake you.

"Very well. Let's finish what we started. Go, take your girl to bed." Steve waved his hand in the direction of your room, seeing Buck blush out off the corner of his eye.

Bucky didn't-couldn't-answer to busy trying gently to pick you up and carry you to bed. He maneuvered the corners careful to not bump your head or feet. You didn't even twitch as he laid you on your bed under the covers, glad you already seemed to be in pajamas.

Upon returning to the living room Bucky saw Steve hunched over his phone shoulders tense and cheeks pink. Bucky rolled his eyes in silence, for all his advice Steve was just as nervous when it came to one Anthony Edward Stark-Iron Man. "Make a move, punk. Any move. Isn't that what you told me?" Bucky commented from the other end of the couch. Steve refused to give Bucky the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.

"I always give good advice, but very seldom follow it. I can't make a move on Tony. That is ridiculous. I will admire from afar, that's all I am allowed this time. Besides Tony isn't impressed by me in any sense." Steve was matter-of-fact in his words, a weariness hung around his shoulders.

"Then you are dumber than advertised. Tony is in love with you as you are in love with him. Just do something." With that Bucky left Steve to stew and played the documentary once more. Bucky watched and Steve split his attention between the TV and his phone for the next 45 minutes.

When a light knock sounded on the newly replaced door, Bucky and Steve went on alert. They silently paced to the door, avoided casting a shadow underneath. Bucky pulled a knife from his boot and Steve shook his hands before clenching them into fists. Anyone who wanted to get through to you would have to go through them.

"Delivery for Stark? Grocery delivery." Bucky looked at Steve and shrugged. They could take anyone. Bucky opened the door for the three men that had dollies full of groceries. And Tony Stark.

"Tony? What are you doing here?" Bucky asked while he and Steve moved to help unload the bags. After the dollies were emptied twice each then men bid their goodbyes and left.

"Well you did just bill me almost 500 dollars worth of groceries not 3 days after your last order. Steve told me it was for a friend, and I became intrigued." Tony spoke to Bucky but his eye kept flicking to Steve every other word.

"Her name is Y/N. She is a nurse. Lately she has been putting in too many hours. She is...amazing. She checks in and bakes for us sometimes. She constantly is working on bringing us up to date." Steve said, soft and fond. "We spend a lot of time with her when we are home. She understands what we do and likes us in spite of that. She is family." Tony froze upon hearing Steve talk about you so warmly. The fondness he had for you froze Tony's breath in his chest. He saw the ease in which Bucky and Steve moved through your apartment, Tony almost flinched but withheld. Bucky saw the hopelessness on his face and stepped closer.

"Tony. No. Please." Bucky murmured in his ear. Speaking louder he continued. "Y/N came home today and we hear her talking through the wall about sleep aides and next thing we know the fire alarm is going off and we had to break down her door cause she was sleeping through it. After fixing it and making lunch and her napping, I was griping at Steve who was teasing me, so I ordered this to help her. I wanted to take care of her, cause she doesn't take care of herself." Bucky had seen the thoughts forming in Tony's mind that you were Steve's girl leaving no room for Tony in Steve's heart. Bucky knew those thoughts had to be derailed instantly.

"Yeah, she is our only non-Avenger friend. She is alone and needed someone in her life. Today proved that. I am just glad we were home. I worry about her day and night. She works too much and to the point of illness. I gave her a key today so she had a place to go since she denied having F.R.I.D.A.Y. installed in here. It was the only way she would accept help, she refuses to burden others with her needs." Bucky continued. He could tell as Tony's shoulder relaxed and smiled softened he was successful in his mission.

Steve and Bucky moved about this stranger's apartment like they lived there themselves. Steve was putting groceries away as Bucky began to trim chicken to be frozen. It was strange, seeing these two giant men creep around your things to not disturb you, trying to do what they could to help what little family they had. "Steve can you grab the skillet? and grill pan? I will cook up some burgers and chicken and freeze them to be quicker meals." Bucky asked.

"Here and here. I am working on scalloped potatoes, they should freeze well. I will work on some salad mixes too. We can vacuum seal them to keep longer." Steve said, handing over the pans while looking for the peeler. Tony felt out of the loop but wanted to help this person who had helped his people.

"Does she have a steamer? I can help with steaming some veggies. We can make and freeze whole meals." Tony offered. Bucky looked up and smiled, thankfulness shining in his eyes. Bucky nodded and jerked his chin to a pantry. Tony went and set it up and began cleaning fruit and veggies. "I can make some fruit salad, won't keep well but I can make a small batch. We would look at high protein meals with low carbs and sugar. She is a nurse? She needed long term energy. We can freeze some fruit like pineapple and blueberries and grapes. They taste good frozen. she can snack on them too." Tony suggested. Bucky nodded emphatically. "You are right, Tony, snack are a great idea." Bucky's tension seemed to lessen with Tony's participation.

Tony picked up his phone and made a quick call, putting it down quickly. "I just called in another rush order. If we are going to do this, then we will do this right." Tony started working on cauliflower and broccoli.

"Tony, no. This isn't necessa-" Bucky started. Tony cut him off before he could finish "If she is your family, she is mine. I am more than glad to help." Bucky other took a quick breath and sent a small smile Tony's way. "Quick, we need to keep moving. I want this done before she wakes up." Bucky said.

The three men did just that. Bucky cooked chicken, burger, steak, pork, sausage. He froze it raw and froze it cooked. Bucky dated and labeled everything, even using up what little was in your freezer already. Steve made several casseroles to be frozen and labeled. Tony made his veggies and fruits and snacks and divided them up for easy access. He did freeze some bags with directions for smoothies, for the days when food would be too much effort. They also kept some food in the fridge for easy grab and go for the next five days, hopefully they made enough food for her.

"Thank you both. I am glad she will wake up to see that this was done for her. She may just come to understand that she is cared for. Let's clean up and then we can hit the hay." He clapped Steve on his back and pulled Tony in for a hug. "Thank you especially Tony. For everything. Oh, and, remember he has loved and lost one already." Bucky pulled away, nothing on his face giving away what he had shared. Bucky looked around and saw your lunchbox and packed a well-balanced lunch and then some before scrawling a quick note and putting it on the fridge. 'We did as you asked and made ourselves at home. Steve, Tony and I took care of lunches for you and groceries. Everything is dated and labeled. If you have questions, call me. See you soon. ~xo Bucky.'

He then helped clean up their mess and shooed Steve and Tony out the door. Bucky made one last lap to ensure everything was off, cleaned and put away. He walked down towards your room and paused, fingers brushing the doorknob. "Go in, chicken." Bucky demanded himself. He crept in and watched you sleep for a small moment. Gathering his courage, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your cheek and again on your forehead. "Good night, my darling. Rest well." He whispered against your skin. He left your room. He left your apartment. He used his key to double check the lock.

Bucky headed to his room and laid down, ignoring Tony and Steve's smug looks. Bucky listened to you faint breathing as he relaxed. Minutes later he was asleep.

Masterlist // Previous // Next

******************************************************************************************* Okay! That is the last update I have ready. Now, I actually have to type everything out. This is going to be fun! I have a Criminal Minds fic that I also have to post on here but should I have it typed out? It is awfully long...I will ruminate on this. Thanks for the support!

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #protective Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x nurse! reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x medical! reader #Steve Rogers #bucky barnes #steve rogers x tony stark #steve rogers fanfiction #Stony #avengers family #domestic avengers #saundraswriting #saundrasays #Need Some TLC fic

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merlinistheredheadedstepchild · 4 years ago

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Heart Monitor - July 4, 2011

What grocery store has a parking garage?

Subtle Derek, real subtle At least the scene’s shot well And Scott’s clever setting off all those car alarms

“I said I was gonna teach you. I didn’t say when.” Scott feels like he should have been able to stop the mountain lion and keep Stilinski from getting hurt

“I am what I am because of birth.” “Teaching someone who was bitten takes time.” And also Derek doesn’t know how or where to start

That phone was expensive Derek Pretty sure Derek using anger as an anchor has blinded him to other options

“I can stay away from her.” Cut to make outs to the peppy shotgun song

I do like that Allison asks Scott if he’s okay with things while they’re fooling around

“But I hate him, and I wish he was dead.”

Allison has a family history project and Kate tells her to Google la bête de geuveudan

The Alpha chases Scott into his oddly fogged up car and then draws the spiral on the window This only makes sense if the Alpha knows that Scott can ask Derek Or is trying to send a message to Derek?

Derek what the fuck! Don’t just sit in the dark in Scott’s bedroom

Scott could tell the Alpha was in general angry And when he tells Derek about the spiral Derek panics and tries to leave When Scott calls him out saying he buried his sister under a spiral Derek tells him he doesn’t want to know and he really looks concerned

Good transitional shot with the pillow

Oh Stiles sweetie, that shirt

Stiles thinks Scott’s an idiot for trusting Derek and going to him for help Derek’s gonna pick Scott up after work for more training Stiles plans to help because he thinks he’s a better yoda than Derek Also he doesn’t trust Derek Stiles makes his first star wars reference and Scott doesn’t really get it

Allison has a very old book about le bête and she reads to Lydia from it Lydia is not having it

“I borrowed it.” “Stole it.” “Temporarily misappropriated it.”

Stiles thinks if Scott can control his heart rate he can control his transformation And then he proceeds to hit Scott with balls, very hard

Jackson sees it and thinks they’re hilarious dumbasses He also sees Scott almost transform

“The angrier I got the stronger I felt.”

“I can’t be around Allison cause she makes me weak.”

“You’ve seen Derek. The guys like totally alone.” Not by choice Scott!

Jackson smells like he’s dying Also he’s hallucinating And not healing And now he’s creeping on Allison Who’s boots are too cute Jackson decides to apologize as a form of manipulation Which Allison sees through And then Jackson bares his soul a little bit This music is delightfully creepy Jackson this manipulation would go so much better if you didn’t look like you were dying

Allison and Scott are being awkward and Stiles is not having it

“Greenberg put your hand down, everybody knows you did the reading.”

“Are you familiar with the word sarcasm?” And then Scott looks at Stiles and Stiles gets all proud

Coach is having some anger issues and he takes it out on Scott Allison rescues him by holding his hand Stiles is miffed But also he figures out that Allison is Scotts anchor Scott is surprised to realize he loves Allison Stiles is like ‘Yeah buddy, catch the fuck up.’

And Stiles keys a car to get Scott beat up Cause he’s a vindictive little shit Scott can pick Allison’s voice out of everyone in the school

Derek goes to see Peter cause he needs help He just wants someone to point him in the right direction He just wants family He just wants his uncle

Derek’s seems reasonably certain that he can take an Alpha without a pack He thinks maybe someone else made it out of the fire (or maybe just hopes) And then he yells at Peter and gets interrupted by the nurse and only we see that Peter is trying to point Which is probably just a misdirect for the audience, but I also think it’s entirely possibly that on some level Peter doesn’t want to be doing what he’s doing

When he gets out to the Camaro there’s a folded paper pined under the wiper And it’s snowing Cause Georgia is not California

Harris has them in detention for fighting I guess, or for existing And then they have a full blown out loud conversation in the same room as him like he cant hear them Stiles get’s all with great power comes great responsibility

Derek confronts Deaton at the clinic about the deer found three months ago with a spiral in its side Derek starts to think that maybe Deaton is the Alpha because he lies about the deer and he’s close to Scott So he knocks him out and beats him up and interrogates him

And finally Derek reveals that the spiral is the sign for a vendetta, revenge. He wont stop killing until he’s satisfied But Scott protects Deaton and when Derek asks if he has a plan Scott tells him to met him at the school in an hour Why does Derek look afraid of Scott when he shifts?

Cute leather jacket Scott

“Well personally I’m a fan of ignoring a problem until it just goes away.”

Derek meets them with Deaton tied up in the back Derek hates them so much And Scott and Stiles go to use the schools PA system to summon the Alpha Scott has no actual plan Just get the Alpha in his general vicinity He “howls” Derek hates more than just the plan Derek gets to be really funny in this episode

“Be a werewolf not a teen wolf!” That is not a howl That is a dragon growl

“I’m gonna kill both of you!”

“Don’t be such a sour wolf.”

And Deaton escaped, probably while Derek was distracted by the growl. Possibly with magic

And bam, Derek gets impaled and thrown across the parking lot and Scott and Stiles run and hide in the school Does Derek patch his jacket or does he just keep wearing his blood stained, claw punctured jacket for the rest of the season?

I feel like I remember being upset that Derek died the first time I watched this. Cause we hadn’t yet established the ridiculously variable werewolf healing

Also is Peter not faking it? Is he still fugue-ing his way through a killing spree? End Episode Six

#Teen Wolf #Teen Wolf Rewatch #tw s1 #Heart Monitor #1.06

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villanevest · 6 years ago

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"I Can Help You": the Build-Up to & Significance of 2x07's Villaneve Sex[ish] Scene

of COURSE i am going to write about this. before we get started though, i wanted to tell you all that while @villainever is still running, i will be mostly posting from my brand-new primary, @villanevest (this blog). so follow me for the same stupid memes, and check the "villanevest writes" tag if you're interested in more of these essays :D alright. now let's get going. killing eve is an extremely versatile show, and that's absolutely a credit to the writers being willing to follow the characters and their relationships, which allows the narrative to develop in a simultaneously organic and deeply compelling way. the greatest complexity of the series is also its primary draw: the dynamic between villanelle and eve, and its evolution. in this mini-essay, we're going to step through why -- I believe -- the construction of the sex scene as two separate but synchronised encounters is the best choice for killing eve right now, and how they've accelerated towards it since the pilot. from the beginning, villanelle and eve have been all about parallels. the first time we see villanelle in the ice-cream shop, she's spaced-out, bored, a vacant observer. the first time we see eve, she's asleep. these scenes are very deliberately presented to us, one after another: here, we have two women who feel displaced and alienated. neither of them is lonely, not exactly; they have people in their lives. what they lack is real, significant passion, something beyond the routine -- for villanelle, that "routine" is a lot more dramatic, certainly, but nonetheless, they're both numbed out, but until they meet each other, they're not really aware of that.

and then we have that moment in the hospital bathroom. it's not a coincidence that they're standing in front of a mirror, confronted with each other, and themselves. the composition of this visual directly implies that villanelle and eve are not just alike, but inherently complementary. in many ways, eve is a reflection of villanelle, and villanelle is a reflection of eve -- that is, opposite, but also identical. it's not until later that they really understand the importance of this two-second conversation, but it's the first breath of an obsession that will span continents and become literally life and death.

eve and villanelle discover each others' real identities at the same time, in a montage that draws focus again to these similarities between them and their experiences. but this is when their respective trajectories towards each other begin to progress separately and distinctly. the reason for this is that while villanelle is unquestionably the "cat" in this cat-and-mouse equation, at this point, she is also the one being chased, and eve is in pursuit. for most of the first season, villanelle has more information about and power over eve than vice-versa. for eve, who still has niko, she is seduced into the thrill of villanelle through that prescribed pursuit, and for a little while, that's enough for her. but villanelle doesn’t have such a set structure, and -- once she knows eve's name and eve's face -- almost immediately begins seeking out copies.

the first copy she constructs is herself, signing in as "eve polastri" while working in berlin. this is mostly a stunt to get eve's attention -- the first of many (amsterdam, anyone?) -- but it compounds on 1x01's thematic suggestion of their compatibility. the second copy, however, is perhaps the most blatant example of this: the woman from the tour group who sleeps with villanelle in 2x03. villanelle tells her she "loves her [American] accent", and gets her to take her hair down, and then goes on to actually call her eve.

villanelle's interest in superficially recreating eve fades fairly early, after eve gets out of the car to confront villanelle when villanelle is absolutely armed and definitely dangerous, for no apparent reason other than she wants to. villanelle scares her off with a warning shot (even though she could've very easily killed her at this point), but then doubles back the next episode, with the kitchen sequence from 1x05. villanelle says she "just wants to have dinner with [eve]", but i think this evening really exceeds her expectations. prior to this, she was very interested in eve, obviously, but after it, villanelle's infatuation becomes both more significant and more mature, and so does eve's. they've got chemistry when they're together, not just in the tension of being apart. BUT. so, so much of their story is spent apart. season one is a blur of glimpsed profiles and silhouettes, with only the bathroom, the kitchen, and finally villanelle's apartment providing them sites to briefly interact. at the end of 1x08, villanelle tells eve, "i masturbate about you a lot", but eve denies doing the same, which is probably true, in the sense that eve still believes she doesn’t (actively, at least) consider villanelle in a sexual way. then season two picks up, and they're apart again. only they're less apart than they were before. villanelle is right when she assures gabriel that eve stabbed her to "show [her] how much she cares about [her]". while it was barely premediated, and i don't think eve necessarily viewed it as a confession, it absolutely is; a confession of who she really is, and that that person is irrevocably linked to villanelle. in stabbing villanelle, eve puts the first truly irreversible crack in her façade of normality; she can't go back now, not all the way. the show doesn't really linger on this, though, because it's so obvious that eve doesn't WANT to go back. as reticent as i am to quote shakespeare, i will make an exception for this case, and take utterly out of context the line, "these violent delights have violent ends". for eve and villanelle, they need the violent delights and violent ends alike; sex and destruction and obsession and pain are integral to their characters. why? because i think such extreme emotions and acts break through that nothingness, that fugue villanelle talks about in 2x06.

and so the stab wound -- which villanelle proudly shows off to niko in 2x05 -- becomes something of a pact between them. to eve, it means villanelle affects her strongly enough to push her out of herself (except really, into herself), and to villanelle, it means eve can exist in her world, can challenge and surprise her, can interrupt the boredom with these bright spots of total involvement and utter fascination. and since we’ll be talking about parallels later -- in 2x02, villanelle caressing her wound in the bathtub is juxtaposed with eve tracing the heart carved into the train table. i think a “carved heart” is pretty much the wound is, too. from the pilot, villanelle and eve's relationship is an intricate dance of towards/away, together/apart. over the story, over each direct and indirect crossing of their paths, they become more towards, less away; more together, less apart. after season one, particularly 1x08, they have this permanent and indelible connection. but they're still consistently positioned as unable to reach one another. villanelle calls MI6, but they won't send her through to eve. eve arrives, but misses villanelle, and villanelle watches through the transparent but very real barrier of the car window, literally passing her by. then we have them separated by only a door in 2x03, and so many other instances of close-but-not quite.

it's worth bringing up at this juncture that while the villaneve plotline is happening, villanelle and eve each have their own individual character arcs, so while they keep glancing off each other and being torn apart in practice, they are steadily gravitating to a middle ground mentally and emotionally. i'll come back to this idea. in 2x05, we have yet another mirror/reflection, as the kitchen scene is revisited. having this reunion in the same setting as their first foregrounds how their relationship has changed. eve isn't anxious or fearful or on the back foot. she's the one who brings villanelle to her home, not the other way around, as it was last time. she reaches out to villanelle, she's confident enough to take the pills, and she doesn't hesitate before saying "yes" when villanelle asks if eve will give her everything she wants. the "yes" is easy, because whether eve is quite ready to admit it or not, what villanelle wants is what eve wants.

then villanelle helps eve with the ghost, and going forward, they're able to regularly collaborate, in their own off-beat fashion. so after 2x05, villanelle and eve are more or less settled as fixtures in their respective lives. there's still the dance, but there's no real chase. they've drawn abreast of one another. they've caught up. and this is where we circle back to the idea of copies. like i said, ever since eve has been real to villanelle, copies have been insufficient. but she still can't have eve, not entirely, and not exactly how she wants, so she escalates to proxies. in 2x06, villanelle mouths, "ready?" to eve, right before pushing amber's bodyguard in front of the truck. i'm not trying to imply that villanelle wants to push eve in front of a truck -- but as i said earlier, villanelle and eve intersect at this overlap of violent delights/violent ends. sex and death. she asks her Copy Eve in 2x03 "ready?" in just the same way. villanelle is demonstrating her faith in the depth of their connection in the extremity of her actions. she's proving to eve that they're for-better-or-worse now. she's not afraid that killing someone right in front of eve will drive her away; she knows it'll suck her in.

so what's the significance of the shift from copies to proxies? the copies were for villanelle -- a stand-in so that she could act out her desires. it's much more reflective of the "i / it": if someone looked like eve, then it was almost as if she had the real thing, right? but her affection for eve mutates into something much harder for her to manage, and "it" very quickly becomes "eve", and she can't produce a facsimile that can hold a candle to "me / eve". but the proxies aren't for villanelle, they're for eve. if villanelle's not allowed to touch eve yet, then she's using the proxies to say, "this is how much i care. this is how much i want you." and on a subliminal level at least, if not a conscious one, i think eve interprets it that as such. then, finally, we get to 2x07. we have a repetition of the phone call from 2x02, and just as carolyn played eve the recording of villanelle's MI6 call, villanelle listens to eve's voicemails. in this instance, they haven't missed each other. they're already together. the "9 missed calls, 3 voicemails" are an overture across space, but not across distance. this is about breaching an emotional gap, not a physical one. eve and villanelle are around each other often now, but it takes their being apart again to highlight just how much that proximity has allowed them to evolve.

in the restaurant in rome, we again have the visual of eve reaching out, villanelle catching her hand, and them meeting in the middle. which brings us to The Scene. it follows villanelle's crucial conversation with aaron (which I wrote about here), and that gives her a last little push. note: we have to remember that the bug that eve is listening through is only one way. while this might seem like a let-down, in that villanelle couldn't hear eve, i think it's actually really significant. because it shows how well villanelle knows eve, how much effort she puts into understanding her, and how easily she remembers things about her. in 2x06, eve was interjecting via the comms throughout almost the entirety of the aaron-villanelle-amber dinner conversation. that and the voicemails exemplify eve's involvement and propensity to hover, which is a result of her natural controlling tendencies, and how consumed she is with villanelle. so even though villanelle had no way of knowing that eve was listening, she knew anyway. she was sure with no feedback or guarantee. i love how they set this eve/hugo encounter up during previous episodes. it's something of a checkov's gun situation -- that is, the principle that if you introduce an idea (e.g. hugo's sexual interest in eve), then you need to bring it to fruition. what the writers did so well, though, is that we thought hugo had already served his purpose as a romantic/sexual option -- when he leans in to kiss eve in 2x04 and she doesn't lean away, we have evidence of how little commitment she still has to her marriage. but now he becomes eve's proxy.

so why have eve hookup with hugo, and not villanelle? well, there are a lot of reasons. firstly, eve and villanelle having sex, or even kissing, would be a very significant development for the show, and have massive implications for the narrative. as a result, it would need a lot of build-up. the circumstances would need to be perfect. while eve is no longer shying from her attraction to villanelle, i think a mixture of adrenaline and tension would have to reach terminal velocity (probably by introducing an external stressor, like a fight or escape) for eve to actually step over that line. i don't think that, at this point, it's something she'd do with a perfectly clear head. she's too aware of how precarious the current balance is, and probably (quietly) also too afraid that giving in would mean villanelle's obsession would have closure, and thus die off. the episode just didn't have the minutes to generate that situation, and the plot didn't give an avenue for it.

secondly, it gives the writers a lot more room to play with the respective aftermaths. this way, they get to bring in

1) a fallout of some kind between hugo and eve. hugo's been very laissez-faire all season about sex, about boredom, etc., going on about how he understands why eve took the job at MI6, and her interest in villanelle. but until this point, it's been pretty much all fun and games, all james bond for hugo. and then he's going to have this moment where he realises he and eve AREN'T alike. he's a good-time guy, a bit selfish, and smart enough to need an entertaining career to keep stimulated. eve? it goes SO much further than that for eve. she really is on that sociopathy/psychopathy spectrum, and she needs this to feel awake, to feel anything. in their sex scene, their dynamic flickered into an "i / it" for eve, because hugo as a person didn't really matter at all. he's going to see the exact scope and depth of eve's obsession, and he'll realise she's gone beyond where he can follow. first niko, then hugo -- they're both ferrymen who tag along for a piece of eve's journey, but ultimately stay behind. they give an important reference point for the audience; they act as thresholds we see eve pass -- here, something niko can't condone; now, something hugo won't do.

2) the no-morning-after for villaneve. this doesn't relieve any of the sexual tension, it ratchets it up. like the stab wound, this connects them, but it doesn't resolve anything. the writers now have so many options: maybe a little awkwardness from eve (unlikely), intensifying chemistry (very likely), perhaps denial, or a desperation to get alone and take things to the next level. this didn't close a door, it opened several. they'll be able to draw villaneve out even more, and they'll neatly sidestep both audience expectation and television tradition. it's their game now.

here, hugo also has metaphorical signifiance -- he's the human cost of villaneve. over the course of the show, bodies, careers, and relationships have all imploded to get villaneve even just close enough to touch. villanelle and eve are using hugo directly just as they've indirectly used many others. note: symbolically, as well, villanelle is in eve's head. this feeds into the notion of obsession -- since the pilot, villanelle has consumed eve's thoughts, and now she's actually there. finally, above all, i believe this encounter perfectly fits the current phase of their relationship, and its evolution. it's the culmination of copies and proxies and distance. like i said, that apartness is just as critical to villaneve as the togetherness. they are as made of their negative space as they are of their lines and colours. and here they are: after pretending different people are each other, after being pressed together but stepping away again, after using others as mediums to express themselves, after being chased and caught, lost and found. here they are: together and apart at once.

not only is this thematic, it's romantic, in its own twisted way. fifteen episodes later, they are even sharper reflections of each other than they were when they met. they're in sync even with such little communication, and that stands in contrast to their additional relationships. niko and eve could be in the same room, talking directly, and be less connected. and that's kind of tragic -- that eve went through so much of her life NOT wide awake, that niko spent years with someone who wasn't really WITH him. villanelle and eve are all hot and cold, entirely comprised of extremes, because that's what they NEED to feel alive. villanelle says in 2x06, "like us, you mean". and that's exactly it: fundamentally, villanelle and eve are the same kind, and that's why they are so good together. it's how they stay so good apart.

will these violent delights have violent ends? unquestionably. but those ends will be new beginnings. eve won't go back to sleep. villanelle could never cope with being bored again. they'll push and pull, fight and fuck, get mad and get in deeper, inextricable. they'll keep chasing the delights and weathering the consequences, getting wilder and wilder until something happens that they can't shake off or walk away from. but that's how they are, that's how they're happy, and that's the only way they can be.

i hope all this held together! I had a lot of thoughts and it was hard to compress into one short essay, so I know it seems like a lot of disconnected threads rip. as always, reply/ask/message me with ideas/requests if you have something you want me to talk about! thank you to everyone who has commented nice things on my previous posts; it makes me want to write more and it’s nice to know someone’s reading :D

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akatokuro · 6 years ago

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The Inevitable StS Rewatch, Episode 30

Here lies Seiya’s brain, may it rest in yandere pieces.

- Hooray, the episode that kickstarted the process of Seiya's brain snapping firmly in half!

- Seriously, I might ramble about Gold Saints and such a lot (EXCUSE ME, DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT OUR LORD AND TRAINWRECK AQUARIUS CAMUS?), but nothing gets me screaming like an idiot like some quality SeiSao content. I LOOOOVE THEEEEEEMMMMMM

- The emphasis on Seiya's arm breaking, and him desperately reaching for Saori with the other, is very visually effective. The visual framing of internal "shattering" feels very appropriate for what this episode ends up doing...

- Seiya's rationalizations when he first jumps after Saori are really, really interesting and honestly sets the framework for the Seiya we see in the rest of the franchise in regards to her. He keeps repeating to himself, "Protecting Athena is a Saint's duty!" This is sort of weird and forced for him in a number of ways - Seiya has never shown any particular investment in either "Athena" or the idea of a "Saint's duty" up until this point, but then suddenly he's sort of frantically, desperately repeating it to himself here.

- It's reading into it heavily, but it makes sense Seiya is sort of trying to justify himself here, because Seiya in particular is in a weird, iffy spot as far as how he defines himself and his motivations for doing this. He originally came back with the intentions of dumping all of this shit from the onset and just wanted to find his sister. Then he got swept up in the drama with Ikki and the Gold Cloth. And now... well, Marin told him to protect Athena, who it turns out is Saori, but what does that actually mean to him...?

- Well, Athena is the goddess of war, who watches over humanity. But when he finally catches Saori and pulls her against him, she's obviously very vulnerable - very achingly human. To the point that when Saori starts to wake up, she cracks a joke about it - "I'm very heavy, aren't I, Seiya?"

- In the face of this kind of Saori, forcing the "protecting Athena is a Saint's duty!" tagline falls apart even further than its already shaky premise, for Seiya.

- And it's this contradiction that really gets to Seiya, and I think this is what started the process of it causing his brain to melt - he just cannot think of Saori as a "goddess" and all that entails when she's in front of him like this. You can see how he quickly switches back to the old "ojou-san" he always used when as far as he knew, she was just another human - and also "she is a very important person to me." "She is a very important person to me" is, in terms of emotional motivations, basically the polar opposite of the previous "it is a Saint's duty to protect Athena."

- Normally, narratives around guys seeing "the fragile woman deep inside" a female authority figure like Saori piss me the fuck off like almost nothing else - it's like an instant red flashing NOPE button - but SeiSao doesn't really hit that for me. For one, because Seiya doesn't actually frame it as a fragility or a unique femininity, per se, on the part of Saori that being a goddess makes her "hide" - and secondly, because he NEVER uses this as a point of authority over her or to condescend her. At all. It really feels like he has a legitimate compassion for her, and it makes him want to support her in her path. He would never challenge or lecture Saori that she should dump the responsibility of being Athena and find happiness as "a normal girl." (Here's looking at you, Fate/Stay Night!) But he wants to do what he can to ease that burden, and dedicate himself to her utterly. He admires her, because she is both human and goddess, and how Saori obviously often struggles between that boundary, but endures. Seiya, basically, understands that Saori is actually the hero of this story, not him, and acts accordingly. It owns.

- This desire to support the strong, incredible human woman in front of him, who is shouldering the mantle of a goddess, clicks with something inside of him - namely, it gives him a deeper sense of purpose that is able to justify all the horrific hell he has gone through during his Saint training. He is obviously bitter about what has been done to him in the early stages of the series and is happy for the chance to dump it all when he first returns from Greece. But devotion to Saori personally, as "Saori-san", not Athena, becomes all-consuming, all-defining for him - in a way it does not for the others - to the point that Seiya has extreme existential meltdowns at the suggestion that Saori might not need him anymore during the Hades OAVs and the movies. If Saori doesn't need him, everything he's done and endured has been worthless. He starts conflating everything that justifies his life and all of his suffering with her.

- To the point that, in Tenkai-hen, nothing else matters. He doesn’t matter. The world doesn’t matter. If Saori-san wants to kill him, it doesn’t matter. If Saori-san wants to destroy the world, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is her. He’ll die smiling, no matter what the context, if he’s dying by her will.

- That’s the fascinating thing about Seiya's deep, mad love for Saori in a nutshell: it is genuine love and genuine admiration, but it's also something of a fucked up coping mechanism. It's both! Saori knows on some level that it's both! And it kills her! Because she loves him too! But she knows she basically made him crazy and she wishes he could be happy and de-crazied but he rejects all of her attempts to fix it because he's crazy in love with her and wants to stay at her side! Which makes her both so happy and so sad at the same time because she both wants him at her side but also wants him to be free of her! Then there is some lewd hand-holding if they are lucky! etc etc. Goddammit they're so good.

- So yes, Seiya chanting to himself "Saints gotta protect Athena" comes across as frantic and desperate. But when he's holding Saori in his arms and looking at her face and listening to her voice, a strange serenity settles over him in its place. Seiya isn't the kind of person who can throw his entire being into the cause of "Athena." But it turns out that this person, this Kido Saori he's getting to know, and seeing more and more sides of - that's a different story.

- ISN'T IT SAD, SHAINA?

- Actually I really hate Shaina's crush on Seiya as a part of her character but we'll get to that later I guess... grumble grumble grumble...

- hnnnng the way the world obviously just melts away for both of them when they're staring at each other... the fragility of those moments makes them really effective. It really does feel like they're quickly stolen from all the hectic violence of their duties otherwise. There's no way the world and their circumstances would allow them to hold those moments for more than a minute at a time, if that.

- And any chance Seiya's brain had of surviving this whole deal is gooooone. This really encapsulates that paradox between human/goddess for the Saori in Seiya's heart - obviously, a normal human girl wouldn't be in the position to calmly, smilingly agree to die with him. But that's not something a goddess who rules over humans would do, either. The only explanation is that it's just... "Saori-san." Saori-san, who is willing to die with him.

- And the sheer power of someone who nods and smiles and believes in you when you ask something like that of them, well. RIP Seiya!

- Speaking of poor Shaina, the way Seiya actually stops her in her tracks with that utterly dismissive "fuck off, Shaina, busy staring at Saori-san" and promptly goes back to doing just that is... amazing.

- I love the way Seiya keeps enforcing their mutuality as they take their cliff-diving bet, too - verbally, softly telling Saori to hold onto him, looking at her the entire time...

- A consistent thing about Saori, even in the filler, is her taking it really hard when someone is sacrificed or hurt "for her" - like, before, things were a step removed because they were fighting "to protect the Gold Cloth" with the understanding amongst the whole group that it would be disastrous if EVIL FORCES got their hands on it. But here, Seiya almost died directly protecting her, and it obviously affects her deeply. (We even get a cheesy insert song about it!) She’s starting to get a sense of what Sainthood and using Saints actually means. As Athena, it's something she'll unfortunately have to get used to - and she knows this.

- THAT ATTEMPTED KISS IS TRAGICALLY THE CLOSEST THEY WILL EVER GET TO KISSING IN AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR DECADES, IF THAT. ALAS.

- SAORI! IS! THE FUCKING! BEST!

- I LOVE that her quiet devastation over others being hurt for her sake doesn't make her really weepy or waver - it hardens her. It steels her quiet, unshakable resolve to do what she has to do.

- Other shounen or shounen-likes often try to pull that "non-fighter heroine acts 'cool' and says they'll protect the hero instead, even though he usually protects her! See what we did there!?" (kingdom heeeearttttsssss) but the difference is that, uh, Saori is actually cool - and there's a decent emphasis on her perspective and feelings about it, and she actually gets to solve problems and meaningfully intimidate an opponent.

- Saori just calmly, silently staring down Shaina as she threatens her... ahhhh she's so cool I can't deal with it...

- YEAH. SORRY GUYS, THIS IS NOW A KIDO SAORI BLOG.

- and then saori drove a dude to suicide with her powers using his own crows. gj goddess of war

- The sudden snap from the dignified, intimidating "Goddess" Saori to the more human, frantic Saori when Hyouga and Shun show up is interesting - it almost does feel like she's snapping out of a trance or pseudo-fugue state. But it doesn't remotely feel like a split personality deal or anything either, because even in "goddess" mode Saori was focused on protecting Seiya, a human who is absolutely precious and special to her. The motivations and feelings are the same.

- Uh, speaking of Hyouga and Shun, though... where the fuck have you guys been all night until now? You and Seiya were right behind each other when you set out after Saori... did you take the chance to have a secret, prolonged cuddling session together or something under the mountains? I mean, more power to you guys...?

- hey, more silver fodder! what a way to close the episode.

#rewatching sts #aquarius camus did nothing wrong #this is now a kido saori blog

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vanessakirbyfans · 6 years ago

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When I went to see Vanessa Kirby starring in Julie at the National Theatre, it turns out I picked “a really bad night. Oh God everything went wrong,” she says when we meet a few days later, in a café in Chelsea where she has just ordered scrambled eggs. In one climactic moment she has to kill a budgie on stage, but the blood capsule didn’t burst until well after she whizzed the fake bird up in the food processor. “That happened two nights in a row! But it was better than before, when we used to start the scene with a real budgie and then kill a fake one, because one night the real one started tweeting after the lights went down, when he was supposed to be dead. I was trying to shut him up. He was called Gordon. We had to get rid of Gordon. There have been letters to the theatre: ‘We need to know that Gordon has not been harmed.’”

Kirby is a 30-year-old actor from London, a galloping laugh a minute, and quite probably the future of British acting. You may know her as Princess Margaret from Netflix’s The Crown, a role she describes happily as “the gift that I was given”, and which turned what could have been a staid drama about duty and class into something much more delicious. She gave Margaret a youthful vulnerability – we saw the damns she had to give before she stopped giving any – and now, after two series and winning a Bafta, she is handing the role over to Helena Bonham Carter, who will play the older incarnation. And Kirby is gutted.

“The Crown was the best time of my life,” she says, in her quick voice. “Saying goodbye to it was awful, I really grieved it, actually.” Kirby kept a photo of Margaret on her bedroom wall and used to gaze at it, wondering What Would Margaret Do? “The easy route would have been for me to just play her as the version of her who comes later, the public persona of her that is so – I don’t know the right word – gauche?”

They could have sent you to Mustique!

“I know! Livid! But I wanted to try and find the person she was before she hardened, before she became bitter and self-loathing, which is what I sensed. I wanted to find the torment that’s underneath those things. That, for me, made a real woman, even though the circumstances were ridiculous.”

She played opposite Claire Foy as the Queen. Both of them have just been nominated for this year’s Emmy awards for The Crown. I ask what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the enigmatic, brooding looks that Foy’s Elizabeth so regularly deploys.

“Oh, she used to give me the look in our scenes together and I’d just be feeling, aaaargh – you’re so internal! You’re so good! You’re so subtle and I have to try so hard to rein it in! But Claire was much better about the show ending than I was. She said it was because I had such a personal synergy with Margaret, whereas the Queen remained a mystery to her.”

It transpires the real Queen is a fan, though. Kirby only knows this because a friend of hers was at a fancy party recently, “where he didn’t know a soul so when he heard some people discussing The Crown he was like: ‘Actually I know someone in that.’ They were like: ‘Cool.’ He goes: ‘No, but I really know someone in it,’ and, meanwhile, this girl says: ‘Well my granny likes it,’ and he suddenly realises her granny is the Queen. It was Princess Beatrice. Although, I told someone else recently it was Eugenie,” she laughs, “but I got that wrong.”

Kirby grew up in Wimbledon, south London, the middle child of three, and attended the private Lady Eleanor Holles School. Her mother, Jane, had been the editor of Country Living and her father, Roger, one of the country’s leading prostate surgeons, “always watched loads of films with me – totally inappropriate ones like Midnight Express when I was about six. He put all films on. I think my sister was five when he took us to the cinema to see A Perfect Murder.” They were also taken to a lot of plays, “and I got really bored until I was about 11 and then suddenly it clicked for me, like: oh, when theatre’s really good it can be transformative. More than anything, it made me understand people.”

At school, “It was always the drama side of things where I felt the most alive,” she says. “The most myself. I was quite badly bullied for a few years and I became self-conscious about everything I did in relation to the bullies. But drama was the place where I didn’t.”

Was it other girls?

“Yeah it was… systematic. Quite awful. A teacher said to my mum on my very last day of school: ‘She survived it. She’s done it,’ which means they knew it was happening.”

Strangely, Kirby doesn’t sound remotely bitter about it and mutters a half-finished thought about it perhaps being a useful experience now. She describes her childhood as very happy and she knows how socially and financially privileged she was, but she also suffered from giardia, an intestinal parasite, which went undiagnosed for a long time and made her feel permanently nauseous, as if she was about to vomit. “All these nightmare injections, pills up the bum, all of it. Prodded around from age nine to 11.”

At school there was a noticeboard with a picture of Ben Whishaw as Hamlet at the Old Vic on it. Kirby stole it for her bedroom wall, went to see the play three times and became obsessed with him, which was not helped by bumping into him on a London bus. She was in amateur local productions at the time, but after studying for an English degree at Exeter and then giving up a place at Lamda to go straight into work as an actor some years later, her first big chance was on The Hour – starring… Ben Whishaw.

The director was tough on her, which may have been because: “I wasn’t paying any attention to the scene. In my head it was just alarm bells going: ‘Oh my God that’s Ben Whishaw.’” Afterwards she had to tell him everything. “And it felt good to finally confess my infatuation. Of course, he was with his boyfriend.”

Hollywood came calling and she’s had to become better at dealing with famous men since being cast in the sixth instalment of the Mission: Impossible films, out this month and starring Tom Cruise. I ask what he was like. “Such a pro. Absolutely disciplined; super enthusiastic. Always wants everything executed at a super-high level, so you have to train really hard.”

With him?

“Oh God no, without him.” She laughs, groaning. “I think that would be… I did say to him at one point: ‘I am never getting on a running machine with you.’ But I learned a lot about work ethic from him. I never thought that stunts and action would be my genre, but I’m understanding now that you can transcend genre, as long as you try and find the real woman behind the part.”

It struck me, watching Julie – which is Polly Stenham’s rewrite of the Strindberg play Miss Julie, and set at 3am at a druggy party in a wealthy house in Hampstead – that Kirby could have played the heroine in a much sexier fashion. Instead, she chooses to drag her body around with her as if it brings her discomfort. The reviews have been kind to her, but not to the script or production, which tend to say it all lacks chemistry. Kirby diplomatically says the problem is: “It’s such a huge space, it’s not an intimate theatre and sometimes the space dictates the parameters.” I’m not convinced she’s enjoying it all that much.

Still, the current feminist awakening of Hollywood has had a real impact on Kirby, who has risen to fame at the perfect moment to seize it. She is working on her own ideas, too. The week after we meet she will fly off to work on an unnamed film project she’s developed with Adam Leon. “He’s the best New York film director, I think.” It’s inspired by an article in the New Yorker about a woman who entered a fugue state and went missing in the big city. They have cast a group of renegade, gender-fluid young Brooklynites to play her new friends, and Kirby scrolls through her phone to show me photos of these genderless kids she finds so mesmerisingly beautiful. She is also developing a film of her own with Ben Caron, who directed her in episodes of The Crown, and making “something about babies who are born addicted to drugs and how society treats those mothers”.

Partly this seems like an attempt to get away from the wealthy-woman-in-gilded-prison roles. “I feel like now, more than ever, it’s all of our responsibility to have other things represented on screen. There have been somany male stories on screen, or stories of women written by men, so she’s the wife of someone, the girlfriend of someone… It’s only now I realise that looking back, all the scripts I’ve read over time, unless they’re really small indie films, the women have always been fantasy figures, always viewed through the male lens, almost cartoony.”

Her boyfriend, Callum Turner, is also an actor, and recently they were on a plane together, both with a pile of about 10 scripts to read through. “In every single one he was the central protagonist and the women were helping the leads. Out of mine, about two of my parts were the leads – and then you knew that someone like Jennifer Lawrence would be doing it. So we women have got to be the generators of the material and, in order to do that, we have to understand the system we’re in, which I’m really trying to do.”

Kirby has a friend called Sarah, “who says it just pisses her off, all these Hollywood actresses getting on the red carpet and sounding off about #MeToo, etc. She says, what are they actually doing? I say I know, but these are the women who will be on the front pages of newspapers, for better or worse, and then it leads to real change in other industries, too. Media is the controller of everything.”

Another close friend is the writer Dolly Alderton. They even share the same therapist, which made Kirby very amused to read all about said therapist in Alderton’s recent bestselling memoir, Everything I Know About Love. Yet another friend is Anna, with whom Kirby and her sister share a flat in Tooting. “So we’re like three sisters. No idea why we live in Tooting, though. I think it was cheapest.” Their home has calmed down a lot since Kirby became so busy. “It used to be mad parties non-stop and the vibrations going through to the little old lady who lives next door – her house was constantly shaking at 4am.” I can’t imagine Kirby upsetting old ladies – she seems too sweet. Did the woman complain? “Sometimes, yes,” Kirby admits, with a shamefaced twinkle in her eye.

Still, she seems entirely unafraid to call the shots on the big guys now. “My only little area of change is to be in a big movie and say no, I’m not wearing a short skirt, I’m not showing any skin, I don’t want slapped-on make-up,” she says.

And if the action film wanted to give you robo-tits? “I would say absolutely not. I don’t care any more. I feel more able to say that now. I’m in a slightly luckier position, but also the times now support it. I don’t want an arse shot – well, not that they’d want one of my arse. But I don’t want to be shot through a lens of sexualisation. That’s not me. That’s the distorted feminine and the distorted masculine that is creating so much of the toxic energy in our society.”

It is unusual to hear an actor ask quite so many questions in an interview. As she says, she is fortunate to have risen to fame in a time that allows it, with other women having begun to push the boundaries. But Kirby is questioning everything. Still, you can only fight off so much of the culture. We say goodbye and she picks up her bag of M&S shopping and heads home to watch Love Island, during which, she says happily, she will “feel my brain turning into disgusting nothing”.

#Vanessa Kirby #The Crown #Mission Impossible Fallout #Articles

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bethofbells · 7 years ago

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Cigarette smoke curled around his fingers, lazily drifting in the stagnant air of the diner. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Police Chief Jim Hopper wasn’t one to mince words, and the soft man sitting across the table from him winced at the sharp tone of the question.

“Look Chief, it’s in her best interest and you know it.”

Hopper bristled at Dr. Owens’ tone. The man liked to call him “chief” when he wanted something, a misguided attempt to butter him up. Owens wanted El back, at least temporarily. Some bullshit about studying her abilities so he could help her understand them. He snuffed out the half smoked cigarette, grinding it down into his half eaten ham and egg sandwich. It was a signal that the conversation was over.

Owens’ expression changed when hopper pushed away from the dingy formica table. He scooted anxiously back in his chair, nearly knocking the damn them over in his haste. The diner had gone eerily quiet, clinking silverware and soft conversation suddenly stopping. Owens dropped his own voice down to a whisper, suddenly aware that whatever he said would be spread across the entire town before he could even get home. “Chief, listen to me, please. I’ve been looking through some of Brenner’s files--”

Hopper glared at him. “Bringing up that son of a bitch isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

Owens shook his head in frustration as Hopper turned to leave. Tossing money down on the table he rushed after him. “Jim, please. Brenner was a monster. What he did to those kids…” He opened and closed his mouth like a fish dying on dry land. “It’s… unspeakable, but… there are things in those files that make me think Jane might be a danger to herself and others.”

They were half way across the parking lot when Hopper stopped, swinging around to face the shorter man. “What do you mean, dangerous? She’s a kid.”

“The psionic abilities, particularly the telekinesis… they’re tied to her emotions, specifically fear and anger.”

Hopper jammed his hands down in his pockets. The wind was whipping at them, knifing its way between the buttons of his coat. Early January was almost unbearably cold in Hawkins. This conversation was needling him more than the wind. “Would you get to the god damned point, doc?”

“She’s a teeanger now, and her emotions are probably all over the place. She faces more challenges than any of the kids she’s going to be around will be prepared to understand. There’ll probably be flashbacks to some of the things Brenner did, she’ll form very strong emotional attachments to the few people she lets in close, and if those attachments are threatened or if she feels unsafe her body’s natural self preservation will kick in.” All his words ran together, barely pausing as he rattled off the dangers, watching hop’s expression closely. “And she’s a skinny thirteen year old girl, her only weapon against perceived threats is the telekinesis. She won’t always be able to control it, things will get broken, people might get hurt, and hurt badly.”

Hopper could feel his hands balling up into fists in his pockets, his jaw clicking as the muscle there flexed. “Owens, this isn’t some horror movie, Jane isn’t Carrie. She’s not shunned or bullied, she has people who love her.”

Owens shook his head. “Hopper, you know the kids in this town. It doesn’t matter who she is or who is around her, there will be a time when she’s enraged or terrified, and what happens then?’

The memory of glass flying through his cabin flashed through his head, El screaming at the top of her lungs as books and anything else not bolted down flew through the air, doors slamming. What if that happened at school? His throat constricted. The very idea that she might become some thing to be studied stuck in his craw. She didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to have electrodes taped to her head, didn’t deserve to be poked and prodded like some kind of lab animal. But… god, what would happen if she hurt someone, another kid?

Owen’s saw the shift in Hopper’s demeanor, the slightly far away look in his eyes. The doctor latched onto it. “Ah… it’s already happened hasn’t it?”

Hopper shook his head. “It’s not what you think. The poor kid… she’d spent a month out in the woods in the winter, trying to survive on barely cooked squirrels and huddling in piles of leaves.” And that was my fault. The voice echoed in his head, accusatory, regretful. “Then I basically locked her in my cabin for an entire year trying to keep her safe from the likes of you. She was stir crazy, and I kept… disappointing her… It wasn’t like what you say. Solitary confinement is torture.”

He couldn’t reconcile Owens’ Carrie-esque predictions with the child he knew. She was just a little girl who smiled up at him sweetly across the dinner table when he made stupid jokes, a child with a silky mop curls that slipped between his fingers when she tucked her head under his arm on the couch while he read to her. He couldn’t imagine the soft expression in her eyes ever turning to sharp rage like it once had. She was his daughter now, not some lab rat. He had to protect her, even from Owens’ well meaning nonsense. He opened his mouth to tell the man to go to hell, but he ended up just staring open-mouthed like an idiot.

Sighing, Owens reached into his pocket. “I have a new family practice over on Birch street.” He handed Hopper his card. “Call me if something happens. I still think I can help.”

And with that, the doctor left. Hopper watched, frozen in place, a sense of foreboding curling into this chest like the smoke of his last cigarette. Owens climbed into his sleek car and eased on down the road. Suddenly Hopper didn’t feel the cold anymore, just the little piece of cardstock burning in the palm of his hand. Fuck.

Joyce Byers had forgotten what it was like to not worry. The thing that liked to sit on her chest twenty-four/seven had become almost a comforting companion. When she finally woke up one day and it was gone, instead of relief she felt trepidation. The universe wouldn’t simply let her be. It felt too good to be true.

Will seemed better, happy even. No far away looks or zoning out, no fear creeping along the periphery of his movements. When he smiled these days it was as though light emanated from him, and Joyce always felt her own expression brighten. Sure, he had nightmares. With what he’d gone through it would have been unusual if he didn’t, but even they seemed more manageable. When he woke up in the middle of the night, terror gripping him, sweaty and anxious, it only took a few moments of talking through the horror for him to relax back into normalcy. He assured her, over and over again, that these dreams didn’t feel like the episodes before, that they were dreams and nothing more. She believed him.

One less thing to worry about right? Except, her body didn’t feel like it was made to be worry free. Tension knotted up her shoulders, and sometimes she held her breath without realizing it, suddenly gasping for air at the strangest times. She was waiting. For what? She didn’t fucking know, but something was bound to happen. It always did.

She called Don and told him she was sick, the sense of baseless dread making her not want to leave the house. It was a mistake probably. She’d gone through half a pack of smokes in less than three hours. At least at Melvad’s she had busy work, things to keep her from spinning out. Here it as just… utter silence. With the boys at school the house was too quiet. She could hear her own heart beating, the soft rattle of her own breath. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the sound of a vehicle pulling into her driveway.

Fingers parting the blinds, she peered out across her yard. Hop’s blazer, dull brown matching the dead foliage littering the ground, matching his uniform. He was frowning, not an unusual expression, but worrisome nonetheless. She hadn’t spoken to him since the night of the Snow Ball. She didn’t like leaning on people, and he had been so easy to lean on, easy to need. Boundaries blurred too easily with him, and she’d found herself looking up at him, the stars a twinkling backdrop for his broad silhouette, soft music floating out into the cool night air, wondering what it would be like to really sink into his embrace. Ridiculous romantic bullshit, totally inappropriate, needy even. She was a woman in mourning, sadness etched into her very bones. It had been best to put some distance there.

But Jim Hopper was rapidly closing that distance in long strides coming toward her front door, serious look on his face enough to shake her out of whatever weird fugue she was in.

She swung the door open before he could knock on it, unable to hide the concern on her face. “Hop? What is it? The boys--”

He cut her off, shaking his head. “No, nothing like that. Shit, I should have called first. Sorry.”

He swept his hat off, looking somewhat contrite as he held it in front of him, waiting to be invited it. When did things get so formal? She moved out of the doorway, gesturing for him to follow toward the kitchen. It seemed like the most natural place in her house to have a conversation, and he looked like something was weighing heavily on him. She tried to keep the fluttering of her nerves out of her voice. “Coffee?”

He nodded, fingering the rim of his hat as he watched her move around the kitchen. “I stopped by Melvad’s earlier and Don said you were sick.”

She blushed, suddenly feeling like a kid being interrogated by the principle. She sat down across from him at the table, looking down at the steam wafting away from the coffee cups. “I hope you didn’t come all the way out here just to check on me.” Sheepishly she sipped at her coffee. “I’m kind of playing hookie today.”

His eyes narrowed somewhat, assessing her. Big city detective Hopper deducing that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. It made her shiver. “Are you sure about that Joyce?”

She ignored his question, cocking her head to the side and doing some assessing of her own. He looked tired, circles under his eyes, facial hair not quite stubble yet not quite a beard. His expression was pinched, brows knitted, jaw clenched a little too tight. Something was bothering him. “Do you want to sit here and have small talk over coffee, or do you want to tell me why you drove all the way out here in the middle of the day, Jim?”

His gaze jerked away from the reflection in his coffee, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I just… I really don’t want to pull you back into this shit again.”

”Too late now, spill it.”

”Has Will said anything to you about Ellie doing things that, uh… scare him?”

”No, why?” She tried to keep the alarm out of her voice, but it peaked through anyway, her pitching rising an octave.

”I had breakfast with Owens this morning.”

Joyce frowned. “Is she sick?”

Hopper sighed in frustration, rubbing one hand down his face. “He’s worried she won’t always be able to control her abilities, that she might hurt someone, you know… if her emotions get too volatile.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “He seems to think if he studies her, then he can teach her to control it.”

”Will hasn’t said anything about it, but…”

”What?”

”There’s another girl, one that El doesn’t like. Will’s mentioned that she’s been unusually clumsy lately. You don’t think--”

”Oh hell.”

”Surely not.”

”They’re kids, Joyce. Don’t tell me you never wanted to trip someone, tie their shoelaces together, whatever.”

Joyce cringed. Remembering what it was like to be a jealous teen girl… She could think of a few of her classmates that were lucky she didn’t have telekinetic abilities. “She may not even realize she’s doing it, right?”

”I don’t know which is worse, honestly.” He groaned in frustration. Picking up his hat, he jammed it back on his head, ready to leave. “I’m so out of my god damned element here. I don’t know the first thing about thirteen year old girls.”

Joyce followed him to the door, reaching out to grab his arm at the last second. “Maybe I could help. I used to be one, you know, even if it was a hundred years ago.” She gave him a soft smile, wanting to take the pained expression off his face.

#stranger things #jopper #jim hopper #joyce byers

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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Wave, Listen to Me! – 08 – The Culture is Maturing

In a heartwarming cold open, Minare rants about how, like mankind throughout history with nature, she’s “lived her life selfishly without thinking about the suffering of others”, with Mizuho being her latest victim (along with a Coelocanth Nakahara and a Dodo Takarada).

But Mizuho speaks up, refusing to be the victim. She’s been told all her life what a nice, helpful, proper girl she is, but it’s not all she is, and it can blind those who think that’s all she is to her actual weaknesses. To Mizuho, Minare isn’t a burden, but a very necessary inspiration.

The two women complement each other almost perfectly, leading me to wish Minare was less jokey about her romantic designs toward her. While Mizuho’s disinterest in one man shouldn’t be seen as a disinterest in all men, so far I don’t see a life partner better for Minare than Mizuho, and vice versa!

And now, back to the studio. We’re back on the night the show opened with: the bear attack segment. Earlier that night, with no ideas of her own Minare is saddled with a “phone conversation with a family member” segment, something which she’s not particularly motivated to do.

The resulting call, however, is hilarious, with her jokester of a dad coming up with increasingly ridiculous origins of her unusual name “Minare”—first because it jumped out at him on the cover of a dirty mag, and second because he combined the first syllable of the names of the three women he was fooling around with before she was born.

When Takarada unexpectedly shows up at Voyager with Makie’s psycho controlling brother, things look primed to turn very unfunny indeed. But when the brother starts ordering Makie around, she manages to stand up to him, and Nakahara even backs her up…though a bit too forcefully, leading to him getting lifted up by his throat and nearly strangled!

We later learn that the brother has a condition in which he enters a kind of ultraviolent fugue state when he senses his sister is in danger. This certainly makes him more of a sympathetic figure but Nakahara is clearly right that he really should seek professional help for it. It’s a miracle he’s never killed anyone during these “fits”!

The bro’s mind is set at ease (or at least his anxiety de-escalated) after a chat on the phone with Nakahara’s sister Maiko about how much help Makie’s been with the baby. Makie returns home to the Nakaharas and I earnestly hope she’s out of danger and the brother gets help soon, but who knows.

Makie may be more naive than the average person due to her extended isolation, but she still knows what she wants, and it doesn’t involve becoming a housewife or jumping between safe houses. It’s even hinted at that her plans for her life may be more ambitious than her hosts. The fact she’s never been assertive enough with her brother doesn’t preclude the fact that she could be if she tried, and when it counts.

Later that night, Minare performs the Bear Attack show, reading at least in part from a hastily but well-written script from Kureko that made it easier for her to do what she does best in the broadcast booth. After the broadcast she makes sure to thank Kureko, who surprises her by saying it’s a “parting gift”; he’s moving on to other things.

Matou hints that those other things involve something called the “Ranzo Arakawa Prize” before we slip into a sepia-toned flashback of a much younger Matou (note the eyebrows) meeting his comedy idol, Sissel Komei. Only Sissels speaks, in what I’m assuming is the Ainu language.

Matou sits all but entranced as she talks about how the Ainu were great tellers of dirty jokes (owing to all the time they had sheltering from the cold) and the Monty Python style of comedy that’s more about embarrassing yourself than putting others down. She then tells him the origin of her name: Mina re means “to make laugh”.

Assuming again that this was Sissel (likely a stage name), could it be that Matou’s new talent has the same name as his idol? If that’s the case, I can understand how he’d feel like finding her in that bar was akin to an act of providence and destiny.

We’re also reminded that Minare ended her bear show by promising to murder Mitsuo…who texts her later that night asking if she wants to meet up. All I know about Mitsuo is that Minare claims he stole her money, and that he found another woman after Minare relatively quickly. Suffice it to say I’m eager to learn more about him!

On the whole, this episode not quite as compelling as other recent outings, due in large part to bouncing awkwardly between the A-(Minare) and B-(Makie) plots, not to mention the fast-forwarding of the bear attack, which while practically necessary undermined the episode’s natural pace. Still, it was great to see Makie stand up to her crazy bro, and finally “meeting” Sissel was uniquely captivating. So an “8” it is!

By: sesameacrylic

#Anime #News #RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

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the-organizing-principle · 7 years ago

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‘Twin Peaks as Fugue’ Theory, Part 1: Who Is Margaret Lanterman?

Expanding on the theory I started to articulate in this post, I’ll focus now on what this might mean when viewed in light of specific characters and plot points. I’d like to start with Margaret Lanterman (The Log Lady), exploring what this particular character could represent if the theory that all of Twin Peaks was dreamed up by Dale Cooper/Richard holds true.

I think one of the biggest clues into this character can be found in the “Log Lady Intros,” a series of short vignettes written and directed by David Lynch for Bravo Network’s re-airing of the series in 1993. Consider that—for all intents and purposes—the show was over at this point; Lynch did not expect it to be revived. So this was probably his last chance to say whatever he might have felt was left unsaid after the season 2 finale, and with these vignettes he was able to add a kind of director’s commentary to each episode, however obliquely.

I’d like to look at the last Log Lady Intro, first:

"And now, an ending. Where there was once one, there are now two. Or were there always two? What is a reflection? A chance to see two? When there are chances for reflections, there can always be two--or more. Only when we are everywhere will there be just one. It has been a pleasure speaking to you." —Episode 29 / “Beyond Life and Death”

This line struck me as familiar: a few years later, Lynch would direct the film Lost Highway, in which a character known as “The Mystery Man” (Robert Blake) would have a spooky conversation with Bill Pullman’s character, Fred, wherein Fred learns that the man he’s speaking with is simultaneously in front of him and inside his house (the man hands Fred a phone, and Fred calls his house and speaks to the man, who answers). After failing to convince Fred that they’d met before, the man concludes the unsettling conversation with the line, “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”

Lynch himself has confirmed that Lost Highway is a film about a character suffering a psychogenic fugue / what he describes as a “parallel identity crisis” (x). There is also evidence that Lynch considers Lost Highway and Twin Peaks as works that share some overlap in terms of the fictional universe they occupy. Furthermore, the Mystery Man character is widely believed to be a personification of Fred’s jealousy over his wife’s unfaithfulness (x).

Of course, these similar lines of dialogue aren’t obscure enough for it to qualify as direct evidence of a connection between the Mystery Man and Margaret Lanterman, but it was enough to draw my attention to a potential parallel even if it wasn’t intentional. The Mystery Man knows things that shouldn’t be known, especially by a “stranger.” Fred is afraid of him, and of his unsettling insight. Fred is trying to escape the truth of what he did. Meanwhile, Margaret also has preternatural insights. In the original series, I got the sense that Dale was wary of her whenever they were forced to interact. Remember the scene where Margaret first approaches him at the diner, with a message from her log? Dale seems distinctly uncomfortable, only humoring her at Harry’s nudging (unusual for Dale, who is normally so friendly). Why would the Log Lady make Dale nervous? If Dale/Richard is trying to escape a painful truth from his past via the conjured fantasy world of Twin Peaks, what might Margaret represent to him? In the same way that the Mystery Man personifies Fred’s secret, repressed jealousy, I think Margaret might personify Dale’s secret, repressed understanding of the illusory world he inhabits. Through Margaret, Dale receives coded hints about the true nature of this world.

We can find these hints all over the series, but they seem especially potent in the Log Lady Intros. Consider the very first one:

"Welcome to Twin Peaks. My name is Margaret Lanterman. I live in Twin Peaks. I am known as the Log Lady. There is a story behind that. There are many stories in Twin Peaks. Some of them are sad, some funny. Some of them are stories of madness, of violence. Some are ordinary. Yet they all have about them a sense of mystery – the mystery of life. Sometimes, the mystery of death. The mystery of the woods. The woods surrounding Twin Peaks. To introduce this story, let me just say it encompasses the all – it is beyond the "fire", though few would know that meaning. It is a story of many, but begins with one – and I knew her. The one leading to the many is Laura Palmer. Laura is the one."

I will go into more detail about Laura later, but for now, consider the theory that Laura is the central focus because she represents a distortion of Dale/Richard’s deepest pain and sorrow, repressed and kept secret from himself by his fractured psyche, likely originating out of some kind of trauma involving someone named Judy. Out of this trauma, Dale/Richard has invented an entire world to cope with his break from reality: the world of Twin Peaks, the “story of the many [various characters].” What is the obscure meaning of “fire” that the story of Twin Peaks is “beyond”? I believe that “fire” represents a catalyst; a force that can be destructive or cleansing; ultimately, the truth. In the context of the fugue theory, the “fire” Margaret refers to here might be the real-world incident that caused Dale/Richard to retreat into the fantasy world of Twin Peaks. More on this later.

Then there’s the intro to the third episode:

"There is a sadness in this world, for we are ignorant of many things. Yes – we are ignorant of many beautiful things. Things like the truth. So sadness in our ignorance is very real. The tears are real. What is this thing called a tear? There are even tiny ducts – tear ducts – to produce these tears should the sadness occur. Then the day when the sadness comes. Then we ask, 'Will the sadness that makes me cry, will the sadness that makes me cry my heart out, will it ever end?' The answer, of course, is yes. One day, the sadness will end."

Although this could be a reference to various characters’ sadness over not knowing the truth about what happened to Laura Palmer, it’s difficult to imagine how this particular truth could ever be considered “beautiful.” Neither would whatever unknown trauma Dale/Richard might have experienced prior to his retreat into Twin Peaks. So what “beautiful truth” is left to be sad about? I think Lynch is referring to a sense of understanding and acceptance that eventually follows a period of grief, even if it is only arrived at once a person has crossed over into a new awareness, beyond death. Remember, death is “just a change, not an end.” Although very esoteric, this message might indicate that Dale/Richard’s pain and sadness temporarily “ended” when he retreated into his fantasy world, but will never really end until he confronts the “beautiful truth” that is genuine understanding of his trauma and how it has affected him.

Now consider the fourth intro:

"Even the ones who laugh are sometimes caught without an answer. These creatures who introduce themselves, but we swear we have met them somewhere before, yes? Look in the mirror. What do you see? Is it a dream, or a nightmare? Are we being introduced against our will? Are they mirrors? I can see the smoke. I can smell the fire. The battle is drawing nigh."

Are the “creatures who introduce themselves” the various characters Dale encounters in Twin Peaks? Has he met them before, in that they are simulacra of people he has encountered in the ‘real world’ (i.e. the psychiatric institution, etc)? These characters could be mirroring real people, but they are products of a dream/nightmare in the world of Twin Peaks. Perhaps Dale/Richard can’t choose who enters this dream or what form they will take in here, and perhaps some are harder to obscure in the dream language than others, and their real selves slip through the cracks in small ways, causing stress on the fantasy’s foundation. Margaret is particularly savvy: she can see the “smoke” that indicates the “fire” of change: the fantasy can’t be maintained forever. The “battle” might refer to the struggle of his consciousness to keep the truth obscured in this unstable delusion.

This thread continues with the fifth intro:

"I play my part on life's stage. I tell what I can to form the perfect answer. But that answer cannot come before all are ready to hear, so I tell what I can to form the perfect answer. Sometimes my anger at the fire is evident. Sometimes it is not anger, really – it may appear as such, but could it be a clue? The fire I speak of is not a kind fire."

The fire is not kind: the truth hurts. Margaret’s apparent “anger at the fire” could indicate Dale’s unconscious frustration with his inability to face the truth. He’s not ready to hear it: not any of his various personifications are ready to hear that they don’t “exist” outside of his fantasy. The truth comes out in small clues that are made palatable to his psyche.

The fire thread picks up again in the intro to the twentieth episode:

"My husband died in a fire. No one can know my sorrow. My love is gone. Yet, I feel him near me. Sometimes I can almost see him. At night when the wind blows, I think of what he might have been. Again I wonder: why? When I see a fire, I feel my anger rising. This was not a friendly fire. This was not a forest fire. It was a fire in the woods. This is all I am permitted to say."

Again, we see secrecy surrounding the concept of “the fire” in “the woods.” Read on to see what I think “the woods” really is...

Now, intro to episode eight:

"Hello again. Can you see through a wall? Can you see through human skin? X-rays see through solid, or so-called solid objects. There are things in life that exist, yet our eyes cannot see them. Have you ever seen something startling that others cannot see? Why are some things kept from our vision? Is life a puzzle? I am filled with questions. Sometimes my questions are answered. In my heart, I can tell the answer is correct. I am my own judge. In a dream, are all the characters really you? Different aspects of you? Do answers come in dreams? One more thing. I grew up in the woods. I understand many things because of the woods. Trees standing together, growing alongside one another, providing so much. I chew pitch gum. On the outside – let's say, of the Ponderosa pine – sometimes pitch oozes out. Runny pitch is no good to chew. Hard, brittle pitch is no good. But in between these exists a firm, slightly crusted pitch with such a flavor. This is the pitch I chew."

I’m including this because it clearly speaks to my theory that all the characters in Twin Peaks are aspects of Dale/Richard’s dream/fugue state. Less clearly: if Margaret “grew up in the woods” and “understand[s] many things because of the woods,” the “woods” might represent the unconscious. Margaret is a link to Dale’s unconscious mind, hence her prescient understanding and Dale/Richard’s nervousness around her. He can only tolerate her veiled truths in specific doses, hence the “pitch” that is just right (neither too vague nor too direct).

Then, before episode twenty eight:

"A log is a portion of a tree. At the end of a crosscut log -- many of you know this -- there are rings. Each ring represents one year in the life of the tree. How long it takes to a grow a tree! I don't mind telling you some things. Many things, I mustn't say. Just notice that my fireplace is boarded up. There will never be a fire there. On the mantelpiece, in that jar, are some of the ashes of my husband. My log hears things I cannot hear. But my log tells me about the sounds, about the new words. Even though it has stopped growing larger, my log is aware."

Margaret’s fireplace is boarded up because her character is not permitted too close to “fire,” or the catalyzing force of truth. Her log is the conduit through which secrets from Dale/Richard’s unconscious mind pass; a method of limiting and regulating what breaks through Dale/Richard’s protective mental barriers. Margaret can help Dale/Richard, and he sometimes relies on her insight to solve problems in his dreamworld, but she can also harm him by revealing too much and breaking the illusion he wants to maintain. He doesn’t want to be completely divorced from his unconscious mind, but it contains repressed information that is dangerous to his illusory world.

Even more evidence! Episode nine:

"As above, so below. The human being finds himself, or herself, in the middle. There is as much space outside the human, proportionately, as inside. Stars, moons, and planets remind us of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Is there a bigger being walking with all the stars within? Does our thinking affect what goes on outside us, and what goes on inside us? I think it does. Where does creamed corn figure into the workings of the universe? What really is creamed corn? Is it a symbol for something else?"

This speaks further to my theory that the entire world of Twin Peaks could have been dreamed up by one man, i.e. Dale/Richard. His trauma has pervaded his mind, affecting his interior experience to the point that he has lost touch with reality. Creamed corn, we know, is a substance that represents “pain and sorrow”/”garmonbozia,” and is consumed by the lodge inhabitants (The Arm). We learn this in TP:FWWM. Why creamed corn, though? Maybe Lynch is just very creeped out by this food; also, maybe Dale/Richard has been fed creamed corn during his hospitalization, as this food would not be uncommon on a hospital menu. Maybe Dale/Richard hates it so much that his unconscious has incorporated it into his dream world as a particularly insidious substance.

Now, episode twelve:

"Sometimes nature plays tricks on us and we imagine we are something other than what we truly are. Is this a key to life in general? Or the case of the two-headed schizophrenic? Both heads thought the other was following itself. Finally, when one head wasn't looking, the other shot the other right between the eyes, and, of course, killed himself."

Is Dale/Richard “the two-headed schizophrenic”? This might seem like an allusion to Leland (who hadn’t been revealed as the killer yet at this point in the series), but Leland’s second head—i.e. BOB—was a separate entity, not just another “side” of Leland. BOB didn’t think “the other (Leland) was following [him]self.” Leland, unknowingly possessed by BOB, was unconscious of BOB’s presence. If the fugue theory holds up, then this Log Lady Intro could more accurately refer to Dale/Richard’s perception of himself as someone “other than what [he] truly [is],” and the projection of BOB (who he does, in fact, pursue, and who ultimately pursues him in return) as an externalized, evil force, could be Dale/Richard’s unconscious distancing himself from an internalized source of fear and pain. Remember, BOB is “with” Dale’s doppelganger, and the doppelganger is ultimately an aspect of Dale/Richard’s fractured psyche. Therefore BOB, however far removed, is ultimately part of Dale/Richard, too.

Without added commentary, let me share the following intro from episode thirteen, which should be self-explanatory now:

"Sometimes we want to hide from ourselves. We do not want to be us. It is too difficult to be us. It is at these times that we turn to drugs and alcohol or behavior to forget that we are ourselves. This is – of course – only a temporary solution to a problem which is going to keep returning, and sometimes these temporary solutions are worse for us than the original problem. Yes, it is a dilemma. Is there an answer? Of course there is. A wise person once said with a smile, the answer is within the question."

I swear I’m trying to skip over some of these but they just keep supporting my theory! Here’s the next one from episode fifteen:

"A poem as lovely as a tree. As the night wind blows, the boughs move to and fro; the rustling, the magic rustling that brings on the dark dream. The dream of suffering and pain; pain for the victim, pain for the inflicter of pain – a circle of pain, a circle of suffering. Woe to ones who behold the pale horse."

This has always been my favorite Log Lady Intro, but it wasn’t until recently that I began to think about the idea that Dale/Richard might be the “inflicter of pain” referenced here. Leland is an obvious alternative, and given the timing of this intro in the series, it probably does refer to Leland on the surface. But could there be a subtextual meaning, wherein the blowing “night wind” could mean dark, disruptive thoughts surfacing in Dale/Richard’s consciousness, and the “magic rustling” is the rearrangement of those thoughts into their distorted perversions, rendered psychically acceptable in the “dark dream” of Twin Peaks? Keep in mind that, although a fantasy world, Dale/Richard cannot control everything that happens in Twin Peaks; in fact, I think the whole series is about him gradually losing control over this unstable delusion.

From episode twenty three:

"A hotel. A nightstand. A drawer pull on the drawer. A drawer pull of a nightstand in the room of a hotel. What could possibly be happening on or in this drawer pull? How many drawer pulls exist in this world? Thousands, maybe millions? What is a drawer pull? This drawer pull - why is it featured so prominently in a life or in a death of one woman who was caught in a web of power? Can a victim of power end, in any way, connected to a drawer pull? How can this be?"

To me, this seems to emphasize the significance of the end of Josie’s arc as a literal “compartmentalization” of her character by her dreamer, Dale/Richard. Her story was spiraling out of control, and so the dreamer had her killed off and tidily packed away inside a drawer pull (the drawer being a symbol of a mental compartment). She wasn’t completely erased, though, as both Ben Horne and Pete saw her in various other wooden objects at the Great Northern in episode 27, and there was a cut scene from the finale wherein Dale was supposed to see her in the curtains of the lodge. I’ll have to go deeper into what Josie could represent in relation to Dale/Richard as the dreamer, later, but for now, consider the recurrence of Josie’s likeness in objects as a potential side effect of Dale/Richard’s compartmentalization; a kind of cognitive dissonance resulting from her erasure.

A big, self-described clue comes in the intro to episode twenty seven:

"There are clues everywhere, all around us. But the puzzle maker is clever. The clues, although surrounding us, are somehow mistaken for something else. And the something else, the wrong interpretation of the clues, we call our world. Our world is a magical smoke screen. How should we interpret the happy song of the meadowlark or the robust flavor of a wild strawberry?"

This significance of this vignette (in relation to the fugue theory) is so obvious that I wonder whether this was meant to be a big reveal on Lynch’s part... Does it even need to be explained? Out of context, it sounds like an esoteric rumination on the nature of reality. I think that this meaning could double as a direct reference to the world of Twin Peaks as a “magical smoke screen” for the harsh reality of Dale/Richard’s actual world.

...

That’s all on Margaret for now — stay tuned for more character / plot point analyses, which will hopefully be much shorter!

#twin peaks fugue theory #twin peaks #theory #analysis #the log lady #margaret lanterman #twin peaks: the return #twin peaks spoilers #david lynch #Dale Cooper #psychosis #fugue #explanation #lost highway #the mystery man #richard #josie packard #schizophrenia #log lady intro

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whimsyfox · 8 years ago

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An indulgence, as I needed a spot to write up a little META. These are some of my thoughts on the ‘is Good Hal/Bad Hal a split personality’ debate, but also as a supplement to my own fanfiction story, which is about Hal’s life with Sylvie, the one love he thinks about when he needs to stop himself. So alot of this is in general, but a few comments wont make sense unless you read my fic.

I wasn’t fond of how the whole split personality idea was introduced in the show, him choking, blacking out, being all sexy wicked bad, then choking his way back. And it was hard to reconcile this episode with his prequel where he was Bad but knew he’d be turning soon and came to Leo for help. My (mis)understanding of split personality was only based on movies, and in many of what I’ve seen, the personalities don’t know of each other, they are drastically different from each other, they have blackout periods and never remember what they did. But then I did some research, and this convinced me that he could indeed have a version of Dissociative identity disorder. The symptoms had an impact on my interpretation of how Hal deals with traumatic events and guilt, and how Sylvie’s fate came about.

1. Dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder) is thought to be a complex psychological condition that is likely caused by many factors, including severe trauma during early childhood (usually extreme, repetitive physical, sexual, or emotional abuse).

Well we know from his prequel that he grew up in a brothel in the 15th century and by the time the army surgeon found him he had “seen every dark corner of the human heart”. It’s easy to extrapolate that he had suffered all types of abuse growing up, was likely put to use in the brothel for those clients that had a predilection for pretty young boys. So, check.

2. Along with the dissociation and multiple or split personalities, people with dissociative disorders may experience a number of other psychiatric problems, including symptoms:

Depression - Regus’s comment “Ignore him, he’s not happy unless he’s miserable”

Mood swings - I think we can agree that vampires are moody

Suicidal tendencies - how many times did he ask Tom to kill him?

Sleep disorders (insomnia, night terrors, and sleep walking) - This is my personal canon, and it’s addressed a tiny bit more in the epilogue. I had the inspiration for it from Rubyrosettared's fic “Numb”. This is my interpretation of how Hal didn’t seem to be aware that he was about to revert, but Sylvie wasn’t surprised.

Anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias (flashbacks, reactions to stimuli or “triggers”) - The panic attack when he encounters Natasha and has to resort to arranging the paper clips is the biggest one I remember.

Alcohol and drug abuse - *cough* Blood *cough*

Compulsions and rituals - not stopping on the left hand side because it’s unlucky; the domino spiral; his strict rota

Psychotic-like symptoms (including auditory and visual hallucinations) - Hal warns Crumb and Alan about this, and we indeed saw it happen when vampires try to detox

Eating disorders - Does the whole drink blood for 50 years then starve for 55 count?

3. Other symptoms of dissociative identity disorder may include headache, amnesia, time loss, trances, and “out of body experiences.”

Also part of my personal canon, inspired by the fact that on three distinct occasions in the show, Hal seemed to be in a trance, and was confused after. In S4 after Leo died, when grown up Eve urged him to kill baby Eve. When Tom stopped him, Hal seemed to wake up, and answered that he didn’t know what he was doing. At the end of S4 when Mr. Snow welcomed him back into the fold (although that could have been due to some sort of supernatural link through the blood that runs through him from Mr. Snow). And, in S5 when The Controversial Split Personality happened, and Crumb proposed they both drink the blood. Crumb obviously chose the werewolf blood, and Hal almost drank the human blood, but Alex stopped him. “Were you going to drink that?” “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

As for amnesia, I had assumed that his personalities would have holes in their memories. I had a hard time reconciling Bad Hal’s words to Tom “We wake up in the world the other has created around them.” with the fact that Good Hal tells Annie. “I never forget anything.” How can Hal know all the horrible things he’s done if his other personality had done them. But then I found out that he could suffer from Dissociative fugue. ‘a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the memories, personality, and other identifying characteristics of individuality. The state is usually short-lived (ranging from hours to days), but can last months or longer.’ So, it is entirely possible the memories would come back quickly. Maybe his vampiric state has something to do with that.

4. The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism – the person literally dissociates himself from a situation or experience that’s too violent, traumatic, or painful to assimilate with his conscious self.

I think this could be why he can fight for so long, and then the guilt is too much to bear and he flips. In the show, even though he’d drunk blood several times, and he knew it was coming - "feed the monster a little to keep it from taking alot, from taking everything" - the blood wasn’t that the cause of him reverting. It was Alex loosing faith in him. He couldn’t bear having disappointed her. For my story, after the events of Chapter 24 and 25, when Good Hal realizes what he’s done, it’s too much for him to bear.

A final note, Jamie Mathiason, one of the BH writers, said that Hal is a bit autistic. I always suspected something like that, and it surely comes into play somehow.

#Being Human #Hal #Hal Yorke #Sylvie #fanfiction #meta

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fiercelyliterate · 8 years ago

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it would appear that every time I see kara and mon-el do something “romantic,” I have to write the version of it with lena instead. here is more of that thing I was writing, and this takes place after the end of last night’s episode, I guess, except I don’t remember what order things happened in. so anyway, yes. enjoy

“Call you after work,” Kara says, leaving her with a kiss, as she rushes out the door.

And Lena believes her—why wouldn’t she? Even if Supergirl stuff ends up getting in the way, Kara will still eventually call her. But then the whole day passes. And another whole day passes. At first she is angry, because anger is easier to deal with than the sick worry that starts gnawing at her gut. Has Kara thought better of getting involved with her? Has something happened to Supergirl? But no. If something happened to Supergirl, it would be all over the news.

And so, trapped between anger at being blown off and worry that she’s losing Kara before anything really begins, her pride won’t let her send one little text to check in.

On the third day, she cannot take it anymore, and as soon as she can reasonably expect her to be home, she storms over to Kara’s apartment, vibrating between fury and terror. She raps hard on the door and waits, not sure what to hope for but unable to stand the uncertainty.

The knock on the door jolts Kara part of the way out of her fugue of depression. She can’t make herself get up, and she can’t really imagine who it could be. Alex had left her alone at the DEO, and hopefully Mon-El is smart enough not to come here now. But then again…when had he ever been smart?   Resigned, she calls, “It’s unlocked,” and the door slowly opens.  “Kara?” an unexpected voice asks, and Kara jumps to her feet in a flash.

Lena. She’s forgotten all about Lena, and everything now feels ten times worse. “Hi,” she says, abashed, trying for a normal smile. She can see that Lena is irritated, but as soon as she takes in Kara’s tear-streaked face and rumpled clothes, her whole face softens.

“What’s wrong?” Lena asks, all her anger disappearing at the sight of Kara looking so lost and so upset.   Kara wraps her arms around her own waist and shakes her head, not knowing where to even begin. “You don’t have to tell me,” Lena says gently, but she tugs carefully on Kara’s arms, easing them apart, and sliding herself between them.

Her own arms encircle Kara, holding her as tightly as she can, and Kara would love to collapse into Lena’s arms, but Lena is only human, so she keeps herself apart. Still, there is undeniable comfort in her embrace. “I never called,” Kara realizes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shh, you can make it up to me later,” Lena assures her, a hint of playfulness in her tone, and Kara smiles weakly.   

Lena guides them to the couch and manages to settle with Kara’s head in her lap. Finally, Kara relaxes, breathing deeply as Lena takes off her glasses. Soon, Lena’s fingers are moving softly through her hair, and it feels like this is all Kara will ever need.

After a while, she can tell Lena wants to ask for explanations, but is biting her tongue. And Kara doesn’t want to keep things from her, but how can she even begin to tell her how Lena’s mother has destroyed her father?

  “I wanted to keep you separate from Supergirl,” she mumbles, and Lena laughs, but not unkindly.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she says, charmed a little by Kara’s apparent naiveté, and Kara’s heart flutters at the endearment. “You can’t keep the Luthors apart from the Supers.”  

Kara laughs ruefully. “I know. I know. I just… You—this—us… It was like a miracle.”   “A miracle?”

 “That…we connected so easily. That you made me feel wanted.”   “Oh. Kara…” Lena is touched, but speechless. Even though she feels the exact same way.    “Cadmus—my fath—Jeremiah… He got out.”

 “What? But that’s wonderful,” Lena says, before she can stop herself. Because it’s clearly not wonderful. Kara wouldn’t be curled into a ball of absolute sadness on her couch if getting Jeremiah back had been a good thing.   “I wanted it to be,” she says softly, and the tears come again.  Not knowing what else to do, Lena continues stroking Kara’s hair as she cries. And a renewed hatred for Lillian Luthor grows in her chest.

Eventually, Kara cries herself out, and she sits up, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to deal with me like this,” she murmurs, rubbing her face.   “Hey. Even before…this, we were friends, weren’t we?” Lena asks, and Kara nods, smiling a little. “So this is what friends do, right?”

 “Yes,” Kara agrees.

“But we are…more than friends, aren’t we?” Lena asks hesitantly, cursing herself for being so needy.   “Yes,” Kara says instantly, and she pulls Lena into her arms. Lena lets herself be cuddled, tucking her head under Kara’s chin.

She relaxes finally, and even though there are clearly rough roads to travel ahead, that gnawing worry has subsided. “Can I do anything for you? Have you eaten?” Lena asks, and Kara gently kisses her forehead.   “Stay with me tonight?” is all she asks for, and it is the easiest request Lena has ever granted.

But Lena is sure she hasn’t eaten, so when Kara drops into a doze, she carefully gets up and orders Chinese food. She stands by the couch and watches Kara sleep fitfully, and her heart cracks. She needs—no, really, she wants—to know what could have happened, but she knows better than to push. Hopefully, she can resist the urge to demand to know what’s wrong and let Kara tell her in her own time.

The buzzer rings sometime later, and Kara starts up from the couch, but Lena leans down to kiss her, and heads to retrieve the food. “What’s that?” Kara asks groggily.   “Dinner,” Lena replies, setting a bag on the coffee table.   

“Oh, I can’t eat,” Kara protests, but Lena shakes her head.  

“You have to,” she insists, and Kara weakly gives in.

 Lena fixes her a plate, heaped high, and isn’t even surprised when Kara finishes it all before she’s sat down with her own. “Told you,” she says, piling more lo mein onto the other girl’s empty plate. “Thank you,” Kara says, and Lena kisses her temple.

Kara soon eats everything that Lena doesn’t and then curls back into a ball on the couch. Lena quietly cleans up the empty takeout cartons and then pulls Kara into her lap again. “A girl could fall in love with you,” Kara murmurs, and Lena flushes, unable to come up with anything to say.

“Well. If I had known all it would take was copious amounts of Chinese food, I would have tried that months ago,” she tries, hoping it’s not out of line to tease Kara right now.   Fortunately, Kara laughs, and Lena revels in the sound. “I almost wish you had,” she says wistfully, and Lena’s heart breaks further.

Kara senses that she’s gotten a bit too melancholy, so she turns her face up to Lena with a smile. “Don’t worry. I still would have been too thick to pick up on it.”   Lena laughs and strokes Kara’s hair. “I don’t think I was quite as obvious as you seem to be remembering,” she replies, and she is rewarded with a warm chuckle from Kara.

“No, probably not,” she agrees, and they lapse into comfortable silence for a while.

Eventually, they unfold from their nest on the couch, and Kara offers Lena a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and points her toward the bathroom. While she waits, her phone buzzes a couple of times, and she doesn’t want to check it—she wants to stay in this untouched bubble with Lena—but she’s still Supergirl.

To her mild surprise, it’s Alex.

I’m so sorry.  You are my family.

A strangled sob escapes her, as she realizes it’s this, not Jeremiah, that’s been eating away at her the most. The fear that she’s damaged her relationship with her sister.

I love you. Always, she sends back.

Love you. Are you alone?   Kara frowns, realizing she also hasn’t told anyone about what’s happening with Lena. It’s new, sure, but also… Everyone is still wary of her, and Kara grinds her teeth in frustration.

With a friend. Not Mon-El, don’t worry.

Mystery friend??? Can’t wait to hear about this. ;)

Don’t hold your breath. :P  You with Maggie?

Yeah. I’m good.   Good. Get some sleep.  

You too, Supergirl.

“Everything okay?” Lena asks, stepping out of the bathroom. “I thought I heard…” You start to sob, she can’t make herself say out loud.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. Alex was just checking in.” She holds her phone up, feels slightly silly, and lets it drop.   Lena only smiles. “Bathroom’s yours.”

So Kara gets up and gets ready for bed. She brushes her teeth probably too long, lost in thoughts about her family, about Lena, about what the hell she and the DEO are going to have to do now.   “Kara?” she hears Lena call eventually, and there is worry in her voice, so she shakes herself, spits out the toothpaste, and quickly finishes her ablutions.

“Sorry. Too much to think about,” she says, returning to her bedroom, where Lena is perched somewhat awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “You okay?”   “Which side is yours?” Lena asks, suddenly shy, and Kara could almost cry at how sweet that is.   

“I…kind of just sleep in a big tangle in the middle,” she says sheepishly, and Lena laughs.   

“Well, then come get tangled with me,” Lena says, and Kara lets herself be pulled into bed.

It takes a minute for them to settle, but finally Lena gives in and lets Kara spoon her, reaching down to pull the blankets over them both. “Thank you,” Kara says.

“Anytime,” Lena replies lightly, but she turns in Kara’s arms and kisses her tenderly. “I’ll be here when you wake up,” she promises, and Kara nods and closes her eyes.

It’s all Lena can do to stop herself from adding, “I love you.”

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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The New Spiritual Consumerism – The New York Times

How did you spend your summer vacation? I spent mine in a dissociative fugue of materialist excess, lying prone on my couch and watching all four seasons of “Queer Eye,” the Netflix makeover show reboot. Once an hour, I briefly regained consciousness to feverishly click the “next episode” button so that I wouldn’t have to wait five seconds for it to play automatically. Even when I closed my laptop, the theme song played on endless loop as Jonathan Van Ness vogued through my subconscious. The show is a triumph of consumer spectacle, and now it has consumed me, too.

Every episode is the same. Five queer experts in various aesthetic practices conspire to make over some helpless individual. Tan France (fashion) teaches him to tuck the front of his shirt into his pants; Bobby Berk (design) paints his walls black and plants a fiddle-leaf fig; Antoni Porowski (food) shows him how to cut an avocado; Jonathan Van Ness (grooming) shouts personal affirmations while shaping his beard; and Karamo Brown (“culture”) stages some kind of trust-building exercise that doubles as an amateur therapy session. Then, they retreat to a chic loft, pass around celebratory cocktails and watch a video of their subject attempting to maintain his new and superior lifestyle. The makeover squad cries, and if you are human, you cry too.

Because “Queer Eye” is not just a makeover. As its gurus lead the men (and occasionally, women) in dabbing on eye cream, selecting West Elm furniture, preparing squid-ink risotto and acquiring gym memberships, they are building the metaphorical framework for an internal transformation. Their salves penetrate the skin barrier to soothe loneliness, anxiety, depression, grief, low self-esteem, absentee parenting and hoarding tendencies. The makeover is styled as an almost spiritual conversion. It’s the meaning of life as divined through upgraded consumer choices.

Just a few years ago, American culture was embracing its surface delights with a nihilistic zeal. Its reality queens were the Kardashians, a family that became rich and famous through branding its own wealth and fame. “Generation Wealth,” Lauren Greenfield’s 2018 documentary on American excess, captured portraits of people who crave luxury, beauty and cash as ends in and of themselves. Donald Trump, the king of 1980s extravagance, was elected president.

But lately American materialism is debuting a new look. Shopping, decorating, grooming and sculpting are now jumping with meaning. And a purchase need not have any explicit social byproduct — the materials eco-friendly, or the proceeds donated to charity — to be weighted with significance. Pampering itself has taken on a spiritual urgency.

Practitioners of this new style often locate its intellectual underpinnings in the work of Audre Lorde. But when Lorde wrote, in her 1988 essay “A Burst of Light,” that “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare,” she was speaking in the context of managing her liver cancer — and doing it as a black lesbian whose health and well-being were not prioritized in America.

Now the ethos of “self-care” has infiltrated every consumer category. The logic of GOOP, Gwyneth Paltrow’s luxury brand that sells skin serums infused with the branding of intuition, karma and healing, is being reproduced on an enormous scale.

Women’s shoes, bras, razors, tampons and exclusive private clubs are stamped with the language of empowerment. SoulCycle and Equinox conceive of exercise as not just a lifestyle but a closely held identity, which backfired when some members were aggrieved by the news that the chairman of the brands’ parent company is a financial supporter of President Trump. Therapy memes imagine mental health professionals prescribing consumerist fixes, which are then repurposed by beauty brands. Even Kim Kardashian West is pivoting to the soul: Her latest project is launching a celebrity church with her husband, Kanye West.

And through the cleaning guru Marie Kondo, who also became a Netflix personality this year, even tidying objects can be considered a spiritual calling. Her work suggests that objects don’t just make us feel good — objects feel things, too. She writes of old books that must be woken up with a brush of the fingertips and socks that sigh with relief at being properly folded.

“Queer Eye” has further elevated material comforts into an almost political stance. When the reboot of the original — which ran on Bravo from 2003 to 2007, as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” — debuted last year, Netflix announced that it intended to “make America fabulous again” by sending its crew deep into the red states to “turn them pink.” By preaching self-care to the men of Middle America — it has so far plucked its makeover subjects from Georgia, Missouri and Kansas — the show would heal the nation itself through the power of stuff.

Is “Queer Eye” a political show? In a sense, yes. Van Ness, the show’s profoundly magnetic grooming expert, rocks a signature look of a Jesus beard, mermaid hair, painted nails and high-heeled booties. His fashion and grooming choices have an obvious political valence; he recently came out as non-binary. When he makes over some straight dude, it is as if he is imbuing the process with his own transgressive identity, even if he’s grooming the guy into a standard-issue cool dad.

Anyway, it’s wonderful to watch. In contrast, the original “Queer Eye” no longer goes down so easy. The show’s exclusive focus on providing men with physical upgrades now plays as cynical. The Fab Five ridicule their marks as much as they help them. More than a decade before same-sex marriage would be legalized across the United States, these five out gay men were quite obviously punching up.

But in the new version, the power dynamic has flipped. The difference between the Fab Five and their charges is no longer chiefly one of sexual orientation or gender identity. (This “Queer Eye” also provides makeovers to gay men and to women.) The clear but unspoken distinction is a class one.

The “Queer Eye” cast may come from humble beginnings, but they now reside in coastal cultural centers and hold fulfilling and lucrative jobs. Their makeover subjects are lower- and middle-class people who are, though it is rarely put this way, struggling financially. This “Queer Eye” handles them gently. As Van Ness puts it in one episode: “We’re nonjudgmental queens.”

It’s a little bit curious that as our political discourse is concerned with economic inequality — and the soaring costs of health care, education and homes — the cultural conversation is fixated on the healing powers of luxury items. What does it mean, that materialism is now so meaningful? “Generation Wealth” posits that extreme spending is a symptom of a civilization in decline. Americans may not have what they need, but at least they can get what they want, even if it’s on credit.

The writer and performer Amanda-Faye Jimenez recently posted a meme to Instagram of a child swinging blithely on the playground as a fire rages in the forest behind him. The forest is tagged: “My personal life and career.” The child: “The skincare routine.”

Material comforts are comforting: cooking a nice and interesting meal; living in a tidy and beautiful space; soothing tired eyes with a cool mask. And money helps you get money: The subjects of “Queer Eye” are typically made over in a standard professional style, as if they are being retrofitted for the work force. Surreptitiously, “Queer Eye” provides vacation time, too: Its subjects somehow receive a week off from work to focus on themselves.

The trouble is that when “Queer Eye” offers these comforts, the show implies that its subjects have previously lacked them because of some personal failure. They have been insufficiently confident, skilled, self-aware, dedicated or emotionally vulnerable. The spiritual conversion of the show occurs when the subject pledges a personal commitment to maintaining a new lifestyle going forward. But what these people need is not a new perspective. They need money, and they need time, which is money.

“Queer Eye” offers a kind of simulation of wealth redistribution. But every time the Fab Five retreats from the scene, I imagine the freshly-painted homes slowly falling into disrepair, the beards growing shaggy again, the refrigerators emptying.

In the fourth season, which dropped last month, the team makes over a single dad from Kansas City who is known as “the cat suit guy” because he wears feline print onesies to local sporting events. By the end, he gets a new corporate casual wardrobe, and a pop-up support network for his depression — he struggled to discuss it with anyone until the cast of “Queer Eye” broke through his shell.

As they prepare to leave, he tells them that he really needs them to stay in touch. “You’ve got to check on me,” he says. Absolutely, one of them says: “On Instagram.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

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#IFTTT #WordPress

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15hont1c · 6 years ago

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The Haunting of Hill House - Camera Movement Analysis (SPOILERS) + Shape of Water

One of the shows I chose to analyse is Netflix’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (2018), directed by Mike Flanagan. The ten-episode series is a loose adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror novel of the same name. It focuses on the Crain family and how their past and present lives are affected by the Hill House. The narrative structure is constantly interlacing between the past and present.

I specifically chose episode six: ‘Two Storms,’ because it was one of the scenes for them to film. The crew utilises a long one-take shot effectively to portray the family drama and dramatic tension. One of longest scene in the episode was 17 minutes long with no cuts. There are two parts that happened within the same episode which used one long, continuous take.

The opening sequence shows the present day father (Hugh) entering a bathroom in a funeral parlour before he turns a corner and becomes his young self back in Hill House years ago. The seamless switch kicks off the one-shot sequence that is introduced by one simple ‘cut on action.’ The audience is taken into the past during a stormy night in Hill House as they try to deal with a broken chandelier and keeping everyone calm.

Using a dolly shot, the camera is wheeled around to follow Hugh as he tries to find his wife in the house. The beginning shot of this clip shows the wife, Olivia, wandering around in a fugue state after witnessing a ghost boy in a wheelchair. She drifts aimlessly in the halls before the camera shifts over to Hugh, who is looking for her. All done in one long take, the camera follows Hugh with some over-the-shoulder shots as he pursuits what seems to be Olivia in the distance. In the frame itself, Hugh is always on the intersected points of a rule of thirds grid. The leftover spacing allows some ghostly details to be shown on scene, and also shows what Hugh is seeing through his line of sight.

The use of a continuous take and over-the-shoulder shot further enhances the horror and suspense as we follow Hugh in his journey in the house. The sharp corners of the house with the camera following creates suspense and dramatic tension as we peek down the dark hallway.

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Each family member is suffering differently and focuses on how they cope and deal with it. Throughout the episodes, the story constantly slips between the past and present. Even though we are going back to an event that happened in the past (and provides more exposition), the story’s pace is not hindered and further enhances the family’s story. The intricate editing allows the scenes to fade and transition effortlessly and smoothly into each other.

In this present scene, the father, Hugh, enters the funeral parlour and sees his children as they were in Hill House years ago. The camera slowly pans around the room and Hugh as he thinks about the events of what brought them together. By the time the camera makes a full 360° turn, the children are adults again. As mentioned by Ruth Franklin in a review of the episode, “parents often tend to picture adult children as younger than they really are” (2018.) This particular panning and the change of his children is used because of his estrangement from his children since the horrific events that happened in Hill House. He still views his adult children as the scared young versions of themselves years ago and his need to protect them. He may also have looked at them with nostalgia as this ‘reunion’ was one of the first time they were all together since the incident.

The rest of the episode revolves around the funeral and how each sibling is coping with it. Their common anger and distrust towards their estranged father is also shown when they argue in the funeral room.

One of the main differences in distinguishing between the past and present is the use of colour. The flashback scenes have warm hues with bright colours and various textures. Take the scene back in at Hill House when they were children. The Crain family is well lit and wears various bright clothing with many textures that makes them more distinct. Colour paletteThe brown and almost woody textured background makes the characters appear more close and upfront to the screen. They do not blend into the background, and are brought forth to show their close relationship.

In contrast, the colours in present time with the grown-up children appear more chilling and washed out. The flat and almost lacklustre colour of the scene creates a sense of sadness and sorrow. Everyone in the shot is wearing drab and muted colours, seemingly blending into the background. The colour palette is much more sombre and dreary, as if all life is drained from it. The use of blue, green and yellow hues elicits a sense of melancholy and dissociation in the room. The low contrast of the shot also adds to the emotional depth. It shows isolation from each character, who each have their own demons to face.

While the colour key is useful in differentiating the past and present side of the story, it is also used as a plot device and symbolism of the house’s more sinister nature.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the TV series and its excellent use of camera work. After the lecture, it made it much more interesting to analyse modern shows/films and how they use these techniques to effectively tell a good story. I learnt that every camera movement and set-up is deliberate and carefully considered. Every little movement gives more insight on the story and characters, and overall adds more upon the atmosphere and plot. I highly recommend watching the series!

Reference:

http://www.vulture.com/2018/10/the-haunting-of-hill-house-recap-season-1-episode-6.html (R. Franklin, 2018.)

https://culturedvultures.com/the-haunting-of-hill-houses-funeral-episode-is-phenomenal/

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/26/18023200/haunting-of-hill-house-color-use

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I thought that perhaps I would choose this clip as one of my chosen scenes for the comparison essay. The other scene that also used a tracking shot was the opening credits of The Shape of Water.

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These were some of the notes I made on the sequence and comparison notes.

One continuous tracking shot underwater

Tour around Sally’s home

Almost fairytale-like

Colour palette: very blue, cyan and greenish hues

Good lighting from above; enhances magical/fantastical nature and water themes

Camera movement is fluid and always moving; again enhances underwater theme

Character introduction of Sally sleeping - foreshadows ending events

Crafted with 8 puppeteers; objects suspended with string

Smoke and vapour effects were used to enhance the watery nature: CGI touchups.

Dry for wet technique -> no water was used but effects were used to make it seem like it

#film language #year 2

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pink-panties · 8 years ago

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And so, I broke up with my partner. It didn’t go as badly as I’d expected. I need to get all of this out in writing and give myself closure. *Trigger warning for attempted suicide and abuse

I’ve been with him for almost 4 years. I was lonely, so was he. He was tall, broad shouldered with charm and charisma; I was a short fuck who was just out looking for some company. We met for a meal and I thought I felt something, so did he. We got together after a month. We were happy. We had plans for the future. I moved in with him. Into a house shared by him and his brother. I delighted in the idea of some semblance of freedom from my conservative family. We were blissful for some time. It started slowly, the first niggling signs I chose to ignore. He was jobless, he selectively applied for jobs that were out of his scope. Refusing to try for lower tiered jobs that would give him experience and a chance at advancement. He despaired. He got angry. He felt useless. He wanted me out of his life, didn’t want me anywhere near him. Still I stuck around. Encouraged him to re-enroll in school again and finish his degree. He tried. He raged at everything, at classmates who appeared to be more talented than him. At professors who didn’t understand his works and his writing. He felt untalented. Unmotivated. Unwanted. He got salty at classmates who got better than grades than him, felt them to have done inferior quality work compared to him. Angry for constantly being last picked or passed over by classmates for group projects. He raged. He always had a temper problem. I tried to be patient. Tried to be motivating and encouraging. Tried to get him to manage his temper. Tried. He would lie catatonic in bed for days at a time, lost in a fugue. I would cook for him, look after him. Support him financially however I can, in hopes that one day he would get better. He asked me to leave him. He didn’t understand why I would stay with a useless person like him. He wanted to die. He was just taking up precious resources on this earth and not contributing in anyway. There were times when he threatened to kill himself, and it would get so bad that I had to leave work and take a cab back home to talk him out of it. The worst was when I rushed home to try and talk him down from the window ledge that he was standing on. We spent hours at an impasse, me at the doorway of his room, him on the window. He threatened to jump if I so much as put one foot forward into his room. I’d never cried so much in my entire life. Perhaps I dream too much, the human imagination can be a very dangerous thing, giving you false hopes and lulling you into a false sense of security, thinking that it will be like a tv drama where in the end everything gets better and you have a happily ever after and you walk down the aisle crying tears of joy. I dreamt too much. It happened one day, he was having another depressive episode and tried to get me to leave him. Without any warning, in a fit of frustration, he hit me across the face. He was shocked. I was stunned. I made up excuses for his behaviour in my head. He was stressed. He was acting out. I deserved it. But subconsciously I knew it was all bullshit. I slept it off and tried to dismiss it as a one off experience. Remember the bit I shared that I dream too much?

I was too idealistic. It happened again. and again.

and again.

If you look closely at me one day, you would see that there’s a small almost unnoticeable lump on my forehead. I don’t really remember what happened. Maybe I chose to try and forget it. But I do remember that it was caused by an elbow.

I went back to my parents for a few days. My close friend advised me to leave him. During that period of time I picked up Overwatch. I made an acquaintance with Asynca, I don’t know how or why but I ended up confiding to her. Both of them talked to me for quite abit, saying that I was better off without him. That I deserved someone better. That I was not living up to my potential by being with a person like him. I thought about what they said for a long time.

Did I mention to you that I dream too much? Once bitten, twice shy, right? Wrong.

I returned to him. Still determined to try and help him. He’d learnt the error of his ways, and promised to not hit me anymore. Things went well for awhile. He graduated. Got his degree. He wanted to relax for a spell before he joined the work society. On my salary. I was happy. It stopped the moment he tried applying for jobs again. He got rejected countless times, never hearing back from interviewers again. He felt useless, humiliated. I continued supporting him, taking on more shoot projects for some extra money. There were months when money was tight, we’ll quarrel and fight at times because of it. He’ll suffer another depressive episode because he felt he was useless and not contributing and he would lie in bed all day, sometimes his mood would seesaw, he could be singing at the top of his voice one moment and then the next be angry and banging things around the house, shouting at me, demanding to know why I stayed with a person like him. I clammed up, keeping silent, not knowing why I stayed. My silence only served to enrage him further. He would get into a frenzy, pacing up and down the kitchen while getting dinner ready, he couldn’t concentrate. He would fumble up whatever he was cutting/cooking, get frustrated and sometimes yell. There was once he got so worked up and overwhelmed he broke down, crying and pulling at his hair, hitting himself hard on his chest. I was worried that he would lose his head and hit me again, but he remained true to his promise; he never laid a finger on me, instead he directed it all on himself instead. He grabbed a plate and started hitting himself on the head with it repeatedly with growing intensity before the plate cracked in two, only then did he stop, realizing what had just happened. We’d lie in bed afterwards, him in a state of remorse, me, numb and tired of everything. We both knew that he needed professional help, but he was a very proud person with a very big ego and refused to see anybody about it. His parents are divorcees who never settled properly. Years had gone by before his father, a businessman, needed more money as his business was not doing well. He thought it a good time to contact his ex-wife to conveniently decide on closing the long overdue settlement with suggestions of putting up the house up for sale so that they could split the proceeds from it and pump the money back into his business. My partners mom, a real estate agent, decided that it was a good idea and thought this would be a good time for us to settle down and get a house of our own. Without properly consulting me or asking me what I felt, she started sending me listings of properties for sale, saying that it’s time for us to move out and get married, she even went so far as to pressure me into almost applying for a loan for a apartment unit that was allegedly going for a steal. I panicked. I wasn’t ready to settle down yet, that much I knew. My partner was still financially unstable, still wouldn’t address his problems much lest seek help for it, it would be crazy to sign my name on the dotted line for something that would take me many years to pay off without any contribution from him. I muted my phone. I ignored phonecalls from him and his mother. I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t know if I could keep doing this. I opened an internet browser and started looking for moving companies to move my stuff out from the house. Still, I hesitated. I didn’t follow through in the end. I went home. He was surprisingly more composed than I was. We had a long talk, about my worries, about the loan, about him. He took it all really well. He contacted his mother and told her off for pressuring me like this, demanding that she put off the sale of the house first. He broke down when he realised how close he/I was to having the movers come over to move my shit out. I stayed in the end. By then, a part of me had died.

I was tired emotionally, I’m surprised I lasted this long. He still has his moments when he gets angry and loses his temper and starts questioning me over why I stayed. I stopped responding much to his insults and anger. I chose to bury myself in work and gaming instead, and was fortunate enough to make friends with a group who I regularly play with online at night, friends who I catch up with once in awhile over meals. Friends who had a rough inkling of what’s going on and had my back, encouraging me to try and move on and be happy. They don’t know it, but they helped me discover abit more about myself as time went by.

For once, I felt ready to move on. Like I said, it has been almost 4 long years of trying to be there for him. But this time for the sake of my own happiness, it was time to put myself first again. I had a month long company work holiday trip coming up in May, I thought it would be a great time for me to take some time away to reflect and steel myself for the separation. I gradually stopped reciprocating his displays of affection. He noticed. He got frustrated over it and tried to find out why. As usual I clammed up and made vague excuses. How was I going to break the news to him that I was leaving him? Eventually it happened. A few days ago we were lying in bed one night, he was upset that I was not spending much time with him, and was jealous that I spent most of my time alone or gaming online with my friends. He asked if I still loved him. I kept quiet for a very long time, not daring to answer. He persisted, refusing to let the matter rest until I addressed the issue for once. I still love him, but it’s not the same anymore. I didn’t want to settle down with him, that much I know. I told him flatly that I don’t know anymore. He understood at once that it was over.

I expected anger from him, shouting, tantrums. I got none. Instead we lied in the dark in silence for a very long time. He spoke. He wants me to be happy no matter what. If I want a separation, so be it. He asked if we could still remain as friends at least, he asked that I use the trip to take some time off and think.

Everything has been moved forward in my plans now. I don’t know. We still talk but it’s more cordial and friendly now that everything is out. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, leaving him. But I know that it’s time for me to keep moving on for my own sake and happiness. I don’t know how I’ll fare as time goes by, I hope it goes well at least. But I have no regrets at all, be it with moving on, or being with him for 4years. Consider this a life journey for me, or a painful learning experience.

I will live with it. I will move on no matter how long it takes. I will try and be strong.

#personal #sorry it's so long #but i have to get it all out #those of you who lent me your ears #you know who you are #thank you

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