#but. after reviewing his file...i have come to the conclusion that he unfortunately looks like this 90% of the time

[levinbolts]

[freudensteins-monster]

You Say “Mad Scientist” Like It’s A Bad Thing

Based on my own tumblr post: 3am thoughts… Has anyone written Jane Foster as a mad scientist, I mean like a villain?

Chaotic neutral Darcy and Jane featuring modern/human SHIELD Agent Bucky.

Available on AO3.

Content Warnings: Implied/Referenced Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Memory Suppressing Machine | The Chair (Marvel), Dark, Sort Of, Ambiguous/Open Ending...

In a world full of megalomaniacs, straight up supervillains, and fricking aliens, mad scientists were a dime a dozen. Dr Foster was one such scientist who was quickly moving from mildly irritating to SHIELD’s Most Wanted.

Dr Foster’s gimmick was portals. She first gained international attention when she claimed responsibility (via an untraceable Instagram account, @dr-mthrfckng-foster) for diverting LA’s 405 to a dirt road in rural Australia. Then came a string of impossible robberies – bank vaults and the private collections of the world's richest assholes stripped bare in seconds. Then she created a portal that caused an Indonesian typhoon to bear down on Wall Street, flooding the trading floor. And then she robbed a top secret government black site of some classified technology.

And that’s when Director Nick Fury made finding and stopping Dr Foster SHIELD’s number one priority.

Agent James Barnes had been stuck on suspension for two weeks, with two more to go, and was itching to get back into the field. He had way too much free time on his hands: he’d caught up on his sleep and everything in his Netflix queue. He’d cleaned out his refrigerator, done laundry and enough meal prep to last him until next month. He’d caught up with his family, cleaned his whole goddamn apartment twice, and now he was well and truly bored.

He was out for his fifth run of the week (and it wasn’t even Wednesday) when his work phone rang.

“Thank Christ,” he muttered before answering.

“Barnes.”

“It’s Hill. How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” Barnes grunted, rotating his metal shoulder irritably. “You got something for me?”

“Are you up for a recon mission?”

Usually he would have protested. He headed tactical units. He was an elite ‘first through the door’ kind of field agent. Not that he couldn’t be stealthy and patient - he’d been a sniper in the army for christ's sake - but going unnoticed in public was kind of a problem for him these days; he’d have to wear jackets and gloves in the middle of August to hide his prosthetic for starters.

On the other hand, his mother had been calling him every second day to feed him carb-heavy meals in exchange for help around the house, all while dropping not-so-subtle hints that he should start dating again. Requests for more grandchildren couldn’t be far behind.

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

Thirty-five minutes later Agent Barnes was back at his desk at SHIELD HQ perusing through the increasingly large file of one Dr Jane Foster. 

She had been a brilliant student and had earned a PhD in Astrophysics from Culver University by the age of 25. By all accounts she should have been one of the leading researchers in her field, and if doctoral programs handed out superlatives Dr Foster’s would have been “Most Likely To Win a Nobel Prize By 30”. 

Unfortunately for Dr Foster, and the rest of the world, she had been forced from that path by a sexist tenured professor who publicly denounced her theories, and the woman herself, as crazy, discredited her published work, and used his influence to ensure she was denied all of the more lucrative research grants.

When federal agents went to interview him after the 405 incident they found his office looking like a tornado had gone through it and the professor himself was nowhere to be found. A few weeks later he stumbled into a US Embassy in Russia after being found wandering in from the forests outside Vladivostok, half mad and still decrying the evils of allowing women into scientific fields.

He had been placed into witness protection and promptly admitted into a psychiatric facility under his new name, and was being monitored by several undercover agents in case Dr Foster felt like punishing him some more. 

Anyone else who had a part in ruining Dr Foster’s legitimate career was also under surveillance, as was her mother in London, a terrified ex-boyfriend in Boston, and a handful of known associates, though Dr Foster hadn’t been in contact with any of them in years.

SHIELD and other federal agencies had tried the usual methods of tracking down a rogue mad scientist. They tried to find out where her base of operations was, firstly by looking for any properties in her name, but Dr Foster had been a broke student with an impressive amount of debt (until the day she decided to wipe it, and the rest of Culver’s student debt, out). So if she had property it would definitely not be in her legal name and all but impossible to trace back to her. Then they tried to look for drains on the powergrid. However she managed to generate her portals - SHIELD scientists still hadn’t figured that out - it surely had to be using huge amounts of electricity. So far they’d found six grow labs and two server rooms running illegal god-knows-what, but no Dr Foster.

Agent Barnes read the file twice, reviewed all the transcripts of the interviews with her known associates, and came to one very important conclusion: she had an accomplice. 

As smart as Dr Foster was there was nothing in her academic history to suggest that she had a background in computer science that would account for the notable hacks and the untraceable nature of her activities. To add to that several interviewees had made passing remarks about her not having a cell phone for most of her academic career, and how she had zero interest in social media.

Two days later, after getting the okay for a field trip from Hill, Agent Barnes made his way to Culver University to speak to anyone who had even the vaguest recollection of Dr Foster. And that’s how he learnt about the intern.

He’d started by dropping by one of the physics labs where Dr Foster had spent most of her time, and by pure chance met a doctoral candidate who remembered her, and her intern.

“I think her name was Darlene. Glasses. Always on her phone.”

…which led him to the academic advisor who put the two of them together...

“Darcy. Darcy Lewis. She was actually a PoliSci major but left it too late and Dr Foster’s internship was the only one available. She had only been working with her for a few weeks before… before Dr Foster’s funding was revoked and she was asked to leave.”

...who pointed him to one of Darcy’s former professors…

“Average student. Good debater. Often late, and always had a coffee in her hand.”

...who gave him a few names of some former classmates who might remember her…

“Not the worst person to be stuck with on a group assignment. Pulled her weight. Obsessed with her stupid iPod.”

“I swear she lived off pop tarts and coffee. And not Starbucks either. Some stupid hipster chain.”

“Deja Brew. Serious problem. Went through one of those loyalty punch cards every week. Always complained about having to go home for the holidays and resort to big chain coffee shops.”

...which had him driving out to Darcy Lewis’ hometown, located a few hours south of Roanoke, Virginia, stopping first at the local high school to speak to the school principal…

“She’d always been good with computers but wasn’t allowed to use them at home for some reason so she spent a lot of time at the local library using theirs. We had to suspend her once. One of her classmates accused her of accepting payment from other students to hack the school’s records and alter their grades. Their grades were definitely getting altered, but we couldn’t get any concrete proof it was her.”

...who was able to find a photo of 16 year old Darcy in an old yearbook and told him what bar he could find Darcy’s mother in.

“She knows not to come to me if she’s in the shit, because I would call the cops in a heartbeat. Especially after that stunt she pulled before she went off to college…”

“What stunt was that, Ms Bennett?” Agent Barnes asked patiently, hoping he wouldn’t have to enable her alcoholism to get some useful information. 

“I made some mistakes, okay,” she slurred defensively. “I was having an affair with my boss. Don’t know how Darcy knew. She told her stepfather but he didn’t believe her. Then a few weeks later we went out to dinner for my boss’s birthday... all the tv’s in the bar start showing security camera footage of us falling into offices and motel rooms. Took her all of a minute to ruin two marriages and a law firm.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied diplomatically. “Is there anyone she could turn to for help? Her father, perhaps.”

“He died when she was about twelve. They were as thick as thieves,” she recalled with a tinge of bitterness.

“Was there any place that was special to them? Someone she might go to ground?”

She shook her head. “He used to rent this old cabin near the Catskills off a buddy of his every other year. Winter or summer, Darcy loved it. But it's long gone. Forest fire, I think, the year before his accident.”

Back in his car Agent Barnes reviewed the data points.

Dr Foster had a base of operations somewhere. Had to be private, and as best SHIELD could guess it must be off the grid and Dr Foster must be generating her own power.

Dr Foster was a space nut at heart, and while an abandoned observatory might be too much to ask for, she’d probably want somewhere with minimal light pollution.

And while they could portal anywhere, neither of them spoke any other languages and had no familiarity with any international locations, so they were most likely still State-side. (Dr Foster’s mother had moved to London when Jane was twenty-three, but she’d never found the time to visit.)

Miss Lewis was familiar with the Catskills area. A base of operations there could be very isolated.

Dr Foster was most likely building and modifying her own own equipment so she had to be able to access materials. Sure, she could portal to her local hardware store, but having Darcy drive into the nearest town for supplies would attract less attention.

Miss Lewis had an addiction to coffee procured from Deja Brew, a small hipster chain with only a handful of locations along on the east coast. While she could have found another way to get her caffeine fix, people were creatures of habit.

Miss Lewis was also known for stocking up on poptarts. In one of the only images of the other side of one of Dr Foster’s portals there was what appeared to be, if one squinted, a box of limited edition pop tarts on a counter.

He plugged it all into SHIELD fancy search engines and got a few results back. The most promising was an abandoned ski chalet turned abandoned research station halfway up a mountain, an hour drive away from an up and coming tourist town, whose main street hosted a Deja Brew cafe. They also had a small mom and pop hardware store, as well as a post office, and a grocery store that had still been selling pumpkin pie pop tarts around the time Dr Foster’s portal had been caught on camera.

Agent Barnes came to with a groan. The flesh of his shoulder where it met his prosthetic felt like it was on fire, and he was pretty sure he could smell fried wiring.

The research station had come up in SHIELD’s initial search for a potential mad scientist's lair, but had been dismissed for not using any power and for not sending back any heat signature readings. Perhaps they’d found a way to fool the scanners. Or maybe they just weren’t in the day the readings were taken. Whatever the reason, Agent Barnes had a good feeling about it. He filled his tank up at the nearest gas station and got on the highway, forgoing checking in at the Triskelion on his way past in favour of driving all night. He’d call Hill when he had something solid. 

** *** **

“Fuck…”

He willed his eyes open and came face to face with Darth Vader.

Barnes reeled back at the sound of the synthesized voice. “Who sent you? Who do you work for?! The Rebellion?” 

“What the fuck!”

It took him until his eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting to realise that Darth Vader was wearing a grey knit dress and black tights. Darth Vader laughed and ripped off his mask to reveal a smiling bespectacled brunette underneath. The accomplice. Darcy Lewis.

“Sorry, I was just messing with you, dude,” she teased, tossing the mask over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to do that. But seriously, who do you work for? Who knows you’re here?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he lied. “I was just camping in the woods, man. I saw the lights and decided to check it out,” he rambled in a lazy Canadian accent. “How the hell did I get here? Did you electrocute me?”

He used his not-quite fake panic to test the limits of his restraints. He’d been strapped into some sort of junkstore barber chair, with thick metal shackles locked around his wrists, ankles, and chest. His metal arm could probably make quick work of them but the damn thing was not responding. His panic became a little less fake.

“Just camping, huh?” she echoed back with a raised eyebrow, leaning forward to the point where Barnes couldn’t avoid getting a good look down her top and the 15-carat pink diamond (worth about 40mil and reported stolen in one of Dr Foster’s vault heists two months ago) hanging around her neck. “So that wasn’t you poking around town this morning?” she asked pointedly, drawing his attention to the wall of monitors he hadn’t noticed showing various street cameras around the town. “I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, dude. You got into town bright and early in a beat up looking truck with plates that didn’t exist two weeks ago and started flashing my yearbook photo around. So, who do you work for?”

He levelled his best steely-eyed agent stare at her and switched back to his native pissed-off Brooklynite accent. “I ain’t tellin you shit, sweetheart.”

“C’mon now,” she cooed, taking a seat on his lap. “Who do you work for? FBI? Interpol? SHIELD? Crawford County Library Services? Listen, I was totally going to return Eat Pray Love, but we had to skip town in a hurry and it got lost in the move. I will totally pay to replace it.”

Years of training (and regular poker games with the Black Widow) had taught him to school his features, even if that last one threw him for a loop.

“Nothing? You sure you don’t want to talk to me? Fine,” she whined. “Jane!”

It was only then that Barnes switched his focus from his captor to his surroundings and realised that there was another occupant puttering about on the other side of the large telescope that took pride of place on a hydraulic platform underneath the research station's retractable roof. The infamous Dr Foster.

“Jane!”

“What?” came the irritated reply. 

“Come over here and practise your monologue. Look! You’ve got a captive audience and everything!” she announced, laughing at her own joke. 

“I don’t have time, Darcy,” the disgruntled voice argued. 

“Hey! I spent two days writing up that monologue, the least you can do is spend twenty-five minutes reading it out loud so I can make sure it doesn’t make you sound too much like a cartoon villain.” 

“Twenty-five minutes?! Are you kidding me?” Dr Foster stormed out from behind the telescope to wave a wrench at her assistant. She looked less put together than her ID photo, appearing to be long overdue for both a shower and a nap. “I’m in the middle of something. I’ve almost figured the problem with the mobile portal generator, and… Darcy, why is there a man tied to a chair in my lab?”

“This man?” Darcy snorted, taking Barnes’s chin in her hands and wiggling it about. “This is the intruder. You remember the intruder alert, like fifteen minutes ago? Lots of flashing lights and alarms? Well, I found this guy passed out on the lawn. For most people, hitting my force field would be like getting lightly tased, but this bad boy,” she continued, tapping a fingernail against his dead metal arm, “meant you ended up getting the full 50,000 volts to your heart. Thanks for letting me practice my CPR by the way,” she added with a wink.

“It’s not a force field, Darcy. It’s a glorified invisible pet fence, upsized and modified so it reacts to the electrical impulses in the human body.”

“It keeps people out; I’m calling it a force field.”

This was definitely the weirdest interrogation he had endured by a large margin, Barnes mused as he followed their bickering like a pingpong game.

“Who is he, Darcy?” Jane sighed wearily. “What is he doing here?”

“Fiiiine. Janey, meet Agent James Barnes of SHIELD.”

“What?! SHIELD?!!”Jane screeched. “Why did you bring him here?”

“He found us, Jane. What was I supposed to do?”

“Something other than bringing him inside our secret hideout.”

“I am not killing him and burying him in the woods; I just did my nails.”

Jane scowled, turning the full force of her overtired fury on James. “Why can’t you SHIELD issue jackbooted thugs just leave me alone? Can’t you understand how important my work is? I am challenging the very foundations of modern science - of the laws of the universe! I am on the verge of a breakthrough! And if you or Nick Fury think you can stop me, you’ve got another thing coming!”

Before his mouth could betray him and ask how the hell they knew his boss Darcy spoke up.

“A little off script, but I like the energy, Jane. Very much the mad scientist vibe we’re going for. But next time, try not to make it so personal – we’ve got to hide the target of our frustrations, remember? Instead of saying “SHIELD” say “government”, instead of saying “Nick Fury” say “president”.”

“Right, right,” Jane nodded absently, tapping the side of her head with the wrench she had just been waving around like a weapon.

“Now, go back to work. I’ll handle this.”

“Okay, thanks Darce. Oh, have you seen my soldering iron around?”

“It’s in the locked cabinet because you’re not allowed to use it unsupervised, you know that. Gimme ten minutes, I’ll bring it to you.”

Jane wandered back to her side of the observatory, muttering under her breath, leaving Barnes at Darcy’s mercy.

“She’s not the criminal mastermind here, is she?” he wondered, his eyes roaming over the strange cupcake of a woman in his lap.

“Not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “I mean, it’s not like she set out to be a mad scientist. I kind of rebranded her after that little freeway incident.”

“Rebranded?”

“Yeah. She was in a bad way after New Mexico and then when the first live test of her portal engine went a little sideways I didn’t want dudebros on the internet coming after her, so I changed the narrative. Instead of ‘girl scientist makes mistake, should stick to making sandwiches’ I changed it to ‘Dr Foster, genius astrophysicist, causes chaos, totally on purpose.’”

“And all those robberies?”

“I may have encouraged that. I’m all for sticking it to the one percenters, and Jane needed to fund her experiments somehow,” she added with a shrug.

“So Jane’s the absent-minded professor and you’re the brains behind this operation, huh?”

Darcy laughed and slid out of his lap causing a distracting amount of friction. “I’m really not. So you, Coulson, and Fury should be really, really scared.”

“How do you know those names?” he had to know, cover be damned.

“You don’t know? Of course you don’t,” she huffed. “Fury and his clearance levels. I’d tell you to ask him about New Mexico sometime, but you’re not going to be able to.”

“Why not? What are you going to do to me?” Barnes fretted, unable to ignore the sinking feeling that he was in big trouble; she wouldn’t have told him anything if she intended on letting him walk out of here.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just gonna scramble your brain a little.”

She circled his chair, flipping switches as she went, and something behind him started humming ominously.

“So, admittedly I didn’t major in hard sciences. I had an ex who did, but he also fancied himself something of a cat burglar, so when he went to jail I liberated all his college textbooks and gave myself a crash course in electrical engineering. And it helped that those HYDRA designs were really easy to follow.”

“HYDRA?” Barnes cursed.

HYDRA had been the scientific branch of the Nazi regime and believed that discovery required (human) experimentation. They were supposedly eradicated at the end of WWII but Project Paperclip saved some of HYDRA’s greatest minds, giving them immunity in exchange for their genius. If Foster or, more worryingly, Darcy had aligned themselves with some surviving HYDRA faction the results could be catastrophic.

“Yeah, I found them in that SHIELD warehouse when we recovered Jane’s stolen research.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They just call it ‘The Chair’, which is totally not creepy at all,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And this is the Halo,” she added, drawing Barnes’s attention to the whirring circle of metal that was lowering itself over his head.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, renewing his efforts to break free of his restraints. “Get that piece of scrap metal the fuck away from me!”

“Hey! Don’t mock my work. It may look like I raided a junkyard for the components - and I did - but my welding game is on point. It’s totally safe. Mostly safe. It’s just going to send focused electrical pulses to your…” she paused to consult some smudged writing on her hand, “hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.”

The Halo stopped moving and two metal plates extended, pressing against the sides of his head, holding it like a vice.

“Please… don’t do this,” he begged as she approached him with a rubber mouthguard.

“C’mon, open wide. You don’t want to end up braindead and unable to chew your food,” she jested, waving the thing in front of him. “Oh, just one question before I fry your brain,” she added just when he was about to give in. “How did you find us? I was so careful,” she whined.

Agent Barnes, terrified as he was, still managed to look smug at his small, short lived success. “Deja Brew coffee.”

“Curses!” she wailed theatrically. “Betrayed by my one true love!” 

Darcy huffed and quickly returned her attention to the matter at hand. 

“Thanks for that,” she said with a smile as she forced him to bite down on the mouthguard. “I’ll know better for next time. Start making my own coffee at home… but it never tastes as good,” she muttered to herself.

She stepped away from him and bent down to pick up a similarly frankensteined industrial remote with long wires snaking back to the chair and a clichéd big red button at its centre. He began struggling anew, screaming around the foul tasting rubber, begging for mercy.

She took great delight in his terrified expression and put on her best supervillain voice, “Give my regards to Nick Fury.”

Nick Fury observed his agent from behind a two way mirror as he sat behind a table in an interrogation room. Barnes had been sitting there for the past hour as still as a statue, except for his unfocused eyes which flitted about the room. 

In true horror movie fashion, Agent Barnes’ screams echoed down the mountainside like an avalanche, sending animals fleeing in terror for miles around.

** *** **

Local LEO’s had found him wandering aimlessly down a stretch of highway just outside the ruins of what had previously been Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, and ten minutes after they ran his prints Agent Romanoff had been on a quinjet to collect him. She’d been directed to the nearest hospital and found him sitting up on a bed but not responding or reacting to any of the medical staff as they buzzed around him. Agent Romanoff took a cautious step forward and held her breath as his unfocused eyes settled on her. 

“Hello James...”

An excruciating minute later the veil lifted and he attempted a smile. 

“Hey Tasha.”

She’d brought him back to base and dragged him to SHIELD’s medical bay for more tests - not that Barnes put up much of a fight, in fact he was terrifyingly compliant. The SHIELD doctors confirmed what the New Mexico doctors suspected: the bruising and electrical burns around his temples and his memory loss were indicative of some back alley version of electroshock therapy. His memories should come back in time - how long was anybody’s guess - but for the moment Agent James Barnes had no memory of the last four weeks.

Fury picked up a tablet with depressingly little information on its screen and stepped into the room, waiting for Barnes eyes to focus on him before taking a seat. 

“Agent Barnes.”

“Director.”

“I know you’re probably sick of questions by now, but I have a few more for you, if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, sure…”

It rankled Fury to no end how meak and passive Barnes seemed. Heaven help him, he missed the argumentative sonofabitch.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Being called into your office.”

“What for?”

“I punched Rumlow.”

“Why?”

“He was bragging about taking advantage of a drunk woman at a club when he was last on leave. He didn’t like me calling out his shitty behaviour. He punched me, I punched him back.”

Fury sighed. He hadn't gotten a straight answer out of Barnes at the time of the incident and he couldn’t feel happy about getting one now. 

“Do you remember what happened once I called you into my office?”

His brow creased and his eyes zipped back and forth like the carriage of a printer as his mind searched for the elusive memory.

“You suspended me?”

“I did,” Fury confirmed. “For a whole month. But two weeks into it I pulled you in for a special assignment.”

Barnes tensed, shrinking in on himself. The confusion about his lost time seemed to be the only thing that got under his skin, but only when someone brought it up. Once the moment passed he forgot to be concerned about it.

Fury took pity on him. “For the past two weeks I had you running down leads on the whereabouts of Dr Jane Foster.”

“The scientist with the portals? Did she do this to me?”

“It’s not exactly her MO, but then again no law enforcement agency’s ever managed to have a confrontation with her. Never had the chance. Those portals of hers let her keep at a distance. You might have been the first person to have a face to face with her, but I can’t confirm it because I don’t know where the hell you were when this happened,” he grumbled, letting a little more of his usual exasperated tone filter through. “You missed check in by two days. The last we heard from you, you were at Culver running down leads on what you said was a potential accomplice. We found your car in Tromso, Norway, a day after you were found on the side of a road in New Mexico. You don’t appear on any security footage or speed cameras in the area. There’s no activity on your work or personal credit cards. Your activity logs on our highly secure system for the last two weeks are nonexistent, as are your call logs on your work phone. Even the messages you sent Romanoff from your personal phone complaining about your assignment have since been deleted - from her phone too. She’s real pissed about it. As far as your digital footprint is concerned you disappeared from a gas station outside Roanoke, Virginia, last week - do you know how weird it is to know you were headed out towards a place called Roanoke only to up and vanish?” He sighed at Barnes’ painful silence. “Is there anything you can remember, anything at all about Dr Foster or her accomplice? Anything that will help us catch up to you without talking to everyone on campus to figure out what you discovered?”

Barnes’ brow creased in painful confusion.

“I think… I think I saw Darth Vadar.”

Director Fury blinked. “Right…” He took a deep breath to stop himself from venting his frustrations at Barnes, the sorry bastard looked like a kicked puppy as it was. Instead he got up and tapped the tablet against the metal tabletop harder than strictly necessary. “Well, I’ll just go put out a BOLO out for Darth Vadar then.”

“Okay,” Barnes murmured, and promptly zoned out again.

Agent Romanoff exited the viewing room looking uncharacteristically unsettled. 

“I want a full detail on him at all times,” Fury ordered as he stormed off towards the elevators. Hill had just stepped off and was looking even more grim than usual. “Until his memories come back he’s vulnerable, and once they do he’ll be a target.”

“I’ll get a STRIKE team on it. Not Rumlow’s.”

“Get another one along with any assets currently not on assignment. Flood that campus, interrogate everybody. I wanna know who the hell Dr Foster’s accomplice is, and I wanna know yesterday. Understood?”

“I think we might have more pressing concerns, sir,” Hill reported, tapping at her tablet as it beeped erratically. “Coulson’s said there’s an issue with the Tesseract. Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from it fifteen minutes ago.”

“NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase,” he grunted, taking the tablet from Hill.

“He wasn't testing it, he wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement.”

“Motherfucker.”

[tiramisiyu]

【未定事件簿】Tears of Themis: Main Story 5-35 Translation

--

Translated parts: Chapter 5 – Sounds of Falling Snow (Part 1, 2, 3): 5-1 / 5-3 / 5-5 / 5-7 / 5-9 / 5-11 / 5-13 ♦️ ♦️  5-14 / 5-16 / 5-18 / 5-20 / 5-22 / 5-24 / 5-26 / 5-28 ♦️ ♦️ 5-29 / 5-31 / 5-33 / 5-35 / 5-37 / 5-39 / 5-40 / 5-42 / 5-43

Translation Masterlist: here

Video: (28:22) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15a4y1j7CW?

CEO’s Office

At 10:00 AM, the Stellis News Website chief editor, Liu Hao, arrived at Pax Financial Group’s headquarters.

Though Pax’s CEO was definitely a prominent figure, Liu Hao had met with people all over the world. He didn’t feel any caution.

Liu Hao: CEO Lu, hello.

Lu Jinghe: Chief Editor Liu has arrived. Please sit.

Lu Jinghe: What does Chief Editor Liu want to drink? Wen Chen, prepare something for our guest.

Liu Hao: No need, no need, CEO Lu is too courteous.

Lu Jinghe: That’s fine then, my time is tight, so I won’t be polite with you. Let’s talk about serious matters.

Lu Jinghe: Pax is currently considering fourth-quarter advertising circulation. We want to work with more stylish media.

Lu Jinghe: Traditional platforms tend to conform too much with social norms. They don’t match Pax’s determination to be enterprising with innovation.

Lu Jinghe: Recently, I saw the Stellis News Website’s interview with Heirson general manager Qin Shan, and felt that your platform is pretty good.

Lu Jinghe: I was wondering if Chief Editor Liu has any intentions to collaborate.

Liu Hao: Your words really are too courteous. It would be our pleasure to collaborate with Pax.

Lu Jinghe: I heard the media department’s people reported that Stellis News Website’s gold-level advertising space has already been booked for Heirson?

Liu Hao: Heirson’s collaboration with us should be ending this month.

Liu Hao: If Pax has the intention to, you can bid against Heirson for the position in the fourth quarter.

Lu Jinghe: I thought Chief Editor Liu was an educated person. Compared to doing business with sales and purchases, you must be more of an expert in creating writing.

Lu Jinghe: I didn’t think that you also have such skill in calculation.

Seeming to have been alerted that Lu Jinghe was unhappy, Liu Hao was slightly agitated, his smiling expression slightly stiff. 

Liu Hao: Bidding is a typical process. Though I am the chief editor of Stellis News Website, some things aren’t up to me.

Lu Jinghe: That is true. When discussing business, one indeed should not seek the chief editor to do so.

Lu Jinghe: In fact, discussing business was just secondary when I specially invited you here today.

Liu Hao: Then you are…?

Lu Jinghe: Pax Financial Group has continuously been rapidly expanding our biopharmaceuticals. In the recent two years, we’ve been looking at Heirson with the intention of buying shares.

Lu Jinghe: I’ve looked up all the business’s information that I need to look up – but I’m the kind of person who looks more at the person themselves when seeking to collaborate with them. 

Lu Jinghe: So I wanted to find you, Chief Editor Liu, to understand this Qin Shan person. 

Lu Jinghe: If Chief Editor Liu can help me with this, then naturally, Pax will not find another platform for our advertisements.

Liu Hao: Qin Shan and I actually do have some private interactions. Otherwise, with his business so busy every day, how could I have made an appointment for an interview?

Liu Hao: CEO Lu, feel free to ask about whatever you want to understand.

Lu Jinghe: Last year, that water pollution matter of Heirson stirred up a fairly large amount of trouble. At that time, I didn’t pay attention, and I heard that it got to the point of a lawsuit.

Lu Jinghe: Apparently it was a reporter from your news site who wrote a falsified news article slandering others. What exactly was the situation with this matter?

Lu Jinghe: If Heirson really has a record of environmental pollution, then Pax will definitely not work with them.

Liu Hao: You’re asking about this matter.

When it involved his own platform’s “scandal”, Liu Hao was somewhat awkward.

Liu Hao: For this matter, Heirson really was innocent. Those two news reports were falsified by one of the reporters on our platform, Kong Moli.

Liu Hao: In that case, it was clearly Rainbow River Village’s paper mill that polluted the water. But if we were to report that, this kind of news wouldn’t attract much attention.

Liu Hao: Kong Moli just wanted to garner views, so she deliberately wrote that the source of the pollution came from the Heirson’s laboratory.

Liu Hao: Ah, it was also that my reviews weren’t strict. From the beginning I really thought that she had dug up major news…

Lu Jinghe: So it was like this all along.

Lu Jinghe: To be able to have Heirson, a large company, litigate a little reporter - looks like this matter created large losses for Heirson at the time.

Lu Jinghe: But I saw on the financial reports that last year, in the third quarter, Heirson’s profits were increasing rapidly. This sure is strange.

Liu Hao: Though looking at it at that time, it was a scandal that negatively impacted the company’s reputation, it still let more people know about Heirson.

Liu Hao: This is also the use of us media. When one report comes out, sometimes it’s very hard to say whether it’s bad luck or a blessing.

Lu Jinghe: I saw that at the beginning of fourth quarter last year, Heirson started to work with you in depth.

Lu Jinghe: Looking at it like this, that Kong Moli was basically generating income for your platform.

Lu Jinghe: Chief Editor Liu, you must remember to give her a promotion.

Liu Hao looked surprised. It was clear that he hadn’t thought that Lu Jinghe would actually arrive at this kind of conclusion.

Liu Hao: Does CEO Lu not know? Kong Moli is already dead.

Lu Jinghe: How could I have known. What happened to her? Sickness, or an accident?

Liu Hao: It was an accident. She got in a car crash.

Lu Jinghe: I heard that being in a media occupation makes it very easy to get people to remember and hate you, to invite retaliation.

Lu Jinghe: If she was all fine and well, how could she have gotten into a car crash? Could it be from Heirson…

Liu Hao: No no, CEO Lu, you’re overthinking. Heirson did sue Kong Moli for causing harm to their commercial reputation, but they just defended their rights as needed.

Liu Hao: Even if there were people who wanted to get revenge, it would be that witness called Qiu Heng who would want revenge. 

Lu Jinghe: Qiu Heng? Who?

Liu Hao: He’s a researcher who does environmental evaluations. Kong Moli paid up to have him make a fake report to frame Heirson.

Liu Hao: This matter was noticed by Heirson’s lawyers. Qiu Heng retracted his testimony in trial, so the court judged that Kong Moli had lost the case.

Lu Jinghe: Then why would this Qiu Heng hurt Kong Moli? It doesn’t make sense.

Liu Hao: I wouldn’t know about this.

Liu Hao: I guessed it was Qiu Heng because the platform’s office building garage monitoring system shot him on camera.

Liu Hao: Before Kong Moli got in the accident, Qiu Heng had appeared in the area around the car. The security guard even specially made a report to upstairs. 

Liu Hao: Although, at that time – maybe it was because he noticed the security cameras – Qiu Heng didn’t do anything before leaving.

Liu Hao: This is what I foolishly pondered after I heard that Kong Moli had died from a car accident.

Lu Jinghe: You knew there was someone who was conspiring illegally against Kong Moli, yet you didn’t warn her?

Lu Jinghe suddenly stopped smiling. His whole body changed demeanor, exuding an imposing manner.

Liu Hao was subsequently confused, but he still unconsciously became agitated.

Liu Hao: Th-this… Because of the fake news, at that time the platform already planned to expel Kong Moli, so…

Lu Jinghe: Expelled because of fake news. Hah.

Lu Jinghe: We won’t talk first about whether the Rainbow River water’s pollution really was related to Heirson. First, you can explain this picture.

Wen Chen, who was holding a file folder and standing on the side, placed a photo in front of Liu Hao after he heard Lu Jinghe’s words.

This photo seemed to be from an automatic road monitor. The time that the picture was taken was last year, August 30.

In the picture, Liu Hao and Qin Shan were standing at the doorway of a high-level meeting, chatting very happily.

Outside of the foreground, a white SUV was parked on the roadside. The license plate number could be clearly seen.

Liu Hao: …

Lu Jinghe: VD3F046. You must recognize this car.

Liu Hao: I don’t recognize it…

Lu Jinghe: This is Kong Moli’s car!

Lu Jinghe: You simultaneously took Qin Shan’s money and waited for Kong Moli’s lawsuit results.

Lu Jinghe: If Kong Moli won the case then Stellis News Website’s reputation would be great. Naturally, you wouldn’t be short on benefits.

Lu Jinghe: If Kong Moli lost, and Qin Shan won…

Lu Jinghe: Then even if it’s for media PR, Heirson will still spend even more money on Stellis News Website, or on you.

Lu Jinghe: Earlier, what I said about Chief Editor Liu having skill in calculation was right.  You really were benefitting from both sides, profiting without loss.

Liu Hao: I, I…

Lu Jinghe: But this kind of matter can be done but not said. If this were spread out for everyone to know, then your name can be considered destroyed.

Lu Jinghe: But so unfortunately, your meeting with Qin Shan was noticed by Kong Moli.

Lu Jinghe: Using the accusation of “making up falsified news” to expel Kong Moli, having Kong Moli lose her believability, was just the first step.

Lu Jinghe: Did you also think about having Kong Moli get into a little accident and completely disappearing from this world?

Lu Jinghe: You didn’t tell Kong Moli that someone had tampered with the car, to have someone else do the dirty work for you and reap the benefits after.

Liu Hao: Lu Jinghe, do not spit blood at others!

Lu Jinghe: Spit blood at others? Are you even suited to use this phrase?

Lu Jinghe: The matters that you yourself have spit blood at others over – are they few?

Lu Jinghe: Exactly whether Kong Moli was making up false news – were you really not sure?

Lu Jinghe: Alright, let’s go back one step – you really did believe that what Kong Moli said was false.

Lu Jinghe: Then, should you not apologize to and pay compensation to Heirson, as a company whose commercial reputation was harmed due to your platform’s news reports?

Lu Jinghe: When you took Qin Shan’s money, did you not feel guilty?

Lu Jinghe: Making use of the effect that media has on the masses, ignoring the truth for your personal gain! What face have you to call yourself a news worker!

Lu Jinghe tossed the file folder from Wen Chen’s hands, letting it fall on the coffee table. The documents inside were shaken out. 

They were Liu Hao’s expenditure records at the luxury goods shop under Pax’s banner. The total amount of expenditures exceeded Liu Hao’s annual income by far.

Lu Jinghe: Liu Hao, have you declared the luxury goods that you bought with this money as taxable?

Lu Jinghe: If I were to continue to investigate, would I be able to find out that the source of this money is Heirson’s or Qin Shan’s personal bank account?

Frozen stiff, Liu Hao sat on the sofa. Cold sweat rolled off his forehead.

He was trembling. He didn’t dare to look at those documents, and he didn’t dare to respond to Lu Jinghe’s questions.

Lu Jinghe: Liu Hao, I can tell you now with certainty that I did not call you here today as Pax’s executive CEO.

Lu Jinghe: I am Kong Moli’s friend. I will investigate into clarity exactly how she died.

Liu Hao: But CEO Lu, I really did not harm her.

Lu Jinghe: Yes, you indeed did not participate in the murder. You are just a bystander of this murder case.

Lu Jinghe: You ignored it, indulged in the event of this murder case. You even enjoyed the resulting benefits.

Liu Hao: I, I…

Lu Jinghe: Indeed, the legal system has no way of convicting you, but this does not mean that you will not pay the price for this.

Lu Jinghe: I will send this evidence to the Stellis News Website’s Board of Directors.  You can experience the things you once did to Kong Moli.

Lu Jinghe: But what will be different is that no one will help you right any wrongs.

--

Stellis City Police Station

After meeting with Qiu Heng, I went straight to see Wang Han.

Having gone through a night of trouble, Wang Han was far from having the dignity from yesterday, when we first met.

After seeing me, none of that exaggerated fake laughter appeared again.

MC: Wang Han, you…

I was about to start asking when Lu Jinghe’s message was sent over.

“Stellis News Website chief editor Liu Hao did receive Heirson’s money, but he didn’t participate in Kong Moli’s murder.”

“I found out about something interesting. You might be able to use it – check out your inbox.”

MC: (We can exclude Liu Hao from the list of suspects’ names…)

If one doesn’t break the law, can we truly say that they are innocent?

This kind of thought flashed in my head, but at this moment, I didn’t have the strength to mull this hard question over… 

I opened the inbox, noticing that what Lu Jinghe had sent over was Heirson’s detailed financial report.

In the contents, Wang Han’s name was written impressively among the dividend details. Plus, this dividend was from before three years ago!

MC: (Though compared to other shareholders, Wang Han’s dividend can be disregarded…)

MC: (But his name being on here is sufficient to indicate problems!)

[Got Heirson’s Dividend Details!]

[lesbianlovelanguage]

hey tay! how about: situation #28, sentence #15, person(people) steve/billy 😊 thank you!

Hi bb!!! Sorry this took forever, it just kind of kept going haha. 

Enjoy! 28. Love Confession and 15. “If you think I don’t have feelings for you, you’re dumber than I though.” (I also added college!au because why not?) 

--

Billy had thought moving to college would have meant freedom from Hawkins, from his dad, from the memories of a certain kiss in the dark. He had packed his camaro and never looked back as he sped out of that shit hole town. It wasn’t until he was unpacking his couple of boxes that it finally hit him. He had done it. He was out.

Then he walked into his second college class, Forensic Science 101, and spotted that damn head of perfectly styled gravity defying hair, and met wide brown eyes. They stared at each other for a whole minute before Steve was tugged away by some spunky looking blonde with a jean jacket that was more patches than denim. 

Billy watched them take a seat towards the front of the hall, and then deliberately made his way to the back. He hoped that this would be the only incident of bumping into an old face, but when had he ever had that much luck? 

The second item listed in the syllabus, written in bold 12 point times new roman, was a group project due at the end of the semester, and the professor just had to announce that they were assigning partners by last name. When the list was projected up Billy could have screamed. 

Of course.

Of fucking course, on his first day of college, when he thought he was finally safe and free from Hawkins and all that came with it, he had to get paired up with King Steve for a fucking semester-long assignment. 

By the end of class, Billy’s pencil was chewed to bits and his anxiety was through the roof. The bell caught him off guard, and as the rest of his classmates were filing out of the hall, he was slowly packing up. It wasn’t until he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder that he saw Harrington waiting at the end of the aisle Billy was in. He looked equally nervous, bottom lip red and puffy from biting it. Billy started thinking about other ways he could make Steve’s lips look like that, thoughts steering to Tina’s graduation party and a shady corner in the backyard. Before he could dig himself too deep of a hole, a soft cough brought him back to reality. 

“So, I guess we’re partners?” Harrington asked hesitantly.

Billy just replied with a grunt and pushed past Harrington to leave the lecture hall. He didn’t have time for Harrington’s ridicule and judgemental looks. But before he could ditch him, Billy felt a hand grab his jacket sleeve and tug him backwards, prompting him to spin around and face Harrington again.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Harrington,” he growled. Harrington dropped his hand as if he had been burned. 

“Jeez, sorry. Who pissed in your cheerios, Hargrove?”

“Piss off.” Billy started walking away again, until Harrington jumped in front of him.

“Wait, wait. I’m sorry. We do need to work on this project together though.”

“Yeah? Well we haven’t even gotten an assignment sheet yet,” Billy shrugged. Steve dug into his bag and pulled out a thick packet. 

“Um, hate to be the bearer of bad news Billy boy, but we actually did?”

“Fine. We can figure out some time to meet and go over this stupid project.” 

“Great! I was thinking three times a week? at like 6?”

“Mmm, ‘fraid not Princess. Once a week, on Thursdays, at 7. Meet in the library. Final offer.” 

“Jesus,” Harrington said, “You really haven’t changed. Still the same asshole who’s too good for anyone?”

“No, Princess. Just too good for you,” and with those parting words, Billy pushed past Harrington and snached the packet out of his hands. He heard Harrington squawk in protest, but before he could pull another stunt to stall his departure, Billy was ducking out the door and striding through the quad.

And thus, their schedule was set. Billy successfully avoided Harrinton in the classroom by sneaking in at the last minute and sitting in the very back in order to be one of the first out with the bell. During their study sessions, Billy remained quiet and aloof, responding to all of Harrinton’s questions with biting cynicism and witty insults. He finally stopped trying four weeks in, and now they simply met, put a couple hours into their project, and then left. 

This lasted until the second to last meeting they had. The Thursday after Thanksgiving break found the two boys in the library like every other Thursday of the semester. They were going over every detail, reviewing their conclusions, and finalizing their presentation for next Friday. 

Billy was packing up his stuff, getting ready to go home when he heard Harrington clear his throat.

“Hargrove, wait. I-I uh, I can’t make it next week.” Billy froze.

“Harrington, are you kidding? We present the next day, what the hell?” Billy couldn’t believe it. All semester Harrington had been riding his ass about being on time to their stupid little meet ups, and now he wanted to just ditch it right before the end? 

“I’ve got another commitment,” Harrington said, and Billy noticed his ears were bright red. That’s when it hit him. 

“Oh, I see.” Billy felt a downright nasty smirk take over. “King Steve’s got a date huh? Tell me Stevie, is she another Wheeler bitch, or is she the spunky blonde you’re always with? What’s your type these days Pretty Boy?”

“Fuck off Hargrove. God, why are you such a dick all the time?” Harrington complained, sounding every part the spoiled brat he was. 

“Just part of the charm, Princess.” The smirk only got bigger, started to resemble a sneer with the way his lip curled up and his teeth showed.

‘Never let them see you hurt.’ he thought, feeling jealousy pool in his stomach. 

“So who is it Pretty Boy? Ice queen or punk band reject?” Billy sneered. 

“It-it’s not a date.” 

“Oh, please. You’re redder than a fucking tomatoe. C’mon Harrington, what’s a little gossip between pals?”

“We are not friends,” Harrington growled, finally reaching the end of his patience, “and if you refused to answer my questions after Tina’s party, I don’t see why I have to answer any of yours.” Harrington crossed his arms and pursed his lips.

“What the absolute fuck are you talking about Harrington? You didn’t ask me shit after that night.”“Yeah, because you never let me!” Steve practically shouted. He quieted down after a sharp glare from the pruny old librarian behind the desk. “You practically disappeared after that night.”

“Yeah, because I already knew what you were going to say, and I didn’t need that shit from some bumpkin fuck right before I got to leave that tiny shit town.” Billy leaned forward as he practically spit the last words, getting up into Harrington’s blank face.

“Oh, if you’re so smart, what was I going to say Billy?” Harrington seemed unmoved by Billy’s presence, only scrunching up his nose a little and shifting his shoulders.

“Fuck this. I don’t need your interrogation now. Enjoy your date, and just make sure your fucking essay is finished.” Billy adjusted the strap of his bag, and pushed past Harrington to leave him behind. Unlike their first collegiate interaction, Harrington didn’t follow. Billy made it all the way out of the library and around the corner before having to stop and take a few deep breaths. He didn’t know how, but Harrington had the innate ability to get under Billy’s skin. Ever since that Halloween party, where he gave Billy one glance over and moved on to follow some prissy looking ice princess. 

After some deep breaths, the urge to punch something slowly faded to a simmer, at least enough to make his way back to his dorm. 

Monday came, and with it Forensic Sciences 101. He pulled the usual routine of coming in late, only to find a certain mop of brown hair sitting in his usual seat. Billy made the educated decision to tuck tail and beat it. There wasn’t an attendance policy anyway, skilling wouldn’t hurt.

Using that logic, he also skipped Wednesday’s lecture just to be safe. He decided to use the time to study for another final coming up, and headed to the library. He was deep in the zone, reading about the historical significance of guinea pigs in ancient South American culture when suddenly his textbook was ripped away from him.

He jerked up to see who the thief was. Standing before him was the same blonde that hung around Harrington so often, and she looked pissed.

“Can I help you?” Billy asked, raising an eyebrow and staring her down. She didn’t even flinch as they suddenly ended up in a silent staring match. After a few tense moments, she suddenly smiled and plopped down in the seat next to him. 

“Name’s Robin. You’re Billy Hargrove right?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” 

“Okay, listen. I’m friends with Steve, basically his only friend on campus,” she said with an exaggerated eye roll, “and I’m here to tell you to talk to him, please. The little pining sulky thing he’s got going on was cute at first, but now it’s just kind of sad and annoying, so whatever happened between you two? I don't care, just fix it.”

 “And what makes you so sure it’s me he’s pining over or whatever? It’s probably that chic he has a date with tomorrow.” Billy leaned back in his chair, trying to feign nonchalance.

“Because,” she stretched out the word, “Dingus abandoned me during Forensics to sit in the back, even though his eyesight is terrible, all because he knew a certain blond always sat in the back. And then when you ditched, he was silent for like, an hour.” 

“Yeah? Wow. Real compelling evidence you got there chief. Unfortunately, I’ve known Harrington for longer and I know that’s not the case. There’s nothing going on between us.” Billy shrugged his shoulders. “Now can I please have my textbook back?”

“Not until you agree to talk to him,” she fired back.

“Oh yeah, I’d love to have that discussion.”

“What, big tough guy like you scared of what a dingus has to say? What’s got your panties in a twist Billy Joel?”

“None of your business. Now scram.”

“Nope,” she said, popping the p. “I need my best friend back. Besides, don’t you guys have a presentation on Friday? I can guarantee unless you two talk whatever out, he’s gonna be practically useless.”

“You don’t even know what’s going on!” His volume began to raise, only to be lowered again in the face of the librarian. He leaned closer to Robin instead. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. It's. Not. Happening.” 

“Fine. I guess it’s not what I’m thinking. After all, what do I, a lesbian from a tiny town in rural Illinois, know about mutual gay pining?” She said, leaning in to Billy too. They were practically bumping heads at this point, exchanging harsh whispers. But, as the term ‘mutual gay pining’ came out of her mouth, Billy squinted his eyes and smirked menacingly. 

“I see. You’re just some dyke who’s projecting her failed love life onto her bff in hopes of not being so lonely. Guess what buttercup? You’re dead fucking wrong. So fuck off, and go draw more tits on your shoes.” Robin leaned back in mock offense, before matching Billy with her own wicked smile.

“Oh okay. First off, fuck you, but I’m going to let it go because I know you probably have some deep seeded internalized bullshit. I had to help Steve through the same shit this semester. You’re from Hawkins too right?” One manicured eyebrow popped up, before she continued on her tirade. “Secondly, I’m never wrong. I saw the way you straight up stared at his lips that first day. Fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss him? Real no homo of you.”

“Are you done?” Billy asked, preparing to pack up and piss off. He didn’t need this shit, he had too many finals coming up. 

“Sure, if you’re ready to talk to Steve?”

“For the last time, take your psychoanalytical routine and fuck off.”

“Fine, whatever. Enjoy your pining anguish and ruined project.” She stood up, and prepared to turn away, before shooting over her shoulder, “By the way, I’m not sad or lonely. I actually have a girlfriend cause I’m not a pussy.” With that, she walked away, leaving Billy floundering for a scathing retort and coming up empty handed. He huffed and settled into his seat again to study, but suddenly he couldn’t focus on the guinea pigs. Sighing, he packed up and went to eat dinner.

Over the next two days, Billy tried to go about business as usual, but found himself staring off into space a lot more, Robin’s words echoing in his ears. Finally, Friday came about and Billy had to face the music. Or at least Harrington.

He got to the hall 30 minutes early, in order to sort his papers and double check all of his notecards were in the right order. Apparently, Harrington had the same idea, because he was already seated in the second row, head bent in concentration as he fussed over a stack of papers. 

Billy walked down the aisle, hands in his pockets. When he reached the row where Harrington sat, he cleared his throat. When Harrington’s head shot up in surprise, Billy was taken aback for a moment by the positions they found themselves in, reversed from that first day. 

Billy’s eyes flicked downwards before he shuffled through the seats and flopped down into the seat next to Harrington. 

“I uh, I got my papers. Gimme a sec, and we can put them all together.” His voice came out rougher than he intended, quiet so as to not break the hush an empty lecture hall seemed to require. 

“Okay.” Harrington’s voice was equally as soft. Billy began rifling through his bag to pull out the folder containing his portion of the project, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see Harrington squirm nervously, bouncing his leg and chewing at his thumbnail. Robin’s words came back to him, “he’ll be practically useless.” 

Billy pulled out the folder and sighed as he turned to Harrington. Here goes nothing. 

“How was your date yesterday?” he asked, wincing a little at his choice of conversation starter.

“I told you, it wasn’t a date,” Harrington snapped, continuing to bounce his leg rapidly. 

“Fine, fine. How was your commitment?”

“Fine,” Harrington said, clipped. They lapsed into another bout of tense silence.

A few minutes passed before Steve finally broke.

“What did you think I was going to say to you?” he asked, but he resolutely didn’t look at Billy. He chose instead to focus on his hands as he picked at his cuticles.

“Oh, okay. I guess.” He paused to clear his throat. “I guess you were looking for me to say it was an accident, a drunk mistake or whatever. Didn’t need to get rejected in person when I knew it was coming anyway.” 

Suddenly, Harrington burst out laughing. It wasn’t very long, but just enough to piss off Billy.

“What’s so funny Harrington?”

“You thought I was going to reject you?”

“Yeah. Brush it off as a drunken mishap and go back to fucking ice princess or whoever.”

“Oh my god, Billy.” His first name rang in his ears. It was the first time he could remember Harrin-Steve calling him by it. “If you think I don’t feel anything for you, then you’re more stupid than I thought.” Steve’s voice carried the boisterous laugh until it began to dwindle into quiet timidness as Billy just sat there, blinking, before shooting up. 

“See you’re already insult- wait, what?” He faltered, and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“I said, if you think I don’t feel anything for you, if you think I regret it or brushed off what happened as some drunk mistake, you’re more stupid than I thought.” Steve said, the last part holding a light teasing tone.

“You... but… you’re…” He trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“I’m not what? Not gay?” He paused before reaching out to gently offer his hand. “I’m not. I’m bisexual? I think? Robin’s better with the terms or what not, but um, basically I like both?” 

Billy sat down heavily before hesitantly grasping Steve’s outreached hand. 

“I guess that makes sense, but you really like me?”

“Yeah. I mean, you are an asshole, but I also saw how you were with Max and El, and even Will sometimes. You have a soft side, er. Well, softer.” Billy cracked a smile.

“I like you too Pretty Boy. Have since that one Halloween.”

“God, we’re dumbasses, huh?” Steve moaned. “Robin's going to hold this over me forever.” 

“I think she’s just going to be happy we’re not ‘mutually pining dinguses’ anymore.” Steve snorted, before looking up and squinting at Billy.

“Wait. Did she talk to you?”

“Yeah, she cornered me in the library Wednesday. You know, she kind of reminds me of a pitbull, all protective of you.”

“Yeah. I’m still gonna chew her ass. I told her specifically not to talk to you!” Before Steve could go into a full on tirade against his best friend, other classmates began to trickle in. Steve and Billy dropped hands and faced forward, prepping for their presentation again. However, just before the professor officially began class, Billy leaned over and whispered in Steve’s ear.

“You know anywhere we can talk after class? Privately.” He emphasized the last word, blowing a little puff of air, and watching Steve shiver.

“Yeah, yeah. I, uh, I have an apartment,” he stuttered.

“Perfect.” 

-

Hope y’all liked it! As always, my askbox is always open to prompts, it might just take a minute to get them out.

[thebiasrekkers]

Shouldn’t Be -KNJ [Part 3]

For the @btswriterscorner​ - Amor Fabula Launch Project in celebration of the month of Valentine’s Day!

Plot: Kim Namjoon is a Doctor whose most challenging client ends up teaching him about how love could heal.

Rating: PG-13 // SFW

Genre: dystopian!au/dystopian themes | angst | romance/fluff

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Female OC (Madeline) ft Kim Seokjin

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of conversion, violence

Links: FAQ || BTS Masterlist || Admin L’s AO3 || [ REQUESTS ARE OPEN ]

Word Count: 1,698

AN: This certainly was a challenge to build a world like this. It was a bit different than what I like to write (supernatural and fantasy) but I feel satisfied with it. I hope you guys like it as well! Comments, reviews and all around messages are always welcome!

© thebiasrekkers (Admin L). All rights reserved. Reposting/modifying our work is prohibited. Translations are not allowed. Plagiarism/stealing is not tolerated by any means. Legal action will be taken in instances of theft.

Two months had passed and Madeline had been healing quite nicely. Namjoon’s careful manner had ensured that she healed within the maximum limits of her body. However, he had gotten to know her a lot better since she was staying with him. The authorities had come by several times during that time to ask him what had happened that night but it was a strange thing that nobody was missing her. He didn’t want to pry into her life but after that amount of time, it was starting to become apparent that there would be nobody else looking for her. 

So that meant that she wasn’t of their Caste. 

He’d come to that conclusion about 3 weeks into her stay with him because with the higher castes or even the ones with him in it--they would be looking for people if they had gone missing. With that relevant information, he decided to go ahead and run her genes and her blood type since he would have access to all that information. The results of that had his heart nearly falling out of his chest because everyone was required to submit their genetic data and all health issues to the System. He had stashed the paper with the results in his room, safeguarding it as best as he could. 

Because she was a Rebel. 

However, the longer she stayed--he found out that there was more to her than the Rebellion. Namjoon found that he could talk to her much easier than his wife of 8 months. He could gaze at Madeline and not feel the chasm between the both of them. They sat outside and marveled at the way that everyone was able to rebuild with what they had. She even expressed her sorrow about how violent some of the Rebel’s were. They talked in great detail about the emotions that he’d been missing out on like the sorrow she had felt about that latter topic. 

The subjects that would come up between them were deep and profound like he had been sitting with someone from long ago near a river. He could almost imagine the scene including the cold air on his face as the stream trickled by them. 

Felicity noticed the difference in her husband almost immediately and constantly pestered him to come over. Namjoon could tell that she was a good person but she was misguided by her upbringing. His wife constantly complained to him that she needed to move in with him or for the opposite to happen. Even bringing up the fact that it had been long enough for them to conceive a child, heading to his place of work to file for paperwork herself. He had that stopped right away when he found out, finally bringing her to reality for the moment. Since then, his wife had been quiet and demure in the times that he was actually able to meet with her. 

But with the days with Madeline there, he felt no such pressure to exist. Namjoon was free to relax around her, to question things and ask her more about things he had been wondering about. She even acquired an old movie tape for them to watch together, Old Yeller. He’d never felt such joy when watching the thing, even had a few tears escape his eyes. To feel such things, it moved him and gave him a brightness that he’d been missing since being born. He found that looking at Madeline then brought him a bit of what they called happiness in his dull life. The colors in the world were finally starting to make sense, actually becoming colors that were vibrant and meant something other than the words that he learned. 

Felicity, however, had finally seen what was going on in her husband’s life. Even from speaking to his colleagues, it wasn’t hard to figure out that she needed to enter his house. That was where she found the paper with Madeline’s information and all of his notes concerning her health. That was when his wife picked up the phone to call the Authorities to report the woman that dared to invade into their lives. 

They were able to track where her husband had gone that day but he wasn’t alone. Madeline had insisted on seeing the sea, finally able to get out and enjoy the weather. They had no idea of what was coming for them, only the scream that Madeline emitted when they were charged at from the back. A group of heavily armed men came rushing towards them and separated the both of them, Namjoon confused as to what was going on while Madeline was fighting them to the best of her ability. 

“So… that’s how it happened, Mr. Kim?”

The therapist looked over at him, his glasses sliding down his nose just a bit. Some would say that his face was perfectly symmetrical, baffling the others on his looks. His dark hair and just as dark eyes seemed to stand out in the white of the office that Namjoon was now in. The therapist noted that the man looked even more haggard since he was brought in, a combination of life stress and the unfortunate situation that he was now placed in. 

He noted that his work record and his achievements were beyond explementary, even taking a scientific approach to life itself. Now, from what he’d seen of the man--this was something strange for him to go through. Even his wife proclaimed that he had been acting strange since the Rebel arrived, even going as far as suggesting that she did some sort of mind altering drug on him. Toxicology reports came back to disprove that, much to her chagrin. However, that still didn’t show why he all of a sudden decided to help the Rebel. 

When Namjoon nodded his head, unwilling to speak to him--Seokjin jotted that down in his notes. There was no room to feel pity for the man as he should have known what would happen should he help her. The man before him had given up on everything, he could see it so there was really a couple of things he could do from there on out. 

“You do realize that we have submitted Madeline into our Converted Therapy?” Namjoon’s head shot up, eyes finally at full attention. His face dropped even more than what he thought it could when he heard the news. Seokjin, however, kept his neutral face and adjusted his glasses once he saw the reaction that came from him. Every little bit that he noticed, he jotted down and from what all that he’d seen--he might suggest the same thing for the good Doctor as well. 

“According to the doctrine we have to apply, Madeline will not remember much of you. We will start purging her emotions and other facets of her personality that she had developed according to the law. You know this, Namjoon….” He leaned out of his chair to get a better look at the man, “So why are you so upset at this news?”

Namjoon rested his head in his hands, something sorrowful coming over his body. He recognized the feeling when he watched Old Yeller with Madeline, the feeling like someone had reached inside of him and pulled something out. He now fully understood the depth of grief that was portrayed in the movie, the sense of hopelessness that he had once he knew that she would be gone...forever. Knowing that, it sent him into a fit of rage--a fit that finally burst through the dam that was taught to him since a young age. The unfair treatment that Madeline had talked about, it was all beginning to make sense to him. 

“BECAUSE I LOVE HER! IS THAT SO WRONG?!” He slammed his hand down on the table before lifting it up, sending it crashing to the side. “She was the first person to truly talk to me, speak to me in a way that didn’t need words sometimes. She understood my work and why it needed to have been done--didn’t p-push or anything, just let me be me…”

A sob came from his body, leaving his last few words broken and struggling to escape. He crouched down, crumpled from his outburst. Seokjin’s eyes were wide as he avoided the trouble but then knelt down with him, patting him on the back. He may not have understood what was going on but by all accounts, this man was having a mental breakdown and would have to be dealt with accordingly. 

“I-I want to be put through the same therapy.”

Seokjin’s eyes couldn’t have gotten any wider at his statement. The treatment wasn’t for the faint of heart, only needed for the cases of Rebels and some of the Converted when they slip off the train after the first time. He had to know why he wanted to go through it with her. He licked his lips and got just a bit closer to him, the faint keening sound that he just realized he could hear--coming from Namjoon in his grief. 

“Why, Namjoon?”

He looked up at him and the determination almost left him open mouthed. The man had decided on what he was going to do and there was no talking him out of it. 

“Because I love her and there is no use of living with my memories if I can’t have her with me. And you all have taken her from me, so what use am I to anyone now? Sign the papers and let me go.”

Seokjin sighed and got up off the ground, crossing it to his desk. He pulled out the same paperwork that he signed off on for Madeline, scribbling his name and why he was suggesting the therapy for one--Kim Namjoon. Soon, the men came and collected his body from where it sat in sorrow. It never got any easier sending someone to the Compound but it had to be done, regardless of why they decided to take the unlawful road or not. It was just a shame that someone of his caliber had to go through something like that. 

Case closed. 

[mst3kproject]

510: The Painted Hills

 You don’t see a lot of movies where the top-billed star is a dog.  I’m going to venture that it’s probably a bad sign. When the dog actually deserves it, for being the best actor in the film… well, that’s even worse.

A grizzled old prospector (who has a name but I’m gonna call him Stinky Pete, both for the Toy Story reference and because he looks like he never bathes) has just struck gold.  He hurries into town to file a claim, and then he, his business partner Len, a boy named Tommy, and Shep the dog get to work mining.  There’s plenty of gold to be had, but you know how it goes – mo’ money, mo’ problems, and the problem here is Len.  The more gold they dig up, the more Len is paranoid somebody’s going to come and rob them.  Eventually, he doesn’t even trust Stinky Pete anymore, and pushes him over a cliff. Too bad for him, Shep the dog discovers the crime, and now she’s out for revenge!

Okay, first of all, this movie is set in the mountains of California (the Native Americans in it are, for the most part, local Miwok people speaking their own language!), but the Painted Hills are in Wheeler County, Oregon.  Apparently Desert Hot Springs, California, is sometimes called Painted Hill, but that’s in freaking Coachella Valley, an area that looks nothing like anywhere in this movie!  What gives?

Second of all… have you gotten the idea that I’ve saved the boring movies for last? Because that’s exactly what I’ve done. There were movies like Radar Secret Service and The Starfighters that were so gut-wringingly awful I just really wanted to get them over with, but then there were movies like Time Chasers and The Painted Hills that I just kept putting off and putting off because they were too dull for me to even write about the pain they put me through. It wasn’t a sharp, torturous, kidney-stone type pain like some of those worse films… it was just a low, dull, ache that refuses to go away.

Time Chasers is actually a pretty good comparison with The Painted Hills, in that both take an intrinsically compelling idea and make it as boring as they can.  In Time Chasers it was time travel and paradox – in The Painted Hills it’s a good man’s descent into madness.  I’m pretty sure Len is supposed to start out as a nice guy, a friend to Stinky Pete and with a fatherly affection for Tommy.  Then greed overtakes him, until he is driven to murder one and contemplate killing the other.  If this was the movie’s intention, though, it fails.  Len is surrounded by red flags from the beginning, and where we should see his growing paranoia, we’re instead watching a cheerful mining montage.

Stinky Pete originally heads into town to share his find with a friend named Frank, who was Tommy’s father.  He arrives to find that Frank has died, and part of his share in the mining claim has been bought up by Len.  This makes Len an interloper from the beginning, and when he first shows up dressed all in black, we immediately know he’s going to be the bad guy.  The arc would honestly be far more powerful if he were somebody Stinky Pete knew and trusted, rather than a relative stranger. What little we see of them working together is not nearly enough to establish that they have become close, and the red flags around Len make his betrayal an inevitability rather than a tragedy.

We see Stinky Pete, Len, and Tommy agree to start building a sluice with Len still a nice guy, and then there’s a montage, and the next time we see Len he’s got a beard and is plotting murder.  How much time we skipped I have no idea, but with it went all of Len’s development.  The Painted Hills is a short movie, but other than this one thing it’s very careful to establish things.  It sets up the fact that Bald Eagle is a skilled herbalist and that Tommy knows his grandchildren.  It sets up the pastor and how he knows to recognize Tommy’s horse.  Yet it can’t bother to give us even bits of the most significant character arc in the movie?

The other major disappointment in the story is that Tommy, who ought to be the human hero, is never vindicated.  He tells his story to the pastor, who doesn’t believe him.  When they find Shep later, Len is already dead and they still have no proof that he killed Stinky Pete or tried to poison Shep.  The fact that Len tried to shoot the dog may be a clue, but it’s not the same as discovering the hidden gold or the bottle of poison, or some other bit of material evidence.  For all we know, Tommy tried to tell the story to his mother only for the pastor to assure her that he made the whole thing up.

While I’m here… why does Len re-hide the gold?  Is he hiding it from Shep?  Yes, re-hiding it does cast doubt on Tommy’s story, but he had no way of knowing the pastor was coming.  Why is he so determined to kill the dog?  Does he think she’s going to tell on him?  His behaviour here, including running out into what we’re evidently supposed to believe is freezing cold without a coat on, is entirely irrational, and completely at odds with what he was doing a moment earlier, when he calmly told the pastor that Tommy was making up stories.

The most believable character moment Len has is when he thinks Tommy has died in his fall from the horse.  The shock of this brings him to his senses and he is visibly relieved to find Tommy still alive.  Thoughts of killing the boy vanish, and he takes him inside to come up with another plan. This is also the most captivating moment of the movie, both because it is so well-played and because Tommy is not nearly as annoying as a lot of little kids in old movies.  It also lends credibility and tension to the sequence that follows, in which Len tries to convince Tommy he’s jumped to conclusions.

Unfortunately, this bit stands out so sharply because the rest of the acting is dreadful. Everybody is flat and stagey, just standing around with their thumbs in their belts reciting their lines and trying not to look at the camera.  Bruce Cowling as Len tries to give a physical performance in a couple of spots, inching his way along a narrow ledge or trying to knock the gun out of his frozen hand, but it never works.  It’s always too pantomimey, and the sets are never convincing.  There’s no way we believe he’s in danger of falling and he’s obviously not actually cold.

The only good actor in the movie is, as I already mentioned, the dog.  She’s clearly very well-trained and it’s actually rather hard to watch when she’s supposed to be writhing in agony from the poison.  A big contributing factor is obviously that a dog has to show-not-tell, whereas the human characters do an awful lot of telling.  Kudos to her and to her trainers and handlers.

Besides Time Chasers, the other thing The Painted Hills rather strongly reminds me of is old made-for-tv Disney movies and nature documentaries… things like Lefty the Dingaling Lynx (which for some reason I was obsessed with at the age of six) and White Wilderness (the one with the lemmings – the lemming scene was actually staged in the city where I live).  Something about the technicolour, the lighting, the pretty but unconvincing matte paintings, and the recited line reads all adds up to warm fuzzy childhood memories.

As an adult I realize that these films contained appalling animal cruelty and a fair amount of dark content of their own, but it’s still weird to see the same aesthetic in a dark tale of murder and revenge.  Then again, The Lion King is also a dark tale of murder and revenge, so maybe I’ll get back on topic now.

The theme of this movie, as stated by the narrator over the opening credits, is a dog’s bond with her loving master, so strong that she even avenges his death. Dogs are known to do stuff like this, but the way it’s presented in The Painted Hills makes it look like Shep is less ‘loyal and loving’ and more ‘actually psychic’.  First there’s the way she starves herself while Stinky Pete has a fever and is unable to eat. I could believe her refusing to eat because she’s pining for her human, but the idea of some nonphysical link that specific seems a bit silly.  Same with Stinky Pete’s death – Shep isn’t actually there to see it, she just somehow knows that Len’s responsible.  When she refuses to eat the poisoned food until Len tosses it to her from the table, I was honestly surprised this was not portrayed as her somehow knowing it was poisoned!

The narrator’s speech also left me a bit surprised that Shep actually survives the movie and goes off to live happily ever after with Tommy, especially after the rather shocking shot where we actually see her blood staining the snow from a bullet wound!  The movie had seemed to be leading up to her being able to die at peace having avenged her master’s death and ready to join him in the hereafter.  I’m honestly not sure how I feel about them not going that route.  I mean, nobody likes it when a dog dies in a movie, but having her be fine at the end feels like they chickened out.  I dunno.

‘I dunno’ is really my whole response to this movie.  There’s not enough substance here to be worth the level of thought I have to put into a review.  The fact that it manages to make a revenge movie so colourless would be fairly impressive if I weren’t so bored.

Although I gotta admit… it’s not every day you get to see Lassie just straight-up kill a dude.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG158 TT_____TT

- Saying the most obvious and unspecific first: this was a very packed, very dense episode which managed to cram so much in just 20 minutes? I’ve relistened to it many times, and I still feel like I’m coming out of it breathless and reeling every time. So many things happening, about the past, about the present, about possible future implications? So many things finally exploding in our faces after having been introduced and/or kept as hanging threats since the beginning of the season, or earlier (Leitner had warned Jon that he had only trapped the Not!Them, not killed it), or later: Peter’s plans, Martin’s perception of the events, Elias’s agenda, what the tunnels had been hiding all along, Julia&Trevor attacking after their previous retreat, Daisy and the call of The Hunt, Jon’s worry for Martin…

The climax of each season had also been the occasion to take a look at who had been lost and how they had impacted characters: in season 1, Jon was explaining that he still wanted to know what had happened to Gertrude (MAG039: “And to top it all, I still don’t know what happened to Gertrude. Officially she’s still missing, but Elias is no help and the police were pretty clear that the wait to call her dead is just a formality. If I die, wormfood or… something else, whatever, I’m going to make damn sure the same doesn’t happen to me.”). In season 2, Jon was realising that Sasha had been dead all along, and given a probable culprit for Gertrude’s murder through Leitner’s mouth (MAG080: “And Sasha… The real one?” “Was that her name? I’m afraid she’s gone. Whatever it does to those it takes, they don’t come back. She’s dead. … Do you need a moment?” / “I believe it was Elias.” “What? Why?” “I assume he discovered we were planning to destroy the Archives.”). In season 3, Gertrude and Leitner(‘s bodies) came back to literally haunt Jon, puppetted by Stranger creatures during The Unknowing, after Nikola had toyed with Jon about Sasha:

(MAG119) 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… […] GERTRUDE: This is your fault. ARCHIVIST: It is not! It’s not, I didn’t know, it’s not my fault you died! LEITNER: No, I suppose not. Me, on the other hand…

MAG158 opened hostilities right away: Peter mentioned Tim (and got immediately shut down by Martin), was using a Leitner book covered in the man’s blood, and then proceeded to free the Not!Them, who was still using its voice from the Not!Sasha time (so maybe a bit of that physical appearance, too?), while Jon, Basira and Daisy got to listen to what appeared to be a recording of Elias and Gertrude’s last interaction and the latter’s murder:

(MAG158) PETER: [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter. […] PETER: Not to mention, if they do change, well – I happen to have something that will change them back. MARTIN: … That’s a Leitner. PETER: It is! MARTIN: And the, em… the blood on it? PETER: That’s Leitner too! MARTIN: … Riiight…

[…] MARTIN: Pe–Peter? Peter, there’s a– … Peter, I think there’s something in there… PETER: Mm-mm. I’d stay quiet if I were you. [SOUND OF STONE AND BRICK SHIFTING, LOUDER] 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]

[…] ARCHIVIST: Do you remember what happened to Sasha? BASIRA: That’s the thing that took her? ARCHIVIST: It was trapped in the tunnels, it– Martin. Something’s happening down there.

[…] GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more… [GUN BEING PUT AWAY] ELIAS: [SIGH] Pity.

From the start, the episode was a concentration of the people who have been lost, while on the verge of losing more (Daisy losing herself to The Hunt; Martin being wooshed into The Lonely; Jon on the verge of “drowning” while pursuing Martin). This time, it was even more destabilising that we covered events from before the beginning of the series, even though they had been open questions and recurring subjects: Elias/Jonah’s relation to the Institute, the fact that the Archival staff was bound to him/it, Gertrude’s death.

And it happened when everything was going to hell at the same time: there was such a wonderful contrast between Martin and Peter (and Elias’s)’s scenes, which were slow, gave place to words (words and steps echoing over the constant wind-like constant whispers (?) of the Panopticon), and the utter chaos reigning in the Archives, the gunshots and the screams and the mess provoked in Julia, Trevor, the Not!Them and then Daisy’s wakes…

(If I have to pinpoint moments I’m holding a bit dearer than the others, outside of Elias’s laughter (I mean, yeah, that sure happened? I might have relistened to the isolated track a few dozens of time and I still can’t believe it happened), it would be Daisy’s “Promise me.” and Martin’s “Funny. Looks like I was right the first time – it’s probably still a good way to get killed.” because both broke my heart for various reasons. I’ve always been ridiculously weak to the deep background sound that we heard during Martin’s tirade (I mostly associate it to MAG081) – it always gives an atmosphere of solemnity, of gravity, and it just matched perfectly the way Martin was explaining himself, telling his own story. … Almost giving his own statement, or testament.)

OKAY, NOW, THE MEAT OF THINGS. I know, the length of this post doesn’t give it away, but… I’ll go quicker and less rambly than usual, there was simply too much and I only got a week (minus one day bc delay) *cries* (this episode was excellent, okay).

- Gertrude’s murder! Fucking finally:

(MAG043) ARCHIVIST: Part of me worries about what I might find on these tapes, but a… bigger part of me worries that I will find nothing. This uncertainty is wearing on me. And I don’t know how much more I can take.

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: […] No luck with any of my other leads yet. At least I have another of Gertrude’s tapes. It’s always going to be a shot in the dark with them, but… hopefully an informative one. I know the secret to her death is on one of them, it must be. I just… I hope I don’t have to hear it first-hand.

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: Gertrude’s laptop has been rather… interesting. Unfortunately, nothing along the lines of “my_murderer.avi”, and she didn’t keep any sort of diary from what I can see.

Well, “my_murderer.wav” heard first-hand counts, right?

* In the same episode, Jon had noticed previous orders made on her computer; Leitner had told Jon that she was planning to destroy the Archives and Elias had mentioned “arson”, so yep! She had indeed tried to get rid of the problem that way:

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.

(MAG080) ELIAS: What did you want from him? LEITNER: The files. The ones you took from Gertrude. ELIAS: Planning a little light arson, are we Jurgen? LEITNER: It’s not just the Institute and you know it. They had everything she had found on the Stranger.

(MAG158) [GURGLING LIQUID] [DOOR OPENS] ELIAS: Gertrude. GERTRUDE: [SIGH] … Damn… ELIAS: Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. […] Shame, really; I used to be able to torch a building in half the time. [SIGH] Age catches us all. […] ELIAS: What exactly were you hoping to achieve here? Why not come at me directly instead of burning everything first? GERTRUDE: I was rather hoping the fire would occupy you while I did just that.

It sounded obvious, especially given how Elias had behaved when Martin had begun to burn statements, but it hadn’t been definitely confirmed until now. Once again, was Gertrude’s fondness for fire and explosions (the old Archives in Alexandria, The Last Feast, the plan for The Unknowing) influenced by her being bound to Agnes from The Desolation…? She seemed to favour these options a lot.

* HHHHHHHHHHHH So, the trick Gertrude had pulled was: Elias was supposed to be distracted because keeping an eye on a ritual attempt (to make sure The Dark ritual derailed okay), then grabbing his attention by setting fire to the Archives, while her real plan lay elsewhere (going down in the tunnels to reach his body and kill it).

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it? ELIAS: [SIGH] But I think we’ve both come to the same conclusion about that. That’s why you’re here. […] So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together.

That’s… that was the exact same plan Martin carried out: knowing that Elias would be keeping an Eye on The Unknowing, grabbing his attention by burning statements in the Archives, while the real plan was elsewhere (Melanie stealing evidence to convict him). I’m not sure if, back then, Elias had felt like déjà-vu and planned accordingly, only pretending to get fooled (we now have confirmation that he could have left prison anytime anyway), or if he fell for it twice… well. He hadn’t fallen for it with Gertrude, but knew that The Dark wouldn’t be a real threat (while The Unknowing still was… presumably).

(… But it’s also what Elias had been doing all through season 4 with Martin, The Extinction and Jon: partially keeping Martin occupied with The Extinction, distracting him with the fact that Peter & Elias had something on the line… while the actual plan was most likely to get something out of Jon through Martin.)

* I’m so so so fond of the way Gertrude was putting emphasis on the name “Elias” as soon as he entered – she wasn’t hiding that she knew about him from the start:

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: [SIGH] Age catches us all. … Well. Almost all of us, Elias. ELIAS: You were the one so… insistent on staying human.

(And it took Jonah!Elias a while to catch on to that, when she mentioned his body. Did he know that she knew, and the only reveal was that she had understood that his old body was a weak spot?)

* Goooods, sound-wise the episode was a treat, but the nonverbal “answers” through sounds (which were directly putting pictures in mind), when Gertrude flicked her lighter and we could hear Elias cocking a gun in return?

(MAG158) ELIAS: … Quite. It… was a good plan, actually. If you hadn’t been so complacent about me keeping an eye out down here, probably would have worked. [HUFF] “Gertrude’s grand retirement”…! GERTRUDE: It still might. Just needs a little [OPENING A ZIPPO] spark, and… [COCKED GUN] GERTRUDE: I see. So you’re finally getting your hands dirty. I must really have caught you off-guard.

I love that no description was needed, just sounds perfectly carrying across what was happening, a gesture leading to another, each holding their own weapon through the verbal duel.

* WHY AM I GETTING FUEL (ha) TO SHIP GERTRUDE/ELIAS A BIT MORE, I mean, there is definite Aesthetic in the way… they had been around each other for a long while (almost a fourth of Jonah’s “life”/lives?):

(MAG158) ELIAS: So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together. [CHUCKLE] How… poetic. Doesn’t seem like your style at all. […] I suppose we both got a little complacent. Fifty years is a long time! [CHUCKLE] “End of an era”. GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more… [GUN BEING PUT AWAY] ELIAS: [SIGH] Pity.

So familiar and intimate in a way? And, uh, Elias was still regretting her death. So somehow, she would still have been a viable option for The Watcher’s Crown, or still usable as an Eye agent, if she hadn’t tried to burn the place down? Aouch. What does it take to not be a viable option…?

* The thing about Gertrude’s age echoed Eric’s comment about it:

(MAG154) GERTRUDE: Well, it’s… good to see you, I suppose. ERIC: You too. … You got old. GERTRUDE: Better than being dead. ERIC: [HUFF] Fair enough. To be honest, I’m impressed, more than anything. Hard to get old in this business; you either die or you, er… “stay young”.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: [SIGH] Age catches us all. … Well. Almost all of us, Elias. ELIAS: You were the one so… insistent on staying human. GERTRUDE: And no doubt that makes my death a lot less complicated.

And if Jonah had indeed been body-hopping from Head of the Institute to Head of the Institute, he was stopping at middle-age: Jon had mentioned that James Wright had been director from 1973 to 1996, so around 23 years. And we have, in parallel, Jonah’s actual body… which keeps getting older apparently:

(MAG158) MARTIN: Curren–… [QUICK FOOTSTEPS] [SHARP BREATHING] … Who is that? PETER: Jonah Magnus! His… body, at least. Sitting here; watching; binding it all together; growing ever older.

(Also, confirmation that Jon’s comment in MAG001 about Gertrude having been Head Archivist for fifty years wasn’t an exaggeration, since Jonah!Elias said the same. … Meanwhile, Jon has been Archivist for only three years and… is already reaching that level of disaster. Either Elias was really lucky circumstances-wise or regarding Jon’s personality, either he reaaaally played his cards well, holy heck.)

* That friggin’ scene:

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia, Elias. You might have noticed I’m rather busy, so either shoot me or– [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP]

To quote Melanie in MAG147: “… Famous last words.”

But also: brfehdjngfd I’m so upset about TIM, because this? This???

(MAG104) TIM: Okay – well, let me tell you what. If you want me to ignore everything that’s going on, forget my brother, and everything that’s happened over the last two years… how about you kill me? ELIAS: … I don’t want it to come to that. TIM: Well, me either. But here we are! So my proposal for you is this: either kill me, or fuck off. ELIAS: … I’ll come back– TIM: [EXPLOSIVE SIGH] ELIAS: –when you’re feeling more… reasonable.

Tim dodged a LITERAL BULLET, and what might have been Elias’s thoughts in MAG104? When the scene happened in the Archives (not sure whether it was in the same office but I’m pretty sure it was the same sound effect for the door), when Tim used the same reasoning, and when Elias just left, this time? (Did he spare Tim because Tim wasn’t an actual threat back then, more bark than bite, or because he still had use for him, or both…? I’ve always wondered if Elias hadn’t been a bit fond of Tim, in a cat-playing-with-a-mouse way, because of the way he technically gave him advice on how to handle The Eye’s binding in MAG090 and acknowledged that the Institute could be a lot for the people working there… It was definitely keeping Tim in check, sure, but Tim was just sulking in his corner and back from his fleeing attempt, it wasn’t necessary to make him feel less bad…?)

* fdsjcxnerfds I’m half mad half??? Hysterical??? That every season is still ending on a big “what truly happened to Gertrude” note because THE TAPE WE HEARD RAISED MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERED:

-> There is the question of Gertrude’s fears. In MAG157, Adelard raised a good question about whether Gertrude was as stone-cold as we thought or was just very good at dissimulating… and she still didn’t sound that scared when Elias shot her? But Oliver had described her as looking absolutely terrorised:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “I could see none of the figure’s body beneath the flesh that enclosed them, but as I moved around I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.”

(MAG158) [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING] GERTRUDE: … Well… there it is… I thought it would hurt more…

She could have been dissimulating how truly afraid she was, but. Mmmm. She didn’t sound like she was afraid of Elias – just a bit annoyed at having been interrupted.

-> Their dialogue set that scene in March 2015, when The Dark was carrying out its ritual attempt.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it?

Elias had told Jon that blood had been found in Gertrude’s office on March 15th, 2015, and that the police had established that it was Gertrude’s blood, and that such a blood loss led them to conclude that she was dead (MAG040). But March 15th was one day after Oliver’s statement (MAG011), whose dreams put Gertrude’s Planned End around March 22nd; it doesn’t match the peak of The Dark’s ritual (with the eclipse over Ny-Ålesund having happened on March 20th) either. ………………… and it still doesn’t explain why we have a tape of Gertrude reading a statement on April 4th, 2015 (when she should be dead-dead). The other problem with MAG087 is that Jon, in his post-statement, also behaved as if Gertrude had died in March 2016; he said it was a recording from one year prior to her death, when she said the date was 2015 and was reading a statement from October 2014 (can’t read a statement from October 2014 if the actual recording date was in April 2014 and she had accidentally pronounced the recording date wrong, right?), and when Jon himself pointed out that according to the recording, Jude Perry, mentioned by Gertrude, was still living in London two years earlier (Jon was recording in March-April 2017: if Gertrude’s tape was from 2014, that would have been three years earlier). So, I would be more willing to think that Jon didn’t catch on to the fact that Gertrude was still kicking a few weeks after her official date of death rather than accept that there were three consecutive timeline mistakes in that episode. Gertrude had also mentioned in her post-statement (officially on April 4th) that:

(MAG087) GERTRUDE: […] I had assumed Orsinov and her ilk would have spent more time searching for their precious skin, maybe even acting against me directly, before they started alternate preparations. I had hoped I’d have a chance to recover. I can still barely stand.

… she had recently been injured. Could be about the taxidermy shop, when she took the gorilla skin, but we still don’t know for sure. Even if she had been protected from a fatal injury (plain old bulletproof vest covered with blood sacks? Supernatural protection?), that would still have been enough to be severely injured, especially at her age.

-> Elias and Gertrude didn’t say it outright but implied it clearly enough:

(MAG158) ELIAS: So you burn the place down, use it as cover to reach my body, and then we die together. [CHUCKLE] How… poetic. Doesn’t seem like your style at all. GERTRUDE: I wasn’t actually planning on dying. ELIAS: And how exactly were you planning on achieving that while you’re still bound to the… ha. Oh, I see. Very clever. [CHUCKLE] I thought Eric was the only one to figure that little morsel out.

The plan for Gertrude was to reach the Panopticon, gouge her eyes out, kill Jonah’s body for real to neutralise him, and escape the fallout. Which would have meant becoming blind and cutting her connection to The Eye before moving on to neutralising The Unknowing. In October 2014, so shortly before Gerry’s death, she was still speculating that she would need someone tied to The Eye to stop The Stranger (and she had told Gerry that she had a secret storage unit; so she already had the explosives in mind, it was requiring both):

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Doesn’t help with The Unknowing, though. [HEAVY SIGH] We still have Dekker’s back-up plan, of course, but… it’s very risky. To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on. Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough.

… if she had cut her own connection to The Eye, she wouldn’t have been a viable sacrifice either. So why try to neutralise Elias before The Unknowing, while sacrificing her chances at stopping the latter?

-> Biggest problem:

(MAG040) ARCHIVIST: Martin… How did Gertrude Robinson die? MARTIN: … I don’t know. Not for sure; it was so dark, and I only saw the body for a few seconds. The police were quite clear that the cause of death could be absolutely any– ARCHIVIST: Martin, how did she die? MARTIN: She was shot! Three times, that I could see. … Three shots to the chest.

(MAG158) [ONE GUNSHOT] GERTRUDE: [GASP] [BODY COLLAPSING]

Three holes vs. one gunshot. I mean, sure, I can picture Elias placing her down in the tunnels and putting two more bullets in her body “just in case” (or noticing she wasn’t dead already and correcting that. Or a few spiders making a nest in her body. Or Michael stabbing her a few times). But as long as Elias doesn’t confirm, I…………. think it might be very likely that she didn’t die in the tape we heard, but that she bluffed and went off the grid at this point, and that something else caught her later?

It’s absolutely possible that no, actually, she did die there, and some things will click in place (and/or that I’m reading things wrong) but. What would have been enough to make her so afraid, as Oliver had described…? (………… something related to The Extinction, that she had downplayed so much? Something related to Adelard, who had officially died some time before?) (And there are still some dates problems aaaaarg.)

(- We heard Gertrude’s (as of now) official demise from the past, with a tape recorder apparently clicking on on its own… So I wonder: would it be possible to hear even more sneaky tapes from the past? Jon’s hiring around 2012, or his appointment as Head Archivist? Martin’s hiring (in 2009 or earlier), or how he came to work for The Archives (we still don’t know whether Elias put him there, whether Martin volunteered, or if somehow, Martin had asked to come down with Jon)? Gertrude has also mentioned the chat she had with Elias right after he body-hopped into this body (so 1996 or before)…)

- There is still a Story behind The Dark’s ritual attempt, too!

(MAG143) MANUELA: And then… it stopped. It just… stopped. All at once, that loving embrace was stripped from us, and it began to retreat, to recede back into the place that it had come from. We were so close…! … We were so close… I heard Maxwell cry out, scrambling desperately into the Dark Sun, stopping just short of touching it. But it was too late. Whatever it was that you and your Archivist did, it clearly worked.

(MAG158) GERTRUDE: I’d rather hoped you’d still be hampered with all The Dark’s business. [DOOR CLOSES] It’s their… “Grand Eclipse” at the moment, isn’t it? ELIAS: [SIGH] But I think we’ve both come to the same conclusion about that. That’s why you’re here. GERTRUDE: Yes.

Elias and Gertrude had understood why it wouldn’t work, and I wonder if it has to do with Manuela’s statement from July 2014 (MAG135), since it was a direct challenge to the both of them? I still don’t have a clue about why it failed, but I’m assuming that it’s been right under our nose all along…

(The only thing I’ve managed to notice is that it was right around the time that Evan Lukas died; could be absolutely unrelated, but… but. It doesn’t feel like we know the full story about Evan either?)

(Also, confirmation that Elias was UTTERLY FULL OF SHIT ABOUT IT!! BASTARD KNEW!!!

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

To his credit: it doesn’t seem like Gertrude actively stopped that one, but rather that it failed on his own… so he indeed didn’t know about her potential plans (since they weren’t necessary in the end). And he did point out to Basira that the Aurora Borealis were ~lovely~ in the current season, so. The increase of people/supplies. Might. Have. Just Been. Because of the touristic season. Fucker.)

- It Is Always A Good Time to remember that Elias had once called Jon “dramatic”:

(MAG067) ELIAS: Oh, good lord, don’t be so dramatic, Jon! You know how hard it would be to replace you! ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t, actually. But… thank you. I suppose.

Mister “Making Sure My Entrance Is The Most Dramatic Entrance That Ever Entrance’d” and “Planning My Lines Ahead So I GO BACK TO TRYING TO SAY THEM, DON’T INTERRUPT ME, JON”…

(MAG158) MARTIN: [SHAKY INHALE] … Where are his eyes? ELIAS: Exactly– MARTIN: [GASP] ELIAS: –where they’ve always been, Martin. Watching over my Institute.

[…] ARCHIVIST: What is this place? ELIAS: Hm! A complicated question, and time is– ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] That’s the Panopticon… […] “But”? ELIAS: “But” for Martin? Time is very much of the essence.

… had called Jon dramatic.

Asshole had the line “time is (very much) of the essence” and desperately wanted to place it, uh.

- I’m a bit sad over the Jonah Reveal, because the idea that our “Elias” was actually truly an old lazy student and pothead turned absolute fanatical zealot (and/or the idea that other avatars kept assuming he was actually Jonah Magnus when he wasn’t) cracked me up so much! Would sure have been a different story than Your Antagonist Is Actually An Old Victorian Asshole Who Didn’t Want To Die, but it makes a lot of sense and we’ve had so, so many little things pointing out in that direction:

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996, taking over from James Wright, who ran the place from ‘73 until he passed away. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. Perhaps he was simply that impressive. Certainly, the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well. Theoretical knowledge, at least. And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

(MAG092) ELIAS: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett: he retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came. Bones that you can still find in my office, if you know where to look. No, it was because he was curious. Because he had to know, to watch and see it all. That’s what this place is, Jon, never forget it. You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard. This, at least, Gertrude understood.

(MAG096) DAISY: El–Elias didn’t say. ARCHIVIST: No, he doesn’t, uh… He’s not big on micromanagement. SARAH: It’s Elias now, then? ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] What? DAISY: Get on with it.

(MAG101) NIKOLA: Is it… your Elias who listens? Helloooooo! […] So, Elias, can I call you Elias?, let me set the scene, as I know you can’t actually see this. […] You know Elias, can I call you Elias?, you have not raised this one very well! […] Oh, no, I’m afraid he can’t See, can you Elias?, can I call you Elias? – what’s the point of having a secret place of power if you can’t hide it from a big stupid eye?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender.”

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery. Repent of your sins, Jonah. Seek forgiveness. I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul that keeps faith in the Resurrection.”

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: … I–I don’t know, I mean… We still don’t really know… what Elias actually is…? I thought… Maybe if he was more like me than we realised…

So at this point: it was a popular suspicion/theory amongst viewers, but amongst characters, too – at least, Basira wasn’t fazed and seemed to take it as confirmation of a suspicion more than anything:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: Uh– yes. And I’d wager that Elias’s body, uh… BASIRA: Gotta be Jonah Magnus, right? ARCHIVIST: I’d say so. BASIRA: [SIGH] And he’s been body-hopping like whatever was in Rayner.

And Martin was surprised by Elias suddenly being there (who wouldn’t be?) but didn’t seem too surprised about the reveal in itself either. Same with Jon, who quickly accepted it – not as casually as Basira, and he seemed to have been shaken/startled by something, but still very smoothly.

I’m satisfied by the way it was done in this episode – Jonah’s body being discovered as Elias revealed himself and as the (last?) conversation between him and Gertrude played. And YES, his entrance and reveal was EXTREMELY DRAMATIC, but it was also so damn good and chilling. Plus, there was the surprise factor of the fact that he’s apparently body-hopping by plugging his ~eyes~ into his hosts? Which fits and is a very neat contrast to the way to escape the Institute’s binding, as Eric and Melanie demonstrated (making sure to destroy their own eyes).

- Still gonna call him “Elias” as long as we don’t know much about who Real OG Pothead Elias was, I’m not in denial over the fact it’s Jonah Magnus, right? But he was called Elias for so long that it stuck.

And I’m laughing a bit that in-series, it seems to be the same thing for Jon? He still called him “Elias”, and Gertrude and Peter did the same; only Martin corrected himself and went with “Jonah” like a good boy:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: But Elias put him in charge, that doesn’t make any–! […] ELIAS: Peter. PETER: Elias. […] MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it.

But nop, for Jon, still “Elias”. (Is it because part of him is in denial, or out of habit, or an attempt to still cling to some stability, or because calling him “Jonah” sounds too close to his own name?)

- I’m delighted because there are soooo many implications now:

* So, how much of a blast did Jonah have letting the letters addressed to him stay around in the Archives and be read by Jon (MAG023, MAG050, MAG127) and Martin (MAG098, MAG138)?

* When Elias finally entered the room in MAG118…

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh sorry! Sorry, I’m not keeping you from the show, am I? Well, well you head back, I’ll keep myself busy here. Albrecht von Closen is next, I think. It’s quite an old one! Should go up very quickly. ELIAS: [EXASPERATED BREATHING] … Did Jon put you up to this?

Martin was on the verge of burning Albrecht’s letter!! Given that Jonah wasn’t unrelated to what happened to Albrecht in the end, according to MAG127…

* It was before the Institute, but the Archives contained John Flamsteed’s letter (1715), revealing that Rayner was a body-hopper; and the Archives also contained Doctor Algernon Moss’s letter from 1864 about Rayner’s powers. That was three years before Smirke’s letter to Jonah, accusing and warning him about the danger of serving The Eye. Manuela had also pointed out that ~the Head of the Institute~ and Maxwell Rayner used to be friends (unless it was taunting from the start: “the friendship they once shared”) so… Jonah probably took a page from Rayner’s personal book, though giving it an Eye touch.

(… He also borrowed from Rayner’s book re: using someone’s love and desire to save someone they care for in order to make them do atrocious thing, as what happened with Robert Montauk and his wife, but more on that later.)

* It’s extra-funny that Nikola was all “Can I call you Elias?” since Grimaldi, who was proto-Nikola… was alive during Jonah’s actual lifetime. Jonah probably saw him onstage.

* Jonah was also alive when Ruskin’s book came out – the Fear version might have popped up before or after but still, it was from Jonah’s era, and worked in the tunnels, and was even used in this episode during Peter&Martin’s progression:

(MAG080) LEITNER: An unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even begin writing the book until 1846, and the text of this one varies markedly from the version that was distributed. It gives an acute sense of the walls pressing in around you, and if consumed recklessly will physically entomb the reader. Over the years I have found that it interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels.

* Avatars/monsters were all so cool and fair-play about it?? Manuela didn’t call him “Jonah” (she didn’t name him), Peter always called him “Elias”, Simon didn’t mention Elias or the Head of the Institute at all… How many of them knew, and were probably thinking it was the worst secret ever kept, but still had their fun using his new host’s name? They’ve been so sportsmanlike and nice to him.

* That line in the season 3 Q&A about how ~Elias was older than he sounded~ =D

* … MAG138, Robert Smirke’s letter, was probably a hint to Martin not only about the tunnels (as he was thinking) but about Jonah still being There. Smirke had specifically mentioned Jonah’s fear of dying as he was giving himself to The Eye. Peter was actually preparing Martin to the concept that Jonah hadn’t really died (and that Martin was supposed to kill him)…………………

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery.”

* The fact that Elias hadn’t been preoccupied by The Extinction’s emergence, while acknowledging that it might be happening… might be because he was around when The Flesh emerged? Gerry had pointed out that its “ascendance” happened during the Smirke era (MAG111: “I think it’s quite new. Only just beginning its, uh, ascendance when Smirke labelled it.”), and it indeed didn’t change the game much. Might be why Elias wasn’t that preoccupied by it, outside of the fact that he was aiming for his own ritual anyway?

* Now, think back to a lot of things that happened in the course of the series. When Mary Keay roasted Elias by describing him as “not big on action” (MAG062)? It was actually about Jonah Magnus.

This excellent dialogue?

(MAG079) TIM: […] There is something in this place, and it’s messing up our heads. It watches us all the time, it stops me quitting, I’m pretty sure it would stop Elias firing Jon even if he decided to actually try running this place for once. […] Er… Elias is probably still in his office. MARTIN: I thought you said he was a waste of a suit. TIM: Yeah, well he’s better than nothing!

… was actually about Jonah Magnus (mARTIN caLlED hIM A “wAStE oF A sUIt”…)

Jon (Master Of Redundancy) said that Jonah Magnus was a “cocky prick” in MAG096, and of “zero practical use” in MAG102.

Tim told Jonah Magnus to “fuck off” in MAG104.

Xiaoling implied that Jonah Magnus was too lazy to handle an Archivist whose mother-tongue wouldn’t be English, back in MAG105.

Peter said this

(MAG108) PETER: Oh. That doesn’t sound like the Elias I know. He killed people himself? […] Elias Bouchard, getting his hands dirty. Well-well. Must be the End Times.

about Jonah frigging Magnus.

A police officer punched Jonah Magnus in MAG120, and Basira beat him up during an extended sequence in MAG148.

I mean. It was already hilarious when about “Elias”, but replace everything with “Jonah Magnus” and or “an old Victorian body-hopper”, and suddenly, all of this becomes even more satisfying. (Especially Basira’s episode.)

- There are also a few more recent power-related things which also take on a new dimension with the Reveal:

* Martin had picked up on the fact that Elias had known about Prentiss in the tunnels for a while, which Elias didn’t deny… so it didn’t seem like the tunnels were an Absolute Blind Spot for him.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Not even close. Because… [HEAVY BREATHING] I… I’ve been thinking. It’s not like you’ve got this all-seeing thing recently. You’ve had it the whole time. I remember the way you looked at Sasha after the attack. You knew it wasn’t her. And I reckon you knew Prentiss was lurking under the Institute, too, and you did nothing. Why? [SILENCE] WHY?! [SLAMS TABLE] ELIAS: … Let’s just get this over with, shall we?

Or at least, he knew them well enough to be able to tell that Prentiss was there. (Not sure who drew Peter’s map for him: could be Helen, since he was mentioning her to Martin right before and Helen Richardson used to be good with maps; could have been Elias, since he was waiting in the Panopticon, so the tunnels weren’t as off-limit had Jon had previously assumed, and he perfectly knew the way – well, he had been alive when everything had been designed and built, so Makes sense.

What is still odd is: how come Martin was able to find Gertrude’s body down there, back in season 1…?)

* I hate him:

(MAG120) MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

“I only have two eyes after all” fuuuuuckkkkk oooooooooooooffff, oh my goooooods!!!

* erfysudhbjzreds THAT BIT!!! THAT BIT!!!

(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation. MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it… PETER: But? MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from. PETER: You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous.

Peter was actually suspecting that Elias was trying to interfere, back then?! Since he was suspecting Elias of trying to do just that in MAG158:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … If I… if I do kill you… will the others survive? PETER: Elias? [FOOTSTEPS] ELIAS: Come now, Peter. It’s a valid question. […] PETER: I see. … This is your doing, is it? ELIAS: [AUDIBLE GRIN] Hardly…! […] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it.

* ……………… Okay, so:

(MAG158) ELIAS: Ah, Jon. I was almost worried…! You found your way all right. ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] Yes. … Ye–yes, I did… How? ELIAS: Suffice it to say I called you.

Is something that Elias can apparently do. And there is one particular time that Jon had mentioned feeling “called” towards something.

(MAG127) BASIRA: And what was that you were doing yesterday? ARCHIVIST: … When…? BASIRA: You were sat on the floor for like four hours. ARCHIVIST: … Oh! Er, n–n–no, I was, er, I was… listening. Y’know, it’s, trying to see if any of the statements… called to me. BASIRA: And? ARCHIVIST: [FLAPPING PAPER] BASIRA: Brilliant.

… Was it actually Elias drawing him towards Jonathan Fanshawe’s statement? Towards the letter of someone who had decided to cut ties with Jonah after what he had done to Albrecht, about what The Eye could do to someone, about something that contributed to the Institute’s early days (the books stolen from the crypt)?

* Jon had wondered why he had been “chosen” back in MAG138… and if it’s really because Jonah fucking Magnus went “oh, he’s called Jonathan and he sounds a bit like Jonathan Fanshawe? Hahaha, wouldn’t it be fun”, I’m going to scream.

* ………… I have been wondering this entire season what was the thing pulling Jon towards this and that statement, and it’s something that Annabelle pointed out in MAG147, when she mentioned that there were various influences… but now, I’m getting even more worried over MAG150, a statement in which someone manages to get out from The Lonely because he was reached by someone he still loved. It sounded like such a weirdly optimistic story, compared to our usual statement? The statement-giver learned and managed to get his life more or less back together, and is working, and things are hard but he’s alright? … What if it really was a red herring, to give Jon the impression that it’s possible to pull the same trick and get out with Martin, when the circumstances are different…?

- What are the things making Elias so frighteningly efficient as an antagonist? I think we got an absolute demonstration in this episode, and it’s quite significant that this is the episode where he revealed himself as Jonah Magnus. Because, what did we know about Jonah? In respectively 1816, 1841 and 1864:

(MAG023, Albrecht von Closen) […] “I recall that during your visit last spring you mentioned your… fascination with the macabre and strange, and pressed upon me as to whether there were any such lore or legends that I myself were familiar with. Wolfgang writes me that you are acquiring quite the collection, and I feel that I now have something that belongs with it, far more than any of the fairy stories or old maids’ tales that I told you before. […] Still, I look forward to showing you the book I have acquired, and the revelations you will no doubt glean from it.”

(MAG050, Sampson Kempthorne) “Dear Jonah; it is my fondest wish that this message should find you in good health, as I have heard more than one mutual acquaintance remark on your current state of overwork. While I earnestly hope it is merely idle gossip, my knowledge of your character leads me to entreat that you allow yourself some respite, or at the very least take some further secretarial staff into your employ. Certain uncharitable quarters would have it that your life consists of little but rattling around in Edinburgh Townhouse, surrounded by piles of ghostly accounts and lunatic documentation. Piles, I am afraid to say, to which I am about to make an addition.”

(MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss) “I come to you not to wallow in my condition, or pour out my soul like a papist in the confessional, but to request your assistance. I believe that Maxwell Rayner has at his disposal some unholy power that he has used to curse me and cause my blindness. Or, more precisely, to cause me to blind myself, for I shall not deny I did so willingly. For obvious reasons my accusations have had me laughed out of most polite society. Not quite so polite when you’re accusing someone of witchcraft, it would seem. I now ask the assistance of your Institute in the hopes that you may be able to furnish some evidence or legal precedent that may assist me in taking action against my assailant, though I will admit my expectations for the latter are limited. Maxwell Rayner is an oddity. […] So, there is my story. I’m sure you’ll agree that Maxwell Rayner is the clear architect of my misfortune. Now, how do you suppose I revenge myself upon him?”

We got glimpses of his life through Jon and Martin reading the letters addressed to him, sent by friends and intimates who indulged his passion for tales of supernatural stories. Dr. Algernon Moss was requiring his “assistance”, and at that point, by the 1860s, the Institute seemed to already be operating as in the present day (it has a reputation, people come to share their stories, they sometimes require help, and will never get it), but there was fondness in Albrecht von Closen and Sampson Kempthorne’s letters – Adelard Dekkard pointed out that The Eye’s influence was present in his last message to Gertrude (MAG156), but it didn’t sound odd to Albrecht or Sampson to write their stories (statements) willingly, as gifts to a friend.

But we also know that Jonah Magnus actively or passively caused suffering to his own friends and acquaintances, and, in the case of Barnabas, Elias himself acknowledged that it wasn’t even due to a lack of sympathy (1824, 1831, 1867):

(MAG092, Barnabas Bennett) “You must help me. If anyone is still here, it is you. I know your work brings you into contact with all sorts of fantastical terrors, so perhaps you might have it within your power to save me from this place. […] And you must help me, Jonah. If anyone knows of what might break me from this dreadful place, it is you. I know that what is done by those I cannot see might be felt here – I have found glasses broken and pages torn that were not so the night before. It is my hope that if I leave a letter here, in your institute, you might find it, you might be able to save me. I have no other hope. Please, Jonah, if you have any compassion within your heart, you will not leave me in this place. Your loyal servant; Barnabas.” ELIAS: Jonah Magnus did leave him in that place, Jon. He got the letter, oh yes, and was on good terms with Mordechai Lukas. He could have interceded, perhaps even saved him, but he did not. And it was not out of malice, or because he lacked affection for Barnabas Bennett: he retrieved those bones sadly enough when the time came.

(MAG127, Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe) “Jonah; I must first and foremost decline your generous offer of a medical position servicing Millbank Penitentiary. While the terms you’ve laid out are no doubt more than adequate, I have, over these last months, come to the unfortunate conclusion that our intimacy and friendship must cease immediately. I do not know what interest you have in the poor condemned souls within those walls, nor do I care to guess. In the light of what I have so recently witnessed, I can no longer in good conscience associate with any of your endeavours. Nor will I continue to collect or provide all those accounts of the esoteric and otherworldly, that you and your… Institute so eagerly require. Consider this the severing of our acquaintance. This cannot come as a shock to you. Surely, you must have understood what you were asking when you employed me to visit with Albrecht, and apply my… meagre skills to the illness that beset him. You must have known the nature of that illness, even if only in the most general terms. And no doubt you had some intuition as to its cause. […] Because whatever it was that did this to him, I know in my heart that it is your fault. I’ve had the body burned. Please, do not write to me again.”

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “My dear Jonah; You will forgive me, I hope, for being so forward, but I feel I must break the silence that has characterised our acquaintance for these past decades. […] I am choosing to assume that these manifestations are unintentional, Jonah, and you have not… simply decided to implore a Dark Patron to end the life of an old man. I further find myself supposing that they may emanate from your own intrigues and preparations to culminate those plans which we agreed to abandon so many decades ago! […] The Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. My… humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon. It is likely too late for me, but I will not…”

I’m still not sure that Jon got the right handle of it when he took Jonathan Fanshawe’s statement as an indicator that Jonah Magnus had been evil-from-the-start, because it could also be mirroring his own downfall: falling unknowingly into The Eye’s embrace, then trying to shake out of it or to resist it, only to fall entirely later – wasn’t it what happened with Daisy and The Hunt? With Jon himself, though he’s not at the last point (yet…?), when he fed from the suffering of innocents before refraining himself, first because he was forced to (starting MAG148) and then because he was actively trying to not do what The Eye wanted him to (MAG154)? Robert Smirke mentioned that he and Jonah used to share plans before agreeing to abandon them, and that they weren’t answering to the calls of Beholding; either Jonah fooled him, either Jonah indeed fought off The Eye’s influence (after Albrecht’s death?) up until Robert Smirke’s last letter.

But, mostly, these letters told us that Jonah Magnus was far from being unappreciated. People valued him, cared for him, trusted him. And, given how Jonah made them suffer, we would want for that kind of feelings to be Jonah’s weak spot, something he wasn’t able to understand… but Elias knows about them, takes them into account as a potential motivator. At least with the current Archives team, he has constantly weaponised affection as a means of control – ensnaring both Daisy and Basira because of their feelings for each other, getting Jon to join in The Unknowing expedition because of his worry for Tim, partially banking on Martin’s feelings for Jon as a safeguard that Martin wouldn’t entirely fall into Peter’s grasp, luring Jon into the coffin (to experience The Buried and push his powers further) because Jon wanted to rescue Daisy, getting Martin cast into The Lonely because he knew that Jon would do everything to save Martin, even at the cost of himself:

(MAG092) ELIAS: Ah, of course. Er, sometimes I forget how new you all are to this. Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit. MELANIE: Wait, what? TIM: Yup, that sounds about right. ELIAS: And it would not be a pleasant death. DAISY: Bullshit! ELIAS: Then shoot me. Just squeeze the trigger, and watch the only person you care about die screaming. Your last connection to humanity. Do it. BASIRA: Daisy…

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: Tim isn’t going to sit home and wait, and Elias seems pretty insistent I go along.

(MAG135) ELIAS: His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.

(MAG138) MARTIN: Yeah. Well. I’m still not sure I really believe it. [EXHALE] A–and, I don’t… I–… I’m, h… ELIAS: Worried he might charge off into another coffin. [SILENCE] … Quite.

(MAG158) MARTIN: Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed. And then… [SHAKILY] Jon came back, and… and suddenly, I had a reason: I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control, so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away… so what? I’d already grieved for him, and if it meant now saving him, it was worth it! […] ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. ELIAS: No, Jon. You want you to follow him. I simply want you to know that if you do so, you are almost certainly not coming back. To go into The Lonely willingly is as good as death. ARCHIVIST: … How do I do it?

* So, Elias finally revealed that he wasn’t as trapped in prison as he had been pretending to be up until now:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: Gone how? DAISY: Just walked out, as far as we can tell. BASIRA: Couple of guards on duty vanished too. ARCHIVIST: “Vanished”? How? BASIRA: Just left. ARCHIVIST: [EXASPERATED SIGH] BASIRA: Best we can tell, he had some dirt on them. DAISY: Old friend at the prison let us know. ARCHIVIST: What, and no one thought of that? BASIRA: Asshole could have left at any time, but he just sat there laughing at us. ARCHIVIST: No, no, this, this can’t be a coincidence…

And indeed, why did he choose to leave now? Was it only because Peter himself had decided that Martin was ready? Is it because another threat is coming? Or had Peter and Elias agreed on a deadline from the start? Jon, back in MAG127, was suspecting that something could be coming with the Institute’s 200th anniversary, though he didn’t know the day the Institute had been founded. Was it actually September 25th or 26th…?

- Soooo, about the Panopticon’s purpose / what it might be capable of doing…

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I could not go easy to my grave without offering you one last plea for your restraint. What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls. […] And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed. […] I am not a fool; I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them! Not simply for the sake of your own soul, but for that of the world! I have always had the utmost respect for you as a man of dignity, and learning. Do not allow yourself to fall to this madness.”

(MAG158) MARTIN: What is this place? PETER: The Panopticon of Millbank prison. Not quite as Smirke originally conceived it, of course. Jonah Magnus made certain… adjustments. MARTIN: And it’s been down here the whole time? PETER: Why do you think this was chosen as the Institute’s location, when the prison closed? It’s a significant site of power for The Beholding. From the tower in the centre of this room, you can see everything. MARTIN: But there’s nothing in the cells…! PETER: [CHUCKLING] I don’t mean the cells, Martin – I mean everything.

* Smirke gave up, Jonah didn’t and/or went back on it. So. Oops. Given how The Eye has indeed been able to feed through the other Fears’ actions (through statements or an Archivist), bad. Badbadbad.

* Did it get fuelled by prisoners’ fears…? From something concrete and tangible, to something immaterial because their feelings powered/scarred the place so much?

* It was very faint, and I LOVED the sound effect present in the tower: something between the wind whistling and very low whispers? It made the place immediately threatening and gave the impression that yeah, there were many ghosts/dead bodies/sufferings caused around it…?

- I’m still rfedubrehjd over the fact that Peter and Elias’s first live interaction was firmly anticipated (Peter had mentioned he was there to see Elias in MAG100! It was the case again in MAG108! We knew, at least from Peter, that they weren’t strangers, although Elias didn’t acknowledge Peter’s existence in return until MAG138; but it has been so long between the moment we learned that they knew each other and their first ‘onscreen’ interaction!) AND YET… managed to be Even Better than I could have dreamed of. Elias was SUCH A SHIT:

(MAG158) ELIAS: I warned you, Peter~ […] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it. PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it. [CHUCKLE] He played you like a… like a cheap whistle. PETER: No! Shut up! ELIAS: Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. [SILENCE] PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open.

Compensating much for all of Peter’s little digs, uh. They’re so… divorced…………….

Peter had told Martin right away that Elias had chosen him as interim Director, Jon had been suspecting very early that Peter&Elias were scheming together, Basira’s plural in MAG151 was implying that she was thinking the same…

(MAG120) PETER: Oh! Right, of course! Well, you’ve successfully managed to remove Elias as the Head of the Magnus Institute. So… MARTIN: Oh. Oh, god, what does that do? PETER: Oh! No, no no no! No. Not in any, hum, metaphysical sense, no, he’s still very much the… how did he insist on phrasing it… Ah yes, the “beating heart of the Institute”. But, practically speaking, he can hardly fulfil his more mundane managerial duties from a jail cell. MARTIN: … so he knew this was going to happen? PETER: Not exactly. He… anticipated that you would likely find some way to remove him. So he made alternative arrangements. MARTIN: Which would be you. PETER: Exactly! To be honest with you, Martin, I didn’t expect to be taking over the place so soon, or in such a state of disarray. But, I’ll do my best to keep the place afloat.

(MAG122) BASIRA: No, nothing. Elias isn’t the problem. ARCHIVIST: Sor– what? BASIRA: Elias is locked up. ARCHIVIST: … Wait, Martin’s plan worked? BASIRA: Yeah. A bunch of Section’d officers took him in. He made some sort of deal, I think. But… he’s not getting out anytime soon. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. Wow. O… kay, er… Great, s–so… what’s the problem? BASIRA: He appointed an “interim” director. Guy named Peter Lukas. ARCHIVIST: … Oh.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: But honestly, it’s the internal threats I’m worried about. Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he [STATIC] and Elias have planned, and Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig.

(MAG151) BASIRA: [SIGH] … Okay. You want to do whatever “grand sacrifice” you think is going to save everyone, go ahead. But you’d best be sure you’re not just playing their game. MARTIN: I know what I’m doing. BASIRA: We’ll see. [PAUSE] Don’t make me regret this.

(MAG154) MARTIN: I just… Look, I need to see this thing through with Peter to the end. If–if what he’s saying is even half true, I need to be there. ARCHIVIST: But what if you don’t? I mean…! We could just leave. I mean, whatever… their plan is for me, I am damn sure that doing that isn’t it. I could derail everything– MARTIN: [NERVOUS CHUCKLING] ARCHIVIST: –We could derail everything, and then just… leave…! MARTIN: [DRY AND HOLLOW LAUGHTER] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHY] … What…?

… and turned out that it was a bet. Well. A gamble, for both? We had learned about that aspect of Peter in MAG066 (well, in an explicit form; what happened on the Tundra in MAG033 might have been of that nature too, without the statement-giver being aware of it because… she had won), and it had been mentioned as one of Peter’s ways to navigate (ha) social interactions:

(MAG134) MARTIN: So… so what, you’re afraid of the competition? PETER: Not at all. Honestly, that’s the sort of thing I normally relish; I’ve always been a little bit of a gambler, and the higher the stakes, the better. MARTIN: So… so this is, wh–what?

(MAG151) SIMON: He is what he is, Martin. For a creature of The Lonely, the urge is always to isolate; never to communicate or connect. I suspect that’s why he’s so keen on wagers: it allows him a framework for cooperation that doesn’t risk any sort of intimacy. […] I think… [INHALE] I think Peter is taking a rather large, but calculated gamble. Not just on you, but on a lot of things. If it works, he’ll be in a very strong position. And if he fails… it won’t be all that bad. MARTIN: You don’t think it will be the end of the world? SIMON: Oh! It very well might be, but… MARTIN: [EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] SIMON: Life has continued through dozens of apocalypses already. Ice ages; pandemics; calamities; extinctions… The only reason this one feels special is because, well… it’s happening to you. And that’s the sort of solipsism that tends to come with loneliness – in my experience.

BUT I’M STILL SO MAD THAT

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF] ELIAS: But no. This is too important for me to jeopardise with cheap “mindgames”. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice.

(MAG158) MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have– MARTIN: Elias– … Jonah had nothing to do with it. PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it.

FUCK OOOOOFF ELIAS OH MY GODS the thing about the “right choice” was really just about whether Martin would refuse to kill Jonah Magnus’s body, thus ensuring Elias’s winning the bet… and THAT was the thing “too important for me to jeopardise”, it had never been about The Extinction for Elias uh……………………

- I’m so proud of Martin for understanding that it was all mostly a “power play” between Elias and Peter, and TECHNICALLY? TECHNICALLY PETER HAD BEEN AN ABSOLUTE DUMBASS WHO HAD HIGHLIGHTED THAT THEY TENDED TO BE ~LIKE THAT~:

(MAG108) PETER: Ah, I see. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. It’s one of Elias’s little jokes. MARTIN: I don– What? PETER: Did he suggest you record a statement today? One that mentioned me? MARTIN: … yeah? Sssort of? I mean… not you specifically, but… PETER: I have a meeting with him today. He suggested… I’m sure he’s watching from his office, grinning from ear to ear. MARTIN: I… don’t… PETER: I almost thought he genuinely wanted me to meet the team! Oh well.

Peter And Elias Had Their Little Games, and Martin knew that from experience from the very first time he had met Peter.

… at the same time, Martin being “Martin out” might have been a genuine missed opportunity since… I’m glad that he didn’t go for murder even if he wanted to? And the fact that Elias was ready to risk Jonah’s original body probably meant that there was a huuuuge trick/something that could have backfired if Martin had knifed him? But Daisy had also pointed out that maybe they should have accepted to kill him at the risk of dying when they have had a chance:

(MAG142) MARTIN: I thought you believed him…! You were doing all of his dirty work. DAISY: Well, wasn’t willing to call his bluff. Not the same thing as “believing”. Just too big a risk. MARTIN: … Not for Melanie. DAISY: Well, maybe she was the only one with any sense. Even if he was telling the truth [EXHALE], if we all… died… There are worse things.

And I still really don’t want the bottom line to be that yes, they should have gone for murder? But at the same time, right now, indeed: we’re in “worse things” and heading towards ever worse things than death…

(- I’m still stuck a bit on “why Martin, when alone-wise, Tim was just there?”. Was it because amongst the assistants, Martin was the most willing to read statements before MAG108? Was it really because Martin was easily expendable, prone to fear a lot, and had a special flavour of Loneliness due to both his crush on Jon and his one-sided relationship with his mother?

…………… but given how Elias just knew that Jon would run after Martin, how getting Jon to rush into The Lonely seemed to have been his main goal, and with the recent mention that:

(MAG149) GEORGIE: You must be Martin. MARTIN: Y–yeah. Has… Melanie been talking about me? GEORGIE: Oh, hum… Jon used to go on about you a lot.

… Jon had been talking about Martin off-tape, and given how he had been flustered about “office gossip” in MAG117 and his very persistent longing in season 4… was it that Martin was chosen not exactly for himself, but because Elias had identified Martin as someone Jon would always try to save, as early as in mid-season 3…? When Jon was at Georgie’s and/or when Jon went to ~talk with Martin~ right after being back from his kidnapping in MAG102…?)

- I’m not exactly sure I understood the terms of Peter and Elias’s bet. I’m assuming that Simon was mostly right in his train of thoughts – that Peter succeeding/winning would be getting an occasion to strengthen The Lonely (killing Jonah / setting up Martin as a dual avatar instead of him, thus both ruining The Eye’s chance for its ritual during this round + getting his revenge on Gertrude for ruining Forsaken’s ritual, all the while consolidating The Lonely by stealing a place of power and mayyybe shortening the time span until their next chance at a ritual attempt)…? Or was Peter genuinely preoccupied by The Extinction, or both? At least, Martin refusing to kill Jonah’s body meant Peter “losing”, meant that he had to cast Martin into The Lonely (and surrender his attempt on the Panopticon?); Peter didn’t even have to stay around, he’s just… probably making things hard on himself. Because hum: we saw what happened last time Jon tried to use his power (peering through the door?) to see through The Lonely at the end of MAG139; it left him a mess:

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: … If I… Knew… what his plan was; if I knew what Peter was doing; if I just– [WHISPERING] … Can I…? [LOW RUMBLING SOUND, STATIC RISES] [CRIES OF PAIN] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION STEADILY RISING] [NOISE OF SOMETHING-OR-JON FALLING] [SQUEAL OF DISTORTION DECREASES] [MUMBLING] End… E–end recording…!

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Yesterday, I tried something I… [INHALE] I–I deliberately tried to… Know something, like I did in the coffin, but… there was a lot. Too much [SIGH], and I… BASIRA: What did you find out? ARCHIVIST: [SNORT] Nothing. There was “too much”. BASIRA: You don’t remember any of it? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] You drink the whole contents of a bar in three seconds, you don’t remember what the merlot tasted like. [SIGH] It just… hurt.

… and a predatory monster: it was around that time that he absolutely traumatised Jess Tyrell, and then cornered Floyd for his statement less than two weeks later (although there had “only” been three victims in the previous three months). Whatever state Jon will be in in/after The Lonely, it won’t be pretty… and it will fall either on Peter, either on Martin, either on whoever is in Jon’s way after he comes out of it. (……………. And there is all the Institute staff up there, who just got preyed upon by two Hunters, full of fears. Does The Eye’s “protection” extend to non-Archival staff…? Because I’m also really, really worried about the survivors, given current circumstances…)

Given how Elias laughed triumphantly right after Martin was sent into The Lonely, that was the main goal/hurdle to reach – but technically, Peter had done that For Free with Brian in MAG100, and Mordechai Lukas had also very spontaneously punished Barnabas that way. Was Elias’s laugh caused by his win against Peter, then, because he’s That Petty? Why such an elaborated scheme to get Peter to do that…? Is it because Elias tends to have way more fun than strictly necessary, or was Peter personally reluctant to send Martin in there…? Or was it necessary to make it happen in the middle of the Panopticon…?

- We don’t know (yet) whether or not Peter has been around for very long at this point (though he’s expecting to live long according to MAG134: “Martin… it’s going to be decades, if not centuries, before I get another chance to bring Forsaken into this world. Your last Archivist saw to that. […] The point is that, yes, obviously, if I last that long, I’m going to try again.”), but assuming that he’s had a human-like lifespan so far, how could you Do That to a baby, Jonah. I’m still screaming over Elias’s delight:

(MAG158) PETER: No! That’s not– You can’t– ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it. [CHUCKLE] He played you like a… like a cheap whistle. PETER: No! Shut up!

Because it was??? Such an awful jab: * Making fun of the boatswain’s call from the Tundra.

* Shakespeare ref I think???

GUILDENSTERN: But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill. HAMLET: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak? 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

(Pipe’s back.)

* nsfw call-out; rude thing to say about your (ex?)husband’s performance in bed, Elias; also that’s tmi.

- I’m gonna miss Peter if he gets obliterated like Breekon, but AOUCH, he began the episode SO HARSHLY:

(MAG158) MARTIN: … Mm. PETER: Is everything alright, Martin? MARTIN: Nah, it’s fine. … Don’t particularly like it down here. PETER: Ah, yes. Of course. Hard to trust the doors, I imagine. MARTIN: [BREATHLESS CHUCKLE] Yeah, well, everyone else seems to these days, so…! PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter. […] 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] [WEIRD SCUTTLING MOVEMENT] MARTIN: [RAGGED BREATHING] Th–th–tha–, that was, hum… PETER: Yes! MARTIN: [GULP] And it’s– it’s going to… PETER: Make sure everyone is too busy to follow us. They’ll be fine. … Probably.

Triple combo, right in Martin’s trauma. The one time he was trapped with Tim in Michael’s corridors at the end of season 2; gratuitous Tim mention that Martin didn’t want to hear; freeing the Not!Them, who had terrorised Tim&Martin even before they had learned that it had actually killed Sasha… aouch. Was Peter being shitty on purpose, to destabilise Martin, or was it really just little things that he said and did without thinking about how it could make Martin feel…? He had been very interested in Martin’s feelings recently:

(MAG156) MARTIN: Will I be coming back? PETER: You’re not going to die, if that’s what you’re asking, but… no. If all goes well, you won’t be. MARTIN: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] PETER: How does that make you feel? MARTIN: … Nothing. [SNORT] Nothing at all…! PETER: Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin.

So it could have been to test his apathy…? But aouch anyway.

- I loved his voice SO DAMN MUCH at that moment:

(MAG158) MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”. PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate.

Because. Yeah, it was summing him up well. Saying atrocious things with a cold cheerfulness, absolutely unconcerned.

(- I think it’s safer to assume that Peter was a sore loser there:

(MAG158) PETER: Then do it, Martin. [UNFOLDING POCKET KNIFE?] We’re the same, you and I; we don’t need anyone else. Watching from a distance, that’s always who you’ve been. Haven’t you enjoyed it, these last few months? Drifting through the Archives, unseen, unjudged? You’ll like it in there. I promise. MARTIN: … Yeah. Yeah, I think I would. […] PETER: But you do serve The Lonely. MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: … No. No! This isn’t fair, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You knew, he must have–

But I also kind of want to think that he had grown a bit fond of Martin and was genuine about wanting to share his patron / giving Martin a life that Martin would find some comfort in? >> Not good for Martin but. Somehow, it’s even sadder for Martin if Peter’s words really were just that empty, to ensure he would win a bet?)

- Hhhhh, we knew that the Not!Them was still… there, since Leitner had explained it to Jon:

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: That thing… Is it dead? LEITNER: Unlikely. Whether something like that can actually be destroyed… It is trapped. I, I hope for a very long time.

But I really wasn’t expecting to see it again!! Somehow, Elias had told the Team that Leitner had killed it (MAG092: “It finally tried to kill John. Then Leitner killed it. Then I killed Leitner. And I believe that brings us up to date. More or less.”), so was it a conscious lie, a slip of the tongue, or was it that Elias didn’t know that it was actually still kicking back then…?

* Leitner was suspecting that the Not!Them was actually trying to find him when it was wandering in the tunnels:

(MAG080) LEITNER: The “Not!Sasha” had come down several times. I suspect it was almost as curious about me as you were. Perhaps it thought you might have better luck flushing me out.

… but UHOH. Was it actually trying to find the Panopticon, already?

* I still miss Sasha, and I’m SAD, and Martin’s shattered breath and Jon stuttering to explain what it was broke me:

(MAG158) DAISY: What the hell is that thing? […] ARCHIVIST: Do you remember what happened to Sasha? BASIRA: That’s the thing that took her? ARCHIVIST: It was trapped in the tunnels, it– Martin. Something’s happening down there.

Because… Sasha… And of course, for both Daisy and Basira, it’s just a dangerous monster, it’s not a creature who also killed a friend; they weren’t around back then, they never knew Sasha. But for Jon&Martin, it’s… a reminder of what they’ve lost…

* Vindication: the Not!Them had mocked Jon about how he wouldn’t survive to witness The Unknowing, and AHAHA.

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: You’ll miss The Unknowing, of course, but you wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Guess who missed The Unknowing in the end. (Gertrude had mentioned that avatars tended to fade or go erratic after a ritual attempt, but given that the Not!Them hadn’t participated, will it be affected…? As we’ve seen, Jared was fine.)

* I don’t think that the Not!Them will be trapped again, unless it’s thrown into the coffin, and I don’t think that the Hunters would be enough to kill it… so either it’ll flee, taking a new victim, either Jon will destroy it like he did with the Dark Sun, maybe…?

- I’m… heartbroken about Julia:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: What… Daisy, are you–? BASIRA: Shh! [GUNSHOTS, MUFFLED BY THE DISTANCE] [FEMALE SCREAMS] ARCHIVIST: Oh no… BASIRA: Stay here, both of you. I’ll check it out. [MORE DISTANT GUNSHOTS] […] BASIRA: Looks like two people. An old guy– DAISY: And a woman with a scar. ARCHIVIST: Oh, God, now? Why now?! BASIRA: It’s probably not a coincidence. From what I saw, they’ve been toying with the rest of the Institute, but it won’t be long until they’re all dead or escaped. […] TREVOR: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooooooonny boy! [CACKLES] JULIA: [IN THE DISTANCE] [CACKLES] We want to make a statement! […] JULIA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Ha! You see that, old man? TREVOR: [IN THE DISTANCE] Told ya. They’re all monsters in here.

Because she sounded absolutely gone. Trevor had pointed out that ~the lines got blurrier every day~, but Julia was younger, had been a Hunter for a shorter amount of time and… there were her life circumstances, the fact that her father had done horrible things to try to get her mother back, and had tried to protect her from all of The Dark stuff…? It’s really sadder in Julia’s case, because it gives the feeling that that cycle of violence was absolutely inescapable – that Julia’s only options were either to die as prey, killed by Darvish, or to become the mindless predator. Julia&Trevor attacked the Institute (… well: basically launched a terrorist attack against it; they had mentioned it was “full of monsters”, it was a cleansing and/or toying with innocents) and, even if “best case” scenario and there aren’t any casualties, that’s still tons of people traumatised for life. How could Julia even come back to normal after this, when she’s this far gone…?

- TT___TT Archival Team sharing information and (snappily) discussing about what to do…

(MAG158) BASIRA: So Elias left it? ARCHIVIST: Or Martin. O–or Peter, or… Annabelle! BASIRA: Fine. Whatever. Could be a distraction. ARCHIVIST: Only one way to find out. BASIRA: We don’t have time for this. DAISY: We don’t know that. We’ve no idea what sort of timeframe we’re on. I say play it. ARCHIVIST: Thank you.

… and of course, it’s when everything is going to hell and these three people probably won’t be in the same room ever again (or at least not as themselves).

(- I’M GONNA MISS THESE LITTLE thINGS SO MUCH…

(MAG158) BASIRA: Set up by the door. Try and take them when they break through it. DAISY: Right. ARCHIVIST: Do, uh… do I get a gun? BASIRA: You ever fired one? ARCHIVIST: You never taught me! BASIRA: You never asked. Besides, we’ve got problems enough without– [CRASHING SOUND]

That mix of snappiness and awkwardness and closeness in the Worst Moments…)

- We knew it was coming, but still…

(MAG158) BASIRA: This might be it. DAISY: Basira… BASIRA: Didn’t think it would end like this. [CHUCKLING] You know what, actually I think I did! [GUNSHOTS IN THE DISTANCE] NOT!SASHA: [CACKLING, IN THE DISTANCE] DAISY: [PANTING] Basira… promise me something. BASIRA: What? … No, Daisy, no. DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…! BASIRA: Daisy…! DAISY: [GROWLING] Run! [RUNNING FOOTSTEPS] DAISY: [GROANS] [COCKED GUN] JULIA: [LAUGH] There you are! TREVOR: All alone! [COCKED GUN] Like a pup. DAISY: [BARKS] JULIA: … Shit! [ONE GUNSHOT] [CLICK.]

I’m so heartbroken about Daisy TT___TT It… didn’t really sound like she was agreeing to sacrifice herself to save Basira, but more like The Hunt managed to catch up with her because of the violence, and she only managed to say her last will before getting completely drowned, reverting to the state she had turned into during The Unknowing (when she ripped Hope apart with her bare hands). I don’t think there will be another coffin trip; I guess there could be something because of her ties to the Institute, but I doubt it… Damnit, I was kinda hoping that The Eye would protect her a bit longer despite the threat of hearing her Blood, but no, the big eyeball was absolutely useless ;;

And gdi ;; At least, Tim got to pull the trigger and get his revenge, and Adelard had neutralised a Corruption avatar and freed people from their torment, while Daisy only got caught up (preyed) on by The Hunt without being able to strike back before that. What she was in season 4 wasn’t a waste, never (we got to meet the real Daisy, and she was fantastic!), but it feels so, so sad that The Hunt got her back when it mattered so much to her to never go back to it…

(Obligatory “archive dog!!” joke, though.)

(- Also sad because she was hoping she would be the one to kill Elias, in MAG082, and fucker REALLY has it coming at this point. Violence Is Bad, but still, please, someone, stab him.)

(- And it reaaaally doesn’t bode well for Jon, uh… Daisy had been involved in violence and supernatural stories for 16 years, though, so that’s longer. But the fact that resisting was only a momentary reprieve before being taken in again is nnnnot exactly a good sign for Jon, given how heavily Daisy and Jon had been paralleled as going into withdrawal in season 4, and how Jon was finally pushed to use his powers again in this episode…)

- Also still crying over Daisy and Basira’s goodbyes:

(MAG158) DAISY: [PANTING] Basira… promise me something. BASIRA: What? … No, Daisy, no. DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…!

And what it means for Basira orz Either she does it at the end of this season, either part of season 5 will be about finding and killing (the creature that took over) Daisy, uh…? I want to hope for them (since hum, we’re like, back to the end of season 3: the duo shattered, Daisy lost and dangerous) but it already happened once; the biggest difference is that Daisy had managed to get her voice back during season 4, instead of being fuelled by mindless violence like she had been in season 3.

It was also… Daisy going back to the person Basira used to admire, as a fixed point:

(MAG117) BASIRA: But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. […] Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.

Daisy, firm about what is happening and what has to be done – even though it’s about killing her.

(I’m also a bit sad that ;; Daisy and Basira had been around for so long, and I really wanted to think they were meant to be interpreted as a couple and/or mutually crushing? But although there are lots of indicators, it has never been made explicit, and now it would only be retroactive…)

- One Good Thing: 

(MAG158) ELIAS: I guarantee it won’t be pleasant for them, but I honestly don’t know if their ties to the Institute are quite as strong as I may have implied. You, at least, should be insulated from the fall-out by your new allegiance. Jon… might be powerful enough to weather it. Melanie’s well out of it, so that just leaves Basira and Daisy. And the rest of the Institute, of course, and you can’t tell me you care about them.

MELANIE IS OFFICIALLY FINE!! She really fled the boat before it sank, uh.

- I love that mentioning the use of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture tends to lead to roasting: 

(MAG080) LEITNER: By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t hear you say anything down there. LEITNER: I said reading. It doesn’t need to be spoken aloud.

(MAG158) PETER: Do you want to see how it works? MARTIN: Uh, n–no; no, I’d really rather you didn’t mess it up– PETER: No, I insist! Watch. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Very impressive. PETER: I’m reading. Shush.

(Had Peter actual trouble with the reading, though?)

- What was Peter trying to say re:Tim?

(MAG158) PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter.

It was thematically fitting because Tim had been down in the tunnels a lot during season 3, Smirke’s architecture was his speciality, and he had been trapped in the corridors together with Martin but…? I have no idea what Peter intended to say about him?

- fesdcujheznfds every end of the season has to star Martin with a corpse (or almost), uh. He found Gertrude’s between MAG039/MAG040; found Leitner’s together with Tim in MAG080; ~there was Jon’s~ at the end of season 3 (at least, Martin visited him before season 4, according to the trailer); and now, he got to find Jonah Magnus’s, although not really dead. Martin, you life sucks.

- ;___; Daisy had pointed out that Jon was self-destructive, and… Martin actually wasn’t really good in that regard, uh…

(MAG142) DAISY: Used to see it all the time back in the force, especially with the Section’d. Not like there’s… “normal” trauma, you know? But it’s pretty common. The most important thing becomes control, engaging on your own terms. Even when it’s stupid or dangerous. Anything to not feel helpless. MARTIN: Oh, god… DAISY: And of course, for Jon, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive. MARTIN: Yeah, well. We’ve all had trauma.

(MAG158) MARTIN: It’s not him! It’s not anybody, it’s just me. Always has been! I… When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil, and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me. I told myself I was trying to protect the others, but honestly? We didn’t even like each other. Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed. And then… [SHAKILY] Jon came back, and… and suddenly, I had a reason: I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control, so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away… so what? I’d already grieved for him, and if it meant now saving him, it was worth it! […] So I… played along, waited to see what your endgame was. And here we are. … [SNORT] Funny. Looks like I was right the first time – it’s probably still a good way to get killed.

(Extra-sad re: “we didn’t even like each other” because he still had gone drinking with Basira and Melanie, and he was concerned about Melanie post-MAG106. I mean, yeah, it didn’t fundamentally mean “liking” them but… it was still something.)

* I love that Martin is SO unapologetic about his feelings for Jon, technically, even more than in season 3:

(MAG118) ELIAS: [EXASPERATED BREATHING] … Did Jon put you up to this? MARTIN: You think I’m doing this for him? ELIAS: No. It’s just the sort of half-baked scheme he’d come up with. And I’m well aware that you’ll do just about anything for him–   MARTIN: I– ELIAS: –and I don’t need to read your mind for that one. MARTIN: … Do you rea– … Is it so hard to believe that I hate you as well? ELIAS: No. It’s just hard to imagine that you would act on it.

From protesting that he wasn’t doing this for Jon, to saying that Jon was his reason.

* So. Peter was wrong when he had told Martin that

(MAG126) PETER: [CHUCKLING] I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… MARTIN: … You said he’d probably never wake up. PETER: And he beat the odds. Which is good. But it does make things more complicated. It doesn’t… actually change… anything.

Jon coming back did change something. And it’s sure not healthy on Martin’s side, but it’s also… still something indeed…? Still better than the nothing he used to (not) have…? But so sad that the way Martin describes it, the way he talked with Jon, it’s really never associated with the idea of constructing something, or a future. Those are very… Lonely feelings indeed? That he’s keeping from afar? (And gdi, I would really want Jon and Martin to finally manage to talk and share, to communicate and reach a peaceful ground? To hear and see each other? But given the circumstances… it probably won’t be now…)

I’m not even sure Jon&Martin will talk before the end of the season, actually? Or maybe not directly to each other – through tape, through written messages could be other options. But on the other hand: Jon’s worry and feelings for Martin have been a major element this season, so… there is probably a payoff coming, rather than immediate and absolutely shattering heartbreak?

- Martin once again confirmed that he has gone dual Eye/Lonely ;;

(MAG158) PETER: But you do serve The Lonely. MARTIN: Oh, I’m getting there, but if this is the final test or something? Then bad luck. The answer’s still “no”.

But I mostly want for him to get back to a state of mind where he would go back to writing poetry?! ;_; Unlikely, I know, but. (And to not harm people to feed… Has he been feeding on himself and his own loneliness, or are we in for an awful reveal about the researchers who disappeared…)

- In the list of people Martin had lost:

(MAG158) MARTIN: I… When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil, and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me.

… I’m surprised that Tim wasn’t mentioned at all…? Tim had told Jon that he didn’t feel as close to Martin as he was with Sasha, but I had gotten the impression that Martin did care a lot more about him…? And it’s still a Do Not Talk About Him subject:

(MAG120) ELIAS: Hello, inspector. Martin. I’m… sorry to hear about Tim. MARTIN: Don’t. ELIAS: And Daisy, I suppose. MARTIN: Don’t. you. dare. 

(MAG138) MARTIN: I don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions Millbank. The old prison, I guess? Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly. [SILENCE] [SIGH] I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff…! I wish– … No. No, it’s fine, I’m… fine, I… [EXHALE] I can do this.

(MAG158) PETER: But she’s still the same corridors, I suppose. [INHALE] I’m sure– … what was his name? … Tim! Tim would– MARTIN: I’d really– … rather not talk about it, Peter.

(Plus, when he mentioned “the job I had put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil”, it felt like what Tim had told him back in season 3:

(MAG098) TIM: Look, it’s not that. I… [SIGH] This place is evil, Martin. And I think doing what It wants? Probably makes us evil. And It wants those things to be read. I mean, I’m not gonna stop you, but, at the same time– MARTIN: I– I get it.

So Martin did remember about that conversation, uh…)

(- We knew that the death of Martin’s mother had affected him deeply, Basira had told Jon. And he explicitly said it. But after what Elias told him (and forced him to see) in MAG118, I still would like to hear him describe his relationship to her – how he felt it, what MAG118 changed, if it changed anything…)

(Laughing and crying that Martin “my dad left my family when I was 8” suddenly got two trashdads, who are the worst, and whom he doesn’t want.)

(- Shut your mouuuuth Eliiiiaaaas

(MAG158) ELIAS: You, at least, should be insulated from the fall-out by your new allegiance. Jon… might be powerful enough to weather it. Melanie’s well out of it, so that just leaves Basira and Daisy. And the rest of the Institute, of course, and you can’t tell me you care about them. MARTIN: But of course I do! ELIAS: Do you, though? Do you really care, about any of them? Or is that worrying just simply an old reflex? [SILENCE] … Goodness. Peter has done his work well, hasn’t he? [CHUCKLE]

Who caaaares if it’s a “reflex” and done without conviction!! Doing the right thing just because you think it would be the right thing to do, even though you don’t feel much about it, is still better than doing nothing or doing something awful?? You can still define the kind of person you want to be through you deliberate actions?? Even if Martin was neutral about it, the fact that he still did his best to prevent Peter from hurting Daisy or random staff members in MAG144 matters, shut your mouuuuuth damniiiit!!)

- It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking that Martin’s reasons for getting wary of Peter were:

(MAG158) MARTIN: When you started talking about The Extinction, though… You… had me, actually, for a while. But then… [CHUCKLES] then you tried to make me the hero, tried to sell me on the idea that I was the “only one who could stop it”. And that? That never sat right with me. I mean–I mean, lo–look at me! [SNORTING] I’m, I’m not exactly a, a “Chosen One”. But, by then, I was in too deep. So I… played along, waited to see what your endgame was. 

… Because 1°) Peter, as a self-centred Lonely avatar, thought that insisting about how Martin was a Hero and Necessary would do the trick, 2°) Martin was too self-deprecative for this. It also echoed Jon’s interrogations at the end of MAG139, about why they had all been “chosen” – Jon just accepted that it had been the case, or some bad luck, while Martin… immediately questioned the idea. (And gdi, Martin!! But Jon chose you at the end of the very same episode… ;;)

- Peter!! Peter, you knew that a knife wasn’t fitting Martin:

(MAG039) MARTIN: I used to carry around a knife, but I started thinking that, well, cutting into someone laterally wasn’t really the most efficient way to get them out, and besides which, they seem to be quite slow burrowing in a straight line so, given their size, th–the corkscrew just seemed to be the better option. … Look, you guys got to go home every day, okay. I didn’t!

(MAG108) PETER: Martin, isn’t it? MARTIN: Y–you, don’t move! Em, don’t you come any closer, okay! I’ve got a, I’ve got a knife! PETER: Do you? That… that would seem widely out of character, from what I’ve been told. MARTIN: Okay, but okay, step back.

(MAG158) MARTIN: … I’ll need to kill him. PETER: Yes. Don’t worry, though. I brought a knife. […] Then do it, Martin. [UNFOLDING POCKET KNIFE?] We’re the same, you and I; we don’t need anyone else. […] PETER: Martin. What are you doing? MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

If you had brought him a corkscrew, maybe he would have said “yes”.

- I’m still LOVING that deception is one of Martin’s core features… 

(MAG056) ARCHIVIST: It was in the old document room, just next to where you used to sleep. Your handwriting, “If the others find out I’ve been lying”. Lying about what, Martin?! MARTIN: L– look, just forget about it, okay? Please. ARCHIVIST: I CAN’T forget it! Everyone in this place has so many goddamn secrets, and I can’t trust a word you say! Not about this, and not about Trevor! MARTIN: Jon, just– ARCHIVIST: MARTIN! MARTIN: Okay! Okay. Okay. Just… just… promise you won’t… fire me. ARCHIVIST: … fire you…? Fine! MARTIN: I… … I lied on my CV. ARCHIVIST: … What? MARTIN: I don’t have a Master’s in parapsychology, I don’t even have a degree. When I was 17, my mom, she… had… she had some problems, and I ended up dropping out of school, t– trying to support us. I tried everything, but no one was hiring. So I… I just kinda started to lie on my applications, sending them out to just about anywhere. For some reason, my lie about parapsychology got me an interview with Elias and, and then a job here. M– most of my employment details are made up, I’m only 29! ARCHIVIST: Right, I… uh… I believe you!

(MAG120) ELIAS: I must admit I’m impressed, Martin. I knew you were all planning something, of course, but I didn’t believe you specifically would have the… er, capacity for boldness that you displayed. It took me quite by surprise. MARTIN: You didn’t just see it in me? ELIAS: Honestly, I didn’t look. For all my power, I will admit I am not immune to making the occasional lazy assumption. I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us.

(MAG158) PETER: The Extinction is coming. MARTIN: Oh, I’m sure it is! But that’s not what this is about, is it? This isn’t about “saving the world” – it’s all just some power play against him! I might not know exactly what’s going on, but I don’t think I want any part of this. However much I want to kill him… I’m out. PETER: But you said– MARTIN: Honestly… I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear. PETER: I see. … This is your doing, is it? ELIAS: [AUDIBLE GRIN] Hardly…! 

Not sure that it’s enough / the gist of it for Web stuff but. Still. 

(And I’m REELING that Elias sounded almost proud of Martin with that one.)

(And that their “powerplay” sounds so much like foreplay.)

- Martin was so good when spitting at those annoying disgusting old men and their weird games?? And then:

(MAG158) ELIAS: Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. [SILENCE] PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open.

… that mood whiplash of Martin beginning to ask for answers and being heartlessly wooshed as if he had barely spoken since the start.

- Meanwhile: Jon has been so, soooo vulgar this season!!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: … Shit.

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [SOFTLY BUT WITH FEELING] … Fuck.

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: You gotta be fucking kidding m–

Next corpse coming back to life is your grandmother, putting soap in your mouth. (I do love how that last one managed to… somehow make the scene a bit lighter because Jon was losing it, it was too much.)

(On a sidenote: Daisy, of all people, has never said “fuck”, only “shit”, I think? So she can’t die or lose herself there!!!)

- Why did Jon blank out after hearing Gertrude’s tape?

(MAG158) [CLICK–] BASIRA: Right, so what does that tell us? [SILENCE] Jon? … Jon! ARCHIVIST: Uh, y–yes, sorry. Right, just, uh… uh, the Panopticon. It’s the, uh…

Was it because of the shock of hearing her murder live? Was it because he noticed something off? Was it already Elias’s ~call~? (There was no static, though.) It felt to me like he was piecing something together…

- Peter & Martin had climbed the Panopticon’s central tower fine; meanwhile, Jon…

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [LABOURED BREATHING] ELIAS: Ah, Jon. I was almost worried…! You found your way all right. ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] Yes. … Ye–yes, I did… How?

… was out of it. Someone has been smoking too much lately, hm? (Do you still have your lighter on you, young old man…?)

- I’m ;; worried over Jon ~appreciating~ the beauty of things made to hurt:

(MAG143) [CREAKING, SPARKLER-LIKE STATIC SATURATING THE RECORDING.] ARCHIVIST: It’s… beautiful…

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] That’s the Panopticon… ELIAS: My, you have grown. Yes. A masterpiece, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] … Y–yeah. It is.

(And it feels extremely Hannigram, uh.)

(Oufttt over the fact that Jon’s powers provided him with the answer he sought right in front of Elias… Elias had told him that he had to find/get his answers himself, back in MAG092, and it’s… happening… Elias had been so glad/proud when Jon had let it slip that he Knew Gertrude and Gerry had worked together, back in MAG102, and Jon had so many moments of Knowing in season 4…)

- Still not over the fact that Jon still asked Elias questions assuming he would get answers? ;;

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [SEETHING] Where is he? ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. […] … How do I do it?

Jon sounded absolutely unsurprised when he reached the Panopticon, so… he had probably guessed that yeah, anyway, Elias had planned things, that he was doing exactly what Elias wanted, and that it was a price worth paying as long as it was aligning with his own interests (saving Martin)… Even at the cost of opening this damn inner door:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s… hard. It’s like there’s a–a–a door, in my mind. And behind it, is… i–is the entire ocean. Before, I didn’t notice it, but now, I know it’s there, and I can’t forget it, and I can feel the pressure of the water on it. I, I, I can keep it closed… but sometimes, when I’m around p–people, or–or places, or… ideas, a drop or two will push through the cracks, at the edges of the door. And I’ll… know something. BASIRA: … What happens, if you open the door? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I drown.

(MAG158) ELIAS: [INHALE] Wasn’t too long ago. And I’m sure traces of their passage still remain. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] ELIAS: Just open your mind. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] ELIAS: Drink it all in. Know their route, [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION, INCREASING] and simply… follow it. ARCHIVIST: [LOUDER BREATHING] ELIAS: Very good.

It had to come, “Jon opening it to save someone/Martin in particular” had been my first thought when Jon had described it to Basira but gdi!!! Still painful that it’s happening ;; It has been such an awful and painful string of hoping he could save people and/or refusing to allow people to die, only to have to deal with their losses…

(MAG047) MICHAEL: [DISTORTED LAUGH] Yes… Ah… Did you notice which door she left through? ARCHIVIST: Yes… It w– MICHAEL: [CHUCKLES] ARCHIVIST: … wait! No, there was– MICHAEL: There has never been a door there, Archivist, your mind plays tricks on you. ARCHIVIST: Let her go. MICHAEL: [DISTORTED LAUGH] “No”? ARCHIVIST: Get her back here! MICHAEL: Are you going to attack me?

(MAG098) MARTIN: Yeah, we talked. Not long, he– Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. TIM: He’s an idiot. Look, we didn’t know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isn’t going to save anyone. MARTIN: No, I mean, you’re right, I guess. He was… Y’know, we know about Sasha now, and… he said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault.

(MAG118) TIM: You knew I might not be coming back! ARCHIVIST: I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing! TIM: Oh, except for those people in there! ARCHIVIST: They’re already dead! TIM: Not all of them! ARCHIVIST: I am not losing you as well!!

(MAG158) BASIRA: … Goddamnit. Jon, go; we’ll keep them busy. ARCHIVIST: What…? No! I– BASIRA: Don’t argue, just go. NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooo–oooon~? ARCHIVIST: … Fine. Just don’t die. DAISY: Go.

And I hatehatehatehate that Elias absolutely played on the fact it was so personal for Jon, how his feelings could be a tool to get him where he wanted… 

(MAG158) ELIAS: Peter Lukas has him. Cast him into The Lonely, and with every passing moment, he gets further away from you. ARCHIVIST: How do I bring him back? ELIAS: From out here? … Impossible. ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. ELIAS: No, Jon. You want you to follow him.

That emphasis on “you”… 

(I still want to be a bit cautious before labelling Jon’s feelings as romantic, as long as it’s not confirmed-confirmed? But hhhhh yeah, no, Jon is desperate and longing and crushing awfully hard, uh…)

- There is still Helen around, and Annabelle hasn’t revealed herself either so… at this point, what is she waiting for or expecting…? Is she planning to go against Elias, is she planning to use him, or are they in this together…? If Elias indeed needed Jon to experience the Fears first-hand, The Web pushed in that direction with the coffin (leaving MAG130’s tape and leading Jon towards The Flesh, too); it was also The Web who made Oliver give Jon his statement to push him to wake up – and Jon ~made his choice~, and Jon waking up gave Martin a ~reason~ to not follow Peter entirely… It seemed like The Web and Elias’s interests got suspiciously aligned this season…? What Elias said about The Web was non-committal:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Or that we were being stalked by some freaky spider woman. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about that! ELIAS: Ah, uh, y–yes… W–well… To be honest, I’d… advise you to leave that one – well alone. BASIRA: Oh yeah? ELIAS: Uh! Look, look, look. I’ve… been doing this a long time now and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about The Web, it’s that it plays its own game. All you can really do is… hope it doesn’t get in the way of whatever your plan is. Because the Spider usually wins…! Assuming you have a plan.

(“I’ve been doing this a long time now” fuuuuck oooooooffffff!!)

And he can’t have been unaware of Jon’s personal history with The Web, nor of all the spiders in the Institute, so…? Are they in it together, is he dual Web/Beholding, is he being made to ignore The Web, or has he taken precautions to not suffer from any interference…?

(- Other potential players: The Extinction and… the tape recorders (if they’re not Web :w). A tape turned on during Gertrude’s murder scene, and that was the first time we’ve seen it happen in Gertrude’s era. The recorders also behaved quite strangely with the Panopticon, because… there was one with Martin&Peter / we switched to Jon&co / we went back to Martin&Peter&Elias but, when Martin then Peter left, one stayed with Elias – unless Martin planted the same one that had been following him in the first part of the episode, this means one showed up in the Panopticon, on its own. We’re back to Jon’s argument to Tim in season 3:

(MAG114) ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] Interesting. What do you think is listening? TIM: What? […] And you know what I think. It’s that… the thing that runs the Institute, “The Watcher” or “The Eye” or whatever. ARCHIVIST: I dis… I disagree. This whole place is a temple to The Eye, Tim, I don’t think the tape recorders make any difference. TIM: [VICIOUSLY] Elias, then. ARCHIVIST: In that case, we’ll stick to talking about things he already knows.

If The Eye was behind them, why record what it’s witnessing anyway?) 

(And although Jon has listed Peter, Elias and Annabelle as potential suspects behind the last tapes that were sent to him… we still don’t have any indication of who it is.)

- On the one hand, Peter wanted Martin to be apathetic; on the other, Elias was REALLY glad about Jon being fearful:

(MAG156) PETER: How does that make you feel? MARTIN: … Nothing. [SNORT] Nothing at all…! PETER: Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin. MARTIN: I really don’t care. PETER: Perfect.

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: [LOUDER BREATHING] ELIAS: Very good. Are you scared, Jon? ARCHIVIST: Yes… ELIAS: Perfect.

… It’s especially interesting re:Jon given how Gertrude had a very particular personal relation to fear, Adelard wondering if she was dissimulating or steel-like when it comes to this. Jon appears as a contrast: he fears a lot…

(MAG125) BASIRA: You ready? ARCHIVIST: [DRY HOLLOW LAUGHTER] No…? [SHAKY VOICE] You’re sure you don’t have… restraints, or… BASIRA: You think she’s gonna sleep through being tied down? I’ll try and grab her if she wakes, but… ARCHIVIST: … Okay…! Here we go…! [BREATHES DEEPLY] 

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I have her voice. I think that should be enough to find her, and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…?

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. DAISY: [SHAKY SIGH] ARCHIVIST: And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets.

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though.

(MAG143) HELEN: … How was it? ARCHIVIST: Mm? HELEN: Looking upon The Dark. ARCHIVIST: I thought I was going to die. HELEN: You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah.

(MAG150) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s just… The Web can be subtle, you understand? MELANIE: And? For all you know, its plan is to paralyse you with indecision…! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] MELANIE: Leaving you… sitting here, terrified that… everything you do is somehow all part of its Grand Plan… And who do you think that fear is gonna feed? ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. [INHALE] You are… not the first, to make that point.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … When does it stop? HELEN: What? ARCHIVIST: The guilt… The misery… All the others I’ve met, they’ve been… cold. Cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does The Eye… make me monstrous?

… and that seems to be good for Elias’s plans/Jon’s self-realisation as an Archivist…? Season 4 feels like it’s been a slow game of completing Jon’s set by giving him incentive and by fostering his worry: removing the Slaughter’s bullet from Melanie, making him contact a Flesh avatar in his search for an anchor, making him go down in the Buried coffin in the hope of saving Daisy, making him see a Dark artefact after making him think he would be stopping a ritual). Elias has never been about reassurance; quite the contrary, he always pushed Jon to fear the worst from things, and it was once again the case when he pointed out how dangerous going into The Lonely would be. There is still the question about whether it was about the physical or intellectual experiences, or both. Jon got an insight of the way the Fears worked, from the inside, and Elias had pointed out in the past that that is apparently his function:

(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…

Jon has now been in contact with all the Fears except The Lonely, getting an internal view of them and how they operated:

* Corruption through Jane Prentiss’s attack (and her written statement).

* Spiral through Michael’s and then Helen’s corridors (and Michael’s live-statement).

* Desolation through Jude Perry burning his hand (and her live-statement).

* Vast through Mike dropping him (and his-statement).

* Hunt through Daisy, then Julia&Trevor, chasing him (and their live-statements).

* Stranger through the Not!Them’s deception, the experience of The Unknowing (and Breekon’s “extracted” statement).

* End through his own almost-death and unwillingness to die, becoming something else instead (and Oliver’s live-statement).

* Slaughter through Melanie’s violent urges (plus the statement she gave of her injuries?).

* Flesh through Jared taking two ribs (and Jared’s live-statement).

* Buried through his rescue attempt in the coffin (no direct avatar here, but a few written statements).

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I know… DAISY: Th–the way out? ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done…

* Dark through directly staring into the Dark Sun (and Manuela’s live-statement).

* Web through the Leitner as a kid, and Annabelle making him doubts about influences and control (and Annabelle writing her statement for him).

(MAG147, Annabelle Caine) “Unless, of course, none of it was intentional. None of it was planned. The Mother is the fear of manipulation and lost control made manifest. So perhaps it is our fear that projects Her influence on everything that happens. Like the mind, retrospectively assigning reason to our actions, so we fit whatever occurs into the neatest pattern we can, and declare Her web both intricate… and complete. Perhaps She is no more active than Terminus – simply sitting and revelling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia, as those who hold Her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory. Or perhaps I am simply telling you what you need to hear, in order to behave exactly as the Mother wishes you to.”

Still missing The Lonely both as a live-statement and/or statement from an avatar, as a live experience, and as a scar, but now… he’s getting there. (And missing The Extinction, too, which could factor in, but Jonah is probably still following Smirke’s List of Fourteen? Smirke’s architecture was based around the concept.)

But I’m especially curious about the scars in the context of Jonah body-hopping: Robert Smirke had mentioned he feared death, a lot of people had pointed out that Elias tends to avoid getting directly involved, and… that could plainly be a way to avoid the risk of dying himself? And what if what he needed was a body who had physically experienced the Fears…? I’m mostly thinking about it because:

* James Wright was Head of the Institute for 23 years (1973 to 1996); assuming that Jonah had body-hopped right when “Elias Bouchard” became the next Head, that would be 22 years in that body as of now. So might be time to get another one.

* If Jon is meant to be the next host, you Know that Jonny would have a blast voicing Jonah-in-Jon: it would a big challenge voice-acting wise (making a character we used to hear through another VA absolutely identifiable), and also probably a great deal of fun (especially making everyone upset).

* Cursed thought of Unlikely Team during season 5, consisting of Martin (who still thinks that Jon is somewhere there and can be saved), Basira (who is both tracking Daisy and uuuh trying to prevent the apocalypse) and pothead!Elias being back in control of his body (and also uuuh convicted of murders and technically escaped from prison) going after Jonah!Jon. It sounds like if The Eye is attempting its ritual, it’s coming now, but. Lovely thoughts.

(I do subscribe to the idea that the Actual Elias Bouchard might still be somewhere: being stuck and condemned to watch the atrocities committed by Jonah (… he knew about poisoned drinks) sounds like the Most Beholding Thing ever, and there is still the question of how Jonah had been feeding. What if his Fear battery was always within him?)

- Still two episodes, and everything already sounds like The Worst Possible? Martin has been whooshed into The Lonely, while being susceptible to it; Jon opened his inner door and might be drowning; Daisy fell back into The Hunt; Elias is winning and The Eye’s ritual might be on the verge of happening; the Institute has been attacked and there are 4 avatars/monsters fighting inside of it. It might be the worst for Martin to have to deal with the fact that, if Jon is getting lost, it would have been to save him (was it a nice bonus for Elias, as a punishment for Martin’s schemes at the end of season 3…? I’m wondering, because I also feel like Basira is being “punished” through Daisy in a way, and Elias could be petty enough to join utilitarianism and personal grudges: getting Trevor&Julia in at the right time to cause chaos and make Jon panic, and also to force Daisy to snap and make Basira lose her….)

- ;; Elias sounded absolutely in control, so… yeah, we might be losing Jon as we just lost Daisy – but at the same time, if it’s already happening with her, things could go differently for him…? Jon had already gotten out of The Buried, and we still don’t… really know how – we know about elements who contributed, but not how it worked exactly. Was his anchor truly his rib? Was it the statements, through the recordings? Did the fact that Martin had been the one to put them there help? Did the Web lighter help…?

- OKAY, so the knife has been explicitly mentioned, heard… and clearly dropped on the Panopticon floor:

(MAG158) MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND]

… So there is a good chance that it’s gonna be put to use: either by Elias on someone (Jon or Martin), eeeeeeeeeeither someone using it on him.

……………… and as much as Violence Is Bad, I really want to hope for Basira, there. It’s around the anniversary of her involvement with the Institute (she went for the worms in the Summer, then gave her first statement to Jon on September 19th, 2016), Elias played with her all through season 4, sending her after dead-end leads to get Jon into the coffin, then pushing her to go with Jon to ~stop The Dark~. She got Daisy back only to lose her again. Sure, she got to punch Elias (and it was a m a z i n g), but… she didn’t manage to achieve anything, to get a “victory” in any way, this season? Stabbing wouldn’t be a good answer, but Basira mostly cared about Daisy, and Daisy is now lost to The Hunt – if killing Elias and/or Jonah’s body means insta-death for all the assistants solely tied to The Eye, that… might be a price she would be ready to pay right now. Although there is still the matter of Daisy (given that she went full Hunt, would she still be killed too?).

(… Also, given how Elias has been very casually sexist/classist recently?

(MAG148) ELIAS: Ah… [HUM] I’ve… always thought that a man’s eating habits were… his own private business.

(MAG158) ELIAS: Oh, you needn’t worry. Two against one? Hm! I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to. I just wanted to be here at the end. Can a man not watch his own death?

I really really want him to get backstabbed by a female character that he would have failed to factor in as an actual threat.)

(Other option is that Elias could try to bribe her through the hope of getting Daisy back again and ;; That might be a weakness for Basira, uh…)

- Bonus for Basira: she pointed out that Jonah’s body-hopping could be like Rayner’s. And she directly witnessed Rayner’s death and the weak spot in the action – Rayner was vulnerable when he tried to get into a new body. If Jonah is precisely trying to do that… it could be the right moment to strike (for Basira, Annabelle, Helen…). Grabbing an opportunity on the moment was also her Thing, according to Daisy:

(MAG142) DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes.

- The summaries are usually non-canon but this one, uuuuuh, this one felt Very Specific…

“Case #0182509-A Original recording of events leading to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.”

* So: still in 2018 (the Institute is still in its 200th year anniversary), but in September. We broke the curse of an assistant dying every Summer, at least? Since it’s Autumn already.

* Side “A”, so next episode could be the B-side…? Or will we get it much, muuuch later…

* Alrrrrrrrrrrrrright so, Jon, Martin and Peter in the Lonely + Daisy is probably not recognisable anymore. That leaves Basira and Elias, but the summary makes it sound like it was written a bit in the future so… Are they not listed because they’re still accessible at this point in time? … Or because their corpses have been found?

Anyway. Another timeskip coming between season 4 and season 5, uh…? ;;

I Don’t Like This Title, but then, every Monday/Tuesday/first part of Wednesday is a variation around that. Could be about The Extinction, could be about Jon completing his “set” with the Lonely (scar and scare-wise); could be about Martin when having the original team in mind; could be about Basira given how we left her at the end of MAG158; could be about The Watcher’s Crown; could be about surprise!Annabelle or surprise!Helen; could be about Jonah getting another body; could be about The Lonely’s ritual; could be about Jon-and-Martin… in any case, sob. I mentioned a few but I don’t even have any conviction/feeling, Fear-wise?

[erintoknow]

Let the Record Show He Tried

Fallen Hero: Rebirth Fanfiction

Spoilers for the end of the game? it’s set literally the morning before the big conclusion

Wanted to try to get a sense of what Wei Chen’s POV on all this would be, plus a bit of Chen / MC’s relationship - guest staring Lady Argent

––––––––––

It is 8:21AM in the morning and Wei Chen is drinking coffee in an office while he reviews paperwork. This will continue until 11:00AM when he will have an hour break for lunch. Upon returning, he will another hour to review his schedule and then check on the rest of the rangers, before meetings with first the Chief of Police and then the Mayor. After that, Chen will be on duty, patrolling the city as Marshal Steel just in case something goes wrong. And something will go wrong, because this is Los Diablos and today is a big day.

When the public dreams of being a Ranger, they don’t think about the paperwork, or the hours of boring, droning meetings, or the constant jockeying for funding and status amid a starved government system. But that’s okay, Chen, thinks. He was military. The military liked their paperwork too. Paperwork creates accountability. The Chief of Police can breath down his neck about how Lady Argent just caused $84,000 in property damage rampaging down a mall and Chen can pull out a file the thickness of a club sandwich and go over each and every crime, vandalism, and public disturbance Lady Argent has stopped and how much money in damages have been prevented.

The five seconds of silence after doing so are some of the most satisfying.

Of course, actually getting the other Rangers to file their paperwork is like pulling teeth. Ortega at least tries but as the previous Marshall really shouldn’t be making so many basic errors. Argent still refuses to see the value in it, even after it’s literally saved her job. Herald’s the only one to really approach the subject with any enthusiasm, perhaps… too much enthusiasm.

Hence, Wei Chen increasingly finds his days on the job eaten up, not by actively fighting crime and injustice, but in an office filing paperwork, bored to death by every second of it. Truly, Chen considers, heroism comes in many forms.

A manilla folder is shoved in front of his face, and Chen follows the silver hand grasping it up to Lady Argent’s metallic face. “It’s done, now stop bugging me about it.”

Chen takes the folder, flipping through it. When he finishes he puts the folder aside, on top of the ‘to-file’ pile. “This is a month late.”

Crossing her arms, Lady Argent leans back and stretches to her full height. “Are you going to give me a ‘F’, Chen? It’s done now. Every sordid little detail for your buddies in city hall.”

Chen sighs. It’s too early for the Argent Hour. He needs more coffee. “You know as well as I do that none of them actually read our reports.”

Lady Argent snorts and throws her hands up in the air, “Then it doesn’t matter, does it!” Before Chen can say anything, she storms off. “I’m going out on patrol now.” She says, not looking back.

Chen sighs into an empty coffee mug. Ever since the possession incident, Lady Argent has been on edge, irritable even for her standards. Not without justification of course, but this is one wound time does not seem to be healing. Ortega should have never brought in an outside consultant without discussion first. Knowing that the alpha-level telepath, Locus, was behind the attack only opens up more questions.

Lady Argent is just as likely to kill the poor girl before the Rangers can get any meaningful answers out of her. And Chen needs those answers if he’s going to keep his team safe. And that’s to say nothing of just who Ortega brought in.

The woman with no paperwork. Who repeatedly refused to submit to a government background check. Presumably an assumed name, considering she looked more Irish than Greek if anything. No ties to anyone, be it friends or family. She seemed to be so obviously a spy of some kind it was almost insulting. And then Heartbreak happened, adding an entirely new category of questions.

Now she was back from seven years in the ‘grave’ with no explanation. Ortega just… found her in a diner like one finds a stray cat in an ally.

He was going to need more coffee.

Wei Chen is not ten feet from the break room when he realizes there’s a voice he doesn’t recognize, and he slows to a stop, running over every possibility in his head. A friend of Ortega’s? Someone from City Hall? Why hadn’t he been notified? Has the building been compromised?

Wait.

Chen cocked an ear.

Was that singing?

It was. It has been hushed at first, but now had gotten louder. A little breathy and straining on the higher notes maybe, but..… Chen’s brow creased. It’s been a long time since he’s heard that voice sing.

“Oh yonder there's a ship on the ocean

And she does not know which way to steer

From the east and the west she's a-blowing

She reminds me of the charms of my dear.”

Chen briefly considers turning around and going back to his desk. Unfortunately, Wei Chen is Marshall, there’s no one else to pass the buck to. Handling two prickly mystery women in one day was a big ask. He doesn’t bother trying to be stealthy as he enters the break room. If it’s who he thinks it is, it wouldn’t make a difference.

And he’s right, it is who he thinks it is.

Ariadne Becker.

She stops signing before he can even turn at the doorway. The whole scene gives Chen an unsettling feeling. For a brief moment it’s almost like the last seven years haven’t happened. Then it fades, reality reasserts itself and there’s the ghost standing against the far window, staring back at him in the doorframe. Seven years older, and it shows; in the creases of the face. Dark circles under the eyes, no longer any effort put into her hair, clothes even shabbier then before.

“Can’t say I’m familiar with that one.” Chen offers in a neutral tone, diplomatic. No need to set her off, yet anyway.

He catches the briefest flash of surprise on Ariadne’s face before her expression hardens. “Come off it Chen.”

“For the record, I don’t think anyone actually minded your singing, back then.” Chen shrugs, then adds as an afterthought, “You were never very good at hiding it anyway. It was a pretty open secret.”

Ariadne’s glower darkens into a full on glare. “Just want do you want, Steel?”

Chen sighs, let the record show he tried. “Why are you here, Becker.”

Ariadne crosses her arms, leaning back against the glass. “Was seven years not enough for you, Steel? Were we shooting for a world record here?”

Chen’s mouth turns into a tight frown. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

It’s too early for this. Chen closes his eyes for a moment, then makes his way for the coffee machine. Hopefully there’s something still left in the pot. “I thought we had a mutual understanding that upon the conclusion of your consultation you would stay away from the Rangers.” He pauses, then adds, “considering your retirement.” The coffee pot is empty. Of course.

As Chen goes through the motions of setting up the machine for a fresh cup, he hears a snort from behind him. “Tell that to Julia.”

Chen glances back at Ariadne. “What was that?”

“I said tell that to Ortega, she’s the one that wanted to meet me here.”

“I’ll have a talk with Ortega about this, she–“

“No! I mean, um-” Ariadne’s voice trails off as Chen pours out a cup of ground beans into the filter. “Actually, I had something I needed to ask her too.”

Chen turns away from the coffee machine as it whirrs to life, sifting his focus back on the mystery woman. “You need advice. From Ortega.”

There’s a hint of color in her face as she scowls, “I never said it was advice.”

“Well you’re out of luck. Ortega won’t be in the office all day.”

The only sound cutting through the tense atmosphere is the coffee pot filling. Finally, Ariadne says, slowly, carefully, “did… did she say… why?”

“I told her to.” Chen states.

“What? Why?”

“That’s Ranger business.” Chen watches her face, Ariadne isn’t nearly the poker player she imagines herself to be, and Chen can tell her mind is running to twenty different places.

Finally she says, “It’s because of the Gala tonight, isn’t it.”

Chen doesn’t say anything. Tries not to think of anything. Instead focusing on the feeling of having a warm cup of coffee to hold.

“I thought so.” Ariadne taps her fingers along her arm. Did she pull it from his mind after all? Chen was never sure what to believe about the extant of her ability. The Nanosurge especially had suggested there was more going on there. “She tried to invite me, you know.”

Chen arcs an eyebrow. Underline that mental note to talk to Ortega tomorrow.

“You’ll be happy to know I turned her down. I’m done with this stuff.”

“And yet, you’re here.”

Ariadne doesn’t have anything to say to that.

Chen picks up his coffee mug, the steam pouring out the top. Without waiting for it to cool, he takes a drink, letting the hot liquid scald on its way down. Well. might as well make one last effort at an olive branch. “Do you need help?” Chen offers.

The response comes back a little too quickly. “No.” Ariadne makes a face. “Absolutely not.” Chen waits her out, silent. Then, finally, “Do you ever…” Ariadne purses her lips, searching for the right word, “do you ever feel like you’re making the wrong choice?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

Chen watches Ariadne stare down at her hands, a finger tracing patterns in her pant leg. “About like… what if one day you turned left down a street instead of a right and like, suddenly your whole life was different. Better, even.

Chen takes the time to refill his mug before responding. When he does speak his words come slowly, advice and words of wisdom aren’t his strong suit. “At some point… if you want to survive, you have to give up on those hypotheticals. It’s one thing to learn from the past but-”  Chen pauses to take a sip from his mug. “It’s the present moment that matters. That’s where change is actually possible.”

Ariadne’s expression darkens, and not for the first time Chen wonders what Los Diablos most infamous recluse is doing for a living these days.

“If you want to retire, then retire. There’s no shame in that.” Chen presses on. “Commit to a thing. Don’t let Ortega drag you into a half-life.”

Ariadne stares at the floor in front of her for a while, tracing patterns in her pant leg, a pensive expression on her face. Finally she drops her hands to her side and straightens up. “I think that helps actually. Not what I came here for but… thanks Chen.”

It won’t be until much later Chen will think back to this incident and file it under ’S’ for Suspicious.

[i-type-stupid-opinions]

An adult critiques a children’s show part whatever

On this day 15 years ago, Code Lyoko first premiered on Cartoon Network in the US. Looks like I will talk about it on this day after all. Having just finished season 4 relatively blind, I have a bunch of things to say, both good and bad. I also come to the conclusion that show had potential that could have driven it to ATLA levels of following. Maybe some hyperbole, but we’ll get to that in a bit. For now, let’s dive in to a more detailed look at CL and why it worked for me. This time spoilers are afoot. 

First I’ll just give my season 4 review: it was awesome. The whole digital sea concept was done so well. The irl bases was kind of...shark jumping but in a good way. I suppose it was the only logical conclusion left and I honestly can’t complain. Basically everything I said about season 3, but better...for the most part. Season 4 had the opposite problem of season 1: it went way too fast. Well ok maybe not fast, more like abrupt. It felt like the last three episodes were planned much later and seeing rumors of a mountain replika, plus the fabled lava sector this might be true. It just felt disjointed and really out of no where. William never gets to redeem himself because fuck William, a lot of the mysteries surrounding Franz Hopper are unresolved, and the final episode was just a really bad clip show. I really wish the finale did a time skip or maybe Franz left an exposition file to solve more mysteries. Heck even a lot of why Lyoko existed was left unexplored. This segues into my next point that will be long: potential. 

With the finale fresh on my mind and looking back over a decade back to this show, there was some serious potential to make this show ATLA in terms of how massive the show became. It was REALLY close. Unfortunately many problems that was inherent throughout the series never left, such as the side cast being under developed. Season 1 it was doing ok and looked like Sissi wasn’t going to be an insufferable cunt throughout or maybe we can bring back based Jim. Then season 2 came and everyone was reset and Jim was put back on meme duties. Even some of the main cast don’t really grow. Jeremy seemed to regress into an over controlling freak, Yumi still sucks, and Odd is under developed. I like him don’t get me wrong. His bantz are top tier, but I feel like we don’t know too much about him outside the le funny guy routine (minus some exceptions). Ulrich kinda grew to not having a stick up his ass perpetually. Aelita on the other hand must of been someones waifu. Her entire arc is really done well and you can really sympathize with her. Aelita also has a lot of rather terrifying implications (the fact she is over 20 springs to mind) that makes her a very complex and at times a tragic character. Then you have shits like Yumi. Oh man. 

Yumi is basically the walking love interest. Ulrich and eventually William go through constant fights and REEEEs with even some fights being exactly the same. At least they had the friendzone conversation which I totally understood Yumi’s reasoning, but it didn’t matter since the UlrichxYumi ship would be constantly teased at for the whole run. The only thing I can say about Yumi was her family issues at home. That shit is really depressing and explains a lot of Yumi’s attitude. It doesn’t help that her brother seemingly materialized in season 2. Then they added William because why not. William is a case of “would’ve liked if the writers did also.” He is woefully underused. I like the idea of adding a Lyoko warrior and while William’s character is basically trying to cuck Ulrich out of Yumi, it could’ve worked. Alas someone must been a Yulrich shipper and so William gets cucked by XANA for the rest of the series to be le evil bad guy because fuck William. 

There are many, MANY things that had Code Lyoko done differently, the show would be like ATLA. I know I keep bringing that show up, but there is a reason why that show is highly regarded. It’s a simple, yet interesting premise. The writing and the lore behind it is amazing. You really learned about not only the characters, but the world around it. It feels so alive and most characters are very complex and have very defined motivations. Code Lyoko on the other hand has the makings of something similar, but it felt like they were too scared. Season 1 is probably the safest monster of the week show, which inevitably brings the whole show down. Those 20 odd episodes that could have added some mystery/lore to Lyoko and giving characters more backgrounds are instead wasted on stuff that for all intents and purposes, don’t add much whatsoever. I would have loved to see more of Odd’s family life beyond vague references, Yumi getting actual development, more Lyoko lore, William getting a redemption arc, there is just so much more the show could have done. 

Again I shat on Code Lyoko hard, but this is the part where I say it’s still a great show and that lies in the premise. There was a lot of good ideas and made the world seem really cool. The interactions between most of the characters are great and always sneaks in a way to get a chuckle from me. The crazy, dumb shit XANA did were also a delight and Aelita’s whole arc was fantastically done. I could go on, but this is long enough already. There is a reason why i watched nearly 100 episodes of this show and well it’s just good. If the entire season 1 was retooled, I think this show would’ve had more potential to be a series everyone looks at and says “hey this is a fantastic show. watch it now. you won’t regret it.” I’ll leave behind this vintage meme. Happy Easter! 

[lurkingcrow]

I have like a million other things that I’m in the middle of writing but I just had a thought that I felt the need to get down. Yeah yeah, it’s another crack AU idea... Such a surprise. I know. But still just imagine what might have been:

It is a time of supposed galactic stability. It will be decades yet before Sidious’ plans will come to fruition, and a certain Not-Yet-Negotiator is currently training under his Maverick Master as per canon. However in this universe there is one, marked difference.

In the halls of the great archives beneath the Jedi temple a minor cataloguing program designed to collate external references to Jedi deployed in the field (mentions in galactic news media, bounty descriptions, general gossip - the kind of things that might indicate a problem for long term missions) brings up a discrepancy for further review. It is the kind of thing which might easily be dismissed- a possible mention that cannot be appended to the relevant individual’s file because it is no longer in active circulation. This isn’t an unheard of occurrence; no program is perfect and it is easy to shrug off the match with a Jedi listed as having been deceased for years as being a false positive due to mistaken identity.

Which is what probably would have happened, had the Senior Padawan in charge of reviewing the system reports not had the unfortunate luck to have been caught sneaking an open container of Muja Juice into the archives by Madame Nu that morning and been dismissed for punishment duty. As a result it was the head archivist herself who ended up reading the report of a pirate arrested coming out of the Rattanak system, who in his interrogation happened to mention a man who bore a remarkable resemblance to Jedi Knight Ky Narec, missing, presumed dead, following the loss of his ship five years previously. Now Jocasta Nu is nothing if not meticulous, and instead of dismissing the report instead double checks the initial case - while not probable, it is possible that the ship may have made it to a nearby system, and Rattanak is within feasible distance...

As such, in this universe, the Jedi Order sends a team to Rattanak to investigate Ky Narec’s possible survival. And so it is that the long lost knight returns to the Temple.There is however consternation in the Council - Ky Narec’s return from the dead is an unexpected blessing, but at the same time he is loudly and vociferously demanding to be allowed to return and finish his self appointed mission. And then there is the matter of his preteen “Padawan”...

Asajj Ventress is indisputably strong in the force, but she has never seen the inside of the creche. When Ky found her she was already old for an initiate, and the years since have been focused on skills relevant to their immediate survival rather than providing a broad understanding of Jedi principles. But the bond between Master and Padawan is strong, and there is no question that her training must continue. But still, what is the council to to with a semi-feral Padawan who has spent years in an active warzone and her headstrong master who has an unshakeable belief in his own judgement?

The answer is obvious. Team them up with another problem pair and hope they balance each other out. And so it is that a smirking Master Yoda informs Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon that their expertise is required for a very special mission...

Qui-Gon is quite happy with his new assignment. Applying his years of experience to formulate an appropriate plan for dealing with the ongoing conflict on Rattanak is not easy, however Ky is a highly perceptive man and has an excellent understanding of the relative dynamics between the different players. The lost knight also has a delightfully dry sense of humour and is passionate in his defence of his student, which endears him very much to the older Master for a number of reasons. For his own part Ky Narec is pleasantly surprised by how well Master Jinn is actually listening to his arguments. Oh he challenges Ky’s conclusions, but he does not dismiss his knowledge or suggest that the situation might best be left to develop on its own (unlike other Jedi Ky could mention). Indeed, he suspects their proposal has a very good chance of working. 

Obi-Wan on the other hand is wondering how long the council intends to punish him for his various misdeeds. The Padawan he has been instructed to tutor is barely old enough to meet the standard definition of the term, has barely any understanding of most core teaching subjects and is only very begrudgingly separated from her master for more than an hour at a time. She is vicious, defensive and... and far too like himself in the wake of Melida/Daan. He remembers what it is like to be always on a hair trigger, always waiting for the next attack, desperately holding on to what you have because tomorrow it could be gone. He also remembers what it was like on his return. The scornful looks and disapproving frowns that left him feeling isolated, the endless nightmares and constant twitching at loud noises, the way the only one who seemed to have faith in him was his own Master - and little Asajj is far younger than he was... 

Asajj is not sure she likes the Temple, no matter how much Master Ky says she will learn to call it home. The food is good, and it’s nice not to have to worry about sentry duty, but the people are stupid. Do they think she doesn’t notice the way they look at her? The way the snicker just because she doesn’t know who some karking bigwig from the shouting hou... Senate is? Master Ky tells her not to worry, that she will catch up in no time, but he’s busy these days with the tall Master who makes the others groan and she’s been left with this Padawan Kenobi who seems just as stupid as the rest of them! Except... Padawan Kenobi never laughs at her in the mess hall for eating too fast, just hands her extra seed rolls to squirrel away in her robes for later. Padawan Kenobi might roll his eyes at her when she complains about her reading, but he doesn’t raise his voice or tell her she’s stupid. Padawan Kenobi will spar with her, and while he knows just what to say to get a rise out of Asajj he never toys with her or tries to embarass her. And come to think of it, he always seems to make enough noise for her avoid being startled by him. Maybe Padawan Ken... no, Obi-Wan isn’t so bad after all. It doesn’t mean she’s going to make life easy for him though!

To cut a long story short (and oh are there ever stories, because honestly the Council dearly begins to regret setting this up) Obi-Wan has a new friend and Qui-Gon has a new partner in crime.  Ky and Qui-Gon will watch in amusement while Obi-Wan and Asajj attempt to verbally eviscerate  whatever hapless individual has earned their scorn, and the Padawans will sigh and trade stories about reckless masters who can’t seem to go anywhere without attracting trouble. Over time (once Asajj has grown enough not to horrify civilians when she pulls our her blades) when one pairing gets into trouble more often than not it is the other who comes to bail them out. Which is more frequent than you’d think. Ky and Asajj are not diplomats. On the other hand given the trouble Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan usually end up causing, having a pair or terrifyingly efficient warriors familiar with the seedier side of the galaxy is a distinct advantage.

Which is why when the Temple loses contact with pair after sending them to negotiate an end to the trade dispute on Naboo, Ky and Asajj just look at one another and start preparing for an extraction mission. As it turns out they don’t need to launch as rescue as surprise surprise the pair turn up on Coruscant accompanying the missing Queen and with a new stray in tow...

Let’s backtrack a bit here. Because while the core events remained the same, the details do not. Qui-Gon Jinn lands on Tatooine and immediately starts cursing as he recalls everything Ky has told him about Outer Rim economics. Still, they need to do what they can, so into town he heads, with a foolish Gungan and a disguised Queen by his side. And when he meets Anakin Skywalker and his mother, Qui-Gon Jinn remembers a young Dathomiri Padawan matter of factly telling him “Hal’Sted wasn’t a bad master, it could have been much worse” before explaining exactly how in great depth, and his blood runs cold. 

Similarly, as their ship leaves behind the sand and suns of Tatooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi looks at his Master’s newest acquisition and thinks “Two of them. Bant is never going to let me hear the end of this.” and proceeds to do his best to reassure the boy and get him settled because experience has taught him that the easiest way to deal with a non-Temple raised force sensitive is to earn their trust as quickly as possible and worry about attachment issues later.

(Oh Obi-Wan, you have NO IDEA what you’ve just done)

What happens next is up in the air. Perhaps there are two more Jedi on the return to Naboo. Perhaps it changes things, and Qui-Gon lives to sort out his mess. Perhaps it doesn’t, and two padawans lose their masters that day. Perhaps Maul swears vengeance against two Jedi instead of one, and Asajj first tastes the Dark as the Sith that might once have been a brother takes away not only the man she sees as her father, but the Master who supported them both from the start.

But perhaps it doesn’t change things. Perhaps a grieving Obi-Wan returns to the Temple with his tiny new Padawan only to be hugged within an inch of his life by a teenage menace who will flatly deny it if she is ever asked. Perhaps things are easier in a world where the Council has already had to deal with one overaged Padawan in the last decade (At least Skywalker doesn’t appear to be about to stab anyone who looks at him wrong). Certainly Obi-Wan has a better grip on Anakin’s lingering issues regarding slavery.

(”It's different.” Whispers an unusually gentle Asajj when little Ani asks her. “You are HIS Padawan, but he is YOUR Master, and you have a claim on each other.” She smiles. “And if you truly wanted to leave, he would let you go.”)

They’re not large changes, not world breaking shifts in the way the galaxy will turn. But that doesn’t matter. 

I just want you all to imagine Knight Ventress.

Knight Ventress who is the unacknowledged master of Jar Kai and whose appearance has been known to send pirates running to the authorities to give themselves in.

Knight Ventress who is sharp and righteous anger, but never lets the Dark take hold, because she has too much to protect.

Knight Ventress who appears out of nowhere to snark at Kenobi and pat Skywalker on the head even after he grows to be taller than her.

 Knight Ventress who has a horrifically complicated on-off relationship with Quinlan Vos that the entire Temple is trying to pretend Does. Not. Exist.   

Knight Ventress who stalks into the middle of the Council chambers following the Battle of Geonosis and icily demands to know why they are leading a slave army.

Knight Ventress who repeatedly engages Dooku’s assassin, the brutish Savage Oppress, knowing that they share a heritage and that had things been different it might have been a far darker master she was sold to.

Knight Ventress who teases Knight Skywalker about his new Padawan, and promising to corrupt her lightsaber habits.

Knight Ventress who takes one look at the Duchess of Mandalore and just smirks knowingly at Obi-Wan.

Just... Knight Ventress. 

Who stands beside Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi as they take down Darth Sidious and watch the galaxy still fall...

Isn’t it an interesting thought?

[youhadmeatsheenzoned]

An Open Letter to my Late Conversation and Chill

I still remember what happened on the midnight of July 31, we argued on a thing which triggered our bond last summer. Our friendship officially ended last August 1, 1st day of enrollment for the academic year 2016-2017 with me bought a cake that you requested.

That day, you saw me.. Sitting next to your opponent last election… My hands on his lap and we we’re both laughing.

The cake was eaten by Me, Cathy, Pam and Sam; My Ducks, the one who knows our random “meet-me-at-the-lobby”, serenitea and who really knows what stress I had before because I was overthinking on my feelings.

The memories were so clear to me like when you asked Jam, if “Am I Okay?”, few days after I excommunicated you. Those random “She chatted me but I didn’t respond because I’m afraid that she will begin an another cat fight.”

It was September 8, Thursday, My best friend’s 19th birthday, when I went to school 1 and a half hour earlier than my original class when I saw you walking before me at the CT lobby. There’s no need to validate it, if it was you.. because, I know the built of your body, your hair and your bag. I walked the same way to your path because I’m going to the school’s registrar waiting for my next class and suddenly, I’m thirsty, I drank my water on my tumbler and you saw me. (I saw it with my peripheral view) I acted like I didn’t mind it but it ended up looking back to you and our eyes met… Maybe our eyes want to talk about something but we didn’t mind it.

After a few minutes, I went outside the campus because I wanted to talk to you but there’s no you…

One night, me and the ducks was eating at Mcdonald’s and suddenly, Sam told me, “he’s dating someone” and my poor heart became sadder than the usual.

September 11, Sunday. Despidida of my Ebpmate who went to Canada, my friend chatted me that he saw you at a Mall with someone with a long hair and she’s holding your hands but she told me that you look sad even if you had a company. Also that night, Lucienne added me on facebook. I thought, you two had rekindled but I was wrong.

That night, I stalked all the girls related to you… The girls I thought you were with but my stalking skills failed for the first time.

Later on that month, we saw an hack on your facebook account.. Saying something funny and finally, I saw it. I saw the girl you were with at the mall.

I stalked her twitter account and saw some tweets. Ahh, maybe my conclusions are true.. That she’s the one that you were referring when you told me that you miss someone that led me being jealous.

September 28, I saw you when I was going to my next class and to study my Prelim Exam on a Major that I really hate. We look at each other and you waved your hands on me, you said “Hi” and I answered, “You have a girlfriend naman daw?”, and you replied, “Where did you get that?”, I smiled and answered, “Connections.” Later on that night, you went to OCSC Office and told Ate Easter why she told me that you have a girlfriend. You also explained that she’s not your girlfriend, just a MU. I didn’t know what I feel on what you’d reacted, I don’t know why you reacted that way.

Later on that year, we and Lucienne became close friends. She became my Ate and my instant best friend, thanks to you and some nights ended of me crying over the things that I really don’t know.

To be honest, I cried a lot because of you. I even cried at Jollibee for Pete’s Sake.

The year finally ended and yes, we’re both on 3rd Year, 2nd Sem!

Unluckily, our schedules meant for some reason. We’re going to meet every Monday when we were having our lunches or there’s no week that we don’t see each other at the portal of the university.

April 2017, Pam challenged me for her 20th Birthday to take a picture with you and the day we took our surprise, Tada!! I saw you and we took a finger heart pose together, Maybe.. That’s the implication that we’re now civil.

Election period came and Lucienne was asked by an offer of your partylist. A week after, an offer came for me but it ended up a misadventure that led me to run at the Local Council.

On the night of the filing of candidacy, me and Josh talked about my misadventures and you asked me why didn’t eat with my team. Maybe you thought that I run for OCSC Election but you we’re wrong.

I came with Lucienne at your meeting before the avance, I was there but I was reviewing my part on Business Plan and watching Reply 1988. You offered me food that day, I mean anything that you can offer to ease my stay and acted like that I didn’t excommunicated you. I borrowed your cellphone charger that day and you scolded me at the jeepney because why I didn’t eat the meal at Josh’s when I will have a bad headache when If I don’t eat on time. We also talked about how good your party list is, compared to mine.

In the next day, you chatted me. Asking me where am I and was SHOOKETH! You had your campaign at our classroom and you laughed at me when I really want your campaign to be that long for us to skip our Tax class.

You jokingly asked me to be your house secretary and I jokingly answered you that I will be when I lose. My classmates supported me, they abstained me on my position but still it ended up winning that position. Ate Divine congratulated me at the dawn of May 5 but my heart wants to cry because I want to be the secretary, not because of you but I really want it since 2016.

We had several arrangement about it and the kiddo side of me is so happy. I planned to finish my Financial Statement first then compile the Accomplishment Report for the house but Josh didn’t want it. You want to fight for it.. but I gave it up because of Kuya Kevin’s advice.

You don’t want to give up on me by prioritizing me being at the house, I went to meet and greet and finally, we meet your babies! The babies that has a very special place in my heart.

You chatted me that night and said, thank you for coming. You asked me on my opinion on what happened that day and we said bye by 2 am (i guess)

Some unfortunate things happened and I gave up the house which resulted for me to regret my decision again and miss all the babies.

***** ****el,

I do value our friendship but it it is a sin if I do value my self more? I don’t want to be attached with someone whom I don’t know if he’s attached with me or not.

Sorry, if I do excommunicated you. I’m just protecting myself. Sorry for my wrong decisions if that decision really matters to you. Sorry for being selfish, selfish for protecting my self and not understanding you.

Sorry for not appreciating your efforts, I do not appreciate because I don’t want to give meaning of any of those. I don’t want you to be special to me again, not again.. Mr. Chair.

I don’t know if I regret on leaving you but one thing is for sure, I regret leaving the house and the babies. I miss them and want to get back. I want it back.

Your bess that didn’t valued you,

Maysheena

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... The Walking Dead (S07E10) New Best Friends Airdate: February 19, 2017 @amc Ratings: 11.075 Million :: 5.28 18-49 Demo Share Score: 5.5/10 **********SPOILERS BELOW********** At the end of last week's midseason premiere 'Rock In The Road', Rick was smiling as he and his group were met with one after one sullied sideshow oddities filing in around them in great numbers as if they were straight off the reject line of extra chimney sweepers in an overcrowded play of Mary Poppins. As this week's episode 'Best New Friends' begins, Rick is still wearing that smile. We've seen many extreme emotional states of Rick, but after 7 seasons all that smile tells me is that he's thinking 'Look at all these people I can convince to die on the front line'. If Rick isn't afraid of these 'Trash Dwellers', & their Resident Evil 5 inspired Mega-Walker then why would Negan & 'The Saviors' be? It seems as if in 'The Walking Dead's desperation to add depth or anything interesting to its choppy 7th season, that seems more like 'The B-Sides of S6' than it does its own standalone piece of work, we are seeing the show embrace its B-Film & Comic roots... And I'm all for that, but pacing issues and a slow tumble into its inevitable conclusion from when this whole thing started in S6 is sucking out what should be a fun campy romp into the show's more playful side. Any episode with Carol is a plus, this woman has proved time and time again to be the most riveting character in the cast... The few that have survived have gone through incredible life-changing traumas but Carol's transformation has been far and wide the most crowd pleasing tumultuous journey we've seen on the series to date. Unfortunately the juxtaposition of Rick's trashy romp with The Mary Poppins' Chimney Sweep Peep's Ultra-Zombie that looks like it was plucked right out of a video game side by side with Carol & Daryl's emotionally charged reunion is a bizarre and disappointing mishmash of two events that by contrast don't feel like they belong in the same episode at all. I beg for a Carol appearance these days in what has long since become chapterized weekly installments of random groups as Rick tries to round up his army. Don't get me wrong, seeing Carol embrace Daryl in a hug that could've lasted forever was a heart-rending momentous occasion for the series, it just didn't feel like it belonged here. Nor did their heart wrenching catch-up that ended with a lie that could easily come back and bite Daryl in the ass. I'm confused why everything else these past two seasons moved at a snails pace and this was rushed or simply stuck in an ill-fitting chapter. I try not to overthink The Walking Dead anymore, but I long for the grittier days, the darker days, the excitement of not knowing what was coming next. The Walking Dead just feels like it's lost its touch. I like repetition in my Detroit Techno, not my television series. It's amazing to think how huge of a brand and a fan base TWD has created, but I'm going to need to see some serious changes. Watching S7 has been more of a chore than it has been a pleasure.

[qqueenofhades]

i know you [i walked with you once upon a dream]: three

Post-1x16 canon divergence. When Lucy Preston, a history professor at Stanford University, is visited by a strange man who tells her that her entire world is a lie, she is drawn into a mystery more dangerous than she could have dreamed, and a hunt for a past she can't remember. But who, or what, is she going to find -- or lose -- along the way?

chapter two/AO3

Rufus Carlin turns off the music well in advance, straightens his collar, and makes sure that both his hands are visible on the steering wheel as he pulls into the slow-moving car queue spilling out the front gates of Mason Industries. Black guys can hardly expect anything wonderful when the police are involved to start with, and over the last week, security has gone from “tight” to “G20 summit as hosted by a paranoid dictator.” Everyone is subjected to thorough inspections both entering and leaving work, and God help you if you have a McDonald’s receipt you can’t account for. Rufus spent twenty minutes yesterday explaining to the latest rent-a-thug that yes, he usually gets breakfast on the way, and yes, he used his personal credit card to pay for it. He’s surprised they didn’t demand his SSN and PIN on the spot to double-check at the bank. But after everything that’s going on, the unexpected detonation of the Mothership and the loss of the last fifteen years of Connor Mason’s life’s work, perhaps that is, alas, to be expected. They still have the Lifeboat, but it’s only a prototype, doesn’t run yet. Although he’s obviously not about to say so at any office water coolers, Rufus wonders if perhaps this wasn’t the worst outcome in the world. At least nobody’s ever going to get the chance to, you know. Use the damn thing.

He sits and waits, more or less patiently, as he’s finally inspected and given the green light to proceed inside the compound and park. Rufus does, gets out, and swipes his ID card three times to get inside, along with his new ID card twice. Everyone has been pulled into the office for “quarterly review” – which, given that this is February and a time machine was destroyed two days ago, is clearly thinly veiled code for “are we going to fire and/or arrest you because you had something to do with it?” Rufus already had his go-round with the Spanish Inquisition, and managed to more or less convince them that he is the last person in the world who would want to steal, blow up, borrow, or otherwise have anything to do with the practical operation of a time machine. He is not cut out to be a hero. He’s just a number-cruncher, happier with computers and gizmos and gadgets and the safety of a controlled environment. It has occurred to him that it might be a great way to impress Jiya, but surely there has to be something to win over a girl that is easier to pull off than “intrepid time traveling Rambo.” He’ll say hi to her today. He will.

Rufus makes it to his desk and opens up the file which has been left on it, flipping through the papers. That newspaper article from the Chronicle is a bit of a joke now, given that what they are actually launching, one of their new high-speed transportation concepts, has been completely overshadowed by the loss of the Mothership. Connor has said that they are very, very angry, and while Rufus has no idea who “they” are, the kind of people who would fund the research and development of a frigging time machine are not going to hear of its loss, say, “Oh, well, that’s unfortunate,” and wander off to see what’s on Netflix. Obviously, this isn’t public knowledge, but one thing about the whole case is bothering Rufus (hah, he thinks, just one). They managed to retrieve a cache of the Mothership’s CPU – not the whole thing, and badly damaged, but enough data to get a decent look at its state of operations right before it blew up. And while Rufus would need to do the calculations again to be sure, from what he can tell, the Mothership was used. Close to twenty times. Almost forty if you count the return trips.

Except, of course, for the fact that it never has been, and was destroyed before it ever could be.

Rufus has run this through a few times, and he’s fairly sure that he’s the only one who’s come up with the conclusion. It’s so out there (and possibly dangerous) that he doesn’t exactly want to be the one to point it out, stroll into Connor’s office with a stack of printouts and ask hey, did we somehow miss the Mothership randomly vanishing into the past for extended periods? Maybe during that long lunch? Hah, funny story, us building a time machine and losing it, zany, right? Perhaps he could tell Anthony, as this seems like the kind of thing he should know, but something is still holding him back. If he had a second set of eyes, someone as smart as him or smarter, but not his boss, who might ask him yet more difficult and fiddly questions. . . Rufus has nothing to hide, so it baffles him and unnerves him that it somehow feels like he does. But who can he –

And then, it strikes him. Oh God.

Apparently he’s going to say hi to Jiya today after all.

“So.” Rufus, having rehearsed his opening line in his head for about the past ten minutes, panics, blanks, forgets it, and has to scramble not to fall over as the rolling chair he’s casually leaning on scoots out from underneath him. Somewhere, Don Juan just had an aneurysm. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, hey.” Jiya glances up at him with a grin, which Rufus has obsessed about: is it a grin, the kind you give coworkers, or a grin grin, the kind you give coworkers you might like? “What’s up?”

“I was going over the data from the CPU dump again, and. . .” Rufus does his best to sound as cool and interesting as he can. “I picked up something a little weird. And, well, you’re the smartest tech here, so if you have a moment, I thought we could go over it?”

Jiya giggles a bit, which makes his heart turn over. God, he likes this girl so much. Going into a recital of all the reasons why would officially push him into creeptastic stalker territory, which he swears he’s not. But from the moment she started at Mason Industries eighteen months ago, yeah, he’s been completely gone. He went to MIT, she went to Caltech, so they have periodic ribbing over which of their schools is currently atop the number-one ranking. She wears video-game shirts and cosplays at Comic-Con. He loves the scent of her shampoo and the way she bites her nail polish and knows the answer to anything. She’s so much braver than he is. So much more everything. He knows that he is punching above his weight class here, but still.

“Sure,” Jiya says after a moment, pushing back her chair and standing up. “Hit me up.”

Rufus is horribly tempted to remark that yes, he very much wants to do exactly that, but he is not the kind of guy who can pull off that kind of comment, and it’s rude anyway. He gulps, scoops up his papers, and follows her into one of the glass-walled conference rooms overlooking the main warehouse. Once they’ve shut the door, Jiya hits a button to lower the security shade and turns to him. “Okay. What you got?”

Rufus spreads the printouts on the table and explains his hunch. He knows it sounds ludicrous, and the Mothership was probably just malfunctioning (since it was, you know, about to be blown up by agent or agent(s) unknown). But if that was the case, the rest of the systems should show errors or abnormalities or general electronic interference as well, and they don’t. It’s everything that you would expect to see if the Mothership had indeed been used successfully, and repeatedly. Running perfectly, in fact. Except that it hasn’t.

A frown links Jiya’s thick dark brows as she listens. When he finishes, she grabs the pencil from behind her ear and leans over the papers herself, checking the calculations. “That is. . .” she says at last, slowly. “That is weird.”

Rufus is somewhat relieved that it’s not only him spotting the abnormalities, but he was also sort of hoping she’d tell him that they were explainable. Basically, the science goes like this. The Mothership is what they’ve dubbed a Feynman machine, named after a highly influential theory in particle physics by one Richard Feynman. The classical model of system trajectory postulates a fixed, single path for a particle traveling from point A to point B, which is hence assumed to obey normal laws of motion – that is, it taking the path of least resistance, a linear forward motion. Feynman, however, argued that this took no account of the essentially irrational actions of subatomic particles, and that an infinity of possible paths had to be imagined instead, all with equal weight of magnitude. The particle could have traveled in a straight line, yes, but it could just as probably have circled around, gone in a figure eight, shot to a parallel universe, down a wormhole, and back. Therefore, an agent propelled to high enough resonances to interact with the quantum level in this way can theoretically go anywhere – or anywhen – in space and time.

Ordinarily, the strong interference of normative probability – that the agent would just go from A to B, that an apple would fall when dropped, that there was only one discrete and physically actionable universe – cancels out the absurd trajectories and produces the expected result. But Feynman showed that allowing for every one of these extraordinary voyages was fully compatible with the conventional model of motion and Schrödinger’s equation, and what has drawn Rufus’s attention is the lingering evidence of these exact extraordinary journeys in the quantum fabric, these twists and ripples and folds. The description that comes to mind is “Swiss cheese.” As if numerous small, localized irregularities have been ripped into it, then healed – almost, but not quite. As if the timeline was absolutely land-mined with interference and change, and then jerked back to the original blueprint – almost, but not quite.

As if, perhaps, the Mothership’s evidence is no mistake. As if it was used, and then set up somehow to cause a paradox where it wasn’t. The basic problem: if your future self arrived to tell you to do something, would you do it because they told you to, but in that case, where did they get the idea, if you had to tell it to yourself? There’s no logical entry into the cause and effect; it’s a twisted Möbius strip, like a hamster going around and around on a wheel. Build up too many of these, and the universe starts to get unhappy. Has a tendency to violently correct them, snap the strip, explode the bubble of trapped probability back to the linear progression. The results, when they have happened in controlled laboratory settings, have been. . . well. . .

The description that comes to mind for that is “bug on a windshield.”

Rufus and Jiya glance at each other slowly, as discovering that the universe has been chronologically destabilized and is at potentially at risk for sudden and violent spontaneous combustion is not the most comforting team-building exercise in the world. Obviously, they have to tell someone about this, but who? Connor? Anthony? There is already enough of a fire under Connor’s feet as it is, with the mysterious bad-guys-from-The-Matrix types who have been stalking around and taking reams of notes and photos, and Anthony. . . he’s the project lead, this has been his baby from the start, surely he’s the genius who will whip this back into shape. But how? It sounds insane enough as it is, and how are they going to fix it? The Mothership is gone. The Lifeboat doesn’t work. There’s no proof that this even happened. And if it has, the best way to put this is that the timeline is now so angry with all these shenanigans and contortions, its response has been to suggest, “What if I just explode, motherfucker? Huh? Serve you right. Asshole.” Then cartwheel out of the room, flipping the bird with both fingers.

You know, Rufus thinks. This is exactly why I hate time travel.

(If the world might accidentally end on the spot if anyone does anything else irrational, the next speech from President Evil Cheeto might just finish them off – though that was a good bet in the first place. And the whole “gotta bang before we die” suggestion is there to be made, so – )

Oh God. Seriously. Rufus shakes his head, wanting to smack himself. Then he gathers up the papers, endeavoring to sound matter-of-fact. “So, should we drop by and see if Anthony’s in?”

“Maybe?” Jiya frowns. “He’s been. . . weird recently, though. I don’t know if you noticed, but I swear, you’d think the Mafia was coming for him, the way he’s been walking on eggshells. I mean – ” she tilts her head at all the suits down on the floor – “they kind of are, but more. Maybe the loss of the whole thing cracked him. It was supposed to be his magnum opus, you know. Getting that blown up has to suck. More, I mean.”

“We have to tell him,” Rufus says stoutly. Anthony has to know,  because Anthony will think of something to fix it. He scoops up the file, they leave the conference room, and head down the catwalk to Anthony’s office. Knocks and opens the door a crack. “Hey?”

Anthony jumps a foot and spills his coffee on himself.

“Oh, jeez. Sorry.” Rufus scurries in and looks around for a roll of paper towels or something else to sponge up with. “Sorry, Anthony. Any idea when Agent Smith and his pals are clearing out?”

“Don’t – don’t say that.” Anthony’s hands are trembling slightly as he does his best to clean the spill. “I don’t know. Things are very – things are very delicate right now. Just keep your head down and do your job, Rufus. It would be – it wouldn’t be smart to draw their attention.”

Rufus frowns. “Look, I know accidentally losing a time machine isn’t really something to boast about in the end-of-year newsletter, but these dicks are starting to give me serious – ”

“SHHH!” Anthony looks as if he’s about to have a heart attack, and Rufus snaps his mouth shut, baffled and thrown. “Rufus, just. . . go back to your desk, all right?”

Rufus and Jiya exchange a glance, as if wondering if their grand plan is going down the tubes before their very eyes. Rufus holds the file a little tighter. “Anthony,” he says at last. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine. I’m fine. It’s just. . .” Anthony looks around for a clean shirt. “You know, I’m not sure I’m supposed to be. . . no, never mind. I’m sure this will all blow over, as long as we cooperate and give them what they want.”

“You know,” Rufus says. “That’s the second time I’ve heard someone talking about ‘they’ as if it’s a bigger problem than anyone’s letting on. Who exactly were we supposed to be building the Mothership for? Some kind of contract or commission? Because – ”

Anthony draws a finger over his throat. Rufus shuts his mouth with a snap. Whatever else he was going to say, he can feel himself, much like Fagin, deciding that he thinks he’ll think it out again. He backs up, file still in hand. “Got it,” he says. “Have a good day.”

Back at his desk on the operations floor, Rufus is less able to focus than ever, exhilaration of a semi-successful interaction with Jiya aside. Technically, he could go up to the suits-and-sunglasses and hand over his findings, if that’s going to get them out of Mason Industries’ hair, but something, he doesn’t even know what, stops him. He works steadily but inattentively on his programming prompts for most of the morning, until someone raps him on the shoulder. “Mr. Carlin?”

Rufus pulls out his headphones. “Yeah?”

The suit flashes a badge at him. “Agent Jake Neville, Homeland Security. Can you come with us, please?”

“Uh, what?” Rufus is confused. “I already had my clearance interview, I’ve got my new ID card, I’m legit.” He dangles it as proof. “So if you think you need to – ”

“We do need to ask you a few questions, yes. This way, please.”

With a feeling in his stomach as if he’s missed a step going downstairs, Rufus gets up from his chair – catches Jiya looking at him with a frown, maybe she’ll cry if he’s summarily shot in the back of the head and dumped in an unmarked grave – and follows Agent Neville to the room across the way, where Connor, Anthony, the rest of the brass, and a few more of the suits are sitting around a polished-chrome conference table. Rufus’s hands are starting to sweat. He really does not like pressure. “Hey, guys,” he says stupidly, like he just walked late into a pizza party and are wondering if they saved him a slice. “This whole thing, huh? Wild.”

Nobody laughs, or gives him so much as a sympathetic grin. Neville shuts the door, takes out a clicker, and lowers a screen. Points at it, and a picture flashes up. White dude, blue eyes, looks like a soldier, even in plainclothes. “Mr. Carlin, do you recognize this man?”

Rufus shoots a wild glance at Anthony, wondering if this is a trick question. “No?”

“Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan, Delta Force, U.S. Army Special Operations. Never heard of him?”

“No?” Rufus wonders if you’re allowed to blow somebody’s cover – the point of special ops, after all, is that you don’t know who they are. Then again, Homeland Security probably does have some kind of prerogative on that. “Look, I’ve never met him in my life, okay?”

The suits exchange glances down the table. Agent Neville hits the clicker button again. Pretty brunette in a slim-fit blazer, stack of books in her arms; the picture looks as if it was taken from some kind of surveillance camera. “Lucy Preston. History professor, Stanford University.”

“No, I don’t know her either.” Rufus has no idea what they’re trying to trick him into, but this is ridiculous. “Look, if I’m going to answer any more questions, I want a lawyer.”

“Is that an admission of guilt, Mr. Carlin?”

“No! Because I have no clue what I’m even supposed to be on trial for!” Rufus wheels angrily on the whole foreboding lot of them. “Whoever did anything to that time machine, I already told you. Over and over. I don’t know!”

A pause. Some kind of silent rustle passes around the room. Agent Neville clicks.

“Do you know this man, Mr. Carlin?”

Rufus scowls heavily at the screen. Captain Jerkwad up there absolutely looks like some kind of Soviet sleeper agent: tall, dark parted hair, suit and tie, sharply chiseled features, definitely packing some kind of serious heat. “What?” Rufus says. “Flynn? I don’t – ”

And at that, he screeches to a halt. Aware, far too late, that – having no idea how – he has just made a terrible mistake.

The agents exchange glances. They didn’t tell him that name. Rufus came up with it on his own, and even worse, he has no notion at all where it came from: it was just on the tip of his tongue, he has no conscious recollection of it at all. It appears, however, to have been what they were looking for, and Agent Neville takes a step. “Mr. Carlin, if you’ll come with us?”

Rufus tries not to panic, even as Connor Mason stands up. “Come now. Is there. . . really a need for that?”

“He recognized him,” Neville says. “The number-one suspect in the detonation of the Mothership. I think that’s probable cause for further questioning, right there.”

“No! I have no idea who that guy is!” Rufus is frantic, desperate to make them believe him. “Connor, I don’t know who he is!”

“Yet,” Neville says, even more skeptically, “you knew his name?”

“I can’t tell you anything about him! I don’t know who he is!”

Connor takes half a step. Glances at the agents, and something unspoken seems to pass between them, turbulent and unsettling as wet concrete, the knowledge that it could set fast and trap you. “We don’t have any real reason to think he’s lying, do we?”

“We could find that out.”

“Rufus is a valuable member of my team. The most valuable, perhaps. If you want me to continue cooperating with you and allowing you full access to my facilities and technologies – surely you can at least obtain a warrant before hauling him off for questioning?” Mason smiles ingratiatingly. “If you can find something to charge him with, then of course, far be it from me to obstruct the proper operation of the law. But – think about this carefully?”

Neville doesn’t look like he wants to. The tension remains acute. Then at last, once, he jerks his head. “Fine,” he says brusquely. “In the meantime, is there anything else you want to tell us, Mr. Carlin? Something to, say, convince us of your bona fides?”

Rufus thinks of the file. Of his conclusions. Of the apparent possibility that one of these days, the world might just pop like a balloon, and spill them all into the abyss.

“No, sir,” he says, tight as a badly wound string. “Nothing.”

------------------

Lucy Preston is not having a good idea.

In fact, it would be difficult to say when she’s ever had a worse one, strictly speaking. The rest of her week is crammed, she and Noah are supposed to meet with the wedding planner on Saturday, and even if she did have actual time in her schedule, this would still be a monumentally idiotic notion. But more than once this morning, she’s caught herself on Expedia or Orbitz browsing flights from San Francisco to Dubrovnik, mulling the idea of booking one last-minute, jaunting over there, and seeing what it turns up. Maybe try to find Lorena Flynn, warn her that her husband isn’t well, has been accosting strangers with copies of his garbage manifesto, trying to recruit them into some “The Aliens Are Coming” Heaven’s Gate-style thing. She hopes not, at any rate, but maybe Flynn has been approaching other people. Maybe there’s a pattern.

Lucy reminds herself, for the ten dozenth time, that the smart thing to do is call the police and let the law enforcement professionals handle it, rather than attempting some vigilante intervention on her own. But. . . for whatever reason, and especially after her visit from Evil Mulder and Scully last night, she’s not feeling too keen on cops right now. Noah would tell her to do it anyway, but. . . for some bizarre reason Lucy woke up late last night, with the brief and terrifying impression that she was in bed with a stranger. It faded, but it lasted long enough to leave her disoriented, unable to get back to sleep, groggy this morning, and avoiding Noah’s questions when he tried to ask if she was all right. She’s clearly being as conspicuous about this as possible, but whatever’s going on, she’s just about made up her mind to take Amy’s advice. Though Amy warned her as well that live mysteries are an entirely different animal from dead ones. Get involved in this, and she might be lucky if she gets to regret it.

Lucy is finally about to close the browser window and get back to work, when the phone on her desk rings. She hesitates, then picks it up. “Hello?”

“Miss Preston?” Three guesses as to who it sounds like on the other end. “Is this a good time?”

Lucy goes tense all over. “No, actually. It isn’t.”

“Miss Preston, as before, you aren’t in any trouble. But if you keep trying to avoid us when we have to ask just a few questions, we can’t guarantee – ”

“Who is we?” Lucy asks. “The Borg?”

“Miss Preston – ”

“Okay, first of all.” She is just about completely out of patience to humor these pricks. “Don’t call me Miss Preston. I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman with two doctorates from and a professorship at Stanford, not some little girl drinking a Shirley Temple and feeling so grown up. You can call me Dr. Preston, or Professor Preston, or better yet, don’t call me at all. I already told you, I don’t have anything to say. If you’re legit, you can do this the legal way. Until then, don’t contact me again.”

With that, not giving them time to get a word in edgewise, Lucy bangs down the phone, far more vehemently than she meant to. She doesn’t even know what it is about them that’s setting her off like this, practically begging them to come after her with the brute squad, but every time she hears their voices, something cold and repulsed and inexplicable trickles through her entire body, souring her from head to toe, as if she can’t even think about cooperating. That if she does, she’ll die – or worse. It sounds melodramatic, to say the least. She can’t explain it even to herself.

Lucy sits staring at her computer screen for a moment longer. Then all at once, she clicks through to her recently closed tabs, and opens up Skyscanner. Five minutes later, having fished out the credit card that she’s been saving for wedding expenses, she has booked a departure from SFO at 6:10pm tonight on Turkish Airlines, connecting through Istanbul and arriving in Dubrovnik at 10:50am local time on the day after tomorrow. It’s going to be an ass of a long flight, but whatever. It briefly crosses her mind that it might make her look even more suspicious if she tries to leave the country to avoid being questioned by the government, but whatever.

She checks her watch. If she’s going to make it home and then to the airport in time to get through security for an international flight, she has to leave now, and she opens up her email, throws together a quick Out of Office AutoReply, sends a note to the head of the department making it sound like something has come up with her mom (she feels absolutely terrible for doing this, but such it is) and she will be unavailable for the next few days, family emergency, very, very sorry, but she hopes they understand. Then she pulls on her jacket and moves fast.

Lucy drives home like a NASCAR winner, praying that Noah hasn’t changed shifts and thus will be inopportunely off, but thankfully, he’s not there. She packs a quick overnight bag, grabs her passport and makes sure it’s still in date, and then practically sprints back to her car, convinced that the agents will have turned up in the fifteen minutes or so she was at home. They haven’t, but that doesn’t stop her. Feeling that all she needs is her tinfoil hat, convinced that the government is out to get her, Lucy lays rubber to SFO, parks in the economy lot, and heads in.

Once she has checked in and made it through security without being waylaid and dragged off for private questioning, she takes out her phone, opens up her texts with Noah, stares at it wondering what to possibly say, and finally taps out that she had to run a quick errand and she might be kind of late getting home. This is ridiculously inadequate, but she can’t think of anything else. It’s definitely a bad sign if you don’t tell your fiancé something like this, but. But. But.

(Nothing has made sense in Lucy’s life since Garcia Flynn walked into it less than seventy-two hours ago, and turned everything upside down.)

She waits until they call boarding, shuffles aboard with the rest of the travelers, and settles in for the long overnight ride to Istanbul. She’s brought the flash drive, but no way is she looking on it on a crowded plane, and doesn’t sleep either, listening to music and watching the glowing flight tracker edge slowly on its long way across the entire continental United States, then the Atlantic Ocean. She dozes off somewhere in this, wakes up as they’re landing in Istanbul, and is completely disoriented as she shuffles into the terminal to wait for her connection. Turns on her phone, connects to the wifi, and it basically explodes. There are thirty new messages from Noah.

Feeling horrible, Lucy pauses, then calls him on Whatsapp. He picks up on the first ring. “Lucy! Jesus! I’ve been worried out of my mind! Where the hell are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m. . .” Lucy winces. “I’m kind of out of the country.”

“You. . . you what?”

“Yeah. I’m in Istanbul.”

“Istanbul?” She can almost hear his circuits overloading. “Did someone – ” it’s clear from his tone exactly who he thinks this is – “make you go with them? Do you need help? Should I – ”

“Noah, I’m sorry. It was. . . it was an accident.”

“You accidentally flew to Turkey?”

“I. . .” Lucy feels completely helpless to explain, especially when there is no rational or logical basis or explanation for anything she’s doing. “I’ll be – I’ll be back home soon, okay? It’s just something I need to do. I’m sorry, I swear I’ll tell you everything. It’s just. . . do you trust me?”

There’s a marked silence. Then Noah says, “You know I do. You know I want you to do whatever you need to do. But Lucy, you’re asking a lot.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you worry. I’ll be home soon. I swear.”

He pauses again. Finally he says, “Okay.”

“Okay.” Lucy lets out a slow breath. She can hear the lingering frost in his voice, for which she doesn’t blame him; she just spent a fairly significant chunk of their wedding budget on a last-minute international plane ticket, she didn’t tell him she was doing it, and she’s been acting weird ever since some mysterious man gatecrashed their previously happy life. Not idyllic, what with her mom and her workload and everything, but still hers. It must be pretty damn clear to Noah by now that whatever she’s told him about not thinking about or seeing Flynn again, it’s a lie. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s started to wonder what else she might be lying about.

“Hey,” Lucy says, trying to bridge the silence. “I love you, okay? See you soon.”

Noah blows out a breath. “Okay,” he says again. “See you soon.”

With that, they hang up, not leaving her feeling considerably better. She is well aware she couldn’t even bring herself to tell him that she’s going onward to Croatia, that Turkey isn’t her final destination, and hates herself for it. If there is a quicker way to torpedo a relationship in six easy steps (or hell, even fewer at the rate she’s going), it’s hard to think of one. And it’s Noah, why would she lose Noah, Noah’s always been great, their whole time, they –

Where did she meet him?

When did they get together?

How long have they been together?

When did he propose?

Did she even say yes?

Lucy almost freezes solid. She knows this, of course she knows this – she’s marrying him, after all. And yet, the more she searches her brain for the details, the more they elude her. It’s a terrifying feeling, even worse than waking up and thinking she didn’t know him last night. As if her entire life is built on smoke and shadows, on –

Your life now is a lie, but not one you’d have any way of easily disproving. And not one that would hurt you, perhaps, to stay in. But if the time comes when you want answers, at least you’ll have them.

Lucy inhales a slow, ragged breath, gripping her knees so she doesn’t have a panic attack in the middle of Ataturk International Airport. She gets up and has to walk it off, which helps only marginally, and on her flight to Dubrovnik, wonders if the risks of reading For Lucy in public is really a sufficient reason not to. But her world is already threatening to unravel at the seams, and she doesn’t want to pull at the thread to make it go any faster. She wants to cling to whatever sanity is left.

She lands at last, crumpled and shaken and shaky, like a used paper napkin. Manages to navigate customs and find her way into the city, which at any other time – and even now – she would be absolutely delighted to lose herself in. Dubrovnik is stunningly beautiful, with a red-roofed medieval old town and massive old walls, distant blue mountains and sparkling Adriatic Sea, resort beaches and palm trees – they film Game of Thrones here, she remembers, and the place absolutely looks like the capital of some fantasy land. Her historian’s curiosity is going haywire, and she perks up a bit as she explores the narrow cobbled streets and quaint buildings. It was shelled and besieged in 1991 during the breakup of the Yugoslavian bloc, and scars remain here and there, but for the most part, it’s recovered nicely. She, however, is not here to be a tourist. She has to focus. Can’t exactly go door-to-door until she finds them.

Lucy opens up Lorena Flynn’s Facebook page, spends a while deciding where it looks like her profile picture was taken, and once she thinks she’s matched it, goes down and into a coffee shop, the kind of local java joint where someone from the neighborhood would spend a lot of time. Finds someone who speaks English, and asks if she happens to know where the Flynns live.

If she gets a funny look at that, she can’t tell. The woman hesitates briefly, asks if she’s a friend of the family. Lucy lies and says yes, hoping she doesn’t pry too closely, as she obviously will not be able to provide many details if asked, but after a moment, the woman tells her. Gives her what is definitely a Look, and sends her on her way.

Once Lucy has climbed the steep street and found the tidy townhouse at the top, she almost chickens out – which is absurd, given how far she’s already come and how many stupid things she’s already done. The barista is definitely going to let Lorena know the next time she sees her that some strange American woman was looking for her, and given the turmoil that the family is evidently already going through, the least Lucy can do is appear and own up to her insanity. She clenches a hand until it doesn’t shake, or at least less, and rings the bell.

It takes long enough to be answered that she briefly and fondly hopes that Lorena isn’t home. But then at last, footsteps. The door cracks. “Can I help you?”

Lucy clears her throat. “L-Lorena? Lorena Flynn?”

Marked silence. “Yes?”

“Can I – can I talk to you? Please?”

There’s another frosty silence. Then the door opens a further crack, revealing Lorena – yes, it’s definitely her, she looks just like her picture. But there are dark circles under her eyes, she isn’t wearing makeup, and her neatly waved hair is loose and unstyled. She pulls a sweater more tightly around herself with thin hands, regarding Lucy warily and without discernible warmth. “Can I help you?” she says again. Her accent isn’t Croatian – Spanish, as far as Lucy can tell. Her tone is polite, but it’s clear she isn’t in the mood for having her time wasted.

“I – actually, it’s about your husband.” Lucy tries to speak as gently as she can, but there’s no good way to phrase this. “He came to see me the other day. In, well, in California, in the States. I’m not sure if you know, but I don’t think he’s – ”

Something in Lorena’s face changes, not promisingly. “Lucy?” she repeats, suddenly and sharply. “Are you Lucy?”

“I – ” This has just taken a U-turn, and not a good one. “Well, yes, I am, but – ”

“How dare you.” Lorena’s tone remains flat, quiet, and ice-cold. Lucy has never felt such withering disdain from anyone, much less a woman she doesn’t even know. “What do you want, turning up at my home like this? To what? Gloat?”

“I – Mrs. Flynn, I don’t – ”

“Mrs. Flynn?” Lorena’s laugh is bitter and humorless. Her eyes flick to the ring on Lucy’s finger. “Are you sure about that?”

“I – ” Too late, too slowly, Lucy realizes what the other woman thinks is going on here, and is absolutely mortified. “I – Mrs. Flynn, I swear, I have never met your husband in my life. I don’t know him. He turned up at my office in America and – I don’t think he’s well, he – ”

“You don’t know him? After he kept trying to explain to me something about how he had to go see you? Because he kept talking about your journal, something about meeting you, going on some kind of mission through time, God bringing you together?” Lorena’s eyes are too bright, lip trembling, but she forces herself to keep her composure. “My husband is gone for three years without a word, finally strolls back in one day as if nothing happened, and he won’t stop talking about a woman named Lucy? It’s not too hard to put together the pieces!”

“Mrs. Flynn, I swear, I wasn’t on any mission with your husband. I don’t know why he chose to approach me. I thought you must be worried about him. I haven’t come here to hurt you or gloat or anything like that. I just. . .” Lucy trails off. “I wanted to know what was going on.”

Lorena studies her face for a long, excruciatingly uncomfortable moment, dark eyes cool and guarded. But at last, whatever she sees belatedly convinces her of Lucy’s sincerity. She steps back, and holds the door open.

Lucy nods in thanks, steps inside, and cautiously follows Lorena down the hall to the bright, airy kitchen at the back, with a balcony that overlooks the sea. She gingerly sinks into a chair as Lorena puts on the kettle, and makes them both a cup of tea. She opens a cupboard and takes out a tin of ginger biscuits, sets them on the table, and sits down across from Lucy. “I don’t have any answers for you,” she says. “I don’t know what happened either.”

Lucy tells her as much as she knows, which likewise isn’t a great deal, and Lorena listens with a slight frown linking her elegant brows. “Yes,” she says at last. “That’s about what he was trying to tell me. Something about. . .” She stops. “No. It’s too absurd.”

“About what?” Lucy reaches out, about to put her hand over the other woman’s, then stopping herself. “Mrs. Flynn, please tell me.”

“I. . .” Lorena gathers herself. “You’re going to laugh at me.”

“I promise, I won’t.”

“Fine. His explanation was that we – our daughter Iris and I – were. . . were killed, one night in 2014, because he found out incriminating information about an organization called Rittenhouse. That he then met you – Lucy Preston – and you were an older woman who gave him a journal that talked about a time machine, made by a place called Mason Industries.” Lorena stops again, shaking her head at the sheer nonsense she is repeating. “That he had stolen that time machine after two years of preparing for the mission, and took it through history, trying to erase Rittenhouse and bring us back, and that you – your younger self, and two men called Wyatt and Rufus – followed him, tried to stop him. But at the end you joined forces, were planning to bring down Rittenhouse, and you gave him the information to make one final trip and take out the men who had. . . had killed Iris and myself. That he did this, returned to the present, and destroyed the machine, only to find out that by changing that, that since we were alive, he had actually never stolen the machine, you hadn’t followed him, and all your adventures hadn’t really happened. That he had altered the entire structure of reality, and he was the only one who remembered.”

Lucy was braced for a doozy, as she has personal experience of Garcia Flynn’s insanity, but that is more insane than even she is remotely prepared to countenance. No wonder Lorena thinks her husband cracked up, had a midlife crisis, ran off to have a passionate affair with a pretty American professor, and has invented this cock-and-bull story as a pathetic attempt to cover his tracks. That is far, far easier to believe than, well. That. Lucy doesn’t even know where to begin. “I, ah. You’re not dead, obviously, so. Yeah.”

“Of course we aren’t dead.” Lorena sips her tea. Her shoulders are still tense, crunched, but she seems somewhat more at ease by unburdening herself of that mad fairytale, having at least had someone else to listen to it in full. “It’s been three years with nothing, no word from him, and then he walks back in and expects us to buy that? And all he can talk about is you, how you helped him do it. About how he had to go and tell you. We. . . we fought. I told him to leave, if you were the one he wanted. I. . .” Lorena trails off. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry.” This time, Lucy does put her hand over Lorena’s. The older woman tenses, as if thinking about pulling away, but doesn’t. “I swear. I don’t either.”

Lorena searches her face again, still hesitant but hungry for reassurance that Lucy isn’t here to further rip apart her family, to make everything even worse. At last, she cracks a thin smile. “Well,” she says. “I have to say, that is a relief.”

“I was just. . . well, as I said, it was worrisome. I wanted to make sure you knew, if you had some way to get in contact with him.” Lucy sips her own tea, nibbles at a ginger biscuit. “If I can help, if I can sort things out between you, I’m happy to do that. I don’t know why he would choose me for his story, but. . .” She hesitates. Thinks of him asking her if she knew the man in the paper, Rufus Carlin, and the one named Wyatt Logan who gave her a hand with Agent Asshole last night. Two men called Wyatt and Rufus. That’s strange, but then again, this whole thing is well beyond ordinary classifications of weirdness. “Of course it’s not true.”

“Of course not.” Lorena rubs her eyes. “Garcia has always had to deal with – well, he’s done a lot of the kind of work he can’t talk about, but he’s never come up with anything like this. I’m worried about him too, but he owes me a real explanation. Owes Iris a real explanation. If he could just leave her like that, he’s not the man I married, not the father I thought he was. And he doesn’t get to come back until he gives me one.”

“Well,” Lucy says. “Maybe we can find him. Get him straightened out.” She manages a smile. “It may take a lot of straightening, but we’ll see.”

Lorena glances at her again. It’s clear that she’s wondering, even if she has come around, just why Lucy would have any initiative to help a loony stranger who she doesn’t know from Adam, but she also doesn’t want to fight about it, or turn down help in what must be a very lonely struggle. Then, startling them both, the doorbell rings, and she sighs. “Excuse me.”

“Of course.” Lucy sits back, takes another ginger biscuit, and enjoys the warm Mediterranean sunshine slanting through the kitchen windows. Hears distant voices as Lorena talks to whoever is at the door. She’s taking rather a long time about it.

And then, abruptly, the voices stop. There’s a scuffle and a thump.

Lucy frowns. Gets up. “Lorena?”

No answer. She runs down the corridor. The door is wide open.

Lorena Flynn is gone.

[equalmeasurefiction]

Scene 2.1.6.4- Unspeakable

I have strong feelings about this scene.  None of them good.

Equal Measure Navigation

2.1.6.3- Apologies 2.1.6.3.5- The Little Equalist 2.1.6.5- Shame

Part 1 Master Post

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Amon excused himself around five-thirty am.  He had business to attend to.  Sato followed the Equalist Leader out, muttering about getting some rest before drafting more war machines in his workshop.  The lieutenant, Lu Zhen, remained behind to finish editing a few files and to keep an eye on the ex-bender, Councilman Tarrlok.

Zhen hadn’t volunteered to stay behind.  Amon had asked him to keep an eye on the conniving politician.  The Equalist Leader had told his lieutenant that he trusted him to keep a clear head in the presence of the vile man.  Zhen, flattered, had quickly agreed to the task, but now that he was stuck in the dim, remote room with the ex-blood bender, he regretted his enthusiasm.

As soon the lieutenant was alone with the broken politician, he’d moved his chair.  He situated himself so that he sat opposite the councilman. He wanted the table between them so that the solid wooden surface could be used as a barrier or shield if the ex-bender turned violent.  But what had seemed like a solid strategic move had an unfortunate consequence…

Whenever Zhen looked up from his work, he found himself looking at the councilman’s static, emotionless face.

In the past, the lieutenant had hated the sight of the councilman’s face, because the man had always worn a look of smug superiority.  Now, the sight of Tarrlok’s face made him uncomfortable, because it was so empty.  It was as though some vital spark within the despicable politician had been dimmed to the point of extinction.  He appeared lifeless, and it was only the steady rise and fall of his chest that suggested the man was still alive.

So, Zhen did his best to keep his eyes on his work, but with every passing moment it became more difficult to attend to the stack of files in front of him.  After working an extra three hours on the files, he was exhausted and progressively losing his ability to focus.  Worse still, the batteries in the Future Industries lanterns were on their last legs.  There was probably less than an hour’s worth of energy left in them.  The light flickered with increasing regularity, throwing strange and ominous shadows on the walls.

As the darkness drew closer and the light dimmed, Zhen found his eyes growing weary and his mind wandering. He pondered the silent man across from him and bit by bit the events of the earlier meeting began to weigh on his mind. The interaction between Amon and Tarrlok troubled him and he found himself mentally reviewing every interaction he’d witnessed between the two men…

He decided then and there that he was finished with the files.  There was nothing more he could do in these horrible conditions.  He’d deliver them to Amon and hope for the best. His eyes were tired from strain and his mind, exhausted from stress and the sleepless night, could no longer focus on the content in front of him.  His mind was swimming with questions and suppositions about his superior officer and the politician seated in front of him…

It was driving him crazy.

He needed a break.

He sat back in his chair and stretched; lifting his arm overhead, arching his back, and letting his head fall back. His long fingers folded together as he turned his palms upward to pull the kinks out of arms and relieve his aching back.  His eyes slipped closed and he groaned in pleasure.

As he slowly settled back into his seat, he smiled and sighed.  His head felt clear again.

But as soon as he opened his eyes, he found himself staring at Tarrlok.  The councilman hadn’t moved an inch in all the time they’d been sitting alone in the room.  The politician slouched in his chair, his empty, soulless eyes were focused on a point somewhat above and to the left of the lieutenant.  His long, straight hair and fallen down to hang around his long, angular face and his fancy clothes were rumpled and unkempt.  He looked worn down and tired, but it was possibly a trick of the light.  The long, deep shadows in the room settled along the countless lines of the face, exaggerating and warping features.

Even the handsomest man could appear haggard and hideous in this light.

Now that Zhen was looking at the councilman, he found that he couldn’t tear his eyes away and the cruel thoughts that tormented him roared to the forefront of his mind.  His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed into hateful slits.  Jealousy, contemptible and poisonous, gnawed at his insides.

He drew in a deep, unsteady breath and pushed himself to his feet.  He began to gather up the remaining files on the table, moving slowly and methodically as he struggled to keep his mind on the task before him…

But his tired brain would not let him forget what he’d seen.

He could not deny what he had witnessed, could he?  Amon and Tarrlok had shared a moment during the meeting and, in watching their interactions, Zhen could only come to one conclusion: they had a history.  A history that was old and complex and bitter. And the Lieutenant was certain that whatever feelings had existed between the two men were still there, just beneath the surface.

He wanted to pretend that it wasn’t true, but how could it be anything but?  He’d never seen anyone toy with Amon before.  He hadn’t believed it was possible.  Tarrlok, however, had seemed to know exactly how to provoke the Equalist Leader.  And all throughout the meeting the two men had shared looks…

Zhen had seen warmth and concern in his superior’s eyes when he’d looked at the vile councilman. There had been real warmth and concern in his expression.  At times the lieutenant had believed that his commander was simply searching for the right words to say to ease Tarrlok’s suffering.

Ease Tarrlok’s suffering!?

Against his better judgement, Zhen cast a glance at Tarrlok.  He nearly jumped when he saw that the ex-blood bender’s eyes were on him.

Zhen met the councilman’s cold, empty eyes with a stony, angry leer.  Tarrlok simply raised a brow and tilted his head slightly as if to ask, ‘yes, and?’

The lieutenant turned away sharply and continued gathering papers from the table.  His lips pulled into a thin, hard line and he frowned.

Why did Amon care about this wretched excuse for a human being!?  Why had the Equalist Leader seemed so contrite after he’d finally snapped at Tarrlok—after the councilman had baited him no less?

Zhen’s fingers gently caressed the paper in front of him.  He froze as his mind replayed the entire conflict.

… when that terrible confrontation had occurred…

…the way they’d looked at each other…

It was as though there was a terrible open wound, festering between them…

But why had Amon seemed so eager to heal the injury and Tarrlok so quick to seemingly reject every overture?—as if the very thought of trying to right the wrong was abhorrent to him!? As if the councilman had been the injured party!?

And how dare Tarrlok refuse Amon’s efforts to make amends?  It was astounding to think the Equalist Leader would ever even ask a blood bender—even a former one—for forgiveness!

And what was the councilman’s problem?  Was the grievance, the trespass, so completely vile and despicable that no amount of kindness or undeserved compassion could possibly earn the politician’s forgiveness!?  Whatever had happened, the politician probably deserved it!

Nevertheless, the lieutenant ground his teeth.  How dare that man reject Amon’s good will!?

The Equalist leader did not give his trust, his kindness… his forgiveness lightly.  Watching his commander’s attempts at reconciliation so viciously and coldly trod upon stung!  Especially when such benevolence was offered to someone so vile and undeserving!

…especially when it was not given half so easily to Amon’s most loyal followers…

Zhen flipped a file closed with far more force than necessary and slammed it down on top of the stack he was assembling.  He immediately reached for the next one, unaware of how violent his movements had become.

There was a soft “ahem,” from the man across from him.

Zhen looked up sharply. His eyes met the curious gaze of the councilman, now seated comfortably across from him.

The two men stared each other down.

This man, this vile, ex-bender, had provoked such powerful and extraordinary reactions from the Equalist Leader.  He’d known just what to say and how to say it…  He’d made Amon into his puppet with just a few words…

Zhen bristled in umbrage at the memory of the interaction.  His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared as he fumed.

What right did a filthy blood bender have to know the great, just, and formidable Amon so well?

What had occurred between the two men in the past that led Amon to treat Tarrlok with so much care and… affection?

What led the arrogant councilman to harbor such cold and completely underserved resentment for the man under the mask?

Zhen picked up a few more files, but his movements slowed as he silently considered the man who was seated across from him.

How could two men who were so different, whose lives were so divergent, share such an intimate knowledge of each other?

And then the most abhorrent question popped into Zhen’s head…

Could Amon and Tarrlok have been lovers?

The very thought of the possibility made Zhen’s flesh crawl and his head spin, but he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if… once… long ago… Amon had loved this vile, proud, and ruthless bender…

The lieutenant couldn’t believe he was pondering such blasphemous, traitorous things!  It was unthinkable!  Amon and Tarrlok!?  Lovers? It was ridiculous!

And yet it seemed to explain so much!

But an even worse thought followed on the tail of the first…

What if Amon still loved Tarrlok?

For a brief moment, Zhen thought that the room was spinning around him.  He clutched at the table for support as he contemplated the terrible, horrible possibility. 

But as Zhen thought back, he couldn’t help but feel like everything added up…

The familiar way that Amon and Tarrlok spoke to each other…  The way that the Equalist Leader had defaulted to the councilman’s opinions and expertise…  The fact that the masked man trusted the vile politician and took him at his word—as if Tarrlok weren’t a lying, scheming, evil bully of a bender!

But the councilman’s behavior had to be considered as well, and Tarrlok had been completely compliant… even helpful throughout this fiasco.   Whatever Amon asked, the councilman did without question or struggle. Yes, he was surly about it, but he didn’t complain or resist at all.  There hadn’t been a single escape attempt or rebellion since he’d left his cell…

… Except when Sato had called the politician a corrupt and evil man… But even then, Tarrlok had made no move to physically attack his captors…  Instead he’d simply said horrible things about them…

Right up until he pushed Amon too far…

But none of it made any sense to the lieutenant.  The councilman had said nothing that, on the surface, seemed particularly inflammatory, but the way Amon had reacted to the politician’s words… It was like Tarrlok had spoken in some sort of code.

With just a few words the ex-blood bender transformed Amon into a stranger, a terrifying figure that Zhen did not recognize and would never have recognized as his esteemed commander.

But Tarrlok had known the man that Amon had become.  There was something in the way he cowered and in the way he smiled as soon as Amon’s expression turned to horror—like he’d just seen an old friend after a long absence… He’d known that the Equalist Leader had that horrible persona in him.  He’d known how to draw it out…

He knew Amon so well…

… and Amon knew Tarrlok.

They had to have been lovers.

Nothing else explained the intimacy that existed between the two men.

The thought made Zhen’s blood boil.  A muscle in his face, just beneath his right eye, twitched as his mind began wonder how close the two men had been.  Just how far had this relationship progressed?

Had they embraced?   Shared a few passionate kisses…?

Oh, it had to have gone much further than that.  This was Amon after all!

The lieutenant’s face flushed and bile rose in his throat.

They had to have been intimate.  They’d probably shared a bed… probably regularly…  They’d probably lived under the same roof for months!

Tarrlok probably knew every intimate detail about Amon’s personal life and preferences…

Zhen’s grip on the files in his hand tightened as his mind conjured images of the intimacies the two men had very likely shared.  Tender moments, affectionate touches, soft smiles, laughter… all the things that the lieutenant had longed to share with his commander for years.

He’d always felt that to some degree Amon had shared that desire for a deeper relationship between them. The thought of the Equalist Leader sharing those quiet, private moments with another… with Councilman Tarrlok!...

It hurt.

It hurt so badly.

Amon had probably fallen prey to Tarrlok’s striking, Northern looks and wicked charms.  He’d probably doted on the blood bender and adored the other man… But Zhen couldn’t imagine Tarrlok reciprocating Amon’s feelings. How could a man as vain and hateful as the ambitious blood bender possibly love the scarred visage of the Equalist Leader?

Or could it be that Tarrlok was the reason that Amon hid his face behind a mask and resisted every overture of a real and lasting connection?

Zhen stared down at the files in his hand and forced himself to stop squeezing them so hard.  He took a few deep breaths and tried to reign in his imagination.

The lieutenant began to carefully adjust the files and papers to make sure they were all facing the same direction as he reassured himself that there was no way that Amon could ever wrong a blood bender!  Perhaps he’d briefly loved Tarrlok, perhaps he still felt a lingering connection to the evil man, but Amon couldn’t possibly have wronged the politician.

No, Tarrlok was a manipulative abuser.  Whatever had happened between the two men… the councilman had to be the one who was in the wrong.  Or if Amon had wronged the councilman, it was probably something pathetic and mundane. The politician was notoriously petty after all…

And really, it was completely unthinkable that someone as noble and good could love a man as terrible as the ex-blood bender.

Perhaps Tarrlok had once saved Amon’s life and asked Amon to fulfill his obligations with a deep and personal favor?  Perhaps, due to extenuating circumstances, Amon had failed to live up to his side of the bargain?  A man with Amon’s sense of honor would feel deeply responsible if such a debt existed and went unpaid.

Maybe they’d been friends once and Amon had accidently caused harm to someone in Tarrlok’s family?

Really, his exhaustion was getting ahead of him.  All those little moments during the meeting were probably nothing.  Just his over-active imagination!  It was much more likely that it was an unfulfilled debt or a matter of honor.

Amon was just trying to restore his honor, protect his followers.

But now that he thought about it…

Zhen could recall times when the Equalists had pushed Amon to make an example of Tarrlok.  The Equalist Leader had resisted his subordinates’ pleading. He’d insisted that there were other, better targets.  When the Equalists had demanded that the northern councilman be forcibly removed from power and laid low, the masked commander had turned their attention to other proud and ruthless benders.  There were countless other instances when the Equalists had spoken out against the politician and his vicious tactics, and yet Amon had dismissed every attempt to prioritize the removal of the vile councilor and his bending.  Instead, the Equalist Leader had targeted other men and women in Tarrok’s place…

Zhen froze.  His eyes widened sharply.  He stared at the files in his hand in shock.

… he’d been protecting him.

By the spirits, Amon had been protecting that vile and ruthless man all this time!

What had happened between them to cause Amon to pursue such outrageous and blind efforts to protect that vile monster?

Zhen’s eyes slid closed as he thought back to the exchange he’d witnessed earlier.  Tarrlok had gone after each of them in turn, exposing how much he knew and twisting the truth to suite his ends.  What he’d said about Sato had been shocking, horrible, and clearly malicious slander.

The councilman had turned on Zhen once he was done with Sato.  The lieutenant had been surprised when Tarrlok had chewed him out for not having ambition.  Of all the wicked things that the Equalist had expected to have thrown in his face, his loyalty to the revolution was not one of them.

In the end, Zhen had chalked Tarrlok’s view of his choices up to a natural difference between the them. After all, the councilman was evil and selfish.  How could he possibly understand the nobility and good inherent in the Revolution?  Did he really expect the lieutenant to be ashamed of his choice in supporting the greater good?

But then Tarrlok had turned on Amon and his demeanor had changed drastically.

The councilman had been cruel when he’d addressed the industrialist and the lieutenant, but his expression had been akin to that of a wounded animal striking out at its attackers. Zhen found himself viewing Tarrlok’s words as a last, desperate assault against his enemies.  But when he’d gone after Amon, he’d looked less like a wounded dog and more like a rabid one.

The lieutenant still couldn’t quite make sense of the councilman’s words.  The politician had asked Amon when he would be ‘satisfied’—as though Amon were insatiable.  But the Equalist Leader was hardly a demanding man.  Zhen had been with his commander long enough to know that he was reasonable and asked for very little for himself.  His greatest demands were reserved for society at large, and they were simple enough.

All Amon wanted was a world where everyone could live without fear of violence, oppression, and persecution.  An equal, fair world, where there were no benders to terrorize the non-bending populace.

How could it be wrong to make such demands, when they were in the hearts and minds of so many people? Was it evil of him to seek to spread this great and noble dream to other nations?  Was it so wrong to mandate that all places in the world become safe for all people?

Tarrlok had rattled on, calling Amon the ‘rightful King of Republic City,’ but that was ridiculous. Republic City had never had a King. Unless the Equalist Leader was secretly related to an ancient, noble lineage in the Earth Kingdom there was no reason for the politician to call him a ‘king.’

Zhen paused in the midst of his paper shuffling.

And yet Tarrlok knew so much about them all…

Was it possible that Amon was… a prince?

He considered it for a moment, and then rejected the idea as he continued to shuffle the files into a new order.

Seeing Amon’s reaction to Tarrlok’s terror had given Zhen pause, and he couldn’t help but hesitate as he recalled the expression on his commander’s face.  For a moment the normally powerful, unflappable, and formidable man had been shaken.  He’d looked vulnerable and afraid, like a child who’d just been caught doing something wrong…

A chill ran down the lieutenant’s spine.  He cast another cautious glance across the table at the man who remained in his seat, still cast in shadows.  Whatever Tarrlok knew, whatever secret he kept… Amon feared its revelation.

For the life of him, Zhen could not understand why.  What could his commander possibly need to hide from his followers?  What secret could be so dark and dire?

His eyes narrowed sharply as a new question occurred to him.

Why spare the secret keeper?

He studied the councilman pensively.  His brow furrowed and pinched his lips into a thin line.

Why would Tarrlok willingly agree to keep Amon’s secret?  After all that, the politician said that he would not share the information. But why?  The councilman seemed to have so much power over the masked commander. Why would the politician bury this truth when they both seemed to know that it could destroy the Equalist Leader by the hands of his followers?

Did he hope to use this great and terrible secret as leverage?

If so, he was a fool. No matter what sentiment lingered between them, Zhen was certain that Amon would not protect Tarrlok forever. After all, no man willingly protected his blackmailer.  He couldn’t imagine anyone’s passions running so deep as to cause a lasting affection between two enemies…  Amon’s marriage to the Avatar was going to be quite an interesting farce for that very reason…

The Avatar.

Zhen’s eyes widened and he sucked in a breath..

The day that she’d been publically humiliated she’d made a grand stand of announcing that she knew the truth about Amon.  The lieutenant had dismissed her words outright, but now he wasn’t so sure.

He blinked rapidly as he struggled to remember exactly what she’d said, but the words weren’t coming. He frowned.  She’d mentioned a secret, though…

A secret…

The air left him and a terrible chill settled into his bones.

The Avatar knew.

Tarrlok and the Avatar had been sharing a cellblock.  Had he…?

He’d told her Amon’s secret.

He’d shared the Equalist Leader’s dark past.

The councilman had given the Avatar the same advantage that he enjoyed.  That was two ex-benders with the power to use their knowledge against the Equalist! And he was taking both of them with him on this mad journey to escape from the forces of the Water Tribe!  Was he insane?!

Or did he expect Tarrlok to… comply and help him control the Avatar?

But that made no sense! How could Amon believe that Tarrlok would change sides so easily?  Why would the councilman comply with the Equalist Agenda?  They’d never given him reason to favor them and the politician had clearly hated Equalists!  Why, he’d been ready to lock away even the lowliest chi-blocker for life and there were rumors that he was looking to abolish many of Avatar Aang’s laws against capital punishment for non-blood bending prisoners!

But then why had Tarrlok been so compliant today if he hated Equalists so much?

He hadn’t fought or resisted at all.  The councilman had meekly followed Amon throughout the day and obeyed every request without the slightest opposition.  There’d been no need to restrain him or subdue him, he’d acted like a well-trained dog…

Tarrlok had said he knew Amon by a single touch.

The lieutenant clenched his teeth and swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat as he recalled the councilman’s comment about how well he knew the Equalist Leader.  His mouth twisted into a frown of intense bitterness and disgust—as though he’d just swallowed something truly vile.

They had to have been intimate in the past!  How else could the councilman have recognized the Equalist Leader by a single touch! To think that the noble and honorable Amon had been seduced by that vile, despicable monster… it was too horrible!

Poor Amon!  Scarred by a fire bender, trifled with by a blood bender—probably tortured by the cruel man!  No wonder the Equalist Leader was filled with so much rage!  To have been abused and betrayed so viciously!  It was unimaginable!

If only Zhen had known sooner, he might have been less aggressive in his overtures.  Was it any wonder that his commander rejected his advances after having suffered at the hands of the evil councilman?  There could be no blame laid upon the Amon.  He was a victim of Tarrlok’s evil passions!

But if they were intimate… if they had been that close…

Then of course Tarrlok would know Amon’s darkest secrets… … and of course, Amon would know Tarrlok’s darkest secrets!

It all made sense now!

The councilman’s docile behavior, his impotent threats of revealing Amon’s secrets!  Tarrlok still had a dark secret he hoped to bury, but the Equalist Leader knew his secret!  He would behave as long as the scarred man kept his peace!

The lieutenant snuck another glance at the ex-bender across the table as he turned the stack of files and papers in his hand once more.  He’d been a blood bender until Amon had purified him.  It was hard to imagine that Tarrlok had secrets darker than his horrible abilities, but there had to be something that the Equalist Leader held over him.  Something that he could use to force the politician’s compliance.

… but compliance wasn’t guaranteed on the road…

And it was clear to Zhen that Amon still had feelings for Tarrlok.  The lieutenant couldn’t help but worry about what would happen when the councilman realized that there was no one to hide from.  Would he kill his scarred ex-lover and make off with the Avatar himself?

Amon clearly didn’t think Tarrlok would hurt him, but men had been blinded by love before.

“You’ve been shuffling those files for the past twenty minutes.”

Zhen jumped at the sound of the councilman’s smooth tenor.  He looked up to see a pair of icy blue eyes staring at him curiously through the flickering darkness.  The mustached lieutenant glanced down at the large stack of files in his hands.  “I suppose I am finished here.” He said coolly. He set the files down on the table and rested a protective hand on them.

A heavy silence settled between them.  The lieutenant felt tense as he stared at the handsome water tribe politician seated across from him.  After all, Tarrlok was very likely Amon’s ex-lover.  If things had been different, Zhen might have been Amon’s new lover…

He felt like a character in one of the trashy novellas he wrote in his spare time.  Zhen was the good wife.  Tarrlok was the specter of ‘the other woman’—an intimidating and seductive figure who was everything the good woman could never be; the living embodiment of the hero’s darker lusts.

If things were different, if Zhen were Amon’s lover, then this would play out as a triumphant moment.  Tarrlok would goad and taunt him, but the lieutenant would remind the proverbial ‘other woman’ of his triumph.  But the unfortunate reality was that they’d both lost.

There was no happy ending…

Though perhaps Tarrlok would seduce the emotionally vulnerable Amon on the road and they would become lovers again… making the Avatar twice as vulnerable and alone.

Was that what Amon hoped for?

For a moment Zhen thought his heart would break.

Did Amon really hope that Tarrlok would come back to him?  After all this time?  Was he still in love with him?  Had all those subtle comments and kind words—those brief moments of passing flirtation when Zhen had felt truly certain that Amon saw him as more than a mere loyal follower—had that been nothing but a passing fancy to the Equalist Leader?

The councilman broke the silence again, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but…?” Those cold blue eyes continued to peer at him with great curiosity.

Even in the flickering darkness, Zhen could see that Tarrlok watched him with one brow raised.  But the lieutenant had no kind feelings for the blood bender.  “Spit it out!” he snapped.

“What exactly is your relationship with Amon?” The politician asked.  His voice was soft and he sounded concerned.

Zhen tensed, his jaw muscles clenched and he glared viciously at Tarrlok.

That wasn’t a question! That was an admission!  There was no other reason he’d ask that question, unless they’d been lovers!  He was assessing the presumed ‘new blood!’  He was sizing up his rival!

Zhen’s mouth snarled and he bared his teeth in anger.  “None of your business.”

Tarrlok’s face pulled into something between a grimace of disgust and a smug sneer. “That close, huh? Didn’t think he’d go for that, considering his interests back then.” The politician snorted in a way that wasn’t entirely dismissive and looked away.  “I guess that shows what I know.”

Zhen bridled at the insult. Did Tarrlok think that Amon’s unspoken preference for a non-bender, such as himself, was in bad taste?  But then what else could he expect of a blood bending tyrant!?  The councilman grimaced in disgust at the very thought of love between two non-bending men!  It was astounding that the haughty politician had ever deigned to lower himself to be with the scarred man!

The lieutenant was so busy being outraged that it took him a moment to notice that Tarrlok was making choking sounds.  But as soon as he heard those soft noises, he realized that what he’d taken for a grimace of disgust was the closest thing to a smile that the northern politician could manage.  The councilman let out a dry, unpleasant chuckle—it might have been a soft, broken cough—as he leaned forward.  His noble, handsome features slid into the dim, rapidly blinking light, even as his pale blue eyes fell into shadow.  Nevertheless, Zhen could feel the councilman watching him.

“That’s rather unsafe,” Tarrlok said.  “Don’t you know that men like him just use people up and toss them aside like they’re nothing?”

Zhen tensed, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave the room or strike out at the man across from him. In the end he kept his temper in check by reminding himself that Amon trusted him to watch Tarrlok.

“What would you know about it?” The lieutenant did his best to sound unaffected, but he couldn’t quite keep the strain out of his voice.

Tarrlok was quiet for a moment.  The shadows around him seemed to deepen and some tension or energy drained from his flesh, because it looked like he was sinking into himself.  Then he said, “I know him.”

Zhen turned away sharply, his eyes searched the darkness behind him, but it offered no easy distraction. He walked to one of the Future Industries lanterns and toyed with the dials, adjusting it so that the light stopped flickering.  As he worked, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, collecting himself.   Then he spoke, “You keep saying that, but really, you have no evidence.”  He swallowed and cast a glance over his shoulder at the politician across the table, “There is no reason for me be to believe you know anything about Amon at all…”

“I suppose I can’t convince you.  You clearly don’t trust me, but the truth is that I know him.” Tarrlok gave him a smirk, “And I know him far better than you. I mean, really, what has he shared with you?  His ideals? His tales of a terrible past?  His bed…?”

Zhen flinched and turned sharply away.

“Oh.  Good enough to keep around, but not good enough for that.” Tarrlok chuckled.  “You’re lucky.  He must actually respect you enough not to use you.” 

“What is that supposed to mean!?” Zhen snapped.

“You really don’t know him at all, do you?  For all his lofty ideals he’s quite a despicable man,” Tarrlok said coldly. The lights flickered out of time causing the shadows to move strangely across his face, making him appear more like a grim specter than a human.  “The kind of man who chews people up and spits them out when he’s finished with them.”

Zhen bridled, enraged by the councilman’s cruel words about his esteemed leader.  “That’s a lie!”

One of the lanterns went out, shrouding the upper half of Tarrlok’s face in shadow.  But Zhen could clearly see the politician’s smirk and the glint of his blue eyes as he said, “And how would you know?  You know Amon, but you don’t know the man behind the mask, do you?  He likes that, doesn’t he?  When people are just far enough away that he doesn’t seem entirely human?  When people admire him?”

Zhen’s head swam with rage. He swore that the room was tilting onto its side.  He gasped, struggling to draw air into his lungs, which seemed to have seized up. “You…” he panted, “You disgusting, despicable, vile, evil…!”

The politician watched him struggle with a quiet smile.  “Does it really bother you that much?  The thought that you’re wrong about him?”  The lights flickered again, lanterns coming back on as others switched off, so that Tarrlok’s eyes became visible as he looked down his nose at the lieutenant, “Or are you so consumed by jealousy and pent-up lust that you can’t see how he’s using you?”

Zhen had been born in Republic City.  His parents had kept a flat near the docks in the middle of Red Monsoon territory. Whenever the triad felt pressed or troubled, they buckled down on the non-benders in the area.  Every few months, members of the triad would cycle through and extort payment from the families living in their region of the city.

Zhen had been a rebellious boy and something of an upstart as a young man.  As a result, he became quite familiar with their various techniques for forcing compliance from those who lived under the authority of the local triad.  Now, the Red Monsoons kept several blood benders in their number, but none of them were anything like Tarrlok.  They could only bend during the full moon.  So, the gang had to come up with methods of torturing non-compliant non-benders when there was no full moon.

Zhen had tested them repeatedly and learned exactly how creative the thugs could be.  There was a particular form of torture that the lieutenant had become quite familiar with in his late teens that the triad reserved for ‘special thorns in their side.’  It involved letting droplets of water fall upon a single point in the middle of the victim’s forehead.  Over the course of long hours, even days, those droplets would continue to fall at a steady pace.

Claustrophobia set in after an hour from the restraints alone.  After three hours the pressure would begin to build.  The pain came gradually after that.  A slow, gradual creep that built into skull-splitting agony. Zhen had been left under the drip for eight hours once.  He’d been cold and wet and half-mad from the agony.  There were nights that he woke to the sound of the drip of water and he’d be unable to return to sleep.  He knew men who’d sat under the drip far longer than him, who’d gone mad from it.

Tarrlok’s presence at Amon’s side was like that torture.  Every overly curt exchange, every subtle insult—insults Amon permitted—every show of disrespect, every quiet glance exchanged between the two men, every breath they drew in the same room, every second that Amon treated the councilman like he belonged at his side was like the slow drip of water onto a single point on Zhen’s forehead.  The pain had built up so slowly that he’d barely noticed it, but now he could not deny the nearly blinding pressure in his skull.

The blood bender’s comments about knowing Amon, the slanderous comments, the digs about Zhen’s feelings… they were the metaphorical ‘final drop’ that sent him over the edge.

Zhen spun and slammed his hand down on the table, “How do you know him?!” he howled.  “How can you know him?!  What would a man like Amon want with a vile, despicable, cruel, evil blood bender like you?!” He leaned over the table, his hands clawing at the surface between them.  He watched Tarrlok shoot back in his seat, hands grabbing at his chair to keep himself upright as he recoiled from the lieutenant.  Zhen felt his bones had burrowed through the fleshy pads of his fingers and into the wood.  “You asked me what I am to him, well, I can tell you that I’m clearly nothing compared to you!  So, now it’s my turn to ask, what are you to him!?  Why would he trust a monster like you?!”  He bit of the words with the ferocity of a tiger bear and when he was done speaking his teeth were clenched so tightly that he didn’t think he’d be able to pry them open ever again.  His lips were pulled back in a furious snarl, his every breath shuddered with explosive rage, and he felt as though his brow was furrowed so deeply that his eyebrows had merged into one long, steep ‘v’ on his forehead.

Across the table, Tarrlok cowered in the dim shadows.  His eyes were wide with fear and every part of his body was as tense as a deer rabbit that’d found itself in the sights of a jackal cat.  The lieutenant could just see the councilman’s white-knuckled grip on the seat of his chair.

Zhen calmed and straightened, retreating to his side of the table.  He was troubled by the look of abject terror on the other man’s face.   Tarrlok was a blood bender.  There was no reason for him to be afraid of a non-bender.  After all, what had a non-bender ever done to him?  What could a non-bender do to him?

As soon as the lieutenant calmed and withdrew, Tarrlok began to uncoil.  He sat up straight and forward in his chair and carefully arranged himself so he looked more presentable.  It was, Zhen realized, a bid to make himself feel a little more like he was in control of the situation.

“I…” the blood bender began, but he paused, his eyes darted nervously, and he fidgeted in his chair. It seemed he was having difficulty collecting his thoughts or even guessing at where to begin.  Then he looked up at Zhen, incredulous, “Trust me? You think this is trust?” he asked.

Zhen growled and brought his fist down on the table.  “Why else would he keep you with him throughout this mess?!”

Tarrlok looked away sharply, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  “I believe…” he swallowed and drew into himself, “it’s because he promised…” his eyes widened again and he stopped speaking abruptly, as though he’d just realized what he’d been about to say.  He shook his head sharply.  “No. It’s been too long for that to hold any meaning.  I’m thirty-seven.  I’m not a child anymore.  He couldn’t possibly be thinking…” he muttered.

Zhen realized that the councilman was speaking more to himself than to his captor.  Nevertheless, the councilman’s comments were revealing. Amon had made a promise?

To whom?

To Tarrlok?

What had he promised?

Zhen leaned forward again, his body clenched with restrained rage.  “Promised what?!  What secrets are you keeping for him!?  Why does he trust you!?”

“This isn’t trust!” Tarrlok snarled as he glared at the lieutenant and leaned forward in his seat.  The shadows shifted around him, deepening the lines on his face and lending his already haggard appearance an aged, malevolent quality.

“What is it, then?!” Zhen was seconds from throwing the table at the blood bender and trying to crush him beneath the heavy wooden piece of furniture.  “Why else would he let you walk free?!”

Anger left the councilman again.  His eyes dropped to the floor, narrowing pensively and giving the man the appearance that he was struggling – struggling! Hah! – to find the reason behind Amon’s actions—as if he didn’t know!

“I’m…”  Tarrlok hesitated, “He made a promise to someone we both cared about…” he spoke slowly as if giving every word great consideration, “It was a long time ago and I guess he’s trying to keep it… in spite of everything…”

Zhen felt some of the tension drain out of him.  What Tarrlok said made sense.  It was just like Amon to try to keep some old promise he’d made long ago, even if everyone else involved had long forgotten about it.  Nevertheless, it was very strange that Amon might keep a promise regarding Tarrlok.

The lieutenant couldn’t stop himself from asking, “What, did he promise to protect you or something?” He’d never heard of something so ridiculous.

A non-bender protecting a bender?

Really?

Tarrlok, however, looked away.  The wild curtain of dark hair obscured his expression, but the mustached lieutenant could just make out a grimace of humiliation and shame on the other man’s face.

Once Zhen realized what the councilman’s expression gave away, he took an involuntary step back.

Amon had promised to protect Tarrlok.  But who had coerced such a promise from the Equalist Leader?  Why had Amon agreed to such a ridiculous thing?  How had any of this come to pass?

Most importantly:  Did this mean they hadn’t been lovers?

Aloud, he asked: “Who would ever ask anyone to look after you?  And why would Amon ever agree to such a thing?”

Zhen could just barely see Tarrlok’s face contorting into a mask of pain as the councilman said: “It doesn’t matter, she’s dead by now.”

A woman.

The tension drained from Zhen’s body.

Oh, thank the spirits.  This was about a woman.

What a relief!

It all made so much sense! In the early years of the Revolution Amon had intermittently taken lovers; young men and women who’d recently joined the equalists and shown their devotion to the cause.  He’d never remained with them for very long—never more than a week—and he never developed any attachment to them.  Zhen had always found his commander’s attitudes toward intimacy strangely out of character, since the Equalist Leader seemed like a man of deep feeling and attachment.

If Amon had lost someone he cared for—such as, say, a woman he might have otherwise married—then he might have trouble becoming intimate again.  Particularly if she’d met a terrible end and Amon feared suffering such a loss again.  And of course he’d want to honor any wish or promise they’d made together, even if it meant protecting a blood bender!

Zhen knew that Amon was a sentimental man, the sort who cared about principle and righteousness. It was something that the lieutenant admired about his commander, but it was the Equalist Leader’s greatest weakness. Amon was, after all, more honorable than most men.  For as long as Zhen had known the masked man, he’d never turned his back on a comrade and he’d always been fair and just to friend and enemy alike—he even gave benders a chance to fight back before he removed their bending!  That was more than anyone else would have ever done!

Of course Amon would keep a foolish, idiotic, promise to the woman he’d once loved!  That was just the sort of man he was!

Zhen was halfway thought imagining the woman and how she’d died, when Tarrlok’s voice cut through his imaginings— “You’ve completely misunderstood everything, haven’t you?”

The lieutenant glanced up to see the blood bender studying him with cool blue eyes.  The councilman had shifted slightly in his seat so that nearly half his face was visible in the dim light of the room.  He seemed to have regained some of his confidence, he was sitting up straight and leaning forward in his chair.

A wicked smirk spread across the blood bender’s face and he leaned forward to rest his arm on the table. There was a cruel spark of amusement in his eyes.

Zhen’s blood ran cold.

Tarrlok arched a brow and let his head fall to one side as he studied Amon’s lieutenant.  Then he said, “Let me explain a few things before your head runs wild with torrid tales of romance.”  He grinned like a fox cat that had just discovered an unguarded nest of turtle duck eggs.  “Now, I can’t tell you everything.  That would land us both in hot water with your… beloved Amon.” The smile vanished from his face.  His mouth pulled into a sharp grimace as he hunched forward over the table and hissed, “Let me assure you that there is nothing romantic about my relationship with your master.”

Zhen’s head jerked back at Tarrlok’s tone.  He’d said the words, ‘your master’ like it was a grievous insult.  Like the councilman had just called him ‘dog.’

“I suppose I haven’t been clear.  I told you, I know Amon, but it’d be more correct to say that I knew the person he was a long time ago.” The councilman snickered, “Why does he trust me?” he asked, mocking Zhen’s demanding question.  “This isn’t trust.  This is how he really is.  He’s a man who keeps his friends close and his enemies closer.  He guards those who threaten his power and position fiercely. After all, it’s easier to keep your enemies in line when they’re in easy striking range.”  Tarrlok laughed again.   “Oh no, he doesn’t trust me at all; but he trusts you.  He trusts you enough to leave you alone with me.”

Zhen felt his cheeks color, even as his heart clenched with worry.  What Tarrlok said made sense.  But what he said… it wasn’t…

That wasn’t who Amon was…

He’d never keep someone close just to… to make sure they could be quickly disciplined!

That wasn’t who Amon was!

Tarrlok’s mouth twisted into a deep and bitter frown.  “Ah, nothing’s really changed has it?  What? Twenty?  Twenty-five years?” The councilman shrugged, “He’s never trusted me with anything.”  He shook his head, “I guess he still sees the same pathetic, worthless failure.” Tarrlok’s gaze tilted toward the floor, letting the dark curtain of his disheveled hair obscure his features. “Who can blame him?”

Failure?

What was Tarrlok talking about?

He was Councilman Tarrlok. He was the man who’d nearly ruled over all of Republic City.  He was the man that the Equalists had consistently named the greatest threat to their Revolution…

And he believed that Amon thought he was a failure?

Zhen’s eyes narrowed.  This had something to do with the woman, didn’t it?

But Tarrlok had said that it wasn’t a torrid romance… but what else could it be?  What other relationship could possibly cause such strife and turmoil?

And anyway, it wasn’t like Zhen could trust a single word out of Tarrlok’s mouth…

But, then… why not put it to the test?  “You know, you’re right.  I have a hard time believing anyone could ever trust you, let alone love you.”

Tarrlok looked up at him in shock and then his face split into a wide, manic grin.  He burst out laughing.  “Of course!  You’re right!” he chortled, “You’ve got me pegged, Lu Zhen!”  Tears began to leak out of the corners of the councilman’s eyes as he continued to chuckle manically, “I’m the loser!  It’s like they say, second child, second best! Even my own parents thought I was a waste of time!”

Zhen looked away, embarrassed by the gross display of emotion.  The man was weeping in front of him.  Ranting about family and his own status as…

Second child…?

Zhen’s eyes were drawn back to Tarrlok as his mind spun with this new information.

Could…?

“Spirits, after everything was said and done, after all that…” the councilman’s face contorted into an expression of agony, “even my own father couldn’t bring himself to look at me…  And I was all he had left!”

Had Amon been in love with Tarrlok’s older sister…?  But of course!  The sort of family that Tarrlok probably came from… what with him being a councilman and all… They wouldn’t have approved of a scarred farm boy like Amon…  Their love would have been forbidden.

Tarrlok would have followed his father’s lead and looked down on Amon.  He would have denied any romance between his noble sister and the good man…  Had he played a role in the loss of Amon’s beloved?

Zhen stared at Tarrlok quietly, brow furrowed in concentration, as he tried to figure him out.

“What did you think of Amon when you knew him?” Zhen asked.

“I loved him and I hated him,” Tarrlok replied tiredly.

Zhen’s eyes widened in horror, “You loved him!?” But Tarrlok had said-! Had he been lying?!  But the woman-!?

“We used to be very close,” Tarrlok continued, “There was a time when we were inseparable.  I looked up to him.”

Zhen’s eyes narrowed in anger.  “Inseparable? You looked up to him?!” He couldn’t believe it!  “Why would Amon have anything to do with a bender? How could he have tolerated a vile monster like you!?  Didn’t you say that you were raised in the North Pole?  What the hell was he doing in the North Pole twenty-five years ago?! He was born and raised in the United Republic!  His family was killed by Fire Benders!”

The councilman nearly leapt out of his seat as he slammed his hand onto the table, “That’s a lie!”

Zhen slid back, his hands rose defensively.  He watched the bender across from him warily.

Tarrlok met Zhen’s wary look with his cold, dead eyes.  “Yes. Amon lied to you.  He lies to everyone.  He lied to me.  He lied to his followers.  He lied to you.”

Zhen’s face morphed into a mask of fury as he slammed his fists down on the table.  “That’s a lie!”  he shouted.  “You don’t know anything!  Why would Amon want to have anything to do with a Blood Bender like you?!”

Tarrlok looked away, shamefaced.  “You can’t choose…” Tarrlok choked on his words.  “Spirits, I can’t even say it!  I hate thinking it!” He buried his face in his hands.  “This is a nightmare!  I wish he’d stayed dead!”

Zhen’s brow furrowed in confusion.  “Amon never died!”

Tarrlok looked at Zhen, his face a mask of pain and anger.  “We thought he’d died!” he shouted.  “It tore us apart!  He had the nerve to leave us behind and do… all this!  He left us to suffer!”

The lieutenant wasn’t sure what to make of Tarrlok’s words, so he stuck with what he knew, “Well he’s not dead!” he retorted.  It was all he could think to say.

The councilman let out a harsh bark of laughter, “Clearly!”

“I don’t know what history you think you have with Amon, but it’s meaningless now!” Zhen snarled. “You’re a filthy blood bender and he’s the leader of the Equalist Revolution!  You’re nothing to him!”

Tarrlok snorted and looked away.  “I wish that were the case.”  He grimaced in pain. “I wish he’d just killed me and been done with it.”

“Why?” Zhen demanded. “Are you ashamed of something you did? Did you betray him?  Blood bend him?”  The lieutenant’s blood was hot.  He was posed to strike at the barest hint of admission.  “Is facing his mercy the worst thing you can imagine for your crimes?”

Tarrlok looked at him, his eyes wide and empty, devoid of any emotion that Zhen could name.  The councilman looked haunted, like he’d seen or experienced something so horrible that nothing else could possibly compare…

It astounded the lieutenant how quickly that strange, disturbed expression morphed into a mask of rage.

“I blood bent him?  I betrayed him?!” Tarrlok squared off against Zhen. “You ignorant, lovesick, fool! You think I’m a monster, but you refuse to see that he is a thousand times worse than I am!”  The councilman’s hair fell around his face as he leaned forward heavily against the table.

Zhen recoiled, but he didn’t back down.  “You!?  Better than Amon!?  I’d like to see that!”

But Tarrlok didn’t seem to be listening, his head had dropped and he was shaking.  “He betrayed us, he left us behind…  After everything, he didn’t care at all!  We were nothing to him!  We were never anything to him!”

Zhen stepped back, his brow furrowed in concern, “What…?  Are you…?”

Tarrlok reached up and clutched his head, his palm pressing into the middle of his forehead.  “He abandoned us with our tormentor!”

The lieutenant felt a chill run down his spine as he looked at Tarrlok.  He recalled other ex-benders, prisoners, had become… violently unstable shortly after they’d lost their bending.  But he shook off his concerns.  He could take this ex-blood bender in a fight.

“Spit it out!  What are you talking about?!” he snapped.

“I’m talking about the real reason he hates bending!” Tarrlok snarled.

“A fire bender killed his family and burned off his face!” Zhen shouted.

“I don’t know how he became a… a…”  the councilman grimaced and faltered as he searched for words, “a scarred-up freak!”

Zhen recoiled in umbrage. He opened his mouth to berate the man in front of him, but Tarrlok kept talking.

“…but let me assure you,” Tarrlok gave the lieutenant a feral look, “a fire bender didn’t kill his family!”

“What are you talking about?!” Zhen snarled in fury.  “He has no reason to lie!”

But Tarrlok wasn’t cowed.  He leaned in until they were nose to nose as he growled: “Oh, he has every reason to lie!  He’s so ashamed of himself I’m sure!—Of his real history!”

The lieutenant jerked backward, uncomfortable with the proximity. “Right!  Like you know anything!”

“I know more than you, you pathetic, infatuated moron!” the councilman sneered.

The lieutenant glared at Tarrlok with barely restrained rage.  “How dare you-!?”

“How dare I?!” Tarrlok mocked, cutting him off. “He trusts you to watch me, but why don’t you find out what’ll happen if you cause me any harm!?”  He challenged with a cruel grin.

“You think he’ll defend you?!” Zhen sneered. His hands itched for his electrified kali sticks.

“I know he will!!” Tarrlok shouted, his voice cracking and breaking.  “…I know he will…”

It was Zhen’s turn to scoff.  “Why would he care about a filthy blood bender or his family!?”

“Why would he care about…” Tarrlok chuckled… “A filthy blood bender or his family?!”  The councilman doubled over and his body heaved as he laughed long and loud.

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed sharply.  “What do you know?”

It took a moment for the politician to catch his breath and calm down.  But once he’d stifled his snickering enough he said, “We grew up together.”

Zhen rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief.

The councilman, calm and almost melancholy once more, turned away as he wrapped his arms around himself. “He watched me and looked after me…” he murmured as he slowly dropped back into his chair, “We used to play together in the snow…”

“That’s a load of ox horse shit!” Zhen knew that if there was any kind of bender that could make someone hate bending, it was blood bending.  For years the Red Monsoons had relied on blood bending to rule the streets. He’d watched hundreds die at the hands of vile blood benders.  He’d been at their mercy… “If there’s one kind of bender that is more reviled than any other, it’s blood benders!” the lieutenant snarled.

The politician looked up at Zhen.  His empty eyes, once again growing hard and cold.  But the lieutenant didn’t care, he wasn’t about to let a blood bender lead him by the nose.

He tapped his chest angrily as he snarled, “I remember what the Red Monsoons did to people on the streets! I was one of their favorite targets! A man like Amon would never have anything to do with-!”

The councilman gave Zhen a sympathetic smile. “It feels awful, doesn’t it?”

“What?” The lieutenant snapped.

“Being blood bent.”

Zhen’s eyes widened, he reared back in fury.  “Don’t mock me!”

“I’m not.” Tarrlok grimaced and looked down at the floor.  “I was thirteen years old when my father took my brother and I out into the snow and tried to make us blood bend each other.”

Zhen felt all the blood leave his face.

“…what?”

“He didn’t even hesitate.” Tarrlok didn’t seem to hear him.  His eyes were vacant—like he’d been pulled back in time to the moment he’d been… tortured by his brother… “He just… did what he was told. Not a second of hesitation.”

Zhen felt the air leave his lungs.  He could not move.  He could not breath.  He couldn’t hear or think.

Tarrlok’s head dropped back, his arms dropped to his side and his back arched, his body bent into a backbend as if in supplication.  The councilman’s eyes widened as if in fear and pain.  His mouth fell open and Zhen swore he could see muscles twitching just beneath the politician’s skin as every part of him tensed—resisting the posture, even as he bent himself into it.

Every hair on the lieutenant’s body was on end as he stared at the politician.  The man was reliving torture visited upon him by his own brother…

The posture was like the one that Amon forced benders into before he took their bending…

Zhen stepped back.  His hand covered his mouth.  He turned away.

That thought… that Amon might have… based his technique on the torture visited upon a… a childhood friend… How many times had he seen the technique performed?  How many times had he seen it practiced…

Of all things, why would he choose that?!

Zhen shook his head and forced himself to look at Tarrlok.  “… your father… he was…?”

Tarrlok choked and gasped. He seemed to be struggling to move his limbs freely and easily.  But slowly he began to pull and twist himself out of the imagined blood bending grip.  His body bent forward sharply. 

The councilman looked up at the lieutenant through a curtain of heavy, dark hair.  “Bending… blood bending without the full moon takes years of grueling, rigorous training.  It’s a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Tarrlok’s father… he’d… forced his children to…?

Zhen felt sick.

“I swore that I’d never…” Tarrlok’s voice cracked as he trailed off.  He reached up and covered his eyes with his hand.

Zhen looked away.  He knew the councilman was… breaking down. He wished he didn’t have to be in the same room as a man who was coming apart at his seams.

But Tarrlok had brought it on himself.

Zhen remembered his own treatment at the hands of this vile man.  The councilman had gripped him and made him lie on the floor, prostrate before him.  It had been painful and humiliating.

He had no reason to feel sorry for this man.

The politician spoke up again.  “She was going to kill me.  I see now that I deserved it, because she was right… Amon and I are the same.” He swallowed sharply and loudly.  “I wish she’d have put me out of my misery.”

The lieutenant found his brow knitting in pity for the pathetic creature that sat before him.  “You hate yourself don’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Tarrlok asked.

Of course he’d hate himself!

If he were a blood bender, he’d hate himself more than anything in the entire world!  He’d hate being a terrible and vile monster who terrorized the helpless and made people miserable!

…But if he were a blood bender, he’d be powerful… Powerful enough to put the world right if he wanted to… And no one would be able to stop him…

NO!  That wasn’t who he was!

He shook his head sharply and looked away.

He’d never considered it before… If he were a blood bender?  What would he do with that power?

It was an uncomfortable question.

He glanced at Tarrlok who sat, wrecked and ruined, in the chair across from him.

The councilman had sworn to never blood bend again.  And if what he’d said was true, he’d kept his promise right up until his confrontation with the Avatar…

Would the lieutenant have resisted using such power for so long?

Zhen wasn’t quite sure he’d have the strength for that…

His disquiet deepened. He needed to fill the room with sound again.  He didn’t want to be alone with these questions, these terrible thoughts…

“Your father made you blood bend your brother?” He asked.

Tarrlok made a soft hiccoughing sound and then said, “I refused.  I was a weakling and a coward.  I refused.”

The lieutenant frowned at the man across from him.  “You refused… and you were the weakling…?” No wonder he was such a horrible person! He’d been raised to believe that choosing not to be cruel and evil was weak!

“My brother was only three years older than me.  I’m thirty-seven.  He’s forty now.” The councilman said. He looked up at Zhen, accusation in his eyes. “Do you really think that benders are just born slinging fire and tossing boulders? That we just magically know how to control our powers?  Do you think I was always like this?  Is it impossible to imagine that there might have been a time before…?  Before our father decided that we were weapons not children…?” The councilman seemed to lose focus again, as if he were being pulled back to that time before he was a blood bender.  “He watched me, looked after me…”

The lieutenant felt sick with anger and… something akin to guilt.  “But you still went along with it!” He shouted.  “You still let him shape you!”

At the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder…

If Amon and Tarrlok had known each other as children…

What would it have been like to watch a friend turn into a monster?  A child you looked after and played with?  What would it have been like to lose that person to a man who was so cruel as to torture his own children…?

A best friend…?

Someone like a brother…?

He couldn’t imagine it.

Once again, he was left with a terrible sense of discomfort.  He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about what he’d learned.  Nothing fit with his own understanding and experiences…

He tried to fill the silence again, “So your father was a master blood bender who tortured you?” 

Tarrlok didn’t even look at him.  “I was seven. He was my father.  He’d been kind and good.  I thought he loved me as his son before it all started.  I only wanted to make him proud of me.”  He spoke in a dispassionate monotone, as if he were numb to the information.

Were all blood benders like this? Frightened children eager to please a parent?

Zhen couldn’t believe that.

Tarrlok twitched, his eyes began to dart.  His fingers jerked and moved unsteadily.  He reached up to push his hair out of his face.  “But I could never compare…” He rocked back and forth, and his fingers began to pull at his hair.  “Not at all…” He murmured, more to himself than to Zhen. “I was the weakling.  The spare.  The worthless, unskilled…!”

The lieutenant frowned at the councilman’s behavior.  He seemed unhinged… or like he was becoming unhinged.  He tried to draw the man back into the conversation, “Your brother was that skilled?” he asked. “You didn’t need the full moon and he was better than you?” He found it hard to believe.

Tarrlok chuckled.  “He didn’t even have to move his hands.  He just needed to be able to see his opponent…”

Zhen didn’t think he could be more horrified.

“What does Amon have to do with any of this?” He demanded.

The councilman glanced at Zhen and smiled. The lieutenant realized that it was meant to be a nasty smile, but it came off as nervous and incredibly uncomfortable. “I was his first foray into protecting another person.  Practice.”

Oh spirits…

Tarrlok turned his eyes away and studied the floor to his right.  “He failed.  Fucked it up badly.”

No…

Amon wouldn’t have dared to pit himself against a group of blood benders who were strong enough to… to… And with a single look?

The councilman chuckled lightly.  “In the end he ran away.”

“…no.”  Zhen said.

“Do you know why?” Tarrlok asked.

Zhen shook his head.  “…shut up…”

Tarrlok grinned, this time he did manage to be nasty. “Because you can’t protect someone who’s able to stand up for themselves.”

Zhen looked up in confusion.  Those were the horrible words he’d been expecting...

“Oh?”  Tarrlok tilted his head to one side.  “Maybe I wasn’t clear.  You and all your little Equalists are only important to Amon as long as you’re vulnerable and helpless.  That’s how he is.” The councilman’s smile widened, “He likes people who are helpless, who are vulnerable, who can’t protect themselves.  He likes to feel like a savior and a hero, but that only works if you’re in peril!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Zhen snarled.

The politician snickered.  “I’m talking about what he does.  He goes out and finds someone helpless and he ‘protects’ them.  He ‘saves’ them from their tormentor...” Tarrlok chuckled, “Maybe ‘protect’ is too strong a word...

“He puts himself between the victim and the tormentor.  He antagonizes the tormentor so that life becomes completely unbearable for the victim.  And he’ll.. galvanize both sides until the victim finally puts up a fight.  And then, right when you really need him, right when you desperately need his support and protection... he will leave you.”

Zhen’s eyes widened in shock.  “That’s not true!” he shouted.

... but it was happening right now, wasn’t it...?  Amon was leaving them all...

No!  He couldn’t beleive it!  He wouldn’t be led by this evil man!

The councilman shrugged and said, “I lived through hell from the age of seven.  Even though he was in a position to put an end to our suffering, he never once raised his hand.  In the did what he couldn’t do.  I put my foot down and resisted.”  Tarrlok glanced away, his expression pained, “And that was when he left... he didn’t kill him or stop him or provide any other help.  As soon as I did what he’d never...!”  He jerked, his eyes shutting tightly and his face contorted as if in pain.

The ex-blood bender began speaking again, in a calm, low, level voice.  “He never once fought back.  He was like a wall, in some ways... He took the punishment, but he never really did anything to stop what was happening.  He made a martyr of himself at my expense.  He had so much power!  But he never once tried to fight him!”  The politician looked straight into Zhen’s eyes as he said, “I had to do that.  And when he couldn’t play hero anymore, he left me to rot.”

Zhen shook his head in disbelief, “You’re a bender!” he snapped. “If you’d had some guts-!”

Tarrlok shook his head.  “He was stronger than me.  But in the end he fled like a coward while I endured.”

“You make it sound like you’re the victim!” Zhen shouted.  “How could a blood bender be a victim?  You have all the power in the world!”

“I was the one who had to fight back.  He ran.” It was like the shadows of the room were swallowing him up, body and soul.  “I took the abuse and the beatings and he, sainted and precious, played at defending me.”

Tarrlok looked up at him with baleful eyes.  “You’re blind to think that men like him are capable of any goodness.  They put themselves up as defenders, but they’re all bullies and cowards underneath it all,” the councilman sneered.

Zhen took a step back. He’d had seen men and women with hatred in their eyes—all Equalists were angry, you didn’t join the revolution if you weren’t full of righteous rage.  Some were furious at their families, who rejected them for being non-benders.  Some hated the powerful benders who oppressed them and took their work opportunities, but all Equalists were united by their fury.

Once that fury was properly shaped and directed, the powerful wrath of non-benders spiraled outward to strike at the bending establishment and inward to root out weakness…

Those were Amon’s words.

The anger in Tarrok’s eyes—no, radiating throughout his entire body was so intense he could feel it. The rage was like an aura.  It was just like in those ancient stories where men faced each other in battle and described their opponent’s killing intent.   The lieutenant would have sworn that he’d never seen anything like it…

… but it was so familiar.

Zhen stumbled for a moment, but recovered himself, “You don’t know Amon!” he snarled.  “He’s the most noble and humane person I’ve ever met!”

Tarrlok snorted.  “Is he?  A man who thinks so little of terrorizing a teenage girl?”  he asked.  “A man who would think nothing of destroying a people and their way of life?”

“What?” the lieutenant snapped.

“Don’t tell me you think for a minute that he was going to spare the Air Nation,” the politician retorted.

Zhen shook his head in disbelief.  Of course they needed to be removed, “They’re benders!”

A lantern went out.  Tarrlok’s face and form were thrown into shadow. His voice, however, cut through the darkness.  “They’re pacifists whose entire culture was nearly annihilated!” He snarled.  “And you Equalists wanted to finish the job that Ozai started.  Can you justify it?” He demanded. “Can you justify harming children?”

Zhen felt a twinge of fear.  He wasn’t afraid of the ex-blood bender, but of what the man was saying.  His voice was too strong.

“They won’t be harmed!” Zhen reasoned.  “Their bending will be removed!  It won’t make that much of a difference!”

“Then you will complete Ozai’s work.”

Zhen flinched and winced. He shook his head sharply.  “This is for the best!” He shouted. “There will be some sacrifices, but it’s for the best!”

“Do you really think so?” The councilman jeered. “Do you really think you know him?”

“Of course I do!” Zhen snapped, but he didn’t sound as strong as before.  His voice was growing weak as his head began to fill with doubt and questions… There were so many little things in Amon’s backstory that didn’t quite add up…

“You don’t know anything.”  The councilman hissed.  “You know a personality.  A character he’s playing!  I knew him before he became Amon!  I knew him when he was just a boy with a chip on his shoulder and talent to spare!”

Zhen stepped further from the table, his hands came up to cover his ears as he turned away from the politician.  “I trust him!”  He shouted.

“You want to know something…?” the ex-blood bender asked in a soft, taunting voice.

Zhen didn’t want to know any more.  He wanted the damn bastard to shut up and quit… disrupting everything.

“The night I took the Avatar prisoner, we fought.  You heard about that, right?” The councilman asked.

Zhen nodded.  He wished he hadn’t.

“She came after me.  I was trying to keep my head, in spite of what she said, but she provoked me when she accused me of being exactly like your leader.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Zhen snapped as he turned on the politician once more.  “You two have nothing in common!  The Avatar is a fool for comparing you two!”

Tarrlok chuckled softly.  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?  I was so angry at being compared to him I attacked her.  We fought.  She nearly killed me and I gave in and blood bent her….  After all these years…  I never used it.  I swore I wouldn’t.  I swore I’d be better than both of them.  I swore that I’d never once…  But coward…. Monster that I am, I did it.”

Zhen could see the councilman’s blue eyes glinting in the darkness.  The Equalist couldn’t look away from those pale, glinting orbs.

“How do I describe my horror at discovering that her words were accurate?  We share so much your master and I.  Our lives intersect in so many ways…”

Zhen shook his head sharply.  “Name one!”  He shouted.  “Name a single way that you’re like Amon!”

“We would have torn this city apart to achieve our ends.”

“That’s not true!”  the lieutenant howled,  “You were tearing this city apart! Amon was trying to help us! Benders hurt us!  Terrorized us in our homes and on the streets!  You enabled them!”  Zhen snarled.  “We’re oppressed!  We’re making a stand!”

“But did you need a war?”

“What?  No!”  The lieutenant’s head hurt.

“You started a Revolution.  You began fighting in the streets.”

“We were striking back!” Zhen retorted.

“You could have put pressure on the council to bring on a non-bending representative, just like Amon could have reached out to be benders who are just as downtrodden and oppressed as non-benders and brought them into his revolution—making it a more effective and powerful movement.”

Zhen growled angrily.  “Why would any benders feel oppressed?!  They have all the power!”

“Triads don’t distinguish between benders and non-benders, but Amon does.  And Amon doesn’t care what happens to benders whose families are murdered by benders or non-benders.”

“Non-benders don’t murder benders!” The lieutenant shouted.

“Of course they don’t.  And your Equalists don’t overpower benders and terrorize them for fun when you’re not keeping them in line…. Your Equalists didn’t come up to the Avatar’s cell, looking for an excuse to get inside and have a bit of fun with an ex-bender girl that their leader had so recently humiliated.”

Zhen shook his head quickly; his hands came up to clutch his head.  “It’s different!”  He howled.

“Is it?”

“She deserved it!” He cried... he couldn’t believe he’d just said that…

“Are you sure?”

Zhen’s hands came down hard on the table, he gripped it, ready to assault the man in the dark, across from him.  “She needed to learn her place!”

Oh spirits, what was he saying? He didn’t really believe…?

“Just like non-benders had to learn their place?  Of course. Like looking in a mirror isn’t it? Same tactics.  Same view.  Different side of the tracks.”

The door hinges creaked.

Zhen gasped.  The lantern that had gone out flickered back to life and Tarrlok reappeared.

Both men stared at the door as it began to swing open…

Was it Amon?

Had Amon returned?

Or was it a chi-blocker?

The lieutenant snatched his head-gear from where it lay dangling off the edge of the table and pulled it on.  If it was a chi-blocker he needed to look ‘put together.’  They needed to believe their leaders were in control.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tarrlok smirk snidely at him.  The councilman seemed to know exactly what was going through his head.

A small, slightly built Equalist peered into the room cautiously.  “Uh… Mr. Esteemed Lieutenant, Sir?” she said in a soft, high voice.

It wasn’t Amon.  Zhen couldn’t hide his disappointment and anger at being interrupted by one of his subordinates.  He wanted to see Amon right now.  He needed to reassure himself that Tarrlok was lying aobut his commander.

Zhen glared at her sharply.  “What is it?” He growled.

The small Equalist stepped cautiously into the room. “Oh, good.  It’s the right room…  Ahem! Mr. Esteemed Lieutenant, Sir?  Amon would like a word with you.”

Zhen stiffened and turned sharply to, “I was ordered not to leave the councilman’s side!  Do you really want this man wandering around our base?! Exploiting our secrets!?”

The small Equalist nearly jumped out of her skin.  She stumbled backwards and immediately began bowing deeply, repeatedly, and profusely. “S-s-s-s-sorry Your Most Esteemed Excellence Right-Hand-Super-Manliness!  I-I’m just following orders!  Uh…! Amon-uh-!  Amon said that... um Mr. Councilor is to stay where he is...”

The small equalist cast a quick, nervous glance at Tarrlok.  “Umm... Mr. Councilor wouldn’t want to... to leave this room, because he, um, he knows what was good for him?” she offered.

Oh winged spirit of sky and sun give him patience, Zhen knew who it was!  Amon had sent one of the most inexperienced, flighty members of the organization to fetch him.  Yun was a sweet girl, she really was, but she lacked confidence.  And as much as he liked the girl—in a fatherly sort of way—he had been the one who’d put her on probation for delivering a certain, vital missive into the hands of a drunk Hiroshi Sato.

He pinched his brow and grimaced as he wondered what she was doing back in the base.  She was supposed to stay at home until she was contacted for review!  She was not supposed-!

They’d sent all the Equalists of Water Tribe descent home last night.  They were short-handed.  Of course she’d been called in…

He sucked in a deep breath and corrected her.  “You mean, he won’t leave this room if he knows what’s good for him, don’t you, Yun?”

He could almost hear the air woosh as the young Equalist nodded quickly. “Oh!  Also, I um…”

“Go on…” the lieutenant said through clenched teeth.

“I have a key to the room?  Amon wanted me to deliver it to you?”

He looked up and let out a heavy sigh.  She bent at a near perfect right angle with both her hands extended straight out in front of her, palms up, offering him the key like he was some kind of great lord or king…

… and she was shaking with so much nervous, frightened energy, that he thought she might collapse.

The anger and frustration drained out of him.

This movement wasn’t all about Amon, it was about people like Yun.  Small, nervous, frightened people who were so used to being abused that they’d come to expect it for even the smallest mistake.  It was about people like him, who just wanted the feeling of being trapped and helpless to end…

Whatever history Tarrlok shared with Amon, it didn’t matter.  His feelings for Amon, though important to him, meant very little in the grand scheme of things.  He needed to remind himself of that.  The Equalist Revolution was bigger than four men.

He smiled, shook his head at his own selfishness, and took the key from Yun.  She flinched when his fingers brushed her gloved hand, but aside from that she didn’t move.  Not even after he’d taken the key from her.

He frowned and sighed, “Yun,” he said.

She straightened to attention, saluting him like a good little soldier.  “Yes, Sir, Esteemed Lieutenant, Sir!”

“It’s just lieutenant, Yun.”  He studied the key and glanced at Tarrlok.

The councilman was eyeing Yun like she was the most outlandish and annoying thing he’d ever seen.

Typical bender elitist scum…

He turned his attention back to the young Equalist.  “I’m going to need some help carrying these files.  There’s quite a few of them…”

She sucked in a breath and he could see how she just… swelled at the idea of being helpful. “I’d be honored, sir!”

Zhen snorted and shook his head.  If it’d been anyone else saying that, he would’ve simply assumed they were kissing-ass. But he knew the new recruits and Yun was nothing if not completely sincere.

Yun turned, took a step toward the table and froze.

It took the lieutenant a moment to figure out what was going on.  It shouldn’t have.  Yun was staring straight at Tarrlok and he could clearly see the whites of the young Equalist’s eyes through her green goggles.

Tarrlok, meanwhile, was wearing an amused smile.  “Oh, what’s wrong?” he asked smoothly. “Are you afraid of the big bad blood bender?”

“Don’t worry.  You have nothing to fear from him now,” Zhen told Yun.  He smirked, “Amon purified him.  But…” the lieutenant gave Tarrlok a nasty, smug grin, “Ex-Councilman Tarrlok.  You’re standing between my young associate and those very important files. Move.”

Tarrlok glared at him.  “Of course.”

The councilman rose to his feet with a grace he hadn’t displayed since his capture.  As he stepped away from the table, he reached up and pushed his hair out of his face.

For Zhen, it was as though a curtain had been pulled back.  Tarrlok’s skin was darker than Amon’s, his face was longer, the nose was certainly not the same at all… but there was a terrible likeness in the form of the mouth, the shape of the eyes, the arch of the brow and forehead.  Even the color of those pale eyes… if not for the fact that Zhen knew it was Tarrlok before him, he would have sworn those eyes belonged to Amon.

How could Amon have the same eyes as this man?

Zhen’s mind spun.  He turned away, suddenly unable to bear looking at the man who shared Amon’s beautiful pale eyes.

Amon had said that he and Tarrlok could build a convincing history together.  He’d asked them to report that he’d taken his brother and the Avatar… 

His brother…

no…

A shared past…

No.

‘I know what you are…’

It couldn’t be…

‘I wasn’t my teacher’s favorite…’

NO!

There was no way this could possibly be true.  Amon’s family had been killed by a fire bender.  The fire bender had taken Amon’s face.  Amon’s whole family was dead.

But what if that wasn’t true?  What if he had a brother?  A brother who lived…?

The Avatar’s words rang in his head: ‘I know who you are, your brother told me.’

Oh, spirits, no…

“Mr. Esteemed Lieutenant, Sir?” Zhen looked up and saw Yun standing before him, holding a large stack of files in her arms.  “We shouldn’t keep, Our Most Exceptional Leader, Amon, waiting.”

[] [] []

A/N: I have hated scenes before, but I have not hated any as much as I hated this one.  It has gone through no less than 8 rewrites.  Half of those rewrites were in the past two weeks. Beta saved this scene.  Yun saved my f’n soul.

Equal Measure Navigation

2.1.6.3- Apologies 2.1.6.3.5- The Little Equalist 2.1.6.5- Shame

Part 1 Master Post

[thedramafilesblog-blog]

We’re not a blog that reviews music or KPOP, but because we both absolutely adore BTS and their music, we decided to do a memo-style review of their new album.

***If this is your first time browsing the Drama Files, please read The Rules on how our Memo-style reviews work***

***This song and music video  really resonated with us and we felt compelled to share our theories about what they could possibly signify, as there has been some speculation as to what it could mean. Our views are simply theories.***

Memo

Dear Reader,

There have been some questions regarding the recent release of BTS’s latest album, Wings: You Never Walk Alone, particularly:

(1) Whether BTS’s two songs, “Spring Day” and “Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone”, had personal references; and

(2) Whether the four new songs were cohesive.

Conclusion

(1) BTS’s two songs, “Spring Day” and “Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone”, very likely are very personal and very likely involve a death of a friend.

(2) There is a sense of cohesiveness between the four songs. However, the two songs, Not Today and Outro: Wings, seem more related to each other and the other two songs, Spring Day and Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone, seem more connected to one another content-wise.

Analysis

(1) BTS’s two songs, “Spring Day” and “Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone”, very likely are very personal and very likely involve a death of a friend.

“Spring Day” and its music video (MV) likely mean a death of a friend, possibly from suicide. The lyrics, themselves, hint that a friend passed away or committed suicide: “Yeah I hate you. You left but there was not a day I ever forgot about you.” Why would you hate a person who passed away? Likely because the person chose to end his/her life or somehow experiencing an unfair death.This reaction is quite plausible because anyone who has experienced the untimely passing of a loved one, experiences anger as a stage of grief.  Other verses include: “You know it all. You’re my best friend. Morning will come again” and “Will you stay a little longer?” 

The MV supports the notion that the friend has chosen to end his life. The MV opens with the “friend” who is portrayed by Jungkook in a white turtle neck sweater with black striped sleeves on one train, and Rapmonster on a different train. This could be symbolizing that they are on two different paths.

Jungkook playing the “friend”

Rapmonster on a different train

Rapmonster then heads out of his train and to a place called “Omelas”. Omelas is very likely alluding to the short story written by Ursula K Le Guin; “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas“. In brief, the story is about a place that’s like paradise, but to achieve that paradise, one child has to be subject to suffering and darkness. Later the citizens find out the truth about the suffering child, but some are afraid of change and choose to stay in Omelas while a few choose to leave. (That’s important for later)  After Rapmonster arrives at Omelas and meets a few other BTS members, we see Rapmonster walking by the “friend” who is still on his train. The lyrics also match because Rapmonster sings that he wants to “get to the other side of the earth holding your hand” but obviously he can’t because they’re on different paths.

See the shadow? That’s Rapmonster walking by the “friend”.

After walking past Rapmonster’s friend and heading out of a train, Rapmonster has a crown which could symbolize success. Everything is great because everyone is having fun at Omelas. You see the boys throwing cake and partying hard. However, to have this sort of paradise, there must be some sacrifice per the Omelas ideal. Hence, again we see Jin acting as the “friend” who seems trapped at the bottom of the stairwell and can only watch as the boys walk around him and climb up the stairs to more success.

If you notice carefully, Jin is wearing the same type shirt with the same design as Jungkook who acted as the friend on the train. None of the other boys wear the exact same design with the black stripes on the sleeves on a white sweater. This likely alludes to the idea that Jin must also be playing the part of the “friend.” The “friend” is also stuck in a barren place all by himself (See Jungkook by the blue rundown carousel), while the other boys are missing him and still in Omelas.

The boys continue their mundane, everyday life like brushing their teeth, getting their ears pierced, doing laundry, etc. Life goes on, but the “friend” is still on the train and all by himself heading somewhere else.

Life moves on again as we see more everyday scenes, but there’s always a hint of sadness. You see Rapmonster and V laughing, but you can tell that there’s some forced laughter. There’s a birthday celebration with Jungkook (not playing the friend anymore), and he is not very happy either. (In this MV, Jungkook seems to play two roles: one as himself and the other as the ‘friend’. When Jungkook is not wearing the white turtleneck, he plays himself.)

At the laundromat, we see that there are mountains behind Jin. Mountains in this MV likely symbolize “death”. (In an interview with Christian Boltanski, the artist of the mountain of clothes piece, he revealed that the mountain of clothes represented death)

Sad Jin looking to the mountains

Then the mountains lead to the scene with Suga being on a pile of clothes which is probably a reference to Christian Boltanski’s “No Man’s Land” which features a mountain of clothes and a crane beside it. (The link explains more in detail; there’s also this interview that gives more details about this.) The pile of clothes represents “an eternal afterlife of sorts”.

At this point, it’s likely symbolizing that the “friend” has actually passed away. Suga raps that he missed the friend, but he’ll erase him because it hurts less than to blame them. That also seems to suggest that the friend committed suicide (arguably because there’s no point in blaming someone who died unless he/she chose to die. At least that’s our take on it).

We see that the boys keep trying to find this “friend”. J-Hope is on top of the train, but obviously he can’t get inside. The boys are circulating around the “friend” who notices them and moves away to follow the boys. Notice how this scene is where the “friend” is in perpetual darkness with only the lights being behind him. An alternative theory that a friend pointed out is that the yellow ribbons likely signify the Sewol ferry tragedy. Alternatively, then it could be inferred that the “friend” may have unfortunately passed away from that tragedy (which moves away from our possible suicide approach, but i’s an alternative proposition). It’s more likely that the friend has joined the dead which includes those that passed away from the Sewol ferry tragedy.

It’s only after the “friend” joins the boys does the scene cut to Jungkook looking frantically for the other boys as if he has suddenly realized the truth about the suffering child/friend and wants to break free from this “paradise” in Omelas. The other BTS members walk out with Jungkook and they all have genuine smiles on their faces. (Notice how Jungkook is dressed in different clothing and has a more boyish haircut. He looks a bit older with the turtleneck as he is acting as the “friend”.)

All of BTS is set to find the “friend”. They’re running out of Omelas and towards the train that the “friend” has been on trying to get to him. (This is why I also say Jungkook is playing 2 roles in this MV because Jungkook sees the “friend”.)

But the friend is on a path that they cannot get to, as the train whizzes past them. The sad scenes that follow likely showcase mourning with the passing of the friend. Rapmonster is sadly staring on his train going in another direction from the friend’s. All the guys are sitting in the dark room and are watching as the match they light really doesn’t really light up the darkness they’re in. That action seems to symbolize their attempt to possibly understand their friend’s plight of having been the suffering child, or maybe even their own feelings of grief and loss.

The scenes following also show them on a mountain of clothes, which again, symbolizes death based on the art installation of Christian Boltanski, possibly reiterating the friend’s passing. The scene changes to Jungkook back to playing the “friend” again (he’s in the turtleneck sweater again), but this time he’s surrounded by all the guys on this train. This part was confusing. However, it’s likely that this is the deceased “friend” dreaming that his friends are actually with him on this journey. There is also the possibility that this scene represents how the BTS members feel. They would want the “friend” to feel that they are with him on this journey.

After getting off the train, they walk through a wintery expanse to a tree. It’s possible at this point that the two story lines are concurrent as we see that Jungkook is still wearing that sweater. This implies that he is the “friend” who is walking with them towards the tree. Another explanation is that they want to memorialize the “friend” and are hoping that he would be walking with them in that instance.

Jimin placing the shoes (tied shoes being strung on objects in urban mythology can have a range of meanings, some meaning death) on the tree probably symbolizes the finality of the friend’s journey and their coming to terms with his passing as the tree with the shoes stands in memory of their lost friend.

(2) The four new songs were generally cohesive.

It seems that there is more cohesiveness between “Not Today” and “Outro: Wings”. The two songs are about underdogs trying to prove to the world that they will succeed. On the other hand, the other two songs, “Spring Day” and “Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone” seem more linked together. “Spring Day” speaks to missing a deceased friend and wanting to see the friend again. “Supplemental Story” talks about sacrificing a friend to gain success and believing that the friend is also behind their success.

It seems like “Not Today” and “Outro: Wings” were written much earlier than the other two songs. Its quite possible that the incident with the deceased friend happened after these two songs were written. Plus, Rapmonster did reveal in the V Live Preview Show that “Spring Day” was written based on his and Suga’s personal experiences, and that the lyrics express their feelings. This is possibly a big hint that this song really was personal.

BTS did do a decent job trying to tie “Spring Day” and “Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone” with “Not Today” and “Outro: Wings”. There’s a reference to “wings” within the lyrics of “Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone”. It’s as if the friend is helping BTS fight to be successful. The friend has helped BTS have “wings”. Though we aren’t music experts, we did feel like there were traces of “Outro: Wings” in “Supplemental Story: You Never Walk Alone”. It was as if the latter song was an extension/remix of “Outro: Wings” in some ways. Moreover, the two have a faster tempo and a more upbeat/pop vibe.

Finally, the order of the songs in this album helped tie everything together. “Spring Day” plays before “Not Today”. Then, “Outro: Wings” plays and the album finishes with “Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone”. There’s sadness that comes with “Spring Day”, but “Not Today” reminds us to keep going and fighting. “Outro: Wings” continues that message of a fighting spirit. Finally, the “Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone” reminds us that we are all not alone and that the friend is also with them.

Here are some lyrics from “Supplementary Story: You Never Walk Alone”: (Credits goes to here for the translation)

At the end of this road you walk alone ….. That’s okay, I am by your side If you and I could be together I can smile

It’s as if BTS is telling the “friend” that even though the “friend” is alone, BTS will always be by the friend’s side.

I want to fly but I don’t have wings BUT your hand Becomes my wing

Your hand seems to reference the “friend”. The friend has helped BTS fly to success.

This is a sin I committed Even if all the lives Are the price of My punishment

We feel like this might also be a personal reference that goes back to the death of the “friend”.

Ayy I never walk alone If you and I can be together, I can laugh Ayy You never walk alone If you and I can be together, I can laugh If you and I can be together, I can laugh

In BTS’ mind, the friend and they are not alone anymore. BTS will be there.

The songs, although they seem to have been written at different at different points in time, do blend well together to create an overall cohesiveness with the themes of life, loss, temptation, and success.

Alternatively, this whole song could also be directed at fans supporting them. (LOL!)

BTS have really been stellar at creating music away from the traditional love song route by focusing on issues that people in different stages in their lives experience. Its because their music is so relatable that makes it amazing!

  Re: BTS Wings: You Never Walk Alone Album We're not a blog that reviews music or KPOP, but because we both absolutely adore…

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The X-Files “Came Back Haunted” Part 4 - Recap and Review.

When we last visited The X-Files – Came Back Haunted series of comics I was… confused.  Hit the jump to read our review and recap of The X-Files #9 – Came Back Haunted – Part 4 to see if there’s a light at the end of the multi-chapter tunnel.

We open to a pensive looking Scully, in a bathroom, in a… towel?

Last we saw her, she was mid-air and Ben-Brahim was needing assistance to land his private jet after the pilot had been killed. So, this is an odd place to start. The next panel, Scully enters a room back in her own clothes and it’s very important she lets him know this is what she wants. Did they just make love? Where her clothes in need of laundering after a crash? Why is she washing her hands after she’s clearly just stepped out of a shower? I have no clue what is happening. This is a theme with this series, so, I’m just gonna go with it.

Brahim wants Scully to come view the sunset over the ridge and she complies, asking him what this place is that they’ve arrived at. I’d really like to know how they arrived there. He informs her that it’s a community he has built where refugees may feel safe for the first time in, perhaps, years. The community is in the Canary Islands and is named “Shyma.” Scully seems suitably impressed.

As he takes Scully on the grand tour, Ben-Brahim informs her that his resources have narrowed down the search for Mulder to the Hungarian Border. Scully seems excited that they’ve found him but he tempers that by countering that they are “close.” He tells her that he has enemies and that Mulder seems to be in those same enemies’ way, as is she. He implores her to follow him a little longer.

Meanwhile, Mulder has somehow made it from the forests of Hungary to the Port of Sibenik, Croatia and we join up with him ten hours earlier.

A mysterious woman joins Mulder. Arguing ensues over a boat not arriving and the site being lost. Mulder seems pained by it all. Are these voices in his head, or an argument in the next room? The woman asks him if he thinks this is a game and Mulder states that if it is he isn’t enjoying it very much. I appreciate the Mulder snark even if I don’t know what’s going on.

The woman continues to taunt Mulder who seems just as confused as I am. She tells him that they liked him very much even though he didn’t have much to contribute to the community. The woman wonders what they might have contributed to Mulder. Field agents in her organization’s employ have detected an event that nobody had been expecting.

We cut back to Scully and Ben-Brahim. Scully wonders why it’s only he who is researching the weird affliction that Mulder and the previous victims seem to have contracted. Where is the EU or the WHO in all of this? He tells her that nations are failing the 21st century as we cut back to Mulder who seems to be having his head shrunk by the woman. He tries to say, “My name … is… F-F-Fah…”

Back to Ben-Brahim who tells Scully he can’t trust many people and also humblebrags about all the great things he’s been doing while they’ve been walking and talking. Scully doesn’t seem quite as impressed as he might have hoped for and we cut to Mulder who is being implored to tell the woman everything he has seen. The camera angle pans around and… her eyes are glowing.

It’s at this point we reach the end of the teaser and honestly… I’m sick of the glowing eyes thing. It’s less of a cliffhanger and more of an annoyance. Four comics in, I want to have some semblance of what on earth is going on. I don’t.

Over the Adriatic sea, an extraction team quietly arrives.

Mulder is mid-reverie and glowing eye lady seems a little annoyed that Mulder didn’t listen to the spirits (Spirits? Possibly. Let’s call them spirits for now) who spoke to him.

“Old ones return,” the voices say as the woman almost gouges out Mulder’s eyeballs in an attempt to get him to recall what he’s heard.

The extraction team approaches, with some bickering between them as to the best course of action, when gunshots ring out. One of the agents falls and the woman interrogating Mulder turns, irritated as the cavalry enters. Mulder implores them to chill out and not shoot him as he comes to his senses and tells them his name and that he is an American held against his will. It does the trick and the team wonders if they should bring the woman back too. Unfortunately, she’s dead. The glowing eyes transfer to the team member, because, of course they do.

Back in the Canary Islands, Ben-Brahim tells Scully about his daddy issues as he wraps up his tour, but Scully snarks him back down to her level with a comment about his “presentation” being effortlessly presented. She wonders, though, what is she actually doing there.

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

While Firas continues to espouse his momentous achievements and manly conquests, Scully points out he might want to add an antibiotic to the refugees’ regimen, as one seems a little ill. He pays her no mind and continues with his story of greatness. The whup-whup-whup of a helicopter arriving on scene is no match for his manliness and it takes Scully calling him by his first name to get his attention.

They make their escape while the extraction team demands the refugees get back to their shelters. Scully demands to know what’s happening as she’s led into a building on red alert. Ben-Brahim looks worried. Scully is increasingly scared and wondering what will happen to all the children they’ve just met. She thought this place was secure.

He assures her nothing is amiss and pulls out the “Dana” card before presenting her with… Mulder, who sits in a holding room of sorts.

The team leader reports that the mission was a success even though their contact didn’t make it back out. I’m assuming this is the glowing eyed lady laying dead in Croatia.

Scully is in full concerned doctor mode as she checks out Mulder’s scratched up face and heavily poked eye. Mulder isn’t quite sure he understands what he saw but he knows that the things out there spoke to him.

Ben-Brahim appears, to let them know that he’s glad Mulder is safe and that his “secondary jet” is fueled up and ready to take them home to Washington.

“What happened to his primary jet?” Mulder wonder-snarks.

It almost makes the series worth it.

Still, it’s a good question. Did Scully help land the plane? Did they crash? Did they ease them in for a smooth landing? I want to know all the things! I know none of the things.

Ben-Brahim also wants to know all the things and Mulder does his best to let him know what happened. He tells him that he was taken to the woods and that they were digging for something, that they wanted to show him something. He explains that it wasn’t the men there who wanted to show him things but the lights in the sky, or something…

The “holes in the sky,” the extraction agent with the glowing eyes interrupts, as he enters the room.

Mulder hears the voices telling him to look out as the agent pulls a gun. Ben-Brahim calls for security as Mulder fends off the madman. Ben-Brahim shoots him dead as Scully comes rushing inside to see what’s happening. Ben-Brahim exits the room looking concerned. Their sanctuary isn’t safe anymore and they will have to find a new location.

Scully asks Mulder what he heard and the voices compel him to remember. He has a vision of the Strughold Mining Company sign, and, Mulder being Mulder… he doesn’t tell her what he heard or saw but instead tells her to let him think on it. He thinks it’s pretty big.

And that… concludes The X-Files: Came Back Haunted.

First, the good news: Matthew Dow Smith delivers, as usual, with his artwork, creating feelings and mood where the story is lacking. The mytharc is intriguing, and maybe even a good concept, but four episodes in nothing has yet to be revealed other than that something is hopping from person to person and possessing them, making them do terrible things while trying to… I don’t know what they want.

And that’s where I come to the bad news: The narrative is all over the place, not making much sense and meandering in circles that only end in more people with eyes on fire and voices in their heads. There’s no conclusion to this conclusion and I’m left feeling irritated. I’m not sure if Ben-Brahim is a new ally like he presents himself to be or a skeevy antagonist hiding in sheep’s clothing. There’s a commentary to be found here regarding the current situation in the world, but I feel Harris missed the mark by leaning heavily on symbolism and the artwork and skipping out on the meat of the narrative.

I love a good cliffhanger, but, honestly, I feel like I wasted a few hours of my life with this series, having learned almost all I would learn in the first (and in my opinion, best) chapter of this storyline.

Next month, the series moves on to “Contrarians,” and I can hope all the tangled threads Harris has left dangling with this series will be threaded into a compelling storyline going forward.