#discussion and references to suicidal ideation and tendencies cw

[phantastragoria]

X-Men Red spoilers watch out !!!

I know Ewing obviously has a plan with Richard dying and it'll be great and cool and interesting and crazy and it'll make complete sense when he comes back as whatever entity or role he has in mind. But I need to get a small thought off my chest... This is a similar issue I initially/still partly have with what he did with Quill during his GotG run. In that personally, and this is definitely my mental illness talking I know, I don't like the concept of seemingly killing off a realistically written suicidal character as though it's needed for their arc, regardless of whether it's guaranteed they'll come back. Even if they come back as more than they were as an aspect of something or a godly being.

It's definitely not meant to come off in such a way and it's just comics being comics so it's nothing new or meant to be taken so seriously, but I don't like the thought that no matter what such characters -HAVE- to die before they're able to gain the perspective of wanting to live and getting better... :x

[go-to-the-mirror]

HEY WELL AT LEAST THEY'RE NONBINARY RIGHT?

he/they jonbinary rights. also oh god oh fuck, time for MAG 132.

@a-mag-a-day

CW: canon- typical suicidal ideation and attempt, canon-typical self sacrificial tendencies. Both discussed more frankly than in the actual podcast.

Also, I'm allowing myself free use of my reaction images (with image descriptions) because I'm in SHAMBLES. Mostly words though.

ARCHIVIST Hello, Melanie. I know I said we’d wait until Basira was back, but I don’t… I’m sorry. I know she won’t… She’d want to do it a different way.

headinhands

Wish me luck. Although, I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I didn’t have any.

The way he says "wish me luck" with that levity and then just hhh like yk joking is one his coping mechanisms for like, crushing fear and grief and stuff, and just the way they SAY it just makes me want to CRY, AAA

I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. When does the fear go away?

I remember in my first listen, this line stood out to me, I was in shambles, shambles. "When does the fear go away" I'm so, so sorry Jon.

[ID: Drawing of a person sitting at a computer, hands covering their face, crying. /End ID]

Anyway, I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d stop me. You’d be right to, but … But if this goes wrong, all you lose is … I’m not risking anyone else.

This is a suicide note. Now, he's hoping he'll get out -- probably -- maybe -- but that. It is. Similar. The apology. All you lose is another monster. He might get stuck there forever, he's terrified, he's doing this for someone he doesn't even like out of guilt, out of the crushing -- ha -- amount of guilt, over Tim, over Daisy, over Martin and Basira and Melanie, over his... victims.

In case I don't make it. In case I don't get lucky.

Jonny stop making this podcast so good I'm going to cry.

Let’s do this one properly.

A reference to the Unknowing, where they... did not do it properly.

Stone steps. Roughly hewn. They… They keep going.

Just wanted to point out that he's like, ooh, information gathering. For information's sake, for the people in Artefacts. I think it's neat that he's doing this, and it's a way that makes sense in the world to let us know what's going on. Like how in Malevolent, Arthur's blind and John describes stuff in eloquent detail like some sort of poet or whatever, the statement givers describe the environment and people in their statements, and Jon is describing The Buried.

[The Archivist struggles forward]

Jon's voice in this, it sounds like they're confined, Jonny did a great job on the voice acting there. And the soundscaping in general is like, oh boy claustrophobia time! It's so good.

ARCHIVIST I heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. He said he couldn’t breathe. I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him, but I am not here for him. I don’t even know him.

The Buried and putting you under the crushing weight of responsibility? Jon went into the coffin because he felt 'crushing' guilt over Tim's death and Daisy's imprisonment in the coffin, and the whole mess that The Unknowing was. In the coffin he's being called by others, and the responsibility of their safety is put on him. Now obviously it's not the other victims who are at fault, however it's interesting that The Buried does that. Perhaps that's how it makes people stay in it, alongside the spooky magic. With putting the responsibility of others on them, making them dig themselves a hole, and not be able to climb out. But Jon has Daisy's tapes as an anchor, he has a purpose, and so he can press on without getting too weighed down?

Just some thoughts.

For all this place closes around me, I feel adrift, like nothing can get through the dirt and the muck and …

This reminds me of how a lot of people say that The Buried and The Vast are quite similar, as an example -- the statement in MAG 195 - Adrift could be either Buried or Vast, big creature, but also crushing depths of water and drowning, but also lots of water. Also the categorizations aren't really like that, again like gender and colours.

The air is heavy – soil and dust. I am very thirsty, but I know I won’t die of it.

Two fun facts about me!

1. I used to live in a desert and the air was like weighted blanket air. I loved it.

2. I used to forget to drink water a lot, and I'd go days where I'd drink like... a glass? Now I drink a minimum of two glasses a day because meds, which has really helped lessen the constant headaches lol. Yea um. Drink water, kiddos.

[He struggles to breath as the Buried squeezes him. The Buried relaxes.]

THE SOUND EDITORS THIS EPISODE WERE KILLING IT!

DAISY —just alone. I think, I think … I hear this, sometimes, singing, when it’s wet. Or, or scratching, trying to get out. But I don’t … I don’t think there’s anyone there. It’s just been me, until now.

Fay Roberts did an excellent job as well. The voice acting <333 10/10 no notes, or like yes notes, and the notes are Feeling Claustrophobic well done.

ARCHIVIST It’s okay, I’ve, uh … I’ve got a plan. DAISY This like all your other plans?

If by "all [their] other plans" she means impulsive, borderline suicidal, and likely to fail... yes.

ARCHIVIST No. I know where we are. There is 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?

I really like the way he delivers that line, especially the "This is the Buried, and we are alive" and "Oh God" parts.

DAISY Not alone, though? ARCHIVIST No. No, not alone.

[ID: A blurry screenshot of CC!GoodTimesWithScar from his stream. He's a bit further away from the camera than usual for streams, and has his head in his hands. /End ID]

DAISY Scared. I’m scared. I’ve been scared the whole time here, not just when it’s crushing, when it fills your mouth with dirt. It knows when to stop, or when to ease back so you don’t lose it or grow numb. Leaves you terrified for when it starts again, and when it does, you’re scared it’ll never stop.

My friend, Jay Mapleejay -- who you should follow by the way, @/mapleejay or @/mapleeowl everywhere -- once wondered how the Domains in the Eyepocolypse kept people afraid without the memory loss like in MAG 170. And there's your answer probably.

Also :(

The Hunt was me, but I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me need it.

Idk what to say, just like this line.

I don’t … I don’t know who I am without the chase. I just know that I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want to be better.

Same for this.

ARCHIVIST One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Themes of choice in The Magnus Archivessssss this podcast makes me abnormal in so many ways <333

ARCHIVIST And now? DAISY Don’t know. I miss dreaming. You don’t sleep down here. ARCHIVIST Daisy, you should know I’m … If I wasn’t human before, I’m even less human now. DAISY Yeah, well. At the moment, I don’t care. ARCHIVIST And if we get out? DAISY But we can’t get out. [The Earth shifts.] (The Archivist grunts in pain.) DAISY (Pained) I’m sorry. I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry.

I just really like this exchange :(

[The coffin door creaks open and, groaning with effort, the Archivist and Daisy crawl out into the office. There are many tape recorders playing in the background.] [...] ARCHIVIST Tape recorders. M-must be dozens of them.

The Web my absolute beloathed. Now, I love Martin K-Anchor Blackwood as much as the next hopeless (a)romantic, however I don't think that it was Martin's love for Jon that pulled Jon out The Buried, I think it was The Web. Well, The Web definitely influenced Martin, however we do know that The Web has used their... undying love for one another against them *cough cough* *wink wink* *nudge nudge*, so it could have been the act of Martin leaving the tape recorders, but my personal theory is that it was just The Web. Uh oh, Jo(h)n (/ref).

Anyway! Ain't it great! Daisy's back! Jon isn't constantly alone!

He...

I'm going to have a lot of talking to do come MAG 136.

[senadimell]

CW: references to suicidal ideation Just saw this post about Romeo and Juliet, which brought something to mind when considering West Side Story as an adaption. Nobody has any parents. That was brought up more in the WSS 2021 movie (sometimes a little heavy-handedly), but reading the essay’s discussion of Lord Capulet’s shift to tyranny drove home the fact that parental absence is at WSS’s core. The kids are feral because society’s failed them.

Obviously, there’s a stronger familial net in the play’s fictional Puerto Rican community (compare what “America” or even “I Feel Pretty” suggests about the relative prominence and value of family in Maria and the Sharks’ lives compared what “Officer Krupke” suggests about the Jets’.) But still, Maria lives with her brother and sister-in-law, not her parents. The play is not so much about ‘two houses alike in dignity’ as it is about disenfranchised groups fighting for scraps because dignity is denied to one on the basis of race to one and on the basis of class* to the other. Neither has access to the “dignity” of middle class respectability, and parental absence underscores the fragility of these communities, though the reasons are different for both groups.

Anyways, I do think that parental absence is especially prominent in WSS 2021— compare Tony’s interaction with Valentina in “Something’s Coming” with Riff’s barroom gun purchase. Still not over the whiplash between the seriousness of the latter scene, where Riff shoves the his head into the barrel of a loaded gun without blinking and dares the man to do something, with the scene immediately following it where they’re all yelling “pow” and fake-shooting like they’re in a Saturday-morning cartoon. Like, you go from “wow, they have nothing to live for other than violence and they’re old beyond they’re years” to “these are children and they can’t fully comprehend that this isn’t a game.”

Parental absence is far less pronounced with Maria because she’s living with Anita and Bernardo, but I do think it’s significant that she’s defying her older brother and not her father, especially because it’s her brother who’s killed by the people he warns her away from but won’t/can’t stay away from himself. (And WSS 2021 makes it clear that while he really does enjoy the thrill of a fight, he also can’t stay away because his gang membership is born in large part out of the need to protect his community because no one else will). She responds to Bernardo’s commands with an attitude of ��who are you to tell me what to do?” because he’s often telling her to stay away from things that he’s constantly surrounded with.

The full tragedy of this is driven home after he’s dead and leaves behind Anita as his functional widow. Anita previously served as a counterpoint to Bernardo’s controlling tendencies and in small ways, let Maria into the world he tried to keep her out of. Let’s just say you that the poignancy of “A Boy Like That” has a lot to do with the fact that Maria has a sisterly and not maternal relationship with Anita and is not a whole generation her senior, only a few years. (Still, still not over finally realizing that “a boy like that” is just as much about “a violent boy” as it is “a white boy” by the end of the song—fantastic job, Ariana Dubose).

So yeah. Cutting the parents has major thematic implications for what kind of story a Romeo and Juliet is telling.

*race may also factor into the Jets’ treatment but it’s been a while since I’ve got my hands on the book and I don’t want to project too much onto the play from Spielberg’s interpretation; still, accepting Irish and various south and Eastern European immigrants as an equal part of a “white” class was a gradual process but one I’m not informed enough about to speak about confidently, especially not the shifts from the 1920s to the 1950s and ‘60s, which is when the play really developed and was shown to audiences. I’m inclined to treat them primarily as working-class white as the play seems to, even if there are hints at lingering immigrant prejudice, because I see the play as largely taking place during a cultural shift in race relations that made the more important question “white or not white?” rather than WASP or not. I do think it’s interesting to consider the implications of the shift from East Side Story’s Catholic v. Jewish conflict with antisemitism underlying the story to West Side Story’s white/2nd-3rd degree immigrants v. Puerto Rican immigrant conflict with racism underlying the story, especially given the fact that the female equivalent of Maria was a Holocaust survivor who’d immigrated to New York from Israel, but that’s a story for another day (and requires far more research).