#greater boston spoilers

[cosmicpines]

One of my favorite things about Greater Boston is that, sometimes, I don't know if it's the train or the podcast making noise. I listen to podcasts on my or when I'm going to see friends, so I often listen to Greater Boston on the T. The Red Line, usually, because I'm a MIT student and we have our own stop. I think about there being a secret lab whenever I get on.

It's the little things that make me know how much love is in this show, you know? It's listening to the season 3 finale and hearing the sound of the screeches and going "wait, are Dimitri and Mallory on the Green Line?" moments before Mallory says it. It's the one time I recognized the voice of someone being interviewed. It's Nichole saying she's going to get Pinocchio's, the pizza place I usually get pizza from when I decide to be fancier than Bertucci's. It's knowing that's the same pizza place that makes me feel fuzzy inside.

When Covid hit and I had to leave, I listened to Greater Boston just to hear the sounds of the T.

I never listen to an episode in one place. I never listen in one sitting, especially not one as long as this. I walk around my little bubble of Cambridge to go to work, to get lunch, to go out, and I hear the stories and they tug at my heart. I listened to the train. Smash as I arrived in Kendall. Oh, the timing wasn't that perfect; we could only dream of such things. But last sequence riding from Park Street to Kendall. I didn't plan on it; I was just coming back from seeing a movie with a friend. It meant something, though. Dancing as I stepped on the the T. Smash as I stepped off. It wasn't quite perfectly timed, but what in life ever is?

Greater Boston is about magic. Literally, in some cases, but so much more than that. It's that Bernie can always deliver a letter, no matter where it needs to go. It's that Louisa can figure out that narrative quirk and use it in the narrative. It's that Michael can understand every person he wrote a letter to and write them beautifully, even when he was starving. It's that Dimitri is always lucky to be in the right place at the right time (except the one time he wasn't). It's that Nika is always unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (except the one time she wasn't). It's Gemma, who never believed in herself but had to find the man she met and summoned and saved. It's... god, I'll be here all night if you let me. Greater Boston has some of the best character writing I've ever heard.

It's Leon. Oh, it's Leon. He willed himself to die and willed himself to live on. He snarked at an omniscient being and took over his job. He shouldn't have. He should have. He made so many mistakes. He made no mistakes. He cared, he loved, he fought, he won. He became the spirit of Boston itself; he touched every heart in the city just in a desperate desire to help. Not just his friends, not just his loved ones. He took a man everyone would have given up on and helped.

An incredible season. Thank you, @greaterblogston. Cheers to a phenomenal season.

also, just to ruin the mood a bit, there was an amogus on the tracks

[hephaestuscrew]

Michael Tate was introduced in Greater Boston as someone mourning his best friend; his grief after Leon's death is a key part of his character arc. Four seasons later, in his farewell letter to Louisa, we hear him thinking of himself as a best friend who someone else would mourn - a kind of tragic role reversal. In that letter, Michael refers to both Leon and Louisa as his "best friend". As he faced the prospect of death, he thought about how it felt for him to lose Leon and he used that experience to empathise with the grief and anger and regret that Louisa would feel at losing him. He tried to ease the pain that Louisa would feel at his death while knowing that he couldn't. There's something so powerful to me about that potential cycle of loss. Michael, whose narrative has been so shaped by grief, had to confront the idea of someone grieving for him with a similar intensity…

[somuchbetterthanthat]

I AM GOING TO BE UNSUFERRABLE ABOUT THIS AREN'T I

It's so good to hear Marlo and Guy, and the fact they're such small characters, technically, but hearing them interact again is SO important and beautiful and meaningful and your heart just squeeze and YELLS when Guy ALLOWS HIM TO ASK A QUESTION,

and the question.

the question.

fuck.

THIS IS WHY THIS PODCAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PODCAST IF YOU WANT TO LOVE HUMANITY

[seaweedsawyou]

On one hand, train suicide as an imminent threat.

On the other hand, so much hope for fail women.

[biwonderland98]

Obsessed with the fact that they stuck Felix Trench in there, accent and all, and just told him to be fake-British Mark Wahlberg. Unhinged behaviour <33

[applebunch]

just realized the knowledge of the narrator dies with leon lol. like, leon KIND OF told gemma about it but gemma didn't like. believe him? she probably immediately forgot about it.

[peanutsandbitterstep]

the Stamatis Family News hour!

[clonerightsagenda]

(Greater Boston episode)

They killed Matt Damon??

[potterhead0taku]

That would be Callum Hunt and Aaron Stuart… they were friends, and they shared a soul bond because of the nature of their chaos magic and needing a counter weight.

And then Aaron died and the world blamed Callum for it and threw him in jail. And they questioned him again and again but learned never to mention Aaron because Callum would break down and no one could get a response out of him then.

When Callum was broken out of jail it was because the big bad guy of the books wanted him to raise the dead. And who was he supposed to practice on?? You guessed it, Aaron.

Callum wanted to bolt and never return to the world of the mages, but he stayed simply because it was Aaron. And he knew bringing someone back to life wasn’t possible, not without a soul. So he gave Aaron a part of himself, he tore his own soul so that Aaron could come back.

And it worked, Aaron came back. Or a shadow of him did. He had his memories, but his emotions felt muted somehow, except for the rage at what had been done to him… and his care for Callum. When Callum’s friends saw what he had done they fled, and Callum just felt that betrayal and abandonment all over again like when he was put in jail, but Aaron didn’t leave, he stayed with him.

In the battle that followed, Callum exhausted himself using his Chaos magic. Aaron could feel him, trying to pull on his soul, his counterweight, so that he could stabilize himself, but Aaron had no more soul left to give.

Callum almost died, he was fading. So Aaron gave back what was given, he returned the piece of soul that belonged to Callum. And in the process his body died once more, but when he felt how Callum called back his soul finally found him. And Aaron was in Callum’s head, truly Aaron, not that shade of what he used to be, but lively, sassy, intelligent, faithful Aaron.

And then Callum went and fell in love with their mutual friend Tamara. And realized Tamara reciprocated his feelings. While still carrying Aaron in his head.

Shit happened, they got Aaron a new body, defeated the bad guys, saved themselves from a death sentence, etc etc.

But we never knew what Aaron and Callum were. They were certainly more than friends, but they weren’t siblings, and they weren’t a romantic couple, and they shared a soul bond like no other. They knew each other intimately from their experiences sharing a mind, they had seen each other’s souls and found a deep seated peace. They were both sarcastic like no other, and loyal to a fault. They faced life and death together too many times to count.

And still no one knows what to call them.

“whatever the fuck these two characters had going on” is a vastly underrated character dynamic

[hephaestuscrew]

By the way, I am still thinking about the Greater Boston Season 4 finale, and I am obsessed with the idea that when you have days where you wake feeling strange and unsettled without any identifiable cause, it might be because someone who you never met but who would have narrated you kindly has passed on out of the world.

[somuchbetterthanthat]

There are tons of Greater Boston's references I miss by knowing nothing about Boston, but not gonna lie, realizing after the fact, through tumblr posts, that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck ARE best friends in real life might have been an even bigger "w h at" thing for me that the floods or the Charlie stuff.

Also there is the fact that now I cannot take any Matt Damon or Ben Affleck's posts as anything else than Greater Boston fanfic. Like yes i knew the actors beforehand vaguely but i've never been invested in actors before. But now they're characters from one of my most favourite podcasts ever. Look at real life, making a AU where Matt Damon lives....

[queenbeyondthewalll]

#what #is this #I live in greater Boston #must explore

The podcast Greater Boston is, without a doubt, one of the single best podcasts ever made. With four seasons so far, it takes place in an alternate universe Boston, has a cast of beautifully written and acted characters, and centres around the Red Line seceding from Boston to become the city of Red Line and how the hell you turn public transit into a functional city while also dealing with pre-existing social issues like racism and classism. But what it’s really about is people, and community, and how we’re all connected and need other people to be better people ourselves. It has some of the most brilliant twists I’ve seen in a long time, things that would have me pausing whatever I was doing while listening so I could just stare at a wall while I absorbed whatever had just happened. It’s full of absolutely absurd things that they present in ways that have you accepting them as perfectly reasonable, which I personally adore in fiction. I’m not from Boston, have never been to Boston, but it does feel very much like a love letter to the city, even with how they’ve fictionalized a lot of stuff

If you’re at all into fiction podcasts, or are considering trying to get into them, or are open at all to getting into one, I would suggest trying out Greater Boston

Thinking about the podcast Greater Boston again, and specifically Monty Linzer-Coolidge. Born on the day of the Red Line vote, named for the man who abandoned it. Moved into a train city as a newborn and spent the first, what, year of his life strapped to his mom while she ran around being Head Cop of Train City, committing the occasional crime. Communicates fluently from the day he’s born through gas because Cop Mom has psychic gas powers. Is lulled to sleep by being rocked back and forth very fast, presumably because he’s spent his entire short life living in a train. Survived multiple terrorist pranks, still an infant. His parents and him leave Train City to squat in an abandoned cheese-themed amusement park with a group of train refugees and also a hippy commune polycule. As far his young mind knows, life is mostly trying to set up new functional societies in unlikely places

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: So, that "If you like dragons so much..." moment in the S2 trailer...

....yeah I'm sure this'll be fine.

For no particular reason, I wonder what diplomatic relations are like between Shuro's island (of which he is prince) and this one, and with the Western elves. Btw, to zoom in...

goodforhim.gif

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Mithrun has the 'looks effortlessly, unconsciously cool' ability and, apparently, the instinct to stand dramatically in high-up places, of Kaladin Stormblessed. I have to respect that.

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Thistle seems completely unable to parse that Falin isn't just the dragon. He doesn't just treat her as a tool: by the standards of this comic, he treats her like she's dead. Hell, he treated the dragon like it was dead: ignored its need to eat (and rest), smothered its will under his own....and now he's doing the same thing to Falin. He's not even aware that she needs to eat. He's forgotten what is necessary to be alive, even though he still goes through some of the motions himself.

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hi this is the most painful thing so far. Laios thinking this through with typical Laios systematic consideration. And this is one of his foremost thoughts, that he won't let Marcille have Falin's perma-death on her hands; he'll do it himself.

Hey, you know what? The Stamatis family from Greater Boston COULD do Dungeon Meshi, and the Toudens COULD do Greater Boston. I'm gonna think about that later.

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hey Laios what the FUCK does that mean.

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LOVE this visual. God the chapter covers are all so good.

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eyes eyes eyes eyes eyes

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ok I WAS spoilered for Marcille being a half-elf, too, but I think this is the first mention of it in canon! Very exciting! I don't know what it means for her socially, but I can't wait to find out!

It's so funny to think fo Thistle probably wandering past Senshi at some point and just kinda going, "Weirdo," and continuing on his way.

The great thing about this fight is that it genuinely WOULD be better if Thistle won and the lion remained bound. Mithrun lasted what, like a couple decades at most, as Lord of his Dungeon? Thistle has kept this place stable for like a thousand years (as the demon slowly fed on not just his desire but those of all the people he was trying so hard to protect.) He's trying just so hard, this poor guy. Whom we definitely do need to stop, because he IS losing this battle for his own sanity, and with it, the stability of the dungeon.

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*singing* eyes eyes eyes eyes...

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Dude, weren't you raised mostly by tallmen? How are you this racist.

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Marcille, I love you. Laios, I love you in a different way.

.

Ouch.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING

eyes eyes eyes eyes...

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unironically excited for Thistle to enter his maniacal laughter phase in anime s2.

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I'm fascinated with how this comic portrays the patterns of natural ecological biomes and the patterns of human social structures and history with exactly the same tone. The behaviors of animals and monsters and humans. The psychological profile of a dungeon lord and the corresponding life cycle of a dungeon. I want to eat it. I want to put an ecologist, an anthropologist and a political scientist in a room together with this comic, and listen to them talk about it. I want to kiss Ryoko Kui on the mouth. I don't want to do my chores, go to bed and then go to work, but unfortunately life SUCKS that way. Motherfucker why is it 1am again.

[applebunch]

YEEAAAHAHHHHHHHH WOOOOOOO LEON'S FINALLY OUTTA THAT DAMN BALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 ALL IS GOOD!

[peanutsandbitterstep]

it’s so funny whenever i get reminded that Oliver West is spiritually attuned or whatever the correct phrasing is. former business owner of a media company who prides himself on being an evil mastermind is also in touch with the supernatural and that same media company revolves around precognition

such a delightful combination of characteristics. sad to see him go but happy he was able to do things that were good (unless he isn’t actually dead)

[vernanonix]

That entire segment with The Narrator was pure gold. And don’t forget about the Whoppers bit either!

Loved the crossover episode with Greater Boston and some personal highlights being:

* The way everyone in the audience gasped when the Narrator called the Interviewer by his name

* Arthur calling Kozlowski his partner. I am not responsible for how feral I go there. We be living of crumbs here on the wild parts of this fandom

* The way Arthur got so offended when Kozlowski said it was a tempting proposal as if he himself wasn't a flirty question away from getting to America with Mister Love, Actuary.

* I COULD KNOW ALLLLL THE STORIES FROM ALLLLL THE PEOPLE got me wheezing

* "It gets quite rude after that"/"yes it does"

* it's not so fun when someone else breaks your fourth wall is it Arthur????

* you would pry but just in a more polite way it's the Amelia project motto

* oh, I miss them too much already