#his lines also unnec

[metabolizemotions]

I still think it's a misstep not to highlight more of the queer voices and experiences in the Pride episode.

Those should be at the foreground, not just the backdrop to cram in the multiple plotlines.

The sense of defeat was palpable in the beanery scene. Also the sense of support. Maya felt safe to share about Mason and was told to go home to her wife and baby. But I feel they should have let Ben voice his frustrations to what happened to Rosalind and say something specific about Rosalind as a trans woman or his experience as her brother. Rather than let Beckett reiterate his view that Pride parades were circuses and kind of then deem them not as bad as the fascists' protests?

The struggle and dissent became bigger n louder while the celebration became smaller n quieter. The party at the station somehow seemed like Pride should only be contained in a safe space cos being out and proud is dangerous. Though true, still kind of sad. It is most ironic to have Ross pay lip service to same-sex marriage but have their only married same-sex couple's first scene in their new home with their new baby to be such a small part of the celebration.

[annah-kitathryne]

It has come to my attention that some are not aware of the double bat teen titans elseworlds run. [Post Here] made by @saturnsickle

So I'm here to explain a bit to everyone.

When was the series?

From September 1st 2001 to March 1st 2005, an elseworlds Teen Titans run started.

The series was 43 issues plus a 2004 annual.

Line-Up

Yara Flor (Wondergirl)

Jackson Hyde (Aqualad)

Cassandra Cain (Batgirl)

Jason Todd (Robin)

Roy Harper (Arsenal)

It was a bit out of nowhere, seeing as the lineup featured two brand new characters, a newly established character, a then considered dead character, and a former teen titan turned titan.

Retrospect

In retrospect, this series can be seen as a world building series as well as a device to introduce more heroes within a similar age group and adding more younger heroes into the mix, bridging the gap between the titans of Dick Grayson and Donna Troy and the younger generation of young justice soon teen titans Tim Drake and Cassie Sandsmark.

This series also reintroduced Jason Todd to a reader base that had known him as dead at this point. Adding new characterization that would be later used in the Batman: Hush storyline and lead into the Batman: Under the Red Hood series.

Interestingly, we see that this series of Teen Titans ended the same month that Red Hood's identity was revealed to Batman in Batman #683.

That is no coincidence. Fans have long since known that the series ended when Jason Todd was introduced back into the main line story.

However, while well planned, this left the elseworld's Teen Titans run to end abruptly and feel incomplete in some places.

Features

Some features of this series were a phenomenal number one cover that would later inspire the cover art for World's Finest: Teen Titans #1, an interesting dynamic between Batgirl and Robin that wouldn't show in mainline stories until New 52, and Roy in another mentorship role that we had been starting to see become more prominent at the time.

The introductory arc in the story (issues 1 through 4), where we were introduced to the characters in their separate contexts and got to see them come together in a way that explained how they got to that point, instead of just showing us them together as a team. It was also interesting to see Joker used as an introductory villain instead of someone else. It really set up the idea of a larger world outside of Joker and the scale of threats that would continue to increase throughout the series.

One of my favorite subplot that continued throughout the series was the character and moral conflict between the two bat characters (Cass and Jason) and their views on Justice, superheroing, and the right way to go about it. Although Jason's characterization is not exactly the same as his pre-death in the family personality, it provided a good sense of transition that got us from PreDitF to the UtRH personality. Cass and Jason often found themselves at odds with each other throughout the series. Cass, who believed in redemption and was stark and steady in her belief that no one should die, contrasted Jason's harsher view on crime and how to handle it.

It was also nice to see Cass on a team of people similar to her age. Although we got to see her work on the Justice League: Elite team, the elseworld's teen titans run got to show her in a more light-hearted run where she got to learn to be herself. Mirroring her then running solo series, we got to see Cass start to form a life and connections outside of the suit, and meet people who tested her belief in the symbol, this time with her peers.

Her growing friendship with Yara was really fun to read even at its worst writing. I especially enjoyed issue 25 and 26, where the two of them teamed up with the elseworld's version of Starfire and Donna Troy in a timeless issue of powerful female heroes.

Some of the negative from the run was the forced upon romantic subplot from 27 to 36, where it took up too much space on the panels and caused unnecessary character drama in a style that hadn't been seen in the run up to that point.

By the time of issue 40, there were three issues to wrap up the plot of the story before the run would come to a close. The story structure was there, but it was rushed and needed a couple more issues to really dive into the plot. The team disbands after Jason Todd/Robin murders one of the lesser villians they were fighting and caused the team to split ways to deal with the events of the arc. It culottes perfectly into the reveal later that month in the main books.

There was a top heavy focus on the two bat characters, which left less room for the other's. That didn't mean that the others didn't have central arcs throughout the run. It is just meant by the proxy of having two bat characters. Their drama was brought up the most.

Arcs

Issues 1 through 4 Jason focused introductory

Issues 5 through 8 was a Yara focused arc

9 through 12 was a Roy centric arc

16 through 19 was a Cass centric arc

20 through 22 was a Jason centric arc

23 and 24 was a Jackson centric arc

25 and 26 was Cass and Yara

30 through 34 was another Roy centric arc

The annual plus 36 was a Jackson arc

37 and 38 was another Yara centric arc

40 through 43 was extremely focused in Jason with Cass as a close second.

Conclusions

It was a really interesting story to read, and it was fun to see what having Batgirl on a team does to the dynamics of a normally Robin only sort of line-uo. It's interesting that Jackson was the first of the two original characters to make the jump to mainline comics (2010) and Yara was later in 2021, having been the last of the team brought into the main timeline. It would be nice to see them come back together for a special crossover again, fill the niche group of fans that follow the limited fan material on this series.

[sburbian-sage]

For the guy who a§ked how to §educe the Other§: Do Not The Calamari. It’§ not worth it bro. It won’t end well and, from what my one of my current §e§§ion mates §ay§, they aren’t even that good.

Anyway, just got through a hectic and unnece§§arily convoluted entry and need to vent/get advice from a pompou§ a§§ that i§n’t in my §e§§ion(jk, love your §hit). Haven’t met up with anyone fully yet, but it already look§ like a clu§ter fuck. Eight player§, rolled up three other veteran§ and four §boob§, but god doe§ the game hate the sboob§.

One of them got an angel land word, another got an Other land word… ba§ed off rough calculation§… the land§ are gonna be trying to §ma§h into each other. Through §kaia. In 2 week§, unle§§ we can figure out how to §tabilize the orbit§. The other two §boob§ are from a two player §e§§ion and are freaking out about having more people and them being alien§. §o cool, mixed §pecie§ §e§§ion right off the bat for tho§e two. All ready the culture cla§h is cau§ing… problem§. Not only that but it §eem§ like they both got bountie§ from their dream moon§ on their head§ already. §omehow.

The veteran §ide of thi§ i§… yeah also hate§ u§, but in the way we expect. Our Time player i§ down a dream §elf, not §ure when or how they know that yet. One guy§ got… not sure if it’§ a land fuck up, but what’§ e§§entially a permanent atomik ebonpyre in the cloud layer around hi§ land. With hi§ hive on a mountain top. Third vet has a dead land, or a land that’§ pretending to be dead. Like fir§t village was empty and very few imp§ during hi§ entry. I can §afely §ay I’m a profe§§ional §pace player at thi§ point but my land i§ not ho§pitable for frog§ yet. And my §prite§… well. An i§§ue. One of the §boob§ prototyped a dangerou§ p§ychic creature and now all the underling§ have weapon§ grade telekine§i§ at minimum.

Cla§§ line up i§ (ba§§ed off our time player§ not §o cryptic hint§): Veteran§; Mage of §pace(my§elf, with native title thi§ round), Knight of Doom(Angry cloud layer), §eer of Time, Heir of Life(“Dead” Land guy). §boob§; §ylph of Heart(Other Land), Witch of Rage(Angel Land), Maid of Blood, Prince of Void.

Advice? And or how fucked we are rating?

~TA

The implication that one of your sessionmates managed to sex the squid is horrifying, please do not elaborate on this. And to answer your question, this session is pretty awful, but not unsalvageable.

As far as the Angel and Other Lands colliding, I imagine you and the Witch have the best chances of physically making the planets stop moving, but I don't think I'd be too concerned if they do impact. Obviously try to be as far away from the point of impact as possible, and don't just let it happen, but as long as they aren't moving especially fast (as in "a secondhand observer would say it's moving fast", I know technically a planet moving at all is notably fast), the game tends to cope with it well. As in, there will be some environmental destruction, the Land's geography will shift itself around, the Consorts will be in danger (but have some level of self-preservation, help them out anyway to boost your Land Reputation), and maybe some non-essential features break, but then they sort of comfortably "fuse" in a stable form. Your house is not usually the site of impact, but the sheer schmovement might make it wobble so hard it collapses, so watch out. And the best part is, because Angelic and Otherwise Corruption cancel each other out, it might neutralize the more dangerous tendencies of both Lands! SO that part should be fine. Unless they are moving fast enough that both Lands might explode, in which case you're fucked and I can't help you. Outside of "abuse Space powers to make them stop", and maybe try abusing Time powers to complete either one of their Land Quests. I'm just guessing that there has to be a point in the Land Quest where the Angels/Others go dormant, and if that happens to at least one side, they should stop being attracted to each other. The only alternative is trying to kill the Angels or Others, and good luck with that one, buddy, you're unironically better off just dealing with those two Lands exploding (and trying to see if it's still possible to make progress with them, the game won't be unwinnable in these conditions, I think).

For the Knight of Doom, the Atomyk Ebonpyre Cloud Layer is an early-game concern. First, confirm if this affects their hive. While a "regional" Ebonpyre isn't too outlandish, they never manifest near dungeon entrances or special structures (like one's house or hive). When you enter the Medium, the game keeps spawning Underlings until you enter the first Gate, at which point all Underlings in and around your house despawn and it assumes a normal spawn rate. If your Knight of Doom ran away without entering the first Gate, this is their fault, tell them to get in there. If the Knight of Doom did enter the first Gate and aggressive monsters keep spawning, then yeah, it's an Ebonpyre. You have three options.

Clear out all Underlings. While the entire cloud layer being a Land-wise Ebonpyre is probably an intended challenge and feature of the Knight of Doom's Land, it should recognize the zone around their hive. Once you've cleared out an Atomyk Ebonpyre zone, the spawn rates and behavior returns to normal, as it essentially goes "deactive". This option should only be undertaken once they've got some combat abilities, and escape plan, and maybe a bit of help.

Fortify the hive. Build over windows. Landmines, barbed wires, and turrets outside. Smooth out the house to remove any surfaces an enemy could spawn on (lots of stairs and ladders with few platforms). To be honest I don't even think you should have any doors if it's too much of a problem. Keep in mind that this is a stop-gap measure until you can execute Option #1, and should be used in conjunction with Option #3.

Build up. If the Atomyk Ebonpyre is localized to the cloud layer, enter the stratosphere. Once you're above the danger zone, you can build like you're not expecting assassins to kill you in your sleep. It will be expensive though.

Running through the rest of your issues quickly, the guys who have never seen a Troll before will adapt quickly (and if not, hit 'em with the Etiquette FAQ), the Seer of Time's dreamself might not be dead, could be merely mistaken for dead and entombed by the Carapacians (inconvenient but not awful, but you have access to the Sacrificial Slab now), the Heir of Life's planet is probably just "acting" dead because their Land Quest is to bring it back to life (and if they didn't prototype anything before entering, it is actually dead and they just fucked the entire Session, but considering they're a vet this is unlikely), and the telekinetics you might just have to deal with. They'll probably be clumsy about it, and throw the biggest items, which you might want to counter-act by simply captchaloguing the items mid-air. If they begin displaying telepathic or mind-control abilities, then the danger level has increased significantly and you'll want everyone to start wearing tinfoil hats. Don't laugh.

A lot of this looks worse than it is, probably, and you've got a good Title line-up, in addition to some experienced hands. The colliding Lands is the worst part, but every other major problem is sticky at best, instead of catastrophic. Once you solve that Priority 1 Problem, everything else should click into place.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG148! X___X/*

- I still can’t believe that the “Extended” in the title was for (amongst other things) long-due [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF ELIAS GETTING BRUTALLY PUNCHED]. “George Icarus” would laugh in his grave from vindication if only his skin hadn’t been used during The Unknowing.

And it was so varied! Ben did a Great Work at it because it sounds like Basira got very creative in that scene? At first, sounded like a punch in the guts; got the feeling, right after, that it was her pinning her against a wall or the table, an arm twisted in his back, holding him by his hair? And with the:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Mm–hmm. ELIAS: [ASPHYXIATED NOISE] [STRANGLED] B–… But I… can see how maybe I… should have mentioned it…!

Sounded like Basira blocking his windpipe (ha.) with her forearm, pushing higher. Don’t know how other people are Hearing This Scene but I do appreciate that, anyway, it was moving and slightly different every time, we could hear it, and it was Various Shades Of Elias Having A Bad Time.

… well. I HOPE he was having a bad time. Because getting savagely thrashed around and then going:

(MAG148) BASIRA: [EXHALE] So. Why d’you agree to see me. ELIAS: I missed you. BASIRA: Right. That’s why you’ve been refusing my visits since we got back. ELIAS: I–I thought it might have… [EXHALING] been an idea to give you some space. BASIRA: Oh, and how’d that work out for you? ELIAS: Ah… Not–not ideally. […] Goodbye, Detective. I shall miss our little chats.

Is. Uh. With Jonathan “do I miss being chased?” Sims and now this, what is it with Beholding types and being-addicted-to-the-things/people-wrecking you. Was Elias fond of Gertrude in the same way.

(And what does it say about Elias that this scene was, like, a big moment of *BREATHES* in the last string of episodes, while it’s still about a prisoner getting beaten up by an ex-cop, who also threatened to make his overall situation worse, while prison guards should supposedly have stepped in to protect him? Not too surprised about the fact that the officers didn’t intervene spontaneously (they have had to deal with Elias for a year. Elias who has blackmail material and has such a Charming Personality.), and Basira had many reasons to lash out (used as coerced material for Elias to trap Daisy, basically a hostage; was recently sent all over the world on Elias’s bullshit leads), but. Still. Not great from Basira. Technically. (You did amazing sweetie, bastard had it coming.))

- I also wondered if Elias wasn’t actually a bit. High. During the whole altercation. Because he was reaaaaally… uh. Making things worse for himself here and there? While being absolutely aware that Basira was pissed and ready to kick him harder? And if really sounded like someone who was too out-of-his-mind to truly assess the situation.

On the one hand, some bits felt like they were feeding the Elias-is-actually-Jonah theory:

(MAG148) 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. […] 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…

(And Jon miiiiight have thought about it too.)

… and on the other hand, the more shittiest he gets, the younger and younger he sounds to me, a sneaky opportunistic lazy little thing who just happened to get his hands on some power recently, and not a 200y-old person. Elias in s1? Can accept that yeah, 40-50y old. But he’s been losing ten years at a time to my ears ever since, and he’s currently at “early 20 stupid idiot”.

- Anyway, I have a special fondness for the line:

(MAG148) ELIAS: … And, hum… No more violence, Detective. Or I may have to call in the guards.

Because he sounded so Dramatic and Righteous, a bit reminiscent of… stereotypical thin old lady holding her bag, very blank face and solemn? I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but Ben’s delivery in that one cracks me up a lot.

- On the one hand, ahahaha, Elias is Being His Useless Self, Basira ranted about it, Jon&Basira acknowledged that he wouldn’t be helpful in anything but “useless gloating”, Elias himself looks… only Good At Bullshitting (like Jon described in MAG145). … On the other hand, it’s generally when Elias has been proven… less threatening than what we could fear, that he tends to prove that no, he can harm, and has ways to do it, and won’t hesitate.

Jon spitting at his face post-kidnapping in MAG102 and Tim telling him to fuck off in MAG104? Was followed with Melanie’s “performance review” in MAG106. The assistants scheming to take him down, ~fooling him~ with Martin acting as bait and Melanie finding proof to force Section 31 to arrest him? Was still followed by Elias designating Peter as the Head Director (and potentially having planned this… for a while… since he had sent Peter to meet Martin in MAG108, and Peter had already come in the Institute in MAG100), plus revealing that he knew about Jon’s dreams all along.

So, uh. If the current trend is to deride Elias… he might prove, soon-ish, that yeah, he’s not as big of a menace that he likes to make you think, but he’s still a Threat.

- SPECIAL WORRY OVER:

(MAG148) BASIRA: And when exactly were you planning to tell us he’s been feeding on innocents? [SILENCE] ELIAS: Ah… [HUM] I’ve… always thought that a man’s eating habits were… his own private business. BASIRA: Mm–hmm. ELIAS: [ASPHYXIATED NOISE] [STRANGLED] B–… But I… can see how maybe I… should have mentioned it…!

… because it puts to mind:

(MAG127) BASIRA: Can we cut the bullshit? ELIAS: What “bullshit” might that be? BASIRA: The part where you pretend you don’t spend your whole time watching us. ELIAS: … Sometimes I’m eating.

And alright, at that point, Jon had already attacked two people, could have been a reference to that. But mostly, what is Elias eating, or whom? He’s been in prison for (almost?) a year by now – how does he himself Feed Beholding…? I understood their exchange as… Elias saying that his situation had actually gotten worse in prison while she was away (?):

(MAG148) BASIRA: Right. That’s why you’ve been refusing my visits since we got back. ELIAS: I–I thought it might have… [EXHALING] been an idea to give you some space. BASIRA: Oh, and how’d that work out for you? ELIAS: Ah… Not–not ideally.

But I’m not sure, since he also pointed out that his “special treatment” was guaranteed because he was giving the police useful information. So. I don’t know. But beginning to fear that he actually has the entire prison under his control, and that he’s just in the right place to cause damages and get the Archives team in the direction he wants, while being sure that Jon won’t try to compel him…?

- Amusingly, this episode made small references to fantheories! There was the what-the-heck-is-Elias bit with Elias saying that he had been in the game “a long time now” (which sounded very orientated towards the Jonah Magnus theory); the connection between Elias and The Web, with Elias claiming that uuuh… Spiders are best ignored:

(MAG148) 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. Do… you… have a plan? Detective?

(And on the one hand, Elias is almost explicitly saying that he has no connection with The Web (although as usual, you can also read his sentence while focusing on what’s missing: it would work perfectly if he was actually talking about himsel in third person); on the other hand… he’s also doing exactly what Annabelle described re:The Web, ie constantly making people under or overestimate you as fits your plans. So. Yeah. Could be that Elias indeed has no plan at all, or barely any, and is mostly waiting for Jon to keep digging his own grave and Create A Beholding Ritual from scratch because Jon is too impatient. Could also be that Elias does have plans, and is mostly trying to get Basira to not factor him in too much at the moment – if so, it worked.)

And there was the “Detective” bit:

(MAG148) ELIAS: [SNIFF] Good evening, Detecti– [PUNCH] OW! [EXTENDED SOUND OF BRUTAL PUNCHING.] BASIRA: Useless, scheming piece of shit! ELIAS: Detective, this is quite unnece– […] BASIRA: No. No, I’m done with your game! ELIAS: Bas… Basira, let’s– […] Assuming you have a plan. Do… you… have a plan? Detective? BASIRA: … Why do you do that? What is that? ELIAS: Uh… Do what? BASIRA: You always call me “Detective”. Is that supposed to mean something? ELIAS: Honestly? I just like the way it sounds! BASIRA: [DISGUSTED EXHALE] ELIAS: … And, hum… No more violence, Detective. Or I may have to call in the guards. […] I’m sorry to say, Detective, but you’re becoming predictable…! BASIRA: [EXASPERATED GRUNT] ELIAS: Goodbye, Detective. I shall miss our little chats.

On the one hand: Elias explicitly says that no, ahah, the “detective” bit is just a random thing (for added drama? I mean, someone had been hand-gesturing a looooot, if the shackle sounds are any indication); on the other hand, Agnes was the living proof that Believing And Faith Is The Key when it comes to Fears, and that you create things if you think hard enough that they’ll work out. So. Even if the “Detective” is a title he went for because it literally sounded cool, it could become… something.

On the third hand: gdi Elias, give credits where it’s due!!! Georgie had been the first one to call Basira a “detective”, in MAG122!!! (… and I was assuming, until then, that he had Watched the scene and adopted it because indeed, it sounded nice; and this episode is… leaning in that direction, snorts.)

(… but worried/suspicious about Georgie’s tendency to be spot-on with key words or key concepts. Besides the “detective”, she also nailed “anchor” and “avatar”, which had been used during Gertrude’s time, according to Gertrude’s tapes… But Georgie couldn’t know that yet, and Jon hadn’t heard those yet back when he was discussing the concepts with Georgie.)

Anyway, glad that Basira highlighted Elias’s insistence over “detective”, and absolutely Not Surprised But Still Facepalming that Elias just. Used it even more than usual afterwards. He’s so shitty, Elias PLEASE…

(+ Bonus to the list of Current Fantheories nudge: we got a Beholding statement about technology which included wiring everywhere. Was that a nod towards the Webholding speculation going on?)

(… and meanwhile, we still don’t have that kind of joke or winkwink between Martin and Peter over the fact that they could potentially be blood-related. Mmmmmmmmmm.)

- Okay, Elias was a total useless cracky bust this week but I can’t help but always be wary of him and what he is saying, and he said about The Dark:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Unless you’ve got another crisis for me? ELIAS: [PAINED GROAN] No, no! [PANTING] … No. I–it–it’s fine. I–I’m, I’m sorry. BASIRA: Oh yeah? For which part? ELIAS: [HIGH-PITCHED] … All of it…? BASIRA: You sent us to the North fucking Pole for no goddamn reason. ELIAS: A, a–hem… miscalculation.

… And the thing is. That.

1°) Manuela didn’t explain how Elias and Rayner knew each other and had been “friends”. It seems to be going to feed the “Elias is Jonah” theory, since we know Jonah and Rayner were acquaintances back in the days, but… Manuela has now been taken care of, and who, besides Rayner himself, could have willingly talked a bit more about it?

2°) We’re past July 20th 2018 (MAG147) and. There is still the fact that a partial solar eclipse is bound to happen on August 11th 2018 (from real life). On the one hand, yeah, The Dark seems to be Absolutely Done For by now; on the other hand, they just tend to. never be truly done for and actually, surprise!, still be around and kicking. (And Jon had seen members of the cult, at the beginning of the season, meaning… there are still some of them around, even after their “last” collective attempt with Rayner in February 2017…? How come there were still people that Jon managed to identify as cultists, if the cult doesn’t exist anymore and their leader is dead…?)

- ALRIGHT NO, ACTUAL SUPER SPECIAL DUPER WORRY IS THAT ELIAS DROPPED SOME “ADVICE” AGAIN

(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…!

Because I Remember Too Well two big pieces of “advice” that Elias had given Jon, and:

(MAG037) MARTIN: Sorry… Look, Jon, I do think we should destroy the table, though. I mean, if it’s the one from Amy Patel’s statement. Just in case. ARCHIVIST: Elias told me the same thing. Luckily, he phrased it as advice rather than an instruction, so for now I’m more inclined to keep studying it. We’re not in the business of destroying knowledge.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon – technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim. ARCHIVIST: I will take it under advisement. ELIAS: Hm. Anyway, don’t worry about staying in contact, I’ll know when it starts.

AND GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO SASHA (WHEN SHE WAS ALONE WITH THE TABLE) AND TO TIM (WHOM JON ALLOWED TO COME TO THE UNKNOWING).

(+ Bonus, to Daisy:

(MAG082) ELIAS: I leave the matter of Jonathan Sims up to you, though I will not tell you where he is. I suggest you close the case and move on, but if you find yourself unable to do so, my advice is to kill him quickly. There’s no telling what he might be capable of.

… Like, yes, at the time, it was hilarious to imply that Jon could be a threat for anyone or anything, and it was mostly a “hEY” moment because Elias was… encouraging Daisy to go Hard on Jon, who was currently lost and sleep-deprived and spending his days researching on his computer, drinking tea, cleaning Georgie’s kitchen and catsitting The Admiral. But. Elias’s “advice” to Daisy didn’t age well / aged TOO well.)

………………… so additional current fear is that, yeah, Basira will end up not leaving The Web alone and. It. Will. Get straight back at her.

- Also SHIT, Basira:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: Did he say anything about Annabelle? BASIRA: Not really. Sounds like he’s not too worried, though. Says to just ignore it. ARCHIVIST: [SNORTING] Yeah, good luck with that!

… this is NOT what Elias said. He basically said that you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. That’s. Not exactly the same thing. (And he sounded a bit scared of that one.)

- Gaaaasp, this season has been so vulgar so far, gaaaaaaaaaaasp

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh, I… Melanie, I–I’m so sorry, I– MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?! ARCHIVIST: I was trying to save your life. MELANIE: Yes…! Well, you did! […] It didn’t stay in my leg because of some Ghostly Masterplan; it stayed… because I wanted it. ARCHIVIST: … Shit. MELANIE: Yes.

(MAG132) BASIRA: Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think?! DAISY: … Hi.

(MAG143) BASIRA: [SIGH] So, what, this was another waste of time? What, no Church, no Dark Sun? … I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch…!

(MAG148) BASIRA: Useless, scheming piece of shit! […] You sent us to the North fucking Pole for no goddamn reason.

(I’m amused because, is the use of “fuck” actually a sneaky way to get a higher rating for episodes with actually harder content? Here, we had a beating up taking place in a cell; MAG131 had Jon trying to self-harm. MAG080 had a murder live. … Well, MAG065 and MAG104 were their Own Things and it’s the True Power Of Tim: getting to say “fuck” even when the episode content is otherwise typical.)

- Statement tiiime and I’ll go very fast because I messed up my timing again:

* Obligatory Gratuitous Tim Tears because I’m conditioned to think about him with the simple mention:

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “But there’d been some… problem, and the whole place had to be closed up for months. Samson said they’d found asbestos, I heard it was a lease issue, but… doesn’t really matter.”

-> (I KNOW, IT’S ABSOLUTELY GRATUITOUS… … but I think the beginning of MAG090 is still one of my favourite exchanges of the entire series, I relistened to it so many times, shut up >>)

(MAG090) TIM: … You do know, right? I mean, you must know. ELIAS: Know what? TIM: About this place. About what it does to us. ELIAS: [SIGH] Tim, this place is very old. It has all sorts of… idiosyncrasies, and not all of them are good for the people who work here. TIM: I think I’d prefer asbestos.

(+ Melanie’s old haunted building in MAG028 has had its share.)

(Yes, I’m aware of the RQ crew’s Personal Experience With Asbestos.)

* Same hat, statement-givers:

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “Now, I’m not sure I can legally name the shopping centre I was working in to you guys, but let’s just say it wasn’t the Westfield. […] The security office was a mess. The company I worked for – again, dunno if I can legally say them, but you can look it up, you know […].”

(MAG051, Antonia Hayley) “You’ll forgive me if I don’t give their name; I still hold out hope that I might go back to work there someday, and I’d feel like an asshole dragging their name through the mud, even if it is just to you and your strict confidentiality procedures. If you’re desperate, they shouldn’t be hard to identify, but it’s not really relevant to what happened.”

Not Telling You But You Can Find Out Easily Anyway (except if you’re not even interested in doing the follow-up properly and/or to try to see if this place is still dangerous :[[[)

* I’M EXTRA-SAD FOR SAMSON SINCE HE HAD A SMALL CHILD gdi, I’m even more upset when you know it will mess up people from the victim’s surroundings…

* Old tech obviously reminded me of MAG065, but this time with less of a trapping theme – 100% Beholding at work? And is there something with the 80s tech specifically…? Sergei Ushanka, according to the story, had died in 1983; the old Tecton multi-camera recorder was said to be from the late 80s here; and we don’t know how long the tape recorders had been in the Archives, only that Gertrude was using them at least in the 90s (so they could be a bit older).

(* I did wonder, when the statement-giver mentioned how he tended to shop a Treat for himself from time to time, and with how aware he was of the cameras… if he wasn’t trying to avoiding saying that he was actually shoplifting from his workplace.)

* That’s the 4th Beholding statement this season, And This Is A Lot More Than Usual, And I’m Scared. Beholding is just… looming. There. More and more present.

* Laughtrack.wav because oH MY GODS, JON??? JON, DO YOU EVEN HEAR YOURSELF WHEN YOU READ A STATEMENT????

(MAG148, Sunil Maraj) “So I lost my job last week. I mean, I quit, they didn’t fire me or nothing, but you know like, sometimes you quit because you want to, and sometimes you quit because you’ve got to?”

With the fact that the place Sunil had gone to was described as a “mess” that they had to sort out; that Samson didn’t have a lot of emotional support and was not in a nice headspace when they arrived (“Samson took it harder than I did. […] being thrown from one post to another all the time was really kind of getting to him. He tried to talk to me about it a few times, but honestly we weren’t that close…!”); that Samson got obsessed with putting the place in order and only focused on that and then began to follow his friend through the camera lens (or his own lens.)… It sounded an awful lot like Jon’s situation in the Archives, and the first paragraph and the mention from Sunil that a bit of distance had helped??? Sounded VERY oddly on point??? Jon, what does it say, if even Beholding is giving you “hey, sometimes, you don’t want to, but you still have to” talk through a statement???? Jonathan???

(Jk aside, because indeed, I think Gertrude was right to point out that the Fears don’t really have a consciousness, and it would sound very counterproductive from Beholding to invite its local avatar to hold up on feeding from innocents, but. Still. The rhetoric question sounded waaaay too exactly fitting for Jon, holy Mew.)

- Jon’s spiel about “ignorance” was a bit of surprise, I didn’t expect him to obsess over it? Because it… has been very present in the past, in the Archives or with statement-givers precisely explaining how “ignorance” doesn’t protect you from anything (+ is… still, in a certain way, Beholding’s domain):

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “And now I stare at it and not a word of it is even enough to fully describe the fact that I itch. Because ‘itch’ is not the right word. There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why The Hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”

(MAG036, Nicole Baxter) “when I asked the two of them who they were, they just shook their heads and told me to leave. I asked them what was going on, and the old man looked at his companion, as if asking permission, said something about knowledge being a good defence here. She shook her head and said that leaving quickly was a better one. I didn’t need to be told a third time.”

(MAG039) MARTIN: Then why do you– ARCHIVIST: Because I’m scared, Martin!. Because when I record these statements it feels… it feels like I’m being watched. I… I lose myself a bit. And then when I come back, it’s like… like if I admit there may be any truth to it, whatever’s watching will... know somehow. The scepticism, feigning ignorance. It just felt safer. MARTIN: Well… It wasn’t. ARCHIVIST: No. No, it wasn’t.

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: Yes, well, thank you for that, I suppose. And you still hadn’t told me why you… “intervened” at all. MICHAEL: [CHUCKLE] I’m normally neutral, yes, but… the loss of this place would have unbalanced the struggle too early. I am keen to see how it progresses. ARCHIVIST: You make it sounds like there’s a… war. MICHAEL: Eh…! Then I will say nothing further. I wouldn’t… wish to tarnish your ignorance prematurely. … Goodbye, Archivist. ARCHIVIST: Wait! [SCRAPPING OF CHAIR] Ah… ah, ow… ah… M– Michael…? Michael!

(MAG089) JUDE: Oh please, your god is nothing! The Eye, Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, whatever you call it, that’s all it does, it watches and knows, sitting bulbous and comfortable in the ignorance of infinite knowledge.

(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. TIM: Isn’t it? MARTIN: No! No, it isn’t! I mean, you heard Elias… We never really stood a chance. TIM: Yeah. Maybe. But Elias wasn’t actually the one who offered me the job down here. MARTIN: No, I– Sure.

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “But I keep thinking back to an old professor of mine, back when I briefly studied neuroscience, talking about consciousness. About how we still don’t honestly know what it is – where it comes from, what aspect of the brain makes it possible. And I wonder if there might not be consciousnesses out there, so far beyond our comprehension that we could not properly recognize them as such. Minds so strange and colossal that we would never know that they were minds at all. Perhaps… out there, in the endless Vast, it would not notice or recognize us in return. And I wish that I could convince myself that ignorance was the same thing as safety. But then… how many weeds have you unthinkingly stepped on in your lifetime?”

(MAG117) TIM: I used to blame my brother for going off on one and poking around where he wasn’t wanted; I used to blame myself for not… helping him, but now? Now it doesn’t matter. I read through enough of these things to know that it doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, [SCOFF] open the wrong door – and that’s it!

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough. And I will admit I’ve grown… fond of the boy. I wonder, if I told him about Eric – whether he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. Still, that’s not like it kept Eric safe in The End.

(MAG146) ARCHIVIST: … I never thought I’d miss those days, when I could throw out some half-baked speculation about drug abuse or mental illness, and whoosh, away all the statements went. There is… nothing in the world more reassuring than ignorance which we can mistake for certainty. But no. Almost every one of those statements, those… people… that poor old man…

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “And in that vast, dark space of ignorance lies… free will! Isn’t that marvellous, Jon? Free will… is simply ignorance. It’s just the name we give to the fact that no one can ever really see everything that controls them…!”

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: I honestly don’t care, if Mr. Maraj was chased down and consumed by his voyeuristic former friend, or if he has forgotten the whole affair, living in… blissful ignorance.

I’m a bit ? at the fact that Jon is still holding on to the idea that (feigning) ignorance can help, although it’s been repeatedly demonstrated otherwise. Though with MAG146, it was akin to idealising the past: he was afraid already, back in season 1, and was just trying to not attract the attention of things out there by pretending he didn’t know anything, and it hadn’t worked. (I’m also a bit surprised that Jon is making the equation that knowledge/understanding/awareness fundamentally means Pain: both this and ignorance have been proven to not protect you, in this universe.)

- The… Martin mention…

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Basira… BASIRA: Yeah? ARCHIVIST: I’ve been meaning to ask. The… tape. The one of the, uh… my victim. You said Martin gave it to you. BASIRA: [EXHALE] Yeah. ARCHIVIST: How was he? H–how did he look, was he, uh… BASIRA: I don’t know. I didn’t… see him. He just left it on my desk with a note. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Right. BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: … Can I ask what it said…? BASIRA: Hum… Yeah. It said to, uh… “Talk to him.” ARCHIVIST: [INCREDULOUS NASAL LAUGH] … [INHALE, EXHALE] I’m gonna get something to eat.

1°) Still not 100% sure that Martin indeed decided to pass the tape to the other assistants, or if… someone decided for him when he was hesitating.

2°) … not showing your face feels awfully Lonely, Martin D:

3°) Jon still gratuitously wondering about Martin for Unknown Reasons, uh.

4°) Ah. Ah. Ah. When Jon lost it at the “Talk to him”, I was reminded of many things:

(MAG039) ARCHIVIST: … Why are you here Martin? MARTIN: Well, well, Prentiss is out there and you can’t run so– ARCHIVIST: I mean at the Archive in general. Why haven’t you quit? MARTIN: Are you giving me my review now? ARCHIVIST: No… We’re clearly doing a whole heart-to-heart thing and, truth be told, the question’s been bothering me.

(MAG058) TIM: Look: I tried talking to Elias about it, but it doesn’t seem to do any good! MARTIN: He’s just under a lot of pressure. You know how messed up he’s been since Prentiss. TIM: How messed up he’s been?! MARTIN: Of course, I’m sorry – sorry, I didn’t mean that you weren’t, just– TIM: No! Because I didn’t start stalking my co-workers! MARTIN: Maybe try talking to him.

(MAG065) TIM: Shut. up. ARCHIVIST: … What? TIM: Shut up! Just stop talking. I’m sick of this, I’m sick of you! We didn’t kill Gertrude, and no one wants to kill you, you pompous idiot! […] After everything you’ve pulled, you should be gone. But no. Instead, we all get to talk about how you’re feeling, because we’re worried about our stalker boss!

(MAG069) MARTIN: Not like Tim. ARCHIVIST: Hm. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Just talk to him, please. ARCHIVIST: I think we’ve said more than enough. I doubt there’s much more words can do for us. MARTIN: You can’t… work together like this. ARCHIVIST: Ironically, I think working is all Tim and I can do together. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just… talked? Just talked, without all of this– ARCHIVIST: Thank you for the tea, Martin. MARTIN: … Oookay. Fine. [OPENS DOOR] He’s not wrong, you know. [CLOSES DOOR] ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] [WEAK VOICE] I know.

(MAG099) GEORGIE: Look, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me? ARCHIVIST: That’s… I… I–I talked to Martin a, a… a… a few weeks ago…? GEORGIE: Did you talk to him? Or did he talk to you, while you tried to find a way to escape? ARCHIVIST: I… uh… GEORGIE: Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Maybe you’re right. I… I’ll talk to the others. […]

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: Oh, and… I suppose I… I did tell Georgie I’d try to talk to Martin. [DEEP SIGH] [...] ARCHIVIST: An–anyway, I–I–I should go. I–I’ve got a few leads to follow up. MARTIN: Right, right. ARCHIVIST: I’m, I’m sorry, Martin. We haven’t… I know we haven’t talked much since… Sasha and everything. MARTIN: Well, I mean it’s not too late, y’know. Unless the world ends. [MARTIN LAUGHS NERVOUSLY] ARCHIVIST: Yeah.

(MAG116) BASIRA: Do you think he bought it? MARTIN: We’ll talk about it later. ARCHIVIST: I doubt we’ll get time, we need to go. MARTIN: It’s fine. We’ve got this, okay. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Okay.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I, er… I heard about your mother. MARTIN: … Yeah. ARCHIVIST: I am… so sorry. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Thank you. [INHALE] It’s… [SHAKY EXHALE] It’s better, this way. ARCHIVIST: If–if you do need to talk, I– MARTIN: I can’t. ARCHIVIST: No. No, o–of course.

… Martin who, unless there was a Plan going on and they were in a rush, had always pushed for talking, and who is currently absent and “silent”.

- Update on That Little Soap Opera You Call An Archive and cat is out the bag about Elias being (having been?) Basira’s intel:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: You should have let me come with. BASIRA: No. Besides, he wouldn’t have seen me if I had. ARCHIVIST: I can’t believe you’ve been seeing him all this time. BASIRA: Oh yeah! That’s the terrible secret sabotaging the trust between us. 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.

… I do agree that Jon’s “secret” is not comparable to Basira’s but. She really shouldn’t minimise the fact that she hid her connection with Elias from them: Elias admitted that he had needed her to go away to get Jon to go inside the coffin and learn to harness his powers further, meaning that no, Basira’s been played, and they’ve been going in the direction Elias was nudging them towards through his sessions with Basira. That’s bad. And unless Elias was preparing Jon for The Dark with this (which he tried to imply, but I’m reaaaally not convinced given how… he only began to talk about that threat after Jon had expressed concerns about it), that means he had other plans.

Plus, Daisy picked up on the pattern of Jon’s attacks pretty quickly; Elias probably knew, already, that there would be a third victim after the coffin…? And. Ssssssssssssssssh. Melanie and Daisy won’t take the fact that Basira has been in contact with Elias kindly. At all. And they’ll be right to do so.

Confrontation probably incoming soon (since Daisy wasn’t aware of “Floyd” in MAG147, which means… Basira has been keeping a lot of information from them), it. Probably won’t be pretty. I would like to hope that Melanie&Daisy are a bit more suited to making things progress in a better direction (laying down unpleasant truths on the table but… in an actually helpful way) but… we’ve never got that in TMA so far. Usually, when there is resentment, it explodes and it shatters things and relationships beyond repair.

- In fact, the way Basira has acted so far in season 4… is really reminiscent of how Elias had described Daisy?

(MAG082) ELIAS: You haven’t even followed up on any of the other potential suspects or leads, and shown no interest at all in the fate of Sasha James. All you care about is where Jon is, because you’ve decided on a course of action, and you’re going to follow it through.

I wonder – after Basira basically lost her centre of gravity (she thought Daisy was dead for seven months), did she try to act like she thought Daisy would have…? She got the single-mindedness, the ruthlessness, the obsession with getting things done while not paying attention to her surroundings…

The fact that she savagely came at Elias, and how she treated Jon this episode, really highlighted for me… how indeed, she has been an internal mess this season, trying to be in control and failing absolutely everywhere. She… didn’t achieve anything, didn’t get a “win”? Elias explicitly told her that to get Daisy back, he needed for Basira to be away (like, RUDE.) because only Jon could pull that one off; he subsequently presented Jon has the only one able to “see through The Dark” which, once again… didn’t leave a lot of space for Basira to do anything significant at all, except to be there and take care of some logistic matters. Before that: she had lost Daisy, she had seen Martin drift away, she was only witnessing Melanie getting frantic and angry. Melanie had been the one to stab Jared while Basira & Martin were trying to flee, and Helen was the one to trap him. That’s a lot of… occasions to feel powerless and resentful – and that might be why she’s exceptionally snappy at Jon right now, and not really able to connect anymore with Melanie or Daisy? Because the situation has gone totally out of her control, and she had to be in the one in charge while being faced, again and again, with the fact that she wasn’t managing to achieve anything?

- I extra-hope that Daisy and Melanie step in soon-ish, because it… sounds… like Basira is being accidentally toxic for Jon at the moment: she’s still partially counting on him and his powers to fight off other spooks (although aware of what it means), and Jon was trying to avoid the food analogy until she hammered it in – he then… went with it, too, and sounded clearly resigned.

(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: Yeah. Jon, we’ve been over this. The “key” is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know, just don’t do it. […] Any luck finding her? ARCHIVIST: I haven’t really been trying. Doing that sort of thing consciously, it… makes me hungry. BASIRA: Oh well, then find a statement to your taste, and read it. ARCHIVIST: Yes, yes, I know, thank you. […] … [INHALE, EXHALE] I’m gonna get something to eat.

Melanie threw jokes around it in MAG147, and Jon had been using food analogies too before (+ both Mike and Jude presented it as “feeding what feeds you”) but here… it really sounded like a capitulation, and I really don’t think that… presenting what Jon is doing as “eating” is going to help them stop it. Making jokes about it has its limits (it’s still a sore spot for Jon at the moment), and presenting it as “feeding” isn’t really neutral, and only reinforced the idea that it would be an unavoidable necessity, when the point is to stop?

- And we got Jon, extremely… emotionally-stunned at the end of the episode:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: Does reading a statement of The Ceaseless Watcher count as a sort of… auto-cannibalism, I wonder? Or some sort of… bird-like regurgitation of Fear, re-consuming second-hand terror. … Whatever the analogy, I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore the diminishing returns. How much less satisfaction each one gives me. My desire for “follow-up”, for “verification”, for… [HUFF] “proper digestion”… of the experience, it grows less and less. […] I just find my mind already wandering to the next statement, in the hopes that it won’t be… quite as stale.

1°) … I think this is the first time Jon has referred to The Eye as The Ceaseless Watcher, and WOOPS, because coming from him, it sounds a bit more… grandiose and my-patron than “Beholding” or “The Eye” in passing.

2°) Indeed obsessed with the “food” and its quality, and disregarding entirely the grand pattern or the people hurt in the process. No mention that the manual could have been a Leitner; nothing about the fact that technology-based statements tend to be rare (he had told Tess, in MAG065, that they didn’t have many resources but that a student was dedicating their research to this). Nothing, just the statement, consumed without any appreciation or questioning, and the fact that it happened to someone… wasn’t enough to want to learn about it.

(3°) oh gods, his melodrama is definitely too much for me, though.)

4°) … Current problem definitely sounds like he’d “need” a live-statement to properly heal after having watched The Dark Sun, back in MAG143? Jon did mention that he was not entirely back to shape. So. The problem, at the moment, really seems to be tied to him using his powers and the question is what will happen first: Jon having to use them again to neutralise something attacking the Archives or trying a ritual, or Jon attacking someone with A Story – whether it’s a civilian or an avatar?

- Lots to unpack here:

(MAG148) BASIRA: Yeah. Jon, we’ve been over this. The “key” is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know, just don’t do it. ARCHIVIST: It’s not that simple…! BASIRA: No, it is. Or I put you down. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … That’s… I mean, that’s hardly… BASIRA: Daisy has been managing. ARCHIVIST: Daisy is… [PAUSE] [SIGH] Yeah. She’s managing. Did he say anything about Annabelle?

1°) Not The Right Way To Go, but I still feel like Basira got a point: if Jon doesn’t want to stop, if he doesn’t have any solution to stop, if he only spends his time repeating that he is unable to stop… then there’s nothing differentiating him from the other monsters? Although it’s not helpful, it’s not worded in a way that is even remotely contributing, it’s absolutely savage, it’s a bit transparent that Basira might be pissed at herself because the victims happened right under her nose while she was at the Institute (and she specifically let Floyd happen).

2°) Aaaaaaaaaand I can see where Basira is coming from, too: since, unless he’s pretending right now, Jon… indeed didn’t know until this episode that Elias was Basira’s intel. And Basira had told him, sternly, to stop Knowing about her – which he… did, in the end? He didn’t know about her activities, in the same way that he kept away from Martin? And he was using the same rhetoric with his Insights at first: that he couldn’t control it, that the droplets would sneak around the door anyway. But telling him off / giving him a motivation to stop… more or less worked? (He had random knowledge with Basira in MAG140, but not about the Broad Picture of her plans…?)

3°) Jon is not helping his case at all in the way he keeps repeating that he can’t really stop it…? Okay, so, Daisy had pointed out how Jon was casually self-destructive/prone to go for things that could kill him. But he sounded almost… defensive, here? I heard the beginning of his sentence, after the silence, as a shock because he didn’t think that what he had done (and was at a risk of doing again) warranted death…? And what we really don’t need re:monster!Jon is for him to grow an active self-preservation instinct….? But, Jon, indeed, what are your options other than stopping entirely or going full monster and being taken care of in a definitive way? Going after other spooks to feed (HI, PETER LUKAS IS RIGHT THERE)? Being sealed in the coffin again (but he managed to come out once, and he “had regrets” about going inside – he probably wouldn’t go willingly)?

4°) ………………. I’m………………… worried about Daisy……………………….. I don’t know if Jon’s half-sentence meant that Daisy is Having A Hard Time And Not Exactly Managing (managing to not hurt people, but being deeply affected in the process), or that Daisy has Basira and is not alone so that their cases are not comparable, or that Daisy didn’t give herself to The Hunt like Jon did to The Eye in his coma (and that Daisy could be removed from her patron’s influence in the coffin; Jon was still using his powers inside, and found the way out thanks to them), or… that… Jon… knows something about Daisy… that we don’t know yet… which might be that Daisy has been Hunting again behind Basira’s back… (I’m especially worried because of the fact that Basira puts her as an example of actual success, Someone Managing To Step Away From A Fear… as if precisely, it’s meant to be an illusion, and she’ll have to face that things are less pretty and hopeful than she thought. Basira has always been biased for Everything about Daisy: she was already… allowing Daisy’s killings during her officer’s day although she did have a strong sense of justice for other matters, and she was still taking Daisy’s defence in MAG117.)

(But at the same time, it… would feel a bit pointless to me, if the overall conclusion was that there is no hope and nothing positive to achieve, that yes, Daisy should have killed Jon when she had an occasion; and Tim was right; and they all should have died in The Unknowing just like Tim did because you either become the hunter or the prey; and the things hurting and manipulating you are bound to successfully turn you into an uncaring predator, too…?)

- Okay, so remember how Tim was giving off the feeling that he had Given Up, between MAG092 and MAG104? Thaaaaaaaaaaaat’s Jon now.

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: … Whatever the analogy, I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore the diminishing returns. How much less satisfaction each one gives me. My desire for “follow-up”, for “verification”, for… [HUFF] “proper digestion”… of the experience, it grows less and less. I honestly don’t care, if Mr. Maraj was chased down and consumed by his voyeuristic former friend, or if he has forgotten the whole affair, living in… blissful ignorance. I just find my mind already wandering to the next statement, in the hopes that it won’t be… quite as stale.

1°) But at the same time, oh my gods, just cut out the melodrama Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, seriously.

2°) Cutting the bird analogy because Jon. Don’t. Jon, gross, Jon.

3°) … Same Guy who was complaining about His Feelings in MAG139 (around two months ago in-universe), so what the heck happened/is happening for Jon to just. Collapse like this.

One Thing We Know About Jon since season 1 is that inaction tends to take a big toll on him; while Basira remedies to it by trying to do anything, Jon… tends to be unable to focus on anything else once he has a Current Threat or an objective in mind (yes, Aza, I know, it’s ADHD). He was extremely aware that they were waiting for Jane Prentiss to strike, and that they could only wait for her to make her move; he knew The Unknowing was coming and, even with their plan already laid out, he was restless waiting for the day; he repeatedly pointed out in season 4 how the fact that nothing was happening was becoming overwhelming:

(MAG031) ARCHIVIST: It’s… been two months now since Martin returned and we became the ones being… hunted. Are we being hunted? Martin’s still living here, and I’m leaving less and less. The worms keep turning up. We kill them, but there are more each week. What is she waiting for…?

(MAG115) ARCHIVIST: Whatever Elias has Daisy doing, it seems to be working. Nothing’s made a move on me or the Institute since I returned, and last time I saw her there was the distinct smell of burnt plastic. So I suppose I’m safe. But everything just feels like… killing time, running down the clock. I don’t think I like it. God, do I– do I miss being chased? That’s depressing. No, it’s… I just miss feeling like I’m moving, like I–

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: … It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira. I’m not waiting any longer. I’m getting Daisy back.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time. [SIGH] But I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me.

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out of time somehow – and I don’t even know where to go! What to look for, o–or… [EXHALE] Just casting around blindly for more clues to just… drop into my lap. Everyone else is… running towards something, or running away, and I… [SIGH] I don’t know what I’m doing. [PAUSE] [SIGH] I’m just tired. Think I might go lie down for a while. Get a cup of tea [HUFF]

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. […] But I’m really starting to worry that there aren’t any answers. Not like I want there to be. There aren’t any answers in Ny-Ålesund; there aren’t any answers in the past; I’ve been inside The Buried, and there were no answers there. Elias always seemed to know what was going on, to have a plan, but… I sometimes wonder how orchestrated some of it really was. […] It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life. And here? I reached out, I took another tape, eh!, hoping for a bit of guidance, but… [HUFF] To be honest, this hasn’t helped.

And a lot of things this season seem to have contributed to the aimlessness and the pointlessness. Jon managed to remove the Slaughter bullet from Melanie, and to get Daisy out of the coffin in the month following his awakening. Since then… Nothing tangible happened, and Jon has complained about his lack of goal; he’s been aware that Martin is in a bad place, but has been stuck with his promise to trust him. Trying to take a peek through The Lonely backfired; going to Norway to fight The Dark turned out to be a letdown (and even the Dark Sun didn’t kill him); going to Hill Top Road didn’t help, Annabelle denied any Big Involvement; and now, even Elias seems… absolutely useless and out-of-his-depth.

So cumulating that with Tim’s recent death, Georgie deciding to stop trying to help him, the fact that Martin is actively not interacting with him, the fear of Something happening in 2018 for the Institute’s 200th anniversary (… well. Assuming that Jon is fearing that one and not enthralled by it.), the knowledge that he’s Indeed Turning Into A Monster (which was… a gigantic concern of his, in season 3), and then the fact that nothing is leading anywhere, that there is no apocalypse to focus on and try to stop… there are enough elements for Jon to let himself sink and stop trying at all.

(Additional fear related to Jon’s wording in that moment:

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: How was he? H–how did he look, was he, uh… BASIRA: I don’t know. I didn’t… see him. He just left it on my desk with a note. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Right.

That was generic and all, but. Pointedly not “Did he look mad/disappointed/worried/tired” etc. There is still the nagging fear that at some point, Martin would begin to appear in Jon’s dreams because Beholding’s protection would fade away, and it’s not going into that direction, and Jon has been Thirsty For Anything Martin all through this season but… Let’s say that if, yeah, Martin was beginning to appear in his dreams: could be the final nail in the coffin (ha) to make him definitely unmotivated/depressed and make him give up on trying anything because there is no hope of anything feeling better ever again, uh.)

- While, at the same time, if there is no “catch” to it, we’ve had counterexamples of people who went through an awful place and… managed to fight back and (more or less) find their footing again. It took some efforts from Georgie! Melanie was hurt, manipulated into signing up with the Institute (we. still don’t know. what that static was, when Elias asked her if she wanted the job.), emotionally tortured (even if it was unrelated, it took 42 episodes for Elias To Get What He Deserved for that.), under influence… and acknowledged that it was her, was lost, and went to seek therapy – and if she’s not currently being preyed upon again, or at least if her therapist is genuinely using their sessions as actual therapy… it seems to be doing wonders with her (she’s less aggressive while still snappy, more aware of her surroundings, able to word her discomfort – it’s not fixing her life but it seems to… help! And that’s the point of therapy, to give you tools or insights to regain some control over your life!). Daisy, if she hasn’t secretly fallen back to The Hunt, has been more peaceful, is trying to communicate, is staying away from what could make her snap or hurt her (trying to find company to chase the loneliness and The Buried’s flashbacks), and has been trying to pull Jon back up when she could (sharing her Archers listening with him, taking him out for drinks).

Basira and Jon are currently sharing the title of In The Worst Headspace in the team right now, and it’s… probably an exceptionally bad idea to allow Basira to try to be the one monitoring him at the moment, although they don’t have many options. At the very least, she… doesn’t seem to be, at all, the one person he should be talking to if they want to avoid Jon sinking deeper. But Georgie, Melanie and Daisy…? Extra-hard for Georgie since:

(MAG094) GEORGIE: And I realised I was in my bed. According to my phone, I had been for several days. I numbly got myself some water, and ignored my weeping mother. She tried to hug me, but her arms just slid off my limp shoulders. And that was my life for several months. Eventually, the memory began to fade, and I started to feel again. I took the year out of university under the umbrella of “medical reasons”, and by the time I met you I was, well, I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before, but I had started being able to actually live again. I never learned for sure what happened to the people in the Medical Science building, […] and I never saw Alex again. There was one thing that never returned to me afterwards, though. Since that day, I’ve never been able to feel afraid. My fear’s just… gone. I’m not foolhardy. I can still recognise danger, and I understand the likelihood of harm, but actual fear? Simply not something I experience anymore. And I’ve never been able to figure out if it was cauterised, or… if it was stolen.

She Doesn’t Have To Do Anything For Him, but seriously, if someone has to remind Jon that “hey, I lost someone I cared about so much, my life became a mess, I became emotionally stunted, I even lost one of my Feelings forever, but I pulled through, and I’m still impacted, but I also have My Life” is not a fatality, and is good at giving valuable advice (/kicking Jon’s butt in the right direction, whether he elects to ignore it or not)? There is Georgie Spooktacular Barker.

- So, overall, still! Findint! it! very! hard! to feel sad over Jon’s current state since MAG141? I mean, I wasn’t even feeling !!! over the Martin mentions once the episode finished, because… Yes, I was immensely fond of the Jon->Martin bits this season, but I don’t especially care over Jon who only cares about Martin and not about victims, and is more interested in the Fears mechanisms at work and the statements-as-food than in the-victims-as-people?

(Because, like, yes, Jon has been through a lot in the first three seasons, he lost people he cherished, witnessed abominations, suffered and suffered, and being depressed is a Thing and makes everything hard. But in Jon’s case, it now comes hand-in-hand with “having repeatedly hurt people, being aware that it was happening, liking it, trying to convince himself that he was mindcontrolled into doing it – and still having hidden it from people who could have monitored him to ensure there wouldn’t be any further victims”. Whatever Jon’s reasons (denial, fearing he would be abandoned or the disappointment or to have to acknowledge that He Had Turned Into A Monster Like The Others, etc.), I’m still “Mm-MMMMm.” at the whole ordeal because, with the added bit of “I don’t want to stop” and him insisting that he can’t stop at will? There is nothing differentiating him from a serial killer or assaulter trying to present himself as The Victim Who Only Do These Things Because Of Uncontrolled Instinct And Who Has Had A Hard Childhood, while he… isn’t… the main victim…, and doesn’t deserve anything right now except to be stopped – people need to be protected from him first, and I don’t feel like I can care much about his story or his Worry Over Martin when I know that he’s hurt people, and that they’re still being tortured (Jess…). Whether or not the Spooky Powers influence indeed pushed him to do it and it’s actually impossible to truly fight against it… Jon’s main fault, a fault that is his and his only, is truly that he hid what he had done from the others, and kept repeating to them that he could be trusted. That the first victim happened? He wasn’t prepared for that one, alright. The following four, nop, you tortured them, and the fact that it happened was absolutely your fault, Jon. And it doesn’t feel especially tragic or sad to me right now, just “shrugs, so that’s how it is? Yeah okay goodbye Jon, then, I guess”…?)

(It’s also Daisy’s case! But I’m biased because 1°) a bit more impermeable to this rhetoric from a man’s mouth, especially given how we learned it through a woman’s recalling (and how heavily MAG142 just felt coded like a regular physical assault), 2°) we haven’t heard from one of Daisy’s victims from their mouth, 3°) … presumably, Daisy was only going for the kill with spooks-or-spooks-influenced-people-who-had-hurt-people; it was bad and Not Okay, even more given that she was still a police officer back then, but on the scale of atrocities, it still feels a bit less nauseating than going after innocents like Jon did, 4°) Jon is still currently the MC, so obviously, his actions and their consequences will get scrutinised a bit more since… it’s “his” story, first, and why does his story deserve to be told? 5°) I’m really expecting Daisy to die soon-ish, since she has a redemption arc-vibe to her, and it would already lay out the groundwork for a Satisfying Death – whether she snaps again like she did in The Unknowing and has to be killed-killed for real, or sacrifices herself, or dies trying to achieve something Good but being prevented from it. … But yes, I’m fearing a bit that we’d get the testimony of someone explaining how Daisy had absolutely wrecked their life unwarrantedly a few years ago, at some point.)

(- I wonder if it’s not Team Archives’ cue to… try to research about Adelard Dekker, though, if they want to find a way to stabilise Jon / ensure that he stops attacking people.

Because Annabelle Cane, whether she’s lying or not, claims to barely have intervened, and outside of ensuring that Jon stays alive, has certainly not been presenting herself as an ally, and is aware of Jon traumatising innocents but sees it (officially) as a Jon problem. Elias is (officially) a bust, and doesn’t care about Jon’s rampages. They’ve never met Peter Lukas, so can’t know if he’s knowledgeable about other spooks (Martin knows but, also, Peter could be bullshitting as well as Elias – and please, don’t ever tell Peter that he might be the Most Knowledgeable Guy around, or his head won’t fit through that door). Whether we can trust that or not, the three of them claim to not be that much in control, and are certainly not Allies On The Side Of Not Hurting People.

Gertrude, Gerry and Leitner were the most knowledgeable people around, and they are already dead and definitely silenced (Jon has burned Gerry’s page). But there is still Adelard’s case: Jon knows that Adelard was collaborating with Gertrude in the business of stopping Spooks (binding the Not!Them to the table in MAG078’s statement, helping to move Gertrude’s things and to temporarily stop an avatar of The End in MAG114, contributing to stopping The Flesh’s ritual attempt in MAG130). If Team Archives was searching for someone’s help to deal with Jon’s current status, and their overall situation… he’s currently their last resort?

I’m still expecting Adelard to be dead, by now, or to have turned into an Extinction avatar or something; and even if he’s still around and mostly on the side of stopping the Fears… I doubt that he would be super receptive over the concept of “Jon might be salvageable”. But if they have to seek out someone for Spooks-related help… he sounds like the best candidate.)

Title for MAG149 is… I don’t know, feels so non-threatening (well, like a “casual” statement not having anything to do with the current Awful Situation) that my instinct is to think it may be a small respite, and my reasoning is to get Prepared to be slapped extra hard? I have… no clue about a potential “Archives life” meaning for this one (unless it takes place in a café or something??).

It would be a good title for an Extinction statement, and we’re indeed due for Martin’s meeting with Peter’s “friend” (and what does it say, that the episodes that potentially feel the less tense are about Martin and/or The Extinction?) – Adelard, Salesa, Simon Fairchild, surprise!stillalive!Rayner, Martin’s dad, another Lukas, Mr. Spider, Alfred Grifter…? If not, hum. Second half of the title has been used in the context of both Spiral and Hunt, and there is the potential musical angle (I’m not talking about “–ON THE COLD HARD GROUND – OH! (TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE.)” but that one crossed my mind too.) which makes me think of Slaughter. I… really… hope… it’s not Hunt, because WorriedAboutDaisy and I see how it could fit, if it were to refer to her Hunting again ;;

(Still no love for Corruption in s4, but Anil has guaranteed that we haven’t Heard The Last Of It. I know that statistically, unless an episode contains multiple Fears, each one would be supposed to get less than 3 episodes per season for them to be Equally Represented but x’) Corruption got the short stick this season, uh.)

[love-in-mind-palace]

am I the only one who doesn’t understand that Ben was playing? he was being funny. he was being Sherlock. like wth? i’m not even a stan of his (not because of this but for other reasons) but people take something that’s for a good cause and then it into unnec meta like they’re aren’t friends anymore. whether they are in rl or not, that should not be a reflection of the relationship between John and Sherlock imv. nobody seems to have made it a big deal except certain shippers.

I feel like the Omaze thing has gotten out of hand and it's not a good look for fandom, so to clear stuff up: both the video and blurb are written by Omaze staffers, not anyone on the show. It would have been done quickly as well to keep cost down. It's not serious at all and also likely not written by someone who has a deep sense of Watson you get from fandom. Your non-fandom viewer sees Watson as a loveable grump whom Sherlock fake-acts like is bugging him all the time.

Also hate to disappoint but Una is probably not making and serving for real--imo she'll deliver her housekeeper line to the lucky fans over it lol. That's liability Omaze ain't going to take on, a private person cooking. It has to be made by licenced food service employees. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all, I was mostly absent for two days. So idk what I missed. But before that, as much as I can remember from the omaze video, that it was a scripted thing obviously. And no creator or actor associated with Sherlock had anything to do with that. It was purely an omaze thing. And written based on the common concept of John Watson.

But also a little bit of being pissed is pretty much normal I guess? A majority of people in the fandom (Not just shippers) are kinda forever pissed about how John is portrayed in the media. I think that is a bit justified. But idk what do you mean by getting out of hand. If things became that big..idk what to say about that. I am not the one to comment. But if you want my opinion, I wouldn’t be too fussed about it. Because it’s just impossible to change the common perception overnight. So as mush as a bit of anger is justified, there is simply no point at staying pissed. Nothing will change. 

Martin not being on it has nothing to do with their personal relationships. Martin doesn’t do stuff like that. Fan meeting, cons etc. He only did during Hobbit because that was in the contracts as much as I am aware. 

And yeah I am not aware of how things work. I was not aware about what happened with the Una part so I had to ask a fiend. Idk if there is anything too harmful in it. The serving role is given to her probably because she is a motherly figure. And I don’t even know about all this liability thing so I am going with you. She probably won’t cook and maybe will just pour tea or something. 

Again, I am unaware of what happened in these two days, And I don’t want t go deep and explore. If any of you have any differing opinions, I think that’s absolutely fine. This is just mine.

[tristinai]

Evil Magisters and Southern Barbarians

Rating: T

Pairing: Cullen/Dorian

Word Count: 1700

Summary: When Cullen is sent outside of Kinloch Hold to investigate apostate activity in Amaranthine, he gets more than he bargained for when he meets a rather handsome and obnoxious mage who only barely cooperates with his captors. (templar!Cullen/apostate!Dorian)

Warnings: Violence, blood, anti-mage ignorance

A/N: A snippet of what I have been writing for Cullen Appreciation Week. I initially began with the Day 1 Prompt Templar but given the UST nature of this fic, I think Day 7's Noodle Soup is more appropriate. This is a canon-divergent verse, pre-Blight, that still assumes the events from DAO to DAI will occur, with the following exception:

Dorian does not receive Alexius' patronage, thus forcing his father's hand significantly earlier in his life than in established canon

Other alterations in the time line occur as a result of having Dorian flee to Fereldan and living as an apostate. Since both Cullen and Dorian are younger in this, their personalities reflect their experiences (or lack of) and may differ from the characters we came to know and love in Inquisition.

I swear I will finish this at some point. And when I do, I intend on posting it as a one-shot on AO3.

9:29 Dragon The Coastlands, Fereldan

Sparks burst on the ground in front of him, forcing Cullen to come to an abrupt halt. His armor clanked loudly, sword nearly slipping from his grip as he stared at the apostate they had cornered in the forest, the mage's gray eyes narrowed and his handsome face contorted in a vicious scowl. With his back to a tree, there was no escape, yet he remained ever uncooperative, his staff held before him, ready to cast.

But as Cullen inched closer, sword kept defensively at his side, he saw a flicker of panic on the young man's face.

He's afraid, the templar realized, a sudden sting of guilt making him falter in his advance.

“Stay back!” the mage warned, his rich accent sounding clumsy as he spoke in the common Fereldan tongue. It would have made him less intimidating if the staff he held wasn't sparking with elemental magic.

With controlled calm in his voice, Cullen held up a gloved hand, indicating he meant no harm. For as much trouble as this mage had given them these past few days, as they tracked him from the dingy inn he had been staying at in Amaranthine and through the forest west of the city, he had yet to harm either of the templars pursuing him, only using his magic to escape. Now more than ever, the young templar hoped to de-escalate the situation and do what he had been trained to do: apprehend the apostate and bring him to Kinloch Hold. “Stand down and we won't hurt you.”

“Oh, I don't know about that,” another man said, his voice cold. “Don't go promising it anything, Rutherford. Take it down before it gets away again!”

The order was delivered with a cruel finality that left little room for question. Cullen knew he had to listen to his superior, Jansen, whose abrasive and detached demeanor could be unnerving, especially when the man spoke of the many maleficarum and apostates he had hunted. More often than not, when the Circle sent Jansen to investigate apostate activity, it ended with a dead mage, even if the apostate had no history of blood magic or violence. But few questioned his judgment and rumor had it that those bright eyed, idealistic recruits who crossed him often found themselves carrying out all sorts of unsavory tasks around the Hold if they so much as showed any insubordination to him.

He knew what he was being asked. Yet, when he looked at the mage, who seemed no older than himself, Cullen hesitated.

“Jansen, there's no need to—”

An odd, cold sensation washed over the templar, sword clattering loudly to the ground as he fell to his knees. His vision was swimming, the prickling that had started at the back of his head seeming to spread like wildfire through his veins. When he tried to stand, he was seized by panic, eyes widening and voice catching in his throat as spirits began to emerge from the forest floor, reaching for him, clawing at his armor. Blood chilled, heart pounding wildly in his chest, the screams of terror would not pass his lips and he clung desperately to his head, closing his eyes and willing the spirits to leave.

By the Maker, make it stop!

Distantly, he could hear someone shouting but it became white noise to the violent shrieking of the apparitions and he couldn't be sure if he was hearing it in his head or in the space around him.

A loud cry snapped him out of his panic and he remembered where he was and what he was doing.

The apostate!

The spirits around him seemed to fade, the conjured illusion clearing the air around him, like the dissipation of smoke as the embers of a once burning fire died. He blinked rapidly, struggling to regain his focus and saw where the cry had come from.

At the base of the tree lay the apostate, body shaking, curled up and clutching at his chest as if it was a struggle to breathe. And towering over him, with the mage's staff under his armored boot, was a rather smug looking Jansen, his sword raised, ready to deliver swift justice.

Shaking off the last of the horror spell that had been cast on him, Cullen threw himself forward before the templar could plunge his sword into the apostate.

“Jansen, stop!”

Jansen cursed loudly, stumbling back as he tried to redirect his swing. But the tip of the sword clipped across Cullen's upper lip, slicing up into his cheek. He grunted out in pain, the taste of copper falling thick on his tongue, but still he remained crouched by the mage on shaking legs, refusing to let Jansen kill the other man.

“Out of my way, recruit!”

Blood dripped down the young templar's chin, splattering onto his steel armor. But he remained defiant in his decision even as the older templar loomed over him, making no attempt at hiding his anger.

“He hasn't committed any offense and should be brought to the Circle,” Cullen said.

He'd like to think he sounded firm and decisive but even he could hear how his voice cracked beneath the livid expression on Jansen's face.

“Andraste's tits!” Jansen shouted at him. And Maker help him, the blasphemous curse made Cullen blush nearly as dark as the blood on his chin. “This apostate attacked you with a bloody spell! Have you gone soft in the head?!”

Cullen actually had a response to that but then recalled the last time he had naively replied to one of Jansen's rhetorical insults. The back of his head still smarted from it.

“...um...it's not like—he didn't really hurt me—it was just—” Cullen babbled.

“You really want to drag it a week's march back to the Hold?”

That also sounded rhetorical.

Jansen waited, glaring murderously down at Cullen who, he had to admit, was starting to feel rather pathetic, shielding a mage who clearly didn't want to go to the Circle while bleeding from a cut on his face because he had to do something stupid like step in front of a swinging blade.

Maybe Branson had been right when he said their mother's cooking ladle was sharper than Cullen.

Jansen still hadn't said anything.

...was Cullen supposed to answer him?

“Um...yes?”

Jansen cursed loudly, stomping down on the staff and snapping it in half. In many ways, Cullen felt that his future career as a templar now had a lot in common with that broken weapon.

He yelped in surprise when the templar flung leather bindings at his chest. “Put these on it! And so help me, if it gets away again, I'm killing it myself!”

Cullen muttered something along the lines of a 'thank you' but was too afraid to voice any gratitude loudly, not with the rage Jansen had worked himself into.

“And wipe yourself up. You look like an idiot.”

He had almost forgotten he was still bleeding.

Retrieving a cloth from his his satchel, Cullen winced as he pressed the off-white material to his face, smearing it with drops of crimson. He had no doubt that this wouldn't be his last injury in this line of duty but it will probably be the most needless, jumping recklessly in front of his superior's blade as he had. Details such as that were best omitted when he reported back to the Knight-Commander at the Circle.

The mage was still shaking from the smite that he had been struck with and offered little resistance as Cullen began binding the man's wrist. From the effect it had on the apostate, Cullen could guess that he had never been struck by it before and it didn't help that Jansen's smite, who had been with the order for more than 20 years, was known to pack quite the punch.

He tested the bindings, ensuring they were secure but not too tight. Out of the corner of his eye, he tried to get a glimpse of the man they had captured but the mage refused to look at him, shoulders slumped, staring into the ground beside them.

“He could have killed you.”

It was said so quietly, Cullen almost didn't catch it.

This time, when he looked up, he was surprised to see the mage staring at him, a quizzical expression on his face.

And...by the Maker, Cullen had never seen a man more beautiful. His face was smooth, skin the color of dark sand, unmarked but for a mole near the corner of his right eye. He had high cheek bones as sharp as an assassin's blade and the type of jaw one saw chiseled in the beautiful marble statues that lined the halls of an ostentatious Orlesian mansion. But even his beauty had nothing on the depths of gray that Cullen found himself drowning in, a sea of turmoil locked in a pair of striking eyes.

His throat dry, Cullen tried to speak but it came out as a half-cough. Given his proximity to the apostate, the other man crinkled his nose distastefully.

“I, uh, a-apologies,” Cullen said, clearing his throat once more.

Maker help him, was he always this useless around a pretty face?

If Amell's constant teasing of him was any indication, he was quite certain he already knew the answer to that.

He tried to think of how to respond, of what could both convey how he felt about the unnecessary killing of apostates and how this mage would be safe while within his charge.

Unfortunately, what he said came out a lot less heroic than it sounded in his head.

“I-I d-didn't...that is, I c-couldn't, uh, let him. Hurt you, that is.”

The apostate stared at him, long and hard, scrutinizing the templar with a furrowed brow, as if trying to solve a riddle that he had mulled over for some time. Cullen shifted uncomfortably, not only feeling picked apart but also straining to remain crouched while in his heavy armor.

After a long minute, the mage made an annoyed sound. “Fasta vass, you really are an idiot, aren't you?”

Cullen stared at the man in surprise.

Whatever he had expected the mage to say, it certainly hadn't been that.