#i got the idea from the burn notice episode in season 2 where michael and carla are in the limo

[quenchiestcactusjuice99]

chocolate covered pomegranate season

[rayofspades]

How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad. 

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on. 

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem. 

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point. 

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.  

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure. 

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it. 

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right. 

Ok, let’s go. 

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing. 

Part 1: Horror and Mystery 

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner? 

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.  

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together. 

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways. 

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin. 

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.  

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line. 

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.  

But here’s the thing; 

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information. 

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.  

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two. 

 No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario. 

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A. 

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.  

Part 2: Stakes 

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life. 

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.” 

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”  

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense. 

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters. 

Part 3: Themes and Characters 

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.  

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor. 

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.” 

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great. 

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.  

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great. 

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens. 

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.  

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show. 

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions. 

Well, for the most part.  

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.  

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing. 

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted. 

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.  

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.  

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance. 

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection.  On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.  

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.  

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.  

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice. 

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts! 

...Let’s talk about season five! 

Part 4: Season 5 

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk. 

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show. 

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia. 

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.” 

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing. 

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain. 

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard. 

Buuuuuuut... 

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.  

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars. 

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will. 

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close. 

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point. 

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series. 

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced.  I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me. 

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table— 

ALEX NO. 

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending. 

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.  

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that. 

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out... 

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story. 

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again. 

[interestsofabookwormbitch]

Season 2 Episode 3

So as I said, an episode today, and that's exactly what I'm doing. Woo, let's go! Just give me like 15 minutes to get everything g set up (I say as if I'm not posting this all as one big post where no one even notices the length of time I take)

So it's been a more than a week and I definitely need the recap this time. Lol.

Ok, caught up.

Oh flashback. I kinda hate these because I always feel so bad for the aliens.

It's Michael's mom!

Of course this alien burns the only guys who was keeping things calm and collected. Way to start things off hostile.

Holy shit! He burned up fast. Well, you know I can't say shooting wasn't at least partially justified. But I will say that keeping them all locked up the way they did for decades wasn't (I refuse to give the military people much leeway).

Ok, so since she didn't die here, and she also was free for at least a year, this man either let her go, or something happened to him. We shall see the answer (maybe)

It took me a minute to remember everyone (sans Maria because she still knows nothing) knows about Max now. Lmao. I was so confused when Alex walked in

Dude. I'm laughing at this whole scenario. I feel awkward whenever people talk about a relationship they had, so I laugh. Don't question me. I'm weird. I'm a we-.... nope not even gonna finish that thought. Lmao.

(I've noticed I have a lot of energy right now. Probably because it's been awhile and I'm excited to watch again. Unfortunately I can only do one episode today)

Ok, nice! I am actually invested in learning about his mother. There's a lot there.

Yo! Jenna. Lowkey though super attracted to her. Like idk if I mentioned it. Don't get me wrong, everyone in this show is hot on some level or another, but she's doing it the most for me.

Woah! What's Maria's mom doing there? See I can't tell if she's actually right when she implies aliens and looks up or not. She does have a habit of believing in movies.

Hey Maria. Jenna found your mom. No need to worry anymore. I mean, lowkey, Green (whoever that is) is right. Whether it be aliens or not.

Ok, that omelet does not look right, but I digress. Also, why is it always omelet's in shows. Like idk about you guys, but omelets aren't gonna make me go "that's really good." And I like omelets. A lot actually but there's nothing special that'll surprise you eating someone else's.

Dude Maria. She's funny and I missed her.

I don't think it's the run that's got Izzy looking off.

I mean, I'm not 100% convinced this isn't related to something similar to Noah at the very least. I think her concern is well placed. And no she's not okay.

Not the alcohol Rosa. And she's still happy with Liz is she? Okay, she's dumping it that's good.

Yes, let's tell Jenna. I mean, girl deserves to know considering everything. Actually why is she back rn?

Isobel clearing out all of Noah's stuff? Ew not the pregnancy. Oh, not the poison either. Look, I'm sure there's some safer way to kill that fetus. Right?

Max? Is this like really him and part of their connection? Or is it just a hallucination? I can't tell. He seemed to be in a lot more pain when we saw him last, so I'm assuming not him, but I can never tell For sure with this show

Ok, so fake Max. Got it. Love that she argues with figment Max. And honestly, Kyle probably would have been a better choice than this. Most the anatomy is very similar it seems, I'm sure he could have a rough idea. Ish. Maybe.

Yep she's ill.

Michael. Come on now, Jenna can know. Ok, she kinda went off but if it works.

Maria, idk if your mom can even properly and reliably explain what happened. She gets so lost sometimes. Even when she is thinning clearly I doubt this is something people would believe (I mean Idk what happened, but probably something strange).

Look, Alex is great, we love him, but I will never like the military uniform. I'm sorry. Anyways who's the note and stuff from?

I like how even though both Liz and Jenna are in love with Max (in some sense. Obviously Liz 100% main ship and all, but Jenna could not quite be in love, we just know she cared a lot about him) they still get along really well. True adults. I'm used to teens in media.

Are you sorry? I'm not sure, I mean, his dad deserves this. Also that morphine drip is gonna do something.

Ok, yeah, once he got going this became obviously a trick.

Rosa drinking to drown out Max. I honestly feel bad. She's terrified, but also she has addiction problems, and this is not good for her to be doing.

How fucky would that be though? Being the younger sibling and suddenly older? Also, ok, so we got an almost diagnosis for bipolar on this show now.

Isobel is not doing well right now. Please at least get someone with you. Someone who can actually help you and not just imaginary (still potentially a little real) Max.

I love how close Isobel and Max are. Like they're not reflective of my sibling experience, but it's still nice to see siblings actually being this close.

Can she fucking drop this case already. Oh my god.

Oh no. AjkfjHkgsKahjsfhdiwsjsjjd. Maria! Rosa! Finally gonna get Maria in too now.

Rosa, this isn't super comforting. She's just gonna straight up tell her. Lmao

Look, she literally cannot be asking questions to a puking woman. This has to be like crossing boundary of some kind. Like please just fuck off.

I like this bonding with Jenna and Liz. It's fun. Ok it's not fun anymore.

"That was incredible" I concur Max. Way to get through that with grace and ease Isobel. Model of perfection even as you're dying.

Aw. Isobel. I miss him too. And I feel so bad that you have to miss him. Seeing everyone grieve make me sad. I don't like this. But what I do like is how realistic it is for grief.

Well shit. She's puking blood now.

Ok this show is actually pretty good at delving into real world issues naturally. Immigration, abortion laws, drug addiction, abuse, trauma. It deals with all these topics, some of them very much political, and it does it well.

Maria is not gonna be happy with Michael once she learns he knows. If she doesn't already know with Rosa explaining it.... messy messy

Yeah ok, Rosa explained everything. This is gonna be messy. If only they decided to let Maria in earlier like I wanted...

I really like this discussion between Max and Isobel. Like I actually feel this whole storyline with Izzy is a very important one, and I really appreciate the writers giving it the weight it deserves.

She's struggling so much, and Max's anxiety over whether she'll get it or not is seeping into me.

It's literally right there!

Ok, so that really was a fake Max. Got it got it. It makes sense I guess. But either way real Max feels her still, and knows there's something wrong.

I'm still curious why Jenna is back. But I love the fact that they're talking about what they like about Max and just going through this together. It's fun.

Ok, Michael was right there, but I'm good with Liz saving Isobel too. So long as someone saves her.

Why does Jenna always pull wthrough with something like this. Love that.

Girl look down she's right there! Ok good.

This is a needed discussion. Also I love that it ends with a hug.

Yeah, Maria is gonna be mad for a bit isn't she? She deserves it. They should have told her after the Noah incident at least.

Ok, so it was her own doing. Fair enough. Good on her.

Ok, so I was almost fooled by him, but yeah he's bad. Not as bad as dumb as everyone else, but still bad.

Also I was right before! She brought the pods to safety. She and this other alien lady. There's some kind of bond there. Maybe she's Max and Isobel's mom. Maybe those two actually are blood siblings and that's why they have their connection

A monster known as the American government/military. Sorry Alex, you know it's true.

Rosa! She feels so guilty, and I just want her to know that this isn't her fault. I mean, Liz is gonna comfort her, and Liz is pretty good at saying what needs to be said and understanding things.

Yes, give me the answers. This other alien lady is fucking dying though, and I hope she ends up alright. Also this man seems like a good guy considering he definitely didn't turn them in back then, and was even in the picture smiling with Michael's mom. I think he's the only human character from back then that I like thus far.

And there's the episode. Finally back into it. It's been so long.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek Discovery Season 4: What to Expect

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Yes, we’re already looking forward to Star Trek: Discovery Season 4. Season 3 saw the show go where no Star Trek has gone before – literally. Flung almost a thousand years into the future after saving all sentient life as we know it, Michael Burnham and her crewmates had to navigate a new and alien reality that bore little resemblance to the one they left behind.

Yet, the decision to send Discovery to the future is possibly the best decision the series has ever made, giving the show a much-needed narrative reset that cut ties to things like Klingon wars and The Original Series legacy characters and sends it off to blaze its own path, unencumbered by the strings of existing canon. But now that Discovery is firmly established in the 32nd century, what can we expect from Star Trek: Discovery‘s upcoming Season 4? We have a few educated guesses…

Michael Burnham Finds Her Feet as Captain

Despite her colorful history as an officer – replete with mutiny, insubordination, and general recklessness – it’s been obvious for a long time that Michael Burnham was destined for the Discovery captain’s chair. The only question was a matter of when. But now that she’s there – what kind of captain will she be?

She could very easily turn out to be one of the Starfleet greats. Despite her flaws, Michael has proven time again that she is smart, capable, and brave. A risk-taker who always comes through in the clutch, she has saved her crew more times than most of us can count and she is a shining example of someone who absolutely believes in the mission of the Federation and the good it can do.

But she’s also often rash and impulsive, and just a few short episodes ago wasn’t even all that certain that she belonged in Starfleet anymore. Granted, many successful male Starfleet captains (cough cough James Kirk cough) are remembered as great precisely because they weren’t huge fans of following the rules, either, so there’s certainly precedent that generally refusing to play things safe is a workable leadership strategy.

Yet, Michael has always found her greatest success as a character when she has an authority figure or structure that is set in opposition to her, so it will be interesting to see how she evolves now that she is the authority she once pushed back against.

What’s Next for Saru?

At the conclusion of “That Hope Is You, Part 2,” Saru took a leave of absence from the Starfleet to go with the young Kelpian refugee Su’Kal back to their home planet of Kaminar. What’s next for him is unclear, but there’s no way Discovery’s planning on writing off this character completely – or losing the talents of actor Doug Jones.

So what’s next for Saru? If he does return to the Discovery, what role can he fulfill now that he’s no longer captain? Does his future lie in the Federation hierarchy somehow, possibly working for Admiral Vance or serving as some sort of ambassador to his people?

A third option could involve Saru taking on an entirely different kind of mission, one that looks a lot like fatherhood of a sort. Ever since his arrival in the 32nd century, Saru has longed to reconnect with his people. Perhaps showing young Su’Kal the stars he’s missed out on all his life is something that might allow him to do just that on a smaller, more intimate scale. (And indulge his dorky dad vibes at the same time.)

Gray Will Return Somehow

During Adira’s trip to the dilithium planet to ferry medicine to Saru and Culber, we learned that the holodeck program on the abandoned Kelpian ship could extrapolate Gray’s consciousness and give him a holographic form. This allowed him to be seen by the other Discovery crew members present, which means that the technology clearly exists which can bring Gray back to life again. Sort of, anyway.

 Because, of course, Gray is technically dead and his consciousness only exists as part of the Tal symbiont inside of Adira, which raises many questions this subplot will eventually have to answer, including how much agency and sentience post-Burn holograms even have to begin with. (Eli the Federation lie detector hologram certainly seems independent enough.)

Culber has promised both Adira and Gray that he will find a way for him to be seen again. But what that will ultimately look like, we don’t yet know. There is precedent for the idea that one part of a Trill’s symbiont memories can live outside it, but does that mean Gray will become a hologram himself permanently? Or can his consciousness be housed in something that has a more physical form?

What’s Book’s Actual Job Now Anyway?

Now that Cleveland Book – and we’re still waiting for the story behind that name, btw – is officially a part of the Discovery crew, it’s time for the series to define his role in this universe beyond his relationship with Michael. Is he technically part of Starfleet now? Is he an officer on Discovery? Does Grudge get a tiny decorated insignia collar? (Please say yes!)

Much of Book’s role in Season 3 was to support Michael in one way or another, whether that meant to literally help introduce her to the new rules of the 32nd century or to provide emotional and tactical help when needed. And don’t get me wrong, Book and Michael have somehow managed to form one of the most functional, normal relationships in Star Trek history. They’re honestly great together. But David Ajala is a tremendously appealing actor and if he’s going to stick around – which I think we’re all in agreement he should – Book needs a meaningful story of his own.

Tilly’s Promotion

Following Michael’s promotion to the Captain’s chair, it certainly looks like Tilly is getting some sort of command-level promotion in Season 4.

Technically she was still an Ensign when serving as Saru’s Acting First Officer, and while she conducted herself admirably during, well, everything, if she’s going to be Michael’s legitimate First Officer – which that last scene would definitely seem to indicate – she deserves to at least become a lieutenant.

Stamets and Michael Will Have to Work Out Their Issues

One of the lingering unresolved plotlines from Season 3 is the massive rift that formed between Paul Stamets and Michael following her decision to physically jettison him from Discovery while it was under Osyraa’s control. To be fair, her choice was completely the correct one, as he was the only one capable of operating the spore drive, and removing him from the equation meant that the Emerald Chain couldn’t just jump back to the Verubin Nebula and all its dilithium.

But, Stamets basically took that decision to mean that Michael was fine with condemning his family to horrific radiation deaths, and that’s going to be a hard thing for him to get over. If you notice, he’s the only person who doesn’t exactly look thrilled at Captain Burnham’s promotion, and we don’t see the two interact again once the ship is reclaimed.

There’s also the question of the spore drive itself. Stamets has tied his own identity – and his worth as part of the Discovery team – pretty tightly to his ability to communicate with the Mycelial network. Now that Book can do the same thing, how will this change things for him?

We’ll Probably See More Episodic Storytelling

Solving the mystery of The Burn and battling the villainous Emerald Chain were both season-long arcs that helped establish Discovery’s place in the future, and allowed Discovery the show to set up the new rules and players of its universe. But now that both those tasks have been accomplished, don’t be surprised if we see a shift toward more episodic storytelling in Season 4.

After all, with a fresh new supply of dilithium to distribute and the entire future to explore, isn’t it time we spent some time seeing what the 32nd century looks like? Some of the most entertaining moments of this season came when Michael and the rest of the Discovery crew found themselves on new planets or adjusting to changed cultures (including their own). Since Discovery purposefully removed itself from all known Star Trek canon, isn’t it time the show got about really establishing some new ones? The revelation that Vulcan and Romulan reunification has indeed happened feels like it should be just the beginning of the surprises this universe has in store for us. What has happened to other species such as Klingons or the Borg? Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

The Grudge Content We Deserve

One of the few things Discovery fans of all stripes can agree on: Grudge is amazing. And we deserve to see more of her. Whether that means all our initial speculation turns out to be true and she’s actually the secret god of a planet full of telepathic felines we’ve yet to visit or just that she gets her own bridge-safe cat basket so she can hang out with Book and Michael next season, just give the people what they want.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Can we at least find out how she and Book ended up together? Throw me a bone – or I guess a cat treat – here, show. (Truly, if we don’t at least get a Short Treks episode about Grudge what are we even doing here?)

The post Star Trek Discovery Season 4: What to Expect appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ihsmn5

[echo-inthevoid]

Season 2 q&a and overall reaction

Jonny stealing everyone's names XD 

Is martin going to be ok!? I also need to know! 

He said no;-; 

ok ya, no one's gonna be ok. 

Ya, he must do sooo much research. 

Ya, except for "fatigue" lol.

Eyyy the mechanisms!! 

What's the red string brigade? Ok, I guess a group of fans theorizing about stuff. 

Oh ok so someone else did martins poetry. Ooh, there's more martin poetry out there! *grabby hands*

Ok ya, Alex clarifying that Jon isn't stupid he just makes poor decisions. Probably if he'd paused and thought about it (like I did lol, I had to go do some stuff in the middle of that ep and thought about it a whole bunch lol) instead of immediately going out and buying an axe and further isolating himself and panicking immediately he probably would have figured it out. This is why it's bad to panic in a crisis guys. 

Eyyy! Jonny's parents voiced Gertrude and Leitner! That's so cool. 

XD Jonny grumbling about having to work with his parents. 

Hmm, I hadn't really thought of Gertrude being like a mother figure in the story? She just seems very cut-throat I guess from what Leitner said. Idk so far I've been very suspicious of her. Especially since that one statement where her photo burned a whole bunch of people or something. She just seems very shady... 

Alex chortling over Jonny's pain. XD

Side note, Every time there's a q&a I just can't stop noticing Jonny's voice going in and out of archivist range? Like most of the time I'm just listening along and then he'll say a sentence a bit grumblier and my brains immediately like "ARCHIVIST! That's THE ARCHIVIST!!" 

Martin would be the last one alive in Friday the 13th! It's official! 

(Is it bad that this gives me hope)

Jon likes Nonfiction, documentaries, and probably collects something just a little bit weird. *writes down for use in potential fics* 

also while im at it I remember jon saying he dislikes coffee at one point,  and so many people have him liking coffee in their fics! This has been your daily reminder of that fact because ever since then it keeps bugging me lol. (But also do whatever u want.)

Alex's spluttering sounds so much like Martin.

Yes!! I want to hear jon sing!! Yes! Musical Episode When!!?

Ah yes yes yes! All the characters are so unique!!? How does he do it!! 

Ya, it being in audio format sometimes makes it hard to understand what's happening in the live-action bits. (Live-action is the wrong word but u know what I mean.)

Oh ok ya, how he mentioned he got a pipe was quite clever I didn't realize that that's why he mentioned it at all. 

Ooh, there's a manga where there's something similar to Michael? I'll have to look that up later...

XD Alex and Jonny arguing about apples. 

Ok, so all the statements we're hearing ARE for reals. I kinda assumed but good to have it confirmed.

They used to hang out together!!? Work function curry nights!! ;-; 

Ya Ya! Who made the leitners!?

"You are assuming a book needs to be written" ...ok then. (but it has to have been created somehow??? Did they just spring fully formed from the powers? why? And why take the form of books?)

Alex's mischievous laugh about whether jon has friends *trembles in fear*

Yes!! Micheal is so good! I'm so happy they love him too! Yesyes! His laugh! 

Ah Yes!! Mary kaey was so creepy! 

XD yes yes yes fatigue was written on zero sleep, I knew it! 

Akskdjdkd I love them so much. Also, I've looked up Michaels voice actor luke booys and he does some other horrory type sketches n stuff and I kiiinda want to do a little animatic with some of those but it's Michael like annoying some poor soul lost in his halls... I think that'd be fun. I wonder if anyone's done that yet? If so someone send me the links I neeeed iiitt :3

Season 2 summary:

Uuuuu ya so this season was really good. I kinda listened to it in bursts of about ten episodes every couple weeks and then have been saving up the reactions to post later so these are usually going up about a week or so after I actually listened to the episode just FYI. 

I also do have a lot of spoilers cause I can't keep myself away from fanfic and people don't always tag for spoilers and I kiiinda wana know what's coming beforehand anyway? Idk it's hard man I get very stressed about what might happen and then also listening to too much at a time is too spooky for my poor little heart so I gotta read the less spooky fanfic to fulfill the hyperfixation you see. (If anyone has fanfic with spoilers only up to season 2 that'd be great btw) 

Anyway, I try not to take spoiler type stuff into account unless I'm just so sure of it I can't really not acknowledge that I know about it. 

Also, can I just talk about Michael for a minute?? Cause he's such a unique character? And I guess maybe there are other characters like him but I haven't ever seen one -tho to be fair tma is only like the third horror thing I've ever really got into (the other two are the SCP Foundation in its various forms and Little Nightmares. Hence why I keep making reference to SCP it's really the only thing I know similar to this.) But he's such a cool concept!!? Like someTHING that still has a personality? He's so not human? Like I get what he says but also I don't really? Idk im pretty sure he's an avatar right? Right?? Idk if that means he was a person at some point? But all this to say that he is probably the most inhuman character I've come across so far and I'm trying to figure out what it is about him that's so "other" to me? Like... I don't really know what Micheal's deal is? he seems to want to be sort of a neutral mischief-maker but also it seems like he keeps getting invested. But also I just love the way he talks about himself. Like he's a monster that has a personality and is fully intelligent but isn't just evil but isn't neutral either and certainly isn't benevolent. Like he's so complex and just,,,, the idea of a "thing" that's got a personality?? I love it? Kind of like dryads or spirits of things? Like the idea that after a long time things gain personality just by existing? Not that that's what Michael is necessarily? but that same sort of concept applies to him I think. Like the way he IS the maze and wants to help but wants to just watch but wants to kill them all. He's just so interestinggggggg. (And another vision of what jon could become?)

 also "es Mentiras" is a beautiful name 💕

So are him and not-Sasha avatars? Not-Sasha also seems completely inhuman and I was under the impression that avatars were (or used to be) human? Or are they like personifications of their power? Do all the powers have personifications of themselves. not-Sasha seems even less human than Michael? Like she seems to just really genuinely enjoy causing fear? Tho I guess we didn't really get to hear a lot of her. She just seemed kinda gleefully angry most of the time we heard from her. Was she... Human once!???

Anyway. Also, can I just talk about leitners line about jon belonging to the eye!!? Just..*chefs kiss* hnnnngg I need more jon grappling with that. I just need more everyone dealing with the fallout post all of the finallies ok? I still need more of jon angsting over his worms scars and stuff and now I also need jon freaking out about belonging to a fear god power thing. 

Also Martin! Is Martin ok? He sure did a lot of yelling which he doesn't usually? Look I love him and he actually thinks before he acts (unlike SOME people *looks at jon*) and he writes poetry and it is pretty good poetry ok!! And he cares about everyone and just wants a happy ending and aaaaa😭

Petition to get some statements from Martin's pov tho? I mean that's not gonna happen cause Jon's the archivist but I want more martin pov!! Maybe we can get some of his poem tapes??? Pls????? 

I feel so bad for Tim. It sounds like he's kinda fallen into despair.

Also Elias!!? Is showing his spooky side!!? He can control cameras and beat a man to death with a pipe!!? This is his "place of powerr"!!? I am afeared!!? At least jon knows he shouldn't trust him now. Oh jeez, I wonder if jon will listen back to the tape and know what happened. Thhhatsss rough. Oh dear, I hope he doesn't feel guilty cause Leitner did keep trying to hurry him and now everyone thinks it was him. Even martin thinks he did it? Wich like I kinda want to hear more of his thoughts on that? How much does he believe that jon did it? Tim certainly seems pretty certain but he's a bit biased and cynical right now so. 

And they were in the maze for DAYS? 

Now I need martin recovering from being stuck with Tim in Michaels maze for days being angry and worried and hungry etc... Dksjdksa knowing jon could be dying RIGHT NOW and there's nothing he can do. Please someone give me the fic links if this exists!! I've already written like 5 drabbles based entirely on spoilers/other fics (which I'll probably post (w/ links to their inspirations) once I'm caught up and can make sure I'm not just completely demolishing cannon lol. 

Leitner didn't even scream or yell or anything when he was murdered. Literally the chillest dude ever. F

Overall super great, Elias is terrifying, let's dive into the next season!!! I've got 2 seasons to finish in like, less than 2 or so weeks(?) if I wana be caught up by season 5 hhhh,,,

Better get started I guess. 

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG125 /o/

- I’m still going to nickname that power ~Insight~ until further notice because of MAG123 (“I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights.”), though Basira’s “spooky brain” is A Very Tempting Phrase to cover it. Interestingly, there were similarities in the ways it has manifested so far:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar– [STATIC] Wait– Wait.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he [STATIC-] and Elias have planned, and Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig. [/STATIC] I just wish there w– … w… … Wait, I, I, I didn’t… Did I read that somewhere, or…? R–right, yes [CLEARS THROAT]. The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira.

1°) After Jon read a statement. (It had also been the case in MAG099 when he had dropped Gerard’s name amongst the list of Gertrude’s acquaintances when he’d been given absolutely no reason to do so.) 2°) Both times, regarding the assistants – who are Jon’s primarily concern as of now (at least explicitly). (3°) Right after Jon mentioned Peter Lukas, but that one is most likely to be a coincidence. Probably.)

-> … is this the equivalent of Beholding throwing him a treat and going “thank you for the meal”.

- If his screams are any indication: Jon got hurt. Again. Beating his own record from season 2, in which it had taken 7 episodes for him to Get A New Injury (the reopening of his worms-induced wounds in MAG041 notwithstanding). I wonder how long it will take for us to know where he got hurt and what happened exactly? It had taken from MAG047 to MAG053 to learn that Michael had cut him deeply enough to require five stitches – and even know, we don’t know where he got stabbed exactly. (I’m love it, I love that we know that Jon gets hurt but that it’s rare to know which part of his body was damaged every time around; we’re not even sure what hurt him here? Could have been the scissors, could have been the scalpel, could have been a surprise! hidden knife. So many sharps things laying around.) (*Tim’s voice from MAG082* “When you[’ve been hurt] and there are more than three different ways you might [have gotten sta]–”.)

On the one hand, insert jokes here about how Jonathan “Disaster” Sims is collecting the set.

…………….. on the other hand, he is. Indeed. Slowly completing the set of getting physical injuries from other entities, things that might be considered a form of marking?, and/or getting live-statements from other avatars, and it has never been highlighted as a problem by Elias – all the contrary, it’s technically a good thing according to what he said about Jon’s job description (MAG092: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others.”):

* The Web: encountered “A Guest For Mr Spider” as a child (recounted in MAG081: “The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”). * Beholding: claimed him hard (when becoming the Archivist? when he signed on as Head Archivist? when he began working for the Institute? when he watched the other boy get taken as a child?). * The Corruption: worms digging into him during the Jane Prentiss invasion (MAG039), Jon still has the scars on various parts of his body. * The Spiral: slashed/stabbed by “Michael”, probably on his arm/hand since he was trying to stop it? The injury required five stitches (MAG047). “Michael” gave its statement in MAG101. * The Desolation: one hand burned by Jude Perry following a Handshake Event (MAG089). Received her live-statement. * The Vast: thrown into it by Mike Crew, sayonara to your already tar-filled lungs motherfucker (MAG091). Received his live-statement. * The Hunt: Alice “Daisy” Tonner did something to his neck, half-strangling him or cutting it with his own knife, we don’t know, but it wasn’t pretty since Elias commented on it the following episode (MAG091). Received her live-statement in MAG061, and Trevor&Julia’s in MAG109. * The Stranger: terrorised by the Not!Them (MAG079), punched or strangled a bit by Nikola (MAG097), held captive by Nikola for a month (MAG101), the whole Unknowing mess (MAG118-MAG119). (And Nikola left her mark on his skin uwu) * The End: approached it following the bombing of the Unknowing, and received a live-statement from Oliver Banks (MAG121: “You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him”) + dead-but-not-dead-dead!Gerry’s in MAG111. * The Slaughter: given his screams, probably hurt by Melanie (MAG125).

Now, for the missing ones:

- The Buried: no direct injury on that front, but a few weird occurrences around that one – Jon received that live-statement from Karolina Górka in MAG071, who might have been claimed after her experience (“Aside from that, all that’s left to do is sweep up after Ms. Górka. She left the place rather dusty.”); the “DIG” ad that crept into Jon’s nightmares (MAG120) was not from a statement he had read, but from one read by Martin (MAG088), and Elias’s narration had the same static as Martin’s when he described it (what happened with that one?!); the statement-giver, Enrique MacMillan, had felt something in what is now Jon’s office and tried to dig it up in November 2003 (“cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.”) – the tunnels? Daisy had mentioned they felt “empty”… - The Flesh: attacked the Institute when Jon was in a coma (as mentioned in MAG123). Curiously, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet, not… in the flesh (badadadumdum), so it might be coming? - The Dark: has people lurking around (MAG125: “In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host”) and, in the same way, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet (though Basira has). - The Lonely: has Peter as interim director of the Institute, and Jon has already highlighted that he’s feeling isolated on multiple occasions:

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

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened. And Basira, though she is very willing to talk, still doesn’t seem to trust me enough […]. Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar–

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I find myself basically alone.

So… it might be at least affecting him already, although it’s not a physical injury (yet).

Once again: is Jon supposed to catch them all as a part of The Watcher’s Crown ritual…? ;;

- There were a few hours of panic for Patreons when the episode came out in early release, because Martin was listed in the voicecast for the episode. So, WHERE WAS HE. WAS HE THERE DURING THE SHOUTING AT THE END OF THE EPISODE?? HAD HE COME BACK JUST BECAUSE JON SCREAMED AND HAD BEEN HURT AGAIN?? HAD HE BEEN TRYING TO STOP THE OTHER TWO WHEN THEY BEGAN OPERATING ON MELANIE?? IS HIS VOICE SOMEWHERE IN THE CHAOS??

In the end, nop, genuine mistake, he wasn’t meant to be in the episode.

Schrödinger’s Martin.

- I stand with this statement-giver on the idea that Sheep Are Weird And Evil. You’re valid, statement-giver.

- I really like the way Slaughter statements are tackled, because there is an overall quietness in them: the violence erupts, or has left its victims behind and is only reconstructed through them, but it’s mostly… stillness and silence. The Slaughter has its own logic and, from an exterior point of view, you never understand why things are happening; they just happen, breaking all the links and coherences that had been reigning until then. It might actually one of the fears that gets me the most, now that I think about it, because of the suddenness of its outbursts, the fact that you don’t see the violence coming? (This plot in particular made me think of the last arc of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, too!)

- … this statement felt especially gruesome, and one of the things that freaked me out even more, at first, was that Jon… was apparently unfazed by it?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. Hm. An Englishman returning from Scotland with a fear of bagpipes and sheep. I’m sure we can all relate! In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me.

Immediately throwing a joke and then going on philosophising about the Slaughter’s implications, without giving a thought to the villagers…? Really, Jon, really…? Nnnnnot the time, maybe? On first hearing, I was very unsettled/worried (comparatively to MAG123 and MAG124, it sounded… very harsh); after stepping back, I realised that it’s… actually a Typical Jon Thing, though. He wasn’t only doing that in season 1 (when it’s official that he was faking it to conceal the fact that he was actually afraid), and he wasn’t discovering the story for the first time (like us listeners), so that could be why he felt too detached to me there. Still. Not great, Jon ;;

(I’ll keep being a bit paranoid about Jon having lost something since he woke up, until we learn about what it’s supposed to mean for him…)

- Also, I’m *squints* about this bit:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Regardless, I’ve hit another research dead end with this. It’s… frustrating, to be honest. I finally feel myself, I feel… focused, and ready – and I find myself basically alone.

“READY” FOR WHAT, JON???

Sidenote, but I wonder whether Jon is absolutely sincere and genuine here, or trying to… wave a hand at Elias or whoever can be listening in, basically trying to bait them into acting by showing that he’s impatient/waiting for them to do something? I’m glad that, at least, Jon has no illusion that Peter’s behaviour might be going all according to Elias’s plan, slumping them in the same bag:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: But honestly, it’s the internal threats I’m worried about. Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he and Elias have planned […].

(I love that although they’re (almost) entirely absent, Jon delivers a Quota of mentions about Martin and Elias(+Peter).) Peter could actually be something outside of Elias’s control/plans/interests but… I’m glad that Jon is assuming that they’re on the same side, and that it means Bad News, for now. (/ meanwhile, other side of my brain: “oh my gods, it sounds like Elias&Peter are a power couple when you say it like that, Jon.”)

- This is the third statement picked up by Jon since he woke up (since he didn’t have any say on MAG122’s), and the second one that delved a bit into an aspect of “control”, together with MAG123’s.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or… is there a kernel of will in there, a lucidity and deliberateness to the random fury and violence? I suppose that’s the question with so much of “violence”, “war”: how much are you really in command of yourself or of others? I’m not sure what scares me more: the idea that deep down, everyone is in complete control of their actions, that everything is, on some level, intentional; or that ultimately, we don’t have any control of ourselves at all, and the rest is just… rationalisation.

It sounded a bit too Relatable to his own situation and concerns, uh? Since the end of season 3 had a few moments of Jon’s worry about becoming a monster and how to deal with it – Georgie’s advice in MAG093, Tim’s “These things aren’t human. It’s… instinct. You can’t not!” (MAG114), Jon’s decision to trust the assistants in MAG117, etc. Jon’s lines, here, specifically reminded me of Tessa Winters’s pondering about the human consciousness, what control you exert on it?

(MAG065) TESSA: […] Assuming I’m not losing my mind, of course. ARCHIVIST: Yes, I hear that a lot too. TESSA: Well, that’s what’s terrifying, isn’t it? Your mind is all you are. There’s no backup, no reset, if it goes… I’m not just talking about madness as it appears, but what it is from inside… The way people talk about it, it’s like you have to think you’re saying that our mind is everything we perceive, everything we are. Well that means… you can never know when your grasp might be slipping. I’m not convinced that’s it, though. Or maybe deep down, somewhere inside, you understand what’s happening to you and… No, I am… I don’t know which scares me more.

That’s still a relevant thematic, now more than ever, since Jon apparently ~became The Archivist for real~ and we still don’t know what that means, and what he truly knows about it (officially, he’s missing some of his memory, but to what extent?). Jon’s “and the rest is just… rationalisation” also put me to mind of how the Web tends to operate according to Trevor:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) The weirdest sensation began to flow through me; I wanted to leave. It wasn’t like with a vampire, where I would feel like I’d been spoken to. This was just a sudden awareness of my own desire. I’d been sober for three years at that point, but I felt like I desperately wanted to get high, and I knew that the best place to get some was out in the night. Looking back, I think it might have been my own mind rationalising the way I felt my will being tugged out of the room, but it was still very powerful. If I hadn’t had a lifetime’s experience of identifying and fighting off the effect of the vampire’s gaze, I probably would have done it, too.

Aaaand of course, what Elias had said to Melanie about her own intentions (which is a bit more relevant here in a Slaughter context):

(MAG106) ELIAS: Whatever I’m planning needs to be stopped! Even if it costs a few lives. Including your own. MELANIE: Well, that’s not even– ELIAS: A rationalisation, of course. A lie, about your own selfishness, that you would rather be dead than trapped without the self-determination you prize so highly.

I was assuming that Slaughter and Web would probably be on opposite sides on the spectrum of Colours-That-Hate-Me, since respectively unleashed chaos and absolute control, but I’m not so sure anymore?

- There was a tiny allusion to “What The Ghost?” in Jon’s pondering, though! Patreons got one episode of it (so far? I hope that they are more to come, the first one was… plainly amazing) and this bit sounded like a reference to its content:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: […] In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me. There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or…

We already knew that Jon listens to WTG but still… nice!! … and also sad because that’s a way to think about Georgie without even naming her. *cRIES*

- Jon, please.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Another Leitner, obviously. Not one I can readily identify, though it sounds like it would now be… inert, anyway. Given the blank pages, I do wonder whether its destruction was a last-ditch effort to stop its effects, or the exact thing that released its power in such an… extreme way.

Technically Not A Leitner since the statement was from 1993 (implying that it never made its way into the library before it was destroyed in 1994), how dare you slander Leitner by associating his name to this book :ww

- Okay, so Melanie and Basira are now living in the Institute, that was made explicit.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: You’ve been staying here too. BASIRA: Got a camp bed at the other end, near the tunnels. I like to keep an eye on them. Besides, I wanted to give her some space, y’know. But yeah. Living outside the Institute, ’s just not safe anymore. ARCHIVIST: What about Martin…? BASIRA: I think he’s still got a place? He’s not down here anyway.

1°) Not exactly sure where exactly they’re sleeping? It definitely sounded like they were in the tunnels, but Basira very clearly said that she’s sleeping “near the tunnels” (not inside of them)? Unless they’re in one of the rooms and Basira is staying close to its entrance to keep a broader look on the corridors? 2°) (Melanie and Basira… are… roommates… (OH MY GODS THEY ARE ROOMMATES.)) 3°) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Where is Martin sleeping, that is a good question. Does he really still have his flat or did he… leave everything behind when he began working with someone-that-we’re-assuming-must-be-Peter? Or is he living in the Archives, too, though in ~another space~? DO HE AND JON SOMETIMES ACCIDENTALLY SHARE A BED IN THAT-ROOM-IN-THE-ARCHIVES, WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT? (… Or does he sleep at Peter’s place.)

- Except for season 1 (in which he was a stuck-up ass) and season 2 (in which he was a paranoid ass), Jon has never mentioned Martin so much, has never been so concerned about Martin… and it’s understandable that he would, if Martin is acting in a worrisome way!! But. But. Still. He immediately wondered about Martin’s own accommodations and, after their encounter in MAG124:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I am now sure Martin is actually avoiding me.

aOUCH… I’m glad that Jon is preoccupied about Martin, thinking about Martin and not taking him for granted anymore (kind of)… but AT WHAT COST………………

- uUUUuuuh… Meanwhile, Jon kind of implied that he is still going outside?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Basira was right about the Institute being watched, though. In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host, and it’s rare I go anywhere without cobwebs anymore. … I, er, find myself keeping my guard up around mannequins as well, though I’ll admit that one is more likely to be my own projection.

I would have assumed that Jon would have been the most likely to migrate long-term in the Archives, there is something funny in the idea that he… isn’t, somehow. (Also, Jon: what. are. you. doing. with all this free time.)

I’m not sure if cobwebs are a new thing around Jon, or if it’s only that he is able to pay attention to their gravitating around him nowadays: spiders had been… very prevalent in the Institute before. Or is it just growing even worse? (;; Sad for Jon, regarding the mannequins mention… Jude Perry is a prime example of avatar being still around and holding grudges after Gertrude messed with them, so… Jon being cautious of potential Stranger agents is not unwarranted. Maybe some survived, and maybe some would want to go after him…)

I’m laughing at the fact that is sounds like you can NEVER GET RID OF THE PEOPLE’S CHURCH OF THE DIVINE HOST. From “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.” (MAG009) to them being around in March 2015 (MAG025), to Maxwell Rayner being stopped by the police in February 2017 (MAG073). It’s almost a running gag at this point, that they’re still there and lurking in whichever circumstances efurefdvhjnref. (Julia!! Julia, come back!! They’re still around, surely you would like to take care of them? Please? Pretty please?)

- ONE GOOD THING ABOUT WHAT THEY DID TO MELANIE if it was indeed in the tunnels (it sure sounded like it): assuming that they’re right and that Elias can’t see shit inside of them… then Elias didn’t see it, didn’t watch as Jon was able to ~see~ the bullet inside of Melanie. I’m taking all the Positivity I can, okay. :[

- But also: Jon escapes your Eyes for 35min, and he comes back bloody and with a new stab wound. Typical Jon. (Do you think that Peter and Elias had a bet going on about how much time Jon would need before getting a new injury once he would be back? Or about the nature of the next injury? Who betted what? We know that Peter was implied to go with the gruesome option when betting with Salesa (MAG066); but on the other hand, Elias is supposed to know Jon a bit more. Who would have gone the most realistically pessimistic about Jon?)

- I’m worried that Jon is using his powers so much since he woke up, because it feels like there should be a compensation or a catch – it’s… very beneficial to Jon right now, and I can’t really believe that it could be solely positive and something he’s using without being used by it. Jon is more than ready to use it to his own advantage, quite obviously; the contrast with how he had been startled and thrown-off when Elias had highlighted the phenomenon in MAG102 is just… telling:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: […] Is there anyone else who might know what it is, or– or where? Aside from Leitner, or Gerard. ELIAS: … Sorry? Gerard Keay? ARCHIVIST: Uh… yes…? ELIAS: How did you… Who, who told you he was working with Gertrude? ARCHIVIST: No-one, I–I–I just, I… I read it in one of the statements. ELIAS: I don’t think you did. ARCHIVIST: I… but… aaah… ELIAS: You just… knew it! ARCHIVIST: What, no, I, I… Th– that’s not a– ELIAS: No, no, no. No, Jon, this is good. It’s a promising development! ARCHIVIST: [GETTING FLUSTERED] No, No I… It’s just, it’s just… just d–deduction or– ELIAS: Is this the first time it’s happened? ARCHIVIST: Look, I don’t– Look… Haaa… Gerard’s not really a lead. He… he’s dead, isn’t he?

^His stuttering was terrible back then. In MAG125, he was startled, a bit shaken at first, but quickly got back on his feet, accepted what had happened, and ran with the new information in order to do something for Melanie. More used to it? More comfortable with it? Ready to use everything he can in order to fight? There was something overall… more firm, more goal-orientated within Jon afterwards, and it also made me think of… Gertrude.

(MAG101) “MICHAEL”: Gertrude Robinson did not waver. She did not… hesitate. She gave no indication that she saw anything more or less than was expected. Hers was not a mind that left room for doubt. She stared into us carefully, her eyes scanning for something that was my heart. Looking for my door. And she found it.

(MAG125) BASIRA: The guy said you’d need to hit the right nerve for it to work. Do you know much ab– ARCHIVIST: [STATIC-] Here. [/STATIC] BASIRA: You sure? ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] Yes. […] … God. Look at that. [STATIC] BASIRA: I don’t… It’s a leg. ARCHIVIST: No. Inside… BASIRA: I don’t know what you’re seeing, Jon. ARCHIVIST: It’s… Christ, it’s all rotten… BASIRA: Can you see the bullet? ARCHIVIST: Yes… […]  BASIRA: You better be right about this. ARCHIVIST: I am.

Jon was sure when it came to what was happening and… that part was a novelty. It wasn’t the fake-it-until-it-becomes-real from season 1, nor the blatant bullshitting from season 2; he was certain of his information. (And!! Using it for good!! Gertrude had one priority, stopping the rituals, and… so far, it seems that Jon’s is more about protecting the assistants. … which means there will probably come a point where he’ll have to choose between the two, and it will hurt, uh.)

- But at the same time, it was still… Jon. Jon being awkward, Jon asking the wrong kind of questions to the person in front of him,

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: … yes, right. Sorry. You, er… you managed to get some anaesthetic? BASIRA: Here. The guy said it was a nerve block. Should numb pretty much the whole leg. ARCHIVIST: Right. Right. … Was it hard to come by? BASIRA: No, I just popped down Superdrug. Yes it was hard to come by. ARCHIVIST: You–you couldn’t get any general anaesthetic, knock her out fully? BASIRA: Oh, sure! Did your spooky brain tell you the right dosage to not kill her? ARCHIVIST: … N–no. N–no, it didn’t. BASIRA: Then it’s got to be the local. Here, get on with it. ARCHIVIST: What, me? BASIRA: Yeah, she comes around, she’s gonna kill us or someone, and… You know. Not it. […] Okay, go for it. ARCHIVIST: [SHAKY VOICE] R–right. BASIRA: And pray the injection doesn’t wake her. ARCHIVIST: Yes, thank you Basira. […] BASIRA: You ready? ARCHIVIST: [DRY HOLLOW LAUGHTER] No…? [SHAKY VOICE] You’re sure you don’t have… restraints, or…

1°) I’m love Basira. I’m love how casually dry and savage she can be, how she’s just throwing Jon into the lion’s den without any hesitation nor remorse. What a legend. 2°) That [“You ready?” “No…? *laughs hollowly and does it anyway*”] refdhbjrefdhj Jon, you absolute millennial icon.

The mix of Jon being certain and awkward and obviously thinking about how it could easily end badly for him was so… satisfying and fun and hilarious to me. Still an awkward dork, I’m glad!! =D

- BUT I’M STILL WORRIED ABOUT THE WHOLE “JON USING POWERS” DEAL… if Elias had portrayed it as a good thing and as Jon sinking deeper into Beholding territory, then it’s *gulps*:

(MAG0116) ELIAS: I have been doing my best to prepare you, Jon, to See. You should hopefully have it a bit easier than the others. ARCHIVIST: Another of my… powers? ELIAS: More… an aspect of your becoming. DAISY: You don’t say. ARCHIVIST: Er… right. ELIAS: Regardless, it should, I hope, give you an edge. Otherwise I would never suggest you go yourself.

It wasn’t only a punctual ~insight~, it was a series of them (helping Jon to know where to inject the product and block the nerve) and x-ray vision allowing him to see the Spooky State of Melanie’s leg, when it was officially fine in our realm (the scans hadn’t revealed anything). I’m glad that Jon is using his powers for Good, but I don’t believe that it can last and remains as positive as it is, even though there would be something very beautiful and satisfying in the idea that no, the Fears do not actually corrupt you – it’s just that most avatars were already rotten humans to begin with? ;; (There is something fishy, to start with, with the fact that Jon is missing memories…)

(… okay, and there would also be something utterly satisfying if Elias was proven totally wrong. And bittersweet, if Tim was also proven wrong about the idea that you can’t fight these things or things happening to you.)

- The way I understood Jon’s “The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin–” is that: Jon had listened to MAG117’s tape(s), potentially even before the Unknowing, and knew about Melanie’s recollection of how she got shot – I think that part wasn’t coming from the Insight? But the new knowledge that was planted within him, or emerged from him, was something irrefutable: that the bullet was still there and the root of the problem (“Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig.”) It could/should have been a hypothesis from him, it sounds like a logical explanation; but the way it was presented, it wasn’t some wild guess or pondering. It was a certainty.

Insert here obligatory sobbing about how compulsion and this power provide Jon, who is prone to paranoia fits, who is prone to be wary of people, with absolute truth… yeah, the powers cater a bit too much to him, as a way of keeping his own personal human relationships-oriented fears at bay, uh.

- On the relationship side: gOSH, Melanie… probably won’t be fine, and would have every right to not be ;; But Melanie specifically… won’t react positively with something deliberately done to her while she had not consented (MAG102, Elias: “Even more than the others she has a visceral hatred of being trapped. Regardless of how much freedom I afford her.”), even if it could ultimately save her from The Slaughter. She probably won’t forgive.

She was already in an antagonistic spiral regarding Jon, (MAG102: “We’ll try it your way. But whatever your way actually is, you’d better figure it out fast. Because it is your fault that I’m here. Fix it, or get out of the way!” / MAG124: “Wipe that look off your face. Like you’re not the reason all of this is happening. Like you’re any better than– […] He’s still alive. You are still alive. So THIS PLACE is still–!”), and even though part of it was probably Slaughter-induced (MAG117: “Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … asshole… God! I just want to rip his…! [BREATHES] When did I… start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger…? … Hum.”), Jon highlighted in his conclusions about MAG125’s statement that perhaps The Slaughter is not making people lose their mind so much as making them follow something they already had inside of them.

At the same time, we already got Tim resenting and antagonising Jon at every turn, so I don’t know if Melanie will ultimately follow the same path? Technically, it’s… probably Basira who should deserve her ire about the non-consensual surgery on her asleep body, since:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira. [STANDS UP] [CLICK.] […] You’re sure we shouldn’t just… tell her…? BASIRA: … I really don’t know how she’d take it. Not well. If we want to get it out of her, this is it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] Okay.

JON WANTED TO TALK TO MELANIE ABOUT IT!!! Holy shit, Jon!! Such progress ;__; First for going to talk to Basira about it right away, and then for offering to talk to Melanie, and for ultimately trusting Basira’s judgement about it!!

Basira’s cold pragmatism is not… exactly surprising, to be honest: she’s always been prone to assessing the situation and making drastic decisions right away when it comes to saving lives or to doing what she deems right (Daisy in MAG092, the expedition to stop Rayner, the fact that she took the tapes from the police to give them to Jon when they tried to cover up the reason her colleague died…). In this particular case, there was no right thing to do? Melanie would have probably exploded and ruined any chance for them to remove the bullet if they had even tried to mention its existence to her, true? But they took the decision for her and it was definitely wrong on many levels, and Melanie will have many reasons to feel shaken, violated and betrayed by what they did ;; She already had it bad in season 2 (the fact that her old team fell apart, her first injury, her downfall) and season 3 (the second injury, the lack of options, the fact that she actually got trapped in the Institute, Elias torturing her with the memories of her father’s death), I hope she won’t get too messed up by this new thing?? ;; But the concept of non-consensual surgery applied to her, with her personality, with everything that has already happened to her… is especially horrifying ;; (And she has no support network either… Maybe Georgie still applies, though, but the situation is likely to get complicated in that area since Georgie is also tied to Jon.)

… at the same time, there could be something comforting for Melanie in getting a hold back on her own anger, instead of the foreign surge of violence that was injected into her? I really don’t see how the situation could get better for her and ;; I’m sad sad sad.

… on the other hand, Basira will probably open up a bit more to Jon after this, since… he kinda proved himself to her, here? Proved that, even though he has powers, even though he’s ready to use them, even though he has sunk deeper in, he’s also there to help the assistants, even if it means getting hurt or ruining his relationships with them – as long as it helps them to survive. So. We’ll see.

;;

(I have trouble picturing that nobody will visit Elias in prison at some point, so, hey. Basira is the one who has contacts in the police. She might be a bit more willing to share them with Jon.)

- I can Never Believe how this show manages to always make moments… creepy, and tense, and horrifying, and convey that well a sense of dread while, at the same time, making them so hilarious. The dialogues are always lovely; but Basira and Jon were just… amazing, here.

  (- Patreons already got the title for MAG126 with the new schedule planning, and it feels so weird to speculate with the title alone! Not spoiling it, then, but I’m worried about its second meaning (outside of the statement itself). Could be many very wrong things, and the worst I’m coming to on my own, as of now, is “what if it’s about Peter and Martin”.)

[dramas-vs-novels]

Hello. You said before that you wrote a supernatural fanfic that you lost? I was just wondering if you could say what it was about (if you want to, I don't want to be a bother)? I read some of your other fics and while I don't understand a lot because I'm not in those fandoms I feel like you would have a better end of Supernatural than whatever that was we just got (If you've heard about that). Sorry for long ask, thank you if you answer or if you don't!

Oh, I’ve heard about it, LMAO! 

I used to be deep in the SPN fandom on tumblr. Went to a con, met Jared, Jensen, Misha, Jim (got a photo with all 4 of them!), Kim, Rachel, Richard, Matt, and even met Genevieve in passing! Oh, and the guy who played Dick the Leviathan. I totally blank on his name. I think I bailed around season... 8 or 9? 

Kind of rage-quit after they killed off Kevin. At that point they’d just done too much of that crap in a single season and it was pretty obvious they’d lost any semblance of care for the writing, so I bailed.

I’m fine talking about the plot of my fic. When I’d had time to process the shock of losing more than 200 pages of writing *sobs* I posted a summary of how it was supposed to go for my readers. When I do that it’s my way of saying “I quit forever”.

I’ll put the main answer below the cut, since it’ll probably end up being long. My fic was in the form of an entire season of SPN, one 45-47 page chapter per “episode”, so it’s a bit to summarize...

The story took place at some indeterminate point after Season 6. It was written to be independent of the Leviathan Storyline, but really could fit in just about anywhere. I think I’d used details from the season where Sam Carter from SG1/SGA was an evil angel lady, but also it was heavily anchored in Seasons 1-6.

It started with mass destruction in this one town. In the middle of the crater something ragged and uncontrolled and evil appeared. Seriously- destruction was the core of it all. Pure, raw, uncontained power lashing out at everything.

And then the creature at the center of the swarm starts to walk away, leaving a path of destruction behind it.

After a chapter or two of monster-of-the-week type stuff, Sam and Dean started hearing whispers of this thing. Like it was circling them. Through Cas they find out that Heaven is on edge- something has escaped from the deepest, darkest corners of Heaven’s Prison (Dean makes a comment about how hell is supposed to be heaven’s prison, but Cas explains that there are some things too horrible to be sent to hell, away from the watchful guard of angels).

My favorite chapter of anything I’ve ever written opened with people shopping in a store in some small town, kind of a boutique store, and there is a sudden violent quake, everything goes pitch black, then kind of orange. They hear strange noises and long story short Hell is basically growing unstable, collapsing on itself, and this store just randomly fell into Hell. With all the dicking around on the surface with the apocalypse and Leviathans and whatever the fuck else, reality is essentially collapsing in on itself. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and the mortal world are all colliding.

Sam and Dean are trying to figure out why this store just kind of vanished (the authorities say sinkhole but it’s basically a crater where this thing once stood) when Sam collapses.

Dean gets him to the hospital and is suddenly dizzy. He turns and finds himself trapped in his own mind, where the thing circling them appears. It needs something from Hell, Dean needs to save the humans, and neither can complete their goal without the other.

The woman (it is all in black and appears to have no face, but speaks with a female voice) has ripped a piece of Sam’s soul away. He is trapped in horrific agony and the woman will leave him there forever if Dean doesn’t help her.

She manages to open a path between this world and hell and Dean goes back to hell with her.

When they return (somewhat victorious but it’s very gory and a lot of people died), Dean has no idea what it is she’s taken. But also where there was once swirling black mist under the hood of her cloak, there is a face rotted, ripped, and destroyed.

Adventures, Adventures, Adventures

The boys cross paths with the woman again. She’s stronger now and her face is looking more human-esque. Castiel is also extremely agitated as he learns about this woman and all he’ll tell Dean is that he needs to kill her on sight. Castiel gives Dean one of the angelic blades for protection (Cas was with them for a lot of the story but I can’t remember what I had him doing). 

Dean comes across this thing again, it is standing over Sam as he screams and writhes and so he stabs it with the angelic blade- the thing that should kill anything.

It doesn’t do shit.

Adventure, drama and whatnot later (around what would be episode 19) the story comes out in fits and bursts:

Once upon a time, in the 1600s, Zachariah decided to make an apocalyptic safety net. He manipulated events to bring together a Campbell and Winchester line (implied Sam and Dean are descended from siblings of these two). The couple had two children- Elizabeth (older) and Matthew (younger).

Two powerful demon hunting families were outcasts in their village. They were forced to live far from the main settlement, and one day the villagers went all witch-hunt-ie and burned the parents alive. Elizabeth and Matthew (only a small child) were left alone.

One winter, as Matthew was dying and Elizabeth- barely alive herself- was hunting in the forest, she came across a young native American man. It was love at first sight. She collapses and he follows her tracks to carry her back to her hovel. When she comes to he’s built a fire, prepared some food (Elizabeth was a shit hunter, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from 3 feet away), and has also given Matthew some herbs that help break his fever.

Elizabeth and the young man (I can’t remember what name i gave him) fell deeper in love over that winter. But right when she starts to think things are getting better, the villagers are incensed. They attack, and make Elizabeth watch as they burn Matthew and her love. At this point Matthew is like 6, so, you know, truamatic.

Elizabeth is deemed a feeble-minded woman and kind of thrown aside. That night she goes on a rampage and murders a lot of the villagers in their beds before they catch her and hang her.

But that wasn’t the end of Elizabeth Winchester’s story. It was the beginning.

Elizabeth was a safety net for the apocalypse. Her soul should have gone to Hell for what she did, but instead Zachariah dragged her up into Heaven’s Prison. There, Zachariah tortured Elizabeth for 400 years (which is idk in heaven-time, there is a whole segment of the fandom who analyzes the time in heaven/hell vs on earth).

She became, essentially, a demon made by Heaven itself. They were trying to get her to say ‘yes’ to Michael. That way, if Dean proved to be a turd (spoiler alert: the biggest turd), heaven could resurrect Elizabeth and Michael has a backup. One of the main tortures Zachariah employed was literally strapping angelic grace to her. Demons on Earth are burned up when they catch a glimpse of Grace, but in Heaven she couldn’t even die, so it both drove her overwhelmingly insane and also made her incredibly powerful.

After Zachariah’s death she was forgotten, and left in her cage with that grace burning her soul for years.

Bobby, Jo, Ellen, etc. canonically wander through heaven at-will, evading angels when needed. They were the ones who found their way into the prison and brought her out, but too quickly lost control of her and she returned to the world of the living herself.

A demon with the grace of an archangel.

Bobby, Jo, Ellen, etc. made a pact with her- they let her go, she enters the Cage and destroys both Lucifer AND Michael.

What appeared to be Elizabeth torturing Sam (it kinda was- she’s half demon remember) was also a sort of act of kindness. Sam’s soul was still lashed to The Cage. It was covered in the markings of that place, and when he died it would suck his soul back in. Elizabeth was removing those marks- essentially skinning Sam’s soul and applying those pieces to herself to give her access to the Cage. Taking Dean with her to Hell was also so she could get something that would help her in the Cage.

As they are preparing for her to rip apart the rest of the marks on Sam’s soul (which may kill him), Heaven is trying to intervene to stop her (because Team Michael and they want the apocalypse back on track). They send an archangel to stop her--

The young man she’d fallen in love with back when she was human.

It turns out the man was an angel all along- he played her and arranged his own horrible end (and that of her brother) to push her over the edge. They needed a pure soul with a bit of demonic power to maybe give Elizabeth an edge as a vessel for Michael.

She rips the grace out of the angel. Zachariah’s torture- constantly strapping her to a grace and ripping it away taught her how. It is the most agonizing and horrific end to an angel possible, her act of vengeance.

Eventually Elizabeth would make it to Hell, rip Michael’s grace from Adam, and the Cage would seal behind her after she sent Adam back up. There was going to be a sequel (second season) in which Elizabeth returns.

Her relationship with Sam and Dean in “season 1″ was very contentious and kind of frenemy-esque (think Meg at times). “Season 2″ was going to be more about her just not knowing what to do now. She can’t trust heaven or hell, so she kind of ends up lost and following the Winchesters on their hunts without them noticing her at first or being able to speak to her (like she only shows up sometimes and then vanishes again).

“Season 2″ wasn’t really planned out, but by the end of it they’d have found out Chuck was God. As a sort of apology/ way to get them to stop constantly resurrecting people in the goddamn show/ reward Elizabeth’s soul was “healed” of it’s demonic edge, the Grace would fully anchor (making her an archangel), and she would be given a new realm of death to rule over- one for hunters or supernatural creatures who had been resurrected or in some way used by Heaven or Hell to spend their afterlife at peace.

No chance of resurrection, no matter the spell, and no interference even by other archangels. The hunters dicking around with the paths through heaven would be sent there too (for their protection, the angels in heaven were starting to hunt them in return).

I feel like I’m missing details, I somewhat repress my memories of this fic because losing it was that traumatic, but yeah. That was the general thrust of it.

[mittensmorgul]

not only MP, now also misha said that cas will be back but we must consider there are also alternate universes, this is making me more nervous I don't want an alternate cas , all the character development and his history with dean lost, it's so upsetting :(

Yeah, I’ve had questions along this line, but I haven’t been able to really answer formally. Along these lines and also in my inbox this morning: (AN: all things in italics are other anon messages… sometimes my inbox helps me out with anons sort of answering each other… Eldritch Inbox):

Hello, i’m sorry if you answered this already, but i do have a question about a certain theory going about about the idea of an au!cas (possibly the one who got killed?) I guess i’m kind of confused about it and was wondering if you’ve either already spoken on it or can expand on the idea? thanks :)

and

Im worried now theyll just exchange Cas for AU cas and think thats fine because we still have the same actor. The flash did the same thing had the character leavd and brozgh the guys alernative version to stick around

and:

While I can see them (hopefully) using AU Cas in good way for a few eps (tho it doesn’t make sense because there would be no reason for JimmyCas in the other world, but they often don’t address stuff that doesn’t make sense well) I don’t think they would decide to not bring regular Cas back. They have 2 seasons left. I don’t think they would get rid of 1 of the mains. 50% if you counted Crowley. Tho they did that with Angel and the relationship on that show in the last season. Hmm.

Okay, I really, truly 100% honestly don’t think they’re going to use AU Cas at all as a replacement for OUR Cas. If the show is going to open up more alternate realities, I can see OUR Cas (and Sam and Dean) meeting those alternate universe versions for an episode here and there, if only to MIRROR what our Cas is going through, but WHY would they bring Cas THIS FAR in his story, to the point where HE HIMSELF has developed and grown and learned SO MUCH ABOUT HIMSELF, and been prodded by practically EVERY CHARACTER EVER about WHO HE IS and WHAT HE WOULD CHOOSE TO BE if they were just gonna toss him out and bring in replacement copies with entirely different life experiences?

We don’t just love the concept of what would essentially boil down to a random character wearing Misha’s face, WE LOVE OUR CAS. Who we’ve watched struggle FOR NINE DAMN YEARS to get to this point in his understanding of humanity, his compassion, his sense of family, and his LOVE for the Winchesters… like two steps before he was ready to make some BIG FINAL CHOICES for himself… And I can’t think of ANY reason for the writers to just erase ALL of that and start over with a “blank slate” version of Cas. Honestly if that’s what they’re planning to do, I would forever be officially done with this damn show.

Talk about your Jump The Shark moments.

BUT! Considering the Cas we saw on screen looked identical to our Cas, down to the coat and tie, and the fact that the Apocalypse AU didn’t look like they had a Dillard’s, I’m assuming that we have not met a Castiel from that AU. What reason would he have for looking like Jimmy Novak in our Castiel’s outfit when AU Bobby looked the way he did, and when AU demons LOOKED like demons (not possessed humans), and when we heard AU angels were human-hating monsters too… Something tells me AU Cas would look NOTHING like Jimmy in suit and tie. It just makes no logical sense.

Even MAGIC in that AU didn’t seem to work properly. Crowley’s spell didn’t seem to be what closed the portal. It was the nephilim’s birth that closed it.

Which brings me back around to the beginning of the line (just like the structure of the episode, and the meta-ness of the title– a song that ends at the beginning…)

Kelly grabs Cas’s hand, after he’s seen the AU that the nephilim SHOWED HIM SPECIFICALLY, of what the world without the Winchesters would look like– remember in 12.09 when Cas was ADAMANT that the world needs every last Winchester? And he was willing to break cosmic-level deals to make sure the world could keep its Winchesters? To me, in this scene where Kelly needs reassurance about Castiel’s “vision of the future” the nephilim showed him, that is something that’s ALSO forefront on his mind:

Kelly: Tell me again. Tell me again what you saw.Cas: All right. I saw… I saw (he closes his eyes and concentrates on Kelly taking his hand in 12.19, exactly as she just did now)… I saw the future. (flashback to 12.19, with the nephilim’s power flowing through Cas and lighting his eyes up gold). I saw a world without pain, or hunger, or want. I saw the world that this child– that your child– will create. And it is a world without fear, and without suffering, and without hate. I saw paradise.

As he finishes recounting the memory for her, the lights flicker and we hear the Impala pulling up outside. Like the nephilim was alerting Cas to the Winchesters’ presence.

And then Cas learns that Lucifer isn’t in the cage. He can’t even believe it at first. So that’s something the nephilim obviously didn’t bother informing him about… Dean asks Cas if he’ll be able to torch Lucifer the same way he torched Dagon, and Cas attributes that 100% to the baby (who’s a little busy being born at the moment…). But in 12.19, Cas said it was a combination of their powers… so what’s the truth?

Even as Cas tells Dean that it was only the nephilim working through him, he heals Dean in a way that is VERY DIFFERENT from every other time in history. I’m not the only one who noticed. I refer you again to my inbox:

I think it’s interesting that literally seconds after Cas tells Dean he doesn’t have the nephilim’s power at his disposal, he heals Dean’s leg with the nephilim’s gold light. It makes me wonder if Cas has some of the nephilim’s power within him that could save him. OR when Cas healed Dean, maybe that power transferred to Dean. He seemed oddly invigorated after he was healed, ya know? Like more so than usual.

and:

Hi so when I was watching the second ep after Cas first left the alternate dimension I noticed he seemed a bit off. Do u think there’s any way that he was like possessed or something?

BECAUSE YES! HELLO! I’ve been saying that the nephilim has somehow been using Cas since 12.19. Maybe it’s not “brainwashing” or “mind control,” but I’ve been struggling to explain the nuance here. Maybe more like “infection?” or “poison?” In a similar way the Lance of Michael “poisoned” Cas in 12.12, But that’s not even right.

Like the Angel Tablet was able to direct Cas to protect it over everything else, even his relationship with the Winchesters, I think the nephilim has that kind of power over him. And that for whatever reason, he Chose Cas as his protector.

Cas also tried to prevent Sam and Dean from going out back and seeing the portal in the first place. And then he downplayed it while also being mesmerized by it. But he’s absolutely certain that Jack OPENED the door, and that he will close it too.

Cas then goes up to talk to Kelly alone, and she asks him what’s wrong… and it looks like he’s SINCERELY HAVING DOUBTS. While Dean’s downstairs telling Sam that he has faith in US… 

WE DO NOT SEE WHAT GOES DOWN BETWEEN CAS AND KELLY aside from him holding her hand AGAIN and sort of robotically saying, “Don’t worry, it will be fine. Remember, paradise.”

Did he tell her about the portal between worlds, and the horror on the other side of the doorway her child had opened? When Crowley showed up at the exact right moment, seemingly already knowing about the portal and exactly how to close it (in theory?) When Lucifer shows up out front (seemingly NOT already knowing about the portal?).

And Lucifer’s reasoning is the same as Amara’s was, and the same as Jack the Nephilim’s is– “I can do better than god, so I’m gonna burn the place down and start over to make the world just how I want it.”

Right before Cas attacks, Dean says, “See you on the other side, boys.”

THE OTHER SIDE.

The other side of the house… the other side of the portal.

THEIR PLAN, I CAN ONLY ASSUME, IS TO TRAP LUCIFER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PORTAL BEFORE JACK CAN CLOSE IT.

I think that’s what the nephilim WANTED. And also why he waited SO LONG to close it… because Crowley’s spell was never going to work there. But the nephilim wanted Sam and Dean and CAS TOO on THIS SIDE OF THE PORTAL. I think that AU was the nephilim’s solution to shoving Luci back in the cage. To send him to a world where his vessel bloodline is extinct. A world he can’t possibly destroy any more than it’s already destroyed. He wanted an apocalypse, that’s what Jack gave him.

Cas is knocked out in front of the house. I’m sort of enamored with the idea that he’s still unconscious out there, and the Cas we saw in the rest of the episode was nothing more than a construct– an illusion sent by Jack to act as a lure, for whatever reason. Because his actions after this are a bit confusing…

Sam and Dean lead Lucifer around to the portal and then cross over to lure Luci through. Dean plays bait while Sam and Crowley work the spell (why on THAT side of the rift? Why not on the “right side”?

Sam pulls Dean away to the rift as Crowley sacrifices himself, and for some reason they just stop there? They stand around watching Crowley’s demise. YET SOME VERSION OF CAS THAT DOESN’T EVEN RESPOND TO DEAN, JUST PUSHES PAST HIM AND SAYS NOTHING, just charges through the rift toward Lucifer, and then seemingly just– walks up to Lucifer, stabs him, and then turns right around and comes back out again?

All while Kelly DISAPPEARS ENTIRELY IN A FLASH OF LIGHT AS JACK IS “BORN?”

We see Lucifer completely unaffected by the bullets Dean shot him with in the AU, as if Cas hadn’t been expecting Lucifer to be able to follow him out for some reason…

Kelly’s body has mysteriously returned to the bed after the light flash, and Jack’s huddled in the corner of his nursery staring up at Sam with those creepy yellow eyes.

I think Jack’s been using Cas all along, ever since 12.19, and I have seen nothing to break me of that belief.

It’s as if every time Cas gets near Sam and Dean, Jack loses a little bit of that control though. But Jack understands that Dean is both necessary as a motivation for Cas (he does everything for the Winchesters, not for heaven, not even for himself), as well as a potential risk. It’s as if Dean is what’s opening up Cas’s “doorways to doubt,” that he told Dean about in 4.16, right after Uriel told Dean that he was Cas’s “weakness.”:

DEAN: What’s going on, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?CASTIEL: My superiors have begun to question my sympathies.DEAN: Your sympathies?CASTIEL: I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You. They feel I’ve begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgment.

Then in 4.18 Cas relents and gives Dean the nudge in the right direction he needs to stop Sam from making a deal with Lilith (which could’ve potentially STOPPED the apocalypse, but that was before we knew killing Lilith would START it… but feels almost like a test of Cas’s loyalty to Heaven as much as anything, because that entire EPISODE seems in retrospect like a strange loop of Chuck getting to know the players in his own game), and leads directly to him being dragged back to Heaven Boot Camp for reprogramming.

When Cas comes back at the end of the episode, he’s changed. He serves heaven again, not man, and certainly not Dean…

I think Castiel’s “death” in 12.23 is serving the same sort of function. I’m thinking of it as Jack’s answer to Heaven Boot Camp. I am still absolutely convinced that Jack has been influencing Cas’s actions since 12.19, and that Cas is imbued with Jack’s power (hence the golden light when he healed Dean). There is no other explanation for it. Why else give Dean that little cut on his face that we got to see healed with that weird gold light, if it wasn’t to tell us that it was Jack’s power that healed him? It wasn’t clear in 12.19 because Cas was healing an internal injury beneath Dean’s jacket. We didn’t see that healing at work, because we were supposed to be asking ourselves whether or not Cas was being controlled by Jack still… but NOW WE HAVE VISUAL PROOF.

Why would Jack go through all this trouble to keep Cas close while keeping the Winchesters away unless they (or Dean, really) were interfering with that control somehow? Like Cas and his doubts in s4? And even in s5?

Like every time Cas has been “programmed” in Heaven one of his primary objectives was to STAY AWAY FROM THE WINCHESTERS? Like in 7.17 when he was Emmanuel. One day with Dean and he remembered EVERYTHING. Like Naomi controlling him in 8.17, where one day with Dean and he broke free of her control, only to be ruled by the angel tablet and immediately feel the need to run away from Dean again.

We even learned that CROWLEY spent most of s6 trying to convince Cas to stay away from Sam and Dean. It was the foundation of his entire plan to crack purgatory for the souls… 

Instead of bringing Kelly back to the bunker in 12.19, KELLY (under the control of the nephilim already) STOLE THE IMPALA and ran away from the Winchesters. And then when Cas fell under Jack’s power he booped them unconscious and fled.

WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?

Because all of heaven, earth, hell, and purgatory KNOW that Cas needs to be kept away from Dean if they want to use Cas for their own ends… and that’s exactly what Jack wants. But how can he sever Cas’s connection to the Winchesters?

FACTORY RESET.

He doesn’t have a Heaven Boot Camp with the Dentist’s Chair of Horror.

My guess? The Cas we’re going to see in 13.01 is going to be disturbingly familiar to the Cas at the end of 4.20. Instead of serving Heaven, he’s going to be all aboard the Jack bandwagon. Because Jack still needs SOMEONE, but he needs someone whose faith in him is unshakable. And as long as Cas has ties to the Winchesters as anything more than a symbolic reason for following Jack’s plan for bringing “paradise” to the world, a symbol he’d been willing to sacrifice himself for, then Cas’s loyalty was always in jeopardy.

But resurrected as something NEW, bearing Jack as the source of his power instead of Heaven or God or wherever angel Grace is hooked up to as a power source, he may have much greater control over Cas.

At least, that’s how I’ve been thinking of it…

(and I suspect that Cas will be restored to himself by midseason, and Jack will have effectively moved into Big Bad territory by then…)

[justgotham]

When will the increasingly malevolent Edward Nygma finally embrace his super-villainous identity as The Riddler? According to actor Cory Michael Smith, the man inside Ed's greener and greener suits, the big reveal is now.

With "Gotham" returning after a winter hiatus for the remaining seven episodes of its third season, Smith has finally stepped into the center ring as Gotham City's emerging prince of psychotic puzzles who uses his razor-sharp intellect in the service of increasingly malicious and attention-seeking antics.

And, as Smith reveals, after all the lengthy, deliberate setting of the table and plenty of time to chart out Ed's evolution, it's been pretty easy being green -- as long as it's in a suit and not a question mark-covered leotard.

Moviefone: Here you are, right at the doorway of becoming The Riddler that we've all been expecting him to become. Tell me about getting him to the point where we left him, and where we're about to go.

Cory Michael Smith: It's been quite a long ride here. Where we are at this point: he just killed the mayor, who happened to be his best friend, and also kind of his mentor in villainy. Frankly, the only person that he would trust to kind of guide him into this lifestyle. Perhaps the only person equipped to deal with him and guide him that way.

So he's kind of in this crisis at the moment where he has to decide what his next move is. Does he continue to run the city by proxy, and pretend like he has no idea what happened to Oswald, until a new mayor is elected, and then maybe he finds a different job in the government? Which I don't imagine is what he wants. There's that path.

Or, this thing that he's kind of preparing himself for, that he kind of yearns for, this challenge, and this exciting option, which is, have a coming out party as a villain. Find your identity. Figure out someone to kind of replace Oswald as this person who can help you find your identity, figure it out, and then, like, go for it, man! So that's what this first episode back is all about.

What was fun for you playing, first, the bond and the friendship that Ed and Oswald had, and then how it all turned ugly? Tell me about that arc for you and what was the kind of delight as an actor to play.

First of all, it's imitated real life. Not the bad part, but the good part; Edward admires Oswald as a villain and as a leader. He was happily No. 2 to Oswald. I certainly admire Robin [Lord Taylor] , and I've enjoyed everything he's done in this show. So it was kind of this really easy thing to be like, "Oh my gosh, now Robin, a dear friend of mine, and I get to work together and be like buddies." So it just kind of was easy and fun.

Jeff Neumann/FOXThen as I figure out that I lose the second person that I've fallen in love with, it tasted like this second opportunity at normalcy somehow, which wasn't ever the plan, but it found me again. When that was stolen from me, and I found out that Oswald was the culprit -- this was the only person I ever really, outside a relationship, trusted, or admired in such a way that I became their friend, they let me be their friend, and then this is how they kind of repay me. First it was Jim, sort of trying to pretend like he was my friend, and now it's Oswald.

I just think there's a lot of scar tissue there. This is someone who never really had friends, and wanted them, and then all of a sudden had his best friend, and is lied to and betrayed, and has a love stolen from him. So the kind of turn and fall into wanting to hurt someone was kind of, I think, easy for him. It felt like this is just justice, and this is vengeance, this is Oswald's language, so it seems only fair that I would use his vocabulary on him.

Is Ed almost an entirely different person from the Ed you started playing?

Absolutely! Yeah, I think a theme in the journey of Edward is issues with identity. I've leaned really hard into, every time something happens to him, and he's seeking for an answer, or he wants to change, or he's trying to change, he's making these declarations about how he's going to live now, and how he's not going to live, I've made sure that he really committed to each thing he was doing, and tried a new kind of life and existence.

One of the most freeing things that happened was when we had two Edwards, and there was a physical manifestation of all of the qualities about himself that he thought were outside of himself. The kind of swagger, and confidence, sexuality. These are things about him that he was intimidated by, and never practiced as sweet little Ed at the GCPD.

So when he kind of accepted the fact that this was him, and this was his identity, or that fate has given him of maybe he's a bad person and he doesn't deserve a good life, accepting that, and accepting all of these colors that were a bit murkier, really freed him up to be a fuller human being, and constantly surprised himself with his capacity and capabilities.

So this season, for example, I made a really strong choice for him, when trying to intimidate people, to really lower his voice, and try to offer a sort of commanding presence by altering the way that he was communicating with people physically. And the thing that happened, in my experience as Ed, was that people actually responded to that. So Ed kept doing that.

That wasn't something that I had planned out. It was like an experiment of his. Of like, "Oh, how do I make people think I have purpose, and I have strength, and I have power?" And it worked, and people were listening to him. I've really allowed him to explore identity and try stuff out, and then respond to the fellow actors and adjust accordingly.

You took your research and the character's 60-odd year history very seriously. What has it meant to you to really do such a defining version in a mass media format with The Riddler, to go deep with the character in a way that nobody else has really been able to do? And in a way that probably hasn't really gone that far in the comics even?

Look, I certainly feel privileged for a couple reasons. One, that I get to contribute to a part of the mythology that really hasn't been charted extensively at all; two, that we now have three years in the can, and hopefully more to come. It's my first time I've done long form television, and there's such a joy as an actor, not only to be able to tell a story of a character over a long period of time, but to tell a story of a character that's as dynamic as this, and that has gone through such a change in three years. It's so exciting and invigorating.

Lastly, I feel really privileged because the audience, they were receptive from the beginning, and they gave him a chance, and they went along with what started as a pretty slow journey, and I felt a real commitment and support from our audience with what we've done. So I feel really grateful for that.

You're getting more and more shades of green in your wardrobe.

Yeah, man. Yeah. We're getting really green!

Tell me what's been fun about plotting that evolutionary direction, and working with your costumers to get Ed to full-on Riddler green.

This season has been super fun because we kind of found the shape and template of the suit that we wanted. Then it was just about gradually changing the colors of green. So over the course of Season 3, I must have had, I don't know, eight to 10 different colors of green that we were working with, leading up to the green suit that we introduced in [Episode] 15, which is quite a vibrant green, especially for "Gotham," because most of our characters have a bit more of a darker, dull tone. You'll get like a splash of color here and there, but I am wearing a very bright, glittery green suit.

When I first saw it in the fitting room, I was like "Wait, wait, wait, is that the suit?" They were like, yeah. I said, "Have you shown the producers pictures of this material?" They were like, "Yeah [director/producer] Danny Cannon loves it." "Danny loves this color green in our show?" I lost my sh*t, because I was like, this is really bright. When I do scenes with people and they're all in black leather, I'm going to look like a Christmas ornament.

But it's been quite fun, and it feels right to me, because there's something about Ed's coming out that is like, it feels flamboyant, and I like that all of a sudden he's saying, "Look at me. I am ready for the attention, I am ready for this, and you all need to look at me. Look at my bright green suit." I added a line in 15 on the day when we were filming it. I have this scene, because the mayor is obviously missing, I am speaking to the cadets, and it's their graduation. And I'm like, "You all look fabulous. How do I look?"

It's the first time that I wear my suit, and I loved it so much. It was the first time I got to wear it, I was on set, everyone was, like, freaking out. So I had to add it, because I just thought it was such a delicious moment where he was like, look at me. Does anyone like my green? No one notices but him. I just wanted him to like relish in it.

As you mentioned, the two people closest to him are out of the picture right now. Does anybody kind of fill the void early on in the rest of the season? Do you get to do some scenes with some other characters that maybe you haven't gotten to play with as much?

I do. There's this interesting ... I don't know that you can call it an alliance yet, but I have a relationship with Barbara, and she is the person who kind of lifted the veil on Oswald's actions and intentions.

So there's a sort of interesting partnership between the two. They both have needs and wants, and they're not necessarily complimentary, but they try to help each other out get what they want, and it's a very interesting companionship they develop, and it's certainly been fun working with Erin [Richards].

It seems like you're still going to have to wait for scenes with David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne, because that seems like something that's really more going to happen further down the road. Tell me what you're looking forward to in getting to play that dynamic.

What I'm really excited about is ... we've already been introduced -- it was in Arkham Asylum, so he knows who I am, but I didn't know who I was at that point. So to be reintroduced in, like, the classic way of, "This is Bruce Wayne, and this is The Riddler," is kind of exciting.

Also, what I'm doing here at the beginning of Edward kind of calling himself The Riddler, and pursuing this title of villainy, the reality is, he doesn't know what he's doing, or what he wants to do with it, or how he's going to act, or present himself, or behave. So I have everything starting really intense and forceful. He's like really aggressive and brusk.

So what I'm excited about going into Season 4 is him kind of like figuring out exactly what his presentation is of a riddle -- like, really finding his elegance as the Riddler, the showmanship, the grace. I'm like really excited about Edward finding his way to that, which I think should take some time.

If they ever ask you to put on a Frank Gorshin-style leotard, are you up for it?

Oh boy! If they want to pay for my personal training months in advance of me putting on a friggin' leotard, then that's cool. But otherwise, I really dig the suits.

I think they're classy. I think it fits into the version of Riddler that I really like, which is someone who is a showman, and is elegant. I think it's most appropriate based on where we started, which was this like clunky, socially inept, gawky, awkward, tense guy that was like scooting around the GCPD to becoming this man who has some prowess, and some power, and is like smooth in his presentation.

I think it's actually quite intimidating to have someone be so slick present you something, and your life is on the line, rather than someone trying to scare you and intimidate you. Like I said, I think that's kind of where I want to work toward.

I've always liked the iteration of The Riddler as kind of a psychopathic game show host.

Yeah. "The Riddle Factory" is my favorite. It's great. I like the guy that is a bit of a showman. I just want him to be able to be really slick, and classy, and then explode from that. But until you learn how to be a graceful, elegant dancer, then the snapping out of it won't be as impactful.

[gotsevenheaven-blog]

Best Tv Shows Ever

'Lost' 2004-10

A cosmic mystery trip so complex nobody has ever really figured it all out – a band of castaways trapped on an island following the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, having a smoke monster and also the enigmatic group called the Others, several time lines, the Seventies back-story of the Dharma Initiative, each episode filled with clues to be argued over for years to come. Lost proved there was a broad audience around who needed their Television to be more unpredictable and difficult, not less – and Television would never be the same.

'Star Trek' 196669

The Star-Ship Business took off having a five-year mission: "To discover odd new worlds, to to locate new life and new civilizations," and it succeeded in making the most beloved of sci fi franchises, not just inspiring many spin offs but also codifying fanfiction as an art form. Gene Roddenberry's original sequence stays the basis, with William Shatner's awesomely pulpy Capt. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy's logical Mr. Spock, Bones, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty. They speak to strange and inexplicable lifeforms – Romulans, Gorns, Joan Collins. During its three years, Startrek suffered from low ratings until NBC pulled the plug, but thanks to the most doggedly loyal of TV cults (remember when "Trekkie" was an insult?), Roddenberry's vision lives long and prospers for this day.

'The Daily Show' 1996-Present

The fa-Ke news show that became mo Re credible as opposed to news that is real. Comedy Central started The Daily Present when Jon Stewart took over in 1999, but it hit its stride. The Daily Present got more politically abrasive as the news got progressively worse. Stewart had the rage of a man who had signed on at the finish of the Bill Clinton years, only to finish up with an America significantly more scary and more ugly for, as well as the anger showed. "It is a comic box lined with unhappiness," he informed Rolling Stone in 2006. While the franchise struggles on without him, Everyday alumni John Oliver and Samantha Bee keep that hard-hitting spirit on their own displays.

'Friends' 1994 2004

A team of twenty somethings in New York sit around complaining about their day jobs, their sex lives, their screwed -up households. It's a formula countless sitcoms tried to get right on the years (great try, Herman's Head), but it took the Central Perk crew to get the best mix of personalities, from Lisa Kudrow's flaky folksinger to the schlub-fox romance of David Schwimmer's Ross and Jennifer Aniston's Rachel. Even at the time, it was absurd how luxurious Monica's West Village apartment and large was, and also the storyline where she's banging Tom Selleck just gets more abdomen-turning the Blue Bloods stays that are lengthier on-the-air.

'South Park' 1997-Present

Trey Parker and Matt Stone touched America someplace special and deep, and also you got to respect their authori-teh. Year after year, this cartoon began, Matt Stone informed Rolling Stone, "we'd view success as finally acquiring to the point where we get canceled because no one gets it." So here's to not exactly twenty years of failure – and hopefully 2 more.

'The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' 196292

Heeeeeeere's Johnny! There's a cause Carson stays the template for each and every late-night host, after ruling The To Night Show for three decades. Like a TV answer to Frank Sinatra, he epitomized Rat Pack cool, and his monologues were a sound track to generations of Americans boozing every night themselves to slumber. Nearly 2-5 years after he signed-off (and more than 10 years after he died), Carson's the ghost king who nevertheless haunts evening. When he abdicated in 1992, Letterman and Jay Leno started battling for his throne and never quit. (In his last display, Letterman cracked, "It looks like I am not planning to get The Tonight Show.")

TV Series Third Watch

'The Sopranos' 1999-2007

The crime saga that slice the the history of Television kicking off a golden age when abruptly something seemed possible. About how much you could get away with on the little screen together with The Sopranos, David Chase smashed all of the rules. And he developed an American antihero in James Gandolfini's New Jersey Mob boss, Tony Soprano, presiding over a crew of gangsters who also double as dads and broken husbands, guys seeking to stay using their murderous strategies and dark recollections. As the late, great Gandolfini told Rolling Stone in 2001, "I noticed David Chase say one time that it's about people who lie to themselves, as we all do. Lying to ourselves on a daily basis and the mess it creates." What an inspiring mess it is. Since it transformed the world, this specific poll was run away with by the Sopranos. Chase confirmed just how story-telling ambition that was much tv could be brought to by you, and it didn't take long for everybody else to rise to his challenge. The breakthroughs of the next few years – The Wire, Mad Guys, Breaking Poor – could not have occurred without The Sopranos kicking the door down. But Chase had a difficult time convincing any network to battle a story of a guilt- gangster who goes to treatment, while his mother plots to kill him. "We'd no idea this show would appeal to folks," he told Rolling Stone. "The display really unexpectedly made this kind of splash that it screwed all of US up." The Sopranos kept heading for the long bomb over six masterful seasons on HBO having a wild mix of blood shed and humor. When FBI agents tell Uncle Junior which mobsters they want him to finger, he says using a shrug, "I want to fuck Angie Dickinson – let's see who gets lucky first." The Sopranos is full of damaged figures who linger on in the long term parking of our national imagination – Edie Falco's Carmela, Dominic Chianese's Junior, Michael Imperioli's Christopher, Tony Sirico's Paulie Walnuts. E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt became Tony's lieutenant Silvio – Chase spotted him on early Bruce Springsteen album addresses. (As Chase told Rolling Stone, "There was something about the E Street Band that looked like a crew.") It might not have been possible without Gandolfini's slow-burning intensity – he was the only actor who could deliver Tony's angst to life. But the writing, directing and acting went locations Television had never reached before. Where Christopher and Paulie Walnuts get lost in the woods, realizing the Russian gangster they tried to whack is nevertheless out there-in the darkness, the Sopranos arguably hit its innovative peak with all the well-known Pine Barrens episode. They shiver in the cold. ("It is the the fuckin' Yukon out there!") They wait. And worry. The Sopranos never solved this mystery – for all we know, the Russian is still atlarge, yet another key these guys can not shake off. On The Sopranos, family loyalties flip, both in the streets and a T home. Beloved characters can get whacked a T any moment. It kept that perception of danger alive proper up to the final seconds. And not quite a decade after it faded to black in a Jersey diner together with the juke-box enjoying "Do Not Stop Believin'," The Sopranos stays the standard all ambitious TV aspires to fulfill.

'30 Rock' 200613

Alec Baldwin said it best: "You are truly the Picasso of loneliness." He's a point. The Liz Lemon of Tina Fey is one gal who spends her evenings working on on her behalf evening cheese playing Monopoly alone or viewing the Life Time movie My Stepson Is My Cyber-Husband. But Fey created her a timeless heroine -space experience at The Girlie Show to the backstage antics, having a crazy- deep bench that included Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan. And Baldwin chewed up the role of his life, turning what might have been a generic sitcom boss into the only guy worthy to stand-by Lemon.

'The Office (U.K.)' 2001 03

Ricky Gervais created one of TV's most agonizing comic tyrants in David Brent – a bitter, awkward, pompous ball of vanities terrorizing his workers at a London paper organization. He fidgets, fondles his tie, cracks dreadful jokes, plays guitar ("Free Love Free Way"!), invisible to anyone except the longsuffering office drones who have to put up with him. This mockumentary raised the cringe level of sitcoms every where, spawning the remarkably great U.S. version (also on this checklist) while paving the way for the glories of Parks & Re Creation and Peep-Show.