Oh! I nearly forgot, but can I ask the significance of this panel?
It comes directly after Dee explains that he can’t come and see her from the future whenever he wants. (Which is one of my favorite moments where Dee’s true eldritch horror leaks in to the story), so I assume it’s… sort of a metaphor? How Emily finds herself at the foot of something she realizes is much, much bigger than she contemplated before?
(Also, I just wanted to compliment you for this panel)
(The first time I saw it, I imagined Dee was showing her this on purpose, time traveling from sometime the same day to really show her what it would be like. An object lesson.
The second time I saw it, I started to wonder
Because Dee himself doesn’t really look aware of what is going on behind him.
And maybe, just maybe, this one moment in time has become the only moment that Dee allows himself to come back to to see Emily, the one moment where he can get lost in the crowd with every other time he came back to look. The one moment where he’s explaining why he can’t come back.
Just… Makes me sad, and I wanted to say thank you for that too, because I love these characters and the story they tell, the sweet and bitter.)
Oh!!!
(Quick test of my ability to find which chapter stuff happens in)
I love your reading of that Uluru panel!! I think I probably didn’t intend anything that deep with it; these time skip montage style chapters are pretty choppy and I’m usually trying to figure out a way to touch on all these brief scenes or moments that I don’t want to spend a whole chapter on for whatever reason, and arrange them in a way where the cuts aren’t too hideously abrupt. For visual reasons I try to contrast different locations and not put 2 dialogue heavy moments directly next to each other. Mood wise, I don’t really want to cut from something serious and angsty to something that’s a complete backflip on that. I also sometimes just feel like drawing a nice landscape and hope it achieves my aims on these fronts haha.
I think also here I was trying to move from that final sentence, “The present is more than enough”, to demonstrating them appreciating having that present together - being able to go do cool and enriching stuff, something not completely mundane but not completely fantastical either. (I mean... sightseeing within your own country is extremely normal, but going to Uluru from Melbourne... not a convenient day trip, since it’s 2000km; 25 hour solid driving, or you can fly in a few hours but I think you have to go via Sydney, so that makes it take at least twice as long I guess. Not that it's specified how long they're there for. I haven’t been myself but I’d love to one day...)
So, yeah!! More of a mechanical/compositional rationale than an intentional metaphor, but I think your reading makes complete sense and actually improves the page! (Sometimes I do intend visual metaphors... but sometimes they’re just happy accidents.)
And thanks for the compliment re the crowd of Dees!! I also love the moments I can lean into his eldritch qualities... they’re sadly few and far between but maybe that helps them be more surprising?? Definitely your first reading was what I intended, that he zigzagged back pretty quickly, probably even from within the conversation, but there is an inherent ambiguity to Dee’s time travelling where unless I take pains to spell it out, there really is no way to know when he’s come from. Even if he can be assumed to be taking every interaction chronologically, there’s no knowing how much time has passed for him between each visit. I don’t even know how to estimate how long his experience of time is, when he’s zigzagging back so densely all the time; even the number of living things on Earth any moment is an incomprehensibly mind-boggling number. That eldritch horror again!
Truth be told I hadn’t thought of him coming back to this moment and blending in with the crowd for the rest of the future ;_; but that’s so real... he could well be, the sad sack...
I had a different sillier thought from slightly misreading your question on first pass, which is that maybe he doesn’t originally know what’s going on behind him, but then later on as he’s just going about his business he goes “oh I know exactly how to punctuate that thing I said earlier!!!” and then does it as an afterthought. Oh to have the ability to add the things you wish you’d said to an earlier conversation 😂
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Breakdown and Comparison of the Books in Like Minds
So a careful viewer will notice that Nigel's bible and Alex's bible are clearly two completely different books. As @currentlyonstandbi also pointed out to me, the movie soundtrack underlines this by having two separate tracks titled "Nigel's Bible" and "Alex's Bible". The difference between the two is obvious in the two photos below.
We get glimpses of a few pages inside each of these books, and a side by side comparison will show that while they are different books, there are certain shared images that are suggestive of a few conclusions.
The first commonality is the use of the map insert seen above. Both maps appear to be exactly the same image, depicting the Mediterranean and the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades when the Templars were active. The map in Nigel's book is clearly larger and from the color of the paper seems to be somewhat older. Alex's map seems to be pulled from a different, newer source.
Both books also contain the same image of a man: Thomas Becket. It is hard to tell if this is merely the effect of the difference in lighting in each scene, but Nigel's version again appears somewhat yellowed, as if it was cut from an older book, while Alex's version seems more like a photocopy. Included below is the original of that image, as well as the art added in Alex's version, depicting the murder of Becket.
When Alex returns from his thwarted date with Susan, he throws Nigel's book across the room. It opens to this page, with an original pencil or charcoal drawing of a modern girl, and artwork depicting a skull inside a chalice or grail.
Alex's book also contains the same skull and cup image, but no copy of the sketch. This stands to reason, given that it appears to be an original drawing rather than an image pulled from an existing text. The same difference in paper color between the two versions is noticeable.
When we look at the images of the cover of Nigel's book (as seen in the Maraclea image above) we can see that the spine is smaller and that the pages seem to be full or nearly full. Alex's book seems to have a wider spine, and is clearly only partially filled, with many more blank pages remaining.
Conclusions and Analysis:
There are a couple different lines of thought one can pursue with this information. First: what happened to Nigel's book? We know that Alex can't have gone back to his room after Nigel died and therefore had no opportunity to hide it. We also don't actually know if he returned it to Nigel after reading it. One imagines that it would have been in either his room or Nigel's secret room, but we know from his conversations with Sally that it was found in neither location. It is possible that Alex is correct in his assertion that the Order removed it before the police could find it, or that the police chief (who was a member of the Order) had it removed from evidence.
The other possibility is that Alex was the true mastermind behind the events of the film, and that Nigel's book was an invention/exaggeration based on his OWN book to serve his depiction of Nigel. This seems less likely for one important reason: where was his book when the police investigated? Surely it would have been found, unless he had previously hidden it in some secret location never mentioned in the film.
The simplest explanation is that Nigel's book existed and was removed by the Order to preserve their secret lore, and Alex used the 9 months after Nigel's death to recreate his book from memory. We know from his conversation with Sally that he was completely engrossed by Nigel's book (though he tries to back pedal immediately after that). Obviously, he wouldn't have been able to recall or track down every piece of ephemera used, particularly not the metal badge or coin or the snippets of original documents or rare texts.
He also couldn't include the original drawing of the girl, probably done by Nigel himself and clearly placed next to the skull image as a reference to the Maraclea legend. Was this drawing meant to be Susan herself? Given that the moment this image is shown is almost certainly concurrent with the murder of Susan, it seems clear that a parallel is being drawn by the filmmaker. But unlike Susan in the movie, the hair is braided with bangs (Susan has no bangs and never appears with a braid), and the girl has an open collar showing a necklace with a cross pendant (also not in line with how Susan dresses in the film). We must also consider that this page is closer to the front of Nigel's book, implying that it has been there for a while. It's possible the drawing could have been pasted in later over whatever was on that page previously, or it could have entirely predated his interactions with Susan and Alex.
The end of the film highlights the fact that Alex believes in the Maraclea legend and obviously implies that Susan was his Maraclea. Nigel's 2 page Maraclea spread would have stood out in Alex's memory given the circumstances under which he first saw it and then the events which later transpired. While he couldn't have recreated the same drawing for his book, it is notable that he didn't attempt to create a similar spread with the skull/chalice image using another drawing or picture of a girl, including one of Susan herself.
Why didn't he?
The movie will never answer this question, but I'm firmly convinced it is because Nigel is his true Maraclea.
[Like Minds Masterpost]
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Melatonin
A FluffyNight drabble to celebrate reaching 50 followers on this account. It's pretty short & not beta read, but I think it's alright for being written in one sitting. Happy reading!
Beep! Beep! Beep! The sound of Ccino's alarm forced him awake, pulling him out of the pleasant dreams he had been having. Even now, Ccino could feel them slipping from his skull, leaving him wondering what exactly he had been dreaming about.
The continued beeping of his alarm pulled him from his thoughts & Ccino groaned, pushing his face into his pillow. Blindly reaching for it, Ccino attempted to turn it off without looking, knocking his hand against the other things on the nightstand before finally managing to push the button to silence it.
Blissful quiet filled the room as Ccino felt Nightmare shift next to him. Arms wrapped around him & pulled him close, holding Ccino close to Nightmare. Ccino smiled sleepily, turning on his side so he faced towards the other. He hummed quietly as he observed Nightmare looking back at him with a lidded socket, an annoyed expression on his face.
"Sorry, did I wake you?" Whispering so as to not ruin the atmosphere, Ccino questioned worriedly. Nightmare shook his head & moved slowly, readjusting them both until they were situated comfortably against each other.
Ccino smiled wider & closed his sockets, holding the other in his arms. Together in each other's arms, they both quietly drifted back to sleep.
Bonus scene!
A shrill beeping jolted them both back awake, causing Ccino to jump in Nightmare's arms. Grumbling to himself, he slowly sat up & reached over to the alarm, shutting it off.
Sitting up properly, Ccino stretched his arms above his head & groaned as he heard his joints pop, rubbing the bottom of his sockets with one hand. Picking up his phone & turning it on, his sockets widened in shock as he let out a loud, "Shoot!"
Scrambling & throwing the blanket off of himself, Ccino barely noticed as Nightmare sat up in alarm. "Is everything alright?" Ccino stammered out a reply, mild panic in his voice as he began changing out of his pajamas.
"Everything's fine! We just overslept a bit!" Relaxing slightly, Nightmare observed as Ccino got ready for the day, rushing around quickly so he wouldn't be later than he already was. If he concentrated, he could swear that he heard the meows of hungry cats impatiently calling for their breakfast.
Hastily walking over to Nightmare, having gotten dressed quickly, Ccino leaned over & placed a chaste kiss against his lovers cheek, smiling. "Love you, see you later!" With that he exited the room, leaving Nightmare sitting alone on the bed with only a warm imprint of where Ccino laid as company.
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