#it's happening again

[tranquil-slaughterhouse]

[reactionimagearchive]

[achillescome-down]

It's Happening Again by Agnes Obel // True Detective Season 1x05

[see-arcane]

In which a Creature feasts and teaches another would-be Prometheus some painful truths he learned for himself a century ago. This Prometheus being one with considerably fewer scruples when it comes to getting creative about human experimentation and insisting his captive revenant spills the secrets of life, death, and cheating the latter.

Ah, well.

Some lessons bear repeating. With emphasis.

Merry Christmas, have a reanimated Victor Frankenstein getting grisly with the dramatic irony. Figured this needed a more serious counterpart to the meme-flavor version.

The placeholder title for the thing this scene hails from is, Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? I thought this was going to be another novella. Tidy. Petite. No bigger than The Vampyres.

But.

I am on chapter 5.

And I haven't even gotten to the laboratory yet.

Help me.

[justintaco]

[violetmuses]

[archenarrow]

Meta Shaped Thoughts

So the Meta remains one of my favorite things in fiction and my brain is full of it again, as it does periodically. I'm just gonna ramble an amount and try not to spin off on too many tangents but still probably will go off on several.

Basically, started with the transition from Agent Maine, to the Meta, to that third thing that happens post AI fragments. Y'know, that thing where it's still just what's left of Maine under that helmet, but it seems to still identify as the Meta. The Councilor refers to it as Agent Maine again, but he is still distinct from who Maine was before Sigma got into his head. Also its pronouns shift around with these, Agent Maine is he/him, the Meta is it/its, post AI the pronouns sometimes go either way (I think, I will admit that I haven't checked recently).

Anyway, though, starting with Agent Maine: he is on the Freelancer leaderboard for the scenes we see, but he is consistently low on it. In fact, every time we see him fight a Freelancer level foe in season 9, he loses. This is very much in contrast with how we saw the Meta in seasons 6-8. The Meta had been portrayed as an unstoppable death machine in pretty much every appearance it had. It wasn't impossible to drive it off, but it always came back stronger. Agent Maine on his own wasn't this dangerous, however he was indestructible. It reminds me of the old Sgt Rock comics. For those who didn't read them, the Sgt Rock comics are about Sgt Rock, a U.S. army sergeant during World War 2. Sgt Rock was a boxer before being a soldier, and while he wasn't a great fighter, it was impossible to keep him down. Having to beat the immovable object became a rite of passage in order to fight the actually good boxers. Anyway, I feel like Maine might have served a similar role with the Project Freelancer leaderboard, you need to be able to beat him in order to really make it into the big leagues of the Freelancers. Like, Maine just doesn't stop. He can't beat Tex in sparring, but he's the only person who is able to keep fighting past the point where his armor is supposed to be locking him in place. He seems at a stalemate with the Charon/Insurrectionist ODST up to the point where the other guy gets a gun, but being center massed with a sniper rifle, having a magnum mag dumped into his throat, shooting him with a magnum again, hitting him with a truck, then hurling him down and off an overpass all fails to kill him. Another thing is that he seems friendly with a few other Freelancers, I see people bring up his relationship with Wash, but he also seems like one of the folks who is closer to Carolina based on their banter during the heist. She jokes with him about being a baby, his lack of subtlety, and shows way more concern for Maine's injuries during the heist than she did with say North's injuries at the oil platform.

And that leads into Maine being paired with Sigma, Carolina giving up her AI so that Maine can communicate more easily (there's probably another tangent in here about ableism in Project Freelancer). Carolina later feels responsible for what Sigma would do to Maine. but we immediately see Maine becoming thematically more the Meta, even if the transformation takes time. There's the very obvious stuff, like the sequence of Maine gearing up before the assault on the Insurrectionist base, how it shows that we are very much entering Meta territory now. And the switch is immediate, from this point onwards, Maine doesn't lose a fight. In fact, Maine/The Meta begin getting back at everything that had previously bested Maine. Maybe some of this is just showcasing how much of a difference having an AI and being able to use his equipment (I forget if it's canon that Maine's equipment was strength enhancement or if that was a fan idea) makes in a fight, but there's a feeling of vindictiveness to it when Maine holds the soldier who'd shot him before helpless for a prolonged period before finishing him off. How he gives the other soldier from the freeway a moment of relief and then realization before throwing her into the sea. And also that friendliness with the other Freelancers seems to dry up, there is no more banter with Wash or Carolina, even when fighting alongside each other. The most we get is other Freelancers looking on Maine from a distance with concern about these changes. Maine's transformation into the Meta, the parts of it we see onscreen at least, is fast. His characterization changes rapidly once he is paired with Sigma, of course culminating after the crash of the Mother of Invention, the additions of Eta and Iota making the Meta fully into what it was when we first saw it in Recovery One and season 6.

But then Maine's body outlives the AI fragments, even if it still seems to identify as the Meta rather than Maine. And we see some personality changes, reverting more towards what Maine was like beforehand. It jokes with allies, heck the fact that he can work with allies again is notable. But ultimately, he still has that need to acquire AI again. I do feel like there's a few different reads on what that need to reacquire an AI. I think some of the things in the show itself blame it on Maine himself and some desire for power on his part, especially that bit at the end of Restoration. But the more interesting read to me is that it's more akin to an addiction. The Meta has been the Meta and can't go back, he can't just be a human brain working on its own now, it needs something to guide him. It literally can't function like it used to without another mind to run its equipment.

Anyway, that's a pile of thoughts on the Meta. I think that's most of the coherent stuff so I'm going to post this while my brain just kinda keeps chewing on it.

[yourbloody-valentine]

[rincewinds-hat]

Dear Lord what's happening now? Spn was trending bc if the warepire thing (congrats Ty and DJ!) and yesterday when i logged in it was gone.

But it's trending AGAIN

All i can see is the destiel confesion meme with EU wanting to ban conversion therapy (absolutely awesome)

[toffeesbabbles]

I feel like it sounds egotistical to say, but drawing Color and Ink always gives me cute aggression. They're so... I need to SGRHHEHEHEHEEJEUEHEE

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Polymorphed monsters hate this man specifically.

[sans-guy]

✨Send this to ten other bloggers you think are wonderful, keep the game going and make someone smile!!✨

noOyio

[ceruleanterrapin]

I'm having to exercise self-control and not go on a reblogging spree

[dballzposting]

idk if i missed ur birthday or im hallucinating the whole thing but i drew tarble w boobs for you feliz cumpleaños

WTF THIS IS AWESOME HOW DID I MISS THIS ? Tumblr deosnt fucking tell me anytjing I'm sorry if it's been a few days maybe it hasnt been I dont know anything.

THIS IS SO PERFRCT WTH THANK YOU !!!!

THE WAY TARBLE JUST GOES FOR THE THROAT FOR NO REASON ... GASLIGHT LEGEND

"IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN" HIS HAUNTED LOOK ...

TRULY MEANS THE WORLD . BIRTHDAYS ARE GREAT BC OF USERS LIKE YOU 💖

Thank you tenderly and for forever !!!!

[dontaskmeluv]

In the past week or so, I keep coming back to this scene from Frost/Nixon for some reason...

...can't think why...

Said about Nixon... performed during the Dubya years... and all too relevant now.

Bonus for the hate on his face:

[mychlapci]

hello, pregnancy fetishist? yes, could you write about him having... a miscarriage?