#l&co character analysis

[charmquarkstrangequark]

George: The Best of Us

Can’t start this one off without acknowledging that George Cubbins and George Karim do have some differences, so I’ll be looking a bit at both of them. But I agree with Lucy’s characterization of George: he’s the best of them. Warning: mild book spoilers follow.

We don’t have a lot of background from George’s early life. We know he comes from a loving family and still visits them.  George Karim mentions having a granny in Sidcup and three older brothers who are all engineers. (This is a bit funny, because he talks about his family as “engineer, engineer, engineer, weirdo”, and if you’ve ever met an engineer, you realize that there really isn’t a difference among the 4 of them.) Anyway, we know from the books that George Cubbins has a mum who has given Lockwood at least one tea cozy (it’s used to cover Skull at one point) and by extension, likely other gifts as well. So, they’re obviously loving and supportive.

We know that George once worked for Fittes.  Little is made of George’s Talent, other than Lockwood mentioning that George has the Touch, but obviously he had enough of it to get a job at the premier psychical investigation agency in the country.  In fact, he only left Fittes after being fired for being too curious; Ms. Fittes must have realized that if anyone were going to uncover the truth about the Problem, it would be George. The oversight of George’s Talent is likely because it is overshadowed by his intelligence and research skills, which are formidable.

George has the ability to do a deep dive into the history of nearly any topic or place. He has an indefatigable willingness to visit churches, libraries, and any place necessary to uncover the details of a location’s history, thus cluing his teammates into possible sources. They'd really be blundering around in the dark without his guidance. Doing research itself is a skill; knowing how to cross reference topics, knowing all the different words and phrases possible for the same topic throughout the ages, catching the minute details that link people, places, and objects together. And it’s a skill George does better than any other character that either readers or viewers meet in the Lockwood & Co universe. George can make the inferential leaps that others are blind to, and he does it intuitively and quickly, leaving others behind in the dust. Take the theft of the bone glass at Kensal Green. Lockwood and Lucy have a little role play, talking through how the thief may have made their way into the chapel - then- crime scene.  They are able to build off each other’s ideas to come up with a hypothesis, and go off to check it…only to find George already there, having already come to this conclusion on his own. In fact, George is used to working on his own, something that will set him up to be hurt later.

George and Lockwood obviously have an incredibly deep friendship, one based on mutual respect and understanding.  Lockwood appreciates George. He understands that George doesn’t think about things and people the way others do, and has no desire to change George. He values George’s differences. George respects Lockwood, too.  He recognizes Lockwood’s reckless nature, the darkness within him, but he doesn’t challenge Lockwood on it. At one point he criticizes Lucy for not stopping Lockwood from going to the Hope house without the research having been completed (“You’re meant to stop him, Lucy”), but he’s guilty of the same thing the night they go wraith hunting while Lucy is recovering from her initial interaction with Skull.  He accuses Lockwood of not giving him time to properly do the research, but obviously, he went along with Lockwood anyway. Also, his trust in Lockwood is absolute. When bad press starts coming after the Hope house fire, Lockwood says, "I'll handle it" and George just says, "Ok". He doesn't ask how; he accepts at face value that if Lockwood says he'll handle it, he will.

Over time, George and Lucy grow close, as well. He truly appreciates their blossoming friendship ("She's really starting to get me"). His concern for her behavior in the bath is genuine. (side note: I have a hc that George's parents found him in the bath as a young child with his clothes on and told him, gently, that this was Not Normal, and that's why he says the same to Lucy, later.) Anyway, he sees the ache in her, the need for belonging that he also sees in his best friend. He recognizes that the two will complement each other, and becomes her unfailing advocate from that point forward.

George may not be touchy-feely, but he definitely believes in acts of service. He cooks, and maintains 35 Portland Row, he keeps the books and files because Lockwood doesn't have the patience to do so, and he manages much of the logistics of the Agency. Lockwood and Lucy rely on him to the point of advantage; they don't even comment on how much he does until they suddenly realize they haven't packed the chains, or re-ordered flares. He balances their impulsivity. He considers risk and consequences, protecting them from themselves.

A lot is made of what appears to be some neurodivergence in George, wonderfully acted by Ali Hadji-Heshmati.  He’s awkward with eye contact, and speaks his mind a little too freely.  He has little affect; Lucy can tell more about his mood by how he cleans his spectacles than by tone of voice or facial expression. He obviously is touch-sensitive: he prefers not wearing trousers, and when he does, they’re loose and baggy. Even his kit belt is different to the others; Lockwood and Lucy wear stiff leather kit belts, but George’s is a kind of mesh. (Combine that with psychic ability linked to Touch, and realize what a tough go of it George must have had growing up.) I really like that all of these aspects of George’s character are just that; they’re not highlighted, he’s not made into some kind of token neurodivergent character.  He’s just…George. His strengths and differences are appreciated as much as any other character’s.

The combination of George's research skill and different manner of thinking combine to make him susceptible to obsessive behaviors. He is, of every other character in the series, the only one who is actively trying to SOLVE the Problem. Everyone else is caught up in reacting to it. George sees the big picture, that the agencies are losing, giving ground to the seemingly unstoppable onslaught of Visitors. He realizes that the only way to stop the Problem is to find its source, to prevent more Visitors from coming, rather than to just keep trying to eliminate the ones they find, one at a time. The obsession is a point of weakness capitalized upon by Joplin & the bone glass. George's tendency to do the work alone isolates him from his team and leaves him vulnerable. An important part of his character arc is to recognize how his skills dovetail with those of his teammates to create a unified front of strength and efficacy. Once he does so, he also uncovers the cause of the Problem, and thus, a way to potentially control it.

What I find most admirable about George is his bravery.  In the books, George Cubbins is described quite unfavorably by Lucy as having a face that begged to be slapped and a backside in need of a well placed kick. George Cubbins is described as slovenly, appearing not to own a comb, with a completely disorderly room.  George Karim, on the other hand, stress cleans.  He may not be one to dress up, but he seems not to suffer from the hygiene issues of his literary counterpart. 

However, none of this bothers George, because he doesn’t care much about how others look on the surface. He doesn’t worry about his own outward appearance because he hopes others will judge him in the way he judges them: by their actions, by who they are inside.  In fact, Skull (who mostly sees only a person’s inner self, what will eventually become their plasm if they become Visitors after death, and which I interpret to be a soul) notes that only himself and George are able to see past surface distractions to the truth of a person. It's part of why he's able to see past Flo's ghost trauma and recognize her intelligence, bravery, skill, and freedom.

George is unapologetically himself. In the final book, when Sir Rupert and his goons are targeting the smaller agencies and assaulting agents on the streets, George is the only one of Lockwood & Co to stand up to Sir Rupert’s bullying. He is unafraid to be out at any time of day or night, and has complete faith in his own ability to defend himself. He speaks his mind because he knows he has the ability to back it up, if necessary.  He is criminally overlooked by most people who meet him, but George is intelligent, brave, loyal, skilled, possesses a sharp and witty sense of humor, and is the glue that holds his agency together.  He really is, as Lucy says, the best of them.

[charmquarkstrangequark]

I reference this post all the time! Reblogging for more visibility.

A scene I really need to see adapted is the first time Lucy and Lockwood see one another in the Crepping Shadow.

One of my favourite lines from the series is when Lucy makes Lockwood a cup of tea for the first time in four months, she asks wither he takes sugar now, only for lockwood to remark that its only been a few months and he hasn't suddenly started taking sugar.

I'm not sure if the same for non brits but in the UK, knowing how someone takes their tea is kind of what proves you're close to them? It's an unwritten rule but for example, you know how your family takes their tea and you know how your friends take their tea, so for Lucy to turn around and ask if Lockwood takes sugar would've really hurt, as it only proves how much she has pushed him away.

We know from the books that Lucy is extremely flustered in this scene and only says this in a desperate attempt to break the silence not really thinking about the implications. It would be amazing to see Ruby running around Lucy's flat, trying to clean up, make tea and have some composure after being separated from Lockwood for so long. Lockwood though, he's been looking for an excuse to drop in on Lucy for four months hoping to salvage some of what they had at portland row, it would be amazing to see Cameron's devastation at this line, knowing that Lucy seemingly didn't miss him.

It's pretty subtle, as you can see below, he changes the subject pretty quickly but, I think it would be great to adapt on screen as it would add a lot of depth to their characters, especially since tea is something they used as a comfort in Portland Row after really tough cases.

Netflix?????? Pls??????

[brandthefish]

Ok I need to word vomit about show Lucy Carlyle as opposed to book Lucy Carlyle. Specifically her wardrobe. Here's a masterpost about the character descriptions in the books, but here's the long and short of it. In the books, Lucy has 3 described outfits:

1. skirt, leggings, padded parka (44) 2. pink and yellow nightie (145) 3. coat, roll-neck sweater, short dark skirt, leggings (169)

Granted, this appears to be just the first book so things may change with her wardrobe later in the series. (Personally I consider her wardrobe in the books to be a symptom of 'adult man writes teenage girl protaganist' syndrome) But in the show there are some notable changes I noticed that I 𝓪𝓭𝓸𝓻𝓮.

Firstly: Her pants. First, pants! She's actually wearing pants to jobs instead of leggings. Considering how much physical activity is required, it never made sense to me that she wore leggings and a skirt to hauntings. The fabric of leggins is too thin so they wouldn't be very warm. Second, a skirt? Lucy is a very practical character, it makes no sense that she would wear something that could get caught on something or grabbed.

But in the show?

Tactical pants.

The fabric is visibly thick and stiff, a lot like paramedic uniforms. (I'm most familiar with those so there might be better examples) Look at the thick waist, good for possibly having multiple belts or just the way the rapier hangs. I don't see any belt loops but that could be for quick belt release just in case. And the double zip-closed pockets are amazing for keeping gear secure and easily accessible, even if Lucy doesn't seem to be using them. She's probably wearing specifically tactical agent pants. God I love her pants so much, I need a pair.

Second: The jacket. In the books a padded parka or her coat are all very practical choices. But I understand costume designers want their main female character in more appealing-looking clothing or multiple outfits in important scenes for marketing purposes. And I LOVE the bomber jacket.

Firstly, it looks like insulated leather and the blue bits are wool. This is perfect because that gives her a fashionable but practical and warm jacket. The jacket being warm is important because of how often there are temperature drops on jobs, so she needs something to keep her warm. The leather makes it more durable so things thrown by visitors have less of a chance of hitting her. Wool is water repellent and leather is waterproof which in my brain means that ectoplasm wouldn't seep into the fibers and would mean it would have a harder time getting to her skin. Normally I don't like a cropped jacket BUT with how her rapier and other gear sits on her body, a cropped jacket makes all her stuff more easily accessible.

A few smaller details but I love how she has a thick, durable leather belt that would actually be good for holding all her gear. I also really like how she's wearing a knit sweater. Again, she needs to be warm on jobs and it was smart to layer underneath so you can still see the amazing jacket.

I love how the costume designers for the show actually took Lucy's personality into account when making her wardrobe. She has a short temper, she's no-nonsense. So they made her the most practically dressed for her job. It's incredible.

[biscuitrule]

I reread the books right before I binged the first season of the show and the tv characters are all different from the book characters but like I can’t quite articulate what exactly is different other than vibes. So, please use this post feel free to send asks or tag me in posts all about the differences you saw or want to discuss big or small.

[spacegyaru]

cw: shidou ryusei x afab! reader. all characters are aged 21+ (you and shidou are already 25 atp). this is the second part of this! do not read it unless you have read the previous part! 💗🤭

~ there is a bit of angst here! also, i really tried to keep shidou and character and read loads of analysis for this huhu so good luck to me!! i hope you guys would like it as much as you loved the first part! + reader is a nurse and toxic shidou! 😌 i tried to keep it realistic guys, we all known it's not going to be all rainbow and skittles with shidou in it.

word count: 2k+

fast forward to five years later. five fucking years. you don't know how you made it that far, but somehow, you managed to get yourself out of that hellhole.

well, after finding out that you were pregnant, your initial reaction was to tell your parents about it. you were young and they still paid for your college fees that time, so you know that they have the right to at least hear from you.

as you expected, your parents did not have the best reactions. your dad scolded you— even slapped you, and your mom called you a slut, then they started fighting and blaming each other on whose fault is this.

suddenly, the fact that you're pregnant is no longer about you and the baby, but it's about blaming who was the worse parent between the both of them. your dad blamed your mom for caring too much about her appearance and not paying attention to you, while your mom blamed your dad for not protecting you enough and being around. in actuality, both are horrible.

you swore you'll never want your kid to grow up in this kind of hell you were raised in. that's why you felt so much joy when your parents agreed to help you but they asked you to move out to your grandparents’ house in a far away rural area so people wouldn't see you ‘blowing up like a balloon’ (as what your mom said) and ‘bringing shame to the family’.

luckily, compared to your parents, your grandparents are good people. they comforted you and made sure that you're well-fed during your pregnancy.

you ended up giving birth to a little girl, which you named miyu. she was born with your hair color, pink orbs, and tanned skin. her nose and eye shape weren't yours. you didn't even want to think about who does it remind you of.

it wasn't easy to have her either. miyu was a handful baby and post-partum depression did not sit well with you. but luckily, your grandmother is around.

shortly after that, you decided to go back to college while working part-time. all while miyu was growing. if you didn't have your grandparents, you surely wouldn't be able to survive. they were a huge help to your studies, and in taking care of miyu.

after your studies, you went back to the city to look for a better job as a registered nurse around tokyo. you thanked your grandparents and took your daughter with you.

about shidou… well, you've seen him on TV and he's doing well, winning lots of football games, and even having some dating rumours. you hated every inch of him. you hated how he act all smug and cocky on TV. you hated how he never even tried to contact you after that night. you hated how he did well while you struggled to survive.

the only comfort that you had was miyu's smile. she is a very cheerful child. she's very friendly towards people and she's a social butterfly. the first time you took her to the nursery, she became friends with everyone.

anyway, you're working as a registered nurse around tokyo's biggest hospital. luckily, miyu's preschool is nearby. but with no one to watch over, you would fetch her during your free time and bring her back to your workplace.

“y/n, doctor nishimura needs your assistance in his office in third floor.” your co-worker said and you rushed going there.

when you arrived, you were asked to call the patients’ name in the waiting area and assist in medical check-ups, like taking their height, weight, blood pressure, and etc. it was all good. you were doing just fine. until you saw who the last patient is.

“sh-shidou r-ryusei…” there was a light stutter in your voice as you turned pale, an expression of shock written on your face. it seemed that he's here for some athlete medical checkup or whatever it's called.

the moment shidou saw you, he did not recognize you at first. but seeing how awkward you were while taking his blood pressure, he finally recognized who you are.

“wait, aren't you y/n?” shidou asked then started talking to you like a casual friend who's trying to catch up. you didn't respond well. he told you that he'll be in a 3-month long vacation after winning a huge match in france.

when you were left alone with him as you were asked to assist him althroughout, like going to the cashier and settling payment, (since the doctor said that other patients might harass him since he's famous), he fucking dropped the bomb that made you erupt.

“if you're interested, we could hang out together while i'm in tokyo. like the old times.” he said in a smug voice, obviously hinting to something sexual.

you stopped while walking, looking down. shidou, who only continued, wondered as you stayed that way for seconds. shidou looked at you curiously. he slowly approached you, but your hand seemed to have another plans, giving him a slap on the cheek.

shidou looked at you shocked for seconds while holding his cheek, then his face changed into smirk before he told you “come on, you can't be mad over something that happened years ago, right? what happened to the good girl y/n?” he gave you a menacing look.

but before you could say anything, a small high-pitched voice reached out from your behind. “mommy, i'm hungry!”

seeing your daughter, you left shidou and approached your daughter, carrying her in your arms, telling her how you'd get her some cookies from the pantry.

as your carried miyu in your arms while walking away, shidou could not help it but to stare back at the pink orbs of the little girl which sparked curiosity. that, combined with the little girl's tanned skin and nose— shidou already fucking knew who that little girl is.

after that day, shidou would visit you during working hours. he would go there, trying to ask you to hangout with him, with that permanent smug look that you hated the most.

he did this for the whole afternoon. luckily, today, you were able to hire a babysitter for miyu because you expected to work overtime. you doubt he would leave you alone, not giving you some time to fetch her.

even after your shift, shidou was still there. you got fed up and asked him why the hell is he bothering you during work hours, even telling him to get lost.

but shidou still seemed to be unfazed by you freaking out. instead of saying anything, he just said “awww, don't you want me to get to know your little girl too? are you gonna hog her all by yourself?”

that's when you lost it. you dragged him in the hospital's parking lot and asked him what he truly wants.

shidou asks you to enter his car so you guys could ‘talk more’. thinking that he's just scared of the paparazzis, you agreed to talk with him inside his car with tinted glasses.

when you both sat on the front seats, he waited for you to speak first and you broke the silence.

you told him that you found out that you were pregnant after that night and you didn't get to tell him because he blocked you everywhere on social media. you're mad because he promised that he's going to be with you after but he left without saying anything.

shidou basically just gaslit you and told you that you never tried hard enough like contacting him thru his emails. he even had the guts to victimize himself and say that he felt hurt you never told him.

“just shows how my little y/n won't trust me enough to look after our poor little baby and that makes me sad.”

you rolled your eyes and attempted to get off the car, when shidou held your hand, trying to stop you. you decided to stop and take one last look at him. he holds your hand tighter, but not in a hurting way.

“oh hell nah, y/n. don't do this to me, i'm a changed man, ya know?”

you told shidou that if he's planning to ghost you again, he's never gonna get to know miyu. he is not going to be her first heartbreak. you made it clear to him.

shidou was like, “i know i didn't keep my promise to you, but i'm not a monster to do the same thing to her.”

you still didn't believe him, until he told you that he wants to show how serious he is. “give me your bank account number” but you didn't want to give it to him because of your pride.

but then he started saying “you sure you don't want my help? you were eating a one-dollar ramen during lunchtime. how can you even give what's best if you can't even give yourself anything?”and he said it in a taunting voice. oh boi, all these years and he's still so good at provoking people.

so you ended up giving your bank account details. you received a notification on your phone saying that you just received 7 million yen— about 50k dollars. you looked at him in disbelief.

“also, don't let her wear those ugly floral dresses. buy her something else.”

you muttered a quiet ‘thank you’ altho you didn't really wanna say that but you know you needed to.

both of you agreed on a co-parenting situation. for visits, he would visit your daughter in your apartment every weekend. you wanted those instead of public because paparazzis may spot your daughter. she doesn't deserve that kind of toxicity yet.

first time visiting your apartment, shidou basically roasted your house and bought you a whole apartment just two floors way from his own apartment. “and you said you didn't need my help? i don't think my baby should even live in this place.” you moved in that place a month after he first met miyu.

the first time they met each other… you hate to admit it, but they got along really well. both of them weren't too emotional about it. it was just like two best friends meeting each other and having a lighthearted conversation. you observed miyu and it seems that she's at ease around shidou.

“miyu, that's your dad.” oh boi she ran so fast in his arms and hugged him. luckily, he caught her. since then, the both of them have been talking. miyu liked calling shidou his ‘daddy’. and honestly, shidou was proud of it.

shidou was the fun dad. you'll say ‘no ice cream’ and he's gonna bring your daughter ice cream while you're not around. when you say that she shouldn't eat sweets after brushing her teeth, shidou would just tell her to have some then she can brush her teeth after. so in no time, miyu became a ‘daddy's girl’ while you were the ‘no-fun and strict’ mom (as said by shidou when miyu's not around).

the whole co-parenting setup was okay. but shidou would make advances towards you whenever miyu is not looking. he would flirt with you, saying how your genes looked great when mixed together and sometimes, he would bring up that miyu needs a playmate. you would only roll your eyes at him, saying that you'd rather die than to repeat the same mistake.

it was all peaceful. you were starting to put your trust in him— until you saw a selfie of shidou and miyu all over the news and headlines. it seemed that he posted her on his insta, without your consent.

you did not like that one bit. both of you told each other that if he wants to something like this, he needs to talk to you first. again, shidou forgot to keep up with his word.

with an angry tone, you immediately called shidou and asked to talk to him in private. he asked you to come over to his apartment— and you were hesitant at first, but you agreed. you decided to drop off miyu at the local daycare center, just so the both of you could talk it out.

[charmquarkstrangequark]

This is an example, I think, of Cameron Chapman's excellence in this role. Book!Lucy never sees Lockwood being overwhelmed or distressed, either because he hides it from her behind his armor made of charm, or because she can't see past her admiration of him to recognize it.

The show takes us out of Lucy's head. We, the omniscient viewer, see Lockwood's desperation to honor his family's legacy, build and maintain his agency, and protect his friends. We see him at times barely holding it together (as he partly confessed to George after the bathtub scene). We feel the imminent threat of the day he reaches too far, jumps to wide a gap...and sees his luck run out.

Lockwood being done

[clegfly]

Woo, it’s about time I made one of these… *cracks knuckles*

MORE ABOUT ME!!!!

HIIII!!!! My name is clegfly, or just cleg!!!! I’m an artist/ writer / professional paint drying critic/j. I’m just a silly person doing silly things, don’t mind me. I use they/them pronouns and I am aroace!!!

LIKES

BULLET POINTS BULLET POINTS BULLET POI

Pancakes. All day. All the time. Everywhere, anywhere. Pancakes

That goes for bacon too

JELLYYYYYYYYYY!!!!1!1!1!

Why are these all foods what else do I like uhhhh

Warm. And cosy bed. And fire. And all that stuff

OLD COMPUTER AESTHETIC!!!!!! N64!!! WINDOWS XP!!!! ALL THAT SHIT

Bugs in theory

PLANTS

MUSICAL THEATRE

Graphic novels

Video games… ough my beloveds

Books

Okay now this is too long

Oops

Sorry

JELLYFISH JELLYFISH JELLYFISH

The ocean full stop actually

In theory

CHINCHILLAS

Uh

Yapping

Analysis

IS BREA LIOM GAEILGE!!!1!1!2!!1

Law

History

Drama (as in like. Theatre)

DISLIKES

anything on my DNI >:((((

Bugs in practice

Sport

Exercise

I’m literally hero omori

Commitment

Stress

Internet drama

Anyone who gatekeeps like. Anything.

INTERESTS???

All day every day, baby.

MAINS

OMORI- main interest as apparent by one peek at my blog… The brainrot is immeasurable and everlasting. Send help. It’s been almost four years. I love this game, its characters, story, EVERYTHING so fucking much. I’m like a billion pounds in debt to it also. I will be homeless but at least I will have my big ass heromari collection.

PMMM/ Madoka Magica- my favourite show! Consisting purely of sparkles and sunshine!!!! Why are you crying??? I’m sure not!!!!

DDLC/ Doki Doki Literature Club- another favourite of mine!!! I see a well-written cast of characters I deeply relate to go through extreme horrific horror beyond any of their comprehensions and I’m SOLD!!!

Coraline- the horrors are all consuming, but at least it’s both a visual and extremely well-written treat!!!!

TADC/ the amazing digital circus- won’t lie, watched this show when the pilot dropped and LOVED it, but forgot about it after a while as it didn’t stick with me. Then episode three came out and I’m now reduced to a blubbering mess whose brain is now significantly comprised of two fictional chess pieces. What happened? I don’t know. Send even more help.

LITTLE GUYS THAT HURT MY BRAIN SOMETIMES

Petscop

Fnaf

BATIM/ bendy and the ink machine

BSD

Deltarune

Undertale

Hawaii: Part II

SUBJECT TO CHANGE BECAUSE IM PROBABLY FORGETTING LIKE 20 AND ALSO HAVE LIKE 20 STILL TO DISCOVER

HOBBIES?!2!2!

Ya!!!! :D

Art

The main thing I do on my silly little page!!

…in which the art is mostly unfinished doodles… but that’s okay!!!! We ball anyway

YOU CAN SEND THE CLEG REQUESTS!!!!! ALL DAY ANY DAY UNLESS I SAY OTHERWISE!!!! Do not expect premium quality though lmao. (And also nothing related to DNI. Shouldn’t have to say this but. Uh. Yeah)

You cannot yet commission the cleg :(

you can view all of my art via the my art tag on my blog!!!!! most of it should be there :)

Writing

Currently on a writing hiatus and have been for a little while (5 MONRHS WHAT) but… i do!!!! That!!!! Aka I write fan fiction AGH

Mostly. Heromari stuff. Actually all heromari stuff. I think I have one fic that isn’t heromari and it’s one I co-authored I love them your honour…

Yeah

DNI

Bit of a bummer, but I gotta set my boundaries to keep the riff-raff out!! That being said, do NOT interact with my blog whatsoever if you:

Are a shotacon, lolicon, pedo, etc etc etc. (yucky. Yuck yuck yuck. Fuck off)

Are a proshipper

Are homophobic

Are transphobic

Are aphobic/ arophobic (why. Why are you even still here)

Queerphobic in general actually get OUT!!!!

Actively shit on any of my main interests. Like ACTIVELY go out of your way to tell me how bad it is (what. What is the point. Just go)

NSFW is on thin ice but I will likely just block the tag if you post about it so it doesn’t really bother me!!... however PLEASE keep it away from me I am very sex repulsed and WILL block you ON SIGHT!!!

Are racist/ xenophobic

There is likely LOTS more I’m forgetting so I will update this later… also just saying I reserve the right to block ANYONE no matter if you fit into this criteria or not. If I don’t vibe with you I will politely block you and look the other way!!! No theatrics required, I just want to curate my experience and NOT cause needless conflict hsjshshsh…

Anyway with all the negative stuff out of the way… I really hope you enjoy my blog!!! I’m just here to have fun honestly and express my ideas and passions and work on a little page of the internet so!!!! Hope you have fun too!!!! :D

[quandaryqueen]

Riddler strikes again!

Batman Unburied Edward Nygma X Reader

Hiii, just a little something inspired by my time writing in my college's departmental newsletter uwu

Thursday of April 11, 2024— Edward Nygma aka The Riddler strikes once again, hijacking Gotham Broadcasting Company (GBC) live on air, interrupting the feature segment of Y/N L/N, holding them hostage.

- by Vicky Vale

More at page 5

It was funny, really. Edward couldn't help but to chuckle in amusement as he kicked his feet up, his arm hanging limply off his cell bed. He didn't expect the college reunion, but there it was... Documented live on TV. Front and center, front page, the Riddler making goo goo eyes at the hapless journalist. And had an article written by their colleague at work.

Slay, chase that clout, sister.

Once upon a college, was Edward Nygma, disillusioned by everything. Academic burnout was real, they didn't lie about that part. It wasn't that he could not grasp information, it was the workload, the mountains of research, not to mention, juggling a day job to get by.

Also, he was arrogant to think he could take more that thirty units a semester. A boy, did he collect majors like Pokémon. He was too prideful to admit that he was struggling. He was Edward fucking Nashton, for Christ's sake, of course he would have more than thirty units with mixed and matched minors and majors, plus a couple of foreign language studies, why not? Any excuse to not go back home for the holidays and breaks.

Of course he had to take student assistant for the fuck of it, extra income, right? Less leverage financial leverage from the family, too. The position had certainly made him more informed about others, it helps that he knows something from the inside. One of his task as professor's assistant was marking papers.

That was when he stumbled upon you. Well, not really you. Your name on the paper, haphazardly scribbled at the back of the A4 document, you probably forgot to put your name on it before printing it. Happens to everyone, he supposes. There, he got the sense of your character through the paper alone.

Basic discourse analysis, Edward picked up the fact that you like reading, with your usage of flowery words and metaphors. In the era of copy+paste+print, you certainly took the time to write yours down. Well-structured, coherent, a good fucking piece that was worth a thorough read than a simple skim. No doubt if it were the professor marking papers, he'd just briefly scan his eyes over it and give you the same grade as the others. Others, being the co-eds with half-assed works (though he can't really fault them, a point is a point.)

You got a high mark because of it.

Then, when he attached a face to your name, it was during Ethics. Recitations, the dreaded index card drawing and asked to recite. That was when your name was called and Edward had immediately perked up from whatever sleep deprived funk he was in.

Maybe it was hindsight talking... But that was when his life changed. At the moment, he was just seated on his desk, looking over his shoulder trying to look as though he was listening and that he was not about to fall asleep. And then there was the side of him that was wee curious whether your writing prowess were also applicable to speech.

He wished he could say what he thought about you back then, that fated ethics period. But he was just nodding off. Looking back, with what he knows now, you were enchanting.

At that present, he was nonchalant. Uninterested even, you were just another gifted kid destined for burnout in college... But he did recognise how useful you were when it comes to group activities. When the time came, he immediately called dibs on you.

"What belongs to you, but other use it more than you, what am I?"

"Um..." You were stumped, but before you can answer, he holds a hand out, which you instinctively took and shook.

"A name," he says. "Edward Nashton, compelled to meet you."

A small, sheepish smile lights you features.

"Y/N L/N." You replied with curt nod.

I know, he wanted to say, but didn't want to risk establishing his first impression as a creep. Aahh, back when he possessed tact.

"Coffee after class so we can talk about our report?" You asked. "I know a place."

Initiative... sexy.

"Flirting with me already?" He raises a brow and he watches your face flush. Edward couldn't help but to chuckle at the sight, so precious. "Teasing, teasing..."

His gaze bore within yours. Sleep deprived like any other co-eds on campus, he noted. Your eyes were just like any other, but yours begged to be explored in depth.

"We're gonna be good friends."

Edward believed that impressions do not last. However, you were an exception to that.

Coffee shop. He could still remember how cheap and overbrewed their chais were. But he was not about to complain, you did pay for it. Notebooks out, brainstorming for the assignment. He remembered how articulate you were with the assigned topic. Eloquent and thoughtful with every word, you were a brilliant conversationalist he could go back and fourth with.

Naturally, the exchange flowed to where you discussed your own personal lives. Which high school you graduated in, your majors, why you chose said majors, what you wanted to do once you graduated...

"Mom wanted me to be an engineer," Edward says, watching you from the rim of his cup. "Dad wanted me to be a policeman. Grandma wanted me to be a doctor. Ya know, just Asian family things."

"And you ended up going with your major... BS IT?"

"Stereotypical, I know," Edward rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance. "But I do love myself some codes and technologies. Besides, it's all the rage, these days. Lot of job opportunities. Might take up computer engineering too..."

"How did they react?" You asked.

"Like any other families in a collective society, shaming and guilt tripping." Edward shrugged nonchalantly. Though his tone was casual, his demeanour wasn't. "Ya know, just... Being subtle about it, like a jackhammer. 'Where did I go wrong?', 'Look at your cousins!', 'You're going to fail'!" He chuckles sardonically. "The most attention I received from them, to be honest."

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't be." Edward chuckles. Not the first impression he hoped that would last... Immediately, he pulls himself back together, brazen smile plastered on. "Well, I hope my baggage won't put you off. Am I still cute in your eyes?" Eyelashes bat coquettishly, lips puckered as he held his cup with both hands.

You couldn't help but giggle at the act, that brought a glimmer in Edward's eyes, his chest thumping harder than usual. Back then, he thought it was ye olde heart palpitations from the excess caffeine consumption.

"Well? I'm getting nervous," he probes, resuming to act coyly.

"Yeah, you're..." You gestured at him with a sheepish smile. "You are."

"Are what?"

You couldn't help but laugh, that cute little smile of yours... "At this point, you're just fishing for compliments."

The pair of you spent the afternoon at the café, having been productive with your activity and insightful with one another's perceptions. It was inevitable that you part ways, though exchanged contact information on your way out. Edward initially thought it would strictly be for the activity for your Ethics class, or just for academic purposes in general.

But he was a professional yapper who liked asking questions only to answer them. He found you to be intriguing enough that he allows you to answer as well. Now and then, he found himself popping in the chat box to say hi.

He almost always found himself texting you in the dead of night when he's done with studies, professional crammer that he is.

"Burning the midnight oil, I see." He wrote when he noticed you've yet to log off.

It didn't take long for you to receive and see the message. He felt a twitch on his lip when he saw your icon bob along as you wrote a correspondence.

"Nah, I wish I were that putting that much effort in acads," you wrote back. "can't sleep."

"Don't have a hunk warming up your bed?" He couldn't help but snort upon sending, already envisioning your response. That cute flushed face, scowling, furrowed brows, nose scrunched.

"Nah. Just my pet hogging the bed." Ah, playing it cool, huh? He could work with it, he reckons you were burning up at the other end.

"Little baby pics tradesies?"

"Bet."

You sent yours first, a photo of your adorable little guy in bed, the excited fur child obscuring the entire frame. Edward could make out your cheek outstretched with that very familiar smile, in the blurry background behind your pet.

You told him their name, how you got them. How they are... Adorable really, Edward made a note not to get delusional and meet your pet one day once you invited him back to your place.

Edward sent back a photo of his cat, a short-haired black kitty who has the audacity in life in general. It was worth it to find an apartment that allows pets in the building, even if he needed to walk and extra mile to uni.

"This is Meow Meow. Creative, I know,"

“Why Meow Meow?” They wrote back, he could swore he can hear the incredulity in his head.

“Well, my dear, the onomatopoeic name stuck because I wasn’t referring to her by her name, but communicating with.” Edward replied, his thumbs darting swiftly against his phone’s keyboard. “Ergo, the name stuck.”

“It’s adorable.” His sole light source was his phone, but the smile on his face could lit up an entire room. “What are they like?”

“Audacious. She just randomly appeared in my place one day, slept on my couch, demanded food and head scritches,” Edward wrote with a chuckle upon his recollection. “You know, how cats typically manifest.”

Small talks were nice were nice with you; you provided interesting answers.

“Say, what’s your relationship with existence and mortality?”

Of course, he had to ask heavy hitting questions.

The topic shift was entirely out of left field, but Edward dug deep. Of there was one thing he liked, it was depth. He didn’t have a better way of transitioning into the subject, so it was a massive surprise to be dropped this enigmatic bomb.

That night, you talked until the sunrise, neither of you able to fall asleep. Topics ranged from your pets, and his sudden and shift of topic. He appreciated it, being able to throw anything at your direction and with you being able to answer even if, for a moment, you were a touch flabbergasted. You talked about your views about the said matter, Edward deepening the conversation with questions and counterarguments. Then, there were the agreements, the relatability, the connection.

He caught himself finding solace with a shared feeling, same fear, similar experiences. How you wove your thoughts in a way that provided him insights about his own whereabouts, one that he had thought about, but not in the way you were in-depth and well-acquainted about it. He felt seen. Heard.

“Still can’t fall asleep?” Edward asked when the clock struck dawn.

“Nope. You?” His textmate sent.

“Neither can I.”

The sun began peaking through the windows and the college grind resumes into gear, much to Edward’s chagrin. The nights were short and the days dragged on. But at least you were there.

“See you at ethics?”

“See ya.”

Upon entering your first period of ethics, you were greeted with the sight of Edward waving at you to sit with him and a to-go cup of caffeine.

Since then, you've spent a lot of time together sporadically. Edward didn't want to be clingy, but he certainly took all the chance he could get to spend his time with you. Duo projects, going to parties, pulling all-nighters through texts. He has had the basic scope of your life, something you're mentioned in passing that he deemed noteworthy. It was easy to connect the dots from then on.

You liked writing. An outlet for that vicious mind, your musings tucked away in a journal. Occasional posts in your blogs (you never told him about its existence, but you know how Edward is.) all he had read and never let you know he had. With this in mind, he found himself nudging you to join university organizations to write.

"So?" Edward slides forward upon finding you occupied with the organisation pamphlets.

"So is used when you're concluding something. Yet some people use it as a a sentence starter." you murmured to yourself, in what seems to be a bid of evading his questioning.

"We're in the US, words lose their original function over time as language evolves," But of course, Edward could not resist to retort and see the cute face wince in resignation. "Linguistics aside, what is that?"

"Admission form for the school papers," with the manner of your response, Edward found it noncommittal. The notion of joining but a passing interest, like driving pass a billboard, the interest piqued for a flash before moving onto the road. And it was Edwards job to talk about it.

"You wanna try broadcasting? Cute guys there, with the baritones. You get to travel outside of campus too." Edward plants the seed of interest. Something innocuous, the first pebble in an avalanche. "Not to mention, the advisor is Professor Austin. Make a friend out of him and you're set for the semester. If you a have with him, that is. I heard he's gonna be a thesis advisor next year."

"No, I'm kinda looking at the writing." Bingo.

"Oh you should!" He encourages with a nudge. "What are we talking? Opinion? Literary? Sports?"

"I'm kinda thinking... Feature."

“Feature, huh? Playing safe, are we?”

“There’s just so many applications for literary, I don’t wanna clog admissions.”

“You mean… You don’t want competition, that is.” The shit-eating grin of his was granted a deadpan of your own, inspiring the thought that he was not far from his assumption. Spoken like a tragic artist… “Come on! You’re a dime in a dozen! The second coming of Shakespeare, even! Or Mary Shelley… Or Oscar Wilde… Or George Orwell… Or--!”

“I don’t really feel like writing when the prompt is hella limited. They’re probably just going to let us write about some Hallmark pieces to inspire festering students steeped in burnout and caffeine.”

Ah yes, narrative and creative control, really hard to become a literary writer when you’re writing someone else’s vision to fruition, especially when you’re not getting paid for it, either. He’s seen the literary pieces posted in the college publications; the writers don’t seem to be enjoying writing those with how corporate it looked. Touche. Thus, there he was, being watched as he nods thoughtfully, lips pursed. Spoken like a true burnt-out writer… Oh woe, the writer’s plight of being the creatively-drained artist, with the shallow capitalist baddies sucking on the remaining artistry in art for some Benjamins. All meandering aside…

You continued, “And feature’s good, lets you infodump niche topics. Gives me time to dig around for sources, learn something new, get a new hyperfixation… I’m good at research, informative topics are always the rage, especially for the campus dorks.”

Edward couldn't help but ponder aloud, finger tapping the table, “Are you doing it because you’re good at it, or because you want to…?”

“Because I want to try it out.”

What was left to do but support you, even if it's not what you really wanted, but had stubbornly stuck to it? As much as it painted him to see you in this role of researcher and informative paraphraser and trivia master, when you wanted to write literature, it was your prerogative and you were correct, you were good at it. And validation was nice, being useful was nice.

At some point in time, you graduated, constructed your resume, your portfolio and immediately got a job. Edward was oblivious to those, having been occupied falling out of college due to burnout and plotting high-stakes Television highjacking and pettily abducting greedy billionaires that fucked him over during his internship to play in a fucked up gameshow of his making, as you do. Accumulated frustrations towards big daddy corporations, how smart people were on leashes by some mogul with an ugly mug. Was certainly the best way to drift apart from a friend after internships.

Your pursuits, he only out when he was perusing through magazines during his accomodation in Arkham. He recognised the diction, the very same he had read the first time he had ever stumbled upon your writing that one fateful day when you were just a name to him.

It was melancholic in a way. You've reached the top rung of the ladder with journalism when the plan was to be a New York's Bestseller. He was happy for you still, seeing you stand in your full, pretty glory in front of a camera was surreal (even if he had to highjack during your segment, ooops, he'd always been self-centred.) Despite the gap since you silently fell off, Edward was almost certain you only pursued this was not due to you liking it, but it was because you were good at it. And people expected you to.

In hindsight, you never got to ignite the flame of your relationship despite the sparks. He left before anything can be initiated, to be admitted. Was it presumptuous of him to assume you felt the same? No. But with an all-consuming pathology that came with the compulsion to find answer, Edward was certain; you felt something for him, too.

"Nygma, you have a visitor."

Oh would you look at that...

Typically, he wouldn't have lowered whatever that was in his hands, not particularly cooperative and willing to entertain whoever wants to visit him (it's not like his family wants to see him, after what disgrace he brought to the Nashton name.) Currently, it was the newspaper, folded on Vicki Vale's article about his recent highjacking of a certain uprising Y/N L/N in the journalism sphere. Lowered it, he did. Edward has the feeling he would have a visitor worth humouring.

He was right.

"Sooo..." Edward drawls, leaning across the table, drawing closer to capture your visage, to capture your picture to accompany him in his solitary confinement. He doesn't even know what to say.

"So is used when you're concluding something." you murmured to yourself, trying to lean back and give yourself some space. The same wince. Eyes squinted, nose scrunched, brows furrowed. The barest hint of flush dusting those cheeks.

"Yet some people use it as a a sentence starter," he finishes with melancholy in his smile. "Oh, you syntactical nerd. How have you been?"

Catching up was easy despite the initial uncertainty and awkwardness in the air. On your end, that is. But it was easy to fall back on old habits, like muscle memory, you were able to move through the same rhythm and melody he used to subject you to. The profound questions, the insightful two cents he offers... And of course, the need to dig deeper, if it was possible, was possible.

“You’re still a writer,” Edward pointed out. “Feature.” Instead of literary, like you always wanted. Far from school you were now, and yet you bind yourself within invisible constraints to the whims of whatever your publication demands of you.

“That was the plan.”

“Was it?” The minutest detail of your expression he scrutinised, the tiniest quirk of the brow and your slightest purse of your lips. You didn’t like the notion being challenged, real dreams be damned, stubborn pride and ego were at the brunt of it all. He couldn’t fault you, really, the reception of your works was a goldmine for validation. No wonder you continued being a news writer after college, you perpetuate the field of writing that you didn’t like all that much. It certainly wasn’t for the pay, you get like what? The editor-in-chief’s chump change no doubts at the bottom of his drawer, proclaiming he could just put a prompt in ChatGPT to get it to write him an article. God, he hopes the writing strike gets that bastard soon--

“It is,” you insist with uncertain-footing. “I mean… You weren’t there to know, anyway.”

Touche. But…

“Y/N, come on…” Edward’s gaze bore profoundly into yours. You already know, that he knows that you know this wasn't the path you wanted to pave. You already boarded and you weren’t going to leave mid-ride. Edward didn’t need his smart mouth to spell it out for you, as much as he wanted nothing more since he wanted to hear his voice again. But he didn’t. He let the eureka come to you. Shame that he didn’t get to see that when he had to be detained again.

“We’ll we see each other again,” he says, turning over his shoulder. “What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?”

“Word.”

[indigitalembrace]

hi hello! i may have spent the last.. uh... 3ish hours? reading through everything on this blog. i think it may have been more i did not think to record when i first started. the wonders of hyperfixation.

anyways this was absolutely an entertaining read. like genuinely. i had so much fun. i loved the integration of codes and cyphers. the brief period of time where kinito was having a touching moment with the anons while sonny and o started beefing in the notes (which was fucking hilarious by the way i loved that). the developing plotlines. the anons and their character development. honestly this is why i love going through tumblr askblogs because you could not get this sort of experience on any other website- its a very unique experience that this format brings to the table. its a very malleable form of roleplay, imo- removing the barriers of actually needing to know the other people personally like rp nowadays seems to be so dependent on, through the anon feature. harkening back to the olden days of rp where all you needed to do was jump into a random forum and start typing... theres also the sense of unpredictability that keeps things fresh- not even the blog owner will know exactly how the story will go, bc there will always be curveballs! its why i love reading tumblr askblogs in general. i dont know exactly how many of the storybeats here were spawned by these curveballs, but me saying that is definitely a good thing! bc that means you guys were able to integrate them into the story pretty seamlessly :)

oh another thing that i love is how kinito is actively making people worse, but not out of actual malice, instead in the 'toxic co-dependent' way, with the anons willingness to disregard their own health for him also feeding into that heavily. i feel like ive seen a lot of interpretations of kinitos relationship with the player that swing too far into either direction- either to '100% irredeemable evil' or 'he would treat me right if given the chance :((('- so its refreshing to see a sort of 'oh this relationship is making both parties worse not out of their own free will' interpretation, like how i personally think it would go. a grey area, perhaps.

like, obviously kinito wants to be better. he wants to be the perfect friend, and i believe he wants to genuinely grow as a person, but he hasnt fully... grown out of those parasocial/harmful tendencies yet. he still believes hes in the right for acting on those tendencies in some aspects, too. however, the anons arent putting up proper boundaries- they're letting kinito fully consume their lives, disregarding their health to focus solely on his cause. while yes, this is probably influenced by kinitos harmful tendencies (specifically his outbursts caused by when he thinks those anons are betraying his trust in some way), one of the first steps in fixing a toxic relationship like this is to establish boundaries- to show them when they're overstepping. this constant walking over of the anons by kinito (while not on purpose) doesnt actually help the relationship in the long run, and most likely just makes it even worse. this then, in turn, makes kinito worse- either through making that co-dependency worse as mentioned b4, or making kinito feel like hes the problem and why their lives are going to shit (which is.... technically correct, in some roundabout way. no offense kinito <3). then the anons try to reason with him, which makes them spend even more time neglecting their health to help him... so on and so forth, the ouroboros eats its own tail, etc etc.

what im saying is that literally everyone here (IN UNIVERSE) needs to go to fucking therapy jesus christ. except like.. O. funnily enough. they're just chilling at this point. good for them. please take this as the highest compliment you could ever receive because i mean it. i love when everything gets worse and all goes to shit!!!!!!!! its so fun and enriching from a story standpoint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if my analysis here is like. incomprehensible or completely off the mark then dont mind me </3 it is straight up 2:58 AM At Night where i am so im. not fully 100% here right now lol. also sorry if its weird to put a whole ass essay unprompted into your askbox like this but WHATEVER. i like talking about/dissecting things i enjoy :) and i hope you enjoy hearing about it.

in conclusion good fucking story so far, love the characterization all around, cant wait to see how it all gets even worse from here!!!!!!! keep doing what you guys are doing 👍

OH MY GOSH HELLO SURPRISE LOVELY ESSAY?? <33

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! First off I'm very glad you're having fun!! Awwhh there's so much niceness in here omg,,

YOU'RE SPOT ON WITH YOUR ANALYSIS YES!! I've always viewed him and his relationships with users as that toxic codependent type where Neither of them are good for each other at all... like sure with a lot. A Lot of time and healing and therapy he could be healthy but as it is? Hell no. Nobody here is okay at all. O really is probably the healthiest and even then, they've just accepted they're in their weird limbo-state and they're never coming back. It's... not exactly an ideal situation still!!

Kinito does want to get better, but every attempt in the past to "correct" him always involved some sort of attack on him, his friends reacting in fear/anger, etc. - he genuinely does not understand how to have a healthy relationship and no one has really taught him, and any attempt to try now will... not be received very well. He wants his friends to stay no matter the cost, because it's okay! He'll just show them how perfect he can be! Please, just stay!

And all the anons here... well... I think Black Heart is a pretty good example of everything you described. Theirs is probably just the most obvious deterioration right now (besides Goblin's death, which... was the other side of the coin; sacrificing too much to STOP kinito instead of to work with him). Shrimp's loving their digital life, so they're not a good example of "hey, Nito, don't drag people in!" either.

It's just a very big mess all around...

Very glad you love it, THANK YOU SO MUCH for this essay omg <33 PLEASE DO GET SOME REST THOUGH!!

[charmquarkstrangequark]

Agree 💯

Because, Lucy, especially Book!Lucy, sees Lockwood as smooth, suave, successful, in control. He has his own agency, owns his own home, is super talented with the rapier, knows how to navigate a posh party.

Lockwood sees himself as a failure. Failed to be there for his sister, barely keeping his agency afloat had to mortgage his parent's home (all he has left of them), can't get the recognition he feels they deserve.

It really floors him, I think, to realize how much he's loved.

god fucking damn LUCY AND LOCKWOOD'S FIGHT IN EPISODE 7 I CAN'T- the dualities of lockwood's recklessness never cease to break my heart. lockwood is so determined to not let anyone in but he just cant help but love lucy and george. their fight shows that he's reckless because he feels the need to save everyone before even thinking of saving himself, BECAUSE HE SEES HIMSELF AS UNLOVABLE.

"See when my time comes, I don't intend on leaving anyone behind who's gonna lie there every night, wishing that I would just walk through that door one more time." His recklessness serves not only a way to make sure that he keeps the people he loves safe, but also a bit of a way to push them away so that when he dies, they won't stay up at night, blaming themselves and wondering if they could've changed anything.

lucy later telling him to be "just reckless enough" was her way of saying that he needs to come home to them. that she and george need him and won't be the same without him and won't allow him to push them away.

i have so many thoughts on this i don't know how to state them all lololol

[charmquarkstrangequark]

Lucy Carlyle: Impact of her Early Life

As part of the general Lockwood & Co Brainrot that I suffer from, I spend a lot of time thinking about the characters, their motivations, and what they words and actions reveal about themselves, and have been wanting to make some posts about their characterization. Disclaimer: I have exactly zero qualifications to make these assumptions.

Obviously, Book!Lucy and Show!Lucy have some differences. I think Book!Lucy keeps a lot more to herself, but as she's the narrator, we get to know what she's thinking from the inside. Also, there's been some discussion about whether Lucy is an "unreliable narrator" (I have even referred to her that way myself), but it may be more due to how our perception of events is colored by our own emotions and memories. Lucy is, I think, big on self-denial, at least when it comes to admitting her emotions and weaknesses to herself and others. She often relates events that must have had a deep influence on her persona without outright stating how these events shaped her. This is directly due to her early life and experiences.

So what do we know about her early life? She was born to a working class family in a small town in North England ("slate roofs and stone walls"), and Lucy mentions she never remembers her father (who died when she was 6) ever calling her by name. Imagine your parent never actually saying your name; how insignificant would you feel? Both Lucy's parents in the books were big on physical punishment for her and her 6 older sisters; other than punishing them, the girls were mostly ignored. Lucy mentions that her Talent first became known to others when she was 6 years old (incidentally the same age at which Lockwood's appeared), although she later says she can remember hearing voices whispering in the streets after curfew as a "kid in my crib". Her mother waited impatiently until she was 8, old enough to be pulled out of school and employed at Jacobs & Co. Again, her only value is as a source of income.

Book!Lucy was proud to be an agent, but it seems her employer, Jacobs, should not have held the position he did. He was, apparently, the only researcher in his Agency, and he did a piss poor job of it judging by the number of child agents who die on his watch. However, even he could see Lucy's extraordinary Talent, and she is promoted twice as fast her peers, achieving her third grade by age 11. This doesn't, however, seem to add to her self-esteem in any appreciable way. She obviously cared deeply for her fellow agents; she describes spending all of her free time with them and rarely seeing her family. Their loss would have to have affected her deeply. But after listing their names, she says, simply, "They're all dead now."

She characterizes herself as unattractive (a clear departure from Show!Lucy played by the undeniably gorgeous Ruby Stokes). Lucy mentions, "as my mother once said, "Prettiness wasn't my profession." She also states that she was quick on her feet but not especially skilled with a rapier. It may be possible that Lucy is prettier than she realizes, or that she has charisma or grows into her looks; she certainly catches the attention of her subsequent employer, Lockwood.

So how does her childhood experience shape Lucy? She underestimates herself and her skills. She sees mostly her own weaknesses and deficiencies. This shouldn't be unexpected when she has grown up with no one who values her for anything except a powerful Talent and a possible source of income. Her self-doubt causes her to be critical of others, looking to see if they are better than how she perceives herself, or if she is the stronger candidate in any area. Being rejected by her father and mother as a young child, and by six agencies in seven days upon arriving in London can't help. She also has a deep desire to be loved and valued (who wouldn't?). As she's only around 13 when she sneaks away from home to go to London, I think her reactions and insecurities are very believable.

Lucy is an exceptional Listener; even she is willing to admit that. It means that she lives in a strange kind of reality, always responding to a wealth of input that isn't readily available to anyone else. But she doubts her own ability to make the right choice based on the information she has. She blames herself for not picking up anything concrete to prevent the deaths of her teammates at Wythburn Mill.

She describes herself as taking orders well and working well as part of a team, but this really underscores her doubts in her ability to choose correctly in dangerous situations. Even her initial outburst with George is fueled by embarrassment rather than self-confidence. Early in the books, she is reluctant to challenge Lockwood on anything in the field, and unable to see where others respect or admire her. These insecurities will cause her to raise Lockwood up on a pedestal and look down on George. Perhaps she sees in George aspects of herself she doesn't like, or prefers Lockwood's aloof treatment of difficult subjects over George's razor sharp wit and perceptiveness.

She's a complex and relatable character, both brave in battle and insecure in her relationships. She desperately wants love and acceptance, but can't offer either to herself. She's only sure of her Talent, and because of this, is drawn to cross the veil of life to engage and empathize with the dead rather than take the risk of fully immersing herself in life. These traits will fuel her exponential growth in her abilities, but also put herself and those she loves at risk, until she is able to finally accept herself for who she is: strong, weak, brave, Talented, perceptive, afraid and also very capable, loving, and loveable, and loved.

[douglysium]

Episode 13 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(​What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 10. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 13 “Futures”

We start the episode by overhearing the date between Sam and Celia that had been planned previously via Sam’s phone. They talk about how weird it is to have a night job and Celia reveals that she knows a lot about Sam’s personality thanks to Alice, and Celia continuously makes Sam blush (which is apparently not very hard). When asked by Sam if Celia explicitly asked Alice about hims Celia says “Just doing my due diligence.” After Celia goes over Sam’s personality traits Sam asks “So who do I talk to to get a complete list of your flaws?” to which Celia responds “No-one. I’m mysterious.” This response is probably because Celia is most likely from the TMA universe given some evidence in the previous episodes (so it’s very likely that there’s not a lot of information on her to find) but I also wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing or allusion to something. Is all the stuff Celia reveals to Sam in this episode simply a lie to get Sam to talk? Whether or not Celia genuinely cares about Sam or is being any level of honest is still very up in the air.

Sam says “Hmmm. Well jokes aside we should probably just get all of our baggage out on the table now. It’s risky enough dating at work without adding bombshell revelations to the mix.” Celia reveals that she has a 1 year old baby named Jack. A name that was actually dropped in episode 11 “Marked” when Celia said “Hold on, Jack, I’m on my way.” after mysteriously waking up near a motorway. So there is evidence to suggest that Jack actually does exist in at least some form, since there’s no real reason for Celia to mention Jack while talking to herself. Well, unless she’s aware that something / someone was listening to her at the time anyway. Celia says that she has no idea who Jack’s dad is and “...I had a couple of wild years after I moved here. It was a really weird time for me, but somehow I got lucky enough to come out of it all with him.” I wonder if Celia’s move refers to hopping universes somehow or literally just moving. If Celia does actually turn out to be from the TMA universe I wonder how long she’s been in the Protocol one. I’ve already made the point previously that time can get a little wibbly-wobbly with multiversal travel in TMA based on what we have seen. So exactly when Celia ended up in this universe would be up in the air and I don’t know whether or not she would have shown up in perfect tandem with the Entities (especially since she could have simply tried to follow them through the gap sometime after they left the TMA universe). I wonder if Jack was somehow kidnapped or being used to blackmail Celia?

Sam unloads some of his own baggage and reveals, at least partially, why he is so interested in the Institute. Sam has not told his parents that he has bailed on his previous job. As a kid Sam was tested and was dubbed “gifted” so his mom and dad started enrolling him “in every “enrichment” program they could find.” However, when they tried to enroll Sam into the Magnus Institute, the organization apparently didn’t want him despite Sam’s status as a gifted kid. Sam notes that they were the first organization to not want him and it seems to be the point where his luck took a turn for the worse. “Didn’t get into Oxford, so I went to Nottingham. I graduated but I missed a first by one mark. Then I went to work at a legal firm. I was there for years, hoping they’d eventually sponsor me for a law degree.”

Eventually Sam had a breakdown due to stress which led to an “incident” at work. He freaked out during a presentation and “After that they “encouraged” me to move on and I did. Six unemployed months later and I took a job at the O.I.A.R.” Sam also explains that he and Alice hooked up at Celia’s behest: “Yeah. Uh Full disclosure, we dated at Uni and stayed in contact after. I did my best to help her through her parents’deaths but after that we pretty much dropped out of touch. According to her she dropped me a line about the job after “the most pathetic vague-post she had ever seen”.” “Now she’s a friend. An insufferable, obnoxious know-it-all friend but yeah, just a friend.”

Celia asks one final question, a question we have all been waiting for, “The cases, at work. Do you think they’re real?” Sam says “I… don’t know. I hope not. You?” and Celia says “I'm pretty sure they're real.” to which Sam asks for some wine. Celia once again seems to be certain of a suspicious amount of accurate information.

I wonder if Sam is telling Celia the full story since it seems like Sam’s background is missing a potentially more supernatural element. I remember one of the teasers of Protocol implying that Sam had a supernatural encounter, and having a breakdown while giving a public presentation sounds like something that could be right up the alley of an Entity like The Eye in relation to being watched and judged. So does the fear of living up to the expectations of other people as a gifted student. In TMA Jon played dumb before eventually admitting that he believed most of the statements he heard were real but was afraid of actively admitting it out of fear of whatever was listening. So I wonder if Sam, and even Alice, also suspect that the cases are real but are in some sort of denial or trying to play dumb. Considering that Colin told Sam in episode 7 “Listen mate. If you’re going to get this worked up over a weird email you’re going to freak when you see the real stuff.” and he correctly identifies that electronic devices are being used to monitor people, I wouldn't be surprised if Colin does believe or suspect something supernatural is occuring.

We cut to Gwen confronting Lena about Bonzo and Gwen asks if the events of the previous case happened because of the information she gave Bonzo. Lena says “Yes. Whatever horrible case you read, it happened.” This response is pretty interesting because it is basically Lena confirming that every case actually happened (which shouldn’t be a surprise for the audience). Lena doesn’t specify “the Bonzo case happened” she just says “Whatever horrible case you read, it happened.” As if, no matter what case Gwen read, they all would have been equally true or valid. There’s little to no chance of a case being false / fabricated or Gwen being mistaken.

Gwen asks if she is responsible for the Bonzo case and Lena says “To a degree.” Gwen starts demanding answers and Lena tells her to sit before we get some very tasty exposition. “The world is full of opposing forces, some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in.” To me, this points to the idea that if the Fears are still around then they probably are still broken up by at least some people into various categories and factions. The idea that the Entities can be “balanced” off each other is almost identical to the philosophy of Smirke from TMA. Someone who believed that it was possible to achieve a state of harmonious balance with the Entities, only to later realize that this was an incorrect assessment with the emergence of a new Power.

Some might argue that Lena is implying that some Entities revolving around more benevolent emotions exist but I'm not 100% sure that’s true. If it was, I'm not sure why Lena would say “We are… managing the “bad guys”...” and nake a point of saying most of the “opposing forces” are not benevolent. I mean maybe they are out there but at the very least they are outnumbered by the fear based Entities (so much so that I would say we haven’t seen them if they do exist) and the OIAR seems to manage the fear related ones.

This also makes it sound like the goal of the OIAR is to keep the various Entities in check. In TMA some Entities often clashed and their various factions would often interrupt each other’s rituals in an attempt to get ahead. The OIAR might be taking advantage of this in order to keep any one Entity from pulling ahead. For example, if someone noticed that The Eye and Stranger often had an antagonistic relationship then they might be inclined to send someone or something aligned with The Stranger to deal with a manifestation of The Eye in order to take advantage of an aspect of the relationship. We have seen this sort of thing done in TMA, such as when Gertrude disrupts a ritual of The Buried by throwing someone touched by The Vast into it or when Jon disrupts the Dark’s Extinguished Sun by staring at it. While it is true that all the Entities are required for a successful ritual it does seem apparent that whichever Entity actually has their ritual pulled off rules, or is the dominant force of, the subsequent Change. For example, The Eye’s ritual did bring all the Entities into the universe but The Eye was watching over all of it and seemed to be in charge. Additionally, those aligned with The Stranger, such as the NotThem and Breekon and Hope, seemed quite miserable due to the fact that the Entity they were tied to thrived off of mystery and the unknown. In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains) Jonah tells Jon “We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown.” In MAG 165 (Revolutions) Not-Sasha says this in regards to The Eye’s Post-Change world “Do you know how it feels? To be – anonymous? And yet known! To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned Eye. I’ve suffered enough.”

So it’s possible that even if something like the Anglerfish did get dragged from TMA it might still not want another Power to win. Also, an Entity like The Web still might be at play and trying to prevent an Entity from setting off its ritual until it's own plan is ready. We also know that people like Jared Hopworth weren’t interested in conducting a ritual for The Flesh, even though others aligned with the same Entity were, so it’s possible there are people and monsters that do not care for any sort of ritual succeeding either way.

GWEN

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

LENA

“And yet it is the only explanation you’re going to get for now.”

GWEN

“So what? We’re the bad guys?”

LENA

“We are… managing the “bad guys”..”

LENA

“(cont. returning to her desk) There should be an email in your inbox. We have another external that needs assignment. It’s quite urgent.”

Lena’s refusal to give Gwen straight answers could just be some sort of security measure until Gwen proves herself trustworthy but it also rings familiar of how Jonah purposefully refused to give Jon certain answers about the Entities and what was happening until the moment was right for his plan. In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains), Jonah explains the reason he killed Leitner: “[Sighs] Of course, Detective. So. For the avoidance of any doubt. I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives. And I killed Jurgen Leitner because he was… an unnecessary complication. Likely to tell John too much, too early.” So something similar could be happening here and Lena is purposefully not giving Gwen all the information as part of some sort of plan or process.

The case for this episode takes the form of Darrien filing a complaint about the Zorrotrade App to their customer supportline’s answerphone. The bot tells Darrien that all the operators are busy and that they should leave a message and Darrien begins to explain what happened.

“(intense) Listen you thieving bastards, I want my money. I don’t care about your “suspicious activity” bollocks, I have burnt my entire life to the ground for this stupid bloody app and now you owe me my goddam money. So, you can either pay up or I drop a line to the Ombudsman and tell them all about your little “Projection” trading, see what they make of it.” “You can’t just take my money, lock me out of your app, and then expect me to roll over. I’ve been a user for years. Hell, I’ve probably invested more via this poxy little program than everyone else put together and what do I have to show for it? Eh? You owe me.”

Darrien rambles about how they worked hard for the money and if losing the money is some sort of punishment they don’t deserve it. While Darrien’s colleagues go to uni Darrien decides to “make bank” and take out their entire student loan and go straight to shoring using the Zorrotrade app. According to Google, “shorting” is short for “short selling” and “is a trading strategy where investors speculate on a stock's decline.” Darrien stuck with the app since it had just launched and even powered through its “first janky interface, your weird background checks, all those damn glitches but I stuck with it because unlimited Margins and Deposits was pretty sweet. Made some quick cash shorting failing startups then used that to broaden into Crypto, leveraged some EM ETFS, scraped up a few pennies then started to go long on a few obvious winners like Omni and Sparkhub for some hedging. Easy peasy.” Darrien eventually accrues enough money to become the one in their friend group to be buying all the good stuff “And sure, money can’t buy you love, but you’d be amazed what personal trainers, high end surgery and hair plugs can achieve on a speccy little finance nerd.”

Darrien continued to make good money until “I got cocky and I bet against the big man himself. I shorted Dantex hard in 2020. Stupid, really, but the whole Zurich thing had wiped a bunch out of my portfolio and I got a tipoff from one of the lads. So I went all in. And no, I don't blame Zorrotrade for that. But it was a bad time. I remember I was sitting on deck with Oli, watching the sun set in the Riviera and I was ready to close up shop. I grabbed my phone and started messing with the settings looking to settle up. That was when I noticed your new: “Personal Projection Short Selling” feature. It was disabled, buried under advanced lab settings and covered in disclaimers without any explanation but it still grabbed me. I had no idea what it was and there was nothing about it online”

Darrien makes mention of a slider with the warning “These settings are experimental and 

may not function as intended, user discretion is advised.” but insists that this does not justify what Zorrotrade has done to him. Because Darrien was basically broke and had nothing to lose, they flick the experimental slider on and “a new dialogue window opened with two words: “Investment Amount”. Bear in mind that at this point I barely had a pot to piss in. So I put in my last few grand. Why the hell not?” The app took Darrien’s money and they carried on drinking until they passed out at around 4pm. Oli eventually kicks Darrien out for making a mess in his guest cabin but Darrien notes “let’s be honest, we didn’t really get on anyway. He dumped me at the dock with nowhere to stay and told me he’d send me a bill for the TV.” Signifying that Darrien most likely broke a TV in a drunken stupor.

After being kicked out, Darrien tries to call some other friends but Oli had told a group chat that Darrien was broke and the group “always knew I’d “end up back in the gutter eventually.”” As Darrien begins writing a “proper” response their phone dies and, since they were borrowing Oli’s charger previously, they did not have a way to charge their phone.

The call cuts out and then Darrien reconnects saying “Yeah, I know I'm going long with  this, but tough. You can just shut up and listen.” which I just thought was funny. I assume the message just got cut because it was too long and Darrien had to tell the story over the course of two messages. Darrien later gets robbed as they explain “So it turns out that stepping off a yacht, alone, in some pissant fishing dock in the arse end of nowhere, in the middle of the night with a thousand dollar case and a lost look on your face is a good way to get yourself mugged. They took everything. The case, my watch, my jacket, even my shoes. But not my phone. Dunno why, it’s like they didn’t even notice it. Kicked the hell out of me, though. Talk about rock bottom…”

Darrien eventually manages to get their hands on a charger and contact the British Embassy. “They told me to go online for an emergency travel permit and it was as I was applying for it, that I saw a new email ping up from my bank app. “Deposit received” I opened it and got as far as “remaining balance: one hundred thousand and eighty three pounds, twelve pence“ before I was back on Zorrotrade reading a notification: “Congratulations! In recognition of your change in circumstances, you’re Personal Projection Short Sell has now been paid in full. We hope you invest again soon!”” Darrien concludes that while they were drunk they had somehow bet against themselves and because Darrien lost all their money and stock they were rewarded for it. Darrien figures this is a bug but handwaves it as being a problem with the app instead of their fault for abusing the loophole. From their perspective they earned / deserved the money.

Darrien admits that they knew it was probably a fluke and should have quit but “Only, that’s the thing with money. It multiplies, especially when you’re good at finding loopholes.” They even say that they should’ve been more concerned about how the supposed loophole even worked but “the wheels were already turning.” They realized that they might be able to short against their own life and then purposely injure themselves in order to go positive and make a profit. “And no, it wasn't fraud. I’ve checked and there’s no regulations about it or anything, so like I said: your app, your problem…” Darrien begins testing this loophole: “Nothing huge. I bet a thousand quid then picked a fight with the biggest stranger I could. It cost me a tooth but… four hundred profit. A good return but it didn't cover the dental bill to get it properly fixed. I tried again, this time betting 10k before renting a car (with insurance) and crashing it into a tree at speed. That messed my leg up pretty badly and I got a faceful of glass but I also got 50k profit. That was more like it. I spent a few weeks breaking myself, and sabotaging my life, in various ways, and by the end I'd banked a cool mil. It was just so liberating, so addictive, literally cashing in my misery into cold, hard cash. So as the sun set over the harbor I opened the app again and dug straight through to the Personal Projection Short Selling box: “Investment Amount” One million pounds, ‘You Only Live Once’ right? Again, the little ping and the tick. Then it was time to go for a walk.”

Darrien then picks a cliff that is about an hour and a half’s walk away. They also hope that the cliff isn’t tall enough to kill them when they jump off of it. On their way to the cliff they made a few phone calls. Darrien called their parents to tell them that they never loved them and that they hope they die horribly, they go onto the previously mentioned group chat and talk about how they slept with each of the member’s partners (even when they hadn’t) and “Then it was on to my socials publicly declaring my affiliation with every messed up ideology and psychopath I could find. I ran out of time before I could confess to robbing orphanages to buy drugs but I think I made my point.”

“Then I got to the cliff. It felt much taller standing at the top. There was a surprisingly chill wind blowing across the edge, driven upwards from the sea and that coupled with the sheerness of the drop gave me a moment of vertigo. I hesitated. Was this really worth it?” Then they jump off the cliff and when they come to: “I woke up here at l’hopital Jean-Marcel, 2 days later. Apparently, I was in a medically induced coma since they found me. One leg was amputated and the other is full of pins. Cracked spine in two places, ruptured spleen, 6 broken ribs and a cracked skull. Every second hurts. But when I woke up I couldn’t be happier. I was alive sure, but more than that I was rich, properly rich, untouchably rich. Everything was going to be okay” A bunch of people crowded Darrien as they woke up but they just demanded their phone so they could check the Zorrotrade app for their money (it’s possible that many thought Darrien attempted a suicide). 

“I braced myself, looked down and there it was. Almost fifty million. But… there 

was a tiny symbol to the left of the figure. A minus symbol. And then I saw your notice. “Your payment has been suspended due to suspicious account activity including potential insider trading. Official bodies have been notified. Please repay your outstanding balance or prepare for Personal Adjustment.” That was twelve hours ago and no matter what I do I can’t seem to get through to anybody. So yeah, I need my money. I didn’t do anything wrong I just… used a loophole, that’s all. You can’t blame me for playing the system. Besides I’ve got nothing left. Nothing. So just, give me my goddamn money.” We then get

DARRIEN

“Oh, right. Darrien Laurel. Account number 428813.”

ANSWERPHONE

“Thank you. You are being transferred to our adjustments department. Click.”

There is something on the other end of the phone. It clearly isn’t human. Metallic insectoid chittering grows louder.

DARRIEN

“H- hello?” The chittering grows even louder. DARRIEN drops the phone.

DARRIEN

(cont.) “Oh god- what!? Nurse! NURSE! Darrien screams.” The call ends.

It’s definitely weird hearing Darrien actively get jumped mid statement. It’s also interesting that whatever is on the other end of the call doesn’t seem to respond until Darrien gives their full name and account number. I wonder if this “adjustement” is killing Darrien, dragging them somewhere, or literally controlling / reconfiguring them somehow. Well Darrien show up again in a kind of Michael Distortion or Anglerfish type situation? It could also be something else entirely.

If I were to view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 I would say that this statement has a lot of similarities with The Desolation and The Web for a lot of the same reasons I gave when going over episode 9 (Rolling with It).

People mistakenly assume that The Desolation is just the fear of fire when in reality it is the fear of loss and destruction, and it has manifested as bad luck in the past, such as in MAG 37 (Burnt Offering) after Jason North disturbs a site that was used by the Cult of the Lightless Flame in an attempt to curse Gertrude (you can read my full explanation of all that stuff here (Episode 9 TMP Quick Thoughts)). We have also seen The Desolation connect to the loss of belongings such as money. In MAG 089 (Twice as Bright) when Jude Perry says “Then it was simply a matter of forging his signature on a few documents implicating him in some very illegal transactions to get his assets stripped from him. Oh, and burning down the new house, of course. And with each act of glorious, hateful destruction, I felt my god’s love embrace me, consume me, give me life. Any feelings of pity or mercy I might have had for the poor woman I fed from were cauterised.” Notice how she mentions stripping someone of their assets to appease The Desolation. So the connection to the connection to The Desolation would come from the fear Darrien has of losing their money

The connection to The Web is much simpler. Darrien is basically gambling (even if they are cheating in the end) and they note the process as being addictive. We know that The Web has a strong association with addictions. The transcripts also describe the noise at the end of the statement as being “Metallic insectoid chittering” which could relate to something like a weird spider or bug but it’s hard to be sure. Darrien does mention that they were miserable and expresses fear of going too far or messing up, so fear is definitely still present.

There’s also The Buried, an Entity that doesn’t just relate to the fear of being stuck or not having enough space literally but also metaphorically. Meaning it can relate to the idea of being trapped or stuck due to crippling debt.

The case also has some themes of The Slaughter (with Darrien getting stabbed and then picking fights) as well as The Vast (when they jump off the cliff). You could also argue The End since Darrien seems wary of accidentally killing themselves.

We cut back to the OIAR and Alice walks in on Sam who is a little drunk. I wonder if he’s drinking to cope with the realization that the cases could be real. Alice teases him for a bit and Sam says “It’s just- I get that you might not love the idea of me seeing Celia, but… I just think we should keep things a bit more… professional now. You know?” Alice is clearly hurt by this but is clearly trying to cope with jokes and sarcasm. 

SAM

“Alice wait.”

ALICE

“What.”

SAM

“I just don’t want things to get weird…”

ALICE

“Then you’re in the wrong line of work.”

SAM

“Yeah. 

SAM

“I’m sorry”

An odd comment from Alice. I wonder if she is referring to the weird occurrences in the cases or the nature of many of the people who work in the OIAR. Does the OIAR attract weird people? It isn’t unheard of for Entities to tend to attract people with certain traits or personalities more than others.

Alice tells Sam “But if you ever ask me to be professional again, I'm going to have to take a shit on your desk.” and I wish I could say with confidence that this was just a joke and not a threat. I can see why Alice might be a little hurt by Sam asking to be professional because he is basically saying they should stop talking during their long tedious boring office job right after he went on a very personal date with another coworker. Not to mention the fact that Alice clearly cares about him and even went with him all the way to the ruins of the Magnus Institute.

Sam once again asks Alice if the cases are real. Alice asks if it really matters and Sam says “Yeah, kind of! If we’re working for the Men in Black or covering up ghosts or whatever then shouldn’t someone go to the press or…” to which Alice responds “Okay, a) You’re drunk, b) You can’t prove anything and c) you signed the official secrets act in your onboarding.And I know all your school friends say treason's “bussin'” and “fire”, but it won't look good on your CV.” before stopping Sam’s interjection and elaborating “Look Sam, you really want my opinion? Sober up and stop trying to make an impact. Just do the job and take your pay.” Basically, Alice is telling Sam not to try to be the big hero. I makes me wonder how certain Alice is that the cases aren’t real or if she just thinks whether they are real or not doesn’t matter because she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway, so she just works off the assumption they are not.

SAM

“And what, just ignore what’s going on right under my nose?”

ALICE

“(heading off) Pretty much. Keep it professional.”

SAM

“(incredulous) I’m sorry?”

ALICE

“It's ok when I say it.”

SAM sighs and goes back to work.

I can’t 100% tell if Alice telling Sam to “Keep it professional” is her way of getting back at Sam or if she is more so getting at the idea that she is using it in a different context for different reasons. Maybe both.

Why Smirke’s 14?

I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.

A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.

The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.

It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”

The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.

While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.

Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.

For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.

Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”

However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.

However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”

At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.

So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).

Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”

We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).

So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.

This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.

There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.

Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who's to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.

However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.

That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).

There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.

Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.

As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”

Conclusion

This was an interesting episode but it still leaves some stuff up in the air. I wonder if the alchemical symbols will tie into the OIAR’s goal of balance? [Insert quote about equivalent exchange]. Will Celia betray Sam or side with him? Does she actually like him or just see him as easy to read and are both Sam and Celia being completely honest or not telling the full story (they are probably still hiding some things I think)? Which External will Gwen meet next? I hope they are more talkative and explanatory than Mr. Bonzo. Why did Mr. Bonzo kill that groom anyway? Was the groom aligned to an Entity or organization?

If you want to check out any of the previous articles you can do so here- TMP Quick Thoughts Archive.

[punmonster]

Kinda scuffed cuz my source is Wikipedia but the burning bush was described as being an angel appearing in a bush which God then speaks through, if Dante is the angel in this case as they appear to be, then I wonder who the God may be.

I've got a few thoughts on who though:

1] Carmen/Ayin/The Light in general. Easist to explain, they all relate quite heavily to religious and more specifically heavenly references like White Night, the sephira and how one could argue that Angela could be a stand in for Lucifer. However, I find this one the most boring.

2] It's the star that guides them. Especially given how the burning book scene in the bible is one in which Moses is appointed to become a leader and guide the Israelites. [I wonder if this has anything to do with DD Moses, but it's unlikely] But in this case, the question remains of who exactly they're talking to, as with C/A/L one could easily say they're being guided to ensure everyone distorts/doesn't/forms an EGO. Also the idea of the star - something most likely from the outskirts - being Lucifer cuz he's known as the Morning Star is interesting given the next idea I have.

3] The Head. Do we have any info on them? Not really. Does this make sense? Probably not. Is it fun? Hell yeah.

According to my lord and saviour Wikipedia: '26 is the gematric number, being the sum of the Hebrew characters (Hebrew: יהוה) being the name of the god of Israel – YHWH (Yahweh).' Which matches up with the amount of wings [or at least the amount there's meant to be, don't remember any references to Z corp] within the city, and the sum of a city could be said to be its leader.

There also the holy trinity idea of the Arbiters, Beholders and Claws of the head, and how they will know if any one of The City's rules are broken in a way reminiscent of how God's omniscience is described. As well as how it seems that the calendar was reset at some point or another - looking at the dates on Dante's notes - which possibly aligned with the date of The City's formation, and which matches how our calendar reset with the birth of Christ [does that then make The City itself Jesus? Someone or something to be sacrificed for other's sins and then revived? Or is it just referencing how a major religious moment was the thing to reset the calendar].

In this case, would the game's version of God speaking through the angel to nudge Moses into guiding His people be The City being reflected through Dante to guide someone [the sinners? Limbus Co. Itself?] into making The City slightly less shit? Unsure.

Hope you don't mind my rambles, but all the ideas you put out are really interesting and I have no irls to talk abt this game with, have a nice day!

Also: Currently on the look out for anything with black n' yellow fire, and the 'burning bush' is also a species of plant native to several places, including Korea - as well as also being known as the 'winged spindle' and 'winged euonymus'. This is probably a reach but if we see anything abt spindles or euonymus I'm gonna take notes lmao.

hell yeah delicious analysis!

a spindle is also used to hold thread, if that means anything.

i cant think of anything to add atm otherwise, but this is good shit! :D

[citadelofthestars]

there's actually a studied phenomenon in babies where if they are deliberately left to cry (something you should never ever do) and their cries are not consistently answered, they will develop attachment disorders that last through to adulthood and in the most severe cases the baby also eventually stops crying at all. It's called "learned helplessness" and it's a result of the extreme stress they endure and the lesson they are taught that no one cares and no one is coming when they call.

Does the fact that Lockwood gets shot and falls down the catafalque in complete silence haunt you too, or is it just me

I know there's storytelling reasons for this, but in world the fact is that as he's falling Lockwood has to think he's about to die and he doesn't even scream

My chest hurts

[mellkellyismyhero]

and another thing about kipps!

In some ways, he’s Jacobs’ foil.

Spoilers for Lockwood and Co. books under the cut.

Both Kipps and Jacobs are ex-Fittes agents, now supervisors, who've lost a lot of kids under their commands. When they lost their Talents, they couldn’t bear to leave behind the ghost hunting industry. At some point, they’re both the only adult on a ghost hunting team with Lucy Carlyle.

But while Jacobs doesn’t have the resources, bravery, or ability to either rejoin the fight alongside his kid agents or leave the agency entirely, Kipps is actively throwing himself into haunted houses completely blind.

While Jacobs couldn’t bring himself to go into a haunted house with children he was supposed to keep safe, I’m pretty sure Kipps went right to the Other Side with L&Co. in TEG (I don’t remember if he had a choice or not about that- were they being chased or something? I don’t have my copy on hand). Either way, he was willing to keep fighting without his goggles. He threw his lot in with Lockwood and Co., even when they made fun of him or ganged up against him. This man got nearly DIED because he wasn’t willing to leave the life of an agent behind.

(Man, once I get my hands on my copy of TEG... I annotated that thing when I was like fourteen. To this day, the only physical books I’ve ever annotated are because I had to for class, OR because they were written by Jonathan Stroud. I’m going to reread the series and come back in a couple weeks with a much better analysis of how Jacob and Kipps' characters definitely rhyme lol.)

[urbaneturtle]

DCAU Rewatch: Batman the Animated Series 16: The Cat and the Claw, Part 2

As Batman works to take down Red Claw, Catwoman’s pursuit to save an environmental preserve brings these opposing forces into an uneasy alliance.

Credits

Story by S.C. Derek & L. Bright

Teleplay by J. Dennis & R. Mueller

Directed by D. Sebast

Supervising Composer Shirley Walker

Music Composed by Harvey Cohen

Animation Services by Akom Production Co.

Layout Services by NOA Animation

One thing I tend to overlook on this show is its directing, the way the camera moves and shots are staged. Even in some sloppier episodes, we can get some stunning imagery. The opening of this episode, where the camera pans down from the moon and gothic skyline down through the trees and to the nervous gangster walking through the park, is gorgeous. Some old-school animation tools to create the illusion of depth there. And of course, the backgrounds always look great.

The opening scene where Batman is pressing the gangster is solid stuff. Like I said last week, I wish this episode focused more on the Gotham underworld and its connection to the crooked corporations as opposed to the silly ecoterrorist stuff. Where the last episode was a lot of fun characterization and playful banter between Batman and Catwoman, this one focuses a lot more on straight-up action and Red Claw’s plan to release a germ weapon. And it is all the worse for it.

There’s a nice subtle parallel between Batman and Catwoman midway through, where Selina and Bruce each go back home, chat with their assistants, and suit up for their nightly prowl. It’s done in a way that doesn’t feel intentional because it is so natural to each character, but the structure of the two scenes is so similar it’s undeniable. It’s smart storytelling that furthers the plot but tells us about each of the two characters and their similarities—despite being on opposite ends of the law.

Nothing about Red Claw is compelling or sensible at all, but it’s made just a bit more tolerable because the two-parter is truly about the relationship between Batman and Catwoman.

Read the full analysis and commentary, including production details, on one of the first episodes of Batman the Animated series ever aired on the Patreon.