#my self destructive thoughts and guilt are a crumbling construct

[morathicain]

Love the process of healing where your brain tries to be mean to you in the familiar, old way and you’re actually able to retort with an “well, actually ...!!” sometimes I even laugh at it for good measures bc it’s so ridiculous

[weirdspaceowl]

Why I think Eddie will be back in season 5 - part 1: Master of puppets

Hi! So I spent the last 24 hours actively gaslighting myself into thinking that Eddie is going to come back in S5 because of two Metallica songs. So I thought, why must I suffer alone? Let me involve others into this madness. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(Disclaimer: I have seen some of these thoughts expressed in other posts/videos, but never in one cohesive thing and I want to add my own chaotic thoughts to it.)

Okay. So. We all know that Master of Puppets is supposed to be about Vecna. BUT I think it’s about Vecna planning to take Eddie all along. Hear me out.

Before we get to the lyrics I need to rant about some things.

Vecna prays on trauma, fear and guilt. He’s the voice in your head that criticizes you, he is all your depressed thoughts, he is your anxiety. Like he literally symbolises that. His victims all have these problems in common. It’s how he picks them. But the people that he chooses have something else that’s just as important. They need to already have the idea in their heads that maybe giving in to Vecna is the best option they have.

Take Max. We found out in episode 9 that the truly heart-breaking reason she feels so guilty about Billy’s death is because a part of her had hoped that he would die. After he actually dies she feels so guilty about it that it starts to destroy her. In the end she’s hoping that something bad will happen to her. That last part is key I think in Vecna’s victims. That willingness to give in/ give up is exactly what he needs to take that final step and claim his victim. Another example would be Vecna telling Chrissy that her suffering will end. That´s all she wanted. An escape. And he´s offering it to her.

Okay, so now let’s look at Eddie. Why wasn’t Eddie Vecna’d? He is clearly traumatised by having to watch Chrissy die. Check. He feels enormous guilt for leaving her after she died. Check. He has a really messed up image of himself: He thinks he’s a coward for leaving Chrissy even though he tried everything to save her and he knows he couldn’t have done anything. He always dismisses his self-worth and talks down to himself. From what we hear in episode 8 he probably had a really messed up childhood and an abusive dad. CHECK. He seems like the perfect victim for Vecna. EXCEPT: Eddie seems to know a thing or two about mental problems. Like, he has had a very difficult childhood. From an abusive father and an (for whatever reason) absent mother, from being othered and villainized his entire life, from probably being bullied. Despite all of this Eddie became, well- Eddie. He turned his trauma into something positive. He became the safe space for every kid who was different or didn’t have anybody else. He knows these kids when he sees them and immediately swoops in to take them in. Eddie overcame and let his experiences make him stronger, better. He’s strong against Vecna because he understands Vecna. He’s been through it all before.

In episode 9 Eddie plays Master of Puppets to distract the demobats. This song happens to describe Vecna and how he works in detail. This to me symbolises how Eddie understands how Vecna works in a way that nobody else does. Through his knowledge of D&D and his life experience, he knows Vecna, and this knowledge gives him strength. Vecna is playing the long game however and has been slowly chipping away at Eddies greatest weakness: His lack of care for himself.

Finally we have come to the lyrics and how it ties into Vecna’s plan to claim Eddie too.

End of passion play, crumbling away I'm your source of self-destruction

After Eddie’s passion play (him giving his all playing the song) his strength will crumble away. Self-destruction is also a key word in this. Vecna needs his victims to destroy themselves first.

Veins that pump with fear, sucking darkest clear Leading on your death’s construction

Vecna has been constructing Eddies death form the start and done so by making him feel like a coward, thus exposing Eddies weakness: his self image. This will lead to him feeling like he needs to die to proof something to himself.

Taste me you will see More is all you need Dedicated to How I'm killing you

Again, Eddie on some level needs to want to die. He needs to get addicted to/obsessed with the idea.

Come crawling faster Obey your master Your life burns faster Obey your master, master

Vecna is calling Eddie to him. Eddies life is basically destroyed already. At this moment there doesn’t seem to be a happy ending in sight for him anyway. What with the entire population of Hawkins being after him.

Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams Blinded by me, you can't see a thing Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream Master, master Just call my name, 'cause I'll hear you scream Master, master

I’ll hear you scream. Foreshadowing to the demobats eating him alive? Possibly. Also call my name: Master. He wants Eddie to become his soldier. Also: twisting your mind and smashing your dreams. Eddies mind has definitely been twisted into thinking he’s worth very little and his dreams have been smashed as there doesn’t seem to be a place for him back home. Normally so perceptive, Vecna has blinded him and he can now only see how he’s doomed.

Where's the dreams that I've been after? (Master, master) You promised only lies (Laughter, laughter) All I hear or see is laughter (Laughter, laughter) Laughing at my cries

The disillusion in this. The loss of all hope. Also the laughing at my cries is so sad, because I see it as the people of Hawkins probably being delighted if they heard that Eddie died in indescribable pain. That’s all Eddie can see now, how people hate him.

Hell is worth all that, natural habitat Just a rhyme without a reason Never-ending maze, drift on numbered days Now your life is out of season

His suffering will never end. His life is meaningless and basically over anyway. He himself is basically useless (just a rhyme without a reason). Might as wel…

I will occupy I will help you die I will run through you Now I rule you too

And there it is. It took some time, but Vecna finally got what he wanted. He got Eddie there. As Eddie sacrifices himself to the demobats he’s basically being Vecna’d. He’s willingly allowing himself to die and he believes that it’s right.

In short: Eddie has been sentenced to death from the moment he witnessed Chrissy die. Now I’m depressed. But there is hope, because the next song is how I gaslighted myself into thinking that Vecna might have made a huge mistake in taking Eddie.

So the other song is For Whom The Bell Tolls. But this post is so long that I’ll do that in another post. Stay tuned, cuz my fingers hurt from typing this much.

[ecrivant]

a castle and the devil within | reiner braun

(reiner braun x reader)

the night of the ambush on utgard castle; the air, pregnant with the impeding deaths of his comrades.  reiner, plagued by guilt, ruminates on the idea of loss and culpability, and with you shares a moment that will undoubtedly come to haunt him.

a.n. – canon divergent in assuming the warriors knew of zeke’s plan to attack the castle.  

word count: 3.5k

The group moved in the swathe of night like some serpentine unity towards an unknown.  The moon, incandescent and looming high above the earth, enfolded the terrain in a ghostly haze which of all it touched made apparitions. In the air, a disconcerting quietude, silent all but for Equus footfalls dampened by sogged pasture and sniveling muzzles and the cracks and pops of low-burning torches.  The topography, undulating, and from it emerged towering palisades of spruce which sectioned the land and curtailed the interminable and verdant hills.  Clouds, by lunar glow illuminated and resembling exhalations in cold air arrested, roved the sky and overhung land so primeval Nyx herself present for its creation. Nocturne was refuge from the diurnal beasts who within them harbored a taste for humanity, but the cerement of pitch did little to lessen the unrest among the riders—in this world, serenity, erroneous.  

At the horizonal marge of sky and land laid twin towers seemingly erected from the earth itself. Spires traced in moonlight.  As the group rode forward, exhausted and pace lagging, drawing with their path the outline of the sloping land and leaving a trail of muddled footmarks in their wake, the castle entire materialized. Surrounding the towers, a crumbling stone bulwark, at once a product of precise masonry now by worldly destruction ruined—the fortress’ impotent aegis.  This manmade edifice so alien in its surroundings, as if a misplaced afterthought meant for another milieu but forgotten and left for this bucolic landscape.

The group, looking strange and scarcely manlike, finally was before this decrepit palace—its courtyard, barricaded on three sides, was rife with debris, and vegetation grew over and between the laid stones which once formed the yard’s floor.  The horses staggered on the unevenness.  Each rider, form sore and tender, dismounted and tied their horses to what he or she could find and uncomfortably shifted between feet, readapting to bipedalism all but forgotten in the wake of such journeying.  In this momentary recuperation, his eyes drifted to you—in no worse shape than the rest of the group, situated towards the back of their shapeless unit.  Your back to him, slouched as if incurring an immense weight, and shoulders rolling beneath clothes.  

Within the castle, a campfire, amber alight.  Pitch dispelled as if a demon exorcised.  Deep shadows in visages’ creases, casted in the fiery glow.  The group here indistinguishable from fatigued miscreants of past and future.

He knew outside Zeke haunted the landscape, both specter and wraith, poised to strike.  He knew this verily, just as he knew you rested, a stride away, in wary repose.  His guilt, corrosive.  You may die tonight, and he, delirious and consumed by misguided pathos, could only wait for this terrible inevitability.  And perhaps one day he would make peace with his complicity in it and see your death as one of many needed to secure Eldian posterity, but he at this moment knew better. He knew your death would in fact eviscerate him, and he knew he would never be absolved, and for it he knew, upon his own final moments, he would be driven to perdition under the weight of his transgressions against you.

Your face, with delicacy, painted in light and complexion made orange by fire’s illumination.  Aura beguiling, no less so than the first encounter. If, in your voice, the proposition to forsake his life’s purpose was made to him, he would fain relinquish it.  And he would invariably sacrifice his life in exchange for yours, though perhaps not in the noble light the act was so habitually painted—it was not a gesture of loving sacrifice but rather the embodiment of an abject selfishness by which he was possessed.  He knew he would not be able to bear the burden of your death, regardless of whether or not by his hand delivered, and would rather himself meet this inevitable and fatal eternity than ever live to see your end.

These terrible and penetrative thoughts of demise—a ghastly, mental seepage—were debilitating.  He, as a warrior, as a member of the Survey Corps, was so well-acquainted with death yet had never acclimated to it and knew the last death to which he would bear witness would be no less harrowing than the first.  And as he uncomfortably ruminated on these thoughts, he came to realize he, his presence, his mission, was the scent of death which hung over his comrades, the one which they so desperately tried to evade.  Perhaps it was some unarticulated curse which followed inheritors of the titans. As misfortune and pain had fallen on his predecessors—the same who now inhabited him as ghostly memories and feelings—these miseries now fell on him, as if he was not a blank slate but rather a prewritten history destined to recount and repeat itself.  Did he have any choice in what he had done or come to be?  Or was the first inheritor as culpable as he in the terrible fates he wrote for those around him?

Even with his stoic form, highly controlled and for years constructed, he could not assuage the tremor in his hands or the accumulating bile which at once burned his stomach and throat.

He thought at one point he had distanced himself from you—an act of self-preservation—but you, aura infectious and penetrative, always remained.  There in presence and in spirit, beside him always as if a phantasmal servant.  

Beside him you rose and waited for a moment then moved to ascend the stairs of the tower in which the group found shelter.  Someone called out for you, voice indistinguishable in the muted silence; a call less words articulated and more akin to a spectral exhalation of a once-present form.  Your voice in response, a quiet assurance of your safety—you simply needed a moment alone. Yet against your wishes, he erected himself and moved to accompany you, informing you of his presence rather than asking permission.  

“My knight in shining armor.”  

Voice coy.  A slight smile.  

Yet, over him, horror settled, and he, overcome by unspeakable sickness, fought against the bile which threatened to spill forth.  His knees trembled, and the stairs swayed and moved below him, and within him burgeoned a caustic remorse which eroded his conscience, creating from once plane morality a chasmic and unnavigable wasteland.  In this moment, he wished he had returned to Marley after Marcel’s death. For his titan, and his responsibility and mission and resolve, would have been inherited by another—his entire being reduced to pitiable memories in the mind of his successor.  And he would never have come to know you, or your strong resolve, or your aching concern, or your voice, velveteen, the sumptuous way you articulated his name.  Or your laugh which swept past him with airy carelessness and within him bred a distant and warm and melancholic feeling, like a far-removed recollection, a memory of déjà vu.  Or your quiet and unassuming history once marked by genial tranquility which was so violently uprooted by his own actions.  

He stumbled as his body anticipated a stair which was not there.  Your grip on his arm, strong, steadying.  His eyes met yours, and in your gaze, that stupidly sincere concern, and in his, unspoken gratitude.  At the top of the tower, contained in the interstice between the outside overlook and the end of the staircase, you seated yourself against the wall and he, beside you. He tried not to think of Annie or Bertolt or Zeke or Marley or his mother who within him placed her hope entire, and instead focused on the way you smelled of campfire and cold air, and the way, among the silence, the sound of your breathing stilled his heart. With a vacant mind, he simply sat and tried to match his breath to yours.

Still trembling, he inched his hand along the stone floor until he found your touch, and he twined his fingers with yours, and aside from a slight and barely-there hesitation, you did not react.  Your hand cold and his clammy, and in teenage and involuntary reaction, he felt embarrassed.

The last time he desired you so blatantly came in ambush.  He could not recall the situation, or even the moment before or after, but you were together, and in movement you had drifted past him, and as his eyes followed your hallowed form, the idea of kissing you abruptly and wholly engulfed him. He often yearned for you under the shroud of night or in the aurora of dawn, in response to a smile or a laugh, in the wake of a day spent together or a moment exchanged, but never after such inaction.  He had supposed it made sense: for a space, moment, to become consecrated, you merely had to occupy it, and perhaps the moments where he did not crave you, though few in number, did not truly exist and were instead simply obfuscated by your very presence.  

He rued each and every time previous he had not set aside his fear and held you.  This touch, for the first time, in such a chaste and quiet way, and perhaps on the eve of your demise, felt vile.  Your shared intimacy, perverse.  

But the constricting grip of your hand on his, tightened and loosened as a tide ebbs and flows in conjoined action, brought him back from his negative ruminations.  As if you sensed his need to be grounded.

And the look of your face in the barely-there starlight was enough for him to press his lips to yours, a loving movement made shy by hesitance.  The kiss, ephemeral and dissolving in the night as suddenly as it came to be.  He pulled away, face hot at your nonreaction, but you followed his mouth as if now linked and did not let him go.  Is this what it felt like to be wanted, needed?  In a second, you returned to your seated position and he to his, resting in silence as if previous exchange forgotten.  Or, perhaps, never having existed.  He suddenly saw your mutilated corpse before him and could no longer luxuriate in the aftermath of this intimacy exchanged, the grip on his hand and the closeness of your shoulder and his own breathlessness and palpitations now feeling like heresy.  

He felt in the air your hesitation, the quietude preceding the break of a storm, before you spoke, words uttered in tone eerie as if invoked then manifested from the night itself:

“Do you trust me, Reiner?”

In few moments was he struck as speechless as this.  His implicit answer was one of affirmation—he knew amply of how you so presently and continually heeded him—yet he, dazed and aphonic, spoke not.  Perhaps fearful of a forthcoming dialogue in which you would state your misplaced trust on him conferred.  He preemptively contemned you for saying such things, though it was scorn quickly and rightly turned on himself.  You trusted him under the same pretenses he did you, and no reassurances, no matter how constant, could convince him he did not for you experience true and attested concern.  It was not a matter of you falling for his acutely maintained artifice but rather one where he had, simply and unequivocally, fallen for you.  

Your gaze bore into him. Patiently waiting for his answer and seemingly unfazed by his hesitance.  He swallowed and shook his head yes and spoke to substantiate this claim:

“Of course I do.”

You nodded your head as if satisfied and looked up to the ceiling in musing and spoke again after a shared and pregnant pause:

“I trust you.  More than anything.”

You began another phrase, but it trailed off, lost in the night’s permeant sombre.  

And he did not hear it, instead intent on edifice around him crumbling, and conscience, crushing and destructive, under which he collapsed, and ire which burned him like flame, and dread which gored him and spilled forth his viscera, black and befouled from deceit.  Intent on his blood now bile, and complexion now rotted flesh.  And the eldritch bawl, suffused with ruefulness and agony and lamentation unmatched by even the most repentous sinners, which nigh spewed from his gut but instead caught in his throat in a choked sob.  And intent on the manner in which he violently ripped away from you, suddenly and acutely aware of the way his hand twined in yours was the quintessence of sinful hypocrisy—what one should be made to embrace the sadistic numen who in its hands held his or her ultimate fate?  And intent on the countless bodies of victims, past and future, coalescing in a single, fleshed mass of sanguine gore and tortured and malformed faces whose expressions more resembled demons than humans, each and all prostrate before him, supine in some perverted reverence like an agonous congregation in worship.  

“I feel you bear my burdens for me.”

Spoken with a quiet and slumberous quality, as if your first words after waking.  His mind prayed for your silence, a wish, unarticulated, as he could only hold his head in his hands and rock forward and back with mouth open in a wordless scream.  And the emotions with which he was suddenly inundated did not result in tears, and instead he sat beside you, breathing hard and in shock and doing nothing, as if struck dumb.  Your hand on his shoulder, a touch which in it held such comfort and concern, which he cowered under and tore away from as if beast threatened and made prey.  And upon this reaction, the space seemed too small and your presence, repugnant.  The crucifix proffered before the devil.  

He himself, cursed, and now he cursed you.

The trapdoor above, wood weathered and water-logged and laying heavy and flush against the stone ceiling, burst open with a tempest gale’s force, and one of the veterans plummeted from the tower’s crown towards the floor and paid no mind to your pair and instead rushed down the stairs and called for the rest of the group.  And just as suddenly as he had fallen under the yoke of his own fervor, he repressed all thought and set his jaw and ascended the final steps of the tower to emerge in the night.  You beside him.  

From above, the terrain a banished landscape.  The trees which once towered towards firmament’s ceiling now sat in small and sparse clusters littered over the land’s spanning hummocks.  And the moon, now at arc’s crest, bewashed the purgatory below in that same haze from before, the one which made all things wraithlike and seemingly ephemeral.  And within that courtyard on three sides barricaded by the crumbling bulwark and rife with lapidarius debris and vegetation made bluish by the night which encroached upon the yard’s stone foundation posed dozens of those unclad leviathans, climbing over architectural remains or coming forth from arboreal cells or clawing at the tower’s base with hands all but human and much more vehement. Monstrous and aberrant pilgrims converging on their infernal holy land.  

Knowledge of Zeke’s intentions made the sight no less grim.  

In the moments before the veterans descended upon the beasts below in instinctual response, they were struck still, shock and fear in their eyes clear.  And for some reason wholly unknown to him, the reaction, so involuntary and raw and basally human, impressed upon his mind and burrowed deep within him. His body shuddering.  The nightmarish air, pregnant with the threat of impending carnage, and in it, unspoken fear.  

Under blade the brutes fell silently and with their impacts shook the earth.  Even with the dexterous hands with which the veterans fought, the tower’s entrance—a large and wooden and rotting door—was breached.  Authoritative calls, tinged with desperation and fear and sounding more like cries, ordered the group’s remainder to secure the edifice.  To fight to their final breath.  

He could not bring himself to look at you, yet he still felt your presence, the air around you leaden and viscous and suffused with dread.  

As he ran down the stairs, leading the charge to secure the entrance breached, he pondered his intentions. Atypical of his carefully crafted persona, and perhaps his true self, to waver in the face of danger and at the chance to protect his friends, or rather those who he had acutely deceived and convinced of his friendship, he resolved that his actions were integral to the role of Reiner—the protective and stoic hero who, out of fraternal love, laid down his life for those around him.  A role with which he had no qualms assuming.  Even if it was one through Paradisian Eldian’s eyes seen—he cared more about the perception than those who perceived him.  But as he heard your voice with unprecedented fear call out, his name from your mouth a desperate invocation, all notions preconceived wiped away.  He did not fight for the longevity of his own ego, nor even for Marley, or Bertolt or Annie or his mother, home in Liberio.  In this moment, he fought for you.

Upon reaching the staircase’s base, and beyond the open door, he found himself before a titan with stretched grin and ravenous gaze, all humanity absent.  In torchlight, the beast’s grimace, devilish.  And he slammed the door and threw against it his weight entire and called out an indecipherable—perhaps an order, perhaps a cry for help—to the ones descending the stairs behind him.  A sudden plosion of splintering wood beside his head, and through the hole created shot a fleshy and steaming appendage, furiously and blindly reaching for him.  He felt shame as he realized he had already consigned to dying, and in the seconds before this infernal arm enveloped him, he thought of Marcel.  And of Marcel’s scream—his final and desperate expression of abject fear—halted at its climax and then punctuated by the ferric and sour smell of fresh blood and the sound of bone crushed and brains liquified.  

No, he was not to die here.

His movements, automated—his body, propelled away from the door and brushing against the arm which all but had him; Bertolt beside him and pushing a spear into the goliath; his form responding to a warning call, diving out of the path of the unloaded canon which flew down the stairs and as a bludgeon crushed the titan.  

His consciousness divorced from corporeal form, only united again as the agony of teeth sinking into his arm suffused him with an unknowable pain.  He was made sick thinking this was the feeling which marked Marcel’s final moments.

—

Trembling hands struggling with makeshift gauze.  Punctuating, shaky breaths.  Though you tried to hide it, eyes focused on dressing his wounds in silence, he could see you were thoroughly harrowed by the moments prior.  While he was plagued by thoughts of your death, were you by his? As much as it would cause you great suffering, he would still rather die before you—in his selfishness, he would rather have you alive and obliterated by grief than he.  He was reluctant to believe true love was this selfish. Though, when one says they would die for their lover, is it a product of selflessness or self-preservation in the face of grief?  Perhaps in a world different from this one, selflessness possible.  

You finished your work on his arm and sat back.  He looked at you for the first time since you last spoke and found he could barely hold your gaze.

“I promise that if I die, I will be with you. Always. Just look for me.”

Were these his words or yours?  There was no distinction in this place, voices and bodies and human and beast all made one primeval unity in this cold dark.

He wished for you to hold him.  

And when this wish remained unanswered, and the group was called to the towers peak again, and he quickly and silently ascended the stairs next to you, he became aware of a painful and agonous truth: he would never know your touch again, nor he did not deserve it, for the hours and days that followed held admittance of his duplicity; a look in your eyes which so clearly reflected how he violated you; between you, an establishment of mistrust and enmity.  And he would perhaps know your touch again, but it was touch imbued with lethal intent, hateful, your vitriol unspoken but not absent, as you, with all your resolve, tried to wholly annihilate him.  

And yet, in an ironic turn where you, in your hands, suddenly held his fate in a way not dissimilar to the way he did yours, he still wished for his own death to come first, for he would not and could not resolve to live a life devoid of you.

—

ah hi there!  was this one week’s worth of work?  perhaps no.  but i hope everyone enjoyed it regardless!  thank you so much for reading and thank you to the anon who sent in a request for this fic!  i loved your idea, and i hope you enjoyed the piece!  

all the recent support means the world, and feedback and all that is always so appreciated.  have many requests on the way, so look forward to more stuff coming soon!  

request: ok so there's this scenario that's been itching my brain in the wrong place 😭😭 reiner and reader in the castle ruins? before the armored titan reveal? possibly the reader "confesses" to reiner by saying that out of everyone in the corps they trust him the most. and later on he just... does that. spare me some angst please

masterlist

taglist: @flam3bird, @sakusas-whore

[caneannabelle]

ok hi guys. it’s been a while. i wrote this analysis back when Mag 187 aka Checking Out aka The One Where Helen Dies first came out and literally ever since i’ve posted it i’ve wanted to redo it because it feels. lacking. listen if there’s one thing i hate it’s incomplete media analysis and i must right my wrongs lest i be forced to look upon myself and crumble from within. that being said, i’ve been putting off this rewrite for a long long time bc Life Gets Weird. tldr this was written over the course of several months so i apologize for inconsistent quality. anyways let’s get into it!

part one: recap!

it’s been a while! let’s just go over what happened. the scene i wanna focus on in particular is this one:

VICTIM

You’ve got to help me!

ARCHIVIST

[Angrily] Don’t touch me!

[THE ARCHIVIST PULLS AWAY, AS THE VICTIM FALLS AND IS CRYING]

HELEN

Oopsie. Not so easy, is it? Keeping up your humanity?

(187).

that being said i’m gonna be kind of all over the place but! i do think that’s a good jumping off point.

part two (part one): disparaging everyone’s problematic fav

in my original post my point was that in reflexively reacting to a victim with disgust and anger jon inadvertently reveals the nature of his dedication to helping victims as ego driven, especially because this line is directly preceded by him asserting his moral high ground over helen as being a “protector” as opposed to her indulgence in destruction. what i’m saying is homeboy has a savior complex. honestly there’s a lot of evidence to support that claim but i think the most obvious example would be jordan kennedy. like.

JORDAN

…Yeah. But wrong. Sick.

What did you do to me?

ARCHIVIST

I helped you.

JORDAN

Helped me? I don’t feel right, I, I just – Ah! No I don’t – argh! I don’t want this!

(184). to be clear it’s an action with a good intent! he just wants to help someone who once helped him! BUT it also demonstrates a lack of conscious empathy. i feel like i don’t have to argue this since jordan Literally vocally said he didn’t want this several times throughout the scene but the point remains that while jon’s intent is good the actual application of his saviourism removes the autonomy of those he affects. i’m not gonna touch on the “is it objectively immoral to become an oppressor for the sake of self preservation while existing within an extreme system in which all are oppressed regardless of your individual status” query mostly because i do not have the brainpower available rn to come to my own conclusion about systems of power and the way they’re represented in tma (which is a whole other rant tbh) but jon DOES rob jordan of the ability to come to his own conclusion in this debate and make his own choice, thereby removing his autonomy. you know. autonomy. free will. the thing that is central to jon’s internal conflicts. huh.

anyways i NEED to stress that i’m not saying that he’s the same as jonah or the web or even annabelle (although annabelle is a victim. no i don’t take constructive criticism). i just want to point out that his actions reflect a lack of understanding. while he’s able to empathize with the pain others experience and is eternally hyper- aware of it he is unable to view that pain through any lense besides his own and uses it in his cycle of self pity and blame, minimizing it at any point possible in the quickest way and Not prioritizing the wishes of the victim but instead the efficiency in decreasing his own guilt. anyways back to 187- both the victim and jordan are treated as props by jon (and helen) and once they serve their purpose in reaffirming the two’s sense of self are cast aside and ignored. ok from here i’m gonna get conceptual and self indulgent bc it’s my analysis and i get to bring up vague convoluted philosophy.

part two (part two): part two

let’s talk about the distortion for a sec. i refuse to believe helen and michael were both completely gone and it was just the distortion piloting their visage, mostly because… like that’s not what the text would indicate

HELEN

Michael isn’t me. Not now.

ARCHIVIST

What happened?

HELEN

He got… distracted. Let feelings that shouldn’t have been his overwhelm me.

Lost my way.

(101). it’s heavily implied that there was SOME remainder of michael in there, even if the being wasn’t him. maybe i’m way off base here but the way i interpreted the implosion of michael was that it was driven by his inability to maintain the repressed resentment and anger he had for gertrude. like it’s pretty clear that some warped version of michael’s feelings were trapped inside of the distortion and i’d go as far as to say that they were integral to his formation as it. i’m gonna operate on the assumption that michael and helen are two separate beings here for a sec even though we know they’re not. As opposed to michael’s resentment for the archivist, helen actively sought refuge in the institute and from the small amount we saw of her Pre-Distortion it seems like her paranoia is internally directed. i think you could even say that while michael was caught in an eternal battle with the concept of connection, helen is caught in a battle with the concept of self. the point is that she thinks of jon in a less “The Archivist” sense and more as just That Guy who she had an intense connection with that one time.

ARCHIVIST

So… S-so what do you want?

HELEN

I don’t know. Helen liked you, so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.

(101). i would also like to point out that helen’s emergence as the distortion coincides with jon coming to terms with his identity as the archivist. parallels, baby! SO helen is a newly formed being that is grappling with the concept of her own existence and jon is reevaluating his understanding of identity as he comes to terms with the fact that he is turning into the thing he’s fighting against and this is all happening at the same time. live laugh love. stay with me here, i promise i’ll get back to 187. Throughout seasons 4 and 5 helen attempts to validate her own moral decisions via jon who she once saw herself in. conversely, jon sees both an image of what he could become AND arguably a representation of his past failure in her.

ARCHIVIST

It did. I think… I mean, you remember how I was back then, how paranoid. The Not!Sasha was there, and I could sense something wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t place it. It left me a suspicious wreck. Then when Helen Richardson came in, it seemed like… she was in the same place I was, but worse, further along. I thought, maybe if I could help her, that would mean… maybe I wasn’t beyond help?

(188). helen and jon lie at opposite ends of the same spectrum. both of them derive pleasure from the suffering of others

HELEN

Oh, John! This existence can be wonderful, if you just let it.

ARCHIVIST

[Sadly] I know.

(187). needless to say that a LOT of jon's arc and the themes surrounding him focus on the concept of autonomy and addiction and i think it'd be fair to say that this component is an aspect of that. repressing these qualities is both a way of reaffirming his control and also just.. him trying to be what he perceives as Good, and season 5 is the point at which this comes to the forefront of his character- particularly the line between what is intrinsic and what he truly has control over. a battle of the concept of the self, if you will. while the two share similar traits, jon is intensely moralistic while helen indulges in a twisted sense of hedonism and both are fueled by an inability to expand their viewpoint. helen fully immerses herself within these qualities and intentionally blinds herself to any concepts of morality (indulgence), and jon actively pushes back on this as hard as he can and follows black and white moral framework (repression). this means that in order for their relationship to function he must either accept her, choosing to let go in his personal battle with autonomy OR she must break out of her worldview and conform to standards of human morality which goes against her own nature.

part three: questions i do not have the answer to

so. what does it all mean. WELL. 187 is the boiling point of all this tension. we know that helen relies on jon to validate her sense of self and we know that jon sees himself in helen, both past and present

HELEN

But that doesn’t make any sense. You barely met her. You had half an hour together, and she spent most of that ranting about mazes! She was positively delirious with paranoia!

ARCHIVIST

True. But as you’ll recall, I was pretty paranoid myself at that point.

HELEN

So what? You saw yourself in her? A sad reflection? A possible future?

(187). I’d argue that 187 is demonstrative of jon’s inability to either fall into complete indulgence in intrinsic values that lack moral validity vs. maintain and image of self that does not conflict with the values he attempts to uphold in order to find internal satisfaction and yes both of those concepts are inherently egocentric as he bases his moral judgement on what he can justify to himself instead of what can be calculated via empathy. however. paired with the alternative (helen). is that BAD. is it inherently selfish to do what you perceive as good in order to feed your own savior complex? and if so, is it inherently selfish to indulge in destructive qualities as to not delude yourself? is honesty vs deception a black and white question? if not, where does helen even fall? in not deluding herself does she achieve a moral high ground? IS she deluding herself by denying the potential to be facetiously benevolent at the detriment of both her personal enjoyment and her honesty? does helen even posses the capability to repress her violent qualities? if she doesn't, does she have any autonomy? if she and jon are both inherently selfish and intentionally resistant to introspection, what makes them different? i do not have answers but i do think the text is meant to invoke these questions. i mean,

MICHAEL (STATEMENT)

There was a great evil, she said, and Michael was going to help her fight it. Am I evil, Archivist? Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature? When it embodies its nature? When that nature is created by those which revile it? Perhaps Gertrude believed so. Michael certainly did. He believed everything she told him.

(101).

part 5: conclusion

so once again. what does it all mean. well! even post helen’s death jon continues to fight for autonomy and preserve his moral worldview so. i think that probably indicates something good.

MARTIN

Huh. She couldn’t help what she was, I guess.

ARCHIVIST

She didn’t even try.

(188). i honestly don’t have a thesis i just find it incredibly interesting how the themes surrounding these two intersect and play off of each other. anyways looping back to 187 i do think in a broad sense jon killing helen is representative of him choosing to stick by his convictions and keep fighting. i don’t have any good way to end this but thanks for sticking around during my self indulgent rambling!

[mylifeasevelyn]

When the sun turns cold and starts to fade and you don't know where your bed is made. There's a hazy glow you cannot save. Memories flood like acid rain... When the sun turns red and starts to hurt and you know what was said was undeserved. All the jealous cries of the misunderstood, currency of the restrained

        Hello dear stranger, it’s me, Evelyn. Last time I tried typing a post, things took a pretty drastic turn of events in less than an hour. Whatever I was writing at that time, it doesn’t reflect at all the reality I’m living at the moment. Therefore, I won’t post that. Compared to now, it was pretty bright and hopeful. That shit’s outta the window now. This post will have no specific structure. I’ll just type spontaneous raw thoughts... I guess I’m doing this as a way to face the hurt that’s been chasing me these past few weeks. I’ve tried everything, but it’s still there, growing stronger than me...

        So first off, I hate to say this, but I had another panic attack. And it was the shittiest one so far. Unfortunately, what triggered this panic attack in particular was someone verbally abusing me, which of course triggered a traumatic memory and yeah, I could tell I was fucked from the moment I couldn’t “fight back”. Instead, I froze and barely managed to say a few words back. It was heartbreaking. Not only was I taken back to my traumatic past, but I also reacted the same way I used to do it 20 years ago. This person treated me so bad that I felt like a terrible person. I felt so bad that after the panic attack I had to ask a friend if I was bad person. That’s how bad this person made my self steem crumble. The guilt I always used to feel as a child, the fear, the helplessness. It all came back, and it was so powerful that it left me unstable and weak. So weak that I could barely walk back home because of how much my legs were shaking. At one point I almost passed out in the middle of the street, but thankfully I managed to find a place to stop and possibly sit until the tremors would stop. But I knew couldn’t stay there, it was too cold and that wasn’t helping at all. I was somehow grateful that it was night-time and there wasn’t many people around to see me. All these memories were back and flowing and intertwining, like an evil déjà vu. PTSD at its best.

        To top this off, my shrink bailed on me. Yep, just like you read it. Out of the blue I found myself lost in the pain of my traumatic past and my inability to cope with stressful situations in the present. Even though I didn’t resort to self-destruction, it’s been a hell of a month dealing with my demons consciously and without professional help, to say the least. A friend told me I was brave for doing this, but I can’t seem to see it that way yet.

        These past 40 days have forced me to face my demons, which I only face 2 or 3 times a year when I have my nightmares. But now it’s been hard for me to come back to the place that caused me so much hurt, the place where this person who I cared about hurt me so bad. A place I used to call “safe”. My friends have encouraged me to go back, but I’ve lost my strength and joy. Now I have to rewire my brain into thinking of other constructive ways to deal with my bpd.

        Anyways, as always, my mental illness is still there, being a part of me. I’m aware of it, we live as one every day. It haunts me under pressure. It makes me feel weak. But I know I’m not. Yet the pain I feel, the way it suffocates me, that’s something I wish it would leave me alone at least for one day in my life. No matter how much I try to run away from it, the harder it gets back at me. No matter how much I plead for the pain to be over, it’s never gonna happen. Call it pessimism or harsh reality, that’s the way it’s always been with me. I embraced this agony and chose to keep on living with it regardless. Sometimes it haunts me all day, other times it’s whenever I can’t keep my mind entertained.

Call it six sense or whatever, but I knew that he was coming as I looked out my window. They Will Fall Like Roses was playing out loud; the one song that calms me down when the depression-anxiety chemical concoction is too powerful to shut off when typing these thoughts away. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear him if he ever showed up with my loud speakers blasting. And there he was. I get a visit. I’m forced to dry my tears and keep on living life normally. This man tells me that he’s been working since 7a.m. and I’m one of the last people he has to visit before his shifts ends. He’s smiling through ear to ear and trying to talk to me a bit more. Since I’m pretty good at hiding my feelings when necessary, I follow along with the conversation just enough to be polite and grateful for the good vibes and service. He drops my order and leaves... and just like that, reality shifts and so do my thoughts. You entertain your mind with other thoughts to keep you away from the dark ones. The more you can do this, the longer you survive.

        I dunno what else to say other than: it’s okay not to be okay. Cliché phrase but true nonetheless. Struggling with a mental illness (let alone 3) is quite the adventure. There are more downs than ups, but as I said typed before, I’m okay with it. If I ever lose my sense of bravery, then I might as well kill myself. As of now, I’m going through a sea storm with my mind. My mind is a boat, my feelings are the ocean and I’m on that boat trying to come back to the shore. The tide got wild to say the least, and now I’ve got to be patient and hope that I won’t drown in the ocean. We are already in the boat, might as well fight and survive together, right dear stranger? Let’s fight together, shall we? ‘Til next time.

    Never give up, always fight.

Love,

Evelyn