#poor jonathans just genuinely haunted

[notlikeotherbirds]

If Jonathan Harker was blogging this shit online, people would tell him to get his CO levels checked bc that sounds a lot like carbon monoxide poisoning

[bladedhatsandstars]

Strutting the Ogre Street

For @stellamortua

“Are you sure about this, Mr. Joestar?” The thug eyed his companion and the sling his arm was in. He’d considered asking Jojo to hide a shiv in it, but imagery of Dio’s treachery made him forego the idea. He had tried to figure out a way to hide the state of Jonathan’s injuries but the poor man was lucky enough to have one arm out of the sling. They couldn’t rush the other.

“My mates will be happy to see us, but there’s still a few who would take a shiv to us.” He reminded Jonathan again, trying to distract himself from his thoughts. Like Jonathan, he was still haunted by flashbacks, but he had more than ghosts of the past to worry about now. Especially with him unable to use his trademark weapon… He’d Liked that hat. He’d worked hard on assembling and balancing it just right…

Unable to argue with his puppy-eyed pal, Robert squared his jaw and shoulders. “Right. Watch your back now. Off we go…”

He hopped out of the carriage, eyed their surroundings, and turned to offer an arm to Jonathan. They’d have to make their way on foot, since the rookery where he lived did not have a direct road to it.

He stayed quiet as he led Jonathan through a maze of alleys, bridges, and even down through what used to be someone’s basement. He’d wondered if his statuesque friend could fit through there but Jonathan wanted the full Old Nichol Street Experience. There wasn’t a more genuine experience than going through someone’s yard, past their latrine, and through their fence. Luckily no one was around to pitch a fit or a bottle at them.

He paused and held his hand out to stop Jonathan. He held his finger to his lips, eyes glittering with warning. Even though anyone they’d face on this street would pale in comparison to the horrors they’d faced at the Joestar mansion, Robert still wished to spare his pal and himself a dustup right now.

The wind was against their backs, which did not assist Robert in his scanning. His friends knew they were coming and would have prepared the way for them, but this one patch of town was particularly rough. Robert had control over most of the gangs in town, but there was always an outlier or two who didn’t agree with how he ran things.

So far so good… But Robert wasn’t taking chances.

“Stay here.” He hissed a whisper.

With that, he pulled himself up a window onto the roof. He knew from experience this roof would hold him. He scanned the area again, and leapt to the next roof. He landed less gracefully than he’d planned but he managed not to cause too much commotion. He wasn’t keen on becoming a street pancake when he was so close to his goal.

Hmm… Where was that panhandler who always lurked on this corner… It had been over a month since Speedwagon left home, and anything could happen in that time, but he was suspicious of change until he knew the logic behind it.

Ah. There he is! Poor boozer had gotten himself another bottle. He should be distracted enough not to raise the alarm, but just in case…

Robert returned to the street and sauntered up to the panhandler, greeting him casually. Per usual, the sod gave him a toothless grin and a few hurried words of respect. Robert tossed him a coin, asked for the gossip on the street, and bid him farewell.

He soon spied the other fellow he was looking for. He approached. Insults were traded. Things grew hot under the collar. And then, just as Robert expected, the bloke backed off. Robert hid his smirk and bid him adieu, ignoring the rude gesture he received in reply.

He made his way back to Jonathan, whistling confidently to himself. There was no need to hide now. They could make their way home unmolested. That is… assuming Jonathan had actually waited like Robert told him to.

[fictionz]

New Fiction 2022 - July

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "1 Paralipomenon" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

More begetting children and all their names before coming back around to more of David's reign. So many chapters are just appendices to previous events.

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "2 Paralipomenon" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

Two Paralipomenon, say that five times fast. So now it's on to Solomon and his riches (again), Roboam talking about how his little finger is bigger than his dad's dick, and Jeroboam getting whipped with scorpions all the way to the fall of Jerusalem. It's basically another look at what we saw in Kings.

Dracula Daily - "July" by Bram Stoker & ed. Matt Kirkland (1897, 2021)

Dracula’s finally outta that musty old castle, though leaving Jonathan in the lurch is quite the cliffhanger. And that poor, poor captain.

Bad Hare Day by R.L. Stine (1996)

A mish-mash of various ideas from earlier books. It has the vibe of Haunted Mask and stealing secrets from weird adults, the experimenting with illicit stuff from Monster Blood, animal transformations from various books, bratty younger sister who bullies the protagonist, a Slappy-like snarky villainous character. It’s too much of a remix and more slapstick than horror.

Egg Monsters from Mars by R.L. Stine (1996)

A decent creature story, but the latter half kind of sags with the protagonist spending a lot of time just trapped in a freezer and struggling to stay warm. The villain is genuinely frightening but also one-dimensional and doesn't really explain his motivation well. And there's not enough of the egg monsters. It's close to a top tier book but just sputters too much along the way.

"Bathtub Mermaid" by Edith Zimmerman (2022)

Someone has to hear about the doll thief.

"its time for… the dark cabinet" by itstimeforcomics-blog (2015)

When you least suspect it.

Lost Highway dir. David Lynch (1997)

One can see the continuation of a theme in Lynch’s work since Blue Velvet. Does he want us see the darkness or the light?

Mad God dir. Phil Tippett (2022)

If the journey ends for you, it doesn’t mean it’s the end.

Mr. Malcolm's List dir. Emma Holly Jones (2022)

British accents always class up the cruelty.

Thor: Love and Thunder dir. Taika Waititi (2022)

Whoof, what a drop from Ragnarok.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers dir. Akiva Schaffer (2022)

A reflection of a reflection that is unaware of what it sees.

Where the Crawdads Sing dir. Olivia Newman (2022)

Pump up the volume on the mystery, tone down the romance.

Nope dir. Jordan Peele (2022)

The most fun take on Jaws since the original. A real hoot and also really fucked up at times. An understanding of horror by someone who continues to bring cool ideas to movies.

Vengeance dir. B. J. Novak (2022)

You get awful close but you shouldn’t have been the face of it. Now we ask, what did we learn?

Fear Street Part One: 1994 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Really going for it right out of the gate. I’m in. Now I need to know if I should go back and read Fear Street after reading this bunch of Goosebumps books.

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Even the devil craves a kind word.

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 dir. Leigh Janiak (2021)

Legacy is mankind’s ruin.

Goosebumps - "Bad Hare Day" (1996)

Erf, the book was rough, and the episode doesn’t do itself any favors by leaning into the snarky villain.

Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1988-1990)

A nostalgia bomb like every one of these 90s cartoons tends to be, though the tropes eventually wear thin when watching it all in one go. Monterey Jack may be what crystallized my appreciation of cheese.

Better Call Saul - Season 5 (2020)

This show... it doesn’t build the way Breaking Bad builds. It’s more of a roller coaster with the sense of hitting the same drop a few too many times. This season is a bookmark in place while you wait for the extra season that should have been season five.

The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022)

I feel bad for the actors and crew of this ostensibly standalone TV show. Your makers should have had the fortitude to stick the vision.

Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)

Better, but only because it is exactly what I remember. It’s comfortable, like an old pair of socks.

[fanaticit]

Nobody Heard Him

Preview: "But it was more than Loneliness, wasn't it, Martin? It was terror, too. Don't you remember how that terror felt? Feel it again. Feed on it."Or, Peter Lukas imposes the Lonely onto Martin.

Pairing: Implied Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood (Jonmartin)

Genre/themes: Hurt, angst, loneliness

CW's: Using power over somebody in a harmful way, being trapped in a bad situation, nobody can hear/see you, psychological and emotional abuse, manipulation, loneliness, etc. Be safe, please!

Word Count: 1627

Martin was drifting through the Archives with every care in the world resting on his sagged shoulders. He stepped on each marble tile, remembering that he didn't have to worry about stepping on the grouting between the tiles anymore. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." He used to remember that every time he walked on pavement or tiles, but it didn't much matter anymore, did it?

He reached out a hand to open the door to his office. The knob had been black-painted metal, but years of use had made most of it metallic, reminding Martin of several statues he saw in Scottish streets a while back.

His pale hand passed through the doorknob.

It took him a moment. He tried again, and then again to open the door, to feel that cold smooth metal under his palm. Because clearly, that'd been his mind playing tricks on him. He hadn't slept well recently, or it was a trick of the light. When his hand went through the door, he screamed. Someone patted his shoulder.

"Ah, hello there Martin. Having a rough one, are you?" asked Peter with a genuine grin.

Martin shook his head in disbelief. "Peter, what just happened? My hand, it... it went through the door? But-- but you could touch me! You did, just now. What just happened?" he stammered, staring at his hand, which seemed to be growing less opaque to his eyes.

"Yes, that does happen eventually to most of us. Nothing to be alarmed about, I assure you." Peter assured triumphantly. "In fact, this is wonderful progress. How long has this been going on? I'm proud of you, Martin."

"I-- I can't open the door," Martin murmured to himself. "But I've seen you open doors. You walk around and pick things up, I've seen it. Peter, what's going on?"

Peter contemplated for a second. "I guess it's time for a discussion on the Lonely, Martin. Would you care to step inside?" He opened the door to Martin's office. Martin stepped inside, numb.

The Avatar of the Lonely looked at the wall while he spoke. "To truly harness the power of the Lonely, you must understand its power, its potential, its effect. Let me tell you some stories of people I knew of, Martin. There are so many factors in Loneliness. I can't list them to you, it's bigger than that. It's always too big to summarize, so I'll do some storytelling."

"A woman who worked up the courage to confess to someone she loved, only to be shut down and cast out like waste in front of a laughing crowd. How she cried in the bathroom, how she wanted to sink into the ground or disappear instead of being embarrassed in front of others. Humiliation and rejection are symptoms of the Lonely."

"There was a teen I knew of who associated with sad fools that glorified loneliness. They loved the pain inflicted on them, boasting about their latest tragedy until they couldn't separate grief from joy. They infused Loneliness into themselves eagerly, for the story they could tell later. The glorification of tragedy is Loneliness."

"Some old man who once had a name, but nobody remembered it anymore. Loneliness from age, from the grief of losing everyone close to yourself."

"Two siblings vying for a parents' affection, only for one to be left alone when the parent was forced to choose between the two. Being abandoned."

"A successful lawyer choosing to stay late at work again instead of seeing his family, falling asleep in his office instead of in his home. A priority that lets Loneliness win."

"Loneliness no matter how many people are close. Pushing them away, feeling like they don't care. Anxiety and depression, loneliness despite a crowd around you."

"Oh, there are so many shapes and sizes of Loneliness, Martin. The feeling of being Lonely is similar to the true understanding of it-- overwhelming in every way. It's incredible, isn't it? I can tell in your eyes-- you feel it. You felt the Loneliness of every poor soul I described. Isn't it liberating, Martin? Knowing that you understand the lock, but not the key? Understanding the underlying terror of everyone leaving you behind, understanding why they all assume nothing will improve."

"It's marvelous, don't you think, Martin?" announced Peter, feeling the emotion of his novice.

Martin's face shook. "It's... it's terrible. I hate it. I want no part in this, Peter. I can't do this. I can't feed on their grief. It's wrong!"

He stumbled out of his office, his face grey and hands shaking. Jon. He needed him, Jon would know what to do, how to help him out of this. Where was he?

There-- in his office, the door wide open and a tape recorder going. His head was rested on his arms, and he was silently staring at the spinning tape. There was something haunting about his expression. Martin sped into the room in a panic.

"Jon, oh thank god, I need your help. I did something really stupid, and Peter's chasing me, and I need your help. Please, I can explain it all later, but he's gonna be here any minute, Jon. I don't want to disappear. He wants me to feed on their pain, but I can't do it. I don't want others to be hurting. Come on, we've only got a moment. Why aren't you listening to me? Jon!" Martin ranted, only then looking up at noticing that Jon hadn't moved.

"Jon, listen to me. Please, why aren't you getting it? Peter's going to be here any second and--."

"I'm already here, Martin," Peter announced from behind him in the doorway. He sauntered in, taking a place by Martin's side, staring at the Archivist with no emotion. "He can't hear you, you know."

"Stop playing games, Peter. Not with Jon. You said you'd leave him out of it," Martin stammered, looking between the two others in the room with worry and terror.

"I'm not," Peter said, matter-of-factly. "It's all you, Martin. I'm proud, really. You're making incredible progress."

"Stop it! I don't want any part of it. You're the one doing this, aren't you? Just another one of your sick mind games!" yelled Martin, no longer worried about being overheard, because nobody could hear him.

"This was all you, Martin. I didn't have to do this for you, you figured it all out on your own. Of course, I chose well. You were the perfect candidate for the Lonely right from the beginning. I didn't even have to work it into you, it was already there."

"Shut up!"

"The employee surrounded by superior minds, the eternally jealous and awestruck novice. The friend-to-all with no friends at all. The one ruled by emotion over logic, trapped in a room alone with their terrors locking on the door."

"Stop talking, Peter."

"Were you Lonely when you were trapped in your apartment while the worms tried their hardest to enter and dissect you? Were you Lonely when you faked your way into your job? Were you Lonely when you lost your companions in the tunnels and wandered about on your own until you stumbled upon a corpse?"

"I said shut up!"

"But it was more than Loneliness, wasn't it, Martin? It was terror, too. Don't you remember how that terror felt? Feel it again. Feed on it."

Martin had stopped talking. He went rigid and curled up into a ball instead, sinking to the floor and cradling his knees.

"You're the outcast, Martin. Why else would their only use for you be to bring tea? And they didn't even ask for that, either. Maybe they just didn't want you around at all. Is that why you faced Elias's terror all alone? And then so many of them died because you were too useless, too cowardly, too foolish to act. You're fixated on the one you love, but your death would be inconsequential to him. Everybody you've burdened with your problems was exasperated, so why do you even bother?"

The ringing in Martin's ears was intense, but Peter's words were more so. He stared at Jon, who hadn't moved. He was staring at the tape, oblivious to the scene in front of him.

"They all assume you're nothing, and you'll never have the strength or the resolve to even try to prove them wrong. You felt the Lonely when you lost your mother, too, but you felt it even more when she was here. Do you remember what her last words to you were? Grief seems like second nature to you now, but it never gets better, does it? All the little things you keep seeing. The little reminders."

"Just leave-- me-- ALONE!" screamed Martin out of the blue. He made eye contact, forcing Peter to look away.

"I really am proud of you. If being Lonely is what you wish, then I've succeeded already, haven't I?" Peter murmured. "You'll be able to become visible over time, though it will take effort. Although who's to say that you're really not visible?"

"...Maybe they all don't see you because they don't want to. Just something to think about. I'll see you tomorrow, Martin." Peter let out a sigh, then walked out of the door and vanished from sight.

Martin collapsed against the wall, suddenly exhausted. He stared at Jon, who was still staring at that tape recorder. The Archivist paused, then looked at the door. "Martin... where are you?" he whispered to himself, then rubbed his eyes and stared at the tea he'd made himself. "I miss you."

"I wish I could explain, Jon" mumbled Martin. "I miss you." He muttered it to himself under his breath, Loneliness taking him under again.

Nobody heard him.

--

AN: Stay safe, it's a crazy world out there. Have a good night. --fanaticit

[pensivetense]

A List Of (Mostly TMA) Fic Recs Sorted By Vibe

Not an exhaustive list by any means, just a few favourites that caught my fancy. I shortened many of the summaries for space.

I’m going to pin this here and update it as I go.

Also, I’m pensivetense on ao3

MELANCHOLY VIBES

for when you want to feel comfortably muted

(sad but not utterly bleak endings here)

Hope, Etc. (Dickenson, et al.) by yellow_caballero

Jonathan Sims, six months after the Unknowing, wakes to find himself without a daemon - without humanity, without a soul. It’s a cursed half-life, but existence as a shell without a heart isn’t so bad: between solving the mystery of a persistent illusion cast over his friends and some light pseudo-cannibalism, a life as a monster is better than no life at all. At least, it would be, if it wasn’t for the fucking Owl.

A freaking. Amazing. Daemon au. Ties the lore of Dust with TMA lore very satisfyingly, but is mostly about Jon navigating what it means to be human, or, in the absence of that, a person, and doesn’t require prior knowledge of His Dark Materials. Cannot recommend highly enough.

after one long season of waiting by nuinuijiaojiao

Annabelle is not used to having nice things. or, Annabelle heads to Upton House, muses a little, and gets some well-deserved rest

I love survivalist Annabelle and also the concept of the Web as kind of a horrible Patron, actually.

i love you. I want us both to eat well. by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse

At the safehouse with Martin, Jon decides it's time to quit statements once and for all. The Eye disagrees. Martin just needs Jon to be okay. It's quite possible that nobody is going to get what they want.

Scottish Safehouse Era, Jon and Martin coping with their respective Entities... really, really good.

the friend by doomcountry

He always greets a new spider when he meets it. It’s instinct, born in childhood, the same way he instinctively counts magpies, or flicks salt over his left shoulder. A little harmless superstition. A bit of politesse.

A great Martin character study with eldritch spider horror included. The imagery regularly haunts me (in a good way).

autumn’s rare gift by bee_bro

Annually, the two meet, renewing the binding ritual where it had all started. The procedure simple: a waltz.

Singlehandedly made me ship Gertrude/Agnes so there’s that. It’s so bittersweet and bee_bro’s writing is, as always, incredibly poetic. (I’d recommend everything they write, actually.)

smile, you’re trending by Goodluckdetective

During an encounter with another Avatar of the Eye, Jon faces his past, Martin takes a turn at playing Kill Bill and Basira has a second look at the monster she’s determined to see. For three people associated with the Eye, they could all use some perspective.

Features an original Eye Avatar character who’s a YouTube personality; she is infuriating and inspired and genuinely frightening and I cannot say enough good things.

Humility by The_Lionheart

have you no idea that you're in deep?/i've dreamt about you nearly every night this week,/how many secrets can you keep?

An OC centric story but don’t let that put you off, it’s amazing. Very heavily focused around Jonah Magnus and the other Avatars as they change through the years. Also, I’d die for the OC.

oh, for one sweet second without the eye series by faedemon

Beholding does not like in the way humans do, but it likes its Archivist all the same.

I’m just so fond of the way this is done stylistically. I have a great weakness for dialogue only/dialogue heavy writing, not to mention all of the wonderful character beats and interplay of humanity/inhumanity for Jon and Melanie.

Rewind by WhyNotFly

It takes eight days of forced confinement for Jon to start hallucinating. [...] It’s Martin, though, that his exhausted brain conjures, because of course it’s Martin. After all this time, of course it’s Martin.

Jon willingly allows himself to be confined rather than hunting for statements, and examines his relationship with Martin.

for a firmament series by supaslim

There is beauty in destruction. There is art in becoming. In which Jon becomes the Archive, and the Archive becomes Jon.

Part two posted this morning and uhhh. Good. Also if you’re here for weird eldritch body horror (I am), this one’s for you.

ONES THAT JUST HURT

for when you want to feel sad

(somewhat bleaker endings here/everyone is NOT okay)

Feste by yellow_caballero

If asked, Martin would say that he became the shadow director of the Magnus Institute by accident. But nobody ever asked, and nobody ever cared, and it was in this way that Martin stopped lying to himself. Or: break free, Martin. All you have to lose are your chains. And your sanity.

Oh, this one totally didn’t go the way I expected it to. A study in isolation. Could go into the category above, as the ending is not bleak, but the tone of the whole is somewhat more depressing than most there.

Ghosts of Love by RavenXavier

Nothing made Martin more grounded in the world than yearning for Jonathan Sims.

Lonely!Martin that really captures a sort of visceral ache. Hurts me and yet I keep rereading.

i do desire (we may be better strangers) by godbewithyouihavedone

For ages, it only knew how to worship, taking human bodies and living off the fear of those who remembered. It never knew love until it became Jonathan Sims. Now it must fight against every instinct to save Martin Blackwood. Archivist Sasha, Not!Jon/Martin, and the worst kind of Fake Dating AU.

Oh, this one just made me sad. The poor not!them, which is something I never thought I’d say.

Apple Of Your Eye by fakeCRfan

In which the Eye is fond of Martin. Perhaps a little too fond for comfort.

Somehow manages to be both sweet and horrifying—the characterisation of the Eye is incredible. ‘The Eye loves Martin’ is a scenario that’s so utterly doomed to failure and yet the writing is packed with so much pathos that I just want them all to be happy. A fantastic use of themes of agency and choice, and the single best use of Beholding as a source of horror I’ve read.

The Last Press by copperbadge

Jon Sims is awake, and has begun preparations for the Rite of the Watcher's Crown. Peter Lukas, who woke him, would be content to rule at his side. Martin is very upset about all of this, and the Lukases aren't thrilled with it either.

I really can’t say anything without spoiling the end and it’s so good. An alternate take on the Watcher’s Crown. Not a pairing that I ever thought would work for me, but this made it work.

watch the blood evaporate by 75hearts

It starts, like so many things in Jon’s life have started, with a nagging itch of curiosity. Jonathan Sims uses his healing abilities throughout s4. Read the tags.

Dear God please read the tags. But this is some high quality pain if it’s for you.

the lighthouse series by low_fi

Peter Lukas is a lighthouse keeper. One evening, he gets a call from a cryptic overseer tasked with monitoring his work.

This is such a vivid and yet subtle story—from the setting to the emotions portrayed, it creeps up on you slowly. The ending was like the gentlest possible gut-punch. The sequel just completed, and yeah, just as wonderful. This one is very much LonelyEyes but I listed it here because it is just exquisitely painful.

SATISFYINGLY HOPEFUL VIBES

for when you want to feel cozy

Clutching Daffodils by Gemi

Martin has always liked the idea of love at first sight. It’s such a romantic idea, the whole thing of it. Seeing someone and instantly feeling that strange, twisting feeling deep inside that every single media likes to obsess over. Of knowing you are in love within the day, petals falling from your mouth and warmth filling your chest as love burrows deep, vines twisting through your lungs. He always liked the idea of it. And then Jonathan Sims starts working at the Magnus Institute.

Somehow manages to be lighter and fluffier than most hanahaki fare, despite the setting. I’ve reread this one a lot.

the least he could do by Prim_the_Amazing

Martin should in fact not pick this man, specifically because of how attracted he is to him. It would be the responsible thing to do. Except he’s already following him. And he’s hungry.

Fluffy vampire au which everyone’s probably already read, but was too good not to mention.

rather interesting by bee_bro

Jonah Magnus realizes that, for some reason, when he comes in contact with weed, Elias Bouchard's consciousness will come into his life banging pots and pans.

Oh boy. So these are all favourite fics but this one is a favourite amongst favourites. The way Jonah is characterised (i.e. incredibly sensitive to scrutiny) is my favourite depiction of him, and the slow-burn between him and Elias is far sweeter than it has any right to be. Also, it’s hilarious.

The Magnus Records series by ErinsWorks

In a world parallel to that of the Archives and the Institute, a supernatural sanctuary stands against a cruel and uncaring world: A world of bureaucracy and tyranny, of murder and carnage, of loneliness and surveillence, of plague and death. But in this world of fear and misery, 14 entities born of the hopes of the world have emerged. And one of them has made their home here, at The Magnus Sanctuary. Perhaps, the employees within may lead happier lives than their counterparts did in the Archives.

This is just so goddamn pure. The author writes a really imaginative, fleshed-out alternate world and alternate Entities with engaging, well-written short statements. All of the character voices are absolutely on point, and it’s overall absurdly hopeful without ever feeling overly saccharine. I love this series so much, you guys, you don’t even know. I want to print it out and paste it on my wall. I love it.

HARD APOCALYPSE

for when you want to feel dark and angsty (and eldritch)

Most of these are shorts/oneshots because it’s just that kind of genre, y’know?

Ashes to Ashes by marrowbones

A conversation at the end of the world.

Oliver Banks is one of those minor characters that I am overly attached to. Love him here.

Employee Benefits by equals_eleven_thirds

The Magnus Institute offered some normal employee benefits: a pension plan, holidays, travel subsidies, free lunch on the last Friday of each month. Rosie makes it work.

This manages to hit that perfect sweet spot of satisfying and hilarious. Rosie gets to torment Elias, as she well deserves.

a rose by any other name by Duck_Life

Part of Jon blooms in Jared Hopworth’s garden.

This one was sad and honestly too gentle to really belong in this category, but I love it.

Eye to Eye by Dribbledscribbles

In which Jonah Magnus attempts a post-apocalyptic pep talk.

Unreliable narrator at its finest, and the implications are suitably horrific.

commensalis by doomcountry

The tower is endlessly, impossibly tall, but Jon’s work is taller.

If you’re here for the eldritch imagery, then this has some of the best.

SOFT APOCALYPSE

for when you want to feel gently triumphant

apocalypse how series by sunshine_states

Humanity adjusts. The Entities have Regrets.

Some nice vignettes set in a kinder apocalypse.

ceylon series by Sciosa

The one in which Jonathan Sims decides that no, actually, he isn't going to let the world just end.

I include this only for the sake on completeness, as everyone has no doubt already read it.

rituals by doomcountry

Martin is the first person to knock on the Archivist's door since it arrived, fully, into its little waiting temple. The Archivist saw him coming from down the hall, but decides to feign interest when the knob turns, and Martin—still a little bit smaller, a little more translucent than before—stands uncertainly just outside the room.

This one’s a little less focused on the world at large and more on JonMartin specifically.

we raise it up by savrenim

Jonathan Sims reads a book and saves the world; although maybe the real salvation is the friends he makes along the way; (although perhaps the world itself and the darkness that exists behind it isn't quite as out to get everyone as it seems).

More ‘soft revolution’ than ‘soft apocalypse’, but has the same vibe. A time travel fix-it. Incomplete but worth it if this is a mood that appeals to you.

Scarred Ground by DictionaryWrites

“You see," Elias said softly, "people always have this idea that only living things can be scarred - and they're right, of course. But a building is a living thing, Martin. And the ground can be scarred, too." "I don't have any scars," Martin said. "Yes, you do," Elias said. "You just need the right light to see them.”

Falls somewhere between ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Soft Apocalyse’ but I’m putting it here because I feel like it. Also technically a LonelyEyes fic. I found it hard to follow at first but it’s worth sticking with; things will eventually begin to make sense and come together.

LONELYEYES

for when you want to feel lonelyeyes

marrying anguish with one last wish by procrastinatingbookworm

In which Elias isn't Orpheus, and Peter isn't Eurydice, but Elias brings Peter home anyway.

Lives in my head rent free forever. My favourite lonelyeyes fic.

ouroboros by Wildehack

“You know,” Jonah says, a muscle in his calf quivering agreeably where it’s slung over Mordechai’s shoulder, “it’s really quite--fortunate--that I don’t care for you at all.”

Oh, this one hurts in the best possible way. The endless cycle of their relationship, the way it comes full-circle... yeah, good. Actually, no, this one might be my favourite. It’s a tie.

Breaking all the Rules by Thedupshadove

Elias proposes a somewhat...unusual wager.

Soft lonelyeyes? In my recs? It’s more likely than you think. Short, sweet, and... sweet.

Threefold by Sprinkledeath

Peter Lukas breaks three rules.

I’m just a slut for mythology allusions I guess.

Luck Be A Lady Tonight by prodigy

In 2014, Elias Bouchard takes a rare trip outside of his comfort zone. Peter Lukas wastes a bunch of money. You'd be surprised how many things can go wrong for two beings of cosmic power.

I love the sense of the history of them you get while reading this.

love is just a word (the idea seems absurd) by kaneklutz

"Something's wrong. It's stopped hurting" An avatar of the Lonely and an avatar of the Beholding walk into a bar relationship. It was bound to blow up in their faces.

Short, sweet, painful. Excellent exploration of their priorities.

Victor by penguistifical

elias tries something with his powers that he hasn't attempted before

The one where Elias tries to raise the dead. Not incredibly LonelyEyes centric but that’s still the pairing.

Simon Says by penguistifical

“Peter asked me to drop by and have a word with you, and, so, here I am.” Simon chuckles at Elias’s disbelieving stare. “Well, he asked in his own way. He’s not a complicated man, you know. He either comes from your arms looking like a stroked cat that’s been given a dish of cream or looking like he’s been in that toy boat of his out in an unexpected storm. He was far angrier than normal, so I daresay you weren’t cream today.”

I mean personally I’d just go ahead and rec all of penguistifical’s LonelyEyes fics but this is a standout for me.

AROMANTIC AND ASPEC MOODS

for when you want to feel Seen

The Aro Archives series by WhyNotFly

These are all just really really good. From Aro!Peter to two different aro-spec versions of the Scottish Safehouse to a long and beautiful aro hanahaki fic, this series is uniformly wonderful. The two Scottish Safehouse ones (Torn Edges and Murky Water) are my comfort fics.

and now all fear gives way by j_quadrifons

Before he can think it through, he murmurs, "Is that what it feels like? Being in love?" Martin's hand stills in his hair and Jon's stomach drops.

This one just. Wow yeah this is how it be. Another absolute comfort fic of mine.

Sweet As Roses by Prim_the_Amazing

Jon takes Martin by the shoulders, leans up on the tips of his toes, and kisses him.

I’m going to be honest—I didn’t know where to put this one. But it ended up here because the real standout of this fic for me is the portrayal of Sasha, and especially her portrayal as an aro character. So I’m putting it here. Mind the content warnings with this one!

HUMOUR

for when you want to feel delight

The Torment of Sebastian Skinner by Urbenmyth

After the Eye's victory, the statement givers are trapped in their horror stories, living them over and over again. Naturally, this works out better for some then for others.

Premise? Delightful. Execution? Fantastic. I read this one to cheer myself up when I’m sad.

Unlucky by VolxdoSioda

Jon’s dice betray him

Short, sweet DnD au, and the reason I cannot get DM!Elias out of my head now.

Voracious by beetl

A bird hits the window. Jon experiences The Flesh's thrall.

“Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” but make it literal.

The Stupid Endings by Urbenmyth

There are a lot of very deeply thought out and creative AUs on this site. These aren't among them. These ones are how the story could have ended, if Jonny Sims was a dumbass.

These are just uniformly hilarious, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

PODCAST CROSSOVERS

for when you want to make one of those “if I had a nickel for every time...” posts

The Sabbatical by morelikeassassin

Nicholas Waters is in need of an all-knowing eldritch entity beyond the confines of human imagining to help with his latest ritual. He'll have to settle for Jonathan Sims, who happens to have nothing better to do.

Crossover with Archive 81 (s3, specifically). Both fun and bittersweet.

The City And Its Sorrows by cuttooth

“What makes you think your friend is in Eskew?” David asks. He feels he can risk the scrutiny of the city that far. “I read that this is a place people end up when they get lost,” says the man. “This is a place people end up,” David agrees./The Archivist comes to Eskew.

Contemplative piece, and I love the way it presents David’s relationship with Eskew, the way he finds it horrible and hates it and yet belongs to it, is almost proud in the way he shows to to Jon. Great little vignette of two people oppressed by eldritch powers, intersecting.

Hiatus by bibliocratic

My name is Jonathan Sims, and I am in Eskew. (Jon gets lost in a Spiral city. It is not as easy as escaping.)

This one is far more focused on Jon than David, and is honestly more Eskew-weird than Spiral-weird. In the best way. Told in Eskew episode style, and is very good.

Sweet Music by Shella688

Eskew has a music to it, if you know how to listen. The percussion beat of thousands of footsteps, the melody in the squealing of the trains overhead. Today, the music of Eskew comes in the form of nine musicians, playing outside my office. My name is David Ward, and I am in Eskew.

Not TMA, but since a lot of Mechs fans go here—this one’s a Mechs/Eskew crossover. Short and simple, mostly David Ward centric, just a little well-written one shot I had to mention because I enjoyed it but it doesn’t have much traffic. Nice portrayal of the Mechs from an outsider’s perspective, and how genuinely strange and frightening they’d come across (especially if you’re already being haunted by and eldritch city). If you like Eskew-style storytelling, check it out!

NOT TMA

...but good enough that I physically cannot make a recs list without including them. Here!

[theartisticintrovert]

Case #0130403

Statement of Jason Gale, regarding the strange occurrences surrounding Daniel Fenton. Original statement given 3rd April, 2013. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.

--

I wanna start this by saying that I barely knew Danny. I don’t know how he became what he is, but what I did see, well...I still have nightmares. I guess I should start at the beginning, though I’m not really sure how much of a beginning there is.

I never had the greatest home life. Pretty textbook, really. Shitty dad, dead mom, bad friends, the works. I ran away when I was fourteen, fell in with a real bad crowd. I’d been in and out of juvie every few months, but I didn’t meet Danny until I was sixteen. I’d been picked up at the scene of a robbery, don’t even remember where, and sent off to Amity Youth Detention Center. I’d been there for about three months when my old cellmate got released, so I was on my own for a bit. I didn’t mind, D Block wasn’t exactly the worst it could get.

Danny transferred in a few weeks later. At first, I didn’t think much of him. He was tiny, barely 5’4 I think, and he looked like a twig. His eyes, though.....his eyes were what scared me the most. They looked dead, like someone sucked all the life outta him, just leaving his corpse walkin’ around like some kinda zombie. They sent him in and he just.....stared, watching Officer McCarthy leave like he was already planning the poor bastard’s funeral. I freaked out a little. I’m not ashamed, kid was fuckin’ scary.

That’s when it happened. It’s like something snapped in him. The room got all cold, and the lights started flickering. He shoved me up against the wall and I dunno how but it felt like this.....predator staring at me. I don’t even remember what he said, but I just agreed to whatever it was so he’d stop staring at me. I swear his eyes were green, but it had to just be a trick of the light. It had to be, because I remember they were blue. I remember, because I remember thinking how weird it was for an Asian kid to have blue eyes.

Still, when he got mad......I swear to you, they were green.

Sorry, I got a little.....off track there. There were a few more weird things about him, but just little things. He never ate, and I know it wasn’t that he was eating when I couldn’t see him. AYDC has scheduled meal times for every block, and every single time it was D’s turn he just....stayed in bed. There’s no getting in or out once the door’s locked, so he wasn’t sneaking around. And yet, even after about a week and a half of this, he was fine. No complaining, no hunger pains, not even a little bit of nausea. Like.....like he didn’t need food. I asked him about it, but the answer, well.....I think he was a bit nutty. Everyone was in there. 

I managed to get him into the cafeteria one time, though not for very long. I think Emily, that is, Emily Grey, scared him off, but I can’t be sure. I do remember though, that the others felt it too. Danny was.....he had this like, aura of despair. Like you get near him, and nothing you do will make you feel again. Owen Coulter said he “felt like depression, if depression was a person”. I only remember that because it was so strange to hear a twelve year old say that with the knowledge that only an old man has, but there it was anyway.

He got transferred a few days later, or....I assume he was transferred, anyway. I heard he’d finally gotten his trial, but he didn’t come back after. I can only assume they sent him to F, because I didn’t see him for several months after that. I’d honestly just been starting to feel okay again when he came back to D. I only really noticed him because we were in the yard at the same time, and something in me wanted to turn around and bolt the second I spotted him. Still, he seemed.....different. Less angry, less......snappish. I noticed a few new scars on him too, which was strange just because the inmates at AYDC aren’t allowed any electronics, so how the hell did he get electrocution scars?

The next big one happened after he was released. He’d been out for about a week when I got a visitor. This was news to me, since my old man doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me and my friends wouldn’t be caught dead in a juvie visitation room. Only visitors I really got were my lawyer and sometimes my stepmom, but she didn’t come often. She doesn’t like me much, but that’s beside the point. When I saw Danny on the other side of that glass window, I about turned around right there. Unfortunately for me, the door was already shut and I couldn’t get anyone to open it, not from my side. Fuckin’ bastards probably stepped out for a donut break, who knows. The point is, Danny was....different. 

His scars curled up both of his cheeks now, pale and prominent against his sickly brown skin. His eyes seemed a little sharper now, a little more aware. I wasn’t entirely sure this was a good thing. We argued a bit, but....I think he was genuinely trying to help. I didn’t trust him a damn bit, but at least he was trying.

I’ve been dancing around the point long enough, I think. Sure, the kid’s weird, you’re thinking. He’s got scars, so what? He makes you miserable just being around him? Probably some emo bastard. The whole predator gaze? Well, he was in for assault. No, the thing I’ve been avoiding, the thing that I’ll never forget....it was his ghost.

Way back when we were still bunkmates, he’d told me about how he died. How his parents were some kind of Ghostbuster freaks, and they built a portal to Hell in his basement. Okay, well, he called it the “Ghost Zone”, but who gives a fuck, honestly. Then he told me he was stupid enough to go in the damn thing, and got zapped six ways to Sunday. He said he’d died in that portal, and I didn’t want to believe him. I couldn’t. When you die, you die. That’s it. Game over. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. The idea that he could be some sort of.....half-alive, half-dead.....thing, well....I didn’t want to think about it. I’d already come to terms with my own mortality, and I did not need it shoved back in my face by some freaky-ass kid.

But then he showed me. God, it was horrible. I was expecting him to fail, just the delusions of his poor fucked up scrambled brains, some side effect of getting zapped to hell and back. Maybe, if it were true, to just go a bit translucent. I didn’t expect the monster.

It came in a flash of light. Two sparking rings of bright white electricity, so bright they burned to look at. When I managed to blink the spots outta my eyes, I almost thought I’d hit my head. Where Danny had been standing, a floating, glowing thing stood in his place. It was pale, washed out, with only its acid green eyes and tongue giving it any color at all. It wore a jumpsuit of some sort, with thick gloves and attached boots, like the biohazard guys on TV. It still had the scars though, even if they were glowing an ominous neon green. It hissed at me, like it was trying to speak, but I didn’t understand a word it said. When it turned that empty, hungry gaze on me, I panicked. I shoved it back against the wall, where it connected with a sickening splat. Blood oozed on the concrete, or at least, I assume it was blood. It was red and green and sizzled, like it was eating away at the stone. I think there’s still marks there, where the acid ate away at the concrete.

The thing wanted to eat me, I’m sure of it, but it seemed too dizzy. I think shoving it only made it more angry, but at that point the light came back. I looked away just in time, and when the light died down Danny was back. Still scrawny, still fleshy, still alive. Only now, I wasn’t so sure.

I haven’t seen another ghost since, and I think it’s for the best. I’ve done my research, I’ve heard about these....mediums. I know I can’t see them, not on this plane. Honestly, I’m better off for it I think. I don’t want to see them, or hear them, or even think about them again. 

I didn’t give you this statement to have you do something about it. I don’t even know if you have the ability to do anything, since all this happened in Illinois. I didn’t come all the way to some dingy spooky library in fucking London for a solution. I’ve made my peace. I just.....I needed to tell somebody. Not the cops, I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them. And not anyone else either, they’d think I’m a schizo freak, like that Weston kid. No, I’m perfectly happy laying low, and never thinking about Daniel Fenton again. And now that I have this off my chest and stored away in your freaky little library, I finally can.

--

Statement ends. Although he said he didn’t want us to do anything about his experience, we did reach out to Mr. Gale. He replied in no uncertain terms for us to leave him alone, and that he absolutely would not be giving a follow-up statement. I....can’t say I blame him, but really, half-dead? A teenager that could turn into some paranormal entity? It all seems rather....far fetched. 

Still, we did do some basic follow-up research on what we could. The Fentons do exist, as well as the town of Amity Park. I’d like to take everything about said town with a hefty dose of salt however, as it claims to be “The Most Haunted Place in America”. Tourist trap nonsense, if you ask me. Daniel Fenton was arrested in late summer of 2010, though those records are obviously sealed. Emily Grey declined to give a follow-up statement as well, and Owen Coulter seems to have unfortunately passed away in the intervening years. 

Still, I can’t help but think that Mr. Gale’s statement is....unusually detailed, especially as it concerns a boy he himself claims to have no close connection to.

End recording.

[dillydedalus]

september reading

there is literally no way it is september. impossible. anyway this month we have  horror, Fake Dating, the rashomon effect, a time war, and most importantly, no neutrals to be found anywhere

the old man & his sons, heðin brú (tr. from faroese by john f. west) published on the faroe islands in 1940 and the first faroese novel to be translated into english, this is a story about the dramatic shift in life style during the 30s on the faroe islands, from hardscrabble subsistence farming/fishing to market economy. interesting look at changing life on isolated isles, and a much lighter (and shorter) take on the stubborn autonomous subsistence farmer than laxness’s independent people. 3/5

the white shroud, antanas škėma (tr from lithuanian by karla gruodis - english/claudia sinnig - german) a modernist, fragmented, nonlinear novel about a lithuanian poet gone into exile, now working as an elevator operator in a new york hotel, who is involved with a married woman but might also be terminally ill. in between the present timeline, the book flashes back (both in the character’s own writing and in third person) to his youth in lithuania, his torture at the hands of the soviet regime, his time at a DP camp in germany and so on. quite interesting, with some great writing. 3/5

things we lost in the fire, mariana enríquez (tr. from spanish by megan mcdowell) really good collection of horror-ish short stories that also touch on gendered violence, child abuse, poverty and argentinian history (esp. dictatorship and disappearances) - some stories are more overtly horror, with clear supernatural elements, others are more ambiguous. i don’t read (or watch) horror stuff so i’m a bad judge of how scary this is - i found it more gruesome and upsetting than terrifying, but the dread is strong in this one. favourites: adela’s house (hungry haunted house), end of term and the title story (women & self-inflictred violence), under the black water (the poisoned oil-choked river is very bad but maybe.... there’s something worse in there). good, vividly gruesome, sharp sharp sharp. 3.5/5

axiom’s end, lindsay ellis i really like lindsay ellis, of all the ~youtube video essayists~ she’s probably my favourite and this book a) has a cool premise - aliens + conspiracies + alien communication and b) a really cool cover, and it’s lindsay, so i was super excited for this one. and it would be unfair to say i was disappointed with it; it’s a fun first contact romp with really good pacing, cool aliens, on-brand lindsay ellis humour and some interesting ideas on communicating with someone who is truly alien and incomprehensible. it’s fine! i enjoyed it and will definitely read the sequel, it’s just... i was hoping it would be AMAZING, and it just wasn’t. no huge problems (except for a few lines i would have liked to take a red pen to), just.... it was fine. 3.5/5 

zeno’s conscience, italo svevo (tr. from italian by william weaver) imagine you’re a businessman in trieste who does a little unsuccessful writing on the side and one day you decide to take english lessons to improve your business opportunities with the uk and your english teacher is JAMES FUCKING JOYCE who tells you that you need to keep writing. incredible. anyway these are the autobiographical notes of one zeno cosini, a hapless hypochondriac smug self-delusional fool, who just cannot quite quit smoking, marries the one sister out of three he least desires, & works as an accountant (for the man who married his most-desired of said sisters) despite his rather tenuous grasp on bookkeeping. my favourite scene is when his future sister in law (2nd most desired) complains lightly about her difficulties with latin, he tells her that he believes latin is a man’s language and even roman ladies probably didn’t actually speak it, only for her to correct him on a latin quotation. i will say tho that this book is way to long to maintain the endearingness and often drags. 3/5 tfw u write for an audience of one but that one is james joyce so fair enough

der hund/der tunnel/die panne, friedrich dürrenmatt dürrenmatt (in addition to having a cool-ass name) really fucking slaps!  his stuff is really good, and often really really wild. these three stories are all weird & slightly existentially scary, two degrees left of reality, and just. so interesting! we have a man stalking a street preacher and his monstrous dog, a train going through a tunnel for way too long (and it is very scary), and a man becoming involved in a pretend-trial (or is it) and becoming convinced that he actually is a murderer (or is he, really?). anyway, dürrenmatt.... slaps. 4/5

wow, no thank you., samantha irby a mix of memoir and comedy blogpost and social critique blogpost about growing up poor & black, dating while fat, chronic illness, and settling down in rural america. it’s fine. i haven’t read irby’s previous collections so maybe i’m missing that emotional connection, but i thought it was mostly...okay?? not especially funny imo & i prefered the more serious chapters of which there weren’t enough. 2/5

they say in harlan county: an oral history, alessandro portelli really impressive oral history about life in harlan county, appalachia, focusing on the labor strikes and conflicts in the 30s and 40s, but really exploring life and politics in the region from the first non-native settlement there to today. really interesting, sometimes inspiring and often infuriating and probably worth reading if you’ve ever listened to which side are you on. 4/5

rashomon & other stories, ryunosuke akutagawa (tr. from japanese by jay rubin) fun fact: if you read the short story “rashomon” expecting to get the, y’know, rashomon effect, you won’t get it bc the film actually takes its plot from the story  “in a grove”. anyway this is an interesting collection of classic japanese short stories, many of which are actually about unreliable witnesses/narrators. i particularly enjoyed “in a grove” and the truly disturbing “hell screen”, but found this particular collection just a bit too long. 3/5

women without men, shahrnush parsipur (tr. from farsi by kamran talatoff & joceyln sharlet) a magical realist feminist novella about 5 women in iran who all try to liberate themselves from men in one way or another, more or less successfully (one of them turns into a tree, another becomes undead), until they end up in a semi-utopian garden together for a time. disturbing in its depiction oppression and sexual/gendered violence. i don’t really know how i feel about it, but it’s a really unique and interesting reading experience; very fraught and ambivalent in the end. 3.5/5

take a hint, dani brown, talia hibbert i think this is the first actual pure genre-romance book i’ve read... in years??possibly ever? idk. anyway this is mostly a pretty fun & sweet story about ambitious & emotionally constipated phd student dani brown and security guy with tragic past zaf ansari, who begin a fake relationship for Various Reasons (as you do) and both develop Real Feelings (as you do, predictably). it’s mostly really enjoyable but man i’m really not used to Romance writing & it’s a lot. in the end everyone is very genuine & earnest & emotionally honest which.... not to be even more emotionally repressed than dani but i cannot deal with that. anyway given that 2020 truly is the gift that keeps on giving this was a fun fluffy delight & i might  read more from the series. 3.5/5

this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar & max gladstone two agents (red and blue) on opposing sides of a time war (the futuristic techy Agency vs the eco/organic Garden - neither of them is Good or Bad exactly) start writing letters as they hunt each other through the strands of time’s braid and eventually (inevitably) fall in love. really interesting concept of time travel and different timelines (if, like me, you conceptualise past as down and future as up, this will trip you up so much), very lyrical writing that sometimes toes the line to overwritten but mostly really works. 3.5/5

DNF: the madman of freedom square & the iraqi christ, hassan blasim (tr. from arabic by jonathan wright, german tr. by hartmut fähndrich) bindup of these two short story collections about iraq. these are incredibly brutal, depressing & horrifying stories about a country in a constant state of war & struggle. couldn’t bear it, probably not ever & certainly not right now. 

allegro pastell, leif randt (audio) this is brilliant, bitingly funny novel about a millenial couple, tanja & jerome, and their on-and-off long distance relationship. they are privileged (and half-aware of it), attractive, successful, very in touch with their own feelings (couldn’t be me), self-reflective, faintly ironic in everything bc sincerity might be cringe, and you will hate them. these are people who perform their feelings rather than feel them, dissect all their opinions and impulses to the point of both paralysis and narcissism, engage in constant navelgazing and cannot form any relationship that isn’t based in constant evaluation and judgment. they pride themselves on their nonconformity but are really the greatest conformists of all, and the most square, boring, spießig people under the veneer of their urban liberal drug-and-club lifestyle. had so much fun with it even as i was constantly cringing at these people. 4/5

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives Season 3 Q&A – What We Learned!

So this isn’t my usual analysis, but I did decide to collate a little bullet-point list of all the things we’ve learned from the Season 3 Q&A for those of you who can’t/don’t want to listen for whatever reason, but still want the delicious information that we got.  I’ll also be including my own thoughts about some of the points, so there will be some tasty meta.  This will just be a bit more of an informational post than most are.

·         The metaplot is known through season 5 (which will be the final season), and is hashed out in more detail at the beginning of each season.  The individual spooky stories are not necessarily known prior to the week before writing.  There is usually a general idea, but no specific details until far closer to the deadline.

·         Martin’s crush on Jon was known from the beginning of the series.  No specifics were given about when and how it came about on Martin’s end.  I imagine we’ll probably get more into this as we go forward (I lean toward it developing while he was living in the Archives, as his attitude toward Jon definitely shifted from “I have to prove myself to my boss who doesn’t believe in me” to getting very emotional when he thought he left Jon and Tim to die in the tunnels). But it was known that the crush would or already had happened from the inception of Martin’s character.

·         Tim’s background was known 2 seasons prior to now (so end of season 1).  It only came about at that point because, prior to that, Tim was going to be the one to be replaced by the Not-Them at the end of season 1 rather than Sasha.  There had to be a last-minute change because Lottie (the woman who played Sasha) had a scheduling conflict that meant she couldn’t commit to the continued large-scale time commitment.  So Sasha got replaced, Tim got a backstory, and the rest is history.  Very interesting to think that the descent into bitterness and potentially even the ties to the circus were originally meant to be Sasha’s. Is that why she was so interested in the calliope in season 1 perhaps?  Having the only main female character also be the first to die was also one of the big reasons why they added a lot of major recurring female characters from then on.

·         Basira and Daisy becoming as significant as they were was a combination of the characters being interesting and the actors being fun to working with.  They also very much fulfilled certain necessary narrative roles.

·         They knew Melanie was going to become an assistant from shortly after Lydia’s recording of her initial episode.  I’m guessing this is partly to do with Lydia being already available, but I also have to imagine it was due to the instant, nasty rapport she had with Jon.  She was certainly the character from season 1 who I most wanted back when I initially heard her.

·         Jonny’s original pitch for the show was the 13 fears, though the Slaughter and the Hunt were initially the same, but as he worked through them he realized that the root fear was very different.  It became especially apparent due to the fact that extremely different (and likely very poorly cooperating) sorts of people were driven to each of those powers.  This is interesting, because it implies that Melanie and Daisy, though we have not seen them interact, would not get on at all. They’re driven by instincts that are too close but too different.  

·         Poor, poor Jonny is haunted by Elias’ surge in popularity during season 3, particularly the large contingent of fans who found him suddenly and definitely attractive.  He blames Ben Meredith for all his woes: “It was only after [episode] 92 when he started to be properly, overtly villainous, and everyone just decided how sexy he was!  When we were planning things out, there was no way for us to foresee how sexy Elias was going to be.  Something I blame entirely on Ben.”  And Alex cackled in the background.

·         Melanie’s clap-marker as her statement beginning was actually improvisation on Lydia’s part (and works wonderfully with her background in video production).  By and large, though, there was little improvisation from the actors. There was a lot of lean-in to certain qualities that actors brought out if they were particularly good at it.

·         Jonny’s favorite power to write is the Flesh because it’s super weird and lets him dig into really odd writing.  His least favorite is the Dark because it’s so easy to fall into tropes and clichés, and he doesn’t actually share that particular fear.  He also finds writing the Desolation particularly challenging, as it treads the closest to his biggest distaste in horror: linking spooky fictional stuff with real-life trauma.  The very nature of the Desolation lends itself to trauma-porn, so when writing it he has to be especially careful not to do that.  Alex’s least favorite from a production standpoint is the Spiral because it’s always a nightmare editing it, but the Vast is his favorite, because he adds high amplitude low frequency noise to induce an on-edge feeling in the listener.

·         Alex really enjoys killing all the characters you love.  Sasha’s replacement might have been his favorite moment in the show, because it was subtle enough a lot of people didn’t catch it.  He also seemed positively gleeful when joking about how very dead Tim is.  Of all the changes in personality from character to actor, Alex is always the one who gives me the most whiplash.  Which, I suppose, is a testament to his acting abilities.

·         Perhaps Jonny’s greatest regret is naming the main character after himself and not thinking that would become … complicated.  Apparently, in the earliest drafts he was just the host of the anthology series, and not a character in his own right, which is why he originally just went with his own name.  Then he didn’t think to change it as they made Jonanthan Sims his own character with only vague similarities to Jonny (he was basically all the bits of Jonny that would make a good horror protagonist, exaggerated for effect, right up until about episode 20, at which point the character began to develop along his own lines and moved farther and farther from Jonny), who would like to believe that his own personal decisions were less “overtly horrific” than his fictional counterpart.  Alex described Jonny vs Jon as “I’d like to think that you’re less of a hot garbage-fire of a person”.  They both agreed that Jon (the character) was the absolute king of terrible decisions, and that it was hysterical to listen to Jonny’s parents eviscerate Jon’s incredibly awful decisions.  I love Jonathan Sims, Head Asshole of the Magnus Institute, but I will agree with their assessment of his character.

·         A similar regret was naming the assistants after Jonny’s then-roommates.  Not only did it cause confusion (as all 3 have now also been in the show at some point), but he brutally killed off his fiancé’s namesake first.  Oops?

·         It sounds at least probable we’ll get the last bit of the Daedalus space station story in season 4.  On that note, I found it interesting that all recurring story themes, etc, are mentioned to recur in season 4.  There was absolutely no mention of season 5 at all.  Which makes me leery.

·         US distribution and ratings for podcasts are … interesting.  Jonny could add in all the violence, explicit gore, and even sex he wanted.  The only thing (literally the only thing) that gets a podcast marked *explicit* is swearing.  Which meant that the podcast, in order to not be marked as explicit, had to scale back the language and nothing else.  Every time a character swears, it has to be well-thought-out, and Jonny has to sell Alex on why it’s important.  On the up-side, the lack of swearing was apparently what convinced Sue Sims to be a part of the cast, so I think getting Gertrude is well worth adherence to a laughably odd rule for US ratings.  Also, on that same note, Alex’s imitation of Jonny’s mother nearly made me snort tea up my nose.  So thanks for that, Alex.

·         Jonny believes that what he writes is ‘escapist horror’.  It’s a way of indulging in fear and spookiness in a controlled, safe way, when it won’t suddenly turn deeply unpleasant and traumatic.  He believes that his audience needs to trust that they can enjoy the horror without worrying that it will unexpectedly cross lines. He separates that from literary horror, which often does dig into very traumatic issues through the mechanisms of horror in very thoughtful ways.  All horror, in his opinion, needs to be respectful when it tackles very traumatic subjects.  The reason that Jonny personally doesn’t write literary horror is that he has no personal experience with those sorts of traumas, and would not feel qualified to dig into them in a genuine and thoughtful way.  He therefore sticks to escapist horror that his audience knows they can enjoy without worrying about it suddenly veering from spooks to trauma.

·         The sound of the Anglerfish is a baby crying, slowed down 100x.  Nikola had record scratches layered under her voice very subtly.

·         Jonny’s favorite thing to record in season 3 was his [MUFFLED FEELINGS], and he revealed that he managed to sound like he had a gag in his mouth by trying to stuff as much of his fist into his mouth as possible before trying to deliver lines. Which produced a really amazing amount of saliva, apparently.  They also had a lot of fun trying to record one of the larger group scenes in which most of the participants shouted at one another, because they used up most of the oxygen in the studio and all got very dizzy.  Alex really enjoyed recording his scenes in episode 100, because it was one of the few times he got to improvise, and he and the actress spent the entire episode trying to make one another laugh.  

·         Also, all statements in episode 100 are confirmed to have been supernatural events, simply told badly.  The actors got a paragraph telling them what really happened, as well as some bullet points detailing how they might get side-tracked or otherwise be terrible statement givers.  The rest was slowly improvised, with frequent checks for canon-compliance.  And, yes, episode 100 was absolutely a funny way of answering the question: “Does the magic power also make them really eloquent storytellers?”  “YES. YES, IT DOES.”

·         Alex misses his old analogue mixer.  There was about 2 minutes of eulogizing.  

·         Tim is 100% dead.  They also specify that they will never resurrect characters or bring them back from the dead (which makes Jon’s current situation particularly worrisome, as he’s not quite dead, but he’s inches from it).  Dead characters may still make appearances via tape (Gertrude’s been dead the whole time, and it hasn’t stopped her from showing up plenty) or speak from beyond the grave (thanks Gerry), but if a character dies, they will not come back to life.  This also means that Michael will not be coming back as the Distortion.  The distortion is now Helen, and the story of the Distortion is about what and who she is.  Michael may return as audio, of course, but not in the form of the Distortion.  Likewise, Gertrude and Leitner in the season finale were not ghosts; they were mostly Nikola, with a little bit of Unknowing reality-bending-weird thrown in.

·         Georgie will be returning, but she will be an occasionally recurring character rather than a regular.  

·         The Usher Foundation is the American sister foundation to the Magnus Institute, which is similar to it but different.  It’s a way to broaden the world and give a nice hook for fanfiction/RPG settings/etc. The same can be said of the other institutions like the Chinese research institution.  It’s a way to expand the world and to give a sense of scope without a locked-down story.  There’s just too much story to fit into two more seasons as is.

·         There is a nexus of timeline discrepancies that is 100% part of the plot, but the rest of timeline issues are probably just mistakes.  Mary Kaey’s dates are almost definitely oversights in writing, but Jonny doesn’t discount that he might do something with the discrepancy to make it an interesting plot point in the future.

·         Gerry’s father is not confirmed to be Eric, the research assistant of Gertrude’s who took the statement in ‘Upon a Stair’, as Jonny refused to answer the question.  He did, however, state that whoever asked had been listening very closely.

·         Any character who believes they understand how the powers work is absolutely wrong. This does include Gerry’s interpretation of Robert Smirke’s cosmology, though Jonny did state that what Gerry said is about as close as we’re likely to get to the truth of the cosmology (no exposition dump is a lie, but it’s only a decent approximation).  However, the powers are going to defy any attempt to nail them down or perfectly sum them up.  Plenty of things will not line up with the way Gerry described them, because the powers work on nightmare logic, not normal logic.

·         The tapes are NOT neutral.  They are not simply objects to record.  There is more to them than that, but we don’t know what.

·         Jonny is a massive history nerd.  He got very into Wolfgang von Kempelin, and his imitation of von Kempelen’s speaking machine was hysterical.  His favorite episode to write was ‘Tale of a Field Hospital’ for similar history nerd reasons.

·         The first trailer for the series (with the chanting) was meant as a mood piece, but has absolutely nothing to do with the meta plot.  It was recorded before half of the meta plot was even established.

·         The Magnus Institute, beyond the Archival staff and Elias, is just a legitimate supernatural academic research institution.  The library does exactly what it says it does (house and catalogue valuable texts on the supernatural).  Artifact Storage really does just store and experiment on supernatural artifacts.  Research is mostly students working on dissertations and theses.  They are even confirmed to run on an academic fiscal year (thanks to whatever fiscal nerd asked that particular question!)

·         All the supernatural things encountered in the show are tied to the powers, but Jonny does not categorically deny that other supernatural stuff exists in the TMA universe. It very simply won’t be addressed in the show, as introducing other supernatural stuff beyond the powers wouldn’t work this late in the story.  The powers play with folklore, but they do not necessarily generate folklore themselves.

·         For purposes of the story, every power only has one ritual we need to be concerned about.

·         BIG ANSWER: no power has completed a ritual to date.  The rituals are now confirmed to so radically change the fabric of reality that there is no one on the planet who wouldn’t notice a successful ritual or be effected by it in a massive way.  We are not living in a world in which the Beholding has already succeeded, or any other power.  Jonny would not answer whether or not it was possible to reverse or somehow mitigate a successful ritual.  And that makes me very suspicious that the season finale of season 4 will be the successful completion of the Watcher’s Crown, and season 5 may be trying to reverse or mitigate it in some way.

·         Leitner is likely to return (one would imagine in one of Gertrude’s tapes).

·         Jonny and Alex have made the deliberate decision not to overly describe any of the major characters beyond their plot-relevant descriptors (Tim is described as attractive, but we will not get any details of that attractiveness).  Jonny doesn’t even have confirmed ages for most of the characters. He thinks Jon is his age (almost 30).  Martin is either a bit older or a bit younger than Jon.  Tim, Sasha, and Melanie are ‘young adults’, which Jonny defines as somewhere between 25 and early thirties.  Elias is middle-aged.  Gertrude and Leitner are old.  Trevor is “old as balls”.

·         Jon is 100% on the asexual spectrum, but may not use that term to describe himself.  He would instead avoid the question, and avoid thinking about it too deeply in general.  He would be very uncomfortable describing his own sexuality. Also, Jonny made it very clear that the way Jon grapples with his inhumanity is neither a parallel to nor a comment on his asexuality.  He approaches them very differently.  He didn’t specify this, but so far as I can tell, he avoids even thinking about his sexuality, but he actively agonizes over his increasing inhumanity.  I wonder if we might end up getting a bit more of how Jon thinks about his own asexuality if he and Martin ever get their shit together enough to discuss things.

·         The statements are 90% Intangible Horror colonizing Jon’s brain, and 10% Jon is a massive drama queen secretly.  They also agreed that, if he did amateur theatre as a younger man, he would have been insufferable.

·         Tim, prior to his revenge kick, was into lots of socialization, adventure vacations (rock climbing, kayaking, scuba, etc), and may have also been a bit of a console gamer.  “Lots of socializing; adventure holidays; dead.”

·         There are no specifics at this point on the characters’ families that haven’t been addressed that Jonny was comfortable discussing, as he wanted to hold those details in reserve for later relevance.  He doesn’t want to be beholden to random answers he might throw out right now.  He would say (potentially joking) that Martin has a spider (or a series of spiders) that live in his closet over the past year, and he calls it/them George.

·         The Admiral is a composite of all the cats in Jonny’s life, which all seem to have odd rank-names (Sir Pouncealot, Ambassador Cat, the Colonel).  The Admiral is a reflection of all Jonny’s favorite things about cats.

·         We are not going to be meeting any other plot-integral characters we haven’t already heard of.  There will be new voices, but they will be names we recognize.  There will be no new archival assistants.  They’ve played that card.

·         The characters with horror-writer last names (Martin, Tim, Sasha, Georgie, and Melanie) all have paranormal research backgrounds.  This is why that convention was used for them specifically.  Given that they were not certain of the direction they were going to take Basira and Daisy when they were first written, their last names did not follow this.

·         Jon cannot compel dogs.  Probably.

·         Why an owl is the crest of the Magnus Institute (officially): “Owls are weird.  They are considered very wise, but actually one of the stupidest animals in the world.  They have a very strong field of vision.  And, some species of owl, if you look in their ear you can see the side of their eyeball.”  

·         To serve ANY of the entity is to bring fear and suffering to others.  That is what your existence is twisted into.  

·         Alex is most frightened by the Vast.  Jonny is most frightened by the Corruption, but worries his lack of tidiness might tempt its attention.

·         My favorite question and answer: if they could fight any writer in hand-to-hand combat, who would it be?  They both agreed on HP Lovecraft, because “I could almost definitely take him, and it would be so satisfying.”  They both agreed that neither of them would feel bad for punching Lovecraft, which, even as someone who does a yearly reading of a lot of his works … yeah.  I’d agree.  He had amazing creativity and really laid out my favorite horror sub-genre (debatably Robert Chambers invented it, but Lovecraft properly expanded it into a genre), but there are few authors as in need of a proper walloping as HP Lovecraft. They agreed that others—for Jonny, DH Lawrence, for Alex, James Joyce—were also in need of some fighting, but had serious doubts whether or not they could beat them in hand-to-hand combat (“We’re not exactly prime physical specimens”).  Maybe just kicking them in the shins.  Jonny admitted to an embarrassing love of a lot of literary ‘classics’ people like to shit on, like “Ulysses” and “Moby Dick”.

And that was that!  This is the entirety of the MASSIVE Patreon Q&A.  Apparently the one that went up tonight on the website is a very pared-down version of this Q&A (website version is 43 minutes; Patreon version is 1 hour 48 minutes). Not sure which of these answers didn’t make the cut, but here you go!  All the delicious meta and answers you could want, fresh from the Patreon!

[wickednerdery]

Title: Return to Crimson Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Crimson Peak Pairing/character: I’m not saying 😉 Rating: Mature Summary: “They say the past is never dead. It’s not even past. Do you think that’s true?” Notes: This picks a couple hours after the last piece. (Here’s the masterlist.) Given this is based on Crimson Peak there will be spoilers. It will also be a Gothic romance/horror so have more than its fair share violence, sex, and scary bits without shying from the darker aspects of such things. For this it’s auto-rated Mature, regardless of the chapter, and gets a “Read More”.

Clean, swaddled in soft pajamas and terry-cloth robe, she watches the sky bleed into the morning from her suite. For the first time in what feels like forever Ellie’s neither tense nor worried. She doesn’t think about Allerdale Hall, its history, or the dead. She thinks about Thomas...not Sharpe, Cutler.

He’s sweet, so much so she feels guilty putting him through this, through her. There’s no way he gets paid enough to handle some hysterical American on top of everything else. She thinks on his kindness and those earnest eyes. She thinks on the calm of his voice, the safety of his hands. Ellie thinks on the taste of his lips...

A foot slips to the floor as she sits in the sill, hands move to her lap. Eyes close as she focuses on the memory. The faint roughness of his hands, the sureness in his hold. The smooth brush of his lips in the nursery, then the dizzying passion that followed. Fingers curl against sex remembering his curling in her hair, the smell of him so close, the taste of his mouth, the way his tongue danced with hers...

The knock pulls Ellie away from herself and up to the door. She opens it to a surprise she shouldn’t have. “Jon!”

“Hey babe!” He rolls in her bag, carries his with the other hand. “Heard you had a moment straight outta The Shining, huh?” He laughs; her smile’s forced out. “It was cleaned up by the time I woke, never woulda guessed, but Cutler said it was real horror show.”

“Like the Johnny Depp scene in The Nightmare on Elm Street.”

“Awesome,” Jon chuckles, grins. “But, hey...You look great now, all scrubbed up in a plush bathrobe. Bet you smell great too.” Ellie smiles, turns a touch red, and he grins all the more. “You do, don’t you! Lemme smell!!” He drops his bag, grabs her about the waist so that she laughs. Jon playfully grunts as he buries nose into hair and neck. “Mmmm...yeah, that shampoo smells amazing.”

Ellie finally breaks free, stepping back slightly with smile intact. “I think it’s a special blend from the spa or something.”

“The spa?” He smirks. “Indulging a little while on vacation, are we?”

“Oh no, I...” maybe he doesn’t mean anything, but Ellie immediately worries about their budget. “Thomas set it up for me, free of charge.”

“Thomas? You mean Cutler?”

"Yeah.”

“You know he’s gotta thing for you, right?” Jon puts bags on the bed bench. “The way he looks at you, like he’s mesmerized or something.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” she roll eyes, crosses arms. “He’s just being nice.”

“Sure he is,” he smirks. “Poor guy, doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“That you’re mine.” His arms wrap from behind, one around her waist the other her chest. “All mine.”

Something in the touch feels wrong, makes her tense. “Right.” Of course; it’s nothing to do with her track record, with who she is.

“Look, can we forget about the hotel manager and just enjoy this little…vacation from our vacation?”

Again the smile must be forced. “Sure, yeah, let’s…just enjoy now that I can finally relax.” Her smile turns genuine at the thought.

“Exactly!” He gives her a deep kiss, one she has to work herself into until he pulls back. “So, I wasn’t sure what to grab, but I think I got enough for the night.”

“You’re gonna go back.” It’s almost a relief.

“Well, we both are.”


“Wh-what do you mean? Jon, I’m...I can’t go back.”

“Look, Ellie, I get that last night spooked you, really, I do, but this is getting ridiculous.”  At first he thought it cute, he liked playing the strapping protector to her shaking meekness, the one keeping things chipper as she fell to anxious sarcasm, but it grew increasingly frustrating over time.

She takes a deep breath, preparing for the all too familiar fight about to come. “Jon…can we just…not do this?”

“When are you gonna grow out of being scared of stupid haunted house shit? I mean...You’ve been to crime scenes -”

“Jon...”

“...Interviewed serial killers!”

“Jon!”

“I mean, fuck, Ellie, your father -”

“I don’t wanna talk about this!” Her patience is worn out, it’s too much to handle what’s in her head and him both. “I told you I didn’t want to come here! I TOLD you my worries and you fucking disregarded them! Laughed them off! Like fucking always!”

“Because your worries are always laughable!”

There’s nothing conscious about the act, it’s pure rage that shoves him hard enough he stumbles back a few steps. “Get out!” She’s sick of it. Sick of people thinking her foolish or crazy or dangerous. “Get out! Get the fuck out!” Sick of seeing things that aren’t there, of having the past so present she can’t imagine a future most of the time. “GET OUT JONATHAN GET OUT!!!

He hits the door with his back, grabs her arms as she continues to shove and hit his chest. “KNOCK IT OFF!”

“FUCK YOU!!” She twists out and slaps him so hard his head’s thrown to the side. Without waiting, without caring, she storms back to his bag, brings to close enough to throw at him. “Get the fuck out, Jon.” Because she didn’t want to see how much worse this could get...

...The sun is setting when she again wakes to a knock at the door. This time Ellie moves slow, sleep and disinterest and dread making her sluggish. The carpet feels like quicksand, the air mud, the door that of a sarcophagus...the person on the either side hoping to free the dead...

Bolt. Lock. Door handle. Door.

Any smile Thomas had is wiped from his face in taking in the room. “My god...” Clothes everywhere, bed stripped, a chair knocked over. His eyes fly to Ellie’s, puffy and bloodshot... “Ellie...”

...Shock turns to confusion turns to horror...

“You’re bleeding.”

FINALLY FINISHED ANOTHER CHAPTER, WOOHOO!!! I know these take forever sometimes and I’m sorry about that, but I’d rather get it right than just get it out, you know? So, yeah, still no sex for them, but it IS coming (haha), I know it, it’s just gotta come of its own volition is all. This is an important piece though, there are clues about Ellie’s past, for one, and it, haha, pulls her and Jon apart a bit which makes things a touch more interesting. Again, hope this is worth the wait and thank you forever for your patience, lol!!

Previously: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6  Chapter 7, Chapter 8 Chapter 9

(Gif found on Google)

Tagged: @lukeevansandjdmobession, @wadeyouwitch  @welcome-to-fangirl-hell @chibiyanai, @staria, @dusty-cookie, @j-can-right, @tarithenurse, @lokilicious-hiddles @tentacles-and-coffee, @aria-avimar, @ladydragonpurplefire, @insanecreativesecret, @annievvv7 @littledeadrottinghood, @themadandthemaverick  @ktonastya @devilbat @magikat409 @nardo94  @the-feckless-wonder @blood-blood-galonsofthatstuff @creedslove @acupofhotlatte @brightstarmara  @does-it-matter129 @moonfaery @lokis-little-kitten @lokilvrr @jackheart180 @honorary-losechester @holykryptonitekitten @lady-crowned-with-stars @wintertink @libbymouse @this-fine-ass-queen @archy3001 …I THINK I remembered everyone who requested/showed great interest and, either way, if you wish to be tagged in future pieces please let me know!

[ramblingsthebookblog]

Book Review: The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

Why do I want to get pints with the skull 

Five Stars

‘The Whispering Skull ‘ is the second book in the Lockwood & Company series. Named so for the mysterious skull that George stole from the Fittes agency when he left. At the end of ‘Screaming Staircase’ Lucy discovered that not only can the skull talk, she can communicate with it.

The book opens with the gang doing what they do best...investigating hauntings. 

 Lockwood, Lucy and George are good at what they do and are better than all their rivals because they can think outside the box. In saying that our trio are, to use an irish phrase, incredibly cack handed. It’s part of the reason why the characters are so great. They’re brilliant at what they do but they aren’t slick.  Let’s go tackle a haunting at a spooky house? Feck it, burn the house down. Is that a wraith? Throw ALL the shit at it. I love them. 

After George messes up a bit of research, the trio lose an investigation to Kipps and his minus craic gang of ghost hunters at the Fittes agency. 

Have I talked about Kipps? He’s in his twenties and is an adult supervisor to the child investigators at Fittes. Because he’s an adult he no longer possess the Talent needed to investigate and fight ghosts. It’s obvious that, at one point, he was quite a talented investigator himself. 

Despite the fact that Kipps is in his twenties, and a grown ass man, he is incredibly hung up on boosting his fragile male ego by getting into fights with teenagers. Unlike most millennials he’s got a job for a life, a secure income and will never have to work a zero hour contract job in his life. Some might dine out on that for life but no, the man insists on being a douche. 

 Slightly humiliated from their loss, George issues a challenge to Kipps. The next time they go toe to toe they’ll fight it out for the top spot. The loser must post an advert in the newspaper saying the other agency is the best agency. Kipps, still not mature enough to just say ‘No, mate, I’m going home to watch Netflix. You carry on,’ agrees. 

All the action kicks off when the trio are on another job to help seal a mysterious coffin. There’s a bit of mishap and George gets sight of an object in the coffin that spooks him cold. The same object is later stolen by grave robbers. When it comes to pass that the stolen artifact is incredibly dangerous, DEPRAC tells Lockwood & Co and Fittes to work together to find it. Because of their bet...that doesn’t happen. 

In Whispering Skull Stroud does a great job of balancing humour alongside horror. The back story made my stomach turn a wee bit. The ‘Bone Glass’ is genuinely creepy. It was a great plot device to introduce us to the wider world around Lockwood & Co like DEPRAC and the smuggling underground. 

We get introduced to some brilliant new characters in this book.  Who loves Flo? Raise your hand. We stan a girl who spends her days hunting through mud in the Thames to find dead bodies for cash. She’s a great addition to the series and I hope we get to see her again. 

Indeed, Whispering Skull’s biggest strength is its focus on character development. Poor George is at the heart of this. It’s obvious that Lucy’s presence in the gang has left him feeling a bit left out. His mishap with Kipps leaves him questioning his abilities. Lucy and Lockwood, too caught up in themselves, don’t seem to notice that their friend is suffering because of his incident with the bone glass. 

Our girl Lucy is settling into Lockwood & Co nicely. She’s still as kick ass as ever and just as brash. Because of her new found ability to talk to the skull, we really get to see just how powerful she is. 

It’s so obvious that Lucy has it bad for Lockwood. And that Lockwood is completely oblivious. Those two.  I ship it, reader. I was delighted to discover the existence of #lucewood the other day. Like all YA books I fully expect this romance to be a slow burn that will drive me mad. Big shout to George, who obviously ships it too. Every time his mates play dumb he does the literary equivalent of looking at the camera 

Lucy though...I adore her, but we need to acknowledge her flaws. She’s head strong, brave and tough. She also needs a clip round the ear sometimes. Thanks to her insecurities, and her own lack of confidence, she is incredibly stand offish when it comes to new characters, particularly girls. She admits herself that she has no female friends. It’s disappointing to see. 

Listen, internalised misogyny is a thing. Society teaches girls that there’s only one way to be a woman while at the same time telling them that girls are stupid, silly and pathetic. Girls learn to hate themselves from a young age and we often turn that hate on each other. I was a little like Lucy when I was a girl but, thankfully with age, learned to wise up. I really hope Lucy gets over this. 

And as for Lockwood, I spent most of the first book going, ‘You are hiding something boo boo’ and, thank goodness, Whispering Skull tackles that head on. I find it hard to pin down Lockwood. He’s a genuinely likable character but he’s so mysterious that, at times, he comes across a insincere. I was glad to see the skull ( my new fav), quite blatantly point this out.  

So, the Skull. We finally learned its back story, though what it is and what it’s up to is still up for debate. The skull seems to be able to predict the future and....give relationship advice? It’s like a haunted Dear Deidre with sass. Thanks to Lucy’s abilities the skull has become an permanent addition to the Lockwood team, coming with them on hauntings and helping them out with investigations. Its quips lead to some of the books funniest moments. While the gang try and figure things out it hangs about in the background like a snarky commentator. Its depressing outlook on life coupled with its hilarious desire would make me book a second date. It would be great craic down the pub. More please. 

Despite its rather ominous warning at the end of book one...the skull didn’t elaborate any further on the whole ‘death thing.’ The book ended on us all learning something more about Lockwood but he’s still just as mysterious as ever. 

This is an excellent follow up to The Screaming Staircase. I need more adventures with my ghost hunting babies. On to the Hollow Boy.

[gingervsblondie]

Blondie Takes a Vacation (1939)

1:59 AM, Sunday, 22 September 2019

ALRIGHT LET’S GO BLONDIE 3

2:04

Dagwood said Blondie’s new “vacation hat,” which looks like a dropped ice cream cone on a wicker basket, “scared him,” and now she’s run off crying.

That is currently the conflict in Blondie Takes a Vacation.

That’s where we’re at.

Just thought you should know.

2:11

“Now listen: the creator made us with two ends. One on which to sit, and the other with which to think. Our success depends on which one we use the most. Heads, we win, tails, we lose.” -An EXTREMELY SMALL CHILD.

Apparently that’s taken from Ann Landers? Which apparently isn’t a real person but a pen name for a column. I’unno. Anyway I’m getting big time Peanuts vibes from the small kids saying stuff like this. I think it’s somehow more charming in animation though, since you can’t see the kids visibly struggling with the lines. 

2:16

There’s a regular bit where Dagwood runs out the door and runs into the mailman, sending all his letters flying in the air. It’s even in the intro. (Yeah, these movies all share an intro sequence. It’s basically a theatrical TV sitcom.)

I guess this is a common thing for comic strips, because Peanuts had Lucy pulling the football away, and Calvin and Hobbes had Hobbes pouncing on Calvin as he came in the front door. In Peanuts, it made for wonderful dialogue as Lucy played her mind games and somehow managed to keep convincing Charlie Brown that this was the time he’d kick the football. In Calvin and Hobbes, it allowed for visually dynamic and extreme art, some of the most purely cartoonish in the strip.

In the Blondie film series, the mailman gets run into a lot.

2:24

There was just a scene where the Bumsteads are on a train. Daisy starts barking. When people look over, Dagwood starts barking, I guess to cover for Daisy? It escalates until Dagwood, Blondie and Alexander are all barking. And I can’t help but feel like if this was in something else it would be a very cute scene. I can imagine a TV family with real chemistry pulling it off, like the Brockmans from Outnumbered or the Durrells from… well, The Durrells.

Ahh, the train doesn’t allow dogs. That’s why they were covering for her. See that could’ve worked if they’d set it up better.

2:33

Blondie and Dagwood just started reminiscing about the night when Alexander was born, and Dagwood got soaking wet waiting outside the hospital as it rained, and the night they met, when Dagwood teased Blondie about her hat.

I didn’t think I’d be getting that kind of backstory. It’s neat. I like it. If I’m watching all of these, I’d like these characters to feel a bit more real than the genre and demographic or whatever requires them to be.

2:37

Now they’re talking about when they’re going to get old. The fact that this is from 1939 struck me. They do feel like they could be grandparents.

Blondie: “And when Baby Dumpling grows up… He will grow up, you know. And get married. And poor Daisy…”

Dagwood: “Daisy won’t get married!”

2:41

A fellow passenger just delivered this monologue to Blondie and Dagwood, after borrowing matches from Dagwood to light a cigarette:

“Do you realize that fire is man’s best friend? Why, we couldn’t exist without fire. It cooks our meals, it heats our houses… It turns the wheels of industry. When you have anything that has to be destroyed, what do you do with it? Burn it! Why, where would civilization be without fire? For that matter… Where would the firemen be?”

...That's some shit a fire-themed Batman villain would say and I love it.

This is the first time I’ve really felt Dick Flournoy reaching above the constraints of writing a Blondie movie, aspiring to something higher. I’m happy for him. He’s gone from wallowing in misery, writing subliminal cries for help into family comedies, to channelling his frustration into making the best of what he has to work with.

I’m also liking that this movie has some breathing room. There’s been quite a stretch so far of no major misunderstandings driving conflict, just Blondie and Dagwood chilling on a train, talking. And it’s nice. I’m into it.

Oh boy. I just scrolled through to see if the rest of the movie would be equally laid back, and saw a shot of a large fire.

2:51

Every time there’s a scene where Blondie and Dagwood look on, contented, as Alexander sleeps and violin plays, it makes me feel nice.

2:54

The guy who delivered the fire speech, Jonathan N. Gillis (played by Donald Meek) just watched a hotel receptionist throw out the Bumsteads, and told him they were his friends and to burn his reservation. To burn it. That’s some spicy dialogue callback.

3:00

Innkeeper: “Here’s the bath. Both spigots are marked cold, but the one on the right is hot… if you let it run long enough.”

Dagwood: “Well the spigots in our bathroom are like that too, only the cold comes out of the hot. Oh, we’ll get used to it.”

Somehow this exchange is so mundane that I’m super in love with it. Again, makes this feels realistic, in contrast with the way Alexander talks and the dog getting his ears pulled up with strings when he’s surprised and Dagwood mugging for the camera with his double-takes and all the cartoony slapstick. It’s really endearing to me.

I’m liking this one a lot. Gonna call it a night now and finish it in the morning, but this is shaping up to be my favourite so far. Maybe in the morning I’ll realize I stayed up too late and started to go crazy.

3:28

Large fire! There's a large fire at the end of the movie because Gillis is obsessed with fire! Maybe?

6:23 PM (next day)

K let’s keep it going.

6:26

By the way, the intro theme was stuck in my head earlier today. “Pretty face funny hat, that’s what my Blondie is.” “Loveable feet both flat, that’s what my Dagwood is.”

6:28

Yep, Gillis is fire-obsessed. Went into the Bumsteads’ room and lit the fireplace, looking like a little kid.

6:31

Dagwood’s convinced the hotel is haunted.

I’m down.

(Note from the future: They didn’t go all Blondie vs. Evil Dead with it, unfortunately.)

6:42

Gillis’s nephew has come looking for him, trying to keep him out of trouble and taking away his matches, which he had several boxes of in in pockets.

Pyromaniac uncle is a blessing.

7:07

Plot twist! It wasn’t the pyromaniac uncle who lit the hotel on fire! It was the hotel owner (who later blames it on Dagwood.)

7:12

Now Gillis, Alexander and Daisy are stuck in the burning hotel.

Maybe Mighty Joe Young can save them.

7:14

Okay the model fire is ridiculously tall now.

If that bit of the building is like 20 feet tall, that’s a 100 foot tall fire. Can house-fires get that tall?

7:19

Bum. Bum. Bum. Another one bites the dust.

Blondie Takes a Vacation is definitely my favourite so far. Lost interest towards the end there, when there was a bunch of antics involving skunks in air vents, but little moments of genuinely good writing caught me by surprise.

My rating: One Dagwood Sandwich containing Nutella, multi-coloured marshmallows and an entire puffed rice cake.

Hey speaking of which, no sandwiches in this one! I want my money back.

^ FALSE ADVERTISING ^

Next up is Blondie Brings Up Baby.

Oh dear.

Look forward to more jokes involving Dagwood doing feminine things and how humiliating that is, I guess. Woooo.

8:03

Just glanced at the Wikipedia for Blondie Brings Up Baby. I've been checking the cast every time to see if anybody I know is going to show up as a guest star. And I noticed that Willie Best, the actor who played the dim-witted black hotel worker in Blondie 1, is reprising his role.

Oh boy. Sexism and racism.

Maybe not though. Maybe it’ll prove me wrong. Maybe Dagwood being a responsible parent won’t make him a sissy and a girly girl and isn’t it funny that he’s doing what a mommy does. And maybe Willie Best will play a more respectable and humanized character this time, or maybe there’ll be other black characters in the cast that are sensitively portrayed, so as to balance it out.

Maybe.

[ofgoldenblood]

I had to take the time to come fangirl in your inbox because I am truly in love with your writing. I read your latest update for the 'more than a ghost au' and you managed to make me commit to the story despite my not shipping Lightstar. It's a true testament to how talented you are. My jaw dropped at the quality of this verse. I think your insight into the inner workings of Jonathan's twisted mind is extraordinary and

your portrayal is nothing short of brilliant. You make him human and it’s all that I could ask for when he is the most misunderstood character in this fandom. I especially look forward to every update of your abo verse and your hooker au since Jalec is my otp. These stories make me genuinely happy and there are no words that could possibly express how grateful my Jalec heart is for having such a wonderful writer pen my favorite pairing. From a fan

First of all, thank you so much for this lovely message. Your words really cheered me up & I loved hearing that you enjoy my portrayal(s). There’s a lot of controversy about Sebastian and it’s always nice to meet someone else who appreciates him, despite his obvious shortcomings & villainy!!Tbh, I will never understand why people watch shows like SH & then non-stop point out ‘bad’ things and complain about the bad guys. If you want drama-free & entirely harmless then maybe you should watch something like Dora the Explorer instead of hating on people who enjoy a good drama-driven story. Drama requires villains or at least people fucking up, otherwise there would be no conflict and conflict (& its resolve) is usually what makes a story thrilling or interesting. I’m sure most of us want drama-free lives, but who wants to WATCH that, really? BUT I AM SORRY FOR RANTING… so I will continue to rant under the cut.

I agree with you that Sebastian is misunderstood, even if most people in this fandom immediately start fuming when someone says that. Because they think misunderstood = poor mistreated little cupcake. That is not what he is. He is a killer, he is cruel & merciless and he knows no remorse for the things he does and the lives he takes. I am not excusing those actions.He is, however, deeply disturbed and a victim of tremendous abuse. He was drugged literally before he was born, with something that altered his very being & gave him no chance to grow up a ‘normal’ boy. His mother abandoned him because the only other choice she saw was to kill him. As far as he knos, she never even considered trying to save him. His father never loved him, called him a monster that nobody could ever love & literally whipped him (& probably other things, lbr). He isolated him from any healthy human contact & effectively stole his entire childhood. This is severe emotional and physical abuse and I wish people would stop disregarding that and instead only focus on the fact that Sebastian kissed his sister.

Valentine turned him into not a soldier but an (almost literally) soulless weapon. He made him the possibly loneliest person alive. I once saw a post in the Seb tag where someone said something along the lines of ‘I can tolerate Valentine but Sebastian is just pure evil and needs to die‘ & it pissed me off so much, because it blatantly disregards the fact that it was Valentine who made Sebastian the way he is. We’ll never know for sure, I guess, if Jon/athan Christopher hadn’t turned out to be a sociopath too (you don’t need demon blood for that), like Maia’s brother Daniel for example, but he certainly wouldn’t have been the monster that we see in the books. I really like drawing the connection to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in Seb’s case. The monster - as the Doctor himself calls it - is presented as a vile nightmare that haunts Frankenstein and destroys his life - but really all his negative & frightening features are a result of Frankenstein’s treatment, neglect & horror. He created the monster AFTER bringing a dead person back to life. We don’t know how much of Seb’s cruelty comes from his demon blood& how much is Valentine’s influence, but I like to remind people that warlocks are half demon too, and nobody would go around saying Mag/nus is at least 50% evil.

A key thing about Seb for me is that he doesn’t understand himself. He is literally misunderstood in that way. He’s never had a chance to figure out who he is or what he wants without someone’s influence in his ear (Valentine or Lilith). He grew up with a distorted understanding of right/good & wrong/evil, so how is he supposed to agree with the ‘good guys’ when they say that it is not okay to kill someone who poses a threat to you & your plan (which is, essentially your entire life’s purpose??)? Or that desiring your sister in a way that this society finds wrong is despicable? (We literally can’t even agree here on tumblr how ‘bad’ inc/est is!!) He never experienced love, never received, felt or understood it, so he tries to bind people to him to fight his loneliness any other way possible. He is a drowning man who can’t ever escape the water but desperately struggles to stay afloat, because there is literally no alternative.

When his hate & jealousy for Jace (who is not even Valentine’s real son but somehow ends up getting everything that’s supposed to be Seb’s - his father, the illusion of a childhood, time to develop, Clary, even Jocelyn for a while, a parabatai, LOVE) threatens to destroy him, he turns them into the opposite and starts obsessing. He binds Jace to himself, tries to consume him, perhaps to somehow make Jace’s life his own. He will never get love anyway (he doesn’t UNDERSTAND IT, it’s like wanting something you don’t even know) so he’s content to have Clary & Jace with him, even if he has to keep them by force.

Now, none of this means I excuse what he does or did. I just like to think about what makes him tick & try to understand him. I love complex villains. My favorite villain is probably Hann/ibal Lec/ter (more in NBCs Hann/ibal than in the books/movies), who absolutely deserves to sit in prison for all eternity, but still is one of the most fascinating characters ever created, imo. His world view, his morals, his motivations to kill and his excuses for it need to be looked at outside any moral judgement if we want to understand human nature better, I think. You can love a character for their complexity and still judge their actions - and I think that is what most people in this fandom don’t accept. Liking Sebastian does not mean I cheer for his murders and ra/pe attempt.

AS FOR THE MORE THAN A GHOST AU, it’s one of my absolute favorites, atm, because it actually goes against my firm belief that death was the best option for Seb at the end of COHF. He’s not prepared to survive & nobody else is either. He is forced to face the consequences of his actions but suddenly lacks the conviction that they were necessary, good or even acceptable. For the first time he recognizes himself as the villain. Not as a monster- which is something wrong & unlovable - but as someONE who did horrible things & has to take responsibility for them. He is willing to do that, even if he feels like a different person & it’s actually Alec in that verse who kind of allows him to adopt that thought of Sebastian being a different person from Jonathan. That gives Jonathan hope, but at the same time it is his ultimate kryptonite. Whenever he is disappointed in his own inability to be ‘Not-Sebastian’, he regresses to telling himself he can never be anyone other than Seb. Jonathan is an idea without an anchor in reality & on his bad days Jon is convinced Alec is just telling himself & Jon a lie everyday to not feel guilty about loving his brother’s murderer.

I also headcanon that Jon doesn’t immediately become a nice person in the beginning of the verse. He ‘learned’ how to be ‘good’ so he could be able to impersonate Sebas/tian Verl/ac, but he never really internalized it. He is still impatient, more easily angered, looks to violent solutions faster than to peaceful ones. He is used to calculating damage against gain & will choose the most effective way, not matter the cost. Since he has feelings now that he didn’t have with the demon blood (presumably) and also a conscience he wouldn’t wage a war for the hell of it or to get what he wants, or sacrifice innocent people.. but he has yet to LEARN who the innocent people are. If there was a young werewolf struggling on their first full moon, threatening to hurt people, Jon would choose to kill them, whereas Clary & Co would try to help them. He still has to unlearn the rac/ism against Downworlders Valentine nurtured in him. He still has to learn how to take and deal with rejection in a way that doesn’t completely destroy him. There are just so many aspects to this scenario & that’s why I love it so much!!

I AM SO SORRY about how long this turned out, and you didn’t even ask for ANY OF THIS *hides, ashamed*

Thank you again for your message & your kind words. I currently also really love the hooker AU and the a/b/o AU, so I’ll hopefully get to continuing those soon c:I have a drabble planned for the hooker AU in which I’ll write about the first time Jace took money for se/x, if you’re interested in that.Unrelated, Andy & I also talked about a short drabble based on ‘The Other Side’ by Ruelle, so if you enjoy having your heart broken, you have that to look forward to.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.:*

[ted123]

survivors story’s   unit 19,20 and 9

Nicholas Burton

Nicholas had lived in the tower block since the 1980’s with his sick wife on the 19th floor, and was carried out of the tower block with his wife two and a half hours after the blaze began by firefighters. The 50 year old Nicholas said "I'm glad that I came down the tower, but I'd be horrified if I'd actually had to watch the tower being on fire," he said.

Then he added "When the fire brigade got me out, I just looked back once and that one vision will stay in my brain forever. To actually sit there and watch your loved ones, your friends your neighbours, it must have been horrendous."

He said that everyone watching the event unfold was traumatized to watch their friends, neighbours and family scream for help he only looked at it once and he says he will be haunted by that image forever.

Since the event Nicholas Burton has met with Theresa May three times with other survivors to make sure that more vulnerable people get what information they need. Nicolas claims he could have gotten everyone accommodation within 48 hours as he called the council to acquire flats for them but he remained in a hotel 6 weeks down the line because the council had not found him and his wife a home. He accused the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council of treating the survivors like “undeserving poor”.

He said: "The truth is that most of the people in the tower were professional people.

They worked all their lives. There's leaseholders, people who bought their flats, people from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicity, but they still treat us as master and servant.

I've been round to all the estate agents. There's thousands of flats and houses in the Royal Borough. But we're the undeserving, they are not going to put their hand in their pocket and get us a short-term lease for six months.

I could have done it in 48 hours. But six weeks down the line, we're still in the hotels looking for ex-council flats. Those are the kinds of conversations that we're having and we're having to do all the work, we're having to chase. It's not really dignified."

He also hit out at the Government inquiry into the blaze and compared it to controversial long-running inquiries into the Hillsborough tragedy and Bloody Sunday. He said: "It's just a blanket they put over. The Government use it to stay in power. I spoke to the judge. I said all due respect, sir, you're 70 years old if this was the Hillsborough, you'd be 98 now. So are you going to be in it for the long run? That took 28 years, the Savile inquiry for Bloody Sunday was 1972. That took 30 years. There's all these inquiries, but it's just for the Government to say we're doing something."

Naomi Li

“I count myself lucky every day. I will always be haunted by the images I saw that night. After about 20 minutes, all our neighbours started to come out of their flats. We were just in our pyjamas. We were invited into a family’s flat on the other side of the building as they had clean air." Mrs Li was first alerted to the fire after smelling smoke as she prepared to get into bed. She was told by emergency services to stay in her flat when she rang 999.

She then called her husband, who would spend the next two hours watching in horror as flames engulfed the upper floors of Grenfell Tower. Residents huddled up to windows in a desperate attempt to escape the fumes, before Mrs Li and her cousin decided to make the perilous journey downstairs at about 2.30am. She prayed with the mother of a family before leaving and said to this day she is haunted by images of one child crying by the open window. Mrs Li called her husband one more time before making her way to the stairwell and said: “We are going down, but I don’t know if we will make it or not. I love you.” The pair, both with wet towels and clothing covering their mouths, had to stumble their way down the stairwell with zero visibility as smoke filled the building. Mrs Li added: “We couldn’t see anything through the dense smoke, just very blurred lights.

I tried to call Lydia on every floor to make sure she was behind me.

“Lydia fell over a body and screamed. I told her to get up and that we needed to focus on getting down. I kept telling her and myself that they weren’t bodies and were someone’s clothes. That was probably the saddest experience in our lives. I was just determined we would get out. “Every breath felt like someone was trying to choke me. We moved fast, but the stairwell never seemed to end.” The pair miraculously made their way down 15 floors before they were met by firefighters, who helped them out the building.

She said she knew they were safe after they were hit by fresh air on the third floor. She then called her husband to let him know she had escaped, about two hours after the fire had broken out. Mr Chapman said: “I’m not sure how they managed to get all the way down,” he said. “It’s quite amazing.”

Ahmed Elgwahry

Ahmed lived on the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower. His sister Mariem – who was among those who had raised issues with the refurbishment – died in the blaze along with his mother Eslah.

“With the exception of my wife, I lost the two most important women in my life that night. My mum and sister were murdered and cremated that night. To be more specific, my mum and sister were poisoned by the smoke, they were burnt and they were cremated. In addition to that I had to listen to them suffer, I had to listen to them die, I had to listen to fire enter the flat and burn them and everyone else in that room. Furthermore, I had to watch that flat burn for a couple of days. If that’s not torture then I’m not really sure what else is. The heat of the flames up there is enough to cremate someone in about two hours. The flat burned for two days. So you would hope you would at least get to see your family, instead what I got was fragments of bone and muscle tissue.

What’s clear here is Grenfell Tower was no accident. Grenfell Tower was a catastrophic incident that should never have happened and was preventable. Grenfell Tower happened due to serious systemic failure. Due to a culture of neglect. Due to a culture of self-interest and due to the fact that residents were treated at certain times as second class citizens. I am asking for one single thing from RBKC [the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea], repeatedly, and that is for a simple apology. I’m not asking for much. I’m still waiting for that. What I have received is a letter apologising for the aftermath but not for the lead up – that’s probably because if you do that it’s an admission of guilt. that apology is not just for me, it’s for all of the bereaved."

Six months on, the thing I’ve started to see is the trauma starting to emerge among the bereaved. There are young men who have lost their whole families, they’ve lost their wives and their children and I’m starting to see them breaking down. We’re now approaching the festive period when people come together. And loneliness is a real problem – particularly among young men. So I think we need to be mindful because I’m not sure they are getting the monitoring they need. Maybe we need to start reviewing policies about health and safety. Maybe we need to review what I would refer to as the silent regulator – the regulator of social housing. Most residents did not know the regulator existed, they [the regulator] did not make themselves known before the fire and I’m not sure what they have done afterwards.

So maybe they need more resources. Maybe we need to review their policies.

As I understand it, a complaint that can be escalated to the Homes and Communities Agency is a complaint about systemic failure. I think it’s safe to say that Grenfell was exactly that. The other thing I think I would like to see is the building regulations, specifically approved document Part B which refers to design and construction and materials. That needs to be reviewed. There were 16 inspections done during the refurbishment. We do have to question what those inspections involve, we do have to review what that process is, because we do have to wonder whether there are any other high rise towers across the country [that face similar risks]. This is not just about Grenfell. Fire risk assessments is another one.

Maybe we should hand that role back to the local fire authority, which has a genuine interest in making sure that their firefighters aren’t put at risk. Because what happened that night was suicide for those men and women. I can’t even begin to imagine the trauma they are suffering. And then we’ve got to think about competency, because the way the fire spread it begs the question: do we need to raise the standards of competency for the construction industry. It’s difficult to ignore that debate.

There’s no requirement for us to wait until the public inquiry concludes. There’s no requirement for us to wait for phase one and two completed, there’s no requirement for us to wait for the police investigation to conclude. I think these are realistic things we could start working on, you could start working on, in order to avoid something as catastrophic as this happening again. We just want the truth, we’re not asking for anything else."

Lucy Pasha-Robinson, 27th July 2017. Grenfell Tower fire: 19th floor survivor says he will be forever haunted by tragedy. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grenfell-tower-fire-survivor-19th-floor-haunted-dead-tragedy-nicholas-burton-children-families-a7863371.html Independent. [accessed on 9.10.18]

Jonathan Mitchell, 2nd July 2017. 'I was just determined to get out': Grenfell Tower survivor relives miraculous escape from 22nd floor.  https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/a-minute-later-we-wouldnt-have-made-it-grenfell-tower-blaze-survivor-relives-miraculous-escape-from-a3577991.html. Evening Standard [accessed on 9/10/18]

Peter Apps, 14th December 2017. Grenfell: the survivors’ stories. https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/insight/grenfell-the-survivors-stories-53593 Inside Housing [accessed on 9/10/18] 

[londontheatre]

As a huge admirer of the music of Howard Goodall and having seen several previous productions I was very much looking forward to another opportunity to see this evocative musical adaptation of Melvyn Bragg’s 1969 powerful first novel in the trilogy of the Tallentire family. The Hired Man starts at the turn of the 19th century, painting the harsh and difficult times when men & women would travel around seeking ever diminishing work as agricultural labourers simply to earn barely enough to live. It charts the immense changes brought about by the demise of farm work as young men swapped a life of fresh air and open fields for the ‘Blackrock’ of coal mines under the sea. Many men rarely saw any day light at all during winter months and the work and conditions were filthy and very dangerous. World War One added further horrors upon the already struggling poor and we see how the union movement began seeking to protect and improve the lives of working men and women. Women held families together eking out meagre wages with little company from husbands. And so the scene is set for stress and strife for the Tallentire family.

We meet John Tallentire at Cockermouth hiring fair in Cumbria in 1898. He is desperate to find a home for his newly pregnant wife and himself and ‘takes a coin’ from Crossbridge farmer, Pennington. Tallentire is sensitively played by Ifan Gwilym-Jones, completely capturing a working man’s pride in his job which though admiral, has the negative consequence of making him old before his time. This newly-wed couple become middle-aged in attitude in just a few months. Into this scenario comes restless maverick Pennington’s son Jackson, played by Luke Kelly, who every woman in the village is enraptured by including John’s wife Emily. Determined as she is to resist his charms she is gradually worn down by the monotony of life and against her better judgement she eventually gives in.

Rebecca Gilliland plays Emily perfectly. First full of joy and excitement in building a new life with her husband, then full of embarrassment and regret for not being strong enough to resist the advances of Jackson, and in Act II and 15 years older, strong-willed enough to insist on working at the mill and fiercely protective of her family. Gilliland and Gwilym-Jones are well matched and vocally both rise to the vocal demands of Goodall’s beautiful score.

Gwilym-Jones is particularly vocally impressive in his first act realisation of betrayal in ‘What A Fool I’ve Been’. Gilliland was born to sing this score and her beautiful voice soars, haunting and compelling throughout, particularly in her act one song of realisation of cause and consequence ‘If I Could’. Their duets ‘Now For The First Time’ at the beginning of their married life and the very beautiful ‘No Choir Of Angels’ at the end, are truly affecting and poignant.

Other strong performances are from Jonathan Carlton, charismatic and vocally strong as John’s brother Seth Tallentire; Jack McNeill as John and Emily’s headstrong young teenage son Harry Tallentire who goes to war against his mother’s wishes; and Christopher Lyne who plays Pennington and several other older characters over the span of some 2 decades!. Matthew Chase, Laurel Dougall and Lori Mclare give notable and strong performances in the ensemble, standing out for all the right reasons.

One of the most wonderful things about Goodall’s musical writing is the sense of history and community he evokes. His music is earthy, rich and vibrant, drawn from traditional English folk music and tradition and feels deeply ‘connected ‘and strong both in melody and rhythm. From the outset, it creates an immediate sense of community and determination as we hear the opening song in the distance, which then builds until the community is at full throttle in front of us. Goodall’s’ score is at its most lush in the ensemble numbers where he encapsulates all shades of human emotion from determination and despair to rage and joy. Whether at the hiring fair, hunting or drinking in Act 1 or at the gutsy union meeting, in the trenches or down a mine trembling in fear, his music powerfully conveys the requisite emotion.

The ensemble singing is wonderful throughout so it is, therefore, a matter of regret that some solo and duet singing is unfortunately hampered by a lack of projection. Some singers are drowned by the fine small 3-piece ensemble playing at the side of the space under the stairs – Richard Bates as Musical Director and on piano, Sophia Goode on violin, and Dominic Veall on cello. There is also a lot of dialogue above underscore and it was honestly very difficult to hear much of what was said as well as some of what was sung. If there is no amplification I wonder whether the band could have been placed at the back of the stage rather than on the same level as the cast? Something to ponder on for the future as it seems to be a niggly issue for many of the wonderful productions here at the Union Theatre.

Brendan Matthew’s direction and Charlotte Tooth’s choreography of the horrors of the war in the trenches and also down in the coal mines in Act 2 were particularly moving and very sensitively and well done indeed. However, it is genuinely puzzling that absolutely no one wears shoes throughout the entire show, especially as it spans nearly two decades and covers farming, mining and war. It simply looks peculiar and was particularly strange when Seth returns on crutches from war with a prosthetic leg with a boot on, yet is still bare footed on his undamaged leg! It would be understandable to perhaps start with no shoes, but as they all work, earn money and become less poor, surely the first thing anyone would buy is footwear of some sort?! It was unnecessarily distracting.

It also has to be asked why everyone is wearing exactly the same clothes 15 years on! A change of blouse, shirt, skirt, waistcoats surely would have been possible? It’s also very confusing when characters who have supposedly died, appear in the next scene as a different character but still wearing the clothes of their dead character! It was noticeable that the oldest and most experienced cast member did make an effort to change his costume and look! Niggles about sound, feet and costumes aside it was overall a wonderful evening!

This is a vibrant and committed production of The Hired Man. A wonderful British musical by two great writers, directed with very much love and performed by a talented young cast. Definitely worth a visit to Sasha Regan’s wonderful Union Theatre!

Review by Catherine Françoise

Based on the novel by Melvyn Bragg, THE HIRED MAN centres around the lives of a simple country family facing the turn of the century and the darker times that lay before them. When love, misguided affairs and war come into play, this makes for a stunning and romantic score filled with unforgettable melodies from one of Britain’s most popular musical theatre composers Howard Goodall.

Following the success of last year’s Howard Goodall season, the Union Theatre are thrilled to be bringing this beautiful tale of love and loss to life.

CAST John Tallentire – Ifan Gwilym-Jones Emily Tallentire – Rebecca Gilliland Jackson Pennington – Luke Kelly May – Kara Taylor Alberts Harry – Jack McNeill Sally Wrangham – Megan Armstrong Isaac Tallentire – Sam Peggs Seth Tallentire – Jonathan Carlton Pennington – Christopher Lyne

Ensemble: Matthew Chase, Laurel Dougall, Aaron Davey, Rebecca Withers, Nick Britain and Lori Mclare

CREATIVES Producer – Sasha Regan Director – Brendan Matthew Choreographer – Charlotte Tooth Musical Director/Orchestrations – Richard Bates Production Designer – Justin Williams Assistant Designer – Jonny Rust Stage Manager – Martin Brady Lighting Designer – Stuart Glover Fight Director/Dialect Coach – Conor Neaves Casting Director – Adam Braham

PERFORMANCES 19th July – 12th August 2017 http://ift.tt/X5izhB

http://ift.tt/2gZFQbm LondonTheatre1.com