#the death watcher

[mariocki]

Shadows of Fear: The Death Watcher (1.4, Thames, 1971)

"I should like to have danced with you first, you know. It may sound frivolous, but I mean it. There's a certain communication involved there. Have you noticed how some couples have a much more highly developed intuition? They dance as one. There is instinctive anticipation. I used to be very good at ballroom dancing. These are my trophies. Once, I reached the county finals with a girl. Her name was Beryl Harcourt. We were completely in sympathy, you see. That's why I made her the subject of my first experiment. After she'd... gone, I used to play the gramophone in my bedroom for hours on end. We used to do a speciality tango. There's a lot of jealousy and backbiting in those competitions, you know."

[writingfanficsfan]

Book 82 of 2024

Now I have read all the Robert Hunter books that are currently out there! I love this series a lot and I love Robert Hunter.

It does feel like a good bookseries to make a movie off (or a tv show), I wonder if that will ever happen.

Anyways, this story was great! And you sort of get where the killer is coming from (and you sort of feel a bit sorry for him once you know his own story) but, that still doesn't take away that his methods are brutal and horrifying.)

[astrowarr]

after watching several povs, there's something so striking about the way mumbo died.

he dies at home, first of all, which is notable in its own right because so much of his time was spent running about, usually in pursuit of kills. he dies with grian, too— to a thing grian created, no less, but it isn't actually grian's fault for once.

mumbo dies in that tall tower and when lightning strikes, from all across the server, everyone looks. their eyes land on that tower, and everyone is watching. even in grian's perspective, you can see everyone at renwood mound, lined up and staring. those at the bamlands looked on too.

they didn't see mumbo die, but they saw grian's grief. grian, who, throughout this season, has seemed cruel and untouchable to those outside of his circle due to his involvement with and knowledge of the wild cards. they watch grian immediately crumble under the weight of mumbo's death; several of them even explicitly comment, "look at grian, he's grieving, he's in mourning."

i like to think that, until that moment, grian was almost god-like in their minds; now, though, he's the quintessential concept of humanity. grief can be religious if you do it right, after all. even beyond the grian aspect though, isn't this just the most despairing omen of what's to come?

i mean, there's something about this image of a man fallen from grace, crying out as he holds the mangled corpse of his friend in the home they made together, high in the sky, on display for all the world to bear witness to. and the world did bear witness, be it with pity, horror, joy... it doesn't matter, because they saw.

the canary curse has been broken, but this was a fittingly foreboding, tone-setting image that did a stunning job filling its shoes

[chloesimaginationthings]

Death looms over Vanny's shoulder in FNAF..

[thirdtimed]

id like to think that the reason why the lifers are stuck in an endless reincarnation loop isnt out of some twisted malintent of the watchers or some mechanism of fate its just bc the winners keep making the exact same wish every single time

[cricket-mound]

please don’t take him away. please don’t.

alt title is pls don’t separate them <33 they (me) cannot handle it </33

[murasaki-cha]

Truly some of the greatest detective minds to ever detective

[cilibi]

Something something- Grian getting the most questions wrong about his own series.

Something something- Grian being the first winner and exposed to the Watchers the longest.

Something something- the Watchers take more and more from the players each cycle and still, they only get hungrier.

[solargeist]

scar's first 3rd life death being the fault of grian and martyn goofing around

[andstuffsketches]

Maybe not Impulse, But I think she would date Cissie

a glimpse into a possible future....

[madameoni]

Avyssal of The Land, Watcher of Caed Nua, tormented by Gods on occasion.

After many tries, I think this piece of Avvy is going to be my fave! Also, I finally got the godlike tints mod to work and she looks just as I wanted ingame.

[vaguely-concerned]

I have so many thoughts I (ironically) can't put into words yet about the use of heightened and ritualized poetic language and phrases in connection to magic in Nevarra (or possibly within the mourn watch?). they don't default to an ancient language for it like tevinter predictably seem to, and while they do have a whole scholarly language for the academic side of it -- when they're actually casting it and interacting with the dead, they speak in common but through poetry and metaphor in ways we haven't seen any other culture do. maybe the avvar, as the closest, just in a different literary tradition. they speak to the dead, but in a living language. ingellvar rook gets a bit defensive and even reproachful during emmrich's recruitment quest when the other companion makes some sort of comment to question it. 'it's watcher tradition! >:('

'Open your hearts to the final day, companion of all the ages'. even a rook who doesn't take the almost religious element of the role of watcher as seriously knows that one by heart no matter what you make them say during walking the graves. when myrna in so many words says that the necropolis is still rook's home, the way they agree with her is simply to quote 'A home in life, a berth in death...' and her smoothly finishing the thought with 'a house of many mansions'. there are several times with emmrich where rook answers something he says just by quoting from some watcher text they both clearly know well. (if you do this to weasel out of answering when he asks if you're afraid of dying, he is understandably peeved you're quoting watcher 101 stuff at him, and rook clearly knows exactly what they're doing.) this shared base of literature -- and more than that a kind of oral tradition, it sounds like? it's just What You Say when you do certain things, do you think half of this is even written down anywhere? this shared inheritance of language making for a feeling of belonging and continuity is beautiful and moving in a way but also. a bit cold and distant, all mind and no body connection. which I feel might be a running theme around the necropolis haha they mainly seem to have interest in bodies once life has vacated them, they don't give that much thought to what makes it feel good to be in one while you're here. we can only imagine the psychological effects of growing up a crypt baby in this particular cultural milieu.

you know what it reminds me of a little bit in places, actually? the way the qun uses language and set phrases to convey layers of meaning. the qunari are an oddly poetic bunch. and I think there's also something here about like... cultures whose religious side are more about philosophy and the language used than an idea of the divine as such. yeah nevarra is technically andrastian, at least on the surface, probably largely for reasons of 'ugh it would be SO inconvenient to have an exalted march called on us :/ some of us have real shit to get on with you know this body isn't going to mummify itself. sure tell orlais we'll join their dumb club or whatever'. but within and beneath that the syncretism with and survival of much older traditions are still so obviously (and double ironically!) alive. how much does your average watcher believe in god, and how much and how immediately do they believe in the grand necropolis, and in their duty to what has been, what is and what will come after them -- the quest for knowledge? memento mori ass culture to the point of absent-mindedly forgetting about everything else including god (affectionate). maybe the maker exists, but he's just not that relevant down here. he may take the souls, but we still tend the graves. render unto the chantry what's the chantry's, and unto the watcher what is theirs!!! really is the whole thing huh

[k-0re]

my viktor chemtech inspired rook

[iamluminia]

⚠️blood,Dead body!

Celebration for the winner

sooooo…watcher eat negative emotions right?

[hello-eeveev]

I adored the scene between Orym and the Wildmother. I thought it was beautiful. they cannot make me hate either of them. but of course I must take it upon myself to address some responses to it that I’ve seen floating about, especially bc the way some people talk about emotions makes me concerned:

1) an appeal to emotion is not inherently manipulative. it’s a normal part of communication, and treating it as “playing dirty” will negatively affect yourself and your relationships with others. trust me. you are allowed to express your feelings, and other people are allowed to take your feelings into account and adjust their behavior. it’s actually a good thing! that’s healthy communication!

2) “see you soon” is not a death wish, nor is it a firm belief that he will die in the upcoming battle. it’s an acknowledgement that on the grand, cosmic scale of time, their separation is only for a short while. I suppose it would depend on the belief in an afterlife of the people around you, but have you never heard this sentiment expressed? not once?

[lillypad-monopoly]

I'm watching Limited Life right now, and I'm starting to get mean gills/majorwood/scottyn. It's so deeply melancholic and tragic in a way that really appeals to me.

They're diametrically opposed in almost every way that matters. The fought against each other in in Third Life, were narrative foils in Last Life, and have conflict in Double Life because of Cleo. What's more, Martyn is the Watchers' favorite son and Scott is their greatest enemy. By all accounts they should hate each other, should be rivals in every universe, but they're just not.

They are also neither of each other's first choices for a partner (Scott's being Jimmy and Martyn's being Ren) but they choose each other anyway because Scott has to defy fate and Martyn has to have someone to be loyal to.

But in the end none of it matters, because Martyn is the conduit of the Watchers' will . He wins because he embraces the game, taps into the darkest part of himself, and does exactly what he's supposed to do. All of Scott's goodness and fairness and honor is not enough to temper that, but he also wouldn't have it any other way because Scott is cursed to love people he cannot save from their fates.