#this is the first time I’ve drawn Gertrude and I love how she turned out

[gh0stlyscooter]

TMAG inktober day four: the eye

{ Reblogs are Appreciated ! }

-> Colored version below the cut <-

[tunemyart]

come, let us open the ball.

So as promised, here I am to yell my emotions at you all about Olivia (1951). 

I’ve actually been holding off because I have so many of them, and was struggling to find a line through some of them that was cohesive and didn’t just make me want to start sobbing. But when I rewatched and heard - really heard! - the main musical theme for the film again during the opening titles, I found that cohesive line and got to work. (After, of course, I finished sobbing.)

Olivia (1951) is a film that is delightfully entirely about women and centered on queer women specifically. Much like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, when the men do arrive in the world of the film, everything’s wrong, the rules have changed, things are spiralling into chaos. Into this pre-tragic world is sent 16 year old naive, adolescent, and naturally self-centered Olivia to become our principal POV character. 

The story is not about her.

(saving your dashes from words, more below the cut.)

Of course, Olivia thinks it’s about her, in the way that a 16 year old girl is pretty much required to, and she does a good job convincing us of it for a while, too. Slowly though, more details start rounding out and completing her new world - for us the viewers, at least, if not for her. Olivia’s besotted focus is firmly on one headmistress - Mlle Julie. But Julie’s focus, through a thousand machinations and layers, is on the other headmistress - Mlle Cara. 

The film does us the favor of sprinkling in other POVs for added context through Olivia’s unreliable narration. These include our tragedian chorus in Mlle Dubois and Victoire, as well as our principal tragic heroines, Julie and Cara, who are playing a game that Olivia can’t see she’s gotten caught up in.

Narratively, it takes a while for us to get a sense of what’s going on here. Julie leaves in the evenings for parties in Paris while Cara broods loudly about how alone she is without her. Cara allows a third wheel to dictate the time she spends with Julie, while Julie’s face falls and she broods. Cara invites the girls to be her friends and to tend her in her self-made invalidhood while she lounges on her fainting couch. Julie effortlessly seduces those same girls away - and specifically, away from Cara - with her poetry readings, special attention, special outings to Paris, flirty promises and innuendo, etc. Cara, hysterical, accuses Julie of doing precisely what she’s doing. Julie calmly strokes her hair and tells her she loves her and that she has a wild imagination.

The game is “how do I make you jealous/worried enough to crack and come back to me,” and it’s a disastrous one - for themselves, and for everyone else around them. It’s also incredibly compelling in an train wreck kind of way.

But it wasn’t until I saw this:

that there was absolutely no coming back for me. I had boarded the train to Julie/Cara nonsense town. I’m love them. All of it.

Because for the first and only time in the film, they’re happy. They’re happy. 

The film isn’t subtle in its classing of Julie and Cara as the kind of romantic exes who don’t want to be exes, and you kind of assume that at one point they must have been happy while you’re busy watching the tragedy unfold. But seeing it for one startling moment, breaking through the clouds like a window into the not-too-distant past, is something else.

“So many revelations tonight!” Julie exclaims of the costume ball she and Cara are presiding over. “And here is what Gertrude dreams of being…” 

It’s interesting that the staff are not in costume like the girls are - but yet Julie and Cara inhabit some in-between space. They’re not wearing their everyday clothes the way the rest of the staff are, nor are they performing elaborate costume theater the way the girls are. That said, don’t discount that the way they have made themselves up is also a “revelation,” what they “dream of being.” 

“Do you see, Cara, how easy it is to be happy?” Julie asks Cara at the beginning of the scene, nodding to the couple dancing in front of them. “For the children, yes,” Cara replies. “For us, too,” says Julie - and three minutes later, as if she’s determined to prove it, she pulls Cara up to dance. Let’s be happy. See how easy it is?

Look at the way Julie leads Cara to the dance floor and tugs her into her arms, the way their arms naturally come around each other. Look at the way they effortlessly begin to move together as they start dancing. Look at their big smiles - even Cara’s, who doesn’t wear smiles as masks in the way Julie does! - lost in the moment and each other’s eyes. They’ve done this before. 

And here they are again: a window into their own past, a revelation, the thing they dream of being, happy and in love, moving easily with each other the way their bodies remember, inhabiting a life and a space they worked hard to create for themselves. 

Of course it can’t last, and it doesn’t. That’s the point.

The music is occurring diegetically, emanating from within the scene. Yet from here where it’s rooted, it permeates the rest of the film and becomes the musical theme which opens - yes, opens - and closes the film itself. 

The film itself which it must be said is also a memory, authored by an older Olivia, and which we’re drawn into - unknowingly at this point! - by the same waltz, echoing through time to bind up this story and dwell at its heart. Here, someone is forever playing a waltz at Julie’s command.  Here, Julie herself is forever turning to Cara with hand outstretched and saying tenderly: “Come, Cara. Let’s open the ball.”

[iceeckos12]

ouch oof i am sad

remember the scene that @pitviperofdoom was talking about in this post? well this was something she mentioned in the discord server and because i am always a sucker for a good angst, i wrote an entire Thing for it. content warnings under the cut

basically: assistant archivist au where gerry did die. mentions of past character death

Jon’s quiet as Julia explains how to pull Gerard Keay from the page. This is not unusual in and of itself. Jon is not the type of person to fill spaces with endless chatter, or to make small talk for the sake of it. Martin and Jon’s friendship has been characterized by long, comfortable silences and the conversation they make between each one.

This is different, though. Martin can’t tell if it’s because of his connection with the Beholding that he knows, or if he’s just gotten better at reading Jon, but this is - wrong. The last conversation that they had, if you could call it a conversation at all, was Jon quietly asking if they could stop by Pittsburgh to visit the hospital where Gerard Keay died. Since then, he’s been mostly lost in thought.

Martin knows that Jon and Gerard worked together with Gertrude. He’s inferred that they were friends, because Martin has learned to read the quiet grief that crosses Jon’s face whenever Gerard is mentioned. Now he’s wondering if they were closer than he realized.

He doesn’t dare ask though, not in front of Julia. And he’s not even sure that Jon would tell him if he did ask. So he sets aside his worry, turns to the Hunter, and says, “Thank you, Julia.”

Her smile is full of teeth. “Give the door a knock when you’re done.”

Martin watches her go, unwilling to take his eyes off of her for more than a moment. When the door finally clicks shut, he lets out a quiet sigh of relief and looks down to find Jon holding the book in his hands, staring at it, perfectly still.

“...Jon?”

Jon jumps and looks up, his lips pressed into a thin, bitten line, his eyes slightly wild.

Martin knows how to handle Jon when he’s scared, when he’s cruel. He knows how to handle Jon when he’s simmering with anger, when he’s exhausted and frayed about the edges. This is completely new, and he shifts at the unwelcome, familiar feeling of uncertainty. “Do you...want me to do it?”

Jon immediately shakes his head, so quick it looks painful. “No. No, I should…” he takes a deep breath, scrubs his hand through his hair. He takes a few quick steps forward, then turns around, the book pressed to his stomach. “I’ll do it.”

Martin opens his mouth to question the wisdom of that idea, but then Jon is flipping open the book to the last page. He clears his throat once, twice, and then, “His consciousness faded in and out like the tide.”

Jon’s voice breaks on the last word, and he stops.

“...Jon?”

Martin watches the gentle bob of Jon’s throat as he swallows. Then he shakes his head and says in a voice much stronger and clearer than before, “His consciousness faded in and out like the tide. He tried to refuse their drugs…”

He continues talking, his voice rising and falling with every word, like he’s reading just another statement. He slows as he reaches the last few sentences.

“...And his only thought was to cry out for the one he loved. He could feel small, familiar hands gripping his, the soft rise and fall of a voice, hushed like a prayer. The name fell from his lips, but he couldn’t be sure whether or not he had been heard. He hoped that he had been heard. And so Gerard Keay ended.”

Gerard Keay stands in the center of the room. He’s wearing all black, which Martin had expected. Black trench coat, black trousers, black boots, eyes made sharp with makeup. He looks like he just raided the shelves of a Hot Topic, only he makes it work.

Gerard’s gaze flickers from Martin to Jon, and for a moment there is no recognition, no comprehension. He opens his mouth - and then he stills, his eyebrows coming together in vague confusion. His jaw slackens, and his eyes widen, and his expression is cracked open like an egg, revealing the vulnerable yolk beneath.

Jon makes a sound. Martin could not characterize that sound even if he wanted to. It sounds like - like all of Jon’s insides have been scooped out of him, like he’s surrounded by air but he can’t get a breath, like - grief. It sounds like pure, mortal grief.

Just like that, Martin understands.

“Jon,” Gerard Keay says.

And then Jon bursts into tears.

“Gerry,” Jon gasps, but when he reaches out his hand goes right through Gerry’s sleeve. “Gerry, I - “

“Jon,” Gerry steps in close, his hands framing Jon’s face, staring at him the way a drowning man stares at a life raft.

“I’m sorry,” Jon manages. “Gerry I’m so - I promise, I didn’t know, I - “

“It’s okay,” Gerry reaches for Jon’s hair reflexively, but freezes when his fingertips disappear into Jon’s forehead. His expression crumples. “It’s fine, I know. I know. Jon, Jon - ”

And then they’re both crying, tears dripping down. Jon’s face is buried in his hands, and he’s weeping, keening, and Gerry keeps reaching for him, but there’s no way to connect, no way to touch. There’s no relief. It’s just shared grief, endless and pervasive and shattering.

Martin turns away and frantically scrubs his hands across his face. Oh, God. He feels so guilty, but he doesn’t want to be here right now. There is a Shakespearean tragedy playing out before his eyes, the kind that’s brimming with heartache and things left unsaid, and he is powerless against it.

Finally, mercifully, the sound of crying dies away into exhausted silence, except for thick, heavy breathing. Martin keeps his back to them, wanting to give them some semblance of privacy for a conversation that they obviously need to have.

“...so where is she?”

Jon huffs out a quiet laugh, lacking humor, edged with hurt. “Dead. Shot to the chest.”

“Figures.” A meaningful pause. “So are you...”

“Oh, no. No, it’s...oh. Martin?”

Martin sniffs hard and drags his hands over his cheeks before turning around, forcing a smile on his face. Jon and Gerry are standing as close to each other as they can without touching, twin tracks of silver tears on their cheeks.  “Hi, sorry. Just...wanted to give you two a bit of privacy. Martin Blackwood, Head Archivist.”

Gerry dips his chin in acknowledgement, before turning his confused gaze back to Jon. “I thought…?”

“He knows,” Jon says quickly. “I’m...well. It’s complicated. Gertrude hid a lot more from us than we knew.” There’s still a raw hurt in Jon’s voice when he says that, mixed with a lingering sort of nostalgia.

Gerry grimaces. “Did she know about…”

Martin doesn’t realize what he’s asking about until he gestures toward his head, a helpless, reluctant sort of gesture.

“I - maybe?” Jon shakes his head, for the first time turning out of Gerry’s orbit, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’d like to think not, but...it doesn’t matter now. She’s gone. We’ll never know.”

There is a moment of silence. Martin bites his lip, then forces himself to stop when he realizes that he’s already chewed it bloody. It’s hard to watch Jon draw back into himself, put the pain where it can only hurt himself.

“Hey,” Gerry reaches for Jon’s chin, frowns when his hand sinks into the skin. He shakes his head and walks around so he can insert himself into Jon’s field of vision. “Stop. I can feel you blaming yourself, okay? Just...stop. It’s not your fault.”

“...but I should’ve -”

“I am not letting you use this as another stick you beat yourself with,” Gerry interrupts firmly. “You read my page, didn’t you? I didn’t die alone. I’m sorry that you had to go through that, but you don’t understand how much I -”

He breaks off. Jon’s breath rattles dangerously again.

“I always thought that I was going to die alone,” Gerry finishes.

There’s another moment of silence. Jon puts his head in his hands again, and Martin aches at the way Gerry’s face crumples with the desire to reach out, to comfort. They’re in the same room, but there’s a yawning, uncrossable distance between them.

Then Jon lowers his hands. There’s a spark in his eyes that Martin recognizes: the scarce moments before an inferno, before manic determination sets Jon’s whole being ablaze. “Gerry, I’m getting you out of here. I can - you and me, we can figure it out. We can -”

“No.”

Jon pauses. The spark jolts, catches on the cool wave of his confusion. “...what?”

“I’m dead, Jon,” Gerry reaches out for Jon again, then stops. Lets his arm fall to his side, clenches his fists. “I can’t live like this.”

Breathless hurt snatches across Jon’s face. “No, Gerry. I can’t - not when I’ve just found you, I -”

“It hurts, Jon,” Gerry interrupts, and he does not seem like the type to beg, but his voice dips at the end with a desperate plea. “It...it hurts, all the time, and...I just want to rest. Please, just let me rest.”

Jon swallows once. Twice, and his face crumples with sympathy, with empathy, with that awful exhaustion that they’ve all been wearing since what feels like forever. After a moment, he nods.

Gerry lets out a low, quiet sigh of relief, tension draining from his broad shoulders. He smiles faintly, ghosting his knuckles against Jon’s cheek. Jon leans into the touch even though he must not be able to feel it, his eyes fluttering shut, mouth drawn.

“I wish you were here,” Jon whispers.

“Yeah,” Gerry steps back, hiding his expression behind his long curtain of black hair. “Me too.”

There’s a moment of silence. A rearranging of expressions, a folding of hurt and pain back where it can no longer be seen. Jon is once again himself, his expression distant, and Gerry is wry and so very, very dead.

Gerry turns to Martin and smiles. “I wish we had met under better circumstances, Martin.”

Martin swallows, trying to unearth his voice. “Yeah. Me too.”

Then Gerry turns back to Jon. “You know what to do.”

Jon nods again, sharp and short. “I...I dismiss you.”

Gerry closes his eyes, and the whole room sighs as he dissipates into nothing.

Jon stands alone in the middle of the room, spine so straight there may as well be an iron rod put up the back of it. Martin doesn’t even know what the hell he is supposed to say. There is nothing he can do to make this better. How the hell is he supposed to make this better?

The moment passes. Jon’s shoulders slump, and when he turns back to Martin, his eyes are empty.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says monotonously.

Martin cannot do this. Martin cannot just stand there while Jon apologizes and looks at him like that, and -

“Don’t apologize,” he steps forward. “Can I hug you? Please?”

Jon thinks about that for a moment. When he eventually nods, Martin crosses the short distance between them and folds Jon into his arms, trying to ease the sharpness of the pain he surely must be feeling. He can’t make it better, but he can make sure that Jon knows that he isn’t alone. He can do this.

Jon doesn’t move for a moment, his face pressed into Martin’s shoulder, his arms loose at his sides. But just when Martin is about to pull away, he slowly reaches up, curls his hands in the fabric of Martin’s shirt. Lowers his head so he is half-buried in Martin’s embrace. He was already small, but he tries to make himself smaller, like he’s trying to hide himself in the folds of Martin’s pullover.

Eventually, he lets go. Eventually he steps back, letting his bangs hide his eyes, and goes to pick up the book. Martin watches his painful, slow movements, as though he’s filled with bruises from the inside out. He’s so distracted that Jon’s voice almost makes him jump.

“You should…you should do it.”

Martin shakes himself. “Sorry?”

“Burn his page,” Jon elaborates, holding the book out to Martin.

Martin gapes at him, stunned, because - “Um. No? Jon, why -”

“I can’t be the only person who’s ever done right by him.”

Oh. Well, when he puts it like that.

Martin swallows and takes the book gingerly, like he’s holding something precious. He flips to the last page and carefully tears it out, ignoring the way Jon’s breath catches at the soft ripping sound. Then he folds the page and puts it into his pocket, trying not to let on how nervous he is about having this precious page on his person. Trying not to let on how nervous Jon’s complete and utter trust makes him.

He is painfully aware of how many times that trust has been broken.

“Are you ready?” Martin asks.

Jon finally looks away from Martin’s pocket. “Yes. Let’s go.”

[puppy-the-mask]

Poly? Morph

A Friends to lovers post-dnd-transportation fic focusing on our boys Rant and Rus (debating on adding Edge aswell) 

There’s like 4 POV changes so let me know if I should re-write? this was more for fun than anything, It doesn’t get to romance yet but I hope to continue in my free time. Let me know any errors or anything, I’ll put it on AO3 after a bit more editing and input. I’ve just re-read it so much its all bleh to me so i’m getting second opinions/input here

tw/Blood and Death- not graphic but y’know -/(Owo)\-

It’s been 5 years since we began, just a couple of students playing a game of DnD. Mere hours after wrapping up session zero us players arrived home and as a collective felt a foreign wave of exhaustion, falling asleep one by one.

The city's air was damp and the pathways were dim with the light of half dead lanterns. The party was shuffling through the empty streets to the gates bound for our next assignment when a figure appeared out of the shadows, the glint of metal and we found ourselves face to face with a hostage situation. 

You had once been the closest we had to a tank, a perk of having been a dragonborn with high strength- even if you were a druid bard- but after being cursed for the upteenth time you’d been separated from your avatar- Blackjack-  and rendered a low level support for our high level party. 

Without you taking lead your roll was delegated to other, more impulsive members. The next moments are a flurry of movement as a loud burst sends the assailant back along with you- the dagger at your neck drawing blood. 

Everything blended together as I flew to the front lines, rage getting the best of me as the look on your face burned itself into my mind. The shock and pain in your eyes drove me forward as the streets were painted red. 

The cleric could heal you, I had a life to take. 

--------------------------------

Sans woke up panting, eyelights materializing and analyzing his surroundings. WHAT? 

He couldn’t believe it, there was no way… He was back in his room, back in his world- well the one he’d been in before. There was so much to process, his new surroundings aside- their last foe had been someone they’d trusted. And yet she almost killed y/n… had she even known who she was attacking? There were so many questions rattling around his skull as his magic buzzed in his bones. He needed to check on them, he needed to make sure they made it back. Normally he’d shortcut straight to their room but his magic was sluggish and unresponsive. He’d just have to run.

He managed to make it down the stairs without falling and stumble a few more steps before he heard voices. NO NONONO FUCK! I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!

“AH RANT, YOU’RE AWAKE! RANT?” He had to brace himself on the couch, his center of gravity was much different than his avatar’s “RANT ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” Paps knelt to his level and looked him over

“I’m Fine, Let Me Go-!” The hand on his shoulder tightened its grip as he tried to get past to the door “I SAID LET ME GO! I NEED TO CHECK ON THEM!” 

“WHO? RANT TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG.” He just kept struggling, but everything was getting fuzzy as his soul was settling back in his proper body. “Can You Tell Me Where You Are?” More people were walking in, having been drawn from the dining room by their voices. 

“WHERE!? I'M HERE WITH YOU AT THE HOUSE- NOW LET ME GO!” more voices joined the conversation but they all started to run together.

“rant? dude what’s wrong!?” 

“THE HELL IS HIS PROBLEM?”

“huh, so the shortstack does have eyelights”

“bro?” his eyelights sharpened and shrank on his brother and he felt tears prick his sockets. 

“Papyrus?” The soft copy let him go as he stumbled into his brother’s arms. Stars he really hoped this wasn’t an illusion, but the comfort of his brother’s magic reassured him. “It’s Really You…” 

“sans? sans what happened?” Rant just shook his head, his voice leaving him. Had that all just been a dream? It didn’t feel like it, there was no way a dream could be that real. He could remember with clarity how vivid it all was, the blood- the pain- the party that was just so full of life despite their situation- their bard. His gaze hardened. 

He may not be able to do anything in his current state but there was one other person who was close enough to y/n to have a shortcut straight to them. Rant forced his voice to settle and pinned his friend with his stare 

“RUS.” The skeleton stiffened “YOU NEED TO GET TO Y/N, THEY SHOULD BE IN THEIR ROOM” 

“bro, sans you need to breathe with me you’re friend is fine.” He ignored his brother, not looking away from Rus. 

“RUS I CAN’T USE MY MAGIC” The room stilled around him but he persisted, dragging the younger skeleton closer and dropping his volume “You’re All They Have Right Now.

Seeing his hesitance Rant quickly amended his plea. “If I'm Wrong And They’re Fine I’ll Owe You- I Don’t Care- Just please…” 

Rus swallowed, settled his frantic magic, and nodded before stepping out of Rant’s slackened grip into nowhere. 

“sans i know you like bein dramatic but yer really startin to worry me- what happened, what’s wrong with yer magic.” Rant took a deep breath before looking up at Mutt and muttering into his brother’s hoodie

“I’ll Tell You Tonight” Shifting he let his tears fall and grabbed at the fabric in front of him “ I-I DON’T KNOW I JUST- I WOKE UP BUT WHAT I SAW- IT WAS TOO GRAPHIC TO NOT BE REAL AND I...” Rant took a shuddering breath “ IN IT Y/N- THEY GOT HURT BUT I CAN’T CALM DOWN ENOUGH TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.” He looked away from the crowd to the ground and flinched at the annoyed responses of some of them- mad at him for interrupting dinner over a nightmare and unaware of the satisfaction each rude comment brought him. 

He couldn’t help but thank his old reputation as an attention seeking drama queen, this was his easiest coverup yet. Rant wiped his tears and started the process of evening out his breathing

Stars, it felt so good to be back in his own body. He settled into his brother’s embrace, hugging him back. He’d missed him so much. 

-------------------

Blackjack hadn’t exactly been thrilled when you had showed up, he was quite the opposite if he was being honest. He didn’t like taking a back seat while a teenager piloted his body, sue him. But unlike you’d think he didn’t despise you, It was obvious that neither you nor your friends had been expecting a body switch to happen by the end of the first day. But then nearly 5 years later you’d made a deal with good old gertrude, accepted yet another experimental curse, and next thing the dragonborn knew he had his body back.

The next few months were interesting to say the least, he stuck with the party and quietly delighted in how your companions turned to him when they meant to talk to you and expected him to do things he’d never do. You were different then him, kinder, a total bard, and frankly he’s just glad that all those curses you’d brought onto the two of you had transferred. He could deal with a few extra scars if that was the trade off. 

You did have a couple similarities though, your shared love of gambling, ale, and women. 

The two of you were talking about just that, naming your favorite flirtatious endeavors over the years you’d spent as him- of which there were many, including lady victoria. It wasn’t exactly hard for him to pick up where you had left off but something told him there was something more to the parties’ friend in high places. As good of a rogue as you were you were oblivious to the lady’s growing infatuation, one of the many reasons why the other rogue became the king of thieves rather than you… or him??? Regardless the look on Victoria’s face when he’d introduced you stuck with him, he decided to keep you close for now just in case

You were at the back of the group, his steps slowed drastically to match yours, though you still had to fast walk to keep up with his much longer legs. You were going on about a tiefling academic you’d hit it off with a while back, the one who’d inspired and helped you develop a spell of your own. It was cheesy, a healing spell for those with ‘high charisma’ as you put it that utilized the castor’s kiss. It was effective and Blackjack won’t deny using it on his own to woo the occasional maiden. 

You went on and on and he could envision the tiefling in question, commenting about other features as you raved about her cute freckles, when he felt a prickle in his scales. Before anyone could react you were in a figure’s hold with a blade to your throat.

Suddenly the air crackled with electricity as the trigger happy sorcerer unleashed a Thunder Wave. Blackjack braced himself for the impact, feeling something wet and warm splatter onto his tunic. He rushed towards your prone body, yelling for help from the cleric only to curse when they had run out of spell slots. 

He sighed, his breath appearing a soft glowing yellow in front of him, he never thought he’d have to use your spell in a serious situation- especially not on you. As he pulled away from your cheek the words manifested on your skin, magic runes snaked down to your neck- glowing that same pale yellow. They ran over your wound until there was no more area to cover and slowly faded as your body repaired itself. 

That wouldn’t be enough. The cleric took you from his hold and started pumping on your chest, trying to force air into your lungs in practiced motions. Your blood covered the pathway and the two of them as they tried to keep you from choking on it. 

Looking back to the fight Blackjack saw the rogue known as Rumor- the one you called Sans- in the very heart of the battle. He sucked in a breath as he heard their foe cry out, Veronica. He was right, but he held no satisfaction in that. She tried to plead, to escape, but that rogue wouldn’t let her. Blow after blow he refused to stop.

Blackjack looked back to you as you spat up blood, finally breathing on your own, and he couldn’t help but pity any fool that tried to come between the two of you. Just friends my ass

Suddenly his attention was pulled from you to the cleric, who was outlined in a fading golden glow along with the rest of the party, who slowly came back to themselves

“Gods above that boy made a mess!” Rumor, the real one he assumed, looked on the body with disgust. Lady Veronica was unrecognizable.

“I assume y’all are back in control then?” Y/n sat up with help. Their voice was raspy, they were still glowing, and when they coughed into their hand their fingertips were fading away. They focused on their now bloody hand and chuckled “Must take bodies longer to transport than souls I guess. For what it’s worth it’s nice to meet you all.”

It couldn’t have taken more than 3 minutes of chatting before they were almost gone.

“It was nice knowin ya player”

“Heh yeah, I’ll miss getting my ass kicked at poker…” You surprised him with a look of sincerity and fondness, trapping his gaze onto you “Thanks for everything Blackjack.”

With one more smile and a farewell wish that we look out for ourselves they vanished back to where they came from. They really were kinder than they had any right to be

Blackjack stood with a sigh and without a word turned around to head back to the tavern they’d stayed in previously. He didn’t know about the others but he could use a drink, and it’d take many many more before he’d ever admit that he alread missed his stupid little protege.

---------------------------------------

Rus wasn’t sure what he was expecting, when Papyrus had gone to get Rant for dinner he figured his friend was just exhausted from participating in your club. The three of you had become fast friends after him and the other ‘undesirable’ skeletons were relocated away from the main house’s relationship issues. 

From what he’d been told you didn’t run into Rant despite having had your face in your phone, doing a little twirl to avoid the other skeleton last second - who had noticed your inattention and been gunning for you from down the hall. Which was just like him, always looking to start something. You’d peaked his interest and after a little chat in the halls he’d let you go to your next class until lunch. 

Rus remembered you had looked so nervous and anxious when Rant had dragged you over to their seats across the lunchroom,literally, but you’d engaged and chatted with the shorter skeleton regardless. And while it took a little time he’d started chatting with you as well, since- as it turned out- the two of you were in the same graphic design course. 

It wasn’t hard to convince the two of them to tag along with you to the DnD club come second semester, Rant had come prepared with a binder full of paper for notes and a separate stack for his character sheet, he’d come up with lots of backstory for his character- meanwhile Rus had a singular almost empty character sheet and took all of the session getting set up while you had multitasked helping him and participating in the pre-game exposition. 

That was only a little over 5 hours ago, so when Rant had come down in a panic with a look that had dread coursing through his bones Rus was a little skeptical something had happened to you. But something told him there was more to it, and the desperation on his friend’s face alone was enough to spur him into action. He wouldn’t take any chances, not with someone he cared about

The moment he opened his sockets his gaze was drawn to your bed and he felt any and all composure he’d mustered up leave him. 

“Y/n!?” A faint glow dissipated as he rushed to your side, crawling onto the bed to get to you in your confined space as he gathered you into his arms. Fuck there’s so much blood, Why-What-How??? Fuck!

He hesitated to take your pulse, the blood around your neck still wet. He couldn’t tell where it all came from and he nearly screamed when your hand shot up and grabbed his, your other clamping around his teeth. Rus jerked back and the motion sent the both of you tumbling off the bed, but you managed to catch him and brace a hand against the wall just past him- effectively stopping the two of you. 

The two of you sat like that for a second before you exhaled, the tension breaking Rus began to fuss over you. 

“Y/n what the fuck happened to you- did Rant have something to do with this? are you okay? do you need to go to the hospital?” 

“No! Nonono I’m fine-”

“You’re Covered In-!” You shushed him, almost covering his face again before he caught your hands. He turned one of your palms towards you, it was the one you’d previously been coughing into and shook the offending arm for emphasis “See!!!” You looked past the skeleton at the wall, there was a bloody handprint you’d have to clean off and you could spot some on one of Rus’ hands 

You shook your head and got back on track, fixing your tall friend with a serious look

“Look Rus, I don’t need a hospital. I just need to get cleaned up and maybe get a bandaid or two. I’m okay, promise.” He only frowned, searching your face before sighing

“you owe me an explanation later.”

“You probably won’t believe me.” You said with a tired chuckle

You scooched off of your bed and slipped off your pack, letting it hit the floor with a thunk and various muted clinks and clangs from your supplies, kits, and other odds and ends.

“can i ask about the wardrobe change now or should i wait?” You snickered as you fiddled with the various buckles attaching your scabbards and pouches to your person before thinking better of it and reaching for the pin clasping the ends of your cloak together and removing the garment. “Is That A Fucking Sword Y/N What The Hell!?!?” 

Your laughter only grew louder as you nodded wordlessly with a grin, looking back at your awestruck friend- who had moved to his knees at the end of the bed, leaning closer to get a better look. 

“Yeah, It ties in with the explanation but yeah it’s real! All of it is- wanna hold?” You’d explained excitedly as you quickly got the straps undone and off your body, removing your shortsword and it’s scabbard from the ensemble and holding it out towards Rus. He took it tentatively before sitting back to admire it. 

You watched on with a proud look on your face, your smile growing when he unsheathed the blade and you caught his eyelights expand before zoning in on the engraving along the blade. It was a simple enough sword but one of your friends had enchanted it for you way back at the beginning when you all were still discovering and learning your class’ skills and you’d kept it close ever since. 

Switching gears you started taking off your armor, which thankfully had taken most of the blood as well as your cloak- leaving your tunic nearly spotless this time around. There was a little soaked in around the collar but it was manageable. In a stroke of genius you grabbed a pair of sweatpants, telling Rus to stay where he was you moved to the alcove in your room that didn’t have your bed and quickly changed pants, throwing your boots and pants into the pile of adventuring gear before smearing blood across your face from your nose. 

A mischievous grin spread across your face when you turned towards your companion

“How do I look?” when you got a concerned look in response your grin only grew “Great! I’ll be right back!” Rushing down the stairs you covered your nose, raising your voice so the whole room could hear you

 “Hey mom?! I don’t know what happened but I got a really bad nosebleed- can I wash some things?” 

Your mother turned from the TV to look at you, eyes widening in surprise and concern “Of course, What happened?”

“I don’t know! I woke up and there was blood everywhere. I think It stopped but it got all over my bed.” 

“Here, let me strip your sheets- you get cleaned up.” 

“Oh no, you don’t gotta do that.! I can get it, just give me a sec.” You tried to wave her off but she insisted, already heading up your stairs. Aaaah fuck Rus isn’t supposed to be here he didn’t use the door!!! 

You felt rather than heard the pop of magic in the air and sighed, You’d have to get with him later, but for now you had blood to clean. You absently wondered if rubbing alcohol worked on leather.

Getting back to your room you looked around and found that all your gear- which you had completely forgotten also shouldn’t have been there- was piled up in the same place you had previously changed, hidden from view of your mother. You also found your phone plugged up on your bed with messages on it’s screen

~Rus~

-text me after dinner 

-i’ll come over w/ rant and you can explain 

Rant? Who’s-OOOOOHHH!!!! Right multiverse shenanigans, Sans is Rant here. As you were going to unlock your phone you got another text from the aforementioned skeleton himself

~Rant~

-RUS SAID YOU WERE ALIVE. I’LL BE TELLING MY BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED TO US IF YOU WOULD…

The message cut off, which concerned you until you remembered that you’d have to enter the app to get the full message since it was so long. Inputting your passcode you re-read the full text

-RUS SAID YOU WERE ALIVE. I’LL BE TELLING MY BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED TO US IF YOU WOULD BE UP TO COMING OVER AND EXPLAINING IT TOGETHER? I’D BE NICE TO NOT LOOK INSANE IN FRONT OF MY ONLY FAMILY

-We’ll see if I can make it after dinner, I owe Rus an explanation too. He actually just texted and said he’d come over with you so /I/ can tell /y'all/ what happened

-You slipped up by the way, you live with your ~cousins~ remember?

-YOU’D BETTER COME OVER…

His bubble appeared and disappeared before he finally responded

- BITE ME PEASANT

-Kinky~

-But also sleep sounds great though

-I HOPE YOUR HANGOVER KILLS YOU

You pocketed your phone with a smirk as you hopped off your bed. Some reheated leftovers sounded amazing right about now, you feel like you could eat a whole feast. You glanced over at your things and considered your unending flask of honey mead before thinking better of it. Sans- fuck RANT- was right. That healing spell would give you a major hangover after you woke up, especially with how much it had to heal. You shivered as you felt your own mortality weigh down on you. 

You’d almost died again, and there were no more resurrection scrolls- especially now that you were home. Your eyes drifted back to the flask…

It couldn’t hurt to celebrate a little could it? Not only are you alive but you’re home! Besides you’re already going to hate life in the morning, why not enjoy a few swigs before that cliff?

You took a long drink and closed the flask, burying it under your things before making your way down the stairs to get something to eat. It wasn’t long after that you were in your usual spot on the couch watching TV with your family and laughing together. You’d even gotten a hug from your mom during a sad scene, and if she noticed you crying a bit more than you meant to then she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t totally unheard of for you to shed a few tears for fiction after all.

[things-with-teeth]

“And Hope That I Don’t Crash You”: The Web, The Archivist, and Control

In her statement to Jon, Annabelle Cane states, “I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans” (MAG 147). In a lot of ways, the narrative supports reading this as an admonishment against doing the later. In MAG 149, Melanie shoots down the idea that the Web has some strategy beyond “to paralyze [Jon] with indecision, sitting here terrified that everything [he does] is somehow part of its grand plan;” Jon doesn’t necessarily concede to this point, but he does admit it’s a possibility. Every time we’ve met another avatar of one of the Entities or an organization that worships them, it’s turned out that they’re not all they were cracked up to be when they first appeared on the scene: Peter can’t protect the Archives as he told Martin he would, Elias isn’t as all-knowing as he would lead others to believe, the Cult of the Lightless Flame and the People's Church of the Divine Host are both 95% petty in-fighting and about 5% knowing what the heck they’re doing. (Simon “in it for the lulz” Fairchild is sort of a breath of fresh air; he also doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t pretend otherwise.) So maybe the Web is the same; even Annabelle suggests it, telling Jon that it’s entirely possible the Mother of Puppets is “simply sitting and reveling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia as those who hold her in special terror cocoon themselves in red string and theory” (147).

On that note, please allow me to cocoon myself in red sting and theory: I think Annabelle has basically been engineering events since season one, and here’s why.

I want to be clear from the start: I think Annabelle is being completely above board when she tells Jon that she hasn’t influenced his decision to take statements and feed the Eye. It’s clear from the moment that he proposes the possibility that this is a bit of a reach, a desperate last-ditch attempt to convince both himself and the others that he hasn’t been acting with any kind of autonomy while doing something he knows will hurt people. He is. He does. Jon Sims is becoming a monster, and that wouldn’t be nearly as horrifying or as sad if there wasn’t some element of choice to it (and some element of inevitability to that choice, as with a lot of great tragedies, but the kind of inevitability that’s as much personally driven as externally motivated). In no way am I writing this in an attempt to say “the spiders made him do it, he had no choice.” That being said, Annabelle herself makes an argument for choice being dictated by circumstance, and I’m going to argue that Annabelle herself has dictated a great deal of the circumstance from the very beginning.

Some of this is very well-supported by the things that we already know for a fact; Annabelle, herself, admits to Jon that she’s been “been nudging something here and there to keep [Jon] safe, to keep everything on track” (ibid). I don’t think there’s much room to argue that Annabelle wasn’t the one who prevented Jane Prentiss’ plan to destroy the Archives from coming to fruition. As of MAG 123, we know that Annabelle was responsible for what happened to Carlos Vittery way back in MAG 16, the very same case that Martin is investigating when he discovers Jane in the basement of Carlos’ apartment leading up to MAG 22, and from MAG 16 we know that Jane’s presence there predates that of the spiders – Carlos says his building has an “infestation of some sort of insect [he] didn’t recognize – small, silvery worms [...] they provided a good meal for the eight-legged little monsters.” As a result, the Archives are aware that Jane is a present and immediate danger. In MAG 38, the infestation of worms in the tunnels and Jane’s attack on the archives is revealed when Jon damages the false wall while attempting to commit arachnicide, and she’s forced to attack early. This is almost definitely why she fails; Tim states that “[being inside the Magus Institute] made them weaker, and they’ve been down there for months, breeding, building up their numbers until there were enough to properly bury us. Except you found that hidden passage, and they had to act” (MAG 40). I think it’s also possible – although this is more conjecture at this point – that Annabelle was the one who sent the note that incited Jared Hopworth to attack the archives between seasons three and four, although that’s mostly because I’m not sure there’s a better candidate; Peter potentially has motive, but that kind of manipulation reads more as the Web than the Lonely. “I’m starting to think the letters were a trap,” says Jared (MAG 131), and I would argue that it was a trap, not for Jared but for Martin, meant to nudge him into looking outside the Institute for protection. It’s more-or-less explicitly stated that Annabelle sent Oliver Banks to coax Jon out of his coma: “I'm still not exactly sure why I'm here. But you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks” (MAG 121). Annabelle has nudged, here and there, and she has kept Jon safe, and she has kept everything on track.

I think Annabelle has been influencing events in more subtle ways, too, however. Very early in the series, Jon receives a delivery which includes “an old Zippo” with a “spider web design on the front” (MAG 36). He’s suggests that Tim have the others take a look at it, but that’s quickly lost in the realization that the other item delivered is the web table, which Jon recognizes from its description. As far as I can recall, we don’t hear another mention of the lighter until MAG 111, when Gerard asks Jon if he’s “a spider freak” after Jon offers him a cigarette and, presumably, a light. This means that, three seasons later, Jon is still carrying the lighter. A lighter with a spider web pattern on it, delivered by Breekon and Hope, who may belong to the Stranger but who are certainly willing to deliver parcels for other powers (the yellow stole Father Burroughs receives in MAG 20, for instance). Jon has been carrying around an artifact of the Web for the better part of the series, and I don’t think it’s impossible that it’s been influencing him, or that Annabelle’s been using it to influence him, in ways that are much less obvious than those I’ve listed above. Mostly I don’t want to speculate as to how it’s influenced him – I straight up do not know, and like I said, my intention is not to absolve Jon of all agency in his own actions for the last hundred plus episodes – with one exception. There’s one other time that Jon’s smoking habit has heavily impacted the plot: when he steps out to have a cigarette in MAG 80, leaving the way clear for Elias to brutally pipe murder Jurgen Lietner and keep Jon “on track” in his development as the Archivist.

This is speculation, but I think it’s speculation supported by past events within the podcast, most specifically those surrounding Gertrude and Agnes.

Annabelle wasn’t an avatar of the Web back then, of course, but I still think that there’s a lot to be learned when it comes to how the Web and/or its representatives influence the course of events nominally controlled by and benefitting other Entities. In MAG 139, Eugene Vanderstock says:

The compromise we came to was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of the Web, full of other children Agnes’ age. We would supervise from a distance but were confident she would be in no danger. The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand – all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.

And that’s—that’s weird, isn’t it? We know that the Cult is at least somewhat protective of Agnes; it’s how Diego convinces Arthur Nolan and the others not only to refrain from acting against Gertrude but to protect her for so many years after she binds Agnes to her, because it might be “catastrophic for Agnes” if Gertrude were to die “a violent death” (MAG 145). In spite of that, here they are, sending their baby chosen one into the lair of an enemy power so that she can get some normal socialization and learn not to bite (or burn) the other kids. As a result, Agnes ends up tied to Hill Top Road and Raymond Fielding, even after Fielding is dead, perhaps because of an early attempt at the same kind of binding that Gertrude eventually succeeds at creating. I don’t think it’s outside of the realm of possibility that the chain of events leading up to the Cult making this disastrous decision were not entirely without influence from the Web.

Then there’s Jack Barnabas. I’m ridiculously charmed by Jack’s whole mindset of “this girl is so goddamn weird and I’m really ridiculously into it,” and I’m not going to suggest that what he felt for Agnes wasn’t real; even Jon is “ninety percent” sure that Gertrude “didn’t pay poor Jack Barnabas to fall in love with Agnes” (MAG 139), and I’m about equally certain that the Web didn’t compel poor Jack Barnabas into being head over heels for her, either. That said, I think it’s clear that the Web did have some involvement. When preparing for his first date with Agnes, Jack smells burning and notices that “within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider's web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke” (MAG 67). The language in his statement, years later, is filled with confusion about his own motives and hints of compulsion: “I was drawn to her in a way I can't even explain,” “I don't know how it happened, it [asking Agnes for a date] just tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it,” “drowning in emotions that I still can't explain,” and “looking back, I'm still not sure what I would have done differently [...] I don't know if I would have had it in me to resist. I just couldn't avoid being drawn in” (ibid). Jack’s feelings for Agnes may not have been entirely manufactured, but they did receive a nudge, and the result was doubt and eventual death for the avatar and a necessary component in the ritual of one of the Web’s opposing powers.

Finally, there’s Gertrude. When speaking of the path that led her to the ritual which eventually bound her to Agnes, she describes it thus:

It was the Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident, but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations [...] I began researching what I thought was a counter-ritual of sorts. Like I said, I was young, naive. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hill Top Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a banishment ritual turned out not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a—an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. (MAG 145)

Somehow she found the right books. Blind good luck that led her to Agnes’ hair at Hill Top Road. I would call it an accident. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations – and this is Gertrude, who isn’t infallible, but who Arthur Nolan pinpoints as being “too practical” (ibid) to buy into the mystique of the Entities or to ascribe to them some greater motive, which would seem to belie the possibility that she’s falling prey to (as Annabelle suggests in MAG 147, as Melanie suggests in MAG 149) the tendency to succumb to paranoia while crediting the Mother of Puppets with some grand act of manipulation that the Web isn’t actually responsible for. I would argue that Jon has most likely been experiencing the same kind of quote-unquote happenstance that Gertrude once did, the same kind of subtle manipulation cloaked in coincidence, for the entirety of the series, all of it leading him toward whatever end Annabelle finds most desirable.

Some final notes that I couldn’t really incorporate elsewhere: I really, very much hope that Melanie’s therapy sessions really are just her getting good professional help for everything the Archives and the Entities have thrown at her, but I’m less and less certain that’s the case. Annabelle’s inception, her origin story, takes place in a psychology department. When doing follow-up in MAG 69, the archival staff find that all of the post-grads involved in the experiment have disappeared; in addition, Elizabeth “Liz” Bates, the advisor on the project, refuses to give a follow-up statement. The Web is about control and manipulation; it’s entirely possible that Annabelle has a large pool of qualified candidates to draw on when it comes to providing Melanie with a counselor who doesn’t have “cobwebs down her face” (MAG 149). I also keep getting stuck on the fact that very soon after Melanie asks Daisy not to call her “Mel” in MAG 147 because her therapist has advised her to be more open about these things, Annabelle opens her statement with “Free will is a funny old thing, isn’t it Jon? Can I call you Jon? I’m going to call you Jon.” Sure, it’s coincidence – but Gertrude was convinced, at first, that what she was dealing with was coincidence, too.

As for why Annabelle is doing this, I don’t know. Maybe the Lonely is as much in opposition to the Web as the Desolation is – after all, it’s difficult to manipulate someone in isolation – and she’s trying to impede Peter, not from stopping the Extinction but from benefiting from it, as Simon Fairchild says he will, thereby eliminating an enemy just as the Web did with Agnes and the Desolation. Maybe she’s trying to beat him to the same goal, establishing some level of control over someone beholden to the Ceaseless Watcher just as Peter is trying to gain control of Martin; Jon’s first experience with the supernatural involved the Web, and then there’s that Zippo. Maybe she has some goal all her own, some third option not yet even hinted at. Or maybe, like Jon, she’s acting on instinct, unable to do anything but “dance the steps [she is] assigned” (ibid), manipulating and spinning out her web because she’s incapable of doing anything else.

---

So I accidentally wrote 2.5k of wild conjecture about creepy spider people because I got stuck on the idea that there was a connection between the Zippo and Lietner’s death, that was fun. Shout out to @wildehacked for letting me yell about this and additional shout out to anyone involved in the wiki or the transcripts because oh goooooood would this have been more difficult to compile without being able to utilize those resources to check citations and grab most of the quotes. 

Quick edit to add a link to @caught-in-the-infinite‘s excellent alternative explanation for why Annabelle might have wanted Jared Hopworth to attack the Archives, which I think makes a lot more good sense than mine while also having even more ominous implications. 

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG130 /o/

- Fun game!

(MAG106) BASIRA: Hm. I dunno, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist. […] Huff. That [INSERT TITLE HERE] needs to relax. MELANIE: Or at least find someone else to fuss over. BASIRA: Yeah, [x]’s got it bad. … Do you know if [x] and Jon ever…? MELANIE: No clue – and not interested.

Is this conversation between Melanie and Basira about: a) The Distortion about Jon? b) Elias about Jon? c) Martin about Jon? d) The Web about Jon? (Jon, you serial heartbreaker.)

In all seriousness (kind of.): the Web has it BAD about Jon, indeed. Which is necessarily not a good sign given that if someone from the Web were to tell you it wants you to carry its babies, you would have to understand that it means hollowing you out and turning you into a spider egg sack.

The Web sent him a lovely lighter in MAG035, that Jon still had on him as of MAG111, because Jon ~chose~ to go back to smoking after five years of quitting! Jon discovered the worms infestation back in MAG038 thanks to a lil’spider on a wall (BECAUSE OF COURSE: JONATHAN “I PERSONALLY READ MAG016’S STATEMENT ABOUT A GUY MINDCONTROLLED TO REPEATEDLY SMASH A SPIDER ON A WALL” SIMS ASSUMED THAT HIS OWN ACTIONS WERE HIS OWN AND TOTALLY NOT CONTROLLED UH.) Lovely helpful spiders eat the worms carcasses in the tunnels! Cobwebs were welcoming him into the wax museum when they were planting bombs in MAG118! “She” sent Handsome Black MLM Oliver to encourage him to wake up in MAG121! And now the spiders are leaving tapes for him in his desk when Jon is having trouble thinking about his next moves! uwu

… Meanwhile, what have you done for Jon, Beholding. You fucked up a perfectly functioning researcher, gave him anxiety, nightmares and the constant feeling of being watched, is what you did. (… Well, the Web also gave Jon trauma, misguided hatred, and a visceral phobia of spiders but HEY, at least, it’s giving Jon useful presents in his Quest!)

Oliver had confirmed that the Web had never really left Jon alone after all these years (MAG121: “But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what She asked!” and the mere fact that Oliver came… because “She” had sent him to talk to Jon), we still don’t know its/Her intentions and neither does Jon:

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: I found this tape tucked in the corner of my desk drawer. [AGGRAVATED SIGH] Covered in cobwebs. I suppose subtlety is gone out the window a bit. And the question is now simply … how much I trust the Spider to have my… best interests at heart. … Hm. I suspect my assuming it has a heart might be a clue I’m looking at this the wrong way.

(Obviously, the answer is that it wants to win YOUR HEART, Jon!!)

The Web has Plans Involving Jon, nothing new. And I have no serious ideas about why – seriously trying to woo him because Back Off Big Eyeball, We Saw Him First? Needing him to be ready for the Watcher’s Crown in some way either because it’s allied with Beholding, either because it needs the ritual to come close to completion in order to crash or hijack it? What was Jon supposed to make out of MAG130’s statement, and he did he completely miss the point or did he draw his own conclusions All According To Keikaku? … are they Jon’s own conclusions or The Web making him think about the conclusions It wanted.

I’m also wondering if, after all, Jon getting drawn to this and that statement since the beginning of season 4 wasn’t… Web-induced more that Beholding-induced. Actually, Jon has never explicitly said that knowing which statements to read, specifically, was coming from his Insights (the knowledge seeping through the cracks of the door):

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook […]. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hope something from it would just… come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement […].

(MAG127) BASIRA: And what was that you were doing yesterday? ARCHIVIST: … When…? BASIRA: You were sat on the floor for like four hours. ARCHIVIST: … Oh! Er, n–n–no, I was, er, I was… listening. Y’know, it’s, trying to see if any of the statements… called to me. BASIRA: And? ARCHIVIST: [FLIPS PAPER] BASIRA: Brilliant.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I don’t like this. I don’t like… not being sure what’s going to be in my mind. What thoughts are mine and what are from… elsewhere. Why I just know some statements are what I should be reading. I assume this one is related to the coffin. To Daisy.

Is it knowledge seeping into his mind, or is it, let’s say, a web string pulling him in towards specific statements? Jon’s comment that “subtlety is gone out of the window” couuuuld possibly (it’s a possibility!) imply that he knows that the Web had been directing him towards them before (just… without wrapping them in cobwebs). Case in point, though: Jon got to Know about how Gertrude stopped The Buried through his Insights, and that one was pretty clearly Beholding-stamped. So, at the very least, it’s not only the Web teaching Jon about how Gertrude stopped the previous rituals. Somehow, both The Eye and The Web are glad to feed him the knowledge.

In the particular case of MAG130: this means that the Web has quite a strong hold on the Archives themselves – or did it send the tape randomly, à la Elias in season 3? (Your casual reminder that the conclusion of Jon’s thrilling saga of wondering for 20 episodes why Elias was sending him this or that file was: because Elias had no idea what the fuck he was doing.) And: where does this tape come from? We know there are more tapes than the ones Jon had listened to: Basira had been given three boxes of them when they discovered Gertrude’s body, and she gave him a few tapes and at least one of these boxes when she quit the police in MAG075. Leitner had told Jon, and then confirmed with Elias (MAG080), that Elias had gotten his hands of Gertrude’s files regarding The Stranger (and posssssibly about Beholding?) and Elias had indeed begun to send some of those documents in season 3 but explicitly refused to give them to Jon in one-go (MAG092), so drip-dropped them instead. Elias mentioned in MAG116 that he had taken Gertrude’s tapes into his “safekeeping” during Jon’s absence at the beginning of season 3, so he was still in possession of all of them at the end of the season.

Is MAG130 from Elias’s secret stash? Or from somewhere else, another hiding spot? In any case, it means that, in true spiders fashion, the Web can crawl its way into anywhere, unnoticed. It is there and it’s able to operate in the Institute. It knows the place as its own. (Is it also its own already…)

- Jon had wondered, a few times, why Gertrude was recording some statements and not others and… we still don’t have the answer to that?

(MAG044) ARCHIVIST: I will admit to some disappointment it doesn’t address any of my more… pressing questions about Gertrude’s tapes. Why did she begin recording them, and why stop? If she’d been doing so right up until her death, she would have likely gotten through much of the Archive […].

(MAG087) ARCHIVIST: I had assumed Gertrude had recorded to tape for a while and then stopped, but it sees she was recording them right up until the end. But if they did span decades of working at the Institute, why aren’t there more? And what decided which statements she transferred?

It’s a bit hard to guess a logic behind Gertrude’s recordings, but so far, we’ve listened to these ones, listed by order or recording (SINCE UNLIKE A CERTAIN SOMEONE, GERTRUDE ROBINSON HAD ENOUGH WORK ETHICS TO GIVE THE DATE OF HERS :wwww I’m not calling anyone out) (Jon, u suck.):

*04/11/1996: reading Lucy Cooper’s statement about the “Changeling / Imposter”, Not!Them (MAG077) *15/04/1997: reading Yuri Utkin’s statement about the Russian circus (MAG044) *05/09/1997: live statement of Walter Heller about the old Archives in Alexandria (MAG053) *02/09/2007: reading Robert E. Geiger’s statement about The Buried’s ritual coming close in America (MAG099) *03/07/2008: live statement of Mary Keay about getting her hands on the book of The End (MAG062) *19/12/2008: live statement of Lucia Wright about the Flesh’s ritual attempt in Istanbul (MAG130) *04/10/2013: reading Abraham Janssen’s statement about the last Stranger ceremony, in the Court Theatre Buda in October 1787 (MAG116) *04/04/2015: reading Sebastian Skinner’s statement about The Stranger’s people in the Gwydir Forest (MAG087)

Noteworthy: the oldest one that Jon accessed was about the Not!Them, and Gertrude had specifically highlighted (thanks to the statement-giver providing a recording of her true mother) that tapes were able to resist the Not!Them’s rewriting of reality:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: It is at least reassuring to know that magnetic tape seems to escape being overwritten [by the Not!Them], so if I get changed, you can be sure this is my real voice. Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

I could imagine that Gertrude might have recorded a few tapes with this in mind – in case the Not!Them would attack her, to leave some proofs of her existence and of her ongoing researches, since, following this one, almost all the statements that Jon listened to were tied to some aspects of rituals she was working on stopping. MAG044 dealt with a very active period of the Stranger’s Circus; MAG099 helped her narrow down the location of the Buried’s “Sunken Sky” (in America); MAG116 was a survivor describing the last Stranger’s ritual attempt; MAG087 was about the current activities of Stranger’s minions, now that the ritual was coming closer. The three other statements were lives: Mary Keay is an oddity, but Gertrude had sarcastically commented that it happened because Mary insisted on talking:

(MAG062) MARY: You… don’t really go out and look for yourself, do you~? Just wait here for the researchers’ leftovers. GERTRUDE: Mm! It’s not that bad. Sometimes, someone will insist on giving me a statement directly, though… I rarely see the point.

(YOUR CASUAL REMINDER THAT GERTRUDE WAS SAVAGE LIKE THAT.)

The other two dealt with what Gertrude suspected to be an old Archive (MAG053), and a witness testimony of the explosion that put a stop to The Flesh’s ritual (MAG130), so… still related to Gertrude’s activities: she had been searching for Walter specifically (MAG053: “It’s taken a long time to track down someone still living who found the Serapeum of Alexandria.”; the site was ~curiously~ bombed six months after she discussed its location, in March 1998) and she was in Istanbul ~in the flesh~ during “The Last Feast” (the old woman that Lucia spotted but didn’t recognize). Moreover, there are a few mentions alluding to the fact that she already had talked a bit with the statement-givers (and narrowed down what they experienced) before deciding to record their statement:

(MAG053) WALTER: Yeah, er, right. Er, wh–where do you want me to start? GERTRUDE: Well, you say you were serving in North Africa when it happened.

(MAG130) [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: Do you mind? LUCIA: What? Oh, hum. No. GERTRUDE: Excellent.

Whether live or written, was Gertrude almost only recording statements dealing with the rituals attempts? But then, it seems like there were three big periods of recording: 1996-1997, 2007-2008 and the last years of her carreer. We’re still back to Jon’s initial questions: why the gaps? Is it because tapes exist from the years in-between, but we only got a few samples that aren’t enough to discern anything conclusive…?

- But then, back to the usual question: what was the thing that made her decide to record Walter and Lucia live, when they could have… written it down or dictated it to another member of staff? (We know it was a thing that could be done in the 70s, with Nathaniel Thorp’s statement from MAG029.) (I doubt it’s Relevant but: fun thing! “Lucia Wright” shares her surname with the previous head of the Institute, “James Wright”, who ran the place from 1973 to 1996. Elias took over when he passed away.)

- Well, in Lucia’s case, it sounds like Gertrude’s initial intentions might have been a bit grim?!

(MAG130) LUCIA: Telling my story. To you. Will, will it help with the nightmares? GERTRUDE: […] whatever nightmares your experience has left you with, I’m sure they won’t be bothering you much longer. […] GERTRUDE: Well…! That – is – a relief. When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all.

What were you initially planning to do if she had remembered you, Gertrude.

Because, uuuuh… we know from Basira&Daisy’s exchange in MAG112 that they kept having “dreams” long after giving their statements to Jon; telling their stories didn’t allow them to get rid of the nightmares (it’s just that apparently, becoming an archival assistant cuts you off from them, and from Jon seeing them?). So, hum. Could Gertrude have been planning anything else than… straight-out murdering Lucia then and there, and only changed her mind when Lucia mentioned an old woman without linking her to Gertrude?

That aside… we got confirmation from Gertrude herself that she was aware that live statement-givers also give their dreams to the Archivist – the “slim collection of gifted nightmares” described by Elias in MAG120:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: […] I’m honestly impressed she had the strength to get through it, even if she does seem to have been… deeply affected by it. Shame about the dreams; I would avoid them if I could.

… Why couldn’t she in this case, though? Why did she have to take this one live, when we know that she tended to prioritize written ones (going as far as to ask François Deschamps to write down what he had witnessed alongside her in MAG102)?

There has been quite a huge amount of statement-givers mentioning their recurring nightmares when writing their statements; the specific of the Archivist receiving a live statement seems to be that it synchronizes their dreams a bit? Makes Jon able to see them? Or traps the people in his own nightmares of their experiences? (In Jon’s dreams, at least, the statement-givers blame him and feel like they’re here because of him.) Regarding Gertrude, there had been Adelard’s and Mikaele Salesa’s expectation that just writing their statements could have an effect too:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) I’ll even make it a statement. Give your patron something to keep it satisfied. It’s not like I sleep enough to worry about dreams.

(MAG115, Mikaele Salesa) So it’s another statement is it? Like I owe you something?  […] So I suppose if it’s a statement you’re wanting… it’s no inconvenience to me. I don’t sleep well anyway.

Does this mean they might have given live statements to Gertrude in the past, and assumed that writing it down would have the same effect? Does writing a statement end up having an effect on you, even though the Archivist doesn’t access those dreams? I wonder, now, if the dreams are not actually supposed to happen to… everyone touched or coming close to the Fears, and it's just that some people don’t think to mention their dreams in their statements? Adelard got interested in the case he described in MAG113 and was reminded of his hypothetical new emergence partially because people had been hurt when asleep – could it be that new emerging fears tend to first manifest through dreams…?

- Gertrude, are u lying through your teeth again.

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Are you quite ready? LUCIA: H… uh. Will it help? GERTRUDE: I’m sorry? LUCIA: Telling my story. To you. Will, will it help with the nightmares? GERTRUDE: If that’s your primary goal, my dear, I would suggest you speak to a qualified counsellor. We can suggest one, if you like; that said, I do believe most people find the process of giving a statement to be rather… mm, cathartic.

I’m squinting at that “cathartic” (if it’s about the actual concept: WOOPSIE, catharsis in Greek drama does rely on you EXPERIENCING the terror and pity. It is not a nice process on the moment.)

Meanwhile, in Jon’s case, giving him a live statement has rarely been described as a nice experience for visitors, mostly because of Jon himself:

(MAG084) MELANIE: […] There’s nowhere left for me to go. I don’t know why, but… I just, I just felt that perhaps coming here might help. And talking things out with Jon. I mean. I mean he’s awful, but at least he listens, you know?

The only “positive” ones about it that I can think of are Helen, Tessa and Mike, and Oliver a bit (he was surprised to have managed it); and Julia, back with Gertrude, had felt that it helped:

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: Perhaps. … Leave it with us, we’ll… do some digging and… see what we can find. HELEN: You believe me then! ARCHIVIST: I, er… yes. Yes, I think I do. (MAG101) ARCHIVIST: A– are you still going to kill me? HELEN: No. That was Michael’s desire, not mine. ARCHIVIST: So… S-So what do you want? HELEN: I don’t know. Helen liked you so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave. (MAG115) HELEN: Before, talking to you made Helen feel better. ARCHIVIST: You’re not. that. Helen! HELEN: I just want…! I just want to feel better.

(MAG065) TESSA: […] And it does feel good to talk about it. Y’know? ARCHIVIST: [LIGHT CHUCKLE] Yes, I… very much understand.

(MAG091) MIKE: Hm. You know? That was… that was nice. I’m not… not usually the sort for speeches, that was… pleasant change. So.

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: Ah, yes. You–you know the Institute? JULIA: Oh yeah. Checked myself in there a while back. Ended up spilling my guts to this old woman about my dad, just letting it all out. ARCHIVIST: O–oh, that, that would be, er, Gertrude. My, my predecessor. JULIA: I didn’t catch her name. Weirdest thing, really. Didn’t mean to spill half of it, but. Really helped me put the pieces together, you know? ARCHIVIST: I’m… starting to.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Right. That’s a… hit, I suppose.

(But Oliver is cheating since Jon was still unresponsive when Oliver gave his statement – Oliver got Jon at His Best, uh.)

Then, I don’t have any doubt that Gertrude was probably better at sweetly coaxing people into telling their stories, rather than showing off in Jon’s apparent blunt manner (he does care!! But he’s also very off-putting, which… didn’t help when he was receiving statements.)

In the meantime: still nothing from Jon about his own dreams :www

- So Adelard also helped Gertrude in destroying the Gnostic temple!

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Well…! That – is – a relief. When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all. […] Dekker really came through with the explosives! It almost felt like cheating. Sad about the loss of history but Miss Wright didn’t seem to think the old Gnostic church got many visitors anyway.

Gertrude sounded so giddy to have blown the place up, efdusijrezkds. Did she provide the explosives and he handled them? He was super interested in the stock she had managed to get for The Unknowing, in his letter from MAG113. They’re adorable. Old people saving the world and bonding over their creative use of explosives.

Interestingly, it seems that Gertrude kept her allies separate? Gerry and Leitner didn’t seem to know that Gertrude was working with the other (which… makes sense considering Gerry’s distaste of Leitner because of the books); but neither did they ever mention Adelard.

Which puts me to mind again: what happened to Adelard? We know that he came in contact with the Institute at least in 1991 (MAG077, Gertrude: “I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the ‘NotThem’ in statement 9910607”), whether he was personally acquainted with Gertrude or not at the time. Since then, they’ve apparently been allies on multiple cases: they collaborated to blow up the Gnostic temple housing the Flesh’s ritual (MAG130), and Adelard moved out the plastic explosives for Gertrude because she felt that she was under surveillance (MAG113). That was chronologically the last time we’ve heard of him at this point – from a statement that, according to Jon, was “undated, likely circa 2012”. Did he die, since then…? Became something worse than dead…? Is he hiding somewhere…? Peter Lukas has been looking for his statements to get information but didn’t mention the possibility of tracking him down: it could be either for manipulation purposes (better to not let the Archives team meet Adelard, who specialises in dealing with spooky creatures, when you’re yourself a spooky creature), either because he knows that Adelard is not around anymore…? (Then, my bets for the culprit are the New Emergence he was investigating, or someone amongst the Lukases, or Peter PERSONALLY.) (Could be Elias, I guess, since Adelard must have been a bit old at this point, but we would need to know what his voice was, since Elias’s criteria for murdering people so far have been 1°) you must be old, 2°) you must be voiced by someone from Jonny’s family.)

- Something that I found quite interesting in the statement itself is that Lucia had, from an overall point of view, no relationship whatsoever with meat – no attraction to it, nothing from her personal history that would imply that she could get drawn or involved with the Flesh. But, at the same time, the evolution from her being fascinated by religion to the Flesh felt only natural because of the Eucharistic dimension, and by the fact that her own appreciation of churches was both spiritual and sensual?

(MAG130) LUCIA: […] I loved churches. These big… quiet… echoing spaces of peace and beauty, designed to quiet the soul and prepare it for communion with the divine. Even if I didn’t actually believe in the God they were supposed to house… I always found them… meditative. And whenever I went on one of my breaks, I’d always try to find a local church – hopefully… not too full of other tourists like me – and spend an hour or two in quiet contemplation. I’d listen to the shuffling footsteps of the other people, and breathe in the lingering smell of incense, before lighting a candle to my grandmother.

With the Demiurge in mind, it’s almost surprising that The Flesh is (officially) the last Fear to have emerged (Gerry had mentioned that it had begun its ascendance around the time Robert Smirke had established his list of fourteen); but at the same time, you would have to fear the specific aspect of it as related to Flesh bending, twisting, getting reduced to a pulp, etc.? In True Flesh Fashion, Lucia ended up getting very conscious of that aspect during the whole ordeal (THANKS FOR MY WEDNESDAY’S DINNER, JONNY):

(MAG030, David Laylow) “There’s not so much difference between people and animals, you know? […] Weirdest thing is, you start to kind of see people as meat too. Not in a food sort of way, you know. I don’t wanna eat my co-workers. It’s just that, when you spend all day taking these living, breathing creatures – animals that move and cry and tremble in fear – and you turn them into lifeless blocks of dead flesh, it’s hard to believe in any special spark that makes us humans any different.”

(MAG072, Craig Goodall) “There’s nothing inherently special about us. We feel as much pain, see the world with the same eyes as a real pig. Meat is meat. That’s what John Haan said when they arrested him. The only thing he said. Meat is meat. […] It looked like this was what the kid had been doing. He’d been spraying the phrase ‘MEAT IS MEAT’ onto the door of the freezer, but the cops must have gotten him before he’s finished, so what was actually written upon the matt silver surface were the words ‘MEAT IS ME’.”

(MAG130) LUCIA: […] Squirming limbs were dragging, rising, extracting themselves from this mound of flesh, and making their way down to join their companions on the ground, one by one. Most of them could still be mistaken for humans at a distance, a few even wore clothes. […] All through this, the mouth got closer and closer to the edge of the pit, the pile of flesh within it larger and larger, sat there in an awful, half-solid slurry, chewed and crushed together. It was impossible to tell what had once been animal, and what might once have been us. It was all just meat.

-Curiously, Lucia didn’t mention any anchor in her statement? Orrr was it, in her case, an anchoring thought?

(MAG130) LUCIA: My back was screaming, my legs were weak, and my mind was numb from terror. But I was spurred on by one thing: the woman with the backwards arms had fallen, some time in the night, and her companions had shown no hesitation. They had gripped her shoulders, hoisted her up, and hurled her straight into the gaping maul. I swore it wouldn’t happen to me.

Could it be the focus that matters, more than thinking about something/someone from outside of the box? Focusing on something, whatever it is, and preventing the Fears from getting to you and swallowing you whole? It’s also how Basira had managed to exit The Unknowing on her own… So in the same way: would going into the coffin with the clear resolution of finding Daisy and getting back out with her be enough…?

- We’re slowly completing the list of failed rituals from the current batch!!

*The Buried: “Sunken Sky”, 17th June, 2008. (<- Vast-touched Jan Kilbride was thrown in pieces into the pit.)

*The Flesh: “The Last Feast”, October 2008 (since it was (until now.) the new Baby, this was probably only its first or second ritual attempt? Awww ;w; (Don’t worry, you’ll get used to seeing your ritual derailed.) (WE HOPE.) <- also with this one that Gertrude apparently confirmed that she could deal with the rituals with non-spooky means (maybe… Jan Kilbride… would have liked to know that a few months earlier…))

*The Spiral: “The Great Twisting”, somewhere during October 2009 or shortly after. (<- No explosives for this one, Michael Shelley gave an Identity to the Distortion instead.)

*The Stranger: “The Unknowing”: 6th August 2017. (<- TIM WAS THE BOMB…)

*The Eye: “The Watcher’s Crown”, incoming and Jon Has Suspicions about the year 2018. (<- Gertrude had a Plan for this, MAG080 seems to hint at “Fire.”)

Unclear: The Dark (15th May 2015? 10th February 2017? It Was Coming Soon according to Nathalie Ennis), The Desolation (before April 2015).

No indication (yet?): The Lonely (I’m very subjectively suspecting that this one might not have a ritual, since “almost” all of the Fears have one according to Gerry, and that that’s why the Lukases are collaborating with various other Entities’ clusters by throwing money at them), The End (I’m also thinking that this one could turn out to not actually have a ritual?), The Vast (are they planning to yeet Earth into Space), The Hunt (Gertrude was not convinced but mentioned that it could happen in America), The Slaughter (… we got a few statements showing that when a Slaughter event happens, it goes HARD anyway, so I fear (ha) what its ritual attempt would look like – maybe during a recent war or civilian repression?), The Corruption (though might have tried something in the tunnels below the Institute during The Hive’s invasion, given the ring of worms? Though it would sound a bit low-scale, since only Jane Prentiss was there…), The Web (Though There Is The Matter Of What The Heck Is The Deal With The House On Hill Top Road).

- Alriiiiiiiiiiiiiight, so:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: […] Tom Haan might be a bit more of a problem, as it looks like he also survived, but I’m hopeful he has been weakened enough by this failure to not be an issue in the near future. Hopefully, he’ll fade away or burn out, as they tend to when robbed of their purpose. Still… I should keep a watch on him in case of any erratic behaviour that might lead to complications. Also worth watching out for any additional esoteric fall-out from the ritual attempt, like that Carlisle boy down in Wandsworth.

a) If I remember, Craig Goodall (the statement-giver from MAG072) had never explicitly mentioned that the Chinese-looking man that had attacked him was “John Haan” (the original owner of the takeaway restaurant, who had been arrested years before the events) – the fire was reported on 27th September 2009, almost a year after the Flesh’s ritual attempt, and the avatar talked about the relation between meat and religion… so indeed, it was probably Tom Haan there, too (I had been a bit confused, back then, unsure if it was John or Tom)?

b) Alright, and MAG030’s events happened in July 2013, we don't know of Tom Haan having been spotted since then, and what was described really sounded like… he put an end to Things then. So same as Breekon, maybe: he faded/self-destructed?

c) Toby Carlisle from MAG018 (“The Man Upstairs”) confirmed as Flesh! Though apparently, he didn’t participated to the ritual, dying in October 2007, although he was affected by its imminence.

I’m late to the party, only realizing now that the “Mrs. Carlisle” whose husband’s corpse wanted her to cannibalize him in 1845 (MAG058) shared her surname with “Toby Carlisle” – both about (MEAAAT) Flesh. Which means that Mrs. Carlisle probably gave in and ate her husband after her statement in order to survive, after all? And that one of her descendants was also Flesh-related? And we already knew about the fact that two people from the Haan family had a special relationship with meat?

We have the Carlisles, the Haans, the von Closens/Keays, the Lukases… Maybe Gerry had been a bit wrong in saying that the Fears don’t care at all about blood? Or are they, like the Fairchilds, adoptive families and the Lukases are still an exception?

- ;; Insisting on this: according to Gertrude, (avatars? monsters?) tend to “burn out when robbed of their purpose”, which indeed seems to have happened to Tom Haan four years and a half after his failed ritual. That…………………… is a short life expectancy if you fail indeed…………….. So even assuming that Jon is still alive (well, “not dead”) when a Watcher’s Crown attempt will be made, and even if he doesn’t die during it, and even if it is stopped in time… it means that Jon would be done for anyway.

Counter-points though: *Jared Hopworth began experimenting with The Boneturner’s Tale starting in 1996 and we know that he was still active and very chill About His Life in 2012 (MAG090). Though… did he even participate in that “Last Feast”, or did he just ignore it to keep doing his own thing?

*Jude Perry didn’t look especially erratic when we met her in 2017 in MAG089, although Gertrude had mentioned that The Lightless Flame’s plans had been stopped shortly before she recorded MAG087’s statement in April 2015 (“their own plans have so recently, erm, gone up in flames.”) So… we’ll… “see”…

- Once again, I really have no idea what state Daisy will be in, assuming that Jon does even manage to get her out of the coffin and that she’s still breathing (even if, hum, not human-shaped or human-minded)……………. But listen. Listen. We had an example of Jon managing to ground someone through compulsion: he did that to Tim during The Unknowing, and it worked! Forcing people to admit the truth manages to get their awareness back!

(MAG118) ARCHIVIST: Tim!! [STATIC:] What do you see? TIM: I see my asshole boss! W– wait… wait… […] ARCHIVIST: Tim! [STATIC:] What’s in your hand? TIM: It’s… I don’t… the– the– … the detonator…

My shipper heart really really hopes that Jon might compulse Daisy into remembering Basira, asking her ~who is it who matters to her~, since Basira was, almost literally, presented as Daisy’s anchor (MAG092, Elias: “the only person you care about […].Your last connection to humanity.”)

Problems: as of MAG122, Jon didn’t remember anything of the Unknowing past Gertrude’s entrance, which means… not remembering Tim’s last moments. And: Jon still had trouble pinning down the relationship between Basira and Daisy in MAG117 (“I–I– I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone.”), so… I’m not sure he would think of this option. Jon often has troubles with people’s relationships ;;

SO IT MAKES IT EVEN MORE VALUABLE THAT HE’S GOING TO TRY, ANYWAY, TO SAVE DAISY FROM THE COFFIN……………… Daisy who tried to kill him, who threatened him a few times afterwards, but whom he seemed to kinda like in his own awkward way? Jon really doesn’t want to lose anyone anymore, uh. (;; They’ve not been mentioned recently, but you can still feel the ghosts of Sasha and Tim lingering around.)

- YEAAAAH so Jon is getting ready to get injured again, and he does it in the most self-deprecating, heartbreaking way:

(MAG130) ARCHIVIST: […] What was it she said, “the siren call of Flesh”… Hm. It’s possible, I suppose. It would… hurt, but… Well. What’s another scar? … It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira. I’m not waiting any longer. I’m getting Daisy back. End recording.

JON ;;;;;

a) If it is indeed a Flesh-related scar (will he get his hands on something from Artefact storage? or would it be “Flesh”-compatible by the simple fact of purposely injuring oneself?): Jon… is making progress on completing the set of Entity-related wounds. And we know he’s aware that it’s been a lot of injuries (MAG127: “Just another scar for the collection!”), but did he notice that he’s been covering all the Fears? We still don’t know for sure if the diversity is relevant, but it’s been a noticeable pattern (for listeners), and it sounds really suspicious… especially when keeping in mind how Elias had described the Archivist’s role (MAG092: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…”).

Jon was touched by the Web when he was a child (MAG081: “The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”); he’s Beholding’s Archivist. As for the Corruption, he got almost eaten alive by Jane Prentiss’s worms (MAG039); “Michael” from the Spiral stabbed him when he tried to retrieve Helen (MAG047); Jude Perry from the Desolation burned his hand through a handshake (MAG089); Mike Crew made him experience the Vast and probably fucked up his lungs a bit (MAG091); Daisy strangled him and/or cut his neck (MAG091); the Not!Them toyed with his memories of Sasha (starting MAG040), Nikola punched(?) him (MAG097) and held him captive for a month (MAG101), and Jon ultimately experienced the Stranger’s Unknowing himself, getting temporarily lost in the madness (MAG118+MAG119); the End couldn’t totally get his grasp on him while Jon was in his coma but Jon was then “balanced on an edge” (MAG121); Melanie stabbed him in the shoulder with a scalpel while she was infected by the Slaughter (MAG125); since Peter Lukas has been running the Institute, Jon has mentioned multiple times that he was feeling alone/lonely, which… could be a Lonely-induced state of mind (MAG125, MAG129), with everyone drifting away because of its effects.

Jon is still missing the Buried, the Flesh and the Dark. If Jon is getting his scars from the Buried AND the Flesh in one go, he will only be missing the Dark’s (and potentially the unidentified ~New Emergence~), which is already lurking around the Institute.

It’s going FAST.

b) Jon has been holding back, so well and on multiple accounts é_è He stuck with it and didn’t try to come in contact with Melanie! If he didn’t lie by omission, he has been managing to not Know about Basira’s current activities (MAG129: “I haven’t heard from Basira, since she left on whatever secret errand”)!! Well, he went to see Martin when he got the Insight that he was around in MAG129, but Martin hadn’t told him to “stop finding” him yet, so Jon didn’t break any promise. And, well, although he’s resolving to go into the coffin at the end of MAG130… he managed to not try anything since Basira left two weeks ago, and she’s been taking longer than what she had announced (MAG128: “I’ll try and be back in a week or two. Don’t think about me.”); the fact that Basira is still not coming back indeed changes the paradigms a bit. (What is she doing… Where did Elias send her to… Was Elias’s plan precisely to remove her from the Institute, to get Jon more prone to getting involved himself…)

Even statements-wise!

MAG121 (+MAG122?): February 15th 2018 MAG123: February 17th (“Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”) MAG124: February 24th~ (“It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened.”) MAG125: ? MAG126: ? MAG127: ? MAG128: 3rd March (Basira leaving) MAG129: ? MAG130: 17th~ March (“It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira”)

There was a very intense period from MAG124 to MAG128, but since Basira’s departure, it seems that Jon has gone back to the casual and safe rhythm of one statement a week. Take that, Elias and your “And I know you’ve had problems with moderation.” :www Jon has been doing good on his own!

c) It’s SAD, once again, that Jon reached the conclusion that he had to do something by himself, and that this something involved getting hurt. I don’t see any of the others taking it kindly: Melanie could be indifferent, but Basira will probably point out that Jon didn’t prove himself trustworthy (going into the coffin when she had told him not to) and Martin… would probably scream at Jon a bit for getting injured.

But at the same time, yes, what is Jon supposed to do? He lost Sasha when he was ignorant; he lost Tim when he was knowledgeable, and thought that Daisy had disappeared too. Jon is still the one who has the best chance of not dying; he’s the one with the most powers; he proved that he could neutralise Breekon when he was on the verge of attacking. Of course that, now that he’s discovered that he could possibly “undo” another death, and if the only downside would be him getting injured… he would take that chance. Especially when Gertrude casually mentioned that:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time. I’ve had ten years tracking supplicants drawn by the siren call of Flesh, watching them gradually stockpiling meat. Very useful, in terms of preparation time for derailing the final push, but in future… I think I need to get a little bit more… proactive.

Meaning she let a few members of The Flesh run wild for ten years, for the Greater Good of “derailing” their ritual later. Meaning she probably allowed them to hurt, torture and kill innocent people all this time. Typical Gertrude and she had her priorities (saving the world, and at what cost?). Jon’s priorities are… Well. We don’t officially know them, but the assistants seem to be pretty much at the top of his list right now.

And damnit!! Jon tried to reach out to the others, to explain to them what was happening! He tried to infodump to Martin! He confessed to Martin that he missed him and was worried for him! He told Basira about his new powers and told her they were on the same side! And Martin and Basira both chose to remain solo in their own quests. But Jon tried; it has nothing to do with the way he tried to protect Tim and Martin at the end of season 2, or the way he avoided all the assistants before Nikola kidnapped him in season 3 (MAG098, Martin: “Yeah, we talked. Not long, he– Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine.”) He tried and just spent two weeks with the coffin for sole company, knowing that there could be a chance of rescuing Daisy and knowing that she is not having a great time inside (MAG128, Breekon: “You can stare at it, knowing how your feral friend suffers, knowing how powerless you are to help. And when you can’t bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her…”).

Jon is only finding another way now because communicating didn’t work when all he got was doors getting shut in his face. He would even have reasons to snap if someone were to reproach him for trying something alone… ;;

- Regarding MAG131, since we already have the title, I wiiiiish we could have Melanie stopping Jon dead (…) in his tracks and instead giving him a statement of The Flesh attack on the Institute, but alas :| If Jon is planning to amputate (perhaps temporarily, before sewing it back? He said “another scar”, didn’t mention a missing body part) or hurt himself (blood to attract Daisy once inside?), I don’t knoooow what he would aim for. Something grand and over the top like HIS HEART, SINCE HE MENTIONED THE WEB’S “HEART”? Something symbolically appropriate like his eyes (L I S T E N, ~THE RELATION BETWEEN EYES AND KNOWLEDGE~ HAS BEEN AN OLD ONE SINCE ŒDIPUS………………)? His head? … Honestly, I think I would be more disturbed if it turned out to be something small and… closer to a real-life injury (a finger, a bit of an ear, etc.) Another option would have been to use The Boneturner’s Tale or to ask for Jared’s, uh, “help” (stealing bones/organs directly from Jon), since Gregory Pryor had mentioned how he could still feel his own bones “twisting in someone else’s arm” after they had been stolen from him in MAG049, but we don’t know where the book is, The Flesh already tried to destroy the Archives when Jon was in a coma (they’re not allies), and Jon seemed keen on acting as fast as possible. Still, not totally excluding the possibility of Jon taking the time to go after a Flesh avatar in MAG131 (although it sounds like he’s getting ready to jump in the coffin already). Martin had even highlighted that he couldn’t be sure whether “J”’s gym was still running or not since August 2013 (MAG090: “The, um… the supplemental materials that should go with this statement, providing more details on addresses, names, and stuff, seems to be missing, so we don’t have any way of tracking down the gym, or finding out the name the business might be operating under. Not without a 2013 copy of the Aberdeen Yellow Pages. A bit of relief, in some ways.”) Orrrr I guess that Jon could also be cunning and only pretending to totally miss the point, just to make The Web freak out and come out of its hiding spot to stop him, but Jon hasn’t been hiding from his recording since the whole Sceptical Show from season 1… So I don’t know. (Why are you so intent on getting honest on tape now that you know that Fear entities are listening to you, Jon?)

Re: the coffin, by the way. I wonder how we would be “told” of what is happening down there, if Jon goes inside? Would we witness it live, through a tape recorder? Would we get the reactions from people outside (Martin, Melanie and/or Basira) while Jon still hasn’t come back, before Jon would give a quick summary? Would Jon (or Daisy) give a full statement of what happened? … Would Elias give a Statement Never Given of the whole thing? (In that case, I’d really hope that Jon’s anchor would turn out to be MARTIN INDEED IN THE END, because then, Elias would have to narrate the whole ordeal, and I’m ALL for Elias’s pain while he would grit his teeth with utter disgust, come on, you know you want it too.)

And still no idea about Jon’s anchor /o/ I said last time that I felt that MAG129 was precisely introducing the idea that it wouldn’t be Martin, since Martin told Jon to stop “finding” him… but it wouldn’t mean that Jon would stop. And it’s one of the few things that Jon actively seeks out himself – the tape recorders are the ones stalking him, for example, and sadly so was The Distortion (;; I want Helen baaaack…). We don’t know whether he tends to go back to the Web’s lighter or if it’s the lighter which stuck to him.

The call of a cigarette? The Archives themselves? The Eye’s presence? The jar containing Jane Prentiss’s ashes? Jon’s fondness for meat? (MAG115: “I suppose in some ways it’s strange I’m not a vegetarian yet, what with everything I know. But… I rather think someone in my position has to take their small pleasures where they can, and if it occasionally delights some grotesque meat-god, well... c’est la vie.”) Regrets about his life choices?

[love-killed-the-superstar]

frankly i’m shocked that i haven’t seen any josephine/gertrude fanfiction floating around yet (maybe i’m just not looking hard enough) so here we are a multi-chaptered fic of pure unbridled lesbianism!! i’m hoping to update on wednesdays so keep a look out!

Title: like she pulls on the sea Pairing: Josephine/Gertrude Chapter: 1: 1826 Summary: "she pulls on this heart like she pulls on the sea..." Snapshots spanning the decades of Josephine and Gertrude's life together. 1. They meet in a Parisian bookshop in 1826.

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18014606/chapters/42562796

"Stand and face me, dear; release That fineness in your irises."

-Sappho

They meet in a Parisian bookshop in 1826.

The finishing school young Josephine Barry attends, Reynard's, allows Saturdays as a time for their young ladies to spend freely. Many watch the rowing on the nearby park lake, where their suitors picnic with them after the morning practice, while others take the time to write home, catch up on missed work, or are swept away on dates to art galleries, cafes and ballrooms.

For Josephine, she spends the time alone. She revels in her own solitude, visiting bookshops and galleries and historical sites in secret, and spinning tales of handsome beaus swanning her around Paris. Whether the girls at Reynard's believe her or not remains to be seen, but she'd rather have a reputation of being some kind of harlot than anyone ever discover the alternative. Someday becoming a spinster is one thing, but frankly, she lies awake terrified at night that someone might find out the sick secret she's carried since first laying eyes on her mother's youngest kitchen maid at the tender age of thirteen.

No matter. She's alone now, exploring the streets of Paris with reckless enthusiasm, pouring over paintings and books with hunger that she feels no need to restrain.

This Saturday morning in particular she finds herself drawn to a small bookshop just a twenty minute carriage ride away from Reynard's. She's visited it a few times in the six months she's been in France, and she's eternally grateful for her mother's insistence she learn written French as well as spoken – these books are her lifeline, and she finds herself drawn to one that she'd heard tales of back in Charlottetown: The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner. Being somewhat of a sinner herself, she'd been drawn to the title at the time, wondering if there really was someone out there feeling what she felt. But no sooner than three pages in, she feels a tap on her shoulder and turns around.

Behind her stands a woman unlike any she has seen before. For one thing, she's wearing a suit – a man's suit, sculpted around her body like the night itself. Her hair, a pleasant auburn, is neatly pulled back into a bun, secured with a neutral pin decorated with what looks to be a single amethyst.

Josephine opens her mouth and closes it a few times, just taking in the sight. Her heart is warm in a way she only used to feel watching the young kitchen maid at work, and she feels colour rushing to her face.

“Excusez-moi? Mademoiselle?” The woman begins, clasping gloved fingers together. Josephine suddenly remembers how to speak, but unfortunately, in the incorrect tongue.

“Um, yes? Is there a problem?”

The woman blinks, then her smile grows relieved.

“Oh, wonderful! You're Canadian! I'd recognise that accent anywhere!”

Josephine squints. “And you too...? Upper or lower?”

“Upper, of course. From the Maritimes. Nova Scotia to be exact, and you?”

“Prince Edward Island.” Josephine grins. “I... sorry, I didn't expect to run into a neighbour all the way here in Paris.”

“Small world.” The woman's smile fades. “Well, the truth is, ma'am, I saw the book you picked up and couldn't keep my mouth shut. It was bleak to read, frankly, it feels like you're reading some sort of legal document. Not to mention, so many characters die!”

Josephine balks. “I'm – I'm sorry?!”

The woman sighs heavily. “It's true. George is stabbed in the back, in a literal sense, and Robert, well, he takes a rope and makes a noose!”

Josephine's jaw drops. “Ex-Excuse me! I was still planning to read it, you know!”

“I'm doing you a service, my dear, trust me.” The woman plucks the book from Josephine's hands and returns it to the shelf. “Come with me, and I'll show you a whole library of books worthy of your wonderful eyes. My own personal collection.”

Josephine pats her ears. No, there's no water in them. A complete stranger of a woman with a strong Nova Scotia accent has decided to steal her away from her solitary browsing and an intriguing book to... what, propose an outing of some kind?

“I don't think I understand this situation at all. I don't even know you!”

“Oh, don't be so contrary. We're both Maritimers. We're kin! I would never harm a hair on the head of a fellow Canadian.” The woman says this solemnly, hand on her heart, before her mouth split into a wicked grin. “Now, do come along. It's been so long since I've talked with someone who understands the essence of maritime life, and I'd be terribly wounded if you refused to at least peruse my collection of prose.”

“I'll be expected back on school grounds by six,” Josephine warns, as the woman takes Josephine's hand in her own and leads her out of the bookshop. “I'm telling you, if I'm back late, they'll start searching for me.”

“Oh, so you're studying here?”

“I'd hardly call it studying,” Josephine says, eyes narrowing. “I'm at Reynard's.”

“Ahh, you do have that air about you. A proper lady.” The way she says it, rolling it around her tongue like a freshly picked berry, tart on the tongue, makes Josephine bristle self-consciously.

“And what exactly are you implying?”

“Just that proper ladies and I tend to clash. I thought you might be an artist, like me.”

“If you're so worried, I suggest you let go of my hand and be on your way.”

The woman stopped and turned back to look at Josephine with a smile.

“No, I like you already, ma'am. We've already made a connection, wouldn't you agree?”

Josephine shrugs her shoulders helplessly.

“I suppose so? We may be from the same heritage, but I don't even know your name.”

“Gertrude,” the woman replies easily. “Gertrude Vassall.”

Gertrude squeezes her hand, and Josephine swears her mind is washed out, like watercolour, at the extra pressure.

“Josephine,” she manages, weakly. “Josephine Barry.”

At the time, Josephine has no way of knowing that this impulsive and charming young woman is about to set the rest of her life in motion. She has no idea of the tears, the anger, the secret stolen dances in the Parisian backstreets and arguments over conformity behind the doors of their Edinburgh lodgings. She has no idea that this is a person who feels the same way that she does; that she's not broken, she's not delusional when she catches Gertrude watching her like Josephine handed her the world on a silver platter. She has no idea that they are about to spend the rest of their lives loving one another, in a way that can so rarely be spoken of, but when shared with the right people, becomes one of the most binding, intimate things in existence.

At this current moment in time, Gertrude Vassall is young, Josephine Barry even younger, and the two of them are about to embark on a journey that lasts them a lifetime.

[garden-ghoul]

here read my gertrude fanfiction (also on ao3), includes fraught soul-searching and tarot

After they disembark Gertrude leaves Gerard to his own devices. He takes this to mean that he should secure dinner for them both while Gertrude checks into the hotel. He’s too good at teamwork for what he is, and certainly for what Gertrude is. She rather wishes he’d been able to beat it out of himself. She doesn’t like to think of him running errands for Mary. At least he manages stoicism where none of her assistants ever did; where neither of his parents could.

Gerard is so late finding the hotel that she considers going to a convenience store for food, but at nearly midnight he does knock on the door. “Sorry about this,” he says, a little breathless. “I had a hell of a time finding the place.”

He’s lying. Gertrude isn’t sure why.

They eat in silence, and immediately afterward Gerard disappears into the bathroom for a shower that lasts nearly an hour and ends with a gout of steam that rolls out into the room, waking her from her half-sleep. She gives no sign, but only listens to him tiptoeing around the room and sighing.

She wakes up early to have a miserable ‘continental’ breakfast in the hotel lobby, then leaves for the Institute without bothering to wake Gerard. He knows what his task is, and he’s showed good initiative and decision-making in the past. Gertrude needs to put in an appearance, if only to prove that she is still the Archivist, that she is not yet replaceable. She finds a totally unfamiliar set of assistants who look so shocked to see her that it’s quite possible they’ve only heard of her by reputation. She does not go to see Elias. It would be redundant. Rather, she fills her bag with relevant statements compiled by one or another of the assistants and leaves again for Soho. As she’s walking out the door Rosie asks timidly if she’ll be in to work tomorrow; “Perhaps,” says Gertrude.

At the occult shop off Dean Street she finds a young woman who must be an employee talking animatedly with Gerard about tarot. She barely glances up when Gertrude comes in, but Gerard straightens with a vaguely guilty air. She doesn’t even need to do anything to encourage his guilt—he spent over twenty years trying to understand how to please the impossible Mary Keay, and he was quick to attune himself to Gertrude in the same way. It irritates her for no reason she can fathom, despite how useful it makes him. No—for no reason she wants to fathom. Self-deception is an idiot’s tool, and yet Gertrude sometimes finds herself making use of it for the sake of expediency.

“Dekker’s in the back,” Gerard says. “Didn’t want to start without you. I can go and get him if you want.”

“No need. There’s no reason for you to be there. Continue with your games.”

She can feel his sullen irritation burning on the back of her neck as she opens the door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and slips through. Good. If only he could bring himself to trust her a little bit less: he still thinks he’s somehow different from the assistants she has sacrificed to the hungry mouth of necessity. It always sickens her a bit to betray trust, but when she has to betray him it’s going to be—worse.

Dekker is taking notes on something he’s reading in the storage room. He looks up and smiles at her, and stands to clasp her hand. “Good to see you made it back in one piece.”

“Yes, well, for however long it lasts.”

His smile turns sardonic as he sits again. “Right. That’s exactly what I wanted to talk about.” He slides a piece of blank paper and a pen across the table toward her. She only has to wonder why for a moment before he picks up his own pen and starts drawing a chaotic fractal (spiraling, angular) with no obvious algorithmic origin. Gertrude follows suit with one of her own. She’s now forgotten the name but the thing itself is strikingly memorable, rising and falling, weaving and unweaving itself until every part of it meets in a hungry plexus. She’s drawn it so many times that she sometimes dreams it making itself step by step, a netting in front of the monstrous eye that always watches her.

“This is what I’ve found so far,” says Dekker, gesturing to an open folder in front of him. “Does the Archive in fact have nothing?”

Gertrude doesn’t yet look up from her drawing, because he has paused. “It does, in fact. I have come to believe that any statements taken on it were destroyed immediately. I myself have only taken two, which may mean that witnesses are systematically eliminated.”

“Systematically, but not completely. I’ll draw, you look.”

She puts her pen down to look over what’s in the folder. Three new statements concerning preparation and one concerning the substance of the Rite of the Watcher’s Crown. She skims them intently and nods. “Thank you, Adelard. I should mark the folder as well, while we’re here. Do you have any other news?”

“Hmm,” says Dekker, as Gertrude begins to draw her fractal web on the folder. “No supernatural news. And I’m sure you don’t want to see pictures of my sister’s kids. Very cute, though. Sometimes she brings them in to visit, Paulina dotes on them. I think Gina’s afraid they’ll grow up into witches, though, if they keep playing with cards and crystals.”

Gertrude doesn’t speak or look up. She has nothing to say on the subject. It’s been decades since she had anything she could call a family. This is intentional.

“So I tell her she doesn’t have to bring them here, but she says they love the shop. Spoiled kids.”

Dekker lapses into silence, idly continuing his sharp spirals. She thinks of warning him not to get comfortable drawing fractals without thinking, but he’s a grown man. And in any case she doesn’t need associates who can’t take care of themselves. Getting rid of Michael was practically a public service—

She stops for a moment, caught between human decency and practiced cruelty. In any reasonable value scheme, Michael was worth nothing as a person, less than nothing as a research assistant, and his only value was his ability to get in the way. But a very long time ago Gertrude was taught a different value scheme. Her parents insisted that humans have some kind of inherent worth, and she has been unlearning it ever since. Sometimes she wonders in her father’s voice why she should bother rescuing humanity from its collective fears if all of them are worthless, and she has never found a satisfactory answer. Only that it is something she needs to do.

She finishes the net and stands up, tucking the folder into her bag. “Thank you,” she says again. “Be careful.”

To her relief he puts his pen down as he smiles wryly up at her. “You need that advice more than me, Gertrude. Get on with you.”

He accompanies her out into the shop and looks over the girl’s shoulder where she’s leaning over one of the display cases. “Making friends, Paulina?”

“Shit!” she says, jumping slightly. “Hey, Mr. Dekker. I was just showing Gerry how to read tarot.”

Gerry?

Gertrude raises one eyebrow at him, but he is industriously tapping the deck on the table to align all the edges of the cards. She does not point out that Gerard has known how to read tarot since he was very young. Heaven forbid she should interfere with his flirting.

“I’d like to do a reading for you,” Gerard says. He looks up and makes eye contact, which seems to indicate that this request is important.

“I won’t stop you,” she says.

He shuffles seven times, flamboyantly, and then holds out the deck. She cuts it and he squares the edges on the table again.

When he draws the first card she realizes that the deck is not the Rider-Waite-Smith deck she was expecting. The angel in the sky of Judgment is not a winged humanoid but a wheel of eyes, an ophan. “This is your major concern,” says Gerard. “I don’t have to tell you what that means, do I.”

“No.”

“Your challenges,” says Gerard, flipping the next card. “Eight of cups. Detachment, abandonment of connections. G-d, this is a lot more embarrassing than I was expecting. Er, also symbolizes escapism. So, moving on. Something you need to know. Four of coins, reversed. Normally that means… huh. Material wealth…” For her the card appears upright, and it’s impossible to deny the subject’s striking resemblance to Elias Bouchard. “The crown is… literal. So maybe look for that. And don’t be shy about spending resources to go after it, I guess.”

Gertrude leans forward intently. “Where is it?” she asks. Although as far as she knows tarot is complete nonsense based in apophenia and confirmation bias, she is willing to believe that if anyone can use it for genuine divination it is Gerard.

“Right, this one’s ‘a thing you need in order to progress’.” He pushes the next card into place. “Hah! Oh, I like this deck. I’m sure you’re aware the Devil is usually a metaphor for imprisonment, but in this case he’s also a person.”

“Elias has the crown?”

“No,” says Paulina. Gerard looks around at her in surprise. “Not yet. It’s going to become his, or become real. That’s why it’s reversed. It doesn’t just show who has it, it shows how he has it. And he’s got to do something first.”

“Oh,” says Gerard. “Right, yeah, that makes sense. Pity, though, that we can’t steal it.” Gertrude gestures for him to continue, and he sighs. “Final card. What you’ve got to do.” He places it below the second card. “Four of cups. Play it safe. Wait.”

“No,” says Gertrude, and she flips the next card off the top of the deck, laying it sideways across the four of cups.

He sighs again, longer. “What you’re going to do anyway. Ace of swords. Reveal secrets at any cost.”

“That is a card for how to fail,” says Paulina.

“I have everything I needed,” says Gertrude. “Good-bye, Adelard.” She strides toward the door. Behind her Gerard hastily says goodbye to Paulina, muttering that she should text him, and hurries after Gertrude. Briefly, and for no reason at all, she hates him for assuming that he is required to leave with her.

Gerard catches up to her quickly, but as he often does he walks half a step behind. “She actually did teach me,” he says. “M… Mary never worked out how to use it for anything, she just liked the look of it. Apparently it gives you awful dreams, though. So, looking forward to that.”

“How unfortunate,” says Gertrude. “Especially as I suspect you’ll be using it a lot in the near future.”

[madlysanecatlady]

Mother’s Day

I’m in a weird mood today. I needed something sorta hopeful. 

-

Mother’s Day had become difficult for Oswald. Theo Galavan had seen to it that Oswald would never look at it the same way again. He pulled the covers over his head and stifled a sniffle. He wasn’t so sure he was ready to face the day just yet. Not yet. He wasn’t strong enough.

He had been through hell in the past year. He’d had his heart torn to out and shredded more times than he could count – it was more than anyone should need to live through. First his mother was ripped from his life – taking her away from him and ensuring she would not be there to help him rise back up each time someone knocked him down. Then, his father had appeared, tantalisingly dangling the prospect of a new family in front of him, only to slip through his grasp as well, before he had even had the chance to fully recover from his first tragedy. And then Ed. Oh Ed. Ed had possibly been more painful, coming on the tail end of tragedy like a balm, only to turn around, tear out Oswald’s heart, then stomp on it all while looking him in the eye.

Things were better now. Well, as good as they could be, he supposed. He had returned to Gotham, broken and alone, but he had healed again and was stronger now than ever before. He and Ed had reached an understanding – or at least, Oswald was hesitant to call it more than that, lest he get what was left of his heart mangled any further. But the truth of the matter was that now they had each hurt the other so deeply, the only thing they could do was to heal each other’s wounds. There was no animosity left, and nothing else to do but address the almost magnetic pull between them. Of course, that also meant addressing the plethora of mixed emotions that came with it, but Oswald was almost willing to go wade through the sticky mess of feelings if there was some glimmer of hope on the other side.

Oswald heard the clattering of dishes somewhere distant in the house and pulled the covers down from over his head, listening intently. He could make out the faint sounds of someone softly singing to themselves, deep and melodic. Oswald sat up. It certainly didn’t sound like the maid. He slid out of bed and donned his robe and slippers, hobbling out of his bedroom and into the hall, following the increasing volume of the intruder’s singing.

He found Ed pattering around the kitchen making tea as he had always done before the whole Isabella debacle as Oswald had taken to mentally calling it. Oswald had missed seeing him there in the days leading up to the incident on the pier; he had to admit it was a slightly welcome sight for the moment it took him to remember all that had happened between them. He frowned, confused – Ed had not said anything about being here today; Oswald wasn’t quite sure what to make of his presence.

Ed looked up from the kettle at him and smiled. ‘Good morning, Oswald. I was just finishing the tea before bringing you your breakfast, but I see you’ve decided to come to the food instead of letting it come to you.’ He gestured towards the tray of oatmeal and toast on the counter next to the empty teacup.

Oswald stared at him, taking in just how much Ed truly had changed in so little time. Ed now carried himself with an oozing confidence Oswald had only seen beginning to surface before. His movements were fluid and sure, all enacted by the series of dangerous muscles and tendons that made up Ed’s body. Ed had always had a dangerously quick mind, Oswald had always seen that, but now he had the body and movement to match – a complete package of vicious potential, as Oswald knew all too well.

‘I know I probably shouldn’t have come,’ Ed grimaced, pouring the boiled water into two teacups. ‘I’ve hurt you and I’m not sure I can ever heal all of the damage I’ve done to you… but I couldn’t bear to leave you alone today. The idea of you here alone, just missing your mother, well, it really didn’t sit nicely with me. So… I thought I might try to soothe some of your pain, even if I can’t heal the wounds I’ve caused.’

Oswald blinked, taking a moment to process Ed’s words. Mere weeks ago, Oswald would have killed hundreds of people to have Ed caring for him like this again. He never would have thought twice about accepting the tokens of love and affection being offered, not for a second hesitating in fear of getting hurt. Ed was here in his kitchen making tea as though nothing had changed, and yet everything had. Oswald had once trusted Ed implicitly, and now he wasn’t so sure he could ever trust anyone again. And yet, even as he tried to build walls around whatever pieces of purity and love remained within him, he found them crumbling away as he looked at Ed. What good was a wall to keep someone out of your heart when they already lived so deeply inside it?

Finally, Oswald sucked in a deep breath and perched atop on of the kitchen stools at the counter, accepting his tea from Ed. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled quietly, looking down at the patterns in the dark granite, wondering just what was going on in Ed’s mind to have brought him here.

‘Please… eat something,’ Ed pushed the tray towards him stiffly, clearly reading the rigid stance Oswald kept, perched upon the stool, looking determinedly anywhere but at him. ‘You need strength today. Emotional wounds may not be visible but still need healing.’

‘And what do you care about my emotional wounds?’ Oswald snapped before he could stop himself. Perhaps the ones Ed had left him were nowhere near as healed as he’d thought.

Ed looked pained and Oswald took temporary glee in knowing Ed was hurting at least a fraction of the amount he’d hurt him. Oswald reeled himself back in quickly, reminding himself that he may not be so innocent himself; he had certainly done his part to hurt Ed as well.

Oswald sighed. ‘Sorry Ed, I –‘

‘No,’ Ed shook his head. ‘I hurt you. You still need time.’ 

‘We hurt each other,’ Oswald corrected. ‘I… may not have handed the whole, er, Isabella thing in the best way either, so…’ 

Ed looked pained again, but less so. This time, Oswald took no satisfaction in it. He knew his jealousy had led him down a dark path, one that may have led him too far away form Ed to ever see them through to some sort of peaceful conclusion. It killed him to know that his fit of jealous rage may have completely unravelled the thick tapestry of their friendship. ‘Ed, where do we go from here?’

‘Well, there’s… a magnetism between us, isn’t there?’ Ed noted, looking down at his hands. ‘It’s dark, dangerous, and hasn’t led us anywhere healthy just yet, but it’s too strong to ignore. There really are only two possible outcomes: we find a way to move past it, or we destroy each other completely. And really, we’ve already tried that second option to very little success.’

‘And now we’ve both had time to settle, I don’t feel like another showdown to the death,’ Oswald was tired. Tired of anger. Tired of fighting. Tired of trying to hate the man he loved almost as much as he loved his parents.

‘So we find a way forward,’ Ed said resolutely. ‘Which is why I’m here. We’ve hurt each other. We’ve broken each other’s trust, hearts even,’ he pushed the oatmeal closer to Oswald, silently willing him to eat. ‘Now it’s time to rebuild.’

‘You say that like it’s going to be easy,’ Oswald huffed, finally caving and digging into the oatmeal. It was delicious – Oswald could never deny Ed had quite the talent in the kitchen. It was a bittersweet feeling, however, as he noted that the oatmeal, like the tea, tasted just as his mother had always made.

‘It won’t be,’ Ed sipped his tea, looking contemplative. ‘But… now I’ve seen what life without you in it is like, well, it’s by far the more attractive course to take. I… I only hope I haven’t hurt you irreparably. I don’t want to lose you.’

The small, petty part of Oswald thought maybe Ed should have thought about that before shooting him and leaving him to drown, heartbroken, cold, and alone. The more reasonable part of him, albeit a part of him that seemed to be shrinking the longer he stayed in this city, knew that he had badly hurt Ed too. Oswald had taken time to learn how to love someone properly, perhaps too much time – he prayed he hadn’t learned too late. But then, he supposed, Ed wouldn’t be he trying if he had.

‘Thank you, Ed,’ Oswald said finally, after having finished his oatmeal in silence. ‘For trying… for coming here so I’m not alone today. You’re right. It’s not easy today… I just don’t know what to do with myself.’

‘I had an idea about that,’ Ed murmured, clearing away the dishes and fetching a package from the counter. As he came back to Oswald’s side, he could see it was an enormous bouquet of white and pink lilies. ‘I thought you might like to pay your mother a visit. I saved you the trip for a present.’

Oswald was completely lost for words, and even found himself choking back the flood of emotion threatening to flood out. Ed still cared. Even after all they had done for each other, after all of Oswald’s doubts, he still cared. Oswald could hardly believe it, and yet here they were. Things wouldn’t be easy. They wouldn’t be perfect. They would probably never be the same as the once had been. But, Oswald knew there was hope for a future. After all, Ed had said it himself – they were drawn to each other whether they liked it or not – they either had to succumb or destroy each other.

Ed handed Oswald the flowers, who smiled. His mother would have liked Ed, he thought. Well, she would have until he broke her little baby’s heart. Of course, Gertrud Cobblepot was a very forgiving woman, unlike her son. Oswald thought he might try to make her proud of him on Mother’s Day and try to forgive Ed as it seemed he had forgiven him. He had many wounds to heal, and no support from his mother to do so, but Oswald felt as though he could get through it. And as he looked down at the flowers Ed had so carefully selected for him to leave at his mother’s grave, he knew things would begin to get better.

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“WE’RE HEADED for empty-headedness” it begins, but the poems that follow the first one, “Out of Metropolis,” seem to proceed from a head brimming over with perceptions, imaginings, conversations, arguments, sensualities, obsessive pursuits, and total emersions — rivers that branch into tributaries. But one must factor in to those wayward metaphorical rivers — and to Lynn Emanuel’s The Nerve of It: Poems New and Selected — the poet’s masterful control of pacing, tone, her daring imagery, and deliriously pleasing language. Rivers, tributaries, they aren’t quite the right metaphor. And I admit to this here, in this fashion, to prepare the reader for poems, from four books spanning three decades, which will double back on themselves, contradict each other, reconsider — in other words behave not quite like rivers.

In the part-real, half-imagined, and largely bereft desert town of Ely, Nevada, of the 1950s, to the “grandmothers / with their shanks tied up in the tourniquets / of rolled stockings” seated in the Roxy theater, appears a Marilyn Monroe spin-off:

There in the narrow mote-filled finger of light, is a blonde, so blonde, so blinding, she is a blizzard, a huge spook, and lights up like the sun the audience in its galoshes. She bulges like a deuce coupe. When we see her we say good-bye to Kansas.                                    (“Blonde Bombshell”)

That’s the deliriously pleasing language I’m talking about. And here’s more:

When I drink it is always 1953, Bacon wilting in the pan on Cook Street And mother, wrist deep in red water, Laying a trail from the sink To a glass of gin and back. She is a beautiful, unlucky woman In love with a man of lechery so solid You could build a table on it And when you did the blues would come to visit.                          (“Frying Trout While Drunk”)

A reader might take these for exceptionally skillful and alluring autobiographical poems, the first establishing a childhood environment, the next revealing something of the family life. And the reader would be wrong. These two are probably not autobiographical in the strictest sense. Lynn Emanuel did not grow up in Ely, Nevada, though a series of poems from her second book, The Dig, might leave one with that impression. She grew up in Denver, Colorado, her mother a business woman, her father an artist. “Raoul,” the focus of several poems and, seemingly, the object of erotic fascination in her coming-of-age years, Emanuel has described as “partly invented and partly a composite of ‘characters’ I’ve known.”

The poet’s “Note To the Reader” reveals that this selection will dispense with the usual ordering: “I have ignored chronology, placing new poems beside old, mixing middle and early poems with recent work, and liberating all my poems from the restraints of their particular histories, both aesthetic and autobiographical.” This is in favor of an order, she says, that will involve both “linkage” and “collision.” Here, poems of imagined scenarios, dreamed up and dreamt-of characters, mix with memory (though at times, for the reader at least, those imagined scenarios seem so palpable one could, well, build a table on them). In this manner, Emanuel’s shifting relationship with linear narrative doesn’t express itself simply through non-sequential movement within a poem, but through a fluid reimagining or rearranging of her life, or a life. Or a psyche. And throughout, various poems muse on the relationship between Writer and Reader, between Poet and Poem — these along with pronouncements too resolute for the gentile word muse.

In our age, such investigations, and such bucking against the business of how-things-have-been-done, calls up the Specter of Postmodernism, its cousins, and its progeny, and some decades of mixed results. Not everyone’s shattered narratives, stylistic potpourris, meta-fictions, and meta-poems satisfy on all fronts. But here, no matter how cerebral the exploration, a vigor and sparking wit enliven these writings. It is not humor precisely but something that flashes across the brain to similar effect. If we’re hardwired to search for narrative, for story — a condition Lynn Emanuel has reflected on elsewhere, in another collection — we might also be hardwired to desire surprise. In line after unexpected line, surprise is among the rewards these poems offer up. From “The White Dress”: “it’s an eczema of sequins, rough, gullied, riven / puckered with stitchery, a frosted window / against which we long to put our tongues.”

Each of the six sections ends with fierce finality. Recently, I read a Lynn Emanuel poem to my poetry workshop, and, responding to the bravura of the closing lines, one of my students gave tribute with that generation’s cry of highest praise, Drop the mic! Of course, fierce finality notwithstanding, when we turn the page Lynn Emanuel is still going at it, with a new project this time, a new circuitous undertaking.

In The Nerve of It, the more solidly located poems give way to some that flip about fretfully, self-critical, jumpy with desire. At intervals Emanuel expresses what seems a kind of restlessness, a burst of impatience — with herself? With the poem? Something is lacking. Something more is required. She places upon herself — demands.

Tiresome, tiresome is the poet Recumbent on the davenport Lost in raptures of self-regard […] I am what is wrong with America. Standing debauched, bereft, Empty-handed for first one Eternal verity and then another …                         (“Self-Portrait”)

And later, in the same section of the book:

Where did she come from, that dig in the ribs? Who is she to pretend she’s me and to take on that ditched-in, hopeless tone? Who is this phony yokel? This two-dollar bill, this pig knuckle? Honey, I tell her, my name is Lynn Collins Emanuel, someone whose whole manner says I’m over-educated but recovering.                         (“The Past”)

Sure enough, sometimes a writer wants to plunge into the self and milk it for all its worth, and other times to kick it off — Tsk! — the Self and Past both, like a pair of irritating shoes one’s been stuck in all day. And sometimes it’s everywhere, that self. “Homage to Sharon Stone,” which sprang from an occasion when Sharon Stone was situated across the street from Emanuel, in some city, whirls us through a self that morphs like silvery liquid, or cool CGI effects, into characters, into objects, “then I am the train pulling into the station / when what I would really love to be is Gertrude Stein spying on Sharon Stone / at six in the morning. But enough about / that, back to the interior decorating.”

Not everything’s subjective, malleable. Sometimes an occurrence flat-out happens and the fact of it is immutable. While she was working on Then, Suddenly—, her third book, Emanuel’s father died, and she’s spoken of how the shock and grief affected her poetry, divesting it of certain luxuries. For a time afterward, she lost confidence that contemporary language, imprinted with contemporary sensibilities, could express the great elegiac emotions — she meant, of course, without slipping into sentimentality or melodrama. She’s said that after the death of her father she did not have “the stamina, the control or the resources to create a more shapely line.”

This news provides an insight that might help the reader take in more fully, more usefully, certain of these poems. There’s a restraint in them, and, even now, a wit — though a different tenor of wit — that might otherwise be misread.

Suddenly, I turn around and there he is just as I’m getting a handle on the train pulls- into-the-station poem, “What gives?” I ask him, “I’m alone and dead,” he says, and I say, “Father, there’s nothing I can do about all that. Get your mind off it. Help me with the poem

about the train.” “I hate the poem about the train,” he says. But since he’s dead and I’m a patient woman I turn back to the poem in which the crowds have gone home…                      (“Halfway Through the Book I’m Writing”)

This apparition might seem somewhat comical, rather like Elvira in Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit, or the dapper ghosts that provoked Cosmo Topper — mischievous, impertinent visitations. A reader coming upon this poem by itself — perhaps the very same reader who took the Ely poems for historical fact — might suppose this death had made a long slow approach, that the “I” was ready for it and took it in stride. And be wrong. Again. The poem that follows, “The Burial,” presents a stranger mood, closer the bone, closer the nerve. A hallucinatory image has the speaker standing before a grave holding a shovel: “the blade is / drenched in shine, the air is alive along it, as air is alive / on the windshield of a car.”

Intimations of death will recur in the last section, death imagined, then death imagined differently:

I dipped my pen into that inky place. The cloudy brow of night

Was furrowed in concern, Because the living did not seem to know That they were being stalked by me.                (“The Murder Writer”)

“Ars Poetica” appears just before “Halfway through the Book I’m Writing,” and might not anticipate what’s to come. Or maybe it forecasts one of those collisions that the note to the reader warns of.

Personal experiences are chains and balls fatally drawn to the magnetic personality. I have always been a poet who poured herself into the shrouds of experience’s tight dresses […]

But now I have other things to do.                         (“Ars Poetica”)

Some disenchantment, or hankering to venture elsewhere, or desire to speak out of a more ageless voice, gave rise to the Dogg poems. Here, they appear in the penultimate section, and a poem called “Metamorphosis” ushers them in. Ah ha, we’re in Greeksville, among the persona poems — the Persona, that mask that both Is and Is Not s/he who wears it. (Ask any performer who’s run away with a traveling masquerade theater — they’ll tell you all about it.) Dogg breaks entirely from proper language, from civil discourse. Dogg the outcast, the impoverished, proud and despised. It speaks — Dogg.

I wuz followin a boot down the avenew,

The smell uf wet meat clung to it.

I wuz leapen over ashes an trashes wit out a license

runnin frum the p’lese—the gas, net, an boot.

This iz the life, I thot— a planet uf ruin an disorder

an the dogs uf the world runnin the world.                      (“Stray Dog”)

Out of another age, an earlier poem came to this reviewer’s mind. It is by one Irene McLeod, born in Victorian times, 1891. I would not mention it now if I didn’t believe that the sisterhood, the brotherhood, of poets might leap across centuries: “I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone / […] I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet, / a sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat.”

With respect to other relations, Dogg also has something of Coyote’s supernatural presence, though little of his totemic power — Coyote of the Northwest tribes and other regions. This one’s a totem for our age, our cities, a rundown, slumming mongrel whose only talent is survival. Survival and omnipresence.

(At the pound, Dogg is interrogated)

Who iz that scrawnee filth? they ask Dogg.

Who is that pack that runs together?

Who is that racket of instinct in the brane? Ribs stickin out like bucket staves?

Who iz those howls? Who iz standin-at-the-post-in-chains an puts itself between us an our rage?                           (“Who iz Dogg?”)

It’s called The Nerve of It, this collection. “The Nerve of her!” some people said of somebody or other, back when that was a phrase — “What nerve!” And then there’s the “nerve” of Frank O’Hara, from his essay, “Personism: A Manifesto,” an ars poetica of sorts. “You just go on your nerve. If someone’s chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don’t turn around and shout ‘Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep!’” I’ve always loved that line — and never been quite sure how to apply it to poetry. Lynn Emanuel appears interested in both meanings, as an expression of social disapproval involving, perhaps, an offense against propriety, and the primal nerve, that bundle that transmits sensations to the brain, gives commands. “Run!”

Emanuel’s New and Selected reveals an uncommon talent, together with a restless, adventurous spirit. And over the course of the book, especially in its final pages, it seems one prospective adventure might involve a negotiated truce between brain (“over-educated but recovering”) and nerve. No, not a truce, more like a rendezvous. No, more like an affair. No, a cellular fusion. To touch a nerve! What an undertaking! What nerve.

¤

Suzanne Lummis’s poems have appeared in notable literary magazines across the country, including Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Hotel Amerika, and The New Yorker. Her most recent poetry collection, Open 24 Hours, received the Blue Lynx Award and was published by Lynx House Press.

The post Going on Nerve: Lynn Emanuel’s “The Nerve of It: Poems New and Selected” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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