#was thinking about writing an essay about how Hal is like the Terrible Mother™ but damn I am one hell of a procrastinator

[worktheraft]

ok now since we've started talking about discovery being like Hal's body can we talk about how Dave and the other astronauts are literally "inside" Hal the whole time. the closest analogy I can think of is a fetus within a mother's womb (yes Hal is officially Mommy™). at this point I'm very tempted to just call it an "embrace". but this womb or "embrace" image is something deeply ambiguous because on the one hand it's a symbol of intimacy and protection, and on the other hand this is a very unsettling image because the womb and the womb-fetus symbiosis and in general just this "within-ness" (for lack of a better term idk) is always threatening to devour whatever individuality or existence that the fetus has, to reduce it to that primordial state of undifferentiation and chaos. "womb and tomb" amirite fellas. it's just hard not to love this kind of dynamics because it's such a delicious mix of intimacy and antagonism