ellis-ofwoolworth

[ellis-ofwoolworth]

I just finished a complete re-read for the third (fourth?) time and the recent updates are barreling toward some climactic events, so I therefore feel compelled to make a proper rec post for something LONG overdue:

The Glass Scientists, a webcomic about Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, rogue science, Victorian repression, and a WHOLE lot more.

Our protagonist is the esteemed Dr. Henry Jekyll, co-founder of the Society for Arcane Sciences, an organization that aims to bring mad science into the mainstream by proving that not all who practice it are dangerous lunatics. This is easier said than done, especially with the violent death of a certain Dr. Frankenstein still weighing on the minds of the public years after the fact. Not to mention...

... Henry's own inner demons.

Edward Hyde serves as a sort of release valve for Henry's stresses whenever the pressure of running the Society proves to be too much. Hyde is everything he can't be: spontaneous, emotional, uninhibited. Free to take what he wants without guilt or public consequences.

And oh, Henry wants.

His transformation into Hyde is a physical manifestation of the repression of his queer inclinations. This is not subtext. It's not even an accident on Henry's part. It's a central facet to who he is as a person (and, by extension, who Hyde is, as well).

...But listen. We don't have time to unpack all THAT! Not when there are so many other delightful characters to meet! Such as Henry's best friend / business partner / old flame Robert:

Or Jasper, the newest member of the Society, a plucky young cryptozoologist who happens to also be a werewolf, and who gets swept up in a VERY cute relationship with the slightly unhinged cook (and Henry's other best friend), Rachel:

Or Hyde himself, who despite all his debauchery may not actually be the pinnacle of evil that he believes himself to be:

Because if you couldn't tell from the sampling of panels in this post, this comic is not only a gripping emotional drama but also an OUTRAGEOUS comedy, when the mood calls for it. It truly strikes a perfect balance of the two, in my humble opinion.

On top of all that, the art is gorgeous, the atmosphere is impeccable (swinging from fantastical whimsy to genuine horror and back with deft skill), and the characters are deep and dynamic and full of gray areas.

I can't recommend it enough. It's hands-down my favorite actively-updating webcomic (new page every Monday!), and I'm for-real having to restrain myself from going back and starting ANOTHER re-read right now, it's that good. I've spoiled a tiny bit in this post, but believe me when I say the cast and events get so much weirder and more wonderful than even this. Please check it out.

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Friday Dance Party

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The parallels are paralleling

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I can't draw but if I could I'd make a little comic where Paul invites Emma to his "nephew's football game" and when they get there with all their Nighthawk paraphernalia she asks which one is his nephew. And he just beams with pride and points at Richie in the mascot costume, who has face planted in front of the cheerleaders.

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OOC

Very random question BUT, for all of my DW and TMA/TMAGP fans here: which Fear(s) do you think each of the Doctors would serve? It's for science, trust me.

#i think all the doctors would be some mix of the eye lonely and desolation #i feel like 9 + 13 are more desolation #10 is more lonely #7 is eye (maybe a little bit web) #4 is desolation + eye #etc etc

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Imagine being samama khalid kind of confused about your weird new job when all of a sudden you get an email from jesus himself saying 𝔴𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔪y 𝔣𝔲𝔠k𝔢𝔡 𝔲𝔭 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔫𝔲𝔰 𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢 so naturally you ask the I.T guy about it and instead of helping he starts beating your ass and steals your fucking phone. id shit

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I love that Hatchetfield has all those timelines because like. This is Paul Matthews. Sometimes he is named Paul Perkins. Sometimes he is named Paul 23. Sometimes he wears a brown suit, and sometimes he wears a striped shirt. Sometimes he is a clone. Sometimes he dies. He always finds Emma though. That never changes.

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I can't draw but if I could I'd make a little comic where Paul invites Emma to his "nephew's football game" and when they get there with all their Nighthawk paraphernalia she asks which one is his nephew. And he just beams with pride and points at Richie in the mascot costume, who has face planted in front of the cheerleaders.

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If there's one thing TGWDLM fans are gonna do, it's think about the implications. And the implications of the opening number are crazy.

So. We know that the show isn't completely chronological since the opening number takes place before the meteor hits. So that song is a sort of "flash forward" moment. But when you think about it, we don't really know how far in the future it takes place.

What we do know is that by the time it's happening, Emma is infected. She has a little solo in it singing about how Paul is pining over a barista

And we know that this is meant to be an infected Emma specifically. Lauren had other characters in the show, if they wanted to avoid the Emma implication they would've just dressed her as one of those.

So we know this is meant to be Emma.

And Emma isn't infected until the very end of the show. She's dragged off stage during the credits. So since she's infected in the opening number, we know the number takes place after the events of the show.

Another important detail is that Paul is infected before Emma. He's the one that passes it on to her.

So back to the opening number, Emma is infected. Which means by just following a simple timeline, Paul must also be infected. He should be singing and dancing, right?

But that's not what happens. Paul misses his entrance.

If Paul is infected, then there's no reason he should be missing his entrance. Furthermore, if he's a part of a hive mind, there's no reason other members of the same hive mind shouldn't know where he is. They are literally all connected by one brain, and yet both Mr. Davidson and Bill express they have no clue where he went.

What I'm saying is that Paul is not infected. He was infected (again, we know that because Emma is infected and he was infected before her) but now he's not anymore.

I'm saying there's a way out of the hive, and Paul found it. That's the only explanation that makes sense given the facts of the situation. Sometime after the events of tgwdlm, Paul is able not only to break out the hive mind, but to hide from it.

And if he broke out, others could do the same. Maybe even Emma.

Edit because a countertheory has emerged: Yes it's possible that everyone is infected the entire time and the show itself is just Pokey replaying the events for the fun of it. But it seems unlikely to me. First of all, each of the Lords in Black has a distinct personality. They all are evil, but within that they seems to fall somewhere on a spectrum of "silly billy" to "prick." For example, Tinky is more of a silly billy. He toys with humans without much of a motive and more for just shits and giggles. But in every instance, Pokey's more on the extreme side of prick.

He's one of the few with an actual motive behind what he does. In Yellowjacket, it's confirmed that Pokotho hates the sound of anyone's voice except for his own. The events of TGWDLM don't happen because Pokey is bored, they happen because he is executing a plan. So I don't think that he would just have them play out their little scenario just to entertain him, especially just one small island? I just feel like he'd be more focused on world domination.

If the theory is that all this is happening after Pokey's already taken over the whole world, no one was successful in stopping him, then yes it's plausible, but still weird. There are a strange amount of things in that show you just think an eldritch god wouldn't include.

Edit 2: New evidence has emerged???

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is loosely based off of Invasion of The Body Snatchers. Paul's last name is even a nod to the main character, Matthew. At the end of the film, Matthew survives, and continues living among the infected, pretending to be one of them. And wouldn't that be just such a fun little parallel...

Obviously it doesn't prove anything but the source material doesn't lie folks.

#thinking... #if paul isn't infected then i can only think of two reasons why he would participate in the musical #1) he's pretending to be infected (but since he misses his cue and the hivemind doesn't know where he is this seems unlikely as he would've #been figured out) #or 2) he actually has no idea he's in a musical #nor that everyone else is playing a part #and is stuck in a loop of the infection #of course that's more tinky's territory than pokey's #but i think it would be funny (and tragic but mainly funny)

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I love the fact that Jon Matteson treats Wiggly like a pet because he's setting a precedent for every other Hatchetfield fan. It's like we see this eldritch horror but then Jon goes "aww he's just my little guy" and then we all go "yeah just a little guy" completely disregarding the fact that this "little guy" nuked Russia.

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If you guys liked the whole "Stephs flannel matches Peter's suspenders and bow tie" thing then this costuming detail is in tgwdlm gonna fuck you up.

When we get our first scene with Paul and Emma, the two are dressed in their respective main outfits. These are the ones people tend to associate with them.

But throughout the show, as they get closer and bond, their outfits become more and more similar. Pretty soon Emma's lost the apron

Then at the professor's house, Paul loses the jacket

and by the time McNamara is infected, Paul has his sleeves rolled up and Emma's bow tie has come undone.

At this point, the two are at their most aesthetically similar, and also the closest they've been the entire show. This is moments before the helicopter crash and their failed kiss. They remain this way for a good chunk of time...until Paul comes back

It's like some fast-paced foreshadowing. Emma remains in her changed state, the same as her character, but Paul is back to square one. He's wearing the same outfit he was when they met, and they no longer align. She doesn't know who he is anymore.

I don't know if this was intentional (and if it was, no one explained it to Jon) but it plays out so damn well.

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Reasons why Jon Archivist is truly a character of all time:

Had the police called on him several times when he was a young child

Keeps his rib and the ashes of the season one antagonist next to his stationary drawer

Promised he wouldn’t get lost in tunnels and then immediately got lost in aforementioned tunnels

Has no clue what a joke is

Learned how remarkably easy it is to buy an ax in central London

Had to have two separate interventions

Told people his place of employment before traumatising them for life

The first character he ever said ‘I love you’ to is a cat

Allegedly participated in amdram

Watches documentaries and collects some kind of weird shit (my headcanon is Soviet Union postcards) when he’s not being a paranoid mess

Canonically looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks

Knows nothing about library science

Fell head over heels for a man that he hated until he learned he lied on his resumé

Has been referred to as Jesus or Jesus-adjacent at least twice

Asexual icon

Knows what a meme is and said “LOL” in the first episode

Rode on a merry-go-round sometime during his university days because he was in a weird place emotionally

Died for our Jonathan Sins

Is probably a computer now playing minesweeper with his boyfriend and evil 200+ year old boss

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This is four and a half hours worth of doodling and writing

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Rip THEodore Captain from BBC ghosts you would have loved seeing operation mincemeat the musical on the west end and cried your eyes out at the song "Dear Bill" because "why did we meet in a middle of a war"

Also feel confusing feelings when Monty is on stage

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this is not an exact science but girlies who enjoy ofmd and/or operation mincemeat probably watched horrible histories as a kid

#surprisingly i did not find out about operation mincemeat from the hh sketch #however most of the facts i know about blackbeard are from the hh song #i just love the comedy/history genre #the sillies <3

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There was magic abroad in the air

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There’s no greater love than a person and their hatchetfeild hyperfixation, but I’ll never hold the REAL Richie Lipschtiz in my arms…