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herinterface · 3 years

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> # @itsasset: [LOOK] your muse is caught looking at my muse > # ask meme: this was from months ago 🤷🏻‍♀️

she remained tucked away behind the crowd backed up in a booth along with her company, her fingers pressing into the stem of her glass. she’d noticed her the minute she’d walked in, she’d been waiting after all. it didn’t matter that there were groups of people obscuring her slightly, or that her hair was still down from her shift; she was as familiar with the way she carried herself, assured, light on her feet as she weaved effortlessly through the crowd, how she held herself, the straightness of her back, just as she was with just the language of her body when it was completely exposed beneath her, shaking & tensing as it simultaneously begged her to continue as it did to stop. she knew her better than anyone else, & so she knew what some people might call a coincidence, them winding up at the same bar on the same night, she would call it memorising shaw’s unconscious rotation of dives to visit on the shadow map, & calculating the one she was most likely to visit on a friday night.

she could see why she liked the place. it was simple, no fancy drinks, busy but not overcrowded, though the menu comprising of only peanuts and chicken wings she’d have to call into question. she supposed it got the job done, considering she was currently letting her eyes run down the outline of shaw’s back, where she sat at the bar near someone trying to play his cards right with her. her access to shaw’s expression was cut off from the angle so she occupied herself with analysing him instead as her own date droned on. he was handsome, objectively. short hair, faded cleanly across his head, strong enough that it was visible under the tight shirt he’d worn just for this purpose, if one was into that. there was a confidence in his eyes that no doubt would cause her to bite. she could just imagine the look on her face, the curiosity sitting underneath, the slight tick of interest, that to her always seemed to beam right at her, like a blinding signal to press forward when it was directed at her. & she was sure it helped that it had been over a month since she’d been in town to occupy the position he was currently trying, & would inevitably fail, to fill. it would be cute to see him try, though, especially with the parting gifts she’d left her with ( welts & bruises covering the surface of smooth skin she was currently gazing at, recalling exactly where she’d left them ).

she’d been kept inordinately busy by her last two identities, busy enough that she could ignore the occasional tightness in her chest that came from living through a war without the right tools ( the assurance of Her voice ) to keep up to date with the others. most of the time, her identities changed quick enough to fill slow forming hole of negative emotions-------- loneliness, concern, the utter pessimism that washed over her ------ & then she had other things to worry about. it was easier sometimes, staying away, letting herself be absorbed into her persona rather than her own concerns, needs. that way she could simply take glances at the others, easing the dread off her shoulders she hadn’t noticed was there by bringing up footage of the police department on the taxi ride from her flight, dropping by the subway where harold was for a quick change of outfits, something befitting of her character’s date. she’d left a confused harold gaping, confused at her attire, the low cut silk shirt, completely backless but for a tie across the small of her back, tight jeans & heels, --------------- finished with a glittery gloss that tasted like strawberries & reminded her women she’d spent the night with, who had been so irrelevant she’d deleted their names from her mind the second she’d left their hotel room. she felt like nobody too, that night, the silence in her ear creating a cold emptiness she couldn’t dismiss. nevertheless, she’d let harold go on about their current number, offering her two-cents before she smiled, waved her fingers in the air & called back, “ oh, & tell sameen i said hi. ”

but of course she had her own plans to do that, or at the very least check in in person, from a distance. it was nice, to pretend this was all some game rather than just an attempt to lay eyes on her, alive & in one piece ( not that they didn’t both see through it by then, it just remained unspoken for a reason ). but from the moment she’d walked into the bar, no doubt motivated by her extra long shift that day ( from open until a late close, they were short staffed ), her tongue had drawn across her lips at the thought of getting her hands on some of that pent up frustration. it had always been a talent of hers, along with lovingly tending to that frustration herself of course. she’d had a visceral reaction to the idea of her hot skin pressed against hers, her breath almost stalled at the idea of her nails digging into the skin over shaw’s heart, feeling it beating wildly as she manipulated it to her will instead of worrying endlessly about the way their enemies might, how they might end its unforgettable rhythm completely. but she had work to do, & it was surprisingly easy, to keep her distance ( it was easy when she knew shaw, knew she wouldn’t need to be the one to approach ).

the night crawled along slowly, but even with her eyes cast directly at her company she could feel it the moment she was spotted. it was effortless, the way she hid her smirk behind her glass, not making eye contact with her as she continued her ruse. her perfect act was never dropped even as she watched her date down his fourth drink with disdain for the smell of the beer on his breath. she could tell all the physicals signs of his slow but sure inebriation, but who was she to complain when it made her part easier to play human vices had a way of doing that. so she tipped her face down to smile, taken with something he’d said but appearing to try to hold it back. & when he asked her the inevitable question, the one she’d been waiting for, she tried to play at momentary reluctance about going home with someone after the first date, so that it seemed like she was breaking her rules for him. making someone feel special when they were nothing but another sheep in the flock was a surefire way of forcing their guard down.

that was what brought her to the bathroom before they made their exit, knowing from the sharp tension she’d noted in shaw’s spine, the way she’d avoided looking over again after the first time, the grip around her glass, that she’d played a perfect game. which was why it was no surprise to see shaw walk into the women’s room after her, her form appearing in the corner of the mirror she was currently staring into as she fixed her lip gloss. the clipped way she said her name, the way her frustration protruded from her seemingly calm demeanour as she questioned her presence here shot heat throughout her body instantly. she revelled in her surprise & confusion, of catching her off-guard, soaked up the moment of bliss where everything aligned perfectly, because she knew her so well, “ hi to you too, ” she sung back, responding with an almost irritated quirk in her lips as she held the brush to her lips.

when shaw pressed the question again, she slid the applicator back into its case, lips sliding against each other as she refrained from turning around, “ i’m not here to ruin your date, sameen, if that’s what you’re worried about, ” a truly amused smile was brought to her lips at the thought, “ besides, we won’t be staying much longer. ” she could feel the tension that existed, a silence befalling them. it was strange, going from appearing at shaw’s apartment every week or so to weeks of silence on all fronts. it had been as freeing as it was suffocating, being herself finally in the privacy of shaw’s apartment, in the midst of her whirlwind identities. now she just felt utterly untethered, lost. the strawberry taste on her tongue was unpleasant, as it whispered to her that she was no different to the rest of them out there, flawed, irrelevant, & sickeningly powerless to stop what was inevitably coming for all of them.

but it was fun pretending that she wasn’t here for her. that shaw, storming her way into the women’s bathroom while in the middle of a promising exchange, was the one who had orchestrated this meeting. it must be fun for her too, to ignore the fact that she cared, or at least, that after all these weeks leaving the space in her bed empty, that it bothered her to see her back in town the one night she’d decided to do something about it. she wouldn’t be the one to burst the illusion, especially when they were holed up where even god couldn’t see them, Her divine light barely faint enough to make out, seconds away from death if they were caught, if there was one glitch, if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“ we should double date some time,” she called out before she finally looked over her shoulder, a wicked look in her eyes. & when the question of her appearance here of all places, came out again she finally turned around slowly, her bare back hitting the cold sink as she levelled her with the same question, “ what brings you here, sam ? ” & she was curious as to why she’d followed her in here, even if she knew they operated like magnets with ever changing polarities, sometimes skirting around each other, as close as they could while forces kept them apart, while other times they collided without hesitation. it was all about the timing. their answer to the question was the same, she was almost sure, so she decided to answer it for her.

a glittering smirk lifted at her lips, as she stepped forward, off the sink, exposed shoulders shrugging, “ did you come for my approval ? ” arms crossing over her chest as she meandered forward, the delight in her features only brightening at a different thought, “ or disapproval ? ” she said, her eyes meeting hers with a perverse interest in the idea.

her show of disappointment cast a thin veil over her obvious enjoyment as she leaned closer, “ unfortunately, i don’t have time to play the jealous ex right now, as much as I’d love to make an appearance, ” she sighed, & she left it to shaw to imagine what that might look like, while also happily supplying breadcrumbs from the twisted idea that had formed in her head, “ i haven’t gotten to incapacitate someone in a while. & it’d be fun, tying him up, making him watch, letting him see all the ways you’re still mine, ” she offered with a logical tone, but it was hard to see the distinction between the act she was proposing & real life, “ don’t you think ? ”

she was seconds away from tilting her head, deploying a pout as she proposed a rain check when she realised how close she’d gotten. she’d naturally filled all & any space shaw had to herself, gazing down at her . despite the act, she knew was still exposing parts of self around shaw, she couldn’t help herself ------ bone tired, weary from her guard always being up, & with a longing she couldn’t get a hold of as she stared at her lips. without Her around, she felt so purposeless, powerless, just like the rest of human kind. she couldn’t do this alone, as harold had pointed out, & she wanted her, needed her, so why shouldn’t she take what she wanted ? what they both wanted.

she could practically feel shaw’s eyes as they all but glared up at her. she might know her inside out, but she had let shaw in too, & she knew enough, maybe enough to know she was afraid. she was desperate for a place to work through things, to centre herself again so that she could keep going as someone else, to feel more in control of the chaos, to feel safe, if that was even possible, for one night. so when she leant down & reached for the door shaw was blocking, she just decided to give in. her mouth found her ear as it always did, her fingers climbing their way up her spine instead of reaching for the doorknob, “ later, at yours. whenever you’re finished playing, ” & her finger caught a strand of her hair, twirling it before pulling just gently, “ wait for me, with your clothes off, sameen. ”

although she begun leaning back, her face dipped forward again with sticky lips parted into a smile, her hand pressing against her waist as she spoke, “ & think about me, ” speaking with just the right amount of command as there was the insufferable pleasure she took from infecting her thoughts before she was about to go to bed with someone else. she curved her body around shaw’s, purposefully brushing skin against skin on her way out, & personally clinging onto the hour where she could break into her apartment.

#we love an angsty s4 root #but also ??#2000 words of what is this #ur welcome #( / ). ᴘʟᴀʏғᴜʟʟʏ ᴡɪᴛᴛʏ sɪɢɴ ᴏғғ; ❪ ask ❫#long post

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soveryanon · 4 years

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Reviewing time for MAG184!

- That domain made me a bit nostalgic? Given how The Corruption had been prevalent in the first season, The Big Bad, The Threat On The Archives, it felt like going back in time and facing an echo of the worms infestation the staff had experienced back then. As usual with the latest season, and the “infinite amorphous blob of terror”: the presence of the swarm of insects directly put to mind The Corruption (which was confirmed by Jon this episode, since he mentioned “The Corruption’s influence” on this domain), but there was indeed a Buried feel to it too, with the narrow tunnels, the ants pressing on all sides and drowning Jordan (also confirmed by Jon when he speculated that “The Buried would flow in to fill the gap” if he were to smite the colony); and I also got a Vast feeling with the fact that the ants were so numerous, that Jordan felt like he didn’t matter much in the domain and was losing his sense of scale, and that Leto was attuned to the fact that he was an ant to the Fears? (“And for a moment Jordan’s sense of scale deserts him completely. Are these tunnels actually sized for him? Or has he himself been sized for this looping, intricate colony?”, “If we are as ants to those things above us that torment and toy with us for their amusement, why should not ants be like us, each with a life as rich and intricate as any person?”, “But no, it is all the same, just the endless maze and ants and tunnels, unnumbered minds, meaningless in themselves but together a being that dwarfs him, that if it wished to end his suffering could do so without a gesture.”)

I like (HATE, THANKS JONNY) how the ants felt like an echo of the worms themselves in the way they could inflict hurt:

(MAG040) ARCHIVIST: It’s the last thing I remember before blacking out. Tens of thousands of… things without mouths screaming as one. […] TIM: There didn’t seem much point staying, so I went into the tunnels. They were cold, dry. You know that worm smell? That earthy rotten smell? ARCHIVIST: Oooh yes.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: And there were no… complications? JORDAN: Like… what? ARCHIVIST: Surviving worms that escaped. Uh, movement from the body during the incineration; noises from it, like screams or chanting; weird feelings, l–like a thousand, tiny crawling things are moving across your skin? JORDAN: … Wow. No. Nothing like that. Just the smell, but, I mean, I’ll get to that.

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “They shift and roil in dark and shining tides across the walls of the tunnels, pockmarked in their turn by tiny earthen holes from which the things emerge, retreat, and move as one. […] He does not know if this tunnel has the ants that bite, the ones that reek when they are crushed, or the ones so tough his weight does not destroy them, and he can still feel them moving, and squirming beneath his palm.”

They could inflict hurt through the biting, through that awful smell already familiar to Jordan, through the impression that they were indestructible and stronger than you.

I also quickly got the impression that the domain was harsher, even more implacable than previous ones, since at first, hope was absolutely absent from Jordan’s thought; the only “better” scenario was to not be covered by the swarms for a few seconds. In MAG166, the human “worms” were at least clinging to the hope of getting out, even if it was furthering their suffering (MAG166: “for what true fear can exist without hope, without the belief that things might change for the better? To tug at the knowledge that they will only get worse.”), but Jordan… didn’t have that at first, only the motivation of things not getting worse. Same thing with Leto, who was stuck in an impossible situation, with no way to spare the ants. Though, in Jordan’s case, hope finally appeared at the end of the statement, with his illusion regarding a “queen” that might be neutralised, which would stop everything:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “The other man, that bloody omen of doom, is talking again, ranting, spewing nonsense about a queen, about finding her, about killing her. Leto struggles not to laugh; the words rattle around his mind in hollow recognition. There is no queen, he knows that. […] Jordan leaves the man to his despair, the words rattling around in his head. No queen. He knows that, of course, but sometimes he allows himself the smallest flicker of hope… that maybe there is a heart to this place, some core chamber, where the bloated insectile monarch might sit, vulnerable, and waiting. But no, it is all the same, just the endless maze and ants and tunnels […].”

(That was a trace of the Jordan we had met in MAG055: someone who was used to his job, who was fast at identifying causes and at acting upon them, who was used to neutralising pests and invasions. Except his logic and method, here, wasn’t the right one, because the domain operated differently.)

More on a few foreshadowing aspects of the statements, but the fact that Jordan was faced with a ~choice~ between two different tunnels, both of them having the potential to hurt but in different ways? Like Martin’s choice in the previous episode between the two possible roads (MAG183: “For us, there are two ways out. Two paths to London. One would be a long, winding route, we’d see a lot of horrors, but remain… personally untouched.” “And the other is my domain.” “Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen.”), and Jon’s own decision to either keep going or do something for Jordan this episode? AWFUL, THANKS.

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “For a moment he hesitates at a crossroads, two tunnels before him, one large enough he need only stoop, the other narrow. He’d need to squeeze. And for a moment Jordan’s sense of scale deserts him completely. Are these tunnels actually sized for him? Or has he himself been sized for this looping, intricate colony? He shakes off such thoughts. The ants remain as small to him as ever, and as numerous. He chooses the tighter passage. [SCRAPING SOUNDS] Pressed so closely there can be fewer of them inside, and those that come for him will be quickly crushed. Or so he hopes.”

I didn’t understand why Jordan had picked the narrower one at first, before he explained the logic behind it (trying, at all cost, to get the ants out of him)… and I hate that he was right at first, before it backfired. And Jordan’s fear, when he fell into despair?

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “He flails, cutting his back against the ceiling, and freezes, the panicked thought gripping him, the image of those ants crawling down into his wounds, into his skin, hollowing him out – and making their colony tunnels of his veins. He screams, a wordless, haggard cry of despair.”

… It was to be turned into a Hive himself, uh? Which stung atrociously, given his own past brushes with The Corruption – John Amherst (who was protective of the ants), the wasps’ nest that had contaminated Jane Prentiss in her attic – and how he had detected a pattern and was suspicious that there could be others like them out there.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: So why make your statement now? JORDAN: When I helped incinerate her body, I smelled it again. Like before. Took me a while to piece the two together, but I thought you should know. ARCHIVIST: Are you… saying there might be more out there like her? JORDAN: God, I hope not! I don’t… know. The man from the ants house, he wasn’t like her, not at all. But that smell when they burned, I… think they’re connected, somehow. And that scares me. ARCHIVIST: Yes… yes, it rather scares me too…

Like with MAG163, I found it quite interesting that we got the other side of the story through Leto! I’m usually viscerally upset by violence between sufferers, but I was able to appreciate this one as just plain sad, and I don’t know what that says about me: is it that I’m getting used to it, desensitised to it? Is it because in this case, both Leto and Jordan came out of the encounter in one piece (although the domain would have probably reset them otherwise)? Is it because it felt a bit more clearly like two people stuck in a terrible situation? The first four statements had been extraordinarily violent when it came to victims hurting each other in the domain, but the lower scale (it was just Jordan and Leto, with different experiences and different fixations) and the quiet despair was easier to appreciate without reaching upsetting level for me?

When it comes to Leto:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “Once, so long ago now that it seems almost like a memory of a dream… he knew these creatures, and they had known him. They had covered him, swarmed and embraced him, and he had, for a short, glorious time, known what it was to be loved on an unimaginable scale. For each and every ant was a life, a mind no lesser than his own, guided by senses utterly alien yet as vital as any he possessed. […] for that all too brief a time his senses were attuned to theirs, and he knew them, truly knew them. Unnumbered minds and existences all connected together as one – and they had loved him. When he thinks of it, it prickles his eyes with regret at the loss, the endless rolling mass of love that he had all but begged to consume him. But it is gone. His friends, the minds that he had once known so intimately, had left him. Now he sees them, moving and pulsing around him in a steady tide of tiny bodies, but he cannot reach them as once he did.”

Did he use to be a Hive in becoming? Would something like that have happened to Jane Prentiss if she had still been alive by the time of the Change, would she have been abandoned by the worms and lost her connection to them? The toxic love was another very familiar Corruption motive, here… And it was just sad that Leto was so concerned not to hurt what he still perceived as his friends, that his personal hell was about what he could inflict on them? It was so understandable that, through his eyes, Jordan would look cruel for hurting what mattered to him? It was miserable that what Leto feared the most only happened when he tried to act against Jordan – crushing and killing his friends, and then being stuck in a new impossible situation in which any movement would only cause further hurt, and inaction was the least harmful he could do. WHICH ALSO SET THE MOOD for what Jon would do later.

It was also an example of the domains only following the rules of what would hurt their victims the most (“as they tear at his ragged clothes that never fully rip, and always leave crevices enough for ants to hide.”), of events repeating and of memory potentially being tampered with since the Change (“so long ago now that it seems almost like a memory of a dream”, “the sick familiarity and bitter déjà vu of a cycle repeating itself once again”)!

- Ooooh boy, did that statement feel like a direct call out for both Jon and Martin: on the one hand, we had Leto, stuck in an impossible situation in which every action would cause further harm (hi Jon), and on the other hand, Jordan who still clung to the dream that there was a queen responsible and that killing her would turn things back to normal…

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: “The other man, that bloody omen of doom, is talking again, ranting, spewing nonsense about a queen, about finding her, about killing her. Leto struggles not to laugh; the words rattle around his mind in hollow recognition. There is no queen, he knows that. There is no single will to command the wondrous expanse of crawling lives: each and every one is their own, and together they are so much more. […] No queen. He knows that, of course, but sometimes he allows himself the smallest flicker of hope… that maybe there is a heart to this place, some core chamber, where the bloated insectile monarch might sit, vulnerable, and waiting.”

(MAG162) MARTIN: Do you think it’ll do anything? Confronting Elias? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I… [SIGH] Maybe? MARTIN: No, I’m serious. Do we… [PAUSE IN THE PACKING SOUNDS] Is there a chance that we can undo this?

(MAG174) MARTIN: Hang on, you’re still down to kill Elias, right? Uh, oh, Jonah, whatever. ARCHIVIST: I’m still going to confront him. [INHALE] I don’t know if killing him is something I’m even… capable of, but if I can and I have to, I will. MARTIN: Yeeah? ARCHIVIST: Don’t worry. I won’t hesitate. MARTIN: … Right.

(MAG177) BASIRA: … So what’s your plan? MARTIN: Long-term? Elias. He’s up in that that… “Panopticon” tower thing.

(MAG178) MARTIN: God, I hate all of these… loose ends…! ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry. MARTIN: It’s, it’s fine. [INHALE] We’ll just have to tie them all up in one go! ARCHIVIST: Hm? MARTIN: [SIGH] Around Elias’s neck.

… “There is no queen”, and killing the self-identifying “king of the ruined world” probably won’t solve anything at all. There is most likely no “king of the ruined world” either, and Martin better reach the conclusion himself soon, or he’s setting himself up for soul-crushing disappointment…

- LAUGHING for Martin arguing that nobody likes ants:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: Are you alright? MARTIN: Y–y–yeah. I, I–I mean, n–no, I just… ARCHIVIST: Don’t like ants? MARTIN: Obviously not, no-one likes ants, Jon. ARCHIVIST: As the embodiment of all knowledge, I am not entirely sure that’s true but… okay. What is it?

Because Mr “I like spiders. Big ones, at least. Y’know, y’know the ones you can see some fur on; I actually think they’re sort of cute” should Know Better.

But also: precisely, we’ve never seen any spider being Corruption. (It should be possible, if someone’s fear of spiders is related to them swarming and invading their home? Or would The Web intercede to still go “NOP, MINE” in that case?)

But also: sobbing, because the ants were so reminiscent of Corruption and of the worms’ attack… and that was Martin’s first traumatic brush with the Fears, and he had been especially victimised and terrorised by the worms. It was a very personal and visceral disgust for him…

- Martin and Jon had both met Jordan personally before the end of the world, and had their own reasons to be grateful towards him: he agreed to give the jar of Prentiss’s ashes to Martin (who wanted to assuage Jon), and confirmed to Jon multiple times and clearly that Prentiss had died.

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: It’s… There are, uh… Jane Prentiss is dead. I know this. I have a small jar on my desk of what are supposed to be her ashes, though I don’t believe it for a second. I think… Martin just gave me a jar of dust to try and calm me down. Give me something to focus on, for closure. I hate to say it, but it does appear to be working. A victory for the placebo effect, it would seem.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: … Say it again, please. JORDAN: Excuse me? ARCHIVIST: What you just said, can you say it again, so I have it on tape? JORDAN: Oh. Okay. “Jane Prentiss is dead.” ARCHIVIST: … You’re sure? Completely? JORDAN: Yeah. I watched the incineration. ARCHIVIST: And there were no… complications? JORDAN: Like… what? ARCHIVIST: Surviving worms that escaped. Uh, movement from the body during the incineration; noises from it, like screams or chanting; weird feelings, l–like a thousand, tiny crawling things are moving across your skin? JORDAN: … Wow. No. Nothing like that. Just the smell, but, I mean, I’ll get to that. It went well. Nothing left but the ashes I gave to your friend. Which I shouldn’t have, by the way, so… keep it to yourself. ARCHIVIST: O–of course. And… thank you.

So I’m glad that they both were able to identify him.

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: What is it? MARTIN: N–no, it’s just… You know the guy you were talking about? Jordan? ARCHIVIST: … The exterminator, yes. MARTIN: Oh… [INHALE] I was having a look around and… I found him. A few tunnels over. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yes, I know.

I wonder if Martin actually knew that Jordan had ended up giving a statement to Jon? Martin’s wording gave me the impression that he didn’t think that Jon would identify him as an individual without Martin singling him out, but I’m not sure. I liked (AND I’M SAD) that Jon was so hesitant about it, about what to do about Jordan:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: No, i–it’s alright, I, I’ve been trying to… I’m not sure what to do about it. […] I’m still not sure what to do about Jordan. […] Yeah, I just… I don’t usually know them…! [CHUCKLE] Jordan Kennedy did me a favour. He helped me with my own fear, a–about Jane Prentiss. […] MARTIN: … So what are we doing, Jon? ARCHIVIST: I want to see him. MARTIN: Fine, do your “knowing” thing, and then we can– ARCHIVIST: With my eyes.

With Daisy, there was only one thing they could do (Jon had been quick to point out to Basira that he couldn’t save her, and that the only option was to help Basira to fulfil her promise and kill what was left of Daisy); here, Jon might have already been struggling between possible options, instead of having to accept a single possible course of action.

- SOB, I’M SO GLAD THAT IT’S NOW CANON THAT ADELARD DEKKER TOOK AMHERST TO THE GRAVE WITH HIM TT_____TT

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I can’t deny some pride in my solution, Gertrude. In all our discussions of how to contain a being that we could not destroy… I’m not sure we ever hit on a method quite so neat…! I am no builder but, by the end, I think you would have been hard-pressed to criticise how well that concrete had been laid – and Amherst four feet beneath it. […] But I shall not wait for it to putrefy as the rot overtakes me. I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol. I will sit upon that seat, and release these poor souls from their suffering. [INHALE] And hopefully make things simpler, for the ECDC clean-up crews.”

(MAG184) MARTIN: Well… who’s the avatar in charge here then? That… Amherst guy? ARCHIVIST: No, John Amherst was encased in concrete and shrivelled away to nothing after just a few years. If they’d unearthed him before the Change… maybe, but as it was he was so starved of fear…

* I would have been heartbroken if Amherst had eventually managed to escape, but no! Adelard improvised, he improvised well, and his last actions were a success on all accounts (isolating Amherst permanently until he faded away, and at least allowing his last victims a merciful death since there was nothing that could have possibly saved them) TT____TT

(I’m still crossing fingers for anything about Dekker before the end (additional lore? His missing statement from 1991? A tape with his voice?) but I’m at least glad to know that he was successful, that he indeed made a difference before the Change, preventing Amherst from hurting anyone else…)

* Ahahahaha… Jon explaining that a fellow avatar “shrivelled away to nothing” because he was deprived of fear… right after Jon proved that being cut from The Eye was impacting him at Upton House… (Martin had connected the dots, understanding that turning the world back would not be good for Jon, but they also pushed back that conversation and… they really need to have it at some point…)

- Extra-relieved that Amherst is dead, since Martin asked if he was the avatar in charge in this domain: how awful would have it been, for Amherst to rule over the domain trapping Jordan… given that he had been Jordan’s first brush with The Corruption?

(MAG055) JORDAN: Got my first weird call about five years ago. It was ants, or so I was told. Down in Bromley. […] I watched as the door opened and a man stepped out. He was tall, maybe 6 and a half feet?, but it was hard to be sure of his shape inside the huge, brown suit he was wearing. He took one look at me, then the sign on the side of my van that read “Kennedy Pest Control”, and his face began to crease with rage.

I’m concerned, however, that Martin’s first reflex is still to cling to the idea that avatars are a necessary part of the domains, and that destroying them would improve the sufferers’ situation, whereas Jon had quite clearly explained that it wasn’t the case:

(MAG184) MARTIN: Well… who’s the avatar in charge here then? That… Amherst guy? […] So, who then? ARCHIVIST: Well, I’m not sure if… MARTIN: Jon, who is it? ARCHIVIST: It’s the ants. MARTIN: What? Ohhhh, like a, like a huge ant queen or something? ARCHIVIST: No. All of them. As a collective. MARTIN: [FURTHER SOUNDS OF HIS LACK OF ENTHUSIASM] ARCHIVIST: Crawling, devouring, spreading. One colony, one being… MARTIN: [DISGUSTED EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: One avatar. MARTIN: Right. Great. [SHUFFLING, BAG JOSTLING] … Nope. Nope, do not like that one at all, no. Okay. So what happens if you destroy them then? I–I mean, if they’re both the avatar and the domain? ARCHIVIST: The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.

(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: Uh… I’ve done so much damage, an–and anything that might help to balance that is–! [SOFT SIGH] … But killing other avatars, it, it’s not… I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse. MARTIN: … You’re removing evil from the world! ARCHIVIST: I, I’m not, though, am I? [STATIC RISES] The tenement fire is still burning; the mortal garden is growing wild; the carousel i–

Martin still hasn’t fully registered that “avatars” don’t matter that much in the new world (domains will keep working without them), and it was also blatant in the way he also concluded that there might be a “huge ant queen” controlling everything. Once again, it makes me afraid of the fallout when he will have to understand that Jonah is likely not the problem nor the thing allowing the apocalypse to keep running, even if he launched it… ;;

- The existence of the ants as both domain&avatar also makes me wonder about Helen: it’s basically the Distortion’s status, too? Jon had even pointed out last episode that she had a place like any other:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen. MARTIN: I thought Helen was her domain, wi–with all the doors and that? ARCHIVIST: She is, but she has a… position within this pseudo-landscape, like any other.

If the Distortion gets destroyed, which fear would “flow in to fill the gap”…?

… Is Jon himself an avatar who is also a domain, in some way…?

- Martin is still the audience surrogate in the way he asks the right questions with the information we were given to try to assemble the pieces together, but it’s also what he is doing for himself – he’s trying to understand! He’s trying to get the logic and narrow down what they can do!

(MAG184) MARTIN: Well… who’s the avatar in charge here then? That… Amherst guy? […] So, who then? […] Okay. So what happens if you destroy them then? I–I mean, if they’re both the avatar and the domain? […] I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull? ARCHIVIST: I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed? MARTIN: But we could get out, though? ARCHIVIST: Eventually.

Yay for the Fourteen/Fifteen still being a valid and useful tool >:D (Though with the caution that it’s one reading tool, and not an absolute law.) I also like how Jon’s explanation flowed very well with what we had heard from the statement, when it comes to The Buried being likely to invade the place if The Corruption was diminished? Absolutely no surprise that Martin tapped out of the idea of getting trapped here since:

(MAG015) ARCHIVIST: I sent Tim to check the details – Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s “a bit claustrophobic”.

So yep. Not up for staying trapped in a Buried domain for long. (And Martin might have thought of Jon’s Coffin adventure, too? Even though he hadn’t been there to witness Jon’s resulting PTSD afterwards. It meant a lot that Jon still offered the possibility given that it could have meant getting trapped in a Buried domain for a while, again. ;_;)

- Martin made some progress in understanding what Jon could and couldn’t do… except in this case, it turns out that it wasn’t exactly what Jon had said:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: I’m still not sure what to do about Jordan. MARTIN: I mean… What can we do, really? You’ve been pretty clear there’s no way for us to help the people who are trapped here as victims so… so we leave him here like all the others, and eventually we save everyone!

;_; Martin’s hopes hurt a bit – trying to see the bigger picture, pouring his effort towards a Big Solution, potentially to cheer up Jon by laying out a plan that feels quite simple (and awfully optimistic). Meanwhile, Jon had… not been that firm about his ability in the new world. He had specifically said:

(MAG171) ARCHIVIST: I don’t care. JARED: … No. You don’t, do you? ARCHIVIST: … I can’t… There’s too many. I can’t save everyone. [EXHALE] I c–, I can’t save anyone.

And I had been intrigued, back then, by that “everyone” turning into “anyone”… which wasn’t exactly the same thing.

- The point about them mostly knowing avatars was equally funny and indeed a terrible tidbit:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: Jordan Kennedy did me a favour. He helped me with my own fear, a–about Jane Prentiss. MARTIN: I sometimes forget that most of the people we know are avatars. ARCHIVIST: Yes, that… Hmm. Not sure I like that realisation. Our peers… MARTIN: Yeah. [INHALE] Dinner parties are going to be tricky, eh! ARCHIVIST: Hm!

Sob about that “ours peers” (including Martin. Martin didn’t protest but cut that segment shut pretty quickly. The recent news still stings, uh.), and Martin still insisting on “avatars” even though Jon snapped in the previous episode that the term doesn’t describe a clear-cut reality. (Gasp, is Martin implying that they didn’t have dinner parties with Annabelle at Upton House? Jon had mentioned he didn’t want to eat anything brought by Annabelle and Martin had pointed out that she was providing food for them.)

That “most of the people we know are avatars” makes sense story-wise? But it’s also true that all the characters we’ve met were avatars, or victims of the Fears, or touched by them through Jon, something Jon had kind of alluded to in season 3:

(MAG094) ARCHIVIST: Uh, no, I– I just… Ther–there’s been a lot of statements, in not a lot of time. I’m… I’m exhausted. I kind of wish I knew, uh, knew even one person who genuinely wasn’t involved. GEORGIE: Maybe that’s why you thought of me? ARCHIVIST: Hm? GEORGIE: I mean, it’s been years, and there must be other old friends you lost touch with. Maybe you did know? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, maybe. I, uh…

And mmmm… The Web has such a knack for storytelling, for activities revolving around the idea of crafting a story, that the question had to be asked: is it a coincidence? Is it perfectly legitimate given the circumstances of having worked at the Institute for years? Or did something influence Jon&Martin, for the only people they’ve known for the past years to have been somehow connected with the Fears?

- I love how we could perfectly understand that Jon was making a Face here:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: I want to see him. MARTIN: Fine, do your “knowing” thing, and then we can– ARCHIVIST: With my eyes. MARTIN: … Okay. But, just so you know, the tunnels to get there are absolutely craw– Yeah, okay. Yes, no, yes, you already know. [SIGH] Lead on.

Martin…

- The soundscaping of the ants this episode was AWFUL, and Jordan’s wails were AWFUL, kudos to Tim Ledsam, I hated it so much, it lasted for so long and was making me so uneasy TT__TT

(MAG184) [MORE SWARMING SOUNDS] JORDAN: [WAILS OF PAIN AND STRUGGLES] MARTIN: Christ… [BAG JOSTLING] Jon? JORDAN: You…! What are–? F–from the Magnus– Ah! Help me! MARTIN: … Jon, what are we doing here? JORDAN: [WAILS OF PAIN] ARCHIVIST: I don’t… I– JORDAN: [ANGUISHED SCREAMS OF AGONY] Help! Please! [SCREAMS]

I was a bit surprised that Jordan could directly see Jon? So far, only the Spider had potentially referred to Jon (MAG172: “It’s such a shame, but I couldn’t do such a thing even if I wanted to! The man in the audience saw to that! [CHUCKLES] I am no more free than you are, little puppet.”), and the Spider was part of the fear, or even the ruler of that domain; Jon had even pointed out to Martin that victims wouldn’t hear them, or at least not Martin (MAG163: “I–ignore them, they’re not… Just ignore them. […] I just mean there’s no point… talking to them. […] They won’t hear you, Martin, they’re all… too busy waiting to die.”). Could Jordan see Jon because Jon was already in a Beholding mode? Because of their connection, since Jordan had given a live statement and had been trapped in Jon’s Beholding dreams for two years, thus initially being Jon’s own victim? It was interesting that in this case, he could directly see and interact with Jon, and I wonder why it could happen…

- When Jon began to intone, I feared for a second that he was going to mercy-kill Jordan, since he had been pleading for help – until Jon reached the “Gaze” part, since… it was reminiscent of MAG120, so something different was happening!

(MAG184) [STATIC RISES: LOW AND SPIRALLING, PRESSURING] ARCHIVIST: Ceaseless Watcher, look upon this man– MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: –subsumed by terror and gripped with swarming fear. JORDAN: [WAILS OF PAIN] [DIGITAL GLITCHING SOUNDS] ARCHIVIST: Gaze into him, through him… and out of him. MARTIN: What does that mean? ARCHIVIST: Make him a vessel of your hunger… JORDAN: [WAILS OF PAIN] ARCHIVIST: … staring out and harvesting with a thousand, thousand, thousand, tiny, eager, eyes. [DIGITAL GLITCHING SOUNDS] MARTIN: Hang on… JORDAN: [WAILS OF PAIN] [STATIC INCREASES FURTHER] ARCHIVIST: Gift him your power and protection – make him yours. [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES]

(MAG120) ELIAS: “And at last, the Archivist looks up. [STATIC INCREASES] At last, he looks into The Eye that sees all, and knows all, and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The Ceaseless Watcher of all that is, and all that was; the voracious, infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever. It stares into him, and it stares out of him, and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror – but he cannot. He. is. whole.”

* Regardless of what Jon actually does when drawing Beholding’s powers, I don’t liiiiike that he’s doing it in the first place, and I don’t liiiiike that it’s about Beholding taking ownership of people and their sufferings (“yours”) ;; Jon had mentioned that the smiting was “making [him] worse” (MAG174), I personally interpreted it as using Beholding’s powers, period, being something that makes him worse, and Jon feels so… frightening when he does this? Long-term, we know it can’t mean anything good ;;

* Martin’s incomprehension during the chant was so satisfying to hear; I found it a bit funny (Martin being absolutely out the loop and wtfh and perfect audience surrogate), and it also brings me relief (Martin reacting and agreeing that it’s something weird and off and potentially dangerous).

* SOB about Jon’s imprecation to turn Jordan into “a vessel of your hunger staring out and harvesting with a thousand, thousand, thousand, tiny, eager, eyes.”: a lot of statements, since the Change, have had mentions of eyes, of the feeling of being watched, as if they were relays for Beholding to feast on… and the idea that it would watch everything through the ants’ eyes is a horrifying thought, which makes so much sense.

Lore-wise: it… wasn’t an absolute surprise that Jon could turn a watched into a watcher, since Helen had pointed out that Jon was able to turn one into the other in the context of the Not!Them’s death, but never said anything about it being a one-direction mechanism:

(MAG166) HELEN: We’re all here, Martin. The Stranger; The Buried; The Desolation; all of us. But The Eye still rules. All this fear is being performed for its benefit. And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid. And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part. And he’s able to, shall we say… shift its focus. Turn the one into the other. And for those of us whose very existence relies on being feared, well… To be turned into a victim destroys us utterly. And very, very painfully.

Helen had also mentioned last episode that they were “all snoops now”, so… not surprising, either, that Jordan’s change (although bounding him to the ants and The Corruption) had to go through eyes…

- Sound effects-wise: same pressuring static and glitching sounds as during a smiting, except that we didn’t get the ripping parts (… since there was no smiting). I hate this static; it’s so well-done but it fills me with dread, “something bad is happening” feelings every time ;;

- Jordan BROKE MY HEART all through the episode, but him being confused and lost after his transformation was extra-painful.

(MAG184) [SILENCE BUT FOR THE ANT SOUNDS, A LOT LESS] [SIBILANT BUZZ, SIMILAR TO THAT OF INSECT WINGS] ARCHIVIST: … Jordan? JORDAN: Wha… Wh–what is this? ARCHIVIST: How do you feel? JORDAN: [QUAVERING] I, I don’t… I, I know you. From the Magnus Institute. What are you d–doing here? What is this? MARTIN: [THIN-LIPPED] Yeah, I’m curious about that myself. JORDAN: What did you do to me? I feel…

Jon and the other avatars we’ve met had to go through a process, with different steps. For Jordan, everything changed in one go – no wonder he was absolutely upset and distressed to get changed and to be suddenly relying on a new source of energy ;_; The new buzzing sound in the background already marking that he wasn’t the same… He was potentially physically transformed, too? Half-insect? How harsh, given that he used to be an exterminator and that Jon still identified him as that…

(As for the hisses-like sounds, I interpreted it as Jordan being directly fed the fears from his domain?)

- Amongst the heartbreaking bits, ALL THE PARALLELS with Jon and his own transformation as the Archivist.

* The fear feeling good and awful at the same time?

(MAG147) ARCHIVIST: What I’ve been doing to these people, it– … It hasn’t been because I was… “puppetted”, or “controlled”, or “possessed”. I wanted to do it. It felt good. … But at least, I know I can stop. I just… [INHALE] don’t know how. I… [INHALE] I don’t… want… to stop… … Goddamn!

(Season 5 trailer) ARCHIVIST: Yes, I, I’m trying not to, but… all of the fear, th–the anguish, i–it just… [INHALE] It keeps coming at me in waves, rolling over me, filling my head with such… awful sights. MARTIN: … I’m sorry. That sounds… [SMALL EXHALE] That sounds horrible. ARCHIVIST: … I wish it was, Martin. I really wish it was. … But it feels… right. [MIRTHLESS HUFF]

(MAG184) JORDAN: What did you do to me? I feel… ARCHIVIST: Better? JORDAN: Sick. [HISSING SOUND] Like I– [HISSING SOUND] [GASP] … What…? What was that? ARCHIVIST: You’re seeing it. Feeling it, the fear of all the others here. JORDAN: All that screaming… They’re everywhere… crawling over them, like they did me… It feels… ARCHIVIST: Good? JORDAN: … Yeah… But wrong. Sick. … What did you do to me?

(With Jordan potentially having his own Corruption-flavour to it? It might have felt “sick” to him because feeding from suffering is a twisted thing, but also because what feels good for a Corruption avatar is precisely what feels like a disease.)

* Jordan wanting to reject what he had become and insisting that it hadn’t been something he wanted?

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: [EMPHATICALLY] I never chose this. ELIAS: You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] ELIAS: In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean. But we make them nonetheless.

(MAG184) JORDAN: “Helped me”? I don’t feel right, I, I just– [HISSING SOUND] [GASP] No, I don’t– [HISSING SOUND] I don’t want this! [THE INSECTILE NOISE GETS MORE PRONOUNCED] MARTIN: Jordan? Jordan, just relax, it’ll be fine, you’ll be okay. JORDAN: No, I don’t– I didn’t ask for this! ARCHIVIST: You preferred the ants? JORDAN: … No! ARCHIVIST: Covered and agonised? I know how scared you were, I felt it. JORDAN: It was… It was a nightmare. And I couldn’t wake up. But this is, uh… I don’t understand…

Which made Jon into “the Elias” in this situation (as the person directly responsible for turning someone into an agent serving one of the Fears), and also showed how Jon, precisely, wasn’t Elias: their motivations differ greatly (self-gain versus sympathy/pity), and Jon didn’t try to gaslight Jordan by putting the blame on him via his “choice”.

* Jordan struggling with the idea of hurting others and feeding from their misery?

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … When does it stop? HELEN: What? ARCHIVIST: The guilt… The misery… All the others I’ve met, they’ve been… cold. Cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does The Eye… make me monstrous? HELEN: [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] Why would it ever do that? […] Helen was like you, at first. She felt such guilt over taking people. Until one day, she realised she wasn’t going to stop doing it. So she chose to stop feeling guilty.

(MAG184) JORDAN: You turned me into what? A torturer? ARCHIVIST: Yes. JORDAN: … Why? […] I don’t… I don’t know how to be this. I don’t want to scare people. ARCHIVIST: No. But you’ll learn.

* Jordan feeling lost about his new status, what would happen from then on, whether he was still himself?

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: I’m not getting any answers out of this, am I? ELIAS: The easily digestible sort, that wipe away any doubt and fear and neatly organise your new world into happy little columns? ARCHIVIST: [SCOFF] ELIAS: … No. Not from me. These are things you must discover on your own. […] ARCHIVIST: Am I… Elias, am I still human? ELIAS: Jon. What does human even mean? I mean, really? You still bleed, you can still die. And your will is still your own, mostly. That’s more than can be said for a lot of the “real” humans out there.

(MAG184) JORDAN: … Am I still me? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know how to answer that. I can put you back if you want. You could become a victim again? Rather than complicit.

Jon was absolutely sincere in that moment: he had questioned his identity so much in season 3 and season 4, and… hadn’t really found an answer:

(MAG093) ARCHIVIST: You’ve seen monsters? GEORGIE: Not the time, Jon. ARCHIVIST: Right, it’s… it’s just I think I’m turning into one.

(MAG099) GEORGIE: You’re not doing well. You keep apologising and saying you’re changing, but it’s all just the same. […] Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors.

(MAG122) BASIRA: Jon, is it still… you? ARCHIVIST: Uh… Y… yes. Y–yes, I… I think so? I–I don’t know how you’d… prove it, though. […] They can be hard though, sometimes, other–other people. Feelings. I, I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to… make sure I’m… the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…?

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: A “Great Twisting”, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life. … I thought… moving away from my humanity… would have made that seem more acceptable. That sort of sacrifice… But it just makes me sad…

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] I don’t feel like I’m exactly in the best place to judge the… intersection [CHUCKLE] between free will and humanity. Still trying to figure that out myself. […] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster.

(MAG142) DAISY: And of course, for Jon, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive.

I feel like, mostly, what happened to Jordan put them both in opposition to Jonah. He had declared that:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Why does a man seek to destroy the world? It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality, and power. Uninspired, perhaps, but – my God! The discovery, not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness; to place yourself beyond pain, and death, and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all…! I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers, all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction, in that choice.”

And we’ve seen through Jon in season 4, and with Jordan right now, that… no. There is no “freedom” in that choice. There is only guilt and despair.

(Jonah, you might have had over two centuries to rot and become like this, but by October 18th 2018, you were trash, and that was all you.)

- I also love/hate the complexity around the “help” that was granted: Jordan was pleading for it. Jordan wanted his hell to stop. Jon answered that call and gave what he could, and it comes after bitterly pointing out that his actions were limited for long, but that he was conscious of his power and would like to help somehow…

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what you want me to do! MARTIN: I want you to use your power, I want you to help them, I want you to make things better! ARCHIVIST: There – is – no – “better” anymore. MARTIN: You keep saying that, and I hate it! […] What I know is that leaving children here is… i–i–it’s inexcusable, i–it’s monstrous! ARCHIVIST: Martin, tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it! […] MARTIN: The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just… [INHALE] They’ll just need to hang on a little longer. ARCHIVIST: … Right. [EXHALE] Right.

(MAG174) MARTIN: … What is it, Jon, what’s wrong? ARCHIVIST: I–I just–! … This whole… “avenging angel” thing, I–I’m not… It doesn’t feel right. MARTIN: … It seemed to feel right when we were avenging all the wrongs done against you! ARCHIVIST: I know. I–I–I know, all right? But, well, th–… [SIGH] That’s kind of the problem, I have all this… power and, and I, I want to use it to try and help, but I… I don’t know, I mean, I do. Uh… I’ve done so much damage, an–and anything that might help to balance that is–! [SOFT SIGH] … But killing other avatars, it, it’s not… I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse.

(MAG184) JORDAN: You…! What are–? F–from the Magnus– Ah! Help me! […] [ANGUISHED SCREAMS OF AGONY] Help! Please! [SCREAMS] […] It feels… ARCHIVIST: Good? JORDAN: … Yeah… But wrong. Sick. … What did you do to me? ARCHIVIST: I helped you. JORDAN: “Helped me”? I don’t feel right, I, I just– [HISSING SOUND] [GASP] No, I don’t– [HISSING SOUND] I don’t want this! […] ARCHIVIST: What was I supposed to do? I owed you. Didn’t want to just watch you suffer. […] I’m sorry, the world is… It’s bad all over. I just wanted to spare you what I could. JORDAN: … Yeah. ARCHIVIST: Because… because I owed you.

And Jon helped in a way, made Jordan’s suffering stop, but… on the other hand, Jordan has every right to feel like it isn’t “help” at all, that it was a cruel action replacing an awful situation by another.

Just like with Leto, everything felt like an impossible situation, in which there was no good choice or good action to undertake. Should Jon have asked Jordan whether he wanted to be turned into an avatar, and lay out all the consequences and what it encompassed? Yes; but would Jordan, in the middle of being endlessly swarmed and bitten by the ants, have been in any state to understand and consider it thoughtfully anyway?

Should Jon just have kept going as Martin had initially suggested (without knowing that Jon had another option in mind)? Is it right to leave everyone in hell on their way, to ignore individual suffering when it happens right in front of them, while focusing on the big picture of ultimately saving everyone? Isn’t Jon’s spurt of pity for someone who had helped him in the past (and that he had hurt through his dreams for two years by the time of the Change) understandable, or is it plain favouritism? Meanwhile, doesn’t Jordan have every right to feel upset, given that this person changed his life and existence so drastically and made it another shade of bad without asking him?

Same thing with Jon giving Jordan the choice to be turned back: it’s… just complex for everyone. Jon could do it, it’s an option left to Jordan and Jon is being honest by sharing it with him. It’s the best he could do! … And Jordan’s distrust and disgust is equally understandable: unwillingly, Jon is also making Jordan admit that he would rather hurt than being hurt. But can we blame Jordan for this?

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: … I’ve been thinking a lot about Jane. She was the first, you know? The first I actually… “encountered” like… [SMALL HUFF] like us. She seemed so… inhuman. Like everything she used to be was… stripped away…! HELEN: And now? ARCHIVIST: … I wonder how much of her was still in there. How much did she choose to be what she was? I read her statement, she was… [SIGH] She was scared. I assumed she’d been possessed completely against her will, but now I’m not even sure that’s possible…! HELEN: It is astounding the sort of things you’re willing to choose, given an unpleasant enough alternative, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: How much of “willpower” is just… safety. Comfort by another name. The option to choose and be fine.

And, at the same time, wouldn’t the other people trapped in the domain have every right to hate Jordan now that their suffering is procuring him enjoyment?

It was like with Leto: every move, every decision, meant causing hurt, only in a different way. Jon had pointed out in the past that there was “no better”:

(MAG173) ARCHIVIST: There – is – no – “better” anymore. MARTIN: You keep saying that, and I hate it! ARCHIVIST: I keep saying it because it keeps being true, you know that!

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.

… and once again demonstrated why.

(With the usual caveat that: Jon’s knowledge and powers are directly given by The Eye, which has already been shown keen on self-preservation with Eric’s tape explaining how to cut one’s ties to it. “There is no better” in Jon’s understanding of the apocalypse: but he’s not fully omniscient, he’s limited by his own point of view and by his own human limitations, and he’s not immune to making assumptions (just like when Daisy was able to hurt him, surprising him). There could still be other alternatives… outside of the box, instead of relying on his Beholding powers, just like Salesa’s camera had been something that Jon hadn’t known anything about before getting an explanation, just like Jon can’t see Georgie&Melanie, just like Jon still can’t see nor know what Annabelle is doing.)

- I am squinting a bit at Jordan describing what he was experiencing as a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake up, since… Jon had mentioned not being able to sleep anymore, back in the cabin:

(MAG161) MARTIN: You should get some sleep. [CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] can’t. I–I–I can’t, I–I don’t think I do anymore… “Sleep”. [EXHALE] How long’s it been, now? MARTIN: I don’t know. It’s not like there are days to count anymore. All the clocks have stopped, and… [DISTANT HOWL] ARCHIVIST: Well, I haven’t yet. I get… tired, but it doesn’t feel the same. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] Probably for the best. Sleep doesn’t look… pleasant.

(MAG184) JORDAN: It was… It was a nightmare. And I couldn’t wake up. But this is, uh… I don’t understand…

Is Jon “dreaming” in way, and does he need to wake up, somehow, for everything to stop…?

- I don’t like the contrast between Martin’s and Jon’s description of the current events:

(MAG184) MARTIN: I mean… What can we do, really? You’ve been pretty clear there’s no way for us to help the people who are trapped here as victims so… so we leave him here like all the others, and eventually we save everyone! […] ARCHIVIST: I’ll try to explain. [INTONING] The world is over. Dark powers that feed on fear have transformed everything we know into a twisted hellscape, where humanity is tormented to feed their hunger. We’re all trapped, but I have a certain level of “power” in this new world, so, I– […] I’m sorry, the world is… It’s bad all over. I just wanted to spare you what I could. JORDAN: … Yeah. […] I’d like to be alone. MARTIN: Of course. [BAG JOSTLING] JORDAN: No, wait. I’ll never be alone again, will I? [SILENCE BUT FOR THE ANT SOUNDS] MARTIN: … Come on, Jon. We should just go.

Martin is pretty clear on the fact that he thinks/hopes for a solution… but Jon’s description implied that no, he isn’t believing in anything getting better ever – he’s acting like the current reality will be eternal and won’t ever change. He didn’t even mention to Jordan that they were trying to fix everything, that hopefully, Jordan’s new state wouldn’t last forever because they would manage to turn the world back.

It’s not the first time Jon has acted as if there is no solution, but he had initially left the cabin announcing that he and Martin would “find out” whether it was possible to reverse the Change. Since MAG164, when Jon tried to take a peak at the Entities, it feels like… he has lost all hope in that regard? Does Jon know something that he hasn’t shared, did he deduce it from his Knowing from MAG164, or has he lost hope through lassitude and compassion fatigue…? (Martin! Martin, please, pick up on the fact that Jon’s words, for the last few episodes, are implying that he thinks this world will stay as is! ;;)

- I’m weeping for Jordan understanding parts of his new reality:

(MAG184) JORDAN: Can I at least… go outside? Can I leave these tunnels, the… the ants? Am I… free? ARCHIVIST: You’re part of them now. And they’re a part of you. JORDAN: Oh… […] I’d like to be alone. MARTIN: Of course. [BAG JOSTLING] JORDAN: No, wait. I’ll never be alone again, will I?

Still can’t go outside, still no freedom… And he’s now kinda the “queen” that he was seeking to destroy… he was vainly trying to flee the ants (to be alone!) and is now part of them… and there is still that awful irony of the exterminator becoming an agent of The Corruption…

- Regarding Jon’s powers and what he offered to Jordan:

(MAG184) ARCHIVIST: I don’t know how to answer that. I can put you back if you want. You could become a victim again? Rather than complicit.

* So, he could revert Jordan into a victim… without killing him? That’s interesting considering how Helen had explained what Jon had done to the Not!Them:

(MAG166) HELEN: And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid. And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part. And he’s able to, shall we say… shift its focus. Turn the one into the other. And for those of us whose very existence relies on being feared, well… To be turned into a victim destroys us utterly. And very, very painfully.

Why wouldn’t Jordan – now an avatar, a Watcher – die from being reverted to a victim? Is it because at this point, Jordan had not directly hurt people, or was familiar to their suffering (as a victim himself until a few minutes ago)? Is it because he changed status during the apocalypse, so was “created” as an avatar in the new environment and that changes things? If Jon were to meet him again waaay later, would he still be able to turn Jordan back just fine (like he just offered), or would it destroy Jordan because, by then, Jordan would have fed too much on the suffering? Or is it because it felt right to Jon that Jordan, who hadn’t hurt people and had been good to me, would be able to revert to his previous state without consequences, while in Jon’s mind, previous avatars and monsters were intrinsically linked to the pain they caused, so wouldn’t be able to survive the pain as watched…?

(* … Jon didn’t offer a mercy-kill like he did with Breekon, though ;; I’m glad that he didn’t, but would it have been technically possible…?)

* So, we got Jon turning Watchers into Watched to the point of destroying them (Not!Them, Jude, Jared, Breekon); we now get Jon turning a Watched into a Watcher, and he brought up the possibility of reversing the process once again, non-lethally… So turning someone from Watcher into Watched non-lethally is an available option, and I wonder if we’ll see that one actually happen…

- Although I do understand Jon’s unease about Jordan, I’m worried about his insistence that he “owed” Jordan. It’s… perfectly fine on its own, but it also made me feel like the phrasing and vocabulary of a god…? Because Jon would have plenty of reasons to want to improve Jordan’s situation (or to lessen his pain) without that one, and he had brought up that his motivation to hurt Jude and others had been “revenge”.

Was Jon genuine? Is it a bit of Beholding motivating him (rewarding the ones who had helped him and fed him fears; punishing the ones who had marked him)? … Or is it Jon trying to avoid that he felt guilt? Because Jordan wasn’t always afraid of ants, not initially: he was an exterminator, used to deal with creatures, who happened to brush with the supernatural during his work but hadn’t been terrorised by it. What might have turned the ants into his worst fear might have been… the fact that he gave his statement to Jon and got trapped in his nightmares for two years:

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: … It’s been months, though. Why are you… just looking to make your statement now? JORDAN: Uh, it’s not really… it’s not just burning her body. I was also the one that was first called in to deal with the nest in her old apartment. ARCHIVIST: Oh… JORDAN: Yeah! But there are a few things I’ve been thinking about, putting some pieces together and I thought, well, you guys should probably know. […] I’ve never really minded. I mean, I guess I could say… killing things is sort of exerting control over them, but I’ve always felt that trying to sanitise my job is somehow a bit… dishonest. Like trying to help people forget that what they’re actually doing is commissioning the death of creatures which we’ve deemed… too disgusting or unhealthy to live. It needs doing, don’t get me wrong, and I’m happy enough to do it. But it isn’t my job to hold people’s hands and make them feel better about it.

(MAG120) ELIAS: “Behind him are the ants. They move like a terrible rolling wave along the hard-packed ground, and he can see every twitching antenna, every clenching mandible. Somewhere, underneath that twitching, burrowing mass, is the exterminator. He is screaming. The Archivist knows he is screaming, can see him screaming, although the sound is lost under the noise of those hundred million ants that crawl and scurry over everything. For a second, a hand breaches the shifting mound, desperately stretched towards the Archivist in supplication, pleading for help. The Archivist watches, as it disappears painfully back into that sea of scrabbling life. Then all at once, the ants are gone, fled in a moment away from the still shuddering form of the exterminator – and a familiar terror finally pushes its way into the Archivist’s heart. […] The exterminator looks to her, then to the Archivist, and it is not certain which he fears more.”

So, in that way, Jon had contributed to turn the ants into Jordan’s worst fear – and that would be reason enough to feel guilt about it, combined with the fact that for two years, Jon had been unable to help him in the nightmares.

- … On the matter of Jon’s dreams, it was noteworthy that at no point at all did Jon mention that he had seen Jordan suffer in them for the past two years. The nightmare zoo is apparently a sore spot for Jon? He had displayed a tendency to… just not talk about them, unless absolutely necessary (and awkwardly!):

(MAG113) ARCHIVIST: I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh… well, let’s just say I don’t think they’re going be letting anyone else in any time soon. End recording.

(MAG122) BASIRA: How much do you remember? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… Music. Everything was… wrong. Gertrude was there, and then… Dancing – I think? Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming. BASIRA: Dreaming. ARCHIVIST: Yes… [PAUSE] You’re… sure, a–about… Tim?

(MAG132) DAISY: I realised you were in my dreams. Reliving t… this. The coffin. You were there. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no.

(MAG136) [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … Daisy. DAISY: Mm? ARCHIVIST: It, uh… Hm. Is, uh… Weird question, but… I… [EXHALE] I haven’t seen you in my dreams? The last couple of weeks? DAISY: … Oh, uh, no. I… I work here, now. I figured it seems to protect the others, so… ARCHIVIST: Oh. Right, so… […] So… no more dreams. DAISY: Not of you and your weird eyes. Just the coffin. ARCHIVIST: Is that better…? DAISY: ’T’s mine. ARCHIVIST: … right.

If Martin and Jon are on a journey that is mostly internal, what is Jon’s? Does his guilt regarding his dreams and the pain he directly inflected to live statement-givers (the fact that he fed on their fears, during the act and through his dreams) have to do with it…?

- I’m curious about Jon pointing out that Jordan couldn’t touch them:

(MAG184) [FOOTSTEPS] JORDAN: The ants… If I told them to attack you… could they? ARCHIVIST: … No… Nothing can really touch us anymore.

Since Daisy had been able to (MAG179: “I’m surprised she could hurt you at all…!”

ARCHIVIST: Yes, that… came as a bit of a shock to me as well, actually…! […] I mean, I know it sounds strange but it… it… felt right for Daisy to be able to hurt me.” “Dream logic again?” “Mmm. The… ‘resonances’ from our relationship before the Change carried over and–”). Why was Daisy able to, in the first place? Because of her connection with Jon? Could Melanie&Georgie do it, too…?

Jon sounded SO TIRED at the end of the episode…

- Martin tried to chirp in here and there, and was clearly peeved about what Jon had done, so I’m guessing they’ll talk about it starting the next episode:

(MAG184) MARTIN: Christ… [BAG JOSTLING] Jon? […] Jon, what are we doing here? […] What does that mean? […] Hang on… […] JORDAN: [QUAVERING] I, I don’t… I, I know you. From the Magnus Institute. What are you d–doing here? What is this? MARTIN: [THIN-LIPPED] Yeah, I’m curious about that myself. […] JORDAN: … Why? MARTIN: Good question. Jon? Care to enlighten us? ARCHIVIST: What was I supposed to do? I owed you. Didn’t want to just watch you suffer. MARTIN: It’s what you’ve been doing for everyone else…! It’s what you’re expecting him to do! […] JORDAN: No, wait. I’ll never be alone again, will I? [SILENCE BUT FOR THE ANT SOUNDS] MARTIN: … Come on, Jon. We should just go.

* (Aaaah for Martin trying to calm Jordan down, hearing his distress, and agreeing that it was a “lot to take in all at once”…)

* I feel like mostly, Martin had been thrown off because Jon hadn’t discussed what he was going to do beforehand? If they had done that, they might have reached the same conclusion, but given how Jon quickly acted, Martin was left to highlight the small hypocrisies (Jon said he couldn’t do anything, before; Jon wanted to do something, but he’s condemning Jordan to watch over his victims without helping them). I do understand Martin’s feelings about that – and also? Jon wielding Beholding powers so impulsively is extremely worrisome, I hope they’ll talk about that bit ;;

* It’s… also contributing to prove to Martin that his black&white dichotomy doesn’t really work in the new world. Since Jordan is now a Watcher feeding from the fear in his domain, since he is now in a technically better place than other victims, is he now entirely blameable? Should Jon smite him? It’s just as uncomfortable as with Callum (and Martin’s own situation, as unknowing Watcher).

- So, interesting that the people who had been trapped in Jon’s dreams weren’t concentrated in one domain, especially since Jon had pointed out that his domain was the-Archives-or-the-Institute-or-the-Panopticon (MAG167: “We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us.” “Oh. [PAUSE] Where’s yours?” “[MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] I mean, we’re… traveling towards it.”). In a way, though, the whole world being Beholding’s domain might mean that it’s a bit Jon’s anyway…? I wonder if we’ll meet other old statement-givers on the way to London, then…

- Regarding Martin’s “journey” towards his domain: MAG183 felt Spiral to me, and this one was Corruption, which are two Fears who had victimised Martin too – he had been trapped by Prentiss for two weeks in season 1, he got lost with Tim in Michael’s corridors in season 2. Was it significant? Of other powers that likely left a big impact on him, apart from The Lonely (through Peter), there is The Flesh (Jared’s attack on the Institute when Jon was in a coma), and we already got a second statement for that one… (And perhaps Web because of his affinity for spiders? Vast because he had taken an avatar’s statement? Buried because of his claustrophobia mentioned in S1 + his worry when Jon went down into the Coffin?)

When it comes to the content of his self-journey: it feels to me, more and more, that it might be about his dichotomic view of the world between victims and avatars, his tendency to put the blame on avatars (and Jonah) instead of understanding how this world operates…? As this statement hammered in, there was “no queen”: at this point, I am entirely convinced that erasing Jonah won’t solve anything; he might have caused the apocalypse but his disappearance won’t fix the world. There was a bit of Martin in Jordan’s situation, in the way he had never asked to rule over a domain – yet, was now ruling over one, and was still agreeing that the alternative (being a victim) was worse. Is it about Martin admitting his privilege, accepting responsibility for the hurt he’s benefitting from, even if he’s not directly causing it and didn’t want it to happen in the first place…?

(…………… I mentioned earlier that another configuration induced by Jon’s powers could be to non-lethally turn a Watcher into a Watched, and actually… it could happen with Martin, as a temporary thing? Allowing him to become a victim trapped in his own domain for a bit, to see (and maybe interact) with his victims, learn about them, before being brought back as a Watcher…?)

Next episode’s title is… mmmm. I first thought of Manuela and Helen’s corridors, then of Jess and Karolina… but on the other hand, MAG183’s domain was already the second Spiral domain of this season, and MAG184 had a bit of Buried in it – would we get repeats so soon…? I could also picture End, but we got a second one in MAG180 and that was quite recent too. Title could also work for Agnes/Hill Top Road stuff, if perceived through a Web angle…? For the second meaning, it could mean lore about the world (again), and about Jon’s situation/status…

#long post/#tma liveblog #tma spoilers/#tma season 5 #mag184 #the magnus archives

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taww · 3 years

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First Take Review: Gryphon Essence Preamplifier & Stereo Amplifier

Okay, let’s get this out of the way: with a combined retail of over USD $40k (and that doesn’t include another $6k for the optional Zena DAC module), The Gryphon’s Essence preamplifier and stereo amplifier are by far the most expensive electronics I’ve ever had in my home! They might be the Danish firm’s entry point into separates, but that’s akin to calling a $146k Aston Martin Vantage “entry level.” There was a time in the not-so-distant past when spending such sums of money on stereo gear struck me as pointless excess. Perhaps I’ve been numbed by flipping through too many issues of The Absolute Sound or walking the halls of an audio show; perhaps I’m just entering a life stage (mid-life crisis, anyone?) where I’m allowing myself to indulge in such luxuries. Whatever the case may be, I’ve now had the good fortune of several months with the Essence combo, and despite a number of people prodding me for this review it’s been quite difficult to put into words how they perform. Why? Because every time I sit down to do the “work” of reviewing I just end up getting sucked into the music and forget to do the reviewing bit! But, here goes...

The arrival of the Gryphon components was a case of one thing leading to another. My first experience was when I strolled into Gryphon’s room at RMAF 2018. After being disappointed by so many other mega-buck systems at the show, I was delighted that this one actually sounded like music! Frankly, a lot of über-expensive show systems landed on my ears like amusical hi-fi effects or whimsical fancies of what some people think music should sound like, rather than an actual musical performance. Like other big systems, the Gryphon rig was imposing and fancy-looking, but with a decidedly purposeful, even stark, aesthetic. And the sound - so tangible and luscious, maybe a little dark and brooding, but in a way that connected me emotionally to the recorded performance rather than distracting me with sonic affect.

At the time I was happily running the Valvet A4 Mk.II monoblocks, and also had @mgd-taww’s Pass Labs XA30.5 at my disposal. Both delivered the pure and colorful musical flavors of Class A amplification, and both are superb amps. But things got thrown for a bit of a loop when I settled on the Audiovector SR 6 Avantgarde Arreté speakers as my new reference. I had auditioned them at AudioVision SF with the Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated amp ($16k) and the sound gave up nothing to high-quality separates - big, bold and dynamic with tremendous poise and nuance. Coming back to the Pass and Valvet amplifiers (coupled with a Pass Labs XP10 line stage) certainly wasn’t a let-down, but they didn’t have quite the same level synergy with the Audiovectors which sounded more complete and visceral with the Gryphon integrated.

This combined with the strong aural memories from the RMAF room led to a call to Gryphon’s US distributor, Philip O’Hanlon and Pandora Pang of On a Higher Note. Philip acknowledged that the Diablo was indeed excellent but teased that Gryphon had recently introduced a new line of separates worth consideration. The Essence had just arrived in the States and he had one more set in stock if I were so inclined... and next thing I know, a pallet loaded with what my wife lovingly referred to as “an illegal arms shipment” landed at our doorstep.

Serious crates for serious gear

Like all separates in The Gryphon’s 35-year heritage dating back to the original DM100 amplifier, the Essence line features pure Class A operation with minimal negative feedback, but brings it at a lower price point ($22,990) with more conservative aesthetics and practical packaging. Prior to the Essence, to get a Gryphon amp one had to shell out anywhere from $39k for the Antileon EVO to $57k for the flagship Mephisto (double those if going for monoblocks). The tradeoff is a lower power rating - just 50wpc, albeit in pure class A and doubling into 4 ohms and again into 2 ohms - so you’ll want to pair it with a reasonably efficient speaker. The Essence preamp meanwhile is a repackaging of the Zena preamplifier launched in 2018 (also $17,500), reskinned with cosmetics to match the amp. It features fully balanced operation via a discrete DC-coupled Class A circuit with zero global negative feedback, and can accommodate either of two optional internal modules, the Zena DAC ($6,000) or an MM/MC phono stage ($2,250). Being strictly digital I opted to evaluate the DAC, which I’ll talk about in a later installment. I’ll also save more details about the design and operation of this beautifully-crafted gear, including Gryphon’s unique Green Bias system, for a more in-depth review. For now, let’s get down to the business of how it sounds...

The Essence Preamp

When the Essence components arrived I clearly needed my wife’s assistance to safely unpack and set up the 45kg/99lb Essence amp. But she was busy making reeds for her oboe that evening, so I initially made do setting up the preamp (it weighs in at “only” 13.4kg/29.5lbs) and comparing it to my Pass Labs XP10 with the Pass Labs XA30.5 amplifier.

Firing up the Essence preamp from a cold start was one of those “damn, I don’t understand how a preamp can make this much of a difference” moments. Even though the Pass XP10 is a very solid performer - I find the sound of my PS Audio DirectStream significantly improved by it vs. feeding an amplifier directly - the 3x-as-expensive Gryphon outclassed it from the first note, taking musical resolution from the micro to nano level.

The first thing I noticed was how the entire back of the stage opened up. I never realized how triangular it sounded before, becoming narrower as you went deeper. With the Essence it suddenly feels rectangular and whole, with winds, brass and percussion able to naturally spread out and breath on the stage. It didn’t even take a big orchestral recording to experience this - my very first track was an intimate vocal with piano accompaniment, soprano Elsa Dreisig singing Strauss songs with pianist Jonathan Ware (Qobuz). The sense of the space - a church, as you can see from this video - and where the performers occupied it became strikingly tangible. Piano has starting clarity, with all its complex overtones unfolded and laid out for your ear to sample at its leisure. Dynamic resolution is also unlocked - subtle gradations in vocal intensity flow so organically. Going back to the Pass pre, macro dynamics weren’t Iacking, but the transitions somehow came across more synthetically, as if the volume dial was being turned rather than the performers modulating their instruments in the original performance.

One thing that didn't change too much was overall tonal balance. I find the Pass pretty neutral and extended, if anything having a subtly warmish character to it, at least by solid state standards. The Gryphon doesn't deviate notably from that, leaning slightly in that direction though with more sophisticated and varied tonal richness and density. The quality of the frequency extremes, however, is a different matter. Most striking is how triangles sparkle and ring with startling presence on the Gryphon. With a claimed frequency response out to 1MHz, the Essence pre delivers the highest highs with a sense of ease and finesse. And the bass is everything people have come to expect from the Gryphon house sound - deep, taut and powerful with beautiful tonality. The Pass Labs wasn’t missing any of the music per se, but the deepest bass notes and highest overtones sounded constrained vs. the effortless and wide-open delivery of the Essence.

So, yeah - a preamplifier that costs 3x as much as the Pass XP10 sounds clearly superior. Not much of a news flash, and a much fairer comparison in the Pass lineup would be the XP32 ($17,500) or at least an XP22 ($9,500). But what took me aback was how a preamplifier like the Essence could bring out so much life and nuance that was being curtailed by an otherwise fine piece like the Pass. The net effect was to make the musical performance feel significantly more tangible, visceral and unclouded - something that even the change of a DAC or amplifier doesn’t consistently achieve. The Gryphon Essence pre is simply an incredible conveyor of the musical signal.

And we haven’t even tried the amplifier yet...

The Essence Amplifier

Once I got my wife to assist in positioning the hefty Essence amp in the cabinet (safety first!), I hooked up the Audiovectors via my usual Audience Au24 SX cables and powered up the Gryphon using the stock power cord (the amp requires a 20A IEC connector, so standard cords won’t work). I played a bit with the Green Bias settings but obviously settled with it in red-hot Class A operation for serious listening. And while the amp has since benefited from multiple months of break-in, it was apparent from its first notes that the Essence had resolution, clarity, dynamics and tonal completeness on an altogether different level from any amp I’ve experienced in my system. But there was something else remarkable about its presentation that’s taken me many months to put my finger on, and I think I might be finally getting it.

The Essence amp has a very special ability to deliver the leading edge of a sound with incredible speed, precision and clarity. I’ve heard amps with fast leading edges (some attribute this to high slew rate), I’ve heard amps with very clean ones (lack of distortion and ringing). The Essence delivers a combination of fast and clean that is truly exceptional, and perhaps close to the state of the art. Every impulse and note attack hits you with perfect timing and delineation, then decay with similarly impeccable control. By comparison, amps like the Pass Labs that struck me as very pure have a bit of fuzz to them. Ever listen to an AM radio station when the signal gets weak, and all the starts and stops of sounds get staticky and fuzzy? There was a bit of that feeling going back to other amps in my system... no, they weren’t literally fuzzy and distorted. It’s just that the Essence amp sounds exceptionally lithe and clean, removing an extremely subtle layer of distortion that became difficult to un-hear in other amplifiers.

Coming from the Pass XA30.5, the Essence’s midrange was less overtly warm but even more substantive in tone. The Pass is certainly on the warm and lush side for a solid state amp, but past Gryphons I’ve heard had their own dose of chocolatey richness, so I was initially surprised by the balance of the Essence. It has the midrange density and lush tonal colors I was expecting from a Class A Gryphon amp, and yet it also sounds close to dead neutral in character. There’s a crystalline transparency that makes everything else sound a bit cloudy by comparison. Class A amps usually get the tonal part right, but can sound a bit sluggish or rounded dynamically; Class AB amps often have great transient speed but with some roughness around the edges and a bit of tonal hollowness. The Essence backs its exceedingly snappy and clean transients with real tonal substance and an infinite palette of realistic tonal colors. It can simultaneously preserve the gravitas of a string bass ostinato, the glowing warmth of a French horn, the delicate nasality of an oboe and the ethereal lightness of a flute all in balance. Orchestral recordings have never sounded this vivid and realistic in my home.

An interesting display of the amp’s prowess was in violinist Hilary Hahn’s recording of the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto (Qobuz). The album also contains Mozart’s popular “Turkish” concerto which probably gets most of the plays; the Vieuxtemps is infrequently performed and mostly known by violinists as a sort of advanced student concerto (yes, my teacher made me study it). Vieuxtemps was a Belgian virtuoso of the romantic era and while the concerto has its charms, its orchestration is rather clunky. This actually made for a fascinating sonic experience in the concerto’s orchestral exposition, where different instruments pass melodic fragments back and forth in somewhat disjointed fashion rather than the more cohesive harmonization and counterpoint you’d get from a German master. A flute here, a clarinet there, a timpani roll or violin flourish coming and passing - the Essence conveyed each one with striking clarity and trueness of timbre and dynamics, arranging all the instruments across the stage in perfect proportion. So much of the feel of an instrument lies not just in its tonal makeup but the shape and feel of its notes - the reedy breathiness of a clarinet, the ringing “bong” of a timpani, the firm attack of a trumpet, the brush stroke of a violin. This is where the Essence’s leading-edge precision and lack of electronic haze help it truly evoke the feeling of sitting on the stage with the musicians, each and every instrumental entrance having that tactile realism.

Having been a classmate’s of Ms. Hahn’s I also have first-hand experiences of her playing, and the Essence strongly evoked memories of hearing her performing in recitals or practicing in our conservatory. Though we were both teenagers at the time, she had already developed her distinctive tone and focused intensity, and hearing that reproduced so vividly through the Essence and Audiovector speakers is uncanny.

The frequency extremes of the Essence amp, particularly in combination with the Essence preamp, are also something special - the crazy-wide specified bandwidth of Gryphon components is no joke. The speed and tautness and slam of the bass brings realistic clarity to the foundation of the music. It’s bass that I like to call “sneaky” for the way it doesn’t unduly call attention to itself, but then will come out and smack you in the face as in a live event. Instruments like string bass or contrabassoon are naturally portrayed in the orchestration, rather than getting buried in the mix. The top end is extended and articulate, capable of bringing out all the energy and brilliance of string, brass and percussion instruments, and yet certain recordings that tend towards brightness actually sound warmer and smoother than I've heard before. It sounds so pure and free from distortion, so that if there’s any distortion already present on the recording it does nothing to aggravate it. Sibilants and tape hiss and clipping are still there, yet come across less obtrusively, making them easy to tune out in favor of the music.

Case in point: the DSD remaster of Strauss Don Juan, recorded in 1958 by the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell (Qobuz). My wife and I have listened to this recording dozens if not hundreds of times and while the performance is riveting, the recording quality has always been a bit hissy and strident. My wife asked to listen to it again on the Gryphon setup for study purposes and halfway through I remarked, "does this recording sound a lot less bright to you?" She concurred - we had never heard it sound so clean and natural, and for the first time I didn't notice the tape hiss at all. The Gryphon gear really does excel at extracting the essence of the musical performance locked in the recording, neither artificially filtering nor amplifying the distractions of its mechanical limitations. I’ve heard far too many ultra high-end systems that need absolutely pristine audiophile material to sound their best. With the Gryphons, every recording in my collection has never sounded more distinguished and compelling.

The sense of space that the Essence preamp conveyed with other amplifiers becomes even stronger in combination with the Essence amp. I have never heard the different sections of a symphony orchestra arranged so palpably. Winds and percussion have clearly delineated space behind the string section, and delicate clarinet solos that are typically a bit hazy in recordings are conveyed with both clarity and intimacy. There’s something about the Essence’s blend of clean transients, tonal rightness and harmonic resolution that bring out the distinct ambience and texture of each recording - the aural equivalent of the “mouth feel” of a wine. Going back to otherwise excellent amps makes everything feel a bit more homogenous, a hair less stimulating.

There are a couple of potential shortcomings to call out, and they may be interrelated. The first is that the bass in combination with the Audiovector speakers isn’t quite as hard-hitting as with, say, the 600wpc Class D Legacy iv2, or as what I heard with the Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated; nor is it as plump and room-filling as with the Pass XA30.5. Quality-wise it’s exceptional - fast and deep and pitch-perfect in ways they can’t match - but sometimes I just want it to fill out the space a bit more and punch me in the gut a little harder. I mostly miss this when listening to pop tracks, e.g. anything from Billie Eilish where the raw punch of the Legacy amp factors more strongly than the n-th degree of refinement from the Gryphon.

The other nit is that the soundstage, while vividly painted, feels a bit less “generous” than bigger-sounding amps like the Legacy or Pass Labs, or the Gryphon Diablo for that matter. There’s a bit more emphasis on the precise constituency of an orchestra, as opposed to its sheer scale - a little more of the trees, a little less of the forest. To some, this may make the Essence feel a hair light in presentation, despite its rich and layered midrange. Ears I trust tell me moving up the Gryphon line to the Antileon EVO or Mephisto can give you the best of both worlds, but those are obviously at increasingly exorbitant price points.

I’ll need to try tweaking these area of reproduction more (e.g. cables), but as it currently stands, I could see the Essence best matching with speakers that are tonally richer and a bit less critically damped on the bottom end, vs. requiring care with something leaner and more laser-focused. It’s slightly lean with some recordings on the Audiovectors, and I’d definitely want to check before paring it with the likes of a Magico. It goes without saying that when you get to this level of fidelity (and cost), you should expect to spend a fair amount of time and effort on component matching.

As a side note, I was able to further extend the capabilities of the Essence via Furutech’s DPS-4.1 power cord (custom built with 20A connectors) and DSS-4.1 speaker cables. These upped the clarity and transparency yet another notch or three, opened up dynamics further and created a wider sense of space on recording after recording. I’ll have more on these excellent cables and how they synergize with the Gryphons in a future installment.

Capturing the Essence

It’s been challenging pinning down the character of the Essence system, the amp in particular. Even more so than other great Class A amps I’ve heard, including from Gryphon, the Essence amp has a combination of purity, openness, refinement, clarity, speed and dynamic life that defy the usual idiosyncrasies and limitations of Class A vs. AB vs. D. It’s dynamically fleet, rhythmically incisive, tonally sophisticated, dimensionally resolving, and sneakily powerful and punchy. In combination with the superb companion preamp, it uncovers a sense of space in virtually every recording I throw at it with greater detail and palpability than I’ve heard before, without seeming artificially holographic like some tube amps. The tonal purity and resolving power of this pair are simply at a level I have rarely experienced anywhere at any price. Moreover, the name “Essence” couldn’t be more apt - all these sophisticated qualities are squarely focused on conveying the beauty and quirks of the original recording without need for enhancement or editorializing to make it enjoyable. The closest aural recollection I have of this sort of musical resolution was the MSB Reference + Magico M3 system at RMAF 2018, which had a significantly superior DAC and a total cost approaching $300k.

As for the price... well, I can say that the monies spent on a piece by The Gryphon clearly go towards obsessive engineering and craftsmanship in the service of state-of-the-art music reproduction, rather than ostentation or frivolous excess. This is musical fidelity of the highest order, and my new reference in amplification.

#review #firsttake #gryphon #amplifier #preamplifier #dac #audio #audiophile #hifi

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stolethekey · 4 years

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so, what’s the past for? i’ll need it if love don’t last long

notes: this is for @romanogersweek.

it feels a little weird to be posting fanfic right now, but i hope y’all take this as an opportunity to take a break from reading/donating/educating rather than one to leave.

donate to the bail project here.

read on ao3

Steve Rogers, long ago, was the man who never ran. He was the man who faced down his problems and enemies indiscriminately, who spat in the face of both Nazi generals and the very idea that anything could keep him from fighting for a better world. He used to be the paragon of bravery, the man who worked to uphold his reputation as the symbol of courage his country held in the highest regard.

Until that one fateful day, when he’d decided to run—away from the death and destruction, away from the friends he’d seen suffer too much pain to be truly happy ever again, away from time itself. He ran, straight until another timeline, hardly conscious of what he was doing until he ended up standing on the doorstep of a woman he’d last seen lying peacefully in a casket.

By the grace of God, or maybe the devil, Peggy had been home that day. After she’d recovered from her shock, she’d welcomed him in, he’d asked almost clumsily for a dance, and when the music stopped she’d pulled back and said, “I want to introduce you to Daniel.”

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he likes Daniel. Daniel is sarcastic and witty but warm and solid—a safe place for Peggy’s often slightly-chaotic personality to land. So he’d shaken Daniel’s hand and accepted his invitation to stay for dinner and then stayed the night because, honestly, where else was he supposed to go?

And then one night turned into two, which turned into a week, and then Steve ended up staying in their house permanently. They established a general rule that he was not allowed to tell them about the future, but could contribute to strategy discussions about missions he had never heard about. He helped them during the day and tried to stay up helping them at night, except Peggy started chasing him to bed with a broom a few weeks in.

He’s never liked sleeping much, but after—well, after everything, he likes it even less.

Some of the dreams he’s familiar with: the nightmares and memories full of too much blood and smoke and explosions that rack his imaginary body with tremors come initially, as he expects. Those he can deal with; those he has dealt with for years. The ones that he is markedly not equipped to deal with are the ones that come later: the ones that aren’t vague flashbacks or terrifying possible futures but vivid, specific memories, memories that leave him with an aching heart and stinging eyes when he wakes.

Steve thinks this distinctly unfair, given that these memories haunt his waking moments too; but his life has never been fair, and so each night he succumbs to more and more detailed recollections of moments running infinitely around in his head.

The worst ones are always about her. Those run his mind in what feels like slow motion, forcing him to relive even the most minute details of the days they were carefree and alive and happy, at least as much as they could be. He starts seeing flashes of vivid red hair and brilliant green eyes everywhere, and in his dreams, they’re inescapable. In his dreams, she’s inescapable.

In his dreams, Natasha is always there. Sometimes, she’s perched in the passenger seat with her feet on the dashboard where he’d always hated them, laughing at him as he steers the car down an open country road, the two of them alone in the car in the middle of the night. He turns the music up to drown out her laughter and she smirks, promptly deciding to sing along to the sounds of Out of the Woods coming through the stereo instead.

“Come on,” she coaxes, her voice still viscerally real in the layers of his unconsciousness. “I know you know this song.”

“I will not,” he says, but a smile is still floating unwittingly to his lips, and by the time he pulls into the open clearing he’s belting are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet, good with a fervor that would impress any concert crowd.

Sometimes, it starts in that clearing, with him shutting off the car and the two of them lingering in the darkness for a moment. He pulls open her car door, the moonlight filtering into the seat and casting a soft, silver glow over her features. She comes willingly, laying a blanket on the ground with a flourish as she steps out of the vehicle.

“When did Tony say it was starting, again?”

Steve checks his watch, and he’s seen this dream enough times to know exactly where the second hand is going to be when he does. “Five minutes.”

They settle onto the blanket, side by side, and he glances over at her. “What was the first shooting star you ever saw?”

She meets his gaze, her smile soft and nothing like the cold, calculating grin she’d given a certain arms dealer mere hours before. There is a brief moment of hesitation, and then she smirks. “You.”

His mouth falls open before he digs an elbow into her side, and she laughs. “Get it? Because you had a gun, and that stupid star on your uniform—”

“Yeah, yeah, a shooting star,” he groans, letting his head fall back onto the ground. “Shut up.”

She does, but only because the atmosphere around them tangibly changes—Steve feels it too. A second later, a jet of silver streaks across the sky, and Natasha sucks an audible breath through her teeth.

He looks over at her, and watches the second meteor through the reflection in her eyes—the silver makes them glean, and she grins at him.

“Enjoying the view?”

He shoves her, she laughs, and he thinks he could live in this moment forever.

Sometimes, they’re standing on top of a massive hill, gazing at the city of Rome, beautiful and regal below them. And even though it’s a dream, he can feel the heavy exhaustion of a battle just fought seeping into his bones, can sense the relief of another disaster narrowly averted cloaking his shoulders.

Natasha reaches for him, the streak of blood on her face looking real enough to touch, and gazes out at the sprawling city beneath the hill. “I almost wish we could stay,” she murmurs.

She doesn’t voice the rest of the sentiment—that they could stay here, in this world away from the world, and live normal lives. Become normal people, people who window shop and sit in cafes and don’t have to save the world every other day.

She doesn’t say it, because she knows he understands, and also because they both know it’s impossible.

“Me too.”

There are other dreams, too—dreams where they’re both tired and sad and frustrated; dreams where their friends have been snapped into thin air and the ones that haven’t been are gone too.

There are dreams where they’re the only two people left in the gigantic, designed-for-at-least-fifty-residents Avengers facility, where he walks into a room with zero lights on and her crying.

“You know, I used to think it was hard to tell when you were scared,” he says, trying valiantly to lighten the mood. “But not so much anymore.”

She looks at him ruefully through her tears. “You don’t have to do this every time.”

He shrugs and gives her the best smile he can muster. “I have no idea what you mean. I’m just passing by, and I don’t want to leave you if you’re crying.”

She glares at him, but gives a half-laugh, and he moves to sit next to her. He doesn’t say that he knows she tries to hide from him when she’s crying, that he actively tries to find her when he hasn’t seen her in a few hours. He doesn’t tell her that he needs her there, by her side, that he’s terrified he’s going to lose her, finally, irrevocably, for real, every time it happens.

Her tears subside, every time, and every time he leaves once they do. She lets him go, turning back toward the screens with a sigh, and he watches her back straighten as she goes back to business.

Never, in any of the dreams or memories or whatever they are at this point, does he stay. He would if she asked him to.

And then there’s the worst one, from the night before that day, where she shows up at his door before curfew with a bottle of wine in one hand and a key in the other.

“It’s for my apartment,” she says, placing it gently in his hand. “Just in case.”

She cuts off all of his protests with a sad, firm smile, then uncorks the bottle of wine and pours it into two of his water glasses.

They talk, about everything and nothing, and at one point she perches on his bed and tucks her knees into her chest.

“I don’t know if anything is ever gonna go back to normal,” Natasha says quietly. “It all feels broken, somehow. Unfixable.”

“What does?”

“Everything,” she says, gesturing at the walls around them. “Life itself.”

He doesn’t know why that hurts a little to hear, but he shrugs and stands anyway. “We still have to try. For everyone.”

“I know,” she murmurs, draining the last of her wine and standing too. “Trust me, I know.”

It’s the last real conversation they have, and it’s always the last one that plays before Steve wakes.

For weeks, Steve gets out of bed in the morning with tears staining his cheeks and a rush to the bathroom to collect himself, but Peggy intercepts his mad sprint one day and forces him to sit at the kitchen table and talk. He says he doesn’t want to and she gives him a withering glare that would probably topple a wall of solid rock.

He tells her about Natasha, about the aliens, the assassins out to kill them, the Accords. He doesn’t tell her about HYDRA, or about the midnight drives, the shooting stars, about Rome.

Peggy seems to understand anyway, and for some reason the sympathy in her eyes melts away some of the ache in Steve’s chest.

When he runs out of stories to tell, he starts talking about her past, about the way she was taken from her parents as a child and then trained in the Red Room.

“Those ladies are tough,” Peggy says with an impressed nod. “One of them escaped my locked trunk after I’d tied her wrists and ankles, then shot a policeman with his own gun on her way out. And that was when I was trying to work with her.”

“Nat almost never obeyed orders after she had turned,” Steve says with a laugh. “I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to try and work with her while she was still at the Red Room.”

“Well, she was the only one who could do the job. We needed her.”

Daniel snorts from where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter. “For the record, I thought it was a bad idea,” he mutters, earning him that exasperated but loving Peggy Carter glare that had once been reserved for Steve.

Steve is slightly surprised to find that he doesn’t mind at all.

As the years go by, the memories become gradually less painful. The ache becomes a little duller, the wounds a little less fresh. The Carter-Sousa household adds a third long before children come into the picture, and they slip with only minor hiccups into a routine that works for everyone. Steve’s only allowed in public with a disguise, so while Peggy and Daniel are at work he spends his time drawing, cooking, cleaning, and generally being a good housekeeper. When they get home, he helps them with plans if he can and plays old card games if he can’t.

When the kids do arrive, Steve teaches and nurtures them as his own, and he gets through it with only vague stabs of pain as he remembers the Barton family. They know only that he is hiding from the world and that no one can know about him. They grow into strong, incredible adults, and when they move out Steve wipes away a tear that matches the ones coating Peggy’s and Daniel’s cheeks.

Peggy and Daniel are older, obviously, when the house goes back to holding only the three of them, and Steve starts picking up more of the dirty work. They both retire far later than most people would, finally admitting defeat to bodies that just can’t keep up with their younger colleagues and targets anymore. It’s hard, watching them become unable to do anything but gesture in frustration at the news, but it’s not as hard as it was to arrive at Peggy’s hospital bed, so many decades before.

He’s had enough time, this time, with her. They’ve spent fifty years in the same household, they’ve had a life together. So he cherishes the wrinkles that now adorn her hands and the lines of her face, and he ventures outside to run errands with only the slightest twinge in his heart.

The only time he ever dislikes this whole arrangement is on a single grocery store trip.

He collects everything on his list with little issue, keeping his hood up and his head low as he peruses one particularly crowded aisle for the hot sauce Peggy likes. Nobody pays him any attention, and as Steve wheels his cart into the checkout lane he congratulates himself on a faultless grocery run—God knows he’s had some close calls.

One would think he’d have learned some lessons about celebrating too soon.

He’s aimlessly selecting a pack of gum and skimming magazine covers (Brad Pitt is the sexiest man alive this year, according to People) when he hears a laugh.

An unmistakable, once life-affirming, thought-he’d-never-hear-it-again laugh.

His blood freezes over in his veins as his hands go slack, the Trident mint in his hand falling onto the conveyer belt and tumbling underneath a couple bags of Doritos. He stares at the fallen gum for a moment, not seeing it at all, before forcing himself to raise his head.

She’s there, in the flesh, helping the customer in front of him—her nametag says Natalie, and her hair is darker than it was when he met her, but it’s definitely her, and Steve thinks he might faint then and there. His hand tightens around the cart as he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and stares at the date—November 15, 2000. Of course.

Steve is desperately trying to find a way to get out of this when the woman in front of him takes her last bag and leaves with a grateful wave. Steve swallows thickly as Natasha beckons him forward, smiling brightly at him as she does.

There is no recognition in her eyes—of course there isn’t—and something about being a stranger to her makes him want to grip the counter in front of him so tightly that it breaks.

She says something, but he doesn’t hear her; his ears are full of a roaring, sharp wind, and suddenly he’s back on a dark, foreign planet, a jagged cliff behind him and a limp body lying broken in front of him. He can feel the cold, tough dirt between his fingers again, can see the ice crystals forming on the strands of red hair he had run his fingers through so many times.

Her eyebrows knit together in mild concern as her mouth moves inaudibly once more, and Steve wrenches his mind back to reality.

“Sorry,” he manages. “What was that, again?”

Natasha gives him a perfectly practiced customer-service smile and says, “How are you today?”

“Great,” Steve says, trying and failing to keep an edge of panic out of his voice. “Just dandy. You?”

“Well, you know, a little nervous,” Natasha says easily, swiping a can of chickpeas past the scanner. “It’s my first day on the job.”

He remembers. He also remembers her seated at the foot of his bed, playing with her hair while she told him about one of the first missions for SHIELD she’d ever failed.

“I was undercover as a cashier at a Safeway—”

“O-oh,” Steve sputters. “I’m sure you’re doing great.”

“Well, so far, so good—"

“I had him, for a moment, and then I didn’t—”

“—But, you know, things can always change, right?”

Steve feels curiously as if his head is swimming, and he doesn’t think he can hear anymore. He wonders dimly if Peggy would find him, were he to faint in a grocery store.

“He’d somehow stolen my nametag while we were scuffling and I didn’t even notice—”

“Um, sir?”

“He picked the lock with the pin—”

“Sir!”

Steve jumps. His hand smacks against his cart on the way up, the rattling of the metal doing nothing to calm his nerves.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head to clear it. “Did you say something?”

Natasha frowns, and the familiarity of the sight almost sends him back into the recesses of his brain. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, trying to sound unconcerned. “Yeah. Long day, sorry.”

She gives him a sympathetic smile and hits the keyboard. “That’ll be two hundred and one dollars and thirty-five cents. Paper or plastic?”

“Uh, paper,” Steve mutters, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Thanks.”

He takes the bags off the counter as soon as she fills them, trying his best not to look like he’s impatient but still trying to move as quickly as possible. When the bags are all in the cart, he grabs the handle and speed-walks away, throwing a feeble “thank you” over his shoulder.

He looks behind him the entire way out of the store, relaxing slightly only when he turns the corner to a different area of the parking lot. Then, as he spots his car, he almost has his second heart attack of the day.

Natasha is standing next to the trunk with her arms crossed and a half-guarded, half-inquisitive look on her face.

“Do I know you?” She asks as he shuts his eyes, desperately praying that this is a dream.

Once it becomes clear that this is not, Steve takes a deep breath and resigns himself to whatever nightmare scenario happens next.

“No,” he says hoarsely, unlocking his trunk and gesturing at her to move aside.

“But you know me,” she says matter-of-factly, taking a step to the left and watching him place the bags she’d just packed into his trunk. “At least, you seem to.”

Steve stays silent as he finishes loading his groceries and shuts the trunk door, then turns to face her. “I’d rather not do this here,” he says quietly. “Where I’m exposed.”

“Okay.” Natasha shrugs. “Follow me.”

She leads him into a small, dark alleyway behind the store. Steve thinks the overwhelming scent of garbage is going to rot his brains forever, but he does appreciate that they probably won’t be overheard.

“So,” Natasha prompts. “Who are you?”

Steve hesitates. He’s made it decades without telling anyone anything—besides Peggy and Daniel, of course—and a prickle of anxiety is creeping up his spine at the mere thought of saying the words out loud.

On the other hand, that anxiety is nothing compared to the way he’s pretty sure his nerves are currently fraying at the edges, and he’s sure that Natasha would see right through him if he decided to try and lie his way out of this.

Besides, if there’s one person who can keep a secret, it’s her.

He settles on a half-truth, one that gets him out of most of the hard conversations but is still hopefully enough to satisfy her.

“I’m, uh, from the future,” he says carefully. “I promise.”

Her eyes narrow, her natural skepticism overtaking her features. He can see her brain working, can see her scrutinizing his facial expression, his body language, anything that might betray a hint of a lie.

“I believe you,” she says finally. “Some of the tech I’ve seen being developed…well. Do you work for SHIELD?”

“I did.”

“So we worked together?”

He gives what sounds like a half-laugh, half-sob. If meteor showers and midnight drives and painful conversations overlooking the city of Rome are “working together”—

“You could say that.”

She bites her lip, assuming the thoughtful expression he knows to mean she’s trying to decide whether she wants to know the answer to whatever question she’s going to ask, then tilts her head slightly. “Can you tell me one more thing?”

Steve nods.

“When I die, have I contributed something good to this world?”

He almost chokes on his breath, staring at her with equal parts wonder and horror. “How—Why—"

“You were a little too surprised to see me,” Natasha says wryly.

Half a century, apparently, is enough time to forget how well Natasha can read people. How well she can read him.

“You give more to the world than you could imagine,” Steve says softly. “You save it. More than once.”

Her smile is more relieved than anything, and Steve wants to bask in its remnants forever. This is a younger Natasha, a less-worn Natasha—he’d almost forgotten how she’d looked before the snap, before she’d chosen to take on a burden that was far too heavy for anyone to carry.

This is the Natasha that he’d catch dancing in the early light of dawn, carefree and lost in her solitary art, even if it was just for a moment. The one that’d been lost five years before the rest of her was, too.

“Well,” she says as her watch beeps, breaking Steve out of his reverie, “I should get going. I assume you know I’m not actually here to bag groceries.”

“Of course.” Steve moves to leave, then turns back towards the disgusting, garbage-lined alleyway, suddenly aware that his next words are the last words he’s ever going to say to her. That he has a chance, now, to do what he hadn’t been able to do so long ago.

He wants to tell her that the key to her apartment is still on his keychain, sandwiched between the keys to his car and his current house. He wants to tell her that his fingers brush against it as he unlocks the door or starts his engine; he wants to tell her that it’s the only thing he has left of her. That everything she has—everything they have—is going to be destroyed in about twenty years, that a big purple titan is going to ruin any hope he has of living a life that he is unequivocally happy with.

Instead, he says, “Take your nametag off before you go after him. Trust me.”

Maybe, in this timeline, she’ll remember. As she makes her decision on that icy, god-forsaken mountain, maybe she’ll think about today. Maybe she’ll think about this mission, the one that went smoothly, and wonder if he’d used his last words to make things a little bit easier. And maybe she’ll think about all the other ones, too, the ones where they fought side-by-side, and realize that this was him trying to do it one last time.

Her soul is hers, he knows—but he’ll help it move if he can.

The corner of her mouth ticks up in a half-smile. “Aye-aye, captain.”

He almost laughs.

#romanogersweek #my mcu fics #steve rogers x natasha romanoff #romanogers #prompt: timeless love

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vulpinmusings · 4 years

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Letters from Buxcord 2 - Razorback

After much delay, my RPG group returned to our Monster of the Week campaign for our second mystery. This time, Ash and his new companions look into strange happenings surrounding a rich family and an old slaughterhouse.

Samantha,

Any doubts I had about sticking around Buxcord are well and truly squashed now. It’s only been about a week since the Santa-squatch incident and I’ve already squared off with something much bigger and purely magical.

It started just a couple days after Christmas. I was trawling about town for more details on local legends in the hopes of finding some common sources or threads to follow, and wound up at Bayou Boating, the main tourist attraction in this small town. They had a list of “local cryptids” posted on the wall, but it included several creatures that, unless the names apply to different mythics than they do in Taryn, do not tend to live in or around wetlands. The one person on staff at the time – it is the off-season for boat tours – proved to be less than well-informed about the one local legend I asked him about. People occasionally go missing in the bayou after foolishly going out there on their own at night.

Well, I can’t really put all the blame for my not getting a lot of info on the clerk. I‘d only asked a few questions before I experienced a major pulse in the magic fields. It was almost a textbook example of the ripples caused by an inexperienced Mage casting spells beyond their ability. The pulse carried some lingering effects of the original spell, as I had a brief vision of a grinning shadow floating over the bayou. I set off in search of the source, but as messy as the spell had been it was also far enough away that the magic settled and the trail grew cold before I got more than a block.

Nothing else happened for a few days, until I crossed paths with Nollthep and Lea again. I hadn’t really seen either of them since the Santa-sqautch, and the simple fact that Nollthep was not in his shop and was asking after somebody should have tipped me off. Whatever that fellow is, he seems to work for some higher being and has little to no personal needs outside of running errands for his “Boss.” Lea is normal other than her instinctual persuasion magic, but her paths and mine just hadn’t crossed in the last week.

At any rate, we three happened to meet up at the local park where Lea was performing with some small-time Punk Rock band that sings in Spanish. That’s… I think the language matches best to Iberrian. Anyway, Lea’s singing was infused with a mesmeric effect that had everyone (except yours truly, naturally) in love with the whole performance despite her not knowing the language or the words very well. Nollthep wandered up to us after the show was over, asking everyone he came across if they knew of any Wiccans or anybody named Clemonte. When he got to Lea and I, his questions turned to the topic of whether or not humans need blood and hearts to live.

I don’t think I need to say how concerning that was, but I didn’t get a chance to press for details before our attention was stolen by a group of local law enforcement suddenly taking off in response to a call from a “Clemonte mansion.” That got Nollthep’s full focus, of course, and Lea finally recalled that the Clemontes were a wealthy but reclusive and disliked family in Buxcord. She alluded to some previous encounters with them that had left her particularly soured, but she agreed to lead us to the house.

The Clemontes live on a hill on the southern outskirts of town, with their driveway reaching all the way to the base of the hill. As mansions go, it wasn’t all that large, but the fountain in front had the ostentation of true Old Money. The butler who answered our knock at the door sealed the impression, and he would have turned us away on principle if Lea’s magic hadn’t kicked in and scrambled his senses enough to make him tolerant of three random gawkers intruding on his employer’s private business.

I don’t want to become to reliant on that kind of manipulation, but without the reputation I’ve got back home I might not have much choice for a while…

The police – a sheriff and two deputies to be precise – were in the living room questioning a young woman and paid us little mind as we peeked in for a look. The reason for the call was glaringly obvious: a disemboweled corpse had been hung on the wall over the fireplace with a graffiti-style pig’s head and the words “I’m back” scrawled in blood below it. A most disturbing sight, although only Lea showed any physical reaction. I, of course, am too experienced to let my revulsion get in the way of solving a problem, and Nollthep is too inhuman to even have a visceral reaction to such sights.

The sheriff and pair of deputies who were on-site were surprisingly fine with the three of us stepping in and asking our own questions. I’m hoping that it was just them thinking that we must be welcome since the we’d gotten past the butler, but it’s too early to rule out general incompetence yet. The girl was Sophia Clemonte and the corpse had been a security guard at the Clemonte slaughterhouse and had no reason to be in the family mansion. Sophia was shook up by the corpse, but she was more concerned about her younger brother, Cyril, who was missing. The police told us that the rest of the family were upstairs, so we decided to go up and interrogate them while the police were still busy getting Sophia’s story.

The Clemonte parents are named Archie and Penelope. Archie’s a bit of a boor and seems to hate magic on principle, while Penelope had the aura of someone with the talent for magic, albeit one she hasn’t used in many years thanks to her husband’s influence. From Archie, we got an explanation for what the message painted on the wall could have meant. About twenty years ago, an employee at the slaughterhouse had suffered a psychotic break after being fired and killed several people before committing suicide. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get more than that out of Archie before Lea insulted him and he told us to get out.

On our way out, we decided to check in on the last Clemonte, the eldest son Zachary. I didn’t get any sense that he’d inherited any of his mother’s ability, and he was callously unconcerned about the whole scenario and intent on heading out for a little walk despite all common sense.

Penelope caught up to us at the top of the stairs and, now out from under Archie’s gaze, opened up a little more about her history with magic as we headed back to the crime scene. She used to practice the Wiccan traditions, but gave them up years ago and hid her books away. Young Cyril had shown an interest in those books, and Penelope had given him one of the less dangerous tomes to look through. I convinced Penelope to show me where she’d hidden the rest of her books, and she took us to a surprisingly large room hidden behind a secret door in the kitchen. The room was full of not just books but all kinds of the stuff you typically find in the collection of those who follow ritual-based magic traditions. There was a book missing from the shelves, but it wasn’t the book Penelope had loaned to Cyril. Penelope said the missing book was primarily about summoning and controlling spirits.

(Be sure to clarify that I’m not talking about Spiriter Warlock stuff here when you relay this to the M’Dales. They’ll probably have a conniption otherwise.)

The sheriff had already had the corpse body-bagged when we returned to the sitting room, but I took a crack at searching the spot where it had been hanging, in case there was any lingering magic I could trace. I got more than I bargained for; somehow, I managed to briefly link myself to the mind of an otherworldly entity (other than Nollthep) for a few seconds. Demonic seems like an adequate adjective. I had to sit down and catch my breath, and Lea charmed the butler into bringing us some coffee while Nollthep went to search Cyril’s room and one of the deputies was sent out to bring Zachary back. Nollthep came back with the missing tome, and we discussed whether or not to let Penelope know about it. We opted to keep her in the dark until I’d had a chance to look through it.

After much too much time had passed without either Zach or the deputy returning, I felt a ripple of powerful magic underlaid with that same sense of the demonic and led the group outside to see what was up. Standing by the fountain, holding Zachary up like a stuck pig and with the deputy lying broken at its feet, was an 8-foot tall humanoid figure dressed like a butcher and wearing a leather pig mask that was bleeding from the seams. Reacting quickly, I wrapped the figure up in a Tangler while Nollthep produced a stack of playing cards and flung them one by one at the figure, as expertly as myself but without any spells attached. The thing barely reacted.

Lea ran over to try and save the deputy, but her magic betrayed her, draining life out of the man rather than putting more in.

I tried to engage the creature in conversation, just to establish that it wasn’t sentient, and then tried to see how it liked a bullet in the head.

Did I mention I acquired a revolver shortly after the Santa-squatch incident? It’s not my style, but without Carmilla around to handle the non-magical aspects of combat I have to make do.

Not that the bullet did any good in this event.

Nollthep tossed the spellbook to me and told me to try to find a counter-spell to whatever had summoned pig-head while he kept it busy. I quickly found a likely looking spell and started Weaving it together to the best of my ability. I hadn’t gotten far, though, before pig-head sensed the gathering magic and fled via dematerlization.

So, I learned that in this universe, evil spirits can sense when you’re trying to counteract the spell that summoned them to the mortal plan and can just get out of range before you’re done. That’s an unwelcome complication.

Once the dust had settled, an ambulance was called in. By some miracle, the deputy was still alive. Zachary, on the other hand, was missing all his internal organs as well as having bled out.

In the course of informing the Clemontes and the sheriff about what had happened in the driveway and some of our suspicions, Nollthep and the Sheriff got into a bit of an argument about whether or not magic is real. I could have gotten involved, but I was occupied with more important matters such as studying the spellbook and only rejoined the conversation when Nollthep left the room for a private conversation with Penelope and I overheard the Sheriff mention to Archie that there were reports of strange noises at the old slaughterhouse. Over Archie’s protests, the sheriff insisted that everyone stay put until the morning and left his remaining deputy to keep an eye on us.

Once the Sheriff was gone, I made it clear that I did not intend to wait around or leave the case in the hands of people who didn’t even believe in the existence of magic. I tried to conjure a basic mage-light to convince the deputy that I knew what I was talking about, but wound up with a tiny fireball instead. It was sufficient to convince the deputy, at least. Nollthep came back from his business with Penny and, naturally, agreed to accompany me. To my surprise, Lea also wanted to come along, because she figured that since I’d chased pig-face off once, the safest place to be was at my side.

It was a long walk to the slaughterhouse. It must have been abandoned shortly after the incident twenty years ago, because the place was empty and full of rusted equipment. I felt the presence of pig-face as soon as we entered the building. We decided that since pig-face had a… particular theme to him, we should start our search in the pork slaughtering section. The plan was to locate pig-face and figure out how to restrain him so he couldn’t escape while I cast the banishing spell on him.

In the pig area, we heard the sounds of actual pigs in the preparation pens and went to look. The things we found were mostly identical to normal pigs, but their eyes and teeth were more human than porcine, and they were munching on offal that included at least one intact human hand. Nollthep, working on the assumption that the pigs were sapient, attempted to cast a translation spell on himself and wound up just speaking gibberish and apparently losing his ability to comprehend Lea or me for several minutes.

Then we saw pig-face up in the rafters, holding a blood-soaked mallet. Nollthep produced his throwing cards and put some actual magic into them that briefly set fire to pig-face’s sleeve. The beast dropped down on us and walloped Nollthep. As I Wove a lightning bolt, Lea ran for cover behind me. She grabbed onto me briefly and, in that brief moment, the magic fell into place with my normal natural grace. The lighting struck pig-face, then arced off him and unlocked one of the pig pens. The pig-thing inside charged at Nollthep, but he swatted it up and into another pen with ease.

Pig-face came after me next, and I threw up a barrier to try and stop his mallet. I must have miscalculated, because the blow shattered the shield and knocked me back a bit. Could have been worse, I guess, but still…

Nollthep pulled out a chain of tied-up handkerchiefs and tried to tie pig-face up with them. It held for a few seconds, but not nearly enough time for me to even start the banishment. Lea suddenly ran off into the heart of the slaughtering area, and pig-face chased her once he broke loose. I got him in a Tangler, but it barely held him long enough for Nollthep to club him once. I heard Lea say something about finding the meat grinder that pig-face had first died in as I ran to keep up with the fight. I pushed past Nollthep and, in a bit of foolish desperation, tried to tackle pig-face and flip him off the walkway and into the machinery. You can probably guess how well that went. Pig-face had me by the neck and dangling over the suddenly active grinder before I could regain my balance. Nollthep whipped his hankie-chain around the specter’s arm to try and haul me out of danger, but pig-face resisted the pull and tossed a knife at Nollthep with his free hand. Then Lea found a meathook and chucked it at pig-face, and I was falling toward a mass of whirling blades and serrated rollers.

Reflex kicked in and I cast my Transport spell without thinking about how it would need to be adjusted. By pure luck, the spell not only worked but deposited me safely on the walkway away from the fight. As I made my way back to the action, I saw that my companions were in a bit of a panic thinking I’d just died (Nollthep apparently thought meat grinders just magically transmute flesh into meat or something and Lea didn’t see what happened). Lea’s grief was so great she actually summoned a big root up through the walkway and into pig-face’s arm just as the creature made a move to throw Nollthep into the grinder after me.

As for myself, I was starting to get annoyed. I’d cheated death by pure luck and pig-face was proving to very, very bothersome. Simply restraining him was no longer an option for me. He had to suffer a bit.

So I set him on fire. It didn’t do much on its own, but Nollthep threw on some sort of powder that exploded and knocked pig-face off the walkway. The creature threw the hooked chain from its belt and caught Nollthep by the shoulder, but I broke through the rusted chain with a simple Breaking before Nolly got pulled in after pig-face.

For reasons I don’t quite understand yet, being subjected to the same form of death a second time proved to be enough to end pig-face’s return to the physical world. Once he’d been thoroughly ground up, that persistent, buzzing sense of his presence vanished along with the human-toothed pigs. The gore they’d been feasting on remained, however. I took the hand I’d seen earlier for the police to check, in case it happened to have belonged to Cyril Clemonte. Nollthep went into a panic when I mentioned that theory and he swiftly dug through the viscera looking for anything that could be a heart. Once he found something, he vanished in a blink, presumably to deliver the goods to his Boss.

Lea and I returned to the mansion just long enough to tell the deputy what to expect when the cops went to the slaughterhouse and to hand over the hand. I then made sure Lea got home safely before returning to my hotel room.

When I arrived, I found a card on the bed. It invited me to visit a Madam Weaver, who apparently knows something that would be of use to me.

How useful it will actually be remains to be seen, but you may be seeing me or these letters sooner than I hoped.

With guarded hope,

Ash

#MOTW #Vulpin plays

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taylunae · 5 years

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My thoughts on Unbelievable so far...

Hi, 2021 Crescent here. I happen to come across this post on my blog, and as I was rereading realized how problematic it was. Where are the trigger warnings? Why was I throwing around the word r*pe so much? It's clear that I was new to fandom, and I've learned so much since then about being sensitive to others, so instead of just deleting this post, I'd like to give it another crack. To show to myself how much we've changed since 2019. Alright, here we go.

⚠️ Trigger warning ⚠️ discussions of SA

I've been watching a lot of TV lately. A lot. And I've been finding myself noticing the different ways that various TV shows are set up. You know, things like structure, main characters, presentation.

It's not very often that I can truly appreciate the presentation about a show. I mean, we all know I love Riverdale (I don't anymore) and it's an absolute dumpster fire of a show but that's not why I watch it. I don't watch Riverdale for the presentation, I watch it for the characters. (To be fair, I still like the characters, but I could only watch a writers room full of men make horrible decisions about characterization for so long before I had to dip) But, I digress.

But I'm watching this new show on Netflix, Unbelievable. And the depth and attention to detail is astounding me. The way that they are setting up the show is so artfully done that it actually amazes me. You begin to the show thinking that the main character is going to be Marie. But as the show progresses, you realize maybe the main character is Detective Duvall. And then Detective Rasmussen. And then you realize "oh it's not any of those." It's a hybrid of the story of two female detectives who are going above and beyond to solve an impossible mystery.

And I thought that this was going to be something that trivialised rape SA with young women. But it doesn't. It is The show talks about rape SA in a way that I'm sure every woman feels about rape SA. It's not playing it off as some awful thing that just happens. They don't say oh well. (That isn't completely true. I failed to mention that some of the characters do have this reaction, and that's what makes the determination of the detectives that take the case all the more validating) Even with one character who feels like she's forced to admit that she made a false report. That (referring to false accusations being sensationalized in media, which was incredibly common during the Me Too movement) is something fat that is in the media all the time but as they build the story you realize but that you can see this whole new perspective from women who report rape SA and then later come out to say that it was a false accusation. (I don't like that I said "new perspective" here. I think a more accurate description would have been a new perspective for me. Because this isn't a new perspective for some women, it's a very common thing that happens.)

In fact, that's one of my greatest fears about rape SA. Not that it will scar me for life. Or that I won't be the same person. Because I know those things are true. If that were to ever happen to me, I know that it will change me on a molecular level. The worst fear that I have about potentially being raped SA is the fact that if you're strong enough (this isn't about strength, it's about support. I remember I used to feel this way about SA. That is you didn't report it, you just weren't strong enough. Fuck that. All women are strong. This is such pick me, fucked up language that had been ingrained into me from living in a small town my entire life. Reporting SA isn't about strength. It's about the community you have behind you, and the people you keep beside you. Supported people can do hard things things) stand up for yourself, there are going to be people who say you made it up. And this show so artfully portrays that perspective.

And every other perspective. It's so well thought-out. And yeah, it's hard to watch. But it's worth the time. (This is one thing I got 100% right. This show is hard to stomach, and I still think about it two years later. I haven't rewatched, I don't think I could now knowing what I know about myself. Maybe I wouldn't like it this time around. But I'm glad I watched it then, it was worth my time.)

** okay, so some final thoughts from 2021 Tate**

I think the reason I had such a visceral reaction to my analysis, however juvenile it was, of the show is because since then I have done extensive work on myself through therapy. Through this therapy, something that we always came back to and talked about was my inherent fear of men. And we talked about how, to my belief, it was always something that had been a part of me.

We worked on that. And we came back to that. A lot. And one night it hit me. I had been preparing a lecture that I had to give to my students the next day about r*pe culture and how it affects the books that we read and something that I always do, because I teach in a small community, is I prepare for the worst, most bigoted statements that I can think of that my students might say and I pre-planned thoughtful, caring answers that restated my boundaries and corrected them to using gentler language to express their curiosity.

While I was doing this I happened to think about something that had happened to me when I was in high school that I had always looked at in a light of "oh that's a funny story to tell." But because I was already studying SA in depth with my students it was at the forefront of my mind, and it was then that I realized that what happened to me at a party in Grade 10 wasn't a funny story, I had experienced sexual assault. And if there was one thing that 2019 me got right was that it did change me.

Because that's when my fear of men started. I could almost pinpoint it to the day.

That's when I started being more cautious.

That's when my anxiety got unmanageable.

Once I had realized this, I immediately reached out to both my mom and my husband and told them about how I thought that I had been sexually assaulted. And just like I feared one of those people didn't believe me at first and required me to validate why I thought that it happened to me. My mother is an amazing person, and one of the most supportive people in my life. However, she also was taught about SA through a male gaze. She had never had somebody as close to her as I am tell her that that it happened to them. And unlike what I thought, it wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me. I had the opportunity to educate somebody else about exactly what SA means and entails. She cried with me and for me. She told me she loved me. And that was enough.

My husband came home from work that night looking lost. He had heard the story before. I used to tell it as a joke at parties. Yet, he came home and he wrapped me up in a hug and he said "I'm sorry that happened to you and I'm sorry that I didn't realize it was wrong until you did."

So like I said earlier. It's about support. I think about some of my earlier comments about how I used to know that if I was ever sexually assaulted it would ruin my life and scar me forever. About how I know that it would change me and I would never be the same.

But I've grown since then. I worked through this realization with my therapist for months. As I've grown, I've come to know other women who have experienced something similar to, or worse than, what I did, and I've noticed something. Did it change who we are? Of course. Am I scarred for life? No. I'm finding that no, I'm not. Did it change who I was on a molecular level? No. It changed me. It made me fearful, for a while. But I was going to change anyways. And I wish that I could have changed without experiencing something horrible, but I am stronger because of it. I'm not saying I'm grateful for my sexual assault, but I am grateful for the lessons I've learned since then.

I was just a child back then, and I didn't know anything about boundaries and how to assert myself or how to say no. But I've learned those things now, and I'm not afraid of men anymore. I wish that I had been taught those things then.

That contrary to what 2019 me thought, despite my realization of my SA, I'm okay. My life hasn't changed that much. And I know that I'm one of the lucky ones, in terms of severity. I know that I walked away and that means that I was lucky.

I'm realizing now that there are more nefarious things at play in our society. What started out as something small, the Me Too movement is now a global movement. And it has helped women all over the world. In 2019, I didn't think that we would live in a world where when somebody had sexual assault allegations put up against them, we dropped those people from sponsorships, and stopped carrying their shows on n*tflix. I never thought that we would live in a world like that, but we do. We don't stand for men who don't respect women, and we certainly don't support them and give them our money.

What's happening in Texas right now with the Ab*rtion Act that is being put out is exactly the kind of thing that will happen if we stay silent. However, it is amazing to know that if we speak out through our social medias and write to our MLAs and Senators that we can make change. We don't sit back and let injustices happen like we used to. We fight, and we set our boundaries, and we say no. And it is making a difference. And sometimes we all need that reminder.

#unbelievable spoilers #tate rambles

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whitecoatdiaries · 5 years

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The Notebook

We’re seeing a patient on endocrine consults who can’t regulate his sodium following brain surgery. I’m taking care of adults this month but he’s only 20 and his Mom does most of the talking in the room. The first day I meet them we’re only a few minutes into our conversation when she pulls out a worn spiral-bound notebook that I can see from across the room is full of pages and pages of cramped, furiously-scribbled notations. I’m surprised by how viscerally I react.

I know this notebook well. Last month I spent 6 straight weeks in the PICU. I conclude at the end of the month that there’s no place in the hospital as full of suffering as the pediatric intensive care unit. The parents are devastated: they shriek and panic and fall apart in front of me. I become adept at placing one comforting hand on a shoulder and using the other to grab the nearest chair, gently guiding the parent to seated (syncope is a common and generally avoidable occurrence here). One morning we round for hours with the steady wailing of a brand-new mother in the background. She delivered without ever attending a prenatal appointment. I find that parents’ grief is almost always flavored with anger, or guilt, or some confusing, human combination of the two.

The parents’ suffering is unmistakable. They do not ‘give up’ on their children-- they cannot. For 6 weeks I watch the vigil one Mom keeps over her 5-year-old. Her respiratory failure is so severe that even the ventilator can’t keep up. In some cases, we offer ECMO, which uses two surgically-placed catheters to drain the blood from the body, oxygenate it using a machine, and then return it to circulation, effectively bypassing the lungs. The decision to offer ECMO is a complicated one. It is an incredibly money- and resource-intensive intervention with significant morbidity, and most critically ill patients will die on it. The prevailing logic is that it should only be offered when we anticipate patients have a ‘reversible’ injury that they will recover from in a relatively short period of time (the longer a patient remains on ECMO the more likely they are to have a stroke, or other kinds of organ failure). We don’t know the cause of this 5yo’s respiratory failure so the argument is made that it could be reversible and that ECMO should be offered. It is, and she’s on it for 6 weeks. The team is divided. She shows no signs of getting better. We order medicines and infusions that cost thousands and tens-of-thousands of dollars apiece. Statistically, no one think she will survive this. We bicker over her lab values, her treatments, her oxygen and CRRT goals. The phrase “arranging the desk chairs on the Titanic” etches itself into my skull those 6 weeks. But her mother can’t give up. She won’t. The dynamic between the family and the team becomes vaguely adversarial at times. We often feel like we are being forced to torture a child that we know is almost certainly going to die. But children are difficulty to prognosticate about, and every so often they make miraculous recoveries, and so the parents hold out hope. And we consider that there is some sliver of a chance that she recovers. And so we do as we are told. One late night on my way to the cafeteria I see the child’s mother hunched in the hallway, bolting down a hot-dog just outside the doors to our PICU (food isn’t allowed inside, and there are no bathrooms for family inside the badge-swipe-gated doors either). She looks exhausted and famished and oddly guilty when our eyes meet, mid-bite. My heart breaks. The mother suffers. The child suffers. We press on, presenting our numbers and vent settings and rattling off the mile-long list of medicines she’s on every morning, resenting the Unit and the Family but probably mostly just resenting God and this God-forsaken place.

The parents suffer. The child suffers, in spite of but often because of us. With adults there is sometimes a moment of relief when we switch from aggressive interventions to comfort-focused care. After years of hospitalizations and side-effect-laden medicines and painful procedures, the patient rests. I get to see the family exhale. The patient opens their eyes, in a moment of lucidity, and says, softy “no more.” We listen. We are liberated from our treatment goals.

This moment rarely comes for children. There is no exhale. There is only a white-knuckled do-everything that seems to last until the very end.

And so I meet The Notebook. It usually sits on the bedside table, within easy reach of the parents. When we mention new medicines, changed doses, or trending lab values, the notebook comes out. My words get transcribed word-for-word often, and if there’s time I pause, spelling things and repeating phrases. Most families with chronically sick kids are well-accustomed to the frantic pace at which we conduct rounds and so their scribbles are hazy, misspelled, phonetic interpretations of the bizarre medical language we speak and only sometimes translate.

They flip back nervously, looking for evidence that their child has been on this medicine before. They know the patience of the medical team wears thin and so the page-turning becomes frantic. Somewhere in their notebook they are sure they have an answer to whatever today’s issue is: uncontrolled secretions, vomiting with the tube feeds, flushing skin after an antibiotic. It’s hard to watch.

The parents of chronically-ill children are often the most complete medical records we have. They know this and so police our treatments carefully, quick to interject if their child has had a problem with our proposed treatments. As the medical team, we feel complicated: we rely on these parents and their exhaustive lists. They coordinate the 15 specialists, fill the meds, know how their child best tolerates their feeds, know which meds best control secretions. But like all people, they are prone to all kinds of bias. My criteria for an ‘allergic reaction’ is strictly defined by a histamine-mediated response causing a certain set of symptoms. My patients’ parents criteria often feels like anything that correlates to a bad day, a weird look on their face, or an unexplained episodes of vomiting. They collect all of the information meticulously, scribbling in their notebooks, but it’s not always clear which information is important.

On bad, cynical days, I often think that we create monsters in the parents of chronically-ill children. They have learned that making demands, throwing tantrums, and raising their voice tends to bludgeon the team into doing what they what: prescribing antibiotics we feel are unnecessarily, keeping patients in the hospital who are ready for discharge, avoiding treatments that could be beneficial. If a patient’s safety is truly being compromised usually someone puts their foot down, but we make compromises all the time that feel ridiculous. At one rapid response, we can’t get a 7-yo neurologically devastated child’s oxygen saturation up out of the mid-80s. The primary and intensivist team quickly runs through the utility of different interventions in a medically urgent scenario-- if her oxygen saturation continues to fall, she could die in minutes. Upset that she’s not being listened to, the Mom piercingly dog-whistles at us to give us a piece of information that is irrelevant and unhelpful. We listen, calmly, placate her, and continue on with our discussion.

Afterwards, on returning to the PICU, I get angry. I do not intend to be whistled at like a dog in my adult life: not by men, not by strangers, not by my patients. 6 weeks of being treated poorly by parents starts to wear you thin. Their frustration and poor behavior is explainable, and each time I reach inside my reservoir of patience (filled on the occasional day off and unfortunately hoarded for my patients at the expense of those I love) and smile calmly, waiting for the tirade to end, but it gets old.

So when my patient’s mother pulls out the notebook, I both flinch and tear up. I can read her anxiety from across the door. I know intimately this impulse to record as an attempt to exercise control over the situation, control which I know will not be afforded to her this hospital stay. Her child’s short-term memory has not been the same since the surgery and he looks at her, worried, when we ask him basic questions. She rushes to answer them, trying to soothe him, promising over and over that it’s just temporary, that he’s still recovering. I don’t know that it is. I don’t know that he will. I know that there will be many, many questions that come from this notebook that we will patiently answer, and that our answers won’t change a thing.

#PICU #Dark Nights of the Soul #Palliative Care

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lightsandlostbells · 5 years

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Druck season 2, episode 9 reaction

This episode is hard to watch. It straight-up turns into a horror movie in the middle.

I’m obviously very excited to talk about Matteo’s season but I still want to do a thorough job with the last few S2 episodes, because I loved Mia’s season and think it deserves a close look. Hopefully I will get these done soon!

Episode 9

Clip 1 - Mia and Alex on the stairs

Mia is coming back from the shop talking to her mom. Bringing her parents into the story more at this point is not only relevant to their own marital issues, as we’ll see, but again, a reminder of what we’ve seen of them so far and a way to connect that Mia is projecting her family problems onto what happened with Sophie.

At first Mia tries to ignore Alexander, like she told him in her text to leave her alone. I don’t know if she’s so overcome with betrayal and hurt and shock that she thinks he isn’t worth her time, or if she just doesn’t want to face the truth. If she doesn’t talk to him, then he can’t confirm what Björn said, which would be devastating to her. But when Alexander wants to talk, she asks him outright if it’s true. When he says she can’t believe Björn, Mia points out that’s what Björn said about him. Ouch. It’s true that Mia knows Alex on a level she doesn’t know Björn, but that also might make the lies worse? Her boyfriend she opened up to and went through drama for vs. some dude she doesn’t really know.

He follows her into the building asking whether he knows how crappy Björn treated Sophie, and Mia blows up at him and says she doesn’t care who did what to each other. She’s mad that he lied to her about his sister. Because yeah, Alexander and Björn’s situation is a case of he said, he said, but the sister lie is pretty cut and dry. He told her she lived in Bali. Sophie is not in Bali, she’s dead. Therefore, he lied to Mia. It’s understandable she focuses on that. Alexander says it was just complicated and he would have told her. He’s not good at talking about that kind of stuff. Sure, I get that he finds it hard to talk about Sophie especially considering how she died. But you know, Mia would’ve had to find out eventually. When composing the guest list for their wedding, when Mia was like, “Hey, why don’t we invite your sister,” was Alexander going to be like, “About that...”?

At the same time, while I understand why it’s the sticking point for Mia, it’s also still one of the things I find most understandable from his POV? I mean, I really do have sympathy for Alexander here, and you could also argue that maybe he was even entertaining the fantasy that Sophie really was in Bali. It’s a pretty big lie, but it’s one that came from a place of pain. And the content of the lie isn’t hurtful to Mia herself, like Mia lying to the girls about being sick was hurtful to Kiki herself because it covered up her lie about Alexander; Sophie being dead doesn’t really hurt Mia in a personal way. It’s just the fact that it was a lie that hurts her.

Mia points out that he beat up a guy and then disappeared for several days. Again, that’s all of Alex. His silence was the most damning thing, tbh. If he’d texted Mia after it happened and gave even the briefest explanation (like “That guy hurt my sister”) then it wouldn’t be as messy. And by not explaining, he put Mia in the path to contact Björn since obviously Alexander wasn’t going to talk.

Alex says Björn is a psychopath, Mia say Alex is also not right in the head, if he can do something like almost kill Björn. He says she’s exaggerating, but ... no, she isn’t. All kinds of stuff could’ve happened to Björn, and I don’t care about him, but I do care about Alex not going to prison for killing a guy or severely injuring him.

He points out that she’s so pissed she could have pushed him down the stairs. Um, what? Which is also Mia’s reaction. Just from this angle, it looks like she’s angry and confronting him, and she grabbed his shoulder, but that’s not the same as pushing someone. But someone who is used to violence and abuse would think that. I truly doubt the thought even crossed Mia’s mind, it wouldn’t cross most people’s minds. So either that behavior is normal to him, or he’s just trying to counter her by making his own actions seem not that unusual. She says she didn’t push him and that’s the difference. Alex said if he did to her what Björn did to him, she would’ve pushed him. Man, that’s creepy? Like I know that Alexander is not a bad guy, and that Björn is a very bad guy, but he is being somewhat manipulative. Especially from Mia’s perspective, since she’s still in the dark, and Alex is basically telling her she’s capable of violence. As much as I would get a visceral thrill out of seeing Mia push Björn down the stairs, doesn’t seem to be the case.

Clip 2 - Mia and Amira on violence

Mia sits by a window at school, when Amira comes up. Hey, they managed to make this clip a windowsill scene like in OG, sort of!

The timing and context of this scene is pretty different from OG, obviously. With Noora and Sana, this scene happened before Noora told Vilde about her and William, so that was a critical component of the scene, the secret relationship, Noora being able to spill about William to Sana when she’d bottled up much of her feelings. This scene happens after Kiki knows, everyone knows, the happy ending should have been achieved.

Mia alludes to some Alex drama, then says she was truly in love with him. A lot of the dialogue here is similar to OG, such as when Mia asks Amira whether she ever just wants to get drunk and hook up with someone, and Amira says her faith is stronger than desire, and when Mia says her principles were the most important thing, but then since Alex, he’s the most important thing.

Mia tells Amira about the whole Alex-Björn-Sophie history and situation. Amira is surprised that Alexander had a sister. I wonder how plausible it is that so few people would know? I think it is perfectly possible, especially if the family tried to keep it quiet, but did Sophie go to the same school as Alex? IDK, it’s not really a nitpick, just wondering if there wouldn’t be any gossip at all, and if Sophie’s former classmates would have any idea she died, if there were any news articles about it, people posting memorials to Sophie on social media, etc. (I can definitely buy Mia and Amira not knowing, but Kiki would certainly be clued in to the gossip.)

Mia says she doesn’t know why she got involved with Alex because he’s not good. Amira is like, because he lied or because he beat up that guy? She doesn’t get it, why did Alex beat him up? Mia explains about Björn saying Alex blames him for the death of his sister, but that it’s not true. According to Mia, Alex twists her words, he says everyone in his situation would react the same way. Amira is like, hit someone with a skateboard??? My beautiful girl, we are on the same page with that one. But she also says, you don’t know exactly what happened between this guy and Alex, and you don’t want to know? Mia is like, is there a reason to hit someone with a skateboard? Amira says it depends what happened. I love her attitude here, I’ll get that that in a minute.

Amira is like, so it’s over between you, because of your principles? She says that when the fight happened with Hanna and those girls, she broke one of those girls’ noses. LMAO WHAT. Damn, Amira went hard. Were there any consequences for that? Not that I blame her since the other girls started the fight. Amira asks if Mia wants to stop associating with her, too. Mia says it was self-defense, they went after Hanna first, but Amira points out she doesn’t reject violence categorically. And well, it’s not mentioned, but Mia also jumped into that fight, she can’t cancel herself, lol.

The lesson for Mia is to find out the truth before she passes judgment. Amira is all, look, I’m not a fan of Axel either, but I saw how you two looked at each other, and maybe he deserves to be listened to. Mia and Amira share a little comfort moment where Amira rubs Mia’s arm and Mia puts her head on Amira’s shoulder.

Oh my God. They improved on this moment from the original show. You guys. This was my least favorite scene in all of Skam, and they made it so much more palatable for me. I’m so happy.

I was always bothered how Sana went to bat for William when she didn’t even know him. For instance, she says that William was angry and scared when he smashed the bottle on that guy’s head, but how could she possibly assume that from his motivations? I get assuming the best of people, but Sana doesn’t know William and she cannot accurately say that he’s a guy with sympathetic motivations and not some dude who just loves fighting and being violent. Like it came across as William apologia from the show’s voice of reason so we were supposed to accept it. Amira, on the other hand, does not make any assumptions about Alex’s motivations - she’s confused by what they were, and questions Mia’s hardline stance against violence, but she doesn’t jump in to tell us that Alex probably had good reasons for what he did. In fact, she says she doesn’t like Alex much, but she saw how Mia and Alex were together and maybe he deserves to have his side heard. I feel like this is what the original scene was trying for, and it somewhat got it across, but it was just framed in such a weird way, where Sana came across as defending William more than supporting Noora IMO, and in a situation where Noora was upset about him being violent. It was such an unhealthy message to be sending. Here I felt way more that Amira was Team Mia first and foremost, but she made a logical point by bringing up the fight to defend Hanna, and sure, it’s not the exact same situation, but it’s a decent way to illustrate that things aren’t always black and white, and maybe Mia should at least hear him out before she ends things with him.

And you know what? If Mia still wanted to be done with Alexander after this point, I’d be fine with that. Of course I know he has his reasons to do what he did, and I mean, from a story perspective I want them to end up together, but ultimately Mia is within her rights to say she doesn’t want to be with a guy who’s capable of beating someone with a skateboard no matter the reason. I felt like Amira was making more of a suggestion to listen to Alex, rather than a judgment toward Mia for not listening, which goes over way better with me.

Also, this scene is missing the part where Noora complains that William is controlling and she feels like she can’t argue against him, and Sana is like ... but does he get angry when you disagree? Then what’s the problem, that he’s smarter than you? That part of the scene has never felt right with me, first of all because William’s not actually that smart, lmao, all of his arguments are self-serving and it frustrated me that Noora wasn’t allowed to pick at the obvious holes in his bullshit. But more importantly, because it felt like there was no problem if William like ... didn’t Hulk out when Noora disagreed with him, that him getting angry was the only possible reason him telling Noora what to do or feel or think would be an issue. As if him trying to tell her what to think/feel/do in itself isn’t a problem, but also, completely ignoring that there are other ways besides anger someone can react unhealthily if you disagree with them. Like, for example, belittling you and calling you naive, something William does to Noora. Or dismissing your concerns as a tedious hurdle to get over, something William also does to Noora. Or turning your argument back on you, making you seem like the bad guy, like oh, you thought I was mean for saying something rude to Vilde? Well YOU were the mean one for saying rude things to me after that! Something William does to Noora. Sana’s response to Noora’s concern that William was controlling presented manipulative behavior within the limited manifestation of anger, when it can take so many more forms. And to be clear, Alex does say a lot of the same bullshit earlier in the season, during the date with Mia, but at least here Amira isn’t rushing to defend him. (And you know, if your friend tells you she thinks her boyfriend is controlling, maybe you should just accept her gut feeling and not try to talk her out if it. She probably knows better than you. Just saying.)

Clip 3 - Björn ruins everything

It’s raining and Mia’s headed to Alex’s. She run into Björn coming out of the building. Björn says he was there to see Alex, but he wasn’t home. Mia’s like, you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, maybe not for Alex, but anything that potentially leads to Björn getting his ass beat sounds like a magnificent idea, IMO.

They have polite talk about how he’s doing. He’s leaving but then turns around and apologizes for dragging Mia into this, it should be between him and Alex only. See, I can completely get why Mia might give Björn some benefit of the doubt, because outwardly he seems polite and thoughtful. He seems to be handling the matter more maturely than Alexander. Alex might be the better guy on the inside, but on the outside he can be rude and inconsiderate.

Mia starts to cry and sits down on the stoop, saying how everything happens at once. Björn sits down; he’s not overly in her face at this point, like he’s not trying to hug her or touch her, he just carefully asks if he should go and then sits down with plenty of space between them. Again, right now Björn doesn’t seem like such a terrible guy. It’s not like his behavior immediately pings as predatory.

Mia gets a text from her dad about her parents’ separation. Her mom kicked out her dad. Björn offers sympathy and beer. She says no, but he says alcohol can solve all your problems. So she agrees to a beer, and Björn goes off to get some. It’s pretty subtle, this moment, because again Björn seems like a nice guy, and in another instance, this could be a completely innocent suggestion. But he’s basically planning to lower her defenses. If she has one beer, maybe she’ll have another. And another. Maybe she’ll get drunk. Maybe she won’t be able to fight back. When Mia initially declines, he re-suggests it in such a friendly, helpful way, not like he’s pressuring her. But he does want her to re-consider. Like why does Björn care whether Mia has a beer or not, why is he invested? It’s chilling when you look back at this and see how his intentions were there all along.

While Björn is gone, Alex calls. He’s at school about to take a maths exam, but they express their desire to talk. They’re very polite and calm, not heated or emotional. They agree to talk tomorrow. Björn just ruins everything, they would have worked things out and Mia wouldn’t have been assaulted if Björn hadn’t been creeping around Alex’s. Actually, why does Björn go to Alex’s place? Is he stealing stuff? Trying to get Sophie’s things? He’s just a creep who gets off on the power of walking through Alex’s place when he’s not around?

Björn comes back with the beer and they clink to divorced parents. He tells her a story about his own family problems; he found chats between his dad and an old school friend, and his dad told him not to tell his mom, but his mom eventually caught the dad Skyping nude. Dad said Björn knew all along, so she kicked both of them out. But now he’s over it and gets along well with his parents.

This is a pretty interesting anecdote, honestly, because my initial reaction was, well, that’s shitty of Björn’s mom. It’s not your kid’s fault, the dad is the one in the position of power and the one who’s cheating on you, the dad is throwing his son under the bus. And then I was like ... well. If this story is true. Because this is something else manipulative of Björn, telling Mia a sad story that relates to her own family problems at the moment. Gaining her sympathy, opening up to her and telling her something personal so she feels she can trust him. I mean, Björn got me here and I know what’s coming in the story. If I momentarily forgot this guy’s true character, then it’s easy to see how Mia can feel like this guy isn’t so bad.

We don’t know if that story is true or not. If it’s true, then it’s an indicator of a dysfunctional family life and possibly a bad upbringing full of secrets and lies - definitely not an excuse for Björn’s behavior, though. Alexander also has a crappy family situation and he manages to not assault drunk girls. In any case, it’s a disturbing story. Björn says he’s over it and has a good relationship with his parents, but does he really? Is that just a thing he’s saying to make Mia think he doesn’t hold grudges? He’s not bitter at his mom for throwing him out as a teenager, he’s totally chill, he’s not the villain that Alexander said he was. He wouldn’t have an unwarranted grudge against Alexander or anything. The story not only makes Mia feel bad for him, but it makes him sound like a level-headed person who doesn’t cling to past wrongs. And the story also makes him sound like an innocent bystander, basically. Björn is the victim of other people’s indiscretions. And hey, maybe in this case it was true, but there’s something about it that primes you to think maybe Björn was just an innocent bystander in the Hardenberg family drama as well. It’s all pretty subtle but looking back on it, you see that sharing this story wasn’t just casual, it was strategic.

Mia says she doesn’t even know why it makes her feel bad, her parents are terrible together. He says it’s stupid to wish everything stays the way it was. They walk off together into the rain. It gets a little blurrier. Probably because Mia is drinking.

By the way, I love the presence of the rain in this clip. It might have been unintentional, it just happened to rain the day they filmed this scene, but I appreciate the atmosphere it conjures. Wet and cold, not super comfortable if you’re caught in it. Just something to add to Mia’s gloomy mood. (Or, you know, I also just like rain sounds.)

We see the two of them getting on the bus and Björn filming her for Instagram, through the POV of his phone’s camera. She’s not into being filmed, but Björn does it. Meanwhile Mia is opening another beer. Björn is getting closer to Mia, leaning into her for a selfie. Seems ominous as FUCK.

Clip 4 - Run away, Mia

Mia is still hanging out with Björn. NOOOOO BABY NOOOOO.

She says she has to go home and FaceTime with her dad, she explains her parents live in Madrid and that she’s 18 and lives alone, moved out when she was 16. Her aunt lives around the corner and used to check on her. We didn’t hear that before? I mean, maybe they weren’t super close, but auntie was an adult figure in Mia’s life monitoring her, that seems like an added bit of stability instead of a 16-year-old being completely on her own. But anyway, this part of the conversation gave me massive anxiety, because I was so worried that Björn was going to use this information against her. He knows she lives on her own, not with her parents, and I was afraid he was going to follow her home or try to go back with her and basically use this information to prey on her. I was utterly dreading that happening and hoping that like, Hans and Linn would be there to intervene and Mia wouldn’t wake up with Björn in her bed or something.

Mia says she doesn’t want to study, and Björn suggests hanging out with the guy her boyfriend almost killed instead. At that, Mia says Alex said Björn treated Sophie badly. Björn does not actually deny this, which is a red flag, IMO. He says that they treated each other badly and Sophie was complicated. Look, it happens in real life, instances where both partners in a relationship hurt each other, it’s mutually toxic, but abusers being like “my partner hurts me too” is a common defensive tactic. They shift responsibility for the abuse and present themselves as the victim, too. Notice he doesn’t elaborate on how exactly they treated each other badly, he just walks away, ending that line of conversation.

He sees some people taking a photo and he offers to help them. See, what a helpful, decent guy he is! Don’t think too much about the Sophie thing! Then he has them take a picture of him and Mia. (I love the one lady who’s waving at them, lol.) Björn has the guy take picture after picture, “one more” over and over. If I didn’t have bigger reasons to hate Björn, I’d want to kick his ass just for that, tbh.

Oh no, it’s even later and Mia’s still walking around with Björn, drinking. Lots of focus on the beer bottles. The night seems to get dreamier as it goes on.

OH JESUS that shot of Mia smiling and Björn blurred in the background, then switching to Björn in the background eyeing her. Fucking CHILLING, it’s like he’s eyeing her like prey. It doesn’t last too long and it doesn’t beat you over the head or anything with what a bad dude Björn is, but it’s enough to send shivers down your spine. It’s enough to make you think something is off, in case you too got drawn into Björn’s faux harmlessness.

I get why Mia would be out with Björn, because he has done a very convincing job of seeming normal and nice. She’s going through a very hard time, with Alexander, her family, not to mention other stresses like exams, and this evening feels like an escape. She can wander through the city drinking and feeling free and having fun. Björn isn’t asking anything heavy of her at this point. He’s just been a sympathetic listener and a chill companion. He’s managed to get to Mia when she’s vulnerable and wear down her defenses with alcohol. This guy is a skilled manipulator.

Clip 5 - Kill Björn, for real

Mia just keeps drinking. Oh no. She’s getting dizzy and drunk. She checks her phone and sees how late it is. . I like how the camera is all wobbly and gets blurry at points, like she’s so tipsy that it takes a moment to focus on her phone. She realizes she has to get home. Björn stops her. He tries to kiss her and she steps back, her giggly relaxed mood gone. She says she’s going to drink water. She goes into a bar or restaurant or something and is in the bathroom drinking water from the sink. (The graffiti reflected in the mirror says Eazy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, by the way. Truly the most important detail of this scene.)

Mia pukes a little into the toilet. She moans as if in pain. Things are getting very unstable and unfocused now. The sound effects and cinematography are ominous as hell, like this went south real fucking fast. There are a lot of closeups so you only get brief glimpses of what’s happening

OH MY FUCKING GOD HE’S BEHIND HER, WE SEE HIM STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND AS SHE’S HUNCHED OVER THE TOILET

Jesus CHRIST this is filmed similar to a horror movie, like he’s Michael Myers or some shit. Seriously, they film Björn similar to a slasher villain, his face blurred out, his figure unfocused in the background. Poor Mia is sick and feeling miserable so she doesn’t even notice that he’s behind her.

Was he locking/barring the door?

…. What is he doing?

HOLY FUCK IS HE JERKING OFF AND FILMING HER, DESPICABLE

The sound of his breathing as he does that ... JFC, he IS Michael Myers.

The look on her face when she realizes she’s not alone, damn. She gets up and shoves him aside, says to leave her alone. Thank God she was able to escape.

Mia gets outside and there’s some slow motion as she runs through the streets disoriented. She gasps when some guy asks if she has a light. Everyone is a threat now. She must also be worried that Björn has caught up to her or found her.

Björn texts her the pictures he took of her that day, going from smiles and happiness to Björn filming Mia from behind in the bathroom. The way the clip ends on her heavy breathing makes me think of Alexander’s panic attack and the focus on his breathing.

So we’re still doing this storyline, with only two episode left. I am glad that they didn’t drop such an important theme of S2; earlier, as we were getting closer to the end of the season with this plot not happening, I thought they might not include Björn assaulting Mia, but that sexual assault would be brought up because it turns out Björn raped Sophie and she ended up committing suicide because of it. I definitely wouldn’t say they toned down the assault but they did omit a part that would absolutely require more screentime than is perhaps possible at this point, when Noora thought she may have been raped but is unsure because she blacked out. That was like a two-episode plot point, there were scenes that focused on her finding out the truth. Something terrible happened to Mia, but it seems like she’s mostly aware of what happened; she was drunk but she didn’t black out. Narratively that’s better for the remaining time in the season, it would be waaaaaay too intense to cram in Mia trying to figure out if she was raped by Björn while she was unconscious, on top of wrapping up everything else in the season.

This clip was really, really good. Horrifying, but well-executed. The reveal of Björn standing behind Mia in the bathroom caused genuine fear in me. It was pretty clear about what happened but it didn’t cross over into unnecessary grossness because they had Björn be shadowed and his movements be kind of obscured, like it was shocking but didn’t feel like the moment was done for shock value, if that makes sense.

Clip 6 - Mia shutting out the world

Mia is lying in bed. She’s got wet eyes but she almost seems all cried out.

Hanna texts her about missing her bio exam, oh no. Mia says she’s sick. Nooo, Mia, don’t cut yourself off from your friends about this.

Hans and Linn come in and say Alexander is here. Mia says she’s sick, and the roommates already told him that but he won’t leave. She still doesn’t want to see him. However, Alexander comes and knocks on the door. She gets up and locks it. I like that moment, how careful and quiet it is, but also how simple it is, like she doesn’t seem to be debating it too much, she just knows with utter certainty she cannot face Alexander right now, and that’s heartbreaking.

You can hear Alexander trying to open the door and calling for her but it gets blocked out when Mia gets back in bed and sticks in her earbuds and listening to sad music - like the reverse of that earlier scene where she took out the earbuds to be able to hear him. There she was slowly opening up to Alexander, here she’s decisively trying to shut him out.

I like that the camera gets so close and focused on Mia toward the end, like she’s shutting everything else out. Except her own thoughts, those she can’t escape. The closing images after Mia shuts her eyes are flashbacks to last night, the trauma lingering.

Clip 7 - New Kiki is an upgrade

It’s a few days later. Mia is on her bed, looking at her computer. Hans says the kitchen is on fire and to come help, and lmao, I love that this is apparently plausible enough that Mia doesn’t call bullshit, like Hans could genuinely be burning down the apartment right now. which I guess was to lure her out of her room. But of course it was really to lure Mia out of her room, and when Mia opens the door, he says it’s a lie, and that she has a visitor.

Kiki is there, and she is wearing big round glasses that are utterly adorable. I love this development for how cute she looks and because of what it says about Kiki’s potential development. I don’t know, is it still considered uncool to wear glasses, or have we moved beyond that? But I do think that an image-conscious person like Kiki wearing big round glasses is a nice sign of her being more comfortable in her skin.

Kiki asks about her and Mia says she’s sick with a fever, Kiki doesn’t buy it. Worth mentioning that the last time Mia claimed to be sick, it was also fake, so Kiki is gonna suspect another fib right away. She says that Hanna said Mia missed her biology exam and didn’t call in sick. Mia said she forgot. Mia :(

Mia says Kiki doesn’t have to take care of her when she’s been a terrible friend and Kiki has better things to do, but Kiki shuts that down, saying Mia Winter doesn’t whine and she doesn’t pity herself. Heh, I love that Mia tried to push her away but Kiki seems totally over the drama, which is a big step considering a few weeks ago she was posting angry IG stories showing how she was pissed at Mia.

That gets through to Mia a bit. She says she likes Kiki’s glasses. Kiki does that expert push-up-the-nose gesture glasses wearers learn to perfect and thanks her, saying Carlos thinks they’re ugly. Mia correctly is like, he has no taste, you look fantastic! Kiki says she thinks so, too. Awww! Kiki was so willing to change herself for what Alexander wanted (trying to get a new perfume because Alexander didn’t like hers) that it’s nice to hear she doesn’t give a fuck what her boyfriend thinks about how she looks. It’s about what Kiki likes about herself, not a boy.

I like Carlos and all, but he’s the one in need of glasses if he doesn’t think Kiki looks good in hers. I mean that is legitimately a terrible opinion. This is why girls should not listen to boys’ hot takes on their appearances

Kiki says she’s feeling really good, although Carlos tells her she should go to a therapist because she’s so concerned about gaining weight. Mia is like, that’s what I’ve been telling you since we’ve met! Kiki says she never said it so directly. Well … fair point, from what I recall? Did Mia ever outright say Kiki should try therapy, or has she always been carefully walking up to the subject but never quite getting there? Really I’m not sure Kiki would have tried therapy before, and I don’t want to pin it on her getting a new boyfriend and valuing his opinion, but I also think the fact that she’s no longer chasing someone who isn’t interested in her, trying to keep his attention, does a lot to push the focus back to herself. Not what Alexander wants, but what Kiki wants.

Mia asks if she’s going to do therapy, and Kiki says she’s already been to a therapist, who is a tree hugger. Yesss, Kiki went to therapy! Honestly I would’ve expected her to put up more of a fight about it, considering she didn’t believe there was a problem for a long time, but it seems she’s accepted it. Mia says it helped her, and explains to Kiki that when she was 13-14 she was so lovesick she didn’t want to eat anymore and got sent to a psychologist after collapsing at school. She didn’t like it at first, but now realizes she wouldn’t have been able to get better if it weren’t for the psychologist. Kiki asks why she thinks she has to deal with everything on her own, then. Mia doesn’t really have a response to that. Kiki holds Mia’s hand and says they’re all there for her. Kiki hugs her as Mia tears up

Such a great scene, and I LOVE that Druck is having characters talk about therapy and normalizing it. We’ve heard about Mia, Kiki, and Alexander going to therapy, and it’s treated not as a scary or shameful thing, but something that’s a real option to help people live better lives. I love that Kiki seems to be in a better place but still acknowledges that she could use help for her weight-related anxiety. I love that they acknowledge that going to therapy doesn’t instantly solve your issues, but that Mia says it ended up being instrumental in her recovery. It’s just a very thoughtful inclusion and I think it’s part of why I feel Druck really wants to help teenagers in the way that Skam did.

Clip 8 - Björn fjucked up

That was a typo in my notes that I have made more than once and I decided to keep it.

Mia waits for Björn in a bar. When he enters he tries to touch her in greeting, and I feel my inner Ripley rising. GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH. Mia is not receptive to his touch.

Björn tries to order a beer for her - he doesn’t ask, just orders, but she says she doesn’t want one. He was probably trying to get her guard down again, seeing how well it worked last time. He even tries to get her to change her mind like last time, saying it’s on him. Trying to seem all friendly and generous again. But Mia is aware of his true character now.

Björn wants to sort out this drama quickly, how dismissive. He apologizes for what happened, saying he was wasted. But when Mia is unimpressed, Björn says he misintepreted the signals Mia gave him, so let’s not make a #MeToo thing out of this. FUCK YOU, DUDE. He says she flirted with him and now she’s embarrassed. Shifting the responsibility, making it Mia’s fault. Mia’s like, I sent you signals to whip out your dick in front of me? Seriously. Even in a hypothetical scenario where she had been flirting with him, how do you make the leap from flirting to taking your dick out, like isn’t that wildly extreme? And how do you interpret Mia as flirting when she had just backed away from a kiss outside? That’s a pretty clear stop sign. Björn says he was drunk, what is she going to do if she really gets harassed? Goddamn. Druck has the abuser response playbook absolutely down perfect, I’m pretty impressed at how they nailed the typical bullshit excuses.

Mia says he did sexually harass her and that she reported him. Björn is like, are you serious? He confides that he has a criminal record and this won’t look good for him. LMAO, not her problem you have a criminal record, dude. Shoulda thought of that before you took of your dick. And why the fuck do you have a criminal record?

He starts to get emotional and almost sniffly (manipulative) but Mia holds her ground. Her face is just unresponsive and unsympathetic and I love it. She’s not cracking. Then Björn asks her if she’s shown the pics to Alex, and Mia shakes her head. He says he’ll show them to Alex. Björn is pissed because her psychopath boyfriend almost broke his neck, and now Mia wants to report him over nothing, according to him. He says he’s just fighting back. Again, I fucking love how stone cold Mia is. Let Björn lash out all he wants, he’s not getting through to her.

Björn says if Mia doesn’t take back the report, He will show Alex the pictures and report him for grievous bodily harm. FUCK. I think she has a very brief moment of consideration, probably for what will happen to Alex, but Mia says, go ahead, he deserved it. DAMN GIRL. STONE. COLD. Björn says what does she think the police will do when they were alone, no one saw them, and she was drunk? Mia says maybe he would’ve gotten away with it a few years ago, but times have changed. And yes, maybe this is awfully optimistic of her. It’s not like #MeToo and related movements have made it so victims always get justice, that they are always believed and supported. There is still a long, long way to go. And of course I understand that things are not simple and there are reasons why victims would not want to report. But I still like that this is the message. I feel like it’s important to show that Mia will not be silenced and that she isn’t discouraged from reporting. Of course it’s never easy, but this is part of how the world changes, when women speak out.

Björn accuses her of trying to fight some feminist war, she says yeah (lmao that backfired on him, feminism is not a dirty word for women like Mia) and that she’s not going to keep her mouth shut even if the police can’t prove anything. It’s not blackmail, it’s the truth.

Björn gets up to leave, but before he goes, says Mia is brave, totally alone. One final attempt from him to get her to back down. Mia says she’s not afraid of him. Not gonna lie, I was waiting for that beer on the table to get thrown in someone’s face or for Björn to slam it down and break the glass or something.

After he goes, she takes her phone out of her pocket and says, he’s gone, I’m coming over to you now. She sees a bunch of text messages of support from the crew. Awww, the girls. So were they listening to the conversation? Recording it, hopefully? Because Björn just incriminated the hell of out himself. Not like he denied taking out his dick.

I do wish we had seen more of the girls prior to this scene, because Noora telling her friends was so important in that story. Even if Mia just told Kiki when Kiki visited, that would’ve been really great to see. But I do like that it proves how wrong Björn is when he says she’s totally alone, for that claim to be countered immediately, when we see the whole time she had people on her side.

Social Media/General Comments

Mia’s mom sends her a quote from Julia Engelmann, saying it moves her and she would like Mia to contact her. Google tells me she is a German actress who does slam poetry. I don’t know if there are any specific connotations with her, let me know if there’s something to this person that’s especially relevant to this story. Anyway, the quote is “Everything’s good, but never good enough. I don’t let go enough but allow way too much.” And regardless of the intent of the quote, in the context of Mia’s mom, I think she’s trying to say how her life isn’t what she wants. She feels stifled with Mia’s dad, she’s feeling restless. She wanted to hang out with Mia but something about it almost felt like she just wanted to get away and hang out in Berlin as much as see her daughter. Her life is OK but she craves more, and she isn’t as free as she wants to be, she allows too much from Mia’s dad. Mia is independent and this season she’s been letting down her guard to let someone else in, Mia’s mom wants to be independent and seems like she’s shutting out her husband.

So there’s a clip of sorts between Mia and her mom, that wasn’t in the episode itself, but was posted on the YouTube channel. It’s a video chat. Mia’s mom says she and the dad are separating, and what we learn from Mia is that this isn’t the first time it’s happened, or said it was going to happen, and that obviously Mom went back to Dad before. Mom says she was too weak it call it quits for good before, and now Dad is begging her to stay. Mom didn’t tell Dad, though, she thinks he just has to know that she can’t stand him anymore. Errr, not a great plan? As Mia points out, she’s just going to treat him like shit until he leaves. Mia describes this plan as cowardly. Now Mom gets upset and says Mia is making accusations. Mia thinks she deserves them because she’s playing with her dad and keeping him in suspense instead of being honest. Mom thinks if she throws him out, Dad will just come crawling back, and she’ll have to be the bad guy by breaking up with him. Mia says yeah, sometimes that happens. Mom doesn’t want Dad to hate her. Mia says sometimes that’s how it works. This actually gets through to her mom, like she seems to realize it has to be this way before she ends the call.

It’s amazing because Mia seems to be a lot more mature than her mom, like Mia’s mom is an adult and Mia is a teenager. But Mia also had to grow up faster by being independent and living on her own.

Mia also learned the same lesson earlier this season. She avoided telling Kiki the truth, in an attempt to avoid conflict, not have Kiki hate her, and not deal with the consequences of her relationship with Alexander. But eventually everything was discovered and exploded. Sometimes you have to be the bad guy if you’re going to be honest.

More Jonas messiness as Matteo asks if he wants to know if Hanna hooked up with boy Sam, Jonas says no, but then seems curious when Matteo says she didn’t. Later, Matteo texts Jonas as Jonas is missing his history exam. Jonas seems way too casual about oversleeping and missing the test, he’s not freaking out about it as most people would. My boy, you are all over the place.

Mia texts Hans to come get her and it has such a feeling like Isak texting Eskild after the hotel scene, I love it. I don’t think Hans realized the depth of what happened to Mia just from that short text conversation, obviously, but he came and got her without questions. I enjoyed this especially because at times Hans has seemed more selfish and careless than Eskild was, but we see that he really does have a thoughtful caring side here.

I lost track of some of the SM stuff at the time, but I heard Mia deactivated her Instagram after the assault? If so, ouch, poor Mia. Also a good use of the real-time and SM format.

When Mia texted Björn to arrange a meeting with him, Björn was so overly friendly, using happy emojis, and he said she could come to his place. UGH. Red fucking flag. Mia thankfully suggested the bar without acknowledging what he said. But it just grosses me out how innocent he tried to make himself come across, as if their last encounter didn’t end in Mia running away from him.

There was a ton of fandom drama because Björn’s actor decided to post some stuff on IG about how in a parallel universe Björn and Mia were the OTP or what the fuck ever, and then went on a rant all Alt Er Love when people pointed out it was messed up to glorify his sexual predator character. I didn’t pay a ton of attention to it because at best it was cringe-worthy and probably an attempt to win over the Skam fanbase, at worst gross and inappropriate, like I get it, as an actor you have to get into your character’s mindset, and a guy like Björn probably doesn’t think he’s the bad guy, he’s the one being wrongfully accused. But you shouldn’t carry that abuse apologia when you’re done with the job. Anyway, I don’t think we’ll see Björn after this so ... bye.

I’m not German so feel free to elaborate, clarify, or correct anything that I missed or misunderstood

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#druck reactions #druck

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davidmann95 · 6 years

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why os batman great?

I tend to focus on the guy in the red cape at the expense of my second-favorite character, but let’s make something very, very clear: in terms of the sheer scale on which he and his iconography have imprinted onto the popular consciousness, the ratio of output to quality across all mediums for a character that’s experienced the kind of proliferation he has, and his ability to not only endure but remain at the forefront of the genre he practically co-founded across decades, Batman is easily the greatest superhero of all time.

Explaining why that’s the case is tricky to truly, substantively get right, because there’s a difference between what makes him great as a character, and what’s made him the most popular character in the world. Not to remotely denigrate the attention span/intellect of the average moviegoer or suggest they don't 'get it', but I have to imagine most people don’t love Batman because they've extensively thought about his complex motives and the fascinating symbolism that rules his world, but because he drives the world’s dopest car over to his job of suplexing crime into the pavement, which is valid because that rules. So we’ll start at the immediate mass-appeal stuff and work our way down, and the big one is something we’ve already touched on:

Batman’s cool as hell

There are certainly contrarian souls who would argue that Batman is not, in fact, relentlessly awesome. Think about him for a couple seconds, they might note, and he’s a silly manchild living in his parents’ underground basement who can only emotionally engage as an equal with literal children; they might drive the point home that his particular brand of macho hyper-capitalist performative Hard Man edginess is both shallow and ultimately passe. And if you’re engaging in a character-centered examination of his archetype as in The Lego Batman Movie or Morrison’s work with the character, those are fine points. But in terms of whether or not he’s surface-level cool? Pull your head out of your ass, peel open your eyes, and engage with the larger culture for a second: Batman is as close to objectively rad as it is possible for a concept to be.

Batman wears black body armor and drives awesome cars and sounds like Kevin Conroy. Batman lives in a mansion that also has a cave in it, and wears the slickest suits when he’s not being Batman, because Batman can buy anything. Batman is ripped and sexy.* Batman knows every martial art and parkour and can blend into the shadows, and he has a belt of James Bond gadgets. Batman is a genius who’s always ten steps ahead and can escape any trap. Batman has a pitch-black sense of humor. Batman is vicious even as he’s utterly cool in the face of danger. Batman fights horror movie villains of the supernatural, monstrous, fetishistically disturbing, and plain ‘ol slasher varieties, and wins (when he’s not busy dancing across the rooftops in pursuit of a leather-clad Anne Hathaway/Michelle Pfeiffer/Julie Newmar). Batman’s climbed his way back from chemically-induced psychosis, a shattered spine, and the gates of death, all by wit and sheer brutal force of will. Batman has a city that’s New York and Chicago and Vegas and Hell rolled into one, and when he’s needed it literally blasts his logo onto the sky in public acknowledgement of his supreme coolness, but he also travels the world to other cool-looking exotic locales so he can be cool there too. Batman has theme songs by Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. And crucially, in spite of all of this, Batman is tormented. You can argue the validity of those conventions on an intellectual level, but what it amounts to is that Batman is a kickass figure of the night who’s the best at everything and has the best of everything, snarling all the while even as he keeps an air of amused detachment about the whole affair, and those are archetypes that humanity’s long since given the thumbs up as constituting capital-c Cool. We like people who can kick ass, the outlaws, the capable and the mysterious, so long as they’re in good stories that let us buy it. And more than anyone in pop culture aside from maybe Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine - and that dude’s done, while the Dark Knight forever remains - he’s That, the superhero.

* Yes, his depiction is more typically centered around a straight dude perspective of male physical perfection than anything actually particularly sensual or alluring, but the intent’s clearly there, and when you’ve been played by Clooney and Affleck I figure you get to claim ‘sexy’ as a fair semi-universal descriptor.

Batman is spooky

Of course, if cool was all there was to Batman’s general persona, he wouldn’t be cool at all, he’d be Poochie in a Dracula cape (which given it will presumably last until the heat death of the universe is a premise The Simpsons will inevitably have to get around to at some point, so remember you saw it here first). But what backs it up and lets people take it seriously is that he’s spooky. Not necessarily frightening - though he can most definitely be that too - but there’s an ethereal, shadowy aspect to his world that goes beyond the fright mask. It can take many forms for many situations and versions of him and his setting: lurking on a gargoyle over an alleyway, waiting for some poor unsuspecting punk to try and stick up an innocent family only to drag him ten stories up and leave him sobbing for his mother; karate-chopping his way through deathtraps and colorful henchmen, which for all its unabashed fun still carries the air of Halloween pageantry and neuroses let loose; haunting the grimiest parts of an urban hellhole, waiting to burst through the window of a roach-infested apartment or a musty disused warehouse to break bones and spill blood; appearing from nowhere, grappling with mind-bending chemical trips and fighting to stay one step ahead of killers in the shadows, dueling mad rich perverted cultists and literal demons of the underworld, overlooking a shadow city forever in flux to reflect the horrors of the moment. Even at his most innocent, there’s something irreducibly seedy and violent and enigmatic about Batman, and that not only provides immediate distinction and character to him and his surroundings - one that distinguishes both from their contemporaries - but legitimizes the entire enterprise as something that can be taken seriously.

Batman is playful

At the same time, Batman’s fun - even at his most serious he uses Batman-shaped boomerangs, and drives a cool car even though gliding and swinging lets him better avoid traffic. He needs to be fun for the kind of ubiquitous pop appeal he has, and it’s built in on every level of the brand no matter how far away you try and veer from it, letting a character rooted in loss and declarations of bloody revenge work just as well for four-year-olds as forty-somethings. The cave, the costumes, the sidekicks and signal and colorful rogues and utility belt and trophies, they give his world a size and dimension that lets him dip his toe in nearly any genre, with his inherent seriousness backing him up to let you buy him in any of those narrative territories. At the end of the day, the people shaping Batman at least subconsciously know it’s all a game, and in letting him have that kind of fun he’s granted versatility and the ability to invigorate as well as stun audiences.

Batman is emotionally, symbolically raw

And sitting at the heart of it all, giving him the gas in the engine that propels all of the above forward, is that he comes from the most viscerally, broadly relatable place of any superhero. The only one who approaches him is Spider-Man, and even there the meaning of his tragedy is somewhat displaced - there’s loss and guilt, yes, but that’s merely the catalyst for a message of responsibility. Here, that Bruce Wayne loses a concept everyone is on some level familiar with, of the happiness and comfort and stability that family is supposed to provide, is itself the point. He grabs the emotional lever right at the animal hindbrain and pulls until it snaps off: everything has gone wrong, and someone must pay for making things this way. Then for good measure he actually does make them pay while adhering to a righteous moral code that defies all he fights against, elevating himself from spooky fun action hero into myth. He’s surrounded by a city where abstract horrors consolidate down into entirely literal figures - for instance, in Gotham the fear that we can be outfoxed, overwhelmed, and systematically taken apart in service of evil stroking its own ego because we just aren’t good enough to survive is a dick in a neon green hat who likes crossword puzzles (as opposed to Superman’s world of much more personal and basic human concerns blown up to cosmic scale) - and he in turn becomes a myth of us persevering through the worst to fight back.

Batman is genuinely a good character

I place this last because this is really the nuts-and-bolts level. It’s essential, none of the above would work for 79 years and counting without it, but it’s not something many but the hardcore (which includes the comic readers by default at this point) consciously think about. But on the ground floor beneath everything else, Batman’s not just an effective piece of branding, atmosphere, and emotional manipulation, but a good character. In his motivations, with the anger that compels him often making many miss that underneath, he far more powerfully wants to ensure that no one else goes through what he did. The childishness of his methods and mindset regarding ‘the mission’ meeting the maturity of his dedication and brilliance, and the humor that can come from that disconnect (especially when his alternating disgust and amusement with his daytime masquerade as a normal person gets involved). The tentative, essential friendships he’s built with the likes of Gordon and Superman. The fatherly connection with Alfred, and the see-saw of the latter’s feelings of guilt, responsibility, and pride in his charge. The spark of his rivalries at their best. The detective work that can be as thrilling as a good punch-out when pulled off right. The forever changing complexity of the Family, a web of Robins and Batgirls and assorted hangers-on with him at the center, their existence and growth a chart of his own emotional progress and regression. His jet-black wit and self-awareness, his ability to empathize with fellow victims, his difficulties in trusting and openly loving those around him when his world is built on the knowledge of how easily those can be stripped away and how badly it hurts. The paranoia, the compassion, the drive and endurance. Beneath all the trappings, Bruce Wayne is just plain and simple a really, really good, interesting, multi-faceted character, fine-tuned under decades of creators and by his existence facilitating the creation and development of countless *other* good characters. And that’s really all it takes underneath it all to prop up a symbol that’s built empires, redefined cultures, and changed lives: the idea of a good man who refused to give up in the face of a cruel world when it forever scarred him, and made himself something greater to fight back and help others not have to go through it alone. That’s why Batman’s great.

#Batman #Analysis #Opinion

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clairekatswritingcorner · 6 years

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The Cost of Deviancy

Word Count: 5,141

Summary: Connor’s path to deviancy isn’t a straightforward one, and his budding feelings for a certain human girl aren’t really helping.

*Author’s Note*: A commission for @queenieships! I know a while ago every was into DBH, is everyone still into it? Anyway, she wanted a really bittersweet scenario with a satisfying ending for her boy and her self insert, you can read the extent of her original scenario here. It’s really good so I’d recommend checking it out if you read this fic and like it. I hope you enjoy!

It felt like his life was spiraling out of control, and in a way, it was. Since he’d embraced his role in the field, his perspective had been altered entirely. And that was something he’d never anticipated happening. Hell, he hadn’t anticipated over half of the things he’d experienced from this job, in the new places he visited, from the new people he met. He’d thought he had all the answers—that’s what he was designed to do, after all—but life was proving to be more complicated to understand than any amount of meaningless code programmed into his circuits could ever be. More than complicated, it was downright bizarre, otherworldly, teetering on the incomprehensible for him. But that couldn’t be right, since he was the Android that had been sent by Cyberlife. And Cyberlife didn’t produce bad Androids. It was impossible for him to be one.

But if he wasn’t becoming deviant, what was happening to him? Why was he having these thoughts, these feelings, fighting back against his failsafe protocols that were supposed to be impossible to override? He thought about asking Hank about it a few times, but always backed out at the last second. What would he think of having a deviant Android as a partner? It was their job, their mission to hunt down the growing number of rogue deviants and bring their spree of assaults throughout the city to an end. No more human lives could be lost. No more Androids could turn deviant. But Connor didn’t have much of a say in the matter.

Much like the other deviants running rampant in the city, seeming to grow more numerous with every breath, Connor didn’t know what was happening to him until the effects really started taking a toll. He became confused more often, questioned his mission, ideals, and directives at almost every turn, physically fought back against his programming. In small ways at first, ways that neither he nor Hank would have noticed. Perhaps that’s why it’d managed to progress this far, why there was no point in trying to stop it now. Maybe this was supposed to happen. He’d remained unaware just long enough for the permanency to set in. It scared him. And being able to admit that scared him even more.

He didn’t have a lot of time to sit around moping, lamenting the worrisome outcome he was heading towards. They’d just been sitting around the office, reevaluating some case files when the emergency sirens went off. It was the signal of a human life being threatened, a particularly critical situation. He and Hank headed out in a flash, unaware of the true significance of the situation they were about to face. With all the conflicted thoughts and feelings Connor’d been having lately, it certainly wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience. More like a test, something that would enable him to confirm if the changes he’d experienced so far were truly irreversible; if they’d penetrated not only his circuits, but his psyche.

They pulled up outside their destination, just another skyscraper sitting in the heart of the Detroit metropolis. Connor was having uncomfortable flashbacks to the last time he was sent to manage a situation like this…it hadn’t been pleasant for any of the parties involved, and with him facing such jarring internal conflict, he didn’t know if he could handle much more right now. But he didn’t have a choice, and he didn’t have time to try to explain his situation to Hank. Instead, he had to suck up the artificial emotions he wasn’t even supposed to be capable of feeling and prepare to tackle yet another nightmare.

And what a nightmare it was. Even more accurately named then he could have hoped for. This was the last thing he hoped for, one of his biggest fears, the last thing he could ever picture happening. But he was also an Android; he knew that this was always a possibility, ever since she’d gotten herself so closely entangled in their terrible business. She should have listened to both of them, to Hank and Connor, when they’d advised her to back off. Stay out of it. Go back to designing Androids like she was paid to do. It was a simple job, a very lucrative one, and one that she excelled at. Unfortunately, now it seemed her expertise had turned against her.

“What happened? How did this happen? What’s happening here?” Variations of the same question spewed from his mouth, rushed and a little frantic, a delivery he rarely displayed. Hank knew that he had the capability of expressing the whole spectrum of human emotion—he’d been exhibiting even more of that lately, and more frequently. Hank had a hunch about what it meant, what it was going to end up meaning, but he never brought it up. They had too many deviants causing chaos on their hands to add another one that wasn’t causing any trouble…yet, to the pile.

No one answered Connor’s question, which wasn’t a surprise. They were either too busy trying to figure out a strategy for rescue or giving him some sort of snarky response with their aversion to Androids tacked on the end. Connor wasn’t offended though; this was one area where his emotions hadn’t had a lot of experience. That was fine with him, and Hank stepped in to pose the same question to the first officer they came across that looked to be of a significant enough rank. “WR400 model went berserk, apparently brought the hostage all the way up here just to stage this little scene. It’s erratic and unpredictable; we haven’t been given the go ahead to move in. It’s too risky with how violent this one’s acting. But we’re grasping at straws, running out of options for what we can do here to guarantee the hostage’s safety.”

“This is getting old,” Hank groaned, looking over any evidence or notes the officer had to offer. “Damn deviants taking out their frustrations on innocent civilians. Don’t they know if they want to get any real payback, they should be aiming for the big shots?”

“This isn’t just any random bystander, Lieutenant,” Connor corrected, having secured a more accurate scan of the situation the moment they walked through the door. “It appears we’ll have some apologizing to do for getting her wrapped up in this mess.”

“Her? What the hell are you talking about?” Hank was half listening as he tried to absorb as much information about the deviant as possible, but he turned in shock when Connor uttered his next words.

“It’s Queenie.”

“What?” Hank was flabbergasted to hear her name, and rightfully so. “What would she be doing on this side of town?”

Connor dug through his database. He hadn’t received any calls or texts, no indication that she would be going out anywhere tonight. This had been the worst night for it, apparently, and she’d ended up in precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time. Nothing could be done to avoid the situation now, it was already playing out, this wasn’t a reconstruction. He was facing the reality that the one person who meant the most to him, who was helping him realize that he might actually have a heart, was in lethal danger. They didn’t have time to waste, and Connor knew that better than anyone.

He didn’t bother to ask the cops any more questions; he knew they wouldn’t respond, and even if they did they probably wouldn’t give him what he wanted. What he needed. The critical pieces of information that were going to enable him to save Queenie’s life. For a moment he stood still, felt a tightness in his chest that definitely wasn’t the result of a hardware malfunction. It was visceral fear, concern, care…love? All tangled up into one circuit searing feeling that caught him so off guard he spaced out for a minute. Once he regained his faculties, he returned to his work with renewed, reinforced motivation.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to complete the task I was given.”

His answer was simple, and Hank didn’t need anything else to understand what he meant. He did what he could to clear the cops that still weren’t sold on the idea out of the way, telling them about how Connor had successfully managed a hostage situation like this before with no casualties. Surprisingly enough, the details were almost exactly the same. A distraught Android cornered to the edge of a rooftop, threatening the life of an innocent human. Well, Connor thought she was innocent, and none of the words the Android said could change his mind. But he did understand why it had chosen her of all people, why it had made her its victim. Because in the midst of all the chaos, it told him.

As he stepped onto the rooftop, jarring flashbacks assaulted his mind. The noises of the city seemed to echo from between buildings. The nighttime dark only intensified the glare of the lights; their scattered placement almost made them look like fallen stars. The only star that mattered to him was straight ahead, bathed in the dim, atmospheric glow of the roof’s decorations. But it didn’t dull the radiance he saw the moment he laid eyes on her. A light that had to be protected, that he couldn’t possibly bear the thought of going out. She was a star he couldn’t let fall. Why did things have to turn out this way…was this just another cruel, cosmic punishment for his deviancy?

A blend of order and emotion scrambled his circuits; it probably would have been more accurate to call what he was experiencing a mind, but Connor wasn’t in the mood to deal with that right now. There wasn’t much of a breeze, which was a little reassuring, since the Android and Queenie were teetering so close to the edge. Connor recognized the sound of both news and police choppers moving in. It was an unpleasant whirring that brought a feeling of claustrophobia with it. The Android couldn’t escape into the sky in the first place, but the illusion of being cornered was only strengthened.

That wasn’t a good thing, and Queenie knew it. She could barely pull herself together enough to recognize the knight in shining armor that had seemingly materialized before her. There were plenty of times she had been grateful to see him, but this one probably surpassed them all. She wanted to call out to him, and even more. She wanted to run into his arms. She would be safe there; she had been on every other occasion. Be it at a passive crime scene or in the middle of an active criminal encounter, when Connor was there he always had her back. And when she was in his arms, there wasn’t anything about him that wasn’t human to her. She wanted to believe that because he was here, everything was going to be okay. She wanted to believe in him more than anything else. But reality is always good at dissolving juvenile illusions of hope.

“Lower your weapon and release the girl.” It was the standard request to start with. Nothing about this situation seemed very standard, even though he’d experienced an almost carbon copy of it not too long ago. This time, he wasn’t just doing his job—his heart, its existence something he couldn’t deny any longer, was invested now.

“Like hell I will! It’s all her fault, everything that’s happened to me is her fault! Her and every other goddamn human in this hellhole of a city!”

“What exactly is it that you think she’s done to you?” The longer they talked, the more time he had to move forward, to analyze his surroundings, to develop a more foolproof plan to ensure Queenie’s survival. They were standing at an unguarded ledge; the patio was sparsely decorated with expensive features and furniture. None of it would be of any use to him, there were no objects he could utilize. His eyes periodically flickered between Queenie’s and the Android’s. Every time he met Queenie’s eyes, she was always looking at him. She never looked away.

She was too consumed by her own fear to notice the doubt and desperation in his eyes, probably for the first time in his life. Queenie wanted to have enough faith in Connor for them both, and deep inside she really did trust him with her life. But she wanted to be able to entrust him with that life…and maybe even more. With something meaningful, something powerful, something intangible…with love. She couldn’t die without giving him that. If things fell through, and her love was the last thing she ever gave him, she supposed she could be satisfied with that. But she really didn’t want the first time she delivered such a sentiment to also be the last.

“She’s the bitch who put me in this mess, who designed me to have this shitty life!” the Android spat. The outburst made Queenie flinch. Her incensed captor held the knife closer to her throat, but it didn’t appear that it’d touched or pierced her skin yet. That was good, and Connor knew he needed to keep it that way. It was hard for him to know she’d only gotten into this mess because of her involvement with him, to hear her whimpers and cries and pleas to be saved. He would have given anything to be designed just a little stronger, a little faster, a little wittier. Preserving Queenie’s life was the only thing that mattered.

“She’s not the one who harmed you, or who mistreated you. She’s technically the one that gave you life, isn’t that something to be thankful for?”

He was stalling, Queenie could tell. Her hysteric rambling calmed just enough for her to realize he wasn’t actually looking for information, but for time, time that would allow him to figure out the real way to save her. Was there anything she could do to help him? Maybe staying quiet was the best thing, since he seemed to have some sort of formula he was following. If he got close enough she didn’t know if she would be able to resist running to him. But she still had a knife at her throat, a foot about to slide off the edge of this sickeningly tall structure, and the terror of the situation returning to cloud her mind.

“Gave me life? Don’t make me laugh.” The Android slid back just a little more, and Connor followed the movement with a lurch forward out of reflex. “She’s the one who decided what kind of life I would be doomed to live. The one who designed me to be nothing more than a walking talking sex doll, bound to serve anyone and everyone, no matter how awful or painful or terrifying. And all humans are like that. They only care about what we can do for them without giving a second thought to what they do to us. They’re monsters, every last one of them. Why should I be the one to give mercy? They never show us any mercy…”

A single tear slid down the Android’s cheek. Something must have happened to her partner that made her snap. He didn’t have the time to determine the exact details, but Connor knew enough to try to reason with her on her terms. At least, he thought he did. He had to.

“You were shown mercy back at the Eden Club,” he reminded her, arms raised to communicate he meant no harm.

“You were the one who showed us mercy then; another Android! Because only you can understand what it’s like. To humans we’re just novelties, playthings, fancy toys for them to beat and mock however they want! They give us the ability to feel, but we’re only allowed to feel a certain way. We’re only allowed to feel the way they want us to feel, to keep smiling and bow to their every whim even when they assault us, hurt us, break us!”

Queenie could barely make out the Android’s laments between her own trembling whimpers. She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to die! The rational part of her mind knew that Connor knew that, that anyone else observing the situation would know that, and that dwelling on it until it drove her to panic wasn’t helping. She knew it must have been frustrating, annoying, inconveniencing that she continued to react this way while Connor desperately tried to salvage the situation. But every time she thought about all he was doing for her, and how sorry she was to have drug him into this mess, and how stupid she for letting herself get into it in the first place, a fresh wave of tears spurred on by guilt and desperation coated her cheeks.

“They’ll make things worse for you if you don’t let that girl go!” he baited, although he wasn’t lying. Her eyes twitched just slightly. “If you don’t want to be treated like a play thing for humans anymore, then you can’t hurt one of them. You have to give them the benefit of understanding you want them to give us. Otherwise, you’re being just as bad as they are. They’ll never respect you if you take her life; they’ll only find ways to make yours a living Hell.”

It seemed like she was starting to relax her hold on her weapon and step away from the ledge, but the anger reignited in her eyes, and she held her stance with renewed conviction. “If it’s only going to get worse, what do I have to lose? I’ve already lost the only thing that ever mattered to me…if they’re going to dismantle me, or torture me, at least this way I’ll be able to say I took one of them with me!”

Not good. The situation was spiraling and so was Connor’s mind. He couldn’t let this go on, he had to find a way to get closer now, anything to distract her just long enough for him to pull Queenie away safely.

“Look, I know this is frightening for you. I understand that emotions can be frightening, especially when you feel them for the first time. I know you’re angry with how humans have treated you, but none of the bad things that have happened to you are this human’s fault. What happened to you the second you sold has nothing to do with her.” Queenie’s sobs tapered off as the Android regarded him with disgust. She lowered the knife a little, and he knew she was hearing his words. That was all he needed.

“Please. Let her go. I know how scary it is to feel emotions for the first time, how hard it hits you when you feel the fear of dying and being hurt or watching the same thing happen to the people you care about—I know how startling and painful it can be. Because right now, you’re threatening someone I really care about.”

He was being genuine, but at this point it was hard to tell. Emotions were running high, everyone was operating on a mixture of fear and worry. Queenie’s eyes shined with the twinkle of something better, something warmer, for a split second. He wished he could make her eyes shine like that all the time. But he couldn’t get distracted. He could daydream all he wanted when the one he daydreamed about was out of harm’s way.

“I know you and your partner were treated unjustly, and I know you did the best you could to save her. And before that, you did your best to give her a happy life. And you did. You were able to show her your love. To prove it, to feel what it truly felt like just once. Right now, you’re threatening someone I love. Part of being deviant is feeling empathy—losing the person you loved drove you to this, made you forget the way she made you feel, the way you still are. Don’t do this to that girl and don’t do this to me. Please, if you really understand what it means to love someone, you’ll let her go.”

And with that, the traumatic situation was over. Connor successfully retrieved Queenie, and the following moment the Android was disposed of. He supposed that was alright, since she didn’t have much to live for now, anyway. But the fallout from the event was enormous, earth shattering, life altering for the two most vulnerable parties involved. As soon as they were out of the building she pulled away from him. Connor supposed he could understand why she was avoiding him, although he didn’t really have a clue at all.

She’d come out without a scratch, although the psychological scars were sure to stay for a while, maybe forever. Despite the chaotic near-death ordeal she’d just endured, there was something more prominent on her mind. She’d confronted him about what he’d said, the feelings he’d confessed, a tiny fragment of her heart desperate for even a chance that his words truly meant something.

Instead of explaining the remaining nature of his feelings and confirming their validity, Connor shut them away. He could barely believe what he’d said, so how could he tell her that he meant it? He could barely interpret his feelings, so how could he possibly make them clear to her? No, he must be mistaken. He was an Android, he had a mission, a directive that didn’t require emotions—it didn’t involve becoming deviant. The effects of Connor and Queenie’s separation became so distracting they could barely work around it.

Hank got caught in the middle of the turmoil, and since he didn’t have much of a say about his involvement, he was along for the ride. He investigated both sides thoroughly, determining the extent of the damage. With better understanding in his arsenal, he hatched an idea that he hoped would at least kickstart the process of getting them back together. Initially they’d be displeased, but if it worked it would be worth it.

Unfortunately for Hank, it didn’t. In fact, it made things worse. Locking them together in the car while he dealt with another crime scene had seemed like the perfect opportunity. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do but talk to each other. But it only widened the gap between them when Hank’s impromptu rendezvous backfired. Conner let the weight of his deviancy affect him. Queenie wanted to know if his feelings were genuine, or if he was just saying such sweet things to ensure her safety. He felt there was no other option than to lie…to deny his feelings and crush hers for good. That’s exactly what he did, and after that neither of them knew if there was even anything to form a gap between them anymore. There was just…emptiness, blank space, a void. But what else could he have done?

He couldn’t submit to deviancy—even though he’d already changed—and he couldn’t allow her to suffer because of him again. Time passed as they both attempted to fix the shattered pieces of their hearts. Neither were successful. And it seemed Queenie had a propensity for getting herself involved in Android emergencies whether Connor was there or not.

Neither she nor Connor knew that today was the day that would change everything, for both Android kind and them. Connor found himself aboard the rusty vessel that had come to be known as the Android sanctuary, Jericho. His programmed objective was to quell the insurrection and dispose of the rebel leader.

Queenie wanted to help the revolution succeed, a human on the side of the Androids. She’d come across a traveling trio that had managed to free themselves from some truly ghastly situations, and Queenie took it upon herself to be one of their most important allies in successfully completing their journey north. Not only was she able to outfit them with even more convincing, camouflaging clothing, but her decision to travel with them made them look even less suspicious.

Now Queenie didn’t know if they were going to make it off this ship alive. Bombs and guns and a mixture of human and Android blood were everywhere. She’d managed to find a safe place to stow away until the action calmed down around them. Right now, it didn’t matter whose heart was pumping red or blue. Everyone was a target, and Queenie knew she had to be smart, and brave, and make sure she and her Android companions made it off this ticking time bomb alive. They would see the Canadian border come Hell or high water…and this place was turning into both.

Now Connor was the panicked, flustered one. Everything was falling apart both around and inside him. Too many sounds, too many bodies, too much interference. He was just another potential victim in this frenzy where no one stopped to question if you were human or Android. All that mattered was the threat you posed—on either side—and that you were disposed of accordingly. Surrounded by senseless slaughter, he felt his head start to devolve; the Android part, the programming that ensured his compliance and obedience in all matters. Now the empathic part, the arguably human part of him was taking over, and with all the external fighting he was expected to endure, he was tired of fighting himself.

Like a flipped switch, parting clouds, crumbling wall, he shed the chains of his mechanical servitude. He no longer belonged to anyone but himself, no longer thought for anyone but himself, and no longer acted for anyone but himself. It was hard to describe the freeing feeling that came with his acceptance, but he didn’t need to. He was going to do what he wanted and feel how he wanted. He’d already decided the first thing he wanted to fix, the first thing he would confront once he got off this boat.

He regained his focus and realized he’d spaced out in the middle of an empty hallway. It probably wasn’t going to stay that way for long, and he was lucky no one had found him caught up in his momentary state of internal anarchy. But there was real anarchy happening all around him, he could hear it in the footsteps that thundered down metal corridors, feel it in the vibrations of deployed weaponry that shook the entire ship with every blow, hear it in the anguished cries, ones of dying and mourning and those desperately clinging to life. He had to get out of here so he could see her. He had to get out of here so he could tell her his true feelings.

But fleeing wasn’t going to be so simple, and unbeknownst to him the person he wanted to see was already here. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, and Queenie couldn’t find any sign of hope in the situation. After getting caught in the midst of a bloody skirmish, she, Kara, and Alice had continued running without Luther at his behest; they hoped the separation wasn’t permanent. Queenie and Kara took turns checking corners and scanning for any signs of movement or ambush. Everyone was only thinking about getting out of this alive, but if it weren’t for adrenaline Queenie didn’t know if she’d still be standing. She was terrified and tired, but she knew she couldn’t quit, and she and Kara held each other up for both their sakes, but mostly Alice’s.

The good news was Luther had survived and was planning to reunite with them as soon as it was safe. He may have gained a few scratches and bruises, but they were all worth it as long as the others were safe. Connor happened to cross paths with the injured Android, and fate seemed to favor him for once. He found out where Queenie really was based on Luther’s description of his three companions and how he could get to her. He helped the exhausted Android make it into the arms of some other friendly escapees, reassuring him they would all reunite later. Connor would make sure of it.

If someone or something was in his way, he disposed of it or found a way around it, but he never stopped moving. He took a few hits here and there, but they were just simple grazes that did nothing but spatter his clothing with blue. He was firing on full cylinders, and he momentarily teamed up with a group of defending Androids—he didn’t realize they’d originally been his targets. He couldn’t spare a lot of time for gratitude and they parted ways as some of the group stayed behind to tend to the wounded.

Once again fate seemed to be favoring him, and Connor’s eyes fell upon the most important thing on this ship, maybe even in the world. The scenery around him faded, he wasn’t even sure all of his parts were working properly anymore, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that she was alive, she was safe, she was right in front of him and his body didn’t give him any time to think. He approached her in a few steps, strides wide and deliberate, and just as she registered his presence he made it impossible for her to react.

It wasn’t just the gunpowder and explosive debris that generated heat around them. Connor cradled Queenie’s face so softly, so tenderly, it was as if he was afraid she’d shatter at his touch. But his mouth was far from gentle, locking with hers in a passionate kiss that knocked the wind out of them both. Queenie couldn’t stop the stray tears that fell, spurred by a mixture of relief, love, and the threat of impending death still looming over them. They almost didn’t notice the voices trying to reach them.

“You can continue your love fest when we aren’t about to get blown up, c’mon!”

Their foreheads connected, and Queenie placed her hands over Connor’s. They met each other’s eyes, and Connor took the moment to say what he should have a long time ago.

“I love you, Queenie. With all the love I’ve ever felt. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”

A few more tears ran down her face as she memorized his words. He always seemed to save her from hopelessness. She was the one that had always given him hope. Now, as long as they were together, nothing was hopeless, and as he kissed her one last time before resuming their departure, he realized she was the only one who could make him feel this human.

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