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i think i'm really interested in the exact time the older avatars were born, because it feels like it explains a lot about them. how simon fairchild was born into a world just beginning to comprehend its place in the universe, and he decided to embrace it. how maxwell rayner was born into a world just beginning to create its own light, and he decided to escape it. how jonah magnus was born into a dying world, and he wanted so badly to live.
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i think about "oh, fairchild's just a name" so much.
that's so quintessentially vast. there's no meaning behind it, it holds no value. a name is just a name. the universe will forget your name at some point anyways, why treat it as something meaningful? you're so small that you barely exist at all, it feels ridiculous to act like your name matters.
i really like the little detail that the fairchilds aren't a real family, but rather just a name, whereas the lukases are a biological family, but deeply disconnected from each other. the vast sees no inherent value in names, they hold no meaning and can be given away like a gift to anyone it wants to mark. the lonely sees no value in family bonds, they can be severed at any indication of disloyalty, but are still preferable to chosen bonds.
i wanna talk about tma characters and the concept of a facade. because i have a lot of thoughts.
so most people understand how ironic it is to characterize martin blackwood as a soft boy that can do no wrong, because one of the most interesting parts of his character is how much of a subversion of that trope he is. he's manipulating people by acting like that. this is addressed in the canon. he wants everyone to like him, and he knows he'll almost always get what he wants if he puts up this facade.
something people talk about a bit less, but is still equally canon, is that gertrude robinson was doing basically the same thing. pretending to be just a boring old woman, when she's actually extremely clever and ruthless. she plays into everyone's pre-existing biases and assumptions masterfully to hide just how competent she really is. she knows exactly what she's doing, and she's willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for the sake of her self-appointed mission. characterizing her as a grandmother figure is the funniest form of irony to me.
but do you know who isn't putting up a facade? do you know who isn't changing their behavior to affect your idea of them?
the older avatars.
peter lukas isn't pretending to be passive-aggressive and overly cheery, he just kind of...is. why would he ever bother putting up a facade? he doesn't want people to like him. his authentic self is this talkative yet asocial man, who specifically aims to be awkward and unlikeable.
hi. does anybody wanna have me talk at them about the two different aspects of the vast that simon fairchild and mike crew represent. i have my talking points prepared
the magnus archives was kind of insane for saying "fear, in its truest form, is a place" we should talk about that more
one thing that tma does really well (and, coincidentally, also the thing that the locked tomb book series does really well tma fans please go read the locked tomb PLEASE-) is characters that we never get to meet. some of the most important events in the entire series happened long before the series even started. we get to hear recordings of gertrude robinson, the ghosts of gerard keay and eric delano, letters from adelard dekker, recollections from people who knew agnes montageu, but we never get to meet any of them. not really. and that's important.
because this story isn't about jonathan sims, he's just the perspective we're following. this is an entire universe of characters, all of whom played their own parts in the story before we even knew there was a story at all. the magnus archives starts in the archives, with the archivist testing out a tape recorder. the story of the magnus archives starts with the first animal that ever felt afraid. the story of the magnus archives lasts the entire span of humanity, and more.
you, the archivist, every character you get to actually meet- they're all just the smallest fraction of this story. and everyone you don't get to meet has already played their parts, their actions in the past are actively affecting the present.
uhhh tl;dr: love me a good haunted narrative
have u ever considered that jonah magnus spent his life and more chasing divinity with the same desperation that jon rejected it with.
anybody else constantly thinking about how the three main eye avatars sort of represent three equally fucked up parts of humanity.
i think the lonely feeds on exclusion, not absence. i think it feeds not on the fact that no one can help you, but rather that no one cares to even try. if you know someone out there is trying to help you, you won't feel lonely, no matter how far away or unable to actually help that person is.
that's one thing that the statement of barnabas bennett can teach us about how the lonely functions, and how jonah magnus feeds it. he could have helped, but he watched. the indifferent watcher. an amoral gaze that only seeks to know. what's lonelier than being seen, but not helped?
i think the spiral feeds on doubt, not insanity. i think it feeds on your fear of betrayal, your fear of unreality, of being lied to. you belong to the spiral once you don't know what to trust anymore, once everything feels fake.
that's one thing that the statement of michael can teach us about the spiral's existence, and how gertrude robinson feeds it. the facade she puts up around almost everyone hides a ruthless woman, who doesn't care what or who she has to sacrifice to achieve her goals. this is the facade that had michael shelley fooled, and eventually, literally fed to the spiral. that moment of betrayal, of the mask slipping off, of realizing that it was all fake. do you think that that's when he realized that nothing was real?
eye avatars really, really have this tendency to feed other fears.
with that in mind, which one do you think jonathan "on good terms with oliver banks" "goes around ending avatars' existences" "dies at the end" sims has been feeding?