I think a surprising amount of writers don’t realize that tragedies are supposed to be cathartic. They’re intended to result in a purging of emotion, a luxurious cry; the sorrow caused by a great tragedy is akin to fear caused by a good horror movie – it’s a “safe” sorrow, one that is actually satisfying to the audience. It can still be beautiful! It’s isn’t supposed to just be salting the earth so nothing can grow.
But that’s how you get grimdark: writers who don’t realize that they’re supposed to be doing something with the audience instead of to the audience.
it’s interesting to me that even the people in the notes of my “melanie and basira die” post who are like emphatically agreeing are all way angrier at basira? melanie is such a fan favorite that even people who are talking about how she treated jon unfairly are actually focusing on how basira treated jon unfairly
i think they both treat jon like garbage and i don’t like how basira’s all “cold unfeeling logic” until her fascist werewolf gf is in the picture but i absolutely hate melanie more
there’s a lot about basira that i really love and she’s one of my favorite characters in s2 - 3 but melanie for me has zero redeeming features and no enjoyable qualities
My favorite genre of fiction is “the vibes here are somehow horrifying and warm and cozy at the same time”. Like, yeah we’re gonna fight the cosmic horror but in matching sweaters one of our teammates made type of vibe.
I love Elias ‘Jonah Magnus’ Bouchard so much. I love this 200 year old man who loves spreadsheets and passively watching horrible shit going around him; I love him for how he heard there are horrible Fears Entities in the world, had his mentor tell him 'we need to balance them out!’ whilst all their friends where picking a side and becoming horrible monsters or tragic victims and went “actually I’ll pick one and just learn how to play the game until i’m untouchable”. I love a man who was so afraid of death he decided he would just not die and then found a way to do it for decades without being found out. I love that he has all this terrifying fear power and he oftentimes uses it to know where there is cake in his institute.
He is a scholar. He is a boring boss. He is a smug evil prick who relishes into his evilness and power. He tells his employees to do admin to feel better. He sighs when he has to torture them because they keep try to kill him. He’s impressed and horny when someone successfully challenges his expectations. His idea of comfort is to ask philosophical questions about humanity. He only starts to take actions in order to manipulate this one guy into being the key to his ritual and his equal.
I love a man who realized all the rituals meant nothing, went 'very well’ and instead of like, calmly going 'this means i’m in peace" went “well i’m going to be the first one to succeed by thinking of what my good mentor had said once. they all need to be together, balanced out.” and then he DID succeed. He did have his apocalypse. And it was glorious and he loved every second of horror it was.
I love a man who never once apologized for being selfish, evil, and power hungry, and embraced all his flaws quite so willingly. And who, at the end, dying, all of this going to dust, watched his most beautiful creation, his most perfect work, his legacy, rise to take his place as king,, and merely told him good luck.
inb4 anyone raises concerns over elias being “toxic” for jon the problem is that elias is “toxic” because he is sculpting a mortal man into a godshead for a ritual to birth the world anew. martin is toxic because he’s whiny, emotionally disregulated, and can’t even appreciate jon’s sense of humor in a pre-apocalyptic office setting. the problem is not whether je or jm would win at couple’s counceling. the problem is that jon is an avatar of the dread power that looms over the ruins of his former world, chief amongst its peers, and he’s playing house with a boring ex-coworker who he doesn’t even like.
@batemanscaped YES. GOD. the person i just reblogged who talked abt papercut theory nailed it. i have not personally been turned into a living idol of fear by a man who has devoted a dozen lifetimes to the pursuit. i have had shitty, clingy, manipulative partners who openly resented me. “lol”
they are sooooo similar like, their humor. their values. their interests. they have an established ease to the cadence of their conversations. i hate the prevalence of no fears aus lol BUT the only characters from the whole show who would maintain their existing relationship in a world w no fear entities would be jon and elias. also elias literally WORSHIPS jon he crafts him into the perfect image of their shared god. and before and beyond that, he just really likes the boy.
the thing about jm is that it would be so good and interesting and delicious if everyone would just admit that they’re bad for each other. jm as an exploration of pursuing a relationship because you’re so incapable of finding value in yourself, you have to outsource that value to the only person you know who likes you. except he doesn’t actually like you, he likes the made up, unattainable version of you he’s held, static, in his head since the first time you met. and so now the only way you can find self worth is by cramming yourself into a role that doesn’t suit you, a role that makes you misersble. but it’s okay. it’s fine. better to be miserable and harmless in a role that will never fulfill you, if it means making this man (the only man who likes you, even if the you he likes is made up) happy, than face the role you actually want, the one that’s dangerous, the one you can’t accept, next to the man you can’t accept sees you better than anyone else does.
but jm isn’t that. it’s just jon and martin saying “i love you alive boy” over and over for 40 episodes straight. which is also interesting. i guess.
If you had, would you have told them? Would that have, have changed what happened?
Me when I’m so tactful about my partner’s self-victim-blaming and feelings of guilt: Would you have let them kill you to prevent this? Would you? Jon. Jon, would you have killed yourself for real?
im so sorry for people who empathized with/related to martin but he was such an insufferable loser from day 1 like all i remember from him is being mad annoyed by everything he said and the way he said it. im a fan of dog characters but he wasn’t even good enough for that. like how are you out saying you proudly relate to and stan the most whiny pathetic man in the whole institute. grow up etc.
this!! genuinely sorry if some of my followers happen to like him bc i don’t mean to insult anyone, but. dear. god. unfortunately i have IRL experience with people like that and they are.so.tiring.
i think what triggers me is performativity of “niceness” that is really actually very transactional, i.e. doing “nice” things for people in the hopes/expectation that they will return the favour. getting others to like you not because you’re a pleasant person or you connect with them in some way or you’re bettering yourself, but because you do stuff for them or take care of them. turning yourself into a caretaker /no one asked for/ just so people like you. idk if it makes sense, but it’s very insidious.
like. niceness as a performance in exchange for overlooking shitty behaviours.
