Thoughts on Jonah being known as a weirdo by all of polite society and Elias being known as freakishly normal and boring? Been thinking about this a lot.
you know jonah loves it TOO!!! the constant victorious appeal of hiding in plain sight, of perfect camouflage (which is necessary for any accomplished voyeur)
i also love that his personality as a nerdy little square who loves filing and spreadsheets and admin is actually not a ruse at all, it’s genuine!! he loves bureaucracy!! he loves regimine!! i like to think that it’s satisfying for him to be able to embody that part of himself so completely when he’s elias 🥰 no spooky reputation with the underlings!! just a genuine and open delight at the academic administrative rigor he’s surrounded himself with
i’m also sure the other avatars who are all aware of his history/true nature are like “he’s got you all fooled with this dumb act” but it’s NOT an act!!! he loves scheduling! he loves a bit of mindless filing!! he meets with the library staff on wednesdays!! happy as a clam!!!
I constantly think about Jon’s description of Elias in episode 49, like. “Certainly the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well, theoretical knowledge, at least.” How often did he get to talk to Elias about paranormal theories? What topics did Elias tell him about?? When did they hang out? How well does Jon think he knows Elias????
This post instantly broke containment, and the number of fandoms listed in the notes—quite a few with WIPs underway—is absolutely astonishing. I’ve never heard of half these pairs. Good work, fandom! Carry on!
everyone has a ship thats just: theyre perfect. they hate each other. theyre married. they havent spoken in 15 years. they have date nights three times a week. theyre divorced. theyre pining, its unrequited. its requited. theyre starcrossed. theyre meant to be. theyre doomed by the narrative. they love each other. theyve never held hands. they wont stop making out at parties. they cant look each other in the eye
i will never run out of unhinged rants about this but do u actually know the kind of strength necessary to bludgeon a man to death? idc how heavy the metal pipe is, killing someone through repeated blunt force trauma takes a significant level of resolve and physical strength to accomplish. that is a cold, iron willed, terrifying thing to be able to do. especially on a whim because the man whose head you’re beating into a paste got slightly in your way a bit.
Also as an aside, I’d like to add how many people, including Peter Lucas, were so taken aback that Elias finally “got his hands dirty”. It was mentioned how unlike him doing that was, and considering how long he’s lived, and from what I can tell his general avoidance of offing anyone generally (his mentioning to Tim when confronted to “just kill him” when genuinely it would be the easier out and his response of “I’d rather not”, plus I believe mentioning in a different conversation about preferring not to “resort” to that) like to me that is FASCINATING. Elias being a villain who objectively does not prefer to kill others, especially, it seems, by his own hands.
And yet here with Leitner, in a rare bout of breaking habit and his typical ideal, he did. And in the most brutal and gruesome and personal way possible. In his own way, he did it all to protect Jon and frankly, what Jon represented.
“Loneliness is often exacerbated by a perception that one is lonely while everyone else is connected. It’s exaggerated by a sensation of being outside something that others seem to be in on: a family, a couple, a friendship, a joke.
Perhaps now we can learn how flawed that kind of thinking is, because loneliness is one of the most universal things any person can feel.”
— Kristen Radtke, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness
a character can be as perceptive and insightful and intellectually curious as you can possibly imagine the fucking second they show signs of being a little rowdy or boisterous or just generally being cheerful and physically fit they instantly get slapped with the “dumbass” stamp because the faceless masses of general fandom trends still haven’t progressed beyond the immovable jock vs nerd dichotomy i guess
time to start asking the real questions do we think simon fairchild is elias’ weed hook up
or do we think he’s still paging the same guy og!elias was because after the first time the deadbeat ghost researcher admin guy in ratty hightops and oversized slacks showed up in a tailored three piece suit with pomade in his newly cut hair the guy didn’t say anything about it
god i love this. I LOVE THIS. obviously we know gertrude kept the archive in disarray on purpose, but i’m also sure that a good chunk of that was just that like. the archivist has no drive to catalog. the archivist needs to know, not to record or to sort or to label. jonah of course keeps his mementos, his trinkets, his tokens, and talismans. jonah hoards the letters sent to him by long dead paramours. jonah collects objects of power. jonah logs and records and researches. but the archivist just. feeds.
this also sort of aligns w my working theory that in terms of avatars/monsters the dividing line is sort of like that old bit about how it’s fucked up that goofy is like a clearly sentient person-adjacent creature but pluto is just a normal dog
like jonah magnus is obviously purposefully eye-aligned, he draws his powers from it and he orchestrates the watcher’s crown. but he’s is also so much more driven and in control than like, the creature that lived in the ming vase, for example. or the thing crawling around under alexandria. or the big slimy tentacle thing that haunted benjamin hatendi. like peter lukas and maxwell rayner and simon fairchild they’re all such active agents in service to their patrons.
but jon is just. hungry. and some of that is for sure his own lack of agency between elias and the web. but it’s also i think that the archivist is more of a monster than an avatar.
What amuses me (and infuriated me back when the show was still airing and I was considerably less zen about it) about people calling Elias entitled is that he does not, by any stretch of the imagination, consider that his life is worth more than others. He believes his life has the exact same inherent value as any other life: zero, because they might be snuffed out without warning at any moment. Therefore, he can and has to do whatever he pleases. Look at Mister “Your own rotten luck” here and tell me he believes there is a preexisting hierarchy (and therefore inherent order to the universe) he is a part of.
