your soul is blowing apart !

𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘦 .　—　𝘣𝘺 𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘺 .

[antigoned]

*      &      psychexch‌      ,

@antigoned​ sent:  you really think a punch to the nose changed a damn thing? ( from melanie. )

❝ NOT REALLY, ❞ elliot says after a moment, ❝ but it felt good at the time. which isn’t much, but it seems like enough right now. ❞

the funny thing is how he is both bound and not to the institute. he just sort of started hanging around, digitizing things and ignoring people who he didn’t like, which was most of the staff to begin with. he mostly tries to avoid elias, because something about the man just makes that itch in his brain, the one that is mostly the mastermind’s but had to come from somewhere in him, light up and hurt. there’s something he isn’t seeing. jesus. he can’t even say shit like that (seeing, watching, observing, eye, any words associated with that) any more without it seeming kind of ridiculous, considering there’s an entity called the eye in existence.

whatever. he can’t change his language to make it sound less ridiculous just because reality is fucking ridiculous.

he shrugs helplessly after a moment. he left work after hitting elias, and then he just ended up texting melanie, because she’s a lot of things, but she at least gets the dislike. ❝ what’s elias going to do? fire me? i don’t even officially work at the institute. i’m just… around. besides, i don’t think i’m the first or last person to hit elias. i think he just didn’t expect it from me, specifically. ❞ normally, after all, elliot pours all of his rage into one of his alters, and mr. robot’s the only one who regularly takes physical action. so maybe that might have thrown elias off, enough where he didn’t seem quite ready to step out of the way. maybe there was a switch he didn’t quite feel, a lightning-quick back and forth courtesy of an alter who plans in order to make his intent more opaque. so on. so forth.

or he just got lucky. occam’s razor and all.

he takes a breath. ❝ i guess he could fire me. does elias… text people? jesus, i don’t think i gave him my phone number or anything. he seems like the type to pen a five page handwritten letter of termination and have a big fuck off raven deliver it to me. at that point i’m driving back out there and hitting him again, and he’ll deserve it all over again. ❞ there’s a long pause and something like a laugh, a twitch to his expression. ❝ maybe i should have kept going. kept hitting him. i mean, someone would’ve stopped me, but maybe… i don’t know. maybe i could’ve done something else. ❞

he doesn’t sound particularly violent. his tone is even. it simply sounds like yet another option, something that raises more curiosity in him than anything else.

everything about this is absolutely hilarious to melanie,      the most she’s laughed since joining the institute,      without a doubt      :      a sudden,      hysterical thing barking from her lips without warning.      elliot doesn’t know how many assassination attempts she’s made,      just knows she doesn’t like their boss.      like anything’s that simple!      how much is elliot aware of what goes on in the institute      —      is he even subject to elias’ ever - watching gaze,      hardly even working there?      or is he in as much blissful ignorance as the damn fools working upstairs in the libraries,      thinking whatever happens in the dusty business is better left alone?

well.      must know something,      if he’s going around punching elias.      or maybe elias is just that unlikable without knowing anything about his spookiness and murderous tendencies and his if i die everyone who works at the institute dies schtick.      like anyone’d believe that!

‘      i dunno if he can fire anyone.      y’tried to quit yet?      can’t do that,      either.      this place holds onto you.      ’            she says.      big fuck off raven or no,      the fact of their working at the archives seems as unchangeable on elias’ end,      ‘less he wants to kill them.      if he hasn’t killed melanie yet,      she doesn’t think a single punch will make him go after elliot.      like      . . .      if the knife,      and the poison,      and the second time poisoning,      and the next couple tries with the knife,      and the time melanie’d tried to sneak up on him with a damn staple gun      (      gettin’ a bit desperate,      she’ll admit      )      weren’t enough      . . .      elliot’s probably safe,      yeah?

firing isn’t on the table,      though.      she fucking wishes it were.      she wishes she could quit,      too,      but that hope has long since been dashed,      amount of times she’s tried to get the words out or type up a resignation or just leave and couldn’t manage to do any of them.      maybe elliot’s unofficial status there makes it different,      but she’d be willing to bet the moment he walked in there,     something claimed him.      no one starts hanging around there without being affected,      she’s pretty damn certain.

‘      and can you fuckin’ imagine elias texting?      like the bastard has anyone to text.      think he texts jon whatever nefarious orders he’s givin’ his archivist?      y’think he’s the type to start texts with a dear so - and - so,      an’ sign his name at the end      —      like,      every text is also a five page letter?      ‘cuz i think so,      for sure.      ’

she’s laughing again by halfway through.      she fucking hopes elias is watching the conversation,      spying as he does      —      hopes his ego gets dashed a bit seeing them mock him like this.

[unrite-a]

WATCH  ME  AS  I  TERRIFY  THE  BEST  OF  YOU,  STILL.      *      art.

[antigoned]

me vs the temptation to make gertrude her own blog

[kayleerowena]

what if i bound our souls irrevocably together to stop your cult from completing a world-ending ritual (and we were both girls)

[nuokis]

High time a certain boss found out what it’s like on the death side of the vibe check

[antigoned]

aes sideblog   :   @aentigone

[antigoned]

*            watcheir‌            ,

        INT. THE ARCHIVES, SOMETIME AROUND MIDNIGHT.         E. BOUCHARD   &   G. ROBINSON   (   @antigoned   )

𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝙾𝙴𝚂𝙽'𝚃 𝙰𝚂𝙺 𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂.   well, he does, but he doesn’t. he’s curious, sure, anyone in this line of work has to demand just a touch of the stuff. it’s just, with gertrude, he knows by now that there’s a time for everything. she’ll answer or she won’t, and if she doesn’t, she will. to whatever extent that may be. sometimes he imagines it’s why his company’s so preferable to her. he’ll take it, and he enjoys the fact, too, for what it’s worth. in a place like the institute with all its infinite mysteries and penetrating oddities, he reckons it’s actually worth quite a lot.     ❛   still at it?   ❜     it’s said, but it provokes no genuine return. he knows that she is  ;  he’s never known anyone who works so hard within these walls as she does. there’s a cup in each of his hands, and he sets one down in front of her, among the spare bit of desktop visible between books and documents.     ❛   figured you would be.   ❜     free fingers pull the adjacent seat out and elias plops his way down into it.     ❛   when i said hey, gertie, headed down for a coffee, the resounding silence told me two might actually work best in this instance.   ❜

there are piles upon piles of papers beside her      :      ever - researching,      reaching and reaching to find something among the uselessness,      some shred of truth sifted through the plethora of accounts that simply couldn’t be.      she has found that the farther fetched a statement sounds at first glance,      the more likely it is to be real.      there isn’t a clock on her desk,      nor a watch on her wrist;      she has no idea how long it has been since she’s looked up from her notes,      but it must have been hours by the time elias shocks her from her reverie.      she has no doubts the rest of the institute has long since packed their things and left for the night.

‘      thank you,      ’           she says;      she taps her pen against her chin with one hand as she picks up the coffee with the other,      still too hot to drink but sipped at nonetheless.      a genuine gratitude from gertrude is rare.      she is all hard edges,      but something in her softens around elias      :      he balances her out in some way she has yet to be able to fully analyze.      gertrude pushes her notes toward him,      uncaring of which papers get shoved to the side along the way;      she has always had a knack for finding the ones she needs among the piles no matter how shuffled they become.            ‘      look at this.      i’m missing something,      but i can’t figure out what.      i know that the desolation is planning something,      much as something like that can plan,      but every clue leads a different direction.      ’            perhaps elias can figure it out.      she doesn’t hold much hope that’ll be the case      —      but perhaps two sets of eyes will be better than one,      and simply talking things through with him has always done her good.

[antigoned]

thinking a lot abt gertrude vs jon   &   how their reactions to the eye differed,   how stubbornly gertrude refused to let the eye fully take her and how much she held onto her own humanity despite it all,   how she died a normal human death after everything she’d done and every apocalypse she stopped,   how gertrude began her tapes with gertrude robinson recording and made no mention of the institute or her position as archivist bc she was much more interested in what she,   as a person and not as an avatar or an Archivist or an agent of beholding,   could get out of all this than serving any god,   how her final act was trying to burn the archives down for good and destroy the stronghold of yet another fear regardless of it being the one she was connected to,   because they’re all the same and all something to be stopped to her

[antigoned]

and frankly i don’t think she would have been quite so stubbornly opposed to the eye if jonah hadn’t chosen elias to possess.   if he had chosen literally any other host she would not have cared as much,   because most people are disposable to her,   with very few exceptions.   she still values her own agency above all else so chances of her fully aligning herself with any entity were already slim   —   but jonah choosing someone who was one of her only friends,   assuming nobody would care about elias enough to even notice he was gone and overlooking gertrude’s connection to him,   was a very bad decision on his part.   it made gertrude extremely vigilant as to when choices were her own and when they were beholding trying to use her to some end goal.   if it weren’t for jonah’s choice of host gertrude may well have become just as embroiled in the archivist role as jon does,   though she was always much more observant of what was going on around her than jon   &   would certainly notice it more as it was happening,   and i don’t think she would have been tricked into the watcher’s crown so easily   ...   but the moment she sees elias change she vows to work against the eye with as much ferocity as she fights the other entities.

[antigoned]

thinking a lot abt gertrude vs jon   &   how their reactions to the eye differed,   how stubbornly gertrude refused to let the eye fully take her and how much she held onto her own humanity despite it all,   how she died a normal human death after everything she’d done and every apocalypse she stopped,   how gertrude began her tapes with gertrude robinson recording and made no mention of the institute or her position as archivist bc she was much more interested in what she,   as a person and not as an avatar or an Archivist or an agent of beholding,   could get out of all this than serving any god,   how her final act was trying to burn the archives down for good and destroy the stronghold of yet another fear regardless of it being the one she was connected to,   because they’re all the same and all something to be stopped to her

[kingdomheart-archive-deactivate]

[oswincoleman]

First still of Jenna Coleman as Marie-Andrée Leclerc, next to Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj in the upcoming BBC1 and Netflix drama The Serpent!

I’m so excited for this!

[lovethi5]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcLZ-KNB0Nf/

[kayleerowena]

the idea of early (pre-jonah) elias and gertrude being a total mlm/wlw solidarity buddy cop best friends dynamic is so good to me, personally

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

Jude Perry, answering her phone: Hello?

Jon: Do you have a favorite color?

Jude: Yes…What?

Jon: I’m color coding our statements based on the Powers involved. The Spiral is orange because Helen had first dibs, do you want to pick the Desolation’s color or not?

Jude:… I want pink

[yocalio]

“Anck-su-Namun” The Mummy Returns (2001) Dir. Stephen Sommers

[antigoned]

@watcheir​      :      i can be of some comfort to you, though not much use.   ( for early elias & gertrude? )

it is a foolish thing,      though,      she muses,      so very elias,      to think that comfort is what she seeks right now.      such a mundane concept.      oh,      yes,      gertrude needs a shoulder to cry on!      oh,      you’ve heard the rumors,      the whispers floating around the archives      :      everyone is talking about it,      the fire that had      (   oh - so - fucking - mysteriously!   )      burnt her apartment to a crisp,      the charred note she’d found in the ash.      HELLO,      ARCHIVIST.      two months into this position,      two months as head archivist,      and she has picked up the clues      (   regardless of how reluctant to answer her questions wright has been   ),      and drawn the connections,      and she knows      :      the desolation has burnt her home,      and more importantly,      the desolation has killed her cat.

‘   you’ve heard,      then.   ’            elias stands in her doorway.      she is surrounded by pages      :      has gathered every statement she can find that so much as mentions fire,      destruction,      ruins,      anything that may point to the desolation as a culprit.      he doesn’t see the way her fists wrinkle the pages,      clutched so tightly in her search for answers.      no,      for vengeance.            ‘   i don’t need comfort.   ’            matter - of - fact.      lips set into an even line,      eyes sparked with flame.      gertrude is on a warpath      —      so help anyone who gets in her way for something as mild - mannered as comfort.            ‘   but i could use another pair of eyes on these statements.      i’m looking for anything about avatars of the desolation      —      CULPRITS,      if you will.   ’

[rosources]

—   ask meme   :   ANGELA CARTER,   THE BLOODY CHAMBER.

i remember how, that night, i lay awake in a tender, delicious ecstasy of excitement.

at this very moment, my mother would be moving slowly about the narrow bedroom i had left behind forever.

are you sure? are you sure you love him?

i’m sure i want to marry him.

i had gladly, scandalously, defiantly beggared myself for love.

he left his wife and child a legacy of tears that never quite dried.

our destination, my destiny.

i was forced always to mimic surprise, so that he would not be disappointed.

elsewhere, i might see you plain. elsewhere, but where?

i know it must seem a curious analogy, a man with a flower, but sometimes he seemed to me like a liy. yes. a lily.

possessed of that strange, ominous calm of a sentient vegetable.

oh! how he must want me!

not by virtue of its violence but because of its very gravity.

her face is common property.

the whispering crowd parted like the red sea to let us through.

i thought: i must truly love him. yes, i did.

how my circumstances had changed since the first time i heard those voluptuous chords that carry such a charge of deathly passion in them!

i thought: my cup runneth over.

a red ribbon like the memory of a wound.

for the first time in my innocent and confined life, i sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.

into marriage, into exile.

i sensed it, i knew it — that, henceforth, i would always be lonely.

i felt, all at once, a sharp premonition of dread that lasted only as long as the match flared.

he kissed me and left me and died.

that lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place!

here, it would be easy to be content.

in the prim charm of this saint, i saw myself as i could have wished to be.

enough! no more!

anticipation is the greater part of pleasure, my little love.

perhaps i had seen your face without its mask, and perhaps i had not.

the silent music of my unknowingness, like clair de lune played upon a piano with keys of ether.

i hardly recognized myself from your descriptions of me, and yet, and yet — might there not be a grain of beastly truth in them?

what is that key? the key to your heart? give it to me!

surprise me for dessert with every ice cream in the ice box.

no, nothing is the matter. i have gold bath taps.

i had let them down again but i did not care.

there must be a great deal to conceal if you take such pains to hide it.

i was alone, but for my reflection.

i had the brief notion that my heart, pressed flat as a flower, crimson and thin as tissue paper, lay in this file. it was a very thin one.

the supreme and unique pleasure of love is the certainty that one is doing evil.

i wanted to know still more, and the means to discover more fell in my way.

i took the forbidden key from the heap and left the others lying there.

yet the skull was still so beautiful.

i heard you walking about, up and down, and some intuition told me you could not sleep.

how could i know, indeed? except that, in my heart, i’d always known.

i had been tricked into my own betrayal.

the secret of pandora’s box; but he had given me the box, himself, knowing i must learn the secret.

i had played a game in which every move was governed by a destiny oppressive and omnipotent, and i had lost.

lost, as the victim loses to the executioner.

i would have strangled him, then.

the atrocious loneliness of that monster!

prepare yourself for martyrdom.

i can be of some comfort to you, though not much use.

who can say what i deserve or no? i’ve done nothing, but that may be sufficient reason for condemning me.

i only did what he knew i would. like eve.

courage. when i thought of courage, i thought of my mother.

do you think i shall lose appetite for the meal if you are so long about serving it?

the puppet master, open-mouthed, wide-eyed, impotent at the last, saw his dolls break free of their strings.

the king, aghast, witnesses the revolt of his pawns.

we lead a quiet life, the three of us.

i never heard you cry before. not when you were happy.