Oct 1, 2022
also so far there’s been 3 Michaels and 3 Johns. and we’re only 13 episodes in lmaooo
seen from Sweden
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from New Zealand
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from New Zealand
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Australia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
also so far there’s been 3 Michaels and 3 Johns. and we’re only 13 episodes in lmaooo
I’m having big feels over Naomi Herne again.
Just...Jon Was Going To Leave The Room. She Was Going To Be Okay. BUT SHE DIDN’T WANT TO FEEL LONELY SO SHE ASKED HIM TO STAY. AND HE DID!!!! JON DID!!! BECAUSE SHE ASKED AND HE WAS BEING KIND IM-
I will never get over how much that one little scene retroactively just wrecks me so much.
hey do you guys remember when episode 13 confirmed that dead Lukases have the ability to speak to their loved ones from beyond the grave?
so! what are our thoughts on ghost!Peter floating about and giving (unhelpful) advice to s5 Elias?
--
Elias: hmm which suit should I wear for a new day of ruling over my ruined world? The black with gold trimmings, or the little emerald number with--“
Peter, spookily: how about the pastel blue suit i found in this drawer?
Elias, exasperated: for the last time, Peter, those are pajamas
MAG013 – Caso 0161301 – “Sola”
Testimonio de Naomi Herne, sobre los eventos ocurridos después del funeral de su prometido, Evan Lukas.
[Disclaimer/ Aviso]
[MAG012] | x | [MAG014]
Relistening to MAG013: Alone
A few thoughts:
Season 1 is amazing and infuriating to relisten to at the same time. Looking back, so many things are just straight up said in a basic fashion, but without the information or context behind them they go WAY over your head. So listening again, you’re just YELLING and recognizing not only characters, but phrases, information that is super important even now, and in general, the Powers being super obvious in what they’re doing.
This episode is the pinnacle of that.
So, there are quite a few things going on, the Lonely and with that, the Lukases. But, since we still don’t know too much about them and in general, what Peter is you know actually doing atm, I’m gonna put a pin on that and talk about other things. Mainly: Anchors and monster Jon stuff.
(Gonna add here: Laughing at the fact that Naomi said Evan wasn’t close to his family bc they were “religious”. Evan took one look at his fog creating, sea family and went “You know I actually like people so uh bye~”).
Anyway, anchors.
Naomi Herne: "I felt... Forsaken."
Me, relistening for the third time: Do you now? Imagine that-
MAG013, Alone
Case #0161301, Naomi Herne Release date: April 21, 2016 First listen: 15th October. Think it was on the walk into work.
OK, straight off the bat, this being a live recording gives us a more accurate idea of the date in universe. The statement was given January and releases April, so the delay from events occurring to us hearing about them has dropped from about a year to a few months.
- The addition of a new voice threw me I won’t lie. And this may be harsh, and I’m sure she is a talented soul, but I didn’t really vibe with her delivery and in my opinion, Jonny was acting her out of the room when he was speaking. Her delivery just felt a little… detached? A little by rote to me? To be fair, I don’t know how long she had with the script before recording. But I like the fact that we get a new voice for the introduction of The Lonely, seems suitably ironic.
- The series long bit of sassing the equipment. I would like the Archivist to know, that I personally would be charmed, as someone who still owns and uses a filofax.
- I’d like to know, what prompted the Archivist to take this statement in person. He mentions in MAG011 Dreamer that he wants to hear about anyone coming in predicting his death or anything along similar lines, but this does not concern him in any direct way. Admittedly, she does ask hm to remain for the statement giving, but why not have her leave a written statement like anyone else coming to the Institute? Why’d she get special treatment? Is it the connection to the Lukas family? ‘Connection’ being an odd word choice seeing as they’ve seemed in one more claim her and ignore her. The Lonely’s a capricious beast.
- I won’t make any excuses, I don’t like Ms Herne. I do not care for her attitude. Yes, grief can and does alter a person’s behaviour and their rational thinking, but she sounds like a brat. She’s scoffing at everything the Institute is, everything the Archivist is, but she’s still expecting to be believed and supported. She feels she has the right to ask for the Archivist’s company and support after she’s spoken to him so. As she says, she’s desperate but she still has the gall to be so scornful.
- Lukas! The first mention of the Lukas Dynasty. The power behind the Watcher’s Crown… Kinda… The coin any how. Jonah somehow bestowed the hereditary title of ‘Sugar daddy’ on the Lukas family, the canny bastard.
- ‘...but I was distraught. I still am.’ Why do I feel like she’s reading a script? I mean, ok, literally the actress is reading a script, but I get the impression Naomi may not understand exactly what she’s feeling but is consulting some unknown human interactions manual and going, ‘yes, distraught, that seems like an appropriate response.’ It feels like a mask being pulled on without the person wearing it either committing to the character or full aware that it is a guise, but somehow lost between the two.
- ‘...to be bullied you need to be noticed’. … Well, isn’t that an uncomfortably familiar mood.
- ‘...maybe happier isn’t quite the right word.’ No, but I get it. It’s a contentment, hot through with melancholy, like a seam of silver through rock.
- ‘I didn’t need other people and they certainly didn’t need me.’ *deep breath* … God, OK, here we go. Right, if you don’t want personal introspection, skip to the next bullet point. On the first go around, I imprinted hard on Martin and when I told dodgylogic so, there were some concerned noises. And it only got more acute as the series went on, as we saw more of Martin and his relationships with the other characters and The Lonely. People like to talk about which Entity they’d serve or which domain they’d fall pray to. I think I’m caught somewhere between The Lonely and The Desolation, between the burn out and the break down. A sot blackened light house. But like Martin, I’ve spent so much of my life setting myself on fire to keep others warm. I think it’s a family trait. But going to Uni was a bit of a wake up and a shock. Primary school, I’d gone somewhat unnoticed by my peers, same at secondary and my teachers only really noticed what I’d accomplished quietly as I was leaving. But to so many of my peers, I wasn’t a friend, I was a resource. I was a work horse that was brought out for the heavy lifting and long hours but never really for the gymkhanas or shows. I used to say of myself I was a Clydesdale amongst show ponies. There’s several instances I can name where my chest went hollow, because it’s not even a case of being ignored or missed. It’s being seen and passed over, and it being known you will weather it without a word. But Uni was different. I wasn’t expected to burn myself for anyone else, and when people asked after me and meant it genuinely, it was only then that I realised how scorched I was. Long story short, The Lonely fucks me up fam. When I finally seek counselling, I am handing over this blog and my AO3 profile.
- OK, after all that I’m going to the gym for a bit.
- ‘...the children were a thick, entitled lot.’ … Ma’am, with the way you are conducting yourself, pot calling kettle much.
- ‘(The relationship) never seemed like his being there stopped me being myself, or crossed into spaces that I saw as my own.’ Right, so as previously mentioned, I suspect myself as being somewhere on the aroace spectrum. And a big component of that is the idea of someone else’s happiness and well being being dependant on me and my actions is something I find terrifying. For multiple reasons, but there’s also a significant amount of self preservation at work, see previous introspective out pouring above. Might the situation change if I was in a situation where I felt confident I would not lose myself? Maybe?
- The way Naomi rattles through the event of his death is telling but of what, I’m not quiet sure. I think it indicated she hasn’t processed it and is still mentally stuck in March of 2015. The fact that it’s Evan’s heart that gave out, is that anything? Especially when you consider that Gerard died of a brain tumour. The Lonely, preying on sentiment and emotion fears. The Eye, being a more cerebral fear, more analytical?
- Evan describing his family as ‘very religious’. Religion, well Christianity, gets mentioned a few times. Her mother’s Methodist faith, a Pastor counselling her. Seems all the more cruel when it’s a chapel building she finds herself lost at, but I supposed you don’t really find many grave yards without a church building of some kind or another in the Kent countryside. The fact that the piece of masonry she kept hold of and was her anchor was engraved with a cross. I wonder if Naomi turned to religion after this statement giving, if The Lonely hadn’t already claimed her? Became part of a lock for community?
- ‘I’d never met or visited them, or even been told their names, as far as I remember’…. You were engaged… If he hadn’t completely cut himself off, then I think that’s a bit of a telling red flag. If he had cut himself off completely from the family, that just makes the fact that they completely reclaimed him in death all the more sad.
- ‘But they must have known me enough to invite me.’ I doubt Evan would have mentioned her, if he was distancing himself from the family, I imagine the last thing he wanted to do was draw his family’s attention to Naomi. I can only assume that she had already touched by The Lonely, the same way Avatar’s have found folks despite not having addresses or other contact information.
- ‘Moorland House’. Nothing quiet says bleak and imposing like moorland. Wide open wild places, subject to a climate all their own and oh so very easy to get lost on. Also put me in mind of the Moors Murderers, who used Saddleworth Moor to dispose of their child murder victim, one grave has still not been found after 60 years.
- The storm that hit the UK at the end of March 2015 was Storm Katie, sharing a name with Naomi’s actress.
- ‘I don’t know what I expected from Evan’s father.’ We don’t get any confirmation that Peter is Evan’s father, do we? We certainly don’t get name here and I can’t remember it being mentioned. I don’t think we ever get mention of Evan again come to think of it.
- ‘I felt guilty enough about his death, though I have no idea why.’ She has no reason to be, she’s no medical professional, but I imagine guilt and wanting to avoid others because of that guilt is another wedge The Lonely would use.
- She says ‘coffin’ and ‘casket’ interchangeably, oh no. There’s a difference I promise you. Let Caitlin Doughty tell you more.
- And while I’m on Caitlin’s channel, I want to link another video. Naomi’s realisation and description of how in death and back under the control of his family, he’d become ‘alien to the life that had he had created for himself’. The family was reclaiming Evan but force in death, and that made me incredibly sad. It reminded me of a video Caitlin made about protecting a person’s identify in dead, specifically a trans person’s identify, which may be contested by next of kin, and as next of kin, they have all the legal say. But there are ways to stop that from happening.
- Have I linked 3 Caitlin Doughty videos in the last 2 submissions? Yes, yes I have. She does good work.
- The loss of the track of time is something to be expected with grief and also when you get too close to any of The Entities really.
- Y’know, for devote followers of the manifestation of isolation and loneliness, there seem to be a fuck tonne of Lukas’. ‘Dozens of black-clad figures.’ If anything, having large families just to ignore an isolate themselves and each other is all the more fucked up.
- Losing the phone, cutting off any semblance of connections, even non tangible, indirect ones.
- And the fog comes rolling in. The use of fog is very Gothic and very effective. Obscuring, smothering. You could be yards from salvation and never know it if the very air around you obscures and silences it.
- ‘I realised afterwards that the night should have been far too dark to see the fog.’ I remember thinking that too, especially after she got out of the wrecked car. Also, sunset on Monday 30th of March was around 7:46pm, so it may not have been dark when she arrived, but depend how long she was at Moorland House, it may have been dark when she left... It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.
- ‘Even here among the dead, I was alone.’ Ooof, what a line. And we’ve all heard it before, haven’t we. ‘Everyone dies alone.’ And while there may be a truth to it being a solitary action, no one should die lonely.
- ‘Through that door, where the inside of the chapel should be, was a field’. Oh we ain’t in Kansas any more Toto. As the scene progresses, I start to feel a little but of The Spiral at the edges, and The Buried dragging from beneath. Naomi talks of feeling dragged towards the graves, of the fog push and pulling.
- ‘I heard Evan’s voice call to me. He said, “Turn left”.’ This is a reach, literally, but this little moment reminded me of a scene in the first Critical Role campaign. Vax’ildan, my sweet goth bi bird son, had just gotten expelled out of a wound in the flank of a black dragon in flight… As you do, it was a Tuesday for Vox Machina. But as he’s falling, he prays to the Raven Queen, Goddess of Death, to whom he’d traded his service to save his sister’s life. He’s falling, he accepts his role as her champion and she buys him enough time and a whisper instruction of ‘Left’ for him to reach out and save himself. Something beyond the veil telling you to keep going.
- ‘Some time with a more… qualified care professional might also prove helpful.’ Whether he believes you or not Ms. Herne, that is solid advice. Go get psychological help.
- ‘All requests to the Lukas family for information or interviews have been very firmly rebuffed.’ I imagine they were but I also wonder how long it took Peter to steel himself to contact Elias directly and say ‘you need to rein your new man in, ok.’
- ‘The only text that can be made out simply reads “forgotten”.’ And that’s the real death isn’t it? Being forgotten. And I think The Lonely works best when it knows it can leave you forgotten yet you’re still breathing.
- Like I’ve said, if any of The Entities have their claws in me, it’s probably The Lonely. Which is why I refuse to forget, I refuse to be forgotten. “No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away...” GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
I listened to mag 13 this morning and just keep thinking about it. The fact that the first in-person statement Jon has is from a victim that escaped The Lonely… and whose lover died from his association with the Lukas family 😭 PARALLELS