#midst meta

[essektheylyss]

Actually, inb4 the Ship's naturalist makes the comment, I do wonder if the Sentinel is the only reason the Fold of this cosmos is so inert and harmless. An entity evolved specifically to mitigate the pressing threat newly-arrived (newly-created?) Fold presents, maintaining this equilibrium long after most of the cosmos's inhabitants have died out.

On that note, since I'm just musing at this point, alternate idea is that the Sentinel was created by whatever civilization either built these city-esque structures or strip-mined the fabric of reality enough to expose the bedrock of it all. Does it continue to act in its nature after its creators have abandoned it, or did it become so attuned to the threat of anything lively enough to spawn tearrors that it drove those beings to extinction itself?

[the-kaedageist]

I love the burgeoning friendship between Lark and Phineas - it stands out as one of the most meaningful relationships in the entire series. These two, neither of them people who can form anything even resembling a normal relationship with others, are such perfect foils for one another. 

They have very little in common other than a history of childhood trauma. The first time they ever saw one another, Lark thought Phineas had murdered Sherman. The first time Phineas is aware of their meeting, he is consumed with self-loathing and thinks he’s about to die. She loathes him almost as much as he loathes himself. She tries to rid herself and Tzila of him, over and over again - and then, over and over, she listens to the Fold’s vibes and continues to follow this impulsive, ridiculous disgraced adsecla.

Somehow, from that, he becomes her greatest ally. He sneaks her into The Highest Light, hiding her even from Kozma Laszlo. He helps her disguise herself, buys her makeup, lets her stay at his shitty apartment. He brings her into the Breach with him, connecting her with a network of people who have her back - her, a loner her entire life. Together, they destroy the system that created the monsters in them both.

It’s never easy. It’s never not messy. Phineas will have always hurt Sherman and Tzila. He will always live with the damage the Trust left him with, and we know he feels the temptation to sacrifice this woman who is a symbol of the new life he’s found for the chance to regain his old, even as recently as a few episodes ago. Lark has spent her whole life learning how to keep people at a distance; she doesn’t trust easily, and Phineas has not given her particular reasons to trust him.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Phineas does NOT betray her. Lark saves his life multiple times. Phineas is the physical fighter to her sorceress in the final battle. They’re two sides of a three-sided coin, perfectly matched despite the fact that they differ so greatly in history, in generation, in personality, in power itself. The Fold seems to love both of them.

Their friendship just means so much to me. It says so much about the ways that two unlikely people can form a deep connection with one another - past fury and hatred and difference and trauma - and why these relationships matter.

[jestersloverre]

Clara Mire

Clara (proper noun): 'Clara is a feminine name with Latin origins. It translates to "Bright" and "Famous".'

Mire (noun): 'A complicated or unpleasant situation from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.'

Do i even have to draw the parallels between "clara" and "valour" and "mire" and "caenum".

I can't even, bc Lark is the most famously, nay, infamously caenumous person in the Trust and not only are situations leading up to her notoriety are so incredibly unpleasant and complicated, her one act of self preservation made her the most wanted person in the cosmos making it impossible for her to extricate herself from the complicated mess she's in, so she just has to run run run.

I could never have imagined that the crux of a character's background can be so well encapsulated within their NAME.

Sara ThirdPerson I am IN YOUR WALLS!!!!! SHAKING THE BARS OF MY CAGE!!!!! CHEWING ON CARDBOARD!!!!!

[essektheylyss]

I am still thinking about both Artifice and Dot putting themselves physically between the tearror and another person, not least because we don't get either of their points of view in the moment.

The Mothers have always been shown as in control in times of stress, cool and collected, regardless of the danger. They seem to have a higher tolerance for the Fold and tearror effects. Dot believes (and it may be true) that the Mothers are fully in control of their emotions at all times, and their superhuman feats—that higher tolerance, their ability to translate themselves through matter due to, according to Artifice, control of their own body and mind—does give this belief credence.

But they are not invulnerable. They can be hurt and killed. Artifice can say with confidence that if he entered Control with the tearror still inside, he would likely be destroyed as the occupants at the time of the implosion were. He sees it happen before he has the chance to step in front of Everett, and I doubt, given his immediate and decisive reaction, that he had not already realized that when he shielded her.

We don't know if Artifice is afraid when the tearror rushes him. Cleo sees Dot, so we do as well, but no one is looking close enough at Artifice to really identify his feelings, if there are any, in that moment, and in fact, the Mothers appear impassive and esoteric, not to mention literally veiled, to all the occupants of the cosmos through which we've viewed them thus far.

I've mused idly in the past on whether an elimination of emotion is truly what Dot needs to achieve in order to reach their realization. What Artifice tells them, on the one occasion that he speaks only for them, is not to let go of feeling; in fact, he outright tells them, "Do not maintain distance from or question your natural intuition. Let the experience come through however it is, and reveal whatever it has to offer."

Lest we forget, Artifice's name literally means that he specializes in treating those struggling with falsity, insincerity, and dishonesty. Dot is convinced that they are deceiving everyone by not achieving emotional control, and failing for it.

I don't think it's an accident that he is the one watching over her as she embarks upon this journey. I wouldn't be surprised if this perceived flaw of theirs was perfectly obvious to him. But given their deep conviction in it even at the point that they have been chosen as the next acolyte to achieve realization, given that Artifice says it outright and they do not hear it for what it is, it seems that it's not something they will accept until they recognize it on their own. Perhaps that realization itself is what Dot, whether they know it or not, is searching for.

[essektheylyss]

I was thinking about these excellent questions from @ariadne-mouse, and in particular those about what this upper Un megafauna eats most of the time, in relation not to the crew, but the Sloop:

Consider also, @utilitycaster's suggestion of a toroidal cosmos, wherein the limits do not necessarily end, but instead circle around to meet each other. We do see that the mica described at this altitude is "fresher" and "cleaner", in a sense suggesting that this mica is newly formed:

We cannot yet know what lies beyond the tunnels of mica, but if the cosmos do in fact circle back upon themselves, and we take as foundation the gravitational direction of the cosmos—i.e., that the the Un is up, and the Fold is down, and overall, everything flows from top to bottom—then the biggest question is: where does the Fold at the deepest depths go?

But when we get to the description of the Fold of the dark mica being siphoned, the idea of mica forming begins to be called into question:

Contrary to this image of inorganic, dead matter, we do know that Fold is, technically, alive, that it is not liquid but innumerable living micro-organisms, described as algal or bacterial. We also know that mica can be excreted as by-product by other beings, notably mirrorhawks:

And, as we've learned, people contain Fold, which can be siphoned from themselves, and it is fundamental to their being and life. This could explain the chemical origin of this mica secretion, if Fold is a fundamental basis of life in the cosmos:

So perhaps mica, far from being any sort of originating matter, is in fact the by-product of dead, processed, consumed Fold.

Certainly, we don't entirely know how more Fold is created, though we know it has an origin at the Font, so it must have ways of generating more, and the cosmos must have ways of balancing the amount of Fold in the sense that the universe has not become purely Fold. Of course, we do not know where Fold goes beyond the Delta, but based on this evidence, I would hypothesize that one method of keeping this balance is that the megafauna of the upper Un and the megafauna of the extreme depths of the Fold are one in the same—evolved within a toroidal cosmos to consume and process Fold where it is most abundant, and maintaining an equilibrium of Fold in the universe.

[essektheylyss]

Okay but the confirmation that the Granddaughter is supposed to have reached a state of tranquility and detachment but hasn't, and is instead aggressively and desperately shoving down all of their emotions without being able to excise them has sent them to the top of my faves list immediately.

I'm also really looking forward to seeing if the Fold wizard on deck survives whatever just happened, because I would love to find out if all Granddaughters have actually excised their emotions, or if in reality, they're supposed to be practicing tranquility but don't actually have a grasp on that until later, after their Realization. I would not be surprised to learn, especially after Artifice's whisper last episode, that this is something of an initiatory secret that isn't meant to be fully understood until later, once Realization has been had.

[essektheylyss]

I was talking to @captainofthetidesbreath last night about how nonjudgmental the Midst narrators are to their characters, how genuinely sympathetic they are even to the most monstrous of occupants of their world, and that really bore out with Weepe's demise.

The Midst cosmos are, above all, harsh. The very fabric of the universe would destroy you in a moment if you let it, which means life is at every moment a struggle for survival. It is very easy in those circumstances to become something harsh and hardened in response—like the mirrorhawks, creating razor sharp exoskeletons as a defense, or the Trust, building fortresses of civilizations and still finding themselves at the mercy of weather and human whim. Lark, creating borders around herself with both demeanor and distance. Phineas and the company, with mirrored armor and weapons of mica. Weepe himself, severing ties and bonds the moment the opportunity strikes before someone else can do the same to him.

It is, above all, tiring to live like that. Even once a person chooses to push through that, life does not get easier. In fact, it is more tiring to go on. Rest can be found or made, as many of the residents of Stationary Hill have done, as Phineas and Spahr intend to do, but there is no guarantee that it will last—and it probably won't, even now. The universe and everyone in it still has their own conflicting wills, and those conflicts will rise again.

While there is judgment from the other characters—Saskia in particular, and the townspeople on her behalf—there is no judgment in the narrative for Weepe. Of course he's exhausted. He was thoroughly and horrifically punished once, without rest, and what reprieve the Mothers offered him after was never something he could see as a respite.

This isn't to say that Midst posits death as the solution. Phineas goes off in search of rest, alive and in many ways optimistic, no longer naively so. Lark's rest comes in the form of no longer fearing the Trust, even as it is unclear what form she now takes. It acknowledges as well that Weepe's life did not need to come to this, but at the same time, he chooses his rest—because he failed to conceptualize the second chance he was given as such. He pitied himself before anyone else did, and that is the source of his ruin, in the end.

And the narrative itself, in its lack of judgment, weeps for him. When there is no one to mourn Moc Weepe, the story mourns him; in a way, the story is his eulogy, as much as it is Phineas's balanced ledger and Lark's testimony, at last.

[essektheylyss]

I think what gets me about Dot is that they're so young. Cleo notes immediately before the tearror that they're probably actually younger than she is. It's not clear how long they were in Coenobium, but their lack of familiarity with the broader cosmos and their overall fears—of failing, of their emotions catching up with them, of being found out—gives me the sense that they are, in a sense, running from something, if only just themself, but that also begets the question of why. It also becomes clear in this episode from Artifice that it is possible that they will fail to become a Mother, and that that does come with consequences, but we don't know what those consequences are, or whether Dot knows either. In general I keep wondering how much they actually understand about what the realization or actually being a Mother entails, materially. I want to know what they've consciously versus unconsciously given up to pursue this, and why. It feels like there is a why, somewhere, given their youth and their private feelings, but I can't even begin to guess what it is. Where did they come from? How did they come to this training? What do they hope to do with it and what is motivating them to strive for that? Do they even hope to do anything besides leaving something behind?

This is not at all coherent and I'm really just asking questions because I am [RATTLES BARS] but I am eternally just thinking about Dot desperately offering to tell Cleo more about them, implying there IS STUFF TO TELL, and then NOT DOING THAT BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS THEY EVEN OFFERED.