(via FlimsyFlamingo On Twitter)

Tumblr should appreciate Two Crabs by Vincent Van Gogh more

It's two crabs, whats not to love

One episode of TMA that I will NEVER be able to shut up about is 170 (Recollection). The first episode that made me properly cry! Not only is it a beautiful exploration of Martin as a character, but humanity in general.

The light, innocent, childish small talk that Martin offers to the tape recorder. He tries so hard to keep it comforted, welcome in his home, looked after. It'd be wrong of course, to ignore it, even in his despair; others should always be put first.

Through tangled, rambling sentences, Martin manages to always explain away his own emotions, actions... To be visibly uncomfortable, unwelcoming, is wrong. He offers up his life, details of his existence, but talks them into offhanded mentions.

The subtle embarrassment he has for himself; a hallmark of much of English society. Everyone must be a self contained functioning person, lest they risk being 'odd', 'troubled', perhaps even 'disruptive'.

And as Martin's inhibitions fade, as his memories of everything grow dim, his instinctual desperation shows so painfully through. Desperately reaching for answers, as a child desperately holds their hand out for an absent parent.

Martin never had a safe person to reach for, someone always there for him. His father gone before he really knew who he was, his mother infinitely distainful... This abandonment mirrored by Jon's absence that floats into his mind in phases.

And even to be denied the pain, to forget what you were crying about, there's something terrible about it. Feeling the lump in your throat, the tears on your cheeks, but never really being sure why they were there, if they even are.

And the chairs. To be denied the simple comfort of a soft place to rest.

Martin's eventual return to his duties, caring for his mother, the subtle falsified joy he finds in it, and his decline into self hatred, blame. How easy it is for him to find his way back to a place of insecurity even when he has nothing to grasp onto.

And how strong he stays. How ready he is to shoulder the blame, to carry on, to be there for anyone who might need him, anything. It's all outside, and when he falls deeper into the fog his internal, pressed down emotions spill out.

All of Martin's fears come from a place of worrying he isn't enough, and this domain reduces him to a state where he is nothing; and yet, he prevails.

I heard that a lot of people didn’t catch it on their first listen of episode 25, but I am FASCINATED by Arthur’s horrified whisper of “I killed him…” after Matthew died, before John reacted.  Less for that reflexive guilt, but more for how as soon as John started accusing Arthur of killing him, Arthur throws up his walls.  John seems to have missed that whisper too, with “Don’t you feel any remorse?” when Arthur’s first reaction was horror at himself.  But as soon as someone ELSE is accusing him, out come the claws and the hissing and spitting.  

I think John’s hitting more of a nerve than he realizes simply because Arthur is already seeing himself as a monster who lost his humanity: that first night with Yellow, drunken and exhausted, he recites the “Invictus” poem and says that “someone far more human than I” wrote it.  During his argument with John while trapped in the walls, he talks about being “lectured on his lost humanity by a god,” stating it as just an observable fact.  And before all that…Faust.   He’s already sure he’s less than human, but hearing it from the only friend he has left in the world?  That’s more painful than he can bear.

“I killed him,” Arthur says, a confession only he hears.  “You killed him,” John says, unknowing that the condemnation was already laid down.

i've recently taken an interest in the greek magical papyri and i have to say, one of my favorite spells is definitely the one to summon a crocodile to carry you across the nile river

Actually did a proper background for once.

The number of hands that should be here has doubled since I made this, I'm sensing a bit of a running theme in horror podcasts

Edit: it was going to bother me if I didn't follow up

Edit 2: and some sci-fi podcasts

(Apparently Kakos Industries too, but I've not heard it)

If there are Malevolent fans out there who don't mistakenly read "Kanye" every time someone writes "Kayne," please tell me your secret.

Feathers