TMA #168: Roots

[schneefink]

The smile in Jon's voice! I love it so much. I love how during the apocalypse we're getting all this fluff.

I find Martin's jealousy amusing. Not rational but he knows that, and to be fair some overreactions are completely expected in a stressful situation like this.

I'm more interested in Martin's thoughts that all the other avatars are evil monsters, except, naturally, Jon. In #164 Martin advocated working with Helen in #164, even wondering if she could help, even as he agrees that she's a "cruel, vicious monster," and when he tells Jon to kill all the evil monsters in #166 that doesn't seem to include Helen who's standing right next to them. So I'm curious how much of Martin's classification of Oliver Banks as one of the non-helpful evil monsters is because he sees all of them that he doesn't have a personal connection to that way, or if it's specifically because of his jealousy.
And because for Martin the difference between Jon and the others is so clear, he doesn't seem to notice how many similarities Jon sees between himself and some of these other "evil monsters," especially those like Oliver Banks who never asked for it. I'm sure that will come up again.

The statement format was fun. How it was delivered, too, basically a report automatically sent to Jon as soon as he enters the domain, heh. I think I would have found a spontaneously manifesting letter less strange...
The statement content was a bit confusing - I'm still not entirely sure on how the corpse routes/roots work? How much do this domain's victims experience "normal life" and how much only the route.

The information about how the apocalypse works were very interesting. So no new humans are being born, a "metaphysical quirk" of this new reality. I wonder how much of the reason for this was that Jonny wanted to avoid the otherwise inevitable consequence of humans being forcibly bred, it is nice to avoid that. It probably also means that everyone who was pregnant when the Eye Opened is now pregnant forever, that must suck. Especially if you're in a domain where you're aware of that.
So we have a limited food supply! Which will inevitably lead to conflict, or "bad feelings," as Oliver put it. Interesting, though as the timeline for that is thousands of years, not immediately relevant, except in the ways in which the Entities are already afraid of it. Yeah, the End will feast.

It also makes me wonder again how much the entities have "minds." So far I would have guessed not much, at least not in human-comprehensible ways, and that most of the interpretation happened through their human avatars. Though in this case I don't think it would change the conflict much.


Last week I really enjoyed the discussion about episode #167 on ff_a, here, especially about Gertrude and how she might have fared in the apocalypse. Copying something I wrote there:
The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Jon wasn't entirely correct or at least misleading about what Gertrude would have done. Without a purpose, I do think it would have broken her in some ways, and I don't think she'd have followed a quest she "Knew" was doomed. But I think that even as she "resigned herself to ruling her domain", that would not have meant losing her humanity, however you define that. I think Gertrude would have claimed her domain, because what else is there to do and she is certainly not going to let anyone else have it, and inside that domain tried to keep away as much of the other horrors as she could. I don't think she'd have gone out to kill monsters, what difference would that make when there are infinite amounts, but I don't think she'd have resigned herself to turning into a monster either, and to prove that she'd have to fight as hard as she could to keep her patch of "normal." I think it would be more about holding onto herself and not giving in than protecting those who enter her domain. Though once she realizes that she can't really do anything for large scale humanity, maybe she'll learn to care about individual humans again.

I don't see how Jonah could have created the apocalypse with Gertrude as the Archivist, she was never as powerful as an Archivist as Jon. Though, hm, maybe if Gertrude wasn't dead but just out of the way – trapped or imprisoned or something – and then got out after the apocalypse started?

And then I went and wrote a thousand words of Gertrude&Mary fic (currently being edited.) Which I enjoyed so much, both because of Gertrude&Mary and because of writing, I haven't done that much recently but I do enjoy it a lot.
The next fic I'll try to write will probably be Jon&Gerry&Mary&Gertrude in an AU (still figuring out the details.) After that I'd like to try writing Basira fic, because I find her fascinating but there's not much fic for her and I'd like to get a better handle on her. I find her a bit more difficult, I'm much more familiar with e.g. academia as a background than the police, but I think I could figure it out. I just don't have a clear idea of what yet… Prompts welcome.