I Wished With All My Heart That We Could Just Leave This World Behind. Rise Like Two Angels In The Night

gonna play mouthwashing with some friends … could be my new fandom… this could cure me

BJM AND THE FUCKING DANDY WARHOLS ARE PLAYING TOGETHER IN AUSTIN IN OCTOBER!!! no one speak to me ever again this is the best goddamn thing to ever happen to me and tickets are being acquired as we speak

Are they… you know… lost?

that post-high moment when you realize there’s no one else to talk about bjm with, it’s not the 90s anymore, you’ll never get a cassette of the original pol-pot’s pleasure penthouse, “fade” will most likely forever be a lost track, and dig! is an 18 year old documentary on a band that no one cares about. why do i always do this lol. i think dead/obscure fandoms just call to me. perhaps it is the universe’s way of punishing me. what did i do in my past life to deserve this

ohhhh patrick jane / lost au. this was mentioned to me as an idea and now i can't stop thinking about it <3 i think patrick would in fact be despised by half the cast and tolerated by the other. maybe a few token admirers in between there. i can see a good amount of locke & patrick clashing over ideological differences of what the island is ... but i can also see patrick clashing heavily with jack! and the a team in general! yes, patrick is getting automatic b team treatment, not only because he's already made enemies out of jack, sayid, and kate ( patrick clocked pretty quickly that she was the fugitive! ) but also because this guy doesn't know how to even hold a gun. he's also very wary of sayid but, in typical patrick fashion, is super annoying about it. and hurley is all, “dude, you're a psychic,” then patrick is like .... hurley. there's no such thing as psychics. but hurley won't believe that for a SECOND. charlie is done with the guy but also finds him kinda cool to be around. sometimes. patrick has a soft spot for boone, and even shannon ... and finds desmond very intriguing, if not somewhat insane. he's been on an island alone for three years, after all! tho i think patrick would meet his match in ben. hm hm. anyway. rotating thoughts in my brain. wondering what patrick's test(s) would be. soooo many possibilities.

The Jack Monster and The Smoke Mother

In yesterday’s article, I mentioned in passing that Jack turns into the Smoke Monster. This bit didn’t seem to fit the conceit of the piece, but apparently I should have included it, because everyone’s asking about it. I’ve added it into the article in an addendum, and I’m putting it here as well. I’ll try to keep it “brief” and “simple”, citing only information we were given in the show.

The Mother was the Protector of the Island.

The Mother explained to her sons that going into The Source would result in a fate worse than death (i.e.- Becoming a Smoke Monster).

The Mother destroyed the Man in Black’s village in a most Smoke Monstery of ways, seen here:

What I’m getting at here is that, as Protector of the Island, Mother both had the powers of Jacob, and was a Smoke Monster. She split her duties and powers between her two sons, and made it so they could not kill each other. It would make sense that the Protector of Important Magic Island would be the incredibly powerful cloud of black smoke that can read people’s memories and kill them in seconds. Rousseau was right: The black smoke IS a security system. A very important one, meant to patrol the Island and protect it for as long as it can. Mother was this being, and she also had the power of Jacob: to make rules, to give others abilities, etc. Full-on Island Protector.

But she couldn’t decide which was deserving of the role. She loved them both. So she made it so each would get a part of her. The Gray Mother split herself into dark and light. The problem here is that The Man in Black became the Smoke Monster. He became a security system that wanted to leave its post. That was problem with the Broken Island for so long: One of its protectors had no interest in protecting anything. Both protectors wanted the other dead, but neither could kill the other. Thankfully, Oceanic 815 crashed and Jack was eventually all “Fine, I’ll save the world.”

So. How are Smoke Monsters made? They dip themselves into The Source. Into the Water and Light. Jacob tossed his Brother down and then his Brother cracked his skull, fell into The Source, and emerged as the new Smoke Monster. Later, Jacob found his body draped over a nearby rock and tree:

The Water and Light absorbs the essence of a person and turns them into a Smoke Monster. But they don’t need the person’s body. So The Source moved the body outside.

So what happened to Jack in the finale? He went down to The Source. Desmond unplugged the Island and was unaffected because of his Magic Time Brain. Jack had to plug it up again, though, and the Water and Light DID affect him. He sacrificed himself because he knew the Water and Light would kill him.

But the Water and Light doesn’t kill you. We’ve SEEN what it does. It turns someone into a Smoke Monster, into a Protector of The Island. The person needs to be dead, though, as The Man In Black was dead when he reached The Source. Then it spits out the body. So after Jack was consumed by Light and Water, where did we next see him?

The same place The Man In Black showed up. (Forgive the quality of the picture, I just screencapped an edited montage from YouTube).

The Source spit Jack out once it absorbed his essence for Smoke Monstering. But Jack wasn’t dead yet. He was stabbed and bleeding, but not dead yet. Not like the Man in Black already was when he fell into The Source. So Jack walked into the reeds, lied down with a dog, and died. His eye closed.

Then, however many yards away, a new Smoke Monster burst from The Source. And this time, it was a Security System thatwantedto stay. One that even needed to stay. Jack’s whole arc of the show ended with himneedingto stay on the Island and to do whatever he could to protect it. He believed in the Island, and he believed that he belonged there. Now he was even more correct than he thought. Jack could now happily float around in his new form, helping Hurley clean up Jacob’s mess, and protect the Island he loved, in the form of something he once feared. He did this for many many years, until Hurley’s reign ended and they could both pass off their power and position to Walt, the next true Protector of The Island.

Now let’s go to the Sideways, where Jack keptalmostremembering his life. Every other character had one moment when they remembered everything that ever happened to them. Jack, on the other hand, needed several. A moment with Locke, a moment with Kate. He kept not quite being able to remember. Now, one could argue that this is just because he’s Jack. He’s stubborn and resistant, and just needed a while. However, he wasn’t that way in the Sideways. That was one of the main points in that world. Everyone had evolved and grown in their lives, and they displayed the traits they’d developed in their time on the Island. Sideways Jack was not as stubborn as Real Life Jack.

SO. What’s my point? Jack spent we-don’t-know-how-long as a Smoke Monster on the Island. It could have been years or decades or centuries. Hurley lived a life just as long, but he never changed forms. Hurley remained himself. Jack, however, was Smoke Monster Jack. We saw what being a Smoke Monster can do to a person. As Mother said, it can be “worse than death”. You lose some of yourself. You take the form of other people, you float around asblack smoke. Yes, its essence is you, but much of you is lost over the years.

Jack needed those extra pushes in the Sideways world, because he was so far away from it. He spent his life as Jack, but then he spent X amount of years as another entity. He lost a bit of himself, and each time Locke or Kate touched him in the Sideways, he got a little closer to remembering his life before the Smoke. He needed a drastic wake-up call like his father explaining everything to him in order to truly wake up from his life.

woke up at 3am and the first thing on my mind was marius josipovic. i fear there may never be a funnier character alive mostly bc of his perpetual irritation. the way it flares up so dramatically, you can just see it in his face. or his eye rolls??? JESUS that man can do an eye roll it's hilarious. the annoyed ass tone he gets, his lil accent slipping through. he really gets sooo upset that this fucking person ( carly ) whose family he's conning won't be his friend. what type of fucking conman tries to befriend someone who's going to be completely useless to their con. it's so funny because he really desperately tries to get on her good side, even apologizes and asks if they can start over, and presses the issue until she smiles?? his compassion for other people is actually insane considering he lies and cheats and steals, like at his core he shouldn't care, but he does, and that's what makes him stand out to me so much. i think he has the capability to emotionally remove himself from situations and other people, but when his empathetic nature hits, it's difficult to remain as unaffected as he tries to be. and something so fucking sad to me is that, for the first time in his life, marius feels welcome and at home when he goes to con the bernhardts. he feels like he has a family, because he's welcomed with open arms and there's not an inch of distrust there. which is so different from his own family - esp with his brother, who he genuinely can't trust bc eddie is actively trying to screw marius over to save himself! so to have these people who he actually somewhat trusts and who trust him in return? i think that's life changing.

and there's this scene with carly where marius mentions the bernhardts being a normal family and carly is like. normal family? and marius acknowledges that they may not be completely normal, and that's that. but to him, this is what a family should look like. a type of family he never got to experience, so of course this is normal for him. he even says this after learning about some of the fucked up things that have happened in the past and continue to go on between these people, knows about the strained dynamics, but it's still enough for him to feel safe. i think marius might be his most normal when he's with julia, shows her what he can do, but the thing is, he doesn't even think about it. he just does it, because he feels safe enough to. literally exposes himself as a fantastic liar, somewhat admits he's in deep with some bad people. and he did this all without a second thought, didn't even think, maybe i shouldn't show this person what i'm capable of when i'm about to con them. he even willingly comes back to save her life when he already told her it's best to run away from danger. she sees this as cowardice while marius just sees it as survival. which really shows the different experiences they've had in life. and yet, all the same, they bond and they work well together and they enjoy each others' company. like, genuinely. and that's something completely new for marius because he doesn't do bonding. the friends we see him have are old friends, people he's known for years. making friends ... it's not something he's interested in doing, but here, with the bernhardts, he just. subconsciously does that. sure, we can say he may need to bond with these people bc they literally think he's their cousin / family, and if he's going to be let into the family secrets, he has to be close to them. but there's no doubt in my mind that's not what's driving marius here. none of this behavior is calculated, he's not bonding or attempting to bond with them because it's the smartest thing to do. he's doing it because he fucking wants to. and that is just so interesting to me because marius knows better than to get attached, he's a seasoned fucking criminal, and yet...

and after he sees his own brother betray him?? marius doesn't even get mad, even when he would never do that to eddie, he doesn't get angry. i just don't think he's quick to anger, ever. irritation? yes. but not anger. and he can be a genuinely kind and understanding person, especially when it comes to people's emotions and motivations, like... he doesn't judge others for that. even if he doesn't feel the same way, even if it's something he would never do, he can empathize. at his core, marius is a sweet and warm person, but his entire life he's been molded into a criminal, a con artist. i'm sure he had to steal as a kid to help feed himself and his brother, because while we get very little information about he and eddie's childhood, it's clear to see that their mom wasn't a good one. and she was incredibly young. marius was always the caring older brother, always did everything he could to protect eddie, enough to where it's shaped him into who he is today. and he doesn't even resent that. he'd do it again in a heartbeat, and he does. his priority will always be the people he cares about, but when he cares about his brother and the bernhardts, who he has to steal from to protect his brother, what then? it's such an interesting dilemma and the writers just ... did a fantastic job of setting it up. this show, at least the first season, really is insanely well written and acted. giovanni ribisi is genuinely perfect as marius. and it's so funny because no one else i've showed this series to has liked it, but i just!! god i fucking adore it. i could write a fucking dissertation on it, about the fox metaphors, about marius and why he is the way he is, about VINCE?! fuckkk he's a great antagonist. there's just so many amazing characters in this show and i truly find myself liking every single one of them. that's rare. so, sneaky pete? you have a fan for life. will i ever finish s3? probably not but s1 goes so fucking hard and i'm never going to get over this story. also honorable mention, marius thinking anything spiritual is a scam is sooo interesting of him. he's such a skeptic. i love him. anyway. back to bed i go

i do not want to see these umbrella academy fans try to compare the feeling of that ending to lost’s ending …. do not piss me off pls

i'm curious!! tell me in the tags the word count of the longest and shortest fics on your ao3 account. my longest fic is 38,435 and the shortest is 269