These boots, pages 12&13/13!
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[ID: The last two pages of the TMA coming These Boots. Those pages are drawn against a white background in salmon and blue-grey hues, with occasional black accents.
The first page is divided in four panels, two featuring Jon, two for Gerry. The first one shows Jon putting on Gerry’s boots, the lace wrapping around his little finger and reaching across the entire page to end up tied around Gerry’s little finger, at the bottom right. The pink string effectively divides the page between two portraits of the characters, Gerry walking away from a burning Pinhole Books, engulfed in blue shadows and looking up, and Jon burning Gerry’s page, looking directly down at the fire illuminating his face. The text reads “These boots are made for standing, so let me promise you: Your days are gone, but still...”
The last page concludes: “These boots will stand up on for you”, in a single illustration of Tim, Jon, Daisy and Basira standing in front of the wax museum before the Unknowing. We see them from below, Jon at the center, wearing Gerry’s boots, and the wax museum stands tall and bright, sending dramatic black shadows down the page. Signed: Meaningless Mikhaïl. End ID.]
So it’s the last one, huh.
The ‘pose’ for the last page is one that has been here from the start, I was like ‘oh cool images pop up in my head too’ but upon examination I’m pretty sure it was vvvvery inspired by @atlas-of-galaxies‘s TMA animation The Killing Kind (if you haven’t watched it yet gogogo)
So it’s been a hot minute. Like lots of people, especially nd folks, it’s a struggle to maintain long-term projects. But I spent four months on this one, at my own pace sure but still, I didn’t quit.
A thousand thanks to everyone that interacted, reblogged, said marvelous things in the tags, liked all the pages at once! It motivated me, and when the last pages didn’t get much reaction, it was disappointing but I remembered previous feedback and the fact I decided to do this to experiment from page to page, and the ones in black and white? Enjoyed making them, learnt a lot, like them, so I’m good. Thanks again!
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MAG 117 Relisten
Activity on my first listen: Baking something with apples
An episode full of thoughts. That's gonna be a long one...
JON: "Daisy’s been pretty clear that she thinks the best chance of success would be for her to go in alone, and, honestly, I struggle to disagree. But Tim isn’t going to sit home and wait, and Elias seems pretty insistent I go along. Part of me thinks it’s just so he can see if whatever this “preparation” he’s been trying to do on me works."
Aw man, sounds like he is really afraid of this. I mean, firstly, he'll be returning to the place where he was already hurt, when the Circus kidnapped him for their skin care before flaying seminar. In general the Stranger has done enough to scare him even before that, Not!Sasha, Nikola visiting him. And then of course, the operation itself is dangerous.
Of course Elias is insistent for him to go along. But not for the reasons Jon thinks he is.
JON: "You know what? That same petty little part of me rather hopes it doesn’t. That all this time, all his cryptic nudges and “learn to fly by falling” attitude, ends up being a complete waste of time. Just to show him."
I wonder if this ended up to be a conflict in his coma. He knows, that Elias is planning something for him, he doesn't know what exactly that is, but that it's probably not good. (But probably also not the scale of this not good.) But at the other hand he wants to protect the others? Also, the instinct to survive is usually a pretty strong one.
JON: "I think Basira is the same. She’s coming along to back up Daisy, or so she says. I don’t quite get those two. I suppose what they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… it’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone."
I wonder if seeing the dynamic those two have with each other got him to make the decision to trust the others and wanting to support them more. Shared trauma can forge these strong bonds. It's a survival mechanism. In the end, I think for Jon and Martin it was not just that though. I mean, surely it helped. But Jon made that character development a lot of the time alone. And through all his hardships, where the others abandoned him, even despised him, Martin always came back to him and stood with him. Even when Jon still "hated" Martin, he did care for him (see MAG 22, MAG 40) and already opened up to him (MAG 39). How could he not have seen this in Martin. Jon may not be the friendliest of persons, but he sure is a kind one.
JON: "If I am, uh, slipping then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an-anymore"
I can so relate to that...
JON: "If I am, uh, slipping then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an-anymore. how much they’ve… suffered because of this place. Because of me. God. Poor Melanie. And… aside from some, uh, uh, office gossip which I, I’m not sure is necessary or, uh, conducive to a workplace that… hey, it, it, it’s natural it’s, it’s normal. There’s, there’s no there’s no sinister hidden motives or… it’s fine. It, it’s fine."
Oh he listened to that tape with the Jan Kilbride statement! Elias torturing Melanie happened on the same day and he addresses that. I'd just like to know, when this happened. Somewhere between Gertrude's storage unit and now. Also, he has now successfully internalized the guilt that is not his to bare.
JON: "I do worry about Martin and Melanie."
Even though Jon and Melanie had plenty of arguments he does worry for her! That's what I meant earlier.
BASIRA: "But I think sometimes you feel like you’re adapting, but it’s just denial."
Very well said. And then it's just a matter of stamina, how long you can keep up this denial before breaking, or actual change.
BASIRA: "But, she’s solid. She’s a… a fixed point, and if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing, relative to her."
This is important for their relationship post coffin. I've seen Blackbeard and Izzy's relationship (Our Flag Means Death) being compared to Daisy and Basira.
BASIRA: "The sort of bad you can only get through if you stay focused and keep a clear head. You choke down the fear – and not because it’s feeding some weird horrible god, like Jon thinks, but because that’s how you keep going."
Except for the choking down the fear I agree!
MELANIE: "They think they’re giving me a chance to face my demons by helping to take down Elias. They don’t get that the only way to deal with something like him is to watch his eyes go dead with your hands around his throat. I’ll play it their way, for now, but when it comes down to it, I want to see him dead. I, I’m so angry just sometimes, when Jon’s going off on one about his latest insight, it’s all I can do not to punch him in the teeth."
When I was first listening I absolutely did not understand where this lust for murder and violence was coming from. Especially not for Jon because she asked him for access to the library and he literally wasn't there when she took the job. Of course, it makes so much sense in S4!
The "arsehole" in the fan transcript is missing, keeping it pg? xD
MELANIE: "Said I’d been mugged, although the scans couldn’t find anything in there."
But of course they wouldn’t see the bullet... because of all the artifacts! (diagnostic imaging pun, *badum tss*)
MARTIN: "I, I’m scared, I guess. – no, wait. No, no, I mean, aww, I don’t want that to be my last message, the thing that defines me. 'Martin Blackwood, he was always scared, then he died. The end.' I don’t want that."
That hit me pretty hard, not gonna lie.
MARTIN: "I need them to be safe, I need him to be okay."
One of the most famous Martin lines.
MARTIN: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope Jon doesn’t actually listen to these. 'Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?' No, Jon, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies."
Web!Martin! Even if he denies it xD But also, actual spiders don't want to help you out with flies either. They just want prey to eat. And watching me sleep it seems! God that fucking spider sitting on my shoulder watching me sleep...
MARTIN: "Just… just don’t die, Jon… Or, or Tim, Basira, or… Daisy, I guess?"
This is just fan service again here!
[SIGH, CLATTERING SOUNDS]
DAISY: "Okay."
Best! xD Seriously, this was really funny. Daisy just cocking her gun and being like "That's it. That's all I have to say".
TIM: "Just, if you’re there, I want you to know that I hate you. I hate you for, for witnessing what’s happened to us."
Right in the face of the audience!
TIM: "Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!"
Oof, that door thing... But ultimately, it's the same in real life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Awful things happen to good people. Awful things happen to bad people.
TIM: "And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it… well, he’d better have the guts to do it."
Very short-lived foreshadowing.
JON: "Gerry. I-I know there’s more he could tell me – he he, wouldn’t of, of course, I, I know that but he, he… he would still be there, th-that, that knowledge, i-it would, it would still exist…"
How very Beholding of him-
JON: "Come on. On tape, just, just, just do it! Do it!!"
-but he's better than that.
Wonder, if it was meant to hurt anybody who tries to destroy a page of the Catalogue. Or if it's worse for Eye-aligned.
@a-mag-a-day
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