LORD OF THE RINGS IS GETTING RE-RELEASED IN THEATERS THIS JUNE??? OMFG???????? Seeing These Movies In

I went ahead and redesigned the Mystery Inc Gang because I hate Velma and HBO Max for what they’ve done to my blorbos. Also they’re college students now cuz I have a brain

They know my name…

bonus for the last day of a week of theon ! for the prompt ‘identity’. thank you so much for this week it was fun!

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.

november of 2020, red barrels did a charity stream for extralife that was pretty lowkey. sadly, only a few people attended, so i’d like to document the info we got from writer jt petty for the fandom!

i’ll divide what we discussed during red barrels’ charity stream into sections: games and comics. some of this could be misremembered or misquoted, but i’m trying to stick by the facts that i recall.

OUTLAST & WHISTLEBLOWER:

outlast is, as a matter of fact, under the ‘dating sim’ category on steam. jt says that he wrote a lot of the characters in this mindset. he also said it probably says more about him than the characters.

miles is the kind of guy to get fussed about the difference between ‘carport’ and 'garage’ and 'eclair’ and 'boston creme’. this is about the only insight we got into his personality, because jt couldn’t talk about him: miles and waylon were pretty firmly off limits.

as for waylon, his taste in music is heavy metal! he’s kind of the cool dad, or at least perpetuates the cool dad myth. he would definitely play mario kart with his two boys. gamer dad!

chris walker was from a military family. after returning home from afghanistan, he struggled to make a return to normalcy, and didn’t have many connections to others nor friendships. jt doesn’t believe he was ever involved romantically. he said that he feels chris was in the process of trying to heal by looking for something to protect. chris is also his and vincent’s favorite character.

father martin enjoyed painting landscapes before the art therapy program was cut by helen grant, according to red barrels. when asked if he liked bob ross, they responded, ‘who doesn’t?’ when my friend said that he was the creepiest character in outlast, jt said that’s totally on her.

rick trager was born into money, and his father’s estate and success made it nigh impossible for him to measure up to his legacy. he was the classic disappointment son of a billionaire and never lived up to his father’s expectations. in a bit of trivia, we learned his favorite food is croissants: spinach croissants in particular, because he hates himself. jt also mentioned that rick likely believed he would really profit from selling the body parts he amputated from the variants and miles, and figured he would make out just fine. and that, ‘he probably will.’ if he had a dog, it would probably be something sickly and overbred, like a pug.

langin is named after jt’s wife. he names characters he dislikes after people he likes, and vice versa.

jeremy blaire is probably the most reprehensible character in outlast: the one who is most capable of assuming responsibility for his actions, a face to the name of the murkoff corporation. he enjoys christmas because of the capitalist reason for the season. he would probably give pretty lousy and cheap gifts to his employees. he’s named after two people jt likes.

furthermore, murkoff isn’t the sort of company that gives permission for holiday parties during work hours: if you want to celebrate at all, you do it on your own time or your break.

frank manera would probably be a fan of phil collins’ music since his songs often have a very slow buildup before the payoff. jt interestingly compared this to cannibalism, and how it requires dedicated patience. frank had to go without before indulging in human meat.

frank would most likely get along very well with eddie if they’d met under different circumstances, such as at a party. he sees the two of them as being very unlikely friends, the two dissimilar guys you never expect to get along as well as they do.

eddie was jt’s favorite character to write for due to his ‘flirtatious’ and fun dialogue. he truly believes in his delusions, or rather that they aren’t delusions at all; he was described as being blind to everything else around him when he thinks that he’s in love. if he had a dog, it would be a corgi.

OUTLAST II:

lynn was inspired by people jt has met in the film industry, and her ambition highlights that.

knoth is pretty cultured when it comes to his taste in music, and he has a lot of knowledge of older artists. i believe jt said that he mostly enjoys the blues. if he had a dog, it would have attachment issues and be extremely eager to please, like a shepherd or cattle dog.

marta’s goal of becoming perfectly brainwashed to the doctrine of temple gate was realized. in trying to please knoth, she erased any lingering doubts or traces of guilt in what she was doing, and she no longer feels much emotion at all due to how she has absorbed the cult’s mentality. she is ultimately feared because she is the perfect example of obedience to knoth.

she/her pronouns were used for val. jt corrected himself quickly to they/them, but it still stands.

jenny roland, the pathologist mentioned in documents in both the underground lab from outlast and well-hidden field report from the lake chapter of outlast 2, may very well make an appearance in future games. she seems to be quite important, as jt couldn’t talk about her outside of one personality detail i got out of him: she doesn’t wear either slippers or socks in her home because she’s a clean freak and instead goes barefoot. she’s the sort of person to have everything neatly organized in her home, all the shoes lined up by the door, and not a speck of dust in sight. he was pretty genuinely surprised by all the interest in her character, and red barrels suggested making joke merch for her. socks and maybe fingerless gloves? i’d honestly buy some jenny socks.

THE COMICS:

jt said that the pauls (the two murkoff legal mitigation officers, paul marion and pauline glick) are going to be increasingly relevant to the story of outlast as it continues, and that he has big plans to continue where the comics left off. given this tidbit, and the epilogue of the story, could we possibly see paul as future protagonist, or maybe in pauline’s case, a future major antagonist? at least there’s now solid hope for a follow up to the story of the comics, and possibly an explanation as to what led to paul and pauline’s injuries, as well as murkoff’s haste to find paul before he does further damage. his story left off with simon telling him that they have to find the walrider in order to find the answer to where his daughter alice has disappeared to, after all.

likewise, he hinted that alice marion (paul’s daughter) is also going to somehow be crucially important, making mention of the circumstances of her rare blood disease and experimental gene therapy treatment by the murkoff corporation not being any sort of coincidence, and saying that he has big plans for her. could this mean that simon was telling the truth about her connection to temple gate? is she somehow connected to the morphogenic engine? could this also be why pauline says that paul was her target from the beginning? mysterious!

he talked about how the concept for paul marion was created, and how at his core, he’s just a guy doing a job. his dreamcast for paul would be philip seymour hoffman.

a bit of interesting talk about the 'personality’ of the walrider when questioned if miles likes dogs. since his neighbor says they like him, but they reacted violently to his returned presence at his apartment after the mount massive incident, i asked if miles likes dogs as well as they like him. jt and red barrels implied, rather than stating outright, that the walrider itself doesn’t like dogs. it was also mentioned that it’s very protective and overly defensive, very attached to one person, and unwilling to share. interesting attributes given to something that isn’t supposed to be sentient. (edit: later confirmed by jt in one of the anniversary q&a videos to be a sort of sentient hive mind.)

simon peacock is named after the voice director the character himself was voiced by at the end of whistleblower. however, unlike the real simon peacock, the fictional simon is not from new zealand. is he faking an accent? his character will also be further explored as the story continues!

MISCELLANEOUS:

i knew that trials was a topic that couldn’t be talked about, but still suggested my theory on the story connecting back to the mkultra documents found in mount massive in the first game. jt asked if i was someone from red barrels trying to get him in trouble. i think this speaks for itself. :)

he has a giant pet lop bunny named holly! 10/10! would donate to the cause again just for her!

red barrels said that they’re still accepting merch ideas before reopening the store, and to message them if there’s anything in particular anyone would be interested in seeing. the physical copy of the comics will be restocked in the future, and they may restock other items previously seen in the store. they like to make joke merch, too, so keep that in mind!

and that’s about everything outlast related that i can recollect! is there anything you guys are excited about in particular? personally, i’m totally psyched about the hints towards resolving the comics, and the importance of the marions going forward, since they’ve been my favorite characters for quite a long time. feel free to correct anything here if i’ve misquoted. it’s been a few weeks, and my original notes were very short and to the point.

If its more than one of these, vote the one that was strongest and/or lasted the longest.

I wanted to be a marine illustrator !! Like for textbooks n stuff

clearsight has a spooky vision

i want to roleplay every character ever. i look at fox mulder and i'm like yeah, you'd be too fun ( i played him for a whole year wrote like 300k words but i want to revive him again... ) or i see someone like will graham with his cannibalism trauma and i just want to write the shit out of him ( he's so difficult for no reason ) and then there's me now trying my hand at coriolanus snow.... good luck to me