Damn I Hope I Don't End Up Smoking In A Wave Of Depression. My Lungs Can't Even Take The Slightest Bit

Normalize showing appreciation to children's ideas even if they are stupid

Normalize giving children attention instead of shooing them away every time

Normalize letting children think for themselves instead of forcing your own thoughts and beliefs on them

Normalize apologizing to children.

So I have a theory that Jackson's Diary is less of a supernatural and more of a story about two mentally ill people with magic involved and I decided to reread it and keep notes on anything and everything that supports that theory

PS:much easier if you read the chapter after or while reading these notes

Chap17 notes:

•exer stopping just to glare at Pamela before following David and ron, this is like the glare he gave jack when he saw him talk to Brenda, he's threatening Pamela and unlike Jackson she got the message

•exer has all the cards on the palm of his hand, he first set up jack with the skirt accident then after it got solved and he found out the skirt was Pam's and after David suggested they go to the record store which he seems to know pamela works in so he purposely made jack hallucinate an angry pamela while keeping his eyes out of Jack's(and our) vision every time it happens then not making him hallucinate in the store once the real pam appears so jack believes she's not real and mess up

I think the Deans are fucking Lovecraftian gods

If you're a regular reader of my nonsense, you may have noticed that on more than one occasion I've referred to the Deans as "Nyarlathotep Tumblrsexymen": no, I didn't have a stroke on the keyboard, this is a reference to an entity that appears in the stories of Howard Phillip Lovecraft. A writer who is widely known because there were even people who thought that the Necronomicon, a fictional text part of his work, actually existed (and because he was such a recalcitrant racist that it has become a meme about how extremely racist he was).

And since I'm still going through my pile of papers on Gothic fiction, let me take a moment to talk about Lovecraft's work, why I have reason to believe that the Deans have something in common with these creatures, and what that might mean for the development of Nevermore.

A Little About Lovecraft's Gods

To understand a little bit about the kind of creatures we are talking about, I have to stop at a brief (seriously brief) description of cosmic horror: This is a type of horror that takes elements from the scientific publications of the time (which makes it close to science fiction) to give it verisimilitude, it has at its core a deep nihilism, the breaking of scientific canons, the fragility of the human mind and societies contrasted with the vastness of the universe, an enormous fear of "the unknown" for the white man (fed by his racist paranoia), and seasoned with tentacles and creatures that remind us of sea creatures, because Lovecraft had an enormous fear of the sea.

The gods in these stories represent, on a symbolic level, the vastness of the universe, the terror of the unknown, and the fragility of the human mind: they are entities older than time itself, contact with them tends to shatter the mind, and humanity must be very, very grateful that most of them are locked away or incapacitated in some way. Also, the way to access them is through very specific rituals that have been lost over time, so thankfully they're not very easy to contact either.

Similarities with the Deans

Let's start with the most obvious: the Deans, like the Lovecraftian gods, seem to operate in their own plane of existence, beyond what humans understand as "life" and "death": Nevermore is a kind of limbo, but we know, thanks to the Raven, that these guys came from another place and had enough power to kick the crap out of psychopomps without any problem.

However, just like Lovecraft's gods, these enormous powers don't make them able to do whatever they want; as I said, these entities are usually locked up or incapacitated in some way and can only have contact with humans under certain circumstances (like being summoned in rituals), and getting out of their prisons usually requires vague events like astral alignments that are completely out of their control.

The Deans, like Lovecraft's gods, seem to be subject to rules that are above them, and while they can bend them a bit to achieve their goals, it's not like they can do much about it.

Another thing they have in common with Lovecraft's gods is the ability to create servants that function as extensions of them to fulfill their designs. There are many creatures that follow this line in the stories that speak of The Myths, but the best known are the Shoggoth that appear in the novel At the Mountains of Madness: artificial beings created by the Old Ones to rule the Earth, described as amphibious, amorphous masses similar to amoebas.

Although the Deans prefer their minions in the form of animated dolls. I suspect this decision is based on the story The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman. I have no proof, but no doubt.

Now for the joke that brings this essay to life: the creature in Lovecraft's universe that most resembles the Deans is a being called Nyarlathotep. This creature belongs to the category of "Other Gods" (not the old ones like Cthulhu) and gets very nice nicknames like "Crawling Chaos".

Nyarlathotep is a being who enjoys causing chaos, death and madness wherever they go. They can communicate with humans, which they use to psychologically torture them and make them lose their minds. Something they seem to enjoy quite a bit. In the same way that the Deans view this sadistic battle royale, they have set up a fun game.

Then there is the ability to manipulate and alter the human mind, which is called into question in stories like Nyarlathotep and The Rats in the Walls (where it is apparently Nyarlathotep who messes with the protagonist's mind so that he tries to kill his friend).

This is something we've seen manifest in Nevermore in two different ways: the ability to trigger or unlock memories.

And the ability to change them. While we can't know if what was shown to Annabel is 100% real, we do know that showing her the end of her life caused a permanent change in the way she retrieves her memories: from the end backwards. If this memory is somehow altered, we also know that the Deans are capable of photoshopping people's memories.

Finally, Nyarlathotep has the ability to shape-shift, which allows them to appear as humanoids in several stories, such as The Oniric Quest of the Unknown Kadath or Dreams in the Witch's House. His human form is considered "unnatural", "strange" and "disturbing" by those who see it (remember that Lovecraft was extremely racist, so he always presents himself as a black man). As a pharaoh in the Randolph Carter cycle and as a charcoal humanoid figure in the second story cited).

Here, the human form of whatever the Deans are is also quite atypical: not only are they ridiculously tall (7 feet), they have heterochromia with a white-colored eye (which I would venture to say may be a reference to the cataract eye mentioned in the story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe), and their synchronized movements are amusing on paper, but possibly strange to look at for the characters.

Otherwise, there are two other entities in Lovecraft's universe whose descriptions can be loosely associated with the Deans: Yogg-Sothoth and Azathoth. Both are beings of dual nature.

The former is an entity associated with omniscience and appears in stories such as The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror. and is described as "the key and the door".

Azathoth represents omnipotence, is the center of the universe, and is described as "the beginning and the end" or "the alpha and the omega.

Implications for the comic

The fact that the Deans have elements in common with Nyarlathotep brings up an interesting point: although Nyarlathotep has far greater freedom than other beings, they is a servant of Azathoth. In other words, them powers are subservient to a more powerful being whose plans they must follow. They may amuse themselves in the process, but they is still essentially a butler.

On the other hand, the Azathoth connection might be vague, since this creature is a lobotomized god, so he can't do much. But if the reference is to Yogg-Sothoth, it gets a little more interesting, because that entity is the one who is supposed to release the original gods when the time is right.

And I don't know about you, but these references have me wondering if the Deans are working for something much more messed up than they are, or if they're using the souls of the students to bring back something much more sinister.

Reblog this post to ask mutuals to tell you their weirdest theory about u

You can't blame them! Jolie IS so goddamn pretty😔

JOLIE FANART RAAAAHHHH 🎀

ignore the ancient writing on the first one

OH EM GEE THANK YOU!!!

FINALLY IT'S OUT HERE. I was dying to say something about the Jackson hates lucy posts

im so glad u care about lucy-furr deep down even though she hates u cus it was the right thing to do but as someone who doesn't get along with animals i Know it was hard

Yeah, that cat owes me one.

So does he have his own room or not-?

Do you and devious exer sleep together or does he have his own room?

Sometimes we sleep together, sometimes...

A HUGE Willtresor analysis— the kiss, my thoughts on their development, why I think their dynamic will change post ep. 120, etc

Oh boy, I fast-passed episode 120 a while ago and this damn ship hasn’t left my mind since 😭

Monty, you really are a loser. Can’t ibuprofen your way out of this one— it’s the end of the line!

The sad reality is Montresor always took Will’s presence as granted; as said before by multiple characters— he always ended up injuring Will in some way, whether it was his feelings or actually just beating the living shit out of him.

Literally any time he purposefully touched Will in episode 119, it hurt Will, even though Montresor was trying to “protect” him, he’s literally the reason Will has blood coming out of his mouth (I’m pretty sure the impact of Montresor hitting Will’s chest when he told him to stay back caused some sort of internal bleeding). And now, he’s panicking; you can tell from the crazed look in his eyes. He’s frantically trying to convince Will to get up but deep down I think he knew there was no hope. He’s more so trying to desperately console himself that he won’t fuck up something again like he always does.

Something’s changed— he’s noticeably more gentle now than he ever was before. Look at the way he holds onto Will’s robe, it’s almost like he’s trying to put it back on, like he’s trying to repair his mistakes.

Behold, Mont-don’t-fucking-touch-me-quit-bootlicking-me-tresor crashing out over the only time Will refuses one of his orders. What’s wrong? I thought you wanted him to stop boot-licking you 😗 bipolar much?

Montresor lashes out at everyone and tbh I think it’s from how he was raised. Ever since he was born he was literally deemed blasphemous. He got a ridiculous amount of attention from everyone around him and was constantly shunned for his actions, so I’m guessing he eventually succumbed to becoming the monster the church claimed he would be. Makes sense, why would he show sympathy towards anyone when nobody bothered showing any to him? But Will was different, he knew growing up that he could never be someone who mattered. NOBODY paid attention to him. I know people will reduce Will’s attraction to stronger men as “omg cute twink!1!” but really, insecure people are drawn towards people who they deem are confident figures that can provide stability to their lives, sort of like an anchor.

Do I think Monty’s actually confident? Lol no. I think both Will and Montresor hate themselves in a way— Will believes his self-worth depends on pleasing others while Monty believes that he’s already far beyond any form of redemption, so he’s kind of embraced being an awful person while Will’s dream is to just improve himself in a way he never could while alive.

Montresor lashes out at everyone because it provides some form of stimulation for him, it makes him feel better about himself— if the church labeled him as a monster, then hell yeah he’s gonna be one and scare the living shit out of them like they did to him. He isn’t sympathetic towards anyone and doesn’t expect anyone to be sympathetic towards him back. Yet here is Will, who STILL stuck with him after being violently beat and impaled twice, dying in his arms. I don’t think Monty can wrap his head around why anyone would do this and for the first time in his life he actually feels guilty for something.

Montresor doesn’t immediately shove Will off of himself, he lets Will grab onto his jacket collar probably because he thinks Will is going to use it to haul himself back onto his feet…except he actually kisses him, much to Montresor’s surprise LMAOOO

I didn’t notice this when I first read the chapter but Montresor puts Will’s robe back on before pushing him away— unlike episode 119, he actually tries not to injure Will further and avoids touching the shoulder with the bite wound; he uses the robe to safely pull Will off him.

He tried fixing him— the robe is on properly now.

The robe falls right off Will’s shoulder again. Montresor’s efforts ended in vain.

If this doesn’t prove the “Montresor never cared about Will” people wrong idk what will. We’ve never seen another circular speech bubble with the scribbly lines (hoarse/about to cry voice?) from Montresor besides maybe the church episode. He definitely didn’t give two shits at the start but now everything’s changed. We went from “you really are good for nothing” to “you did good, Will”. AAAAH!

Not only did Will die, he died doing something Montresor did NOT expect— idk if Montresor has actually even touched a religious text in quite a while since he doesn’t remember how to pray, but homosexuality was possibly discussed in the cult he grew up in. Even though Monty’s canonically an atheist, he literally swears in Jesus’ name when Will kisses him, he has a whole cross necklace under his uniform too; that religious trauma will never leave him, and Will kissing him only further cemented the fact that he is a sinner; the only person who’s actually compatible with him is a man. I also like how it’s fine when he sleeps with a gazillion women but when a man kisses him he starts tweaking— not really historically wrong if you consider that being gay was labeled as a major sin AND a mental issue in both Will and Monty’s respective time periods. Anyways cue closeted bisexual losing it lmao

Annnd I’ve reached the max image count but the scene where Will literally MELTS?? Straight (gay) nightmare fuel for Monty…left all by (bi) himself (“you’re not funny OP!” everyone says in unison while throwing tomatoes at me, yeah okay I’ll stop) Imo Montresor absolutely forgot about those clones, I bet he thought he was truly going insane and hearing Will’s voice in his head…but hey here’s right next to him and…perfectly fine? damn.

Anyways Will reaches for Montresor, but instead of Monty pushing him away, he instead turns the other way and knocks the crutches out of Will’s hand— he doesn’t hurt Will, he hurts himself by rejecting a mobility aid. Also Will just ignoring the huge bloodstain on the wall and floor right next to his slipper??? WTF??? Why the hell didn’t he say anything about it? Also, we’ve never seen other clones bleed like this before. I wonder if this remaining Will is actually a clone, but since he survived and real Will didn’t, he became real Will now, so the OG melted into wax.

In previous chapters while Will is talking to Montresor, he constantly has this crazed look in his eyes. Will’s eyes are greyish-blue but you can’t even tell in most scenes because they look so black and small all the time from him being so nervous while talking to Monty, like the toothbrush scene and also Will suddenly becoming religious out of nowhere and telling Monty he’s gonna pray after seeing that Monty wears a cross, then completely doing a 360 and agreeing when Monty shares his beliefs as an atheist. Will’s big fat crush was so obvious tbh.

Annnd now Monty is the nervous one. We see one of the first scenes where Will’s eyes are normal sized and blue. Personally? I think Will is actually going to grow a backbone this time and realize Montresor didn’t treat him well. Clone or not, a part of Will just died, and it the most sensitive and vulnerable part that had feelings for Montresor.

I feel like they’re going to (somewhat?) flip their dynamic, it’s definitely going to be hella awkward between them since only Monty remembers the kiss (…and also Will’s dead corpse melting into the floor while reeking of blood, but uhhh yk 😅), I feel like Montresor will be more nervous now while Will will gain confidence. Lenore said it herself, Monty is always scared. I want to see what happens without his mask.

Anyways thanks for coming to my deranged willtresor essay (is it obvious I have audhd), keep writing fanfics (no, not the gooner NSFW willtresor AO3 fanfics…I’ve already found multiple…I SEE Y’ALL—) and uhhh stay strong willtresor nation 🤑🙏

Class please open your books on page 143. We're studying foreshadowing because SOMEONE clearly didn't do their assignment

Jackson's childhood teddy bear from the flashback in ep 130 kinda represent exer?