"Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?
LIVING DEAD GIRL." (Eccentrically Bored)
You're goddamn right it's Rob Zombie. And then Joey Steward once again did something stupid, by getting rid of the drugs and forgetting about the intense and hallucination-filled withdrawal period. He starts by meeting an eldritch version of Long Cat. I shit you not. Honestly, the way he describes the whole nightmare and the very next post, where he's going through complete painful withdrawal and wants to have the pills back so he can stop caring again. He's having incredibly painful headaches, shakes, hallucinations, and he just wants the pills back.
Then comes along C. Honestly, I hated reading C and her comments, because as far as I was concerned, this person was forcibly inserting herself into his problems, and I usually HATE it when people do that with me. If the dumbass gets his fool self killed, sucks to be him for catching a Fear's attention. And the anonymous commenter deserves a high five, possible Timberwolf or not.
And then let's move onto the next page and
In any case, Joey Steward finds the blog brighter than a spoon as reviewed earlier in my blog. He starts trying to determine who The Archangel is. And then C finally says it straight. "Hey. I'm running from the Archangel. Let's team up, brainstorm, and if we can't figure out a way to fuck over the Archangel then we become running buddies like Tav and Agnes," to which Joey replies, "Sure, m'kay, whatever you annoying trollop."
Finally, we learned about Crystal. She's Crystal, a straight-headed, deeply troubled young woman whose life has been destroyed by The Archangel himself. She's also much older and MUCH more mature than this asshat, forcible entry into the plot notwithstanding.
She lived in French-Canada when she saw The Archangel in a cemetery when her brother was killed in a car crash. Then she kept seeing him. And then, at a party, he openly tried killing her. Then the Archangel started sending her notes involving embracing the Archangel (excellent way to ask someone out Archie. Excellent way. -_-). In any case, she also was haunted by the Archangel taking the form of her dead loved ones. I can definitely see the correlation between The Archangel and The First Evil in this story, and honestly it suits The Afterlife Incarnate very well.
The very next post has Archie's human worshipper cronies hacking J.S' account. I'm sorry, but the "My account was hacked" scenario is overused to the point of annoyance, and besides, they had a You-Tube account. And in order to have a You-Tube account they had to have had an e-mail account. Couldn't they have said overt, threatening stuff to Joey over e-mail? Or maybe a rock through the window with a note tied to it? Nevermind, I'm getting ahead of myself. Granted, it turns out the Archangel made the post himself (...wut) and also took a video and posted it to YouTube. First of all, I both lost respect and gained respect for the Archangel in this post. He lost scary points with me, but he gained trendy points as well, creating some kind of equilibrium of coolness and creepiness. Anyways, then we go to the single fucking scariest post in the entire goddamn blog.
Rabbits. Goddamn Rabbits.
I just- I don't even. Just look at it for yourself. It notes two weird things, and let's just say the first far trumps the second. So now Steward and Crystal have formed a "We-Are-So-Fucking-Fucked" Alliance and started looking for work outside a Home Depot. And... we have no fucking clue what Crystal's selling at this point in time. He then does carpenting work and this time the employer bummed him off.
(Also, I would like to note that, alongside the fact that the Archangel's the afterlife itself, the first name Joseph and the work as a carpenter also sway towards THEOLOGICAL SYMBOLISM. And if LizardBite says that wasn't intended, I say "Death of the Author" trope, dammit, which means I can add as many bullshit metaphors and think of as many symbols in this story as I goddamn please!)
Oh, and then the two go to a fancy hotel in a new state and Joey is seemingly high as fuck and/or Slendertaken. Obviously, Crystal found out, intervened, fought with Joey, kept him from getting Slendertaken or at least for a little while longer, flushed those goddamn pills he found down the toilet, listened to him rant about how they should all embrace the Archangel, then watched him pass out. And then Crystal says this:
"Shit, I don't know what the hell those pills are, but they aren't natural. I'm pretty sure they were the same ones he was taking before I met him. They can cause addiction after just a few uses, and then get your body dependent on them so much that you go into withdrawal after a couple hours without a dose. That's not normal no matter how you slice it. Trust me, I'd know." (Eccentrically Bored)
Though seriously, as far as I'm concerned, Crystal shouldn't be intervening in JS's life, man. He shold just go with the flow and be taken to an eternal white room of nothingness like the rest of us and make his own ignorant mistakes and get fucked over for them. Is that too much to ask, just let the dumbass suffer? ...I suppose so, and it's futile to keep asking, as the blog has been written and shelved for two years, but I can hope.
So now Crystal is like Joey's maternal figure (I will now call her Red, as she's Canadian and has a very motherly nature) and makes sure he can't get ahold of pills anymore... then Crystal gets JS drunk off his ass. -.- Crystal, in the time frame of ONE post, you've lost the right to be attributed to Red. :I
And then the Archangel hacks JS' account- again- and Crystal notices that she's not the prude here- it's Joey Steward himself! ...well, that was honestly a surprise. She also explains her reasoning to get him drunk, begs for forgiveness, shamalamadingdong and a comment chain later and JS is celebrating his birthday... but then he hears a knock at the door.
Okay, so Joey opened the door to say hello to two drug dealers who think Crystal's the one making the Angel drug. They pistol whip the fuck out of Steward and tie him to a chair. Then the door opens and Crystal walks in. She then gets shot in the leg and then Slender Man and Archie both realize that their quarry is being hunted by mere mortals and it's time to fucking kill these interlopers. And they get hardcore, man. People get disembowled, heads explode, and the two protagonists themselves get shot at. And you know what sucks about this? It was, in the end, all Crystal's fault. She was selling the goddamn Angel drug, knowing it was highly addictive and she's kind of being hypocritical here.
In any case, Crystal has been telling us a story about how she's spent seven years running for her life and suffering, prostituting herself, stealing, and selling other drugs just to get by. She then explains that a long time ago she got a message from the Archangel and realized that Archie, Slendy, and any other eldritch thingemahoo that was in the area were all playing an eldritch, Blue and Orange Morality kind of game, and Joey and Crystal are all pawns in this, explaining Joey's "we are the pieces" bullshit. And then she says she's probably about to get captured by one or the other, i.e. get her ass killed off.
Joey knows that she's suffering from gangrene, and he's getting conflicted between leaving her there and going off on his own. And to make everything fucking worse, the Rake's popping his Bel-Shamharoth-shaped piece on the board.
Finally, The Archangel finally got his claws into Crystal. As much as I hated Crystal at this point... it was sad to see her go. I don't know. It's that- well, she and he have suffered through a lot together, and they were both assholes together, and well- she was a good, well-rounded character, with pros and cons like everyone else and makes her death so tragic, save Joey's "deaddeaddeaddeaddead" stereotypical babble... excusable babble, but still. Joey calls out Archie to come after him, and so he does come to Joey, in the form of Crystal. Then they do some soulgazing straight out of the goddamn Dresden Files and Joey realizes that he's not dealing with some regular eldritch spook or creep. He was fucking with most of the world's equivalent to God. And then Slender Man kicked the Archangel's ass and kept Archie from killing Joey.
Afterwards, Joey accepts the Slender Man's proxification ceremony and then killed his whole family with a kitchen knife. Which... well, what he says afterwards, about them "simply ceasing"... scares the fuck out of me. I mean... existentiality is what makes us us. Most of us want some sort of consciousness or anything after we die, not just eternal lack of conscience, no sight, sound, smell, feel, taste, or thought, just nothing. No, not even nothing, less than nothing. This is why the Archangel scares me. Complete and total lack of consciousness comes for us, no matter how much we try to fight it, and our souls fade and die, and while we live on through our contributions to the world, in the end the stars will all go out, the last carbon atom will fade away and nobody will be alive to have ever cared about you. This is why the Archangel is in my top 10 list of favorite Fears. In my mind, he's the third scariest of all of them, save The Choir and The Quiet, and the Quiet only because as opposed to eternal unconsciousness, it's more of a "you never existed and your works your dreams all that is now rendered nothingness by one being".
In conclusion, I really think this blog is a classic and paved the way for the Mythos proper. It may have had a cynical piece-o'-shit protagonist, but he was a well-written cynical piece-o'-shit protagonist that knows he's a jerkwad at times and is at points sympathetic, and the fact that he eventually starts getting slaughter-happy is heavily reminiscent of Jack Torrance from Stephen King's The Shining. Even Crystal, as much as I hated her clingy intrusive attitude, I did think she had a well plotted and almost depressing backstory, just like Joey does. The scares, especially the hallucinations Joey Steward has and the Rabbits post, are enticingly horrifying, and like I said, whilst the first dozen posts are sub-par at best, you see LizardBite's work improve, and improve, and IMPROVE to one of the most satisfying melancholy endings/segues I have ever read.
For ratings, I would have to average out the three "acts" that I divided the review into.
The first act gets a shocking 5/10 for its stretched exposition, watered down scares, and my personal hatred of Joey Steward, the second act gets a much better 7/10 for its introduction to the plot, its portrayal of Steward's addiction to the drug, and the original plot, and the final act gets a spectacular 10/10 for its spectacular scares, characterization, and ending, which averages out to the whole blog getting a 7/10, not the best blog I ever read, the first third of the blog being the anchor that bogs it down, but it's satisfying and I'd suggest reading the whole blog for yourself. It's worth it.
I'm not going directly into Hidden in the Trees, as I'm planning on reviewing The Big Three, then seven of the other more prominent original blogs, meaning the next review is of- well- Jordan Eats Normally Now. I will say I've not ever read this blog before, so this'll be an experience for all of us. All of us. All... all of us.
Us us us us us JOIN US.
*Ahem* Sorry 'bout that, I was just practicing my Camper speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment