#8back?

yes bloodymary became so popular bc fandom has a white man problem. and (differently) also an asian man problem. and a need to make everything m/m even if that means throwing together two characters from entirely different media. (I love bloodymary (since I am not exempt from fandom problems, and also love a fix-it), but rip me as someone who ships simon/ava lmao).

all of that being said. connoisseurs of crack crossover ships, could I maybe interest you in:

Clark (backrooms) x The Lost Man (Exit 8).

(Would bloodymary have been so popular had Simon not been given his first name and instead only been known as the convict? Who knows!)

but hey hear me out.

These two have hella similarities! They’re both not great partners. They both get stuck in mysterious empty rooms trying to find an exit, dealing with monsters.

and their movies have similar themes. Clark is going to therapy bc he theoretically wants to be better and change, though he’s making no real changes and eventually decides he’d rather not change. The lost man, on the other hand, doesn’t really want to be better or change at first, but he gets there by the end of the movie.

Clark is doing all of this work to hopefully someday have kids, The Lost Man is having a kid and doesn’t know if he wants to do all the work for it.

the lost man is very not happy about being lost and only gets more freaked out as things get worse, and only makes it out because of help from the boy, because he learns to listen and pay attention. Clark never even had to return to the backrooms but does out of pure curiosity and excitement, and as things get worse he starts to prefer the backrooms more and more and doesn’t want to leave.

(Disclaimer here: I saw backrooms today but I saw exit 8 a month ago and I’m probs misremembering details.)

okay so. Are we putting Clark in exit 8 or the lost man (TLM) in backrooms?

As much as I love the boy, I think we’re gonna put TLM into backrooms! One, because there’s more space to explore there. Two, because I think the premise of “TLM gets to exit 8 and makes it out alive, shortly thereafter ends up in a different haunted liminal space” hilarious and now I’m using it.

also if bloodymary can hand wave away different universes im hand waving away different languages. backrooms ghostfuckery shit. Whatever.

okay so TLM makes it out exit 8, for some reason doesn’t see the boy (my one gripe with the movie, that he never saw the kid at the end, made no sense and made me sad). Wants to be a dad, gets on the train, makes a different decision to confront the asshole, and goes to the hospital.

but holy fucking shit the hospital is pretty liminal spacey too. It’s not a train stop so he doesn’t get freaked out until he’s accidentally walking through a wall in some abandoned corridor (needed a break. He’s gonna do this, really, he’s sure! He just needed a break) and now suddenly he’s in some weird ass backwards version of a hospital corridor. What. The fuck.

(my favorite aspect of the backrooms in this movie for sure, that it’s escapable. That Clark chooses his fate multiple times over.)

why would TLM stay though? Surely he’s scared shitless?

hmm okay. I think it’d be kinda funny/sad if TLM entered the backrooms, immediately got freaked out because of the eerie similarity (even distantly) to the subway corridor, and just started moving forward automatically, looking for the rules, and then didn’t realize there weren’t any until he fell down somewhere or passed some other point of no return.

On the other hand, I think with Clark, we’re gonna put him at. After he discovers the backrooms but before he talks to Mary and decides to get proof for her.

he’s mostly having a good time right now. Manic, definitely. Avoiding his reality? For sure. But he’s exploring and mapping and diagraming and enjoying himself. His life hasn’t been this interesting or fun for a while.

okay so Clark’s vibing, TLM is having a panic attack and running around looking for instructions, and they bump into eachother.

Clark, not generally the best at deescalating emotional situations, yells at the guy to chill out. Relax, he says, there are no rules, it’s just a bunch of rooms. You can go back where you came any time.

TLM calms down, finally, and is relieved. Okay. He just has to find his way back to where he was. No big deal. Except he was panicking and can’t remember and now he’s starting to panic a bit again. Clark, more gentle this time, gets him to calm down and offers to walk with him back.

(TLM misses the boy. He hopes he’s okay, hopes he found his mom and is happy.)

they start walking, and TLM is like “I know this sounds crazy, but I was in something like this before” and Clark is like, “do you see where we are right now? Nothing you could say would sound crazy here.”

so TLM talks about the corridor and the exits and the boy. And says it all helped him realize he does want to be a present father in his kid’s life, even if he’s not planning on getting back together with his ex.

he talks about it like it was worth it, and Clark finds that strange. Because the subway corridor with all the rules and the tiny details you have to pay attention to or end up in a loop sounds like hell. He much prefers his backrooms with their sprawling rooms that go on forever.

go on

forever

they can’t find TLM’s exit. Shit.

Clark’s not doing anything really. His employees know how to run the store without him, at least for a little while, and his wife’s certainly not going to miss him. Is it sad that the only things he’ll be skipping if he stays here are shifts and therapy sessions? He decides not to think about it.

Clark keeps moving with this man. He seems on the verge of a breakdown, and he’s got a future kid he needs to get back to, and helping him get back seems more important than Clark’s therapy session.

so they’re going and Clark’s mapping, and TLM needs to get back but that’s happening very very slowly and there’s no rules and

Clark wants to try sitting on that halfway-made sofa to see how comfy it is and why not?

For a while they walk through rooms that only have piles of clothes in them and finally, exhausted, they both crash down to sleep. The laundry here is clean, god bless, so in the morning TLM decides to rifle through everything to find more practical clothing for what’s looking like a more long-haul survival mission than he’d like. Clark joins him.

This water-less pool has a slide that looks impractical but still usable and TLM kinda wants to try it…

there’s footsteps. Banging. Heading towards them. Clark starts running, gestures him to follow. TLM’s grateful that Clark’s instinct to run is faster than his is, because they escape the Whatever That Was unscathed.

they run until they can’t hear anything anymore, then the speedwalk until they feel safer, then they crash down onto the hard ground and lie there, staring at the kinda gross ceiling.

this place is so retro, TLM remarks.

what does that mean? Clark wonders internally. It’s weird, for sure, but not noticeably out-of-date. He decides not to ask though. He’s not trying to be called old by a guy only six years younger than he is.

I always wanted kids, Clark says. And maybe it’s because it’s the time of the week when he’s usually in therapy, but suddenly he’s telling TLM a few more details than he normally would with a stranger.

are they still strangers to each other?

anyway. They get up, they keep going. TLM has occasional asthma and/or panic attacks. Clark gets less and less chill as he starts to reveal more and more about his home life and past to TLM.

idk what the end goal would be here. Obvs a happy ending for them.

maybe TLM convinces Clark fully that he’s gotta actually think about what he wants in life? Like yeah therapy’s great, but if you’re working a horrible job you can’t stand 40+ hours a week, no amount of therapy is gonna make you content.

if Clark’s drinking to wind down from life, why not try changing his life instead?

and Clark does want to change! He’s in therapy, he’s taking it seriously, doing the exercises the best he can. He doesn’t like being so angry. He wants to live the best life he can.

(in the movie, how it goes: Clark wants to prove he’s not crazy, that he’s sober and sane and knows what he’s talking about. He wants his credibility intact. He asks his employees for help proving it, offers to pay them overtime, they agree. They don’t really know what they’re getting into. Then these two twenty something year olds, one white and the other half-white half-Asian, who he does care for really, die. Horrifically. On camera. And he has the camera, and he keeps it with him even as he runs for his life. Because if these two employees disappear from his store, and he has no proof of what really happened, his life is fucking over. Probably literally. And then the camera is stolen.)

But that doesn’t happen here. Here he’s enjoying the backrooms, but he still has a life he can return to eventually. He does want to be better.

idk what TLM’s arc would be. maybe he’s debating if he should try getting back together with his ex, despite not really wanting to, for the kid’s sake? And Clark’s gotta convince him of how absolutely horrendous of an idea that is?