#tmrs

“Find him

Bind him

Tie him to a pole and break his fingers

To splinters.

Drag him to a hole until he wakes up Naked

so i finished re-watching the matrix trilogy. and even though i have seen it many times..its actually been a year or two since ive rewatched it and with purpose.

i love how at the root of a lot of action/adventure stories at their core are these amazing stories about love. and while such stories have nemeses that despise the very notion of love and would opt for either complete chaos or complete control the equation of love prevails.

in the matrix, trinity was the lady who got neo out of the matrix, who trained neo (destined to become the one) and it was their destiny, it was phrophesized, that they would fall in love.

and it was actually trinity's love that made neo stronger, and gave him the confidence to become the one. (the oracle told him that being the one is like being in love, no one can tell you that you are, you just know). in that meeting its neo and not the oracle who says he isn't the one. finally at the end of the matrix, neo believes in his capabilites that he is the one. it is trinity's love that gives him this confidence to undoubedtly believe.

neo died in the first movie and it was trinity's love for him that saved him and solidified his place as the one. (if trinity falls in love with the one and neo is the man she falls in love with, then neo is the one. the one (neo) then can't die [or be dead] because he is the one (who has the ability to make the matrix as he sees fit). she is in love with neo, which makes him the one. and because the one can make the matrix as he sees fits, he reboots his heart and rises as the one, fully confident in his abilities.

in the second movie trinity dies and neo brought her back to life by being the one. (his ability to manipulate and change the matrix as he saw fit enabled him to see and change the matrix code and he rewrote the code to make her heart start beating again).

in the third movie they both friggin died.

in revolutions they couldn't save each other but it was much like the second movie with trinity dying and the first movie with her love giving him the strength and confidence to understand his abilities, his actions, to understand his choice. (the oracle repeatedly tells neo he is there to understand why he made the choices he made!)

the oracle differentiates that he's already made his choices (he was always the one, he just couldnt see it at the time "because we can't see past choices we don't understand"). this means his decision to return to the matrix one last time (in the third movie) and fight smith to the death was also his choice...

because he finally understood that "everything that has a beginning has an end" he also made the choice to sacrifice himself to save humanity, thus making it "inevitable" that the one would end the matrix as we know it (with this interation rebooting, the architect allowing the awakened minds to be freed, and zion not being destroyed again, thus allowing humanity to continue growing in numbers and a starting point to peace once again between humans and machines).

that answer (understanding the reason why he made his choices) is love! this time (in the third movie as trinity is dying) her beautiful speech gave neo the will to carry on and fight for the human race. it was because of her death that he was able to sacrifice himself at the end of revolutions.

if you recall in the second movie when the human race was being threatened (the architect had revealed the previous iterations of the matrix to neo and how the existense of zion was something the machines let the humans have as a way to deal with the minds who rejected the matrix. because the architect's job is to "balance the equation" zion is viewed as a necessity that must be allowed to persist so that the majority of the humans can still be plugged in and the machines can live off of them. because this happens in a cycle, it eventually gets to a boiling point resulting in the machines destroying zion and (where the one chooses the door that saves humanity [the scenario where he selects a few men and women to be awakened from the matrix, rebuild zion and beging the cycle over again])).

well the oracle's job is to "unbalance the equation". this is what makes the prophecy a lie as they (morpheus et al.) discovered. the oracle was created to understand the human psyche, her purpose is to unbalance the equation. how does she do this? with love.

turns out it doesn't matter if the prophecy was fake because the one isn't fake. the one is real, the one exists because of love. the architect could not have predicted any of neo's choices because of this "insipid" emotion. therefore he could not account for a scenario in which neo chooses the other door. and that's exactly what neo does in the second movie. this sets into motion the events that lead to the breaking of the cycle of the matrix. love was powerful enough to upend the entire system of the matrix.

when neo chose to save trinity over all of humanity in the second movie (thats how deep and profound their love is that he chose to save her if only to be with her for a few more seconds), over saving all of the human race; this sets into motion the remainder of his choices for the final events of the trilogy ("you've already made the choice, you're here to try to understand why you've made it").

so back to what i said earlier: in the third movie they both friggin died.

trinity dying in the third movie made it possible for neo to sacrifce himself and save humanity. (a powerful specific love for one person compared with the love felt for all humans; humanity). as we saw in the first and second movies, their love is so powerful that they will choose and save each other everytime because of their love. but love also helps me to understand trinity's sacrifice and death. trinity chose to go with neo to the machine city because of her love for him. she sacrificed her life for his because of her belief in him, in neo, in the one.

once again trinity's ultimate sacrifice, her love, her chocie, emboldebed neo to believe in his abilities, his actions, his choice to sacrifice himself for humanity, for love. (trinity sacrificing her powerful specific love for neo gave neo the strenth to sacrifice himself for the love he felt for all humans; humanity).

with his sacrifice all the code was rewritten and we see the start of another iteration of the matrix where this time zion isn't destroyed and any minds that want to be freed will be. thus breaking the cycle of the matrix and brokering a peace between humans and machines.

Yet another pause in progress because life got… interesting. Good in some ways, bad in others. My mental health has had a bit of a relapse, which will actually be relevant in discussing my thoughts about this scene. So fair warning for anyone who happens to be reading and would rather skip discussions about that.

This part was really fun, I even surprised myself with drawing an okay looking ship. That’s one of the many scary parts of this project for me. If you’ve seen glittershark’s adaptation, you’ll probably notice the second shot on page 6 is a direct reference.

I thought it’d be cool to build on that idea by adding mermaids singing the harmonies (is that what you call it? I dunno). These weird creepy designs for them are placeholders. I do want them to look a little freaky, but right now their appearances are a bit out of place. They’ll probably be based more on actual folklore in the final scene. I’ll look more into it during the character design stage.

Now onto the I-need-to-think-too-deeply-about-stuff-that-doesn’t-really-matter part. IMO It’s highly unlikely what Marlo is seeing here is actually happening, although it’d be cool for everyone to have their own interpretation. It’s stated in the song that Marlo’s mother “lost her mind”, an old-timey and less than sensitive way of saying she began struggling with her mental health. Having listened to, thought about, and worked alongside this song for some time now, it seems to me that Marlo may have inherited her poor mental health. Either that, or the generational trauma caused left him mentally unwell too.

These are both things I can relate to. This past year, it’s been suggested to me I may have experienced instances of brief psychotic disorder and/or paranoid delusions. Whatever it is, it’s not pleasant. I’ve been trying to find help, but my local healthcare system doesn’t make it easy. While these experiences have never caused me to lash out or want to hurt someone other than myself (I.e. chase down and kill the man who screwed over my mother even if we both get eaten by a whale), I see parts of that experience in what Marlo’s going through. It’s been healing, even as it’s starting to happen again.

While I hadn’t experienced this for a good few months ever since I removed myself from a really bad situation, the recent and distant past is haunting me. My brain’s attacking itself. The knowledge that I’ve been really unwell for 10 years now, maybe even longer, has been deeply painful. But it’ll have to try harder than that. I lived through what haunts me and I survived. That’s proof enough; I’m not fragile. I’ll keep surviving and keep working because I know I deserve to feel better. Also out of spite.

I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore or why this turned into a ramble about pain and determination. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this project, as difficult as life is making it to work on, is deeply important to me.

Sorry if this isn’t formatted properly, I’m on my phone as opposed to my computer. It’s late and if I go on my computer to do this I will not be able to stop myself from playing Kebab Chef Restaurant Simulator again. I love Kebab Chef Restaurant Simulator. I breathe Kebab Chef Restaurant Simulator. Anyway.

I’ve been listening to the annoying little mosquito in my brain saying everything needs to be perfect again, and beating myself up when it inevitably isn’t. That’s bollocks and I need to stop it. This is the thumbnail stage, of course it’s gonna look shoddy. It’s the first time I’m getting my ideas out onto paper. Digital paper anyway. I just have to make it exist first and put lipstick on it later.

Some thoughts I had for this scene; it’s the first time Marlo smiles. I personally think he genuinely appreciates and is close with the nuns he’s acquainted with in the priory. I like to think off screen, they take up a motherly role in his life. He might even have had a happy life with them (or even with the privateers in the next scene) if he chose to work through his trauma and let go of his need for revenge. The extra backstory I self impose onto him makes me sad. Maybe if it wasn’t called the mariners revenge song it all would’ve been alright.

And we're back. I'm so excited to continue. No I'm scared. Hold me. No I'm joking get off. I'm going to vomit. I'm literally joking. Sedate me. No you calm down.

So whenever I was picturing what this scene might look like in my head, I always thought of the poster for the 1969 movie The Oblong Box. That illustration is so striking, and I wanted to draw on it slightly. Seemed like appropriate inspiration for an event that will scar a child for life.