Do You Ever Think About How Unsettling Arthur Must Look At This Point? He’s This Pale, Emaciated, Grimy(he

What follows was intended to be a brief elaboration, but turned into a progressively more unhinged essay looking at a component of Arthur’s descent into madness. I’m not keeping this shit in my notes app, so if it survives, it will have to be here.

In the Sad Parent Poem -as I like to call it- Arthur tells his younger self that it wasn’t his fault. Growing up in that family structure, at least in my experience, you don’t see your parents as people like you. It’s like feeling weird when you see your teacher buying groceries. They are your world, and you are theirs, and that’s it. So for them to decide to dip- I can only imagine how a child would interpret that.

Maybe after investigation(by family or police) Arthur learned that this happened because his parents were Cultists. It was Their fault and not his. In the Sad Parent Poem, he also tells his younger self to “swallow all the hate.” I first interpreted that to mean ‘don’t blame your parents, the hate will only weigh you down.’ But now it seems like he stopped expressing his hatred, and swallowed it - pushed it down and let it fester for years. But a part of him always believed that it *was* his fault, and in reality the hatred was a way to distance himself from that feeling.

And then he (ostensibly) impregnated his wife and she died in child birth. But hey, at least your daughter survived to be all that’s left of her, to be your whole world, to prove that you are better than your parents… Whoops, you hyper focused on piano for a few minutes too long and now she’s dead and it is undeniably Your Fault.

I hc that it’s at this point he goes to the US to, ya know, Escape the Pain. After a few years, he lets himself get close to another person- his business partner, Peter “Parker” Yang🕷. Whoops you opened a book and now your bestie’s dead. Bonus points, you hid his body and then practically forgot about it due to Imminent Danger.

But hey, at least you have a voice in your head who you can’t possibly lo- Whoops he’s gone too. But hey, at least Cultist Bad. It’s Not Your Fault Because Cultist Bad. At least you have that. Oh wow eye bestie’s back! Something good actually happened to you. Maybe you can hold on to someone! This reminds you of that dead bestie… oh fuck you have a whole dead bestie that you haven’t even thought about. And then you became besties with his murderer. You didn’t even have the courtesy to mourn him. What the fuck is wrong with y- What’s that, Eye Bestie (murderer of Dead Bestie)? You say Cultist NOT Bad? You say ME bad for not helping?! I try to help, but yoU SAY CULTIST DEAD AND IS MY FAULT?!!? SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUTUPSHUTUP I HATE YOU …hence the negative reaction, probably

This is fucking ART

I want Arthur and John to go to a perfectly ordinary petting zoo. What patreon tier do I have to be to make this happen.

canon: the very first thing John did upon gaining control of Arthur's hand was strangle someone to death with it

fandom: with this power they can... no I daren't say it... oh but I must... they can hold hands 😳🤝😳

Tw high pitched loud noise? Is that a thing?

This is probably a bad time to post due to the actions of a certain Jalexander/derogatory//affectionate (and everyone involved. I’m sure they too are giggling and foot-kicking)

BUT I wanted to know what The Song sounds like on the violin and y’all. It’s so melodramatic. I’m out of practice(read I have not practiced in years) so it’s uhh a little janky. But the potential is there. It really gives Sherlock angst-playing at a window about The Woman.

I saw a post that described Arthur as a "shaky chihuahua" and they were absolutely correct.

Ok, bestie is a little gullible. A lot gullible. We will have to work on that.

“…who?”

GOT ‘IM. ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED.

Old favorite character divorced, new favorite character acquired.

Malevolent fans making up elaborate theories about the show vs Harlan who trows together episodes by pure vibe

Brian David Gilbert is a gift to humanity and a curse on mankind.

I just had to get that off my chest.

He has synesthesia? That’s so cool!

:O I have a garage band file playing around with combining the two on my phone. Well, it’s mostly just the first song with music box’s melody sprinkled on top. Oh and I tried to mash some of Faroe’s Waltz into it too. I mean, it’s not good, but still- [theres supposed to be a readmore after this. Pls tumblr im begging you]

I… never noticed the final iteration was different🙃

Malevolent soundtrack is like “I live with minor, but I visit major on the weekends”

I’ve always wanted to hear a more complex version!! Oh man, when you want to create a thing but don’t have the skill, then someone else does it 🤌

Edgy and pretentious is the name of the game lmao. There’s a kind of …camp? to the podcast that makes it so fun to listen to.

Did you transcribe these from the actual podcast? I salute you sir(ungendered). The bandcamp version of music box/lullaby has some more chords and such in it and, listen, I can transcribe one note at a time and that’s it asfjbejfks

faroe's song and faroe's music box transcriptions (themes from malevolent)

google drive link for the PDFs: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/4/folders/1mxV-rkZCAHuHTNVeMoiOc91PIsW6CEp2

EDIT: i made some errors in the music box theme, they've since been corrected!

composed by the incredibly talented harlan guthrie, transcribed by me! for the music box theme, i've included instructions for both playing it as the original music box version as well as kayne's solo variation. i used musescore to notate these.

some thoughts below the break!

i agree with harlan in picking b minor as the flagship key for this podcast; it's always struck me as a particularly black and morose key in colour, even if i don't have synesthesia myself. i think it's worth remarking that he chose b minor for both of the themes. it really makes me want to try and meld the song and the music box themes together (and makes me wonder if harlan already has that idea in the wings).

i find the structure of faroe's song to be especially compelling, the way that the first two iterations of the theme's second half meld together in the third and final iteration. it makes me really wonder about the narrative structure of malevolent—if we'll see john and arthur merge and hybridize in similar ways, perhaps...

i really have to commend harlan for communicating something so distinct about arthur's musical voice. these themes are very simple, very repetitive, and yet they carry within themselves this kind of understated melancholic beauty. i want to try my hand at doing a more elaborate and reharmonized arrangement of these, but it'll be difficult to do so without losing sight of the core of the piece, i think.

i also took some stylistic liberties with how i notated some of the expressive directions. i know you're not supposed to add periods to the end of everything, but it felt appropriate? it looks cool. maybe a bit edgy and pretentious, but who gives a shit.

Kayne is kinda my favourite