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Artworks of michael distortion and michael shelley in the same image often draw the former intimidating/enfolding the latter. But that’s not it at all, is it? They’re one and the same, yet mutually unrecognizable to each other. The distortion did not prey on michael shelley, he was fed to it and it was bound to him. And once it became clear it would not escape unscathed, it did not want him. Michael shelley was never even meant for the spiral at all, and it shows in how it acts as a distortion. If anything, the intimidating factor above the hapless human should be gertrude robinson, not any facet of something that could be called michael in some capacity
The thing i both love and hate about michael’s sacrifice was how simultaneously inevitable and preventable it was.
With the info gertrude had, she thought she had to sacrifice someone to save the world. She doubtless thought michael’s blind trust in her was necessary for the plan to work. From her perspective, her actions make sense and couldn’t have happened any other way.
And yet. And yet. It would have failed anyway, whether michael was there or not. Michael could have lived a long and happy life (or at least not been fed to an eldritch horror) and the world would not have ended.
His death is pointless. He died for nothing. And yet there was no path by which he could have survived without changing fundamental aspects of the timeline. Preventable, yet inevitable.