Searcher In The Shadows Memes Part 2

Searcher in the Shadows memes Part 2

hi pulp fam

I have been patiently awaiting my emotional devastation all day, and I still have hours to go :(

Ipomoea, Reach For The Sky: The Dakkar and Margaret Essay

(spoilers for Searcher Part Two!)

Hi, hello, I predicted this and I’ve never felt more like a prophet in my life. Allow me many, many moments of screaming over this, please! But, to more serious analysis: Can't you see me? Can't you see me reaching out? Am I not one of your own? We're together, but alone. We would have staring contests like we were children, like we are in this moment, and I would never cease to be the first to blink.

Margaret…she’s talking to Dakkar, isn’t she? 

Staring up at the moon, staring at her brother. It's the closest she can get to seeing him from here. He's her whisper in a daydream, her melody that lingers - he's a face that she recognizes.

These two have been reaching out to each other this whole time, and we never even knew it. Margaret and the Moon, Destiny Strange and Sublime - they're speaking to each other, waiting for each other.

It was never only about the moon she was looking up at. It was never only a mystery he was haunted by. It was about looking up at the same moon, about the mystery that only one of them knew the truth to. 

But I’ve been on my own for so long! Please, I beg of you. How can I search when I don’t know what’s missing?

But she was. That’s what we all can see! Margaret was always searching.

She modelled her room in New York after her brother’s in the Blazing World!  We hear her leitmotif in Dakkar's room, after all. She searched through thousands of scientific books, just like the ones her brother would have loved. She stared up at the moon, and was reminded of him. Even without knowing, she was looking. She was reaching out. Staring at her brother from a distance. She knew, she knew even talking to Samuel, that she had once not been alone in this life. I would even venture that when she took in Rose and Samuel, she looked at them and felt something familiar. She recognized a face, a relationship, siblings who loved each other so deeply, in people she'd just met.

Dakkar was her phantom limb.

But while Margaret was lost because she knew nothing of who she once was? Dakkar was lost because he was alone, and he knew exactly why. Here I am, as promised. I’m ready. 

He’s been waiting. Dakkar was left. He was left alone. Left as the only one with the weight of the memories the two of them shared. He took on the history that Margaret had to forget, left alone with every memory that Margaret has been so hungry to have back. He knows the destiny the two of them shared, the plans they’ve made - and he wants her to know them once more, too! Burdened with knowledge. We know he trusted her to have his back, even when she had no idea who he was, because that’s his sister. He trusts her wholeheartedly, even in the midst of his desperation and rage. What else could he do but that?

These things remind, to make the most of time, now let me find the answer to the test of time. It’s all that I can see, in the faces in my dreams, in the moonlight and its beams.

Dakkar is speaking to her! He’s been trying to find an answer to the test of time, the time he spent alone. Time is so central to him, moving within the moving element! He's been moving in the world without Margaret by his side. He’s been trying to find an answer that will bring his sister back to him! He's so focused on finding that answer. It's all that he can see, the chance to see his sister in more than dream. To see her in person once more. He has his promises to keep, and he will see them through. To know his sister once again, and to have her know him in turn.

We see him calling out to Margaret - I can see you, I can see you reaching out, Margaret, you’re one of our own! He sings out her theme, one we’ve known since The Great Moon Hoax, something that’s hers. Hoping she’ll recognize him enough to reach back.

But, not yet.

The scene moves on, but...

Something tells me Margaret’s got my back on this! 

Dakkar is tired, and he has been filled with so much rage. Because he is first in line, first to know exactly what he needs to do to have her back. He’s getting his hope back, no matter what it takes. 

The test of time rarely comes at the best of times! 

The first time we hear them harmonize, and it’s them agreeing that this needs to happen. Dakkar will do anything just to have her back. He’ll risk his own life to have her look at him with that love, that recognition again. That recognition he’s missed for years and years. Margaret has lived in only his memory for so long. Here she is in front of him again. How is he supposed to wait any longer? He needs to bring her home.

Margaret is so determined to find her answers, and to know the weight of the history she’s been missing. A part of her is searching, reaching out. Her voice is unshakably confident - and I have to wonder if a part of that is because she knows Dakkar is by her side again. 

The two of them are in perfect harmony once more, as they do whatever it takes to get Margaret’s memory back. They’ll share their plans once more, come out of the shadows together. Even before Margaret fully remembers, that connection is there.

And then, Sia strikes.

Dakkar's plan works.

Margaret, after so long, remembers. Remembers everything. Remembers exactly who she is standing next to. 

You know where to find me.

The theme of Margaret’s we’ve heard since The Great Moon Hoax. Margaret has been adrift in the world, a child throwing stones in the firmament. Dakkar has been waiting, as promised, with his destiny strange and sublime. Their destiny.

And how does it end?

Sister. You found me.

He’s here… the character Itzal will be voiced by DYLAN SAUNDERS

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Pulp Musicals, Episode 4: The Searcher in the Shadows, is available NOW on iTunes and Amazon Music. Pulp Musicals is a musical radio series created by Matt Dahan.

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Portrait by Jackie Franco

Genuinely Pulp Musicals may be one of my favorite pieces of media of all time.

In a world of gotcha bullshit twists and quippy dialogue with no substance and writers getting more and more limited in the stories they can tell with budget cuts and time restraints, there is something beautiful about it.

About this story about love and creativity, plotted out with so much care and consideration, that is just being made as a passion project by all these talented people because they love it just as much as we do.