On the very same page it appeared on, no less!

They’re not using it to inform their literary analysis. They’re using a shared critical vocabulary we’re all familiar with as a shorthand. There’s a difference between the site telling you how to react and using what the site has to offer to communicate. So there.

@Wereg – I suspect you called it.

That’s the point though. When she said “it’s not that kind of flashback” she was already mimicking McBell. She learned to be weird and Meta way back in the Science Center fight, and she’s been doing it ever since.

This is like thinking a dictionary is the etymological source of the words listed within it, lmao.

Just looking for a reason to give them shit, aren’t ya?

Yeah i went looking for that too. It really feels like this is Maggie’s memory of it, and we know she was terrified. Its also doing a camera trick in the art style, which imo is cool as fuck.

Nah, Maggie always had the “4th wall shtik”. Remember “It’s not that kind of flashback”?

Ngl I didn’t consider that, but it makes a lot of sense. Echo getting a bit of what McBell does, leading to some weirdness, totally fits. And considering what we know about McBell’s life, a subconscious *situational awareness* being part of her routine is entirely reasonable. A homeless kid having to watch out for cops and god knows what else in order to even get something to eat would probably learn to keep an eye out even when not stressed, and when she’s actually panicking, that ramps up to eleven, she does insane shit like use a pie glove to slide down a building without the slightest bit of hesitation because *if she doesn’t move right goddamn now, she’s screwed*.

Even if McBell doesn’t realize it, she’s taking in information about the world around her, figuring out what she has to do to get through a situation, and *getting through*, *that* is how she can improvise so effectively.

Echo copied her, because that’s a skill, but unlike all of the other skill-based routines she’s learned to replicate, McBell’s particular brand of weirdness isn’t something *usable*, it’s not something McBell had to consciously develop that Echo can choose to leverage and put away when she doesn’t want to use that training, it’s just *a thing that’s part of how McBell functions as a person*. There is no off-button, she’s just like that and now Echo is just like that too.

God, that’s sad but also kind of hilarious. McBell *infected Echo* with meta awareness.