#MAG 138

[a-mag-a-day]

138:

I have been dreaming again, Jonah. The same every night for months, now. I imagine myself a boy again at Aspley. I awake, cold and alone in the dormitory. The sky outside is dark, and I see no stars. I light a candle, to better see my way, and step down the silent corridor. The master’s rooms are empty, the fire in the kitchen is dead. Eventually my steps lead out into the courtyard. It is so quiet that the sound of my feet upon the grass is painful to my ears. I stop, and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing, and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at.

And then the sky blinks.

160:

Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky. It’s looking back.

I've seen so many different interpretations of what Jon might mean by the sky "looking back," and I love them all, but in my heart of hearts I do believe that Smirke had the right of it - he saw the sky of the apocalypse every night in his dreams, way back in 1867.

Same! That image is so striking

[itchyeye]

mag 138 chosen; statement of eugene vanderstock, regarding the creation of agnes montague, her life, care and death. original statement given november 30th 2006. Audio recording by jonathan sims, the archivist.

mag 160 the eye opens; vigilo, audio, supervenio

[themagnustournament]

Round One Part Five - Match 39

Would you rather vote for autism arbitrarily sorting or for cannibalism in the Catholic church? That's a lie they're Anglican. That's another lie he's Catholic.

MAG 138 - The Architecture of Fear | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Robert Smirke, taken from a letter to Jonah Magnus dated 13th February 1867.

MAG 019 - Confession | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding his claimed demonic possession.

[fractal-voidling]

MAG138 - #8671302 │ The Architecture of Fear

complicated my ass, you wanna fxck the apocalypse, don't you?

oh look, it's Creepy Architecture Guy!

Dread Powers also sound pretty metal

jfc, bro just died of a brain hemorrhage in the middle of writing a letter

IT'S NOT FINE, GO TO JOHN!

[darkacademiaarchivist]

mag 138 - The Architecture of Fear

this episode has So Much foreshadoring going on (also i keep forgetting that Robert Smirke was a real person...)

first, let's start with the start and beginning of this episode:

MARTIN: You know I don’t care if Jon hears this. ELIAS: Come on, Martin. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Let’s not start with lies.

vs

Hopefully by the time you get these tapes I’ll have something more concrete for you. Good luck, John; I – Stay safe.

so basically Martin is doing the tapes for Jon i'm going to cry now

For all his… many faults, Peter is legitimately trying to stop the end of the world as we know it.

your honour they're divorced </3

My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated.

oh no, foreshadowing

MARTIN: What? (small dry laugh) That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us.

Web!Martin??? i wanna know if Elias means Martin or Peter with this because where is Martin currently manipulating anyone, i wouldn't count him distancing himself as manipulating others, he is being manipulated but hes to a certain degree aware that peter is doing it? the situation's getting messy...

Let's talk actual statement:

We can see so much build up to Jonahs watcher's crown attempt in this and random people always watching him is very spooky, i wonder if Jonah is watching him. Just for fun.

The Flesh forming as an independt entity just probably around the time of the industrial revolution makes SO MUCH sense, not only were animals probably itreated worse but also human factory workers weren't treated that well so there might be a commection to make here?

If Smirke is having these dream he might be more eye aligned than he wants to admit (even to himself)

And then the sky blinks. And I awake.

oh no, foreshadowing

It is likely too late for me, but I will not –

*promptly dies* (whatever fears have been terrorizing him were like "okay we've heard enough now")

What if peter was just lurking quiet and invisible in the corner the whole time lmao?

@a-mag-a-day

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 138 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence.

MARTIN: "You know I don’t care if Jon hears this." ELIAS: "Come on, Martin. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Let’s not start with lies." [MARTIN TAKES A STEADYING BREATH.] MARTIN: (sigh) "Fine." Martin doesn't deny it?

ELIAS: "For all his… many faults, Peter is legitimately trying to stop the end of the world as we know it." MARTIN: "So why haven’t you helped him?" ELIAS: "My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated." Okay, Elias saying this?! In the episode of Smirke's statement, where the sky blinks at him? I just realized how many of those conversations fit the tone of the respective episode (without the obvious, like MAG 125, 128, 131, 133, 134 etc). Of course MAG 122, Jon waking up from the dead with the Zombie statement. MAG 124 Left hanging and Martin left Jon hanging. MAG 127 A letter to Jonah with Jon's door motif talk and Basira visiting Elias. MAG 129 opening with Jon and Martin before THE anchor statement. I don't know, MAG 130 maybe? It was about a ritual and the Web suggested this tape to Jon for further preparation of the Eye's mass ritual. MAG 135 talking Basira into a potential Dark ritual after the statement about the creation of that ritual. And then that mean red herring in MAG 136, Web statement with Melanie's therapy (Jon later worries, that Melanie's therapist could be Web). Also like the way Elias talks about Peter, they really sound like a divorced couple xD

MARTIN: "Yeah, well. I’m still not sure I really believe it. (long exhale) A,And I don’t… I – I’m –" ELIAS: "Worried he might charge off into another coffin." [HE MAKES A SMUG LITTLE SOUND.] ELIAS: "Quite." I love how Elias ships Jon and Martin.

ELIAS: "As for why I’ve done so little about such a looming existential threat, (sigh) to be blunt, I have been rather busy." Martin laughs at him, but it's true. He's still pulling strings from the inside of his prison cell and he's going to be very successful with it.

MARTIN: "What? (small dry laugh) That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!" ELIAS: "That makes two of us." Iconic lines. Web!Martin! Btw no wonder the Web supports Jonah in his scheme, he's quite talented at manipulation himself.

ELIAS: "I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll – (rattle) – make the right choice." Like not to kill him.

"My dear Jonah," Pffft...

"What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls." This statement is such a tease about what's going to come!

"It is telling, that of those I have brought into my confidence, it is only you and I who have continued this far without falling to one power or another, despite all my instruction and work. This is, of course, assuming you have not taken the path of the Eye that I know has called you, called us both for so long." Was this after the Watcher's Crown? -> “ What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls.” That sentence sounds like it. So that ship has sailed? This probably why they didn't stay in contact? -> “ but I feel I must break the silence that has characterized our acquaintance for these past few decades.”

"I’m sure you recall what happened with the Reform Club" MAG 35!

"but you may be unaware of some of my other experiments below the very streets of London." The tunnels for example?

"Places I have tried to cover with churches, of all things" Was there a church built by Smirke in a statement? I immediately thought about the Oratory from MAG 20, but it's in Oxford, Smirke speaks of London here. Thought about Hither Green (MAG 25) or St Paul’s Church (MAG 63), but nope. He wasn't involved in any of the buildings I just listed. Am I missing something or do we actually never hear about anything connected to a church of his?

"perhaps the site of our Saviour will be enough to contain them." Funny how some people still won't lose their faith even in full knowledge of the Dread Powers. Smirke here. I thiiink, Dekker was also religious, was he?

"I stop, and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing, and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at. And then the sky blinks." Love that foreshadowing!

"I am not a fool. I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again, that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear the Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them!" I know there's this discussion about what the Watcher's Crown actually was, Jonah's prison soap opera or using the Archivist. And, I think, there was something about Jonny saying the Watcher's Crown was Jonah's prison thing and what we see in MAG 160 could be called, like, the Magnus Archives, ha! But the title "Watcher's Crown" does fit the Eyepocalypse pretty well. Jonah calls himself "king of a ruined world" - king and crown and such. And the Eye ruling over all the other Fears like a... United Kingdom (badum tss!). (Also, Gerry says in MAG 111 "Uh, the Rite of the Watcher’s Crown. It’s what she called the ritual for the Eye. She didn’t tell me much about that one, just that she knew how to take care of it." This sounds like Gertrude called the ritual to come the Watcher's Crown. And she knows how to take care of it, sounds a bit like she already knew that the Archivist is the linchpin to the Eye's ritual. I say "a bit" because in the end there is no confirmation that this was exactly what she knew at this point. Gertrude still believed single Fear rituals could work, or she was at least still trying to stop them just for good measure according to MAG 137, which was in October 2014. And I think we don't know an actual death date of Gerry? Just late 2014...)

"But what is not to be dismissed is when your driver, on the long road from London, takes his eyes from the horses and begins to turn his head, slowly at first, but with a clear determination, inch by inch without ceasing, neck cracking and skin stretching, until his whole head seems as though it were placed atop his shoulders in reverse by some careless sculptor. The others in my carriage seemed not to mark this awful sight, but I could scarce look away" This describes the dream logic the Fears bring with them. How they can bend reality just a bit to their needs. Like Martin being trapped by Prentiss, who spent two weeks in front of his flat knocking at the door without any of his neighbors noticing anything!

MARTIN: "Good luck, Jon; I –" love you. (There, finished it for you, you're welcome <3)

@a-mag-a-day

[oaxleaf]

mag 138 - the architecture of fear

i want to once again highlight that martin is smart! for all that the fandom loves him, i disagree with a lot of the general fanon characterization of him. it might be because it tends to mainly be based on s1-s3 martin, whilst at this point he has gone through some pretty significant development. he's smart and he takes initiative and he activates his inner eye avatar by diving into this whole extinction thing. he's still pretty naïve, yes, but i really enjoy how much more active he is in s4 and s5

as for the statement, this is definitely my favourite of the historical ones. mostly because i think a lot of the dieas surrounding smirke fascinating. for being the guy that introduced the whole modern classification system of the fears he doesn't know very much about them, does he? though, admittedly, i don't think there is a good way to categorize them. which i really like, because they're eldritch. the fact that they're beyond human comprehension is sort of the whole point

yet, smirke's system has indirectly put so much blood on his hands. it might not have been intentional, but if were going with tma's themes of unintentional impacts of our choices, i think it's hard to enjoy that the spreading of his classifications did very much cause all these dedicated followings to pop up. i think there would be those involved in the entities regardless, but i think that without these boxes things would look very different. and like, i guess he meant well, but it is sorta crazy that this random architect, who really didn't understand the fears any more than any other random person in the know of their existance, had such a large scale impact on things. totally makes sense and fits into the narrative and themes, and it's honestly pretty realistic to how a lot of real life classification systems were made (lol) but its still pretty notable, i think

[portuguesedisaster]

Why does this episode feature two of the most confusing motherfuckers existing?

[libraryfag]

how come jon doesn't Know about the extinction when martin recorded the statement on tape? did he have to hide it or something??

[chaoticpinetree]

So I had a flight today, it was an hour late which was annoying because you know, well, over an hour more at the airport, but I listened to. So many TMA episodes before, during and after the flight. Except the start because I slept through that, like half an hour, then woke up in the air. And I had a brief moment of looking out of the window and gasping like wow... I can see the constellations... And then they turned the lights back on in the plane :C

Anyway so TMA!

So let me start by saying that the fact that Jon tried cutting his own finger off is absolutely deranged, so is the fact that he goes oh well Boneturner would be useful I guess and Melanie goes hah funny thing about that— And then it turns out that Helen is just hanging out around still. I still think that Jon is taking the whole 'being Helen except not' thing too personally.

"If I'm an it, Archivist, what does that make you?" exactly

So! Jon got Daisy out! And if Elias is to be believed (obviously he's a lying bastard who can't be trusted but you know, I guess sometimes he tells the truth) he's the first person ever to do so, which is... Quite impressive. What's slightly terrifying though is that The Buried is just absolutely filled with these tormented people who can just... Never die. Just... Jesus. Literally hell?

But Jon and Daisy are out! And Martin was the one who left the tapes! I wonder if they actually helped. They must've done something. But Jon's rib couldn't've been meaningless either, I think.

Well anyway they're out so that's good, Daisy is now traumatised which is slightly less good, but at least she doesn't want to kill Jon anymore and so Jon has someone around who doesn't want him dead, so that's something!

And Peter Lukas is being shady (or, hehe, foggy) and manipulating Martin while Martin knows... I wonder how that'll go. I mean probably pretty badly, the comics from the Lonely angst were some of the ones that convinced me to listen to TMA lmao

ALSO the fact that Daisy figured well, Basira is trapped here anyway, so she broke into Peter's office, stole an employment contract and signed one for herself queen

But yeah. Anyway and also this exchange?

Daisy: You need to stop moping. Jon: I what? Daisy: You need to stop swanning around, being all sad. Jon: I, I’m not swanning around Daisy: "Boo hoo I am so alone and a monster” Jon: I am alone. Martin is— Daisy: Busy doing paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Besides, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me, Melanie, Basira— Jon: Traumatised, traumatised, and paranoid because of me.

10/10 brilliant lmao. There's so much here. The fact that Daisy can pinpoint Jon's issues and make fun of them in such a perfect and accurate way. The fact that Jon only focused on the fact that Martin is gone (well also Tim and Sasha) and Daisy's like dude we're still here. Well obviously a lot can be unpacked, one would argue that two traumatised people who also both tried to kill Jon in the past + one paranoid person who does not trust Jon at all, maaaaybe aren't the best company. But hey.

Anyway also this exchange between Elias and Martin: Martin: You love manipulating people. Elias: That makes two of us. Like bitch what? Martin? I mean sure he's got an inner bastard but come on, Elias. Come on. We all know you're a bigger one.

And I also listened to 141 which is pretty neat because Jon forces a statement out of someone and I'm just like *sees a monstrous trait out in the daylight* *screams from excitement* and I think the short argument between Jon and Basira after that was... Interesting.

Basira comes off as a hypocrite this season, because like, she wants Jon to be more cold and ruthless like Gertrude was, but whenever he displays any trait that could count as such, whenever he shows his inhuman side more, she's unhappy about that. Meanwhile Jon is indeed, as Daisy said, moping, and the thing is that he can't be like Gertrude. Because he does not see people as tools to be used and discarded, sacrificed to stop any apocalypse. He specifically said multiple times that he does not want to lose anyone else. That he went to the Buried himself because he didn't want to risk anybody else's life and he figured if he fails, worst case scenario is the world simply loses another monster. Which, like, damn, dark much, but well it kind of shows that Jon, if he was ever to become like Gertrude, would need a lot of character development—or, well, character corruption I guess—and I don't think that's going to happen because he's just so far from that kind of person that it wouldn't be feasible, especially since we've only got 1,5 season left now.

Well anyway so I don't get Basira because she's like 'yea ruthlessness to save the world' but when Jon forces a statement out of a random guy she's like 'oh :/ but he's gonna have nightmares until the end of his life now :/' like well yes but he's unharmed and alive?

EXCEPT I also agree with Basira on the detail that she thought Jon should care about this. Because he should. Except part of me is also not surprised that after not being trusted, after Basira wanting to use him, after she told him to be more like Gertrude and to be stronger because well she needs him to be, why should he be blamed for finally listening? But well.

Well it's all a very messy situation honestly and I understand why it's hard for everyone I'm just. Rambling a lot of my observations.

ALSO THIS

Basira: Have you got a pen? Jon: Uhh – Yeah, i-in the drawer. Basira: *opens the drawer* Ah, John. What’s this? Jon: Hm? Oh. That’s… I, th, uh – that’s my rib. Basira: *short silence* Right. Jon: Yep. Basira: And… the jar of ashes. Jon: Not – not, m,mine – I mean, it belongs to me, I, I, I guess, but it’s not – stationery is in the, uh, other drawer. PLEASE lmao 10/10 too

Anyway the description of the next episode left me SO excited so I'm gonna go listen to that now :3

[a-mag-a-day]

*Laura standing in the corner Blair Witch style in the dark*

Robert Smirke:

I'm sure nothing bad is going to happen 🙃

[itchyeye]

elias hannibal lecter-bouchard is so smug and happy and impish and gay in prison he is my BABYGIRL!!!!!!!!!! rattling his fucking handcuffs like the ghost of christmas past!! LOML!!!

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round One - Match Five

Here today we have two episodes that I voted for! Adrift received 121 votes and The Architecture of Fear received 126; perhaps the most evenly matched of our redemption matches!

MAG 138 - The Architecture of Fear | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Robert Smirke, taken from a letter to Jonah Magnus dated 13th February 1867.

MAG 195 - Adrift | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

An approach to hidden depths. Recorded by The Archivist in Situ.

[pirate-in-daps]

on mag 138 and i desperately want to talk about the martin and elias interaction at the start, what stellar acting, oh my word

[go-to-the-mirror]

chains? wtf is this? a dungeon??

do they have chains in modern day prisons? i really don't think they have chains in modern day prisons. did elias just get the chains for show?

anyway, welcome to your regularly scheduled rambling! I have thoughts about this episode, so, be prepared for good words :D!

@a-mag-a-day

CWs for suicide/self-sacrifice (discussed, canon-typical)

ELIAS Come on, Martin, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you; let’s not start with lies.

For some reason, the "let's not start with lies" part of this sounds a lot like Zolf Smith from RQG. Yes, I know Ben Meredith voices both of them, but this sounds a lot like Zolf, more than Elias usually.

ELIAS My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated.

Bastard.

ELIAS In my case, while Peter has talked of it before, it is only very recently that I’ve been forced to admit The Extinction is real. And as for our dear Archivist, I’m afraid I no longer have any real control over what he does or does not know. Unlike yourself.

HE SAYS, HIDING IN PRISON BECAUSE OTHERWISE JON'LL KNOW ABOUT HIS *tim voice* SPOOKY EVIL PLANS.

MARTIN Yeah well, I’m still not sure I really believe it. A-And I don’t— I’m… ELIAS Worried he might charge off into another coffin?

Like, alright, whatever, it's a valid fear, I'd understand why Martin would be worried about that, I'd be worried about that in Martin's position. But, well, I'm not in Martin's position, not with this. I've been on the other side of that, and... I mean he's not talking to Jon but this line in MAG 199:

MARTIN And you can’t just arbitrarily decide it isn’t, because you want a better reason to martyr yourself! ARCHIVIST That’s not what’s happening! MARTIN Isn’t it?

It just feels similar to me, people throwing that you did something stupid once back in your face, it stings, it hurts. It feels like they don't trust you anymore, to me... it feels like they're... using it as... like a way to hurt you, and I understand that Martin's worried here, and yeah Jon's not exactly the fondest of living in this episode or 199, but... I don't know... I just think that hearing that Martin's motivation -- at least partially -- for dealing with the extinction on his own was worrying about Jon charging off into another coffin would probably make him feel guilty, and ashamed, and hurt, and feel the urge to jump into another coffin because it's awkward and it's private.

MARTIN (Incredulous) What? That’s it? No, no monologue? No mind games? You love manipulating people. ELIAS That makes two of us. But no, this too important for me to jeopardise with cheap “mind games”. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice.

Oh really? Oh, really, mate? Bloody hell, I want to punch him.

What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls.

Literally, must I point it out?

Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man. Long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee deep in pigs’ blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any secret book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed.

Mass ritual? With the dreams, I still hear the song in my dreams, the different fears, the looking up and the sky blinks like??? Was the reform club an unknowing attempt at a mass ritual -- or no, not unknowing, without understanding. He intended to channel all of them for "balance," presumably, but instead he channelled all of them for... not a lovely time in spooky tunnels. These are wild theories I'm throwing out here but... it's not that far fetched.

Apocalypse. Apotheosis.

Look, I just like this line. I quote it so much.

I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?

Actually... both, sort of? I mean, I'm not sure about the rituals, but the powers themselves... I'm not saying that he was right or whatever, but I am saying that his classification system was so popular that it shaped the fears themselves, you know as a mag a day said before, dreams are shaped by the dreamers.

Fictionalized Robert Smirke learn about spectrums challenge.

I have been dreaming again, Jonah. The same every night for months now. I imagine myself a boy again at Aspley. I awake, cold and alone, in the dormitory. The sky outside is dark and I see no stars. I light a candle to better see my way and step down the silent corridor. The masters’ rooms are empty, the fire in the kitchen is dead. Eventually my steps lead out into the courtyard. It is so quiet that the sound of my feet upon the grass is painful to my ears. I stop and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at. And then the sky blinks. And I awake.

(MAG 138)

And at last, the Archivist looks up. At last he looks into the eye that sees all and knows all and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The ceaseless watcher of all that is and all that was. The voracious infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever. It stares into him and it stares out of him and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror, but he cannot. He is whole.

(MAG 120)

ARCHIVIST Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky. It’s looking back.

(MAG 160)

Well. Looking up, the sky looks back, ooooh foreshadowing, sort of. I just, I just love it! Like dreaming, and then the eyepocolypse is dream logic and all and it's I don't know just look at these quotes I took.

Last night I was awoken by a noise from the drawing room. [...] It was then I began composing this letter.

This section is pretty spooky! I like it :3

Uh, a-apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh, “apoplexy”.

Used to refer to a stroke.

Good luck, Jon, I— Stay safe.

HE WAS ABOUT TO SAY I LOVE YOU D:

stop pining and just gouge your eyes out and make out, I beg.

Anyway, fun episode! Pretty spooky! Oversharing on tumblr dot com, sorry lol. can't wait till chosen tomorrow :3

[galliro]

So we are all on the same page that the magnus protocol is definetly a moniker for what Robert Smirke was writting about in MAG 138: The Architecture of Fear? Right?

Its a more streamlined and centralized version for sure but it has the same premise: keep the powers balanced in order to prevent any one power from growing too powerful