#MAG098

[vampiremotif]

whats all this then

[fractal-voidling]

MAG098 - #8640514 │Lights Out

"scary magic psychopath", lmao

Tim's still a mood

Martin definitely needs that drink

nice try I guess

[annabelle--cane]

re-listening to MAG098 and i never realized that tim and melanie came to the same conclusion that the institute is bad so i won't do my job in almost the same words. interestingly, the only remaining characters who still believed in the institute's ability to help during the next season were jon and partly basira, while martin and daisy's motivations were much more selfish and consequential.

I sometimes feel like melanie is, in a way, a version of tim who got a happy ending. they both went through a bad "aarrgghh I'm so smad that I'm stuck here, I hate everyone, especially jon because I think he's responsible for this" phase, but melanie didn't start withdrawing and isolating herself like tim did, she actively sought companionship and reconciliation with the others.

[soveryanon]

(MAG098) MELANIE: Uh, Martin, have you seen Elias? MARTIN: Oh, uh… No, but Tuesday lunch he normally meets with the Library staff, I think. He’ll… He’ll probably be back in his office in an hour or so?

Heyheyheyhey, with the Added Lore from the liveshow that Martin worked at the library before the Archives, that means... MartinElias lunchdates canon.

[tma-latino]

MAG098 – Caso 8640514 - “Luces fuera” Martin Blackwood, asistente del Archivo en el Instituto Magnus, grabando el testimonio número 8640514. [Disclaimer/ Aviso] [MAG097] | x | [MAG099]

[soveryanon]

6. ABSOLUTE SHIT at lying (All of Jon in season 2 (special mention to “It, ah, uh, it’s a, a performance review thing, going over some files for it.” “But that looks like a picture of his house?” “Confidential files that you… Legally, you shouldn’t really be looking at them, please, er, please leave–”) / Melanie “Ahaha, I brought you a nonpoisoned coffee because you’re such a lovely boss and I do that all the time, nothing to get suspicious about!” King)

7. DELIQUENTS who sneak their ways in places they shouldn’t be (Jon “I broke into Gertrude’s flat!” and stealing the key to the tunnels from Elias’s desk at the beginning of season 2; Serial Trespasser Melanie sneaking her way into closed hospitals and train graveyards, and stealing evidence from Elias’s office.)

(3bis. Specifically got stabbed in the shoulder by a scalpel.)

Cant decide which is funnier tbh.

Martin and georgie looking vaguely similar and outing jon as having a TYPE

Or

Jon and melanie looking vaguely similar outing GEORGIE as having a TYPE

[gammija]

The final Web!Martin evidence list

Now that canon is done, and we’ve got word of god confirmation that Web!Martin wasn’t complete nonsense, I decided to go back to my lil chronological evidence list and actually clean it up a bit, delete parts that in hindsight weren't all that indicative, and put everything in a slightly more readable format. (Obligatory disclaimer that i don’t and never did believe or advocate for some kind of evil web!martin, and that I'm not intending to connect a moral judgement to martin (or anyone else for that matter) having some of these traits)

So here: The (hopefully, please) final list with Web!Martin Evidence! Presented in order of importance, according to. me

The final (hopefully) Web!Martin evidence list

(In order from most to least obvious)

Spiders

I mean, it’s called the Web. TMA reiterates quite a few times that Martin liked spiders. Sometimes it IS that easy.

MAG022: Martin: "I like spiders. Big ones, at least. Y’know, y’know the ones you can see some fur on; I actually think they’re sort of cute -"

MAG038: | Sasha: "A spider?" Jon: "Yeah. I tried to kill it…" [...] Sasha: [Chuckles] "Well, I won’t tell Martin." Jon: "Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem."

MAG059: Jon: "I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders."

MAG079: Jon: "Apparently, biologically, his account of the spiders doesn’t make any sense according to Martin."

MAG197: Martin: “What? Because I like spiders? Well, used to.”

Lies and subterfuge

Martin is able to use lying and subterfuge to achieve his goals, and is called manipulative a few times.

Lies:

MAG022: Martin: "[He] became slightly more co-operative after I lied to him and told him that one of the upstairs residents had buzzed me in."

MAG056: Martin: "I lied on my CV."

MAG158: Peter: “But you said –” Martin: “Honestly, I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear.”

MAG164: Jon: "You – I actually believed you!"

MAG189: Martin: “Sorry. Sorry, John. Not sure how much everything up there actually understood what was going on. But, y’know, I didn’t want to take any chances so it made sense to… um…” Jon: “Put on a show?” Martin: “Yeah, basically, more or less.”

MAG191: Martin: "That's not true." Arun: "Liar!"

Subterfuge:

The plan in 118, which revolved around convincing Elias that Martin was only “acting out”, to create a distraction for Melanie. (Also compare the way he evades giving a straight answer here with the way Annabelle talks in 196.)

Working with Peter in s4 under false pretenses, to distract him from Jon and eventually try to learn what Peter wanted.

Manipulation accusations:

These, I know, are somewhat contentious, since it’s mostly villains saying this to him. I’m still including them, since

1): From a media analysis standpoint, being mentioned 3 times is a sign to pay attention, even when it may not be the full truth.

2): I only see it as describing Martin’s behaviour in the previous points, not as a moral judgement; Especially since he almost always ‘manipulates’ people in positions of power over him.

Still, if it bothers anyone, feel free to ignore these.

MAG138: Martin: "That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!" Elias: "That makes two of us."

MAG186: Martin: “I can be a real manipulative prick, you know that?” Also Martin: “Oh yeah.”

MAG196: Annabelle: “Because you always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed.” [SMALL SOUND OF MARTIN’S CONCESSION TO THE POINT] Martin: “Point taken.”

The Lonely/the Web

The Lonely and the Web sometimes affect Martin to similar degrees.

In season 3, when Martin is getting used to reading statements for the first time, most of them leave him emotionally affected: MAG084, MAG088, MAG090,

MAG095: Martin: “S-S-Statement… done.” [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] “I don’t like recording these. There. I-I said it.”,

MAG098: Martin: [Panting] “End of statement.” [Deep breath] “I, um, I think I might need to sit down. Oh. Yeah, I am. Right. I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure if these are actually getting easier or harder. I mean I don’t feel –”

Only the last two statements he reads are remarkably easier. This might be a hint that Martin is just getting used to reading them, but the quote from MAG098 seems to contradict that. Either way, it’s likely not a coincidence that those last two happen to be the Lonely and the Web:

MAG108: Martin: “Statement ends.” (exhale) “That wasn’t so bad…”

MAG110: Martin: “Statement ends.” [...] “I mean, I think it sounds like a Jurgen Leitner book. About spiders. Hm. Good John didn’t have to read this one, anyway. I know he’s not a fan. Although, this one wasn’t too bad, actually! I – yeah. Anyway.”

In season 5, there are two powers’ Domains that actually affected Martin mentally, as opposed to only physically: the Lonely’s, in 170 (and arguably 186), and, depending on your interpretation, in 172, when Martin went exploring without knowing why he did so.

Proximity

Martin investigates a lot of the Web statements during season 1 to 3 (in other words, when the archive team still researches statements). The only ones he isn’t mentioned in during this period are MAG019 and MAG020, when he’s being harrassed by worms, and MAG081, which Jon records by himself outside of the institute.

Most notably, he’s the one who discovered the statement in MAG114, ‘Cracked Foundations’, which is the one statement in the entire show that sets up the interdimensional properties of HTR.

The Web!Lighter passed through Martin's hands first, before he gave it to Jon.

Similarly, Annabelle mostly spoke to Martin in season 5, despite most other Avatars usually focusing on Jon.

Aesthetics

Apart from the above obviously Web related areas, there are some other aesthetics which are mentioned in connection to both the Web and Martin, throughout canon.

These are describing the Web;

These are describing Martin.

Tapes:

Martin is the only character to treat the tape recorders as friends - any other character is either indifferent, or treats them as enemies.

MAG039: Martin: "I think the tapes have a sort of… low-fi charm."

MAG154 Martin: “Oh. Hi. Hello again.” … (small laugh) “Sorry pal, false alarm this time.”

MAG156 Martin: “Mm? Oh.” [HE LAUGHS, GENTLY.] “Yeah. (rustling paper) I was going to read one. Hate for you to miss it!” [SHORT, FORCED LAUGH, AS HE FLAPS THE STATEMENT AROUND.]

MAG170 Martin: “Oh. Oh, hello. What’s this? Wow, retro! What are you up to, little buddy; just – listening? That’s okay. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

MAG190 Jon: "[The tapes] seem to like [Martin]."

Retro:

MAG069: Statement: “I only saw Annabelle Cane once during this period. She wasn’t hard to pick out. She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her, and her short bleach-blonde hair stood out sharply against dark skin.”

MAG160: Jon: “Anyways, don’t tell me the phonebox down there doesn’t appeal to your retro aesthetic.” Martin: “It – might. Maybe.”

MAG163: Annabelle/the Web callying Martin via an old payphone: [ A PHONE RINGS. IT’S NOT THE TINNY, ELECTRONIC SOUND OF A CELLPHONE – NO, THIS IS A TRUE, HEAVY, CLASSIC RING.] Martin: “Uh. John? Uh, J, John – the, uh, payphone that’s – here, for some reason – it’s ringing?”

Hatred of burns:

MAG067: Jack Barnabas’ statement: “I looked up and noticed within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider’s web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke.” “Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundreds of tiny spiders.”

MAG139: Statement by member of Cult of the Lightless Flame: “The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.” Agnes burned down Hilltop Road.

MAG145: The Web ties Gertrude to Agnes, stopping the Desolation’s ritual (the only Power whose ritual the Web is known to have prevented).

MAG167: Gertrude enlists Agnes’/the Desolation’s help in order to burn her assistant Emma, who was Web aligned.

MAG169: Martin: "Look, I just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever. [...] I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!"

Phrasing:

MAG039: Martin: "I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t… move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck. [...] It's just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think."

MAG079: Martin's poem: "The threads of people walking, living, lovi–"

MAG117: Martin: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope John doesn’t actually listen to these. “Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?” No, John, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies."

MAG167: Jon: “Methinks the Spider dost protest too much.” Martin: “Jon –” Jon: “Joking! Just joking.”

Personality:

How applicable these are depends heavily on how you interpret Martin's own personality, so your mileage may vary.

MAG008: Statement: “Nobody ever said a word against Raymond himself, though, who was by all accounts a kind and gentle soul [...]”

MAG123: Jon: "The Web does seem to have a preference for those who prefer not to assert themselves."

MAG147: Annabelles statement: "I discovered a deep and enduring talent inside myself for lying. [...] My manipulations were not intricate, but they were far beyond what was expected of a child my age, and I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans."

Word of God and Annabelle

I kinda wanted to ‘prove’ that Web!Martin had quite a bit of evidence to back it up, hence this header being last. But of course, in this post-canon world, there are a few lines that most obviously confirm the theory:

MAG197: Martin is Web enough to be able to read the 'vibrations', like Annabelle, and see Jon and Basira (the latter being especially notable, as he hadn't known she was there beforehand): [CHITTERING, BUZZING AND HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS CHANGE CADENCE] Martin: "Wait… Wait, hang on, is that him?" Annabelle: "Yes. I guess you’re better with the Web than we thought." Martin: "And – Wait, ha– No, uh… is that… Basira? He – He’s got Basira with him!" Annabelle: "Yes."

Season 5 Q&A part 2: Jonny: “Essentially, it was fascinating looking at the fandom and, like, the Web!Martin believers, because what they were doing was correctly picking up on hints dropped in the early seasons that were later, like, not exactly abandoned, but it was much more like, ‘Well, no, he does have like aspects of The Web to him, but he is moreover The Lonely.’ And that came about very… very organically, really. Because throughout Season 3 and going into Season 4, we had this conversation and we were like, ‘No, actually he's like-” Alex: “‘It can't be, it cannot be, it must be the other way round’ Yeah.”

(Note that they say “throughout season 3 and going into season 4,” which likely means that season 1, season 2, and at least part of season 3, aka half of the entire show, were written with Web!Martin as an intentional possibility.)

If you read all that, thanks so much! Obviously, Web!Martin never really came to fruition, so it's fine if you still don't like it. This is just a post explaining where it was coming from, at least for me and the other theorists I've spoken to.

[the-one-alone]

The archives are tired

If you were being endlessly preyed upon by entities outside your world you’d be tired right? Well the archives staff certainly are! Sleep is hard. Especially when your boss is terrible. Here is a list of the times when the staff said they were tired:

MAG026 - A Distortion - Sasha mentions being tired after Tim’s April Fools Prank

MAG032 - Hive - Jon goes to lie down after reading Prentiss’ statement

MAG037 - Burnt Offering - Jon is tired after reading a statement involving Gertrude Robinson

MAG040 - Human Remains - Not!Sasha says she’s tired and finds it hard to keep track of details

MAG055 - Pest Control - Jon says that he misses the days when he used to get a good night’s sleep

MAG061 - Hard Shoulder - Jon says he needs to go home and get some sleep

MAG079 - Hide and Seek - Jon is tired of carrying a pipe

MAG082 - The Eyewitnesses - Tim goes to lie down after talking with Martin about Jon and Sasha

MAG086 - Tucked In - Tim goes to lie down after realising that he doesn’t remember what Sasha looked like

MAG098 - Lights Out - Martin needs to sit down after reading a statement

MAG098 - Lights Out (again) - Melanie mentions she slept for 20 hours after recording a statement

MAG107 - Third Degree - Jon says he needs some sleep after he’s been investigating Gerry and Gertrude

MAG118 - The Masquerade - Martin talks about taking lots of lie downs

MAG123 - Web Development - Jon is tired two days after waking up from a coma

MAG125 - Civilian Casualties - Basira literally says “Sleep is hard”

MAG131 - Flesh - Jon has a lie down after having a rib removed by Jared 

MAG132 - Entombed - Daisy says she misses dreaming, and that no one sleeps in the Buried

MAG137 - Nemesis - Jon is confused and tired by current events and has a lie down

MAG147 - Weaver - Jon has a lie down after reading Annabelle Cane’s statement

MAG161 - Dwelling - Jon mentions being tired a lot, but not being able to sleep

Honourable Mentions (not archives staff):

MAG074 - Fatigue - Lydia Halligan is so so so very tired. So tired. This entire episode is her being tired. She’s tired

MAG111 - Family Business - Gerry wants to rest so bad. He really does not like half existing in a book

MAG121 - Far Away - Oliver Banks is so tired he kills a man and steals his boat to get one night of good sleep

MAG143 - Heart of Darkness - Maxwell Rayner is incredibly tired after his life’s work is destroyed

MAG152 - A Gravedigger’s Envy - This guy sleeps in graves. He’s so tired cause he can only sleep well in graves

MAG### - every single episode - everyone is tired all the time. let the poor people rest. oh my god they’re so tired.

*this list only includes times when people explicitly stated that they were tired, or needed to lie down, etc. It does not include when they sounded tired, or when stage directions mention them being tired. That list would be much much longer if I did that (I might later)

**also I may have missed a couple, and this list is definitely subject to change as the series progresses

[yszarin]

see below for thoughts on Creature Feature

- !trans statement giver! excellent!

- sounds a very pleasant boss, don’t think I’ll mind overmuch when he gets eaten

- “spiders are eating” is better, I think. gentle facts.

- oh no this casting thing seems very similar to what I’m imagining is the Institute’s recruitment process - will anyone miss you if you die? great, hired

- Brandon, is he our new spider friend?

- oh, time for all those poor actors to wander into the spider’s mouth, as in the film/book, lovely

- so Martin’s OK with this one? bit of a sigh but seems fine? you know what? after this I’m going to do a quick relisten to the Martin-statement-endings, see even further below for probably inconclusive, to me anyway, results

- finish your sentences Martin

- oh no, at least she didn’t die?

- Basira and Melanie have talked, hooray! and ahhh, Martin asking the questions, and Basira’s all protective of Melanie

- ouch, who wants to bet that Martin offered his mother a lot of cups of tea?

- please talk to Tim I’m desperately worried about him.

- maybe not even about this, though if he might talk you out of it I’m all for it. just, like, check in on him? please? 

- oh great. wonderful. so someone’s going to have to get their head poked at so the others can get to kill Elias or otherwise restrain him? someone who knows this plan and has it in their head where he’d find it, unless they’re planning to involve Tim without telling him anything, or Jon, and I really can’t see Martin agreeing to that. no way that can go wrong. and assuming that Elias hears everything we do, he probably already knows about this? goddamnit I hope Jon gets back soon, before Elias decides to make an example of someone.

- and oh god I can imagine exactly how smug he’ll be, maybe even mock-disappointed, I’m just going to be in a constant state of worry for the next two weeks, maybe longer, I don’t imagine it’ll let me stop being worried about them

- and I have realised that I am waiting for Jon, disaster-archivist who makes all of the bad decisions, to come back and sort everything out. what has this brought me to.

- anyway, to stress about the assistants in a slightly different way, now for unscientific relisten (please let me know if I’ve missed any Martin-statements)

MAG084 POSSESSIVE - long silence, difficulty breathing, but says he thinks it was OK (possibly not referring to statement difficulty) - FILTH MAG088 DIG - sounds shaken - BURIED MAG090 BODY BUILDER - longish silence - BUTCHERY MAG095 ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE - stammering, issues breathing, says he doesn't like it - WAR? END? BUTCHERY? MAG098 LIGHTS OUT - intake of breath, pause, needs to sit down but is, isn't sure if they're getting easier or harder - DARKNESS MAG108 MONOLOGUE - seems ok? says it wasn't so bad - ISOLATION MAG110 CREATURE FEATURE - seems ok? says it's not too bad - WEB

it’s possible the associated power’s a factor? Isolation and Web seem to not be too opposed to Beholding at the moment, and those statements seem to have been the easiest - it would be interesting to see how Martin would react to a Stranger statement (he’s been getting a nice little tour, and I would now for Reasons of My Own very much like to hear him read a Vast statement). Or maybe it is just that he’s getting used to it - not sure if I’d be more worried by that or by his being so in with Beholding that opposed statements upset him more. At any rate, I am, as ever, deeply worried for Martin Blackwood.  

[soveryanon]

Small Melanie&Tim things:

- Holder of “fuck”

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: Well, excuse me if my experiences of th– TIM: Your experiences? Fuck you! I got eaten by worms because of you!

(MAG131) ARCHIVIST: Oh, I… Melanie, I–I’m so sorry, I– MELANIE: Oooh, fuck off?!

- Holder of “asshole”

(MAG117) MELANIE: Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … Asshole…

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Tim!! [STATIC:] What do you see? TIM: I see my asshole boss! W– wait… wait…

- Asbestos.

(MAG028) MELANIE: Anyway. We’d been angling to go into the CMH for months, er, but I couldn’t get permission. Apparently there’s asbestos in the walls? It makes it, uh, “too much of a health and safety hazard”.

(MAG090) ELIAS: [SIGH] Tim… This place is very old. It has all sorts of… idiosyncrasies, and not all of them are good for the people who work here. TIM: I think I’d prefer asbestos.

- That-bi-crush-on-the-Real-Sasha

(MAG076) MELANIE: Where’s Sasha, by the way? I wanted to say goodbye. […] I haven’t seen her in a while. Oh. You didn’t fire her, did you? […] Tall, long hair, glasses… She was here when I first came in. Back last April? We had a long conversation about haunted pubs.

(MAG114) TIM: I knew Sasha for years, we… I don’t know Martin as well as I knew her.

- Not tolerating tape recorders anymore

(MAG098) MARTIN: […] Have you seen [Jon] since…? TIM: [GRUNT] Kind of. We tried to talk, but he, he reached for that– Ah, he, he wanted to turn on his recorder. I freaked out a bit, and I said some stuff: if he wanted to talk, no tapes, I just, I just hate that thing.

(MAG136) THERAPIST: Right, have a seat. Do you mind if I record our sessions? MELANIE: I do mind. Yes. THERAPIST: Ah? I mean, it’s just for my own notes. MELANIE: I categorically and completely do not give consent for you to make any recording of me, ever. Turn it off. Please.

- … Apparently talking with each other behind tape recorders’ back

(MAG106) ELIAS: You already have doubts, though. You’ve been talking with Tim, and have convinced yourself that– MELANIE: [DRY LAUGHTER] ELIAS: –even if I’m telling the truth, I’m too dangerous to live. MELANIE: Well.

- Conscious decision to avoid or stop doing Archival Assistant work altogether because The Eye/the place/this work is evil

(MAG098) TIM: Still doing those? MARTIN: … Yeah. Yeah… I did ask Elias if I could stop. TIM: And he said “no” for a mysterious reason? MARTIN: I don’t know? I mean, he kind of explained – I think? Jon’s “too inconsistent” at the moment. He needs to make up for the shortfall, which, I guess, means me. … Unless you… TIM: No. MARTIN: He did suggest I try to get you involved, and– TIM: And I suggest that he not be a scary, magic psychopath. … Whoops! Too late. MARTIN: … Yeah. TIM: [SIGH] … Sorry. MARTIN: No, I– I get it. Heh. They’re not exactly much fun. TIM: Look, it’s not that. I… [SIGH] This place is evil, Martin. And I think doing what It wants? Probably makes us evil. And It wants those things to be read. I mean, I’m not gonna stop you, but, at the same time– MARTIN: I– I get it.

(MAG150) MELANIE: Look. I’m not going to do my job anymore. ARCHIVIST: … I am not sure I follow, you–you know we… we can’t… quit, we’ve all tried. MELANIE: I didn’t say I was going to quit. I said: I’m not going to do my job. No researching; no filing; no… field trips. Nothing that is going to help the Institute in any way. […] ARCHIVIST: Why? MELANIE: Because this place is evil, Jon. And so… doing this job… ARCHIVIST: [LOUD EXHALE] MELANIE: Helping it out… even in small ways, i–is in some way… evil too! Every time we try to use it to do good, it just seems to make everything worse, and… and I will not be a part of that anymore.

- … and sickness due the aforementioned (experienced/planned ;;)

(MAG090) TIM: I hopped a flight to Malaysia. Found myself a hotel. ELIAS: I see. … You were trying to leave us? TIM: Yeah…! ELIAS: But you’ve returned. TIM: I… I got sick. The longer I was gone… I felt weak, like… like I was, I was losing myself…

(MAG150) MELANIE: I’ll still be around, I just… I can’t be a part of this anymore. If, if I get sick, I get sick. And, and if I die…

[soveryanon]

When it comes to Going Out For Drinks and/or interactions outside of the Institute:

(End of Season 2 Q&A) ALEX (Martin’s VA): “Do Tim, Martin and Jon ever hang out or interact outside of work hours?” JONNY (Jon’s VA): Er, they used to. ALEX: [DRAMATIC SIGH] JONNY: Not so much, since Series 2 started. Not, not a lot beforehand but, I mean, they would occasionally have had, like, a work function, I think. Possibly a… a Curry Night around Christmas, that sort of thing. ALEX: It wasn’t fun for Jon, I suspect. JONNY: Oh no, Jon… yeah. Jon went. ALEX: Martin had a great time!

(MAG098) MELANIE: Listen, you… really look like you could use a drink. Um, me and Basira were just about to pop out. So… do you want to join us? MARTIN: It’s like one in the afternoon! MELANIE: Are you afraid of getting fired. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … Huh. I’ll get my coat.

(100.5 – Season 3 Mid-season break, Assistants Round Table) MIKE (Tim’s VA): Genuinely, I’m really hoping at some point that there is a scene where all of the Archival assistants actually do go to the pub. ALEX: And hate it. MIKE: And hate it, yeah! ALEX: This is awful, they would rather just have carried on with their lives as they were. MIKE: Yeah, exactly! ALEX: This is awkward, just– unpleasant. LYDIA (Melanie’s VA): Uh, I honestly think that Basira and Melanie could have a great time at the pub together. ALEX: Oh, I reckon, as a pair, yes! I think it’s the second you bring in… “happy-go-lucky-cheerful guy” over here, and Martin “let’s all have a panic attack together”… LYDIA: Noooo, I think, I think… I think the three-person pub trip that was planned – just probably, they had a lot of fun. I think they probably had a nice roast– ALEX: I think there were lots of “knowing” glances between Basira and Melanie. While they stay quiet because Martin won’t shut up. LYDIA: Yeah. But then they also kind of know that he needs to talk about it; and that the one person that he wants to listen to him never will…

(MAG106) BASIRA: Hey, are you ready for that drink? […] Oh, sorry! Do you need to finish up? MELANIE: No, I… I, I actually have no idea what I was going to say. I did have more notes on, hum, on space, I guess, but… forget it, let’s go! BASIRA: Well, I should probably go check in with Martin. Y’know, see if he’s in for drinks. MELANIE: So you can double-check your gossip? BASIRA: I don’t gossip! I have the mind of an investigator. MELANIE: Right, okay. Anyway, I’ll go find him. I could really do with the walk.

(Though it was confirmed in MAG108 that after her Performance Review with Elias, Melanie didn’t go to that one in the end ;;)

(MAG136) DAISY: Get over yourself! You’re always talking about choices – we all made ours. Now I’m making the choice… to get some drinks in. Come in? ARCHIVIST: I d–… I… [SIGH] … yeah? Okay. DAISY: Melanie’s out, but I’ll go get Basira. ARCHIVIST: Is she… Will she want to join us? DAISY: If she doesn’t, I’ll rip her throat out. ARCHIVIST: Uh… DAISY: It’s a joke, Jon. ARCHIVIST: … oh. Ahah…! Yes… I–I’ll get my coat.

(“I am at least as much Helen Richardson as you are the Jonathan Sims that first joined this institute. Things change. People change. It happens.”, Helen said and… LOOK AT HIM NOW!!! GOING OUT FOR DRINKS WITH THE ASSISTANTS!!! AT LAST!!! ;w;)

[soveryanon]

Just Little Jon Things:

(MAG083) ARCHIVIST: Look, Georgie, it’s not… You don’t need to worry. I–I mean, I’m not, I’m not on drugs or anything. GEORGIE: [LAUGHS DISBELIEVINGLY] ARCHIVIST: What…? [SILENCE] … I could be on drugs! GEORGIE: Sure.

(MAG140) BASIRA: Drinking alone, then? ARCHIVIST: [SLURRING] It’s not a hangover. Well, not… [INHALE] I wasn’t drinking. [SIGH] BASIRA: Drugs then? ARCHIVIST: [GRUNT] BASIRA: You sick? Got some weird monster disease? ARCHIVIST: Seriously?

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: Where did the– [PAPER RUSTLING] [MUTTERING] “Coma? Great! Let’s rearrange his office. Sleeping people don’t need… pens.”

(MAG140) BASIRA: But, I think… Have you got a pen? ARCHIVIST: Uuh… Yeah, i–in the drawer. [RUFFLING OF CLOTHES, MOVEMENTS, A DRAWER OPENING] BASIRA: Er… Jon. What’s this. ARCHIVIST: Mm? … Oh. That’s… [PAUSE] That, uh, that’s… my rib. BASIRA: … Right. [PUTS IT DOWN] ARCHIVIST: Yup… BASIRA: And… the jar of ashes. ARCHIVIST: Not– Not mine; I–I mean, it belongs to me, I–I guess, but it’s not… Er, stationery is in the other drawer?

(MAG108) BASIRA: How much do you know about the relationship between Edmond Halley and John Flamsteed? MARTIN: What, Halley like the comet? BASIRA: Exactly.

(MAG140) BASIRA: Well, by the way, he really hated the man who succeeded him. His… former assistant, Edmond Halley. ARCHIVIST: As in… “Halley’s Comet”–Halley?

(MAG074) ARCHIVIST: I’m rather glad I don’t really drink coffee.

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: … [LONG-SUFFERING SIGH] BASIRA: Coffee. [MUG PUT DOWN ON A TABLE] ARCHIVIST: What…? BASIRA: Coffee. Drink it. ARCHIVIST: I don’t really, er… [INHALE] Fine.

[tma-latino]

MAG097 – Caso 0090303 – “Todos ignoramos el foso” Testimonio de Jackson Ellis, sobre de las peculiaridades geográficas en el pueblo de Bucoda, en Washington. [Disclaimer/ Aviso] [MAG096] | x | [MAG098]

[tma-latino]

MAG099 – Caso 9522002 – “Al polvo volverás” Robert E. Geiger. El incidente ocurrió en Boise City, Oklahoma, en abril de 1935. El nombre de la víctima era Stefan Brotchen. Testimonio dado el 20 de febrero de 1952. Grabado en cinta el 2 de septiembre de 2007. Graba Gertrude Robinson. [Disclaimer/ Aviso] [MAG098] | x | [MAG100]

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG163 /X_X/

- Tolkien jokes (and the Institute/Jonah being Sauron) aside… I really loved the detail of the tower:

(MAG163) MARTIN: Right. I just… [FOOTSTEPS] Don’t like being out here. ARCHIVIST: Hm! You see that tower, way off in the distance? MARTIN: Yeah. [PAUSE] [SIGH] It’s watching us, isn’t it? [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: The Panopticon and the Institute. Merged into something entirely new. MARTIN: Wha–, what? No, th–there’s, there’s no way we could see it from here. We, we must still be a hundred miles from the border, never mind London! ARCHIVIST: You could see that tower from anywhere on Earth. And it can see you. And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between.

The premise of the Panopticon was to allow a guardian to watch over every prisoner in the complex, and to make a point that they could be being watched at any time. Funnily, it feels like a logical extension that in the nightmarish world, that role would expand into something absolutely concrete: people are constantly watched and acutely aware of the single point watching them, and it’s not tied to any physical or geographical law, it’s just the way it is, going even further than Jonah’s own powers.

Interesting that the Institute-Panopticon seems to be its Own Thing, since Beholding is already supposed to watch everything on its own?

(MAG160) ARCHIVIST: [HINT OF A COLD SMILE] The whole world is afraid, Martin. Because of me. And The Watcher… drinks it all in. MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: Look at the sky, Martin! Look at the sky. It’s looking back! [BROKEN LAUGHTER]

(MAG161) ARCHIVIST: They… I see most of the suffering around here. When it’s quiet, it just… it’s like… I can see it, like I’m watching all of it. MARTIN: You haven’t been opening the curtains? ARCHIVIST: No, I don’t need to. “It” can see us here, and… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] And I can see out as well.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Outside, it is raining. Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all […] This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC RISES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] ARCHIVIST: [CRIES OUT] [COLLAPSES]

- Oookay, so, confirmed and demonstrated that time…

(Season 5 trailer) MARTIN: Uh, o–okay, eh. [PAUSE] How are you feeling today? ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] Define… “today”. [CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: “How are you feeling in general”, then? ARCHIVIST: … Unchanged. [PAUSE] I don’t know if it’ll ever change again…!

(MAG161) ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] can’t. I–I–I can’t, I–I don’t think I do anymore… “Sleep”. [EXHALE] How long’s it been, now? MARTIN: I don’t know. It’s not like there are days to count anymore. All the clocks have stopped, and…

(MAG163) MARTIN: How long have we been walking? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Fourteen hours and… twenty-three minutes. MARTIN: What, seriously? ARCHIVIST: Yes. I… don’t think it means much out here, though.

… and space…

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “There is a place, deep in the heart of Fear, where you trap yourself and claim that it is safety. [STATIC DECREASES] It was once a cabin, and professes still to be such, but as with all in this new world that promises respite… it is a trap. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] The land outside is warped and twisted by the touch of those things that feed on your suffering, and behind those rough wooden planks, [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] it seems they cannot reach you.

(MAG163) MARTIN: Ssso. … Are we going to walk, all the way to London? ARCHIVIST: If you know an alternative, I’d be [HUMOURLESS CHUCKLE] very keen to hear it…! MARTIN: I mean… cars? You know, planes, trains, automobiles? ARCHIVIST: It wouldn’t help. MARTIN: Alright – a boat, then. ARCHIVIST: Geography doesn’t work anymore. Space… doesn’t work. MARTIN: … Alright. So what does that mean? ARCHIVIST: It means the journey will be the journey, regardless of how we choose to make it. MARTIN: Right. And you’re sure we can’t just, you know… [RUSTLING] speed it up a bit? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] No. [SIGH]

… have been messed up and are following another logic, though Jon is somehow able to keep track (of where they are, of time still working as a continuum). Though, I kind of hope that Martin’s maps manage to help somehow:

(MAG162) MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Uh, Martin, I… MARTIN: No, no; I, I know what you’re going to say. [RUMMAGING] “What good are maps when the very Earth has…” and blah blah blah… ARCHIVIST: W– Uh, yes– MARTIN: But I’ve, I’ve packed them anyway because you never know.

Because gdi, give Martin credit for a good idea every once in a while! ;w;

(- I’M STUPIDLY “!!!!!” AT MARTIN SUGGESTING THEY COULD TRAVEL BY BOAT… Could we maybe have a tiny chance of “meeting” the Tundra at some point…

Also, did Martin assume that they could get someone to drive them by car/plane/train all the way to London, or did he nail the dream-logic that they could use them as long as they believe they can drive them?)

- Same with sleeping&rest, they’re definitely not a necessity anymore:

(MAG161) MARTIN: You should get some sleep. [CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] can’t. I–I–I can’t, I–I don’t think I do anymore… “Sleep”. [EXHALE] How long’s it been, now? MARTIN: I don’t know. It’s not like there are days to count anymore. All the clocks have stopped, and… [DISTANT HOWL] ARCHIVIST: Well, I haven’t yet. I get… tired, but it doesn’t feel the same. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] Probably for the best. Sleep doesn’t look… pleasant. MARTIN: Nnno, it’s… it’s not. ARCHIVIST: I couldn’t wake you. […] MARTIN: Well, just as well I don’t remember my dreams. ARCHIVIST: I do. MARTIN: Uh– What? ARCHIVIST: They… I see most of the suffering around here. When it’s quiet, it just… it’s like… I can see it, like I’m watching all of it.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “If you had need to eat, no doubt there would be food; if you had need to sleep, no doubt the beds would be welcoming. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] But you have need of neither; and so you sit in your meagre comfort and belief of security with nothing to do, nothing to distract your mind from the agonies that lie just beyond your window.”

(MAG163) MARTIN: … Oh, I’m knackered. ARCHIVIST: Are you? [FOOTSTEPS STOP] MARTIN: I– … Hm. … Well. Okay, well, no, no, I suppose not; but, I–I think I should be. ARCHIVIST: Yup! MARTIN: How long have we been walking? […] We should… probably rest. ARCHIVIST: Maybe. I… I don’t know, I– … I don’t know if we can – “rest”. It feels more like��� hm, “waiting”. […] ARCHIVIST: “Next to his bleeding corpse, Charlie wakes from what passes for sleep in this place.”

It sounds like it’s now a habit/reflex, or almost a narrative device in people’s nightmares?

- I hope that Martin is keeping a running count of the times Jon Is Being Ominous, because we’ve already heard it twice:

(MAG161) MARTIN: O–kay, we’ll just file that under… ominous, for now.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: You could see that tower from anywhere on Earth. And it can see you. And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between. MARTIN: … You’re being ominous again!

- gASP, JON, HOW COULD YOU!!

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Well… Put your fingers in your ears then, I, I suppose. MARTIN: [SNORT] Fine, and what about them? ARCHIVIST: … They don’t even know we’re here. We’re not part of their nightmare. [DRIP] MARTIN: … Right. [SHUFFLING] [DRIP] ARCHIVIST: Martin…? [DRIP] Martin? [DRIP] Martin, I hate your tea, and wish you made coffee instead…! [DRIP] … Alright, then. [INHALE] [SIGH]

I love how “Jon drinks coffee (in fact: no, he doesn’t)” is almost becoming a running joke at this point: Melanie had mentioned that “Jon likes his black” when trying to poison Elias’s (MAG098), Basira had shoved one dow on Jon’s table in MAG140, but… presumably, Melanie was bullshitting and Basira was not providing any comfort. From Jon himself, “I’m rather glad I don’t really drink coffee.” (MAG074)

- Another bit of Jon’s guilt / feeling responsible about what happened:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Don’t worry, Jon. You’ll get used to it here – in the world that we have made.” […] ARCHIVIST: [HINT OF A COLD SMILE] The whole world is afraid, Martin. Because of me. And The Watcher… drinks it all in.

(MAG161) MARTIN: I’m sorry. ARCHIVIST: It’s not… You’re not the one who ended the world…! […] MARTIN: Jon, it’s not your fault… ARCHIVIST: Martin, can we not do this again. MARTIN: Sorry. ARCHIVIST: I’m just… I’m mourning a world I killed…! MARTIN: I know… ARCHIVIST: And we’re all trapped in its rotting corpse…! […] I am an avatar of voyeuristic terror, whose unquestioned craving for knowledge has condemned the entire world… to an eternity of torment, “healthy” i–isn’t, i–it’s not…!

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: [STATIC RISES] “‘Hold each other,’ it croons, ‘Be happy. But know always that this happiness is a lie, [RUMBLE OF THUNDER] built on the squirming bones of those whose suffering you have caused.’” [STATIC DECREASES]

(MAG163) MARTIN: … They’re not… real? [VOICES SHOUTING IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLING] No…! They’re real; they were… normal people before the– … Before me.

- I KNOW that Smirke’s taxonomy is subjective, doesn’t work on everything, etc. etc. but :w The hell I’ll stop slapping his labels on things.

Naturally, the episode was bringing The Slaughter to mind: it’s not the first time we have heard the bagpipes during a statement (it had been the case in MAG125), and music&war had been an old association since “The Piper” (MAG007), put on the foreground again in MAG137.

(MAG007, Staff Sergeant Clarence Berry) “Yet [Wilfred] got to know the war in a way I never did. He’s certainly the only person I know that ever saw The Piper. […] None of it seemed to produce any reaction in him, and instead he turned to me and after a long while he simply said: “I met the war.” […] It struck me that perhaps he was describing some dreadful mirage that had come upon him as he lay in that wretched place, and I asked him to tell me what the war looked like. I remember exactly what he said. He told me it had three faces. One to play its pipes of scrimshawed bone, one to scream its dying battle cry and one that would not open its mouth, for when it did blood and sodden soil flowed out like a waterfall. Those arms that did not play the pipes were gripping blades and guns and spears, while others raised their hands in futile supplication of mercy, and one in a crisp salute. It wore a tattered coat of wool, olive green where it was not stained black, and beneath, nothing could be seen but a body beaten, slashed and shot and until nothing remained but the wounds themselves.”

(MAG125, Sergeant Terrance Simpson) “I moved back to Macclesfield shortly afterwards. It pretty much ended my marriage, since my wife is why I’d moved up to Inverness in the first place. … But I… just couldn’t go on up there. … I can’t stand the sound of bagpipes. [DISTANT BAGPIPES] … And sometimes… at night… I still hear sheep, in the distance.” [BAGPIPES FADE] ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. Hm! An Englishman returning from Scotland with a fear of bagpipes and sheep. I’m sure we can all relate…!

Though: rather than “The Slaughter”, this statement seems to be dealing with the overall horrors of war? So if it was more specifically one thing amongst the ones we had met, I would say it was The Piper at work, but most likely The War itself, overlapping on multiple Fears from Smirke’s taxonomy? Or just a place’s own nightmares, traumatised by the horror of war from the past – though this one encompassed every worst and most violent aspect of every war – from the past and the present?

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: Nightmares. [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] Come on – that trench is our first. MARTIN: What tren– [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] … Where did that– … Why is that here? ARCHIVIST: In the world as was… we wouldn’t be too far from Kinloss Barracks. So instead, we get the trench. […] ““There is a wound in the earth. [STATIC DECREASES] A bayonet gouge, scored through the soft and sodden mud for uncounted miles. A trench that marks the front line of a war that has no name. It has always been raging, deep in the hearts of the powerful and those that thirst to see bodies piled high in their name. And now, it has a battleground: a thousand pointless conflicts and bitter stalemates, stitched together like a triaged chest wound. It is a butchered border, a thin and punctured membrane between the unending meat grinder, and the terrified victims it longs for. You may find this trench reaching all across the world, and it will never stop, never be satisfied, never think of peace.”

(We got drones making anonymous kills, tanks running over people, explosions, gunshots, gas, medical malpractice, mentions of torture, punishments for deserters, famine, exploitation by the upper-class.)

Overall, using Smirke’s taxonomy, I felt Slaughter, Desolation (torture and losses of the dear ones, boiling in the tank), Eye (drone watching and being inscrutable in return – though this one was able to harm you), Corruption (the medical tent), Stranger/Spiral (enemies twisted into being Other and inhuman, although we knew there were people on both fronts), Buried (under the tank), maybe a bit of End (fear of death – people were unaware that it wasn’t permanent? I’m still wondering about what avatars of The End would think of the new world…).

Jon did say they would have to go through multiple nightmares:

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: You could see that tower from anywhere on Earth. And it can see you. And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between. MARTIN: … You’re being ominous again! ARCHIVIST: Sorry. MARTIN: [HUFF] ARCHIVIST: Sorry. MARTIN: What do you mean, “everything”? What’s out here? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] [FAINT CREAKING] ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] [BAGPIPES IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: Nightmares. [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] Come on – that trench is our first. MARTIN: What tren– [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] … Where did that– … Why is that here? ARCHIVIST: In the world as was… we wouldn’t be too far from Kinloss Barracks. So instead, we get the trench. MARTIN: … How do you know all this stuff? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Not sure…! I just do. [BANGS IN THE DISTANCE] MARTIN: Jon… I’m scared. ARCHIVIST: … Yes… That’s the idea…!

(Big big Divina Commedia vibe overall, with Jon’s “The journey will be the journey, regardless of how we choose to make it” and the premise of two people going through multiple layers before they’ll be able to reach an apotheosis through the final destination.)

And on the one hand, it doesn’t mean that there will be 12 or 13 (depending on if the cabin counted) Fears-fuelled territories to go through before reaching the 14th, the Institute, given that Smirke’s categorisation was what it is. On the other hand… Jonah still used the division in 14 in his incantation, so that could have consequences in how the Fears manifest: intertwined, but with a strong dominant one every time.

… If there is a Corruption-dominant one, might be really hard on Martin&Jon given their experience with Prentiss, but the worst might be a Lonely one…

(Is Daisy currently haunting a Hunt nightmare, in a forest or something?)

- Last episode had given us tips about the new world through Gertrude&Gerry’s speculation last episode (MAG162: “If one were to – genuinely – press through, I suspect they would rewrite them wholesale; most likely making them… utterly incomprehensible to any survivors. They, they might still need us human enough to be afraid, but beyond that… Let’s just surmise that petty rules like space or time would be unlikely to factor into the proceedings. They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape; keeping us… alive and afraid – forever.”), and indeed, I felt like it helped to follow what was happening.

The Trench’s nightmare shows us memories being rewritten to fit a narrative that would hurt its victims the most (“Ishaan remembers the recruiters. […] But he didn’t know about this war, that had always been raging and would never stop.” / “Charlie saw Ryan, who he’d known since childhood – though the other details were hazy. Ryan gave him a thumbs-up and an encouraging smile – before his face exploded inwards to a sniper’s bullet, peppering the boat with shards of bone and gore.” Did Ryan even exist, or was the memory just created to make Charlie feel the pain and the loss?). Like in a dream, scenes can skip from place to place with no particular logic, only forming a succession of diversified anguish (“He could not move, and as he waited for the shot that would take him… his legs fell away in fear. Now, he is in a helicopter, strapped in tight and unable to move.”). Like in a dream, metaphor becomes reality: The Enemy being “rats” and “pigs” mean that they become literally that through other victims’ eyes (“Sometimes, in the distance, Hasanna sees them. The enemy, their skin rough, dark and scaly; their faces twisted around cruel tusks, viciously sharpened teeth, and a pair of beady red eyes. Their lips are smeared crimson with the blood of children, and their greatest delight… is to pluck the eyes of the innocent with their bayonets. To call them monsters is the simple truth. They feel no pain, no remorse, and seek nothing but carnage. […] Alexei in turn looks out from deep in the trench. He catches sight of the enemy, their shrivelled rat-like heads causing the bile to rise in his throat.”) Like in a dream, dying doesn’t mean an absolute ending, and people seem to respawn (“Charlie is immediately pulled under its tread. He has a moment of shocked horror, before being reduced to a smear in the mud. […] Next to his bleeding corpse, Charlie wakes from what passes for sleep in this place. A sergeant is yelling at him, screaming for him to take his gun and get into the waiting transport.”)

It’s interesting to note that, in that logic, nightmares get interrelated, and that everyone’s actions have the power to make it worse for others: they don’t have a choice… and yet still seem to have a bit of autonomy resulting in more misery for other victims: Ishaan is still firing at people (“Now, his body has contorted itself to fit, his fingers clutched around the firing lever; pulling it frantically is the only thing that will reduce the impossible heat even for a moment.”), Hasanna still turns down all the other wounded without bringing any semblance of comfort (“Hasanna’s eyes fall on the entrance to the tent, and she sees the line of civilians, stretching away into the distance. They are no less maimed, their agonies no more bearable; but there is simply no room. She tries to apologise – but instead, she closes the tent.”). Interesting is that the Fears at work still seem to search for more opportunities to hurt (“He places his hand down and it sinks suddenly into the mud; he cries out as the rusted barbed wire curls itself eagerly around his wrist, digging into his skin. Tasting fear, more wire slithers through the churned earth towards him”). Not sure about the “portly man in a tailored suit, with a blood-red flower on his lapel”’s status, though: because he’s both a very real caricature of the “powerful and those that thirst to see bodies piled high in their name” mentioned at the beginning (and indeed: the symbol puts to mind the Red Poppy, the moustache various ~war leaders~)… and also doesn’t seem to suffer at all from the situation. So did he also use to be a real, normal person, or is he just an emanation of the nightmare to remind Alexei of his own powerlessness and despair?

(-Indeed, the scene was so striking!

(MAG163) “He runs almost headfirst into a portly man in a tailored suit, with a blood-red flower on his lapel. He smiles, pale skin splitting beneath his bristling white moustache, and he begins to shake Alexei by the hand. “Good lad!” he says. “Good lad. Heroes one and all. A noble sacrifice.” Alexei starts to speak, to say he doesn’t want to be a hero, he doesn’t… want to be a sacrifice – he wants to go home. But the man with the flower reaches his hand into the soldier’s chest, and with a single, jolly motion, plucks out Alexei’s heart, and places it in his wallet.”

The man labelling Alexei a “sacrifice” even before he was dead, and wearing the red flower (Remembrance Day) while the war was still ongoing, highlighting how death (in the nightmare) was the only possible outcome…)

- So far, I found it interesting that the season has been dealing with spaces, down to the episode titles. “Dwelling” was the state of being as well as the safehouse itself, same with “A Cosy Cabin”. This episode, “In the Trenches”, felt to me like it was mostly the statement of the place trapping people, rather than people’s stories. Smirke had explained that his taxonomy had come from his own experience of the Dread Powers as something he identified as “places” in his nightmares:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “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. […] No. No, I… stand by my work. And thus, we must conclude that the only explanation is a new Power, created from what was once others, yet also distinct. And if such change is possible, how then can any “true balance” be achieved through immutable, unchanging stone…?”

So. Two things.

* If the season keeps going with “places”, I wonder if we’ll get a few titles like “The Magnus Institute” (both as Jonah Magnus’s organisation and the building), “The Archive(s)” (… the physical department and Jon-as-the-Archive), “Hill Top Road”. At the very least, if it keeps going with places, Hill Top Road sounds like a mandatory stop… Annabelle had kicked Jon out of there during season 4, it was already a “scar in reality” (MAG139, MAG146) before The Change. How is the house/field looking, now?

* ……………. If we’re now dealing with “places”, I’m squintsquintsquint about the relationship between Jonah and the Institute/Panopticon now:

(MAG092) ELIAS: Ah, of course. Er, sometimes I forget how new you all are to this. Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit.

(MAG120) PETER: Oh! Right, of course! Well, you’ve successfully managed to remove Elias as the Head of the Magnus Institute. So… MARTIN: Oh. Oh, god, what does that do? PETER: Oh! No, no no no! No. Not in any, hum, metaphysical sense, no, he’s still very much the… how did he insist on phrasing it… Ah yes, the “beating heart of the Institute”.

(MAG158) MARTIN: [SHAKY INHALE] … Where are his eyes? ELIAS: Exactly– MARTIN: [GASP] ELIAS: –where they’ve always been, Martin. Watching over my Institute.

Jonah already identified himself as “the heart of the Institute”, refused to let it go, presented it as “his” Institute, and was getting his powers from his body that remained inside of the Panopticon. Could it be possible that, in the nightmare logic, he has now fused with the building, is the building itself?

- I was fearing that this season would hit too close, got a moment of “Oh, that was okay actually? And intense and pretty!” after the episode, and then… for once, it didn’t really leave something in me, and I have to admit that no, actually, the episode didn’t really work for me, that the “statement” didn’t leave me with many emotions. It’s a cascade of very striking and beautiful pictures, so maybe it felt too saturated? But I think that it’s mostly because… the episode didn’t make me feel like “people aside from the main characters” had the right to be their own individuals: I felt like the four vignettes (Charlie’s, Ishaan’s, Hasanna’s, Alexei’s) composing the “statement” could have been… anyone’s, put in that same situation. You could move a character and put it in the shoes of another on that battlefield, and nothing significant would really change in the flow of words. Combined with the fact that these people weren’t choosing to tell their nightmares/stories (they weren’t coming to Jon, they weren’t aware of him, they weren’t giving the stories more or less on their terms), that it wasn’t even about preserving/honouring the people who are trapped, but that it was entirely down to Jon’s inability to hold on any longer, that it was all about how It Was Too Hard On Jon And That He Had To “Let It Out”… eh. It felt too voyeuristic and a bit gratuitous? I’m aware that it’s fitting for a world where Beholding is watching, and that Jon is, after all, an avatar of The Eye; it’s still not something that I find super interesting in itself when main characters are allowed to have some freedom and individual traits, especially when the series’ strong forte was precisely… each statement-giver feeling like they were their own person, with their own life and quirks and stories. And this statement fails to give me much of that feeling ;; (Plus, I’m… a bit surprised that we had four characters, 3 men and only 1 woman, who is a passive nurse when all the others were soldiers. It’s a nightmare, it didn’t need to be logical, and yet it felt like it went casually and very blatantly sexist? I know that “women have the right to be gored and traumatised on a hellish battleground too” is an odd thing to say, but also, equality?)

Crossing fingers that I get the emotional charge in later episodes, but yeah, as it stands right now the road trip format is a bit doomed to leaving me indifferent if it remains Martin&Jon journeying in the same conditions: the season began with extremely strong personalities and individualities (through tapes, people who had been lost: Sasha, Tim, Gertrude, Leitner, Gerry), Jon and Martin are clearly their own persons… and so far, that’s it. “People” feel like “undistinguished people” outside of them, and I’m not too fond of that…

I’m aware that it might be a point being progressively introduced into the show, and that’s how first-person nightmares work, too: you’re “you” and at the same time, you’re entirely rewritten and could be anyone else, just experiencing things. It also follows the desensitisation already explored in season 4 – Martin’s concern in this episode felt very performative, staying on the surface of things (being polite, being aware that it’s bad for the people involved; but he didn’t sound crush or heartbroken for them either, didn’t try to push Jon to do something to help them), which might tie in with his Lonely experience, while Jon is used to Watching Nightmares in his own dream zoo (and attacked people last season), so it makes sense that both of them wouldn’t really manifest actual empathy faced with this sort of things. It makes sense; but it’s still not something I find compelling in itself if the bottom line is that individuals are becoming an indistinct blob of people stripped of their uniqueness in the new world and that’s just the way it is. (The fact that the only main characters “out of the box” that we’re following right now are both male doesn’t really help ^^”)

- … So. Lot of focus is given to the tape recorders spawning around Jon (and now Martin), their behaviour is acknowledged as odd, so we might get an answer about them soon… but I’m really curious about the fact that with MAG162 and MAG163, it feels like the new statement-format is a entirely new activity for Jon:

(Season 5 trailer) [CLICK–] [APOCALYPSE SOUNDSCAPING] ARCHIVIST: [SLOW BREATHING] [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … What? What do you want? … The world is…! It’s over. You’ve won. What can you possibly still need to hear?

(MAG161) MARTIN: Hey – when, when did you start recording? [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: I… didn’t. MARTIN: [TENSE EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: I only brought one, and I’ve been using it to play the tapes. MARTIN: Oh. [INHALE] That’s not a great sign. ARCHIVIST: No… No it’s not.

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC RISES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” […] ARCHIVIST: This cabin. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It’s not right. And, when I thought that, I–I felt… It, it all poured out of me down… into the tape. MARTIN: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: A–a–an–and it… felt good. It–it felt… right. MARTIN: Okay. [BREATHES IN] So you’re recording again? ARCHIVIST: I might need to. If we’re going to make it…! […] MARTIN: You’re… taking the recorder? ARCHIVIST: Uh, just in case I need to… vent. Again, it… [INHALE] it helps.

(MAG163) MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things. ARCHIVIST: I… I’m sorry, I– There’s just so much! There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I– It’s filling me up, I need to let it out! MARTIN: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay? Tha–that’s not what I’m here for. [VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: “No… No!”] MARTIN: I can’t be that for you, I–I just can’t. ARCHIVIST: [QUIET] I… I know. [SILENCE] I–I’ll use the tape recorder…! [PLASTIC OF A TAPE] I just… [INHALE] You probably want to wait outside. […] End recording…! [CLEARS THROAT] [SHUFFLING] MARTIN: Mm? All done? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yes. [EXHALE] MARTIN: Good.

The concept that tape recorders might be feeding from Jon’s reading is not fundamentally new, since Jon had humorously mentioned the possibility at the beginning of season 4:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: And we’ve got an audience – perfect. I thought you said you decided to throw them all out. BASIRA: Yup. And I did. And here’s another one. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Maybe it’s hungry…! BASIRA: Seriously? ARCHIVIST: I mean, I did have a statement I was planning to record.

But it’s still a new thing regarding the effects they seem to have on Jon as the Archivist/Archive. Before, Jon was reading statements to feed The Eye and himself; not reading statements resulted in withdrawal symptoms, as shown during his American trip (MAG107), with Gerry pointing out that Gertrude also needed them to stay afloat (MAG111). Now, in this new setting, “statements” are an excess that Jon has to regularly spit out into the tape (MAG162: “It, it all poured out of me down… into the tape.”). Whatever the tapes are, it sounds like Jon is feeding them nowadays (or that they’re feeding on that surplus) – and… that can’t be good, uh. What is Jon feeding, now; what is it growing into?

It also put me in mind of Albrecht’s way of regurgitating stories to Fanshawe:

(MAG127, Jonathan Fanshawe) “Again he ignored me. Instead, he took the seat opposite me, and started to tell me… a story. And then another. And another. A stream of… strange tales began to pour out of him, and I just sat there, transfixed, [STATIC], desperately wishing I had the strength of will to stand and leave, but all I could do… was listen. He told me of a seamstress, who laced her body with fine black thread; and when she pulled it all out in a single swift motion, her skin dropped away like a loose shift. He told me of a man so scared to die he spent a year weaving a rope blindfolded, so that he would not know the length, and could not foresee the moment it would tighten around his neck when he finally threw himself into the void. He told me of a fire that burns so hot and fierce, that to even know about it is enough to burn a man’s tongue from his head. He told me so many terrible things. [STATIC FADES] And at the end of it all, the only thing I could think to ask him… was where he read them. My eyes darted to the books that surrounded us; but Albrecht laughed at this, and placed his hands across a spine that was simply labelled A Warning. For a moment, he looked as though he were about to wrench it from its place and hurl it into the fire. But it passed. He turned back to me. [STATIC] ‘You do not understand,’ he said to me in German. ‘I do not read the books. They read me.’” [STATIC FADES]

Albrecht had already read (/been read by) the books, and yet was vomiting these stories. Is that the same thing as what’s now happening to Jon? It would lend credit to the idea that Albrecht was Jonah’s first attempt to create an Archivist if it’s how it usually goes: first, feeding the creature… and then, when they reach maturity, they spit out stories like eggs, made to spread the terrors and the suffering…? (I’m even more thinking about “eggs” given that butterfly!Jon/Archivist was apparently coming out from the chrysalis in MAG162. What does a butterfly seek to do before dying?)

Anyway, if Jon&Martin are unwittingly making the situation worse somehow, I’m fully expecting the tape recorders to play a part – but how could they possibly make things worse than they already are…?

- Gotta love how season 4 finally broke the shackles of Martin and his ability to swear loudly.

(MAG154) MARTIN: What, [CHUCKLING] you gotta gouge your eyes out or something? [SILENCE] … Fuck off?!

(MAG163) [CLICK–] [LOUD BAGPIPES] [EXPLOSIONS] [LOUD GUNSHOT RAFFLES] MARTIN: [SHOUTING] SHIT, SHIT– ARCHIVIST: Martin! MARTIN: SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT– ARCHIVIST: Stay with me, don’t let go! MARTIN: Oh! [LOUD BANG] ARCHIVIST: Come on! MARTIN: Shit, shit, shit…! […] Don’t be a prick, Jon.

(I have to admit that the transition from Jon&Martin’s slightly melancholic and tired scene to the battlefield and Martin screaming obscenities made me laugh because. That whiplash. A perfect summary of Martin’s life.)

Congrats to Martin for spending out the Swear Quota this season. (I feel like, recently, most “sweary” episodes tended to also get a bit more gruesome or close-to-home than usual (MAG131 with the self-inflicted injury attempt and the rib-removal, MAG154 with the abusive relationship and description of Eric’s murder, MAG158 with the gunshots, here with the atrocities of war), so I wonder if it’s a conscious decision each time, since sweary episodes will up the rating and that could serve as a warning?)

No wonder that Martin was… “not okay” (Martin-is-never-going-to-be-okay), since he really really didn’t like experiencing MAG095, already dealing with war/Slaughter-y:

(MAG095) MARTIN: S–s–statement… done. [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] I don’t like recording these. There. I–I said it. I’m sorry whoever’s listening to this, I know it’s unprofessional, but they f… I don’t like it. I guess we’re past professionalism now. Probably.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: It’s okay! MARTIN: No! [LOUD GUNSHOT RAFFLES] ARCHIVIST: You’re okay! MARTIN: [You don’t even know if I’m okay], this is not okay! ARCHIVIST: In here, [LOUD BANG] come on! [LOUD GUNSHOT RAFFLES] ARCHIVIST: [GRUNT FROM EFFORT] [MOTOR ROARING AND FADING] [BATTLEFIELD SOUNDS NOW MUFFLED; SOME ECHO] [PANTS] ARCHIVIST: Are you…? MARTIN: [ANGRY SOBBING] I’m fine, fine, I just… [SIGH] How, how about you, you’re not hurt? ARCHIVIST: Uh… No. MARTIN: Good. ARCHIVIST: No, I’m not. MARTIN: Good. Good.

So. Really not his cup of tea.

… I’m not sure about this, but it feels to me like Martin’s way of showing concern or “caring” for people outside of Jon right now is… kind of performative, more focused on keeping a clean outside appearance rather than genuine empathy?

(MAG163) MARTIN: Good. Good. [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY PANTING] … J–J–Jon, Jon, w–we’re not alone. ARCHIVIST: I–ignore them, they’re not… Just ignore them. MARTIN: … They’re not… real? [VOICES SHOUTING IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLING] No…! They’re real; they were… normal people before the– … Before me. But now they’re here, meat for the grinder. I just mean there’s no point… talking to them. MARTIN: Don’t be a prick, Jon. Hey! I’m, I’m sorry about him. He’s–he’s going through a lot – well… we all are, I suppose, but well… “Hi”, I guess. [SILENCE] Hello? […] It’s dangerous. Could… get yourself blown up, like all these poor… [PLASTIC RATTLING] Who d’you think they were? Really don’t see why [they] can’t just… go round, picked a better place to… [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] [SIGH] I guess there… aren’t really any “better” places anymore, are there? [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] It’s all this. Or worse, or… or different.

Which doesn’t mean (as Martin is showing) that it can’t lead to a conscious decision to be at least polite/not make things worse. But I’m thinking that Jon wasn’t exaggerating when he told Martin that “some of us weren’t able to cut ourselves off from the world before it ended” (MAG161), and that Martin… doesn’t really feel much for people themselves?

- When Martin Blackwood says stop, Beholding…

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: They won’t hear you, Martin, they’re all… too busy waiting to die. MARTIN: Jon… ARCHIVIST: They sit here – [STATIC RISES] the image of everyone they hold dear locked in their mind, knowing they’ll never see them again. Waiting for the order; dreading the bullet or the drone or the barbed wire that will tear them to shreds and leave them nothing but a bloody– [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things.

… STOPS. I love how it felt like Martin was able to tame the evil all-knowing god just by shouting at it, the static receding was an amazing bit!!

I’m REALLY GLAD that Martin faced Jon firmly about what he didn’t want to “give”, about his boundaries and what would be damaging to him, and that Jon manoeuvred around it to find a solution acceptable for the both of them!

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: I… I’m sorry, I– There’s just so much! There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I– It’s filling me up, I need to let it out! MARTIN: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay? Tha–that’s not what I’m here for. [VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: “No… No!”] MARTIN: I can’t be that for you, I–I just can’t. ARCHIVIST: [QUIET] I… I know. [SILENCE] I–I’ll use the tape recorder…! [PLASTIC OF A TAPE] I just… [INHALE] You probably want to wait outside. MARTIN: … Hum, no?! ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Well… Put your fingers in your ears then, I, I suppose. MARTIN: [SNORT] Fine, and what about them? ARCHIVIST: … They don’t even know we’re here. We’re not part of their nightmare. [DRIP] MARTIN: … Right.

The trailer and first episode had worried me because of the way Martin was back to being a caretaker of a moody&difficult person, with Jon push-pulling and Martin accommodating. The cabin bubble broke last episode (and Martin revealed that he had already begun planning), I’m glad it’s continuing in that vein of communication and respect! Oppositions without big conflicts nor relationship drama! They’re surprisingly healthy in the middle of the apocalypse!

- Regarding the liquid sounds in the last scene, was it actually the lake mentioned at the beginning of the statement? Since we could still hear bagpipes in the distance, that area might have still been influenced by the trench:

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “Once, it was a thin metal landing craft, drifting slowly through a fetid lake. The waters were red and black by turns with blood and oil and the floating bodies of those before them, that were pushed aside by the boat’s wake.” […] [CLICK–] [BAGPIPES IN THE DISTANCE] [BODIES WADING THROUGH LIQUID] ARCHIVIST: [DISTANT] Try to keep up! MARTIN: Yeah, yeah… [INELEGANT DEJECTED SPUTTERING]

So, if they were crossing the lake of blood and oil and floating bodies – yikes, Martin, what is your life. (I LOVE how Done Martin sounded with the whole thing.)

- Another bit in the saga of Martin having a special relationship with the tape recorders, and directly talking to them / expressing concern for them / asking them questions!

(MAG039) TIM: Why do you have a second tape recorder, Martin? MARTIN: Oh, um… well, I’ve been using it to record myself. I write poetry and I think the tapes have a sort of… low-fi charm.

(MAG098) MARTIN: Huh. Yeah, y’know, y’know what? A little privacy would be nice sometimes, okay? Not everything’s for you! You don’t need to listen to everything that we– … Alright, you know what? Y’know what… If you’re that eager, fine.

(MAG102) [CLICK–] ARCHIVIST: You’re sure you don’t mind? MARTIN: No, no, no, it’s fine, I’ve… I’ve kind of stop noticing if I’m honest. They just sort of… turn themselves on these days.

(MAG118) [CLICK–] MARTIN: [INHALES] Are you listening? … Good. Case… 0071304. Statement of… Ivo Lensik. [BREATHES] [LIGHTER FLICKED ON] All right. [BURNING SOUNDS] [EXHALES DEEPLY] Statement ends, I guess. […] ELIAS: You might want to turn the tape off, Martin. [CLICK.] [CLICK–] MARTIN: Mm! Sorry. Looks like it wants to know what’s going on.

(MAG126) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [TYPING SOUNDS] MARTIN: [SIGH] [MOUSE-CLICK] … Oh. Hello. [MOUSE-CLICK] Haven’t seen you in a while. [TYPING] … Really? I mean, it’s just admin. It’s not exactly thrilling listening. [SILENCE] Alright, fine. Whatever. You do you. [MOUSE-CLICKS] Spool away, I guess. [MOUSE-CLICK] Just, you know – let me know if you need some more batteries or something. [EXHALE] [FIRM TYPING] [SILENCE] … It’s because he’s back, isn’t it. [MOUSE-CLICK] [SIGH] He’s back, so now you’re going to be… around, again. Listening in. [MOUSE-CLICKS] [HUFF] You missed him, didn’t you. … Yeah. … [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] Yeah, me too.

(MAG154) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [TYPING SOUNDS] [COMPUTER MOUSE CLICKING] MARTIN: Oh. Right. [CHUCKLE] Hello, again. [TWO CLICKS, TYPING RESUMES] Look, sorry pal, [SHORT LAUGH] false alarm this time…! [ONE CLICK] Oh, unless… [SIGH] [TWO AGGRESSIVE CLICKS] [TO THE ROOM:] Peter!

(MAG156) [CLICK–] [CLOCK TICKING IN THE BACKGROUND] [PAPER RUSTLING] MARTIN: Hm? … Oh. [CHUCKLE] Yeah. [PAPER RUSTLING] I was gonna read one. Hate for you to miss it! [CHUCKLE] [PAUSE] You know… I’ve been wondering about your batteries. Like, could I just take the batteries out each time one of you appears and just… have an infinite supply of batteries? I mean, I, I won’t, don’t worry. Don’t really have anything that needs them these days. … Also, I know there’s every chance you don’t even have any?, and it’s just empty, and… well… I’m not really sure that’s something I want to confirm. Or, I open up your compartment and it’s like, meat, or–or maggots, or something. … Mm. “Emptiness or maggots”…! It’s kinda the shape of things around here, isn’t it? Still, kind of nice to talk to some… thing. […] I’m on my own so much these days, I… just wish I didn’t like it so much. I mean, if you’ve got any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. … Hm? [SILENCE] No – didn’t think so. [LONG INHALE] That’s not what you’re here for, is it? [SIGH] No. You want this. [PAPER RUSTLING] Fine. [LONG INHALE] Fine, have it your way. As usual.

(MAG163) MARTIN: Yeah, yeah… [INELEGANT DEJECTED SPUTTERING] … Oh. Oh, hey! [SHUFFLING] [CLOSER] Jon, did you– … No. No, he was carrying his. [INHALE] Alright…! [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] What’re you doing here? [PLASTIC RATTLING] It’s dangerous. Could… get yourself blown up, like all these poor… [PLASTIC RATTLING] Who d’you think they were? Really don’t see why they can’t just… go round, picked a better place to… [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] [SIGH] I guess there… aren’t really any “better” places anymore, are there? [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] It’s all this. Or worse, or… or different. [STEPS THROUGH LIQUID] You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. [OLD PHONE RINGING] [STEPS STOP] MARTIN: Uh… Jon? [OLD PHONE RINGING] Uh, Jo–Jon, the, uh, the payphone that’s… here, for some reason, it’s–it’s ringing?

No idea if they’re sentient enough for it, but I like to toy with the concept that the tape recorders are fond of Martin because he’s polite to them. When this one appeared (and we could hear that Jon was a bit further away), I panicked thinking that Martin and Jon were going to get separated – so that a tape recorder was popping up to follow Martin personally, since we wouldn’t be able to hear him with Jon. It didn’t happen (I THINK. Jon was back at the end but? Their words were a bit stiff and Jon sounded a bit out of it?), but it could be foreshadowing that it will happen…

Interestingly: the tape spawned before the phone rang. Did it pop up because it could sense that the call would happen? Because Jon and Martin were leaving sight of each other and the tape recorder didn’t want to lose access to Martin? Only thanks to the fact that Jon was getting far away? With the fact that Jonah told Jon to ~keep an eye on Martin~, and given how Martin hasn’t been seized by a nightmare like the others (… or is he, and we haven’t realised it yet?), there is a possibility that Jon, as the Archivist, is immunising Martin through his simple presence:

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “How is Martin, by the way? He looks well. You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? [RUMBLE OF THUNDER] He’s earned that.”

(MAG161) MARTIN: … Are we still safe? ARCHIVIST: Y–yes, it… it doesn’t want to harm me. MARTIN: And me? ARCHIVIST: I won’t let it. [CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Hum… thanks.

(MAG163) [LOUD BAGPIPES] [EXPLOSIONS] [LOUD GUNSHOT RAFFLES] MARTIN: [SHOUTING] SHIT, SHIT– ARCHIVIST: Martin! MARTIN: SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT– ARCHIVIST: Stay with me, don’t let go! MARTIN: Oh! [LOUD BANG] ARCHIVIST: Come on! MARTIN: Shit, shit, shit…! ARCHIVIST: It’s okay! […] [DISTANT] Try to keep up! MARTIN: Yeah, yeah… […] ARCHIVIST: Martin, you need to keep up. It’s not safe. … Martin? You okay? MARTIN: Uh, I… Th–ther–there was a phone – that phone. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. MARTIN: It… Yeah, it was ringing? ARCHIVIST: Oh. Right… Did you answer it? MARTIN: No. ARCHIVIST: Hm. [INHALE] Probably for the best…! MARTIN: Yeeaahh. ARCHIVIST: … Let’s keep going. MARTIN: Hm.

… How come Jon didn’t hear the phone, though, and it stopped as soon as he arrived? Because Jon&Martin could both hear and see the people trapped in the Trench’s nightmare (and their sounds were caught on tape) – why not the phone?

- Martin said “nop!” to your horror tropes, and is turning down your supernatural and likely threatening phone call. Same as when he suspected that Jane Prentiss could be behind his door, hesitated, and then never answered her knocking <3

- I have no certitude when it comes to the phone, but considering a few things:

1°) It was specifically an old tone (AN ANALOG PHONE? Or a phone imitating the old sound of ANALOG PHONE, it’s odd.) and a payphone, so falling right into Martin’s taste of ~retro aesthetic~, like it was trying to appeal to him specifically.

2°) Martin had a few experiences with phones: he dropped his, and it got used by Jane Prentiss to send texts to Jon in season 1; he received a phone call during the season 4 trailer while at Jon’s bedside (which was from Peter… assumedly); the last time he spoke to someone on a phone before The Change was with Basira, in MAG160, when she updated him about the Institute’s state and confirmed the delivery of the statements she had sent to Jon (which included tapes, that she had not mentioned).

3°) So. Absolutely no certitude regarding “who” or “what” it was (/what was happening), but thinking about a few options:

* Dream-logic: Martin asked about what the tape recorders were, expecting an answer, so the tapes tried to answer back to suggest him “better” places, since Martin was wondering about those.

* It was the Trench’s nightmare trying to pull Martin inside of the nightmare by calling to draft him, since Jon’s protection was wavering due to distance.

* Dream-logic: someone was trying to contact Martin, so they only needed to “call him” for the call to reach him, and it only happened because Jon wasn’t immunising Martin. As for that someone: Basira? Melanie&Georgie? Elias? Annabelle?

* It was a Martin-tailored nightmare trying to pull him in => a dead person calling him. (Tim? Martin’s mother? Peter?)

I wonder if that “something” will keep trying to get in touch with Martin, until he answers? (For the season finale? Or before?)

MAG164’s title is “… yeeeeeep”, no cookie for guessing what ~Smirke Fear~ should be predominantly starring in this one.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG126 /o/

- We have definite confirmation that Martin and Michael Shelley worked at the same time at the Institute! Until now the dates weren’t clear regarding the Great Twisting attempt, and we only knew for sure that Michael was working at the Institute in September 2007 (since he interrupted Gertrude’s tape from MAG099). Martin has been working at the Institute at least since September 2009, since Jon reported that he had “vague recollections” about the statement-giver from MAG072. MAG126’s statement was given on 11 October 2009, and explicitly shortly before the Great Twisting… so! There was a window of time during which Michael and Martin were working at the Institute at the same time for sure!

- OBLIGATORY SOBBING ABOUT THE OBVIOUS PARALLEL, STARTING FROM THE TITLE (“SCULPTOR’S TOOL”):

(MAG126, Deborah Madaki) As soon as Gabriel spotted me, he hopped up and hurried over to me. He grabbed my hand in a firm, damp grip, and started to thank me. I was the best assistant he could have asked for, he said. He’d improved so much because of me. […] ARCHIVIST: […] I can’t find any evidence related to the condition of the body, but I can imagine what a sculptor’s apprentice might be capable of. Even an unwilling one. End recording. [CLICK.]

(MAG126) PETER: No. No. Can’t stand computers. Besides! That’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it? MARTIN: [SIGHS] Yeah. I guess so. [CLICK.]

THANKS, I HATE IT……………….. Martin………………. ;;

(Both for the fact that HUUUUUMMM, PETER? BACK OFF, HE’S NOT YOUR ASSISTANT… and about the concept of an “assistant” causing harm without even being aware of it…)

- There is something deeply satisfying and disturbing about the fact that… Martin is in all but name replacing Elias as Head Director of the Magnus Institute? If the clock ticking is any indication, the scene with Peter took place in Elias’s office; it’s where Martin is working nowadays; it’s where Martin is doing admin work and taking care of the Institute’s spreadsheets. And if we know One (1) Thing for sure about Elias, it’s that:

(MAG103) ARCHIVIST: […] and it’s Wednesday afternoon, when he does his scheduling. So I’m… hoping he’s distracted. … He, er… He loves scheduling. DAISY: … Rrrright.

Martin’s affiliation with the entities always felt like a pick between Web (loving spiders, relishing in control, web metaphors, the fact that spiders are swarming the Institute, that Martin is this person you barely notice, and that The Web has plans regarding Jon), Lonely (family situation and unrequited crush, always a bit of an outcast due to Jon’s dry comments in season 1, his fundamental lie about his degree preventing him from being known, and overall his trouble connecting, the fact that he never had Tim’s charisma nor Sasha’s wit, that Daisy+Basira and Basira+Melanie quickly formed as pairs leaving him mostly on the side… even before Peter swooped in) and Beholding (by nature, as someone who worked at the Magnus Institute for the longest out of the entire cast except for Elias, and even more as an archival assistant; and because he was the only one who began to read statements after Jon went on the run, and because he has often had glimpses of intuition and has been getting chattier with the tape recorders). There has been room for questions about his theorical functions as a Beholding agent, though, I feel? Because we… have options. Was Martin supposed to be (or did he slowly turn into) a back-up Archivist, since he was the one who handled most of the statements-reading when Elias wanted the assistants to keep going with the Beholding-feeding that activity (MAG098, Martin: “I mean, [Elias] kind of explained. I think? Jon’s ‘too inconsistent’ at the moment. He needs to make up for the shortfall. Which, I guess means me.”)? The archive team was aware of the possibility, since they used it against Elias to make him rationalise that it was in his best interest to have Martin staying back while the others would go to The Unknowing:

(MAG116) ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] What about Martin? […] He should stay behind. MARTIN: What?! ELIAS: Really. MARTIN: […] No, no, I can help, I’ve been reading the statements! ELIAS: … quite right, er, probably best he does stay behind. BASIRA: What, so you have a backup if Jon doesn’t make it? ELIAS: I’m sure that won’t be necessary.

Something else that has happened a few times is also… unclear – spooky intuitions? Power Of Love? Martin has sometimes just… had inexplicable feelings that turned out to be true. The concept of it sounds a lot like Jon’s “insights”, a sudden knowledge that is just there, skipping any reasoning?

(MAG088) MARTIN: Yeah… Sorry, just a lot of change recently, y’know. You and Jon and Sasha and… everything’s gone a bit wrong. It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…

(MAG117) MARTIN: […] I know, I know, I’m not gonna die, I’m not even going to be on the incredibly dangerous mission. Me and Melanie, well… Well, I don't think “death” is really the worry, it’s just… [SIGHS] It feels like an ending? Or… something. Like nothing can go back to normal after this.

(And he was also the one to find Gertrude’s notebook in MAG113. And Gertrude’s body in MAG039-040. And The Hill Top Road statement from MAG114.)

On the other hand, Martin was quite clearly installed as Elias’s foil at the end of season 3: the plan to take down Elias was referred to as Martin’s plan, Martin was the one to remind the others to stick to it, and he was the one to confront Elias (in MAG118) and to lead the police officer to him (MAG120). It’s mostly thanks to Martin that they more or less behaved as one, at least when it came to neutralising Elias? What Jon referred to “Elias’s new management style” (MAG099) was an utter disaster made of pain, anger and resentment, mostly managing to get the assistants united against him, whereas Martin gave the feeling of succeeding precisely where Elias had failed. I don’t know, I always got the vibe that if anyone were to replace Elias at some point, it would be Martin? (Much to Elias’s horror, probably.) (At the same time: not very clever, Elias, to insist so much on the idea that you’re ~the beating heart of the Institute~. Could give people bad ideas about how, uh, maybe they only to keep your heart pumping in order to not die, and not the rest of you.)

Anyway, I find it extra-interesting that Martin is currently assuming his functions, without being officially the Head Director – Peter being supposedly the interim.

(I hope that Elias is seething about Martin doing his precious scheduling :w If there is any consolation with current events, it’s that Elias is still rotting in jail in the meantime.)

- Peter, though. You lazy ass.

(MAG120) PETER: Oh! Right, of course! Well, you’ve successfully managed to remove Elias as the Head of the Magnus Institute. So… MARTIN: Oh. Oh, God, what does that do? PETER: Oh! No, no no no! No. Not in any, hum, metaphysical sense, no, he’s still very much the… how did he insist on phrasing it… Ah yes, the “beating heart of the Institute”. But, practically speaking, he can hardly fulfil his more mundane managerial duties from a jail cell.

You were supposed to replace Elias for his “mundane managerial duties”, not foist it off on your newfound ~assistant~.

- … Okay, so, assuming Peter is not only Absolutely Bullshitting, he… needs Martin for a specific reason. Something that apparently an avatar of the Lonely can’t do himself…?

(MAG126) PETER: You talked to him. MARTIN: I… I, I tried not to, I–I, I didn’t mean to… PETER: You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is! Please don’t think I’m upset, it’s just… not ideal. Shows how much work we still have ahead of us. […] I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… MARTIN: … You said he’d probably never wake up. PETER: And he beat the odds. Which is good. But it does make things more complicated. It doesn’t… actually change… anything. MARTIN: A–a simple “hello” isn’t going to make any difference to– PETER: We’ve been over this. The sort of power you’re going to need relies on your– MARTIN: [SULKY] Obedience. PETER: Isolation. It needs to be you, Martin. You’re the only one who could possibly balance between the two.

“The two” are most likely to be Beholding and Lonely here, I’m guessing (since Peter is apparently training him with the latter and Martin is supposed to be tied to the former already given his position in the archives), but I still hope that there is some room for the Web to get back to Martin? ;; That one suits him aND IS A BIT LESS SAD THAN THE CONCEPT OF MARTIN GETTING INVOLVED WITH THE POWER OF LONELINESS GDI!!!

What is the deal with Martin, though? Is he aggressively normal, or is there indeed something intrinsically special about him? Getting back to the Lonely: Elias pretty clearly sent Peter after Martin in MAG108, according to Peter, as if… his being one of the Archival assistants wasn’t the most valuable thing about Martin?

(MAG108) PETER: Martin, isn’t it? […] That… that would seem wildly out of character, from what I’ve been told. MARTIN: Okay, but okay, step back. PETER: Please, Martin. I’m not gonna hurt you. I just thought we might have a chat! Alone. MARTIN: Oh. You’re… one of them, aren’t you. A… a Lukas. PETER: Yes, that’s– Peter. Pleased to meet you. Now, how did you know that? MARTIN: I, I was just reading? Jon left some notes, and… PETER: Ah, I see. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. It’s one of Elias’s little jokes. MARTIN: I don– What? PETER: Did he suggest you record a statement today? One that mentioned me? MARTIN: … yeah? Sssort of? I mean… not you specifically, but… PETER: I have a meeting with him today. He suggested… I’m sure he’s watching from his office, grinning from ear to ear. MARTIN: I… don’t… PETER: I almost thought he genuinely wanted me to meet the team! Oh well. MARTIN: I’m really sorry, I… I don’t actually…

“I almost thought he genuinely wanted me to meet the team!” => implying Martin’s relevance is not tied to him being a member of said team…? Was ~Elias’s joke~ about getting one of the assistants to read a statement about the Lonely/Peter when he would visit, or the fact that it was specifically Martin who made the reading…? I lovelovelove the fantheory that Martin could be tied to the Lukas family through his father; we… had the example of Evan, who apparently tried to get away from the family; we know it ended badly; we also know that Gerry wasn’t too surprised when Jon highlighted the possibility of the family turning against one black sheep (MAG111: “And I imagine they’re not… reluctant to remove any members that might put that legacy at risk.”), as if… it was far from being the first time it had happened; aND given that Martin apparently looks like a carbon copy of his father… anybody who had met said father would be able to tell right away that Martin is closely related to him?

(MAG118) ELIAS: […] How old were you when your father left? Eight? Nine? When you mother began to sicken and he decided he was done with you both. Not old enough to remember him with any great clarity, especially when your mother refused to keep any pictures of him. She never recovered from that betrayal. He just tore her heart right out!, and took it with him. The thing is, though, Martin: if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like… all you have to do, is look in a mirror~

It’s mostly back-tracked reasoning but: if Martin’s dad were to be a Lukas, yeah, of friggin’ course Elias would have flaunted it to Peter’s face by sending him to meet Martin doing archival work downstairs.

(Aaaand it could also give Peter another reason to not show his face to anybody in the Institute, ie people who know Martin, if they actually have a family resemblance? I’m still wondering why Peter hasn't appeared in front of other people while Carlita (MAG033) and Michael (MAG102) had been able to see him without any problem. Is that because of the Institute itself? Is there something wrong with Peter when he’s too far from the Tundra?)

- But right now, at the very least, Martin is

(MAG126) MARTIN: […] You missed him, didn’t you. … Yeah. … [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] Yeah, me too. PETER: Which isn’t a great sign, if I’m being completely honest. MARTIN: [SURPRISED GASP] [EXALES] PETER: You talked to him. MARTIN: I… I, I tried not to, I–I, I didn’t mean to… PETER: You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is! […] I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… MARTIN: … You said he’d probably never wake up.

literally Too Gay for the Lonely, pass it on. (But does it count as Functional or Disaster, at this point.) (Aside: ;; Confirmed that Martin apparently signed in in whatever he’s currently doing… to Protect, overall, and not only Jon. Which good. But also awfully sad ;;)

- WORRIEDANYWAY.JPG since…… according to Gerry, the Lukases are awfully good at grooming people.

(MAG111) GERARD: Well, Fairchild’s just a name, they’re not really family. The Lukases, though, yeah. Thing is, it’s harder than it looks. What’s out there… doesn’t care about blood. […] But they care about your choices, your fears, not your parents. Families are just useful ‘cause they can push you in the right direction. And the Lukases are very good at that.

MARTIN ;___;

- Adelard Dekker is back into focus! There’s quite an interesting split between Jon’s investigations and Peter&Martin’s: on one hand, Peter namedropped him and made it explicit that he was following his lead. On the other hand, Jon has been focusing on the notebook found in Gertrude’s storage unit (MAG126: “I remembered Gertrude’s notebook; we found it alongside the plastic explosives”), which is also where he had found Adelard’s written statement about Justin Gough (MAG113: “This was found tucked into a hard case containing… many blocks of plastic explosive, kept by Gertrude Robinson in a storage unit that I can only assume has… extremely lax oversight.”). Jon was close and yet… was sent in another direction entirely? Towards the past and how Gertrude had come up with her counter-rituals? Could still be a valuable example for next threats, but still: Jon was sent towards the past, while Martin&Peter are actively working ~towards the future~. It’s a bit worrisome that they’re physically close and yet… not managing to meet in so many ways, and actively drifting further away. (Gdi Peter.)

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: It… it’s borderline incomprehensible, not because of any code or cypher – there’s every chance I could read those; just simply because… most of it is… numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but… well, not to me. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hope something from it would just… come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement, which is… useful background, and perhaps gives some insight into how Gertrude formulated her counter-rituals, but… not much more.

………………. I love that Jonathan smartass Sims assumes that yeah!! Secret codes would be sooo easy to uncover, of course he would be able to do, through natural or spooky ability. But his worst nightmares are personal notes and abbreviations. Must have sucked when he was at uni, huh. I wonder if Jon is missing a point, here (though I would read the same conclusions as him: the statement describes how Gertrude learned where the Great Twisting would happen and some key elements that would get involved; “Gabriel” even accidentally revealed how to neutralize his friend, and this is what Gertrude used against them), or if his powers/Beholding is being purposely or accidentally unhelpful? Is that all that the notebook contained, or just a fragment of it? Did Beholding throw him a bone to avoid Jon focusing on current events, or was it to satisfy his curiosity, or was it because Jon sucked and was himself accidentally focusing on parts regarding The Spiral without realizing it? We know that Gertrude apparently tended to keep files regarding the rituals together (since Elias had gotten his hands on those, and accidentally sent a few about The Buried and The Spiral to Jon when… he was supposedly trying to get him to work on The Stranger), so there could be more in the notebook… (Or not at all, and she kept information about Beholding elsewhere, or only… trusted her mind for those.)

- With Peter (and Martin) focusing on Adelard’s research… seems that he was right about his suspicions, or at least that Peter shares his beliefs? There is probably much more trickery than what Peter is willing to tell, but I doubt that everything would just be an elaborate ploy to keep Martin occupied / separated from Jon – it would sound like… a lot of efforts for almost nothing?

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) I was pursuing my researches into the new emergence I mentioned earlier. I know you are dismissive of the possibility, but if I’m right, the sudden urgency of these “immediate dangers” you are so focused on could very well be a direct result. But that’s for another day, as this particular instance turned out to be unconnected.

Jon admitted that he had “no idea what else Dekker was alluding to” and that it sounded like something outside of the categories that Gerry had described to him. I’m still a bit cautious about jumping on the 15th Fear theory bandwagon, since I don’t want to close the possibility that it could be something else entirely but… but it would make much sense? Thematically, Gerry had precisely explained that the Fears can shift:

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: Fears change. Fears are– are are cultural. GERARD: A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen. […] I think [The Flesh]’s quite new. Only just beginning its, uh, ascendance when Smirke labelled it.

Before that, we wouldn’t have been able to know that the Fears could even evolve; since the concept was introduced, it’s probably meant to be useful to ascertain the present situation? The Smirke system had been in place since the emergence of The Flesh and a lot of knowledgeable people (Gertrude, Gerry, partially Leitner) based their expertise on it. Now, let’s picture a new Fear emerging, without… anything in place ready to contain nor restrain it? Nothing to “balance” it? We know that the different Fears have been trying to launch their rituals in a tight timeframe (MAG111, Gerry: “[Gertrude] worked out they’d all be happening quite close together. She’d already been doing it a while. And the Unknowing was the next on her list. That and the Watcher’s Crown.”); is that how it usually happens, through the cycles, or… were they actually panicking and hurrying to set off their own ceremonies before the new Fear could take over? ;; It would also show how… weak the Smirke system would be, since it would have more or less worked for barely two centuries – “less” rather than “more”, probably, but we can’t really know how much worse stuff would have been without it, can we? And our resident Smirke expert is resting in fucking pieces, after having spit out his delusions about the guy… (Tangent but: now, I’m thinking about Basira, who… has been studying a bit about John Flamsteed, and noticed the pattern in The Dark’s activities in relation to Halley’s Comet? If a new Fear was emerging, and if they needed to implement a new system or something… I wonder if Basira wouldn’t be meant to become the new architect of our time…)

- Also. Dekker’s description of the victims.

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) […] From the look on their faces I could tell two things. It had hurt. And they had never woken up. You see why I thought this might be related? Well, hoped more than thought, maybe. The manmade nature of it seemed like a potential link, but it had few of the other hallmarks. Still, I thought it was worth following up on.

I have no idea what his new Threat was about but. It’s. It’s a bit reminiscent of Jon-during-his-coma, actually? Jon, who was dreaming (and hurt and hurting in his dreams); Jon, who Peter told Martin that he might never wake up…?

- There was definitely a problem regarding Adelard’s statements in the Archives, whether it was due to Gertrude messing up with the files or to someone else meddling with them. When Jon listened to Gertrude’s tape of Lucy Cooper (MAG077), which was labelled “Changeling / Imposter”, Gertrude had explicitly mentioned a statement given by Adelard himself (whether in written or audio form):

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: Based on the interactions and effects, I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the “NotThem” in statement 9910607.

But following her directions in MAG078, Jon had noticed that he hadn’t found the right statement: the date was posterior to the one Gertrude was alluding to (presumably given on 6 February-or-July 1991 according to that number case), given on 12 June 2001; and it wasn’t a statement by Adelard but by one Lawrence Moore, mentioning him:

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: I found this in the folder marked 9910602, where Gertrude’s tape had indicated I would find the statement of Dekker himself.

We’re still missing Adelard’s old statement from 1991. Given that Peter said that he had “unearthed a few of Dekker’s old statements”, I wonder if it included that one? Even though according to Gertrude, it was related to the Not!Them, which sounds like an old matter.

…………. Unless we were very wrong to assume that it was an agent from The Stranger, and it was actually something entirely different? Not!Sasha taunted Jon about wearing his skin, mentioned that she was spying in the Institute for her “friends”, name-dropped the Unknowing, sounded very much like The Stranger in its effect (I-Do-Not-Know-You). But. But.

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: […] Unfortunately for Ms. Cooper’s attempts to convince her father, it appears George Cooper died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a gas leak two days after this statement was recorded, before her next visit. […] Personally, I suspect [the NotThem] to be an aspect of The Stranger, though that’s entirely conjecture at this point. […] What puzzles me more is why one or two people can always see through it. The sheer power that it must be able to call upon to be able to rewrite so much of reality, seemingly as a reflex, is staggering. So why does it always miss a few witnesses?

“died of carbon monoxide poisoning” was exactly the (apparent) causes of death from MAG113’s statement, and one of the elements Adelard specifically named that made him think that the cases could be related to the new emergence. It’s a very specific cause of death…?

Overall, I’m so glad that we’re meant to hear more about Adelard Dekker!! He was one of the mystery figures I was the most curious about and there is something very uncanny in thinking that he had revolved around Gertrude for (at least) around a quarter of a century when she passed away. How do you know Gertrude for this long without meeting a gruesome fate? + It was the same year that Elias began working in the Institute, according to his “official” backstory. The nineties are packed with quite a lot of deal-breaking events? Elias beginning to work in Artefact Storage and becoming Head Director five years later; the destruction of Leitner’s library; Jon's encounter with “A Guest For Mister Spider; Martin’s father abandoning him and his mother… (As a fellow millennial, it just makes me !!! every time the nineties are mentioned, don’t mind me.) ………….. at the same time, Oliver was one of the Mystery Figures I was the most curious about, too, and look what was revealed in MAG121. That doesn’t bode well for Adelard’s current state, if he’s even still alive at this point.

- Peter is absolutely Terrifying. All affable, all rational! All logical! All accepting! All indulgent!

(MAG126) PETER: You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is! Please don’t think I’m upset, it’s just… not ideal. Shows how much work we still have ahead of us. […] I had hoped that all this time apart would have given you the space you needed, but… MARTIN: … You said he’d probably never wake up. PETER: And he beat the odds. Which is good. But it does make things more complicated. It doesn’t… actually change… anything. […] You’re the only one who could possibly balance between the two. MARTIN: But if I could just explain– PETER: And how do you think Jon’s going to react, to that explanation? Hm? Do you think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response– MARTIN: That’s not fair– PETER: –or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash? MARTIN: … I don’t like being manipulated. PETER: That’s fair. But I’m not wrong. MARTIN: … No. PETER: Martin… this isn’t how any of us wanted it to go. But here we are, and if we don’t pull this off, it’s over for everyone. Jon included. […] So it’s down to us. You and me. The dynamic duo. MARTIN: And so what, that means I have to trust you?! PETER: That would make things a lot simpler. […] Anyway, I’m very excited to see this rota you’ve put together.

1°) That textbook manipulation about how ~Martin is conveniently the only one able to help~! How ~of course it’s only logical that he can’t tell anyone about what he’s currently doing~! How ~he must avoid contact with the others to get more powerful~! How ~they don’t have much time~! How ~Martin has to trust Peter~! How ~they’re the only one who understand was is truly happening~! How ~Martin will save everyone if he follows Peter’s lead~! PETER WAS EVEN CALLING JON “JON” AT THE BEGINNING, WHEREAS IT WAS BACK TO “YOUR ARCHIVIST” WHEN TALKING SHIT ABOUT HIM. THAT SUGARCOATING / TRYING TO SOUND MORE BENEVOLENT AND HUMAN IN FRONT OF MARTIN WASN’T EVEN TRYING TO BE SUBTLE…………. And I’m glad and I hate that Martin clearly saw through it, but that… there might be enough slivers of Truth for him to go along with it anyway, because the situation is really (genuinely, objectively) bad. There is most likely a catch, I don’t think that Martin is doubting that one second (even if the current plan doesn’t involve nice things for him anyway). Won’t guarantee that he’ll mitigate the damage when the time come ;; We’ve had examples of both ignorance nor knowledge being no help.

2°) SSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH I’m having so many feelings over Martin’s “… I don’t like being manipulated.” said to a friggin’ agent of the Lonely, in Elias’s office. Martin’s been through some shit, okay.

3°) GGGGG at how snappy and Having None Of Peter’s Bullshit Martin was being (… while going along with it at the same time ;;). Peter Was Not Allowed To Trash Jon About His (Poor) Archival Skills, uh. (Peter relenting when Martin snapped that stern “Peter.”!!! Gods, Martin. Martin…)

- Regarding Peter and his distaste of technology/modern things…?

(MAG033, Carlita Sloane) Most modern container ships have a lifeboat that looks more like a lumpy orange blob than a boat. They’re designed to be quickly and safely dropped into the water and tough out whatever conditions the sea might throw at them. But this was an old-fashioned boat, with oars and a winch mechanism for lowering it into the water.

(MAG126) PETER: Anyway, I’m very excited to see this rota you’ve put together. Never had much of a gift for– MARTIN: Okay. PETER: –administration myself; too many variables. Now, this box on the left, that’s the library stuff, yes? MARTIN: What? N–n–no, th–th–that’s, no, those are the dates, I– … Look, are you sure you don’t want me to teach you? It’s, it’s a very simple program– PETER: No. No. Can’t stand computers. Besides! That’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it?

Is it a Peter thing, or a Lukas thing? (At the very least: doesn’t sound like he’s wary of computers for spooky reasons, since he probably wouldn’t be very keen on Martin using one right in front of him if it was the case…?) (I’m laughing so much at how casually he shot down Martin’s offer. Just. Noped the fuck out without even trying to be polite about it.)

- Peter has never namedropped the L(onely) word in any of his appearances, and…

(MAG111) ARCHIVIST: Isolation. GERARD: Smirke called it The Lonely. The feeling that you’re just… alone. Maybe there’s no-one else there at all, maybe you just can’t connect.

(MAG126) PETER: We’ve been over this. The sort of power you’re going to need relies on your– MARTIN: [SULKY] Obedience. PETER: Isolation.

I wonder if actually, “Isolation” mightn’t be more the Lukases’s favourite word to describe the concept of their god, but everyone just peskily keeps using other words to piss them off.

- A few things around Elias.

(MAG126) MARTIN: Yeah. You said. … But if things are really so urgent, then why didn’t Elias say anything? PETER: [LAUGHS] Because, behind all his bluster, Elias’s just like all the rest. He’s so preoccupied playing the game he doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a… bit moot, but that’s not really an option anymore. So it’s down to us. You and me. The dynamic duo.

1°) I’m still laughing so much about the fact that Elias isn’t there, yet is mentioned so much, and casually dissed here and there. No respect for him. A few Nice Things.

2°) Technically, Peter didn’t say outright that Elias’s ceremony was The Watcher’s Crown. I mean, I don’t have any doubt after MAG120 that Elias is truly Beholding-aligned (he sucked so bad until then that… I was harbouring doubts before. But after MAG120, okay. No, he’s Dedicated to the Big Eyeball.), but it’s interesting that Peter didn’t use the name of the ritual here.

3°) ……………. Yeah, so Elias knows about the New Thing. Peter and Martin ~agreed~ that they wouldn’t tell Jon… so there is still someone who could give Jon some information about this, uh. (BAD. BAAAAD.)

- So, ~Elias’s ritual~ would have prevented the New Thing from doing whatever it’s threatening to do, according to Peter… but “that’s not really an option anymore”? Uh, why? It would sound a bit weird that the reason would be because of Elias being in jail (because… he didn’t even try to flee from being arrested? And we know there are other Beholding-related institutions around the world? And the Lukases didn’t even try to shield Elias from the charges?), so… is there a problem elsewhere preventing the ceremony? Is it because of Jon? Because of Jon’s unwillingness or… or is there actually something wrong with Jon as an Archivist? We know that the spiders have plans involving him (Oliver made it clear) and there was this part:

(MAG126) MARTIN: But if I could just explain– PETER: And how do you think Jon’s going to react, to that explanation? Hm? Do you think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response– MARTIN: That’s not fair– PETER: –or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash?

… which makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be only a matter of Jon trying to fix an exterior situation, but something intrinsically involving him? Because Martin had seen Jon try to open up and trust the assistants towards the end of season 3! Jon’s behaviour on the matter basically changed after his kidnapping by Nikola: he was keener to explain and to rely on them, afterwards. True, Martin is not currently there to witness s4!Jon following the decision he had made about trusting the assistants (immediately going to talk to Basira about Melanie’s bullet; going along with Basira’s judgement that they shouldn’t try to talk to Melanie; not trying to compulse anyone), but he should know that Jon was doing better already in that regard…? So I’m really wondering if the New Problem… isn’t tied to Jon himself somehow (to Jon not being dead, overall), hence the fact that Martin accepted that they shouldn’t talk to him about it, and Peter’s comment about how Jon being awake is not changing anything, and how Martin “won’t want to” talk to him about it once it’s over? (;; Just like Jon and Basira did to Melanie, uh…) (Overall: “When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission.” “Martin… when it’s over, you won’t want to.” => is it more telling about Jon’s and the others’ situation at the end of it, or about Martin’s? At least it implies that Martin is not supposed to die from whatever he’s doing, but that’s not reassuring either.)

- Given that the statement began with Jon flipping through papers and clearly hissing in pain briefly at some point, I’m assuming that the injury from last episode was probably on his hand? (But Which Hand, is the question. Is he now injured on both, or did he get stabbed on the 10-months-old burn.)

- !!! Glad to know that Jon remembered to go back to Gertrude’s notebook that he had found (… that MARTIN had found) back in MAG113!!! Yay!!! … Sad to know that uh, it apparently contained… old information. As Jon pointed out (“The “Worker in Clay”… that’s what Michael called him in his statement. A “Great Twisting”, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life.”) we got a demonstration of how Gertrude had understood how to neutralise one of the rituals, The Spiral’s in this case:

(MAG126, Deborah Madaki) The structure he held in his hands made my eyes hurt. Thin, sharp lines angling off from each other in an incredibly intricate arrangement – although they never seemed to actually connect with each other. It shifted, just like the other one, and I felt something jabbing at my skull like a migraine. Finally the lines seemed to resolve into a clear shape. A door. “Perfect!” Gabriel told me. “It looks just like him.” I asked him if it was supposed to be a face and he told me yes. It was a good friend of his. I asked him who, and he said they didn’t have a name. I told him everyone has a name, and he said his friend wasn’t like us; that having a name would only confuse them. My head was pounding. […] I got a letter, a week ago. It was from Gabriel. It said that he had found a new job, and he’d love it if I came up to assist him again. He’s working in a place called Sannikov Land. I’ve looked it up. It doesn’t exist. And it sounds cold. I don’t think I should go. I’m not going to go.

(MAG101) “MICHAEL”: And it was me they sought to stop. Me and the others of It-Is-Not-What-It-Is. Our Great Twisting. The-Worker-of-Clay had laboured for decades on that contorted, impossible edifice of doors… and stairs… and falsehoods… and smiles. A thousand staring morsels stood, and not one of them believed themselves sane to look upon it. And in the centre, the door that would open to all the places that were never there, was me. […] Even sharper than the joy of becoming is the agony of being opened and remade. To have your who torn bloody from your what, and another crudely lashed into its place. To become Michael. And to do so at such a crucial point in our Twisting, in our becoming, well of course it destroyed it. The impossible altar collapsed. The-Worker-of-Clay tore out his veins to dissolve himself in crimson mud. The others of us were cast to all the places that aren’t; some have still not found their way out again.

Gertrude got the confirmation that the ritual was coming close, what would be its point of focus (the door) and its localisation. She also got, from “Gabriel”’s comment, its weakness: giving the Distortion a name and an identity:

(MAG047) ARCHIVIST: … You’re him. “MICHAEL”: Yes. ARCHIVIST: Michael. “MICHAEL”: That is a real name. […] ARCHIVIST: Who the hell are you?! “MICHAEL”: I am not a “who”, Archivist; I am a “what”. A “who” requires a degree of identity I can’t even retain. ARCHIVIST: S… So… “Michael” isn’t your real name? Wha… “MICHAEL”: There is no such thing as a real name. ARCHIVIST: What are you talking about?! “MICHAEL”: I am talking about myself. It’s not something I’m used to doing, so I’m sorry if I’m not very good at it.

I’m still wondering if there is something behind the map she had given to Michael: where did she find it and/or how did she manage to draw it? Helen could draw one, but that’s because she (as the ~Wanderer~) went beyond the doors and managed to get out before “Michael” came back after her. Did someone manage to come out from The Distortion before, when it was even more chaotic? Or did Gertrude actually get it from Deborah Madaki herself, reconstituting it from what Deborah could remember of the sculptures made by “Gabriel”? (Or did… someone else give the map to Gertrude?)

- I’m sobbing and hurt at Jon… drawing parallels between Gertrude and him ;___;

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: […] A “Great Twisting”, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life. … I thought… moving away from my humanity would have made that seem more acceptable. That sort of sacrifice… but it just makes me sad… … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook; we found it alongside the plastic explosives, but it rather got lost amongst the business of… [SIGHS] saving the world at the cost of two lives…

Tim and (officially) Daisy’s deaths weren’t… at all… similar to what happened to Michael Shelley; Tim wanted to go, Daisy is a bit more ambiguous given how roped into it by Elias she had been (but she at least sounded exceptionally eager at the prospect of using explosives to blow something up). Tim insisted on going even though nobody wanted him to. It was Tim’s choice. Tim didn’t do it for Jon but for his own revenge, for his own feelings! He might have got back a bit of his freedom and agency that way! It was different!! But the fact that Jon, right now, is equating the two a little… is not wrong either (while very wrong at the same time); in the end, the Archivist witnessed and survived, while… people died.

My heart is also breaking at how Jon… has grown to accept that he’s been technically losing his humanity? It was something he feared, something he suspected; and towards the end of season 3, something he had to learn to deal with (seeking anchors to prevent him from slipping too much). But it’s really not going as envisioned or feared, precisely? So far, it’s mostly making Jon sound like a sweeter bean who is a bit lost because Too Many Feelings; it’s making him more aware of what he is losing and what he could risk losing further…

- STOP MAKING MY HEART CRY, JON, GDI???

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: […] I’ve been… trying to check on Melanie’s condition. She refuses to see me – understandably, I–I suppose, and Basira has been looking after her. [SIGHS] It hurts, of course, but… [SIGHS] I really hope getting that bullet out of her helps. At least… stops it from getting any worse. I can’t have been too late again.

;; There are so many things that hurt, gdi??? The fact that he understands Melanie’s stance towards him, the fact that it hurts him, the fact that he feels that he’s been “too late” for other things in the past?? (Sasha being attacked by the Not!Them? Tim’s self-destructive spiral? Basira and Daisy getting coerced by Elias? Melanie getting trapped in the Institute? Martin’s current association with Peter?) I’m a bit surprised that Basira is apparently taking care of Melanie; I would have assumed Melanie would have been extremely cross at her, too…? (;; I hope they’re not lying to Melanie and pretending that Jon acted on his own and Basira tried to stop him, or something, because… the truth coming out at a later point could make the situation even more explosive.)

- The difference between Jon’s and Martin’s respective treatments of the tape recorders is… jarring.

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: [DRY EXHALE] There was a tape recorder waiting for me when I sat down. They’re not even hiding it anymore. There weren’t any tapes from when I was… away – I checked. Whatever they are, they are here for me. I suppose I should be worried, but I have so much to keep watch over. So I’ve decided to let the tapes run. They’ve… proved useful before, so… [TINY CHUCKLE]

MARTIN: Oh. Hello. Haven’t seen you in a while. [TYPING] … Really? I mean, it’s just admin. It’s not exactly thrilling listening. … Alright, fine. Whatever. You do you. Spool away, I guess. Just, you know, let me know if you need some more batteries or something. [TYPING] … It’s because he’s back, isn’t it. [SIGHS] He’s back, so now you’re going to be… around, again. Listening in. Mff. You missed him, didn’t you. … Yeah. … [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] Yeah, me too.

1°) Jon talks about them in front of them in third person (rude! =D) and describes them in terms of usefulness. Martin pours out his soul to them, addresses them directly, offers them BATTERIES IF THEY NEED………, and finds things they have in common (the fact they both missed Jon), absolutely humanizing them. … did they actually go spy on Martin because Jon was so casually mean to them, and at least someone in the Institute would treat them right?

2°) Same as Elias, Peter doesn’t seem to mind them – he didn’t acknowledge the tape recorder, but he heard Martin’s last sentence (at the very least) so was probably aware that Martin was talking to it?

3°) Not absolutely definite, but Jon mentioning that he hasn’t found tapes from when he was “away” probably included MAG118 + MAG120 + MAG121. It’s… very curious because, until now, the tape recorders had had a bit of a communicative function – they allowed Jon to hear what he had missed, or were explicitly used by people to leave messages for him (Elias, Martin pushing Tim to give his statement). Right now, they’re voyeurs who neither help nor give anything back to the characters? (I… don’t think that the tape recorder popping up in front of Martin was on a mission to bring that tape back to Jon; it sounds more like a purely selfish action…?)

- But Jon. Jon. Joooon, no D:

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: I suppose I should be worried, but I have so much to keep watch over.

(MAG120) ELIAS: I presumed that I knew you thoroughly, but by the time you demonstrated otherwise… well. There was simply too much to keep watching over. I only have two eyes, after all.

You’re sounding like Elias, now DDD:

- It was my favourite written statement from season 4 so far, I think? I really loved the creeping sense of wrongness rising gradually, sprinkled with bits of mundane reactions and rationalizing (“He coughed gently and, well, I suppose it would have been rude not to look.”, “That was when I ran. I suppose I could have run before then, but I wouldn’t have wanted to seem rude, and it’s not like any of it could have been real, is it? It was just me losing it a bit.”). Plus, very casual queer statement-giver whose wife had down-to-earth preoccupations is always a good start (“since George was off to university and Rosa was usually working evenings, I tended to be alone until about… ten or eleven most days. So obviously, I started going to as many classes as I could. It was a great way to… meet friends, learn new skills, and, er, as she always reminded me, spend a good portion of Rosa’s paycheck.”). It was already a very good and chilling one, slipping more and more, like, HOLY MEW, SON??

(MAG126, Deborah Madaki) Ray told us the lesson was “faces”. I put my hand up to say that sculpting faces was probably a bit advanced for where we were in the course, but he shook his head, and said that we were… a lot more talented than we thought. He said the key was that faces were twisted. All faces were twisted on the inside and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you’ll have your own face staring back at you. I asked him to clarify and he nodded again. “ ‘s Soon as you can scream," he said, glancing over nervously to Gabriel, who gave him… big thumbs up. Like it was all some… joke they were playing.

(And how everything began to be obviously more and more wrong, and how, cherry on top! It actually tied in heavily with chronologically-later events that we have already heard about. It was totally unsettling and terrifying; then the conclusion was already a punch; then Jon’s statement made things worse, from “There was no sign of Mary. They still haven’t found her.” to “shortly after this statement was given, they found the body of one [Mary Randall] in her basement, and she has spent the last nine years in Eastwood Park Prison” sHHHHH………… I’m never getting used to these moments in which suddenly, we’re made aware of what was actually happening.)

- Patreons-perks mean that we get the next episode’s title on Monday, now! Jonny had mentioned he was proud of MAG127’s; I can confirm it’s a terrible title and I hate it already. The worst things is that the question it elicits is just a big “WHOSE.” because we… have choices… Anyway, could be very wrong as usual, but the title just reeks (for me) of Beholding and/or Elias and I’m not ready for either :|