#all the while the internet (and the rare but still not-supposed-to-exist Intrusive Thoughts of course) keeps blabbing about predators.

[rainbowgod666]

...holy fuck red this should be a video on its own

I've been reading some stuff on punitive justice, and it made something click for me that I've observed a lot online but haven't been able to put into words before.

When someone does something wrong, that's bad, and the damage it does needs to be repaired while the person needs to try to do better in future to minimize repeating harm. We learn it in preschool - say sorry, don't do it again. If they keep at it, remove them from the situation where they can do the harm until they prove they're responsible enough to go back in.

So if it turns out someone DIDN'T do anything wrong, that should be a relief! There's no damage to fix, no internal errors to correct. Less work for everybody, literally no harm done. False alarm, all good.

The thing I've observed is, lots of people want them to have done something wrong. There's almost disappointment when it turns out there's no harm done. And I think that's because of this general undercurrent of punitive justice as morally righteous and desirable: someone does something wrong, you get to punish them. Turns out they're innocent? That's disappointing. Find another reason you get to punish them, or find another bad person you get to punish. But at the core of it is that desire to punish someone. Someone you can hurt in a way that makes you a better person for hurting them.

This particular brand of almost cannibalistic pseudo-justice is super common in tumblr, one of the most ostensibly liberal spaces on the internet; I see more borderline savagery in online discourse here than in the actually toxic parts of the internet that are just openly cruel for cruelty's sake. It's always thrown me for a loop, and has frankly also hurt me, because on the rare occasions I get personally dogpiled, it only actually stings when it makes me worry that I've legitimately hurt someone. If I did something wrong, or more realistically when I inevitably do something wrong, that would make it good and right for people to give me shit about it every day until I'm dead.

The thing that clicked for me most recently was this bit in Ijeoma Oluo's Be A Revolution:

Punitive justice is specifically, uniquely appealing to people who have suffered injustices. Of course it's the Tumblr zeitgeist. Everyone here is a marginalized person failed by at least one system. Punishing someone for perceived injustice is how someone the system has deemed worthless proves their value in blood, even if the person being punished hasn't harmed you directly - even if they haven't harmed anyone. "Righteous" anger isn't about the target in these cases, it's about the inflicter. This is how much my pain is worth.

And that kind of violent validation is so alluring and so very dangerous. It seeks an outlet, wearing the justification of justice. Who's in reach? Who's an acceptable target this week? What's a good reason to use?

Is there anything they could do that would make me stop?

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG159, shortly before I’m Eradicated I Guess. TT___TT

- Hhhh over the quietness compared to last episode: less characters, less urgency, less twists and things happening on every side. Just the slowness, the repetitions of the waves, the footsteps, the echoes (down to the structure of the exchanges: Jon-Peter, Jon-Martin, Jon-Peter, Jon-Martin). Peter’s voice was really cool with earphones, because:

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] He doesn’t~ want~ to see you~ ARCHIVIST: Where are you? PETER: [DISTORTED, END OF SENTENCES ECHOING] I’m not here, Archivist – no one is. It’s only you.

Given how his voice was circling (sometimes far, closer, on the right, on the left), it really felt that indeed: he was nowhere at all, and everywhere at the same time. Everything felt more intimate, more personal, more intrusive: Peter’s personal story, Jon’s own sense of losses (the friends or people he cared for lost over his journey, the threat that Martin would meet the same fate), The Lonely feeding Martin with a false sense of security… everything was really fitting, for our first inside experience of The Lonely?

- I’m going to miss Peter’s own static, because it really felt to me, every time, that the tape recorders were just plain hissing at him for being there, “we do not like you, hhhh go away go away go away!!”. Though: Peter is dead (exploded/was ripped from existence), but Martin is still around (for now ;;), has been trained to be dual-Lonely, managed to disappear on Georgie in MAG149, has admitted that he was “getting there”, so… if Martin survives the end of season 4 and is not sealed or stuck somewhere afterwards, or at the very least, if we still hear him from time to time, we could still get some trademark Lonely static. This time from him. Sob.

- “If Peter loses, it won’t be (all) that bad” Simon and Elias said.

(MAG151) SIMON: I think… [INHALE] I think Peter is taking a rather large, but calculated gamble. Not just on you, but on a lot of things. If it works, he’ll be in a very strong position. And if he fails… it won’t be all that bad. MARTIN: You don’t think it will be the end of the world? SIMON: Oh! It very well might be, but…

(MAG158) PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or…

Cue Peter being disintegrated. “won’t be that bad”.

(In Elias’s case, it was probably about The Watcher’s Crown happening and Peter having to live under The Eye, since it was before Peter announced that no, he would stick around to make it hard on Jon? But ouft.)

- I do love how Peter’s own statement didn’t even try to portray him in a good light (filthy rich, not doing much with his life or to create money on his own, only spending it? And utterly unrepentant about sacrificing people), but also showed how… pathetic he actually was? It really feels like he was broken since his childhood, and I was especially !! over this bit:

(MAG159) PETER: Gertrude was the one that scared me. She seemed to have no interest in meeting me whatsoever, something… I appreciated, but there was something in her eyes when she looked at me, as though she was making a calculation and I was an unwanted integer she was deciding whether to remove. It wasn’t until much later that I realised exactly how true that was. Still, it seems I was never a pressing enough concern for her to sail out after me, or even wait until I’d made port and waylay me. I suppose even she couldn’t have predicted how it would all turn out.

… He described her as a child would. How this big, undecipherable, scary adult could harm him, and how he would have been unable to do anything against that. It was also there in the way he seemed to constantly miss the point, although he had claimed to Martin that he was “focusing on the big picture” (MAG126):

* The Daedalus project. The Dark went full-force into it, created a device they would use for their ritual (and which had survived the failed attempt until Jon destroyed it in MAG143); it contributed to Simon’s research for his own next ritual attempt (MAG151: “Oh goodness no, that’s the future my boy! […] Honestly, I’m pinning most of my long-term hopes on space – but that’s at least a hundred years away.”); meanwhile, Peter:

(MAG159) PETER: I started it, shortly before Simon convinced me to join him with his little space experiment. It was interesting, of course! But in the end, a tremendous waste of money, just to scare a single astronaut. But I had it in my mind that it might distract from my true attempt.

Peter “focusing on the big picture” Lukas only spilled all that cash for an experiment on one person without… even… thinking… that maybe… it could serve… bigger/greater plans…

* The fact that a few details from his ritual attempts were personal biases – the only description we have of Peter is that he’s “white” and “very pale” for a sailor, so, big surprise that he would only pick white people for his project. (And he was obsessed with so many details in his description of the building? I mean, on the one hand, he got a good reading of how modern people’s fears worked (although he got help to nail it); on the other hand, it also read as an accumulation of small silly little details meant to casually make people’s lives worse… but not a Grand Plan or something. It was fairly efficient, it fits The Lonely, but still. The Dark and The Stranger plotted their ritual for years with an accumulation of esoteric symbols and dedication and The Lonely had to be an attempt coming from One Guy, and one of the evilnesses of said plan relied on cutting off people’s Internet. And he got defeated by a headline in the newspaper.)

(I’m not even sure that it was Gertrude who was responsible for the headline because, to be fair, that could as well have been Elias’s doing.)

* Still rezudisjnezd that he named the ritual “The Silence” only because he thought they had to have a name. It’s just. Lacking so much love and Conviction.

* Peter was ultimately played by everyone: Elias staged his encounter with Martin in MAG108, ensuring that Peter would pick him (was it because of Melanie&Basira’s conversation in MAG106, about the fact that Martin had a crush on Jon? Did Elias think that it would work as a safeguard to ensure that Martin would choose Jon over The Lonely?), and riled him up enough to go wait for Jon in The Lonely although it wasn’t part of their deal. Martin waited his time before dropping Peter at the last moment in the Panopticon. Even in this episode, Jon… lured him out:

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. I suppose you did. [FOOTSTEPS] … Where are your friends, Archivist? [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Tim and Sasha are dead. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Daisy and Basira are… probably dead. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Because – of – you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Georgie and Melanie have left me. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] And? [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Martin’s gone. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] You’re alone, Archivist. The last one standing. I did warn you, I did want you to leave but… perhaps it would be better if you stayed a while. After all, you can’t hurt anyone in here. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Yes… [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. [FOOTSTEPS STOP] ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] … Or perhaps you could answer some questions. PETER: [DISTORTED] … What? ARCHIVIST: [STATIC INCREASES] I wouldn’t try to leave if I were you. I can See you now. I can find you wherever you go.

(J–Jon, that does count as “honey-trap”.)

* Feeding the pitiful vibes (not sympathetic ones): the fact that Peter was aware of his fatal flaw and the fact that he was predictable, not a big enough threat for anyone? And there was the casual awareness, too, that he wouldn’t come back, or at least wouldn’t come back to what he loved:

(MAG159) PETER: Some of my most peaceful memories were on the Tundra. I had gathered a small group of trusted souls, who I knew were loyal and dedicated – to… my money. They had no qualms or morals about what we did on that boat, and at my request, each signed to the ship under a false name, so I would never have to know who they were. Those Lonely nights of sacrifice, and waiting, hearing the dreadful sound of my ancestors’ whistle drift over the dark and brooding waters, knowing another soul was leaving this world… God, I wish I was there now…! Locked in my cabin, staring over the quiet emptiness of the open ocean. But it’s moored now, and I came on land, at Elias’s request. My crew is out there waiting for a call I think I am now unlikely ever to give them. […] Thinking about it now, perhaps one of the reasons I lasted as long as I did was that I was, at the end of the day, predictable. A “known quantity”. I had my little patch, sending my poor lost sailors to their Forsaken end, but I rarely stepped outside of it. When I think of all those I met who travelled in this secret world we found ourselves in – Gertrude, Simon, Mikaele, even Rayner… there are plenty whose lives might well have been easier with my death, but it was rare that I strayed outside my habits. […] Maybe that’s why, when I crossed paths with Adelard Dekker, we ended up talking, and he told me his theory of The Extinction – something that stayed with me even after he died pursuing it.

(* The way Adelard Dekker just casually chatted to Peter about his theory was revealing: we saw Adelard binding the Not!Them to the Web table, following an End avatar to neutralise him for some time and prevent further victims, confronting John Amherst at the cost of his own life… but Peter Lukas? Adelard chatted with him about his convictions and theories regarding a new Fear emerging.)

* The way Peter was obliterated on all accounts?? He got played by everyone, learned that Martin was not loyal to him, lost his bet with Elias, Jon tore his statement from his sore mouth (and DANG was Alasdair’s voice acting incredible, with Peter’s voice getting hoarser and hoarser as his story was dragged down from his throat; Peter wasn’t used to talking that much, clearly), then obliterated him in his own territory – The Lonely, with the sound of the waves reminiscent of the sea Peter loved. And Jon managed to get Martin and to get him back to himself, and is now ready to leave The Lonely. And nail into the coffin:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Martin…! He’s gone, Martin. He is gone. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] His only wish was to die alone. ARCHIVIST: Tough…!

… he didn’t even get to get his last wish respected. (That “Tough…!”, jON… Jon was acting like Tim in MAG118, when Jon was complaining about cobwebs.)

- I’m surprised we never saw a Eye-Vast-Lonely collaboration at work because??? Perfect trinity, they’ve all pointed out how close they were to each of the other two?

(MAG091) MIKE: A little bit of privacy. Is that really so much to ask? I suppose it is, isn’t it? From you and yours at least. We have a lot in common, really. After all, what, what good’s the height, the terrifying draw of gravity, unless you, unless you really know the scale of what you’re facing?

(MAG151) SIMON: I mean, yes, if you want to get technical, he serves The-One-Alone, and I serve The-Falling-Titan, but – those two are a lot closer than you might imagine. After all: the larger the space you find yourself alone in, the more isolated you feel. MARTIN: [RECITING] And being aware of how lonely you are can make anywhere feel more empty. SIMON: Exactly. I’ve actually been toying with the idea of trying to do something with the scale of humanity itself; you know, emphasise all that “overpopulation” nonsense, but… honestly, it just… doesn’t ring true for me. We’re all just so tiny and pointless, you see; it’s hard to really get past it.

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] Just go. [RUMBLING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Make me. … Unless you can’t. The Lonely and The Eye aren’t too far apart, are they? Not really. What good’s being alone if you don’t know how alone you truly are.

Though yeah, The Eye sounds compatible with a lot of things – especially given how it just fed on Peter’s misery, indiscriminately (even to the point that, you got messed up by The Dark? Well, telling your story will still feed Beholding).

- I’m not sure I understood well what Peter meant, chronology-wise, regarding his ritual:

(MAG159) PETER: My instinct was much like the others: I thought that if I could complete my ritual first, then the potential birth of the Dreadful Change would be meaningless. I started it, shortly before Simon convinced me to join him with his little space experiment. It was interesting, of course! But in the end, a tremendous waste of money, just to scare a single astronaut. But I had it in my mind that it might distract from my true attempt.

If it’s how I think it went: Adelard talked to Peter about his theory of The Extinction, so Peter began to think about his ritual, but Simon distracted him with the Daedalus project first, Peter got involved with the Daedalus, then began to get invested in his Lonely ritual for real? If so:

* Adelard’s oldest letter regarding The Extinction was from January 2006 (MAG134). He probably talked about it with Peter around that time, since…

* “Stratosphere group” launched the Daedalus in early 2007 (MAG057).

* Peter brought Gertrude and Michael Shelly towards The Great Twisting (MAG101), some time after October 2009 (as it was coming close in MAG126).

* Sean Kelly was sacrificed on the Tundra in/shortly after October 2010 (MAG033).

So the big question is whether Gertrude had already thwarted Peter’s ritual attempt by The Great Twisting, or if she did it afterwards. Peter mentioned that he was a mess right after:

(MAG159) PETER: It really knocked me back. Took me years to find myself again. I returned to the Tundra, tried to forget.

And it could fit Carlita’s description of him in MAG033? (It would mean that Peter was actually MOPING when she saw him, which could match and explain why he had felt so different from the Peter Lukas who later started looming around the Institute.)

Another question is whether “[C/K]onrad Lukas” was actually Peter under an alias, or another Lukas:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “I remember the man in charge of my particular project, Conrad Lukas, made a face of rather overstated disgust when he told me I wouldn’t be up there entirely on my own. I got the distinct impression he was one of those people who feel that ethical restrictions do nothing but bind the hands of the true scientist, and leave them at the mercy of their subjects’ limitations. […] Mission Control had also supplied me with a lot of books and films and other entertainment as, like Conrad had told me at the first briefing, the experiment was into isolation – not boredom.”

But given Peter’s own stance towards fiction:

(MAG159) PETER: I had no time for… books, or television, or any of the escapes and artificial friendships of fiction. No; I was myself, and that was enough.

I’m leaning towards the idea that it was another Lukas there. So: Peter being indeed the “favoured son”, official heir, in control of the family money, and sending other Lukases to do this or that.

- Re: Adelard’s email from MAG157:

(MAG159) PETER: Maybe that’s why, when I crossed paths with Adelard Dekker, we ended up talking, and he told me his theory of The Extinction – something that stayed with me even after he died pursuing it.

It doesn’t mean that Peter was the one who put it on Jon’s desk, but at the very least, he did indeed know that Adelard was dead. (I was strongly suspecting it since Peter had never mentioned to Martin the possibility of finding Adelard or working with him, so yeah, that checks out!)

- So…

(MAG111) GERARD: Families are just useful ‘cause they can push you in the right direction. And the Lukases are very good at that. ARCHIVIST: And I imagine they’re not… reluctant to remove any members that might put that legacy at risk. GERARD: Right. You know, for a group that worships a power of Loneliness, they never seem to have any problems breeding, or finding spooky singles to marry them. Just one of those things, I guess. But most times you try to put your descendants on the path to worship, it doesn’t go great. Just takes one stubborn heir to freak out about the truth, and the whole thing comes crashing down.

(MAG159) PETER: I suppose to call myself an “only child” is, technically, untrue. Two of my sisters still live, though they disavowed the family and moved far, far away. Still… to be cut off from one’s family is its own… very special sort of loneliness, isn’t it? So we all serve, in our own ways. The other two – my brother, Aaron, and sister, Judith – well… they weren’t considerate enough to quietly grow to adulthood and disappear. They simply didn’t have the temperament to thrive in a Lukas household, always trying to… instigate games… make friends… connect with people… As far as I’m aware, they were sent away, to live their lives with very distant relatives, never to return. I’m sure it’s possible my mother resolved the matter in a less pleasant manner, but in my limited interaction with her, she never struck me as a cruel woman, and I would imagine for children that age, the fear and isolation of being uprooted, and sent away, is just as strong as that of meeting a more… grisly fate.

I’m still not sure what happened with Evan Lukas, but this episode pointed out that, actually, Lukases that do not embrace The Lonely… are the norm. Out of the five children, Peter was the only one to willingly take that path, although growing up in such a family was, yeah, enough to mess up the others and make their lives casually miserable just because they had been born in the wrong family. On the one hand, funerals seemed to be a regular thing in the family (“When I returned, I was met by my mother and a small group of stern-faced relatives that I had never seen before – except at funerals. […] I left the house again shortly after, and took to the sea, and never saw my mother again – except, of course, at funerals.”); on the other hand, I think Peter would have mentioned it, if being a Lukas but straying away from the family god had a known tendency to kill you very soon, very fast…?

So what happened with Evan Lukas exactly…? Since ~having a heart~ was actually not that uncommon, since choosing not to partake in the family faith happened to almost all Lukases, what happened for him to suddenly die and for the family to try to feed Naomi to The Lonely…?

(- The mention of funerals was so awful and funny at the same time because, yes, you understand why in this family, funerals would constitute the ideal family gathering instead of getting everyone together over birthdays or life-oriented celebrations.

… at the same time, oops, it’s exactly Like That in my extended family too.

But still: Peter’s delivery was so… Peter. I’m love him, I’m gonna miss this awful man.)

- So, we got our ~Beach episode~ with the waves in the background, complete with a murder and a hug /o/ But the atmosphere was exceptionally fitting since, when Carter Chilcott was losing it in the Daedalus, he had dreamed about graveyards and the sea (MAG057: “I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations though, they were dreams – even if the cold seem to seep out of them, and into the bones of me.”). In MAG159, we had waves, but also the sound of Jon walking on gravel, which was reminiscent of a graveyard? So, the two places Peter was associated with: the sea (and the Tundra), and the graveyards (from the funerals).

- I love how the (potential) Lonely Eyes was brushed upon with subtle touch / was “maybe there” behind what what Peter wasn’t saying:

(MAG159) PETER: My mother had five children over her life, before my father finally drifted away. She was a Lukas to the core, though not born into the family, while my father, for all he believed himself keen on a life… without… obligation, gradually withered away to nothing, as she cultivated the space between them. […] It was the sort of childhood that would not be allowed if we didn’t have money, but we’re an old family with, shall we say, a… [CHUCKLE] remarkably direct line of inheritance. […] I, of course, was the favoured son, being quiet and reserved and, at all points, deeply engaged with my own loneliness.

Not surprising for a Lonely avatar? But still noticeable that Peter never mentioned the concept of producing children of his own, when he was the “favoured son” in a family with a “remarkably direct line of inheritance” (you don’t have to be gay to not want children, but.). Same with his meeting with James-Elias-Jonah:

(MAG159) PETER: But it’s moored now, and I came on land, at Elias’s request. My crew is out there waiting for a call I think I am now unlikely ever to give them. … I will call him “Elias”, for that’s how I’ve known him for most of our… acquaintance, though I originally met him when he was still “James Wright, Head of the Magnus Institute”. I considered him a dull little man at first, so keen to watch other people’s misery, to lose himself in second-hand pain and drama – exactly the sort of thing I’d always been so keen to avoid. […] I suppose that’s why I was so keen when Elias contacted me. We kept in touch, of course: my family helped fund the Institute, and he’d always been good about tipping me off to potential victims. Going through something horrific can leave you feeling very isolated indeed, especially if you know no one else will believe you. And of course… he knew I find it hard to resist a wager.

Peter “considered him a dull little man at first”, and that “at first” is saying a lot on its own, uh? (I’m screaming a bit less dignifiedly over that hesitation before “acquaintance”, because that one really felt like a way to circumvent The Eye’s compulsion, to not lie but not go into TMI territory.)

As Peter mentioned, he was a creature of habit – so, it’s almost sweet, in its own way, that he stuck to “Elias”, since it was the body he was mainly accustomed to (… well. “host-body”.)

(- SCREAMING over the concept of Elias “tipping off” Peter to victims as potential Lonely sacrifices: OF COURSE, he would, and that’s??? So horrible??? And yeah, really putting back in mind that the Institute has never been a “good” place, or even that passive: getting stories from people, feeding their trauma to The Eye, trapping them in the Archivist’s nightmares if they gave their statements live, never helping you to deal with the things that were going after you… and even ensuring that you could be snatched up by other Fears. I thought that sending Brian to the Lonely in MAG100 was a power display (snatching a victim in The Eye’s own temple under Elias’s nose), and maybe it was; but it was… also linked to the fact that anyway, Peter was used to get statement-givers after the Institute was done with them.

… come to think of it, that’s almost “sweet”/blasphemy from Elias, to throw potential victims in Peter’s direction, since it means they wouldn’t feed The Eye anymore?)

- … Peter’s statement also highlighted that Peter was (assumingly) pretty young compared to Elias-Jonah? I’m a bit sad about how ouuuuuuuuuuuuuft, in the end, Peter and Elias’s relationship doesn’t feel like two terrible people casually annoying each other and their plans, after all, but… mostly Elias indulging/toying with Peter, from start to finish? The way Peter described it, they were absolutely not on equal ground:

(MAG159) PETER: And of course… he knew I find it hard to resist a wager. If I could convince one of his staff to willingly pledge themselves to The Lonely, it was all mine. He even let me pick the victim. He was so sure the prize of the Institute, the Panopticon, and a willing vessel to use it, would be just too much for me to resist. And… he was right. Just didn’t go quite as I’d hoped. … You know, this is one of the first bets I ever made with him that I’ve actually lost. But I guess that’s how hustlers work, isn’t it? They lose, and lose, until you’re willing to put it all on the line, and then… the trap shuts. So I suppose that’s probably why I reacted so rashly, trying to rip his victory away. Keep you here. But it looks like I might have underestimated my opponent, once again.

Elias absolutely manipulated Peter from the start? He pushed him in Martin’s direction (MAG108) so the pick was rigged from the start. He lost previous bets, assumedly on purpose, just to give Peter a false sense of security. Elias got what he needed from Peter, which was at the bare minimum getting Jon to willingly experience The Lonely, and a potential few petty bonuses (making Martin’s life miserable for a few months after Martin plotted his arrest; ensuring that the Archives team would drift apart with The Lonely’s presence in the Institute; pushing Basira to leave Jon alone with the coffin, then encouraging her to take Jon to Svalbard so Jon would both face The Buried and The Dark)… meanwhile, Peter didn’t manage to get anything at all except for a few researchers? It seems that Peter was the only one to think that Elias and him were on kinda equal footing?

(I’m not excluding the possibility that Elias will be surprised/upset to learn that Jon absolutely butchered Peter, and that Elias was assuming that Peter would get out damaged but not dead, but… not banking on it. From the letters we saw, Jonah Magnus wasn’t really into attachments, and given Elias’s cackle when Peter went off to wait for Jon in The Lonely? Yeah no, all according to plan.)

- ;; Martin got back this time, but I’m not sure that his involvement with The Lonely won’t have long-lasting (well. First assuming he survives.) effects on him? His description of the comfort he found in it didn’t come out of nowhere – it’s how he had described it to the tape recorders before:

(MAG142) MARTIN: [SIGH] Th–the worst part is I don’t even want to talk to him about it. I’m just… [SIGH] I suppose I’m just getting comfortable with the distance. [SIGH] Cut off. [DRY CHUCKLE] “Lonely”. [INHALE] Mind you, Peter’s not wrong. It really is easier than actually just trying to communicate with people.

(MAG149) MARTIN: Sort of… surprised Peter hasn’t rocked up with some more… “insights”? Haven’t seen him around for a while, actually. I mean… eh, it’s not like I miss him [CHUCKLING] but, at least he was someone to– [PAUSE] … Ah. [HUFF] [PAPER RUSTLING] Yeah, that makes sense. [EXHALE] A’ight, fine. Just… me on my lonesome for a while, then. … Could be worse. … Peaceful, at least. … I don’t miss all the shouting. [CHUCKLE] Even if it w–

(MAG156) MARTIN: 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. [INHALE] It’s always… quiet, these days. For me, at least. I guess I technically have the power to make it not quiet, to… to talk to people, but like… You know, I–I also have the power to clean out the fridge, and it’s still a mess. It’s not that I don’t want to clean the fridge, it’s just… Some things are just hard…! Anyway. I know he’s been listening to the tapes so, [INHALE] I guess that’ll have to do. I think I still care that he hears my voice. It’s hard to tell, sometimes. How much do I actually care; how much is just feeling that I should care. I’m on my own so much these days, I… just wish I didn’t like it so much.

(MAG159) MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] N–No. No, I don’t think so. ARCHIVIST: … Why? MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] This is where I should be. It feels right. ARCHIVIST: Martin, don’t say that. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] Nothing hurts here. It’s just quiet. Even the fear is gentle here. ARCHIVIST: This isn’t right, this isn’t you! MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] It is, though. [CHUCKLE] I really loved you, you know? […] ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] No, you don’t. Not really…! Everyone’s alone, but we all survive. ARCHIVIST: I don’t just want to survive! MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] I’m sorry.

Some of the things Martin said over season 4 might have been in case Peter would hear them, but there was still some bits of truth, eh? And it’s absolutely nasty from The Lonely to sell him promises of distance – not losing anymore, not being hurt ever again – when Martin had indeed lost and lost and lost.

(And ouft, the shared bits regarding how Jon and Martin experienced The Lonely and/or Peter’s influence… Peter reminded Martin of Tim and Sasha’s death right at the start of MAG158, simply by mentioning Tim and freeing Not!Sasha; Jon had to once again acknowledge whom he had lost, so Tim and Sasha, while walking in The Lonely. Martin got promised to not be hurt again; Jon got encouraged to give in because he couldn’t hurt anyone again.)

* Cries in season 4 trailer:

(S4 trailer) MARTIN: We really need you, Jon. Everything’s… It’s bad. I–I don’t know how much longer we can do this. We– … I need you. A–and… I know that you’re not… [PAUSE] I–I know th–there’s no way to… [PAUSE] But we need you. Jon. Jon, please, just… Please. If–if there’s anything left in you that can still… see us, or–or some power that you’ve still got, or–or, or something, anything – please! … Please… [SHAKY BREATHING, STRANGLED VOICE] I… I can’t…

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] No, you don’t. Not really…! Everyone’s alone, but we all survive.

Because!!! Gnn, Martin could deflect Jon like this since he had already tried to beg for help, for Jon to come back, down to the correction of “We – I need you”, and it hadn’t worked back then.

And that’s the thing with Martin, I think? He highlighted in MAG158 that he wasn’t a “chosen” one and, given his life, it indeed feels like a long string of never being chosen or favoured or saved. His father dumped him along with his mother when he was a kid (MAG118: “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.”), his mother had grown to hate him although he had sacrificed his life for her well-being, quitting school to find work (MAG118: “Your mother… simply hates you. You just don’t know why! It’s not your fault. Though I know that isn’t any consolation, it’s just bad luck, really.”). Tim… had favoured him a lot, at first (still following him when Martin wanted to check on Jon at the end of season 2, warning him over what it meant to read statements during season 3) but ultimately followed his own path to avenge his brother without considering Martin a reason to stay (MAG114: “You know how long that thing pretended to be Sasha? […] And I had no idea? I knew Sasha for years, we… I don’t know Martin as well as I knew her; I barely know what Melanie and Basira look like, or that weird murder-cop.”). It has been the case with a lot of characters (Martin did that to Tim by favouring Jon over him, too?), but Basira and Daisy had each other, Georgie and Melanie found each other, and given his backstory, it’s… not really a surprise that a weak spot would be the fact that, although he’s trying to be the caretaker and the caregiver, Martin mostly wanted to be cared for by someone…? (And it wasn’t anyone’s responsibility or duty to provide that, except for his parents, and that part had been screwed for most of his life already.) (Well, tho. Technically, Martin has been “chosen” thrice recently: by Elias when he pushed Peter in his direction, by Peter when he picked Martin for their bet – and now by Jon.)

So tl;dr SOMEONE CAME FOR MARTIN, and independently from the fact that it was Jon, I’m so glad for him? ;w; Especially with the contrast between the two times Martin was made to experience Eye powers:

(MAG118) ELIAS: The resemblance is quite uncanny: the face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her; feeding her; cleaning her; looking down on her with such pity– MARTIN: [RAGGED] Shut! Up! ELIAS: Do you want to know what she sees when she looks a you? [STATIC INTENSIFIES] MARTIN: [STRANGLED BREATHING AND CRIES] [FOR LONG] [LONG] [STRANGLED SOBS] [STATIC FADES OUT] ELIAS: Don’t. burn. any more. statements.

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Martin… Martin, look at me. Look at me, and tell me what you see. [STATIC RISES] MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] I see… [INHALE] I see you, Jon. [BREATHLESS CHUCKLE] [PRESENT, ECHO FADES] I see you…! ARCHIVIST: Oh, Martin… [CLOTHES RUSTLING] MARTIN: [FRANTIC BREATHING] I w–I was on my own…! I was all on my own… ARCHIVIST: Not anymore. Come on – let’s go home…

In both cases: showing, seeing… but in order to hurt him (thx Elias), and in order to comfort/love him (jON!!). Souring and taking vs. … giving?

And it felt like such a completion for Jon, too! Because Sasha had died in a blind spot, unnoticed until Jon could pick up on and puzzle together what had happened to her. Tim died “thanks” to Jon giving him the means to fight against The Unknowing’s effects, through the compulsion.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Tim!! [STATIC] What do you see? TIM: I see my asshole boss! W– wait… wait… SARAH: Spoil-sport. NIKOLA: Tim… TIM: … Grimaldi. NIKOLA: Once, a long time ago, before Orsinov made me. And sometimes, even now, on special occasions. Like your brother! DISTORTED MALE VOICE: Shall I? ARCHIVIST: Tim! [STATIC] What’s in your hand? TIM: It’s… I don’t… the– the– … the detonator…

And we got a glimpse of how the people Jon had lost, permanently or spiritually, were still impacting him:

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED, END OF SENTENCES ECHOING] I tried to tell you. He’s gone. He made his choice. And it wasn’t you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: … It was for me, though. I’m the reason he…! … I did this to him as much as you. PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. I suppose you did. [FOOTSTEPS] … Where are your friends, Archivist? [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Tim and Sasha are dead. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Daisy and Basira are… probably dead. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Because – of – you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Georgie and Melanie have left me. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] And? [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Martin’s gone. [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] You’re alone, Archivist. The last one standing. I did warn you, I did want you to leave but… perhaps it would be better if you stayed a while. After all, you can’t hurt anyone in here.

Jon, who had failed to save anyone… finally managed to get Martin (/an assistant) back. Regardless of Jon’s personal feelings for Martin, it’s still so much…! Peter was right to point out that they don’t know each other that much (and I’m glad that someone finally addressed it), but it’s not that much relevant when there is still a desire to reach the other, like we saw? I’m glad for that this small bubble of hug and comfort was found…

(;; But. He did save Martin. Thanks to The Eye’s powers. It was a mix of himself as a human and of supernatural means, but… It’s not the kind of series where using these powers is ever a positive thing in the medium to long run.)

(I’m still not sure what I want Jon to have done there!! If it was to focus and anchor Martin, or to Show His Inner Self to him. Whatever Martin saw, it pleased him; it might not be a Good Thing given that Jon had just murdered someone but!! Still. Martin was happy?? Relieved??? In my TMA??? I’m so worried over what the next episode will do to shatter that orz)

- edcnjxerfd Peter please.

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] You’ve still got time, Archivist. Turn around, and leave. You’ve played your part; now, go. ARCHIVIST: What’s wrong, Lukas? Afraid of talking face to face? PETER: [DISTORTED] [LAUGH] Of course! Or haven’t you been paying attention? ARCHIVIST: [GRUNT] [FOOTSTEPS] Mar–tin!

Glad that it was acknowledged that yeah, Peter had been avoiding him for the entirety of season 4; extra-glad that Jon is receiving that as a slow burn.

- Re: Jon => he was incredibly scary, I’m Very Worried because, despite the hug, despite the comfort, despite Martin being found/chosen and Jon finally managing to save someone, it was still Jon’s powers who saved him… and it had been a good thing when it had happened with the coffin according to Elias.

And Jon was incredibly predatory in this episode: he didn’t need Peter’s statement! He crushed him to extort it, like with Breekon and Manuela! He still pushed to get more afterwards, leading to Peter’s annihilation! … and yeah, One Less Avatar Doing Harm, but it had nothing to do with that or saving Martin. It was pure Eye hunger; and we saw with Daisy and the Section 31 officers that this kind of violence is not written to be perceived as positive (it’s cruelty and violence for the sake of violence, it has nothing to do with fairness or justice). As much as I prefer to see Jon being like this to other avatars rather than to innocents… I’m afraid that it could also mean that he’s going to fall back into hunting people, if Elias’s immediate plans don’t incapacitate him? Who would make sure that he doesn’t? Melanie has left; Daisy is lost; Basira is… we don’t know yet. (And Martin but ;; Martin was too happy, there has to be a trick and he’ll be either stuck back in The Lonely or in the Panopticon or serve as a new body for Jonah, or get killed and trapped in the End book, uh.)

- Something that gets me is how heavily Jon’s journey to The Lonely sounds like his descent into the coffin?

(MAG128, Breekon) “It was waiting. I fed her to it. She took him from me. Made us a me, and she doesn’t get to die for that. She gets to live, trapped, and helpless, and entombed forever. No prey, no hunt, no movement. We failed, but I have at least that comfort. I am without him, now. I. am. I can feel myself fading. Weak. No reason to move. Nothing to deliver. But I am no longer tied to the casket; so you can have it. You can stare at it, knowing how your feral friend suffers, knowing how powerless you are to help. And when you can’t bear it any longer, knowing that you can climb in and join her…”

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I have her voice. I think that should be enough to find her, and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…? […] It’s okay… I’ve… I’ve got a plan. DAISY: I–is this like all your other plans? ARCHIVIST: It’s fine, I just… I just need to… to find it. DAISY: What? ARCHIVIST: Come on… Come on, where I… DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: … Come on… [STATIC] [SHAKY BREATHING] DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: I know… DAISY: Th–the way out? ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done… […] [STATIC RISING] D–Daisy… DAISY: Uh, I’m, I’m here. ARCHIVIST: I I can… I–It… it’s closer. DAISY: What is? ARCHIVIST: M–my, my… my anchor? My… A–a  rib, I can f–, I can fee– … I know the way! [DIGGING SOUNDS] DAISY: Wh–what? H–how– ARCHIVIST: I don’t… It’s like… My mindlink is… it’s stronger…

(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation. MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it… PETER: But? MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from.

(MAG135) ELIAS: I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait. BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried.

(MAG136) DAISY: Jon… when you went into the coffin. Was it you choosing to do that? Did you actually think you could save me, or was… that something telling you to do it? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: It was me. I was… drawn to it, I’ll admit, but it was my decision. [PAUSE] It wasn’t entirely about you, though. […] If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. DAISY: [SHAKY SIGH] ARCHIVIST: And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets.

So: warned about the danger of going inside the coffin, fearing it when he was on the verge of doing it, suffering from it once inside; a main motivation to still try was that it was a way to save Daisy; was initially trapped/made to experience what The Buried is about… until Jon’s powers kicked in and he managed to get back to the surface.

Rinse and repeat with The Lonely:

(MAG158) ELIAS: Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. [SILENCE] PETER: … Fine. MARTIN: Great. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING] Now, perhaps if one of you, then, can tell me what– [SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION REACHING A PEAK, BEFORE DECREASING] ELIAS: It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open. […] ARCHIVIST: … You want me to follow him. ELIAS: No, Jon. You want you to follow him. I simply want you to know that if you do so, you are almost certainly not coming back. To go into The Lonely willingly is as good as death. ARCHIVIST: … How do I do it? ELIAS: [INHALE] Wasn’t too long ago. And I’m sure traces of their passage still remain.  Just open your mind. Drink it all in. Know their route, [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION, INCREASING] and simply… follow it. ARCHIVIST: [LOUDER BREATHING] ELIAS: Very good. Are you scared, Jon? ARCHIVIST: Yes… ELIAS: Perfect.

(MAG159) PETER: [DISTORTED] You’ve still got time, Archivist. Turn around, and leave. You’ve played your part; now, go. […] You’re alone, Archivist. The last one standing. I did warn you, I did want you to leave but… perhaps it would be better if you stayed a while. After all, you can’t hurt anyone in here. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: Yes… [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. [FOOTSTEPS STOP] ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] … Or perhaps you could answer some questions. PETER: [DISTORTED] … What? ARCHIVIST: [STATIC INCREASES] I wouldn’t try to leave if I were you. I can See you now. I can find you wherever you go. […] MARTIN: [FRANTIC BREATHING] I w–I was on my own…! I was all on my own… ARCHIVIST: Not anymore. Come on – let’s go home… MARTIN: How? ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] Don’t worry. I know the way.

In both cases, Jon went in to save someone despite his own fears (or because of them), got initially stuck (Buried and made to understand he couldn’t leave it; haunted by Peter who was trying to goad him to stay in the Lonely because of everything he had lost) until… his powers kicked back to the surface, fighting resistances until he could get out of here – in both cases, “I know the way”.

Still unsure over what was his anchor or the thing that actually pulled him out of there – was it his connection to The Eye, through the statements…? Was it truly his rib, though it needed a bit of amplification? Was it specifically his connection to the audio recordings, Web stuff, the lighter? Martin was used to do something, back with the coffin, and given that 1°) Peter and Elias had an ongoing bet relying on Elias’s non-interference, 2°) Peter accused Elias of having interfered in MAG158, so it was a possibility (and put in another perspective the way he asked if Martin had been “compelled” to help Jon in MAG134: he may have suspected it was Elias’s doing), 3°) … Elias apparently can “call” Jon indeed (MAG158: “Ah, Jon. I was almost worried…! You found your way all right.” “Yes. … Ye–yes, I did… How?” “Suffice it to say I called you.”), it’s also possible that it is just Elias calling him back right now… we’ll see, I guess. Are Martin and Jon going to come out surrounded by tape recorders…? …………… or past statement-givers who have been “called” here too…?

- Another point of worry when comparing the coffin and The Lonely trip: what happened after Jon… got out from the coffin.

(MAG146) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Jess Tyrell, the woman on the tape… [SIGH] She was the fourth. I–I just tried to… I was weak, r–ravenous, I–I didn’t feel… … The first was a supermarket cleaner. Em, ended up lost for a week in an endless warehouse. I didn’t even…! I–I just went in for some shopping, and he was there, and I–I just… asked. The second was, uh, it was after I got… stabbed by Melanie. MELANIE: You are not putting this on me! ARCHIVIST: No, that’s not what I meant! [SIGH] I was walking the streets, I–I thought I was trying to clear my head– DAISY: [DELIBERATE] But you were hunting. ARCHIVIST: … Apparently. I found a woman who… every year on her birthday, wakes up in a fresh grave. Just for her. DAISY: And the third was after the coffin. ARCHIVIST: A man rejected by all who knew him, searching ever-darker places for love. When he told me his story, he started… weeping maggots.

On the one hand: Jon gave in and took Peter’s statement – it should count as “feeding”. On the other hand: he used his powers on him right after (to the point of Peter’s… destruction), used them again with Martin, and may be relying on them again to leave The Lonely. The situation mirrors what happened with the trip against The Dark – taking Manuela’s statement, then using his powers to destroy the Dark Sun – and that one had not left Jon in an amazing state (MAG145: “We’ve been back in London for just over a week, now. I’m… more or less recovered physically.”).

Right when he left, Trevor and Julia had been wrecking havoc in the Institute, Hunting staff members; Basira had pointed out that cases happening in the Institute meant an automatic Section 31, which means there could be Section’d officers full of stories heading there… Which… is extra bad given Jon’s current state…?

- ;; Martin was at his softest and I still can’t believe the sheer relief in his voice, the fact he was getting One Nice Thing… But aouch, the context in itself hurts so much?

Jon taking Peter’s statement had nothing to do with saving Martin, and it was clearly an Eye monster getting what it wanted here:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Yes… [FOOTSTEPS] PETER: [DISTORTED] Yes. [FOOTSTEPS STOP] ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] … Or perhaps you could answer some questions. PETER: [DISTORTED] … What? ARCHIVIST: [STATIC INCREASES] I wouldn’t try to leave if I were you. I can See you now. I can find you wherever you go. [STRONG STATIC] PETER: Fine! It was just a thought. [STATIC DECREASES] So leave. ARCHIVIST: Not before I get some answers. PETER: That’s not going to happen. ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] Tell me your story, Peter Lukas. [STATIC INCREASES] PETER: No…! ARCHIVIST: Tell me! PETER: [GROANING, STRUGGLING] Fine! Fine. […] I’m. Not saying. Another. Word. [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Tell me, or I will rip it out of you! [STATIC INCREASES] PETER: [STRUGGLING] No…! ARCHIVIST: Answer. My question! PETER: NO! Leave – me – ALONE! [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: TELL ME! PETER: [GROANING SCREAM] [RIPPING, EXPLODING SOUND] [STATIC FADES] ARCHIVIST: … Stubborn fool…

Peter was not an innocent, was horrible; although he was indeed born in a bad family, we clearly saw that that doesn’t necessarily mean turning into a monster (his brothers and sisters either didn’t have the personality, or cut ties as soon as they became adults). This is still a lifestyle he chose to embrace, relying on sacrificing innocents?

But even then, it really doesn’t make Jon’s actions heroic and “right” at all: forcing Peter to spill his story, destroying someone who couldn’t do much more damage to him or Martin and whose last words were “Leave me alone” (ffs), and almost shruggingly putting the blame on Peter afterwards. In this episode, although Peter tried to ~seduce~ Jon into The Lonely, the monster clearly was Jon: Jon, who fed The Eye through Peter and got himself fed through Peter’s misery and revealed secrets, and who used Eye powers to destroy Peter. Even if he did some good (?) to Martin, it was still by using the same powers, granted by that Fear god, in the same episode during which Jon broke his hunger strike (“only” three months, from Manuela on the 16th of June, to Peter on the 25th of September)… and that really can’t be good, uh.

(- ;; Also ;; That association of the archives/the institute as Jon’s “home”…

(MAG143) HELEN: Go find your Basira. Then, let’s get you both home. (MAG159) ARCHIVIST: Not anymore. Come on – let’s go home…

Not good ;; Maybe it will turn out that Jon was planning to get Martin out of the institute in that last one, but I doubt it ;;)

(But that switch, with Jon going from “I killed a man because he didn’t want to answer my questions” to “Martin!”:

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: … Stubborn fool… [FOOTSTEPS] Martin…! He’s gone, Martin. He is gone. MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] His only wish was to die alone. ARCHIVIST: Tough…! Now, listen to me, Martin. Li–listen… MARTIN: [DISTANT, VOICE ECHOING] Oh, hello, Jon. ARCHIVIST: Listen – I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer and w– … well, maybe it is… But we need you. I need you.

Jon confirmed as a cat, going from murderous to uwu in a few seconds.)

- There were a few things in Peter’s statement which put me in mind of Robert Smirke’s letter:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I have been blessed with a long life, something few who crossed paths with the Dread Powers can boast, but now… at the end of it, my true fear is that I have wasted it, chasing an impossible dream. […] So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I… perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a “Grand Ritual” of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the Powers so, it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper. They certainly do now, and I shudder to think how Lukas, Scott and the others may use this conception.”

(MAG159) PETER: Thinking about it now, perhaps one of the reasons I lasted as long as I did was that I was, at the end of the day, predictable. A “known quantity”. I had my little patch, sending my poor lost sailors to their Forsaken end, but I rarely stepped outside of it. When I think of all those I met who travelled in this secret world we found ourselves in – Gertrude, Simon, Mikaele, even Rayner… there are plenty whose lives might well have been easier with my death, but it was rare that I strayed outside my habits.

It was mostly the overall tone of someone who knows they’re going to die soon, with the statement feeling more like a testament at that moment? But, in Smirke’s case, he was still seeing people (although corrupted) still going on, which quite contrasts with Peter since…

Season 4 really feels like a season clearing up and “concluding” a lot of stories which had been ongoing until now? We learned about so many rituals, and how they weren’t a pressing concern or an ongoing issue for the next decades (Gertrude took care of The Spiral, The Buried, The Flesh, The Lonely; The Slaughter and The Vast have wasted their chance recently, same for (Jon  thinks) The Corruption; both Elias and Gertrude had understood that The Dark wouldn’t succeed in 2015; Agnes’s doubts prevented The Desolation’s from happening; team Archives handled The Stranger at the end of season 3; The Hunt, The End and The Web can’t complete their rituals or don’t have any interest in doing so). And at the same time, we also got so many confirmations over reccurring characters’ fates and the circumstances in which they died and got neutralised, at least officially: The Stranger’s minions exploded at the end of season 3 (only leaving Breekon, who was Known by Jon rather forcefully); Gertrude’s hypothesis regarding Tom Haan in MAG130 revealed that we had probably witnessed his ending in MAG030 already (fading away, following his failed ritual); there wasn’t any trick and Maxwell Rayner seemed to have indeed been taken care of in the events related in MAG073 (MAG135, MAG140, MAG143), [Vardan Darvish] had indeed been killed in the events described in MAG109, and Manuela Dominguez, one of the last cultist, was swallowed by Helen’s doors in MAG143; we witnessed a (?) Web avatar’s last moment in MAG136; Agnes Montague indeed organised her assisted suicide in MAG067 (MAG139, MAG145); though still shrouded in mystery, Mikaele Salesa has been (at least officially) dead for years (MAG141); Eric Delano had indeed been dead since the 90s (MAG154); Adelard Dekker died shortly before Gertrude (MAG157), ensuring John Amherst’s confinement and neutralisation for a long time at least. We already knew about Gertrude’s death (we heard her getting shot live in season 4, tho); we heard Leitner’s murder; Gerry Keay stopped living and then actually died when Jon burned his page; Mary Keay had been dead for a few years and Gertrude had burned her page; Jane Prentiss died at the end of season 1; Arthur Nolan’s death was described in MAG055; Diego Molina in MAG012; Raymond Fielding had been taken care of by Agnes in the 70s; Mike Crew was murdered/Buried in MAG091; “Michael” was replaced in MAG102… and now, we can add Peter Lukas to the list of avatars/monsters who are not current concerns anymore.

Who are the recurring figures left and still kicking, at this point? Amongst the old or middle-aged ones: Jared Hopworth (Flesh, turned avatar in 1996, manhandled by Helen at the end of MAG131 but set free), Jude Perry (Desolation, turned avatar in 1991, still kicking though their ritual was neutralised), Trevor Herbert (Hunt, old as balls), Daisy (Hunt, began to deal with the supernatural as a child and formally starting 2002; Trevor and Daisy might be currently destroying each other), “Elias Bouchard” (Beholding, Jonah being more than 200 years old), Simon Fairchild (Vast, a few centuries old, having a blast).

We have a few recent avatars around: Oliver Banks (End, turned in or after 2015), Annabelle Cane (Web, turned in 2010), Helen-the-Distortion (Spiral, took over in 2017), Julia Montauk (embraced The Hunt in Summer 2010), Jon (Beholding, gradually groomed into avatarhood from late 2015 to early 2018), potentially Martin (Beholding-touched Lonely, late 2017 and 2018).

… it really feels like a clean slate? What can there be afterwards, an expansion of that new generation of avatars, or nothing at all…? (We still have The Extinction, and Hill Top Road, and most likely Beholding happening or trying to happen right now… but it really feels like a current cycle has been reaching its end…?

- WorriedAboutElias™ T____T

(MAG135) BASIRA: [DRY SIGH] What was the point? You won’t be getting your ritual off from in here so, what do you need him for? What’s so important you need him stronger?

(MAG158) ELIAS: You’ve lost, Peter. Admit it. […] Peter. [PAUSE] It’s time. […] It won’t be that bad, Peter~ [CHUCKLE] You’ll see. Now: he’ll be here soon, so you can leave, or… PETER: Oh no. No. I’m not gonna make it easy on him. You haven’t won yet. ELIAS: Your choice. Just make sure to leave the door open. [VERY SHARP SQUEALS OF DISTORTION INCREASING, REACHING A PEAK, THEN DECREASING AND STOPPING] ELIAS: [LONG, ECHOING, DELIGHTED LAUGHTER] [SELF-CONTENDED SIGH]

(MAG159) PETER: So I suppose that’s probably why I reacted so rashly, trying to rip his victory away. Keep you here. But it looks like I might have underestimated my opponent, once again. ARCHIVIST: … What was his prize? What did he get, if you lost? PETER: Oh, he got you. ARCHIVIST: … I, I don’t understand. PETER: And you won’t. Not from me. I’m done.

… I do love and hate equally both meaning behind that “he got you”: as in, “he fooled you” and “his prize was you”.

Question still open as to what Elias wanted Jon to do exactly, and how he’s now planning to use it. For the second part, given his questions about Jon’s fear, I’d say it was about Jon’s experiencing The Lonely as a fear and/or getting an experience of it through first-hand experience (Jon being afraid of it, Jon picking it apart once inside of it and knowing it intimately); could still be about collecting the statement of a Lonely-worshipper, too, since Elias had been… delighted… right after Peter had decided to make it harder for Jon although his presence wasn’t part of their deal (given how Peter had been played by everyone until now… he could have been fooled about that part too. Elias did mention that “Your choice~”, and the bastard is all about rubbing your own mistakes in your face, even when he engineered everything for you to make that decision).

And now, Jon has known all the Fourteen Fears, got to “to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others” (MAG092): he has done both, completing the set of getting statements, live or written, from people serving through the sacrifices of innocents or overtaken by a Power, and experiencing direct manifestations:

* Everything about The Eye.

* The Web: Annabelle Cane’s insight into The Web (MAG147) / being controlled by A Guest For Mr. Spider (MAG080).

* The Corruption: Jane Prentiss’s being contaminated by The Hive (MAG032) / The Hive’s worms burrowing themselves into him (MAG039).

* The Spiral: Michael-The-Distortion’s statement (MAG102) / Michael’s and Helen’s corridors (MAG078, MAG079 and MAG143).

* The Desolation: Jude Perry’s statement / his hand burned to a crisp (MAG089).

* The Vast: Mike Crew’s statement / enjoy sky blue from your chair (MAG091).

* The Hunt: Daisy’s statement (MAG061), Trevor&Julia’s statement (MAG109) / hunted by Daisy (MAG091) and Julia (MAG107) (“Do I miss being chased…?”).

* The Stranger: Breekon’s “extracted” statement (MAG128) / got to learn the feeling through the Not!Them in season 2, got to “See” Nikolas (MAG119), the overall Unknowing experience.

* The End: Oliver Banks’s statement (MAG121), bonus Tova McHugh (MAG155) / the whole refusing to die and becoming something else post-explosion (MAG120, MAG121).

* The Slaughter: Melanie’s account (MAG117) (?) / Melanie’s murderous attempts in the second half of season 3 and beginning of season 4, culminating with getting stabbed at the end of MAG125.

* The Flesh: Jared Hopworth’s statement / body twisted and two ribs being taken (MAG131).

* The Buried: Hezekiah Wakely’s statement (MAG152) / going into the coffin and learning what is Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe (MAG132).

* The Dark: Manuela Dominguez’s written (MAG135) and live (MAG143) statements / killing the Dark Sun by sight (MAG143).

* The Lonely: Peter Lukas’s statement / going into The Lonely (MAG159).

=> idk if it was misleading, or if yeah, completing the set was the point all along, but if the latter: I hope that Elias minimising The Extinction and not initially factoring it in could bite him in the arse (MAG138: “In my case, while Peter has talked of it before, it is only very recently that I’ve been forced to admit The Extinction is real.”)

Other actors who could do something in MAG160:

* Helen, who’s probably been eating popcorn and enjoying the chaos but… could still do something else to make things a bit worse.

* Annabelle: we know that she has plans for Jon and needed him alive for something (MAG147: “I’ve simply been… watching. I’m sure you understand that. Maybe I’ve occasionally been nudging something here and there to keep you safe, to keep everything on track.” + Oliver went to push Jon to wake up at the request of someone from The Web), and we still don’t know what that is… She could be collaborating with Elias, or she could be planning to stab him last moment, I guess?

* Baaaaaaaaasiiiiiiraaaa: she had left the chaos by the end of MAG158, I don’t think she has many other options than trying to reach the Panopticon herself…? And all season has been about her getting misled and manipulated by Elias, making bad decisions and/or not managing to get any “win”… (=> on the one hand, there is still a knife in the Panopticon near Jonah’s original body and his current one; on the other hand, Basira had also been associated to her search for Annabelle Cane in this second half, insisting to go to Hill Top Road, being told by Elias to drop it, explaining to Jon that she was still trying to find her… So if anything regarding Annabelle happens, I’m kinda expecting it to be through or with Basira.)

(Oooooooorrrr… plain timeskip and we don’t know what happened exactly / only get glimpses and clues thanks to MAG160? MAG158’s summary felt a bit more canon/relevant than usual: “#0182509-A – Original recording of events leading to the disappearances of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Alice Tonner and Peter Lukas.” and we got a B-side with MAG159. That leaves Basira and Elias as people who aren’t perceived as having ~disappeared~ by the time of that summary, so… either dead, or in plain sight.)

MAG160’s title is [REDACTED] and that’s a 16th Fear on its own. Idk. Straightforward “Watcher’s Crown”, terrible Eye Pun, “Anniversary”, “Mr Blackwood-Sims”, surprise!Web title (“Mother”)?? I have no idea, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrg ;; (I wanna hope for a kinda soft, bittersweet ending for this season, allowing us to breathe a bit and enjoy the hiatus before everything ends terribly in season 5? But realistically: it’s prob Watcher’s Crown Time or Extinction emergence time or Web hijacking time and we’ll spend the next months in agony and dread and worry and mourning, uh.)

(Had a dream last night that the episode was delayed and released when I was on my way to get another friend back to my home, so I only came home to witness the early chaos of Aza and other people listening: title was “If I stay long enough to live” (???), and it was mostly dealing with Tessa Winters and Extinction (???). Fun times