#and also gertrude was being manipulated by The Web and emma harvey

[akaikali]

I am a TMA women defender for life nothing can change my mind

[girlbossgertrude]

10 REASONS AGNES MONTAGUE IS THE TAPES (formal long vers)

Through Gertrude and Agnes’s web bond, it is implied that the two both acquired traits of the other. We see this with Gertrude and her tendency towards fire and the Desolation. This would have to be mirrored in Agnes in some way, through beholding tendency and power. Though I do not think the tapes are of the Beholding, I think this fact is important to remember.

In MAG 162, the tapes that mysteriously came with the package that held the ritual statement both mention fire in the archives/burning down the archives. See here: “TIM: I mean it! We’ll burn this place to the ground!” and the whole scene with Gertrude getting angry at Gerry for burning cursed leighters in the archives. And, as I write this, I realize that fire is also mentioned in another extra tape in early season five (MAG 161); Jon yells at Tim for bringing a fire source in the archives in the Birthday Party scene! (ARCHIVIST: Alright, yes - thank you. I do hope you’re planning not to light those candles.) And, also in 161, Gertrude is literally planning down to burn down the archives and talks of fire, and her pyromaniac streak, caused by her bond to Agnes. (GERTRUDE: Paper burns well,...Petrol burns better. LEITNER: I always forget your pyromaniac streak. GERTRUDE: Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes sometime.)

In MAG 80, Leitner talks to the tapes like a specific person right before he gets killed. There is no one else in the room with him. “[SILENCE] LEITNER: I’m not sure you would have liked him, you know. He’s paranoid enough. But I don’t think he’s got the stomach for it [SILENCE].” Most assume he’s talking to Gertrude (I did), but that really doesn't make sense in the context of most tapes theories ™ . Gertrude is very much dead. Basically, it’s possible that he could be talking to Agnes here, especially in the context of the next point-

“REMIND ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT AGNES SOMETIME.” This line from MAG 161 has so much potential for foreshadowing. It could mean so very many things. But in this context, this implies Gertrude could have told him about Agnes listening behind the tapes? Though this doesn’t make sense in some possibilities of how Agnes is the tapes, it is important to note.

Agnes is very marked by the web and the tapes being associated with the web is highly, highly plausible. She has been affected and tied up in the web since birth! She burned spider webs in Jack Barnabus’s home, and obviously, she was anchored to Gertrude through the web’s ties for years, as well as living in Hill Top Road, AKA Web Supreme. Additionally, she’s killed multiple web avatars: Raymond Fielding, and Emma Harvey. Agnes is interconnected to Hill Top Road, and the crew is there right now, its incredibly plausible that she’s going to come up again. She already did, actually. It is mentioned in the 196 statement that Agnes was the one who opened up the dimensional rift incidentally- from burning down HTR, it caused the crack to open more. ([Raymond Fielding was] “immolated by the Chosen of the Ravening Burn. The house of the time was destroyed along with him, reduced to ashes, and with that the crack finally became… a gap. A hole around which time, dimension and reality began to bend, shudder and leak.”) This feels important.

Agnes Montague supposedly died in 2006, and then in MAG 139, which is taken sometime in 2006, Eugene Vanderstock tells Gertrude that Agnes has died, but- then in 2009-2011, Agnes and Gertrude met up, sometime after Sannikov Land to discuss the subsequent murder agaisnt Emma Harvey. So, she came back from the dead. Or, it’s a classic timeline mistake and I’m insane, of course. Two things that are important to note here: 1. It is important to remember that most desolation avatars had to “die” to become an avatar (I.E.: Jude setting herself on fire in front of her wife to become a avatar) while Agnes had been a true avatar from the get-go, so that could have been her “first death” like the others. 2. In some patreon extended version of the season 3 Q+A, Jonny Sims, when asked about timeline mistakes, says there is a “nexus of timeline discrepancies that is [a part of my] master plan.”

The recording of Gertrude’s death was one of, if not the first recorded times a tape turned on. That’s it, I just feel like that’s important.

The tapes are increasingly being confirmed as web, though so far it seems like web AND something else. “MARTIN: Wait. Wait… The tapes�� ANNABELLE: A fine material to spin a web with, don't you think?” I think this confirms that the tapes are at least partly web, though what makes me think that they aren't fully web is what the two say after; Martin asks if it’s been Annabelle listening all along, and she says “Oh Martin. You have no idea who's listening, do you?” I know most choose to interpret this as wholly a fourth-wall break, and an implication that the tapes are us, the audience, but I am choosing to interpret it differently. I think, at times, there can be a character that acts as the audience, says what everyone's thinking and all that. I think that’s happened a lot in this podcast, and I think when Annabelle said that, I interpreted Martin as the audience here, and that Annabelle was telling us “Lol. You guys have NO idea who’s listening behind the tapes!” not that like. She was telling Martin you have no idea who's listening *points to us, the listeners, who are listening*. Also! I think it’s important to note that Annabelle said “who” and not “what”? I don’t know, I feel like that’s important for some reason, in a podcast of weird entities.

A new possibility: Agnes (or someone else but that's not what this post is about) communicating through previously recorded tapes, but being able to get her message across through them. What I mean is that at the end of 196, three different tapes click on, of Jon telling Martin specifically to listen. Someone could be manipulating the tapes to do this. I personally think Agnes doing this fits with her story well; as we’ve only ever heard her story told by other people, and additionally, the overarching theme of not choosing what she is, what she's becoming. Additionally, I feel like it is definitely a possibility that Gertrude could have bond Agnes to the tapes as she has a history of doing things like that, or their web bond could have caused it, as well.

The parallels between Jon and Agnes are incredibly obvious. One line parallel that stands out to me is Agnes to Jack Barnabus in MAG 67 Burning Desire: “She asked me if I had a destiny…[after he replies no] She looked at me, with the same sadness I’d seen on her face before. “That must be nice,” she said, and went back to staring into the sunset.” juxtaposed with Jon talking to Gerry in MAG 111 Family Business: “Sh-She never showed any...er, abilities, or talked about...I don’t know, destiny? Like she was...b-becoming something?” Truly, at the end of the day, Neither of them chose this life for themselves. Neither of them wanted to be Chosen, neither of them chose this life like other avatars did (ex: Jonah Magnus, Jude Perry). They could relate to each other, is what I’m saying. And Jon desperately needs someone to relate to right now. Additionally, the talk of burning down the archive throughout the seasons, specifically season five (see reason 2), and Jonah at one point calling the Archivist/Jon the “Archive” does not slip my mind.

[idislikethissite]

couldn’t help overhearing your tags… you have a Big Theory for tma??? 👀👀

OK SO! I came up with the first part and my boyfriend worked with me to put together the second two thirds. It mainly involves Beholding, The Web, The Extinction, and the Magnus Institute. TLDR directly beneath the cut.

TLDR: Beholding, at the time tma takes place and since approximately the founding of the institute, is in the process of splitting in two: one branch becoming the emergence of The Extinction and the other merging with The Web. Part one:

We know that The Extinction (AKA The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, and The World Is Always Ending) has to do with exactly that: fear of a future without all that is known, of a terrible change, that all you know is continuously ending. Each of these requires something in common: a record of what has been, and what there is now; a record of that which there is to lose. Tragedy itself.

Which role do we know which deals fundamentally with tragedy, who has their very being etched with that fear, and with tragedy, and with Seeing what has happened?

The Archivist, and by extension the statements and archive, are then the role and form which The Extinction emerges from and through.

There are two potential holes in this: in 197-Connected, Annabelle says “we took his voice” in reference to Jon’s voice in the tapeweb. This will be explored more in parts two and three, but for now I’d like to call attention to her particular phrasing: his voice was taken. The statements were taken, but this doesn’t mean they were necessarily of The Web. 

On a related note, if the tapes were an aspect of The Web that doesn’t line up with Gertrude’s lack of caution around them; despite her usual caution (especially regarding Beholding, cutting the eyes from the covers of all her books) it’s odd that she ignores them. Even the other major web incarnation which she interacts with, Emma Harvey, does not escape Gertrude’s notice; eventually being killed by Agnes at Gertrude’s request (also notable that the tapes have no connection to Emma, or any web avatar aside from Annabelle). Gertrude was consistently dismissive of the existence of The Future Without Us, which lines up with her lack of suspicion around the tapes.

Part two:

In episode 79: Hide and Seek, Not!them says: "I wonder, if I wear you, will I really become the Archivist? Rob the eye of its pupil?" Then, in episode 192: An Appointment, Jon says about Jonah: "Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s the pupil of The Eye." Something happened which divorced the roles of Archivist and Pupil to The Eye which Not!them (and presumably, manifestations of other entities) was not aware of, which implies that it’s a role which they assume to have been synonymous with that of The Archivist.

Albrecht Von Closen, in 23-Swartzwald and 127-Remains to be Seen, is an acquaintance of Jonah Magnus who finds a library under a graveyard in the black forest in Germany. he describes the books there to a doctor Jonah sends, which sound a lot like 1800s and earlier Statements. Jonah steals them, replacing them with empty covers on blank sheets. The doctor believes that this caused Albrecht to become sick and die as he put the blank books back in the crypt, eyes covering his insides.

In this way, Jonah establishes The Institute through manipulation of one who was (likely) meant to be the next Archivist; making himself, as head of the Institute, The Eye's Pupil.

I will mention here that the characters aren't causing these movements in the entities necessarily; instead they are representative of societal shifts in fear; this is the case for all of them, whichever entities they are connected to. 

Elias attempts The Rite of The Watcher's Crown inside the Panopticon, a prison in which the captives cannot know if they, in the moment, are under surveillance; and they are controlled through this not knowing if they are Known.

In 193-A Stern Look, OG Elias lies that his greatest fear is spiders in his interview with jonah James Wright. He then is (made to) imagine a spider crawling over his face, a foresight of his eyes being removed- and the Spider is symbolic of Jonah.

Thus, Beholding is split: half the momentary yet omnipresent surveillance of totalitarianism merged with The Web, and half becoming the Record Of The Always Changing.

Part three: 

Oliver banks, in the statement of his domain in s5, believes that the entities fear their own end; this is likely projection as much as any attribution of thought is toward the entities (including The Web), but it's also as accurate as any of those other projections. The entities act according to how people feel like they should work, after all.

Simon Fairchild, in 151: Big Picture, expresses Peter Lukas' belief that The Future Without Us would leave a world in which the other entities couldn't survive. Several threads point to different forms and specificities, but a plan of The Web('s avatars) would likely be to bind itself to the Extinction; it's bound characters and beings and items before after all.

Jonah Magnus, both in 160-The Eye Opens and 200-Last Words (as well as all the terrors he babbles in the background appearances through the late part of s5), reveals his own desperate fear of his coming death. This parallels the fear which Oliver hypothesizes the other entities have toward The End, particularly The Web which might attempt to avoid this by binding itself to The Extinction (which peter had hypothesized would lead to a world which continually ended and recreated itself in order to fear another end and recreation, ad infinitum).

Ways this could've gone down with focal points: The Web trying to bind itself to The Extinction through Jon and Martin's love (either of them could represent Web and/or Extinction in different ways), through Jon killing Elias as the main roles of Web and Extinction connections to Beholding(which would leave martin, fittingly, alone in the panopticon as a callback to the s4 finale), or something else. Who knows, maybe Basira being “Detective” could have become relevant. 

[bodyinthebog]

ok lads it be SUMMARY TIME:

[MAJOR TMA 167 SPOILERS AHEAD]

Gertrude replaced Angus Stacey as archivist, who was killed by a “creature of masks and smiles” - possibly the Not!Them? EDIT: Nikola?

The first ritual she took down was the Stranger’s, or the “Grinning Wheel,” using fire

The Head of the Institute when Angus Stacey was archivist was Richard Mendelssohn, presumably the predecessor of James Wright

Angus Stacey had wanted to re-organise Smirke’s 14 Fears

He left one assistant behind, named Fiona Law (Fiona was previously mentioned in MAG 29: Cheating Death, as the woman who records the statement), and she decided to remain at the Institute

Fiona is a mixture of “curiosity and cowardice,” fainting to avoid danger, meaning that by entering the realm of the End one is safe from the other fears?  

Getrude’s first three assistants therefore were: Eric Delano, Fiona Law, and Emma Harvey

Eric was first mentioned in MAG 62: First Edition, and Gertrude recorded his statement in MAG 154: Bloody Mary, where Emma was first mentioned

Emma is described as Gertrude’s confidante, and she knows about the bond between Gertrude and Agnes (MAG: 145: Infectious Doubts)

Emma would volunteer herself and Fiona to investigate statements, as she wanted to know why Fiona wasn’t dead yet, and would put Fiona into encounters with the Entities (namely the Dark and the Lonely)

The Institute found a coffin (presumably the same one that Daisy and Jon were in during season 4), and it is implied that Emma sent Fiona into it, and she never returned.

At the same time, Emma found cobwebs in her hair that would remain for the rest of her life

Fiona was replaced by Michael Shelley

Emma never touched Eric, since he had been “marked by another whom Emma was keen not to cross,” presumably Mary Keay and the End.

Emma decided to see how long she could keep Michael ignorant

Gertrude began to realise what was happening, but did nothing

Eric disappeared, presumably having blinded himself (MAG 154: Bloody Mary), and eventually being killed by Mary Keay and bound to her skin book (MAG 62: First Edition)

Emma apparently knew what had happened to Eric, although it is unclear as to whether she knew how he had been killed or how to leave the institute, and did not tell Gertrude

Sarah Carpenter (first mentioned in MAG 27: A Sturdy Lock) was Eric’s replacement, and had had some supernatural encounters of her own

Sarah is described as having a “fire,” which drew Gertrude to her

Gertrude was no longer paying attention to her assistants, since the “season of hurried rituals” was coming nearer

Emma sent Sarah into a cave with no end (Buried? Dark?), but Sarah survived

Emma sent Sarah into the woods with a book of astronomy (presumably a Leitner), where she encountered the Vast

Sarah also became affected by the Vast, with literal stars in her eyes

Emma convinced Sarah to say inside a house, so she could be eaten by a hungry door (Flesh? Spiral?), but Sarah survived again

EDIT: This could be the house from MAG 27: A Sturdy Lock

The Web helped Emma in concealing this from Gertrude

The Web also has been manipulating the entities into rituals, and providing Gertrude with plans to stop them

Sarah was killed during Gertrude and Michael’s trip to Sannikov Land, where Michael become the Distortion (MAG 101: Another Twist)

Sarah was killed by a man who “burned on the inside,” presumably a Desolation avatar.

Sarah’s last words were “Hello? I’m from the -”

The man split open to reveal heat, enveloping her

Gertrude now begins to suspect Emma, and went to Agnes Montague

Gertrude and Agnes only met once - their bond has been chosen by the Web

James Wright was now Head of the Institute (it is now 1972) EDIT: It’s Elias

Emma Harvey was killed by a Desolation avatar, possibly Agnes?

Gertrude did not want revenge, but instead to clean an “infection”

Gertrude didn’t hire any more assistants, but still worked with people - Leitner (MAG 161: Dwelling), Dekker (MAG 134: Time of Revelation), Keay and Salesa

She never allowed herself to trust (- unlike Jon?)

Without trust, Gertrude would never survive the Apocalypse - she needed an anchor

If an archivist dies with living assistants, their assistants would be free from the Eye.

So, tl;dr:

Gertrude’s assistants were: Fiona Law (in the coffin), Eric Delano (killed by Mary Keay), Emma Harvey (killed by a Desolation avatar), Michael Shelley (becomes the Distortion), and Sarah Carpenter (killed by a Desolation avatar).

And her longest surviving assistant was one influenced heavily by the Web. 

[madmaudlingoes]

Yeah, there’s the fact they had the “don’t sacrifice yourself/the world for me” conversation. But the problem might also be with Martin?

Jon pointed out a while ago that the line between victims of fears and avatars is fuzzy. So I’m not sure whether the “skin suit full of spiders” monsters count as avatars, or if they’re more like the Sarah Baldwin et al, victims who were just recycled for parts.

But Annabelle brings up the possibility of Martin being Web avatar material as part of her explanation for why the original plan wouldn’t work. So my interpretation is, the plan wasn’t just “hurt Martin because it’s Jon’s berserk button,” but rather, that Spiders-Martin would manipulate Jon into doing something specific — and that betrayal by someone so close to him would be what tipped Jon over the edge. 

Here’s Annabelle’s exact words, from the transcript:

I was going to snatch you away. Lure you both into this web, and then take you. Drive him to despair, so that when you returned to him, bulging, and talking in a thousand tiny voices, it would drive him to a final push.

The first part sounds an awful lot like S4 already - Jon and Martin were separated, Jon despaired. But as Annabelle said a minute earlier:

But I didn’t foresee how deep you would fall into The Lonely. Or how far the Archivist would go to get you back. It made things... awkward.

There was a bunch of speculation that Annabelle/the Web was the one who “inspired” Martin to lure Jon out of the Buried with tape recorders, and maybe the plan was to “take him” after that, use that aid to lure him in deeper until he became an avatar. But instead, Martin got close enough to the Lonely that he was manifesting its powers. And then Jon saved him — not just using the Power of Love, but the power of the Eye to ensure Martin would never, ever question that love. “Tell me what you see.” “I see ... you.”

So not only has there not been a good time post-Lonely to “take” Martin, he’s no longer vulnerable to joining the Web. Meaning, even if Annabelle did turn Martin into a bag of spiders, that’s all he’d be: a monster wearing a familiar face, not a beloved betrayer.

(Something something Emma Harvey? Although we still don’t know why the Web bonded Gertrude to Agnes, which is still a pretty significant piece of the puzzle here...)

I genuinely don’t get this “Jon and Martin were too in love for Annabelle’s first plan to work” stuff, I’m pretty sure Jon wouldn’t be any LESS upset about Martin being turned into a spider-husk because he’s in love with him.

And in the end Jon’s love for Martin is going to be what forced him to follow Annabelle, so Annabelle still exploited their love to get them where she wants them...? I’m so confused