#lightless flame is kinda cool

[tipytap]

i have been listening to TMA for like,, a week now and i am HYPERFIXATING SO HARD

like BRO this is SICK (in more than one sense of the word)

i think im kinda gettinf more into the worldbuilding plot now too im on ep 98 :)

[sourbites]

Okay this might be a bit of a reach. But maybe a smut with Kirk. Like enemies to lovers kinda thing. Kinda catches you outside a party smoking a joint crying over some average asshole. Maybe a little argument. Sorta kinda like I hate you so much I wanna shut you up in a sensual kinda way. 🥲

Licking Wounds

sorry it took so long to get to this request! also if this piece lowkey sucks, i am sorry in advance. still kind of sick..... BUT ANYWAY! i pictured kirk somewhere around load era where he (arguably) acted the meanest because he's such a sweetheart i can't imagine him ever beefing enough with someone to be actual enemies. so he's just a bit of a dick. enjoy!

The flux of song lyrics and honey-whispered words swim in your head until it feels like you're being held underwater, Poseidon's hostage. Your ears even do that prickly thing like there's fluid trying to creep inside your eardrums. The fire and rage that fuelled you to storm outside has quickly tanked into nothingness. You're just an empty engine rattling around on fumes of what was. Fuck him.

Seriously. Fuck him. Who invites someone for a date and then acts like — like that with the nearest girl?

You find solitude in the quiet amber night, hidden and tucked into shadows outside the side alley of the bar. The brick wall is cool and unyielding against your skull, your head seeking the stability it brings. The picture of him is burned into your memory like you left your TV on pause for too long. His hip bumping hers, her nails dragging down his neck as he leans in to hear her better. You can still hear the speakers playing songs from inside— a song they're probably dancing to, no doubt.

"Party's inside," You turn your head. Kirk's leaning against the brick wall, grinning at you all smugly. Little fucker. The white scleras of his eyes are blindingly bright against the inky blackness of the night. It's a stark contrast to the lightless browns of his irises. You feel like his gaze is tunnelling holes through you. It's lukewarm out — everything simmers with heat from the September day's sweltering sun.

"Exactly why I'm outside." You sass him back. With shaky hands, you fish out a half-crumpled cigarette. It'll have to do. Patting your pockets again, you find nothing but the cherry on top of a foul night. No lighter. Perfect. Sighing, trying not to cry like a baby outside a bar, you swipe a hand over your face. Hopefully, your mascara isn't too smudged. Whatever.

Kirk throws his hands up out of his pockets in mock surrender. You can tell he's mocking you because of that stupid fucking smile on his full lips. Jerk. The streetlights stream down onto him more than you (because you're tucked snugly into the side alley), his skin glistening gold at the edges in the warm light.

Before you can suck in another breath to verbally take out your awful day on to him, he slinks over to you with this casual slyness. He tucks the end of a joint between your lips and lights it for you. "Loosen up, would'ya?"

"Fucking don't," You tell him, leaning against the wall does nothing to stop you from tilting inwards in red-hot embarrassment and shame. You should've known not to go on a date with that jerk. You always told yourself you'd never be the type of broad to weep over some limp-dicked man. God, you wish you could go back in time and handcuff yourself to your radiator before you stepped outside to meet him. Your reason should've butted in sooner— no one likes captain hindsight.

Kirk just laughs off your nasty drunkenness. He tucks his lighter back in his pocket after lighting his own joint (he got the lighter to burn on the first try— twice. Show off). The lonely flame lapped at the shadows of his face, glinted off of his labret piercing. He looks stupid with that fucking spike. Well, he looks ridiculous anyway.

Still smiling like he's some cherub, he glances at you, "Christ, you're good company. No wonder your date's chatting up some other girl."

Usually, you'd be biting his head off for even daring to speak to you like that. But this is the seventh time this has happened. Or maybe eighth? You don't understand what's wrong with him. Or is it you? This was the hundredth time he's glanced away from you. You've tried everything: mimicking the girls that strike him, icing him out, doing everything he likes, anything you can think of to salvage your relationship. But the truth is, he takes his eyes off you so damn easily. And you're done pretending to be blind.

You laugh humourlessly, exhaling smoke into the stagnant night. It lurks and lingers around you for a few moments longer than usual before it just dissipates into nothingness. The joint does little to soothe you. It only seeps into your blood, your flesh. You need this smoke to cradle your bones, to kiss away the neurons that won't stop making you think.

It seems Kirk doesn't like you silent; because he looks down to scuff the soles of his shoes on the rain-saturated asphalt, kicking around discarded cigarette butts and the glass of long-ago smashed beer bottles. "Listen, about Mi—"

"I don't want to talk about him." You grumble.

Honestly, you don't even want to talk to Kirk. You haven't got the foggiest clue as to why he's even here, bothering you like some fly in your ear. He seems more than eager to go back in and enjoy the party.

"Well, what if I do? What're you going to do, go back inside? Be my guest, you'll see him with his tongue down some other skank's throat." He's way too happy to tell you that. Fucking hell, that's a bit harsh. You swallow the ugly dirtiness you feel and push down that despair that sticks to the insides of your mouth like paper. Why is being loved so hard?

"Why are you even here?" You give him the meanest glare you can muster right now. With sticky eyelashes and a queasy stomach, it's probably more similar to a blank stare.

Kirk shrugs, looking down at his shoes. His voice is uncharacteristically soft, maybe raspy from the smoke, as he rumbles out a gently dismissive, "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, so you can get in my business, but I can't get in yours?" You raise an inquisitive brow.

"Uh, yeah, considering I'm not the one blubbering over the same asshole every time I go out. You make your business everyone else's problem, so don't get so surprised when everyone knows that he fucks other girls." Wow. You work your mouth, blinking, stupefied. You see the blurry outlines of your silhouette staring back at you in a dim puddle in the ground.

You push yourself off the wall and turn your back on Kirk. You hear him scoff in disbelief from behind you as you re-enter the bar. The atmosphere inside is thick, suffocating you straight down to hell with sweat, booze, and cheap jasmine perfume. You don't know why you're back inside. It just seemed - at the time - a better alternative than getting an earful from Kirk. Maybe you can convince the bartender to call you a taxi, considering your phone's dead.

You pull yourself up to the polished wooden bar and quickly recoil your hands once you feel how disgustingly sticky it is. You scan for the guy working behind the bar, but all you see is your idiot fucking date doing his usual tricks to get a girl to go home with him. Maybe it's the weed, maybe you're seeing in better picture, but as you watch him smoothing his warm hands down her arms, brushing his lips against the shell of her ear, you don't feel the usual agony. Okay, sure, it's a little embarrassing considering the patrons saw you with him dancing only a mere twenty minutes ago, but they're drunk, and you bet their picture of you is already beginning to fade.

Huh.

The cool outside air takes that weight clean off your shoulders. "Oh, got bored already?" Kirk calls to you once he sees your figure nearing him.

"Something like that." You take a big inhale of your joint (for luck, not courage) and step real close to him. His scent hits you like a brick wall, all boozy and that rigid tobacoo scent. You hear him murmur out a smooth whoa under his breath.

"Why are you still here? Really." You inquire. Without a hint of shyness, you sauntered into his bubble of space like you owned the place. But now you're here, you don't want to be so commanding and kill the intimacy of proximity.

Kirk lays a hand on your side. His body heat seeps through your shirt. "Would you believe me if I said I didn't like the song they're playing?"

"No song runs for, like, twelve minutes." You point out through hushed giggles. You don't feel loopy from the weed. Is Kirk genuinely amusing?

"Dogs," He hums automatically, brushing away the hair from your forehead with the back of his hand. There are a few rings decorating his fingers that bite your skin upon contact.

"...What?"

"Pink Floyd— the song Dogs," Kirk expands, wetting his lower lip with his tongue. His huge, dark eyes drop to your mouth. "That song runs for, I think... fifteen minutes?"

You can't help but genuinely laugh at him. "Fuck, you're a nerd." You sigh, still grinning. "But seriously, why did you follow me out here?"

Kirk's eyes narrow— just a smidge. "What do you want to hear me say? I saw you run out like a fuckin' kid, and I felt it was my duty to comfort you. Don't be such a goddamn princess, alright? Just drop it."

You don't wriggle out from his touch. Nothing seems that serious anymore. You hum thoughtfully, brushing the pad of your thumb against his chin. You wonder if that piercing hurt. If it was planned. If he cried. "You're a dick." You say it so casually - so easily - that it doesn't even hit like an insult.

You're both just standing there, orbiting each other. It's cooler than anticipated outside; the lightbulbs in the streetlamps are long overdue for a change. They buzz overhead. The scenery lacks the colour of daylight or artificial light like the ones inside the bar. Maybe this near-monochromatic world brings more clarity than the exciting hubbub of passionate reds and the flair of a coddling yellow.

"You don't actually like him, do you?" Kirk's voice is ghostly quiet; you barely hear it. You wish it would haunt you. Through the virile streams of muggy grey smoke, you watch Kirk's facial expression. Mostly, you just watch the smoke in front of you, trying to see words or images within the steady flow of dead, grey air.

Albeit petulantly, you shrug your shoulders. "I dunno. Not recently." Your voice is awkward, mumbling around the edges of the joint Kirk gave you.

It's so difficult to get the cage of your mouth open sometimes. You don't want to talk about how bad you feel, how lonely, how upset you get at night. Your tongue sits in your jaw like a rock, like a dying star weighing you down on the gritty floor. Is it a crime to simply want to be adored?

"I watched you," Kirk clears his throat, avoiding your sad eyes. "On the dance floor. You looked good. Happy. You didn't like him then?"

You shake your head, flicking the smouldering end of the joint into a stagnant puddle of rainwater. "I liked dancing. I like being with someone, just not him anymore. I..." You roll the words around in your mouth. You haven't even been brave enough to write this in your diary, and here you are, about to confide in Kirk— the asshole of the century.

"To be honest with you, Kirk, I'm not really surprised anymore. I know he doesn't actually like me. I just... it beats being alone."

"So you'd hang out with any fucker so long as it's company?" He raises his brows at you. One hand is in his pocket.

Without waiting for you to respond, Kirk scoops your hips into his hands and steers you against the chilly brick wall. You should resist. You honestly should. But you're drunk (tipsy, you'd insist to anyone who dared to point out your warm face and slanted gait) and high and hollow and so loudly lonely. He gives you his shoulder to lay your head on; your hands slide under his leather jacket, enveloping them in heat. Not radiator heat or hot bath heat— human heat. The real deal.

His mouth tastes like warm tequila. Toasty, smooth tequila that sinks down your throat almost. Such a peaceful mouth, free of the brambled insults it hurls at you. You're led closer to him, tethered to this rope that is his full pink lips. Kirk's fingertips sink into your ass; it sets your wayward heart roiling with newfound contempt for him, and yet you sigh into his kiss, wanting to consume his every earthy-tequila breath and bandage it around your shuddering skin.

Your whole body rattles with tiny electric pulses that rise like steam to fog up your brain that's too thick to see through. Everything is Kirk. You barely register that a song is flowing out of the bar and into your swirling head. I Wanna Be Adored, but it's being covered by some cool, angsty chick.

Both your faces pull away from the kiss. The spell's not broken, though. The moment, the heat, it all lingers... neither of you want to give it up for a memory just yet. Your mouth tingles with the phantom heat of Kirk's lips against you. With jellified muscles, the back of your skull slowly sinks into the brick wall as best as it can. Kirk's mouth is on you again, on your pulse, trailing quick, flighty kisses around the collar of your shirt.

"You done whining about your boyfriend now?" Kirk mutters, in between pressing his teeth into your shoulder, capturing your skin and tugging down your shirt until the fabric warps. Greedy. Saying anything smart will ruin the magic, so you just dig your nails into the nape of his neck, relishing in the way he pours a groan onto you.

Goosebump-inducingly hot hands slide up your side, planting you in place. You wonder if Kirk can read your thoughts— if he's purposefully coaxing you away from nurturing any rational thought that would butt in with a: 'Whoa there, girlfriend!'

The spiked jewellery of his labret piercing digs into your skin. You hiss. The little fucker laughs at you. How Kirk makes you feel - like you're in some artsy film, where everyone else fizzes into the background, and all your lines are witty - it doesn't mesh well with his blunt personality. You feel like you shouldn't ever pull yourself away from him. He slyly bumps his hips into yours; his hand travels south to your thigh, coaxing it up to hook around his waist.

"I wanna be adooored..."

The singer's distant voice haunts you through layers of brick and mortar. Kirk's tongue laps over a teeth-shaped ring on your neck. You keen into him, your flesh is irritated by him, and yet the only medicine for you is him. He's pressing against you like you press your hands into your eyes to stop yourself from crying. Your palms burn, his mouth feels like the start of forever and simultaneously feels like the final nail in your coffin. Would he listen if you whispered your sorrows to him?

In the corner of your eye, before everything that isn't your spotlight on Kirk fades away, the cheap neon sign lights bleed into the puddles on the pavement.

"You want to make him jealous?" Kirk noses into your ear, skirting his fingertips around your hips restlessly. You know what he's alluding to. Does it always have to be about him? Why can't this just be for you?

Cementing yourself to the moment, you rest your arms on Kirk's shoulders and lock them together, letting his worn-smooth leather jacket meld into your skin. "No. I just want to feel good."

Satisfied, Kirk purrs, "I can do that," into the shell of your ear— before kissing the cartilage and grabbing an eager fistful of your ass.

He looks up at you from his resting place on your shoulder. Enormous brown eyes framed by thick, long eyelashes. Desire rolls around in your belly. You feel tethered to him. Fucking him would be like fucking a concept, a piece of art— though you do want him. Terribly so.

Kirk's stronger than he looks when he gets your legs fully around him, your panties to the side. His hard, aching cock is propped up on the waistband of his jeans that he's had to inch down his hips. The unattractive buzz of neon lights and old streetlamps still lingers around, like a wasteland where made-of-flesh cicadas have been replaced by synthetically monotonous, perverse humming. He uses two of his fingers to coax you open, slicked up with his spit and your own wetness. The heel of his palm pushes into your throbbing clit. You shudder around him.

Once your common sense washes over you, and the smell of Kirk no longer blinds you, you're sure to feel shame that you've taken the world's most annoying man's dick right outside a bar. But right now, all you know is Kirk's thick fingers curling within you so deep, your knees locked around him, and his mouth sucking bruises into your ribs.

The song hits the instrumental bridge. It just rattles in your head. Then Kirk fills out the rest. Between the beats, there's him.

You use all the breath in your chest to power out a muffled moan into his collarbone. Kirk replaced his fingers with his cock— and fuck, is it an upgrade. You didn't realise your eyes were closed in cock-drunkenness until you felt your lashes against your warm cheeks. Kirk presses into you; all the way to the base of his cock, where his happy trail is dirtied by your overeager cunt, smearing the arousal that leaks out of you onto him.

Kirk was never on your lists of goals or dreams or lovers, and here he is, giving you the best fuck of your life. He's got a palm on the wall, cushioning your head, the other securing you around him with his hand cupping your thigh. You know next time you're in the shower, you'll find his fingertipped bruises on the backs of your thighs with your own fingers, and you know all the sweltering heat from tonight will come shooting back to you. All it will take is a touch, a memory. In the words of Virgil: smooth the descent, and easy is the way.

It's a lot of bumping, it's a lot of filthy mouths saying filthy things. Your skin is burning— you cling to him desperately, shoving your nose into his neck until you can almost smell the iron in his blood. His golden skin makes your mouth water— just a hard-edged jawline and glittering jewellery that commands attention like the sun at noon. Other men (like the one in the bar, oblivious to the fantastic night you've having) before Kirk have bumbled and fumbled around your body and searched within you blindfolded, wholly missing the mark when it comes to pleasing you. But Kirk? He's a fucking mind reader. If you think deeper, he's lewdly swinging his hips until they piston into your cervix with so much zeal that you think you're going to faint and tear his skin open with how evilly you're clawing at his arms. If you think slower, you can hear the pornographic squelches of your sopping wet cunt; can feel every single atom of his wonderfully skilled cock reaming you open.

The song's outro swirls in your head. Like a siren's spell, working hand-in-hand with Kirk to keep you hypnotised.

"You adore me... (I wanna).... You adore me.... (I wanna....)"

You don't care. You don't care about anything. When he's inside you, it feels so good it hurts. It chases away any cold-lipped loneliness. It's all just Kirk, Kirk, Kirk. He crushes his mouth onto yours. His spiked labret jewellery rests against your skin, vaguely threatening. No matter those Bambi eyes, he'll never be soft. Never be yours. He's practically lunging his hungry cock within you. There's no doubt in your mind that your tailbone is going to be sore tomorrow— you can already feel the pattern of bruises lined up your skin where Kirk grasped and clutched at you and dug in his blunt nails.

Even though you still feel hollowed out, you feel your organs rattling within you, your eyes unfocused yet still trained on him, stupefied by how impressive his performance is. You arch against him, crying out against his palm. He shushes you, grinning. He's grinding his hips into yours as if he's trying to fucking pave his way within you for his return, so he knows his way around.

"Fuckin' gorgeous," Kirk hisses, groping more bruises into your thigh, sucking at the base of your neck. "Gorgeous girl. Gorgeous pussy." He exhales, his breath fanning across the circles of his spit on your neck.

You take a hand and curl your fingers into his palm, the one plastered on your mouth to silence you. You're not sure why you do it. Maybe you just want to hold a part of him.

"S' funny," Kirk laughs, all velvety-smooth in a way that has your insides fluttering around him. "That fuckin' idiot in there... missing out on you," He groans.

"It's me who makes you moan like this - gets you so wet - me who gets to ruin your pussy for anyone else. You're mine, baby—"

"Kirk," You warn noisily into his hand. Then a moan quickly stumbles out around his palm. He grins smugly against your neck.

You grab onto him for dear life. He's a sight: deliriously hot and cocky as he splits you in two against a brick wall (that's probably scraping up his hand that's acting as your cushion). His ploughing slows into a sloppy glide, subjecting your ears to the embarrassing squelch of your bodies joining together. The stars in your eyes are lit. Kirk needed to see it, even if he's never been one for stargazing. The back of your neck is boiling hot; your hair is sticking to your forehead— most of your skin is dampened by sweat or slick. He's panting into your skin, hips finally stuttering against your pelvis. Brittle cries live and die in the back of your throat. His cock swells and fills you to the brim as you soak him to the bone. Your eyes roll so far back in your head that you almost catch a glimpse of your brain. Frenzied, your cunt pulses around him, your abdomen pulled taut.

You almost slide down the entire length of the wall once Kirk gingerly untangles your limbs. Your muscles ache, jellified, so dazed with that love potion he had you gulping down. You gasp big mouthfuls of air. You can taste the salt of sweaty skin and the muggy city on your tongue. The insides of your thighs are uncomfortably sticky.

Kirk cups your cheeks in his hands and kisses your brow. You've tasted the good and the bad in him— and you want them both.

"You're done griping now, I hope." He murmurs into your temple. What a fucking jerk.

[alkhemeya]

The Magnus Archives, Episode 11 — 13. Thoughts.

I've decided instead of speedrunning the damn podcast, I'll just listen to like, 3, a day.

Also, I'll be getting my Ipad earlier then expected. They just needed to replace the screen. So, albino Sims fanart will happen soon!

Statement Begins.

Episode 11 — Dreamer.

1. Oooh, this one is about the previous Archivist? Wild. Dreams, too. Makes sense.

1.5. Antonio Blake, love his name. And he's gay/bi! Can't believe he dated a man named Graham. Though, better name then Tim.

2. Huh, Blood vessels? The way people are described here kinda reminds me of, uh, Bloodborne. For some reason. Though, the way the veins are described on the people.

2.5. Bet Antonio sees like, how people die. Like, death clairvoyance. Also, odd how he didn't wake up when he got hurt. Very odd.

3. OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT! He saw how his previous manager (why is he name John too? Why???) was hung by a vein and he hung himself in real life! DEATH CLAIRCOYANCE!

3.5. Every Saturday, huh? And yeesh, 8 years of this?? I find it funny that our guy works in a magic shop. How funny.

4. Oh, oh fuck. Imagine trying to stop your dad's death and he died anyway. Ouch.

5. Scarlet light? That's new. And Gertrude seems to be the only one who died with this stuff in the dream... hmmm.

6. Poor Antonio, trying to stop people from dying and it happens anyways.

7. Sims! And what the fuck did Elias mean 'died in the line of duty'? That's really not a good sign. 100% Elias killed Gertrude. Maybe for, like, ritual stuff?

7.5. Antonio and Geryrude will now go on the list. Yes, Gertrude is dead, but her death is wildly suspicious yknow?

8. And Antonio Blake is a fake name, understandable. Sims thinks its kinda fake, but will clearly want to know if anyone dreams of his death. Same.

Episode 12 — First Aid.

1. Calling it now, we'll hear some wild shit. Like Cannibalism. Nightshift at the hospital is calling for chaos.

1.5. Hear ye! Christmas is not fun for doctors. The Insane shit that happens is wild. I know of a family member who got stabbed on Christmas. Told me about how, when he was waiting in the er, this one guy walked in with a firepoker in the side.

2. Dear god, second degree all over? What fucking happened? Did he get boiled alive? Roasted? The fuck???? Why are his clothing okay???

2.5. And another guy too. Shit. Bet its the spooky fire ghost. Why does the guy have eyes on his joints? Like, cool tattoos, but huh??? Are they protection? Like evil eye stuff??

3. OH MY GOD THE YOING GUY IS GERARS! GERARD WHAT ARE YOI DOING???

4. And the older one is speaking. Asag/Asak, Veepalach, and The Lightless flame. That seems. Important. Maybe it's the fire ghost guy from before? I don't know.

4.5. OUR DOC IS GETTING HOT LIKE OUR BUILDER GUY! The older man may be a fire ghost. Though, he's clearly tangible. Maybe it's fire people? Like, they can't live long because etheyll melt like candles? I'm just throwing stuff to the wall.

5. Okay. Empty AE. Not good. Why is there growling?

6. THE VENDING MACHINES FUCKING EXPLODED? WHAT. WAIT FONT TOUCH THE BUNRING GUY DOC FO NOT.

6.5. DOC IS GOMNA FUCKING GET BURNT.

7. Gérard I love you I adore you have my money. Gérard is a hunter, isn't he? He hunts the supernatural, like Sam and Dean.

7.5. What the fuck do you mean 'better beholding?' What I'd the beholding? Oh, wait. WAIT! IS IT LIKE THE CHURCH THING??? OH MY GOD ARE THEY ELRITCH GODS??? I need to write that down!

7.6. YEAH BURNUNG GUY IS DEAD! Fycking cremated himself tho. Rip.

7.7. I don't like that last sentence. What does he mean hea being watched? Is it that beholding? Is it???

8. Okay, okay! So, Asag is a Demon who corrupts and is disease, okay. OH! Martin speaks Polish? Love that. And apparently some Latin. Sims please stop bullying him.

8.5. So, Sasha is techno person here while Martin is the language guy. Cool, cool. Don't like that last bit about an eye. Really don't!

Episode 13 — Alone.

1. OH MY GOD WE HET ANOTHER BOIXE! Naomi. Love that name.

1.5. Poor Sims trying to explain. Also, full name Naomi Herne. And it's about her fiances funeral? Rip.

2. Okay, regular stuff. Naomi seems depressed, but that's just me. I too love being alone. I don't have to talk to people, or be bothered.

3. The sudden mention of Evan having a religious family immediately made me think of a cult. And it probably is.

3.5. I really don't like the sound of the family. Also, mind control? Or maybe grief? Not sure about that bit.

4. Did Naomi get thrown into a liminal space, but the woods? Or am I just overthinking?

4.5. Naomi. Get out there. I really don't like the sound of that graveyard. NAOMI.

5. I don't know why, but that felt more... Real then the other statements I've listened to. Despite my love for being alone, I also am terrified of it. Especially of I'm the woods. Like, am I truly alone? And if I am, will I get out? Will anyone remember if I die? Will they care? Honestly, being alone can be both terrifying and comfortable.

6. Sims. Sims. You need to learn to be more nice oh my god. This man gets no bitches.

7. Okay, so possibly a teleworking graveyard. Hmm. And the fact that a part of the fragment has forgotten on it...

8. Yeah, the Lukases are a cult, probably about being forgotten or some shit. I can feel it!

And that's it. My head hurts, oh god.

I am not made for this much thinking.

Statement Ends.

[zabala0z]

This season is making me hyperventilate a lot in a fangirl sort of way (but also in a panicked way BECAUSE WHAT??)

Hi! I got 5 episodes that I freaked out over. Come and hear my thoughts. You have to.

MAG 87: The Uncanny Valley

Circus. That girl is named like Nikola Orsinov which is the same last name as the ringmaster of The Circus back in like the mid 1900’s? So I’m assuming she’s a descendant and taking up the mantle of traumatizing people. Gertrude mentioned “The Unknowing” which Not Sasha mentioned before and like Leitner. In this context, it sounds less like a title and more like an apocalypse: not a good sign. ALSO THE MUSIC.

Not much to say for MAG 88: Dig besides I don’t wanna dig. Also the calliope organ is gone. Oh god. Feels like this circus is gonna be the main antagonist this season. Unfortunately I despise clowns

MAG 89: Twice as Bright

I went insane over this episode guys. I love Jude and hate her. The description with her coworker and his new house and baby and wife, I was just screaming, “no dont kill him!! 😭😭”. And she did. Not surprised. Like every word she spoke made me viscerally uncomfortable but she’s such an interesting character.

Also she like…likes Agnes, yeah? I clocked that after reading over the transcript. I’m assuming the entity shes under is like The Desolation cause I think The Lightless Flame is just the name of the cult. Poor Jon. Bros hand is not gonna be the same. Im hoping she appears again. Interesting that Michael Crew hangs around the Fairchilds. Makes sense since like every situation they’re involved in is the whole empty/alone/open area thing. I’m still thinking the entity they’re under is The Vast because that’s what Michael said before jumping out that window and I think I’m right

MAG 90: Body Builder

JARED HOPWORTH. Why did you open a gym, bro?? Like the moment I heard, “large guy-“ my brain, “oh yeah that’s Jared”

The whole flesh torso things, I guess used to be humans but Jared decided “I think they’d look cool without their arms” so that’s why he said “too soon” towards Davenport. Marie probably stole those femurs so I’m wondering if she got the whole bone altering power???

MAG 91: The Coming Storm

Holy shit. Jesus. Oh my god. First off, Mike was so polite??? Like he offered tea and stuff. And then that kinda changed when he like full of astral projected Jon or something. Or I guess he raised the air pressure. Props to the sound effects, I love them. I liked hearing Mikes story but holy shit DAISY. I love Daisy. But girl calm down 😭 actually I can’t even blame her

I was at the temple by the way, making garlands, and listening to this was a nightmare because I couldn’t make any outward reaction. So that’s why I went to a bathroom stall and freaked as Daisy kicked the shit out of Mike. Couple things though; the fact the tape recorder keeps turning on is def a concern. Pretty sure it’s The Eye. I don’t know if it can physically do much since it…watches but that’s what I’m thinking. But why? Is it breaking the 4th wall?

Basira coming in clutch ‼️‼️ Also, Jon getting info out of people is apparently not a natural thing. Makes sense why Jude and Mike told their whole story and even remarked on how strange it was they did at the end of it. It makes sense actually. Jon is truly the main character but utilized in such a great way. Oh he doesn’t die? It’s not plot armor, it’s just the all seeing entity protecting him. Everyone tells him everything? Yeah that’s kinda his power. Love it.

So yeah! That’s everything. Pretty terrified because there’s powerful entities and I’m scared someone is going to die. If Basira or Daisy die, I will cry. Actually if anyone dies, im a very emotionally attached person

[the-lightless-flame]

i saw a poll about agnes ships before so. i am going to talk about agnes ships now (spoiler: i dont really like any of them sorry)

first her and jack. eugene says he thinks it was an expression of her doubt, and im inclined to agree. at that point, agnes was seriously doubting her place in the lightless flame (see: her suicide not long after meeting him), so i feel like she probably wanted an escape and when he asked her out it was the perfect opportunity. also she was pretty distant in all of her dates with him, so it kinda looks like she just wanted an excuse to get away from the lightless flame for an afternoon rather than actually wanting to get to know him.

ok jude. i kinda go back and forth over whether i think they were ever a thing or not but like if they were or not. theres no way they were healthy right?? for one jude sees agnes as an actual goddess and that isnt really the basis for a functioning relationship. plus, imo being treated like that (instead of as an actual person) is why agnes felt so uncomfortable with the lightless flame, so being with the person who's arguably the most devoted probably wouldnt be great for her.

gertrude i like aesthetically. i think its fun. i think if they met earlier and on better terms theyd probably go on a date and have tea and maybe kiss. i dont really ship them tho. id maybe read a fic about them, and i understand their appeal as foils for each other, but i dont really think gertrude would be good for agnes. idk, i think the main thing for me is that gertrude is too far into things at basically every point in her life, whereas what i want for agnes is to get away from that

imo the best ship for agnes is just some random woman. ive already talked about this a little in the web!agnes post but i think she deserves a normal life with a normal person (not jack tho. sorry). and that normal person should be a woman bc agnes deserves to be gay.

i really like the idea of her getting away from all the avatars and whatever stuff theyre dealing with. she should get to live in peace, and imo any ship with someone in podcast wouldnt let her have that.

anyway that is my. opinion on agnes ships. obviously not trying to come for anyones ship here, yall are cool and ur ships are very cool.

u can tell me if u think i mischaracterised ur favourite ship or if i missed one. im prepared to admit if im wrong just know that im probably not

[human-adjacent]

episode 67 - burning desire

- ok so agnes has red hair now. headcanon that she died her hair to better fit the desolation aesthetic

- the desolation and the web REALLY hate each other huh. to the point where agnes’s presence in a room causes the spiderwebs to burn up and disintegrate

- the conflict between the desolation and the web gets more interesting when u think about how agnes seems so much more web aligned than desolation aligned. she was created to serve the desolation but i think if given a choice she would have chosen the web. just the way this guy describes her is SO web. saying that it felt like she “trapped” him when she looked at him, saying he drew her in like a moth to a flame, how he can’t even put into words why we was so drawn to her and why he never questioned her strangeness, etc. it’s all so web

- i kinda hate this episode because agnes to me is a lesbian and i don’t like being wrong. the lesson of this episode is don’t kiss lesbians when ur a man because they will permanently disfigure u and then kill themselves

- ok i forgot jon invented the name “the cult of the lightless flame” but that is actually so funny. he could’ve just called them “the flame cult” or some simple shit. “the mfs who burn people”. but even his enemies have to have a cool badass nickname i guess.

- more elias gaslighting <3

[a-mag-a-day]

MAG 12 - I was doing something in the kitchen xD

Firstly, I never really thought about how present the Eye was in this statement. I was always so focused on Diego as Desolation, that I totally forgot about Gerry and that last sentence about the nurse feeling watched form this time on.

"Christmas is one of the worst periods to be working at a hospital, and in the Accident and Emergency department it’s even more unpleasant. Pensioners who can’t afford to properly heat their homes, drunken party-goers who overindulge and hurt themselves, even just people who didn’t look where they were going and slipped on a patch of ice." (TW suicide for the rest of this bullet point) I don't know if Jonny skipped that because he didn't want to bring trauma into horror or if he genuinely didn't know, but aside from all those, Christmas is a hotspot for suicide. I work at a hospital and it is insane. December and Christmas have become something horrible in our society and in the face of Capitalism. The pressure is extremely high, usually there are a lot of social obligations as well as the financial aspect of (again) being pressured to buy presents. (Also, for the northern hemisphere it's a dark season, so season depression is also not helping.) I have to say, and this is totally just my subjective perception as worker in a hospital, that I noticed a decrease of suicide in 2020. Lockdown in December gave people a breather. I noticed it myself. Usually I'm so stressed out all of December and in 2020 it was pretty much like ever other month.

"but I was struck by how quietly she was speaking to me. She didn’t whisper but every word was quiet, as though it was a real effort to get them out. Nobody else seemed to notice, so at the time I assumed the effect was due to my own lack of sleep." uhhh, is this relevant to what is going on?

Very happy, that I immediately recognized our favorite metalhead Gerry during my first listen around^^

Ah yes, Gerry's eye tattoos. I guess Jonny hadn't figured out the specifics of eyes and Elias and Gerry working with Gertrude (although, the passport seems to indicate already that he's well-travelled) because we all know, in this context it's hilarious. Also always funny to see, that the tattoos are supposed to be very small, but pretty much every cosplayer (including me xD) adjusts them to the size of the joint (and adding one on the throat, because it's cool af). I mean, otherwise you would hardly see them… Also "Small, tattooed eyes on every one of his joints", is this plural because there are multiple small eyes on the joints or is it plural because of (obviously) multiple joints but still a single eye each?

Any ideas, what made all the people in the Accident and Emergency reception and examination rooms leave?

I think the vending machine with all the drinks boiling and making the machine shake is really cool.

Does the brass pendant ever come up again? I don't think it did, did it?

Btw. (in our hospital) usually the only things, which are locked away, are heavy analgesics (like morphine) and anesthesia. You can just pick up a scalpel in examination rooms from unlocked drawers.

Stupid question: I already said that I never kinda got the (Agnes and) Lightless Flame arc. I know they talk about Diego later and his Asag fascination, but what exactly was he doing/trying to achieve?

Gerry death reveal :(((

So many eyes in this statement…

Lots of good questions! Hmmm the people leaving I think is the fears doing the "set dressings" for the ones they're targeting? They do that alot, making people around the target act weird or go away (like Gillespie's apt), but now with the camera we caught a glimpse of it which is fascinating in itself

Anyone else have answers?

[nonbinaryeye]

Yes, @trustworthy-liar​ and I have plenty of headcannons regarding all the lives of Jonah Magnus.

Continuation of THIS POST.

Jonah Magnus

Charming young man who has one day appeared in the society and acted like he always belonged there. He doesn’t like talking about his past.

When he was young he read all books in a family library. After arriving to London he was very surprised by how much he still doesn’t know.

Met Barnabass Bennet for the first time when the young man was travelling through Scotland.

Barnabass later intorduced him to all his acquaintances in the high society such as Robert Smirke and all the others.

Very easily forgets himself in his studies and research especially when there's no one around to drag him away and force him to eat and sleep.

Still genuenly cared about his peers but unfortunately he cared about a knowledge a bit more.

Infamous member of many gentlemen clubs.

Dissapeared at age 83. His body was never found. There are rumors his ghost still wanders through the halls of the Magnus insitute.

(years mark the time Jonah’s conciousnes was inhabiting the body - who would guess that it correspond with time as the Head of the institute as well)

William Bennett

Young, pretty, had decent amount of money and fascinated by all the wierd and obscure things. He was naturally very intriqued when Jonah Magnus offered him a private tour through the artifacts...

Jonah took over William Bennett at age 21. Feeling sour after unsuccesful ritual he decided to enjoy the decadence.

Met with Mordechai once. Lets say Mordechai was not amused by Jonah figuring some way to live longer. And also by the name of the person he chose.

Accidentally got adicted to opium. Jonah didn’t realized till he skipped bodies becuase he was sure he could stop anytime he wanted.

The only time Jonah travelled out of England - to the world expo in Paris in 1989 (“oh it will be probably lame not as cool as ours”). He realized he did not get over his seasickness and fear of ocean by skipping a body way too late.

He met his death at age 47 becuase he got plenty of enemies and also there started to be several rumors about him. Also the opium addiction. Overall Jonah did not treat this body very well - yes, bodies are disposable but he is still living in them...

Jonah made the death look like a murder and framed one of his enemies for it.

Edward Lyon

Edward was boring looking librarian of the Magnus Institute who cared more about books than he cared about people

Body snatched at age of 34

Everyone wrote off Edward’s sudden change of personality as power getting into his head

Jonah establisehed closer relantionship with the Lukas family again - through the dullest person ever, Thomas Lukas

Went back to meticulously researching the rituals and haven’t stopped since 

Died at the age of 64, written off as a heart attact (but for real Jonah just wanted to enjoy 1920′s as a young man)

Augustus Moore

Served in the WWI and after it ended he´was seeking a new life in London and decided to give a statement to the Magnus Institute where he caught the eye of the Head of the institute who offered him a job in the artifact storage

Jonah was jeallous of Augustus being young and having fun so he took over his body at 28 even though he previously planned to wait a bit longer

Around year 1929 he shortly reconnected with Thomas Lukas (who never figured out that he is the same person as Edward or Jonah Magnus - no matter how many not even subtle hints he was giving him)

Spent most of the WW2 hidden in the tunnels scared for his life institute (”Did I miss a Slaughter ritual?”)

During the great fog in 1952 got scared that there was succesfull Lonely ritual

Because there was way too many fog problems in London he decided to skip bodies in 1965 just to be prepared if there was really some ritual

Died at age 65 in a fire, absolutely unrelated to the conflict Jonah was having with the cult of the lightless flame at the moment

Richard Mendelson

Worked in the Library, double faced, acted nice to everyone but behind their back tried to discredit them to make himself look better

At last he got his promotion (to Head of the institute) at age 33

To Jonah’s dismay Mendelson turned out to be lactose intolerant (no cakes for Jonah :(  )

This time he did not come to Lukas but Lukas came to him and boy was he disapointed, Nancy Lukas turned out to be real pain in the ass

Made a wagger with Nancy wether woman can be the Archivist and survive at least 10 years on such position (almost no archivist actually did) - unfortunatley the chosen Archivist was no one else but Gertrude Robinson herself

Unfortunately met his end at age of 47 in a car crash (because Jonah really wanted an icecream and cheese without consequences)

This only fed the rummors about the position of the head of the institute being cursed by Jonah Magnus himself (technically they were not wrong...)

James Wright

Filling clerk at the research department, unhappy, divorced and lonely man with past alcohol adiction problems

Body snatched at age 45, Jonah wanted much younger body of a man who he thouht was named Robert, turns out his name really was just “Bob” and he coudn’t have that

Turned out James had kids, one of them tried to reconect with their absent fater. Jonah was not very happy about it.

In 1989 met with Peter Lukas

Since he couldn’t have alcohol, he wanted to try opium again (moderately this time) and was shocked that it was illegal, so he turned to smoking and cake

Staged his death at age 68 as a suicide

Elias Bouchard

Worked at the artifact storrage

Jonah took his body sooner than previously planned because Elias wanted to get some horrendous tattoo

Jonah threw away all his clothes...but he kept the funny weed socks

Til his end in the Spiral Michael Shelley never figured out why his friend started to act so weirdly (Jonah had it as his side hobby to induce the paranoia in him by acting like the good old Elias to him from time to time)

Peter was very much not amused by this little stunt of Jonah Magnus

Stabbed by his Archivist to death while he was crying like a little bitch he is

𝙁𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙇𝙪𝙠𝙖𝙨 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙅𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙝 𝙈𝙖𝙜𝙣𝙪𝙨

Mordechai Lukas

Already quite rich and well etabilished in the society

Owns a shipping company, which is later the only reason why he still interacts with people

Met with Jonah on gentleman business meeting, they were introduced to each other by Barnabas on Jonah’s demand

To Jonah’s disgust he got married when he was in his early forties

Around 1830s decided to disappear from the society completely only getting ocasionally annoyed by Jonah

After meeting William Bennett he decided that one lifetime with Jonah was enough and dissapeared into the Lonely forever (as you do)

Thomas Lukas

Mordechai’s possible grandson/grandnephew

Rising child lonely at it’s peak

Already married and with few kids when he met Edward. He heard that cheating partner makes one feel very lonely...

Unlike the other lonely avatars Jonah ever encountered this one was trully indifferent towards anything, driving Jonah mad by rarely showing any reaction

Had a brief relationship with both Edward and Augustus however never caught Jonah’s hints who he really is and just assumed that these eyevatars are all kinda the same

Nancy Lukas

The great pain in Mendelson’s ass

Neither impressed nor charmed by him

Regularly calls him out on his bullshit (sexism)

Lonely feminist - believes that independce for women will make everyone more lonely so she supports it

Calls Mendelson “Dick” because that’s indeed short version of Richard

Slightly intriqued by Gertrude Robinson (what a beautiful loneliness right there)

Peter Lukas

First Lukas after Mordechai who really intrigued Jonah

Originally started an affair with Wright because he thought it nice and lonely to be with someone old, who will soon die (boy was he surprised)

Except the train documentaries his guilty pleasure are also romantic movies with tragic ending (Titanic my beloved)

Actually figured it out on his own who Jonah Magnus is(because of course he wanted to play this game again with this fresh new Lukas)

Anyway both @trustworthy-liar​ and I still have plenty of headcannons about Jonah and all of his bodies (especially the oc ones) so you can probably expect more detailed posts with thorough biography of every single one of them in the future.

Just to be clear most of the dates as well as all the funfacts are really just our made up headcannons. We didn’t bother writing here some of the cannon events but they are marked on the  well-arranged timeline.

[pitviperofdoom]

TAZ balance fun sounds cool, what’s up with that?

I've posted this before! The tag is right here. But I still write it from time to time, just for fun. It's a completely self indulgent thing, just the TAZ Balance storyline with TMA characters and elements. Here's a rough lineup of the Seven Birds:

Tim - Merle with some elements of Magnus

Sasha - Magnus with some elements of Davenport

Gerry - Taako

Martin - Barry

Jon - Lup

Gertrude - Lucretia

Adelard - Davenport

Featuring various avatars in the roles of the arc villains.

Here's Jude Perry as Gundren Rockseeker:

---

“Okay, it can’t be just me,” Tim said loudly. “This place is definitely warmer, right?”

“You’ve been saying that we got here,” Gerry groused.

“Yeah, because I’m right!” Tim retorted. “It doesn’t make any sense. We’re basically underground—deep underground—so shouldn’t it be colder?”

“There can be heat underground, can’t there?” Sasha said, with a thoughtful expression. “Like hot springs. I think I read somewhere that they’re caused by underground volcanic activity.”

Up ahead, Jude Perry scoffed. “Great,” she said dryly. “Maybe we can find a nice magma pit to toss you in, Stoker. It’d be worth it for the peace and quiet.”

Tim sighed, and felt oddly gratified when he spotted the dirty look Gerry shot her. Beside him, Sasha leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Isn’t she supposed to be a friend of yours?”

“More like an acquaintance. She’s kinda mean.” He tried to keep his voice down, but he could swear he saw Jude shoot a glare over her shoulder at them. She probably did, because Gerry casually flicked her off a moment later.

“So where’s this vault?” Sasha broke in, as if hoping to head off a confrontation. “And what’s so special about it anyway?”

Jude grinned with all her teeth. “It’s up ahead,” she replied. “As for why it’s special… it wasn’t always just a place to store things. Back in the day, it was the inner sanctum of the Order of the Lightless Flame.”

Tim stalled mid-step, and Gerry’s head jerked around as if startled. Sasha simply looked confused. “What’s the Order of the Lightless Flame?”

“Seriously?” Jude snapped. “Have you been living under a rock?”

“Hey, back off,” Gerry shot back.

“My memory’s… kind of weird,” Sasha said awkwardly. “Just explain it to me like I don’t know anything.”

“Not like I have to pretend.” Jude curled her lip disdainfully. “It was, is, and will be an order of powerful wizards. The greatest and most innovative elemental evocators of their time, or any time.”

“Sounds pretty lofty,” said Tim.

“Don’t interrupt,” Jude snapped. “Wizards of the Lightless Flame spend their lives cultivating raw power within themselves, to greater heights than any mages ever before. In years past they were widely feared, and their influence stretched to every realm in Faerun.” Her eyes glinted. “There were rumors, years ago, that the order was bestowed with an artifact of pure destructive force. It was taken as a sign of their arcane dominion. Some even suspected divinity was involved.” She sneered slightly. “Not me, though. What we have, the gods can’t touch.”

“We?” Sasha echoed.

“But some among the order were… weak-minded,” said Jude, ignoring her. “Arrogant. Stupid, even. They misused the blessing, with disastrous results. By the time the ashes settled, the artifact was lost, and the order was scattered.” Smoke curled from her clenched fists. “If the artifact is anywhere, then it’s here in this vault. Whoever holds it can stoke the Lightless Flame to its former glory.”

Silence fell over the little group once Jude was finished speaking, broken only by their footsteps.

“Interesting story,” Gerry remarked. “What actually happened was: a bunch of magic-school dropouts got together to talk each other up and do all the bullshit that their teachers said they couldn’t because it would kill them. And then it killed a bunch of them. Pretty cut and dry, actually.”

Jude rounded on him in a rage, only for Sasha to cut her off smoothly.

“Hey, that looks like a vault door, doesn’t it?”

Jude whipped back around, fury forgotten. Sure enough, the tunnel had opened out to a large, almost perfectly round chamber carved out in the heart of the mountain. On the other side, a circular door of thick dark metal stretched nearly to the ceiling. Without another word to any of them, Jude rushed across the room to reach it.

Tim paused once he was in the chamber, putting a hand to Sasha’s shoulder before she could follow. “Wait. Should we wait for Melanie to catch up?”

“I don’t really see the point,” Sasha replied. “We’re already here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but she did tell us to wait for her.”

“Technically,” said Gerry, “she told us not to move from the last chamber. Seeing as we’ve done that already…”

“I don’t know if I like the look of this, though,” Tim insisted. “Something about it—the vault, the Lightless Flame, this artifact—I don’t like it.”

“I meant what I said before,” Gerry told him. “I wasn’t saying it just to piss her off. The Lightless Flame was nothing. Was the magic they were practicing forbidden? Yes, in the same sense that walking on train tracks is generally frowned upon. The rule’s not there to keep you from hurting people, it’s to keep you from getting hit by a fucking train.”

“Tim may have a point,” Sasha said suddenly.

“Thank you!” Tim exclaimed. “…Why?”

Sasha pointed. Jude didn’t seem to have noticed it, too fixated on the vault itself. Huddled against the wall, closer to the mouth of the tunnel than the vault door, was a body.

It was slumped over, propped up by the wall behind it, as if the person had sat down for a rest and died on the spot. For all Tim knew, that was what had happened; there was no convenient weapon lodged in the body to give away what killed it in the first place. As Tim crept closer, he could see the unmistakable white protruding from beneath the remains of clothing. The flesh had long rotted away, leaving only bones behind.

“Poor thing,” he murmured, kneeling by the skeleton. “Wonder what killed them.” Gingerly he checked the body for any sort of clue. There wasn’t much to see; the body had nothing in the way of gear except the clothes it wore: ragged, half-rotted trousers and a thick knitted sweater that probably would have hung loose even before the body was reduced to bones. A pair of cracked glasses hung around its neck on a thin chain.

“Anything valuable on it?” Sasha asked.

“Sasha.”

“I’m just saying, if he has a coin purse, it’s not like he has much use for it now.”

He checked for pockets just to appease her, carefully pulling them open instead of reaching in blindly. One yielded nothing, and the other…

“I think I see something,” he said. “Looks kind of shiny.” The dim light of the chamber glinted on something gold. A folded knife, perhaps? Tim reached for it, and his hand closed around something small and rectangular.

In an instant, the object flashed white-hot. Before Tim could react, lightning burst forth and knocked him flying. He landed flat on his back several feet back, winded and dazed with a throbbing hand, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

“Tim!” Sasha was at his side. “Tim, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” He sat up with a grunt of effort. “Fine, just… what the hell was that?”

“Something in the corpse’s pocket,” Gerry replied, kneeling beside the skeleton. “Give me a second.” He reached in.

“Wait—what are you doing?” Sasha demanded, steadying Tim with one hand. “Whatever it was just blasted Tim across the room, and you’re just going to grab it?”

“Here goes nothing,” Gerry said simply, and pulled the object out.

Lightning crackled again, and Tim braced himself for Gerry to go flying as well. But his feet stayed on the ground as the lightning surrounded him, and the object in his hand glowed like a star. Moments later the light show ended, leaving Gerry standing on his own two feet, examining their find.

“What the hell is going on over there?” Jude demanded.

“Nothing,” Gerry replied, slipping his hand into his own pocket. “The body was booby-trapped.” Tim glanced over, just in time to see the skeleton crumble to dust. Within seconds, nothing remained but empty clothes and the glasses and chain.

“Can’t take you people anywhere,” Jude muttered, turning back to the door. “Hurry up. I’m about to get this door open.”

Tim and Sasha rejoined Gerry quickly, just out of Jude’s earshot. “So what was it?” Sasha whispered.

With a furtive glance at Jude, Gerry pulled his hand from his pocket and showed them. Sitting in his palm was a little golden lighter, oddly clean-looking given where they had found it. What was more striking was the engraving: a small, stylized eye, especially conspicuous given that it nearly matched the tattoos on the hand holding it.

“Do you know what that is?” Tim asked quietly.

“Looks like a lighter to me. Or do you mean the eye?” Gerry shrugged. “Dunno. Not like it’s an uncommon symbol.”

“Does it work?” Sasha asked. Gerry flicked it open and tried, and it produced a flame as any lighter would.

“Mystery for later, I think,” Gerry murmured, and tucked it out of sight once more. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he retrieved the skeleton’s glasses as well.

“Hey!” Jude barked. “You three want to get paid or not?”

“We’re coming,” Tim called back.

With an immense, creaking rumble, the massive door began to shift on its hinges.

[tanis-drawings-2point0]

some sketches of my two tma ocs, Marcus and Elliot!! They were born from the jokes “tma is criminal minds but with powers” and “a flesh avatar and his desolation avatar bf work at a restaurant, what will they do?” but I grew to genuinely love them <3

Long story short Elliot worked as a waiter in different places where he likes listening to conversations and picking people’s secrets, stalking and learning everything about said people on his free time, and eventually seeing the way he can fuck them up the worst using their own info against them.

Marcus is the owner and main chef of a small restaurant specialized on meat, and when Elliot started working for him one day he discovered that some of the meats he served were human. While he was excited at first bc what a bombshell of a secret he quickly discovers Marcus’ flesh qualities (which are, idk, probably regeneration or smth) and wants to know what the fuck is up w/ that bc he Also has weird qualities/powers/whatever they are

stuff happens in the middle and they fall in love and become a power couple in the avatar scene and a fairly popular restaurant on the human one! :)

ALSO I wrote a fic about them! (warning for the obvious cannibalism themes and also someone getting skinned alive!)

background & facts about them under the cut!

Facts about Elliot:

-thinks he had an ok childhood but was severaly neglected by his parents and was sent to a boarding school, where he hid in the bathroom to smoke and ended up listening most of the other girl’s gossip

-the highlights of his childhood were the time he spread some of said gossip and instigated a fight on the school’s ground and when he burned up a locker per request and accidentally ate up part of the school, it was very fun

-likes keeping his body temperature warm and his piercings/rings hot, just in case he gets a change to strike someone w/ them but also bc it’s nice against his skin

-hates both the cult of the lightless flame AND the magnus institute, he thinks both of them are boring and lacking, the cult is too chaotic and simple minded and the institute too sanitized and they don’t do anything with the info they have, it pisses him off to no end

-has no qualm with murder but doesn’t see the point, it’s not the fun part after all

-he loves people, on a “people are awful and I’ll never get tired of it” kind of way

Facts about Marcus:

-his mom died when he was young and when his dad remarried his step-mom was nice but also a hardcore vegetarian and a little bit of food moralist and listen if you really like meat that kinda fucks you up

-born in argentina bc im argie fuck you and moved to the uk when his dad remarried ^

-king of biting into his arms when he was idle as a kid

-when he changed his name he put hannibal as his middle name bc he thought it’d be cool, but now he’s a lil bit embarrased bc it’s too on the nose w/ the whole... cannibal thing...

-although Marcos Aníbal Ruiz sounds kinda cool but whatever.

-Loves cooking and always had the dream of owning a restaurant and share his good food with everybody, but his second, less known dream is to be an actor. He loves being dramatic, monologuing, etc. He indulges that a bit when he’s gotta play the butcher

-always tries to not kill people bc killing is one of the things that are Wrong. As far as he thinks about it, since all the stuff he chops off grows back and the people either dont quite remember it / think it was a dream then no harm done, right?

-He never had anyone to point out how skewed his morality was until he met Elliot, but luckily for him Elliot just thinks its hilarious

[grifters-roadie]

me explaining these via email to a friend who has nothing to do with it

The Fourteen Fears from Magnus Archives 1. The Buried (aka Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe, Forever Deep Below Creation, The Centre) pro: if you love being held too tight??? like a weighted blanket. con: buried alive, claustrophobia 2. The Corruption (aka Filth, the Crawling Rot) bugs, pestilence, rot. pro: hive mind, never alone (the bugs esp seduce people who are chronically lonely or have been unlucky in love - they get this euphoric sense of belonging) con: skin crawling, disgusting, DISEASE, def stinks 3. The Dark (Mr. Pitch, the Forever Blind) Fear of the dark, one of the most ancient fears. pro: ???? obliteration in the dark perhaps? cloaked in darkness? con: the dark itself is scary, plus whatever might be hiding in it.

4. The Desolation (The Lightless Flame, The Torturing Flame, The Devastation, The Blackened Earth) All about arson and inflicting pain on others. Weird wax stuff too. pro: that pyromaniac high! con: sadism (might be a pro if you're sadistic). 5. The End (Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All and Cannot Be Ignored) One of the oldest! pro: death is cool? great imagery con: Death is death. End of things. Inevitability is scary - seeing it coming is stressful and not seeing it coming is sad. 6. The Eye (aka Beholding, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You) pro: Getting to know things! Also the exhibitionist thrill of exposing your secrets and every part of you being known. So we got voyeurism and exhibitionism at play here. Knowledge! con: paranoia!!! feeling of constantly being watched, everyone knowing your secrets, conspiracy 7. The Flesh (aka Viscera) Factory farms, cannibalism, violence that is dehumanizing and reduces people to meat. pro: I fail to see one. Circle of life? Body modification, bodily distortions. con: fear of being cut up and eaten. I don't know how else to put it.

8. The Hunt pro: THRILL OF THE HUNT, madness of pursuit con: fear of being chased! hunted! prey! (this one scares the shit outta me)

9. The Lonely (The Forsaken, The One Alone) pro: Don't have to deal with people, float away/become invisible con: You feel like no one loves you, or wants you or ever did. :(

10. The Slaughter Like the hunt only instead of predator/prey it's bloodshed on a different scale. War, massacres, the impersonal slaughter of many. I'd affiliate this with mass shootings (not to be too real but. you know.) pro: if you get off on violence. con: if you don't get off on violence.

11. The Spiral (aka Es Mentiras (It Is Lies), The Twisting Deceit, It Knows Not What It Is) Madness! fear of madness. not trusting your own perception of things. pro: freedom in this??? I kinda like it. I also like both characters affiliated with it. con: gaslit/driven crazy/not knowing what is real

12. The Stranger (aka I Do Not Know You) I mix this up with the above v often. The unknown, uncanny, unfamiliar. Imposters, doppelgängers, mannequins, taxidermy. Creeping sense of wrongness that you cannot put your finger on. Something pretending to be human. pro: disguise? theatricality? artifice? con: that horrible feeling that you're the only one who knows that something is awful.

13. The Vast (The Falling Titan) Basically THE SUBLIME. Fear and awe and terror at the sky, the ocean, space. Loss of self. The horror of infinity, of no delineated time or space. The sensation of falling and falling and falling. pro: freedom in your own insignificance con: despair in your own insignificance. Also vertigo.

14. The Web (The Spider, The Mother of Puppets) Manipulation, entrapment, being forced to do things against your will - compulsion, addiction, not trusting yourself. Feeling controlled by others. Spiders. pro: interconnectivity. con: the paranoia. (so many of these are about not being able to trust yourself! which is indeed scary)

15. The Extinction (The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The World Is Always Ending) The newest fear - a human-brought apocalypse. Litter, flotsam, debris, plastic perversions of the natural world, oil spills, etc etc etc. Damaged past the point of no return. pro: ??? if you are a litterbug, or take some grim satisfaction in ending the world via pollution. Oh! or if you like decadence and have no regard for the future. That's way more plausible and appealing. con: it sure has a lot of momentum going for it, doesn't it? I think I'm most scared of The Hunt? or the Desolation. I'm very very frightened of pain. Also I get so scared when a car is behind me for too long, like I'm being followed. I would wanna join the Spiral, I think the Stranger is cool. Maybe I should join the Desolation so as to learn to get off on inflicting pain as a ward against fear of receiving pain. (I would line you up with the Vast for which to join, and maybe the Corruption as the worst one for you? just imagining your bloody little fingertips with rot instead and how awful that'd be, picking scabs and revealing bugs. ugh. but the comfort of the hive! you might be v susceptible to this.)

[mallowbees]

i dont know much about TMA but ,, could you tell me a bit about avatars? I want to make a sona really bad because they look so cool haha

Oh heck YEAH I can!!

Right so!! Avatars are people who have had experiences with or behavior that aligned with one of the 14(15 kinda?) fear entities and end up serving them!! Throwing people to their, for lack of better words, god, to feed off of their fears and occasionally try to kick of rituals to make their god strong and getting some sweet powers as a reward!

!! It’s gonna be kinda hard to avoid spoilers with explaining this, so I’ll try to keep it to the minimum but some spoilers for avatar people’s stuff :’D !!

The 14 are as follows (I’m just gonna snag most of this from the wiki but anything not in italics is me):

The Burried :

Also called The Center, Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe.

The fear of claustrophobia, small spaces, of being unable to breathe and the underground and dust. Being at the centre of everything and it is all pushing down. Fear of being trapped without enough space.

Notable avatar person I can think of is 18th centry guy who worked in a grave yard and would nap in the graves cause it was quiet and when they installed bells incase someone was actually alive when they burried them they could ring it, so someone rang it and he cut the line because he thought they were nice and deserved to sleep, also early episode lost johns cave is a good example but doesnt have an avatar in it so hfgh

The Corruption :

Also called Filth, The Crawling Rot, or The Hive.

This entity is linked closely to our feelings of disgust, of feeling revulsion and fear of corruption, disease, filth. Manifests as mould, bugs, rot, decay, infection. The feeling of your skin crawling.

Jane Prentiss, she wanted to be loved and found love in a bunch of worms in a wasp nest in her attic, so she became their hive, she loves her worms and her worms love her, they sing

Also other guy I genuinely don't know his name he just made everyone sick at that retirement home with disease and hung out at hill top road a few times, got sealed in concrete and he always looked like he was skin and slightly rotting

The Dark :

Also called Mr. Pitch, The Forever Blind, The Sandman

A manifestation of our very primal fear of the dark, of what lies beyond what we can sense. What might be in it?

One of the oldest of the Entities.

Uhh cult kidnapped that one kid i think that was them, i dont know who the dark avatar is actually

The Desolation :

Also called The Lightless Flame, The Torturing Flame, The Devastation, Blackened Earth.

This entity deals in fear of pain, of loss, burning, fear of unthinking or cruel destruction.

Acolytes are enriched by destroying the lives of people who had things to live for, destroying things before their potential is realised. In exchange, the cult members can create heat--but not fire--and gain the ability to make their skin run like wax.

They burn from the inside and consume everything in flames, Jude Perry and Agnes Montague are the two i know, Agnes was born into it and died because of forbidden love and Jude set her girlfriends flat on fire so hgfhfg

The End :

Also called Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored.

This entity deals in the fear of death itself, uncaring and unstoppable.

No known attempts at a ritual, presumably because it sees no need to, as Death claims all in the end.

Oliver Banks!! Had dreams of strings that tied people to their deaths, actual rational avatar, also didnt ask for this but he does pretty well. Also commited identity fraud

The Eye :

Also called Beholding, The Watcher, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You.

This entity is fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.

Elias!! Horrible man!! Can body hop! Just wants to watch the drama unfold and get more power. Knows lots of things and compulsion ! Also Jon because he reckless curiosity kinda screwed him over there and yeah. And that one security guy who got consumed by a watcher lietner watching other people via security camera, rip that guy

The Flesh :

Also called Viscera.

Born from the fear of animals bred for meat, and in the human realisation that we are just animated meat and bones.

Manifests as strange bodies being twisted, reshaped, and butchered.

Thought to be the newest of the 14, born around the time of the Industrial Revolution

Jared Hopworth! Got a Lietner, runs a gym to change bodies into what people want until they're practically not human anymore, likes most bones if they're good bones

The Hunt :

Hunting and chase and violence, this is an animalistic fear, very old and primal. Fear of being hunted, being prey.

Less able to affect people due to our self-removal from the food chain. Self-proclaimed monster hunters (and those who do the same without referring to themselves as such) run a strong chance of becoming Hunters and then having a need to hunt and kill monsters.

Daisy! Things get kinda messed up when you combine non-human impulses with a person so! Murder! violence!

The Lonely :

Also called Forsaken, The One Alone The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone. Fear of being disconnected.

Peter lukas, Martin, grew up lonely and shunned idk what you expected, can literally vanish, cool aethetic- Also that one girl who married one of the lukas’, nayomi? But she wasnt an avatar just with one

The Slaughter :

This entity feeds off of pure, unpredictable, unmotivated violence. Strong ties to war. Fear of not knowing, where, when, how or if pain will come but that it will. Can be violent like a frenzied killer or calm and regimented like soldiers firing on the battlefield.

Melanie! Anger! Murder! Stabby stab! Justificated feeling that your anger is right!

The Spiral :

Also called Es Mentiras, It Is Lies, The Twisting Deceit, It Is Not What It Is.

This entity is fear of madness, of being lost, that your world is wrong, that your mind is lying to you. It deals with deception, lying, deceiving the mind and senses.

Michael! Helen! I don’t,, really know what to say on this one hgfhfg

The Stranger :

Also called I Do Not Know You.

Fear of the unknown. That creeping sense that something isn’t right. Also of unfamiliar people. Manifests as objects pretending to be humans, like mannequins and taxidermied people.

Theyre not people they arent who they arE

The Vast :

Also called The Falling Titan.

This entity deals in our fear of our own insignificance in this universe, of losing yourself in too much space. Its effects involve void, vertigo, and falling, but also anything to do with openness and open spaces, fears like Agoraphobia, fear of deep water.

Simon fairchild is honest to god just vibing hes having so much fun also reeeally long lifespan he likes watching people fall off this and falling off himelf, also mike crew who didnt ask for this but just kinda ended up there anyway cause he got struck by lightning on a hill and got a book

The Web :

Also called The Spider, Mother of Puppets.

Deals with fear of being controlled, entrapped, being trapped and not knowing it, and your will not being your own, of being manipulated. Manifests as spiders and spider webs and patterns like spider webs.

The Extiction :

Also called The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The World Is Always Ending

The 15th Entity hypothesized by Adelard Dekker to be currently emerging. 

It is not yet confirmed to actually exist, if it is yet to be officially born, or if it is a combination of other powers and their overlap. It deals with the fear of catastrophic change, the destruction of humanity and its replacement by something different, especially via mankind's own causing.

Man-made elements are one of its hallmarks.

Avatars of other Entities would like to prevent it from emerging if possible.

Nobody on this one yet but yeah!!

So!! Usually it’s either the thing you are scared of embraces you and flips your behavior on its head, (Scared of being alone? Make other people alone! Scared of falling? Make other people fall!) Or something you like vibe with embraces and justifies you even if it scares you (Want to know?? Huh?? Buddy? Wanna Know? Or you just want some love? Get u some worms) Like if your experiences fall under one of the categories you probably go there if you’re not afraid of it, or if something happens and you’re terrified of it but not dead you’ll probably end up there hfhghgfh

Oh also here’s a what entity are you quiz if that helps ghfhfgh: https://uquiz.com/quiz/zxE9GQ/which-tma-entity-are-you-aligned-with?embed=False

Basically, does it scare you a little? Does it vibe with you a bit? There you go! You have an entity now! Have fun! HFGhfh

[sasha-whos-askin-racket]

Torchwood characters as avatars of different TMA entities, because I sort of want to write an AU where everyone at Torchwood is just an avatar for a different entity and they’re maybe working together against the Magnus Institute, I’m not sure. I’m just sorting them into avatars for now. Note - I am aware of the impracticality of having a group of avatars for different entities just hanging out together, particularly as the entities don’t all get along, but deal with it. 

Adam would definitely be an avatar of The Web, this was the first one that I came to a solid decision on because his whole point of being is that idea of being caught in a trap that you can’t see, being puppeted or manipulated. That’s how Adam survives, and so maybe his ability comes not from the fact that he’s an alien, but because he’s an avatar of the Web? 

Suzie - The End. I could maybe factor the Skin Book into this, but I just like the idea of Suzie trying to harness The End like Mary Keay. Maybe they could even use the Skin Book instead of the Resurrection Gauntlet? It would stop them from bringing Owen back in quite the same way, I guess, but we could work around that. She’s not that important really, we can make her fit somehow.

Owen - The Corruption. This is a concept this is. Owen vibing around as an avatar of the Corruption, particularly after his original death of getting shot, maybe, and considering the feelings of love and companionship that come from its manifestations. I think it would be interesting given his history as a doctor depending on exactly when he gets chosen as an avatar, I wonder how exactly it would play into it. I definitely think he’d appear as decay and infection rather than insects because of that. Also fits in really well with Katie, the idea of him bringing about her death a little more directly, maybe just the proximity to him did it?

Tosh - The Beholding, she has an aptitude for knowledge doesn’t she, and you could argue that the pendant Mary gave her in GBG just opened up this power she didn’t realise that she had. Given how the pendant impacted on her in the episode, it would be cool to see how she reacts to the compulsion ability. There’s a lot of potential for angst there, particularly with everything that goes on in the earlier episodes. Also maybe that would make her the Archivist? Undecided. 

Jack - I really struggled to decide with Jack, there are quite a few that he could be, but in the end I just decided to go with The Desolation, so I guess he’d be a member of the Lightless Flame? The whole thing about destroying the lives of people who had things to live for fits him really well. You could say that maybe Tosh and Owen (not so much Ianto because of the fact that he’s part of the Distortion) and the tragedies that befell them made them drawn to him because he’s an avatar of the Desolation.

Gwen - The Extinction. I’m aware that even as of 2012, they think The Extinction wasn’t powerful enough to take an avatar, but that’s exactly why I think it works. Gwen, the newest Torchwood recruit, lost in a world she doesn’t understand, works well when you think of how The Extinction is the newest entity, still growing and deciding and discovering. And I get that the other avatars are trying to prevent The Extinction, but maybe because she’s the first ever avatar of The Extinction, they don’t realise that’s what she is? Maybe they think she’s just another avatar of The End which is why they sort of replace Suzie with her? 

Ianto - I’m actually still unsure of this one. I’m definitely leaning towards The Spiral, actually. Either as him being an avatar of the Spiral or just a Distortion instead. Everything with Adam and all of the times he was retconned might leave him more open to being an avatar of the Spiral, though I do like the idea and the angst of him being spiralled similar to how Michael was, maybe because Yvonne tried to prevent The Great Twisting and in the process The Distortion fused with Ianto. 

Gray - I decided on The Stranger for this one, but then again I also kinda vibe with the idea that Gray is actually one of the NotThem, which could explain a lot of his actions, maybe? Jack hasn’t seen him in years, and we know people don’t recognise that the NotThem aren’t who they’re supposed to be, so it works. There’s also the connection between The Stranger and The Desolation, which works for Gray and Jack. 

Feel free to discuss or argue against me if you have any other ideas, or develop on these at any point. I’m only on Season 4 of TMA right now, so we’ll see what transpires. 

[the-lightless-flame]

Agnes for 13!!!

link to questions

ANNABELLE

this is literally entirely headcanon but. a while after annabelle became an avatar the web kinda nudged her towards agnes. and then they became friends

they have tea every week and annabelle tells her the avatar gossip. i think annabelle enjoys having someone to talk to about this stuff that she isnt actively toying with and agnes likes being caught up even tho she likes to distance herself from that world

to me theyre kinda the only people who get close to understanding each other in a way. aside from annabelle being the only avatar consistently in agnes's life after escaping the lightless flame, they both understand what its like to be a part of someone else's plan, and theyre both people who usually keep their thoughts and feelings quite hidden from others. for annabelle especially its also nice to meet another web avatar, cause then she can talk with someone shes on an even playing field with and doesnt have to manipulate

idk i think it would be cool if annabelle and agnes were friends maybe. or at least my very specific version of agnes

[echo-inthevoid]

87- uncanny valley

This would be stranger right? That seems to be their whole deal. 

Jon and Georgie! 

Ya trust her jon! If you explain maybe she can help!

"You're a good person... you were at least" Ouch. Ok then. 

Mmm, but what Georgie's saying about just letting it go... I'm not sure if she's right or not, but I think probably for jon himself that would probably be best. But he needs to help the others? Au jeez ya but that's Jon's whole mental thing, isn't it. "This will hurt me, but what if I can fix this." 

I tend to try and operate under the theory that the more people are happy then the more people are happy... Like a snowball effect. So making yourself miserable for other people actually doesn't help anyone, it just makes everyone more miserable. And if you take care of yourself then you can be more capable of helping other people who aren't happy. If that makes sense? Anyway, this pod makes me think thoughts if you hadn't noticed yet. Ignore my philosophizing. 

(Maybe if jon gets out of the institute he can help the others get out too?)

Ah, Gertrude. 

"Megan": reciting her excuses for why there's an evil ritual (or whatever this is) in her head.

This statement giver: no thoughts head empty doesn't notice there's blood everywhere.

...what's flincing... 

Ur... Ur not gonna explain? Jonny says go look up what flinching is yourself u lazy XD... 

Oh ok, it's "flensing" and is about skinning whales? I mean skinning is kind of what I was imagining but the Wikipedia definition seems pretty whale specific. *shrugs*

Megan: I'm going to skin you.

Statement giver: cool, and how was your day? 

XD I love him. 

Weird meat? 

Oh. I feel kinda sad about the mannequins. 

"I-do-not-know-you" kinda like "not-them" and "it-is-lies"? So is this another avatar of the stranger then? I thought "not-them" was the avatar for the stranger? Can there be more than one? 

I really truly have never found someone who could create intelligent creatures quite so inhuman as Jonny has made here and I love it! 

Ooo Gertrude's voice is getting more narratory here. I hadn't noticed it as much the other times but maybe I'm just noticing it better now that we've heard multiple people read statements.

Lightless flame! 

Skdjsk and his name is skinner. 

The unknowing. People keep mentioning that. what is it, should I know what that is? 

Jude perry! Do I recognize her name from another episode or just from the fandom? Who will ever know, certainly not me!

The desolation. That's fire relate right? Oh is the desolation another name for the lightless flame? Or... Is one of them an avatar of the other??? Is Jude also known as the lightless flame maybe? If so she's the one who did all the fire statements up till now. 

Jude lost Agnes? Like... Agnes from hilltop road? 

Ok, the unknowing has dancers...

A ritual related to the stranger or I-do-not-know-you. So I-do-not-know-you is the same thing as the stranger?  It's just got multiple names then? (Ok Jonny.) But fair, it is a fear power god thing, different groups would have different names for it. 

"What did she mean by skin?" You mean the girl who was threatening to skin a guy? What did she mean by skin? I would assume someone's skin that she skinned from their hopefully dead corpse??? Which then Gertrude implied would be worn in a dance of some sort? (Also the not-them did talk a lot about wearing you...)

Jude? Why do you care about Jude? I mean I guess she helped (?) That guy escape? But I mean... Micheal's taken a liking to you but he still does horrifying things to other people. Why would Jude care about you enough not to just burn you on the spot? The lightless flame seems one of the more deadly ones as well... It's about just random destruction, right? The joy of destroying stuff and the fear of having stuff (and people) destroyed. "Better beholding than the lightless flame" right? 

Oh ok, the lightless flame is the cult, the desolation is the power. 

...mmm ya I guess she's someone who's in on it. She probably knows what's going on. But like... You could ask Michael next time he shows up??? Maybe?? 

Music?$!#? Jon??? U ok!? 

"Look at you, you can barely stand." ): jon,, 

"You need to stop"   "...I'm not sure I can." oh no. Already past the point of no return and only now just realizing how fast you were moving, or that you were moving at all. ):

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG152!

- This was another statement during which I kept hesitating between two – Buried? Oh, The End. … Buried? End? Buried? End?, OOOOH Buried it is – until Hezekiah kept spelling it out again and again. Well, to be honest, he had spilled it for a long while. But.

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “[…] sleep still eludes me. And when it does not, I wake as though my heart were trying to leap from my chest and my throat were full of dust and ashes. […] There is… such peace in the churchyard, you see. To walk atop the soil, knowing that deep below my feet those blessed souls wait happy and silent in the cool, damp earth, counting the days until the Resurrection… […] I do find, however, that… when I dig my graves, I have been going deeper. And at times I worry I might dig so far as I can no longer get out with my meagre ladder. […] I saw his body, you know, as it was being prepared, and I tell you truly that for all the wickedness that man had done, his body knew gentle repose…! Though not as gentle, perhaps, as… it might be with six feet of earth atop it. […] It was cold that day, and bitter windy, and cracking the ground had been as hard as ice. At least until I was a few feet down. But by the end of it, oh, I tell you, there was warmth in that grave. Whether by my own body or the heat of the soil, I couldn’t say, but it was as comfortable as the fireplace of a public house, and the wind could not reach me in the hole that I had made. […] A terrible, bitter rain that chilled my bones and turned the soil around me dark and sodden. The walls grew damp and slippery, their firm shape lost as they began to slip and crumble. And then, all at once, they collapsed – the grave filling in a moment with a wave of mud and wet dirt. In a single terrible moment of utter terror, it was atop and around me, covering my face and filling my lungs with its awful choking sod. And the strangest thing was that it was wonderful. I had never felt such safety as within the crushing weight of earth all around me; the pressing embrace of The Buried.

[…] If it had been me in that coffin… destined for the peace below ground… I can think of little that I would hate more than the jarring, clanging of a bell, pulling me from my rest…

[…] I have been thinking, Nathaniel, of funerals and bodies. Souls that escape, leaving this… common clay to become one again with a truer clay. Were we not created from mud? And it seems more fitting to me that we should return forever to that mud, not pulled from it by some would-be-Redeemer, or lifted to sing hosannas in His holy court. I’ve worked so long, so hard; do I not deserve a rest in the mud from which I came? Commit my body to the earth and let it stay there. I’d do the same for you. […] But sleeping in the cool, soft dirt is all the bliss I could ever ask for. I suppose the Lord would have no call to think such things a blessing. He was never buried, was he? Not truly. Laying in a cave for three days, a rock pushed across the entrance before being taken up bodily; no, he was never Buried. And He always had more work to do, harrowing hell and redeeming the sins of mankind. No, he had no rest, and never asked for it, save a moment of doubt at Gethsemane. But He is the son of God, and we are merely sons of the dirt.

[…] You’ve never felt the close embrace of peaceful soil. You’ve never truly slept in the bosom of the earth. These things are not such as can be shared in words, and it was my foolishness to think that they could. But worry not, Nathaniel: the love I bear you will not let me leave you ignorant. As I did with the Reverend, I will come, and I will show you, once and forever, the true and glorious peace of The Buried.”

I had grown accustomed to associate “sleeping” with The End, due to Oliver (yearning for a “good night’s sleep”) and to Adelard and his self-reflecting about his own fears of dying in his sleep; but I’m rather fond of the fact that Hezekiah had to scream out loud explicitly who his patron was, this time around.

- Annnnnd once again, the avatar’d person both got a death experience, and was… a vulnerable person (a mix of depression, past alcoholism, insomnia, maybe suicidal too):

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “I’ve been installed here some weeks now and I’m finding myself well-contented, my sexton duties keeping my time employed such as I scarce have a chance to allow myself those dark thoughts that so concerned you when last we visited. […] My troubled sleep, on the other hand, has not of yet resolved itself in any way to my satisfaction. […] You need not despair, Nathaniel: I know the bottle will no longer help, and my other labours keep the nights from bothering me as once they did. … But I do find myself longing for a true and proper sleep. […] I hope such talk does not upset you, and you may rest assured that I am no suicide. It is simply the serenity of the dead I envy, not their lifelessness. […] I am never as truly satisfied as when I’m in my slumber and insensible to the world. Perhaps that’s what I hoped to find in my drinking, that… gentle oblivion. But it seems like a world ago.”

Oliver had begun to have his dreams after a nervous breakdown, when he was at his lowest; Jude had encountered The Lightless Flame while she was deep in depression; Jane Prentiss was isolated, poor and/or in an unstable situation when she began to be receptive to The Hive… people in a bad place tend to be overrepresented amongst the folks touched by a power, whether it’s to be become a servant or to be sacrificed, but Gerry had highlighted the reasons a while ago (MAG111: “Well, think of it this way: right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander too close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away.”). In Hezekiah’s case, there is the Added Aouch that… he had someone who, although not absolutely close, had still looked over him, and apparently put efforts into helping him heal – giving him a job, some stability, keeping in contact with him, visiting him. And still, it didn’t prevent Hezekiah from embracing The Buried, causing misery around him and, specifically, going after someone who was close and precious to him. I feel like I’m repeating myself these past few weeks but once again: it doesn’t bode well for Jon-who-kinda-died-but-came-back-after-making-a-choice-to-not-die, uh.

- And I liked Hezekiah’s casual disenchanted and deadpan tone, gdi ;; (“Not his fault, of course. The Lord gave him that voice for a purpose, no doubt. But sometimes that purpose does feel like it might be providing me a few minutes of unearned slumber. Still; his conduct towards me has never been less than compassion itself.”)

I do still like (/scream about) the reveal that

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “I’ve been trying to sleep. But that bell kept ringing, the one over Jacob the baker’s grave – that nonsense safety bell the Reverend insisted on putting there, ringing and ringing and disturbing the sleep of everyone in the churchyard. I’ve no doubt it disturbed Jacob as well, who worked so hard all his life and never thought to complain of his lot. He deserved to rest. So I cut the cord. And now he is quiet.”

hE CUT THE CORD OF THE SAFETY BELL…………………… (complete with the sudden spike of music, perfect “oH SHIT” moment), actually makes you reconsider how oh, what an absolutely perfect coincidence! There was an outbreak of fever in the city, many graves to dig and people to bury. Oh! What a mistake, little Nellie died by drowning (… Nellie hadn’t “drowned” on her own, uh?) but was actually still alive. A lot of things sounded like an unreliable narrator and/or someone in denial over what they were doing and trying to achieve (Hezekiah ensuring that he would have occasions to dig more graves, and trying to share his ~discovery~):

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “Eh! You’ll laugh, Nathaniel, but I almost wrote that I hope I have a chance to dig more graves. What a thought… No, I’d not wish that; for to dig graves, one must have something to fill them, and the good Lord takes that at His own pace.

[…] my nights have indeed been easier of late. Something I may partially ascribe to the recent outbreak of fever in the town, taking more of my time for the grim business of grave-digging.

[…] The circumstances and causes are easy enough to explain. It was the funeral of young [Nellie Cooper] that did it, which was a most upsetting affair. I’ll say I have much sympathy with his plight, as I had a chance to view the body myself, and if you’d asked me if I concurred with [doctor Grants’s] judgement of “death by drowning”, I would have agreed without hesitation. She had that peace to her, that I’ve spoken of to you before, and I knew how happy she must be, to soon be returning to the earth. […] To my mind, there are… far worse fates. But he has in his head an idea to begin fitting the graves I dig with these new “safety bells” that he has heard of, so that any as might be alive below ground might… signal us above, for rescue. I dread the idea. If it had been me in that coffin… destined for the peace below ground… I can think of little that I would hate more than the jarring, clanging of a bell, pulling me from my rest…

[…] I’ve been trying to sleep. But that bell kept ringing, the one over Jacob the baker’s grave – that nonsense safety bell the Reverend insisted on putting there, ringing and ringing and disturbing the sleep of everyone in the churchyard. I’ve no doubt it disturbed Jacob as well, who worked so hard all his life and never thought to complain of his lot. He deserved to rest. So I cut the cord. And now he is quiet.

[…] That you chose to share what last I wrote you with the magistrates… has wounded me so. They came and asked their questions, as I’m sure you hoped they would, but could of course prove nothing. Jacob is long dead, and I was very careful how I stopped the bell. […] But worry not, Nathaniel: the love I bear you will not let me leave you ignorant. As I did with the Reverend, I will come, and I will show you, once and forever, the true and glorious peace of The Buried.”

… until Hezekiah basically was that Russian cat meme, “THAT’S RIGHT, TWAS I THAT SET THE HOUSE ABLAZE!!!” (/ “Friendship ended with Nathaniel, The Buried is my best friend now.” / “Bury Your Gods.”) That. Certainly. Escalated.

- The fragmented and one-side epistolary presentation was enough to give clear implications: everything happened in one year and a half (it went fast), and it was enough to see a gradation, but also enough to feel… the contrast between Hezekiah’s first letter and the last. While at the same time…

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “August 1837. […] Your humble servant, Hezekiah Wakely.

February 1838. […] Your humble servant, Hezekiah.

June 1838. […] Yours, Hezekiah.

December 1838. […] Yours, Hezekiah.

January 1839. […] Your most humble servant, Hezekiah Wakely.”

The last letter closing, by returning to a phrasing closer to the first one, was also telling us: this is the same person.

The epistolary format makes me wonder, though: how did these letters reach the Archives? These were only the ones Nathaniel Beale had received, and Jon confirmed that Hezekiah had indeed got his hands on Nathaniel, burying him alive. The story happened around the time Jonah Magnus was at his peak (Jonathan Fanshawe’s own letter, in MAG127, was sent in 1831). Did Hezekiah’s letters reach the Institute through tours and detours, or… was Nathaniel another of Jonah’s close ones, that he watched getting pursued and consumed by a Fear…?

(Is Hezekiah still around? Was he Karolina’s shovel guy – or was that one Enrique MacMillan, who would have come back after dying from “asphyxiation”?)

- Jon going back to thinking about Jane Prentiss, and having changed his stance about what exactly happened to her was… telling of his journey and of what he has learned through it, in a very bittersweet turn: back in season 1, she represented the first “arc” of the series; she was the first red thread for the Archival team, the first to explicitly threaten them, the recurring menace surrounding them and looming closer and closer (MAG006, MAG022, MAG026, MAG034, MAG035, MAG038/MAG039) – and she impacted everyone: Martin, who was besieged by her for two weeks and had to live in the Archives for almost five months; Sasha, who followed Michael because she wanted to help the others and was almost infested, and who was killed in a blind spot by the Not!Them during the attack on the Institute; Tim, who suffered the most injuries alongside Jon. Jane Prentiss was also one of the only two subjects that Jon initially acknowledged as worthy of genuine concern (together with the Leitner books), and was the first Jon agreed to acknowledge as paranormal; she was the first statement he read that absolutely cracked his mask – he had… trouble getting out of it, it impacted him a bit more than the others:

(MAG032) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. This is… uh… Excuse me, reading that was, um… hmm. While I am pleased that we have… found the statement that Prentiss gave the Institute, it answers far fewer of our questions than I would have hoped, and gives us little new information about her than we had before, save for a snapshot of her mental condition before her hospital admission. […] We still don’t have any evidence that Prentiss is actually paranormal. It could just be an unknown, aggressive parasite. There are weird things out there that are perfectly natural. It’s not, though. I know it’s not natural. Somehow I… I feel it. I’m sorry, my academic detachment seems to have fled me. Something in this statement has got to me a bit. I’m… I’m going to go lie down. End recording.

(Jon also got a lot of trouble “getting out” of MAG074’s “Fatigue” – was it because of the statement-giver’s state of mind at that point…?)

Jane Prentiss left scars, both physically and mentally: Tim and Jon got striking scars (Basira pointed them out in MAG052), Jon kept her ashes and still wanted Jordan Kennedy to confirm, again and again, that her body really had been cremated (although Elias had told him that he had witnessed it already), Martin hadn’t forgotten the fears and humiliation of being pursued by her by MAG117 and MAG118.

(MAG040) ARCHIVIST: It’s the last thing I remember before blacking out. Tens of thousands of… things without mouths screaming as one. ELIAS: … Yes. Horrible sound. […] Sasha was already there, but you and Tim were in a bad shape. It looked like a few dozen worms had been going into each of you when the carbon dioxide killed them. Was like bloody Swiss che– ARCHIVIST: Yes… thank you. I remember everything from when the ambulance arrived.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: Are you… saying there might be more out there like [Jane Prentiss]? JORDAN: God, I hope not. I don’t… know. The man from the ants’ house, he wasn’t like her, not at all. But that smell when they burned, I… think they’re connected. Somehow. And that scares me. ARCHIVIST: Yes… yes, it rather scares me too. […] While I am… always glad of any further closure to the case of Jane Prentiss, this seems to come with the rather serious caveat that she might not have been working alone. No, that– that doesn’t sound right. J–Jane Prentiss, or whatever this… flesh hive was that took her, does not seem like the sort of being that would work well with others.

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: Well, excuse me if my experiences of th– TIM: Your experiences? Fuck you! I got eaten by worms because of you! ARCHIVIST: Well, what do you want? You want sympathy? TIM: You know what, yeah! A little bit of basic sympathy would have been nice! ARCHIVIST: Jane Prentiss was not my fault, I did not bring her to the Archives! TIM: Oh, but you went off the deep end afterwards, didn’t you?

(MAG118) ELIAS: [SIGH] Are you done. MARTIN: Not even close. Because... [HEAVY BREATHING] I… I’ve been thinking. It’s not like you’ve got this all-seeing thing recently. You’ve had it the whole time. I remember the way you looked at Sasha after the attack. You knew it wasn’t her. And I reckon you knew Prentiss was lurking under the Institute, too, and you did nothing. Why? [SILENCE] WHY?! [SLAMS TABLE] ELIAS: … Let’s just get this over with, shall we?

(MAG120) ELIAS: Then all at once, the ants are gone, fled in a moment away from the still shuddering form of the exterminator – and a familiar terror finally pushes his way into the Archivist’s heart. Before him rises an incinerator door, the glowing light of the flames curling around the cracks. With a wailing shriek, the door opens and the burning silhouette that stands within is ingrained upon the Archivist’s racing mind. They smoke and sizzle, but still the worms crawl through her charred and pockmarked flesh, her now singed red dress shifting with the movement beneath it. The exterminator looks to her, then to the Archivist, and it is not certain which he fears more. The Archivist, for his part, is hopelessly willing the dream to stop – but as she takes one scorched step after another, it is clear that he has no power to make it. When faced with her, he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there. So the Archivist can only stand and stare as the Hive goes about its infested, long-dead work.

But Jane Prentiss is also… the remnant of a time when everything seemed dichotomic. When Elias was still that boring bureaucrat, not keen on intervening but mostly harmless, that Jon could still partially respect (MAG049: “Certainly, the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well. Theoretical knowledge, at least. And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know.”). When monsters were “outside”. The supernatural thing coming after you. (Was Jon already alluding to that loss of clear separation, of the stability of being on a “moral” side of things, when he wondered in MAG115: “God, do I– do I miss being chased? That’s depressing. No, it’s… I just miss feeling like I’m moving, like I…”?). It was easier to think of the monsters as other, to distinguish “Jane Prentiss” and “The Hive” – he repeatedly referred to his encounter as “the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss” in MAG040.

Jane Prentiss’s death also came with other losses: the Archives in which Martin had taken refuge weren’t actually safe either. Tim went through hell with Jon. Sasha died, unnoticed, in Artefact Storage, and was replaced by the Not!Them. Gertrude’s body was discovered, together with the reveal that she had been murdered, leading to Jon suspecting his co-workers of being her killers. The original team only lasted through season 1; and although nobody amongst the remaining ones died in season 2, the team continued crumbling altogether – Jon against everyone, irremediably losing Tim even before his death an entire season later. Only Jon and Martin are left, now; but it was not surprising that, when discussing about “Jane Prentiss” with Helen, Tim and Sasha were right around the edges, too, because they belonged to that time, had been involved with her too:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall. HELEN: More of a legacy than some people get. ARCHIVIST: … It was meant to be a gate, I think. A hole that she… rotted into The Corruption itself. Maybe the start of a ritual. […] Huh? You’ve got hands. HELEN: Sharp enough to pull out worms. Kill a few old men. Maybe stab an overeager Archivist… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

“Kill a few old men” like Paul McKenzie (MAG027, MAG146). “Stab an overeager Archivist” like Jon trying to make Michael release Helen Richardson (MAG047). “Sharp enough to pull out worms” like Michael preventing Sasha from getting infested:

(MAG026) SAHSA: As I stood there, staring at the wallet, I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. I looked up to see Michael, reaching into my shoulder. Its fingers were long and distorted as they reached through my skin, cutting it like paper. I screamed. After a few seconds, it withdrew its hand. Held there was a single silver worm, wriggling pathetically in its grip. I hadn’t even felt the thing burrowing into my arm.

And Tim had been the one to discover the circle of worms, during MAG039’s events, as he described it to Jon in the following episode (and if it was indeed “the start of a ritual”… then, Tim stopped that one, too), leading to Jon confirming it for himself some weeks later:

(MAG040) TIM: No, it’s just… I think I was still gassed, and it was dark, but… I found a room. ARCHIVIST: Go on. TIM: I didn’t stay long, ‘cause it had a lot of worms in, and they weren’t acting like the others. They were sort of… wrapping around each other, like they were trying to form a… thing, like a structure or something. A ring. I was probably still out of my skull, and half-hallucinated the whole thing, but it looked like they were trying to make a doorway. ARCHIVIST: A doorway? Is it still there? TIM: No. I pumped two full extinguishers into that room. Nothing was getting out.

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: It was almost impossible to retrace my steps. I tried to remember my route using what vague oddities I could remember as landmarks: a burned door, a particularly warped corridor. But trying to find them again was useless in the winding passages. In my increasing panic to find the way out, I almost forgot the things I had originally gone down there to look for. Then I found the circle of worms. When Tim had first described it, I had only half-believed him. I’m sorry, Tim, if you’re listening, but the CO2 had done some strange things to you at that point. He had the right of it, though. By the time I found it, there was little left but a thick carpet of dead worms, but a few were still embedded in the wall providing the clear outline of a circle. The ceiling was higher here, and all told it must have been about… ten feet in diameter. Its size was not the most disconcerting thing though. Inside the circle, the stone was… wrong somehow. Solid, but oddly wavy, like chocolate that’s melted and then re-hardened. It took me a minute or two to work up the courage to wade through that shallow sea of filth, but I did, and when I touched the warped wall, it felt soft and porous. But stable. I turned and left, but not before noting that another path also appeared to have been pushed through the worms on the floor, though when it had happened or who had made it, I couldn’t say.

What I still find curious, however, is that… Sasha and Tim were there in spirit; Helen referenced specific events that they experienced. But they weren’t named. How come Jon has stopped mentioning them at all, and has barely had any thought for Tim all through season 4? The way Jon found out about Tim’s death was different from Sasha’s, but still: in both cases, he learned about it six months after the fact. In Sasha’s case, it had left him shaken, starting in MAG078. It was a subject painful enough to make him snap at the worst time: revealing his cover when hiding from the Not!Them in MA079 because it was taunting him about it, or snapping at Nikola during The Unknowing:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: […] And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NOT!SASHA: [CLOSE AND DISTORTED] There you are.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Who are you?! NIKOLA: Who am I? Tim, of course! Who else would I be! ARCHIVIST: You’re not– you’re not… Tim. NIKOLA: Oh, you caught me~ I’m… Sasha! ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NIKOLA: No~! Really, it’s me! Sasha– whatever her name was! Back from the dead, just like you wanted~! ARCHIVIST: Get away from me, or, or I swear I’ll… I’ll…

So why, although they’re almost present, although there is the faint ghost of their experiences, they’re… not? (Not named, barely remembered, almost never alluded to. This season, it feels like they… never existed, never died tragically.)

(- Especially in this episode, I had to wonder if Jon hadn’t been relistening to old tapes lately. Because his description of the worms… was really, really reminiscent of Tim’s own interrogations right after Prentiss’s attack:

(MAG040) TIM: Well, yeah. There weren’t so many down there. I think they were almost all in the Archives. I have a theory, actually. I think they weren’t ready to attack when you found the tunnels. It’s like, something in the Institute slows them down, and makes them, um, heh, sluggish. And that noise they make? That squirming sound? They don’t make it when they’re in the tunnels. I don’t know why. It was only when they came into the Institute. Maybe the light, or the aircon, or something? I’m not sure, but I think it made them weaker, and they’ve been down there for months, breeding, building up their numbers until there were enough to properly bury us. Except you found that hidden passage, and they had to act.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: I’ve been wondering what they were doing down here. Though they must have been down here for… weeks, months maybe; spreading, growing. They could have spread all the way through these tunnels, but they didn’t. They didn’t find Leitner down here, didn’t find… Gertrude’s body. Didn’t find… whatever else is here.

Another thing is when Jon said that Elias had called The Corruption “Filth”:

(MAG152) HELEN: Hm. Not exactly impressive, is it? ARCHIVIST: Less complex, certainly. But I think that’s the thing about– … what did Elias call it… “Filth”. I don’t think it really plans much. It just starts to grow wherever it can get a foothold and… if no one stomps it out in time: Game Over.

It’s… actually not something Elias had said on tape recently. Post-reveal about The Entities and Jon being involved with them, I think the first one to allude to The Corruption as “Filth” was Mike Crew:

(MAG091) MIKE: But I knew that Filth was not for me. Buzzing flies and rot disgusted me, but they never spoke to my soul. I threw the book into a sewer, and began my hunt.

However, Elias immediately gave Jon MAG102’s statement after Jon revealed that he Knew that Gerry and Gertrude had been collaborating at some point (Jon had included Gerry in the list of Gertrude’s collaborators in MAG099, before his month-long kidnapping!), and that statement was about The Corruption, so Elias might have made a mention off-screen. Or… or Jon remembered this line:

(MAG040) ELIAS: But… honestly, I didn’t fully appreciate what you’d been talking about until I turned that corner and we saw what I can only describe as a… a tidal wave of filth rushing towards us.

… and it was so long ago, and so… inconspicuous?, so I’m not sure that Jon had noticed and would remember that one. If he’s been relistening to old tapes lately, however… Given how Jon has been expressing nostalgia, is having an identity-crisis, and how Annabelle had pulled out his very first statement from MAG001 as a taunt in MAG147, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jon is said to have relistened to them all recently.)

- … And the last one of the original assistants was also there peripherally, through… the jar of Jane Prentiss’s ashes – Martin was the one who had somehow managed to obtain it from the ECDC, because he wanted to give it to Jon as a proof/reminder that Jane was dead, cremated and gone:

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: I have a small jar on my desk of what are supposed to be [Jane Prentiss’s] ashes, though I don’t believe it for a second. I think… Martin just gave me a jar of dust to try and calm me down. Give me something to focus on, for closure. I hate to say it, but it does appear to be working. A victory for the placebo effect, it would seem.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: … say it again, please. JORDAN: Excuse me? ARCHIVIST: What you’ve just said – can you say it again, so I have it on tape? JORDAN: Oh, okay. Jane Prentiss is dead. ARCHIVIST: … You’re sure? Completely? JORDAN: Yeah. I watched the incineration. ARCHIVIST: And there were no… complications? Like… wasps, surviving worms that escaped; err, movement from the body during incineration; noises from it, like screams, or chanting; weird feelings, li– like a thousand, tiny crawling things are moving across your skin? JORDAN: Waw. No. Nothing like that. Just the smell. But, I mean, I’ll get to that. It went well. Nothing left but the ashes I gave to your friend. Which I shouldn’t have, by the way, so… keep it to yourself. ARCHIVIST: Of course. And, thank you.

(And the fact that Martin managed to get someone to give him something although they shouldn’t have is still *squint.* to me. We know that Martin can be persistent and nagging until he gets what he wants (he had managed to get Jon to come eat with him in MAG053), but is it… absolutely mundane, Martin’s Absolutely Normal Power, or is it… spooky. Martin, what the heck are you.)

- Thinking again about Jane Prentiss now, when Jon Is Like That, is also a punch because! When I had begun to listen to TMA (towards the end of season 3: I was spoiled about Tim’s eventual fate before I even met him, spoiled about Jon growing powers and the risk of him becoming monstrous), I had… stopped at Jane Prentiss’s statement, wondering if it was supposed to be Jon’s fate, too:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “Something, not moving but that wants to move. Wants to be free. It itches, and I don’t think I want it. I don’t know what to do. […] If I wanted to be helped. I don’t know if I do. You must understand, it sings so sweetly, and I need it, but I am afraid. It isn’t right and I need help. I need it to be seen. […] I… I haven’t slept in some time. I can’t sleep. My dreams are crawling and many-legged. […] I hope you will forgive me for such a rambling story. I hope you will forgive me for a great many things, as it may be I do worse. […] Sings that I am beautiful. Sings that I am a home. That I can be fully consumed by what loves me. […] I wanted something beyond myself […]. Perhaps I’ve always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me, and it was the happy, smiling Jane who called herself a witch and drank wine in the park when it was sunny. Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion that hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretense that there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home. That love us in their way. I need to think. To clear my head. To try and remember, but remember what? I was lonely before. I know that. I had friends, at least I used to, but I lost them. Or they lost me. Why was it? I remember shouting, recriminations, and I was abandoned. No idea why. The memories are a blur. I do remember that they called me “toxic”. I don’t think I really knew what that meant, except that it was the reason I was so very painfully lonely. Was that it? Was I swayed and drawn simply by the prospect of being genuinely loved? Not loved as you would understand it. A deeper, more primal love. A need as much as a feeling. Love that consumes you in all ways.”

Especially the bit about her friends calling her “toxic” – aouch, Georgie……… did. So. It’s happening.

- Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back to The Mystery Of The Tunnels. Little things about them:

* They reacted/adapted to a Buried book, Leitner might have messed them up even more in the process:

(MAG080) LEITNER: An unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even begin writing the book until 1846, and the text of this one varies markedly from the version that was distributed. It gives an acute sense of the walls pressing in around you, and if consumed recklessly will physically entomb the reader. Over the years I have found that it interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels. […] In retrospect using The Seven Lamps so much was perhaps unwise. It is possible I unbalanced Smirke’s architecture somewhat, however cautious I might have tried to be.

* Leitner’s mention in passing was the only time, I think?, that confirmed that the tunnels themselves are SmirkeTM. But we do know that Smirke and Jonah had done… something together in Millbank, and that it was Beholding-related:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls. […] This is, of course, assuming you have not taken the path of The Eye that I know has called you – called us both – for so long, even since before we began our work on Millbank. […] I am not a fool; I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them!”

* More specifically, they are likely remnants of the old tunnels under Millbank:

(MAG040) MARTIN: I wandered for a while. It’s a, it’s a maze down there, Jon. I don’t know how far the passages go. Maybe miles. I think it must be the old Millbank Prison, like Tim was saying before. I even found some stairs at one point, but I really didn’t want to go down them.

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: […] I had done what research I could on Millbank. First proposed and designed in 1799 by Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who wished to test his theories of the panopticon prison, where cells would be arranged in a circle around a single, central, guard tower – so all cells were observable at once. It was to have six such areas, arranged in hexagons, giving it from the air the shape of a vast, angular flower. It’s not clear why that original plan was abandoned, but from 1812 onwards, a succession of other architects were brought in to try and finish the project. Finally, three years later, they brought in Robert Smirke. He saw the project to completion in 1821, with a design remarkably similar to Bentham’s original. However, whereas Bentham’s would have been geometric, and easy to navigate, Millbank Penitentiary as it was built was more often described as an eccentric maze: twisting corridors, doors at strange angles, and narrow passages so poorly lit inmates would need to feel their way along. Throughout much of the 19th century it was where prisoners were kept before transportation to Australia, and the brutality of the jailors was said to be second to none. Its position on what was then marshlands hardly helped, with sickness and disease rife within their walls. It was a huge complex, covering much of what we now call Chelsea, but when it was finally closed in 1890, it was demolished. Flattened. Which meant that what I was in now couldn’t be the old prison itself. It had to be something built bellow it.

So, a place infused with prisoners’ misery, involved with ~the Panopticon~ project – constant surveillance, constant fear of being watched without being able to know if you really are and by whom.

* Not!Sasha was searching for something in them… and Leitner thought it may have been him? But Leitner was also particularly self-centred, so maybe… maybe the Not!Them was after what the tunnels are hiding, after all. (And Martin was thinking that what Peter’s plans might be involving them…)

* Enrique MacMillan tried to dig his way down towards… that “hollow space that all eyes point towards” and the “DIG” had snuck its way into Jon’s dreams, complete with an increase of statics:

(MAG088, Enrique MacMillan) “so here I came. To tell my story, of course, but another thing as well; cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.” MARTIN: Uh, um, the, uh, the statement ends rather abruptly there. Based on a few scattered notes and accounts from some of the older staff, it sounds like Mr. Macmillan got in a bit of a fight, which led to his arrest, and the replacement of quite a bit of the floor in Jon’s office. There are still a couple of boards with marks on them that I’d always hoped weren’t fingernail scratches, but I guess…

(MAG120) ELIAS: He catches a glimpse of an advert above his seat: [STATIC INTENSIFIES] “DIG”.

* Daisy, Basira and Jon have all remarked that the tunnels feel… off to them. And Jon was suspecting that Elias couldn’t see anything in them either:

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: It is… hard to put into words how it felt to be down there, in the cool, mouldering air of the tunnels. Have you ever left a crowded room, and literally felt the silence as you walked out into the night? It was something like that; a sudden, quiet… absence. Not in itself a fearful thing, but unsettling, in a way I hadn’t noticed through the fear and adrenaline of my first time in the tunnels.

(MAG103) [CLICK] ARCHIVIST: Thank you for coming. DAISY: Sure. Why down here? ARCHIVIST: I, um, E–Elias, I–I think… I think he has a hard time seeing things down here. DAISY: I.e. he’s not watching? ARCHIVIST: Maybe? I’m, I’m pretty sure it takes him actual effort so…

(MAG110) BASIRA: Tim is… Elias is watching him too closely. MELANIE: He’s probably watching me too. MARTIN: We–we could try the tunnels, uh, Jon says they might help. MELANIE: Right. […] MARTIN: Hang on… BASIRA: Not here. The tunnels. MARTIN: Right, right! Right!

(MAG114) ARCHIVIST: You alright, Daisy? DAISY: [NONCOMMITAL SOUNDS] BASIRA: Don’t think either of us like it down here. ARCHIVIST: Uh, well, no, me neither. Feels… DAISY: Empty. ARCHIVIST: Yeah.

* … they have exits. HELP, I’M REALLY WORRIED THAT JON IS ALLOWED/ABLE TO ROAM FREE IN THE TUNNELS, IF HE CAN GO OUTSIDE FROM THERE AND POTENTIALLY GO AFTER PEOPLE???

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: How long have you been down there? LEITNER: Hard to say. I’ve been in hiding for over twenty years now, ever since my library was destroyed. Obviously I have not spent all that time below your Institute. The old Millbank prison tunnels stretch out a very long way, and there are other entrances than the one below the Archives. I have a small number of… secure locations, though since Gertrude’s death I have been reluctant to leave the tunnels.

(MAG114) TIM: … How did you know I was going to be here? ARCHIVIST: Th–The others haven’t seen you in weeks, and you’ve still been using the computers here, accessing files and books… I… I know there are some exits to the tunnels outside the Institute, so– TIM: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: –I guessed you were using them to get in and out, avoiding any… tape recorders.

* Gertrude’s body was discovered in them, although the blood found in her office on March 15th 2015 seemed to imply that she was at the very least wounded there first. So, did she drag herself down into the tunnels? Did she hide there for a few weeks? Was she killed in the tunnels – had Elias gone into the tunnels, after all? How come Martin managed to find her body? WHY THE SPECIFICATION THAT THERE WAS NO “COBWEB” IN HER ROOM, MARTIN.

(MAG040) MARTIN: When I finally found a door, I thought it might actually get out, but instead… It was a small room. Square. There was dust on everything. Cardboard boxes were piled around. They were full of old cassette tapes. ARCHIVIST: That’s where you found her? MARTIN: Yes. She was sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the room. No worms. No cobwebs. Just… an old corpse. Gertrude Robinson. She was slumped forward, but I could see her mouth hanging open.

- Confirmation that it’s perceived as a “maze”:

(MAG040) MARTIN: I wandered for a while. It’s a, it’s a maze down there, Jon.

(MAG041) JON: To call it a maze wouldn’t quite be accurate, as a maze is designed. It is set out with an obvious goal, even if that goal is to confuse and disorientate. This place, it felt more organic in its unpredictability, as though it had been intended to be used, to be travelled, but had gotten twisted somehow.

(Martin: *uses one word* / Jon: I suddenly have the compulsive urge to explain in great details how much you’ve been Wrong and misusing it.)

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: They didn’t find Leitner down here, didn’t find… Gertrude’s body. Didn’t find… whatever else is here. HELEN: It is a maze. One of the reasons I like it. ARCHIVIST: Mm. [SILENCE] … I can’t see things properly here. I thought it was just me, something interfering with my connection to The Eye, but… I’m wondering. Maybe it affects everything else. Like this place is some kind of… “universal blind spot”. Everyone gets lost, down here. HELEN: What a fascinating idea. Although… some of us are always lost, in a sense. ARCHIVIST: Wait– Are you saying you can navigate it? HELEN: Not exactly. But my door has been part of these tunnels for some time, now. ARCHIVIST: Wh– [SPLUTTERS] What’s it hiding, wh–what’s in the middle? HELEN: A delightful surprise…! [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

(Helen says “Let s1!Martin breathe, Jon.”)

So, “maze” and not a “labyrinth”.

- … if the place has to do with Smirke&Jonah’s previous involvements with the Beholding, is… The Distortion staying around because ultimately, The Eye’s ritual attempt could take place here? It was a Beholding-touched person who had stopped the Great Twisting (Michael Shelly, orchestrated by Gertrude), so… is this payback. (It would sound awfully coherent and straightforward for The Distortion, but…).

- We know that Michael-The-Distortion’s characteristic laughter, with the little sigh at the end,  directly came from Michael Shelley (it was his laugh, recorded on tape, in MAG099 when he was working with Gertrude); Helen-the-Distortion had begun to laugh with some echoing recently, but this time around, it was full-blown The Laugh.

I always had a bit of trouble trying to picture The Distortion but, in the middle of the discussion with Jon, I feel like I… got to understand it a bit more, thanks to this episode? It’s plural; sometimes a bit more Helen, sometimes not. Sometimes, Helen is “she”, sometimes it’s “I” – and always a bit of both, always multiple and “more” than who Helen Richardson was (it knows about other entities and their schemes, it remembers past and present victims). It took a bit from humans who were consumed, from people who went through the door, and those things are swirling and sometimes coming out to the surface?

- Helen made a lot of… actually good points re:Jon’s decisions, (in)actions and complacency until now regarding The Eye:

(MAG087) GEORGIE: Come on, I’m not throwing you out, Jon. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had anywhere else to go, and I… I do want to help, but… y’know, you’re a good person. You were, at least. But whatever this is, it’s messing you up! [SIGH] Look I’ve, I’ve got work to do. You listen, or don’t listen, or cross-record, or whatever you want, just… just think about it first, okay? You can choose to leave it alone. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [TAPE PLAYER IS LOADED] [CLICK–] […] GEORGIE: That’s it. Whatever the hell this deal is, the tapes, documents, I don’t want them in my house. ARCHIVIST: Look, look… No, no… Look, you, you don’t need to be scared. GEORGIE: I’m not! You are! Look at you, you can barely stand! ARCHIVIST: But I… But I need– GEORGIE: Listen to me, Jon. I can’t stop you doing… whatever secret bullshit you want to do, and I’m… not going to throw you out on the street, but I’m not having it in by home. ARCHIVIST: No… No, they won’t. I’ll make sure it doesn’t… I’ll keep it far away. GEORGIE: No, you need to stop. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I can.

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: I feel… a lot better! … I’d love to rattle off a lot of potential other reasons for this, nice rational causes of recovery, but… I feel we’re past the point of transparent rationalisations. It looks like the recording of statements has now passed over from psychological compulsion into… a more physical dependence. I don’t whether this is… some sort of classical addiction or something a bit deeper. But either way, this is not the time for experimentation. I’m on a deadline, and if I need to be reading statements to stay well enough, then I suppose that’s what I shall do.

(MAG111) GERRY: Hmmm… Well, she could make people tell her stuff, sometimes. They’d suddenly get real talkative, and lay out whatever she needed. She didn’t do it often though. I don’t think she liked it. ARCHIVIST: [PERKY] Oh, er, I can do that, too. GERRY: Huh. Do you like it? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know. I… I never really thought about it. … Yes, I… I suppose I do. GERRY: Hmmm.

(MAG129) MARTIN: Yes, I’m not an idiot, Jon, but it’s no… worse than working for something really bad, so… ARCHIVIST: At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people!

And there was the fact that Jon began to refer himself as “The Archivist” when introducing his statements in season 4, too. Was it a supernatural compulsion? Something he has been doing consciously, identifying with the status, giving it… more strength than the “Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute”, which was lowering it to a simple job?

(I can’t help but wonder, too, if, at that moment:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…

Jon was clearly answering what (he thought) Elias wanted to hear, there, but… if Jon had refused to take up the title, refused to identify with it, if he had just obstinately answered “Jonathan Sims”, again and again, would things have proceeded differently…?)

… At the same time: it’s “The Distortion”, who has always gotten its kicks out of confusing people. It’s a predator who likes to toy with its preys, with the added dimension that it explained that “Helen” had made a decision to stop feeling guilty over her actions – because she wouldn’t be changing them. It feels like victim-blaming (like Elias did when he gave his whole speech to Jon about his choices: sure, indeed, Jon could have elected other options… but there is no such thing as uninformed consent. Not knowing what you’re signing up for and being denied the opportunity to back out is arguably a choice; is it truly a choice when you don’t have all the parameters, and are manipulated/groomed/raised into doing something you didn’t want…?); and also like the “Helen” part of the Distortion is trying to “help” Jon feel better by inviting him to do the same (Helen liked Jon, it might be a way to alleviate his pain, as she told him in MAG146: “It would be better if you embraced it.”) in order to feel less bad about her own choice – if Jon, if anyone succumbs, then, nothing to be done, right? It happens anyway. It’s not their fault. They “chose” but they didn’t have any choice in the first place, since the results is the same for everyone. It’s not their own personal choice to give up.

- Re:Helen being manipulative/confusing on purpose…

1°) Avatars referring to Jon as “Jon” are usually a Bad Sign:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] So what do we actually know? ELIAS: Jon… ARCHIVIST: Don’t you dare [SLAMS ON TABLE] “Jon” me.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Hum… Hello, Jon. Do you… m–mind if I call you Jon? I… I mean. You don’t actually know me, it’s just… well. “Archivist”, it’s so… formal, isn’t it? And I do kind of know you…? […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “‘Free will’ is a funny old thing – isn’t it, Jon? Can I call you Jon? I’m going to call you Jon.”

(MAG152) HELEN: Hello, Jon. Been a while since you’ve been down here. […] Cheerio, Jon! Enjoy your brooding.

2°) Helen presenting the idea of Jon giving up and attacking someone again as unavoidable certainty (while highlighting that Jon has no Spooky Knowledge on the matter: it feels like he could die without… but he doesn’t know. It might not actually be a necessity. It “just” makes him suffer. If he attacks someone, it would be about comfort rather than survival.), and presenting the relationships within the Archives team in a specific way: not as friendship or stemming from affection… but only as a “responsibility”?

It’s true that Jon never chose Basira, Daisy and Melanie as his assistants. He never was exceptionally close to them – Melanie and him disliked each other, Daisy was threatening towards him and hated what he had done to her, Basira… used to like him, a bit, and that was all. Meanwhile, Jon had asked Tim to come with him in the Archives (and had calmed down as soon as Tim had conveyed that he was getting too heated, in MAG033; they had a very good relationship, Jon trusted and followed Tim’s warnings), Sasha could interrupt a statement to nitpick pronunciations with him just like that (he liked her! she sounded like she was probably his favourite!), and Martin was… Martin…, so by comparison… the current Archives team is not really made of spontaneous friendship. But affection seemed to have grown, and Helen is casually negating all of it, implying that Jon is only holding off on statements to preserve himself, while it could be many other reasons (and “not wanting to disappoint the others” would be absolutely valid!):

(MAG152) HELEN: Hungry, are we~? ARCHIVIST: That’s not…! I haven’t done anything– HELEN: Yet. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I feel like if I don’t… I might die. Fade away into nothing. HELEN: Do you “Know” that? ARCHIVIST: No. But I– … I can’t die. They need me. HELEN: Come on, Jon, no excuses. They don’t need your protection. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] What, are you going to look after them? HELEN: And how would I do that? […] When has your guilt, or your “sadness”, or your hand-wringing, ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants? ARCHIVIST: I, uh, I–I have not been taking statements…! HELEN: You’ve sworn off other people’s trauma for now… because you were caught. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] HELEN: Because continuing would endanger you. But other than that, when has your discomfort ever actually stopped you walking the path of The Beholding?   ARCHIVIST: I… I don’t know…

(Joooon… you would have an answer to that, though. It was when you decided to trust the assistants, and when you burned Gerry’s page, even though it caused you pain and EVERYTHING was telling you to not do it.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: That’s it, then. I, I think. Except… [PAPER] I, uh… I haven’t burned it. Gerard’s page. … G–Gerry. I, I… I know there’s more he could tell me. He, he wouldn’t, of course, I, I, I know that, b–but he, he, it would still– b–be– there, that, that, that knowledge. I– It it would, it would still exist, I– I, I, I can’t. I… I want to help. I, I want to. But I… uh… I’m scared. On, on tape, just… just– just do it. [UNCAPPED LIGHTER] [HEAVY BREATHING] [SOUND OF A FLAME] Do it! [HEAVY BREATHING] [CRIES OF PAIN, BURNING SOUND] [HEAVY BREATHING, MUFFLED] I… [CAPPED LIGHTER, SHAKY VOICE] … you owe me one, Gerry. Rest in… … Just rest.

When you were finding reasons to not do it, and you still forced yourself to do it because you had promised Gerry.)

(- Meanwhile: if Jon is feeling like Hell after a few months, and is confused and tired (his voice is… raspy)… once again, how does Elias feed. It’s been a year. How come he’s managing. Has he done something to the prison, is he actually in control of the whole place.)

- Oh Gods No, Jon:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: … Fine. I get it; my feelings mean nothing to it. HELEN: Mm, not true. They carry a certain flavour, a seasoning. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] [NASAL CHUCKLE] I see. HELEN: [LAUGHS, ECHOING] I am enjoying our time together.

… is now deliberately making Beholding puns.

- One big distinction from other avatars, regarding Jon, though? He still… doesn’t put the blame on his victims. It’s him doing something awful to them, he takes no pride in it. There is still that “guilt”… and an absolute lack of zealotry regarding The Eye? Elias was all over Beholding in MAG120. Hezekiah got all over The Buried in a year and half. But Jon… still isn’t waxing poetry about Beholding?

And same: he… still hasn’t attacked anyone, although his surveillance seems quite loose. Why has Jon agreed to stop, since he’s been confronted about it and unable to keep on being in denial or finding a scapegoat through The Web…? There have been talks about how he will come back to it, how it won’t last, but… no discussion about the reasons he would have to stop, although he admitted that he “[did]n’t want to stop” (MAG147), and has indeed been stopping since then. I don’t think that it’s only as Helen said, that he’s restraining himself for self-preservation…?

- … There is now an additional dimension to the fact that Jon was keeping his rib in the same drawer as Jane Prentiss’s ashes, since he explained how he was… likening their situations:

(MAG140) BASIRA: Er… Jon. What’s this. [DRY SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Mm? … Oh. That’s… [SILENCE] 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?

(MAG152) HELEN: Hello, Jon. Been a while since you’ve been down here. ARCHIVIST: [ANGRY EXHALE] I didn’t come here to see you. HELEN: Oh, come now. I’m sure I’m more interesting company than the late Jane Prentiss. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall.

(I first misunderstood this passage and there was something really striking about the picture of Jon going back in the tunnels where Jane Prentiss had hidden, and from where she had attacked them, going back to that special spot with the circle of worms and going back in time to when she was the current threat, holding the jar of ashes in his arms… But he doesn’t actually have the jar with him.) This is not just about Jane Prentiss specifically, though. Jon has had a trend of focusing on avatars and their stories to try to see what is the logic, where he fits in:

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. [PAUSE] These things that… loom so large over our lives trap us, and push us, and… sometimes kill us. But they never actually tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. So we scheme and we plot, lash out at each other without ever really knowing why. […] [SIGH] … We’ve been back in London for just over a week, now. I’m… more or less recovered physically. It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: … I–I don’t know, I mean… We still don’t really know… what Elias actually is…? I thought… Maybe if he was more like me than we realised… BASIRA: He might have some advice? ARCHIVIST: Stupid, I know.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: I cannot tell how much of the change that comes over someone, when they are taken by one of the Fears, is a… direct product of their influence, and how much is their own mind, desperately contorting itself to accept and justify the awful things they find themselves drawn to doing. I have read… many statements now by those who are changing, who are becoming… something else, and few, if any of them, seem… entirely rational. Entirely the people that they were before. And how can I tell, I suppose? My job is to view people at their lowest, their most fearful and unstable moments. Perhaps there is less change there than I imagine. Certainly… I don’t feel different; I have no desire for pseudo-religious philosophising or… delighting in the suffering of those I harm. … Then again, I suppose I’m hardly in the best position to judge. Perhaps to anyone listening to these tapes, I sound… remarkably similar to Hezekiah, or to Manuela. … Or to Jane. […] HELEN: But that’s not why you’re here, is it? ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] … Yeah, mm. … I’ve been thinking a lot about Jane. She was the first, you know? The first I actually… “encountered” like… [SMALL HUFF] like us. She seemed so… inhuman. Like everything she used to be was… stripped away…! HELEN: And now? ARCHIVIST: … I wonder how much of her was still in there. How much did she choose to be what she was? I read her statement, she was… [SIGH] She was scared. I assumed she’d been possessed completely against her will, but now I’m not even sure that’s possible…! HELEN: It is astounding the sort of things you’re willing to choose, given an unpleasant enough alternative, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: How much of “willpower” is just… safety. Comfort by another name. The option to choose and be fine. […] HELEN: But we’re not talking about me, are we? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … When does it stop? HELEN: What? ARCHIVIST: The guilt… The misery… All the others I’ve met, they’ve been… cold. Cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does The Eye… make me monstrous? HELEN: [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] Why would it ever do that?

Trying to find a reason about why this all was happening to him through Agnes’s story; throwing his lot in alongside other avatars, and expressing a form of pity towards Manuela (Jon???); trying to find out if Elias’s own experience and managing methods could help him (you know you’re at your lowest when–); and now not being sure, anymore, that he’s any different from the others. Mostly concerned about (not) dealing with his own feelings of guilt rather than… finding ways to stop causing harm. Still portraying himself as passive without realising it much: wondering if he had been “chosen” (although it has some truth to it – Elias did pick him out, after all) meant that he hadn’t made the choice himself. Being at the mercy of Fears gods way above his comprehension meant that they were the only ones able to give him a purpose. Thinking that he was manipulated by The Web to attack people and feed from their traumas, meant that he wasn’t the one choosing to do it. Thinking of Jane as “possessed” meant that it wasn’t really her; that it isn’t really “Jonathan Sims”, either, cornering people and hurting them deeply. Waiting for The Eye to “make” him monstrous means that he is not becoming it almost on his own.

I’m still absolutely lost on the matter of what Jon is heading towards. We began season 4 with Oliver inviting Jon to make a “choice”: but I feel like lately, characters have insisted that… it wasn’t an all-defining, all-compassing choice. That Jon kept choosing, afterwards, and is still choosing right now, although that’s still not something that he is fully acknowledging. It feels like he’s being handed key hints about his own faults and flaws, and about his own situation, through what it isn’t; he’s been given other examples; he’s been told both by Helen and by Annabelle that he was still constantly choosing, that nobody else was making his decisions for him. But, at the same time, Jon has… never been known for his ability to self-reflect until it was way too late. So: on the one hand, Helen Richardson choosing to “stop” feeling guilty because she’d keep going could be once again a counterexample, something he will chose to not do because others have chosen this before. On the other hand, if Jon Definitely Crashes… we would have been given the keys to understand why and how it happened. So, no idea.

… But: since Annabelle’s statement, Jon has been shown interacting with Basira (MAG148), then Melanie (MAG150). We know Daisy is around, though we still haven’t heard a glimpse of conversation between them. I’m still Very Worried About Daisy (what did Jon stop himself from saying about her to Basira, in MAG148…? Does he know something we don’t? Has she secretly relapsed? Is she currently dying from withdrawal?) but at the same time… she made me want her to be the person to pull Jon up – Jon, who has been digging into avatars’ mechanisms and histories and raisons d’être… and drifting away from the “human” side of things at the same time? (Or, to make a more accurate distinction: Jon has been focusing on people and creatures who deem it acceptable and fine to feed from other people’s misery, while beginning to ignore and close his eyes to the people who are hurt by them.) I still feel like Daisy gave us the most hopeful line, this season?

(MAG132) DAISY: Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it… I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Jon had been the one to get her out of the coffin; it would be fitting for Daisy to pull him back up, too. Daisy, who used to simply be a “rabid dog”, just a way for Elias to get Jon to develop his powers – how fitting would it be, if she was the one who had not been factored in for, if she managed to save something or someone…? I don’t know. Don’t want to be too hopeful, especially when I’m still worried about Jon’s interrupted “Daisy is–” ;;

MAG153’s title is… OUUUUUUUUUUUUUFTTTTTTTTTT. First thought is “Gertrude.” (Are her boxes of tapes & statements still accessible in Elias’s office?), obviously, then “Martin?”, then I googled it and got acquainted with the actual meaning of the expression, and PLEASE DON’T BE ABOUT MARTIN… (be it on the receiving end, or as… the one… doing it… to someone… especially not Jon… please, don’t be about any of the assistants………………).

So eh. Many potentials and D: Web? It’s about manipulation. Lonely? We know the Lukases are really good at raising/grooming kids/people. Corruption? It sounds… a lot like Jane Prentiss, uh. Slaughter? Beholding and it’s about Jonathan Fanshawe and Jonah Magnus? Oh gods, please, don’t have Elias talk in this episode, not with a title like that. Fear Entities overall (from Smirke or another architect)?