#peoples church of the divine host

[myfckingnameisnuwanda]

Top 10 worst roommates ever, The Horrors edition.

Masterpost

<- 024: Strange Music - 026: A Distortion ->

<-<- 001: Angler Fish

[archivus]

MAG[REDACTED] - Dark Down Below

This is episode dedicated to fans of Agnes Montague, the Cult of the Lightless Flame or the People's Church of the Divine Host

Statement of Lisa Yordanka regarding her experience with a strange mattress. Original statement given 22nd of August 1998, recording by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape on April 2nd 2024. Statement begins:

I know about the entities. And I know that you must know about them as well. The ten lords in the sky beyond controlling our fears, but there's only one to which's power I consented to: the Desolation. I never thought a daughter of The Blackened Earth would be haunted by The Forever Blind. But I guess dark and destruction, flame and ash and coal go hand in hand. I never thought of their faction as the enemy. I thought we had some kind of contract binding us until we rid our area of The Mother of Puppets. Assuming they were the ones that brought it upon me.

I'm a coward. I have been devout to Asag ever since it enlightened me to it all: the human race deserves not what it has. The only one to bring destruction to it all is my God and no one else's. I would sacrifice myself in its name and yet, I haven't. I want to say I just haven't had the chance to, but that'd be a lie. I am afraid to die. Even in light of the powers at my fingertips I cannot bring death upon my shell. Because wouldn't that mean giving myself up to Terminus? Wouldn't that just feed The Coming End That Waits For All? Will I stop lying to myself one day? I can't bring myself to do it. It's that simple.

Until the inevitable end comes when I'll finally unite with the one to light my fire I will put this body to the most use that I can for both IT and the cult. So then, how come The Dark set it's blind gaze upon me? Why did I become their target? I don't even know what it counts, maybe as- as an artefact? A monster that came for me? Did something *posess* my mattress while I was busy fighting for Agnes?

It was a cold night, I remember. I got the chance to be around the chosen one, for a week I was blessed by her presence and I soaked it up, I could feel it in my powers. But the apartment she and Jude shared didn't have a guest bedroom nor a third bed, but luckily someone from the cult had a spare mattress we brought over to accommodate those that wish to see messiah and bathe in her immediate divinity. I was not the first to sleep on it. But I was there at the wrong time.

See, we had a bit of a commotion with our siblings over at the people's church, some started a protest that this joint of powers is a downright sacrilege towards their "Mr. Pitch", that whilst our flame is lightless, the heat it emanates is reminiscent of the thing they hate the most. They argued that our burning is parallel to that of the Sun which they're so desperately trying to blacken and thus we were harmful to their sanctity.

Though we tried to keep Agnes's identity a secret, their most sensitive to the world beyond ours could feel her presence and the gossip carried the word quick and far. So their target was set on our dear messiah's back and that was something I simply I could not let happen. The physical aspect of the fight was lacking to say the least, the darkness works by disorientation not by direct combat, which is what the flame excels at.

Thankfully my blessed abilities include striking a spark into all that's electric and once the churchmen's frosty void surrounded us all I was able to flick all the broken bulbs lying around, those that they ritualistically destroyed into a flashbang for those who still perceived with their eyes. The rest also felt their power dissipate. The destruction of their ego, their fear of eradication almost made me want to get up close and personal with those who were first to open fire but there was no need, for they all turned their backs and my family from the cult urged me to leave them behind. That mercy was undeserved and it hurt.

That evening I had a hard time ridding my system of the pent up adrenaline. I took to some meditation with the members who were still there by the nightfall, but I still struggled to fall asleep. The mattress seemed too wavy and for long long hours I thought it was just my shocked perception playing tricks on my brain. But then I felt something slam into the middle of my spine, a shocking pain piercing through my skin like a round knife. It was like a heavy wooden door shutting, again and again and again. I tried to scream. I see well in the dark, my heat perception is impeccable yet I couldn't find a thing in my vicinity. The room seemed empty and after half a second the darkness seemed to wrap around my neck, flowing down my throat, muffling any sound I made. Then another spring etched into the nape of my neck, with a power that should've sprung my head up but something weighed me down on the needle bed that kept on prying into my body, spring by spring until I lost consciousness.

I don't even have to mention. It was dark. The most pitch black one couldn't see. This one had to be lived by a soul, as I was sure that was all I had now. My, at least what I believe to be my projected- body was glowing. I wasn't floating though. All around me was all encompassing darkness, yes, but I was laying in a swamp of some sort of viscous liquid that barely felt like it was even there. At first at least. I could barely touch it, the texture escaped my fingertips. That was until I felt a bump forming under my back from what, I now felt as a tiny swarm of particles, a dark sentient confetti. Thinking they were about to transport me I relaxed my body. How naive of me. Expecting to meet face to face with one of the gods from beyond? In my right mind I definitely wouldn't have thought myself worthy and I still not am. But I let go to see where the darkness takes me. Nowhere.

All of a sudden I experienced an ache of a thousand suns burrowing under my skin, the wounds were still obviously there from where the springs burst into me, and now they were being pried open once again by the mysterious creatures, bleeding me dry in the dreamscape of their master(s). I was numb. The pain made my brain forget where my muscles were positioned. I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of a spinal cord injury. For a moment it all seemed to cease but right after the calm my whole being began to spasm. I was experiencing a shock, a fit that I can't describe. I wasn't conscious all throughout though, I can tell you that much. After all my muscles startes vibrating uncontrollably, I lost myself.

And then awoke. My head throbbing like a bad hangover, I climbed over to the bathroom. I spare you the details, I was in a rather sorry state. I do not know who cursed me in the church and I do not care to find out. I want them all to pay, to burn among the flames they'll wish so desperately to not see. But my fire will burn through their blackened eyeholes and etch a flash in the deepest corners of the minds of even those that could never see. And I'll leave this statement to you and the ages to come, to note the day those wretched monsters dare lay their closed eyes upon our Agnes.

Statement ends. There are certainly a few interesting details to this statement so I'll go over them in order. First, Lisa only seems to know about 10 of the 15 entities, which may translate to the Cult of The Lightless Flame having the same, limited knowledge. This can be seen by the fact that miss Lisa's powers described here more closely resemble The Extinction's, rather than The Desolation's. It definitely gets me wondering how someone devout could be snatched from their entity's grasp. Maybe the Future Without Us was already within her when she first joined the cult?

Still baffles me how such a new power would dare mess with the subordinates of the burning destruction. Miss Lisa's fear and inability to sacrifice herself may come from The Extinction preventing her from becoming an avatar to the *wrong* entity, or it could just be a manifestation of its powers, just like her wishing death upon the entirety of the human race. I was also unaware that the two most active cults at the time, at least of those serving the entities, held such close ties, even if we just witnessed them getting severed...

Two days after giving this statement the apartment under the name of Lisa Yordanka caught fire, which is assumed to be electrical in nature, her kitchen appliances being the most likely source, and whilst cameras don't show her leaving, no body was found. Per my deductions this means she had completed her transformation into an avatar, though maybe not the one she wished to become. I wonder if the metal from the springs could've helped her body transform, like a crystallization chain reaction. Those born of The Terrible Change seem to enjoy their robotic bodies more than their organic ones, which they often experience as flesh-prisons. *sigh* I hope this fellow avatar finds it freeing as well and not as another bound to something she doesn't even know about. Wonder if she's ever going to figure it out. Recording ends.

Thanks for reading! I love how this turned out and actually written most of it before The Stranger's episode was done 😅. This episode is dedicated to The Dark and you can find the other ones here: The Flesh The Vast The Stranger

[fruitisthenewvegitable]

@jane-crow

a lot of people seem to forget jon ate the (extinguished) sun once 😭

[clairebearsparkles]

Here’s a piece of Manuela Dominguez and Maxwell Rayner based on a different artwork I saw. (Ref included under the cut)

Original painting by Aruntzazu Martinez

[neverfeverdream]

today i got to go into a deep cave and experience true dark. the true deep, wonderful darkness that is complete absence of light when deep underground. the walls of the cave echoing only the sounds inside them. trapping everything inside of it and turning it around and over itself and it was

truly beautiful.

i now understand what it is to be in the darkness and i don’t understand why the light is the one known for its radiance when the darkness can radiate in that way

[murderandcoffee]

dark avatars will see a pitch black so deep it erases even the memory of light and ask "is anyone else gonna worship at this sable altar?" and then not wait for an answer

[pastellich]

Maxwell Rayner, leader of the People's Church of the Divine Host

Pencil and pastel

Check out my other TMA drawings

[therealdistortion]

I love it whenever I see people draw tmagp Gerry with closed eye tattoos instead of open eye tattoos like the ones he had in tma. But every time I see it the only thing I can think of is how they’re the symbol of the People’s Church Of The Divine Host

[simonfairchildirl]

everytime someone portrays rayner as a nonce, an angel fucking dies HES NOT A NONCE LEAVE HIM ALONE YOU DONT GET HIM LIKE I DO!!!!!!

"b-b-but he went for callum" WOW IT'S ALMOST LIKE A CULT WOULD SEEK OUT VULNERABLE PEOPLE, THE SAME WAY NATALIE AND MANUELA WERE VULNERABLE WHEN THEY BECAME AVATARS !!!!!!!!!! KYS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[raevenlywrites]

Time for more The Magnus Archives! Todays listen starts with episode 21: Free Fall through 22: Colony 23: Schwarrzwhatever skipped bc historical shit bores me, 24: Strange Music 25: Growing Dark, 26: A Distortion, 27: A sturdy lock and finally 28: Skintight

(prev episodes here)

Free Fall

Martin! I almosr skipped this one bc one of my fears is "im in a situation i cant walk/climb/swim away from", but my hands were full so i just let it go. and we get an interruption! i love those

Colony

Okay. So I love Martin right off the bat for unfair meta reasons and for pretty legit diagetic reasons. One, I have a fondness for Alex's voice from listening to Rusty Quill Gaming. I always hear him playing this one shot himbo paladin of Apollo, and it always makes me grin. So im just flat predisposed to feel favorably to anyone voiced by Alex.

But two, so far Jon has been presented as kind of prickly. He sounds unpleasant to give statements to, wretched for work for, and particularly hard on Martin. Maybe its justified, maybe not, we havent had a chance to know. So now we get Martin "on camera" and he is immediately cast as pathetic and aligned with the reader: creeped out by all this spooky shit. He goes on to be a very good boy, doing scary shit bc he knows he needs to do a better job for his boss.

And then, brilliantly, Jon subverts this dick boss vibe thats been building by offering a room to Martin. He takes Martin's concerns very seriously, because he takes legitimate archives concerns very seriously. Weve seen hints of this with his reactions to things like the Lightner books, but this is the first time hes reacted with a sense of urgency. its a ramping up of the tension, now that weve established the tone of the work and some truths about the world. its really interesting that this shit isnt in response to dreamer, a direct threat to his predecessor, but rather a direct threat to one of his subordinates. It says some interesting things about Jon's character, and shifts my expectations on how he might react to future incidents.

ugh. im remembering the other reason why listening to this at work was a no go. The sound mixing on this is so bad that even with my headphones cranked all the way up, i can't hear shit :/

Schwartzwhatever skipped due to disinterest in historicals, let me know if im missing any vital clues or fun interruption scenes

Strange Music

Not much to say about this one, although it was fun to listen to Sasha and Jon lampshade the problems of audio media and regional pronounciations of Calliope. Has anyone ever actually heard it pronounced Callie ope (like cantaloupe)?

Growing Dark

So, i happened to go back and listen to 9: A fathers love, while trying to calibrate my headphones, and what a happy accident that I did! Hello, The Peoples Church of The Divine Host! Also, connection to Gertrude's "death" (still not 100 that she's dead, just gone)

Flag: TPCotDH, episodes 9: A fathers love and 25: Growing Dark

A distortion

Sasha! This is another one where my experiences with Rusty Quill gaming make me predisposed to like and trust Sasha. But since Jon also seems to trust her, that makes me more inclined to believe their opinion of Martin as a bit of a klutz, the one you trip when youre running from a bear, most likely to be the first casuality

Very curious about Michael, cant help but wonder if theyre going to lean into angelic mythology or not. Tuck that in my folder of "things to wait and see about"

A Sturdy Lock

By all rights this one SHOULD get to me. I dont remember if it did on my first listen, but this time around all I really care about is wondering from a writer perspective if all these "other statements" that get mentioned every now and again are already written/planned, or just mechanism to add to the sense of a larger world. And from a reader figuring shit out perspective, I'm starting to wonder if the archive is such a mess maybe on purpose. Like, was Gertrude a baddy (/IS a baddy????). Or maybe Martin is not as inept as he seems and is secretly moving things about 🧐

Skintight

I LOVE that this one isnt actually about a grey lady. its really fun how they like to set up common tropes and then sideswipe them XD. Plus its a real treat to hear two actors play off of each other. That works so much better for me than suspending my disbelief that grumpy old Jarchivist is recording these statements with such emotion XD

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 9, MAG 9, A Father's Love

Julia Montork.

That's it end of post.

Jk jk this is my MAG 9 analysis. Spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Julia Montauk (not Montork) regarding the actions of her father, serial killer Robert Montauk (not Montork). Statement given December 3rd, 2002.

Statement Notes: This episode utilizes two horror tropes that are rather common, but not often seen together. This is a Serial Killer horror story, but also a "Discovering A Family Member" story. Serial Killer stories are self-explanatory, following the vicious actions of a single killer, drawing fear from the nature of their deeds and the fear that anyone could be next. "Discovering A Family Member" is the name I use for horror stories in which someone discovers that someone in their family is a monster, literally or figuratively. Think Mom and Dad or We Need To Talk About Kevin. The combination of these two tropes makes it so the audience witnesses a serial killer story from the inside out. We aren't afraid of who the killer is going to get next because we don't need the other characters. Rather, the fear we feel isn't that of attacked townspeople, but of a child. We are not afraid because we might be attacked, but because the person who's always protected us might be the thing we need protection from.

Something that really stood out to me in this episode is how much Julia expects of her childhood self, repeatedly pointing out things that should have bothered her or made her realize what was happening. Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty and it's easy to see all the clues after the mystery's been solved, but there was no way for her to know back then. Especially because she was a literal child. This is a very real feeling though. It's common for people to hate or blame their childhood selves for doing things wrong or not knowing enough, even though there's no way for a child be as intelligent or mature as an adult. Julia expresses a very genuine feeling, if not an entirely rational one.

The heartbeat audio at the end of the statement was so incredible. Such a gradual and effective sound. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time an outside noise was used to create effect in the series.

Entity Alignment: This is the first Peoples' Church of the Divine Host Mention, and a pretty solid Dark episode, but there's some stuff that doesn't make sense to me.

(Unrelated, but one of these things is the Church's name. We have "The Cult of The LIGHTLESS Flame" and the " Peoples' Church of the DIVINE HOST." One of these groups worships darkness and one of them has a person acting as a spiritual host for all their desires and it's not the ones you think.)

The shed glows when Robert Montauk performs his ritual. For a Dark ceremony, this doesn't really make a lot of sense. The only explanation I can really think of is that this glowing area is somehow "stealing" the light from others. But I don't fully understand how the murders and heart collection truly fuels the Dark. There's probably another aspect that occurs during the tortures Julia sees in the photographs, but I guess we'll never really know.

It's never confirmed that Montauk is a member of the Church, but it is confirmed that at least some of his victims are. Additionally, the light goes out in his cell when he is murdered. I theorize that even if Montauk was a member of the Church, he wasn't killing for the Dark, but rather targeting its members to get revenge for his wife and to protect his daughter. The ritual may offer protective forces against the Dark, which is why the shed glows.

The line that really stuck with me in this episode was "The Darkness was inside." The idea that the darkness isn't an absence of light, but a presence of something else. In a weird, poetic way, Julia foreshadows that the lights going out isn't something that just happens, but fear entering a room.

I also love the use of the Dark as a childhood fear throughout the series. Even in episodes where it attacks adults, many of them still cite feeling like a child again. This is because fear of the Dark is a very primal, instinctual thing engrained in our psyches from the moment we are born. It also makes the stories so relatable. When Julia says she "did as I was told" and went straight to bed, only wandering out to get a drink of water, when the fear crept in, that's something every kid has gone through. It keeps with the recurring fear of the mundane in the Magnus Archives. It's not during the big moments that the fear will get you, but the during the little, everyday ones.

Character Notes: I love Julia. I love her. I think about her all the time. That's it end of post.

[brakish-tea]

In all honestly I'd be happy to join one of those fictional cults. Y'know the ones where they have like an evil cosmic entity or like the concept of fire or darkness or stars and you can wear robes and masks and like dance around shit and do fucked up rituals. That sounds fucking awesome. like people have got to branch out from 'alternate christianity version no83' and bring out The Horrors. I had a fucking vivid dream about this I want my new profession to be not false but dubious prophet because if I have to work in an office I will straight up die.

[crow-archivist]

A Dark Avatar whose entire way of serving their Entity is just making TikToks where they shout “ALEXA, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS” and hoping that someone has that feature enabled in their home.

[jasperthecapser]

The Magnus Archives doodles in polaroids

[verysaint-tropez]

I wonder if this episode is connected to the episode with the serial killer dad and the girl who's mother dissapeared ... the darkness is familiar and i remember it also being about a church group

[a-deed-without-a-name]

I Know that I have sent you a few prompts already, and I appreciate the fact that every other horny bastard that follows you will be swarming your inbox like weevils. However. If you *do* have the space/time for it, I would really love to see some whump of Elias/Jonah. My desire to see that old man bloodied and whimpering knows no bounds. Could be AU, could be canon, whatever it takes to make it fun to write

Elias wasn’t immediately sure how Tim had managed it.  He should have Seen him coming, he should have Known.  But he hadn’t even realized that he was in the building until he heard his footsteps just outside his office, and the door swung open.

Elias raised his head with a frown.  How strange; it was as if there were something in his eye, Tim out of focus in front of him.  He had just begun to feel the first stirrings of alarm as he said, “Ah.  Tim.  What - ”

He did not get to finish the question.  Tim had reached him by that point, taken a handful of meticulously-groomed silver-shot hair, and bounced his face off of his desk.

His glasses broke, a thin shard of glass slicing into one cheek.  So did his nose.  His teeth didn’t, but his lips did split against them, and his mouth and sinuses were suddenly awash in blood.

The taste of it was nothing new to him, but the pain was.  It had been decades.  The last time he had hurt, been really hurt, had been…well, since his last transfer, really.  No matter how many times he did it, it remained a grisly, grueling process.

But there was also a world of difference between self-inflicted, foreseen pain, braced for and warded against…and an unprovoked attack.

Elias immediately whipped back upwards, rising onto his feet, spraying blood into the air.  It and the shattered remains of his glasses pattered down onto his desk…completely ruining the new budget, he thought vaguely.  He should have done something then, when he briefly locked eyes with Tim, saw his blown pupils, brown irises completely eclipsed by inky black.  Things likely would have gone very differently if he had.  But he was disoriented.  So he only managed to get out a thick, “Tim - ”

“Oh, no, you don’t.”  And then Tim had come around his desk and looped an arm over his neck, and when he squeezed it sliced the breath that Elias had been struggling to take neatly in half.

Elias kicked and struggled.  Of course he did.  But he may as well have been flapping a piece of paper at Tim for all the good it did him.

Jonah Magnus had been a relatively slight man, and had, outside of emergencies, chosen his vessels partially for their match to that original build.  It was simple convenience: not only did it make the transition easier, not having to adjust to new limb lengths, it also meant that he could maintain his original furnishings and wardrobe until they quite literally wore out.

Unfortunately, it also meant that Elias Bouchard was bare inches above five feet tall without counting his shoes, and tipped the scales somewhere around eight stone here in his delicate middle age.  Tim was over a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier, and without Elias being able to call upon the full force of his patron to back his blows: that mattered a great deal.

He had thought that Tim intended to choke him unconscious, and scrambled to get his thoughts in order, to place debilitating knowledge into Tim’s head.  Danny Stoker’s almost childlike surety, when the knife had first slipped between skin and flesh, that his older brother would save him.  The fact the Circus had not actually finished using him even once he was fully flayed.  His very last thought that was not simple, flat animal agony, a blinding, blazing red.

But Elias was derailed by animal agony of his own, as Tim took hold of his jaw, twisted and wrenched, and something gave a gristly pop.  He Knew that his right articular disk had just ruptured, his left temporomandibular joint tendon and stylomandibular ligament had both torn fully, and his styloid and condylar processes were in terrible shape, having had a hair over one hundred pounds of pressure just suddenly applied to them.

Oddly, none of that made him feel better.

Tim released him, and Elias staggered instinctively back, away from him.  He only kept himself upright by slamming a hand down onto his desk.  His palm landed atop the cutting star of what had once been the right lens of his glasses, but he hardly felt it as a thin, nauseous wail dripped out of him, past a jaw hanging limp from his face.  Every motion, every breath, was a lightning strike of pain.

“Let’s see you try any of that spooky mind-control bullshit on me now,” Tim said, and Elias looked at him through the tears that had gathered automatically in his eyes, and drilled directly into his brain.

Or tried to, at least.  The javelin of his mind slid right off Tim’s, as if it were a black stone, surface smooth as glass and dark as death.  Maybe if he’d still been able to speak, to make that connection, he could have defended himself, but not like this.  He didn’t even Know what Tim was thinking, able only to taste the trickles of rage and pleasure that seeped out of him as overflow.

True horror prickled up Elias’s spine.

He whimpered, tongue twisting, knowing very well he couldn’t say a word, realizing that he needed to run, and turned to stagger out of his office.  Tim caught him by the neck of his blazer, scruffed him like a kitten, and then drove a knee into his stomach with such force that Elias might have thought the cap hit his spine, if he didn’t know better.

Apparently, there had been some weakening along his alimentary canal.  Nothing that would have been a problem for years outside of a traumatic impact like this one, which was why he hadn’t noticed until now.  Tissue ruptured.  Elias folded down onto his knees, lightheaded, where he vomited acid-curdled blood onto the blinking pattern of his carpet, a red geyser through his ruined mouth.

“How’s that feel?” Tim asked, but of course Elias could not answer.  Every inch of him shaking with pain and adrenaline and, likely, the advancing edge of hypovolemia, he laboriously turned, and began to crawl towards the door.  Tim stomping on one hand, snapping fingers and breaking his knuckles open like walnuts, did not stop him from straining towards that slim hope of survival.  Of a way out of the pain.

He needed help.  Rosie - perhaps, but the best she could do would be to call the police, and he doubted they’d arrive before Tim killed him.  Jon was out of the country.  Basira and Melanie…he could not take the risk they would join Tim.  Which left Martin.

Who was, Elias realized with bleak, resigned amusement, not currently in the Institute.  He had gone out to Tim’s house, worried about him since he hadn’t been in to work for a few days.  He would not be back for at least an hour.

Tim grabbed him by the hair.  He’d followed along with him, only let him get as far as he had as, Elias imagined, some sort of game.  He lifted him, tossed him against one of his bookshelves.  A rib cracked, so did two vertebrae.  Elias was too winded to do anything but whimper.  Tim crouched in front of him, and he reached out to grab him, unsure what he was going to do.  He slashed one hand across his face, raising angry scratches Tim hardly seemed to notice.  A fingernail caught in a scar on the vermilion border of his lower lip, reopened a wound made originally by Jane Prentiss.  The blood looked too dark.

Elias got hold of Tim’s shirt with his other hand, yanked.  The buttons broke and scattered and he saw his bare chest.  More scars.  An unkempt patch of hair.  And a fresh tattoo, still oozing black ink, of a hand with a closed eye in the center.

Elias understood then, suddenly.  It was the last relief he imagined he might ever experience.

Tim reached out, taking hold of either side of Elias’s head with both hands.  Elias squeezed his eyes shut like a child pulling the covers over his head to keep out the monstrous forms lurking in the dark, and Tim’s thumbs came to rest lightly on his lids.  At first.

“Shouldn’t you have seen this coming?” he asked, tone low and bitter and mocking, as the pressure built.

And as the first eye gave under the pad of Tim’s right thumb, bursting in a welter of vitreous jelly and crumpled retina, Elias agreed: yes, he should have.