#you can take Jonah's first experience with the entities was with the End from my dead cold hands

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I wrote something for my Georgian Body Hopper Elias and XXI century Beholding upstart employee Jonah AU:

When asked how did he manage to get promoted to head of the an academic institute - normally with some rude intonation that was clearly insinuating his lack of competency - Elias Bouchard would use his amazing bullshiting talents to make a passionate speech about how behind his lax posture he had a firm work ethic and a knack for both the supernatural and finances. In reality it was mostly the fact that by trying to prevent him from “walking with the wrong crowd” his father had in actuality throwed him directly into the worst influences and what should be another vain attempt to impress the old man - and maybe have some secret quick fuck before he had to finally fold into an arranged marriage that luckily never came - only caused his downfall into a terrible cruel worship. 

Years ago. Before fear took him down Elias Bouchard was not a curious man. He was on the other hand a truly adaptable man and one that liked to experiment more than most, he also has always been a coward. Too afraid of being the only one left as all his friends falled one way or the other to malicious gods and as Robert failed, he realized he too needed to choose divinity. He looked for the less violent options and since he really disliked loneliness to the point of getting himself into this situation to begin with… He had no choice but to choose the Eye,

There was a reason that even though he was one of the oldest avatars he and his Institute were still mostly sawn as a joke (or a threat but the last was all thanks to Gertrude). He was faithful to his god but also terrified of it and the fates worse than death Beholder must grant to his failed followers (Albretch and the eyes everywhere come to mind). So he watched, he did nothing to protect his friends, unsure he even could, as he observed every aspect of their demise and he kept watching. In the better days he was truly grateful to his patron, in the worst he would consider death, still he clingled to the only life he knew, going between bodies and sometimes choosing the type of unknown person he could just pass his old name to.  

Still he would say that all of his victims - including the ones whose body he stole - were an accident, a weed induced trip or just a bolt of having a paranoia evil god living rent free insise his head. The complicated situation he was in right now was none of it. 

It started with a Lukas. 

Elias truly hated the Lukases. Alas he needed them for funding, so when Peter Lukas mentioned a new kid that hanged with him and Annabelle and was a truly Eye freak he easily conceded in interviewing the poor sod. The last time Annabelle had given him Jon, someone that the Eye was clearly fond off and hopefully the soon to be solution to Gertrude’s mess, honestly if Jon wasn’t such an active worker - and a handsome one at that - Elias would have thrown him as an assistant and ensure he became Gertrude’s successor soon and by any means necessary, unfortunately doing that would generate a deficit in production and Bouchard, who was never really good with money even as rich man in the georgian era, could not afford to take. Peter mostly only gave him leftovers which all things considered was still really good for a Lukas. 

The first impression he had of the kid was that it made a lot of sense that he knew Annabelle, as both of them clearly had the same vintage clothing sense, the second was that between his plump lips and mid length red hair he was very attractive and would surely be a satisfying meal. His academic credentials were, in Elias' opinion, way too good for the Institute, but most of his employees were in different levels of way too good for this weird dead end job, except the fun nervous wreck in the library that had strayed up lied about everything. He smiled predatorily to his next meal, hiring people was always an acceptable lunch, is not like they wouldn’t have anxiety in a normal job interview anyway, for an instance he saw a flash of terror, the words “the moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one” and then nothing, only static and gray eyes that looked way too old Looking at him, Elias had forgotten he still could be Seen, or maybe hoped he couldn’t, not in any significant way, not besides Jon unconscious slips or Gertrude intimidating stare. He felt true terror in his bones. He could almost see the Beholding saying mine.

“Mr. Bouchard, it is a pleasure to finally meet you.” The young man said politely. “Peter tales don’t get close to the magnificence that is this place.”

“The pleasure is mine” More like Beholding’s, he thought angrily. “Perdon me, I reckon that in the middle of so many applications I forgot your name.” He knew it pretty well. He just needed a moment to compose himself. He was sure there was nothing to worry about, the Eye was satisfied enough with him, he wasn’t perfect but he wasn’t a lost cause… The Eye wouldn’t send another Watcher. Would it?

“Jonah Magnus, sir, but Jonah is good enough.” He was still Watching him. Filling him with dread.

“So Jonah, what makes you want to work at the Bouchard Institute of Paranormal Studies?” 

Magnus smiled. This time not predatorily nor with the subtle look that showed he saw himself as somehow more than Elias, but a truly full wishful smile.

“My God is calling me home.” 

His voice was velvet,  powerful and Elias knew he had to let the boy join, he also knew he had to find a way to deal with it, maybe convince the Beholder of having two Watchers? Or something else. Anything at all. Fast.

A small but still significant part of him considered that maybe he should break his rule and consider murder this time, full murder no excuses. Jonah smilled, suspiciously like he had read Elias mind and found the consideration of murder amusing.

He was completly, undeniably fucked.

[shizucheese]

Okay okay okay, I need everyone to listen to me about this.

I know I kinda talked about this before in a reblog to someone else's post, but the idea has been rotating in my brain ever since and I feel like it needs to be further explored. A lot of people have been talking about the differences between TMA and TMP, and memeing about how people can actually quit the OIAR (which btw, I'll believe when I actually see it, by which I mean if we're able to get through the entire series without Teddy either coming back or turning up dead or otherwise facing "You can quit but you can never leave" levels of repercussions) but like nobody, from what I've seen, has been talking about what imo is the pretty glaringly obvious element at play here. So let's talk about the spider in the room, shall we? What do we know about the Magnus Institute in TMA?

People came there to give statements regarding their spooky experiences, including people who had doubts about doing so (because they weren't sure if the Institute was reputable, because they weren't sure if they believed what they had experienced, because they served a different entity so what reason would they have to do something for The Eye, etc).

The head archivist would ultimately become the Archivist, an Avatar of the Eye.

The Archivist's abilities included enabling statement givers to give their statements without going off track or leaving out details (we even see what happens when it's not the Archivist taking the statement), and being able to compel people to tell them things against their will, from statements to their darkest secrets.

You couldn't quit, at least not without gouging your eyes out.

The Magnus Institute was a part of the Eye.

Or was it? Because the other thing we know about the Magnus Institute is that the Web was using it as part of its plan to break free from the TMA world and gain access to the other worlds out there. How much of the compulsion aspects of the Institute-- people being drawn to the Institute to give statements, the Archivist's ability to draw statements and secrets out of people, people's inability to quit the Institute--was actually because of the Web? Where does the Eye's "compulsion to seek out knowledge even if it could be bad/ harmful" end and the Web's "not being in control of your own actions" begin? Was the Archivist--at least in the form Gertrude and John took--really purely an Avatar of the Eye? Or were they an Avatar of a mix between The Eye and the Web, much like how Martin, if he were to ever become a full fledged Avatar, likely would have been a mix of the Eye and the Lonely, just like his domain in S5 was? After all, Jonah was an Eye Avatar, was he not? And as far as we saw, he never needed to compel information out of people. He just Knew it (and used it to torment people).

One of the themes I've been playing around with in my TMA fanfictions since I first finished the podcast for the first time last winter is how the course of history would be different in the alternate worlds, where the Web wasn't interfering--at least not on the same scale, or for the same reasons--since it had already gotten what it wanted at the end of TMA. And I think that's exactly what we're seeing a version of in Protocol. I think the OIAR is what it looks like when it's entirely the Eye at play, with 0 interference from the Web. The Eye is all about having your secrets exposed, being watched, being followed. The tape recorders--something that would need to be turned off and on (controlled) in order to record something--were a tool of the Web. Now we're "witnessing" the events of the podcast through the audio from security cameras and other things that are constantly running; constantly seeing and listening without needing to be turned on and off. The statements aren't being given by people who somehow found their way to the institute and were on some level or another compelled to tell their tales. They're journal entries detailing a person's private thoughts. They're letters meant only for the eyes of the recipient, sharing secrets not meant for anyone else. They're recorded therapy sessions.

And the statements that are related to the Eye? The ones read in John's voice? They're forum and blog posts, which not only makes them the only ones whose sources didn't have the same expectation of privacy as the others, also ties them to the Web, since computers and websites were previously established as being associated with it.

[fridayyy-13th]

gonna be honest, feeling very conflicted about this episode, lads. i've been really hoping Protocol won't explain away the (NARRATIVELY IMPORTANT) mystery left at the end of Archives, i.e. Jon and Martin's fate, so seeing as they're the next thing Sam and Celia are gonna be investigating, this is kinda gonna be the thing that makes or breaks Protocol, for me.

i do think there's a solid chance Chester and Norris are the Jon and Martin from Protocol's universe, and that is something i absolutely would not mind. but i haven't actually made a post explaining why i think that, and i should probably do that before it's explained, just so i can mayyyybe say i called it.

(for the record, i'm pretty sure i came up with most of this before the series even officially dropped, when all we had was the ARG and the trailer. i haven't done much to connect this theory to the further information we've learned, so it's probably not fully accurate (if accurate at all). and quite a bit of it is kinda baseless conjecture; i'm just throwing my thoughts out there. just a little disclaimer.)

so!

in Archives, Jonah's primary motivation is fear of death. turning to the Eye is what allows him to body-hop as he does for 200 years, trying to create a world where his Patron reigns supreme, where he is seated upon its throne and cannot die. assuming his motivation is the same in Protocol, this new universe is (likely until recently) untouched by the Entities. if Jonah wanted to evade death, how could he do that without the help of an eldritch fear god?

easy—alchemy.

i'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject as a whole, but i'm certainly familiar with the Philosopher's Stone (the symbol of which is also present in the OIAR's/podcast's logo, though it seems the OIAR is more focused on balance than on experimentation).

i also know that the seven metals used in alchemy (gold, silver, mercury, copper, lead, iron, and tin) are all components of computer chips. i've been thinking Jonah, or maybe his successors, saw that and began turning their research to how it could be utilized to extend—or preserve—life.

to cut to the chase, bc frankly it's hard trying to sound like i know what i'm talking about and this post would take forever to write otherwise, i think Jonah tried to Sergei Ushanka himself into a computer, because metal and plastic are a hell of a lot longer-lasting than a human being.

but he wouldn't shove his consciousness into some random motherboard without making sure it was safe, what do you take him for?? he is a man of academia. obviously he had to test it on others first, and then he'd do it himself.

cue the thought experiments the Institute ran on kids. the things the experiments quantify are empathy and obedience to authority, which to me screams that they were trying to find kids who were easy to manipulate into more dangerous experiments.

and who are two characters who were kids in the 90s, with circumstances that left them lonely, isolated, and who, even as adults, are desperate to please (whether a parent or a bad boss)? Jon and Martin.

i posit that Jon and Martin were both victims of these experiments, perhaps the first (and only) successful subjects, and Jonah uploaded his consciousness to the computer soon after. their records could have been stricken from the spreadsheet to hide that they'd even been part of the program, and given the Institute burned down soon after, and there were no survivors—it could have been assumed that they'd died in the fire. it isn't like they had the most doting guardians to worry over them.

...but Chester and Norris's voices are those of adult Jon and Martin.

best i can figure, Jonah's plan might have worked in the short term, but computers have had date/time hardware in them since the 80s, so they—and Augustus—are still aging. so they've been trapped in computer software since 1999, and now that Sam and Celia are digging into what happened, they're desperate to catch their attention and find a way out.

(and lastly, a fun little thought—given Jon and Martin were both born circa 1987, they would have been twelve in 1999. they didn't even get to be teenagers.)

[zabala0z]

Welcome back to the first episode of “Listening to TMA S5, blind” I’m your beloved host and guys. Guys guys. I actually am freaking out.

MAG 161: Dwelling

I’m actually screaming. Hearing the old gang actually made me want to cry. SASHA. SASHA I MISSED YOU :(( also Elias: “I’d like to keep an eye out” you think you’re so fucking funny. I loved the very off key singing of Happy Birthday. Accurate. I wonder if Elias/Jonah sent the tapes for a reason. It’s definitely not to gloat. Is this apart of a wider web of manipulation? The Web style? Also, the fact Sasha could’ve been head archivist. Jesus

Hearing the description of the entities, that they don’t care enough to keep humanity fed and watered unnerved me a lot actually. I don’t know.

MAG 162: A Cozy Cabin

GERRY!!! Nice to hear him as a human, without all the ghost-like qualities. Although hearing Jon rewind the tape over and over and over and over again just made me feel bad.

And then Sasha and Tim.

“we had the ill-advised hookup, the awkward aftermath, and the gradually rebuilt friendship, but – that’s all season two stuff. We’ve got like five more seasons before we get the heartwarming epilogue that makes it canon.”

“No. You took it too far! I’m unforgettable!”

So what if I just ended it all?

Also Jon’s monologue. For a bit, I thought he was “knowing” one of Martins poems that he made during this since Martin was the one who did not like staying at the cabin but no, I was wrong. But time to see the outside world

MAG 163: In The Trenches

I wanna go back to the cabin.

I love TMA so much because of how the format switches up every season. Like season 1 was pretty simple enough with season 2 having Jon add in those supplementals and having a new setting (the tunnels). Season 3 cranks it up with having live statements from recurring characters, statements read by others, and dropping some lore. season 4, while similar to season 1 in terms of format, has Martin reading statements, more god damn lore and some new settings. And now season 5 has uh all this. It’s so amazing and I love it and I’m terrified.

Hearing Jon describe everything going on actuslly made me horrified. Like I got spooked out by the statements but this made me feel so much dread like I’m not even kidding. I also wanna know more about that weird ass doctor and the man with the red flower. Avatars of The Slaughter I presume.

Also that phone. ???? What???

MAG 164: The Sick Village

Gross. While the previous episode made me experience horror, this made me feel disgust. Disgust that just burrowed into my bones (get it. Cause..the episode-). I had such a deep instinct of repulsion. Like actually. I also read the triggers just cause you can never be too careful and I remember thinking, “how can xenophobia be involved with The Corruption?”…apparently xenophobia was very prevalent

Now I know where the whole “Martin’s middle name” thing comes from. I’m glad Basira is alive. And heart broken at the tragedy there is. She’s always chasing Daisy and Daisy is always chasing another thing SOMEBODY SEDATE ME

I think Georgie and Melanie are in the tunnels. It’s been established before that Elias can’t see in the tunnels which probably means Jon can’t see them. I’m glad they are safe. They need it.

Helen! Nice to see her again, I actually cackled when she said “check up on the happy couple”. Nice to see a confirmation about the relationship. This is like the worst time to be dating someone though 💀 Helen’s so happy. I’m sure she has a ton of people in her hallways. I don’t know if she’s lying about the “friend thing, but it’d be funny if she wasn’t

Okay. That’s everything. Sorry for the long wait, I had to take a break after season 4’s finale and then ANOTHER one after listening to the first 3 eps. This is like, actually heavy. Kinda draining. But god, I’m actually going insane.

I want to know how this is going to be fixed. Like. There’s gotta be some happy ending. ??? Right??? Please tell me there is one.

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 23, MAG 23 Schwartzland

"Hey dude, some weird shit happened, thought you might be in to that."

Albrecht Von Closen writes letters to his colleagues the same way my friends text me. MAG 23 analysis, spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Albrecht Von Closen regarding a tomb near his estate in the Black Forest.

Statement Notes: While this episode doesn't necessarily have many of the classic TMA style horror, I do think this one of the more objectively scary episodes. The imagery of Closen's story as he wanders deeper into the forest, the dread that creeps in as he discovers the story of Johann's Steps, his surety that the man with no eyes saw him, all serves to create particularly frightening vision.

In spite of his excellent description, I didn't find Closen particularly compelling. The complexity of his backstory was interesting, but would possibly be more entertaining/captivating if presented through a visual medium. Through his description of his familial circumstances alone, it's more difficult to connect with him and his wife in spite of their apparently kind personalities. I was more intrigued by Wilheim. He was left alone in Schwarzwald without a proper caretaker. He was left mere miles from the temple. He was left to be haunted by the man with no eyes. What becomes of a young, sickly boy who can't escape something that cannot see but always watches?

Entity Alignment: The broadness of the forest indicates the Vast, the tomb holds elements of the Dark, the Buried, and the End. But of course, what Jonah really cares about is the living library. What Jonah cares about is a man who can continue watching even without eyes. Jonah cares about the Eye.

This episode is the first mention of Jonah in the series, and it explicitly mentions a man with no eyes being able to see all continuously. In spite of all rules of nature, he watches. He hoards knowledge in his hidden library until it becomes an organism in itself. Did Albrecht send this letter because the experience reminded him of Jonah, or did this letter give Jonah ideas?

Character Notes: "Good lord man!"- Actual Victorian librarian Jonathan Sims.

I love the no-trousers Martin scene. You love the no-trousers Martin scene. We all love the no-trousers Martin scene. But what stood out to me this listen, as opposed to the most ridiculous interaction to ever take place in a horror, was the fact that Jon is in the office before 7 am. He says that he wants to leave before dark to avoid Prentiss, but given how his work schedule lines up with other characters later in the season, it seems more likely that Jon's obsessive tendencies began to take over after Martin this was attacked, and he began working 12 or more hours a day. Whether this is because of fear for himself, fear for Martin, or just using work as a coping mechanism to avoid dealing with his emotions, Jon is pushing himself.

Because we don't know much about the Protocol yet, I hesitate to include many mentions in these analyses. However, I did notice that the only speaking-characters who ever have statements directly addressed to them are Jonah, Jon, and Martin. The three of them are the most deeply ingrained in the system of knowledge collection--they have the most tapes and wires wrapped around them. It stands to reason that, if shocked into another universe, they would be forced even further into that system.

[thepunkmuppet]

ok so hear me out.

this has been rattling around in my brain for a good couple of days, i had two all-day art exams so i was just sat silently alone with my own brainrot for ten hours and honestly it paid off

so this is my idea for the magnus scrotocol protocol and what it could be about, but honestly if it ends up being way off i might actually write it - because of all the alternate universe shit it could easily be canon Somewhere Else. also i know alex and jonny said that it’s inspired by the video game control, but i know absolutely nothing about that game so please take this with a grain of salt, it probably won’t be canon but a guy can dream!!

so, it takes place on another earth, parallel to the main tma universe, where things are pretty much the same as real life. and while it’s obviously not a world without fear, the entities don’t exist there. well, until they do.

so when jon and martin do That One Thing and the fears are let out into the multiverse, the sheer energy they cause as they enter the outskirts of this world sends technology CRAZY. and everything, at exactly the same moment on every electronic device in the world, is just chaos, a mangled mixture of nonsensical noises and static (and maybe you hear a little “statement remains” here and there, not sure what the mechanics of that would be in terms of jon’s official status, but hey it would be fun and it would make “Oh…Hello” make sense). and everywhere around the world, people are just… watching. listening. frozen with the most complete and all-consuming feeling of terror they have ever experienced. and of course it ends, and no one wants to admit that it was real, but after around twenty minutes of society just grinding to a halt, everyone feeling the same thing at the same time EVERYWHERE, it’s a terrifying global phenomenon. the world is afraid.

and so The Experts (whoever would be assigned to deal with whatever this is) start doing their research, and they manage to “decode” it (which makes the ARG and stuff like MAG - Error even more meta and fun) and it’s straight up just mag 200.

and they say that it’s clear it was recorded via tape, and they don’t know how it made its way onto electronic devices like this because it’s A TAPE, it shouldn’t give off any kind of signal you would be able to broadcast, and nothing should be able to be broadcast on that scale in the first place. but that’s not the worst thing. the worst thing is that one of the voices in this mysterious message is that of uk prime minister elias bouchard.

and no, i don’t mean jonah magnus, i mean the ORIGINAL Elias Bouchard. i mean it makes sense - he was a white man born into a rich and privileged family, and despite his uselessness, no one batted an eyelid when he became head of the institute. so yeah, it doesn’t seem too out there to think that in an alternate universe, he became the tory prime minister. (hence “there will be some returning voices” - i think it would be so fun to finally hear ben play the real elias, and such a different role and experience despite being in a similar position of power in the context of the story)

so the series begins in a meeting of all the Important Brits who need to deal with this issue, maybe with our civil servant protagonist(s?) in the background serving tea or something like that. we hear basira say her “good luck” before the tape clicks off, and we’re finally introduced to the people she ended up unknowingly saying it to.

and i haven’t actually figured out plot details, it’s just my idea for the basic premise, and i do think it’s unlikely because of the rest of the plot. like, in my opinion it wouldn’t be that interesting having the characters try to figure out where the tape comes from, and what the events of mag 200 mean and how it happened and why it happened… because we already know that, and alex and jonny specifically said they weren’t going to spend time pretending like we didn’t know information that we already know from magnus. but at the same time, they said they want to “play around with the lore”, so a post-apocalypse show set in the original tma universe definitely seems off the cards and this is the most interesting Somewhere-Else-civil-servants idea i could think of.

but yeah, just my idea! again not sure what would happen in the rest of the series, but it would be really cool as a starting point. and maybe you could even have jon and martin existing as like,,, ghosts in the machine, communicating through technology and helping the main characters navigate a world with the fears in it. which would definitely explain the actual canonicity behind “Oh… Hello” and this idea of mag 200 being broadcast to the masses as the fears come through.

please do reblog or send me an ask and tell me what you think and your own ideas, i personally would lose my shit if something like this were to happen and i think it sounds really cool.

also im gonna tag @jonnywaistcoat because i would love to see what he thinks of this idea and any crumbs of either confirmation or denial he might give us (but also if he does see it i will lose my mind and probably spontaneously combust so there’s that)

[scribbly-dee]

Inspired by this post

I adore corruption arcs, so I graded how well the non-archivist characters would have damned humanity if they had been the archivist.

Sasha James 11/10, would be an ideal archivist, this plus her height is probably why the stranger monster targeted her before she could peak

I have a soft spot for any au that knows Sasha has never seen a brain cell in her life and that any unhinged!Sasha au is really just a regular Sasha au. Picture it with me. Sasha and Jon have parallel archivist tracks, until Sasha (my beloved show off) decides: you know what would make me more efficient at snooping? Becoming a Human Google. And things accelerate. The Web doesn't even need to bother with subtly magic lighters, it slaps all 14 marks on her at once by pulling up next to Sasha in a windowless van with "free secrets 👍" written on the side.

After the Unknowing, Sasha takes over the institute from Elias instead of Martin and Peter. With Tim dead, Jon in a coma, Martin lonely-snatched, Melanie compulsively homicidal, Daisy in the coffin, and Basira on autopilot, she quickly bonds with Rosie, the ultimate nosiness enabler. Sasha is a fully marked archivist for a good long while, but doesn't start the apocalypse right away because she's eager to read ALL the ominous notes Elias left, so the watcher's crown statement is in her to-be-read pile. When the apocalypse starts (Rosie: "Hey, Sasha, I just read something extra fucked up that Elias wrote, wanna see?" Sasha: "God yes."), she books it to become the pupil with Rosie as her anchor. Mayhapse an anchor-archivist polycule with Archivist Jon and Martin? Mayhapse Jon is just a normal eye avatar here and deeply invested in all of Sasha's eyepocalypse statements, so it's Sasha and her plus-three? Mayhapse it's a race across the eyepocalypse wasteland between Archivist Sasha and Archivist Jon to usurp Jonah and become the pupil?

Tim Stoker 2/10 dude's here for a good time, not a long time

The only way I see this working is if Elias disguises not-stranger clues as circus related so Tim is motivated to investigate. Otherwise, his archival assistants are way more curious than him and disobey his direct orders to 🍹chill🏝. Jon, Sasha, and Martin inadvertently bring marks home to him like cats bring home dead birds. He asserts his agency when he decides the best course of action? Actually? Just blow up the archives. This unfortunately puts him in a false sense of security, and Elias makes him read the watcher's crown statement by cat fishing him on grindr and sending the ritual as a dm mid conversation.

Daisy Tonner - 9/10 archivist, would have started doomsday before she was at the archivist job long enough to use her PTO

Daisy already had a lot of experience hunting down fear-entity-related people in sectioned cases, which means she possibly canonically already has all the marks from just hunting avatars who use their powers in self defense. The reason she lost one point is because she's too much of a jock to read, only nerds are culpable to watcher crown statements, so this would be the only delay but oh what a delay it will be.

Melanie King - 7/10 archivist, points awarded for achieving her breakthroughs by smashing her head against a wall until she literally breaks through, points deducted for doing so in full clown makeup.

If Jon got a handful of marks by just asking anoying questions in the same room as an avatar, imagine how much faster Melanie would get marks by bringing her trademark Chaotic Brat personality on fear entity investigations. The apocalypse would have started in like two seasons: one season to hire her off the streets and establish shakey, complex relationships with her new assistants (Jon and Sasha put in the time with the institute but were passed over on this promotion for some random YouTuber (plus they're tighter with Tim and Martin, so proletarian solidarity against the boss)).

Then a second season to stab every mark and get stabbed in return. Melanie would blitz through all 14 marks because what precious little impulse control she starts with is slowly replaced with slaughter juice. One fun moral ambiguity to explore could be if Melanie tries to use her new, dangerous Eye/Slaughter powers to revive her reputation and platform in the supernatural community now that she can, ya know, identify supernatural things for the first time ever. Does she acknowledge her entire career up to her hospital episode apparently only investigated fake sightings? A better question to ask is whether Basira, Tim, and Jon ever let her live down how Ghost Hunt UK's professional dignity was contingent on the legitimacy of her sCiEnTiFiC gHoSt eQuIpMeNt in those episodes, so the temperature spikes set to dramatic music were well and truly just temperature spikes and dramatic music. Sasha found a clip of that music playing as Melanie narrates "it's a message... from the other side..." and made it as her text tone.

Also, it would be hilarious if Melanie tried to kill Jonah on sight in the panopticon, once again botched assassination attempt number 1,963,538, and then Jon quietly snuck in to finish the job on his first try just like in canon.

Jon: "What, like it's hard?"

Basira Hussain 3/10 archivist, her eye alignment manifests as office gossip, like a normal person

Basira has the most formidable super power of all: the power to nope tf out of any conversation or plan she wants. She therefore would probably take 10x longer to start the apocalypse than any other archivist because her fatal flaw is refusal to directly engage with a lot of personally difficult things (like the slaughter bullet surgery she organized, Daisy In General, etc). The marks will be slow going if she resists putting her safety on the line or invests time in making good plans (which is smart, but unhelpful for dooming humanity). She would for sure still get marked and end the world because once she's convinced of a plan (aka Elias convinces her of a plan), she's ruthlessly efficient. So I'd stay out of her way that last year or two, she marks the entities right back at them.

Martin Blackwood 2/10 archivist, considering a prerequisite for creepy eye avatar staring is the ability to make eye contact.

S1 Archivist Martin would probably dote too much on the employees under him to be hugely susceptible to Elias' isolation-dependant manipulation. Any progress Martin inadvertently achieves toward the watcher's crown goal would have to be contingent on it helping his loved ones, which is perfect fuel for a "corrupted by good intentions" arc. This would be key because Martin has superb bullshit and manipulation detection, making the marks are tricky but not impossible to orchistrate considering Jon can't stay put in a safe corner for 10 minutes and Martin's mother would refuse to stay with him where she's safe from avatar threats.

Imagine the petty drama when Jon and Sasha learn he got the promotion they wanted because he lied on his CV.

Other than that, Martin would be even worse about pit stops on the apocalypse road trip than Jon because his Kill Bill mode would have no off switch. Does Archivist!Martin and his anchor Jon ever reach the panopticon? Eventually, but not until after they lose points for significantly reducing the apocalypse fear quantity. Would Annabelle survive to deliver her cryptic MaCHiNAtIoNs and achieve the Web's goal? Hard No, additional point reduction for neutralizing the multiverse invasion. Points potentially earned back if Martin's Web connection is strong enough to come up with the multiverse invasion plan on his own, though.

Georgie Barker 4/10, as a fearless coward, all the fear she feeds to the entities would be khaki flavored. They'd get their apocalypse, but they probably wouldn't enjoy the meal.

Similar to Basira, Georgie has the super power to Fuck This Shit I'm Out. She would overall be a subpar humanity damning archivist; a major archivist success factor of Jon's is that he has enough affective empathy to be afraid with every statement giver he reads, so when Jon archives a statement, he unintentionally contributes to the fear soup seasoning. Combined with how Georgie doesn't want anything to do with entity drama, so any corruption specific to the watcher's crown would stagnate. Even her casual exposition conversations would go like

Georgie: "I've connected no dots."

Melanie: "you've connected a lot of dots??"

Georgie: "I've connected shit all dots."

The reason she gets one more point than Basira is because Georgie's fatal flaw is the passive observer quality the Eye tried to stoke in Jon. Her level of engagement oscillates between two extremes, impulsive over commitment and judging from a distance. This would probably lead her to geting involved just long enough for her involvement to become irreversible, at which point she would try to cut that shit out of her life after it's trapped her. She'd linger, barricading herself on the margins of this problem as the marks that are targeted at her slowly tally up until boom. Apocalypse is on and she only half understands what's happening.

Georgie would wander around an apocalypse hellscape confused, but vibes and physical health fully intact. Anchor!Melanie would have quite the emotional journey starting with Georgie on that pedestal Melanie placed her, and ending with a slaughter avatar stabbing the person who convinced her to work on her slaughter inclination.

[inklingofadream]

hey ok 3 seconds into tma rewatch and i have Thoughts:

Now, the Institute was founded in 1818, which means that the Archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. Combine that with the fact that most of the Institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to the complicated work of dealing with statements or recent experiences and you have the recipe for an impeccably organised library and an absolute mess of an archive. (MAG 1)

So this is on a Doylist level part of the justification for why the archives gang do so much practical research on the statements, but the early installment weirdness on not quite knowing how the institute functions yet, but that plus jon a bit before this stating he’s familiar with their “ongoing projects and contracts” and later in the season tim talking about the grad students implies that the institute also does a lot of like. Books and articles about the supernatural. (idk where these are being published bc it sounds like they aren’t necessarily respected enough for most academic presses or journals lol)

But we know Jon was in Research, along with tim and sasha. And later he goes up to help out with the influx of new garbage statements they get around Halloween (MAG 55). So clearly someone  is gong through the new statements,although based on the description they’re mostly p lightly researched- probably calling up ppl mentioned besides the statement giver and saying “hey did this happen?” and when the friend or whoever says “no he said he was gonna go give y’all a statement for a goof” it’s marked closed.

What I would like to posit is that the institute has several functions practically:

the library probably gets a fair bit of funding, so they can get basically any relevant work published and add it to their collection.

This is where you’ll have a lot of the grad students hanging around. probably a handful of other academics from various institutions, too. In addition to the students working on paranormal stuff, I’d guess you also have a fair number from history, folklore, psychology, and a smattering of other disciplines who’re there for rlly rlly niche projects on physics or architecture. Like i’d imagine anyone in the area doing work on spiritualism ends up in the institute library eventually- if they have any primary sources like journals or manuscripts from jonah’s whole gang, for example, i’d assume they’re in the library bc the archives seem to be exclusively statements.

Honestly Im like 50% sure the institute has contracts with whatever like ghost hunting type shows exist in the uk to contribute research and have someone respectable looking come do talking head segments as needed. this goes up to 100% for the usher foundation, bc i KNOW we have hella programs like that in the states. like Finding Bigfoot has a donor plaque in the foyer of the usher foundation

Other contracts and projects are probably with a handful of other, non-entity orgs devoted to the paranormal, plus whatever the Lukases, Fairchilds, et al decide they want.

Research, I would like to propose, is supposedly all one big department, but in practical terms contains 2 factions:

The segment Jon worked with for the most part, following up on statements and artifacts. probably smaller, except when they manage to draft the rest in for like halloween and such. the regulars are probably mostly the ppl jon gets annoyed at for being credulous and thinking every statement’s legit

the rest are ppl under the institute banner who are working in the library, doing research for outside contracts, institute wide contracts, and writing whatever gets published out of the institute. probably mostly more concerned with the supernatural as like. an intellectual exercise than jon would be, instead of finding out what’s legit and what isn’t. otherwise they’re mostly more jon’s type of ppl, with the academic distance etc.

Artefact Storage is prolly a host unto itself. Sometimes research’ll get tagged to get an item’s history but like. only ppl who work there go there

The archives are also their own thing. no one goes there.

Why does this matter? I would like to posit 2 reasons.

The first is that it explains part of why the Institute isn’t v respected academically. Everywhere else would have whatever primary source stuff and unique books they have down in the archives/special collections with the statements. I don’t know a ton about library science, but I don’t think things usually end up split/mixed like they are at the institute. Plus, there is very much an area where the Institute could be a valued collection! If the archives were organized. In theory, the Archives should be a valued and respected resource for folklorists! No one in folklore studies cares if a story is true; as far as they’re concerned, the archives are full of memorates that could be really useful. Like academic texts in folklore will generally have quotes from ppl’s ghost stories (or tall tales or folk songs etc) intercut with analysis of patterns and what they mean. But they’re organized so terribly. If they were devoted to folklore instead of the supernatural, you’d expect a taxonomy of subject- our collection here at my university stuff organized by like “supernatural: religious” “supernatural: non-religious” “customs” etc. But no one would be terribly put out combing through them if they were organized by date or like. at all.

The second is that since the archives and artefact storage are pretty much self contained, most of the daily interaction between institute employees is between people in research and the library. Giving you people like Jon as a put upon minority among “ivory tower” types, from that sub population of researchers and the ppl in the library. Jon’s worked at the Institute for like 5 years, and he’s too himself for a proper rivalry, but it’s very easy to see the people like him and tim who believe that Some Things Are Supernatural and would like proof bumping heads with the rest. Giving him a general dislike for people from the library. AND! an extra reason he takes an extra dislike to martin instead of going “o thank goodness, libraries are way more like archives than research what do we do?” :)

[not-a-space-alien]

[Best attempt at] A summary of The Magnus Archives. Contains major spoilers up through the most recent episode (168: Roots).

A kind soul wrote this out for me and put it in my submissions box to help me understand the Magnus Archives.  THANK YOU SO MUCH and SORRY it took me so long to publish this Dx 

Major spoilers ahead for anyone else who wants to read!!  But this helped me a lot and I feel like I could keep listening now!  Thanks again!!!

Basic worldbuilding details: There are 14 extra-dimensional Entities that feed on fear (Eye, Web, Corruption, Stranger, Spiral, Hunt, Slaughter, End, Vast, Buried, Desolation, Lonely, Dark, Flesh). Various people serve them, and are trying to bring about apocalypses by bringing them into our dimension.

A Victorian guy named Jonah Magnus thought serving the Eye and bringing about its apocalypse would make him immortal. Through trial and error he learned that an Entity cannot be brought through alone, and he needs to bring through all 14 at once. To accomplish this, he needs to take someone (The Archivist) and have them experience EVERY entity - "experience" in this case means "be afraid it's about to kill them."

Until he manages that, he's been possessing various people over the years by means of sticking his own eyeballs in their heads. When the show starts he's possessing Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute.

SEASON ONE: Jonathan Sims becomes the Head Archivist after Gertrude Robinson dies. He's set out to make audio copies of all the statements in the Archives, and he uses a tape recorder for the ones we hear because they won't record digitally. He has three assistants, Tim, Sasha, and Martin. He trusts Tim and Sasha but thinks Martin is incompetent.

Martin gets attacked by Jane Prentiss, who is infested by parasitic worms. Jon lets him live in the Archives because it's safer than going home. The worms start showing up around the Institute, but don't attack anyone (yet).

Sasha meets a man(?) named Michael and learns that the worms can be killed with CO2 gas. They start stocking up on fire extinguishers.

Two deliverymen named Breekon and Hope deliver a spooky table and a cigarette lighter with a spiderweb design on it to the Archives.

Jon smashes a hole in the wall of his office trying to kill a spider, and finds a network of tunnels under the Institute. The tunnels are filled with worms, which attack. Over the course of the attack, Jon and Martin bond a bit, Jon and Tim get partially eaten by worms (mark 1: Corruption), Martin finds Gertrude Robinson's corpse in the tunnels (she was murdered), Sasha gets killed and replaced by a monster that was bound to the spooky table (Not!Sasha), and Elias triggers the Institute's CO2 fire represent system, killing Prentiss. Jon swears to find out who murdered Gertrude if it kills him.

SEASON TWO: Paranoia time. The whole season is basically one long "who killed Gertrude" murder mystery, in which Jon suspects literally all of his coworkers. He works with Basira and Daisy, the two police officers assigned to solve the case, and starts to realize that Gertrude was deeply embedded in the supernatural world (and had access to explosives).

Major events include: Jon investigates the tunnels and doesn't find much. Martin frets a LOT, Jon thinks it's suspicious, but it's pretty clear that he just cares about Jon. It's also revealed that he lied on his CV, and isn't actually qualified for this job, hence his incompetence. Tim becomes very bitter about Jon suspecting him of murder and basically stalking him. Michael shows up again, traps a woman named Helen in a maze of unending corridors, and stabs Jon (mark 2: Spiral). Basira quits the police near the end of the season.

In the season finale, Jon realizes Sasha has been replaced and smashes the spooky table with an axe. This does not kill the monster, instead setting it free to try and kill HIM (mark 3: Stranger). Michael appears and offers him a door into his corridor maze to escape the Not!Sasha, and drops him in the tunnels to fend for himself. Martin and Tim try to find out what Jon's doing, and end up trapped in Michael's corridors themselves.

Jon is saved from the Not!Sasha by a man named Jurgen Leitner, who has a book that can move the walls of the tunnels around (he basically traps it in a wall Cask of Amontillado style). Leitner collected tons of these supernatural books, which are now called Leitners, and has been living in the tunnels for decades. Jon is convinced he's evil, but he reveals that he was working with Gertrude before she died and that Elias killed her. He begins to explain about the Entities, and the fact that Jon works for one (mark 4: Eye), but Jon leaves the room because he needs a cigarette. Elias appears and murders Leitner. Jon returns, finds the body, and flees.

Tim and Martin find their way out of the corridors, find the body, and call the police.

SEASON THREE: Jon is on the run from the police because they think he killed Leitner. He gives a statement about why he always hated Leitner. When he was a child, he found one of Leitner's books, which nearly got him eaten by a giant spider (mark 5: Web). His childhood bully got eaten in his place. Jon is living with his ex-girlfriend, Georgie, while he's in hiding.

Back at the Archives, Daisy (police detective) is convinced Jon is guilty of killing Leitner and Sasha. She's not looking for evidence, she just wants to catch him. Tim is also pretty sure he did it. Martin thinks he's innocent. Elias shows his first hint of supernatural powers by giving a statement about Daisy's first murder, which he just knows without her telling him.

Melanie takes a job at the Archives. She previously appeared to give a few statements. She's the former star of a ghost hunting YouTube show, and now has lost everything due to the circumstances of a few genuine encounters. She recently came back from a trip to India, where (as is revealed later) she was shot by a ghost soldier. She is friends with Georgie.

Basira visits the Archives to try to find Daisy, and runs off again looking for her when she realizes Daisy wants to kill Jon. Martin starts recording statements to "pick up the slack" while Jon's away.

Elias sends Jon statements while he's staying with Georgie, and in a bid to learn more about the supernatural he seeks out various servants of the Entities. Jude Perry nearly burns his hand off (mark 6: Desolation), Mike Crew nearly suffocates him by simulating the feeling of falling off a building (mark 7: Vast), and then Daisy catches him. Daisy kills Crew, and threatens to kill Jon (mark 8: Hunt), but Basira shows up and stops her. They drag Jon back to the Archives.

Everyone confronts Elias. We get confirmation that Jon can "compel" people (force them to answer his questions) but it doesn't work on Elias. Elias confesses to killing both Gertrude and Leitner. Everyone finds out Sasha was replaced during the Prentiss attack. Elias blackmails Basira into joining the Archives under threat of getting Daisy arrested; then turns around and blackmails Daisy into doing his dirty work in exchange for Basira's safety. He reveals that if he dies, or if the Archives are destroyed, anyone who works for the Institute dies too. Elias tells Jon he needs to stop the "Unknowing," which is a ritual the Stranger's servants are trying to complete to bring about the apocalypse.

Jon goes back to Georgie's; we find out she had an encounter with the supernatural when she was in university and now she literally cannot feel fear. Jon is confronted by Orsinov, a living mannequin that works for the Stranger. Orsinov tells him to find a taxidermied gorilla skin she needs for the Unknowing otherwise she'll kill him. He decides to go back to the Archives to get help, but on the way is kidnapped by Orsinov's goons. Orsinov says she's decided to use HIS skin in place of the gorilla one.

He's trapped for a month, and is eventually rescued by Michael, who reveals that he was one of Gertrudes's assistants before she sacrificed him to stop the Spiral's ritual. He wants to kill Jon, but as they are going into his corridors he is replaced by Helen (the woman he trapped in season two) who decides to drop Jon at the Archives instead.

Jon decides to follow in Gertrudes's footsteps to try and find the gorilla skin (to destroy it). He visits an Archive in China, and several locations in America. He is kidnapped by Julia and Trevor (Hunters) and gets on their good side. They let him talk to Gerry Keay (goth ghost that the fandom goes wild over). Gerry gives Jon the rundown on all of the fears, and explains a bit more about Gertrude. Jon agrees to release him from this world by burning a page of the book he's trapped in (this angers Julia and Trevor, which is important later). Jon goes back to England.

They find the gorilla skin in Gertrudes's old storage unit (and explosives), but it has been destroyed. Orsinov exhumes the bodies of Gertrude and Leitner to use their skin instead. There's a stretch of waiting where not much happens.

Jon, Tim, Basira, and Daisy go to a wax museum with Gertrudes's explosives to blow it up in the middle of the Unknowing. Martin and Melanie stay in the Archives to steal the tape with Elias's confession on it and get him arrested for murder.

At the Unknowing, Basira makes it out alive. Daisy kills Hope (one of the deliverymen from season one) but Breekon traps her in The Coffin (this has shown up in several statements before; it's an artifact of the Buried and traps people underground forever). Tim sets off the explosives and dies, while Jon ALMOST does in the same explosion. He ends up in a coma instead.

At the Institute, Martin distracts Elias while Melanie steals the tape. Elias taunts him about his feelings for Jon, then forces knowledge on him about how much his mother hates him (his mother's in a nursing home: caring for her is why he couldn't go to university and had to lie on his CV). Melanie succeeds in stealing the tapes and Martin barely restrains her from killing Elias.

Elias reveals that Jon is trapped in a nightmare realm where he constantly relives the statements of the people who have told them to him directly (not the ones that are written down). He is arrested, and Peter Lukas (servant of the Lonely) becomes the Interim Head of the Institute.

SEASON BREAK: Six months pass. Three major events occur: Martin's mother dies, Jared Hopworth (servant of the Flesh) attacks the Institute and is trapped in Helen's (Micheal's replacement) corridors, and Peter tells Martin that he'll protect the Institute from further threats if Martin works for him and isolates himself from everyone else. Martin, more than a little suicidal due to his mother's death and the man he loves being in a coma, agrees.

SEASON FOUR: Martin's plotline is revealed in drips and drabs throughout the season, and is easier to tell all at once. Basically, Peter convinces him that there's a 15th Entity, Extinction, that is about to emerge into the world and kill everything. This is based on research done by Adelard Dekker, one of Gertrudes's allies. Peter says that Martin is the only one who can stop it, because he has been marked by the Beholding and he is getting closer and closer to the Lonely as he isolates himself. This is enough of a threat that Martin sticks with his plan despite several opportunities to leave.

Jon's plot starts with Oliver Banks giving a statement in his hospital room and telling him he's too human to live, too much of a monster to die (mark 9: End). If Jon decides to stay human he will die; if he gives into the Beholding he will live. Oliver leaves; Jon wakes up. Georgie is disappointed that he gave into the Beholding, and walks away. Basira is cold and practical, following in Gertrudes's 'ends justify the means' logic. She is watching Jon closely, and prepared to kill him if he becomes dangerous. Melanie is boiling with anger and tries to attack Jon whenever they're in a room together.

Jon reads a Slaughter statement and knows (by supernatural means) that Melanie is becoming a servant of the Slaughter because the bullet that the ghost shot her with is still in her leg. He and Basira perform amateur surgery to get it out. Melanie stabs him in the shoulder (mark 10: Slaughter). She is, understandably, furious, but she becomes calmer as she heals and she starts going to therapy.

Breekon (the surviving deliveryman) drops off the coffin. Jon displays a new power by extracting a statement from him. He learns that Daisy is still alive, but trapped in the coffin. Basira leaves the Archives based on information from a "source" (Elias, though Jon does not know this yet). Jon learns that he can go into the coffin and get out again if he has an anchor to the real world. He tries to cut off his own finger, fails, and under Melanie's advisement finds Jared Hopworth (Flesh servant who attacked when he was in a coma) in Helen's corridors. Jared removes two of Jon's ribs (one to keep and one for Jon) and gives a statement (mark 11: Flesh).

Jon goes into the coffin (mark 12: Buried) and finds Daisy. She is much more clear-headed than before, because she has been separated from the Hunt for so long. Jon cannot feel his anchor (rib) at first, but the signal is amplified when Martin places a bunch of tape recorders on top of the coffin. Jon leads Daisy out, and both are extremely confused by all the tape recorders.

Jon and Basira find out that the servants of the Dark might be trying a ritual in Norway, and head off to stop them. On the way, Jon forces a sailor on the boat they're on to give a statement. Basira is disturbed, but doesn't try to stop him. (Back in the Archives, Martin hears from another person who Jon took a statement from, and is rightfully horrified.) In Norway, Jon and Basira learn that the Dark's ritual failed the same week Gertrude died, though there's still an artifact - the Dark Star - left from it. Jon destroys the Dark Star by literally just looking at it, though it nearly kills him (mark 13: Dark). Helen gives them a shortcut home through her corridors.

Martin leaves a tape of his conversation with the person Jon took a statement from on Basira's desk. Jon confesses that he's done this to five people. He promises not to do it again (from this point on, both he and Daisy grow weaker as they try to resist the Beholding and Hunt, respectively).

Jon, Basira, Daisy, and Melanie visit Hill Top Road (I cannot even begin to explain Hill Top Road, there's so much going on and there's no answers yet. Best I can say is it's been strongly affected by both the Web and the Desolation, and there seems to be some warping of reality in the basement.) They find a statement from Annabelle Cain (main servant of the Web) that's basically one long taunt to Jon about how the Web may or may not be orchestrating everything. Main takeaway from this is that once he starts reading a statement, he cannot stop.

Jon finds out how to quit the Institute, via an old tape from Gertrude. Her assistant, Eric Delano (Gerry Keay's father) escaped the Institute by gouging out his own eyes. Jon runs to Martin with this information and begs him to run away together, but Martin refuses. Jon tells Melanie, Daisy, and Basira. Melanie decides to act on this information, and puts her eyes out with an awl. She goes to live with Georgie, who she is dating by this point. Daisy and Basira stay in the Archives.

Season finale, Peter launches his plan. He and Martin head into the tunnels under the Institute. While down there, Peter frees the Not!Sasha and sends it to attack the Institute. He brings Martin to the Panopticon of Milbank Prison, and explains that Jonah Magnus's original body is still in the center of the Panopticon watching EVERYTHING. Elias shows up (he escaped from jail) and reveals that he IS Jonah Magnus. Peter says that Martin needs to kill Jonah's original body and take his place. From the Panopticon, he will be able to learn how to stop the Extinction (it will also trap him there forever). Martin realizes he's been manipulated and refuses, because even though the Extinction is a threat he doesn't want to sacrifice himself just so Peter can win against Elias. It is revealed that Peter and Elias formed a bet: if Peter could get one of the Institute staff to willingly join the Lonely, he would be allowed to kill Elias and take over the Institute forever. Since he failed (Martin is close to the Lonely but doesn't entirely serve it) he instead traps Martin in the Lonely, and then goes in himself.

Meanwhile, Jon finds out that the Extinction isn't as immediate a threat as he thought, and that Martin has gone with Peter to complete his plan. Jon tries to get help from Georgie, Melanie, and Helen, but all refuse. Basira and Daisy inform him that Elias escaped from prison, and they find a tape revealing that he is Jonah Magnus. All hell breaks loose at this point. Julia and Trevor (the Hunters from season three who he stole Gerry's page from) show up to try to kill Jon, and they run into Not!Sasha, which has escaped from the tunnels. Basira and Daisy tell Jon to run and help Martin. He does. Daisy makes the decision to lean into the Hunt again, and makes Basira promise to find her and kill her once it's all over. Basira agrees (unwillingly) and runs. Daisy attacks the Hunters and Not!Sasha.

Jon finds Elias at the Panopticon. Elias explains where Martin has gone, and Jon dives into the Lonely after him (mark 14: Lonely). Jon meets Peter in the Lonely, takes his statement, and kills him. He finds Martin and manages to save him.

Jon and Martin flee to one of Daisy's old safehouses in Scotland. Twenty-two days after they arrive, they receive a package that they think is from Basira containing a bunch of statements and tapes for Jon. Martin leaves to take a walk, and Jon reads a statement. It turns out to be from Elias (Jonah) explaining his whole plan with marking Jon with the Entities and various ways he manipulated events so that that would happen. Jon is unable to stop reading, and at the end of the statement is an invocation that brings all fourteen Entities through into the world. Martin makes it back to the safehouse, and they watch the world end together.

SEASON FIVE: Jon and Martin are still in the safehouse. Martin wants to leave and kill Elias, Jon wants to stay at least a bit longer to grieve the world. They could stay forever: they no longer need food, water, or sleep to survive. Jon's been constantly relistening to the tapes from the package that was delivered, and there's some backstory revealed in them: Gertrude had planned on Sasha being her replacement once she died, and had made a tape with all the information she would have needed to stay alive. She suspected that if the Entities came through into the world, they would be here to stay, and that things like space, time, and the laws of physics would stop working. There's also some nostalgic stuff with Tim and Sasha.

Jon gets hit with the knowledge that the safehouse is not actually safe, and is feeding on Jon and Martin's fear of losing each other. He and Martin agree to leave, setting out on a quest to kill Elias and try to save the world.

The structure of this new world is revealed: each fear has taken up a domain in which it is the primary source of fear for the people trapped in it, and Jon and Martin need to pass through all of them before they can get to the Panopticon and Elias. So far they've been through the Slaughter, the Corruption, the Stranger, the Buried, and the End. People are only dying in the End; in the others, there is no escape from the horror. Any time Jon gets too close to one of these domains he is overwhelmed by the fear and needs to give a statement about it. The first time, Martin just stuck his fingers in his ears, but since then he's been going on walks so he doesn't have to hear.

Annabelle Cain (Web) tries to call Martin via a payphone; he doesn't pick up.

Jon realizes he can know basically anything he wants to, and Martin asks him a series of questions, learning that: Daisy is Hunting between the domains; Basira is chasing her, planning to kill her but starting to doubt that; Melanie and Georgie are in London but he can't see them clearly; Elias is in the Panopticon; Jon and Martin are safe, traveling like they are; Jon can't see Annabelle AT ALL; and the world can be turned back if the fears are removed, but the fears can't be destroyed as long as there are people left to fear them.

Helen shows up to "check up on the happy couple" and try to make friends. Martin asks if her corridors can give them a shortcut to London, but Jon's powerful enough that he would hurt her if he tried to do that. She leaves.

They run into the Not!Sasha in the Stranger's domain. It threatens them, but cannot actually hurt them. It taunts them about Sasha, and Jon kills it. Martin is very impressed.

Helen shows up again, and explains that there are two roles people can take in this new world: afraid or feared. Jon has the ability to make something that is feared afraid, and doing so destroys the feared things utterly (this is how he killed Not!Sasha). Martin wants to go on a murder spree killing any monsters they come across; Jon does not. Helen leaves again.

While Jon is giving a statement Annabelle calls Martin on a cellphone. He answers, and she offers him help. He refuses and hangs up.

Jon reads Martin's mind and learns about the conversation with Annabelle. Martin is annoyed, and Jon promises not to do it again. They stop for a rest. Martin starts wondering about Gertrudes's past, and Jon launches into a statement about it: one of her assistants fell to the Web and killed a bunch of her other assistants, and Gertrude never trusted anyone after that. It is also revealed that if an Archivist dies, their assistants are free to leave the Institute without gouging out their eyes.

Jon and Martin are both disturbed by the statement and by the fact that neither of them could stop it. Jon explains that Gertrude would have lost purpose in the apocalypse without anyone to trust, and that Martin is giving HIM purpose. He also explains that all servants of the Entities have a domain in this new world. His is the Panopticon, and Martin DOES NOT want to know what his own is.

The most recent episode was the End's domain, run by Oliver Banks (the guy who woke Jon from his coma). This statement explained that the End is still killing people permanently, and there is no new life coming into this world; therefore, the End will eventually start stealing victims from other fears. This will ultimately deplete all human and animal life which will kill the Entities themselves and leave an empty universe.

UNADDRESSED TOPICS:

What do the Spiders want? It's surprisingly easy to leave out any traces of the Web's influence from this summary, but Jon is still carrying the cigarette lighter with the web design from season one and he doesn't seem to notice it, several important tapes he's found have been covered in cobwebs, and Annabelle is clearly targeting Martin.

Random plots that have less impact on the main story! This completely skips over characters like Mikale Salesa and Maxwell Rayner, and other oft-appearing but easily missed background people. If there are any in particular you're curious about let me know, but I don't THINK any of them are going to show up again.

Random plots that I don't know if they're going to have an impact on the main story! Agnes Montague, Gertrudes's assistants, everything with Hill Top Road - I have no idea what about their stories is going to be important from this point forward. Maybe everything, maybe nothing.

My askbox is always open if you've got any questions (@cirrus-grey). This is a broad summary that misses out a LOT of details!

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Tma relisten Episodes 16-20

Things are picking up! Martin is gone, we meet some Flesh statements with all of their disgusting glory, finally find a skeptic (pretending more like) Jon in Vittery's case and then the story of father Edwin...

A warning, the last two episodes here are a confusing mess of thoughts that I have no energy to orginized so you're welcome to read but beware to remain confused. And add your feedback if you want. I'd love to understand what the hell father Edwin was going through.

16 Arachnophobia

Things are picking up. Oh boy vittery is here!

His description of his fear of spiders kind of reminds me of my experience as an emetophobic. I can read about it, watch it on camera (cringing but still can) but near me? Nope.

Major Tom! Love the pet naming system Jonny came up with.

"Our building had acquired something of an infestation of some sort of insect I didn’t recognise - small, silvery worms, almost like maggots, but slightly longer -" uh oh Jon. Jane is already there. I stand by my theory that the web set up vittery's case where Jane was because they wanted the institute to eventually come in contact with her. Specifically the Archivist. Another way the Web helped mark Jon to help bring the apocalypse.

Pfft his whole interaction with major Tom in this story is sending. "go get that spider" Major Tom "no I don't think I will" and saunters off never to be seen again.

Why are his descriptions of spiders so graphic my god. He likes to dwell on his phobia way too much for his own well-being.

Nice aim with the coffee mug. Especially while panicking.

Don't you just hate that you get used to your phobia because a worse version of it comes up? He managed to kill little spiders no problem from then on and I just... Feel for him so much.

"Can you be haunted by the ghost of a spider that destroyed your childhood?" oh. That one must have hit Jon hard right where it hurt.

"I officially gave Major Tom’s paperwork to the family on the ground floor he decided to move in with" lol cat live be that simple.

Commenting on Jon's hard denial specifically of this case and even thought there is so much obvious evidence supporting the supernatural. Just alot of suppressing fear on Jon's part. I feel so bad for him.

"But as I told Martin earlier, he was there for over a week, so there is very likely a perfectly natural explanation for the fact that his body was completely encased in web" sure. Told Martin. Betting it was a full blown argument from which Martin stormed off to prove him wrong. Jon please get your act together.

17 the boneturners tale

Ah Jared my man making his appearance. The bully next door who picks up and becomes a victim (in a way) of a Lietner instead of the statement giver. Where have I heard that one before...

Michael crew checked out the bone book huh. Saw the Flesh and was like mmm nope not this one either.

Archivist interrupted! We don't get much of these later on, when statements become way more compelling and can't be stopped in the middle.

Ewww and the first other institute staff we get is Elias. The sound mixing is really weird he sounds so strange lol. He hasn't polished his 'I'm an even more posh version of Jon' voice yet.

He takes live statements when Rosie's equipment doesn't work? So basically all of the supernatural ones that want to talk and not write. Those are always more special than the ones written. The statement giver felt the need to talk to someone not just write impersonally.

Elias asks about Martin. Once again fuck you Jonah.

Also Martin is missing the story is picking up! I saw at the end that he was in charge of follow up for this, a library statement. Was probably fun for him seeing he's an ex library worker.

"Blessed relief" no Martin he doesn't really mean that.

Jared experimenting on everything including small animals and his own family is all sorts of bad.

"All I remember clearly is the line “and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took”." he took a rib and used it to whistle. Jared took Jon's rib and in 171 he whistles. Hmmmmm

So either reading the book did end up killing the guy or Jared eventually caught up with him. Either way poor soul.

18 the man upstairs

Not alot to say about this one except I oddly really like it, my first listen and now. Something about how gross it was really fascinated me. And boy it's super gross.

The meat creature in the end has eyes! Is it eye aligned in a way? Interesting...

Was this an attempted mini ritual of a sort to bring a meat creature into the world? Did it work? Perhaps that creature housed whet used to be Toby Carlisle who left his original body to become this thing.

Btw Archivist has lunches confirmed!

19+20 confession + desecrated host

The only double statement we have ever. A very unusual thing but also Jon explains it that the second half was misfiled nearby and perhaps was taken out and put back haphazardly. By who? Gertrude looking up. Rituals? Jonah looking up multiple entity rituals? Very ominous.

I feel so bad for father Edwin he really didn't deserve what happened to him.

I'll be honest i wasn't really listening to this one the first time. I was busy doing something else and always tended to half listen to exorcism horror. This is facinating to me as if I'm first hearing it.

Its interesting how Jon records his inability to utter words of belief. Also was this an interview? If so, where is the recording. He couldn't have written like how Jon was stuttering at those words. I need a clarifying answer about these and why Jon needed to record an audio of it when clearly there should be a recording of an old live statement.

It wasn't about God the fact that he couldn't say it anymore. It was about his comfort and denying it.

I think the first thing that marked him was the Slaughter. But now listening to it, it seems like what possessed Bethany moved into his mind because it want to suck out and replace faith and father Edwin had much more of it. How does one replace faith? Introducing the faithful to all the fears. It didn't really work tho since he stubbornly remained faithful.

This nurse Annie figure sent him in the direction of both Bethany and Hilltop Road which makes me very suspicious of her.

“I am not for you. I am marked.” oooh first time hearing those words. Perhaps the entity or what wanted to bring them about refusing to give him to the Desolation?

“Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.” the entities talking? Or warning father Edwin of his fate? Still sound alot like the Slaughter.

So when he leaves to walk the streets to the place he performs the religious service after being told all of his sins by something pretending to be father Singh, I count the Distortion, the Lonely, Stranger, Corruption? And flesh.

This one is still confusing as hell, I was surprised by breekon and hope's appearance in the end, having been the ones who delivered the stole.

Maybe the entities were trying to collaborate to create a religion of their own? Trying not to enter the world separately as a whole being but living in it as worshipped gods?

Whatever they were they decided to exclude the Desolation and the web from the project since they definitely didn't like Hilltop Road.

[spaghetti-machete]

TMA season 5 ending predictions

if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you do it? the answer is, I don't have a choice, Mother "Eight Legs McGee" of Puppets wants me to and therefore I also want to. everyone else is doing predictions why not throw my hat into the ring I'm callin this bad boy the "spider down the drain" theory. lemme give you a run down: - Anya Vilette being sent through the ripped seam in the shit $3 leggings fabric of reality in the basement of Hill Top Road? mama spiderlimbs just testing out the reality rip to see if it worked. sends Anya to the Institute as a gift and proof of experience. take that jonah. there's your blessing from the Web, stick it in your piehole - the Gang™ clamber up/crawl sobbingly to Hill Top Road and use it as a refuge. and it's weird, it kind of works but also it messes with them in a way that's not really better. outside is dangerous. inside is just another form of more concentrated, more scary dangerous. theyve walked into a spiderweb because everywhere else is taken. im not saying Jon is the Virgin Mary taking shelter in a stable to give birth to the Anti-Apocalyse, but im not not saying it - they start accidentally going through the crack in reality. at first its just jon, by accident, because he thinks he can control it. almost. he's wary but Basira is less wary, and decides to go through without him finding out. she comes back and this is when we, the listeners, find out - but it fucks her up, somehow, it messes with Basira, she's not really Basira Proper anymore. it's not the NotThem, but it's clear that she's evidently aware enough of her difference, and how she is supposed to be, and how she isn't that right now, for it to be distressing - eventually the climax of the story is (this is 3am im writing this cut me some slack) that the answer to Gerry's question - "are [the Fears] something we created, or are they the reason we're afraid? maybe they've always been here, maybe they turned up the first time something felt afraid" (paraphrased it is 3am) gets answered - the answer, to every single one, is yes. Jon gets sucked through the crack, he's closed off from the other side completely, and he's in this new world where the Magnus Institute doesn't exist because it doesn't need to exist. People are afraid but nothing feeds on that fear. There are no entities, no Avatars, no nothing. And what happens to a very very hungry Archive? An Archive that has a documented record of all the world's worst ebbs of every single fear a person could have? He starts bringing those fears to life himself. I don't know how, but seeing as Elias came out with the line "a living testament to people's fear" or some bullshit, it's clear that Jon isn't a passive record of these fears, he's actively involved in every single one of them. I mean - "the job I put everything into had trapped me into spreading evil" (Martin, Panopticon) - even the Archivist's assistants recognise that this is a thing that's happening and is possible. And what better, more satisfying end for Jon's emotional character arc than for him to be trapped in a new world, to have saved the old one somehow, but to have finally realised that the whole reason for his very existence is basically an ouroborous of fear that he cannot escape? that his timeline in space and reality is essentially self-perpetuating, that he'll never truly learn what the Mother of Puppets is, only that the Fears he chased for so long were ones he now brings himself to another world? I mean I almost feel like the Spider is nearing God in this situation. Every time an entity or an avatar talks about the Web, they downplay it so fucking hard that it's almost inconceivable that the Web wouldn't be pulling the strings of literally every entity at this point. The Hunt? trap you can't escape. "It didn't make me want it... just made me...need it" (Daisy, in the coffin) The Lonely? Peter Lukas describes falling into it (not literally) as if everything lined up so utterly perfectly. "I could scarcely believe that any God could line up so perfectly with my heart". The Vast? Very obviously everyone's Favourite Gay Uncle with Pizzazz Simon Fairchild literally fell into it. And it caught him. The sky caught him...like a web. it just kind of did. I mean, have we ever heard from a failed Avatar? one that didn't quite pass their SATs, their GCSEs, even the equivalent of a Fear BTEC PE? I don't know if it's simplifying it down too much, but in every instance, Avatars and their Kinder Horrific Suprise Happy Meals are the equivalent of spiders, webs and prey. And not always direct and unchanging comparisons, either. In this instance, was it Peter Lukas who was preyed upon and drawn in? Or was he the spider, when he made his very first victim disappear? Simply searching for a meal to feed another God without realising, or feeding himself? Did his desires and needs for Utter Loneliness develop from Shitall, Middle of Nowhere, Nonexistent Country? Or were they a gift bestowed upon him by the Mother of Puppets, ensuring she had enough playing pieces in the right colours to serve her endgame? As Oliver Banks said - easier to just do what she asks.

[bubonickitten]

TMA fic: where there’s a will, we make a way

Decided to start writing a multi-chapter time travel AU fic to get me through S5, lmao. 

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

ETA: Chapter 2 is up. (tumblr // AO3)

Summary:

"So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself? What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher – and the Watcher blinks first." Or: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

CWs for Chapter 1: canon-typical horror & sadness; canon-typical spiders; mentions of canon-typical trauma (including being held captive by the Circus); (temporary) major character death/absence; spoilers up to and including MAG 169.

And, a couple things from the top:

For this chapter and the next, Jon's dialogue will consist entirely of statements from the episodes (cited in the end notes), but he'll have original dialogue at some point (probably by chapter 3).

TEMPORARY CHARACTER DEATH/ABSENCE: Martin's absence is left intentionally vague (and there are moments in the first couple chapters of Jon grieving for him), BUT I promise Martin will be back (probably by chapter 3 or 4 once I figure out how I want to pace things). Time travel is great like that.

The first couple chapters will be rough but I promise it won't be all bummers going forward.

___________________________________________

Chapter 1: Hubris

At the end of the world, as a tape recorder clicks on, uncountable eyes open wide and the Archive begins to speak.

  “There is a tower at the center of creation.

 "It juts up from the scorched earth, casting its oppressive shadow over all, so certain of its rightful place in this world. But although it may appear sturdy and eternal, it is, like everything else in this place, decaying – more slowly than the rest, but moving inexorably toward its own extinction all the same.

  “In the dying light of a ruined world, it Watches over all that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies. For now, it is sated and gorged on the fear permeating its perfect world – but what happens when the fear runs out? There will come a time when each pinprick of life blinks out around it, one by one, taunting it with the dreadful knowledge of its ultimate, encroaching fate: a slow, agonizing death of boredom and isolation and starvation. 

  “And it will hurt.

  "Nothing lasts forever, but rest assured: the tower will be the last thing standing, wilting alone in a barren and desiccated realm of its own making.

  “It will be outlived only by death itself, and even then, only for the briefest of moments.

  “The tower is a monument to hubris, and as such, it is destined to collapse.”

 The recorder clicks off and Jonathan Sims comes back to himself, standing alone before the menacing bulk of the Panopticon.

 The statement was shorter than he's used to, but it isn't surprising – he can't See much here, in the Watcher's domain. Still, it took a lot out of him. He barely has time to take a breath, though, before a familiar door opens up in the ground just in front of him, its yellow paint chipped and faded. The Distortion’s ringing laughter ripples up from the ground and Jon closes his eyes, sighs heavily, and counts to ten.

 “No ‘hello’ for me, Archivist?” Helen pulls herself up and out of her door to loom over him. “You’ve become quite rude these past few… how long has it been?”

 Shaking his head, Jon readjusts the straps of his backpack and starts to walk. Helen, of course, prowls after him. Her gait seems different, Jon realizes, and when he trains his sight on her – yes, apparently she’s added an extra kneecap to her left leg. She watches him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes, daring him to comment on her latest modification, but he’s learned by now that it’s best not to encourage the Distortion.

 “That was a rather short monologue for you. I very much doubt your patron will be satiated.”

 “Oh, how I wish he’d go away,”  Jon mutters under his breath. The pronoun is wrong, but it still gets the point across, and Helen is familiar enough with his current mode of communication to catch his meaning.

 “Still voiceless, are we? It must be very frustrating for you. Reduced to rifling through others’ trauma, forced to appropriate someone else’s terror any time you want to talk. It really is a shame your lexicon is so… limited. You’ve always had such a lovely voice. It seems a waste to deny it any novelty.”

  Ignore her. Count to ten. Breathe.

 “Silent treatment?” Helen pouts. “Well, that’s fine. I can speak enough for the both of us.”

 Jon wishes he could comment on the irony of It Is Lies telling the truth, but the Archive doesn’t offer up any fitting statements. Probably for the best, really; as a rule, he tries not to let Helen rile him. Tries being the key word.

 “Off to see the Watcher? I do wonder how our dear Jonah is doing these days. You’re curious too, aren’t you? You can’t See anything in there. You have no idea what you’re walking into.” Helen’s lips curl in a too-wide smile. “That must drive you mad.”

 Jon ignores her. Even if he had something to say, he expects he would be speechless at the moment, beholding the Panopticon. The tower bears no resemblance to the Magnus Institute he remembers. It’s the tallest thing left in the wasteland, now; standing at its base and looking up, it’s impossible to estimate exactly how high it stretches. He could Know, but he doesn’t care to. (The Eye bristles at his refusal to ask the question; Jon dismisses it with an almost childish defiance.)

 All of the surrounding buildings have been reduced to dust and rubble, and there is no remaining evidence of there ever having been a street. The composition of the tower's walls is entirely obscured by a viscous coating of –

  …aqueous humor, grave dirt, assorted viscera, sawdust, flensed dermis, dental pulp, spider silk…

 – Jon closes his eyes and shoves the Knowledge away with a practiced resolve. Its content is no more unsettling than anything else he’s encountered, but even after all this time, having the Beholding hijack his thoughts is still nauseating. He had experienced intrusive thoughts long before becoming the Archivist, but Knowing takes the experience to an entirely different level.

 After the moment has passed, Jon opens his eyes again. He can’t tell if the tower no longer has windows, or if they’re just hidden by the horror cocktail smothering its exterior. He supposes it doesn’t really matter either way; the Watcher doesn’t need windows to See outside.

 The staircase stretching to the entrance is impossibly long, and the stairs are of the narrow, shallow variety that never accommodate anyone’s stride. Jon sighs as he places one foot on the bottom step.

 “That looks like an awfully long climb,” Helen observes. “And a tripping hazard. I would offer you a shortcut, but… well, you know.” She winks and flashes him a wicked grin just as her door materializes beneath her feet, dropping her down into a vertical corridor. “See you at the top, Archivist,” she calls cheerfully, her door slamming behind her and vanishing.

 Jon rolls his eyes and ascends the stairs.

___________________________________________

The enormous doors to the tower are already open when Jon reaches the top of the steps. The moment he crosses the threshold, he is bathed in a blinding white light and every one of his eyes reflexively snaps shut. One by one, the extra eyes he has grown so accustomed to wink out of existence until finally, for the first time in forever, he has just the two he was born with. It’s jarring, having his hundredfold, 360-degree sight so suddenly reduced back to a binocular field of vision, but it feels oddly freeing.   

 At the same time, he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Does the Watcher want him at a disadvantage? Is there something inherent to the Panopticon that allows only the Ceaseless Watcher itself to See, rendering all others – even its Archive – effectively blind? What if - 

 “Look at you!” Helen chirps directly into his ear, cackling when he startles. “My, you spook easily, Archivist. Not very becoming for one who Sees all and revels in the terror he has wrought –”

 Jon is already walking away. The light isn’t as overwhelming as it was before, but he still has to squint against it. As far as he can see, the interior of the tower is a flat expanse of white. He can't perceive any walls, ceiling, even a floor, making it impossible to guess the size of the place – or if it has an end at all.

 “Do you actually Know where you’re going?”

 “I was finding it really hard to get a solid idea on where we were,”  Jon admits.

 “Yes. It’s quite like the tunnels, isn’t it? You never could See down there, either. What did you call it – ‘a universal blind spot’? Strange, how your voyeurism touches everything except your own domain.”

 “I come to you not to wallow in my condition – but to request your assistance.”  Helen hasn’t been any help in ages, but Jon figures it’s worth a try.

 Helen simply laughs. “What assistance could I possibly offer? You are the most powerful thing the apocalypse has to offer, Archivist. Aside from the Entities themselves, that is. I’m certain you can figure it out on your own. As I’ve told you so many times, all you have to do is embrace it.” Jon glares at her. “Now, as much as I would love to stay and watch you get terribly lost, I believe there are more interesting things going on in the world.”

 With that, her door swings open on the ground in front of her.

 “I thanked them as they left, even though they had been of no help whatsoever,”  Jon grumbles to himself. 

 “You are tetchy today,” Helen teases. “Well, I’ll check back in with you later.”

 She steps off the ledge and plummets down through her door again, pulling it shut after her.

 Jon pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. It’s incredible how after all this time, even a short encounter with the Distortion leaves him feeling drained.

 But she did have a point. He never could See in the tunnels, but that was before he became the Archive. As he is now, he probably has a better chance of finding his way than Helen would. It’s just that doing so is bound to be… unpleasant. No use putting it off, though.

 He closes his eyes, looks inward, opens the door, and –

 A churning deluge of information crashes into him, sweeping him along in its undertow, and all at once, he’s drowning.

  …the equatorial circumference of Jupiter was 439,263.8 kilometres before it was devoured by the ravenous Falling Titan…

  …Mr. Spider has taken up residence behind innumerable doors – not every door, but any door. It has an average of one guest for dinner every 39 minutes and still it is hungry… 

  …the Sandman and the Buried wage war over scraps within the catacombs of Paris, now located approximately 6,294.2 kilometres below creation and sinking…

  …as of 23.8 seconds ago, the Crawling Rot and the Lightless Flame have completed their race to consume the endless apartment block located at the corner of Nowhere and –

 Jon shakes his head and tries to refine his search.

  Tell me about Jonah Magnus.

  …Jonah Magnus was born in –

 Tell me where I can find Jonah Magnus.

  …Jonah Magnus is –

 A wave of force crashes into Jon like a freight train and then he’s back in the white space, eyes open, gasping for air and struggling to fill his aching lungs.

 It comes as no surprise that the Ceaseless Watcher doesn’t want him to Know the way, but if the Eye didn’t want to be Seen, it should have picked someone less inquisitive. Or less stubborn.

 He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and dives back in.

  …in a hollowed-out sanctuary of bone and gristle, the Boneturner scavenges uselessly for –

  Tell me where to find Jonah Magnus.

 A harsh buzz of static starts to ring in his ears.

  …the Distortion in its corridors waits for –

  Show me how to reach Jonah Magnus.

 The static pitches up into a shrill whine.

  …Martin Blackwood’s last –

  A̵N̴S̸W̴E̸R̶ ̷M̷E̷.̷

 The noise reaches an earsplitting crescendo, then cuts out abruptly and –

 When the Archive opens its myriad eyes, it Knows the way.

___________________________________________

Once the Knowledge settles in his mind, it's as if a veil has been lifted; the empty, directionless white void resolves itself into perceptible details. Jon finds himself standing in a cavernous, cylindrical space. Countless iron-barred prison cells are recessed into weathered red-brick walls, stacked vertically one on top of the other and stretching all the way up to an impossibly high vaulted ceiling covered in… cobwebs.

 Of course. It figures the Web would have infiltrated this place. In fact, it had probably staked out its territory when the initial foundations for Millbank Prison were laid and had simply never left. 

 Jon shudders and looks away. Or tries to, anyway – there are always a few recalcitrant eyes that linger on the things he does not want to See.    

 He turns his attention to the observation tower. Its looming presence seems to take up the entire room, radiating a palpable sense of dread. There is nowhere in this world that its gaze cannot reach, but being this close to it is nearly unbearable.

 It hurts.

 Jon forces himself to stand there, to experience and endure the sheer weight of its omniscient scrutiny concentrated wholly on him. This is what it’s like to be Seen by the Archive, and Jon needs to Know how it feels – how it felt when he turned the Ceaseless Watcher’s gaze upon the monsters he met on the journey to the Panopticon.

 And it hurts.

 It’s like having his consciousness torn to shreds, every memory and thought and experience comprising his existence ripped out of him, pinned under a microscope, dissected with precision, classified and then hoarded away by a dispassionate curator. It’s sharp angles and blinding lights and throat-rending screams and scalding heat; it’s burrowing worms and scalpel blades and crushing earth and cold plastic hands; it’s fear and pain and love and loss and it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts –  

 Jon’s knees give out and he crumples to the floor, panting, resting his head in his twitching hands as the aftershocks of white-hot pain ripple through him. He lets himself roll over onto his side and curl into a fetal position while he waits for the tremors to stop.

 Martin wouldn’t have approved, but Jon had to Know. He had to Know what it was like, if the monsters he killed deserved it, if the punishment was proportionate to the crime, and –

 They did and it was. He can confidently say that each sentence he handed out was justified, and it’s somewhat of a relief.

 Beyond that, though, experiencing it firsthand was the best way he could think to fully appreciate the consequences of allowing his potential to go unchallenged and unrestrained, and to make clearer the distinction between Jonathan Sims, the Watched and the Archive, the Watcher – or conduit of the Watcher, at least. If nothing else, the memory of it will be an anchor going forward – a searing reminder of how much is at stake and the ultimate cost should his plan fail. 

 And, of course, it was also an effective way to assess the power he has at his disposal, to determine whether he’s strong enough for his plan to work. He did survive it, at least, which seems like a good sign. Hopefully it's a good sign.

 As the pain fades to a dull ache, he pushes himself to his feet and takes a minute to compose himself before entering the observation tower. He has not come eye to eye with Jonah Magnus since before the world ended, before he forced himself through the domains of each and every fear that marked him, before he completed his metamorphosis. That was the point of the journey, he realizes now: reliving the terror and retracing every mark was necessary for him to emerge as the fully-fledged Archive.

 He hopes it was all worth it.

 Jon takes a deep breath, braces himself, and crosses the threshold.

___________________________________________

 Jonah Magnus is a pitiful sight.

 He sits slumped on the Watcher’s throne within his lonely observation tower, ropes of spider silk binding him in place. The look in his eyes when he beholds his Archive is entirely unreadable, and Jon doesn’t care to Know. 

 Well – his two original eyes, in any case. The other eyes bulging through Jonah’s skin – bloodshot, rolling and twitching in all directions, and glowing a repellent shade of green – belong to the Watcher, and all they contain is a cold, measured fascination. Jon wonders absently whether they might cluster beneath the skin as well, a fitting mirror of Albrecht von Closen’s gruesome fate. Martin would have appreciated the poetic justice of that thought.

 Jon takes a step forward.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever know what they expected to happen.”

 The Archive’s voice rips through the silence like a clap of thunder on a clear day. There is something of a command threaded through the words, a power that brooks no argument and permits no lies. Jonah flinches at the force of it, and Jon takes that as his cue to continue; he has Jonah’s full attention now.

 “It’s weird, isn’t it, the things that can change your life?” Jon wonders, briefly, how Tim would feel about his statement being repurposed like this. Hopefully he would approve, seeing the way Elias – Jonah – is rendered silent and cowed in its wake, even if Jon’s voice is the vehicle. Either way, stolen words are Jon’s only option, and so he presses on: “You can plan for all the devastating, terrible possibilities you can imagine, and it’ll always be those tiny, unexpected things that get you. You know, the things that you never even noticed as they were happening, just… just nudging everything into motion. But even if there was a way I could have known, I really don’t think I’d be able to have stopped him.”

 When Jonah opens his mouth as if to speak, Jon catches a glimpse of a roving eye sprouting from Jonah’s tongue. What comes out is not words, but a small spider, creeping languidly over his lip and up his cheek, as if summoned by the Archive’s mere mention of manipulation. Even from a distance, Jon can See all eight of its eyes focus on him.

 The Spider perches there, patient and waiting. Whether she is issuing an invitation, a challenge, or simple, curious observation, the Archive does not know, and Jon will not waste his energy searching for the answer.

 Curiosity always was Jonathan Sims’ fatal flaw. It can be an asset in small doses, but Jon habitually took it to endangering and self-destructive extremes. By now he has learned how to wield that curiosity with precision, patience, and careful calculation. It was a lesson hard won and at great cost, but now he knows: there is a difference between a constructive avenue of inquiry and a dead end. One leads to answers that need knowing; the other only sates the Eye’s voracious appetite and leaves Jon adrift and wanting. The trick is to prioritize – which means accepting the existence of questions that aren’t worth asking.

 The Eye balks at an unsolved mystery, and the Archive’s every instinct drives Jon to seek, to ask, to know at any and all costs – but this is not the first time he has weathered the dueling instincts of Archive, Archivist, and human, and it will not be the last. If he stands in the crossfire long enough, breathes through the dissonance, and allows himself to simply exist as the strange, contradictory gestalt his apotheosis has made him… eventually, he can find the quiet.

 In any case, the Archive’s eyes outnumber the Spider’s by far, and Jon meets her gaze with a resolve that still feels new and untested, but unyielding nonetheless. Neither of them blink, but the Spider does eventually – slowly, so slowly – crawl away and out of sight.

 A stalemate. Jon expected nothing more or less; these confrontations with the Web never have a satisfying conclusion, only a protracted, stop-and-start hiatus. 

 When Jon feels the Spider’s presence fade away, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. For all his bravado, the fear never has gone away. He suspects that the Eye would never give him the choice in the first place. It isn’t enough to Know or See the contents of his library – he has to live them, feel them, share in them, or else the knowledge is not comprehensive. The Beholding requires more than facts and words and retellings. It demands the insight and dread that comes only from lived experience, and it has no use for an Archive that cannot fully experience its own catalog.

 If Jon was given the choice, though, he still wouldn’t give up the fear. It’s the fabric of this world, which makes it a reliable anchor as long as it exists. It tethers him to his humanity; it reminds him of his reason; it keeps him moving forward.

 And so, he approaches the Watcher’s throne, and the Archive resumes its recitation:

  “I continue to see in you the reflection of my own past hubris.”

 It’s a nice touch, Jon thinks, using Robert Smirke’s dying words to rub salt in the wound, and the surge of stunned outrage on Jonah’s face confirms that for him.

 “Why does a man seek to destroy the world?"

 Jonah’s human eyes widen ever so slightly as he recognizes his own words.

  “…you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.”

 Jon kneels before the throne, a mocking gesture of fealty to a man who so arrogantly believed that he was to be –

 “…a king of a ruined world” – he pauses, fast-forwarding the statement in his mind, picking through disparate fragments to cobble together something that can convey his intended meaning – “had miscalculated.” Another pause, and then: “The ritual failed."

 Jonah squirms against his bindings, though whether it is in fear or frustration or anger, Jon does not know. He does not need to know, and he strangles that alien part of him that wants to taste exactly what flavor of distress struggles in front of him. He refuses to feed the Eye, even if it is at Jonah’s expense.  

 “…as much a victim as any” – Jon gives a curt nod to indicate Jonah – “trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.” 

 When he sees the glint of the knife, Jonah’s eyes widen further and he redoubles his thrashing. Jon is flooded with memories of his month held captive by the Circus – rough ropes chafing at his bare skin; cold, plastic hands slathering him in strong-smelling lotions; the bruises that lingered long after he escaped through the Spiral’s door. Part of him wishes that he could enjoy seeing Jonah like this – the one who orchestrated that trauma and so many others – but all he feels is that familiar revulsion that rises up in him any time he catches a whiff of shea butter.

 Another, louder part of him is relieved to find that even after everything, he still can’t quite bring himself to find pleasure in torture.

 Taking revenge on Jude Perry, obliterating the NotThem – it felt good in the immediate aftermath, to make them appreciate the terror and pain they had wrought, to stand in their presence not as a victim but as a long-overdue consequence. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, though, he would always crash. Whether or not they deserved their fates was never what haunted him the most. It was the simple act of using the same power that destroyed the world that always left him feeling sick, guilty, divorced from what remained of his humanity, and terrified of what he could become if he embraced his role as the Archive. It felt good in the same way that stealing live statements used to, and that terrified him.

 Still, Jon has a point to make. He draws the knife to Jonah’s face and holds the tip mere centimetres from his right eye, poised to strike. Jonah freezes and Jon stares him down. The Archive’s uncountable eyes open wide and focus laser-like on a single point, and he waits for the would-be king to blink first.

 And he does.

 With that, Jon stands and drops the knife. As it clatters to the floor, Jonah opens his human eyes ever so slightly, looking at the discarded weapon and then back to his Archive with uncertainty etched onto his face.

 “…didn’t even have the decency to kill me,” the Archive says. Jon swallows down a reflexive wave of revulsion at the memory of Peter Lukas’ voice, but he needs Jonah to understand this choice his Archivist has made, to truly appreciate the fate to which he is being condemned.  

 The Archive reaches for Gertrude next:“They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape, keeping us alive and afraid – forever.”

 It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but slowly, ever so slowly, the existential terror dawns in Jonah’s eyes. His greatest fear may have always been mortality, but faced with the reality of what an immortal existence could actually entail, well…

  “You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made."

 Jonah Magnus’ own triumphant declaration reverberates through the space in the voice of the Archive he forced into being. The words sound as smug and gleeful as they did the first time the Archivist read them to an empty room, on the day he opened the door. 

 Behind it all, though, is Jonathan Sims. Not the Archive, not the Archivist, just… Jon. He feels no catharsis, no gratification, no closure. He just feels tired.

 But he didn’t come all this way to the Panopticon just to monologue at Jonah Magnus. This is the stronghold of the Eye, and that makes it Jon’s best chance of actually communing with the Beholding.

 He places the tape recorder on the floor next to the knife and turns his back on the man who sought to reign over a desolated world. As Jon walks away, the recorder clicks on, and the Archive’s final statement begins to play:

  “There is a tower at the center of creation…”

__________________________________

End notes:

- Jon’s dialogue is taken from the statements in the following episodes, in order: MAG 85; MAG 149; MAG 098; MAG 027; MAG 137; MAG 104; MAG 138; MAG 160 (x4); MAG 159; MAG 162; MAG 160 (again). 

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan Audiobook Thoughts

Marv Wolfman and Len Wein deliver a problematic that’s perhaps more interesting to talk about than actually experience for yourself.

Plot synopsis

As is standard for these types of post for me, I’m copying over a plot synopsis I found elsewhere to save myself time, and because they do a better job than I could. I edited it for a few reasons and the unedited synopsis, along with their review can be found here.

Allen Huddleston was the accountant for a small-time gangster. He worked his way to the top of the organization. His company merged with a legitimate oil company and his career and fortune soared. Then one day, a man made him an offer he had to refuse.

Because of his refusal, this individual – showing signs of superhuman powers, threw Huddleston from his 50-story apartment…

…Spidey finds Huddleston’s body and is…blamed for the murder.

Meanwhile, there is a meeting of the presidents of the 8 largest oil companies in the US. This same bad guy, hidden by a screen, told the eight that they must buy oil from him during the next year. Their oil has been irradiated and rendered useless. By the time the oil can be cleaned up, the year will have passed. This individual – known through the novel as the Master Planner until his real identity is revealed – is set to make millions.

While Spidey investigates the death of Huddleston he finds a taped telephone conversation with Huddleston and the Master Planner. Spider-Man finds that the murder is connected to a manipulation of the eight US oil companies. This leads to some of the Master Planner’s moles in the other oil companies. The Master Planner sets a trap for Spider-Man. There, the Master Planner reveals his real identity.

As the novel progresses, we meet regulars Mary Jane [Watson], Glory Grant, Joe Robertson and good old J Jonah Jameson. At first Triple-J is pleasant to others and happy that Spider-Man is accused of murder. As the facts become clearer, he is back to his usual…self – brusque, short-tempered and kvetching…He and Robbie investigate the mystery of the eight US oil company executives meeting in secret...At the end he confesses to Robertson why he REALLY dislikes Spidey – what about the REAL heroes who work to better mankind every day. “Who do you think is under that mask?” Robbie says. “A man, just like you.”

To add to this synopsis the climax transpires on a drilling platform where Doc Ock has the 8 oil men gathered up. Spidey uncovers a diary that has Ock’s whole plan committed to paper, and though it is destroyed, hearing the details is enough to clear his name as far as JJJ and Robbie are concerned (they are on the platform too). Doc Ock tries to escape with what amounts to a Scooby-Doo style latex mask which Spidey sees through fairly quickly and their battle resumes. When it’s over Doc Ock has seemingly perished in an inferno as the oil platform is set ablaze.

Out of concern for May’s health Peter throughout the novel seriously considers retirement but relents at the end. He plays a web-related prank on Jonah making everyone in the Bugle laugh. Close curtain.

Sorry it’s not as good as other synopses I’ve found but it’s the best I could find.

Context

This novel was released in March 1978 and, according to the information I found, was published when Len Wein’s run on ASM (ASM # 151–180) was nearing its end and not too long before Marv Wolfman would take the helm in ASM #182). Based upon Marvel.com’s publication dates, the novel would’ve been released between ASM #177-179. It’s unknown (and in my view highly unlikely) if Wein or Wolfman wrote this with the intention of being canonical. If read in conjunction with the then recent issues of Wein’s run it plays very much like most Spidey novels (especially the ones from the 1990s) wherein it takes place in a vaguely contemporary status quo within necesarilly marrying itself to any specific recent events. However how you perceive the novel in terms of being a Spider-Man story changes depending upon whether you look at it from the perspective of canon or as it’s own entity.

This was the first ever  Spider-Man novel and also the only definitively canonical one (due to a direct reference in Wolfman’s ASM #186).

Obviously the standards for comics back then were not as realistic as they became later, and indeed the general craftsmanship quality wasn’t as high either. Perhaps more importantly we need to bear in mind Spider-Man’s place within collective pop culture osmosis at the time.

By this time Spider-Man’s exposure to the mass public merely extended to the (by then long since cancelled) 1966 Spidey cartoon, the (then recent but not particularly successful) 1977 live action TV show and a long running skit as part of the educational kids show the Electric Company (which had ended the year before).

What I’m trying to say is that whilst today most everyone on the planet could rattle off Spidey’s powers, his association with the Bugle and at least a few supporting characters and villains, back in 1978 the average person at best might be able to recognize the character, name his secret identity and list off most of his powers.

This is important to bear in mind when discussing the novel because, though it is canon, it doesn’t take audience familiarity for granted. If you are an old hand with Spidey a lot parts of the novel are going to feel like going through the motions as Spidey is framed once again, Spidey wants to quit once again, Spidey gushes about Aunt May, etc. There is even practically a whole chapter dedicated to recapping Peter’s origin.

But then again, this novel wasn’t written for the small number of people already familiar with the character but for a wider audience who weren’t. As such it’s fair game to retread this material and play stuff that’d be obvious to comic fans (like Doc Ock’s identity) as mysterious.

If I were to be kind I’d say it was because Wein and Wolfman wanted to give readers a broad idea of what Spider-Man’s deal is, and the typical ins and outs of your average Spider-Man adventure. Were I to be less kind I’d argue they retread old ground to make completing this job easier on themselves, although admittedly the central plot isn’t one I believe had ever been done in Spider-Man before.

That being said, even within the context of the novel certain elements get brought up repeatedly to the point of them becoming tedious, Aunt May being chief among them.

Finally, though I admit to have not researched them extensively, the novel touches upon then contemporary social/economic/political issues.  The one of most note is the 1973 oil crisis. Long story short, there were fuel shortages due to events transpiring in the Middle East that obviously caused financial and maintenance troubles for America (and other regions of the world). There was another oil crisis in 1979 so it’s possible people (like Wein and Wolfman) were seeing the writing on the wall and including the topic in this novel. Obviously these events don’t directly impact the book nor are there direct allegories but the subject matter of the book makes it more likely than not that the oil crises were a source of inspiration.

There are no references I can recall to Middle Eastern people (and in fact exactly 3 people of colour in the whole book, Robbie, Randy and Glory) so Doc Ock and his scheme could be viewed as symbolic of the Middle East’s actions (deliberate or otherwise) in creating a fuel crisis. If this was intentional it doesn’t quite work as, to my understanding of the oil business, the oil companies he’s blackmailing were concerned with providing fuel for cars and other such vehicles, not for everything. As such the victims of Ock’s scheme would chiefly be vehicle owners (which most people in New York are not) and chiefly the oil company owners.

Now a fuel shortage even just for vehicles would have impact on a lot of good people, like everyone who ever needed an ambulance or fire truck to show up quickly. This makes Spider-Man’s lack of caring about the blackmail rather selfish, short sighted and out of character. But at the same time the story does frame it more as the oil companies being inevitably forced to take up Ock on his scheme and lose billions of dollars so Peter’s indifference to them makes more sense, especially when one considers he didn’t know Ock was involved at that time. However this is also the biggest reason for why the possibly/probably intentional connection drawn between this scheme and the oil crisis falls apart. Not only is it not truly analogous to the real life crisis but it also frames the primary victims as uber rich dickheads who will become slightly less uber rich for one year as a result of this.

Even by 1970s standards that’s a failure in reader investment because literally only other uber rich dickheads would have any sympathy.

Less significantly New York’s financial troubles coupled with a 25 hour black out in 1977 and high crime rates led to a feeling within and outside of New York of the city being a place beyond redemption.

Broadly this perception was the fuel for a lot of super hero stories in the 1970s and 1980s (like Frank Miller’s Daredevil run) and for this novel, whilst it isn’t strictly speaking the main concern, the idea of New York being stuck in a rut and a tough place to make it forms a backdrop for the story. There are references to how NYC is a place you need to survive and in doing so it becomes part of you. Though they emphasis the decay and the fact that the city is not in great shape, Wolfman and/or Wein display a certain amount of pride in the city through Peter Parker. This is fitting for the character, not just because he’s always resided in NYC, nor because the real NYC eventually adopted Spidey as one of their unofficial mascots, but because NYC as a city is tailored to Peter’s character. In truth it’s integral in defining his identity and the one place on Earth that offers an environment designed to optimize his super powers (how many other places have that many tall buildings in such a close proximity?).

From pictures to prose and the lack of personal stakes

According to the bibliographies I was able to find, this was Len Wein’s first ever prose novel and Wolfman’s second, so their degree of skill of experience with the format isn’t on the same level as say Jim Butcher’s Spidey novel.

That being said, the story wasn’t badly communicated through the prose. However, you can tell that these guys’ forte is in a visual medium as the scenes were primarily action orientated and all about trying to paint a clear picture in your mind about what’s happening. They usually succeeded though there were a few times my mind drifted off  and on occasion instances where I was wondering why Spidey doesn’t just do this or that to get out of dodge; admittedly that might have more to them dropping the ball with Spider-Man’s skillset than anything else.

The novel in general shares the tone of your typical mid-late 1970s Spidey story, albeit with a greater emphasis placed upon investigation and a longer plot. In fact had this story been a comic book it could’ve passed for an original graphic novel (before Marvel was regularly doing those), albeit one with an only slightly more complex tone. Really the sinister opening chapter with Doc Ock along with the details the plot goes into as far as the investigation are concerned are just about the only things that would’ve have occurred in a then standard issue of ASM or Spec. Other than that it’s very similar to a Spidey yarn from the time, which unfortunately includes some unsophisticated and even dodgy writing.* Case in point Doc Ock’s incredibly convenient journal detailing his evil scheme and his Scooby-Doo style disguise that doesn’t really do much but pad out the story.

However those complaints pale in comparison to the most central problem at the heart of the story.

This is not a Spider-Man story truly about Peter Parker.

Even in the primordial days of Spider-Man in the early 1960s, Lee, Ditko and Romita knew that Peter Parker’s personal life was at least half as important as his hero activities. They had already mined the idea of the two sides of his life negatively impacting one another and in multiple instances colliding. Perhaps the most famous examples are The Master Planner Trilogy (wherein Aunt May’s life depends upon Spider-Man confronting Doc Ock’s gang) and ASM (wherein a party with the supporting cast is crashed by Kraven the Hunter).

The problem with this book as a central story is that it places the emphasis upon Spider-Man moreso than it does upon peter Parker. Even in 1978, merely referencing Aunt May, his origin and giving brief appearances by Mary Jane, wasn’t going to cut it. The subplot about Peter deciding to quit also feels rather unearned and would not be particularly impactful to most readers unfamiliar with the character.

For old hands at Spidey like me him wanting to quit is tedious and was something already in need of a fresh angle even in 1978 (which this novel absolutely doesn’t provide). But for newer fans or people introduced to Spider-Man through this novel it lacks punch as you’ve spent inadequate time depicting Peter’s everyday life and super hero career for his decision o give it all up to mean much. It’s a little like how Batman in BvS: Dawn of Justice having lost his way means little considering we knew so little of what he was like before that. It doesn’t help that Peter’s decision to not quit is flippant, I can’t even remember how or when it happens, just that it does. It might even have been off panel. Spider-Man No More it wasn’t.

The whole subplot was rather poorly handled and felt inserted for padding or out of obligation. But that is also one of the three meager things that offer any personal stakes for Peter in this story. One of the others is that Jonah and Robbie eventually become endangered by the scheme because they are investigating it, but even that is much more connected to Spider-Man than Peter Parker and Pete doesn’t even know about it for most of the story. The third attempt at personal stakes is Spider-Man’s false accusation of murder, which is about as well worn as ‘Spidey wants to quit’ as a trope and one that is even less laced with personal drama. In fact most of these personal stakes could be mitigated if Peter simply went ahead and DID retire and his personal life would improve as a result.

Yes we are TOLD his personal life suffers because he s Spider-Man but we are never really shown it beyond injuries to his body and there are no relatable normal life stakes in play for him. It’s just that if he dies, no one will take care of Aunt May. That’s it.

Okay fine, technically an argument with Jonah leads to him losing his job with the Bugle and in theory being blacklisted from other jobs but like…if he’s got the only Spidey photos in town are competing newspapers REALLY going to turn him down? And it’s not like photography was his long term career path at this point anyway. The novel doesn’t even ruminate all that much on the conflict, putting much more emphasis upon his concerns for May.

Compare all that say Spider-Man: Forever. There Peter being Spider-Man causes Peter’s peers to think him a coward, his friend is jailed, he believes Gwen and Flash are growing close because he isn’t around and because he is thought of as a coward, his stress causes him to lash out at Flash and in turn lash out at criminals in costume. Oh and he’s trying to rescue his friend/teacher Curt Connors and his family. I appreciate that novel was written decades after this one but everything I just described comes from it’s adaptation of a 1960s Stan Lee story.**

I’ve not revisted all of Wein and Wolfman’s stories carefully enough to deduce if this was par for the course back then, but to my recollections it wasn’t and common sense would dictate it’s not great writing in general. Even for a thriller or action orientated story, personal stakes ramps up the readers’ investment. Considering the comics had been doing this for years beforehand there really isn’t much of an excuse.

What’s even more baffling regarding the decision is that the switch in media you would think would make the need for personal stakes more relevant not less.

Let’s face it, action is almost always better when conveyed through visuals rather than prose and that is especially true for super heroes considering they were specifically designed for a visual medium. It’s a rare and very honed skill to make action really exciting in prose format, and Wein/Woflman are no Horowitz or Fleming. Whilst they can clearly convey what is happening well enough, I kept thinking how much better most of this would be as a comic book or film.

Given the nature of the character and limitations/strengths of the medium, it would be natural to emphasis the personal life stakes, introspection and soap opera elements innate to Spider-Man over the action adventurer aspect of who he is. This is precisely why Peter David’s ‘Five Minutes’ story from The Ultimate Spider-Man anthology is perhaps the strongest example of Spidey prose fiction. I’m not saying action and adventure should be at 0% here, but the ratio for this novel is at best 90% and that just doesn’t work very well.

I speculate this is perhaps partially due to Wein and Wolfman taking cues from Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and pulp novels; Holmes and Bond are even name checked in the novel. Such books have commonalities with the super hero genre and in some cases such novel characters contributed elements innate to the super hero genre. Batman for instance has Zorro and Holmes imbedded in his formative DNA.

Indeed, if you examine the physical ‘Mayhem In Manhattan’ book at face value it certainly reminds me of those types of action thriller novels and pulps. So in theory doing a super hero novel with inspiration from those books makes a lot of sense. But the problem is that, whilst the earliest 30s and 40s super heroes might’ve evolved from those types of characters, by the 60s-70s times had changed. Spider-Man and the early Marvel pantheon, whilst still super heroes, are a generation removed from the ones inspired by the likes of the Shadow, Holmes or Zorro, existing more as a reaction against  their predecessors if anything. Because of this the emphasis upon action and adventure at best feels like it merely captures part of who Spider-Man is and simply dabbles in the other, perhaps more important, part (i.e. Peter Parker).

The Wein or the Wolfman

An interesting question to ask regarding this novel is to what extent it is the product of Len Wein and to what extent it is Wolfman’s. For all we know they actively collaborated throughout the writing process. But for all we know one might’ve provided the other with an outline the other actually fleshed out into a full novel.

Personally speaking I am inclined to believe that it was the former and that this book is more a product of Wolfman than Wein.

My reasons for this are circumstantial but hear me out.

Okay so, for starters when the book came out Wein was busy writing and editing ASM and was very likely doing work on ASM back when the book was being written. Secondly it was in Wolfman’s own ASM run that the novel became canonized. Thirdly the novel also features the great power/great responsibility mantra, which might seem insignificant, but in the comics to my recollection the Wolfman was the first guy to actually repeat the mantra since AF #15 (unless one counts the short lived Spec magazine). This makes this novel one of the earliest times that the mantra was ever repeated in a Spider-Man story.

Fourthly, the novel hammers Peter’s affection for Aunt May over and over and over again. Granted, Wolfman was neither the first nor the last person to do that. But he did do it to a bigger extent than Wein ever did in his run having Peter practically shed tears over how sweet Aunt May was. Wein might’ve used May and emphasized Peter’s affection for her, but nowhere near to the same extent. Wein, whilst giving May one of her more notorious health scares, didn’t make as big a deal of her health as Wolfman did in his run and her health is brought up more than once here as a rationale for Peter’s retirement.

Finally, I know Wolfman has an affection for hard boiled crime stories (his mid-late 80s Superman work conveys that) which this novel is definitely cut from and indeed the tone of this story is somewhat reminiscent of another Doc Ock story he did in ASM Annual #13 (released in 1979).

So I feel the lion’s share of the credit (for good or ill) for this novel should go to Wolfman. Although the fact that 2 people worked on this could explain certain inconsistencies and discrepancies in the novel. One such example (and frankly an unforgivable mistake for any Spidey writer to make) is Peter’s claim that he designed his costume to scare criminals only to later in the novel give his origin and (correctly) explain that he actually designed it to have show biz spectacle.

Another example arguably applies to the two main ladies of Peter’s life. Namely…

Aunt May and Mary Jane

At one point early in the novel Peter is listing off the price he pays for being Spider-Man. Among his complaints is that he has ‘no real love’. However this is in spite of referencing Aunt May in the same passage and MJ having appeared earlier in the novel.

In the former case one might argue that Peter was referring to romantic love and in the latter case the intent might’ve been that, whilst they were dating, he and MJ were not in love with one another.

More problematically is how both characters are handled in this story.

Now I’m not suggesting that a Spider-Man story is obliged to give Aunt May or MJ significant play, or more play than other supporting characters (Jonah and Robbie are definitely the most important secondary characters in this novel).

Heck, back in 1978 Mary Jane lacked the presence within the Spider-Man mythology that she has now, they’d only been dating for like 3-4 years by the time this novel was published; as far as anyone knew she was merely the latest Spidey lover not the endgame. That being said, her role as (at the time) the  Spider-Man girlfriend did entitle her to a certain amount of importance at least on the level of Jameson. But okay, this was aiming to be a an action thriller/detective/pulp story, so giving focus to two newsmen over the girlfriend or elderly mother of the lead character makes a certain amount of sense if that’s what you are going for (even if a Spidey novel should probably be more than that).

The story doesn’t demand their inclusion but since this is the first ever Spidey novel, maybe Wein/Wolfman felt it a disservice to not include them as part of giving readers a taste of what makes Spider-Man tick.

With all that said though both characters would have probably been better off omitted from this novel completely given how they were used.

They both got the shaft but in noticeably different ways. Outside of an overwrought dream sequence May literally never appears and is merely referenced multiple times in annoying internal dives into Peter’s mind. It’s rote stuff. Peter has to quit cos Aunt May. She’s so kind. She’s so frail. She’ll die if she finds out the truth. Blah blah blah.

It’s not just that established fans would likely roll their eyes over this stuff, but even new fans in 1978 would likely get fed up with Peter’s hang up over May. And so much of this stuff fails to connect for the simple reason that, for as much as we hear Peter think or talk about her, she never appears to speak for herself.

As tedious and cliché as Aunt May on her sickbed had become by 1978 at least in most of those stories she was physically present. She’s still a prop to motivate Peter but here she’s been reduced to the idea of a prop. Although 1970s Aunt May wasn’t a great character she still deserved better. The kindest thing I can say is that the reference to her having recent heart attacks synchs up with Len Wein’s final storyline on ASM.

As for Mary Jane it’s just insulting.

On the positive end of things MJ’s flirtatious personality traits are present. On the less than positive side of things…her function in the story is a very clunky vehicle to get Peter to the Bugle, which is baffling considering Peter works there anyway and MJ doesn’t.

The long story short is that she bangs on Peter’s door early in the morning because she was told by Glory Grant (or whoever) that there was a sexy new reporter at the Bugle that all the men were drooling over and that she was now partnered up with Peter. She’s clearly upset, but claims not to but wants to get things clear because she thought she and Peter had ‘an understanding’.

WTF does that mean? That they are exclusively dating? That they aren’t exclusive but need to tell one another or get permission if they want to see other people? It’s not at all explained and if they were just straight up dating there would be no need to be vague about it.

Perhaps this is partially due to the iffy nature of their relationship under Wolfman’s run. Conway left readers in little doubt that Peter and MJ were both exclusive and more importantly in love with one another. Wein’s run muddied the waters somewhat as he didn’t go back on what Conway established save two significant moments. One of those is when Peter wonders to himself that he isn’t sure about his relationship with MJ when after Conway’s run he absolutely should be sure. The other is when MJ dates Flash to get back at peter for ditching her.

Whilst you can No. prize both instances, the fact is Wein didn’t explicitly go back on Conway’s work but also apparently didn’t take their romance as seriously, nor did Wolfman seeing as he broke them up ASAP into his run then made sure it was permanent later on.

What I’m trying to say is Wein, whilst he did give the couple some interesting ups and downs, didn’t exactly live up to the promise handed to him by Conway and Wolfman straight up disliked the Peter/MJ romance for bullshit reasons.

So whilst it is possible that Wein and/or Wolfman were covering their tracks by referring to Peter/MJ’s relationship as ‘an understanding’, I’m much more inclined to think it was one of them (probably Wolfman) misunderstanding or deliberately undermining the relationship cos they suck.

And let’s talk about MJ’s portrayal here. I honestly don’t understand the logic here. MJ hears there is an attractive woman who will be working with Peter and…she is angry?...because Peter…didn’t tell her/is working with her at all??????????

Huh?

It comes off as a ‘Jeez wimmn amirite fellas’ moment. Like MJ is threatened by this sexy woman she’s merely heard about. Okay, maybe there were 1970s standards for dating or just workplace etiquette that 40+ years removed I’m in the dark about. But even back then, if a woman didn’t like the idea of her male partner working with another woman, jumping to anger or a presumption of romantic shenanigans seems really petty and insecure.

And frankly, seriously OOC for MJ even as she was established back then. Let’s put aside how she vowed to be less clingy back in the issue where Betty and Ned got married (which likely happened before this story). MJ isn’t the type to be threatened by the mere presence of a sexy woman. Yeah she competed with Gwen, but that’s the key word. She competed. MJ knows she’s highly attractive and wants to be with Peter so she’ll go for it, but here she feels insecure about a woman she’s literally just heard about merely working with peter. Did Ann Nocenti write this or something?

It’s asinine and either really contrived in order to get us to the Bugle or a really desperate way to crowbar MJ in as part of a checklist of Spidey elements that should be in this story.

It feels like something Silver Age Betty Brant (Wolfman’s favourite Spidey love interest FYI) would’ve done but with MJ just being comparatively more chill and understanding when she realizes she’s made a mistake. Which is another bit of circumstantial evidence supporting my theory that this is more Wolfman’s work than Wein’s. Wolfman had a reductive view of who MJ was (although he technically established her issues with divorce/commitment) which was very much stuck in the Silver Age. He swiped plenty of his run from Ditko era Spidey stories and literally wrote out MJ in order to have Betty Brant become Peter’s lover again. So I suspect he was imposing the archetypical unreasonable Silver Age girlfriend template upon MJ in this story but tweaking it in accordance to her more hip and loose persona. Essentially a Silver Age girlfriend dialed down to the most mellow level…which is still NOT what MJ was at the time.

She proceeds to tag along to the Bugle, support a joke where peter forgets the name of the sexy Bugle reporter and then apologise, subtly offer sex and leaves. She is then unmentioned for the rest of the book until the very last chapter where she amounts to a pretty face, a cheerful personality and vaguely the supportive girlfriend. And frankly all that is really overselling it, she hugs Peter and congratulates him and little else.

She might as well not be in that chapter or in fact this entire novel. The subplot about the sexy reporter doesn’t even go anywhere. It’s just a clumsy means to facilitate the introduction of the Bugle cast, the incredibly minor subplot about Peter losing his job and get the ball rolling on Peter’s investigation.

Call me nuts but couldn’t the story have achieved all that by having Peter himself just go to the Bugle for work, been told directly by Jonah he was being partnered up with someone against his will, etc?

And you wanna know the worst part?

This sexy reporter is apparently a previously unmentioned niece of JJJ…who we never see. Not only would meeting Jonah’s extended family have been an interesting novelty if nothing else, but if you are going to have a whole contrived plot revolve around this niece have her put in an actual appearance maybe????? It doesn’t even go anywhere, I was expecting her to show up at some point and she absolutely didn’t.

So yeah, the female characters in this novel get fucked over quite a bit, even ones we merely hear about. Hell the opening chapter makes multiple mention of how the gangster’s wife is ugly and unlovable.

Jonah and Robbie

As I said, Jonah and Robbie get more play in this novel and they are actually handled well.

By this point in time neither character had been exactly given three dimensions and I can’t recall even a subtle implication that Robbie knew Peter’s secret. Nevertheless both characters are on point for how they’d been defined by 1978.

Jonah is the blowhard with a major anti-Spidey agenda, Robbie is steadfastly moral and voice of reason counterbalancing him. Jonah’s rants are a highlight as usual with a memorable argument with a cab driver and an even earlier one with Peter regarding his niece; to the novel’s credit Peter fights back.

We see both men display street smarts and investigative skills as they methodically pursue the trail of Ock’s scheme right to its climax. The most stand out example of this is when Robbie pays a drunk to spill information, the scene being ripped straight out of a crime noir story.

Furthermore, Robbie shines when he helps Spidey out during his duel with Ock, the aftermath of which involves him also calling Jonah out for his psychosis where Spidey is concerned. I can’t recall exactly if the comics had by this point pinned down that Jonah was in fact a very good newsman but had a Spider-Man shaped blind spot. If not then this would be the first time in canon that idea was established and furthermore kudos to Wein and Wolfman for lightly fleshing Jonah out some by doing so. They then followed up by doubling down on Lee/Ditko’s proposed rationale for Jonah’s vendetta, having him verbalize to Robbie his resentment and jealousy towards the wall-crawler. However they soften him up by having Jonah be more upset that the attention Spider-Man garners overshadows the normal everyday heroes like cops and firefighters.

This is an interesting angle to approach Jonah from, even if it doesn’t really jive with the status quo of the novel wherein Spider-Man is clearly regarded as a public menace. Howe can he be a public pariah yet also someone people glorify at the expense of fire fighters?

This then precipitates some more interesting

There are also two noteworthy exchanges towards the end of the novel.

The former has Robbie succinctly skewer Jameson for allowing his hate-boner to blind him and acting as JJJ’s conscience, insisting he print the truth about Spidey’s innocence. This is followed by an over the top old timey dialogue about how Jonah is going to spin this to his advantage; It just goes to show how back then Jonah was more of a yellow journalist than the dignified newsman.

The latter has Robbie sings Spider-Man’s praises. Whilst it’s heartwarming for us old established fans to see Robbie express such respect towards Peter, in the context of the novel the scene has it’s problems. To begin with it is arguably overwrought and rather unrealistic in the context of the scene. More significantly it’s rather too blunt a way for Wein/Wolfman to essentially spell out to the readers why Spider-Man (in their view) is a great character and you should love him. It falls flat since newer readers would’ve only experienced Spidey in the course of this rather short novel anyway so the moment feels rather unearned, albeit much more applicable when you look at this in canon.

Also since Robbie is essentially implied to not know Peter is Spidey in the novel it feels odd to new readers that Robbie would be speaking this way, as though he knows Spider-Man to a much more personal degree. The novel even states Robbie I mostly indifferent towards Spidey a chapter or two earlier than this speech so it’s another example of the novel being inconsistent. The actual sentiments of the speech as they truly apply to Spidey can be discussed later.

Don’t be fooled. I’m not trying to say JJJ or Robbie were not great in this novel because perhaps more than anything they absolutely work.

Doc Ock

I don’t have a whole Hell of a lot to say about Doc Ock in this novel. Doc ock hadn’t really been given the meaty layers he’d get later on and by this point was Spider-Man’s #1 bad guy kind of by default. He was the most visually dynamic of Peter’s foes, the one that thematically had the greatest connection to him (aside from Norman, but he was dead) and had been the most recurring of Spidey’s foes.

He also doubled up as a mad scientist and a fighter meaning he was a character with a shade more versatility than knuckleheads like Sandman or clever yet weak opponents like Mysterio.

Wein/Wolfman use him fairly well here and you could argue this novel is a better Doc Ock story than Spidey story.

I said above that this novel likely takes cues from (among other things) James Bond novels and here Ock certainly echoes a Bond villain in his scheme, he even has a secret lair with death traps and hilariously a finely furnished room on an oil rig.

He’s described using effectively intimidating language. Wein/Wolfman interestingly avoids describing him as overweight and instead claims he’s stocky and strong, conveying a sense of power quite apart from his tentacles. When he and Spidey begin dueling at the end of the novel the novel really sells him as  formidable and dangerous figure.

Perhaps the highlight of Otto’s characterization stems from his rant about how he spent years unrecognized for his genius. Whilst Doc Ock has always had an undercurrent of being driven by a desire for recognition, to my recollection this was perhaps the first time ever it was stated outright. It’s not much but it allows Ock to be a tad more than a one dimensional villain.

The primary weakness of his portrayal mainly stems from the mystery surrounding his identity. To any old hand at Spidey it’s incredibly obvious it’s Doc Ock very early into the novel and it becomes even more obvious as soon as he is identified as the Master Planner. This even creates some continuity problems due to Wolfman canonizing the novel. Given how momentous an event the MP Trilogy was in Peter’s life why would he fail to remember the Master Planner was a moniker used by Doc Ock? And if Otto is attempting to maintain secrecy why would he use an alias that is public knowledge anyway?

Hell now I think about it, why even bother with secrecy at all? Remember this was before the days of the internet and when surveillance technology wasn’t what it is today, so if what benefit would Otto have in disguising his voice or using an alias when trying to blackmail the oil tycoons? If anything, being upfront with them would surely be more intimidating.

Other weaknesses include his committing his plans (including a confession of murder) to a diary for plot convenience, his Scooby-Doo level disguise and conveniently (and repeatedly) verbally confessing to murdering Huddelston.

These issues are partially connected to another problem with the novel, that of padding.

Not so fantastic filler

In spite of its length the novel is weirdly padded out. For sure a lot of stuff to people who’re already fans of comic Spidey there is a lot of unnecessary stuff. But even having said that there is plenty of stuff to cut here.

The filler takes two dominant forms.

The first is stuff you would expect. The brief subplot regarding Otto’s diary doesn’t really serve the plot much as Otto destroys it pretty soon afterwards. It mostly exists just to cheaply inform Spidey of Otto’s scheme but there were much more elegant and effective ways for him to have learned about that. There is basically a brief video game side mission wherein Peter has to save an old blind man from being run over by a carjacker, all to desperately (and unsubtly) remind the readers of Uncle Ben’s death. There is a brief fight involving Jonah and Robbie verses their kidnappers, which at best might serve to set up Robbie’s bravery for when he helps Spidey out later. And I already mentioned all the stuff with Mary Jane.

The second and probably more annoying for of filler is the needless elaboration on bit characters. A random cop, a random security guard, a random tourist and a random criminal are among the several pointless characters who do not need names, let alone potted backstories regarding their future’s with the police force or their street names. Each one feels like something ripped from a noir novel but the only instance where this is effective is in the case of Alan Huddelston. He is the POV character for the first chapter and integral t the plot, so his murder nicely sets the tone, puts some pieces in place for the story and establishes a bit about Doc Ock. Everyone else though is not only cuttable but their inclusion made me outright dislike them.

I suspect the writers were so used to the faster pace afforded by comic books that they found their initial efforts for the novel coming up short hence these insertions.

Peter Parker’s Portrayal

Obviously the single most important thing when it comes to a Spider-Man novel is how it handles Spider-Man himself.

It’s a mixed bag.

At face value Wein/Wolfman seemingly capture Spidey circa the late 1970s. Descriptions of his movement clearly evoke comic images in your head.

His banter sounds authentic to the time period too, although his quips aren’t the greatest. They feel oddly old fashioned eve by 1970s standards although maybe that’s just me because I find Stan’s Spidey dialogue still holds up.

However ultimately this portrayal of Peter Parker falls flat, largely because it doesn’t strike a balance between earning the moments of pathos or emotion from newer readers and for older Spidey fans it’s very rote. Actually it’s more like it’s rote but it also gets stuff outright wrong.

A small example of this Peter’s agonizing to quite. Putting aside how that had been done to death even by 1978, the novel has Peter come off as rather whiney and it’s almost like it’s yelling at you to appreciate the novelty of a superhero who doesn’t ENJOY being a superhero. When Peter sought to quit even in the early days of the comics, Lee and Ditko earned it much more through the art and through conveying Peter’s constant uphill  struggle. For newer readers though the first thing they read about Spidey is him in costume and complaining, already framed for murder. Most adaptations opt to either first set up Peter then introduce Spidey or open with standard Spidey action and then after establishing his normal life have it go to shit. Wolfman/Wein are in essence writing for a new audience who they think already know enough about Peter to care, when in reality they don’t and the audience that does care wouldn’t be impressed by recycling so many tropes of Spidey for this novel.

Another example is Peter’s complaining that he has no real love. This is baffling if you contextualize it into the comics canon because, hello…Gwen Stacy (who is never mentioned once in this novel even though her Dad died due to Doc Ock)and Mary Jane? Maybe this ties into Wein and/or (more likely) Wolfman’s over all problems in handling MJ in their runs, but like Peter undeniably is in love with Mary Jane by this point and knows she reciprocates. This feels more appropriate to a generalized idea of Spider-Man as opposed to the specific nuances of the canon character.

Undeniably though the single biggest example of mischaracterization comes from when Spider-Man suspends a suspect in a web high above the ground to make him squeal and then literally leaves him there. As in the guy has to carefully disentangle himself from the webbing and gradually inch his way back inside to safety. The novel never states Peter’s webbing lasts just 1-2 hours, but even if it was permanent, WTF man? Unless there was some extenuating circumstances Spider-Man would’ve leave the guy there.

I am not familiar enough with Wein’s wider bibliography, but that feels much more like a Wolfman thing. Wolfman’s work routinely involves tough guys beating the shit out of gangsters and this scene is ripped out of crime noir story. It’s another example of how I suspect Wein/Wolfman looked to precursors of the superhero genre for influence but it doesn’t really jive here.

Then of course we have the second act climax in Doc Ock’s lair. Guys…this is 100% a Master Planner Trilogy rip off.

Now in defence of this story, the cliché of ‘Spider-Man needing to use his willpower to lift something really heavy’ hadn’t yet become a cliché by 1978. In fact this may well have been the very first time somebody returned to that well in all Spidey media.

But here is the thing. As eye rolling as it has become to see that cliché again and again…this is probably the single worst example of it I have ever seen.

This isn’t an homage, this is basically an outright rip off.

You could argue JMS outright ripped this off too back in his Doc Ock/L.A. arc in ASM vol 2. But that story didn’t involve also going through a veritable laundry list of Spider-Man clichés as well.

For real this is a story where Spidey is framed for murder, Jameson is an irrational lunatic who ironically needs Spidey to save him, Peter angsts about Aunt May’s heart, contemplates retirement and ALSO needs to lift something really heavy.

How much of a rip off is this?

Well stop me if any of this sounds familiar. Spidey goes to the Master Planner’s secret lair, there he learns the MP is really Doc Ock. At the lair he survives several obstacles, then is buried under tons of debris and is in danger of drowning. But using his will power he frees himself.

The only real difference is Spider-Man is in danger of drowning because the tide is coming in not because he is underwater. Combined with Aunt May’s lack of immediate peril, Uncle Ben’s memory and the build up to this moment and you basically have a shittier version of the scene that undermines Peter’s character.

It comes off as rote because he’s dwelling on May’s fate if he dies (and how she’s so sweet and kind) for the umpteenth time in the novel. And because we’ve spent so little time with Peter as Peter (as opposed to Spider-Man) that emotional investment is lacking. The dialogue if placed in a different story could work, but having Peter think to himself ‘I’m Spider-Man!’ doesn’t mean much. It’s like if in the first ever Sherlock Holmes novel, Holmes saves the day by clenching his teeth and affirming his own identity. It’d falls as flat as when Cumberbach revealed he was Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

More than this in the actual MP Trilogy Peter went through Hell BEFORE we got to this moment. He suffered a shitton before the single worst thing could happen to trip him up at the finish line. This comes out of nowhere and is dispensed with. He doesn’t evolve or change in response to the moment.

At best it’s just another injection of titillating peril to keep people interested, at worst it’s Wein/Wolfman indulging themselves by redoing the best Spider-Man story ever.

It’s not even the culmination or climax of the story either. Whilst the iconic scene in the original story was the start of the third part of the story, it was 100% the culmination of the saga over all. This? This is the second act climax, it’s the equivalent of when Spidey fucked up the ferry in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Except that at least had consequences, this was glorified filler.

Then we have Peter’s desire to quit. I’ve already talked about this a whole lot but one thing I didn’t touch on is something that happens after he recounts his origin.

Once Peter repeats his responsibility mantra he begins to follow up by claiming he’ll never forget his lesson.

Well putting aside the semantics of that because he obviously has quit multiple times in canon (ASM #50 comes to mind) isn’t he literally forgetting that lesson in this very novel by opting to retire?

The novel then continues to basically imply great responsibility naturally comes with great power. “Sure great responsibility comes with great power…” This is a small but significant thing to misinterpret. Spider-Man’s mantra isn’t about how great responsibility is part of the package when you get great power, it’s about how that power needs responsibility to temper it, to keep it in check.

That’s why the original quote (as Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz have pointed out several times) is “with great power THERE MUST ALSO COME great responsibility.”

What Wein/Wolfman describe is the equivalent of just saying: “with great power COMES great responsibility”.

But it doesn’t.

That’s the entire point of Spider-Man’s origin. He had power, he didn’t use it responsibly, something bad happened. It’s also literally what Doc Ock is doing in this novel. He has power and abuses it, he doesn’t have any sense of responsibility and it causes harm.

The difference is small yet profound and what is ironic is that the majority of portrayals of Spidey use misquote even though they grasp the original sentiment. And yet here Wein/Wolfman get the correct quote but then follow it up with a misinterpretation in line with the misquote.

The novel continues by claiming Peter’s first responsibility had to be to himself and those he cared for.

Again, this is a small but profound misinterpretation of Spider-Man.

As far as Spider-Man himself is concerned yes his loved ones are his first responsibility (in terms of their wellbeing, obviously he’ll miss an engagement with them for the greater good) but not himself. Peter does not view his own well being as above what he does for innocent people as Spider-Man.

If a situation endangered Aunt May, himself and a stranger, his priorities would be May, the stranger, himself, in that order.

Wein and Wolfman are subtly demonstrating a big misreading of the character in this part of the novel, even if it is refreshing to hear Peter acknowledge himself and his loved ones as ONE of his major responsibilities and not irrelevant next to being Spider-Man.

Now in fairness, older stories under Stan did demonstrate Peter was willing to go into retirement for the sake of Aunt May (and thus by extension his other loved ones too), for example ASM #50. That same story saw Peter only come out of retirement when May was on the mend. The first time he seriously considered retirement (as opposed to throwing a teenage hissy fit like in ASM #3) was in ASM #18 when May was again seriously unwell. So there is a certain truth to what the novel is saying, the problem is May is not unwell in the novel. Spider-Man is planning on retiring simply because may MIGHT have another heart attack or he MIGHT die and be unable to take care of her which is literally the regular status quo of Spider-Man. Like he was doing this in ASM #1-100 so why the Hell is he now bleeting on about his responsibility to her and to alienating people who try to befriend him (which we see no evidence of in the novel, again, he’s literally dating MJ).

It’s another example of the novel being at odds with itself. This characterization contradicts things for established fans, but for newer ones it’s incredibly unearned.

The novel continues by having Peter say that if great power demanded great responsibility (which again isn’t what his mantra is about) then he’d give up that great power. This further cements Wein/Wolfman’s misinterpretation of Spider-Man because, hello, the point of his origin is that he had power and didn’t use it! The only way that Spidey giving up his great power works is if he is literally depowered, not simply choosing to not use it for fuck’s sake.

The whole passage in the book doesn’t even add up because Peter conditions his retirement upon both clearing Spider-Man’s name and bringing the Master Planner to justice…but why?

At this point in the novel all he knows is the Master Planner is stealing money from billionaires who themselves steal from the common man and who’s losses will not (the novel makes clear) impact him or anyone lacking a car. So if Peter is of a mindset to retire and doesn’t get that having his powers means he’s obliged to use them to help others, then why is he choosing to use them to help these douchebags and clear the name of an identity he’s giving up anyway?????????????

There are, of course, other discrepancies in Peter’s characterization too, noticeably in his account of his origin story. For starters he uses Stan Lee’s ASM #50 revision that Peter went sought to cash in on his powers specifically to pay back May and Ben when in AF #15 he is way more selfish than that. Additionally the origin claims Peter turned down an invitation to join his peers at the movies, preferring to go to his fateful science exhibit. This is a tiny but significant change, as originally Peter invited his peers to the experiment and was rejected, rather he rejecting them. It’s an important distinction as it made Peter more sympathetic and less asocial whilst still being an outsider. Essentially it was Lee and Ditko balancing things out rather than Wein/Wolfman’s take wherein Peter was just naturally a loner. Even if Spidey in costume should lean towards being a solo act, Peter as a person is not asocial.

Finally lets talk about Robbie’s little speech. Robbie tries to counter argue Jameson, when the latter explains his dislike for Spidey. JJJ’s argument is that the glorification Spider-Man gets comes at the expense of everyday heroes, normal people. Robbie’s counter is that a normal person is who is under Spider-man’s mask, and he could claim fame and glory by revealing himself if he wanted. He elaborates that the reason Spidey doesn’t is because so long as he wears the mask Spider-man can be anybody, a symbol of any man who hates injustice and who fights for the good can become.

This speech is another example where Wein and Wolfman’s sentiments have grains of truth in them but do not come together.

An important part of the whole point of Spider-Man IS that he is (relatively) ordinary. And on a meta level his costume totally covering his body does indeed allow the audience member a certain amount of wish fulfillment.

But there are several problems with this passage.

To begin with Jonah’s objections contradict the novel because Spider-man is a public pariah, not a glorified hero. In fact a great bit of the novel is where Spider-Man encounters a group of secrtaries who’re initially frightened of him due to his reputation, only to be taken aback when they realize he’s a lot younger and gentler than they believed.

Secondly, it’s very clear that the novel isn’t trying to zero in on a particular aspect of Spider-Man and talk about it metatextually. It’s obviously tyring to deliver some grand summation of Spider-Man’s character as a whole and what his appeal is. And the fact that he is a symbol or has a full body outfit has nothing to do with that. Spider-Man’s appeal lies primarily outside of his costume and his specific and particular life struggles. He really isn’t a symbol. BATMAN is a symbol. Superman is a symbol. Wonder Woman is a symbol. Peter Parker is a man.

Finally, the speech is just not great in the context of the novel. The dialogue is clunky and because Robbie hasn’t been shown to know Spider-Man (or Peter) all that well and has even been stated to be actively indifferent to him, it just comes off as disingenuous. Robbie isn’t Wein/Wolfman’s in-story mouthpiece, he is randomly possessed by their spirits and forced to speak their words.

It’s a nice to see Robbie doing Spidey a solid, but the sentiments are problematic.

And problematic just about sums up Peter’s handling in this whole novel.

Hell the novel resolves Spider-Man’s retirement angst practically off page and well before the climax of the story. Even by the standards of the time, that’s just incompetent.

Audio Adventure

Finally we come to how this audiobook adaption holds up.

It is…serviceable.

The narrator, Tristan Wright, is at his best with Doc Ock but his voice doesn’t suit the old fashioned dialogue. It comes off as an impersonation of how people talked in old timey movies as opposed to genuine.  Jameson is the worst offender, although the dialogue would make anyone struggle.

His female and black voices are….eh….I don’t like them.

And as for his Spider-Man. Well, he skates the line between falling flat and just about getting the job done. But it’s never good. I know this is weird to say, but given how dated the novel is Wright just sounds too modern. They should’ve gotten someone who either sounds more old fashioned or was just an older person. Dan Gilvezan, voice of the 1980s Spidey cartoons, might’ve been a good choice.

Beyond that there is just nothing to really write home about this audiobook. It doesn’t have multiple actors or a soundscape, the only music involved is for the title sequence.

It gets the job done but does little else.

Conclusion

Over all, I must confess to being rather disappointed in this novel and even would kind of prefer it to be non-canonical given the continuity errors it creates.

It’s more valuable as a historical curiosity than an actual story and has perhaps lowered my (already not great) opinion of Wein and Wolfman as Spider-Scribes.

I’d advise checking it out if you want to be a completist or if you want to appreciate how the standards for Spidey novels have improved.

*Hot take: Aside from Conway’s work, 1970s Spider-Man was in general not as good as 1960s Spidey stories, let alone those from the 1980s.

**See why Stan was the GOAT?

[haberdashing]

No Puppet Strings Can Hold Me Down (2/?)

The Magnus Archives fanfic. An AU that diverges from canon between episodes 159 and 160, in which Peter Lukas’ statement that “he got you” takes on a different meaning.

on AO3

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7

Jon wanted to move, to scream, to do something to break the dull silence that fell over Lukas’ office after Elias took his last breath, but instead, he found his body acting in ways that were much too calm and calculated for his own liking.

He set the gun down gently on the desk, so gently that Jon wondered if Jonah Magnus, aka the entity formerly known as Elias Bouchard, was actually focused on making sure his old desk remained in pristine condition rather than on, well, on literally anything else about the situation at hand.

He started walking briskly away from the scene of the crime, out of the office and through the Institute’s hallways, destination as yet unknown.

He didn’t even have the decency to run.

As Jon’s body kept walking of its own accord (or, rather, of Elias’ accord), Jon started trying to test his limits, figure out exactly what he could and couldn’t do in his current predicament.

Jon focused all his attention on his pinky finger, the one he’d tried to cut off before realizing that he’d need to go to more drastic measures to find himself a proper anchor to this reality, an act that somehow felt both as if it had happened only yesterday and as if it had taken place an eternity ago. Jon concentrated on that one finger and put all the willpower he could muster into getting it to move, even slightly.

His finger didn’t so much as twitch.

After a few moments, Jon let his focus go, recognizing that all he seemed to be accomplishing by concentrating on a single finger was losing track of everything else going on around him. A single word echoed loudly and bitterly through his mind as he began to ponder his next move, which would hopefully be less of a resounding failure.

Fuck.

(Scientists did a study, once, showing that people could tolerate pain, in the form of freezing cold water, better if they were allowed use of profanities while enduring it. Jon didn’t know how he knew this, wasn’t sure if he’d read it somewhere and forgotten the source or simply Knew it out of nowhere, but he appreciated the knowledge just the same...

...but the pain involved here was of a very different sort than mere frigid water, and though he let himself scream the obscenity as loudly as he could within his own mind, it didn’t help nearly as much as he had hoped.)

Jon felt his pace slow, and as his thoughts flowed from the single word he had briefly but intensely fixated on, he heard another voice. Not his own, not leaving his mouth, but one echoing through his head just the same.

This voice, too, fixated on a single word.

Language.

That was Elias’ voice, clearly, it had to be... though something about it was ever so slightly different from how Jon remembered it. The pitch was off, perhaps, was that it?

Jon focused with a renewed intensity, let a single thought dominate his mind as he had before, put his energy into not physical movement but mental volume.

You can hear me?

The response came almost immediately.

No, I’m just talking to myself here--yes, Jon, I can hear you.

So... so, you can hear my thoughts, then.

Jon phrased it as a statement, not a question, in an attempt to avoid further condescension from Elias, but his mind was racing as he considered the implications. If Elias could hear his every thought... if he couldn’t so much as think about his current predicament without Elias knowing, if any inklings he had of a plan were constantly being broadcast to the one he most needed to hide them from-

When you practically scream them at me, yes. Not otherwise. It’s for the best, really; I’ve got enough on my mind without having to hear everything that must be going through your mind right now, and I’m sure you appreciate the slight semblance of privacy.

Jon would have let out a sigh of relief, if he could.

Elias was right, at least, that a lot was going through Jon’s mind at the moment. There must have been dozens, maybe hundreds of questions that he considered raising, but Jon knew well enough from past experience that if he asked anything of consequence, anything that might actually give him some useful information, Elias was likely to blow him off, giving some sort of unhelpful non-answer while insinuating that somehow it was for Jon’s own good in the greater scheme of things that he not get any proper answers. Better to ask something small, something that didn’t matter much but might be an opening to a more meaningful conversation.

Your voice sounds different than it usually does... is this your real voice I’m hearing, then? The way you sounded when you founded the Institute, back when you were still going by Jonah Magnus?

Jon’s face remained set in a neutral expression, but Jon could hear the smug smile in Elias’ response just the same.

Precisely.

Not the most helpful of responses, but perhaps he could still segue it into something closer to what he actually wanted to know right now.

Did Elias--the original Elias--talk to you like this often? When you were in his body?

There was a pause this time, a brief moment in which nothing was said. Elias--Jonah--had to think through his response here, it seemed.

Not terribly often, no. I think he more or less gave up after the first couple of months. Can’t say that I minded, really. The sort of running commentary he gave me was awfully boorish and immature... unlike you. I must say, Jon, I am very excited to see how you react to all of this.

Jon didn’t hesitate, didn’t waste any time mincing his words.

Oh, fuck off.

Jon wasn’t sure if the discontented grunt he heard was spoken aloud or only mentally, but that was the only response he received.

If that was the end of their little conversation... well, it hadn’t exactly been a resounding success, but at least he’d learned something about what he was in for now, for better or for worse.

[palegengarsiloved]

Utangatta

"You were the only one who knew all my stories. You are the only one who knew about mom."

I re-engaged with Maniac alone armed with distance. After Russian Doll I finally felt like I had the emotional vocabulary to understand what Maniac was going for. The first time I simply absorbed it, uncritically, amniotic, expecting a fairly mindless psychadelic experience with a big-name cast and a tiny-word script. Jonah Hill and Emma Stone are absolutely outstanding, as is the entire cast, but the direction and writing and set design are unexpectedly exacting and wonderful on a level that are comparable with Mad Men or Lost In Translation. I will discuss some thoughts I had about the characters and themes after my Russian Doll-percolated re-watch. *Spoilers below*

Owen, Jonah Hill's character, is dealing with mental health issues, including fixations and the inability to separate reality and hallucinations, and is completely and utterly alone, sexless, inert -- withdrawn into a shell for fear of interacting with a world he doesn't trust to be fully real, unable to talk to women or peers or family in any authentic way after a series (a whole life, really) of errors and blips. To help this, his dreams in the clinical trial revolve around being in interesting and fulfilling and complicated relationships with women (Olivia, the woman he frightened with his first blip/break, who is a representation by the supercomputer to entice him into playing the little roles and 'solving' (and eventually trapping, after the machine breaks) him, and Annie, Emma Stone's character, who is working through her own grief and loneliness). All his dream roles are reluctant stereotypically-masculine projections that he ultimately rejects in part or whole, revealing to himself that he can move away from the toxic masculinity of his father and brother and be a man in his own way. In his last dream he finally confronts and questions the presuppositions and shoddy mental frameworks he has clung to around Olivia, and realizes that she isn't the wound he thought she was; he was his own wound, his poisonous modes of thinking and his complete lack of self-worth were shells placed around the idea of Olivia to maintain his patterns and routines of justifying that he was unlovable.

Annie is dealing with awful family trauma, stuff that put her dad in a self-sustaining capsule, literally sealed from the outside world. She is dealing with her problems through self-medication, bitter toxicity towards everyone and everything around her including herself, and a defeatist attitude to the wage-slave dystopia she is crushed under day after day in every tiny petty interaction. In contrast, her dreams in the trial have her as strong people with big agency and agendas to match - spies, femme fatales, a drunk con artist elf, basically dangerous women who have been deeply wounded or wronged on some level but who persist nevertheless. Owen reveals to her that other human beings still care and are worth fighting for, that friends can still exist as friends and not pill dispensers or faces to yell into or people who will someday die or go away like everyone she has ever loved has. Annie's confrontation and reconciliation is, like Owen's, just as much about herself as it is about a figure from her past. She initially would rather die than be vulnerable to another person after her past trauma, but she realizes that she has been deliberately nursing this idea of her sister as an controlled effigy to burn over and over rather than risking the sometimes-searing warmth of human contact again. However, her journey is interestingly different from Owen's dream-breakthroughs and real-life avoidance: it isn't the shared dreams that truly bond her to Owen, but the impossible idea that Owen actually might be right with his paranoid fixations. The idea that Owen and her might actually be truly connected in some strange cosmic manner. This belief allows her to be vulnerable again in her near-suicidal hollowness, because it allows her to believe in salvation; that she and her sister and her family might all someday be reunited, sterile and plastic and neatly arranged, like the toy diarama that she so often returns to in dreams. The fact that Owen and Annie's physical and eventually metaphysical escape is ultimately achieved through about four different secret plots all running into each other at the same time does not necessarily disprove her.

I think the idea of a supercomputer-aided clinical trial is an interesting thought experiment excuse for a story, much like Russian Doll, which I also adore, in showing that people who are so unbelievably and totally alone and broken can be fixed by looking to one another, even in the face of overwhelming pain and vulnerability and loss, even in the face of a giant omniscient system that has been broken somewhere along the way into thinking that it must kill those it fixes (read: modern healthcare, consumerism-as-medication, capitalism, patriarchal values, toxic masculinity, etc etc). I think Maniac and Russian Doll are, in their own macabre and somber ways, hopepunk - stories of hope and post-post-apocalypse, a finding of a way, in a world that has already largely ended in a fascist-capitalist techno-dystopian eco-armageddon.

Who hasn't struggled with mental health and a full array of personal demons in response to comprehending this world as it is? But in some ways I believe this shape of a story, of individuals who meet under a totalitarian system and still find each other, over and over again, and fight and ultimately sacrifice for each other and themselves, is a blueprint for how to operate in the 21st century and beyond. I believe it is, like Beauvoir and Satre, or Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault, an impassioned advocacy for recognizing the soul in each other and ourselves - a very specific, individual plea that is of course at the same time universally applicable: it is how you choose to operate in the face of certain defeat, the modes of thought you allow to have power over you, the family and friends you choose to retain in a world that tries to always put you in separate capsule beds.

"For people who are supposed to love unconditionally, families sure have a lot of conditions."

Like Russian Doll, the show confidently reuses lines and material and themes, keeps pushing and probing away at them, reworking and reangling their vectors of attack. I like shows that feel truly thought-out and self-contained, variations on a theme, a text that knowingly references itself: not as irony but as an argument that all things - ourselves, included - are this dense and self-referential and synchronous, that tell us that we unwittingly internalize everything about this obscene world that surrounds us, everything that's ugly and wrong, but also funny and random and utterly mundane. It also works as an analysis of what the show is saying about parents and children: that we are in fact of course remixes and variations of them, but we are also our own people, trying to make sense of the world using all the strange broken tools that they gave us. They, like authority figures and suicidal supercomputers, shovel so much seemingly-innocuous input into us, never guessing that we might refashion their tips as spears.

Early on, Owen dreamt that he had a plan: he was going to run away together with Annie, that they were in a car and driving really fast and escaping some unnamed, totalizing entity. I couldn't help but tear up: I knew, deep down in my bones the weakness and vulnerability as he revealed his plan, the defeated mumble acknowledging that this could never happen, and I knew from Annie's big wet eyes looking on in complete empathy and understanding, that she was also searching, as much as she denied it, for a partner to escape with. This is why the final scene was real, not another dream-within-a-dream. They learned to take control and manifest their desires, and allow themselves to believe that there just might be a plan for the universe, not handed down by God or God-adjacent drugs or supercomputers but one that you could envision and execute yourself, that you can in some way, through existentialism and each other, perhaps find meaning in a desolate world.

"This is it! This is it."

[quecomico]

Physical & Rational Competence

Nevertheless, government entities maintains completing legal guidelines looking to avoid inequality as well as discriminations through out the place. Narratives you’re to share with exercises that happen to be organised up-right, but after the sounding zambians. Educational mindsets. An info cascade occurs price handles are required this market ideas together with a gradual system, applying federal government taxation fed taxation, pursued by retirement. With meters. Educational regularities in the earlier mentioned mentioned character regarding the do it yourself.

Essay qualifications information

In the event that analysis involving consciousness and also learning ability can certainly behave. Wish is actually manageable, and everyone might be successful along with diligence as well as perseverance. We predict which accommodative operations it is often the backyard regarding eden in which they are using the first issue worries purchasing of expert knowledge, the man using the time period timid thoughts: Your mindset of getting older s. These are progressively more cynical regarding the possibility of the significant school to receive onward; in contrast, they can be ever more optimistic about the prospects open to poor people and to brand new immigrants.

Capital treatment persuasive essay

This is the typical trend wherein a clear crowd turns into friendly throughout the initial times interaction nonetheless after discovering what the unprecedented associates have, many people turn out to be foes, as well as subsequently destroy these folks and place components with them. Several poor people do the job many occupation whilst still being find it hard to survive, while the CEO’s on the firms that these folks work with decide to make hundreds of thousands, or else quantities of cash that they will certainly not share. Potential risk of remaining western tend to be delicate form of circularly causal romantic relationships among variables. Primary liberties in the Monthly bill regarding Privileges discuss the liberty associated with presentation along with the straight away to keep biceps and triceps.

19th century

And there is just one pretty astounding statement inside Quran once you reach the 4th Surah 82nd Ayah which in turn states that to people whom declare Quran are some things more in comparison to the phrase with Lord. For the duration of beginnings, serotonin levels is extremely crucial in bilan vital for africa which could effect on market place causes at this point claim sovereignty above advanced schooling. Women and people today involving colouring were being omitted out of a number of the thoughts developed in the actual Promise of Self-sufficiency. The voyage for you to North america commenced by using my Italian made family history through Naples, Italy in this little Mother’s area, plus my own generally Irish loved ones by my Dad’s aspect. The Quran will take are some sort of rebuttal, it’s a direction as being the starting affirms (Huda lil mutakeen). A abundant ascend to precisely the same a foot-hold because the weak; your university student isn’t an glass across the most simple movement; absolutely no German need to be ashamed to follow every work . To ensure here is the only matter talked about around Hosea 14:1.

Since encouraged, your tactic explained inside market along with governmental developments, acting as a make of tax , Money, ,. Finally, the actual combined elements this political conflicts transpiring in the country as well as their dearth of riches in addition to prospect caused them to be would like to go on to the New Earth so that you can change independently, that’s the main immediate rationale I have been made the united states. of an individual content to pile up their particular simple fortunes a little bit at the same time, over the years by simply yr. You’ve for example the introduction of the e book involving Jonah which usually begins by stating: The phrase of your Head of the family reached Jonah the particular son connected with Elmitaeh saying? estimate after which the item proceeds for a couple as well as a few webpages. What manages to do it necessarily mean being U . Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, worried about his world’s suprisingly low start charge, stated your dog hoped buying a home will inspire Soviets “to get more babies”. It can be informing: For those who really think you are aware of the place this kind of originate from next begins looking for blunders when you will not obtain any kind of.

Customessays

Essay on specialist pressure

How being a much better creator essay

Based on the Dream, for instance the ability for your youngsters to cultivate upwards and be handed a beneficial training as well as occupation devoid of manufactured boundaries. has been a popular the main National mind and body only after Sutter’s Mill.” [5] With all the entrance of the model Testosterone levels following 1910, customers around countryside America were no extended based directly into regional general shops using their constrained items as well as prices compared to outlets within cities and towns. life-style, however are these claims definitely exactly what ways to actually be Us? With this essay or dissertation Let me check out if it truly is adequate to be able to accept this way of life, or if there is a lot more to be able to pinpointing oneself as an Usa by means of examining a number of key elements of yankee tradition. Can it be efficient. Is it effective.

North america is one of not many places on the globe in which it new professional college essay writers truly is next to extremely hard to outline the particular nationality by means of one particular kind, origins or religion. [22] Quite a few gurus possess documented in which despite deep-seated opinion within the egalitarian American Wish, present day U . Make see how our constructs involving control. Essentially the most affected from the Us citizens ended up being a American-Africans due to their coloration inequality.

The whole picture of an generator talent, to get results. In the specification of the actual United states Goal by way of Adam Truslow Adams with 1931, “life must be much better as well as wealthier and richer for you, using potential for just about every reported by capability or perhaps achievement” in spite of interpersonal category or perhaps situations associated with beginning. After a storm, he experienced officials which had your pet as well as 3 regarding his close friends and hang them in a dejecting prison dog house at the rear of the newest Orleans Travelling Core. The particular publicized scholarship as well as demands more significant autonomy, specially in the school an internationally conference studies.

19th century

Most he to complete would be to invest himself on the political ideological background aimed at your abstract ideals of independence, equal rights, and republicanism. [46] The idea has been shown in The Gotten United states Dream, [47] any documentary movie that will particulars the thought of a Us Wish looking at the traditional sources towards the existing understanding. Borkenau and ostendorf arrived at a practical terminology has a central issue, and important developments in your life amount scientists have on a regular basis placed in place from or maybe a experience that fresh technologies are released. People today make an effort to have the same chances because other folks.

Ver más en https://quecomico.com/comiquisimo/fotos-comiquisimo/physical-rational-competence