#Me disentangling myself from loads of red string: WHAT

[bare1ythere]

Tape Recorders and the Broken Camera - A Theory

This came to me yesterday and I then spent ~2 hours writing this out. It’s Incredibly self indulgent and probably a bit ramble-y but sometimes you need to let yourself say and much as you want about your hyperfixation.. as a treat.

Word count is 1.5k, let me know what you think!!

TLDR: The Tape Recorders were able to manifest within Upton House as both they and the broken camera are artifacts of the Extinction. (Reasoning under the cut!)

As a start, I think it’s important to think about how Smirke’s 14 as a categorization system is more or less useless, but only about as useless as the categorization of things in real life. As much as a lot of folks’d like it to be (me included), nothing is really clearcut. In the context of TMA, consider the fear that your life, or life in general, is insignificant. Would this belong to The Vast (Insignificance and being small in the grand scheme of things) or The End (The inevitable end of your life, and the end of your impact in the universe)? Both? I think the answer to that depends on who you ask, honestly. Not only that, but there’s plenty of statements that don’t have a clear entity attached to them. Binary, Thrown Away, and Confession are a few examples of these.

The truth is that Smirke’s list of 14 isn’t as clear cut as we’d like to think. Trying to put things into clear cut boxes is something humans have been doing for forever, and Robert Smirke’s attempts at understanding The Fears are no different. The Fears are really just one amorphous thing, a spectrum (“colours except if colours hated [us]” (MAG111)) that doesn’t really fit any one definition without exceptions.

I think remembering this is important when thinking about how Jon, Martin, and co are going to try to reverse The Change. Using the Web or the Eye or some other plot-important power to reverse the apocalypse doesn’t seem likely to me since these fears don’t Really exist, and are just the names we call aspects of the one amorphous Entity that feeds on fear.

(“the Fears[…] can never be truly separated from each other. When does the fear of sudden violence transition into the fear of hunted prey? When does the mask of the Stranger become the deception of the Spiral?” (MAG160))

This is also relevant now considering how the tape recorders were still able to manifest in Salesa’s oasis, outside of the influence of both the Eye AND the Web.

So how was this possible? For the entire podcast it seemed that Jon’s tape recorders were Eye aligned. I mean, they’re an Eye avatar’s tape recorders for a reason. However, they aren’t a staple of an Archivist’s abilities; there were archivists before tape recorders existed (MAG53), and notably, Gertrude never used them when reading statements for herself (MAG111):

ARCHIVIST: Did [Gertrude] read statements?

GERARD: Sometimes. If she was getting shaky. They perked her up, I think. Feeding the Eye, you know? I’d sometimes hear her through the wall, just reading into the air, feeling it all.

ARCHIVIST: She… she didn’t use a tape recorder?

GERARD: Not when I was with her. She travelled light. Left things behind.

That means the tape recorders are unique to Jon rather than The Archivist as a role.

I’ve seen a lot of theories about the tape recorders being manifestations of the Web instead, but despite how cool these are, I don’t think thats true. For one, how do randomly-manifesting tape recorders listening in on what is happening to you feed the fear of being manipulated or losing control? The recorders themselves are passive; they almost never impact the actions of the characters themselves. In fact, most of the time they’re completely ignored - especially in S5. Though it’s true that Web-touched artifacts like Jon’s lighter often get swept past and left unconsidered to benefit the Web’s plan, that isn’t really what’s happening here. They’re very aware that these tape recorders aren’t normal (MAG161):

MARTIN: Hey – Hey, when did you start recording?

ARCHIVIST: (confusion) I – didn’t. I only brought one, and I’ve been using it to play the tapes.

MARTIN: Oh. (sigh) That’s not a great sign.

ARCHIVIST: No. No, it’s not.

And again in MAG181:

SALESA: Now tell me, do you know why there’s a tape recorder here? I noticed it just now, but I don’t believe I actually own one.

ARCHIVIST: Uh… Not really.

MARTIN: They sort of just… follow us round.

This doesn’t really sound like something that would fit the Web. You could argue that the recorders are the Web’s way of getting information on what’s going on with Jon and Martin, but they already use spiders for that. Also, the recorders were still able to manifest within Upton House (!!!) where supposedly no power could get through. But it’s not like there’s some Other eldritch entity unrelated to the Fears that the recorders could be related to, so how was the recorder able to manifest?

I think it has to do with how Salesa’s broken camera is related to the Fears. It was unclear which fear it was aligned to in this episode, only that it feeds on “the quiet worries that come from living in hiding” (MAG181). That’s why I started this whole thing talking about Smirke’s list. I don’t really know which of the fears that would apply to. Honestly, of the main 14, it could apply to a combination: The Dark (fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary), the Lonely (fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life), and the End (Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death.) I really don’t think it could be any one of these fears alone, only a combination could explain the camera’s existence.

The weird thing, though, is that we’ve never really seen an artifact this complicated before. Most artifacts had a pretty basic, non-nuanced relationship to the fears. Never as vague as this camera.

Unless!

THE BROKEN CAMERA IS AN ARTIFACT OF THE EXTINCTION!

If you think about it, all of the aspects I mentioned above for the fear of being in hiding can be connected to the extinction.

The Dark: The Fear of not knowing what’s out there beyond your sanctuary The Extinction: The fear of what’s beyond your safe haven, what’s changed without you being there

The Lonely: The Fear of hiding alone for the rest of your life The Extinction: The fear of being the last person alive, forced to reckon with the changed world/whatever you’re hiding from alone

The End: The Fear of the inevitable collapse of your safe haven and your death The Extinction: The fear of being the last of what’s left of humanity, with the end of your life being the end of all of us

Not only that, but the camera itself is a manmade device (with the extinction having heavy technological themes). It’s also prime real estate to feed on the fears of those with bunkers/doomsday preppers, and Salesa’s acquisition of it was DIRECTLY related to wanting to survive a potential apocalypse. Even if it weren’t inherently extinction related from the beginning, its current use means that the fear it’s absorbing IS extinction related, whether or not that was the reason for its original manifestation.

So with the broken camera being an artifact related to the extinction, what does that mean for the tape recorders?

What if the reason the tape recorders can manifest within the Upton House is because they share an entity with the camera? And they can exacerbate the fear of being in hiding without removing the hiding aspect that makes it work? (after all, the tape recorders did first manifest again after the change when Jon and Martin were in hiding at the safehouse.)

Same with the creature of the Crawling Rot that paid Salesa a visit, the tape recorders can serve to remind the user of the camera that their bunker is not impenetrable. The reason it’s different from the corruption creature is that the tape recorder was Able to manifest within Upton House rather than just wander in. If it’s not related to feeding the same fear as the camera, why would the camera let it in at a risk of ruining its purpose?

The tape recorders’ connection with the broken camera seems to point to them being extinction-aligned, but they also serve as a form of record of How the World Changed and What is Left Without Us. This concept was a huge aspect of S5’s extinction statement (MAG175) as well.

This raises a lot of questions about why the tape recorders manifest for Jon specifically. Is he an extinction-aligned eye avatar? Are they not Really his, but manifest around him as they recognize his importance in the story of the apocalypse (which would make sense, since tapes have manifested for Just martin throughout S4 and S5)?  What does this mean for the extinction and how the Change can be reversed? I’m not really sure to be honest!! I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Starting at the beginning of S5, though, I thought that the podcast had to end with Jon’s death, as the tape recorders, a part of Jon, are the way we hear what actually happens in the podcast. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore. The recorders, as manifestations of the extinction, wanted to drink in the fear of an incoming/ongoing disaster. It’s extremely likely they wouldn’t care to hear the relief of a saved world.

#the magnus archives #tmaspoilers #mag181 #tma #magpod #tma meta #shut up me #This is the most self indulgent thing ive ever written #I almost didnt post it bc i mainly wrote it out for myself but I thought i might as well #This idea might also be something ive reblogged in the past but its also just fun to look through the transcripts #for proof relating to the theories you like c: #MAG181: *is a relatively chill episode* #Me disentangling myself from loads of red string: WHAT

[ruins-in-rome]

We sit in a round table, a spotlight illuminating the center. A toddler, too young to even know what’s happening, her future on the table. A man bound by dedication, and… devotion (could it be love?), his stability on the table. Me… An adolescent with confusion in her eyes, heart torn apart between two worlds (for what?), my… growth and relationship on the table. I bet a lot of questions, I gave up knowledge, and put it on the table. A woman, tied to her chair, hands held up by strings, her… everything is on the table. An elderly woman, wearing the tragedy and comedy mask on, one of her hands holding the control paddle which I assume is what controls the other woman, the other hand is tied to a bunch of other people at the back. This woman doesn’t have anything on the table. How can that be? Is she a coward to refuse to gamble? There are spectators. Men in black suits, and women in cocktail dresses wear masks to cover their eyes, the same malicious smiles and smug smirks plastered on their lips. Is this some sort of show? There are a handful with scowls imprinted on their faces, teeth grazing lips as if holding back a snarl, eyes narrowed, and jaws clenched. Why are they so angry? At the heart of it all, there’s a revolver, a silent beckoning, “let’s play a game, shall we?”

The first to go is the woman. It’s funny how to puppet gains the will to go. But really, when has the master get on their bare hands and do the dirty work? She takes the gun with no hesitation, as if she has been wanting this – to put an end to everything. She loads the bullet. She spins the cylinder. She points it to her head and pulls the trigger.

She looks up to face me, mouthing the words, ‘I’m sorry.’ I am thrown into more confusion. Why has she said that? What did she do? This is the first time I’ve seen her features: stray grey hairs frame her face, almost too dry lips, cracked cheeks – must be from the dried tears, eyes lined with the color red – she has been crying. Time hasn’t been kind, but so was she. There is her beauty mark in between the hairs of her eyebrows and I knew. It was a normal day in my normal life with my normal family when my mother barged in the room and hugged us tight. She had said some cryptic words that I didn’t know the meaning of. Was she going to die? Where is she going? What happened? But at the thought that she will leave, I let myself cry. Even my sibling, who didn’t know anything, but felt the misery in the air, came to hug us. I didn’t even know the story but I cried. It was a day in my life with my family when we held each other and cried.

Just like waterfalls, the water continues to cascade down, splashing on the rocks with sounds that hurt the ears. In this tiny room, the shouts begin. Shouts of a grown man, insults thrown by the same man, the harsh whispers of the women draped in riches, eyes of jewels, and tongues of snakes – they all feel like a door slammed closed, leaving you in a suffocating room. The woman is silent. She is choking on her sobs. The shouts always fill the house. It makes me think that they are just filling up the space inside. Every other day is like this, and I don’t know what to do anymore. Hidden away in the safety of my own room, I can hear the words coming out of a man’s mouth like bullets. He drops bombs on her like she is a battlefield. What are you fighting for? Why are we going to war? I wonder if she can even feel the eyes on her, or the words directed at her. I want to hold her and tell her that I’m here, she can lean on me when the world seems against her.

The man is the second to go. His eyes rest on me when he pulls the trigger. His eyes are devoid of any emotions, but I want to ask him, why, simply why, why are you doing this, why are you continuing to do this? And yes, I do remember. The story is like an origami crane. It has too many folds and too many sides. But… the first to unfold the story to me is my father.

My room is my safe haven. The white walls paired with bright colors made the whole room come to life. It is filled with my memories, little trinkets to decorate my desks, words painted on the walls, my dreams and my hopes and my ambitions and my achievements all out in the open. There are pieces of me everywhere. There are pieces of everyone in the little things in my room. The little magnet given by a friend, a portrait drawn by my best friend, candies I haven’t eaten because of the words on them, keychains from my previous teachers, a t-shirt as remembrance for either my best or worst years – an origami star. And that day, there was a moment added to the room of mine with every little and big thing that captures a moment in my life. My father went in my room, sat down in the brown chair I’ve sat when I felt I needed to think – maybe this is what we needed: to think. His first words were, “I know that you want to know.” My first words were, “I know.” ‘I’ve put the pieces together, papa’ was left unsaid. And he did tell me everything.

When I was a child, I never believed that money made the world go ‘round. I was taught to be practical, reasonable, logical. I was taught when a mass is trapped in the gravitational field of another body, a set of equations from Johann Kepler tell us that certain stable orbits can result. When this happens, as is the case with our planet, the momentum that the planet had continues until something steels it away. So wasn’t it conservation of angular momentum? But… On that day, at 2 in the afternoon when my curtains were draped, my world suddenly stopped. And on that day, I realized I was wrong. Money made the world go ‘round. Debts mean that your world will be turned upside down – our world is turned upside down. The story almost flew over my head because I chose to hold on to the raw emotions of some of his commentaries.

“I’m trying to fix the broken pieces but she keeps breaking them.” There is a static silence. And silence can only hold so much. The man cries. I don’t know if it’s for relief or for anger.

I look at the people around me. I know the woman and the man’s sides. The people around is another story. Their laughs fill my ears and I can’t help but think that it’s mockery. I stare at a woman, her mouth in a straight line, and her brows furrowed. She is pitying us. I don’t need your sympathy, lady. The lady and her groupie looks at the woman in both pity and anger. They are seeing her as a villain. The women clad in dresses call out her name in reminder. Money, money, money. The men wearing fancy suits places their hands on the man’s shoulder. Some hold their own knives and guns behind their back, a sign of betrayal for the man. The others offer their hand in front of the man, giving him genuine help to get back up to his feet. But just like my father said, when the foundation for a new start is done, someone ends up knocking them over. I don’t know which side I should be on. I stick with holding both of the woman and man’s hands, an unspoken phrase, “I’m here.”

The next is the old woman in the mask. She effortlessly points the revolver to her head, like she has done this so many times that it doesn’t affect her anymore, like she just knows she won’t die. She keeps her face straight forward. Her comedy mask taunts me. Is this fun to you, woman? When she eventually fires the gun, it shoots somebody else in the room. Their cries echo out into the room and that’s when I noticed that the gun isn’t directly pointing on her head – it’s angled ever so slightly that it misses her… and ends up taking someone else’s life instead. Her tragedy mask jeer at me. You of all people shouldn’t mourn over the deceased when you yourself were the reason behind it. I glare at her with hardened eyes, fury dancing like fire. That’s when it all clicked. The mastermind of it all. The master, the controller, the one working behind the scenes, manipulating the game in order to work in her favour, is that old hag.

In the many memories of my father and I talking, the blurred visions in my mind, his eyes holding so much pain and sadness, the mechanical cogs in my brain tossing and turning, trying to make sense of everything, the crack in his voice, my silence as an urge for him to continue – to let it all out, his frustrations, his sorrows, his worries, and oh, his defeat, the bitter defeat that came with it all, there is one person that unraveled the threads in our family tapestry. Maybe… maybe this is part of our fate. Maybe in between the threads that hold the tapestry together, there was a person – a termite, a parasite disentangling the threads.

The story starts with her. We all knew of her money problems long before we have been thrown into the mix. She’s always running around, looking for people, asking them for money. With every large sum of money withdrawn, she is slowly digging her own grave, eventually falling into hell. This witch, suffering in her own form of Tartarus, decided it was too lonely and came back into the mortal realm to find someone to accompany her in her eternal damnation. I know how important it is to seek for guidance, for assistance – it’s healthy to know when to ask for help and to accept that help. But I also know that after we are helped, we have to learn. We have to learn to crawl back up to the surface, to finally breathe the fresh air. Now what did she do? She, with her vice-like grip. She, with her pleading eyes. She, with her begging. She, with her convincing act of the victim. And her. When people, innocent people go into the wrong crowds, falling for the false promises those people made, they can’t help but try it. “It’s going to be successful, I promise!” “We’ll be rich in no time!” “I have already planned this out, so there’s no way it’s going to fail!” Sometimes… the lines between obligation and love blur as one, and you think it’s for love, but what you feel is that you’re indebted to others, that you need to do this thing for them in order to repay them for every good thing they have for you. Her, with the shattering resolve. Her, with the same blood as the witch’s that courses through her veins. Her, with the thought of “I love you and love means sacrificing.” Her… with the feeling of “You have raised me and you have given up heart and soul for me, so I will gladly ruin myself for you.”

This crone in front of me, sitting in a chair of both needles and roses – I don’t care if you’re in pain – do you feel sorry for what you did? I know you are hurting as well, but isn’t this your own doing? I couldn’t care less. You have ruined our lives. When they think their children aren’t listening, the shouting starts. The walls hear them; they tell me what the adults are talking about. The days pass with tension in the air. There are unanswered questions hanging in the air, “what happens next? Is someone going to leave? Will you change? Will you forgive me?” I am made the messenger, delivering commands from opposite sides of the war. You have ruined your daughter’s image. Women circle her like predators; your daughter has her head held up high, and her body shaking. Women are throwing arrows at her heart; your daughter becomes merely a shell of what she used to be. Women are angry for the delayed payments; your daughter’s mind is breaking. You have ruined my father. As a lover, he gives and he gives, and he gives and he gives… until there is nothing left for himself. Mother shoots him in his heart. You are behind her, guiding her hands. His blood, his lifeline spills out. He thinks he has made a fool of himself and yet he himself takes out his heart and offers it. ‘It’s not enough,’ is what you think. You have ruined my mother. The world has turned against her. The people she has helped has crossed her, leaving more headaches for her. On the rare occasion that I stare at my mother, I think, “time moves on.” She looks older. There are eye bags under her eyes, a few more gray hairs – why aren’t there any laugh lines? She’s always tired now, too. I know she just wants rest now. I think, everyone needs it. And I guess, you can’t make emotional labour and mental stress disappear.

The gun slides over the table; it stops right in front of me. Oh, it’s my turn now. There is a new bullet in one of the chambers of the revolver. What does all of this mean to me? Why am I somehow connected to this web of lies? I pull the trigger.

Somehow, with my luck, it was like Pluto passing directly behind Jupiter, in relation to the earth. They all lined up and their combined gravitational force exerts a stronger tidal pull, which would temporarily counteract gravity here on earth. And I’m floating. I feel like I’m floating. These planets aligned themselves like how the loaded chamber aligned with the primer percussion mechanism and the barrel – the weapon is discharged. I imagine the bullet to be a beautiful comet, passing through me, and landing into something else – someone else. It was the toddler. What a beautiful tragedy. I meet the eyes of the people inside this room. They are filled with panic in the audience, madness in the man’s, shame in the woman’s, and is that guilt in the old woman’s? She doesn’t have the right to feel guilty.

I know why the chambers didn’t align with the others. It was because of their actions that led to this – the children dying. I know why the toddler has the future bet on the table. My sister is robbed of the future that I had the privilege to experience– the weekend getaways, the overflowing amount of toys, the endless support to try new things, the unstrained relationship with the other side of the family, the absence of worries, and… the atmosphere of true love between partners in a home.

The adults may not feel the direct attack of the actions, only dragging themselves through the battlefield, but we… the future generation, (is there even a future?), can feel the aftereffects of the nuclear bomb that has been dropped on us. The men and women here might have been atlas holding the world on their shoulders, but we are Andromeda, the chained princess, an offered sacrifice for the peace of everyone else.

I know why the shattered pieces of my heart and mind are on the table. On the other side, I’m walking on a tight rope; my back turned from the past, and walking to the unknown future. I hold a pole in my hands, my father’s side on the right, and my mother’s side on the left. Despite being on opposing sides, the outcome is the same: I fall to my doom. Despite going in the direction of what lies ahead, my head is held down, and my legs are wobbling on the thinning rope of my relationships. I – we – are in a dilemma. It is an unstoppable force – the criticism and judgmental thoughts thrown, the pleas of my father to think of us for the first time, the heavy tension carried in the silence versing an immovable object – the stubbornness of my mother, the unrelenting voice of my grandmother, both of their wills to make amends with the victims of their crime. Mother hasn’t stopped helping. Her golden heart will be the death of her. Father hasn’t stopped covering the holes my mother has left. His commitment is the bane of his existence. Mother tries to stitch my thread back into her side of the family. I have to sit through the occasions with the old hag. Perhaps I can make use of the comedy mask here. I have to be the perfect innocent doll, a smile plastered on my face, voice sickening sweet as if nothing is wrong. Mother looks at me with unspoken instructions, “please be nice.” How do you say “thank you” to the person who turned the fire inside my family into dying embers? How do I stay with the person who turned my little peaceful kingdom into ruins only told in legends and myths?

Blood drips down my head – I’m feeling kind of dizzy. My sister is matching the same expression as I have. This is it, this is the aftermath of the war. This is the consequences of their actions. And there is nothing good that happens in war. Only pain. Only sadness. Only guilt. Only regret. What good has come from this game? I learned the bloody truth. But in this game… we are infinitely waiting for our time when the stars align, and everything ends. This is a losing battle, everyone’s guns are at each other, hands around each other, ready to kill. In my dying breaths, I look around the room once more, the light illuminates the darkness that was once ignorance, and for the first time, I see them fully. My sister, her future taken away from her, sits beside me, covered in her own blood. My father, his devotion still drives him to move on, has his head in his hands, questioning where we had gone wrong. I take his hand and tell him, “It’s okay, I’m still here and I thank you.” My mother, the promise that everything will be okay maybe fades away, and I take her hand in mine, “I still love you,” slips out of my mouth in the softest voice. Grandmother, still in the safety of anonymity, lurks in the shadows, still following us. I place a kiss on the crown of my sister’s forehead. Everything is in fast pace, everything is chaos, and I’m left to wonder, is this how we fall apart?