#but yeah I like to imagine at some point ellie stops fucking with nikola and then stops showing up at work entirely

[arolesbianism]

I have such a love hate relationship with Ellie. On the one hand I have my petty grudge against her, but on the other hand shes so sillyyyyy being Jackie's lil lackey did her so many favors in my mind she's not only a lil shit but also a lil teachers pet I love her

#rat rambles #oni posting #honestly my only genuine nit pick with her writing is that shes almost Too much of a presence #but thats just me being the guy who's favorite rw character is sliver of straw and favorite oc is the one that doesnt exist in universe #I love how theyre all varrying levels of just some guy who fell in too deep #as much as Ive been loving learning abt them and would kill to know more abt them the vagueness is like half the appeal to me #anyways to be clear abt ellie shes not like a huge suck up or anything shes just jackies lil errand boy #I like to imagine she and nikola's beef extended beyond the food stealing incident #the jackie lackey duo out for blood until they slowly realize that everything is so fucked #I like to imagine that ellie started cracking pretty bad towards the end as by then she rly couldn't keep playing dumb #especially when it starts reaching Her circle of scientists. whether joshua knew or not thats a scary situation for your bestie to be in #I doubt she like. did anything abt it. at least not without getting caught. but maybe she at least tried who knows #this might be giving her too much credit but Im choosing to believe that her care for joshua would stoke the flames enough #also her job as the numbers guy means that she likely at least could make an educated guess on the temporal bow situation #but yeah I like to imagine at some point ellie stops fucking with nikola and then stops showing up at work entirely #and nikola is just sitting there quietly freaking the fuck out as he realizes that everyone who was hired to help with this stuff is being #picked off and that there are absolutely Not enough people to manage how severe the situation is #also tbc I do in fact have a timeline in my head and it does not end well for anyone involved #but Im trying to refrain from going too into scientist hcs until Im sure Ive read everything #tbh Im not sure how Ill get the stuff Im missing but Ill certainly try

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 97 - We All Ignore the Pit

I never got the full story on why the paper closed down so quickly. - Statement of Jackson Ellis

I can't tell you exactly why I get this impression, but this entire intro story of Jackson losing the job he didn't even have yet and finding himself stranded, then renting a room with some rando feels like it's out of some other genre entirely, like what should follow is either a grim novel about the shortcomings of American society or a light-hearted romance or buddy comedy-esque romp but most DEFINITELY not a horror story about a mysterious pit. Not that I'm complaining, I just found the surprising use of tropes interesting.

It may have just been my imagination, but whenever they saw me, it seemed like they paused for just a moment, staring at me, before they continued on their way.

This is supposed to add to the eerie atmosphere of the story - and it does - but to be honest, this is exactly the type of behaviour I would expect as a newcomer to a town so small that everyone could easily know each other.

There was someone else looking at it, though. An elderly woman, face pinched and thoughtful, stood at the edge looking down. I didn’t recognise her, or the car she stood next to. She definitely wasn’t from Bucoda. Sat in the car next to her, I could see a young man who had clearly been crying.

Ah, hey there Gertrude! And the poor fucker in the car is Jan Kilbride who probably knows he's about to die. How did she get him to cooperate? Is this a "gun to the head" sort of situation? At any rate, he doesn't exactly seem to be volunteering to be the sacrifice to stop the Buried's ritual...

Is he trying to warn me not to ignore my own metaphorical pit, because if so, what is my metaphorical pit? - Jon

Sorry but the phrase "What is my metaphorical pit" is just straight-up funny. (And also a phrase that could easily come out of a conversation between my partner and me, followed by 'Well, that's a weird phrase out of context').

Jon: Right. Right. Keep saying it’s not meant to trip whenever one bulb goes, but “No, John, I don’t want to bother the landlord.”

Jeez, Jon, don't act like "I don't want to bother a person who has the power to make my life highly unpleasant with something that can be as easily ignored as the fuse tripping when a light bulb blows" is an unreasonable preference...

Nikola: You don’t want to do that. (...) I mean, you can if you really want to, but you’re not going to like it. Sometimes not being able to see something is actually quite a good thing.

Oh, Nikola Orsinov is so DELIGHTFULLY creepy, I love it.

Jon: You, um… You killed Gregor Orsinov? Nikola: Yep! He got really boring, and I’m a monster.

Had I mentioned that Nikola is a delight? Because Nikola is a fucking delight.

Nikola: I don’t even have a voicebox. I had to borrow this one.

Borrow. Right. That's not a reasonable definition of the word 'borrow' you're using there, Nikola, dear. And then that's followed immediately by...

Nikola: Don’t turn on the light.

Yeah, no, you have a point, turning on the light would be a BAD idea.

Nikola: After you attacked poor Sarah, I thought it was about time we had a good old chat. Face to no face! Eye to… well.

Eye to Stranger? ... Also every line of Nikola's in this episode is basically quote-worthy.

My impression of this episode

Most of this episode reminded me strongly of spooky stories I would read as a kid, somehow. Perhaps the combination of the newcomer protagonist and the creepy thing that nobody else acknowledges. As such, this statement didn't really affect me all that much, even though the Buried can be pretty damn affecting (Lost Johns' Cave being an example of that or anything happening in the coffin, for instance). To be honest, the part of this statement that gets me most is that very end bit featuring Gertrude and Jan, the fear he must have felt, likely knowing what was about to happen to him - for the sake of the greater good, maybe, but that's not much of a comfort, is it? (Of course, on my first run I didn't know any of that.) And then, of course, we meet Nikola who is, as I may have mentioned, a fucking delight. SHE IS SO EXCEPTIONALLY CREEPY AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

#the magnus archives #tma relisten