#mag061

[belleisnowhere]

"I expected to hear something – shouting, a scream, something – but it was still just the rain. The lid closed very slowly, and then he was gone. Just a coffin sitting on the hard shoulder of the M6."

MAG61: Hard Shoulder

#the magnus archives #magnus archives #tma #tma fanart #breekon and hope #mag61 #mag061 #my art

[arquivosmagnusbr]

MAG061 — Acostamento

Caso #0160112: Depoimento da detetive Alice “Daisy” Tonner, a respeito da abordagem de trânsito de uma van de entrega na M6 perto de Preston na tarde de 24 de julho de 2002.

Ouvir em: Spotify | Youtube

Aviso de conteúdo: brutalidade policial

Tradução: Lia

ARQUIVISTA

Você não se importa se eu gravar isso, né?

Daisy: Fique à vontade.

Arquivista: Certo.

Daisy: Claro que se mais alguém ouvir...

Arquivista: Você vai me prender.

Daisy: Ha. Não.

Arquivista: Certo. Hum, então, você veio entregar uma das fitas? Da Basira? As, uh, as fitas de áudio. Então... Posso ver? Por favor?

Daisy: Tô pensando.

Arquivista: Certo. Pensei que você precisava que eu olhasse elas?

Daisy: Você não sabe, né?

Arquivista: Não sei se entendi.

Daisy: As fitas. Por que ela tava entregando elas pra você?

Arquivista: Ela... ela queria minha ajuda. Vocês não tinham um toca-fitas na delegacia.

Daisy: Ela pensou que tinha sido você.

Arquivista: Quê?

Daisy: Nós duas pensamos.

Arquivista: Espera, vocês achavam que eu tinha matado a Gertrude?!

Daisy: Sim.

Arquivista: Quê, hã, por quê?

Daisy: Olha pra você: você tá obcecado com isso, nervoso pra caramba e é a única pessoa que se beneficiou da morte dela.

Arquivista: Bom, eu... Quer dizer... Não fui eu.

Daisy: É. Eu sei. O pessoal do TI finalmente terminou de repassar as filmagens da semana em que ela desapareceu. Não tem câmera no arquivo, mas temos várias filmagens suas. Observei seus movimentos durante a semana toda. Você não matou ela.

Arquivista: Eu não... o que isso tem a ver com as fitas?

Daisy: Não tínhamos o suficiente pra te prender. A Basira tava com medo de você fugir.

Arquivista: Então, o quê? Vocês me deram algumas fitas pra me manter por perto?

Daisy: É.

Arquivista: E agora que vocês sabem que eu sou inocente...?

Daisy: Hum. Eu acho que deveríamos te cortar, mas a Basira é mole. Ela gosta de você. Não faço ideia do porquê. Talvez ela continue te entregando as fitas, o que não me envolve — eu não pretendo ver ou ouvir mais nada sobre isso.

Arquivista: Bom... obrigado, detetive Tonner.

Daisy: Daisy.

Arquivista: Obrigado, Daisy.

Daisy: Claro.

Arquivista: Se você não se importa que eu pergunte, há quanto tempo você foi mandada pra seção...

Daisy: Eu me importo sim. 14 anos.

Arquivista: Acho que você não gostaria de prestar um depoimento?

Daisy: Sobre oquê?

Arquivista: Sobre o que você quiser. 14 anos — você deve ter visto um monte de coisas paranormais.

Daisy: E você quer que eu te conte sobre elas.

Arquivista: Uh, eu...

Daisy: Tá bom.

Arquivista: Quê?

Daisy: Tá bom. Vou te dar um depoimento sobre como consegui a minha primeira Seção 31. Você parece surpreso.

Arquivista: Quer dizer, eu tinha perguntado mais como uma formalidade, a Basira não me passou a impressão de que você era do tipo de pessoa que compartilha coisas.

Daisy: Talvez você tenha me pegado de bom humor.

Arquivista: Certo, então... que bom. Você precisa que eu repasse a nossa política de privacidade?

Daisy: Não, desde que você entenda a minha política: se isso vazar, eu vou quebrar todos os ossos do seu corpo.

Arquivista: Tem coisas piores que poderiam acontecer com eles...

Daisy: Quê?

Arquivista: É... nada. Depoimento da detetive Alice “Daisy” Tonner, da Polícia Metropolitana de Londres. Qual é o assunto?

Daisy: Abordagem de trânsito de uma van de entrega na M6 perto de Preston na tarde de… 24 de julho de 2002.

Arquivista: Gravado diretamente do indivíduo em 1º de dezembro de 2016.

Início do depoimento.

DAISY (DEPOIMENTO)

Isso aconteceu muito tempo atrás. Eu já era policial há dois anos. Eu nem tava com o Met ainda naquela época. Eu atuava em Lancashire em uma unidade de policiamento rodoviário. Isso foi antes da agência de rodovias assumir a maior parte do trabalho pesado, então tínhamos muitas coisas pra fazer. Não era muito divertido, mas precisava ser feito. Abordar motoristas bêbados era o meu favorito. Eu sempre torcia pra eles recusarem o bafômetro ou talvez até me atacarem. Nada mais engraçado do que um babaca bêbado tentando evitar ser preso.

Eu geralmente rodava com Isaac Masters. Ele trabalhava com a PRF há muito mais tempo do que eu e era ainda mais duro do que eu. Mas eu sei por quê. Ele tentava ser um bom policial, dar uma chance pra todo mundo, mas nós víamos muitos acidentes — não tem muita coisa no mundo que seja pior do que um acidente de carro realmente grave. Isso te afeta. Você endurece com as pessoas que não respeitam a estrada, e tem muita gente assim por aí.

Estava chovendo naquela noite — aquela chuva pesada e forte onde você não consegue ouvir mais porcaria nenhuma. Aquela que bate no telhado como se alguém estivesse pulando nele. Eu e o Zack estávamos parados no acostamento, observando o trânsito e tentando beber café. Tínhamos pegado em um posto de gasolina a alguns quilômetros de distância, mas era um daqueles copos de isopor abertos. Quando voltamos pro carro, a chuva já tinha molhado tudo e nós ficamos com dois copos de uma lama fria.

Então nós dois estávamos bem de mau humor. Talvez fosse uma hora da tarde, mas não dava pra saber. As nuvens não deixavam passar nenhum sol e tudo parecia cinza, úmido e sem vida. Não conseguíamos nem conversar por causa do barulho da chuva batendo no teto, então ficamos ali sentados em silêncio, bebendo lama morna.

A rodovia estava mais silenciosa que o normal. Uma tarde de quarta-feira não tem muito trânsito, mas a chuva costuma trazer mais carros. Naquele dia estava bem vazio. Todo mundo parecia estar dirigindo com cuidado por causa da chuva, o que também não era normal, e eu fiquei dividida. Parte de mim queria achar algum idiota em quem eu pudesse descontar meu mau humor, e a outra parte de mim não queria ficar mais molhada do que eu já tava.

Parecia que eu não teria escolha, de qualquer jeito — pelo menos não até eu ver a van. Era um velho Citroën C15 surrado. Havia alguma coisa escrita na lateral, mas eu não conseguia ver direito através da chuva. Estava muito suja ou era pintada de um tom desagradável de branco acinzentado.

Mais importante ainda, estava dirigindo a mais ou menos 40 quilômetros por hora. O limite é 120. Tecnicamente, não existe velocidade mínima pra andar em uma rodovia, mas a van não parecia estar acelerando e aquilo era meio estranho. Tínhamos motivos suficientes para pará-los, se quiséssemos. Eu não tinha certeza se deveria deixar passar ou não, mas o Zack claramente já tinha se decidido. Ele estava no volante e acendeu as luzes enquanto dirigíamos atrás deles.

A van parou no acostamento ao lado da estrada e ficou ali parada. Os faróis, que estavam acesos por causa da chuva, se apagaram. Aí eles só ficaram esperando.

O Zack saiu primeiro. A chuva estava tão densa que ele teve que pegar a lanterna pra enxergar direito. A luz passou pela van e pude ver ferrugem rastejando pelas bordas dos painéis.

Caminhamos até o lado do motorista. Eu conseguia ver formas escuras lá dentro, mas elas não estavam se mexendo. De perto, consegui ler o nome escrito ao lado: "Entregas de Breekon e Hope". Estava coberto por uma camada espessa de sujeira que a chuva não conseguia lavar.

Zack bateu na porta e ela se abriu. O homem que saiu parecia normal — tão normal que hoje em dia nem consigo lembrar do rosto dele. Ele disse que seu nome era Tom. Não fui eu que olhei a carteira de motorista dele, então não sei o sobrenome.

Dois homens saíram do outro lado. Eles eram enormes. Rostos duros parecendo um par de estátuas velhas de pedra vestidos com macacões e bonés. Eles perguntaram o que tava acontecendo, falando alternadamente com um sotaque caipira tão forte que soava tão falso que eu até pensei que eles estavam de brincadeira. Eu tava pronta pra dar uma dura neles quando um barulho me interrompeu.

Zack estava conversando com o “Tom”, que dava uma explicação qualquer pra direção lenta — cautela, chuva forte, estrada vazia, essa porcaria toda. Eles também ouviram, e ele parou no meio da frase pra olhar pra mim.

Da parte de trás da van veio um som de gemidos. Parecia um gemido de dor, mas longo e arrastado. Continuou por quase um minuto inteiro e foi quase, sei lá, meio melódico. Olhei pro Tom e pros falsos passageiros caipiras, mas seus rostos estavam ilegíveis.

Zack agarrou Tom com força pelo braço e o levou até as portas traseiras da van, exigindo que ele as abrisse. Ele não tentou resistir, simplesmente assentiu e pegou um molho de chaves. Ele colocou uma na porta, girou e a van se abriu.

Eu vi que os dois marmanjos tinham se aproximado de nós, então eu já tava me preparando pra brigar, mas não tinha como eu ter adivinhado o que tinha ali.

Era um caixão. Um caixão velho de madeira. Áspero, sem verniz. Eu conseguia ver as lascas onde os pregos tinham sido martelados de qualquer jeito. Tinha uma grossa corrente de metal enrolada ao redor dele e trancada com um cadeado pesado. Aquele gemido estranho tava vindo de dentro dele. Era o único som que atravessava a chuva forte.

Fiquei tensa e peguei meu cassetete — se aquelas pessoas fossem sequestradores ou algo pior, nós estaríamos em apuros. Eu tava pronta pra uma briga, mas eles só ficaram parados lá, sem se mexer, olhando pra nós. Tudo naquela situação parecia errado.

Olhei pro Zack e ele parecia estar pensando a mesma coisa. Ele olhou para os dois homens de macacão e os mandou pegarem o caixão, depois olhou pro Tom e perguntou se ele tinha a chave do cadeado. Enfiando a mão na jaqueta, o homem que se chamava de Tom pegou uma chave grande de ferro e a entregou ao meu parceiro. Ela não se parecia com as outras chaves.

Eu queria voltar para o carro e chamar alguns reforços, mas Zack era um oficial superior, e se ele achava que deveríamos abrir o caixão primeiro... eu apoiaria sua escolha.

Zack pegou a chave e caminhou em direção ao caixão, que agora estava na pista molhada, iluminado apenas pelos faróis do nosso carro. O gemido tava mais alto agora, quase abafando o som da chuva forte. A água tinha começado a escorrer da madeira, mas todo o resto do caixão ainda permanecia imóvel.

À medida que nos aproximamos, pude ver as palavras "Não Abra" riscadas na superfície da madeira. Mas não parecia que meu parceiro tinha ligado pra isso — ele colocou a chave na fechadura gentilmente, estremecendo ligeiramente ao tocar o metal e a girou.

As correntes se soltaram como se fossem acionadas por uma mola. Eles se viraram violentamente e Zack deu um pulo pra trás, escorregando e caindo de costas. Preparei meu cassetete para o caso de os estranhos fazerem algum movimento, mas eles estavam... imóveis.

O gemido tinha parado. O único som era o ranger das dobradiças quando a tampa do caixão começou a se mover. Foi devagar, primeiro abrindo apenas uma fresta antes de finalmente se abrir completamente. Tava escuro demais pra ver o que tinha lá dentro no começo, mas quando apontei minha lanterna pra lá, ouvi Zack arfar. Acho que eu também arfei.

Dentro daquele caixão de madeira havia uma escada. Ela descia aparentemente até além do chão, e parecia ir mais fundo do que era possível ver. Ela era íngreme, escavada no que parecia ser pedra sólida, e a rocha que compunha as paredes não combinava com o asfalto molhado ao nosso redor nem com toda a terra que estaria por baixo dele. Era completamente impossível.

Tentei perguntar ao Tom ou aos seus colegas o que era aquilo, gritei com eles pra explicarem o que diabos tava acontecendo, mas eles só ficaram parados ali encarando ela. Então eu bati em um deles com o meu cassetete.

Foi em um dos homens grandes de macacão, não tenha certeza de qual deles. Foi como bater em madeira maciça, e o golpe sacudiu meu braço, me fazendo derrubar a única arma que eu tinha. Mesmo assim, ele só ficou lá, encarando o caixão. Ouvi um som de algo se movendo atrás de mim. Eu me virei e vi o Zack entrando no caixão, sua lanterna iluminando o buraco abaixo. Ele já tinha desaparecido até a cintura e estava com uma expressão no rosto que eu nunca tinha visto antes — relaxado, como se ele estivesse dormindo.

Eu gritei com ele, comecei a correr mas senti uma mão enorme segurar meu ombro. Agarrei a mão com o meu braço livre, tentei escapar dela, mas o aperto era muito forte. A textura da carne era como a de uma borracha dura. Tudo o que eu consegui fazer foi observar meu parceiro adentrar a terra, descendo por escadas que nem poderiam estar ali. Depois de alguns segundos ele desapareceu completamente de vista.

Eu esperava ouvir alguma coisa — gritos, um pedido de socorro, alguma coisa — mas eu ainda só ouvia a chuva. A tampa se fechou bem devagar, e aí ele se foi. Só um caixão deitado no acostamento da M6.

A mão largou meu ombro quando os dois homens de macacão começaram a se aproximar e calmamente enrolaram as correntes de volta.

Tive uma súbita explosão de raiva e peguei meu cassetete. Eu investi contra eles, mas o que tava mais próximo de mim se moveu mais rápido do que eu imaginava ser possível. O punho dele acertou meu peito como uma bala de canhão e eu senti algumas costelas quebrarem. Desabei no chão e só fiquei deitada lá enquanto Tom e os dois homens trancavam o caixão, o colocavam de volta na van e iam embora. Eu nunca mais vi Isaac Masters.

Quando chamei ajuda, eu esperava uma perseguição, uma investigação — algum tipo de justiça. Não era como se não tivéssemos um monte de pistas. Em vez disso, recebi um formulário que eu não reconheci, me mandaram assinar e depois fui transferida pro Met. Desde então, tem sido uma história de fantasma atrás da outra.

Arquivista: Certo. Obrigado. Você tá bem?

Daisy: Não. Nunca contei essa história pra ninguém além do meu antigo sargento.

Arquivista: Eu... não sei se eu...

Daisy: Eu tenho que ir.

Arquivista: Sim, claro, eu te acompanho até a saída. Uh, tem mais uma coisa — eu tava querendo perguntar pra Basira, mas você deve saber mais...

Daisy: Eu terminei.

Arquivista: Ah, sim, é só que... você sabe alguma coisa sobre vampiros?

Daisy: Sim.

Arquivista: Ah! Ah, é só que...

Daisy: Um tempo atrás tivemos alguns problemas. Irregularidades em apreensões em casos de pessoas desaparecidas. Suspeitos sendo liberados sem o devido interrogatório. As gravações das entrevistas mostravam que os sujeitos não diziam uma palavra, mas os policiais que os entrevistavam deixavam eles irem mesmo assim. Não sei os detalhes da investigação, mas agora temos um novo procedimento de operação.

Arquivista: Que seria...?

Daisy: Os casos que correspondem a determinados parâmetros devem ser monitorados por outro oficial fora da sala por vídeo. Na circunstância muito específica em que o suspeito não diz nada, mas o oficial interrogador age como se tivesse dito, ele é imediatamente tirado da sala. Aí eles ligam pra mim.

Arquivista: Só pra você?

Daisy: Tem alguns outros por aí que também fazem isso, mas eu cuido de mais ou menos uma dúzia de delegacias. Algemo as mãos e as pernas do suspeito, levo ele pro meio da Floresta de Epping e o queimo até só sobrar as cinzas. Nunca sobra nada pra dar problema. Eu não sei se eles são exatamente vampiros, mas é assim que os chamamos.

Arquivista: Meu Deus. De quantos você já... cuidou?

Daisy: Hum... cinco nos últimos nove anos.

Arquivista: Entendi...

Daisy: Não conta pra Basira. Ela não sabe sobre esse procedimento. Eu não sei se ela entenderia, ela... ela não tá... preparada pra esse tipo de trabalho.

Arquivista: Claro que não.

Daisy: Não fala nada pra ela, ok? Eu nunca estive aqui. Se ela quiser te dar mais fitas o problema é dela, mas você fica quieto sobre essa visita. Entendeu?

Arquivista: Claro!

Daisy: Bom.

[CLICK]

[CLICK]

ARQUIVISTA

Complemento.

Essa foi... uma entrevista interessante. Parece que ainda não terminamos com os caixões sinistros. O conteúdo foi surpreendente, no mínimo, mas não nos dá nenhuma pista real sobre sua origem, propósito ou até mesmo sua relação com Breekon e Hope. Será que eles são simplesmente entregadores? Guardiões? Reféns?

Pelo menos eu também tenho a confirmação de que os vampiros que Trevor Herbert descreveu não são só invenções de uma mente viciada em drogas. Eu provavelmente não deveria ficaria tão feliz em descobrir que tem caçadores ainda mais violentos nos perseguindo durante a noite, mas aí está.

Vou admitir que me sinto um pouco magoado pelas verdadeiras motivações da Basira. Acho que não é muito surpreendente, não tenho estado muito... estável nos últimos meses. De qualquer forma, não vou falar sobre isso.

Mesmo se eu não estivesse realmente com medo da detetive Tonner, falar disso só prejudicaria nosso relacionamento, e eu preciso dessas fitas. Não posso me dar ao luxo de deixar o tempo que a Gertrude passou no Instituto desaparecer no esquecimento.

Vou ouvir a que eu recebi e esperar por notícias da Basira. Ou talvez eu deva tentar entrar em contato? Eu realmente deveria ter pegado o número dela ou algo assim. Bom, isso é um problema pra depois. Preciso ir pra casa. Tentar dormir um pouco.

Eu só queria que não estivesse chovendo.

Fim do complemento.

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#the magnus archives #tma #magnuspod #os arquivos magnus #tma translation #segunda temporada #rusty quill

[homosekularnost]

MAG061 - Hard Shoulder

#op backstory: i was first lured into tma because mutuals were posting about daisy and basira #and then i got to this episode and spent the next fifty or so convinced everyone i was following was a freak #the magnus archives #daisy tonner #jonathan sims

[tma-latino]

MAG061 – Caso 0160112 – “Arcén”

Testimonio de la detective Alice «Daisy» Tonner de la Policía Metropolitana de Londres sobre un control de tráfico de una furgoneta de reparto en la autopista M6 cerca de Preston.

[Disclaimer/ Aviso]

[MAG060] | x | [MAG062]

#tma #MAG061 #the magnus archives #the magnus archives pod #magnus pod #Rusty Quill #tma translation #tma spanish translation #traduccion en español

[tma-traduzioni]

MAG061 - Caso #01601112 - “Corsia di emergenza”

[Episodio precedente]

[pdf con testo inglese a fianco / pdf with english text on the side]

[CLICK]

ARCHIVISTA

Non le dispiace se registro, vero? 

DAISY

Fa’ pure. 

ARCHIVISTA

D’accordo. 

DAISY

Ovviamente se qualcun altro dovesse mai sentirlo…

ARCHIVISTA

Mi arresterà.

DAISY

(heh) No.��

ARCHIVISTA

...D’accordo. Um, allora, è venuta a consegnare uno dei nastri. 

Da parte di Basira?

I uh, i, i nastri audio.

…

Quindi… Posso averlo? Per favore? 

DAISY

Ci sto pensando. 

ARCHIVISTA

D’accordo. Um, pensavo aveste bisogno che io li controllassi? 

DAISY

Non ci arrivi, vero?

ARCHIVISTA

No-non sono sicuro di seguire. 

DAISY

I nastri. Perché lei te li stava dando. 

ARCHIVISTA

Lei, uh. Lei voleva il mio aiuto. 

DAISY

[risatina/sbuffo esasperato]

ARCHIVISTA

Voi, uh, voi non avete un mangiacassette alla stazione di polizia. 

DAISY

Pensava fossi stato tu. 

ARCHIVISTA

Cosa?!

DAISY

Lo pensavamo entrambe.

ARCHIVISTA

Un momento, pensavate che avessi ucciso Gertrude?!

DAISY

Sì.

ARCHIVISTA

Che - uh- io- perché?

DAISY

[risata/sbuffo esasperato] Guardati: sei ossessionato dalla questione, teso come una corda, e l’unica persona che ha tratto beneficio dalla sua morte. 

ARCHIVISTA

Beh uh, vo… voglio dire. Non sono stato io.

DAISY

Sì. Lo so. 

ARCHIVISTA

[sospiro stressato, esasperato]

DAISY

Il reparto informatici ha finalmente ripulito i video di sorveglianza della settimana in cui è sparita. Non ci sono telecamere nell’archivio, ma abbiamo molti filmati con te. Abbiamo osservato i tuoi movimenti dell’intera settimana. Non l’hai uccisa. 

ARCHIVISTA

Non- cos’ha a che fare questo con i nastri?

DAISY

Non avevamo abbastanza per trattenerti. Basira era preoccupata che saresti scappato. 

ARCHIVISTA

E allora, cosa - mi avete dato un paio di nastri per tenermi qui?

DAISY

Già.

ARCHIVISTA

E ora sapete che sono innocente…?

DAISY

Hm. Io penso dovremmo tagliarti fuori, ma Basira è buona. Le piaci. [heh] Non ho idea del perché. Forse continuerà a dartene, non è affare mio, non ho intenzione di vedere o sentire nulla al riguardo. 

ARCHIVISTA 

 Beh… grazie, Detective Tonner- 

DAISY

Daisy.

ARCHIVISTA

Grazie, Daisy. 

DAISY

Certo. 

ARCHIVISTA

...Se non ti dispiace che te lo chieda, da quanto tempo sei sezionata ora-

DAISY

[con rabbia] Sì che mi dispiace-

…

14 anni.

ARCHIVISTA

...Immagino che non vorrai rilasciare una dichiarazione?

DAISY

[scontrosa] Su cosa?

ARCHIVISTA

Quello che vuoi. 14 anni - devi avere visto un bel numero di cose paranormali. 

DAISY

E tu vuoi che te le racconti. 

ARCHIVISTA

Uh - Io -

DAISY

Okay.

ARCHIVISTA

[balbettando] Cosa?

DAISY

Okay. Ti darò una dichiarazione riguardo - come ho avuto la mia prima Sezione 31. 

...Sembri sorpreso.

ARCHIVISTA

Voglio dire, l’ho chiesto principalmente come formalità, da quello che ha detto Basira non pensavo fossi il tipo a cui piace condividere. 

DAISY

Forse mi hai beccata di buon umore. 

ARCHIVISTA

Giusto, beh… bene. Hai bisogno che ti esponga la nostra politica di non-divulgazione - 

DAISY

No, a patto che tu capisca la mia politica: se esce di qua, spezzerò tutte le ossa nel tuo corpo.  

ARCHIVISTA

[sospiro, mormorando] Ci sono cose peggiori che potrebbero succedere loro…

DAISY

[confusa, possibilmente offesa] Cosa?

ARCHIVISTA

Uh, niente. Uh, dichiarazione della Detective Alice “Daisy” Tonner della Polizia Metropolitana di Londra. Qual è l’argomento?

DAISY

Controllo stradale di un furgone di consegne sulla M6 vicino a Preston, il pomeriggio del… 24 luglio 2002. 

ARCHIVISTA

Registrato direttamente dal soggetto, il primo dicembre 2016.

Inizio della dichiarazione.

DAISY (DICHIARAZIONE)

È stato molto tempo fa. Ero in polizia da due anni. Non ero neanche nella Met al tempo. Mi avevano assegnata a Lancashire con un’unità di polizia stradale. Parliamo di prima che l’Agenzia Autostrade si prendesse la maggior parte del lavoro sporco, quindi c’era molto da fare. Niente di molto divertente, ma andava fatto. Beccare guidatori ubriachi era la mia preferita. Speravo sempre che rifiutassero l’etilometro, magari che mi tirassero un pugno. Non c’è niente di più divertente di un coglione ubriaco che cerca di evitare di farsi arrestare. 

Di solito giravo con Isaac Masters. Lavorava nella stradale da molto più tempo di me, ed era persino più duro di me. So perché, però. Aveva cercato di essere un buon poliziotto, di dare a tutti una possibilità, ma si vedono molti incidenti - non ci sono molte cose peggiori al mondo di un incidente stradale molto brutto. Ti segna. Diventi severo con chi non rispetta la strada, e ce ne sono parecchi del genere là fuori. 

Stava piovendo quella notte, quella pesante pioggia battente che fa sì che tu non riesca a sentire un accidente. Sbatte contro il tettuccio come se qualcuno ci stesse saltando sopra. Io e Zack eravamo seduti in un’area di sosta, che guardavamo il traffico e cercavamo di bere un caffè. L’avevamo preso da una stazione di servizio qualche miglia prima, ma era uno di quei bicchieri di polistirolo senza coperchio. Nel tempo in cui eravamo rientrati in macchina, la pioggia era entrata e ci aveva lasciati con due bicchieri di brodaglia fredda. 

Quindi eravamo entrambi di pessimo umore. Era forse l’1:00 del pomeriggio, ma non si sarebbe detto. Le nuvole non lasciavano passare un raggio di sole, e tutto sembrava grigio, bagnato e senza vita. Non riuscivamo neanche a parlare sopra al rumore della pioggia sul tettuccio, quindi siamo solo rimasti lì seduti in silenzio, a bere brodaglia tiepida. 

L’autostrada era più tranquilla di solito. Il mercoledì pomeriggio non c’è molto traffico, ma di solito la pioggia fa uscire più auto. Quel giorno era quasi vuota. Tutti sembravano guidare con attenzione tenendo conto della pioggia, cosa che a sua volta non era normale, e io ero combattuta. Parte di me voleva individuare un qualche idiota su cui sfogare il mio malumore, mentre l’altra parte di me non voleva bagnarsi più di quanto già non fossi. 

Sembrava che non avrei avuto scelta, comunque - almeno non finché vidi il furgone. Era un vecchio Citroën C15 malridotto. C’erano delle scritte sul fianco, ma non riuscivo a vederle bene attraverso la pioggia. Era o molto sporco, o dipinto di un’orribile sfumatura biancastra. 

La cosa più importante era che stava guidando a circa 25 miglia all’ora. Il limite è 70. Tecnicamente non c’è una velocità minima sull’autostrada, ma il furgone non dava segno di voler accelerare, ed era un po’ strano. Avevamo abbastanza motivi per fermarlo se avessimo voluto. Non ero sicura se lasciar correre o no, ma Zack aveva evidentemente già preso una decisione. Era nel posto del guidatore e accese le luci mentre ci accodavamo al furgone. 

[Una debole statica/vibrazione comincia a crescere in sottofondo, inizialmente appena percettibile]

Il furgone si fermò lentamente nella corsia d’emergenza sul lato della strada e rimase lì fermo. I fanali, che erano stati accesi per la pioggia, si spensero. Poi semplicemente attese. 

Zack uscì per primo. La pioggia era così fitta che dovette prendere la torcia per vedere bene. La luce passò sopra al furgone, e vidi la ruggine che si insinuava lungo i bordi del rivestimento. 

Ci avvicinammo al lato del guidatore. Vedevo delle sagome definite all’interno, ma non si muovevano. Da vicino, riuscii a leggere il nome sul fianco: “Breekon and Hope Deliveries”. Era coperto di uno strato di sporcizia che la pioggia non riusciva proprio a lavare via. 

[Musica sinistra. La statica/vibrazione ora è udibile chiaramente]

Zack bussò alla portiera e questa si aprì. L’uomo che ne uscì sembrava normale - così normale che ancora oggi non riesco proprio a figurarmi la sua faccia. Disse che si chiamava “Tom”. Non fui io a controllare la sua patente, quindi non so il cognome. 

Dall’altro lato scesero due uomini. Erano enormi. Volti duri, come un paio di vecchie statue di pietra, vestiti con tute e berretti piatti. Chiesero cosa stesse succedendo, parlando a turno con accenti cockney così pesanti e finti che pensai li stessero usando come scherzo. Stavo per aggredirli per quello quando un suono mi ha zittita. 

Zack stava parlando con “Tom”, che stava dando qualche banale spiegazione per la sua guida lenta - attenzione, pioggia battente, strada vuota, tutta quella roba. Lo sentirono anche loro, e lui si fermò nel mezzo di una frase per guardarmi. 

[Le vibrazioni continuano profonde e intense in sottofondo]

Dal retro del furgone uscì il suono di un gemito. Sembrava un gemito di dolore, ma lungo e trascinato. Continuò per quasi un minuto intero, ed era quasi, non so, musicale in un certo senso. Guardai Tom e i passeggeri finti cockney, ma i loro volti erano imperscrutabili. 

Zack afferrò Tom strettamente per un braccio e lo condusse allo sportello posteriore del furgone, ordinandogli di aprirlo. Non fece resistenza, semplicemente annuì, e tirò fuori un set di chiavi. Ne infilò una nel portellone, la girò, e il furgone si aprì.

Vidi che i due omoni si erano avvicinati a noi, quindi mi stavo preparando a dei guai, ma non avrei mai potuto indovinare cosa ci fosse là dentro. 

Era una bara. Una vecchia bara di legno. Grezza, disadorna. Vedevo delle schegge dove i chiodi erano stati piantati in malo modo. Avvolta tutto intorno c’era una spessa catena di metallo che terminava con un lucchetto. Quello strano gemito veniva dall’interno. Era l’unico suono in grado di sovrastare la pioggia battente. 

Mi irrigidii, mettendo la mano sul manganello - se quelle persone fossero state rapitori o peggio, saremmo stati in guai grossi. Ero pronta a una lotta, ma loro rimasero semplicemente lì, senza muoversi, fissandoci. Tutto nella situazione sembrava sbagliato.

Guardai Zack, e lui sembrava pensarla allo stesso modo. Guardò i due uomini in tuta e disse loro di tirarla fuori, poi guardò Tom chiedendogli se avesse la chiave del lucchetto. Mettendo una mano in tasca, l’uomo che si faceva chiamare Tom tirò fuori una grande chiave di ferro e la porse al mio partner. Non assomigliava alle altre chiavi. 

Volevo tornare alla macchina per chiamare dei rinforzi, ma Zack era un ufficiale superiore, e se lui pensava che prima avremmo dovuto aprirla, [inala] gli avrei retto il gioco. 

Zack prese la chiave e si avvicinò alla bara, che ora giaceva sull’asfalto, illuminata solo dai fanali della nostra auto. Il gemito era più forte ora, quasi soffocava il suono della pioggia battente. L’acqua aveva cominciato a scorrere sul legno, ma tutto il resto sembrava immobile.

Avvicinandomi, vidi le parole “Non Aprire” incise sulla superficie del legno. Non sembrava che il mio partner ci stesse prestando attenzione, però. Posizionò con delicatezza la chiave nel lucchetto, sussultando leggermente quando toccò il metallo, e la girò.

[La vibrazione in sottofondo si intensifica ancora di più, con un’oscillazione in qualche modo cavernosa o un suono di sospiro]

Le catene scattarono via come se caricate a molla. Frustarono in giro violentemente, e Zack fece un salto indietro, scivolando e cadendo di schiena. Io alzai il manganello, giusto nel caso lo sconosciuto avesse fatto qualcosa, ma era… immobile. 

Il gemito si era fermato. L’unico suono era il cigolio delle cerniere mentre il coperchio della bara cominciava a muoversi. Era lento, l’apertura apparve all'inizio come una fessura, prima di spalancarsi finalmente. C’era troppo buio per vedere dentro all’inizio, ma quando illuminai l’interno con la mia torcia, sentii Zach sussultare. Penso di aver fatto lo stesso. 

Dentro la bara di legno, c’era una scalinata. Scendeva, apparentemente nel terreno sottostante, e sembrava continuare fino a dove riuscivo a vedere. Era ripida, scavata in quella che sembrava solida pietra, e la roccia che componeva le pareti non combaciava con l’asfalto bagnato intorno a noi, tutta la terra che doveva esserci sotto. Era completamente impossibile. 

Cercai di chiedere spiegazioni a Tom o i suoi compagni, gridai loro di spiegarmi cosa diavolo stesse succedendo, ma loro semplicemente rimasero lì, a fissarla. Così io colpii uno di loro con il manganello. 

[Si aggiungono vibrazioni più acute, tremolanti]

Era uno degli omoni in tuta, anche se non sono sicura di quale. Fu come colpire un blocco di legno, e il colpo mi torse malamente il braccio, facendomi cadere l’unica arma che avevo. Anche allora lui restò lì, a fissare la bara. Ci fu un suono di movimento alle mie spalle. Mi girai e vidi Isaac che entrava nella bara, la sua torcia che brillava nel vuoto sottostante. Era già sparito fino alla vita, e c’era questo sguardo sul suo volto che non avevo mai visto prima - rilassato, come se stesse dormendo. 

Urlai il suo nome, cominciai a scappare ma sentii una mano enorme stringermi la spalla. La afferrai con il braccio buono, cercando di liberarmi, ma la stretta era troppo forte. La consistenza della pelle era come quella della gomma dura. Tutto ciò che potei fare fu guardare mentre il mio partner continuava a camminare nella terra, su scale che non potevano esserci. Dopo alcuni secondi, era completamente fuori dalla mia vista. 

Mi aspettavo di udire qualcosa - urlare, un, un grido, qualcosa - ma continuava a esserci solo la pioggia. Il coperchio si chiuse molto lentamente, e poi lui se n’era andato. Solo una bara appoggiata sulla corsia d’emergenza della M6.

La mano lasciò la mia spalla mentre i due uomini in tuta si avvicinavano e cominciavano a riavvolgere tranquillamente la catena intorno a essa. 

Sentii un improvviso scatto d’ira e raccolsi il manganello. Mi gettai su di loro, ma quello più vicino a me si mosse più velocemente di quanto avrei ritenuto possibile. Il suo pugno colpì il mio petto come una palla di cannone, e sentii un paio di costole rompersi. Collassai a terra, restai semplicemente lì, mentre Tom e i due uomini rimettevano il lucchetto alla bara, la caricavano sul furgone e se ne andavano. Non ho mai più visto Isaac Masters. 

[La statica/vibrazione si spegne]

Quando feci rapporto, mi aspettavo una caccia all’uomo, un’indagine, un qualche tipo di giustizia. Non è che non avessimo parecchie piste. Invece, mi fu consegnato un modulo che non conoscevo, mi fu detto di firmarlo, e poi fui riassegnata alla Met. Da allora, è stata una storia inquietante dopo l’altra. 

ARCHIVISTA

D’accordo. Grazie. Um… ti senti bene? 

DAISY

[arrabbiata] No. Non ho mai raccontato quella storia a nessuno se non il mio vecchio sergente.

ARCHIVISTA

 Io… non sono sicuro, io, er, uh-

DAISY

Dovrei andare. 

ARCHIVISTA

Sì, certo, ti accompagno. Uh, c’è solo un’altra cosa - volevo chiedere a Basira ma forse tu ne sai di più- 

DAISY

Ho chiuso.

ARCHIVISTA

Oh - sì, è solo, s- [velocemente] sai niente sui vampiri?

DAISY

Sì. 

ARCHIVISTA

Oh! 

Uh, è solo - che-

DAISY

Un po’ di tempo fa, c’erano dei problemi. Degli arresti irregolari per dei casi di persone scomparse. I sospettati venivano rilasciati senza dei veri e propri interrogatori. Le registrazioni dei colloqui mostravano che i soggetti non dicevano una parola, ma i poliziotti che conducevano l’interrogatorio li lasciavano comunque andare. 

[Comincia la statica/vibrazione] 

Non conosco i dettagli dell’indagine, ma c’è una nuova procedura operativa ora.

ARCHIVISTA

Che sarebbe…?

DAISY

I casi che rispondono a certi parametri devono essere monitorati via video da un altro poliziotto fuori dalla stanza. Nella molto specifica circostanza in cui il sospettato non dica niente, ma il poliziotto che conduce l’interrogatorio si comporti come se lo facesse, è immediatamente rimosso dalla stanza. Poi, chiamano me.

ARCHIVISTA

Solo te…?

DAISY

Ce ne sono anche altri che lo fanno, ma io mi occupo di una dozzina di commissariati o giù di lì. Ammanetto mani e gambe del sospettato, lo porto in macchina fino in mezzo alla foresta di Epping, e lo riduco in cenere. Non rimane mai abbastanza da costituire un problema. 

[Si sente l’Archivista esalare con orrore]

Non so se siano vampiri, ma è così che li chiamiamo.

ARCHIVISTA

Santo cielo… Di- di quanti ti sei… occupata?

DAISY

Mm… cinque negli ultimi nove anni.

ARCHIVISTA

Capisco…

DAISY

[ansiosa, in modo trascinato] Non dirlo a Basira. Non sa di quella procedura. Non, non sono sicura di quanto comprenderebbe, lei - lei non è fatta per quel genere di lavoro. 

ARCHIVISTA

Ce-certo, non-

DAISY

Non dirle niente di tutto questo, okay? Io non sono mai stata qui. Se vuole portarti altri nastri sono affari suoi, ma tu tieniti questa visita per te! Capito?!

ARCHIVISTA

Uh, uh, uh, certo!

DAISY

Bene. 

[CLICK brusco, improvviso; è stata Daisy a spegnere il registratore] 

_________________________________

[CLICK]

ARCHIVISTA

Supplemento. 

Quello è stato… un colloquio interessante. Sembrerebbe che non abbiamo ancora finito con le bare sinistre. Il contenuto è stato sorprendente a dir poco, ma non ha dato alcun vero indizio riguardo alla sua origine, il suo scopo, o anche il suo rapporto con Breekon e Hope. Sono semplicemente… corrieri? Guardiani? Ostaggi? 

Almeno ho anche conferma che i vampiri descritti da Trevor Herbert non sono solo frutto di una mente confusa dalla droga. Probabilmente non dovrei essere troppo lieto di scoprire che ci sono altri cacciatori ancora più violenti che ci pedinano nella notte, ma così stanno le cose. 

Io… ammetto di sentirmi un po’ ferito dalle vere motivazioni di Basira. Immagino che non sia davvero una sorpresa. Non sono stato completamente… equilibrato in questi ultimi mesi. In ogni caso, non ne farò parola. 

Anche se non fossi in qualche modo spaventato dalla Detective Tonner [risata nervosa] una tale rivelazione recherebbe solo danni al nostro rapporto, e ho bisogno di quei nastri. Non posso permettere che il periodo di Gertrude all’Istituto sparisca di nuovo nell’oscurità.

Controllerò quello che ho, e poi aspetterò notizie da Basira. O forse dovrei provare a contattarla…? Avrei davvero dovuto chiedere un, un numero o qualcosa. Beh, quella è una preoccupazione per dopo. Ho bisogno di andare a casa. Cercare di dormire un po’.

Vorrei solo che non stesse piovendo. 

Fine del supplemento. 

[CLICK]

[Traduzione di: Silvia]

[Episodio successivo]

#tma translation #tma traduzioni #magnuspod #tma italia #mag061 #hard shoulder #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #the magnus archives #tma transcripts

[dykehozier]

WHY WAS THIS SO FUNNY ISNDKSBFKSJX

#mine #the magnus archives #mag061

[mag-147]

my piece for the @directfromsubjectzine! my ep was mag061: hard shoulder

#neon arts #the magnus archives #tma #digital

[the-one-alone]

The archives are tired

If you were being endlessly preyed upon by entities outside your world you’d be tired right? Well the archives staff certainly are! Sleep is hard. Especially when your boss is terrible. Here is a list of the times when the staff said they were tired:

MAG026 - A Distortion - Sasha mentions being tired after Tim’s April Fools Prank

MAG032 - Hive - Jon goes to lie down after reading Prentiss’ statement

MAG037 - Burnt Offering - Jon is tired after reading a statement involving Gertrude Robinson

MAG040 - Human Remains - Not!Sasha says she’s tired and finds it hard to keep track of details

MAG055 - Pest Control - Jon says that he misses the days when he used to get a good night’s sleep

MAG061 - Hard Shoulder - Jon says he needs to go home and get some sleep

MAG079 - Hide and Seek - Jon is tired of carrying a pipe

MAG082 - The Eyewitnesses - Tim goes to lie down after talking with Martin about Jon and Sasha

MAG086 - Tucked In - Tim goes to lie down after realising that he doesn’t remember what Sasha looked like

MAG098 - Lights Out - Martin needs to sit down after reading a statement

MAG098 - Lights Out (again) - Melanie mentions she slept for 20 hours after recording a statement

MAG107 - Third Degree - Jon says he needs some sleep after he’s been investigating Gerry and Gertrude

MAG118 - The Masquerade - Martin talks about taking lots of lie downs

MAG123 - Web Development - Jon is tired two days after waking up from a coma

MAG125 - Civilian Casualties - Basira literally says “Sleep is hard”

MAG131 - Flesh - Jon has a lie down after having a rib removed by Jared 

MAG132 - Entombed - Daisy says she misses dreaming, and that no one sleeps in the Buried

MAG137 - Nemesis - Jon is confused and tired by current events and has a lie down

MAG147 - Weaver - Jon has a lie down after reading Annabelle Cane’s statement

MAG161 - Dwelling - Jon mentions being tired a lot, but not being able to sleep

Honourable Mentions (not archives staff):

MAG074 - Fatigue - Lydia Halligan is so so so very tired. So tired. This entire episode is her being tired. She’s tired

MAG111 - Family Business - Gerry wants to rest so bad. He really does not like half existing in a book

MAG121 - Far Away - Oliver Banks is so tired he kills a man and steals his boat to get one night of good sleep

MAG143 - Heart of Darkness - Maxwell Rayner is incredibly tired after his life’s work is destroyed

MAG152 - A Gravedigger’s Envy - This guy sleeps in graves. He’s so tired cause he can only sleep well in graves

MAG### - every single episode - everyone is tired all the time. let the poor people rest. oh my god they’re so tired.

*this list only includes times when people explicitly stated that they were tired, or needed to lie down, etc. It does not include when they sounded tired, or when stage directions mention them being tired. That list would be much much longer if I did that (I might later)

**also I may have missed a couple, and this list is definitely subject to change as the series progresses

#tma s5 #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #the magnus archives #jonmartin #sasha james #not!sasha #tim stoker #hezekiah wakely #maxwell rayner #oliver banks #gerry keay #gertude robinson #melanie king #basira hussain #daisy tonner #now i'm tired #elias bouchard #elias bouchard is the worst #em's magnus ramblings

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG145 X_X/

- Aaaaaaaaaand I had considered it but disregarded it immediately, and yet: the episode was (more or less) about Agnes again, so soon /o/

- The biggest reveal in this episode, for me, was probably to learn that The Web actually had a deep connection with the Archives (and the previous Archivist) waaaay before Jon was even born. We know that Jon encountered it as a kid, we know that spiders have been… extremely present around the Archives and Jon during his era – but we didn’t have anything about Gertrude yet, except for the fact that she was apparently working together with Adelard Dekker, who had been able to bind the Not!Them to the Hill Top Road table (and the whole ordeal was Web-y, though that could have been all thanks to the table):

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Alright. Agnes: how’d you do it? Never did understand it, not really. GERTRUDE: Ah. That’s a fair enough question. [PAUSE] It was… The Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident – but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations. I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Can’t have been older than… twenty-five. […] Like I said, mm, I was young. Naïve. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. … It was the most painful experience of my life.

Gertrude uses the phrase “Mother of Puppets”, too! Eugene and Peter had used it so far, so it sounds like it’s a term favoured by Avatars-in-the-known? Oliver had also referred to it as a “she”.

- We have a description of a young Archivist, in her 20s, getting pushed by The Web in a specific direction, made to unwillingly serve Her interests, even though it deeply hurt said Archivist.

… which. Sounds like what might be happening to Jon right now, except he didn’t (can’t?) make the connection.

- Gertrude’s description of her researches and how they had been manipulated is also very much reminiscent of… what is happening with Jon, especially in season 4, when he’s pushed towards this or that tape or statement, which was once again the case this episode:

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: And here? I reached out, I took another tape, eh!, hoping for a bit of guidance, but… [HUFF] To be honest, this hasn’t helped.

We… still don’t know for sure if it’s The Eye guiding him (/something having to do with the fact that he’s The Archivist and the information and statements are his Archives) or The Web. (How many of the statements Jon read in seasons 1 to 3 were actually “sent” to him by The Web, too?) With how The Web made itself transparent in MAG130 (sending one of Gertrude’s tapes covered in cobwebs) and how this statement explained how The Web proceeds, I’m… beginning to expect Jon to eventually get a (face-to-face) visit from Annabelle Cane or a Web-related person? It sounds like these bits are supposed to introduce Jon to the idea that yes, The Web has Her eyes on him, too, and yes, is monitoring him, and yes, has plans for him.

- … But then: Gertrude experienced The Desolation through her binding to Agnes. And The Web encouraged Jon to find an “anchor” to go inside the coffin, where he experienced The Buried, and potentially got Martin to lead him out. Even back in season 1: it might have been The Web which got Martin to come back to Carlos Vittery’s building a second time (MAG022, Martin: “And then I remembered that I'd seen quite a lot of spider webs in the brief time I was down there, and maybe I should check it out again.” + how he didn’t really think when he crushed the first worm), attracting Jane Prentiss’s attention towards the Archives, and it was a spider which unleashed the attack on the Archives (Jon trying to crush it and discovering the worms behind the wall… when they weren’t completely ready yet). Which means The Web is reaaaaaaaaaally not against having Archivists experiencing the other Fears, and Elias has said that it’s supposed to be the Archivist’s role (MAG092, Elias: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…”).

What is The Web’s stance on The Watcher’s Crown? We know it’s involved in ritual-stopping: Peter highlighted that it prefers the world as is, Gertrude evoked the possibility of The Slaughter’s ritual getting stopped by “spiderwebs”, and there were cobwebs in the wax museum at The Unknowing (+ it sent Jon a tape about how The Flesh had been stopped, and possibly monitored his researches about rituals a bit). From what Peter said, it shouldn’t want a ritual to succeed; yet, if Experiencing The Fears is a must-do for an Archivist… the Web is also contributing to this…?

- And same as Jon, re:Gertrude’s powers!

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Shut it! I don’t have to listen to this! GERTRUDE: Hm! [CHUCKLE] Then, feel free to try and leave. ARTHUR: [BEGINS TO BREATHE HEAVILY] GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Here’s the problem for you, Arthur. […] “Do I…” what? ARTHUR: Have something for me. So I end up like Eugene. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLE] Why don’t you try to leave and find out…? ARTHUR: [BREATHING DEEPENING, STRUGGLING] [SILENCE] GERTRUDE: Good~! Now, we can have a proper conversation.

… Arthur needed her permission to leave, but what did she do, at that moment? There wasn’t any static, only a bass sound – was it a plain cosmetic sound-effect, or was Gertrude doing something, perhaps similar to when Jon told Breekon to “stop” back in MAG128? I’m still unsure about the whole thing about “giving orders” and “preventing people from leaving” being a Beholding power since it… feels very active, and it’s about entrapment? And we’ve heard Web-victims mention having no choice but to obey? (Though in The Web’s case, it sounded more subtle and “making you think you’re willing”: Jon and now potentially Gertrude are coercing, violently… although there is the case of regular statements, during which people don’t actually have a choice whether or not to tell their story and aren’t aware of it, except for the woman from MAG142. Even Daisy had rationalised that Jon had probably “caught her in a good mood” in MAG061, before she later realised that she hadn’t been willing.)

… And somethingsomething about how MMMMMMMMMM, there is still the Mystery of why Gertrude recorded the specific statements she did (reading aloud or interviewing) – tape recorders have been explicitly associated with Jon in season 4, and they had been used by Gertrude before, and both of them had been entangled in The Web’s schemes, so MMMMMMM…

- A bit of the conversation between Gertrude and Arthur I’m ? about is that “him upstairs”:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You’ve never really had to bother with it, have you? You got him upstairs to point the way as often as not, and the rest of the time you’re just figuring out people – or things that used to be people. You never try to talk with that Eye of yours. You never had to second-guess a god.

Was Arthur referring to The Eye or… to Elias? Arthur used “it” to referred to his own god (/“them” for the fears), so the “him” was a bit surprising, and Elias’s office is canonically upstairs compared to the Archives… But at the same time, it would be saying that Elias was giving directions to Gertrude/that they were collaborating at some point, and as much as I had thought about the possibility (Gertrude had also mentioned that she could tell Elias about Mary’s visit, and Mary had bitten back that Elias “wasn’t too big on action”, implying that yeah, Elias&Gertrude… were communicating, at least), that would be Big News in the canon…?

- And Gertrude’s way of not Falling Deep into her patron was apparently because she was a bit of a stoic and not curious enough?

(MAG145) ARTHUR: […] That’s the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, that’s the only part any of Them Beyond… actually care about. They don’t give a toss about your “rules”, or “systems”. They only care about what feels right, what freezes your belly with terror. GERTRUDE: Hm. I rather like to think I’ve managed. ARTHUR: [SCOFF] Yeah. … But you don’t actually care about Them, do you? Not really. You forget, we’ve been watching you a long time, and I know you, Gertrude. You don’t actually care about… the Fears. You’re too practical. All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond. You know plenty, sure! But you don’t have that obsession, that stupid urge to try and understand and… classify things that use logic and reality like weapons. GERTRUDE: Hm. Per–perhaps. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLE] Always respected you for that. Takes a strong stomach to not give a shit. GERTRUDE: Eh! You’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed at the compliment? ARTHUR: Suit yourself.

1°) And Jon is aaaaall about classifying and understanding, and is currently desperate for Answers at the moment, which. Oops. Very different from Gertrude, indeed. (Who occasionally threw out a few hypotheses here and there, indeed, but was also “practical”.)

2°) And Jon is also Very Afraid overall, even reminded us of that in MAG132 when going in the coffin (“When does the fear go away…?”)

3°) If Gertrude wasn’t letting fear get a hold on her… there is still the matter of Oliver’s dream/prediction, which pictured her as absolutely terrified (MAG011, Oliver: “I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.”) – still the good old questions of “what happened around Gertrude’s death”…?

- Hello, it’s Arthur hours, I LOVED HIM… WHAT A TERRIBLE MAN… Voice acting was stellar, so funny, so seething, so… carnivorous? Defeated and yet still harmful, still utterly terrible, although he was able to pinpoint some of his mistakes (notably about how they had raised Agnes and how he was missing her). His rant about theology and Diego, and giving Too Much Information was incredible:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: But I was an idiot. Saw it as… attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasn’t happy. [PAUSE] Well, he’s in charge now! Of all of us that are… left, at least. He can look for the answers in whatever books he likes, no skin off my bones! GERTRUDE: I didn’t actually ask. ARTHUR: [INHALE] Figure if you’re gonna pull this stuff out of me, I, I might as well get some of it off my chest anyway…! Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame “Asag”, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it – I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of the… face we worship, and some… fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesn’t really match up, does it?! Plus, there’s a lot of disease imagery with Asag that I’ll reckon is… way too close to Filth for my taste, but, but no, he read it in some ~ancient tome~, so that’s that– GERTRUDE: Well, I can’t say I– ARTHUR: –reckons he always knows best, ‘cause he’s read a few books, well. Big. Deal! Way I see it, if a writer can’t even save themselves, they probably don’t have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called “expert” on all of this who didn’t end up regretting all of it! […] Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until then… just playing landlord. It’s alright, I guess. You’d be surprised the misery and pain you can cause, when you have control over someone’s home….! If you’re careful, if you’re smart, you can burn their life to ashes as thoroughly as any fire, and worse comes to worst, you can still do it the old-fashioned way. Had an elderly tenant last year. Oh, [CHUCKLING] she was in a terrible state. I had her trapped, too poor and immobile to do anything but… sit there. Then, I broke her boiler, so the cold started to get her. Not exactly my usual, but… agony is agony. But then, her son and his wife moved in with her to help her out. Not much I could do against that. So I just waited until all three were home, and set the place ablaze. They went up nicely. Screaming all the way as the flames started to reach them. Doors were locked, and handles too hot, so they didn’t have a hope of escape– GERTRUDE: Yes, that’s quite enough, I think. ARTHUR: Oh, I’m sorry. There I was, thinking you liked the gory details! My mistake. GERTRUDE: I think we’re just about done here.

And OUUUCH, the story about the family was incredibly nasty and… really vicious. Describing the story of how he abused and tortured an old woman right in front of Gertrude? Definitely on purpose to try to get at her.

- Diego was once again associated with books, and mmm, I wonder if we’ll get his statement at some point (though we know that Gerry killed him before beginning to work with Gertrude)? Turned out he had actually tried to use childcare books to raise Agnes, which is… still better than the other cultists:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You might be right. But Agnes did. That’s the thing about an… “incarnation”, isn’t it? She was a child and… person as much as she was a god. And we messed that right up…! … I still remember when Diego brought us a book on childcare. [CHUCKLING] Roger’s body was still in her room, blackened and smoking from… when he tried to feed her. I thought for a moment he’d brought another one of his damn Leitners, but no! It was just a… regular ol’ book on looking after children…! But I was an idiot. Saw it as… attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasn’t happy.

(I wonder if Arthur didn’t take Leitner as the one writing the books, too? Since his later comment (“Way I see it, if a writer can’t even save themselves, they probably don’t have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called “expert” on all of this who didn’t end up regretting all of it!”) was also targeted at Diego. Not sure that Leitner had begun to put his seal on the books in the 60s, though, so maybe Arthur retrospectively associated the books to Leitner although they weren’t bearing his name back then?)

- Eugene had it coming, and WOW did it come for him. Gertrude…

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Oh! I assume you haven’t checked on… Eugene, then? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Eugene. Well, whatever his name was, “Vanderbelt” or some such. You sent him to intimidate me a couple of years ago. You must remember? Of course you know him. Used to live in Beckingham, but moved out to that flat in… Ilford, last year. ARTHUR: Yeah. GERTRUDE: Well! He hasn’t been at your “little meetings” the last two weeks, has he…? I suppose no one’s looked into it yet. Not surprising – he seemed a thoroughly unpleasant little man. ARTHUR: Are you… [CLOTHES SHUFFLING] Di– GERTRUDE: Tell you what. Why don’t you make a few calls? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] Check it out, and then we can continue our, er, little “discussion”. Alright~? [CLICK.] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: Well? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] ARTHUR: [INHALE] … How did you do it? GERTRUDE: [SCOFF] You don’t need to know that. What you do need to know is I can do it again, if I need to. To you, or… any of your “lackeys”, if I need to. […] ARTHUR: Eugene. It… hurt him. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLING] Oh, yes. I’m sure your master was delighted with how… awful his death was.

[…] ARCHIVIST: Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head. … I wish I didn’t know how painful it must be, to be alive while your whole being is infused with… agonising grit. But, as I was investigating, it… came to me. Eugene is still alive, frozen in place by the razor-sharp particles that are mixed up into what he chose instead of flesh. I don’t know where Gertrude stored his head. But I do know he desperately wants to scream.

AOUCH. 1°) Sarah-the-Anglerfish had left “sawdust” behind her in MAG096, though grit makes me thing of The Buried… Or it could have been a plain regular thing? 2°) hhhh over the fact that Gertrude, who got told that she had been watched BOTH by Arthur-from-the-Desolation and Manuela-from-the-Dark… was shown to absolutely know about them, too, and to be ready to make her moves when needed. 3°) ………………. Some people have pointed out that hum. Thanks to Patreon bonus content: it’s possible that Eugene’s head is actually in the Institute (and we know where, if it is that). (4°) That “delighted” pun… Gertrude… (And Diego used “burning questions” towards her later! Avatars punning about their patrons and others’.))

- Given how Gertrude handled them and talked about them with such disdain (“And you’re all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready.”), she reaaaally despised them and… was that because of their methods in themselves, the glee they take in destruction? Or because the fact that they were the first she really encountered, in her young years, and that had scarred her deeply? Or because she had a childhood encounter with the Desolation even before that and it was exceptionally personal? Jon had The Web, Michael Shelley had The Spiral, Tim (although he was an adult already) had The Stranger + Melanie had The Slaughter (multiple times), Basira&Daisy got multiple stories… lots of people working in the Archives had encountered the Fears before working for the Institute, so maybe it was the case for Gertrude, too?

- I love how “coffeeshop twit” is Jack Barnabas’s official nickname from everyone.

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “Of course, none of us suspected what was actually going to sink it all. I mean, if you’d told me, I’d have laughed at you. … That stupid coffeeshop twit. I honestly don’t know why Arthur allowed it, or why Jude didn’t step in – she’s usually so jealous!”

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Well, that’s the thing about a fall from grace, innit? Makes you look at things from a… “new angle”. … I miss her. [SCOFF] I’ll tell you that for nothing. Wish I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. I’d actually known her, when she was… alive. Maybe that coffeeshop twit did have a point after all. Could tell you what I saw, at least.

You know that there were sessions of collective ranting about him amongst The Desolation folks, and it stuck.

- Arthur’s personal way of referring to the Fears seem to be “Them Beyond”? He used it twice:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: That’s the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, that’s the only part any of Them Beyond… actually care about. […] All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond.

… I found his tirade about the lack of direction and the fact they’re just scrambling around to try to guess their patron’s intent really interesting, but at the same time… presenting their life as So Hard And So Tragic, when they choose to hurt and abuse and torture and kill to feel good and make their patron feel good? Meh. Which is probably why Gertrude, too, was exceptionally unimpressed? Given Oliver’s and Elias’s insistences on choice and free will, I doubt that the bottom line of it is that the Fears change you (“warp you”) into someone else entirely; I think there are still many choices to be made when avataring, and that each victim… is a conscious, deliberate decision?

(… Gertrude’s reaction was also Wow., since, saving the world or not, she herself wasn’t against causing civilian casualties and sacrificing people to achieve her own goals. Maybe that’s the thing with Gertrude, and she thought of herself as the better person since her actions had, in theory, nothing to do with elation, but were about sheer practicality? The way she described the explosion of The Last Feast, however, was… strikingly gleeful. She felt good about hurting avatars and stopping rituals, too.)

- The bits about Agnes were very sad, once again:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: What was Agnes like? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like? ARTHUR: I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. Not really. You got as many answers to that as… folks who met her. Never really knew what she felt ‘bout any of it! Not really. Not in her own words. Guess that’s the thing about being the… Chosen One, or… I mean, Agnes was always quiet; but even if you spend all day, every day, throwing out commandments and… laying down parables… At the end of it, you’re always just the… point of someone else’s story. Everyone clamouring to say what you were, what you meant, and… your thoughts on it… all don’t mean nothing.

Agnes is… still a character who was born (/birthed) without a choice. We saw how Gerry had made the most of it, despite his education: he chose to neutralise Leitners, saved civilians here and there even when he was doing it passively. Agnes had never chosen this life, and although Arthur highlighted the fact that there were as many Agnes as people who met her/wanted something from her… I’m really feeling like we’re missing her voice about all of this. She’s a tragic figure, but it would sound a bit off to never have access to her voice, to her thoughts, when all the people describing her so far have been male characters and/or people romantically interested in her (Jack Barnabas, Jude Perry, Eugene, now Arthur).

But, unless she lied, Gertrude never met or discussed with her before she died, so… there probably isn’t any recording of her anywhere. (Unless we could somehow have a tape of Agnes talking with someone else? Ivo Lensik also had visions of a little girl at Hill Top Road before she even died, and we know that the place was messed up: maybe there is still a trace of her left behind, who could speak…?)

(- And YES, OBVIOUSLY, I was “wow.” and welcoming the Agnes/Gertrude as a new Fated By Fears ship. She was calling Gertrude “her anchor”!! They were soulmates!!! The Desolation protected Gertrude to make sure that Agnes wouldn’t suffer from it!! Gertrude was curious about her!!)

(- AND ALSO, YES, OBVIOUSLY, HHHHHHHHHH GERTRUDE HOT WHEN IN CONTROL AND LOOKING DOWN ON AVATARS…)

(- Of course, Arthur’s words about the perception one has of someone… was also very reminiscent of Jon’s whole being…? Though, at the same time, we have a direct access to his voice thanks to the tapes. He can lie, he can dissimulate, he can be a hypocrite… but it will always be a bit more “him” than second-hand accounts.

Presumably.

Because the woman from MAG142 had a very different version of Jon to share, someone we… got a glimpse of in MAG141, but it seems that others Archival characters haven’t noticed a change or that he’s been acting different lately…?)

- !!! So the circle from MAG037 was made by Gertrude, initially to banish Agnes, and in the end a bit modified to alleviate “side-effects”:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I really thought you were unique, special, an infernal cult raising their demon Messiah to bring about hell on Earth…! […] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. … It was the most painful experience of my life. I mean… I’m sure it’s nothing to you, but I’d never had my lungs try to burn me alive from the inside out before. I survived, though. And you know the rest. I’m not sure exactly how it manifested on your end; you certainly seemed to get the message. I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects and… keep its attentions elsewhere.

And with Jason North’s description in mind:

(MAG037, Jason North) “What was inside each one seemed to vary, some had pine needles and twigs, some were full of dirt, and one or two even held what appeared to be rainwater, though looking closer I could see that it bubbled very gently inside those bottles in an endless simmer. In each I could also see a small photograph, half-buried in dirt or almost boiled clean. They all looked to be the same photograph, though it was hard to tell for sure. An old woman, probably in her fifties or sixties, wearing reading glasses and grey hair curled into a tight bun. She stared out disapprovingly from every bottle. Weirdest of all, on the bottom of each was tied a lock of hair. It was long and grey, in poor condition, and I reckon it must have belonged to the woman in the photograph. It was tied up with the same new string as held the bottles, except for the fact that it was burned, ever so slightly at the ends.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: Mr. North did include with his statement the picture he found in the bottle. It is a photograph of Gertrude Robinson, my predecessor at the Magnus Institute, circa 2002 as best I can tell.

So: 1°) it wasn’t Gertrude’s hair! (And did they grey because Agnes was dead? Or because the hair aged “normally” once removed from her?), 2°) Was Gertrude regularly changing her pictures with updated ones, or were these… updating themselves in the bottles?

- Alright, so, actualising the timeline of events around Agnes and Hill Top Road/Lightless Flame cultists’ involvement with Gertrude:

* Agnes was sent to Hill Top Road to deal with The Web sometime around 1965, when Ronald Sinclair was turning 18 (he said he was born in the late 40s). Agnes was described as “younger than the other kids, maybe ten or eleven years old, and didn’t talk much”. She (playfully) freed Ronald from Raymond Fielding’s influence. (MAG059)

* The house got slowly depopulated until only Agnes and Raymond remained; Raymond disappeared when Agnes “must have been 18 or 19”, Agnes claiming that “he had gone away and that the house was hers”. (Ivo Lensik, MAG008)

* In 1974, a five-year-old boy goes missing in the area. People are suspicious of Agnes, the house burns, Ray’s body is found, missing his right hand, and there is no sign of Agnes. (MAG008)

=> It must be around that time that Gertrude tied her existence to Agnes, as she mentioned “ashes” and her own young age:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Can’t have been older than… twenty-five. […] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair.

(+ in MAG137, Gertrude pointed out that “The Risen War failed a few years before I was even born.”, and that was one was in late 1942. So all this would put Gertrude’s date of birth at 1949 or after, but not before.)

* Gertrude entwined her and Agnes’s existences – was it related to the fact that Agnes also got tied to Hill Top Road, or was that binding unrelated? On the one hand, Gertrude only mentioned that Agnes was connected to her and compared that binding to Fielding and the house; on the other hand, Eugene insisted that Agnes had been “tied” to Hill Top Road, and Agnes indeed clearly felt something when Ivo Lensik killed the tree that was still there:

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “As far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet, she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way. I knew, when Arthur told she had kept Raymond Fielding’s hand, that he was worried.”

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house.

* Agnes began to frequent the Canyon Café in the 90s as, by November 2006, she had been visiting for “a decade and a half” (MAG067). She waited, they all waited.

* In autumn 2006, Jack Barnabas confessed to Agnes and they went on a few dates. (MAG067)

* On November 23rd 2006, Ivo Lensik uprooted the tree at Hill Top Road, freeing spiders from the apple buried under it; Agnes felt it, said that she had to finish something, gathered the members of the cult, and at her request, they hanged her, with Ray’s hand tied to her waist. (MAG067, MAG139)

* On November 30th 2006, Arthur sent Eugene Vanderstock to give his statement to Gertrude, threatening her about the fact they didn’t have any more reason to keep her alive (MAG139: “As for you… Whatever you did, and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed, with Agnes’s death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose.”)

* In January 2009, Gertrude took care of Eugene (MAG145, Gertrude: “Well! He hasn’t been at your “little meetings” the last two weeks, has he…? I suppose no one’s looked into it yet.”)

* On February 2nd 2009, Arthur and Gertrude “discussed”, with Gertrude threatening the rest of the cult with what she had done to Eugene if they were to try and harm her. (MAG145)

* On August 6th 2009, Jason North gave his statement about disturbing a ritual site near Loch Glass in Scotland. (MAG037)

* Eugene was officially declared missing in late 2009 (MAG145, Jon: “I did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive and… working at the steel plant, but it looks like he’s just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. […] Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head.”)

* Until late February/early March 2014, Jane Prentiss, Arthur’s tenant, got taken over by The Hive. On the day of her hospitalisation, Arthur called Pest Control Service to take care of the “wasps’ nest” (whatever the price would be); Jordan Kennedy went, pumped insecticide into the thing, and witnessed Arthur setting himself (and the whole house) on fire. (MAG032, MAG055)

- So, two main things. First, the… dates, once again. I can believe that Eugene’s disappearance wasn’t discovered by public authority until much later than his actual “death”, no problem. But the dates around Gertrude’s circles are a bit weird, since Jason North had mentioned that his wife had burnt not even a week after he had disrupted the site (and before that, his car had broken, etc.); it… doesn’t sound like he had encountered the circle months or years before he gave his statement and tried to find a way to protect his son Ethan – he immolated himself shortly after giving his statement, he was pressed by time, it was an urgency happening in the Summer 2009. Yet… Gertrude and Arthur had been referring to someone disrupting the site some time before… in February 2009.

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Here’s the problem for you, Arthur. The way I see it, you came here believing that whatever defences or… assurances I might have had, died with Agnes, or had broken along with the circle. […] I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects and… keep its attentions elsewhere. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLING] Don’t envy whoever broke it! GERTRUDE: Yes. It went very badly for them, indeed. ARTHUR: So where was it, in the end? I spent years looking for it. GERTRUDE: Hm! Nowhere special. The middle of a forest, in the Scottish highlands. Furthest place I could find, from anything, and anyone.

So…? Had Jason North been cursed for a few months before giving his statement, and Ethan had somehow managed to escape The Desolation curse? Is it Jonny mixing dates again (and MAG037 took place in 2008 instead of 2009 or something)?

Is it that… someone else had disrupted the circle before Jason?

… Or has someone/something been messing with dates in the Archives? We’re getting a lot of cases of Potentially Impossible Timelines in season 4 (Neil Lagorio’s two deaths, Jason North’s; there is the matter of Gertrude’s tape from MAG087, when she was supposed to be dead, etc.); is or was someone/something trying to conceal information this way…?

(- Relistening to Jason’s statement and. Hum. About the circle’s location, he finished with:

(MAG137, Jason North) “I asked about who might have gone to the area, but aside from some middle-aged businessmen on a hiking trip, no-one’s been anywhere near that clearing for years. There is no reason this is happening, but I’m still going to lose everything. I am so scared.”

I’m not banking on it, but. Elias was confirmed to be meant to sound “middle-aged” in the season 3 Q&A. So. Uh. Uh. Were these people, like. Peter and Elias on a hiking trip.)

- Regarding Arthur’s connection to The Hive: I… have much trouble picturing that Gertrude did not use what she had learned in MAG145 to somehow make him regret Everything.

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame “Asag”, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it – I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of the… face we worship, and some… fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesn’t really match up, does it?! Plus, there’s a lot of disease imagery with Asag that I’ll reckon is… way too close to Filth for my taste […]. GERTRUDE: So. Now, Diego has taken over… Where does that leave you? ARTHUR: [SNORT] Slumlording over a nest. GERTRUDE: Oh. A nest of… what? ARTHUR: Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until then… just playing landlord.

I would be really surprised if no one (Gertrude or someone else) had used the fact that Arthur hated Corruption and wanted to wait a bit before killing one of its monsters because it needed to get big enough (practical reasons or hubris there?). Because there is the Question of why did Arthur set himself ablaze when Jane Prentiss got taken over:

(MAG055) JORDAN: At one point, he shook his head and mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far, but he didn’t seem to be saying it to me. […] Time seemed to move slowly as he reached for the ashtray on the arm of the chair and picked up a pack of matches. He struck one and without even looking at me, he gently pressed the small flame to the centre of the scar. His flesh caught fire, immediately, the flames spreading across his body like rippling water. The armchair caught, then the floor, and then I was running out of the building before the rolling inferno could come at me as well.

Why couldn’t Arthur just… leave? Unless he was fearing that The Hive would come after him, and he was too weak nowadays to be able to properly face it, and he decided to bow out on his own terms? No idea what Gertrude could have done, though; tossing Jane Prentiss in the direction of that house? Or… maybe binding Arthur to the house itself, as revenge/torture, since she did know the ritual to tie herself to someone and had compared it to the binding linking Fielding to the house…?

- Surprisingly, Arthur didn’t mention that he was there the night Agnes had died:

(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “They were all dressed in rough work clothes and wore severe expressions. One of them, a big guy with a shaved head, was holding an unlit lantern, and speaking to the others that I think was Spanish or Portuguese. Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundred of tiny spiders. None of them paid me any attention, and I was rapidly feeling like I was falling into something that I really didn’t want to.”

(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: […] If the bald man with the lantern is as I suspect Diego Molina, it would indicate a link between his notable obsession with burning, and… Agnes, who apparently had not inconsiderable abilities in that area. I can’t help but wonder if Arthur Nolan, The Hive’s landlord, was one of the other members of that little group.

(+ the man holding candles would be Eugene Vanderstock, as he was revealed to have a thing with candles in MAG139.)

… Same as with Eugene: how come Arthur… barely mentioned any spiders around Agnes? Eugene had been able to point out that Hill Top Road had been a “stronghold” of The Web, but Arthur didn’t mention them at all in his conversation with Gertrude (it was Gertrude who connected her actions to The Web, but Arthur made no reference whatsoever to Agnes’s) – and especially not… the spiders he (if it was indeed him) was carrying on the night of Agnes’s death. Did those spiders do the same trick as with Jon through his lighter, making people’s attention slip right over them…?

(Especially given that! Jane herself had mentioned that there were spiders in the house:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “Was it the spiders? There were webs in the corners, around the entryway into the attic. I would watch them scurry and disappear in between the wooden boards. ‘Where are you going, little spiders?’ I would think. ‘What are you seeing in the dark? Is it food? Prey? Predators?’ I wondered if it was the spiders that made the gentle buzzing song. It was not. Webs have a song as well, of course, but it is not the song of The Hive.”

To what extent was Arthur tangled in threads, too…?)

- Arthur confirmed (after Eugene) that Desolation folks had mostly No Idea What They Were Doing. We saw it with The Dark, too (when… they just put Faith in things and hoped it would work out), a bit with The Slaughter (given how things didn’t proceed as they should have) – Arthur did highlight that becoming an avatar meant being burdened with the craving of getting closer to their patron, and Jon, judging from how he echoes some of Arthur’s arguments (about cultists fighting over how to act), couuuuld be implying that it’s the same for him nowadays:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You never had to second-guess a god. ‘Cause that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? We feel Its joy and Its… anger; It warps us, and changes us, and feeds on us, though not in the ways we expect. The one thing It never does is just… tell us what to do. It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring It to us. Then, It leaves us to guess and bicker and fight over how the hell you can actually do it. … If it’s possible. Sometimes, I think They understand us as… little as we understand Them. We don’t think like They do.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. [PAUSE] These things that… loom so large over our lives trap us, and push us, and… sometimes kill us. But they never actually tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. So we scheme and we plot, lash out at each other without ever really knowing why. … I think Gertrude knew this. Knew to… focus her attention on those parts that could be understood, and… Well. And killed.

1°) … But at the same time, Not All Avatars: Jared Hopworth told us in MAG131 that he was perfectly satisfied with the world as is, and actively refused to participate in his own ritual, with no apparent adverse effects on him. So… it’s possible to go “Nop.” over those.

2°) Again, I don’t think that the main point is that no ritual is achievable: it… would lower the stakes too much? Sarah/the Anglerfish had also told Nikola, in MAG119, that the in-between wasn’t comfortable for all the monsters, and to hurry up with the Dance to complete the ceremony. Some things went wrong here and there, we didn’t get the whole stories… but I still think that it must be possible to carry a ritual until its culmination, and that The Watcher’s Crown is still a very real looming threat…?

3°) And what is Jon’s actual stance about The Watcher’s Crown and being responsible for hurting people nowadaaaaays…?

- It was… a weird thing to experience: Gertrude, practical, cold-blooded, doubtless Gertrude was the one actually… more or less on the side of protecting innocents, here? While Jon did not care at all, even included himself amongst Other Avatars:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: And you’re all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready. You honestly thought, when she died, I’d just be struck dumb with terror – just waiting for one of you to finally get around to revenge, paralysed with fear, because that’s all you’ve ever known. […] You tell the others. Make sure they know what happened to Eugene. ARTHUR: Sure. Can’t make any promises, though. ‘Specially for Jude. She really hates you. GERTRUDE: Tell her she’s welcome to try. Oh…! And tell them I’m extending my protection to young Mr. Barnabas. They hurt him any more, then what happened to Eugene will seem like a mercy. ARTHUR: … You’re really pushing it. You know that? GERTRUDE: Hm! Feel free to push back. But until then, get out of my Archives.

Gertrude neutralised Eugene, she talked Arthur down, she protected Jack Barnabas (and in the same breath: acknowledged that it had gone badly for the one disrupting her circle, but didn’t sound too heartbroken about it).

Meanwhile, Jon? Still hasn’t shared a word about the new additions to his collection of traumatised victims, and is sighing and complaining about his own whole situation.

- And worse: in this episode Jon actually humanised… avatars, of all people???

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: We’ve been back in London for just over a week, now. I’m… more or less recovered physically. It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.

I’m not sure if by “up there”, he was talking about the Svalbard trip and Manuela, or if it was about the new tape and Arthur, but…??? It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s about Floyd??? And whether it’s Manuela or Arthur, who both confessed to multiple murders and torture and absolutely Do Not Feel Sorry About That Part Of Their Life, how do they deserve to be called a “broken person” – what about the persons they broke, what about the persons YOU are breaking, Jon???

(And there was the whole “we avatars”, including himself in it, at the beginning of his rant, which… sounds very much like Jon feels more connected to Their Tragic Situation than to the people they wreck, which is… ew.)

- Overall: I’m really surprised at how abruptly casually unsympathetic I’ve been finding Jon since MAG141, how I’m absolutely unable to feel sorry for him now? Because, lamenting about his lack of direction, his place, his whole existence was delightful and very sad and tragic, indeed! … until we got the reveal that oh, he himself was currently torturing people and feeding from them.

Jon hasn’t had one word about his victims, since then. No concern, no regret, no preoccupation. And I find it so hard to like him right now? It sounds like a string of me-me-me, which… only works as long as he’s not actively hurting others, or as long as he’s trying to find ways to stop it or to mitigate the damage? And it was the same with his string of lies to Georgie (not acknowledging, until she pressed on, that no, he was in “deep”; pretending that Melanie had “told” him about her therapy when the truth is that he had compelled her, although on accident; saying he had some “close calls” when UUUH… I wouldn’t say Floyd and the woman from MAG142 were “close” calls, at all????):

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: A–all right. [SPLUTTERS] W–why are you, uh… well. Here? I–if it’s not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: … It is a bit. It’s not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! You’re taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: She… told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. […] GEORGIE: So… How are you doing? ARCHIVIST: I’m… I’m alright. I’m trying to, uh… rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? ‘Cause… I’m pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Oh. W–were you… listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didn’t mean to. You know. These… doors are not that thick. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Fine. I’m deep in it. Had some… “close calls”. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: I’m sorry to hear that. [PAUSE] … You should probably get some therapy too. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] Would you go with me as well? GEORGIE: … No. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. … No, I thought as much.

And… bitterly highlighting that Georgie wouldn’t Hold His Hand And Lead Him Through Therapy (and a bit implying that he would go if she was helping him, but only then)… felt like a really… bad thing to say? What has he done for Georgie for the past year and a half? She housed him for months! She gave him advice! She watched over him while he was in a coma! I find it astoundingly rude of him to even word the possibility of her helping him to get therapy because… yeah, he clearly was expecting a negative answer, but he put her in a position when she was the one who had to officially shoot him down. I understand the sadness and the bitterness but, honestly, with the knowledge that Jon is actually hurting people to feed on the sideline in order to feel good… it gives me the same vibe as entitled males expecting you to do their emotional labour and to sob over their life, who expect you to Accept Them For Who They Are although they’re doing terrible shit here and there.

(And it was… a typical Jon thing, too, but: he didn’t really ask Georgie how she was doing lately, on her side. And the more I see of them, the more, yeah, I understand perfectly why they might have broken up, or why Georgie just… doesn’t want to take care of him anymore, because she used to, and it’s always a one-sided relationship.)

(And it’s so easy to forget, also, in the way Jon interacts with Georgie… that he pulled her into his nightmare zoo. He might have still been unaware at the time he took her statement, but still: he did that to her, and never acknowledged it to her, although we had confirmation that He Knows about it, and knows what causes the dreams now. How could Georgie trust him, if he doesn’t even acknowledge it nor apologise to her for it…?)

I’m still really hoping that there is a twist, that this is all leading to something (Jon was awful in season 2, too! (Though called out on it, and it was in self-defence, because he thought a murderer was after him) – and the point is, he hurt Tim in the process, and this is why it was important narratively for Tim… to never forgive him), though ;; I’m fearing that it’s just wishful-thinking from me, because I… don’t… like… Jon… at all… at the moment… and am hoping that some bits are fake and/or will get improved… (It feels like… such a step back, with all the character development he had gotten in season 3? And it happened around the time he was getting closer to Daisy, who was helping him lighten up…?)

In that vein, the nagging about Elias could lead to something:

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: Elias always seemed to know what was going on, to have a plan, but… I sometimes wonder how orchestrated some of it really was. … [SIGH]

(Every time Jon lamented about his lack of direction in this season, Elias pointed in a direction: removing Basira to get Jon to go inside of the coffin, sending Jon&Basira to Svalbard after Jon had been unable to See if The Dark was still a threat. So Elias might react to that one jab, and I would like to hope that Jon has picked up on the pattern and is beginning to guess that Elias is Basira’s intel… But at the same time, it’s Jon, he tends to Miss Big Points.)

- Georgie did the “Knock-knock”! ;w; It was something Melanie had done to Elias, and Elias did it to Tim&Martin afterwards… Melanie and Georgie are friends, is that a habit they got from each other?

- Jon dramatically minimised his own current actions to Georgie (pretending, at first, that he was… more in control and taking care, although LOL, it’s been a Power Feast since he woke up – even without taking into consideration the statements he has extorted recently), casually hid the fact that he only knew about Melanie’s therapy because he had compelled her… but Georgie also lied about the fact that she had “accidentally” walked on Jon:

(MAG145) [KNOCK–KNOCK–KNOCK.] [DOOR OPENS.] GEORGIE: Knock–knock! ARCHIVIST: Oh, G… G–Georgie… Wh– GEORGIE: Oh! Uh… ARCHIVIST: What a… You… GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, em… Is Melanie about? […] ARCHIVIST: I’m… I’m alright. I’m trying to, uh… rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? ‘Cause… I’m pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Oh. W–were you… listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didn’t mean to. You know. These… doors are not that thick.

So she knew he was inside, and pretended otherwise to get a pretext to talk to him a bit… and yet, we clearly see that the bridge is broken between them at the moment. They’re still curious about the other, there is still something, that would need repair… and I’m not sure it ever will be. (And at the moment, I can definitely understand why it doesn’t work between them: because Jon is craving for a clutch, and doesn’t have… much to give, to people who are not having an Exceptionally Great Time either, and are survivors themselves. It’s one thing for them to offer their help, like Daisy did (and back then, Jon had been able to tell that the Archives team was “traumatised” and that a lot of is was because of him). But they don’t owe Jon anything, especially if he’s not working on improving or healing himself, and it’s really not their fault if Jon is allowing himself to sink at the moment – especially after Daisy had worked on pulling him up.)

- Hey! It’s “sad about Sasha” hours.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: I did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive and… working at the steel plant, but it looks like he’s just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. … I really miss having people who know their way around a computer better than I do…! [PAUSE] A bit more digging found a rather… bizarre case.

Hacker of the group who used to dig things up so easily… ;; (And Tim could flirt his way into info.)

- Melanie is doing Amazing, sweetie ;w;

(MAG145) GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, em… Is Melanie about? ARCHIVIST: Melanie…? Uh… Yeah, I… saw her a couple of hours ago. Uh, in the other office, I–I can show you…? GEORGIE: Oh, I’m… sure I can find it. Don’t worry yourself. ARCHIVIST: A–all right. [SPLUTTERS] W–why are you, uh… well. Here? I–if it’s not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: … It is a bit. It’s not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! You’re taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: She… told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. GEORGIE: … Well, you don’t need to sound quite so psyched about it. She gets… nervous travelling there alone. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yes, o–o–of course. I–I forget you two know each other.

On the one hand: yes, that therapist gave me the creeps, the whole tape recorder thing was suspicious as hell, we haven’t heard from Melanie directly since then, she’s been described as “quiet”, the fact that she doesn’t like to go there alone… all are worrisome and screaming “Web!” a bit.

On the other hand: Melanie has been going outside, is calmer, is able to call on a willing friend for help… and it sounds like Actual Therapy Actually Helping Her To Get Some Inner Peace?

So wait&see, but I wouldn’t rule out (entirely) that it might be actual therapy at work, here.

(A detail on the Archives’ landscape, too: there are actually two offices! Jon’s and… another.)

- HMMMM, so: the whole episode contained the fact that The Web manipulated an Archivist, an Archivist who was resisting against their own patron and got tied to another avatar who also might have had Reservations about their own god (so two Fears neutralising each other?); avatars who were roughly the same age; one of them being described as an “anchor” for the other, despite the distance…

… Martin, where are you, and does The Web have plans for you and Jon, too…

MAG146 is out and OUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFF, siren alarms, I guess??? Especially when it’s about the potential second meaning (… though, at this point, with Jon-since-MAG141, I’d think we’re way past “that point” from MAG146′s title, and deeper than this).

Interesting concept because it appeared on multiple occasions: it was because of it that Naomi started to see the Lonely field in MAG013, Albrecht had noticed a change around it in MAG023, Jason North’s doom started with it in MAG037, Philip Brown pointed out that The Dark was beginning with it in MAG052, Tim mentioned things changing starting around it in MAG104… And, of course, it screams Jon-Jon-Jon (heck, Elias even described Jon’s behaviour around metaphorical ones in MAG092 in his Speech about how Jon had chosen everything (INFORMED CONSENT SAID HI, BASTARD.)); or The Distortion, since the concept had appeared a lot around it (things changing with it in MAG047; Michael using it to describe his Becoming in MAG101; Helen mentioning it in relation to Jon and his fears in MAG143).

So. Spiral statement? Or something about resistance/tolerance? … Jon visiting Elias in prison? *weeps* (Second meaning potentially ;; if it is about Jon…)

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #mag145 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #long post/ #tma spoilers/ #*insert megumi hayashibara's 'midgnight blue' here*

[tma-latino]

MAG060 – Caso 9721207 –“El efecto observador”

Testimonio de Rosa Meyer, sobre el constante sentimiento de ser vigilada.

[Disclaimer/ Aviso]

[MAG059] | x | [MAG061]

#tma #MAG060 #the magnus archives #the magnus archives pod #magnus pod #Rusty Quill #tma translation #tma spanish translation #traduccion en español

[tma-latino]

MAG062 – Caso 0080307 – “Primera edición”

El sujeto es Mary Keay, grabado el 3 de julio de 2008.

[Disclaimer/ Aviso]

[MAG061] | x | [MAG063]

#tma #MAG062 #the magnus archives #the magnus archives pod #magnus pod #Rusty Quill #tma translation #tma spanish translation #traduccion en español

[soveryanon]

Aaand reviewing time for MAG142.

- I have no idea whether it was a conscious decision or a recording accident, but Jonny’s voice, when reading the episode title… was different – less filtered, closer, with more “grain”? And it was telling you, right away, that something would be off and different.

- VA E. Lockley was… incredible and yeah, the woman’s delivery (the distress, the stuttering, the messiness, the slightly rambly bits)… made her feel even more present and “close” than Helen (in MAG047) for me. Character-with-her-own-situation, who got messed up, who is in distress, who is not fine and is trying not to crumble. There were even a few parallel with her experience (after the Buried encounter) and Jon’s, post-Prentiss, that made her even more heartbreaking: like him, she did physio (MAG050, Tim: “Well, there was a police woman asking after you. You know, the one who came to look into Gertrude. […] Uh… yesterday. You were at physical therapy.”); unlike him, she went to therapy (MAG058, Martin: “Look, look, you just got to let me work through this. Alright? I suggested therapy, but he just says no, so–”) and… like she said, “did everything [she] was supposed to do”:

(MAG142) WOMAN: I had pretty bad, uh, nightmares, claustrophobia, I mean… Obviously, right? But, uh, but–but I did my physio, and, you know, talked wi–with the counsellor they gave me? Look, I did everything I was supposed to, and–and yeah, I… I guess I was fine.

… and everything got utterly ruined because of what Jon did to her, while she doesn’t even have enough knowledge to blame him. But we… we know. It was very important to hear her voice indeed? And Martin handled her with proper care – not doubting for one instant that she was telling the truth, leaving her space to tell her story, validating her, even though the story wasn’t what he wanted to hear… or what we wanted to hear, either. (And because of the content of the story: no, there is no way she could have been written as lying or putting things out of proportions – she even pointed out how the police would treat her, it would be absolutely insensitive to write someone filing a harassment complaint as lying or misinterpreting things. So, everything she told really happened to her in the TMA-verse, even though it’s not a pleasant truth.)

- … yeah, so we have Jon going after “stories”: they’re not “statements” anymore, he didn’t use his markers (“Statement begins/Statement ends”) with Floyd and the woman didn’t make any mention of them either, nor did he give the date and the person doing the recording – we only had an indication about the date thanks to the (meta) episode case. It’s not about archiving, it’s about… consumption. And he’s not receiving the stories either: he’s extorting them, forcing people, instead of them coming to him (as statement-givers coming to the Institute). It’s even more symbolically significant that Daisy went to talk to Martin right after the woman’s departure since… so far, Daisy had been the only person we knew for sure had been forced to give her statement, back in MAG061, as she pointed out to Basira later:

(MAG061) ARCHIVIST: Whatever you like! Fourteen years, you must have seen a number of paranormal things. DAISY: And you want me to tell you about them? ARCHIVIST: I–I… DAISY: Okay. ARCHIVIST: What? DAISY: Okay! I’ll give you a statement, about how I got my first section 31. You look surprised. ARCHIVIST: I mean, I was largely asking as a formality. Basira didn’t give the impression you were the… sharing sort. DAISY: Maybe you caught me in a good mood. […] ARCHIVIST: Right! Thank you! Are you quite alright? DAISY: No. I never told that story to anyone except my old Sergeant. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I, uh… DAISY: I should go.

(MAG091) BASIRA: Just let him go. DAISY: You don’t know what he is. You don’t know what it’s like to have your secrets pulled out like teeth, just because he asked?

It had been… softer and subtler, when he had done that – it was striking that Daisy didn’t want to talk, until Jon began to probe and she began to accept (Jon himself had been surprised by the change); the compulsion had only been confirmed by her harsh departure and the way she recalled the events. Meanwhile, the woman, in MAG142, was absolutely preyed upon, cornered, violated, and her voice actor did a fantastic job? But oh Lord, was it so, so hard to listen to, even without factoring in that it was Jon doing that to her. I think we’d never had something this violent and desperate…?

Meanwhile, from Jon’s portrayal in MAG142 (two weeks ago) and what we saw in MAG141, he seems to be getting more… frantic? He waited for a while before interacting with the woman, but he almost jumped on Floyd, although he had just been told they would still be sailing for two days (so they would be stuck on the same boat for a while). And it does… kind of fit with something we know about Jon:

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: And you can’t just give me all of the statements? ELIAS: Jon, even when you had them all at your disposal, you barely got through one statement a week. Why do you think that is? It takes its toll on you. And I know you’ve had problems with moderation.

… that little problem about “moderation”. (Which was probably tying in with the fact that he used to smoke before the Institute, and has been back to smoking at least by the end of season 2, when he left Leitner to have a cigarette – and he still had cigarettes on him when Daisy went through his stuff in MAG091 and with Gerry in MAG111. Not to mention the whole Web lighter affair, whatever it’s actually doing to him.) It’s also… kinda… relevant… that The Woman in MAG142 described him as being fed through her reopened trauma:

(MAG142) WOMAN: His eyes, like… his eyes, like, we–were… drinking in every fragment of my misery. I can’t… It… [PAUSE] And then it was over. And he looked… he looked at me like he’d just eaten… like, a perfectly cooked steak.

Because Elias had narrated Beholding’s influence on “The Archivist” as creating hunger, precisely:

(MAG120) ELIAS: And at last, the Archivist looks up. At last, he looks into The Eye that sees all, and knows all, and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The Ceaseless Watcher of all that is, and all that was; the voracious, infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever.

Fuck you, Beholding.

… and I’ll allow myself One Joke about the whole ordeal, because:

(MAG115) ARCHIVIST: [DEEP SIGH] I suppose in some ways it’s strange I’m not a vegetarian yet, what with everything I know. But… I rather think someone in my position has to take their small pleasures where they can, and if it occasionally delights some grotesque meat-god, well… c’est la vie.

You REALLY should have tried to go vegetarian back then, Jon :/

- … Which makes it a bit curious that he… was described as “tired”, then?

(MAG142) MARTIN: … Ah, uh, alright. Hum… Did he… [SIGH] … Did he look like he hadn’t slept in like– WOMAN: Mm–mm. MARTIN: –a week? WOMAN: Yep, uh… MARTIN: … Right…

Like, obviously, it was… in a dark humour way, hilarious that Martin was able to guess it was Jon with just “someone from your Institute stalking me” and that his way of describing Jon was to point out the lack of sleep – Jon Is A Perpetual Tired Man and this is the man Martin has a crush on. Confirmation that it’s not about physical appearances (Canonically mlm and hot Tim was RIGHT THERE, Martin, and you went for “that”, and we still don’t know why or when it began, but there’s still so much room to shame your tastes.)

But you would think that… if Jon had been going around pulling statements out of (unwilling) people, he would be/look… rested? Well? So: was she the first one? Was Jon trying to avoid his dreams, until he snapped? Is this a matter of “starving” and only going for it when he was too hungry…?

- ;; Jon looked… so one-dimensional in that state? And as Martin said amongst his hypotheses, all “instinct”. Which makes me think about three things, and they’re not happy:

* Mike smelling a prey, actually?

(MAG075, Stephen Walker) “It was as Grant was making his gradual ascent that I saw the man with the scar. He was stood there, just across the street, watching us. […] His pale eyes were entirely focused on Grant making his excruciating way up the ladder. If he noticed me watching him, he gave no sign of it.” (MAG091) MIKE: A… uh, a Paris skyscraper, was it you said? I honestly, I, I can’t say I recall it in detail, but that does… sounds about right. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track.

(DO YOU KEEP TRACK, JON.)

* The whole thing about the Creature Under Alexandria reaching for Sergeant Walter Heller (especially since… Heller might have had a Spooky encounter before meeting it? So was it attracted to that story?) and HUM…

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: So it’s… it’s back to breadcrumbs, and statements, and risking my life talking to things that barely remember how to be human anymore? […] Am I… Elias, am I still human? ELIAS: Jon, what does human even mean? I mean, really? You still bleed, you can still die. And your will is still your own, mostly. That’s more than can be said for a lot of the “real’ humans out there. … You’re worried about ending up like that thing, lurking in the dirt under the streets of Alexandria? Don’t be. Just do what you need to, and you’ll be fine. Understood?

Elias, why are you so full of lies. (Though it’s possible that, indeed, Jon didn’t do “what he needs to”, and that he’s been… doing extra-work/is out of control. But MMMM. MMMMM.)

* *CRIES IN TIM*

(MAG114) TIM: So, why don’t you “Archivist” me, then? Just pull it straight out. ARCHIVIST: Because I don’t want to! I am not your enemy, Tim. TIM: [DISMISSIVELY] Like that matters! These things aren’t human. It’s… instinct. You can’t not. ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] I’m still me, Tim. [TIM HUFFS] I’m still… me. TIM: [EXHALES DEEPLY] … You know what? You’re actually right.

LIKE WOW??? RUDE??? TIM STOKER DIDN’T GO OUT WITH A BANG FOR THIS??? (It’s… super-upsetting, to me, that Jon Is Currently what Tim had accused him of being/turning into back at the time ORZ ORZ And if we get Jon back, and/or if he’s confronted about it, I wonder if… the fact that he would be disappointing Tim would be a point to be made.)

- So, turns out that MAG141 indeed wasn’t a first try, and there is the obvious question of… how long Jon has been extorting live-statements here and there, since the fact that we didn’t hear any recording of the woman beforehand means that we haven’t been hearing Everything of Jon’s spook-related activities before MAG141. Possibilities regarding the turning point:

* Since Jon woke up and was released from the hospital (after MAG122).

* Since… after the coffin? Given Elias’s comment in MAG135 (“Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.”), I don’t really feel like it could have been a thing before – I mean, the way Jon behaved in MAG141 and was described in MAG142 screamed “very willing to use his connection to their patron”… And Jon had mentioned a few things after the coffin:

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I don’t… like interacting with the rest of the Institute these days. The way they look at me, I– … I don’t know. I don’t know what they’ve heard, what the rumours going around are, but… they have definitely heard something…! [SIGH] And they can’t wait until they don’t have to talk to me anymore. Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time. [SIGH] But I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me.

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: Ever since I crawled out of that damn coffin, I feel like I’ve been… adrift. Filling in blanks and diving into History, but only…! [EXASPERATED SIGH] The breadcrumbs I’m finding are… stale. Old. … What the hell is The Watcher’s Crown? […] I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out of time somehow – and I don’t even know where to go! What to look for, o–or… [EXHALE] Just casting around blindly for more clues to just… drop into my lap. Everyone else is… running towards something, or running away, and I… [SIGH] I don’t know what I’m doing. [PAUSE] [SIGH] I’m just tired. Think I might go lie down for a while. Get a cup of tea. [HUFF]

(Though, I feel like this option is reaching and stretching… a lot: because DUH, the staff would have had a lot of reasons to be wary of Jon or of the Archives in general without even factoring in the possibility of rumours that Jon had been mentally manhandling people (he… was losing it a bit already in season 2? He ran away and got accused of murder for two months before coming back? He spent six months in a coma after a wax museum exploded? Tim was ranting to everyone about being bound to the Archives, and people thought it was mostly depression, but then he died in said explosion?); and DUH, Jon would feel aimless after the coffin, when his return to the Institute had been a succession of settling back in, trying to get updated on the assistants’ current state, saving Melanie from the bullet, almost immediately focusing on the Rescue Daisy mini-arc from episode 128 to 132, leading to her coming back and… then nothing else, no Main Goal anymore, and just time passing.)

The biggest clue that someone could have been happening behind the scene after the coffin is Jon’s intake of statements: there were 10 between MAG122 (February 15th?, Jon waking up) and MAG132 (March 24th, inside of the coffin), including one extracted statement (Breekon’s, MAG128), one tape from Gertrude (with Lucia, MAG130), one live-statement (Jared’s, MAG131) and one recording from Jon (rescuing Daisy, MAG132), so 9 “active” pieces of content in six weeks if you exclude Gertrude’s… and then, only six until the end of May (MAG140), including one recording from Gertrude (MAG137), so five “active” pieces of content in two months if you exclude hers (+ 2 statements read by Martin, if assistants count – they seemed to, back in season 3, since Elias was pushing them to regularly read statements because Jon was “too inconsistent” about it).

* Since after MAG139, because Jon tried to sneak a peek at Peter’s plans and it backfired. It could have the added tragic bits that… Jon had been wary of his Inner Door, told Basira that opening it would mean drowning; and he eventually purposefully tried very hard to Know about something, deliberately… because he was too worried for Martin.

* Since after MAG140 and Basira told him about the plan to Ny-Ålesund.

MAG142 gives more credentials to a change having happened around MAG139/MAG140 on account of the given timeline:

(MAG140) BASIRA: Summer solstice is the 21st of June. So we leave in a fortnight. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. BASIRA: And should arrive about a week before.

(MAG142) WOMAN: Look, life went back to… normal, I… I was fine. Until… [CHOKING] about two weeks ago. MARTIN: And that was when you met J– … Er, one of our employees. WOMAN: … That’s when he showed up.

Which means the succession of events was likely:

MAG139: somewhere at the end of May => MAG140: one day after MAG139 (Jon referred to it as “yesterday”) => events described in MAG142 => Jon&Basira departing => MAG141 (June 11th) => MAG142 (June 12th).

If Jon had been going around taking statements for a long while, I think the woman’s story would have been dated from a few more weeks, or months prior, just to get that point across? Though it’s also possible that, like MAG141, the date is a red herring to keep us into a false sense of (relative) security still: Floyd’s story is mysterious enough that it might contain something that could be used against The Dark, so there is still the possibility that Jon extorted it for that reason… but MAG142 was without hesitation a Buried one, so not actual data, so it has nothing to do with actual information but just about feeding, and we’re slowly running out of rational explanations which could motivate Jon’s sudden harshness (“it’s because it was important information, and just one time, to someone mostly innocent but involved in fishy business with a reccurring character” => “there was no relevant information to the current case, and Jon had done this to people before, and he targeted absolutely innocent people”) so… could be that It All Began just before the trip, or could be that we will discover that it had been going on for longer than that.

- However long Jon has been doing that… I don’t think that the punchline was that he had been utterly lying on tape throughout all of season 4? Honestly, I… wouldn’t find this interesting – I’m too used to twists being that your (unreliable) narrator was actually Evil/Really Bad all along and, precisely, the series had taken a more interesting approach with this in season 1 (with the fact that Jon appeared as pompous and elitist and sceptic and dry… and, okay, was a bit of that, but also scared and trying to hide it), so it would feel a bit of a let-down if that was the case in the end? And we’ve had a few occurrences of Jon not immediately being aware that he was recorded (he hadn’t spotted the tape recorder at first in MAG122 and MAG123, the tape recorder was in Martin’s room in MAG129 when Jon entered), and he acted exactly the same as when he was in control of the recording. When he accidentally compelled Melanie in MAG136, he immediately apologised (which means he knew he had wronged her, which means he still had a spontaneous sense of morals, or at least, of understanding when he was crossing a line and doing something harmful and unwelcome).

One thing that might be true, however: if season 1 showed us one thing, it’s also… that through his recordings, Jon can present the world how he wishes it were. So, if he’s been… extorting and assaulting people for their stories all along, I really don’t think he lied and feigned the empathy for the victims, nor the fact that he was feeling doubts and concern, but more like, that he wished it were as simple as this…? Though it would also come across as a very… unsavoury way to Appeal For His Life – there is a big distinction about sighing about his inhumanity because he’s feeling aimless and unsure of what he’s supposed to do, and doing it while aware that he’d be causing harm here and there.

And the thing with MAG141 and MAG142 is that it’s supposed to feel like a shock; there was no progression(/degression) in Jon’s speeches during the season, no growing apathy towards victims. He kept expressing sadness and uneasiness! Before trying to take a look at Peter’s plan, he had launched into a rant about having “feelings” and “doubts”! It’s not even that he was feeling more and more isolated – since he got Daisy back, they’ve been bonding, Jon confessed to liking her (… and even went to such extremes as listening to The Archers with her). And suddenly, we’re faced with Jon doing… a complete face-heel turn: there is nothing comparable, nothing… progressive between the way he “extracted” Breekon’s statement in MAG128 (partially in defense, because Breekon was on the verge of attacking Basira) and received Jared’s in MAG131 (something that Jared forced on him: Jon had just been told that someone had commanded the attack over the Institute, and Jared went for that form and made it a deal against Jon’s rib), and going… after innocents, as consumption, as food, because statements are a “meal” and he doesn’t care much if that means wrecking people forever. The woman from MAG142 was the most innocent you could ever get: she didn’t know about the Magnus Institute, didn’t want to tell what had happened to her, didn’t even blame Jon for the after-effects and her reopened wounds (“Look. I know that’s not… [CHUCKLE] That is my brain. I’m not blaming him for, for being in my dreams. You know, I guess I can’t! [SNIFF] That’s absurd, right? It’s not… [PAUSE] But I feel like I’m seeing him when I’m awake, as well?” … although we know that it was directly his fault). She didn’t even express contempt or disrespect at Martin; she was calm, her story didn’t involve any shady business. She had her initial trauma and, as she said, she worked and fought by herself to get well (“But, uh, but–but I did my physio, and, you know, talked wi–with the counsellor they gave me? Look, I did everything I was supposed to, and–and yeah, I… I guess I was fine.”) before Jon came in and ruined her life – she can’t work anymore, her whole ability to function has been impacted, she’s in clear distress. What Jon did to her was… absolutely unwarranted and gratuitous. And… honestly, except for willingly launching The Watcher’s Crown, I have trouble picturing what he could possibly do that would be worse than this?

Season 4, at least on tape, hasn’t been Jon’s slow descent into monsterhood; it has been a constant string of Jon expressing doubts, sadness for victims, and trying to regain contact with the assistants. So what happened, for him to suddenly dive in and become so instinctive…? Or if it had always been there, out of record, what was going through Jon’s head…? (What was going though Jon’s head, when he was watching the woman as she was waiting for her date…? Because she was alone, at first, and yet, he didn’t immediately came for her…)

Basically: we’re missing pieces, and that’s the point, but uuuuuh…

- Anyway, meanwhile, I’m guessing that Elias got put into solitary confinement because the amount of [PLEASURED EXHALATION] he must have breathed out in these past two weeks made the guards AND the other inmates too uncomfortable.

- Aaaand the trend of people who had a Beholding-related encounter and are especially uneasy at the Institute keeps going:

(MAG053) GERTRUDE: One other thing. That feeling of being watched… have you ever had it since? WALTER: Well, I wasn’t sure whether to say anything, but… yes, I have, just now. That… funny turn I took on the way down the stairs, I felt it again. All those eyes, watching me.

(MAG060, Rosa Meyer) “Not that I could rest anyway. Those eyes still haunt my dreams, and follow me through the waking world. Even here. Especially… here.”

(MAG142) WOMAN: But I feel like I’m seeing him when I’m awake, as well? I’ve been… I’ve been having a lot of problems, since he talked to me, well, since I talked to him. […] Every time I do, every time I get that… panic just rising up my throat… I see him. He’s there. Not when I look properly. But just at the edge. The corner of my eye. And he’s gone. […] I, I… I can’t… this place… I… I can’t be here. I have to… [OPENING DOOR] MARTIN: Uh, no– WOMAN: Bye!

Which. Is still a possible explanation as to why there are so few Beholding statements outside of the letters addressed to Jonah: because people have to be exceptionally tough to not feel crushed and even more pressured inside of the Institute, if they’ve already been marked/offered to Beholding.

- I… hadn’t really given much thought about it, but actually, the distinction between feeding/being fed from, for the Archivist, might be through respectively live and written statements? Back in season 3, Elias had highlighted to Jon that they were taxing on him, and Jon had mentioned to Georgie that he was experiencing the fears himself, when reading them:

(MAG089) JUDE: It’s like you’re not even listening. You have your god, as I have mine. Feed it, fearlessly and without hesitation, or it will feed on you. ARCHIVIST: But I don’t… I don’t… I mean, I mean, what do I feed it? JUDE: I don’t know? You’re the one it picked. Not a great choice, if you ask me.

(MAG091) MIKE: That’s… that’s all, I think. Since then I’ve embraced my new life; gladly fed that which feeds me.

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: And you can’t just give me all of the statements? ELIAS: Jon, even when you had them all at your disposal, you barely got through one statement a week. Why do you think that is? It takes its toll on you. And I know you’ve had problems with moderation.

(MAG093) ARCHIVIST: You’ve seen monsters? GEORGIE: Not the time, Jon. ARCHIVIST: Right, it’s… it’s just I think I’m turning into one. GEORGIE: Really? That’s… not great. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. Ever since I took this job, I’ve felt a compulsion to read out some of the statements. The ones that really touched the supernatural. And when I do… I… I feel them. I feel their confusion and fear. I tried to write it off, but…

Though Jon doubled-over at the end of MAG094, after the Hellish Five Days covering MAG089 (Jude’s live), MAG091 (Mike’s live), MAG092 (Elias showdown), MAG093 (written statement), MAG094 (Georgie’s live). And a written statement was enough to perk him up in MAG107. But I wonder if, now that Jon has… “become something else”, the live-statements aren’t precisely feeding him, and more tempting, while the written ones make the Beholding feed from him…? The woman in MAG142 was insistent over the fact that Jon looked… replenished, after he was done with her, and Jon told Basira in MAG141 that Floyd’s was helping him to go “full power”, so it definitely looks like it’s the actual way to feed for an Archivist… while it used to be pretty neutral, effects-wise, before his coma?

(And even in season 4, Jon didn’t sound that much lively in MAG131, after taking Jared’s, so…? Was that because Jared is a spook, and it’s less nourishing? Or is it because a new dependency/feeding system has grown alongside Jon’s powers, developing through the ordeals – after the coffin in MAG132, and/or after he tried to take a look at The Lonely in MAG139?)

- Amongst things that have apparently changed, relatedly to Jon’s powers… the effects of taking live-statements did: Daisy and Basira only mentioned dreams, but the woman in MAG142 made it clear that it wasn’t just that. It sounds like, additionally to the dreams, Jon re-traumatised her (since she has been plagued with panic attacks every time she’s triggered, although she used to be able to handle it), which makes her relive the fear of The Buried… with additional Feeling Of Being Watched. So, feeding both The Buried and Beholding? (How come only The Lonely is financing the Institute and getting all chummy with them, then, if Beholding has the potential to give back to the other Fears the snacks that had managed to get away?)

So why did the live-statements Jon extorted have different effects than usual? Multiple parameters have changed since the ones from the first three seasons. Is it because he’s more The Archivist now, after having chosen, and this is what true full Archivists do to people? Is it because The Watcher’s Crown is coming closer and Beholding is reaching its peak power? I’m reminded of Smirke’s letter (MAG138), when The Eye was precisely haunting both his dreams and his daily world, and that’s how Smirke came to the conclusion that Jonah was on the verge of doing something regrettable. Other option: … Assuming there wasn’t any tape recorder indeed: is it because the statement hadn’t been recorded, back then, and the recorders alleviate the Beholding effect…? (=> I’m still amongst the people considering hard that the tape recorders are actually Web, so, it could be a matter of hijacking Beholding’s dominion a bit…?)

- ;; Whether The Watcher’s Crown attempt is planned for the end of season 4 or for later into season 5… you can feel, meta-wise, that Something Beholding is coming closer and closer. There had been very few statements about The Eye throughout the entire series so far (full-on Eye: MAG023, MAG53, MAG060, MAG120) and… we’re already at three new ones in season 4 – MAG127, MAG138, MAG142.

- One of the themes of the episode seems to be about the temptation of the Dread Powers: Lonely for Martin, Beholding for Jon, Hunt for Daisy.

(MAG142) MARTIN: Th–the worst part is I don’t even want to talk to him about it. I’m just… [SIGH] I suppose I’m just getting comfortable with the distance. [SIGH] Cut off. [DRY CHUCKLE] “Lonely”. [INHALE] Mind you, Peter’s not wrong. It really is easier than actually just trying to communicate with people. […] They told you about Elias, right? DAISY: Yeah…. Basira said. Don’t like him being alive. Trying not to think about it too much. Don’t want to get too angry. Start to… hear the… blood. […] MARTIN: I mean… I guess. It still sounds really dangerous. DAISY: Yeaaah. Wanted to go with them, protect them, but… [PAUSE] Life’s always more complicated than that, isn’t it? MARTIN: Not really.

Daisy got enough distance, in the coffin, to delimitate herself separately from The Hunt, which had shaped her life until now – it’s a looming threat, and keeping away from it means accepting sacrifices, in the form of not being there for the people she cares about (now, “Basira and Jon”: not Basira anymore):

(MAG132) DAISY: I’m sc–scared, but… Mm–mm… But I… I feel more, feel more m–me than I have for years. Maybe all my life… The, The Hunt was me, b–but I don’t, I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need… it…  I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life. Telling me who to chase, how to hurt them. I never needed to think… who I was outside of that. But down here, where I… I can’t hear the… blood anymore, I d–, I don’t… I don’t know who I am without, without the chase… I just know… that I… I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want… to be… better…

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES] She is trying to keep a clear head. Stay away from The Hunt as much as possible. You valued her purpose. Her resolve. The sort of things–

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: Is Daisy coming? BASIRA: … No. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. I, I–I just thought– BASIRA: We’ve talked about it. If The Hunt takes her again… we don’t know if she’s coming back. And neither of us want that. ARCHIVIST: … No, o–of–of course.

As it was presented with the last two episodes, Jon crashed and burned himself through Beholding; whatever he is right now, however he thinks, he’s deep in – and though he may (or may not) have been initially trying to use his powers for good, or with a goal in mind… it’s now about consuming, about feeding, about indulging, whether he had realised it or not. Meanwhile, Martin is seeing appeal in the Lonely – Peter’s magic/management is doing its work (and Gerry had warned us that the Lukases were good at grooming their own). Respectively reformed, currently into it, and tempted to give in, because the powers offer something they crave: being a fighter and having the power to protect or to strike at those who offended her for Daisy, getting information, knowledge and obtaining new pieces to complete the ongoing puzzles for Jon, being at peace of mind and not heartbroken anymore for Martin.

(- And Martin has been closing himself off without… realising to which extent, apparently:

(MAG142) DAISY: Yeah. Just a… a bit empty around here. You know? MARTIN: Not really. DAISY: Melanie’s out, and… [EXHALE] Jon and Basira’re still off. Bit worried. But they can take care of themselves, you know? MARTIN: Again, not really. [SHORT HUMOURLESS LAUGHTER] No one talks to me anymore. […] Anyway. So, what’s this field trip they’re on? DAISY: They, uh… they didn’t tell you? MARTIN: [DRY CHUCKLE] No, I… What. … [QUICKLY] Daisy, where have they gone? DAISY: You know that town in Norway? MARTIN: What? I… Wai– Wh–what?! You don’t mean Ny-Ålesund? DAISY: Yyyeah. They reckon there’s a ritual they need to, you know… MARTIN: Yeah, but Peter didn’t even men…! [OPENS DRAWERS, SHUFFLES THROUGH THINGS] I don’t believe this!

Basira had mentioned that she had stopped trying to reach for him, after his mother’s death; but Martin had accepted to cut off from Jon entirely, and has shown multiple times that he’s been relying on Peter for information. Maybe Basira stopped trying, but it’s mostly… that Martin made himself so inaccessible. And there is something very fitting (though sad) with that? Because indeed, Martin kept trying to make connections with people and being rejected or betrayed – his attentions never meeting their goal. He took care of his mother for years; he was quite mistreated by Jon even when trying to make things a bit better, or less bittersweet (prime example being the beginning of MAG069, when he brought tea for Jon, and was turned away). And as he spat to Elias’s face in MAG118, he was very aware that the “good” moments he had spent with Not!Sasha had been cruel lies, that he felt bad for spending with Sasha’s murderer? And his relationship with Tim had deteriorated through season 2 already, reaching the point in season 3 when… Tim didn’t factor him in at all, focused on his revenge and didn’t spare any thought for Martin because he didn’t know him like he knew Sasha? And Martin never really managed to form any connection with Melanie nor Basira, and Daisy used to frighten him. So, the temptation of the Lonely makes a lot of sense… and maybe Daisy will manage to pierce through it? She’s been a constant surprise in season 4 – actually bonding with Jon, and now managing to… have a meaningful talk with Martin? The fact that they shut down the tape recorder while still together might mean that they’ll keep talking and that it… could do Martin some good? That they could act on something together?)

- The clock in the background made it sound like the scene was taking place in Elias’s office again? (I think the sound the door made was the same, too?) So, “Assistant to Peter Lukas”, really? Nah. Martin has been slowly taking over all of Elias’s tasks: taking care of the Institute’s administration

and

receiving

the complaints about Jon.

(I’m not even joking: the first time ever that we heard Elias talk… was when he relayed to Jon that Naomi had filed a complaint about him, in MAG017. And now, it’s MARTIN taking care of even that. I don’t want Martin to become the new Head Director because that can mean anything good, but UUUUUh at the same time. All these tiny ways in which he is literally replacing Elias are hilarious but, accumulated, are beginning to get suspicious.)

Plus, I do love

(MAG142) WOMAN: I don’t, a– Look, I just need to, to talk to a… a–a manager, or something? MARTIN: Okay, uh, well, uh… Uh, yeah, actually, [CHUCKLE] I’m a, I’m a manager. G–go on?

How more and more confident he’s getting at Bullshitting… but AT THE SAME TIME. Martin is managing Peter and used to manage Jon. He does deserve to be called “a manager”, okay.

- MARTIN IS STILL A BEHOLDING BABY!! After the (glorious) mess that was MAG100, Martin had been the only one of the assistants to take a live-statement: Tim’s, in MAG104, though, okay, Tim was also an assistant himself and it was… probably a Beholding effect that allowed him to be so articulate? But Martin technically took another one with MAG142, and the woman’s story was clearly messier and less “fluid”, she had a lot of trouble explaining things, and the point that it wasn’t the first time that she was telling her story (“And I start to tell him… everything. About the job, about the collapse, ab–about the hand… And more than I told you, even, and–and…”)… but still. Beholding might not be giving up on him, uh?

Also, it’s Aza’s pet-theory that Martin might be compelling/manipulating people to do what he wants by asking “Please” (even though there is no static), and MMMM… both Tim and the woman uncoiled and began to talk after he said that word…

(MAG104) MARTIN: Please. TIM: [EXHALEs] Fine. Fine. I’ll tell him in person, when he gets back from… wherever it is that he’s vanished to. MARTIN: China. And if you try to tell him in person, you’ll just end up at each other’s throats. You know you will. TIM: … [BITTERLY] Statement of Timothy Stoker, on the disappearance of... of my brother, Danny, four years ago. June 14th, 2017.

(MAG142) MARTIN: Just… just tell me what happened. Hum, please. I–I won’t judge. [SILENCE] WOMAN: Alright. Uh. So, you… [SIGH] You’ve, uh… you’ve got to understand my job, okay?

(+ Melanie relenting when he went “Melanie. Melanie, please.” in MAG118, etc.)

- Anyway, I’m so so glad that Martin’s pettiness has been skyrocketing in season 4.

(MAG082) DAISY: Well, if your witnesses appear back in this universe, maybe the situation will change. Otherwise, it’s an easy choice: answer my question or I pin it on you. MARTIN: Y–you can’t! Th–that’s not how this works. [SILENCE] … Is it? DAISY: Let me tell you how this works, Mr. Blackwood. I’ve got a hell of a workload, no partner and full operational discretion to make this whole situation go away. That means you help me or I make things very unpleasant for you.

(MAG142) DAISY: I said… I don’t want to talk about it. [SILENCE] MARTIN: I know. [PAUSE] Not nice being interrogated, is it? DAISY: I… [EXHALE] Oh. MARTIN: Yeah. [SILENCE] DAISY: [INHALE] I’m sorry, Martin.

February 2017 vs. June 2018, it was sixteen months ago, and he didn’t let that go. FORGIVE AND FORGET? NO AHAHAHAH RESENT AND REMEMBER.

- AND I’M SO GLAD THAT DAISY APOLOGISED… that she understood on her own why Martin was so petty and cutting at her – that she had given him reasons to!

(And uuuh… that parallel between Daisy-towards-Basira and Martin-towards-Jon… I didn’t know how much I wanted Daisy and Martin to have an Actual Conversation until now, but… they work… so fine… hopeless pining gays aware that their crushes are fucking idiots throwing themselves into things without plans, all of them…)

- Uh! So Martin listened to MAG061’s tape!

(MAG142) MARTIN: I listened to your old statement. Wasn’t your partner down there? DAISY: Yeah. Didn’t find him. MARTIN: You don’t wanna go get him? DAISY: I’m not going back. MARTIN: Hm! I thought you would have at least tried, or–

(As an aside, we know Jon had taken the tape along with him when he went into the coffin to rescue Daisy…)

So why and when did Martin listen to that specific statement and remember about that detail…? (He’s usually… notoriously pretty bad at cross-checking information or remembering names from one statement to another, see how he didn’t remember about “Rayner” back in season 3.)

- Speaking of tapes, there were a few things:

(MAG142) MARTIN: I should probably try to get him this tape, let him know what happened, that someone came in to… But then, ahah, would that just come across as an accusation? Like, because I don’t wanna… And then, then I guess he’d… hear this bit as well, so… I… I… [LONG EXHALE] What do I do…? […] DAISY: … [INHALE] You recording, or…? MARTIN: Hm? Uh, oh… Oh, no, there was– Hang on… [CLICK.]

The fact that the woman’s complaint and story was recorded was a conscious decision from Martin, or at least, he was aware of the recording (=> it didn’t… sneakily begin to record without him noticing). But it’s strange that the woman didn’t mention any tape recorder with Jon when he preyed on her – maybe it was there, hidden, but maybe there wasn’t any…? If that’s the case, why…? (…………… if it was recorded, that means there might be a hidden stash of… encounters like this, of Jon pressuring people into giving their statements…)

- We got quite the roundabout of Martin’s ambivalent bits this episode: he was good towards the woman (treating her with the respect she deserved), expressed offense and disgust at Jon’s actions………………… and then right away, went back to being Considerate Of Jon’s Feelings and to worrying over him the instant he was given the incentive:

(MAG142) MARTIN: Uh, but you didn’t give me your– [DOOR CLOSES] … name. [SIGH] [RUFFLING PAPER] [SILENCE] [SIGH] … What the hell do I do with that?! I mean, Christ, Jon, that’s… that’s not okay! Oh, that can’t– that can’t… I mean, it’s not him, is it? Not, not really? It’s, what, addiction, instinct, maybe mind control, something like that? I… can’t believe he’d choose to do something like that. … No, no, I, I can’t think like that, though, I, I can’t let myself, ‘cause I mean, if, if he‘s already gone, then all of this is just… […] MARTIN: No, no, it’s… thank you, I just… [CLOSES DRAWER] For God’s sake, can he not stay safe for like, for like ten minutes?! DAISY: I don’t think that’s an option for him anymore. MARTIN: Yeah, I mean, sure… [SLAMS A DRAWER SHUT] But he just…! He doesn’t think! He always just immediately charges straight off into danger with whatever… whatever half-arsed plan o–occurs to him at the time! I don’t get it!

… It’s probably not a good thing that he’s… so prompt to getting worried over Jon instead of reconsidering things through his actions (it’s like he had… immediately forgotten the woman’s story as soon as Daisy explained that Jon was going into Danger territory) but… it makes sense with Martin’s point of view – because he had agreed to some sacrifice for the others’ and Jon’s well-being, and, indeed, if he were to accept that Jon is gone… then, it means that it was partially for naught – unless Martin manages to find New Reasons. (But it kind of confirms that Martin really doesn’t have many things he cares for/about left in the world…)

-  Whatever is happening with Jon, it’s either not one of the options that Martin considered, either a mix of all of them (“addiction, instinct, maybe mind control”)? We know that Jon has had ~problems with moderation~ and Jon had discovered and acknowledged that he was getting addicted to written-statements, back in season 3, without… giving it much thought:

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

And the way Jon was described kind of remind me of Trevor’s relationship with The Hunt? (MAG056, “In the early 80s, I was deep in the grip of my twin addictions. As I mentioned, after a while, the hunt became an addiction of its own. Of the two, I’ve always found heroin the easier one to quit. […] But the hunt… the hunt is a purpose. It’s not just a way to get through the day, it’s a reason for there to be a day at all.”)

There has been so much talk about “choices” this season that… the bottom line will probably be that yes, Jon did choose it and will be aware of it. Either it was something he was trying to get under control, for a Greater Plan (trying to Power Up to fight The Dark?), either it was mainly hunger when he began to do these things but… despite Martin’s repulsion at the idea, I don’t think the answer will be anything less than “yes, maybe he was influenced, but Jon did choose it”…?

- You can feel that Daisy is a bit older/more experienced than the others and… it’s interesting that, in the end, she’s knowledgeable about human behaviours and able to decipher them?

(MAG142) DAISY: I, I mean, it’s pretty standard stuff. MARTIN: What?! DAISY: Used to see it all the time back in the force, especially with the Section’d. Not like there’s… “normal” trauma, you know? But it’s pretty common. The most important thing becomes control, engaging on your own terms. Even when it’s stupid or dangerous. Anything to not feel helpless.

(She was Section’d for fourteen years, she had been working in the police for sixteen years in December 2016, so she’s at the very least 35-ish years old, while Jon&Martin are around 30.)

AND I LOVED HOW SHE REMINDED MARTIN THAT SHE USED TO BE A DETECTIVE…

(MAG142) MARTIN: … Yeah. [LONG INHALE] I suppose. [LONG EXHALE] You’re… you’re pretty observant, you know? DAISY: Detective, remember? MARTIN: Yeah, you did mention. Would have thought Basira would’ve had more sense, though. DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes.

Elias has been nagging Basira, calling her “detective” (and Georgie called her one in MAG122, and Peter referred to her as such in MAG134) but… it was Daisy, officially – Basira was only a Police Constable. Daisy had it in her to lean towards Beholding, uh…? And it’s nice to see that Daisy didn’t have that title for nothing? And it’s interesting to see the contrast between her and Basira – with Daisy, initially being presented as savage and violent (a “rabid dog” according to Elias), actually attuned to the way people work, and Basira, quieter and “soft” (according to Daisy in MAG061), seemingly level-headed… being actually the impulsive and chaotic one.

- But WOOPS.

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: So what’s the plan? BASIRA: I’m getting us passage on a boat heading up there. ARCHIVIST: … Right. BASIRA: I bring all the guns from Daisy’s old stash, you bring the spook you used to mess up that delivery guy. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Wh… at? That’s it? [PAUSE] Christ, I thought my plans were half-arsed. BASIRA: It’s all about when we go. ARCHIVIST: … I don’t follow. BASIRA: Summer solstice is the 21st of June. So we leave in a fortnight. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. BASIRA: And should arrive about a week before. No danger of sunset or darkness for a long time. Stands to reason that they will be at their weakest.

(MAG141) ARCHIVIST: You were the one who suggested we go by boat. BASIRA: Didn’t think I… urgh… [SNIFF] … I hadn’t really done proper boats, before…

Confirmation that Basira barely has any plan for Ny-Ålesund and is mostly planning to improvise.

- Here’s hope that Martin talking with Daisy will help a bit to get him out of his shell… Hilariously, Elias had warned Martin about getting too secluded?!

(MAG138) MARTIN: I think he wants me to join The Lonely. ELIAS: Then it sounds like you have a decision to make. […] Don’t forget to keep in touch, Martin. There are so many people in here, but without one’s friends… [DOOR LOCKING] it does get rather lonely.

And Daisy came in and was the surprise!friend. At the very least, Martin got another demonstration that Peter is not trustworthy when it comes to the information he shares (or doesn’t share). Martin, despite his official wariness, has been relying on him a great deal, but maybe the news that Jon hoped out to stop another ritual, and that Peter didn’t even deem it worth it to notify Martin or to provide help, will allow distrust to sink in again…? (Oooh, I hope we will hear Martin confronting Peter about it, because Martin will probably be deliciously snappy and cutting…)

- … So Melanie had been “quiet” and now she’s away again (“Melanie’s out, and… [EXHALE] Jon and Basira’re still off.”), and we haven’t heard from her since her first session with that therapist, and I’m Worried About Melanie. And on that subject, I liked how Daisy casually supports Melanie’s past intention to kill Elias:

(MAG142) MARTIN: I thought you believed him…! You were doing all of his dirty work. DAISY: Well, wasn’t willing to call his bluff. Not the same thing as “believing”. Just too big a risk. MARTIN: … Not for Melanie. DAISY: Well, maybe she was the only one with any sense. Even if he was telling the truth [EXHALE], if we all… died… There are worse things.

… because we definitely know that she didn’t have much sense given that it was confirmed that she had been infected by the bullet.

(But hey, Daisy, give yourself some credit:

(MAG092) ELIAS: Ah, of course. Er, sometimes I forget how new you all are to this. Basira is now tied to the Institute. All of you are. Like fingers on a hand. And I am the beating heart of it. Should I, or the Institute, be destroyed, you will all, unfortunately, follow suit. MELANIE: Wait, what? TIM: Yup, that sounds about right. ELIAS: And it would not be a pleasant death. DAISY: Bullshit! ELIAS: Then shoot me. Just squeeze the trigger, and watch the only person you care about die screaming. Your last connection to humanity. Do it. BASIRA: Daisy…

You did call it “bullshit”, back then!)

- It’s quite impressive how much Elias has managed to be omnipresent even in absentia in season 4, but especially in this episode. The scene seems to take place in his office; we got reminders of how he had trapped Daisy to work for him; he’s still an element threatening Daisy to tip over; and he’s in prison… but still a bit here, somehow.

(Urk, he had mentioned that Jon was “at a very delicate stage right now” in MAG127, hence him making sure that Jon couldn’t get in contact with him… but I wonder if, upon his return from the Pole, Jon will get visitation rights because… stuff happened.)

- And what Jon is thinking/doing/meaning is… a gigantic mystery right now. It was a weird episode in that regard, because the first half of the episode was presenting him as a Monster, as absolutely… a danger? A threat? A “It” violating people and feeding from them? Because even if he wasn’t aware of the apparently new Beholding effects, Jon was absolutely conscious and reminded of the dreams plaguing statement-givers:

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: Shame about the dreams; I would avoid them if I could.

(MAG132) DAISY: I realised you were in my dreams. Reliving t… this. The coffin. You were there. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no. One night, you turn up in a new shirt. Didn’t fit you. Not your style. I didn’t think much of it, it was just a d–, a dream. Then you come back from the States and… guess what you’re wearing. ARCHIVIST: Oh… DAISY: Realised what was happening then. Realised you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: It, uh… Hm. Is, uh… Weird question, but… I… [EXHALE] I haven’t seen you in my dreams? The last couple of weeks? […] So… no more dreams. DAISY: Not of you and your weird eyes. Just the coffin. ARCHIVIST: Is that better…? DAISY: ’T’s mine. ARCHIVIST: … right.

(MAG141) BASIRA: And now he’s going to see you in his dreams as he relives that for the rest of his life! ARCHIVIST: [INHALE SHARPLY] BASIRA: Because… because a tape recorder told you to do it?! ARCHIVIST: Yes, Basira, he is. And I am sorry about that. But we needed it. Anyway: you’re the one who wants to be like Gertrude. [SILENCE] You think she’d give a damn about a few bad dreams? BASIRA: … No. ARCHIVIST: No. She got the job done, and didn’t care about the costs. BASIRA: But I thought you did.

… and still Did What He Did, and has forced himself on people, and is enjoying it, and… messed up the woman (and potentially Floyd – his stories were about travelling by sea, can he still work as a sailor if he starts getting panic attacks?! – and potentially… others).

But then, the second half of the episode rolled in and insisted on his human sides and qualities and the fact that he was a victim, too. It made sense for Daisy (since she got in touch with the Jon who doubted and was “moping around”), it made sense for Martin (because, as much as he’s able to snap and take none of Jon’s shit, he’s also showed a propensity to making excuses for him, hence Tim’s bitterness in season 2), but it was still… a weird mix. Because you were shown someone suffering and in distress, and right afterwards told that her tormentor was in a bad place and deserved to be loved and for people to worry for his well-being and state of mind…? It’s indeed good to get confirmation that what Jon has experienced left its marks on him, since we had glimpses of it before:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: And give Daisy a break. She was there eight months. [EXHALES] I was only in there for three days, and I–

(MAG136) DAISY: [QUICKLY] You’re not babysitting me, alright?! I know that’s what the others think, sometimes, but… that’s not it. I just… don’t like…  being on my own if I can help it. You know. Flashbacks, panic attacks, the usual. Just trying to avoid it if I can. ARCHIVIST: I know, Daisy, I–I do. It’s hard.

… but it happened at a weird time, after the woman’s story. At least, with how Daisy went back to Jon’s words, pointing out that he was “self-destructive”:

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. DAISY: [SHAKY SIGH] ARCHIVIST: And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets. DAISY: Yeah. I remember. ARCHIVIST: Plus, I thought… [PAUSE] W– [SIGH] Well, I didn’t know what being down there had done to you. DAISY: You thought I was gonna kill you? ARCHIVIST: It was a possibility.

(MAG142) DAISY: And of course, for Jon, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive.

… I think we might definitely be heading towards the idea that at some point, in a shape or form, Jon did (and likely does) intend to sacrifice himself to stop The Dark…?

(- Alright, though.

This bit is more a disclaimer for Behind The Scenes/Less Comfy Time than full-on review: I initially had a very hard time with this episode. By that, I mean it physically messed me up for a day or two, before I was able to pinpoint why, and managing to get what the issue was alleviated the feeling a bit: it’s because, beyond the harassment case (which was indeed treated as it deserved in the episode, as “enough” to feel messed-up and warrant a complaint), I felt/read/received the woman’s story and encounter as openly coded as se*ual assault, and I was unprepared to this – creepy man hovers around a woman who was having a romantic meeting, corners her when she is alone, forces her to do something she was unwilling to do, “thanks her” for what he extorted from her and is satisfied by the experience, and leaves her a crying wreck, traumatised and with her whole life messed up, down to the detail of the woman not putting the blame on him, partially presenting it as her responsibility (“I’ve been having a lot of problems, since he talked to me, well, since I talked to him. Ever since I told my… story. […] May–maybe, maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m… Maybe I just, I met him once, in a coffeeshop, and he was a creep, and it messed me up…! But that’s enough. Right? [SHAKY EXHALE] That is enough.”) since she didn’t have the codes to explain what had truly been done to her. On its own, I felt that this wasn’t escapist horror anymore but way closer to “real-life horror” than what TMA usually does; it was even strengthened by E. Lockley’s performance, which was absolutely amazing… and also very intense, shaking and rough; and there was the added fact that… the abuser, in this case, was someone (the protagonist) who had been presented as sympathetic until now. Separately, it would have been a lot already; together, it was unbearable for me upon listening, and even after… it also makes me a bit uneasy, story-wise; as in, “oh, after 140-ish episodes, is this series really for me, after all.”

Because the second half of the episode made it pretty clear that Jon will be held accountable for what happened, but also… that he is a victim himself. And he’s still (unless this is The Shift) our main character, that we were meant to sympathise with until at least MAG140, and who was still written as sympathetic in the second half of the episode. Meanwhile, this character… exposed how her life was wrecked, is condemned to suffer, was harmed by someone who knew to some extent what he was doing, and she probably won’t be seen ever again. She didn’t do anything; Jon did. And it’s Jon’s story, and I’m sure that there will be Lots Of Guilt if Jon is meant to stick around as our protagonist, but the fact remains: the person who was (one of) his victim(s) still had her life wrecked, knowingly, and is probably not “important” enough to receive focus and to achieve protagonist status, unlike… her abuser. And I feel like I read enough stories focusing on the person who chose to harm rather than the person who was hurt and will be perpetually hurt? And I’m not too fond either of serious stories going the “edgy” route of protagonists behaving as uncaring asshats for a long while…? I had always assumed that when Jon would Fall, it would be either gradually, or the point when he would lose his Protagonist/sympathetic status? But right now, it feels like it’s most likely heading towards Reforming and coincidental Manpain territory (which… TMA had been great at avoiding until now), and aesthetically, I’m not super ready to open myself to feel sympathy for a character who caused harm while aware of the effects, even if he feels like crap about it afterwards, and even if I was until now very engrossed in his story and loving him a lot as a character. It works fine in derivative works, I love the various explorations, but in a canon… it’s always something else, it makes me feel uneasy, I am always pursued by the reminder of “but why does this character’s ongoing story deserve to be told, and not their victim’s?”. With MAG141/142, I feel like suddenly, Jon got utterly destroyed as a protagonist? Who cares, honestly, if he’s self-destructive or has survivor guilt? How do you justify the fact that he should still be (even partially) a (sym)pathetic character, or someone to feel for, if he goes around dooming people in such ways, even if it’s a spooky temptation/an addiction problem…? I would need the canon to tell me why and I feel… that it’s going to be hard. Because even if Jon feels bad about it, even if he was planning to get fucked over and it was only a temporary thing, he’ll still not be the main victim, and there is (presumably) no fixing for what he did, no way to alleviate what he did to the people whose statements he extorted, and unlike them, he’ll still be… our character. We’ll hear his voice, not his victims’ (after this woman’s testimony), and I don’t think that’s compatible with his protagonist status anymore.

And I know that RQ is usually very sensitive when it comes to real-life issues; the woman was treated with the soft carefulness that she deserves, and I understand perfectly that the way Martin was written this episode was meant to avoid typical accusations in such cases: he absolutely believed her and didn’t even consider that she could have been lying; he took her seriously and didn’t argue with her over the necessity of filing a complaint; he was supportive and soft; he validated her after she told her story (“O–okay. Hum. [INHALE] Right, well… [EXHALE] Firstly, I’m re– I’m really sorry that this happened.”); he expressed outrage towards Jon’s actions for this (… at first). But I have a hard time “trusting” and can’t help but be wary of what will follow in the story, and I am ill-at-ease: because crediting the woman as “Bystander” was… a surprising choice (she was a victim, she was preyed upon, it was her story, she was not… a witness or someone on the side…), because she wasn’t named (so… deprived of her identity…), and because it is likely the last of what we’ll hear from her… even though we know, with the rules of this universe, that she won’t escape this situation. And we’ll keep following Jon, and be narratively meant to get heartbroken over him, if MAG142 is any indication. I’m open to surprises (we heard Melanie’s and Daisy’s voices in ways that I hadn’t been expecting, although it was necessary and welcome; Daisy did harm people and keeps reasserting that it was her responsibility, and I currently adore her (… though the fact that we never met an innocent she would have wrecked… helps); or it’s possible that it’s the point, that Jon is currently being buried as a protagonist and that we’re supposed to lose our attachment to him) but… as I said, I’m wary, and not at ease at the moment. So I’ll see with next episodes, but it’s possible that I might take a hiatus soon-ish to let a few episodes pass and to judge from afar if I’ll feel better listening to them in one go, with the overall direction getting clearer. My first reflex last Wednesday was “I can’t listen to this anymore” and it messed me up until I was able to pinpoint what had been the thing bleeding into me and making me feel so sick, and fiction isn’t… supposed to do that to you – suddenly, it made the world unsafe, and it wasn’t horror escapism anymore for the reasons mentioned above, and I really wasn’t expecting to get slammed this hard even when expecting Terrible (fictional) Things. So, I’ll… see; you do you, I do me, I’m fine now, I can branch out if I feel that It’s Not For Me After All. Despite these grand intentions, I’d probably end up swallowing any Jon Angst/Tragedy Juice anyway, manpain-flavoured or not, so, eh.)

(Here’s for narrative hope: Daisy saw the woman and reminded Martin that she was a “detective”, so… some pieces are laid for Daisy to track down and find her? The fact that this woman wasn’t given a name feels a bit suspicious – not because she would be a false identity or an illusion, but in the way that… she was denied one. And given her situation, given that she was a victim, it’s quite harsh and un-TMA-like? So we’re probably meant to see her again, with a proper name…?)

Title for MAG143 is out: no cookie point to guess which Fear is involved, but mMMMMmm, guessing we’re going into Things (and that we might get a clue about what Robert Montauk was doing when Julia was a kid…?).

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #mag142 #long post/ #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #the magnus archives

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG132 /o/

- I can believe that we finally got the explanation of Daisy’s comments about her dreams and about Jon showing off a new shirt, but I can’t believe that it was something so logical RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES ALL ALONG, arceusdamnit………………… I had wondered for so long! Was it that Daisy was developing dark vision? Was it that Daisy was able to smell blood from somewhere (Jon) and assumed it was because of the shirt? Was it Daisy’s attempt at small talk? But damnit! Damnit!!

(MAG132) DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no. One night, you turn up in a new shirt. Didn’t fit you. Not your style. I didn’t think much of it, it was just a d–, a dream. Then you come back from the States and… guess what you’re wearing. ARCHIVIST: Oh… DAISY: Realised what was happening then.

(MAG112) BASIRA: I’m sorry, I just… I worry. DAISY: Worry about yourself. I’m fine. BASIRA: Are you sure? ‘Cause you look… [PAUSE] Are you sleeping? DAISY: Yeah. [PAUSE] Do you still have the dreams? BASIRA: Um, no? Not really. Not since we joined up here, I don’t think. You? DAISY: Yeah. BASIRA: They’re getting worse? DAISY: No, not, it’s just– … Doesn’t matter.

^That scene took place after she had gone to get Jon at the airport, come to get Basira because Jon wanted to talk to everyone (but Basira wasn’t done with her recording), and come back a second time to announce that Jon had left. So… Jon was probably wearing that shirt when she picked him up, hence her question to Basira about the dreams and the fact she interrupted herself – since Basira wasn’t having hers anymore, she couldn’t confirm or infirm?

(MAG114) DAISY: How long have you had that shirt? BASIRA: Um… ARCHIVIST: What? DAISY: That shirt. You get it in China? ARCHIVIST: Uh, A–America, I–I had to… borrow it, there was… there was blood. DAISY: Sure. BASIRA: Why? DAISY: Hmm.

… and as much as MAG112 and (at least the beginning of) MAG113 explicitly take place in a very short timeframe (Daisy explaining that the group is going to Gertrude’s storage unit / the group being in Gertrude’s storage unit), MAG114 is veryyyy unlikely to have taken place during the same day (since Jon had had the time to notice evidence of Tim’s comings-and-goings in the Archives from one day to another) and… Jon was wearing the shirt in MAG114. Likely “again”. Meaning: either he hadn’t changed since he came back from America (but other characters would have commented on that, I think), either he… consciously chose to wear a shirt that didn’t fit him, that wasn’t his style, multiple times afterwards, when he had choices about what to wear. Jon. J o n. (Given that Jon mentioned blood on his other clothes, that means that YEP, it probably was Max Mustermann’s blood, meaning it was when he was with Trevor&Julia. I don’t know which option is funnier: that he borrowed it from Julia, or from Trevor. Both are Excellent. Also, it’s not “borrow” if you’re not planning to give it back so were/are you planning to give it back, Jon. (He thought that Julia&Trevor were going to kill him if they noticed that he had removed Gerry’s page from the book before he managed to fly the heck out of America, and Jonathan “God, do I– Do I miss being chased?” Sims was planning to GIVE THE SHIRT BACK ANYWAY……))

- A bit like the end of MAG078, Jon displayed… various uses of the tapes? I always found interesting how tapes and tapes recorders have slowly and gradually been used in more elaborated settings, recordings getting concatenated or framing another one; here, we got a varied display of that:

(MAG132) [CLICK–] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHES] [WHISPERS:] … Alright. [TURNS ON ANOTHER TAPE PLAYER] DAISY’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG061: “It was a coffin. An old wooden coffin. Rough, unvarnished. I could see splinters where the nails had been hammered in badly. Wrapped all around it was a thick metal chain, ending in a heavy padlock. That weird moaning was coming from inside it. It was the only sound that cut through pounding rain.” [STOPS TAPE, EJECTS IT AND BOXES IT] [LOADS A SECOND TAPE] [CLICKS ON] ARCHIVIST: [INHALES] Hello, Melanie. […] I have her voice. I think that should be enough to find her, and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. […] I’m not risking anyone else. And I know– … I–I think… I can get her out. [CLICK OFF THE SECOND TAPE RECORDER.] Right. You’re coming with me! [SHORT CHUCKLE] Let’s do this one properly.

Jon had his usual tape recorder (acknowledged, though he might not have been the one to activate it), and he used another one to replay Daisy’s statement from MAG061 describing the coffin, ejected it to keep it with him; then put in another tape to record himself in order to give a message to Melanie (and potentially Basira) to leave that tape behind him with his rib; and he took Daisy’s tape and his first tape recorder with him into the coffin.

- Which raises the obvious question: did Jon’s rib (MAG131: “Something I won’t miss.” J O N…) work as an anchor? He was feeling the rib less and less as he walked deeper in, he explicitly said that he was leaving it ~with a tape~, and the tape recorders were acting out at the end:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: […] and I’m leaving my– … I’ll leave it with the tape. I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. […] I won’t… die of anything… down here… Not ever. Not if I… can’t find my way out. When I first came down, I could feel it, the, the part of myself I left outside, but… but it’s been getting… fainter, and now… I’m trying not to think about it.  Don’t… don’t want to stretch my mind to try and see… in case it’s not there at all. I can’t afford to think about it. Not now. […] ARCHIVIST: It’s fine, I just… I just need to… to find it. DAISY: What? ARCHIVIST: Come on… Come on, where I… DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: … Come on… [STATIC] [SHAKY BREATHING] […] [CLICK–] [STATIC RISING] ARCHIVIST: D–Daisy… DAISY: Uh, I’m, I’m here. ARCHIVIST: I can… I–It… it’s closer. DAISY: What is? ARCHIVIST: M–my, my… my anchor? My… A–a  rib, I can f–, I can fee– … I know the way! [DIGGING SOUNDS] DAISY: Wh–what? H–how– ARCHIVIST: I don’t… It’s like… My mindlink is… it’s stronger…

So what was his anchor in the end? Was it still the rib, but the tape recorders made the connection stronger and acted a bit like a sonar or an amplifier? Was it the concept of statements? Recordings Jon did himself? Tape recorders in themselves? And who willed them there: was it Beholding’s doing (not wanting to lose its current Archivist forever now that he had Experienced The Buried like a good boy)? Was it Basira’s doing? (But she wasn’t in the office when Jon came out and was already screaming at him, so I got the impression that she might have just come back and Melanie had told her about Jon’s decision and/or had made her listen to Jon’s tape?) Was it Peter’s, Martin’s, someone else? Since it had sent MAG130’s tape for Jon: was it The Web’s?

(On this, personal mental picture/synaesthesia time, and I could be off, right? But when we have statements framing other statements, or voices from different statements overlapping… I can’t help but represent it to myself as a “web of voice(s)”? A transposition in audio format of what would visually be a cobweb, with threads stretching, reaching, intertwining to form a net?)

I have no idea what happened at the end, with all the recorders welcoming Jon back: it was a “WHAT” moment and, at the same time, almost felt like a logical escalation after what Jon did at the beginning of the episode. I’m 99% sure that I hear this sentence in the brouhaha:

(MAG071) KAROLINA GÓRKA: I kept my eyes shut and tried to relax, as the sound of twisting metal filled my ears.

(I’m way less confident about it, but I thiiink I might have recognized Jon’s and Gertrude’s voices in the mix?)

So: were they random tapes? Were they statements related to The Buried? Were they live-statements? … is there a chance that Jon could get a hold of the tapes he (afawk for now) still hasn’t accessed, from when he was out for The Unknowing/in his coma – MAG118, MAG120, MAG121? It could be a good time for MAG120’s since… since Jon finally acknowledged to someone that he is aware of his dreams, aware that he has been watching people who gave their statements to him in them. MAG120 wouldn’t add a lot except learning that Elias knows about them. And… it also contains the Martin-Peter exchange, though I wonder whether Peter actually gets recorded on tape? Jon, who listens “to all the tapes”, never commented about Peter’s visits to the Institute in MAG100 and MAG108. I wonder if Peter might be able to escape the recordings (and unless we hear him “live”… yeah, no, someone listening to a tape afterwards would only hear static and a blank void when he supposedly talks.)

- Congraaaatulaaaationnnns on getting your Buried scar, Jon!!

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Feels like every inch costs me another scrape, or bruise. I’d hoped I was beyond that, but apparently not. [STRAINED WHIMPERS]

Looks like he can only get injuries from Spooks, and not “standard” ones (or just not injure himself)? … though now, I wonder if I wasn’t wrong to focus on the actual scars/injuries (they’re so shiny! they’re leaving souvenirs on Jon’s body!) when they might actually be… just collateral damage, and not the point. I hate how I always end up having to refer to Elias, but:

(MAG092) ELIAS: It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…

Experiencing and getting injured seem to often go hand-in-hand in Jon’s case but, with the coffin expedition, the moment where Jon… learned something wasn’t actually through the scars, at all. It was when he understood what it meant to be inside the coffin, what it meant to be trapped by The Buried:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: … Come on… [STATIC] [SHAKY BREATHING] DAISY: Jon? ARCHIVIST: I know… DAISY: Th–the way out? ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done…

There was this moment of sudden understanding where he sounded… distant and lost in himself? A bit more than during regular drop-of-water-sipping-through-the-door, I felt. It put me in mind of his sudden moment of Understanding Nikola’s true nature in MAG119:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: … I see you. NIKOLA: Do you, now? ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you.

And before Breekon, Jon had never received the statement of a Stranger-related avatar, and he had never received one from a Buried avatar either (though Karolina Górka… might have been a weird case). So, tl;dr maybe the scars weren’t the point all along, but it was really… the Experience of the Fear through an avatar giving him their own perception of their relationship to their god, or Jon himself having to understand the true nature of a Fear. Cataloguing it, as Jane had denounced:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why The Hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”

So, actualizing the list… Jon is still missing The Lonely (sob) and The Dark – and didn’t get a statement from a Web avatar either, though he… experienced that one a bit when he was a kid and is currently experiencing it with The Web pulling strings (MAG121, Oliver Banks: “But… you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head.”)

… ;; I wonder, when The Web will reveal itself… how many of Jon’s actions/~decisions~ will turn out to have been nudges and threads pulled to get him where The Web needed him to be? Because… Jon had sounded very uncomfortable and vulnerable when he brushed over the notion (MAG123: “Perhaps a coincidence, just… people… shopping their traumatic event around… but I have to wonder… how much their actions were their own.”); how deeply would you fear that every new action is actually due to someone puppeteering you, if you learned that so many of the previous ones had not been of your own independent volition…?

(Gratuitous tangent, since Jon ~completing the set of Fears~ is also… a reminder that we’re assuming that the repartition into Fourteen Fear is carved into stone, when it isn’t? (Well. It is. In the tunnels. But that’s not the point.) It’s an arbitrary division suggested by Smirke; it could be changed objectively, since in the same way that The Flesh emerged recently, there might be a New Emergence which Adelard Dekker was investigating as reported in MAG113, but in the first place… we know that the division is arbitrary and that lines can get blurry here and there? Meaning, the number of injuries/experiences that Jon is getting doesn’t have to be… completing the list of Fourteen to be valid, since there is an infinity of shades in the first place? Though curiously, we’ve seen Avatars mostly following this division; sometimes collaborating, sometimes rejecting, but mostly having their own things, their own rituals, etc., as if the division was… objectively accurate. But then: the Avatars we met are humans who got powers. They probably decided where they belong on the spectrum?  I do wonder if Smirke’s division mightn’t have been a way to ensure that the Fears would be competing against each other for a long while, kind of creating an “us vs. them” dynamic in order to prevent big collaborations. There are a few canonical opposites (Gerry mentioned the Vast vs. Buried, Elias presented The Stranger as antithetical to The Eye), but I once again wonder about the diagram and whether Jon getting injuries/experiences from here and there really is filling in a stamps collection with clear spots for each, or just… well. The more diversity, the more experiences, the better?)

- I feel incredibly stupid: I had not realized that ~that song~ in the background was… The Coffin’s Song. We could hear it distinctly in MAG101 (when Jon was held captive) and I had assumed it was a Stranger thing (generic spooky atmosphere in the Wax Museum). Nop! It was indeed the coffin’s song mentioned since MAG002, answering to the rain!

… Which means it was raining outside of the Institute in this episode? So if Basira is coming back just now, she’s probably drenched, and Daisy and Jon are coming out covered in dust and mud and dirt, and who will clean the Archives now, you hooligans!!

- I’M ALSO SO MAD… The fact that The Hunt couldn’t reach Daisy inside of the coffin should have been expected!!! I was fearing so much that she had gone worse, even more feral than how we had left her in MAG119, but!!

(MAG128, Breekon) “And so we took the casket, a hungry thing of the Earth, a crushing, choking tomb that will not let you die because it is too much what it is for Death to find you there, within its mocking shape – buried alive. […] No face to Change in the cold, dark earth, and no Eye to fool, where it is now.”

No End (which Jon also confirmed in MAG132: “I am… very thirsty. But I know I won’t die of it. I won’t… die of anything… down here… Not ever. Not if I… can’t find my way out.”), no Stranger, no Eye; the other powers can’t reach anyone inside! And *buries face into hand* I LOVE DAISY… I LOVE DAISY SO MUCH, GDI

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Sorry. Obviously. No, I just meant… Y–you sound… okay. DAISY: … Do I? ARCHIVIST: I thought you might have… been… taken over. By The Hunt. DAISY: What? ARCHIVIST: Th–the Hunt. You’re a Hunter. DAISY: Yeah… Uh, guess I was, but… not here… ARCHIVIST: No? DAISY: No. I, I can’t… feel my… blood. I could always feel it, but it can’t… can’t reach me, here… […] I don’t know what I’ll be ou–outside. The… The Hunt, it c–, it can’t reach me here. I’m sc–scared, but… Mm–mm… But I… I feel more, feel more m–me than I have for years. Maybe all my life… The, The Hunt was me, b–but I don’t, I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need… it… I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life. Telling me who to chase, how to hurt them. I never needed to think… who I was outside of that. But down here, where I… I can’t hear the… blood anymore, I d–, I don’t… I don’t know who I am without, without the chase… I just know… that I… I don’t like who I was back outside. I don’t want to be her again. I want… to be… better…

Fay Roberts was f a n t a s t i c, they brought me heartbreak and love at each sentence with that… rawness? Openness? Vulnerability without falling into sheer despair? Once again, I’m ;; having so many feelings over the way The Magnus Archives manages to remind you that yes, x and y characters are their own persons, with their own stories, their own agendas, their own struggles, their own points of views, their own fears. For a while, the discordance between cordial, expected reactions and Daisy being so straightforward in her violence was funny, but I hoped that we could get her own words at some point, and we did, and we got so much more than that!! It was so intense? I really wasn’t expecting to hear so much self-awareness from Daisy? To hear what might be one of the Messages of the series coming from her mouth – “I want to be better”: WHO, amongst our characters, had specifically enunciated something so simple yet so powerful? And it’s DAISY who diiiiiid T_____T

I was horrified that she was stuck in the coffin, and she indeed had a terrible time inside of it, and at the same time… it allowed her to find herself again, outside of the spooky influences? It forced her to take a step back and think about who she was? She said that The Hunt had been most of her life – is that how she survived Calvin Benchley’s attack, back when she was a kid? I love that, in the same way that Melanie told Jon that the bullet had stayed in her leg because she wanted it, it sounds a bit like… Daisy staying trapped in the coffin was a bit of her own doing, too, since she was fearing who she would be outside of it? Who she could become again, while she finally had clarity inside the coffin? And it seems like finding the way out was totally on Jon, but I get the feeling that his telling her that she could still make a choice… mattered a bit, and allowed her to indeed follow him?

I’m curious about how Daisy will handle being back on the surface and possibly hearing the call of The Hunt again. I do hope that, yes, even if she struggles, she’ll be able to make something out of the experience… Basira had hinted that there was more to Daisy than the impression people got from her:

(MAG106) BASIRA: I always used to put on podcasts when I was driving around. You know, when I wasn’t on duty. I mean, when Daisy didn’t need the radio. MELANIE: I literally cannot picture Daisy listening to the radio. BASIRA: The Archers. MELANIE: No?! BASIRA: Hand of God. MELANIE: I, I actually do not believe you. BASIRA: She never missed an episode.

And I’m curious about this Daisy, too! The “Daisy” who chose this nickname because she was told that her scar looked like one and “because it sounds so gentle”, the Daisy who listened to the radio and appealed to Basira, the Daisy who thought that she was deserving of this hell after what she had done, the Daisy who stuttered to Jon, over and over again when they were getting crushed, that she was “sorry”…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: And if we get out… DAISY: But we can’t “get out”. ARCHIVIST: [CRIES OF PAIN] DAISY: [CRIES OF PAIN] I’m, I’m sorry… I’m sorry Jon… I’m sorry… [CLICK.]

;____; I’m not even able to tell why she was apologizing there? For confessing that she had wanted to kill Jon after The Unknowing? Because she felt responsible that Jon had gone into the coffin to retrieve her, and was now stuck with her and discovering this perpetual torture too? ;___; Daisy…

- “I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira…” Hi, hello, I just got brutally murdered by a pipe of Daisy->Basira feelings all over again.

(BASIRA IS HER SKY!!! In the domain of The Buried, Basira was her sky!)

- Relatedly: gODS the voicework this episode!! The stuttering, the words getting stuck in Jon’s and Daisy’s throats, having trouble making their way out!! The pain they seemed to cause? It was so good!!!

- And count on Jon to accidentally lighten up the mood with self-aware comments/mood whiplash/jokes in the wrong situation:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: […] But I know what I’m doing; this time, I do. Huh, I hope. […] I should be able to find my way back to it… I think. Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. […] ARCHIVIST: Are you… Are you okay? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: Sorry. Obviously. No, I just meant… Y–you sound… okay. […] DAISY: […] Where are we? ARCHIVIST: The coffin. We’re in the coffin. I–It leads to… Well, it’s got a lot of names. Choke. The Buried. Too-close-I-cannot-breathe. DAISY: [CHUCKLES] Yeah, yeah… sounds, sounds right. […] ARCHIVIST: Come on. Let’s get you out of here. DAISY: Can’t… can’t move… Even if I, if I could… there is no… way out… ARCHIVIST: It’s okay… I’ve… I’ve got a plan. DAISY: I–is this like all your other plans? […] ARCHIVIST: Okay, hum… What do you want to talk about? DAISY: Don’t, I–I don’t care, I… I… I just, I just want someone to hear me. ARCHIVIST: I’m not going anywhere! DAISY: [NERVOUS BROKEN CHUCKLE]

He even managed to make Daisy chuckle multiple times!! I was so fond of their weird little friendship in MAG096 (Daisy snorting when the “Archivist who can’t read” got roasted; Jon singsonging his “Whatever you say~” at the end), I’m so glad to find this aspect of their dynamic already back!!

- Jon sounded… a bit sad? To learn that Daisy still planned to kill him?

(MAG132) DAISY: … I was gonna kill you. You know that, right? ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] I mean, I definitely got that impression when you… dragged me into the woods for an execution. DAISY: N–no, no. No. After the mission. I was planning to kill you. ARCHIVIST: I… I did not know that.

Jon probably thought that they were already past that, uh. (He thought he was on good terms with Daisy by that point or, at the very least, that they were on the same side? I think he really regarded her as part of his team even though she didn’t have the “assistant” status? So yeah, must hurt a bit to learn that, no, she was planning to get rid of him right after The Unknowing ;;)

- Alright: there have not been a lot of talks involving Jon in which I found that a balanced, mutually beneficial exchange was happening, and that weren’t about tearing each other to pieces? It’s the case with most of his exchanges with Georgie, and there was a bit of that with Gerry; but otherwise… it often feels like the discussion tips in one direction, either Jon opening up and the other not managing to share something of themselves, either the other person opening up and Jon having to shut up (Melanie in MAG131, Basira’s overall stance).

There was something really significant in the fact that Daisy wanted to talk and even agreed and welcomed Jon’s compulsion, when… it had previously squicked her so, so much and been lived as an extortion:

(MAG061) ARCHIVIST: If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been sectioned…? DAISY: I do mind. … Fourteen years. […] ARCHIVIST: Right! Thank you! Are you quite alright? DAISY: No. I never told that story to anyone except my old Sergeant. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I, uh… DAISY: I should go.

(MAG091) BASIRA: Just let him go. DAISY: You don’t know what he is. You don’t know what it’s like to have your secrets pulled out like teeth, just because he asked?

(MAG132) DAISY: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Still here. DAISY: Good, I… Good. I, I, I, I–I want to talk. ARCHIVIST: Okay, hum… What do you want to talk about? DAISY: Don’t, I–I don’t care, I… I… I just, I just want someone to hear me. […] I–I want to, but it’s… difficult. ARCHIVIST: Would it help if I… ask? DAISY: … Y–yeah, yes, alright. Do your… thing. ARCHIVIST: Right, hum… [CLEARS THROAT] Uh… [STATIC:] H–how are you feeling? DAISY: Uh… Scared. I–I’m, I’m, I’m scared. I’ve been scared the whole time here.

Jon getting good at consent when it’s about compelling people he treasures é_è (… He did not treasure Jared very much, though.)

The simple fact that Jon was so adamant about getting Daisy back, and the fact that Daisy highlighted so much that thanks to him… she wasn’t alone anymore!!

(MAG132) DAISY: [LABOURED] Just… alone, I, I think… I think… I hear this, sometimes, s–singing, when it’s, uh, when it’s wet, or, or scratching, trying to get out… but I don’t… I don’t th… don’t think there is anyone… there; it’s… it’s just, just me… ‘till now. […] ARCHIVIST: Come on. Let’s get you out of here. DAISY: Can’t… can’t move… Even if I, if I could… there is no… way out… ARCHIVIST: It’s okay… I’ve… I’ve got a plan. […] ARCHIVIST: No… I know where we are! There isn’t no out, not here. This is… this is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down… This is The Buried, and we are alive… There isn’t even an up. … Oh god… What have I done! What have I done… DAISY: N–not alone, though… ARCHIVIST: [SOFT] No… No, not alone. […] ARCHIVIST: I don’t… It’s like… My mindlink is… it’s stronger… [PANTS AND STRUGGLING NOISES] DAISY: Slow down! I–I can’t… ARCHIVIST: Don’t let go! Come on, we’re close. This way. Here. Here! Come on, push!

(Yes, hello, guess who got GIGANTIC platonic Orpheus and Eurydice vibes in this episode!!)

- I feel that there was something extremely precious, precisely because both Jon and Daisy gave something to the other? It wasn’t only about hearing Daisy, it was about… helping her, emotionally, by sharing his experience and his own struggle, and explaining right away where he stood. Jon didn’t hide from her? She uncovered herself, and he showed his weakness in return, and it was just so satisfying and soft?

(MAG132) DAISY: […] L–leaves you terrified for when it s–starts a–again and, wh–when it does, you, you’re s–scared that it’ll… n–never–never stop… I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira… B–but, but now… You, you’ve got out o–of o–other s–stuff like this, maybe… maybe you’ll get out of this and, and take me wi–with you… […] Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it… I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one. […] Daisy… you should know I’m… If I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh… I’m even less now. DAISY: Yeah. Well. At the moment, I don’t care…

Re: the mention of choices… So, are we meant to deduce that Jon was indeed conscious (and remembers) Oliver’s words from MAG121?

(MAG121) OLIVER: […] The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off for a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You’re not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him. I made a choice. We all made choices; now you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

I wonder if we’ll get Jon’s retelling of how he lived MAG121, how he came back from his coma. I like that, however, he is aware that he had limited options due to circumstances and that it… doesn’t really feel like an empowering choice when you’re forced to pick between two unsatisfactory options, neither of which you really want? But at the same time, I HATE THAT, ONCE AGAIN:

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: I never chose this! ELIAS: You never wanted this, no. But I’m afraid you absolutely did choose it. In a hundred ways, at a hundred thresholds, you pressed on. You sought knowledge relentlessly, and you always chose to see. Our world is made of choices, Jon, and very rarely do we truly know what any of them mean, but we make them nonetheless.

… we’re falling back into “Elias might have been right about this” territory :||||||| (… he had also told Daisy that Calvin Benchley was “the first human being” she had murdered – although we knew he had probably been deeply messed up by a power, probably The Slaughter? And Daisy explicitly said that she felt that Elias had been right about her. He had also told Jon to not dwell too much on a distinction between human/“monsters”… And he’s being proven right lately, with Helen and Melanie and now Daisy herself… So gODSDAMNIT, stop that trend of Elias being apparently right-except-it-might-not-be-exactly-what-he-meant/him-still-being-wrong-about-the-consequences, it causes me pain.)

- ;; I wonder if Jon will have another discussion with Georgie soon-ish, because… it feels like he’s learning a lot, and forced to acknowledge and to accept that a lot of his original distinctions and categorizations weren’t really standing, in the end. Jon won’t do what Georgie was encouraging him to do (to stop getting involved, to… go back to normalcy? Like she did?), but I think they could still have a satisfying discussion about… their own choices in the matter. The thing with Jon, when he was living with her, was that he was afraid of turning into a “monster”, feeling dispossessed, and constantly thrown under a bus, and trapped in schemes and organizations he couldn’t really understand. He’s been more in control during season 4 and seems… to have found a drive, somehow? To know, a bit more often (even if it’s punctual) where he wants to head and what he has to do to accomplish it. I don’t know, but I feel like it could be very interesting to have Georgie and Jon interact again now that Jon knows a bit more where he stands?

-  This was the first time that Jon acknowledged to someone, although implicitly, that he’s aware of what happens with his dreams é_è

(MAG132) DAISY: I realized you were in my dreams. Reliving t… this. The coffin. You were there. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no. One night, you turn up in a new shirt. Didn’t fit you. Not your style. I didn’t think much of it, it was just a d–, a dream. Then you come back from the States and… guess what you’re wearing. ARCHIVIST: Oh… DAISY: Realised what was happening then. Realised you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance. ARCHIVIST: And now? DAISY: Don’t know. I miss dreaming. Y–you don’t sleep… down here.

;__; So Jon had indeed understood what the deal was with that (MAG113: “I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh... well, let’s just say I don’t think they’re going be letting anyone else in any time soon.”)… and still agreed to take Jared’s statement. Kinda hoping for Jon that Jared will either die soon-ish, or that he will push Jon away from his dreams like Jude did (MAG120, Elias: “he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there.”) I wonder what allowed Jude to do this, by the way? Julia and Trevor were also distant from Jon (they couldn’t pick up his scent), but Daisy hadn’t been able to do that to Jon, since she was still stuck with the dreams? Could she be able to do that, if she learned it was a possibility? Or is it a Desolation thing, or something you’re only able to do when quite powerful yourself?

- Re: Daisy’s “Elias and his… insurance.” comment: I wonder what she was referring to? Was it about the evidence he had against her?

(MAG082) ELIAS: A genuine threat, I’m sure, but right now what you’re really trying to figure out is, if I have any evidence that could make it back your people.

(MAG092) ELIAS: Allow me. She rightly suspected that I held evidence of various murders she had committed, and that I sent this to her superiors. DAISY: … ELIAS: She’s quite the killer, your partner. All in the public good, of course. And she was correct, I spent some time acquiring that evidence. Or creating it. And while your superiors don’t much care about the killings, the fact there is proof... They’re not happy. And they want you brought in.

(Meaning that if she had killed Jon, Elias would probably have thrown her under a bus/at the nearest police officers… Elias had already leaked his “evidence” to the police so there were already people searching for her. Then again, Elias would have been able to tip them whenever to tell them where she was ;;) Oorrrrrrrrrrr… was it… about Basira…………………..

(MAG092) DAISY: What do you want? ELIAS: Collateral. [PAPER IS PUSHED ACROSS THE DESK] DAISY: That… What? ELIAS: A contract of employment. For Basira.

Meaning that at this point, Daisy was ready to kill Jon right after The Unknowing, even if it meant putting Basira in more danger: true, according to what Elias told them, it’s only if he dies that the assistants(+Jon?) die, but ahahaha, if she had killed Jon, we can’t really expect that Basira’s situation would have improved, uh… (……. Terriblest thing that Elias could have then done to Daisy would have been to appoint Basira as next Archivist, probably, in fact.)

Anyway, if Basira finally tells Jon & the others that Elias had requested her presence (MAG127), that she talked to him, and what he said… I would really like for Daisy to now be The One in charge of the prison visits and dealing with Bouchard’s bullshit? Sadly, Daisy’s relationship with the police hierarchy fell out due to Elias sending the tapes and, if they learn that she’s actually still alive, they would want to remedy to that.

(But picture this: 40-ish episodes after Elias got Daisy & Basira stuck with the Institute, and taunted Daisy over the prospect of either killing him either getting him sent to jail… Daisy, visiting Elias who is finally in prison. P L E A S U R E D  I N H A L A T I O N.)

- *cries* And Jon tried anyway…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him. I can’t… I can’t see… anything here… for all this… this place closes around me, I… I feel adrift. Like nothing can get through the dirt, and the muck, and– … I still have Daisy’s tape… And I still think I’m going the right way. When I move at all.

;; Yeah, reminder that there are… other people trapped there. I wonder if it could have been specifically Isaac Masters, Daisy’s colleague who had disappeared (MAG061)? But the coffin probably took many people (it had taken “John” in MAG002)… I wonder what the group will do with it, now? I doubt that Jon will try to go inside again to save the other people trapped in there but ;; Urrkkk, it hurts a bit to think that yes, there are still random victims just… there…

- Jon has been… so SOFT in season 4… So many “Sorry”s, so many moments when he explains himself? I’m remembering the end of season 2, when he had just understood about the Not!Them taking Sasha’s place, and had decided to try to get rid of it, and had… steered Martin and Tim out of its way? He had apologized but he had not explained nor left a trace of what he was doing. But now, he left a tape behind for Melanie and Basira, explaining his intentions and his reasonings:

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, and I’m… I’m sorry. About everything. MARTIN: J–Jon… look, are you– TIM: Ok. Right you are, Jon. We’ll be going.

(MAG079) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] I’m sorry. Martin, Tim… Sasha. I’m so sorry. I should have… I didn’t… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. NOT!SASHA: I wonder, if I wear you, will I really become the Archivist? Rob The Eye of its pupil? Probably not. Better to just kill you, I think. Yes… I think that would be best. ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] Please forgive me. If you’re still alive… if–if you hear this. Get as far away from the Magnus Institute–

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: [CLICK] [INHALES] Hello, Melanie. I… know I said we’d wait until Basira was back. B–but I–I don’t… I–I’m sorry. I, I–I know she won’t– She’d want to do it a different way. But I know what I’m doing; this time, I do. […] Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…? A–anyway, I–I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d… stop me. You’d be right to, but… But if this goes wrong, all you lose is– …  I’m not risking anyone else. And I know– … I–I think… I can get her out.

(No mention of Martin nor Georgie in this one ;; Once again, Jon has trouble staying aware of more than his immediate surroundings, and is not really thinking about the consequences or people that could be impacted when they’re not right under his nose, uh.)

And yes, Jon is going back to this old habit of his that he was fighting so far (-> going behind people’s backs when he felt that someone had to take on a burden)… But the reasons he’s doing this are very sad and beautiful at the same time? He is being absolutely self-deprecative? It’s because he doesn’t feel like he’s as valuable as them? And despite the fact that it costs him so much, that he’s still afraid? I had been wondering, when Jon woke up from his coma, what would change with him – would his fear get cauterized? Would he be more casual about the concept of hurting people to feed his god? But no, indeed: so far, it’s really… Jon evolving and becoming more and more open about his feelings, and what and whom he cares for, and getting actively protective of them even if it means getting harmed himself. And that “I’m not risking anyone else” once again reminded me of:

(MAG118) TIM: No! You knew I might not be coming back! ARCHIVIST: I knew none of us might be coming back, and I’m not gonna let anyone get killed for nothing! TIM: Oh, except for those people in there! ARCHIVIST: They’re already dead! TIM: Not all of them! ARCHIVIST: I am not losing you as well!!

(T____T)

Jon lost Sasha and Tim already, of course he wouldn’t want someone else to put themselves in danger, even if it’s to rescue Daisy…

And meanwhile: we know that Martin is… doing the same thing to protect the others. And meanwhile: Basira might have been doing the same thing in her own way. They’ll really need to get all together in a room and to talk out their respective self-sacrificing decisions at some point, huh…

(- I’m a simple person and since Jon is being a softie, I want: * Daisy and Jon just spending time together (whenever Daisy is not glued to Basira), OKAY. * Daisy deciding that alright, you think Blackwood is involved in something dangerous and you would like him back? Okay, let’s go. I always dreamed to destroy Elias’s office a bit, should get a reaction out of that Lukas guy. * GET MARTIN BACK AND HAVE THAT VERY QUEER SLUMBER PARTY IN THE TUNNELS GDI!!! THERE ARE SIX OF THEM WITH HELEN – JONNY AND ALEX, DON’T YOU WANT TO MAKE A WHOLE EPISODE OF THEM PLAYING GAMES TOGETHER?? * Dunno how to justify this in this post but my pretext is “Jon is being so good at communication/giving Daisy what she needed at the point she was” and so: alright, you know what Martin needs, Jon? A present of a fancy blank notebook, to go back to his poetry, because encouraging is caring (and notebooks are love) :||||)

- efzjdisncefd Basira just got the Best Entrance Ever, I don’t know which one was the winner until now but she supplanted it right away:

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Tape recorders. Must, must be… dozens of them…? [JON’S OFFICE DOOR OPENS] BASIRA: Jon, you stupid idiot! What did you think?! DAISY: … Hi. BASIRA: [FAINT]… Oh my god… [CLICK.]

Barging into Jon’s office, not even looking at who is there, screaming at Jon right away. Glorious.

Did she know he had just come out (/done something to ensure he’d come out), or was it a coincidence and she would have been screaming at an empty office if Jon hadn’t come out just now? The timing was a bit too perfect, so I’d be leaning on “Basira did something”, but… were the tape recorders going wild only located into Jon’s office, or were they having a fit in the entire Archives / in every part of the Institute, actually? (Because mm, we know there was an incident involving a leak of statements in 1999 and right, we never learned more about that… I’ve been assuming that it was Gertrude’s doing, to mess with Freshly Appointed Head Director Elias, but we still don’t know if there is a Story behind it.)

;; There is still the question of what Basira was doing, and what Elias’s suggestion from MAG127 was. Did he tell Basira to leave Jon to his own devices and that he would find something? (I doubt the series would go that way since it would nnnnot be flattering for Basira… but then it could also make her even more prone to close off her own agenda and to Do Her Things without sharing.) Did she go to find someone or something that would pull people out of the coffin? Jon couldn’t feel his anchor anymore, then felt it again, so something happened; the question is mostly… who did it.

The Eye shouldn’t have access to the inside of the coffin, so even if Elias knew that Breekon was about to deliver it… I wonder if he could have guessed Daisy’s current state? Because uh. Regarding The Archives’ Defender: Melanie is not an option anymore since she’s not Slaughter-fuelled. Daisy explicitly told Jon that she was wary of The Hunt, didn’t like who she used to be when under its influence, and will probably consciously try to slow down on the violence – she could still help in defending the Archives a bit, but… she probably won’t be as effective against Spooks as before if the the point is to avoid losing herself again. Which means that they indeed got her back but that she probably won’t be a viable option anymore as a ~defender~. Which means they’re back at the same point.

(EXCEPT THERE IS HELEN!! And I insist, reliability aside, sounds like the best Protecting option. But well. Reliability aside.)

So. What did Basira do, where did she go, what did she bring back with her? Mike-if-turns-out-he-wasn’t-dead would be the right time, since Daisy had been the one to ensure that he (or his corpse) would eat dirt; Trevor&Julia would be hilarious and fitting thematically (relationship to The Hunt + Jon’s shirt was presumably “borrowed” from them); Jude would be another case of Jon’s Life Being Like This; someone who’d turn out to be Actually The Real Peter Lukas oh-shit-what-is-the-thing-running-the-Institute-then would be hilarious for the ensuing panic (I’m still ??? that Elias never ever acknowledged that Peter Lukas… exists…? is running his Institute…? it still feels so fishy?); but at the same time, they all feel a bit like… done deals? People we’ve already explored a bit through meeting them and getting their statements, and are now finished with?

Amongst the characters introduced and recurring across statements but never met, we have Mikaele Salesa (has he died, is he hiding from officials because of tax fraud?); Adelard Dekker (… if he isn’t dead already); Annabelle Cane (but The Web, accepting to be straightforward instead of sneaky and cryptic? In MY Magnus Institute? Ha!). Cosmic Irony would dictate Simon Fairchild since Jon explicitly expressed reluctance to meet him, and now I’m hit with the mental picture of Simon peacefully giving his statement to Jon while sipping tea before going to yeet himself in the coffin because he was trying to find a way to Make His Grand Exit after a long and fulfilling life of wrecking other lives, right in front of Jon; you’re welcome.

One question is whether or not there were two agendas at work for Jon’s next move? On the one hand, Elias tipped Basira towards… something that we don’t know about yet. On the other hand, The Web seemed supportive of leading Jon a bit and, unless Jon tragically misunderstood its message (but then, The Web would have intervened again?), the point in MAG130’s tape was indeed to make Jon focus on The Flesh, its avatars, the idea of his own body as an anchor for him to get inside the coffin and get Daisy back. AND ON THAT NOTE, I’m now entertaining the notion that Breekon might have been sent by The Web itself, since the way he described why he came was… a bit reminiscent of your typical person doing something/going somewhere because of the Spider (and specifically sounds a lot like Oliver’s self-introduction)?

(MAG128) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [STATIC:] Why are you here? BREEKON: Dunno. ‘t’s not right… on my own… not right… No point in doing it on my own. Don’t know what happens now… Thought I might kill you. Missed my chance. Thought I might just… deliver something. So here’s a coffin. [RATTLING SOUND] In case you want… to join your friend.

[…] (STATEMENT) “I am without him, now. I. am. I can feel myself fading. Weak. No reason to move. Nothing to deliver. But I am no longer tied to the casket; so you can have it.”

Not being able to give a clear reason, then rationalizing about it while doing it anyway? So I guess The Web could also have put the coffin in Jon’s path, since it wasn’t against (/was actively supportive of) the idea of him getting Daisy back? Or, at least, of Jon going down into the coffin and experiencing The Buried, but being able to get back out. I don’t know! Basira, what were you doing and how much will everyone regret that you had a talk with Elias ;;

- We heard that Basira wasn’t… pleased about Jon doing his Things behind her back (“Jon, you stupid idiot!”: Jon can’t only be an “idiot”, can’t only be “stupid”, he has to be a “stupid idiot”), but objectively:

(MAG128) BASIRA: I’ll try and be back in a week or two. Don’t think about me. ARCHIVIST: Right. BASIRA: And don’t open the coffin.

From 3rd March (MAG128) to 24th March 2018 (MAG132 – though unclear whether it’s the date he went inside the coffin or came out of it, or if it’s on the same day anyway), it’s been three weeks of Basira being gone and not giving any news. She didn’t promise to come back soon, but still – that was… way more than what she had told Jon to expect, and he held on during that time. And he did respect the other half of what she had asked of him (to not Know about what she was doing). So overall: she will probably be mad, and will have reasons to be since Jon went back to doing things on his own while deliberately going against other people’s wishes (doubly: both hers, and Melanie’s, who had been a bit more aware of Jon’s plan, and whom Jon had told that he would wait for Basira), but there were also… circumstances.

(Since Basira has been gone for three weeks: I wonder if she got sick, too? We don’t know how long Tim’s trip to Malaysia lasted before he had to come back to the Institute, so… How did Basira feel during this time? Did she bring statements or research along to tide herself over? Or was Tim’s case a bit special, and was Elias responsible for Tim feeling like a wreck because he wanted Tim back for Jon’s return?)

- I DON’T KNOW HOW BASIRA WILL REACT TO DAISY’S RETURN, GDI!!! Jon was expecting Basira to not hold too much of a grudge if he managed to bring Daisy back, and he did! But I’m… not sure it will work to pacify Basira? ;; Because technically, it adds another piece on the chessboard, and we don’t really know what to expect of Daisy out of the coffin, nor if she’ll manage to be stable for long… And that means having to make sure that the police doesn’t pay attention to the Institute (while Elias, who was keeping them mostly at bay, is gone), since they were after Daisy…

But at the same time, maybe it could lead to finally getting a Team Archive back to try and all survive together…? ;;

- Relatedly: whether or not Basira is ready to work with Jon again, since Daisy is back… What will be the next focus? (Sometimes, I feel like Jon is acting a bit like in a Dating Game without romance: took the Melanie route, unlocked the Less Dramatic ending; took the Daisy route, unlocked the Happy Ending somehow?!; maybe needed to clear out Daisy’s path in order to unlock Basira’s own route… and then, there is Martin. Hidden route, True Ending?? Jon said “I am very thirsty” and like, yeah, we know, we heard you going after Martin, Jon. Where is Martin.)

There will be the… well, whatever the HECK happened with the tape recorders at the end of MAG132, and Daisy will probably need some rest, and we’ll need a debriefing/argument with Basira. But then, what’s next, what will the next goal consist of? There are still a bunch of Mysteries that should become relevant again at some point soon (what is Agnes’s story? What is Hill Top Road’s deal? What happened to Adelard Dekker? How can they proceed to ensure The Watcher’s Crown doesn’t happen? What are The Web’s intentions and how much is Jon tied to that? What is the New Emergence?); we could get some answers if Jon continues to read statements about rituals that Gertrude had stopped, or if he keeps getting information through His Inner Door, though. We might be a bit done with Buried and Flesh statements for some time, since both were a bit more represented in season 4 so far and they have now served their purpose.

- Okay, so, Patreon experience: here is what we initially got when the episode was posted:

… and yes, it was 6 seconds of David7 crashing on the floor and complaining that he was covered in goo. Picture this: you’ve been tensing up for the last hour on your commute back from work with nothing to distract you, you’re fidgeting for the new episode, knowing thanks to the title listed on Monday that It Is Coming, We Should Be Going Inside The Coffin, How Awful Will It Turn Out… and you’re welcomed by David7 observing that he’s covered in goo. I personally lost it, hurt myself in my confusion (I still had some mascara on, it doesn’t do great with hilarity tears.) So yeah. Now, we Know that apparently, David7 is their placeholder for new posts! =D

(The case file was incomplete, too, so! Extra dread! How much time passed while Jon was in the coffin?! Didn’t even have the satisfaction to think that the end of 2018 and the Institute’s 200th anniversary had passed! But that was corrected too, and it’s… probably fine. Unless March 24th is only the date Jon entered the coffin, not when he got out.)

MAG133’s title is… ominous and uuuuuuuh, hard to draw any prediction from apart from “… I don’t like this”. Not-risky bet would be The End? Would probably be awful if it happens to be a Corruption one? ………… As for second meaning: I just really hope it’s not Peter&Martin again ;;

#the magnus archives #mag132 #tma liveblog #tma spoilers/ #long post/ #tma season 4

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG143 /o/

- Aaaaaand the winner of the Ny-Ålesund mini-arc is… Elias. Which seems to be the Trend of season 4.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait. BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. BASIRA: [DRY SIGH] What was the point? You won’t be getting your ritual off from in here so, what do you need him for? What’s so important you need him stronger? ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world.

* Here we have a rare case of Elias potentially straight-up lying? Manuela… wasn’t doing anything; what was up with this “increase in people and supplies”? …… or was that because tourist season was right around the corner. I mean. He didn’t EXPLICITLY say that those were related to The Dark, only that it could be related. (And, after all, he encouraged Basira to see the aurora borealis right after…)

* It’s still unclear whether Elias is indeed in control (did he really know that Breekon was on the verge of delivering the coffin the following episode, back when he talked to Basira in MAG127?) or just Really Lucky and shameless enough to pretend that everything falls into place when it serves his interests… but with The Dark, he was absolutely spot-on that capitalizing on Jon’s fears would do wonders. And he’s been keeping a verrry close Eye on the Archives, apparently: MAG135 was the episode Jon tried to Know if Gertrude had managed to neutralise The Dark’s ritual, and failed, and was a bit worried that they could still be up to something; cue Elias, right after, mentioning that there was a cell still active in of Ny-Ålesund. In the same way, he had previously (at least claimed to have) used the fact that Daisy was alive and prisoner of the coffin as a motivation for Jon to go in, experience The Buried and… apparently get a power-up, or at least learn a bit more to use his own powers (although Elias acknowledged implicitly that Martin setting up the tape players helped with that at least a little).

* It’s still not absolutely sure whether Elias was the one who sent Jared after the Institute (the official target was Jon, but it could have been a decoy; the consequences, at least, where in Elias’s favour since… the Archives team absolutely shattered following the attack, with Martin asking for Peter’s protection, Melanie getting more Slaughter-y, and Basira getting colder and more strategical). But since Jon woke up… he’s been completing the set of experimenting the fears / getting live (or extracted) statements from spooks tied with other patrons / getting injuries. Previously to his coma, Jon had collected:

~ The Web: close encounter with A Guest for Mr Spider when he was 8. (No live-statement from Spook, no official scar… but the lighter and spiders around him, and the Mother-of-Puppets sending Oliver in MAG121 to push Jon to make a decision, make it very clear that Jon has never truly escaped The Web since back then.)

~ The Eye: was it when he witnessed the other boy getting taken by Mr Spider, without trying to help him? Was it because he began working at the Institute? When he began working in the Archives? When he read his first statement, took the first live one? When he got his first nightmare?

~ The Corruption: heavily injured and scarred by The Hive/Jane Prentiss in MAG039/MAG040. (No live-statement, but Jane’s written one in MAG032, and Jon felt it Strongly.)

~ The Spiral: slashed/stabbed by Michael in MAG047, got lost in The Spiral’s corridors in MAG078-MAG079, also went through Helen’s door in MAG101 and now MAG143. Michael-The-Distortion gave his live-statement in MAG101.

~ The Desolation: shook hands (and effed it up) with Jude Perry in MAG089, received her live-statement in the same episode.

~ The Vast: got “dropped” by Mike Crew in MAG091, which possibly messed up his lungs a bit; received/prompted his live-statement at the same time.

~ The Hunt: found by Daisy in MAG091, then strangled/knifed? by her, and also Hunted by Julia in MAG107. Forced (unknowingly) Daisy to give her statement in MAG061, received a partial one from her again in MAG132; received Trevor&Julia’s statement in MAG109.

~ The Stranger: got deceived by Not!Sasha all through season 2, got strangled by Nikola in MAG097, got kidnapped by Nikola for a month (MAG099 to MAG101), got moisturised by Nikola, was in the middle of The Unknowing when it happened, and managed to See through Nikola (MAG119, “I see you”). “Extracted” Breekon’s statement in MAG128.

… Elias was pretty glad about Jon’s progress when he was on the run from the Institute (MAG080: “Well, he was always going to need to fly the nest at some point. Go out and see the world for himself.” “He might die.” “It’s always a danger. Almost always.” / MAG092: “You were doing fine before you forced this little scene. I suggest you continue.”), and that’s when he got New Experiences. And now, in season 4:

~ The End: should have died in The Unknowing explosion but was too “inhuman” for this, and got stuck “on an edge” during his coma, apparently chose to not die (is that why his injuries heal so fast? We’re not sure it’s Beholding’s effect – it’s possible that, like The End’s victims, Jon… just can’t die anymore because he didn’t want to die and was touched by Terminus). Received Oliver Banks’s statement in MAG121.

~ The Slaughter: got slashed by Melanie right after he extracted her bullet in MAG125, has a scar from it on his shoulder. No live-statement, unless Melanie’s story from MAG117 counts…?

~ The Flesh: got two ribs taken in MAG131, received Jared Hopworth’s live-statement in the same episode.

~ The Buried: got stuck three days in the coffin in MAG132, got scraped everywhere from the walls closing in and experienced the full extent of Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe there. No live-statement from spook so far.

~ The Dark: “Saw” the Dark Sun and killed it in MAG143, right now unclear whether his eyes got impacted (;; he didn’t see that it was Helen before she spoke…). Received Manuela Dominguez’s live-statement in the same episode.

Which leaves…

~ The Lonely: Peter Lukas is still running the Institute, and Jon is missing Martin-who-is-working-for-Peter-and-tempted-by-the-Lonely a LOT. No live-statement from spook yet but, I mean, Peter is still… “right there” (and not there at all).

Elias had hired Melanie, might have known that Breekon was coming with the coffin (as he began to manipulate Basira right before he visited, and then claimed he had made her leave the Institute in order to let Jon descend into the coffin), pushed Basira(&Jon) to go to Norway to stop The Dark, and asked Peter to work as interim head director while he would be in prison (and there is still the matter of Jared’s commissioner). If he needed Jon to complete the set… then yeah, a lot of his actions have gone in that direction?

- Whatever Elias was aiming for, it Smells like he reached it. Was it for Jon to go through a True Dark Experience, which required to find the very few leftovers of the cult? Jon did, getting in contact with the Dark Sun. Was it to take a live-statement from a Dark avatar? Jon did with Manuela. Was it for Jon to push his powers further? Jon did, by staring directly into the Dark Sun. (Was it for Jon to kill his physical eyes? Status unclear at the moment but… it might have happened without characters realising it yet, because the place was dark.) Was it to get Jon to act as an actual avatar, feeding from people’s fears and traumas and terrorising them? Jon did, at least twice, with Floyd in MAG141 and with the unnamed woman in MAG142 who… might have become a Fear battery for him. Other possibilities: he needed Basira&Jon to be away because something was meant to happen at the Institute and/or with Elias’s legal procedure; or the aim was also to make Martin fall deeper into The Lonely/turn his back on Jon, etc. So many possibilities.

And Elias hasn’t moved from prison (… as far as we know) and yet it feels like he’s just. Winning At This Season.

(Though: I’m expecting Elias to be VERY pleased and insufferable about Jon very casually taking live-statements from unwilling people, who specifically Did Not Want to tell him and had… done nothing to deserve the nightmares and the Beholding-torture… but technically, it’s also possible that Elias might be a bit irritated? Because Jon gave the Institute’s name, back in MAG142, and seemed to have acted immoderately for the past three weeks? Elias was all about “moderation” back in MAG092, and he… himself acted with a lot of self-restraint, technically – he has been an utter asshole on all accounts, but he also used his powers sparingly, and never unprompted: Daisy was threatening him in MAG081, Melanie had tried to kill him twice before he traumatised her in MAG106, and he did the same to Martin as a last resort in MAG118, because Martin was doing everything to push Elias to use his powers on him. Comparatively, Jon… has been worse, in MAG141/142, attacking innocents for his own profit, and now aware of the consequences (and honestly, I’m still ill-at-ease at the amount of violation that was at play in MAG142 – even without taking Jon into account… I felt like it was the most intimately violent testimony we have ever heard in the series…). I don’t really believe that Elias is not currently SO VERY PLEASED by Jon’s behaviour, but it could be a twist that he’s, in fact, a bit cross that Jon went wild without any self-control.)

- Once again: MAG135 was a Very Striking case of Elias seemingly reacting to Jon’s concerns – Jon hadn’t been able to tell whether The Dark’s ritual had been neutralised or not, and Elias came up with the Worrying News about The Dark being active right now, in front of Basira, right at the end of the episode. So Elias might be keeping a close eye (ha) on Jon’s doubts, using them to manipulate him and push him in the direction he wants… and you know what Jon hasn’t hidden at all in season 4 and frequently lamented over?

That he’s been worried about Martin.

I have a bit of trouble picturing Elias giving Martin to Peter because he thought it would give Jon his Lonely scar (… because it would have meant, for Elias, to acknowledge that Martin was becoming extremely important to Jon at the end of season 3, and I’m not sure that Elias knew about it or would… acknowledge it at all. He was extremely contemptuous of Martin back then) but… this is definitely something he might be capitalising on now, and hahahaha ;; Martin… Martin, I don’t think you’re likely to die soon-ish (my bet is rather on Daisy orz), but you’re utterly unsafe…

- MMMMMMMMMMMmmMMMmmmm.

There was no mention of Elias’s acquaintances with Rayner in this episode, nothing about his “friendship” with Rayner – Manuela hadn’t named him in her written statement, either, only designing him as “the Head of your Institute”. If it was something about stoner!Elias’s backstory, I think she would have mentioned him here? I mostly have trouble picturing when it could come up, now that it seems that The Dark’s arc has been wrapped up – their ritual failed, Rayner is dead, most avatars are dead, the cult has been mostly eradicated, their Dark Sun was destroyed (there is still the question of what derailed their ritual, but we don’t need to hear much more about the cultists themselves).

I’m still not “feeling” it on a personal level (… or maybe I simply adore the idea that stoner!Elias is his True Backstory, that it’s not a matter of something having taken on his identity) but it does lend even more credit to the theory that Elias is actually Jonah Magnus, since we got confirmation that Jonah and Rayner knew each other in MAG138… and still nothing about Elias&Rayner on their own.

… in any case, WOW did Elias go out of his way to make sure The Dark would be a Done Deal. Manuela pointed out that the Institute (Gertrude? Or more?) had been keeping an eye (ha) on Hither Green (“Hither Green was, I believe, where your Institute was watching, but Natalie’s efforts were a small and meagre part of the greater effort.”), and it was the first place to fall. Elias tipped the police and sent them after the cultists and Rayner in February 2017 (which he confirmed in MAG135), ensuring Rayner’s downfall when it was already akin to kicking a puppy (Manuela: “I can only assume we were too weak to hide from you, and you struck when Maxwell was vulnerable.”). And now, he sent Basira&Jon to take care of one of the last avatars. It sounds very extra and… personal. (But then… it was hinted in MAG053 that proto-Dark and proto-Eye had History, as conflicting sides.)

- tl;dr Basira:

(MAG135) BASIRA: [DRY SIGH] What was the point? You won’t be getting your ritual off from in here so, what do you need him for? What’s so important you need him stronger?

ARE YOU SUPER SURE ELIAS IS NOT ACTUALLY GETTING HIS RITUAL OFF FROM IN THERE.

(YES, I am aware that this is a LOT of Elias Mentions for an episode in which… Elias wasn’t referred to even once aside from the “son of a bitch”. But. But. He pushed in that direction so hard…

And as Melanie had spat in MAG102, “It’s not just being stuck here, Jon. It’s not just me. He’s manipulating you, he’s manipulating all of us. Can you seriously not see that? He’s pulling all the strings, and I don’t think there’s any other way to stop it.”, and once again, what do you know about the Spiders and what is the exact nature of your relationship with them, Elias.)

- Consequences-wise, the Ny-Ålesund trip is potentially dramatic and tragic and filling me with dread (whatever Elias is aiming for, it feels like it might be coming… closer). But in practice, for the arc in itself? It was the most anticlimactic and hilarious thing ever: I was suspecting that Elias might have been highly misleading and that The Dark’s ritual might have been taken care of already, but I was expecting at least actual threats. Jon had mentioned people wearing the symbol of the Church, when he came back to the Institute, and there was still the matter of The Beast, and potentially the Dark Sun, even without Rayner, which could have been enough to Hurt? But no. The Dark Sun wasn’t usable as a power of mass-destruction. The Beast was revealed to have been slain by the cultists themselves. Rayner was confirmed (unless later twist) to have died to Basira and the other Section 31 officers back in season 2, more than a year ago – also confirming that… Natalie might have killed Rayner herself, when she stabbed a possibly possessed Leo Altman as retribution. The ritual had already failed more than three years ago.

Plus, there was the added Hilarity of Manuela spending the episode blaming Gertrude for their plans crashing, and thinking that she was meant to be neutralised by a powerful enemy… only to be told that Gertrude had died three years ago, and probably not even because of her involvement with The Dark, and that everything that happened might have been (partially) unrelated to Gertrude’s actions.

The episode felt like a kind of respite, ironically, after the build-up of MAG141/MAG142: instead of action-packed and threats and danger and dread, we got a few answers, and more questions. Elements tied in, and some things remained mysterious – but also highlighted.

- I’m…………… so mad……………… Jonny…………………………

So, with Manuela’s mention that:

(MAG143) MANUELA: Instead, we began the search for his successor, a new host for his… continuation. He would regain his strength, and we would plan our next move. It was difficult, though. The approaching culmination had meant Maxwell had not prepared another host, and the search for another vessel was… long and involved. Finally, about eighteen months ago, we found one: a child, whose father had, by coincidence, been directly marked by The Dark.

So, “Callum Brodie”, who got kidnapped by the cultists in February 2017; Elias tipped the police to their location, and the police officers interrupted the ceremony which should have allowed Maxwell Rayner to body-hop:

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: You said it started with a kidnapping case? BASIRA: Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago. Sitter was asleep when the mother came home, the front door was open, there was no sign of him. There was no forced entry so it started out as a missing persons case, but they got a witness claiming he’d seen three unknown figures entering the Brodies’ home that night, so it was kicked up to Serious Crime.

Twelve years old in early 2017, only his mother mentioned, and a father who had been touched by The Dark.

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: […] Martin hasn’t had much luck tracking down Mr. Brown himself. According to [Caroline Brodie], his ex-wife, she left him in 2004, after his dismissal from the prison service pushed him further into alcoholism, and he became abusive. She said she got a single letter from him in 2009, asking for reconciliation, but she never replied. Martin says the letter was postmarked from Waterford in Ireland. But he’s been unable to track Mr. Brown any further.

……………… :))))

So Callum’s father was probably Phillip Brown, the statement-giver from MAG052 (the… utterly awful prison guard, who was fascinated by Robert Montauk and described his last months at the prison, including Rayner’s visit), and Caroline left him when she was pregnant or had very recently given birth. I hate.

- A bit curious about what made it so hard to find a new body for Maxwell Rayner…? What were the prerequisites, since Manuela admitted that the fact his father had been touched by The Dark was a “coincidence”…? What are the things making a body Fit for body-hopping into…?

- In the list of things I’m happy (and sad) about: we finally got… a few things about Julia’s mother, and what pushed Robert Montauk to do what he did é_è

(MAG143) MANUELA: I was but newly joined when [Lynette] fled the Church, and Maxwell had her silenced. But I remember her brute of a husband. He fed the beast for us, you know, when first he believed [Lynette] might still be saved. Then, later, we faithful served as his fuel to banish it. But, not for long.

So, Julia’s mother disappeared because she tried to escape (that’s true cultist logic ;;), and Robert initially worked for Rayner, thinking he could save her (hence why he was receiving calls from Rayner for his next missions), before eventually turning against them when he realised there was no hope (hence why his last victim was specifically a cultist). It… even explains why no bodies were found, actually, if he was “feeding” them to the Beast (literally or in a spooky way):

(MAG012, Julia Montauk) “The one question they kept asking me over and over during the investigation into my father was whether I knew where the rest of the bodies were. I told them the truth, that I had no idea. They claimed they wanted to confirm the identities of the victims, which they couldn’t easily do with what was left.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: In addition to the body of one Christopher Lorne, 40 preserved hearts were recovered from Robert Montauk’s shed. […] Of possible significance also is the fact that the rest of the bodies were never found.

I wonder, were the forty hearts all taken from cultists? Or from other victims? Were the pictures he was taking only from innocent victims, or from cultists…?

Also, Jon finally got answers to some of his veerrry old interrogations:

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: […] So what is this thing that seems to have stalked Robert Montauk through so much of his life? And what’s its connection to Rayner? Were they summoning it, containing it, worshipping it? Whatever the case, it seems as though Montauk earned its anger. I feel it might be worthwhile getting a few more torches for the Archive.

- But mostly, I’m deliriously happy that “Montauk” ascended to a Dark-killing family brand name:

(MAG143) MANUELA: [Vardan Darvish] had an inkling, I thought, but he crossed a Montauk, which has… traditionally gone poorly for us.

Good job Julia, you did AMAZING sweetie (MAG109), and I’m even more glad for her since… The Dark took both of her parents… ;;

- Sssooo…

(MAG143) MANUELA: To begin our seven-day feast, we slew the still and lightless beast, and drank of its stagnant blood, submerging the first of the sacrifices in the brackish water it had blessed with its stillness. Maxwell plunged its claws into his chest, freeing the darkness within him, and we waited; and we sang; and we exalted in divine stillness.

… was the brackish water actually the beast’s blood all along? (Though it seems to be the essence of The Dark overall: Halley had been drowned in it, and “Rayner” in himself is mostly liquid, as he tried to take possession of Callum through it, and was shot and killed when it was out.)

I’m !! that it turns out that… the cultists themselves killed the Beast. I wasn’t expecting that. Though it’s probably meant to come back by itself, as Robert Montauk showed:

(MAG052, Philip Brown) “I was tense, ready to fight off Montauk if he decided to make a move, but instead, a soft voice came from out of the darkness. I didn’t recognise it, but I thought it sounded like it came from the old man, and I don’t think he was talking to me. [STATIC] “You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?” That’s what it said. […] I could once again see Montauk and the old man sat there, motionless. It didn’t seem like they’d moved an inch, though as I went to take Montauk back to his cell, I noticed that he was crying. I didn’t mention it. I’ll be honest, I was kind of freaked out by the whole thing.”

(MAG143) MANUELA: He fed the beast for us, you know, when first he believed [Lynette] might still be saved. Then, later, we faithful served as his fuel to banish it. But, not for long. That’s the thing about Darkness, isn’t it? You try your hardest to eradicate, flood your surroundings with light, but it’s always there at the edges – waiting for the glow to weaken, to return and cover you forever. Robert Montauk discovered that the hard way. And someday, so will your Gertrude.

So yep, it will… come back one day, probably.

(- Fun stupid facts! MAG052, describing Robert Montauk’s death… had been interrupted by Basira delivering a tape to Jon. So we had a small meta connection between her and The Dark, AND with The Eye, since the tape she delivered was labelled “Alexandria” and was one of the rare Beholding statements, that Jon listened to in MAG053, about the old Serapeum, which might have been a proto-Archive.)

- Manuela had some Drive too, in her reverence and grandiloquence, but I was mostly Conceal Don’t Feel / “DON’T YOU DARE TELL HER” all through her statement because. She was assuming that Gertrude was still alive and coming for her. And aouch, might have been Harsh to learn that no, these two randos are not here on behalf of Gertrude, but have been scrambling through things for the past two years and a half after she was killed.

- It’s interesting (and also very funny.) how The Dark is simultaneously… very threatening, and not that much. Manuela was incredibly scary in her statement, in MAG135, mostly because of the concept of her “fear battery”? The way they proceeded with Julia’s mom was really… heart-wrenching (you can’t leave and stay alive for long)? They killed so many people for their ritual, just like The Stranger?

(MAG143) MANUELA: We had hundreds of sacrifices prepared and ready, plunged into darkness and terror for days on end. […] I began to drown the sacrifices. Too soon, perhaps. But it worked, to keep it going, and keep it together.

… but at the same time.

(MAG143) MANUELA: Maxwell had always had the visions, the drive. Whatever was inside him pulled him to this end, to this great undertaking, like a magnet, and I was so very honoured to be his right hand…! Natalie and the others followed, but they did not truly understand. […] BASIRA: You said the Dark Sun was still here. MANUELA: [SNORT] Fine. If you’re so keen to take everything, undo the work of centuries… it’s just through that door. [FOOTSTEPS] BASIRA: Jon? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [STATIC:] How dangerous is it? MANUELA: Only myself, Maxwell and Natalie could even look upon it. It will annihilate you both in an instant.

We know that Manuela had joined the cult around the time Julia’s mother tried to escape it (“I was but newly joined when [Lynette] fled the Church, and Maxwell had her silenced.”), and we know that Robert Montauk was active for five years before being arrested in 1995, which means that Manuela met Rayner around or shortly before 1990. So, she has been in the cult for more than 25 years at this point. Meanwhile, she was looking down on Natalie, who was still Amongst The Big Ones, and we know from MAG025 that Natalie:

(MAG025, Mark Bilham) “That changed last October, when Natalie’s mum died. I don’t know how it happened, exactly. Heart failure, I think. It was sudden, I know that much, and it hit her hard. I mean, obviously it did, it was her mum, but I think… I think she lost her faith. […] That month was sad, but it’s not what Kathy wanted us to talk to you about. No, it was what happened afterwards. It was after Natalie found her new Church. It was Kathy who told me about it. This must have been about two months after Natalie’s mum died. I must have asked how she was doing, if she was feeling any better. Kathy said that, yeah she was. Apparently, she’d found a new congregation and seemed to be getting some comfort there.”

… had joined the cult in December 2014. Three months before the ritual. HOW do you take them super-seriously when you learn that one of their highest-ranking people had JUST joined the cult and was just very enthusiastic and also dramatically off-the-mark about what was happening.

(- Yes, I’m saying this, fully aware that shit, Jon has been Head Archivist for less than three years (… and even less if you take his coma into account), is already The Archivist, is deep in spooks… while Gertrude had been active for around fifty years, and at least aware of rituals for forty years, as she mentioned in MAG137 about The Slaughter. It’s not about time, it’s about… willingness and compatibility? And Jon went in very deep, very fast.

But if Natalie was able to look at the Dark Sun in merely three months… we’re a bit lucky that she died during the Section 31 operation, before she could have ascended to more?)

(And also: nicknaming your Fear god “Mr. Pitch” is such an hilarious move, come on:

(MAG025, Mark Bilham) “[Natalie] said that it wasn't long until they were collected by Mr. Pitch. She said that Kathy could come too, if she liked. She could be saved.”

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world.

(MAG143) MANUELA: Natalie and the others followed, but they did not truly understand. Not truly, with their talk of “peace” and “unity” and “Mr. Pitch”. A friendly name, to try and hide from a concept they couldn’t grasp.

Natalie, please.)

- Interesting word choice from Manuela here:

(MAG143) MANUELA: And here I have remained. Perhaps I have told myself that I am preparing, gathering my own strength and making my plans to continue the Church in his name. But I think in my heart, I have been waiting for this moment. For the final axe to fall, and finish the last remnant of our holy crusade. And here, at last, you are.

Because literal crusades may have been used in the past as a pretext to attack the old Serapeum in Alexandria, according to MAG053? And on that note:

(MAG143) MANUELA: Our congregation in Alaska disappeared the next day, and Russia as well. One by one, it seemed our scattered Whisperers Of Night were falling, and holding it together, keeping the lightless world anchored to our star, bringing it closer… was becoming an almost unbearable strain on Maxwell.

(MAG053) GERTRUDE: And there’s even one, unnamed contemporary historian, that describes the mob attacking the Serapeum not as Christians, but using a phrase which roughly translates as: “Those who sing the night”.

I think “Whisperers Of Night” might be a different translation for the same original term as “Those who sing the night”, like “Circus of the Other” and “Another Circus”? =D If so, nice touch!

- One of my Biggest Questions regarding the Magnus verse has been around Gertrude’s time of death – pet-theory of mine being that she might have… not actually died when ~blood was found in her office~ and that she went off the radar for a while before Elias caught up to her.

We got a few more details in the chronology, and characters insisted to put her death around the time of the failed ritual, so in March 2015… while we know it can’t have been The True Story because Gertrude recorded a statement in April. Chronology-wise:

* March 11th 2015: Mark Bilham managed to escape the ceremony happening in the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, reported Natalie Ennis’s disappearance to the police when they arrived. (MAG025)

* March 14th 2015: “Antonio Blake” (Oliver Banks) gave his statement to Gertrude, explaining that she should die soon – he saw this “the night before last” (so the night from 12th to 13th March) and there is around ten days before it should happen, which would predict her death for around March 22nd / March 23rd 2015. (MAG011)

* March 15th 2015: according to Elias, when he went to the Archives, “Gertrude wasn’t there, but her desk was covered in blood. […] The police tested the blood and confirmed the DNA matched to Gertrude, though I don’t know why they had her on file. They judged there to be almost a gallon of blood spilled, far more than the human body can lose and survive so, I assumed she was dead”. (MAG040)

* March 16th 2015: “four days before the eclipse was due”, Maxwell Rayner felt a “disruption” (given by the collapse of the ritual at Hither Green); the different cells of The Dark began to disappear. (MAG143)

* March 20th 2015: a total solar eclipse happened in Ny-Ålesund and, according to Manuela Dominguez, should have marked the culmination of The Dark’s ritual. Basira hadn’t given the date but had already highlighted that it might be linked to Edmond Halley and John Flamsteed and Halley’s comet. (MAG108, MAG143)

* April 4th 2015: Gertrude records a written statement about The Stranger, mentions that she’s not in a good shape (“I had hoped I’d have a chance to recover. I can still barely stand.”), though, in context, it could be due to her theft of the gorilla skin from the Stranger gang… or because she purposely injured herself and lost too much blood recently. At least, still alive and kicking when she doubly shouldn’t be – both according to Oliver’s prediction and to Elias’s declaration. (MAG087)

* May 15th 2015: a scream is heard at the Hither Green Chapel, but the police find nothing. Jon is absolutely clear on the date (“About a month after this statement [April 19th 2015] was given, on May 15th 2015”) and points out that “according to the official file, May 15th 2015 was the day Gertrude Robinson, my predecessor, passed away.” (MAG025)

… And I realised, thanks to this post, that. Actually, March 22nd 2015, which was the day Evan Lukas died “from heart failure” (MAG013: “Congenital, they said. Some problem with his heart. Always been there, but never diagnosed. No warning. One in a million chance.”)… was the day Gertrude was supposed to die.

I have no clue re: what happened to derail The Dark’s ritual – I don’t think that it simply failed because twist, no ritual can ever successfully be carried to completion, since that would lower the stakes too much at this point in the series. But the way Manuela described it:

(MAG143) MANUELA: I… don’t know exactly when it all started to come undone. I think Maxwell first felt the ripples four days before the eclipse was due. [SIGH] It was strange… Like a pause in the hysterical whimpering and fruitless prayers of the sacrifices. And a ripple that was felt through the waters, and the stagnant blood that bound us. A disruption. We would later learn that this was the collapse of the ritual at Hither Green – but it was only the first. Our congregation in Alaska disappeared the next day, and Russia as well. One by one, it seemed our scattered Whisperers Of Night were falling […]. And then… it stopped. It just… stopped. All at once, that loving embrace was stripped from us, and it began to retreat, to recede back into the place that it had come from. We were so close…! … We were so close… […] We left, half of us dead, and the other half destroyed by coming so close to the true essence, [SIGH] and being denied. In my most wretched hours, I wonder… perhaps it was us…! Perhaps… we simply lacked faith. We weren’t worthy…! The world wasn’t worthy. But… no. We were ready. We had earned our Dark rapture. And we were robbed.

It feels, a bit, like a slow degradation, with cells dying one after the other, isolated from each other. I wonder if Evan Lukas (or the Lukases) were involved somehow, for that one…?

Anyway, this is still very much a Mystery so… we might get a clue another time. Maybe thanks to Adelard Dekker, in person or through an old letter?

- I’mmmmmmm thinking that we might get an answer re: Gertrude’s last activities / what happened specifically that made Elias kill her / what was happening between them… because the subject of Gertrude’s last activities and death had reemerged lately, with… some indecision from characters:

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I’ll keep digging. If there is another ritual upcoming, I’ll need all the information I can get on it. I can’t believe Gertrude didn’t have a plan for it. I hope I’m just being over-cautious, that it’s already long since dealt with, but… we’ll see.

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. [INHALE] … Nice to see Gertrude [EXHALE] also used to get a lot of threats. So far it doesn’t seem that any went… desperately well. Except for Elias, of course. But he didn’t threaten, did he? He just… did it.

(MAG143) MANUELA: [HUFF] Coward. So, how did she do it? It’s been three years, waiting, guarding this place without hope. At least, do me the courtesy of telling me how she collapsed our moment of triumph. ARCHIVIST: You really don’t know, do you? MANUELA: Know what? ARCHIVIST: … Gertrude’s dead. She died right around the time of your ritual. MANUELA: Ha! So: stopping us took everything she had. BASIRA: You wish. She was murdered. Unrelated, as far as we can tell.

(Still hoping that Elias&Gertrude’s last interaction was recorded? We already heard gunshots in a few episodes, this one included, and we even got Leitner’s Extended Sounds Of Brutal Pipe Murder live. Wouldn’t be “too shocking”.)

- I’ll be laughing for months and months about the fact that:

(MAG143) BASIRA: [SIGH] So, what, this was another waste of time? What, no Church, no Dark Sun? … I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch…!

… Basira canonically called Elias a “son of a bitch”. Which. I mean. SUPER FAIR. But.

(A bit rude for Elias’s mother, Basira; I’m sure that, even if she was utterly awful, she wasn’t absolutely responsible for Elias’s… everything.)

- And a big “IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHHHH” for cop!Basira handling Manuela, leading the interrogation (telling Jon when to step in with his powers), and using Daisy’s weapons.

- Jon demonstrated multiple powers in this episode… but nothing was a True Novelty nor out of line compared to season 3 – except for the way he pressured Manuela into giving her statement.

* Actually, there were a few parallels with MAG096, and the way Daisy&him had caught and interrogated “Sarah”: Jon using compulsion, a few jokes thrown around, Daisy-or-Basira handling the physical aspect of it.

* Jon did casually admit to compelling random people… but he had already Done That in MAG107, when needing information:

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: [SNIFF] [EXHALE] The… the hospital was… The hospital was interesting. It’s all very well being able to get people to answer your questions, but if they genuinely don’t remember something, it’s not always as useful as it seems.

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I don’t know. Everyone back at the research base seemed… pretty sure this place was empty. BASIRA: And you believe them? ARCHIVIST: They weren’t lying. BASIRA: Wait, you… did your sp–… ARCHIVIST: Oh, yeah, no, I, I don’t think they noticed. BASIRA: So they were serious. It’s been empty for… what, a year?

… Still not Super Great but at least… not new and, presumably, consequences-less apart from (lack of) ethics considerations. (MAG103 was worse in that regard and, hopefully, without much consequence for the person Jon had compelled.)

* Jon was also… not frantic during the interrogation? Basira was the one leading it, and Jon compelled when she prompted him too, like it had happened with Breekon:

(MAG143) BASIRA: Who are you? MANUELA: [GRUNTING] BASIRA: Jon? ARCHIVIST: [STATIC:] Who are you? [STATIC INCREASES, PRESSURING.] MANUELA: [PANTS] … Manuela. Manuela Dominguez. BASIRA: Where is everybody? MANUELA: [PANTS] Go to hell…! ARCHIVIST: [STATIC:] Answer her. MANUELA: They’re dead. Because of you. […] Fine. If you’re so keen to take everything, undo the work of centuries… it’s just through that door. [FOOTSTEPS] BASIRA: Jon? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [STATIC:] How dangerous is it? MANUELA: Only myself, Maxwell and Natalie could even look upon it. It will annihilate you both in an instant. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] BASIRA: Ask her how we can destroy it.

(Which. Is indeed a useful ability to use against monsters/dangerous spooks but… still, Basira won’t be the one to hold Jon off on it. It works as long as they’re dealing with killers and dangerous people, if it’s about finding ways to prevent them from causing harm… but I’m a bit afraid that Basira indeed makes use of Jon’s abilities, and seems to be… so encouraging when it can serve her.)

* It’s honestly the pressure he now uses to “get” statements that makes my stomach twist (in a bad way)? It’s been three episodes in a row that the person clearly didn’t want to tell their story, and were forced to, and we got ample descriptions in MAG142 of how… deeply violating and shattering it was for the victim:

(MAG141) ARCHIVIST: Tell me what happened. [STATIC INCREASES] FLOYD: W–what…? What is this? ARCHIVIST: Whenever you’re ready. FLOYD: A–a–alright. [STATIC DECREASES] … Sure… [SILENCE] He… he–he w–was a good boss, you know? […] My last voyage with him was the one that killed him. [Four] years ago; I still have nightmares sometimes. Tried to escape it, but some things follow you no matter where you go. […] And I have tried, ever since then, to leave those memories behind me. […] BASIRA: And what? You thought the best way to find it was by… slurping it out of his brain? ARCHIVIST: He didn’t exactly seem inclined to volunteer the information.

(MAG142) WOMAN: […] and he says he wants my story. He says he needs to hear what happened to me. And I… I wanted to tell him to–to–to to go away, I–I wanted to–to to kick him, and run. But… I… [SHAKY DUMBFOUNDED EXHALE] I sit down. … And I start to tell him… everything. About the job, about the collapse, ab–about the hand… And more than I told you, even, and–and… as I do, it’s… it’s like I’m there again. Like I can feel it grab my ankle, a–a–a cold, dead hand, and I just…! I just can’t stop talking, like I cannot shut up…! MARTIN: A… [RESTRAINED EXHALE] Are you alright? WOMAN: No?! No, I’m not! Of course I’m not! It felt like… like I was throwing up all those feelings again, and I wanted to, to scream, but instead I just… sat, and calmly told him my life story, and he just watched me. His eyes, like… his eyes, like, we–were… drinking in every fragment of my misery. I can’t… It…

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] [STATIC:] What happened? MANUELA: Don’t… don’t make me, please! ARCHIVIST: Tell me. [STATIC INCREASES, PRESSURING.] MANUELA: [PANTS] Fine! … Fine.

(That’s a double-standard: it feels Fictionally Satisfying when he does this to a serial killer, because uh, had it coming, you can bear some unpleasantness in your life, too. But… same as last week: I’m still too upset about MAG142, even if Jon feels bad about it in the future, or is called out on it… I’m still a bit reluctant at the idea of being sad for him over anything, now that I know he harmed MAG142’s woman so badly, and that it will be likely a permanent state of trauma for her…? Still not sure Jon can still work as a protagonist at all after that? Though this episode offered a nice balance for me: I didn’t feel like I was meant to Feel many things, but mostly think and observe; there was something a bit more mechanical, even when Jon mentioned that he thought he was going to die… probably because he was talking with Helen, who was also detached. But I’m curious to see how these things will be handled once Jon is back at the Archives, and now that both Martin&Basira know about it…)

- SURPRISE HELEN IS A SURPRISE AND !!! I’M LOVE HER…

(MAG143) HELEN: Go find your Basira. Then, let’s get you both home. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [CLICK.]

That “your Basira” was so… nice… dang……………

- Same thing as Jon forcing Dangerous Spooks to spill it all out: it feels kind of satisfying to have Helen… swallowing them in her corridors – they had it coming, and it means they won’t be hurting people anymore, and as long as it’s Spooks eating Spooks, they can do whatever between themselves, I’m not As Emotionally Invested And Sad/Upset as when innocent people get hurt :w

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: … Did you catch her? HELEN: Yes. ARCHIVIST: [YELP] [SIGH] [BREATHING HARDER] HELEN: She needed a door. ARCHIVIST: H… h–how did you… HELEN: Oh, finding this place was easy without the Darkness. ARCHIVIST: Will… she be coming back? HELEN: … No. Uuuh… this one, I think I’ll keep.

(Is it because Helen is wlw and not into males at all, hence why she wasn’t keen on keeping Jared.)

Though: Helen was waaaay more instable in this episode than previously? She sounded carnivorous and playful, a bit like a cruel child, here, while she was… colder and a bit more detached back in MAG131 and MAG115. Is it also because she’s not in the tunnels? Or because she’s settling in as The Distortion and getting more… all over the place…? But still coherent so far – since Helen repeated that “I told you – I’ve decided to help” and is sticking to it? (How long will that last…?)

- Will Manuela and Jon still have the dreams, or will it be “cut” because Manuela is inside of/being digested by the Distortion now? According to MAG120, the door was closed and Jon wasn’t opening it in his dreams, so… (And if there are dreams: will they be pitch-black and absolutely useless.)

- So many doors in this episode…

(MAG143) MANUELA: [SNORT] Fine. If you’re so keen to take everything, undo the work of centuries… it’s just through that door. […] BASIRA: Look, it’s alright, Jon. No one else knows it’s here. And if we just leave it, no one will know. ARCHIVIST: No, I… I’m doing this. [INHALE] Get out. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHING LOUDER AND MORE SHAKINGLY.] [UNSEALING A METALLIC DOOR; HEAVY DOOR SLOWLY SLIDING OPEN.] [CREAKING, SPARKLER-LIKE STATIC SATURATING THE RECORDING.] ARCHIVIST: It’s… beautiful… MANUELA: [DISTANT, PANTING] … No… NO!!! [STATIC SUDDENLY DISAPPEARS.] BASIRA: Jon! [BODY CRUMPLING ON THE GROUND?] ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] No, I–I’m, I’m okay… […] [DISTORTION SOUNDS, BRINGING CONSTANT STATIC] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] ARCHIVIST: … Did you catch her? HELEN: Yes. ARCHIVIST: [YELP] [SIGH] [BREATHING HARDER] HELEN: She needed a door. ARCHIVIST: H… h–how did you… […] I… Why are you here? HELEN: I told you – I’ve decided to help. I thought you might like a way home? ARCHIVIST: Another door? HELEN: If you want it. [PAUSE] … How was it? ARCHIVIST: Mm? HELEN: Looking upon The Dark. ARCHIVIST: I thought I was going to die. HELEN: You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah.

And still: Jon’s overall Complicated Relationship with doors, I’ll have to update my liiiiist…

- I’m… honestly (pleasantly!) surprised that turns out that Basira… wasn’t keen, at all, on sacrificing Jon or allowing him to sacrifice himself:

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [STATIC:] How dangerous is it? MANUELA: Only myself, Maxwell and Natalie could even look upon it. It will annihilate you both in an instant. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] BASIRA: Ask her how we can destroy it. ARCHIVIST: I know how. … I just need to see it. BASIRA: “See” as in…? ARCHIVIST: As in… actually see it. MANUELA: Go ahead. Just try. BASIRA: Look, it’s alright, Jon. No one else knows it’s here. And if we just leave it, no one will know. ARCHIVIST: No, I… I’m doing this. [INHALE] Get out.

Her spontaneous reaction was to try and discourage him from doing Something Dangerous And Potentially Deadly. So: she cares, she doesn’t… want him to die, even though she witnessed him grabbing Floyd and forcing him to tell his statement and condemning him to the nightmares that she herself used to be plagued with. Which means that… yeah, a lot of her dryness, of her cautiousness and calculation, has been… less sincere than she was pretending? That she tried to behave a certain way, while feeling another – that she still has sympathy for Jon and doesn’t think he would be better off dead, even though she knows that The Eye still has its chance ritual-wise, even though she saw that Jon’s powers have been all over the place since he woke up. She’s forcing herself to not trust him, or still doesn’t want to trust him for real… but she cares about him. And after MAG142, I’m not sure it’s… a good thing ;;

- And a bit ;wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww; for Dasira mood.

(MAG143) BASIRA: They just left it here? ARCHIVIST: I… maybe. [PAUSE] [SCOFFING] Kinda wish Daisy was here…! [FOOTSTEPS STOP.] … Basira? BASIRA: Yeah? [FOOSTEPS RESUME.] ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. [INHALE] I know this isn’t– BEHIND YOU!

Aouch, Jon. Accidentally very rude.

And I’m… surprised and stupidly hopeful that he did realise right away that he had crossed a line / wronged Basira / hurt her feelings? What the HELL happened with the live-statements from MAG141/MAG142, for Jon to… Listen, I can’t call Floyd and that woman “statement-givers” when the stories were forcefully grabbed and torn out from them, and Jon didn’t even seem to realise that he was hurting them so deeply – although he DID acknowledge that Floyd would get nightmares (but his “And I am sorry about that.” didn’t sound like he was sorry AT ALL).

There is still the mystery of what happened shortly before the trip because, really, season 4 had not been going in the direction of Jon getting desensitised to random people’s sufferings (and, for example, only caring about his assistants)? Like, at all? He was very detached about Gertrude’s methods and horrified about what had happened to Jan Kilbride (MAG130: “Even so, and… leaving aside the matter of Gertrude’s actions for a moment…” / MAG133: “So use me. Because if you go it alone, you are going to die. Even Gertrude worked with people. We make bad decisions when we don’t communicate…”), he was uncomfortable about the fact that he was aware that other people were still trapped in the coffin, although he hadn’t been the one to put them there (MAG135: “… Is locking it up the right thing to do? There are other people in there. And Daisy and I got out, but– … No, I, uh… I can’t think about that. Even if I could somehow be sure of recreating our escape, I–I can’t save everyone that’s been taken. I–It’s not my job to try, I– And I can’t spend another three days in there, I just… I need to let it go.”), he had mentioned to Daisy that he was ready to suffer as long as it meant not losing anyone (MAG136), doubting so much (MAG139)… and then he just. Switched? What happened, for him to suddenly sound much more mechanical…? As mentioned with previous episodes, was it due to his attempt at peeking through The Lonely…? Was it because the Institute/Archives have a sort of stabilising effect on him, and he was outside in all three cases…? Was it because Jon chose, very deliberately, to power up through live-statements in order to be ready for The Dark, and is… drunk with power right now?

- At the very least: Jon has sounded significantly… more detached? In MAG141/142. Still able to have various inflections, but there is something more… matter-of-fact than in previous episodes? A bit closer to how he sounded in season 1 – though more fast-paced? And sounding tired, but not in the same way as previously in season 4. Not exactly snappy but…

(MAG143) BASIRA: [SIGH] Eyes peeled. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … Was that a joke? BASIRA: Yeah. [SILENCE] Any clue where everyone is? […] Don’t move. [GRUNTS, PANTS. A SPIT.] ARCHIVIST: Oh! … Charming.

… dryer, instead of the previous softness? He was complaining about having so many doubts, in MAG139, and in the last few episodes, he’s been… going along with the flow without much hesitation. Not pleased but not startled nor hesitating. So what happened…

(- Still casually self-destructive/going for the potentially Lethal options, though, and Daisy had been spot-on when highlighting to Martin that he was “self-destructive” – something Jon had himself acknowledged without using the word, at the end of MAG136.

There might have been multiple feelings at play when he marched on to watch the Dark Sun: their goal was to neutralise The Dark/make sure they couldn’t succeed with their ritual, and taking it out seemed like the wisest option; curiosity/desire to see it; and… grabbing an occasion to die, if it were to happen. He did acknowledge that last one:

(MAG143) HELEN: … How was it? ARCHIVIST: Mm? HELEN: Looking upon The Dark. ARCHIVIST: I thought I was going to die. HELEN: You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah.

And he accepted, right after, to go through Helen’s door again, which really doesn’t scream like the action of someone with Self-Preservation. And he was still afraid, if his breathing is any indication, although… quieter and less melancholic/shaking than when he had gone into the coffin.)

- Jon’s way of just. Going straight for the statement, in MAG141/MAG142, makes me think of a certain Beholding creature and:

(MAG053) GERTRUDE: My biggest concern right now is whatever creature Mr. Heller encountered down there. It was… 56 years ago. But if it’s still alive, I should be careful. What was it? A guardian of some sort or perhaps… perhaps it too was… once an Archivist.

(MAG092) ARCHIVIST: So it’s… it’s back to breadcrumbs, and statements, and risking my life talking to things that barely remember how to be human anymore? […] Am I… Elias, am I still human? ELIAS: Jon, what does human even mean? I mean, really? You still bleed, you can still die. And your will is still your own, mostly. That’s more than can be said for a lot of the “real” humans out there. … You’re worried about ending up like that thing, lurking in the dirt under the streets of Alexandria? Don’t be. Just do what you need to, and you’ll be fine. Understood?

I mean, YEAH, some things have changed a bit since then (… can Jon still die nowadays?), but. Still. He’s coming a bit closer to Creature Kept In Tunnels And Thirsty For People With Spooky Stories…

- Cough.

(MAG143) MANUELA: We had been worshipping in the deepest dark, and yet, when it crossed the sun, I felt it roll over us, like a cooling balm on a summer’s day, plunging us into a deep, black void, far more complete than I can ever convey with mere words. It was more than beautiful: it was divine…! And as we unveiled our new and absent sun, the sacrifices who remained screamed, and fell in holy agonies, and the world of endless night we had been promised began to pour in, shining out and all around us. […] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHING LOUDER AND MORE SHAKINGLY.] [UNSEALING A METALLIC DOOR; HEAVY DOOR SLOWLY SLIDING OPEN.] [CREAKING, SPARKLER-LIKE STATIC SATURATING THE RECORDING.] ARCHIVIST: It’s… beautiful… MANUELA: [DISTANT, PANTING] … No… NO!!! [STATIC SUDDENLY DISAPPEARS.]

So, for Jon, it was just “beautiful” – and not “divine”.

And he literally killed it with his eyes.

And there were a few mentions of the fact that the word “see” now has different meanings for Jon, in this episode:

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: I never said we were. Just said I couldn’t see anybody. BASIRA: Oh, I thought you meant like… “See”–see. ARCHIVIST: Uh… no. BASIRA: We need to figure out proper terms for this st– [SLIDING NOISE] … What are you doing? […] Ask her how we can destroy it. ARCHIVIST: I know how. … I just need to see it. BASIRA: “See” as in…? ARCHIVIST: As in… actually see it.

So.

Squint.

Jon wasn’t able to tell that Helen had arrived, at first, which meant… he hadn’t seen her. And the shattering sounds when Manuela fled may have meant that they couldn’t see anything anymore (torches? Basira said there were no lightbulbs). And Jon was, or sounded hurt. And it didn’t feel like they knew where the others were.

(MAG143) ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] No, I–I’m, I’m okay… [SOUND OF GLASS SHATTERING.] ARCHIVIST: [SCREAM] BASIRA: Get down! [FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY.] [TWO GUNSHOTS.] ARCHIVIST: [PANTING] Basira…?! BASIRA: I’m alright, just… just one second…! ARCHIVIST: Hum… BASIRA: Stay here. ARCHIVIST: Look, I’m okay, I can help…! [FOOTSTEPS LEAVING] [SILENCE ONLY COVERED BY THE MACHINERY SOUNDS, AND HIS PAINED GRUNTS AND LABOURED BREATHING.]

So. Did Jon just get a Dark scar and… killed his eyes while killing the sun…?

(I missed that but, apparently, Jonny recently mentioned he was working on disability representation, and it had been highlighted by a few persons that Jon-going-blind could easily feel like cheating because he has other powers to… compensate/replace his actual sight (the classic trop of the disabled superhero that isn’t actually disabled), but. The end of the episode was a bit confusing and leaving room for Jon or Basira (she came back really soon…) to… have actually messed up their eyes, and not having realised it yet because the whole place was still in the dark.

And what would happen, re: written statements, if Jon were to lose his eyesight? Would he still “feel” the statement anyway or… would he be unable to read them anymore, and thus forced to seek live-statements to feed the Eye and/or to rely on the assistants reading them – when he was on the run back in season 3, he barely read anything during two months, but Martin&Melanie did and Elias had pushed in that direction, so it might have been having an effect on him too…?)

- … What is next? What will happen, now that Jon&Basira are apparently meant to come back to the Archives right away?

* The fact that Elias had been Basira’s secret intel might come out of the bag pretty soon:

(MAG143) BASIRA: [SIGH] So, what, this was another waste of time? What, no Church, no Dark Sun? … I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch…! ARCHIVIST: No, I… [INHALE] I think it’s here. I, I can feel it, like a… a hole in my mind. […] MANUELA: That’s… I– … Then why are you here? Maxwell is dead. The ritual failed. What’s left? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] A good question! [EXHALE] Basira? BASIRA: You said the Dark Sun was still here.

Either Basira is going to be Beautifully Enraged at Elias, either… yeah, it’s coming. And Basira got totally manipulated and used the whole way…………… (Another question being: has Jon been suspecting that Basira’s intel was Elias for a while, and had been hiding his suspicions to try to see what Elias was aiming at…?)

* Will Jon be allowed to visit Elias, now…? I mean. We had no mention at all that Jon had even asked to visit Elias – but Elias had made sure that Jon couldn’t visit him, because ~ he’s at a very delicate stage right now~ (MAG127), though since then… a few things have changed. (It’s still unlikely given her legal status, but I’m very curious about the possibility of Daisy having a one-on-one with him at some point…)

* There will be the matter of… Jon’s actions re: live-statements. Were the woman and Floyd the only cases, or are they other victims? How many? When did it begin? Why – was it pure instinct, or partially deliberate from Jon? And are the assistants supposed to manage him, and how…? If not Basira, who, in the Archives, will be able to tell Jon off, if he’s now casually hurting people? Martin was prompt to find excuses for him (even after he listened to this woman’s story! He had trouble putting the blame on Jon, and was still considering Jon’s feelings more than his victim’s!) and sounded ready to fly to Norway when he learned that Jon was on a dangerous mission. Daisy has a clear head about responsibility and regrets/remorse and hating the harm she did, but she also… heavily presented Jon as a victim in MAG142. Basira saw Jon forcing Floyd to tell his story, knowing the consequences, and still had the reflex to protect him a few days after. I’m a bit worried that none of them would be ready to truly… shackle Jon or confront him about MAG141/MAG142…? Although there is still Melanie who… will probably take none of his shit, if she hears about this.

(I’m legitimately curious about how she would react, were she to listen to MAG142’s tape. She doesn’t have the bullet anymore, so probably not going into a Slaughter rage, but… of all of the assistants, I think Melanie is likely to have the most Intense reaction if she learns about Jon’s current actions.)

* More live-statements means more dreams, and there is still the matter of MAG120’s tape: Elias was addressing Jon directly in that one, it was supposed to be a message, at least towards the end. Did Jon listen to it already? Will he find it soon? … Will we get another statement from Elias about Jon’s dreams, now that there are… more…? (Did Jon’s overall behaviour change in them? Is he still horrified or… not anymore/just plainly curious faced with people’s suffering…?)

* Re:Melanie, there is still the matter of her spending a lot of time away and being “quiet” since she began therapy. It could mean something awful (Web/Annabelle being the prime suspect)… but it also could be. Actual good therapy, working wonders for her.

* Rituals-wise: the status of Corruption is unclear, and we still don’t have anything about Vast (unless MAG141 was touching to it)… and as long as Martin hasn’t pooled his resources with the others, Jon can’t know that The End and The Web are presumably not in the run for a ritual, nor that The Lonely has already failed. So there are still researches to be done, for him, in those directions. (… Though maybe Martin could have told Daisy right after the end of MAG142’s recording…)

* I wonder if Daisy will tell Jon that she spoke with Martin, that Martin was worried about him…? That it’s still possible to talk to Martin…?

Title for MAG144 is out and is…………………… interesting……. If we hadn’t had the Coffin mini-arc so recently, I’d have said Buried, but it’s unlikely, so… The End, maybe? Something related to MAG065 and/or about technology and/or about tape recorders? Something about The Web’s intentions? Vast thing, and they’re digging Mike Crew out of his grave?? Lonely one and it’s actually about the graveyard/their failed ritual? I’m mostly considering Beholding stuff – Gertrude’s notes, Elias’s plans, the tunnels under the Institute and/or the thing in Alexandria and/or Schwarzwald, the specific book that Albrecht had first sent to Jonah, or a Jon first-person statement (à la MAG040 and MAG080) about the last three weeks? I don’t know but… it’s an interesting title.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #mag143 #the magnus archives #long post/ #tma spoilers/

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG125 /o/

- I’m still going to nickname that power ~Insight~ until further notice because of MAG123 (“I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights.”), though Basira’s “spooky brain” is A Very Tempting Phrase to cover it. Interestingly, there were similarities in the ways it has manifested so far:

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar– [STATIC] Wait– Wait.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he [STATIC-] and Elias have planned, and Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig. [/STATIC] I just wish there w– … w… … Wait, I, I, I didn’t… Did I read that somewhere, or…? R–right, yes [CLEARS THROAT]. The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira.

1°) After Jon read a statement. (It had also been the case in MAG099 when he had dropped Gerard’s name amongst the list of Gertrude’s acquaintances when he’d been given absolutely no reason to do so.) 2°) Both times, regarding the assistants – who are Jon’s primarily concern as of now (at least explicitly). (3°) Right after Jon mentioned Peter Lukas, but that one is most likely to be a coincidence. Probably.)

-> … is this the equivalent of Beholding throwing him a treat and going “thank you for the meal”.

- If his screams are any indication: Jon got hurt. Again. Beating his own record from season 2, in which it had taken 7 episodes for him to Get A New Injury (the reopening of his worms-induced wounds in MAG041 notwithstanding). I wonder how long it will take for us to know where he got hurt and what happened exactly? It had taken from MAG047 to MAG053 to learn that Michael had cut him deeply enough to require five stitches – and even know, we don’t know where he got stabbed exactly. (I’m love it, I love that we know that Jon gets hurt but that it’s rare to know which part of his body was damaged every time around; we’re not even sure what hurt him here? Could have been the scissors, could have been the scalpel, could have been a surprise! hidden knife. So many sharps things laying around.) (*Tim’s voice from MAG082* “When you[’ve been hurt] and there are more than three different ways you might [have gotten sta]–”.)

On the one hand, insert jokes here about how Jonathan “Disaster” Sims is collecting the set.

…………….. on the other hand, he is. Indeed. Slowly completing the set of getting physical injuries from other entities, things that might be considered a form of marking?, and/or getting live-statements from other avatars, and it has never been highlighted as a problem by Elias – all the contrary, it’s technically a good thing according to what he said about Jon’s job description (MAG092: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others.”):

* The Web: encountered “A Guest For Mr Spider” as a child (recounted in MAG081: “The first of the dark powers to touch me, perhaps, but it did not claim me.”). * Beholding: claimed him hard (when becoming the Archivist? when he signed on as Head Archivist? when he began working for the Institute? when he watched the other boy get taken as a child?). * The Corruption: worms digging into him during the Jane Prentiss invasion (MAG039), Jon still has the scars on various parts of his body. * The Spiral: slashed/stabbed by “Michael”, probably on his arm/hand since he was trying to stop it? The injury required five stitches (MAG047). “Michael” gave its statement in MAG101. * The Desolation: one hand burned by Jude Perry following a Handshake Event (MAG089). Received her live-statement. * The Vast: thrown into it by Mike Crew, sayonara to your already tar-filled lungs motherfucker (MAG091). Received his live-statement. * The Hunt: Alice “Daisy” Tonner did something to his neck, half-strangling him or cutting it with his own knife, we don’t know, but it wasn’t pretty since Elias commented on it the following episode (MAG091). Received her live-statement in MAG061, and Trevor&Julia’s in MAG109. * The Stranger: terrorised by the Not!Them (MAG079), punched or strangled a bit by Nikola (MAG097), held captive by Nikola for a month (MAG101), the whole Unknowing mess (MAG118-MAG119). (And Nikola left her mark on his skin uwu) * The End: approached it following the bombing of the Unknowing, and received a live-statement from Oliver Banks (MAG121: “You’re… balanced on an edge where The End can’t touch you – but you can’t escape him”) + dead-but-not-dead-dead!Gerry’s in MAG111. * The Slaughter: given his screams, probably hurt by Melanie (MAG125).

Now, for the missing ones:

- The Buried: no direct injury on that front, but a few weird occurrences around that one – Jon received that live-statement from Karolina Górka in MAG071, who might have been claimed after her experience (“Aside from that, all that’s left to do is sweep up after Ms. Górka. She left the place rather dusty.”); the “DIG” ad that crept into Jon’s nightmares (MAG120) was not from a statement he had read, but from one read by Martin (MAG088), and Elias’s narration had the same static as Martin’s when he described it (what happened with that one?!); the statement-giver, Enrique MacMillan, had felt something in what is now Jon’s office and tried to dig it up in November 2003 (“cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.”) – the tunnels? Daisy had mentioned they felt “empty”… - The Flesh: attacked the Institute when Jon was in a coma (as mentioned in MAG123). Curiously, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet, not… in the flesh (badadadumdum), so it might be coming? - The Dark: has people lurking around (MAG125: “In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host”) and, in the same way, we haven’t met/heard any avatar of that one yet (though Basira has). - The Lonely: has Peter as interim director of the Institute, and Jon has already highlighted that he’s feeling isolated on multiple occasions:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened. And Basira, though she is very willing to talk, still doesn’t seem to trust me enough […]. Still no sign of Peter Lukas of course, or Mar–

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I find myself basically alone.

So… it might be at least affecting him already, although it’s not a physical injury (yet).

Once again: is Jon supposed to catch them all as a part of The Watcher’s Crown ritual…? ;;

- There were a few hours of panic for Patreons when the episode came out in early release, because Martin was listed in the voicecast for the episode. So, WHERE WAS HE. WAS HE THERE DURING THE SHOUTING AT THE END OF THE EPISODE?? HAD HE COME BACK JUST BECAUSE JON SCREAMED AND HAD BEEN HURT AGAIN?? HAD HE BEEN TRYING TO STOP THE OTHER TWO WHEN THEY BEGAN OPERATING ON MELANIE?? IS HIS VOICE SOMEWHERE IN THE CHAOS??

In the end, nop, genuine mistake, he wasn’t meant to be in the episode.

Schrödinger’s Martin.

- I stand with this statement-giver on the idea that Sheep Are Weird And Evil. You’re valid, statement-giver.

- I really like the way Slaughter statements are tackled, because there is an overall quietness in them: the violence erupts, or has left its victims behind and is only reconstructed through them, but it’s mostly… stillness and silence. The Slaughter has its own logic and, from an exterior point of view, you never understand why things are happening; they just happen, breaking all the links and coherences that had been reigning until then. It might actually one of the fears that gets me the most, now that I think about it, because of the suddenness of its outbursts, the fact that you don’t see the violence coming? (This plot in particular made me think of the last arc of Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, too!)

- … this statement felt especially gruesome, and one of the things that freaked me out even more, at first, was that Jon… was apparently unfazed by it?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. Hm. An Englishman returning from Scotland with a fear of bagpipes and sheep. I’m sure we can all relate! In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me.

Immediately throwing a joke and then going on philosophising about the Slaughter’s implications, without giving a thought to the villagers…? Really, Jon, really…? Nnnnnot the time, maybe? On first hearing, I was very unsettled/worried (comparatively to MAG123 and MAG124, it sounded… very harsh); after stepping back, I realised that it’s… actually a Typical Jon Thing, though. He wasn’t only doing that in season 1 (when it’s official that he was faking it to conceal the fact that he was actually afraid), and he wasn’t discovering the story for the first time (like us listeners), so that could be why he felt too detached to me there. Still. Not great, Jon ;;

(I’ll keep being a bit paranoid about Jon having lost something since he woke up, until we learn about what it’s supposed to mean for him…)

- Also, I’m *squints* about this bit:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Regardless, I’ve hit another research dead end with this. It’s… frustrating, to be honest. I finally feel myself, I feel… focused, and ready – and I find myself basically alone.

“READY” FOR WHAT, JON???

Sidenote, but I wonder whether Jon is absolutely sincere and genuine here, or trying to… wave a hand at Elias or whoever can be listening in, basically trying to bait them into acting by showing that he’s impatient/waiting for them to do something? I’m glad that, at least, Jon has no illusion that Peter’s behaviour might be going all according to Elias’s plan, slumping them in the same bag:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: But honestly, it’s the internal threats I’m worried about. Peter Lukas is just… sitting up there, doing whatever the hell it is he and Elias have planned […].

(I love that although they’re (almost) entirely absent, Jon delivers a Quota of mentions about Martin and Elias(+Peter).) Peter could actually be something outside of Elias’s control/plans/interests but… I’m glad that Jon is assuming that they’re on the same side, and that it means Bad News, for now. (/ meanwhile, other side of my brain: “oh my gods, it sounds like Elias&Peter are a power couple when you say it like that, Jon.”)

- This is the third statement picked up by Jon since he woke up (since he didn’t have any say on MAG122’s), and the second one that delved a bit into an aspect of “control”, together with MAG123’s.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or… is there a kernel of will in there, a lucidity and deliberateness to the random fury and violence? I suppose that’s the question with so much of “violence”, “war”: how much are you really in command of yourself or of others? I’m not sure what scares me more: the idea that deep down, everyone is in complete control of their actions, that everything is, on some level, intentional; or that ultimately, we don’t have any control of ourselves at all, and the rest is just… rationalisation.

It sounded a bit too Relatable to his own situation and concerns, uh? Since the end of season 3 had a few moments of Jon’s worry about becoming a monster and how to deal with it – Georgie’s advice in MAG093, Tim’s “These things aren’t human. It’s… instinct. You can’t not!” (MAG114), Jon’s decision to trust the assistants in MAG117, etc. Jon’s lines, here, specifically reminded me of Tessa Winters’s pondering about the human consciousness, what control you exert on it?

(MAG065) TESSA: […] Assuming I’m not losing my mind, of course. ARCHIVIST: Yes, I hear that a lot too. TESSA: Well, that’s what’s terrifying, isn’t it? Your mind is all you are. There’s no backup, no reset, if it goes… I’m not just talking about madness as it appears, but what it is from inside… The way people talk about it, it’s like you have to think you’re saying that our mind is everything we perceive, everything we are. Well that means… you can never know when your grasp might be slipping. I’m not convinced that’s it, though. Or maybe deep down, somewhere inside, you understand what’s happening to you and… No, I am… I don’t know which scares me more.

That’s still a relevant thematic, now more than ever, since Jon apparently ~became The Archivist for real~ and we still don’t know what that means, and what he truly knows about it (officially, he’s missing some of his memory, but to what extent?). Jon’s “and the rest is just… rationalisation” also put me to mind of how the Web tends to operate according to Trevor:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) The weirdest sensation began to flow through me; I wanted to leave. It wasn’t like with a vampire, where I would feel like I’d been spoken to. This was just a sudden awareness of my own desire. I’d been sober for three years at that point, but I felt like I desperately wanted to get high, and I knew that the best place to get some was out in the night. Looking back, I think it might have been my own mind rationalising the way I felt my will being tugged out of the room, but it was still very powerful. If I hadn’t had a lifetime’s experience of identifying and fighting off the effect of the vampire’s gaze, I probably would have done it, too.

Aaaand of course, what Elias had said to Melanie about her own intentions (which is a bit more relevant here in a Slaughter context):

(MAG106) ELIAS: Whatever I’m planning needs to be stopped! Even if it costs a few lives. Including your own. MELANIE: Well, that’s not even– ELIAS: A rationalisation, of course. A lie, about your own selfishness, that you would rather be dead than trapped without the self-determination you prize so highly.

I was assuming that Slaughter and Web would probably be on opposite sides on the spectrum of Colours-That-Hate-Me, since respectively unleashed chaos and absolute control, but I’m not so sure anymore?

- There was a tiny allusion to “What The Ghost?” in Jon’s pondering, though! Patreons got one episode of it (so far? I hope that they are more to come, the first one was… plainly amazing) and this bit sounded like a reference to its content:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: […] In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me. There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or…

We already knew that Jon listens to WTG but still… nice!! … and also sad because that’s a way to think about Georgie without even naming her. *cRIES*

- Jon, please.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Another Leitner, obviously. Not one I can readily identify, though it sounds like it would now be… inert, anyway. Given the blank pages, I do wonder whether its destruction was a last-ditch effort to stop its effects, or the exact thing that released its power in such an… extreme way.

Technically Not A Leitner since the statement was from 1993 (implying that it never made its way into the library before it was destroyed in 1994), how dare you slander Leitner by associating his name to this book :ww

- Okay, so Melanie and Basira are now living in the Institute, that was made explicit.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: You’ve been staying here too. BASIRA: Got a camp bed at the other end, near the tunnels. I like to keep an eye on them. Besides, I wanted to give her some space, y’know. But yeah. Living outside the Institute, ’s just not safe anymore. ARCHIVIST: What about Martin…? BASIRA: I think he’s still got a place? He’s not down here anyway.

1°) Not exactly sure where exactly they’re sleeping? It definitely sounded like they were in the tunnels, but Basira very clearly said that she’s sleeping “near the tunnels” (not inside of them)? Unless they’re in one of the rooms and Basira is staying close to its entrance to keep a broader look on the corridors? 2°) (Melanie and Basira… are… roommates… (OH MY GODS THEY ARE ROOMMATES.)) 3°) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Where is Martin sleeping, that is a good question. Does he really still have his flat or did he… leave everything behind when he began working with someone-that-we’re-assuming-must-be-Peter? Or is he living in the Archives, too, though in ~another space~? DO HE AND JON SOMETIMES ACCIDENTALLY SHARE A BED IN THAT-ROOM-IN-THE-ARCHIVES, WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT? (… Or does he sleep at Peter’s place.)

- Except for season 1 (in which he was a stuck-up ass) and season 2 (in which he was a paranoid ass), Jon has never mentioned Martin so much, has never been so concerned about Martin… and it’s understandable that he would, if Martin is acting in a worrisome way!! But. But. Still. He immediately wondered about Martin’s own accommodations and, after their encounter in MAG124:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: I am now sure Martin is actually avoiding me.

aOUCH… I’m glad that Jon is preoccupied about Martin, thinking about Martin and not taking him for granted anymore (kind of)… but AT WHAT COST………………

- uUUUuuuh… Meanwhile, Jon kind of implied that he is still going outside?

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: Basira was right about the Institute being watched, though. In the last week, I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host, and it’s rare I go anywhere without cobwebs anymore. … I, er, find myself keeping my guard up around mannequins as well, though I’ll admit that one is more likely to be my own projection.

I would have assumed that Jon would have been the most likely to migrate long-term in the Archives, there is something funny in the idea that he… isn’t, somehow. (Also, Jon: what. are. you. doing. with all this free time.)

I’m not sure if cobwebs are a new thing around Jon, or if it’s only that he is able to pay attention to their gravitating around him nowadays: spiders had been… very prevalent in the Institute before. Or is it just growing even worse? (;; Sad for Jon, regarding the mannequins mention… Jude Perry is a prime example of avatar being still around and holding grudges after Gertrude messed with them, so… Jon being cautious of potential Stranger agents is not unwarranted. Maybe some survived, and maybe some would want to go after him…)

I’m laughing at the fact that is sounds like you can NEVER GET RID OF THE PEOPLE’S CHURCH OF THE DIVINE HOST. From “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.” (MAG009) to them being around in March 2015 (MAG025), to Maxwell Rayner being stopped by the police in February 2017 (MAG073). It’s almost a running gag at this point, that they’re still there and lurking in whichever circumstances efurefdvhjnref. (Julia!! Julia, come back!! They’re still around, surely you would like to take care of them? Please? Pretty please?)

- ONE GOOD THING ABOUT WHAT THEY DID TO MELANIE if it was indeed in the tunnels (it sure sounded like it): assuming that they’re right and that Elias can’t see shit inside of them… then Elias didn’t see it, didn’t watch as Jon was able to ~see~ the bullet inside of Melanie. I’m taking all the Positivity I can, okay. :[

- But also: Jon escapes your Eyes for 35min, and he comes back bloody and with a new stab wound. Typical Jon. (Do you think that Peter and Elias had a bet going on about how much time Jon would need before getting a new injury once he would be back? Or about the nature of the next injury? Who betted what? We know that Peter was implied to go with the gruesome option when betting with Salesa (MAG066); but on the other hand, Elias is supposed to know Jon a bit more. Who would have gone the most realistically pessimistic about Jon?)

- I’m worried that Jon is using his powers so much since he woke up, because it feels like there should be a compensation or a catch – it’s… very beneficial to Jon right now, and I can’t really believe that it could be solely positive and something he’s using without being used by it. Jon is more than ready to use it to his own advantage, quite obviously; the contrast with how he had been startled and thrown-off when Elias had highlighted the phenomenon in MAG102 is just… telling:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: […] Is there anyone else who might know what it is, or– or where? Aside from Leitner, or Gerard. ELIAS: … Sorry? Gerard Keay? ARCHIVIST: Uh… yes…? ELIAS: How did you… Who, who told you he was working with Gertrude? ARCHIVIST: No-one, I–I–I just, I… I read it in one of the statements. ELIAS: I don’t think you did. ARCHIVIST: I… but… aaah… ELIAS: You just… knew it! ARCHIVIST: What, no, I, I… Th– that’s not a– ELIAS: No, no, no. No, Jon, this is good. It’s a promising development! ARCHIVIST: [GETTING FLUSTERED] No, No I… It’s just, it’s just… just d–deduction or– ELIAS: Is this the first time it’s happened? ARCHIVIST: Look, I don’t– Look… Haaa… Gerard’s not really a lead. He… he’s dead, isn’t he?

^His stuttering was terrible back then. In MAG125, he was startled, a bit shaken at first, but quickly got back on his feet, accepted what had happened, and ran with the new information in order to do something for Melanie. More used to it? More comfortable with it? Ready to use everything he can in order to fight? There was something overall… more firm, more goal-orientated within Jon afterwards, and it also made me think of… Gertrude.

(MAG101) “MICHAEL”: Gertrude Robinson did not waver. She did not… hesitate. She gave no indication that she saw anything more or less than was expected. Hers was not a mind that left room for doubt. She stared into us carefully, her eyes scanning for something that was my heart. Looking for my door. And she found it.

(MAG125) BASIRA: The guy said you’d need to hit the right nerve for it to work. Do you know much ab– ARCHIVIST: [STATIC-] Here. [/STATIC] BASIRA: You sure? ARCHIVIST: [SHARPLY] Yes. […] … God. Look at that. [STATIC] BASIRA: I don’t… It’s a leg. ARCHIVIST: No. Inside… BASIRA: I don’t know what you’re seeing, Jon. ARCHIVIST: It’s… Christ, it’s all rotten… BASIRA: Can you see the bullet? ARCHIVIST: Yes… […]  BASIRA: You better be right about this. ARCHIVIST: I am.

Jon was sure when it came to what was happening and… that part was a novelty. It wasn’t the fake-it-until-it-becomes-real from season 1, nor the blatant bullshitting from season 2; he was certain of his information. (And!! Using it for good!! Gertrude had one priority, stopping the rituals, and… so far, it seems that Jon’s is more about protecting the assistants. … which means there will probably come a point where he’ll have to choose between the two, and it will hurt, uh.)

- But at the same time, it was still… Jon. Jon being awkward, Jon asking the wrong kind of questions to the person in front of him,

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: … yes, right. Sorry. You, er… you managed to get some anaesthetic? BASIRA: Here. The guy said it was a nerve block. Should numb pretty much the whole leg. ARCHIVIST: Right. Right. … Was it hard to come by? BASIRA: No, I just popped down Superdrug. Yes it was hard to come by. ARCHIVIST: You–you couldn’t get any general anaesthetic, knock her out fully? BASIRA: Oh, sure! Did your spooky brain tell you the right dosage to not kill her? ARCHIVIST: … N–no. N–no, it didn’t. BASIRA: Then it’s got to be the local. Here, get on with it. ARCHIVIST: What, me? BASIRA: Yeah, she comes around, she’s gonna kill us or someone, and… You know. Not it. […] Okay, go for it. ARCHIVIST: [SHAKY VOICE] R–right. BASIRA: And pray the injection doesn’t wake her. ARCHIVIST: Yes, thank you Basira. […] BASIRA: You ready? ARCHIVIST: [DRY HOLLOW LAUGHTER] No…? [SHAKY VOICE] You’re sure you don’t have… restraints, or…

1°) I’m love Basira. I’m love how casually dry and savage she can be, how she’s just throwing Jon into the lion’s den without any hesitation nor remorse. What a legend. 2°) That [“You ready?” “No…? *laughs hollowly and does it anyway*”] refdhbjrefdhj Jon, you absolute millennial icon.

The mix of Jon being certain and awkward and obviously thinking about how it could easily end badly for him was so… satisfying and fun and hilarious to me. Still an awkward dork, I’m glad!! =D

- BUT I’M STILL WORRIED ABOUT THE WHOLE “JON USING POWERS” DEAL… if Elias had portrayed it as a good thing and as Jon sinking deeper into Beholding territory, then it’s *gulps*:

(MAG0116) ELIAS: I have been doing my best to prepare you, Jon, to See. You should hopefully have it a bit easier than the others. ARCHIVIST: Another of my… powers? ELIAS: More… an aspect of your becoming. DAISY: You don’t say. ARCHIVIST: Er… right. ELIAS: Regardless, it should, I hope, give you an edge. Otherwise I would never suggest you go yourself.

It wasn’t only a punctual ~insight~, it was a series of them (helping Jon to know where to inject the product and block the nerve) and x-ray vision allowing him to see the Spooky State of Melanie’s leg, when it was officially fine in our realm (the scans hadn’t revealed anything). I’m glad that Jon is using his powers for Good, but I don’t believe that it can last and remains as positive as it is, even though there would be something very beautiful and satisfying in the idea that no, the Fears do not actually corrupt you – it’s just that most avatars were already rotten humans to begin with? ;; (There is something fishy, to start with, with the fact that Jon is missing memories…)

(… okay, and there would also be something utterly satisfying if Elias was proven totally wrong. And bittersweet, if Tim was also proven wrong about the idea that you can’t fight these things or things happening to you.)

- The way I understood Jon’s “The bullet, er, didn’t show up on… electronic or… mechanical scans, but it’s still lodged in her leg, just above the tibia. … And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin–” is that: Jon had listened to MAG117’s tape(s), potentially even before the Unknowing, and knew about Melanie’s recollection of how she got shot – I think that part wasn’t coming from the Insight? But the new knowledge that was planted within him, or emerged from him, was something irrefutable: that the bullet was still there and the root of the problem (“Melanie still has that bullet pumping violence into her, waiting to turn this place into another Lanncraig.”) It could/should have been a hypothesis from him, it sounds like a logical explanation; but the way it was presented, it wasn’t some wild guess or pondering. It was a certainty.

Insert here obligatory sobbing about how compulsion and this power provide Jon, who is prone to paranoia fits, who is prone to be wary of people, with absolute truth… yeah, the powers cater a bit too much to him, as a way of keeping his own personal human relationships-oriented fears at bay, uh.

- On the relationship side: gOSH, Melanie… probably won’t be fine, and would have every right to not be ;; But Melanie specifically… won’t react positively with something deliberately done to her while she had not consented (MAG102, Elias: “Even more than the others she has a visceral hatred of being trapped. Regardless of how much freedom I afford her.”), even if it could ultimately save her from The Slaughter. She probably won’t forgive.

She was already in an antagonistic spiral regarding Jon, (MAG102: “We’ll try it your way. But whatever your way actually is, you’d better figure it out fast. Because it is your fault that I’m here. Fix it, or get out of the way!” / MAG124: “Wipe that look off your face. Like you’re not the reason all of this is happening. Like you’re any better than– […] He’s still alive. You are still alive. So THIS PLACE is still–!”), and even though part of it was probably Slaughter-induced (MAG117: “Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old bullshit in a creepy new package. … asshole… God! I just want to rip his…! [BREATHES] When did I… start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger…? … Hum.”), Jon highlighted in his conclusions about MAG125’s statement that perhaps The Slaughter is not making people lose their mind so much as making them follow something they already had inside of them.

At the same time, we already got Tim resenting and antagonising Jon at every turn, so I don’t know if Melanie will ultimately follow the same path? Technically, it’s… probably Basira who should deserve her ire about the non-consensual surgery on her asleep body, since:

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: And it’s been getting slowly infected ever sin– I have to find Basira. [STANDS UP] [CLICK.] […] You’re sure we shouldn’t just… tell her…? BASIRA: … I really don’t know how she’d take it. Not well. If we want to get it out of her, this is it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] Okay.

JON WANTED TO TALK TO MELANIE ABOUT IT!!! Holy shit, Jon!! Such progress ;__; First for going to talk to Basira about it right away, and then for offering to talk to Melanie, and for ultimately trusting Basira’s judgement about it!!

Basira’s cold pragmatism is not… exactly surprising, to be honest: she’s always been prone to assessing the situation and making drastic decisions right away when it comes to saving lives or to doing what she deems right (Daisy in MAG092, the expedition to stop Rayner, the fact that she took the tapes from the police to give them to Jon when they tried to cover up the reason her colleague died…). In this particular case, there was no right thing to do? Melanie would have probably exploded and ruined any chance for them to remove the bullet if they had even tried to mention its existence to her, true? But they took the decision for her and it was definitely wrong on many levels, and Melanie will have many reasons to feel shaken, violated and betrayed by what they did ;; She already had it bad in season 2 (the fact that her old team fell apart, her first injury, her downfall) and season 3 (the second injury, the lack of options, the fact that she actually got trapped in the Institute, Elias torturing her with the memories of her father’s death), I hope she won’t get too messed up by this new thing?? ;; But the concept of non-consensual surgery applied to her, with her personality, with everything that has already happened to her… is especially horrifying ;; (And she has no support network either… Maybe Georgie still applies, though, but the situation is likely to get complicated in that area since Georgie is also tied to Jon.)

… at the same time, there could be something comforting for Melanie in getting a hold back on her own anger, instead of the foreign surge of violence that was injected into her? I really don’t see how the situation could get better for her and ;; I’m sad sad sad.

… on the other hand, Basira will probably open up a bit more to Jon after this, since… he kinda proved himself to her, here? Proved that, even though he has powers, even though he’s ready to use them, even though he has sunk deeper in, he’s also there to help the assistants, even if it means getting hurt or ruining his relationships with them – as long as it helps them to survive. So. We’ll see.

;;

(I have trouble picturing that nobody will visit Elias in prison at some point, so, hey. Basira is the one who has contacts in the police. She might be a bit more willing to share them with Jon.)

- I can Never Believe how this show manages to always make moments… creepy, and tense, and horrifying, and convey that well a sense of dread while, at the same time, making them so hilarious. The dialogues are always lovely; but Basira and Jon were just… amazing, here.

  (- Patreons already got the title for MAG126 with the new schedule planning, and it feels so weird to speculate with the title alone! Not spoiling it, then, but I’m worried about its second meaning (outside of the statement itself). Could be many very wrong things, and the worst I’m coming to on my own, as of now, is “what if it’s about Peter and Martin”.)

#(as aza pointed out: the most horrifying thing with jon's new pet-power is that #if you want jon to be in a situation in which he could drop new valuable information... then you have to make him #talk and ramble. a. lot.) #the magnus archives #mag125 #tma season 4 #tma liveblog #tma spoilers