#referring to 1) melanie making it quite clear she wants to kill elias for the s3 finale | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG122 /o/ (Rambling, pondering, wild mass guessing and probably many stabs in The Dark, as per usual.)

- … actually, relistening and realizing that Georgie and Basira never told Jon that by “a coma” they meant that neither his heart nor his lungs were functioning while his brain was still active for the past six months does… shed another light on their interactions, and on the fact that Jon is probably not as weirded out as he ought to be by the whole thing (or, at least, that he didn’t feel as “not fine” as Georgie would have wanted). Unless he’s been absolutely lying to them throughout the exchange, he… doesn’t really have a clear grasp on the amount of time that passed either:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: I’m okay– GEORGIE: Jon, you are not okay! You have been in coma. ARCHIVIST: Wait– wait. H–how long? BASIRA: Six months. Give or take. ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six…

I initially freaked out over the whole episode, feeling that Jon was utterly off, and while there are some bits that are clearly worrisome (the apparently missing memories; the feeling “more real” thing; that ~the Archivist~; the mere concept of Jon saying that he feels all right??? his last explicit good night's sleep was around Halloween 2016!), and the whole basis/state of Jon waking up Means A Few Very Unfortunate Things… at the same time, how would have usual!Jon reacted, if he was waking up after apparently having survived the Unknowing, and suddenly being told that he’s been in a coma for half a year, while he himself didn’t feel like he had been unresponsive for this long (and quite the contrary: feeling like he’s just… waking up after only a night of sleep)? And when all these pieces of information are dropped on him, one after another, from Basira who had all those months to cope with them and to learn to not (totally) drown herself in this new life? The whole premise is wrong but, actually, Jon’s reactions didn’t seem… that much out-of-character, on their own?

- In the list of Jon-related things to get worried over, though, I am *squints squints squints* about the bits that he seems to have forgotten:

(MAG122) BASIRA: How much do you remember? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… Music. Everything was wrong. Gertrude was there, and then… dancing. I think? Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming.

The Unknowing was chaos, it messed with their minds, they had been warned about it and we got to hear first-hand how it went. But I find it curious that Jon… didn’t mention Jurgen Leitner, who arrived right after Gertrude, and with a special purpose when Nikola was puppeteering them:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: I, I tried, I tried, I almost… GERTRUDE: You almost what? […] You know, it’s probably for the best I’m dead. Can you imagine how much I hate having to watch you fumble around as my replacement? I really cannot express how much of a disappointment you are. ARCHIVIST: I, I’m sorry, I didn’t even– GERTRUDE: […] This is your fault. ARCHIVIST: It is not! It’s not, I didn’t know, it’s not my fault you died! LEITNER: No, I suppose not. Me, on the other hand… […] you left me to get my head bashed in. I understand, of course. You needed a cigarette! I suppose you should have remembered that smoking kills! [LAUGHS]

“Leitner” was specifically brought up to shatter Jon’s defence that he has had no responsibility whatsoever in Gertrude’s death – while his actions had direct consequences in the case of Leitner’s. Jon makes no mention of Tim’s last moments in his summary, either, and those also contained something specific: his assertion that he was not forgiving Jon.

(MAG119) TIM: […] Jon, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can… ARCHIVIST: Tim…? TIM: I don’t forgive you. But thank you for this.

I wonder if perhaps, there wasn’t some messing around to keep Jon away from the guilt he had felt over some of his actions? (The feeling getting cauterized, or sealed, or the memories getting purposely buried to make him forget about it?) Especially since… it had been very prevalent in him towards the end of season 3.

(MAG098) MARTIN: […] Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. […] He was… Y’know, we know about Sasha now, and… he said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault. TIM: Isn’t it? MARTIN: No! No, it isn’t! I mean, you heard Elias… We never really stood a chance. TIM: Yeah. Maybe. But Elias wasn’t actually the one who offered me the job down here.

(MAG113) MELANIE: Wasn’t a great time back here, either. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god, Melanie, of course. I’m… I’m sorry. If I’d known that Ivy Meadows was– MELANIE: What?! You’d have told me? Let me learn from one of your statements instead of from Elias? I don’t see that changing anything. ARCHIVIST: Even so, I… am… I’m sorry. MELANIE: I don’t need your apology. Or your pity. ARCHIVIST: Of course. [QUIETER] Of course.

(MAG114) TIM: … You listened to it, then? My statement. ARCHIVIST: I listened to all the tapes. I, I had no idea how much of a… a mess I left this place in, I–I–I’m sorry. […] [SOFTLY] Tim, I… I didn’t realise. I–I didn’t think. I’m sorry.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I’ve listened to the tape, I– I know what they talk about behind my back, how much they’ve… suffered, because of… this place… because of me. God. Poor Melanie.

Jude Perry had highlighted that her choices had made her cast away at least some bits of empathy (MAG089: “Any feelings of pity or mercy I might have had for the poor woman I fed from were cauterised.”), so, I find it suspicious that Jon would forget about “Leitner” and Tim during the Unknowing, when both of them specifically had words that had probably elicited the feeling at the time…? Jon still sounded concerned about the remaining assistants (and he hadn’t forgotten about Tim’s whole existence), so that’s reassuring! But I do wonder whether he will still be able to feel bad/guilty about his own actions, past worrying over future consequences? As usual: wait and ~see~.

- He sounded less anxious than usual!Jon, more philosophical/detached than truly shaking over the idea of being inhuman, but that… could plainly be due to the avalanche of bad news and Jon having trouble processing and readjusting. Technically, there was a lot to assimilate, on all accounts and everywhere. (We can only assume that The Admiral is safe, and that’s it?!)

(MAG122) BASIRA: Jon, is it still… you? ARCHIVIST: Er… Y… yes. Y–yes, I–I think so? I, I don’t know how you’d… prove it, though.

ARCHIVIST: […] They can be hard, though, sometimes, oth–other people… feelings. I’m… I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…?

BASIRA: Me first. What are you? ARCHIVIST: … Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t feel… inhuman, or… … I want to say I’m the same. But I don’t… really know if that’s true. I know I’m different. I feel… more real, somehow. BASIRA: So what does that actually mean? ARCHIVIST: Probably nothing good.

^the reassuring thing is that 1°) Jon expressed doubts over the fact he could still be himself, while not being able to pinpoint differences (he’s not taking for granted that he could still be the same/The True Jon Who Was There All Along), 2°) HE EXPRESSED THESE DOUBTS ALONE, TOO!! So he’s not lying to Basira about it. He could be dissimulating some information again, but he’s genuine about these doubts – and doubts are a good thing! … though the word “monster” was quite curiously totally absent from the conversation, and it had been the one Jon had been using to refer to the Avatars before. Also, Jon quite obviously tried to get some Alone Me-Time at the end, when telling Basira that they should get the nurses; on the one hand, Jonathan “don’t tell me what to do” Sims could have tried to just… leave like this, on the other hand, it really sounded like he needed to blank out for a bit before facing all there is to face? (Sob, regarding Jon waiting for that medical check: the last big one had been… with Prentiss? There were apparently a few medical things after his first encounter with Michael, since he got five stitches, but Elias had told him to not “worry about the doctor’s note” back in MAG092, and we don’t even know if he tried to get his arm treated post-handshake with Jude… so yeah, it’s been a while since he got a complete check, probably. ;; I wonder if they’ll find something wrong about him (… O-negative blood…? There had been two statements in which spooks had that one), or if he will be… uncannily normal, still. Neither option would be reassuring given the context.)

- Noticeably: there was no static when he asked Basira questions. There had been no static either back in season 2 even in cases for which we retrospectively learned that he had actually been non/dubconning answers out of an unwilling person (Daisy), but punctual compulsion has steadily made the tape recorders react more reliably. So, unless twist (tape recorder not reacting anymore / Jon has lost that power / etc.): it means that Jon is still able to not compulse someone, and that he… didn’t do it on Basira, when he could have for various reasons (not caring, being too anxious to keep it in check, being unsure whether she would hide things from him, etc.) Which… is kind of good, actually??? (How long will it last.)

-Re: Jon’s memories and the “dreams”… In fact, I’m not sure that he’s currently able to remember their content? Or at least not in details?

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six… Er, the others. T–Tim? Is he… [SILENCE] Oh… [SILENCE] BASIRA: … Daisy, too. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. BASIRA: Yeah. […] ARCHIVIST: Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming. BASIRA: Dreaming. ARCHIVIST: Yes. … You’re… sure a–about Tim? BASIRA: Yeah, they, er… They found his remains a few days later. ARCHIVIST: And… Daisy? BASIRA: They still haven’t found her body.

… it sounds like Jon discovered Daisy’s Official Status As Dead at the same level as he did with Tim; but Elias had previously narrated that Jon was searching for Daisy in his dreams (MAG120: “He looks around, his eyes scanning this forever road and the clouds of iron grey, looking for her – but she is not there. The Archivist expects, he hopes, to find the violence in her looking back at him, hungry for pursuit and murder. But the emptiness of the place is complete […]”), while the assistants are apparently excluded from his dreams (so even counting the post-Prentiss statement from MAG040, he’d probably never seen Tim in there). Jon would have pieced the things together, I think, if he remembered his dream about Daisy? Or was the memory of this one in particular robbed from him?

There is also the fact that he almost immediately began to ask about Tim and wasn’t aware that he had been out for six months… as if nothing had really happened between the Unknowing and the moment he woke up. I’m definitely fearing some memory tampering, since we already had Mike mention having no recollection of his own transformation (MAG091: “I don’t remember that night in detail. […] There are echoes of resignation, I think, almost desperation. That can’t be right, though. What reason would I have had not to jump? Not to become as I am now. Perhaps I just didn’t know the true joy of vertigo. It doesn’t matter.”) – memories getting twisted a bit when they don’t fit the ~narrative~ of Avatars willingly deciding to give themselves in wholly, without any hesitation? Or will that come… later. So, really: does Jon even currently know that he ~made a choice~ and apparently became an avatar/a monster/got an upgrade on the spooky-scale? Or was he… made to forget about it? Not banking on it but I can’t help but think that there is a possibility he might not know, given how… the tape recorder with Oliver’s statement on it apparently disappeared between MAG121 and MAG122:

(MAG122) GEORGIE: It was just there! BASIRA: Could he have come back? Moved it? GEORGIE: I guess. BASIRA: […] And you don’t know why this guy would have left a tape recorder? GEORGIE: You’re the detective. BASIRA: And you’re sure it was him who left it? GEORGIE: I mean, the nurses said there were no other visitors so, unless it appeared by magic… … What, seriously? BASIRA: I don’t know. The whole tape thing is… I don’t know. […] Shh. [SHUFFLING] Down here. GEORGIE: I told you. BASIRA: This is the one? GEORGIE: Sure. BASIRA: You don’t sound very sure. GEORGIE: I mean, I don’t know. It might be a different model, maybe? I thought it was plastic. But… yeah.

Tape recorders are still spooky, but in this special instance, it seems like the previous one vanished and that a new one popped up elsewhere. Which might mean that the tape inside is probably not the same. Which would mean… that Jon probably won't be able to listen again to Oliver’s statement? Why did it disappear? (And “how?”, but that’s the tape recorders for you.) Assuming that Jon wouldn’t even remember that he made a choice following Oliver’s statement… he would still be unable to rediscover what happened, so long as he can’t access the tape?

But at the same time, he threw us that (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH) “Jonathan Sims, the Archivist” with a small hesitation (though there were hesitations everywhere in his introduction, he apparently had trouble reading/sorting the words out), so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As usual: Jon, what the fuck do you know about things around you/yourself, what are you planning, and could you share it with us instead of letting us wonder about it for the next 10 or 20 episodes. If he knows, he didn’t tell Basira, and that part is concerning because uh, Jon, really, if ~you are(/were) still you~, you should give people plenty of warnings about agreeing-to-turn-into-a-monster-for-real in order to allow them to keep you in check. (… but that would also be Typical Jon Behaviour to know that he can be a danger and to assume that he can keep himself in check anyway. If he’s even caring about it.)

(Please, relisten to your old tapes, if you want to make sure that you’re still you ;__; At the same time, I’m fearing that he would also not really recognize or understand that “past Jon”, his worries and his concerns… ;; … and that’s assuming that the old tapes are still in the Archives, since they can now apparently… disappear. And assuming that whatever happened in the Archives didn’t damage some of them.)

- A few things had previously been established already regarding Jon’s powers: that Jon has grown to be dependent on statements (MAG107: “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. […] What irritates me most is that Elias was clearly aware of this, hence his sending me this. Which seems to serve no other purpose but as a restorative. [BREATHES] But as usual, he chose to keep this very useful information to himself.”), complete with his voice getting sturdier as he’s reading after a withdrawal (though the process took much longer here compared to MAG107!), and the static happening when Jon quoted the words from spooky creatures (which… is something the tape recorder catches independently from Jon: it did the same things when the assistants were reading statements, and does it too during live-statements when people remember a Spook’s words, cf Georgie’s “The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.” in MAG094, or Elias describing the “DIG” add in MAG120).

The only new things, as far as I can tell, are that Jon could feel (or see?) the statement in Basira’s bag, complete with static effect, and that he spontaneously changed his introduction to… that (“Recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. Statement begins.”)… without questioning it… (Did he not realize? Or, as usual: does Jon know way more than what he’s deigning to tell right now, and it is one of the things he has embraced?) It’s quite funny how that new introduction sounded so off-balance to me, compared to the usual one which had its own rhythm and harmony (“Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”). Comparatively: he’s keeping his name, switching to the spooky title, and not tying himself to a place anymore. Jon, what do you knooooow…

- As usual with the series, characters… clash in bittersweet ways, but leaving you enough clues to feel why they behaved in the way they did – they don’t act as you would want them to, they tend to hurt each other very spontaneously, refuse to open up to others when it could maybe help, but all these reactions also feel like they make sense for who they are and what they've experienced. Martin had already mentioned that Basira was keeping things together, in the trailer, and her presence confirmed that she has been the one in charge for some time: Martin is out of their reach (Basira isn’t even sure that he’s working with Peter!), and Melanie is apparently too worrisome to be allowed to see Georgie-or-Jon at the hospital? And Basira has had her own worrying and grieving over Daisy in the meantime; Daisy who… had been her own anchor until now. She was very dry and steel-like towards Jon, making it obvious that she had to check if Jon waking up wasn’t… something that was making the already bad situation worse: she did not take the concept of “Jon” as an ally for granted, it hurts, but the situation sounds very bad overall so that’s… absolutely understandable.

As for Georgie… ;; I’m heartbroken that she apparently still hoped that Jon could still (want to) (try to) put everything behind him… while it hadn’t been an option for him for a long while. And that’s understandable for Georgie! Her own experience messed her up, took from her, made her lose a precious friend, and she knows it, and she felt it; and she also spent time rebuilding herself and trying to hide it (Jon had never realized that she was literally fearless when he had dated her afterwards!). Comparatively, Jon’s situation was different from the start since he had doomed more people in this mess (he had “trapped” at least Tim in the Archives by choosing him), but as Elias put it in MAG092, he also decided to press on and to seek knowledge (without understanding the repercussions) instead of letting things go. The circumstances preceding Jon’s awakening already had enough elements to give Georgie the impression of being in a hostile and alien territory (someone feeling like death being there; a wild tape recorder in the room, and Georgie was already wary of them before the coma; Basira answered her call instead of Melanie); and then, Jon just woke up after getting a visit from an Avatar of The End, in a medical room, and Jon insisted that he was feeling fine… There was enough to get triggered for multiple reasons, and to project and to get hurt by the differences in the way Jon reacted – I felt that Georgie wanted some normalcy, needed Jon to say that he wasn’t fine and needed time to readjust, just like she had? And indeed, what to think, when Jon presents his whole situation as “normal” while nothing had been normal for the past six months? When Georgie knew first-hand that you don’t (shouln’t) come out of this unscarred?

It’s so sad to think that Jon was easier to handle when he was… unconscious, and that Georgie did more than her share during all these months but that she ultimately reached her breaking point as soon as he woke up – pushing people away from her private life (“Honestly Basira, it’s not your business. … Sorry.”) and being excluded in return (“Georgie, could you give us a minute? There’re some things we should probably discuss.”) – and that she has decided to get out now. It’s good for her, but also so sad because her advice had been the bestest before, and Jon might have attenuated the damages a bit towards the end of season 3 thanks to what she had told him:

(MAG099) GEORGIE: I said I’m fine with it. At least until you’re properly back on your feet. You’re not doing well. You keep apologising and saying you’re changing, but it’s all just the same. If you leave, I think it’s just going to get worse, and I don’t want that. […] ARCHIVIST: Is it… Why are you so insistent on keeping me around? GEORGIE: Because you’re trying to cut yourself off, and that’s… that’s really bad. Look, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me? ARCHIVIST: That’s… I… I–I– talked to Martin a… a, a few weeks ago… GEORGIE: Did you talk to him? Or did he talk to you, while you tried to find a way to escape? Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] Maybe you’re right. I’ll talk to the others. […]

(MAG0117) ARCHIVIST: […] Georgie was right. If I am… slipping, then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an–anymore, so… I’m making a decision. I trust them. All of them.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I– GEORGIE: Jon. If this really is a second chance… please, try to take it. But I don’t think that it is. ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I don’t und– GEORGIE: Take care of yourself.

But now, Georgie is quitting, and she has every right to do so ;; Not even… abandoning Jon at his lowest, since Basira is there (Jon might have other anchors, or more or less?), and not even wishing him the worse, but also deciding that she has had enough with all of this. … It’s also the worst of Jon’s dreams (MAG120, Elias: “She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to looks away, to turn his Eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment for what she sees in him; but he cannot. So he watches her, until she simply fades away.”) happening to him in real life, and AOUCH. I wonder if Georgie remembers her own dreams of him…? I still hope that they might be able to more or less patch things up at some point, their friendship was great, okay TT____TT (AND SO WAS THE ADMIRAL.) … I’m also a bit worried for her, since she met Oliver, and since… she seems to think that she managed to leave behind what happened to her all these years ago, but given that she still lives with the consequences (she’s unable to feel fear), I’m not sure that it won’t catch up with her at some point.

Aaaand in return, Jon had apparently not quite understood what he was coming back from (six months coma with no lungs nor heart working), and is just being told that Tim and Daisy died; that Martin’s plan worked and that Elias is in prison, but that it solved nothing! that Elias had been able to choose his successor beforehand! and that it’s Peter Lukas; that Martin might be collaborating with him; that Melanie is not doing great; that “a lot has happened” while he was out; and Basira is wary towards him; and nobody looks relieved to see him alive… It had every reason to be disorientating for him, too.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Honestly, I… I, I think I’m alright? I mean, that’s… good, right? I… GEORGIE: After a six months coma? No. It’s not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, Jon. ARCHIVIST: I… What? Y–you, you’d prefer I was… brain-damaged? Dead? Or– […] ARCHIVIST: … What about you? Disappointed to see me alive? … Basira? BASIRA: We can deal with that later.

gODS, the misdirected bitterness towards Basira ;__; (His tone was so insidiously cruel and twisting the knife?! Gods, Jon D: Not out of character, since he tends to snarl/bite when cornered, but still, that one gave me chills.) In the same vein, it was… heartbreaking to see Jon trying to ground himself with familiar elements, and them being perpetually denied. Basira has always been quite direct and often savage, but she was stern and steely here (cautious about what “Jon” was); Georgie has always called out Jon on his bullshit, but got enough and quit. Tim is dead and confirmed dead, Daisy is “officially” dead. Martin isn’t there to fuss over Jon, and might be working for another party than the Institute. Melanie’s overall situation sounds bad. Elias is in prison but chose a replacement who sounds worse in his own way; there is not even that relief. Even materially: Jon’s old clothes from the Archives have been discarded, and Jon asking for a cup of tea (something familiar, associated to comfort: Martin and Georgie had usually been the ones to offer it to him) was cut off and denied. Aouch?!

- I stupidly freaked out at this part:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Georgie, is she, er… BASIRA: She’s gone. Didn’t see where. ARCHIVIST: [MUTTERING] (No, I, I wouldn’t have… (?)) [LOUDER] Probably for the best.

Because my brain was flaring “NOP NOP NOP NOP” at this “Probably for the best”, not for itself, but for the wording, and I couldn’t figure out why…? And, right. That’s because I was remembering this one:

(MAG108) PETER: Do I scare you Martin? MARTIN: Yes…! PETER: Hm. Probably for the best.

Probably absolutely and utterly unrelated, it’s just that the “same phrasing” echo made me flip out. (Still.)

- BASIRA!!! ;___;

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six… Er, the others. T–Tim? Is he… [SILENCE] Oh… [SILENCE] BASIRA: … Daisy, too. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. BASIRA: Yeah. […] ARCHIVIST: And… Daisy? BASIRA: They still haven’t found her body. Probably never will. I thought for a while she might’ve… but. It’s been months. She’s gone.

So yeah, we’ll… see Daisy again at some point, in some form, and we’ll probably regret that she didn’t die orz I’m not sure that Basira finally managed to convince herself that ~Daisy is dead~, it sounds like she’s trying (and failing) to be rational about it. Gdi!! The fact that Jon immediately asked about Tim, got stunned, that Basira had to add about Daisy’s fate (Jon would have probably asked after a while, he kinda liked Daisy, they had that weird friendship/partnership going on?), and that Jon didn’t forget to ask about her the second time ;_; The weird pauses, because obviously, Jon was more concerned/curious about Tim (MAG118: “Tim, contrary to what you think, I did not bring you here to indulge your death wish! […] I am not losing you as well!!”) while Basira… lost her own anchor… (MAG117: “But at least Daisy's coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. […] Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.”). She’s had months to try to rationalize that not finding Daisy’s body doesn’t mean that Daisy managed to escape; that Daisy is probably dead and not coming back… And yet, Basira has apparently been the one in charge since then… Due to their respective losses, Jon and Basira interacting was kind of the worst configuration, but at the same time, it was… for the best that Basira was the one to go. I am so impressed by her! She went straight to the point, asked the right questions to assess the current situation, kept in mind that the “Jon” in front of her might very well not be who Jon used to be (Martin would have probably been relieved first, denial&interrogations maybe a bit later). Obviously, there are still valuable questions that should get asked about the past/future (Why is Jon only waking up now and what did he give up to be able to come back? What is he planning, what does he want?), but Basira was focusing about the now and here and said herself that “We can deal with that later”. Though these bits will… have to factor, probably.

- By the way, some potential canon credentials to the fantheory that Basira is religious /o/

(MAG122) BASIRA: … What, capital D “Death”? GEORGIE: Yeah. Y’know, one of your dark gods… BASIRA: They’re not– Look. I’m trying to help.

It proves nothing (they’re not technically gods, though Christopher Meyer had called them “outer cults” in MAG060) but it’s still something I’ll Take And Run With! /o/

- YEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP things are not great regarding Melanie:

(MAG122) BASIRA: […] Look. I’m trying to help. You came to me. GEORGIE: I came to Melanie. BASIRA: Well, sorry. Right now, I’m it. […] ARCHIVIST: And Melanie? BASIRA: A lot’s happened, while you’ve been gone.

Sounds like Basira didn’t want Melanie to go near Jon orrrr to leave the Archives? It seems that she’s still there, though, since Basira used a plural form (“We don’t see [Martin] around the Archives much these days”). The question is: in which state. It sounds bad anyway.

- Is Melanie related to whatever happened to Jon’s clothes.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: […] I don’t suppose you brought in any… clothes? […] Right, well, er… I kept some in the Archives, er, in my office. BASIRA: Yes, those got, hum… We had to throw those out. ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Like I said, a lot’s happened. ARCHIVIST: S–since I’ve been… … Fine. BASIRA: I’ll get you some new ones. Better ones.

Fire? Flooding/rusting effects from the Lonely? Spiders infestation? Melanie permanently staying in the Archives? Peter forcing sailors uniforms on the staff? I really hope that this “Better ones.” is once again Basira’s own sense of humour (casually throwing shade at Jon for his style), because it… sounds… so weird… too…

- Did Jon share Gerry’s tape with the assistants, or did he give them a lecture about the entities between MAG111 and MAG117? I had already wondered about it due to Martin’s comment in MAG117 (“I mean, if you’re right, if these things out there are eating our fears […]”), and Basira confirmed that they’re now a bit more informed:

(MAG122) GEORGIE: He, er… He felt like Death. BASIRA: … What, capital D “Death”? […] So Jon told you, then. GEORGIE: Some of it. Not… everything. BASIRA: Right. So how exactly is it that you’re able to identify an Avatar of The End on sight? GEORGIE: Honestly Basira, it’s not your business. … Sorry.

-> Jon didn’t share Georgie’s statement with the others (or maybe even specifically hid it?), since Basira didn’t know about it. That’s… surprisingly thoughtful of him. (He respected her privacy!! Didn’t want to get her involved!! ;;) -> Basira was able to translate Georgie’s description to label it under “The End”, which is a veeeerrrry specific way to allude to it (one would more spontaneously stick to “death”, yes?). Not surprising that she, amongst all the others, did her research (she had some on Peter Lukas even before he began to be relevant, back in MAG108, and had tracked down the things around Maxwell Rayner as well), but I don’t think that she could have understood that its official name was “The End” if it hadn’t come from Gerry’s statement, be it directly or indirectly. So yeah, either Jon made them listen to that specific tape (or bits of it), either Basira found it herself, either Jon gave them all an Official Lecture before The Unknowing.

- The fact that Jon has been out for six months might complicate things a bit as to who-knows-what and who had access to the tapes during this time… Elias’s from MAG120 was directly addressed to Jon towards the end, but was probably kept by Peter Lukas since then? Or did it disappear (like the one from MAG121 apparently did) and will reappear only for Jon? It sounded like Elias intended for Jon to listen to it – it was a verrrry Beholding-like move from him indeed (the fear of ~having your deepest secrets exposed~, the ~feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer just so it can watch~), but did it have another purpose? As mentioned above: what about the tape(s) from The Unknowing (MAG118+MAG119): have they been destroyed, will they resurface? What happened to Oliver’s from MAG121? Has Martin hidden his tape from MAG118 (T____T), or will Jon be able to access it? He ~listens to all the tapes~, but that would require getting his hands on this one… though they might get into his hands whether someone wants it to or not.

- I wonder if the assistants have still been recording things while Jon was out, and if he will catch up with that? Or if they… totally stopped in the meantime? Maybe they read statements to comatose!Jon but without the tape recorders on, since Georgie was so offended to find one there? Georgie had called for Melanie, and Basira came instead, but it doesn’t seem like… she had spotted that Jon was breathing, since Basira&Georgie were more concerned about the tape recorder that Georgie had seen before trying to chase Oliver, at the beginning of the episode, and there was no nurse attending to Jon. So apparently they hadn’t noticed that Jon’s body was functional again, and yet, Basira still came with a statement:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: No, er, the, er, the, the statement. [STATIC] In, in your bag. BASIRA: Oh. Yeah, I, er… [ZIP SOUND] I just grabbed one on the way out. I thought maybe you’d need it. ARCHIVIST: You, you were right. I, I think that’d do me some good. Do you have a tape rec– oh. BASIRA: How did you know I’d brought one? [SILENCE] Right. ARCHIVIST: Thank you, Basira. […] ARCHIVIST: […] … I don’t suppose you brought in any… clothes? BASIRA: No, I just, y’know. Grabbed you a statement on my way out.

Basira didn’t question what she did, so it sounded like a regular thing? OR IS THAT A FUCKING SPIDER THING AGAIN…………… TELLING HER TO TAKE A STATEMENT THAT DAY BECAUSE OF COURSE, IT WAS THE LOGICAL THING TO DO, SHE HAD CLEARLY ALWAYS PLANNED TO TAKE ONE ON HER OWN. Orrr the Archives “gave” her this one? It sounded very fitting for Jon. Not reassuring at all (the world becoming alien and the statement-giver getting convinced that the problem was with everyone else), very disturbing, and also very fitting.

- (I barely mentioned anything about the statement itself, given how so many things happened around it… But yeah, wooowww was this one unsettling. No idea who did it, though? The eerie repeated words made me think of the Anglerfish, and there was something Stranger-like in your whole world turning into something you didn’t recognize; I thought of the Lonely because of the loss of contact and ensuing isolation; and I thought of the Spiral because of the idea of something twisting your mind and making you lose your bearings.)

- Some silly hopeful part of me hopes that there will still be… a way… to remember Tim’s last words… because it would be too sad, gdi!! That Tim died, and that his last moments are also forgotten!! (THAT HIS LAST UNFUNNY JOKE WAS FORGOTTEN…) We already got that with Sasha, not again!! ;_; Not when Tim had been the one to regard what the Institute was doing so gloomily, with his overall defiance and fuck-everything attitude… Maybe they wouldn’t have been caught in the mess if he hadn’t snapped, but he was also the one to ultimately pull the trigger and blow up the ceremony (and partially axing Nikola I think?!), I want them to know that the Unknowing was stopped thanks to him!!! ;_;

I have no idea if the tape from MAG119 survived the explosion (they’re spooky, this one could have just… managed), or if Jon will be able to get some of these memories back somehow through a live-statement, or through other spooks – I… don’t see Elias agreeing to do it with his Carving Truth Into Your Mind, though it could probably fall whithin his theoretical competences (MAG106: “I can see almost anything I care to, weave knowledge from someone’s mind, or place it there, but I just cannot change the nature of a person.”). But it occurs to me that the survivors should absolutely give their own statements about the Unknowing, and to carve it in stone rather than frail perishable tapes, for the next generation who will have to neutralize it in 200-300 years, since they had themselves been helped by a witness account of the previous one? … but at the same time, ~what’s the point, if The Watcher’s Crown is supposed to happen (and succeed!) before that~, right.

- Tim didn’t believe that avatars/monsters could fight against their own urges:

(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.

And we’ll see if that’s the case with Jon, too, but gdi!! I don’t want Tim to have been right on that / to have been right to think that Jon was becoming this ;; There is the weird Agnes case (what was she?), she seemed quite reluctant to get into Business in MAG067 but she wasn’t benevolent either (she… was the one to recruit Jude Perry?); we had the case of “Helen” whose transformation, unless lie, went wrong (MAG115: “I took a man, wandering the halls of an old tenement. He’s dead now, he never even came close to finding me. It was nourishing, but… […] I didn’t like it. […] I feel… wrong. I feel this—”), so I have no idea how Jon will manage/navigate through his new state, since he apparently turned-avatar-for-real, but I have a mix of dread (and eagerness.) thinking about how his next interaction with Elias will go. It will be Terrible but in which ways? (Will Elias switch to calling him “Archivist” all the time, or will he stick to “Jon”? At least there is one (1) person that might be ~happy that Jon chose to not die uwu~ (since Martin is not there), but I don’t want Elias to congratulate him about thiiiiiiiis *cries*) I AM VERY AFRAID that in the end, after the “throw Elias in jail” plan, Jon will have to crawl back to him for help re:Martin and the Peter management ORZ Though I guess the alternative would be “getting Elias out of jail because he’s needed for The Watcher’s Crown and Jon now finds it logical that they would head towards it yeah?” but, at least right now, he’s still seeing Elias as a source of trouble and malevolence; WHICH IS GOOD.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: What? Oh god, the, their plan, it’s, Martin is– Is he okay, or– … What did Elias do? BASIRA: No, nothing. Elias isn’t the problem. ARCHIVIST: Sor– what? BASIRA: Elias is locked up. ARCHIVIST: … Wait, Martin’s plan worked? BASIRA: Yeah. A bunch of Section’d officers took him in. He made some sort of deal, I think. But… he’s not getting out anytime soon. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. Wow. O… kay, er… Great, s–so… what’s the problem?

That surprise when being told that “Elias isn’t the problem.” dhrfcjn. YEAH, for fucking once, Elias is not The Problem. (Also immediately assuming that Elias would have done something terrible to Martin. Yes, Jon is still aware that they’re not on the greatest of terms.)

- Will Peter Lukas introduce himself to Jon right away (Elias… might have left… instructions… for when archivist!Jon would wake up…), or will he keep avoiding him entirely? So far, he had only appeared when Jon was kidnapped, when Jon was in America, and when Jon was in a coma, so. (Get Martin back!! ;;)

- *WHIMPERS LOUDLY* at Jon!!! Surprised that Martin wasn’t there!! Noticing Martin through his absence!! And also protective/possessive!Jon when it comes to him…

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: What? Oh god, the, their plan, it’s, Martin is– Is he okay, or– … What did Elias do? […] BASIRA: He appointed an “interim” director. Guy named Peter Lukas. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: Read about him. BASIRA: Yeah, I’ve… hunted down some of his old statements and… yeah. ARCHIVIST: … What did he do to Martin? BASIRA: Er, I… don’t know. We don’t see him around the Archives much these days. Best I can figure, he’s working on something with Lukas. ARCHIVIST: No, that– No, that, that… that must be something else.

… Jon sounded like he was out for blood, it’s gonna be great/terrible (last one of the original assistants alive! For now). That last line, though: is Jon not believing that Martin could collaborate with someone who is this much Very Bad News, or is something in Jon seeing the whole situation as Martin betraying the Institute/Beholding by working for another cluster…? I kinda hope that we’ll focus on Melanie first, though, since 1°) she’s accessible, 2°) she had blamed her entrapment on Jon (MAG102), 3°) she already had it bad before The Unknowing and the last time we heard her was when she relented after spitting that they should still kill Elias. She only shared her India war ghosts story riiight before Jon left for The Unknowing, they’ll have to… deal with that bullet.

- … I do wonder if Martin is actually leaving the Archives for random missions/working on that thing, or if he’s actually there, in the Archives… but in the Lonely dimension from MAG092’s statement, inaccessible to the others. If Martin sometimes passes by, it could be for recharging, to not end up like Tim? ;; (Though I always wondered if Tim had been a special case, and Elias basically dragged him back to the Institute because he wanted all the assistants to be there when Jon would come back?)

- Cheers, Jon has been in a coma for six months! Which means that his last birthday either happened during the coma, either while he was on the run from the police / kidnapped by Nikola / being sent here and there by Elias to get information to stop the Unknowing (cross out the wrong options). Jon, what’s your life. HE WOKE UP FOR THE INSTITUTE’S BIRTHDAY!! The Magnus Institute is now 200 years old!!! I wonder if they’ll throw a party.

#tl;dr 'AAAAAAAAAHHHH'#mag122 #the magnus archives #4 #5 #tma spoilers/#tma season 4 #tma liveblog

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