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rosy-cheekx · 3 years

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"Don’t do that. don’t shut me out” and / or “We can talk through the door” - from the trauma sentence starters :)

Okay so this started as a one-off but, as usual, it spiraled outwards! The actual line will be in the next chapter. (That’s right, this bitch has two chapters! AND A PERSPECTIVE SHIFT)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28201191/chapters/69105681

It had been hard for Martin to adjust, after the Lonely, after the months of spiraling into the quiet, cold dark, imprisoned in an ever-expanding labyrinth of his own isolation. A therapist he had years ago told him it takes three weeks to manifest a habit, and in the months without his mum, without Jon, Sasha, Tim, god without even Elias to irritate his last fraying nerve, he had time to form hundreds of new habits, his habits of loneliness.

When Peter had given him Elias’ old office, under the guise of space, focus, and mental health (Martin could spit at that looking back, the cruel irony), the room had been rearranged. The desk, which had previously sat in the center of the room, with two slightly uncomfortable chairs positioned in front of it, chairs Martin had been eager to burn in celebration of his new space, had been rearranged. The room was starkly empty, the chairs removed on his behalf, and the desk had been moved to the side of the room, out of view of the door and in fact behind the hinges, so the door swung open in front of his desk, blocking anyone who may sneak a peek in his office a view of him at work. After a while, it was natural to be in the corner of a room closest to the hinges; where the coatrack or a rubbish bin would typically be, there instead was Martin Blackwood, comfortable, solitary. Alone.

The habits expanded outside of the office. Soon enough he was shopping at markets in the quietest hours: during the airings of football matches, at the early-morning markets, at two in the morning because he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get warm under his duvet. His warm conversations with cashiers and barkers turned to solemn nods and gruff thank-yous, the refreshing smiles they associated with the sweater-clad figure reduced to slow blinks and nods of acknowledgement, and then not even that. They didn’t even wonder what had happened to that nice auburn-haired man who worked “down the street at the old spooky building, did-you-hear-about-those-worms?” Even takeout was too much to bear. The nights where leaving his flat was unconscionable, his delivery requests would always add, “leave outside the flat, tip is under the doormat.”

His neighbors didn’t remember him after a while. Mabel, the kind woman who lived across from him, introduced herself to him, asked when he moved in. Eventually she stopped noticing this new auburn man she hadn’t seen before. Hadn’t seen at all, actually. No one lived across the hall from her, not in her memory. And she had an excellent memory, didn’t-you-know? It was all those crosswords.

Martin started locking his doors. That had been after Jon had returned. He knew that distinctly. Most of these habits loomed over his life slowly, like an ever-expanding fog, until he didn’t realize where they had begun, but the doors? That was a choice.

He wasn’t one for locks overall; his childhood home had forbidden them, save for the exterior doors. It hadn’t bothered him back then, though, and as he grew up and out of the shadow of his mother it never occurred to him that he could just shut people out like that. So easy, so simple, but so unnecessary for so long. Martin was the one breaking down those barriers, especially at the Institute. Getting Sasha to talk about her anger when they first moved into the Archives, her quiet confession that she had wanted that job for so long, had been told by Gertrude she was a promising candidate. That had been fixed with a cup of tea and the promise that he would support her if she wanted to quit, but that it seemed like Tim needed her, Jon too. Getting Tim to open up about Danny, his sorrow that had been simmering so long under the surface, a grief Martin didn’t quite know how to fathom. But he tried, with comforting touches and warm voice, trying to ease Tim back from the precipice over which he had been hovering. Not enough. Never enough. Even Jon had begun to be kinder to him, after Prentiss, after Martin had proven he wasn’t a waste of space in the Archives, begun to be honest and open about his take on the weird things they experienced here. He had even texted him rather frequently, towards the end, updating him on his trip to America and of the occasional sights that caught his eye (‘In Pittsburgh they put chips on sandwiches and salads, Martin, look at this! Image_0102 attached’ Even in text, his grammar was impeccable.) But after Jon recovered from his coma, lapse with death, whatever it had been, Martin had been too far gone. He couldn’t risk Jon bursting in, bothering him, worrying and fussing. So he’d called in a locksmith to install the simple bolt, enough to stop a distracted, harried Archivist (who had never quite learned it was polite to knock) from bursting into his office at all hours.

But after all that, after the Lonely and Peter Lukas and “look at me and tell me what you see,” it was hard to break the achingly comfortable habits. For the first few days in Scotland, Martin didn’t really remember what had happened. While out of the domain itself, he was still trapped in its cloying embrace, and everything felt too real, too looming, too much; it had been easy to slip into silence for hours in Daisy’s safehouse. Too easy to pull the fog around him and watch himself sit, drawn up behind the door, as he watched and listened and waited for Jon to forget about him. It had never happened though. No matter how many hiding places he found, cold and dark and solitary, Jon always found him, blanket and tea in tow (always a little too sweet for Martin’s liking), and his scalding embrace was enough to drag him back to reality, shivering and sweating, whispering apologies.

They needed supplies. Daisy had left behind plenty of MREs in her pantry, stuff they could theoretically rely on, but it was all very basic nutritionary needs and both Martin and Jon were vegetarians, (more or less, Martin had stopped eating red meat as a teenager and Jon entirely after working in the Archives) and the dehydrated pasta alfredo was gone, seemingly the only vegetarian item in Daisy’s stock. Martin hadn’t even tried to touch the canned fruit, the orange-yellow of the peaches haunting him.

Martin suspected it was also a desperate attempt for the pair to practice feeling normal again. To be just two friends? Companions? Coworkers? Boyfriends? people stocking up their fridge and going on with a normal, non-horror filled life. A secluded, bare safehouse was certainly not helping them adjust any quicker, though neither man had dared leave quite yet, be it the risk of losing what little security they had accrued here or the inability to leave the other alone quite yet.

“Is-Do you know if it’s busy today?” Martin had asked, trying desperately to shape his voice into calm curiosity.

Jon considered the question for a minute, expression soft, and dear lord Martin wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the way Jon’s shadows seemed to darken and solidify when he Learned, his whole form shifting in and out of focus imperceptibly like the background was blending into him and not the other way round, the way Martin was accustomed.

“Mm, not bad. No one interesting. A couple families shopping for the week, twelve customers, four employees, total-oh, fourteen, mum and son just walked in…” Martin’s eyebrow was raised. “Ah,” Jon cleared his throat. “Sorry. Fourteen people. If that’s too many, I can go by myself, you know. I’m not going to force you.”

“N-no, no. I should go. Exposure therapy, right?”

Jon had smiled warmly and tentatively rested a hand on Martin’s shoulder, before sliding the hand, scarred and calloused, to squeeze Martin’s own cold one.

The grocery was small, a locally run place playing tinny jazz through the speakers. As Martin stepped through the doors with Jon, he was struck by how warm it was in the store. He could feel the prickle of anxiety burning under his skin, bringing a flush to his cheeks. He could hear the whine of the electric lights piercing his skull and settling behind his eyes. He gripped the trolley’s handle tight, firmly keeping his eyes forward. He was fine, he could do this.

Martin was not fine. They had worked their way through the aisles quickly, Jon using his Knowledge to figure out where every item they needed had been located. Martin was on autopilot, quietly steering the cart and flinching when anyone came to close to him. The heat of life was radiating off everyone in the store, even Jon, and it was scalding, blinding, debilitating. He hadn’t noticed Jon asking him a question until, Jon carefully, gingerly, brought his hand to hover near Martin’s cheek, not touching, just waiting for a response.

“Martin?” he heard distantly, calling him back to reality, where fog didn’t drift over the aisles and the soft rush of waves didn’t echo in his ears.

“-mm?” The hand was gone, his skin tingled with the rush of cold returning to his face. He wished it would come back, to hold his face and promise it would be alright.

“I was wondering what tea you wanted to buy? I’m no expert and I know you have your preferences. I miss-” Jon cleared his throat. “I’ve missed your tea in the Archives. All the staff drank coffee after you left. Disgusting.”

Tea. This was something Martin could do. He took a step away from the trolley, his life raft, and studied the aisles, trying to will his mind to focus.

Tea, tea, tea. Rooibos and chamomile for sleepless nights. Herbal for variety. Jon likes caffeinated teas. Maybe some chai? That’ll be good when it gets really cold…god how long will we be here? Through winter? Forever? He could stay here forever if it meant Jon was there too.

He grabbed a couple of boxes of familiar brands, throwing them in the trolley, as well as whatever felt familiar, what he’d usually pick up.

“I thought you didn’t like oolong.”

Martin frowned, glancing down at the box in his hand. “I don’t. Uh, force of habit I guess.” He set the box back quickly, as if it was burning his hand. “M’mum liked it so I would pick it up for her. Guess its been a while…” he trailed off, uncertain of what he was about to say. He’s bought tea since she died, hasn’t he?

He thinks back, through all his months in Elias’s office and at home.

Oh. Guess not.

Had he really not drunk tea at all? God, he had really changed more than he thought under the influence of Peter. Tea had been such a staple of his life, his personality, he was the one dragging Jon and Sasha and Tim to teahouses for his birthday and insisting he make a cuppa for everyone on the days that felt too dark. The last time he could remember holding a warm cup of tea in his hands was when he was sitting at Jon’s bedside in the hospital, reading him Keats in the desperate hope he would hate it so much he would wake up, even if just to scold his assistant.

Martin knew serving The Lonely had changed him. But here, in the aisle of a Scottish grocery, he was realizing how entirely debased he had become. Was he even Martin Blackwood anymore?

Martin blinked to see the grocery around him cloaked in fog. No, that wasn’t right. He was cloaked in fog. The world was a pale blue-grayscale, slightly translucent. He hadn’t been here in a while but the cool balm over his anxiety settled like cool cloth and he felt distantly quiet. Calm. He left the store in a haze and began the slow trudge up to the safehouse. Jon wasn’t here in this place, which was probably for the best. Martin couldn’t hurt him here, couldn’t burden him with whatever pesky emotions he had felt in the grocery, whatever they had been. They were a distant memory now, oolong and guilt.

By the time Martin had hiked up the hill to the safehouse, he felt safe enough to leave the Lonely, and felt the cool numbness drift off him like steam as the world sharpened around him. With the world came the sharp sting of his realization came with it; the understanding that he wasn’t the same person he had been when he had said goodbye to Tim, Melanie, and Jon, and certainly not the same person he had been when he had backed through the doors to the Institute and let that dog in, what felt like decades ago now.

Martin Blackwood let the door swing shut behind him as he made his way inside, hearing the rumble of Jon’s car rolling up the gravel driveway. He moved quickly through the house, looking desperately for a place to escape as he heard the faint call of his name outside. He couldn’t-he just couldn’t talk to Jon right now; he didn’t know how to explain how betrayed he felt and by on fault but his own. The closest room was the bathroom, dark and clean, and pressed back against the door as he clicked the door shut, turning the latch on the door.

Click.

The bolt slid into the mechanism of the door frame, and that sound was what sent Martin spiraling.

he was alone he was alone he was alone.

#tma #tma fic #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #the lonely #prompt fic

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wolftraps · 4 years

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More Reverb questions because apparently I don’t have enough of those xD-is Peter still wandering the Lonely? Does Daisy ever tell others stuff to tease Jon with? Does Oliver drop by to say hi after things settle down? Where do Jon and Martin decide to settle down at? Or do they move to somewhere else entirely? Does Shay still crash over at their place? Wait, do Daisy and Basira have honorary rooms as a result of the co-parenting as well? Do they have vacations and see more good good cows?

Peter is still in the Lonely... somewhere. technically. He’s not really conscious. It’s more like... like when Jon was in the “coma”. Things just kind of are, and he just kind of isn’t.

Oliver does actually stop in now and then. Besides Beholding people, who are exempt from the dreams, he’s pretty much the only avatar who willingly comes to give Jon statements. He can’t always have the dreams with Jon or it’ll start getting worse while he’s awake. But as often as not he does, and it’s nice to have some variety. And he checks in with Shay sometimes.

Daisy has brought up Jon being a lightweight. Jon being kidnapped and having to wear that ridiculous shirt in America. Jon mouthing off to hunters because he doesn’t know when to shut up. Jon trying so very hard to like the Archers, and then not being able to listen anymore because all 60-some years of it were suddenly in his brain. He cried. And that she once timed him and he didn’t blink for almost 7 hours.

To which Martin responds that he timed, and Jon only ever blinked three times between the end of the world and when Martin died.

To which Jon replies “Technically-” and everyone tells him to shut up.

Technically, Martin and Jon had a place before Reverb even ended, but they didn’t find out about it until after. In order to more easily pass on his stuff, Jonah’s will for each host body stated that he was leaving everything to the next head of the Magnus Institute. So, legally, as soon as the body of Elias Bouchard was discovered, it all went to Martin. And then Martin had them married on paper for convenience, so it was also Jon’s.

They don’t actually want to live in Jonah’s place... any of his places. He may or may not have had a collection. They take anything of interest to the Institute and/or Archives and then the rest is sold or donated, and the houses/flats are sold or rented. Except for Jonah’s original place, which may or may not become something of a new Hill Top Road. Or, well, Martin does all that.

Despite that, it actually takes an absurdly long amount of time for Martin and Jon to get a place of their own together because Jon just legit doesn’t even think about living somewhere other than the Archives until Martin brings it up. They finally get a place with room for guests after they get married for real. And Martin manages to convince Jon to come home with him most days, though it’s not unusual for him to wake up and find Jon’s already left for the Archives.

Since they travel for work, Shay especially spends a lot of time away from the UK, let alone London. So it’s just been easier for them to technically still live with their parents when they’re home. Basira and Daisy also travel for work, though. So one of Jonah’s old places becomes theirs and Martin takes care of upkeep while they’re away, and then they just kind of hop from safehouse to safehouse as they please.

Vacations for Jon and Martin are rare, but they do take them. And they always make sure to see all the good cows.

#the reverb in these holy halls #this took me a few days #i've just been kinda meh #i think we're all there right now tho #so #reverb #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #shay tonner #Anonymous #you asked #tma

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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG135 /o/

- Fun fact! The verb “extinguish” has appeared as a word in all three of the Daedalus statements, in relation to the three different powers involved:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “There’s nothing, nothing but empty, uncaring void lacing dead worlds and dead stars all-together like a tapestry of lonely meaninglessness. Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as quickly. And when we are at last gone forever, into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe. And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.”

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Most people can’t even properly appreciate the size of our own planet, seeing it only in crudely rendered diagrams or maps; but compared to us… the planet is immense. More than large enough for the swell of humanity to grow and… ultimately extinguish itself. [SCOFF] Yet compared to the wider universe… it isn’t even a noticeable speck.”

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know.

- I love how The Dark still feels like… that one fear which should be super stereotypical (Cult Of Darkness.) and yet always manages to get under your skin anyway, and is that one thing that we’re apparently never managing to get rid of. Julia and Trevor butchered Darvish in Summer 2010? No problem. Things happened in March-to-May 2015 at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, apparently derailing or temporarily neutralising The Dark’s activities? Ahaha, we’ll manage. Maxwell Rayner was killed by Section 31 officers on Elias’s Personal Tip in February 2017? IT’S FINE. WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING. I had Questions about how The Dark was connected with Gertrude’s death, I’m delighted that we’ll be digging into their activities again, since Jon isn’t sure what happened – isn’t even sure whether Gertrude had managed to neutralise them! I wonder if the matter of March/May 2015 as the date of Gertrude’s death will be explained, or if I should finally put that to rest as a simple mistake.

… Interestingly, following the pattern of solar eclipses: the total solar eclipse over Ny-Ålesund that Basira had pinned down actually took place on 20th March 2015, which is… neither when Mark Bilham went into the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel (March 11th), neither when Gertrude officially died (March 15th or May 15th), but is around the time she should have died according to Oliver’s dreams. In real life, the next solar eclipse (partial) in Ny-Ålesund happened on August 11th 2018, so that could be the planned date for the upcoming half-baked new ritual attempt indeed… but the date is a bit weird for the overall pacing of season 4. We’re in… beginning of April? 2018, and usually getting a statement a week (more or less). So that doesn’t easily coincide with a midseason finale, nor with the season finale? Unless Team Archive hurries to get to Svalbard very soon, in the hope of neutralising The Dark before August 2018. (Funny bit: there was a partial solar eclipse in South America on February 15th 2018… the day Oliver visited Jon and he woke up from his “coma”.)

I have no idea: there are so many things to keep track of, currently (Peter’s own plans? The Extinction’s threat? Elias’s intentions regarding The Watcher’s Crown? The Web’s schemes and intentions for Jon? Now, The Dark’s activities?) – I… do like that it indeed gives us a feeling that, outside of pure narrative… all the Fears have their own agenda, they’re not just queuing up for the Archives team to take care of them? They’re not dependant on them, they carry on Doing Their Things and bringing their own terrors? And it’s… very bittersweet to think that it will probably always be like this.

- I’m so mad about the fact that Manuela’s story makes… so much sense with how Jan had described her:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Manuela Dominguez was quite a big name in certain areas of the physics community. Or at least she had been; I hadn’t heard of any work she’d done for a good few years and, as I said I’m more on the engineering side of things so… it wasn’t really something I kept up with in detail. While she was happy to talk, Manuela apparently didn’t like to discuss her professional life on Earth, or the specifics of the research she was doing on the Daedalus. Like Chilcott, her research was kept entirely separate from mine, and while we spent plenty of time together, I never did figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with lasers, I think.”

I never ever thought for one second that it might have been “it’s because she’s part of the cult, Cass, and has been for the past years” aND YET IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE AND SEEMS SO OBVIOUS IN RETROSPECT… I’m so mad, I love this series and it keeps making me feel like a Fool. (But with love. Cackling at my face, but with love.) Another thing that gets a bit… “funny” in retrospect:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “It was the sense of a presence, of there being something out there… something that wasn’t the Earth, and it was getting closer… When it started, I tried to talk to Manuela about it, but she seemed to think I was talking about aliens and quickly changed the subject. […] And that cry came again; so loud, and long, and deep that I couldn’t not be the sound of a living thing – so vast and so ancient that thinking about it made me weep. And I screamed in turn. My hands touched the rail at the exact moment that Manuela came to check on me. I was moving again. She asked if I was alright, though she… clearly had no interest in the answer. She said she’d felt the station shake, bu–ut when I pressed, she… claimed she hadn’t heard anything. Her eyes were red and I noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were burned. I… don’t know why I asked her, really. I knew then that she hadn’t heard it – that she would never hear it. And I felt completely alone. I remember I almost envied Chilcott, because at least he had known what he was signing up for.”

…………………… She probably assumed that Jan had heard her “battery” screaming, uh, hence the quick denial.

- WHY DO WE KEEP GETTING OPPORTUNITIES TO GET SAD ABOUT JAN KILBRIDE??? There was already something very… sensitive and heart-wrenching in his statement from MAG106, in his thought and overall tone (I’m apparently very weak to characters pulling the ~I would have liked to still be able to think that ignorance meant safety~ shtick ;;), even more with Melanie’s narration – she was absolutely perfect for that one, with her voice slightly cracking and the overall impression of throat tightening… And I was already sad for him with that statement alone! Even sadder when thinking he was probably the man with beautiful eyes seen with Gertrude during The Buried’s ritual! And season 4 keeps making me sad about him, godsdamnit, first with Jon mentioning how he ended, and now with:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Either way, it was clear my two fellow astronauts were patsies, sent up there to suffer. I almost felt bad for them, but it was in most ways a relief to know I wouldn’t need to worry about them interfering with my own project. […] the closest I ever came to discovery was when Kilbride expressed confusion at the rate that our supplies were diminishing. It was really only the two of us anyway, with Chilcott sealed away, having his own little breakdown. And Jan was always a bit of an idiot, so ready to believe anyone’s lies… But I suppose I don’t need to tell you that – do I, Gertrude?”

(The insidiousness was creepy, sure, but come on, Dark people, we’re so used to Voyeurs all the time, you spilling that You Know What Gertrude Did With Jan doesn’t feel mind-blowingly threatening compared to the others <3)

I wonder if we’ll hear again about the Daedalus. Melanie had noticed that Jan’s statement felt like it ended abruptly (presumably, Gertrude was told he was here and interrupted him to have a chat?) – so there could be another half lying around, or a live-statement with Gertrude, or… I don’t know. But now that we know that there was a 4th person on the station (WHICH WAS A “HOLY ARCEUS” MOMENT), and given that Manuela mentioned that she wasn’t sure of the Lukases&the Fairchilds’ own motives + that… the person who had taken care of the calculation must have been aware of the extra body, but she didn’t say it was Rayner’s team taking care of that aspect, it still feels like there might have been another story against the Currently Official Story (once again):

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I don’t know how he convinced Fairchild and the Lukases to help finance the project – a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances, but even so, space exploration is a whole other magnitude of expenditure. I don’t entirely know if they were working on rituals of their own, or simply pushing the boundaries of their own fears, their masters. […] Exactly how the launch was arranged, I couldn’t tell you, but I assume the calculations must have been done by one of ours. Otherwise, well… weight is very important when planning a launch, and it could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people in that rocket.”

I’m very appreciative of the way the Daedalus had been handled in the canon, slowly taking “shape”. We first had Carter Chilcott’s testimony, who… couldn’t tell us a lot about the life aboard, except for his own experience, since he was precisely isolated; we then had Jan, who was more in control but still unaware of what was at work there; and now, we’re getting Manuela, who turned out to have been totally aware of the aim of the mission. This could be the end of the story, or there could be yet more to put things into perspective (ha), we’ll see!

- I don’t know which shade of queer Manuela was/is but: definitely queer (“Anything they did not understand became unnatural and I found myself crossing that line from an early age. Although strangely, out of everything I was, it was always my desire to pursue a scientific career that they railed against with the most energy.”). AND SO AWFUL HOLY HECK… I’m glad that Daisy wasn’t in the room with Jon because his tone was so into it that… he might have freaked her out a bit? It was terrifying, so… deceptively sweet while digging the knife deep into your flesh…

- One thing that gets me a lot (in a “HHHHHhhHHHH” way) is when… avatars talk about their patrons? The reverence, the worship in their words? And Manuela was especially “HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” is that regard: yes, absolutely terrible, and did you hear that drive and that passion? (It’s hot/aesthetically pleasing, is what I want to say.)

I still have… the impression, in a way, that the Daedalus never actually happened in the TMA universe; Melanie had mentioned that feeling in MAG106, though she pointed out the existence of pictures of the crew’s return to Earth, but somehow… I can’t help but feel like indeed, it was too out of our realm to truly have happened, and that it was all staged by another entity/by the Lukases&the Fairchilds, to pretend it had happened when actually the staff had stayed on Earth all along, and that they organised the press releases about it? But it’s also awfully fitting that yes, Fears experiments sound so impossible that it can’t have been happening. If there is no twist, it seems like avatars are drawing powers from their patrons proportionally to the faith they have in them?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Scientifically, it was nonsense of course. Dark energy and the like don’t work like that, not even remotely. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed. To do my work, to create the Black Star would need a parody, an aping mockery of science. But it would also need the deepest of darknesses. When I told Maxwell what I actually needed, he told me such a thing was impossible, but I insisted. And so he began his work on the Daedalus.

[…] My experiments continued largely uninterrupted, pushing the boundaries of light, darkness and fear. It was dangerous work and more than once, I got too close to the light and it almost destroyed me. But it didn’t. I could regale you with the technical terms or scientific disciplines I played with and rendered meaningless, but in the end all you actually need to know is that I succeeded. A tiny, terrible sun of the pitchest black, shining beautiful Darkness all around it.”

Like a twisted “believe in fairies” – things getting the power you give them, similarly to symbols? Sarah had, back in the days, said the Trophy Room Taxidermy Shop got its powers from people’s interactions with it (MAG096: “What is the significance of this place?” “Nothing, except what people give it. But they give it a lot, make it a place of power for us.”)

If the experiment did indeed happen in space: there had been hypotheses that the “falling satellite debris” which killed Oliver had been the Daedalus, and I had dismissed it because the dates didn’t match at all… but I’m a stupid potato and: of course the crew returned to Earth through a shuttle, and this was explicitly stated by Manuela. So it could still have been the Daedalus going full-on Icarus.

… But on the other hand: while the name “Daedalus” finally takes a bit more meaning with this episode (the story about ~getting too close to the sun~), Daedalus was actually the prudent one, who remained wary of the sun and was clever enough to always escape the murder attempts. Icarus went too close to the sun (and drowned in the sea, leaving Daedalus alone). Daedalus… gave his name to the maze, and brings corridors to minds. (But the “Daedalus project” was an actual, historical one, which never got completed in our world… Rah, I don’t know! The fact that we learned that Manuela had actually been full-on avatar in the space station, and not an innocent scientist victim of The Dark, makes me paranoid about another… twist regarding the station x’))

We’ve had another reference to Icarus in the canon, though: “George Icarus” was the name under which Leitner was buried, as Tim discovered in MAG114. Paid by the Institute. It fits Leitner very well but… given the ties between “Daedalus” and “Icarus”, it feels like a very weird coincidence – so did you get involved in the space project in one way or another, Elias… *squints*)

- Regarding the 4th person on the Daedalus, I’ve been grabbing my face a lot and screaming in silence about the sheer HORROR of suddenly learning that… there was someone else aboard, with Manuela very casually dehumanizing him at every possible turn (“one unlucky nyctophobe”, “I never learned his name, never needed to; he was simply a battery”, “The final experiment had left my battery in such a state that no amount of sound-proofing could dampen the screams, and I was glad of the peace and quiet.”). I wonder if it’s someone we’ve already seen mentioned somewhere…? The only potential one (in my mind) would be Peter “Pete” Gordo, who worked at the Wakefield Prison in MAG052 – Exceptional Risk, and had touched the Dark creature when it came to butcher Robert Montauk. Both the (awful) statement-giver and Jon had highlighted that he had vanished shortly after, in 2002, so he was probably a “half-finished meal” too…

Since Manuela… didn’t mention killing him but implied that she had left him behind (alone) in the station when she went back to Earth with the other two, I wonder if he might have turned into Something Else, or if he plainly died of exhaustion / lack of oxygen / starvation / Fear (alone, in the dark empty infinite space). Conceptually, it could be a good tie-in if he had somehow become an avatar of Extinction, but I don’t know how that could fit with his primal fear and what happened to him. One thing I have in mind, though: Daedalus was the inventor who helped Pasiphae copulate with the bull, in the myth, and the Minotaur wouldn’t have been conceived without it. So… Daedalus contributed to Creating The Monster (before working to contain it). Not sure it could be relevant, but just in case… there is that.

(- Extra-funny thing about Icarus/Daedalus……………… remember how Peter had called Jon in MAG134? A “bull-headed Archivist”. Congrats, Jon! It might have been involuntary (IS IT.) but you’re officially the Monster In The Labyrinth, right now, according to the Lonely creepy boat captain.)

(And again: considering that it turned out Martin was the one who gave Jon the connection to the outside that helped pull him out of the coffin, does that make Martin an Ariadne.)

- So, we got a new name for a ritual (The Dark is ~The Extinguished Sun~) but we also got the notion of a “stronghold” mentioned by Elias:

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.

=> Breekon had described the Institute as “The Eye’s Pedestal” (MAG128, “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”), too. The question is still pending for Point Nemo (a Vast one? An End one?) and Hill Top Road (neutral ground or Web? Desolation? Spiral?). For the Lonely, Carter Chilcott had very specific dreams reminiscent of the graveyard from Naomi’s statement and of the Tundra’s journeys:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “The hallucination stopped. I did not even get the comfort of company in my delusions, though at some point, the line between dreaming and reality seemed to blur. I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations though, they were dreams – even if the cold seem to seep out of them, and into the bones of me.”

And there were the places where ritual attempts took place – the Wax Museum for The Stranger (though the Taxidermy Shop was also “a place of power” for them), that Elias claimed to be unable to access (and Jon did feel weird with no conception of time there); the town of Bucoda, for The Buried; Sannikov Land, for The Spiral; the Gnostic church near Istanbul for The Flesh (and potentially the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel for The Dark). Given how these places got… severely destroyed after their rituals got thwarted, it sounds like they were only been temporary places to build up power? Ny-Ålesund and the plain… sea are a bit more permanent than those punctual places, though? (Please, Team Archive, don’t go bombing the whole of Ny-Ålesund.)

- If we’re going to be digging a bit more into Dark-related activities… will we get a confirmation of what the fuck was happening re:Maxwell Rayner? Did he just have a remarkably long lifetime thanks to “feeding” his god, like Simon Fairchild, since we know that he was already around in the XIXth century and Manuela herself made a reference to the fact he had been around for very long (MAG135: “a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances”)? I know the favourite fantheory on this one is that he’d been body-hopping but I’ve never been convinced since we didn’t really have descriptions of him changing, except that he was often Kind Of Old. There… has indeed been a suspicious trend of him targeting or getting a child around him: an unnamed one in 1864 (MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss: “He is led around by a young Arabian lad of ten or eleven, though the ease with which he carries himself makes me suspect this assistance is an affectation rather than necessity.”); in 1995, Julia was attacked by the creature when she was 12; Basira and the other officers were sent against Rayner after he had kidnapped Callum Brodie, twelve years old, in January 2017 (MAG073, Basira: “Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago.”) – but it’s not necessarily to get a new body…? I always had the impression that it could plainly be because… well, the fear of the Dark is more prominent in children? So they could perhaps feed Dark-people better?

- I mostly wonder if (/hope that) we will get a bit more information about the relationship between Robert Montauk and Maxwell Rayner, in the process! Because… honestly, except for the fact that Robert’s wife apparently belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host (since she had the pendant) and that Robert killed around 40 people between 1990 and 1995 that may or may not have all been related to the cult, there are a loooot of things I’m still uncertain about? And Jon still had Questions about it too:

(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.

(MAG074) ARCHIVIST: Well, that seems to close the book on Maxwell Rayner. Maybe the whole People’s Church of the Divine Host. I can’t help but feel I’ve got the last chapter of a story and I don’t even know the title. At least I hope it’s the last chapter. I still can’t find much about the company Outer Bay Shipping. Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I’m skilled at.

* Was Julia’s mother a runaway from the cult, or an active participant? It sounded to be the latter since Julia mentioned that she used to have friends who… didn’t inquire on her disappearance (MAG009: “apparently no-one noticed she was gone, which was strange as I have vague memories of her having friends over a lot before she vanished.”) Had she left her pendant to trap Julia too? Did she disappear to protect Julia? Did she willingly get spirited away? Actually, Robert told Julia she was “gone” but since Robert’s last victim had disappeared from his previous life a few years before his murder (MAG009, Archivist: “Christopher Lorne was a member of the church and his family hadn’t heard from him in the six years prior to his murder.”)… could it be possible that Julia’s mother is actually… still alive… and very Invested in the cult…

* Robert apparently did these things in order to protect Julia from… the cult? The creature? Maxwell? Julia did highlight that protecting her was one of his concerns (MAG009: “He whispered to me then, when he thought I was asleep, promised to protect me, to make sure that ‘it wouldn’t get me too’.”), but she didn’t really come out of the story acknowledging that it was what he was trying to achieve, I felt – not even to renounce his methods or success. Even when we got her live-statement in MAG109, she presented his actions as unrelated to her. But what was Robert doing exactly, and why…?

* Julia highlighted that they didn’t get any money problems (MAG009: “it was only after his arrest that I discovered that had been the point he’d resigned his job on the police force. I don’t know where the money came from after that but we always seemed to have enough.”) sooo was Maxwell Rayner paying for Robert’s… services?

* Robert and Rayner apparently hated each other by the time of Robert’s imprisonment, when Rayner visited him in Wakefield Prison in late March 2002, a few months before getting butchered by The Dark’s creature (… or one of them):

(MAG052, Phillip Brown) “It was an older guy, I’d guess late 50s, wearing a well-tailored black suit and an expression of disgust. When I brought Montauk in, his face fell, and he went very pale. I’d helped folks beat Robert Montauk a dozen times or more, but I had never seen him look scared. He sat down opposite the old man, and they looked each other in the eye through the thick glass. I think the visitor might have been blind. His eyes were cloudy, but he had no cane or dog. And it didn’t seem to affect how he looked at Montauk. Neither of them spoke. The seconds turned into minutes and still they didn’t say a word. They just sat there staring. Given where I work, it’s really something to be able to say that I’ve never seen two people who hated each other as much as Robert Montauk and that old man.

[…] 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?” [/STATIC] That’s what it said. Then Pete got the door open, and a shaft of light poured in from the corridor. 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.”

But before that, Rayner had apparently sent Robert after his next targets (MAG009, Julia: “He asked me to tell my father that it was Detective Rayner on the line with a new case for him.”), so? Unless the last one was someone that Robert went after without Rayner’s approval? Christopher Lorne, Robert’s last victim, was the only identified one, and was confirmed to have belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. Was he an exception, or were all the previous victims from the cult too? In that case, why the heck was Maxwell Rayner getting them killed…? Or were they typical sacrifices in the cult? What happened, for Rayner to have come to loathe Robert, although he previous appeared to be giving him instructions…?

* Unless… was the man who phoned the Montauk’s house and pretended to be “officer Rayner” actually Maxwell Rayner, or someone making fun of him? Julia mentioned that the voice was old (fitting Rayner, forever a bit old) but… that it had an accent (MAG009: “It was a breathy voice, like that of an old man, and at the time I decided he had a German accent, though, when I was young a lot of different nationalities and accents were lumped together in my mind under the label ‘German’.”). If we know one thing from Maxwell Rayner’s voice, at least during the XIXth century, it’s precisely… that it just sounded unremarkable in English (MAG098: “Both speak perfect English, with no accent I can recognise”) – though the statement also dealt with German folklore and Rayner Knew about it, so who knows. Same person, different perceptions? Body-hopping after all? “Maxwell Rayner” being a mantle and a role more than the same person/soul?

- tl;dr Given how The Dark has been a huge part of Julia’s story and there is still room for Questions regarding Robert Montauk… if the Archival staff is planning to go after the remnant of the cult, I really hope that it will be Julia’s cue to come back… Although it has been stated that she couldn’t handle the idea of travelling by boat for very long.

- Re: Manuela’s DRIVE, how fitting that this was also an episode in which Elias casually mentioned his own ~patron~ (I’m really glad that Peter and Elias are now using that word too! It had, so far, mostly been used by other people to refer to avatars’ gods, not avatars themselves presenting their gods this way). Elias rarely mentions The Eye unprompted, and there was something interesting in the way the plural “you” from Manuela’s statement, referring to Gertrude and Elias, became that implied “we” from Elias, referring to him and… Jon, nowadays.

(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.

Not the first time Elias amalgamated Jon and himself in the same ~we~ (MAG092: “It doesn’t please your master?” “Our master, Jon.”) but it was especially noticeable since Manuela had totally reduced the relevant Eye agents to the Archivist and the Head of the Institute, too. I don’t know how to explain that but… I felt like there was a bit of an echo, between the fact that Manuela had her own “we” (“even with the loss of Darvish, we will still be victorious”) with clearly identified, more powerful figures (Maxwell, Darvish, Manuela herself), and the… Eye people. There is mostly Elias and Jon, they’re the ones with powers, and as Manuela is describing The Dark’s ritual coming closer at the time of her statement, I feel like the shadow of the Watcher’s Crown is silently looming in a corner?

- As usual: e v e r y t h i n g about Elias. It’s been twice in a row now that Peter appears in an episode only for Elias to do the same in the very next episode and it feels like a competition between the Two Bastards to claim the Throne. Or a friendly competition between Alasdair Stuart and Ben Meredith to see who will manage to make people laughscream the most.

Anyway, non-exhaustive bullet list of Elias being… Elias:

* Do you think he will manage to give ONE GOOD PERFORMANCE REVIEW ONE DAY. I mean, how did he handle Melanie, who worked the hardest of all the assistants in the beginning of season 3, who read the most statements after Martin, who was given work by Jon, and all despite the lack of Archival training&direction (as she called Elias out on)?

(MAG106) ELIAS: And… how are you finding it? MELANIE: Is that a joke? ELIAS: Aside from the obvious, I mean. MELANIE: Oh well, I… I suppose it’s been… unstructured. Without Jon around, and with you being sat up here lurking, there’s not been a lot of useful direction. ELIAS: I see. MELANIE: I mean, you pick out a statement occasionally, and Jon might phone in to ask after some… scrap of information, but to be honest, no one’s even really told me what an “archival assistant” is actually supposed to do.

[A FEW EVIL SPEECHES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE SESSIONS LATER]

MELANIE: [BROKEN SOBS] ELIAS: Anyway. Aside from all of that, I’d say your performance has been… satisfactory.

Meanwhile, Jon, who managed to snap out of the chaos that was The Unknowing, saw through Nikola, managed to compel Tim back to awareness enough for Tim to use the detonator…

(MAG135) ELIAS: 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.

… was “disappointing”. THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN MAG120, THOUGH, YOU JERK:

(MAG120) ELIAS: You’re doing well, Jon. I only hope you can continue your growth without my guidance.

Insert the “My job here is done.” “But you didn’t do anything…?” meme here.

Elias, just face it: you’re a shit boss, a shit manager, a shit leader, absolutely terrible when it comes to actually giving direction, they’re not responsible for this!! :w

* Well, at the same time, calm your Jon!boner Elias:

(MAG135) 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. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

I had wondered whether Jon wasn’t beginning to get a biiit more powerful than was to Elias’s taste (since he mentioned to Basira that he has given instructions to prevent Jon from visiting him if Jon was inclined to it in MAG127, and Jon demonstrated in MAG128 how he’s now able to… extract statements from unwilling subjects, plus the overall droplets of knowledge), but it sounds like it’s actually going according to plan. Elias had already mentioned that Jon was… supposed to grow his own powers and be the one to take care of The Unknowing, back in MAG102, but here, Elias came across as especially powerless compared to Jon (“I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.”) and… not even trying to pretend anymore that He Has An Important Role On His Own. Jon is the Archivist, we knooow, we’ve been told, but what is Elias’s function in this mess, then…?

* I’m not sure that there is anything more behind the “detective” title he’s giving to Basira since, as mentioned another time… it was something Georgie initially used (MAG122: “You’re the detective.”) and Elias uses it precisely because Basira pointed out that it wasn’t her title?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Nice to see you again, detective. BASIRA: Still not a detective. Never was. ELIAS: Oh, but everyone else seems to be getting a title these days, why shouldn’t you– BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! […] ELIAS: I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence. […] ELIAS: Good luck. Detective.

It sounds mostly, to me, like a cat staring you RIGHT IN THE EYES while slowly pushing your favourite mug off the table? Doing it just to piss her off? Elias never used “Archivist” with Jon either (except in statement-mode in MAG120, but he went back to “Jon” when addressing him directly through the tape right after the static had faded), so I’m not sure there is particular… substance to it. On the one hand, it would sound like the perfect title for a Hunter-Beholding activity (tailing someone or something and learning about their privacy, potentially cumulating both fears of being hunted and exposed). On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like it could be another jab at Martin, who had mentioned his own lack of special pet name:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You think you’re the only police officer eager to do violence and call it justice? No, there are plenty of other rabid dogs out there, mad with the Hunt.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon, technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh. That’s it, isn’t it! Martin’s just acting out! I mean, Daisy’s a rabid dog, and Melanie’s a potential killer; Tim’s a… a, a rogue element, but Martin? Oh, Martin’s just, just acting out! He’ll have a cry, and a lie-down, and feel much better!

(And once again: Elias did mention that Jon had received ~assistance~ to get out of the coffin… but managed to not name Martin directly, pfftttr.)

* Even more rattling chain sounds every time Elias opens his mouth => he’s using his hands a l o t when talking, uh. Gesturing person. VERY dramatic person. Is it a prerequisite for working at the Institute, was that the reason Elias chose Jon as the next Archivist.

* Oooh, Elias.

(MAG135) BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! What are you playing at? ELIAS: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

When you’re playing at too many things at the same time that you can honestly not answer that question.

* Overall: I LIVE FOR ALL THE ELIAS-BASIRA EXCHANGES THIS SEASON… In season 1 and 2, they probably would have had very civil and cordial discussions but… beginning season 3, yes, Elias had begun to Let It Out way more (was it costing him that much to hold off and to appear proper and respectable? … or did the role just become Free Ben Estate.) and it’s even worse now. He’s so bratty and petty, and Basira had always been so straight-to-the-point and no-bullshit (except when it comes to office gossip) that it’s delightful and feels like she has to handle a spoiled brat while not being paid enough for this.

(MAG135) BASIRA: If you’re lying about this– ELIAS: You’ll kill me? [HUFF] I can hardly wait. [STEPS DEPARTING]

eLIAS, THAT’S LOW (the thing about kill-me-and-you’re-all-dying still stands, that’s precisely why they chose to get him arrested) AND YOU HAVE NO PRIDE YOURSELF.

* Though I am also very mad that Elias confirmed that His Plan regarding Basira’s investigations… was to get her out, because she’s Jon’s impulse-control.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Would you simply believe I wanted you and Daisy reunited? BASIRA: No. ELIAS: Fine.

I LOVE BASIRA SO M U C H…

Elias… called Basira out on her “pride” (“I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective.”), and I’m worried that he might be spot-on on this one, like he was with Melanie and Tim. Though he’s currently nurturing Basira’s frustrations – sending her all over the globe before basically admitting that she couldn’t have done anything relevant herself? Now talking her down? Insisting that Jon is their best chance, apparently not taking her into consideration at all except as a potential messenger? Offering an “idea” that turned out to have been manipulation, and now giving new instructions while highlighting that she’s in no position to refuse? Either he’s still awfully bad when it comes to hurting people and not expecting them to get back at you, either he’s Compensating Hard for the prison time, either he’s trying to foster harsh reactions from Basira (and it won’t help her to warm up to Jon if Elias keeps presenting Jon as their most reliable chance ;;).

- I am HYSTERICAL over the fact that we’re finally getting another bit of something related to Elias’s backstory and that it’s that he was apparently acquainted with MAXWELL RAYNER:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I come to you with a warning. And an offer. When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender. Forsake the Ceaseless Watcher; abandon your position, and you shall be spared in the Blind World to come. In the spirit of reconciliation, and to convince you of our sincerity… I offer my story. Much as it may pain me to feed the sick voyeur that lurks in this place.

[…] That’s all I really came here to say! To let you know we had succeeded. And to make your boss an offer on behalf of Maxwell. […] So by all means, do your worst. Or prostrate yourself, both of you, before the Forever Blind – and perhaps you might be spared. Maxwell and I await your decision, with keen interest.”

ELIAS……………………

And nothing says more than “(ex)friendship” than confirming that you gave a tip to Section 31 to ensure they would go after and get rid of your old ~~friend~~, uh:

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: […] Oddly enough, all I can think about is how did the police know where Rayner was keeping the boy? Basira didn’t seem to know, and the Church clearly wasn’t expecting the police to arrive. With a few exceptions, Rayner managed to stay off the grid for two decades. How did they find him now? Someone must have known what was happening and tipped them off. And I don’t think it was anyone inside that building.

(MAG135) ELIAS: You thought the final death of Maxwell Rayner might have sufficiently derailed them? Yes, that was my hope too, but alas it would seem not. BASIRA: Maxwell… You… You called in that tip, sent us out to their warehouse. ELIAS: And now I’m sending you out again.

(I’m so glad that it was confirmed!)

Until now, almost everything we had about Elias’s… life outside of the Institute was the Infamous Bits about His Official Backstory (which directly contradicted the small mention from MAG029 that he was a filing clerk at the Institute in 1972 – or at least, highlighted that uhoh, something doesn’t match here and that’s a twenty-years difference, the staff should have noticed):

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996 […]. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. […] And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

If this information is accurate: the time of Elias’s studies and his starting at the Institute would match the time-period during which the People’s Church of the Divine Host were officially active (MAG009: “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.”). How the heck did Elias apparently meet him, though? And mostly: … how could Rayner even have The Audacity to offer for them to just… resign? Manuela mentioned that she supposed “there is also an element of provocation here as well” and YOU DON’T SAY…

Wild hypotheses about the Rayner-Elias relationship, not in any particular order of Seriousness:

* Since Manuela only referred to “the Head of the Institute”, without naming Elias, and she referred to the fact that Rayner had been around for very long (we have a statement mentioning him from 1864): it’s an Old Thing, whether or not “Elias” is actually Jonah Magnus. (At the same time… given The Show that Elias is currently putting on, he really doesn’t read to me as being potentially 200+y old? He sounds way too immature and petty and frustrated to be this old?)

* Okay, so amongst the Eye-folks, there seems to be a trend of “x all the Entities”. Gertrude: thwarting all the Entities’ rituals. Jon: getting whumped by all the Entities and having scars to Show. Martin, man of 16 Fears: being courted by all the Entities. Elias: bedding all the Entities??

* Elias was a member of the cult during his Wild Days, before swinging another way when it began to crumble and/or before getting a Revelation at the Institute?

- … It’s also possible that the things about “friendship” were actually awfully sarcastic and cruel in their own ways. We have had the example of Mike Crew who was pursued by an entity and managed to escape it by giving himself fully to another, it… could have been something like that with Elias, too? Escaping the Dark by throwing himself into Beholding?

One thing I find striking is that, quite often, when we learned about the Spooky backstory of people who are currently tied to the Institute, Beholding wasn’t exactly the main Fear that they had encountered – mostly, they witnessed someone around them getting taken by a Fear, and were spectators who didn’t try (or manage) to stop it and… pressed on to know what was happening:

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: And of course, in my heart, I knew that no-one else could have possibly seen anything as horrible as I had. Well, maybe I could have named one person, but… I watched him disappear forever. […] I had no idea what was going on, not really, but I was somehow desperate to get that book back. He was much bigger than me, though, so all I could do was follow as he walked down alleys and side streets. […] A strange conviction that, if I had been able to face that thing myself, maybe I could have saved him. Stopped it. Ridiculous, of course, I was eight.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: When he was in school, [Michael Shelley] lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing. Michael was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.

(MAG104) TIM: I always tell myself there was some force there. Something that held me in place and meant that all I could do was watch. But sometimes when I think back, I remember how my legs shook, and maybe I could move. … Maybe I’m just a coward.

(Tim was literally a SPECTATOR in a theatre… Plus, add Basira who witnessed one colleague be taken by Diego Molina during her first Section 31’d case, and another colleague get killed by Natalie Ennis; Daisy who saw her colleague be taken by the coffin during her first Section 31’d case; Melanie… who didn’t lose anyone close to her in the process but still witnessed the strange things happening to “Sarah”, and a ghost getting butchered in the train.)

Survivor’s bias, but still noticeable – does Beholding put a claim on almost everyone who survived a Spooky encounter, maybe?

So I don’t know, really, but somethingsomething could the Dark actually have been the experience that originally pushed Elias towards the Institute…? (Jon had assumed, and seemed to have been validated in that regard, that Elias had trouble Watching in the tunnels, which are notoriously very dark. Perhaps the best way to insure Elias would shut the heck up would be to… plainly put a blindfold on him, and he would turn catatonic.)

- Meanwhile: Peter was mentioned for the first time in MAG033, appeared for the first time in episode MAG100. He has had a speaking presence in five episodes since then. He has been an absolute chatterbox when it comes to Elias – there has been no episode in which he didn’t mention him. Elias has been around since MAG017, has had a speaking presence in… eight? episodes since Peter appeared. And still. Has made. No mention. Whatsoever. Of. Any. “Peter Lukas”. Elias………………

(- Assuming that they do know each other, given that Elias said that:

(MAG135) ELIAS: Have you ever seen the Aurora borealis? It’s lovely this time of year. It would be a shame to lose them.

… Did he see them while on The Tundra? Romantikku.)

- Elias managed to not even mention Martin when describing that Jon had ~received help~ to get out of the coffin, and I want to believe that he’s still bitter about his arrest. Though… I really got the feeling, with MAG134 and how Martin described it, that it was The Web and… interestingly, Elias didn’t seem as wary of what happened as Peter.

So either it was actually Beholding guiding Martin there, either it gives some credentials to the idea that Elias had been collaborating or tolerating The Web at the Institute for a long while? There is also that strange connection between Jon and Martin: the fact that Martin just knew that Jon was alive (MAG088, Martin: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”) + the “DIG” from the same episode’s statement, read by Martin, creeping into Jon’s dreams (MAG120). So still no certainties about it but… there is something.

- I… am… very… wary… of the way Elias is OH SO VERY CONVENIENTLY pushing in the direction of Jon’s own uncertainty.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I mean, the Sun’s still there so I assume they failed. Unless they’re still… waiting to attempt it. That’s not the sort of statement you give… four years before you try to actually… ! … Or is it… The timeframes on these, er, “attempts”, the–these rituals, well… they seem variable, to say the least. When I try to think about it, uh– […] [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. […] 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. Hm. [SIGH] End recording.

(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. […] I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know. If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera. […] Feel free to do your own research to confirm what I’m telling you. Just don’t take too long.

It… it sounds way too much like throwing Jon a bone to ensure that he will get a Dark scar/experience, since Jon had been unable to Know whether Gertrude had managed to stop them or not. It doesn’t feel like Elias is taking this threat too seriously (compare it to the way he had handled The Unknowing?!), but more that he’s pretty confident that they won’t manage anyway and that he can… totally afford to be totally shitty about it since, anyway, he knows that Jon and the others will get worried and will get invested because they can’t afford to risk allowing another ritual to succeed? I find it hard to believe that The Dark is currently any threat but I totally understand that just in case, yes, the Archive Team would feel like they must intervene.

… and with The Lonely (and The Extinction), the only physical scars/marks that Jon is still missing? Are from The Dark. He’s never experienced it directly either and… catapulting him over to Svalbard sounds like the IDEAL opportunity for it, uh. Elias didn’t explicitly say that stopping The Dark was why he needed Jon to get stronger – there were two separate things, he implied causality but… didn’t explicitly say that it was the case so. Suspicious. Of course he would need Jon stronger for The Eye’s ritual, ultimately, after all…?

… But another thing that makes me flip out? IS THAT ELIAS IS NOW FACTORING IN THAT JON CARES FOR THE EXTENDED ARCHIVE TEAM:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard.

(MAG135) ELIAS: […] 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.

………………… and yes, Jon will probably get a new injury on the way: he’ll get mauled by one of the Dark creatures in best case scenario, he could lose his eyes at worst (… does he even need them nowadays. I mean, YES it would be heart-breaking but. It sounds like One Of These Things very likely to happen to him.)… but I’m more worried about Basira.

Because if Elias is now factoring in that to push Jon further, you have to use the fact that he cares, Ny-Ålesund sounds like a Big Danger for BASIRA.

She was there when Maxwell Rayner was killed.

The only other witnesses were police officers (all Section 31’d nowadays). She didn’t kill Rayner herself but. But. I do not trust Elias one second to not spread (or have already spread) misleading rumours letting Dark cultists think that Basira had been the one to kill Maxwell Rayner. Jon had noticed people wearing the People’s Church pendants outside (MAG123) and we still don’t know why they’re hanging around so close to the Institute but really… I can’t help but feel like if they’re targeting someone, it’s Basira, and not Jon.

- About Jon’s feeling regarding the way the other staff members look at him…

(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.

I’m not sure of what is happening, so:

* Is there indeed something noticeable in Jon nowadays? A gaze a bit too intense, an overall aura, something that makes you think “he’s spooky” without being able to pinpoint how? Too many eyes? Daisy was in the room when he read MAG133’s statement, I still feel like if anyone would be able to tell… it would be her.

* Alternatively, it… could also be an effect of the Lonely, again, since Jon had mentioned feeling isolated/lonely and… he’s very prone to feeling this as soon as he’s physically alone. It could just be that Jon feels like he can’t connect and that nobody wants to talk to him, while people are just… behaving towards him normally, but the Lonely is warping his perception.

* Alternatively: did Peter spread rumours on him through memos.

* Alternatively… oh, Jon… there could be so many reasons for people to not want to get involved with you Just In Case… Objectively: the Archives were attacked by Prentiss’s worms in Summer 2016. Jon was a mess for the following six months, before a body was discovered in the Archives and Sasha disappeared; Jon was on the run and the prime suspect. He came back and was on and off for a few months… before Tim died in an explosion in the Wax Museum alongside him, and Jon was hospitalised. And now he’s back. He means trouble, he means danger and, yes, people thought that Tim was having a breakdown when he was ranting about what was actually happening (as Martin told Jon in MAG102) but… Tim was popular. Tim used to be social, chatting with students and acting as relay between them and Jon (when they noticed errors in MAG033)… and Tim died.

Even Tim aside, there was the matter of Elias’s arrest and… Elias looked like he was actually well-liked by the staff? He was invested in the Institute’s life:

(MAG098) MELANIE: Uh, Martin? Have you seen Elias? MARTIN: Oh, uh… no. But Tuesday lunch he normally meets with the Library staff, I think?

And Rosie was chill with him (you don’t go “Yep, will do” at a boss you fear…). It’s possible that people resented Jon for Elias’s arrest and/or thought that Jon had framed him (which. to be honest.)? There are so many reasons for people to just… be wary of him, indeed…

- Jon’s voice was… something, at the beginning of MAG135. Sulky, tired, crushed? He reminded me of how he had introduced MAG129’s statement right after his encounter with Martin (clearly… unwell and plain sad); could have been caused by what he recounted regarding his interactions with the rest of the Institute, or by the content of the statement itself (it… wasn’t great news and Jon had no certainty about a possible positive outcome), but I wonder if it mightn’t be that reading statements left by Avatars is more taxing, since they’re more involved with the Fears? Does it feed Beholding a bit too much? He was very tired after Jane Prentiss’s; he collapsed after Breekon’s; he was clearly not fine with Manuela’s here. The only exception I can think of is MAG074 – Fatigue, which left him exhausted despite not apparently being (as far as we know) from an avatar?

- Raise your hand if Jon keeps slowly breaking your heart into small pieces when he has to tell himself, again and again, that he has to focus and that he can’t save everyone…

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: At least, the coffin’s gone. I gave Artefact Storage some very specific instructions, and they’ve got it solidly sealed away. … 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.

(But I’m still worried that this could be… how Gertrude started out, too. At first focusing on people around her and on the missions ahead, before gradually coming to thinking that the others were necessarily sacrifices for the Greater Good. Though in Jon’s case: he’s been… very consistently upset and sad for victims overall. So right now, he’s encouragingly… totally unlike Gertrude. Caring so much.)

- Bring as many torches as you can, once again. And your Web lighter, Jon? What happened to that one since the end of season 3 ;;

(… They don’t even need to go to Svalbard, actually, since there was still the matter of St. Paul’s Church in West Hackney, from MAG063, though Jon hadn’t managed to find any connection with the People’s Church of the Divine Host but… it was clearly a Dark creature lurking there? And the statement was from 2014.)

- If Team Archive goes to Norway in a group expedition trip… I’m picturing the door of the Archives, closed. Jon having left a note warning people that they’ll be away for a week or two, the Archives will be closed during that time. Scribble from Daisy underneath: “If we don’t die.” (Helen having added “Of fun!”, before adding something else about this door being closed, but people can still knock if they need a door, she’d do her bestest.) Melanie put a message encouraging to NOT take a job here if they happen to hire new staff after their disappearances in ~dark conditions~. Basira tried to salvage the memo with a mention about contacting the police with a mention of Section 31 if they failed. Martin passing by, one day, and losing it because pETER, WHAT DID YOU ALLOW TO HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU SAID THEY WOULD BE SAFE–

- Elias said the words “SVALBARD” and “AURORA BOREALIS” in an episode about “DARK MATTER”, so my heart is screaming and seeing this as His Dark Materials representation. Come on, the Archives crew are millennials, they have read the trilogy, right right right? :w

… Well, maybe not Jon, who probably didn’t manage to finish the first volume and/or gave up on the second one when he realized that Will’s cat wouldn’t be the main protagonist. (Maybe he secretly stanned Lyra a bit for her tendency to just run away from the College. And also panserbjørne. He would stan The Bears.) Sasha’s first dream job was to be a witch because Serafina was DANG COOL, with becoming an aeronaut coming in close second; cue Heated Bi Debates with Tim, because his tiny bi heart had been awakened through other options (Lord Asriel? Terrible, but hot!! Marisa Coulter? Terrible but hella hot!!). Basira got her lesbian awakening with Mary – smart clever scientist who went Fuck Injustice? Sign her up. Melanie loved Will, loved WILL’S KNIFE, and also loved to read about bears savagely murdering each other (oh no, sheer horror if she ever finds out she had that in common with Jon!). Helen might need to have the story told to her but she goes “!! I can open doors and Windows too! :D”. Georgie loved the technology and the Gallivespians communicating through Lodestone resonators (… actually, Jon probably made her think about the Gallivespians. A lot). … Aza mentioned to me that “ahah, Martin must have projected so hard on Will” and I hate her, it was supposed to be all fun headcanons but oh no now it’s awfully sad (=> Will’s mother being sick and needing his help! Not being reliable, but it doesn’t matter, she loves him! And turns out that Will’s dad had never abandoned them, not exactly, and that he had always loved them all very much!) (YEAH NOW IT’S SUPER SAD WHEN THINKING ABOUT MARTIN PROJECTING.)

(Let’s compensate the Sad by thinking about Jon and the assistants going on a boat trip to Norway, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENING, they’ll manage to neutralise the Dark’s feeble attempt and nobody will die or be gravely injured or traumatised by anything :| So they get to enjoy the trip, even if it’s probably on the Tundra and Jon is seething because still no sign of Peter Lukas anywhere, Martin is there though mostly inaccessible (… all alone on the boat to fuel it?), but Jon still managed to grab him at some point to have Meaningful Discussions in the cold of the deck, at night, when they’re undignifiedly bundled up in layers and layers of down jackets, Martin being especially starry-eyed at the starry sky because as he had mentioned in MAG113, he never got to travel much, and he’s getting Something Nice for once even if it’s when on their way to probably die a dark death – but they don’t and it stays something nice :[)

(What do you mean, I slept 2h30 last night and worked overtime today and I’m surviving thanks to my 7th coffee.)

MAG136’s title is out and AAAAAAAAAAAAH???? WEB??? WEB??? I want to think that a twist could be at work here (The Corruption and The Desolation ought to be offended, tfw still no episode almost halfway into season 4 :w) but it screams WEB, it screams especially strongly SHE, SHE, THE WIFE… Though Annabelle was “the story-spinner” and this is another title altogether. On the one hand, Jon has been repeatedly lamenting over his overall lack of direction, so it could be Her Cue to go see him in person or send him someone who survived her… but on the other hand mmmm, too soon for that maybe? Could also be something about Raymond Fielding, perhaps? (Or twist and it’s not Web.) (… second-meaning could be about so many people… Peter? Elias (ha, he wished.)? Annabelle?)

#mag135 #long post/#tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4

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stormdoors78476 · 7 years

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Hollywood's Loudest Trump Naysayers Are Joining Forces

On Friday, The Huffington Post will partner with Funny or Die to promote the 21st-century telethon Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. The Facebook Live event will gather celebrities to raise money for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has opposed certain of President Donald Trump’s actions since his election.

Packed with beloved A-listers including Tom Hanks, Jon Hamm and Tina Fey, just about every famous person known for speaking out against Trump is going to be there. The full list has not yet been released, but it’s basically a celebrity Trump-resistance supergroup.

The ACLU previously joined forces with Hollywood during the 2017 Oscars, when the organization encouraged major nominees to wear blue ribbons in support of its work “protecting the rights of everyone in America.”

Stand for Rights will begin at 7 p.m. ET on March 31, streaming live in a few places including the Facebook pages of The Huffington Post and Funny Or Die.

As of today, the event released a few more names such as “Saturday Night Live” members Cecily Strong and Colin Jost. More names will be made public shortly, but some of the celebrities scheduled to participate are outlined below.

Alec Baldwin, whose name is essentially synonymous with Trump at the moment.

Baldwin debuted his Trump impression on “Saturday Night Live” before the election, but obviously his take is even more relevant now that Trump is president.

Besides frequently tweeting and retweeting anti-Trump messages over Twitter, Baldwin plans to voice an upcoming audiobook as Trump.

Tina Fey, who recommended Baldwin for the Trump gig and criticized Trump elsewhere.

”SNL” overlord Lorne Michaels claimed that Fey brought the idea of Baldwin-as-Trump to him.

In an interview with David Letterman for The Hollywood Reporter, Fey elaborated on the Baldwin-Trump connection:

Fey: But I could reassemble them, sir. Did you see that my friend Mr. [Alec] Baldwin is in a Twitter feud with our president-elect? [Baldwin responded to Trump’s complaints about “SNL” parodies of him.]

Letterman: Good for him.

Fey: At one level, it just makes me feel sick for the state of the world because it’s so beneath a president, but also my feeling is: “You think you’re good at being a jerk on Twitter? You will now face the grandmaster of being a jerk on Twitter.”

Amy Poehler, who revived Leslie Knope from “Parks and Recreation” to contrast the character’s hopeful idealism with Trump’s hateful rhetoric.

Following Trump’s election victory, Poehler wrote a letter as her Leslie Knope character (who kept a picture of Hillary Clinton in her office) encouraging people to donate to the ACLU. Here’s the introduction:

Dear America,

Amidst the confusion, and despair, and disbelief, it was suggested to me by a very close friend of mine (I won’t say her name, to protect her identity) (Ann. It was Ann) that perhaps a few people would enjoy hearing my thoughts on this election. So I sat down at my computer, cleared my head, and opened a document. Then I started crying. So I had some hot chocolate, and my close friend (Ann) rubbed my back for a while, and I got myself together, and sat down. And started crying. Then more Ann comforting me, and more hot chocolate, and back and forth like that for about six hours or so, the chain of hot-chocolate-and-back-rubs only interrupted briefly when I had to run to the store for more hot chocolate packets (“Just give me all of them, all the boxes,” I remember saying, through tears, to a very scared stockroom boy) and now I am ready to go.

Read the full letter here.

Mahershala Ali, who used his SAG Awards acceptance speech to indirectly criticize Trump’s ban on refugees and tone on Muslims.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards occurred shortly after the president signed an executive order banning people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. During an acceptance speech for his performance in “Moonlight,” Ali spoke at length about his faith and the value of immigration. Here’s an excerpt from the full speech:

We kind of get caught up in the minutia and the details that make us all different. I think there’s two ways of seeing that: There’s an opportunity to see the texture of that person, the characteristics that make them unique, and then there’s the opportunity to go to war about it, and to say that that person is different than me, and I don’t like you, so let’s battle.

My mother is an ordained minister. I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I tell you now ― you put things to the side, and I’m able to see her and she’s able to see me. We love each other. The love has grown. And that stuff is minutia. It’s not that important.

Michael Moore, who was one of the most notable people to predict Trump’s win last year.

Moore predicted all the way back in July that Trump would win the presidency ― a claim that garnered particular attention after the election.

Since then, the filmmaker has inspired more headlines by claiming Trump will get us killed and by referring to him as a “so-called president.” Moore has also used his platform to highlight protests against Trump’s policies and created a blueprint to resistance.

Tracy Morgan, who said he’s “going back” into a coma thanks to Trump.

Tracy Morgan was in a coma for about two weeks after a car crash in 2014. Over roughly the last year, the comedian has slowly returned to show business, a path that has included interviews with longtime friends such as Jimmy Fallon.

On the “Tonight Show” in early 2016, Fallon mentioned how strange it must be for Morgan to learn about current events he missed during his recovery. Morgan responded: “Yeah, things are different. Donald Trump is leading in the polls. I’m going back.”

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, Tracy Morgan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Moore, Padma Lakshmi and a whole host of other stars are teaming up for Stand for Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU. Donate now and join us at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, March 31, on Facebook Live. #standforrights2017

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2nzV2x3

#DIYS

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soveryanon · 5 years

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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

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