#you seem to have forgotten some important plot points

[this-insidious-dawn]

This Insidious Dawn is a dark fantasy IF wherein you play as a vampire, employed under the clandestine League of the Third God to hunt down anything -- everything - that does not belong in this world. But you do not belong here either, Warden. Demo tba.

☼ SYNOPSIS

The League saved you. Rewrote your life- gave you a chance to be more than a bloodstarved vampyr. Or did they?

You remember nothing of your past before the League; nothing but blood and indescribable agony, nothing but the thrumming of your heart stilling- and then beginning again, stilted and wrong. That was over a decade ago, the memories now faint and the connection quivering. They've been replaced, overwritten by years of blades clashing, body aches, and hollow hunger.

You started out weak. Starving, skin-and-bones, desperate for any reprieve you could get your hands on. Now, you're strong, each hunt -- each cut - giving you just enough energy to keep your worn body going. Some people would call it cruel, to keep a sentient being on the edge of death. Most people, though, would say that you're a vampire, so you hardly count as sentient.

Regardless of the morality of it, the method was effective. You were one of -- no, the most - efficient Warden the League had to offer.

And then a hunt went wrong. And now you're dead. But- a vampire (no, not a vampire; a vampyr) can never truly die. So you're back. But is it really you?

☼ FEATURES

↠ Customize your Warden. Appearance, gender, pronouns, and personality are all up to your choices as the player.

↠ This is a psychological horror first and foremost. It will have themes of dehumanization and derealization, amongst others. CWs will be offered.

↠ A character-driven plot where your choices impact the story.

↠ A cast of four consisting of The Acolyte, The Commander, The Savior, and The Forgotten, any of which you can optionally romance no matter your Warden's gender.

☼ CAST

↠ THE ACOLYTE

As with any vampire, you are accompanied by an acolyte to keep you in check and ensure that your hunts go well- as well as to mend any Gorges that riftspawn might crawl out of. Constantine Nimecidus fills this role, in your case (ae/aer). Ae is sharp-tongued, with a chronic lack of patience towards the people and world around aer, and can come across as snappy or rude. In other instances still, aer sarcastic, dry, and often untimely humor can offer a quick relief from the tension of any situation- or make it several times worse. Despite aer casual, laidback nature in the face of most events, ae places utmost importance on aer job, and quickly becomes intense whenever ae feels as if ae or aer position are being in any way threatened. You've spent years going on hunts with aer at this point, but the connection has never transcended the necessary 'I save you, you save me' exchange. Ae seems wary of you.

Constantine is a bit shorter than most, standing at 5'3. Ae has broad shoulders and hips, and is thickset with both muscle and fat. Aer amber skin is dappled with symmetrical pale patches, especially prevalent around aer eyes and mouth, and the lack of pigmentation has bled into aer hair in some spots, giving the dark auburn eye-catching streaks of white. Said hair is curly and cut shorter along the sides than the back is, and ae spends an awful lot of time preening it. Aer eyes are a striking, slightly luminescent bronze, and aer pupils appear instead of black as molten gold, shifting slightly in color to match aer emotions at any given moment. Ae has full lips and slightly upturned, monolid eyes. Ae favors shades of brown, tan, and orange in aer outfit, and ae near-constantly dons a rich red capelet with fur trimming around the hood.

↠ THE COMMANDER

Ex-commander of the Serpent's Guard-turned vampire. You'd personally never had a run-in with Alvaros Vepir until just recently (he/him). He's gruff, jaded, and withdrawn- exactly what you'd expect out of the man who gave his life for his queen only to nearly die (again) for it. It's hard to say, though, how much of his time as the commander he truly remembers. Alvaros is a poet's dream, the hero in an epic-turned-tragedy. He keeps everybody at arm's length, never allowing them to learn more than what the stories and theatrics tell of him. This is especially true of you- the vampire who was sent to reign him in, turn him from a rogue vampyr into a soldier of the League. Despite his emotional avoidance of you, though, he seems quite interested in you. Maybe it's the fact you're one of the few to have bested him in combat. Maybe it's just that 'vampiric charm' that old legends tell about (but that never seems to work outside of fights). Maybe it's because he remembers you.

Alvaros is intimidating in every manner. He stands at 6'4, his whole body is lean and scarred, and the black sclerae encircling dark green irises certainly does him no favors in lessening the effect. Before you were dispatched to retrieve him, you couldn't have said what he looked like; as the commander, he'd worn the veil regular of high-ranking members of the Serpent's Ring, leaving nothing but the back of his head exposed. Now, you know of his face well enough that you could probably recognize him in a crowd. With fawn skin dotted by freckles, hooded eyes, and a distinctive hooked nose, Alvaros is exactly what one would expect of a native of southern Ghel- save for his hair. Instead of the expected brown or black, his hair is a muddy blonde, and it has slight waves that turn into full curls at the tips. He maintains it short, never reaching past his chin. His face is scarred (his everything is, really), with a particularly nasty gash reaching from his left eyebrow down to his right jaw. It just barely misses his right eye.

↠ THE SAVIOR

An acolyte? You think so, anyways. Suri Revlece is the woman who saved you (she/her). You don't know whether or not she's even with the League, but she certainly looks like an acolyte. You don't know what she was doing there, either, but she seems willing to answer any of your questions while you recover- as long as they aren't personal. She's kind enough, but seems a little...off. She's finicky, always looking over her shoulder. She's running from something, but she doesn't seem to know what. She appears to believe that she and you have some type of camaraderie, although you've never met. But there's something to be said for the sheer strength of her magic- you've never seen an acolyte's shimmer burn a riftspawn like that. Never seen one with an eye glowing that bright, either. She's an anomaly- one that you're sure the headman at your partner's spire would be more than glad to have amongst their ranks, but then the mere idea of it had her denying it with vehemence. It seems like she has a history with it.

Suri has a mesmerizing look to her. The deep brown of her skin, near-black of her hair, and dark garb are contrasted with bright pops of color. One eye is a brightly glowing orange, the pupil nearly white, and the other is a misty grey, its almond shape deformed by the burn scars warping the left side of her face. That dark hair, braided and reaching down to about her hips, is decorated by light brown and gold beads engraved with runes that seem to serve to channel her magic. Her frame is lanky and she's long-limbed, reaching just above what most would think of as an 'average height', at 5'8. Below a brown leather cloak, more runed jewelry decorates her wrists and fingers, and her hands are tattooed in shades of bronze. The burn upon her face is not the only such injury she has suffered; her palms are burnt the slightest bit, and similar scars wrap around her arms. She has a broad nose and thick heart-shaped lips, and light stubble sits above the top lip.

↠ THE FORGOTTEN

You don't know who they are anymore. Who are they? (he/they/she)

A shadowy form, the silhouette of a memory. There's something not quite right about them. What have they become?

☼ LINKS

Demo - tba

Other blogs - @azraels-bad-choices (main IF blog) and @a-firsthand-murder-ballad (other project)

#interactive fiction #writing #interactive novel #if wip #twine game #if intro #this insidious dawn if

[fili-urzudel]

Second - Thorin Oakenshield x Reader

Summary: The reader realizes something about Thorin's priorities.

Part 2 Part 3

Word Count: 0.8 k

Warnings: slight cultural misunderstandings, a little heartache

"Thorin!" You called with a smile, striding towards him at your usual meeting place. It was just a forgotten, low stone wall among an even more forgotten old plot of land. But it had a great view of the sunset, and sitting against it kept the wind out on cold days. It had become one of your favorite places.

He called back to you, a faint grin accompanying it. "You're late."

"Perhaps you're early," you pointed out, jumping up to sit on the wall next to him. 

He gave one short chuckle.

"You seem preoccupied," you commented, trying to keep the comment light.

Thorin sighed through that long, angular nose of his. "I turn one-hundred years of age today," he stated. 

"I know," you said, drawing a small package from your bag. "Congratulations."

He swallowed. "It's been seventy-six years now, since I saw my home. The ravens still have not returned to the mountain."

Your brow furrowed. "Thorin, maybe it's best not to focus too much on that," you consoled. "Focus on living your life well and fully now, instead of just... waiting for that day," you said, instead of a day that may never come in your lifetime.

He didn't respond. "Here," you passed the package to him, pressing it into his palm. 

"What is it?"

You smiled dryly. "Open it and find out."

Thorin studied the round silver object. It looked almost like a ring—that meant something to most men. Or perhaps a bead—which definitely meant something to dwarves—but it was neither, having a narrow incision through it. "What is it?" He asked again.

"It's an ear cuff," you smiled. "I know that most dwarves like jewelry, but a ring or a necklace didn't seem right, and I don't know if you have piercings..." you trailed off. "So I figured an ear cuff could be a good compromise. I tried my best to sort of make it match your beads."

Thorin hoped his face didn't look as warm as it felt. 

To you, it appeared his mind was still far away from you. "Here, I can help you put it on." You turned to straddle the wall, brushing his hair away from his ear. 

Thorin tried his best not to shudder.

"Tell me about something," you requested. 

"Like what?" He tried to keep his voice even as you didn't drop his hair once the cool metal was wrapped into the shell of his ear. You ran your fingers through it instead, gently untangling the knots, your knuckles brushing his shoulder.

"I don't know, something important to you," you suggested, and he swallowed. Would he be able to tell you what hair meant to his people? To him? Would you stop? "Tell me about your creator."

He swallowed. "I suppose... Where to begin? Aule was one of the Valar, and Eru was the only one allowed to create life..."

You listened intently, humming with understanding, until at some point the sun was very nearly set and Thorin's head was in your lap. You didn't know how he had gotten there, only that you had never stopped running your fingers through his hair and he had never told you to. You thought you could stay like that forever.

"Do you remember what Erebor was like?" You asked, filling the silence after he told you about how the dwarves had only narrowly escaped being removed from existence. You felt him tense.

"No," he said, and it sounded as though he had never admitted that to anyone. "I was a child when it happened. I... I see glimpses, but... I don't remember what it was really like, aside from what I've been told."

You brushed another piece of hair out of his eyes after the wind had put it out of place. "And yet you still love it."

Thorin breathed for a moment before answering. "I do."

"You would do anything for a homeland that you hardly even remember?"

Thorin sighed, closing his eyes. "Perhaps it is not the Lonely Mountain that I love. It is my people. They deserve to have their home back. They deserve for revenge to be exacted on Smaug."

"You would do anything for your people," you said, and it was no question.

"Anything."

And me? You couldn't bring yourself to ask. You withdrew your fingers from his hair, balancing on the stones again. "I admire that about you."

Thorin sensed the shift in your tone. His eyes blinked open again, piercing blue staring into your eyes. "Have you ever had something that you would die for?"

"Die for?" You repeated softly, fidgeting with your fingernails. You gazed back at him, unable to look anywhere else. "Worse, I think. Something that I would live for."

#lotr fanfic #lotr #lotr fandom #the hobbit #lotr headcanons #the hobbit headcanons #the hobbit x reader #thorin x reader #thorin oakenshield x reader #thorin oakenshield headcanons #thorin oakenshield fanfiction #thorin oakenshield fic #mae writes

[willtheweaver]

A writer’s guide to forests: woodlands made by man

Forests are for the most part, the realm of nature. But what about those with a less than natural origin? Here are some woodlands that are shaped artificially.

Parks and gardens- Trees look nice, there’s no denying it. As long as there have been people who admire trees, there have been gardens and parks. Grassy meadows, neatly trimmed hedges and flower beds may get all the attention, but an accenting grove, or a rambling woodland always adds to the aesthetic. Wealthy aristocrats would import trees from far away places, while more modest landowners and public spaces grow native species. Though the results do look quite natural, they are nonetheless human creations.

Orchard- Fruit and nut bearing trees have always been favored as a reliable source of food. And so people since nearly the beginning of agriculture have been planting orchards to provide for them. Trees are planted in rows, evenly spaced apart for the ease of harvesting. Smaller orchards, those catering to families who pick their own fruit, and those that grow fairly delicate fruits still do the harvesting by hand, while many more rely on machines to do the heavy lifting.

Tree farm/ plantation- Many trees types cultivated are deciduous species, but there are some instances when conifers are preferred. Being relatively fast growing, and usually possessing a single, straight trunk, they are the ideal tree type for use as lumber and paper products. Of course, one cannot forget the need every November and December for Christmas trees.

Palm plantation- The tropics are ideal for growing oil palms. Thousands of acres are devoted to the tree, as so much of our food and other products these days relies on palm oil. This is not a good thing as the demand means that vast areas of rainforest have had to be cleared. In Indonesia, the problem is particularly evident, as the growth of palm plantations is one of the main factors behind the decline of orangutan numbers.

Coconut grove- Almost anywhere you go in the tropics will have coconut palms. Buoyant, the nut floats easily on the currents, and where it is too isolated for a coconut to reach naturally (such as Hawaii), people have brought it with them. As well as the coconuts, the palms themsevles are also used; palm fronds can be used for roofing, and the fibers are used in weaving.

Bonsai forest- The art of growing miniature trees has been practiced for centuries. Some trees are collected in the wild, harsh natural conditions causing the trees to grow slowly and stay small, but many more are shaped over many years. While many bonsai are grown singularly, groves and forests are also popular choices. These can be either monospecific, or mixed, and can be part of a larger landscape creation that includes rocks, water, and figures.

There are plenty of examples of forest areas that are man-made. Don’t feel like you have to confine your story to a natural woodland. Use what you find around you to inspire the setting and drive your characters and the plot. What happens on the earth can easily be applied to science fiction or fantasy. Put your own spin on it (maybe your characters are small and live in a bonsai forest…of course they could also be normal sized people who happen to be in a giant sized bonsai planting).

Edit: As pointed out in the comments/reblogs, I seemed to have forgotten woodlots, so I am going to include those.

Woodlot- Common areas open to members of the community include a mixture of open pastureland and forested areas. People would have their flocks and herds forage here in spring and summer, whilst they managed and harvested the trees. Trees in woodlots would not be felled, instead the branches would be cut back and allowed to regrow. The resulting growth produces straight branches that are used in constructing walls, fences, as well as firewood and charcoal. (Communal pastures and woodlots are not really thought of these days, as many areas were lost over the years due to industrialization, urbanization, and the enclosure of land by the aristocracy)

#writing #creative writing #writing guide #writing inspiration #writing prompts #worldbuilding #writer #writers #writers and poets #writing community #writer on tumblr #writeblr

[one-squash-one-end]

>1.6k words on bi Gansey

Hi! This belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

Today we are diving into all the reasons why I think Gansey is a bi king (and then some more). Enjoy!

(I think there might be mild spoilers up to trk, nothing too bad though, more character interactions than plot)

b) Gansey

Alright hear me out. This man. There is nothing this rich boy can do to beat the fruit allegations. He is a bi king, through and through. Everyone but him knows, including you, because what I have to say is the absolute truth and I am great at convincing. I once saw a tumblr post that said “Gansey has to physically restrain himself from kissing all his friends” and there has never been anything more true.

And it’s important to note that this is really not only reader interpretation. Or, at least, reader interpretation includes other character’s interpretations, which are sometimes incredibly straight(lol)forward.

After doing Adam a big favor, Gansey’s sister Helen (who is aro-ace btw, because I said so) immediately assumes he is sleeping with him, which is a conclusion she jumped to way too quickly if Gansey has never previously shown any interest in Adam or other boys. Like, she seems to know him quite well, and for her to just think he’s in a relationship with Adam says a lot about the homoeroticism prevalent in Gansey’s friendships with both Adam and also Ronan.

Because then we have Kavinsky, another canonically queer character, who thus might arguably have some sort of gaydar, assuming Ronan and Gansey are in a romantic (but most of all, sexual) relationship. Admittedly, this has largely to do with Kavinsky assuming things about Ronan and his sexuality, as is explicitly mentioned in the book. However, you can very easily speculate about someone’s sexuality without knowing their (previous) partners, if there have been any at all, so to correctly believe Ronan is gay does not have to randomly entail relationship speculations. So somewhere, even from not interacting with them so much, Kavinsky must have gotten that idea. That somewhere is the deep affection the two of them share, which is absolutely palpable for everyone around. Yes, I know their relationship is described as brotherly (please note I do not condone incest!), but also somewhere within “they’re bros” lies the implication they are gay. Two bros chilling in a hot tub. They’re having a bromance. Let bros kiss.

Another person who seems to believe in a Gansey romance above bromance is Henry, who at that point of book three had only interacted with him at school very superficially. We can assume the way Gansey behaves with Adam and Ronan at school is very much homoerotic, or elsewise Henry would have no reason to be surprised about seeing Gansey with Blue (“a chick”). He can’t be surprised about Gansey pulling… someone, considering he is apparently super good-looking, he just never had reason to assume Gansey was anything but achillean.

Now this was mostly people who don’t know Gansey that well, or at least people not part of the inner circle, so it can’t mean that much, right? Surely there would not be anyone who truly, deeply knows Gansey, who would assume he is queer. Right? Wrong. I have since forgotten the context of that quote, but Adam, someone who is very close to both of them, thinks that Ronan and Gansey could date. Make of that what you will, but I will it to be homoerotic subtext. (Or text, as what Adam says is what he says, no room for interpretation there.)

Lastly, Adam’s father called him the f-slur. Ok, I will admit that it’s not completely confirmed to be that, but what else would a censored word with f stand for? Again, it’s hard to tell, because my two options would be the slur and just straight-up “fucker”, but both “f*g” and “fuck” are used directly in the following books. The f-slur was used directly in Ronan’s narrative though, in that of a character who talks very obscenely in general, so I have no trouble believing Gansey just wouldn’t have wanted to repeat that word, especially if it’s just a memory.

The line between romantic and platonic interactions is thin enough in this series as it is, but Gansey seems to blur it especially. I am going to touch on that at a later point, but platonic affection is given a very important role, so much that in some parts it carries as much significance as romantic actions do (as it should- relationship anarchy rules), if not more. With Gansey that seems to be especially strong, a lot of the things he does with his friends seeming romantic.

First of all, he is co-parenting with Ronan. Yes, it is a bird, but Ronan loves her like a human daughter so the point stands. The two of them even squabble about it like an old married couple, Gansey’s legendary “this is exactly why I didn’t want to have a baby with you” speaks for itself.

Then there is the insomnia quality time, as I like to call it. We, as the readers, are probably supposed to focus on the late night phone calls and drives with Blue, the fact that “she makes [him] quiet”, and that he can sleep after talking to her. But what I find equally important is the time he spends with Ronan at Monmouth during those sleepless nights, them getting orange juice at three a.m. While it might not be something super comforting that makes them both fall asleep, this routine they seem to have fallen into, just spending time while not expecting anything from the other, is something that means a lot to me; they are very much giving platonic soulmates, but also what if they kissed?

Of course I cannot not mention “While I’m gone, dream me the world. Something new for every night.” That boy is being unnecessarily dramatic about going away for literally one weekend. And why? Because “they had been a two-headed creature for so long, Ronan-and-Gansey. He couldn’t say it, though. There were a thousand reasons why he couldn’t say it.” What are those reasons though? Is it because he is actually in love with Ronan but admitting to that would make the friendship super fucking awkward so he whips out a dramatic, half-romantic metaphor quote? Yeah, that makes total sense.

Staying on my Ronsey bullshit, let’s not forget the glorious, deleted pool table scene. In case you are not familiar with it, or have forgotten the way it sounds (probably the reason it was deleted), I’ll just let two quotes speak for themselves. “There was something suggestive about how [Ronan] wore the suit” Oh yes, of course there was. Sometimes you wear clothing with a certain intention, and in Ronan’s case, that intention is to be bent over the pool table by Gansey. This becomes even clearer here: “Gansey was well aware that Ronan rather fancied the way he looked while he played pool, and the way he reached across the felt now, intentional and elegant and coiled, indicated that he was fancying himself at this very moment.” Once again, everything is super intentional, and Gansey wants to fuck him so badly. Not even kidding at this point, the way Maggie wrote this scene really makes it look like Gansey finds Ronan super hot; even as an aromantic asexual person I have to say, this is a lot more than “bro appreciating his best friend’s glow-up in a completely heterosexual way”. This iconic scene is gay brainrot, which is exactly why we did not get to experience this masterpiece within an actual, published book. The Ronsey shippers would have gone too wild.

[Speaking of which, I’d like to clarify that I do not ship Ronsey in the way some other people do, I do prefer them with their canon love interests, however I clearly see the potential of them having had some kind of mutual attraction in the past, I just think it makes the dynamic a lot more fun and interesting, sort of like how Jesper had a crush on Kaz in Six of Crows.]

Gansey has received at least one (1) dick pic of Ronan. The circumstances do not say anything about either Gansey or Ronan, but I think it’s funny, it builds character, so I chose to include it in this.

Perhaps the strongest evidence for him running with the lgbtq+ is the fact that he goes to an all-boys school. Come on, what is he supposed to do, surrounded by all those guys rich enough to afford good haircuts and a private trainer? Should he just not have gay thoughts? Impossible.

Now all this was mostly evidence for Gansey swinging that way, somehow, but of course he’s one of those doors that open both ways. Yes, he has a girlfriend, but there is even more proof for him being specifically m-spec, just you wait. To begin with, apart from his friends Gansey has two true loves. Henrietta (the town with a female name, who his sister refers to as his girlfriend- the same sister who assumes Gansey is sleeping with Adam; Helen is a bi Gansey truther) and Glendower, the dead, male king. Obviously, this is totally serious business. Additionally, I have talked through to a very full extent how he is in love with Ronan, but of course he is also in love with Henry, I do not have to elaborate on this. He is also very much jealous when Blue and Adam are dating, as is described multiple times, but we don’t find out exactly who he is jealous of. Yes, he likes Blue, and he is sad that his best friend is sort of being stolen away etc., but what if he also just wanted to hold hands. With both of them. At once.

It’s not only Gansey being in love with all of them, it’s also all of them being in love with Gansey. His bi swagger. It was this: Blue finding him irresistible. It was this: Ronan wanting to smash his fist through a wall because of how hot Gansey is. It was this: Henry saying Gansey is a “Caucasian with great hair”.

Bi Gansey is the truth and I will defend that until the day I die.

However, I will admit that he is absolutely a cis guy, no question. At no point in his life has he had to be afraid to take up space or anything, but that man supports trans rights of course. He would not wear a crop top on his own, but considering how he is in love with them, Blue, Ronan and Henry could bully him into it and he would rock it.

#trying a catchier title with this one #trc #the raven cycle #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #the raven king #gansey #ronan lynch #adam parrish #blue sargent #henry cheng #bi gansey

[historicallyaccuratecheese]

I’ve now gotten halfway through Season 2 of The Magnus Archives, so as per usual, here is my fifth post detailing my thoughts, analysis and theories on every episode, this time with a focus on Episodes 51-60!

Sorry that this one’s taken longer than usual to write, unfortunately I’ve had a few things clashing with the time I spend to listen to tma and write these recently, but hopefully I’ll be able to get back on track soon enough! Also…I’m gonna be real with you, these are just getting longer and longer as I descend down the rabbit hole, so I once again urge you to take your time reading this if you’re at all interested.

As always, please don’t spoil any future episodes for me, and if you haven’t gotten this far in tma then…here’s your spoiler warning for everything up until Episode 60! And finally, I recommend you read my previous posts of this nature, as I will be referencing my thoughts and theories from those in here. There’s a link to the masterpost containing all of them right above the cut!

Anyways, hope you enjoy! :)

- Episode 51, High Pressure 🤿

Statement of Antonia Hayley, regarding a deep dive that took place near Sable Island, Nova Scotia in August 2006.

On tonight’s episode of ✨the connections✨, we bring you back to a jolly old rich dude who throws people into the void! So um…yeah, this one definitely brought back some interesting plot points. In all honesty, I have very little to say about my thoughts on the statement outside of some theories, as while the episode was really good, it’s also a pretty simple one to understand. So, I’ll just run through a few rapid-fire thoughts on the episode, and then get into a few of the meatier topics. Firstly, it’s always nice to have a statement outside of The UK, that definitely does a good job when it comes to the world building, and shows that ✨the horrors✨ really are all around us, so I like that. This statement also gets bonus points for doing another great job at scaring me. I’m not especially thalassophobic, but the descriptions of the empty water devoid of life, and the way the darker waters creeped up into the surface levels…I don’t know, it just got to me. I also found it interesting how we never learn what company Ms. Haley worked for, and how Captain Kemp seemed to have some greater awareness of what happened here, although I can’t really speculate on what all of this means outside of that I think it’s important. And…yeah, those are my thoughts on the standalone elements of this episode! It was really good, don’t get me wrong…I just don’t have a whole lot to say about it. But thankfully, this episode does bring up a good few interesting connections, and managed to further develop the story in some really interesting ways, and I have much more to say about that. The first thing I have to talk about is, of course, The Fairchild Family.

Admittedly, if it wasn’t for Episode 46 reminding me of Episode 21, I might have just forgotten about this plot point, so it’s honestly very nice to see it getting some further development. Looking back at Episode 21, we see that Simon Fairchild was an old man who went skydiving with Robert Kelly, due to a charity raised for his deceased wife, and he was also accompanied by a relative of his named Harriet Fairchild, who was his instructor. Before he dived, he yelled “enjoy sky blue” at Robert, seemingly explaining why he fell into that endless sky, and later got “eaten” by it. Here, we learn that The Fairchilds are a wealthy family located in Cornwall, who invest in aerospace technology, shipping logistics, and underwater drilling and construction. It’s also implied that Simon Fairchild was a con artist in the 1930s who owned many pieces of jewelry, and that he was thrown out of a fourth floor window, yet no one noticed. The cases that would later contain this jewelry would start to mysteriously crack, as if something had been dropped on them. Jon states that Simon Fairchild was an alias of the con artist, meaning that if the con artist is the same person, the entire Fairchild family might be under a fake surname. And finally, Simon is most likely responsible for what happened in this episode. And…that’s about all we know on The Fairchilds for now, although I must say that I have quite a few things to say about them, particularly Simon. So, I said in my last post that I think there’s a connection between The Fairchilds and Mike Crew, as they both seem to connect to and/or directly serve something known as “Vertigo” or (more fittingly in my opinion) “The Vast”. I still stand by this, and I think Simon, and potentially other Fairchilds, can throw people into wide open voids, taking the form of endless skies and dark waters. However, here lies something interesting. Initially, I thought that The Vast only encompassed the sky, given everything that had been seen up until this point, but now I think it just encompasses all horror relating to wide open spaces that just have…a whole lot of nothing in them. Because here, we see that Simon’s abilities manifest in the ocean rather than the sky, and The Fairchilds seem to invest in all sorts of…wide space-like business ventures. I personally think that he shouted something like “Enjoy ocean blue” after Antonia, and that’s what caused her to experience the dark waters. As for where he got these powers, I don’t really know, but because Mike’s weird sky related experiences seem to be responsible for…whatever weird shit has happened to him, I have to wonder if Simon’s defenestration back in the 30s did something to him as well, maybe whoever pushed him out the window was also kind of a weirdo. But mentioning him being alive in the 30s…this guy’s age is a little weird. Like, my grandpa was born in the 30s, and while still pretty healthy, is nowhere near as mobile and adventurous as this guy who was at the very least a late teen in the 30s, presuming that the con artist is the same person as this Simon (which does make me wonder what his REAL name could be…). All I’m saying is that this guy must have some INSANE stamina going on, especially if he really is coming up on a century here. So yeah, I think the powers Simon had are pretty interesting, and that the information I think it seems to provide on “The Vast” is also pretty cool. There are a couple of other things about The Fairchilds I find interesting. Firstly, I will say that it’s strange this is now the third instance of an extensive family with paranormal ties, alongside The Keays and The Lukases. I don’t know if they’re directly linked, but it makes me think that if one person in the family has a paranormal experience…it’s effects might carry over to the rest. Like, maybe Albrecht von Closen’s encounter in The Schwartzwald still haunts The Keays to this day (even though the two we know of are at least…somewhat dead.) I just wonder where exactly the weird stuff with these families starts, and where it ends.

The Fairchilds also have this weird association with riches, which like yeah, it makes sense because they’re rich, but I find it kind of peculiar as a recurring motif. Like, Simon was skydiving for a charity that directly funded the family, he wanted to uncover the riches of his great-grandfather’s shipwreck, and he was at one point a jewelry con-artist. I don’t know if this actually means anything but I just found it kind of interesting. Finally, I kind of want to talk about the dark water. The way it was described, especially with the “hand” reaching out…it really reminded me of Lost Johns’ Cave. Like, a lot. It’s interesting, because I associate that episode with ✨the horrors✨ that connect to compression and/or darkness, the former of which is…pretty much the opposite of The Vast, so these potential similarities are kind of weird to me, but still definitely interesting. Kind of makes me wonder if the events here were like…maybe a collaborative effort between The Fairchilds and The People’s Church of The Divine Host, although that might be a bit of a stretch for the time being. So uh…yeah! There’s my thoughts on The Fairchilds I guess! I really hope to learn more about this weird-ass rich family as time goes on, as I think the whole vibe that surrounds them is great, I’m a sucker for when relatively unassuming old people turn out to be pretty cunning and fucked up in reality, so I’d love to see Simon and other Fairchilds pop up again in the future. And while I do wish I had more to say about the core plot of the statement, I must reiterate that I thought it was good. Like I said, it did a good job at scaring me, so I’d consider that a win. But honestly, as fun as all of this is…I don’t think it quite competes with the supplemental, because WOW. This one is easily my favorite so far.

Let me start by saying what I’ve been saying the entire season. Jon. You need to get your shit together. Like OH MY GOD. I KNOW that he’s technically suspicious of…”Sasha”, but even then! Why is it that he stalks Tim outside of his house, sees Martin’s crush on him as threatening, and moves Elias to the top of his suspect list simply because he said “dude, stop stalking your coworkers”, but then SASHA, the lady who stares at the table you acknowledge is creepy, goes to a wax museum for prolonged periods of time every day, and who despite the abilities of the impersonator is still CLEARLY acting differently than how she did before the funky worm lady showed up, and she *somehow* lost a few tapes, is apparently still the least suspicious? What the hell are you on? Are you stealing from Elias’ secret drawer of the good shit or something? Honestly it kind of feels like Not!Sasha isn’t even trying to hide her identity, but that’s just because she has no reason to since Jon is just THAT. FREAKING. DENSE. Ffs you are an ARCHIVIST. You work at an INSTITUTE. You are INSUFFERABLE. But like, on that note, can I just compliment Jonny Sims for making a protagonist that is such an insufferable loser…and yet I still love him dearly? Like, not just ironically, I’m genuinely invested in him and still really like his character despite how insane and stupid he can be. That takes some serious writing talent. But anyways…back to the supplemental. Firstly, Jon mentions that a few new artifacts have been admitted to the storage room, namely a wardrobe that light can not penetrate, an eye carved out of rock that interferes with video cameras, and a scalpel permanently covered in disease. I get the feeling that all of these are likely to show up in future statements, with the eye being the most curious to me personally. I feel like there’s probably a connection to Gerard Keay there, but the way it makes this video cameras malfunction is very reminiscent of how the computers can’t upload any real statements. But while that’s all pretty interesting, the real highlight to me is the recording of him and Not!Sasha.

Firstly, I just need to give some serious props to Eve Hewitt for her voice acting. You can tell that Not!Sasha has become more accustomed to her new identity over time, but it’s still just so…perfectly off, and I still love the faint audio distortion in the back of her scenes. Secondly…FUCK YEAH THE FRACTALS! I FEEL SO VALIDATED. For a while now I’ve held the belief that Micheal connects to fractals, which I still think is very likely, but I also found it interesting how the patterns on the table were described in a way very similar to the fractals, so I felt like there might be some connection. …I still don’t quite know what that connection might be but PROGRESS. Now, Not!Sasha suggests it’s more like a web that has caught them, but firstly, Not!Sasha is a lying little asshole, and secondly, I think she only says that due to her personal relationship with the table. You see, ever since the end of Season 1, I figured that the table was used to transport the impersonators, but Not!Sasha’s dialogue here makes it seem like more of a prison, one that the impersonator does not want to be tethered to. Now, I’ve always assumed that impersonators are a species, and I still do given the existence of the anatomy students (which aren’t exactly the same but they’re still just too similar to ignore), but now I think that one specific impersonator was tethered to the table, and it must go wherever the table goes. This probably means that Not!Graham and Not!Sasha are actually the exact same being, and “Graham Folger” is likely to have just…vanished. Alternatively there could be still be multiple impersonators here, who get released from the table after they successfully impersonate someone, but no matter what the truth is, I just find it so interesting, as it’s really our first true look at Not!Sasha’s thoughts that come from the real entity, not the person it’s pretending to be. But like, this just makes me think about the table itself even more. Like, whether the pattern is a web or a fractal, I think the fact that it’s imprisoning another paranormal being is very interesting. If it’s a fractal, then it connects back to Micheal, someone who recognizes Not!Sasha’s true identity, and while still undeniably a messed up being given what he did to Helen Richardson, has ultimately been pretty helpful to The Institute, outside of when he stabbed Jon of course. But if it’s a web, then a web makes me think of spiders, which not only ties back to the spiders in the box that I strongly believe to be the missing piece of the table (which also had an APPLE inside! Anatomy Class!), but also ties back to the spiders killing worms in the tunnels, showing at least some level of disdain for other aspects of ✨the horrors✨. I personally lean towards the pattern being a fractal, but either option is very interesting, and I’m really starting to wonder what this table even is. Lastly, we have the interesting reveal of Not!Sasha spending time at…Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum…of all places. Ok….I mean you do not actually you I guess. I’m sure there will be some genuine relevance to the plot from this information at some point, but for now, I think I can only extrapolate small things from it. Personally, I think that..at least one of the reasons she’s going here is in order to study how to become human, which is once again very reminiscent of Anatomy Class. Which like…I get the motivation, but if you want to learn how to become more human, go take an anthropology class or something. Madame Tussaud’s is definitely good in terms of wax museums but like…wax figures are still inherently uncanny and not all that natural so…you should really find better ways of educating yourself Not!Sasha. (Honestly though, as much as I drag her for killing my beloved OG Sasha, I have developed quite a fondness for Not!Sasha. Like, she’s still very unnerving, but it’s just kind of funny to have her be that new weird coworker in the office. Like, she is living someone else’s best life.) …I got off topic. Anyways, all in all a good episode with a really interesting supplemental.

Supplemental: Micheal…come back…I miss yoooouuuuuuu…

- Episode 52, Exceptional Risk 🚰

Statement of Phillip Brown, regarding a time working at HMP Wakefield between 1990 and 2002.

Yes. YES. YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES FUCK YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS. I’M SO GENUINELY HAPPY THAT THIS IS AN EPISODE THAT EXISTS! I haven’t really mentioned this before, since my thoughts on the first 20 episodes were extremely brief (looking back at that post now is an experience btw), but I absolutely ADORE A Father’s Love. It’s such a tragic and interesting episode that I have not stopped thinking about ever since I first listened to it, not my all time favorite, but it is up there. So the fact it basically got a sequel makes me extremely happy, and while I don’t like this episode quite as much as A Father’s Love, I still think it’s really, REALLT good in its own right. Truth be told, this episode doesn’t reveal a ton of new information in summary, as we already knew that Robert Montauk died in prison, and it was likely due to The People’s Church of The Divine Host, but just being able to get a more vivid look at what happened really does add a lot in my opinion. So uh…yeah, let’s start this off by talking about the episode’s protagonist, Philip Brown. And let me just say, this guy is absolutely the gold medalist for most dickheaded statement giver in the entire series so far. Congratulations, I guess. Once again, I actually like when we get morally questionable statement givers, but maaaaannn. I just wanted to see this man suffer. Not only because I had sympathy for Robert given my prior knowledge of his past, but also because they REALLY portrayed the cruelty of many prison guards extremely well. Honestly kind of a shame that he didn’t suffer more. And you know, while his experience was certainly paranormal, I got the vibe that he was only submitting a statement out of pettiness rather than genuine fear, but that’s just another example of great storytelling. Overall glad his wife left him, but he was certainly an interesting protagonist. Anyways, I also wanted to talk more about Robert because..uuuuuaaaagghhh…his story makes me so sad :(. I actually really liked the way they portrayed him here, because it’s so real. Philip talks about his hulking size, how he broke the arm of another prisoner and was put in the exceptional risk unit due to his insane danger, as you’d expect from a prison guard who only knows him as one of the country’s most notorious and threatening serial killers. But when you look back at A Father’s Love, and how his daughter Julia talked about him…she just described him as her dad, because that’s who she knew him as. She obviously understood that he was a serial killer who did terrible things, but she still focused on the more tragic aspects of his story, and it provides such a nice contrast to that episode and this one, really showing how complicated everyone’s world views are. It’s just another great example of how good the storytelling here really is. But back to Robert…wow, it really is just so unfortunate what happened. To have this man do everything to attempt to save the lives of both his daughter and himself (presumably after his wife abandoned him, which admittedly I do wish was touched upon a bit more here), only to find that it was all for naught is just absolutely gut-wrenching. We already knew The People’s Church of The Divine Host were involved in his death but…just hearing about it from someone who (kind of, because it was dark) witnessed it directly makes it all the more depressing. Really, the only small bit of relief I got here was the part about him and Julia reuniting, but even then that was still really sad given how he felt he had to lie. But now I think I ought to discuss the most interesting elements of this episode. Truth be told, while this episode is very overtly connected to others in obvious ways, it didn’t reveal all that much new stuff. But, that being said, I still think there was a couple of interesting things here, those being Maxwell Rayner’s first true appearance, and the return of the darkness.

Truth be told, at this point in time there’s like…no information on Maxwell Rayner. All we know is that he was a defrocked Pentecostal minister, who according to Julia Montauk, might possibly be German. This would line up pretty well, as he is presumably a descendant of the World War 1 solider Joseph Rayner, whose body was found next to Wilfred Owen’s in Episode 7. Obviously he was the “detective” on the phone in Episode 9, and he founded The People’s Church of The Divine Host. Also, I completely forgot about this, but Rayner apparently disappeared in 1994, and the church disbanded around the same time. This is really strange though, because all of the episodes that definitely focus on the church have taken place after 1994, so I think it’s safe to assume that the disbandment was just a cover-up of sorts. Anyways, with all that in mind, what does this episode tell us about him? Well, not much really. All we know now is that he definitely still held resentment for Robert, and that he seemingly orchestrated his death, and really…everything weird in Episode 9 firsthand. However, I still think his presence here is important, simply due to his one line of dialogue. That being “You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?” This is…honestly pretty interesting. I assume that the “it” Rayner refers to is meant to be the darkness that The People’s Church of The Divine Host serves, all because of the context. You see, I initially assumed Robert was sacrificing people to appease the darkness; the more people he killed, the less the darkness would come for him and Julia. But based on this line of dialogue, I now think that he was trying to actively fight back against the darkness. I think this adds up quite nicely, because looking back, at least one of the people Robert Montauk killed was a member of the church, so it doesn’t seem too far fetched to assume that EVERYONE he killed was a part of the church as well. I think he was killing them, not to appease the darkness, but to drive it away. And that’s why Rayner looked at him with such hatred, why the darkness killed him so brutally. Robert Montauk wasn’t just a failure to the church, he was a traitor. But…mentioning his death, I actually want to discuss the darkness itself, as this episode gave a very new and interesting look into how it works. Now, the gross water and malfunctioning lights is all stuff we’ve seen before, as is the mention of things that are just kind of…wet and gross, but this episode provides a new aspect of the darkness, that being something really…animalistic. Like, we have tearing coming from the cell, Robert being dead from an excessive amount of stab wounds of all things, and then most notably, the darkness growling. I don’t know what exactly to make of this yet, but I just find it really interesting. I initially viewed the darkness as some sort of weird, mysterious force, but now I’m starting to see it more like a traditional monster, and…I don’t know, it’s causing gears to turn in my head. In conclusion, while this statement didn’t offer as much new things as some others…I’m - I’m just way to invested in this family drama to even care, and I’m so happy it wasn’t just a one-off thing. So…yeah. Great episode.

But of course, there’s the supplemental….s to discuss. Yeah, there was kind of two supplementals in this episode, I mean not really, but I don’t know where else to put the interaction with Basira so…uh…here you go! Now, the actual supplemental doesn’t grant much new information. I think it’s safe to assume that Not!Sasha is lying about her boyfriend, but it’s at the very least nice to see Jon genuinely just…not trusting her right now. (Also the phrase “produce said boyfriend” now lives rent free in my head.) But thankfully, even though the supplemental is short, we have a mid-statement interaction with Basira! Super happy to see that she’s a recurring character, and that she’s brought a new tape with her! I’m interested by the prospect about a statement on The Library of Alexandria of all things, that’s always been a very interesting historical conundrum to me so I’d love to see how tma tackles it. But as nice of a reveal as that is, it pales, nay, it SQUEALS in comparison to the reveal that TIM. IS CANONICALLY. THE HOT ONE. FUCK. YES. I mean, it was already pretty obvious, the man has managed to seduce at least two cops of different genders, but I’m so happy that we know he’s just like…objectively hot. Whatever you’re most attracted to, that’s what Tim looks like. (Unless you’re not attracted to men, or anyone, but you get the point. Also the fact that Basira says he pulls off the worm scars while Jon doesn’t like C’MON YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO HIM LIKE THAT.) I also need to appreciate the fact that the first assistant Jon thinks of is Martin. …We’ve come so far from the days of Episode 1 where he straight up didn’t consider him one…and this is the first tangible sign of Jon maybe reciprocating his feelings so I’m very happy about this. And of course, how can I neglect to mention that Jon and Basira are just going to keep Tim’s assumptions afloat to avoid suspicion. Like, considering that this is one of the most horrific pieces of media I’ve every engaged with, I must say it’s kind of insane how funny it can be at times. (Also, they might have been implying “I’m not interested” in their interaction, but I’m just going to assume that Jon and Basira were saying “I’m not straight” because shut up I can dream.) So yeah…you guys weren’t entirely kidding when you said The Magnus Archives is a workplace comedy.

Supplemental: I’m thinking about the tunnels…we haven’t heard about them for a while. Also, is Jon just not going to tell anyone about Micheal? Like, I know you value discretion, but that seems kind of important, no? I mean, he did kidnap a woman twice and then stab you so….uh….what’s going on man?

- Episode 53, Crusader 📜

Sergeant Walter Heller recording, regarding a discovery made near Alexandria during Operation Crusader in November of 1941.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES! THE BRAINWORMS ARE GOING WILD!!! Look, I already expected this episode to give some very interesting information just because of the fact it’s another Gertrude tape, but WOW. This one did a LOT. It seems fairly isolated from others on the surface, but there’s so many little connections to other episodes that make my brain go absolutely wild. There’s…quite a bit to unpack here, but I’ll do my best to cover everything that shows up in this episode, and also my theories about what it might all mean. So, I’ll start by discussing….let’s say, the core plot of the statement.

So, not only is this another recording done by Gertrude, but it doubles as a statement recorded live from subject. And I’ve got to say, Walter Heller was a great protagonist, particularly due to his VA. I will admit that I initially found him hard to hear, but that’s ultimately kind of a me problem, and it doesn’t matter because by the time I finished the episode, I thought that Harvey Kesselman did a FANTASTIC job as him. The voice acting in tma has always been of fantastic quality, but this one might just be the most real and visceral yet. He really portrayed the role of a war veteran with implied PTSD fantastic, and made it so easy to sympathize with a character in just one episode, which given Walter’s fate, is unfortunately probably the only episode he’ll ever be in. But honestly, his story was just really sad, even if the WW2 aspect of the statement isn’t the main focus, the description of that battle in the desert, him getting shot in the leg and watching his comrade die in a fiery blaze…it’s just really heartbreaking and shockingly real. I honestly kind of like how the first part of the episode wasn’t really paranormal, just a sad look at the horrors of war. It reminded me of Episode 7 in a way, although I don’t really get the feeling they’re connected. (Also between this and Episode 48 I really have to wonder what Italy did to Rusty Quill.) But of course, after the battle, we move on to the plot about The Serapeum of Alexandria. As I mentioned earlier, this is a part of history that I really like, and I think it fits perfectly in tma. But…regarding this plot line, this is where I have to get a little bit speculative. Because truth be told, there’s so many odd similarities to previous statements here, and so many weird new reveals as well that really do befuddle me. So uh..let’s get into that!

So this whole part starts with Walter falling through a wooden door. Already it’s evoking feelings of a previous episode, said episode obviously being The New Door. And not only do the tunnels that Walter ends up in kind of remind me of Micheal’s backrooms, but also give of feelings of many other previous episodes. These episodes include Lost Johns’ Cave, Old Passages, Too Deep and Schwartzwald, the last of which I feel is…particularly relevant for reasons I’ll get into soon. But as Walter goes through the tunnels, he find himself in multiple rooms, filled with scrolls. And as we learn later…these scrolls are here because The Serapeum, or at least what lies beneath it, were a previous iteration of the archives. Specifically the ones in The Magnus Institute. ….WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! This just raises…so many questions. I mean, the tunnels kind of reminded me of the old library in Schwartzwald, but THE Magnus Archives?! What?! This just raises…so many questions. Like, what was on the scrolls? Were they also statements regarding the paranormal, or something greater. How does Jonah Magnus tie into all of this. Why and how did he replicate these ancient hidden caves when making his institute. If the archives have existed this long, is Jonah even the real founder of The Magnus Institute, or has it just existed for a long time, going under different names? And what exactly makes this specific breed of archive so special? Just…why…how…what…when…where…who…HUH?! I know that my thoughts on this are super incoherent and scrambled but like…I CAN’T HELP IT! THIS IS JUST WAY TOO MUCH! But…regarding what might make this archive and that of The Magnus Institute so special…well, I think it’s safe to say that they are both connected to the same member of ✨the horrors✨. That being the one associated with eyes. …oh dear.

So, as Walter goes through the tunnels, he finds a corpse of a knight, which Gertrude later suspects to be of The Order of St. John, which I will touch in in a bit. All I have to say for now is that this guy was…probably killed by the thing inside here. That thing is likely the long robed figure with spindly fingers and one eye. I will say that the fingers, alongside the door and the passages in general are all very Micheal-core, but I don’t know how connected all of this actually is to him just yet so…I’ll make a small note of that for the time being and just leave it as an odd similarity for now. Anyways, this figure, Micheal-related or not, gives Walter the ability to see perfectly in the dark, but also makes him feel as if he’s being watched. So overall there’s a lot of eye and sight imagery here, which is already an interesting connection to Schwartzwald and The Keay Family, but things get really, REALLY interesting when Walter comes back to this encounter post-statement. Because apparently, he experienced the exact same feeling of being watched when he came to the institute. So, combine that with the fact that the archives in Alexandria are supposedly a previous iteration of those in the institute, and something becomes very clear. Every iteration of of the archives has been fucking haunted. Not just by worms, spiders, Micheal, Not!Sasha and etc, but by one of ✨the horrors✨ in the flesh. (I know three of the things I listed I consider horrors but shut up I’m trying to be dramatic.) And I think that horror is the one associated with eyes. The very same one that is connected to The Keay Family. I already mentioned how this episode reminded me of Schwartzwald with the ancient library thing going on, and the eyes, but think about what Walter said. How he felt like he was being watched back then and felt the same thing when giving his statement. I think that Jonah Magnus might have sought to replicate the archive beneath The Serapeum, and in doing so, made it the new home of the being that once resided there. Maybe that’s the thing that’s inside the tunnels, the thing that Jon feels like is watching him. And when you think about how this thing might connect to The Keay Family, how Gerard can wield its power, not only does it make me think about how The Keays could potentially connect to The Institute (outside of the obvious yet very interesting fact of Jonah being close to Albrecht von Closen), but it also gets me thinking about Pinhole Books, Mary Keay’s bookstore. While not technically an archive, it…still could’ve been something pretty close, right. Maybe she sought to create a home for the eye horror as well. Maybe Jurgen Leitner had a similar goal with his library! (Although granted, a lot of Leitners seem to connect to other horrors so I’m not entirely sure about that one.) It’s just…it’s just a lot to take in. Obviously the institute has had to deal with things like The Flesh Hive and Micheal, but…to think that it might have been home to a horror this entire time is concerning. It gets me thinking about so much. From Jonah Magnus, to the tunnels, to Elias, to just…whatever true purpose this place might hold! There’s so many other things as well though, like how the eye horror has a clear theme of knowledge since it hangs around in ancient archives and libraries, and yet Gerard, who clearly has a connection to it, is going out of his way to BURN. BOOKS. What’s up with that? And like, what if the eye horror ends up being specific to just the archives? Does that mean that other places in the institute like Artifact Storage are more tied to another one of ✨the horrors✨? I just…UUUUUGGGHHH this is so much to take in oh my god. And you want to know what the funny thing is? We’re STILL. NOT. DONE. Because both Gertrude and Jon have follow-ups to give us, and….oh boy.

So, let’s start with Gertrude. I think one of the most peculiar things about her follow-up is that it’s very different from the one she did in Tightrope. There, she was entirely certain of what she was dealing with, seemingly having extensive prior knowledge on The Other Circus. Here though, I mean…she’s still a hell of a lot more sure of things than Jon, but it seems like this was part of an ongoing investigation she was doing, rather than being just another statement for her. Either way, she was clearly taking proactive measures to investigate this case and deal with what it implied…but maybe she was just a little bit TOO proactive. …I’ll get to that in a bit. The second thing of note here is that we learn the entire statement was done off the record, meaning that, on a sentiment shared by Jon, Gertrude did not trust the institute. And honestly, who can really blame her? I’ve already explained why I think the archives are home to some eldritch eye monster, and I get the feeling she knew that as well. Still though, considering she had a lack of faith in the institute for at least 17 years given the time between this recording and her death, I really have to wonder what she did with this mistrust? On top of that, it might add even more to the idea Elias killed her. After all, it would be in character for the head of the institute to do so if she threatened its foundation…although if he did kill her, I still think there might have been a bit more reason to do so. Anyways, it’s just really interesting to know she figured out something was wrong with this place, and I am…very concerned by what that something might be. Anyways, after bringing up some real world history, Gertrude says something…very interesting. And I’m not talking about the accounts that describe people being tortured or sacrificed in worship of pagan deities, even though that’s interesting for admittedly obvious reasons. I’m talking about the part where she says that an unnamed historian claimed that the ones who destroyed The Serapeum were not Christians…but a group known as “Those Who Sing The Night.” And if that doesn’t evoke The People’s Church of The Divine Host, I don’t know what does. Obviously night makes sense as a motif, as does singing, since Natalie did a lot of creepy singing in Episode 25. But on top of that, Walter’s torch went out for mysterious reasons while he was in the caverns, and you know how the church’s symbol is a closed eye? Well, that seems to signify a potential rivalry between the darkness and the eye horrors, which would explain why “Those Who Sing The Night” would destroy The Serapeum, and why Walter was able to see in the supposedly paranormal darkness. The eyes were combating the power of the darkness, since they are the only things that can “see in the dark.” Still though, their potential presence here is interesting for another reason. Maxwell Rayner is old, but not THAT old, so there’s a very real possibility that the church has been reforged time and time again. Rayner isn’t the true founder, just the founder of the church’s modern iteration. Hell, maybe he isn’t actually in charge anymore, since the church supposedly disbanded in 1994, although I still think there’s a possibility that was a cover-up. Gertrude also makes a strange sound after mentioning this group, which signifies familiarity to me. I feel this makes sense, due to the screams coming from Hither Green Chapel on the day she died. Finally, Gertrude suggests that The Order of St. John might have been hunting down ✨the horrors✨, and that maybe the robed figure was a previous archivist. ….If it really is Micheal I’m going to cut out my tongue.

And finally, we have Jon’s supplemental. I’m just going to start out by saying that OH MY GOD MARTIN IS THE SWEETEST MAN ALIVE. He’s so genuinely attentive and caring to Jon it’s just so…UGH! I think everyone just needs someone like him around he’s way too nice. And as always, Jon SERIOUSLY needs to get his shit together. Not only should he take better care of himself, but…come on man, do you seriously think people will believe you stabbed yourself with the bread knife when there are ELDRITCH HORRORS around? (Although I have seen people suggest Martin thought he was self harming, and if that is the case then consider my heart broken.) But anyways, Jon’s existential crisis continues. Look, I’m concerned about Gertrude’s fate as well, I’m concerned about how the archivists might date back to at least…let’s see…One Thousand, Six Hundred and Thirty-Two years ago?! Damn. But…you seriously need a nap Jon. But outside of Jon’s ordeal…we have one last reveal (hey that kind of rhymed). So…apparently, six months after the recording of the statement, an explosion happened near the caves in Alexandria that destroyed several buildings and killed seventeen people. And from the looks of things…that explosion happened because of Gertrude Robinson. …wait what. what. I-I’m sorry. WHAT?! Damn, I guess she really WAS proactive. Look, I’ll be honest and say that I already got the feeling Gertrude wasn’t my just a sweet old grandma. Firstly, her name is the most mean old lady name I’ve ever heard, and secondly, she’s appeared in multiple statements, seemingly having pissed off at least two different cults. But like…did she really have to go that far?! I know that there’s some horrific shit going on in there, but like, a guy find the remains of THE LIBRARY OF FREAKING ALEXANDRIA, and she just BLOWS IT UP? Like, as time goes on, it’s become much more clear that Gertrude wasn’t a bad archivist, she clearly took her job…maybe a bit TOO seriously, and I definitely think her poor organization of statements was done on purpose, either to get her successor to read the ones that were important, or to fuck with the institute she so clearly mistrusted. But…can I really call her a good academic when she decided to destroy knowledge THAT valuable. Shame on you, you beautiful anarchist of a senior citizen. Also, I cannot get over the fact that she was SO eager to get rid of something that, for all we know, might also have a home in the institute, that she travelled all the way from London to Alexandria, and KILLED 17 PEOPLE. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. I…desperately need to know more about her, if I don’t know everything she’s capable of I will start fearing for my safety. Jon WISHES he could be her. And you know what, if Elias did kill her…I can totally see why! He might have not just been protecting himself, the institute and those close to him, he could’ve very well been protecting THE ENTIRE WORLD. Hell, it doesn’t matter who killed her (ok I mean it still does but like you get what I mean), because that sentiment remains true for EVERYONE. Is…is she the true threat of the series? Should I somehow be more concerned. …I don’t even know at this point. Anyways…great episode, loved the protagonist, the implications are amazing, Martin is the purest man to ever grace god’s green abominable earth…but I really need to take a second and contemplate. I’m afraid there might be a Gertrude under my bed…

- Episode 54, Still Life 🐅

Statement of Alexander Scaplehorn, regarding his evaluation of The Trophy Room taxidermists in Barnet.

ANGLERFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISH!!!! THE PLOT THICKENS YET AGAIN! So, after having to recoil from last episode, you know, what with the eye horrors and the old archives and Gertrude killing people, etc etc, it was nice to have a shorter episode here. That being said, WOW did this one give me some things to think about. Just…the amount of connections that are showing up…this podcast, especially this season, has never ceased to surprise me with what it’s capable of. The protagonist, atmosphere and pacing already made this a great episode on its own, and the callbacks to the earliest season 1 episodes made it even better. So, let’s just get into it! (Oh and, this isn’t really relevant but I might as well put it here. …TAX collector. TAXidermy. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha. Comedy.)

So, I’ll start off with some of the basic things. Firstly, I have to mention that I really, REALLY enjoyed Alexander Scaplehorn as a protagonist. Like, we STAN a king who simply does his job and otherwise minds his own business. Literally went through the horrors and then just went back to living as normal, what a champion. Honestly, this is probably the most sympathetic portrayal of a tax collector I’ve ever witnessed in a piece of media, and I’m surprisingly not upset about that. Also, some other people have pointed this out, but I think it needs to be said just in case. This man is excited to infodump on some guy he just met about taxes, is fine doing so as long as he’s attentive, immediately notices how uncomfortable the atmosphere is, struggles making conversation, is simply trying to get through his day without trouble…and then goes on to say he has a cousin with autism. I think someone needs to tell him something about himself…and that’s all I’m going to say. (Also jsyk this is coming from an autistic person who experiences all of this, so I’m not trying to make stereotypical assumptions or anything.) …Anyways, outside of the second most legendary protagonist after Joshua Gillespie, I’ve gotta say that I really liked the whole atmosphere of this episode. Taxidermy, while admittedly kind of freaky, is something that I’ve always been a little bit drawn to ever since I learned about it just due to the vibes alone (unless it’s of a cat, if it’s of a cat I cry), so I really liked the whole vibe of an old taxidermy shop. And like…I get why some might be freaked out by it, but I’d be lying if I said the idea of someone owning some of the world’s oldest skin didn’t kind of entice me, that’s just a pretty cool thing to own. One other small note I have, although it’s not from the statement, was Jon’s line here. “I may not entirely trust my assistants, but…I won’t lose them.” …. :(. Anyways…moving on to ✨the connections✨…(who’s going to tell him…)

Ok, so, the first obvious connection to a previous episode comes from when Alexander first enters The Trophy Room. (which by the way, is apparently the name of a real world taxidermy shop, but only in the US.) Here, Alex sees a stuffed tiger in the window with glassy eyes. As soon as I heard this, I immediately thought back to Tightrope, where this same tiger made an appearance. Not only does this connect the episode’s plot to The Other Circus, which I’ll get more into later, but from both episodes, we can tell that this tiger isn’t exactly….real (although the skin might still be), but it’s definitely capable of “coming to life.” Definitely seems like this applies to the other taxidermies as well, and based on Tightrope, as well as other parts of this episode, I really do think that The Other Circus is Daniel’s supplier for the taxidermy, or at least part of the circus. And speaking of which, we have Daniel Rawlings. Now, much like Sarah Baldwin from Skintight, Daniel Rawlings was mentioned in Episode 1 as one of the people taken by The Anglerfish, and he too seems to now be an avid smoker with a connection to the monster. Along with this, both of them have a very apparent connection to skin which is…interesting. And obviously, The Anglerfish itself is here as well, hooray!(?) Not too much to say about its appearance here, other than that Alex was probably smart to have not went down to the basement in the end, and that I found it interesting how it was repeating a different phrase than what it did in the first episode. I think it’s fair to assume that The Anglerfish changes the phrase it uses to lure people depending on its location. It asks for a cigarette while in the alleyway, and acts as a shop clerk while in The Trophy Room. I think that’s why Alex says it was almost mechanical in its speech, because the things it says are like auto-generated phrases made for specific circumstances. And the final overt connection to previous episodes was the return of everyone’s favorite delivery…somethings, Breekon and Hope. I’m honestly kind of surprised by how frequently they show up, but I’m not complaining. I was also reminded by the last episode with how all of the taxidermies looked at Alex, but I’m not sure if that genuinely means anything or not, especially since the eyes were all glassy, signifying a lack of pupils to properly look at someone with. So, that’s a basic assortment of recurring characters and concepts, but with all of that in mind, how does everything connect?

Let’s start off with Breekon and Hope, as well as The Other Circus. These two already have a very apparent connection, as Breekon and Hope were seen as members of the circus in Tightrope. Now, when I gave my thoughts on that episode, I suggested that these two left The Other Circus and started their own business, and while I still think that’s the case, I think that they might have less of an antagonistic relationship than I initially thought. Granted, it’s possible they stole The Other Circus’ taxidermies, and they’re giving them to Daniel in order to keep them hidden, but I kind of think that, while now separate, their delivery company is still on good terms with The Circus, or maybe a straight up offshoot of The Circus, and that’s because of…motivations. You see, the more I think about it, I realize that Sarah and Daniel seem to spread fear in a very similar way to that of the circus. You see, Sarah and Daniel never hurt the protagonists of the story, they just…unnerved them. Sarah pulled her skin off in front of Melanie King, and Daniel made the taxidermy move in front of Alex, but they never really tried to kill them. Daniel…might have been trying to, but given how neither he nor Breekon and Hope bothered to give chase, I don’t really think he was that dead-set on murder. And then take a look at The Other Circus. Now yes, Leanne Denikin’s ex-boyfriend died because of the calliope, but granted, no actual member of the circus played it themselves in that scenario, and when Nikolai Denikin, an actual member, did, no one was seen dead. And yes, Yuri Utkin’s brother Ivan did die at one point, but there’s no real evidence that his death was caused by The Other Circus. When we look at what the circus actually did…they just scared people, nothing more. So you have these two groups with very similar methods of scaring people, and…I don’t know, it makes me think that The Other Circus and servants of The Anglerfish might be chill with each other, and that might in turn mean that Breekon and Hope maintain some form of a positive relationship with the circus, even if they aren’t direct members anymore. But…that all gets me thinking even more. You see, on my list of ✨the horrors✨ I cited two of them as “The Anglerfish” and “Whatever The Other Circus serves”. But now I’m wondering…what if The Other Circus serves The Anglerfish? They have this apparent connection now so…maybe. I still need quite a bit more time to wrap my head around this idea, but like think about it for a second. The Anglerfish HAS servants, and The Other Circus acts in a similar way to how they do, functioning with things like fake audiences, dolls and taxidermies…it just feels like it connects in some sort of way. But then again, as time goes on, it kind of feels like The Anglerfish is struggling to live up to levels of eldritch that the other members of ✨the horrrors✨ are, so what if it isn’t a horror at all, and something a bit lesser? WHAT IF- Ok. Ok I’m getting a little bit incoherent with my thought process now. Look, the cut and dry is that I definitely think The Other Circus, Breekon and Hope, and The Anglerfish and it’s servants have some sort of connection, due to them all playing into this episode, and the fact that they all have similar themes, and that they’ll all end up coming together at some point or another. This statement is really good and a lot of fun on its own, but…it certainly has given me a lot to think about, even if it’s not in the most coherent way. But of course, I can’t just stop here. Because we have a follow-up and a supplemental to get through and…well, it’s…certainly pretty interesting…

So, I already mentioned that…absolutely gut-wrenching line from Jon, but that’s obviously not everything there is to talk about here. Firstly, Jon mentions that The Trophy Room is still in operation. There isn’t all that much to say about this, other than that it’s…concerning to know that whatever weird operation this trifecta of factions seems to be a part of is still continuing. But that aside, what really gets me here is the involvement of our beloved little freak, Not!Sasha. Now, I think it’s safe to say that she’s obviously lying about how there wasn’t anything all that strange there (which Jon should REALLY catch onto soon), but as unnerving as that is, it’s also pretty in character and expected of her. What’s a bit more intriguing here though is how…eager she was to investigate. The most simple reason I can think of as to why she wanted to go check the place out was that she clearly likes wax museums, and…taxidermy stores certainly have a similar vibe. But I think there’s a bit more of a reason as to why she went to The Trophy Room…and that lies in what Jon tells us about Daniel Rawlings. You see, outside of the identical hair, the Daniel who owns The Trophy Room looks nothing like the one who went missing in 2006. Couple that with the fact that Daniel is strongly implied to be a taxidermy himself, so you know, not a real person, and I start to get thinking. What if The Anglerfish skins it’s victims, and puts them on top of non-human beings that then start pretending to be those people? What if the real Daniel Rawlings, and the real Sarah Baldwin are dead? What if “Sarah” peeling off her skin was a way of showing Melanie King her true form? What if they are somehow aligned with the anatomy students? What if these non-humans are extremely similar to the impersonator, but need a higher being to give them identies, rather than just taking one themselves? What if Not!Sasha is a direct servant of The Anglerfish, who seeks to bring harm to the institute? …I know I’m making some big claims here, but…I just feel like I might have uncovered a big mystery. I’ve thrown out the possibility of The Anglerfish maybe not being one of ✨the horrors✨, but in all honesty…I still think it is. I’m starting to wonder if maybe just maybe, all of these characters, Sarah Baldwin, Daniel Rawlings, Breekon and Hope, Not!Graham/Not!Sasha, the anatomy students, The Other Circus, and maybe even more, are all servants of The Anglerfish. All of them faceless monsters who are given new identities by their god, and seek to do its bidding by unnerving as many people as possible? At this point, I’ve basically just devolved into crack fan fiction, but I have to be honest when I say that, while I’m certain I’m far off from the truth in some aspects…I feel like I might be on to something here. In short, I think that Episode 1 is much more important than I initially thought, and that a lot, and I mean A LOT of things are going to connect back to the very first spook. …As scared as I am by Episode 53 introducing the prospect of one of ✨the horrors✨having been in the archives this entire time…I’ve gotta say…Not!Sasha is giving it some close competition. But with all of that out of the way…um, what about the supplemental?

“Supplemental: I broke into Gertrude’s flat.” OH MY GOD. That has…no right being as funny as it is. I would say “I’m afraid Jon’s hit rock bottom”, but there’s still 26 episodes left of the season, and 146 left of the entire series, so I get the feeling that his downward mental spiral is only just beginning! Yay…I-I think? Well, outside of Jon’s 16th felony of the month, what did he actually find in here. Well, not much, as from the looks of things Gertrude was a minimalist, but there were a few things worth noting. Firstly, we now know that she owned a laptop charger, meaning she…well, she obviously was in possession of a laptop at one point of another. This is intriguing if only for the fact that I feel like the series might be heading in a direction where Jon’s going to have to break into her laptop, kind of like that one part of Gravity Falls if…anyone who’s reading that has watched it. (And if you haven’t, go do that it’s really good.) Secondly, Gertrude threw away books after reading them. Since most of her books were apparently on history, I wonder if she was secretly studying ways to get rid of ✨the horrors✨, and decided to get rid of the books in an attempt to cover her tracks. And finally…the few books she did own had eyes cut out of the faces on the covers. Given what might be lurking in the archives I can’t entirely blame her…but it does make me wonder if much like Jon…she was suffering from her own paranoia. Hm. Well, that about wraps it up. Overall this episode was thoroughly enjoyable but…man, my brain has been absolutely frazzled. I’ll probably take a break tomorrow just to process everything, as there’s so many other rabbit holes I could go down if I wanted to but…I just don’t have the energy. Gertrude, the eyes, The Keay Family, Micheal, Not!Sasha, The Anglerfish, The Other Circus, Breekon and Hope, Jon, Elias….it’s all running through my head, and I need a break.

Supplemental: Ok, there are a couple of other things I should mention briefly. Firstly, I cited Breekon and Hope as servants of The Anglerfish who unnerve people…even though they don’t do it nearly as much as others. There is an explanation for this though, that being that while I think they’re still on good terms with The Other Circus, they’re still somewhat disconnected nowadays, and if the circus does honor The Anglerfish, they might not be AS devout to it as others. Even so, they DID deliver the table to the institute, so I think they still serve it in one way or another. Another thing I wanted to mention was Martin, specifically that note about him lying. I haven’t brought much attention to it since the initial reveal, but someone in the YouTube comments mentioned that Martin has a fondness for spiders…and spiders do seem to be a prominent member of ✨the horrors✨. However, that fondness for them could still be nothing, and even if it is something, it’s worth noting that the spiders are currently one of the more mysterious aspects of the story so…I’m not too sure just yet, but I thought it was interesting. Anyways, onwards to Episode 55!

- Episode 55, Pest Control 🐜

Statement of Jordan Kennedy, regarding several encounters while working in Pest Control. Statement taken direct from subject.

AND IIIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOOOOOOOUUUUUUU!!!! So…it’s confirmed. Jane Prentiss is officially, indisputably dead. Her ashes are indeed with Jon…:(. Well, suffice to say, it was very nice to get an episode that kind of felt like a memorial for her, just a nice little sendoff. But despite me mourning her forever and always, WOW this episode made me giddy. It had another statement live from subject, which is always a pleasure, presented a great look at Jon’s mental state and trauma from the infestation, and also set up some extremely interesting and EXTREMELY exciting plot points for the future. Man…this season just keeps on dropping amazing episode after amazing episode. Much like Section 31, this one had a structure where is was sort of…multiple statements in one, so I think I’ll go one after another. So, that means I’m starting off with the ants! …gross.

So, before I get into the statement, I should start with the few things that come before. As mentioned earlier, the statement comes live from one Jordan Kennedy, an exterminator who helped burn Jane’s body. Now I admittedly don’t have all that much to say about Jordan as a character (and NO, it’s not just because he killed the best character), there’s just not a ton to say about him that isn’t obviously seen in the episode. However, apparently Jonny was in a band at some point, and both Jordan and Basira are voiced by other members. I just think that’s really cool, and I might have to listen to that band at some point… Anyways, the other think that stuck out to me was Jon’s mental state because…wow and yikes. Yikes as in…I don’t think he’s doing that well, but wow in the sense that I’m very happy with how they portrayed his trauma here. It’s just nice to know that despite things like Gertrude and Micheal, the podcast is still very aware that the infestation hurt him badly. I mean, it hurts to see…but it is very good writing. Well, with all of that out of the way, what do we learn from Jordan’s first statement? Well firstly, it’s nice to know that tma is still persistent in its efforts to prove that I find large amounts of insects disgusting, even when in my heart I wish I didn’t. Just….ugh, the image of all of those ants in the house makes me squirm. I will also say that the whole scenario here really did remind me of Blood Bag, so while I initially found connections between that episode and The Flesh Hive ones pretty speculative, I’m a LOT a more sure of it now. …I feel like the institute could’ve made use of that syringe in retrospect. I mean Salesa DOES give artifacts to them so…like, what the hell dude? You couldn’t have spared ONE syringe? So yeah, the ants are absolutely terrifying, I don’t like the fact that they didn’t immediately die, and…oh god, what the hell was in that fridge? (Well, you know, outside of ants.) Anyways, this could’ve just been written off as another gross as shit statement…until we’re met with the return of John Amherst, the creepy guy from Taken Ill. (Side Note: I already thought he was involved due to the description of his suit and the yellow oily residue, so getting those suspicions validated post-statement was VERY satisfying.) Anyways, Amherst’s presence here is…strange. Jon had already made comparisons between Jane’s statement and that of Nicole Baxter in MAG 36, but that was more of a reference to how the statement givers both talked about fear in similar ways. Outside of the general theme of…gross, as well as a fly landing in Amherst’s face, any other connections were interesting, yet tenuous. But now…yeah, there’s a very clear connection! Obviously both of them gave off a very similar smell, but they also care deeply for the insects that reside with them, Amherst with his ants, and Jane with her…well, they call them worms, but in retrospect I actual think they’re supposed to be Wasp Larvae, especially with the new information in this episode. I’ll still call them worms though. The major difference here though is that Jane was basically a walking corpse being piloted by her worms, while Amherst is a lot more human and in control of himself, although he is still clearly unstable given how quickly he was willing to kill Jordan…and also the fact that he seems to be making an effort to make his (former) home as disgusting as possible. Jane was also very destructive all of the time, while Amherst is clearly capable of holding back when he needs to, such as in MAG 36. So while I think these two are definitely connected, and both have probably forged connections with The Flesh Hive, said connections clearly work differently, and I’m interested to see where they go with this in the future! It’s very cool to see them delve more into the concept of regular humans who just happened to be marked by one or more of ✨the horrors✨, and as someone who loves Jane dearly, I’m very excited by the prospect of more like her, even if Amherst doesn’t quite live up to her yet, in my opinion.

There is…one other thing here in this story about Amherst that is pretty interesting though. The last major similarity between him and Jane is that they are both very weak to fire. Granted we already knew this, since C02 was used against Jane, and Trevor the Tramp and his companion seemingly set fire to Ivy Meadows, but this similarity becomes a lot more interesting when we look at the second story Jordan tells us. Oh uh…yeah, my thoughts on this story individually. Uh…yeah it was really good, super gross and I’m interested in Amherst. But anyways, the second story. Now, since Hive is still my favorite episode, I obviously REALLY liked this part. Not only because it’s a cool callback, but also because as much as I love the abstract, slam poetry-like storytelling in Hive, it does make the episode a little bit hard to follow at times, which I overall think adds to the horror, but getting a look at those events from someone who isn’t…basically dying was nice. So, the first thing here I find intriguing is the wasp’s nest in Jane’s attic. Firstly, I already thought it was responsible for what happened to her, but this just confirms it, because…ew, I don’t like this thing. It might have produced one of if not the rawest line in the entire story so far but…ew. (Also, this doesn’t connect to the wasp’s nest but I don’t know where else to put it; Jordan mentions a smashed TV in Jane’s attic, which reminds me of the episode Arachnophobia, and the spiders clearly have some sort of antagonistic relationship with The Flesh Hive so…hm…) But, here’s the more intriguing part. The wasp’s nest is described as being unnaturally spongey, and both it, Amherst and Jane are all easily flammable. (also did Amherst die there? Or do we just not know? And like, I know we like to joke about all of the Micheals, but there’s a lot of Johns as well. Ok I’m getting sidetracked.) Now, a couple of people in the YouTube comments pointed out that both of those are cited as features of vampires. And now that I think about it, isn’t it weird that Trevor Herbert, a vampire hunter, somehow knew how to deal with some sort of weird sickness that was seemingly entirely outside of his deal? Unless…the two of them are directly connected. Tma already has a pretty unique depiction of vampires, so to make them Flesh Hive people would honestly just be icing on the cake. Granted what little we’ve seen of vampires doesn’t really have many themes of disease or bugs but…I don’t know, it could work! God…I am still really befuddled by Trevor. Like, how did he survive? Was the person with him Basira’s cop friend? Ugh god I’m getting sidetracked again. Anyways, this story from Jordan is all fine and good, it’s nice to get some more context on Episode 32…but things get really interesting when we see more of Jane’s landlord, Arthur Nolan.

So, this guy was mentioned all the way back in Hive, and if I’m being honest, I…did not think much of him initially. His death in a fire seemed a little suspicious, but all things considered..I had more pressing matters on the mind after that episode. But…wow. Turns out this guy is a lot more important than I initially assumed. (Side note: As I’m writing this, I just realized I finally understand why The Flesh Hive hates the institute. It’s probably because it’s home to another one of ✨the horrors✨! Sorry, it’s just that I’m really realizing a lot of new things about my favorite episode lmao.) Obviously, Arthur Nolan has clear knowledge of the threat that The Flesh Hive poses, so much so that even though he’s a landlord (which is probably the scariest thing in the entire episode), he was willing to burn the entire building and even sacrifice himself if it meant getting rid of that wasp’s nest. Now, not only is that a testament to how fucking scary The Flesh Hive is, but…there’s some other really weird things about Arthur. He didn’t just burn down the building on a whim, because according to Jordan, his flat was extremely warm, and he had an intricate scar on his chest that looked both like a flame and a face in pain. …And all of these connections to heat and fire are just a little bit too suspicious for me to ignore. I’ve had some time to think about it, and I think Arthur Nolan was likely connected to the Sumerian demon Asag, maybe even a part of the same cult that Diego Molina was a part of, and that also seemed to be responsible for the events of Burnt Offering. The general connection to heat is one thing, but just…once again, the fact that he knew how to deal with The Flesh Hive shows a great enough understanding of ✨the horrors✨ from him. And if my classification of ✨the horrors✨ is somewhere along the lines of being correct, then that means The Flesh Hive is opposed to, and likely weak to at least three of them. Those are the eyes associated with The Keays and The Institute, the spiders, and Asag. So…yeah. That about wraps it up on the statement of Jordan Kennedy. In conclusion, Amherst and Jane are clearly connected, The Flesh Hive is weak to fire, it has some strange similarities with vampires, Arthur Nolan has…some sort of relevance, and even though Jane is dead…this story is far from over.

So, what about post-statement and the supplemental? Well, truth be told, there isn’t much here that I haven’t already gone over, outside of two things. Firstly, I found it really weird that Jon said The Flesh Hive “doesn’t seem like the sort of being that would work well with others.” In my opinion…I feel like this kind of goes against the point. Sure, Jane was a walking corpse, but the whole point of The Flesh Hive was that it was…well, a hive, a hivemind. It functioned best when together, it gave Jane a twisted sort of love and affection, its whole goal was to infect more people. (Speaking of which, I think it would’ve been cool if we had gotten to see some more worm zombies than just Jane and Timothy Hodge. Eh, maybe we still will, who knows?) So…yeah, this just comes off as a weird thing for Jon to say in my opinion. But more interestingly, as short as the supplemental was, it does reveal that JON FINALLY GOT A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP FUCK YEAH!!! Super happy for you king, now let’s PLEASE start making that a routine :). Also I do find it funny that the institute gets a fuck-ton of fake statements in Halloween season, that’s just perfect. Well…since I don’t have much more to say, I might as well just mention a largely unrelated theory I’ve been having while I’m here. That kind of seems to be a running theme with this part of the post. Like, this episode is great on its own, but it really does just get me thinking about other stuff. So, something in the YouTube comments I found interesting was theory about how maybe there’s a “four horsemen of the apocalypse” thing going on here. The theory suggested that The Flesh Hive is pestilence, The Piper is war, The Reapers are death, and some unknown thing is famine, and the entire series is building up to some sort of apocalypse. Now, do I believe this theory. Honestly…no. The apocalypse idea just doesn’t have a lot of evidence right now, and there are many other beings like Micheal, The Anglerfish, the spiders, etc, that are just as, if not more weird and eldritch as the ones listed here. However…it did get me thinking. I pretty much entirely forgot about The Reapers for a hot second, and the more I thought about it…they really don’t connect to any of ✨the horrors✨ I’ve listed so far. The only possible connection is one of them showed up during a war like The Piper, but that honestly seems like a MASSIVE stretch that not even I’m willing to take. And I mean, Nathaniel Thorp did kind of imply The Reapers were at the whims of a higher power… So..I’d like to add a new being to ✨the horrors✨, one I’m dubbing “The Master of The Reapers” until further notice. While shrouded in mystery, I could absolutely see this thing being one of ✨the horrors✨. Now, I’m not going to update my list, because I’m still wavering on whether or not The Anglerfish and “Whatever The Other Circus worships” are the same being. If they are the same being, then I still probably have one more horror to uncover, assuming that my number of 14 is correct. But if they’re separate…well, consider the list complete until further notice! I know this might seem out of nowhere, but honestly…I’m pretty confident about this one. I’ll just have to wait and see how close to truth I end up getting. So…yeah! That’s Pest Control. Overall it was another great episode, and I’m very satisfied with how it followed up on my favorite, and with how it sets up a potential return of The Flesh Hive in the future.

Supplemental: Doing school from home while also having terrible ADD can make things very hard when trying to pay attention during online lectures. So, I have come up with a solution:

- Episode 56, Children of the Night 🛏️

Continued statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding the latter years of his career as a vampire hunter.

OH MY GOD. LITERALLY RIGHT AFTER I TALK ABOUT HIM AT LENGTH. TREVOR. THE FUCKING. TRAMP. APOLLO HAS GRANTED ME THE GIFT OF PROPHECY. So, needless to say, I was very excited when this episode began. I mean, I’ve been wondering about Trevor’s relevance in the story for quite a while now, so obviously I’d be very interested. So with that in mind…this episode is…kind of a weird one for me? Not bad, I still have a lot of good to say about it, it’s just…I don’t know. It might be due to the fact that it’s directly continuing off of a much earlier statement, and also the fact that parts of it are intentionally emitted, but…I have scrambled thoughts about this one. I’ll get into it as I go along, but for now…just know that this is a bit of a strange one, and it’s kind of hard for me to discuss. But regardless, was the episode good? Of course! All of them have been enjoyable and this one isn’t any different! I’m always up for a direct continuation of an older statement, which this season in particular has done a great job with, it’s nice to get confirmation of Trevor’s relevance, and it adds some interesting new elements to a plot point set up in an episode that in all honesty, if it wasn’t for the reveal that all the statements are real at the end of Season 1, I could’ve interpreted as complete bullshit if I wanted to. But with all of the preamble out of the way, let’s get into it!

Firstly, I’d like to talk a little bit about Trevor’s characterization here, and how it contrasts his previous statement, because I think it’s one of my favorite parts of the episode. In Episode 10, Trevor was…a bit more of a comedic character, or at the very least a notable standout. Compared to every other statement giver before him, and maybe even everyone after him so far, all of whom were unsure about what really happened to them with varying degrees of knowledge, Trevor seemed…entirely aware of what he was up against, which made him very memorable in my eyes. But while a little bit of that homeless tramp charm is gone here, I’ve got to say, I REALLY like the contrast in this episode. Here, Trevor isn’t fighting against vampires, he’s fighting against a seemingly completely different horror, and grappling with his murder of another human, both of which make him just as lost and scared as any other statement giver, and help to insert him into the modern story. While I do miss his earlier portrayal..I have to admit, seeing a man that was once much more sure of himself now be shaken like everyone else really puts into perspective how mysterious and terrifying everything is right now, and it’s a very interesting direction that for his character that I like a whole lot, and it makes me excited to see what happens with him next. I guess I also should mention the..odd lack of vampires here as well, considering he is THE vampire guy. Admittedly, while it is a little strange for them to not really be there, I did just write out a theory on how the previous episode connects to vampires so…I don’t know, I’m fine with it. But uh..anyways, what about the things that actually happen in the statement? Well, I feel like I should start off with the structure. Now, this is obviously a direct follow up to Vampire Killer, but not in the way that, let’s say…Tightrope follows up on Strange Music, more in the way that Desecrated Host follows up on Confession. The difference here is that Desecrated Host came right after Confession, while this episode is 46 after the one that contained the first part of the same statement. At the end of the day, I was still able to get a grasp of what was going on, since I still remembered Trevor’s initial story well enough, but…it was just a bit of a shock structurally. Combined with the fact that there are still more missing parts of this statement (which can obviously be resolved in the future, but as of now it’s still a bit of an annoyance), and this episode…just kind of throws you back in after a massive break from the storyline. Usually, episodes take their time getting into things a bit better, and even when they don’t, like in Infestation for example, you still expect those episodes to be chaotic based on what’s going on at the time. Here though…I don’t know, it’s nothing beyond redemption but…it just threw me off my course when I started listening. Honestly, I think a better way to handle it would’ve been to have Trevor submit a second statement entirely separate from Episode 10, since we already know that he didn’t pass away right after giving it like we thought, and it would’ve just allowed for some better flow. I know that was quite a lot of criticism, but ultimately, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. It kind of reminds me of Episode 4. I initially found that one to be confusing as all heck, and while I still think it might just introduce a little bit too much for one episode, I’ve only grown to appreciate it more and more as I learn more about The Keays, The Leitners and Mike, and I think the same could go for this one. I plan to re-listen to tma one day, since there’s probably a lot that I’ve missed or that’ll be recontextualized, so who knows? Maybe I’ll look at this episode more fondly one day, but for now…the pacing was just a little too odd for me. Still though, if the institute can find those missing pieces and finish the statement, I think It’ll all be fine :). Ok, ENOUGH NEGATIVITY. Here’s some things that I actually liked.

Wow I got sidetracked. Ok, NOW I’m actually going to talk about what happened in the statement for real. So, while the stories here are pretty short, I think they’re actually very effective. I still kind of wish that we got to learn more about some of Trevor’s other huntings that are alluded to here, especially since the statement opens with one of those stories finishing, but I like what we got here as well, especially with the newfound unawareness in Trevor we see here. The first statement directly follows up on a minor plot point from Vampire Killer, and…wow. This was genuinely…very bleak. This is probably the only part of a statement that genuinely isn’t paranormal (at least as far as I’m concerned), and yet…it’s one of the scariest things I think this podcast has produced. Not in a shit-your-pants kind of way, it’s just…really depressing. There’s no strange explanation, no interference from ✨the horrors✨…just a sad scenario where a guy, who while not innocent did not deserve death, is murdered by a tortured soul out of said soul’s own trauma, convictions, addictions and mental state. Just…a really bleak and depressing scenario, and Trevor’s writing here really seals the deal. If you couldn’t tell, my favorite part of this episode is just Trevor in general, I already liked him a lot, but this episode really made him grow on me. Honestly…he might be one of the most terrifying statement givers so far. Not Jane levels, but…he’s just so morbidly conflicting. Because like, you UNDERSTAND him, you realize why he thought Alard was a vampire, you understand how deeply distraught he was after commuting the murder, and really do sympathize with him, and yet he still terrifies me. The way that he talks about the hunt being an addiction harder to remove than heroin, the way it becomes so clear that he’s become so traumatized and used to a life of stalking and killing monsters, that he can easily make a slip-up as grave as this…it’s just really depressing, and one of the best things about this episode by far. Ultimately, I don’t have much to theorize about here, since like I said, this doesn’t seem to be remotely paranormal, although I will say that the scars on Not!Stanley Kubrick (I know he’s not one of those things, I just think it’s funny wordplay) we’re pretty interesting. I doubt they were actually from Alard but…maybe Stanley had a chance encounter with some actual vampires. Hm.

The second story that Trevor tells us is..almost the inverse of the first one. It doesn’t have quite as much in terms of interesting character writing for him, but it does have some very interesting lore implications. Even then, I still think there’s some interesting character writing here. This was definitely the moment where Trevor’s life stopped becoming just about vampires, when he got involved with other parts of ✨the horrors✨, and it shows. Like, Jonny Sims REALLY did a great job with the delivery, even if it’s slightly less comedic than Trevor’s last appearance. It was also interesting how he talked about “things lurking in the dark”. That does feel very Divine Host core to me. (Oh btw, I’m just going to calm it The Divine Host now, because the full name is way too long lmao.) Honestly, given the name of the episode, I fully expected The Divine Host to play at least..a partial role in the story here, and yet…nothing. I mean, I know they played a role in at least one, most likely two very recent episodes but.. “Children of the Night?!” I mean, what does that rule even signify outside of “spooky monster?” Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself…what about what actually happened here? Well, I can’t really say much about Craig for the time being, due to the pitiful amount of information, but I can talk about the spider lady. This is the first time spiders have been prominent in a statement since..Hive I think, and given how I speculate spiders connect to one of ✨the horrors✨, I’m more than happy to see more of these little things, even though I did not expect it at all. But anyways, the thing that really caught my attention with this spider lady was just…how similar to Jane she was. I mean, she pulls Trevor in like the wasp’s nest tried to do with Jordan in the last episode, she’s described as being kind of greasy, gross and later hollow, and is crawling with insects! That’s literally just Diet Jane! …But that’s so weird to me. I talked at length about how I think Jane and Amherst are at the very least vampire-adjacent, but Trevor looks at this thing that is so similar to Jane, and goes out of his way to separate it from vampires as much as possible, so there’s already a hole in that theory made right after I proposed it. And secondly, the spiders are implied to have an antagonistic relationship with The Flesh Hive, what with them eating the worms and potentially forcing it to attack the institute early, so WHY DO THEY FUNCTION SO SIMILARLY?! Someone in the YouTube comments proposed that maybe the worms, spiders and ants are all against each other, and while that could explain Jon’s weird comment about how Jane and Amherst don’t seem like beings that would want to work together, it also..it just makes things so much more complicated at the moment. Because either I have to make ants their own thing (which forces me to make The Anglerfish the figure of worship for The Other Circus before I’ve even decided if that’s the route I want to go down), or I have to make all three bugs the same thing, and quite frankly, I CAN’T HANDLE THAT RIGHT NOW. …This whole podcast is one big mindfuck and I love it so much. So…yeah, this one spider lady is driving me insane, and I have no idea how Trevor is dealing with it now. And you know, on that note…I do have one more grievance.

I’m just going to add a quick disclaimer; I’m about to be so fucking petty. Look, like I’ve said a million times, I do still like this episode. In fact, as I’ve been writing this, and as I’ve been thinking more about what the episode does well, I’ve come to like it a lot more than I thought I did initially. The moral of the story is that first impressions are bullshit. But, I am basically tasking myself with documenting all of those first impressions, so here’s the thing. While I’m sure all of the strange mysteries surrounding Trevor will be solved eventually, and that all of these dumb complaints will mean nothing in the end…I was expecting a few more answers. The reveal of the reason for Trevor not dying just being that…Martin got the wrong idea was, while a completely acceptable answer in the long run, a little bit anticlimactic for me. I think I need to accept that as time goes on, there’s a very real possibility that the answers might not be as crazy as I thought (which in some cases is a good thing, holy shit I will get to that when I talk about the supplemental), and that’s ok. I just…I guess after wildly speculating about how he survived in my head for 20 episodes, I was a little disappointed. But on top of that, there was some other things I was really hoping to get answered. I was hoping for more information on how vampires function, more on that person who seemingly helped burn down Ivy Meadows, and just more on…what Trevor is doing right now. Like, what’s his goal? How far has he moved away from vampires, and onto something greater? And all of this wouldn’t be that big of a deal if Jon had bothered to question some of it himself. Like, I know I worry for him constantly digging down rabbit holes, but like, I’m doing it too, AND INSANE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS STICK TOGETHER GOD DAMNIT. But in all seriousness, I would’ve just liked him to speculate a bit more here, especially considering that it was him who revealed the identity of the old guy in Episode 36, not the actual statement giver. But like I said, please just understand that all of this is very nitpicky , and going on the assumption that most of these plot points get answers down the line, these complaints will likely be irrelevant one day. Also understand that I would not be bitching this much about something I don’t absolutely love, I do NOT have the mental stamina or the time to be a genuine hater. Even if I was initially a little bit disappointed by the lack of answers, and even if this isn’t my favorite episode in the season, it was still very good, which I’ve determined is the usual minimum quality for this podcast. While I hope to see some more answers in the future, this was still a worthwhile episode, and it gets me excited for what’s to come. Still a great time :).

But you know what, the statement could’ve been utter garbage and I’d still hold the episode in high regards due to the supplemental. Holy shit. Holy shit you guys. I’m not even breathing I’m hyperventilating at this point. So..Jon…man….I think it’s time for your sedation 💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉💉 I…I don’t think this twink is doing too well everyone. Ugh, and this happens right after the episode where we get confirmation of a good night’s sleep for this “man”. This is by far the most unhinged he has ever been, and while I kind of love that..I am also terrified by it. Once again, I have to give serious props to Jonathan Sims (real life) for his deliveries, because HOLY FUCK HIS POOR VOCAL CORDS. The fact that a simple misunderstanding, one that occurred MONTHS before…not even this, but the fucking Prentiss attack, can drive him so far over the edge is NOT. A GOOD. SIGN. I’m coming to love unhinged Jon, and the sheer furious energy of this scene only makes me love him more, but POOR MARTIN. Like, this guy is the only person in this show I can look at and be fully confident he has done nothing wrong, and yet HE has to suffer being yelled at by his loser crush. And he handles it so well too it’s just UGH I LOVE HIM SO MUCH HE’S THE SWEETEST GUY AND I WANT ALL THE GOOD THINGS FOR HIM. He’s willing to expose his greatest secret to calm down Jon in a moment of emotional distress and, you know, if it wasn’t for all of the other shit that needs to be sorted, I would have Jon and Martin kiss right now. If there are plushies of them out there, please let me know, I would like to mash their faces together, and then tuck Martin into bed while I defenestrate Jon. Oh, and mentioning his secret…oh my god. 14 episodes of buildup, wondering what big secret Martin had…and this is the answer. I never expected him to be evil or anything, but I did expect the reveal to be pretty big and shocking…but no. He just…he just lied on his résumé. That. Is. ….peak comedy. Absolutely hilarious, ten out of ten. I am never going to forget this until the day I die. What an absolute icon of academia. He drops out of High School (Bri’ish) to support his mom, lies about PARAPSYCHOLOGY of all things on his résumé, and then some random stoner guy just recruits him, and the next thing he knows he is being hunted down by worms. He is the silliest guy known to man oh my god. This might just be the best example of a purposefully anticlimactic reveal I’ve ever seen, and that is saying something. And OH MY GOD IT MADE JON HAPPY! FUCKING YES! Now, I would say that I think this will help repair Jon and Martin’s relationship, and that Jon will finally calm down. The only problem is that I don’t actually think that, but…it’s progress. So, yeah, amazing supplemental, probably my favorite. Goodnight Tumblr, I hope you have dreams of squeezing Jon like a squeaky toy. :)

Supplemental: call me micheal the way i lure people into liminal spaces with my charm

- Episode 57, Personal Space 🔒

Statement of Carter Chilcott, regarding his time spent in isolation aboard the Space Station Daedalus in September 2007.

Everyone seems to say that you will eventually find an episode of tma that targets you specifically. I don’t really want to give a definitive answer as to what that episode is until I’m finished, but for now…this is absolutely that episode. Holy. Shit. What sins have I committed that warrant experiencing those 21 minutes of raw, unbridled fear? What does Rusty Quill have against me? And why is it that despite how fucking shaken I am, this is absolutely one of my favorite episodes in the entire series? Like, IT HAS NO RIGHT BEING THIS GOOD AFTER WHAT IT JUST DID TO ME. Wow…I’m still processing what I just witnessed. From the moment this episode started, I knew I was in for an experience, and while the plot is fairly simple without a whole lot of moving parts…that just makes it all the more terrifying and brilliant. I…have thoughts on this episode. Boy oh boy, do I have some thoughts. So…let’s just get into it as I try not to scream. Actually, I shouldn’t have to worry about that now that I think about it. After all, no one can hear you scream in space :,).

So the episode starts, and I’m already scared shitless. Usually there’s a bit more of a slow build towards the horror, but NOT HERE. They just threw me right in, and it was horrifying all throughout, yippee! Granted though, I haven’t really felt that since…Burnt Offering, I guess, but the feeling hasn’t been this strong since Hive so…yeah you can probably see why I love this episode so much. Carter’s speech at the beginning…haunted me. Thinking about how tiny and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe is already pretty terrifying to me, but I at least find a little bit of comfort in the idea that we aren’t the only living things out there, that there’s more than just black void out in space. So to have Carter, this man who has seen the horrors of space firsthand immediately refute this idea with such conviction, while still standing by the idea that we are so finite…damn. So already, the episode is off to a great start, but what about the rest of it? Well, a lot of my more in depth thoughts only really come out when you consider what’s revealed to post-statement, so for now I’ll just talk about some neat and terrifying aspects of the episode that I found notable. Firstly, there’s some pretty clever imagery here with the names of certain things. Most people probably know the name of the space station, “Daedalus” as the name the father of Icarus from Greek myth. You know, that guy who knew jack shit about how heat works? Well, Daedalus was also the guy who built the labyrinth, which was notably used to imprison and isolate certain people and monsters. These references to isolation continue with Carter watching “28 Days Later”, a film that deals with such a topic. Just thought those were some cool references. But, on the note of the name Daedalus, I did find it a little bit interesting that one of Carter’s hallucinations was that of the door opening. It’s probably a stretch, but…given how Micheal’s backrooms were kind of reminiscent of the labyrinth, I do wonder if there’s a connection there…hm. But anyways! What about all of the terrifying stuff? Well, I don’t have that much to say about the spacesuit, as I honestly have…no idea what that was supposed to mean, outside of providing false hope of seeing another person, but…everything else was freaky as shit. The earth being gone, the cameras being cut…and the message on the lock. Holy fuck. That will haunt me in my nightmares. “NO ONE IS COMING” is the new “Take her not me”. …I don’t know if the code in the safe has any significance though. And like…can I just talk about how tragic and traumatized of a character Carter is? Like it still amazes me that this show can make episodes about people nailing meat to their walls, and then make THIS, AND BOTH OF THEM STILL WORK REGARDLESS. Just…the fact that this guy was putting in all that effort to get prepared for the experiment, STILL experienced all of that psychological torture, and tried to kill himself in order to get out of what he genuinely considered to be hell (that part also haunted me)…what a poor soul. Honestly my only complaint with this episode was that we never got to learn if Carter was ok or not. I NEED him to be ok. So…yeah, that’s just an assortment of notable observations and things that scared me. But with all of that out of the way, it’s time I talk about the bigger implications. At the end of the episode, we learn that the Daedalus operation was being run by The Fairchilds and The Lukas Family, and at the very least had some involvement from The Divine Host. And..I certainly have some thoughts about this.

I’ll start off by covering The Fairchilds, as they’re probably the least I have to say about in this scenario. Firstly, I do love that the two big rich eldritch horror families are working together, I think that’s pretty funny, but secondly…yeah, their involvement here just makes sense. I don’t have much more to say about it. I mean, it seems like the family definitely serves the being called The Vast, and given that we are in the VAST void of space, it makes perfect sense for them to be involved here, since such an experiment allows them to throw people into an endless void without even having to use cosmic powers, and we already knew that they worked in aerospace so…yeah, it’s not a surprise to know that they were involved. If I had to guess, I’d assume they were responsible for the empty space suit and the earth, sun and moon disappearing, since both of those deal with some sort of emptiness. Outside of that, all we really learn is that they have a collaboration with The Lukas Family, which is pretty interesting. (Side Note, this episode is currently battling with Literary Heights when it comes to what my current favorite episode of the season is, so…yeah, The Vast does good work.) But mentioning The Lukas Family, what about them? Well, to my understanding, they have the biggest involvement in the experiment. I mean, I think The Fairchilds probably did the most when it came to developing Daedalus itself, but the experiment itself was probably manned by The Lukas Family. We already know they have a habit of isolating people, as show in the other two episodes they’ve been involved in, and obviously the experiment was being manned by Conrad Lukas. (Side note: Considering his mention here, as well as the fact he owns the company that the crew of The Tundra works for, I assume that Nathaniel Lukas is likely the “ruler” of The Lukas Family, and if it’s a Manson-esque cult like I think it might be based on vibes, then he would be the cult leader.) So yeah, I definitely think this episode’s threats are mostly provided by The Lukas Family, which includes things like the lock, the clock stopping, Carter’s weird dreams (which are of graveyards and an open sea, both of which relate to one of the previous Lukas episodes each), and…potentially the cutting of the camera, although that could go multiple ways. So yeah, this episode doesn’t give us that much new information on The Lukas Family, but it does still show us a new member, provides a connection to The Fairchilds, and also shows another strange action of theirs, which is more than enough. But before I get on to the final group, I have a couple of other things I want to briefly discuss. Those things are the food, and the other crew members.

Now, I don’t exactly know what group or power was responsible for infinitely restocking the food, but I think I might have a hunch as to what the food was doing. It’s implied that when Carter nearly starved himself to death, his colleagues took him back to Earth before he died, but I have to wonder if that’s not the case. You see, so much of what happened to Carter…shouldn’t be possible. Obviously The Fairchilds and The Lukas Family set some things up, and can make paranormal things happen, but as far as we’re concerned, none of them were actually onboard so…how would you get all of this weird stuff to happen when there’s no one who can make it happen. Well…there might be an answer to this. Some other people also pointed out something similar in the YouTube comments but…I have to wonder if Daedalus was just a simulation. I know that is a bold claim, but think about it. In a simulation, anything as illogical as what happened on the station could happen perfectly fine, without needing a Fairchild or Lukas on board. So maybe…the food was keeping Carter inside the simulation, and when he stopped eating he simply woke up. It’s still entirely possible that he did starve himself, and that he really was in space, and that his colleagues did bring him back down…but I really like the simulation idea. It makes the whole thing even more tragic and terrifying, because it would mean that Carter never even got to go to space in the first place…which admittedly might be a blessing for him nowadays, but still. And then we have the matter of the the other two astronauts. There’s two possibilities when it comes to what role they play here. The simplest answer is to assume that they were just there in case of emergency, maybe also there to make Carter’s despair greater, since he KNEW there were others outside his confinement. But the thing is, they apparently were also there to do their own experiments, and while that could be a lie…I have to wonder. You see, there’s likely three factions, each serving one of ✨the horrors✨, in charge of the Daedalus operation, yet Carter’s experiment has a clear bias towards The Lukas Family and their desire to isolate. So, what if the other two astronauts were being put through their own torture experiments by The Fairchilds and The Divine Host respectively? And if Daedalus is actually just a simulation…what if they’re still in there? I mean, Carter never ACTUALLY saw them, so…I genuinely do not know. This idea can go either ways, and both of them make me squirm with fear. But with all of those theories out of the way, we have but one more thing to talk about, that being The Divine Host.

So, The Divine Host isn’t actually mentioned by name here, but they absolutely have some level of involvement with what’s going on. This is because Optic Solutions Ltd., the company that provided the cameras, are stationed in Ny-Ålesund. Ny-Ålesund was mentioned in Growing Dark, an episode that VERY clearly featured The Divine Host (or whatever it’s called nowadays), and was listed as the coldest place in the world where the nights are longest. Natalie Ennis kind of implied that the church was going somewhere, so I suspect that Ny-Ålesund is where they’re stationed nowadays…likely to do something very bad. Now, it’s entirely possible that The Divine Host’s involvement here is the same as that of The Fairchilds and The Lukas Family. They’ve launched people into space or a simulation, and want to do some freaky experiments. That makes perfect sense, and I’d assume they’re responsible for…well, obviously the cameras, but probably the 20 minute blackout as well. However…I have to wonder if their involvement was a little bit more antagonistic. Obviously they were involved in the experiment but…maybe not in the same way as the other two groups. You see, I just find it weird that The Divine Host would go out of its way to set up a camera, and then secretly cut the wires to make Carter feel more isolated, not only because that’s kind of elaborate and unnecessary, but also because the isolation is more of a Lukas Family thing. Sure, it could pray on the fear of being alone in the dark but…I don’t know, it’s weird. And mentioning that, outside of the darkness of space, The Divine Host seems to have the least reason to be involved this experiment. Hell, even when the earth, sun and moon disappeared, there were still shining stars visible. So I’m just think that while the idea that they’re working alongside the other two groups makes sense, it’s also possible that maybe…maybe they were trying to sabotage the experiment. Maybe they set up the camera in an attempt to lessen Carter’s isolation, but it was later cut by The Lukas Family. Maybe the blackout was a result of them trying to cut the experiment short. And this makes more sense when you consider the fact that even though The Magnus Institute isn’t really involved with this experiment, The Lukas Family, who is, is a strong ally of the institute. And assuming that the institute connects to the eye monster in Alexandria, and that the Divine Host opposes that monster due to their closed eye symbol…then they’d have every reason to go after a faction that allies itself with their enemy. And OH MY GOD, I just remembered that someone in the YouTube comments pointed out that maybe The Divine Host killed Gertrude, since screams were heard coming from Hither Green Chapel on the day of her death, and as archivist for the institute she’s probably be their enemy, and…ajdjfhejhfjdjsjdjjfjdjjd. ….Ok, I’m absolutely spiraling out of control here. Simply put, I find The Divine Host’s involvement here the most interesting overall, and I think it could easily go in multiple different directions. It’s connections to The Fairchilds, The Lukas Family and likely The Magnus Institute are all very interesting, and I’m just very excited to see everything start coming together.

Wow. What an episode. This is at the very least my second favorite episode of Season 2 after Literary Heights, and it might even top that. The main character and themes of isolation and mental trauma were both relatable and absolutely terrifying for me, the connections between different factions it provides are all extremely interesting, and I really hope to see more of Daedalus in the future. As for the supplemental…well, there’s definitely quite a few things worth mentioning here. Firstly, I’ve noticed that Jon is getting a lot sloppier when it comes to hiding his activity. His meeting with Elias, as well as him admitting he doesn’t trust his assistants on a main recording once was already something, but this is just reckless and…I’m very concerned by that. Secondly, his dialogue here implies a future statement regarding Hill Top Road and the children who lived in that house, which is super exciting! Hill Top Road hasn’t shown up since Episode 19/20, and the children haven’t been mentioned since Episode 8. It’s a very interesting part of the lore to me, and hopefully I’ll learn more about what happened to all the kids living there soon enough. But while that’s all intriguing…we then have Not!Sasha. Firstly…it is CERTAINLY interesting that she asked Jon not to record their conversations. Why is that? Hm? Is it because the audio is weird? CARE TO ELABORATE?! As for the items in her desk, well, the ripped paper could be anything, from scrap to actual torn apart documents (I’m implied to believe the latter, unfortunately), and as for her boyfriend…well there’s a few possible explanations for that. Tom, if that is his “real” name, is described as looking like a stock photo. I hope he too is some sort of monster, but it’s also possible he’s like…a wax figure or something, or maybe Not!Sasha is just editing herself into stock photos, idk. Either way…her behavior is as concerning as ever. So yeah…that sure was an episode. …I’m going to go curl up into a hall now, I think I’ve been a bit too scared today…

Supplemental: Regarding the idea of The Divine Host killing Gertrude, it does seem a little bit obvious, and I’m still most suspicious of Elias, but I will admit that it’s a pretty compelling argument and it makes me suspicious.

- Episode 58, Trail Rations🍴

Unsigned statement regarding potential cannibalism while attempting to travel the Oregon Trail.

…That was nothing like the Starkid musical :(. No lobsters whatsoever. Ok, self indulgent jokes aside, this was a pretty decent one. I don’t have TOO much to say about it, (which is fine given how much I’ve been saying about recent episodes), but I still thought it was a pretty good…if pretty disgusting episode. It definitely has one of the best and most unique framing devices so far, an interesting protagonist and plot line, and a couple of potential connections to other episodes as well. Unfortunately though…my thoughts are just kind of simple, so my commentary will be noticeably more brief than usual. But, with all of that out of the way, let’s talk about yet another episode that displays a normal life in America!

Starting off, I have to say that one of my favorite aspects of this episode is by far the general premise. If you’ve had a U.S. education, then you’ve inevitably read at least a couple of excerpts from Oregon Trail journals, (and also probably played the game based on them, which is a certified classic), so you would therefore know that they are historically freaky as shit. Like. GOD. The things that happen there are…yikes. So I’m very happy that they decided to make an episode based on it, since it feels like a great thing to take inspiration from. And honestly, it really does read like an actual Oregon Trail journal…just if the circumstances were even more dire. Oh god, and speaking of that writing style, what about that opening. I always love it when tma displays the psychological state of its protagonists, and the opening did a really great job doing so. Anyways, what about the statement itself? Well, another thing I really liked about it was the protagonist, Mrs. Carlisle. It’s always a pleasure to have a genuinely intelligent protagonist in any horror story (hence why we stan Joshua Gillespie) and I really liked how she was portrayed as the smartest person in the story, as I feel that’s an unfortunate rarity among women in old-timey stories. It’s just a shame that she was too late to save her husband, I honestly felt really bad for her. As for the rest…well, I thought Eustace Wick was a pretty intimidating, if kind of fun antagonist, and the part where Benjamin tells his wife to eat him after death…yikes. That was…certainly morbid. Lastly, I did really like the ambiguity on Mrs. Carlisle’s fate, while it seems unlikely it does give me hope she survived, and I do have other reasons to believe that which I’ll get into in a second. And…yeah! That’s about it for my general thoughts on the episode. It’s just a very brutal and sad tale about one of the most brutal and sad journeys in U.S. history, with a great framing device and protagonist. I like it! But, there are definitely some notable connections to previous episodes, so I’ll make sure to go over that.

So, starting off, I definitely think that this episode connects to the member of ✨the horrors✨ with a relation to bones and meat, and that Eustace Wick is a servant of it. Granted, he doesn’t display supernatural abilities like The Boneturner, but his prayer towards meat instead of Jesus makes me think he definitely serves this being, and that cannibalism is a part of the process. But that prayer actually adds a new element to this body horror thing, that being an…oddly religious one. This whole religious aesthetic is very present throughout the entire episode, and I find it pretty interesting. Granted, there are multiple cults that seemingly serve different powers, but none of them really take much from real-world religions as far as I’m concerned, outside of Asag being a Sumerian demon. This however…is very overtly Christian in its aesthetic, and I just find that kind of interesting. It also REALLY reminds me of Confession and Desecrated Host. These episodes are among the few that prominently feature Christianity so far, and if you recall, Edwin Burroughs ends up committing cannibalism after having his mind plagued by ✨the horrors✨. It does make me wonder if maybe the college students he ate also compelled him to, at least through his point of view, but unlike Mrs. Carlisle he actually gave in. The only problem is that I think he was being plagued by Asag, due to the amount of heat in Hill Top Road, and I’d be surprised in Asag and the body horror thing are the same. Then again, it’s possible Edwin was subjected to multiple members of ✨the horrors✨, since there was an eye in the window of the church he saw, he walked through a twisted version of his home like Antonio Blake, and the whole thing was seemingly influenced by Breekon and Hope, who are seemingly most allied with The Other Circus, not Asag, so…I don’t know, I could definitely see there being a connection here with religious cannibalism. Another connection that everyone and their mother has pointed out is the last name of our protagonist and her husband, that being “Carlisle”. This is notable as we have already heard that name via Toby Carlisle, who conveniently also showed up in the 18th episode of a season, and had connections to meat. So, I am definitely of the impression that Toby Carlisle is a descendant of our protagonist, which is why I suspect she might have actually survived and made her way to Oregon in the end, but I guess only time will tell if that’s the case. But if that’s the case, then it makes me believe that whatever Eustace was working with…followed her even after she let the cave, and might have continued to haunt her family centuries down the line. The main question posed by Jon in The Man Upstairs was where Toby got the meat…and nowadays, I definitely think that the meat…got him. And lastly, we have what is probably the biggest point of interest here, that being…why in the hell is this journal even here. Mrs. Carlisle never submitted a statement to The Magnus Institute, and yet it is still here within the archives. So…what the fuck. This means that Jonah Magnus, or maybe someone working for him, went out of their way to go to some random cave in Idaho or whatever, and retrieve this journal that, by all means, might not even be paranormal at a first glance. Obviously what happened was terrifying, but Eustace could’ve just been some random psychopath, and Benjamin telling his wife to eat him could’ve easily been written off as hallucinations derived from starvation, fatigue or trauma. We only know it’s paranormal because Jon has to record it on tape, meaning it is very real and important. But like…what the fuck was going on with Jonah? Why and how did he find this single journal inside of some guy’s corpse? Why was it so important? WHAT DID HE KNOW AND WHAT WAS HIS PROBLEM?! God…I’ve got nothing against overworked Victorian men that possess potentially homosexual relationships with their correspondences, but you are all so annoying god bless.

Well…that was a short one. Yeah…I do quite like this episode as a fun individual tale, but I just don’t have much to say about it that isn’t already blatantly obvious. Still though, I’m glad I was able to glean the information I was able to, and it definitely does bring up some interesting revelations about Jonah and the meat. As for the supplemental…oh thank god they’ve suggested therapy. I mean, it’s a shame it hasn’t exactly worked, but I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking that. Also, I now just feel really shitty for kind of forgetting about Tim. Granted, it’s hard to when you’re listening to what’s going on with Jon all the time, but…yeah, Tim also got pretty fucked up, didn’t he! AND THE FACT THAT HIM WORRYING MAKES JON MORE SUSPICIOUS GRRRRR. Either way, I’m glad that him and Martin are trying to do something to help him…I still think knocking him out with a brick would be a good idea but that might just be me. And on one final note…I-I still can’t get over the fact that revealing he lied on his résumé was what Martin needed to make Jon trust him. That is…possibly the funniest workplace scenario I’ve ever heard. Recording ends or whatever.

Supplemental: I said this one was exceptionally short, but then I looked back at my first of these posts and…yeah nevermind I’m actually pretty satisfied with the length here. Me three months ago was a little coward who couldn’t be bothered to write anything meaningful down lmao. …Or maybe I was just a lot more sane I don’t know.

- Episode 59, Recluse 🍏

Statement of Ronald Sinclair, regarding his years spent in a teenage halfway house on Hill Top Road, Oxford.

HOLY FUCK. HOOOOOOOOOLLLLLY FUCK. I. WHAT. I’M GOING ABSOLUTELY INSANE I AM AT MY FUCKING LIMIT WHAT THE FUCK. Hold on, I should stop using the devil’s tongue, lest Raymond Fielding throw me to the spiders. I…I am not ok. This episode…did so much. It gave so many answers but also SO many questions, validated one of my earliest theories, and…well it’s just making me spiral out of control. It was absolutely fantastic all things considered, but…oh my god. I’m pretty proud of myself for keeping up with things up until this point, but…am I even going to be able to do that anymore? Is this some kind of sick joke being played by god to punish me for my hubris, where he sends me into the never ending chasm of knowledge as I search for the answers at the bottom that doesn’t exist? ANSWER ME YOU SICK BASTARD. So…I’m happy we got another Hill Top Road statement! Definitely a very interesting part of the lore to me but…wow that’s a lot of lore. Unfortunately, I was being an inconclusive little coward when I wrote my “thoughts” on the other Hill Top Road statements, so before I get into the events of this episode and the truckload of implications it provides, I’m going to a brief overview of what’s currently known about this house and it’s history, as it’s very important to understanding what happens here. So…let’s start with a brief recap. May god have mercy on my mind. …How dare Jonny jumpscare me after the Oregon Trail cannibalism episode.

So, what did we know about Hill Top Road before this episode? Well, the house was bought by Walter Fielding in 1891, inherited by Alfred Fielding in 1924 and then inherited again by Raymond Fielding in 1957. Raymond was a devout churchgoer who used the house as a place where teenage runaways and young people with mental problems could stay and be rehabilitated. At some point in time, a young girl named Agnes showed up, who some presumed to be Raymond’s actual daughter. When she showed up, more and more of the kids living there disappeared, until it was just her and Raymond when she was a young adult, with the latter saying all of the other kids had simply moved on. Eventually, Raymond disappeared, followed by a few local pets and a five-year old boy. In 1974, a week after the boy disappeared, the house burnt down, with Raymond’s corpse being found within, his hand severed. Agnes was nowhere to be found. Now, the timeline gets a little bit tricky here, since Ivo Lensik and Edwin Burroughs’s statements do not line up chronologically, seemingly due to mistakes on the writer’s part. I’m just going to go with Ivo’s statement for simplicity’s sake, so let’s just say that in 2006, Ivo Lensik started re-construction on the dilapidated house, eventually tearing down the tree in the backyard and destroying the box beneath it. He also met a man who claimed to be Raymond Fielding, who observed the tree in the backyard, before leaving the house with singes on the floor. On the same day, Edwin Burroughs seemingly reached the peak of his demonic possession and insanity, which eventually led to him cannibalizing two college students and being given two life sentences at HMP Wakefield. He also lost the ability to say words like “God” or “Jesus”, and to do prayer. According to Martin, one Agnes Montague was found to have hung herself in Sheffield on the day of Ivo tearing down the tree, with a severed hand (presumably that of Raymond Fielding) tied to her waist, seemingly having died the same day she did. However, this Agnes was aged 26, which could not have been the same age as the Agnes who lived on Hill Top Road. And I’m just going to say it right now: I think Ms. Montague is a younger relative of the Agnes on Hill Top Road, and that the reason Raymond’s hand was said to have died the day she did was because Raymond only truly died either when he left the house for one last time, or when Edwin performed an exorcism, and that man who claimed to be him was indeed a ghost. So…yeah. Quite the complicated history surrounding this place. In short, there was a creepy house with two creepy people, it burned down killing one of them, the fate of the other is up in the air although someone who at the very least has connections to her died in 2006, and now the house is dilapidated and haunted as all hell. Overall a mysterious history, but while we are still missing a lot of pieces, this episode gave a lot more insight into what was going on here. So, let’s FINALLY get into it, as well as my overall thoughts on this…absolute ride of a story.

First of all, I just want to say I’m very happy that we got this statement two episodes after it was teased, because I never want to have to bear the burden of waiting 10 episodes for Hive ever again. Anyways, going over the basics first, this episode comes from the perspective of Ronald Sinclair, one of the teenagers who stayed at the house during the 60’s. Not only does this give us a look at what Hill Top Road was like before it burned down, which is just really cool, and makes the other statements even creepier now that we know what happened, but it also made me realize…man. I hate the justice system! Like, I know that Ronald was somewhat troublesome, but that is not how you treat abused children. Actually, how did they not figure out what was going on when the children disappeared? Like…did they just not care to go looking for them. Or was there a more sinister answer….oh no. Anyways, I felt really bad for Ronald, and I’m not surprised that he’s still suffering from the trauma to this day. And that is…pretty much all of the surface level thoughts I have on this episode. Yeah, this one is just so full of back to back reveals and implications that I really don’t have much more to say outside of my wild speculation so…I might as well just get into the real meat right now. The main thing this episode does for us is reveal more about the relationship between Raymond Fielding and Agnes. Initially, Burned Out kind of led me to believe that Raymond was a victim of the creepy girl named Agnes, but now we know that while there’s still quite a lot of mystery surrounding the latter, that information was meant to deceive, and the truth is quite the opposite. So let’s talk about…what the fuck is even happening.

I’m just going to cut to the chase: Raymond Fielding was a massive dick. And also a servant of ✨the horrors✨. Seemingly the one associated with spiders. So, at the end of this episode, we learn that Raymond was secretly killing the children who “left” the house, and then started using their bodies as egg sacks for spiders. First of all…ew. Second of all…WHAT?! This was…a very shocking reveal, especially with its timing in the episode, but it also just makes my brain go WILD. Like…WHY was he doing this? What is the purpose of having all of these spiders? How did the authorities never find out? How many children did he kill? What about his ancestors before him? I just…SSDHHJGGGHHH. Now, Raymond’s methods seem to mostly tie into the table…but that’s its own can of worms, so I’ll get into that later. All I’m saying is that this man was absolutely terrifying, and I am GLAD that he’s seemingly dead for real now. But while this is certainly a shocking reveal, it also reveals some interesting new information about the spiders. They’re tied to control. You see, throughout the episode Ronald and other kids…didn’t necessarily feel like they were being controlled, but just…urged to do things that they usually wouldn’t do. And while I’m glad that an eldritch god still cares about good hygiene and morals…kind of, this was still creepy as fuck, and at the end, Ronald is DEFINITELY being mind controlled as he head into Raymond’s basement. (Side note: I will never not think of Micheal whenever there’s mentions of a creepy door opening.) So this is clearly another power of Raymond’s, but it also applies to the spiders in general. For example, in Arachnophobia, Carlos Vittery was forced to kill the spider from his childhood over and over again, until eventually meeting a fate…very similar to his friends. In Children of the Night, Trevor felt a very similar compulsion when he met the anonymous lady filled with spiders, and Jonathan Archivist Sims himself was compelled to smash a spider on his wall for…no apparent reason, which then led to the worst day of his life (so far.) And while these incidents didn’t involve spiders all that much, need I remind you that Ivo Lensik destroyed the tree out of a strange compulsion, and that Edwin Burroughs said words against his will, and both of those incidents took place at Hill Top Road. So…yeah, the spiders definitely have this interesting relationship with control, and as much as I like to and still will do my best to connect Micheal to everything (please come back baby I miss you so much)…I might unfortunately have to agree with Not!Sasha describing the pattern on the table as a web. I no longer think she was just saying that due to her personal relationship with it…I think she was telling the truth. So yeah! Raymond Fielding was a shitty spider man with mind control powers, how delightful! But while this is…obviously very terrifying, we can at least find some solace in the fact that there was one person who could combat him. That person was dear old Agnes. Holy shit, where to begin with Agnes.

Like I said, I was initially unnerved by Agnes, even in this episode. I thought that Raymond was a sweet old man who ended up being one of Agnes’ numerous victims. Now, while she is still a little bit spooky, I realize that the truth was the stark opposite. Agnes showed up at Hill Top Road two months before Ronald was to “leave”, which seems to discredit the idea that Raymond was her actual father, unless his motivation for murdering children was divorce. If she’s not his actual daughter, then her appearance there is all the more strange, because…why? Well, either way, I’m glad she showed up, because before Ronald left, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. And later on, right before he was about to become a spider nest, said cheek erupted in hot searing pain, and broke him from Raymond’s control. This shows us that Agnes was a hero, and hopefully means that no children after Ronald died…although I’d still be cautious of that assumption. But this gets me thinking about Agnes’ power. You see, I initially thought Hill Top Road was associated with Asag, due to the whole heat thing going on. Now, you’d assume that after this episode I’d come to the conclusion that the house is haunted by the spiders, but hear me out for a second…why not both? Agnes herself is anything but a servant of the spiders, and has these connections to heat, so what if there’s actually TWO beings haunting Hill Top Road. Both Asag and the spiders reside there, residual forces left behind by Agnes and Raymond, who burn and control those who come into their house. It’s interesting that someone so young could forge a connection to such a powerful and horrific force, and I have to wonder if she even connects to that mysterious cult at all, since she doesn’t seem to be a member. Either way, it’s very interesting that we now have two members of ✨the horrors✨ who are weak to heat and fire…makes me wonder more about how The Flesh Hive and the spiders are connected…also why the hell was Raymond a churchgoer if he was clearly worshiping something else? Or was he not? Was it all just a ruse to keep the neighbor’s suspicions at bay? Or was the church also full of spider worshippers? Is that why the neighbors all hated the children? WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON IN THIS HOUSE?! …did you know that Basira’s colleague Daisy mentioned spider husk people in MAG 43? Idk, where else am I going to mention that? So yeah, Agnes was definitely a much better person then I anticipated…but this relationship between her and Raymond still leaves a lot to be desired. While this episode sheds a lot of light on what was going on when Hill Top Road was still a halfway house…there’s also quite a bit that needs to be unpacked about it’s future. There’s a lot left to understand. And I am GOING to understand.

So, welcome to the ✨theoretical timeline of Raymond Fielding’s halfway house on Hill Top Road, Oxford until further notice✨, starting after Ronald Sinclair escaped from his spidery clutches. So, according to Anna Kasuma, all of the children left (or were killed) when Agnes was 18 or 19, with it just being her or Raymond in the house, so that’s roughly eight years after she first arrived and started saving people, starting off with Ronald. …And that also means that she was there past the age she was supposed to leave, making her appearance there blatantly different from that of every other child. Now, Raymond clearly knew that something was…off with Agnes, and I doubt it would’ve taken him eight whole years to realize how she was helping people. So why didn’t he just…kill her? Well, Ronald thought that Raymond was afraid of her, and I’m inclined to agree. If Agnes’ power was capable of severing the control over the kids, then I think it’s safe to say that Raymond knew not to trifle with her out of fear for his own life. I think they spent the next eight years locked in a stalemate, where Raymond kept on trying to kill his kids (that is a sentence), and Agnes kept on trying to save them. (lmao, imagine being weak in the face of an eleven year old, get fucked bozo). It’s said that around this time, Raymond went missing, followed by local pets and a five year old boy. Now, Burned Out made me suspect Agnes was behind this, and I mean…that could still be the case. I can’t say with certainty that Agnes was 100% good, I mean she does have eldritch god powers and looks like the twins from The Shining. But…I still think this was Raymond’s doing. Because, think about it for a moment. Raymond’s body was found in his house, meaning that he couldn’t have gone far. And according to Ronald, he was a recluse who never left the house outside of church, to the point where neighbors would often worry about him. If Raymond simply stopped going to church, which he very well could’ve given that there was no one to go with at this point, then people might’ve just proclaimed him missing because they never saw him anymore. So, maybe those pets and that young boy ended up becoming his new prey now that the house was almost empty. And while I can excuse child murder, I draw the line at animal cruelty. Fuck you Raymond, everyone hates you. (If you’re wondering why I hate him so much more than any other antagonist so far…I don’t know, I need someone to vehemently hate so it might as well be him.) Anyways, it was after the disappearance of the young boy that the house burned down, and I’m inclined to attribute this to Agnes due to her likely connections to Asag. I think she burned the house down, killing Raymond in the process, and fled with his severed hand for…some reason. However, due to the fact that the place was home to two servants of eldritch gods…things probably god freaky. Whatever powers Raymond and Agnes served still lay dormant in that abandoned house to this day, burning and controlling whoever walks inside, explaining what happened to Ivo and Edwin. Finally, we have the matter of Raymond and Agnes’ fates, along with…that tree. That damned tree. I…still have no idea what the fuck is up with this thing. It’s like…THE thing that this episode avoided giving answers on. Still though, I’ll try to rationalize what I can, although this is where my thoughts get a lot more muddy.

So, Raymond seemingly persisted as ghost into the future, and I personally think he was tied to the tree. It would explain why the tree was bleeding, and also why his box was underneath it, although why, when, and how he was tethered to it, as well as who tethered him to it and put the box underneath (who is most likely Agnes but that’s still subject to change), is a complete mystery. Either way, I think Ivo’s destruction of the tree and box, Edwin’s exorcism, or both is what led to Raymond truly dying, explaining why what is presumably his hand was found to have died on the day Ivo and Edwin visited. This is very very speculative, but it’s the best I can do when trying to rationalize the timeline. As for Agnes…she’s even MORE difficult to pin down! I initially said that I think Agnes Montague is not the same person as the Agnes from Hill Top Road, but is still related, likely biologically. This is because she was of an age much younger than Hill Top’s Agnes should’ve been. However, I will concede that there’s a slight possibility she is the ghost of Hill Top’s Agnes in the same way as Raymond, explaining why she looks 26, as she wouldn’t have really aged. However, I think there are a few flaws in this way of thinking. First of all, assuming that Hill Top burned down around the time Agnes was 18 or 19, the chances of her being 26 and dying in the burnt down house are ultimately hard to pin down. It’s not impossible for that to be the case, but I can’t be certain. Secondly, I’m playing by traditional ghost rules when discussing Raymond, in that I believe he was bound to the tree, and the house by extension. But Ms. Montague was found dead in a Sheffield, so she can’t really work in the same way as Raymond in this scenario. And finally, Ms. Montague had an actual tangible body after death, where as Raymond, assuming he only truly died after Ivo and Edwin arrived, did not as far as I am aware. So the idea of Agnes also truly dying due to Ivo and Edwin’s actions seems a bit far fetched to me. So, I’m still sticking with my original theory here. That theory is that Agnes Montague is a descendant of the Agnes on Hill Top Road, who was given Raymond’s hand, and died on the same day Ivo tore down the tree for mysterious reasons. And…that’s about it! In short, Raymond and Agnes were quietly beefing with each other for eight years, give or take, Agnes burnt down Hill Top Road, killing Raymond and stealing his hand, left behind two eldritch gods, a creepy tree and Raymond’s ghost, said ghost was dealt with when Ivo Lensik and Edwin Burroughs visited the dilapidated house, and Agnes Montague, a descendant of Hill Top Agnes, hung herself on that same day with Raymond’s hand on her waist. This is…extremely bold of me to make. I only do this because much like Micheal, Hill Top Road is something that is very clearly important with tons of connections to other things, but is also extremely difficult to rationalize at the moment. So…I’m just going to take whatever headcanons I have on Hill Top as fact when writing these until further notice, and then use those headcanons to craft theories that’ll probably end up being wrong. Overall, there is still a lot to learn and a lot of questions to be answered. Like, what’s Raymond’s history? What’s his motivations? What’s Agnes’ history and her motivations? What happened when Ronald left? What is up with the GOD. FORSAKEN. TREE?! All of this is very interesting and I’m very excited, but also terrified of uncovering the truth behind this creepy house and its creepy residents. …But do you want to know what the funny things is. We’re STILL. NOT. DONE. Because there is one last thing. One thing that I have neglected to mention. The thing that from now on will haunt my every waking moment until death. The fearsome, gruesome, UTTERLY TERRIFYING…

tabel :-)

Let me just start off by saying that: I WAS SO FUCKING RIGHT!!! One of if not my single oldest standing theory I’ve had while listening was that the box underneath the tree was the missing piece of the table, and finally, after FIFTY-ONE episodes of waiting for the answer, I FINALLY HAVE IT CONFIRMED. THAT IS SO FUCKING GRATIFYING YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Part of why I love this episode is because it really makes it feel like I’ve gotten to a point where so much is starting to come together, and that tiny little reveal was just the icing on the cake for me. But enough gloating…this stupid piece of wood. WHY MUST YOU HAUNT EVERY LITTLE CREVICE I TRY TO HIDE IN YOU SICK FREAK?! So…this is an interesting episode in regards to the table, in that it is the only one to have it, while also not featuring the impersonator. Now, I can think of a few reasons for this. You see, Not!Sasha described the pattern on the table as a web, which I do believe now due to Raymond’s powers, but there’s also a lot that suggests she said that because the table has trapped her, she must go wherever it goes. So, it’s possible that at this point in time she just…wasn’t bound to it. However, it’s worth noting that in all statements that feature the impersonator, the box is missing from the center. So maybe the impersonator was inside the table, but due to the presence of the box, its bindings were even stronger than usual, to the point where it couldn’t even take anyone. And as for the final potential theory, which is COMPLETE crack; I just think it would be kind of cool if maybe the impersonator was like…the souls of all of the children being used as egg sacks. Like they all got sucked into the table, and start taking over other people’s lives in order to get their own ones back. There’s like…a two percent chance that this is the case but I thought it was an interesting idea. Ultimately, all this really does is make the timeline more confusing…and also makes me think the impersonator doesn’t have a good relationship with spiders. And speaking of which, I feel like it’s worth mentioning how Raymond utilizes the table himself. I think his having everyone gather around it on Sundays was basically his way of keeping control over them, and that maybe the table was what gave him this ability in the first place. Since it’s capable of binding the impersonator on its own, maybe he learned how to harness its power and use it on the children. It’s also pretty clear that the apple in the box is what ultimately caused all of those kids to die and become egg sacks…but given how Ivo destroyed the thing I don’t know if we have to worry about that anymore. But I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is that the table is a weapon. It can be used for good purposes like binding the impersonator (which has backfired multiple times but like…it’s better than just letting it run rampant), but can also be used for sinister purposes like mind control. And given how it’s in the institute as we speak…well, I can only hope that it’ll be used for good going forward. But…UGH there’s so much that its presence here opens up! Like, how do Breekon and Hope fit into all of this? At what point did they bring the table to Graham Folger and then the institute? How many other people was it brought to, if at all. Why was the box separated from it? And why didn’t Jon mention it post-statement?! I….SSTFYGFTUUJGREEERTTYYUUIIUIKJFEWWERYUKKKLL!!!!

Well…that was certainly an episode of The Magnus Archives, a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill, and licensed under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share alike 4.0 international license. There is a LOT that I did not touch on in this episode, and probably a bajillion things that haven’t even occurred to me. Hopefully though, I’ll touch on those in the future when they’re appropriate to bring up. And like I said, Hill Top Road is like another Micheal to me (oh god…the table…and the fractals with Ivo’s dad OH NO) with how it just feels like it connects to EVERYTHING. The history of this house, Raymond, Agnes and just…everything that surrounds it is so mystifying to me. I feel as if I’m staring into the face of an endless void as we speak, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Hopefully I will get answers regarding this house soon, but for now…uuuuggghhhh someone save me before I have to give in and become a Jon kinnie. Oh, and speaking of Jon, what about the post-statement and supplemental? Well, we learn that for whatever reason, information regarding Hill Top Road has been largely lost or damaged, which is…concerning. I get the feeling that further information on this house must be…pretty heavy stuff if it’s all been destroyed. Jon also mentions Martin’s fondness for spiders here, which we already knew about but…it’s a bit more strange to me nowadays. I don’t want to be too suspicious of him, especially after he delivered the most legendary plot twist of all time, but I still find it to be an interesting little quirk of his. Lastly, we learn in the supplemental that everyone’s avoiding Jon. And while I do feel bad for him, truly…yeah no shit. I mean I’m sorry sweetheart but you’re not exactly being subtle in your investigations, you shouldn’t be all that surprised by this. …oh dear god. I reach the mid season finale tomorrow…please just be somewhat digestible….

Supplemental: oooooohhhh spooky

- Episode 60, The Observer Effect🪞

Statement of Rosa Meyer, concerning a persistent feeling of being watched.

Well…here it is. The mid-season finale of Season 2. Now, while this episode isn’t quite as grand and shocking to me as Desecrated Host, it is a very, VERY intriguing one. The statement is one of, if not the shortest one yet, which is fair as it needs to make room for the fairly lengthy supplemental, but it does seemingly help to further verify a few of my theories, brings up some interesting new ideas, has some VERY a interesting implications on a thematic level, and it definitely feels like it’s pushing the story into…I guess, another phase or something like that. While I think that this is a solid way to end off the first half of the season, I might not have as much to say about the plot of the statement as I do for some others, as while it is definitely very intriguing, it doesn’t have nearly as many shocking revelations as an episode like the last one for example, just adds to some things that were already implied or suspected. But that’s absolutely fine! Hell, I think I needed something to take my mind off of piecing together Hill Top Road lore, so this is more than welcome. But enough preamble, let’s get into the episode that was…oddly personal to me, but like…personal in a really weird way…yeah…

So, I kind of just want to start off by answering why this episode was so…personal to me. Because it’s really weird. It’s not personal in the same way episodes like Lost in the Crowd or Personal Space are, as while this episode did scare me quite a bit, it wasn’t on a deep, psychologically personal level. No, the reason it’s personal is just a lot more simple. It’s personal because not only do I live in Norwich, (which isn’t that big of a deal, I mean it was bound to show up in tma eventually)…but my dad edits for BBC Look East. …The same show Rosa Meyers, the protagonist of this episode, presented for. So like, this episode doesn’t affect me that deeply, but it just felt…WEIRDLY targeted by how well it lined up with a notable part of my family and I’s lives, and that’s already gained this episode a special place in my heart. Ok, that’s enough of revealing personal details that’ll hopefully not bite me in the ass during future job applications. What about the actual plot of the statement? Starting off, can I get a YIPPEE for our FOURTH cold opening in a row?! HOORAY FOR TRAUMA!!! The whole opening segment…is just so incredibly well performed on Jonny’s part. He always does a great job portraying statement givers in distress, but honestly, this single scene might just be the second best example of this after, like, all of Hive. He REALLY sold how distressed Rosa was when giving this statement, and I fully believed that she was spiraling and breaking down as she wrote it. I’m also really happy that the episode allows this whole breakdown to take up a decent amount of time, as not only does it hint at Rosa being a…somewhat unusual statement giver, but it also helps to drive home what I believe is the main point of the episode, although I’ll get into that later. Anyways, the opening is great, and honestly managed to tap into my own fears of being watched with how visceral the voice acting was. Going forward, we learn about how Rosa gained this feeling after doing inventory for her deceased brother’s estate. And based on the way she described his stroke, as well as what he was involved with…I mean yeah I doubt he died normally. The man was clearly digging very deep into things he probably shouldn’t have, so I think that “stroke” was actually something much more sinister. Oddly enough, his death reminds me of that of Ivo’s father in Episode 8, and Paul McKenzie in Episode 27, both of whom died in seemingly normal ways that had much more sinister undertones. I was also a little bit unnerved by her sibling-rivalry comments on Christopher, which I’m 99% sure doesn’t mean anything, but…Lost Johns’ Cave did things to me so….yeah. Anyways, we also learn here that Christopher Meyers was doing research into ancient religious artifacts, which is obviously…a very interesting thing to mention given the presence of cults and artifacts throughout the podcast. He even wrote about vampires at one point too… This weirdness is backed up later when we learn that he was doing research into “outer cults” and their practices, which I can only assume refers to things like The Divine Host, The Cult of Asag, The Other Circus and more. All of it seems to further suggest that the driving force behind this plot is a war between ✨the horrors✨. It’s all very peculiar, and given his mysterious death…as well as the fact we learn he was consulting with The Magnus Institute for unknown reasons, I definitely think that Christopher Meyer will hold some significance later. This statement was given in 1972, meaning that not even James Wright, Elias’ predecessor, would’ve been in charge at this point, and it’s very possible that Gertrude wasn’t either. So I assume it’ll be fairly hard to dig up information on Christopher…but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Anyways, going back to Rosa, it’s here that she opens one of Christopher’s boxes, and finds the note and mirror that lead to her being watched and gaining extreme paranoia. (By the way, I learned after listening that the title of the episode refers to a phenomenon where you alter the behavior/state of whatever you see, simply by just observing it. Just thought that was pretty cool.) Admittedly, I’m not all that concerned about the note and the mirror in terms of what they could do. The mirror’s shattered now, and either the note can’t act without the mirror or is just kind of creepy, so I’m more concerned about where exactly Christopher even got it…and what it might’ve done to him. Breekon, Hope and Mikaele Salesa obviously have a reputation of handing out creepy artifacts…but I’m more concerned by the possibility he got it from The Magnus Institute itself. And unfortunately…I think that might be the case. You see, this mirror and Rosa’s following experiences have to be tied to the eye horror, because what else it going to be? This horror has always stuck out to me because of how little it seems to show up compared to other ones…but maybe that’s by design. This thing is an observer, a spectator by nature, so it naturally doesn’t get involved all that much, unless someone directly triggers it to, or it’s being…carried around by someone like Gerard. And I think that nature is why it connects to The Magnus Institute, why it likely makes its home there, because the institute is the means through which we are told these stories. Most of the people who are working there don’t directly connect back to the statements themselves (at least as far as we know and with the exception of Not!Sasha), so they are therefore also just outsiders who observe the story, collecting knowledge but not really trying to get too involved. So if we have this spectator being that usually doesn’t get involved unless someone walks directly into its domain…well, where else would Christopher have gotten that mirror? It lines up pretty nicely with Crusader as well, since Walter Heller was haunted by what was seemingly the same being after stumbling into an older archive. So yeah…while the mirror itself doesn’t scare me much, the circumstances behind it definitely do. Following Rosa’s encounter with the mirror, she ends up dealing with extreme paranoia and loses her job, eventually bringing her to giving her statement, in hopes of learning more about what’s happening to her, and her brother’s involvement, ending the story. Now while this episode definitely provides some intrigue here and there, especially regarding the eye horror…it is still pretty short and simple. Not a bad thing at all, I still thought it was very solid and chilling, but outside of connections to the eyes, which are clearly VERY important…it doesn’t seem as grandiose as the halfway point of Season 1. However, I still think it works for one reason, that being how Rosa parallels, and potentially foreshadows Jon.

Throughout this episode, there was just…a lot of really weird similarities between Jon and Rosa that really scared me, maybe even more than anything confirmed in the statement itself. The most obvious similarity between them is their sheer amounts of paranoia, which is at the very least partially stemmed from the fact that they are both being watched, likely by the exact same thing. …This unknown observer genuinely terrifies me with how mysterious they are. They both have gotten increasingly paranoid, doing whatever they can to get answers on the things that haunt them, start mistrusting people or things in their job that were once familiar to them (which makes Elias stating they don’t want to fire him VERY upsetting), and it’s gotten to the point where both of them have caused some level of harm to others. These parallels might not mean much, outside of the obvious connections it provides between Jon and the thing that watched Rosa 24/7, but I think it’s what makes this ultimately work really well as a mid-season finale. We’ve witnessed Jon get progressively more and more unhinged as the season goes on, going as far as to stalk his coworkers, suspect them of murder, and break into Gertrude’s flat, and these parallels, combined with the supplemental which I’ll get to later, really do drive home how far the listener has come, and it feels like a nice way to end the first half. But…there is one thing about these parallels that worries me more than anything else. You see, Rosa apparently murdered a delivery van driver named Danilo Costich, who was seemingly delivering stationary to the institute, threw out the stationary, and replaced it with petrol before stealing the truck. Not only is this very reminiscent of Gertrude’s actions in Crusader (which kind of creates a parallel triangle between Rosa, her and Jon)but it’s clearly meant to tell us that Rosa had plans of blowing up The Magnus Institute, likely due to the fact she felt more watched in the institute than anywhere else, and figured her observer was in there. This is already worrying enough on its own…but when you consider how her story seems to parallel Jon….it makes me really worried that he’ll end up doing something very very stupid sooner rather than later, something that may hurt his colleagues. And there’s one last thing that bothered me. Despite how similar Rosa’s situation was to his…Jon didn’t bother to even draw any attention to that, even though his voice was a little bit shakier than usual. This has been a weird pattern of his recently, one very evident in cases like him neglecting to mention the table in Hill Top Road. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t feel like it’s unintentional, I think it’s a case where Jon, while not exactly in denial like he was in Season 1, is just trying not to draw attention to the things that affect him directly, in order to keep what little sanity he has left. …All in all I’m very scared for him. So…yeah. That’s The Observer Effect. This is a very intriguing episode, it’s short and sweet, but it’s brought me back to some ideas I’ve neglected in the past, and is absolutely one of the most thematically rich episodes for me so far. It’s really making me think about this anonymous watcher…how it feels like everyone in the institute is its puppet. Well, hopefully the second half of the season will give some big answers, but I’ll just have to wait and see in the meantime.

Look…I know it’s a unfortunate situation. I know it’s a result of Jon falling so deep into paranoia and insanity that he’s hurting both himself and the people around him. I know that it really hurts to see that he’s fallen this far, and that his relationships with people who may have once been his friends have fallen apart this much, to the point where he can’t trust them and they can’t trust him. I understand it’s a terrible result of trauma and that we hate to see everyone write off his paranoia as folly when there is at least one eldritch monster among them. But…if I’m being honest…thank GOD they finally gave him an intervention. Like HOLY SHIT this was long overdue. So yeah, as much as this supplemental did kind of hurt to listen to…it’s probably for the best that it happened in the first place. But on top of that, it comes with some pretty interesting revelations that’ll likely change the course of the season from here on out. Starting off, I’m absolutely insane about how Jon recorded the intervention that was regarding him recording things. That is…so uniquely him. I’m also insane about how despite everything that’s happened…Martin was still decently nice to him. Just…can someone please give him all of the riches in the world? Admittedly, this intervention does really show how damaged Jon’s relationships with everyone else have become, but Martin’s behavior here at least gives me hope that they’ll be able to get on amicable terms in the future. (maybe even…kiss…) I also really enjoyed the part where Jon mentioned monsters being out there, and cuts himself off before suggesting any of them might be one…oh god that hurts considering Not!Sasha but it’s so good. Oh yeah, and Not!Sasha continues to be a dirty little liar in the worst ways possible. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s kind of a vibe, but…”we care about you Jon” and “let’s have no more of this paranoia” made me want to punch her so badly you have no idea. …I kind of hate the fact that I’m getting used to her being around. All in all it’s just a really unfortunate but extremely well written scene. Even though we don’t get to see much of the archival assistants and Elias in Season 1 overall, you can really tell how much things have worsened after Jane showed up, and…it hurts. I hope that Jon will be able to repair his relationships with everyone, but logically speaking I really don’t know if that’s going to happen anytime soon. …There is one last thing, however, that I find very intriguing. That is obviously how Elias gave Jon the CCTV footage of the week Gertrude died. This…seemingly proves that Gertrude was not murdered by anyone in the archives, and Jon starts suspecting that she was murdered by whatever is in the tunnels. Now, I could honestly see this as a red herring. After all, I’ve suspected Elias ever since the cause of death was revealed, and he was the guy who gave Jon the footage, so for all we know he could be obscuring things…but I’m honestly not all that sure. The being in the tunnels is a…complete mystery as of now, like I genuinely have no idea who or what it might be, nor do I know who’s apparently sneaking in when Jon isn’t looking. (My best guess is Not!Sasha but part of me thinks it could be Tim since he was the first person to find them.) In all honesty, I’m now open to multiple interpretations. I don’t feel like I can be fully on board with this theory of Jon’s until we learn more about the tunnels, but I am definitely a lot more open to the idea of the killer being someone outside the institute now. I also found it interesting how Gertrude was described as constantly going in and out, looking frantic. After he broke into her flat, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jon and Gertrude were more similar than he would like to admit, so I definitely think she was dealing with her own paranoia sometime before death, and this nearly confirms it for me. It’s also interesting how there aren’t any cameras in the archives…despite that being the room where all of Gertrude’s blood was found…hm…also when is Jon going to find her laptop?

Overall…this feels like a pretty substantial change. It doesn’t reveal much new information…but it feels like it’s sort of changed the direction of the story. I suspect that in the second half of the season, we’ll get more information on the tunnels, Jon will turn away from suspecting his employees…a bit, (which is concerning given the existence of Not!Sasha but…I digress…) and he’ll probably start digging in other directions to find Gertrude’s killer. I think we’ll get more insight into the members of the archival team going forward, and hopefully, there’ll be some big answers around the time of the finale. But, only time will tell. In conclusion, I thought this was a very satisfying mid-season finale. It’s different from what I was expecting, but I think it serves as a nice way to segue from one half to another, and it definitely pushes the story in new directions. But…I’m more concerned for Jon than ever holy shit…

Supplemental: I just recently had a thought regarding Not!Sasha and the table. For a long time, I’ve assumed that the table, and by extension the spiders, are like her captor, and while I do still think that makes the most sense…I did think of a potential alternative. You see, I’ve compared her to the anatomy students quite a bit, and the anatomy students have a lot of apple symbolism…which might be relevant given the presence of the apple in Hill Top Road. I still think she has more connections to The Anglerfish than anything else, and that the table is her enemy…but it’s interesting food for thought regardless.

OH MY GOD I’M FINALLY FINISHED. Wow…that was…excruciatingly long. Like, it was fun, I’m very proud of the work I’ve put in but LORD ALMIGHTY. So yeah…I’ve somehow reached the halfway point of The Magnus Archives Season 2! It’s…genuinely kind of insane to me that not only have I made it this far…but that I’m in the mental state I am because of it. Like, I knew this was going to be my new big thing as soon as I listened to Do Not Open, but…WOW. This has absolutely taken over my life and brain, and…it’s just…HOW DID I GET FROM A CREEPY GUY ASKING FOR A CIGARETTE TO…ALL OF THIS?! AND WHY AM I TALKING THIS MUCH ABOUT IT?! Overall…I am simultaneously anticipating and dreading what comes next. This season has already been significantly more packed with insane shit than all of Season 1, so I am NOT PREPARED for whatever comes out of it in this next half. Anyways, thank you so much for making it to the end, you have no idea how much it means to me, and I hope you’ll be around for the next post, where I’ll be covering episodes 61-70! Bye! :)

Supplemental Supplemental: Ok there is actually one last thing that popped into my head just now. I’ve taken some time to dwell on it since Still Life, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if The Anglerfish isn’t directly worshipped by The Other Circus, then it’s probably just a smaller branch of whatever it does worship. I think I just needed to stop being set on the idea of The Anglerfish being one of the big bads, because as mysterious and inscrutable as it is, it is entirely possible that it’s a lesser monster more on the level of…vampires or something. So, here is my current list of ✨the horrors✨, updated for Season 2B, now with some potential servants listed as well!

- The Flesh Hive (6, 22, 26, 32, 39, 40, 45, 55)

Servants Include: Jane Prentiss, John Amherst

- The Vast (4, 21, 46, 51, 57?)

Servants Include: Mike Crew, The Fairchilds

- The Piper (7, 42?)

Servants Include: Maybe Alfred Grifter?

- Asag (8, 12, 19, 20, 37, 43, 59)

Servants Include: Diego Molina, Arthur Nolan, Agnes

- The Spiders (8, 16, 19, 20, 38, 59)

Servants Include: Raymond Fielding

- The Darkness (9, 25, 52, 57?)

Servants Include: The Divine Host…In General…

- The Observer (12, 20, 23, 53, 60)

Servants Include: Gerard Keay, Potentially all of The Keays, The Alexandrian Archivist, Potentially the entire Archival Team?

- Isolation Thing (13, 33, 57)

Servants Include: The Lukas Family…In General…

- Meat and Bones (14, 17, 18, 30, 49, 58)

Servants Include: Angela, Jared Hopworth, Tom Haan, Eustace Wick

- Compression (15, 41, 50)

Servants Include: George Gilbert Scott, The Governor, Maybe Laura Popham, Maybe whatever is in the tunnels

- The Anglerfish (or something close to it) (1, 24, 28, 44, 54)

Servants Include: The Other Circus, Breekon & Hope, Sarah Baldwin, Daniel Rawlings

- Micheal (8, 26, 47)

Servants Include: …Himself? idk (:/)

- The Master of The Reapers (29)

Servants Include: The Reapers…duh…

And then there’s probably something else I’m missing. Or maybe not idk. Ok, goodbye for real now! :)

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #not!sasha #basira hussain #gertrude robinson #walter heller #martin blackwood #jordan kennedy #tim stoker #elias bouchard #simon fairchild #robert montauk #the anglerfish #jane prentiss #trevor herbert #carter chilcott #raymond fielding #mag 51 #mag 52 #mag 53 #mag 54 #mag 55 #mag 56 #mag 57 #mag 58 #mag 59 #mag 60

[mirror-ralsei]

initial sleep-deprived thoughts on the february newsletter:

- some memes referenced: doobie ralsei, eric andre, everyteenagers, warthunder leaks, cdi mario

- weirdly enough the sans “your mom” valentine creating a recursion of moms is really reminiscent of the joke book physics book recursion lol. probably doesn’t mean anything but jic

- i doubt the amv character is alphys. she already has valentines with her undertale version sprite depicted, and her deltarune counterpart is more focused on superheroes than anime.

- furthermore, upcoming characters such as elnina and lanino and arguably the strange letter character were teased. so i personally think this is a new anime-themed character, probably from chapter 3 with its focus on TV

- wait i just realized this would match up with the anime case in the garbage dump too

- as for the strange letter. my gut reaction was like many of us GASTER CONFIRM??!!?11 but turns out i just misremembered “SHOW YOURSELF! DELTARUNE!” as “SHOW YOURSELF! DELTA RUNE!” so scratch that

- the most compelling evidence against it being gaster is definitely the japanese version not matching his katakana quirk. using contractions and no line breaks in the english version too

- if it is a different character other than gaster it’s at the very least an intentional red herring making us believe it’s gaster... like the gaster reading seems completely intended.

- if they aren’t gaster or a version of gaster then they’re probably a character strongly connected to him, considering the illegible writing and the disappearance and redaction of the letter

- speaking of which, i haven’t seen anyone bring up [REDACTED] yet, who also talks in wingdings (assuming gaster is mysteryman and not [redacted]). probably not them but could be relevant

- as wandydoodles pointed out it could also be the “YOU’RE EARLY!” character

- “squint your heart” is an interesting concept. not sure we’ll find out what it’s referring to for a good while though. unless it’s just the soul

- “THE TIME IS GOING AROUND.” interesting phrasing. seems reminiscent of “the world revolving” or “take a ride around town” somehow but who knows the significance

- “EVERY DAY IS A DAY OF LOVE, IF ONLY YOU BELIEVE IT SO. DO YOU BELIEVE IT SO?” this also could be vaguely important. like belief determines things into existence?

- i don’t have much to say about the “there was someone i wanted to help” “i seem to have forgotten who” part bc like with the roaring knight this is just setting up a plot thread with virtually no context whatsoever at the moment. it’ll form the basis of investigations going forward but there’s nothing really we can determine with the information right now imo. like with the existence of the bunker and such, it’s just asking a question.

- the only context we have is “don’t forget” as a main theme of the series in the music title, sans’ lab, or occasional references to the phrase like spamton, but that really doesn’t tell us much of anything yet - this is just one more instance of that.

- the only part that helps us determine anything about the speaker is maybe “YES, IT’S QUITE IRONIC, BUT I SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN” which could imply the identity of the speaker is someone who is good at remembering, or whose job it is to remember or catalog things.

- “WAS IT MYSELF? NO... WELL, PERHAPS.” another interesting bit of dialogue that we really don’t have context for yet. though if this is some other piece of gaster this would be evidence towards it i guess

- “YOU ARE VERY ODD, RESPONDING OUT LOUD TO A LETTER.” uhhh this character seems to have the ability to hear our responses... and it’s odd considering the letter would already be written, possibly implying further timeline weirdness

- i’d also just quickly like to point out that it’s possible, if not likely, that this letter is addressed to someone other than us the readers. i doubt it but we do have some of the other valentines like ralsei or elnina/lanino as precedent that this could be written to another person

- “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR, WAS IT THE OLD YEAR.” “NOW, PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR, PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT.” this reminds me of the river person dialogue and the egg man dialogue and again, the whole cat state egg stuff in general

- according to reddit im not the only one getting unused string vibes off the “put on your face” line lol

- “NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.” chaos confirmed??? (joking haha jk unless...?? but probably joking)

- “GOOD BY!” clearly means something and isn’t a typo given there are no typos in the rest of the letter... but i have no idea what. a pun maybe?

- the tense shift from present - “It’s a strange letter” “It’s more or less” “if you squint” “you feel you could understand it” - to past - “There was a sound” “the letter was gone” - is interesting and seems to support the cat state egg things yet again (“there is a man here” “there was not a man here”)

ETA:

- actually... “Well, there is a man here.” “Well, there was not a man here.” “WELL, HAPPY NEW YEAR!” “WELL, IN ANY CASE,”

- overall i wonder if this character is associated with the past: an old timey letter, new or old year, the time going around, the character maybe having a good memory, the parent-y demand to wash up and put on a coat, and the shift from present to past tense?

- my crackpot first thought while first reading this (other than gaster) was “grandpa semi?” but that’s definitely not right lol

- they also might be associated with or affected by the timeline wonkiness going on: “HAPPY NEW YEAR! OR, WAS IT THE OLD YEAR.”, “THE TIME IS GOING AROUND,” the mixed-up order of coat and washing, the shift from present to past tense, and continuing a letter based on a response that hasn’t happened yet

- spamton love network: “the earth will stop spinning” might be a “the world revolving” reference... whatever “the world revolving” even means

- spamton love network: “where is the promise of perfection?” ???

- spamton love network: “my fears surging through me like suspicious waves” something with the ocean?

- spamton love network: once again i am operating on the assumption that the contents of the wayneradiotv spamton shows aren’t themselves canon yet have alluded to things within canon (eg. trouble dingle)

#this got long also hi still hiatusing sorry just popping by to drop this inane reaction. #and also maybe queue up a little bit #haven't really checked with theory tumblr just did a cursory reddit check so disclaimer that i could be missing a lot of important stuff

[ikamigami]

I was wondering for a.. pretty long time.. about Lunar's plot points and I remember thinking how Lunar gaining star powers annoyed me at first. Because not so long before we found out that Sun's magic is very powerful which seemed to be quickly forgotten. And Lunar gaining star powers made them somewhat important.

It annoyed me at first because Lunar was still in sams and I thought that it's annoying that Sun can't have something important to his character without someone else stealing more spotlight from him in his show - cause it's Sun and Moon show, you know..

But later Lunar started their own channel with Earth and things started to be more balanced.. until Solar showed up and stole spotlight from Sun..

Only now I realized that Lunar is a reflection of Sun. It was obvious before cause everyone in the fandom know at this point that Lunar and Eclipse reflect Sun and Moon.. but I didn't realize at first that there's more to these parallels.

Remember how Solar Flare told Eclipse that he's just like Old Moon? I think that it's similar with Lunar and Sun. But let me get it more clear:

Eclipse is like Moon but with Sun's personality - Eclipse has similar experiences to Moon's but they shaped him differently than Moon because he is more similar to Sun personality-wise.

Lunar is like Sun but with Moon's personality - Lunar has similar experiences to Sun's but they shaped them differently than Sun because he is more similar to Moon personality-wise.

And it got me thinking.. what if whatever happen with Lunar has its own reflection in Sun and vice versa cause remember how Lunar was abused by Eclipse just like Sun was abused by Moon and how Lunar snapped and killed Eclipse just like Sun snapped and killed Bloodmoon. And Lunar has star powers which parallels Sun's powerful magic.

We all know that these situations weren't one to one but this realization may help us see another parallels between the two.. even those unexplored yet..

My point is that we see how Lunar feels like a failure and view themselves as a monster - we learned that from their dream. I think that it hints to how Sun feels - something I was talking about almost from the beginning - he feels like a failure (he can't do anything right, he makes things worse and ruins everything) and he believes himself to be monster/evil (it's Sun's fault that everyone died and it's his fault that Old Moon, Eclipse and BM turned out to be like how they are/were). Sun tries his best despite everything and hopefully with Lunar it'll be the same.

The same is with Eclipse and Moon. First Eclipse reflected Old Moon when he was stuck in Sun's head - they both were angry that they were stuck in Sun's head and wanted revenge. Second iteration of Eclipse reflected Old Moon after he separated with Sun - they both were finding themselves stuck in various ways; both cared but weren't able to show it; both wanted to change but were unable to. And now, third iteration of Eclipse reflects New Moon - New Moon tries to be better and really tries to change and we can see that this Eclipse also starts to slowly change.

Of course these aren't one to one either. Because like I said Lunar is more similar to Moon just like Eclipse is to Sun. Hence the differences between Lunar - Sun and Eclipse - Moon despite the similar experiences those pairs share. And that's why I think that it might be harder for Lunar to change due to how similar he is to Moon and I think that it might be easier for Eclipse to change due to how similar he is to Sun. But we'll see cause these are mostly just speculations for now.

I think that it shows us how well written these characters are. Of course there are more parallels between Sun - Lunar and Eclipse - Moon but I just wanted to point out some of parallels to show that we may possibly guess some of the things regarding Sun and Moon and also Lunar and Eclipse.

#sun and moon show #sams #sams sun #sun and moon show sun #sams moon #sun and moon show moon #sams eclipse #sun and moon show eclipse #laes #laes lunar #lunar and earth show #parallels #storytelling

[olderthannetfic]

As a lesbian who likes both slash and femslash and is so tired of the infighting among them (which all IME seems to come from the femslash fans who don’t like slash), the funniest argument I see is “even female centric fandoms are majority slash!” because that’s just… blatantly not true? I’ve never been in a fandom where women made up the majority of the important, plot-moving characters that wasn’t majority het or femslash. Unless you’re counting “literally anything with a female protagonist” and so that means reverse harem anime are “female centric,” lol. ….But more to my point, everyone I’ve ever seen make this argument is a femslash fan who exclusively hangs out in fandoms that have like 10 main characters where 8 are men and 2 are women, and then is somehow surprised when the fandom is all slash and het. Like how tf would you know anyway?

--

It's a pretty facepalm-inducing pattern, yeah. Even something like OUAT, which had enough dudes people liked to have a lot of het shippers, still had swanqueen as one of the juggernauts, and that canon's not even like a magical girl show where the dudes are a tacked-on afterthought.

It's like people are so used to the "30% women equals parity, never mind if we gave them lines or plot relevance" vibes of mainstream US tv that they've forgotten what an actually female-centric canon would look like.

Is anyone reading lesbian space necromancers for dudes? I don't fucking think so!

The canons are out there, just maybe not in some market sectors.

[tsams-confessions]

I need to get this off my chest

I am not a fan of the show in any way, shape or form, and all honesty I very much dislike it for a multitude of reasons. However, I managed to get dragged into the fandom by a few of the blogs. I follow, making good posts for it.

The biggest reason I don’t like the show can honestly be summed up to the writing. It doesn’t have to have God tear writing, you can like stuff that has awful writing (I like garden BanBan for chrissakes.), the issue is that they have given us information that is very important with various characters, and then either scrapped it, or forgot about it. (the best example I can give is a bit of very important information for blood moon, which is that they experience hunger pain when they don’t kill/drink blood. That is some very important information that seemingly has either been forgotten about or thrown away.)

Then we get to character writing, which, I do have to say at one point I did think the writers knew how to write characters… But in reality they don’t. The biggest victims of this failure at writing characters are KC, moon, sun and earth. (Sun Barely gets any attention, and one of the key plot points This show was built on which revolves around sun has been straight up ignored for God knows how long, earth stated she did not want to be the family therapist, and now she’s forced into the role. moon swore he wouldn’t be like his old self, and is proceeding to be worse than his old self somehow, and we all know the character assassination they put KC through)

And then there are plot lines, that kind of feel haphazardly thrown in either for fans service (revived eclipse and lunar getting star powers for example)

I have a lot more I wanna say, but it feels like this confession is turning into a review, I’ve had to rewrite this one paragraph several times so it doesn’t seem off.



.

#tsams confession #< block this if you dont want to see these #tsams negative #mod 1blood #not putting this one in the main tags

[love-byers]

🚨CALLING ALL BYLER TRUTHERS THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!!!!🚨

i literally have not posted in months because i've been EXTREMELY busy preparing for college, but things have calmed down a bit so i'm making time for some good old byler

now i don't know how many of you were involved in byler twt in august-september of 2022 but there were a couple of huge theories that are still talked about today

the ones i'm gonna be talking about in this post are:

birthday gate

will byers/harry potter parallel

will and mike teaming up in s5 & getting stuck in the upside down

if you don't know what birthday gate is, you've been living under a rock, but to summarize:

in s4 when el is being bullied by angela and the other kids at the skating rink, there's brief clips of the scene through a retro handheld camera with the date in the corner. the date in that scene is march 22nd, 1986.

march 22nd is wills birthday. we know that because in s2 when will is possessed by the mike flayer, joyce attempts to bring him back by asking him if he knows what march 22nd is; his birthday.

that would mean that the day when mike, will, and el go the roller rink is will's birthday—and no body, not even joyce or jonathan, mention it. the duffers said that it was an accident and they haven't watched s2 in years. this is complete horseshit. there are several direct references to s2 in s4, such as max saying "that's presumptuous of you" to lucas just like she did in s2. also,

idk about you but REALLY seems like they're teasing us about his birthday not really being forgotten.

there's several other theories about what this means but the most popular is that vecna has taken the other's memories about will to target him and make him feel like no one cares about him. all of vecna's victims are carrying some sort of trauma, and he can only target them when they're emotionally vulnerable. why is he targeting will? that's a whole nother rabbit hole.

this is where the harry potter theory becomes relevant.

i don't know where the picture is but the duffers posted their inspo board for s4 and there's a shit load of movies and tv shows, including harry potter and the chamber of secrets.

there's a shit ton of parallels that i won't get into, except these:

(all of these harry potter plot points are in both the book and the movie)

in chapter one of chamber of secrets, harry is sad and angry because it's his 12th birthday and no one remembered. the dursley's have never acknowledged his birthday, but he expected ron and hermione, his new best friends, to send him letters like they promised, but they haven't. not only did he get none on his birthday, he's gotten none all summer.

sound familiar?

if birthdaygate is true, this is an obvious parallel. will's birthday was also forgotten and it makes him sad. however, in chamber of secrets, it's revealed by dobby that ron and hermione have been sending letters all summer—but dobby stole them so that harry would think no one liked him and he wouldn't go back to hogwarts. some people think that vecna could be paralleling dobby as he took the others memories of wills birthday. but since i'm a byler loser, i wanna talk about this: there's another theory that mike was actually trying to call will awhile they were apart, but the phone was always on hold because of joyce's telemarketing job. wills thinks mike doesn't care about him, but mike was really trying to reach him the whole time. i made a post about this that's pinned on my account, feel free to read and come back

there was another theory on byler twt/tiktok that will and jonathan will move into the wheeler's basement since they're back in hawkins with no house. this was just supposed to be a fun 'what if', but i realized that this could also parallel chamber of secrets.

ron weasley realizes that something must be wrong since harry hasn't written back all summer. he and his brothers take their dads enchanted flying car to rescue harry from the dursley's. after that, harry stays with the weasley's for the rest of the summer. in the movie it's only like a day or two, but in the books it's about a month. if will byers moves into mike wheeler's basement i'm going to lose my shit.

here's where it gets fucking crazy

when september first hits in the camber of secrets, harry and the weasleys go to king's cross train station to go to platform 9 3/4 where the hogwarts express is waiting. ron's parents and siblings go through first, then harry and ron. well, ron and harrry try, but they just run into the wall. the platform is closed and they're stuck on the other side.

HELLO???????? WILL AND MIKE ARE GOING TO BE STUCK IN THE UPSIDE DOWN FUCKING CONFIRMED

ron and harry stupidly decide to take the flying car to get to school instead and catch up with the train, which ends in a bit of a disaster (they crash into the womping willow).

this could play out in s5 in a lot of different ways, but here's my theory

maybe all of the gang will be in the upside down for some reason and mike and will are left behind. this is really interesting if vecna is actually paralleling dobby, because dobby is the one who closed off the platform. there's a theory that vecna is targeting mike as well because he knows mike makes will the happiest. maybe he traps them both in the upside down to take out mike first. or maybe, like dobby, mike (ron) is trapped by accident. i also think it makes sense that mike and will being in the upside down would parallel ron and harry flying next to the train. in stranger things we all know that the upside down looks like hawkins, but isn't. there are several times that we see characters in the upside down communicate and work together with characters in the real world.

do you see what i mean about it just making sense? mike and will in the UD working together with the others in the real world to get to the same place or goal, just like ron and harry got to hogwarts with the others on the train, just in a different way.

anyways i'm losing my fucking mind byler is endgame

also, the duffers are rarry shippers CONFIRMED

#byler #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things #byler endgame #byler nation #harry potter #harry potter and the chamber of secrets #parallels #stranger things parallels #stranger things theory #byler theory

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

OMG I'm such a dumbass I knew you did one on the GR Yaris before too, and I love her ALSO, but I actually meant the GR Supra 😳🫣 (slip of the tongue)

Gotcha.

Since I managed to take some two weeks to answer this (got distracted both by real life obligations and other posts that were meant to be very quick to make. Meant to.) y'all may have forgotten, but our dear friend of the blog had asked for opinions on the GR Yaris, hinting to its controversial status. Turns out the GR Supra is what that request, and thus that hint, was actually about - so let's talk about the car and the controversy that engulfs it.

In 1993, Toyota launched the fourth generation of its rear wheel drive sportscar (well, arguably a bit of a Grand Tourer, i.e. something more oriented to cruising than a sportscar) the Supra - which was born a quarter century earlier as a more upmarket, six cylinder version of the Celica, graduating from Celica Supra to its own dignified name with the third generation I talked about that one time I forgot to check what blog I was reblogging with.

But this time, things would be different. Most notably because the inline six the Mk4 Supra came out with was an absolute MONSTER.

Remember how I talked about the GT-R's RB26 engine being one of the greatest, most coveted production engines to ever come out of Japan? Well, the 2JZ-GTE is the other.

It was larger at 3 liters, no less powerful, and to reduce turbocharger lag it used two of them sequentially: first air goes in the smaller, more responsive turbo, then gradually some of it gets sent to the bigger turbo to make it start spinning, then when it gets going the two are finally used in conjunction. (Imagine the big turbo as a hung husband that takes a while to get it up and the small turbo as an eager stepson ready to take over until the hung one can join in for a spitroast. Or something. I don't watch porn with real people, but from what I gather the plots seem to resemble how sequential turbos work.) It even at one point got Variable Valve Timing, i.e. the ability to vary the time in which the valves open depending on engine speed, which allows to optimize tuning for performance and efficiency! (Cool thing to go over in detail if y'all want me to.) And also, the kind of things that engine is able to take make me wish I hadn't used up my porn analogy quota.

See, to chop off eons of nuance, an engine is just a big block of metal with a lot of bits attached, and the two main measures of an engine's potential are the slope of the line in the Bits Fiddled With / Power Output graph and how far up (It's up, right? The second axis you specify is the vertical one, right?) you can take it before the block becomes the weakest link - with another important point being when you need to start messing with internals, i.e. the components inside the engine, e.g. pistons (the things the boom pushes down), camshaft (the thing the pistons spin) and connecting rods (you can guess).

So for instance, just to make the point that an engine can be beloved without having much overall tuning potential, in one of Toyota's most beloved engines, the 4A-GE four cylinder illustrated above (yes, the one from that white and black car in all the eurobeat videos), some pin the block's limit as low as 250hp. The 2JZ, tho? It can take 800hp without even messing with the internals, and once you get your grubby hands on those you can keep pushing the line to some 2000hp. That is two Bugattis. That is 40 times my car. That is well above the power level where "tires that will at any point grip" and "tires that are in any way road legal" stop intersecting.

I am not in the slightest exaggerating when I say that this and the Skyline GT-R are widely regarded as the top of Japan's 20th century automotive production. The Messi & Ronaldo of the Japanese Domestic Market. It is absolutely no coincidence this was the hero car in The Fast And The Furious.

And then in 2002, as all things, its production ended, and given the abysmal sales and catastrophic recession, Toyota decided that would be that.

And then, years later, The Teasening began.

I want to stress, almost half of my conscious life (I choose to believe the stretch from birth to kindergarten is just run-up) the world was in some state of getting teased with talk of a new Supra. The trademark on the name was renewed in 2010. In 2014 they dropped the FT-1 concept, and of course that became speculation about what the production version would look like.

Because come the fuck on, it's not gonna look like that.

Or was it?

Only five entire years and much more teasing later would we officially get an answer, when after seventeen years, the Toyota GR Supra (and for those wondering what GR means, y'all should've clicked the Yaris link >:C) hit the streets.

You know what, good enough.

Good enough to earn itself a sea of words of praise, Jason Cammisa's "The most punch-above-its-weight sportscar ever made" just some among them.

It did have its share of problems at the start, like its power being 335hp and not 382, a lack of manual transmission, and the inability to spec it with a less powerful 4 cylinder engine - well, I don't know who considered that last one a problem, but Toyota's updates solved that one too.

The Supra has a much bigger problem than those though, one no little update can solve. That red car in the background.

See, the new Supra is actually a joint venture with BMW, who made a new model of its Z4 roadster out of the platform. And unlike with the other joint-venture sportscar Toyota sells, people are big mad about that. Why?

See, the interior is engulfed in BMW switchgear and the drivetrain is all BMW (the manual gearbox took until this year to come out because BMW did not have one for that engine so Toyota had to modify another BMW transmission to fit), giving people the impression that this was less of a joint venture and more of a BMW project that Toyota tacked its design on top of, which is a problem whether true or not.

See, a range-topping sportscar is supposed to represent what the brand is capable of - having it done by someone else (or so the criticism goes) is a bit like performing Hallelujah in playback.

Actually, a better musical analogy: You know "I'm back bitch" singles? When a humongous artist drops a new record with a humongous lead single about absolutely nothing but reaffirming they're the biggest fucking deal in the universe? Without Me, Bad, Gimme More, so on. Well, think of SexyBack - one of the most monumental phenomenons of its decade, most incontrovertibly proving Justin Timberlake sat atop the goddamn world. Now, imagine if, after all the years that went by between that record and the next, when he finally came out with Suit And Tie all the verses were Jay-Z. Going from a humongous statement about having the power to reach the top of the game and stay there to having to get absolutely carried by what in this logic is essentially a competitor. Basically, that's the critics' complaint: the supra went from 2JZ to too much Jay-Z.

And therein lies the other problem of the Supra: the Supra.

See, any time you evaluate something, you do so relative to its context - and when you give it a nameplate, you make that context include where else that nameplate has been. An undeserved name may not just be stupid, but even outright kill the car in some's eyes, see the case of the Dodge Dart, or get me to talk about the Ford Capri prototype recently spotted if you want to find out what I'm like when I lose my cool. (I'd liken this phenomenon to undeserved Grammies but I already used my music analogy quota too.) So the Toyota Supra does not just need to be good, it needs to deserve the name. And some argue it doesn't. But why? This thing is no less powerful, no slower, hell it's not even any bigger or heavier and we've gone over how rare that is these days! So is it the lack of backseats and a targa version? No, no one gives a crap about those. It's something deeper.

Sometimes, the problem with a revival is people base their expectation not on what the original was like in the context of its time but what it's like in the context of today (for example, I've heard people call the latest GT-R "too computerized, too assisted, far from the pure driving experience of its predecessors", when its predecessors had some of the most technologically advanced driving assists of their time and could only be called "pure" and "analog" by comparison with cars decades newer). But of course, that'll only be some people - so if what the original car looks like to modern eyes and what the original car represented at its time are two different enough concepts, any revival will receive some criticism for not being one of the two.

But for the Supra, this compounds with another problem: the original Supra (as in the previous generation, since no one gives a crap about the first three), to modern eyes, looks like a thousand-horsepower flame-spitting beast, because that's what all Supras have been turned into, and that's why you know of Supras in the first place (it sure isn't because people bought it!), and that, consciously or not, exacerbates the problem of misplaced expectations to a level akin to hearing an NBA player is about to have a brother and expecting the baby to be a 6'4" three-shooter.

But I wasn't asked about the controversies, I was asked about my take. And my take is: no realistic expectation of what a Supra would look like today was disappointed - at least not by where the car stands today. Well, unless the expectation involved backseats.

"But it was made by BMW" and so? This is a new Supra, and a good one - what does it matter how it got here? Especially when this is an upgrade over the Z4 in every way - looks way better, drives better, and now has a manual that the Z4 doesn't.

Okay, almost every way: the Supra's roof won't get out of the way. If only though, if only. Could you imagine a Toyota product that looks this good, sounds this good, goes this fast, and has a drop top? ...and maybe backseats?

Well, I can.

Yes, the badge and core concept may have some people consider it from midlife crisis mobile to old man's car. (though we know it's not a car bought by old men because if that was the case someone would be buying these). But just try to imagine sitting in this thing.

Take a couple of seconds to take in that picture and truly immerse yourself. You're in a Lexus LC500 Convertible, with a V8 at your right foot's command, its spectacular sound ready to battle the perfect sound system serenading you with your fanciest CD, because of course Lexuses still come with CD players.

Are you immersed? Okay: Someone just called your Lexus a midlife crisis car. See? You don't give a shit either, do ya.

Automatic only though. The pain. Oh, and it kind of costs as much as two Supras. But, you know, neither of those Supras will be convertibles!

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

#revivals #toyota supra #2JZ-GTE #lexus lc500 convertible

[this-acuteneurosis]

I kind of want to get you started on mind tricks. cause like weak minded to strong minded dynamic and the blur away, but also the sith back in the day were for SURE a Caste system of force sensitive rulers and non force sensitives, and the jedi were their ENEMY off and on for thousands of years, cultural bleed through and dynamics of their own power systems but Ben we are not the droids you are looking for go away so I dont have to kill you, versus Qui hey I want this thing trade it for me.

Alright, Oct anon, it's been a while, but I have not forgotten you definitely forgot this ask in my drafts for who even knows how many months but it's found again, whoo!

It's taken me a while to get this together partly to try and arrange my thoughts in a logical order but also...

Guys, I really, really care about the use of agency in stories. Like, I've ranted about it in relation to droids, I've explained some of my problems with it in the context of the thematic changes between the OT and the PT, I stew over it constantly in my brain, it's a central theme of many of my own stories (including DLB).

I really don't like mind control, and not just in Star Wars.

Now, just because I don't like a thing doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in story telling. As a device, mind control/manipulation can be useful or important to a plot. To a theme. Overcoming it can be powerful or cool (Ella Enchanted-I prefer the novel personally, Tanjiro in Demon Slayer: Mugen Train), watching someone succumb to it can be agonizing (Frodo in Return of the King, anyone? Princess Euphemia in Code Geass?).

So, what is the point of Mind Tricks (and that naming choice, "trick," making it sound almost...harmless) in the Star Wars story, and maybe in the universe?

I feel like in its initial reveal, the mind trick was supposed to a) convey how "magical" Jedi were and b) get the plot from point A to B. Obi-Wan waves his hand, someone believes something hideously untrue, move along move along, don't think about it too hard.

Like, literally, audience, please. Don't.

Luke uses it in RotJ for pretty much the same reason. To convery a) Luke is well on his way to being a "magical" Jedi now (oh but wait, there's more character growth he needs!), and b) Luke needs to get into Jabba's palace and why would they let him in? Because he says so, so we will take him to Jabba now. Move along, move along.

I don't like the implications of this power existing, and as an adult who has been in situation where I have to report to higher powers, the disregard of the consequences of these things are a bit darker if I look too closely, but like...move along, I guess. It's fine as long as we're only using these powers on space nazis and slavers. Right?

Except then we get more movies. And cartoons. It's fine if Obi-Wan mind controls a person into not smoking, right? Smoking is Bad and Obi-Wan is Good.

Only.

Only...

Who taught Obi-Wan to use mind tricks?

Ah yes, my old nemesis.

To all you Qui-Gon fans out there, you may wanna leave. This analysis is probably not for you.

So like, Qui-Gon Jinn. Qui-Gon "I'm friends with the current Chancellor and thus an obvious, notable representative of the Jedi Order but I don't get along with my higher ups" Jinn. The thing you have to understand about my opinion of him is that, as a young, first time watcher of TPM, I liked him. He was funny, irreverent, direct. He was wise, or at least seemed to know things no one else did. He was a maverick, ready to go against all orders and advice for what he knew was right. And everyone around him was just stuffy and uninformed.

And to be fair, he wasn't wrong about everything. He's set up to be sympathetic. He's trying to treat with the gungans and they won't listen? Well he and Obi-Wan are right, the Trade Federation does go for the gungans. The Order says there are no Sith? Oops, wrong on that one. The Council makes the ambiguous assertion Anakin is "too old" to train. We've seen the OT. We know "too old" is nonsense.

But like, what does Qui-Gon do when he's thwarted?

He takes away people's agency.

Oh, you don't want to help us, Boss Nass, political leader? Cool, well I'm gonna undermine you in front of your entire court and you're gonna give us a whole ship (that we won't return) to help us defend a people you've been in an active war with for centuries. Oh, my currency doesn't work on this planet? I think it will mister small time junk dealer with a gambling problem (jokes on you for that one, sir).

This to me is a huge red flag in a story that is about literal slaves. I know people will defend the above examples. It was necessary. There were lives at stake.

You wanna know who would have suffered if Qui-Gon had been able to con Watto out of that part?

Anakin and Shmi.

Worthless (or event mostly worthless) currency on a planet where you have to buy water is literal death under the right circumstances. And who do you think Watto's going to reduce rations on. He's got cash flow problems? What's the quickest way for him to make back what he just lost? I'll give you a hint, he gambles on them later in the exact same movie.

So like, well before we get to "weak minded" or anything dubious like that, there's this awkward question of, "Why are the good guys always using powers to make people do things? And not worried about the consequences?"

And like, if we go back to simple story narratives, and trying to move things from point A to point B, that's fine I guess. I enjoy the OT. I'll move along.

But if you ask me to stop and think about it.

Well...

#my soapbox meta #agency #this is without even touching on things like #Anakin accidentally-on purpose?-mind tricking Padmé theories #or like #dubious racial/class implications #teaching this skill to ~~~children~~~ #so many other things

[ewingstan]

Alright, so a lot of characters are pretty good parallels for Taylor, some even to the extent that they’re acknowledged as such by the text. Basically every group leader gets this treatment: Satyr is noted to share Skitter’s creativity in power usage as well as her murky place in the hero-villain dichotomy. The similarity between Taylor and Jack Slash becomes an important plot point when it prompts Golem to realize Jack’s secondary power, letting him turn the tide of the fight. Weld commiserates with Taylor on the oil rig about not being able to turn away from the fight. And Teacher shares a place with Khepri in the highly specific “mind controller whose specific abilities give them the capacity to become exponentially dangerous” category.

But you know who she isn’t deliberately compared to as often? Trickster. Which is kind of weird, as Francis Krouse is startlingly similar to Taylor in a lot of ways, and their points of divergence are really useful for identifying what Wildbow is doing with these characters. 

Skitter and Trickster are both incredibly quick thinkers who use their wits to win fights they have no business winning. This sometimes feels like it gets forgotten, since the one team plan Krouse proposed with the Undersiders is the one that got Brian dissected, but Krouse was able to come ahead of the Wards, quickly dispatch a rampaging Cody clone with an unknown power set (once on-screen and multiple times off-screen), and substantially contribute to the fight against Leviathan. Hell, even his quick thinking on how to appease Accord after Sundancer interrupted their meeting shows a pretty amazing ability to stay calm and think on his feet in the face of extreme danger. The main problem is that he’s much better at working alone than directing a team—unlike the Queen Administrator. This is even specifically called out during his e-sport days:

 This is partially due to never really being on the same page as others—he doesn’t seem to genuinely care about many people, and will default to brutal tactics that his teammates won’t get behind. This is less of a problem for Taylor, both because she has a much stronger bond with her teammates and because they tend to match and exacerbate her more ruthless tendencies.

On the subject of teammates, its worth noting how both Taylor and Krouse are able to get others to follow them for reasons outside of any natural charisma. Skitter is a notably bad speaker, relying on people to follow her through shock-and-awe tactics. She cultivates an intimidating reputation to scare potential enemies off and keep her subjects on the Boardwalk in line. She gets old nemeses like Lung, Shadow-Stalker, and the entire Protectorate to work with her by presenting herself as mythically competent and necessary to the defeat of larger enemies. She makes herself a legend, someone you work with because you really don’t want to work against her. But she’s not a leader like Chevalier, or even Faultline; there’s very few people who follow her because she’s an inspiring presence or worthy friend. They exist, but they’re few and far between. As Tattletale notes, Taylor never really asks for help. She just maneuvers you into a position where you have no choice but to work with her.

Meanwhile, Trickster actually has some natural charisma. He’s a good negotiator, and has a flair for the dramatic which could make him easily likable. But he’s not really using this to get the Travellers to follow him; most of them are in some stage of coming to hate him, even. He doesn’t make himself very pleasant to be around in the best of times; even before the Simurgh he “thrived on being annoying.” He just happens to be the only one with an idea of how to move forwards, so they have to follow along or risk getting left behind to deal with their strange new status quo. Even at the beginning, they didn’t follow Krouse because he was their friend—they followed him because they wanted to help Noelle, and didn’t want to be stuck in the walled-off city, and Krouse seemed to be pretty good at the whole “villain” thing so they might as well work under his leadership for the foreseeable future. This maps on pretty well to how Taylor’s eventual leadership role was largely due to being the only Undersider with an actual goal for the future—something she would carry into her de-facto leadership of the Chicago Wards.

But what moving forwards means isn’t very clear for Trickster, who up until Coil approached him seemed to just be going through the motions. There’s no actual way he can find to fix Noelle, he doesn’t care for his teammates enough to find contentment in their companionship. He’s convinced that he’ll always be hated, and decided that’s okay, he can take it, just keep using them before they hate you enough to walk away.

He’s convinced that he’ll  always be in danger and decided that’s okay, he’s good at getting out of scrapes and he doesn’t have much to keep him going anyway, so he might as well keep plunging into danger.

He’s convinced that the Simurgh has already doomed him and that no future is available, so he may as well doom himself for the person he loves.

This is, I maintain, the main substantial difference between Krouse and Taylor. Trickster is what Skitter would be without hope.

Taylor always has something driving her. She latches on to causes: finding the Undersider’s sponsor, rescuing Dinah, stopping Jack Slash. She is absolutely convinced that she can throw herself at any problem and find a way of overcoming it. It’s why she picks fights against people like Mannequin or Lung, and part of the reason she’s able to come away successful. Krouse has much less confidence; he doesn’t think his problems are actually solvable, and doesn’t let himself believe he can take on larger threats, even though his tactical abilities could actually be up to the task if he committed to them. So he runs, or settles for strategic defeats.

Same with allies: Taylor and Krouse faced similar problems in joining their teams. Rachel and Bitch both felt threatened by the new members’ introduction, resentful of their sway among the rest of the team. Both responded with violence multiple times before their conflict was “resolved,” one way or another. Krouse saw this as a problem he would work around until he couldn’t: he kept Cody on board without trying to patch things up, until he cut his losses, decided he was too much of a liability, and sold him to Accord as a scapegoat.

Taylor, in contrast, never gave up on Rachel as a potential ally: she made the effort to befriend her after facing nothing but cold shoulders and aggression, and then made the effort again after their relationship seemed completely unworkable in the wake of the data heist. And while Taylor certainly doesn’t give the same level of grace to most people, I think its a pretty clear indication of their differences that when presented with the same problem, Taylor made her strongest ally while Krouse made his biggest enemy. Taylor had hope that she could get to Rachel. Krouse never even considered making an effort to pacify Cody.

Finally, there’s the fact that Krouse has no real big picture he’s fighting for like Skitter. Not really, anyway. He goes through the motions of searching for a cure for Noelle, trying to find a way back to their home dimension, but he doesn’t really believe its possible.

As such, there’s no point in working hard for a future that’s impossible. He doesn’t ingratiate himself with his teammates because they won’t actually be helpful. He plays fast and loose with the unspoken rules because hey, its not like he can go on like this forever anyway, so he might as well get a death-on-sight order. The only thing he can do is live for the present—for Noelle. Keep her alive, safe and sated, even if she hates him. He lets himself hope for a real future after getting hired by Coil, but it doesn’t last—Coil makes no obvious attempt to follow through on his promises, and eventually Noelle goes on her rampage and the possibility of saving her is smashed completely.

And this is where it gets really interesting. At the beginning of Gold Morning, Lisa asks Taylor how she’d like to spend what would surely be her last days on earth. Doing anything but fighting barely seems to cross Taylor’s mind. It’s not clear if she actually thinks they have a chance, but she fully commits herself to it. At the end of the Echidna arc, the Travellers go to do what they’ve always promised: stop Noelle if she ever lost control.

And like Taylor, Krouse decides to go out fighting instead.

As with Skitter facing down Scion, chances of success are pretty much near zero here. He betrays his friends to do it, even pushing them into the line of fire, much like Taylor does as Khepri. The difference is that Taylor was motivated to save humanity, while Krouse was motivated by....what? A desire to stay loyal to the one person who gave him a chance to be decent? A need to help what’s left of his girlfriend go on a revenge-spree against the world? Maybe he just never stopped listening to what motivated him at the start:

Taylor made her play as Khepri because she saw a narrow hope, and took it. Krouse made his play because he’d lost all hope, and decided the only thing he could do was self-destruct spectacularly alongside the person he loved.

#wildbow #worm #parahumans #francis krouse #taylor hebert #trickster #skitter #khepri #noelle meinhardt #leo says #leo reads worm

[fallingforfictionalcharacterss]

Traitor pt.1

A/N: This is the first part of my mini-series, I really hope you´ll like it. While writing this I mostly stuck to the plot of the books and not the movies, so if you haven´t read the books (for some reason, I really can´t think of now) this might be a bit confusing at some points.

You watched the fire in the fireplace dying slowly. By now, the comfortable warmth it had radiated was fading, still, you and your fellow students were crouching on the couches in front of it and stared into the glow gloomily. Today had been probably the worst day in a long row of bad days. Not only that the DA had been exposed by Umbridge and was now at its end, but also your reckless behaviour had brought Professor Dumbledore in a more than just uncomfortable position, as Harry had told you. Your headmaster was by now on the run, after he had put off Fudge and his henchmen in his office. Now, the school would be fully exposed to Umbridge´s cruel reign. You didn’t even want to think about all the things that might happen in the near future in this school that -until now- had always been a safe haven for you and your friends.

“This is all my fault.”, Harry finally broke the silence and slumped in his seat. “I should have never even started all of this.”

But Hermione was quick to shake her head eagerly.

“If anything, it is my fault. Oh, Harry, you haven´t done anything wrong. This was all my idea.”

“You didn’t even want to do this. We talked you into this, man.”, Ron confirmed.

“But I´m the one who started this. I´m the one who took the lead.”, Harry argued, visibly upset.

“It really doesn’t make sense to put the blame on any of us.”, you cut him off harshly. “This is on Umbridge. And Fudge.”

“But I should have seen this coming. I knew that Umbridge was up to no good.”

“We all knew that.”, Ron said. The boy shrugged his shoulders. “And we all knew that she was going to catch us sooner or later.”

“We can´t change what happened. What´s important now is how we´ll keep going from here.”, you said.

“We won´t do anything anymore.”, Harry stated. “It´s over. We should just forget about it.”

“But there must be something we can do.”, you persisted.

“But Umbridge has the list. She can´t prove that we´ve done something, but she knows that all of us were up to something.”, Ron argued.

Hermione´s gaze shot up and suddenly she seemed to be as energized, as she had been when she had come up with her original idea of founding the DA.

“That´s it, Ron. You´re a genius.”, she stated. Even though you could see Ron flush in the dim light of the fireplace, the look on his face was as questioningly as on Harry´s and yours. But Hermione didn’t seem to notice. “Not all of our names are on the list. Don’t you remember?”

When she grinned at you excitedly, you realized.

Back in the day when everyone had met up in the Hog´s Head, you had been lying in bed with a nasty flue, regretting bitterly that you couldn’t accompany your friends to the very first meeting of the alliance forming against Umbridge. But maybe that exact fact could somehow help you out now. Because while back on that day, everyone had signed up on Hermione´s bewitched list, you hadn’t been there to do so. And by the time of the first meeting, you, as well as your friends, had somehow forgotten about the fact, that officially, you weren’t a part of the DA yet. And if Umbridge would use the list as a register of suspects, your name wouldn’t appear.

“But she still knows that we are friends. And even if there would be no connection between me and any of you at all – what am I supposed to do about the entire situation?”, you asked.

Hermione frowned.

“We have to think of something. And we need to be careful. We can´t allow any mistakes to be made once more.”

You nodded and let out a heavy sigh as you sank back into your seat. Just like Hermione, you weren’t ready to give up the fight yet, but on the other hand, for now, you couldn’t think of a single thing you were able to do in this situation. But as you saw Hermione´s gaze fixed on the fireplace, her brows furrowed and her lips moving constantly, as she talked to herself inaudibly, you strongly suspected that she was already working on a solution for your problem.

And your determination to do something -anything- about what was happening at your school only grew the next day. Because over the night new placates had appeared all over the castle. The Educational Decree Number Twenty-Eight announced that "Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor) has replaced Albus Dumbledore as the Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry".

Many rumours were spreading around the entire school, suspecting what exactly had happened the day before. Surprisingly, many of them weren’t exactly wrong. At least most people were informed well enough to know that Harry had witnessed the entire scene and now he was bombarded with questions. And no matter how hard Harry tried to shield himself from the curious glances and remarks, somehow someone always found their way to him.

One of those people was Ernie Macmillan. You had always liked the Hufflepuff boy, but sometimes his constant talking got on your nerves. Today was one of those days, but then again it wasn’t that hard to appreciate his chatter, since he not only shared your aversion against Umbridge, but he also wasn’t afraid to say it out loud. And just like that, Ernie and Hermione worked themselves into a rage, gossiping about your new headmaster.

But as Hermione was using a barrage of not-exactly-friendly words to describe her, she was interrupted by a sneering voice.

“Do you really want to finish this sentence, Granger?”

You turned around, facing the boy who had interrupted Hermione´s hate speeches. Draco Malfoy had somehow managed to stalk you and was now standing behind you, accompanied by his friends Crabbe and Goyle and a superior grin on his face, making you suspect, he was up to no good.

And you were right. While the grin on Malfoy´s face only widened, he explained to you, that members of the Inquisitorial Squad had by now the authority to dock points from other students. And he promptly took advantage of his new power, as Malfoy docked five points from Hermione for running her mouth over Umbridge, and once more ten for her being a -as he referred to her- mudblood, five from Ernie for disagreeing with him, five from Ron, for not dressing properly, and five from Harry. With Harry, Malfoy didn’t even look for an excuse to dock points, simply stating that he couldn’t stand him. Finally, the Slytherin turned to you, eying you with a sly grin on his face. Until that moment you had just stood there, watching the scene quietly, simply left speechless by the audacity of the boy. You could feel your heart pumping loudly in your chest, as Malfoy´s grey eyes set on you.

“Let´s see (Y/l/n).” He paused, his eyes scanning every centimetre of your body, searching for something to criticise. You could feel your skin burning under his intense gaze. Finally, Malfoy looked up again, his grey eyes meeting yours. The smile on his face only grew wider as he said: “Five points from you for having such bad taste in friends.”

You looked at the guy in disbelief. It took you a few moments to find your ability to speak again.

“Excuse me?”, you squeezed out, as a part of you was still denying what was going on right now.

“You are excused (Y/l/n).”, Malfoy said in a haughty tone, making Crabbe and Goyle giggle meanly.

As he saw the dumbfounded look on your face, Malfoy just laughed, before he turned on his heel, and walked away.

Only when Malfoy was almost out of sight, you slowly started to process what had just happened. And with the realization setting in, you felt the anger boiling up in you.

“That stupid bastard.”, you hissed, grabbing your wand, ready to fire a nasty curse right at Malfoy´s back. “I´m gonna…”

“You won´t do anything about it (Y/n).”, Hermione cut you off, grabbing you by the wrist. “Not yet.”

“But Hermione, we can´t let him get away with that. We can´t let all of them get away with that.”, you said in a desperate voice.

“Oh, don’t worry. We won´t.”, Hermione said grimly. “And I already have an idea how we will do this.”

A few days had passed since the incident with Malfoy. You and your friends turned the situation over in your minds over and over again. And by now, you knew exactly what to do.

You walked along the corridors of the castle until you finally stopped in front of a pink-painted door. You took a deep breath and knocked.

“Come in.”

You pushed down the handle and slowly opened the door. As it swung open, you squinted. You were genuinely wondering how Umbridge was able to spend her time here. Everything was shocking pink. The walls, the accessories, even some of the furniture. By now you had no doubt that Umbridge´s preferred method of torture wasn’t as effective as if she would just lock up the students inside this room for an hour. There was no way anyone would ever want to risk getting in here ever again. As your gaze wandered, you noticed the many cat pictures on the walls. Even if the situation was more than serious, you had to fight a small smile that threatened to appear on your face. You were absolutely certain that Professor McGonagall had taken it as a personal offence when she had realized what Umbridge´s favourite pet was.

Finally, your gaze settled on the desk in the middle of the room. You could have taken the Professor for a part of her office as well since her entire outfit was matching with the walls behind her perfectly. You could see that your arrival surprised her. Umbridge raised an eyebrow questioningly, nevertheless, the toadlike smile on her face was the same as usual.

“Miss (Y/l/n). May I ask you what brings you here?”, she said. Her voice was sweet like honey, but not in a good way. You could see her eyes glistening suspiciously.

You shifted from one foot to the other, your hands buried inside the pockets of your cloak.

“I… I would like to talk to you about something Headmistress.”, you said.

Calling Umbridge like that was even harder than you had imagined. Your voice shook slightly, and you had to bring up all your courage to not pull a face in disgust. But luckily, even if Umbridge would notice how nervous you were, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

“Well, have a seat then.”, Umbridge said and pointed at the chair on the opposite side of her desk.

You mumbled a small “Thanks.” as you sat down. Umbridge placed the cup of tea she was holding in her hand on the desk and looked at you.

“So, Miss (Y/l/n), tell me. What is your concern?”

“I… would like to talk to you about… About what happened earlier… the day Professor Dumbledore… disappeared. About the DA.”

You could see Umbridge´s googly eyes widen. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards as her hands clenched around the armrest of her upholstered chair.

“The DA?”, she said in an even higher-pitched voice than usual.

“Dumbledore´s Army.”, you clarified. As if she didn’t know.

“Very well. So you confess that you have been a part of it?”

You shook your head, even if it broke your heart to do so.

“I haven’t. But I… knew. About some things.”

“Miss (Y/l/n), I really appreciate the fact that you came here. But do you really want to tell me that you haven’t been a part of all of this? That all of your friends have done those awful things, but you were completely unaware of it?”

“I wasn’t unaware of it, Professor. I simply wasn’t involved. Harry has told us that you have seen the list with all the members. You know I´m not on it.”

“And why are you telling me this?”, Umbridge said, by now sounding slightly impatient.

“Because I know that what the others have done was wrong. I knew it back then and now I´m certain. I also know that their resistance is pointless. For my part, I want to be on the right side of this. And this is yours.”

Umbridge nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on you. For a few moments, she remained quiet. Then she let out a small sigh and smiled at you sweetly.

“My dear, I feel like this is going to be a longer conversation. Would you like to have a cup of tea?”

You felt your stomach drop. You knew what was about to come, you had talked the scene through several times, yet, you could feel the palms of your hands beginning to sweat. But you put on your sweetest smile and nodded.

“Yes please.”

Umbridge returned your smile and flicked her wand. From a sideboard, a tea service flew towards you and landed on the desk. Your hands shook slightly as you raised the cup to your lips. You could feel Umbridge´s gaze burning on you. When the warm porcelain touched your lips, you squeezed your eyes, trying to focus on a certain point in front of you. And in your head, you repeated the words all over again: Evanesco. Evanesco, evanesco, evanesco.

 You gulped heavily, even though your mouth was dry before you put the cup back on its saucer.

Umbridge´s gaze fell on the cup, as well as yours. You couldn’t help but let out a small sigh. The cup was by now half empty.

Umbridge, who had seen the same, nodded with a pleased look on her face.

“Tell me, how are you feeling Miss (Y/l/n)?”, she asked you in a mellow voice.

“Good.” Your voice broke. You cleared your throat. “Good. I´m just a bit nervous.”

Umbridge smiled contentedly.

“There is no need for that my dear. It´s just the two of us. And we both want the same, don’t we?” You nodded. “So, why don’t we continue where we left off?”

“The DA?”

“Exactly.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just tell me everything you know about it.”

Umbridge leant back in her armchair and folded her hands.

“Well, I don’t know exactly much.”, you hesitated.

“That doesn’t matter. Every little detail could be important.”

You deliberated a few seconds before you started.

“They were still at the very beginning. Professor Dumbledore had asked Harry to build the group. This was supposed to be the first official meeting.”

“The first official? So there have been interactions before?”

“I only know about one. They all met up to plan everything.”

“Who is all?”, Umbridge asked.

You shrugged your shoulders.

“I can´t be sure, I wasn’t there. But I suspect everyone from the list.”

“And what was your plan? What did you want to achieve with those meetings?”

“As I already said, I wasn’t a part of that.”, you pointed out. “But I know Dumbledore has asked Harry to teach the students how to fight.”

Umbridge´s hands clenched around her own cup of tea.

“To fight?”, she whispered breathlessly.

You nodded.

“Dumbledore held the view that the purely theoretical teaching in Defence Against The Dark Arts wasn’t enough. He wanted us to gain practical experience. And in his eyes, we didn’t do so in your class.”

“Obviously just an excuse.”, Umbridge interrupted you. “His goal was clearly a different one. The only purpose of this association was to form an army to bring down the ministry.”

“I don’t think so.”, you busted out. You bit your lip the very next moment, regretting your words.

But Umbridge didn’t seem to care. She threw you a compassionate smile.

“My dear, I totally understand that you want to think so. He had been your headmaster ever since you attended this school. But you have to understand that Dumbledore isn’t the man you all thought he was. Do you understand?”

By now, you bit your lip so hard, you could taste the metallic flavour of your own blood. But you nodded anyway.

“It´s just… so hard, you know? I always thought he was such a great man. And now he has done all those awful things. In the beginning, I thought that he might be innocent, but now that he´s on the run… I mean, why should he disappear when he isn’t guilty? But all of my friends still believe in him. And now they are all turning against me, just because I have doubts.”

Who hadn’t any doubts anymore, was Umbridge about your sincerity. By now you were absolutely certain that you had pulled the woman on your side. She tilted her head and threw you a -what she thought was- warm smile.

“I know my dear. But I can assure you that you have done the exact right thing. I am very proud of you.”

About half an hour later, you were still sitting in Umbridge´s office. The tea had by now gotten cold. Your Professor had asked you several questions about the DA, Professor Dumbledore and your friends. You had answered all the questions patiently.

“Well, I think that´s it. For now.”, Umbridge finally said with a sly grin on her face. “Or is there anything else you think you have to tell me?”

You pondered for a moment.

“The Galleons.”, you finally said. “The members were handed bewitched Galleons to communicate with one another.”

Umbridge nodded eagerly and scribbled down something on the pink parchment in front of her, which she had started to use halfway through to make sure she would remember every small detail you told her. Then she put down her quill and looked at you.

“Thank you very much, my dear. I really appreciate your effort. And it will be rewarded. Ten points to Gryffindor.”

You smiled.

“Thank you, Headmistress.”

Umbridge mirrored your smile.

“You earned it. You know what I told you. Good students will be rewarded, while bad students will be punished. Congratulations Miss (Y/l/n), you really honoured your house today. You have been really brave indeed.” Oh, if she only knew how much you had been. “You may leave now.”

You thanked the Professor with a sweet smile on your face and got up. When you had almost reached the door, you stopped.

“Headmistress?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“My friends… They won´t get in trouble for what I have told you, will they? I mean, I know what they have done wasn’t right, but I´m sure they wouldn’t have done it if they wouldn’t have been talked into it.”

“Don’t worry. I am very much aware of the bad influence Dumbledore had on his students. But from now on, that will change.” She threw you a tight-lipped grin. “So please tell your friends that from now on they will be responsible for their actions. And if they decide to keep on showing bad manners, I will take action.”

“I highly doubt that they will still listen to me after what I have done today.”, you responded glumly.

“They will understand that what you have done was for the good of all.”, Umbridge said softly.

You nodded.

“Thank you for your time, Headmistress.”

“Any time, my dear.”

Only when you pushed down the handle, Umbridge held you back once more.

“Miss (Y/l/n)?”

“Yes Headmistress?”

“Why don’t you attend the next meeting of the Inquisitorial Squad? By now there aren’t any Gryffindors in the group. But I want all students to be represented. I am sure we all can benefit from this collaboration.”

If she only knew how much you would benefit from this.

“I would love to. Thank you, Headmistress.”

And with that, you finally left.

But as you returned to the Gryffindor common room, the other students threw you some deadly glances and whispered with one another. And for the rest of the day, no one said a word to you, and everyone treated you with contempt.

pt.2

Taglist: @xodracomalfoyxo @marigold-morelli @army24—7 @lbhmoon @cappgyuccino @writingwitch007

#draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco x female reader #draco x you #draco x y/n #draco fluff #draco angst #draco fanfiction #draco fic #harry potter #dolores umbridge #gregory goyle #hermione granger #ron weasley #vincent crabbe #gryffindor #gryffindor reader #slytherin #fanfic

[highfantasy-soul]

With all these 'you need to show not tell!' critiques, recently I'm getting the feeling people have forgotten what that actually means. Specifically with the Percy Jackson show, I've heard this complaint a lot - and how they're "leaving stuff out" that was explained (told) at the beginning of the book. There's this simultaneous critique that 'they're leaving stuff out' and 'they're telling too much exposition' which, watching the show, it makes it really seem like literally nothing will satisfy them.

Specifically, let's talk about Grover's desire to become a searcher:

I heard from a lot of people who read the books that they're doing Grover a disservice because they 'took away' his narrative goal. But how did we know this was his goal in the book? He point blank told Percy. In the show, we're seeing what he values, we're seeing his distress at the destruction of the natural world, and we're seeing why he might either have or grow to have the desire to become a searcher for Pan.

Showing vs telling can take time. Showing vs telling might make those who already know feel like it's been forgotten/the character (or world) isn't as fleshed out as they know they are after having read all 5+ books.

I think the show is doing a great job at showing when it comes to character development/goals while they relegate the cliffnotes of the world building to telling. They tell the stuff that, naturally, would be told to someone just walking into this new world of half-bloods. We don't exactly want Percy to be wandering around without people just telling him the basics of what he needs to know to survive. However, the bigger things, the things about the world that the adults think only they should know, that's being shown to us over the course of the show - not info dumped on us. That leads to some thinking stuff is left out or that they're relying on viewers to have read the books to understand the story. Neither of which is the case based on the show-only reactions I've seen.

You're supposed to feel like Percy isn't being told everything because this is a middle grade story and a massive point of many of them is adults not telling the kid protagonists things - you know, mimicking the real world and the frustrations many kids have growing up and having the 'important' info withheld from them because they're "too young to understand."

Showing vs telling the character motivations/growth helps us really connect to them because we see, over time, who they are. (Annabeth's 'telling' of her motivations makes sense in context because, like Grover being a failed protector, it's her starting point in the story - the place where she grows from - and gives the viewer a better understanding of why this random girl is so interested in Percy and the quest).

Telling vs showing sets up the base-line understanding of the world. Showing vs telling certain world building (usually related directly to plot development) details gives the feeling of shock or dawning/changing understanding of what one thought they knew of the world.

Showing and telling both have their place in narratives - it's important to know which one is needed where and what purpose they serve. And yeah, showing might take a lot longer than just telling, so if you're all about stories showing stuff, you're going to need a little patience and to just sit down, shut up, and you know, actually watch the show.

#pjo #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson show spoilers #percy jackson disney+ #grover underwood #writing advice

[lady0lunamoon]

Theory : Agent 4 In Side Order

With the announcement of the Splatoon 3 DLC "Side Order", many people in the Splatoon fandom either suspect or internally demand that Agent 4 appears in the upcoming DLC — and for good reasons!

But HOW would Agent 4 fit into the story of the DLC?

What would their role be?

Well, I have an idea!

So get some snacks and a drink people, cause this will definetly take a while!

So that you will not loose the sight of where one point ends and the next one beginns, I will mark the beginning of all the points with heart emojis!

And to top it all off, because I'll be talking about Agent 4's involvement as a whole and not just WHY or HOW they could appear in the DLC, but infact ALL these topics at once, I will also divide the different topics through lines! ( "____" but longer )

Here's a base to get a better idea of what I'm talking about :

At the very end, I will also add a quick summary of all my conclusions, incase you won'tbe able to follow all the points, loose sight or it is just too many ideas and conclusions at once for you to process! _______________________________________

First, I'll beginn with the reasons why Agent 4 definetly MUST appear in the DLC:

💛 Reason one : They're the ONLY member of the Squidbeak still missing!!! Agent 8 has been confirmed as the Player Character for Side Order and the rest of the Squidbeak — even Octavio — were all in "Return of the Mamalians"! The only one still missing in this game is Agent 4!

💛 While we're at the topic of other characters, every recurring Character that has appeared in the trailers until now first debuted in Splatoon 2, but none of them have made any onscreen appearances in Splatoon 3 yet — in other words, until now they've been Splatoon 2 exclusive characters! Agent 8 and Dedf1sh never appeared in Splatoon 3 up until the trailers came, and Off the Hook's only appearance until now was through artwork and music! Pearl and Marina haven't physically appeared yet, but are all but confirmed to do so in the actual DLC! Infact, Pearl seems to be controlling a little flying drone that seems to be "Side Order"'s counterpart of "Return of the Mamalians"' Lil Buddy! Pretty much the only significant Splatoon 2 character that has yet to appear in Splatoon 3 is Agent 4 — except for commander Tartar, but that guy is dead so he doesn't count!

💛 Also, Agent 4 is actually mentioned in the Official Splatoon 3 World Map!

Therefore, it's clear Nintendo has not forgotten about 4, but wouldn't it still be weird to mention them here if they were not important to the game in some way?

Infact, Agent 4 was the ONLY other Agent appart from New Agent 3 that was mentioned on the map and the ONLY ONE who was mentioned DIRECTLY! For New Agent 3, the map just said "You Live here" but for Agent 4 it says "Agent 4's home"

💛 Also, Lil Judd is implied to be the new boss of Grizzro Industries after you complete "Return of the Mamalians" — a plot point which should probably get resolved in the DLC, considering the implications that cloning is involved! And it's confirmed that Agent 4 did or might even still work at Grizzro industries!

☝Keep this point here in mind, cause I'm not done with this yet!☝

💛 Also, if you didn't recognize the location in the first trailer, the Official DLC's Webpage read : "See what has happened to Inkopolis Square from the Splatoon 2 game, and what would've happened if Order thwarted Chaos to rule the city!"So this confirms, that Side Order indeed takes place in Inkopolis Square — the setting of Splatoon 2!

_______________________________________

Now that we got the connections to Agent 4 and reasons they should definetly appear in the DLC out of the way, let's start on my theory what their role might be in the DLC!

🧡 Well, Remember what I said about Lil Judd being implied to be the new boss of Grizzro Industries? Considering the recent theories about the DLC involving Cloning, it's very likely that Lil Judd is involved in the DLC, Considering he is a clone on Judd! But what does that have to do with Agent 4's role in the story?

......Remember what I said about Agent 4 and Grizzro industries?

Well, I purposefully said that they might still be working there!

Am I saying that Agent 4 is a villain in "Side Order"?

I sure am!

I know what you're thinking now...... "But why would they be evil?"

To better understand that, I first wanna adress another theory I have on the DLC: 

_______________________________________

🧡 Because I am very much convinced that the Final Splatfest is directly involved in the DLC!

Because..... how else could you interpret the title? Even if the central theme truly is order, the DLC is not just called "Order"! It's called "Side Order"! And there are always more than one sides — mostly opposing sides! And what were the two opposing sides in the final Splatfest of Splatoon 2? Team Chaos vs Team Order!

Which means to me that, whoever is pulling the strings — be it Agent 4 or someone else — is on the SIDE of ORDER!

The title is suppose to tell us that the Final Splatfest is the conflict of the DLC! The antagonist is upset over what has happened to the world after Team Chaos won! So now, their goal is to create a new World ORDER!

Infact, maybe the final boss fight — or at least some level in the DLC — will be based after a Splatfest battle! Like a Tri-color turf war! I mean..... in Octo Expansion we had multiple levels with Rank battles and the Final Boss fight was based after Turf War!

All that we're missing here would be a Splatfest battle! If the main conflict really is the "Chaos Vs Order" Splatfest, then one of the best ideas for the final battle would be a repeat of said Splatfest!

_______________________________________🖤 This theory might also provide an explanation for why Agent 8 wakes up in the bleached Inkopolis Square and Marina also appeanantly vanished!

Eight and Marina were both on Team Order! Wouldn't it make sense wanting the help of other Team Order members for this plan?

To get them on your....side?

But of course, 8 and Marina refused, so the antagonist resorts to kidnapping (at least in the case of Marina)!

_______________________________________

🖤 But that still doesn't explain why Agent 4 would be an antagonist right....?

Why would they Support Order?

Weren't they on Team Chaos for the Final fest?

Yes!

Yes, Agent 4 Indeed was on Team Chaos for the final fest!

WAS!

Take a look back at the post from the DLC's Webpage : "What would've happened if Order thwarted Chaos to rule the city?"

Many people interpreted this part like that Side Order is actually a "What If?" Alternate Universe!

However, I don't think that is the case.....

Do you honestly think we'd get a plain, over-perfectionized and colorless town as the main aesthetic for a game like Splatoon?

Instead, I believe the "What would've happened if....?" ect. part is from the perspective of a character!

You know what I think could be Agent 4's reason for suddenly being on Team Order?

Infact, what might be a central theme in the DLC as a whole?

Regret!

Have any of you guys ever felt doubts about your Splatfest choice? Maybe even regretted them?

Maybe even regretted picking Chaos instead of Order? Because the end result was NOT what you expected?

Well I have! And it lead me to think, if maybe other players felt the same way..... and if they did, wouldn't it be interesting to discuss this topic in the actual game? Considering the Final Fest always has such a HUGE impact on the next game in the series, it might feel natural to wonder if maybe the opposite team should've won! Because maybe the result is different from what you expected?

And you beginn to wonder "What if I picked the other team?" "What if the other team won?"

🖤 Imagine following scenario: Agent 4 was on Team Chaos for the final Splatfest and team Chaos indeed won!

At first, they were happy, just like everyone else......But then, things started to change — like Pearl and Marina said the splatfest result changed the world.... but it didn't change in the way that Agent 4 had hoped! Perhaps the changes that followed after the events of the Chaos vs Order Splatfest were different than what 4 had imagined!

.....Or perhaps Marina was right to fear what might happen if Team Chaos won,

....only wrong about who it applied to!

What if the Splatfest somehow caused some dissonance in the Squidbeak for some reason? And Agent 4 was somehow involved!

What if the other Agents left to go to Splatsville/Alterna and Agent 4 was left behind?

It would add up with the fandom's opinion that the character of Agent 4 is just being forgotten! Because I often see the fandom portray Agent 4 as being left behind by the rest of the Squidbeak!

And just like with the Splatfest Teams, acknowledgement of the fandom in such a way would be an interesting concept to touch uppon, because the fandom would relate to it!

And IF the final Splatfest really is a central conflict in the DLC, then the idea of regretting your team decision would be a very interesting thing to discuss!

Regardless of how it might've happened, the idea is that, after some time, Agent 4 started wondering

"What if I had fought on team order?"

"What if team Order won?"

🖤 Another thing that tipped me off about the concept of regret is the appearance of Dedf1sh — or "Acht" as she called herself in the DLC trailer!

Acht is an Octoling who willingly got sanitized due to "doubts and conflicts about production"!

Also track #8 in her list of songs in called "Regret", possibly showing that she regrets letting herself get sanitized!

There it is again! Doubts and regreting your choices!

And we all know that 8 is a very Important number in regards to the octarians! To hammer this point home, even Dedf1sh's nickname "Acht" is the german word for "Eight"! So, the fact that her 8# track song is called "Regret" feels to me like it is important.

_______________________________________

🖤 Also, side note : It wouldn't be the first time a member of the Squidbeak Splatoon became antagonistic! We saw it in Splatoon 2, with Callie and the Original Agent 3/Cap'n!

And considering the repeaded use of the number 3 in this game...... It seems like a golden opportunity (and a good excuse :3) for the devs to pull that trope a third time!

They already did it with the "Great Zapfish gets stolen" plot!

And considering the rest of the Squidbeak is busy in Alterna, Agent 4 is pretty much the only option available! _______________________________________

🖤 But even IF they want to reverse the events of the Final fest, WHY would 4 go so far? They are a hero, are they not? What happened to them that would cause them to do.....all this?!

Well, I suspect that, IF Agent 4 really is a villain or even THE villain of the DLC, they will not be in their right state of mind!

And no, I don't mean mind controlled and puppeteered by somebody else like Callie in the Splatoon 2 Hero Mode or the Cap'n/Original Agent 3 in Octo Expansion!

Like I said, the developers have the opportunity and the excuse to pull the "Member of the Squidbeak turns evil" trope a third time, but that doesn't mean they couldn't add a little twist to it, to keep it interesting!

You see, throughout both Trailers, there is a repeaded use of imagery that is reminicent of actually organic bodies, like the veins and corals that are oddly reminicent of veins!

Also look at this picture right there and tell me it doesn't look reminicent of a brain to you!

While mechanical and robotic stuff is definetly present in the trailers too, so is organic stuff!

However, the hints of natural organic things are much more suddle! It kinda feels to me like there is something intentionally being kept secret in relation to it!

Like for example....maybe the root of everything bad happening in the DLC is more of a root than we might think!

Maybe the origins of everything behind the events of Side Order is not some AI or a scientific experiment, but it's actually something natural!

Something that wasn't directly created by human hand or tentacles, but by (what remains of) the planet itself!

Remember this part from "Return of the Mamalians"' Alterna Logs: "Spurred by these impulses-and whatever else may have been floating in the polluted waters-the sea creatures began to evolve rapidly."

The important part being "Whatever else may have been floating in the polluted waters"! Implying that something other than the crystals infused with humanities desires have been responsible for the evolution of marine life!

What results would we get from the crystals mixing with different things?

For example, Mr Grizz combined some of those crystals with his own furr to create the fuzzy ooze! Although the golden fisheggs were also involved, the game even calls out that it is unknown HOW the fisheggs were used in the creation of the fuzzy ooze!

And it's said that if an Inkling or Octoling comes into contact with fuzzy Ooze, they lose their sense of self!

Loosing their sense of self..... Sound like a good trigger for someone to turn evil?

And if it were either the crystals or the golden fisheggs that are responsible for the "Loosing their sense of self" part...... Well, as an employee of Grizzro's, Agent 4 would have access to Golden Fish Eggs!

And like I said, the ocean is full of those crystals' pieces!

After all, who ever said that the effects those crystals are ALL good?

🖤 Remember, these crystals were infused with Humanity's thoughts and desires! And I doubt that the remaining humans in Alterna have been thinking happy thoughts 24/7!

Because 1 : It was basically the end of the world and their kind was going extinct!

And 2 : They're humans! It's as easy as that!There must've been some hateful thoughts at some point!

And when Alterna collabsed, causing the crystals and thereby also humanity's thoughts to seep into the ocean, nature saw what it would do with it!

Because remember: Those crystals originated from the bodily fluids of squid! The origins if the crystals lied in nature!

The positive feelings contained within the crystals allowed marine life to evolve and become the new dominant species, but what about the negative feelings? Cause I'll be damned if the remaining humans didn't have any bad thoughts or feelings! Especially considering it was the end of the world at that time!!

What if nature did something else with those negative feelings?

And if it did, what would happen if a living organism came in contact with them.....?

What influence could it have on them?

This would be far from the first time nature somehow influences the minds of living creatures!

The two most intense examples I know being Rabies and (Say it with me "The Last of Us"—fans!) Cordyceps!

My point here? If 4 goes rogue, it's possible that the cause of it is not mind control but more related to nature! _______________________________________

🤍 To sum everything up once more :

Agent 4 definetly 10000% MUST appear in the DLC!

The main conflict is not just the concept of "Order", but specifically the Chaos vs Order Splatfest!

After the final fest, for multiple possible reasons, Agent 4 ended up regretting being on Team Chaos for the final Splatfest and wanting to reverse everything! Maybe even start a second "Chaos Vs Order" splatfest!

And they wanted fellow Team Order members Agent 8 and Marina on their Side Order, but that didn't go so smoothly!

However, some outside force might be responsible for them taking it to dangerous extremes!

Though it doesn't necessarily have to be the work of another villain, but maybe, for example, coming in contact with Alterna crystals that absorbed humanity's negative feelings or whatever nature did with said crystals!

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