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[dannimatic2]

was looking thru old messages in a tma discord and. sighs.

[dannimatic2]

The Tapes Are Web And I’m Right: A long, rambling, semi-comprehensive list of reasons why the web controls the tapes and also jon, written as of MAG 194:

1. It's practically all but confirmed that they aren't linked to the Beholding (they appear in the Eye's blindspots like the tunnels and Upton House) and I genuinely just can’t imagine how they'd pull off the "the tapes were actually us, the audience, all along" theory in canon aside from subtext and meta implications, so that crosses the two off as mostly implausible in my mind.

2. How could Annabelle have known exactly when Martin and Jon split up so that she could snatch Martin up the next moment and take him to Hilltop Road, unless she heard the tape of their argument? How could she have known so much about them to be able to use their doubts & insecurities to manipulate them? (Are you truly in control of the choices you make? Does he even need you at all?) She's not semi-omniscient like Jonah, so where does she get all her information from? How does she know so much? 

3. There are countless hints linking the tapes back to the Web, including but not limited to:

-MAG 134: It was revealed that Martin piled the tapes on top of the coffin while Jon was still in the Buried to help him find his way out, but he didn’t know where the idea came from, and it’s very likely that the web placed the idea in his mind. 

-MAG 147: Annabelle was in possession of the Anglerfish tape, the very first statement Jon ever recorded, and placed it atop her own statement at hilltop road. I can’t think of a single reason for it to be there besides as a hint to the audience of the Web’s subtle involvement with the plot since the very beginning, and the convenient placement of the tape on top of Annabelle’s statement is just screaming that the two are somehow linked.

-MAG 157: Annabelle was the most plausible option as to who left the tape on Jon's desk that led him to try to find the panopticon & save Martin, consequently getting the Lonely mark and ending the world.

-MAG 163: At the end of the episode, a tape manifests in Martin’s bag. He asks it what it's doing there, and at that very same instant, the phone rings. It’s later revealed that it was Annabelle on the other line.

From these examples alone, I’m almost entirely convinced that the Web is behind the tapes. One thing that still doesn’t make sense, though, is the 6 month gap of time while Jon was in a coma. Why would the Web choose not to manifest any tapes during the Flesh invasion, or during Martin’s turn to the Lonely? Maybe it simply wasn’t important to the completion of the world-ending ritual: Jon was comatose, so logically the ritual couldn’t be furthered until he woke up, and the Web had no reason to spy on Melanie as she furiously stabbed a many-limbed eldritch monstrosity triple her size (although I, personally, would’ve paid to hear that go down).

But another explanation may be that Jon himself, being The Archive, is a vessel for Annabelle Cane’s master plan. If we take into account the hints littered throughout the series that the apocalypse was mainly orchestrated and carried out not by Jonah but by Annabelle—the worms being let into the archive when Jon tried to kill a spider, Oliver Banks being compelled by Annabelle to give his statement to Jon (“you know better than anyone how the spiders can get into your head. Easier to just do what she asks”), the Web compelling Martin to lure Jon out of the Buried by piling tapes on top of the coffin, etc—His entire purpose as Archivist could possibly be better attributed to the Web, not the Eye. We already know that the entities are so fundamentally connected to each other that not one single fear can be brought into the world without bringing along the rest, and many, if not all of them, overlap to some degree. And the Web’s whole thing is manipulation! If the Desolation ritual involves a messiah born in flame, and the Flesh ritual is literally just a bunch of people throwing meat into a gigantic hole, then it would make a lot of thematic sense for the Web, instead of orchestrating a ritual of its own (which we all know wouldn’t work in the first place), to succeed through the manipulation of another entity’s ritual, silently pulling the strings so that another entity, such as the Eye, is unwittingly helping the Web fulfill its plans the entire time. This theory works in the case of past archivists as well: Gertrude used the Web to bind herself to Agnes Montague in an attempt to thwart the Desolation’s ritual, not to mention that she was established to be extremely cunning and manipulative by nature, characteristics more in line with avatars of the Web than the Eye. And it was the Web that brought Jon to the institute, that led him to get marked by all fourteen fears and, ultimately, to end the world. 

This could tie the “the tapes are a manifestation of Jon's powers" and "the tapes are the Web” theories into one, explaining why the tapes didn’t manifest during the six months that Jon was comatose, while also falling in line with the evidence that the Web is in control of, or at the very least has unlimited access to the tapes. This would also explain why the tapes only started manifesting around season 2: it was the first point in the series where Jon began fully taking on his role as Archivist and became able to compel people to give him information, the first instance of such being in MAG 61. Not to mention that this ability itself could easily be an extension of both the Web and the Eye: the Eye part being that it's a way to get information from people, and the Web part being the manipulation of one’s free will to do so. Note how Jon compels Floyd Matharu in MAG 141:

ARCHIVIST

[Soothingly] You can go.

FLOYD

Erm… I, I don’t…

ARCHIVIST

Thank you Floyd. You’ve been… very helpful.

FLOYD

C—

ARCHIVIST

It’s alright, Floyd. You just… need a break.

FLOYD

Yeah… Sure.

[RINGING FOOTSTEPS DEPART]

He doesn’t ask Floyd a question. He’s not trying to get any more information out of him. He’s doing what I can only describe as mind controlling him. He plants an idea in his mind that makes him walk off in a daze. It’s unlike anything he had used his powers for before. It reminds me of MAG 59, where Ronald Sinclair made his way down to the basement of Hilltop Road, and every subsequent movement—removing the box from the table, taking out the apple, lifting it up to bite into it—was made not only against his will, but performed with the calmest expression on his face while in his mind he desperately fought against it. It reminds me of MAG 81, where the book lures Jon out of his house, walks him all the way down to Mr. Spider’s doorstep, and balls his hand into a fist to knock on the door.

His being the Archivist could also be why the Web gave Jon the lighter in the first place: maybe he’s the only one who can use it to fulfill their grand plan, whatever that may end up being in the end. Maybe he was meant to from the start.

And for my final and most damning piece of evidence, feast your eyes on THIS:

Thank you for your time.