#MAG 21

[mothocean]

Mag 21 freefall be like

[ID: A sticker that says "This man ate my son" below a photo of a blue sky. End ID]

[a-mag-meme-a-day]

meme for @a-mag-a-day day Day 22

MAG 21 - Freefall

[tampieren]

You asked for prompts and i am here to humbly ask for some terminal velocity! Thank youuuuu

Gravity is calling, I've got some falling to doooo!!!

[lightbluesleeper]

tma doodle dump !

[eldritchhorrorlesbian]

17 minutes. episode 21 of tma is only 17 minutes long. its like 2:15am. do yall know what this means?

MY ASS GETS TO GO TO BED EARLY TONIGHT BECAUSE OF HOW LITTLE THE EPISODE IS GONNA TAKE TO GET THROUGH GOD BLESS YOU JONATHAN SIMS, GOD BLESS YOU. YOURE A GOOD MAN.

[no-tengo-ojos]

Enjoy Sky Blue!

Quick one but ‘Freefall’ (Mag 21) has always reminded me of the album cover for ‘I Had the Blues but I Shook them Loose’ by my fav band Bombay Bicycle Club so this is like a little crossover piece for me

Also their new album has a track called ‘Diving’ where the band actually went skydiving so everything’s sort of linked?

[tmascrapbook]

Mag 21: freefall

[insanearchivist]

God Martin what the hell are these things?

The way I went from trying to figure out what connections I'm missing to shitting my pants from Jon screaming in my ears to being confused with the sounds I was hearing to fast forwarding to the next episode was amazing.

Brb to figure out what connections I missed after I find out what the hell are these

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 21, MAG 21 Freefall

Tom Petty plays in the background as a man falls to his death

Is this too niche a joke? Not possible. MAG 21 analysis, spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Moira Kelley, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert. Statement given October 20th, 2002.

Statement Notes: I have some friends with thrill seeking hobbies and I've really just been waiting for this to happen to one of them. RIP Robert Kelley but my bros are NOT built different and the sky will eat them.

The intensity of Robert's fear in this episode was so deep and profound. The way that he fell for so long that he actually wanted to hit the ground. The fact that he didn't open his parachute on time because he was so desperate to reach the ground faster. You were really able to experience and understand his emotions.

"The sky ate him" is usually the line that gets a lot of press in this episode, and for good reason. But the line that's always stuck with me is "Enjoy sky blue." It's only three words, but it says so much. The word "Enjoy" highlights the normalcy of life in the Magnus Archives universe. Rober is doing what he loves, he should be happy, he should enjoy the jump. But he won't. Fairchild won't let him. The horrors won't let him. The narrative won't let him.

But the second half of that sentence--"sky blue"--adds a whole other element. Syntactically speaking, Simon Fairchild presents it as a noun. It could be an activity or experience to Fairchild, like skydiving. It's something he does often, experiencing the thrill and horror of the fall by "sky bluing." It could be fun for him. Maybe if Robert had enjoyed the fall, Fairchild would have recruited him as an entity. It's not capitalized in the transcript, but because it is being spoken by Moira Kelley who lacks context, it's possible it is a proper noun. Could it be a place? An area the Fairchilds blip in out of and send hapless victims to, the same way the Lukases send people to the Lonely? Or is it a name? A living entity that got a taste of Robert on his first dive and decided to finish its meal on the hill?

The wind sfx in this episode is so great. I've been suspending my disbelief with the sound effects in the early episodes because I assumed they were mainly just to build ambiance for the listener, but they do have interesting implications for future episodes. If, in recording early statements, Jon begins experiencing/developing his Eye powers, then these effects (the wind in this ep, the heart beating with Julia Montauk, etc.) could be him "hearing" what the victims felt and experienced. He is looking through their eyes as he reads the statement.

Entity Alignment: Tom Petty continues playing quietly in the background

Really great Vast episode. I've never been particularly scared of heights, so I don't often find the vast episodes "scary," but I do find this one to be particularly unsettling and thrilling. The sky being presented as semi-sentient, with the ability to not only steal but eat a man makes the idea of falling through all the more terrifying.

When Moira Kelley began the statement, she explains that she "doesn't have the words" and doesn't know what to write. But of course, she explains everything in perfect detail anyway. By virtue of being in the Institute, she is compelled to tell her story. The Eye is urging her to relive the horror that she sold her home to escape. She says that "knowing won't bring him back," but the Institute doesn't care. It just wants more knowledge and fear to consume.

Character Notes: In MAG 111, Gerry explains that families are often just tools for avatars to ensure transfers of power and increase their own power. This vaguely seems to be what Fairchild is doing with Harriet, although less so. But I also wonder if the same can be said of the businesses that avatars and entities involve themselves in. According to Jon, Open Skydiving isn't a "real" company with any records, but it clearly has been operating for many years and people utilize its services. Similar circumstances seem to be true for the Magnus Institute, as well as Peter Lukas' real estate and shipping companies. They provide moderate services merely to provide funds and resources to avatars, while also functioning as mediums through which they can create more fear.

(Something something a company treating you like family means they want to use your success to increase their own status something something)

Slightly less relevant, but Robert says the jump was a charity event for Simon's deceased wife. I would love not only to know more about who Fairchild's wife was and how she died, but also what charity he could possibly be leaving any money to. "Defective parachutes for youth" "Old men against OSHA" "Wheelchair kitesurfing fund."

Slightly more relevant, but Martin!! He's back! Oh no!

The most important thing about Jon's reaction to Martin bursting in is when he shouts "What are these things?" Not only has he never seen the worms before, but he has no idea what they are. Even after reading Timothy Hodge's statement, he can't connect the worms he sees to Jane Prentiss. This is totally reasonable for any regular person, as he likely never expected to see the worms in person nor would expect Martin to burst in covered in them, but Jon isn't a regular person. At times, Elias has allowed Jon to make leaps in logic that lead him to the actual truth as a means of hiding his Eye powers. Elias wants Jon to know things he shouldn't, but only on his schedule. Jon needs to explore Prentiss more deeply so he will be marked for the ritual, so he's rationing information.

[drumlincountry]

I know we learn very little about Harriet Fairchild but I do suspect that in MAG 21 Freefall, she's....flirting? Courting, perhaps?

She's worked with Robert Kelly for a while. He's an obsessivley passionate skydiver. She's a FAIRCHILD.

When he finally falls out of the fear dimension, she's waiting for him at the bottom. Simon is gone! Harriet stuck around to see how he's doing.

Throwing him into the vast was a test to see if he'd make a good avatar, that's pretty obvious. But they'd know right away that it hadn't worked, right? They feed on fear. I ASSUME they can tell the difference between "guy who is terrified but also loves it and wants to join your evil extreme sports family" and "guy who is just terrified". Simon goes home! Simon isn't going to wait around to chat with prey.

But Harriet is there. Waiting for him. Maybe she doesn't know he failed the test. Maybe its ambiguous and she's hoping that he'll say something that tips the scales towards "I DO share your passions as a fear avatar and would like to do this again some time".

I acknowledge I have a big soft monsterlover heart but: Harriet Fairchild worked with Robert Kelly, Normal Skydiving Fanatic, for MONTHS at her family's fear farm/fake skydiving company. She thought she might be able to make a deeper (and. Vaster.) connection with him. The date went badly! and she still liked him enough to stick around and make sure he got home safe.

And then, , she ate him. ♥

[oakt733]

one of my friends mentioned sky diving and i actually started vibrating with excitement that i can talk about MAG 21 freefall

[cult-of-the-eye]

tma episodes make THE BEST what would you do if questions to ask your friends, especially the vast ones i think. my fave so far has been i explained the sky diving episode to my friend (mag 21 i think) and she goes yeah i'd be happy floating in the air like that, i think i'd just get hungry...

[clairebearsparkles]

I painted this for my birthday!! It goes with my dress with clouds on it

[biwonderland98]

Podcasts are great because you can have a sentence that's just "the sky ate him" and nobody has to worry about visually making it look like the sky itself is eating someone

[silly-lil-blog]

My favorite thing in the about the statements is the random person they encounter that says something spooky and gives me goosebumps. Fav examples include:

"Enjoy sky blue." -Simon MAG21

"No, sir, you have nothing to fear from the dead." -Man from the Cemetery MAG23

"Be still, for there is strange music." (Not a person but it counts for me) -The Calliope MAG24

"You cannot stop slaughter by closing the door." Tom Haan- MAG30

"Tomorrow will be a good day for a run." -Hiker MAG31

I'll add as i go further along

[updatebug]

not to TMA spam, but I was re-listening to the series while at work at it has given me a LOT of thoughts.

I am wondering how many of cases we hear about in the files are avatar recruitments? Like, I don't think it's a high number, but I definitely don't think it's zero. I mean we have one canonical one in that guy who cheated death, and a strongly implied one with the murder pig but the one that really got me thinking about it was Freefall.

So in Freefall, Robert works for the Fairchild skydiving company which is obviously a front for their chucking people into the vast, but he works for them for at least a year (probably a couple) before he ever has any issues. And he's not scared of skydiving, he loves it (and I know loving something doesn't necessarily stop the fears from torturing you with that thing). But the thing that really struck me as odd was that Harriet was still waiting for him at the bottom, even tho Fairchild had left. IDK I just wonder whether if Robert had embraced the fall, he would have wound up as an avatar and when he didn't he was moved back into the prey category.