#MAG27

[a-mag-a-day]

i missed yesterday because i was busy but fuckhands McMike my beloved <3

about mag27: another ones of these things you only really notice while relistening is how this episode is the distortion deciding to fuck with some guy right after Michael was introduced, the EPISODE ORDER IN SEASON ONE MAN

Well we're not really supposed to know yet that it was the Distortion trying to open the door 😜 😉🤭

[marlasomething]

Oh pals...ep 27

WHAT A JOURNEY

It is not only how GENUINELLY SCARY this episode is on itself, but the fact that this episode is such a great companion to the previous one...

...the point of how scary It is to be facing a fake smile, a lie, not to be able to trust your reality IS so well portrayed by the almost friendly face of the Spiral on mag26 vs the sheer psycological torture of mag27

Just love it, absolutely

[jentirely-true]

I listened to a bunch of different horror podcasts in 2017 and I was utterly convinced until now that mag27 a sturdy lock was not from TMA lmao

[maidfrin]

mag27: Michael Distortion Torments an Old Man for No Fucking Reason

[booksquirmy]

Things have calmed down so now’s my chance to talk about the amazing EyeLoveTMA project that was done over the course of 3 months!! From art to statements to data about the show and the fans this project has everything and I suggest you check it out: https://eyelovetma.github.io/index.html! I personally did data from the show from who swore to how many times the Admiral was mentioned! If you want to take a peak at all the data you can use this link: https://t.co/BqmUbHzZ1z?amp=1 

I also did the post-it note for episode 27: A Sturdy Lock! So enjoy the sights and check out the other amazing people from this project (and my data buddy’s statistics since they put ALOT of time and effort into creating the newsletter ^-^)

[cymae-mesa]

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there

He wasn't there again today

I wish, I wish he'd go away...

[the-magnus-archives-archiver]

A Sturdy Lock

Case: 0032408

Name: Paul McKenzie Subject: Repeated nocturnal intrusions into his home Date: August 24th, 2003 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

It’s strange to live alone. Maybe not if you’re used to it, I suppose. If you’ve lived a solitary life then I’m sure it doesn’t feel so isolated or empty. Heck, I remember a time when I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at living on my own. But now I’m so used to having other people in the house that it’s a sad, lonely existence I’ve found myself living. Even before I started having my nightly visitor.

My son Marcus moved out about two years ago, and before that he’d spent a lot of time away at university or, later, moving around because of his work. So I’d grown accustomed to his absence. But when Diane, my wife, passed away four months ago it has... left the place so terribly hollow. I tell myself that it was a mercy, that by the end her condition meant she wasn’t able to live as she deserved to. And while I’m sure it’s true, the sentiment does little to make the bed seem anything other than far too large for just me. She’d hate me saying that. Diane never had any time for mopers or people who wallowed in self-pity, but after forty years of marriage I think I’ve earned it.

The thing about living in a house full of people if that you can just ignore any noises that you hear in the night. Is that a creak on the stairs? It’s probably just someone going down for a glass of water. What was that thump? Probably Marcus up too late, and accidentally knocking things off the table. I know it doesn’t actually make you less likely to be robbed or broken into, but you stop panicking about it every time you hear the slightest noise from outside your room. I think that’s normal, at least. I’ve never considered myself to have a nervous disposition, but maybe other people just get on with things and don’t worry so much.

Still, since Diane died my nights have become a constant vigil. No house is silent if you listen hard enough, and since ending up alone, I have been listening so hard that at points I have to remind myself to breathe. Now every soft groan of the settling house is the sound of some violent thug or burglar in my home, waiting to see if they need to kill me. Marcus has suggested I get a pet so the house doesn’t feel so empty, but I’ve never had a pet before, and I’m too old to learn now.

Given how alert and paranoid I generally am when trying to sleep in an empty house, I’m sure you can imagine my terror when I heard something outside my room one night about a month ago. I’ve lived in the same house since I married Diane, and I know every squeaky floorboard. It was the one just at the top of the stairs. I waited, desperately straining my ears to hear any other sound of movement. I had heard no windows break or doors open downstairs, and I definitely hadn’t heard anyone coming up the stairs, but I was convinced there was someone there. I could feel their presence waiting on the landing. Had they realised how loud the floorboard was? Were they stood there, motionless, listening for any movement from me just as keenly as I was listening for them?

Then the sound came again, and I was sure there was someone stood at the top of the stairs, but rather than staying there, I began to hear the heavy tread of what was unmistakably footsteps. At first I... simply lay there, paralysed with fear, thinking that I would just... stay, let them take anything they wanted from the house, and call the police once they had left. But from what I could make out they didn’t seem to be going into any of the other rooms. They were slowly, and deliberately, walking towards my bedroom.

The door does have a lock on it, but it’s been so long since I even thought to use it that, at the time, I couldn’t even think where the key might have been. My heart almost stopped when I heard the door handle rattle ever so gently as a hand was placed upon the other side. And slowly, so painfully slowly, the doorknob began to turn. In a burst of adrenaline I didn’t even know I was capable of I sprang out of the bed and across the room. I seized the handle and twisted it back the other way, using both hands to try and match the strength of whoever was on the other side.

Still the handle tried to turn, with a slow, relentless effort that spoke of patience and determination, but sheer panic lent me equal strength. My hands began to grow wet with what I assumed, at the time, was sweat, and I worried about keeping my grip. I did, though. For twenty long minutes, I wrestled in the dark over the door handle of my room. I could have reached the light switch, but that would have meant having only one hand to keep on the door, so I stayed in the dark.

Then all at once the pressure vanished. The handle no longer tried to turn. I had heard no other sound from outside, though. No footsteps leading away, no sound of someone going down the stairs, the house was just silent. I stood there for the rest of the night, the handle gripped tight. And it wasn’t until the first rays of sun peeked through the windows that I found I had the courage to open my bedroom door and look outside.

Nothing.

I was so stiff that I could barely walk back to my bed and dial the number for the police. It was as I reached for the phone that I looked at my hands and saw that what was on them was not sweat. It was blood. I checked all over my hands and arms for cuts or injuries. Nothing. And the door handle was completely clean. I washed my hands thoroughly before I dialled 999.

The police came and they listened patiently to my story. They checked all around my house, but there were no signs of any intruder. All the windows and doors were still firmly locked and there was no sign of forced entry, nor had any of my possessions been taken or even moved. The officers assured me it was no problem, that they were happy to help, all in that tone that told me they thought I was just a senile old man hearing things in the night. I thanked them as they left, even though they had been of no help whatsoever, and spent the rest of the day searching for the key to my bedroom door. I found it in the end, and hoped that with it firmly locked I could sleep a bit easier that night. I was wrong.

When evening came, I tried to sleep. At least, I had convinced myself that I was trying to sleep. Actually, I was listening for any sign that the intruder had returned. Every creak of the house settling, every whine of the pipes sent me into a state of near terror. By two o’clock in the morning I had heard nothing, and had almost convinced myself that I would not be visited again, when there was that slow, ominous creak of the floorboard at the top of the stairs. As before, the footsteps approached my bedroom, heavy and methodical. I turned on my bedside lamp and watched as once again the handle of the door began to turn. I could see the pressure being put on the door by whoever was on the other side, but it was locked, and as the door failed to open, there was a long pause.

Then it began to turn violently back and forth, rattling and banging as it rotated with such force that I worried it might come off entirely. I let out a cry as the assault intensified, and phoned again for the police. It took them twelve minutes to reach me, and all the while my bedroom door shook with the relentless turning of the handle, but the lock held firm. As soon as the doorbell rang, it went immediately still and silent. I didn’t want to unlock and open the door, but if I didn’t the police officers might break down my front door or, even worse, leave.

What happened next was almost identical to what had happened the day before, except this time there was less gentle tolerance in their voices when they spoke to me. I got the clear impression that if I called them again without proof, there would be... undesirable consequences. One of the two muttered something about how difficult it must be for me to live on my own, a message I got loud and clear. I have no intention of being put in a home.

And so, for the last month I have lain awake almost every night, as whatever it is beyond the threshold of my bedroom tries with all its might to get in. I watch the doorknob obsessively, always waiting for the signs of that gentle turning. The first one’s are always so slow.

I tried to get proof for the police. I got Marcus to stay over with me a few nights, in the hope of either scaring the intruder away or having a witness who could corroborate my story. Those were the only nights I got any peace. Nothing came up to my door when he was there. In some ways it was a relief, to have a way of ensuring I could sleep, but it gave me no evidence to convince anyone, and I know he didn’t believe me when I told him what was going on. He just looked... worried when I brought it up, and I didn’t mention it again.

Unfortunately, I can’t get Marcus to stay with me every night. He has his own life to lead and is living with his fiancée at the moment, so I can’t just ask him to move back in with his dad. I tried to set up some cameras in the upstairs hallway, at the top of the stairs and outside my room, but they show nothing. They don’t even pick up the door handle turning, even at times I know for certain that the thing was trying to get inside. There was only one moment, just a frame or two, I think, where the shadows the camera caught on the wall seemed almost to form a face. It seemed to be leering at me, the mouth wide open in a mock scream. It scared me so badly that I had to delete the footage. I have no evidence for the police. Or for you either, I suppose.

I guess that’s why I’m here. This is what you people do. You investigate these things. You know what to look for and can identify the signs of things that... aren’t right. You know, not of this world. I’m not saying it’s a ghost or anything like that, it’s just... that well, if it was a ghost, you’d be the ones to talk to, right? I just need it to stop. And I don’t want to be put in a home. I know they will, if I keep telling them about how my door handle rattles and turns every night, they’ll think I’m senile and useless and send me to a home, and I will not let that happen. It’s my house, and I don’t care how much it scares me, nothing is going to make me give it up. Maybe Marcus is right. Maybe I should get a dog.

Archivist Notes: 

I want to believe Mr. McKenzie, I really do. I am not entirely made of stone, and am apt to be moved by the plea of a scared old man as much as anybody. I mean, dementia is, of course, the most likely explanation, and he admits himself that he has no proof of any of it. Yet part of me still wants to believe him. Perhaps this job is making me sentimental. In any case it’s a moot point. Mr. McKenzie died of a stroke some two months after making this statement, and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious connection between his passing and his statement to the Institute. When this was originally logged, apparently we did send a then-member of the research staff, one Sarah Carpenter, to take some readings of the house. Apparently she felt there was little enough danger to justify an overnight vigil at the place, but like everyone else in Mr. McKenzie’s tale, she encountered no strangeness or intruders on the upstairs landing, or in any other part of the building.

Sasha, who has now returned after her brief convalescence, has confirmed the call outs against police reports and they appear to match, though obviously they’re rather light on detail. Martin made contact with the son, Marcus McKenzie, but he declined to talk to us, saying that he’d “already made his statement.” This leads me to believe that Marcus McKenzie may also have a statement lurking somewhere here in the archives, lost among the mess and misfiling. The only other thing that stands out from this as strange is that Sarah Carpenter, the researcher originally sent to look into this back in 2003, took some rather detailed photographs of the interior and layout of the house.

Looking through them now, it strikes me that the bedroom door, to which Mr. McKenzie refers so often, does not appear to have a keyhole, or any sort of lock.

Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 27 A Sturdy Lock)

[horngryeyes]

the magnus archives is sooo fun until you have something in common with the statement giver

[im-the-queen-of-stardust]

Now that I've finished the whole show, enjoy this very incomplete list of favourite Jon quotes:

"Fine, fine, I'll be more lovely. Now, can I get back to work?" MAG17

"I will record and add that part when it is found, either by myself or, given the scale of the Archive's mismanagement, by my successor when I pass away from old age." MAG19

"I'm not entirely made out of stone" MAG27

"Mh...more meat. Interesting." MAG30

"Well, this pompous ass has some very urgent work to do " MAG76

Very snarkily "Yes, I know what a meme is." MAG76

"It is remarkably easy to get an axe in central London" MAG78

"What, I could be on drugs." MAG83

"I suppose that leaves skulking around the periphery, which is what I was already doing!" MAG85

"Thays not fair! Sometimes I was kidnapped." MAG114

"Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings burned right out of them, but me? I’ve just got to sit in mine." MAG139

"I am not, nor have I ever been, “adorable.”" MAG164

[janesapprentice]

Hello. I wrote Epiphany.

I’m also @internetdoashouting but this is my TMA sideblog. I’m also DoilySpider on Twitter.

I put this same FAQ on Twitter but here: 

- This takes place between MAG22 and MAG27  - It's not canon but it's as fanon as you want, baby - 'Pew Pew' was improvised, but everything else is essentially as-scripted, with a few slight wording tweaks  - How to write a Martin Poem: 1) learn how to write poetry, 2) unlearn it, 3) just tie yourself to the most overwrought metaphor you can think of, 4) sincerity  - I have a dark fairy tale AU fic and it’s here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23220637/chapters/55593337

Anyway, AMA.

[littlesuns97]

"The magnus archives changed my life forever bc of love and the power of trust and" yes true but the magnus archives changed my life because every night i imagine That Creature from MAG27: A Sturdy Lock trying to open my door in the middle of the night and me having to stand there frantically twisting it back all night long

[irradiatedsnakes]

I really wanna get into TMA but some of eps in the beginning are very hard to work though sometimes because of my adhd but the plot seems so good. Is there maybe episodes that are skippable and I can come back to later in the first few seasons?

hmmm. upon first reaidng this message yesterday i was like “oh yeah of course, i bet you could skip like half of s1 without missing too much but upon reviewing the eps its like.. man there’s important concepts and characters introduced in almost all of these that i really dindt realize til a lot later.

soo.. im still going thru my s1 relisten so eps only up about through mag29 are fresh in my head.

off the top of the dome, i’d say you could get by skipping mag5 thrown away, mag7 the piper, mag14 piecemeal, mag15 lost john’s cave, mag18 the man upstairs, mag23 schwartzwald, and mag27 a sturdy lock. i hope i got all those numbers right.

if anybody else would like to weigh in feel free to. the problem is that for alost every episode there’s some kind of little detail that fits into a bigger picture later, but to be fair theyre the kind of details that you might only notice on a second listen-through anyways, sooo? yea. the eps i didnt list above, though, all have some pretty significant importance to later stuff and thus i wouldnt recommend skipping them.

[standardlovers]

top 5 tma episodes you've listened to so far!

1. MAG3 Across The Street

2. MAG41 Too Deep

3. MAG27 A Sturdy Lock

4. MAG42 Grifter's Bone

5. MAG9 A Father's Love

[garden-ghoul]

Other Powers

Most avatars are either afraid of their patron, or before they became an avatar they were already making other people afraid. Jude Perry having fun throwing away people’s money; Mike Crew’s ‘ecstatic horror;’ Hezekiah Wakely’s dirt comfort/loving threats combo. 

Hunters are an interesting exception. Who’s afraid of them? Out of all the episodes starring the Hunt, only one of them is from a person who’s actually afraid of it (MAG31). Even in MAG133 Dead Horse, the narrator isn’t being hunted, and his fear of the Hunters turning on him is kind of secondary. Nobody is at ANY point scared of Trevor Herbert, certainly not before he became an avatar, and I doubt that Lisa Carmel and friends were terrifying enough to her roommates to be invested with the power of the Hunt from that alone. So the Hunt isn’t associated with fear--what emotion IS it connected to, then?

@gerrykeay proposed that it’s closer to adrenaline, something that both the hunter and the prey feel. Certainly for me excitement and anxiety are the same thing! It makes sense that for the purposes of the Powers, adrenaline would be close enough. Whether it’s avatars or prey that feel it, it all works out in the end. So, we have at least one Power that isn’t exactly about fear.

Now let’s talk about a sixteenth power I’d like to propose: the Anchor.

One thing that stands out to me, looking at all the statements in aggregate, is that pretty much all of them are from people who are kind of isolated, without any real community. I just went through the full list of episodes and arguably only in MAG1 Angler Fish and maybe MAG71 Underground did the narrator clearly have a robust support network, just temporarily absent. The people who give statements are habitually lonely (MAG27, 48, 74, 90, 144), have recently lost loved ones (MAG11, 13, 24, 58, 93, 150) or just don’t have a lot of people they can talk to about it (basically All the other statements). And we have quite a few textual examples of people using the bonds with their loved ones in a literally magical sense (MAG13, 48, 100C, 129, 150).

So we have this emotion-based magical thing that can manifest protection against other Powers (not quite the same way they protect against each other, eg in MAG46 Literary Heights, but comparable). Have we seen any direct manifestations of it? Well, no, because the Institute focuses specifically on collecting statements where fear is the dominant force. Have we seen any avatars of the Anchor? Arguably Evan Lukas was giving it a good go.

I’m not saying that it’s the same kind of thing as the Powers of Fear; they’re not any specific kind of thing at all. I just think it’s an interesting framework to use to examine the world of TMA. Join me, friends. #16thPower

[cuddlytogas]

me, trying to get to sleep at home: don't think about MAG86: tucked in. don't think about MAG86: tucked in. don't think about MAG86: tucked in.

me, trying to get to sleep when visiting my parents, where my room is at the top of a set of stairs: DON'T THINK ABOUT MAG27: A STURDY LOCK, DON'T THINK ABOUT MAG27: A STURDY LOCK, DON'T TH

[amztech]

MSI Optix MAG27 gaming monitors: Up to 240 Hz, curved, HDR glory