#he could also be Web. Death and Extinction coded | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

captain-ozone · 5 years ago

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okay okay, guys, so I know we’ve seen HP/Batman and ATLA/Batman mashups and crossovers, with numerous discussions about which Houses the Batfam would be Sorted into as well as which elements they would bend.

I raise you: the Batfam in the world of The Magnus Archives. Which Fear Entities might they serve? Which would they abhor? Which might they have been victims to?

Let’s discuss.

(If you’re unfamiliar with The Magnus Archives, it’s a horror/tragedy podcast. Highly recommend. For context, though, here’s some info on the Entities I’m talking about)

Bruce: He’d likely develop an association with The Web, The Eye, or possibly The Dark with an absolute loathing of The Corruption, The Extinction, The Desolation, and, of course, The End. He fights to keep these last four entities out of Gotham while utilizing his association with remarkably contradictory Entities (i.e. The Eye and The Dark) as both a detective and a cowled vigilante. If anyone could pull it off, he could. And does. I mean, Bruce goes out of his way to investigate and reveal corruption, crime, and other plots against the good people of Gotham, which The Eye loves, AND he skulks in the shadows and makes common criminals piss themselves when he comes to get them, all of which The Dark would thrive on. In any case, I imagine he’d resent any favor given to him by ANY of the Entities. The Hunt enjoys Bruce, too, as it would all the members of the superhero community, actually, in some capacity. Another point for The Web? For all the plans and contingencies he makes, he never plans to make a family. Kids just fall in his lap, somehow in the right place and the right time. The Web undoubtedly has a blast with Bruce. It gives him all sorts of plots to unravel while ultimately playing him like a fiddle.

Dick: THE VAST OMG. He’d both be a victim and servant, and I will not take criticism on this point. The Vast is fickle, I think, and Dick would be a perfect plaything for it. As we all know, this poor boy lost his parents due to a fall from the trapeze, and he might have fallen himself, had things been different (*cough cough* I see you, Mother of Puppets). I love fics that put Dick’s love of heights at odds with his trauma (again providing some evidence for a love-hate relationship with this particular Entity), but of course, Dick overcomes the trauma associated with his parents’ fall and rarely leaves his feet on the ground. Heights and open spaces are his heroin. They’re in his blood. He shares this love with the Robins who follow in his footsteps as well as other colleagues in the superhero community. The Vast feeds off their initial fear of heights/grappling/free-falling, or perhaps each heart-stopping reaction they have when they watch Dick do all these wild acrobatic things from high heights. But The Vast isn’t just about heights, is it? It also has to do with a fear of falling into obscurity or feeling insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And we also know Dick has this fear in ABUNDANCE (see as, his oftentimes rocky relationship with his mentor, as well as his desire to be That Shoulder To Lean On in literally every team he’s been a part of). So. Yes. The Vast.

Babs: THE EYE. Her code name is Oracle. She oversees the entire Batfam operation. And is also an information hub for THE BIRDS OF PREY AND THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. Like???? This needs no explanation or further discussion.

Jason: Oh god. This boy. Okay. So. He is fascinating, and he’d be fascinating to pretty much every Entity out there, for both good and bad reasons, too. They’d have a field day with him. Let’s look at his death first. He technically escaped The End as well as The Corruption and The Buried when he was resurrected, bodily restored, and forced to dig his way out of his grave. I cannot decide if these three Entities would target him specifically afterwards for having escaped their clutches or if they would be sated knowing how afraid he was at the time of his resurrection. Either way. The Web, also, would have had a hand in pretty much every convoluted part of DC’s many Crises, one of which triggered Jason’s resurrection in the first place. BUT WAIT THAT IS NOT ALL. Jason’s been touched by The Spiral (because who else would the Joker serve???? Actually... lies. I might argue the Joker shakes hands with The Stranger sometimes too, but idk how well those Entities would work together). Outside of his death at the hands of an avatar of The Spiral/The Stranger (which Jason would experience intense fear/loathing toward), the Lazarus Pit is probably a co-instrument of The End (because the fear of death does drive men to seek immortality, does it not?) and The Slaughter (for obvious reasons). During his crime-lord phase, he may have some association with The Hunt and The Desolation in addition to The Slaughter. The Flesh would have loved his duffle bag of heads. Prior to forming a team of Outlaws, he’s likely also been touched by The Lonely. And ALL THIS after being mentored by someone who has an association with The Eye/The Web/The Dark. And having a brother so closely tied to The Vast. In the end, after the Pit Madness has worn off, Jason might have unintentionally found himself an avatar of The End, but I imagine all of the Entities would love or hate him (and possibly even consider him with the same fondness they would a pet that gets passed around between distant family members). He...has a unique relationship with each of them, in any case.

Tim: WEB TIM WEB TIM WEB TIM WEB TIM. This boy was born to serve The Web. Though he very nearly fell prey to The Lonely, on account of his parents’ neglect. Prior to becoming Robin, he had to fight every day to keep himself from being consumed by it. Continuously lying and tricking his caretakers (as well as his parents) into believing he was alright by himself specifically to sneak out and get pictures of Batman was what initially drew The Web to him. After becoming Robin? Whoooo boy. He had free reign and excelled as a master strategist and manipulator. He violently rejects The Lonely, no matter how often it tries to draw him back.

Cass: Like Tim, she’s been touched by The Lonely. Unlike Tim, I like to think she’s made her peace with it and has learned to live in harmony with the mark it left behind. I mean, her father isolated her for most of her childhood and denied her the opportunity to learn how to speak and read. She had no connection to anyone beyond that. The Lonely adored her. Once choosing to join Bruce, she casts off her larger association with The Lonely, obviously, and learns to become a part of a family. Unlike the others in the family, though, she does not serve any other Entity and makes a point not to get too close to any of them, though she does have an uncanny understanding of each of them (and can identify their avatars, victims, and associated artifacts on sight), which puts her closer to The Eye than she likes to acknowledge. Her hatred of The End surpasses Bruce’s.

Stephanie: she’s the hardest for me to decide upon. Tbh, she’s probably a lot like Georgie Barker in TMA. Perhaps her shameless lack of fear/ability to focus beyond her fears makes her uninteresting to the Entities, maybe??? Will come back to her later. And will definitely accept any further thoughts on her.

Damian: The League of Assassins is all about new world order, right? Ra’s al Ghul’s main motivation is to save the world...while also destroying a good portion of it to do so. So we know Damian has grown up around ideals of The Extinction, The End, and The Desolation. After meeting Bruce and moving in to Wayne Manor, it’s hard to shake any loyalty to these Entities. His death and resurrection, like Jason’s, ties him further to The End, but after meeting Jon Kent, Colin Wilkes, Maya Ducard (etc etc) and actually allowing himself the opportunity to be a kid, he doesn’t really serve any Entity, does he? I mean, he probably defers to Bruce’s loyalties in the beginning and continues to do so while learning from his other family members, but he’s probably made no such commitments to any of the Entities himself. Dick’s tie to The Vast may have some impact on him, especially considering how close Dick and Damian are, but I doubt The Vast would have an interest in Damian solely because of it. The kid’s personality and The Vast don’t mesh. I bet Damian may, later, genuinely follow in his father’s footsteps and be a dichotomy by allying himself with The Eye and The Dark. For now, though, he’s a kid and deserves freedom from any Fear Gods.

Duke: you see the state the Joker’s toxin left this kid’s parents in?? Victim of The Spiral/The Stranger, without a doubt. I’m not as up-to-date on his current arc, unfortunately, so I’m not sure which Entity he would end up leaning toward outside of The Eye (by association to the others and due to his own detective skills) but his powers with light put him at distinct odds with The Dark.

#batman #dc comics #the magnus archives #tma au #batman au #mashup #may add more later #but damn please talk to me about this #i need to see what other fans think #despite what i say i actually will accept criticism #and will happily discuss and hear all theories both agreeing with and contradicting me #this is an unedited mess i apologize #but i needed to get these thoughts out of my head

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idontfindyouthatinteresting · 5 years ago

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Death Stranding: A Love Letter

Death Stranding, we’ve been waiting for you for a long time and to be honest there were times where we thought, we’re never getting this game, it just isn’t going to happen. I had this game on pre-order for over 2 years. 2 YEARS! The expectation level was obviously very high, and from my perspective it firmly... delivers.

WARNING - SPOILER ALERT - This is a review/breakdown by someone who’s finished the game, for people who have finished the game. You have been warned!

Death Stranding revels in it’s cinematic credentials constantly and with intense consistency. From panoramic mountainous vistas which you can control, to dazzling close ups of it’s digitally recreated stars, to just watching Sam go to his Private Room. It’s stunning and a testament to Kojima's cinematic knowledge with every shot.

Not only does Death Stranding handle this beauty, and intricate world building and story telling with ease and grace; it’s concepts and emotional ideas (which I’ll go into more later) are translated so strongly that you can’t help but get swept up in it. This is the sort of experience that I’m used to getting from films, who embed this framework within their narratives so deeply, in a way it’s expected. Death Stranding hits you like a freight train. Through the power of the performances, the narrative and the fresh nature of the ideas it’s portraying.

Death Stranding’s emotive credentials are set firmly in 2 scales, the more typical big stuff, saving the world, stopping the extinction, well trodden video game territory. But where it truly sets itself apart, embodied so perfectly when Sam walks away from Die-Hardman’s Inauguration speech, and sets to surprise is in how it handles what could be argued to be the smaller scale stuff.

Sam’s emotional world is rich and powerful, from his Aphenphosmphobia to the fact that we see him openly weep and break down holding a crying child. This is a male lead in a video game, and as a woman I loved seeing Sam being so vulnerable, to the point where he’s physically naked in those shots (ssshhh, there are academic reasons too.) It’s fresh and poignant, and as a woman it gives me access to media rejecting the male gaze so completely.

On the notion of the Male Gaze, there is some stuff to unpick about the game’s female characters, as much as I would have loved to have seen more, with some ethnic diversity also, it doesn’t subject it’s women to typical video game stereotypes. The creators of the network (whatever it’s true intentions) are all women, Amelie found the path through the country to place the terminals, with the hardware and software created by Mama and Lockne respectively. This network is recognized as the saviour of humanity, the only male input is Sam connecting the terminals with the Q-pid, a Q-pid created by Mama and Lockne. Fragile is the only character powerful enough to get Sam and all the other characters to where they need to go through her DOOMs. I think the shows opinion on Male Gaze is shown in the story, when Fragile is using Sam’s shower, and Sam moves to the glass, his intention is to see her timefall damaged skin, but Sam is punished for it by Fragile as he questions her motives, she’s aggressive and she puts him thoroughly in his place for it. I love love love the physical powerplay in this scene between them.

Sam is reluctant, profoundly unhappy, arguably suicidal, and is convinced to do all of this purely to help save his friend. Sam is a constant reminder that there is so much more at play here, drilled home every time he flinches away or holds Lou in his hands. Although there is a world to save, it can be for nothing unless you save yourself too. Sam and Fragile’s final discussion brings this home. Before leaving to stop Amelie Sam is full of hope, but in losing Lou, he does a 180, he’s just a man getting to the next sun rise. Something I’m sure a lot of people can identify with.

This narrative nuance is reflected in Cliff. Through the memories we’re shown a man just trying to save his child, not the world, not willing to sacrifice his child to be made into the activation code for a city, no matter the cause. He just wants to be a father and that is his driving force. Mads Mikkelsen was my gateway into this particular world, safe to say I have an intense soft spot for him. I can go on all damn day about how talented he is. He’s the best in the business, no one does what he can, no one else can give a performance that is so real and so raw but so full of fight. Mads can take the your most profound story line, otherworldly in it’s extreme, and he embeds it so firmly in the human experience, you’ll never be able to untangle that web. That is why his ability to do what he does can almost never be questioned. You let him get to the heart of your story and that is what he’ll do to it and that is why it works. Mads Mikkelsen could easily have been Higgs, based on early trailers we suspected he was Higgs, but he isn’t. Could not be further from it.

Death Stranding’s narrative dichotomy in this way is resembled perfectly in the games two ‘Boss’ characters, Cliff and Higgs. Higgs represents the greater plan, the end of the world stuff, and Cliff the smaller scale human to human emotion. Sam must overcome both.

Death Stranding has an even wider scope, an even wider message. Kojima hasn’t been shy about his message of connection being prominent and poignant in the current political climate, being from the UK I feel this so keenly, but the same is present in the US as well. Humanity driven further apart, through legislation, walls and boarders. You can see the potence of the message being translated through a video game, when alternate reality, video game violence and social media is being blamed for these things. It’s fighting back in a way. Death Stranding’s gameplay is full of positivity, from the signs that other players can leave you that replenish your stamina, make your BB happy, to the fact that if you knock a MULE out in water they have a neck float so they don’t drown and die.

The lack of violence in this way and use of ‘non-lethal’ guns, which are described as such, were again refreshing. I’m not a first person shooter gamer, never have been, could not be less appealing to me if it tried. But Death Stranding doesn’t just have a gun aversion, to me it is explicitly anti-gun. Again another important message, particularly when the game is set in the US. One of my favourite moments in the whole game is Sam listening to Die-Hardman’s grovelling apology for his actions, his thoughts and his prayers, only for Sam to shove the gun Die-Hardman brought to the Beach back at him, warning him with disgust at his actions, by passing on the message, “that gun won’t work here” and walking away. I completed a video game without taking a single human life. It rejects the notion so fully and completely. You stop the extinction, save humanity, not with a gun but by hugging Amelie, reminding her about how valuable human life is, every human life. It’s not to be thrown away, you need to give it a chance to bloom.

In Death Stranding humanity is left cowering underground, separated by an invisible enemy in the form of BT’s, it has to learn to fight back, with literal blood, sweat and tears. If you couple the notion of the invisible enemy with Bring Me the Horizon’s ‘Ludens’ Lyrics:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but soon the sting will pass But names can dig so many graves, you won't know where to stand

I love this line. (BMTH wrote that song in 5 days to get it into the game in time, by the way!) As children we’re taught that names shouldn’t hurt us, but actually they do. In a time where the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, all of this “name calling” are putting people in their actual graves, these lyrics should be heard more keenly. Political leaders put people in their graves with their words, through direct or indirect means. These words are the BTs of our world, invisible hands which destroy people.

Some of the criticisms of the game are based on elements of game play, like the deliveries you need to make, as slow and tiresome. Higgs himself addresses this asking whether you’re tired of the grind, begging for a “game over”?

The game is not only acutely aware that perhaps trudging all over the US with vast cargo loads isn’t what you want to be doing, but it knows it’s what you need to do. And truly, in what way is that different from shooting your way through levels and scenarios to get to the end? Death Stranding makes you feel the sacrifice Sam is making and you experience that with him, every time you fall and drop your cargo, every time you stumble down a mountain side, every time you wreck your stamina bar climbing an incline. Video games can’t really make you feel what it’s like to kill an enemy soldier with an air strike, but hell it can make you feel frustrated at having to climb another mountain with a boat load of heavy gear.

Death Stranding rejects the idea of a ‘game over’ and other video game staples in other ways, it mockingly calls Higgs and Cliffs narrative end “Boss fights” and when Deadman says that wiping Lou’s memories, her connection with Sam in order to make her work better than a piece of equipment is just a ‘do-over’ a reset, normal, Sam rejects that it’s not that simple and Norman’s performance brings that home acutely. It’s not just a game.

From style, to message, to performance, to rejection of the Male Gaze, Death Stranding is an intense and beautiful game. It managed to hook me so thoroughly (as I’m sure you’ve been able to tell from my live tweeting/blogging) and I don’t imagine I’ll get the hook out of my heart for a while. It speaks to something higher and I love it for it.

Keep On Keeping On.

#Death Stranding #Hideo Kojima #Norman Reedus #Mads Mikkelsen #Sam Porter Bridges #Clifford Unger #mine #OPINION ALERT #long post

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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG144!

- I’m… really fond of the statement’s atmosphere, and Martin’s reading of it: he did emphasise a few words right at the beginning, giving them more heaviness, bloating them and completely installing the crushing dragging feeling of decay/dullness/spleen/boredom and degradation.

(And then: nervous laughter about the fact that OOOOOOOOOOOOOPS, the statement itself might have reminded Martin of some elements of his own personal life, uh. Caring for a sick (unsupportive) parent, getting stuck in a situation with them but worrying anyway (+ Gary Boylan feared that he would become his father and… well, We Know That Martin Looks Like His Dad), until the parent died on them while they were getting involved with Spooks.)

- So. There was a big emphasis, in the statement, about the code itself, and the fact that what lay behind was the actually horrifying things… but there was still a “message” and things actually struck when Gary Boyle understood it.

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “I didn’t return to the pylon for a long time, except to confirm that the numbers weren’t changing between days. I had them though, and the numbers were all that mattered. I didn’t know why. I’m sure there wasn’t a reason, not really, but… I knew it was in there…! Realistically, it would be impossible to decode it without whatever key the cipher might have been using – and honestly, for the longest time, it seemed to be. I did as much reading as I could on cryptography, and codebreaking, and all of it seemed to point me towards one simple conclusion: breaking this code by myself was… simply impossible. But I still tried. I spent weeks in my room, desperately applying every method I had available. Nothing worked. But I didn’t stop. The alternative was looking after my dad, whose recent breathing issues had left him more ratty than ever. So, I worked myself into exhaustion instead, staring at those meaningless strings of numbers until I almost collapsed, and my eyes couldn’t focus on anything. And that was when I realised: it wasn’t the numbers. It wasn’t the code. It’s what was behind the numbers, shifting, and waiting, and–and coming towards me like a tidal wave – and I knew what the message was, the urgent and terrible message. About the destruction that was coming on the heels of mankind; about the cold and cruel warmongers who play their games of code, and conspiracy, hidden behind the endless streams of numbers. And within those numbers are all of our dooms. If you know how to read them. And I read them. I read them all, and saw the doom of everyone who lives, and breathes, and hopes for life and happiness. There are terrible things coming. Things that if we knew of them, would leave us weak, and trembling, with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us. We all made them, and their course is already plotted. You can see them in the numbers. If you’d only learn how to read them.”

I wonder: did Gary himself power The Extinction (or whatever it is) with his own fears? Because it’s when he understood that a disaster was meant to happen that it… happened. If he had just carried on with his life, would it have happened? Or was everything set into motion because he heard the words and spiralled into dread/doom?

Because… if the code was, in the end, relevant and important… I’m kind of super-glad that MARTIN read this statement; and there is someone who should probably not read it ever. Because, who is canonically good at breaking down codes (probably through insta-translating Beholding abilities)…?

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook; we found it alongside the plastic explosives, but it rather got lost amongst the business of… [SIGH] saving the world at the cost of two lives… It… it’s borderline incomprehensible, not because of any code or cypher – there’s every chance I could read those; just simply because… most of it is… numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but… well, not to me.

… Like, OOPS. I’m not sure it was a coincidence.

(…………. And if Martin read the numbers himself… will he be okay. Or is he unleashing… something, without being aware of it, too.)

- Aaaand we live in such a fandom that someone had already managed to decode the thing in half a day! The numbers:

593756 3058392846 4749 162830165049 564846474827

Actually formed the message “The World Is Always Ending”. Indeed less… personal than The End, here. (But the message itself is kind of… comforting? I mean, it’s like life overall: you know something is living because it’s heading towards its death. Of course the World/the Earth isn’t supposed to be permanent…? Or is it linked to the consciousness that we’re accelerating its decay, or that it absolutely disappearing would mean making things disappear as concepts, too – nobody, nothing, to remember anything, that anyone ever existed in the first place…?)

(- Amusingly, I did think of Beholding with Gary’s whole… stance:

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “There was nothing to be done, nowhere to go – just watch, and wait, and think about the decay of it all.

And the fact that his main activity was to listen to the numbers. He kind of checked all three points of the Institute’s motto?

And why did he give his statement? It’s not always the case but, pretty often, statement-givers do explain why they wanted to share their stories – because they were seeking help, or pursued, or feared that they were suffering from hallucinations, etc. Here, it was as a… non-personal warning? But he spread the numbers and that doesn’t sound very good…)

- Gary did warn about the Danger of knowing (because it doesn’t help) but. But Beholding’s shtick is apparently also to cannibalise other Fears a bit by Knowing about them:

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “There are terrible things coming. Things that if we knew of them, would leave us weak, and trembling, with shuddering terror at the knowledge that they are coming for all of us. We all made them, and their course is already plotted.”

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why The Hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”

Is that why Peter needed a Beholding-touched person? Because Beholding could understand the new fear and depower it a bit…?

- I did my usual relisten of “Binary”, since we got new information about The Extinction, and I’m still at a loss for that one and not… really feeling that it fits The Extinction? It feels more personal, more… people-oriented than concerning a community/the world? Or was the “message” of that one in the symbols appearing on Tessa’s computer and/or about the danger of Sergei’s fate possibly happening to others…? In Jon’s dreams, she’s seen typing furiously, trying to “fight” against the computer:

(MAG120) ELIAS: The Archivist waits, expecting to awaken, but there is nowhere for him to awaken to; no avenue of escape from these dreams. He turns to see the familiar screen, the familiar woman beneath it. She looks up at him with an expression of recognition and weary dread. She types, and types, and types her fingers a blur, flying across the keyboard, and yet never fast enough to outrun the relentless words that flow like dark water across the screen that stretches off into the sky. “It hurts.” She is shaking her head, defiant in her well-worn terror, and tries with every corner of her will to force back the rolling tide of words. “It hurts.”

Tessa’s reasoning about how a human brain isn’t made to fit in a computer, and that analog and digital operate differently, could fit The Extinction… but not the spooks she experienced herself, I feel? Was that just plain old regular Spiral, or something Web/Beholding, or The End? Or was it truly Extinction/the same larger fear that encompasses it?

- If we take “Binary” into account, there has been an acceleration of the manifestation of the Extinction through time:

* End of 1867: Garland Hillier disappears after a last publication, “Les Héritiers”, the same year Robert Smirke died (MAG134). [* 1983: According to the urban legend, Sergei Ushanka, who was dying, tried to upload his mind into a computer (MAG065).] * Some time before late 2005 (which is when Adelard Dekker heard about her): Bernadette Delcour entered Garland Hillier’s flat and witnessed the world of the Inheritors before managing to get out – Adelard suspects that she might have disappeared too, by January 2006 (MAG134). * In August 2009: Gary Boylan heard the “Numbers” track near a pylon somewhere in the English countryside; his father and neighbour were eradicated (MAG144). * Around 2012: Adelard didn’t think that The Extinction had begun to take Avatars yet (MAG113). [* Before January 7th 2017: Tessa Winters downloaded a program named “ushankasdespair.exe”, which forced her to watch him swallow his computer for 17 hours (MAG065).]

So, indeed giving the feeling that… something is getting closer and closer.

- Something that MAG134 and MAG144 have in common: the fact that the manifestations were linked to a form of communication (Garland’s diary and overall works, the numbers heard by Gary), in specific places (Garland’s flat, the pylon in Gary’s countryside), places that were specifically described as… frozen in time / unmoving compared to the world around them:

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “On the fifth floor of an apartment building on the rue Lagarde, near the Panthéon, some construction workers had uncovered a door, that had at some point in the past been completely plastered over. Removing the covering and breaking through the old wood revealed another apartment, one apparently unnoticed by any of the other residents, or indeed the owners of those sections of the building, each of which had assumed the space was owned by one of the others, and connected to a different part. As far as anyone was able to determine, the apartment had been sitting there, sealed and undisturbed, for almost a hundred and fifty years. It was untouched, pristine, with barely a thin layer of fine dust coating the possessions and belongings that had stayed there for so long. […] The place felt strange, she told me. Like a tiny pocket of another time. A bubble, where the world had never changed. And stepping inside, she almost felt like she would never change either. Even the light that came through the window seemed to be of a different quality, muted and gentle. The street chatter of Paris, which usually reaches all but the most remote of windows, seemed to vanish entirely. There was a sense of peace to it all, shot through with a strand of disquiet – a wrongness, she told me she could not identify, but she could almost smell it. […] Every single shrivelled ashened face was contorted in a scream of agony, every sharp and jutting jaw cracked and twisted in an expression of horror – of understanding not just of their death, but the end of everything they knew. It was clear that they had been this way for years, if not decades. Bernadette says she was sure that nothing had moved in that dead city for a hundred years.”

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “Something kept me rooted there, sleeping in a bedroom that hadn’t changed since I was fifteen, and caring for a man who I’d rather just shut up…! [SIGH] We were both… trapped there, I think. Bound together in a sort of wordless misery. I would look at him, and see a grim sort of destiny for myself: trapped here, until I became him – any future I might have had, sacrificed to his. […] That summer seemed to drag on forever. The boredom and irritation of trying to care for my dad was only heightened by the weather, and we were both feeling it. Just didn’t have anything to do…! I don’t… really want to go into my living situation here, but it’s enough to say I wasn’t working a regular job and, while I could theoretically contact my old mates, they’d all got on with their lives without me. The world had moved on. … I was left behind.”

Places/people that feel like they can’t change or move forwards, while everything else does. (And we’ve had so many talks about people “changing” this season… Mmmmm…)

Note to self that with the beginning of the statement, I did wonder if it wasn’t Something Lonely – we were dealing with isolated places, the statement-giver was spending a lot of time alone and wasn’t… really connected to anybody, there was “the huge metal skeleton of an old disconnected power pylon” in the background – pylon which turned out to be the place where the numbers could be heard… So, mmmm… Why is Peter, avatar of The Lonely, specifically so invested in stopping that newcomer…?

- Outside of the RQ-extended-universe crossover inside-joke about “DOOOM”, I feel like Gary Boylan’s use of the word might be especially relevant because… he specifically differentiated it from “dread”.

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “Do you know that one of the symptoms of a heart attack is literally a sense of impending doom? [INHALE] Well, I wasn’t having a heart attack, but I think I know what they mean…! What settled over me wasn’t dread; there wasn’t enough uncertainty for that. No. It was… doom. I was certain that some sort of disaster was on the horizon. […] And within those numbers are all of our dooms. If you know how to read them.”

… and “dread” was the word that Robert Smirke personally used to refer to the Fears:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I have been blessed with a long life, something few who crossed paths with the Dread Powers can boast, but now… at the end of it, my true fear is that I have wasted it, chasing an impossible dream. […] I have been thinking, of late, about the first origin of the Dread Powers, if… such beings can really be said to have true origins. Are they eternal, or are they created from our own fear, by some grand accident – or, worse: some grand design? I believe the latter to be the case, as you well know, for I have in vain struggled to reconcile their creation with the existence of a Loving God.”

It's possible that Smirke’s vocabulary was… too restrictive, but I do wonder if… in context, it isn’t hinting that The Extinction-or-whatever-it-is isn’t actually a Fifteenth Fear, but something operating too differently from the others…?

- I’ll never get tired of Martin’s… little troubles when introducing statements – it never goes smoothly, he marks small pauses, has troubles reading the numbers, etc., compared to Jon’s… seamless professional voice (… except when some of his emotions are showing: sometimes impatience, sometimes… listen, when he introduced the statement in MAG129? He was still brooding SO MUCH after the disaster of a conversation he had had with Martin shortly before). In the same way, I… love how Martin’s own speculation is so awkward and potentially off the mark afterwards? Reminder that Martin barely remembered the name “Maxwell Rayner” in MAG098, and he sounded SO PROUD in MAG110 when he was able to guess that The Spooky Book Mentioned Had Probably Been A Leitner (“I mean… I think it sounds like a Jurgen Leitner book. About spiders. Hm.” mARTIN that was an easy guess… x””D); and in the same way, his conclusions in MAG138 were… a bit awkward compared to the content of the statement:

(MAG134) MARTIN: Anyway. Smirke was clearly wrong about the powers balancing each other, at least. I mean, i–it’s, [SHORT LAUGHTER] it’s obviously impossible. There’s too much variation in, in how much something is feared by people at any one time. And, and if that’s the case, I… suppose it’s… not impossible that Peter… [LONG PAUSE] might be telling the truth. I don’t know what he’s talking about when he mentions Millbank. The old prison, I guess? Tim said the tunnels under the Institute were all that was left of it, but… Jon said he’d checked them pretty thoroughly.

(M… Martin, what “other Millbank” do you think it could be, given the discussions/researches in the Archives………………….) To his credit, he was trying to guess why Peter had given him this statement, so he had a certain Way Of Looking At Things, but. Still. Smirke’s statement wasn’t really about the “variations” of how people experience fear(s)…? And in the same way:

(MAG144) MARTIN: Statement ends. [CLEARS THROAT] [INHALE, EXHALE] … Right. Another… statement. Another side to… Peter’s “Extinction”. I think. I… Y– I– [HUFF] I, I couldn’t follow some of his reasoning, but I think it was about… nuclear weapons, or… or maybe doomsday’s weapons…? In keeping with the theme, I suppose.

Martin miiight be paying too much attention to concreteness and things he Already Knows, and failing hard to essentialise and theorise…? Obviously, yes, the symptoms evoke the destruction caused by nuclear weapons, both in MAG134 and MAG144 (destruction, corpses melting/being absolutely blasted), but the Fear itself… is something broader, probably? (So: is he accidentally absolutely spot-on? Or totally off the mark, and the fact that he went with “nuclear weapons” mean it isn’t this, at all?)

- ;; It has been a constant in season 4 when we have Martin’s statements and Jon’s statements: they… would both progress much better if they had access to each other’s statement.

MAG134’s (Smirke’s letter to Jonah) would have helped Jon to define a bit more Jonah’s whole character, after MAG127, and potentially retrace what happened to him – Jon labelled him as already “evil” in the 1830s, but turned out that he had apparently taken a step back, before falling deeper into Beholding shortly before 1867, apparently because he was afraid to die (… does that remind you of something, Jon?). Plus, indication towards the Watcher’s Crown. Meanwhile, Jon… learned that Adelard had helped Gertrude to stop The Flesh’s ritual in 2008, and could have pointed out a few old statements: MAG078 where Adelard tried to trap the Not!Them with the table and, more importantly, MAG113 where Adelard mistook an End avatar for an Extinction thing (… and we’re still not sure What The Heck “Binary” was, but Jon could have pointed to MAG065… in case Tessa’s experience was related). And Jon could maybe just Know a few things, and help overall.

But they don’t communicate, they’re in their own bubbles, and information isn’t getting shared right now. (Though Martin was planning to communicate his tapes to Jon… MAG138, especially, could be helpful to deal with the Institute on its own…)

- I love Jon’s reading, alright, and I love Martin’s too for different reasons. He tends to put more emphasis in words, bloating some here and there? He gets so nasal sometimes? So casually sassy? Jon often has an edge, but Martin… Martin feels Less Charitable in his delivery and I love it. AND I ESPECIALLY LOVED:

(MAG144, Gary Boylan) “Something kept me rooted there, sleeping in a bedroom that hadn’t changed since I was fifteen, and caring for a man who I’d rather just shut up…!”

That. That “Shut up!” was so Beautiful And Martin.

- I’M SO EMOTIONAL OVER THE FACT THAT DAISY AND MARTIN ARE BECOMING KINDA FRIENDS WITH MAG142 AND MAG144… and then kinda nop. But the fact that Daisy was comfortable enough to come back, to share with Jon that she had talked with Martin, and that she wanted to give information about him (/them) to Martin in return… ;w;

(MAG144) [KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.] MARTIN: [SHORT SHAKY INHALE] [SILENCE] [KNOCK–KNOCK–KNOCK] MARTIN: [RUFFLING PAPER] Come in. [DOOR OPENS.] DAISY: Mind if I join you? [SCRIBBLING SOUNDS START.] [DOOR CLOSES] DAISY: They’re back. I thought you might wanna know. [INHALE] Seems like it went smooth – too smooth for Basira, sounds like. Keeps looking at Jon like she can’t believe he made it back. [SILENCE] I, uh… I mentioned our conversation to him; he asked me to check on– MARTIN: Just leave. DAISY: Sorry? MARTIN: [INHALE] Get out. DAISY: Oh. Right. Sorry, I didn’t– MARTIN: It’s not difficult! Just get out! DAISY: Fine. … Fine. Just thought you– MARTIN: No! No, you didn’t! [DOOR OPENS.] We’re not… we’re not friends, Daisy! None of us are! We’re all just trapped together, here, and–and kidding ourselves that we don’t hate it! Christ, there are more important things than, than “feelings”– DAISY: [INCREDULOUS EXHALE] MARTIN: –right now, alright, so just… leave me alone! For good! [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY AGGRESSIVE SCRIBBLING NOISES] DAISY: … Right. You got it. [DOOR CLOSES]

The things Martin said… were very reminiscent of Tim’s own reasoning (and the overall idea that Tim… did feel trapped, and insisted on it, and was adamant about reminding everyone of that fact):

(MAG079) TIM: There is something in this place, and it’s messing up our heads. It watches us all the time. It stops me quitting. I’m pretty sure it would stop Elias firing Jon even if he decided to actually try running this place for once. MARTIN: You’re sure you don’t just want to stay? TIM: I’m. sure. MARTIN: But, like, deep down– TIM: No. MARTIN: … Oh. […] TIM: I… I’m not just going to leave you down here. MARTIN: You were all about quitting. TIM: Oh, for God’s sake, this isn’t about you. MARTIN: It never is. TIM: Alright, fine. Fine. What do you want? What’s your light at the end of these spooky damn tunnels? And don’t say “everyone happy forever”, because that’s not happening. … Well? MARTIN: I don’t know. I don’t know! I want to find out what’s going on. I want to save Jon. I want everyone to be fine and, you know what? If we were all happy that wouldn’t actually be the end of the world!

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: Does the rest of the Institute know what’s going on down here? I mean, I never really paid attention, but… MARTIN: N–not really? I think? I mean, Tim’s been going on about it to anyone who listens, but I think they just… think he’s had a bit of a breakdown. ARCHIVIST: Well, I mean… MARTIN: I mean, they can quit.

And it also was a bit reminiscent of Gary Boylan’s own situation in his statement (MAG144: “We were both… trapped there, I think. Bound together in a sort of wordless misery.”). I’m not sure, then, that we should believe everything Martin told Daisy, especially since he pointed out to Peter that he had purposely wanted to drive Daisy away… partially to prevent Peter from wooshing her:

(MAG144) [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MARTIN: [LONG SIGH] … Well? PETER: I’m impressed! And grateful. MARTIN: I didn’t do it for you. PETER: Even better. MARTIN: … It’s easier, this way. I’m sure you’d have had no problem sending her away. PETER: I hadn’t really thought about it. And now, thanks to you, I don’t need to. MARTIN: Yeah, well. It seems to be your go-to move for dealing with anyone.

He… did tell Daisy that there were “more important things than feelings right now”, and it’s heart-breaking when taking into account that he AGGRESSIVELY (and so beautifully snappily.) wanted people to be Happy at the end of season 2… but I want to Believe in Martin being good at Manipulating people in the direction he wants. Martin has a history of weaponising his own feelings when it served his purpose: he knows how to use them against others, and it’s precisely how he managed to make Elias do exactly what he needed, in MAG118 – it’s because he had Feelings that it worked. But at the same time, I do think a bit of truth might be sneaking out, even in this case, and that Martin’s own bitterness… might be showing some of his true feelings, too. To put it more simply: I heard the exchange and Martin making Daisy leave as a conscious move from his part, focusing on the goal… but I’m not sure that all of his words were faked and false. And that might be another danger of The Lonely, too? That Martin pushing people away and thinking he is in control… might lead to him falling deeper into The Lonely, because he’s cutting ties and working alone. There is something so dangerous in thinking that you’re friends with people, that you care for them… while you refuse to share anything anymore with them, push them away constantly, only know them from afar and dread more and more to interact with them. And I’m not sure that Martin is taking that into account as much as he should. What is the point of sacrificing himself to protect others if it makes everyone miserable in the process, including him?

- One glimmer of hope is that it had been pointed out, during their last interaction, that Daisy was “observant”:

(MAG142) MARTIN: … Yeah. [LONG INHALE] I suppose. [LONG EXHALE] You’re… you’re pretty observant, you know? DAISY: Detective, remember? MARTIN: Yeah, you did mention.

Daisy showed that she was good at paying attention, reading people and their feelings. So she might be able to correctly interpret what Martin said, and guess that… Peter was around. Martin did talk like a hostage trying to make another bystander leave before they’d get involved (he’d sounded like that with Jon, already, in MAG129).

(But I’m worried that Daisy might feel let down by him at the same time, and take his words at face value despite it all? ;;)

(… Another option: MAG142 ended with the tape recorder being cut off, while Martin and Daisy were still together and talking. So it’s possible that they strategised a bit after that about how to act/behave, and about the fact that Peter can turn invisible, and that Daisy knows a bit more about Martin’s whole situation. I don’t know ;; I’m stupidly hoping that Team Archives could finally manage to… plan together… and achieve things…)

- I’m so glad that Daisy has been around……………… She tried to act as a bridge between Jon and Martin, between the two Main Threads of the season 4, and? It’s really not what you would have expected from her when she first appeared in MAG061, and with her whole attitude in season 3, aaaaah…

(- And OOPS over the fact that Martin, who had decided to be cold and dry since the beginning of their scene (aggressively scribbling and pointedly… not making it sound like he’s available: the message was clearly that he was busy and she was bothering him and unwanted)… snapped and exploded and cut her off when she mentioned Jon and Jon using Daisy to get to him. Aouch. Is it that he’s unallowed anything Jon as far as Peter is concerned? Or because Martin really wants to prevent Peter from focusing on Jon?)

(- Also! Martin was chill with Daisy talking with him in MAG142, but not here in MAG144. Is it because now, he likes Daisy and wants to protect her, while he didn’t care in MAG142 because… he didn’t know much about Daisy’s actual personality outside of The Hunt? Or is it because Martin is beginning to be able to tell when Peter is spying on him, and when he isn’t? He directly addressed Jon through the tape at the end of MAG138, implying that he assumed that he was safe from Peter back then (he tried to lure him out and Peter didn’t manifest… but that wasn’t a guarantee). Here, he didn’t slip anything and was expecting Peter to pop up, from the start. So: can he feel it, now?)

- Peter’s logic is… so frightening:

(MAG144) PETER: I’m impressed! And grateful. MARTIN: I didn’t do it for you. PETER: Even better. MARTIN: … It’s easier, this way. I’m sure you’d have had no problem sending her away. PETER: I hadn’t really thought about it. And now, thanks to you, I don’t need to. […] Oh! Speaking of which: I’ve had a report of a workplace dispute in the library, and I would value your input. I’m trying to get out of the habit of, what did you call it…? “Sending them away”? MARTIN: [SIGH] … Fine.

It’s… really that Martin is trapped in this situation where only he can damage-control Peter, and they both know it, and Peter uses it fully to get Martin close and wrapped around his little finger, too (although Martin still snaps a lot and nags Peter and unleashes his pettiness at him in return). And Martin had already told Jon, during their last exchange:

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people! MARTIN: Yeah, and if it wasn’t for me, it would’ve been a lot more. [SILENCE] This isn’t helping anything.

And… Martin was right back then ;; (And Peter probably wooshed these two people just for Martin to know that he could prevent it if he just… complied and stayed around and kept a close eye on Peter and did all his work. Martiiiiiin, you’re so absolutely stuck in an abusive relationship…)

- (not) SMOOTH, PETER, (not) SMOOTH:

(MAG134) PETER: Martin… My patron, hopefully our patron someday, doesn’t give me any sort of special insights. I’m not quite the accomplished voyeur that Elias was. I have to keep tabs on things the old-fashioned way. MARTIN: What, turning invisible and eavesdropping? PETER: If you like. But… I’m only one person, and I can’t keep an eye on everything.

(MAG138) MARTIN: I think he wants me to join The Lonely. ELIAS: Then it sounds like you have a decision to make.

(MAG144) PETER: I’m just not big on confrontation. You understand, I’m sure. MARTIN: We. Are not. The same. PETER: Of course. […] MARTIN: So what’s our next step? PETER: For you, keep researching. I’m sure we haven’t found all the statements in here that deal with The Extinction yet. One of the downsides of not serving The Ceaseless Watcher is that we have to actually look things up. Not to… mention the fact that Gertrude was distressingly good at obfuscation. The more you know about our enemy, the better.

… he slightly stressed that last “we” and it sounds like he absolutely does count Martinas being on the same side as him now and… not much as a Beholding agent? Getting hunches and being directed towards statements is Jon’s thing but the way Peter was dividing Beholding things and how he himself (and Martin alike) has to operate was a bit striking… ;;

(- On that note: I’m curious about how Peter mentions that Gertrude “was distressingly good at obfuscation” – we knew that already, right, but… Adelard’s letter in MAG113 (circa 2012) explicitly stated that Gertrude was “dismissive” of the possibility of a New Threat, and Adelard had chronologically already labelled it as The Extinction to her (MAG134’s letter is from 2009). Yet, Peter is assuming that Gertrude hid the information around the new Fear on purpose? Is it because Peter doesn’t know (yet) about the fact that Gertrude didn’t believe in it (and Gertrude might have accidentally labelled this and that statement with other Fears’ stamps), or did Gertrude… actually get more concerned about it, in her last years, and hide information on purpose…?)

- Re: Peter’s distaste for Confrontation and his implications that Martin is the same… it makes sense as a Lonely thing, but also: it… isn’t Very Martin, in fact? Because Martin held back, but he also did end up confronting people here and there – exploding at Jon in MAG039, nagging him into eating, orchestrating The Intervention, and trying to get him to talk to Tim in season 2, exploding in front of Tim in MAG079, literally confronting Elias in MAG118. But at the same time: it’s true that it Takes A Lot for Martin to finally snap.

But the thing about being non-confrontational is not exclusively Lonely and I’m reminded of these moments in relation to Martin:

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us.

(MAG128, Breekon) “The Spider’s always an easy job – no fuss, no complication, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a Stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure.”

So mmmmmm, I might be grasping at straws and I still want to hope about Web!Martin but. What Martin is doing can still perfectly be read as absolutely Web-y: not confronting and mostly getting people where and how he wants them, making them believe they are the ones in control of their own actions and decisions, while hiding in plain sight.

- I’m… so sorry for Martin, why is your life SO HARD baby:

(MAG138) MARTIN: Great. Great, great. So, what you’re [NERVOUS LAUGHTER] actually saying is that you’re gonna be… no help whatsoever! ELIAS: … Just like old times~ MARTIN: I don’t know what I expected.

(MAG144) MARTIN: You’re not just going to tell me, maybe? PETER: When have I ever? MARTIN: [LONG-SUFFERING SIGH]

Martin had to deal with BOTH of them, do you even realize how shitty his life is? He got the Worst Of Elias, and he’s been dealing with Peter for months, and They’re Just The Same. (Lonely Eyes rubbing off on each other, I GUESS? :w)

(- On that nsfw note:

(MAG144) MARTIN: And you? PETER: I have my own explorations I need to attend to. […] I’m absolutely delighted with your progress, and I feel you’ve earned some straight answers. MARTIN: But not from you. PETER: Oh, no. That sort of conversation makes me very uncomfortable.

1°) “Straight” (answers) make Peter uncomfortable 2°) Peter has his “own explorations” to take care of

… was that a reference to Elias, Peter.)

- The Dark is (presumably) dealt with so now, we’re getting new Questions in the Speculation Game, namely: who is Peter’s “friend”?

(MAG144) PETER: I have my own explorations I need to attend to. And a, hum… meeting. To arrange. For you…! MARTIN: For me? PETER: I’m absolutely delighted with your progress, and I feel you’ve earned some straight answers. MARTIN: But not from you. PETER: Oh, no. That sort of conversation makes me very uncomfortable. No, I’m owed a favour by a friend of mine. I’ve asked him to stop by, when he’s back in the country. MARTIN: You’re not just going to tell me, maybe? PETER: When have I ever? MARTIN: [LONG-SUFFERING SIGH] PETER: Oh, come now. What would life be without the occasional twist?

It’s a “he”. People we’ve heard about that I’m considering:

* Mikaele Salesa: we got reminded of his existence in MAG141, and he’s been revealed to be Officially Dead… through a third-hand account, who never saw the body, and it was after retrieving an item with an unknown purpose (but a broken camera lens… brought me to mind Beholding or Dark stuff, and something allowing you to conceal instead of revealing?). We know that Peter and Salesa were on good enough terms, back in MAG066, for them to… bet on whether someone would survive getting accidentally stuck in one of Salesa’s items, and he looked a bit relieved that the dude hadn’t died, so Peter opening the crate sounded like he was doing him a favour => could be the one Peter is referring to, or something else, but at least, they know each other, they both are Sailors People, etc., so learning a bit more about how they came to be acquaintances/them working on some projects together would make sense.

* Simon Fairchild: Peter said that his friend would be “back in the country” and we know that Simon Fairchild, who travels a lot, is actually from Hackney (if it’s the same con artist who was active in the 1930s that Jon had worked on, as he mentioned in MAG051). The Lukases and Fairchilds participated together in the Daedalus project, both “families” (Gerry told us that while the Lukases are about bloodlines, Fairchilds are… more of a brand?) are filthy rich, and, overall, Jon jinxed it back in MAG124 when he spat that “I do not think I ever wish to meet him.”

* Adelard Dekker…? I would be very surprised if he had been on friendly terms with Peter, but then, we don’t know much about Adelard (he tended to save people or prevent more victims when he was around… but it was more about neutralising threats than caring much about collateral damages: he did use explosives to stop The Flesh’s ritual). I’m kinda expecting Adelard to either have turned into an Extinction avatar by present time, or have been killed researching it, or have been killed… by Peter, hence Peter knowing so much about his researches but not asking for his help in tracking down his statements. (I had also considered at some point that MMM, what if Adelard and Peter are actually the same person under aliases…? But they’re both Rare Cases of characters who have had official descriptions: Peter is very pale even for a white man, while Adelard is a Black man. So nah.)

* Oliver Banks…? I’m not suggesting him because I love this sneaky little shit and would love to hear him more – er, not only because of it. But overall, Peter was able to explain to Martin why The End had never tried a ritual attempt and wasn’t interested in it, while he wasn’t as certain of The Web’s motivations for doing the same (and not carrying out its ritual)… so that could fit with him being actually pretty well acquainted with an End avatar as an inside source. Not banking (get it? get it?) on it, but. (Also, canonically handsome mlm Oliver never met Tim (as far as we know), which is a shame, but. Martin is still right here. And Oliver knows a bit about Jon’s dreams and overall situation with the Spiders. So could be an interesting encounter.)

* Another Lukas…? Peter said “friend”, though, but I’m pretty sure he would call Martin a “friend” to someone else if asked, and they’re not friends. (… This sentence sounds like SF’s Trexel.)

* I’m trying to “be in Peter’s head” and imagine what it would take for him to use that wording, and: I’m not expecting it at all, because I think he… won’t be relevant ever aside from what we were told in MAG118. But. But if Peter’s “friend” was actually Martin’s dad, this is probably the wording he would use, and it would be awful.

- So we got an update and Basira&Jon made it “home” safely:

(MAG144) DAISY: They’re back. I thought you might wanna know. [INHALE] Seems like it went smooth – too smooth for Basira, sounds like. Keeps looking at Jon like she can’t believe he made it back. [SILENCE] I, uh… I mentioned our conversation to him; he asked me to check on–

We technically don’t know how long it took them through Helen’s corridors, but presumably not much time. (… Martin had apparently felt like he had been stuck with Tim in Michael’s for weeks, although it was actually at most a day or two? He did spit that it had been “weeks” at Elias but we know the dates at the end of season 2 / beginning of season 3, it can’t have been weeks.)

Why is Basira surprised that Jon managed to make it back…? Is it because she thinks he should be dead from the Dark Sun…? (Because… I would expect Basira to be surprised that she herself made it back – and we had confirmation that she wasn’t planning to get rid of Jon against The Dark, since she tried to convince him to not Try To Get Himself Killed and even suggested that leave a potential threat untouched, in MAG143… So why the focus on Jon?) Daisy interacted with him and didn’t mention anything amiss, so I doubt he got blinded, in any case?

In summary: we’ve… been cut-out from Jon’s POV since MAG139/MAG140 and Jon Still Remains A Mystery – what is he thinking, when did he begin to forcefully torture and extort live-statements from innocent people (… if it was indeed him in MAG142 and not the rib he gave to Jared mutating or something)? Martin has been gradually taking more importance, in season 4: he was barely seen at first (MAG124, MAG129), began to have his moments alone/with Peter (MAG126), went back to reading statements (MAG134, MAG138, MAG144) and to having episodes solely dedicated to him interacting with people and wondering about his own researches (MAG138 when he first visited Elias, MAG142 when he received the Unnamed Female Victim’s complain). Martin’s episodes are getting more and more frequent, to the point of… alternating with “Jon”’s episodes since we came back from the hiatus. While Jon’s own thoughts are currently hidden to us, Martin has been more transparent and has received focus of his own. He’s stepping up as a protagonist, right now… and it could be the sign that we’re meant to lose Jon (whether because he would die-die or die-as-Jon) soon…?

(- Last time Martin and Jon interacted was fifteen episodes ago, in MAG129 (holy Mew) and… at this point, I’m doubting more and more that if they do interact ever again, it would go… well. Whether because Peter is in the room and Martin pulls the same thing he did with Daisy (shouting at her until she left, screaming/pretending/maybe being more honest than he thought about his own bitterness), or because Martin takes into account what he’s been told by the woman in MAG142, or… anything. Even if Jon picks up, like the fandom did, on the fact that he’s been led by Elias to experience other Fears and that the Lonely is missing… pointing out to Martin that Martin is possibly meant to be the one inflicting the Lonely on him, and that Peter’s schemes were mostly to keep Martin occupied and push him towards the Lonely to have an effect on Jon… would be devastating for Martin? It’s still a possibility (though I personally do believe that there IS indeed a new threat, whether it’s The Extinction or… something else, that they’ve all been misinterpreting), and it was brought up, whether it’d be true or not, I can’t imagine Martin reacting well to the thought that he’d have only been used and never mattered in the first place. How could Jon and Martin even interact, nowadays? Jon has already told Martin that he missed him. Daisy implied that Jon sent her to check on him. Martin knows that Jon is worried and cares – he knows, and it’s not enough, because there is the new threat and Peter to deal with at the moment. And in the meantime, Jon has apparently fallen deeper into Beholding than we previously thought. How could they even find a common ground after this…? (………………… except by sharing mourning over Tim and Sasha, I guess. I miss Tim.)

Title for MAG145 is out and OOOOH BOY. Obviously, it brings to mind the whole content of MAG139 and Jon’s tirade at the end – AND it screams “Corruption statement” (finally!! baby is maybe finally making it into season 4!!). We have a link between Desolation and Corruption through Diego’s beliefs in “Asag” (who contained both aspects), and the fact that Arthur Nolan had been “demoted” from cult leader to The Hive’s landlord and… we still don’t know the story behind that. But I’m not sure we would dig into Desolation/Agnes-related matters so soon, since Eugene had explained that they had lost their chance for their ritual for a few decades – it’s not an urgent matter for Jon, I doubt he’ll keep investigating right now, after having just confirmed that they aren’t a current threat? So, mmm, things I’m considering:

- Jon digging into Corruption/Desolation history again anyway.

- Jon digging into the Corruption to check if they got their ritual attempt – it’s missing on our list, could have been what the worms were trying to do in the tunnels but we still don’t know… and overall, we don’t know a lot about how Corruption operates past independent avatars (The Hive/Jane Prentiss, and John Amherst, Maggie/Gordie): would a ritual be carried out by a lonesome avatar, or would it need a collaboration between many?

- Another of Gertrude’s tapes, this time about The Corruption and their plans for a ritual? Because perhaps the double meaning of the title could… be about her own thoughts (since we already had a look at Jon’s own in MAG139).

- MELANIE digging into Corruption-related matters to track down (or establish what happened to him, if he’s dead) John Amherst’s moves after MAG036/MAG055’s reports.

As for the second meaning: I doubt it would be about Martin, and I’m not sure if it can be about Jon again so soon after MAG139 (unless… it’s about Something Else, ie Jon, what are your current thoughts about The Watcher’s Crown. Have you never mentioned that you wanted to stop it because you’re afraid of negative repercussions if you say it outright, or because you actually do not not want to prevent it.)… so, the assistants about Jon? Or about Martin, since he chased Daisy away? Or an overall realisation that they thought they were doing their own things, but have probably been played by Elias all through season 4?

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #mag144 #long post/

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asiachatmancsg · 6 years ago

Text

CH 1 Notes- Historical Elements-

(For Chapter 1 I didn’t have a book so I used an online version)

Electronic games were popularized by universities, labs and the military. Used by troops to escape rigors of basic training. Students used turned their computers into game machines. Students used as relief from their traditional duties. In 1951 Marty Bromley launched SEGA. Students developed computer games to hone their programming kills or entertain each other during breaks. Spacewar was an early mainframe game. 1972-2012 many aspects of gaming was created in 2012 3D was created. Public arcades was the publics first introduction to electronic games. Located near schools and residential areas on purpose. In 1956, just a few years after Marty Bromley started SEGA, Rosen Enterprises’ David Rosen began importing coin-operated electromechanical games to Japan—launching the country’s coin-op business and becoming Japan’s largest amusement company n 1964, Rosen Enterprises merged with SEGA to form Sega Enterprises. Acting as a bridge between the United States and Japan, Sega Enterprises released the first Japanese export, Periscope Several games are considered milestones of this era. Although limited by the technology of the time, these games were innovative—inspiring new trends in content, genres, gameplay, and development techniques that had never been considered. They provided hope for the future of electronic games as a mass entertainment medium. these games are considered so nostalgic by gamers from this era that they have been rereleased in console, computer, or handheld format so that they can be experienced again

In 1961, MIT student Steve Russell developed Spacewar Nolan Bushnell, who later founded Atari, saw the game and decided to bring it to a larger market by adapting it into a stand-alone arcade coin-op game. Calling his version Computer Space After Computer Space, Bushnell left Nutting Associates to start Atari with partner Ted Dabney Atari became the most prolific presence in the arcade business—churning out games such as Asteroids After Bushnell left the company to start several ventures, Atari was purchased by Warner Communications in 1976 The beginnings of the first memorable—and controversial—electronic game appeared in 1958 when Willy Higinbotham of Brookhaven National Laboratories in New York showcased his table tennis–style game (Tennis for Two) on an analog computer. Ralph baer invented simon in 1977 Created first light gun game. the Magnavox Odyssey—the first home game console—was released in 1972, Atari VCS (Video Computer System)/2600 took off in 1977 Atari kept the price of the hardware low and made most of its money from the game titles it developed for the console. The first video game “in joke” (known as an “Easter egg”) was programmed by Warren Robinett in the VCS game Adventure. Mattel released an arguably superior (and more expensive) console system known as Intellivision. Instead of a joystick (like the VCS), the Intellivision was equipped with an “intelligent” controller consisting of a keypad and a movement disc resembling the “track pad” on some of today’s laptops. In 1984, Mattel Electronics was shut down after heavy losses and sold to a Mattel vice president, Terry Valeski, who renamed it Intellivision Inc.

In 1977, the same year that Atari released the VCS/2600, Mattel launched the handheld game industry by releasing a series of LED- (light emitting diode) based portable games. Catridges could only contain one game. In the 1970s and 1980s, Coleco released some of the most memorable handheld games, including mini tabletop arcade games of popular titles such as Zaxxon, Frogger, and Galaxian. Several theories have been attributed to the video game industry slump of the early 1980s. Perhaps the industry just experienced a temporary decline, and the platforms and titles introduced were just not revolutionary enough to reverse it. Oversupply might have also contributed to the slump; over 50 software companies produced cartridges, saturating the market with titles. Nintendo’s entry into the console business in 1985 breathed new life into the home gaming industry—but it also helped push the arcade business into extinction. Titles such as the Super Mario Bros. arcade conversion, The Legend of Zelda, and Punch-Out!! (where players had the thrill of bashing boxing legend Mike Tyson) were engrossing—with seemingly limitless environments. Over 50 million NES systems were sold in 1992 Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. 3, the most successful non-bundled game cartridge of all time. Tengen then acquired the rights to sell the extremely popular puzzle game, Tetris. After it was discovered that Tengen bought the rights from Mirrorsoft (which did not actually own the rights), the game was removed from the marketplace—and Nintendo, which had acquired the legitimate rights to the game, released it under its own label. What eventually became a great rivalry between Sony and Nintendo began in 1986, when the two companies agreed to create a CD-ROM for the SNES In 1991, Sony revealed its “PlayStation” console In 1991, Galoob Toys released the Game Genie, which lets players cheat in NES games and win more easily. Nintendo revolutionized the industry again with the Game Boy that launched a new era of handhelds in 1989. The Game Boy was succeeded by the Game Boy Color (1998) and the Game Boy Advance (2001). The Game Boy Advance SP (2003) the Game Boy Micro, was launched in 2005 , Sega began releasing a slew of game systems in the 1980s and 1990s—including the Sega Master System (SMS), Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast In 1991, Sega reinvented itself with Sonic the Hedgehog—a game that featured a fastmoving blue creature in red tennis shoes Sonic became SEGA's mascot By 1995, Sega of America was juggling seven separate and incompatible game platforms—Saturn, Genesis, Game Gear, Pico, Sega CD, 32X, and 32X CD. In 1993, U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin held hearings on violence in computer and video games. the industry created the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to provide parents and consumers with detailed information on game content so they can make appropriate purchasing decisions for their unique households. The ESRB independently assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines, and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry. most console manufacturers will only permit games that have been rated by the ESRB to be published for their systems. In 1992, Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins started 3DO The Saturn from sega - After announcing that the system would be released in the United States on “Saturnday”—September 2—Sega released the system four months earlier than expected. Overall, sales were low In 1998, Sega launched the Dreamcast, which used Microsoft’s Windows CE operating system The entry of Sony’s PlayStation into the console market in 1995 launched a new era in the console wars. (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo were named the big three. the big 3 emerged in the 2000s with the launch of the playstation ps2 which became the fastest selling console in history, with over 100 million units shipped by 2006 Nintendo’s GameCube and Microsoft’s Xbox joined the new console war in 2001 and 2002, Colossal Cave (also known as Adventure—not to be confused with the Atari VCS game of the same name) was developed by assembly-language programmer William Crowther and influenced a generation of adventure game developers at colleges and defense contractors. Donald Woods expanded on it, resulting in Infocom’s popular Zork in 1979. In 1981, IBM released the IBM PC using Intel’s 8088 microprocessor. Although the system was not targeted toward the business and programming communities— and it was not designed for entertainment While at Hewlett-Packard, Steve Wozniak designed what eventually became known as the Apple I and demonstrated it at the Homebrew Computer Club—a popular computer hobbyists’ hangout. Steve Jobs approached him at the meeting and suggested that they start a company together. PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), introduced in 1961 at the University of Illinois. oy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University (U.K.) created what later was referred to as a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) in 1978 t—students and researchers connected to the network began creating their own MUDs with the freely available code. Like Talk-O-Matic and future online chat rooms, MUDs focused heavily on the social aspects of games. America Online (AOL) actually started as a game company. The predecessor of today’s AOL was launched in 1985 to directly compete with CompuServe’s online multiplayer game services The first graphics-based online service, Quantum Link, was initially available only to Commodore 64 users The first commercial online 3D shooter, A-Maze-ing, was launched in 1989. It supported up to eight players, chat, and bots Quake, featured built-in Internet capabilities so that geographically dispersed players could engage in death matches. The first graphical web browser, NCSA Mosaic (created by Mark Andreessen while he was a student at the University of Illinois) marked the end of text-only communication on the Internet In the 1990's “LAN parties” involved friends networking their computers together in a room and playing in teams or against each other he rise of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the United States began when Origin Systems launched Ultima Online Sony) launched EverQuest—which became the largest massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in the United States, claiming to have over 500,000 simultaneous players. t. Console game companies, in their desire to grab this market, now offer Internet connectivity through their systems: Xbox 360 (Microsoft), PlayStation 3 (Sony), and Wii (and its successor, the Wii U—from Nintendo

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tupacaddict · 8 years ago

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Tips about Making Good You Tube Videos

What makes a video successful on-line? Consider it or not it isn't the fancy camera or the fancy music and titles that you employ. Listed below are some recommendations on how one can make a very good video on You Tube. There are tens of millions of videos on You Tube. The first trick is to get your video found through the use of a number of nice key phrases in your tags. If you employ numerous related keywords in your tags, you'll have a a lot better probability of being found. The other possibility is to make a unbelievable video that people will view, love and cross on to all of their buddies. Quite a lot of videos on You Tube haven't any nice key phrase tags, however have many views just because they are that good. To make an important video, you might want to have one or all of those characteristics in your video. If you be certain your video is both humorous, gross, bizarre, shocking, sexy, fascinating, inspiring or helpful you can be heading in the right direction. Right here is why the video that you put up ought to be one or all of the above. Chicken elevating makes a variety of sense now in recessionary times and when folks have professional fears concerning the source of their food. Chickens love scraps and leftovers. Chickens appetites are voracious..and can eat practically something. So don't worry about food going to waste or out of date food left in your fridge.Your rooster will love you and your rubbish disposal costs shall be significantly lowered. And the large quantity of the way to eat eggs and use them in the kitchen means that for baking, for making omelets,scrambled eggs,fried eggs and so on. means you won't ever be in need of a nutritious, wholesome and economical meal. And a few people swear by uncooked eggs to improve their respiratory and wind..significantly when indulging in vigorous train or coaching for sports. Chickens are wonderful sources of pure fertilizers for the soil..and a virtuous cycle of consumption and growth is maintained. And you can become very attached to them. Chickens are voracious eaters of weeds and grass and may maintain your backyard with out the need for you to buy weed killers and spend time weeding and maintaining your property.

The Tasmanian Tiger survived on the isle of Tasmania for thousands of years after it had disappeared from Australia. There were Tasmanian Tiger hunts, which helped to cause its extinction, however it was additionally affected by human encroachment on their lands, in addition to canines being introduced to their areas, and diseases affecting them. Steller's Sea Cow went extinct in 1768. It was once discovered close to the Bering Sea, where it was discovered in 1741. The sea cow grew to about twenty-six feet in size, and weighed up to a few tons. It regarded much like a bigger model of the seal, however it had a tail like a whale, and two stout forearms. Based on the man who found the animals, he stated they never got here out on the shore, however at all times lived within the water. He also mentioned that the animal had thick black skin just like the bark of an oak tree. These are just some of the extinct animals that no longer roam - or swim - the earth. Alpaca breeding season has begun at Ashton Stone Alpacas. We normally breed alpacas between June and September on our farm so we have babies due mid May by mid September. We wish to avoid the chilly Michigan weather months. We're boarding a couple females who're at our farm for breeding. We have additionally began breeding our personal females. Up to now, the only considered one of our own who we have now bred is Lady. Alpacas are most receptive to getting pregnant 2-three weeks after they provide beginning. Lady and Bellesa both gave start 3 1/2 weeks ago. We decided to wait to breed Bellesa. She is an older girl and is underweight. Since she is nursing Completely satisfied, she might use a while off. We don't plan to breed her unless we will get her weight up. Thus far, she is doing well. We now have her on alfalfa hay and three cups of excessive vitality grain per day and she appears to be placing on some weight.

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Probably the most troublesome animals in terms of meals is raccoons. Raccoons are very smart and might determine learn how to open containers. Nevertheless, many individuals also fear in regards to the potential of bears of breaking into their food because they are too large to battle off without a gun. It is very important properly store your food irrespective of what sort of camping you're concerned in. Animals have been identified to pester backpackers, campers, and even these merely staying in a resort. Even day journeys have been ruined as a result of folks forgot to correctly store their food away. Wild animals may raid your camp any time in the course of the day or evening. It's crucial that you just retailer meals away correctly all times in the course of the day and evening or you could lose it. Generally people forget to retailer something away as a result of it does not obligatory imply meals for them. Llamas are clever and easy to practice. In only a few classes they may pick up and retain many behaviours corresponding to accepting a halter, being led, loading in and out of a automobile, pulling a cart or carrying a pack. What sounds do they make? Llamas talk by humming. They also categorical themselves through a sequence of ear, physique and tail postures. On occasions they will alert different llamas or individuals with a distinctive alarm name in the event that they really feel threatened. What do they eat? Llamas are a modified ruminant with a three-compartment stomach and like sheep and cattle chew their cud. Because of their relatively low protein requirement and environment friendly digestive system they'll generally be fed most types of pastures and hay. Llamas cost much less to feed than different comparable sized animals. Llamas can make nice livestock guardians, defending herds in opposition to canine and fox attacks. Llamas have been identified to stomp foxes, coyotes and predatory canines to death. Nonetheless, not all Llamas act in such an aggressive manner. Llamas and Alpacas are totally different species. Llamas are bred as pack animals, while Alpacas are bred for their fine fibre. Llamas are larger than alpacas. Alpacas produce a luxurious and smooth pure fibre. It is also very lightweight, but hotter than wool. In contrast to wool it is not itchy.

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