#the bone turner's tale episode tag

[myfckingnameisnuwanda]

This bitch really put The Horrors™ into his own mother and pet.

Masterpost

<- 016: Arachnophobia - 018: The Man Upstairs ->

<-<- 001: Angler Fish

[finalpam8000]

I just finished The Magnus Archives for the first time last week! And thought it might be fun to compile the episodes that scared me the most and see which ones spooked the rest of the fandom as well!

[lamiralami]

TMA Retro 4: Page Turner

I was touched to see some tag commentary on yesterday’s post! Honestly, it gave me an emotion - I am traditionally very anxious about engaging online, it speaks to my immense love of TMA that it brought me to Make A Post At Last. It’s very affirming and reassuring to get some response to my lunatic treatises. Y’all are all right. 💜

Anyway, grab some lighter fluid and a sturdy wastepaper basket, time to torch your haunted novel in MAG 4: Page Turner

It’s ironic that this statement is about the Vast when it is one dense motherfucker. so many dangling plot threads are introduced here, each ready to hook you and start reeling. we’ve been into the meta plot since episode one but this episode is the first time the audience is made aware of such.

seriously: Jurgen Leitner and his library, Gerard Keay and Mary Keay, Michael Crew. the figures introduced in this one thirty-minute installment loom large over the rest of the entire run

you could, your first time through, even file this away as a one-off scary story if not for the fact that Jon knows what’s going on (enjoy it while it lasts, my son). He’s heard of Jurgen Leitner. He alludes to an incident with his library in 1994. Deeper than that, he immediately takes the statement at face value and treats the claims within it as authentic, which is a complete 180° on the first three episodes

and this is such a smart story choice? Jon shapes our perspective into this universe and up until now he’s been utterly dismissive of the validity of the stories he’s telling. To go from practically rolling his eyes to scheduling a meeting with his boss about tracking down more haunted books - that tells us that Jon takes this seriously as a threat. And that makes us take it seriously too, makes us take note that strange books are dangerous things in this world. Any offhand mention of books in future statements will be enough to make us sweat

And! It starts winding the narrative tension on a character level. Why and what does Jon know about Jurgen Leitner and his library? Why does he say his name with such venom? And if he’s so sure about the supernatural nature of these books, why is he so loath to believe the other statements?

(and then it takes 80 + episodes to fully answer these initial questions. Jonny enjoys a slow roasted torment)

love that the statement giver presents, as proof of his iron-clad sanity, the fact that he works as a theatre technician. speaking as someone with an unfinished theatre degree: theatre people are feral my good buddy, try again. I mean, we refuse to say the name of one of the most famous plays in the English language because we think a ghost will trip us for the indiscretion. this is not the trump card you think it is.

a quick sidebar for the Red String Brigade: The Trojan Women is an ancient Greek tragedy that involves a baby being thrown off a city wall. The Seagull’s first published English translation was done by Marian Fell, and also a seagull is a bird and birds can fly. Much Ado About Nothing is very good and you should all watch the version from 2011 with David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

it’s interesting that these early episodes seem to take a cue from urban legends in some respects. Nathan Watts gets extremely drunk at a party and then is almost skinned by a monster while having a smoke. Joshua Gillespie is approached while engaging in a whirlwind of debauchery and has to take care of a cursed coffin after accepting money for what he thinks is a drug trafficking gig. Amy Patel regularly spies on her neighbour for her own entertainment and then has to watch him be replaced by a malevolent entity only she can perceive. and now Dominic Swain pushes past his guilty conscience to score a valuable book off an unknowing charity shop and...gets a bit dizzy and haunted by a phantom stink for a few days then gets ‎£5,000, well anyway, the point is he got spooked! spooked after doing something kind of iffy! that is pure urban legend procedure; modern day fairy tales imparting dire  consequences onto societal transgressions. in a horror story this structure offers a false sense of safety - if you’re a good person, the monster won’t come for you. I can’t recall which upcoming statement yanks the rug out from under us with the first completely random victim.

cannot comprehend how this guy didn’t start plugging the book into google translate the second he got home. that probably saved him from being taken by the book but I am still judging him for not even trying it. yeah you’d be sucked into some sort of sky hell but at least you’d know what’s in the book!! could never be me

(yes I am aware in this universe I would have been eaten years ago. I’ve made my peace with that)

grbookworm1818 slays me. I don’t know which is better, the idea of Gertude carefully curating the most sixty-five-year-old-on-goodreads username she could as a cover for her cursed purchase history, or her actual sixty-five-year-old brain just expressing itself naturally because Gertrude is a very busy woman who doesn’t have time to immerse herself in the ins and outs of internet culture, she just wants to buy the demonic tomes she’s selected for destruction and get on with her day thanks.

did Gertrude know what a meme was? which Archivist could convincingly pose as a millennial best, Gertrude Robinson or Jonathan Sims?

The Key of Solomon and its former keeper, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, are both real historical figures. the book is basically Renaissance-era magical au fanfic of the Bible, and the man was a 19th century British occultist (and likely drinking buddy of Jonah Magnus) who founded a Very Serious Secret Society. this is a picture of him whiiiiiich rather dispels any sense of menace he’s meant to invoke. what kind of cosplaying nonsense

Mary Keay is such a striking figure. “She was very old and painfully thin, but her head was completely clean shaven, and every square inch of skin I could see was tattooed over with closely-written words in a script I didn’t recognise.” a Look, a vision!

I’m guessing that Our Gerard was blasting heavy metal at 2 am to try to drown out his undead mother while waiting for her manifestation to dissipate. I like to imagine him frequenting Reddit advice posts about dealing with toxic family members, poor lad

oh my gosh Mary refers to Gerard as “her Gerard” is that where Jon got “our Gerard” from?? I feel betrayed??

whatever, I’m reclaiming it. Our Gerard is meant with affection now babey! 

the eye portrait is a bit puzzling. the inscription - ‘“Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call.”’ - could almost be read as an invocation against the Eye? But in general Gerry is fairly Eye-aligned, so...shrug emoji

(honestly my main takeaway from the eye portrait is that it’s finely detailed and near photorealistic so we can add “tortured artist” to our list of Gerard Keay traits and is it any wonder that he’s so Fandom Beloved?)

Mary is Not Good at negotiating sales. her main technique involves terrible tea, bringing up repressed childhood trauma, and getting her magic book to drop animal bones onto customer’s shoes. I’m guessing Pinhole Books was in bad shape even before the police investigation and murder charges.

hahaha, the Vast pushes Dominic down the stairs. classic. you gotta grab what opportunities are available

so did Gerard have to follow Dominic back to his flat and wait awkwardly on the doorstep at like 3 in the morning, hoping none of his neighbours would notice and call the cops

the revelation that Mary’s been dead the whole time! this episode may be more intent on world building and plot set-up but damn if it isn’t still a good little ghost story.

kind of rude of Gerry to just burn a book in this guy’s flat without asking and then steal his wastepaper basket.

Jon may not call the statement giver a liar for once, but never fear, he’s still our petty bastard man. accuses Gertrude of filing statements without reading them, has Sasha double-check Martin’s research, grumps about his general misfortune . he’s stressed from the Archives’ disorder and having flashbacks to a certain picture book but by Jove, that won’t stop him making snide comments on what’s supposed to be an official audio transcription!

[arctic-comet]

TV show quiz

I was tagged by @storybookwolf, thank you :)

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. Don’t cheat. Tag 10 peeps. 

I put my shows into a randomizer and this is what it picked for me:

1.       The Handmaid’s Tale

2.       Big Little Lies

3.       Call the Midwife

4.       Bones

5.       Stranger Things

1.  Who is your favorite character in 2? In S1 it was probably Madeline, now I’d say Jane or Renata.

2. Who is your least favorite character in 1? Jesus. Who do I hate the most? Fred? Serena? Why not both?

3. What is your favorite episode of 4? That’s actually surprisingly easy to answer. 6x09, “The Doctor in the Photo”, which is angsty and depressing but comes with a great performance from Emily Deschanel.

4.  What is your favorite season of 5? Season 1 definitely.

5. Who is your favorite couple in 3? The Turners! I love them as individuals, I love how they got together and I love their (now pretty huge) family.

6. Who is your favorite couple in 2? Uhhh I don’t really ship anyone in BLL because all the romantic relationships are so fucked up.

7. What is your favorite episode of 1? Either one of the season finales, with an honorable mention going to the episode in S1 where June and Nick first have sex (1x06?)

8.What is your favorite episode of 5? The Monster from S1.

9. What is your favorite season of 2? Season 1.

10. How long have you watched 1? Since they first aired S1, so a couple of years.

11. How did you become interested in 3? I’d read about it online and then realized we have the first 5 seasons on Netflix, and I binged them all when I’d started my maternity leave and there was literally nothing else to do, LOL.

12.   Who is your favorite actor in 4? T.J. Thyne.

13. Which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5? Stranger Things right now, because I’ve totally lost interest in this season of THT and BLL’s kind of hard to define at this point.

14. Which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3 ? Well, 3 has more episodes altogether and I’ve seen them all, so I’d have to go with that.

15. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? I’d be Hodgins because he gets to do all the cool experiments,

16. Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? Not really, one of them is a British show and the other one’s American, and the tones are completely different.

17. Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple. I’m gonna go with my fanon ship of Moira/Emily.

18. Overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? I think Call the Midwife is muuuuch better with the impactful, emotional stuff than Stranger Things (post S1), but it doesn’t really have like an overarching storyline? 

19. Which has the better theme music, 2 or 4? I like both, but if I had to pick now, I’d say 2.

[protectmartinblackwood]

TMA Lists

Tagged by

@sazandorable Only just now seeing this! Thank you!

Top 10 episodes

Oh man I have no clue actually? No way I can just pick ten. Gonna have to look through them and just pick some that immediately stand out but this list in no way conclusive or in order. So:

Another Twist

Nesting Instinct

Testament

Cruelty Free

Hide and Seek

Infestation

Anatomy Class

Boatswain’s Call

The Bone Turner’s Tale

A Father’s Love

5 Episodes that scared you the most

Cruelty Free (There is NOTHING to gets to me like the primal terror invoked by knowing something is just sitting there passively waiting to Get You. Even if the pig DID turn out to be a friend. You don’t know that til the end. Scared the hell out of me.)

Lost John’s Cave

A Father’s Love (I’m noticing a pattern here with the ones that scared me the most being on the fave list)

The Bone Turner’s Tale

Binary

Top TMA ship(s)

Jon/Martin

Daisy/Basira

Basira/Melanie

Peter/Elias

Jon/Gerry

I’m down with a lot of other ships, it’s pretty much all good but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind as something I Actively Ship.

Favorite Monster(s)/Avatars

Jon (I love that I can officially say that now. Monster!Jon lives)

Michael

On that note, Helen

Jane Prentiss

Simon Fairchild

Peter fucking Lukas even though I hate him, damn it I appreciate him as a monster

Again, there are a lot more that I am definitely not able to think of because I appreciate them all for their own special and/or horrible reasons but those are the few that immediately came to mind. Any monsters/avatars reading this that I left out: you are valid.

Favorite Entity/Entities

The Lonely - just because I always associate it with the sea thanks to Peter Lukas and I romanticize the hell out of lonely sea voyages lol. Also it makes me self-indulgently emo as hell because Relatable

The Vast - scares the hell out of me and I love it

The Spiral

The Beholding

The Hunt - idk man it’s just sexy like that

The Desolation  - also kinda sexy

Any Entities that Don’t Scare You?

Flesh and Corruption don’t really scare me so much a gross me tf out. Actually it’ll be easier to list that ones that DO scare me: The Buried, The Dark, and The Vast. Those consistently terrify me any time they show up. The others, it really depends on the specific statement’s contents and the overall tone.

I don’t know who’s been tagged yet or who would be interested in doing it? Sooo I’m gonna tag @mae-mil @somuchbetterthanthat @negasonicteenagegirlfriend @agnesmontague

If you’ve already been tagged or just aren’t into this sort of thing, no worries!