Home is behind, The world ahead, And there are many paths to tread, Through shadow To the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight, Mist and shadow, Cloud and shade, All shall fade All shall…fade.
- Pippin’s Song | Edge of Night, Lord of the Rings
image id under the cut because it’s very long. There are 984 words under the cut. Strap in, I guess.
[image id: a series of pictures displaying scenes from Season 5 of The Magnus Archives, with text from a song also written below.
The first image shows Jon and Martin walking across a flat plain, a house behind them, and a large tower with a red eye above it, the Panopticon. The picture is lit in red, with clouds and red eyes filling the sky. Above the sky are black and white pictures, drawn as if taped to the picture. They show Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha, all smiling. One picture is the picture taken by Tim on Jon’s birthday. Above that, in red, it says ‘Home is behind’. In the lower right corner, in white, it says 'the world ahead’. These words, as with most of them, are in all caps in a stark sans-serif style.
The second image is smaller and broken up into eight slices with an eye in the middle. Around the eye, in white, it says 'there are many paths to tread’. Each image is, generally, a different domain, and most have the Panopticon in the distance, a tower now with a white eye, and red eyes in the sky. Jon and Martin are almost silhouettes in most images. Starting from the top left and going clockwise, slice 1 shows Jon walking far ahead of Martin, who’s in the foreground, and on the left appears to be a red phone booth with webs inside. Slice 2 shows Jon and Martin on a hill overlooking a merry-go-round, which is red and white. Slice 3 shows Jon and Martin looking at silhouettes of buildings which burn red. Slice 4 shows Jon and Martin staring up at a great beast with a snarling face, its hand with clawlike nails outstretched to grab them. It appears to be drooling, or, as the drool is red, bleeding.
Slice 5 shows what appears to be the Distortion, a great mass of lines and swirls with red spiraling eyes and white teeth. Jon stands before it in silhouette, eyes circling his head like a white crown. Slice 6 shows a gray foggy lake, upon which two people are rowing. This is probably not Jon and Martin but Jon and Basira, although it is impossible to tell. Slice 7 shows Jon and Martin, closer up this time, holding hands and walking through a graveyard. A closed eye looms in white from a rectangular structure.
The third image is larger (the same size as the first), and shows Jon and Martin holding hands in silhouette, looking up at a tower made out of buildings and houses. The sky is cloudy and red, and at the top of the tower a giant red eye shines. Beams of lights shine out from it in white, and this and some circles around the eye resemble a web, clearly intentionally. White text at the top of the image says 'through shadow’, and white text at the bottom of it says 'to the edge of night’.
The fourth image is the same size (all the rest are). It shows Jon and Martin backlit in red light as security cameras with gleaming red lights surround them. The text is white, and at the top it says 'when the stars are all’. Below Jon and Martin, it says 'alight’.
The fifth image shows Jon, Martin, Melanie, Georgie, and Basira in the shadow of and hiding behind a large pillar. Mist and clouds hang low around them. To their right, creatures strangely reminiscent of Among Us astronauts run towards them. They are black and taller, though, and instead of helmets they have red eyes like flashlights, lighting up the passageway they run through in red. White text on the left of the image says 'through mist and shadow’.
(Transcriber’s Note: You’re halfway there. Hang in there!)
The sixth image shows on its top Jon rowing a boat on a lake. Clouds are in the sky, and a red eye stares at him. Lines like wisps of steam or tree roots reach down under the lake and into the bottom of the image, where a web hangs down from the roots. Martin is bound to it in cassette tape. In the right center of the image is text in white: 'cloud and shade’.
The seventh image shows Jon hanging by tape from the top of the image. Behind him is a more realistic looking eye (the ones before did not make the vitreous humor white; this one does). A red sunburst is behind Jon’s head; he appears to be bleeding. And also shirtless. Red eyes cluster into tendrils behind him. Red text below him says 'all shall fade’.
The eighth image shows Martin stabbing and hugging Jon. Bloody tape shoots out from Jon, flooding the bottom and right of the image. There is a distorted quality to it, like an image made for 3D glasses looks. A closed red eye is to their top left. At the bottom of the image, it says 'all shall’.
The ninth image’s top continues from the eighth image, black tendrils that are distorted and tinged with red extending down into a cloudy sky. These clouds, though, are yellow and pink, and the sun shines. There are green and blue mountains and a gray lake. Jon and Martin are simply a few lines, glowing red, embracing on the shore of the lake. This is all drawn in watercolor, or giving that effect of soft colors that fade into each other. There is white text to the bottom of the image, in cursive this time, that says 'fade’.
The tenth image shows Jon and Martin hugging deeply; you can only see their hair and not their faces. Behind them is a blue-and-purple sort of ombre background, with white blobs, rather like it is snowing underwater. (I’m sorry; I don’t know how else to describe it.) There is no text.
