Jonathan Sims heard Skype was shutting down and fell to his knees. (He is the websites last remaining user because the only thing he doesn’t like to learn about is new technology.)

I think the Not! Them creature leaves a few people aware of it’s existence so they have fear to feed on. That’s a pretty common theme from entities we see in TMA, but what I think is more is the way the entity picks who can remember it strategically.

In the case of Rose Cooper, the entity lets her daughter remember her real identity. Her daughter has had a strained relationship with her Mother for years, and when she tells her Father that her Mother isn’t her Mother, her Father dismisses her by saying “This isn’t the way to handle your issues.” The daughter’s lack of relationship with her Mother makes her seem unreliable to person she needs to believe her the most…which only serves to elevate her fear and frustration in the situation.

In the case of Sasha James, the entity lets Melanie remember her real identity. Melanie only met Sasha once, and she was much less close to her than the rest of the Institute employees. That makes her word about Sasha being a different person seem much less credible to Jon than if Tim or Martin came to him and said something was wrong…which only serves to elevate Melanie’s fear and frustration in the situation because, from her perspective, it genuinely seems like Jon is randomly gaslighting her about Sasha’s whereabouts and identity.

The creature doesn’t just pick someone to remember it, it picks a person who wasn’t close enough to the person it replaced to be believed. And that’s so much more scary of a concept than if it just picked at random.

TMA Name Meanings And How They Intertwine With Their Character

Jon - The name Jonathan means “God has given” which is quite ironic considering a fear entity (that some people worship like a God in the TMA universe) spends the entire series giving Jon the power of The Eye. His last name is also deeply ironic, as the last Sims means “To Listen,” which…is not the right sense for Jon’s main thing, but it is perfect for a statement taker.

Martin - The name Martin means “dedicated to Mars” and “God of war.” While a name that means “God of war” seems a little intense for Martin, it does tie into the themes of his story about constantly being underestimated and having a lot more fierceness than he tends to outwardly show. His last name Blackwood means…you guessed it, “black wood.”

Tim - The name Timothy means ‘one who honors God.’ Much like Jon’s name meaning, his also has a hint of irony considering he serves a figure that is viewed as god-like in the TMA universe, but it’s ironic in the opposite way of Jon since Tim does NOT honor The Eye. However, his last name Stoker suits him a little too well. It means “one who tends to the fire”….which I don’t love considering his death.

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Sasha - The name Sasha means “Defender.” It’s a very sweet first name considering how many of her actions in the series are in the name of defending her friends. Her last name James is SUPER interesting because James means “holder of the heel.” That’s a phrase that comes from a Bible story about a man named Jacob who was born holding onto his twin brothers heel as a sign that he’ll eventually take his brothers birthright. Which is relevant to Sasha because she was supposed to take Gertrude’s place as head Archivist.

Melanie - The name Melanie means “darkness,” which is fitting for a ghost hunter who is first drawn to The Institute because she finds an Avatar of The Stranger begging the Angler Fish creature in the dark. Her last name King means “rule” or “monarch.” It’s a fitting name for someone becomes a leader of a cult in Season 5, and it’s a powerful name for one of the characters who has one of the strongest wills in the series.

Georgie - The name Georgie means “farmer.” That meaning doesn’t have a lot of tie-in to canon, but it could make a Corruption or Flesh avatar Georgie AU hit super hard. Her last name Barker means “Shepard,” which has a lot of relevance to her role in the story. Like a shepherd she tries to guide Jon away from the fears, and while she unfortunately fails due to no fault of her own, she is able to be there for Melanie when she walks away from the fears. Shepard’s also have religious symbolism which ties into Georgie’s role as a chosen one cult leader in Season 5.

Basira - Basira’s name means “wisdom.” That’s fitting for a character who is so grounded in logic that she’s able to think herself out of The Stranger’s ritual. Her last name Hussain also means “handsome” or “good.” So that could be a tie in to how she perceived her role as a cop before the Daisy character development, or it could tie into her role in helping stop the apocalypse in Season 5.

Daisy - Daisy’s nickname means “purity and innocence” and she says in canon that she uses that nickname because she likes the irony. Her real name Alice means “noble,” a powerful name for a women who uses her powerful position as a cop get away with brutality. Her last name Tonner is just as strong as it means “thunder.” A force of nature that is typically used to symbolize strength.

Peter - The name Peter means “rock” or “stone.” An ironic name for someone who’s so…“stoney” 🥁 His last name Lucas means “bringer of light” or “to shine”….which is not a name meaning a guy who likes to be followed around by fog probably appreciates.

Elias - The name Elias means “The Lord is my God.” In a similar vein to Jon, it’s an ironic name considering his body ends up as a vessel to a guy who practically serves The Eye as a religious deity. His last name Bouchard is no less ironic. It means “brave,”….which Elias is not shown to be in his statement.

Jonah - The name Jonah means “dove” and doves typically symbolize peace, love, hope, and renewal. While I wouldn’t use the words “peace” and “love” while describing a character like Jonah, “renewal” does ring a bell. His life is in a constant state of renewal as he has to jump from one body to a next. His last name Magnus means “Greatest” which could be a tie-in to both his pride and his role as the one who created The Institute.

Gerard - The name Gerard means “hard spear.” That doesn’t have any relevance to canon, but it does have relevance to his last name. His last name Keay is a variation of the last name Kay, which means “Wharf.” He has a name that’s extremely fisherman coded and that’s hilariously funny to me because it literally has nothing to do with anything.

Gertrude - The name Gertrude also means “hard spear” and yes I will be thinking about how Gertrude’s name parallels with Gerry’s forever. Gertrude’s last name Robinson means “son of Robin.” Robin’s tend to symbolize good luck, happiness, and rebirth. While that isn’t perfect symbolism for Gertrude, you could argue that she has good luck to be able to foil so many rituals and survive far longer than anyone else involved with The Institute. (Though personally I would assign her as a raven if I were to give the cast bird symbolism.)

Michael Shelley - The name Michael means “a gift from God.” I find the fact that his name references him as a gift a little disturbing in this specific, particular, context considering that Gertrude did give him away like one. His last name Shelley means “meadows edge.” Meadows tend to symbolize peace and tranquility, which fits both a character who had peace in ignorance about the fears and a character who seemed like a very soft person.

It makes me so mad that Michael Crew is one of the many Michael’s in the series because he literally doesn’t even go by Michael.

He goes by Mike.

That could have just been his name.

Then there would have been less Michael’s.

Which would be fine.

Because there are so many Michael’s.

And you know what, there are so many Michael’s that Mike going by Mike is enough for me to rank him as one of my top ten TMA characters. Because I can just call him Mike instead of having to type out his last name every time I want to talk about him, which is not true for the door guy.

Anyway! I don’t have a lot of feelings about the repeated use of the name Michael in the series TBH. I’m kind of neutral on it overall. As you can tell by this post.

Cryptids And Mythological Beings I Think Fit With Each TMA Fear

The Buried - Mongolian Death Worm

The Corruption - Mantis Man

The Dark - Fresno Nightcrawler

The Desolation - Dragons (Fun fact: Dragons are considered cryptids because they fall under the definition of “creatures they are not known to exist in nature.”)

The End - Banshee

The Extinction - Mothman (Elaboration: In Mothman legend it’s said that he’s often seen before disaster. So. Extinction harbinger.)

The Eye - Aliens (Elaboration: I feel like it’s going to be controversial to group aliens with The Eye instead of The Vast, but my argument is that in all the stories surrounding aliens, they just happen to live in space, while they choose to watch humans and abduct them to learn information. Which is very eye coded.)

The Flesh - Chupacabra

The Hunt - The Beast Of Bray Road

The Lonely - Bigfoot

The Slaughter - Old Green Eyes

The Spiral - Fairies

The Stranger - Jackalope

The Vast - Loch Ness Monster

The Web - Sirens (Elaboration: Once again I feel like it’s going to be controversial not to group them with The Vast instead, but in stories, Sirens use their voice and good-looks to lure men toward them against their better judgment, and that’s both manipulation and trapping someone in a metaphorical web.)

One of my least favorite TMA details is that Jon’s narration style in Season 5 is the same narration style Jonah uses when observing Jon’s coma dreams. It’s an interesting detail when the other parallel in this situation is that both Jonah and Jon are using this narration style while looking above people’s suffering as an avatar instead of seeing it from an even, human, ground.

Something something “this narration style is used to portray how objectively, poetically, and yet distantly Eye avatars observe human suffering.” Something something “And therefore this narration style is used to show that Jon’s humanity has slipped from him enough in Season 5 that he’s sounding like Jonah.” Something something this parallel made me have to stare at a blank wall for awhile.

Happy International’s Woman’s Day to all women but also to Gertrude Robinson in particular. Nothing says loving women like binding your life to one.

In “the hyperfiation went too far again” news I just spelt key as Keay.

Jared Hopworth, Angus Montague, and Oliver Banks are all described as attractive at one point in their story.

A statement giver who attended Jared’s gym described him by saying “Despite his enormous size, his face seemed pretty normal, even handsome, with the sort of cheekbones and jawline I’d kill for.”

Jack Barnabus describes Angus with the words “But she was so beautiful. She, she was tall, with long, straight, auburn hair and these eyes that, when they looked at you, it didn’t feel like she was seeing you so much as was trapping you.

Then a statement giver in "Grifter’s Bone” gives Oliver the description of: “He was tall, black, and careworn, with deep lines of worry etched into an otherwise handsome face.

So the fact that Jared, Agnus, and Oliver are attractive enough for their looks to be pointed out during a statement leaves me with a very nonserious question that makes me curious enough to make a poll.

There are certain ways in which I see Leitner as a more extreme version of Gertrude, and this is a great example of what exactly I mean by that. After all, both Gertrude and Leitner lost their assistants. However, the context around their assistants deaths are a lot different.

Gertrude didn’t kill Eric, Fiona, or Sarah. You could argue that she should have been more of aware of the part Emma played in Fiona’s death, but we’ve also been shown by Jon why being super paranoid over your assistants actions usually causes more harm than good, and it’s not exactly shocking that Gertrude wasn’t overly suspicious about deaths that occurred in her extremely dangerous line of work.

You could argue that Leitner didn’t directly kill his assistants either, but I would say the context is very different since it was his pride that lead them to their deaths. He knew his books were dangerous, and despite that, he was willing to sacrifice more people he than he can remember because….why? He wanted to learn secrets and make a name for himself? That was worth dozens of lives and getting people marked by things they would never be able to fully comprehend? That doesn’t sound worth it to me.

But Gertrude isn’t exactly innocent in regards to her assistants either. Gertrude did kill Emma and Michael, but her motivations for that go a lot deeper than secrets or ego. Emma was psychologically torturing people and then leading them to their deaths, people that Gertrude cared for enough to avenge. She did kill Emma Harvey, but that was more about betrayal than anything else. Then we get to Michael. His death is easily one of the worst things Gertrude did in the series, but from her point of view, she genuinely thought she was saving the world. She was wrong. But her intentions were good. It’s not like she sent Michael through the door to “establish a name for herself” or whatever Leitner was doing.

I think Gertrude and Leitner are interesting character to parallel because it’s easy to think of Gertrude as this harsh women who’s willing to do anything for her investigation into the supernatural…but no, Leitner is willing to do anything for his investigation into the supernatural, and that’s not a good thing.

I think a very fun doorkeay dynamic is:

Distortion! Michael: “It must be odd for you, book burner. To be in a relationship with something that doesn’t truly exist. Michael wouldn’t have been able to understand why you are here, and I do not need to be Michael to question why you’re so willing to go through my doors. What do you see so appealing in delusion?”

Gerard: “I mean, this might as well happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

I’m a big fan of the idea of Gerard and Mary’s natural hair color being red because I like the symbolism of it.

Red is often associated with anger, violence, and danger. Those are all facets of Mary’s personality, so it would be suiting for that color to be attached to her very being.

However, it would also be suiting and deeply symbolic for Gerard to cover up the color of violence, danger, and anger he was born with by choosing to apply a color that’s just his own. It would be an act of rejecting the most violent parts of his Mother, and I think that would add a lot of weight to his choice to dye his hair.

Anyway, I love giving characters with almost no physical descriptions deeply symbolic designs in my mind. This post is just me trying to convert more people into red haired Gerry truthers.

Melanie King would love “Lost Records: Bloom And Rage” and Georgie Barker would love “Life Is Strange.” And that’s why they work as pairing.

Jon is the type of guy to sign off all his texts with his name. Just:

“Martin, please remember to put the trash bin on the curb. The bin collectors come at 4, and I won’t be home until 5. Thanks. - Jon.”

The Jonmartin dynamic is so funny to me because season 1 Jon is always making statements like: “And then there is Martin, who’s mere presence makes a rock seem like intelligent and efficient being.”

And then the entire rest of the series is just Jon being hit over the head with a brick filled with conclusion’s that Martin reached a few months ago.

The Tumblr app is an avatar of The Spiral who functions by always making itself just a little worst but never enough to make its last few users leave.

A dynamic where Gerard starts dating The Distortion, and then it gets unspiraled and turns into Michael Shelley again, has so much angst and just in general potential.

When Gerard started dating The Distortion, he knew from the start that their relationship was…different. After all, Michael is a monster and he is a man. That creates a dynamic that’s hard for most people to get.

But Gerard has already spent most of his life resigning himself to not being “most people.” He’s spent so long around monsters that they make more sense to him than the average Joe who lives their life blissfully unaware of the world around them. A monster was one of the only thing he ever could have ended up with really, and he’s fine with that. It means he gets to stay in his world that he understands.

Then there’s The Distortion, who has ever conflicting thoughts about it’s identity. Is not Michael, but it is Michael, and neither and both can understand why someone with so much humanity would be so eager to be with madness. What’s left of The Distortion would not want to intertwined with humanity if it had a choice, and what’s left of Michael would not want to be intertwined with a monster if he had a choice. No matter who they are, it can’t understand the choice Gerry makes to be intertwined with something not made for him, and that lead’s to the assumption, and perhaps insecurity, that Gerard would be happier if it were human.

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Then they get undone somehow, and Michael Shelley’s left to put his life back together again. As overwhelming as that is, he’s relived that he gets to choose to have normalcy again. Humanity. He’s actually pretty excited about what the undoing means for his relationship with Gerard, because obviously Gerard is going to be happier with a fellow human then a creature made out of deceit.

But Gerard is not happier. In fact, he’s scared. He can deal with a hallway monster, that’s just an average day for him, but he doesn’t know how to handle other people. He doesn’t know how to handle a normal, kinda boring, guy who just wants a normal, kinda boring, life.

So Michael and Gerard’s relationship goes into this uncomfortable place where Michael feels like his humanity has been rejected and Gerry feels like he’s a fish who had been drug on land told he needs to grow legs to walk. Both of them feel like they’ve been rejected by the other in some way, and their relationship is on unstable ground a long time.

However, it does get better eventually. It takes Gerard having to step out of his comfort zone a lot, and really think about what type of life he wants for himself, but he does decide that there’s value in the normal life he wishes he was given before he was shown things he can’t unsee. And, meanwhile, Michael has to do feeling sorting about whether he wants to be with someone who’s so deeply tied with the fears that he was initially lost when his boyfriend turned back into a human. Michael does decide that Gerard is trying, and that’s enough for him, even if it means accepting that the fears will always be apart of how they met.

(Or you could go with a bad ending where Gerard just can’t be comfortable with normalcy no matter how hard he tries, and Michael just can’t accept that Gerard was more content with a monster no matter how hard he tries. Which leads to a break up.)

ANYWAY, I am clearly thinking a lot about the doorkeay dynamic. I love a ship where there’s canonically at least four different ways you could interpret their relationship (Gerry/The Distortion, Gerry/ Michael, Gerry/The Distortion who turns back into Michael, Gerry/Michael who turns into The Distortion.) and that’s even including ghost! Gerry!

What I really find interesting about the dynamic between Michael and Jon is that, for Michael, their interactions are deeply personal. Jon is connected to The Archives and has taken the role Gertrude once held. That means he represents everything that ruined Michaels life, whether he knows it or not. His existence is a representation of Michael’s failure. His pointless. The betrayal he faced. And Michael HATES him for it.

But Jon doesn’t have a lot of context about Michael at this point in the story. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. Or what his point is. Or why he wants revenge. All Michael is to him is a monster that comes through a yellow door and causes more problems than he solves.

And that adds so much bitter irony to the dynamic between Michael and Jon. For one: Even if Michael managed to “get his revenge” on Jon, it would have been pointless. Jon didn’t what was going on, or who Michael Shelley was before The Distortion. Michael was just a monster in his eyes, and that mean’s any vengeance that Michael would have taken would have had no deeper meaning to him than “Oh. The monster is being a monster.” That voids the entire purpose of the revenge…and isn’t that ironic when Michael says that his entire existence is tied to pointlessness.

But that point aside, (get it?) what adds even more bitter irony to their dynamic is that Jon DOES know who Helen is when she takes up the mantle of The Spiral in Michael’s place. He has an attachment to her because he sees her as a mirror, and he cares about what happens to her in a way he never had the chance to care about what happened to Michael. It really drives in the point that everything cruel Michael says about himself being “disposable” is true in his dynamic with the Archivist…which, again, is ironic because Jon isn’t exactly doing TMA meta about Michael’s existence.

Nothing about Jon’s interactions with Michael are meant to be hurtful or personal. Jon is just trying to navigate his strange world that Michael also happens to cohabit. Yet, to Michael, their shared existence is intertwined by the the things he hates the most. He see’s a string of fate that needs to be cut, Jon see’s a creature that doesn’t know.

mishoru:

Our Gerard 👀

So if blinding yourself is canonically how you cut yourself off from The Eye, isn’t there a decent chance that there’s a way to cut yourself off from the other fears as well?

I don’t know what those ways would be off the top of my head, but holy crap I hate even consider what you would have to do to free yourself from The Flesh.

Wait very nonserious thought:

Within the context of the text, the implications of having a Magnus Archives blog are very odd when TMA ends with fears being released into our world.

Like….within the TMA universe, everyone with a TMA blog is casually making posts about fear entities that have released into our universe on Tumblr.com. And I find that very funny.

Why Gerard Would Become An Avatar Of Each Fear

The Buried - Gerard has always felt a bit buried by the expectations his Mother places on him. That phrase has taken a more literal than metaphorical turn of late as he keeps having dreams where Mary places weight on his shoulders until he sinks beneath the ground, where the soft dirt welcomes him with open arms. He would assume that these dreams are nothing more than dreams, but he’s done this whole fear thing long enough to know that it’s alarming that he keeps waking up covered in dirt with a terrible ache in his shoulders …not to mention the new urge to dig.

The Corruption - Gerard could not bring himself to leave the bookstore after his Mother’s death. He tried, but he was always pulled back by the toxic memories that felt like home. Even when mold started to grow on the walls, he could not bring himself to walk away for good, and when the floorboards started rotting through, he dug his heels into what remained. He realized too late that the entire situation was a breeding ground for The Corruption, and it had a hold on him just as strong as Mary did, but in an odd way that’s okay. It almost feels like home.

The Dark - One minute, you’re in a goth club just hanging out, and the next, a strange person comes up to you and asks if you also find peace in the dark. When this happened to Gerard, he shrugged and said he supposed he did, only to be handed a card promoting a church. He knew it was weird, but “curiosity killed the cat” has never been a saying he liked all that much. He had to check it out. And he had to go again when it was just as weird as he thought it would be. Purely for investigation of course. The peace he found hidden from the world within the dark had nothing to do with it.

The Desolation - Gerard’s appreciation of destruction started small. At first, he just had a fondness for setting Leitner’s alight that were more trouble than they were worth. The way the flames consumed the paper was so…warm. So…consuming. So…efficient. They solved all his problem with one flick of his lighter, and that was intoxicating. It only seemed natural to escalate to getting rid of his other problems as well, up until he ended up burning down Pinhole Bookstore and truly embracing the flames.

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The End - Being a ghost isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to Gerard. However, being an avatar of the end ghost might be. Despite his annoyance at the whole situation, he’s not shocked that it turned out this way. Dying in that hospital gave him plenty of time to feed The End, and when Gertrude brought him back with the book, not quite alive, not quite dead, and yet very afraid of what his existence meant for his mortality…well, The End latched onto him like glue to paper. As it turns out dying’s not that bad. It’s the staying dead that sucks.

The Extinction - Gerard has spent so much time worrying with Gertrude about a fear apocalypse that’s it’s hard not to think about the concept of human extinction. Especially when so many avatars are eager and willing to end the world just to serve their entitles in a more “pure” way. He can’t imagine wanting that. The concept of Extinction terrifies him, and it takes all he has to stay steady when Gertrude needs his help in defeating another ritual. But thankfully, he’s not stopping any rituals today. He’s only supposed to be helping Gertrude burn a few Leitner’s. Yet…it’s odd. He hasn’t actually gotten any burned. His eyes keep darting over to a letter on Gertrude’s desk. It reads “from Adelard Dekker,” and he doesn’t know why, but he can’t shake the urge to read it.

The Eye - “Better to serve the watcher then the lightless flame.” Gerard said those words for a reason. It’s nearly impossible in his line of work not to be tied to something, and Gerard’s always found the concept of forbidden knowledge much more welcoming than worms, fire, cannibalism, and all the other horrors the other fears bring. He’s fine with being the eye’s pupil. As long as it means he’s not belonging to something worse.

The Flesh (TW: Skinning) - Gerard was never really able to tell Mary no. He knew their bond was unhealthy…but he loved his Mother, and he wanted her approval more than anything. That’s why he agreed to help her with her ritual when she asked him to help her bind her skin into the book. He knew that he shouldn’t have agreed when he made the first cut, and he knew that he REALLY shouldn’t have agreed when it was all said and done and he had the urge to go out to the store and get some meat.

The Hunt - The most natural thing in the world is a child that wants their Mother’s approval. In that way, it’s not shocking that Gerard went to the ends of the Earth hunting Leitner’s for Mary. But what is surprising (but maybe shouldn’t have been) was when one of the fears latched onto that instinctual feeling and used it to make him an avatar of the hunt. He thought the urge to hunt might ease after Mary’s death, but…then he met Gertrude, and she gave him a purpose to chase.

The Lonely - It’s easy to be lonely in a world where you don’t fit. Gerard has always wanted a normal life more than he’s ever been comfortable saying. He’s spent so much time daydreaming about what it would be like to have normal friends who call him “Gerry” with a smile and allow him to leave all the fears far in his past. Of course, that’s not something that would really happen. People in the real world are just too…naive. He doesn’t fit in with them, and he doesn’t belong with them either. Maybe he’s just doomed to be alone. That would explain the fog that’s started following him.

The Slaughter - Gerard doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill a few Leitner holders if they refuse to hand over their books. And he really doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill the avatar’s of the fears he’s sworn to destroy. He’s just trying to make the world a better place after all, and the world is safer with fewer haunted books, and people, in it. Is a little cruel since Leitner holders and avatar’s alike often aren’t in their right mind by the time he finds them? Sure. But that’s a price he’s willing to pay. And he doesn’t quite remember why it wasn’t once. After he was shot by that war ghost Gertrude sent him to track down the means to the end all seemed so clear. He has to do a little bad to do a little good.

The Stranger - Gerard has never felt like he belonging anywhere. He is not ignorant enough to live within the “normal” word, but he has never managed to truly find a place in his Mother’s world, either. So he just drifts aimlessly in-between both, never quite sure what role he’s supposed to play or who he’s supposed to be. He knows his lack of firm identity makes him a target for The Stranger, and his facial features have looked a little…blurry lately, but that doesn’t make any easier to decide were he belongs.

The Vast - When you hunt fears it becomes easy to feel like you’re insignificant in the world. There are things that are so much greater than him…and the very annoying thing about his line of work is that those feelings can become literal very quickly. He’s started smelling ozone lately, and he can’t shake the dizziness that hits him every time he goes up the stairs to enter The Institute, but he’s not quite sure how to fight the sky when it’s so all consuming that all he can do is stare in helpless awe.

The Web - Gerard has very…complicated feelings about Mary and Gertrude to put it lightly. However, they did teach him the value in one thing, and that’s manipulation. He saw the way Mary would bat her shark-like eyes at his father and draw him deeper into her tide until he drowned. He saw the way Gertrude would act like a frail old and then go in for the kill when people would let down their guard. And he can play those games too. He’s really mastered the art of offering deals that people feel like they have no choice but to take. In fact, he’s so good, that Jon hardly hesitated when he leveraged information for burning his page. Spinning webs comes easily to him, he’s had very good teachers.

Jon never clarified to Tim that he didn’t have a thing for Basira so…did like, Tim just spend the entire rest of the series thinking that Jon was secretly pining for Basira?

I can’t decide if Gertrude and Melanie would have a deep and mostly unsaid mutual respect for each other or if they’d want to hunt each other for a sport after a day.

One of the things that Gertrude does seem to fear is her own death. In the tape she intends to leave to her successor, she at first tries to beat around the bush about WHY she would need to leave a tape behind. She starts to say that it’s “likely” that she’s dead, before giving up and admitting that if someone’s listening to that tape it means she’s gone.

It’s an important detail because Gertrude is a character who’s usually very thoughtful in what she does, and in a certain way very careful about how she portrays herself to others. The fact that this little moment of vulnerability slips out seems to imply that facing the reality of her morality is something that frazzles her a bit, and I think we get a little more implication in this in the “Dreamer,” where Oliver Banks dreams about Gertrude’s impending death. He says “It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city.”

So Gertrude did not go peaceful into the good night, which is an interesting aspect of a character who’s usually shown to be so unshakable. Even she fears death, and there so many reasons you could speculate as to why. She could just have a normal and human fear about something that most of us worry about. She could fear the unknown as an Eye avatar who has spent her life dedicated to seeing everything she can. She could fear what would become of the world without her in it. Or she could fear everything in-between.

Personally, my headcanon is that Gertrude’s fear of death ties a bit into her savior complex. She worries about who will be there to save the world once she’s no longer in it. (Which, bonus headcanon, could tie into why she bound Gerard to the book.) And that’s why she looks so fearful when Oliver sees her. However, regardless of the reason I really like this addition to Gertrude’s normally stoic character. No matter how strong she was she just human at the end of the day, and she feared death just as much as any other.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Gerard thinking about Michael Shelley while being with The Distortion.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Georgie thinking about her college friend Alex while being with Melanie.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Martin thinking about Season 1 Jon while being with Season 5 Jon.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Jude thinking about Agnes while being with her girlfriend.

The lyrics “She looks like the real thing. She tastes like the real thing. My fake plastic love.” but with Tim finding out Not! Sasha wasn’t Sasha.

“Across The Street” is such an impressive display of horror because somehow the stalker statement giver (Amy) ends up being so much more uncomfortable than anything that happens with the Not Them.

Because I understand why Not Them would replace someone. It’s a monster. It does monster things. That’s the point. But what type of person gets helped by someone after they get concussion and comes to the conclusion that they should “people watch” their helper through their window? Especially after not even letting them see where you live because of “privacy.”

It’s just such an unsettling episode because Amy is just as weird as everything else going on. in hindsight, it’s pretty clear that she had some connection to the eye, but when you first the read the series with no context, I think it’s easy to find her uncomfortable because she sounds more…real than a monster from a fictional horror podcast.

I’m not scared of the thought of a creature replacing me because I don’t believe a creature like that exists. However, the thought of someone watching me from a window after being too observant with me already? That’s terrifying because it’s in the realm of possibility. And I think that’s why “Across The Street” hits such a deep horror nerve with me.

If The Eye is all seeing, and The Spiral is incomprehensible madness, then shouldn’t their existence be incompatible in each other’s vicinity?

We do kind of see this when Michael let’s himself be too known by Jon and then gets destroyed for it…but, like, Helen and Michael both appear in The Archives at one point in the story, and that’s practically an eye dominion.

So what are the rules when it comes to The Eye and The Spiral interacting? Because it seems like Spiral connected entities would get “Michaeled” by The Eye more often than not, but in canon that doesn’t tend to happen unless their existence becomes too known. However, The Eye functions by knowing so…shouldn’t just knowing that The Spiral is a fear entity connected to madness be enough to for The Eye to see through The Spiral’s “incomprehensible” nature? Because knowing that something in incomprehensible, ironically enough, makes it comprehensible.

Help I am thinking WAY To much about a horror podcast again.

Magnus Archives Spin The Wheel Game: Ghost Hunting Edition

You are a paranormal content creator who’s looking to gather information on the supernatural for your series. Your associates Melanie King and Georgie Barker have offered to help you by sending this character to ghost hunt with you.

Now that you aren’t alone (or are if you did something to make the last wheel mad) you can finally pinpoint a location to hunt at. You decide that you’re going here.

You and your partner arrive to ghost hunt. You get some good footage and a few small things happen that make you feel like this is a good spot. As you’ve apparently never watched a horror movie before, you decide to spend the night to get some more footage. That turns into a mistake when you wake up and realize that you aren’t alone. This creature is with you.

This is bad. Very bad. What happens next is a wildcard.

The funniest piece of TMA lore that I don’t see talked about a lot is that there’s an evil ant colony corruption avatar.

Because what happened with that after the apocalypse? We can assume that the human avatars were probably killed based on what happened to Simon Fairchild, so, like, did people just take a bunch of bug spray and let it loose next in the general direction of where it’s dominion was or???

Personally, I’m choosing to believe that there’s someone in the post apocalypse TMA universe on a vengeance quest against a formerly evil ant colony. That’s a part of my TMA belief system now.

Bad News: I’m under a tornado warning.

Good News: If I get hit I might become an avatar of the vast and that sounds cool as hell.