There’s so much irony in Martin saying that he and Jon still have time to talk “unless the world ends,” only to then spend the entire eye-apocalypse chatting as they travel to The Institute.
In fact, Martin and Jon interact the most throughout Season 5 since they aren’t busy with The Institute’s nonsense. As it turns out, the apocalypse was THE BEST time for them to talk.
Michael Shelley has a temper. He does his best to hide it under warm smiles and soft-spoken words, but there are so many things that can set him off. Injustice, not being believed, incorrectly filed statements, Emma not refilling the coffee machine after she takes the last cup, all of those things can make his blood boil. But he keeps that his secret. He doesn’t want to become “that guy” that no one wants to talk to at the water cooler because he loses his mind every five minutes.
When he starts dating Gerard he becomes even more determined to keep that part of himself hidden. He knows how much Gerry has gone through, and his worst fear is being someone he doesn’t feel comfortable around. So he promises himself to keep all his emotions hidden inside him forever until he dies. And for about six months that works fine.
Then one day Gerard is…a lot. He comes back from hunting a Leitner with mud all over his boots and tracks it all over the floor. He grabs a bite to eat and leaves behind a trail of crumbs as he goes to take his seat on the couch. He flips on the tv and turns it up way too loud for a small apartment where sound echoes off the walls.
Michael tries to keep his opinion on Gerard’s bad habits himself as to not let even a teaspoon’s worth anger out, but he just mopped the floors and he’s always found loud noises overstimulating. So he can’t really help it when he turns to Gerard and snappishly says “Will you turn that down?”
He immediately regrets it. His mind jumps to the worst case scenario. He can already imagine the betrayed look on Gerard’s face and the ensuing argument as the relationship he loves crumbles through his fingers like he’s trying to hold onto sand. This is the worst thing he’s ever done. He’s unforgivable. There is no going back to what they were. He might as well flee society and live in solitude the woods.
He can barely look over to see Gerard’s face, even when he hears the tv lower to a softer volume. He glances over expecting a look of shock or, worse, discomfort, but instead he’s just met with a shit-eating grin and the words:
“That was hot.”
It takes Michael at least five business day’s to recover.
Being in the Magnus Archives fandom talking about the gay book and door that never met in canon while all my friends are in the 9-1-1 fandom makes me feel that one meme of the guy holding pizza walking into a house on fire.
How Gertrude Robinson Would Become An Avatar Of Each Fear
The Buried -Gertrude has heard the phrase “buried by work” before but this takes it to a new level. She had intended to be outside the building when she blew up The Archives and ended things once and for all, but Elias catching her in the act made her to have to pull the detonator faster than she hoped. Now she’s buried under the rubble of her life’s work, not nearly as frightened as she should be. There’s something almost…comforting about being packed in tight by all the things that used to keep her awake with suffocating dread. Maybe it’s the fact that the building that was often times her tormentor is now sealed away, reduced to nothing more than parts for the dirt to take, but this isn’t nearly as bad as it should be. It’s almost nice to feel the end first hand, and she doesn’t feel nearly as weak as she should ….it’s almost like she could push out of the rubble….if she wanted to.
The Corruption -Gertrude used to be a bright-eyed young women who just wanted to stop something as simple as The Desolation. She doesn’t know when her work started to corrupt her, but it did. Maybe it was that time she left a sandwich on her desk for days while she tirelessly combined through statements. Maybe it was that time she pulled a statement covered in mold from the cabinet and simply put it back, unwilling to let that knowledge go. Maybe it was that time she got sick and was covered in a rash that could only be described as “completely repulsive” and yet still come to work anyway, fully aware that her her assistants could catch her disease. Regardless, Gertrude gave into The Corruption at some point. She’s just not sure if it was caused by the filth or her work environment.
More Undercut
The Dark - Gertrude has spent a lot of her life wondering if there’s a way to server herself from The Eye. It seems like it should be possible, but no matter which path she takes she never seems to get closer to freedom….but she’s never taken this one before. She didn’t want to give herself to The Dark to blind The Eye, but that’s the only logical solution. The Eye can not be shown what it can not see, and there is nothing to see in a room full of darkness. It’s a bit desperate, sure. But desperate times call for desperate measures that she’s more than willing to take.
The Desolation - Gertrude knew there would side-effects to binding herself to Agnes Montague. Yet…admittedly she thought more along the lines of hot flashes or initial blinding pain than becoming an Avatar of The Desolation.Granted, she’s not as surprised as she should be. She knew she was already walking a fine line by destroying the ritualistic dreams of fear followers with fire, especially due to her own history. But she never thought that tying herself to Agnes would be the thing that finally made her trip. Though she supposes it makes sense. To have a part of Agnes meant to have a part of being too. Oh well. It’s an…unfortunate consequence, but not something that Gertrude’s scared to embrace. In fact, her newfound avatarism could be very useful in her end goal of destroying The Archives….
The End - Oliver doesn’t try to blink awake as he swings open the door to Gertrude’s office. He need’s to know why the veins that lead him here are thicker than any other he’s ever seen. Still, he’s not entirely prepared for what he see’s. Surrounding a desk are still figures that are wrapped in dark veins. One is a blind man who’s veins sprawl across his chest like a stab wound. One is a women with cobwebs in her hair who has veins wrapping around her like burns. The women who stands beside her glances at her with a look of fury, with the veins that wrap around her looking just as similarly caused by flames. Near the back is an older women who’s veins wrap around her throat like they’re suffocating. And in the middle, sitting at her desk, is the oldest one of all of them. She’s not wrapped in any veins at all, a startling conclusion to make as she looks up at him with eyes that are so cold he’s only seen them in corpses. “It would be best for you to wake up now. There’s nothing for you to learn here, we are one in the same.”
The Extinction - Gertrude is old and tired. She knows that she isn’t going to live forever, and for her, there is no thought that’s more terrifying. It’s not even her mortality she fears. Well. Not not entirely. It’s the thought of what the world will become when she’s gone. What will happen if one of the rituals succeeds? Will the world become a living hell that no one can escape? Will all her sacrifices be for nothing? That would be the worst-case scenario. Even complete human extinction would be better than the fear’s winning. Forbid the thought. Gertrude doesn’t want to think about it that way, but maybe nothing existing at all would be better than everything existing under the fears…Maybe she already knows what she needs to do as she pulls a letter from Adelard Dekker from her desk and reads it over with careful concertation.
The Eye - *Gestures toward the canon*
The Flesh - Gertrude knew that she was taking things a tad far when she had collected the entire Keay family in a book of skin….but she just can’t justify letting all their knowledge slip away. She serves The Eye after all, it’s her job to preserve what information she can. Though….she has to admit there’s something interesting about the skin itself. It feels much more like animal skin than she would assume, and visually it doesn’t look much different either, other than the writing. The words are necessary to summon them of course, but if removed then she’d just be looking at…meat. She really needs to stop this line of thought. Before she erases the words to make sure of her hypothesis.
The Hunt - Gertrude is always looking for another ritual to stop.It’s because she has to of course. If she doesn’t stop the end of the world then no one else will. But she has noticed the way she starts to sweat with anticipation when she realizes another ritual is about to start, the way her heart pounds with excitement when she zero’s in on the location of a ritual. She knows she’s stepping dangerously close to the hunt…but what else is she supposed to do? Not keep chasing? Of course not. If she did that then the world would end, and if the world ends, then there will be no more ritual’s to go after. There will be nothing else to hunt. And she can’t have that.
The Lonely - Gertrude has lost so many of her assistants.Some of those loses were caused by her own hand, but they still weight heavy on her when she walks into the quiet Institute and sits down at her desk that no one visits. If she really needed someone to talk to then she has Leitner or Elias she supposes, but they’re more of “means to an end” than genuine connections for her to share. She’s even not sure the last time she had one of those. Maybe it was with Emma, but that was far more one-sided than she assumed. Maybe it was with Michael, but he was too far in the dark to truly know her. Maybe it was with Eric, but she can’t deny how slighted she felt when she realized he chose Mary over their work. So, maybe she’s never really had a connection with anyone at all. But that still doesn’t make the quiet in the air any more bearable. She doesn’t even feel like dealing with when fog starts rolling in and surrounds her desk with no time at all.
The Slaughter -Elias was never as subtle as he wanted to be. Gertrude knew that he would rather see her dead than see The Archives get destroyed, so she had to make a plan. One that involved getting him first. She knew that it would be her undoing. Elias was the “beating heart” of The Institute after all, and killing him would end herself as well. But Leitner was ready to set the flames, and that was enough consolation as Gertrude moved toward Elias’s office with a pipe in hand. Of course, that was five years ago, and what she did wasn’t her end. More like her rebirth. As it turns out, the one way to not be killed by a binding ritual to bind yourself to something else. Another entity. Gertrude hadn’t intended for that entity to be The Slaughter, but as she felt The Institute start to take her strength she couldn’t ignore the way it called to her. She took it’s deal. And the people around her have paid for it. Ask what’s left of Leitner.
The Spiral -Gertrude had full intentions to sacrifice Michael to The Spiral. It wasn’t personal. She liked him well-enough and even felt pity for him in odd moments, but the fate of the world doesn’t care about any of that. Neither does the flu apparently. Just a few hours before they were supposed to go to Russia, Michael apologetically called to say that he was ill couldn’t make it. It was the worst case scenario, but Gertrude has always been good at improvising. She made the hard choice to sacrifice Emma Harvey instead….a choice that turned out to be a mistake. Gertrude hadn’t even finished explaining the map before Emma looked up at her with eyes full of raging curiosity and shoved her hard through the door. Gertrude didn’t have time to react. She landed on the carpet of an endless hallway with a sharp thud and racing mind as the door slammed shut behind her. It was only then did she realize what Emma had been doing to her other assistants, and, as it turns out, The Spiral’s hallways are a very bad place to spiral with the realization that you’ve been betrayed…
The Stranger - After spending so much of her life trying to stop ritual’s, it never occurred to Gertrude that she’d be participating in one. But that’s the exact type of irony that Nikola find’s hilarious, so Gertrude can’t say she’s in any way surprised that Nikola used her skin to fashion her into a doll meant to witness the unknowing. That is exactly what she expected of her. Thankfully. You see, dolls have a more free will than one would assume, and having a questionable amount of skin isn’t going to be what stops Gertrude from stopping the world from ending. She’s going to stop the unknowing. Inside or out it.
The Vast - Gertrude’s connection to Jan Kilbride went a little deeper than just simply a man she had to sacrifice. She resonated with him when he shared his feelings about people being nothing more than ants in an endless universe. She felt that way plenty of times after spending her life dealing with something so extraordinary as the fears. Looking back that should have been her warning that she was becoming someone too suited for The Vast, but she didn’t realize it until she couldn’t stand to be near the buried ritual pit without being overcome by vertigo. Not that she can change it now. She’s just a tiny speck in a big game, anyway.
The Web - The new hire, Jon, doesn’t spare the old women who’s apparently his boss a second glance. He’s busy with his own work, and he just wants to get a cup of tea from the machine before he settles back into his desk for the day. He doesn’t notice the cobwebs that lace her hair, or the stone-cold look in her eye that is the only indication that the frail old lady act is nothing more than a puppet show meant to trap people in her web. He doesn’t even notice the way she shoves files in the wrong places with far too much precision for it to be a true mistake. He’s busy in his own world, slapping down the cobweb that’s for some reason behind the tea maker.
Speaking of Gerrymichael dynamics I really like to interpret Michael Shelley as someone who is morally good to the point where he feels crushing guilt for things that most people wouldn’t think twice about. Then meanwhile, Gerard is good too, but his goodness comes in a more morally questionable font. Like, just imagine this exchange:
Michael: “I didn’t see someone behind me today and I accidentally shut the door in their face! I’m terrible. I’m the worst person who ever lived. I deserve to rot for my sins.”
Gerard Covered In Blood Because He Just Killed Something Monster Adjacent: “Nah, you’re probably fine.”
Sometimes I worry that I come off as overly critical of Jon’s character. However, that’s because when I was listening to TMA for the first time I immediately became so attached to his character that I was willing to give him a free pass for pretty much everything…which was a bad thing because that made me overly critical of the rest of the crew when they had conflict with him.
So the second time I listened to TMA I decided that I was going to be more analytical toward his character for better or worst…which was a bad thing because now I have all of Jon’s faults lined up in a little file in my head which I think makes me seem pretty critical of him but the only reason had to make that file in my head to begin with is because I love him so much that I have to force myself to be objective.
So yeah. Basically I come off as pretty critical of Jon because he is my favorite character. Poor dude was doomed to be loved by someone who likes media analysis.
Okay, I don’t have the skills to animate, but I am imagining a TMA animatic with the later parts of “Six Hundred Strike” from “Epic” the musical. Featuring Jon and Elias in TMA 200 and a few lyrical rewrites to better fit TMA:
More Undercut
Jon: “You’re going to call off the Eye.”
Elias: “Or what? You’re going to kill me?”
Jon: “Exactly.”
Elias: “Wait, wait, ah!”
Jon: “How does it feel to be helpless? How does it feel to know pain? I watched my friends die in horror. Screaming as they were all slain. I heard their final moments. Calling their boss in vain. Look what you turned me into. Look what we’ve become.”
Elias: “Enough!”
Jon: “All of the pain that I’ve been through?. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Elias: “Stop!”
Jon: “You didn’t stop when I begged you! Told me to close my heart. You said the world was dark.”
Elias: “Monster!”
Jon: “Didn’t you see that ruthless is mercy upon our -”
Elias: “Alright, please.”
Elias: “After everything you’ve done, how will you sleep at night?”
Jon: “I won’t.”
Man. I need to learn to animate in the next ten minutes. Also here’s the actual song if anyone wants to give it a listen. (You should if you haven’t heard it yet. It’s great.“
TMA and it’s themes of humanity kills me because what to do you mean that Basira didn’t bring Jon something as simple as clothes, yet she did bring him a statement?
That’s so dehumanizing. And also sad to think about because while Jon does have a reliance on statements at this point, the fact that he even cares about changing into his own clothes from a hospital gown shows that he still has his humanity. Because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t care about something as personal as having his own clothes.
While a lot of us feel like our clothes are a part of who we are, it’s not exactly a “need” to have your own clothes when you’re in the hospital for something serious. Clinics will provide a hospital gown during most of the time spent there, and those do their job as clothing well enough. But…who wants to wear a hospital gown instead of their own clothes? It’s uncomfortable to not be dressed like yourself. Which is something people care about, but someone who lost all of their personhood wouldn’t.
When Jon asks for clothes he’s directly showing his humanity, and Basira rejects it by only a having a statement for him. This is a small interaction, but it really sets the tone for the rest of series as Jon struggles with the question “Am I a monster or a man,” only to land on “man” at the end. Jon never fully loses his humanity, and this moment is a great example of that.
I haven't been in the fandom for a loooooong time, but I saw a post of yours and wanted to share some fanart I made :3
Also I had a TMA experience that I, like, desperately need to tell someone, anyone about bc it makes me feel like I'm getting The Spiralled and/or The Strangered
So, I know that if I went back and relistened to season 1 that it'd be different from how I remember, and it's probably just a trick of my memory...
However, I swear to you, I SWEAR, that the version of TMA that I listened to did not ever contain a character named Sasha. I was completely convinced that the whole thing about Not Sasha was that it was going to be revealed that of course no one named Sasha had ever worked in the archive at all. I believed this right up untill the very final episode, and even beyond that.
It was only once I saw people talking about Sasha, doing character analysis, that the cracks started to form. I was half convinced everyone else on tumblr was pulling a Goncherov, but it was just too complete, too... Too absent of anyone at all talking about the fact that SASHA WAS NEVER REAL AT ALL and it is STILL driving me up a wall and I'm still not totally sure any of you are telling the truth about this or maybe I straight up just listened to a parallel universe's TMA????
And I've decided I can never relisten to the first season because frankly I think that weird multiversal conspiracy against me blip in my memory made The Stranger and The Spiral feel so much more threatening and real and I am refusing to dispell the magic for myself.
As far as I'm concerned, the Entities fucking GOT YOU ALL and I'm the only one who still remembers the real version!
Oooo that fanart is super neat! I love the way you drew the hands, they’re unsettling in a really cool way! 10/10 would scream if an eye creature covered in hands got near me.
While the Sasha thing is a little odd, you really have experienced a more realistic version of TMA then anyone else in the fandom. No is more qualified to speak on Jon, Tim, and Martin’s feelings than you. So you have an edge on making Sasha meta if you want to do that.
And..I mean TMA DOES end with the entities coming into our world so non zero possibility that the entities did get us all. Who knows. We’re all on Tumblr so we’re all very vulnerable to The Spiral. /J
I think I’d be immune to most of the fear entities. Not because I’m brave or anything, but because there’s no one better at gaslighting me than me.
If I saw a door that had never been there before I am fully convinced I would think to myself “Huh. It’s crazy I forgot that door was there. I mean, I must have noticed it at some point. I probably just got so used to it that I blocked it out….Oh well! *whistling noises*”
It’s the same thing with things like Oliver Banks-esque death dreams too. I really think I would just go “Huh. It’s weird that I keep having those creepy reoccurring dreams. I really should watch less horror content.” Or like…the episode where that guy starts hearing a string of numbers from his iPod, I KNOW I wouldn’t react to that. I would think “Man. That was weird.” and then never about it again. And if happened again I would think “Man. This iPod must be broken. Oh well I’m too cheap to get a new one. I’ll just listen to this string of numbers I guess. La la la la.”
Like…IDK I just genuinely believe that I wouldn’t even notice the fears were out to get me. I’m basically just that drain repair guy that didn’t notice he was surrounded by Stranger entities until his head was literally turned to look at it…..expect I would notice but just go “Eh.” Not because I’m brave. Just because I would rationalize it even if it meant going “Oh. Yeah. I’m probably just crazy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
Doorkeay Concept: Michael Shelley (human) being more scary than Gerard Keay when push comes to shove.
No one is surprised when Gerry is scary. He’s blunt and somewhat confrontational and has had enough survived experience with the fears that no one is surprised that he can hold his own. Plus, his aesthetic is somewhat intimidating. It’s not surprising that he’s capable of being scary.
Michael however, is sweet and a bit timid and clearly not eager for confrontation. He seems like the type of guy who has all the bravery of a fainting goat. That’s why it surprises Gerard what happens when they get into a situation together.
Michael and Gerry run to the store just to get a few things and Gerry is alone in an aisle when a man approaches him and asks for the time. The man’s features don’t look quite…real enough, and his skin gleams like it’s made of plastic. Gerry knows right away that he’s dealing with a Stranger entity, and after a lifetime of handling the fears he’s fully prepared to be the protector of both himself AND Michael.
That is until a 6'5 shadow falls over him. An arm slings over his shoulder as Michael comes up from behind with a rigid posture that makes him look made of stone. His lips twist into a clearly fake smile that shows too much teeth. His eyes go wide and unblinking. He looks just as unreal as a stranger entity, and his voice doesn’t sound any more grounding. It seems deeper than it should be as Michael asks “Can we help you?” in a tone that even put’s Gerard on edge. If he didn’t know him he would think he was very dangerous. And…well, honestly watching the interaction makes Gerard wonder if he isn’t. Not to himself of course. But to anything that goes bump in the night.
The entity turns and leaves without much fuss after that, and Gerry is just as surprised when Michael’s personality does another immediate 180 back to how it was before. He worries over Gerard’s wellbeing and says that he felt like there was something unsettling about the man, which Gerard agrees with. However, he’s a more preoccupied with how into that he was. Hey. He’s a simple man. He likes his partners a little intimidating. Both because it’s attractive, and because it takes a big weight off his shoulders.
Here’s a question I’ve been on the fence about since I watched TMA for the first time:
Do you think Jon was being sincere about blinding himself and running away with Martin, or was Martin right and did Jon only ask him so when Martin said “No” he’d have an excuse not to do it?
Sasha would have (mostly) stood by Jon throughout the series and that’s why she had to die for the plot to work. In this essay I will - No but honestly, I think Sasha would have been a lot more open to the nonsense that happens at The Institute than Tim and Martin were.
She says in her statement about The Distortion that she doesn’t want to quit even after Michael had dug in her shoulder for worms simply because she’s “just too dammed curious.” Not to mention that she spends her last moments making a tape for Jon because “I know you’ll want to know what’s been happening.” Sasha has always been strongly connected to The Eye throughout the entire story, and that’s why I think she would have been in agreement with Jon that they needed to push further closer to the fears so they could understand what was happening.
However, while I do think she would have mostly been on Jon’s side until the end, I do think they probably would have experienced a strain on their friendship. Sasha scolds Tim in one of the tapes for recording Jon’s birthday party without permission because it’s an invasion of privacy. So I can’t imagine that she would have loved Jon’s powers, though I still think she would have been more curious about them than Basira was.
Overall, I think a Sasha that survived into later seasons would have Jon’s back on the notion that they had to understand what was going on, and considering that Gertrude thought Sasha would be the best person to continue her work, I think it’s a non-zero possibility that she would have been very invested in stopping the fear apocalypses as well. However that does leave me with a thought: What would Sasha’s dynamic with Tim look like Season 5 if she (mostly) stuck by Jon’s side and they both lived that long? It’s interesting to think about what would have happened there, and TBH I really wish I could eye-power my way to having a canon answer on that.
Being in the Magnus Archives fandom talking about the gay book and door that never met in canon while all my friends are in the 9-1-1 fandom makes me feel that one meme of the guy holding pizza walking into a house on fire.
Gerard tells Michael “If we’re going to date, you may have to defeat my seven evil exes,” and then points to Michael Crew, Jonathan Sims, Oliver Banks, Diego Molina, Mikaele Salesa, Jan Kilbride, and a random vampire he met at a goth club.
I think there’s quite a bit of parallel between Agnes Montague’s death and Jonathan Sims’s death in episode 200. Let me explain what I mean by comparing the lines about Agnes’s death to what happens to Jon:
“But if she ceased, not in cumulation of fire, but a cold and quiet death” - Jon did not go out in a spectacular fashion like you would assume the man who started the apocalypse would. He was not looked upon by The Eye, he was not drained of his power until there was nothing left, he was not consumed by fire, or rot, or darkness. He was simply stabbed. He taken down by the same thing that would that would take down any human.
“Perhaps her spark would return to the Lightless Flame and she could try again” - Before Martin stabs him, Jon mentions that maybe they’ll go “somewhere else” where everything will work out. Then they’re presumably “returned” to The Eye as they are sucked up with the fears and (likely) sent away with them.
“So we hanged her, as she requested” - Martin stabbed Jon, as he requested.
“All because of that most insidious of emotion, hope” - When Martin asks Jon if he’s sure about sending them all away, Jon says, “No. But I love you.” Despite the struggle Jon has with his humanity all through out the seasons, he spends his last moments clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, he and Martin will get to end up together. In somewhere else where everything works out. It’s easy to argue that his hope is an insidious one when it drives him to sacrifice their lives to release the fears into another world, but it’s a hope, and that’s all that really matters to Jon in the end.
It doesn’t surprise me that there’s such an overlap between the death of Jon and Agnes. They were both avatar’s who were filled with doubt about their role in the world and decided to sacrifice themselves rather than continue down the path assigned to them. They were so, so, alike. I really wish they would have gotten the chance to meet.
I do like Jontim as a ship, but like, in a really specifically angsty way:
I like them as two people who had feelings for each other at one point before the series even began. It was nothing overly serious, and neither one of them were really perusing the other, but if they had been asked out a date they would have 100% said “Yes.”
Of course, that never happened. Or maybe they did have one date and it was…fine, perhaps even good, but they didn’t find time to meet up again after that for one reason or the other.
Then the Season 2 events of the series happen. And there’s these weird unsaid feeling’s between them that make everything worse. Jon is trying to silently grapple with his newfound distrust of someone he used to daydream about, and Tim is really struggling with the fact that one of his crushes got replaced by a monster and his other crush is someone he’s growing to resent more and more each day.
And, honestly, part of the reason why Tim resents Jon so much is because of his former(?) crush. There’s so much left unsaid. So many feelings left fractured that are never going to be put together because of Jon’s distrust. And Jon is aware on some level why Tim is so angry but…he doesn’t know how to fix things. So he doesn’t. And then he loses Tim in the Circus without ever trying to patch anything up, which is part of the reason he’s so desperate to fix thing with Martin in Season 4. He has the chance to make things right with someone else he’s grown to care for and this time he doesn’t want to squander it like he did with his former(?) crush.
So yeah I like Jontim, but I don’t personally mean that in a “I want them to be together and have a happy ending” way. I mean that in a “I want them to be a doomed "what could have been” that haunts the narrative" type of way.
Ranking Magnus Archive Episodes From Most Favorite To Least Favorite
(Disclaimer: I don’t think there’s a single Magnus Archives episode that I genuinely dislike, so even the lower rated episodes on this list are still pretty good in my eyes.)
Season 1: Lost John’s Cave, The Piper, Across The Street, Infestation, A Distortion, A Father’s Love, Skintight, Desecrated Host, Hive, First Hunt, Dreamer, Do Not Open, Angler-Fish, Confession, Colony, Alone, Anatomy Class, Growing Dark, First Aid, Burnt Offering, Lost And Found, Old Passage Ways, Piecemeal, Strange Music, Squirm, Freefall, Page Turner, Human Remains, Boatswain’s Call, Killing Floor, Arachnophobia, Schwartzwald, Cheating Death, A Sturdy Lock, Vampire Killer, The Boneturner’s Tale, Burned Out, Thrown Away, Taken Ill, The Man Upstairs.
Season 2: Burning Desire, Literary Heights, The New Door, Still Life, Too Deep, Lost In The Crowd, Trail Rations, Recluse, Personal Space, A Long Way Down, Distant Cousin, Thought For The Day, The Kind Mother, Librarian, Underground, Held In Customs, Burial Rights, Binary, First Edition, The Tale Of The Field Hospital, Hard Shoulder, The Butcher’s Window, Tightrope, Exceptional Risk, Pest Control, Takeaway, Blood Bag, Book Of The Dead, Section 31, Crusader, Observer Effect, The End Of The Tunnel, High Pressure, Fatigue, Children Of The Night, The Smell Of Blood, Grifter’s Bone, Foundations.
Season 3: Family Business, Another Twist, Creature Feature, Testament, Tucked In, Upon The Stair, Stranger And Stranger, A Guest For Mr. Spider, Dead Women Walking, The Masquerade, The Coming Storm, Sneak Preview, Thrill Of The Chase, Nightfall, I Guess You Had To Be There, Cruelty Free, Monologue, Drawing A Blank, We All Ignore The Pit, Total War, Light’s Out, The Show Must Go On, Nothing Beside Remains, Cracked Foundation, Return To Sender, Dust To Dust, The Uncanny Valley, A Matter Of Perspective, Eye Contact, Taking Stock, Breathing Room, Containment, Body Builder, Dig, The Eyewitness, Nesting Instinct, Absent Without Leave, Third Degree, Possessive.
Season 4: The Eye Opens, The Last, Panopticon, A Gravedigger’s Envy, Bloody Mary, Chosen, Weaver, Heart Of Darkness, Entombed, Cul-De-Sac, Doomed Voyage, Left Hanging, Threshold, Web Development, Far Away, Infectious Doubts, Scrutiny, Sculptor’s Tools, Decrypted, Time Of Revelations, Civilian Casualties, Rotten Core, Reflection, Zombie, Nemesis, Cost Of Living, Concrete Jungle, Love Bombing, The Puppeteer, Submerged, Dead Horse, Remains To Be Seen, Flesh, Extended Surveillance, Meat, Heavy Goods, Big Picture, The Architecture Of Fear, Dark Matter, The Movement Of The Heavens.
Season 5: Last Words, Curiosity, Seeing It Through, Recollection, Connected, A Cozy Cabin, Dwelling, The Sick Village, Roots, An Appointment, Blood Ties, Wonderland House, What We Lose, Like Ants, Scavengers, Quiet, Checking Out, Fire Escape, Strung Out, Accomplice, This Old House, Locked In, Ignorance, Processing Line, In The Trenches, Peers, Monument, Epoch, The Worms, Parting, Night Night, Wellbeing, Adrift, The Gardener, The Great Beast, Precipice, Centre Of Attention, Revolutions,
AU where Gerard lives and decides to introduce himself to the new Archivist after hearing rumblings about the circus being active again.
You see, Gerry doesn’t want to live in a fear apocalypse anymore than the next guy, and he’s fairly sure that someone as competent as The Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute will be a great help to him in stopping this thing. So he decides to just…walk into their office and hope they’ll be willing to exchange notes on how to stop the end of the world.
And he does just that. He walks into The Archivist’s office, not sure what to expect but assuming that a very serious face will be staring back at him. What he is not expecting to see guy covered in…is that worm bites?? basically doing this:
Stopping the apocalypse is going to be a lot harder than he thought.
And speaking of a “Gerry lives and meets Season 2 Jon AU -”
I have the idea that Gerry TRIES to be a mentor figure to Jon in the same way Gertrude was to him, but then he ends up getting sucked up into Jon’s nonsense 99% of the time.
Like, he tells Jon that it’s not a great idea to destroy a binding table, but then he somehow ends up in central London, not only helping Jon buy an axe, but also paying partially for the axe because they bought it together so splitting the costs just seemed fair.
IDK I just love the idea of the Jongerry dynamic of “You would think that working together would give them more brain cells, but they just walked past holding spray deodorant and a lighter and Jon only has one eyebrow now.”
The most impressive thing about the TMA fandom is that I can watch an animatic from a podcast with no visuals and tell which character is which solely off the way their vibes are presented.
It’s really interesting that Jon refers to the bottom of the pit The Web wants to use to escape as “somewhere else” only to tell Martin that maybe they’ll end up “somewhere else.”
That’s very interesting wording there. The “Jon and Martin were taken to whichever the universe the fears ended up in” theorists are setting off a confetti canon right now.
She viewed her with the reverence a firefighter treats a raging blaze. She listened to her voice as if she spoke only in psalm’s. When their hands brushed once as she handed Agnes a blanket she did not need and Jude could not understand why she asked for, it felt like she had touched the wick of a lit candle and had been remarkable enough to pull away unscathed. When she took a breath near her she swore she could smell incenses lit an altar, and in those night’s where Jude’s mind wondered to Agnes’s lips while her own where pressed against another’s, she swore she could taste it’s ashes too.
Jack worshipped Agnes as if she were a women.
He viewed her from across the coffee shop and saw the red in her hair and the weight in her gaze. He listened to order with rampant attention to make sure it was the same as always, as he never wanted let her down by getting it wrong. When he handed over her cup of coffee he noticed how careful she was to not let their skin graze, and he couldn’t help but imagine how nice it would be to hold her hands, especially in the winter month’s when they must have been so cold. When he took a breath near her he swore he could smell burnt coffee beans, and in those days where his mind wondered to Agnes’s lips, he swore he could taste them too.
Agnes never asked to be worshipped at all.
Agnes Montague looked in the mirror and saw a blank face looking back at her. She heard her own voice and thought it would sound much nicer if she didn’t have to be so careful about the words she would speak. When she scratched an itch on her skin she would wonder what it would be like to be able to touch another and not have to worry about scalding their skin. When she took a breath of her favorite perfume she always knew it was a fleeting joy, as she smelled of a flame no matter how many scents she enjoyed, and in those night’s where her disciples surrounded her chatting about the ruin she’d bring to world, she knew it did not matter the things she liked. For she had people to preform her destiny for.
I am manifesting the creation of more Book! Gerry doorkeay content with any form of Michael so bad because all the dynamic idea’s are interesting.
Like, imagine a Ghost Gerry who was once dating Michael Shelley meeting The Distortion, and trying to come to terms with the fact that they’ve both lost a big chunk of their humanity.
Or imagine a Ghost Gerry who only ever knew The Distortion being comforted by it when he first “wakes up” because The Distortion knows better than anyone what it’s like to be undone.
But personally I think the most interesting scenario to imagine is a Ghost Gerry who only ever knew the naive Michael Shelley asking him for help and Michael being beyond freaked out because “What do you mean the paranormal is real and my friend/crush/boyfriend is now bound to a flesh book???” Like, we talk about the angst of Gerry losing Michael to The Distortion a lot, but imagine the angst of Michael suddenly losing Gerry to his cancer, only for him to come back trapped in a book.
That would be devastating, but also I would never think about anything else for my entire life.
It’s such a fun bit of irony that Michael Crew was almost taken by the Spiral, but then saved himself by…spiraling and obsessively trying to find a Leitner he could connect to. It was almost as if he was too Spiral aligned in the end. Which is interesting because it makes me wonder if anyone else has been able to avoid being taken by the entity that tried claim them just by being too perfect of a choice.
Like, could someone who’s being targeted by The Web manipulate their way out of it’s grasp? Could someone connected to The Hunt become obsessed with the thrill of not obeying their instincts to chase? Could someone connected to The Eye see what was coming and manage to avoid it with foresight?
I’m not sure based on what we know in canon but it interesting to think about. Especially with the knowledge of Mike’s story and the fact that did manage to outmaneuver The Spiral simply by leaning to far into it.
