Something I find really interesting about Gertrude Robinson is how her personality is intertwined with most of the fears:

The Eye - This one’s obvious. As a Head Archivist she was connected to The Eye in the same way anyone who worked at The Institute was.

The Lonely - Gertrude was a very solitary person who never really let anyone get close. The closest thing she had to a positive relationship was with Gerry, but even he admits that he didn’t trust her. It’s also notable that the one person we learn about that seemed to truly trust her and care about her was Michael…and she got rid of him herself.

The Buried - This one is more metaphorical, but Gertrude was often crushed by her work. We John breaks into her flat we learn that she really didn’t have anything of note. Just some tea and some books with the eyes cut out. She didn’t seem to really exist as a person outside The Institute, she was too busy being in the center of everything while it all pushed down around her.

The Hunt - Gertrude was searching for Leitner’s and endlessly pursued a way to stop the rituals.

The End - Gertrude was surrounded by death. She lost so many people and a good chunk of those deaths were caused by her own hands. It’s also her own death that haunts the narrative throughout the series.

The Slaughter - This ties into what I said above. Gertrude killed a lot of people. It might have mostly been to save the world, but she still caused a lot of bloodshed regardless of the reason behind it.

The Desolation - Gertrude often used fire as a way to put an end to things, and she didn’t mind burning everything to the ground as long as she thought it was for best. She also has a strong connection with The Desolation through her connection with Agnus and her (maybe? probably? false) backstory she gives to Elias.

The Web - Gertrude was plenty manipulative. To the point it’s hard for even the audience to tell what she was thinking at certain points in the story. But we do know she was trying to manipulate things behind the scene (like, with the filing system) and manipulate people into completing her end goals. (Michael.)

The Stranger - Gertrude was many things to many people. She was an ally to Gerry. A traitor to Michael. A fearsome being to Elias. And a competent stranger to John. It doesn’t seem like she ever let anyone see her true face, and all the characters who met her seem to walk away with a slightly different impression.

The Corruption - Something something paralleling John by having good intentions that get ultimately get corrupted something something.

The Dark - Gerard describes the dark as “something everyone is a little bit afraid” and that describes Gertrude well. Everyone seems to have a been a little bit intimidated by her, even Avatar’s and people who worshipped things that weren’t meant to be revered.

Admittedly, I don’t really know how The Vast, The Spiral, and The Flesh fit into her personality, but it’s still notable that most of the fears can describe Gertrude in some way. She was really connected to most of them by in end, and there is commentary to made here about “being so determined to stop a monster that you nearly/do become one.”

My Ranking On: How Good The Magnus Archive Character’s Are At Cooking

Gerard - Gerry has no idea what to do in front of a stove. No one has ever taught him to cook, and he doesn’t care enough to learn. He lives off microwavable mac and cheese cups and cheap fast food, which is just fine by him regardless of how concerned Gertrude is about his organs.

Daisy - Daisy could make…something with a stove. She just chooses not to because she doesn’t like cooking when microwavable meals are right there. Because of how little she cooks her skills are…rusty to say the least. She can make a half-decent grilled cheese though.

Gertrude - Gertrude can and the very rare occasion does make small meals like scrambled eggs. However, much like Gerard and Daisy, she prefers fast food and easy to make meals. In theory she could make a decent large meal if she had a recipe and some spare time to make mistakes, but in practice she never cooks.

John - John can and does make small meals. He’s never really liked cooking, but he does sometimes make a small plate of stir-fry or something. All things considered, his food’s pretty decent. It’s just not great because he rushes through the cooking process to get back to whatever he was doing. But, I mean, it’s edible.

Melanie - Melanie is a big “make a sandwich or throw some pasta on the stove and call it night” type of girl. She could make a good meal if she had a recipe, but cooking’s never really been her thing enough for her to put a ton of effort into the craft. However, if Georgie asked her to make her something you can bet that she could make a five star meal.

Basira - Basira cooks most nights and her food is consistently good. Daisy is over at her house a lot in the evenings hoping to get a meal and eat together.

Martin - Martin cooks almost every night. It’s one of his hobbies and he knows well what type of foods pair best with what after his research into what foods pair best with tea spiraled a bit. He can make a REALLY good comfort dish.

Elias - Elias cooks most night, and with all his years of being alive, that means he’s a pretty skilled in the art of making food. He either makes a full five star meal with an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert, or microwaves ramen noodles. There’s no middle ground.

Peter - Cooking is one of those hobbies that is significantly more enjoyable in solitude, so of course he loves it. He cooks multiple times nearly every day as it’s something for him to do that doesn’t involve other people. No one will ever taste his food, but man is it good.

Sasha - Sasha is a fantastic cook. She’s the CEO of finding a recipe online and then making it his own. She’s literally never made a bad dish in her entire life and she does brag to John about her ability not to burn things.

Tim - Tim is great at cooking on an instinctual level. He doesn’t even need to have a recipe to make a five star meal that will change the trajectory of his friends taste buds forever. It’s a gift…and a curse given how much the people around him hope he’ll bring food to every gathering.

Magnus Archive Appearance Headcanons.

John - Every one of John’s features are downturned and sunken, making him look older, relentlessly tired, and kind of like a Tim Burton character. He has dark brown hair that almost looked black before he started greying, and the hazel eyes he once had were replaced with a bright, nearly unnatural green after the coma. He used to have a professional style, overdressing to the office everyday like he had a speech to give afterwards. Yet, that style rapidly degrades over the series, and by season 5 he’s wearing a hoodie and jogging pants that don’t even match. In the end, the only thing that stays the same with his appearance is a beauty mark sat beside his left eye. He used to think it didn’t suit him, but after everything, it seems weirdly fitting.

Martin - Martin has a soft face with features that make him look slightly younger than he is, adding to the first impression most people get that he’s a naturally welcoming. Granted, people also tend to think that because of his cozy-business casual style that makes him just look like the type person who likes to makes tea for others, but it’s mostly his friendly face. He has orange-red hair and dark blue eyes that are a shade uncomfortably close shade to Peter’s.

Tim - There’s not a feature on Tim’s face that doesn’t compliment the others. He looks like a carefully crafted doll, or a mannequin made of wax. He has pitch black hair and dark eyes that look like a starless night, features that contrast vividly with his colorful preppy-business casual style, and the bright tattoo of mountain on his wrist that he got with his brother in better days.

Sasha - Sasha’s features could be best described as “warm.” Her lips seem like they’re meant to be curled in a smile, her eyes seem like they’re supposed to have wrinkles in the corner from laughter, and her nose seems like it should be buried in a book. She has dark black hair and amber eyes that shine like the sun under light, and the dark freckles on her face stand out like stars on a canvas. Her vintage thrift-store style is just as cozy, making her look like a librarian from a children’s fantasy novel.

Melanie - Melanie’s features are intense. Her eyes are sharp like knives, and her lips naturally sit in a way that looks a bit like the start of a scowl. Granted, her punk style doesn’t make her look any less intimidating. Or her blue hair that is naturally pitch black underneath the dye. Or the slit in her eyebrow that she tells everyone was a style choice, but was really earned trying to pet a stray cat. Her only soft features are her brown eyes that are the same color as the bark of a tree.

Basira - All of Basira’s features are soft, from her soft heart-shaped face, to her naturally rosy cheeks, to her light brown almond eyes that seem meant to track a subject for miles. In fact, she even dresses like an investigator, having a business casual style that always makes her look ready for a low stakes-meeting with her boss, which is is unfortunately not the types of meetings she has, but, hey, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Daisy - All of Daisy’s features are strong, from her strong jaw line to her wide eyes that seem meant to be locked on her prey. She has dark blonde hair that’s the same color as the middle of a daisy, and green eyes that are the same color as grass on a spring day. She has a very athletically rugged style that always make her look ready for a run, or a bar brawl, at all times.

More Undercut

Peter - All of Peter’s features manage to be slightly unnerving. His eyes are just slightly too wide, his nose is just slightly too short, and his lips are just slightly too thin in a way that makes him look a bit…disconnected from being a person, despite the fact that on paper, he looks like your typical grandfather. He has dull grey hair and dark blue eyes that match the sea, and the formal-cozy style he has that ends him up in a lot of sweaters and turtle-necks doesn’t do anything to make him look younger. Nor does the thick beard that consumes his face like sea foam.

Elias - Elias has a sharp face with very mismatched features. None of them seem quite like they should be on the same face, and he almost looks like he was put together from a Picasso painting. He has dark green eyes and dark red hair that is usually slicked back in a way that suits his extremely professional style.

Gertrude - Gertrude has a very average and non-descriptive face. Not one of her features stand out, and it’s easy to forget what she looks like while you’re staring at her. She always thought that was a good thing since it lets her move under the radar more effectively, that is, until she started getting described as “the old women” due to her grey hair which is far more noticeable than her pale green eyes. She keeps her clothes just as non-descriptive, wearing only natural colors and plain styles that leave there with nothing to say.

Gerard - Gerard has a sharp face with distinctive features. He has upturned eyes and a long nose that takes up a large portion of his face, along with a very thin upper lip and a very thick lower lip. On the right side of his face, a few moles trail down near his check. His natural hair color is a little less distinctive than his face, being a chestnut brown that pairs well with his dark brown eyes that seem almost the same color as his dyed hair and gothic attire.

Michael Shelley - Michael has a sharp face that has even sharper features. He most resembles a fox, but his personality makes it easy to perceive his face as a bit softer than it is. He has golden blonde hair and light blue eyes that seem to illuminate under bright lights, features that don’t seem as notable as they should be compared to his bright, hippie, style. He also has a noticeable tooth gap.

Random Magnus Archive Headcanons

A: Gertrude used to have a hippie aesthetic. There’s only a handful of pictures that serve as evidence for this, and no one in her life has ever seen them.

B: Georgie loves DND and has a group she plays with on weekends. She’s the DM.

C: Gerard is bad at making decisions and tends to flip a coin when he’s unsure. He doesn’t always listen to the coin, but he finds it to be a good way to figure out which outcome he’d actually been hoping for.

D: Jon doesn’t realize this about himself, but he always plays paper when playing rock, paper, scissors. He doesn’t understand how he keeps loosing to Martin.

E: Michael Shelley had hiccup fits all the time.

F: Anabelle has done despicable and worrying things in every version of “The Sims” franchise. Including “The Sims Free Play” which…is almost impressive.

G: Jon found the Creepypasta website when he was a teen and genuinely thought he stumbled upon an Archive of documented supernatural encounters. He obviously hadn’t, and he realized that sooner than later, but not before gaining anxiety around the idea of hyper realistic eyes. (Jon after starting the apocalypse: “Martin this is just like that website. The pasta one.”)

H: Agnes is always wearing at least one piece of jewelry. Most people assume it’s am aesthetic thing, but really she just likes having something on her to fiddle with. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands otherwise.

I: Peter and Elias frequently send each other letters written on their finest parchment paper and mailed in a homemade envelope closed with their own personal wax seal. Then, after receiving each others letters, they shred them to be petty. They both know the other person shreds them, but they keep putting in a large amount of effort anyways. Their dynamic is incomprehensible.

J: Melanie has always had a deeply unnatural skill that’s come in handy many times in her life: She can train cats to do tricks. No one knows how she does it, not even herself, but give her an hour and a box of treats and she’ll have a cat sitting 50% of the time…Which is an impressively high number if you’ve ever met a cat.