tim “kick me under the table all you want, i won’t shut up” stoker
no matter how much everyone tries to write tim off as “sulky” or “stubborn” or “having a bit of a breakdown” he refuses to call his time at the magnus institute anything less than what it is, which is a horror show that he was ensnared in unwillingly and unwittingly by people in power who were supposed to have his best interests at heart. he never fails to place the blame exactly where it falls, which is with elias who binds him to the institute and with his coworkers, particularly jon and martin, who keep their heads down as they become more dependent on the archives, look the other way when people die, insist that everything is fine or that it will be soon if they just keep enabling elias a little longer. he is the canary in the coal mine that is the archives; he is the one who lost sasha and found jane prentiss and never recovered, but also never let anyone forget what happened to him when all anyone told him to do was sit down, shut up, and get back to doing his work. he came to the institute to get some kind of justice, some kind of closure for his lost brother and instead he was made into an instrument of harm, forced to watch more and more people disappear without being able to save them… but he refused to suffer that humiliation quietly or to accept it as normal and instead he insisted that those responsible show themselves for what they were rather than hiding behind professionalism and false courtesy; he refused to be coerced or cajoled into complicity.. he insisted that if what elias wanted was his compliance, he was going to have to kill for it like the monster he is.