I KNOW that TMA is a tragedy, but I think Jon deserved to see the Admiral being 40 foot tall and living his best life in the post-apocalyptic wasteland :(
And that’s a wrap on the Magnus Archives Season 1 covers! Thanks again for all the kind words and encouragement! (What do y’all think, should I continue with s2? The correct answer is yes)
Ep146 - Basira, Daisy, and Melanie confronted Jon of his doings. I pictured Jon being interrogated. They’re ready to cut some 🔪 I mean, the ladies are really picking it up in S4 ❤️
I know Jon acknowledges this but it’s funny to me that A Guest for Mr. Spider is just genuinely the LEAST credible statement out of all 81 we’ve heard so far.
Like okay, Mr. Statement Giver, you were a very young child, and you just read a spooky children’s book, and your childhood bully stole it from you. And you’re oh-so convinced that the way your bully walked off was because the book’s monster was calling him and the house he went into belonged to the book’s monster and the monster got him the end.
No one else who can corroborate any events. No evidence whatsoever. A hearsay statement from childhood that sounds like a normal interaction played-up by the imagination of a scared kid frightened by his scary book.
The only evidence in Jon’s favor is the fact that the book was a Leitner. But that’s basically tautological. The only reason Jon was lending extra credibility to Leitner-book statements is BECAUSE of his encounter with A Guest for Mr. Spider.
The absolutel audacity of Mr. Jonathan Archivist Sims to show up with not just AN unverifiable statement, but the MOST unverifiable statement to date. Statement ends.
I know Jon acknowledges this but it’s funny to me that A Guest for Mr. Spider is just genuinely the LEAST credible statement out of all 81 we’ve heard so far.
Like okay, Mr. Statement Giver, you were a very young child, and you just read a spooky children’s book, and your childhood bully stole it from you. And you’re oh-so convinced that the way your bully walked off was because the book’s monster was calling him and the house he went into belonged to the book’s monster and the monster got him the end.
No one else who can corroborate any events. No evidence whatsoever. A hearsay statement from childhood that sounds like a normal interaction played-up by the imagination of a scared kid frightened by his scary book.
The only evidence in Jon’s favor is the fact that the book was a Leitner. But that’s basically tautological. The only reason Jon was lending extra credibility to Leitner-book statements is BECAUSE of his encounter with A Guest for Mr. Spider.
The absolutel audacity of Mr. Jonathan Archivist Sims to show up with not just AN unverifiable statement, but the MOST unverifiable statement to date. Statement ends.
Jon Archivist voice, mockingly: “Statement ends… Well, while I do not doubt that Mr. Sims was sharing this story in earnest, it is nothing more than a childhood flight of fantasy.
"There are no verifiably supernatural details in this case. All Mr. Sims recounts of scary spider limbs opening the door are far more likely explained by the over-active imagination of a child who has just read a scary, scary book. And a scary book is, itself, not a supernatural matter.
"Mr. Sims cannot recall the name of the childhood bully who, supposedly, vanished in this encounter. And with no name, there is hardly a lead to follow up on. Mr. Sims’ grandmother is dead and cannot be questioned. There were no eye-witnesses to the event, nor does Mr. Sims recall the street where the vanishing supposedly happened. The book cannot be recovered, nor even verified.
”To waste archival resources on this would be beneath even Martin, I’ve decided. There is nothing to follow up on here. End recording.“
Jon’s whole thing is s3 becomes funnier when you consider, from the outside and from Georgie’s position, the dude was basically a librarian? And not even the kind who has to deal with the public.
Your ex-sort-of-boyfriend shows up out of the blue one night wearing clothes that haven’t been changed in 2 days rambling about something bad happening at work and can he stay here, just for a bit? And internally you’re like oh damn, wonder what happened at the library. Wonder if they’re charging him late fees for a book he lost when he was 8. Wonder if his boss attacked him with paper cuts.
Like no none of that, your ex-sort-of-boyfriend ex-sort-of-librarian guy is just on the run for suspected murder, and not even the murder of his coworker who got super-murdered, no this is the murder of the recluse squatter living in the elaborate tunnel system under the library who got brutally murdered with the pipe Jon had been carrying around like a Besthesda character, so you understand the fingerprints may be very incriminating here. This hasn’t even gotten to the three horror-nightmare-entities that have tried to brutally kill your librarian-ex-guy and THAT doesn’t even account for the fourth, human-shaped, MOST horrifying nightmare-entity which is the one who actually killed the recluse guy (with brutal pipe murder) and is in fact Jon’s boss at the library who really would like him to come back to work.
But never mind this and don’t worry, because your former librarian ex-bf who’s full of worm-shaped holes won’t be in your hair for long. Because he’s about to be kidnapped by a circus of living dolls. Which is a whole other thing not yet mentioned. They’ll moisturize him.
I know Jon acknowledges this but it’s funny to me that A Guest for Mr. Spider is just genuinely the LEAST credible statement out of all 81 we’ve heard so far.
Like okay, Mr. Statement Giver, you were a very young child, and you just read a spooky children’s book, and your childhood bully stole it from you. And you’re oh-so convinced that the way your bully walked off was because the book’s monster was calling him and the house he went into belonged to the book’s monster and the monster got him the end.
No one else who can corroborate any events. No evidence whatsoever. A hearsay statement from childhood that sounds like a normal interaction played-up by the imagination of a scared kid frightened by his scary book.
The only evidence in Jon’s favor is the fact that the book was a Leitner. But that’s basically tautological. The only reason Jon was lending extra credibility to Leitner-book statements is BECAUSE of his encounter with A Guest for Mr. Spider.
The absolutel audacity of Mr. Jonathan Archivist Sims to show up with not just AN unverifiable statement, but the MOST unverifiable statement to date. Statement ends.
Jon Archivist voice, mockingly: “Statement ends… Well, while I do not doubt that Mr. Sims was sharing this story in earnest, it is nothing more than a childhood flight of fantasy.
"There are no verifiably supernatural details in this case. All Mr. Sims recounts of scary spider limbs opening the door are far more likely explained by the over-active imagination of a child who has just read a scary, scary book. And a scary book is, itself, not a supernatural matter.
"Mr. Sims cannot recall the name of the childhood bully who, supposedly, vanished in this encounter. And with no name, there is hardly a lead to follow up on. Mr. Sims’ grandmother is dead and cannot be questioned. There were no eye-witnesses to the event, nor does Mr. Sims recall the street where the vanishing supposedly happened. The book cannot be recovered, nor even verified.
”To waste archival resources on this would be beneath even Martin, I’ve decided. There is nothing to follow up on here. End recording.“
I like experiencing TMA in my own little sandbox over here where I do not know about nor interact with any larger discourse. But the one bear-trap I do know about is that a percentage of people will get very mad at you if you make jokes about Jonathan Blorbo Archivist Sims. Which is unfortunate because Jon is the most make-jokesable character and I will continue to do so.
Season 3 Elias is so goddamn fucking funny to me I forgot what a rollercoaster he was during my first listen.
Like the s2 finale has Jurgen Leitner giving Jon the whole “monsters are real speech” and Jon’s like “I need a cigarette. NO ONE get brutal pipe murdered while I’m gone” and Jurgen fails step 1 because Elias walks in and grabs Jon’s point-and-click-adventure pipe he’d been carrying around and Brutal Pipe Murders. Which, of course, Jon walks back in on and is prime suspect #1 due to literally every single feature trait and word he’s said in the entirety of s2.
So naturally s3 starts with Jon on the lam and Officer Tonner like “I’m gonna arrest him for brutal pipe murder” and I’M like “Shit. I hate this. Elias is going to SO easily pin it on Jon and get away with it.”
EXCEPT Elias walks in and is like “hello Ms. Officer no Jon Archivist did not kill that man, also I won’t tell you anything else, also this is what you sound like” while reciting all her childhood trauma and all her illegal activity that will get HER sent to jail for brutal murder of the non-pipe variety and now I’m like “….huh.” He’s also like “Jon didn’t do it but you can kill him if you want maybe :)” Elias your alibi????
And then we come BACK with Jon storming Elias’s office with his two lesbian bodyguards as back up and he’s like “I’m gonna use my powers to make you confess to pipe murder!” At which point Elias is like “It doesn’t work on me. But I’m having fun so Martin go get everyone I need to tell you all how I committed pipe murder.” and Martin does and Elias is like “Yes I pipe murdered. I also killed Gertrude. I love murder. You will not be compensated extra for this time. Get back to work.” And they… DO… just go back to work. Because work is haunted. One of the lesbian police officers works here now, too. This just happened. “Also living dolls from Russia are about to Apocalypse the world, Jon go stop it,” Elias says, while also saying “no I’m not gonna tell you how to stop it.”
Okay???? Mr. Elias man??? And you’re like “maybe he’s a ruthless tactician? Maybe he’s brutal but it’s all in the interest of stopping the doll apocalypse??? He wants to save the earth???” Except THAT’S not even true it’s actually more like he’s trying to get the Russian dolls kicked out of line at Disney World so HE gets to meet Mickey Mouse first by which I mean, start his OWN Apocalypse, because if the dolls do it first well then what’s the point of apocalypsing a planet that’s become someone else’s sloppy seconds.
Anyway Elias’s master strategy here is to bring the human equivalent of a drowned cat to the gun fight and just sit back and watch Jon fall down every set of stairs he finds while Elias goes “This is good. This will work.” His name isn’t even fucking Elias.
Season 3 Elias is so goddamn fucking funny to me I forgot what a rollercoaster he was during my first listen.
Like the s2 finale has Jurgen Leitner giving Jon the whole “monsters are real speech” and Jon’s like “I need a cigarette. NO ONE get brutal pipe murdered while I’m gone” and Jurgen fails step 1 because Elias walks in and grabs Jon’s point-and-click-adventure pipe he’d been carrying around and Brutal Pipe Murders. Which, of course, Jon walks back in on and is prime suspect #1 due to literally every single feature trait and word he’s said in the entirety of s2.
So naturally s3 starts with Jon on the lam and Officer Tonner like “I’m gonna arrest him for brutal pipe murder” and I’M like “Shit. I hate this. Elias is going to SO easily pin it on Jon and get away with it.”
EXCEPT Elias walks in and is like “hello Ms. Officer no Jon Archivist did not kill that man, also I won’t tell you anything else, also this is what you sound like” while reciting all her childhood trauma and all her illegal activity that will get HER sent to jail for brutal murder of the non-pipe variety and now I’m like “….huh.” He’s also like “Jon didn’t do it but you can kill him if you want maybe :)” Elias your alibi????
And then we come BACK with Jon storming Elias’s office with his two lesbian bodyguards as back up and he’s like “I’m gonna use my powers to make you confess to pipe murder!” At which point Elias is like “It doesn’t work on me. But I’m having fun so Martin go get everyone I need to tell you all how I committed pipe murder.” and Martin does and Elias is like “Yes I pipe murdered. I also killed Gertrude. I love murder. You will not be compensated extra for this time. Get back to work.” And they… DO… just go back to work. Because work is haunted. One of the lesbian police officers works here now, too. This just happened. “Also living dolls from Russia are about to Apocalypse the world, Jon go stop it,” Elias says, while also saying “no I’m not gonna tell you how to stop it.”
Okay???? Mr. Elias man??? And you’re like “maybe he’s a ruthless tactician? Maybe he’s brutal but it’s all in the interest of stopping the doll apocalypse??? He wants to save the earth???” Except THAT’S not even true it’s actually more like he’s trying to get the Russian dolls kicked out of line at Disney World so HE gets to meet Mickey Mouse first by which I mean, start his OWN Apocalypse, because if the dolls do it first well then what’s the point of apocalypsing a planet that’s become someone else’s sloppy seconds.
Anyway Elias’s master strategy here is to bring the human equivalent of a drowned cat to the gun fight and just sit back and watch Jon fall down every set of stairs he finds while Elias goes “This is good. This will work.” His name isn’t even fucking Elias.
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Right okay I forgot about the employee who tries to kill him 5 times because really there’s just a lot happening in season 3.
He did let her leave work early but it was a Hotel California kind of leave because none of them can ever check out so he loses exactly 1 boss point for that. Tim goes to Malaysa for 3 weeks completely unaccounted for and Elias is just like “Okay don’t do that again.” And Tim doesn’t because it is in fact impossible to leave. “I’m chained to my job” but it’s literal because your shitty boss is the harbinger of the apocalypse and also good with his pipe (the murder kind).
Elias loses 2 more boss points for being the only manager on Glassdoor where the review “I’d rather gouge my eyes out than work for him” was taken literally.
Not the final version I think. But wanted to draw him throughout the season. Had a BLAST and EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER RIDE while listening. BUT I’M FINE.
Season 3 Elias is so goddamn fucking funny to me I forgot what a rollercoaster he was during my first listen.
Like the s2 finale has Jurgen Leitner giving Jon the whole “monsters are real speech” and Jon’s like “I need a cigarette. NO ONE get brutal pipe murdered while I’m gone” and Jurgen fails step 1 because Elias walks in and grabs Jon’s point-and-click-adventure pipe he’d been carrying around and Brutal Pipe Murders. Which, of course, Jon walks back in on and is prime suspect #1 due to literally every single feature trait and word he’s said in the entirety of s2.
So naturally s3 starts with Jon on the lam and Officer Tonner like “I’m gonna arrest him for brutal pipe murder” and I’M like “Shit. I hate this. Elias is going to SO easily pin it on Jon and get away with it.”
EXCEPT Elias walks in and is like “hello Ms. Officer no Jon Archivist did not kill that man, also I won’t tell you anything else, also this is what you sound like” while reciting all her childhood trauma and all her illegal activity that will get HER sent to jail for brutal murder of the non-pipe variety and now I’m like “….huh.” He’s also like “Jon didn’t do it but you can kill him if you want maybe :)” Elias your alibi????
And then we come BACK with Jon storming Elias’s office with his two lesbian bodyguards as back up and he’s like “I’m gonna use my powers to make you confess to pipe murder!” At which point Elias is like “It doesn’t work on me. But I’m having fun so Martin go get everyone I need to tell you all how I committed pipe murder.” and Martin does and Elias is like “Yes I pipe murdered. I also killed Gertrude. I love murder. You will not be compensated extra for this time. Get back to work.” And they… DO… just go back to work. Because work is haunted. One of the lesbian police officers works here now, too. This just happened. “Also living dolls from Russia are about to Apocalypse the world, Jon go stop it,” Elias says, while also saying “no I’m not gonna tell you how to stop it.”
Okay???? Mr. Elias man??? And you’re like “maybe he’s a ruthless tactician? Maybe he’s brutal but it’s all in the interest of stopping the doll apocalypse??? He wants to save the earth???” Except THAT’S not even true it’s actually more like he’s trying to get the Russian dolls kicked out of line at Disney World so HE gets to meet Mickey Mouse first by which I mean, start his OWN Apocalypse, because if the dolls do it first well then what’s the point of apocalypsing a planet that’s become someone else’s sloppy seconds.
Anyway Elias’s master strategy here is to bring the human equivalent of a drowned cat to the gun fight and just sit back and watch Jon fall down every set of stairs he finds while Elias goes “This is good. This will work.” His name isn’t even fucking Elias.
#The Russian dolls weren’t even actually in the line at Disney world ❗️❗️ A line just started and everyone assumed it was the correct one but #it isn’t ❗️❗️ and Elias knew this he just wanted to make Jon wait in that line for no reason ❗️❗️(via @teamfortresstwo )
And he got Tim killed about it. By making him stand in the wrong Disney line.
POV it’s Monday afternoon and your boss’s boss has called you in for a team meeting and when you show up your boss who’s been on the run for suspected murder is there with two armed police officers one of whom is seconds away from killing both your boss and boss’s boss and your boss’s boss lets everyone know he killed two people including your previous murdered boss and the random guy who was found dead in this room last month (who your current boss was suspected of killing) and your other murdered coworker who died last month actually died last year you just never noticed because she was replaced with a changeling who then tried to kill your boss and then your boss’s boss invokes the forces of an unknowable entity so now you have a new coworker, one of the police officers who is now bound here forever, so now no one’s allowed to shoot your boss’s boss because if anyone kills him then all of you will die as well by the same unknowable force also it is physically impossible for you to ever quit also your boss’s boss has the power of knowing absolutely everything which he does, he knows absolutely everything.
He then tells you to go back to work and you do because actuallythis is only the 3rd or maybe the 4th-weirdest day you’ve had on this job and really. really you can’t be bothered.
One of my favorite things with TMA fanart is when people draw Elias with eye paraphernalia or motifs because it makes pre entity discovery tma so much funnier
Season 2 Martin going home and sprucing up the parts of his living room he knows are visible through the front window after he learns Jon was caught attempting to spy on Tim’s house
Season 2 Martin going home and sprucing up the parts of his living room he knows are visible through the front window after he learns Jon was caught attempting to spy on Tim’s house
Season 2 Martin dragging his bookshelf into direct view of the window making sure only the most complicated books are prominently displayed, most of which he checked out from the Magnus Institute that day.
Season 2 Martin going home and sprucing up the parts of his living room he knows are visible through the front window after he learns Jon was caught attempting to spy on Tim’s house
Season 2 Martin dragging his bookshelf into direct view of the window making sure only the most complicated books are prominently displayed, most of which he checked out from the Magnus Institute that day.
Season 2 Martin knowing his living room TV is visible from the window, googling “what is the smartest documentary ever” while the TV is idling on the Netflix home page
Season 2 Martin going home and sprucing up the parts of his living room he knows are visible through the front window after he learns Jon was caught attempting to spy on Tim’s house
Season 2 Martin dragging his bookshelf into direct view of the window making sure only the most complicated books are prominently displayed, most of which he checked out from the Magnus Institute that day.
Season 2 Martin knowing his living room TV is visible from the window, googling “what is the smartest documentary ever” while the TV is idling on the Netflix home page
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Martin, speaking to the tape recorder: “I think Elias knew my resume was full of lies. I can’t prove it, but during the interview he was just sat there, with this smirk on his face, like he knew. He didn’t mention it. Instead all he did was mutter ‘oh, you’ll match his freak nicely’ and then offered me the job.”
I think this is a good idea and will work because pretty much all of the statements can be experienced in any order, and even the canon order is not chronological in the slightest.
It would just be a matter of waiting until the post statement to hear Jon Archivist oscillate WILDLY and at complete random among extreme paranoia, inhuman monster-becoming, tepid annoyance, world-ending nihilism, kidnappings, haughty office-job snobbery, understanding everything, understanding nothing, understanding everything (but worse, with horrible powers), thinking all of this is just stupid, and “I’m living in my coworkers’ walls”.
I just think it would be fun to listen through the statement-of-the-day and anticipate what Jon you’re getting at the end. Like a gacha game.
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