oh i love michael

im starting to realize there’s a bunch of connections going on between tma episodes.. i dont know what it Means yet and dont tell me!!!!! ill get there!! but. hmmm. im going through the transcripts after i listen to them to make sure i didnt miss things/checking the details and i just. Keep Finding More Shit, it’s all connected, i feel like there’s something huge going on behind all these and i Do Not Know what it is yet 

this is. very long and disjointed i went through all the transcripts for every episode ive listened to so far and kept noticing more things 

like Don’t Tell Me if im right or wrong ill find out im just gathering thoughts. setting up my little conspiracy board. red strings everywhere

- firstly theres an obvious running thread going about the cursed jurgen leitner books, gerard keay, the. worms. and jane prentiss 

- carlos vittery in Arachnophobia mentions offhand that his complex had an infestation of “small, silvery worms” which passed right over my head the first time but looking at it again thATS THE FUCKIGN WORMS!!!! and martin found. Probably Jane in the basement of that same complex. so. well, (that also means like Who Knows how many people in that building might have gotten infected) (i also wonder whether the spiders might actually be Good, if the worms are hideous parasites maybe the spiders are showing up to eat them/get rid of them, martin says he likes spiders, the spiders almost definitely killed vittery but he was violently trying to wipe them out so maybe it was a greater good kind of thing) (or they’re just spiders and dont have that level of comprehension and like the nasty silver worms. either way) 

- there’s also a lot of Foretelling Of Death but i dont want to go through and list all of those rn

- in Anglerfish, there was some kind of. shadowy hand thing beckoning people into the darkness. Amy Patel in Across The Street describes seeing a similar shadowy hand thing reaching into Graham’s apartment before his. replacement. both of these are described as “folding” in on themselves/moving in a really unnatural way. smoking was also mentioned in both but i havent really been following that as a symbol very closely. possible link with Fire? i dont know

- Repetition. Graham was obsessively filling hundreds of notebooks with the words “Keep Watching,” mary keay’s skin was completely covered in unreadable script tattoos, the paper found by the garbage men was the Lord’s prayer written in latin over and over again, ivo lensik’s father became completely obsessed with fractals and couldn’t stop drawing them. the unnamed burned man in First Aid repeats an unclear phrase over and over again. gerard keay is also covered in tattoos of eyes in First Aid, which was not mentioned before (though probably wouldn’t have been visible before) 

- Graham was convinced he was being watched/followed by Something, harriet was concerned about being followed after she was attacked by prentiss (which. matches with martin’s experience too, though he was much more fortunate), vittery was followed by The Spider, lensik’s father also believed Something was coming for him (and “all the bones are in his hands” sounds very. leitner), and there was. whatever approaching darkness was coming after robert montauk, as well 

- Graham has a weirdly hypnotic table, the first Leitner book found by dominic swain had oddly vertigo-inducing woodcuttings, gerard keay’s eye painting is similarly hypnotic, lensik finds a box in the old tree with the same hypnotic carvings on it 

- not sure if the Spider Apple has any relation to the Arachnophobia episode, but, there’s that, also 

- swain’s book had an image of the sky, which he described felt like you would “fall into it” if you looked at it for too long, and robert kelly sort of “fell into the sky” in Freefall. laura popham describes a sense of being swallowed up by the earth in Lost Johns’ Cave, as well 

- same theme of becoming “lost” in Lost Johns’ Cave and in Alone, similar concepts of being consumed by the earth 

- i dont think its necessarily related to anything else as far as i know but just wanted to mention also i didn’t process the... extra audio recording in Lost Johns’ Cave correctly, i thought she was saying “help me, help me, please help me” which was unnerving, but didn’t really seem all that critical to add, until looking at the transcripts i realized it was “take her, not me” which was a HUGE punch to the gut when i discovered it lmao. dont ask how i managed to mishear that badly but i am very very bad at auditory processing which is why im reading all these scripts to make sure i didnt process them wrong

- Graham mentions he’s gay, and the man who had the dream about gertrude mentions having broken up with his boyfriend, Graham. jon doesn’t comment on this and it’s not necessarily the same graham, and im not sure what the significance is if it is, but it seems like an odd coincidence if it isn’t. “antonio” doesn’t go into detail about why they broke up, but mentions they had been living together 

- the name Joshua Gillespie stands out to me for some reason, like I’ve heard “gillespie” somewhere before, but I haven’t noticed it coming up again in any of the transcripts unless I just missed it. could just be that my brain decided to Remember that name for no reason though. he’s the guy with the coffin 

- jon mentions this, but Breekon and Hope deliveries were responsible both for the weird coffin and the yellow stole from the incident with father burroughs 

- there’s a major ongoing theme of Fire and Burning, both just in general, and a more specific Fire With No Apparent Source thing continuously happening. the prayer paper in the trash had been burned, timothy hodge burned his apartment after the Worms Incident (and martin mentions noticing one of the worms looked slightly burnt - maybe it survived the fire and returned to jane?), sgt. berry was “distinctively marked” by an incident with a flamethrower, the vampires are supposedly very very vulnerable to fire, raymond fielding’s house burned down and his. ghost? disappears with a burning smell and a burnt spot on the floor, lensik experiences an intense, unbearable heat with no clear cause soon after the encounter with raymond, which father burroughs also experiences in his account. the mysterious coffin in Do Not Open had an unnatural heat to it. gerard keay burns the leitner book and picks up the still-smoldering ashes but isn’t concerned with the heat, and then appears again as one of the burned men in First Aid, having apparently experienced second-degree burns on every inch of his skin, but had completely undamaged clothes. the nurse describes feeling a burning sensation when the chanting starts, but dismisses it as a nervous reaction, then experiences the. boiling drink bottles and the burning hot door handles. she says she could feel a burning heat from gerard’s hand. the burned man’s body immediately self-cremates when gerard kills him. lee rentoul also gives specifically a lighter to angela for her Piecemeal curse, though that might be coincidental. he does burn the first box after he discovers it, though

- the garbage man describes the last Weird Trash as “tied off with a dark green ribbon, arranged in a bow like an old-fashioned Christmas present” - which contained a copper heart, possibly symbolizing alan’s real heart, with the rest of his body never being found. this matches both with robert montauk’s killings and the cursed boxes from angela’s curse- “brown paper and string, like an old-fashioned Christmas present.” there was also the weird thing with raymond’s hand, but im not sure that’s related 

the vampires’ victims bodies also seemed to disappear, not sure that’s related either 

- jon confirms that the pendant julia describes (the one belonging to her mother and also her father’s last victim) is a symbol of the People’s Church of the Divine Host cult. wondering if this is related to what father burroughs experienced. gerard keay is searching for a lost pendant in First Aid, but its design is unclear, and he describes it as brass. unsure if related. the fact that gerard’s tattoos/etc were of eyes, and the other pendant is of a closed eye, while one is made of brass and the other of silver seems like there might be some connection though even if it isn’t the same one. there didn’t seem to be any burning involved with the montauk case, anyway 

then there’s. this entire thing im just gonna paste it here, from sebastian adekoya in the Boneturner’s Tale: 

“Books are amazing, aren’t they? I mean, when you think about what they really are. People don’t give the actuality of language the weight it deserves, I feel. Words are a way of taking your thoughts, the very make-up of yourself, and giving them to another. Putting your thoughts in the mind of someone else. They are not a perfect method, of course, as there’s plenty of scope for mutation and corruption between your mind and that of the listener, but that doesn’t change the essence of what language is.

Spoken aloud, though, the thought dies quickly if not picked up. Simple vibrations that vanish almost as soon as they are created, though if they find a host, then they can lodge there, proliferate, and maybe spread further. Still, it is not a reliable method in terms of a thought’s endurance, as humans are fragile creatures, and rarely last a century.” 

this definitely seems relevant to jurgen leitner (and this is. one of the episodes about a leitner book, so) it definitely seems likely that he’s spreading some kind of.... Belief or Self or Power or Something through his books, possibly even his own consciousness is within them somehow, or at least the consciousness of Something or Someone. the man with all the bones in his hands. taking bones and warping them. bones appearing in the pages but Wrong. might be related to the bag of teeth, too, hundreds of All The Same Tooth

definitely something to the... immortalization of thoughts/memories/Consciousness through written word, especially when we consider the words literally tattooed into mary keay’s skin/the book possibly bound in her skin. i cant put a coherent thought together on this but its definitely... important, i think 

sebastian also for some reason specifically mentions he was holding a copy of Stephen King’s Misery in the confrontation with Jared’s mother, which is a story about an author being forced to write something against his will/words that aren’t really his own, to appease someone else, which. seems like it might be relevant somehow too, maybe. the fact that it was named specifically when it wasn’t apparently relevant to the story seems interesting 

“I don’t think your-......tooth apple has a place in our artifact storage,” 

i m losing my MIND 

dgfhhh jon and sasha debating over how to pronounce “calliope” 

me, thinking: isnt it like ‘cah-lee-ohp’

“ive even heard it said ‘cah-lee-ohp’ “

“pfffhht. by WHO”

“americans.”

“ah” 

me, an american: 

jon’s complete refusal to acknowledge anything supernatural despite the fact that he literally works for a paranormal/supernatural investigation institute is astounding to me like, buddy i agree the spider guy just sounded like he had a phobia and childhood trauma that went too far but “he was found completely encased in webs. im sure theres a perfectly natural explanation for this” 

oh fuck

yea ok listening to the. tma slaughterhouse episode and now this one about an older guy going on a hunting trip, jon is absolutely doing different voices for each statement

i dont know a lot about british regional accents but it definitely sounds like they’re varying slightly

its GREAT but also does he realize he’s doing that. does he know he sounds like sir hammerlock right now 

also i am Very Worried About Jon Sims 

WELL I FINISHED THE FIRST SEASON

martin just like “well tim’s dead. he’s dead and he’s covered in worms” me too

“i hid them-” “WHY would you do that” “SO THE WORMS DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE THERE”  

martin being so.... meek and apologetic and then just going “wait no fuck this JON LISTEN TO ME” so good... i lov martin so much so much

“BECAUSE I’M SCARED, MARTIN” watch you can pinpoint the exact second my heart rips in half 

also jon saying “I lose myself a bit” in the recordings is...... is something happening to jon. i thought he was just really into the storytelling or like Accidentally A Really Good Narrator IS SOMETHING. GETTING INTO HIS HEAD OR SOMETHING SHOULD I NOT BE MAKING FUN OF HIM FOR DOING VOICES :’) god. fuck

it was incredibly fucking unsettling listening to him reading prentiss’ statement though something was. so. wrong in his voice and he sounded shaken when he came out of it too i dont LIKE that 

“we’re clearly doing a whole-......heart to heart....thing” i lov jon 

“martin. ........you didn’t die here, did you-” “what n- WHAT. WHAT???” “i jUST-” “DID YOU THINK. I WAS A GHOST” “.........a GHOST, really-” “shut up martin” im fuCKIGN LOSING IT

i want to hear martin’s poetry PLEASE let me hear martin’s poetry i hope its about spiders 

“Just... quarantine, you know? not as much fun as it sounds” oof. uh. nnNnnnhn

hmm. i just realized i am going to have a very, very bad time when im caught up enough to start looking at fanart actively

i desperately want to but im too scared to look bc of spoilers but 

i can cope with spoken descriptions of trypophobia inducing shit like this (still makes me feel sick lmao but its like. i can take it) but i would Not be able to deal with actually seeing it. hm. heres hoping blacklist comes through for me i guess lmao 

also martin’s very very tiny “sorry” when jon snapped at him hurt me but then “No, I- I’m sorry I left you” ouch ouch OW

i think something’s wrong with sasha her voice sounded. wrong. i thought it was just that the voice actor was doing the lines weirdly, it sounded like. reading a script vs just talking but she was fine before and jon did stop her like “are you ok” so i. think something’s wr - DID HE JUST FUCKING SAY “NOT-SASHA”

me: ok time to listen to tma while im drawing 

“Statement begins. ...Let me be clear. I’m not scared of clowns.”

me: 

oh FUCK

i looked ahead at the next couple episode titles i didnt even realize i was almost at the season end LMAO SHIT

WELL FUCK

i mean at least i can tell everyone survives at least long enough to make a statement lmao BUT UH 

uh oh

i was right about the table wasn’t i 

goin through tma transcripts again making some more observations

i think im picking up on another potential thread here i didnt notice before 

- in Growing Dark, natalie becomes obsessed with darkness. the lightbulbs appear to be going out because she’s intentionally unscrewing them, so it doesn’t seem to be the exact same as what was happening around montauk, but there’s a clear connection anyway (and mark bilham says the streetlights and the car headlights and everything all seemed darker than they should be when he went back to confront natalie, as well) jon suspects this but says it’s only a suspicion, and he isn’t sure. not sure why two different names were given (”the peoples church of the divine host” and “the hither green dissenters”) but it could just be two different names for the same group. jon doesn’t seem to know either 

- Why Didn’t Kathy ASK Her What The Food Was and i also cant decide if i really want to know what it was or really DON’T want to know but i dont think it was spinach 

- if it IS the same cult: if they were trying to summon the darkness, or worshipping it, or something, it doesn’t quite fit that montauk himself was apparently trying to keep this darkness away

but then, his killings began after his wife left, and she left the pendant behind when she did, so maybe she left the cult and that’s what made the darkness angry, but. julia doesn’t mention having ever seen her father wearing a pendant like that so it doesn’t seem like he himself was part of the cult before, and if his wife was the one involved/the one who left, why would the darkness be coming for him 

or if she was... protecting him from it and now that she’s gone it’s coming after him why would she have left her pendant behind like that, if “I’m leaving the church” was something personal to her and wasn’t intended as a statement to him

- seems like there may be two rival cults clashing here, could be some kind of Fire/open eyes/Seeing vs Darkness/closed eye/Listening happening. the clown doll in Strange Music also had eyes painted shut, and that was centered on. strange music. and the darkness cult emphasizes losing sight but there’s that discordant singing

this is a theme i didnt pick up on until just now and i dont really want to go back through and search for Sight vs Sound in everything else right now but, hm. seems like there’s been a lot of creatures that don’t want to be Seen, things that resist all attempt to Prove them, things that don’t show their true forms visually. things that don’t show up on cameras even though they were there. things that you can only see properly when you’re not looking directly at it

the strange blonde man sasha encounters says “How would a melody describe itself when asked?” his appearance distorts in reflections and he describes himself as sound 

something something magnus institute trying to cast Light and Understanding and Truth onto things that don’t want to be seen and don’t want to be understood. prentiss says in her statement - “I need it to be seen. To be seen in the cold light of knowledge is anathema to the things that crawl and slither and swarm in the corners and the cracks.”

so prentiss appears to be on the Darkness side/that makes the most sense but sasha notably discovers she can kill the worms with a fire extinguisher, while martin had noticed a partly burned worm that had apparently not been killed by fire before (and. timothy clearly did not escape the worms, regardless of whether he killed some of them or not). after prentiss was found the first time the complex burned down. i cant quite make sense of whats happening there

- there were screams heard in the abandoned chapel on the day gertrude died so something’s definitely going on there. the guy with the dream about her believed something unspeakably horrible was coming for her it doesn’t make sense that she was just shot, and “the unspeakable horror was Betrayal” seems like a cop out to me so i dont think thats it 

- the guy in Burnt Offering was. under the effects of some kind of Burning Curse so that’s. pretty clear, but why were there pictures of gertrude in that clearing. the fuck is happening there 

- I’m still trying to figure out what’s happening with Written Word vs Speech, maybe related to Seeing/Silence too, like. all these statements are written. jon is speaking them and at first i just thought he was really into the storytelling but now I’m starting to worry that the reason he sounds so different when he’s narrating the statements is that they’re. getting into him. somehow. like he’s some kind of a conduit for something. i don’t like that at ALL and i REALLY hope im wrong lmao

anyway then there’s Cheating Death, where nathaniel thorp says that his story is folklore which has never before been written down, so we have... oral tradition being spoken by an illiterate man, copied down in written word for the first time by the magnus institute (not sure if it’s relevant Who transcribed it, jon says it was a research assistant named Fiona Law, who died from what seems to be completely unrelated causes like 30 yeas later, so) and now being recited/spoken again by jon. and there’s probably something to the fact that thorp says it’s a legend/folklore but it turns out to have actually been his statement all along, so im not sure if he was... saying that the stories were about Him, or if the concept of “people who try to gamble with death become something stuck between death and life” was a story he grew up with and then discovered to be Real, or if none of it was folklore in the first place and just talking about it in a detached third person way was the only way he could do it 

prentiss describes the magnus institute as “This place of books and learning, of sight and beholding” and seems not to trust in Words, 

“There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why the hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note it’s every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so.”

that also speaks to jon’s skepticism, everything “verifiable” about these statements does not make sense to the person’s actual experience, things keep happening that for whatever reason cannot be explained and understood, people who were THERE but theres no record of them existing, cave systems that are heavily mapped and documented but the actual experience of exploring them doesnt follow the documentation at all 

after reading prentiss’ statement jon says “There are weird things out there that are perfectly natural. It’s not, though. I know it’s not natural.” which is... the first time ive noticed him actually looking at something that could be explained rationally (prentiss is a mentally ill woman with a very aggressive currently-unknown-to-science parasite) but instead follows his feeling that theres something more underneath it 

he also. says this after having read the statement and remarks that “something in this statement has got to me a bit” and the... way he read it was very alarming and very..... Not His Voice. it worries me a LOT that something about these statements seems to be getting into him and ESPECIALLY that one