#this feels like the desolation entity or whatever the burning/fire one was
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Samama is looking into the Magnus protocol :pogchamp:
I mean, I’d be curious too having heard about the Magnus Institute then seeing a reference to a protocol.
Gwen being “trapped here forever,” I wonder if that’s literal or just a reference to Elias. 😂 Also would she be Elias & boat captain guy’s kid?? Asking the real questions.
Also, is Augustus’s voice a character from The Magnus Archives proper or a new voice actor/character?? Okay, new voice apparently!
Last Fortnite? /j
Okay so the violin is definitely paranormal or has paranormal origins.
Also the name Oliver strikes me as very familiar but idk why. 🤔
FAR AWAY MUSIC? ITS THE WAR MUSIC THINGY?? MAYBE THE HUNTING ONE?
“Unseen maestro of his own imagination.” Oh yeah no the music man is back in some form or it’s a new thing.
BRO JUST LEPT FOR IT??? Holy fuck. Wait did this thing take hold of his tutor, then the carriage guy??
A FLAME FIGURE??? THE FIRE LADY ENTITY??
This instrument is hot! 🔥
I wonder if the musical notes will burn the audience or something. 👀 Oh shit it’s musical talent for blood! ⚰️ Vampire ass instrument. Deal with the devil type shit.
Oh shit... he fed other people to his violin. I wonder if it ate him in the middle of the night because it got hungry & he hadn’t fed it.
HOOOOOOLY SHIT CANNIBALISM SONG!
“Feed my violin nephew.”
“I could disappear again, they would never know!” WHO & WHY??
#this feels like the desolation entity or whatever the burning/fire one was#just a weird guy out in the forest with a big fire & burnt food#absolutely an oddball#avatar type behavior#I feel like the desolation flame people always seem to be the most approachable? moth to the flame effect I guess lmao#looking at me a boy who might touch a cooking pot; hmmmm#is this a cursed object like the table or vase or whatever from magnus archives#this new violin or instrument is a product of the desolation??#bro started playing & everyone was like HOW HUNGRY? 👀#tmagp liveblog#tmagp spoilers#tma spoilers#tmagp 4#mine#op#tma#tmagp#the magnus archives#the magnus protocol
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working on a master post of what all the main characters of every jrwi campaigns entity would be from the magnus archives. it’s still a work in progress because i haven’t finished apotheosis, prime defenders, and i haven’t started the fated, but here’s what i’ve got so far:
riptide
gillion: vast/buried/slaughter (vast because of sky n sea, lightning, creatures beyond comprehension such as leviathans/titans/deities, buried because of sea, pressure to be the chosen one, great and suffocating expectations, slaughter because of war, his willingness to kill, his love of fighting, his purpose and upbringing as a weapon)
chip: desolation/lonely (desolation because fire powers/motifs, loss of all things he’s ever loved over and over again, burned someone’s house down, lonely because of his like. everything.)
jay: hunt (is a ranger, hunters mark, obsessed with hunting down the people that killed her sister and exacting vengeance, etc)
prime defenders
william: end (literally has ghost powers, will be able to give more reasons once i watch it)
dakota: idk, haven’t gotten a good read on him yet, maybe hunt?? he likes fighting a lot
vyncent: no idea, have even less of a read on him than dakota, i’ve only watched the first five episodes lol
blood in the bayou
rand: flesh/stranger/spiral (won’t give too many reasons to avoid spoilers but flesh because of body horror, stranger because of what happened to his sister and his obsession w the cult afterwards, although you could also argue spiral because of the state of his mental health)
rolan: CORRUPTION. EASILY (those who have listened know why lmao)
kian: honestly don’t know, maybe spiral? or eyes because he constantly feels like he’s being watched so
apotheosis
peter: the eye/slaughter (i feel like the eye works better for peter, and the slaughter for whatever the angels name is, but won’t say anything else cuz i’m not finished and also spoilers)
rumi: web maybe? idk what his whole deal is but i’ve got my eye on him. i’ll update this later
thanatos: either the end or slaughter for like. obvious reasons.
i’m open to interpretation with these, and would love to hear others thoughts! just please avoid spoilers both for myself and for any others who haven’t caught up/been able to watch certain series ^^ i’ll post the full list once i’ve got a better read on certain characters and finished some campaigns as well!
#dandy talks#jrwi riptide#jrwi gillion#jrwi chip#jrwi#jrwi show#jrwi bitb#rolan deep#timothy rand#kian stone#jrwi apotheosis#jrwi prime defenders#jrwi pd#jrwi william#jrwi vyncent#jrwi dakota#jrwi peter#peter sqloint#jrwi thanatos#jrwi rumi#the magnus archives#tma#tma podcast#thoughts ^^
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Corrupted Snippet: TMA x Malevolent crossover
Tim opened a book he shouldn't have, and now has the last remaining god in the universe stuck in his head.
In the process of dealing with that, he was marked by the Desolation - a Fear entity, based on rage.
He's turned - reluctantly - to the Magnus Institute for help.
There is a lot going on here.
Tim feels out of his league.
Maybe he is.
But he's unnervingly certain that he could still burn it all down...
(As always, snippet is unedited, tenses are screwy, etc. Still fun!)
-------------
Bouchard is waiting for them. How about that.
The old woman looks disappointed.
“Thank you, Gertrude,” says Elias. “Tim, if you please - right this…” He stops.
Stares.
“Interesting,” he murmurs.
“Are you sure you want to handle this?” says the murderous old bat.
“Yes, it’ll be fine. He’s not a danger,” says Bouchard.
He’s lying. You are.
Tim is not in a position to respond to that, but he wants to. With something. Probably sarcastic.
Except… Bouchard’s look.
“Jon,” says Bouchard, suddenly. “I will need to see you after this meeting. All right? Clear your schedule. It’s going to be a bit of a thing.”
Jon looks absolutely spooked. “Sure, of course, Elias. Right.”
“You’re not being fired,” says Bouchard, almost gently.
Lara “Gertrude” Croft looks highly suspicious.
“Right,” says Jon, glancing back and forth.
Then he flees.
Aww, Tim thinks. “That guy needs a movie night,” he says out loud.
Gertrude blinks at him.
“You know. With friends? A bit of beer, or something? Snacks? Everybody cozy in socks? Bras off?”
She stares harder.
“Right. Maybe you need one, too,” says Tim.
Bouchard clears his throat. “Shall we?”
“Sure.” Tim gives her his brightest smile.
She does not respond.
Well, now she’s a challenge.
Tim, warns Yellow, who could mean anything.
Bouchard waits, holding open his door.
Tim walks in.
Bouchard’s look has not changed. Thoughtful. Penetrative. He gestures to the seat across from the desk, and sits behind it, fingers steepled.
“You really make a guy sweat with a look like that,” says Tim.
“I’m glad to hear it,” says Bouchard like that wasn’t creepy. “And please - do call me Elias.”
“Sure,” says Tim.
“So you’ve had an adventure of some kind since I last saw you,” Elias says.
“Yeah. That old bat out there tried to kill me for no damn reason.”
She was rather aggressive, says Yellow.
Elias grants Yellow a little nod - not quite a bow, but a distinctly respectful movement.
Tim can feel immediately that it worked - that Yellow liked it, responds to it, maybe is weak to it.
Manipulation. It was manipulation.
Tim frowns a little.
“I must apologize for her, not that I have any control over her, really,” says Elias Bouchard. “The fact is that when it’s time to stop her, I’m going to have to kill her - but she makes a marvelous distraction in the meantime, doesn’t she?”
Tim gawks.
Yes… I see your point. And of course, she’s done so since before you claimed this body, am I right?
Tim gawks more, this time at himself. Or the one in his head, anyway.
Elias does that little bow again. “I see you don’t miss much.”
No.
“I am mindful of it.”
I’d guess… in the neighborhood of two centuries?
“Very good! Yes. I’m surprised one such as yourself would be aware of such mortal lifetimes.”
More manipulation. Because Yellow responds like a cat petted along its spine, arching its arse in the air.
I’ve had to pay attention to such things. Human bodies are… regrettably fragile.
Tim frowns this time, feeling the anger rising, trying to push it down. “Hey, old guys. I’m still here, you know,” he says, and can’t help himself, because "so young" feels like it must be branded on his forehead right now, guaranteeing he’s ignored.
“Yes, and that is a perfect segue,” says Elias, smooth as fucking butter. “I don’t know what happened yesterday. I know Gertrude came back with her memory altered; I know whatever you got involved with raised a sort of… fog through which I could not see.”
Tim stares. “You were watching?”
“I watch everything I can, Mister Stoker,” says Elias, as though this is perfectly normal. “That is how I serve my patron. But I could not see what happened.”
Tim doesn’t care to tell him. Elias just rubs him wrong.
Chaos. That’s what happened.
“Fair enough. Unfortunately, there is one thing I do see: Mister Stoker… you have been marked.”
I had a feeling you could see that, says Yellow.
Tim feels… bad?
He hunches a little. It’s not a familiar feeling, this. He's not even sure "bad" is the right word.
“This does place me in an awkward position,” says Elias. “You have, in a manner of speaking, been claimed by a patron other than mine, and they tend to be… possessive.”
Yet you have not thrown us out, says Yellow warmly (because the manipulation seems to have worked), and Tim frowns just a pinch harder.
“Naturally. I’ve never seen anything like this - which means, I fear, that you are practically catnip for me.”
And the two old assholes laugh, and Tim has almost had enough.
(But should he have had enough?)
(Wouldn’t he be more patient with this nonsense, normally?)
“Right,” he says. “So. What do we do? Because Yellow here thinks we should hide, and I know fucking well that won’t work.”
“I have to agree with you, Mister Stoker.”
Tim rolls his eyes. “We’re all on first-name basis here, I guess. Tim.”
Elias does a little gracious nod - but it is not the same one he gave Yellow.
Tim knows the difference.
He’s angry.
“Fascinating,” Elias whispers, then - Tim can tell - focuses on Yellow again. “Will you forgive some prying? What is your actual name?”
“You don’t have to tell him,” says Tim.
I know. I’m weighing whether his aid is worth whatever price he extracts.
“I assure you, whatever ‘price I extract’ is going to be observation-based. That is, after all, what I’m all about.”
Weird.
Very weird.
Because Tim thinks Elias just lied.
There’s no reason for it. He can’t see any difference in face or body language.
But he’s sure Elias lied.
The anger bubbles, slowly simmering.
And Yellow… doesn’t seem to see it. I’ve had… various names.
Elias is looking so damned intense. “I would love to know. It might even help me refine my current thought on how to give you some… support.”
“I don’t know that we should trust you,” says Tim.
And is ignored.
Are they trying to make him mad?
Maybe they are. Maybe it’s test, two assholes playing a game, to see how he handles his weird, growing rage.
Tim licks his lips and barely keeps the lid on.
I see no reason to hold this back, Yellow decides.
“Yellow,” warns Tim.
I have been called Hastur. I have been called… the King in Yellow.
So that’s where the name came from! “Ah-ha!” says Tim.
Elias’ eyes light up like he just won the lottery. “Phenomenal,” he whispers. “Lord of Carcosa. Regaled in a gown of yellow, twice as tall as any man! Majestic, he glides over the ground to take his throne in lost Carcosa, for he is the king that was and shall be!”
Tim actually rolls his eyes. “Really? Fucking really?”
But that is not Hastur - Yellow’s - reaction. Yes.
“Well… I am, I will not lie, deeply honored,” Elias lies, and does a proper bow.
“You can’t be buying this,” Tim snaps.
Tim.
“No! He’s lying! Don’t you see that he is?”
What I see, Tim, is that he’s playing the game, as am I - and which you will have to learn if we are going to survive.
Oh, and now Yellow’s reprimanding him?
The metaphorical lid is beginning to bounce on the pot of Tim’s anger, clanging, jarring out of place with rising rage.
And Elias sees.
Tim knows that he sees.
Elias is enjoying this.
Rein it in, Tim tells himself, because this isn’t like him, this isn’t usual, he’s a patient man, he’s dealt with shit like this from shitty managers all in the past, this isn’t new, this… he doesn’t have to… he…
“Your self-control is extraordinary,” says Elias, softly. “I’m very impressed, Tim. And I appreciate it. I don’t particularly want to be burned - so I thank you.”
And that time, he wasn’t lying.
He did that on purpose, Tim thinks, struggling, because Tim was an idiot and revealed he could tell when Elias lied, and that smooth son of a bitch has already adjusted tactics.
Tim.
“What?” Tim snaps between clenched teeth.
Please.
Well, fuck, what was Tim supposed to do with that?
They’re both waiting to see what he does with that.
If I give in now, Tim thinks to himself, as clearly as he can, I’m destroying me, for no fucking reason, because Yellow won’t trust me anymore, and Elias won’t help. So come on, you. Pull it together.
He breathes slowly. Deeply.
Shuddering.
“You are remarkable,” says Elias. “I wouldn’t have guessed - forgive me.”
He is, says Yellow, as though he somehow fomented this himself.
“I think I hate you both right now?” says Tim.
“Fair,” says Elias. “And I apologize for putting you in the position we have - quite unintentionally, I assure you. I had not intended to make you feel in any particularly unpleasant way.”
Again - he’s telling the truth now.
Elias, Tim realizes, is a fucking dangerous piece of work.
“Okay,” says Tim.
You have an idea? says Yellow.
“I do. This is, of course, based on research and memories from those in my line going back some thousands of years. If I understand correctly, your current vulnerability is largely based on… well. Your host’s mortality.”
That isn’t… fully accurate.
“As opposed, let’s say, to possessing a body closer to what you had before?”
There are no bodies here closer to what I had before.
“What if one could be created? How would that affect your situation?”
Tim has no idea. “What, give him his own body? Separate us?”
There’s a long silence.
“So…” Tim prompts.
I need to… consider this. You say it as if there were a possibility of such a thing.
Elias’ eyes lid. It’s like he knows he’s hooked a fish, and can take his time reeling it in. “Well. You no doubt feel the… stored power of this place. That is because we collect artefacts. This particular hobby is not a new one. I may - theoretically - know of some deific flesh, carefully preserved in crystal. And I may - theoretically - know someone who could potentially use it to craft you a new body.”
“Why would you go to all that trouble?” says Tim.
“Because it will be an amazing thing to watch, and as things currently stand, you won’t live long enough to… ah. I apologize.”
“Scratch your itch?” says Tim, dry. “Get you the fuck off?”
“Something like that,” says Elias, who isn’t so easy to ruffle.
I need to think about this.
“Of course you do. Might I suggest you stay here until you do, though? No obligation, no payment - well, beyond watching you, which I will be doing anyway, no matter where you are.”
“Creepy,” intones Tim.
Elias shrugs like a prince.
Tim wants to hit him.
Keep it down, he tells himself. You’re not the rage. You not the… whatever the fucking wrath monster god thing. You.
And what would we benefit from it?
“Protection,” says Elias. “We are not, of course, impervious to invasion, but we are far safer than a hotel, or an apartment, or, gods forbid, the street.”
We aren’t alone, are we? says Yellow suddenly, and Tim can feel the fear lift its head, feel it spike right through all the smugness and preening and ego.
“No,” says Elias, almost gently. “Three agents I can see followed you here - two of the Corruption, who would devour you with mold, worms, maggots, disease; and one of the Desolation, who… well, to be frank, I don’t know what she’d do, given that you, Tim, are marked - but I assure you, she is not here on a mission of mercy.”
“You didn’t notice? I didn’t,” says Tim, softly.
I didn’t. Fuck.
“The offer remains.” Elias looks back and forth between Tim’s eyes.
He’s looking at them both. That’s what he’s doing. He even knows which fucking eye Yellow’s claimed.
We shall stay, says Yellow as though the favor being given is them gracing this place with their presence.
Tim realizes with a shock that he isn’t sure his opinion is any good right now.
He’s too angry.
It’s not his rage.
But it’s… spilling into everything.
Tim has never felt unsure in his life. This is… a horrible feeling.
He wipes at his eyes, surprised to find them wet.
“Come.” Elias stands, not revealing whatever he thinks of this display, and heads for the door.
Are you all right?
Yellow… seems to mean it?
Can Tim trust that, either?
Yes. He knows he can. Whatever else is wrong with him, he knows he’s reading other people correctly, including Yellow. “Not really?”
I will do what I can for you once we are alone.
“Alone,” Tim scoffs.
Comparatively.
“Sure,” says Tim, and follows Elias Bouchard deeper into his spooky Eye palace.
#tma#malevolent#tma fic#malevolent fic#tim stoker#elias bouchard#king in yellow#kiy malevolent#fic in progress#wip#amwriting
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Ayla
Once, not very long ago, There was a person that lived in my head named Ayla.
If any entity in my psyche could have been said to be Adversarial, it would have been her.
She often told inconvenient truths.
She rattled the bars of her cage a Lot.
And she HATED my Bullshit.
You know, the self loathing, and the paradigm where I was unquestionably the scum of the earth and no one in their right mind would ever want to be around me ever.
One day, I saw her in my mind.
And she was clearly going through some things.
She looked a wild mess from the way she normally appeared, perfectly controlled, cool, calm and collected.
She'd clearly been crying, she was about halfway wearing nothing but a balled-up bedsheet, and sitting in a doorway.
And she said to me the most terrifying words that have ever been uttered by anything in my own mind.
"I am going to make you Burn bright like a Star."
Not long after that, she made a very big Exit. She threw some broken Shackles at my feet. She had clearly come to some revelatory conclusions about autonomy that she didn't seem keen to share.
She left out at door that had never been there, and she never came back.
I have often wondered about the meaning of her words, since she never actually set me on fire.
But I thought of her today.
Because I think I understand a part of what she was on about now.
There have been a few times in my life where I've been able to just be myself, and feel safe and seen. These rare occasions, which I can count on one hand were so good that they Broke my paradigms of self-loathing.
They broke the chains.
Now, not to put carts before horses, I am pretty sure some of my wires are still crossed.
But Yesterday I actually plugged some of the little fuckers into the right holes for the first time in my life.
Because I realized that There was something in my thoughts that was telling me that I should Never under any circumstances risk being myself because I absolutely would be rejected.
And I realized it was wrong.
I think there are some people in my life who have been waiting for this for years.
And I realized that this means that I don't need special circumstances that can be counted on one hand to Be and Feel like myself, like I have in those instances.
That it is FINE for me to just be that version of myself like 99% of the time. Especially when literally the only differences are Internal.
You can't LOOK at me and see any of it.
You can tell it by talking to me, for sure. But not by looking.
I feel like I Made Space, and then IMMEDIATELY expanded into it. Like pulling off the tight jeans and putting on the Sweatpants.
AND NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING TO STOP ME. There are no Thought Police! There are no Rules!
And even if people do get pissed, even if I lose friends or whatever, Fuck it! There have been Years of Desolate Isolation built by my fear that even the wrong facial expression might make people hate me. Real Pain is Just as much a part of this life as my Self inflicted Torment, Except it is Shorter. Years shorter. I can move through real pain, Even GREAT hurt in like a week now. Because once you're out of the "Accute Injury" phase, it is all just regular healing after that.
I have been sucking it in for so long that I am going to Skew the fucking Coriolis Effect when I let it all out.
I feel the fire has been Duly Lit.
Ayla, Wherever you are, I am Ready To Burn Bright like a Star.
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hello archivist!
i was wondering what your personal ranking of entities based on how much you like them/think theyre neat (if the corruption isnt #1 i will crawl through your window like a worm (threatening))
Hmmm if we’re just going on Vibes and not alignment, it would go a little like this…
The assholes zone:
15. The Desolation. Like the fire aesthetic, hate everything else about it and most of its avatars I’ve met (present company excluded, of course. None of you budding arsonists that occasionally come visit my Archive have antagonized me too much yet which I appreciate.)
14. The Slaughter. Personal grudge. Anyway the Hunt does everything it does but better. Except the music, gotta give it that.
13. The Extinction. New and exciting to figure out, but still the manifestation of one of the shittiest, most infuriating phenomenon of our era.
The “meh” zone:
12. The Dark. Kinda boring and always hiding stuff from Sight, which are both up there on my list of highest crimes. Also feels like it could do better but it just doesn’t, which is disappointing and annoying.
11. The Buried. So-so. Caves are pretty cool though, but only as long as they don’t actually crush you into a pulp, so… It actually takes caves and make them less fun.
10. The Lonely. Mopey. Statements always taste somehow too salty and flavorless at once. Depressing, no kick to them. I can appreciate a good fog though.
9. The Flesh. Meat is meat, whatever, who hasn’t eaten a little bit of human flesh at some point, not worth the fuss. Feels like its avatars could do some pretty impressive body sculptures, but most just… don’t do anything that interesting, which is probably because everyone who’s got gory inclinations but also actual artistic talent goes with the Stranger.
8. The End. I personally don’t especially worry or care about it, but the aesthetic is a solid 8/10 and its avatars are usually polite.
The cool kids zone:
7. The Corruption. (I know, I know, not first place. Sorry Anna.) Like the bugs, like the mushrooms, a little less fond of the plagues. Statements are a bit of an acquired taste, but you get used to the whiff of mold eventually. Actually kinda sweet, which is pretty rare for Dread Powers. Endearing.
6. The Stranger. Fun loving folks, throw absolutely indescribable parties which is both a pro and a con, easily one of the best styles, and a real sense of grotesque and panache I truly appreciate in a statement. Kind of annoying to try and See through all the smoke and mirrors though.
5. The Hunt. Not always the most pleasant of avatars, but how exhilarating! Truly gets your blood pumping like nothing else! Neither my favorite nor least favorite aesthetic-wise, but an old classic for sure.
4. The Vast. Whose heart doesn’t skip a beat at the sight of the immensity? Who doesn’t feel l’appel du vide tugging at their guts? Isn’t the vertigo just like infatuation, when you think about it? Very very beautiful, maybe a bit too open and empty to have the kind of mystery that really pulls me it.
3. The Eye. Hi 👁 Well obviously I like this one, don’t think I need to expend on that. All the extra eyeballs are a really good look if I do say so myself. We’re a bunch of nerds though I can’t deny it.
2. The Spiral. I’ve spoken at length about how fascinating and exasperating this one is already. Very enthralling colors and pattern that always gets burned into my retinas and give me a headache because I keep staring too long. Avatars can be the cockiest most chaotic bastards out there but they’re always fun and interesting and some of them are even nice. Also I’m honestly so jealous of the Doors those seem so unfairly useful.
1. The Web. Absolute queen. Unlike the Eye, not so busy being knowledgeable she forgets to be clever. I am far far too fond of the Spiders for my own good and they can be so frustratingly secretive but you don’t have all the facts. Which are: I love them.
There we go! Yes I put two of the most violent and destructive Entities at the very bottom of the list, what are they gonna do, try to kill me again? Probably, but look how well that went last time.
#honestly the Slaughter would probably be a bit higher on the list if I didn’t hold an old grudge but too bad because I sure do!#statements#Adelaide
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Timeless!Harrison Wells x Reader - White King, Black Queen
*A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to its rightful owner.
**Please don’t forget to comment, like, and reblog. It means a lot to content creators of all kinds!
***I’d also like to thank @grimtamlain-writes for being my beta reader.
MASTERLIST
Word Count: 2267
You narrowed your eyes as the city continued to bustle, noise from people and cars emitted in the air. Clouds hung sparsely over Central City as the waning moon took the place of the sun high in the sky. The wind blew a light breeze through your hair. You kicked a leg back and forth gently as you sat on the edge of the STAR Labs tower wings. Your other leg was bent close to your body, an arm resting over your knee. The height didn’t scare you so much as it used to. In fact, you didn’t mind being so close to the edge anymore. If you fell, then you fell. Truth be told, your powers would save you whether you willed it to or not. Some would say it’s a curse, others not so much. Your umbrakinesis acted like a defense mechanism at those times. A sigh left your lips as you straightened up your back, cracking it. Relief echoed through your body, but your heart felt heavy. Time is ticking... You knew what was happening downstairs, Gideon had alerted you when someone entered the Time Vault. It wouldn’t be completely wrong to say that you didn’t want to face him – couldn’t get attached since he’d been here. Not again. Staying up here was your way of avoiding that problem until… Until what, though?
The hair at the back of your neck stood up, a chill ran down your spine as your shadows alerted you of a presence a distance behind you. Turning your head slightly, you sent an icy look to the one person you dreaded to see. The face of the man you had seen pass one too many times. Their looks from their final moments imprinted in your mind for this one to come back. He was the last thing you had of them.
Harrison Wells.
A small smile was on his face, his hair tousled with his clear-framed glasses perched on his nose. He knew you’d be up here. The others told him you’d been up here since his reincarnation into the world. Since he’d made contact with Team Flash to help them and explain his predicament of currently living. But really, Harrison would have known if no one had told him. He had sensed it. Seen it – the images flickered past in his brain. The other versions of himself with you up here – the foreign familiarness that he personally did not experience.
But nothing more than a dreadful reminder of what’s past.
“I’ve come to say good-bye,” the genius started in a soft voice, wanting to approach you carefully. Your glare bothered him, yet he knows it shouldn’t, for once Harrison leaves, he will be united with Tess, the love of his life. Over and over and over again.
You snorted, turning your gaze to the stars that twinkled away from the clouds. You could see the constellations of Cassiopeia, winking brightly light-years away. “Such a shame, you could have helped them with Godspeed.” A bitter laugh left your lips as you recalled Nash showing you how to recognize the constellations and where to navigate from there. Sherloque would drink his tea up here with you and converse about his cases. HR would read to you his latest ideas and novels while you gave your input. You would drag Harry out of his lab to get some fresh air. And Eobard… he was the one who showed you this view, before Barry had woken up, before the Particle Accelerator had gone online.
“Team Flash is more than capable of handling threats on their own.”
“I take it you think that having a Wells must be a handicap, hm?”
“I never said that.”
“Hmph.”
“I couldn’t leave without telling you good-bye.” You pressed your lips thinly and Harrison continued, pocketing his hands in his dark coat. “It didn’t feel right to go without saying that.” The night was getting colder, yet you remained out here in a thin jacket. Dare he say, he worried a bit? You turned to fully look at him from your seated position. “I… won’t deny the sentiment I feel towards you. The memories of the past Wells. Their thoughts – well, previous thoughts – and feelings are still here.” Harrison had gestured to his head then placed a hand on his heart. Bile rose at the back of your throat as the smiling images of the boys hit your mind. You bit your lip hard as he spoke, “Each one of them felt strongly for you, but I’m not them. They’d want you to move on. To live-”
“No!” Your patience snapped, standing up rapidly with expert footing. Shadows went rampant in the night, wind howling in his ears. “You don’t get to say that!” Darkness immediately consumed the atmosphere and air around you both. Unbridled anger licked up in your heart and soul as you took heavy steps towards him. Harrison couldn’t see, but he could feel the moving darkness as he stood his ground. “You have no right to act all high and mighty towards me.” A hiss left his lips as a dark particle lashed at his arm, burning through his coat and marring his skin just as he heard your anger burn in your next words. “You don’t understand the strings that fate has chained me with! Nor will you ever understand my burden.”
***Flashback***
“What is it that you want?” You glared at the entity. The Monitor had appeared in your kitchen as you were pouring yourself some alcohol to enjoy your quiet night. You had taken some time away from all the heroes and villains running around.
“I came because I require your assistance for the Crisis.”
“Pass, I’m not in the mood to play the hero.”
“The point is not to be a hero or the villain, but to honor fate’s will.”
“Well fate can go hump a stump for all I care,” you sipped on your choice of alcohol, you turned away from the eternal entity only to find him in front of you right as you had exited your kitchen. A deep frown crossed your features. This is such a drag.
“Fate has bound your life to Harrison Wells the moment you first met him years ago.”
“False, that was Eobard masquerading as Wells. So, technically no.”
“That technicality may be so, but fate saw the speedster as your gateway to the rest of them. Without Thawne you would not have been so tied to Harrison Wells’ existence.” Rolling your eyes, you took another sip, already knowing you’d need a couple of glasses to forget about this interaction. “Your life is bound to his. To them.” The Monitor had you right where he wanted you, pushing images into your mind to allow you to see reason. “You were a lover.” You flinched as the image of Eobard appeared in your mind. “A partner.” Harry. “A friend.” HR. “And a confidante.” Sherloque. “Now this one needs you as well, he is in danger of himself with the Anti-monitor. My opposite entity.” You knew he was referring to Nash, the multiverse explorer with the haughty attitude and snarky comments.
“…”
“You are the anomaly that exists in the multiverse, there is no other in your position.” The entity saw the hesitation flicker in your being. “The time has come for you to be his protector.”
***Time Skip***
Nash panted, on the ground of this desolate land on his hands and knees. His mouth felt dry, tasting iron in his mouth from the blood on his split lip. How much longer can he endure this? The Anti-monitor continued to laugh at him, to mock him, for his weakness. Pariah gripped hard at the dirty snow, blood and mud defiled the pure whiteness. He couldn’t get back up. His body ached. No matter how hard Nash tried to push back, the Anti-monitor was too strong for him even with these temporary powers.
“Humans are such fickle beings,” the anti-entity spoke in a grand manner, “Soon the multiverse will be mine and there shall be no flaws. No humans to corrupt my domain.” The eternal being gathered his divine power into the palm of his hand and fired anti-matter at his appointed Pariah. The one to bear witness of the end of the multiverse. His curse.
Nash shut his eyes; this was the end. This was his end. A breath left him, what he expected to be his final breath. But the final blow never came. Ringing greeted Nash’s ears as he opened his eyes. Standing in front of him, shielding his body was you and your dark powers. For whatever reason it withstood the anti-matter as particles clashed against one another. You stood defiantly and gracefully in your fighting positions, conjuring your dark spectacles from every shaded corner.
“Don’t you dare touch him, you fucking monster.” You growled, your hands working magnificently to bind the Anti-monitor down. Once bound your umbra became spears and swords that pierced through the entity. While it could not kill the Anti-monitor, it slowed him down – meaning it would slow down his assault on Nash. You needed to get him to safety, needed him to have enough strength to teleport you two away from this dimension. And that’s exactly what you convinced him to do when you grabbed him, hugging his injured body to yourself as he fought to stay conscious.
***End Flashback***
“You don’t understand what loss truly is! You don’t get how hard it is to move on from this.” Just as you had moved, so had Harrison. A dagger of darkness at his throat, clenching the front of his cloak as he held a dagger of light to your own throat. Harrison gritted his teeth as he used his powers to light up the area in his green light. “This pain, the misery of losing over and over and over again. To bear the burden of fate’s strings only to watch them all fall.” He flinched at how the veins around your eyes had darkened to a charcoal color. His throat dried as fear hit him. Harry’s memory flashed into his mind – the memory of you in this state, accidentally killing a meta in self-defense. “You’re just a selfish man, running away from what’s in front of him.” Harrison’s light battled against your darkness to keep the physical manifestations of umbra away from harming his body. “I despise people like that.”
“I’m only doing what’s best for me.”
“By what, Harrison? Running to the past? What’s in the past is best left in the past, those who hold on to the past don’t appreciate the present.”
“Such hypocritical words coming from someone who sulks around up here for what once was.”
“You don’t fucking know anything about me. All you have are some second-hand memories, but you don’t truly know me and what I’ve been through. You’re just like Barry.”
“And you’re any different?”
“At least I know the difference between reality and a desperate dream.”
“…” He knew Tess is doomed to die for time to flow, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t cherish every second with her until it was time. Maybe he was a desperate man chasing after a desperate dream, but he would until the bitter end. For Tess.
“A Time Loop is just a miserable notion for you to see Tess when her destiny is already a fixed time point. Just like Barry’s mother. Their deaths are absolute. Even with your Timeless powers you can’t interfere with what’s set in place.”
“That may be so, but I’ve fulfilled my part here – at least I have someone to return home to, even if they are doomed to die. I could be by her side over and over again.”
Harrison’s words pierced your heart, you pushed the tears back. The ache in your heart throbbed at a greater rate. At least… he had the power to return to his someone… The genius saw the haunting dejection in your eyes, the way your shoulders quivered as you tried to keep yourself together. He regretted the words that left his mouth…
“Do as you please,” you whispered, loosening your grip on his jacket to let him go. The darkness dissipated as you walked back to your perch with pocketed hands. “I’m done begging…” You mumbled to yourself so quietly that he didn’t catch your last statement. A tear left your eyes as you stood tall where you once sat.
“Good-bye,” Harrison murmured to the wind drifting in your direction before turning and leaving. A part of him felt torn by the things he had spat at you. What’s done is done. I doubt I’ll be back here any time soon. Clenching and unclenching his hand, Harrison shut his eyes and summoned his powers to pass through time. Tess, I’m coming home.
“Good-bye, Harrison.” Another tear fell, this time you wiped it as the night continued. He was gone. They were gone. You were alone, once again spectacularly alone and cold.
The pieces are all in place. The time has come…
Time still ticked as seconds went bye. A voice whispered at the back of your mind; the presence residing there since his exorcism. The one that kept you company through all this.
“It’s time, my queen.”
Checkmate
#harrison wells x reader#og harrison wells#timeless wells#harrison wells fanfiction#harrison wells#The Flash#the flash cw#the cw#team flash#the flash fanfiction#nash wells#the monitor#Sherloque Wells#harry wells#hr wells
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“SONGS FROM THE LYRE”
or – the odyssey, interlude ii
“what, you don’t believe me?” toji’s voice is syrup and honey against your eardrum. “you’ll believe whatever an old man with yellow teeth tells you about the fabled sukuna, but not me?”
he bites your neck, playful, and you giggle against him, a light and airy sound. it sings like wind-chimes against summer rain, and you float with the noise, float with him as he nips at your skin.
“i didn’t say that,” you say, but your voice is too unconvincing when fushiguro toji’s disheveled hair tickles your jawline. his hands play with your waist, thumbprints pressing against your hips: and how can you answer his questions in such a state? how are you supposed to maintain your calm?
“i said,” you manage in between bouts of laughter, of soft and precious moans, “that i’ve never even heard that serpent speak, and i’m near it just as much as you are.”
(even now, it swims circles in the corner of the room, oblivious to your antics. you have long since grown used to the idea that this serpent has seen enough of you to last a lifetime.)
“he’s just scared of you,” toji argues, but his voice is too unconvincing when his tongue is licking stripes across your collarbone as if he’ll never devour anything as enticing as your body again. you tug mindlessly at his hair, running the coarse strands between your fingertips like sand and diamonds. today, toji smells like the sea, like danger, like wine. you know this because you shared it all with him. you know this because if you saw yourself in a looking-glass your mouth would be stained with drink, with toji, with thunder.
toji drags his lips from your collarbone back to your jaw as he plants his garden with a gentle kiss. “he doesn’t like to talk when others are around. but trust me, i know. i’ve always heard it. how do you think i found him in the first place?”
you eyelids flutter shut beneath toji’s ministrations. you are warm, you think, and perfectly content, even if you know that toji’s bed against the open window will never be a real home to you. but here, mindlessly indulged, it is enough.
“mhmm,” you say, because you are more than willing to believe anything fushiguro toji tells you. “the serpent talks, i’m sure.”
“he does. some things in this world exist differently than we do. if anyone should know that, it’s you.”
you know there is some truth to his statement. but lost in the sensation of toji’s calloused hands playing games between your legs, you do not have it in you to argue about it further. you do not have the strength to challenge his words.
so you say instead, breathless, eyes full of the moon: “tell me more.” and, eyes alight with mirth and pleasure and stardust, he does.
––
not everyone is the same: not everyone lives powerless. there are those, you see, who hide in shallow coves and windless waters, who do not understand what it means to be alive. there are those who saw stars burn and those who will watch cliffsides crumble. they will not live, but they will not die, so they wallow in darkness.
and of course, among them, lie creatures of night and hurt and seduction. you know them easily by sight and smell: sirens from the deep who emerge from the shallows to offer their scaled hands in marriage. they peer at you with large and intrusive eyes, searching for the soul they lost long ago.
everyone knows they were once human. but, as they say, something precious has been stolen away that can never be returned. something has been taken from those lost corpses of the deep, something that has rendered them different and strange and unknowable, until they sing their long and sorrowful lamentations of a love that could have been, of a love that will never be, until they sing for the mortality they left behind.
they do not know what it means to be alive. and they do not like you, breathing creature of the sand. if you chance upon one, perhaps you should hate them too: hatred for their pain, hatred for their fury.
(but it is difficult, is it not? to remain heartless in the face of a gentle tragedy?)
once, long ago, a young siren, brittle and strange, lived on the rocks of a desolate coast. day by day he peered out into the open expanse of a midday sky like he could find his missing past waiting for him there. he could not speak: he could only listen. and when he tried to tell of his woes, to ask for food and love and assistance, he found himself cursed by the gods’ tongue. all he told to die would do it. all he told to starve for his sake would do it. all he told to stay with him would do it. but even those who stayed loyal to him could not feed on the salty air, so they too would leave, their bodies damp and cold and still.
the young siren did not understand why he had changed. he could recall a face, cunning and cruel, that once peered down upon him as he slept. he could recall a cold hand on his throat, icy and frozen with the absence of a heart. but what he could not recall was the time, or the place, or the name. he knew he had changed and that he was no longer alive. so he sat upon his desolate rocks on the desolate coast and let himself stare into oblivion.
he waited for his lostness to be returned to him. but all those he asked could never find it. and so he waits, still, with his eyes forever fixed on the horizon.
there are others, too, who live bonded by the cold hand of fate. there are those who linger and should not speak: a ruffled panda on a humid coast who searches for his master, a young man with his heart standing both in and out time. there are those who must have committed an egregious error in a past life to end up so alone. there are those who have sinned from power and now sit in lonely coves as they wait for lovers to take them. there are those who are cursed to watch time pass but to never feel it themselves, to rot within the godliness they alone thought they had attained.
the curses of the sea were human, once. they all were. but water and anger and fate created entities that could not speak enough or could not speak at all. they are no longer us, but something else, immortal and bitter and wasted. those curses would like to be freed; they would like to go home. but, as they say, something has been stolen away from them that can never be returned.
(do they wait forever for release? they must. they wait, ghosts of the ocean, sirens of the sea, until something will drag them back under.)
––
“wake up,” someone tells you, “it’s time.”
you do not know if you would like to listen to the voice. you are plagued with an impeccable sadness that turns your body to lead. you think there is something, a forgotten history perhaps, that has eluded you with the grace of a rabbit. there lies a rock in your throat, tears in your eyes.
what were you dreaming? and why are you crying?
(there was a fire, a burning heart. there was blood. there were faces you swore you would protect. there was a molten man with fire in his eyes who dressed your wounds and cured you. you decide to discard the feeling.)
instead, now, a midday sun sits heavy on your eyelids. you open them, slowly, and you do not immediately recognize this rowboat as your own. you do not seek to recognize these arms which cradle you, this self you must have become while your mind was away. it must all be a story, isn’t it? these faces on your memory?
the water is shallow, clear, impossibly blue. you must be far from the malevolent shrine, you reckon, although you cannot find the strength to turn back and look for it. it does not matter. something tells you this four-armed man will tell you where you need to go. something tells you that you can trust him.
(i will cure you, you remember he said, although you do not want to. and then i will make sure it never happens again. i will give you power.)
he swiftly maneuvers the boat into a large and lonely cove. anticipation dances in the air, a warm and welcoming breeze that whispers among the lush trees which litter the mountain beyond the beach. the boat slows as you sail towards the sand, navigate through the smooth rocks and boulders dotting the water.
but, to your horror, you realize you have been here before. and it had not been in an old dream, because the details are much too vivid to shy away from. you know that you have seen this idyllic place, this narcissus pool, once before. because you know, when you turn your head and find the lonesome figure waiting for you on a smooth and pensive boulder, that you would fall into the endless expanse of those bright blue eyes again.
(so they wait, ghosts of the ocean, tragic sirens who wish for sand.)
the four-armed man rows closer. and just beyond, sitting on the boulder, he waits.
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today’s hot take: every single fear, at its core, can be defined by either knowledge or ignorance of a certain thing.
BURIED
Knowledge: fear that originates from the knowledge of being trapped in a place far too small - and the subsequent knowledge of your own impossibility to escape. you know you won’t be able to breathe, you know you will inevitably die.
Ignorance: fear that is fuelled by the absence of knowledge regarding your surroundings, your condition - you don’t know how much longer you will have, you don’t know how to get out, you don’t know how to fight the natural instinct that makes you panic.
CORRUPTION
Knowledge: fear that originates from knowing exactly what disease and filth (in every possible sense of the words) can bring, believing that you won’t be able to fight them because they are made to survive and prosper in decay.
Ignorance: also fuelled by not knowing exactly what lies therein. what hides behind the surface, what horrors might be eating away at any given thing while you are unable to either notice or do anything to help.
DARK
Knowledge: knowing that there may be something and that you would not be able to realise until it was certainly too late. knowing that you cannot rely on your own sense - especially considering how most abled people lean on sight more than any other sense.
Ignorance: this is the most obvious one - this fear is fuelled by the utter ignorance of what might be hiding in the shadows. not knowing where you’re going, what you’re heading towards... there’s a reason why this is the most common fear among children, and one of the oldest entities.
DESOLATION
Knowledge: knowing that there is no reason for your suffering, that all you have built might come crumbling down in flames at any given moment, knowing what you can lose. desolation isn’t all about fire, but rather destruction (which manifests in various ways) and what is the point in destroying something if people don’t know and suffer from it? and if we want to consider fire in particular, what’s more frightening that know you will hurt terribly before eventually dying?
Ignorance: the fear of burning and not knowing how to stop. how to make the pain go away, perhaps, or how to stop the senseless destruction. again, a very instinctive reaction to go with one of the oldest fears.
END
Knowledge: i will keep this one brief. knowing you will inevitably die, of course, knowing you can’t escape your fate and being slowly driven to madness by this hopeless escape attempt (hey there jonah)
Ignorance: NOT knowing when you’re going to die! not knowing how, or why or what will happen afterwards. is there an afterlife, doomed to end as well? or is everything just going to stop?
EYE
Knowledge: knowing someone might be watching you, spying on you, accessing your secrets, invading your privacy, a fear that is fuelled by knowing and that THRIVES on knowing.
Ignorance: of course, NOT knowing if any of this is true, not knowing what might be watching is at the base of the beholding. not knowing if you’re being followed, falling into paranoia without being able to help, the constant feeling of someone looking at you, even though you can’t prove it. i think that the fear of not being believed and trusted (and not being able to trust or believe in return) is also very close to the eye, although it overlaps with the spiral.
FLESH
Knowledge: this fear is thought to be relatively new, and is born out of animals’ fear of being bred for meat (besides being killed and treated brutally throughout their entire life, which would probably give anyone nightmares to last forever) we don’t know for sure how aware they are, but there is the definite knowledge of being led to slaughter. besides, humans have brought that fear to a new level as they started to realise that there may be no deep meaning behind life - the realisation that there is no real difference between humans and animals, that we are all made of meat and bones.
Ignorance: but of course, no one knows quite WHEN that will happen, nor how (and we circle back to the end here).
HUNT
Knowledge: knowing you’re being followed, stalked, hunted. knowing there’s something behind you or around you who is set on hurting you - and that there is nothing you can do about it. i would love to examine how fears are, deep down, based on the loss of control (and either the knowledge of this loss or the ignorance of how to regain it)
Ignorance: not knowing who’s there, what they want, what you might do to prevent them from hurting you. not knowing how far away they are, or where to go to hide and escape.
LONELY
Knowledge: knowing you are alone, forgotten, knowing nothing you can do will change this status. knowing your name will eventually die with you, the fear of never being remembered. alternatively, knowing that no matter how many people you surround yourself with, you’ll still feel that bone-deep ache of loneliness following you. knowing you will eventually resort to isolating yourself, no matter how counterproductive that may be.
Ignorance: not knowing if anyone around you actually cares, if they would even notice your disappearance. not being sure of how to connect - not knowing if it will even work at this point. the lonely thrives on ignorance, whether of one’s self-worth or trust in others.
SLAUGHTER
Knowledge: knowing that someone might just... flip, i suppose, and commit brutal acts of unmotivated violence. knowing there may be someone who wants to hurt you, or anyone else. it is a fear of pain coming at random times, without any explanation, and as such the knowledge that this might happen makes up a big part of it.
Ignorance: as we said for the hunt, this fear also feeds off people not knowing how to prevent all of this, how to hide and protect themselves. not knowing how to make others see reason, how to make them “come back” from whatever violent frenzy they appear to be in.
SPIRAL
Knowledge: this this THIS. this fear IS knowledge and ignorance both, knowing you can’t trust anyone and anything, yourself and your senses included. it feeds off you knowing you might be deluding yourself, knowing everything could be a lie, but it’s greatest strength is never letting you be certain.
Ignorance: at the same time, the distortion works because you do not know what lies behind a smile, because you can never be sure that things are quite the way they appear. it’s not knowing if you can believe your own eyes, not knowing if you’re going mad.
STRANGER
Knowledge: oh well. the stranger is the literal fear of KNOWING something isn’t right, like coming back home and finding everything has been moved slightly to the left, and maybe no one else seems to notice but you.
Ignorance: but the greatest strength of the stranger is the absence of knowledge it provokes. not knowing if the person in front of you is real, not being able to tell why someone doesn’t look right (the entire uncanny valley response)
VAST
Knowledge: knowing you’re lost someplace where no one will find you, the fear of knowing you’re falling and being unable to stop it. in a broader sense, knowing your life may be meaningless, insignificant.
Ignorance: not knowing quite how deep the sea might be, or how long you have been falling for (nor how high you are). not knowing how to avoid getting lost, in every possible sense.
WEB
Knowledge: knowing you might find yourself being manipulated, the knowledge that you wouldn’t probably recognise it, that you’re trapped and cannot move.
Ignorance: not knowing if you’re acting based on your own decisions, or if someone else is moving you, like a puppet with its strings. not being sure if you can trust your own judgement, or if you’re simply doing what others want you to do.
#the magnus archives#tma#jonathan sims#jonny sims#magnuspod#jon sims#jonmartin#martin blackwood#jarchavist#hot takes on smirke’s fourteen
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Season 3 notes popping off
due to my desire to not completely fail all my classes this year i made myself slow down significantly while listening to this season, and the fact that the other person i'm listening along with had to catch up. We've managed to convert several other people to start listening and its pretty great.
ep 81: what does it even mean to be chosen by one of them? And if he was chosen by the eye. we know Gertrude wasnt? Because she cut the eyes out of the magazines?
ep 82: elias lmao. I understand why people like him so much bahshdhdk i thought he was gonna snitch on Jon but he didnt so he's fine. Ok but how do we think he knew all that stuff. Idk probably just institute connections. I love the fact that the recorder just wants to record stuff randomly bjahsjdhd. Elias feels a lot like Michael in the sense that he knows more than he should and talks in a way that implies he just wants to wait and see how things play out for his own benefit. I understand him knowing the things that happened but his description of her emotions implies something paranormal. Maybe he's connected to one of the entities. Which one I cannot guess.
ep 83: did a file get delivered randomly to the place he's staying at? Probably elias lmao. He thinks the mannequin is related to the stranger. Idk I would believe it.
ep 84: worms? I know he says earth worms but idk. Again? Is she making gordon golems out of trash? Martin popping off. You can tell the statements get to him more that they get to Jon. How come martin is so mad about it? I want to assume he just doesnt want her to get stuck there but idk. Jude Perry. The calliope organ. Jon heard a circus in one of the last episodes
ep 89: he's talking to perry? Like jude Perry? He says ... God? Is that what it is? Lmao. The Desolation. Jon is tired of ppl being vague and not telling him stuff lmao. Oh God Jon is so confused. Compel her? Is she assuming he has some kind of power? Does he have powers? Hmm. im agreeing with jon here please jesus christ why does everyone have to be so cryptic. Just say what you mean. "maybe you get an itchy eye" bahasjkdfklsjdf girl what. Agnes saved her? Oh this is the girl from the cafe story? So theres the Cult of the Lightless Flame? They worship whatever entity this is? The Desolation? Why do they all seem like they sorta worship her then? Is Gretchen gonna die oh god. fuckin michael. a different michael aaah. i see. dont do it shes gonna burn you. sir. please. sir dont you dare do- WHAT DID I SAY what did you think was gonna happen hhh.
ep 90: try to make it less obvious you're trying to get fired big T. Elias that doesnt sound like the most healthy thing to do. oh dear is this gonna be triggering for me. uuuuuh. uuuuuuuuuh. doesnt seem like it ok gonna keep listening. Jared. hmmmmm. Ok we've seen Keay and hotner or whatever his name was.
ep 91: Michael Crew. Oh is this the lightning scar guy. Mister jon sir did you just die. No? God everyone is so fuckin cryptic. Say normal things please. They all just like to go on about pain and agony and j e s u s c h r i s t we get it you got hurted by whatever thing. So theyre avatars? question mark? Jude Perry is an avatar of The Desolation? hhhh fractals. thats a spiral thing innit. Yup. messing with your perceptions. God they all talk about feeding their god and feeding that which feeds them and. hh what does that meann. Leave big J. please. uh oh. is it daisy? how come he has the web lighter still? the tape recorder just turns on sometimes you know how it is. So he can compel people? not that he knows it obviously but. a bit wack. powers go brr i guess? If the eye just wants knowledge i guess he feeds it by getting the statements? b/c i doubt it wants him to murder ppl or whatever.
ep 92: elias you all knowing fuck what do you know. (i guess all given what i just said) Lukas. Heard of them before. Mordecai Lukas. Loneliness. The lonely even. Jonah Magnus. Elias ur sounding like a bit of a dickhead rn. lmao jon's just like "i dont care" elias what is ur deal. Why does he want to tie her in. ohh i see. lmao theyre all just like "elias why" The Unknowing lol seems very much like something the eye wouldnt like. lol elias is gettin all philosophical. what does it really mean to be human. this still doesnt answer why gertrude wanted to destroy the archives tho.
ep 93: bahsjdfh he seems so dead inside rip. awww admiral. i love him already. ghh breacon and hope. purple mold. doesnt sound like anything we've seen so far. I think the funniest explanation for breacon and hope is that they dont actually serve the stranger they just kinda happen to be a random neutral party that cart around random spooky entity related stuff. ooooh. when we hear the slight static of the tape recorder it's cuz he's compelling ppl.
ep 94: the end! listen man they were all just grayed up for 4/13.
ep 95: the end also? death but also savagery/ animalistic shit. aww martin. lmao becerra. she's just been chillin in the corner.
ep 96: return to sender. haha minecraft go brr. prediction: breacon and hope? yup there we go. jon why is there an echo. are you in a stairwell? is he gonna eat it- yup. how did i call it. unsure abt what theyre talking about but ok. they kidnapped someone? Sarah Baldwin. ooooh that guy.
ok im just putting this here so i have notes for when nicholas gets to this part. It seems like (from jon's conversation with jude perry) that the desolation and the eye are kinda at odds with eachother? like i guess not directly but it seems like they dont really vibe? so how could be with both. Cuz if he has the heat powers and shit then we know he's an avatar of the desolation. but then why does he have so much eye imagery. also he got burned intentionally? like jude did when she went on her monologue about the feeling of burning? but then why did he wear the eye pendant. it stops him from being burned all the way which seems like he's not fully accepting the fire or whatever.
Nooooo I lost like a bunch of my notes rip. I keep forgetting to save.
Ep 104: tim gives a coherent statement without jon even being there. Ugh. Fucking robert smirk. Dont like him. Joey. Dont recognize the name. The show must go on. Clown. The spooky circus?
ep 105: total war... shogun 2? jon is just understanding languages again. "if i understood mandarin or cantonese" are you sure you dont big man?
ep 106: havent we heard this one already? mans in space? oh no this is just another episode in space. fairchild... uuuh. cant remember. oh! this is related to that! this is one of the ppl from the other side. sounds like a Vast thing. oh he's the one that the dude saw? but that guy didnt have a face... she's sorta like jon. wanting to dismiss the statements. lmao i love the workplace gossip. ace jon for the win! oh cmon elias dont be a dick. sunny meadows or whatever. thats the place we heard about.
ep 107: oh great is it jude perry again. Third Degree. bahahsdkfj she was arrested. sorry but imagining this old british lady getting arrested is funny. she was trying to resurrect him. using the skin book. he's not feeling well. jon take a nap. i wonder if this is what happens when he uses his powers too much. He gets into The Zone when he reads statements lol. didn't we have a burning train car in anothre statement? is it julia fairchild? bahahahs "kidnapped. Again." poor jon honestly. julia... about her dad. daughter of the murder shed guy? hunting like your dad liked to hunt or normal people hunting. oh hunting vampires!
ep 108: melanie has been suffering. poor martin peter lukas why do you have to be like this. can he not just use the front door? does he have to bother the ppl doing statements?
ep 109: how come he cut her off? kinda rude tbh. its either jon's influence or there was smth he didnt want her saying. is it gerard on the table? this sounds kinda like smth from one of the university episodes. is it the closed eye on the hand? yup. he's like one of the students! if the thing listening in is elias then... he can do that without the tape recorder yknow. plus who's to say it wont just turn itself on again
110: who wants to bet its a leitner?
111: Lukas related to The Lonely. I used to not like Gerard that much but i like him more now. but i thought there were 15? ohhh thats right isnt flesh newer? gerry for the win honestly. finally telling jon things.
112: lol "again" no one ever tells any of these ppl anything. tim and basira are just out of the loop constantly. music, like the war episodes. The hunt or the slaughter? probably the hunt. so Daisy is related to the hunt right? basira likes the reading, she's doing fine at the institute. daisy's getting worried...
113: it just turned on randomly. what is it lol. explossives! oh boy. why do they always assume he turned it on intentionally. melanie youre not making me like you that much. which entity is this about i cant tell. lol he was disappointed it was just the end. The title Breathing Room made me think it was gonna be about the buried but i guess not. So many of these entities deal with death but the end is one that deals in just death. it has no need for fancy deaths, just death is enough
114: more hilltop road statements? the tree. oh boy. ok the tree has 8 arms obviously theres the spider parallels. was she taken into an alternate universe? oh no. jon tries to phrase things so he's not asking questions. thats honestly good. "sometimes i was kidnapped" oh dear. they got gertrude. daisy ur so odd lmao. who wants to bet they dont know the tape recorder's running?
115: silaca? or whatever? antique man? meat grinder... related to the meat is meat episode? oh wow. they buy antiques from him. maybe dont antagonize this creature which can kill you?
116: lol theyre all just so done with elias. music? is it like the one band that if you hear them you die or wtvr. oh its chess? i am very much confused. mmm stranger go brr. gorilla skin? oh shit the dance. woah. this is so good. this is so gender. the words are wonderful. "you can just say tim" lmao trying to fool elias never feels like a good idea.
117: except elias lmaoo. oh shit. leitner getting some use for once idk. bruuh poor melanie she has been thru so much shit. martin you can just say youre worried about jon. lol he's so accurate in his jon impression. lol who was that. was that daisy? lmaoo. oop hi tim. oh god i hope tim doesnt die. i feel like i wouldve heard about that? but im not sure. destroying the source of knowledge is gonna be hard for jon. yay jon! you did a good thing. let him rest.
118: go off martin lmao. awww poor martin. oh god the tape gets that squealy quality and its awful.
119: woah. lots of things happening. uhh. POP OFF TIM!!
120: lmao elias giving a statement about jon's dreams lol. damn jon doesnt even get his own dreams? has to stay Watching even when he's asleep? f in the chat this man goes thru so much shit. oh boy its peter. lol martin my beloved. idk i dont trust peter.
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And again here are more theories and opinions about the magnus archives from my brother
The corruption is one of the "four horsemen"
War and conquest are the military ghosts, and the desolation
Famine and pestilence is the buggy bois
Death is the end, duh
The corruption is colonisation basically
Elias is against having a cat, because they are too powerful, he was very serious about this
Centipedes have a masochistic foot fetish, millipedes have a normal one, don't ask
The woman in Dead Woman Walking is just a Zombie
Is the Woman a victim of the Book of Death from MAG 70
Georgie is a ghosty hunty person
Georgie and Melanie don't seem to be afraid of anything
The Italian mountain troops would have known they were being fucked with
More undead
Reminded him sort of the Meat Men
Also reminded him of the buried on the London underground
The mysterious firing squad intrigued him, did all the men that went up the mountain come back to kill him?
Basira is Drax from gotg
She'll randomly appear and no one will know she's there until she speaks
The chuckle brothers origin story, he means Breekon and Hope
Didn't think the circus had anything to do with the stranger
Breekon and Hope are taxidermy
So they're with the stranger
The Stranger is just everything that doesn't fall under something else
The circus was it's own thing
The cult of the lightless flame is it's own thing
The people's Church of the devine host is it's own thing
The circus is just full of people who you don't know, if you do know them that's sad... He was kinda rambling at this point
Is Sarah Baldwin capable of being bored
Why was she working with Melanie?
Do you just take a liking to ghost people
Did you take them over before of after they were eaten.
The Buried is called The London underground
Is it the Fairchild's? Thinks they're about isolation
Thinks it might be a book
The pit could be an Antlion
Thought that the young woman who was eaten by the pit turned into Gertrude
The young man could be, Gerry, Martin, Salesa, young Jon, Elias.
Thinks The stranger is vanilla in terms of gods and monsters.
The stranger is the least interesting.
Thinks all the Stranger wants to do is just summon a god
For some reason he thinks the Dark should be doing more to stop them, because Rayner wouldn't want that to happen
Martin will rap battle the archive to victory, via poetry from Leitners books
The stranger could just be Lego
He's horny for Rayner, his words not mine
Mr. Sandman brought him a dream
Thinks that the Dark at least can get to their gods dimension but choose not to.
If you make everywhere dark does their god appear?
He asked what would happen if two factions tried to summon their god at the same time what would happen
Thinks that all the Avatars /Entities do the same thing.
Breekon and hope have never killed anyone
Maxwell Rayner is a time travelling shadow demon
Mr sandman is like an angry sandy from Rotg
He made this episode unnecessarily kinky
They're just summoning gods
The stranger is remarkably being left alone
Thinks there is no fighting between factions
If anything they're aided
Is the Fairchild's entity already here
Are they working with the other factions
Says he knows whats going to happen because he "knows how these things go"
The Beholding is already on this side and if another God is summoned then it will be booted
Elias killed Gertrude because she was trying to defeat the Beholding and if it was defeated he would turn into the same thing as below the Library in Alexandria
There were three versions of the unknowing that he thought of
Destroying the concept of identity, the unknowing destroys the concept of personality, individuality, and identity. Turning them into Stranger worshipping entities
The angler fish was the thing in the basement at the Taxidermy shop
Stranger just means it couldn't get any stranger
Or it's deliberate parodies of humans
Breekon and Hope were normal people
Salesa, the chuckle brothers, the meat man, the skin walkers, the taxidermist, the manquien, Not-Sasha, the architects, the circus and to some extent the witches are part of the stranger
Magnus is a stranger that took over Elias
He also thinks Elias is just Magnus who found out how to stick around for a while
But Elias isn't the archive god like he first thought
The twisted detergent is Michael's new entity
Michael is like Loki if he didn't have a brother
The stranger is the big bad
Jon is an idiot, he's a bit slow
His second theory for the unknowing is that It's just going to destroy all knowledge revolving the Elder gods, hence the unknowing, the one he thought the least likely
And third, It somehow increases their powers so that the few people that would recognise them, no longer do. Levelling up in short. Thinks it would work for every entity
Doesn't think The Unknowing would be that big of a shift
The circus and the stranger were different because the Circus dealt with the "Freak show"
Thinks Rayner isn't dead
Dust devils
Dirt zombies
Has only made the connection between the Underground, the pit and the dust storm
Was the kid in the car Michael
Was Michael always the Spiral but just really liked working with Gertrude
Michael is the Spiral, he doesn't worship anything
Elias took Gertrude from him, now he's after revenge
Jon should go chill with everyone at the Archive
Jon should have a sword
While you were busy not having a paranoid breakdown I studied the blade
Michael has a crush on Gertrude
He has a granny kink, he is obsessed with making it all kink related
Michael originally gave his powers away to be with Gertrude
Michael took on this form because he could blend in or brag
He's a monster with a thing for Gertrude
Michael wasn't the same Michael as in the tape
Just trying to trick everyone
Lynne Hammond was lying, goes in line with the church of the lightless flame but it didn't happen
Maybe she heard something similar but it didn't actually happen to her, she was just trying to get some money
He actually feels bad for Tim
Tim should run
John Smith was half telling the truth.
People are in the tunnel's but it's not a government conspiracy
Tim doesn't deserve this
You can tell Basira is used to dealing with idiots
Liked that it cut out when Robin Lennox said let me start again, it's like the archive was trying to make it stop
Thinks the archive doesn't care what is being read to it, someone should read it the Lord of the Ringd
The archive is recording the tape recorders not Elias
Get the dog out
Michael was the crying man, he wanted the dog out
He doesn't want to hurt the dog
"Gertrude why did you leave me? I'll get you one day Elias" based on his Michael granny kink theory
Brian Finlinson was the most coherent in terms of links
Thinks that the spiders were actually there, hiding whenever anyone came around
Lynne is lying, John Smith is half telling the truth, Robin Lennox saw Michael having a breakdown, Brian Finlinson was telling the truth
He didn't remember Peter Lukas ever being mentioned before
Already shipping Peter and Elias
Michael is very sensitive
The Fairchild's and the Lukas' are working together
They don't seem to have an interest in the conflict going on between everyone else
The Fairchild's were in aerospace and Lukas was the ships
Still cthulhu
Even space had a cthulhu vibe
The depth of the ocean or the isolation of space
The Lukas and the archive are working together
There are some of these guys that don't want the entities on this side
Likes the power, doesn't want the full on entities here
The Lukas and the Fairchild's are the cthulhus
They're somewhat working with the archive/the beholding
Is Elias actually a Lukas? Decided yes because he and Peter are married
How much do the Lukas have to do with the Beholding
What sort of arrangement do they have?
Nikola was supposed to be part of the circus but there is a difference between the facimalies and the circus
Thinks that the archive burning down would have no downsides for the Beholding.
They'll summon a god and gazing upon it will kill everyone, everyone dies.
As he was now halfway through the series he explained who he thought was in each of these factions
The beholding, Elias, Martin, Tim, basira, daisy, sims, melanie, sasha, Rosie, Gertrude, leitner. Sasha is caught in a time loop...
The stranger, everyone, has no limits, The maniquein, the taxidermy, the circus, skin walkers, grifters bone, breekon and Hope, angler fish
The desolation, the cult of the lightless flame, Jims pims aka Jude Perry, Agnes,
People's Church of the divine host, Rayner, Rayner have something to do with the German crypt, Rayner Is also not dead
The diggy boys, the buried, Maggie and Gordon from the dump, dig dude from Dig, whatever was going on with the pit, and the dust storm.
Meat, no recurring. The haans that's it.
Buggy boys, spiders, Jane prentiss
Michael, the twisting deceit, the twisting deceit just is Michael, didn't exist before him
The leitners, the witches are using the books, Gérard, Mike crew,
Cthulhu collective, the lukas', the Fairchild's. Both are just isolation, the Fairchild's are all about being alone, the only time the Lukas have turned up are being alone either in space or at sea
The witches, Mary Keay, puzzle witch, have big crossover with the Leitners, they just have some of leitners books
Trevor is his own entity, is he part of the desease and corruption group
The architects, smirke, smirkes apprentice.
Jared is his own thing. Just found a self help book
It's a giant celestial orgy!
Also Came up with a random spinoff comedy again
Slowly the archive collects strange people
Michael, who is mourning Gertrude... Loudly
They found a worm in the tunnel left over from Prentiss
The worm loves gooseberries
That's Elias, we're not sure what he is
Thats the Admiral, it is a cat.... It runs the place
Rayner is sat in the corner giggling
Leitner started a microbrewery in the basement
Serves bud leitner, you can't get leitner than this
#He keeps coming up with sitcom ideas#the magnus archives#the magnus archives spoilers#tma#tma spoilers#The magnus archives theories
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Tma relisten Episodes 6-10
(Still really long)
Alot of really important details that are going to be very relevant later on. Very facinating how early on you find these out. Relistens are good.
Episode 6 squirm
It's a good thing tma doesn't do much of sexual encounters and their connection to entities. While I'm sure that's a thing that in any realistic universe would exist avoiding it was a good choice. This statement was *shudder*
Interesting that she had no visible mark on her. Also being repulsed by police stations because the sectioned officers could have helped.
Naked in the streets after lighting his apartment on fire. What an image.
So technically the worms were in the archives 3 times: when Jane made her first statement, when Timothy hodge made his and when Jane attacked. The worms are very familiar with the magnus institute.
"This story is concerning. Not because of Mr. Hodge’s experience, although I’m sure it was very upsetting." ace Jon talking very technical about "experiences"
" though obviously it’s a tragic loss of life, etcetera, etcetera." Jon being Jon.
Ecdc are aware of Jane and corruption typical attacks which is off the bat interesting world building.
He's skeptic here because of lack of evidence but does admit the existence of a threat in Jane Prentiss
Also! He knows of her from before probably when he was a researcher. This confused me on first listen because I was trying to remember if she was ever mentioned before this. But she wasn't.
Episode 7 the piper
Wilfred kind of sounds like martin in some way but maybe it's just me assigning poetry to anyone like him.
But he hated apathy which might be very Martin like
Gentle sadness and creeping fear from the music. For violence of war... Is that what it means to immortalize it?
It's really cool that the concept of music in this podcast is associated specifically with war and unwarranted violence. There's a very strong statement in there somewhere that needs to be explored.
God this statement was intense. Lying for such a long time in that trench surrounded by violent death. But what's most interesting is that this statement doesn't feel like a supernatural one and yet... The piper was with Wilfred throughout the various battles and bouts of violence until the moment it was officially over. But in a very subtle way.
The description of the piper is really intense with the 3 faces. I think I missed it the first time but hearing that representation of war and fear is something I'm going to look for in artistic depictions now.
Wait. Who is Joseph Rayner? I know of Maxwell but never heard of Joseph.a victim instead of Wilfred? Collaborator with the Slaughter? Hmmm
I wonder how Accidental it was that the statement from 1922 was filed in the 2000s. Maybe to show that the piper never really leaves and the war never really ends. Ever.
Episode 8 burned out
Wow Hilltop Road already! I forgot how many of the first episodes were so important to the plot later on.
"That side of the road backed onto South Park with fences marking the bottom of each garden." this is wrong btw. Hilltop Road in Oxford does not run along Sount Park but is perpendicular to it, meeting it in the corner with Divinity Road which meets with Morrell Avenue which is the road running along South Park. Just FYI because I had to look this up to get a good picture. But I guess Morrell doesn't sound as exciting as Hilltop (which isn't even at the top of the hill smh)
Ivo lensik describes Raymond fielding as white which makes me automatically think he is not. Just a thought that popped in my mind.
Huh. His family had a history of schizophrenia. And his dad was obsessed with fractals. Being followed by The spiral (all the bones are in his hands) was also part of this story really interesting.
Agnes had mousy brown hair and looked like Raymond! Not red hair ( at least at first) like I pictured. Also she was a hell of a creepy child...
So did he time travel? Seeing the moments of Raymond's end? Seems like time doesn't work right in that place anyway.
Web person being devout church goer is also an interesting touch
Father Edwin Burroughs! I forgot he was here too! The knock reminded me of Mr Spider *shiver*
The priest explaining that the church exorcized demons but what not decisive if ghosts exist was hilarious. Jon dismisses paranormal but asks Martin if he's a ghost is opposite of the church.
Hmmm the web pushing him to cut the tree to uncover box from antique table...
Apple full of spiders ugh. Maybe something web was trapped in there by Desolation and ivo managed free it as Agnes was dying.
"We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree." wow that's an obscure thing to find well done Martin!
Jon still looks for credence for this story despite the schizophrenia that could leave him skeptical.
"while I trust Mr. Lensik’s testimony of his own experiences about as far as I can throw a bleeding tree," again Jon with his special brand of jokes.
Episode 9 a Father's love
The Montauk's story! I always thought their family had one of the most tragic ones. The hunt is a really cruel patron with its forced hunger and having other entities use them as tools.
Julia telling the truth of the story to the Magnus Institute instead of the police is also heartbreaking. How desperate and alone she must have felt drowned in that awful literally unbelievable story. The magnus institute feeds off of those people too.
So many of the hunt end up in police it's just... Such a strong statement against that establishment. What do we do to make that less of a horrible, unjust, all consuming system? That feeds on the hunger of some and the abject fear of others? And it doesn't have to be supernatural. It's interesting how season five, of all seasons, is the one that gave us that perspective. The non supernatural one on the subject while the world itself is so far away from the natural. God everything about this idea is so heavy and painful.
I kind of hate Julia's fate because of her background and how much alot of its beginning was out of her control. It's like Daisy. The hunt can never be forgiven no matter how compulsive it is.
The dark that took her mother turned her into part of it? Like the dark liquid?
A dark room to develop his photos of his victims huh? A play on words here.
Oooh they put a heartbeats in the soundscape really cool actually.
So Montauk killed other dark members that tried to leave? For the ritual? Like Julia's mother?
The hunt compelled him to keep the hearts as trophies? which is very self destructive of the hunt to do. Or is it part of the dark ritual with the sacrifices that the heart had to be kept?
I think Montauk was trying to slow down the ritual as revenge that night, rendering the sacrifices he helped create useless. Which is why pitch came after them that night and dissappeared once Montauk finished his ritual.
Sourcing the Serial killer enthusiast community. Love that the archives use whatever source of info they can access.
So Maxwell dissappeared in 1994 from public eye land yet the cult kept working towards a ritual. But now in secret? Their timeline always confused me.
Episode 10 vampire killer
I never noticed Trevor came right after Julia! Oooh this is so much connecting the dots so early on!
Vampires are so disturbing here makes you ever wonder how the hell media like twilight were ever created. But hehe the monster ****er community has always been a vibrant one. Not these vampires tho.
Trevor is so sassy I love his statements. Like Julia it really makes me sad how consumed he became at the end and how awful his death was. Once again the tragedy of the Hunt.
"I taught myself to read, I read as much on the subject as I could, and it isn’t covered often or clearly in those books I have found." can you imagine what kinds of books he might have found during the sexy vampire Era? This is a hilarious picture to paint.
So vampires feed off of blood and not fear which is an interesting creature to have in this kind of universe. Although hunters are also like that but there is still alot of fear and awareness involved with that while the vampires try to conceal themselves until the last moment.
There's alot of mosquito imagery in these vampires which is... Ugh
Also interesting how many time Trevor just uses the vampire's full name. Never shortened and never talked about in another title. Sylvia McDonald this Sylvia McDonald that. Also the other vampire. They always had a name that was psychicly imposed on the victims to be remembered fully. Very Stranger behavior.
Ahhhh the one vampire weakness... Drrrugs.
It's also very flammable which sets interesting precedence to setting unnatural things on fire to make them disappear.
Alard dupont comes in a later statement right? Yeah in 56
Martin was there when the statement was given which was 2010 and in 2016 he's 29 so he worked there for a while! At least since age 23 perhaps we'll find out even earlier. And he was still scared to be found under qualified after all this time! Oof...
I wonder how draining it is to give a statement that it kills someone who is sick.
The government is in on this! Looking for the teeth Trevor gave the institute... Somehow that strikes me as hilarious in the world building of this podcast. And it really leaves Jon no choice but to concede that there is something to the statement even if he refuses to use the term vampire like Trevor did so freely.
#Pfft i was so into this one i forgot to tag#Tma#jonathan sims#Tma hiatus liveblog#magnuspod#julia montauk#trevor herbert#Jane Prentiss#The magnus archives#hilltop road
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FEAR ENTITIES: CAN YOU FUCK IT?
the eye: you probably cannot fuck the eye itself because its whole deal is that it just kind of looks at you, but it could certainly watch. you can definitely fuck an avatar of the eye because they seem to basically just be regular people in varying levels of crazy & evil but like emotionally, imagine the toll. feasible, just not very appealing.
the spiral: i’m not gonna stop anybody from wanting to have sexual relations with mike or helen because you could probably make it work physically if you really went for it. however, you might have a harder time hooking up with an infinite hallway, or the concept of gaslighting. people seem pretty horny for this one but as someone who values honest communication, i’d suggest you give it some thought first
the lonely: it’s literally the fear of being alone. what are you gonna do, jack off into a fog bank? get real
the end: you’ll die
the stranger: i guess it’s possible if you can figure out how to bone down with a mannequin or some taxidermy or whatever. people probably want to fuck nikola orsinov although because i’m a normal person i don’t see the appeal of banging, like, a twee british harley quinn. who’s also an evil mannequin. she does have a pretty snappy outfit but do you remember the last time you saw genitals on a mannequin? you could just do hand stuff but do you really crave the cool embrace of hard plastic? if you can make that work you’re already operating on a whole nother level
the desolation: well you certainly can’t fuck Fire 2: The Scarier Fire That Hurts You Even More, so i guess you’d have to try hooking up with one of its avatars but like. they’re made of runny wax (weird), they never shut the fuck up about how cool & sexy it is to get burned alive which is personally not my thing and also that one guy kissed agnes montague and got his entire face burned off. i don’t know why you’d want to do this one unless you’re also horny for getting burned alive in which case, take a hike
the slaughter: you’re horny for war now? you’re horny for the concept of senseless death by violence? fine, alright, maybe you could hook up with somebody being influenced by the slaughter but there’s a non-zero chance they’d kill you at some point so unless you love dying this one’s probably not the best choice
the vast: try as you might, you simply cannot fuck an impossibly huge expanse of any kind. michael crew seemed kind of normal apart from the throwing people off buildings so you could PROBABLY sex up an avatar of the vast if you felt like it but i get the feeling that they all get their kicks exclusively from like, launching people into space. they dont have time for you. you cant fuck the vast and also it’s not even sexy. get out of my office
the buried: maybe you can try sticking your dick in some dirt or something, i don’t know. maybe the asphyxiation is the appeal but is getting your lungs filled up with mud really the sexiest way to do that. i can ALMOST see how somebody could find this one sexy but it seems kind of difficult to accomplish and not very fun. next
the dark: here we go. i can see you right now about to start typing on your awful keyboard that you are going to fuck mr. pitch and i cannot stop you from doing so and i will tell you right now that you are welcome to try, but that you are an idiot, a fool, and the exact kind of sick twisted individual i DON’T tolerate in my home. are you going to fuck some sand that blinds you? are you going to fuck DARKNESS? you can’t. fuck off.
the corruption: no matter how much you beg & plead i will not give you my blessing to make jane prentiss your wormwife. you will get fucked all full of worms and you will explode and die. you’ll get three million std’s. you’ll get CRABS. and you’ll get a nasty black mold on your bathroom ceiling. inadvisable
the web: see the thing about this one is that i can see why you might want to fuck it. i know mind control does it for some people & maybe getting cocooned in a spider web and/or eaten by a big spider is kind of a fetish for somebody. fine. whatever
the flesh: probably one of the least difficult to accomplish. you could fuck some meat OR you could hook up with an awful homunculus specifically reshaped by a twisted fleshwizard for the purpose of fuckin’. it might even be nice. i wouldn’t necessarily hit it myself but you can if you feel like it i guess
the hunt: hm. if being hunted for sport gets you going or perhaps if your significant other is a compulsive monster-hunter but otherwise normal, it’s not too bad of a choice. stay safe though
the extinction: you can’t fuck global warming.
#beep boop#magnusposting#long post .#posting this instead of going on a tear about tv misogyny again
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Sasuhina month: Day 2 - Vampire AU
She had never been a girl who was particularly easy to frighten.
Despite the countless strange happenings that came to pass all throughout her life, that single emotion was not in a habit of grasping her senses as effortlessly as it normally would another’s
It was deceptive, its malevolent nature demanded it mercilessly present itself within long intervals of sobriety before it was ready to take possession of her body with the timing impeccable to destroy her.
Her mother’s death was perhaps the first time she had become aware of it, the phantom layer freezing her skin that paralyzed her digits and limbs from making a single move, the frenetic beating of her frantic heart that echoed resoundingly through her head as it degraded all other sounds into haunting white noise, the hazy lightheadedness that blurred her surroundings with foggy mist, the painful constriction of her struggling lungs preventing her from drawing breath.
It was akin to dying with no injury marring her body, helplessness and despair unlike anything that could be properly articulated spreading suffocatingly along her veins as easily as her blood did.
Indeed, it had managed to surge deep beneath her skin imprinting the terrifying essence of its existence into the very depths of her psyche.
It was only natural then, that not many further occurrences even began to elicit an inkling of that sentiment from her.
The stern light that constantly dominated her father’s eyes as it concealed his perpetual sorrow, the deafening silence separating her from her cousin’s glacial hatred, and the flickering glimpses of loneliness that would dim her little sister’s gaze from time to time might have as well been her only exceptions.
She acknowledged with unhidden honesty, that only they could command the apparition of a fraction of the terror she had experienced that day.
It was more amusing than it sounded, truly. The world they lived in was a dauntingly enormous place, plagued with as many dangers, tragedies, and horrors as it was graced with joys, wonder and beauty. Sanity duly dictated an appropriate response and yet that fear simply refrained itself from manifesting.
For a woman who was blessed with the supernatural gift to harness the forces of nature and impose her will onto the environment, it was most inconvenient.
Witches, sorcerers, shamans, mages, whatever term society had fancied to label them with, did not change the intrinsic nature of their life.
And it was in fact ‘them’ she referred to as she was not alone in that unlikely endeavor. The reality that so many human beings unwillingly ignored was that paranormal creatures populated most of their created communities on all sectors across the globe in very great numbers, easily blending in and carrying on with their lives with them being none the wiser.
She had had the fortune of being conceived within an old and powerful family of practitioners that were bestowed with the uncanny ability to summon magic, a gift granted to her people by grace of their close connection to mother nature.
That wonderful favor had permitted them to secure a stable and safe stronghold within society, creating connections and planting their surname on the minds of young and old as their status and wealth continued growing steadily along with time.
It was an undeniable blessing she would be eternally grateful for, and a curse that nearly brought her own demise.
Witches were but one of the many species occupying that vast portion of land they proudly called their home, other abnormal entities wandering seamlessly through their cities and towns in their own masks and disguises with their own purposes and objectives, some even inclined to inflict violence upon those they considered lesser.
Ghouls, demons, specters, phantoms, beasts, lycanthropes, there was a myriad of beings her kind had long learned to be wary of through painful and tragic experience.
The words her grandmother used to share in passing, an old poem from her youth, often rang whisperingly like a mantra through her mind as her world had slowly began to shift with the foreboding arrival of her impending destiny “beware the shadows in the night, beware the darkness in the light. In times of long and dreadful fright, beware my child, beware my child. Do not stare into its eyes, windows holding blissful lies. Turn away into the bright, beware my child, beware my child.”
An old saying that had been passed around through word of mouth in times far back, when the undead would walk the earth and feed upon their prey with no restraint.
According to her grandmother, the woeful words had been first muttered long ago on a time unremembered, one somber rainy day following the tragic death of a young girl at the merciless hands of a vampire. That terrible event had filled countless hearts with aching grief and dreadful sorrow, culminating in a grand funeral that was widely held on the town square of what was now known as Sunagakure.
Amidst the echoing droplets splattering harshly against the grass, the figure of a woman dressed in black had stood in heartbreaking desolation before the pure white casket gently holding the child, the porcelain face resting opposite to her, utterly unblemished and beautiful, belonging to her one precious daughter, love of her life.
A silky black hat had seated above golden tresses obscuring her mourning visage as heavy tears slid softly, agonizingly along her skin, her fragile form trembling in affliction facing her nightmares finally coming to life. Her lips started moving once, moving twice, a song of melancholy flowing grievingly at last “Beware the shadows in the night, beware the darkness in the light. In times of long and dreadful fright, beware my child, beware mi child. Do not stare into its eyes, windows holding blissful lies. Turn away into the bright, beware my child, beware my child.”
It was a wish thrown to the wind, a song of apology and regret. One that was told among the witches to keep their eyes forever watchful, forever sound.
And yet, she had never been a girl who was particularly easy to frighten, having long learned to unintentionally disregard those solemn whispered words of warning.
It had not, in all honesty, been an attitude developed from rebellion or confinement as one would usually be inclined to believe, but the abrupt commencement of a strange and complicated tale that fiercely challenged those traditional conceptions.
Indeed, her life had unexpectedly been thrusted into a vortex of the unknown, a sordid journey of death and blood, of tears and laughter, of love and hatred.
And he, he had been the catalyst of it all. The boy with the golden locks and sky blue eyes, whose smile had managed to shine brighter than the very stars and whose gentle kindness had irrevocably stolen her heart from the very first moment of their meeting. The vampire-hybrid Naruto Uzumaki. The man tasked with the protection of the human girl Sakura Haruno, her very own best friend.
It had all seemed so surreal then, his rough voice weary as he informed them of an ancient prophecy foretold, the dismal grips of a fate that had unfairly enclosed around the young maiden of the verdant eyes and rose-colored tresses.
He had spoken with conviction, his gentle gaze and expressive features brimming with tender concern and ardent resolve as he shaped a chronicle of what their lives would soon become, and of the impending danger that lurked away in the approaching darkness ready to sink its starving fangs in their pale necks without hesitation, without mercy.
The rosette for her part, had naturally reacted with confusion and distrust of the boy.
Despite his tone and solemn bearing, the unexpected warning of an incoming invasion and impending danger arriving at their door had been in fact rather difficult to believe even for her at the time. The incident that transpired the following week, however, was more than enough corroboration that the vampire’s words were nothing but the truth.
A bloody confrontation with a cult of vampire zealots had violently seized them thoroughly unprepared, and the safe, ordinary world they had inhabited thus far, harshly crumbled to a complete collapse.
It had been a night like any night at some pub near university when an outing to relieve stress had abruptly turned into a gory bloodbath with the arrival of the homicidal creatures, tables breaking and corpses falling as no soul was spared from their malevolent carnage. In the unsuspecting chaos they had managed to successfully kidnap sakura leaving her valiant vampiric knight ruthlessly impaled to a wall to be slowly desecrated.
She could quite vividly recall the damp feeling permeating her stomach where a broken billiard pole had been viciously thrusted piercing though her intestines and right kidney, the consuming fatigue and drowning light-headedness pleading for eternal rest, gradually forcing her eyelids to close and her heart to stop its beating.
When she had finally come to, it had been several hours after. The first thing her sight had registered were tenebrous statues standing in a rustic victorian living room, blazing fire burning steadily on the chimney as it filled the space with its dim golden light.
Naruto had somehow managed to save her by feeding her a portion of his own blood, the scene of massacre playing starkly on the news as they observed with grim determination, unwilling to abandon the emerald-eyed girl to the undesirable outsiders.
It had been rather foolish at the time, to fight, just the two of them facing an entire dozen of bloodthirsty monsters with neither a plan nor the luxury of time to properly design one.
In the very depths of her mind, she had thoroughly anticipated for that crippling fear to finally make its appearance and viciously strangle her anxious heart as the worry for her treasured friend grew exponentially, and yet it had not come.
It had been a life-changing ordeal for all of them, most of all the human girl who had been previously unaware of the menacing creatures aiming strictly for her life.
That was how it had all begun, the three of them facing unimaginable dangers trying to protect each other and their town from the sinister forces that sought to bring domination upon them, encountering both trustful allies and threatening foes as their path had slowly continued to unfold.
Their once small faction had soon unintentionally began to grow. With each trial they faced and every enemy they battled, extraordinary members that were willing to trade their lives to protect the innocent from the forces of darkness easily fell into their ranks.
The loyal werewolf Kiba Inuzuka, the seductive witch Ino Yamanaka, the lethal hunter Kakashi Hatake, the genius vampire Shikamaru Nara, and the silent warlock Shino Aburame. They and many others, brave men and women who seamlessly managed to grow into something more…a sort of makeshift family…fragile…precious.
She supposed it had lied on them, the real reason her grandmother’s bittersweet words gently shrouded in melancholy were never able to fully reach her. The wonderful people she had encountered in that epic tale of hers had been the same kinds of creatures witches like her had long been warned never to befriend, never to approach.
The panoramic view of the colorful world around her had steadily crystalized into a dazzling image of immunity that even she forgot was synthetic, comfortably wrapping her with a blanket of invincibility that made her believe things would always go their way.
She had been naive.
The silky mantles of darkness had effectively hidden forces far beyond their blithe comprehension; terrible, ominous entities who wielded the power to casually grind their blissful reality into tiny fragments of perpetual horror and expose just how entirely and utterly vulnerable and insignificant they truly were.
It began with a name, an echoing whisper in the voices of the dead, a chant of terror that had long been sparingly divulged through the countless creatures of the night.
An obscure legend, a faceless phantom, a tale of nightmare too ludicrous to believe that had soon faded into the misty backgrounds of their minds, a severe mistake that almost costed them their lives.
Because that fear she was so impervious to, the chilling petrification of her very being, it had a name. One that had first revealed itself in rivers of flowing scarlet.
She would eternally remember that transcendental winter night, the flickering lights of the ceiling lamps dangling brokenly in the center of the spacious room, the shattered glass scattered violently across the maple wooden floor, the sturdy furniture harshly displayed in disregarding disarray, the pungent smell of iron in the glacial air, damp stains of crimson lining grotesquely the concrete walls.
Her eyes watered, oxygen struggling to enter her trembling body as her lungs traitorously ceased to function and her stomach twisted painfully from the revolting nausea.
There were bodies loitering motionlessly dispersed across the wide bloodstained room in a macabre simulation of a graveyard that nearly paralyzed her senses.
Short silky locks of golden hair stained red as a disfigured mesh of limbs and flesh rested fractured against the tarnished, fragmented wall.
A muscular brunette boy hovered viciously impaled to the brick formations of an auburn chimney with a black steel bar protruding insultingly from his chest.
An amputated arm gripped the the throat of another in a mocking gesture as his viscera spilled disgustingly from a brutal gash in his midsection.
The pale body of the fair witch rested sordidly petrified on a shallow crimson puddle spreading fluidly through the floor with no apparent injury gracing her creamy skin, yet her eyes remained wide open, teal irises somberly absent of life.
Her lavender gaze stared in unbridled horror, comprehension stumblingly escaping her processing mind and her heart beating frenziedly in painful contractions as she futilely tried to keep from hyperventilating.
Absurd. Ludicrous. The scene before her eyes could simply not be occurring under any circumstances, it was not possible. The desperate urge to cry and release her torment almost consumed her in its entirety as her fragile attention moved from body to body in a limbo of cognition; unwilling, thoroughly refusing to reconcile the images imposed onto her sight.
Only the damp periodic sound of liquid striking softly against solid ground managed to penetrate her separating bubble of distress. A haunting drip, drip, drip cut through the agonizing silence within the room with an ease that was almost ridiculing in intent, her terrified lilac eyes lifting hesitantly to capture pristine alabaster skin sharply illuminated by the abundant light of the moon.
Amidst the center of the gory chaos, indifferent to her rapidly deteriorating mental condition and the revolting carnage painting the floors in sickening red, a pair of orbs glowing vermillion clashed contrastingly against the thick, heavy curtains of shadows casted almost mocking in its silence by the ominous night sky, latent power and excruciating pressure emanating like waves of poisonous radiation seeping burningly through her skin as if attempting to erode her body at a cellular level.
They stared in unperturbed disinterest as the dark viscous fluid descended slowly down the tips of long, slender fingers along glinting sticky red-coated skin, gradually accumulating atop bony knuckles before breaking into drops and continuing their fall.
The terse silence remained for another infinitesimal instant before the demonic scarlet gaze ascended and turned in her direction with a motion so slow it was almost agonizing, her breath leaving her lungs anew with a gasp full of dread as her eyes met with those of the devil.
Unnatural features that could have been carved out of marble by the hands of a master sculptor bathed soundly in the ocean of shadows not penetrated by the dazzling moonlight exposing his bloodied hand.
Midnight hair stretched in length down flawlessly ivory complexion messily embracing it like a dark uneven blanket, straight silky strands framing perfectly symmetrical structures of bone, and a long thin concave nose coated in bright alabaster skin seating above a sharp slender jaw that seamlessly constructed an intimidating masculine visage.
It was a sick irony, that such ethereal beauty belonged to a creature as despicable as he.
A startled gasp coming from her side managed to break her spellbound trance filling her with stark awareness of just how dangerous the present situation was and reminding her of the unprotected presence of her currently unharmed best friend.
The evil crimson gaze followed the shallow airy sound and she could have sworn that for a breath’s moment her heart had completely ceased to function.
Before the vampire could so much as move a single digit, she hastily lifted her arms proceeding to chant as many of her most lethal spells as she could think of, her mind conjuring up a list of dozens upon dozens of hexes, curses, and incantations she had learned throughout her many years as an accomplished sorceress.
His nerves were heated to combustion as the walls lining the blood vessels running through his brain crumbled to ashen dust, allowing a massive internal bleeding to occur inside his cranium that increased the internal pressure to a point that should have left him effectively braindead.
The trachea inside his neck was violently crushed to fragmentation disabling his ability to properly breath as the alveoli sacs on his lungs seared aflame.
The density of his blood became so high it almost solidified, provoking his heart to immediately burst from the massive force applied to its contractions.
His liver and kidneys were severed and liquified as his internal organs were flattened and sent through his major arteries blocking the limited blood flow that had been previously allowed.
With complete desperation and urgency filling her muscles she unleashed her full devastating power against the demon that had dared to injure her friends.
She killed him. Once, twice, three times. She killed him so many times that by the time her ears had registered the horrified gasps of her dear friend as she observed the unconstrained violence of her magic she she had already lost count.
His body was obliterated and demolished in every single way she could imagine, lifting all the restrictions she had once imposed on her gift.
As his figure was ignited in bright consuming flames that illuminated the entire room, she swiftly turned to the petrified girl at her side before harshly ordering her to leave.
Tears had now freely started sliding down her soft cheeks as exhaustion began to seep through her softening limbs, leaving her short of breath.
Abruptly, a curse chillingly died on the tips of her lips as her jaw was involuntarily stopped mid-chant by an unseen, untouchable force, her mind filling with growing panic as she witnessed the vampire’s tissues and flesh healing and regenerating almost instantaneously.
Try as she might, commanding a single movement from her body became an impossible feat as her control over it was completely relinquished to the being before her. Not even her eyes managed to escape his authority as she was forced to immutably observe his calm otherworldly stride now that he had fully recuperated, his naked body seemingly not able to draw an inkling of shame from him.
“Enough. Your childish attempts at retaliation have stopped being entertaining. I have no more time to spare on your little antics.” His voice was caressingly soft as it held a distinctively rich depth that seemed rather seductive in its harmony when he spoke, a thick British accent lacing his leisure address of her.
With no further word her way, his gaze nonchalantly slid to the figure of the woman by her side.
“Now, you must be who I am looking for, if appearances are to be believed. Come, it’s time we have ourselves a little chat” he lifted his hand free of imperfections as he motioned for her to follow.
In spite of the terrified expression morphing her features, the rosette advanced as if compelled, helpless to deny the will of her supernatural assailant before placing her soft palm above his.
His gaze turned to her one last time before her eyelids started feeling heavy, darkness slowly consuming her vision as the world gradually lost focus, the softly glowing red lights whispering.
trying to convey a message….
telling her…
telling her to sleep.
That was how the man who would soon become their worst enemy, the man dubbed by the supernatural world as the Tyrant king of all vampires, the immortal Sasuke Uchiha first arrived into their lives.
A monster so powerful and ruthless his name alone made the high council of vampires and the great order of witches, among other supernatural organizations, shudder and cower in terror.
At the time, she had completely disregarded all words of his infamous reputation, neither warnings nor lectures managing to extinguish the sheer contempt and disgust she held for the creature that had so viciously wounded her cherished family.
In that very moment, she had allowed herself to freely hate him. An emotion that, like fear, was not one she was prone to indulge in. From the very depths of her heart, she abhorred the way he had so easily managed to wake helplessness from within her, as if the strength she had cultivated through painful struggle and tribulation was but a complete mockery.
Seeing the broken bodies and the blood of her loved ones heinously spilled on the floors of their very own home had funneled uncontrollable panic into her heart, flaring the memories of her mother’s death like an open wound that was adamantly unwilling to heal.
And so, despite her gentle and nurturing nature, she despised him.
In an ironic twist of misfortune or fate, the encounters with the prince of darkness did not cease there, with the one following their first meeting coming much too early for her liking. It was inevitable, after all, the coming mission to retrieve the captive maiden.
Fortunately, to her great surprise and relief, none of her friends had perished in the previous altercation, deep wounds and extensive damage being healed through the regenerative effects of vampiric blood.
With the whole team fully recuperated and with a new plan of engagement devised, they hastily journeyed to the far ends of the remote city of kusagakure, determined to succeed with the rescue operation.
She had used a location spell to determine the vampire’s whereabouts as they organized and prepared for the upcoming battle, his hideout discovered near the east coast away from the city on an old and grand Japanese mansion seating atop a grassy hill.
With the arrival of dawn and the bright sunlight grazing their skin, they had surrounded the structure and taken over tactical positions according to shikamaru’s strategy, their communication and synergy significantly more attuned than it had usually been.
She had been so sure of their victory back then. Blissfully ignorant of their dancing to his demonic tune.
Her muscles turned rigid as her palms faced the man they’d been pursuing, his lone figure calmly seated on a wide leather chair and her eyes wide in panic as the neural commands over her body were stolen in the exact same manner as the previous time.
Ahead of her, the sturdy forms of Kiba and Naruto holding a pair of manmade machine guns involuntarily stilled as the phantasmagorical spell took possession of their muscles simultaneously.
Her heart beat frantically as disbelief rapidly coursed through her delicate features, the man’s sheer control of his mental manipulation unlike anything they had previously encountered.
Shikamaru had planned several contingencies in case any of them were intercepted before they could carry out their plan, yet they could have never prepared for the entire assault team to be captured as hostages.
Once again, their lives were at his mercy. And that, the knowledge that she was powerless to save any of her friends, was worse than any wound or injury received through her long years fighting beside them.
The vampire remained immutably seated on his luxurious abode before them, his pale slender hand holding an old, red tome open and his serene eyes scanning leisurely through the pages as if their violent ambush was as common as the passing of days.
It was unnerving and entirely surreal, even for individuals as highly experienced with the darker corners of the supernatural world such as themselves.
His deep dispassionate voice reclaimed their attention as he addressed them in perfect Japanese “Took you longer than I expected”, The red tome closing with a snap as a pair of bottomless obsidian orbs traveled to the hybrid leader.
“where is she!?” The blond snarled as his eyes slitted red, his body trembling in an effort to fight the unbending compulsion.
“Is that the way you address all your captors? Well, not that it matters to me anyway. Since you are insistent on skipping pleasantries, we’ll get right down to business.” He said all this hardly moving from his initial position.
“However, I have no desire to clean any blood of yours off my walls, your pet here will have to go back and await with the others” his eyes gleamed vermillion anew and she felt her breath still momentarily.
“Do tell your allies to keep away from the premises. Should they try anything, I will not hesitate to kill the hostages, before hunting every single one of you down and ripping your heads off your bodies. Good bye now.”
His words seeped her puppet body with dread as her heart lurched in worry for the teams surrounding the property, the vampire’s threat too dangerous to ignore.
She tried ordering her limbs to move yet it proved an impossible task. Her eyes focused on the scarlet gaze as it landed on her other companion, the werewolf’s form following his silent command as he was physically unable to refuse.
The loud shout of the blond vampire made her eyes turn in surprise.
“I said where is she, you Bastard!!?” He said as if he were a caged animal, incapable of breaking free of his binds.
The man simply observed the outburst not in the least intimidated, the red glow in his eyes dimming to a pitch black before leaning forward and calmly serving himself from a bottle of scotch into a crystal glass that stood on a ceramic table near his knees.
She narrowed her eyes in disdain as she realized the man was enjoying the emotional and mental torture he was subjecting the other into, as if the intense worry for a loved one amounted to nothing more than a twisted game to him.
Her indignation managed to momentarily outweigh her fear, but as she struggled to open her mouth and address the creature seamlessly seating ahead, his voice resounded around the room monotonously “Come girl, you have visitors”
Both her’s and Naruto’s eyes widened as the rosette’s figure entered the room through a different door located behind the vampire beside a minibar to their left.
Her steps were slow, mechanical, her figure apparently unharmed wearing a clean set of clothes that resembled her usual attire, yet the way she moved was too controlled, thoroughly unnatural. The human girl was also under his spell.
“Sakura!” Naruto exclaimed, relief flooding his voice as his eyes returned to their usual oceanic shade. Hinata felt her eyes water slightly as they rested gently on her best friend, words unable to describe how glad she was that the jade-eyed girl was safe and sound.
“You’ll have your tearful reunions some other time.” Their captor interrupted as he finally stood, his pale hand nursing the alcoholic drink before taking a long sip “This girl is now my property, and she is to serve my purposes”
The words managed to froze her to her core before righteous anger consumed her senses. it was her companion, however, the one who spoke
“What the hell did you just say!!!?” He exclaimed in primal rage as frustration rapidly accumulated at his complete lack of mobility, his mind was thrashing wildly yet his body not moving an inch.
“As you heard, the girl is now my property. A pawn I aim to use for my own benefit. You would do well accept it quickly, lest you wish for her to see your rotting corpse decaying on my land.” His words were ice as he stepped up to the captive hybrid, his scarlet gaze absolute in its dominion. “The only reason I am allowing you all to keep your lives is because she pleaded to me before accepting her own role. You should be grateful”
Her breathing stopped as her eyes and ears worriedly absorbed the conversation, the image of the one she loved most being viciously slaughtered flashing instantly across her mind, summoning the now familiar terror she had come to associate with the murderous monster in front of them.
Her mind screamed to her frozen tissues to move in an attempt to temper down the blond, yet her body remained unresponsive, a watery mumble being released from her lips instead “Please”
The hybrid’s trembling halted before a heavy defeated sigh abandoned his lungs as his eyes narrowed conflicted, the demon’s gaze landing on her form briefly before he stepped back and turned to walk and past the petrified sakura.
“Fortunately for you, she is of no use to me at the current time. Therefore, I intend to leave her under your care while I attend to more pressing matters.” He drawled in fluent English, his earlier accent coming naturally as he stood facing a wide balcony.
As if per work of an incantation, their bodies abruptly recovered their ability to move, their legs stumbling slightly to regain their balance.
Free of her captivity, sakura rushed to the arms of her guardian embracing him tightly as she trembled in distress, the fatigue of all events since her capture finally taking their toll on her. Naruto for his part, circled her in his strong arms in an effort to comfort her.
Regaining her senses, almost as if out of sheer instinct, Hinata hastily lifted her arms anew facing the unprotected back of the vampire before opening her mouth ready to release a paralysis curse his way, the strategies and tactics they’d planned with Shikamaru and Kakashi still fresh on her mind.
A gelid whisper reaching her right ear from her back managed to freeze her instantly, her entire body filling with dread at the unmistakable voice of their antagonist “Quite the reflexes you’ve got there, love. Though I would advise you not to underestimate me. See, I’m rather not fond of childish tantrums”
She hadn’t seen him move at all. The space his form had previously been occupying facing the open balcony was now empty, her vision insufficient to detect even the slightest hint of motion.
The silent threat had been relayed ‘i can kill you whenever I please. Do not mistake your position’
She bit her lip until it drew blood as she tried to calm herself, her mind reminding her that the priority was to rescue Sakura. If they accomplished that single objective, the failure to assassinate the man behind her would be bearable.
The other pair had turned in alarm when the vampire’s words resonated from the witch’s position, Naruto preparing to charge forward in an attempt to separate the him from her. Sakura noticing this, grabbed him tightly by the arm knowing fully well any reckless action would result in all their deaths.
“I have no further desire to keep wasting my breath speaking to you people. I’m returning the girl on the condition that you, hybrid, bring this little amulet to me” the man said as he took a small picture out of his breast pocket before throwing it to Naruto who caught it in mid-air.
The blond gazed at the picture before turning to the enigmatic vampire, a deep frown marring his features as confusion inundated his senses “A stone? What do you want this thing for anyway? And why do I have to follow your ridiculous conditions!! I have the place surrounded and this room is warded to keep you locked. I’m going to take my friends and get out of here, and you are gonna let me, if you know what’s good for you!!”
“No, Naruto!” Sakura spoke surprising her two companions as she directed a frustrated frown at the impassive vampire still standing behind the witch “it’s too risky, not even you are able to take this monster head on. It’s okay, I won’t ask you to follow his orders so just take Hinata and go. I’ll be fine, I promise” she said as she offered the blond a small tired smile.
Hinata was about to object and make her disagreement public when she felt the vampire's form brush against her side as he returned to his initial position seating calmly near the middle of the room, his glass empty on his hand.
“Like hell I’m going to let you stay here. We came to rescue you, we’re not leaving without you, you hear?” The blond said, his gaze turning angrily to the man who seemed mildly amused witnessing their torment before glancing once more at the image on his hand. He grit his teeth in frustration before speaking aloud “Where do I find this?”
The corner of the vampire’s lips lifted in satisfaction momentarily before leisurely serving himself another glass of scotch “You are part of the association, are you not, hybrid? Your superiors stored this particular object on the Madrid headquarters, took me quite some time to locate it. You are to steal it and bring it to me. The witch will remain here as a collateral in the meantime” he uncaringly said as he once more stunned his uninvited guests.
Hinata’s eyes widened in surprise at the man’s words, not at all expecting for the events to transpire that way. She bit her lip while gripping her fists tightly in frustration, knowing full well they were powerless against the vampire’s demands.
The other man in the room did not seem to think so, however. He crossed the room towards her while holding the hand of the human girl before stopping with his back facing them in a protective gesture “I’m not gonna leave her here with you!! I’ll bring your damn stone, so leave them out of it” he said angrily as he glared daggers at their impassive foe.
Hinata observed as the vampire’s gaze centered uncaringly on the speaker before turning to her in facetious expectancy, reminding her of just how precarious their current situation really was.
She gripped the blond’s arm comfortingly before stepping forward as she gifted him a reassuring smile “Naruto, it’s okay. He won’t do anything to me. Don’t forget what we came here for”
“Hinata!” Sakura exclaimed as she embraced the other girl, her lithe form trembling with frustration at her own powerlessness and her eyes watering slightly.
“It’s going to be okay, Sakura” she said returning the hug as a genuine smile took over her features “I’m glad I was able to do something to protect you. Go home, get some rest. I’ll be waiting so, please don’t worry”
Naruto grit his teeth helpless, his gaze traveling to the source of their troubles in resentment. There was nothing he could do, and he hated himself for it. His weakness.
“If you touch one hair on her head, I promise I’ll come back and kill you myself. No matter how long it takes me, I’ll find a way!” He growled taking the hand of the rosette before facing the beautiful witch, his blue eyes burning with remorse and guilt as he silently asked for her forgiveness “Take care, alright? I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise”
She gulped forcefully before steeling her expression, all the while ignoring the desire to embrace him one more time before his departure.
“If you are done with your pitiful attempts at comforting your friend, it is time to take your leave. Off you go now” the man said before standing and directing his attention to Hinata “little witch, come. I’ll show you to your temporary quarters”
Offering the vampire one last growl in warning, Naruto swiftly draped the rosette over his muscular arms as his form vanished in a wild blur that left gusts of wind flowing in its wake.
Inside the silent luxurious room, only she and that man remained. The light of dawn traversed gently across the horizon past the window facing the ocean as it illuminated the pristine floors and walls in a warm, vibrant orange.
His form, every bit the intimidating figure she had come to know in such a short amount of time stood expectantly, his sharp gaze staring as his rumpled leather jacket and black denim trousers belied his nefarious true nature in a deceiving mask of simplicity
Her ivory eyes faced the specter anew, strength coursing through her delicate arms as the knowledge of her friend’s safety tore through the fear and anxiety she had been experiencing just moments prior with unexpected ease. Now, not even death held that power over her.
“Welcome, witch of the Hyuuga. My name is Sasuke Uchiha, the original vampire, and you are hereby deemed my prisoner”
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forgive my procrastinating ass for the delay, I'm so sorry guys.
I'm not really satisfied with this either but I wanted to contribute still. wanted to try my hand at writing a more villain-like sasuke, anyway hope you guys enjoy.
#sasuke#hinata#Sasuke Uchiha#Hinata Hyuga#SasuHina#sasuhina month 2019#sasuhinamonth2019#sasuke x hinata#naruto
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Corrupted: TMA x Malevolent fic in progress
Tim Stoker opened a book he shouldn't, and now he's got a new friend.
The good news is, it turns out Tim has a serious aptitude for magic.
The bad news is this universe is filled with beings made of Fear - beings with an unfortunate habit of eating gods - and Hastur, who's calling himself John, is the only god left in this universe who hasn't been chewed.
One of these beings has already marked Tim - the Desolation, a force of destruction and rage.
If they're going to make it through this, they will need some help.
It's up for debate, however, if this is the help they need.
-----
Pounding on his front door wakes him.
Tim startles awake in sour adrenaline, absolutely terrified, and is briefly unable to remember why.
New apartment - he remembers that, but why would someone at the door make him feel he needs to run?
Tim? Someone is at the door.
Oh, right. Corpses with blood that burns, chaos demons, Cthulhus named Yellow. “Yeah,” says Tim, and goes to find a weapon.
He’s bruised to hell and moving like a little old man, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is he doesn’t have any weapons. There are kitchen knives somewhere, but he doesn’t know which box.
He is reduced to gripping a broom as he creeps toward his door.
The pounding has continued.
Oh, says Yellow.
Tim stops creeping. “What do you mean, ‘oh?’”
They found me a lot faster than I expected. Heh. I suspect that’s your fault, as it were. Your power has enhanced my presence.
Bang bang bang goes the door.
“That’s got to be bad,” says Tim. “So am I taking the fire escape, or…”
No, it should be fine - however, be aware that they can hear me.
“Who can?” says Tim.
You are about to meet my followers, says Yellow, and Tim is absolutely sure he is preening.
“Followers?” says Tim. “I thought you’d been on the down-low for centuries, or whatever.”
I am a god, Tim. Did you really believe no one would worship the only god that’s left?
“You know, I don’t think I want to wrestle with that before coffee,” says Tim, and bravely opens the door.
Three men in fucking friar’s robes stand there, fully shaved, eyes a little too wide to be right in the head, and the moment they see him, they all drop to their knees right in the distinctly public hall.
“My lord!” one cries in what might be a French accent. “You have returned! Never have I thought in my lifetime I would see!”
Calm, collected, Tim closes the door.
Yellow is laughing at him. It’s all right, Tim. You can let them in.
“Right. Couple of concerns,“ says Tim. "First of all, what the fuck? Second, do I have to deal with whatever this is?”
No, but it will make things easier.
“How?” says Tim.
The knocking resumes. Bang bang bang.
They have served me for thousands of years, Tim. They have resources we need.
“What, those three guys, specifically?”
No. Their organization.
“And they won’t… you know, lead the god-eaters to you?”
Yellow pauses. By themselves, no. Do you have any idea how many cults and religions there are? Their mere existence is not enough to draw predatory attention.
“You said my power enhances yours, or whatever. We’re pinging radars, apparently.”
They have specific systems set up to recognize me when I am enfleshed. The Entities, while ravenous, do not employ such tricks. No, if my enemies find me, it will not be through these men.
Tim rubs his face. “Just tell me these aren’t the guys who killed my brother. Tell me that.”
I don’t know who had my book, Tim, but it wasn’t them - your brother would never have successfully gotten it away from them.
Bang bang bang.
“Well, someone obviously did get it away from them.”
Tim.
“You need to explain that later. All right? Fine. Here we go.” Tim opens the door.
They’re still on their knees.
Directly behind them, one of Tim’s new neighbors glances down once, glances at him, and moves on their with a distinctly spooked expression.
So that’s great.
“Come in, already,” says Tim, “before anybody else sees you. The fuck, guys?”
They crawl inside. Then each of them takes a small bag from their pockets and begins to pour what might be salt in weird symbols around them on the floor.
Tim’s vacuum is still at his parents’ house. “Oh, what the fuck,” Tim mumbles.
Yellow is laughing again.
“Yellow,” says Tim evenly. “Get them to stop being weird, or I’m not going to keep this up.”
My friends, my beloved ones, Hastur pronounces (and one of the men makes an absolutely indecent sound). Welcome. This one is my own, for I have chosen him: you will call him Lord Stoker, and you will do as he bids.
“Wait a damn minute!” Tim chokes.
“We hear and obey!” they say as one, and repeat it three fucking times.
It’s all right, Tim, says Yellow, highly amused. They will help us find what we need.
“What we need to what?” says Tim.
Protect you. Extend your life. And… maybe find something we can do to keep me out of Kayne’s hands.
“Why the fuck didn’t you say so sooner?” Tim mutters.
Because this is very funny, and I wanted to see what you’d do.
“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?” Tim says.
Yellow just laughs.
#tma#malevolent#tma fic#malevolent fic#fic in progress#wip#amwriting#tim stoker#the king in yellow#hastur malevolent
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Four weeks later, reviewing time for MAG139 /o/
-I’m still crying over how the first time Tim ever spoke on tape, he pointed out so many mistakes/typos/misreadings from statements that were faaar from being one-liner but actually… Big Mysteries that are still relevant now. Amongst those:
(MAG033) TIM: Um… oh, and here, in Miss Montauk’s statement about her father’s killings. You refer to case, um, 9220611 as case, um, 1106922. Oh, and don’t get me started on the other case numbers around the Hill Top hauntings, they’re a mess! […] So, in case 8163103… it isn’t clear if Albrecht’s wife is called “Clara” or “Carla”, ‘cause you keep switching back and forth…
Aaaand it was in that episode that we heard about “Peter Lukas” for the first time ever. I miss Tim and gdi, he had a good nose…
- I want to say a word about Jon’s reading of the statement in itself: “Jon, what the FUCK.” Part of why it was so sneakily terrifying was… how much Jon was into it? He totally ran with the sheer glee and cruelty, especially, I felt, in these moments:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “It’s hard to say how much I’ve got left in me; how much longer my sacrifices can buy me. But when I go… you better believe I’m going big – and it is going to hurt.
[…] And I hurt so very many people… A building fire is a dreadful thing – but so much more dreadful when it’s shining out into that night. It was the first of my crimes, but not the last, and arson has always been my thing. It’s such a simple way to destroy everything someone has built, both literally, and figuratively.
[…] I was to secure her sacrifices. I would spare you the details, but I do not wish to~”
Presumably, the dramatic reading is still a Jon Thing and not intrinsically spooky, but w o w Jon, you didn’t have to take that edge for a sadistic serial killer.
- YEAH OKAY, and Eugene was terrifying per se. Why are all Desolation people Like That. And Eugene started… very young:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “So, me? I was born in ’36 […]. But now, staggering through the ruins of his life, the look I saw on his face… it woke something in me. Something… truly awful… Anyone who talks about “the Blitz spirit” wasn’t there, or wants to paper over their fear with nostalgia. Terrible things happened in the Blackout, and we hurt each other just as much as the Germans hurt us. And I hurt so very many people…”
He… wasn’t even ten, back then…
;; Aaaand once again, demonstration that spooks tend to go for the easy, vulnerable targets:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “I took foreign workers, mostly. Those with the fewest immediate connections to complicate matters, and the most hopeful dreams of what their life might be. They were the ones that provided Agnes the most satisfying nourishment. I would wait for them to be alone, and then I would catch them unawares.”
Gerry had commented about the fact that the world becoming a Factory Farm for a Fear God would mean being able to snatch everything (MAG111: “right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander too close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away.”) but it’s always upsetting when we get Spooks describing their preferred targets… ;;
Eugene said that he was already seventy, he’s now eighty, Jon had found hints that he was probably still active (MAG139, Jon: “looking at the details for the British Steel Plant in Scunthorpe, it does seem like Eugene is still around. So I can only assume… some sort of equilibrium was found. Given what happened when I met Jude Perry, I’m not in any rush to track him or… any of them down myself.”), but given how Eugene had promised that he would be “going big” at the end of his life, it… probably won’t be pretty.
(And I totally understand that Jon feels like it’s not his own battle! But at every little concession, my heart breaks a bit. There are still people in the coffin; Eugene is probably still taking foreign workers even after Agnes’s death, for his own sacrifices… and it’s true that it’s not the Archive team’s role to save them, that they have bigger things to focus on? But they know what is happening, and that still means that innocents are getting killed and/or consumed and they… let it happen. It feels so Beholding, to know and to allow it, feeding from the scraps of the surviving witnesses’ tales…? They’re not actively allowing these terrible things to happen but they take advantage of that whole system…)
Eugene also highlighted how in the end, the cults/clusters/congregations of people worshipping the same concept are… human-made. There doesn’t seem to be any special instructions or a divine revelation about how they should proceed; they scramble and try things out, but it’s mostly coming from punctual decisions, in the same way that Robert Smirke made arbitrary decisions regarding his Architecture of the Fears.
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “I found my God through my own path, served It in my own way; and when Arthur and Diego found me, told me there were others that shared my devotion… Well, I can’t say it doesn’t feel nice to belong. Even if we do have our… little disagreements. […] But a longing… is not the same thing as an instruction. We’d all been touched and warped by proximity to the holy Burning Fire, but none of us had any special knowledge, no matter what Diego claims he might have read. […] Some objected, said that unless the child was conceived of the Flame, it could never be a true incarnation. But they had no idea of how such a conception could possibly even work, so it was decided that it would have to be enough to birth the child by fire. […] There was some… division amongst us as to the best course of action, something that will surely not surprise you at this stage.”
It’s kind of impressive that the Lightless Flame managed to be a small cult, that Rayner attracted people around his own “religion”, and that the Magnus Institute apparently managed to establish itself around something its people shared (given that there are the international canals, the Usher Foundation and the Pu Songling Research Centre, who knew about the Archivist’s powers, and Jon was identified in Beijing, Elias was clearly familiar to Xiaolin, etc.). It makes sense, in that regard, that even when feeling like they “belong” and are worshipping the same concept, spooks tend to give their same patrons so many different names – like different aspects of it. I wonder if there are also divisions amongst the Beholding people about their ritual and how they should try to go about it? Outside of the fact that some (Jon…? Please, Jon, confirm that you still don’t want That.) might refuse to partake in it altogether because they’re satisfied with the world as is, like Jared demonstrated in MAG131 in his refusal to join in The Last Feast.
- I wonder to which extent we’re going to hear about the history of the Lightless Flame again, because… it sounds like there are still so many mysteries (even more than before this episode?) and I have no idea if they’ll fall into the left-in-the-air-for-us-to-guess/wonder category (Jonny did promise that we won’t get spoon-fed all the answers, iirc?), or if this will all get cleared up later.
* First, everything around Diego Molina (Malina? Not the first time his name has popped up, but each of his episodes are floating in the no-official-transcript void):
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “We all felt the calling, the dreams, pulling us ever closer to a world of fire and loss, a place of burning, and agony, when we remade the world in the image of the Lightless Flame, the one Diego called “Asag”. […] none of us had any special knowledge, no matter what Diego claims he might have read. […] Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose.”
[…] ARCHIVIST: “Diego”, I assume to be Diego Molina, who Basira crossed paths with back in her Section’d days, and “Arthur”… could be Arthur Nolan – though, going from… the head of a cult to watching over Jane Prentiss as a landlord… does seem like something of a demotion. … God knows. It’s not like I don’t have my own office politics to keep track of.
Jon remembered Basira’s account of her encounter with Diego (when she had been able to tell his name), from MAG043, which gave us an official description of him. He had been involved in the case which got her to sign her first Section 31 form, regarding a fire near Clapham in August 2011, and resulting in the death of a fellow (racist) officer:
(MAG043) BASIRA: He was… a Hispanic male. Probably mid to late forties, heavyset with a completely shaved head. […] I realised for the first time the bald guy’s saying something. Not loud, but intensely. I mean, this was years ago so I don’t remember exactly what he was saying, but it definitely involved the words “cleansing fire”, “all shall be ash”, and the name “Asag”? Which, I later learned, is some kind of Sumerian demon. So that’s fun. […] Our arsonist’s name was Diego Molina. He was assistant curator at some Mexican museum, come over with a loan to the Natural History Museum, but… they hadn’t heard from him for a few weeks.
[…] The only thing Diego Molina had on him, when we brought him in, was a small book, bound in red leather. They caught Spencer in storage, trying to destroy it with a zippo lighter. […] They told me he killed himself when he got home. Apparently, he’d somehow filled the bath full of boiling water and just… just got in. Official story was he’d somehow done it using a kettle, which… that’s, that’s just about the weakest cover-up I ever heard.
And the description she gave, and the focus on “Asag”, is of course putting to mind the mysterious man from MAG012 who was transported to Lesere Saraki’s service on the night of the 23rd December of 2011 (so six months after Basira’s case), and who had apparently been fighting with Gerry Keay, before Gerry killed him for good in the hospital:
(MAG012, Lesere Saraki) “Apparently the fire brigade had responded to reports of a blaze in a building site near St Mary’s churchyard, and had turned up to find the two men lying unconscious. There had been no fire, although the ground they lay on showed several burn marks and a metal bar that had been lying nearby appeared to have bent slightly as if from great heat. […] the more I heard, the more it sounded like most of them weren’t in English. The first sounded like “Asak” or “Asag”, then “Veepalach” and finally in English “The Lightless Flame”. The last part was very clear, and I assumed he was talking about whatever burned him, but he said it with such intensity that the words made me feel quite uncomfortable.”
[…] ARCHIVIST: As far as the mystery man’s chanting goes, if it was indeed “Asag” that he was saying, then that’s quite interesting. Asag is the name of a demon in Sumerian mythology associated with disease and corruption, which doesn’t really seem to have much relevance to this statement except that it was also fabled that Asag was able to boil fish alive in their rivers. Admittedly in Sumerian myth this was because he was monstrously ugly but a curious coincidence nonetheless. “Veepalach” might also be a mishearing of the Polish word “wypalać”, according to Martin, which means to cauterize or brand. Admittedly, if Martin speaks Polish in the same way he “speaks Latin” then he might be talking nonsense again, but I’ve looked it up and it appears to check out.
* Tangent about Gerry but mMMmm, there is one item I had absolutely forgotten about that was mentioned in this episode?
(MAG012, Lesere Saraki) “He was in almost identical shape to the first, except for the fact that the burns seemed to stop at his neck, along a clear line. It was as though he’d been wearing a choker that the damage couldn’t get above but his neck was bare. […] Like the first, he was completely covered in almost uniform second-degree burns, except for what at first I thought were small black scorch marks. Looking closer, I saw that they were eyes. Small, tattooed eyes on every one of his joints: his knees, his elbows and even his knuckles, as well as just over his heart. I would have expected the burns to have almost destroyed tattoos that small but instead they were unblemished and the skin about a centimetre around each one also didn’t seem to have been affected. […]
After a few seconds of awkward silence, Gerard spoke. He asked me if the paramedics had brought any items in with them. Specifically, he was after a small book bound in red leather and a brass pendant he had been wearing. He didn’t say what design had been on the pendant but I guessed it had been an eye. I told him that neither of those things had been brought in with him, and he was quiet for a long time.”
With the descriptions of his wounds and how the Eyes had apparently protected him from the burning, and how there was specifically a clear delimitation after his neck, and how he had lost a pendant… it looks like he had a(n Eye?) pendant acting as a protection, which was pretty efficient? Given Gerry’s reaction, was it actually… from Eric’s…? (I doubt he would have been apparently stunned into silence like this if it had just been something from Mary?)
Plus, I’m not sure about a few things but they’re quite interesting to think about: Why had Gerry apparently been fighting against Diego? In MAG111, he mainly described his activities around Leitner books at the time, and we spotted him casually saving or giving hints to a few statement-givers here and there, helping them to survive, but this was the only time we heard of him him… actively fighting and killing a Spook. Had they been fighting over the “small book bound in red leather”? Given how Eugene mentioned Diego’s reading in MAG139, that Basira remembered they had retrieved a book on him in MAG043, and that Gerry was after one that matched its description in MAG012, he was tied to at least that one, so… I would say it was either a (proto)Leitner, either a Smirke book covering some thoughts about the rituals? Did Diego become a Spook thanks to it, à la Mike Crew and Jared Hopworth? (Though in their cases, they got rid of their own books once they acquired their powers…)
(Given Gertrude’s personal history with the Lightless Flame, I first thought, very excitedly, that Gerry had tried to neutralise someone who was threatening direct harm to Gertrude. Technically, unless small retcon, it can’t be the case: Mary Keay was stated to have died in September 2008 (MAG004), Gerry explained that she had “haunted” him for five years after that (MAG111) until Gertrude found him and got rid of Mary, and that Gerry had only begun working with her after that. There is a very small discrepancy here (that would mean that Gertrude made Mary disappear in 2013 and Gerry said he then proceeded to work with her “for a few years”… but he died in late 2014) but, technically, with the information we’ve got, Mary was still haunting Gerry at the time of his hospitalisation in 2011… and sadly, was probably indeed the person who came to fetch Gerry (MAG012, Lesere Saraki: “Gerard Keay was treated for a further four days in the hospital before being discharged into the care of his mother.”). When Jon had highlighted how he had the feeling that Gertrude drew a sick pleasure from pretending to be Gerry’s mom (MAG107), my first instinct was to scream “gERTRUDE…” about MAG012… but nop, doesn’t appear to work. Damnit.)
* Anyway, back to Diego: he was apparently the Scholar-like of the group (was the one calling their god “Asag”, was the one to tell the others that their ideal world was called “The Scoured Earth”), and he was definitely tied to that book in red leather, and Basira did mention that John Spencer hadn’t managed to burn it, and HUUUU, I remembered having thought, with “They caught Spencer in storage, trying to destroy it with a zippo lighter.” (MAG043) that there were lots of lighters involved (Gerry’s, Jon’s…) but… specifically there, given the Very Tense relationship between The Web and The Desolation, I wonder if this might have in fact been the same one with the web design that would later end up in Jon’s hands – the Web trying to use someone to get rid of a Desolation-related item, to put another dent into the Lightless Flame’s activities, a few years after Agnes’s death?
* It’s REALLY interesting that Diego was obsessed with calling their god “Asag”, given how Jon highlighted that it was more linked to “corruption” (MAG012: “Asag is the name of a demon in Sumerian mythology associated with disease and corruption, which doesn’t really seem to have much relevance to this statement except that it was also fabled that Asag was able to boil fish alive in their rivers.”)… and how Arthur Nolan was apparently punished, or cast away, stuck with the Hive:
(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “I don’t know how long the nest has been there. It’s not even my house, I just live there. Some sweaty old man thinks he owns it, taking money for my presence as though it will save him. […] Now I know that whatever the old man thinks, as he passes about the house with brow crinkled and mouth puckered in disapproval, it is not his. It has a thousand truer owners who shift and live and sing within the very walls of the building. He does not even know about the wasps’ nest. I wonder how long he has not known. How many years it has been there. Have you ever heard of the filarial worm? Mosquitoes gift it with their kiss and it grows and grows. It stops water moving round the human body right, makes limbs and bellies swell and sag with fluid. Now, when I look at that fat, sweaty sack, I think about it, and the voice sings of showing him what a real parasite can do.”
(MAG055) JORDAN: […] a couple of years ago, I was called in to deal with a wasps’ nest. […] The landlord’s name was Arthur Nolan. He was a short man with a constant scowl, thinning white hair and a well-chewed cigar. It looked like his denim shirt once contained quite an athletic build, but it long since settled. […] After he hit me with a look of disappointment, he nodded and began to walk down the hall. I followed him, desperate for answers, but he ignored my questions about what the hell was going on and kept walking down the stairs towards his flat. At one point, he shook his head and mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far, but he didn’t seem to be saying it to me.”
(Jane Prentiss gave her statement on February 23rd 2014, and Jordan Kennedy mentioned that he had met Arthur shortly after, in February or March 2014.)
Was there a prior “architecture” of the Fears where the Desolation and Corruption might have been lumped in together, through the name “Asag”…? The Hive, at least, sounded very, uh, eager to show how Special it was (to Arthur, in the same way that it was hissing at Beholding in Jane’s statement). Was Arthur tied to The Hive, given how he immolated himself right after Jordan “killed” the nest…? (Jon mentioned that they found Arthur’s body after the fire, in MAG032’s post-statement.) Was he supposed to be punished by getting consummated by it, and tried to throw Jane to it as fodder instead…?
Given how there was apparently that Diego-Arthur rivalry and how Arthur (unlike Eugene) knew what had happened to Agnes at Hill Top Road, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up finding a statement left by Arthur somewhere, when he was “demoted”…?
- Alright, so we got official confirmation that Hill Top Road initially belonged to The Web:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “The compromise we came to… was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of The Web, full of other children Agnes’s age […], though if we’d known exactly how powerful The Web was in that place, perhaps we would have reconsidered. […] it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.”
Sarah Baldwin had described the taxidermy shop as a “place of power” for The Stranger, Breekon had referred to the Institute as The Eye’s “pedestal”, Elias pointed out Ny-Ålesund as a “stronghold” of The Dark.
(MAG096) ARCHIVIST: There are, er… there, there are dozens of deliveries recorded here by Breekon and Hope. What were they delivering? What is the significance of this place?
SARAH: Nothing, except what people give it. But they give it a lot, make it a place of power for us. Enough to keep certain items here.
(MAG128, Breekon) “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”
(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.
(Plus, potentially: somewhere in the sea and/or the graveyard Naomi encountered in MAG013 for The Lonely, given Carter Chilcott’s dreams in MAG057; Point Nemo for The End?; the remains of The Maria Fairchild encountered in MAG051 for The Vast?)
Interestingly, Eugene used “stronghold” and Elias referred to Ny-Ålesund for The Dark in the same way, so it seems to be the Right Word to describe the concept, no need to beat around the bush. Hill Top Road used to be Web, and, as we got a glimpse in MAG008, at least The Desolation (the glimpses of Agnes’s ghost, the burning) and most likely The Spiral (through Ivo Lensik, Father Edwin Burroughs, and/or Anya Villette) have been around that place – is it still powerful, but too chaotic to be definitely claimed…? Jon had said that he didn’t think it would be wise to go there (MAG114: “I’ve half a mind to just go down and have a look at it myself, but… I don’t know. Ever since it first came up I’ve felt like it would be… just a very bad idea.”), but. Was that genuine concern because he Learned From Poking Into Danger (which sounds ludicrous, it’s Jon we’re talking about), or the spiders nudging him to not go because ~obviously, he doesn’t want to go, he’s absolutely not being held by strings, what do you mean~.
- You fucked up a perfectly simple place, is what you did, Agnes. Look. You gave it reality bending.
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “I was… not one of those assigned to watch our chosen one, so I can’t say much about exactly what happened within the walls of that house, but it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.”
Since then, there had been at least, uuh… Desolation and Spiral which have been spotted there (MAG008) + some timeline problems, with Ray and Agnes’s ghosts appearing. Anya Villette (MAG114) seemed to say that The Web might possibly be re-emerging? And there is the problem of Anya Villette herself – was the reality-getting-messed-up-around-her an effect of The Spiral, did she come from a parallel dimension, did she ever exist at all, etc.
- There is something fundamentally hilarious about the fact that the cultists of the Lightless Flame tried to guess how to raise Agnes and failed utterly, because she was… a child. No, wait, it was sad and heartbreaking.
But the fact that they sent her to Hill Top Road because it “was a stronghold of The Web, full of other children Agnes’s age” when they were late teenagers, and she was ten-to-eleven? What a bunch of idiots, holy Mew. (I’m sad for Agnes but also covering my face snickering at these idiots trying to raise a Messiah and having no idea how to deal with a child. No wonder she was “prone to fits of violent rage”, you weren’t giving her the environment she needed……………)
- Iiiiii don’t know what to think about Jack Barnabas. On the one hand:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “That stupid coffeeshop twit. I honestly don’t know why Arthur allowed it, or why Jude didn’t step in – she’s usually so jealous! But Agnes… [SIGH] Maybe Agnes asked them to leave him alone…! Or maybe they were just surprised by her interest in this… boring, unremarkable fool. […] We have allowed Jude free rein on what happens to the coffeeshop boy, though Agnes asked her… not to interfere. She has not yet harmed him, but I cannot imagine what is going through her mind. The misery, and pain, he has brought upon himself. For all her anger, she is not rash, and I fear her quiet consideration far more than I worry about her temper. It may be he lives the remainder of his natural life – but she will make sure he is never happy, and never without pain.”
Eugene was sure that he would be getting hell. And it is indeed what Jack lived… for a while, right after the events (March 2007):
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “I lost almost everything after that. I never had much to begin with, and after I was let go at the café, I couldn’t afford to keep my home. They didn’t even try to pretend it wasn’t because my burned face would scare away customers. I’ve ended up living with my father again, who has been… understanding about the situation though… even he can’t bring himself to meet my eye most days.”
But Jon had also mentioned in his post-statement (January 2017) that his situation had gotten much better:
(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: […] Martin has been able to make contact with Mr. Barnabas by email. He’s apparently been doing much better in the years since his statement, having received some reasonably successful plastic surgery.
;; I had assumed it was a genuine improvement, I really hope it is… and not, like, a small respite before Jude comes after him again to strip him of what he managed to get back.
- Eugene was probably That One Guy With The Candles spotted by Jack Barnabas the night of Agnes’s death:
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “They were all dressed in rough work clothes and wore severe expressions. One of them, a big guy with a shaved head, was holding an unlit lantern, and speaking to the others that I think was Spanish or Portuguese. Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundred of tiny spiders. None of them paid me any attention, and I was rapidly feeling like I was falling into something that I really didn’t want to.”
Diego Molina, Eugene Vanderstock and… probably Arthur Nolan with the spiders? Jon had identified Arthur in the group but without tangential proof (though MAG055 had associated him with burning and fire):
(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: […] If the bald man with the lantern is as I suspect Diego Molina, it would indicate a link between his notable obsession with burning, and… Agnes, who apparently had not inconsiderable abilities in that area. I can’t help but wonder if Arthur Nolan, The Hive’s landlord, was one of the other members of that little group.
* Small fuuuunny thing: there had been a few mentions here and there that Agnes didn’t eat regular food, before Eugene confirmed that she needed another kind of sustenance:
(MAG059, Ronald Sinclair) “She never came to church, though; never sat around the dinner table when it was uncovered.”
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “She never actually put any milk in it. She never even drank it. […] What was her life, that every Tuesday at 3’ in the afternoon, she came into the same café, and didn’t drink a black coffee? […] We went to the park a couple more times; had a meal in an Italian restaurant where she didn’t eat anything; we even went to see a film.”
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “I took foreign workers, mostly. Those with the fewest immediate connections to complicate matters, and the most hopeful dreams of what their life might be. They were the ones that provided Agnes the most satisfying nourishment. […] Agnes would take them to her small, empty flat, lay them on the floor and light them. Over the many hours these candles burned, she would crane over them, so Arthur tells me, inhaling all the agony, suffering, and loss from which they were created. Or he could’ve been lying to me, just keeping me busy with torture and murder so I didn’t get in the way of anything. I don’t think I’d have minded that, actually. At least, I felt useful.”
- HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ABSOLUTELY ABSENT OF EUGENE’S STATEMENT REGARDING AGNES’S DEATH? SPIDERS.
Probably-Arthur had been bringing some on the night of her death. There were SPIDERS in Jack’s flat (that Agnes’s presence burned):
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “It was as I was doing this, I noticed kind of an odd smell? Like when you turn on an electric heater for the first time in a while and you get a whiff of all the burning dust. I looked up, and noticed within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider’s web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke. It was weird, but I had more important things on my mind.”
And also, THE FUCKING TREE at Hill Top Road, which prompted Agnes’s death on November 23rd 2006. Eugene made it sound like Agnes had slowly come to the conclusion that she couldn’t carry out the ritual because of her “doubt” but… we know that her death was tied to the tree at Hill Top Road, the night Ivo Lensik was compelled to unroot it (and to free spiders):
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “[…] I heard Agnes gasp. I turned to see her gripping her chest as though in sudden pain, and she told me we had to go. I followed her as she… staggered out of the park and over to a phone booth where she made a panicked call. She said something about a tree falling, and that they… had to finish something. Then she hung up. She leaned on my arm as we walked back to her flat. […] Agnes turned to me and apologized, told me goodbye, and thank you. There was such a sense of finality to it that I felt like my heart stopped.”
Eugene knew that Hill Top Road had been a stronghold of The Web, but I’m not sure that he understood how much The Web might have possibly been still hanging around? It had struck me, in MAG067, how Jack… had suddenly decided to go talk to Agnes, and how he had described her:
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “But she was so beautiful, she… she was tall, with long straight auburn hair, and these eyes that… when they looked at you, it didn’t feel like she was seeing you so much as… was trapping you.
[…] I was… drawn to her in a way I can’t… even explain.
[…] That was the moment I decided to try and talk to Agnes. Seeing her interact with someone else, even in such a weird way, unblocked something in my mind. The following Tuesday, when she came in and ordered her coffee, I asked her name. She looked at me in surprise and, for a second, I felt like I’d made a terrible mistake, but then she… told me, very matter-of-factly. And then I asked her out on a date. I don’t know how it happened, it just… tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it.
[…] I worried I was boring her, but every time I looked over, she had that same expression on, which… by then I was pretty sure was a smile. I’d catch her eye and that feeling would flood though me – I… I still don’t know quite how to describe it, but whatever it was, it was powerful.
[…] I… I don’t know if I would have had it in me to resist. I just couldn’t avoid being drawn in, like a moth to the flame.”
Except for that last image, the way Agnes was attracting him… sounds super Webby to me? And as mentioned above, we know there were spiders in Jack’s flat. I don’t think that his crush was Web-induced, but his decision to go talk to her could perhaps have been due to a string…? (I’m really not sure but one my personal takes would be: The Web’s presence at Hill Top Road was diminished because of the tree, but it eroded over time and/or something made the seal weaken; the spiders used Jack’s crush and pushed him to confess, humouring Agnes and/or giving her a pretext to officialise that she wouldn’t do the ritual (making it sound like she couldn’t, rather than admitting that she didn’t want to); the spiders got Ivo Lensik to “kill” the tree, freeing The Web’s influence… and it was back as a contender for the ownership of the place. Possibly: it’s also what allowed Annabelle to be born as an avatar, a few years later, as Raymond Fielding had been dead for a long while and Neil Lagorio was growing old and incapacitated?)
- Regarding Agnes’s timeline, some bits are now a bit clearer, others still blurry:
* Agnes was sent to Hill Top Road to deal with The Web sometime around 1965, when Ronald Sinclair was turning 18 (he said he was born in the late 40s). Agnes was described as “younger than the other kids, maybe ten or eleven years old, and didn’t talk much”. She (playfully) freed Ronald from Raymond Fielding’s influence. (MAG059)
* The house got slowly depopulated until only Agnes and Raymond remained; Raymond disappeared when Agnes “must have been 18 or 19”, Agnes claiming that “he had gone away and that the house was hers” (Ivo Lensik, MAG008).
* In 1974, a five-year-old boy goes missing in the area. People are suspicious of Agnes, the house burns, Ray’s body is found, missing his right hand, and there is no sign of Agnes. (MAG008)
* Agnes apparently got stuck in the place (MAG139: “As far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet, she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way. I knew, when Arthur told she had kept Raymond Fielding’s hand, that he was worried.”)
* In 1989, Jude met Agnes and the others. (MAG089)
* Gertrude did something tying Agnes to the place (MAG139, Eugene: “Jude simply flies into a rage when it’s brought up. I assume it’s why we were waiting, biding our time for decades, unable to bring our designs to any culmination. Jude had only just joined at the time”), Agnes kept Ray’s hand.
* Agnes began to frequent the Canyon Café in the 90s as, by November 2006, she had been visiting for “a decade and a half” (MAG067). She waited, they all waited.
* In autumn 2006, Jack Barnabas confessed to Agnes and they went on a few dates. (MAG067)
* On November 23rd 2006, Ivo Lensik uprooted the tree at Hill Top Road, freeing spiders from the apple buried under it; Agnes felt it, said that she had to finish something, gathered the members of the cult, and at her request, they hanged her, with Ray’s hand tied to her waist. (MAG008/MAG067/MAG139)
The Web binds and traps, so it might have been its way to get back at Agnes, before Gertrude did… something, fifteen years later? I would have assumed that Gertrude had struck around the time of Ray’s death, but no, Eugene said that it was around the time Jude had joined them, and Jude was absolutely crystal clear that she joined in 1989.
- … I’m still side-eying (ha) a loooot Agnes’s stance on the candles, given that Eugene never actually saw her inhaling them (it was more of a Jude thing, to like incense?), and that Arthur was the one to say she was using them. It sounds like there is room for her to… not have used them at all. And, actually, to not have been that much into serving the Desolation in the first place.
It’s impressive how much Agnes herself still remains a Mystery, despite the fact that we’ve now learned about her birth and how she was raised. Interestingly (and I really doubt it was a coincidence), all the titbits we got about her were people who were either infatuated with her (Jude, Jack), either barely knew her and were unable to decipher her (Ronald), either saw her as a symbol more than a person (Eugene). The only time we heard about what she might have thought or felt was through Jack, and very briefly:
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “She was talking about… some sort of job, and whether Agnes was going to be able to do it. At first, I thought it was a job interview, and… then she started talking about Agnes being released from something. Agnes just… said something softly, and shook her head. She looked sad, an expression I’d never seen on her face before. The other woman sighed, clearly unhappy with the answer, and stood up to leave. Before she went, she took out a brown paper envelope and handed it over; said that she’d give it to her now so she didn’t forget later. She called it “a collection”, and it looked like the envelope might have been full of money. Agnes put it in her jacket and returned to staring out the window, as her intimidating companion left with a frustrated expression.”
(And we still don’t know what was in that envelope! You could technically put small candles in an envelope but they would still be too big for a jacket…? (Were there spiders inside of it.) Was the other woman Jude, since it was “a collection” and Eugene mentioned she might come “to collect” after Gertrude…? Perhaps he wasn’t being metaphorical.)
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “We sat on a bench as the sun went down, watching the sky redden, and Agnes asked me a question. It was the first time she’d said anything more than a few words since we left my flat. [STATIC:] She asked me if I had a destiny. [/STATIC] I don’t need to tell you the question caught me off-guard. I don’t know if I’ve given the impression clearly enough yet, being a single guy in my early thirties still working the tiller to Sheffield Café, but I don’t really see myself as having much of a destiny. Hell, I’m not even sure I believe in destiny. I certainly don’t believe in God, and I feel that’s… kind of linked. So I told her this. She looked at me with the same sadness I had seen on her face before. “That must be nice,” she said, and went back to staring into the sunset.”
It sounds like Agnes might have been much more reluctant about The Lightless Flame’s ritual than Eugene wanted to believe…? Whether or not we get a statement left by Arthur, I’m pretty confident that we might have one left by Agnes herself – or possibly a recording of her talking with Gertrude. There have been lots of people talking about Agnes without us getting to hear Agnes’s voice and intentions directly, and I doubt that this has been a coincidence? Eugene explicitly said that Gertrude did something to Agnes – is it possible that they agreed on something together, with Agnes more or less trying to spare her extended family’s feelings while ensuring that she couldn’t get used by them…?
(It would sound super positive for the series, which tends to give characters darker sides too, but… Agnes’s story has sounded very tragic so far? Just like Gerry – being programmed to be Something by their own mother, getting involved with spooks and fundamentally twisted, unable to escape, until they would reach their bitter end?)
(- There is something very poetic in the idea that… we’ll see about it, but maybe Agnes, whose whole life was programmed, who had a “Destiny” inflicted to her, actually gained agency for the first time in the house of the Web, which is known for its mind-control?)
- … Okay, so the Fears/Dread Powers/Outer Gods definitely are able to touch people more easily through their dreams.
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “We all felt the calling, the dreams, pulling us ever closer to a world of fire and loss, a place of burning, and agony, when we remade the world in the image of the Lightless Flame, the one Diego called “Asag”. We all felt it. Longed for it.”
Jane mentioned her “crawling and many-legged” dreams (MAG032), Annabelle had reported “several unsettling dreams about spiders” (MAG069); there were Oliver’s dreams (MAG011, MAG121); Adelard mentioned his own nightmares (MAG113); Lucia was pursued by some (MAG130); it’s unclear how Garland Hillier got his “revelations” but it could have happened through his dreams (MAG134); Robert Smirke had seen the Fears, and ultimately Beholding, in his dreams (MAG138); and of course, there are Jon’s dreams, which… seem more active than most of the others (given that Daisy confirmed that she was seeing him back, and that the way Elias described them in MAG120, Jon was inflicting anguish on the victims and was identified as the cause of their suffering).
- Regarding how the Lightless Flame proceeded and how Manuela designed The Dark’s ritual… the overall guidelines seem to be to Believe In It Very Hard, And It Will Happen?
(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Scientifically, it was nonsense of course. Dark energy and the like don’t work like that, not even remotely. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed. To do my work, to create the Black Star would need a parody, an aping mockery of science. But it would also need the deepest of darknesses. When I told Maxwell what I actually needed, he told me such a thing was impossible, but I insisted. And so he began his work on the Daedalus. […] My experiments continued largely uninterrupted, pushing the boundaries of light, darkness and fear. It was dangerous work and more than once, I got too close to the light and it almost destroyed me. But it didn’t. I could regale you with the technical terms or scientific disciplines I played with and rendered meaningless, but in the end all you actually need to know is that I succeeded. A tiny, terrible sun of the pitchest black, shining beautiful Darkness all around it.”
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “But a longing… is not the same thing as an instruction. We’d all been touched and warped by proximity to the holy Burning Fire, but none of us had any special knowledge, no matter what Diego claims he might have read. He wanted a Grand Inferno, a ritual of apocalyptic burning that would make the firebombing of Dresden look like a sparkler. Which sounded… amazing! […] And that’s when Arthur proposed his own plan: a Chosen One. We would create a messiah, the Flame Incarnate, one who could usher in this new world and lead us in what Diego called “The Scoured Earth”. […] Some objected, said that unless the child was conceived of the Flame, it could never be a true incarnation. But they had no idea of how such a conception could possibly even work, so it was decided that it would have to be enough to birth the child by fire. […] And in the centre of the pyre, a hollow, where Eileen was to lay. We prayed, and sacrificed, and anointed her body with holy oil and a crown of kindling. I protested the last one, felt we could do better than to ape the Christians, but I was shouted down.”
It looks like The Lightless Flame improvised… basically everything, by picking here and there symbols and ritualistic gestures that belonged to other cults – so the baffling thing is that it worked, and it’s probably because they thought/hoped/believed it would.
- Whiiiich directly raises the question of The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown, as Jon implicitly seemed to think – or, at least, he has been shown voicing some interrogations about why he was there.
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though.
And indeed: how is this ritual meant to work, if the Archivists tend to not be so keen to see the world warped…? Elias pointed out in MAG092 how fitting Jon is for the role and, indeed, his personality matches his powers, which seem to be… compensating for things he is lacking: compulsion means getting the truth out of people (while Jon is prone to paranoia), Knowing comes in handy given that he has so many questions, being able to get formatted statements help to satiate his curiosity… And precisely, because Jon is prone to doubt, he’ll push forward to know. But that doesn’t mean that he would be ready to doom the world and inflict fears on people, especially when Elias pushed him to stop another apocalypse (MAG102, “I should have thought preventing the horrific transformation of our world is not solely my concern!” YEAH, DEFINE WHAT IS AND ISN’T “HORRIFIC”, ELIAS). So what is it Elias saw in Jon that led him to think that Jon might be up for it, if his plans are indeed to carry out The Watcher’s Crown…?
I’m surprised that Jon would mention “bloodlines” in the list of potential reasons for them to be here, given how… it hasn’t been the case for any of the characters we’ve met so far, except Gerry – who, precisely, told Jon that blood didn’t matter (except if you’re a Lukas and use family structure as a tool to shape more believers)?
Overall, there is a non-systematic but still notable trend, amongst the Archival staff, to have encountered Spooks before joining the Institute in order to try and find out more about it:
(* Michael Shelley: lost a friend to The Spiral when he was young, which pushed him to join the Institute to understand what had happened, according to MAG101.)
* Jon had met The Web as a kid, probably never truly got away from it even though he did not die right away. Georgie highlighted how, personality-wise, he was perfect for the job:
(MAG093) GEORGIE: That does at least explain why he picked you.
ARCHIVIST: Uh?
GEORGIE: If your job is asking questions, I mean. You were always the one who pushed too far, and asked smart-arse, awkward questions. I always was surprised you never got punched.
* We heard Melanie’s recruitment live, though the reasons are still a bit unclear:
(MAG084) ELIAS: Do you want the job, Melanie?
MELANIE: Oh… Um, I…Well, it’s, it’s rather sudden, but… er, I mean, sure. Yes. Yes, I do.
(MAG106) MELANIE: Threaten, then. I’ve got nothing.
ELIAS: That’s… almost true. Your life is indeed shockingly absent of any meaningful connections. That’s actually one of the reasons I chose you for this job.
(Melanie had had various Spooky encounters at this point: she witnessed a fight between agents of the Stranger and of the… Flesh? Slaughter? (MAG028), got wounded on the shoulder by a Slaughter ghost (MAG076), and was already infected by a bullet from another Slaugher ghost (MAG117) when Elias recruited her. Static was even heard when he was talking to her, so he definitely did something, whether it was… seeing the bullet, or compelling her to think about the reasons for accepting? But why did he want her in the team – was it because she was leaning towards Beholding, in her quest for seeing things that could destroy her/being a witness overall/working with cameras and recording supernatural events? Was it because of the Slaughter wounds, set-up for Jon?)
* Same for Basira and Daisy: officially, Elias needed to neutralise Daisy and to be able to use her “competences” in dealing with Spooks, hence the trapping of Basira as blackmail material. Both had large amounts of Spooky encounters beforehand, as Section 31-signee officers (including the showdown with Rayner). Given recent development, it’s possible that Elias mostly just wanted Basira in the team, but her being good at investigating and “suit[ing] the academic life” (MAG102) might also just have been a happy coincidence – unlike the other Beholding folks, Basira has demonstrated that she’s able to call things quit when she is done with them, such as with her quitting the police.
* It’s unclear whether Jon had personally asked Sasha to be transferred to the Archives when he was appointed as Head Archivist (he liked Sasha a lot! She was getting a free pass on everything!). He did mention that “her working here seems the natural progression of her lifelong interest in the paranormal (MAG048), but it’s unclear whether that bit was Sasha-Sasha… or something rewritten by the Not!Them ;; (Since from what we knew it season 1, Sasha was pretty short on money and even hated Artefact Storage when she was working there but “couldn’t afford to quit”… so it might be that the real Sasha had just been desperate for a job, like Martin.)
* We know, however, quite a lot about Tim: he followed Danny and became an unwilling spectator to Grimaldi/Nikola’s skinning and dancing; he joined the Institute shortly afterwards in order to try and track down the Circus and get answers about what had happened to his brother (he even became a Smirke specialist in just two years!). We know that Jon specifically asked him to come with him to the Archives:
(MAG065) TIM: No. No, you listen for once. I was fine in research, happy. Then you asked me to be transferred here, and suddenly it’s all monsters and killers and secret passages, oh my!
(Plus, the whole thing with how he hadn’t managed to move but only watch in the Covent Garden theatre (MAG104) sounded verrryy much like Jon watching his bully disappear behind the door. Watching until the end, unable to do anything to stop events – but not closing their eyes either. Beholding-compatible.)
* AND MARTIN IS STILL OUR BIG MYSTERY, but of all things, we know that Elias was the one to interview him when he was applied with a fake CV, which UHOH.
(MAG056) MARTIN: I… … I lied on my CV.
ARCHIVIST: … What?
MARTIN: I don’t have a Master’s in parapsychology, I don’t even have a degree. […] So I… I just kinda started to lie on my applications, sending them out to just about anywhere. For some reason, my lie about parapsychology got me an interview with Elias and, and then a job here. M–most of my employment details are made up, I’m only 29!
(Unclear whether this happened when Martin was 17 or a little later, but he was at any rate already employed at the Institute in 2009, at age 22.) More specifically about working in the Archives, it doesn’t sound like Jon asked Martin to follow him there – firstly, Jon was super dismissive of him in season 1, and secondly, there was Martin’s awkward silence when he and Tim discussed that:
(MAG098) MARTIN: […] [Jon] said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault.
TIM: Isn’t it?
MARTIN: No! No, it isn’t! I mean, you heard Elias… We never really stood a chance.
TIM: Yeah. Maybe. But Elias wasn’t actually the one who offered me the job down here.
MARTIN: No, I– Sure. …
So either he volunteered, either he might have been sent down there by Elias… which just raises another “why”. It was a bit weird how Jon, in MAG139, immediately segued from Martin to the question of why they had been “chosen” to be there (why did thinking about Martin prompt that?), but on the other hand, it’s still an enigma why Elias hired Martin. Could be that everything was absolutely accidental, could be the Spiders at work, could be that Elias did have specific plans about Martin (because Elias didn’t especially like Martin…? He’s always very casually talking him down), who knows.
*SHAKES ELIAS AGAIN, SPIT WHAT YOU KNOW YOU INSUFFERABLE GRINNING EX-HEAD*
(Other option of why they were chosen: their isolation. Jon’s parents died when he was a kid, and his grandmother died around the time he began working at the Institute, in 2012; Tim’s only family member mentioned was his brother, who had died before he joined the Institute; Martin’s only family member mentioned around him was his mother, and given that he had to care for her when he was only 17, it is implied that he might not have had many family members around or close; Basira only mentioned her father, and in past tense; Melanie’s parents are both dead and Elias pointed out she didn’t have any real anchor anymore; Daisy’s “last connection to humanity” was stated to be Basira. Could be Elias being a vulture, or a bit of classism, targeting people in need/from poor upbringings, assuming that they would be more influenceable and easy to handle?)
- À propos of Martin, this episode also reminded of One Big Important Question:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “And that’s when Arthur proposed his own plan: a Chosen One. We would create a messiah, the Flame Incarnate […]. When we finally decided, it was Eileen Montague who came forward as a volunteer. She was five months pregnant at the time, and had already taken care of the father in the usual manner of our little congregation. […] We baptized her with the boiling water of Asag and named her… “Agnes”, as had been her mother’s final request.”
IS THERE A SINGLE GOOD MOTHER IN TMA. I’m snorting and weeping over the fact that:
(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: […] [Jack Barnabas] was unable to provide much more information on the above but, upon Martin’s asking if Agnes had mentioned her childhood at all, he did recall her briefly alluding to being adopted.
L-O-L YES, SHE WAS ADOPTED… by so many different people. By the cult of the Lightless Flame after her birth, and then by Raymond Fielding (kind of) when they sent her off to fight the Spiders as a kid.
We don’t have Stellar Parenting overall, very true, but I can still think of a few fathers who sacrificed themselves to save a child – Jason North was implied to have immolated himself to save his son from his own curse in MAG037, and YEAH OKAY, ROBERT MONTAUK WAS A SERIAL KILLER but he was also good towards Julia in MAG009 (and we will probably hear a bit more about their family’s story, about Julia’s mother… but I had gotten the feeling that Robert probably did what he did in order to avenge his wife and/or to protect Julia from the same fate?). Plus, Gerry mentioned that he thinks that his father might have wanted to help raise, him before Mary decided to get rid of the problem. Not role models, sure, but not-failing-as-parents. Meanwhile, almost every time we see a mother or hear about her feelings (ie, excluding for example Andrea Nunis’s mother, who was an anchor to her, but who wasn’t a character in herself), it’s Bad News. As MAG139 demonstrated, Agnes’s mother imposed the Destiny on her daughter before she was even born. See also: Mary friggin’ Keay to Gerry, and not-his-mother-but-was-apparently-getting-a-kick-out-of-being-mistaken-for-it Gertrude. Do I need to mention Martin’s mother.
It’s a great subversion of the idea that mothers are inherently nurturing and kind but they’re also… the Rarest Species in this series, uh.
- Hey hey hey, alright, I deserve tomatoes to be thrown at me, but on the subject of Martin Lukas Keay von Closen Son Of Puppets Blackwood. So. Martin and spiders have a loving relationship, but this episode also reminded me that another of his loves is also…
(MAG117) MARTIN: This way I finally get to do something. It’s gonna hurt, but… I’m ready. And I want to. Also, I get to burn some stuff, so that cool!
(MAG118) ELIAS: Tell me what you’re doing, and why.
MARTIN: I just thought I’d, y’know, drop a couple of ideas in the old suggestion box! Turns out my suggestion is… fire! [LIGHTER ON]
… arson, so on the list of “what the heck is Martin Blackwood”, what about Unholy Grandchild of Web and Desolation or something through his dad.)
- Gertrude’s death was sneakily pushed back to the forefront again:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “And he’s probably right. Just as well you are not here. Smart move on your part. But they always are, aren’t they? Smart moves. Someday, you’re gonna push your luck too far, and when you do… Well, you just better hope it isn’t Jude who comes to collect. […] As for you… Whatever you did, and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed, with Agnes’s death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose. I hope, when it is time, we may burn you forever, Gertrude.
[…] ARCHIVIST: […] Nice to see Gertrude [EXHALE] also used to get a lot of threats. So far it doesn’t seem that any went… desperately well. Except for Elias, of course. But he didn’t threaten, did he? He just… did it.
And I still feel like we might be missing a few things about the circumstances surrounding it – if Gertrude was pursued by so many people and so cautious about it, how come Elias managed to get rid of her in the end…? Is it because he was kind of a blind spot (ha) and she had been underestimating him…? Is it because, so focused on Spooks, she didn’t consider mundane means…? But she was well-aware of the power of regular, non-paranormal weapons! She used so many explosives…
I wonder if the Reminder that Gertrude had a long list of would-be killers, that she had managed to avoid for so long until Elias got to her, is supposed to mean that we’ll hear more about the Elias-Gertrude relationship… Oliver had mentioned that she had many things going after her, in MAG121; Peter mentioned that he wouldn’t have been against offing her himself in MAG134; and now, again, we’re getting another mention in MAG139…
- Jon is still gathering information about past rituals and we can add another name for the Desolation: “The Scoured Earth”, which should have been carried out by Agnes… and was left on standby and/or cancelled entirely for this round. We’re only missing the name and description for The Lonely (though we know from MAG134 that Gertrude successfully derailed it already), The Corruption (was it whatever Jane tried against the Institute?), and everything about The Vast. Jon didn’t say how and where and why he found Eugene’s statement in particular: whether he was drawn to this one, or found it cobwebs-wrapped, or Knew he had to read it?
(And The Corruption still hasn’t had any statement in season 4! Oh worms.)
- Jon gave us updates on the Archival staff, and it is various shades of sob. Chronologically, by order of mentions:
* Basira still hasn’t spilled the beannnns ;_;
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: The others are doing… better, I think. Basira’s busy doing research for something secretive, unsurprisingly. But she seems to be adjusting to, uh… the new Daisy.
So, on the one hand: Basira is still Hiding Everything from Jon… but on the other hand, it sounds like it’s going better between her and Daisy? … but WELP, if their relationship is pacifying, it means that it’s becoming Something That Could Be Taken Away from us and from them / it’s giving Jonny an opportunity to hurt us a whole lot if one of them dies. Let me be happy about them, gdi?!
* I Have Reclamations To Make About Jon’s mentions of Daisy:
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: I actually like Daisy now, which is a… really weird feeling. [INHALE]
Like, on the one hand, I get that becoming kind of bff with Daisy is throwing you off, Jon, but don’t you dare lie to Us/The Tape Recorder: you liked Daisy and sharing your fantastic shitty sense of humour with her, I Have Receipts:
(MAG096) DAISY: Come on. Before the Met get here.
ARCHIVIST: Whatever you say~
DAISY: And wipe that grin off your face.
Plus, you’ve been listening to THE ARCHERS in her company, probably to indulge her, and you went out for drinks with her; there are limits to pity, you’ve been way into Friendship territory for a while now, don’t try to bluff!! :w
Also, a bit saddened that he’s describing her as “the new Daisy” because… it doesn’t really seem accurate? According to Daisy, this was her all along/her true self, and we indeed could see glimpses of it in season 3, like how she gladly accepted the nickname “Daisy” (MAG082, Elias: “Everyone calls me Daisy. I like that because it sounds so gentle […] It makes me feel strong, to know that the soft nickname everyone calls me comes from a bloody wound.”) (But at the same time… ;; It’s very easy to picture Elias waltzing in at some point to highlight that ahah, but the rabid dog was the real you all along, too…)
* Melanie is “quiet”.
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Melanie’s quiet, but I think therapy’s helping.
And given that the identity of her therapist is still undetermined, I’m filled with dread… The Web is known for making people come off as “quiet”……………
(MAG059, Ronald Sinclair) “The other kids living there were the same – at least, I think they were. I remember them being kind of dull, not that they were… boring, exactly, […] but there was something about them, as though… there were some things that they said and did without anything behind them. Occasionally there would be flashes of something. […] mostly they were quiet, almost placid. I’m sure they’d have said the same things about me, but at the time, nothing seemed amiss. I did what I did because it was what I was supposed to do, and it never struck me to question it. I’m not sure I really recognise who I became while living at that house.”
Please, be just fine and healing, Melanie…? ;;
* Helen is… *LOUD SOB*
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Haven’t seen Helen much. The door is… sometimes there, sometimes not. … I haven’t knocked. I’m never going to trust it. Trust… her. … Trust it. [DRY EXHALE] And I shouldn’t. Whatever its relationship to the person who was or is Helen… assuming that I can ever know its motivations is a mistake.
Damniiiiiiiiiiiiiit… Extra-aouch that Helen directly told Jon that she wasn’t super-fond of the “it” in MAG131 (and given how Melanie, who seems to be the closest to Helen?, used “she”), and that Jon is… very pointedly choosing to still using “It” anyway after some hesitation (reflex to call The Distortion “it”, then remembering his discussion with Helen and going for “she”, then reaffirming his distrust with “it”?).
I’m really not surprised that Jon is having trouble with her door (Jon has a History of doors that should stay closed, and specifically got bad experiences with Michael’s), I’m saddened that he is choosing to not trust Helen, although… I can imagine why. But is it through an intrinsically personal decision (The Distortion is supposed to lie and deceive; maybe it’s currently trustworthy only because of his lack of trust? Is it because he still feels guilty over what happened to the human Helen Richardson, who got snatched right before him? Is it because he still resents Michael?), or is it also because of the Beholding in him – pushing him to not trust what he can’t know…?
I wonder how Helen being around will end up causing harm (because surely, it will): will it be because Jon will finally decide to trust her because he has no choice left, and immediately be given reason to regret? Is it because Jon will adamantly refuse to trust her when she could be preventing another disaster…?
* And theeeeeeeeeeeeen…
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: And that just leaves Martin, which…
[SAD PAUSE OF ARCHIVIST DESPERATELY PINING]
Jon, p l z. If you’re beginning to reach Martin Level of concern/pining/worrying, then Oh No.
(MAG117) MARTIN: I suppose you can get used to anything, but… [PAUSE] It feels different. I need them to be safe. I need him to be okay. … So–sorry, hum. I–I’m not afraid for me, though. Isn’t that weird…? […] I just… really hope everyone makes it back. … And I want to win on my own. Oh, and I hope the world doesn’t end. Obviously. [SIGH] Just… [SIGH] Just don't die, Jon. … O–or Tim, or Basira, or… Daisy, I guess. Just… just everyone please, make it back home…?
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: … [SIGH] I’m just worried about Martin. … Christ… Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings… burned right out of them, but me? I’ve… just got to sit in mine. … I know he said he had everything under control. I need… to trust him; whatever he’s doing with Peter, he’s… he knows what he’s doing. Probably. I just– … [VERY FAST] I need him to be okay. I just do.
(I’m still not sure whether the “I need him to be okay” was a conscious reference to MAG117 from him, or just a coincidence to convey that these two tragic idiots are reaching the same point independently. We have clues that Jon had heard Tim’s testament from that episode, potentially Melanie’s as well since she gave her statement about the Ghost Bullet; but they weren’t dated from the same day, and not on the same tapes if the official description (“A-F”) is any indication, so…)
Anyway. Please, Jon, don’t wish for your feelings to disappear. There is something very delicious and entertaining about Jon complaining that he has FEELINGS, URK, IT SUCKS, but at the same time, This Is That Kind Of Series. Please, enjoy your sad pining and your concern and your worrying, Jon. (;wwwwwwwww; for Jon still trying to put some reason in his own mind; explaining what is the problem, and at the same time still holding to his decision to trust Martin…)
(- There was something very… “SO WHO IS HAVING A CRUSH, NOW, UH.” with that Martin mention, given that Eugene’s statement referred to Jack Barnabas and… back in MAG067, Jon hadn’t been fundamentally kind towards the latter’s story:
(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: Statement of Jack Barnabas, regarding a short-lived courtship with Agnes Montague in the autumn of 2006. […] A rather different perspective on the woman known as Agnes Montague or… Agnes Fielding, depending on who you ask. Although hardly a reliable account, steeped as it is in messy obsessions and confusion.
HEY JON, WHAT’S GOOD, and who is the one pining, now.
(Although of course, more seriously: there is kind of an echo between Jack and Agnes, and Martin and Jon…? Someone Normal harbouring feelings for an avatar who was Chosen and burdened with a specific role in their little society and who had met The Web in their youth, and after a while, the avatar growing fondness in return – though the nature of their feelings is unclear. In Jon’s case, not sure whether his worries and concern for Martin are derailing anything Beholding-related or… just part of the Bigger Plan. Though Jack&Agnes, and Martin&Jon, could also all be… part of The Web’s plans overall. Too many spiders.))
(Following: bits typed down before MAG140 was released:)
- Big question is what happened at the end of the episode exactly?
(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: … If I… Knew… what his plan was… If I knew what Peter was doing, if I just– [WHISPERING] … Can I…?
[LOW RUMBLING SOUND, STATIC RISES] [CRIES OF PAIN] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION STEADILY RISING]
[NOISE OF SOMETHING-OR-JON FALLING]
[SQUEAL OF DISTORTION DECREASES]
[MUMBLING] End… E–end recording…!
[CLICK.]
1°) See, Jon: assuming you’re on a first name basis with “Peter” is a bad idea, and karma went right back at you.
2°) Re: the noise of something falling. Was it Jon falling off his chair AGAIN, JON, YOU ALREADY DID THAT IN MAG128. Did Jon manage to get a concussion by trying to Know too hard. Does it count as his Lonely scar. Is Elias laughing hysterically in his cell because Jon is such an Embarrassment.
3°) Okay, so, unlike the other times Jon got to Know about something or purposely used that power… there was, on top of the usual static, Peter’s trademark “squeal of distortion” (I am using the way the official transcript introduced it, in MAG100, and it’s been the same sound surrounding Peter’s appearances since then). So, whatever happened was definitely Lonely-related, but: was it because Jon can’t pierce through the Lonely, in the same way he didn’t manage to peak through The Dark in MAG135? Was it Peter hiding himself a bit deeper in reaction to Jon’s attempt, feeling (or SEEING, if he was… right in the room with Jon) what Jon was trying to do? … Another possibility is that it was that Jon couldn’t access Martin because of MARTIN himself (ie: he’s a bit too much into the Lonely, or worse… is beginning to use Lonely powers), but I’m leaning towards Peter here.
With The Dark and now The Lonely, that makes a lot of Power Walls that Jon isn’t yet able to bypass…
4°) Did Jon manage to Know something through the experience, or… not at all? I got the impression that he had just hit the wall of squealing sounds, bounced back, and… didn’t get anything at all.
5°) Obligatory “JON used Beholding powers! JON’s attack missed. JON hurt himself in his confusion. JON fainted!” joke here.
Speculation for MAG140 based on the title (20/05/19):
A PRETTY ONE, and uuuuh, smells of… alchemy? JOHN FLAMSTEED? So either about another way of interpreting the powers before Smirke, in general (Gerry had put them on the same level in MAG111), either, more specifically… about The Dark, and its previous ritual attempt (and then, could also be about Edmond Halley, since Basira had linked the two in MAG108)? Or could be about The Vast?
Second meaning… could be about a ~sky~, so Basira explaining her current activities/researches…? Will she finally tell Jon about the fact that The Dark is potentially planning something in Svalbard…?
(17/06/19: AHAHAHA sob.)
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LIGHTER FLUID
verse | desolation sound
ch | charlie mcgrath
summary | post-possession side effects are kinda fun, but like the ben kissel kind of ‘kinda fun’ when marcus says something horrifying
shoutout to @zacksfairest for the prompt 💜
DAY FOUR, 8:37AM
ATHENE NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT
LEVEL THREE, RESEARCH LABS
He wakes up in a cold sweat. His shirt is drenched right through to the bedsheets underneath him. Charlie struggles to push himself into an upright position, swiping the back of his hand across his sweat-drenched forehead. He’s never felt this awful in his life. A chill races up his spine and he involuntary shivers as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the examination room he’s been quarantined in.
This morning marks the fourth day he’s been stuck in this room behind a thick piece of tempered glass and a reinforced steel door. The bed he’s in is tucked in the far corner of the room, and there are two sets of fluorescent lights hanging down from the ceiling, giving the room the garish look of a poorly lit hospital room. Charlie exhales, his shoulders drawing forward as he tugs up the thin sheets around his shoulders for warmth.
He figured that his dad would have at least given him better accommodations than this for being willing enough to go through with his certifiably insane ideas, but no. Charlie may as well as be just another employee to his dad. Not for the first time, he wonders what it is that’s buried so deep down in his numerous insecurities that compels him to continue to seek his father’s approval like this.
He willingly subjected himself to this and look where that’s got him: trapped in this room like a zoo animal, ragged with an exhaustion that’s buried itself deep into his bones, a continuous aching throb from where his hand had been broken yesterday.
And it had been. It inexplicably snapped into pieces in front of his eyes, the bones cracking loudly enough that even the doctor scrambling around him trying to help flinched. Charlie threw up, then passed out. When he woke up, all the bones in his hand were right there they should’ve been and nobody could explain the sickening event.
They told him that he’d need to be under observation for a week after the procedure, but they never warned him about the side-effects. If they could even be called that. Whatever was happening to him wasn’t right; he could read it in the eyes of every researcher who studies him. They preach at him sometimes, almost pleading for him to welcome the entity. He can’t tell if they want him to because they’re genuinely concerned for his well-being or if they just want their project to be successful.
He wonders how Adam is doing. Something tells him that Adam is probably taking this just fine.
So, he tries to embrace the entity, but whenever he tries all he can feel is a viscous shapeless being trying to ooze its way inside him. It makes his joints ache, it makes pressure build to a near unbearable point somewhere behind his eyes. It makes him nauseous. It makes him delirious.
I can’t, he’d tell the researchers.
You can, they’d say.
Let me out of here, he’d beg.
They always tell him no. They always tell him that they can make this work.
They always tell him that they can fix the botched possession.
And that’s what it is, isn’t it? A botched possession? You can paint it up with a scientific backing and call it Cosmic Symbiosis, but that doesn’t change what it is: a possession.
Charlie hauls himself up, dragging his feet over to the window and peers through. Nobody is on the other side, but that doesn’t mean nobody is watching. The cameras in his room watch obediently all hours of the day.
It’s the cameras that catch the fire from beginning to end.
Charlie wipes the back of his hand across his forehead again, still sweating despite the chill in his bones. His head thuds against the glass and his eyes flutter shut for a moment. That’s when he smells it.
Lighter fluid.
Charlie raises his head and sniffs at the air. It’s faint, but it’s distinctly there. He shuffles around the room trying to follow the scent to its source. It grows stronger and more pungent with time until it fills his nostrils, blocking out any other scent. He coughs and coughs, waving a hand in front of his face, and the bedsheet falls from his shoulders with the movement. It pools around his feet, damp from being soaked with his sweat.
Coughing, he presses a button on the intercom and a voice fills the room. “Yes?”
“Hey”–he coughs–”I think there’s”–more coughing–”something wrong. It smells like–lighter fluid and it’s really––really hot.” Well, he thinks it’s hot because sweat continues to soak through his shirt. He must’ve woken up with another fever.
Then the scent of smoke hits him.
It’s just barely noticeable through the thick butane scent, but Charlie’s attention is drawn downward towards his feet.
There is definitely smoke, but more concerning than that are the flames licking at the bottom of his legs. “What the fu–” The flames begin to rapidly climb up his legs as if it was waiting for him to notice. Charlie lets out a scream and slams a hand down on the intercom’s button again.
“Fire!” he is all he manages to choke out before the smoke begins to tighten his throat for good.
If there’s a response from the other end he doesn’t hear it.
The flames quickly spread up his torso and he tries to scream again, but he inhales the unnaturally thick smoke. It gets caught in his throat and triggers another racking coughing fit that doubles him over. He drops onto one knee and then the other. The fire is at his chest now, licking at his jawline, he cheeks, skimming just below his eyes. He collapses onto all fours, staring down at the charred remains of his hands in shock as the flesh burns before his eyes. It bubbles and pops. The scent of the lighter fluid is overpowered by the scent of his own burning flesh.
The cameras impassively record his thrashing, the smoke curling up to the ceiling, people running in with fire extinguishers.
The cameras impassively record as the smoke begins to clear and reveals Charlie sprawled on the floor and encircled by the small group of researchers. One of them bends to a knee, reaching out to Charlie’s cheek in eerie reverence. There’s not even so much as a blister on his skin.
He’s fine.
Charlie blearily opens his eyes and his first thought is, It doesn’t smell like lighter fluid anymore.
#writing*#verse | desolation sound#oc | charlie mcgrath#sorry my summary is just a lpotl reference#this is short and bad but i needed my fingers flexing#also yah this is canon
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