Resident Rambling Maniac

They/Any, Aspiring (Read: Procrastinating) Game Dev and Writer Header Art by Aryel Meireles

[edgarskata]

I like his dumb face

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 15: Well Run

We're already halfway there! Mid season!

"Well Run". Like a machine? Or a business? Or is someone going to spend a long time literally running?

CAT1RB-6451-22062023-22032024Hunt (aristocratic) / compulsion

Ah. Literal running it is. Aristocratic is an interesting subcategory of hunt. Perhaps there will be references to the Wild Hunt? Or are a bunch of 14th century aristocrats about to go out into the woods and suddenly go The Most Dangerous Game on each other? Maybe an early (alternate dimension) form of the Everchase?

Graphic Violence/Murder- Futility- Being Hunted- Classism- Dehumanisation- Hostile work environment- Drowning-

Oh. I'm daft. Of course the aristocrats aren't just killing themselves. They're kidnapping commoners to release out into some field and then hunt down. "Hostile work environment" I assume applies to something outside the incident. But it just hit me. "Well Run". The title's not just about the incident, it's about the OIAR itself. It's well run. A well oiled machine for... churning horror and suffering?

Episode begins.

1:54 Okay, this exchange is just really cute.

2:28 - "So… is that a no to-" It's okay, Sam. I suck at detecting sarcasm sometimes too. This conversation continues to be so very cute and I am smiling so much. It's gonna suck when we jump into a recording of people being brutalized for having less money than other people.

2:38 - "Oh, er… “The Pillowman”?" "Oh nothing, very romantic choice." Looked it up. It's a play about child murder. Incredibly romantic. 10/10 choice Sam.

2:54 - "I mean sure you could both go canoodle in some stuffy old theatre-" ALICE. Alice wherever you are going with this I do not think it is a good idea. You've already made this awkward by jumping it, it is only going to get worse. Maybe wait for them to date for like... a month before you leap into their conversations. Then it won't look desperate.

3:04 - "-or you could hear one of the great up-and-coming music sensations that is currently taking the London scene by storm!" "Let me guess, Dredgerman" Ah, the new band Alice's brother is a part of! She's advertising! Okay, I take it back, I think this is the one and only way this conversation could go to not end awkwardly. This is understandable.

3:08 - "Don’t be daft, they’re taking a break before their tour!" WELL THEN WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING ALICE? If you don't have the excuse of shilling for your brother, why are you getting involved in your ex's dating plans?

3:25 - "But it is still Luke on Bass right? How many bands is that boy in?" "which may or may not also include my incredibly talented younger brother" You are sending me on a emotional rollercoaster ;-; Okay, so she is still shilling for her brother. Okay, cool. Also we have a name! Luke! I don't think we had his name before.

3:45 - "Aha! But that’s the best bit, they’re the last ones on so you can do your boring play and then just swing by afterwards!" Alice no you had the opportunity to drop it. Alice no please don't call the original date plan boring. Alice no no no no

4:06 - "No, yeah, no, of course. So… Like, a dog sitter, or…?" Alice. Why. I'm giving you the "girlfailure" stamp, this conversation has gone too awry.

4:19 - "Babies are cool." I'm reapplying the stamp. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The way she says it like she's promoting "babies" as a product in a commercial

4:50 - "What? I said babies were cool" Laugh. It's laugh.

5:07 - "Hi, you’ve reached The Sentinel tip-off hotline." Oh god. It's modern day. Could still be reanimated aristocrats from the 14th century though. Ghosts? Celia can call Georgie? Also I just remembered what I think was a tumblr post that went around a while ago from Jonny Sims himself. He was saying how people were simping for Needles (can relate) and simping for Mr. Blobby (can't relate, failure on my part, I know), but he drew the line at people simping for 16th century aristocracy? I think he said 16th century? Some century. Is this the episode that prompted that?

5:50 - "I can’t go to the police" Welp, seems like modern aristocracy is involved too. Not gonna lie, as a filthy American, a lot of this episode might be lost on me. Not helping is when I goggled "modern aristocrats", what showed up first was not the British royal family but instead Magic: the Gathering decks.

6:57 - "I worked with them for years and they didn’t deserve what happened to them…" I'm actually tearing up at this and I'm not even fully sure why. The idea of them being killed just because they're in a servile position? The guilt of watching your acquaintances die? I don't even know. I just. Don't feel good.

7:17 - "Apparently, they had a family shoot and wanted us to prepare the game" Like... as in gamey meat, right? Not to like... literally stick pheasants and partridges under silver domes on silver platters and then release them as the family shoot started, right? I'm probably overthinking this.

7:25 - "they were really explicit about it being larger game and wanting to know who’s kill they were eating." That is deeply concerning. A bit Fleshy, but I still feel like the focus is on the thrill of the Hunt.

Unrelated thought, this incident is filed under "compulsion". But how would you be able to tell the aristocrats are being compelled if they're just... already like this when ordering the catering? Are the caterers going to be compelled somehow to act as prey?

8:02 - "It wasn’t usual to be given center stage like that but I figured the client fancied themself a foodie and wanted to see the prep." Weirdly pitched noise here. Feels like they are drawing focus to this, but for what I am not sure.

8:36 - "Another hour passed with a couple more cars trickling in, but still no one had set out. Instead, I could see them through the leaded windows, just watching us work." Stalking. Sizing up their prey before they pounce.

8:57 - "He just gave me this look, told me to “prepare” and then headed back inside." Run. Run run run run run run run runrunrunrunrun

9:39 - "She had the same eyes, like they didn’t see people any more just “assets” and “resistance.”" Ugh. Yikes.

11:06 - "Then she raised her hand to silence me and it was as though she had slapped a gag in my mouth. I couldn’t even think of disobeying her, the words just died in my throat." There's compulsion. I assume this woman is the one people simped over. And well, she's no Needles, but if she can psychically force me to shut up, that is kinda... No. No simping for the aristocrat that is going to be classist and hunt and kill people. Daisy at least wasn't classist! And she had this growl and turned into a werewolf wife so-

11:12 Three notes. Can't tell the instrument. But music. Music is starting.

It's still going. The same note. Ding. Ding. Ding. It's actually making me uneasy. The longer this goes and the more I hear it the stiffer my body becomes because I am just waiting for it to crescendo.

11:54 Oh, the music faded so we can hear a description of having to stare down a gun that's about to shoot you. Neat!

12:40 - "Then I realized, she wasn't talking to the other guns, she was talking to us." First I thought the aristocrats would be hunting each other. Then I thought the aristocrats would be hunting the caterers. No. No. They're being made to hunt each other. It's like the Murder Club in thrill of the chase. Makes sense why some Slaughter is creeping in, with music and references to military service. This may be a Hunt, but it's also going to be a burst of sudden violence. It makes sense. Too much sense. Just pit people of a "lower class" against each other and eat popcorn on the sidelines or some shit.

13:49 - "Without taking my eyes from her I reached out and gently closed my hand around the handle of the clever in front of me" The drop in his voice as he says this. Like he's being overcome by the compulsion all over again even while recounting it.

And then the way he recounts what he does to Marcus... Its almost like he's slightly relishing in it... The caterer probably took to the compulsion fastest because he served in the military. I wonder, was his group specifically chosen for that? To feed on his fears of what he had to do during combat, force him to relieve being a machine of violence? Well Run. It can also apply to a military, now that I think of it.

14:52 - "The party ate well that night. All told, it didn't take long, maybe a half hour at most? None of them got far." I thought there wouldn't be cannibalism because it wasn't in the warnings, but yep, they ate the victims. A man who was in the military is forced to kill people and a bunch of aristocrats sitting at a table are eating the corpses. Almost as poignant of a metaphor as ripping someone's heart out and putting it in your wallet. He's so... casual about it. That's what makes this most disturbing. He's not even horrified with what he did, at least not in this moment. Maybe he'll snap back out of it... Or maybe he only made this call because the aristocrats turned on him... He did say they didn't deserve what happened to them. He had some humanity at the start of the call. Hopefully he'll snap back out of this.

15:51 - "Then the butler handed me a thick brown envelope. It was full of cash" Oh my god, they even paid him for his service. The military parallels, I can't. "and a note written in elegant cursive with just one word: “Run”." Fuck. Slightly funny the more I look at the line but still fuck.

16:12 - "I thought about handing myself in to the police, but that just feels like trapping myself in a dead end." Can't stop moving. Can't let the blood stop flowing. The Hunt needs the movement, the thrill, and action, the panic and fear.

16:23 - "Wait…" Right before this, I was about to note how the music notes are coming back. Then he said this. And then the notes go louder. Sharper. And that somehow feels like more of a jumpscare than the woman actually showing up.

16:27 - The car window shatters inwards from a sudden loud gunshot. The CATERER is wetly silenced. There is a deep pit in my stomach. A cavern that only continues to be excavated further and further in, leaving me empty of all but shock. I kept waiting for the notes to turn into full on music. It never did. The caterer was just shot.

16:39 - LADY MOWBRAY "Well run dearie. Well run..." Title drop! Also we have a name! The almost gentle positive affirmations after literally splitting his head open is disturbing, but also... No. I must convene with my shrine of Needles. I must not be swayed by militaristic aristocratic probably-an-embodiment-of-violence-demanded-and-perpetuated-by-authority woman built like a statue with a prim voice.

Incident ended. No one drowned. I thought someone was going to get drowned during the hunt. Someone gets drowned during the OIAR section?

16:47 - LADY MOWBRAY (too close) "Fascinating." WHAT WHAT WHAT WHA WHA WHAWHA HOW WHO HOW IN THE WHO LET YOU IN HERE? WHY ARE YOU NOT IN INCIDENT LAND CYBERSPACE? WHY ARE YOU REAL? Why are you saying "Fascinating" with such disturbing mirth and interest please I am not supposed to simp for you I have a reputation to uphold I have to not disappoint Jonny.

16:52 - LADY MOWBRAY CONT. "Sit." ... No comment.

16:56 - The dogs sit. They are not fur babies, they are what turns up when someone says “release the hounds”. nuirjklgbijekgrebguirkgregbeijngr WHAT ARE THESE SHOW NOTES

STOP SNIFFING CELIA. S T O P

17:40 - "A fine specimen… strong and… different…" Why are you talking about her like she's a purebreed dog you're judging at a show ;-;

17:48 - GWEN (cautiously) "Lady Mowbray?" WHY DO YOU KNOW HER? Okay, I know why, but WHY do you know her?

18:10 - "No, you won't." It's almost like Celia could sense Lady Mowbray was an avatar? Like even just the moment she showed up, Celia was not putting up with it. Apocalypse experience, maybe?

18:31 - "Bouchard… You wouldn’t be of the Cheshire Bouchard’s would you?" Cheshire Bouchard? An older member of Gwen's family, maybe? Maybe even older than Elias? You know, did Elias ever even become Institute Head here? The Institute burned down in 1999, and while Jonah Magnus leaped from James Wright and took over Elias in 1996, it's not unimaginable to think he delayed it 3 years in this timeline... Or just, you know, picked a whole different guy.

19:03 We're at a club. It's Alice's phone. Her brother Luke is performing. There's music. I'm having a great time. An honestly great time. I'm actually managing to decompress. And then I remember there is a drowning in this episode. That we have not gotten to yet.

20:23 Oh thank god, we left. Luke's cool, he seems chill.

20:36 - A tape recorder CLICKS, distantly a body shuffles in an alley off the main road. VICTIM "- the second time is up I try to grasp the air and fill my lungs that burn and rattle full." Oh. Well, that's disturbing. The fact it's going to be someone describing their own drowning is deeply unnerving.

20:56 Poem. It's a poem. Why is it a poem? That makes it freakier. What is this recorder thing? Is it Jon? Is this a recount of someone's experience during the apocalypse? As the poem gets spoke I feel like I can't even breathe or I'll drown.

21:26 - The VICTIM stumbles then falls to the ground, hard. They begin to writhe, clutching at their throat. Oh. Oh god. it just clicked for me. This isn't a recording planning. Victim is saying this. Something took her statement and now she is stuck endlessly repeating it.

21:46 - The VICTIM begins to choke. She got to the end of her drowning poem and then started drowning on land. Maybe it's not endless repetition. Are people being forced to live what their alternate-selves experienced in a fear domain? Is that it? Or is she just reliving a real choking she experienced, feeling every single bit of the trauma again in full? The poetic nature of the recounting makes me think apocalypse, where everything got dreamlike, but it could be either.

23:09 - The victim starts to speak again, quietly, bubbling up through the water and out of dead lips. Absolutely not.

She keeps. Whispering. Her poem. This is Fear Domain shit. This is apocalypse domain shit. Some mixture of Buried and End where you drown over and over and feel yourself die over and over and have to feel every sensation of your own corpse bloat with water as you're powerless to move.

Deeper… Deeper… Down among the dead and swollen flesh so pale within this lightless place where eyes are open cloudy white and all the water pushes down upon a lifeless form that sinks and sinks down to the bottom that is not there no sandy grave below the swell no rest among the coral and the depths I feared so much but reached up and over land to claim me still

Endless sinking. Some Vast in there too, maybe? First reminded me of Adrift, episode 195 of TMA, but here the focus is more on the drowning and the choke... But the ceaseless depths of the ocean are there... But I'm also thinking of Episode 11 of TMAGP. Marked. The sailor's tattoo. The calling of the sea as final resting place. "Reached up and over land to claim me still". Hmmm...

And it's done. How is Alice seeing this going to affect her? Is she going to start looking for answers too? Or is she going to double and triple down on her "don't ask questions, just do the job" mentality?

This one was plenty disturbing. The hunting incident was a really good metaphor, and this scene at the end? I am shivering.

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 14: Pet Project

Evil dog? Evil cat? Evil... whatever the thing from A Hole in the Ground is, I really should go listen to that sometime, the only Rusty Fears submission I've listened to is Paint?

CAT1RB4426-01081995-15032024 Transformation (snake) / horde

SNAKE. SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE! Funny because I've actually been thinking of a Corruption Avatar OC vaguely connected to snakes (She's mostly associated with sea life, but snakes fit the vibe of "thing with scales that can be viewed as gross", and also I've considered just having her straight up go full mermaid-lamia). Also I've visited a zoo recently with family and saw snakes. They were cool! My mom refused to even look at them, which I found amusing. The way they slither is so uncanny...

Also snakes make me think of Ink5oul, but this incident isn't categorized under "tattoo" like the previous two incidents involving Ink5oul were, so they probably aren't directly behind this. It does create a recurring theme of snakes though...

Also, "horde". Is the victim joining a horde of snakes as they transform into one... Or are they turning into a horde of various snakes?

Written by Shaun Pellington New name! He's the creator of Wake of Corrosion, another audio horror podcast.

Looking up Shaun, I found his twitter and did a quick look and saw he reposted this fanart by @jojo-fraga, so I guess it's becoming part of my pre-episode theorizing now.

The eerie yellow-green glow on everything. The way the episode title is like in glow-in-the-dark paint. It's delicious. And Joana also made art for Futures, which goes insanely hard. Check out her other work! It looks great! I can't at the moment because I'm pretty sure she made more TMAGP fan art so if I look I might get spoiled. The price I pay for not being caught up.

Oh my god, the snake tails blending in with the wires. It's brilliant. There's a hole under the desk. Mouse hole or snake hole? Shaun's repost kinda spoiled that those are snake eyes, so... Still doesn't answer the question of if someone is turning into a horde or joining one. There are security cameras. A zoo maybe? Or a lab doing animal testing? Maybe not that, I think there would be an incident element warning for that. I can't quite make out what's on the bottom left screen. I think it's a jar and a bird? Bugs being fed to a bird?

I'm thinking something Fleshy for this one. Touching on the fear that humans are nothing more than animals, through having someone literally turn into an animal(s?).

Run episode

3:35 - CELIA "I'm sure he'll do better next time." ALICE "Ha! Yeah." (realising she’s serious) "Oh! Cool." Oof. You just had to ask about the date, Alice. Opened yourself up for the awkwardness to seep in.

4:08 - "The only drama is the dilemma of how I could possibly get by without you all to myself!" "…am too intimidated by your genius intellect and desperately hot bod and think we should just stay friends?" Was I right about Alice and Celia having chemistry? Was Alice crushing too? Or is the actual point of Alice's sarcasm just flying over my head? This could still just be about Alice worrying Sam dating is going to affect their friendship. Thinking it over, it's probably just that. If Alice actually had a crush and was upset Celia is dating Sam, Alice probably wouldn't be play-flirting. Also Alice probably would have fired her shot way before Sam anyway.

OH ALSO THIS REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT UP: WHY. IS THERE. SO MUCH. DYEHARD FANART. I saw one a few days ago and just shrugged thinking it was a just normal ship art but more keeps appearing in the TMA subreddit, just what on earth is going on in Season 2? Does it become canon or is this just a trend? And why is the ship name so rad? I guess I'll find out in... a few months, at the pace I've been going.

4:43 - "Good evening, Sam. How are you getting on" Oh god, Lena left her office, something is up.

4:57 - "Have you seen Gwen tonight?" Ah. She's still recovering from the ramifications of... all this.

5:20 - "Treatment Report. Elima Pest Ltd. Attending Technician: Alyssa Beck" Huh. Pest control. What's with the monitors though?

5:35 - "Client Contact: Anthony Walker. Property Type: Commercial. Address: Resounding Reptile Emporium, Hartshill, Newcastle-Under-Lyme" Ah. That's what's with the monitors. I was close with my zoo guess. Anthony Walker? Finna be more like Anthony Slither am I right

5:41 - "Follow up Required: Yes" I'm sorry, the bluntness of this just made me laugh. "Yeah I watched a guy literally melt into a pile of writhing, hissing snakes, so... Yeah, I think we need follow up"

5:46 - "Note: Follow up postponed until location of attending technician determined." Ah. Or maybe Alyssa is the one who transformed. Or both?

6:08 - "Shopkeeper was concerned about the potential of fleas or ticks brought in by the rodent. He had clear red/sore patches around his neck from itching" Okay, seems like we have some Corruption coming in. Alyssa seems to be giving the report, but she goes missing afterward. She probably catches whatever Anthony has.

6:59 - "Kept mentioning “his burden” and grabbing at my sleeve. Received slight scratch by accident." And you're done, Alyssa. Just like the slight scratch from bushes Samuel Webber got in Episode 3. You're done, you're becoming snake(s?), it's over. What is Anthony's "burden"? Why does the shop need to stay open? To help a supernatural disease spread? If he spreads it, does it not get him?

7:58 And there's rotting food all over the place. Weird that wasn't in the incident element warnings. Were the mice packets just for the snakes or... had Anthony began eating them as well? Also there are ants! Now we can call Jordan Kennedy!

8:17 - "Recommended prevention: mesh grate over window to prevent further ingress. Squirrel discovered on overhead cabinets. Window left fully opened to aid exit. Area sealed." Am I misunderstanding or is this a contradiction? Is this supposed to mean Alyssa left the window open just for the squirrel to leave, then put in that mesh grate like she herself recommended? Or does "area sealed" just mean the doors are closed but the window is still open? I'm worried about Alyssa starting to take the side of the wild things...

8:24 - "Retrieved live capture trap from van. Customers granted re-entry to shop floor." WHY ARE YOU LETTING THE CUSTOMERS BACK IN.

8:30 - "During room preparation small hole discovered between wall of breakroom and adjacent room. Used by squirrel as point of egress." So the squirrel hadn't gotten out of the room yet. Meaning you did leave the window open even while you "sealed" the area. Yeah, that's not good. Or maybe pest control just has to be done this way and you have to maybe risk more squirrels coming in from the same window in hopes this one leaves out of it.

8:51 - "Remov-" What. It happened so suddenly, what? "Police aren’t here yet" WHAT? There's not even a time signature to tell how much time passed in between the cut... Oh god. You captured a squirrel. You directly interfered with nature. Oh, it wasn't the scratch that did Alyssa in, was it? It was this.

9:04 - "Snakes, thousands of them. How could he keep so many in there?" Oh. That's why the Squirrel was ill. It had gone through the hole. The snake hole. And probably been bitten and poisoned. And then Alyssa got near the hole.

10:14 - "He was adamant that they purchase a snake" The burden. They may not be a disease, but this brood still needs to spread.

11:26 That's distressing. I am distressed. I do not like the mass of crickets all hopping about. I guess Anthony didn't meet his... quota? Time limit?

11:53 - "I thought it might be a seizure but then, his mouth began to open, wider and wider, impossibly wide, his jaw bones snapping with the strain. And then a horde of slender shapes slithered out." Oh, that's cool, that's neat, that's normal, I'm so very comfortable with that. Something about the snakes crawling out of him is terrifying than the idea of him melting into them. I guess it's because them coming out of his mouth implies the transformation is happening from the inside-out? His lungs, intestines, heart, stomach? All snakes. Oh fuck, he's actually going to shed his human skin, isn't he? He's literally fucking shedding there's just going to be human skin on the floor and then the snakes are probably going to eat it because that's what snakes do.

12:26 - "I thought it might be a seizure but then, his mouth began to open, wider and wider, impossibly wide, his jaw bones snapping with the strain. And then a horde of slender shapes slithered out." Nevermind, it's even worse. The fact they are keeping around what should be obsolete skin just makes it more unnatural.

12:38 - "a bunch of rejection letters from some institute he pinned to the wall with a kitchen knife" Magnus Institute? Was Anthony chosen for the gifted program? This doesn't seem very Eye-aligned though. Maybe that's why he was rejected, he was too aligned with other powers to fit in with whatever Jimmy Magma was planning.

12:49 - "Oh god. I can feel it. My throat is swelling. And it itches" Oh, the scratch is the death blow it seems like.

13:10 - "No. No. Could be any institute." It could be. But it ain't. Chester is trying to tell you something. Maybe that the Institute's goal was the change people?

14:12 - "Just leave it alright. Focus on your cases. You wouldn’t understand." Communicate, Gwen, before you go missing speaking to one of these externals!

This episode was surprisingly not as fleshy as I was expecting, as was definitely more in the Corruption's wheelhouse. Almost just... squarely so, which is odd because entities here (if there even are entities) usually blend a bit. But the description of the becoming snakes... Ugh... I think I'm about to shed my own skin.

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 13: Futures

Here we are in the futures. Here we are in the futures and it's bright!

CAT3RB4622-17092023-14032024Gambling (application) / self-destruction [voicemail]

Nevermind, it's not bright at all. Are the bone dice coming back? Who will be holding them this time? Attempted suicide is a heavy incident element. The one that's different from all the others is SFX: insectoid though. I don't know how bugs are going to get involved but I am not looking forward to it. Why is the title "Futures"? Is someone being shown a vision of their future that acts as a catalyst for their self-destruction? But then why wouldn't the incident be filed with "vision" or "prophecy" or "fate" or something like that? Maybe the voicemail is just from an outside observer and the idea that the victim had a vision is only implied. I don't know, but "Futures" is an interesting title.

2:19 - "Alice was right – it is easy to make you blush.." God, Sam is adorable.

2:36 - "…and that you're an overachiever, obsessive, a bit repressed-" Yeah, this all tracks.

3:09 - "I have a baby. Jack. He’s just over a year old now." Oh! That's who Celia was talking about when she woke up at that motorway. Does Celia have anyone helping her take care of him? I mean, surely she must, Celia doesn't strike me as the kind of person to just leave a baby alone. But like she said herself, she's mysterious. Does she even know any other people? Daycare, maybe? And if Celia is from the TMA timeline, where did Jack come from?

3:22 - "And before you ask, no there’s no dad on the scene. Not even sure who he is. I had a couple of wild years after I moved here. It was a really weird time for me" I was considering the possibility that maybe Celia in this dimension was just going about her normal life and suddenly got given her alternate-timeline memories, but this does sound like Celia literally went through a portal and wound up here.

4:41 - "Well after that it all just went downhill. Didn’t get into Oxford, so I went to Nottingham. I graduated but I missed a first by one mark." "I had a breakdown. Stress. There was an… incident at work. I… freaked out during a presentation." "Gifted" kid burnout. Can relate. I wonder if there's something more to Sam's breakdown. The pauses might mean the incident was stirred by him experiencing something unnatural. Or the pauses could just be the natural apprehension of telling someone you had a breakdown.

5:05 - "I did my best to help her though her parents’ deaths" So Alice and her brother just have each other...

6:04 - "Is it my fault?" Yes and no. You were complicit, but you were just the messenger and you also lacked full information. The OIAR easily could have had someone else send the letter. Still not a great thing to be involved with. If you feel guilty about it, that's a good sign you should get out.

6:50 - "The world is full of opposing forces, some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in." You sound like if Robert Smirke were an organization. You think you can balance all the fear. Pit them against one another, maintain order. But you can't. You just can't because its all one multi-limbed thing. "Some benevolent" is also interesting. Gerry in TMA made an explicit point that there were no benevolent supernatural forces, just the Fears.

7:33 - "Welcome to the Zorrotrade customer support line." Huh. Real thing... I think? Zorro, or Zorro Trade, is apparently a software for people to use to do financial trading using algorithms. That fits with the incident involving finance problems, but I don't see it being called Zorrotrade anywhere. Maybe its just a little offness because this is another universe. Or it could just be a whole different thing, I don't know. Also wait INT. QUIET FRENCH HOSPITAL WARD – SUNSET, CLOUDY (CASE RECORDING) Hey yeah um why is the calling in a hospital ward? What's that about? Are they good?

8:28 - "I don’t care about your “suspicious activity” bollocks, I have burnt my entire life to the ground for this stupid bloody app and now you owe me my goddam money. So, you can either pay up or I drop a line to the Ombudsman and tell them all about your little “Projection” trading" "Projection" trading... Is Zorrotrade literally trading people's futures? Or giving people "projections" that encourage them to do reckless things because all the data shows they will get the money in the end? But again, why is this incident not filed under fate then? Whatever happened, it led to this guy getting put in the hospital.

8:47 - "You can’t just take my money, lock me out of your app, and then expect me to roll over. I’ve been a user for years. Hell, I’ve probably invested more via this poxy little program than everyone else put together and what do I have to show for it? Eh?" Hmmm... Putting all your hopes into something only for it to all crumple apart? "Burnt my entire life to the ground"? Desolation vibes? Getting people's hopes up only for it to all go up in smoke?

9:03 - "Is this meant to be, like, punishment or something? I’m not a bad person, all right? Wanting to be rich doesn’t make you a bad person." I was wondering about the app name. Zorrotrader. Zorro, who fought the corrupt and wealthy elite and defended commoners. Are you a bad person, Darrien? You didn't exploit anyone to try to get your wealth, did you? Maybe you might have been acting like a smug insufferable financebro while using the app, but as long as you didn't hurt anyone, I don't think you crossed a line... You did gamble only your own finances, not a friends or family members, right?

9:37 - "I earned everything I got." You see, when you say it like that, it makes me start to think otherwise. Being this defensive makes me think you did something bad.

10:07 - "Made some quick cash shorting failing startup" I do not understand finances in the slightest, so apologies if my brain actually collapses into a blackhole. But it sounds like you're exploiting small businesses trying to get off the ground. Maybe also manipulating the market and cause those businesses to fail harder? I don't know, I don't know how any of this works! But it sounds. Bad.

10:09 - "then used that to broaden into Crypto" Oh my god, he does crypto. It's so over. It's all just pump-and-dump like scheme stuff, isn't it? Buy something, sell it off when you'll get the most profit and the person your selling it to will be left with diddly squat because the prices dropped catastrophically. I guess Darrien was right that he earned all his money. It just involved scamming. All of the hype and raised hopes turned to nothing but loss and ruin. Desolation. "leveraged some EM ETF" Please say words I understand.

11:22 - "That was when I noticed your new: “Personal Projection Short Selling” feature" Borrow stock in your future. Sell it immediately(?). Wait for stock in your own future to get low. Borrow back stock and earn profit from the difference. Is Darrien going to... risk his own life to "lower" his futures stock for profit? Is that were the self-harm starts?

12:05 - "Just that one slider with the warning: “These settings are experimental and may not function as intended, user discretion is advised.” You really think that is enough after what you’ve done to me?" I mean, you were warned. And unless you started getting compelled (this is gambling-related, so Web-type stuff could happen), you could have quit at any time...

12:25 - "Oli kicked me shoreside in “Le Brusc” the next evening. He wasn’t too impressed with the mess I had made of his guest cabin and let’s be honest, we didn’t really get on anyway. He dumped me at the dock with nowhere to stay and told me he’d send me a bill for the TV." You what. You just... um... gotta gloss over going into a drunken frenzy, messing up your friend's cabin, and destroying his TV? Are we just not going to address that?

12:47 - "Apparently, they always knew I’d “end up back in the gutter eventually.”" Your "friends" are assholes. You're an asshole too, again, broken TV, but these are not the "lads" you want to be around in the first place.

13:22 - "They took everything. The case, my watch, my jacket, even my shoes. But not my phone." That sucks. Again, asshole, but no one deserves to get mugged. That rising noise right before mentioning the phone. Zorrotrade is doing its work. Darrien invested money into his own personal projection, and now something bad happened to him. So is he going to get money back from this?

14:10 - "“Congratulations! In recognition of your change in circumstances, you’re Personal Projection Short Sell has now been paid in full. We hope you invest again soon!”" Sell when its high. Buy back when its low. Make a profit. Yeah Darrien is absolutely going to try to game this by hurting himself, isn't he?

14:33 - "Obviously you hadn’t worked the bugs out of this projection thing yet but that's your problem. Not mine. It’s not like I hacked it or anything." No, you probably just tried to rig the betting. I'm sure casinos would be very happy with you using the same excuse.

15:16 - "And no, it wasn't fraud. I’ve checked and there’s no regulations about it or anything, so like I said: your app, your problem…" "No one explicitly said it was wrong, so it's okay! I love following the letter of the law and not the spirit!"

15:40 - "before renting a car (with insurance) and crashing it into a tree at speed." Is that not literally actual insurance fraud? But damn, he really is just willing to wreck his entire life just for more profit. He's not even exactly using the money for anything specific, there's no ambition, outside of a nebulous lavish lifestyle. This isn't greed, it's gluttony, and he's an addict. He just wants to swallow cash and sit on it and it doesn't matter if he has to break his body to do some.

16:32 Hey, uh. Buddy. Where are you walking to? It better not be a high place. You better not be about to throw yourself off of a height just to put your life at maximum risk in hopes this fucking number goes up.

16:38 - "I’d picked out the spot the day before, a cliff" GOD DAMN IT

17:15 - "On the way I made a few phone calls, first to my parents, telling them I never loved them and hoped they died horribly, next I was on the group chat with the lads telling each of them just how many times I slept with their partners, even when I hadn’t. Then it was on to my socials publicly declaring my affiliation with every messed up ideology and psychopath I could find." Gotta burn every bridge, right? Scorched earth policy. And we know Darrien lives this. But he doesn't get the money. He's turned the fertile earth of his life to ash now and nothing will ever grow on that soil again. I really like this aspect of the Desolation, if you can't tell. The recklessness. The need for constant empty thrills to fill something in yourself. Tossing everything into the fire. Rending everything beyond recovery.

18:27 - "I was alive sure, but more than that I was rich, properly rich, untouchably rich. Everything was going to be okay." That's what everyone thinks before Zorro carves a Z into their chest with a rapier. The Desolation, or at least the Cult of the Lightless Flame who mainly represented the Desolation, never really purposefully built up people's hopes before destroying them in TMA. They burned and hurt, but they never took the time to set up any kindling. The only time they even did invest in hope was ironically with Agnes Montague, their own ritual. A life they invested years into only for it to peter out into a hollow loss. It's nice to see hope being built up here. Hope is a seed for despair.

19:04 - "“Your payment has been suspended due to suspicious account activity including potential insider trading. Official bodies have been notified. Please repay your outstanding balance or prepare for Personal Adjustment.”" Insider trading. Trading of security with use of information not accessible to the public. Yeah, no, uh, you literally did that Darrien. That's exactly what you did. Oopsie. And it's not enough for Zorrotrade to literally leave his life physically and social destroyed, they had to turn all his profit into debt just to rub it in.

19:49 - "Thank you. You are being transferred to our adjustments department." Oh he is so dead.

20:07 Did... did bugs start crawling out of his phone? I'm not sure what the significance of bugs here is...

23:07 A little tension forming between Alice and Sam. Alice wants to maintain her friendship with Sam, but Sam starting to date Celia is making things... awkward. And Sam still wants to think about the incidents, while Alice still wants to shut her eyes, cover her ears, and just focus on the fact she's getting paid for this. Also I'm just going to block "bussin" being said on this podcast out of my memory. That's the episode done! It was great, even though all the investment terms made me dizzy. Still wondering about the bugs though. Why bugs? Nothing about this felt connected to the Corruption. What do the bugs symbolize here? Something hungry, biting at whatever it can maybe, just like Darrien relentlessly pursued money? I don't know.

[gking10]

Rigor Mortis

(CW: Thoughts of death, Insomnia, self-loathing, excessive drinking)

There are only a scant few people in the park and yet everyone is staring at Jon. Everything is staring at him. A million eyes gaze upon him, their irises so hot they bore holes through his flesh and cauterize the wounds. Static scraps against his skull like a rusty scalpel and his stomach, though full, feels empty. So sickeningly empty. Out of an abandoned habit, he reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. There’s nothing there.

Jon feels himself start to sweat. The Ceaseless Watcher screams at him that every single person he walks past knows exactly what he is and they hate him for it. As they rightfully should. He is a monster. And no matter how many times he throws himself into the fire and tries to save others, Jonathan Sims will always be a monster. He isn’t even sure why he came here. He doesn’t want to be here. He shouldn’t be here. He is an ant under a magnifying glass and he is burning. He needs to leave, he needs to run, he needs to-

His eyes lock onto a man. He’s of average build, early thirties, with well-groomed brown hair. His oversized brown suit hangs over his body as he stands next to an empty bench. Despite how dressed he is, the man’s face seems to be in a permanent state of restlessness and exhaustion. The pale-skinned man stares forward, but whether he is staring at something is unclear. Large headphones cling to his head, blaring rock music so loud it can be heard meters away. The man does not sit. He stands, stares off into nothingness, and listens to his music. He intermittently stretches and moves random parts of his body. But his chest does not rise or fall once. His glassy eyes do not blink even once.

The static whispers something. End. The Archivist approaches the man and touches his shoulder. Pulling off his headphones and turning down his music, the man meets the Archivist’s hungry gaze. The man’s voice is unbothered, yet listless. “What is it?”

The Archivist smiles. He feels the millions of eyes, the magnifying glass, move its focus to a new target. He says his well-rehearsed lines, no longer able to tell if the words or simply routine or if he is dutifully praying over a graciously gifted meal. “Hello. I’m Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. I would like you to give me your statement.” “...Okay.” The man says after a pause. He shows much less apprehension than most do in his situation. “Do you mind if I listen to music while I do, because-” “I would like you to give me your statement.”

The tired man finds himself stepping in front of the bench and taking a seat. His eyes widen and begin to frantically dart around. The ant looks for an exit while the Archivist calmly sits down right next to him, never breaking eye contact. “I- I don’t- Do we really need to sit? I-”

The Archivist grins wide. His teeth are eyes. His mouth is eyes. His face is eyes. He is eyes and now the roaring static is so blissfully quiet because its claws are scratching at someone else’s brain. “Statement of Landen Mond regarding his insomnia. Statement begins.”

“I’ve never been able to sleep consistently. Not in bed, anyway. When I was a kid and my mum would take me somewhere in her car, I would be out like a light. Even if it was just a short drive to school, if she looked in the backseat, she would see me napping. I couldn’t stand the idea of just sitting and waiting. Not even staring out the windows and watching the sprawling cities and hearing the roaring traffic was any relief. I could not stand it. So, I slept. I would lean against the car door, shut my eyes, and drift off so I could be woken up at whatever destination. Then I would rush out the car as fast as possible. 

You would think being able to nod off in a moving vehicle would make it very easy to lie down in a bed and rest, but you would not be more wrong. I would always have some reason to push my bedtime further back. Homework, a book I just had to finish the next chapter of, my belly aching for a snack. Anything and everything was enough. It just always felt like there was more I wanted to do- had to do- and if I dared lie down for even a moment, I would miss it. And I know you’re supposed to allow your body to relax to sleep, get rid of all distractions- I knew even then, I would look up how to sleep better- but I simply couldn’t. Some nights I would rather just stand in my room aimlessly walking in circles than simply lie down and stop moving. As you can imagine, my parents were not thrilled. Got punished for it a lot. Pathetic as it is, I can’t get this one thing out of my head: It was my last year of primary school. I had gotten in trouble a few times that year for being unable to stay awake in class. Believe me, I would have liked to, but my body had other plans. Still, things didn’t get… too bad. But then there was the last day. I had been staying up the night before, so of course karma came and I overslept last night. My mum, at her wits end, decided it just simply wasn’t worth taking me to school that day. I had friends in primary. Best friends I had ever made in my life even. Again, pathetic, I know. Point is, I never even got to say goodbye to them.

Was that a wake up call in any way? Did I get myself together? No. I would try and try but sleep felt simply impossible. My health was absolutely awful. My sleep schedule would almost invert itself every week. I would force myself under my covers, trying to get it back on track. I would tell myself to just calm down and breathe. But then I would overfocus on every single tiny breath I took. I had no idea how to make my body start breathing on its own again, so I would just keep forcing myself out of fear of what would happen if I stopped. When you don’t sleep, every sense cranks itself up to the edge. There’s this dull headache in the back of your skull and you think your brain is failing you. You can’t help but check your heartbeat to make sure it's still there. And even when it is, you can’t help but think that it’s too fast, that its too slow, that you’re going to die, that you are dying. All of the thoughts you have about mortality, about the fact you’ll one day simply cease… There’s no protection from it. You just have to sit in it, let it all swarm you, and hope your body finally sleeps. It’s a nightmare. Worse than any one I’ve ever had. Not that I’ve ever had a nightmare. Or a dream. My sleep is just… nothing.

Before the last few months, I was managing four hours on average. Best I’ve ever done in my whole life. It’s a miracle I don’t fall asleep at work. I just throw myself at it while running on fumes the whole time and it somehow works out… I don’t think I even know how to not just run on fumes. My sleep is always broken. One night, I fall asleep at 2 in the morning and wake up at 6. Other nights, I mercifully manage to turn in at 10 pm, but then I just find myself waking up at 1 or 2 or 3, some treacherous time that blurs between night and morning, and no matter what I do, I can’t get back to sleep. At some point, I just decided I would give in and call it an early day whenever that happens. Some days I take naps in the middle of them. Some days I don’t. Some weekends I completely collapse. Some weekends I don’t. I could not for the life of me find any rule or solution. But at least it was normal.

It stopped being normal six months ago. It was night and I was doing my usual routine of not sleeping. I had at least managed to will myself to lay in the bed without staring at my phone. Instead, I stared up at the ceiling fan above me. I watched the blades spin at maximum speed. I researched urban legends a lot in my youth, especially as a means of escaping sleep. So while I lied there, I couldn’t help but think of the myth of Fan Death: If you don’t know about it, it’s a Korean rumor that if you sleep in a closed room with a running fan, the fan will suck up your oxygen and you’ll die of carbon dioxide poisoning. Technically, it’s about electric fans, not ceiling fans, but that didn’t matter in my tired, racing mind. And then my thoughts began to drift towards another way that ceiling fan could kill me. At any time, a screw could go loose and the whole entire thing could fall on me and crush me. I tried to reason with myself. I was clearly getting worked up over nothing. 

Then I felt it. The horrible stillness. I felt it in my arms. This tingling numbness. It felt like the flesh inside my arms was being pressed and squeezed so tight that there would be nothing but my bones. It didn’t even hurt. It was just so uncomfortable and my arms felt so stiff and hard to move. I didn’t know if I was having a panic attack or sleep paralysis but whatever it was, I couldn’t handle it. I almost jumped out of bed. The feeling quickly left my arms but I didn’t feel any comfort in that fact. I decided that sleeping for now was a bust. I fled to my living room.

My mind was too exhausted for television, but I just needed to do something. Anything to take my mind off of the thoughts. I thought some nighttime gardening would do the trick. I wouldn’t have been the first time. Taking care of my plants has always been therapeutic, in a way. I sometimes joke that they have a more healthy lifestyle than I do. But when I turned towards my snake plants and aloe veras, they were all drooping. Wilting from neglect, even though I had just watered them yesterday. Worse, they were covered in fine layers of dust. It looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. The flowers I keep vased were even worse. Petals were strewn across the floor and the stem was just a black, rotted stick. I stared down at it and felt the dust in my throat. Then I felt the stillness again. In my legs.

I forced myself out the front door. I started wandering the streets. It was a cold night. One where the chill of the wind isn’t completely unbearable, but it still bites at your skin and compels you to keep walking. That’s my favorite temperature. By all means, it should have been a wonderful night for me to simply walk in, but I could not shake off the feeling that something was deeply wrong. Everything was so quiet. None of my neighbors had a single light on in their house, not that I could see. As I walked, I came across a street light in the neighborhood that has always blinked and flickered throughout all the years I’ve lived here. But that night, the light remained completely still, the same as all the others. I don’t know why, but seeing that was what made me shift from feeling uneasy to feeling afraid.

I kept walking until I was in the city. I’ve been in the city late at night. It’s never quiet. It’s always bright and loud and alive. But the only lights that were on were the streetlights that oppressively shined upon the pavement. None of the buildings were open. The buildings weren’t even places. They were just… buildings. I don’t know how to describe it. There were no stores or apartment buildings or houses or libraries or movie theatres, there were just buildings, just monuments of concrete and wood that were impossible to associate with any sign of human life. Cars filled the street, but they didn’t run. They weren’t on. I dared to peak inside a few. Every time, I saw a person sitting in the driver’s seat. But they were asleep. At least, that’s what I hoped they were. I didn’t want to consider the other option. I banged on windows, but no one ever responded. I didn’t even hear the sound of my own fists punching the glass. Everything was dead silent.

I kept walking until I saw a building that was a place. A sign out front with a faint orange glow, like the neon lights were just about to give out. “The Last Stop” were the words, next to an image of a beer bottle. “Open all hours”. I’m not much of a drinker, but at that point I would do anything to not be in that lifeless city. I stepped inside and glanced around. The bar seemed old and run-down, yet the people were all dressed very formally. Tuxedos and suits and dresses. Faint green lighting came down from the ceiling and I couldn’t help but compare the hospital lights. The bar was just as cold inside as the city was outside, and it was just as quiet. The people moved, but they never made a sound. They didn’t speak to each other. They just sat there, staring down at their drinks and occasionally drank, almost with a rhythm. The entire place smelled of what I thought at the time was vinegar. Now, I think it was formaldehyde.

“Welcome, friend”, the bartender said to me in a voice completely devoid of passion. His skin was so pale, like he had never seen the sun. He looked just as formal and the other bargoers, but it looked like a vacuum bag had been poured on top of him. He was covered in dust. Not wanting to be rude and feeling underdressed for whatever this bar was, I decided not to mention it. “What will you be having?” he asked me. I told him I didn’t care. So I sat at the bar and with slow, deliberate motions, he poured me a drink. It looked like normal liquor. It smelled like normal liquor, outside of the pickle-scent that permeated everything in the building. When I drank it, it went down like mud and it tasted even worse. I don’t know why I kept drinking when he offered more cups. Maybe I was just too scared to go back out. So I sat at the bar. He asked me questions. About my aspirations, my career goals, everything I wanted to do in life. And after every question, he would pass me another bottle of that horrible, thick brown liquid, and I would take it and drink it. 

At some point, I lost count of how many I had had. My brain was buzzing. My lips felt numb and all my words were slurred, but I just kept answering questions. Then I tried to drink another, but couldn’t. My arm wouldn’t move. I tried to let go of the cup, but my hand was firmly gripped onto it like the cup was part of my body. I tried to stand up and all the bones in my leg were stone. I was paralyzed. No matter how much I commanded my limbs to move, nothing worked. My vision was blurry. All my thoughts were coated in layers of thick mud and alcohol but it didn’t nothing to dull the terror. All it did was put everything in slow motion. Seconds expanded into multiple minutes. I watched the bartending slowly lean over to me and look at my face, frozen in fright. “It looks like you need some help getting home.”

I tried to scream, but my jaw was wired shut. All I could do was watch as the bartender took ages to get closer to me. My arms and legs were completely numb and I couldn’t even breathe. My muscles were just gone. He put his hand on my shoulder and patted it. “You should sleep this off”, he said. And then he pushed. It took what felt like an hour to hit the ground. An hour of being completely petrified as I felt my body drop to the ground. When I thought I would finally hit the floor behind me, I just kept falling. There was a pit in the ground that hadn’t been there before, and I was landing right into it. With each second it took me to fall, I took notice of just how the hole was dug. The sides of the wall just barely touched me. It was exactly my size.

When my back hit the ground, my body jolted to life. I was instantly sober and my ability to move came back. I ran. I ran until I couldn’t see the bar anymore. Even though the city was now awake and all the other buildings had people going in and out of them and cars were blaring across the road, I kept running. And when I finally got home, I did not stop moving. I did not sit down and I did not dare touch my bed. I’ve been wrong ever since. I don’t get tired any more. Or maybe I’m just always at the same level of exhaustion. My plants don’t bring me comfort anymore. Nothing does. Nothing I do can muster me to feel… anything really. I’ve tried buffets, any movie, video games, music so loud it should rupture my eardrums, beaches, even skydiving, and I can’t muster up anything. Nothing feels new, or different, or good. Even thinking of things I’ve done in the past doesn’t offer any nostalgia or joy. There’s just nothing inside me. Nothing at all. But the worst of it is whenever the stillness comes back. When my hands won’t let go of something or my foot refuses to move and I start worrying that I might never move again. That my body will collapse and I’ll be a motionless nothing for eternity. That’s why I need to keep moving. That’s why I haven’t slept in six months. Why I haven’t even blinked in six months. Because if I close my eyes one more time, they won’t ever open again.”

Landen’s chest rises. And falls. He breathes. Fast. He breathes and breathes, inhaling twice for each exhale. His hands desperately grip the bench he sits on, searching for any form of stability. Tears run down his face. The Archivist drinks it all in with equal disgust and fascination. It is wonderful. It is horrible. He is full and he is a monster. At least, he thinks, this one will not be haunted in his dreams. For the moment Landen dreams is the moment Landen Mond ends. “Statement ends.” The Archivist says, unable to wipe the satisfaction from his face. He gets up from the bench. His work here is done. He does not want to be here any longer. Jon does not want to be here when the guilt fully sets in. “Thank you.”

As Jon leaves, Landen tries to lift himself from the bench. He can’t. His legs are stuck. His arms are stuck. He is a corpse and corpses don’t move. But Landen keeps trying. He chokes on his own tears but he keeps trying to move. Until he manages to stand up, run up to Jon and put a cold dead hand on the man’s shoulder. 

Jon slowly turns around. He looks at his victim Landen. The smoke of Landen’s terror wafts over Jon and makes his lungs feel like they're filled with the worst poison. The ash sticks in Jon’s mouth. He wants to throw up. He wants to throw back up each and every word he wrenched from Landen’s throat and ate. But he can’t. Landen’s grey eyes stare into him. “Do it again.”

Jon tries to back away, but Landen will not let go. “P- pardon?”

“Do. It. Again.”

“No, I-”

The desperation on Landen’s face grows. “I felt it. All of it. Not the quiet dread. The actual fear I felt in the moment. That was the first time I have felt anything in months. Do it again. Please.”

Why is he begging for this? Jon is a monster. Why did Jon want to do this in the first place? Jon is a monster. Why did he think he could feast on the horror of an already dead man and simply leave without consequence? Maybe because that’s what he’s always done as the Archivist. The Fears did not often leave meals unfinished, and many statement givers died after giving their statement. 

Jon does not want to see this any more, despite his nature. “No.”

“You don’t understand!” Landen screams, not knowing that Jon knows far more than Landen ever will. Jon is always the one that knows while others get hurt. “I haven’t seen the sunrise since that night! I can check my phone to see it’s noon, but when I look at the sky? It’s night. It’s a big dark nothing with no stars, just a lifeless empty moon that reminds me that that night has never ended for me. Do you know what that does to a person? For your entire life to be stretched into a single, unescapable moment?” Something Jon snaps. “You’re already dead”, he replies as though it were a simple fact. Because it is.

Landen’s feverish desperation melts into confusion. “What?”

“You- you died. At the age of twelve. There was a car accident. Your mother was the only survivor.”

“I- I don’t remember… No, I would remember a-”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“How many cups did you drink that night?”

“Twenty. H- How… But I don’t…”

While Landen contemplates his stolen life, Jon takes the opportunity to break free from Landen’s grip. Jon turns and he runs. He runs until Landen is out of his sight, even though the man will never truly leave his Sight after giving a statement. But Jon cannot face Landen in-person right now. He just can’t. He can’t even bare to think about it.

Jon does not think about Landen. Jon does not think about what he would do in Landen’s situation. Jon does not think about the fact he already knows the answer. Jon does not think about his coma. Jon does not think about the months he spent as nothing but an observer of nightmares. Jon does not think about how he would rather live than be a motionless repository for dread or motionless corpse. Jon does not think about how he chose to do something.

Jon does not think Georgie. Jon does not think about how it feels Georgie would have preferred Jon to stay dead rather than do something. Jon does not think about the way his friend seemed almost disappointed by the fact he woke up.

Jon is a monster. He needs fear to live. But as long as he lives, he will damn well do something about it. He will move. It doesn’t matter how many coffins Jon has to climb into, how many bullets he has to pull out of people, how many people grow to hate and despise him. It doesn’t even matter if Jon drops dead, really. As long as he can make the world a better place in the process. As long as he can save someone else. Besides, Jon is already dead, in a way.

Jon’s eyes will not shut. They truly can’t any more. And Jonathan Sims will not rest.

[gking10]

Loving your TMAGP liveblogs btw

Thank you! It means a lot!

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 12: Getting Off

Must. Keep mind. Out of gutter.

I'm assuming "Getting off" means getting off from work? But why is the fact whatever happens happens after someone leaves work for the day so important, it's the entire title of the episode? Is the incident going to be about the victim trying to get off time, like they are mystically trapped in their job and unable to physically leave?

CAT1RB4728-09032024-13032024 Mascot (kids) / frenzy [insurance claim]

Oh. Bonzo is about to commit war crimes. That's cool, I guess. Getting Off as in getting off from responsibility? That would fit with the incident being taken from an insurance claim. I like how one of the incident elements is literally just "Bonzo".

3:32 Sam got a date! His crush is adorable. Celia saying she's busy with something does bring back into question just what exactly is going on with her though...

4:59 - "I think I’m done with Magnus stuff." "...because I'm diving headfirst into Ink5oul stuff" is what I'm expecting to come next.

6:12 - "Site Address: Soho Jack’s, 9 Carlisle St, London W1D 3BK Affected Employee: Ms. Jordan Bennett" An address and name, you say. What was Ms. Jordan up to that the OIAR wanted to sic Bonzo on her?

6:53 - "Assessment Conclusion: Claim Denied. Reason: Fraudulent claim (see incident description and police report)" That sucks. Imagine being attacked by... whatever Bonzo is, and you don't even get compensated for it. Or, I guess your family doesn't get compensated for it, because Ms. Bennett is probably not alive anymore. That does make me think, where does the idea of Employer Liability come in? If Bonzo was just some intruder that came in, Soho Jack's Ltd wouldn't be charged with liability, right? Maybe for negligent or inefficient security. Or something as mundane as the company having to failed to fix a door that Ms. Bennett needed to escape through during the Bonzo frenzy.

7:03 - "I’ve been advised by my lawyer that I should cooperate with your insurance claim, even if I am suing your asses to kingdom-come." Hmm. So Jordan Bennett is alive? The wording on this confuses me a little. If Jordan is the one writing this, why is she the one cooperating with the insurance claim, shouldn't she be the one requesting the insurance claim? Is it clear I don't know how insurance works?

7:14 - "I could apologize for the handwriting but since it’s your damn fault I won’t bother." So I think this is Jordan. And her hand and/or arm was injured during the incident. I don't think the OIAR would just want someone a bit injured, and I don't think Bonzo would willingly settle for that. So I don't think Jordan Bennett was even the name in the envelope. She just got caught in the crossfire.

7:25 - "I started working at Jack’s in the spring of ‘21 after finishing The Flair Academy six months earlier." Huh, a dance academy. Although apparently it's a dance academy in New Jersey so I might have the wrong Flair Academy.

7:46 - "Jack’s has dances on the bottom two floors with VIP suites for hire above with a dedicated bouncer keeping them separate. Really, it’s just a quieter box with a private bar, some comfy chairs and the option of private dancers." For a second I thought I might have had the right Flair Academy and Jordan could have moved, but Jordan is just tending, not dancing, so it could still just be a fictional Flair Academy in the UK. Private dancers? Is my mind still in the gutter or is sex work actually being talked about here? The more I look into it, the more I think that's the case. The place is called "Soho Jack's" and was also called THE Soho Gentleman's Club, and Soho does apparently have a history of being a big part of London's sex industry. There also seems to be a prominent LGBTQ+ community in Soho, but something that's called a "gentleman's club" seems less like a queer space and more like a spot for snobby wealthy people. There seem to be 2 real prominent locations on Carlisle Street: The Piano Bar Soho, which describes itself, and The Toucan, a pub with no food. And if there's no food, what's even the point. You could not pay me to go to a pub with no food. Granted, I don't go to pubs and bars in the first place, but still!

8:03 - "It’s always booked up with swank dickheads trying to show off, but Stags are the worst: they’re cheap, they’re loud, they drink too much, tip too little and only ever hire one dance for the groom. Plus there’s always some “nice guy” that won’t shut up about exploitation without even bothering to stop staring ." Yep, this is about sex work. And wealthy people full of themselves do come here. And Bachelor parties, apparently. Can we talk about why on earth it's a "tradition" for a Bachelor party to involve going to club and paying a sex worker to get you off? Why its sometimes described as your "one last night as a free man". Actually gross behavior. Also I thought they didn't do tipping very much in the UK? Maybe its different in clubs, I don't know.

8:41 - "Then the groom spotted the last one on the table, this cheap yellow and purple kids lunch box." I think the groom was the name in the envelope. This is a Mr. Bonzo lunch box, isn't it? I guess Mr. Bonzo is yellow and purple? Mr. Blobby is yellow and pink, so its close enough.

9:33 - "But hey, it was their night, if they wanted to spend it on some cringy nostalgia trip, who was I to say no?" I mean, it is the most wholesome thing a bachelor party could be doing. I say let them have this.

10:48 - "I was just reaching for my walkie to call for a techie when I heard this massive crash from the room followed by this cheer from the party." Realistically, they should be terrified by this. But I guess that's just the influence of Bonzo. Are they going to keep cheering even as Bonzo starts dismembering people? Part of the incident categorization was frenzy, and I thought that just meant like a frenzy of people trying to flee from Bonzo but... Is the bachelor party going to start ripping each other apart on Bonzo's command? "a bulbous figure with a purple hat" He's got a hat? Dapper Bonzo.

11:47 - "I was pissed. Not at them, they didn’t know any better but at Joey the doorman." So the liability claim is about poor security.

12:09 - "There was a pair of heavy boots on their side, poking just inside the still open doorway. Joey’s boots, and they weren't moving." And Joey is lying dead just outside the doorway... "Just then the goggly eyes looked turned to me, and a puffy finger raised cheekily to it's mouth." Is that supposed to be Bonzo's way of going "I didn't do it, teehee~"? What a loveable scamp. I'm kidding, burn him with fire.

12:42 - "I could hear that same godawful tune blaring from the tinny little speaker" Oh, that's even worse than the Bonzo music continuing to play even after turning off the speakers.

13:25 Somehow, I'm less unnerved by the arm ripping than I am unnerved by the description of Bonzo unhunching himself over. He's just such a... creature. If I had to put Bonzo under a TMA Fear, he'd go under Slaughter, I think. He's got an association with music, even if it is just his theme song, his public image was transformed by a serial killer, and while Slaughter isn't what I immediately jump to when I think of "the fear of being abused on a shitty prank show", it is a form of random violence if you think about it. I wonder why Jordan didn't get caught up in Bonzo's spell. Was she just too separated from the event? Or is it because Bonzo was before her time? Does Bonzo's compulsion rely on nostalgia in some way?

13:51 - "Then the two hands jerked apart unfolding the groom’s head with another flowering explosion of blood." Why does the OIAR have this guy do hit jobs again? Like sure, Bonzo sure can murder a guy, but it is messy. Not covert at all. I guess the idea is someone being killed by this children's mascot is such an outrageous idea, no one will think it is real? Or that Bonzo's compulsion would just make people ignore it? Again, what did Baz, the groom, even do to get a hit called on him? He just seemed like a normal guy.

14:18 Not quoting that. Absolute not. I do not want to hear about Bonzo's boils and pus.

14:40 God, that is visceral. And then Bonzo just ate the mutilated body. Remember when I put him under Slaughter? Add some Flesh in there to maybe, the sheer gore of it all is just... ugh... And what's worse is all these men are literally bludgeoning and stabbing Bonzo and he doesn't even flinch. They literally can't do anything to save their friend. Bonzo isn't even getting angry at the attacks. It's literally nothing to him.

15:00 - "He’s here to stay… He wants to play…" Chills. Fucking run.

15:17 - "Slowly, awfully slowly, it raised its head, titling it coquettishly to one side." Don't do the fucking cute head tilt! You are not a cat! You are an abomination!

15:28 - "Then the seams across its face split revealing it’s gaping maw filled with even larger, sharper teeth" Ever loving Christ... They are really doing everything in their power to make Mr. Blobby horrific and it is working 16:32 - "I don't know why nobody outside the room heard or saw anything, why the cameras weren't working, why it let me live. But I do know why they weren't any bodies." I guess all that points to why Bonzo is used as an assassin, if he can keep the nightmare he puts you through self-contained. There weren't bodies, but was there any blood? Or did Bonzo just like... lick all of it up? I don't even know...

17:06 - "Jesus Christ…" Are you proud of yourself, Gwen? Is this really what you want to be a part of? "I go by Alice now, actually." Queen.

17:23 - "Wow. Are you, like, actually ok?" PLEASE just be friends. PLEASE. Alice is relenting, she can literally see Gwen is in a very bad spot. I just want these two to stop escalating against each other.

18:11 - "You never wonder what the point is? Who benefits from all this awfulness?" That's the running theme. Will you willingly look at all the terror and dig at its root, or will you just turn a blind eye and tell yourself it isn't your problem. Maybe Gwen thought she needed to become more directly involved just so she could know. So she could get a fully uncensored look at what is going on behind all of this. Even if it meant directly contributing to it.

18:32 - "…the UK government" Technically right, but not the time, Alice...

That's the episode! And I'm still unsure about the title. Who got off? Soho Jack's from compensating Jordan? Or is the idea of whose getting off on all this terror and suffering? Who's benefiting from it and why and how? I'm unsure...

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 11: Marked

CAT23RC5246-06012020-11032024 Tattoo (corpse) / compulsion [email exchange] Ink5oul mention? Did I guess right last time? Compulsion is interesting. Compulsion to do... what? To tattoo the corpse? To just look at the pre-existing tattoos? Also, Thalassophobia is one of the incident elements that REALLY sticks out here. Vasty tattoos, maybe?

Looking at the transcript, it seems this episode used to be titled "Indelible Marks". Which doesn't reveal much new, but I felt like bringing it up.

1:54 - A busy motorway nearby. CELIA is asleep on grass. Does Celia not have a house? Or anywhere to stay? As a result of literally being from another universe? Or did she just sleep walk out here? The transcript says she has pajamas for her to wear so... More importantly, why is no one doing anything?

2:00 - "Hold on, Jack, I’m on my way" Who? I can't think of any Jack besides Jack Barnabas, and I don't have any reason to think Celia would know him. Just what is going on? This has to be a regular occurrence. And for some reason Celia was worried about the phone in her pocket spontaneously breaking?

3:40 - "Nah, you took too long. You get pain au chocolat." How actually dare you, Alice. How dare you come between someone and there desire for a cinnamon swirl? How could you even COMPARE the transcendent glory of a cinnamon swirl to chocolate in a croissant.

3:48 - ALICE "You actually wanted the Pain au Chocolat didn’t you?" SAM "What can I say? You’re predictable" Wow, and now I've lost all respect for Sam as well. Heathens, the lot of these people.

5:39 Alice is feeling watched by something. That's... not great. It might be [ERROR], whoever [ERROR] even is.

6:48 - "there’s not been any sign of the protestors you were so concerned about stirring up. I guess it helps that no-one’s been buried here for over a hundred years" Took me a second to process why there would even be protesters. Oh right, they're exhuming graves. I don't really have many moral issues with tampering with graves. I don't think about "disrespecting the dead" because the dead are well... dead. Funerals are for the living and all that. So the only thing I care about is if messing with a body would affect living relatives. Yet, I also think last wishes should be respected, I'd get mad if I heard someone wanted to be cremated and their family just buried them and called it a day, which goes against what I just said about only the living mattering so... I don't know. I don't know where exactly the line is. Anyway, these are sailor corpses! I guess that's where the Thalassophobia comes from.

7:14 - "now that the cliff’s finally giving up the ghost" Ah, so graves are being exhumed and moved(? Not sure if the corpses are going to be reburied or just disposed of) because the cliff is falling apart. I guess the tattooed corpse they find is going to be one of the one's near the cliff. And if this does end up leaning Vast, it does make sense, right? For the body to be right at an edge where you could trip and fall and fall and falling...

8:52 - "The back was completely covered in this complicated tattoo of a ship sailing across an open sea towards an open horizon. It was really impressive." There it is. Vast tattoo. Vastattoo.

9:25 - "The waves are so close and getting closer. If I were a sailor buried here, I’d take some comfort in that." Oh, you should not have moved that corpse. That sailor's home was the sea, and now the sea is going to reclaim what belongs to it. The waters are just going to keep rising and rising from that cliff and probably will drag each and every body it can into the depths... Dead bodies or living ones. Okay, well, maybe not. Something that intense would have been in the incident elements or in how the incident was filed, rather than just being "compulsion". Will the exhumation crew grow increasing obsessed with the corpse and the idea of the sea and eventually just throw the corpse into the waves... and then throw themselves?

10:32 - "But looking again, the sun is lower than I thought, and there’s a shape in the water behind the ship. I think they’re being chased by something." Tattoo is starting to change. Tattoo is starting to change. That's not good. I wonder if the shape behind the ship is like the titan in Ex Altioria.

10:58 - "Big snake tattoo up their arm and a bunch of other ink. Wouldn’t give their name, but claims to be a big deal “online”." Ink5oul! How are you, how have you been? Don't brag about having followers online in real life, it's kinda... pathetic honestly. You're cooler than this! Let the snake tattoo on your arm bite someone already! 11:13 - "According to them the tattoo is an “Oscar Jarrett”, and that’s a big deal to some folks in that community – something to with Sutherland Macdonald whoever that is." So Oscar Jarrett doesn't appear to be a real person. But Sutherland Macdonald is. He was known as the first professional tattoo artist in London in the 1800s. During his time, tattoos in Europe were transforming from being viewed as for only the "lower class" and were becoming symbols of wealth and status. Macdonald himself fit into this, as he tried to distinguish himself from other tattoos and appear more "dignified" to justify his artform. Interesting history. Is Oscar Jarrett a student of Sutherland? Or perhaps Sutherland was Oscar's student? Was Oscar a supernatural tattooist before Ink5oul's? Was Sutherland himself connected to the supernatural? There's a history here. People using tattoos to connect with the fears, studying the works of their predecessors...

11:42 - "The waves crash so loud you can hear them in your dreams." Gordie please back away from the cliff. And stop making your name shorter in each email, it makes me feel like you are losing sight of who you are.

12:16 Oops. Guess I should have warned David too. He was the one directly interacting with the corpse. The way Gordie speaks about it in such a... detached manner. Just worshipful of the ocean and uncaring about much else. I think Gordie might join David soon.

12:48 - "I should first offer my formal apology. I was unaware that my emails were coming across as in any way unprofessional" Oh, thank goodness, he snapped out of it. He must have left the graveyard. Good thing too, because the Awful Deep really had its hooks in Gordie there. He's even using more complex wording here. When Gordie was being compelled to the sea, his sentences were getting simpler. More straight to the point. He's even using his full name at the end of the email here! Recovery!

13:39 - "Look, I was not “making fun of you” but I’m not sure what you want" Oof... Yeah, Alison is not taking Gordie's compelled emails well. There's really no good way to explain himself besides "I don't know, I was in a weird headspace, I'm sorry". I wish we could also read Alison's emails. Odd that Freddy only picked up specifically Gordie's when this is a reply chain.

14:09 - "Besides, I want to see the body again. I dug him up, he’s my responsibility. I just need to see it. I need to know what’s in the water." ...and we lost Gordie again. He's gone from wistful and brooding to full on trying to look Cthulhu directly in the eyes. Will Gordie even get to see it? Is what is lurking in the water even able to show up in the tattoo? What if it is simply too big, to unfathomable to be depicted on the back of a human body in scale with the ship of the tattoo. Maybe to see it, Gordie will simply have to go below the depths in real life...

15:09 God, that maniac rasp in Jonny's voice. Really sells the obsession. So yeah, that corpse was meant to crumple with the cliff and be fully reclaimed by the vast ocean. But now Ink5oul has stolen it for... research? Inspiration? Gordie seems desperate enough now to directly hunt after Ink5oul... Is someone going to finally be bitten to death by a snake tattoo? Please?

15:38 - "There was a problem delivering your message to “[email protected]”This email address is no longer in service." NOOOOOO I WANT A TATTOO SNAKE TO COMMIT MURDER The email address really was put out of service on the same day? That is some damn fast work.

16:05 - ALICE "What have I told you about thinking?" SAM "Don’t?" Alice is so real for this. I haven't had a thought in my head for 20 odd years, and I'm doing grrrreeeeeaaaat. But come on Alice, Sam just got confronted with the fact he's probably never going to have an answer for what happened in his childhood, of course he's going to pivot into this new smaller mystery.

16:39 - "I have been having some trouble sleeping. Not that it’s any of your concern." Is it worth it, Gwen? It's not, is it? Seriously, why would you want to be a part of whatever nonsense Lena is up to?

16:48 - "Oh, but I am concerned. So very concerned. I can’t decide if you look more like a bog witch with caffeine withdrawal or that Cheddar Gorge mummy." I know I just got on Gwen's case, but lay off a bit, Alice. Gwen's clearly, visibly having a bad time. She was even vulnerable enough to admit to having issues sleeping. Don't verbally punch her when she starts to open up.

17:20 - "Thank you, Alice." God, why am I actually slightly almost crying? That was actually kind of heartwarming. Don't ruin this Alice, please. And please don't backslide into being standoffish, Gwen. Please just get along. All I want is for everyone to be friends all of the time and never have any arguments and have good communication and like each other. ...What do you mean this is a horror podcast?

17:50 - "Do you have any idea what the time is?" WHAT DID I JUST SAY, GWEN. I get in your head you have a perfectly valid reason for being late (The horror that is Mr. Bonzo) and since Celia isn't involved, you think isn't capable of having an equally valid reason, but news flash: No one knows what you or her were dealing with! To everyone, you just look like a hypocrite! Cause you kinda are one! You don't know what Celia might have been going through! I don't know what Celia was up to, and I'm the viewer who gets to drink in all the dramatic irony!

18:26 - "I see. Well that’s understandable but don’t let’s make a habit of it shall we?" Don't make a habit of it? The explanation was a freak accident! What high horse are you on, Gwen? Oh god. Since Gwen is in the "know" with Lena, she's going to keep dealing with stuff like Mr. Bonzo. And she's basically going to keep traumatizing herself over it. And then she's going to use that as a justification to herself in her head to be a prick to everyone because "I'm the one doing the real work". And the whole situation is just going to keep. Getting. Worse. One step forward, a million steps back, it's never been so over for the friendship train.

18:40 - "She’s not as laid back as I am." I am going to explode.

20:03 - "That was skin. It was sagging, it was sweaty!" Hey so I didn't need to know that actually. Could have gone without the image of sweaty Mr. Blobby in my head.

20:32 - "And they usually like it." They... Othering. Does the OIAR not serve a dread power or anything supernatural? Do they just use the supernatural as a tool, pitting avatars and creatures against their threats or against each other? Maybe that's why they don't do direct follow-up, because further research would lead to them being fully Eye?

That's the episode! Ink5oul is up to... something. Celia is up to... something. And Gwen is just fully going off the deep end. I think I'm most interested in what is going on with Celia. She's just such an enigma right now.

[incorrectidwtbamg]

[morningsaidthemoon]

WATCH THE I DONT WANT TO BE A MAGICAL GIRL PILOT ‼️‼️

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 10: Saturday Night

Oh. I guess it's the wrong day for this. My bad, y'all. See you people in 4 days. Nahhhhh. I was wondering if this episode was going to involve Sam and Alice investigating the Magnus ruins, but I think that's going to be episode 11, Marked. It's certainly a more fitting title for it. So I wondered what this episode would be, and then the title hit me. Saturday Night. Like a live show. This is going to be Mr. Bonzo time, isn't it? What I vaguely remember seeing about Mr. Bonzo is that he's basically supposed to be Mr. Blobby, a TV show mascot for a show on the BBC. As a filthy American, I haven't heard of him, but looking at Mr. Blobby... um... Those bulging eyes are not okay. No wonder he's being turned into a subject of horror. I also think there were like... murderers involved with Mr. Bonzo and the mascot suit itself got... corrupted or something? I also think I remember a fanfic where Distortion!Michael took someone to Bonzoland so maybe Mr. Bonzo is also spirally? I don't know, I don't know anything beyond that. So Gwen is going to see Nigel Dickerson, whose connected with Mr. Bonzo. Was Nigel the original actor? Or someone who acted alongside Mr. Bonzo? CAT1RB2275-06082021-09032024Mascot (kids) / murder [TV interview] Yeah, that all tracks. But this is a TV interview. So I guess this is going to be a regular incident, and then we will see Gwen give Nigel the envelope after? I wonder if Freddy will give Sam the incident as a sort of hint of what Gwen is up to, just like how it gave Sam a Magnus statement right after he asked questions about the Institute.

2:10 - "Well, Today I’m here with the creator of Mr. Bonzo and former host of “Saturday on Six”, Nigel Dickerson." Okay, the creator!

3:09 - "The whole conceit was that the set was built like an enormous comedy dungeon, and I’d been imprisoned by “Mr. Six.”" Sound fun! But also sounds like the gateway into Mr. Bonzo doing some fucked up "pranks". "It all started as a joke"... And it's going to just keep being a joke, isn't it? Maybe it all starts with an off-color joke that gets taken way too far.

3:49 - "Yes. Mr. Bonzo. Of course." The tone change. Bonzo's a sore subject. 4:47 - "So I came up with this awful clown character – this big bulbous, splotchy suit, running around, screaming his own name and generally being a nightmare." Yeah, okay, that is quite literally Mr. Blobby. The prank doesn't sound that bad. I'm still a bit iffy about it, I don't really like pranks, but it doesn't seem harmful so I guess it's fine? All that's lost is time, and the people are presumable still getting paid for their guest appearance, so they aren't even really losing time. Actually, I think using a weighted football without knowing it can be dangerous? I'm getting mixed answers googling it. But if it is dangerous, that's already a sign these pranks aren't exactly... safe. Something is bound to go wrong here.

6:05 - "“the snooty chef” actually tried to hide behind a shelving unit" Yeah, okay, this is bad actually. Shame on the studio audience for laughing at this. I don't care if the chef is "snooty", this is actually just terrorizing someone. This isn't a prank anymore. Not when the victim is actually afraid and cowering. Harassing people is not a prank. This is why I don't like pranks. Shit like this. I don't care how stupid this is, if someone did this to me, I would actually cry. The only, and I mean ONLY okay thing about this is at least Rimbeau agreed to be on a show. So at least they aren't randomly putting cameras into the faces of people on the street and forcing them to be content. At least! Hahaha fuck everyone who was on the staff of Nigel's show.

6:53 - "Well, there was a different man in the suit, of course. There were a few of them over the years. It was very physically demanding and that wasn’t the only injury we had with it. It actually became a sort of ritual: the newest member of the production crew wore Mr. Bonzo until someone else joined." Is this... does this count as hazing? God, it just gets worse. And they made it a ritual for people to put on this suit, terrify people, and then suffer an injury at the hands of someone they were terrifying. It's like they were begging for something malevolent to brew in this costume, BEGGING. She laughs. Nigel doesn’t. YEAH YOU BETTER NOT LAUGH NIGEL 7:09 - "and the guests knew it was coming. A couple even requested it" Did you at least let the guests who wanted to be "pranked" get pranked? Come on. A prank should be on someone who would enjoy it, these people should be your primary "targets"! Let them have fun, rather than make some unsuspecting guests LITERALLY COWER. But noooo, that's not good enough content, is it? I'm mad. 7:50 - "we even started construction on a small Bonzoland theme park at one point" Oh, hey, Bonzoland! Started construction, though. Not constructed. The murders started, didn't they? 7:59 - "People… stopped liking Mr. Bonzo." Oh, is that all? Good, honestly. But like many mascot horror characters, Mr. Bonzo is not going to take well to being abandoned, is he? 8:04 - "If you don’t feel comfortable discussing Terrance Menki, we could move on to-" Oh. I thought "people stopped like Mr. Bonzo" was just him falling out a relevance. Now I think the murders did happen at this time. And Terrance Menki was the serial killer. 8:21 - "But no, because he was caught dressed as Mr. Bonzo, that’s all people remember," Oh, Terrance wasn't even an actor. He was basically just a random serial killer. Mr. Bonzo isn't exactly a symbol of anything... innocent, but his image being corrupted isn't even the fault of the creators. It just happened out of their control. 8:40 - "Complete overreaction." Because when the actual Mr. Bonzo does it, it's "just a joke", right? But overreaction is such a choice of words. Not "slander" to associate Bonzo with something no one from Channel 6 was connected to. It's an "overreaction".

9:04 - "Well of course I got death threats. We had nothing to do with it obviously, but people can be very stupid about this sort of thing." I'm not very high on Nigel and his gang, but obviously he doesn't deserve this. It is ironic though. People can get bombarded with death threats over the literal stupidest things. The Magic: the Gathering Commander Rules Committee literally had to disband because members were receiving death threats and the committee was no longer able to ensure the safety of its members. And what was the catalyst of death threats? Oh, they banned some pieces of cardboard. Sickening. The way people can just... not even fucking care about the things they put out into the world. No time for any rationality or basic empathy, just attack, attack, attack. 10:06 - "The witness statements from three murders over the last five years-" "-that claim a person in a Mr. Bonzo costume was at the scene? Do you think there could be a copycat?" I cannot tell if Nigel knows something and is trying to cover it up, or if Bonzo really has just gone fully autonomous. Gwen was told to gauge Nigel's stress after handing over the envelope, so I don't think Nigel is doing any murderers. The envelope contains a name and address though... Is it the name and address of a new Bonzo victim? Or perhaps the name and address of the copycat killer? 10:24 - "It was a joke alright!? Mr. Bonzo was meant to be funny, make people laugh! Is that so wrong? Why am I still trapped dealing with all this- this- Why won’t he let me go?! Why-" Okay, Bonzo has gone fully autonomous. And is now killing people on his own. And Nigel probably knows it. And Bonzo is threatening Nigel so that Nigel stays quiet. Not funny when the joke's on you, isn't it Nigel? 10:30 - CELIA finishes listening to the Case. Huh, so Celia was listening to it. I wonder why this one was given to Celia? Is it like what I guessed earlier, that Freddy is trying to tell Celia about what Gwen is doing? But why Celia specifically? Or did Freddy just pick a random worker? 10:55 - "Colin?" Colin? Wasn't he put on mental health leave? Is it over already? 11:40 - "For my brain, yeah. Didn’t work. Talked to three therapists. None of them even knew what a logic gate is. What the hell use is that going to be?" Um, I don't know Colin, help managing your emotions? Help recognizing what patterns you fall into and getting a better understanding of yourself and how you can improve? Who am I kidding, Colin can't tell anything to a therapist. They'll think he's insane, thinking he's being watched at all times. Unfortunately, he very much is being watched. 12:33 - "If Lena asks, I wasn’t here." The fact I am hearing this recording makes me think Lena is very much going to know Colin was here.

12:58 - "Yeah, well, that’d be easier if I wasn’t digging through a crumbling, rotten ruin in the rain." Oh, we're getting some of the Magnus Institute exploration in this episode also? I wasn't expecting this!

14:13 - "Hang on, what was that?" Did Sam find the symbols that RedCanary found? Also a thought occurred to me. If there's still a good amount of time left in the episode. If they find something at the Institute, then they next episode can't be about that... It's called Marked. Are they going to meet Ink5oul? 14:28 - "He clambers over some broken furniture and starts wrestling with a rusty old filing cabinet." Oh, a filing cabinet! Sam's looking for files, or statements, that sort of thing.

15:57 - "It’s a key." It's a key! No clue as to what.

16:26 - INT. NIGEL DICKERSON’S MANSION. NIGHT, RAINING (TV) The TV flicks on. Hey, uh, what. I thought the technological tracking or whatever was only on OIAR members. Their computers and their phones. But now its reached Nigel's TV. Nigel is an "External" so that could explain it. Hopefully. If that's not the reason, that would mean no one is safe anywhere with technology. Also Gwen is meeting with Nigel now, I guess? 17:05 - "It’s not for me." Oh. It's for Mr. Bonzo. And it has a name and address in it. The OIAR is using this prank show mascot as an assassin. Just government things. 18:12 - Gwen holds out the envelope and Mr Bonzo snatches it into his mouth, audibly chewing it. His teeth are not soft. His teeth are not soft. Why did you have to clarify that... I don't like Mr. Bonzo. He's freaky. I guess its fitting for Nigel to have to literally live with this monster he created. He turned up the Mr. Bonzo theme song music... Does he literally have to keep that music playing to keep Mr. Bonzo happy? That must be maddening. The way Bonzo's voice echoes. The way he... growls? I am very uncomfy. 18:33 - "Now get out of his house." His house. Not Nigel's. Bonzo's. Because Bonzo has completely taken over Nigel's life. Nigel said he keeps selling Bonzo merch because he needs to make a living and it won't change his reputation but... if Nigel ever stops, does Bonzo just kill him? Probably. 18:43 - 5. EXT. THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE RUINS – NIGHT, THUNDERSTORM (TAPE RECORDER) WHO IN THE WHAT NOW? Now tape recorders are flickering themselves on again. That's different from the televisions and cellphones and cameras recording. This is something analog. Well, Tessa did say it's actually technically digital, but... 19:36 - "Someone’s office, I guess?" Jon's office? Did they get into Jon's office? Is that why there are tape recorders? Remnants of Jon? Or is the Web watching?

20:20 - "Worm tracks. Or y’know symbols of ancient otherworldly power. One or the other." Oh yeah. The worms. It can't be Jane Prentiss worms because the Institute burned down in 1999 and that's WAY before the Jane Prentiss attack, but it could be like... an echo from the TMA timeline? Also Jane and her worms were attempting some sort of ritual in the catacombs, weren't they? That might be something...

20:59 - "I dropped the key!" So the floor just coincidentally breaks in a way that leads to the key being dropped? I don't buy it, I smell Web on this. But what is so important about the key?

24:00 - The voices finally disappear, lost to the distance and the rain. There is a long silence as the tape keeps running. The water is gently disturbed below. Then there is a thud on the hidden wooden trapdoor and the rattle of a padlock.

There is the distinct sound of a key being dragged across wood then being blindly fumbled in a lock which finally clicks.

The trap door opens, the lock falling away and [ERROR] emerges and takes a shuddering breath..

EXCUSE ME? WHO IN THE WHAT IN THE HOW? I thought [ERROR] might be John or Martin or I don't even know. But the YouTube description credits Beth Eyre as [ERROR]. Checking her IMDB page (while covering half of it with my hand the slightest moment I see the Magnus Protocol in case she's credited as the true identity or [ERROR]), she hasn't voiced anyone in TMA. So I have... no clue what [ERROR] is. Perhaps [ERROR] is the result of whatever horrible ritual took place at the Magnus Institute?

That's episode 10. I'm a third through the season. The "incident" in itself wasn't that scary, but that's just because it was all set up. When Mr. Bonzo himself actually showed up... dear lord. And then there's the reappearance of tape recorders and the existence of [ERROR]. I don't even know where to begin with that...

[discount-supervillain]

[discount-supervillain]

[astroma-arts]

Some I Dont Want To Be A Magical Girl sketches! I cant wait to see more of these characters!

[zekkoarts]

She gets a different weapon as a treat

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 9: Rolling with It

CAT3RB3354-14101998-08032024Dice (bone) / fate [Magnus Statement]

You cannot just do this. You cannot just do this. You CANNOT just DO this are you JOKING

Since this is a Magnus statement, this might just cleanly map onto End. Then again, maybe not. Everything else is fucky. I thought maybe it could be possible the burning of the Magnus Institute cause an "ecological" shift in the fear landscape that created a new categorization system and the breaking/forming of new alliances and groups, but the violin was all half-Slaughter half-Flesh and that was centuries ago so maybe not.

But whatever the case, I guess I'll have to... play the hand I'm dealt? Idk, I can't think of a better phrase. 0:08 - "statement regarding their entrapment in The Podcast" I know I don't normally bring up the episode dedications but YOU CANNOT DO THIS TO ME. My brain is already melting you can't just say "statement" I was half convinced I somehow spaced out and it was already starting!

2:57 - "Like its deliberately weird and pointless y’know?" That's what I've been saying!

4:40 - "Statement and Research assessment for artefact CD137 -" I think the computers like you, Sam. You let them get access to your phone, so now they're doing you favors! There's artefact storage information attached too? I don't think we ever actually got to see a detailed report from artefact storage. This should be good.

4:51 - "Magnus Institute – Manchester. Private and confidential. Viability as subject – none Viability as agent – low Viability as catalyst – Medium" Hey wait a minute, that's not London. That's not right. Alternate realities! Everything is in slightly different spots, hah! A catalyst is meant to initialize a reaction. So I'm guessing "Viability as catalyst" is about if the artefact can trigger paranormal events. And perhaps trigger reactions in other artefacts during cross-testing? Subject and agent are trickier. "Viability as subject" could be the opposite of "Viability as catalyst": How easily can this artefact be made to react if another artefact is used on it. "Viability as agent"... An agent of protection, perhaps? How good the object is at preventing you from being affected by the supernatural?

5:16 - "I’d put them in that box real careful, because let me tell you, those babies are due for some serious bad luck." That's not how that works. That's gambler's fallacy. Besides, we all know dice that roll good are innocent saints that always give good results and any other dice is naughty and deserves to serve 25 years consecutively in a maximum security penitentiary. Fate was one of the tags. It seems like the dice might control it. Good rolls make good things happen and bad rolls... Well, car accident is one of the incident elements. Dramatic highs that set you up for dramatic lows. Thinking of it, that feels more Web than End. And gambling addiction is also one of the incident elements...

7:00 - "I realize Gary has been doing seriously well since school" "That said, when he invites me in, I notice he’s looking kind of haggard" The money's all from the dice, isn't it? Literally just gambling his life away. It sounds like it just causes you to end up in a bunch of seemingly mundane accidents. And be really stressed.

7:11 - "I ask if he’s okay and he mumbles something about a mugging" Nevermind. Not just mundane. Okay, I guess getting mugged is technically mundane, it's something that could just happen, but still. "I do notice that a bunch of the bulbs have blown and there’s a huge leak over his massive sound system" And there are the accidents. Technology just breaks sometimes, right? Probably a coincidence :)

7:47 - "I’ll have to use his. That puts a smile on his face" Really, Gary? Pawning off your cursed relic to your unsuspecting school friend? Not cool. Probably won't even work. You'll probably get at least a week of peace and then suddenly die of a stroke or electrical fire.

8:36 - "From that point on I own those dice. And I know it." God, it's that easy? You just have to touch them? You don't even need to decide to use them? Just touch the dice once and your life is ruined? Geez. Of course, you could just... not roll the dice. Theoretically. I thought the dice might lead with good luck to lull you into security and make you develop and addiction before you start getting all the bad rolls, but maybe you just start to grow an addiction anyway before you even take the first roll. Worse, it might even be like the coffin. You just wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself rolling the dice. Do you have a freezer, statement giver?

9:35 Yeah, it's just like I predicted. High for good luck, low to start suffering. 9:57 - "The thing is though I still don’t really know if they ever made me roll them. I mean, I did. A lot. And I knew that the risks probably outweighed the rewards but I don’t think I ever felt them like “calling” to me or anything y’know? It always felt like my choice. Even if it was a shitty choice." That's... uncomfortable to sit with. Questioning free will. Something something "You're as in control of yourself as you've always been in your life" something something.

10:20 - "it's not actually random. You get a few high rolls, your next one's is probably going to be low. And if you've gotten all the bad luck out, you've got good things coming." Even if you're not just making up rules in your head based on random patterns, even if you're not just falling for the gambler's fallacy... This could very easily just be the dice setting you up. If they were "sentient" enough to balance out the luck, they could easily be "sentient" enough to just be baiting you this entire time into doing something really stupid. Like believing you're in control. The house always wins. 10:43 - "So that’s when I get to thinking, what if the person rolling doesn't matter just as long as the rolls balance out overall... Well, you see where I'm going with this." Please do not sacrifice people to the fucked up bone dice. I won't hate you as much as violin guy, but I will still be mad.

And then he just does the thing! Seems to just be doing it to random people though and not specifically the poor and homeless, so I'll give him that. The "Not-As-Much-Of-A-Jerk-As-You-Could-Have-Been" Award. 12:47 - "And as my luck kept getting better and better I started to feel less and less… connected to the world." Is he becoming a reaper? Or some embodiment of fate? An avatar either way. 13:06 - "I started to enjoy that more than the luck" Yep, he's eating fear now. 13:14 - "focusing more on being some mysterious stranger" Hey wait a sec- 13:22 - "I even began dressing for the part: I got hold of this long dark coat, a wide-brimmed hat, grew a proper goatee, the works." Let me look back at the transcript of Taking Note real quick. Hmmm. The gift-giver in the woods is only described as "A gentleman, it appeared, of surprisingly refined countenance". No mention of a goatee or hat. Still, the gift-giver does have dice. I realize it would make no sense for this statement giver to be him timeline-wise, but what if this is instead a role people inhabit, like the position of Archivist? When someone finds these dice and decide to not use it for themselves, they become to become the new Dealer of Cruel Fortunes. Perhaps collecting various other fear-touched items to hand off as gifts. The man in the woods in Episode 4 did even mention fortune and luck. He offered the violin as a way to change it. "Luck assumes a myriad of forms". Hmmmm. 13:30 - "That’s when I see Gary" Oh, Gary lived! 13:43 - "And a vicious little idea comes to me" And Gary is dead. Is this fate as arranged by the dice? Is the statement giver the house now, here to collect its due? 14:33 - "I’d never seen snake eyes come up before" Well, fuck. I also notice that the car accident in the incident notes... hasn't happened yet. Gary is going to die in one, isn't he? In fact... is snake eyes the only roll the outright kills you? People have been scarred and hurt, but I think the dice just lets you suffer. 15:09 - "When the truck barrels through the wall, it isn't the grill that hits Gary first. It’s the bricks that are crushed in front of it." I was... not expecting the car to come directly into the building at Gary. I just thought the statement speaker would find out Gary died in a horrible accident later while Gary was driving or crossing the street, not for a car to literally be launched at him like a heat-seeking missile! And that rising noise earlier, was that supposed to be the car? The description of the gore is... vivid. I do not think I want to relisten to it.

16:08 - "I don't know what I expected to happen, what satisfaction I thought I might get from seeing Gary get screwed over by the dice, but that… it’s too much and I know I can't keep them." So you DO have a conscience! Too bad this decision is going to send you into fear withdrawal, because you fucked around with those dice way too much to still be human. You keep pushing and pushing, playing your games of luck and only backed out when you really had to actually see the consequences to their fullest extent.

16:36 - "Well, maybe just once more. For old time's sake." IDIOT. IDIOT. IDIOT. Okay, I don't think the dice ever compelled him when he chose to roll it on his own, but I think its definitely compelling him now. You don't get to just quit the game. Time to watch a bookcase collapse onto this guy's skull, or for him to suddenly suffer the wrath of a bunch of artefacts spontaneously triggering. "Viability as a catalyst - Medium". 17:33 - "You are to visit a man by the name of “Nigel Dickerson” and hand him this envelope which contains a name and address. Take note of anything he says or does in response, especially his stress levels and emotional state, as well of those of any companions." So Gwen's new job is essentially to act as the messenger... who might get figuratively or literally shot. She delivers private communications with important parties and then reports back any relevant details that will help Lena and those she works for decide what course of action to take next. 17:40 - "You must know him. He was huge in the 90s. Saturdays on Six? Mr Bonzo? The Prank Tank?" HIM? BONZO IS GETTInG INVOLVED NOW?

18:35 Okay, I looked back over the transcripts. Alice's phone has been used as a recording source for a scene before. This isn't new. For a second, I thought it was and thought whatever in now in Sam's phone spread. But no, this is just the standard level of privacy invasion. Gosh, even the people in TMA knew there were tape recorders. This is messed up actually.

23:07 - "When do we leave?" I'm VERY surprised Alice agreed. She seemed very intent on not poking her nose where it doesn't belong. She outright told Sam to drop the Magnus thing. This exploration is not set up to end well. Last time I checked, the last person who went into the Magnus Institute ruins had eyes grow all over their skin! (or something). Not good vibes!

And that's episode 9! A cautionary tale of what happens when you don't put dice in dice jail. It was a bit simple, but I enjoyed it! It definitely picked up when the statement giver started to become almost an avatar. That is not an angle I saw coming. Too bad he's dead though. I morbidly kinda hope he became, but he said himself he wasn't the right holder, and his death the result of him rejecting his position. He's probably just dead.

[gking10]

Liveblogging TMAGP 8: Running on Empty

I relistened to Fatigue from TMA a week ago. The title makes me think of that. Running empty of caffeine?

CAT2RBC3366-12072023-28022024Architecture (liminal) -/-hunger [coursework]

Huh. Liminal space definitely fits the Fatigue vibes. Why is 'coursework' a subcategory of hunger? What does it even mean? Someone sets out to do a project for multiple days for an architectural course and doesn't eat an entire thing the entire time? When I get really into a project, I don't eat. I don't even drink water. It's not that I don't notice I'm thirsty or hungry, I just keep telling myself "I'll do it later" because I really want to finish whatever is in front of me. I'm really prone to that type of thinking, of sometimes just bashing myself against the brick wall deliriously until it finally caves. Mostly because if I ever stop in the middle of something, I usually just kinda give up? I've been trying to be less all-or-nothing, but it's a whole thing. The incident elements involved perception of time and reality warping, which matched Spiral... and then there's also cannibalism. Now I'm thinking of Confession and Desecrated Host (which ARE Spiral statements by the way, you will not convince me otherwise.)

1:34 - "Coursework assessment report 13718B" Wow, okay, we're just going right into it! Also I just noticed... the video itself titles the episode as "Hostile Workplace". But this involves a school course, doesn't it? Where does a workplace come in? Or does it just mean "workplace" as in where the student does their work? The liminal architecture, maybe? It could be like the garden in Putting Down Roots, a space the lures people in.

2:13 - "Extenuating circumstances: Serious Medical Condition, Trauma, Miscellaneous" What did Terrance go through? And this is just the extenuating circumstance for why Terrance submitted work late... 2:28 - "Title: Forton’s Brutal Liminality, a case study of architecturally induced psychological stressors as a result of prolonged exposure to liminal spaces in the Brutalist mode as exhibited by Forton Service Station." Huh. So maybe this is the "workplace". I'm not quite sure how Brutalism intersects with the presence of liminal spaces. To my understanding, brutalist architecture involves minimalism and leaving structural features exposed rather than hidden. Designing for efficiency without adding anything superfluous. I'm not sure how this type of design leads to prolonged exposure to liminal spaces. Liminal spaces are points of transition, places you aren't expecting to spend much time in. That's why its weird when you have to focus on one. Like hallways. Or places that should be in use but just... aren't. Are defined by people using them but are seen completely empty. Perhaps the liminal space is a long tunnel within the service station. A place purely for walking through. And I guess the brutalism would be the fact it is merely a tunnel and not a lobby or anything else? I'm unsure.

3:43 - "This often results in exposed raw materials, stark forms, repetitive geometric shapes and monolithic structures." Repetitive. Monolithic. Like a hotel hallway lined with identical doors that stretches on and on forever. Like a dull grey staircase where every floor you stop at can only be differentiated by the number. Okay, I think I'm starting to see the vision, actually.

4:23 - "Specifically, it creates an effect of absence despite presence, an “architectural hunger" of a sort" What does this mean? A hunger for architectural variety, I guess? Terrance honestly seems like a Robert Smirke. He's researching architecture and its affects on the psyche. It's a shame Terrance is probably going to eat a man alive before he gets the chance to analyze what other anxieties different structures may instill. 4:38 - "Service stations such as Forton were originally conceived of as a location in and of themselves rather than merely a pause in a journey. However, with the widespread adoption of personal automobiles and the subsequent overdevelopment of UK road infrastructure, these spaces transitioned into liminal spaces." Fuck cars. Is the architectural hunger... the hunger of the architecture itself? A hunger to be filled, to be in use? In all the long car rides I've been on throughout my life, being driven out of state to visit family, I've never really thought about the gas stations. Earnestly, I spent a majority of my time on those trips asleep, mostly to avoid the tedium of simply sitting and waiting. I guess because of that, being awoken to a stop never really felt uncanny or unnerving to me. Although, now that I think about it... I think that's only really true with the small gas stations. The bigger ones? I would start to feel lost in those. And Buc ee's? I've only been the Buc ee's twice in my life, and each time, it has been overwhelming. The sheer size of the crowds, of people just walking by each other, it is. A lot. They have good burritos though, so worth it. I think the big places get to me because you say there longer. With a small gas station, you just use the bathroom, maybe buy some chips and candy bar, and then you're gone. Each stop and Buc ee's lasted 30 minutes. Or at least felt like it. Too big. Too long. A nice place to visit, but not somewhere I'd like to stay.

4:59 - "Not only this, there are perceived time distortions associated with such spaces exacerbated by the deliberate absence of clocks (to encourage longer stays)" I thought they just did that in casinos but... have I ever seen a clock in any gas station? Fuck. 5:28 - "they have thus become dislocated from humanity’s shared mindscape" "In essence, I believe the “architectural hunger” of a space that resents its own transitional nature can be dangerous" I looked at the wikipedia article for liminal spaces and found the idea of a non-place. This what is is. A nonplace. A place that isn't a place because no one intends to stay there and no one knows anywhere there nor wants to be known by anyone there. But not just that. Terrance is describing a place that's just been... cut out of the shared subconsciousness. A place people just refuse to think about. Psychological abandoned and resentful. It makes me think of a line from an SCP that's sat with me for years. "There's only so much that hate can build up in a place before it starts hating you back…" I'll be surprised if this doesn't begin to touch on hostile architecture. Not the fictional hostile architecture of "oh this building is going to eat me alive" but the spikes put the stop skateboarders and the useless fake benches with unnecessary dividers put up explicitly to keep homeless people from being able to sleep. Ever since I first learned of the concept of hostile architecture, it's made my stomach crawl. And it would be all in service to keeping a space liminal, wouldn't it? It's directly to prevent people from being able to stay, because god forbid people have a place to be that isn't their own home or work. I'm not sure if this report is going to go there though, there's no warning of homelessness in the incident elements. Still, I would appreciate it being tackled. 6:48 - "No-one has eaten there in decades." That's sad. The restaurant actually sounded pretty cool. But I guess, that's the thing. This isn't a place to stay. It's not a place to really visit. It's a place to stop and that's it. So why would you need a restaurant when some random fast food chain gets the job done without any extravagance? Why stop to enjoy something? The only stopping here is now done out of pure, utilitarian necessity. Although, doing a tiny bit a research, it seems like Pennine Tower was also closed because it wasn't fire safe. Which does match with a rise in brutalism, of needing buildings to be built explicitly to purpose, but also like... fire safety is important? I don't think that's a wild take. Still, I don't know. Abandoned places are sad. The fact it's a restaurant though? And there's going to be cannibalism? I think we are going to see someone eat there soon. It will not be pretty.

7:41 - "until finally, one night, I realized that I had not seen a single person." Yeah, fuck that. I said it during Personal Screening, I'll say it again, spaces that should be filled with people but are not are BAD and you do NOT WANT TO BE THERE. 8:39 - "I maintain that the phenomena was accompanied by a disquieting sense of absence. Of hunger." Terrance keeps insisting on this hunger thing, which doesn't make sense with what he has said so far in this essay, and it is unnerving. It's just uncanny language. A sign that something is wrong with the way he is processing things. The lights were red, white, and yellow. Bright colors. Associated with hunger.

9:22 - "That’s when I realized why this all felt so familiar. Timelapse." So he's just seeing... a timelapse of people and cars? Traces of directions, all the paths their move in, without any of the actual life to accompany it? Feels like Lost in the Crowd. A crowd without people. A night at a service station without cars. All of the lights and movement and yet no cars. This is surreal. I like this. 10:17 Helen? Surely not. But god, the way the colors are described as a cloud of mist, pure gaseous sensory overload chasing after him, it gives me chills.

12:26 - "I tried to listen to any one conversation it was just… noise. A muffled murmur that sounded like speech but held no information." God, it's this part of the Lonely. Something about this really affects me. The idea of normal idle life just being... imitated. Being fake, not real. The Lonely doesn't much scare me when it's just being alone, but when it emphasizes the idea of being surrounded by people and being completely unable to connect, relate, or even understand? Everything just becoming... background noise? God. I feel like every one of these starts with me declaring the incident one TMA entity, and then halfway through deciding its a different one. "This violin is Slaughter- no, actually Flesh." "These volunteers are Desolation, no, Stranger, no, EXTINCTION!" "This is clearly going to be Spiral, oops, it's Lonely." If the entities have become blended, they are doing a really good job at it. 12:54 - "there were even recurring features iterating on different faces: the same green eyes on two women, identical moustaches on three men." Hey, I hate that actually. Very glad this is a podcast and I do not have to visually see that. It's an uncanny valley thing with me, I cannot stand that.

13:44 - "They were gaping square holes and beyond them was nothing at all" And my stomach became a gaping hole upon hearing those words. There's nothing out there. There is no outside. There is no past. There is no future. There is just here. You are here. Stay awhile. And then they start eating Terrance... 16:41 - "though I am painfully aware that no missing person report was filed with the police since apparently none of my colleagues, tutors or fellow students noticed my absence." Shit, no wonder something related to loneliness targeted him. That's depressing.

17:16 I keep hearing mechanical sounds. Like a camera flicking back and forth and refocusing. I'm just taking notice of the scene notes on the transcripts. The incidents have always said "CYBERSPACE", which I haven't taken much notice of. But this scene? "CCTV". That's what this is being recording on. That's what's watching them. I really should have been paying attention to the diegetic reason why we, the viewers, have even been able to hear all this.

18:21 - "and did you hear Lena put Colin on “mental health leave”" Well, Colin's gone. Hopefully he was actually put on mental health leave and not... shot.

19:01 Sam's phone. The scene note is Sam's phone. Something escaped. Something got in.

19:07 - "Sorry for the mess, I wasn’t expecting anyone." GERRY! I was spoiled that Gerry appeared at some point, it was impossible to avoid, but GERRY KEAY? HERE? NOW? THIS EPISODE? And Sam just knows him????? 19:58 - GERTRUDE "That would be me." I was wrong last episode. This will be the death of me. I somehow did not hear about THIS and I am glad because WHAT THE FUCK I guess Sam and Celia and investigating the Magnus Institute? Gerry is so cheerful and nice here. Like, he's so happy he doesn't even sound the same. It makes his fate in TMA even sadder.

20:39 - "What exactly did you say was your business with my grandson?" Is this an act? I think I remember Gerry was often mistaken for being Gertrude's grandson in TMA, so is she just leaning into it? Or did Gertrude full-on adopt Gerry? Was Gerry raised by Gertrude instead of Mary Keay? It would explain why Gerry does not see to be miserable.

21:05 - "I see. Well I’m sorry, but I don’t think Gerry can help you-" It's subtle, but the static rises here. Is Gerry getting compelled? But by who or what? It wouldn't be Gertrude, she's trying to hide it. 23:03 - "I’m trying to look into… Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation, all that good stuff." DID CELIA CROSS OVER SOMEHOW???? 23:21 - "You’re not doing research for that podcast you were on, are you?" THE FUCKING WHAT 23:27 - "Then yeah. I’m doing a favor for Georgie." FOR WHO? Celia on What the Ghost? Hello?????? That's the episode. I wondered again why "coursework" was a subcategory of hunger... Then I realized that the brackets are different, that's the format of the statement, not a subcategory. So I'm an idiot. I am also realizing there is chicken in the oven I should have pulled out 30 minutes ago.