#mag 8

[redlobter]

Episode eight, Burned Out. Pictured is Ivo Lensik's father, who was driven mad by the Spiral and then murdered by Michael. This is also Michael's first mention, which is really funny if you think about it

[nanaarchy]

Hey chat !!!! I'm going insane.

Ever since my first listen to TMA, I've had a huge question that NEVER got answered.

Never. Not in the whole series, not Q&As or the wiki or anything. I thought I would never find answers. I thought it would be forgotten. I thought it was a small insignificant detail and I'd have to live with never knowing the truth about it.

Now with TMAGP 19, I might finally know the answer.

Maybe. Maybe maybe. But It Could Be. And now I'm losing my mind at the implications.

((For the record, I know that the stories and worldbuilding are inherently separate - hell, there are even timeline differences in the cases I'm using as evidence. But the overlap might be important, especially when it comes to the Web.))

Spoilers for both shows below!

Its branches were exquisite, and delicate, swaying slightly from small eddies in the liquid, and they shone with every spectra. I must confess that to look upon it, one was – (sigh) filled with profound wonder at its exquisite elegance. [...] Even I, steeped in worldly matters as I am, recognized The Lord’s words to Adam, and was much dismayed at the implication. Isaac then plucked the delicate fruit with ungloved hands and held it before me. [...] The creature was taking root. Strands of its mottled brown hair were extruding downwards between the floor, seeking the dark earth below. Then, too, its back began to sprout, radiant branches unfurling and thickening before me, reaching upwards towards the sunlight with a seemingly insatiable desire. [...] I tell you here, Robert, it saw me, and it knew me. (TMAGP 19 - HARD RESET)

It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole. Graham noticed me staring, and told me that interesting antique furniture was one of his few true passions. Apparently he’d found the table in a second-hand shop during his student days and fallen in love with it. It had been in pretty bad shape but he’d spent a long time and a lot of money restoring it, though he’d never been able to figure out what was supposed to go in the centre. He assumed it was a separate piece and couldn’t track it down. (MAG 3 - ACROSS THE STREET)

Re: Magnus Institute Ruins. By RedCanary on Saturday April 23 2022 12:17pm. The photos from the spelunk seem properly gone, but I did find an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on. Some kinda empty box, not really sure what for, though. Gonna see if I can get the light right for a decent pic. Edit: No dice, I’m afraid. Must be something up with my phone camera. Really not helping the whole paranoia thing either. Anyone know anything about photographic distortion? Gonna see if I can borrow my dad’s SLR tomorrow. (TMAGP 1 - FIRST SHIFT)

Adelard Dekker stood in the corner. He was straight and motionless, his lips moving rapidly, though no sound came out of them. In the centre of the room, stood a table carved from dark wood and wrapped all over with a sprawling, intricate pattern. And in front of that table was the thing that had said it was my cousin. It was long and thin, the tops of it bent against the ceiling and its stick-like limbs flailed from too many joints and elbows. Wrapped around it were thick strands of what I think was spider’s web, stretching back into the table, which I now saw pulsed along its carved channels with a sickly light. The face at the top of that gangly frame was like nothing on earth. (MAG 78 - DISTANT COUSIN)

Now... Now I get it. I get it. I finally gave an answer. Or, at least, I think we'll get a concrete answer soon. But I think I get it.

I think I get where the web table comes from. I think I know what it's made of. why it glows. why it had a hole in the middle. I think I might know how the web gained control and sentience so much faster than the other fears. and, if it still manifests in the same way in the Protocol universe, how it also quickly became "the manager" of other fears, as theories suggest.

More importantly, I think I know what was up with the mysterious tree from so, so long ago.

Now I have an answer.

Why was there an apple buried in Hill Top Road?

I opened the box and sitting inside was a single green apple. It looked fresh, shiny, with a coat of condensation like it had just been picked on a cool spring morning. I picked it up. I wasn’t going to eat it, I’m not that stupid, but more than bleeding trees or phantom burning, this confused me. As I took it out of the box, though, it began to turn. The skin turned brown and bruised and started to shrivel in my hand. Then it split. And out came spiders. Dozens, hundreds of spiders erupting from this apple that was rotting right before my eyes. I shrieked and dropped it before any of them could touch my arm. The apple fell to the ground and burst in a cloud of dust. I backed away and waited until I was sure all the spiders had left before retrieving the box. I smashed it with a crowbar, and threw the remains into a skip. (MAG 8 - BURNED OUT)

And now I have an answer. Maybe.

[givemenoname]

listening to my first actual run-through of tma i am full of spoilers

i just finished MAG 12 i might make this a reblog chain on my side account just with my reactions and guesses for horror(s) are represented after each episode so here are my thoughts so far

MAG 1 - strong start, definitely tells me what kinda ride i’m in for. absolutely adore the little michael The Door foreshadowing at the end. i originally thought this was a stranger one, but it’s probably a spiral the more i think about it.

MAG 2 - the second i heard the word “money,” i immediately went “buried” and wouldn’t you know it, i was right.

MAG 3 - graham got stranger-ed guess he’s not!graham now. i get beholder/eye vibes from the story itself, though, like she had to know what was happening to him.

MAG 4 - VAST VAST VAST first indications of mike!! and gerry is there too, i guess, hi gerry.

MAG 5 - lots of things but honestly?? eye. the teeth freaked me out, though.

MAG 6 - no comment, just grossed out, corruption is terrifying to me.

MAG 7 - ok, this one seems like something i’d write. it’s so cool, i love it so much, the piper is such a vibe, it’s gonna be so hard to draw, definitely end or slaughter.

MAG 8 - classic desolation episode, more ghosts and fire please.

MAG 9 - original thought was slaughter, but now i’m thinking dark. love that robert’s just a dad trying to look out for this daughter, even though he’s a mass murderer, more of this dynamic in media.

MAG 10 - vampires read as hunt to me, loved the description of the tongue being more like a leeches than a humans, really sets the vibe.

MAG 11 - prophetic dreams are so fun, i don’t care how overused they are. originally thought eye or desolation, but it was revealed to me that this is an end episode. thanks google, i just wanted a reference for the veins, i didn’t need the fandom wiki for oliver banks.

MAG 12 - desolationnnnn liminal hospital setting is such a good place for a desolation episode, also gerry’s here i guess. hi gerry, thanks for letting me know that your eye tattoos are not just a collective fandom thing, you’re gonna make practicing anatomy a lot harder.

[icyboiiii]

art for episode 8 of the Magnus archives - burned out

[floof-ghostie]

Can't stop thinking about Father Burroughs the priest. All he did was try to do a quick lil exorcism and all the fears basically jumped his ass at Hill Top road and got him serving two life sentences

[algernonscage]

On my third relisten of TMA I have just realized that MAG 8 is the first mention of Michael distortion. A man most notable becuase "all the bones are in his hands" presumably killing Ivo Lensik's dad after said dad chased fractals for so long. Like this is obviously that long hands Michael that we all know and love.

[tma-wwk]

TMA What We Know -[8]- Burned Out

pre-statement:

[none]

--STATEMENT--

-now hold up. pause. how exactly are the statements numbered. I thought it was year/date/month. this one is 0071304, should that not be april 13th? I was excited for this one, today (<-day that Im listening to it) is April 13th. It was supposed to be fitting and thematic to listen to this today. Jon's out here saying it's March 13th. gonna have to look up how the statements are numbered but this is an absolute travesty.

-creepy tree. cast creepy shadows.

-raymond fielding visits house ivo is working on. comes in but then suddenly disappears. burn marks mark the spot he was standing.

-Ivo (statement giver) has schizophrenia run in his family and worries that this is a hallucination. ivo my man, you are giving a statement to jonathan sims, head archivist of the magnus institute. you are NOT helping your case. same goes for all the previous statement givers who addmitted to being drunk when the spooky thing happened. GUYS. please. keep that to yourself, no one will believe you otherwise.

-Ivo's father became obsessed with fractals and then "killed himself" after seeing a guy described as 'all the bones are in his hands. big quotation marks around "killed himself".

-Ivo immediately falls and gets a 'severe concussion' after raymond disappeared. guy you are NOT helping your case. stop telling the archives about your medical history when you want them to believe you saw a Real Life Spooky.

-nurse tells Ivo a spooky story about the house on Hilltop Road. story's that one day Agnes moved in and the other residents started going missing. Then Raymond went missing. Agnes took over the house (legally). One day the house burned down. human remains of Raymond Fielding.

<-guess Raymond's a spooky ghost then. canonical ghosts in the tma universe? or did Raymond not die?

-still smells burning while working on the house. and now also sees visions of Agnes

-one day he feels like he's burning alive. but he's fine though 👍

-guy shows up to do an exorcism. succeeds I think?

-Ivo tries to beat up a tree via a crowbar. then uproots the actively bleeding tree with his car. finds a box in the trunk. there's an apple in the box. apple decays in real time. then spiders pour out of it. Ivo beats it with a crowbar too.

post-statement:

-the priest who did the exorcist gave his own statement about this, Jon hasn't found that one yet though

-Martin found records of the house's previous owners

-Sasha got records from the church of england to see if they documented it as a halfway house, didn't find any evidence of that but the records were incomplete.

-Tim arranged an interview with the nurse, didn't get any further information

-Raymond's obituary and a photo taken by a local confirm there was a house fire there, and Raymond died in it.

-no proof that Agnes existed, but Martin found evidence of someone named Agnes Montague who was found dead on the day Ivo violently murdered the tree. that's the only connection so far between Agnes and Agnes M. plus Jon says the age doesn't add up, although the one thing I'm not keeping track of here is math.

-Agnes M. died with a severed hand tied to her, based on the decay it would seem the hand died at the same time as her. spooky and yet,, has absolutely nothing to do with this statement. seems like we're getting 4 spooky stories in 1 with this one.

[generalb]

Case #75559132

Statement of General B, Head Tumblrina of the generalb account, regarding the numerous connections they can remember at this given moment regarding the Cult of the Lightless Flame, John Amherst,the Church of the Divine Host, and the Bug Hosts. Statement given direct, 31st March, 2026.

Statement begins.

Hmm. I went back and I reread the transcript for MAG 35 for the purpose of catching up on John Amherst, and apparently the man of the duo at the end could be Trevor Herbert? Originally I thought the fire part meant it had connections to the Cult of the Lightless Flame, but I guess I’m wrong in that part.hmm. Thought. I’m going to go reread the transcript for MAG 59.

Hmm. A connection, but again it’s not the one I was expecting. An orphan girl by the name of Agnes, whose kiss saves the subject by giving the sensation of a hot branding iron? That could very well be the same Agnes. I wouldn’t expect a show like this to make the mistake of using an important name for an unrelated character. I was initially trying to figure out who the girl wit the scar on her face might be. Could be that there is nothing. Given that MAG 59 happened on Hilltop road tho….im gonna reread MAG 8

Wow

Hmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I also reread MAG 19. There’s a lot here. I imagine to the mega fans I must have sounded so foolish not recognizing that the halfway home Ronald Sinclair was in in MAG 59, was the very house mentioned and visited to in MAG 8 and 19. It’s all been the same fucking house. And I’ve somehow missed it as well.

Let’s recap then. As of right now, there have been three supernatural forces that existedbi the house on Hilltop Road, one of them majorly unimportant.

One: the Spiders. There is some supernatural forces related to spiders, I’m certain of it. It had Raymond Fielding in its grasp, and used him to hunt and kill others for nourishment.

Two: the Lightless Flame. I haven’t done a full dive into that yet but clearly it was brought by Agnes, who then used it to purge the spiders and somehow claim Raymond away and into its own.

Three: the Demon. Obviously something claimed Father Burroughs and fought the Lightless Flame to hold onto him. However, there is no greater connection to Hilltop road other than that I believe. Nothing in the second half suggests anything anyways.

So what does this all mean?

Back in MAG 59, we hear that Agnes felt a pain from presumably when Ivo Lensik pulled out the tree. The box underneath the tree held an apple that turned into spiders that got away. At the same time, Burroughs was getting. Pressured by the Lightless flame. But when the tree was fully uprooted, the supernatural fight suddenly stopped.

My best guess? Somehow the spiders weren’t defeated but merely contained by Agnes and the Lightless Flame. So whatever ritual the cult did that killed Agnes was likely in response to that freeing of the Spiders. Given how the man Diego Malina was holding a container full of spiders, they somehow had a way to take care of it.

Arthur Nolan. He was the landlord from MAG 55. That connects the Cult to Prentiss, and therefore a Host. Not a demon host, a bug host.

Also the house of the Ants was listed to none other than John Amherst! I cant help but think of how every time Amherst is mentioned… it’s with flies……Amherst is a Host. It must be.

The final piece of the puzzle, Diego Malina. I thought he might have been from MAG 37 “Burnt Off”, but there isn’t much connection between that and the Lightless Flame other than similar effects of intense scorching heat without any fire.

So what is Diego Malina from? There’s no other statements with his name written in the summaries. I’m not going to google him, nor am I going to re read every single transcript. Actually I’m going to reread MAG 5 but only because of a hunch that something might come up.

Okay nothing came up but it was creepy. I can’t wait for when I give new reviews for the first 30 statements. I’m close to MAG 100 after all.

But still, no clue on where Diego is. Nor do I know who the short Asian woman is. NOR do I know who the scar face kid that’s hanging out with Trevor Herbert is. I know so much and so little!!! Is the Lightless Flame good or bad! Did they have anything to do with Gertrudes’ death or the strange circle in BAG 37! Wait. Gertrude died the same time as a moment in a statement. Gimme a sec.

Nope. Reread MAG 25, then MAG 9 but only ended up down a different rabbit hole. I wonder if there isn’t a connection Sim could fimd between the Church of the Divine Host and the West Hackney Church because they were enemies. That’s my theory at least; it sounded like the shadow monsters of MAG 63 were what broke down the door in MAG 9. But I could be wrong.

That’s enough theories for tonight. All I’ve done is connect some loose ends into a slightly longer and bigger loose end. A drifting piece of string if you will. A space noodle.

Statement ends.

Supplemental:

I’ve been redesigning some of my OCs because I felt they needed a refresh and here’s my current progress on the last original member, Kelsey the Edgelord! I’m still figuring out how to do his spiky hair as I’ve made a vow to stop making straight hair, thereby forcing me to get better at it. I can definitely see though that I need to add some kind of slant to the third undone one though, to match with the others. But you all get a sneak peak before it’s done!