#no conclusions

[wormdrobe]

goddamn i am stupid

[magnus-marmot]

What even is the OIAR

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

No conclusions, local madwoman out.

[magnus-marmot]

The OIAR embodies Salt

If confused about what I mean by that, read my pinned post

The OIAR is a government organisation seemingly stuck in the past. They're all about needless bureaucracy, rigid organisational structures and obsolete tech that downright rejects any attempts to update it. If technology and innovation are feeding the humanity's ideas of change and mercurial adaptation, then the OIAR (and most government agencies tbh) are antithetical to that. This must be intentional on the writers' part, but is it intentional on the fictional level?

Salt as a principle has a very grounding effect, and we are living in a world where everything and everyone must keep evolving, the world is rapidly changing (for better and for worse), things that happened a week ago are old news, and social media is feeding our constant need for validation and self-expression. So if both Sulfur (fiery, personal drives) and Mercury (the fluctuating, ambient transformation) are in abundance, the agency that's dedicated to balancing them must be grounded with Salt, with stagnancy and rigidity. Which is why I find it especially worrisome that the “Salt config manager”found an “unmonitored orphan process” (whatever that means).

Here's some wild speculation: What if the entity that lives in Freddie is actively trying to disrupt the Salt? The OIAR was stuck doing pretty much the same thing they've always done, but recently things have been kicked to motion, thanks to some incidents targeted at the right people and some anonymously sent emails. There have been significant changes in the inner workings of the agency. And it feels like technology is particularly prone to some Mercury-based tamperings, what with it both representing change and providing us with the weird liminality of the cyberspace.

I don't know what this means yet. I don't even know if the OIAR are really doing what they say they are. Their logo having the inverted Magnum Opus in it seems really damn ominous to me. Still, what happens if the agency that swears to keep the balance loses the carefully maintained balance it's been crafting for itself?

[crazy-fangirl1245]

Do you ever be dreaming and feel yourself wake up and go “No, wait, wait, wait! I have to know what happens next!!”

[i-am-the-oyster]

Very interesting info re the question "why did Paul storm out of the recording of She Said She Said?"

According to Geoff Emerick they realised late they were short a song, and rushed through it on the second last day.

[misscrawfords]

There is definitely banter afoot with Hot Greek Tutor. It's the same every year, we always get close in the second week after a week of sort of circling each other and occasionally talking. It's really dumb. We reset every year. I mean, there's a Booker prize winning novel out of this it's so stupid.

Anyway, definite banter and sitting next to each other at dinner and in lectures and raising eyebrows across the room. Last night we were left alone after dinner before the evening lecture and had a hilarious conversation in which he was speaking basic German to me and I was replying in even more basic Russian. I know basically no German and he knows no Russian. It was complete and utter nonsense and we were in stitches.

We went on an afternoon trip together to a lovely local town and had a splendid time looking at abbey ruins and wandering round old bookshops and playing "which house would you buy in the estate agent window if you had a spare million lying around" which is always a fun game.

We get on very well when we are alone. Absolutely no physical contact and like... maybe we're... just friends? But I do just wonder. We are both single and an appropriate age and seem to like hanging out together quite closely once we've circled around each other sufficiently. It occurs to me that maybe he is even more clueless than me. shrug emoji. He's very, very hard to read, a mixture of social openness and personal reserve. He responds well to openness and teasing and is certainly good at teasing back and initiating that but he seems to need a lot of warm-up.

Then this performance of Anything Goes was brought up at supper today which I really want to go to by someone totally separate and he asked me what it was and said he wanted to go and I sort of thought "Aha an opening!" but I rather want him to take the lead because OMG we've been here so many times before. And nothing was explicitly said but like... he wants to go... I want to go... DO THE MATHS, GENIUS. Anyway, I texted him details of the show when I got back to my room tonight. We'll see what he replies.

What do I honestly think? Because this is no expectations Greek camp and while I can't help having feelings, I'm really determined not to let them dominate things. I think he's really involved in his job which he started in the middle of Covid and getting a girlfriend is not on his radar, no matter who she is and so it just hasn't occurred to him that I'm sitting under his nose. And one day in five years time he'll suddenly look up and decide he wants to get married to someone. I may be totally wrong, as I said, I really can't read what he thinks and feels on this subject.

The one person I could ask who might have any insight is his female BFF but I find her prickly (I do like her though) and I would not want to have a personal conversation with her and lay myself open to her. Also, what if something's going on between them? Pffft. I'm trying not to consider that. That way lies madness. Must remember something someone told me recently about a whole other social situation - that a person's relationships with other people is completely out of my control. I can't do anything about how someone feels about someone else. And that should not affect my relationship with them.

LOL it's midnight. Tomorrow is the last day of the course. I should sleep.

[smolfoxbab]

currently experiencing the pain of watching various comic dubs on youtube where n o n e of the stories have an ending its suffering