#and timelines

does this plot point contradict some part of the canon timeline or world building? is this character acting perhaps not 100% in character as canon would have them? are you intentionally making these choices and they fit within the story/tone/world you want to build? yes? 

So here’s a fun new listening order: The Magnus Archives, in chronological order in which the statements were given. (I want to do in which the events of the statements happened, but that’s harder, because some people refuse to give clear dates.) (It’s like half of them, it’s very frustrating.) 

But! This does give some interesting insights into what’s going on in the Institute. Obviously the really interesting bit is the 1995-2015 time span where Gertrude is really out there getting shit done, but there are other fun things too (like remembering that Elias has been working at the Institute since before Jon was born (baby Archivist!))

I threw in some other relevant-to-the-Archives timeline as well, and discovered that I think I can narrow down the time frame for the Great Twisting and Michael’s...consumption...by the Spiral. According to MAG126, the Worker-in-Clay was still recruiting an assistant to come with him to Sannikovland in mid-2009, so it can’t have been before then. And in December of 2011, Gerry Keay was released from the hospital into the care of his mother, who’s been dead since 2008 so it was almost certainly Gertrude. He never mentions Michael or indeed any of her other assistants, so I tend to think they were all gone by the time he started working with her. So: Michael was probably fed to the Spiral sometime between October 2009 and Christmas 2011.