Virge's TMA Notes

Season 1:

Ep. 1: Anglerfish Ep. 2: Do Not Open Ep. 3: Across The Street Ep. 4: Pageturner Ep. 5: Thrown Away Ep. 6: Squirm Ep. 7: The Piper Ep. 8: Burned Out Ep. 9: A Father's Love Ep. 10: Vampire Killer Ep. 11: Dreamer Ep. 12: First Aid Ep. 13: Alone Ep. 14: Piecemeal Ep. 15: Lost Johns' Cave Ep. 16: Arachnophobia Ep. 17: The Boneturner's Tale Ep. 18: The Man Upstairs Ep. 19: Confession Pt. 1 Ep. 20: Desecrated Host Pt. 2 Theory rant Ep. 21: Freefall Ep. 22: Colony Ep. 23: Schwartzwald Ep. 24: Strange Music Ep. 25: Growing Dark Ep. 26: A Distortion Ep. 27: A Sturdy Lock Ep. 28: Skintight Ep. 29: Cheating Death Ep. 30: Killing Floor Ep. 31: First Hunt Ep. 32: Hive Ep. 33: Boatswain's Cell Ep. 34: Anatomy Class Ep. 35: Old Passages Ep. 36: Taken Ill Ep. 37: Burnt Offering Ep. 38: Lost And Found Ep. 39: Infestation Ep. 40: Human Remains End of S1 Review/Stats

Season 2:

Statement of Antonia Hayley, given January 7, 2008

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

Had a near death experience in August 2006

She’s a diver by experience and for her job

Her first job after college was a marine salvage company off the coast of Nova Scotia

An old man offered the company a job for a salvage off Sable Island

Sable Island is a part of the Atlantic Graveyard right off the coast of Nova Scotia and has somewhere from 400-500 shipwrecks under the water

Usually the company would never take this kind of deal, but for some reason they did

The man that offered the job was named Simon Fairchild (fucking fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck). He claimed he’d pinpointed the location of his grandfather’s sailing yacht that had been sunk around 120 years ago and he wanted to find any heirlooms left. It was a steam yacht circa 1890

He was willing to throw a lot of money around for the sake of this dive, which was unusual

The captain who’d driven the boat was named Morton Kemp. Her and the other diver, Julio Hernandez, basically had to babysit Simon on the way to the spot because he’d insisted on coming with

When they got there, the sea was more calm than it should’ve been but it didn’t strike her as odd at the time

The cameras could make out the name on the boat to be the Maria Fairchild

As she went into the water, she thought she heard Simon call something after her, but she didn’t hear what it was

She’d expected the water to be warm, but it was really cold as soon as she hit the surface

She realized as she went down that her torch was the only movement, and there was somehow no life down here at all

She talks about how whenever she dives she goes into almost a meditative state from the pressure. She compares the hypnotic fear to staring into the flames of a fire

That feeling was stronger here and she almost missed the boat completely but eventually she found it and went in with Julio

“It was there I found the hole.” Not ominous at all

The hole was 7 feet in diameter and something about it made her uneasy. The shape seemed too circular and the water outside it was too dark. Somehow, it looked like it’d been torn from the inside out.

[Music starts making a massive crescendo here I’ve never heard before.] She stuck her head out over the hole and immediately felt a sharp change. The pressure increased so quickly and intensely she screamed in pain

She felt like the ocean was squeezing her and when she looked she saw the hole had no sea floor and was far too dark. She knew that if she went down there, there would never be a way back up, only water

There was a shadow in the dark suddenly that stretched between both end of her vision. She couldn’t see it clearly, only a blurry outline that almost looked like a hand

It started to get closer to her and bigger and suddenly metal dug into her hand and snapped her out of her trance. She pushed herself back into the boat and the pressure lifted all at once

She blacked out about thirty feet from the surface and only remembers a helicopter and people shouting before waking up in a hospital bed

Julio never came to visit her in the hospital and she hasn’t been able to get in contact with him since

When she asked the captain what happened to Simon and the rest of the job he scowled and gazed out the window. All he said was “the sea is a dangerous place” before walking away

Johnathan Notes

When he says statement ends its very aggressive goddamn

Almost all the police and port reports he could find were a conflicting mess and the case itself is almost impossible to unravel

They weren’t able to track down a lot of information, because this statement took place in Canada, other than the captain who now runs boat tours near Winnipeg and declined follow up very strongly

Johnathan says he may have met Simon at one point during one of his first cases as a researcher in 2012. 

He was looking into some jewelers in Hackney who claimed every night when they left their cases were fine, and every morning when they came back the cases were broken, but nothing was ever taken.

Apparently most of the jewelry they had used to be owned by a con artist who was eventually thrown out a fourth story window, so the case was chalked up to a low level haunting.

Jonathan could never figure out the con artist’s real name, but one of his many aliases was Simon Fairchild and the name showed up on many business listings in the area

Currently the Fairchild family line is very wealthy and based down in Cornwall. They have no business, but they’ve invested in aerospace technology, shipping logistics, and ocean construction and drilling

Supplemental

“Had a strange conversation with Sasha earlier today” OH REALLY I WONDER WHY HMMMMMMM?????? (im gonna throw this autistic motherfucker out a window)

He was asking about any new artifacts the institute had gotten. There’s an oak wardrobe light isn’t able to penetrate, a carved rock eye they have to keep in a black velvet bag that interferes with video cameras, and a scalpal that’s covered in disease no matter what’s used to clean it

Sasha was just staring at the table again, but Jon managed to bring a tape recorder to record the convo

Recording begins

[The whole tape has a high pitched feedback sound that usually isn’t present when Jon records]

Jon asked her if it was a fractal and Sasha said it looked more like a web

Jon speculated if the table and the spindly spider creature from Across The Street [0070107] might be connected, but Sasha said it didn’t seem like the kind of creature who’d want to be bound to an object

Recording ends

Sasha has also been taking extra long breaks recently and Jon figured out that she would go to Madame Tussauds Wx Museum from anywhere from 10 minutes to four hours

Connections

Simon Fairchild is the man Jon started talking about at the end of Freefall [0022010] before getting interrupted 

“She compares the hypnotic fear into staring into the flames of a fire” you have to be actually kidding me wHAT THE FUCK

The water around The Ominous Hole seems too dark.

Once again, Ominous Hole is too dark. Lots of unnatural darkness in this ep when we haven’t seen it in a while

Jon

Jon

JON GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

DO YOU NOT PERCHANCE THINK A CARVED EYE

THAT INTERFERES WITH CAMERAS

MIGHT BE A BIT RELEVANT

Ominous spider imagery is back wonderful

Post Ep. Thoughts

Darkness, fire, eye, and spiders all came back very agressively this episode, which we haven’t seen all in one place in a while

Or ever?

I’m not sure

BUT JON

JON

BUDDY

BUDDY PAL FRIEND PAL

JON

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

YOU CAN’T BE THIS STUPID

YOU CAN’T

PLS

Statement of Sampson Kempthorne, given June 12th, 1841

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

NOOOOOOOO NOT ANOTHER FUCKING LETTER

I HATE THE STUPID LETTERS

THEYRE SO HARD TO TRACKKKKKK

:(

Writing to someone named Jonah

Sampson has heard rumors Jonah is overworking himself with his job, and encourages him to hire some secretaries to help sort through the “ghostly accounts and lunatic documentation” (oooooo so is this how the archivists came to be)

Him and (I assume) his wife, Mary Anne, are now planning to move to New Zealand to start a new life far away from London

He’s writing regarding the architectural works of his former assistant, George Gilbert Scott

George came to him in 1834 from the office of Henry Roberts

Henry Roberts also trained Robert Smirk (uh oh), who recently received knighthood

He went over his plans for a new workhouse with his new apprentice. This project was very important to him, and seemed to be something close to his heart 

While showing off his designs, George started behaving kind of oddly

When George redrafted stuff, he would just stare at it for hours with no interruption, then he’d gather his papers and go lock himself in his room. On the other side of the door, he’d hear muttering and shouting as if he was in distress, but it was always only George’s voice

He would emerge from his room covered in sweat from exertion but with newly drafted plans. The new drafts weren’t much better, usually just more elaborate

He also always made everything narrower until there was hardly any room left

“The plans George would hand to me bordered on claustrophobic, and when I confronted him about it, his face always went tight with anger.” Interesting choice of words there

When George’s father died in 1834 he retired from Sampson’s work

Soon after Sampson received an invitation to a social from Henry Roberts and that was where he met Robert Smirk

Robert Smirk was tall with sharp features and regarded people as if they were simply ratios and materials

When Sampson asked Robert about George his face suddenly went angry the way George’s used to, but when Sampson had said George used to be his assistant, Robert laughed and said he was lucky to have escaped

Sampson asked about how Robert trained his apprentices and he hesitated. Then he nodded and talked about balance and equilibrium and how it was much harder than symmetry

He also said that George liked to take shortcuts and had a patron “the young fool” did not understand 

George apparently continued his work on workhouse without Sampson, now with a partner named William Bonifant Moffatt

In September of 1836, they had finally opened the first of their work houses, and Sampson was working late at night in his office when he heard heavy footsteps alongside a cane. He’s insistent he heard no one enter the building before he heard the footsteps approach

The person walking also had the sound of jangling keys and Sampson said he’d never felt fear like that in his life before

The walls and ceiling and floor closed in tightly around him and he felt like he couldn’t move

The weight fell from him and it suddenly felt like the room had never changed at all

He grabbed a candle and opened the door only to see a dark figure walking away to one of the clerk’s offices

“The wood bent under its feet.” Interesting they use ‘it’ instead of ‘they’ here, since that implies nonhumanity

He followed it into the room but it was empty and the window was sealed, so there was nowhere it could’ve escaped to

He checked the whole room and all he found was one of George’s workhouse designed fallen behind the couch

The next morning he was so mad he went to George’s worksite and found the place in a state of panic

A laborer was gesturing frantically at a patch of wall and asking for someone named “the governor” while George’s assistant tried to explain no governor had been assigned to the workhouse

The laborer didn’t seem to care and kept repeating the governor had come to see Harry

“He knew it was the governor because of the jangle of his keys” 

The wall the labourer was gesturing at looked like it was covered in small pale worms at first (NONNONONONONNAHHHHHH) before Sampson said they were more like fingertips

“The governor had called Harry Idol”

Jonathan notes

Wait he said “end statement” instead of “statement ends” this time what the hell? Am I looking too much into that? That’s so weird oh my gods

Looking into Robert Smirk and George Scott is nearly impossible and almost all information about them has no connection to “paranormal architecture”

What might be an exception to this is Fishmongers Hall, which they built together in 1834 for the worshipful company of fishmongers, and is reportedly a hotbed for low-grade hauntings

George Scott is responsible for landmarks such as the Albery Memorial in Pancras station and the restoration of Westminster Abbey, however there have been no reports of supernatural activity in any buildings designed by George Scott

“That should make me feel better but somehow it doesn’t.”

Supplemental

Btw I only heard Tim’s voice for two seconds and literally felt like I was having a heart attack and had to go take a lap whAT THE FUCK

Oh never mind it’s just Tim being Tim

LMAO DOES HE THINK JON AND THE POLICEWOMAN ARE FUCKING JHKSDCDSLASNK

Jon’s reaction is now my canon confirmation he is ace and everyone can fight me

“Good work boss” have I mentioned I fucking adore Tim? He is Hawaiian t-shirts bisexual energy and I love him so much for it

Never change buddy

Connections

The way Sampson describes George’s muttering and shouting to himself reminds me of Sarah Baldwin talking to the man in Skintight [0161704]

The word claustrophobic being used to describe George’s plans caught my attention big time, because that choice of words is so closely tied to fear

Robert Smirk being described with “sharp features” makes me think of Micheal

The footsteps in Sampson’s office late at night reminds me very starkly of A Sturdy Lock [0032408]

“Never felt fear like that in his life before”

Manipulation of space being smaller than before a lot like when Jon went and explored the tunnels and the walls closed in on him there too

The wall looked like it had worms, BUT IT COULDN'T JUST BE WORMS NOOOOO IT HAS TO BE SMALL PALE WORMS WHYYYYYYY UGHJKDCNLSDMCF

Post Ep Thoughts

*leans against the wall pretending it hasn’t been nearly a month since I last did any notes* Hey Guys What’s Up

Look the AO3 authors curse came and smacked me and I’m not even on AO3 for this

I’m okay though and I should definitely should be back at this more regularly now

ANYWAYYYYYYYS

This was a good ep to get back into things because this was an exercise in my damn patience

I. Hate. Letters.

They are evil

Statement of Gregory Pryor, given March 11th, 2008

Recorded by Johnathan Sims 

There was a large pause between the tape starting and Jonhathan’s speaking starting. There was nothing in it, it was all silence, but it was still odd

Used to be a cop and is now a private investigator, but won’t explain why

Last summer he got a job from a woman named Nicola Lorado. She wanted a divorce from her husband, Hector Lorado, but there was a prenup involved, so she hired Greogy to catch her husband cheating

He couldn’t find much in the beginning, so he started to follow him

Hector “worked” at some IT place in Liverpool, but he took so many smoke breaks he doubted he actually did a real job there

One day, the wife mentioned Hector had been having a lot “staying late” incidents, but when Gregory tailed him, he left the building right at closing

He ended up getting on a train that wasn’t his normal route home, and it became clear he wasn't intending to go home.

They both got off the train, and he followed him for about twenty minutes before realizing he wasn’t going into any of the houses. He kept going south until he walked over the A13 to a warehouse on River Road with a “for sale” sign on it

Hector stood there for a bit, waiting for someone, until a red SUV pulled up. Two guys in red track suits came out and handed him a brown envelope, and Hector handed them a briefcase with a solid white brick in it

After a week of watching Hector, Gregory decided he was “the worst drug mule he’d ever come across” 

Eventually he pegged the guys in tracksuits as probably Ukrainian mafia

One day, Hector accidentally lost the briefcase, and when he tried to explain himself to the ukrainians, the men just handed him a small slip of paper and drove away

The paper had an address in Stockwell, and an instruction that said “ask for Jared(Gerard?)” (NO.)

He didn’t follow him there, and the next morning, the wife called and said he hadn’t come home

“That’s when I should’ve taken my payment and gone. If I hadn’t gotten greedy I’d still have my arm.” HOLY OMINOUS BULLSHIT WHAT

The wife suddenly started panicking about her husband being missing and not dead, and begging the PI to find evidence Hector was dead. Initially he said no, but she offered him a price he couldn’t refuse

The address on the note was a butchers shop with no name on the front at all. When he arrived, there was a closed sign on the door, despite it being midday, and there were no light on inside

Shockingly, the door was unlocked, and he made it inside

Despite the display window visible from the road, there was no meat inside at all. The only things in there were a refrigerated counter and a drinks cooler, both empty

The whole place was dead quiet, so he opened the door to go look in the back

The door to the backroom was made of incredibly thick steel and probably soundproofed

The room inside looked more like an operating theatre than a butcher’s shop, and wasn’t nearly as dark as the shop above

Hector Lorado laid on the table in the center, covered by a plastic sheet. He was surrounded by clean operating equipment, a metal chair, and observation lights

He spent a moment taking pictures before heading back towards the door, but when he turned, there was a huge silhouette in the doorway. There was nowhere else to go, so he opened one of the lockers and hid in there

He was around 7 feet tall, and all of his skin seemed to bulge slightly when he moved. Presumably, this was Jared

Jared suddenly reached into Hector’s chest without any cutting at all, and Gregory suddenly realized Hector wasn’t dead

He pulled out a pair of ribs and seemed to twist them into a braid (AHHHCSKMMSNCNXMSKDNCMSKCJNEFLD OH MY GOD)

Jared used a crowbar to lift up a piece of floor tile, revealing a hole in the ground that was too smooth and seemed to glisten. Suddenly he saw teeth around the edge, and realized this was a mouth and throat just as Jared threw the twisted bones in there

That went on for four hours, and at one point, Jared pulled a femur from Hector and placed it in himself and left there before sighing contentedly

Once Hector finally died and Jared had cleaned up, he slumped down in the chair nearby in the corner, but the way he moved now seemed sluggish and almost drunk

Gregory assumed he was asleep and decided to use that moment to run, but he opened the door just as an ambulance went by and Jared roared, now charging at him

Jared tried to pull him back in just as the door was closing and ended up ripping off Gregory’s arm completely

He went to the police and the butcher shop got raided, but they never found Jared

Johnathan Notes

Also thinks this is Jared Hopworth since it matches so closely with Boneturner's Tale

Gregory immigrated to New Zealand in 2013 after a four year jail sentence for tax evasion, so he couldn’t get a follow up interview

“Sasha has been recently having problems with her normal backdoor access to police records” BECAUSE ITS NOT FUCKING SASHA SO SHE DOESNT KNOW THE BACKDOOR JON LOCK THE FUCK IN IM BEGGING YOU

Apparently her laptop also broke three times in the past two months, which is super bonus concerning as well guys

“Tim is involved with one of the ladies there, as well as the gentleman who manages the other shift.” I knew this man smelled like hawaiian t-shirts and bisexuality

When the police ripped up the floor, all they found was the body of Harry Gough, who was the person registered on the property

Supplemental

Apparently Bitchlias (I refuse to give up on this name) became head of the institute in 1996, taking over James Wright, who ran it from 1973 until he passed away in 1996

Elias (I’m giving up on it temporarily but its there in spirit) only joined the institute five years before becoming head, originally working in artifact storage in 1991. 

He knows everything there is to know about paranormal, but all his life before the institute doesn’t seem to fit his current position

“Graduated with a third from christchurch college in ppe” holy british what is bro on about

In an old gossip column, apparently Elias was a pothead in college 

The only person who worked in the institute before he took over as head was Gertrude (oh guess who just shot to the top of my suspects list)

Connections

Spin the roulette wheel is this Jared or Gerard or secret new Jared idk about who is at the address in Stockwell 

Might be able to say something about the lights not being on inside the butchershop looking similar to Natalie’s behavior in Growing Dark [#01519014], but that might be a stretch

THE FREAKING

THE BONE TWISTIES

FROM BONETURNER [#9991006]

HE GOT BONETURNED

ITS THAT JARED

Post Ep. Thoughts

So my question is

What did Gertrude know about Elias’ past that he didn’t want anyone else to know

Because I already don’t trust Elias

That’s not new

But now he’s like

Below sea level levels of trust

Also bro got boneturned thats crazy

ALSO SASHAS COMPUTER BROKE JUST LIKE HOW JON’S COMPUTER BREAKS EVERY TIME HE TRIES TO RECORD THE EXTRA SPOOKY SUPERNATURAL CASES THAT FEELS VERY IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT

And tim said bi rights thats very important

Tbh jon said ace rights

Like “idc who you sleep with but it’s gonna cause drama so I Dont Like It.”

Statement of Andrea Nunis, given March 25th, 2010

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

She’s always had a passion for travelling because her family travelled so much when she was little. Always to this one cabin in Wales

She always remembered that everytime her family crossed the bridge from England to Wales, she felt a huge rush of exploration

Backpacked across Europe in a gap year and even slept in a graveyard one time while doing that

She got a maths degree and University and now has a job as a programmer

She’s always struggled keeping friends and partners because of her travel, because anything outside her travel doesn’t feel real, and she always travels alone

For her 25th birthday, she decided to do backpacking across Europe again

In a Florence hostel, she met an Australian man named Ethan Taylor

She ended up really hitting it off with him in way she never had with other people before

“He was like me. He didn’t travel because he liked to, he travelled because he had to, and he always travelled alone.” Hey so this man’s evil right?

When she got on the train to her next location, he showed up again, but they didn’t talk to or acknowledge each other at all for awhile

After about two hours Ethan asked her if she was planning to stop in Genoa, and she said no, but he managed to convince her to go

They explored the city separately and spent a lot of time together at night

Ethan found himself in a section of town that seemed older and was more crowded than the rest

She found a cafe to read in a couple days later, but it was so warm in the coffee shop, it was hard to focus, and she kept nodding off accidentally

One time after waking up, she saw a pale scrawny man with an overly bright shirt and long black hair staring at her

He walked over to her a minute later and she asked who he was. The man seemed angry and said he wanted to have a nice holiday in peace. The tone he said it in made it seem like she was the reason he wasn’t for some reason 

“He wasn’t in the business of helping strays” typical ominous tma bullshit

He told her he should at least tell her she was “marked,” and he didn’t know what by, but it was close (how much are we betting this guy has connections to the open eye thing)

He asked her if she had any family or friends or anything, and she got up angry and left. As she did, the man called after her to “remember her mother and keep her face in her mind”

Ethan didn’t return to the hostel that night and she eventually began to worry

He still didn’t even return by the morning, so she decided to go after him

She checked the street market he’d talked about first and found nothing like it hadn’t existed

The sky turned overcast as the day went on, and she still couldn’t find him anywhere

She tried calling his name, and people would get annoyed with her, but eventually they almost seemed to ignore her entirely, and the streets seemed to get narrower

Eventually, she realized she hadn’t seen another person in almost a half hour, and the heat and humidity was making it hard to think. She reached for her water bottle but there was nothing in it

Far ahead, she heard the sound of a chattering crowd of people, and when she turned down the street toward it, the streets seemed to widen and lighten again

There seemed to be too many people in one place and they all started bumping and dragging her to try and move. The low chattering continued, and she realized no one was actually speaking, they were just making noise

She finally focused on the people and realized all of their faces were just blurs. They were all wearing different variations of the same outfit, and had no distniguishing features at all

“A crowd without any people in it, and I was still completely alone” so what I’m hearing is I need to start tracking lonliness/isolation as a repeating thing

She thought back to what the man had said and tried to focus on her mother with as much love as she could

Eventually she opened her eyes, and she was on a street she didn’t recognize. She made her way back to the hostel and didn’t try to find Ethan again

Johnathan Notes

“Sasha” arranged an interview with her and Andrea said she had started travelling alone again without further problems

Martin confirmed there have been multiple cases of travelers going missing in that location, but no more than is “normal”

Jonathan also thought to compare the stranger in the coffee shop to Gerard Keay (fucking hell)

Tim got in contact with the hostel she’d gone to and they had a back in the lost-and-found logged under E Taylor that was never claimed (so he’s dead cool)

Supplemental

Jon went back over the recording of the Micheal interaction dozens of times, and what stuck out to him was him saying he can’t trust “Sasha” (Micheal you goat)

“Sasha seemed the least suspicious” JON YOU ABSOLUTE BAFFOON IM GOING TO HIT YOU WITH THAT FUCKING TAPE RECORDER OF YOURS

He also got a recording of a meeting Elias requested. 

Apparently Jon’s team, specifically Martin and Tim, complaining that Jon had been spying on them. Jon deflected by saying he was just worried about their mental health (IK SOMEONE WHO SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT HIS OWN MENTAL HEALTH COUGH COUGH JON)

Oh I don’t wanna agree with Elias ew

Connections

Lots of vocal emphasis was put on the word “alone” when she was talking about her friendships. Idk what that connects to, if anything, but usually stuff with vocal emphasis is pretty important

The whole “only spending time together at night” thing is setting off alarm bells

Coffee shop being uncomfortably warm is teetering on fire/burning

Is the motherfucker in the coffee shop Gerard fucking Keay because I will kill myself

The streets getting narrower while she was searching for Ethan reminds me alot of the walls getting narrower when Jon was in the tunnels

Heat and humidity making it hard to think is also pretty close to fire/burning

She never mentioned the weird streets being darker, but she did mention the normal streets being lighter than the narrowing ones

Post Ep. Thoughts

Idk if I’ve mentioned this but I don’t like/trust Elias AT ALL

And last time I had that feeling it about Sasha and look at what happened to her

So I’m trusting my intuition on this one

Also I’m 100% tracking lonliness/isolation now as something because this is I think the fourth ep it’s been the main theme and that’s way more than my three strikes your out rule

ALSO GERARD KEAY IM FUCKING GONNA GET YOU STOP SHOWING UP YOU ACTUAL BASTARD

I was safe for like 10 episodes

And this MOTHERFUCKER

Sighhhhhhhh

Elias is permanently gonna be known as Bitchlias from now on

Statement of Helen Richardson, given day of recording, October 2nd, 2016

There’s noises at the beginning of the tape I can’t make out what they are but they’re definitely new

(2)Recorded by Johnathan Sims and Helen Richardson

She keeps getting distracted trying to draw Jon a map of what happened but it “doesn’t work” (ohhhh that’s what the sound was)

Jon asks her to give her statement and she starts rambling about her map. She says there were no left turns, only right, like a spiral, except she could go forward (Jon’s about to lose his shit on this poor woman isn’t he)

She’s worked for Wolverton Kendrick for about eight years selling properties in the Wimbledon area

The house she was trying to sell was on St. Albans Avenue (spelling is definitely wrong)

Everytime she drove there, the trees seemed darker than they should’ve been

She has trouble picturing the house in her mind, it looked just like every other

The morning showings went as usual for about five hours, and she’d gone in every room in the house dozens of times

“He came at the end of the viewings” She sounded very scared saying “he” and I Don’t Like That At All

The man never gave his name, but she was sure this wasn’t Adrian Lombardi, who was the name under the appointment

He was tall and spindly with dirty blonde hair (fuck my actual fucking life i know exactly where the fuck this is going)

When she answered the door, the man said he wasn’t Mr. Lombardi, but he wouldn’t be coming, so he was here in his place

She held out her arm for a handshake and he just looked at her and laughed

His laugh didn’t sound right in some way, like it didn’t seem human

She took him around like usual, and his eyes were always looking where she pointed, but he never seemed to take in any of the information

When they got to the second floor, she went to show him one of the rooms, but when she turned, he wasn’t there, instead staring at a new door that had appeared on the landing and asking what it was

The door was normal, painted dark yellow with a black handle, but it hadn’t been there before

She checked her floor plan, and the wall it was on was an exterior wall on the second floor, so there couldn’t have possibly been a door there

She stood there in shock for a long time before grabbing the handle and turning. It swung open before she’d even pulled at it

Beyond the threshold was a long windowless corridor with electric lamps on the walls every ten feet-ish. The walls had a swirling green wallpaper on it

The floor had a yellow carpet with a long black rug that curved to the left along with the path (didn’t she say there were no left turns?)

The walls also had lots of mirrors and photographs of the same corridor from different angles

She doesn’t remember going through the door at all. She just remembers standing there, and then feeling a horrible rush of fear as the door closed behind her

She turned to face the door and instead saw a long mirror, reflecting herself in the hallway, except it looked like she’d been crying for hours

She took out her phone, and all that was on the screen was another picture of the hallway, just like the paintings. She walked down the corridor, avoiding any of the turns or paths

When she turned around once, there was only a long corridor, with none of the branching paths she’d just seen behind her

She noticed the color of the walls would change from time to time, but she’d never notice it switch, only realizing it was suddenly something new all of a sudden

Based on the newspaper she found when she got out, she’d been in there for three days, even though she’d never slept, eaten, or drank

It was also extremely warm, even though she couldn’t stop shivering as if she was cold

At the end, she saw a figure at the end of the corridor that seemed human from a distance, but when she got closer it definitely wasn’t. Its body was tall and thin and limp and every time she looked at it, its body seemed to ripple like water. It’s hands were swollen and bits were coming off

All the pictures on the wall now showed this thing instead of the corridor, and it started coming at her fast, laughing inhumanly

She saw one mirror that didn’t contain the creature so she threw herself at it, and suddenly she was out

Helen asked Jon desperately if he believed her, and he said he did 

She insisted she didn’t remember the man’s name, but then Jon asked if it might’ve been Micheal, and she said it was (FUUUUUUUUUCK WE ARE SO FUCKED EVERYTHING IS FUCKED WE’RE ALL FUCKED)

As soon as Helen left, Jon called for “Sasha” (conniving little Not-Sasha bitch), telling her that someone gave a statement claiming to meet the Micheal from her statement

Apparently they’ve needed to rerecord her statement anyways, since it vanished in the attack (CONNIVING LITTLE NOT-SASHA BITCH)

The tape is starting to make a very high pitched whining noise here, like it did in the previous episode when Micheal started talking about “the vast”

HELLO WHO THE FUCK IS YOU

WAIT IS THIS MICHEAL

IS THIS DISTORTED MICHEAL

IS THAT WHY THE AUDIO FEEDBACK IS SHIT

“Do you even know they’re lying to you” ooooo feeding into Jon’s paranoia

godDAMN THAT LAUGH AND THE ECHO OH MY GODS

“You’re Micheal.” “That is a real name.” Oh wait so maybe this isn’t actually Micheal but more of a possession situation?

Apparently this creature is here to “collect” Helen for stepping into his domain, and when Jon asked if the hallways were his, it said some weird ominous shit about his hand not owning his stomach, so I’m assuming the hallways and this guy are apart of the same entity

Apparently the door Helen went through was another door into the corridors and now she’s gone

IM SORRY

IM SORRY

IM SORRY DID HE JUST FUCKING STAB JON

OH MY GODS HE DID WHAT THE FUCK

WHO IS THIS GUY

oh bro doesnt answer my question in the most ominous way possible

FINE WHAT IS THIS GUY THAT BETTER

also he calls jon archivist the same way jane prentiss and the not-sasha creature call jon archivist and i think thats super interesting

THERE ARE TOO MANY IMPORTANT THINGS THIS GUY IS SAYING

IDK WHAT TO WRITE DOWN

I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO WRITE DOWN ALL OF IT

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“The loss of this place would unbalance the struggle too early” hELLO????

“You make it sound like there’s a war” “Then I will say nothing further” WAS I RIGHT ON MY WAR THEORY????

Connections

Already we have freaky space that doesn’t work correctly right off the bat with Helen’s map “not working”

Darkness; trees seemed darker than they should’ve been

Not sure if this is enough to be a connection, but her struggling to picture the house in her mind reminds of a lot of times people have said they had nightmares they couldn’t completely remember

Tall man with blonde hair present during an incident of distorting space or spaces not working right? Yeah, that sounds real familiar.

Okay ik I haven’t been tracking green as anything but ik cause greens the main color of the logo that IM DAMN WELL GONNA START

Fear is being made huge in this ep, especially when she got closed into the passageway

The weird infinite corridor was extremely and abnormally warm, which is almost burning/fire? I’m gonna put it in anyways

The description of the man in the corridor is similar to how Sasha described the “distortions” of the man through the various glasses and windows

MICHEAL

GODDAMN

CREW

WHEN I CATCH YOU

Post ep. Notes

Hey

Hey

Hey

Hey guys

WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY

NO ONE WAS SAFE

NO ONE WAS FINE

NO ONE FOLLOWED MY ORDERS ABOUT NOTHING BAD HAPPENING AT ALL

I NOW HAVE SOMEONE TO DOG ON MORE THAN LEITNER I’LL TELL YOU THAT

THIS GUY IS MORE OF A LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE THAN THE GERARD FUCKING KEAY ISTG

I HAVE NOTHING COHERENT TO ADD

OTHER THAN MORE ALL CAPS WHAT THE FUCK

Statement of Herbert Knox, given December 21st, 1998

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

Lots of strange things kept happening to him, all connecting back to the same student from a nearby university named Micheal Crew (OH MY GODS I DIDNT THINK ID BE RIGHT WHAT)

His bookshop was called Lions (Lyons) Street Books, and most of his furnishing and stock was antique

Micheal first showed up in September 1997. He was short and thin and wore a high collar coat and scarf even though it wasn’t cold outside yet

Because Herbert kept the shop so warm, he ended up removing his scarf, and on his neck there was visible arcing scar tissue 

When he stepped into the shop, instead of looking curious like most students did, he looked impatient, like he was trying to find something specific

He was after a book I’m not even gonna try and spell, but I managed to catch “____’s Dixie ____ Infernal.” He wanted the oldest copy they had in stock, which Herbert said was a 1908 copy

While Herbert was getting the card machine, he recalled smelling the strangest thing, like the air before a storm broke (ozone. It’s fucking ozone I swear oh my gods) even though the sky was clear

Micheal seemed to smell it too and suddenly looked very scared and hurried out of the shop. The smell faded as soon as he left

Once every three weeks or so, he’d check back at the bookshop for any new stock, specifically for things relating to spiritualism, occult, the history of witchcraft, and anything mystical from before 1850

He also bought a couple books on meteorology, especially pre-enlightenment

He smelled the ozone again in the air whenever Micheal was there. Not as if it was coming from him, it’d just simply be there

Every time it was present, Micheal would abruptly leave

Whenever Micheal was in the shop, all the lightbulbs would burn brighter

“It was February when I got the Leitner book.” Fuck. My actual. Fucking. Life.

He knew of Leitner from rumors, most people in the book industry did, so when he went missing in 1994, he’ believed the rumors that some of his books were back in circulation

He never actually believed he’d get one until Kirstin Bauman’s death. She’d lost her balance on the stairs and broke her neck, which wasn’t surprising, but it was worrying, because many big names in the industry had been going missing or dead lately

She’d left Herbert the majority of her stock, including a Leitner called “Ex Alteora” or “From the Heights”

“Long poem in the style of Virgil” (SANDERS SIDES REFERENCE????/j)

It told the tale of a small clifftop town who saw a horrible creature begin to approach, but every time they managed a countermeasure against it, the creature became closer and larger. When it finally came upon them, the villagers hurled themselves from the cliffs in despair.

The book seemed to be completely unique with no copies anywhere

Reading it also made him feel disoriented, and he fell off his chair multiple times while reading it

He also had lots of nightmares about falling, but he can't remember them in any detail

At the end of the week, Micheal came in again, and Herbert had picked out some books for him to look at. Micheal had said no, which wasn’t unusual, but Herbet suddenly got a really bad dizzy spell and had to pause to catch himself

When he stood back up, Micheal was staring at the Leitner with almost furious desperation, and bought it for nearly double how much Herbert thought it should’ve been worth

The check he’d given him had bounced, and Herbert decided to go find him at the delivery address he’d given a few months ago

He went to Micheal’s house and the sky was stormy and the whole area seemed to smell too strongly of ozone, even for an oncoming storm

When the door opened, he felt like he was on the edge of a massive drop

The whole floor was covered in Latin texts and Micheal himself looked awful, but he didn’t seem to even be looking at Herbert, rather just at the space he occupied

Suddenly, it started to rain and thunder, and Micheal looked incredibly scared and pale. The ozone smell came with such a force this time it was hard to breathe

Herbert was suddenly on the ground, his thoughts muddled, and Micheal ran off with the book. He was suddenly overcome with determination to keep Micheal from “stealing his Leitner” (well that can’t be good) 

Sometimes, when the lighting lit the sky right, he could’ve sworn he saw someone else chasing him. The figure was tall, thin, and angular, like Micheal’s scar

Micheal managed to get up the bell tower for ___chester Cathedral (couldn’t get the name), and Herbert somehow got in there too, and the ozone smell inside was so thick he gagged. He collapsed slightly on the stairs, and began to crawl up them

He’s never been scared of heights before, but now his heart beat so fast and with so much fear, he thought he was in danger of a heart attack

When he reached the top, he heard Micheal screaming some sort of chant or prayer in multiple languages, and the only words he caught were “Ex Alteora” “vertigo” and “the vast”

Micheal stood in front of a window and held the book like a protective ward, shouting at the figure who’d chased them

He shouted “i am yours” and jumped from the window

[On the tape here, there’s a really sharp, high pitched ringing sound that I thought was my tinnitus it got so bad, but it’s definitely on the tape and that’s freaky.]

The figure cried out, like sandpaper, and was dragged down with him, and the ozone smell vanished

At the base of the bell tower, there was no body

Johnathan Notes

This statement takes place a couple years after [#9991006], and Jon wonders if the first event might’ve catalyzed this one

He asks a lot of questions and doesn’t mention anything he might’ve confirmed via his usual methods, which is super odd for him

This whole notes section is odd and very out of character tbh

Interestingly, Dominic Swain mentioned a woodcut of the dark night sky when he read Ex Alteora, and Herbert didn’t mention it at all

Supplemental

When he came in yesterday, the trapdoor was unlocked, and he hadn’t left it like that, so Jon now knows someone else is going down into the tunnels with him

He confronted the others but they all denied it

He might try to set up a camera to watch the trapdoor, but he doesn’t know where to hide it

The tunnels seem the same as before, except now there’s spider webs everywhere

There were spiders themselves too, eating the remains of the worms

Connections

MICHEAL WHEN I CATCH YOU MICHEAL FUUUUCK ME

Anyways same Micheal from Pageturner [#0132806] and The Boneturner's Tale [#9991006]. Interesting that this is the third time he’s shown up, as well as the third time he’s being associated with books in some way. 3 times is way too many to be a coincidence in TMA

The scars on Micheal were likely the same ones from when he got hit by lightning as a kid in Pageturner [#0132806]

The scientific word for “the smell before a storm breaks” is ozone, which was what Dominic constantly smelled in Pageturner [#0132806]

The lightbulbs burning brighter is super interesting, because usually when odd things happen in this series, things get darker, not lighter. Maybe Micheal has some kind of connection to the eye stuff, who I’m starting to think are meant to be opposition to the fire, darkness, spiders, etc

*slow inhale* LEITNER WHEN I CATCH YOU GODDAMN LEITNER

The Leitner Herbert came into possession of was “Ex Alteora”, which was the same Leitner book Dominic Swainhad in Pageturner [#0132806]

Fear of falling/heights back again. This one’s kinda rare, especially compared to how often spiders and fire and darkness are seen, so that’s nice to know I wasn’t making connection where they weren’t there

I only pointed this out one other time a long bit ago, but there’s been a lot of random people dying of “unexpected heart attacks/strokes” so I find it interesting that when Herbert is climbing the bell tower, he compares his fear to that

Spiderwebs all over the tunnels. I wonder if they switch between the big things I’ve noticed so far. Worms, spiders, fire, darkness, etc. That’s what makes the most sense rn anyways

Post Ep. Thoughts

I HAVE

A THEORY

@k4d3f4ngz ALREADY HEARD THIS AND REFUSES TO CONFIRM OR DENY

BUT THE VAST RIGHT

IDK WHAT THE FUCK THAT IS/MEANS

BUT EVERYTIME MICHAEL CREW HAS BEEN IN AN EP THERE’S BEEN A CONNECTION TO FEAR OF HEIGHTS/FEAR OF FALLING

AND WE KNOW THE OVERARCING STORY HERE INVOLVES FEAR

AND IM PRETTY SURE THE DIFFERENT FEARS ARE DIFFERENT GROUPS/FACTIONS CONTROLLING A LOT OF THE SUPERNATURAL SHIT

SO WHAT IF THE VAST IS ONE OF THOSE

IT MAKES SENSE THAT IT’D BE REVEALED FIRST

BECAUSE FEAR OF FALLING/HEIGHTS IS ONE OF THE FIRST FEARS YOU DEVELOP NATURALLY AS A CHILD

This might be stupid actually

I’ll still keep it here

Statement of Thomas Neill, given February 9th, 2011

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

Has really shaky hands that makes the statement difficult to read

He apologized in advance if his statement becomes “muddled” because his therapist recently changed his medication in response to the incident

He’s been working as a research assistant for about 6 years now

His field was in malaria research in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

He was working under Dr. Neill (Neal?) Thompson

Thomas suspected he’d picked him because he thought it caused a little bit of fun chaos with how similar their names sounded

His more chaotic demeanor contrasted with how he acted in the lab, where he was incredibly technical and precise. He wore a white lab coat and it was somehow always immaculate

Anytime one the mosquitoes got free there was mass panic, which Thomas always found silly, since the mosquitos didn’t actually have malaria, but he doesn’t think that anymore

The idea was to create a synthesized blood that would lure the malaria carrier mosquitoes away from the humans

The bags the blood were held in were edited to be more attractive to mosquitos, and by the end they almost seemed like human skin

They ended up creating a successful substitute within 6 months, calling it hemoglobish, but it was incredibly expensive to produce

Neal started caring a lot about funding, muttering angrily about it as they worked now

Neal claimed to be descended from the 19th century physician John Snow, who is widely credited with helping end the cholera outbreak of 1854, as well as one of the fathers of germ and bacteria theory

Because of this, he had an old victorian syringe he carried around like a totem and claimed it was his relative’s

This was why he was so surprised when Neal offered to sell it for more grant money

A lot of people didn’t believe that though, since rumor had it Neal had a bit of a gambling addiction

An antiques dealer offered him nearly six figures for it. Thomas didn’t remember his name, but he knew he was Indonesian or Samoan of some kind

They both planned to meet up with the dealer after dark in some dockyard, but things got mixed up, and they ended up meeting in a pub on a Tuesday afternoon 

Not long after the syringe was sold, the lab started running way too hot, even in places where it shouldn’t have been

A couple of weeks later, the mosquitos started acting weirdly. Without warning, they landed on the walls of the metal mesh cages in an almost pattern-like way, and would stay that way for hours

Sometimes when he was working late, he could’ve sworn he saw clumps of mosquitos buzzing against the walls, like they wanted to escape the cage

They started behaving differently around the blood bags (name drop!!11!!!1!) too. Usually they’d just meander and feed at random, but now they would all descend on it at once as soon as it was placed down

Shortly after they Mosquitos started behaving weird, one of the other assistants, George Larson, went to check on the empty bags after a feed, and realized there wasn’t the normal syrupy orange liquid of the fake blood, but a dark red, more viscous liquid

The tests came back and the liquid was O- blood infected with malaria, yellow fever, hepatitis B, and signs of cholera. Other substances were in the sample as well that couldn’t be identified

When the bio-hazard people said the project had to be shut down, Neal glared and shouted at the mosquitos as if this was their fault and their planning that resulted in this

He grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to run into the room to spray the cages in what Thomas assumed was a petty act of revenge

Suddenly, there was a buzzing noise, and Thomas didn’t have time to pull Neal back, so instead he closed the door on him and trapped him in the room as the mosquitos burst from the cages. There seemed to be thousands, way more than they should’ve had

After a few seconds, he went into shock, and everyone knew the mosquitos had killed him and drained his body completely of blood

Johnathan Notes

Jon despises mosquitoes apparently and is very happy to simply wipe them all out (me too dude dw)

Aside from the fact Dr. Neal Thompson died in a lab accident on May 30th, 2010, no one at the university was willing or able to reveal anything

“Sasha” got a copy of the incident report that listed cause of death as blood less and death by misadventure

Jon’s decided the antique dealer, who was probably Micheal Selasa, has popped up too many times, and is now talking with Rosy to see if the institute can make contact with him. He hasn’t been seen for nearly two years now, so he’s hard to find, and no one can seem to agree on where he went or if he’s even alive

Thomas himself died last year, and the cause of death isn’t known, but Jon assumes it was a disease or sickness of some kind because of the sheer amount of antibiotics in his home

Supplemental

“I’ve been watching Tim” okay someone get this man some zoloft rn

Tim’s been doing better than expected given the circumstances, and Jon has mostly been focusing on his confusion of why Tim is even working there to begin with

He’s a graduate from Trinity college in anthropology, he spent five years climbing the ladder of a major publishing company, but then out of the blue he comes to work for the institute

There’s nothing that indicates he’s really interested in the paranormal, and Jon starts rambling about how suspicious it is, but he’s cut off by Martin walking in on him recording and offering him tea (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh theyre so cute and gay)

Martin looks over and sees Jon is recording with a picture of Tim’s house, and gets super worried and suspicious and Jon snaps at him to go away (Jon x therapy when)

Connections

Antiques dealer might be Micheal Selasa from Lost and Found [#0120606]

Not explicitly fire, but the lab running too hot is likely connected to burning in some way

Interesting connection that Neal tried to spray the bugs with a CO2 fire extinguisher the way out TMA group sprayed the worms with CO2 fire extinguishers too. Tied with his possession of the syringe and his hatred for the mosquitos as if he knew something no one else did makes me think he’s someone who knows way more than he should

First time adding this in, but starting to track disease/sickness/plague as well now

Post Ep. Thoughts

Yk i really shouldve known the antiques guy would come back at some point

For some reason I brushed that ep off as a one off storyline we wouldn’t hear from again

Considering it was heavily implied that guy had Leitner books in his stock pile that mightve actually been a really stupid assumption

Woopsies guys

My bad

I think my new system for tracking connections is gonna be a three strikes your out rule

So if something/someone pops up three different times, I’m adding it to the connections spreadsheet

Yes there is a spreadsheet

Yes I have a wall with red string and sticky notes

No I will not be taking questions at this time ty very much

Anyways third times the charm on the disease/sickness shit, so adding that in now

Also jon is paranoid of literally everyone but sasha and im starting to lose my mind abt it

Like no buddy tim’s just probably a stoner and martin’s a fucking faggot

SASHA ON THE OTHER HAND

YK

THE ONE WHO’S BEEN TALKING LIKE A ROBOT FOR LIKE

HOWEVER MANY EPS ITS BEEN

IDK

Statement of Yuri (ha) Utkin, given March 2nd, 1979, committed to tape April 15th, 1997

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

OKAY

OKAY IM CALM

IM CALM AND COOL AND COLLECTED AND CALM

SHIT

Recorded by Gertrude Robinson

Statement occurred roughly in central Russia in November 1952 (couldn’t get the exact name of the village through her accent)

Every year, him and his brother would go to a larger village to see the travelling circus when it came in. All circus shows were controlled by the government

His favorite things were always the clowns, but he hated the acrobats, because he was always deathly afraid of them falling, even though he was never scared of heights himself

When he was 6, him and his friend were climbing a tree and his friend fell out, breaking his legs so bad he still walks with a limp

One day in November, the circus came to his village instead of the larger one, which was odd because it was winter and it wasn’t the touring season.

The circus was huge and the sign above the tent read “Another Circus” in Russian 

As he approached the tent, he heard a shrill piping sound, and saw a steam organ (it’s a red calliope isn’t it)

The shadows cast by the lamps seemed thicker and darker than they should

The woman who welcomed him into the circus didn’t seem to talk quite human enough

He ran to see a tiger in a cage behind the tent and was super fascinated by it

When the tiger moved, he seemed to move like a doll having its joints twisted

It roared but the tiger’s mouth didn’t move. When he looked up, he saw two men in overalls, and they grabbed him and took him away

The men talked between each other, finishing each others sentences, saying the tiger “wasn’t finished yet”

When Yuri got back, his father asked if he’d seen his brother. Apparently he’d been missing since they arrived

His father argued with the ringmaster about it, while Yuri went to go search for his brother on his own

He followed the lights until they led to another, smaller tent, which had a sign written in English that said “Freakshow”

Inside, what he saw was why he came to TMI in the first place, and the reason he went to Moscow to study medicine later on

The people were alive, but contorted in such forms that they shouldn’t have been. Mouths were in places other than the face, limbs were contorted like rubber, and a man walked and talked without a head

He closed his eyes as he walked to not have to see the people in the cages, opening his eyes every few seconds to look for his brother and call for him

The last cage was empty except for a large, tied up, hessian sack

The steam organ started to play, announcing the start of the show, and the bag began to move

He resolved to “rescue” his father from the circus as he ran away scared, and when he got into the tent he saw two clowns fighting. Not like slapstick fighting, but genuinely throwing hands

One was huge and scowling, and his outfit was covered in white and purple polka dots. The other was much smaller and wearing bright yellow, but streaked with red blood

The crowd laughed and cheered for the violence, and it seemed like everyone the room was a vicious stranger, even though these were people he’d known since birth

He looked up to the tightrope and saw his brother halfway across, clearly crying, and the whole world seemed to close up around him as he watched him

Finally he made it across the rope somehow, and he ducked behind the pole. A moment later, his father grabbed his shoulder with his brother by his side, looking like he’d eaten something rotten

No one in the village ever spoke of it again, and the next year, his father never offered to take them to the real circus like he usually did

When he was older, he asked his brother if he remembered it, and his brother said he couldn’t remember anything past running through the gate, but he did get nightmares. Every November, he’d dream like he was there again, but he could not move, and was bound in a hessian sack

Gertrude Notes

Apparently this was relatively tame for a run in with Gregor Hossenoff’s troupe (I think it’s the name, but all the names in this ep were killing me) especially during “the height of their tour”

If it was in the 70s after a man named Denikin had left, she’d be less surprised, but she was shocked the whole town had made it out physically unscathed

The little brother in the story, Evan (Ivan?) Utkin, peaks her interest. (She speaks like he’s a known name, like the same way Jon says “the Lucas family” but with less general disdain) He died in 1984, but he seemed to be “something truly special”

Supplemental

This was the first of the tapes from Basira

Apparently Gertrude’s way of marking these tapes is actually more coherent than the general archive (oooooo what if that was on purpose)

It makes no sense why she stopped recording. Even if she’d been recording up until she’d died, she’d have made it through most of the archives

The tape recorder Jon found for his own tapes was tucked in the back of a storage room, covered in dust and cobwebs, so it couldn’t have been Getrude’s.

Obviously Gertrude is very familiar with what’s going on in the whole situation, and this wasn’t her first time dealing with this circus

Jon claims he thinks someone found his secret tapes, because the drawer was slightly more open than he’d left it, so he’s hiding his tapes under the floorboards now (the paranoia has this boy in a CHOKEHOLD)

Connections:

The whole thing surrounding the circus and his favorites being the clowns makes me think of the creepy clown doll from Strange Music [#0051701]

It’s been a minute since we’ve seen fear come back by name. Like obviously we’ve had a lot of paranoia and panic lately, but the whole fears thing has been gone since maybe as far back as Arachnaphobia [#0150904]

The fear itself is new too. I don’t think we’ve gotten fear of heights yet, except maybe on Freefall [#0022010], so I’ll keep an eye on that.

Steam organ coming back again. I wouldn’t put it down as a thing if it weren’t made such a big deal out of the fact it was in the artifacts storage.

Shadows are thicker and darker once again

No fucking way are these the same guys who delivered the ominous Zippo lighter of doom to Jon

NIKOLAI DENIKIN THE GRANDFATHER FROM STRANGE MUSIC [#0051701] SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

Post Ep. Thoughts

I think my favorite plotline I'm tracking rn is the music/steam organ bullshit

It's so fascinating because it's barely tied to everything else, while the others are so firmly interconnected it's hard to unravel

I also have a possible theory about why the eps focused closely around this steam organ involved people somebody knew becoming unfamiliar

But I don't have enough evidence yet

Apparently she’s breaking the law by giving this statement cause of an NDA

Even if she gave a fake name, her statement would still easily identify her to anyone who knew she wasn’t supposed to say anything, so Jon is marking it as internal use only (TMA’s own NDA system)

Statement of Basira Hussain, given day of recording, September 19th, 2016

Works as a cop (ew)

Section 31 isn’t really a division, but a form you have to sign. If you see something supernatural on the job, you’re taken aside and told to explain exactly what happened, then told to sign a form officially declaring what you saw was directly related to a crime. This makes it something that’s not allowed to be released even in an FOI request.

Signing a Section 31 marks someone out in the police unit, and other officers tend to push people who have signed them towards working together on any case that has even a small chance of being “odd”.

On the day of the JPI (Jane Prentiss Incident), her and a cop named PC Richard Carver were the only other sectioned cops on duty, so they were the ones sent out to answer the police call from TMI

The first time she got “sectioned” was five years ago, August 2011. She’d only been on the force for about a year at this point

The call was for a residential fire near Clapham, and she was riding with another officer named John Spencer

They arrive at the house and see a man restrained by the cops but fighting them. He was a Hispanic male, heavyset, mid to late 40s, with a completely shaved head. His name was Diego Molina.

The guy had burst out of the house after the fire brigade had arrived without a burn on him and started throwing punches

The man kept saying “cleansing fire, all shall be ash”

Spencer went to calm him will Basira went to handcuff him, but suddenly the metal handcuffs felt incredibly hot and she barely managed to get them closed while the man leaned over and whispered something in Spencer’s ear

Spencer went completely pale and couldn’t drive on the way back

All that was on Diego when they brought him in was a small bound book bound in red leather. [When she said this on the recording, the music started swelling here in a way that sounds super tense and I don’t like it at all especially after my theory from last ep.]

Spencer got caught trying to destroy it in storage with a zippo lighter and got suspended. Allegedly he killed himself when he got home by filling a bath with boiling water and getting in. Official story was that he’d done it using a kettle, but no one really believed that.

After she got back, they made her sign her first Section 31

[When Jon asked her about how many Section 31’s she’d done, he sounded super panicked (Panicked doesn’t really feel like right word, but I don’t have a better one).]

Most Section 31 calls are false alarms with people on drug trips, wild animal attacks, or genuine mental health issues (Those are all the common reasons Jon likes to give to dismiss the supernatural too)

She didn’t get another genuine Section 31 case for another 3 years until July 18, 2014

The call was her and another officer named Alice Tana (Super unsure on that name) but everyone always called her Daisy

She was Sectioned years before Basira was on the force for an event involving “spider husks”, but she would never talk about it further and always took Section 31 very seriously. 

She also mentioned vampires once as well, but Basira said she was probably joking

The call had been for a neighbor hearing gun shots at a nearby house in Kensington, but the caller refused to admit whether there was a gun on the scene or not

When they got to the house, it was very old, and the door was opened. All the lights inside had been smashed and the windows had been painted over. 

There was a lot of blood everywhere, and the victim was in the living room, shot many times in the head at close range

He was male, white, youngish, wearing nice clothes with lots of nicer trinkets all over the house

Daisy went to retrieve the gun and Basira went to look for other signs of life when the man started moving to reach for the gun

Daisy went to grab it too, but the man was closer, so she missed and the man pointed the gun to his head even thought he very much should’ve been dead by now

Daisy managed to wrestle the gun away from him and he made an awful sound that was almost like trying to cry

Offically, she’s only ever had one other Section 31 case, but she’s had dozens of calls about strange experiences with no supporting evidence

“Unless they can point to the ghost or the spooky clown doll or whatever”

One of the sergeants, Harry Altman, would get wasted and tell all sorts of stories. 

Basira apparently is working alone with basically no oversight on the Gertrude Robinson case since anything connected to TMI is an automatic Section 31

Her and Daisy are in possession of the boxes of cassettes found with Gertrude’s body, but neither have had a chance to listen to any

[Johnathan starts to respond here, but the tape ends before anything can be heard.]

Jonathan Notes

He refuses to investigate further into the case, because further digging would result in people knowing she’d violated her section 31 form/NDA

Jon points out that the unidentified burn victim from case #0121102 (Burned Out) was likely Diego Molina

Supplemental

The cut off part of the end of the last recording was apparently Jon managing to convince Basira to give him access to some of Gertrude’s tapes, even if only a few

Apparently Jon did speak to Gertrude a couple times before her death, but he can’t remember what her voice sounds like at all

“And I don’t know how much more I can take” Jon bbg don’t kys pls🥺

Connections

SIGHHHHHHHHHHHH

This one’s gonna be so connection dense isn’t it

First sectioned call was related to a house fire, and the man they pulled from the house was talking about “cleansing fire, all shall be ash.” That’s some cult shit right there, but so far most cult connections have been to the weird darkness cult from Growing Dark [#01519014] so this furthers my theory that the fire stuff and darkness cult are connected.

Who wants to bet money the book Diego brought in is a Leitner. Also Spencer trying to burn it is one, fire imagery, but two, the fact it’s a zippo lighter immediately made me think of the spider web zippo lighter Jon had received right before the end of S1. I know it’s also a really common lighter, but I don’t actually believe in coincidences in TMA anymore so I’m sticking with connection.

The call that ended up getting Daisy Sectioned involved spider husks, so now we’re back with the spiders, which has been drowned out by the worm stuff for quite awhile, so seeing it back definitely worries me with the whole spiders, fire, darkness trifecta

Oh wow I actually didn’t expect the vampire thing from Vampire Killer [#0100710] to come back that’s interesting

Old house could it be the same one that the students from Anatomy Class [#0161207] lived in?

All the lights in the house being smashed is definitely the darkness thing again, but also makes me think of all the times lights have randomly blown out in the series, and the weirdness with Natalie unscrewing the lightbulbs slightly in Growing Dark [#01519014]

 hELLO STRANGE MUSIC [#0051701] REFERENCE

Post Ep. Thoughts

I’ve decided Jon has mommy issues written all over his gay little fear of failure

I have no evidence

But I’m right

And will gloat about it when proven so

Mark my words

Also so many connectiosn god DAMN

This ep. Didn’t really give anything new, but it did give me a lot of strengthening for theories I already had, like my allegiance map for all the creepiness, because im like 90% sure theres a faction war going on here

I’ll post it eventually

But it feels incomplete

Statement of Jennifer Ling, given November 3rd, 2013

Recorded by Johnathan Sims

Grifter’s bone is an urban legend that’s commonly heard in the music industry usually told by “old timers”

Sometimes it’s one person, sometimes it’s a whole band, but the only person whose name is mentioned is a man named Alfred Grifter

He’s a starving artist musician who wants more and turns to “the dark arts” to get it. 

The story always changes each time it’s told, but it always ends in his music becoming so awful to hear, he has to sneak into other musicians gigs just to be able to play at all

“You can always tell when Grifter’s Bone has been on because of all the torn off ears.”

A couple years ago, her friend Tommy Moncrief said he was starting up a music website called “Earfull” and offered for her to write for it. That led to her making video content for it now.

She learned the legend via hearing people jokingly compare their own bad albums to Grifter’s Bone, which she found really annoying

The submission editor for Earfull is a really nice guy named Lee Kipple. His job is listening to unsolicited music sent to them like CDs, and most of it’s awful.

Lee is tall and lanky and has long blonde hair that covers his ears and eyes most of the time (The reaction I’ve been pavlov’d into having for tall men with long blonde hair is ridiculous.)

Whenever someone mentioned Grifter’s Bone to him, he’d go very still and just nod and scratch his ears

When Jennifer finally asked about it, he said it was 4 years ago at The Good Ship in Kilburn that it happened.

He’d been watching some metal band and got ready to leave, when a man climbed up onto the stage and set up a small keyboard

The man was tall, thin, and wore a ratty brown suit that looked too big for him (“Flaps of ill fitting skin”)

When he put his fingers on the keys of the keyboard, the white keys became dotted with red (blood obviously)

He couldn’t remember the music, even when he’d tried, and the whole experience was blacked out. He to a couple hours later, wandering the streets and covered in blood, mostly his

While telling the story, he revealed he had many scars slashed over his chest that looked like a box cutter, and rather than his ears being torn off, there were flesh colored earplugs in them that had a dry ring of blood around them.

She wrote a story in the music website about Lee’s experience after anonymizing it, and finally decided to let it go, but soon after, someone left a comment on the post that read “Tonight. Soho. No earplugs required.”

His earplugs were the one thing Lee asked to leave out of the article, so that was super worrying someone had known about it

She’d walked around Soho that night for about an hour before she saw someone staring at her from a shop called “Crystals, Books, Tarot” (i will kill myself right here right now this is jane prentiss’s fucking old witchcraft shop oh my godddddd)

The man in the window was “tall, black, and careworn”. He went up to her and asked what she was listening to while staring at her ears, even though she had no headphones on and wasn’t listening to anything.

He said something about “protecting my hearing” and went away as a group of people rounded the corner. 

The main man was a man in an old brown suit carrying a keyboard case, and the people behind him were too tall and too thin and moved with unhuman, jerky motions

She followed the group and nobody seemed to notice them at all as they walked towards a basement jazz bar that “was lit with red and orange lights, giving it a warm and smoky feel.”

There were a total of 11 people in the building, and most seemed dressed for jazz, but a few seemed to be wearing thick coats and jackets. There was even a man with a stripe of silver hair wearing a silk bathrobe

She set the phone to recording video and then left the bar as soon as Grifter’s Bone started to set up

She heard one singular note from what sounded like a cello, then a keyboard, then a guitar, then finally a flute. It was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard, but a moment later it became agonized screams without warning

Through the sounds of crashing and tearing and screaming, the music kept playing

She went to run for help, but the noises ceased before she could. She looked around and saw absolutely no one in the streets, like they’d all been emptied

She went down the stairs and saw that the shreds of the people’s carcasses were almost indistinguishable from the furnishing and carpet

The musicians calmly packed up their instruments without any blood on them at all, and Alfred looked up at Jennifer, asking “Encore?” 

Jennifer grabbed her phone and ran, refusing to phone the police out of fear. Even after a week, there were no mentions of massacres or murders or anything, like it hadn’t even happened.

Her phone can’t access the footage at all, saying it’s “incorrectly formatted”, but she’s determined to keep trying

She went back to the jazz club and found no sign of violence or any of the people who’d died that night

Johnathan Notes

The name of Jennifer’s article on Grifter’s Bone was called “Spooks and Solos; The Slim Pickings of Grifter’s Bone,” and was extremely detailed and comprehensive

The Dean Street Jazz club denies any event of violence that happened on the premises, and no police reports match up with Jennifer’s reports.

However, through the month of October in 2013, there were a total of 11 deaths by violence in the greater London area. One of them was a man named Albert Sans(Sands?), who was beaten to death in his home while wearing a silk bathrobe.

Two weeks after giving this statement, she assaulted Agatha Noir(?), her elderly neighbor, with a claw hammer. She was left in a coma that she didn’t recover from, while Jennifer killed herself directly after the assault.

Jon had a hunch that this was a result of finally getting the video to work

Supplemental

Martin has been very nice to Jon while he’s been recovering, even to the neglecting of his own work (gay homo man)

Rather than take the help, Jon is incredibly suspicious of Martin’s kindness 

He claimed he saw “moments of competence, or even cunning” from him in the Prentiss attack

Martin also took an interest in Jon’s theories about what killed Gertrude (gay), and Jon lied and told him he suspected it was whatever creature was in the tunnel.

Martin has finally moved out of the archives, which Jon has been using as an opportunity to work late, and also go through the things Martin left behind by accident.

It was mostly books of “horrible poetry” (it’s okay Martin I believe in you), but there’s also an unfinished letter to his mother where he said he was “worried about the others finding out I’ve been lying”

Connections:

Starting off with just the title alone, the word bone being anywhere near this case immediately makes me think Gerard Keay

Tall and lanky man with long blonde hair, similar to the man named Michael in Distortion [#0160204]

OOOOOOO NOT ONLY MUSIC THEME IS BACK BUT ITS A KEYBOARD JUST LIKE THE CALIOPE IN STRANGE MUSIC [#0051701]

Same man who took over Ivy Meadows in Taken Ill [#0121911] I bet. (Later note: Yeah, just checked, they have the same name. Didn’t clock that before, but definitely did now)

A shop in Soho dedicated to witchcraft, like what Jane Prentiss said she used to have in Hive [#0142302], but also could be Antonio Blake from Dreamer [#0151403]

Interesting they used that exact choice of words with so much fire imagery to describe the jazz club

Can a flute and pipes be correlated or the same? If so, I definitely see a connection to The Piper [#9220611]

People just disappearing from the streets for no reason. Haven't seen randomly disappearing people pop back up in a while but here it is yay /s

Elderly woman named Agatha. Same woman as Piecemeal [#0112905]? Knowing this show and it’s endless connections, probably

Post Ep. Thoughts

“Martin has been trying to take care of me and has been being very kind and taking an interest in the things I’m interested in.”

“..........”

“He’s tryING TO KILL ME.”

Like Jon

Bro

This is peak autistic behavior like having no idea how to know when someone is genuinely being nice to you and thinking it’s all a trick

But also the paranoia ough

I have a feeling Jon x Therapy is gonna be my new propaganda

Also I HAVE A THEORY

Because very time music is made a big deal in a statement, there’s always something extremely violent that happens (The Piper [#9220611], Strange Music [#0051701], etc)

So there’s absolutely a connection to music and violence I am now increasingly becoming obsessed with

BECAUSE

LISTEN

LISTEN

THE MUSIC IN THE FREAKING TAPES OKAY

LIKE IK ITS PROBABLY JUST RUSTY QUILL ADDING AMBIENCE

BUT IVE ALSO LEARNED THAT NOTHING IS EVER COINCIDENCE IN THIS SHOW

SO WHAT IF WHATEVER IS CREATING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MUSIC AND VIOLENCE IS WHAT’S “WATCHING” JON WHENEVER HE RECORDS THE TAPES

BUT IT’S SOMETHING THAT CAN’T BE PICKED UP ON NORMALLY

IT’S SOMETHING THAT’S LIKE WITH THE WAY TAPES WORK OR SOMETHING

AND MAYBE THATS FEEDING INTO JON’S PARANOIA THE WAY IT USUALLY FEEDS INTO VIOLENCE

Statement of Johnathan Sims, head archivist, given day of recording, September 2nd, 2016

His voice sounds insanely different rn I wonder why (Ik why it’s the mental illness and lack of sleep)

Johnathan has been going into the tunnels to explore for whatever reasons, likely to assure himself Jane is truly dead, which he doesn’t believe, even though he has a jar of her ashes on his desk

He suspects the jar is just dirt Elias gave him as a placebo, although it’s kinda working (which he hates)

“The archive looks like it was never attacked. Unlike me.” Ya boi is traumatized

Was told by paramedics the scars from the worms would never fade, but was finally allowed to come back a month after the attack. Tim is still signed off for now

He tried to come back earlier, but Martin wouldn’t let him and nearly threw him out of the archive. His first instinct is that Martin is hiding something, which makes me extremely sad

He still feels like he’s being watched, even after Prentiss is dead, which makes him more paranoid because he thinks something else is watching him now

He feels watched even while he’s just reading the files, so it doesn’t have something to do with the tape recorder itself

It’s been a couple weeks since he was officially back, and has gone behind Martin and Elias’ back to explore the tunnels at night

“The only light down there is what you bring yourself. The shadows were starker down there.”

He opened the trap door from before, and the opening was completely back. The stairs felt steeper than before

The passage seemed to be empty, so he went down into the tunnel and closed the door behind him

As he walked into the tunnel, he felt an unsettling “absence” that he didn’t before

He became lost in like two minutes, which was weird, because none of the corridors looked the same and he usually had a good sense of direction

Very few of the doors had rooms behind them, but all of the ones he opened had nothing behind them

After almost a half hour, he started to find carcasses of the rooms, and there almost seemed to be a distinct line between where the tunnels were empty and where the worms started

He turned around to go back, but it was almost impossible to retrace his steps, even as he tried to use landmarks he’d seen before. None of them matched up like they had when he’d been going down, as if they’d shifted

He finally found the circle of worms Tim had talked about, and most were dead on the floor, but some were still stuck in the wall in the shape of a circle (or a gate?)

He could almost be certain he’d heard movement further in the tunnels, but convinced himself he was imagining it due to stress

There was something like a path amongst the worms, like someone had pushed them aside to go through

When he got back to the archives it was about 3 in the morning, and he went home after accidentally reopening some of his wounds on the journey

It was a week before he was able to get himself to go down to the tunnels again with dozens of torches and batteries, white chalk, food and water, and a large knife

He marked all the interactions and hallways with white arrows as he went this time to avoid getting lost

After a half hour he got deeper this time than last time, completely beyond the worm tunnels and to the deeper ones that had been untouched since Milbank prison

The original plan for the prison was arranged in a hexagonal circle with all of the cells facing each other in six sections, and from the air it had the shape of an angular flower, but it was abandoned from 1812 onwards

Three years later they brought in Robert Smirk, who finished the project, and his design was very similar to Bentham’s original project, but while Bentham’s would’ve been geometric, Robert’s seemed more like a maze

This meant wherever he was wasn’t the prison, but something buried beneath it

He found a set of spiral steps the went both up and down in the tunnel but didn’t descend so he could explore the whole first story

He found another staircase that looked identical to the other, but this one had a large chalk arrow pointing downwards that he hadn’t drawn

This arrow was curled and flourished, while his were geometric and jagged

I KNOW THIS AUDIO I KNOW THIS AUDIO I KNEW THIS WAS TMA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

He heard a sound like someone running barefoot and decided not to run, because he would rather die knowing than live not

He descended the stairs with the arrow on it and seemed to see no sign of the bottom until he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He went to track it, but only saw a long empty wine bottle with the label rotted away, dated 2003

He was putting another arrow onto the wall when he looked up and saw what had previously been a tunnel was now a complete dead end, and the wall opposite him was closer than before

He took a step back and felt the wall behind him closer than it should’ve been. The passage was getting narrower but he couldn’t see or hear any movement at all

There was a moment of silence, before there was a single word from the darkness saying “Leave.”

He basically ran back to the trap door, and the walls seemed to almost pin him by the time he got out

When he got back out, he placed the heaviest object he could find on it and locked it

Supplemental (oooo new section hello)

Elias is a prime suspect for whoever killed Getrude, and Johnathan says it’s his primary motive to figure out who it is (I do not trust Elias at all full stop.)

Johnathan told Martin the second tape recorder was lost in the attack, but he ended up taking it to record the supplementals, which are Johnathan’s private investigations on the things happening that will be stored separately from the main records

“If you’re hearing this, I assume you’re my replacement following my death, and have been given instructions on where to find these.” WAIT SO ARE WE LISTENING TO THESE AFTER HE’S DEAD SHIT I DIDNT EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT

Apparently he deliberately overstated his interest in the tunnels in the main statement to throw off any colleagues that might listen to it

“Trust can get you killed.” Poor mentally ill baby I wanna hug him :(

Someone should get him therapy

Connections

Hello eyes, welcome back, how nice to see you.

Unnatural darkness that was seen in Martin and Tim’s statements about the tunnels too

Loneliness maybe? That might be a stretch

So much weirdly manipulated space

So much of it

Might be a stretch of a connection, but Johnathan pointed out how flowery and embellished the arrow was, and the piece of paper with the eye on it from what I think was Growing Dark [#01519014] was also highly embellished

Post Ep. Thoughts

hELLO S2 WE’RE GETTING RIGHT INTO IT OKAY

Anyways hey guys whats up

Ya boy is back with the insanity after a bit of a break

First off someone get Johnathan some therapy goddamn

Johnathan x Martin, no, Johnathan x Therapy

Chop chop rusty quill make it happen

Second off

This might feel stupid

But does Johnathan have a connection to the eyes?