i absolutely love bringing Legion everywhere in Mass Effect cause I just walk onto the Citadel and stuff like WHAT’S UP this is my ROBOT SON and i love him VERY MUCH
C-Sec customs officer who is definitely not paid enough to deal with the fact that Commander Shepard just walked in with an honest to god Geth Infiltrator
Ok but when cecil said, “I don’t know everything about Carlos. And he does not tell me everything. That is okay. We are not one person. How lonely that would be, a couple who has made themselves one, so completely, that they are once again alone.”
i absolutely love bringing Legion everywhere in Mass Effect cause I just walk onto the Citadel and stuff like WHAT’S UP this is my ROBOT SON and i love him VERY MUCH
So I’ve been neck deep in the Magnus Archives for a while now, and something that’s stuck in my head, particularly coming into Season Five, is the House on Hilltop Road. You know the one. (Now if you’ve heard this theory before, my apologies, I’m just trying to get this idea out that I haven’t seen before)
See, I have a theory about how this story’s going to end. We know it won’t end happily. This is a horror story; a tragedy. At best we can hope for a bittersweet end, likely with the Archives going up in flames if the increasingly blatant hints from (cough cough Johnny) The Web are correct. But I’m not interested in that.
One statement that’s always stuck out to me is MAG 114, statement of Anya Villete, regarding a cleaning job she took on Hill Top Road. She says that she went into the house, had some strange encounters involving webs and the tree and the Typical Fuckery we expect with Hill Top Road. But it always stuck out to me because of how it ends. She says that she walked out and the world wasn’t Quite Right. She mentions friends not acting like they knew her, her favorite coffee shop being missing, and The Magnus Institue. Specifically that she’s never heard of the institute before.
Now, that could be just because she was messed up by the house or whatever’s wrong with it. But I think it’s something more. I think Anya is from a different world. Not a controversial thought, I don’t think, given what happens in the statement, the inconsistencies Jon himself points out in the closing remarks. But here’s the thing: I think she’s from OUR world.
I think Hill Top Road is a weakening in reality that ties our world to the world of TMA. Anya’s not the only reason. I also think this because of several minor but significant details stated about historical figures that are Wrong, which considering how meticulously researched TMA normally is… well it sticks out. For example, Robert Smirke died in our world in April 1867. In TMA, he dies writing a letter to Jonas in mid February. Small, minor details (aside from the fact that I’m pretty sure Smirke wasn’t researching eldritch fear entities in his spare time), but significant details
And why does this matter? Because of the tapes.
I think the ending will happen however it happens. And I don’t think that the world will be fixed. I don’t think that Jon and Martin and everyone can return the world to how it was. They’re stuck in an apocalyptic hellscape forever. The world has ended. It’s over. They can’t save their world… but they can warn another. They can send the tapes to us, through the hole in reality that is Hilltop Road. And we can receive the tapes, one by one, in the exact order we need to hear them in. We can listen. We can watch. We can learn. We learn about the Archives, we learn about monsters, we learn about the Entities and Avatars, we learn about the horrible tragedy that Jon and Martin and Tim and Sasha and Melanie and Basira and Daisy and everyone endured. but most importantly, we don’t just learn that the Fears exist. We learn how to beat the Fears. We learn that The Lonely is beaten through love, that worms are best killed with fire extinguishers, that certain books need to be left alone, that sometimes a small about of plastic explosives can solve big problems. That rituals are doomed to fail on their own, but if we can mitigate the harm that those who might enact them cause, we can and should help.
Jon has stated repeatedly throughout the series that he started carrying around the tape recorder because he doesn’t want to become a mystery. So the Archivist leaves a lasting record, preserved for all those who might seek its knowledge. Preserved within the hundreds of tapes he leaves us. So that we can learn. So that we can do better. So that we might make a different choice than him. Or, at least, a better informed choice.
Apologies if the formatting is Fucked Up, I had to write this on mobile. Let me know what you think!
*Edited for very unfortunate autocorrect of tape recorder.
people are still patriotic in 2020? grow up? do not ask for what you can do for your country but what human rights violations they are currently committing and why you should hate them.
