File #76 (S2-36) - Off the rails

[Oneiros]

Everyone's favourite paranormal investigator Melanie King is back! And it doesn't sound like she's got many friends left in her research community - leaving the Institute as the best hope for the curiosity that fills her. And like most who pass through these doors, she comes bearing scars - physically in this case, from a medic-wielded scalpel no less... and the trail of blood grows.

What really interested me in today's episode is that we got some more of the wider worldbuilding, the connections that people make beyond the walls of the Institute... and how they get broken. Melanie's discussion about how the paranormal investigatory community actually operates, staying to 'safe' paths and not straying beyond 'acceptable stories' is really eye-opening. And thus she finds people turning their backs on her when she dares step away to look at more hidden ways, more dangerous ways... it's kinda heart-breaking/infuriating to see others being 'narrow-minded' 

And then we have the post-statement revelations, that leave the Archivist more flustered than we have seen him to date. And yet there's a strange determination. Has this encounter with Melanie finally made him choose a path of his own to follow?

[sbread]

There's some serious red string to follow here, and apologies but I'm just going to copy my post on the subreddit: the violence described here brings to mind Grifter's Bone, and in that statement while Jennifer is describing the music she hears she says 'over them all, the pure piping sound of a flute'. It doesn't take much of a leap to connect this to MAG 7 - The Piper, where Wilfred Owen says that "the war" played 'pipes of scrimshawed bone'. This brings the war connection full circle to this statement, but you know what else makes a haunting piping sound? Calliope organs. That might be a stretch but given the violent death of Josh in MAG 24, I wouldn't say it's out of the realms of possibility that the Circus of the Other is connected.


A more definite connection is the Rayner family given that Joseph Rayner is mentioned in MAG 7... is the "divine host" some sort of embodiment of war? Maybe the same "war" that Wilfred Owen met? His description of 'blood and sodden soil flow[ing] out like a waterfall' isn't dissimilar to Basira's description of Rayner when she finds him in MAG 73: 'Something was flowing out of his mouth. It looked like ink but it flowed more like a heavy fog than any sort of liquid'.


I'm not completely on board with the Four Horsemen theory that's doing the rounds, but I do think that these statements (and quite possibly a few others) are connected to some sort of primordial embodiment/spirit of war and/or violence.


I'm really hoping that Melanie will join the team at some point, as I love the back and forth she has with Jonathan. All in all, this episode was once again an absolute thrill to listen to, but it's going to be a long week waiting to hear Gertrude's next tape!

[cannonlongshot]

I too, hope Melanie will join the team - I'd expect her to be brought on should the whole Not-Sasha thing ever come to a head.

Great work by Lydia, as always!

[omjs]

I was really struck by the nature of the truer-sounding stories that Melanie describes -- they're usually the stories in which things don't have a tidy explanation or clear cause-and-effect. Could that be a hint as to the nature of the beings converging on the Institute? Are we looking at creatures who operate beyond our sphere of understanding, whose motivations could be unclear or difficult to comprehend? It makes me think of Michael, who may have a few known "rules" to him, but in many ways seems to choose to make himself understood to humans while his true nature is something much stranger.

I really want to follow Melanie's adventures from here as she takes off to India and beyond...I wish she had her own spinoff show or something. Maybe she'll join the team when she gets back.

Any theories as to why Melanie can tell that it's Not Sasha? She's so positive about it. Maybe it's a side effect of the other ways she's questioning the world as she knows it, including the paranormal world.

[sbread]

Aug 3, 2017 17:47:40 GMT omjs said:

Any theories as to why Melanie can tell that it's Not Sasha? She's so positive about it. Maybe it's a side effect of the other ways she's questioning the world as she knows it, including the paranormal world.

That's pretty much my theory too, although it begs the question of how Amy Patel recognised Not Graham.

[amethystend]

"I KNOW WHAT A MEME IS." Oh Archivist, I love you.

Any way, fantastic episode. I admit these last couple episodes have scratched more of the mystery solving itch for me than the creepy/horror itch (referencing Jonathan Sims's comments about the balancing act between horror and mystery) but I don't consider this a bad thing; I'm as heavily invested in the meta plot as I am in the monster-of-the-week scares after all.

[cannonlongshot]

This is frustrating... I remember hearing something about the video of Melanie yelling before, but can't find a record of it in MAG28. Does anyone remember where else it might have been mentioned? I need it to accurately date the statement beyond "March/April"...

Edit: Also, I suspect that Melanie misspoke in MAG28 when saying that the Aldershot incident took place in 2015 - Makes more sense that she come to the Magnus Institute after 3 months rather than 15, no matter how desperate she would need to be!

[sbread]

Aug 4, 2017 12:16:00 GMT cannonlongshot said:

This is frustrating... I remember hearing something about the video of Melanie yelling before, but can't find a record of it in MAG28. Does anyone remember where else it might have been mentioned? I need it to accurately date the statement beyond "March/April"...

She came in while MAG 063 - The End of the Tunnel - was being recorded. That's when she mentioned the video and needing to use the library, as well as when she mentioned the "new girl" working in the archives... 

That statement was recorded after Daisy's "live" statement on 1st December, and before Tessa Winters came in on 7th January... so late December is most likely when Melanie came in.

[omjs]

Aug 4, 2017 6:24:01 GMT amethystend said:

"I KNOW WHAT A MEME IS." Oh Archivist, I love you.

Any way, fantastic episode. I admit these last couple episodes have scratched more of the mystery solving itch for me than the creepy/horror itch (referencing Jonathan Sims's comments about the balancing act between horror and mystery) but I don't consider this a bad thing; I'm as heavily invested in the meta plot as I am in the monster-of-the-week scares after all.

Oh man, the section in the train car FREAKED ME RIGHT OUT. Though it is true, I really keyed in for the mystery stuff toward the end. It was so satisfying when Jonathan finally seemed to realize that something was up with Sasha.

And I agree - I was doing a relisten recently from the beginning to try to fit the strands together a little better. I thought I'd be disappointed when an episode didn't seem to tie in, but it turns out I love them either way. Lost John's Cave remains my all-time scariest, though I'm not sure if it relates to anything or not.

[spooniermist]

Aug 7, 2017 22:30:38 GMT omjs said:

Lost John's Cave remains my all-time scariest, though I'm not sure if it relates to anything or not.

Isn't that related to whatever is in the tunnels? Something with the ability to move walls soundlessly?

[AshenCircle]

I was writing a comment about this episode while listening to 77 and you know what, never mind, it's completely irrelevant now. I'll come back tomorrow.

I wonder though - and this is a very long shot - if the ability to see through the disguises of Not People has some physiological explaination. There's a lot of potential variation inside of the human eye, determining everything from our quality of low light vision all the way to our eyes' favoured method of perceiving depth and detecting motion. Beyond the eye itself are all the systems for processing its input, too, of course, leading to even further variation; my point is, perhaps in the same way some people can't see certain optical illusions or are made violently sick by parallax-scrolling VR, there might be people who are incapable of seeing whatever means it is by which these doppelgangers disguise themselves?

[spacesquid]

Aug 3, 2017 17:47:40 GMT omjs said:

I was really struck by the nature of the truer-sounding stories that Melanie describes -- they're usually the stories in which things don't have a tidy explanation or clear cause-and-effect. Could that be a hint as to the nature of the beings converging on the Institute? Are we looking at creatures who operate beyond our sphere of understanding, whose motivations could be unclear or difficult to comprehend? It makes me think of Michael, who may have a few known "rules" to him, but in many ways seems to choose to make himself understood to humans while his true nature is something much stranger.

I really want to follow Melanie's adventures from here as she takes off to India and beyond...I wish she had her own spinoff show or something. Maybe she'll join the team when she gets back.

Any theories as to why Melanie can tell that it's Not Sasha? She's so positive about it. Maybe it's a side effect of the other ways she's questioning the world as she knows it, including the paranormal world.

I was working under the theory that the reason the real stories don't have a tidy explanation is precisely because they're real. Stories are written according to certain rules, and the real world isn't, so in theory actual ghostly encounters shouldn't be structured in a satisfying way - there should be no "narrative flow", as Melanie puts it, because it isn't a narrative.

It's worth noting that Melanie's own story here is very long on explanation/buildup, and then the actual supernatural events she relates are over very quickly - less than four minutes from first glimpsing figures in the abandoned carriages to being stabbed. "Is that it?", indeed.

(Well no, it isn't, of course, since we then move on to an extended discussion of this ghost's backstory and the implications for its existence. But that's fine. It's all very well for fictional characters to talk about how "real" ghost stories shouldn't be satisfying, but you don't want to actually dissatisfy the audience. It's a fine and interesting line Jonny's walking here.)

As to why Melanie can recognise Not-Sasha is not Sasha, my current theory is that it's got something to do with her witnessing Sara Baldwin's encounter in the abandoned hospital. Perhaps whatever she saw is the same thing, or something similar, to what Amy Patel glimpsed entering Graham's apartment before the poor guy got himself replaced by Michael.