File #91 (S3-11) - "The Coming Storm"

[Oneiros]

OR: "Plummeting into darkness"

Ho boy! 

So, we get our long-awaited statement from Michael 'Call me Mike, please' Crew, only to have the meeting somewhat rudely interrupted. It's all go in the Magnus-verse, this week...

So, was Mike the kind of guy you were expecting? And what of his experiences with a succession of 'Leitners'? And what of Daisy and her apparent vendetta against the strangeness in the world?

Thanks muchly to special guest, Guy Kelly (the ever-excellent @brainmage on Twitter; formerly of ace sketch quartet, The Beta Males) as Mike Crew.

[Bartleby]

I'll need to give it a few more relistens, but I think this one kind of compromised on the scariness factor in the name of furthering the overarching plot. To be honest, it didn't do much for me personally, but that's just the nature of the beast that is episodic storytelling, I suppose.

Nevertheless, it terms of it's implications there was plenty interesting. It seems Crew was being 'courted' by The Spiral for the longest time before finally escaping it's attention by giving himself to the Power associated with great heights / vertigo. That's real cool - it calls to mind the other examples we've seen of Powers staking their claims and respecting each other's territory - but on top of that it seems to say that the Lietner books can bind entities regardless of their domain, so to speak.

Knowing that Ex Altiora (Vertigo) was used to bind an unnamed, implied to be The Spiral Aspect, does that change anything we think we know about Gerard Kaeys and his burning of the book? Or am I over thinking things?

More and more I'm tempted to compile a list of all known Lietner tomes. Crew had been finding them everywhere - probably even got a few out of a box of cereal. One wonders what it is about a person that causes multiple powers to take interest in them. Just their fear?

Lastly, RIP Crew. We hardly knew thee. I took a liking to him almost immediately, shame that things went the way they did.

[hyoscyamus]

Damn, this episode was just fantastic!

First off, excellent VA choice and splendid performance from everyone here! Very well done!
It was really fun to hear how thrown off balance Jon sounded when Crew still seemed to be a friendly, welcoming guy. And the drop in friendliness after that one question too much was making me grin like an evil imp. Crew's characterization was neat. I mentioned this before, but it's worth saying again, it's impressive and awesome how much character everyone has from so little actual speaking time!

A bit of TMI from one of my jobs. I was taking care of appointments and stuff in our family business (chiropody and cosmetic, I closed it after my mother died, though). Most of our customers came regularly and often the whole family was. Since the treatment took some time and they came for many, many years we naturally heard a lot about the people. We had a customer who had a run in with ball-lightning when he was a young kid. His mother told us about it. She was outside, hanging out the laundry, while he played outside. Suddenly a ball of lightning rushed through the house, not destroying the rooms, but leaving a noticeable trace of chaos. The lightning then wooshed outside, very close to her son, before it vanished. He was thrown off his feet, but did not appear to be hurt. The doctors she brought him to said there was nothing amiss. But a while afterwards the problems started and he had to have several brain surgeries. She was convinced this was because of the lightning, but the doctors always denied this.
After she told us this I was googling about lightning victims a bit and what I found made me think she was right, though. Most people who survived a lightning strike reported about delayed nerve damage that worsened over time. As if the nerve-sheathing in areas was slowly dissolving, sometimes years after the incident. And because it happened so long after the lightning hit they had trouble getting these problems attributed to it by doctors as well as insurances. Um, anyway, just still think this is interesting.

The description of the scars branching outwards beyond his body was very cool. As was what he said about his run-ins with artifacts of other powers. Especially that he tried bone-turning and was just able to shape the bits into horrible fractals. That must have been an awful death, getting one's body shaped into a fractal (another little homage to Uzumaki, I reckon ).
And it's neat that the book Crew bound his tormentor to later found it's way to Dominic Swain, who was kinda the reason the lightning hit Crew back then. Before this episode I thought Gerard Keay destroyed this book because it was an artifact of another power than Beholding. But now I think he did it because it had this entity bound to it and was *tainted*. No wonder it was different to Mary's book.

It was also fun to hear that Mike found it nice to tell his story. This, together with what Daisy said about all of a sudden wanting nothing more than giving Jon evidence, is another hint at the power of the Archivist. Feeling good after giving him information is a very strong motivation seeing how the brain reacts to positive stimulation in general. A theory of mine is that all Archivists influence the statement givers positively while they give their stories. Gertrude did it too, Jane Prentiss mentioned how she talked to her: "Have a seat, dear. Don't worry, dear." She was an elderly, friendly seeming woman who people had no problem trusting. And Jon, despite being sarcastic, difficult and awful whenever he doesn't feel appreciated enough, is ultimately very much not a violent man. He finds a pipe while being chased by a monster - he hides instead of fighting. This might be a trait that he unwittingly projects to people - no need to worry, I'm safe, you can talk with me about everything. This calming influence makes it easier for people to give detailed recollections of traumatic events. Or, in Jude Perry's case, to gloat in the face of a weak servant of an opposing power without caring to reveal secrets.

And it might be a reason why he's able to rally people around him for help. It reminds me of the RPG Planescape-Torment, the protagonist had a magic tattoo that made troubled people willing to bond with him (and become followers).

Also, having him being double-rescued made me laugh as well, it was so great! First Daisy getting rid of Crew (who was after all a danger even though he wanted to let Jon go), then Basira rescuing him from Daisy. Best possible reunion of these three! Since I was in favour of a stand-off situation between Daisy and Basira this was just glorious! (As well as the 'please don't shoot me' and 'he might be able to get a confession from Elias'.) *evil cackling*

[danae149]

Great episode! I'm excited we got to meet Crew so quickly, and I'm hoping he's only mostly dead and we might see him pop up again in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if our intrepid Archivist doesn't have to make a similar choice between powers as Mike at some point, too, since both Beholding and Mr. Spider seem to have their eyes on him.

Also, my main take aways from the Archivist having truth-compelling powers are 1) that has to be really awkward at parties and 2) we can now be certain that Martin is definitely not a ghost. Good to know.

[Deleted]

Hooray, I'm real time with you all and may converse!

Oh....now I'm anxiously awaiting the next episode with you all.

Besides this being a fabulous meaty episode - Michael "just call me Mike" Is that special character for me. Noticing his name a second time moved me from a casual listener to creating paper lists of significant characters and objects which then grew to a Google sheet.

I had a need to know more of Mr Crew and he proved to be as exceptional as I had imagined.

Now caught up I can safely look at shared timeline on the wiki. Wish to thank SpoonierMist for the effort.

[FaintingInCoils]

Just wanted to say that this episode had my favorite bit of sound design since A Father's Love. It really made Mike's powers for me.