Funny / The Magnus Archives - TV Tropes

For a cosmic horror podcast, it sure has its moments.

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Series Season 1

• The protagonist of Episode 02 accidentally provokes the supernatural artifact he was given... by absentmindedly using it as a coffee table.
• Episode 16 features a man who reported demonic spiders infesting his house. He's later found suffocated by what are implied to be swarms of spiders and utterly wrapped up in webbing. Jon is pretty sure this is in no way supernatural and nothing to be concerned by.
• In Episode 17, the chilling story of "The Boneturner's Tale" is interrupted when Elias walks in on Jon recording to chew him out for how he handled the interview in "Alone." Jon embarrassedly dropping his gothic narrator voice for his peevish normal voice is a sight to behold.
• Episode 19 is cut short because Jon can't find the second half of the statement he's reading from. He states that the recording will be finished as soon as the second half is located, which, given the disorganized state of the archives, he figures will be done by his successor after he dies of old age.
• Starting in Episode 22, Martin now lives at the Institute because Jane Prentiss is stalking him. In the next episode, he walks in on Jon, who points out that he's made himself a little too at home by forgetting to wear trousers. Martin! Good lord man, if you’re going to be staying in the Archives, at least have the decency to put some trousers on!
  • The same episode opens with Martin wanting to give a statement, with Jon arguing that it's foolish because most of their statements are from liars and insane people. Martin is still insistent, saying that Jon can vouch for his sanity. Cue a long pause before Jon says "That's besides the point".
• When speaking about a calliope organ in Episode 24, Sasha bursts in on Jon, asking if it was pronounced "cal-I-oh-pee," as Jon said, or "cal-ee-OH-pee," as Sasha said. Jon mentions to Sasha's incredulity that some have also said it "cal-ee-OPE", namely Americans.
  • Even funnier, when he resumes the recording he puts an almost spiteful emphasis on his original pronunciation.
  • Also funny, this interaction was based on a real conversation that the show's creators had on the topic when it came up in the script.
• Episode 28 introduces Melanie King, who at the time was part of "Ghost Hunt UK". Her waspy attitude at the beginning versus Jon's tangible impatience at this apparent unknown "rivalry" is somehow really, really funny.
• MAHTIN.
• Episode 37: The description of a pine marten as "an adorable, wee bear that needs to be protected". The sardonic tone Jon, who wouldn't warm up to Martin for some time yet, uses to deliver the line makes it clear he notices the subtext and isn't particularly amused.
• Episode 39:
  • Martin's Mistaken For Dead moment where some ambiguous wording leads Jon to believe he's been having a Dead Person Conversation.
  • While Sasha and Martin are desperately trying to warn Tim about Jane, Tim sees a tape recorder on the ground and, to test if it's working, mimics Jon while saying "Statement of Joe Spooky, regarding sinister happenings in the downtown old-" before being interrupted by Sasha.
  • Jon asks Tim if he's been bitten by any worms. Tim, who's hypoxic due to all the CO2, offers to let Jon and Martin check. Jon confirms that Tim has not been bitten, and asks Tim to "put them back on, please."
  • Martin admitting the reason he had a second tape recorder in the Archives room he'd been living in is so he could record his poetry. It's the silence from Jon and Tim that really sells it.

Season 2

• Episode 42: Jon pauses in his paranoid suspicions about Martin to critique some of the poetry Martin left behind when he moved out of the archives.
• Episode 48: Gerard makes a cameo as a Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist and is grumpy about having his nice vacation interrupted by having to thwart the Powers again.
• In the afterword of Episode 48, Elias has a talk with Jon saying that the other staff have filed complaints about Jon spying on them and asking him to stop. Jon's very next dialogue after this recording is about how suspicious Elias is for saying this and how he's now at the top of the suspect list.
• In Episode 50, Tim gets suspicious of Basira, and says as much to Jon, but in his attempts to both assure Tim everything is fine and to not reveal his own private investigations, he accidentally gets Tim thinking that the two are secretly dating. Cue several hilariously awkward conversations.
• In Episode 54, there's a fair few jokes about the Inland Revenue and how no one's pleased to see the taxman. Alexander Scaplehorn, the statement giver, goes on at length about how he had a great time teaching the apparent proprietor of a taxidermy shop (whom listeners will be able to recognise as bad news) all about money laundering laws, and even after his terrifying experience of catching a glimpse of a monster in the basement, realising that the proprietor has glass eyes like all the stuffed animals and seeing the animals start to move, after fleeing the shop he doesn't call the police — "After all, whatever all that... other stuff was, they weren't laundering money."
• Episode 56: the turning point of Jon's skepticism comes when he comments that he believes Trevor's account of a hollow woman occupied by thousands of spiders solely because "I'm not lucky enough for it to be false."
• In episode 59, Jon remarks in his addendum that the crew has been avoiding him lately, adding to his suspicions. He fails to consider that this might have anything to do with him being a creepy weirdo stalking them lately.
• Episode 72 "Takeaway" has some moments of pitch black humour:
  • The statement of the episode starts as it means to go on, with Craig Goodall admitting upfront that he's probably a cannibal; he explains that Han Yong/Jon Haan disposed of his wife Lanying's murdered body by selling it in the takeaway's food, and since Craig used to visit that takeaway all the time and definitely a few times during this period, he concludes in a strained voice that "There's a very good chance I ate some of her." He then goes off on a tangent of wondering how Haan could have passed off human meat as beef or chicken, and admits that he regrets not knowing which part of the meals it was, since if he was tricked into eating a person he might at least have learned what human flesh tastes like.
  • When Tom Haan has Craig at his mercy, Craig is surprised at hearing him speak with a crisp RP accent. "You know what’s messed up? Here was this guy clearly about to kill me and carve me up for meat, and I still somehow felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English, like I didn’t want my last thoughts on Earth to be low-key racist."
  • Haan goes into a monologue about religion, meat and souls, but Craig soon zones out because he's in an immense amount of pain and terrified that he's going to die.
• Episode 79 has some hilarious interactions with Martin and Tim:
  • One of the biggest jump scares on the show becomes darkly hilarious because of the timing and how it answers Martin's question just beforeMartin: So you really think the Institute is, what, haunted?Tim: I used to. Now I think it’s worse.Martin: Worse how?[a door bursts open and a horrific-looking Not!Sasha chasing Jon charges past them]
  • At the start of the episode, it inexplicably opens with some of Martin's poetry, before being cut off. Afterwards, when Tim brings Martin's tape recorder for evidence, Martin asks if the tape Tim was recording on was a fresh one.Martin: Was it blank or... Tim?Tim: It was blank.
• In the midst of the Wham Episode that is Episode 80, Jurgen Leitner reveals that along with the many attempts on his life by people affected by his books, Gerard Keay once found him and beat him up. There's something darkly funny about how comparatively mild it is next to everything else Leitner has been through and what the audience knows Gerard to be capable of by that point. Even Jon is momentarily amused despite the circumstances.
  • This becomes even funnier in Episode 111, where Gerard's spirit says he let him go because he though he was just beating up a pathetic old man who couldn't have been Jurgen Leitner.

Season 3

• In Episode 83, Jon tries to assure Georgie that his behavior isn't because he's on drugs, and she just scoffs.Jon: What? [offended] I could be on drugs!
• Episode 87 revolves around Sebastian Skinner, a repairman lured out to a cult compound so servants of the Stranger could torment him. Except that Sebastian, who is by his own admission incredibly absent-minded, pays so little attention on the job that he doesn't actually notice anything wrong. The annoyed cult has to call him back the next day and physically shove his face in the horror to get the reaction they wanted.
  • Doubly funny because on the second visit, Jude Perry is there when he arrives and laughs at the sight of him, meaning he was so unbelievably dense that Nikola gossiped about him to a servant of an entirely different Power.
• In Episode 92, following a series of shocking reveals by Jon to the other Institute workers, this exchange. It's Tim's perfectly deadpan response that sells it:Melanie: This is insane!Tim: You get used to it.
• Also very Heartwarming, in the opening of Episode 93, as Jon begins to record the statement, Georgie's cat, the Admiral, apparently climbs into Jon's lap and wants to get his belly rubbed.Jon: Yep, that's your arse. Thanks for that.
  • Later, in the same episode, Jon finally comes clean to Georgie, who asks him to prove his Compelling Voice ability. He asks her to tell him something she'd never tell him of her own free will, and she blurts out that when they first met, she thought his accent was faked to make himself sound smarter.
  • The fact that, after spending so many episodes worrying about how she'd take the news if she found out about the supernatural and Jon's transformation... Georgie's completely cool with it. She believes him immediately, and doesn't mind one bit that her friend is being used as an avatar.
    • Also the fact that Georgie manages to completely derail Jon's serious confession by nitpicking about why he landed a job he had no training for.
    Jon: Look, can we put my professional competence to one side, please, because I'm trying to tell you monsters are real!
• While Nikola's threatening Jon was a very sinister scene, there's something darkly hilarious in how blunt this interaction is: Jon: You, um...You killed Gregor Orsinov? Nikola: Yep! He got really boring, and I’m a monster! I mean, what did you want me to do? Not pull him apart?...I did use all the bits!Jon: I...Y...Y-you don’t...sound Russian? Nikola: How could I sound anything, silly? I’m plastic. [raps her head, with a plastic sound] I don't even have a voicebox! I had to borrow this one.Jon: [wordless terror] Nikola: Don't turn on the light.
  • She also critiques his skincare routine, and apparently gives him a facial before he manages to escape, because she didn't want to wear bad skin.
• Episode 100: The Archivist isn't at the Institute at the moment, so the other personnel are left to take statements... and the visitors they have turn out to be godawful storytellers. Every Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic trope is played to the hilt, to hilariously jarring effect compared to other statements.
  • With the Word of God confirmation that these people did encounter genuine manifestations of the entities, Robin's story becomes utterly hilarious. He stumbled into the Spiral, a nightmarish endless labyrinth of madness and delusion...and then just left. Because he didn't want to be late for dinner.
• Episode 101: After spending almost two seasons and change being beaten, threatened, injured, and kidnapped, there's something hilarious about Jon's exasperated growl when Michael announces his intent to kill him.
  • Earlier, when Nikola asks a bound and gagged Jon how he's feeling, Jon responds with a couple of grunts that sound suspiciously like a 'fuck you'.
• Episode 103 is about a vineyard owner's experience with a monster pig serving as an animal avatar of the Flesh, and how it tormented and eventually ate some of his pigs. After recounting his harrowing tale, he evidently wanted to send along Gertrude and Gerard Keay with a good meal...and decided to offer them bacon. He then seemed surprised when they understandably didn't want to partake. "...what?"
  • After Jon finishes reading the statement and realizes that he just read French, which he doesn’t know. When he tells Elias about his powers growing, Elias reacts as if he’s a proud parent, gushing about the development.
• Episode 104: While talking about his relationship with Danny, Tim mentions that Danny stopped using urban exploration lingo around him when Tim joked that “urbex sounded like a brand of laundry detergent”.
• Peter Lukas, on his first meeting with Martin in episode 108, calmly and politely confirming that Martin's feedback on Elias's management style is that he'd prefer "less murder."
• Episode 110: Dexter Banks, the director in "Creature Feature" sacrificing people to the Web, appears to be a parody of Quentin Tarantino. This is hilariously appropriate when you realize that the Web is the patron of spiders and the whole foot fetish thing is a common joke about Tarantino — Dexter is essentially serving the power with the most feet.
• Episode 111: Jon's summation of Gerry Keay's explanation of what the Powers are:Jon: Like colors, but if colors hated me. Got it. Christ, I need a cigarette.
• In the beginning of Episode 113, Jon, Martin and Melanie search one of Gertrude's old caches for a way to stop the Unknowing. Then Melanie finds it: a bunch of plastic explosive.Jon: Martin! Stop. Trying to touch. The plastic explosives!
  • In a meta way, there's something hilarious when it turns out that, after all the intricacies, planning and secrets necessary to stop the other rituals the way to stop the Unknowing, the most flexible and resilient of them all, is just good, old-fashioned violence.
  • Melanie also pointedly responds to Jon saying it could be C4 by asking if he's saying that because it's the only kind of plastic explosive he knows.
• In Episode 115, after reading yet another statement involving meat and cannibalism, Jon muses that even he's surprised he hasn't become a vegetarian yet.Jon: In my position you have to take what small pleasures you can find, and if it happens to please some horrifying meat god, well, c'est la vie.
• As the crew gears up to take on the Stranger in Episode 116, Elias briefs them on what to expect from the ascension ritual of an eldritch god of madness. He also advises to them to keep their receipts from the trip so the Archive can expense them.
• Episode 118 features Martin burning as many statements as he can to distract Elias from the fact he's called the police to arrest him. Martin is just so petulant to Elias while he does this, in stark contrast to his usually timid personality.Elias: Martin. Martin, open the door. [Jiggles the doorknob]Martin: Sorry, Elias. I can’t hear you. There’s a door in the way.Elias: Martin, I do not have time for this.Martin: Then maybe you should make time.Elias: Unlock the door. Now.Martin: I thought you had a key.
  • And later:
  Martin: I just thought I’d, you know, drop a couple of ideas in the old suggestion box. [Picks up a new statement] Turns out my suggestion is… [He lights the statement] Fire.

Season 4

• In Episode 127, Basira goes to see Elias, and at one point tells him to "cut the bullshit" and stop pretending he's not always watching them. He dryly replies, "Sometimes I'm eating."
• Episode 133: Even trapped in a nightmare world of endless choking darkness and crushing weight which has been destroying her mind and will for months, Daisy remains skeptical of Jon's competence. Daisy: Can't...can't move...even if I could, there's no way out...Jon: (proudly) It's okay. I've got a plan! Daisy: ...Is it like all your other plans?
• Later in the same episode, as Daisy tries to find a way to describe her relation to the Hunt, she asks Jon if he knows what the worst part of a case was for her. He doesn't waste a second in replying, "Police brutality lawsuit?" Daisy lets out a laugh at this.
• In Episode 136, Daisy finally tells Jon to stop moping around and feeling so sorry for himself. She tells him to go get some drinks with her, and says she'll ask Basira to come with. Jon doesn't know if Basira will want to come, so Daisy (in her best evil voice) says if she doesn't, she'll rip Basira's throat out. Jon is very scared before Daisy assures him it's a joke.
• Episode 139 shows that, in a darkly comedic way, Agnes's upbringing had shades of this. The statement giver comments that raising a messiah is much more difficult than creating one and calls young Agnes a brat, while mentioning her ability to light people on fire and cultists debating whether she should interact with normal children or focus on her role.
• In Episode 140, Jon has Basira go through his drawers for a pen.Basira: Uh, Jon. What's this?Jon: Hm? Oh! That's...uh...that's my rib.Basira: *Beat* ...Right.
• In Episode 145, Arthur Nolan goes off on a long, increasingly irate tangent about his many, many grievances with his fellow Lightless Flame cultists and has to be nudged back on topic by an annoyed Gertrude Robinson.
• In Episode 150, we learn that since Melanie cannot tell her therapist the full truth about the Magnus Institute, the former only tells the latter that she's in "a bad contract situation working for someplace pretty awful". The therapist thus thinks that Melanie works for the Tories.Jon: [with clear disgust] ...My God.
• In Episode 154, Jon listens to a statement that finally shows him how someone could quit the Magnus archives. His response is a long silence, followed by "Fuck."
  • He then bursts in on Martin, and they proceed to have this conversation:Jon: I think I found a way for us to leave the institute.Martin: Okaaay?Jon: Yeah. But it... it's... it's pretty... drastic.Martin:[laughs] What, you got to gouge your eyes out or something?Jon: [Silence]Martin: Fuck off.
• Episode 156:
  • Adelard Dekker, the closest thing this series has to Van Helsing, accidentally dates himself when he refers to a party as a "rave" which causes the (much younger) statement-giver to look at him funny. And he's clearly still sore over it, because he later grumbles that the party in question sounds like an accident waiting to happen, "but apparently I use the word 'rave' wrong, so what do I know?"
  • Peter enjoys using the powers of the Lonely to jumpscare Martin.Martin: Peter, we have talked about this!Peter: In my defense, it is still quite funny.
• In episode 158, in what is otherwise a very tense situation, Peter Lukas's declaration that it isn't fair he's been beaten by Martin is hilariously petulant, especially combined with Elias telling him he's been played "like a...cheap whistle".
  • Shortly beforehand, when Peter pulls out a book:
  Martin: That's a Leitner.Peter: It is!Martin: And the...blood on it?Peter: [cheerfully] That's Leitner too!
  • From the same episode, Jon's tired "You've gotta be fucking kidding..." when Not-Sasha turns up while Trevor and Julia are approaching.
• We finally learn how Gertrude foiled the Lonely's ritual, which involved the worst apartment block you could possibly think of filled with friendless people. Peter's plan was to make them all steadily more miserable and lonely and then kill all of them when they reached the peak. So Gertrude called up a newspaper and got them to write an article about it, which got a flood of media attention. She kneecapped the Lonely with the power of thinkpieces. Even better, Peter sounds suitably mortified at being drowned in outreach programs and complains that Gertrude didn't even have the decency to kill him.
  • Peter also remarks that it worked because he filled it with white, middle class people, so people actually cared about what happened to them.
• Episode 160: Before everything... well, goes down, Martin gets one of the best lines of the series.Obviously I'm going to tell you if I see any good cows.
• The 2019 live show, a sort of prequel to the podcast in which Jon settles in with his new job and reads the first two statements ("Angler Fish" and "Do Not Open"):
  • Jon entering his office (Gertrude's old office) for the first time and asking about what happened to Gertrude:Jon: There were a lot of rumors floating around Research, obviously. According to them, she died at this very desk.[Beat]Jon: Oh. Right.
  • The Liveshow also gives us insight into why Jon hated Martin so much when they first started working together: Martin accidentally let a dog into the Archives on his first day. It got worse from there, apparently.Jon: I’m sorry, Tim, I, I interrupted you –Tim: Oh, uh, yes, uh – mm. Hypothetically… What would you say, if I said that there was a… dog. Situation. In the Archives.Jon: I would ask if it was getting worse?Tim: (relaxing) Okay, alright, cool, so, right–Jon: Tim.Tim: Hypothetically–Jon: Tim.Tim: I – Yeah, yeah, there’s a dog situation in the Archives. There’s a – there’s a mess –[Jon sighs heavily.]Tim: (cont) Of the… doggy variety.

Season 5

• Episode 161: Elias/Jonah crashes Jon's birthday party...because his omniscience let him know there would be cake. Even eldritch-abomination-serving masterminds have their weaknesses...
• Episode 163:
  • While Jon and Martin running for cover in the Trench is definitely not funny, Martin cursing "shit, shit, shit" while they do it is a bit funny.
  • Jon needs to record some rather nasty stuff about their current surroundings that Martin doesn't want to hear. Before starting, he tests whether Martin successfully blocked him out by insulting him.
  Jon: Martin, I hate your tea, and wish you made coffee instead.
• Episode 164: Helen makes an appearance, and openly gushes about how adorable Jon and Martin are, much to Jon's annoyance. Martin, however, maintains a polite and pleasant demeanor with her.Helen: I always knew you crazy kids would make it work!Martin: Thanks!Jon: Martin...
  • Then, after she's gone:Martin: Maybe she's right.Jon: I am not, nor have I ever been "adorable."Martin: Okay, not true...
• Episode 165:
  • It's just so bizarrely funny when Jon reveals that he used to ride on a merry-go-round at London Zoo, and that he was in a 'bad place' mentally, while Martin fondly ribs him for it...all while there's the sounds of the gargantuan carousel created by the Stranger going on in the background, complete with familiar spooky calliope music and faint screams galore.
  • Also in Episode 165, Jon and Martin joke about the fact that the Stranger's statement was in verse (primarily iambic pentameter). Martin expresses an interest in hearing the poem, just to see what the Stranger's style is.
  • Mixes with Awesome, but there is something darkly funny about the whole Not!Sasha confrontation. Once Jon calls out Not!Sasha on her inability to actually attack them, she throws what amounts to a villainous tantrum, whining about how all the fear she can create is ruined by the Beholding. When Jon makes to leave, she makes the critical error of once again mocking her murder of Sasha... and seems to instantly regret her decision. After Jon kills her, rather than be horrified or disgusted, Martin seems genuinely impressed and proud.
• In Episode 166, set in a domain of the buried, Martin gets annoyed about how much time they're spending on "scary mud".The scary mud takes offense, and Martin hastily apologizes as dozens of screaming voices come from below him.
  • Later, after Martin has had an annoyingly vague phone call with Annabelle Cane, the scary mud starts stirring again, almost as if to comment on it.Martin: I know, right?
• Episode 168 starts off with Jon's realization that Martin is jealous of Oliver Banks. Oliver Banks, the sleep-deprived death prophet who interacted with Jon exactly once (waking him from his coma).
  • This exchange,
  Jon: [amused] I'm not going to kill a man just because you're jealous, Martin.Martin: Why not? [Beat] Yeah, I know, I know, I know.[another beat]Martin: Pleeease?
• Episode 174 is full of existential dread, right up until Simon comes along. Simon is immensely powerful in his Domain, and Jon muses that if he doesn't want to be caught, he won't be. Martin doesn't even finish cracking a joke about him showing up to his own execu—[sounds of something falling and crash-landing hard] Simon: Hello, dreadfully sorry. Only just noticed you were both here!
  • He calls the Great Beast "Junior".
  • His little "byeeeeeee" as he flies off (after inviting Jon to visit when he's feeling "less murdery").
  • Helen has her share this episode too, first with the reveal she's been treating Jon and Martin's murder-adventures as post-apocalypse reality tv (one gets the impression she's watching with a big bowl of bizarro popcorn), then with her attempt to convince Jon that he should kill Simon because it's fun.
  Martin: You're not helping!Helen: [cheerily] I'm not trying to!
• In Episode 175's statement, Jon (and thus, by extension, possibly the Eye or the Extinction themselves) spends nearly three minutes of his statement ranting furiously at an old umbrella. "Stupid umbrella."
  • The nature of this domain has finally brought with it something to sit down on, and Martin, being worn out, takes the opportunity, stubbornly defending his decision right up until he sits. Given what the Extinction's accommodations are, it's very clear it's disgusting and he'd rather have just remained standing, but he won't admit it.
• In Episode 176 Jon and Martin are reunited with Basira. Jon takes all of a second to fall back into his deadpan sarcasm dynamic with her.Basira: [holding them at gunpoint] Prove you're real.Martin: What? You mean like... pinch you or...?Basira: Prove you're really Martin Blackwood.Martin: How?!Jon: [dryly] You could do a poem.
  • How does Jon finally convince Basira that he's the real Jon? By demonstrating that he's still a "know-it-all prick".
  Basira: If you were monsters, that would mean I’d finally get to kill something with your smug face. No way am I that lucky.
• In Episode 180, the duo are walking through a Necropolis, and decide to play a game of I Spy. Martin sees something beginning with a T (A Tomb!), which Jon guesses, and takes great offense at the implication he cheated. His turn? "I spy, with my little eye... LITERALLY EVERYTHING". MARTIN LAUGHS THE ARCHIVIST LAUGHS A NEARBY TOMB LAUGHS
• In Episode 181, Jon tries to use his Compelling Voice power to get Mikaele Salesa to tell them how he got to have the sanctuary he lives in... and he responds with a pointed "No", informing Jon that the house is in a blind spot for the Beholding and he doesn't have his powers there. Mikaele is greatly amused by the befuddled look on Jon's face, and Martin gets a good laugh out of it too, saying it looks like he just failed an exam.
  • Also, the deliberately stilted way Mikaele repeats Jon's full job title of "Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London".
  • In the same episode, Jon asks if Salesa knows that Annabelle is a servitor of the Web. Salesa sarcastically responds that he thought "the thread holding her head together was due to a childhood knitting accident."
• The tour of the hospital in episode 182 is oddly humorous, with Jane Doe's persistent upbeat mannerisms (and her odd, disconnected speech) and Martin quietly freaking out the whole time.Jane: We have a canteen!Jon: [quietly, to Martin] Don't ask about the canteen.Martin: [angrily] I wasn't going to ask about the canteen!
• Episode 183 is very darkly funny, particularly when the Doctor and the Professor start bickering. The Doctor: You're still working on mineral theory? How painfully outdated.
  • This is then followed by, as the transcript puts it, "[sounds of brutal peer review]" (in other words, the professor beating the doctor to death).
  • Earlier in the episode, Helen blows a raspberry in response to something Jon and Martin say. Just the idea of Helen doing something so juvenile is at least worth a chuckle.
• In Episode 190, Melanie and Martin realize that they never actually got to know each other, what with all the plot going down, and decide to work on that.Martin: So, what do you do?Melanie: Oh, I'm actually one of the prophets chosen to walk the end times unscathed. Yourself?Martin: Oh, I'm the Antichrist's plus-one.
  • After Georgie and Melanie discover that tape recorders are popping up, since Jon is here, we get a montage of a new tape recorder starting up while Georgie is smashing the old one, over and over again, to no avail. The stark image of Spongebob smashing Squidward's alarm clocks comes to mind.
• Annebelle Cane tells Martin that, in her original plan, she was going to fill him with spiders. She keeps talking, but Martin keeps trying to circle back to the spider thing, just to be absolutely certain.
• The interm between Annabelle restraining Martin in webs and Jon and Basira reaching Hill Top Road has its share, mainly because of how annoyed Martin is at the whole situation.Annabelle: [smiling] On edge, are we?Martin: Of course I am! You’ve stuck me in a weird interdimensional web, and threatened to fill me with spiders!Annabelle: No. I said I had “considered” filling you with spiders.Martin: Yeah, whatever. The point is there was a time when it was very much your go-to option!
  • Also, at one point, Annabelle reveals she considered starting a kid's TV show. Martin does not quite know what to do with this information.
• Jon, Martin and Basira climbing a ladder to scale a mountain in a domain of the Vast in Episode 198 has some funny moments. When they reach the peak and have to jump off of it to proceed, they start to sound like a group of friends on a road trip gone bad.
  • Jon trying to reassure Martin when he almost falls:Jon: Martin, would it help to know that if you do fall, you’ll be okay?Martin: Define "okay".Jon: I, uh— You wouldn’t die.Martin: Yeah, but it would still hurt, wouldn’t it?Jon: Uh, yes. But not as much as th-Martin: And, crucially, it would still feel like I’m falling an incredible distance. Wouldn’t it?Jon: I mean, you would still be falling an incredible distance. You just wouldn’t die when you hit the bottom.Martin: Yeah, and there it is.Basira: Oh, I have missed your pep-talks.
  • When Jon suddenly finds himself needing to make a statement:Basira: You couldn’t have made a statement before we got on the ladder?
  • You feel for the guy, but Martin despairing over his two choices of how to proceed when Jon needs to make a statement and they are at the top of the ladder: either jump off the ladder right away (since they won't die because of how reality works now) or be stuck listening to him and then jump anyway. When he finally gives up and jumps, he wails on the way down in a way that brings Goofy's usual falling scream to mind.Martin: This is obviously, like, a wrong turn, or something.Basira: It's a ladder, Martin.Martin: Yes, I know, Basira, but somehow we've still managed it!

Other Patreon feed

• The Patreon exclusive feed features two episodes of Georgie's "What The Ghost" podcastnote Later released to the public feed... complete with fake stereotypical podcast ads, which Georgie reads extremely reluctantly.
  • One of the sponsors is "Sparks Fly", a dating site that is pretty clearly run by the Beholding:Georgie: [reading the ad, shocked] "Sparks Fly: privacy is just another word for loneliness"?!
  • The ad for "Webley", an internet service clearly ran by the Web, ends with Georgie reading "Please personalize ad-copy for-" before realizing she wasn't supposed to read that.
  • One sponsor is for a meat subscription service which Georgie reads with very forced enthusiasm, after which she reminds the listeners that she's a vegetarian. Melanie likes it, but recalls that she's on the road to becoming a Transhuman Abomination embodying violence at this point.
• One bonus episode features a statement read by Jurgen Leitner, who's helping Gertrude around the archives. He does a good enough job, but spends a bit at the start complaining about Gertrude's filing system and date marking, before giving up and saying it just takes place "sometime" in 2010.

MAG Fluff A collection of short, non-horrific and more comedic scenes from the lives of the Archive team. Originally picked from a writing competition held by Rusty Quill in late 2019.

• In the first episode, "Epiphany", Tim realizes that Martin has a crush because he was gazing dreamily into space and gently stroking the rim of his teacup...during an invasion of the institute by The Corruption.
• The second episode, "Expenses", has Elias go through some of Tim's recent expense reports and calls him to his office to ask about them.
  • The first point of inquiry is for a kebab lunch Tim and Martin had while out on a stakeout, which led to both of them getting food poisoning and needing to take time off from work. Tim starts to get into details, but Elias stops him, saying Martin already gave a... comprehensive account when he filed for leave.
  • "Cronuts. Really..."
• In the third episode, "In the Public Eye", Jon, Martin and Tim talk about the Archives team being forced to take over the Institute's Twitter account for a while. When they discuss branching out to other social media websites, Jon gets particularly put off when Tim informs them that Sasha has already reserved an account name on Instagram because he dreads the idea of having to glam up statements or research:Jon: If any of you tell Elias about Instagram or, God forbid, Vine, I will end you. Is that clear?
  • As Jon leaves, Tim tells Martin that he once came across Elias on Goodreads, and that he apparently mostly reads romantic novels (a nod to Ben Meredith's character on Rusty Quill Gaming, who got into romance novels at one point in the story).
  • Artifact storage have put up a #HauntedDollWatch tag. Martin nervously notices the image is moving, and Jon dismissively tells him not to worry. That's not even close to what haunted dolls look like when they move.
• The fifth episode, "Bargain Hunting", has Daisy bring along Martin on a shopping trip to help her find a birthday gift for Basira, having mapped out the shopping center they're in into sections and conducting the search like she's hunting a fugitive.
  • Even funnier if you stop to think about it: finding a good birthday present is so hard for Daisy that it makes her, a servant of The Hunt, the Power whose hallmark is a tendency towards obsessive, relentless pursuits, give up.