Mike: How DARE you compel me you have no power here Mike: Anyway, here's my whole story

Jon's power is just unwilling therapist and no one can tell me otherwise-

Basira coming in clutch with the last four brain cells

I know most people had found Jon's powers to be kind of underwhelming but I find it cute how these murderers possessed with dangerous powers just spill their secrets like it's therapy.

why is it that jon is constantly being beaten up by michaels

1) Fall in love with Mike instantly. 2) Be sad.

Everyone’s talking about poor Jon and stuff, but god Mike is such a cool character

I was NOT expecting Mike's voice to be like that at all.

The voice acting in this episode is great, Jon sounded like he was geniunely in pain and it made me so sad. This boy has no clue whats going on, he can apparently mind control people, and he keeps getting the snot kicked out of him by everyone he knows

I REALLY REALLY HATE JON GETTING HURT

Between Michael and Michael, ONLY ONE CAN REMAIN...

i LOVE that we’re talking directly to characters whose names we’ve heard over and over or at least who have been relevant to several statements this is so good

I think I understand now. Elias can know stuff he shouldnt and Jon can make anyone share what they know. The eye watches, the eye seeks and the eye, R E C O R D S.

oh my god jon u can't just ask people how they got their scars (but seriously please stop hurting jon)

"Anyway, here's freefall..." "Do you mean Wonderwall?" "No"

Mike’s affable, but there was something wrong with his moral compass even before he became an avatar. His offhandedness about his parents’ deaths and his willingness to kill in search of Leitners is chilling.

Mike seems like he retained a lot of his human personality and memories, interesting!

Not gonna lie, as soon as Mike opened his mouth my himbo alarm bells went off.

oh the wonderful sound of mike getting slapped across his stupid smug face. excellent

Enjoy Ground Brown, Mike!

Mike actually seemed like a really likable guy. You just had to go and shoot him...

The Magnus Archives Come for the episodic cosmic horror, stay for the mystery and character drama. I love this.

Wow, so Daisy really has this one killing place in the woods. There must be some hidden graves by now then. Poor Jon. More trauma for him.

Why does everyone have to hurt John? Like he's not even dangerous, it's like beating a curious cat. I get Daisy's train of thought but does she really look at John and see a murderer? I could kick her ass. Glad she beat Michael considering he's killed people but...I still feel bad he died.

Can we at least have a healthy wholesome moment for Jon where he's not in a place of distress and/or nearly getting killed, please? Just for once? No?

Aah. The... The Freaky Mind Controlling Eye Powers come in here.

Jon my baby boy are you ok please stop hurting my precious little man. I want to wrap him in a soft blanket and bring him tea so he’s safe and ok because I love him oh dear god. Edit: I think Martin possessed me sorry

When Jon says "Why are you doing this? Tell me!" to Daisy, there's a little bit of static, damn

Man... Just like Leitner, they introduce one of the characters I'm most interested in, then they killed him off immediately. At least Mike Crew didn't disappoint.

Mike is just "yeah I've committed those crimes heheh" **pours a cup of tea** "want some? :)” I can't think about him otherwise

That little whistling sound mike made when talking...it was very well made. God i love this podcast

Can they stop hurting Jon now, please? :'( These are amazing but also ouch. I came here for the horror, not to end up having *feelings*.

I don't like Daisy and you can FIGHT me on this she is literally so awful to Jon

Mike Crew could throw me off a tower in Paris and i'd thank him.

Oh God I can't the voice acting in this episode is absolutely tragic, Jon just being in absolute pain is so chilling I really wanna give him hug.

Jon at parties must be like "haha yeah this scar I got when my friend tried to slit my throat lmao" like BRUH PLEASE STOP BEATING HIM UP FOR FUN (edit/spoilers?) I finished tma so far and Jon has officially been dubbed the avatar punching bag

Jonathan and Elias. Both work for the institute. Both are working to preserve information. But there is an important distinction between them. Elias takes what should be freely given. And Jon simply asks.

im really glad they always state outright who people are cause i cant tell mike's and tim's voices apart at all

This episode messed me up way more than any other. I think it's because getting kidnapped and murdered is a lot more realistic than most things that happen in this story and also because so much information was revealed. It's wild to think that Jonathan would have this ability and have no clue about any of it.

ok i refuse to believe mike is dead. after the tape cut off basira took the cop car and hightailed it straight to the hospital where he remains for the rest of the series recovering after that bastard shot him.

For a guy who obviously thought he was hot shit Mike went down rather easy. Then again, sounds like the Hunt got Daisy.

I can handle Jon in pain...I can't handle Jon being terrified. wtf Daisy

The sudden turn of events in the end made me laugh, feel sad, and terrified of what Daisy have done XD --- Daisy: "Does he need to see you to do it? Does he need to speak?" Jon: "I-I-I don’t know." Daisy: "Okay." [Proceeds to further destroy Michael Crew] *Daisy: "Doubt he can do it in a coma."* --- Heck, even the last part * W * She just killed Michael, and made Jon bury him.

I don't know if it's so much that Jon's power is "weak" as he hasn't been using it long enough to break it. Imagine holding up a dangerous Lietner and saying "What does this book say? Tell me the whole text exactly as it reads"

Poor Jon. He does not deserve any of this

The episode: 💀🪦👹 The comments: 💕👀😍 Every time

oh jon, he needs a break

RIP Mike, his character was so cool.

"-sigh... And I was trying, so hard, to be polite..." WOOOW I freaked out it was so powerful !!!

full honesty,,, daisy scares me in a bad way. like she's very traumatized and i get that i'm trying to give her benefit of doubt because she isn't trying to wreck everyone's shit or w/e but she just. reminds me of people and idk how to feel abt her??

Daisy: *choking Jon* Me: NOOOO!! 😫😫

When everyone else figures out you have some sort of superpower and you’re still clueless and trying to breath

Well, that was stressful.

Jon- being rude to things that can kill him since 2016

Jon's little whimper of pain 😢

Someone give Jon a hug please he needs one

I love how we’re basically given a guide to know which entity we would serve

jons just not having good time good lord. Someone hug him please, literally every new person he meets tries to kill or harm him.

Well... F for Mike Crew, I guess.

"I'm not usually the soul for speeches" So like the archivists can really make people speak huh...

Is it that the archivist has the power of getting people to confess or is it the tape recorders?

Daisy beats a man into a coma asmr

Hope you’re free falling forever in Vast heaven, king! M a n I wish we couldn’t had more of Mike :((

The fact that Michael went on that whole eliquintly worded story without Jon using his archivist powers says alot about how well spoken he is.

Damn she made quick work of that lol mad respect

I love the approach of building up these characters across statements, and just casually introducing them for a short time.

Mike seemed pretty cool, I wish he stayed for a bit more longer. He was really interesting. He got defeated by Daisy pretty easy, but he probably didn't expect some human to kill him.

Oooof, that rushing noise as Mike did the thing. O.o Also, he's somehow the most chill of all the odd-balls we've met at this point.

The episodes concerning The Vast have always been some of my favorites, is it weird that I'm kinda sad that Mike is dead now? Next to the Boneturner Jared, Mike's power is definitely one of the coolest in the series in my opinion. He's so. . . blase about everything that he's done that makes it chilling in a very interesting way. The Fire lady was horrifying because of how much joy she took in it, whereas Mike seems indifferent to it in a strange way.

Okay I _just_ reconciled with the fact that they killed off Leitner in the same episode where he first spoke and now they just did it again?? Mike was so likeable 😭

Mike really is like "Dude I try to be nice why >:c"

Until she started hurting Jon I was really fond of Alice smh. I kinda still am but boi if she hurts Jon again I will cri :') I really feel bad for him tho. He has no idea what the fuck is going on, and he keeps getting dragged into dangerous situations and getting hurt and it's not fair.

Don't be mean to poor Jon...

I genuinely think Jon’s powers are cool like I would love to have mind control that makes people tell the truth and stuff, and also rip Mike 😔

(SPOILER for this episode) I was loving Mike so much, I wish he could stick around for longer :(

Jon: I've been falling... for thirty minutes!

When I first listened to this episode yesterday I didn't realize that daisy had the blunt knife to Jon's neck around 15:54 (English is not my mother tongue) and it took me an animatic for me to realize that's what happened. I'm writing this to help anyone else that had the same confusion as I. Language is hard... Daisy did sound cool saying it, and Jonny's acting was fantastic.

Amazing voice acting and sound effects in this episode. The illusion of falling is achieved very vividly--seriously impressive to do that with just audio.

I am sad for Mike I think? Ok, he killed a few people to feed upon, but outside of this, he seemed like a nice guy! Giving himself to the Vast was his last option, and it seems he was desperate at the time. Maybe is he not human anymore, but not so much of a monster either.

I hate Daisy with my whole body

sometimes I play minecraft while listening to tma, and I just found a lot of items I thought had despawned! yay!

whewwwww ugh i love daisy so much but also BASIRA

10:37 In Soviet Russia the book reads you. At first I thought it was Basira who came to save him from Mike and warn him about Daisy being on the warpath. Then I realised it was Daisy, but she was not murdering him right away, so I was okay with that. And then she goes on and proceeds to strangle my boy?! Not on my watch, scary murderous police lady who I won't stand a chance against in a fight! Put the smol baby Archivist gently on the ground and step away with your hands in the air! I have a Basira up my sleeve, and I won't hesitate to use them!

Currently at 5:30 and what the fuck. Jon can seriously magically compel people to answer his questions. Creepy as shit.

[CLICK] MIKE You’re sure I can’t get you a cup of tea? ARCHIVIST Uh, it-it’s fine, really. MIKE Okay. You just seem a bit… jumpy, is all. ARCHIVIST Oh, I just, er… Coming in I thought… It’s fine. MIKE Grand. Er, okay, what can I do for you? [SOUNDS OF TEA BEING MADE] ARCHIVIST Er… You’re… you’re Michael Crew, right? MIKE It’s Mike, please. ARCHIVIST Right. [SPOON NOISES] [Leadingly] I’m from the Magnus Institute. MIKE Oh, you, uh, yeah, you said. ARCHIVIST I, er… I read… You feature in some of our statements! MIKE Oh. Statements of what? ARCHIVIST You… There was, there was a book? Er, two of them, at least. Er… Ex Altiora, The Boneturner’s Tale. You, uh, I think you threw a guy off a skyscraper in Paris. MIKE Hmm. Last chance for that cup of tea. ARCHIVIST I… Where did you get that scar? [LONG SIGH AS THE SOUND OF RUSHING AIR RISES] MIKE And I was trying so hard to be polite. [THE ARCHIVIST ATTEMPTS A SCREAM BUT TO NO AVAIL] Hard, isn’t it, trying to ask prying questions at terminal velocity? The air… it doesn’t… leave your lungs like you expect it to. I mean, I know you’re still sat down, you know you’re still sat down. But whether your body knows it when I decide you hit the ground, that’s… that’s something I haven’t made my mind up about, yet. A little bit of privacy. Is that really so much to ask? I suppose it is, isn’t it? From you and yours at least. We have a lot in common, really. After all, what, what good’s the height, the terrifying draw of gravity, unless you, unless you really know the scale of what you’re facing? Maybe I’ll let you live, allow you to drag yourself back down to your den, but… you need to learn some respect. MIKE (STATEMENT) My scar, wasn’t it? Always the scar. Ironic, in some ways, because that was one the few marks that was only really ever physical. I got it when I was struck by lightning, age of eight. I was playing outside with a friend of mine, and the storm just came on quickly. That’s really all there was to it. Have you ever been struck by lightning? No. No, of course not. Not unless that’s what happened to your hand, but I’m guessing that burn came from sticking it somewhere it wasn’t wanted. And you still didn’t learn. Well, imagine a white-hot, stinging pain, your whole body becoming rigid, like for an eternal moment you’re frozen, you’re trapped in a statue of yourself with a thousand needles of agony just erupting through you from the inside out. I don’t know if it’s the most painful thing that can happen to the human body, but… beyond a certain point trying to quantify and measure pain, it becomes pointless. That point is being struck by lighting. The part that always bothered me was how I didn’t remember it. Not really. The sensation’s still vivid enough, but it exists in my mind completely detached from any actual memory. I remember the feeling, but not the event. One moment I’m playing amid raindrops the size of blueberries, and the next I’m in a white hospital bed, that acrid smell still surrounding me, and these lines of agony just carved through my skin. The doctors told me there would be no long-term damage from my accident. They, they were wrong, of course, but the damage wasn’t something they could see, so how were they to know? Sitting alone in my room, tracing the lines of electricity with my finger, imagining my pain travelling these branching pathways. I was obsessed with it, and every time my finger reached the end of the line I felt a jolt of fear, because I, I knew they went further, went deeper than would show on my skin. By age ten I was reading everything I could on what had happened to me. Electricity, Lichtenberg’s experiments, meteorology. My parents thought it was simply my way of recovering, of processing my trauma, but there was something else there. I know that now. Did you know that Lichtenberg figures are fractals? I didn’t, not back then, but as they travelled along the length of my scars, I sometimes think like my fingertips could feel it. When I was twelve, curled under my bed to escape the pounding of the rain against my window, the roll of thunder that just rattled my skull, I began to travel them once again. My hands ran down and along those jagged, discoloured lines, every branch, every turn, my nostrils full of ozone, my veins full of fear. And they didn’t stop. I knew where my scars ended, but… those I traced in the dark that night, they just went on and on and on, far beyond me and to somewhere that still flashed with that unspeakable white light. That was the night everything changed. Before it I was odd, certainly, probably traumatised, and gripped with a terror of storms, but after that night, things were different. I think, looking back, that was when I called it. That was when it caught my scent. It delighted in toying with my perceptions, making me believe a storm was approaching, forcing me to run for shelter or desperately hunt for cover without warning. In the dark it would stand beneath my bedroom window, the light flaring, flashing the awful brightness of sheet lightning across my room. I could never look directly at it. The bright, arcing glow of its insides almost blinded me when I tried. It was almost a man, but I could never be sure. Its strobing, flashing Lichtenberg organs changed and flickered too fast. It… never hurt me. Not once in all the years I was chased by its… malevolence. Of course, I know why that is now, but at the time it did nothing to dull my fear. I remember when it found out where I lived. I had dreamed that night of shifting, branching avenues of light. I travelled them so fast I could feel my flesh peeling away, leaving nothing but the coursing, buzzing pain within me as I ran down these hideous corridors, aching for an end I knew simply wasn’t there. I woke up screaming into the darkness. Walking to the window, I looked out over the tiny garden below. I was sixteen at the time, and the house I lived in had a small patch of green behind it, just fighting against the pressing grey of the city, the dull glow of the light pollution overhead. But where the back wall should have been, there was a small wooden gate. I didn’t feel the cold as I opened the back door, and walked out towards it. My… my tormentor was nowhere to be seen, but the blackened edges of the gate showed clearly it had passed by. Was I afraid? It’s hard to remember now, but I have to assume that I was. I mean, I must have been. As I pushed the ancient hinges back to reveal this darkened forest, how could I not have been?

I had mixed feelings about Daisy before but after she did Mike dirty I think I have formed a pretty solid opinion :)

God, with each episode I want this to be a TV series more and more

This whole time in my mind Mikke was this grand force to be reckoned with, when we finally meet him he's small talking it up with John and offering tea. I definitely felt exactly like him at that point ngl lmao.

Wtf daisy i actually wanted to see more of mike, i really liked him :((

Its literally not even Jon's fault that he has to do this and everyone keeps roasting him 😭

honestly, i know its clear jon has the power to make people talk, but im just convinced that it is infact because none of these people understand how regular conversations work and have never spoken to any good listeners before

Reminds me of Stormy Eyed in Fallen London. Such a terrifying, beautiful obsession. So easy to lose one's self in. But to sacrifice others?

15:44 “Why are you doing this?! TELL ME.” He’s finally trying to use his powers:D

JON NEEDS A HUG OR SOMETHING JEEZ

Was gutted to press like as it sat at 111... I like repeating numbers 🤣 fabulous work

Mickey Crew sounded so unbothered 😭 [EDIT: WTF NOOOOOOO]

Mikes character is so good like yes.

!!!!!!! THANK YOU, BASIRA!!! (Also...loved loved loved listening to Mike's story. His powers are modt terrifying.)

The Storm is already here, Magnus.

I’m so sad mike is dead. His power was so cool