u/GronkTheGreat

I was going to wait a little longer to post again BUT there was a lot going on in my head for some of these and I really, really didn't want to forget these things. So I'm making it now.

Of course, please no spoilers. That includes telling me or hinting that I'm right or wrong about these theories. The fun is in the mystery!

I actually went through a spoiler free guide and a fandom wiki avout these episodes to remind myself of any forgotten details.

22, Colony

Not much to say here, just want to keep in mind "the archivist's crimson fate" which seems very clearly tied to "Antonio's" statement (Dreamer) where Gertrude died horribly (rest in peace queen) and also relates to a future episode that I'll get to in a second.

23, Schwartzwald

I think what old Tobias meant by "without being seen" is the symbol of the eye that Albrecht saw on the marble book shelves inside the mausoleum. The coin's initial's clearly stand for "Johann von Württemberg." If he is a real historical figure like the military guy, I'm a little scared to look him up out of fear of spoilers. Anyways, whether or not the eyeless man is Johann, I think the eyes on the marble shelves are his actual eyes. He sees through them. He saw Tobias's friend and his mother, and did uh. Something. To them.

I tried to think really hard about the book Albrecht found. It being in Arabic, and the episode's heavy association with eyes (like all the other episodes lol) makes me wonder if the book is about "evil eyes." It's this thing in Arabic culture, there are good eyes and evil eyes. The good eyes protect you from harm (some Arabs have good eyes on their clothes and accessories). Perhaps the book is some sort of guide to the eyes in the chapel. Too bad they don't have it now.

I can't believe I almost forgot the details of the Keay family being descendants of Albrecht's nephew. Looks like supernatural stuff has been with this family for a long, long time. Their very own Dio.

25, Growing Dark

Ok, so Natalie is in the same cult as Julia's parents were. This is clear. I think she was trying to invite the creature that caused the darkness that was chasing Julia when she was a kid (or maybe the entity is somehow the darkness itself). But it doesn't make any sense if Julia's father was trying to protect her from it, if in reality he's supposed to worship it or something. Maybe he and his wife were traitors. Maybe that's why she died? She was killed? "Hither Green Dissenters" makes me think so, there's people who dissent to whatever the hell the people in the Hither Green chapel were doing.

It reminds me of the ETO from The Three Body Problem, there's a faction that wants the aliens to eliminate humanity entirely, and there's a faction that believes both species could survive. The factions were of course at odds. I wonder if that's it. If Julia's parents and Natalie were associated with different factions of the same cult. I don't know if it means anything, but Natalie's drawing was only a closed eye (whether this is a representation of her faction or the dissenters, I dont know. A closed eye would have to do with darkness which she is clearly rooting for, though) and Julia's mother's pendant had a closed eye on the palm of a hand. Usually when someone holds out their hand like that, it means stop. Stopping them from closing people's eyes (plunging them into darkness)?

I hadn't noticed it, but someone in the comments of that episode said "Mr. Pitch" was like the phrase pitch black dark. From the way she talked about it, Mr. Pitch does seem like the entity Natalie is worshipping. The fact that she went missing though....I wonder if she fell to the same fate Julia's father was protecting her from.

Another thing regarding the name of the cult, "The People's Church of the Divine Host" is kind of a really weird freaking name? Host? Host for what? Who's the host? What is the criteria for being the host? What are the consequences of being the host? How do they choose the host? Does it have to be someone in the cult, or would an outsider do?

At least there's something here that I CAN be sure of, it's that this cult is directly responsible for Gertrude's death, the poor woman. Whether they did it or if it was Mr. Pitch, I'm not sure. Whatever the reason for this, I don't think Gertrude was supposed to be the host. Then they would've accomplished what they needed and wouldn't be after Jonathan. They're either eliminating the archivists for having access to information they fear (I feel like this one is unlikely, because simply burning down the building would solve this problem just fine) or there's something spiritually special about the archivists that the cult needs for something. Maybe Gertrude just "wasn't enough" and they needed Jon too.

26, A Distortion

Right off the bat, the creature's appearance made me think of the one from Across the Street, ESPECIALLY the fact that it was repeatedly described to be blonde. Just like how Not-Graham was blonde. I don't know what to call this guy, but I'll put him into a species I'll just call Not-Names.

Then there's the fact that the creature wanted Sasha (who turned out to be a woman and not a slavic man lol) to call it Michael. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Where have I heard that name? What's the KEY to solving this riddle? Any name. ANY name in the world and it went with Michael. WHY??? Michael is Gerard's grandpa and was also a middle aged man that some other guy knew when he was a young child? And also now an identity-stealing demonic monster? What?

I also recognized the name Harriet Lee from the wiki as the same one from Freefall. I don't really know if this means anything. She was associated with some demonic backrooms-esque story and then was eaten inside out by worms like Timothy. Presumably.

28, Skintight

It's so nice to see Angler Fish here! I thought it wasn't going to be relevant again. It's my favorite monster so far so I'm really happy that it's back. Sarah Baldwin, being one of its victims has this strange relationship with it. I truly wondered if she was a Not-Name, but I can't be sure. It sort of feels like Angler Fish is something separate from that, but I have no idea why. Anyways, I didn't forget about the skin thing. I'm not even sure if this is really Sarah or something else wearing her skin. She didn't know she was going to the creature (supposed) lair at the hospital despite Melanie telling her that repeatedly. Mind in another realm? Literally or figuratively?

29, Cheating Death

I wondered if Sarah died and did something similar to Nathaniel, which explains whh her skin just kinda fell off and she stapled it back on just fine. But that doesn't explain why she has this weird master-slave thing going on with the thing that killed her in the first place, and Nathaniel only got his flesh recently despite being what he is for 200 years, so it's unlikely that she's in a similar predicament as he is.

31, First Hunt

I was very happy to hear a statement that occured in a different country. I hope they do even more foreign statements in the future. Anyways, I knew shit was gonna go down when I heard they were near Appalachia. I thought the creature was a skinwalker, but apparently it's another cryptid called whistling man? I heard that if you're in Appalachia, never move or make a sound when you hear random whistling. Scary!

32, Hive

And I thought Carlos was crazy. She's not so different from how I am when I theorize about this podcast. Her weird, rambling thoughts made me wonder how much of her wrote this down. How much of it was Jane and not the worms. I truly believe they were in her brain, their thoughts were getting mixed with hers. And they became one with her. At least she has the connection she wanted now?

33, Boatswain's Call

So the captain is a part of the Lukas family, and so is the guy who owns the company that the boat belongs to. More human sacrifice but I don't know what it was all for. The crew seemed to be aware and it looks like they even assumed that Carlita knew what was going on. At least Kim Dwong did. Sean also seemed to know what was happening, or anticipated it. Why else would he be so terrified? The fact that the crew was so quiet made me think whatever it was they were scared of was there. It was listening.

34, Anatomy Class

Alright, last one! I have no idea why, but this was just so...funny to me. I think the students were junior Not-Names. Still figuring things out. No idea what they're doing, they name themselves things like "Anonymous the Anonymousy" and they don't even know that humans audibly breathe. They're so oblivious to these things that it's kinda endearing, even though the whole reason they want to learn is probably to kill and eat people. But can you blame them for wanting to survive?

They weren't trying to kill or harm or even scare Lionel. They just wanted to learn which is kinda. Cute? I'm not sure, it's just that the thought of horrific hellish demonic entities learning how to be human from a regular college professor is just so amusing and hilarious to me. I never believed they were going to hurt or kill him in some way, even when they were done with him. I think they were grateful. The apple was a genuine gesture of gratitude. It's like when cats bring their owners dead animals. I even think the thing with the blood was a nice little gesture from them. They felt bad for making a mess in his tutorial room and cleaned it all up so the professor doesn't have to worry about it. Awwww

Anyways, it seems they have the ability to produce biological tissue at will. Which is an awesome power. Wish I could do that. I want to talk about the teeth in the apple, though.

So, let's say, these guys were really bad at making teeth, and that's not good because humans like to do this thing called smiling, where they show each other their teeth. Ya can't show off your teeth if they look all wrong! With a set of teeth like that, not one human would let you eat their delicious livers! So, they try to find a "muse" to base their teeth off of. They find some random tooth, or take it, and they model their teeth based off of it. They do this hundreds and hundreds of times, making sure they can make teeth that look exactly like it so when the time comes, they can have perfect smiles that would fool any human.

They managed to replicate it perfectly many times, but there's just one problem. One of them looked up human smiles so they could learn to do it right, but when they looked closely, they saw that all the teeth were different! The Not-Names, all sad and hungry, took their hundreds of teeth that they worked so hard to perfect, and threw them away at the home of what they want to be their next meal. Old people don't taste all that good, but who else is weak enough to be easily captured and eaten?

While they're sad and don't know where to find more teeth, a Hue-Mann that goes by Alan and collects Hue-Mann things in Hue-Mann bags shows up looking for them. The day is saved! Not only do they have an entire set of pearly whites to replicate, but also tasty human liver!

So, as they're digging liver out of Alan's body and replicating teeth, their beloved professor comes by to say hello. They're so happy that they can make teeth now, they can finally partake in the human tradition of "smiling" and show off all those diverse, anatomically accurate teeth. Then, after he leaves, they all get the idea to surprise him! The professor has been working so hard to teach them what People looks like and is made of, he even taught them that humans like to very loudly exchange gases in their bodies. They do not understand this but do it anyways. What People would want to give their delicious livers to someone who doesn't breathe?

To show just how much they appreciate their teacher, they decide to show off what they managed to learn about the human body all on their own. They make teeth in the apple, all different shapes and sizes, and in all the right places as they would be in a human mouth, and leave it for good old Dr. Lionel.

The End!

Edit: Another thing, I believe the reason Lionel couldn't remember their faces was because their faces kept changing. Not so much that he'd notice, just slightly. They'd change them every now and then based on the professor's face, on the cadaver's faces, etc. So everytime he tried to think of how they looked, it was blurry because the different faces from his memories would all come together in his mind. I remember Joshua said the same thing about John fro Do Not Open. Interesting but there's hardly enough evidence to try and claim he's a Not-Name too.

Hi, I'm a first-time listener and I'm really enjoying TMA, but I want to be able to find a video or anything that can give subtitles while I'm listening. I like to turn TMA on when I'm doing other tasks, so sometimes I can't hear and I have to rewind to the part I missed. If there were subtitles I could just look at them if a sink or boiling water or something makes it hard to hear at full volume.

A few days ago I posted some theories of mine on the earlier episodes, and since then I've done uh. Quite A Lot of listening, lol. The ones I have now aren't so in depth, but I've still got them. Here we go!

A Father's Love

So, Julia's father and supposedly her mother were both in some kind of cult. I believe their involvement in the cult lead to some kind of curse or hex being placed on them, so her father would sacrifice people to keep it at bay. It seemed like everything he did was for his daughter. There could be other things at stake, but even if there weren't, I believe he still would've done it. Her mother having a pendant with an eye on it is interesting and I'll bring it up again later. The fact that he photographed the victim's faces meant their identities needed to be kept track of. Perhaps all people involved with the cult in some way?

Vampire Killer

So, Trevor described these vampires as having very shark-like teeth. I thought this was interesting since sharks can regrow teeth no matter how many times they fall out. If a vampire were to keep losing one of its teeth from the same spot, it would have to keep discarding all those teeth, that would probably be identical to each other. To not draw any attention to where it lives, it would need to drop those teeth off at someone else's address. See where I'm getting at? Those teeth from Thrown Away were vampire teeth! This probably isn't the case, since I think Johnathan and the trash man would've mentioned that the teeth weren't human, but so far it's the only possible explanation I can think of.

Dreamer

Poor Gertrude! My only theory so far is that some witch or other malicious entity wrote a hex in their statement, which is what ultimately lead to her demise. The entity would do this so any ties to its existence couldn't be archived. What it didn't know was that there would be a successor. Watch out, Johnny!

I've been thinking a lot about how Graham knew he was being pursued. I'm starting to think he didn't know all the details, just some of them. Maybe "Antonio" had already unconsciously informed him of his demise. If he didn't acknowledge this, Graham would've believed he was trying to scare him or mess with him. "Antonio" not knowing what he's talking about would continue to deny. Maybe this is what led to their separation.

First Aid

Yeah I have no idea. If you ask me about this one I WILL bullshit an answer. Cool that Gerards here though. The eyes on his joints remind me of the eye on Julia's mother's pendant.

Alone

Ok, since Naomi spent so much time talking about how alone she is, I think that ending was pretty interesting. While driving away from the funeral, I bet she was thinking a lot about how alone she was without Evan. I bet simply thinking about it brought her to that place, that graveyard for forgotten people. The fact that her priest worried about how alone she was meant that there could've been some demonic thing that would take people like her. People who wouldn't be missed. The only reason she survived was because of Evan. Him being there to guide her meant she didn't actually belong in a realm for forgotten people. He showed her that even in death, she isn't alone. It's a surprisingly sweet message given that it's a horror story.

Piecemeal

I get the feeling we'll see Angela more in the future. This isn't a really important theory, but I wonder if Lee has anger issues. I would also be beyond pissed if I were in his shoes, but he displays that anger towards everyone, not just Paul. A result of prison life or something genetic, I'm not sure. It does remind me of a book I once read, where a dragon who could cast magic spells was cursed to lose a piece of her body everytime she casted a spell. Maybe the magic would've left him alone had he abandoned something? The most severe was when he chewed off his own hand. He nearly strangled Angela in a bout of anger. Maybe that's it. Maybe he needed to abandon his anger. Maybe Paul needed to abandon his selfishness/greed.

Lost John's Cave

The thing holding out a candle reminded me of Angler Fish. Couldn't be it though since Angler Fish was deterred by light. Perhaps belonged to the same species?

Arachnophobia

This episode is really funny to me as someone who loves spiders. Because of how much I love spiders, I think I can recognize that the big spider didn't hold resentment against the guy. She was an expecting mother and lost all her children in an instant. The last thing she remembered was the guy's hand over her babies' egg sac. She just wanted a new place for her children to be born. Too bad that new place had to be the poor guy's stomach lol. Spiders are very peaceful animals, no more dangerous than a goldfish and no more cruel than a human. The description of the worm infestation in his apartment complex raised some red flags. No mention of fire so it couldn't have been the same complex from Squirm, but still something to consider.

The Boneturner's Tale

The description of Jared's final form reminded me of the creature from Across The Street, with how he was tall and had many more limbs than he should've. Then there's his mother's arm being bent in a way that was impossible, just like how Amy described the creature's limbs. The book destroyed his body but was also the key to finding a new host for himself. I think he stole some of Graham's body parts, and used them to make himself normal again. Seeing how petty he's described to be, him taunting Amy the way he did makes a lot more sense.

Confession + Desecrated Host

Cool that we see this all from the priest's perspective this time! Poor guy, though. I can't tell if it's a demon possessing him or Raymond's ghost. I'm leaning towards ghost because I think a legitimate demon would've been scared away by the prayers and holy water, plus Edwin's description of feeling like he's being burnt would be like when Raymond died in that fire. If it is Raymond, I wonder if he was attempting to posses Ivo before him. The bell thing confuses me. I can think of church bells and demons would obviously not like to be around those, but then why didn't anything else hurt him?

I recognized the moving company from Do Not Open but don't know what to make of it. If I was right about the coffin being a gateway to hell, then the stole could be something similarly demonic. It could be what made it so easy for the demon or ghost to possess Edwin. It could've been deliberate.

After hearing these last two episodes I thought the other man in First Aid besides Gerard was Edwin, and the chanting came from whatever was possessing him. This can't be it since Gerard stabbed the guy and the priest is very much still alive. Though it's evidence Gerard has something to do with Raymond's house.

Anyways, that's all. Please don't tell me if I got anything right or wrong. If you're also a first time listener lacking the same context I do, I'd like to hear what you think!

She's 4 years old, female, and we've been looking after her this whole time. Daughter of my previous cat that ran away, she started out life with ringworm and it took quite a while to treat her and her siblings. Her siblings were sold to other people and she's the one that stuck with us.

My cat does this thing where when she's sleeping, as soon as she wakes up she'll meow immediately and seek me or my family out for love and pets. The meow she does is the typical "pet me" meow, high pitched and a bit whiny. I don't know why she does this. I'm a little worried she might be having nightmares and is seeking us out for comfort.

I know most of you probably know all about the lore, but I thought it might be amusing for you to see what a new fan thinks of all this. So far I'm at the garbageman episode with the strange garbage bags, so I'll be spoiling episodes before that one. Of course please don't spoil anything that happens after the garbage episode.

The one I wanted to talk about most was "Keep Watching." I noticed that Amy's descriptions of the table at Graham's home and the creature that climbed in were quite similar. The way they both "shift." Since there was also so much focus on that table, I believe it's part of the reason why that creature was after Graham. That's why it couldn't go after Amy, because she had no connection to the table, and perhaps it saying that it would "visit" her soon was only a means of scaring her away. Which certainly worked. I don't know all the details though.....not yet.

But about Amy, I actually think Graham KNEW she was watching him. I think he always tries to purposefully act a bit weird so people would take interest in him, and when he noticed Amy started to watch him from her window, he'd do even weirder and weirder things just so she'd keep her eyes on him. I think this is because her watching deters the creature. For some reason it can't do what it needs to when she's looking. The creature is aware of this too. That's why it was probably whatever shoved her. It wanted to kill or hospitalize or knock her unconscious so it can get to Graham as soon as possible. But unfortunately for it, that just made Amy stay with Graham for the next several hours.

So when Amy stopped watching for a week to focus on her exams, Graham was (presumably) killed. The fact that she heard no noise when she saw the thing go inside makes me think Graham was already long gone. I bet the creature just wanted to wait for her to look out her window again, just so it could do its thing and then taunt her. To rub it in her face that she couldn't save him. (Of course, she didn't know she was actually protecting Graham, but I'm willing to bet the creature thought she did).

And then there's the "Do Not Open" episode. Man do I have a lot to say about this one! It's creepy, but it's also kinda funny how the guy (I forgot his name. I'll just call him Doe to not confuse him with John, the man who gave him the coffin) just kinda. Lived with it and it became a mundane part of his life. Clearly, it seems that John wanted Doe to die to whatever horror was inside the coffin. Why trust some random dude with an important package? The only reason why someone would do that was because they wanted the package to affect the random dude. That's why John looked so surprised when he came to pick it up! He expected Doe to be like. Dead or something.

What further supports this theory is how Doe would try to open it in his sleep. He probably thought that his fear or curiosity just affected his mind in a way that made him sleepwalk and try to open it, but I think the coffin actually would put him in some kind of trance while his mind was empty enough to do so (so it's a good thing he never tried meditating next to it haha). Now, because the plan failed, John had to find a way to appease whatever was inside. There was likely a time limit and he didn't want to waste any more of that time. He needed to find a new sacrifice, and whoever that was was the person screaming. The only problem with this is, since John and the other two men came out unharmed, I imagine whatever was screaming had to have been inside the coffin. Unless....

The coffin was warm. The thing inside scratched at any cold surface. It moaned when there was rain. Bear with me...I think the coffin might be some sort of gateway to hell! And inside of it was a demon that had to have been the cause of the moaning and the scratching. Being from. Yknow. Hell. It probably hated the cold and things that might put out fire....like rain. (Or the pitter patter of the rain reminded it of the crackling of fire). And of course it should be obvious why a gateway to hell would be warm lol.

This means John made some kind of deal with the devil. He'd have a poor fool get caught in a trance while they're sleeping, they open the coffin and are immediately dragged to hell. This explains the screaming. It's coming from the people enduring eternal torment. John had to go into the coffin to have a talk with the demon (or just straight up satan. It might literally just be satan). Explain to it why he couldn't provide it the soul. Probably got told some shit like "you have 24 hours" and went on his way. Given how he can just hand a random dude 10,000 euros knowing he could blow through it all in a day, the deal he made with the creature was probably for money or power.

The fact that Doe was a drug user might play into this. John may have been watching him since before their meeting at the restaurant, and knew that he was a sinner from that. This also explains why Doe's apartment complex was entirely empty save for him. John maybe planted some kind of ad that made Doe want to check out the building. He had it empty to make sure no one would hear the screaming when the coffin was open, go to Doe's apartment to investigate, and get sucked in too. It would be terrible if some other person was sacrificed if they didn't need to be, especially if they weren't a sinner like Doe.

While this is probably based on Christian lore, I also like the idea that John is a jinn (a being from Islamic mythology. Some are good and praise Allah, some are bad and worship the devil, some are neutral, but people generally fear them and regard them as something you do NOT want to ever encounter). Doe noted that John was very, very short. While this could just be how he looks like, jinn are known to not have very good impressions of humans (sometimes they have extremely unnatural proportions, sometimes they have animal limbs where human limbs should be, sometimes they move in ways that aren't normal or possible for humans, so on and so forth), so they often look unordinary in some way. Still, they can appear human enough to be able to fit in seamlessly. There might be something generally strange about them, but not ALWAYS to the point where it's impossible. For John, that would be his height. It reminds me of a story my dad told me, where as he was slowly getting closer to a hitchhiker on the road, he noticed how immensely TALL the person was. He was certain it was a jinn and decided not to lend it a ride.

Now I'm gonna talk about another creature from TMA that may also be a jinn. The angler fish. It reminds me of a jinn called Abu Fanoos (meaning Father Lantern). Abu Fanoos makes fake lights in the middle of the desert whenever he spots a traveller. The idea is to make the traveller think they've come across another traveling group. He will keep bringing the lights to distant places so the traveller becomes lost and eventually dies. He doesn't need to eat them or anything bro just does it out of love for the game. But you probably realize how familiar his methods are. Angler fish asking for a cigarette and being in the UK means he would have a different name. We should call him Smoke Bloke!

Maybe the creature that tried to impersonate Graham was also a jinn, and that's why it couldn't do a perfect 1:1 copy haha. Now I'm just messing around. Anyways, I don't think John and Angler Fish are ACTUALLY jinn given how this is all based in the UK. John is likely just a human who had a deal with either satan or some other hellish creature, and Angler Fish is probably a separated monster based on the beloved deep sea creature. But it just sounded interesting enough to bring up. I love hearing stories about jinn. I think they're PERFECT horror material.

Anyways, that's pretty much everything I think about TMA so far. I don't know how to make sense of the other episodes on a deeper level. To those who know all about this series, please don't tell me if I got anything right or wrong. The fun is in trying to figure things out for myself, or just have the series itself reveal everything.

After beating the game (for the first time) I found out a way to get another ending, because I really was not satisfied with the options I had to choose from. This new route was so different from what I expected! When Prototype was explaining everything to Niko, I laughed at the total lack of subtlety. I thought it was a bit ridiculous and the experience broke my immersion a little. To top it off I knew the game would do the whole "fiction does matter, even if it isn't real" message.

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But the ending made me feel different. Right after Niko left I snooped through the files and found the wallpaper he left behind. And when I went back to see if I really couldn't play again, I found that I could, but only as a simulated version of the real Niko. I closed One Shot and sat there for a few good minutes staring at the drawings he made of his adventure. It's been a while since a videogame made me feel so empty and heartbroken.

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How did the developers do this, genuinely? How did they so effortlessly make me feel attached to these characters? What is your analysis on it? Did anyone else feel the same way?

I recently beat the hollow knight and my character absorbed his infection and took his place in the black egg. I wondered if that was all but when I searched it up online, I found that there are 5 other endings I could get, and that the hollow knight isn't even the final boss. I didn't search more out of fear of getting spoiled. How can I get the other endings?