Tower TV

A channel called Tower TV has started broadcasting on cable television across the US. Nobody seems to know who runs it or why it's there.

The people who watch it start acting very strangely, though the exact nature of their odd behavior appears to depend on what they've seen. For instance, those who watch films made by a mysterious company called Horma Studios enter an anxious or paranoid state related to the contents of the film.

 

The show I've read of the most out of all the Tower TV shows is called Playtime with Mikey. Playtime with Mikey features the titular Mikey, a man dressed in a monkey costume, who plays games with preschool-age children- the same age, presumably, as the target audience- and teaches them about basic math, science, and art, as well as concepts like sharing and personal space.

So far, so innocuous. The troublesome part is the people who watch Playtime with Mikey. They often end up detached, in a haze of sorts. All of them recall having watched the show as children, though I can't find records of Tower TV or Playtime with Mikey existing before the past few weeks, and all of them seem caught on the feelings of nostalgia it invokes in them. Conversation with those who watch it is fragmented in nature, as the aforementioned viewers always start talking about their childhood memories before they can actually express any original thoughts.

 

The thing that scares me most is that, occasionally, they have flashes of lucidity where they act normally again, or, much worse, moments of fear or anger, seeming scared or upset about "she," "they," or "it."

 

Allow me to state what you may have already put together yourself. "It" is the show, "they" are the people behind Tower TV, and "she" is the Wooden Girl, who rules over the Screaming Tower and whose strings are beginning to reach ever further.

I want to be clear on one thing. Aside from my own conclusions on the nature of Tower TV, I'm not getting any of this information from the Archive, though we're all well aware of it. I'm getting it from the news.

The coming storm

There's something at the edges of the Forest that used to be Seattle.

There are strange black shapes covering the trees.

There are countless crows and ravens and blackbirds massed together at the edges of the Forest. Watching, waiting, and defending the Forest against anyone who comes too close with claw and beak and lightning.

 

The Fears are showing themselves to the world. They don't need to hide anymore, and they know it. 

 

There is a storm brewing.

One year

It's been one year since the Newborn died and the Forest took its place. One year since the events that led Robin to become a weapon for the Archive to wield. One year since I failed the world.

I know that's not true. I mean, I look at Robin and Leo and I know that they don't blame me for what happened. They blame themselves.

Maybe it would be for the best if I just acknowledged the truth. It wasn't my fault, and it wasn't theirs. It was KRAKEN's fault. Of course it was.

It's so strange to think how powerless they are now. Sure, they're still around, but they've gained no real power. They're still just incompetent fools guided by hatred.

It's almost comforting.

Weapon

Robin told us something when we got home the other week. She told us that the Archivists want to train her. They want to use her to hunt down rival Fears, because however she killed the Manufactured Newborn, the Archivists seem convinced that it had more to do with her than that dagger.

That's why they've taken her from us. So they can turn her into a weapon.

But the Archivists are the only thing shielding us from our former employers.

So I don't know what I can do about it.

Robin's birthday

Robin's birthday was today. Leo and I took her to her favorite restaurant, Italia Trattoria, and got her a present. A new set of knives, specifically; she's into those.

(We waited to give her those until we got home. Neither Leo nor myself thought it would be a good idea to pull out a bunch of knives in the middle of a restaurant, gift or no.)

I think she needed a break from work, and I'm glad we were able to do that for her. She seemed a lot happier than she has been over the past few months. It felt really nice seeing her look like herself again.

She was still a little drunk when we got home. She's asleep on the couch right now.

ARC and the Archive

Being hounded by an organization that specializes in secrecy and anonymity is difficult even when you're familiar with them. ARC has switched things up a bit since we went rogue- updated passwords, decommissioned old pseudonyms, the works. 

Strange, isn't it? ARC is so much more mundane than many other groups that deal with the Fears. They don't seem to have any occult rituals, any hidden ties to the Fears, any real investment in the paranormal beyond making sure it doesn't hurt anyone. In a way, it makes sense. Deal with beings made of fear by refusing to show emotion.

But hiding your fear isn't the same thing as overcoming it. ARC knows that, even if they don't advertise it. They're all terrified. And who can blame them? We're in a game of cat and mouse where nobody knows which is which.

Magnus

Working as an Archivist has been a peculiar experience.

Leo, Robin, Jenn, Samuel, and I were introduced to the job by a man named Jonathan Magnus who wore glasses and a tweed suit, which, to be honest, conjured some unpleasant memories of the KRAKEN agent ARC has had in security for some time now thanks to Robin.

Magnus says he had been Gifted someone else's memories after the Blind Man stole his. The memories he has now are those of the person originally called Jonathan Magnus- he doesn't know the name he was given at birth, so he uses the one the Blind Man gave him.

He seemed less concerned about this than he might be.

As Magnus told me and the other new Archivists, being Gifted has its benefits, namely that other Archivists treat them with respect. I wondered if this was a hint to myself and my companions, but I didn't voice the question.

To summarize the explanation Magnus gave of AMU and the Archive, AMU is a branch of the Archive- not so much a front, since that implies an attempt at secrecy. The Archive as a whole is devoted to the Blind Man, a Fear who walks libraries and collects the memories of those within. Those memories are stored in the books in his Catacombs. I already knew all this, as it's relatively basic information on the group, but I think it's important to refresh the memories of anyone who might have forgotten over the duration of my hiatus. (Sorry about that.)

I haven't seen Magnus much since then. He's high in the ranks of the Archivists, so the circles he runs in rarely overlap with mine. From what I gather, he chooses to introduce people to the group because he genuinely enjoys it, not because he's a no-name tasked to do so by the powers that be.

Speaking of ghosts, Robin hasn't been around lately. I think the Archivists are trying to use her for something, but she's cagey about what.

Leo and I did so much to get her back, and she's gone again.

Still better than her being imprisoned. From her perspective, this is certainly an improvement.

It still hurts, though. Is that selfish?