northofdelphi

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I finally caved and started listening to tma and this is the man yall are horny about? this british smartass of a librarian??? the one who is so dismissive of every single story that he would certainly die first in a horror movie???? what. I was promised a office romance and got the most fucked up stories read by a bored man with a organisation kink who hates all his coworkers

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please, I need to know, if you have the answer to this question that is,

WHO CHOSE THE NAEM FOR EPISODE TWELVE

Thank you for your time

DW I'll ask

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i dont like sex or heaving sex and i dont like bugs in the kitchen that crawl across the counter

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*rising up from loosely packed grave soil* who the fuck buried me. This is atrocious. Do a better job next time

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oh no cigarettes for me thanks i just wanted to be in this dank alleyway with you

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Jon is 100% the type of guy where Martin says something normal and chill and he just responds so sincerely that it takes Martin aback like 5 times daily. Martin will say something like "I'll be in the other room if you need me" and Jon will look him dead in the eye and say "I always need you" with 100% earnestness and sincerity and Martin is down for he count

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ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

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t4t jmart is an especially funny flavor to me because I think if Martin discovered his boss was trans he would think it was really cool that he has something in common on a deeply personal level with the guy he wants to be respected by and if Jon found out his coworker was trans he would think that this is just another attempt of Martin trying to Show Him Up, personally

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The Magnus Protocol

sam's subplot: hey guys any news on the magnus institute? :D alice's subplot: just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it just ignore it celia's subplot:

gwen's subplot:

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placing my hands out placatingly, asking everyone to please be cool and not reignite og!elias burnt out gifted kid discourse. okay? okay. I think this is setting up some more sam and gwen parallels. from mag 193, we know that elias bouchard (original flavor) was told from a young age that he was smart but lazy, he was squandering his advantages, and he was wrong to envy other children because they were meaningless and he was better. he seemed to internalize this to some extent, because by the time he was in his early twenties he had no friends and no family and no real life, just the certainty that he was destined to deserve better.

I think it is reasonable to assume that gwen received similar messaging during her childhood, as she seems to be treating the OIAR the same way elias treated artefact storage (as a stepping stone job to a bigger career waiting for her up the ladder), and she takes a lot of offence when she feels disrespected. from magp 03, we know she's reticent to tell her friends that she's still working this same job, especially because the friend's party she was going to was to celebrate making partner at a law firm.

from this episode, we know that sam was declared "gifted" as a child and his parents rigorously enrolled him in every program they could find, and it started going down hill when the magnus institute rejected him (did they reject him outright or was he there for a bit and then kicked out? what he said to celia doesn't quite fit his earlier statements, but moving on). he has a lot of pent up and fixated feelings about not being chosen by them, he didn't get into oxford, he just missed the highest grades, and he's reticent to tell his parents that he's working this job, especially because he used to be at a law firm.

we know the bouchards are a wealthy and influential family, and as sam speaks with a south asian accent I think it's safe to assume that his family immigrated. of course, there's a massive amount of variation in the socioeconomic statuses of south asian immigrant families in the UK, and I don't know enough about how british gifted kids programs work to know if sam having been in a bunch of them would imply anything about his parents' disposable income, but nonetheless I still think their different backgrounds potentially say a lot about how they handle these feelings of not meeting the high standards that were expected of / promised to them. gwen is fighting to be on the same level of social status and power as her peers, and sam probably felt like he was he had opportunities for upward mobility in this brand new place but kept failing them. it's causing both of them to be very active characters, they are the two people pushing the story forward the most by far, but the ways in which they are active diverge greatly.

gwen, until recently, had felt like she was unfairly stagnating, like she was "not most people" and was cut out for better, and being constantly barred from climbing the ladder made her both resentful of lena and extremely paranoid / insecure about her own worth. now that she's starting to crack it into the "real work," it's obviously taking a great toll on her, but she doesn't want to back out, she wants to prove herself and take what's rightfully hers and not show herself to be unfit for real power. her actions appear to be guided by an ethos that her life hasn't been wasted yet, she still has time to make good, she just needs to ignore that weakness masquerading as a conscience, please god don't let her fail.

sam feels like he's made mistake after mistake after mistake and led himself to his own desperate state where he only just managed to avoid destitution because his ex was kind enough to hook him up with an emergency job that is actively destroying his physical and emotional health, and he has pinned all this frustration on trying to figure out what the magnus institute was all about and why it didn't choose him. like gwen, great things were expected of him, but unlike her he doesn't seem to still be striving for them, that dried up when he had a breakdown at his last job. now he just wants to figure it out and make sense of it, as if solving the mystery will let him fix it and undo all that time and un-waste his promised potential. his actions seem to be guided by an ethos that, even though he's already screwed everything right up, solving the ghosts that haunt his life will some how lessen their burden and maybe, just maybe, give him closure on the Flaw That Doomed Him and allow him to move past it without dragging it still forward.

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okay I've been seeing these around and I wanted to do one for the TMA cast. here's a random wheel (link) featuring every character I can remember with a speaking role + a couple extras who don't speak but are still important to the plot or that I thought would be funny

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Melanie and Jon:

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"what is the appeal of men moaning" what is the appeal of having sex with someone who doesnt make any noise at all the whole time

sex should be cold and lonely

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I love tea/coffee theory

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TMA COMMISSIONS FOR GAZA

What is TMA Commissions For Gaza?

You can get small TMA commissions (a little drawing or short fanfic) in exchange for donating to 1 of 10 Gofundme's of Palestinians in Gaza (starting May 17th)

There are about 60 artists signed up already who have volunteered to work for free for this to happen. Until May 16th, you can join too!

The project is fanmade and has no connection to Rusty Quill

Our carrd: https://magnusforgaza.carrd.co/ Everything else under the cut ↓

How can I participate as an artist?

If you want to support our cause and join as a visual artist or writer - thank you! You can fill out this form to sign up: Artists Form Here's a seperate post with information for artists.

How can I commission?

1: Donate to one of the 10 gofundme's. (any amount) 2: Fill out the commission form and describe what art you want! 3: And now we wait. We don't know how many commissions each artist will take on so please be patient💚

Where does the money go?

We, the organizers and artists of TMA commissions for Gaza, gain no money from this. We ask participants to donate to 1 of these 10 Gofundme's by Gazans who are trying to survive and evacuate Gaza. 5 of these Gofundmes are on the Operation Olive Branch list and the other 5 are friends and family of one of our organizers. The funds are needed for expenses such as medical care, food and first and foremost to pay for crossing the border to Egypt.

Why only 10 Gofundme's?

We hope to be more effective when focusing on just a small number of Gofundme's and not for example the whole Operation Olive Branch list. Providing a smaller number of places to donate to may also help donators to not get overwhelmed by the amount of people who need their help. If you have any questions, send us a message here on Tumblr!

Art by: @the-munster-mash

OUR CARRD: https://magnusforgaza.carrd.co/

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