#about smirke's 14 and that's it

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

Thinking back to the time I was about halfway through TMA and was explaining the plot to a friend who has never listened to a single episode and they tried to make one of those "Soup was invented by John Soup when he wanted to drink a chicken" jokes and ended up saying something along the lines of "The Magnus Institute was created by John Magnus when he wanted to make an institute for all the fears" and at the time I was like haha good one bro but in hindsight I think I need to fucking throngle them with my bare hands

[jaybirdscoffee]

forever thinking about how the magnus archives really fumbled the Flesh. there was such potential there beyond just meat and whatever jared hopworth’s deal was. there’s the body, there’s the lack of control over it, there’s changes against your will, and sometimes hatred for it. there are uniquely horrifying bodily experiences that could have been explored that expand on it wholly. to me, the Flesh is the one fear i think never got enough development.

as a trans person, i identify with the flesh. i’m sure i’m not the only one, but the idea of a trans exploration of the Flesh and its nuances has fascinated me since i first listened to MAG 111, when we first learned about smirke’s 14. i would’ve loved (and still would) a trans or trans-coded Flesh avatar (because jared hopworth just does not cut it for me). jared’s flesh garden is something i think about often, though. the way the plants are tended, groomed and transformed into something else, people twisted into flowers comprised of their entire beings, still able to feel and exist with the horror of living as something you are not, something this world has shaped you into. i think a lot about a Flesh avatar with a similar premise, too. someone who saw themself transforming into something - someone - they couldn’t recognize, instead taking hold of it, molding their own flesh, cutting away and adding pieces, in an eternal state of visceral metamorphosis. and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

to me, the flesh is more than just meat. there are so many angles to look at it. the idea of feeling your emotions so viscerally they only manifest as bodily sensation, as nausea, as bruises and bleeding and bile, and you don’t have any idea why this is happening to you, because you’re fine. you’re fine, aren’t you? your mind is fine. sure, your head is pounding and your stomach feels like it’s a burning hole within you, and your bones ache so much you can’t move, but you’re fine. (for me, this is a big part of my being autistic. my feelings tend to register in my body before they ever do my brain). your body is turning against you in new and horrible ways, and you don’t know why. and the Flesh feeds on that confusion and pain. it loves it.

the Flesh genuinely had so, so much potential, and i wish there had been more on it, something that made it truly horrifying, especially since i think a piece of TMA’s fanbase found something in it that scratched their brains from the beginning.

anyway, yeah, i have feelings about the Flesh.

[shitpostingkats]

Joshua Twewy truly the character of all time because Joshua Twewy can be anything. He can be your princess he can be your cringefail loser he can be your wet kitten he can be your homoerotic teen friendship he can be your evil mastermind he can be your tortured meow meow he can be a girlboss he can be your bubblegum bitch.

Perfectly written to be open to interpretation. The amount of times you'll be talking to a twewy fan and the Josh Topic will come up and they'll just go "no no no, here's what Joshua's deal actually is."

And then proceed to pull a completely unique and textually supported Josh Take out of seemingly thin air.

Breathtaking.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i, for one, welcome our new fear gods that come in many forms.

[that-sure-is-a-person]

Me after listening to episode 7 of the Magnus protocol

[hedge-rambles]

Finally got round to The Magnus Protocol (because I basically didn't realise it was out for ages) and am immediately relistening because, y'know, you gotta. Obvs here be spoilers, but it's tagged.

Anyway, some thoughts.

1 - Celia. Yeah yeah, the Celia voiced by Lowri Ann Davis, we've all seen it. Regardless just ??? girl what are you doing at the devil's sacrament OIAR? She knows about tapes, she recognises John's voice, she's got the name she chose due to the eyepocalypse, she knows about the TMA Fears, she's...teleporting in her sleep?

2 - So uh, I've oddly seen nothing about this in the discussions but like, the tapes are still a thing. I didn't notice it myself but I was checking something on a transcript and episode 15 "Well Run". At the end when Alice has her run-in with the talking dead the scene opens with the tape recorder clunks! And she sees it, picks it up, it's literally a mystery tape recorder running in the scene.

3 - Loooot of discussion about how it's not Fears now but it's all about Hunger but I'm not actually sold on this idea. Avatars feeding on fear, hungering for it and talking about it like that was all through TMA as well. This isn't like, new. I'm not discounting the idea, mind, I think it may well prove true but I don't think it's quite so firm as a lot of people do and we've got solid evidence that there are supernatural avatar-like individuals feeding on fear.

[riseriseleo]

i mentioned in a previous post something about lonely tim, and i'm going to elaborate on it here.

i don't think tim and danny were particularly close. they loved each other, sure, but danny was the more popular and outgoing of them, and he was also, y'know, tim's little brother. i think danny dragging tim into whatever new interest he had was his way of showing love, but other than that...

danny is tim's little brother and he would do anything for him. i won't ever contest that. i will defend it to my dying breath. but. but i think danny had a lot more friends than tim. he was just more personable.

tim had a fake smile and a joke always on hand except when he couldn't cover up his anger, but danny's smile was real. it was more genuine than tim could ever hope to be with strangers.

they spent time together when they could, but tim got annoyed at danny and danny got frustrated at tim and they fought and argued and sometimes tim didn't pick up the phone because he just didn't want to deal with him. sometimes danny wouldn't call tim for weeks because he was pissed about a stupid, innocuous thing tim did years ago that danny was inexplicably reminded of.

so. so tim didn't exactly have a lot of people he was close with.

and then comes danny's 'death'. tim is grieving, but he also doesn't let himself grieve because danny isn't dead , he was taken. but no one believes him, obviously, so he goes to the magnus institute where he throws himself into research.

he was killing himself slowly and surely trying to figure out what happened. he slowly defrosted enough that he didn't spurn his coworkers when they try to strike up a conversation, but he was still burying his anger and grief. and. and the thing with grief is that if you don't deal with it in a healthy way, it will destroy you, and tim was letting it destroy him.

sometimes, when tim was tired and couldn't muster up enough anger or determination to ignore everything else, a fog would curl around his legs. it was cold and somehow exhausted him even more but it was also reassuring. sometimes tim wished it would engulf him fully. the only thing that kept tim from giving in completely was danny, because he felt guilty and angry and he couldn't stop because he didn't know what to do if he stopped.

(sasha was his saving grace, but even she couldn't stop the torrent of anger from spilling over sometimes, and sometimes tim swore he could see mist out of the corner of his eye. and then sasha was gone and jon was going and he didn't know martin well enough to lean on him and tim figured better dead than alone.)

[avirael]

FFxivWrite 2024

Day 11 - Surrogate

"Laqa!", a woman’s voice scolded. "Didn’t I tell you to leave the boy alone?"

A tall woman with long white hair stepped closer and sternly looked at the cheerful blonde boy, who had introduced himself as Laqa. Her voice lacked sharpness though and her dark eyes sparkled with amusement.

"But mommy! A‘viloh seemed so lonely!" Laqa protested and A’viloh thought that she didn’t look like his mother at all. Painfully he was reminded of his own mother’s lifeless green eyes staring through him while her blood, as red as her hair - as red as his hair -, had spread across the sand. Stifling a sob, he buried his face at his knees, which he had pulled to his chest and embraced with his arms.

"A’viloh?", she asked confused. "Is that his name? Did he speak to you?"

Laqa nodded, oblivious to the fact that the red-haired boy hadn’t spoken a single word to the Miqo’te women the whole way back across the desert. "But he says we can call him A‘vi and that he would like to stay with us. We can be his new family, right?"

This had mostly been the blonde boy’s interpretation and nothing A‘viloh had actually said but he didn’t care enough to protest.

The woman thoughtfully tilted her head and looked at both of the boys. Then she knelt down with a sigh and gently put a hand on the crying child’s back, carefully rubbing in circles.

"If it was only this easy… Besides, your father has the last say in this matter. He wants to see him first before he decides what to do with him."

"You can tell him to allow A‘vi to stay!", Laqa insisted. "He will listen to you."

"Maybe…", she mused. "Now go play with your siblings while I speak to your father."

The blonde boy put his arms on his hips and shook his head. "Uh-uh, I‘ll go with you! If he doesn’t listen to you, he will surely listen to me!"

"Laqa…", the woman said a little more sternly. "Do as I tell you or the only thing your father will listen to is your crying when you are grounded for a week."

Alarmed the boy hurried away and the women looked after him for a moment shaking her head, before returning her attention to A‘viloh and stretching out a hand for him to take.

"Now, A‘viloh - if this is your name - follow me, please…"

Anxiously he stared at her hand.

"There’s no need to be afraid anymore, you are safe here.", her voice sounded so soft and soothing, and a kind smile appeared on her face. Somehow the little Miqo’te believed that he could trust her.

Carefully A‘viloh reached out for her hand and let her help him get to his feet. With tiny, weak steps he climbed down from the small platform of the aetheryte and almost fell while doing so.

"Oh, you poor thing. Come here, I‘ll carry you…", she said and picked him up. The warmth of her body surprised the boy and with tears welling up in his eyes again all he wanted to do was to cling to her, pretending she was his mother, and cry until he fell asleep.

But that wasn’t granted to him yet.

"Just a little longer and then you can rest, I promise.", she explained gently and brushed the tears on his face away with her fingers. "Try not to cry now, will you?"

Faintly A‘viloh registered that they entered a building, then a deep, loud voice spoke up. "Can the boy not even walk himself? Isn’t he a little to old already to still be carried around?"

A‘viloh was still too young to put a name to the mockery in the man's voice but whatever it was it made him feel bad.

Reluctantly he let the the woman put him down again but still he held on to her leg and tried to hide behind it.

Angrily she addresses the man at the other side of the room.

"You can certainly see how weakened he is, he probably hasn’t eaten anything in days."

"Indeed, I can see he is quite weakish…", the man stated bluntly. "Give me one good reason why I should burden our hunters to feed one more hungry mouth instead of just sending him home."

"He is just a child, Odh! And he doesn’t have a home anymore!" the woman exclaimed pleadingly. "I told you his whole family was slaughtered by the lizards! Women! children! There was a dead baby barely a year old if at all! I know you’re not this heartless!"

"I‘m not heartless.", he said unmoved. "Just pragmatic. He‘s not one of our own and the tribe always has priority. We should think carefully about wasting our precious resources on outsiders."

Annoyed the woman growled. "You‘ve been listening a bit too much to my old father‘s antiquated nonsense it seems! Weren’t you an outsider yourself once?! Sure, he will have to be fed but don’t worry about your precious supplies! I will take care of and hunt for him all on my own if that’s necessary! I love you, Odh, but make no mistake, sending him away would be nothing but cruel and I don’t remember you treating strangers that way when we met! But if you decide to send him away anyway, know that I will go with him!"

It was an empty threat of course, she could never abandon her children and taking them with her would be too dangerous. But the implication alone had the desired effect.

A smirk appeared on the man’s face, he was visible amused by her emotional outburst. "Of course you are right, my love. How could I deny you any request. He can stay. At least until he is old enough to take care of himself or until he proves his right to belong to this tribe…"

She nodded. "That is all I am asking for, thank you. I will make sure you won’t regret this decision…"

Then the man focused his attention on A‘viloh. "Come over hear, boy! Let me take a look at you."

The women encouraged him to go but only reluctantly he stepped towards the man.

"What is your name?", the deep voice asked. A’viloh didn’t dare to look at him and just stared to the ground shaking, his ears flat at his head and his tail between his legs. Somehow this man scared him.

"Laqa says his name is A‘viloh.", the Miqo’te woman explained.

"Is that so, boy?", the man asked him.

Weakly A‘viloh nodded but didn’t dare to look up. Then the man reached out to him, put a big rough hand below his chin and turned his face upwards so he had to look into his face.

"You should look at people when they speak to you, you know…"

His eyes were bright and piercing and made A‘viloh feel uncomfortable. The man smiled but his smile didn’t look kind for some reason. The boy’s fearful eyes, swollen and red from crying, evaded his gaze, tried to look anywhere else but not at him directly. Finally his eyes landed on one of the windows at the back of the building and he almost gasped in surprise.

Through the glass the curious face of the blonde boy from the aetheryte plaza peeked into the room. As he noticed A‘viloh looking, he grinned and waved, before diving for cover as the two adults followed A’viloh’s surprised look.

For a moment there was silence.

Then the woman stepped beside him and kneeled down with open arms.

"Come, A‘viloh. You must be horribly hungry and tired. And we need to find new clean clothes for you too."

Without protest he let the woman pick him up again but held on tightly to the soft green scarf around his neck. He wouldn’t let her take it away no matter what.

He was glad to get away from the unfriendly man but still threw one last glimpse over his shoulder as they left, back to the window where a pair of blonde Miqo’te ears and curious, warm, golden eyes peeked over the windowsill.

Weakly A‘viloh smiled and cuddled closer to the friendly woman’s warm body.

[cult-of-the-eye]

( this is on the post of the list of The Fears from scariest to least scary)

please tell me your thoughts about The Fears

1. To me the corruption is the scariest cause wdym there's something inside me slowly rotting me inside to out and there's nothing I can do about it apart from let it take me and it hurts and there's no known cure (btw I am deathly afraid of getting cancer)

2. Flesh isn't as scary as corruption cause like it could be removed from the idea of life, we used to go to the Bangladeshi butchers and watch then cut slabs of frozen fish using their huge machines and shit but also gore and body horror kinda terrifies me, it goes hand in hand with medical horror, like someone's been sliced in half and you realise just how fragile human life is, how at the end we're just organs that are pumping blood and moving chemicals around.

3. Slaughter is less scary than the others cause it could be comforting being killed as a collective but also the theme of death continues, the idea of masses of bodies is so very human in it's causes and consequences and doesn't feel so fictional

4. Buried is less scary than the others cause it's less about death but listen. my entire life I've been terrified that I'm just gonna get stuck somewhere. Like I once couldn't get a churi (bracelet) off my wrist and I got so panicked I just smashed my wrist against a wall to break it off. So yah.

5. The stranger is less scary than the buried cause I could run away from the stranger but the idea that this person I know is not at all who I thought they were is bone chilling. It feels like betrayal at its core.

6. Dark is less scary than the stranger cause over the years I've gotten slightly less scared of the dark but I've gotten more scared of people not being who I thought they were. The dark is comforting, it's a sensory neutral and a life saver on some days. Other days i sprint up the stairs cause I'm scared the murderers hiding in the cupboards will stab me.

7. Mmm now that I think about it I'd probably put web a little higher cause I despise the idea of being manipulated, like don't fucking do that to me, if you want something just fucking ask. But maybe I was right to put it here cause it mostly just makes me irritated than scared.

8. This is the mm kinda chill territory I think cause spiral is just how I spend my life, my brain is not a fun place to be so yeah I'd enjoy being the incarnation of indescribable for the rest of my existence but also the idea of losing my control over myself is a little scary despite my having so much experience in it

9. The eye is ok, I feel some comfort in being watched over, never been left alone, constantly needing information like I get it, I was an autistic 7 year old gorging myself on horrible histories once. But also like if eyes started growing on me I'd start screaming and never stop but I think that's more body horror than beholding

10. The vast is so fucking comforting like the idea that I could just be inconsequential in the face of everything, I could maybe just relax and float in the nothingness for a while. But then also I'm scared of drowning so like I'm bringing arm bands

11. Everything ends. I'm good with consistency and the idea that everything ends makes me feel like there's something to keep going for. I'm not good with endings but what comes after, I am extremely skilled at.

12. I adore the desolation. Oh how I've fantasised about giving it all up, watching it burn before me, the cruel satisfaction in it. I like how quiet everything is after it's been destroyed. A clean slate.

13. Yeah so I have re occurring dreams about being hunted. I think it's half the idea about being wanted enough for someone to pursue me if I run but also the comfort of survival mode. The comfort of knowing the fight won't ever end.

14. The lonely. Oh man. Let's just say I'm on 40mg of fluoxetine for a reason.

[howboutsleep]

why dont OIAR introduce a categorization system that makes sense? are they stupid?

[gouinisme]

actually now that i've thought about it past the monkey brain response i don't think that office was the archivists'. or at least i hope not. i think that's a red herring and it's actually the Architect. or something else entirely. this is half me thinking alice saying archivist is way too obvious and half me hoping the magnus institute isn't eye related in this universe

[echo-the-ghost]

honestly I would've liked to hear more about the skin butterflies.. I've been trying to imagine a silly little corruption avatar having to do with lepidoptera, and I couldn't think of anything myself but ooooooo

[melandrops]

A look into my royal au for the magnus archives

The map is (of course) based on the united kingdom and its provinces.

Kings/rulers are the fears themselves, and are entities impossible to comprehend by even the most devoted of servants.

Avatars are known as servants of the kingdom they live, and are blessed by the kings with a shred of their power.

Subjects in the kingdoms operate in a similar way that people in the apocalypse did, with cities and towns that act as subsections of the various fears.

The only way to get to the Island of the Lonely is on a ship chartered by a servant of the Lonely. Anyone else will be lost to sea.

The Spiral and the Stranger's borders are only rough estimations, as they have the tendency to shift from week to week (even day to day) and are impossible to map perfectly for even the most distinguished of cartographers

The Buried used to have a much larger kingdom, but it's borders are now much smaller than before. This is partly due to the influence of the Spiral and the Stranger constantly changing their borders, and partly because the Buried likes a kingdom squeezed between all the others.

The End is a mystery to almost everyone, even the Eye. Like the Lonely, it is only accessible through a ship chartered by a servant of the End. However only a handful of recorded passengers on these ships return from their voyage, and will not describe their experience on pain of death.

The End is also the only kingdom that does not engage in disputes about land, trade or rituals.

The Web does not have a kingdom. The Mother of Puppets, also known as the queen, has a castle off the coast of the Vast, however there are no subjects inhabiting the castle. Servants of the Web travel into other kingdoms, spreading rumors and manipulating the various kings.

The Vast is also nearly impossible to get to. They do not charter ships to them, and the kingdoms that border them (the Desolation and the Hunt, as well as the Slaughter) are so dangerous to pass through that virtually nobody dares. The servants of the Vast have their methods of dropping in when they are called on for negotiations, but otherwise they keep to themselves.

The Vast, due to its size and it's difficulty in passage, is also a great place for people to vanish. Fugitives (betrayers of the kingdoms, usually past servants) will often try to travel to the Vast in order to escape the brutality of the other kingdoms.

The lands of the Desolation, the Slaughter and the Hunt are often grouped together and called the Violent Triad. They are close knit and can usually be counted as allies with each other (except on a few rare occasions). They can be counted on to stop any fugitives from the southern kingdoms from escaping to the Vast.

The Eye is the Magnus Institute. Everything within the Eye is watched and monitored carefully. The various subsections of the institute (Archives, Research, etc) have castles or estates, but it all falls under the category of the Institute. Jonah Magnus/Elias is the most trusted servant of the Eye, more trusted than any other servant in the continent. He runs the kingdom for all intents and purposes, but is ultimately subject to the king and his wishes.

[the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see]

pisses me off when people hate kids as a personality trait like i never say this but Genuinely pick on someone your own size. like awhh did you have fun did you make that little boy cry? yeah? make him hate the things he's interested in? wanna go home now?

[simptasia]

i imagine kate isn't much of a reader, making her the odd one out in the jack/kate/sawyer/juliet situation, the other three being massive book nerds