#also from tma verse

[fallenfromtheskies]

okay so ERROR has to be an old archivist like the one in alexandria the tape recorders and the compelling

[witchinatree]

vaguely mentioned this in my recap but those things are long and just me live-blogging

celia is the ONLY tea drinker in the OIAR, everyone else drinks coffee

i think this goes on the list of evidence for why she's from the TMA universe

the magnus institute was tea centered, it was martin's whole thing and all of them drank tea

actually, elias drank coffee didn't he? sorry vaguely off topic but he had coffee when melanie poisoned him. i wonder if that's also symbolic of him not belonging either, he was out of place because his ass was not elias. that's DEFINITELY a reach but it's interesting

the OIAR is coffee centered, but celia drinks tea, because she does not belong there, she's from Somewhere Else

very interesting to use the drinks as symbolism, unless i'm reaching

[scholar-of-yemdresh]

Bare with me now but I think certain portions of fandoms reactions to a piece of explicitly aromantic media is telling in a way.

So I think TSV's lack of romance from the get go probably weeded out most of the types of people who aren't capable of interacting with media beyond shipping or romance. But even still I see the occasional er take or reaction to the SV's handling of & lack of romance.

I love how the most impactful plot and story relevant relationships are non romantic. I love how almost romantic relationships/attractions are exes,in the past, made the F up (Hayward the F we're you yapping about man?)or not on screen... All but one which brings me to the reason for my post.

But the strong reactions to episode 36 are tickling me.

A lot of people are upset about the ending specifically how they think the tragedy is excessive and depressing for no reason. Personally I belive Sebastian and Devereux did make it out at the end and that last bit was a ptsd flashback to the incident and I do agree that it'll be a bit much for the NPCs we've been following for a whole 1 hour+ episode will meet a grisly end for horror reasons I guess.

BUT the reactions by people who's interpretation of the ending as being more tragic I feel is interesting. I do not believe people would be as upset if it wasn't a romantic relationship that was centered. If Seb & Dev had been unambiguously "just" friends getting sucked into some nightmare Scooby Doo plot, if it was centered primarily on Dev & his sister, if it was only about those non romantic relationships and an unambiguous Bad End, I Don't believe certain portions of the fandom would've cared as much.

I feel people were waiting for a romantic narrative, wanted their cute assumed white yaoi boys to ship as a reward for "sitting through" all the aromantic relationship stuff. Were hoping for a cute soft fluffy romance that they could ship, the right kind of queer representation.

The aro/ace older woman, the Achillean trans man, the sapphic trans woman, all the myriad NB/agender main/major characters is fine...but where's the cis (white) yaoi boys?(nevermind that both of Seb & Dev's VAs are POC)

Idk I guess this is a fundamentally uncharitable assumption to make about people but I notice things and maybe I'm projecting too much

[radiofreeilium]

Also also what was up with Lena saying that there are "benevolent" forces at work???? Are we getting chaotic good entities and forces this time???? It would be wild to transition from tma where the eldritch beings are literally fears and they're all categorically evil to tmagp with like, possibly kinda ok eldritch beings??

[deermouth]

:)

[reinstatedperi]

I think I have good taste UwU

[lobotomy-maybe-bestie]

finding a new podcast to listen to is so fucking hard when you have specific ass taste and are scared of things that might disappoint you

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

Fantastic chapter like always and absolutely adorable.

I love how you expand so much on the characters even the dead ones in this fic in a way that makes them so present in the narrative. The way this makes Frank just completely absorbed by his family constantly while still building them as real people independent to him is great. Just the little details about Maria this chapter and how they relate to Matt is absolutely fantastic

The situation between Peter and Frank needed to blow up spectacularly before getting resolved I should have known that something would actually blow up.

The way you showed the Spidey sense in action through Franks pov was really good it's my favorite Spidey power and really fun to see in action.

Poor Peter though. I hope that once the situation gets resolved he can have a good cry about everything ever.

Also I really want Tony to get punched in the face. Just a small punch! Just once! But Jesus Christ the way he handled this situation has been so bad for Peter I am so angry at him. I know he's dealing with something behind the scenes bit still he needs to think about the impact this all has on Peter it's so bleak and isolating

i simply love explosions and add them in to everything i can. they're the spice of life. do not have the police investigate me i am so so normal about fire

Maria Castle is alive in my head and I love her. the version that lives in my head simply loves Matt. He's the dumbass little brother she's always wanted. He enchants her with his poor decision making and emotional unavailability. When he comes over she insists on throwing herself in his arms and he twirls her around because it annoys frank and they're inherently both assholes. The Maria in my head will never be showcased unless i end up pushing my Castle Family Agenda in earnest, but I will reference her as she exists in my head in works where she's still dead. I love her your honor.

The reaction to tony in kintsugi continues to be hilarious to me because kintsugi partially exists because I didn't see this reaction post-CW. Like the reaction I saw was mostly hardcore Iron Dad and i just didn't really see or hear a lot of commentary about how he handled the time between CW and Homecoming. And in kintsugi I changed literally nothing about how Tony treated Peter in that time and people are soooo mad at him. It's kind of funny

[tcelujhita]

I’ve been rotating Michael Magnusarchives and the Wolf Neverafter in my head recently because they share such an engaging character concept. They’re both kind of ambiguous weird blends of one human and one person whose identity is more wonky. Both characters present a single trait that originates from their component parts, except the reason is different for each part. 

With Michael, he’s made up of Michael Shelley and the Distortion, right. Shelley’s gentle and trusting personality got him worse-than-killed (sorry man for following your nature), and his identity got placed onto the hand of the Spiral like a sockpuppet. Michael hates what and who he is because he's Michael (which as a Person Identity, is antithetical to the Distortion, a location that just lives to be confusing and undefinable), and because he's a manifestation of the Spiral (which Shelley got killed by). He's bitter about being sacrificed by Gertrude, and he's bitter about being forced into being a somewhat-definable person. Dude got blended and he’s so spiteful about it. Even though he should be contradictions within contradictions, the human and the manifestation agree to hate Michael and the Archivist. His bitterness originates from both and I really like that.

So the Wolf, I’m thinking specifically of the scene in the forest limbo with Ylfa. The Wolf switches to being her Grandmother, except it’s ambiguous as to who this actually is. I mean obviously it’s the Wolf but she’s simultaneously Ylfa’s Grandmother, despite the wrong personality. That’s how Ylfa treats her at least. And even if there’s no aspect of Ylfa’s real grandma there, then the Wolf is not just wearing her appearance, but also her behavior & role, and so what’s the difference really. This person offers Ylfa genuine kindness and she accepts it. The bit of the scene before this shows Ylfa grappling with the idea of ‘comfort in the certainty of death’ despite her efforts to protect people’s lives. This is presented by Death itself (who I believe later when talking to Pib, says he thinks of himself as more of a concept than a character/person), then Ylfa is simply emotionally comforted by the archetypal nice Grandmother figure. The traits originate from both. I just think, Death and the Grandmother could both be pictured as saying, “Come here into my arms and it’ll all be over soon.” 

[taniushka12]

Catastrophic "is thinking abt his ocs and vibrating at the speed of light" event at 3:30 am, there are no survivors 😔😔😔

[fox-guardian]

please consider: alice but in her blue hair and pronouns phase

sorry anon you have Activated me because my tma-verse alice has blue hair tips instead of faded pink. so now you get blue hair pronouns alice AND an alternate sam!

[ID: A digital drawing of Sam and Alice from The Magnus Protocol. Sam is a fat South Asian man with brown skin and curly black hair in a ponytail with a mustache, goatee, and body hair. He is wearing a white t-shirt, red zip-up hoodie, and green sweatpants. Alice is a tall, skinny white trans woman with freckles, shaggy brown hair with blue tips in a high ponytail, and snakebites. She is wearing chunky pink jewelry, a dusty pink tank top, a long plaid skirt, and a pink blue and white flannel shirt hanging off her shoulders. She is also wearing blue nail polish and a burgundy purse. Sam and Alice are holding each other close, looking worriedly off-screen. One of Alice's hands is rested on Sam's chest, with Sam resting his hand over hers. He is wearing a gold ring on that hand. end ID]

~~~~

unless given evidence to the contrary, i am choosing to believe that archives!sam and alice got back together and have been doing Pretty Well post eye-pocalypse (much to protocol!sam's distress upon learning of this)

[irradiatedsnakes]

also i don't want to focus too much on recurring characters from tma in tmagp but i think it would be really really fun. if we get a cameo from tmagp-verse jon. not chester, just alt-verse jon. and he's just some random dude. not involved in this shit at all. just some random dude living a very normal life and we see like 5 seconds of him and he's never relevant again

[lonelyslutavatar]

I don't know which is funnier... the concept of the receptionist and the perv being the Martin and Jon we know, who got shoved into this world, and they found their counterparts missing, so they assumed their identities and started doing literal role-play therapy... this world's Martin and Jon got sucked into the computers. OR, the receptionist and the perv are the Martin and Jon who are naturally in this world, they have no concept of spooky things, and are instead struggling with a meet-cute that also has problems of professionalism/dating somebody who is seeing the therapist you work for, meanwhile the Martin and Jon we know really did get shoved into the Windows 95 Cyberspace Matrix

this is actually my understanding of the whole thing (assuming that the cameo in ep 17 is indeed a cameo. Personally, I think this IS a jmart cameo but not a plot relevant one)

It's established that Darrien came from another dimension, meaning the jmart that he encountered are not from the tmp verse. He also doesn't come from the tma verse because the Jon and Martin from his dimension are presumably living in Oxford and have different jobs. What really bugs me is that Darrien gave a statement sometime before 1999 (before the Institute burned down) so he must have also traveled a few years backwards since jmart would still have been in their tweens/early teens at this time.

[boombox-fuckboy]

any podcast recommendations for guys Going Through It. im a sucker for whump and i’ve already listened to TMA and Malevolent sooo

Fiction Podcasts: Characters Going Through It / Experiencing the Horrors

Gore warning for most, here's 15 to get you started:

I am in Eskew: (Horror) David Ward is arguably the Guy Going Through It. Stories from a man living in something that very much wants to be a city, and a private investigator who was, in her words, "hired to kill a ghost". Calmly recounted stories set to Eskew's own gentle, persistent rain. The audio quality's a bit naff but the writing is spectacular. If you like the writing, also check out The Silt Verses, which is a brilliant show by the same creators.

VAST Horizon: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller/Suspense Elements) And Dr. Nolira Ek is arguably the Gal Going Through it. An agronomist wakes from cryo to discover the ship she's on is dead in the water, far from their destination, and seemingly empty, barring the ship's malfunctioning AI, and an unclear reading on the monitors. I think you'll like this one. Great sound design, amazing acting, neat worldbuilding, and plenty of awful situations.

Dining in the Void: (Horror, Sci-Fi) So, the initial pacing on this one is a little weird, but stick with it. A collection of notable people are invited to a dinner aboard a space station, and find not only are they trapped there, but they're on a timer until total station destruction: unless they can figure out who's responsible. And there's someone else aboard to run a few games, just to make things more interesting. The games are frequently torturous. If that wasn't clear.

The White Vault: (Horror) By the same creators as VAST Horizon, this one follows a group sent to a remote arctic research base to diagnose and repair a problem. Trapped inside by persistant snow and wind, they discover something very interesting below their feet. Really well made show. The going through it is more spread out but there's a lot of it happening.

Archive 81: (Horror, Weird Fiction, Mystery and Urban Fantasy Elements) A young archivist is commissioned to digitize a series of tapes containing strange housing records from the 1990s. He has an increasingly bad time. Each season is connected but a bit different, so if S1 (relatively short) doesn't catch your ear, hang in for S2. You've got isolation, degredation of relationships, dehumanisation, and a fair amount of gore. And body horror on a sympathetic character is so underdone.

The Harrowing of Minerva Damson: (Fantasy, Horror) In an alternate version of our own world with supernatural monsters and basic magic, an order of women knights dedicated to managing such problems has survived all the way to the world wars, and one of them is doing her best with what she's got in the middle of it all.

SAYER: (Horror, Sci-Fi) How would you like to be the guy going through it? A series of sophisticated AI guide you soothingly through an array of mundane and horrible tasks.

WOE.BEGONE: (Sci-Fi) I don't keep up with this one any more, but I think Mike Walters goes through enough to qualify it. Even if it's frequently his own fault. A guy gets immediately in over his head when he begins to play an augmented reality game of entirely different sort. Or, the time-travel murder game.

Janus Descending: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Tragedy) A xenobiologist and a xenoanthropologist visit a dead city on a distant world, and find something awful. You hear her logs first-to-last, and his last-to-first, which is interesting framing but also makes the whole thing more painful. The audio equivalent of having your heart pulled out and ditched at the nearest wall. Listen to the supercut.

The Blood Crow Stories: (Horror) A different story every season. S1 is aboard a doomed cruise ship set during WWII, S2 is a horror western, S3 is cyberpunk with demons, and S4 is golden age cinema with a ghostly influence.

Mabel: (Supernatural, Horror, Fantasy Elements) The caretaker of a dying woman attempts to contact her granddaughter, leaving a series of increasingly unhinged voicemails. Supernatural history transitioning to poetic fae lesbian body horror.

Jar of Rebuke: (Supernatural) An amnesiac researcher with difficulties staying dead investigates strange creatures, eats tasty food, and even makes a few friends while exploring the town they live in. A character who doesn't stay dead creates a lot of scenarios for dying in interesting ways

The Waystation: (Sci-Fi, Horror) A space station picks up an odd piece of space junk which begins to have a bizzare effect on some of the crew. The rest of it? Doesn't react so well to this spreading strangeness. Some great nailgun-related noises.

Station Blue: (Psychological Horror) A drifting man takes a job as a repair technician and maintenance guy for an antarctic research base, ahead of the staff's arrival. He recounts how he got there, as his time in the base and some bizzare details about it begin to get to him. People tend to either quite like this one or don't really get the point of it, but I found it a fascinating listen.

The Hotel: (Horror) Stories from a "Hotel" which kills people, and the strange entities that make it happen. It's better than I'm making it sound, well-made with creative deaths, great sound work, and a strange staff which suffer as much as the guests. Worth checking out.

[agnesmontague]

tmp - tma connection theory

i do not claim full credit for this as @anthonyampersand and i were bigbraining it (and screaming) in chat together but our current theory for how Archives and Protocol connect are as follows :

tl;dr : TMP and TMA are a setup for each other's premise respectively, feeding into each other like an ouroboros. we know that TMP is on some level a "sequel" to TMA (i.e. celia may possibly "remember" events from TMA that we know to have "already happened", such as the eyepocalypse) but it's entirely possible that events in TMP will influence those in TMA in turn, without much concern for actual temporality.

more specifically : it appears, at least so far in the canon, that fears in the TMP universe haven't really split themselves into categories the way they do in TMA. we've seen a case that sounds an awful lot like a Slaughter statement (the bloodthirsty violin), with others that overlap across several Smirke Fears (the very first one read by norris is a healthy mix of Stranger and Lonely, it appears to me), and others that don't strike me as being any particular fear (a malicious, hungering liminal space...? Spiral, Lonely, Extinction...?).

this is ironic because, well, the protagonists' very job is to do that kind of categorization. Dolls comma Watching, or Dolls comma Skin? it's the very type of job that smirke himself seems to have tried to undertake in TMA-verse (and ultimately succeeded). which means....

maybe there ISN'T any fear-categorization in this world prior to the OIAR. maybe, in the end, the way to "defeat" whatever Fear(s) stalk this world is to split it up into little parts that antagonize each other, and then send them away. in short, the OIAR crew are who will send the Fears into the TMA-verse in the form we see them in TMA.

there are some other indications that time may be a flat circle here. why did lynne hammond suddenly change her name to celia in s5 of TMA? why would it suddenly "feel right" to her out of the blue, unless it was the name she vaguely remembered using Elsewhere? of course, since TMA was written before TMP was even conceptualized, it's not extremely likely that it was some kind of deliberate foreshadowing back then ; it is however possible that they took this little detail to build TMP to fit "retroactively" with it. the archives of the magnus institute in TMP-verse being pristine and free of papers could indicate a sending-away or timeline-wide interference as well. and to say nothing of hilltop road, of course...

the tagline for TMP is "Fear takes many forms". sure, it's a pun (fear receives a lot of paperwork). but perhaps it's also a warning for what's to come. fear takes on many forms, in TMP--perhaps even as many as fifteen?