#but im feeling 22

[indybob]

Today is my 22nd birthday!! Unfortunately, I have to spend it at work, so if y’all wanna drop your cutest, softest, and fluffiest Hangster head canons in the replies and reblogs, that would absolutely make my day!!!

[folkloresreputation]

You guysss

IM FINALLY 22

this has been a dream of mine since i became a swiftie 10 years ago 🥺🥺🥺

Its has finally been a great birthday after so many not so good one

Thabk u to all of you who like my creations

[zodiac-monkey]

[ef-1]

to the holes in my butterfly wings

[freaky-flawless]

The De Nile sisters!

[shandzii]

Birthday time lmao

[fallen6253]

About the soul-swap partners:

I love that neither of them decided to stick to their given roles.  In either universe, really.

You’ll get what I mean.

Cale, who was Kim Rok Soo, does not keep up the image of trash.  He calls himself trash, he is called trash.  He does not keep his reputation.  Not the alcoholism, and he doesn’t throw bottles at gangsters.  No, he takes care of the underworld and other nobles in his own way (ie, recruitment or utter destruction).  He does not have his old reputation in this world either.  He’s not known as this cold leader who doesn’t care when someone dies, he’s known as a brilliant young man who cares way too much.  He’s known as an idiot who would rather pass out from exhaustion a week later than leave things to fester for one minute.  

And then there’s Kim Rok Soo, who was Cale Henituse once upon an apocalypse.  (First the fuq of all, nobody knew jac squat about him in the first place, and being the son of his mother probably made him something of an automatic anomaly.  I assume just being a Thames makes you kinda weird.  But anyway!) He lived as trash, an alcoholic who threw too many bottles back and then at the wall.  Then he lived through 20 years of a losing war.  And he got tired.  Tired enough to listen to a voice in his head in his last moments, to switch worlds and bodies with some stranger.  And he chose the motto that reflects the sentiments of his soul swap partner to a T: let’s live peacefullly.

And he smiles now, as Kim Rok Soo.  He sits back in his office chair, with an easygoing attitude.  He’s not the trash that would only shout; he is sly, and he knows how to use his status to properly put punks in their place.  He’s the team leader who refuses to be mistreated by anyone.  He will not be used, he would rather do his work as he needs to.  He isn’t a lowlife with no responsibilities in the wake of a war he would be just about useless in; he has a niece he has to go home to.  He drinks casually, not too much.  And he smiles in a way that’s too bright for the cold Kim Rok Soo.  He’s too happy now to be called cold-blooded. It’s like there’s a fire in his eyes that had been lost ages ago. Something that was rekindled when he had someone to go home to.

Despite changing their own lives so much, they wound up being nearly the same as one another and that drives me a little insane.

And let's not forget the best part.  One famous line they have in common in every world:

“Should I flip everything over?”

Another thing: I think Cale's gonna start resembling Kim Rok Soo. As in, he'll start relaxing a bit as the work goes on, he'll learn to rest as he goes (as in actually rest) and delegate work properly. He won't brush past comments like he used to, he will look a person in the eye and go 'I can just leave this world and leave you to your fate' which I would love to see, honestly. I feel like their individual capacity to be petty increases with age, and that's probably one of my favorite things about these characters. So them finding new ways to piss off people who don't like them could just be made into its own series and I would sell my soul for it.

[dykedvonte]

Do you have anything you've been thinking on but just haven't made a post about it yet? Also I'm really enjoying your fic!

I have a few things but it's likely mostly headcanons that I consider somewhat disconnected from my analysis.

Curly's parents had him old, only child, died shortly after he graduated and got the pony express position. It was the last big thing they saw him do which is a reason he stayed for so long.

Doesn't admit how much their death affected him

Jimmy has a largish family. One of the cases of too many kids to keep tract of, parent never really noticed any of them nor their behaviors

Anya lived in a lot of houses growing up, regular supportive family that just struggled to support themselves.

Became a nurse largely to avoid their financial struggles but mostly because she felt too many people weren't being cared for and advocated for in the world properly

Swansea likes high top sneakers most. Likes how snug they fit and how they shield his ankles at work

Curly has a bit of a caffeine problem since he can’t sleep. Can occasionally be found wandering the ship at “night” when he had some too late or just couldn’t sleep.

Daisuke knows a little about a lot of things. Starts conversations with “did you know” a lot but please don’t ask him deeper questions

Curly has known Jimmy longer but has worked with Anya and Swansea longer, met them during his middle years, met Jimmy shortly before college.

Swansea rents a house, Daisuke’s family lives in a big nice apartment, Curly has a condo, Anya live in a small one bedroom apartment and Jimmy has a studio.

Curly's home is very disconcerting. It's too normal to a like uncanny degree.

Anya is ambidextrous but prefers her left.

Anya and Curly are both not native English speakers so occasionally they forget words and bond over the mutual mocking they get from the rest of the crew. Daisuke knows some Japanese but is still learning, never picked it up as a kid

Only Swansea and Daisuke know how to drive, Earth in my mind is very post capitalist so only older people and like the extremely wealthy can afford cars.

It's also like walkable just due to how many businesses are in your face. Probably strict living vs shopping districts

I have more but the way that I headcanon about them is like too long.

[amygdalae]

its wild playing fallout 3 now im in my 20s. instead of when I first played in middle school and was like "oh im so cool and badass and 19 :^)" It's now more like, "oh god this poor teenager must be so stressed out I have to keep them safe."

[mosstrades]

THE FUCKING TMA VIOLINS AS [ERROR] EMERGES. YOU CANT DO THAT TO ME YOU CANT FUCKING DO THAT TO ME YOU CANT YOU CANT

[mintaikk]

You can tell Angel has daddy issues because he is currently crushing on a depressed drunk 70 year old man

[theloveinc]

There's a lot of validity in the idea that older Bakugo is a traumatized pro-hero with major PTSD... but you know what's kinda fucked up to think about? The fact that Bakugo is also a 22-year-old pro-hero with major PTSD even before that, too.

It's almost easy to imagine that things are actually better when he's older (the therapy finally a routine, the trauma long set and on the path to being healed)... and that it's his whole 20s that are spent as a pool of disaster trying to recover from the war(s).

He looks back and barely even remembers being twenty, much less twenty-five or twenty-seven. Barely remembers how little he slept, not at the hands of trying to balance hero work and getting a degree at the same time, but just out of the pure insomnia that came from trying to move on and every nightmare attached.

Hardly ever showering, never shaving (not that he ever grew much of a beard, but the facial hair was definitely there. There's pictures of him on the news with an awkward, grown out haircut and patches on facial hair that make him look positively... immature), barely even eating more than a few protein bars or an energy jelly drink-a day. It's a blur, and his friends are hardly there to pick him up out of it because they're all going through it, too. Somewhat.

It's definitely weird if you meet him during this period. He's not all there, at least, not all of the time. He doesn't really register your interactions, the friendship you extend to him (a younger, or ever older, version of him would've shown you that deep seeded ferocity in response, tried to bite the hand that fed him, even if it were love... but 20s Bakugo... doesn't seem to notice). Even though only one of his eyes is clouded over, the good one never seems to brighten up.

There's definitely moments when the old him shines through: when he's with Deku, when he's in the midst of battle, when he finds out that Todoroki still does a shitty job at chopping scallions. But it's a long time before he's even close to the same, able to step out from underneath the fog of simply surviving and into the sunshine of recovering.

But I think sticking through it with him is worth it.

(It's a weird moment, a happy moment, the first time you realize that Bakugo has changed. That the pouring rain outside hasn't bothered him since he showed up at your apartment. He forgot his umbrella, he's been quite careless ever since the war—wet and shaggy hair frizzed up, cheeks red from cold—but he doesn't seem to mind, with his bare feet up on your coffee table, his eyes gazing out the window. You hand his tea, and instead of gulping it down in one go, letting it burn in his throat, he winces at the heat.

"Tastes like shit," he says, and you laugh because it always does. Just this time, he noticed.)

[spaciebabie]

MONKKEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[brettanomycroft]

Signals from Somewhere Else

After episode 22 of Protocol, there’s one thing (okay, maybe two things) that everyone is going to be talking about. But I don’t want to talk about that thing (yet. Okay, I lied, it might come up). Instead, I want to dive into some of the implications of this week’s case and how they might relate FR3-D1 [Error], and even Isaac Newton.

Spoilers for TMAGP episodes 21 and 22 below the cut. CW: we’re gonna talk about the brain stuff; probably overuse of the words “fleshy” and “wet” by I blame AJN for that.

Our case in this episode, graciously recounted by Peepaw Augustus, focuses on real-life German psychiatrist and neurologist Hans Berger, whose work led to the invention of the EEG and furthered our understanding of how brainwaves work. The experiment described in the case mirrors actual experiments that Berger completed while working at the University of Jena, including experimentation on a subject with a deformity that allowed easy access to the brain and the placement of silver wires under the scalp to measure electrical activity. Even Berger’s disappointing initial results seem to be in line with history.

Like in real life, the cosmic horrors of this case begin when Berger takes a little depression nap.

The description of “an ocean, deep and unforgiving… full of dark secrets” creates a striking image to be sure, but what’s more interesting to me here is what he recalls next: the “radio signals, invisible and unknowable.” Berger laments that it’s a “shame these two things would never meet,” and then proceeds to enable such a thing to happen, whether he realizes it or not.

He wakes up and is immediately “inspired” to alter the setup he is using to record Herr Schmidt’s brain activity. While Berger is unable to explain how he came up with the idea (we could tell him: it was The Horrors, bud), he transforms his recording device (an early version of an EEG) into a two-way wireless telegraph, using poor Herr Schmidt’s brain as the receiver for the very radio waves that, perhaps, were never meant to make contact with the world below. Berger sent a politely phrased request into the void, and the void screamed back.

Who or what was on the other side can only be guessed at. Was it John/Martin/Jonah, individually or Frankensteined into some horrid chimerical conscience (please read this great post and have your heart broken like me)? Was it The Fears of the Archives-verse, recombined and tossed about like naughty pears in a pear wiggler? Or was it something or someone else entirely? I’m leaning towards JMJ, in parts or as a whole, specifically because I suspect that Hans Berger’s strange (and wetly explosive, thanks Alexander J. Newell) discovery provides a clue to how [Error] and possibly FR3-D1 operate.

Let’s start with [Error]. Here’s what we know about them so far:

They were locked up in tunnels or a basement space under the Archivist’s office at the Manchester Magnus Institute

Something about them causes people, dead and alive, to recount their fears or horrible things that have happened to them (I am not using the word compel here, even though it is used in the transcript for episode 21, and that is on purpose)

They seem very invested in getting the entire story out (this is, admittedly, speculation, as it’s unclear as to whether “THERE IS MORE” is in reference to more victims or more of Gwen’s story)

They have some really weird dogs

I’ve seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was the Head Archivist in the Protocol universe, and I’ve also seen a lot of folks speculate that [Error] is or was John (and therefore also The Archivist). I think either of these could be true, but more than anything, I think [Error] is a high-powered antenna with the ability to turn the people around them into speakers. Or maybe Speakers? I do love a good capitalization.

What if the “esteemed brethren” of The Magnus Institute were all too aware of the unusual results of Berger’s experimentation, and hoped to tap into the unusual consciousness(es) floating around in the radio waves and ether of the universe by creating their own version? Perhaps they thought they could create a direct conduit (think almost like a psychic medium) through a person, someone who might be able to communicate with whatever is out there and be able to relay its/their esoteric knowledge to help further the Institute’s goals of “Universal Transmutation.” We know already that the Institute was interested in doppelgangers and perhaps alternate universes and that they had a lot of irons in the fire (the Millenium Dome, the gifted child programme, Welling’s Mutare Materia research program, the various outreach centres), so it would hardly be surprising if they were also experimenting in communicating with “the beyond” to try and gain more knowledge.

And maybe it worked. Maybe they were able to create or transmute someone into an antenna, capable of receiving these strange signals, except these mixed signals were too powerful and ultimately took over. Perhaps [Error] is the natural consequence of who or whatever was speaking to Berger finally getting “OUT.” And if who or whatever was speaking to Berger happened to include the fractured consciousness of a hungry Archivist, well then, we have an interesting case for [Error]. [Error], whether or not they were an/The Archivist in this universe, could now be directed by the desires of The Archivist, channeling The Archivist’s thoughts and abilities but with a power greater than that we ever saw in John (or, perhaps, the same power but completely unrestrained by his remaining humanity). Or [Error] could be channeling The Fears themselves, bringing parts of them through not unlike they were brought through in The Magnus Archives.

Either way, I doubt that creating a connection between whatever was out there and the physical world led to the results the Institute was hoping for.

[Error] is receiving the signal to feed, but the signal coming through is so loud and so powerful that instead of politely asking to snack on some horror stories, coming into contact with them instead allows them to pick up on a person’s horrible experience and forces them to broadcast it to the world. It’s possible that, upon creating [Error] or losing control of [Error], those at The Magnus Institute locked them up and cut them off from the dangerous signal they were receiving… Sam accidentally poking a big hole in the floor (and the alchemical signals inscribed in it) could have reestablished the connection between [Error] and the force guiding them.

Now let’s talk about FR3-D1. We know that FR3-D1so far is that it

Is a “bespoke” internet software developed sometime in the mid-90s, apparently designed to search the internet for spooky stuff

Has German source code

Crashes, constantly, much to Colin’s dismay (? Or maybe he’s helping those crashes along to stop it from listening in… but that’s a theory for another time)

Has, within the last year or so of Sam joining the O.I.A.R., started running a text-to-speech program that reads certain cases out in one of three voices, two of which are familiar to anyone who has listened to The Magnus Archives

Occasionally has some unusual .JMJ errors

Seems to be “targeting” Sam with specific cases related to The Magnus Institute

Is believed to be “listening in” by Colin, Alice, and Sam (which is supported by what we know as the audience)

Has been working “better” since Colin has been on mandatory mental health leave

May have some connection to the Stasi, the secret police force of Communist East Germany before the fall of the USSR

Is assumed (by us as the audience) to have some kind of sentience

There are some other items (notably the spreadsheets found in the ARG that appear to be from or connected to FR3-D1and the emails Sam and Gwen have received) that could be connected to FR3-D1 but have not yet been confirmed. Yet aspects of FR3-D1 do seem to share some commonality with [Error], namely a level of sentience and the ability to locate the stories of people who have had horrifying supernatural encounters.

My speculation here is that FR3-D1 and [Error] were both constructed using the same premise or with the same goal in mind: to receive and channel the signals of entities or consciousnesses existing in or coming from “Somewhere Else”: FR3-D1 through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived software program, and [Error] through a supernaturally or alchemically conceived transmutation on a living human.

If this proves to be the case, then the results seem… distinct, albeit with the potential to be equally dangerous. FR3-D1 is more “controllable” and could potentially be better able to separate out the signals being received, manifesting as “Augustus,” “Chester,” and “Norris.” Now these “three” could still be part of homunculus-esque JohnMartinJonah consciousness, but perhaps the computer program is a little more stable and delineated than the fleshy wet mess of the human brain, and therefore what remains of each individual consciousness is able to act more distinctly and independently. In contrast, [Error] (and their fleshy wet mess of human brain) is receiving the signals all mixed and jumbled together, with no failsafes to keep them from “overloading” or being entirely taken over by The Horrors or JMJ or The JMJ Horrors. Given their spectral descriptions, it’s possible that fleshy human brain and body couldn’t take it anymore and, pun intended, gave up the ghost.  

[Error] could be, in some ways, a bodiless, mindless soul acting on a confused mess of instinct and hunger; FR3-D1 is then, perhaps, the elevated mind, in (more) control but disconnected from a body and perhaps from a soul. Given the heavy influence of alchemy in The Magnus Protocol and the importance in alchemy of the number three, the Tria Prima, and the balance of mind, body, and soul, there may be a third entity we have yet to meet who, like FR3-D1 and [Error], are tuned into these signals from beyond and is eager to reunite with the rest… or perhaps FR3-D1 and [Error] are looking for a body of their own to inhabit and find balance (Sam, anyone?).

I feel like I myself am beginning to mix the signals I started with, but before I attempt to wrap this up, I do briefly want to throw one more piece of spaghetti on the wall, because I think it’ll wind up being something: the mention, specifically, of the silver wire the Berger used in his experiment.

It was Dr. Caton who recommended that Berger use the silver wire, as silver is known for being an effective conductor of electricity. Silver also holds importance as one of the seven metals of alchemy and as a possible base metal in the creation of a Philosopher’s Stone. Perhaps equally important here is that the Diana’s Tree, also known as the Arbor Philosophorum, is created using a solution including silver (or more accurately, silver nitrate) and mercury (one of the elements in the Tria Prima)… yep, the (sort of) same spooky tree created by Newton in TMAGP 19, where Newton gave his dog an existential crisis and Robert Hooke was like “burn it all down.” The conclusion we could draw here is that silver is used in both TMAGP 19 and TMAGP 22 to connect organic life to the unseeable Knowledge of some other plane… with potentially disastrous effects.

Whether it ends up being the case that FR3-D1 and [Error] are big antennas wirelessly receiving The Horrors or I’m totally off base, it seems pretty clear that Hans Berger “tuned in” to an unusual—and dangerous—signal, and what’s more, enabled that signal to connect with the Protocol world in a way that likely never should have happened.

[coffeegnomee]

the urge to slow down 4c's stream and learn how to count the clicks he makes on his keyboard to figure out what word he typed to vortex

[calo-wav]

thinking abt old men kl… literally always…. bc what if they were old…and married…and if they didnt have to wear those fuckass belts…

my kl fic 🫣