#like the only 'exception' is gerri

[i-will-change-this-someday]

Something that keeps nagging at me is, why did Jon continue to take statements?

I’m not talking about season four. In episode 120 it is revealed that Jon gets dreams of the statements, and in episode 114, Daisy asks about his shirt, meaning the dreams weren’t just happening during the coma. (Also 120 states that he’s had these dreams before)

And look, I know Jon loves trying to deny things, he spent the entirety of season 1 doing just that, but he’s not stupid; no one would think “hm, I’ve been getting dreams of the live statements, where I watch them live through their trauma again and I’m turning into something not quite human, probably just a coincidence. Nothing to worry about.” So why does he continue to take live statements?

Because even if Jon doesn’t know that the other person shares the dream, why would he want to keep dreaming them? Because he enjoys it. He’s not suddenly more “monstrous” in season 4, taking strangers statements, it wasn’t like he suddenly started making these selfish decisions, he already was.

I’ve seen a lot of people say that Jon doesn’t become an avatar until season 4, but, to me, he already was one, his choice in episode 121 is more about becoming the Archivist not an avatar of the Eye. Because in season 3 he can already compel people, he can already Know things, and he is already enjoying people’s fear. He plainly tells Gerry that he likes compelling people.

So, I think, Jon enjoys taking peoples statements, and he enjoys watching their dreams, because he doesn’t have a choice. Jon admits that he thinks he’s losing himself to the Eye:

“ARCHIVIST

Avatars! But they end up getting these abilities, and they lose a lot of their self. Sometimes all of it.

GEORGIE

And you think… that’s what’s happening to you?

ARCHIVIST

Yes. Yes. The Institute serves one of these beings.”

The Eye took a part of him, and now he has to enjoy others’ suffering, he still feels immense guilt for his actions, but as Helen said “When has your guilt, or your sadness, or your hand-wringing ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants?”

[bitchthefuck1]

I actually don't fully vibe with my point here anymore. I think there's definitely an element of this going on, and it was never supposed to be a full explanation of his whole "thing", but it still feels a little too simplistic and overcooked. Post cancelled.

I feel like a really crucial scene for unpacking Roman's whole "oedipal" thing is the bit in Prague where he sees Tabitha, because one of the first things he says is "dad would go fucking nuts for her." He is constantly using "well it's what dad would do" as an explanation for his actions, and I genuinely think the jokes about wanting to fuck Marcia/Caroline are less about his mommy issues and any actual attraction to maternal figures and more about "well these are the women dad's into, so they must be the right women to be attracted to." It's like a defense mechanism--Logan can't think there's something "wrong" with his sexuality if they're attracted to the same people. It's what he would do.

Except this is obviously flawed logic that only makes him seem more "wrong," because "if dad does it then he must think it's okay to do and he won't get mad at me for it" isn't even the mostly-coherent reasoning of an adult choosing a partner their parents approve of, its the logic of a kid trying not to get hit.

[i-have-41-protons]

My TMA headcanons:

Jurgen Leitner had the biggest, most pathetic old-man crush on Gertrude Robinson. He met up with her in the tunnels and then cried himself to sleep because they could never be together and Gertrude would never like him back or some shit. But not before gooning it to her picture.

Michael Shelley was hyper-mobile, like double-jointed. With all the troubles that came with.

Gertrude actually WOULD go for a loser like Leitner, but she never did because she didn’t think of him as anything but a source of information.

Gertrude Robinson was aromantic bisexual.

Gertrude had it going on with Agnes Montague. Not sure how that would work but it probably involved oven mittens

Agnes cannot be touched without burning, at all. Not sure if it’s already canon, but if not, here’s my take on it: the Desolation took even the barest intimate contact with another human being — or as close as it gets to one — from its strongest avatar. It’s a curse. My girl gets to SufferTM

Gertrude actually had a soft spot for Gerry. Of course, she didn’t let it interfere with her work, and of course, she skinned him and left him behind… buuuuuuut he was still the only person allowed to call her “Gertie” to her face and survive, and she did catch herself feeling an occasional fondness towards him.

Gertrude was being devoured alive by guilt for every person she had sacrificed for “the greater good”. She cried when she fed Michael to the Spiral.

Gertrude never, ever cried, even alone… except for a very few occasions.

Mary Keay wore her hair in two long, thick braids before she went bald. I hate the bitch but she knows how to carry a Look

Peter Lukas is Jonah’s sugar daddy.

Peter Lukas and Elias Bouchard have been married and divorced at least 14 times. I’m saying Elias because they have been married and divorced even more times with other identities of Jonah

Jonah Magnus was a plump, tall freckled ginger with innocent eyes, a disarming smile, and an awkward attitude. He made an active choice to only bodyhop into twinks because he was one at heart.

Mordechai Lukas was Jonah’s sugar daddy. Peter is just continuing the tradition (he didn’t know about that when he got into an affair with Jonah)

Elias wears eye earrings. Nothing we can do about that, he’s just that cunty

Jonah Magnus, Peter Lukas and Simon Fairchild are in an on-and-off polycule. Peter and Jonah fight over Simon. Nobody wins. Ever.

Michael Distortion can use fae rules if it likes to.

That’s it so far! You may have noticed I’m a bit obsessed with the “previous generation” as you may put it, and not the main cast lmao

[mothmangang]

AU where after the doomed yaoi stabbing happens everything goes back to normal like Martin stabs Jon and the eyepocalypse stops and every thing goes back to normal miraculous lady bug style like all the domains go away, everything is fixed, all the normal people forget what happened (with a few exceptions) everyone who died is back everyone gets put back in the location they were before everything went to shit like it's not time travel, all the main characters (the avatars, the archival crew,etc) remember what happened, they have the scars to prove it but it's just like every thing went back to being normal, to being okay it's not perfect but everything is okay and I think that's what matters after the stabbing they all wake up back at the institute on the floor and while most of them are okay that's not to say they're all unchanged like -jon is still eyeball-y but very relieved -martin is foggy but normal and very relieved Jon didn't die -tim is back with cool scars and the power to blow stuff up in any way -daisy is also back as a human but werewolf logic now applies to her every one is very happy to see each other but unfortunately there are other things that changed and the crew arn't the only ones waking up on the institute floor first of all

-Danny is also back (albeit filled with sawdust), tim is very happy until it's revealed that danny willingly joined the circus -Micheal is also there and while he's now a lot more human now, he's still all sort of fucked up and now has to share the distortion with Helen -gerry is alive and no longer a book but isn't 100% human the most pressing issue is that the real Elias has his body back and Jonah is back to being a twink in his original body

[l-wandering-etranger]

hc that jon and gerry met several times when gerry was alive but neither realised it was the other

•back in jon's research days where it was late and everyone had gone home except for jon who was working overtime, exited the institute and realised it was raining and as he was about to go in and wait in his office gerry comes from behind and stops to stare at the rain (he stayed late cause gertrude wanted a report done due tomorrow). jon tells him there is no use staying outside and to wait inside and they make some small talk and Gerry asks jon if he has a cigarette and they share a lighter in the rain and after smoking gerry gives up and runs in the rain to the station while jon just goes back in. neither of them remember this happening because it was dark and both of them were beyond exhausted.

•many fics are done on this but gerry going to a pub where the mechs had a show and he accidently says something out loud while they are performing and jon without breaking character responds in a flirty manner but gerry had to leave when the show ended because The Horrors caught up

•gerry used to ask someone in the library to deliver a really obscure book to the archives and the person receiving the ask used to get really stressed when they couldn't find it and jon who happened to pass by and was friends with them helped them find it because he had toured most of the library or had read the book and later it got delived to gerry by the librarian. this happened a couple more times before gerry gave up and went himself.

•they met in a thrift store where gerry was tracking a lead trying to find a very specific vintage lighter mentioned in a statement and jon was just fa-ing when he found a cool vintage lighter and went to the check out counter meanwhile gerry who was frantically looking for it saw jon casually take it and go out through the door, ran after him in an attempt to stop him only to spot a girl holding a lighter that was exactly like the one in the statement and did a full 180

•a vast avatar attempted to make a meal out of jon by first approaching by hitting on him and proceded to got interepted by a panicked gerry who realised what was happening coming in through the crowded station and slapping the avatar accusing him of cheating on him. the very confused avatar watched a very bewildered jon slowly walk away into the crowd and could do nothing as gerry yelled profanities before also walking away.

jon realises all this happened after he fully comes into his powers and regrets not having enough time with gerry to tell him about this.

[crochetedblorbos]

"Actually, it’s not fine at all, but we’re all in the same horrifying boat together at this point, so…"

Character Name: Madeline "Maddie" Townsend Fandom: The Holmwood Foundation [Podcast] @theholmwoodfoundation Voiced By: Rebecca Root Yarn Used: Hair: CraftSmart Value - Butter Skin: CraftSmart Value - Peach Dress: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Aqua

"I think I would very much like a friend in all this. It is nice not to feel so alone."

Character Name: Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker Fandom: The Holmwood Foundation [Podcast] Voiced By: Rebecca Root Yarn Used: Hair: CraftSmart Value - Burgundy Skin: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Taupe Dress: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Navy

Basic pattern here.

Look. I didn’t necessarily PLAN to do Maddie and Mina so early, but the one-year anniversary of the pilot dropping was last month and it seemed fitting. Plus it’s the start of Dracula Daily season, so here goes nothing. Anyway, here’s our girls!

For anyone who hasn’t listened to the pilot of The Holmwood Foundation, or isn’t familiar with the premise, Maddie Townsend, former history teacher, is a junior archivist at the Holmwood Foundation, an organization founded by Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming) and Mina Harker to study vampires, especially Dracula (the book really happened, just…slightly differently than their friend Bram wrote it, with their blessing). Something goes catastrophically wrong, and long story short, Maddie is possessed by the ghost of Mina. (Her cranky, crotchety wet cat of a boss, Jeremy Larkin, is possessed by Jonathan Harker and is rather pissed about it.) I wanted to find a good way of displaying that, and since I don’t think I can adequately do one of those turn-me-inside-out toys, I figured this would do.

Obviously, Mina and Maddie are wildly varying from the base pattern! I modified it as follows:

Maddie: I actually went top down with her, so inverted the pattern starting with 6sc in a circle and proceeding in reverse from R77 to about R36, except I never increased to 38sc. When I hit that round, I did the same thing I did with Mini, Azu, and Alice and crocheted the round in front loops only. I did her hair with the same method I’ve been using for long hair since Gerry, except that I gave her a side part like in the official art.

Mina: I let Mina have a high collared blouse, which seemed appropriately Victorian/Georgian, and basically did her according to pattern starting with R37, in the back loops of the previous round. (I’m not sure why her face came out more angular than Maddie’s.)

Mina’s Hair: I wanted to give Mina a classy turn of the century updo, so I made the strands twice as long as I would have expected and stitched them around the outer edge of the scalp, then took the long ends and crossed them back and forth over the head to form the hairstyle. I actually really like how it turned out! (I also untwisted one of the bits of yarn in the front to give her an errant curl over her forehead.)

Skirt: I did Mina’s skirt first, not for any real reason other than I was at the ballpark and only had the navy yarn with me rather than the aqua. It went as follows: R1: Join yarn to middle back of R36, ch 1, sc in each front loop around, sl st in first sc (36 sc). R2: Ch 1, sc in back loop of each st around, sl st in first sc (36 sc). R3: Ch 1, [sc in first 4 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 4 st] 4 times, sl st in first sc (40 sc). R4: Ch 1, [sc in first 9 st, 2sc in next st] 4 times, sl st in first sc (44 sc). R5: Ch 1, [sc in first 5 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 5 st] 4 times, sl st in first sc (48 sc). R6: Ch 1, [sc in first 11 st, 2sc in next st] 4 times, sl st in first sc (52 sc). R7: Ch 1, [sc in first 6 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 6 st] 4 times, sl st in first sc (56 sc). R8: Ch 1, [sc in first 6 st, 2sc in next st] 8 times around, sl st in first sc (64 sc). R9: Ch 1, [sc in first 7 s5, 2sc in next st] 8 times around, sl st in first sc (72 sc). R10: Ch 1, [sc in first 4 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 4 st] 8 times around, sl st in first sc (80 sc). R11-R13: Ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in first sc (80 sc). R14-R17: Ch 2, hdc in each st around, sl st in first hdc (80 hdc). R18-29: CH 3, dc in each st around, sl st in first dc (80 dc). Fasten off.

I then flipped her over and switched to the aqua for Maddie’s skirt. I wanted the style to be a little different (in the official art, it’s a tea-length skirt, but I had to make it go all the way to the ground to cover Mina’s face), so I did as follows: R1: Join yarn to middle back of loops from inner skirt. Ch 3, dc in each st around, sl st in first dc (36 dc). R2: Ch 3, [dc in first 4 st, 2dc in next st, dc in next 4 st] 4 times, sl st in first dc (40 dc). R3: Ch 3, [dc in first 2 st, 2dc in next st, dc in next 2 st] 8 times, sl st in first dc (48 dc). R4: Ch 3, [dc in first 5 st, 2dc in next st] 8 times, sl st in first dc (56 dc). R5: Ch 3, [dc in first 3 st, 2dc in next st, dc in next 3 st] 8 times, sl st in first dc (64 dc). R6: Ch 3, [dc in first 7 st, 2dc in next st] 8 times, sl st in first dc (72 dc). R7: Ch 3, [dc in first 4 st, 2dc in next st, dc in next 4 st] 8 times, sl st in first dc (80 dc). R8-10: Ch 3, dc in each st around, sl st in first dc (80 dc).

At this point, I decided to do a bit of a fancy pattern for the rest of the skirt. To do this, I did a triangle pattern. The first round I did it in dc and did it too narrow - a “V” of two dcs crocheted together like a decrease (dc2tog) followed by 2dc in the same stitch - but that didn’t math right, so following that I did it triple crochet and did three stitches crocheted together (tc3tog) followed by three tc in the same stitch, as follows: R11: Ch 3, [dc2tog, 2dc in next st] 26 times, dc2tog, dc in next st, sl st in first dec (80 dc). R12: Ch 4, [tc3tog, 3tc in next st] 20 times around, sl st in first tc3tog (80 tc). R13: Ch 4, [3tc in first st, tc3tog] 20 times around, sl st in first tc (80 tc). R14-15: Repeat R12-13. R16: Hold both layers of skirt together. Ch 1, [sc through first st on both skirts, sk 3 st, 7dc in next st through both skirts, sk 3 st] 10 times, sl st in first sc (10 sc, 70 dc). Fasten off.

[lostwords-found]

"You are here! Stay a while!"

Something about being beckoned in from your solitude by a stranger, finding yourself somewhere that seems at first glance like a glimpse into a better version of things. Only to realize that the people are all empty echoes and remixes of others you've seen before, and the place is a trap that will draw you in and quite literally eat you alive.

Who's Norris talking to, with this one? (Assuming he's talking to anyone. Assuming there's something like choice happening in there.) Does he know that Alice will walk away as soon as he starts talking, and that Gwen will tune him out? Does he know Celia and Sam have left early? There's no one listening to him--except actually there is, because we're all here. We're all listening to this story about an invitation to a "better" time that goes immediately and horribly wrong.

"Stay a while!"

Shortly before the mics switch to a completely different story.

"Sorry for the mess, I wasn't expecting anyone..."

Probably completely different.

I'm sure it's fine.

It sure was nice to hear Gerry sound so happy.

[agentrouka-blog]

Is there any evidence that D*ny would ever even spare Jon a glance?

Like, people love bringing up Val as a D*ny stand-in, but is there a Jon stand-in? What makes people think that D*ny would even be attracted to him?

Going by Dany's type, I don't see Jon in her target range. Drogo. Daario. Sandy-haired well-spoken Gerris Drinkwater. She likes swagger, boldness, classically handsome features. (And who can blame her.) She also really likes displays of exaggerated loyalty and violence, if Daario is anything to go by. Acceptance of her own violence. The Targaryen look.

Jon doesn't really appear on that spectrum. His demeanor is subdued and unexpressive, his looks are unremarkable except for their Stark-ness, his violence is not celebratory, his speech sparse and to the point. Pomp and grandeur tends to activate his distaste, if Selyse is anything to go by. And he takes a long time to warm up to people and act with less reserve. He's not Kit Harrington pouting curl-fully into the middle distance. He's a 17-year-old grump and looks younger than that and barely needs to shave.

I also don't think that any of this is likely to change in the future.

Foreshadowingwise, there's an icy penis, and a blue flower in a wall of ice filling the air with sweetness, which people like to link to Jon. Both appear in fairly foreboding contexts. Then again, so does the silver-haired Val whose sweet-tasting air Jon can't detect - only the cold.

I mean.

Honestly, I'd like to give Dany credit where credit is due and not be attracted to Jon for the mere fact that he's a protagonist, even though he checks none of her boxes. It's like asking Cersei if she's into Stannis when her type is clearly Very Different.

I want them to meet and be formidable enemies who have honed their strengths and sacrificed too much to fall for easy manipulation. Not a mediocre couple brought together by the force of prophetic destiny and some invented Targaryen incest magic.

[brw]

Loving Exceptional X-Men and I really appreciate the acknowledgement that Kitty has to straighten her hair rather than it just be like that, and I do love how the act of her straightening her hair is linked to her trying desperately very hard to live as a normal person for once because the amount of suffering she has gone through because of being an X-Man has been extreme enough that she has realised she needs to take a step back from that life. There's a whole bunch of analysis on this that other people have written but what I want to do now is to draw attention to the way people are comparing it specifically to Krakoa, because while there is some amount of truth in it, I also think it's greatly historically revisionist to like, forget that only happened after Gerry Duggan was literally bullied and harassed into it.

Kitty Pryde starts Marauders with straight hair and without her necklace. She is an alcoholic, she breaks her nose multiple times, and the first arc ends with Duggan making the creative choice to literally incinerate her corpse. The series was incredibly antisemitic, and in the early days it was all anyone would talk about. Like, I remember being on Twitter and seeing multiple people talk about how awful it was, how underhanded and insidious it was to make these decisions with a character like Kitty, and it was only because people complained for ages that Kitty was eventually given her curly hair and her Magen David. Kitty having curly hair on Krakoa was not a choice made because Krakoa was great for Kitty, it was a choice made after Duggan was (rightfully) harassed for making a sequence of incredibly offensive decisions! I will not let us revise history in this way. Krakoa Kitty only looked like that after the creative team was bullied into it.

[cornfieldsrambles]

I love Trevor and Julia so goddamn much, the way they're utilised in TMA season 3 is my actual favourite thing.

Like. Right smack in the middle of the Everything Wants To Kill Jonathan season, they just. bring up these two recorded statement givers from season 1 (they were both brought up maybe one (1) time each after their initial statement eps but you'd be forgiven if you fully forgot they existed).

And they honestly picked the perfect two, like you can't go wrong with "serial killer's daughter who lives in his shadow" and "homeless guy who has apparently been tracking and killing vampires his entire life. Also there are vampires in this universe."

(more t&j rambles under the cut - it is LONG lmao)

Which is its own thing, tbh - vampires are such a footnote in the grand scheme of tma that it's hilarious. They're not connected to anything, we don't meet any, no one else ever mentions them except Daisy like one time, I'm not even sure which entity they serve! The Hunt? Slaughter? Stranger, even? Fuck knows. Trevor Herbert sure doesn't. He doesn't even know what the fears are! He and Julia think they know what they're doing but they are so far removed from the actual Plot™️ despite having a literal Exposition Machine in their back pocket. The only problem of course being that the Exposition Machine hates both their guts.

Anyway yeah Jonny just took these two characters and slammed them into season 3 like "they're a found family now and became cross-country monster killers. This is a problem because now, technically, Jon is one of the monsters they like killing."

They straight up hijack the plot, which. It's so fun watching them storm in like they're such an intimidating force. They really think they're main antagonists. Scratch that, they think they're the main characters of their own show. Some supernatural-esque dark gritty monster of the week series. Yeah, sorry, that spinoff ain't happening.

They weren't even gunning for Jon specifically. They don't know who the Archivist is or why he's important. All they know is "eye guy bad". THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HE WAS IN AMERICA. Jon just had the Supremely Rotten Luck of walking into the vicinity of Julia Montork. I cannot get over it.

And honestly they're so weirdly endearing. The way they pass the story back and forth while giving their statement, the way it just devolves into banter by the end? Julia calling him "old man"? Come on, it's cute as hell. Meanwhile Jon's there like "yes I'm sure this is very nice but can you maybe untie me from this chair please"

oh and by the way. These two fucking C-tier villains just so happen to be in possession of the book containing GERARD FUCKING KEAY.

You know. Gerry Keay? The extremely plot relevant (and fan favourite) character that fills Jon and the listeners in on all that juicy exposition we didn't get from Leitner? The guy who's been teased and seemed to be involved in basically everything since season 1? Gertrude Robinson's protege? That Gerry Keay?

Yeah, they just. Have him.

They don't know why he's important, they just use him as a monster manual and he tells them as little as possible because he hates them. Also this is unrelated but at one point he refers to Trevor and Julia as the Van Helsings and I just adopted that as my go-to name for those two because I thought it was fun.

And then in season 4 they pick the Actual Worst Time to show up. Right at the height of the single most packed episode of the season, these two clowns break into the institute in the most melodramatic way possible:

Like who the fuck do they think they are.

AND THEN THEY JUST RUN STRAIGHT INTO NOT-SASHA. WHO IS ALSO INEXPLICABLY HERE.

They really thought they did something. They really thought they knew what they were getting into, the grizzled rogues taking down the monsters one kill at a time. They were marked by the Hunt - ironically they WERE becoming the same monsters they set out to kill. Exactly the same monster that killed them.

And then Trevor spends the last few months of his life running like prey from the thing that killed his surrogate daughter. Fuck, what a way to end it. TMA is so good at getting you attached to characters with barely any screentime or impact on the larger plot, and these two are my go-to example.

I really love Trevor and Julia is what I'm saying

[laora-ryn]

Chester, [ERROR], and Jonathan Sims: The Anthill Theory

Hello Tumblr, may I present a follow up to my initial thesis that [ERROR] is Jon? As well as a rebuttal to the argument I've seen floating around:

"[ERROR] can't be Jon! Jon is in the computers!"

Why are you treating these like two distinct eventualities?

Jon died as an omniscient, omnipotent demi-god half a step down from The Eye itself. Jon died at the exact moment that he was pulled through a rift in space-time. If Jon survived that, I doubt he'd end up human on the other side. He'd probably end up as something else entirely.

Something none of us, and none of the Protocol-universe characters, have ever seen before.

"Imagine you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human - "

1. We have Chester, who has Jon's voice, and has shown signs of autonomy and a personality where Norris and Augustus have not.

I have another meta post picking apart the fr3-d1 stuff, but for the sake of staying on topic, I will show an abbreviated, summarized list from that post below:

Mystery emails sent to various OIAR employees:

Episode 4: Gwen receives an email from an unknown source showing Lena trying to kill Klaus

Episode 4: "the system" sends Alice a notification that Sam searched for "Magnus" and "protocol"

Episode 7: Sam receives an email from a "John" with an internal email address, with Gerry's name and address

Episode 20: Sam receives an email from a garbled email address, with documents from 1999 regarding Starkwall and TMI

Error messages:

Episode 3: Alice receives a jmj error that Colin troubleshoots. Freddy snarks back at both of them

Episode 17: Alice receives a jmj error that Gwen troubleshoots. There are plenty of error noises, but imo it comes across less snarky than it did in episode 3

Other miscellaneous interactions:

Episode 5: Alice: "what the hell is wrong with everyone today?" OIAR computer, not having been touched or interacted with: [error noise]

Episode 17: Chester reads a universe-hopping statement to Celia

Episode 19: Sam asks Alice to talk with him about the Magnus Institute. Immediately, Alice's computer throws an error, like it wants her to stop working and talk with Sam

Magnus Institute Statements read to Sam:

All of the below statements are read out by Chester, and are (meant to be, in 21) read out to Sam specifically:

Episode 1: RedCanary

Episode 9: the cursed dice Magnus statement. This one starts on its own, while Sam is doing the Response Dept paperwork

Episode 14: the snake emporium. I'd almost mark this one as too much of a stretch, but Sam himself caught the Institute mention and was bothered by it

Episode 19: the one with Newton's alchemical tree that talks about the Protocol

Episode 21: the one about the Dome construction in the 90s, which Alice intercepts on Sam's computer

As far as I can see, the only statement that mentions the Magnus Institute that isn't read by Chester to Sam is the one that is read by Chester to Celia, as mentioned above

In terms of Norris and Augustus:

Martin was pulled through the rift at the exact same time as Jon, except as someone mostly human. Relatively human.

Jonah was too, but Jonah was already a static dead body at the moment of the rift - it wasn't the released potential energy of his death that catalyzed and pulled everything through the rift.

It makes sense, to me, that if all three of them are here, Jon is in a uniquely powerful/sentient position in comparison to the other two. Which leads us to point 2:

2. We have [ERROR], exhibiting characteristics that are indicative of Jon and no one else

See my other meta post for more info, but in summary:

The tape recorders spawned specifically for Jon in TMA, via the Web

Did even Elias show abilities to compel people to give their statement? He could tell people their statement, and force images into their heads, but could he force it out of their mouths? I don't remember seeing that

Along with the other evidence that isn't Jon-specific but is indicative of a TMA character:

They were initially trapped underneath the Magnus Institute - which could also be Jonah, or Martin

Their apparent desire to protect Gwen and "all of them" - which could also be Martin, or some non-familiar benevolent being

Jon being Chester and Jon being [ERROR] are not mutually exclusive.

Who's to say Jon, the Archivist, or what's become of him, or what's left of him, isn't the fingernail, and the boot, and the eye? Maybe he's even something else we, the ant, never live to see, or don't have the senses to perceive at all!

Additionally!

I think this might even tentatively explain why [ERROR] is voiced by Beth Eyre instead of Jonny - beyond "it would be way too obvious if they want it to be a plot twist"

If Jon/the Archivist is split into multiple parts of the same whole, in this universe. If, in the chaos of interdimensional travel, traits/attributes/parts of Jon were not distributed equally or correctly. For our anthill example, perhaps the color of our gazing eye, or the rubber material of our stomping boot, was applied to our fingernail instead. Maybe [ERROR] should have Jon's voice, but they don't. Maybe they didn't have a voice at all. We didn't hear them say anything at all in episode 10, only take a deep breath

Maybe they had to take a voice from one of their victims. Do you think there was a reason that we heard the autopsy statement secondhand, after the doctor transcribed it, rather than the victim's voice herself?

(When, as far as I know, the common ways to record information during autopsies is either with a voice recorder, or dictating to a secondary person to write, who was demonstrably not present? When, by all rights, there should have been a voice recorder present?)

I'm currently working on a master TMAGP timeline (and a TMA one otl), but an extremely abbreviated, specific version of it is as follows:

9 March: Sam and Alice visit the Magnus Institute and release [ERROR]

20 March: the autopsy victim is found dead in a park

22 March: Alice encounters the drowning woman

12 April: [ERROR] appears during Ink5oul's attack on Gwen

How many victims do they have, since Sam let them loose? Is it just the ones we've already seen, or were there others too?

This could go off in about 5000 different directions so I'm going to cut it here, but what I'm getting at here is - it makes a LOT of sense to me that we might be looking at another "creatures far beyond our comprehension" here; it'd make a lot of sense thematically; and it's just really freaking cool, if I'm being honest!!

[a-thousand-little-things]

anchored only by what is left of times long gone

——————

hi everyone!!! thanks for coming :D we should introduce ourselves now huh

true. i’ll start. rowan santos, they/them, 16 years old, i serve the eye. green text.

andrew sanchez! he/it, 15 years old and i serve the spiral. and the slaughter? idk it’s weird :P red text

bee jones, my real name is beatrice but most people just call me bee :D she/any, 14 years old and i serve the end :] orange text

thank you all for joining us. my friends here—

hi :)

hey :D

—found out that there are a lot of people… like us, sort of, on this site. we made an account for ourselves, to interact with you all. it’s certainly easier than trying to track you down across several universes without leads, but we’ll still be doing that.

you seriously had to reveal the universe thing?

yeah, so? explains why we’re everywhere. i doubt we’d be able to keep it up as a secret.

true, yeah. anyway, hi guys! thanks for meeting us!

have a good time.

have fun!!!

welcome to the blog :3

open for asks!!

big huge unreality warning for this entire blog!

ooc, rules, and info under the cut!

@iiinkos here! made another tma rp blog but this time with my ocs :D i also run @gerry-the-archivist (an au in which gerry becomes the archivist) and @sonja-artefact-storage (previous head of artefact storage) if you wanna check that out

info:

- bee lore and info

- rowan lore and info

- andrew lore and info

- all asks i send will work in a certain way. when signing them off, i will put in the characters’ names in the order they appear in (not including ones who aren’t in the ask), and then next to it i’ll mention myself

example:

hey there!!!

hi :) what’s your favorite color?

- andrew, bee / @(this blog)

- ooc or // = out of character text

rules:

- no flirting!

- no sexual content!

- please don’t attempt to rp a relationship, yes qpr counts

- perfectly fine to start a new rp or interact with old ones, i don’t mind :)

- anyone can rp with me! you dont gotta be an rp blog

- all lore relevant rp stuffs is under the tag #lore :) i’ll set up a more sophisticated system eventually, but this one works for now

- do not ask for genuine advice on things like culture, race, or disability (such as: bee’s mexican traditions, caring for 4c hair, how rowan lives their day to day life as a leg amputee). while these characters are these things because people like them do exist, and i want to show that in my creations, that does not mean i have actual authority on the matter. please do your own research on the life experiences of people like this. i want to show that yes, people like this exist, but i do not want to be treated as an expert.

- the only exception to the previous rule would be asking andrew about his experience as a second gen immigrant filipino kid, because i do have actual experience growing up as a that. you will not be able to get genuine advice or knowledge on filipino culture, which i will elaborate on in the next rule.

- andrew is a filipino second generation immigrant. he feels disconnected from his filipino background and culture, and is deeply insecure about it. he is likely to mention this from time to time. DO NOT USE THIS AGAINST HIM. i am using him as a way to explore my own feelings on this matter, which are likely to be very similar, if not identical to his.

have fun!

mod uses they/them

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

Look, I would love to believe that Gerry is having a perfect time in an alternate universe, but I can’t. Something is up. Note: I’m using some info from the arg spreadsheet for this.

Cw for unethical psychology experiments and harm to children.

He claims to have been too young to remember, but according to the spreadsheet he is two years older than Sam. Of course they probably weren’t tested at the same time, but his development level indicates he was school-aged.

He says he just remembers filling out forms and answering questions. The spreadsheet indicates that they put the kids through the Milgram experiment (you know, the giving electric shocks to people one)

He is happy to invite strangers in first thing in the morning and offer them anything- food, a large painting, etc. This goes beyond typical hospitality/generosity.

He even thinks the landlord is lovely. And yes I think this is a hint considering TMA’s politics.

Gerry immediately considers strangers old friends.

I may be reading the spreadsheet wrong because it is ambiguous. But if I am correct, when tested Gerry was ranked very prosocial, but also wasn’t compliant with the Milgram test or a test of social conformity (the one where a bunch of people lie about the length of a line to see if the person being tested will agree with something obviously wrong). The Gerry we met seems very compliant.

Gertrude is eager to get rid of Sam and Celia, which is completely understandable, but I think there is more to it. She knows something and wants this away from Gerry.

The little “I like them” “of course you do” exchange. It isn’t much on it’s own, but altogether…I don’t think Gerry has a choice. Not in liking them or being generous. I think Gerry was so close to being what they wanted, but he wouldn’t comply with some things, so they…somehow made him compliant.

According to the spreadsheet, Gerry had the second highest empathy index. The only individual higher was Sam. And I think we can assume Sam’s results are significant, considering he is a main character. Sam’s results were similar to Gerry’s in almost every way…except that Sam was given opposite results in the social conformity and obedience measures. In general, as empathy, moral development, and prosocial behavior increased in the kids, milgram and asch scores were lower, which is why I believe low=not going along with them.

So, the institute was looking for kids who were highly empathetic but also easy to control. Until they found Sam, Gerry was the closest, so they tried to control him. And ended up damaging him badly and messing with his memory of what happened.

[alice-blogs-things]

To me, what's interesting about this version of Helen is less that she still works in real estate, and more that so far she's the only TMA carryover who has the same job. Basira works at a school instead of with the police. Gerry is an artist and Gertrude is his grandmother. They've all appeared, in some demonstrable way, to be different from the characters we know. All except Helen, who has the same occupation as her TMA counterpart and in many ways still acts like someone connected to the Spiral. The only other character I can think of who's similar is Georgie, who's still running a podcast. But even then, we don't know if it's remotely similar to What The Ghost, and there's been no mention of Melanie or the Admiral so far, so we don't know how similar her life is to the Georgie we know.

[magnusunpopularopinions]

I just saw the anon opinion about doorkeay having so much more fan works and stuff than any of the women from tma, and I was literally just thinking about, and I wanted to add a thought that I had. I'm so sorry this is so long.

A while back, can't remember where, I saw someone use doorkeay as an example of a "non-toxic" ship, as compared to "toxic" ships like jmart, and it confused me so much, because jmart is canon and so we see what their dynamic is like in the show, but doorkey isn't so everything about them is fan-made. Now, let me be perfectly clear, non-canon ships are great, I love them, but comparing a canon and non-canon ship like that just does not feel like a fair comparison to me. But in think that kind of dynamic kinda contributes to this.

Gerry and Micheal (Shelley, particularly) really don't appear that much in the podcast, so we really doesn't know all that much about them. That means when characterizing them, you can kinda do whatever you want, since there's not much you're starting with. And that means, if you want, you they don't have to have any of those more problematic traits that characters with more major roles do. Couple that with the tendency of all fandoms to be come critical of female characters and more forgiving of the men, and you're got the potential for the perfect storm of favoritism (maybe not the best term, but I think it works). Melanie, Basira, Daisy, and Georgie all have messier, or even problematic traits, since they're in the show more and so we get to learn the """"bad"""" sides of them, but Gerry and Micheal get to be as nice and wholesome as you want. They get to be good and non-toxic, unlike the toxic women who seem problematic and bad in comparison.

I don't know if this totally makes sense, and again, sorry it's so long, but it's just been on my mind recently and I wanted to throw my two cents in.

Also, just want to finish by saying, I don't think there is anything wrong with liking Gerry or Micheal or shipping them (I do all of the above), and I don't even think there's anything necessarily wrong with fluffing things up in fan-works to make things more "wholesome" (again, I do it too), but it's just one of those things I think we should be aware about when interacting with a work.

Thanks for sharing! Let’s chat!

Anon is referring to this post!

Fans are allowed to interact with the content however they wish, and no one interpretation is better than another. This is has been said multiple times on my blog and I will never* not agree with it.

I agree- I don’t think comparing a cannon couple to a fannon couple is fair. It seems sort of difficult as well- those are very different relationships.

*the only exception being if someone is being racist, sexist, etc. in their interpretation!

Again, thanks for sharing! What about you guys? What do you think?

And as always, remember to keep your words kind!

-E

>Hello! I’m E, and I created this blog to be a safe space to share Magnus Archives/Protocol opinions in! If you are seeing this in a reblog, I want you to know three things:

1) I value respect and kindness over anything.

2) I cannot control what others say in response to anyone’s opinions.

3) Only you can control your emotions/actions/words. Choose to respond with gentleness, not anger. After all, we all are here for the same reason- why not enjoy each other’s company?

Thanks, and have an awesome day/night!<

[formerheroeswhoquittoolate]

gnawing at the bars of my enclosure. anyway I think it's a massive travesty that we haven't explored scott and laura's relationship in the aftermath of the end of the time-displacement (I blame gerry duggan, to no one's surprise.) they were On The X-Men Together and the most anything we got ever was laura running to him when he got killed one time. like that's it.

and you Must Understand scott is the first person laura ever meets who is unemotional on the surface like she is, who is detached like she is, who sees himself as dangerous like she does, and yet. he has control over himself at a time she, crucially, has none. he is together, he is composed. he is cold and stilted, but he still loves his family and cares for his students and protects his people.

and he gets SO much shit for sticking laura on x-force (at least in what I've been reading here, so grain of salt, this might be me arguing with one guy) but look. scott was willing to let laura into the x-men school when she showed up, despite everything his girlfriend at the time and several other people were telling him. and when that wasn't working, when she was struggling and traumatized and angry and dangerous, he gave her an outlet in the form of putting her on x-force -- notably, with logan, and eventually also with one of her friends from the school (shoutout josh foley you have ALWAYS deserved better and they should stop ignoring your relationship with dani). with domino, who could look after her without slotting into the sarah mom role. with proudstar, who was not afraid of what she had done or could do. with rahne, someone to protect and aspire to be, who had been similarly dehumanized and terrorized and hurt good people and was still worthy of love. we can talk about whether this was the best option for laura as much as we want (it wasn't) but you have to understand: it was scott's only option. he knew if he gave her an order she would follow it, but she couldn't handle the school anymore. not with so many of her friends dead, not with so many of the students afraid of her. he saw her backsliding, even if logan didn't. that's who scott is, he's a pragmatist.

and, crucially, so is laura! she's not mad about it because she is in a lot of ways just like him. she would put herself between her people and anything. we see this in her first solo run with gambit and even in the early x-force, where she's willing to die as long as the legacy virus dies with her. other people with more idealistic ideas about personhood and healing might hold scott's choice against him, but laura doesn't. she's not ready for that yet.

and then a whole bunch of stuff happens and scott dies and the young x-men are brought to the present, and suddenly she is older than scott. but crucially, he's still that tightlaced version of her. he doesn't usually do hugs, contact, any of that, except when his people need it, and even then it's awkward, stilted. he's unemotional, at least on the outside. he's alone, unmoored from his team, or so he thinks -- in reality, he has ties to so many people in this new world, so many people who love him and he just doesn't know it. there's that bit where he makes her a list of solo missions while everyone else is having a night off because he knows she can't handle a night off like that, because he can't either, but his leg is broken and if she goes out and gets into fights she can at least come back and tell him about it. god. they are like little copies of each other.

Do You Hear What I'm Saying. laura was all of scott's bleeding edges, jagged and raw and uncomfortably visible. unavoidable, uncontrolled anger and pain and love all tangled together in a highly trained tactician (because laura is one, was raised to be one, and don't you forget it). and scott is what laura wanted to be: locked down, compartmentalized, collected. he sees himself in her, gives her a job to do (just like xavier did for him!) in the hopes that it will help her like it helped him, that it will give her a family or at least a way to use this part of her she's still reckoning with. teen!scott hugs her because she is scared and surrounded by strangers and he was too, once, and would have welcomed that reassurance. yes he Is probably projecting but he's also kind of right.

and I don't think it's an accident that gabby is what finally pulls laura out of her last lingering self-endangerment and self-hatred, much like leadership and mentorship and teaching is what takes scott from tightly wound field leader to the foremost, unequivocal x-man. maybe this is reaching but it's so so telling to me that these two seem to need responsibility. to need something, anything to do, because otherwise it'll pull them apart at the seams. fire and ice, these two. laura burns herself up, scott locks himself down. oh no wait I think this is just another post about character foils again FUCK anyway I can't believe they were on the x-men together and literally none of this got addressed