#maybe when i actually reach the episode where she talks on my relisten

[saturncoyote]

how would bunny uncanny valley look (aka Nikola or any other stranger/spiral avatars)

Well i've got some ideas

[animusiem]

Mayonaka Punch Broke Me In Pieces

Summer 2024 for anime has been slow for me since all the anime I'm anticipating are still long way to go. But, one anime stood out from the rest and it's Mayonaka Punch. An original anime from the director of Ya Boy Kongming tells a story about a cancelled YouTuber (oh sorry NewTuber) making a new channel with vampires with her goal of reaching a million subs. With this being an original anime, I wasn't expecting much apart to see maybe vampire thirsting over girls. We do get that and so far it has been a blast.

What I did not expect is to be crying and having an existential dread over the loss of somebody. Episode 1-3 is the selling hook of the anime where you can see the dynamic between Masaki and the vampires. We see that the vampires here are different than most vampires in media like getting high off of garlic or still can go outside if it's overcast. But this week's episode...I'm floored by this because not only again took the vampire character into creative territory, but also what happened when vampire befriended or even have a bond with a human.

Episode 4 is about Masaki trying to diversify the channel's content by asking her vampires colleague of their interest. Fu didn't fill in the form even before she works at an Onsen. So Masaki entered the room and found a boom box with a cassette tape still in them. After she found out about Fu's singing skills, Masaki and Live decided that they want Fu to do song cover. Fu rejected that idea and that led to the whole gang to find the reason why.

I still can't believe this anime really just dropping one of the most heartbreaking story in anime this season or even the year. The way that the story handled grief and how as a vampire, you just accept it that if you have some sort of attachment towards a human that it won't last long for you. This philosophical question is actually has been explored before with Adventure Time being the animation parallel. But, what it reminded me of (and because the song they played is like singer songwriter type) is Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampire" which talking about old relationship that one has to die before the other and you have to overcome those grief. Using vampire as something that they wish they are but would the relationship still the same as it was if you're mortal. One lyric that caught me after relistening to it again is "Maybe time running out was a gift". There's no other way to say but part of relationship that you need to face is your own mortality and how it affected you and your partner. Maybe if one of us becoming a vampire or just not telling your human partner that you're one, and then one day you just disappear because they can't bear the disappointment or even being scared of turned away. Then you found out years later that it might be too late for you as a vampire to just relive that moment and what could have been. But in the end life keep going on as you will remember them to infinity.

I just wanna basically let out my thoughts here because as someone who's not even in her thirties yet, the thought of my mortality is already creeping in and I think this show is what I need right now to just let that feeling out. And I can't believe it came from the anime that an episode ago, is having a garlic mukbang. So yeah I highly recommend this anime.

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 89 - Twice as Bright

Jon: Right. But no more abattoir metaphors, please. Jude: Suppose it’s not really me, is it?

Yeah, too Fleshy.

Jon: I just have a few questions. Did you burn down a section of Gwydir Forest last year? Jude: Not alone, but yes. You should have seen how devastated they were, such a loss. Jon: I’m sure the Forestry Commission were mortified. Why? Jude: Stop that! And it was because Nikola Orsinov asked us to.

Jon doesn't even know what he's doing and Jude is getting all bristly, like a scared cat hissing.

Jon: I just… er, you were a friend of Agnes Montague, correct? Jude: She’s not one of your little stories. Jon: According to the statement of Jack Barnabas, she very much is.

Anyone going to throw things at me if I say "Oooh, burn!" in this context? Because, this is very much an Ooooh burn sort of situation.

Jon: Yes, yes, I understand, you could easily kill me, I’m at your mercy, blah, blah, blah. I have heard it before. And from things much scarier than you.

Jeez, Jon, where's all THIS coming from all of the sudden? Man, I wish I ever went from 'exhaustedly done with the world's shit' to 'I'm giving the world its shit right back!' like that!

Jude: Are you trying to talk me into killing you? If I wanted, I could reach through your chest like runny wax, and hold your heart while it cooked. No-one would even notice, if I didn’t give you time to scream.

Oh god, I love Jude. Every other avatar we've met is all quiet menace until they go full-monster and even then they're just 'JooOoon, coming to fiiiiind youuuu'. And here's Jude just CHEWING the goddamn scenery with relish, cutting things asunder with her edge. I've said this multiple times to people while discussing TMA but Jude is just basically the navy seal copypasta of avatardom and I'm enjoying her so much right now!

Jude: Hard to say. When I look at you I feel that burning liquid pain, eager to flow out and purify your rotten carcass, but I feel that a lot. Jon: Oh. M-More or less than normal? Jude: Hard to say when every nerve ending’s on fire. Hard to tell degrees. Jon: Third degree, maybe?

I cannot tell you which of the two I want to squeal at more right now. I adore this entire dialogue so much.

Jude: Oh please, your god is nothing! The Eye, Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, whatever you call it, that’s all it does, it watches and knows, sitting bulbous and comfortable in the ignorance of infinite knowledge. I serve a reckoning, a surging tide of destruction and pain.

Okay, but you still react like a cat that's been sprayed with water whenever Jon asks you a question, Jude, love, you're not fooling anyone...

Jude: The unfathomable contest of eternal forces is not the only reason I might want someone dead.

This is important right here. Obviously the idea that avatars are still their own people, regardless of the Entity they serve, became really obvious somewhere along the line, but at this point in my first go I was still basically thinking in terms of "Hm, well, this power and that power interact in this way... wait, that makes no sense..." and sort of discounting that it's not always ABOUT the powers, despite how obvious that was!

Jon: Statement of Jude Perry, regarding… some advice.

Jon just vacillates wildly between fear and being so DONE with Jude's bullshit and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Jude: The pain is sensational. You feel your flesh cooking, your nerves screaming out as they die exquisitely. Your whole body changes texture as you become that which feeds the fire. In that agonising, beautiful transformation, you can feel it ignite again and again and again.

Okay, now she's just making self-immolation sound tempting...

It was Agnes, of course. I don’t know where she found me, I only remember sitting in a booth with a beautiful young woman who smelled like matches and incense.

Well, someone's certainly smitten...

And with each act of glorious, hateful destruction, I felt my god’s love embrace me, consume me, give me life. Any feelings of pity or mercy I might have had for the poor woman I fed from were cauterised.

Ah, come on, like they existed to need cauterising in the first place...

And so I ended it. For all the agony and pain on Gretchen’s face, she didn’t seem surprised when I doused myself in kerosene and set it alight. I think she screamed. She must have screamed.

Tbh, Gretchen may have been traumatised for life but Jude seems to have lost interest in her after, so that was probably fucking lucky for poor Gretchen here.

Jon: Michael? (...) Corridors, weird limbs, laughs like a… headache? Jude: What? No. He’s pale, got a big, weird scar. Smells of, um… Jon: Oh, ozone! Jude: Yeah, that’s the one. Hangs around with the Fairchilds sometimes.

I love that the podcast is lampshading the fact that they've got two recurring characters named Michael (AND one Mikaele on top but at least he's usually referred to by his last name). I wonder at what point Johnny went "Whoops, I may have created a confusion." (I mean, not that it's unrealistic, my UK friend group-and-adjacent-people had enough Andrews, Johns and Matts that they basically all ended up with weird nicknames but it's just a bad idea to have identical names in fiction.)

Jude: Come on. It won’t hurt. (...) I lied. Jon: - SCREAMING IN INCREASING AGONY -

I mean, first of all, duh, yeah, OF COURSE SHE LIED! But also, Johnny is not a bad actor. The scream reminded me a little of that one time that my partner managed to scald a hand with boiling water while making tea (one of the worst sounds I've ever heard, incidentally, would like to not hear that again.)

My impression of this episode

First of all, I adore Jude. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean I'd be friends with her (I mean, duh, she was despicable as a human being and is now a fully devoted servant of the Entity-of-torment-and-loss, having near-orgasms over the idea of making people suffer, so...) but as a character she's just so beautifully over the top! It's fun! And Jon's interaction with her is incredibly interesting because, well, this may be the first time that Jon meets anything Entity-adjacent that is actually afraid of HIM (and yeah, Jude may be putting on a tough act, but she seems fucking terrified.) That was just really fun to watch, to be honest. A little bit of ... vicarious power fantasy, perhaps, at least until Jude turns the tables again. This was just a really enjoyable episode!

[ghostbustermelanieking]

oddly specific memories i have of listening to tma

in honor of the finale, and because i am a sentimental asshole, i bring you this potentially uninteresting and completely pointless list. i'm gonna miss this show a lot

half my original reasoning for listening to the podcast was to motivate me to walk on the treadmill. this did not work. but i did it the first time, when i was going through the trailers and anglerfish, and i remember the room where my dad keeps the treadmill is really dark and the spooky chanting sort of freaked me out

after the treadmill, i ended up listening to the bulk of the first four episodes on the couch, and halfway through i let my oldest cat, winnie, who always lived outside (i know, i was very against actually keeping her outside) in the house. and she jumped up on the couch with me, which she literally never did. (she was very grumpy and not super affectionate.) i had that cat since i was five, and she passed last june, and i really miss her. quarantine kind of gave us the opportunity to hang out with her a lot, because we were home so much. so i'm glad these memories are kind of intersected in my mind. (below: a pic i have from that day.)

my friend sarah relistened along with me the first time around, which was extraordinarily sweet of her, and also led to some interesting interactions. for example: she forgot when it was revealed that sasha was dead, so she accidentally spoiled that for me when i asked when the others would find sasha (and i spent all of season 2 just like. anxiously vibrating over this fact). she also made this post, when i was still in like early first half of season 1, and my immediate thought was "oh no martin is dead." i hadnt even MET martin at this point

back in early quarantine, my mom had this rule that we had to do something new every day (to keep away the depression... ha ha). anyways, all i wanted to do in my free time was sit around and listen to tma (and also watch this show i was into on netflix), so i came up with some lame excuses, one of which was "i'll give myself a pedicure." this led to the memory i ultimately associate with mag 56 (trevor herbert 2) being me sitting out on our roof balcony thing, giving myself a horrendous pedicure

another time, my family wanted to go play tennis, and they brought me along and brought a hammock for me to lay in. there was this excess material from the hammock, and the sun was in my eyes, so i ended up pulling it up and over me to block the sun and creating this ridiculous hammock cocoon thing. one of the episodes i listened to that day? "tucked in."

before i ever started the show, my friend sarah stayed with me while i was pet sitting. i remember when she got there, she'd just listened to 150 and was telling me how freaky it was (she was still trying to get me into the show), and she was like "of course we're staying on a CUL DE SAC." (that was also the weekend she watched us for the first time and was very upset because i slept through the whole thing, which is scary when you're staying somewhere by yourselves.) anyways, i spent the whole show waiting for the scary cul de sac episode

while i was listening to the show for the first time, my step-dad (an artist) started painting an EYE on the door downstairs near my bathroom. a fucking EYE. he didn't finish it til i had finished the show. but still weird!!

i binged like 12 episodes in one day to finish season 4, which is not impressive at all, but it's still my personal record. i just remember staying up late in my dark bedroom (til like.... 11 i'm lame and i go to bed early), listening to like 158 & 159 & 160 and just being knocked on my ass by how good it all was... i was SUPER spoiled by this point, through my own fault, and i knew exactly what was coming, but actually experiencing it was nuts

the second week i listened live was 167, where the public release was delayed by a couple hours by accident. i spent like 20 minutes refreshing spotify, thinking it was broken, before going on tumblr and seeing what the deal was. (and 167 remains one of my favorites of s5 because i remember just going "thank god it was worth the wait.")

this one car ride where sarah and i made some of our friends listen to the first three episodes of the show. it was the middle of the night and we were just like blasting down i40 listening to anglerfish and do not open etc

the night the what the ghost episode publicly dropped was the night after my graduation, and i was sleeping out on the couch in the living room so my grandfather could sleep in a bed. it was super dark, and i am a jumpy person, and i Remember being mildly disgusted with myself because the corny sound effects were actually freaking me out. (i think i mightve actually seen something weird that night, maybe, but that's another story.)

the weekend my parents moved me into college, we couldn't get the cable in the house we were staying in, and we were all sitting around doing nothing, so i jokingly suggested starting tma with them, and they were like ok grace. my step-dad promptly fell asleep and my mom zoned out -- which is probably good, she doesn't like horror and she's super claustrophobic, so it's probably better we never got to do not open

my brief roommate in college talked about how she was into those youtube channels where people just read scary stories, so of course i was like try tma out. so she listened to the first episode on her own, and we were out one night, and she started mag 02 while i went into an ice cream place. she was into it (she kept being like open it, ya pussy) and wanted to keep listening while we went home, and even back in our room. i had only been in town for a couple weeks, and barely knew my way around, but i also didn't want to turn the gps on and be interrupted every five seconds. so i tried to find our way back on my own. it took the entirety of mag 03, and into mag 04, before i did it. so now i will forever associate across the street with all those wrong turns i took in a dark, semi unfamiliar city, trying to get back to our college without a gps

the day of the early drop for 179 was the day i moved back home from college -- a five hour drive by myself. i ended up listening to it on the final stretch of the trip, when i was super tired and it was dark and i knew it'd probably be a crazy episode. just me full blasting down i40, drinking an energy drink (which i never do) through a hole punched in the top, listening to daisy's death

186 early dropped the day after initial u.s. election day (when we still didn't know anything). my mom had set up a "watch party" in the living room with these giant air mattresses, and we all sort of spent the day crowded around the TV watching the numbers. not much of a memory, but i remember sitting on that air mattress and listening to martin's monologue in the midst of that messy week

i had a virtual therapy appointment on the day of 187's early drop, and my dad was home, so i drove to an empty parking lot to do the session in some privacy. i was trying to listen to the episode before the session started, so i ended up listening to the last half sitting in my car, in the pouring rain, just staring at my radio in shock (187 remains one of my favorite s5 episodes)

my friend sarah had just come home for winter break the day 189 dropped, and we decided to listen together, just like driving around in circles drinking coffee and listening and speculating on whether or not that was really martin

i started my relisten right after thanksgiving and was just kind of blowing through fast as i could through the whole of december. i had to go back to college to empty out my dorm, and i went to the beach after, and i ended up listening to mag 11 while just like walking around in circles in the tide pools. the closer it got to christmas, the more christmassy i wanted to keep things, so i would like. listen in the mornings and turn on one of those Netflix fireplaces and get all cozy

my other friend went with me on a mini bagel road trip in december, and he was still trying to get caught up, so we listened to mag 169, 170, and 171 on the drive home. (by this point, i was accustomed enough to s5 and smiting scenes to automatically reach for the volume controls when jude perry and jared hopworth died.)

when i relistened to mag 47, i was sitting with my cat beezus. i paused the episode to write this big long meta, so i was in a different headspace when i pressed play again. jon immediately yelled for sasha and i immediately jumped, and beezus gave me a searing glare and just got up and left

i relistened to piecemeal while i was cooking, which i thought was kind of funny and also disgusting

after christmas, i got into the habit of bringing my cat georgia into my room in the mornings, and she'd crawl under the covers with me while i listened to tma

one story i've always liked to tell from my first listen is how when i first listened to the meat arm grinder episode, my dad asked me to help him cook hamburgers later that day and explained how hamburgers are ground up (to my disgust). i hit meat grinder in my relisten and um. you'll never fucking guess what i made for lunch that day

so i had all these arbitrary rules for myself when i started tma last april, and i've broken like all of them. i started listening to tma while virtually working -- you just pull it up on your computer and it works. (i got the life scared out of me when one of my coworkers started talking over the podcast, wondering who it was that had walked into jon's office and why he wasn't reacting and why i didn't remember it.) i also started listening a lot while driving, which led to several long meta posts i wrote being typed up in a parking lot somewhere

i spent the entirety of 194 anxious-cuddling georgia. (i tried to do this for 198 and then didn't have any anxiety to cuddle her over.) i fully plan on doing this for 200, where i am sure i will need it again

my favorite place to listen to tma probably ended up being the roof room at my mom's, and unless something goes awry, this is where i will listen to the finale. (with georgia, of course.)

this list is super uninteresting, like i said, but here it is. i'm gonna miss this show a lot. i can't wait to return to it, later in life, and make all new listening memories in the process

[mysterioussinkhole]

I Guess You Had to Be There

*THIS ONE IS MOSTLY PLAYED FOR LAUGHS SO YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY JUST RELISTEN TO IT*

Statement(s) Summary:

Martin attempts to take the statement of a very nonspecific woman (played by Lowri, one of the main editors on RQG) who came in. She says she saw a ghost but is a bit vague about how it happened. The normal process of just telling the story doesn’t seem to work. It happened about a year ago in her old flat when she was awakened by the smell of burning. The ghost was on fire and she usually just went back to sleep every time it appeared. The ghost seemed to be a young woman. She never called the police. At one point the ghost reached out to her and burned her a tiny bit. So she moved out of her flat and the ghost hasn’t reappeared. There’s been no research into the building’s history. She asks Martin about the money people get when they come in. They don’t actually do that and Martin is so awkward about it that he tries to give her money out of his own pocket. She takes it. Everyone involved is embarrassed.

Tim talks to a man who says his name is “John Smith” with something of a paranoid streak (played by James, who used to be a player in RQG). He says that he doesn’t want to talk to the police. He and his friend went looking in an old tube station to search for something. There were rumors about “something worth investigating down there. Their torches went out. He thinks the people down in the tunnels, the government he says, took his friend. Supposedly, they have a secret holding facility. The man raves about how his friend is having bioweapons rested on him. There’s obviously a massive conspiracy going on!!! He’s angry at Tim’s lack of assistance and leaves.

Basira interviews a man who tends to ramble about his experience with a stone circle (played by Martyn, who I’m pretty sure does sound and some editing (sorry if I’m getting that wrong)). He was walking his dog before he went to visit his mother. The day kinda escapes him. He caught sight of a stone circle that wasn’t there before so they went to investigate it. It got colder. His dog got a bit nervous. The rocks in the circle looked like they’d been there for much longer than they could have been. He got lost in the spiral of rocks and heard an old man crying. It was a maze and he did his best to follow it. Then he realized he’d be late for dinner with his mother, as somehow six hours had gone by, so he just peace’s out and walks away. Basira quickly ushers him out.

Melanie chats with a man who’s been terrorized by spiders and is very worked up about it (played by Bryn, a player on RQG). They are all over his flat, an unusual amount. They leave webs all over on appliances and places they shouldn’t be. It’s been over a period of months that they’ve gathered. He feels like they follow him. All different types of spiders. When he called an exterminator, they all disappeared but came back as soon as the man left. No one else has seen him. Recently, they sealed his door shut. The man is having a bit of a breakdown. Melanie tried to offer him tea but he keeps going on about how they must have followed because there are spiders in the Institute. He has trouble keeping his breath. She tries to help but he’s not doing well so she leaves. A man pops in (with the creepy static that implies he’s supernatural) suddenly to talk to him, looking for Elias. He introduces himself as Peter Lukas. Upon confirmation that the man doesn’t work in the Archives, he says that’s for the best. Elias can be overly protective of his people. With a comment on how lonely the man must be, Lukas leaves.

Who Did It: In order, The Desolation, The Dark, The Spiral, and The Web (with a little Lonely action on the end)

Spooky Rating: 2/10, this episode is a nice, comedic reprieve from the usual terror. It’s like a thank you for staying around for 100 episodes.

Archives Drama: Martin is such a people pleaser it’s almost painful. Tim is done with everything. This is the closest I’ve ever heard Basira come to losing her cool. Melanie tries her best but nopes out when faced with someone else’s panic attack. Peter Lukas! Neat!

Stray Thoughts: Live statements cannot be taken by anyone other than the Archivist (until 104, which is... we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it). We’ve been told that all the statements we hear are real, which is interesting. I’m pretty sure Lowri’s character saw some apparition of Agnes because she was living in her old apartment. We know the Dark is present in underground places, like the ruin in... the one where the guy gets horribly beheaded, so that’s probably what got the guy in the old tube station. No idea what’s up with the old man crying in the rock spiral. Maybe a Helen sort of situation? At the end, I’m pretty sure Lukas claimed Bryn’s character and took him away from the Web. Speaking of which I must reiterate, THE SPIDERS IN THE INSTITUTE ARE GOING TO BE SUPER IMPORTANT LATER ON. You can pry that theory from my cold dead hands, something is up.