#the archivist is going crazy

[bebyebeeh]

local archivist slowly goes insane

[wojtekaneko]

That's how it went

[titaniumions]

and if i said they are twinning

[becauseplot]

thinking about archivists again. below the cut: obscene amounts of brainrot in the form of a long-winded relationship study and oddly specific references to canon that may or may not be accurate

im trying to come up with some sort of au for them (writer's block and creative burnout is a BITCH it's okay though we stay silly) and there's just something about how qphil and qcellbit don't (or didn't) really wind up in each other's circles often. sure they were friendly with each other in passing, and they definitely had some nice little interactions earlier on: cellbit briefly interviewing phil on one of his first days on the island over a cup of coffee and solidifying phil's view of cellbit as the Dedicated Investigator; phil asking cellbit to babysit chayanne and tallulah while he's away on a trip and cellbit being more than happy to; phil briefly checking in with cellbit --- who was in the process of tumbling into his regret arc, cutting off ties with loved ones and making himself a martyr --- and asking if he was okay when phil spotted him hanging alone in the back of the group; chatting about the upcoming wedding and phil advising cellbit that he and roier should probably introduce some sort of dress code (lmao); cellbit watching phil and missa meet up for the first time in months on the way to the federation's people-freezers and all of the pieces rapidly falling into place (the name of phil's waystone, phil's skull backpack, phil's elusive "husband," ohhhhhhh...). they've always been in each other's peripheral, but never directly involved in each other's personal lives.

until the happy pills.

see the thing about archivists is that they're not drawn together by a pre-existing friendship; they're more friendly acquaintances at this point, perhaps almost-friends, though they're certainly not close. but then forever's life is under threat, and god, they both love forever immensely. with direct help from bad and indirect help from others (qpac you LEGEND), they're eventually able to formulate a plan that successfully drag forever out from under the haze of drugs, pull him to the surface. they sit next to each other as they sit at the bedside of their mutual friend, watch him breathing, and try to breathe themselves.

and from that moment on it's solidified: they know they can depend on each other, when shit hits the fan. they have their respective strengths, and they balance out each other nicely. i wish i had gotten more of a chance to watch their dynamic during purgatory 1 (unfortunately i have a life sadge) but from what i saw, they turned out to be some pretty good co-leaders, and an interesting dynamic at that: phil acting more as a support role (moral support, resource support, combat support, ALL the support) and stepping up into a leader-like role when needed, but ultimately letting cellbit take the helm a lot of the time since he's a strategist with more practice managing large groups of people (i wont get into it here, and i want to watch more vods so i can more properly analyze them but HOUGHH i have THOUGHTS!! SO MANY!!!)

what im trying to get at is that they were initially in the peripheral in each others lives but were eventually drawn together out of necessity, due to circumstances. the mutual respect followed, which was then followed by trust, and then collaboration, and then friendship. i've also made this post talking about their dynamic, how they both understand each other's need to focus on the here and now and understand that they don't need to know every little thing about each other to still trust each other. and this is so integral to their relationship. it's what makes archivists archivists.

so now all that's left for me to do is try to come up with some sort of au i can chuck them in, incorporating this idea of "friendship of necessity" as a core feature of the plot. i have scattered ideas but none are particularly appealing or solid enough. i will try though!! if u have any suggestions/thoughts/ideas feel free to leave a comment or say in tags (pspsppsps come brainrot with meeee)

[sparky-is-spiders]

Jonsasha is always delicious to me but there’s something special about a roleswap au that calls to me, y’know?

Like. Just their season four dynamic?? I stand firm in my belief that if the Eye didn’t take Jon then he’d be ripe for the Lonely. But even then I don’t think he would forget the appeal of Beholding. Would he understand her need to feed? Would she have told him about her hunger back before the Unknowing, when it looked like they would both sink into the Eye together?

Maybe I’ll come back to this later because right now I’m too tired to be coherent but I was just. gripped. by the idea of Jon getting the statement about Sasha feeding on others and covering it up. Because she’s good, and she needs this, and he loves her. Does he somehow send the statement to her? Hide it? Destroy it? I don’t even know but I’m just so caught up in the idea of it. Solidarity between the only two people in the Archives who truly feel the call of Beholding. A devotion that Sasha may never know about. An understanding Jon feels too strongly. I don’t know if amy of this even makes sense I’m just gone on the pining…

[thermesiini]

I REMEMBER what i was going to say. vanitas (character) is also vanitas (concept) and an allegory for a cycle of systematic suffering and abuse that exists haplessly and without purpose. noé right from the start is in denial over the existence of such useless suffering (thinking he can save mina) and continues to deny this by writing the case study of vanitas, his futile attempt to scrape off some meaning from such a bleak allegory. while he can understand that killing vanitas is a form of salvation for him i don’t think that can come to terms with the fact that vanitas did suffer at all. so to write the case study of vanitas, trying to go over the events of their lives together, and trying to piece together vanitas the person he ends up disrespecting his existence altogether, simply by over scrutinizing it. vanitas did not want to be remembered. by saying he wanted to erase the existence of the votbm, he is saying he wants to erase his suffering from this world. what noé does with the case study is essentially immortalize it, because he is selfish, naive, and wants to understand something inscrutable. rather than taking comfort in the fact that vanitas can continue to exist in his memories, like how he will tell him as he dies (i won’t die noé even if i’m no longer here) noé bastardizes these memories and turns them into something almost masturbatory

[penguindrumblr]

good lord what happened there

[grungebutsoft]

MARTIN BLACKWOOD, HOZIER FAN

ok whatever

[bebyebeeh]

local archivist slowly goes insane

[stardustcleaningguy]

CAUGHT UP ON TMAGP WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

[the-one-and-only-elita]

One thing that I absolutely love about TFOne's writing is that it manages to avoid a lot of the heavier criticism I've seen regarding MegOp's hero/villain dynamic over the years (trust me, the mid-2010s TF discourse was crazy)

*Spoilers Below*

First of all, the narrative benefits so much from the main 4 cast members all being a part of the same exploited mining class. So many takes on MegOp have Orion being of a higher status (an archivist, a cop, etc) while Megatron is much lower down on the social latter (a miner, a gladiator, often in the context of being a slave).

I've seen many people be put off by this, because it feels as if Megs is being villianized for being rightfully angry at the system that deeply harmed and exploited him, while Orion/Optimus is praised for taking a more pacifistic stance despite him not suffering as much from or in some ways even benefiting from the system he claims to oppose. I don't find their dynamic to be as simple as that, and I do find these takes to be a bit reductive, but I do very much see where they are coming from.

I am definitely one of those people who's very frustrated with the way pacifism is hailed as the one true path of morality, and the inherent implication that taking any sort of revenge on the people who abused/exploited you makes you just as bad as them. Also, Marvel's particular brand of demonizing any form of radical political action, despite the system clearly being broken and corrupt, but being completely unwilling to offer any other alternatives to meaningfully change things for the better.

When looking at what I described above its pretty easy to see how a lot of versions of MegOp's hero/villain dynamic unfortunately fits into that trope. Bringing it back to TFOne, you can see how Op and Meg coming from the same political/social status subverts this. The existence of Elita and Bee only further illustrates that out of the 4 people of the mining class who were all deceived, exploited, and literally mutilated in the same way it is only D-16 that completely loses himself to his rage, even to the point where he loses compassion for his own companions and disregarding the safety of the other miners (when he decides to "tears everything down" and Elita exclaims he's going to "kill everyone").

What I think I love most about the characterization in TFOne is that Orion is the radical one. Not only that, but he is praised by Elita and by extension the narrative for it. He is constantly challenging authority, and is the first to have the suspicion that their society is structured in an unjust way.

Meanwhile D-16, to be frank, is kind of a bootlicker. He fully believed in the system and that Sentinal Prime, as someone with power, had the right to decided "what was best" for those who are weaker/lesser (I wish I had the specific quote from D-16 to support this, but the movie's still in theaters). It illustrate that D-16 already held certain fascistic ideals, and that he and Orion already have fundamentally opposing moral/political values, it simply hasn't been of any consequence yet. It shows that their eventual falling out was inevitable, even if they had decided to rebuild Cybertron together.

It should also be noted that D-16's feelings of anger and betrayal do not necessarily have anything to do with the unjust system itself, but that said unjust system was predicated on a lie. Hence his fixation on deception in the post-credits scene and him naming his faction the Decepticons. Meanwhile, when Orion learns the truth he's just sort of like "yeah, I always kinda knew something was up" because again, he understood on some level that their system was predicated on injustice.

Even D-16's obsession with Megatronus Prime, while initially an endearing aspect of his character, is also an indicator of the questionably large amount of value he puts on one's strength. It foreshadows the "might makes right" ideology that the decepticons follow, and is a key part of their ideological characterization across continuities.

Instead of the narrative we often see in Transformers media were Optimus is idolized by the narrative for being more moderate and Megatron is villiainized for being radical (or so people often claim), it is instead Optimus who is rewarded and praised by the narrative for being radical, and Megatron who is villainized and punished by the narrative for holding potentially fascistic values.

I do agree with some criticism I've seen that the whole thing with killing Sentinel and D-16's final turn into villainy felt a bit rushed and more than a little cliche, but I also understand it both had a limited runtime and that it is ultimately a family film meant to be accessible to children. More importantly though, I think the movie set the groundwork early on that, no matter how this final act played out, D-16 was always going to turn to darkness, and Orion would not have been able to stop him.

Its perfectly tragic, the way all MegOp should be, while also feeling really well thought out from a thematic standpoint. I love it.

[stardustsernade]

THE CATS ARE LITERALLY A METAPHOR FOR VANITAS AND NOÈ

Noé needs to learn some lessons from Murr about love

And their colors are sus

[ian0key]

TMA AU ( TimSasha Lives ) P.2

First part -> (Desolation!Tim)

FanCast -> Nathalie emmanuel -> FIRST DESING

Sasha also survived by transforming into an avatar, an End avatar.

But with strong marks of the Spiral.

bc she was kidnapped by Michael right before Not!Them killed her

Although Not!Them took Sasha's life for months.

All those months, Sasha was lost among Michael's corridors, during that time she accepted her "death" and the fact that she no longer existed to anyone in the world.

(Michael, in the form of riddles and jokes, revealed what Not!Them had done)

Her acceptance gave way for The End to join her, preventing the Spiral from affecting more of her, but transforming her into an End avatar in the process.

She was rescued by Tim and Martin during the ending of MAG S2, but neither of them recognized her.

Then, she left the institute (her spiral marks broke the Eye ones, not even Elias knew that she returned) and began to investigate everything related to fears by herself, shortly after, she descovers the reality of the institute, and what it means to be the archivist. (or at least a part of it)

At the beginning of season 3, Melanie finds photos of the real Sasha and shows them to Tim.

in that moment, Tim and Martin realized she is the woman they saved from the Spiral's corridors.

They tried to look for her, but they couldn't.

On the other side, Sasha was looking for Jon.

She found Jon while Daisy was chasing after him. (MAG 91)

Jon KNOWS she was the Real Sasha just by seeing her (even though he doesn't remember her)

And they all meet again when they go to face Elías.

(the key she has was given to her by Michael, a few weeks after leaving the corridors, as a "prize for surviving the spiral without going completely crazy", with this Sasha can open doors that can take her anywhere she wants, That's how she found Jon, although they can be tricky ;)

Extra:

(I'm going to post Jon and Martin's designs, although they're not very different from ""canon"")

P.3 -> S3 Final

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 🎉

[jo1sstuff]

I think I know who the Archivist is, and it's not Jon. (TMAGP SPOILERS AHEAD)

(TLDR: I think it's Celia. Read on to see why!)

So.

I know the title sounds kinda click-baity, and this is gonna be a bit long, but this is such a ground-breaking theory that you'll hopefully want to stick around.

This is just a theory, so I might be wrong, but it would explain a lot.

I listened to TMAGP 29 earlier, and since my sister doesn't listen to TMA/TMAGP but I like to talk to her about it, I was mentioning the whole "It's on the train" thing, and a crazy theory popped in my head. So now I'm here sharing it with you all, so you can discuss it and maybe prove me wrong/right.

Anyways, I'm gonna start with something that might seem confusing at first, but it'll make sense later.

So we all know Celia, right?

Well, it's pretty much confirmed that she's from the TMA universe, but there are still a few things that don't quite make sense.

For example, the 'sleepwalking' thing she does. She'll wake up somewhere with no memory of what happened.

While I've seen some theories explaining it as the TMAGP Celia sharing a body with TMA Celia, it doesn't make much sense to me. Why would the TMAGP Celia still be in there? Wouldn't TMA Celia be able to communicate with her? Why hasn't anyone else mentioned seeing Celia when she 'sleepwalks'? Wouldn't TMAGP Celia have friends that would talk to her? If so, why wouldn't they notice it's not the same Celia?

Anyways, that theory just doesn't make sense to me.

Another thing that will make sense later: We all remember Michael Distortion from TMA, right?

And how his reflection looked different than how he sometimes looked in person?

An Avatar looking different through glass; whether through Sasha's window, or in the reflection of the cafe's window.

That was the thought that made me first come up with this theory.

The other thought was the "It's on the train" bit.

Sam and Celia get on a train to 'follow' the Archivist. Alice, however, sees it on the train with them.

(technically we don't know for certain that it was the Archivist, or if it was in or on top of the train, but it context makes it seem like the Archivist was in the train with them)

Why wouldn't Sam and Celia notice it? It's a monster that's all eyes, how could they miss that? Sure, it might have been hiding, but they likely weren't the only passengers on board. So why didn't the other passengers see it?

Well, what if they do see it, just not it the right way?

Because of the whole 'avatar looking different in windows' thing, what if that's why they don't notice?

Because they're not looking through the window?

Alice is though.

Alice is looking through the window.

She sees it.

What if, the Archivist is in a human form, but Alice can only see it because she's looking through the glass at it?

But who would it be?

Celia.

It's Celia.

Who else could it be?

What if, when she's 'sleepwalking', she's actually in Archivist form?

Sam got Archived, after all. And shortly after that, Celia appeared.

Wouldn't Celia have noticed the Archivist leaving?

Unless she just came to.

And she's so used to it happening, that she isn't bothered by the time she finds Sam.

Who knows how far away she got, after all. Maybe it was only one alley away, maybe it was a few blocks.

She'd have some time to compose herself.

And after that disorienting event, she managed to find her way to the O.I.A.R. and found Sam.

She was in the same area and time-frame the Archivist was there.

It's her.

Another thing: The statement-givers. Aka, the talking corpses. Aka, people that got Archived by the Archivist.

I'll bet that every time it mentions Celia having a 'sleepwalking' episode, it was around the same time that someone got Archived.

I'm not gonna go back through the episodes to see if I'm right on that, but if someone else will, it would be very much appreciated.

How exactly Celia became an Archivist, I don't know.

Maybe when she changed universes the Eye decided to make her its new 'precious little boy girl'. Maybe (if we believe that TMAGP is Somewhere Else) the Archivist part of Jon got stuck in Celia. Maybe she even became an Avatar by herself, who knows! I certainly don't.

Another thing I don't know is whether she'd remember what happens when she's the Archivist.

She seemed surprised to find Sam, after all.

And (if I remember right) she doesn't know how she gets to places while she's 'sleepwalking'.

I also don't know how Jack fits into this, but he's a mystery of his own.

Anyways, feel free to chip in with your own thoughts and criticisms, I could be completely proved wrong next episode after all!

[coefore]

Hi! I adore your art of the alternate Megatron and Optimus’ meeting tf 1 versions of themselves.

Now I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Orion (tf1) would go crazy learning that his other self used to be a data clerk in the Archives.

Here’s a little snippet of the conversation:

Optimus: *talking about the history of his Cybertron*

Orion Pax: *listening intently* where’d you learn that?

Optimus: Before becoming a prime I used to work at the Archives, it was wonderful to have so many data pads to learn from.

Orion: ARE YOU TELLING ME I COULD HAVE WORKED IN THE ARCHIVES?! I STOLE THOSE DATA CHIPS/PADS FOR NOTHING?!

D-16: Should we be concerned about this?!

Megatron: For Sentinels sake? No.

Ahaha thanks!!! I think it would be fun if TF1 Orion was actually quite... envious of the more "comfortable" lives the other versions of himself had.

He is such a curious bot after all and it might feel like a joke to him that the one Orion Pax that is most inclined to learn by any means necessary gets a life of abuse and mining! I can see him going like "ah 😬 is that so 😬 you were an archivist 😬 how nice" and D-16 is like "Pax... don't be... rude..." "THEY WERE 😬 ARCHIVISTS 😬".

[an-internet-goblin]

alright. so. my head won't stop yelling at me so I'm pleased to announce that I am currently in the process of writing this!! There are a few complications with timelines and stuff so the barebones of the pre-hiring timeline skeleton, and also a few other things are under the cut if you want to hear the explanations on why some things are

ASSISTANTS!!

Michael Shelley

Oliver Banks

(not an assistant but will pop up a few times) Gerry Keay!!

^^ and now I explain why this is

Now, there are going to be a bit of timeline fuckery to make things fit right, because Mike found Ex Altiora around 1997-1998, which is way too early to be hired and become archivist (I would have had had get hired around 1996, just after he found The Bone Turners Tale), so I'm pushing his entire timeline/history forward 10 years so he'd be hired around 2006 as an Archival Assistant. Another reason I'm doing this is because Michael Shelley is said to have died around 2009-2011, so the Michaels would have apt time to bond. (I also think it'd be funny if they had a conversation like 'hey! I'm Michael!' 'no but I'm Michael!') (I also picture them both as blond so it makes it funnier to me. moral of the story don't be blond and don't be called Michael or else you'll get hired at the magnus institute and forced to witness The HorrorsTM)

"but wouldn't Michael have died??" you may ask, and to that I say yes he would've IN THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE but I want him in so I'm going to say another person got sacrificed to the Spiral. Specifically Sarah. Why? Because she is one of the only ones who didn't get sacrificed to stop a ritual, instead having been killed by Emma. On her trip to Sannikov land, she could've finally complained about Emma, and how she made her do everything. Gertrude could put together dots about this, and learn about Emma's constant experiments and how she had killed poor Fiona before. After sacrificing Sarah, she could have made the move on Emma and killed her still, leaving her with only Michael left. Also, Michael would've been alive around 2013 because of this. That means that he could've met Gerry, because muahaha Doorkeay that's right. sideplot. It would also give Gerry reason to come back and visit the archives, and eventually meet Mike Crew and fight with him about Leitners, because I NEED them to be frenemies. Now then, since I have explained Michael and Gerry, it's time for Oliver!! Oliver and Mike could've met when Oliver went to warn Gertrude of her death, and because of Terminal Velocity reasons Oliver could've visited the archive to 'check up on gertrude' (meet up with Mike again), and finding out that he was getting promoted to Archivist. Mike could offer him a job because they need more archival assistants, and Oliver could accept because he hadn't visited point Nemo yet. Now, I haven't quite decided if I want Mike to have been kept in the dark just like Michael had so he could have a season 1 moment, but I'll figure that out later. BONUS: this is what I have to go through to write this 😔

Okay but why is Mike Crew literally the PERFECT archivist candidate

He already has been marked by several different entities like The Spiral ( Lichtenberg scar ), The Flesh ( boneturners tale ), and The Corruption ( A journal of The Plague Year ). He also mentioned other Leitners I don’t remember right now, but that’s not the point. I’m disregarding Ex Altiora because it is the book that freed him from the spiral, so he wouldn’t have needed any use for the Magnus Institute. It also is the thing that turned him into a vast avatar so that makes the whole ‘archivist’ thing impossible. Therefore, this would’ve had to happen before the bookshop.

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that he already got marked by multiple entities and he would’ve caught Elias’s eye the moment he walked into the institute as a possible archivist, and I’m willing to bet he would’ve offered Mike a job when he made his statement. He could persuade Mike by saying he could learn more about the figure, and possibly free him. This is Mikes entire goal so I’m pretty sure he would’ve accepted. In conclusion, MIKE WOULD’VE BEEN THE PERFECT ARCHIVIST AND I NEED THIS AU PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE-