#there is a part 2 to this its not all tma

[xdarkabyssx]

Tmp BIG spoilers I'm just gonna put it in the tags since I have early access

[gilfrespecter]

Listening to coinstar by the growlers and thinking about mel so hard I get nauseous

Ridiculous stream of conscious in the tags apologies but not really

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

What DPHW Means, and Its Relationship to Smirke's 14

The following contains spoilers for all of TMA, TMP (eps 1, 2, and 3 released currently if you’re in the future), and the ARG. Spoilers for all of this are throughout so I would advise against reading any of this unless you've listened to everything mentioned. It could also spoil episodes of TMP that have yet to release but if it does I don't think it will be a major spoiler. If I'm right I think I'm only right about a fairly trivial piece of information. 

Theory of Fears; or, Zur Furchtlehre

Part 1: Opticks

Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. With or without Dekker's +1. It is, however, necessary and correct. It has also been talked about ad nauseam and isn't a topic I want to dedicate a lot of time to. Smirke's 14+1, or even TMA in general, isn't the focus of this theory nor is it that relevant past its necessity as a point of comparison.

There aren't 14+1 distinct entities in the TMA cosmology. There is a singular entity that has been given divisions by fear and labels by those that have witnessed it. There is no objective line in which to draw these divisions. No matter where you put them or what you name them these concepts will always bleed into each other. Aspects of one Entity will manifest in another because the labels are invented and Fear is a storm of concepts crashing into each other. That's not a flaw in Smirke's list but its strength. A single entity of that scale is impossible to discuss in meaningful terms, the concept has too much gravity to be properly conceptualised and so an entire spectrum of fear must be divided in order to combat it. Categorisation is a vital part of TMA's cosmology and Smirke was as correct as anyone to put those lines down where he did. The real flaw with Smirke's list is forgetting the spectrum exists and stopping seeing the shades in between the Powers.

Finding a way to categorise this concept is important, but the methodology isn't. Smirke's 14 isn't the truth. The only truth is there is a singular whole. But branding goes a long way both in terms of research and in terms of following. This branding lacks accuracy though, it is in large part arbitrary and by its nature removes the shades and the bleed. TMP takes a different approach, one only hinted at, but one that I think is now fully explainable. 

Part 2: Lost in Translation

Perhaps the most interesting mystery in TMP thus far is DPHW. However, I think based on episodes 1 and 2 of TMP (and now 3), and the Klaus excel sheet from the ARG, we have all we need to explain its utility.

In order to show that conclusion in a satisfactory manner some basic facts need stating, and the order of my thoughts on those facts needs explaining. Firstly, each DPHW is 4 digits. Secondly, each DPHW is read as 4 numbers rather than, say, a pair of 2 numbers. Thirdly, these numbers can change independently of each other. Fourthly, incidents may share CAT#R#'s but have a different DHPW as found in the Klaus sheet (a German document listing OIAR-style incident reports). Finally, the German equivalent of DPHW is TSHU also found in the Klaus sheet. We can use those facts to determine something important. Each letter of this initialism is paired with a digit meaning that DHPW is a group of 4 categories. If that is true we can intuit some of its meaning. It is likely that these numbers are a rating of sorts for each category there. To prove that's the case we would need to know the categories and fortunately we have a starting point to understanding it, German.

If the categories that DPHW describes start with the letters TSHU in German then what needs to be done to find the categories is quite simple. You pair each letter up and then find a suitable word to categorise the supernatural whose first letter starts with the respective letter from the initialism in its language. D/T, P/S, H,H, W/U. After some brainstorming in the Statement Remains PLUS Discord server we had come up with strong candidates for 3 of the 4 pairs.

The first was Deadly/Tötlich, a seemingly solid start that gave this theory some legs. Next was Painful/Schmerzlich which was a distinct enough category for the threat of an incident that proved this was a strong direction to head it. H/H proved more troublesome. To my mind the two strongest contenders here were Hypnotic/Hypnotisch or Helpless/Hilflos. Both sound very reasonable but that in itself is a problem. However the last one was found relatively easily as Weird/Unheimlich. With 3 of the 4 it seemed like this was all but correct at this stage. However, I had been thinking about this backwards and it wasn't until I had a revelation that the pieces really fell into place.

Unheimlich sounded familiar when it was suggested but not in a way I could place. It wasn't until the next day that the aforementioned revelation happened. The ARG had a huge focus on Germany, and Ep 1 of TMP revealed why. FR3-D1 uses German source code which makes German the original language for the OIAR's methodology. Meaning DPHW is the translation, and I now think it's a shoddy one at best. The reason unheimlich sounded so familiar to me is because it's a fairly important part of psychology's history.

DPHW's Weird isn't weird, DPHW's Weird is uncanny. A direct translation could give you weird but a more accurate one, especially in this instance, gives you unheimlich. Unheimlich as in Jentsch's "Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen", and Freud's "Das Unheimlich". Both of which are essays on the uncanny. It's all about the fear of the unfamiliar, and a central example of this is Olympia from Der Sandmann, a seemingly living doll.

The German word unheimlich is obviously the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar... - Freud, The Uncanny

This is incredibly relevant to a lot of what has been discovered so far. The uncanny as a topic in psychology was kickstarted by two Germans, and a central part of their essays was the German Der Sandmann, and a German, SSandman, was a large presence in the ARG. The strength of this connection all but solidified this theory in my mind. And, briefly, this is also related to Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley hypothesis which I'm sure I won't need to explain.

The obvious way to test this is to take the few W ratings we have been given and compare them to the incident to which they're assigned. The first is from Ep 1, “dolls comma watching”, and was given a 7. This is a good start both in that a 7 feels appropriate as an "uncanny rank" but also that a doll is a focal point on the essays on the subject. Also in Ep 1 is "Reanimation (Partial)", again with a 7. Another very appropriate number. The last in Ep 1 is "Transformation (eyes)" with a 5. Certainly less uncanny than the previous examples so this is still strong. In Ep 2 we get a 5 for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which seems more than fair for a strange man like him, and a 7 for Frankenstein which gives parity for another story of the resurrected dead. Finally we get "Transformation (full)" at a 7, more uncanny than "Transformation (eyes)" which tracks nicely.

With what I felt was such a strong theory for the W/U pairing it helped clarify the ideas of the others. The final digit rating the uncanniness of an incident gives an idea of how these categories work and the breadth of their definitions. Up until this point I was leaning towards Hypnotic/Hypnotisch for our H/H pairing. But giving it more thought, and comparing it to TMA's own groupings, it becomes apparent that Helpless/Hilflos is more appropriate. Hypnotic effects are too aligned with things that would already be very aligned with Uncanny ones, the Stranger's Not!Them alter memories and prey on the fear of something being not quite right, so as a categorisation tool I think it makes less sense because of the greater overlap. Helpless on the other hand works better for things like The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Aspects which I don't think show up in our current other 3 groups. But given the current definition of the strongest category, the fear of the uncanny, I think that helplessness is a more apt label. The fear of helplessness. Which makes H Helplessness/Hilflosigkeit.

With this level of breadth established re-examination of the final two categories is warranted. Painful/Schmerzlich is more likely to be Pain/Schmerz. Not just incidents that are themselves painful but the fear of pain, possibly including the emotional. A comparison to TMA gives this rating a strong affiliation with Entities such as The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Similarly Deadly/Tötlich should now be broadened beyond the fear of things that will kill you, to the fear of death in a broader sense. Which makes D/T Death/Tod instead. To compare again to TMA this is The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Although, while I might be describing these ideas as the fear of ____ I think it's important to know that they do appear to be more conceptual in nature rather than just if something is scary or not.

Comparing each of these assumed categories against current DPHW’s strengthens this argument. “Dolls, watching” scored 1157. It’s a very low fear of death and pain, but they present a medium fear of helplessness and a high fear of the weird. For a fear that’s rooted in paranoia that makes good sense. “Reanimation (Partial)” got a very similar rating, at 5257, but it being a corpse cranks up its fear of death. “Transformation (eyes)” got 2155 which, again, seems to fall in place with what we know. It’s more human than the doll is so it’s less weird but a physical and alarming transformation naturally seems like more of a terminal concern. Combine that with some good ol' internet death threats and it's not nothing, but not much.

As a small aside, while it's not come up in the episodes so far the Klaus sheet shows DPHW's are 0-9. There is a good bit of evidence to suggest 0 might be read as 10 here. 0 most commonly showed up in that sheet for P and the incidents often had the notes "Kriegsvolk". Literally "war people" but more accurately "army/soldier". So pain of 10 for those would track better than P of 0, and it explains why things like the watching doll rate a 1 for D and P instead of a 0, and Dr. Webber's infection is a P of 1 despite entirely removing physical and emotional pain as it goes. Because 1 is the lowest.

For Ep 2 we start with Dracula scoring a 7465, he’s undead and a killer for high death, if he kills you it hurts but it’s not extreme, he’s both hard to physically stop and has mental tricks, and he’s just a weird dude in general who always seems off somehow. Frankenstein at 5337 has aforementioned parity with the reanimation incident as you’d expect but notably less on the helplessness rating as he is just a man. Next is “Transformation (full)” at 1567. This is generally a more severe rating overall than Transformation (eyes) and you’d expect that, but I think it does show something interesting. At no point did Daria want to end her own life. The transformation is far more severe, arguably looks more life threatening, and was clearly more painful but it is explicitly and repeatedly not about dying. I take that as a suggestion that these ratings take into account more than just the mundanely observable nature of the incident. She looks very sick which would make you think of death but it rates low for it because of the emotional, or maybe supernatural, purpose of the incident. She didn’t want to die, the manifestation didn’t try to kill her, and so despite its appearance it’s low on death.

Then finally in Ep 3, we have "Infection (full body)" with a 8175. (Although I'm assuming that's a misfile and it should be Infection (Arboreal)). I think D and H here are more interesting to dig into. P is pretty obvious it's the lowest rating because it seemed actively pain-numbing as it went. W being 5 tracks too is certainly uncanny and has strange geometry but it's not full Distortion levels. So with those two out of the way we can get to the good stuff. D is the most interesting of the two to me. Because while it's pretty clear he died I don't think that's got much to do with it. Rather I think the 8 is more specifically about the way it deals with death, decay, and rot in relation to new life and the growth of other things, plants and insects. Thematically, I think there is a lot more emphasis on death as a broader concept beyond the terminal nature of the infection. For Helplessness there is also an additional element beyond whether or not he was able to do something about the infection, and that's whether he wanted to. As the symptoms worsened his desire to treat them decreased. Initially he was worried about the infection and determined to seek attention when able, then he was happy to let someone else help instead (a hallucination, which makes things more helpless), before finally wanting it to happen. These sorts of elements are things I think we're going to see factor in quite a lot.

In summary; it is my belief that DPHW is a way to rate incidents that the OIAR catalogue based upon the strength of the fear they elicit in the categories of death, pain, helplessness, and weird (uncanny). This system is effectively the TMP equivalent to Smirke's 14 from TMA. Rather than assigning each statement to an Entity each incident is rated for those qualities. These systems are distinct methodologies but each is a way to categorise the supernatural.  

Part 3: On Analogy

That is the juicy bit of this post out of the way so now I have to put a bow on it and touch upon the overarching analogy here. As alluded to by the title and some turns of phrase, it's colour theory. It's a somewhat common analogy for TMA's fears but I think it applies in equal measure to TMP and taken together might provide an insight into how the cosmologies will differ. So, to me, colour theory is not only the perfect lens in which to view the Fears as a whole, it's the perfect lens to view these methodologies.

Smirke is Newton. He broke up a singular spectrum into wide chunks. The Dread Powers themselves are very analogous to a colour wheel. Colours bleed into each other and the boundaries of where one stops and starts is up for debate but red is still red, and blue is blue. That is a useful context for them, it aids discussion. Try talking about red without ever saying red and only referring to a representation of a divided whole. But all too similar to Newton's 7 colours Smirke's 14 lacks nuance, it lacks shade.

On the other hand we have DPHW and this is all shade. DPHW is CMYK. It's not one thing or another with DPHW. You don't have the pitfall of Smirke's methodology where one manifestation is in one arbitrary box. Here, assuming I'm correct, each incident is made up of constituent parts. The OIAR, and presumably its German forebear, are less interested in Smirke's occult ancient gods and more interested in bureaucratic precision. Smirke was doing research while the OIAR are doing administration. As such DPHW takes a wholly different approach. It's now all shades. This has its own problems in that it's harder to discuss in broad terms. It's such a specific methodology that it's lost a lot of what Smirke triumphed with. This is well represented already given that no one has been shown to know what it means at all yet. But if there is a truly different cosmology at play here we might see the axes of DPHW being where alliances fall.

All that leaves us with is a comparison of these two. The only way to really do that is to talk about how Smirke's 14+1 would fit in DPHW's system. This is something I touched upon briefly. Death is strongly related to The End, The Extinction, or The Slaughter. Pain to The Desolation, The Corruption, or the Flesh. Helplessness to The Dark, The Buried, or The Lonely. Weird to the Stranger, or the Spiral. But that's not all of them and even within those it's already clear that something like The Vast isn't just about helplessness, and we've already seen Daria who would likely be an avatar of the Flesh rank highly in Weird. Which hits upon what I feel is the most interesting aspect of this entire theory. We've seen what happens with Smirke's boundaries on the Entities. We don't know if Entities even exist in this setting, or if they do exist whether they'll be the same ones, or even if they're not the same ones whether they'll function under similar rules. But now we get to see what happens when there aren't those boundaries. We get to see much broader mingling than TMA showcased. It was hinted at there, especially early on before the lore really settled, but now that mingling seems to be the whole point.

And as a brief mention, and to further labour the theme, I don’t think there is enough information to really discuss how CAT#R# works but there are some analogies to work with here. From the Klaus sheet we can infer that CAT# has the following values 1/2/3/12/13/23/123. Or three non-mutually exclusive groups. What those groups are is hard to say right now. There is some soul/body/spirit stuff for the alchemic tria prima that's got some nice connections but doesn't map well now that Ep 3 is out. Either way, this is RGB. An incident can be all red, or red and blue, etc. R#'s values we can infer to be C/BC/B/AB/A/S with maybe an AS in there too. That's a linear scale of similarly unknown value but could represent something like potency/threat. If that is the case then R# is saturation. Some things are more intense than others. We also know from the Klaus sheet that CAT is the German from the "kategorie" meaning "category" the R was from the German “rang” meaning “rank” and so probably has more meaning to it than currently implied.

[rqbossman]

I found out about tma from my friend because he asked me to make an edit of michael distortion and got into it a few months later. I LOVE TMA. I mostly listened to the whole thing three times when I was mostly offline because I have the 200 episodes downloaded on YouTube and now I'm finding out that there's some stuff I missed, there's bloopers, q&a and I was in the wiki because i wanted to see how many times the admiral was mentioned and theres one what the ghost episode? IM GOING INSANE. I love tma. I think it's rotting my brain... it's everywhere, it's in my veins. I need to know everything but when I try to search these things up on YouTube it only shows me rusty quill gaming which I will be watching later but where do I find the other stuff where is the best place to listen to tma and find every extra lore even if it's just the tiniest squeeze of lore? I need to know y'all really did an amazing job with tma, I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of listening to it. I need to relisten to it before hell— I mean... School starts again. Lord save us for another year of merciless torture. Also I was trying to type this fast and forgot to say hi. hi Mr Alex, I hope you're having an amazing day/night when you see this. I promise to listen to all the podcasts rusty quill has after I learn every little squeeze of tma lore. Where is the best place to listen to and learn every little squeeze of information of all of rusty quill podcasts? (I absolutely did not install Tumblr just to ask this what do you mean 😓😓😓)

Lovely to hear from you and thankyou for the kind words. To list good locations for TMA Lore: 1) The podcast feed is obviously first port of call and includes some bonus materials between seasons 2) Our Patreon has an absolutely enormous amount of content in there now and I believe it should at this point be organised into collections so you can just look up TMA and it's all there for you (although that is behind a paywall) 2) Any video QNA's/events etc. not included in the main feed should be on our twitch channel. 3) Rustyquill.com has various links dotted around that have snippets too 4) The fan wiki is a very strong resource. Like any wiki there is the odd error here or there but for the most part its astonishingly accurate and detailed. 5) Special mention to whoever keeps our TV Tropes pages up to date. It was when I saw a proper entry for The Magnus Archives on that site that I actually started to call myself a "proper" writer.

[pastadoughie]

Whats your opinion on the Shinigami Eyes stuff with people saying the owner is discriminating against transmen and intersex people? Ive seen weird posts circulating from people who are trying to refute it and seem to slip into dodgy things about transmen.

Asking you because youre the most notable transman blogger i follow and I know youve talked about similar things before.

im someone intersex who like grew up veryvery surrounded by radfems &terf ideology as primarily the target (dispite being "afab"), its why i hang out allot in transfem spases becauyse i share alot of expereienses w/ transfems in terms of transmysogeny- & have done a few deconstructions of some terff talking points in the past.

i think 1 ofthe main things abt radfem ideologyy is the urge 2 gatekeep oppression- the idea of oppresion (&more specifically msyogeny) beingg based on "biological sex" (& thereefore the assumption that biologicall sex is always clockable &that everybody posseses a chromcsome dectrector 3000). the ideaa that mysogeny is specific & exlcusive to only women, & that its impossible for a man 2 experience it- is very much a terf idea.

this is whyy terfs hate transwomen so much- because they few them as "biological males" trying 2 "co-opt & silence" the experiences of cis women & their talks aboutt oppresion. TME/TMA stuff is literally the exact same thing but with a different coat of paint.

the thing that peoplee use transmysogeny to describe- is the ideaa that maleness is fundimentally threatening- thatbeing seen as male in a womens space is inharently devientt & predatory. everything u do has to be wateredd down & made nonthreatening- (lest you fall into theirr idea of an evill ew gross disgusting man) so that way you can instead be treated like a stupid whiny bitch woman.- its the simoltanious assignmentt of only the worst traits of both men & women

when you are trans & you are seen as male you are a predator, and when you are seen as female you are stupid & ignorable. when youu are assigned one or both of these roles that is done BY THE BIGOT- for failingg to meet some kindof invisablee line of neatly fitting into one or theother. this is also what people tend to be describing when they sayy transandrophobia- thoughh many of those posts tend to be taken in very bad faith because peoplee (including in discussions of transmysogeny) aree very averse to the idea that being seen as male is not an inharently benifical assignment & also ignore the whole like, mysogeny part of the equasion- that simoltanious assignment.

when you veiww men as inharently powerful & women as powerless then spacess that are designed to be a safe space for people whoare beingg victimized are denied to anybody who meets some unseen standardd of male-ness. you see this alott in feminist & womens groups- but it also extends to things that shouldnt even be gendered in the fuirst place, like rape crisis lines & shelters.

alot ofthe wholee transmasc vs transfem discourse just comesdown to wantingg to gatekeep the experiense of transmysogeny- & as with all gender & bioessentialism this means thatt intersex people have to also deal with significantley more hostility even in the communities thatshould argueabley be the most accepting twards us-

shingami eyes is runn by a transwoman that has alottof these terfy beliefs and as alwaysthis means sliding into extremelyy blatent intersexism- posts thatare advocateing against nonconsentual medicall procedures againnst intersex people have gotten them marked as "anti trans". i shouldntt need to tell youhow thats fucked.

ive had to live in radfem spacess myself & i reallyreally hate seeing people radicallised like this because i know how it happens- there is an infinite pool to pull from of disgustingg instances of mysogenistic violence & so its extremely easyy to construct the narative that you as the woman aree always the innocent victim of oppression & all of the evill disgusting sexist males are yourr enemy- & that the only way to ever be safe is to isolate yourselff amongst only the women that agree with you!!

its a trick that usess all of the disgustingg acts of transphobia &mysogeny to isolate you- thesee spaces curatee an experiense where u only ever see the worst of what men (or people terfs veiw as men) have to offer- a trickk that ultimately makes your situation worse- because by not existing aroundd people who meet your standardd of "male-ness" whatever that is- you get a very very false perseption

this is also whyy radfem ideologyy is so prevelant on woman-on-woman violence & grooming- because it scaress a victim into thinking that THEY are the only safe person in the world, that there is no escape, that whatever is happening to you will get 298729x worse if you even TRY to leave. without eleaborating- this is how the majorrity of my experiense with CSA happened. because i believed that telling anybody would subjecct me to worse, and that my abusers fundimentally "had my best intrest" just by virtue of their gender-

anybody who tries to isolate you is a fuckin fed, we all aree stuckk in the transsexual tarr pit, puppies &kitties friends 4ever.

[sophie-frm-mars]

Transmisogyny discourse on here has such an annoying shape to it.

Like I know that a bunch of it is just because it's from people who are / have always been very online / don't have much life experience as with all discourses that take on annoying shapes so I've been trying to not get too fixated on it but like,

Okay TMA (Transmisogyny Affected) and TME (Transmisogyny Exempt) are absolutely useful and valuable terms in the discussion of transmisogyny and how it works, because you need to be able to talk about who transmisogyny directly affects in order to talk about it. The much larger group of the total population is TME people, because that's (broadly) all cis people, and transmasculine people. So the majority of transmisogyny is necessarily directed from TME people to TMA people, but it's important to understand that as a social force it is actually directed from everyone towards TMA people. Trans women also engage in and perpetuate transmisogyny, sometimes incredibly vicious and harmful transmisogyny - the point of these terms is to identify the groups relevant to the discussion, not to identify an innocent oppressed class and an oppressor class who does entirely 100% of the social dynamic.

The next annoying part of the discourse is that in talking as if TME people = the transmisogyny doers, we keep winding up at a transfems vs transmascs discourse. This part of the discourse is like 1 part transfems misidentifying where the fight worth fighting is to 5 parts transmascs wanting to talk about ways they're also oppressed to like 20 parts raw transmisogyny. Yes, people who perform masculinity under patriarchy are more respected by partriarchy and get some benefits from that, and this is reflected in the differences between experiences of transmascs and transfems. This will be true everywhere that there is the basic patriarchal binary gender division between masculine (possessing agency, meaningful subjectivity, power) and feminine (being a type of property that belongs to others). Incidentally this is why the dyke butch/femme dichotomy is just there to sell more gender.

Everyone should get to perform their gender in a way that makes them happiest, and the problem is that we live under a patriarchy, which disempowers some people for the ways they perform their gender. I'm getting really basic here because some people on here talk like they need reminding.

The real reason the discourse is annoying though, just like all online discourses are, is because none of it is about how to organise to actually fight transmisogyny - that is, to make things meaningfully better for transmisogyny affected people.

2 years ago in the UK a teenage trans girl, Brianna Ghey, was stabbed to death after a prolonged campaign of transmisogynistic bullying by her classmates that the adults in her school life were absolutely aware of and did nothing about. Her death was the most important thing to every trans person in the UK for a moment, and then the political energy just dissipated without gaining any momentum. This is because organised structures of trans community, protest, politicisation and direct action just weren't there.

3 years ago in the UK a cis woman, Sarah Everard, was murdered by a police officer. There was an organised vigil which was politicised by Sisters Uncut, a feminist direct action group with chapters across london and the UK which had evolved to embrace police abolition over the course of its existence. The police escalated against the vigil and the spectacle of the police crackdown on women mourning the death of a woman murdered by police became a crucial moment in police abolition discourse in the UK. Because Sisters had already been laying down the organisational infrastructure for years, because it had been holding discussions among members and because it had responded to its members needs, it was in a strong enough position to act quickly and make change in the public consciousness. (You can read more about this in Abolition Revolution by Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean.) If there was an organisation half as well put together as Sisters Uncut present in the trans community in the UK when Brianna Ghey was murdered, the organised response could have done something similar and meaningful.

I wrote a bit here about how trans people could use an assembly-organisation model to achieve meaningful change, but that's just my personal proposal for what would make a difference. The larger point is that discoursing over transmisogyny online, just like all discoursing online, is just shadows on the wall of the cave.

[maxknightley]

confession: i still don't understand what tme/tma js and i dont understand the google definitions because im kinda dumb, so i dont understand the arguments ): i feel like its too late to ask. it means transmysongony exempt right? i just. i dont get what that meabs!!

broadly speaking, TMA - or "transmisogyny affected" - means "amab transgender and nonbinary people." i.e., people who are the "intended target" of transmisogyny in the same way that Jewish people are targeted by antisemitism or gay people writ large are targeted by homophobia.

TME - "transmisogyny exempt" - is basically Everyone Else, including cis people as well as AFAB trans/nonbinary people.

the idea of the construction is to describe the ways in which transfems are harmed by cis people & "TME" trans people as well. but I have a few problems with this language:

I think it's absurd to describe cis men as "exempt from transmisogyny" because a major purpose of transmisogyny is to socially discipline GNC cis boys and men. as a thought exercise, I like to point out that I could have had the exact same experiences as a child/teenager, but if I hadn't transitioned, I would have magically ceased to be "affected by transmisogyny". I think this is Fucking Stupid because a large part of my childhood was defined by transmisogyny I didn't even know was transmisogyny yet.

we already had perfectly good language for what "tma" is intended to represent. namely, transfem. idiots and jerks misusing that language, describing themselves as "afab transfem" or whatever the hell, doesn't matter to me when 1. people are going to play silly little word games with literally any terminology marginalized people use to describe our experiences, and 2. the replacement terminology is actively worse at describing things.

whenever people use "TME" they're usually referring specifically to other people in the trans community, making it a transparent - and, imo, Worse - replacement for "afab." just say "afab" or "transmasc." let's be honest with ourselves.

while I think the ability to describe transmisogyny is necessary in order to express what it's like to be transfem, I feel that people often treat transmisogyny as if it's a separate construct that happens to intersect with other forms of transphobia and sexism. and I think this is silly, because transmisogyny is sexism is homophobia. they're all parts of a self-reinforcing structure and cannot be properly understood until we accept that you don't slay the hydra by continually cutting off its heads

I'm an extremely spiteful person. Every time I see a post that's based on the idea that Everyone Who Dislikes This Is Transmasc, or that Transgender Women Aren't "Allowed" To Be Butch And Therefore Don't Exist At All, my anger gauge fills up a little more. someday it will hit its maximum and I will be able to unleash my ultimate. that or I'll have a stress-induced heart attack

[eldritchgh0st]

Rating TMA Fears

Rating Criteria:

how many shivers i get (shivers)

amount of icks i get (icks)

if i audibly react to it (reactions)

is it cool as fuck (intrigue)

notes deconstructing the fear cus I like to talk about it

These are based off of personal opinion and not factual. Fears definitely effect different people differently.

1.) Buried

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 3/5

Reactions: 5/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 5

Notes: Before witnessing TMA I did not know I had a fear of being buried alive. TMA taught me the earth can be devious and hungry. When before I viewed it as lovely and protecting. The buried doesn't mean to be deceptive which I think is the most terrifying part. It's alluring petrichor and earth scents are meant to be warnings. Warnings I saw through rose tinted glasses. I used to visit local caves a lot around my local area. I no longer wish to do that anymore. It freaked me out so bad it has irreparably changed my life. Very good writing. It is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite. Well done rusty quill.

2.) Corruption

Shivers: 3/5

Icks: 5/5

Reactions: 4/5

Intrigue: 2/5

TOTAL SCORE: 3.5

Notes: Ew ew ew ew ew ew... Bugs are cool but not in me or my house thanks. Horrible, disgusting, terrible little creatures. Do not touch my skin, thank you. Wonderfully done to put it in the focus of the first season to draw in all the horror fans and cortisol addicts. The corruption puts much emphasis on emotional responses that should not be had in the context they are had in. Love replaces repulsion. Comfort stands while disgust falls. All while it digs in your skin and tears through your life. The desolation destroys your life out of anger while the corruption festers in your bones because of its affection for its victims.

3.) Dark

Shivers: 2/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 2/5

Intrigue: 1/5

TOTAL SCORE: 1.5

Notes: The dark in TMA has only ever spooked me when there was fleshy or stranger bits involved. I do however enjoy the idea that there is something in the dark that's desires are beyond my knowledge. Beyond even the knowledge of the Eye. Not a favorite that I am rather indifferent too. However, there is the interesting theme TMA uses when utilizing the dark. It touches on the concept of what hides in the dark. As well as how it claims those writhing with despairing as it's own and desperately asks them to worship. It begs them to work in it's name. It grasps for control that only the web can have by manipulating hopeless people.

4.) Desolation

Shivers: 2/5

Icks: 2/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 3/5

TOTAL SCORE: 2.5

Notes: The desolation comes off as almost helpful in some cases. It causes truths to be revealed but comes with a hint of destructive mystery as well. The fact that it assists the Eye is a fascinating choice of writing that left me wanting more. We have all lost important things to the lightless flame so it is a very relatable entity. The combination of terror and power is a lovely touch drawn by the writers. I do enjoy the gasps I get when skin melts or when the beloved are ignited. Interesting. Almost liberating to be destroyed beyond recognition. Not the spookiest of the lot but still good.

5.) End

Shivers: 4/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 3.5

Notes: One of my favorites despite its score. I love the motifs of chance and gambling. I love the tendrils. I enjoy that it is a passive entity. It does not need to chase you because you will always run to it regardless of where you go. I enjoy the dream themes as well but I have always enjoyed to concept of dreams. To think when we dream we are grazing the finger tips of the end is delicious to think of. Very mysterious yet so finite and sure. The duality is written perfectly and I honestly wish there were more episodes of this entity. But maybe the mystery of it is what makes it so tantalizing and alluring.

6.) Extinction

Shivers: 4/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 4/5

TOTAL SCORE: 3.5

Notes: Very close to home for this one. My parents were dooms-day preppers so I'm very familiar with the feeling of mass extinction. I enjoy this one because it comments on how humans have terribly effected our world/civilization. It is a fear we have placed upon ourselves, much like the slaughter. It is not natural for a great change like in TMA to happen without human intervention. Interesting and compelling writing overall but unfortunately does not spook me that much because of my background. I am desensitized to it. Although it is still on the horizon always. Peaking it's head to make us pay for what we have done.

7.) Eye

Shivers: 2/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 4/5

Intrigue: 4/5

TOTAL SCORE: 3

Notes: The eye is stimulating. The eye takes a role no other fear takes in TMA. This entity is prideful and almost appears to have a hero complex. It knows all, it sees all. But it doesn't understand all. That is clear whenever the eye interacts with other fears. Particularly the dark or the corruption. It isn't scary because it is watching me. It is terrifying because it thinks it knows what is best for me. Even when it clearly doesn't. The eye and the web sometimes work together for this commonality. It doesn't ick me out to be watched like it once did. The eye may see me. It may know me, but it does not know how I experience things. And despite its seeming all-knowingness. It'll never know everyone's experiences. It just sees them.

8.) Flesh

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 5/5

Reactions: 4/5

Intrigue: 3/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4.5

Notes: I think this one got me bad for two reasons. The first reason being, body horror. It is intriguing and horrible. The flesh is a reminder that despite our intellect that we are piles of biomass. We can face disfigurement at any turn that can forever change our experiences. The second reason taps into our primal roots of fear. Most animals don't want to be someones lunch and the flesh reminds us of that fear. You are made of the same material as the meat you have on your dinner plate. Our biology is fragile and easily torn. It genuinely makes my stomach sick every time a flesh episode comes up. The only reason this one isn't a 5/5 is because the more I think about it, the less I desire to think about it. Fantastic writing. I will stop thinking about it now.

9.) Hunt

Shivers: 3/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 4/5

Intrigue: 2/5

TOTAL SCORE: 2.5

Notes: The hunt is interesting. It makes me feel similarly to how the desolation makes me feel. It is terror but it is also power. Like the flesh, it sinks into our primate brains and reminds us what it is like to experience being prey. It doesn't often feel great to be somethings food. However, the hunt doesn't just rule the prey. There is horrible panic and dread in being the hunted but there is pleasure and satisfaction from being the hunter. It embodies what it feels like to be the predator. The thill of hunting is truly exciting when you aren't the prey. The power dynamic of being the predator makes you feel sadistic gratification.

10.) Lonely

Shivers: 3/5

Icks: 5/5

Reactions: 2/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4

Notes: Another fear that calls to my life experiences. To be lonely is to be numb. Apathy is a roadblock for drive. To block drive is to exist adrift to no where with nothing to do. What is the purpose? There isn't one. It is bitter and dissatisfactory entity. The lonely does not scare you until you are in it. Forced to face the fact that without others you are nothing. You are surrounded by people but they care not for your existence. So much to the point where you feel alone despite the people around you. This fear lightly draws from our fundamental human need for companionship. It seems harmless but you won't know it's true horror until you've experienced it yourself.

11.) Slaughter

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 4/5

Reactions: 5/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 5

Notes: The slaughter has to be my favorite of the entities. It is another fear conjured by humanity. Its existence is evoked by meaningless carnage just for the sake of violence. The imagery of war instruments like drums and pipes give an incredibly cool and eerie vibe. There are NOT enough slaughter themed episodes in TMA. In spite of the minimal amount of time put into this entity the few episodes focused on it are so gorily and beautifully written. The Piper episode is my favorite episode. The imagery that captures "The War" is perfect. The wrath, terror and determined stoicism descriptions will stick with me for years. The slaughter is meaningless and yet it must happen. It must continue. It must bleed.

12.) Spiral

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 2/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4

Notes: I enjoy the spiral for its concepts of unreality. What is, isn't. Insanity has always been a captivating idea. Fractal patterns and impossible realms are fantastical enough to draw me in to engage. Mystery with no answer is alluring to puzzle solvers. The parts of the spiral that infect me with horror are the deceptive friendships. It is a terrible thought to think those who are closest to you are lying to you. It hits very close to home. Gaslighting is terrifying. What are you meant to do besides trust the people you have invited into your circle. Betrayal is a parasite. It feeds off of love and trust. Who can you trust now?

13.) Stranger

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 3/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 4/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4.5

Notes: The unknown is the most universally feared entity I think. The stranger is something we have all experienced fear for at least a little bit. Many of us were warned about the stranger as children. The unknown makes us wary and confused. It doesn't gaslight us as much as the spiral but it does lie. It does tell us to ignore the uncanny valley reaction you get when you see it. It is human but isn't. The unfamiliar familiarity in them is the most terrifying. Especially because I don't experience uncanny valley often. Even when I should.

14.) Vast

Shivers: 5/5

Icks: 1/5

Reactions: 3/5

Intrigue: 5/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4

Notes: I am already written a paper about the vast. I adore the concept of the void. It does not ick me as much as the other fears because of my massive interest in the concept. It is scary to feel small, it can cause hopelessness. I have found in some people, like myself, it causes euphoria. It relieves the pressures of human life by letting us know those worries that seem so important are actually not really that big of a deal. I think the episodes exploring the concept are beautiful and anxiety ridden. I still think there should be more of the vast in TMA.

15.) Web

Shivers: 4/5

Icks: 3/5

Reactions: 4/5

Intrigue: 4/5

TOTAL SCORE: 4

Notes: The web is an entity that easily draws you in with a false sense of security. It allows you to be free of the need to make decisions. It is peaceful to be controlled. Although we are often blinded when we are controlled to the motives of the controller. We are deceived into believing the puppet master means us no harm. You lose who you are as you perform the spiders assignments. You drift away into peaceful sleep. Just to be eaten when you are at your most vulnerable.

[swanpyart]

Slay the Archivist (TMA and STP Crossover AU)

I haven't seen a fully fleshed out Magnus Archives and Slay the Princess Crossover, so as someone whose binged both, its my duty to create it.

Backstory

After the end of MAG200, Jon, Martin, Annabelle/the Web and some remnants of Jonah Magnus/Elias are shunted into the multiverse, and into a new world where they can spread their fear. Being exposed to the Fear Entities in such an upfront way that no other mortals have ever managed to achieve, Jon, as the Avatar of the Eye, is prioritized by the Fear Entities and proceeds to absorb them into his Avatarhood, basically becoming a God of Fear itself. While his old self and humanity isn’t completely gone, it’s certainly much more diluted amongst the new influx of power.

Annabelle of course, as the Avatar of the Web, which was once the Brain of the Fear Entities but has essentially been usurped by Jon, decides to trap him and Martin in a sort of pocket dimension. Both of them forget their names, and have their memories wiped, now convinced they are still working in the Institute and having no memory of their relationship. Using Jonah Magnus as a sort of puppet, Annabelle uses his voice to guide Martin into destroying Jon once and for all.

Speaking of, what is Martin in this case? Martin’s personal connection to the Lonely, Annabelle empowering him with the Web, and Jon subconsciously empowering him through the Eye means that Martin, like Jon, is empowered by multiple Fears, which gives him more of a chance to kill Jon then she does. Yet, Martin still retains his humanity for the most part and therefore Jon's power relates specifically to Martin's own fear, making him a sort of antithesis to Jon: If Jon is the God of The Things That Are Fear, then Martin is the God of The Things That Are Not Fear.

The Construct

Within the construct Annabelle created is essentially a dollhouse-like recreation of the Magnus Institute. Jon and Martin both are in the mindset of their season 1 selves, with Jon being distant and bitchy and Martin being insecure and a bit of a pushover. Both are actually Gods, but have no clue to their true natures.

Annabelle, using Elias’ voice, calls Martin to his office and demands he kills Jon in order to protect the world, taking the role of the Narrator to guide Martin into doing the job right. In the hallway is a knife on a desk, which Martin has the option to take or not.

Jon, being an Avatar of all of the Fears, now has an interesting caveat in that, depending on how Martin chooses to interact with him, his appearance and personality changes in tandem with what they are BOTH afraid of. Jon embodies a different Fear in every route, changing the more he and Martin butt heads.

Because of their godhood and the nature of the Construct, Martin and Jon can’t ever actually die, even if they kill each other; they’ll simply be shunted into a new chapter picking up from the previous one.

Blade VS No Blade

Much like STP, the "Player's" choices alter how Jon appears. If Martin takes the knife, Jon’s demeanor is more like his Season 2 self; paranoid, angry, distrustful and secretive. Without the knife, he acts more like his Season 1 self; incredulous and snobby.

That's it for now, but I'll be expanding on this in the future with the different Fear Vessels.

[helpimstuckposting]

TMAGP 30 Speculation

Now that it’s season finale time, I’ve got a LOT to say and a lot of ideas so I will ramble them here and either I’m horribly wrong or horribly right but unfortunately we have to wait to find that out

First, I can’t believe Alice had two mysterious talks with her friends saying they have something super important to say with a horrified quiver to their voices and she didn’t have time to listen to EITHER of them. Teddy and Colin are high high high on the list for ‘died off mic and we only find out next season’

Since Gwen was promoted (idiot) and Sam is… mmm… missing, it looks like the OIAR will need to fill at least one position, and I think it would be fun if Teddy came back to take his place as a main character. It’s possible that what he had to say was “This new job… it’s not exactly [working out]” and he was simply looking for a new one, and it’s no more ominous than that. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see him taking his position back next season. Colin’s probably dead, though, I’ll be shocked if he’s not tbh

Speaking of Colin, he called the system Freddy while talking to Alice. You know, the same guy that said “Don’t give it a personality. We shouldn’t even be calling it Freddy.” So the change up here is really blatant to me.

I’m still really attached to the idea that Jon and Martin (and Jonah’s) voices were stolen and they’re not actually trapped in the computers. However, I *do* think the voices are sentient, I just don’t think we’re right about who’s behind them. I think Freddy, the program itself, may be using the voices to push its own agenda and manipulate the decisions each OIAR employee is making. Alice gets a lot of JMJ errors, and is specifically the only person on staff who actively tunes the cases out and does not read into them.

OR, if it does turn out to be our guys, then I think it’s possible they’re working counter productively to Freddy, and the JMJ errors are a result of that — like they’re actively trying to work against Freddy. This could also be why Colin said he messed up, like maybe his attempts to deal with the JMJ errors made Freddy more powerful.

Either way, it seems the OIAR is in a huge bind going into season two. Colin probably did something buck wild and pissed the computer off, he’s probably dead, Sam is missing and they’ll need a new hire, Lena is gone (the only person who presumably knew anything that was going on) and Gwen just got promoted to boss despite having 1) absolutely no idea what’s going on with anything at all, 2) an inability to handle the externals and several panic attacks, and 3) no clue what Lena’s job even was, with no direction from the man who promoted her. It seems like even the PM has no real clue what the OIAR does, how it functions, or who it employs (“I’m sorry, do you hire a lot of murderers for contract and consultancy work?” - the answer is Yes, actually, several!)

Picturing the team next season as Alice, Teddy, Celia, and their boss Gwen is… a comedy of errors (or comedy of [ERROR]s? … Sorry) like that absolutely cannot go well. Although, we are pretty used to people being hired as a boss while they have no qualifications of the sort (also did not go well)

As for Sam, the Archivist, and Hilltop Road, I have a few questions about what could possibly happen. First, if the crack in reality was specifically calling for and tugging Celia toward it, we can probably assume that it’s the TMA universe on the other side, right? Which means Sam and the Archivist are now in our original beloved universe. I’m curious to see if Sam is just going to be MIA for the entirety of season two, or if we’ll get tape recordings of him at the same time as our TMagP friends, and we’ll have updates between both universes. I could see that being very interesting if some voice actors appear as two different people in the same episode (their TMA part, and their TMagP counterpart) but that would probably be really complicated to pull off in an audio format.

Also, we know the TMA fears cannot be separated, and that they’re possibly just one entity and have been one entity the whole time. That’s why they couldn’t start the apocalypse without all of them participating, and that’s why when Annabelle opened the crack in reality they all left the TMA universe. “Any attempt to separate the fears is doomed,” is what she said. She also said, “I would either travel with them, or I would die. I do not know which... Most would simply lose whatever power they have been gifted.”

So, if an archivist travels back through the crack in reality, what would happen to them? They’d be cut off from the entity that gave them power, right? So either the archivist will die, or maybe we’ll find out who Beth Eyre (the voice of [ERROR])’s character really is? Who they were before they became an archivist?

I don’t think they’d introduce [ERROR] and then just get rid of them without any resolution, which leads me to believe we will eventually find out what happened to Sam. I don’t think Sam’s just going to be dead or missing and never come back, I don’t see how there’d be any point to that. He is still the only person we know of who’s survived telling their whole statement, and even though he had a headache I feel like that must be significant. The janitor turned into a rock, I really don’t think a normal person would just walk away with a headache. Like, for all intents and purposes, Sam probably should have had his skin ripped off if we’re following the pattern of [ERROR] related deaths.

I hope next season focuses on Hilltop Road, because the lore in this episode was amazing. First of all, it was hard not to notice how each shop had a different danger. The custodian mentioned the drunk man walking into the newsagent and then he “ignored the smell of burnt hair and charred meat”. Then there was the shop that turned a woman into a mannequin, and Sam and Celia walked past the appliance shop where doors kept opening and closing, and the dentist that wanted peoples teeth. There was also the antique shop from episode 7 that almost buried the manager alive, plus the institute also used one of the units. I could be reading too much into it, but it feels like each fear from TMA has uhhhh… set up shop?

It’s also interesting to me that Annabelle said every owner on Hilltop Road in TMA was marked by the Spider, and died a grizzly death.

“So many schemers and spiders and full-throated monsters. Twisting manipulators and furtive liars. Each meeting a violent, grotesque end.” (TMA 196)

And the owner of Hilltop Center was no different.

“I found the owner dead in his office, with every blood vessel stripped from his body and strung around the room in a grim cat’s cradle.”

Not only did he die a violent and mysterious death, but his blood vessels were strung up ‘in a cats cradle’, which is pretty web-like if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m really really hoping to learn more about Hilltop Center next season, that’s the ONE thing I’m super latched on to post-finale

[deconstructthesoup]

Truly, I’m disappointed in myself that it took me this long to do this (or maybe I’ve already done it and forgotten!) but here are the Fear Entities that I think each of the Princesses would be avatars of, knowingly or unknowingly:

Chapter 2 Girls

Beast: The Hunt. Obviously. No explanation needed.

Witch: Initially, I had her down as a Corruption avatar---she's all about nature, she's the product of a relationship that started out fine but went rotten, if you make her a more traditional witch (like me) you know she's all about mushrooms---but after thinking about it, she'd also be an amazing avatar of The Web. She's a scheming, manipulative little trickster, after all, and you know she's the type to think that spiders are adorable.

Prisoner: The Lonely is a contender, but there's really no better option for my best girl than The Buried. Chains are not dirt, that much is true, but there is something so distinctly Buried about becoming increasingly trapped in a prison so specifically designed for you... and, well, being a Buried avatar would definitely be one way of reclaiming her agency.

Damsel: The Stranger. I... don't exactly think I need to explain this one. We've all seen the Deconstructed sequence. (I do think it would be interesting if she didn't realize she was a Stranger avatar and freaks out when she discovers the truth, because feeding off of people's fear is the opposite of making them happy, though.)

Adversary: After careful consideration, I decided on The Desolation for her---but specifically, the part that deals with pain, not strictly fire. Is this because she gives me Jude vibes? Maybe, but it still works.

Tower: She was the hardest chapter 2 princess to figure out, but after much debate, I finally settled on the Entity who feels the most like her---namely, The Eye. Being able to sense the Narrator is very Eye-coded, and in terms of personality... hate to say it, but she could give Elias a run for his money.

Nightmare: Now, I could be boring and say "creepy doll=Stranger," but if I'm being honest, I don't want to repeat Entities until we get to our chapter 3s, and she feels way more Dark-coded in her whole "fear of the unknown" thing. Very monster-in-your-closet. (It could also be argued that she could literally be an avatar of anything due to her just... inspiring fear as her thing, but we gotta be specific here.)

Spectre: There is no vessel more Lonely-coded than our sweet ghost girl. And because of that, I want to give her a hug.

Razor: Slaughter. You could argue "Spiral" because Distortion=knife hands, but you cannot make a woman who is literally made of weapons anything but an avatar of The Slaughter.

Stranger: Ironically enough... The Spiral! Name aside, there's really nothing more Spiral than being everything and yet nothing at once and not knowing who or what you are, and I think this is only Entity that could feasibly suit them.

Chapter 3 Girls

Den: Also Hunt. Again, big kitty.

Thorn: Now, she was pretty difficult to figure out, but I think she also works as a Lonely avatar---or, hell, even an avatar of The Corruption because of all of her nature and decay stuff, but Lonely really fits her whole melancholy vibes and just wanting someone to be close to. Maybe she doesn't have the aesthetics, but she has the mood.

Cage: She could also be a Buried avatar, but in my opinion, The Web makes way more sense---everything from the fact that she believes she has no autonomy to the fact that her body can literally control chains that practically puppeteer TLQ feels incredibly Web-coded to me.

Happily Ever After: She is The Corruption at its most abstract---a relationship that at first seems nothing but loving and devoted, and yet when you look closer, you see that there is something deeply rotten at its core. The "toxic relationship" interpretation of The Corruption is something that's only alluded to in TMA canon, but I think HEA really does encapsulate it.

Eye of the Needle: This one is The Slaughter. It's not even about the pain anymore, it's just about wanting to fight.

Apotheosis: She is, without a doubt, an avatar of The Vast in every sense of the word. She's something that's truly too large to fully be encapsulated, too large to truly be fought or beaten. Also, big woman.

Moment of Clarity: I know, I know, ironic that there's all of these ghost princesses and I pick this weird puppet one as an avatar of The End, but her inevitability means that... well, she's really the only one who could be an End avatar. Except, of course, the Shifting Mound herself, though I'd argue that she's a more benevolent version of The Extinction. Also, gods are not avatars.

Princess & The Dragon: Spiral. Just... Spiral. I cannot stress enough how much this vessel is an avatar of The Spiral. Her chapter is too mindfucky for her to be anything but.

The Wild (Networked & Wounded): Oh god, is this one hard to categorize... I'd say Corruption for both versions, since as much as I love The Wild, there's no denying that she is a corrupted version of what Once Was.

The Grey (Burned & Drowned): Desolation for Burned, obviously, and for Drowned... well, ironically enough, I believe that drowning is actually part of The Buried. So, uh, yeah, Buried for her.

The Fury: Flesh, she's Flesh, moving on.

The Wraith: Yeah, she's The Web. You could argue that she's also The End, but... Web.

[pitviperofdoom]

Hello pit! I've been thinking about getting into tma lately, however I'm unsure how to go about it? I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to horror, and I don't have a lot of time on my hands (cuz med school). I also know that someone has uploaded all the seasons without the statements and just has the parts related to the main story, which would be faster and would cut out a lot of the horror stuff, but I also feel that listening to that would be,,, idk disingenuous? Disrespectful? To all the work rusty quill put in for the full thing and how they wanted to present it

I mean it's less that it would be disingenuous or disrespectful and more that if you don't listen to the statements you might not know what's going on.

Disclaimer, I haven't listened to the cut you mentioned so I don't know exactly how much they leave out, but-

The reason why TMA works so well within its medium and format is that vital story and worldbuilding elements are introduced through the statements long before they appear in the diagetic action. The "main story" will bring in characters that have long been established and built up through appearing and being mentioned in the statements, and because of that their presence and importance don't need to be explained in the dialogue and action, so they aren't. And a lot of times the dialogue and action are in direct response to what was just narrated in the statement; this is especially true at the end of Season 2, when the information revealed in several statements directly prompts Jon's actions in the finale. Several episodes throughout the series are major characters giving live statements to explain their backstories and motivations and/or further the plot; Martin's statement in Colony is the main story. And that's not even getting into Season 5, when the line between statement and main story gets blurred even more.

As a fellow horror wimp I definitely sympathize. Lost Johns Cave, A Guest for Mister Spider, and Tucked in were some of the worst ones for me, and A Sturdy Lock was one of the only ones I had to skip ahead. Personally horror podcasts are a lot easier on me than horror movies, so the horror was manageable enough that it was worth gritting my teeth once in a while for the sake of a really good story. Plus, TMA explores a lot of different types and flavors of horror, so some episodes may not even hit your particular pressure points. I don't know your limits so really only you can decide that.

And as for time, I've never been to medical school (good on you!) so I can't really give solid advice, but the beauty of podcasts is that you don't really need to set aside time for it, you can listen to it in the car or on the train or while wandering around the grocery store. Again, you know your schedule better than me.

At the end of the day it's up to you. The main story bits of TMA are fun and exciting, and definitely not all of the statements are plot-vital. I guess, don't worry about being disingenuous or disrespectful--it doesn't make a lick of difference to Jonny Sims and Alex J. Newall how you choose to interact with their story. You get to have the experience you want with this; just know that there's no real clear-cut separation between statements and "main story"; TMA is a conversation between the two.

[the-kingofdoritos]

do it tell me about your tma oc :)

OMGGGGGG Ok, so this might get kind of long because i just have soooo much to say hahah

Main background stuff:

His name is Isaac Magnus, he's gay and trans, and Jonah's younger brother. He's also an End and Web Avatar. He is sort of immortal, he doesn't age and cant die unless he is killed.

Very very close to Jonah growing up, despite Isaac being a girl (at the time), they spent a lot of time together. Isaac looked up to him, and would often follow him around like a lamb as a child. When they were teens, he would often try and copy Jonah’s interests. Jonah was quite protective of him, only person he really cared about. Jonah, in his growing concern about rituals and the fears, ends up giving him a necklace connected to the lonely that stops the entities from being able to see, find or affect them too much. Isaac ends up dying around 1752, when they were 19, due to a housefire. He ends up Becoming, and flee's the place as he doesn't want his family to know what he'd become. He stays with Simon Fairchild for a bit, before moving overseas to live with a few different avatars.

Powers:

Isaac’s powers are similar to the red string of fate soulmate thing. Each relationship has a different colour string, which Isaac can see. He can tell a lot about a relationship from the strings, the state of the relationship, how healthy they are, how strong ect. He does this by seeing how saturated the string look, the stronger the colour the stronger the relationship, the duller the weaker the relationship. Isaac is also able to mess with the strings and can affects peoples relationships through them and be able to kill people through the strings as well. Both indirectly and directly. Family- Blue Friends- Yellow Best/alt Friends- Green Enemies- Red Romantic- Pink

Main series:

He start working in the institute 3 years before Jon becomes Archivist. He works in the library, where he and Martin become fast friends. Both are moved down to the archives due to the fact that Jonah thinks they would be easy to manipulate if needed. [Jonah is unaware of Isaac being both an avatar and his brother, due to the necklace that Jonah gave him before he Became an Avatar.]

SEASON 1- He is constantly clashing with Jon, and spends most of his time planning how to annoy him with Tim. Isaac is closest out of all the archival crew with Tim. Tim see’s Danny in Isaac, and Isaac see’s younger Jonah in Tim. They often spend time messing about in the archives. But he also has good relationships with Martin, and will often time spend hours speaking to each other about books and poetry. And he and Sasha love to gossip together and will meetup after work for drinks every now and again. He’s the one to realise that Martin is trapped in his flat, and goes there to threaten Jane. Martin stays with him in his flat during this time, instead of the institute. During the attack he goes with Sasha to find Elias. When the wall of worms comes upon them, Elias has to drag Isaac out of the institute as he can see Sasha’s string snap and it causes him to start panicking.

SEASON 2- Starts out rough for him, as he very much despises Not!Sasha but Elias had assured him something will get done. (He's lying of course.) He and Not!Sasha don’t get along as Isaac is part Web, and Not!Sasha is annoyed by that. And isaac is pissed that it killed Sasha. Jon, in his growing paranoia starts to suspect that Isaac has something strange going on, and starts stalking him. Its Isaac who ends up telling Jon a little bit of information about the Entities, its not much but it helps pull Jon from the deep-end. Though the damage is already done, Tim is colder to Jon now and Martin is constantly worried about him.

SEASON 3- Whilst Jon is on the run, and Tim is avoiding everyone, and shit is just going down. Elias takes this time to start getting closer to Isaac. He invites him to a party in honour of Jonah, he gives Isaac books, and just slightly manipulates him. Though Jonah does find that he see’s Isaac almost like how he saw his ‘sister’. Isaac does a whole lot of research, before Jon gets back, about the Unknowing. When Jon gets back, he tells everyone what had happened with Not!Sasha. A while later when it comes out that Isaac is an avatar, immediately he looses most of his connections. For a bit when Tim learns that Isaac is an avatar and knew what had happened to Sasha, the two grow very very distant to each other, but Elias mentions something about Isaac wanting to tell the rest and him stopping it that Tim understands what has happened. Isaac stays with Martin and Melanie in the institute during the Unknowing.

SEASON 4- He takes time off when peter first takes over, the loss of Tim and Jon being in a coma, and Elias being in jail just being too much for him. He tries to keep in contact with Martin, but both are in a bad place. Isaac also just doesn't to do with Melanie and Basira unless necessary, both do not like him due to him being an avatar. Isaac is the only one to stick up for Jon after he takes Live Statements, saying that its no different to what Daisy used to do and no one is dying that way. The two form a sort of bond, and stay close at all times, and Isaac tells him who he really is and lets Jon feed on him when he needs too. During the last few episodes, Isaac doesn't know that Jon had gone down to the Panopticon at first and ends follows after him. He and Jonah have a fight, where it comes to light that Isaac is his sibling. They compromise, Isaac wont tell anyone where Jonah is, and Isaac can leave unhurt.

SEASON 5- He has a domain, Jon and Martin end up passing through and he is just so glad they are alright. He immediately rushes over to them and hugs them. He then agrees to come with them to London to stop Jonah after a lot of convincing.

[autisticandroids]

I was thinking about tma and I have a thought about it but idk if maybe ppl would think it's kind of??? A cop out??? Idk but like my thought on this is like tma hinges on Smirkes 14 which- I strongly agree with you- is a patently stupid system of organizing the fears but tbh I feel like that stupidity strengthens tmas themes of cosmic horror and its critique of the philosophical ripples of 1. Enlightenment era ideas of empiricism and the resurgence of those sorts of attitudes in Victorian times (aka slotting all data into taxonomies regardless of their actual accuracy- for example in the real world Race Science comes to mind an inaccurate, arbitrary, stupid, harmful taxonomy developed out of whole cloth to harm and exploit the vulnerable. I consider smirkes 14 to be analogous to that sort of thing- the human impulse towards pattern seeking taken to the logical extreme of applying arbitrary and harmful taxonomies as though they have any internal accuracy when they just dont) 2. Entrenched English systems of power that assert themselves thru institutions- in this case aristocracy and academia (Jonah magnus, the magnus archives itself, the fairchildes, and the Lukas family explicitly. In terms of metaphor I consider those that serve the fears to sort of be metaphorically resonant w those irl who uphold unfair hierarchies such as monarchy or aristocracy. It even kind of plays out in the granular interpersonal workplace dynamics of the archive wherein martin - working class bg- had to fake his cv to get a job and is subsequently mistreated by his boss for not being competent or how Sasha was passed over for a promotion a she was clearly better suited for by a man who was not as qualified)

I don't think this is just a watsonian reading of something poorly written btw (tho tma definitely has its flaws and this interpretation still doesn't necessarily have to retroactively justify this writing choice.) I think it was intended to be understood this way since there are allusions in-text to the Christian parable of the blind men and the elephant and at another point someone (I think it was peter Lukas?) describes Robert smirkes 14 fears as analogous to an ants perception of a human hand descending upon it (paraphrasing here but like something like "would an ant perceive these massive separate appendages descending upon it as a single entity- fingers on a hand- or would the shear massiveness and incomprehensibility render each finger a unique tormentor, separate and independent, all torturing the ant.")

Sorry to be out of the blue but ur one of the few ppl I see critiquing the tma pantheon on the grounds that it's bad (which it is) and I was curious what u might think of what I had to say here

ok this is aggressive haterism so i'm not putting it in the tag and if you are super super super into the magnus archives this isn't meant as an attack or whatever this is just me doing criticism for fun.

so okay. i get wanting to view it this way because if you are trying to work with the text to come to an interpretation that is like. good. then this makes sense. so like this makes sense as an interpretation, but it doesn't really work for me because my critique is more doylist and also less willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

so part one is. in the end. i just think that the fourteen fears make the stories themselves worse. like i think that real human author jonathan sims is "writing to the fears" as in, he is writing horror stories to slot specifically into these little categories. which make his horror stories less interesting. both because he tends to invent cliches for himself and then double back to them and also for more reasons i will discuss later. so on a very basic "i want [MEDIA PRODUCT] to be good (as in fun and enjoyable to consume), and this is making it bad (as in kinda boring)" level, i think this isn't really a justification, you know? like you can say you made the thing bad on purpose but it's still bad. very occasionally a thing being bad on purpose as a self-reflexive critique makes it good, but not as often as just being good in the first place does.

and then part two is. i think you could argue that tma is a critique of the victorian urge to categorize and rationalize things but it's also just. an example of it. the fourteen fears make the individual stories hostile to analysis because they attempt to pre-chew and pre-analyze the stories, assigning them preexisting meanings so that they are already made-sense-of. this hampers them as horror (see part one) because for really good horror you need a sense of otherness a sense of uncanny and if you're like oh this one is the stranger and this one is the eye and etc. it lends a fundamental knowability that just. deflates them. but then also it means you can't analyze them and it's like.

okay. case study. so did you guys remember that tma has a mummy curse episode? i do. it's like flabbergasting to me that tma unironically has a mummy curse episode that's like. you know that's old school racist. are you serious? but like okay. analytically. the episode comes *pre-chewed*. because we know which power this is. this is terminus. this is death. so the underlying fear in this story is the fear of death. that's how we are *meant* to understand this tale. but like be serious. any idiot with half a brain can like, comprehend the underlying anxiety of The Mummy's Curse: it's a story about what if all the tomb raiding, the grave robbing, the mummy eating, in short all of the colonial violence done to things, which is only possible because of all the colonial violence done to people, came back to bite you. it's the anxiety of the colonizer, manifest guilt about what they have done to the colonized. and as much as jonny sims is essentially just copying his influences, those victorian stories he loves so much, that's still what it's about. hell, sims knows this: the reason the woman in the story is so unlikable, so greedy and grasping, so unsympathetic is that jonny sims is soothing his own anxiety: "well i want to write a mummy curse episode, but what if people think i, a white british man writing a mummy curse episode, am racist? what if they think i don't know colonialism is bad? better put a little 'colonialism is bad, mmmmmmmmkay?' opener in to make sure no one thinks i'm racist." but of course the other thing he does is he attempts to gut the story of that unpleasant little meaning. oh it's not the anxiety of the colonizer. it's not about the violence of the victorian era. it's just about death. well, phew, i'm glad i don't have to think about that.

and i'm using the mummy curse one as a case study but that's EVERYTHING. that's EVERYTHING. oh this story about being trapped in an infinite factory where you work isn't processing the horrors of work or of the violence inherent in every product under capitalism that you will never seen or of alienation or of bodies, this is just the fear of slaughterhouse animals. oh this clone of the most dangerous game isn't about colonialism or about dehumanizing people into animals it's just about the fears of literal animals. oh this fucking guy marrying a bug isn't processing any anxieties about sex or our bodies it's just fear of disease. like it flattens everything. the meaning of horror is super overdetermined, i'm not even saying that the mummy curse, which has a pretty obvious meaning as the anxiety of the colonizer, necessarily means only that! it's can certainly also be about death and about a thousand other things. stuff has multiple meanings. but the fourteen fears method rejects overdetermination, meaning bounces off these stories. and that makes them a lot more comfortable: you don't have to deal with the miserable, horrible, sick, reactionary underpinnings of horror stories, the way they (all horror stories, really) function to guard the boundaries of our sick society with slavering hateful jaws, if you just pretend they're about fear of heights or whatever.

like to be clear my argument here is that it's kind of impossible to make horror without reactionary elements so i'm not really criticizing jonny sims for Not doing that, and i'm also not arguing that jonny sims intentionally tried to build an anti-critique wall into his stories by inventing the fourteen fears, i'm just arguing that he kind of did and that makes the stories worse. and i think the way it rejects meaning is unconsciously self-protective from having to see the more unpleasant meaning of the work. and is therefore in itself kind of reactionary.

and i'm also criticizing him for writing a mummy curse episode because come on man, are you serious? but that's not as related to my larger point. though i do think his critique-proof wall shields him from noticing the implications.

part two point five: also i will not give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was trying to kind of fix this issue with season five because season five was worse. guy who learned about progressive politics from twitter last year type understanding of systemic critique. guy who writes every character arc as a kind of Very Special Episode about Important Progressive Topic Of The Day but mostly only because he's scared of getting cancelled on twitter type critique. like horror is overdetermined. "My Horror Show Now Only Does #Issue Episodes Where I Make Systemic Critique For Babies" is a dumb way of reflecting on the way your overarching premise is kind of unintentionally an attempt to make your horror stories critique-proof. not that i necessarily think that was why season five was like that, i just think he got swept up in trying to make Progressive Media, but if it WAS it wouldn't be adequate.

part three: i think the "fingers of a hand" thing was a post-hoc justification because he sort of noticed his fears are a bit stupid. and i think, circle back to part one, that it doesn't solve the fundamentally doylist problem of the stories being written to the fears.

part four: on a very basic sort of ancient greek philosophy type level i just think the fourteen fears are not beautiful and true. quite frankly mister sims, if i was trying to divide all the world's fear into knowable categories, i would not make fucking fourteen of them! that's simultaneously too many and too few! and it's not even a nice number! i would not for some reason collapse together the fear of spiders and the fear of mind control! i would not split the fear of disease from the fear of the fact that we are all bodies with flesh! i would not make the fear of otherness mostly about clowns!

i would not different the hunt from the slaughter from the desolation you FUCKING BUFFOON.

^directed at jonny sims.

anyway thank you for the ask that was fun. i feel like i exorcised a demon out of my body.

[zabala0z]

Okay. So. Hi. I’m your host who is rethinking life??? Or just thinking a lot right now, my brain got so much information. I would’ve posted sooner but I needed a couple hours to get my bearings yall ⛹️‍♀️ anyways! The final 4 episodes of TMA s2!!!

I’m not gonna do my usual format but to start with: I knew Elias was a bastard. I knew it, I CALLED IT. I mean it was pretty obvious but I’m just happy I figured it out. Although I’m very destroyed over the fact Sasha is definitely dead. Like I heard Dekker in MAG 78 and even then I was still in denial until Leitner said “yeah no she’s dead”

In MAG 79, I’m mostly pissed at Michael. Like the moment it put Tim and Martin through its creepy ass doors, I was just like full wheezing out of shock. I wheezed a lot today. Michael does not seem to know shit about humans too since it was like “I…I think it’s called a sport”. Love Michael but also stop being so cryptic oh my god. Also Not Sasha was low key horrifying. Like props to Michael and Not!Sashas voice actors because man I have never felt my muscles seize up like I did when hearing them.

Not Sasha mentioned like being sent to the house of its enemy that had the biggest eyes you ever saw. I thought the enemy was the institute but later I found out…no. Oh yeah! Mag 80! What the hell!

Jurgen Leitner being like “yeah my assistants kinda were killed a lot” like okay go supporting boss. I did not predict it was LEITNER who was living in the tunnels. It’s nice he worked with Gertrude though.

Also, these entities. Again, I was vaguely aware of some since their name was thrown around but I didn’t really realize the extent. Jon mentioned Michael and Leitner refers to it as “The Distortion” and that’s its part of “The Spiral”. AND THATS WHERE FRACTALS COME FROM. God.

Also, when Leitner and Elias are talking, Leitner talks about “the Stranger” and Elias asks what they call it which is “The Unknowing”. The last episode, Not Sasha says that Jon will miss the Unknowing but he wouldn’t understand so I’m assuming the replacement things fall under The Stranger

One final thing I noticed was that he mentioned his assistants getting killed on that day of the attack and all the ways they got killed or I dunno attacked, corresponds with different themes from other statements

“Stabbed through the throat by something with too many teeth and weird limbs”- the replacement things (The Stranger)

“Pulled into a cavernous maw that opened beneath her”- I think this is related to The Butchers Window where Jared Hopworth would throw bones down that pit with teeth

“Gregory Todd ran into a door that shouldn’t have been there”- Michael. What are you doing 💀 (The Spiral)

“A great hand reached down through the roof” -I actually don’t know. Thought it was Freefall but misremembered it.

“Pulled into a great, pulsating pile of meat”- literally every episode with a meat theme. (EDIT 9/2/24: this is related to MAG 18 actually!)

“Doors with darkness and doors on fire”- so the cult I think is related to the darkness but with the fire, I know that Burned Out and that statement with Agnes could be related

So I’m guessing every way an assistant like got killed is one of those entities. I know The Vast is somehow related because Michael Crew mentioned that name before throwing himself out the window and then like changing. Guess he’s like a servant now or something?

Oh god that’s most of it. I’m wondering where Jon is now and I hope Tim and Martin don’t like fully believe he murdered a man. Also I swear to god, Elias, if I catch you. Like Leitner was not a super good guy but come on. I’m glad Not Sasha is gone but…my OG girl 😔😔😔

if you got this far in reading me descend down into my little obsession thank you 🫶🫶🫶 like all this is for fun but everyone I talked to in this fandom is so chill and doesn’t try to spoil which is nice. As someone who was in crazy fandoms, this is pretty calm for such a horrifying media. I’ll probably continue these posts for s3 but I’ll try to condense it I swear guys.

[cyrusthemagician]

HERE IS THE INFO DUMP ABT MY TMA OC ALEX LUKAS!!! warning up ahead for decomposition//rot//self neglect//generally the lonely LOVE LOSES!!! when it comes to the art of him warning for non sexual nudity

OKAY SOclears my throat

I'm not sure much where to start unless I went in order from beginning to "end" of his life so I think I'll do that!! Of course, he was born and did live his childhood and most of his life in the Lukas's Estate where he stayed in his room but often managed to get out and wander the halls. The only interest he found in leaving his room was to draw things for his family and slip the papers under their doors which ended up more often than not getting sent back to him by one of the nannies/maids. He did start his what i'd call final portrait while at the Estate (when he was 17) but I'd say it was around 2-4 years later when he actually left. He hopped around quite a bit, not really knowing what to do since he had left with little to nothing and was actively trying to avoid being alone despite, well, being an avatar of the lonely.

MORE UNDER THE CUT

He spent a lot of this time un settled staying with others he met at random party's he slipped his way into or people he met at the Cafe he frequently visited across the institute. he was dragged around a lot and painted even less during this burst of trying to be normal. It lasted around 4-5 years before his body couldn't keep up with him and it was getting worse and worse. The time that play and mess with him the most in is the years after all of this where he found his studio and moved in permanently and got settled. These years weren't as isolated or alone as the time he spent in the Lukas's Estate due to a 'friend', James, who he had met during his burst of attempted normalcy and who later moved away after discovering and making a statement to the magnus institute on his portraits and the rot that manifested in his chest due to the one of them. It was a few years after James had left that he first met Michael Shelly.

There were still a few things and mannerisms left in him from the few years he spent not following his nature. For awhile while he was 'healing' physically and mentally from the tress and trauma that it brought he would still kind of act relatively human. He would go out sometimes, mostly to get food or medicine which were ultimately useless to him and really just prolonged his discomfort before nesting back as much as he knew and remembered how to in the lonely. On going to the store this was how and when I'd say he first met Michael shelly.

Most of the art I've made of him and when I've roleplayed him takes place in this time frame where he's isolated and away from the world for the most part to heal and properly continue working on his portraits. It take a long time to actually finish the portrait that expands his rot and ends up being his last (at least 10 years as he spaces out the times he works on it and it's not up to him when he is finished).

To ramble on the rot I see it as an exaggerated but quite litteral manifestation or whatever of self neglect (emotional, physical, mental). The good old things like forgetting to take care of yourself or not having enough energy to or just not giving a shit at all, maybe even purposefully worsening it, its all of that. In working on the portrait more and more the rot spreads and he neglects himself and the things around him more, his supplies, clothes, michael, and studio. When the portrait is finished it's like the end result of self neglect caving in and ruining you or even killing you, in this case he does die in a way, his body does, becoming completely rotten and unable to keep going or supporting itself no matter what is done to keep it together but not improve it. But before this at the last moment where he could he purposefully ruins the portrait with paint thinner before the collapse. Instead of what's left of him rotting away further it replaces the ruined paint on the canvas by itself and leaves nothing left until he is gone and the portrait remains. Showing that even in his last moments of trying to destroy what's hurting him so bad it ends up being futile as it finishes itself with what it's done to him anyways.

Then comes the finale stage or period of his new existence as the portrait. Anytime, anywhere in the world his portrait can replace another painting. Any painting at all, anywhere, at random. He doesn't have control over where it goes but he is in a way aware, not alive or really able to freely think but he is aware. He can't leave his portrait or move in it and it can't be changed or destroyed as when an attempt at this is made it will simply leave to somewhere else. During this time it stays in one location until it lures someone in. It makes the person who's attention it got caught on feel disassociated and almost reliant on the feelings they get from the portrait until they try and get close and touch it, this can take forever at times but it eventually works. When the person touches it they get sucked in like a sponge absorbing water and they cease to exist. It isn't like a notthem, nothing replaces them and they aren't completely erased, they are just merely gone.

Some just like things that done go really in any order and I don't have too much to say on

in making his final portrait he made his own brushes from his own hair off his head

whenever done with a painting he often drinks his paint water and it has no negative affect on him

He almost always wears his apron, even when going out, he doesn't have a reason, just does (he also almost always bare foot)

Most of his body fluids are replaced by paint or mixed with paint

Had a silent 'crush' on Michael shelly and regrets isolating from him horribly after learning what happened to him, he also painted Michael often and depicted him almost always like he was glowing or an angel of sorts

for lack of better words his type of lonely was separation of the mind from body and the neglect that comes with it, a lot of depersonalization stuff

AND FOR FUNS HERES MY ART OF HIM

plus extras, he in roblox