#tma fear kin

[citizenoftmrrwlnd]

fashion for : the fear of the hunted/prey (conceptkin; the magnus archives) in a masc style with practical but aesthetically pleasing clothes featuring browns and reds requested by 🐺🌑anon

bag | rings | jacket | shirt pants | bandanas | shoes | gloves [patch 1, patch 2, patch 3]

[beholdtheelsewhere]

Which TMA Fear are you?

Quiz I made for funzies. It's a mess but so is everything I do- we out here living our best lives.

[jarchivism]

Fearpocalypse Avatar Meetup!!

As the clock strikes midnight, I think we're all aware of what day it is now. I've got all the party supplies in the corner, all readied up. I'm not the best artist, but this is what it looks like so far.

We’ve got:

- Way too many doors. (Much more outside this image.)

- A suspiciously raw meat plate.

- Crickets

- Brownies (From someone who said they would bring baked goods. Probably the forever brownie.)

- A lot of sky. (Understatement of the century.)

- A feeling of slight isolation and vertigo.

- The smell of ozone.

- I may or may not have summoned the eyepocalypse.

Almost all contributed by the avatars who came into my askbox as of late. Thank you for bringing stuff to the potluck.

May our convention go well!

[shapeofshifter]

Martin Blackwood forces himself to enjoy tea: Day 1

Hello. as we all know i am martin blackwood irl (fictionkin way. i don't like clarifying but i have to) and, as most non-TMA people don't know. martin blackwood REALLY likes tea.

I do not.

So i have set out on a journey to force myself in the doorway that leads into the tea-likers-club by drinking tea as often as i remember to do so and gradually getting a taste for it (hopefully!) so i can feel the kin euphoria of being a tea drinker. Story under the cut

Today (or tonight...rather) i was grocery shopping with my mother, when i had suddenly remembered that my friend suggested i buy the Celestial Seasonings fruit tea sampler to try out some flavors after i had said i wanted to start drinking tea. but when i got to the tea isle they were sold out of the sampler i believe??? i couldn't find it :(( so i just bought the last flavor left (country peach passion). When i got home i made myself a cup and it was actually pretty alright !!i have never enjoyed tea so it was very surprising. it honestly just tasted like hot vaguely peach flavored water so maybe that's why i was ok drinking it...but it needed something.

My roommate told me it wouldn't taste good if i drank it bare and told me to put milk and sugar in it. which i shot down because i have NEVER enjoyed tea with cream or milk or anything. but i was like....ok. this tastes boring. MAYBE he was right?

Wrong.

At first i put sugar in it. which didn't taste right. so then i put milk in it because MAYBE that's what it needs. WRONG!!! it tasted like the nectar of satans ASSHOLE!!! it was like the tea god PISSED IN MY GOB!!! FUCK.

I genuinely shuddered at how awful it tasted. i don't know why but i just can not consume tea with milk in it. period. no boba or anything. i can still taste the dreadful milky peach tea. i do not want to waste another bag so. instead i plan on trying again tomorrow. wish me luck

[all-the-bones-ever]

ghost hours rahhhh

[pritchypitchperfect]

The Lonely has a vice grip on my neck and head, the Eye is pulling on both my legs, while the Spiral is holding my hand and poking my side

The Fears, they want me.

[douglysium]

In Defense of Smirke's 14

This is an exerbt from a larger article discussing episode 13 of TMAGP. So if you want to understand the full context you can do so here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_bKOpD_Ffic1yTDNEJGb2UlN2oUnSQn5lLKKnDCtMU/edit#heading=h.uwedvf2nuk5c

Why Smirke’s 14?

I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.

A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.

The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.

It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”

The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.

While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.

Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.

For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.

Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.

Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”

However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.

However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”

At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.

So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).

Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”

We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).

So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.

This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.

There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.

Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who's to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.

However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.

That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).

There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.

Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.

As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”

[ladyyellow-thegremlin]

What the TMA fear you kin the most says about you

The Eye: you’re a whump fan, aren’t you? So am I, no judgement; we can take unreasonable and unbridled glee in the suffering of fictional characters together. You’ve been to the darkest corners of the internet, and for your curiosity, you have been killed internally. Oh, and you love fictional suffering but you act like a little bitch if you even get so much as a stuffed nose.

The Dark: you’re probably a fan of weird-core/kid-core, and you’re pretty spooky. Basic, but not in a bland way, in the way that you are the core, the beginning, the monster that lurks in the shadows of everyone’s mind. You probably also have a thing for cults but that’s optional. You’ve got a great imagination.

The Web: you’re either a manipulative bastard, have been manipulated in the past, or have been manipulated in the past and as a result decided to learn the game and become a manipulative bastard. You’re also a theater kid, and I mean that derogatorily. If not literally, you still are in spirit. Sorry. You might also be a Melanie Martinez fan but that one’s optional.

The Spiral: You’re a Will Wood fan. You probably haven’t actually done any psychedelic drugs, but you still act like someone who has. You experienced hallucinations in middle school. You’ve also been gaslighted: like a lot. You’ve got mental problems but also extreme imposter syndrome that keeps you from actually seeking help. You’re also an annoying little bastard (affectionate), but that’s unrelated. It’s me by the way, I’m with you on this one; we’re in this twisted little labyrinth together.

The Stranger. Like the Web, you’re a theater kid. However, where the Web is one of those obnoxious Shakespeare kids, you’re into musicals just as much as Shakespeare and make no distinction between the intellectual quality of the two genres. You either love Hamilton or hate it with a passion: there is no in between. You also have incredible fashion sense, you slay every day. You’re also depressed from reading Russian literature for fun.

The Flesh: You’re a little too into cannibalism, and it’s concerning. Like, you’d never ACTUALLY kill and eat someone, but you think about it a lot, probably while listening to Sodikken. Either that or you’re a vegan.

The Slaughter: You’re either a war nerd, or you just really like gore. Your music taste is either amazing or an absolute cringe fest. Maybe both depending on your perspective.

The Buried: Maybe you just really like Hozier and the idea of lying in an open grave like the ultimate Victorian goth: in which case I can get behind you. However, if you come at me with that cave or worm people crap, get the hell away from me. Spelunking is something that only psychopaths do. Do not interact with me. I like the sky and the rain on my face thank you VERY much.

The Vast: you’re one of those people who sits outside during thunderstorms. Alternatively, you’re probably fascinated by the ocean and probably love sharks. You also have thalassophobia. You probably also had a space phase as a kid. It’s me by the way I’m this person.

The Lonely: you’re just a sad little guy. Just a pathetic little fella. You’ve got no idea how to handle your emotions, and so shove everything down where you don’t have to think about it. You’re also chronically online. Go touch some grass today, okay? I promise people aren’t that scary once you actually take the plunge and talk to them.

The Corruption: You’re either really into mushrooms and entomology and think daily about letting the forest floor claim you; in which case I am one of you and fully support what you’re doing; or you’re one of those people who refused to wear a mask during COVID, and you probably haven’t cleaned your room in years. That place is nasty, and at this point your house should probably just be burned.

The Desolation: two words: feminine rage. You listen to the crane wives and Florence and the Machine, and either are a scary tall intimidating woman who knows how to dispose of a body, or are in love with a scary tall intimidating woman who knows how to dispose of a body. The relationship is toxic. Seek help.

The Hunt: you’re either a furry or a therian, aren’t you? You’re either a young kid obsessed with Madelyn Mei, or an asshole cop… who’s also a closeted furry.

The End: you’re a tradgoth. You’re an incredibly chill and nice person, and I would kill to hang out with you (pun not intended). You probably wanted to be a mortician until you learned how much paperwork and bureaucracy was involved.

The Extinction: you’re probably a punk with an affinity for gas masks. Your music taste is fire, and you’re probably an environmentalist. You’re young, but you’ve got a purpose and nobody’s gonna stop you. Good luck, my friend.

[sys-cafe]

hello! i’m so sorry if this is any issue because i am very new to this stuff, but uhm. would it be possible for me to request… i think its a headmate pack- somehow related to The End from The Magnus Archives? the pack could be an avatar or a vessel or The End itself or just somehow themed that way, i don’t mind!

thank you

📜 HEADMATE PACK!

꩜ Name: Terminus, Thanatos, Onyx, Kerrin, End

↠ Pronouns: they/it/death

꩜ Age: ageless adult

🐕 Species: Fear

꩜ Genders: agender

↠ Xenogenders: n/a

꩜ Sexuality: aroace

꩜ Role: caretaker, comforter

🐝 Source: The End, The Magnus Archives

꩜ Sign Off/Proxy: ~ 💀🪦

🌻 Likes: graveyard art (things like statues or decorated headstones), history (especially ancient history and the victorian era), long winter nights, taxidermy

🌱 Dislikes: rudeness, disrespect towards the dead, bright lights

꩜ Kins: raven

↠ Hobbies: walks in graveyards, writing, painting, fashion

↠ Music Tastes: goth and classical music

🐐 Aesthetic: gothic

꩜ Personality:

pos: patient, caring, honest

neu: quiet, calm

neg: blunt, detached,

꩜ Description & Details: tall. dark-skinned. long black hair, usually in braids. dark, flowy clothing - mostly skirts and robes. lots of jewelry, mostly gold. black gradient on hands and arms. large black wings.

↠ Extra: has a flock of ravens that follow them around, based off of the concept of comfort in death, doesn't mind fem terms (eg. Ma'am, lady, etc.)

⭐️ Appearance: Brightgoat's Picrew Hell

~ Mod Tobias

📜 ~ tysm for requesting! :D this request came up exactly in time for our TMA hyperfixation so I was super exited to make this :]

(srry for the lack of reqeusts being done, we had a very hectic few months and were quite burnt out :(( but hopefully we'll manage to do all the requests in our inbox quick, and we'll open requests soon! :D )

[rq-mediacalls]

Sources: Happy Tree Friends, Invader Zim, Gravity Falls, The Magnus Archives, Among Us, Helluva Boss.

Looking for: nothing further than information exchange between others, aka no relationships outside of identity relations, just curios in meeting others from vør sources. V are particularly interested in doubles, and people related to the doubles like Dipper Pines, Stanford Pines, Dib, Gir, Johnathan Sims, Stolas, Moxxie, And any sort of amogus/imposter.

Age/age range (if /r): kidadult xenoage ageless.

fictive/kin/transcharacter/etc: Trancharacter/Kin/Fictive: HTF: Fliqpy, Flippy, Handy, Nutty, Mime, Flaky, Russell, IZ: ZIM, GF: Bill Cipher, TMA: All fear entities, but particularly the spiral, the stranger, the slaughter, the eye and the lonely, AU: All Amogi, All Imposters, HB: Blitzø, Fizzarolli

Information about you: V are V and Z, A tulpamancy cisplural auditorium system (a unique form of plurality) and V represents Fliqpy and Z represents Flippy. V is also Bill Cipher, The Fear Entities, Imposter, Blitzø, while Z is Zim, Amogus, Fizzarolli, Handy, Russell, Nutty, Mime, Flaky. V both are divergent from vør sources and exist as a transcharacter being rather than more "innate" identity, and the strongest connections are Fliqpy, Flippy, Handy, Bill Cipher, Zim, The Spiral and The Stranger.

.

[icarrymany]

we all know which tma entity we kin or whatever but what about the opposite. which one aligns with your worst fear?

[citizenoftmrrwlnd]

self care for : the hunt (tma) with a focus on soft items and scented stuff, as well as a few books requested by chase 🐺🌑

x | x | x x | - | x x | x x x *| x *please note! i haven't read these books myself, but i did some research into books that might relate to the fear of the hunt... be sure to check any content warnings and do your own research to make sure you'll be alright reading any of these.

[bracketsoffear]

WE HAVE TO VOTE FOR MEEMAW BONES

THEY'RE BOTH NECROMANCERS BUT HARROW IS A NECROMANCER IN AN EMPIRE FULL OF NECROMANCERS WHERE NECROMANCY IS JUST A THING PEOPLE DO! SHE'S A LITTLE MORE DEATH-OBSESSSED THAN USUAL BUT IS THAT REALLY SCARY FOR THOSE AROUND HER?

She doesn't even have variety!

She writes obituaries for all of the dead cards in her boss battle and gives yours back to you as corpse cards--they should be "dead" (out of play), yet they've Come Back Wrong! That seems like the weird passive-yet-spooky stuff that Oliver and Karnak do!

Her mechanic is Bones--every time one of your Cards dies, you get a bone token. She essentially has a more passive version of Leshy's playstyle--whereas Blood requires you to actively sacrifice your creatures, with Bones you can sit back and wait for your Cards to bite it!

And of course there's the ending, where she takes it upon herself to delete the entire game world and everyone in it to free them from eternal suffering...which probably sounds familiar if you've gotten to Season 5 of canon.

As Inscryption is deleted, you end up in Grimora's Temple of the Dead, where you're tasked with inserting three epitaphs into a "lovely tombstone"--one for Inscryption.exe, one for P03 (who was just decapitated and presumed dead), and one for Luke Carder, the player character...but he's alive and well at this point, so why's his name in the epitaphs? We'll get to that.

Anyway, Grimora plays herself out with a few more games to celebrate the end of everyone's lives, and we get to see her spooky skeleton decor in 3D!

(And no, it's not universal to the Scrybes, I checked--Leshy's setup looks very different.)

Oh yeah, and that bone hand scale in her room? It moves.

Grimora also clarifies that, "Appealing as that is," she isn't just killing Inscryption because she wants to rest--she is trying to make sure the OLD_DATA on the disc is never unleashed upon the world, which is what the not-actually-dead-P03 ends up doing after the game's end by uploading it to the Internet. Again, this ought to sound familiar--it's the debate at the end of Act 5 about whether to release the Fears onto the multiverse to save the main characters' Earth or let the End permanently kill off everyone, including the Fears. It even ends the same way as canon--the "kill the world" plan seemingly works, and then it's revealed that someone else's interference scuffered it and the greater evil gets out into wider existence anyway. So if we're comparing TMA and Inscryption, Grimora is basically an End Avatar in that her motivations and actions parallel what the End was trying to do (indiscriminately bring about the long-overdue end of everyone) only for it to get fucked up at the last minute.

Anyway, remember what I said about Luke's epitaph?

Yeah, guess who ends up dead not long after Inscryption is deleted. Kind of like she predicted his death, which is an established ability of End Avatars...

And another thing! What card does Leshy forcibly kin-assign her?

A skeleton-themed stinkbug that costs Bones. And when the player rescues her from a safe, she calls the safe an "Iron Crypt"!

Oh yeah, and the Achievement you (Luke) get for beating her?

Yet another prediction of Luke's future demise.

So yeah, Grimora is the death-obsessed weirdo in a world of truly unhinged people, she has a whole lot of Bone Goth swag, and her story parallels canon weirdly well.

Also, you cannot look at her and tell me with a straight face that she's straight. That's not entirely relevant but it's true.

VOTE FOR GRANDMA! JUSTICE FOR JANE DOE! DEFEAT THE LOCKED TOMB AND BRING A GOOD END TO THIS BRACKET!

.

[jarchivism]

Should have gone to IKEA to get marked. I have been marked by over half of the Fears there. It's great.

Wondering if the corruption, desolation, slaughter, hunt, end and extinction would be in IKEA. What would they be doing there?

[shapeofshifter]

im gonna tweak the fawk outttt </3 i might be getting a vr headset to play vrchat soon and i REALLY wanna find a martin blackwood avatar for kin euphoria but theres NOTHINGGGGGG

[soapdi-spencer]

Please kin assign me one of the fears I know nothing about tma

I know your deepest darkest fears! You're 100% Spiral aligned, but I can also envision you becoming an avatar of the Corruption <3