workplacecomedian

[workplacecomedian]

(TMA spoilers) Im sure ive seen multiple flavors of this, but- fucked up and evil TMA au where:

Magnus is content with his current immortality and is just trying to keep the Eye well fed and be its Special Boy and keep other powers from completing rituals

John is still tricked into being the Archivist for non ritual related reasons, but once he understands his situation, he figures if he can complete his ritual he can destroy the Web (and Mr Spider) and, ideally, destroy all the Fears with their own power. So Magnus is trying to stop John, and John is so lost in the sauce of wanting to 'save humanity' that he loses his humanity faster/harder

Martin fell to the Web either while working in the library or just before entering the Institute, and is guided to help John. Debating whether Martin tells him early on that he also wants the ritual to work so that theyre teamed up, or whether he waits until last minute. Either could have that dramatic betrayal of revealing the Web wanting to launch the Fears beyond

Tim manages to find out about Smirke's Fourteen before the Institute and attempted to hunt down rituals, but mostly has just killed a few avatars. With the Institute he both wanted to gain access to the library and figure out whether he could do anything to the Eye. He's still got that upbeat mood due to his own confidence from figuring out how to avenge Danny in some way, but its a rough around the the edges kind of cheer. I think he still dies in the Unknowing and knows John is becoming an avatar, but he doesnt fully realize John intends to set off the Watchers Crown. If Tim found out I think he'd just kill John on the spot lol, unless John rolled a nat 20 in persuasion

Sasha is the tough one...I was thinking she knew of the NotThem and it was driving her crazy enough to work in Artifact Storage, but I don't want her backstory to just be a copy of Tim's. Maybe she has something opposite of Georgie- touched an artifact when young, it gave her the ability to sense capital F Fears and the entities/objects they inhabit?

[workplacecomedian]

love the difference between Jonathan "I didn't ask for this pls tell the avatars to stop kidnapping me" Sims and Gwendolyn "you can't take this spooky job position from my cold dead hands, give me my assignment" Bouchard

[workplacecomedian]

Jmart safehouse setting where the first words to come from Martin since exiting the Lonely is "What the hell are you doing." And its in response to him blankly watching John try to quickly make them tea in the microwave- the humming noise breaking Martin's partial dissociative state, and scaring the shit out of John after all the silence (minus his own mutterings)

[workplacecomedian]

[TMA finale spoilers] Because i enjoy being miserable, imagine if melanie, georgie, and basira were still fucked over after the world returns due to their ties to the archives. The entire world fell victim to magnus' plans. Even if it took a while to make the connection that the Institute was the source, I'd be surprised if it wasn't eventually tied together by the governments of, again, the entire world, in a desire to figure out what happened and why and to avoid it happening again.

I can easily imagine ex-avatars ratting each other out and giving out whatever information keeps their heads on their shoulders, including calling out the Institute. And then it's just a matter of finding who was employed and which of those people were involved... Obviously an incredibly unlikely scenario if everything is reduced to rubble (including any paper trails), but like...those three could absolutely be left in a world wanting someone to pay, and them being the closest living thing to that desire, and even if they're safe due to destroyed evidence, they could be living out the rest of the unapocalypse in anxiety

[workplacecomedian]

[workplacecomedian]

It occurred to me today that the Magnus Archives is only 200 episodes long, which means that MAG 6 (the worm sex episode) and MAG 102 (the beetle wife episode) make the series fully 1% bug sex episodes by volume.

[workplacecomedian]

When it comes to how folks like to visually/chromatically display the Eye taking hold of John, i cant really see him in the Magnus Green- at least, not for the entire timeline. I think it'd start at that traditional green, taking after Elias, up until he realizes what's going on, especially once he's at odds with Elias.

It starts kinda sliding up the color spectrum into a sickly yellow green, like a reaction to his disgust/need to separate himself from the team colors. Maybe after waking up from the coma its set into a true warm golden hue (something something 'angelic' colors after waking up a 'monster' due to and providing deeply conflicted feelings). And as he falls further into his role it keeps getting warmer and warmer...until that awful day, when the sky splits open with irises a bright angry red, mirroring his own (monstrous, evil, inhuman, other self deprecating adjectives,) eyes. Huh...a bright ominous red......sounds familiar

[workplacecomedian]

tape recorder: *turns on*

jon: what do you smell boy

[workplacecomedian]

"cant believe youd make this about your current interest" i will make the birds in the sky and the grass in the fields about my thing. for free. i will look at gods ineffable creation with a mind filled with images and thoughts of my guys.

[workplacecomedian]

13 yr old self and i are getting SO much entertainment imagining john sims singing one of those english male covers of Bad Apple, like... "Ever on and on, I continue cirling with nothing but my hate in a carousel of agony" yea brother you sure do. Don't even get me STARTED on these end lyrics and lining them up with MAG 200, look at this-

"So I'm back here once again, so I'm back here once again / Can I ever make a change, will my heart begin to mend? / Would you love me if I go? It feels like a heart attack / But still everything's the same, and it all just fades to black" aaaare you KIDDING me

[workplacecomedian]

TMA bad end time travel AU set to Dead Girl Walking (Reprise) from Heathers: The Musical (lyric video at the bottom), but 'bad' as in John learned nothing from the first time around and just goes a little off the deep end, and 'end' as in the song itself ends with future John shot. As one does! For the sake of sanity the future counterparts are referred to as Sims and Blackwood. ...This ended up a tad long for no reason oops

Blackwood takes the female lead/Veronica's lines, Sims takes the male lead/JDs lines, Sasha gets Ms.Flemings lines. I think the song itself takes place around when Martin is trapped in his flat? But leading up to this point, Blackwood and Sims hadn't approached the Archival team- they've spent some weeks tracking down avatars and leads beyond the Institute, and arguing about how to go about saving this timeline without coming to a decision. Unbeknownst to Blackwood, Sims decided to put his own halfbaked plan into motion starting like a week prior. [Rest under cut!]

Sims managed to convince Tim that A) he's from the future and trying to right things, and B) the Institute and Jonah need to stop existing asap. Tim is not told of the potential consequences of just deleting the Institute or its head, nor that John has access to a fuckton of explosives- he just needs a second pair of hands to help quickly set things up, distract Jonah, and evacuate the building. Sims probably tells Tim something like his mark of the Stranger keeps him hidden from the Eye, which is why Sims came to him and why he can't tell anyone else; whatever keeps him quiet. Don't ask me how but Blackwood figures out his (very very bad) plan.

Sims plans to go through with it after the workday ends on friday. For one reason or another, Sasha is alone in the archives when Tim and Sims come in; maybe she bullied John into going home, and Martin is already out 'sick.' The two schemers weren't expecting her and make their excuses, Sims telling her she's stayed late enough and should head home, that they'll only be a minute. Suspicious as hell, she waits in the lobby, only to see Blackwood and John come in, which, uh...two Johns! That's Not Normal! {John said you were sick! / "Jason Dean told me you just committed suicide!"}

Blackwood heads to the archives, leaving John with Sasha to quickly trade what they've seen in the lobby. He runs into Tim dumping statements out of containers and wedging all the doors open- at this point he thinks it'll be 'just' a building fire. They have something of a confused/frustrated argument with Tim blocking him from the tunnels, until Blackwood manages to shove past him. Tim follows him down to find Sims handling one of the explosives. {"This is just to trigger the packs of thermals hidden upstairs [around the Institute.]"}

Tim realizes with dawning horror that he'd been played a fool, someone letting it slip that the death of Jonah would possibly kill the employees (and the Institute would possibly kill Sims along with Jonah). And of course, the two lovebirds get to have their dramatic fight, with Blackwood slowly getting closer and Sims looking like he's about to have a breakdown- first appearing like he might give it up, but then- {"I wish you'd come with me!"} His demeanor hardens, reminiscent of how he seemed after taking the Crown but Worse, and subtly takes the detonator out from his pocket. {"I wish I had more TNT."}

Tim and Blackwood now try to wrestle him away from the pipe and take the detonator. There's camera cuts of three people walking down the archives as they fight. {"Here comes Westerburg, comin' to put you in the ground!"} The detonator is dropped and slides away closer to the entrance; Sims is the closest as they all make a drive for it. They get one more (frankly ridiculous looking) scrabble over it on the floor, and as they're focused on each other- {"And send you straight to-!"}

The camera is focused on their upper halves; Sims reacts to an impact. The shot widens out as Blackwood and Tim look down at him and the rapidly growing bloodstain in his chest in shock and horror. They turn to see an equally horrified John and Sasha, accompanied by Elias, smoking gun lowering.

We love open endings :]👍 PLEASE don't stare at the details too hard, this is literally just a long winded excuse to imagine Blorbos From My Shows in catchy songs. Thank you for reading if you did though :]

[workplacecomedian]

"jon turned into the monster that destroyed his childhood" close. jon turned into the book that destroyed his childhood. he functionally became a leitner. jon's not just any devouring monster, he's an archive of stories, he's the frame device of the podcast (Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon. You are a record of fear—MAG 160), he eats his victims the way those books did. every leitner has a story to tell, and often its victims end up trapped inside it, becoming a part of the tale—this is exactly what jon does as the archivist, when he reads/takes/compels (eats) a statement he is re-experiencing and storing within him the subject's fear, each new victim is then incorporated into his mental collection of nightmares (You are a chronicle of terror). elias's murder of leitner then has another layer of narrative meaning to it. it's a marking of territory, of course, because jurgen is about to reveal important information to jon which will presumably ruin elias's plans for him.

mag 80 - "librarian" / mag 160 - "the eye opens"

but it's also about the transition from a world with artefacts as a source of isolated horror consuming and transforming individuals, which leitner and his books are symbolic of, to one where one being - the archive (jonah magnus's archive), which has been marked by every fear and therefore holds within it the essence of every fear—devours and reshapes the entire world.

[workplacecomedian]

Martin should let a lootbug into the archives. As a treat. I think he'd appreciate the lootbugs. Stray lootbug adopted at scottish safehouse. Martin tries to get John to warm up to it and (he probably would if he could figure out where the hell this alien came from first)

[workplacecomedian]

this may be niche but i've been obsessively thinking about a goofy TMA x Hi-Fi Rush crossover, but like...almost exclusively just stealing chai's fucked up chestpiece(??) for john. AKA, whatever you consider john to look like, except now he also has a tape recorder in his chest. maybe it like...lets him replay any tape he's ever recorded or something? idk. i think knowing john and his more fucked up circumstances he might try to rip the damn thing out though

[workplacecomedian]

Fun office comedy yes

[workplacecomedian]

i love the idea of john and gerry being good friends if he somehow lived, but can you IMAGINE gerry arriving in s2. I don't remember the timeline of when john found out about gerry 'murdering' his mom, but like. gerry murder-charge only-living-assistant-of-gertrude probably-intimidating-as-fuck keay walking into Dr. Paranoid's office and just dying on the spot from a heart attack or something

[workplacecomedian]

FINALLY!!!!!!!! TMAGP LENT ANIMATION HAS BEEN FREED FROM PROCRASTINATION HELL!!!!!!!!

This took way too long bc the malevolent brainrot got in the way so,,,,,, yeah I hope y’all enjoy!!! started this I mid-march so that’s why this has more first half of s1 vibes :))

also the YouTube link!!