#I now have my jon design down at least

[seven-winged-liar]

Finished TMA Pots: Jmart Edition!!! <3

If anyone has suggestions for plant names, kindly drop 'em in the tags or comments!

[its-your-mind]

alright fuck this I’m making a TIMELINE. and a FACT SHEET. it will not be in order. Nor will it actually track dates really. Mostly it’s going to contain the seeds of my theories. I’m red stringing this Shit via tumblr post on mobile.

TIMELINE:

Magnus Institute fire: 1999

Windows NT 4.0 (the Windows NT that was the commercial predecessor to Windows 95) was released to retail in 1996 (with the final version released in 2001) so Freddy has been creeping around the web since around the time the Institute burned down

Jon, Martin, and probable Jonah Norris, Chester, and Augustus started actively reading roughly 1/30 statements entries out loud ~a year ago, according to Alice

Statements Entries so far are dated to May 2022, and it’s implied that Freddy collects them more or less as they appear, so as far as rough estimates for when tmp is set, it’s nowish, or just a bit earlier than now (similar to how tma was)

My kingdom for an ARG player who can hook me up with the founding date of the OIAR and the dates on those Magnus Institute records, just cuz I’m curious

SHIT WE KNOW:

Jonah Magnus exist(s/ed) in SOME form in this world, and built an institution designed to research the paranormal. That institution burned down and cleared of all records. Unclear exactly when the clearing happened.

The voices in the computer are the same as Martin Blackwood’s and Jonathan Sims’s

The OIAR has a department (this one) dedicated entirely to sorting weird shit scraped from online with an obsessive specificity

Everyone who works in this department wasn’t forced to be here and isn’t forced to stay, but all of them do have something that guided them to this position and is keeping them here

There is supernatural shit happening here in this world right now

Annabelle Cane said that the rift under Hilltop Road was a rift in reality - time, space, dimensions

She also said that the Fears would be following the voices that were woven into the web made of the tapes

In the TMA-verse, the Fears had a penchant for spreading themselves around via books (and then someone stupid idiot motherfucking dusty ass book collecting rat old bastard avatar of the whore biggest clown in the circus cowboy— starting slapping a label on em

SHIT THAT IS STILL A ???:

Did the fears exist in this world for an extended period of time, or have they only recently appeared? All the dates we have for statements entries are recent, but there was at the very least some FUCKED UP SHIT happening before the jmart+Jimmy Magma squad popped up

Did Robert Smirk build batshit crazy buildings and also a panopticon under London?

Was Magnus fear-aligned? Was the Institute? Or was it just a place for fucked up research?

Are there alternate-reality versions of any beloved TMA recurring cast members running about?

Was the og TMA world the place where the Fears started? Or had they already spread?

How far have they made it at this point? Is this the first new world post-archives-crew? Or are we several down the chain?

COLLECTION OF FACTS INTO BATSHIT THEORIES:

The Fears have been Updated for the Twentieth (not twenty-first, rip to Colin) Century and now they have infused themselves into computer systems via Jon’s tapes letting them encode themselves in a new and fun way (I am not 100% sure how tapes work besides magnets somehow, but I DO know that early computers used them for data tracking, which makes enough dream-logic sense for me) and are thus able to hack themselves into forum posts and also spy on the whole world via one (1) government computer system

Panopticon screenshot happened in March 2021. First two statements are May 2022. Alice said the voices started showing up about a year ago. So even if the Fears were already here, JMart are here now once more to lend their voices to the verbal record of Fear

Speaking of the Fears already being here. If the Rift was also for Time, I’m sure the Web could have figured out a way to drag the Squad back along the timeline while somehow leaving jmart behind

OIAR is EITHER. The Fears (Web specifically) preparing a perfect funnel-spider web trap for JMart when they did show up (oh voices? tapes? telling fear stories? here you go motherfuckers) or someone’s Leitner/Smirk/Magnus-ass attempt to wrangle all the trauma under one roof. Either way I’m p sure it is Web-ish-aligned, if the Fears even exist in this world in the way we’re used to seeing them

If we’ve got two grown up paranormal guinea pigs, AND a bouchard running around, and all of them are here because of Some Sort Of Reason, and are Still Here Even Though They Could Leave, I assume everyone else is too. I wonder if they all have some tie to this world’s Institute, or if they’ve all had encounters, or were selected based on their compatibility with the OIAR’s aims

Speaking of which

WHAT IS THE OIAR? Cuz this part of it is clearly kinda similar to the Archives in terms of collecting and sorting statements. Is there more of it? What do those people do? Do they use these sorted entries somehow? Also why tf do they have do work overnight????

[pumpkinstrawbrew]

me when i finally have my proper off days : why yes, out of all my wips, i certanly must finish this one. 🐾

...

(this thingy was sitting in my drafts for like, 3 months by now. an' after a long working week, i decided that i need to finish it as a treat to myself. the horrible goblin men can be a cute meow-meows too. for me they are at least.

but uh, admitingly there isn't much thinking process behind this one lol. aside from the fact, that after drawing them with cat features, i decided to draw them as actual cats too. so i lowkey designed the cats, i suppose. or well, at least i gave them some small things that would make them a bit closer to their human counterparts.

like, jack canonically have a bit of hair on his chin, pretty much always. my dude has no idea how to shave cleanly *crime master never taught him that skill, i guess* so i draw him those uh, lil hair on his chin as a cat too, but this time, its the whiskers. an' jon is always covered in hay, so as a cat, he might as well be covered in that too. prob bc he hunts mice in the hay all the time.

as cat people, they are like, pretty much the same men, when they're just men, without cat stuff. it's just that jon can get a tad upset, when batman calls him a 'bad'. an' jack constatly hears from flash, that this time he will put him down for sure *he never does* also look out for those claws. they are sharp!

anyways, here my nonsense as last post for this month. an' hopefully, a small charm for good luck. gotta just create silly stuff like this sometimes. an' i also wanted this to be a bit of a callback to the first time, when i drawn them together *even if it was a different jack*, both in colors an' poses. it was the second art, which i posted on this blog [waves hand] kinda a sentimental thingy, but i just wanted to do it.)

[eruherdiriel]

Homecoming

Jonsa ficlet Rating: G Universe: Canon, bookverse Other: Arranged marriage, Sansa POV

Also on AO3.

Banners appear on the horizon, the emblem invisible to her at first as the standards fly straight out behind the men who hold them, but Sansa does not need to see the fabric to know who has arrived. Ghost had been beside her in the Great Hall as she met with a group of serving women when he chuffed and sprang to his feet. The direwolf had only to look at her and she knew. They had climbed the stairs in the keep until they reached the battlements, Sansa following Ghost as he walked her around to just above the East Gate. Together, they watched over the hills to the south and east of the castle, waiting for any sign of him—for Jon and his host, riding home from a gathering with new southern rulers.

The standard bearers slow their horses, and the banners relax into a gentler movement. She can see the great beast on them now, white against a grey background. While it looks the most like a direwolf—like Ghost—it is something new, with a scaled belly, long talon claws, and feathery wings—a wolf, a dragon, and a crow all in one. Ivory weirwood trunks and limbs with bright red leaves encircle the beast to complete the design, one of Sansa’s own imaginings. With their marriage, Jon could fly the Stark banner, the grey direwolf that hangs off the battlements of Winterfell even now, but he had refused.

Ghost moves back toward the stairs, and she follows to await his master in the yard. Her palms sweat in her light leather gloves and her heart pounds. I have not been this nervous to see Jon since our wedding night.

Once her husband is through the gate and off his horse, they greet each other formally. Nervousness continues to bubble inside her as they proceed into the keep and his bedchamber, where a bath awaits him. 

She leaves him there to wash off the grime of a hard ride. He frowns as she goes, no doubt sensing her disquietude. Why must he see through me? she wonders.

Perhaps his ability to do so is the very reason she finds herself in this situation.

Later, when she sees the servants taking the dirty bathwater away, she returns to his rooms. The first soft knock returns no answer, so she tries again, firmer this time, and he bids her enter. 

Jon is standing straight when she opens the door, but Sansa can see the exhaustion behind his eyes. Once again, their greeting is proper. Then they fall silent, as he waits for her to explain her presence.

There are words Sansa is thinking of trying out on her tongue, ones she has never spoken to Jon before. The alliance their marriage built is so very fragile still, and affection was never part of the promises they made to each other or their people. It grew anyway, at least for her. Scarier than recognizing that is the fear she harbors that he does not feel the same.

But Sansa is brave, so she walks closer to him and twists her tongue to form the words.

“I missed you,” she says, eyes cast down. Her disposition does not prevent her from seeing his eyebrows shoot up. With them, her own walls rise. She lifts her chin as well, no longer wishing to appear demure.

“I mean to say, Ghost missed you, and I missed having you to negotiate with the wildlings. Tormund Giantsbane is the crassest man—”

Jon halts her words as he reaches out and pulls her into his chest, his nose drawing a line up her neck as he breathes in deep. Almost like he wishes to inhale me, she thinks. “I missed you as well, my lady,” he says in her ear, and sparks shoot down her back from where his breath tickles her skin.

Sansa believes him, Seven save her. After everything, her trust in people having been trampled by a cavalry of cruel men and women, this is all it takes: an embrace and seven simple words. Only his embrace, and only his words, she promises herself.

She relaxes into his arms, content for the first time in a long while.

[thevoidcannotbefilled]

Actually going to make this reply its own separate post. TLDR: I have a theory that Chester, Norris, and Augustus are essentially spooky AI created from datasets from the fears/tapes.

Now, @gammija and @shinyopals weren't sure how Augustus fit into this. Right now, the leading theory is that he is Jonah Magnus. He only had one statement in the show, so there's basically no data to collect, so why would he be an AI?

Hypothetically speaking, let's say he isn't Jonah. Or at the very least, he isn't the Jonah we know.

Here's an idea: Augustus isn't the TMA Jonah Magnus, but rather the Jonah Magnus of the TMagP universe.

Here's my current thoughts as to why this may be the case:

1) TMA Jonah is dead. Jon had to kill him in order to control the Panopticon. While I won't discount TMA Jonah's and TMagP's Jonah's memories combining, I don't think it can be entirely TMA's in there.

2) I'm pretty confident that Freddie has connections to the Institute, for a variety of reasons. If nothing else, Freddie could have been connected to them before the Institute burned down in 1999. And unless it's a different Magnus starting the Institute, I'm just going to assume for now that Jonah started the Institute in both universes.

3) Augustus already separated himself out from Norris and Chester in two ways. He speaks less than the two of them but also his case is really odd which I'll go into next.

4) Augustus is the only Text-to-Speech voice who didn't say where his case came from. Norris and Chester so far have always told us where they're reading from. They say links, they mention threads and who said what in each thread, and we know each different email sent. Meanwhile, Augustus can't even tell us who the case giver is in "Taking Notes". This wouldn't mean much, but... we also know that all the papers in The Institute are gone. Noticeably so. Perhaps even integrated into the Freddie system.

5) Tbh... I just think it would be more interesting if they aren't all three from the same place. We know from the promotion, the Ink5oul case, especially the design of the logo that alchemy will be a major part of TMagP. Transformation and immortality. I wouldn't put it past this universe's Jonah to try to search for immortality in his own way.

And this is less of a point and more of a general obversation. We have zero clue how these three got to this state. Even if we assume "fears stuff" generally the fears and how they transform people have some sort of logic to it, dream or not. I don't currently understand the logic yet on why they've become this. Also, we don't know what triggered them integrating into Freddie in the first place.

There's an outside force at play here, and I think it would be interesting if Augustus was a key factor to understanding it.

[puppiesandnightlock]

LINK: But since the world’s obsessed with saying ‘psych’ (pt 1)

summary: Detention, coffee, and holy shit Damian can hot-wire a motorcycle-

aka Damian and Jon get their shit together (sort of) and start off their tentative friendship, only strengthening when Jon finds out something that draws him to Damian even more....

Okay.

Here’s the thing.

In order to keep his nice, shiny record, and his top student status, as well as not making his older brother turn on the accursed dad voice, Damian had to make amends with stupid Jon Kent.

The last few weeks consisted of their back and forths, some mildly amusing, others…rather physical, leading them to where they were now, Saturday morning detention. 

Damian was certain he’d be able to breach what he was positive was a cover, perhaps self defense, and maybe even fix the boy up.

Granted, he was no miracle worker, and in his opinion,  Jon Kent was in desperate need of a miracle.

However, he was certainly persuasive. The added benefit of being a former delinquent himself gave him a way to worm past the defenses, not that the other boy would know. 

And something most everyone but themselves knew was that maybe, despite everything pointing to the contrary, they didn’t really want to hate each other.

Admittedly, detention was a familiar environment to Jon, countless weekends lost to the silent drab classrooms. 

“Yo, Kent!” A teen with close cropped brown curls called out from the side of the room as he entered the designated detention room.

“Heard Wayne kicked your ass last week.” The shit-eating grin plastered on their face gave the hint that the words were teasing, but Jon knew it was also to get a rise out of him.

“What do you know, Akira?” He snorted. “At least I’m here for somethin’ other than scribbling on the walls.”

They made a mock offended gasp, the jacket they were wearing covered in tastefully placed paint splotches, patches and pins, much like the rest of the outfit.

“I’ll have you know it was a beautiful piece of work, and a form of self-expression. Besides, it was technically for an English project, so I shouldn't even be here.”

“Sure.” He rolled his eyes, shooting them a grin that would leave most people swooning. Akira only smirked back, and spoke up again.

“So, how was it like to have a good boy gremlin kick your ass? Bet you thanked him after, what with the drooling you’ve been doing lately.”

Jon flushed and opened his mouth to retort, but as he did, a teacher stepped in the door.

“Jon Kent, you’re to be in the classroom down the hall instead.”

He nodded, flipping Akira off behind his back and walking out. Unfortunately for him, the only other person in the room was Damian fucking Wayne, who was on time and probably a few minutes early to everything, including detention, apparently. 

“Hello,” he said cautiously. “Good morning.”

Jon startled. What the hell was going on? Sure, Damian was polite when they had their tutoring, although after the first few days it was more sarcastic. 

“Were you body-snatched?” He blurted out. Damian’s lips twitched upwards, but the flicker vanished as quick as it came.

“No.” Jon watched him suspiciously, before turning and sitting in the back. The other boy got up and  slipped in the seat next to him.

“Seriously, man, what’s wrong with you?” He crossed his arms, scowling at the boy next to him. Damian held out a cup, similar to the one in his hand. 

“Here.”

“Did you poison it?” Jon looked at it warily.

Damian shot him a deadpan look, shaking the cup at him. “Take it or leave it, Kent.” 

Hesitantly, he took it, and under his watch, sipped from it, sighing as the bitter taste of caffeine flooded his senses. Not too much milk and lots of sugar, just how he liked it.

Wait.

“How do you know my order?” he demanded immediately, Damian nearly dropping his own cup. 

He flushed, whether in embarrassment or anger, and avoided his gaze. “I only guessed. You bring a coffee cup during tutoring every week and based on what the contents smelled like, I added it up.”

Jon took the lid off of the cup and sniffed hesitantly, much to the other boy’s amusement. “I don’t smell anything,” he pouted. “It’s just coffee.”

Damian covered his mouth with a hand, hiding the small smile that appeared. “Well, we can’t all be winners, can we?”

“You’re telling me.” Jon scowled, poking at the fading bruises on his pale skin. “Since we’re being civil today for some reason, mind tellin’ me where you learned to kick ass? Because as much as I hate to admit it, you sure kicked mine.”

His expression became guarded and he shook his head, opening a book. “No, thank you. I’m afraid this is as far as my pleasantries extend today.”

“C’mon, we were gettin’ somewhere.” He whined, draping himself across the desk, staring up at him with black framed blue eyes.

“I’ve beaten you once, provoke me and you’ll receive it a second time.” The words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them, and inwardly he cursed his own uncontrolled anger. 

This is what would always get him into trouble, the lack of brain to mouth filter as his mind clouded with the emotions, taking hold of his actions without thinking of the consequences.

“No thanks.” Jon muttered, ducking his head and pulling out his phone, scrolling through his socials. The silence stretched out, Damian considering he’d done a wonderful job of being civil, although they weren’t exactly joined at the hip yet.

“Sorry I punched you in the face.” He blurted out against his will. “And you know, just generally beat you up. In my defense, you were very provoking.”

Because this was how to properly apologize. Ah yes, justifying your actions with their own. Honestly, what was it about this boy that made every one of his perfectly crafted walls and mannerisms come crashing down in flames?

To his surprise, Jon put his face down, shoulders shaking. Damian was quickly hit with a large dose of anxiety, concern, and fear. He carefully reached out a hand like what his brothers would have done, and placed it on his shoulder, causing the other boy to jump up and reveal something that caused Damian to scowl and turn away.

The fucker was laughing .

“I’m sorry,” He chortled. “I just didn’t want you to punch me in the face-”

“I should still do that.” Damian grumbled, hitting him in the shoulder a bit harder then needed for a ‘friendly’ punch. “I was concerned I'd made you cry.”

Jon looked nearly offended, the expression off-put somewhat by the fact that he was still smiling. “Takes a bit more than that to make me cry, Wayne.”

“Good to know.” Damian deadpanned. 

They stared at each other for a moment, the corners of Damian’s mouth twitching upwards and sparking a new round of laughter from Jon. The other boy fell victim to the unspoken hilarity as well, quiet chuckles catching the other boy’s attention.

“Hey,” He said after they’d quieted and gone back to the things they’d been doing. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

And why am I falling for it? 

Damian shrugged. “It’s a little hard to have to hate someone like this. You’ve no idea how much I wish I could go back and erase it. If I want things to go the way I do, then I think I should keep my patience.”

“I’m sorry too.” Jon muttered. “I was an asshole, I know. And I kept going even when I should have stopped. I was surprised, to be honest. I didn't think you’d be so…good at fighting back. It was stupid and kind of mean, even if you weren’t super bothered by it.”

And maybe…maybe I was a little drawn to you, too. Unexplained, aggravating enamourment. Couldn’t catch it, always just out of reach. And always would be. 

Damian fiddled with the pencil in his hands. “Apology accepted. No more bothering me to the point where I punch you again, right?”

“Yep.” He popped the ‘p’ at the end and offered him a lopsided smile.

“And you'll be showing up on time for tutoring?”

“Can’t promise that, darlin’.” Jon shot finger guns at him, Damian shaking his head, a smile threatening to break through the stern facade.

“I guess that’s something.” a flicker of some emotion flashed across his face, and he stuck out his hand to be shook. “Would you like to start over?”

Jon nodded, and Damian’s small hand was enveloped by the other boy’s leather clad one. “Jon Kent, bad boy extraordinaire and all around flirt. Nice to meetcha, gorgeous.”

He scoffed as a wink accompanied the words, rolling his eyes good naturedly. “Damian Wayne. Your tutor for the foreseeable future. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

They shook once and let go, for once at peace. Jon turned his head to the side. “Since we’re chill now, teach, wanna get outta here? Get a bite to eat?”

“As tempting as that is, I promised I’d not get into any more trouble at school. After our time is served, however, I might consider the offer. On the condition that you stop the godforsaken flirting. ”

Jon smirked, poking at him. “Did I fluster the great Damian Wayne with a few notes on his appearance?”

“No!” He sputtered, pink dusting his cheeks. “It’s just annoying, and I don’t want people to think you’re my boyfriend.” 

Jon faltered at Damian’s clear dislike of the thought, not that he could blame him. He wanted to stay on this boy’s good side, now that he’d gotten a taste of it. The other side had been fun, and knowing the buttons to push, he could easily get a rise out of him if bored.

He played it off, pulling a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I’ll have you know I would be a wonderful boyfriend. But, if you’re not into perfection, I understand.”

The laugh was quiet but genuine, hands flying up to his mouth to hide it. “Whatever.”

“Did Mr. Eloquent just say whatever ?” the other boy gasped. “A piece of informal language from Damian Wayne?” 

“Dramatic.” He scoffed. “I’m really not as bad as I seem.”

“Yeah right.” Jon laughed. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He gave a daring grin, causing something to flare in the depths of Jon’s soul. The smile mirrored the one he so often wore getting into trouble, and suddenly he was more inclined to believe that the boy he’d thought as a teacher’s pet goody two shoes with a mean right hook really wasn’t all grades and perfection.

“Guess maybe you ain’t so bad, Wayne.” Jon said at last. “Pretty on the outside, but you’ve got a different side to ya. Gremlin-like, probably.”

“I feel mildly offended by that.” Damian muttered, before responding in kind. “You aren’t ‘so bad’ yourself either, I suppose. Despite all of this , you’re softer than you’d like to admit. Puppy-like, probably.”

“You know, I see your point of mildly offending.”

They laughed together, a timer on Damian’s phone ringing. “Oh, would you look at that? Almost free.”

“I guess time does fly when you’re having fun.” Jon responded, hesitant. “Guess we were kinda having fun.”

“It would seem that way.” The other boy typed something rapidly, and quickly received a response. “I’ll take you up on the lunch offer, Kent, if you’d like to continue this fun .”

“I would, actually. I’ll take you to meet one of my friends, her family runs the best diner in this city.” Jon grinned. 

“Another miscreant such as yourself?” Damian raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, only when she’s with me.” He grinned at him, kicking up his feet onto the desk just to make the other boy scowl. “You’ll have more fun than your good boy senses are used to.”

“Mm, we’ll see.” The other boy tapped a pencil against his lip. “I think there’s a lot about me that you don’t know, Jon.”

“I’ll bet.” 

“And get your feet off the table, were you raised in a barn?”

“Yes, actually.”

“I’m getting more context on that later.”

The short amount of time left in the classroom was mostly spent in silence, the promise of an adventure hanging in the air. And maybe a friendship as well.

[hoeswater]

I'm Talking about MagPod and Archives Again

I know that those of us in the middle of the Venn diagram of “Magnus fans” and “People who actually know how archives work” have really given Jonny a hard time about the way that the Magnus Institute archives and artefact storage are shown as working (or, I mean, not working) in the podcast. Not just in terms of best practices (where) but also like… archives can be spooky, it can be a spooky job, but not really for those reasons, you know? Anyway, I think that Protocols Episode 9 actually engages with the archives’ role as an archives in a way that’s really, really interesting. Qualifications: I’m almost done with my master’s in Library and Information Science/Archives Management and have been working in actual archives of various types for a year and a half. 

Specifically, I’m really interested in how Dice Guy engages with the horror within the context of the donation process. We hear a lot about the horror that objects in this universe cause while they’re still in the possession of their pre-Institute owners-slash-avatars, and a lot about the horror that these objects cause when they’re mishandled (looking at you, Jon “It is Remarkably Easy to Buy An Axe in Central London” Sims) while being stored at the Institute, and every now and again we get to see Jon or Gertrude accept or turn down an offered object (the teeth apple, Eric Delano’s page, etc) in TMA. But this is one of the only places in the podcast(s) where the process of donation and acquisition registers as a part of the horror story for the people giving or receiving the object. I’m thinking specifically about the beginning of the “statement proper,” where the statement giver says:

“So yeah, I tell you all about them, how I got them, all that crap and you just… You take them away, right? You accept them. Good. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It’s how it worked for me, at least. Put them in whatever vault you like, bury them, drop them in the ocean for all I care. All that matters is that they’re yours now.” 

At surface level, this disclaimer seems pretty similar to some of the other things that statement givers say in TMA: I just need to tell someone, I just need somebody else to know, You have the power to do something about this and I don’t, etc. But this statement differs from the ones we saw in TMA because it’s not just about catharsis or reaction to a terrible thing happening; it’s the actual change of ownership of the dice that gives this moment meaning within the horror story for Dice Guy. And this hinges on the fact that Dice Guy, like a lot of real-life people, sees the purpose of an archives as being locked vaults designed to keep non-expert people away from things they don’t know how to handle, rather than their actual purpose, which is to preserve things for the express purpose of making them accessible to the public. I imagine that the Magnus Institute, if it were real, would have some pretty strict access policies due to, you know, special circumstances– the stuff it holds generally having the ability to kill or maim or otherwise make people’s lives miserable– but it’s fun to think about. If Dice Guy had understood the fact that archivists and staff and conservationists and sometimes researchers interact* with the materials in their care, would he have still donated the dice? Was he at the point where it didn’t matter who got the bad luck, as long as it wasn’t him, or was he leaning on the stereotype of archives being locked vaults as a way to absolve himself of the guilt of giving the dice away to a person, because people use the things they're given and he thinks archives don't? 

It also raises some interesting questions about ownership. Real archivists think about the ethics of donation, acquisition, and ownership a lot. What does it mean for somebody to give something to an archive? What does it mean to accept it, therefore a) accepting responsibility for the preservation of the object and b) assigning cultural/historical/ideological value to it? This is where TMAGP comes pretty close to real archival theory: Dice Guy thinks that he’s nullifying the dice’s power by giving them to the Institute, but isn’t it true that to accept an object into an archive assigns it a level of power? The notes at the beginning of the statement seem to suggest that the dice coming under the Institute’s ownership lends them power beyond what they had originally, as well: “Viability as Subject,” “Viability as agent,” “Viability as catalyst,” “Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment Applicability Assessment.” To me, this says that maybe the dice were in the running to potentially be chosen for the role that the tape recorders fill in TMA– to facilitate, or serve as a catalyst for, the narrative/the fears’ growing power by being passed to the “agent” (Jon or Jon-equivalent) through the Magnus Institute. We, the audience, know that, if the dice had been selected to fill the tape recorder role, that would give them the potential not just to make one individual’s life more miserable, but to fundamentally change the entire world a la TMA 160 and 200. 

*In TMA canon, the Web uses the Magnus Institute as a site for agents and catalysts to interact, just as much as the Eye does if not more. The fact that the archives is a site of interaction between people and particular objects is critical to the narrative as told by the Web, even if it seems incidental to Jon–and even if Jon doesn’t understand the archives that way. It’s an interesting way to look at the Magnus Institute and archives as functioning in a similar way to actual archives, which serve as sites of interaction between people and historical objects (in spite of Jon’s complete lack of ability to function as a regular archivist.)

[bluesfreakingart]

I absolutely adore your art so much! I also enjoy your design for the Dork Squad as well, they make me squee (especially Jon's! The freckles look AMAZING on him!) I've wanted to do something for you for a bit now but never had the courage to, because you're so cool and I'm so nervous about these kinds of things, but I decided to get the urge and make this!

So yeah, enjoy my silly doodle of Jon slapping Edward's bald head with a piece of cheese :p hope you have a great day! ---

AWH!!! thank you for such the kind words, this is so cute! You know, if Jon ever cheesed Edward...Ed would be the pettiest bitch alive. He'd wait about two weeks or something so Jons guard is down and when Jon least expects it his lab is wrecked because Edward doesn't believe in equal punishment LMAO Spiteful creature!!! Also! Don't be so nervous, the big sharp teeth when I smile may be scary but I assure you I don't bite!

[abitofboth]

okay fuck it I’m gonna write detailed thoughts about cinderella’s castle even though I never usually do cuz like who am I to review something

first of all: PUPPETS!!!!! god, I am SO glad starkid puppets are back in action. I fully believe puppets should be used in theatre way more than they are now (the joey puppet in war horse is extraordinary) and the puppetry in cc was so reminiscent of starship to me- I’ve been craving the high of pincer and bug for YEARS lmao. when hop-a-lot came on stage I audibly went “oh shit”, crumb is a fuckin delightful little guy and I desperately need to hug him, and the troll puppets brought so much life to characters that I think wouldn’t have been as fun without them. the love that went into crafting every puppet is so easy to see and I really hope we get more of it from starkid in the future!!

I’m really happy to see bryce in a main role, she is a fuckin powerhouse!!! her voice is incredible and she brought such a fun spin to ella. I was lowkey worried it was gonna give off alw bad cinderella vibes but I shoulda had more faith, her character charms you as soon as she walks on stage!!

I’m also kind of a little obsessed with tadius?? curt in any role is guaranteed to take my heart but god, make him a lover boy and throw in a sprinkle of sass and I’ll just lay down my life for him. wish there’d been some more of the romance between him and ella!!

the trolls were also some incredibly fun characters. lauren and mariah killed it and like let’s be real, we were all rooting for them and their hot girl summer. what’s a little murder between friends?? angela was great and I loved the twist on the stepmother character that was way more interesting than the usual “she’s just kind of a bitch”.

jeff as the narrator was perfect but we all knew that was gonna be the case anyway. give him his cunty eyeliner and the man’s unstoppable.

joey’s voice work also deserves a special shout out!! every time he opens his mouth I’m giving him a standing ovation. what can’t the man do??

I didn’t love the character of the prince but ig that’s the point of him!! james played him so well and I really do think he’s so underrated as an actor. the physicality and comedy that he brings really makes him stand out, but I will say that the sex jokes got old pretty quickly for me lmao. it made him feel a lot more one-beat than I think they were going for

I reeeaally enjoyed the set and lighting of this one!! literally as soon as we pressed play, my sister and I were like oh shit okay I see your bigger budget mr lang!! and the COSTUMES!! loved loved loved them. Ella’s dress was beautiful and I’m really glad they went with something of their own design rather than try to replicate something disney-ish. it looks like they had a load of fun with the wigs in this one too which I always love to see!!

I thought kim, jon, and joey were, despite shining in whatever stage time they had, WOEFULLY underused. only one scene for kim, and I wish we’d have been able to spend more time with hop-a-lot and crumb- considering they were main characters it felt like we barely saw them. they had like, at most three lines in a song too? let them sing!!!

the music was also not what I expected! I didn’t expect it to be so synth-y, maybe more of a rock vibe from the small hints we had during production? I saw another review say it gave them 80s fantasy film vibes and I think that’s the perf description!! I really enjoyed all the songs and I always love being able to take in whatever jeff has cooked up. everyone was on their a-game as always with their voices too- bryce and kim were real stand outs for me. I do feel like the soundtrack is kind of forgettable though? usually after watching a starkid show I’ll find at least a few songs have earwormed their way into my head but right now I can only recall the opening/closing song. maybe that’s just on me though!

I also thought the general pacing was a little off and the story was maybe not quite ready. some parts felt rushed and some parts dragged a little, and at the end I was left still feeling a little hungry for something more.

overall I really enjoyed it!! I’ve been a huge fan of starkid for well over a decade and with each new show I’m blown away by their creativity and obvious love for the craft. I was so excited to see them move away from hatchetfield for now and jump into a different sandbox to play around with, and I’m SOOOO looking forward to the proshot version because I just know it’s gonna blow everyone away. I’m so glad they make such incredible theatre and do it in such an accessible way, and not to sound super cheesy but god is it great to be alive at the same time as them

(and really, nick lang I am begging you to make a crumb plushie)

[ah-schwoopsie]

Cinderella's Castle part 4!

Bryce's dress is so pretty! The costume designers and makers did such a fantastic job!! Bless you Rebecca Carr 💕

'You're beaten.'

Crumb lunging at Curt-Guard.

I get that Curt is the fight choreographer but he did such a great job fighting Sir Hop-A-Lot! The big steps into the puppet. Beautiful.

Crumb: Yeah, what's he want?

Jeff's British accent. 'thats a fucking demon!'

Crumb knows all the loopholes. Just to get belly rubs.

The beautiful craftsmanship of these puppets!! When Crumb leaps at Stepmother and she fights him off. Even though Joey has let go, his legs still swing realistically, his ears bob and oh my his tail!! Angela is able to subtly but effectively get her hands under his arm and move it just a little bit. Oh my!! Also the fantastic joy of getting to see Joey step back and look at Bryce with his hands on his face. And him praying whilst Crumb dies. Oh I've missed Starkids puppets! I will forever have Joey's grin as February kisses Bug playing in my head (Starship).

The Prince being a foot guy. Tadius Lord-Give-Me-Strength hand gesture as he goes to ready the wanking couch.

The Narrators 'yeah-nah, nah yeah?' immediately after.

El-lah

We need more of triumphant and ego driven Ella.

Putrice's 'yum, yum!' oh no, where have we heard that before?

Okay as stepmother cuts off Ella's leg. Think back to the opening scene (not the Narrator, the butchers). Stepmother says she'll have to cut off Ella's legs and if the butcher has a bone saw, does he not? Her referring back to the pigs as she cuts off her legs.

Angela's voice during Watch.

Ragweed yeah me too. I also can't wait to see the close up of this scene so I can see the details on Ragweed and Joey's puppeteering of him. His hand work looks so good. So much personality in those hand movements.

Kim's character continuing to rub her burned foot and also hobble out on it. Ah I love it.

Tadius panicking so hard when the shoe fits Putrice. It has dawned on him that he wouldn't actually take one of those Ashmore girls over the Prince.

I do love a good villains reprise of all their songs.

Stepmother and Rancilda on the stairs during the wedding is such a mood. The crowd getting a small fright when Lauren screams and gets up.

They changed so quickly into their puppets!!

The leds behind Putrice and the Prince as she rips off his head go red. Ah the details.

Putrice asking 'are you proud of me now mum?' and stepmothers next word being 'yes!' and Putrice opens her mouth in a smile. Then stepmother continues, meaning either she ignored or didn't listen to Putrice. As Putrice realises this she looks down in defeat or shame. Sooo good. The castle in the corner turns red as Stepmother talks of slaughter. As does the text saying 'The Castle'

As Ella appears on the stairs, bathed in green light, it cuts back to the stage and the same mote of light shown in the plane of the At End of Time, lights up in green also.

Bryce's HAIR!!!

You're beaten!

Once again, Rancilda didn't deserve to die! I get that Ella wouldn't have become Queen if she was alive but still she's good! At least she was able to escape her mother, for a bit, before she died.

Angela's puppetry as stepmother dies! She growls and opens the jaw more to one side and I just yeeesss. I also can't imagine getting up with the puppet on her back is easy.

Get it Tadius. He knew exactly what he was doing when he killed the King.

Ella's being slightly taken aback when Tadius swings his hips in Trappings of Starlight.

Crumb dancing with everyone else on the ground.

Lord Hop-A-Lot deserves it all. Same as Sir Crumb.

Omg James cradling Lord Hop-A-Lot's head as Jon detaches him from his shoes ! I ship Random Towns person with Lord Hop-A-Lot!

It is in character but everyone coming over to Bryce right as the Narrator starts Castle on the Hill (Reprise)! As Bryce takes off the crown Joey puts a hand on her back so kindly and they hug :')

They practically all give some sort of physical 'holy shit you did so good!' to each other. Curt has his hands together and motions at Lauren as she approaches, then turns to do the same to Joey as he reaches out to him. Mariah and Angela hug in the other side of the stage. Before that Kim and Mariah do finger guns at each other as James, Jon and Angela huddle in the back.

Lauren certainly knows exactly when her cue is because she literally just gets there in time. There is no pause between her getting in place and her first move. That's how good she is!!!

Mary Kate Wiles as an understudy! I would've loved to see her in this. So if anyone has any behind the scenes footage of her acting in this please share!!!

I can't tell who that is to the very left when the camera pans over he (?) stays quite close to the curtains. I'm sure he just likely had to go run off to do another cue.

Aaahhh this musical is so good!!!

Thank you Starkid 💕

[whentherewerebicycles]

ugh I am really struggling with a thing with a former student/mentee of mine. in the week or two of the post-hamas attack aftermath I posted something on instagram that was basically like, i feel an obligation to be an informed global citizen and believe me I read/think about/despair over the news every day but I also think it’s ok to really viscerally hate “doing politics” on social media, where complex, centuries-old geopolitical and cultural conflicts get reduced to a sensationalized infographic some teenager designed on canva last night. at the time I was watching people spread rampant misinformation about the hospital explosion when we had zero conclusive information, and had also just heard jon favreau talking about research indicating that something like 80% of the images and videos people were sharing on social media weren’t actually FROM the current conflict or couldn’t be verified as real. and idk I also have some private thoughts about how american leftists in particular really glom onto this issue because we perceive israelis as ‘white people’ and palestinians as people of color and we get to feel like we are exorcising our own country’s racial demons by advocating for the expulsion of the israeli people from land that many of them actually have deep historical ties to and at least a semi-legitimate cultural and religious claim to inhabiting.

to be clear I think the current israeli government is pretty much your trump-inspired shitty/evil right-wing militaristic populist movement and I feel like their response has squandered every single ounce of empathy garnered by the hamas attacks!! but idk I guess what I want to carve out space for is like, the right to say I AM NOT AN EXPERT HERE. I DO NOT HAVE DEEP ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THE ROOTS OF THIS CONFLICT. I WORRY ABOUT SPREADING DANGEROUS MISINFORMATION IN BOTH DIRECTIONS IF I SHARE UNVERIFIED SOURCES OR REDUCTIVE TAKES. ALSO I AM A PRIVATE CITIZEN AND I DO NOT HAVE A “PLATFORM” JUST BECAUSE I HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT. I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO BE CONFUSED, TO NOT PASS SNAP JUDGMENTS ON RAPIDLY EVOLVING INTERNATIONAL INCIDENTS, AND TO ENGAGE IN POLITICS BY MEANS OTHER THAN SOCIAL MEDIA POSTING. but idk this former student, who I had a really good relationship with for many years, has just come after me in my DMs and keeps sending me posts implying that anyone who is not furiously posting right now is pro-Palestinian genocide, etc etc, and meanwhile she is posting hundreds of unverified stories a day from Arabic-language sources that aren’t just like, anti-Zionist but are actively pro-Hamas, actively denying that the attacks on Israel happened, and actively calling for the immediate and violent expulsion of all Jews from the area. dude idk she’s not my student anymore so I think I’m just going to disengage/not respond and continue staying off insta because it sucks out there!! but it sucks!

I also just refuse to experience a war via unfiltered social media posts again. I did that for a month or two at the start of the ukraine invasion and I can’t unsee some of the stuff I saw on telegram. I don’t actually think any of us have a moral obligation to watch or share a 24/7 feed of graphic images of maimed corpses and crying children. I can’t make the violence STOP by watching that content and I also don’t believe that ravenously consuming the most terrible moments of people’s lives is a form of meaningful political solidarity. WHATEVER as you can see I still feel super conflicted about how to feel about all of this but I also have to remind myself that IT’S NOT NORMAL to click through my stories or scroll down my feed alternating between liking people’s cat photos and watching people dying half a world away. we were NOT BUILT to process world-historical events this way and it is OKAY to opt out of watching a livestream of human suffering you are personally powerless to do anything about.

[annakabeybeh]

I'm writing this because I want to vent and this is a good place to do so (for me at least).

I've never felt so unwelcomed in a fandom before and I have been in so many in my life. I'm a kpoper so I know how toxic fandoms can be. There a few I can name from the top of my head right now but the DC one is absolutely baffling to me. I've done nothing, NOTHING at all and I feel like I'm being hated just by the sole fact that I ship something.

As a fan I'm a multishipper, I can ship my fav character with 10 other character because I just find happiness in their happiness, but in this instance that seems like a big no, no. Starting with the canon shit. Damn it, I thought as fans we can agree that sometimes what authors do might not be of justice of a character, they can be shitty things and asasinate the character. We can love something but hate some parts of it. I mean critical thinking much?

Also, the aging up/down of a character discourse feels like bullshit. "If you age down a character to ship it, you're doing character assasination" or the "if you age down a character to be shipped with another you're being disgusting" ones are absolutely the most weak and disgusting ones as the canon universe have done it SO MANY TIMES it just feel like they want to hate on something. Why they can age up Jon to be with Saturn Girl or age down Barbara to be with Dick but I cannot age down Jon to the age he should be to ship it with Damian. Also the fact that Damijon shippers are called names just for the fact that they ship something is awful. I understand there are people whose awful, disgusting discourses are being loud enough to taint the name of a ship but they keep giving them voice, just for the fucking reason to hate on the whole ship.

They say one person is being disgusting but they keep looking at their tweets to hate, dude, block and ignore so you don't give the attention they are absolutely and disgustingly looking for.

I have a rule, I get far away from things I don't like and I do not criticize (something I might be doing at this very moment but the whole ordeal has been absolutely too much for me to not vent at this moment), and I hope the same actitude towards the things I like.

I'm not saying the people here on tumblr had been like that, no, of course not, I found here so much love towards the characters an the ships and respect to one another (maybe my algorithm hadn't pushed me to the ugly side and I'm glad of it) but twitter. Twitter fans are mean, angry and hateful. All of the one I have encountered have been prejudice. I ship damijon but also Daminika, I love Nika and I wish they could give her own solo title, she's an interesting character to be reduced to only Damian love interest.

So in their opinion because I ship Damijon, I hate Nika, wrong! I like her, such a fun interesting character that deserves more spotlight to be more loved. Also it seems that by proxy I hate Talia, I love her and hate the racist characterization the writers did to her (again, not all authors do right, they make mistakes and we can just pass through them because they're awful in many ways) or I hate even Jay, oh no, on the contrary I like him and his design and the relationship he has with Jon. I can also say many of that hate can come from homofobic views in relation to Daminika (it works because it is a straight couple) but also with Jon and Jay because they aged up Jon to be with Saturn Girl but it was wrong to age him down to be with Jay.

I know there are shippers that doesn't seen the characters outside their ship, I'm not one of them and the fact that I'm a shipper and they think THAT COULD BE ME, it's insulting but I've seen there's so much prejudice around it. I like the characters by itself and as an asexual person I could ship but it's not everything a character can be, I seem them outside romantic relationships, as their own person and that's why I like them, I don't like them to ship I like them for what they are. Starting with Damian, Jon, Flatline, Dick, Kory, Babs, Bruce, Talia, Selina, etc.

I cannot get my head around all the hate towards people only trying to enjoy something they like and don't get me started on how some creators are being hated because their content ain't canon and they have to state it in everything they post so they don't get insults from people.

I love headcanons, I love AUs in which you can put the character into setting outside their own world but well narrated and well characterized but also... does all comics are well characterized, absolutely not but is canon so people just accept it? It shouldn't.

I end this rant because I need to work and I don't want to keep fueling my anger.

[goldenhawk-k]

👁👁

your tim survives the unknowing headcanons, hand em over 🖐🖐

omg i'm so glad you asked teehee

trigger warning for tim typical suicidal ideation

ok, before we start, to be clear, this is not a list of hcs where tim lived bc he became an avatar. if you want those ur gonna have to WAIT for my end!tim au. this is an au where he survived the unknowing as just a normal guy by pure miracle, ok? ok. awesome.

Tim was in a coma for about a week, and then was quickly put into a medically induced coma for another six because his body was so deeply fucked up. In total, he was out for about seven weeks.

Jon threw himself over Tim during The Unknowing in hopes of saving him. Ultimately, it saved his life (just barely, though. like, if the first responders arrived five minutes later, they wouldn't have been able to save him).

However, due to their positioning, Jon was only able to cover Tim's torso and head.

His legs got pretty much destroyed by the debris from the explosion.

After he wakes up, he's an ambulatory wheelchair user. When not in his wheelchair, he uses elbow crutches.

Anyways. back to when he first wakes up

When he first wakes up from his coma, he's confused. Obviously he's confused, he was asleep for seven weeks.

Once he realizes what happens, he's so fucking angry because he thought he finally got out of everything, he thought he was dead, his brother had been avenged, so what the fuck else is he here for?

He's incredibly suicidal when he first wakes up. It only worsens when the nurse tells him his mom visited him exactly once when he was asleep, within the first two weeks, and hasn't been back since.

(He tries to call her. That was the most contact they've had since Danny went missing, and he missed it.)

(She doesn't answer.)

(...the worst part is that Tim wasn't even expecting her to.)

He just kinda. Assumes that Jon's dead, but when Basira visits in the week he's being kept in the hospital, she tells him that Jon's 'technically' alive

"What do you mean technically" "...the nurses told me not to stress you out."

Tim DEMANDS to go visit Jon.

The nurses originally said no, but Tim started ripping out his IV, and they conceded.

He gets wheeled into the room they're keeping Jon in and every bit of anger towards him just vanishes.

He looks so small and fragile, and it reminds Tim of the friend he had in research.

He misses Jon so much.

Now this is the point where it could split into my "Tim is in Martin's place in s4 - Tim becomes a lonely avatar" au but this is not the post for that but know that is something that is in my head.

Tim takes to sitting by Jon's bedside at least three times a week, but it's usually more as he can't even get into the archive for the first month he's awake.

The reason he can't is that he's still going through physical therapy to work his elbow crutches. And you KNOW the magnus institute isn't fully accessible so he literally can't get down those stairs to the archive.

So. he sits with Jon most the time.

He has a civil relationship with melanie. she's going through her own slaughter shit. Basira and him get along well enough. But the main person he talks to is Jon's nearly lifeless body.

Jon hears ever bitch and complaint of Tim's life from the time he woke up.

If Tim cried in Jon's room, he'll never tell. Not like Jon would know either.

Things all go to hell after the flesh attacks the archive, which was one of the few days he's actually in the archives with his elbow crutches. he's nearly killed when basira leaves him

(i like basira btw but you know she'd leave people behind if it were to save either her or daisy. thats like. one of her character traits)

He sits by Jon more

And Tim never expects Jon to wake up, so when he comes in one day and Jon's sitting up, breathing, he turns around and leaves the hospital.

He comes back two days later and they talk.

And that's all my thoughts really. Bonus hc is that Tim has a sportier design of wheelchair with no handlebars or armrests and it's purple bc he needed something to lift him up.

Double bonus hc: tim has a few stickers on his crutches. he never buys them, but if he finds or just gets a sticker, that's where he puts them bc it makes him a little happier

[davidmann95]

Twitter nearly packed it in last night, so transcribing a thread of mine from this year I liked here for posterity, with minor edits and a bit of reformatting:

A thread on how Superman's development over the decades inadvertently mirrors stages of human development, because even though I took 'Superman guy' out of my bio to avoid pigeonholing myself if I don't do this sort of thing occasionally I will explode.

Golden Age is simple - he's a newborn. The world's a hazy outline, and the big baby is destructively tantruming against everything Wrong in it.

He doesn't even have the object permanence to get that someone doesn't become a new person when they put on glasses!

By the Silver Age as a kid he's a little more cognizant. He's got friends and recognizes family, it feels like he's all-powerful and should be able to easily have whatever he wants yet at the same time he's constantly powerless, undermined, and under assault by the mean 'ol world.

(He's also kind of a little shit who thinks in black and white terms of right-and-wrong but delights in his ability to find 'loopholes' around the rules, and everyone generally indulges him.)

Bronze is the awkward teen years, wracked by ennui,

self-doubt,

and a soaring sense of potential and self-importance.

While more mature and capable of great insight, he's blissfully blind to how deeply, deeply stupid his world still frequently is.

Then the Byrne/Triangle years - he's grown-up, buttoned-up, a movie star now and putting on a professional front without his neuroses so blatantly on display.

He's even trying for something like an adult relationship after vacillating between 'I can't be tied down' and 'girls are icky'

He is however also helplessly getting his ass kicked or otherwise humiliated by the powers that be now on a semi-regular basis, because this is the Real World, Son!

In the 2000s and 2010s you start to get Superman as father - allegorically at first in starting to be treated as such by the rest of the 'superhero community', with Cir-El, Kon-El being revealed as his clone/kid/brother/whatever, Chris Kent, and culminating in Jon Kent.

(Illustration by Sebastian Fiumara)

This era's naturally bookended by Manchester Black telling him that he's a fuddy-duddy stick in the mud dweeb who's out of touch with The Kids.

(As pointed out by @charlottefinn the New 52 at least for the present-day stuff is in this context basically his midlife crisis - or perhaps midlife Crisis - where he leaves his wife and awkwardly dates around, gets a shiny new wardrobe, and generally acts like he's 20 again.)

(Prior to recent events, we were) entering the full-on middle aged era of Superman where he's slowing down if still very active,

the kid's out of the house,

and with so many years behind him he's reassessing.

(And even aside from a strategy however sensible in context of 'leaves Earth to hang out with a bunch of cool young people and get back to his alien-fighting dictator-toppling glory days', lest you think that midlife crisis is fully over:)

Like a lot of Superman - like a lot of any character that exists on this sort of broad scale - this definitely wasn't deliberate, but lines up neatly and lends a certain weight. Following to the logical conclusion, we can expect this Jon and Clark in 30 more years:

I googled 'Old Man Superman' to get that last cover since to my surprise I didn't already have it saved and found this extremely cool design by Giannis Milonogiannis and Ladon Alex, so here's your reward for making it to the end.

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 196 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: Slow Tuesday at work.

ANNABELLE: "Perhaps… that’s because you didn’t seem to like what I had to say." MARTIN: "No, it’s because you weren’t really saying anything, were you? It was all just ominous foreshadowing again." Lol, poor Martin, always surrounded by ominous people XD

MARTIN: "Hey, this is your magic bubble. You’re the one making it so that we’re, like, actually walking, walking all the way to Oxford. So sorry I’ve got to sit down occasionally, like a human." Isn't Oxford a bit far from London to simply walk there? You know what, let's find out! Okay, Google maps, starting at the Chelsea College of Art and Design and our destination is 105 Hill Top Road in Oxford... 90 km, 19 hours. That's actually not that bad, they'll reach that in two days. I hope Martin has his camper backpack with him.

ANNABELLE: "And the book breaks?" MARTIN: "It’s not like you’re entertaining company." ANNABELLE: "And it’s nothing to do with the fact that any lost souls in our area also get a break from their torment? Hmmm?" First, I imagine Martin has a camping chair and a little parasol with him and every now and then he unpacks them, gets comfortable and starts reading. Second, OMG aren’t the victims of the domains they come across super confused?? One moment they facing their worst nightmares and suddenly there's sunshine and all their bones ache and they are tired, oh actually, they all probably fell asleep immediately... Otherwise, I'd be asking where are they. Why didn’t they spot the obvious tourists and walk with them in a little parade, all following the camera. (Don't mind me rambling here, I'm just having fun with silly little scenarios.)

MARTIN: "… So what if it does? Is that a problem?" ANNABELLE: "Actually, I find it very reassuring." Cause she wants him to want to save everybody.

ANNABELLE: "No. I did it in his sleep. He’d always been accommodating, so… I wanted to honour his wishes." Was there a superior motive? In the end, if she stole the camera and left him alive and well at Upton House, he'd just be integrated in the fear ecosystem, become either a watcher or watched. And either way, he wouldn't be able to leave his domain to try to stop anything. Hm... can watchers call out to Jon? So if Salesa ended up to be a watcher and could call out to Jon, he could have warned them about Annabelle at best. And only on short notice cause he wouldn't be able to reach Jon when they were in the tunnels, it would have had to be while they were inside the Panopticon. So somehow I think it wouldn’t have mattered if Salesa lived or died, not for our story.

MARTIN: "That’s a shame." ANNABELLE: "Is it?" MARTIN: "I mean… he seemed nice. To us at least." ANNABELLE: "And what of his victims? The people whose lives he destroyed?" Hehe, thinking about Martin wanting Fairchild dead because he threatened him to throw him off a rollercoaster and was a bit of a menace to talk to XD But tbf, Fairchild actively tormented people and wanted to torment them. Salesa was more of an accomplice. Selling all those cursed items (to the rich and arrogant,.. aaaand I’m thinking about MAG 155 again here) instead of sealing them away somehow or even destroying them.

MARTIN: [Sighs] "Is it much further?" Haha, this is the third time now that we hear him asking how much further it is XD

MARTIN: "Hey, is that – ? You told me not to bring a tape recorder." ANNABELLE: "No. I said we wouldn’t need one. We have plenty of tapes." Yeaaaah, already said it in MAG 161, the change of the logo for season 5 gave away the whole "the tapes are web" thing. I mean, it looks really cool and if you listen on a podcatcher it's all the same to you, it's the web tape logo right from the start, so I think it's better and not such a dead giveaway. I listened on YT the first time so I also saw the change in the logo and based my conclusion on the change.

ANNABELLE: "Do take a seat." [MARTIN PUTS DOWN BAG, TAKES A SEAT] Is it finally a comfortable seat?

ANNABELLE: "I’ve written you a statement. I would like for you to read it." Actually I was thinking, why does Martin read it. Why not Annabelle? Is there a canon-reason for that or was it something behind the scenes?

Okay, what about the "Stop no"s, just cross it out and start again, Annabelle, it's not that hard! xD

"immolated by the Chosen of the Ravening Burn." Oh, Ravening Burn, I like that title! Totally forgot about that.

"It was not wide enough to allow true passage, not yet, save for the odd accident." MAG 114.

ANNABELLE: "Oh, it’s so much more than a crack now. It’s an aching hole, a gaping wound in the very fabric of our world." I can't believe this line made it into the podcast... xD

ANNABELLE: [Wistful] "It’s a real shame, you know. I was so looking forward to filling you with spiders." I love that the initial plot of Web!Martin still made it somehow into the podcast. The self-awareness!

Also, Annabelle telling Martin of her plan is the moment Martin realizes this little stunt of him was extremely dangerous. Before that he was always annoyed and snappy, not really grasping the severity of the situation. For him, I mean. Not just for the sake of saving Jon.

ANNABELLE: "Because you always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed." [SMALL SOUND OF MARTIN’S CONCESSION TO THE POINT] MARTIN: "Point taken." I’m, sure y'all know what traditional narcissism is, but have you ever heard of nontraditional narcissism? Narcissism is probably more fueled by insecurity than an inflated ego and self-centeredness. While a traditional narcissist will push others down to get validation and keep their insecurity in check, nontraditional narcissists will put others on a pedestal. They’ll put themselves down in front of others, quietly manipulating them into giving them validation ("Oh wow, the XY you made looks so amazing, I will never be as good as you" - "Nooo, your stuff is amazing too!"). Not out-rightly saying Martin is a nontraditinal narcissist, but there definitely are tendencies in these kind of manipulation... I have them as well, after this line of Annabelle I did recognize this in myself and then with the knowledge of nontraditional narcissism I try to stop it when I catch myself doing it.

MARTIN: "Okay, let’s try a different question. What was your plan?" ANNABELLE: "I was going to snatch you away. Lure you both into this web, and then take you. Drive him to despair, so that when you returned to him, bulging, and talking in a thousand tiny voices, it would drive him to a final push." Since JonMartin wasn't planned to be canon at first and Web!Martin in return actually was, this would still have been a cool revelation and a wonderful surprised Pikachu betrayal, but not quite such a knife to the heart (heh, foreshadowing...) if they were together. God, JonMartin being a thing and Web!Martin happening would have been so unbelievably cruel... proper broken heart syndrome material... I like the way it eventually came together. Web!Martin still is valid and great, but from what I know about it I think I do prefer what ended up to be canon.

MARTIN: "And now?" ANNABELLE: [Sighs] "Your bond is too complicated. I couldn’t drive that kind of rift between you now. I’ve considered every angle, examined every cause and effect, and have finally come to the conclusion that I… [sighs] I need to tell you the truth, to explain things." Ha, JonMartin is stronger than the Web! (Well, stronger than that one plan at least.) Also, lol, sounds like Annabelle wrote a meta about their ship...

[WIND CONTINUES AS THUNDEROUS RUMBLES AND BUZZING INSECTS INTRUDE AUDITORILY] Sounds of a thousand gigantic spiders!!! I never understood, why this buzz sound is used for spiders, isn't that from a cricket or cicada or something? (The one here in TMA is not that stereotypical we hear in movies, but still.) (Also, of course spiders are not insects, they're arachnids.)

ARCHIVIST ON TAPE "So just listen –" [CLICK] [CLICK] "Listen, Martin, you should know –" [CLICK] [CLICK] "Now, listen to me, Martin, li-listen –" [CLICK] MAG 160, MAG 129 and MAG 159. Elias, the mass-ritual, which was crucial to the Web’s plan and Jon’s only purpose in all of this. And then talking to Martin twice. MAG 129 being the anchor episode. And MAG 159 of course when Jon went after Martin to get him out of the Lonely.

MARTIN: "What? All this time, through all of this, it, it was just you spying on us?" ANNABELLE: "Oh Martin. You have no idea who’s listening, do you?" Forth wall break?

@a-mag-a-day

[reel-fear]

For the writing request thingy,would you feel like writing something Mandroid or Schloder oriented?

About them alone or as a ship because they have potential as a rare pairing (I might have a bad taste in ships but hear me out/hj)

They can just,,be doing silly coworker stuff like drinking coffee together on a break or something :-))

Sorry if it’s not something you feel like doing!!

I would love to write something like that! I did want to do this so I could do some writing prompts for characters I don't think I'd naturally get ideas for putting in the spotlight! It's not Really ship but it is with both of them so I hope u enjoy! Warning they might be OOC bc well we dont know their characters super well and theres not a lot of content to pick apart n such. And also I only refrenced their wiki articles and my memory for tryna keep em in character so yknow, like I said, might be OOC. Also its not very silly, its very serious if anything oops KJNDSFKGJNSDFGKJNDFGSD-

Schloder could hear every footstep as he and the man designated as 'Mandroid' walked down the halls of GHOST. It was silent inside of the GHOST building most days and the echo the empty metal halls gave every noise didn't help. Not that Jon would ever let a new arrival intimidate him, he was far better than that... He couldn't let his professionalism fade for even a moment. Not with a mission this dangerous or an organization this important... Though with how important it all was... He couldn't help but wonder how on earth such a suspicious or shady man as Dr. Meridian managed to slither his way back into their ranks...

It was beyond his rank to question the hiring decisions of the organization, but it was also hard to ignore the robot arms that Mandroid had attached to himself. He recognized one of them as belonging to the prisoner Hardtop. He wasn't sure where the other one had come from however and he wasn't sure which one unsettled him more.

"It feels... So nice to be back within these walls." Dr. Meridian suddenly hissed, his expression and tone was one of delight, but something about the way he moved through the halls and the look in his eyes made Schloder want to doubt his cheery demeanor...

"It seems GHOST has missed you as much as you missed us." Schloder replied, trying to see Mandroid as nothing more than another coworker.

"You make it sound like you had not missed me while I was gone... That's rather hurtful Jon, I never did anything but disappear for a while. Did that truly upset you so much?"

"You disappeared and suddenly showed up in... this state, I don't think I owe you any kind of explanation until you give me one." Schloder responded, idly flicking some dust off his uniform.

"At least I got you to admit you wanted an explanation." Mandroid continued, looking at his cybertronian hand and curling it into a fist. Schloder watched him do so, his expression not giving anything away but a slight bitterness. He wondered what the man was thinking about as he did it, was it the cybertronians they had captured? Was it the people who kept getting in the way of their operations? Or something else entirely... "But there is not an explanation any better than the one I already gave. After those horrible creatures mangled me I realized they had to be stopped... At any costs... That is the loyalty you feign to the same cause isn't it Schloder? To protect our people at any cost? The real question is why aren't you in my same 'state' if our motivations and goals align so well?"

Schloder took in a deep breath, trying to not let Mandroid weave such a strange narrative. Who knows what he would do if he started becoming confident in such a strange idea. It could only end poorly for both him and GHOST, therefore it was only naturally part of his job that he should shoot it down, swiftly. "That would be an extreme thing for me to do as a field agent, if I suddenly went out doing my job in such a state a lot of people would have a lot of questions. Now more than ever we do not need people asking a lot of questions. There's plenty of bots out there we need to capture and we can't waste time on repairing bad PR. Not anymore at least"

"But if you were in a job that would require the strength of a bot, you would take the same measures I had wouldn't you? You would be willing to give every part of your body in order to protect the people right agent?" Mandroid asked and Schloder hesitated.

He wanted to say yes of course. If it meant protecting the people around him of course he would, but he couldn't quite bring himself to force the words out.

Something about it didn't feel right... Was it the part where he would have to live for the rest of his life taking energon to function? The part where he lost his arms? He didn't think so...

The biggest thing that seemed to turn him away from the idea was the fact he would not just be losing his arms... He'd be replacing them with someone else's...

Of course that person who he took it from would be nothing more than one of their prisoners... A traitor who deserved whatever was coming to them right?

Yes... Yes he would do what Mandroid had done if it was to protect humanity.

But... Would it be worth it if it made him give up some of his humanity? To do something so cruel to another living being?

"Agent, you aren't suddenly having doubts in your duty are you? If you are I would be rather disappointed with your lack of faith in humanity, surely the idea of taking what we need from those... Horrible machines isn't what deters you from answering my question?"

"No... No it is not, it is just a heavy idea, to live the rest of my life reliant on energon and with arms that don't belong to me... It just feels easier to comprehend the idea of dying for the cause." Schloder confidently lied and Mandroid chuckled.

"Ah... I see... Well remember this Schloder..." The other man suddenly put his mechanical hand on the shoulder of the agent, causing Jon to tense.

"It would have been easier for me to simply die after the state those horrible things left me in the hospital. To bleed out, but I knew that my work was not done, not until those things were gone from our home... Your work is not done until they are gone as well... So please understand I will take whatever measures I see necessary to keep you and the other GHOST members alive. If this upsets you... I would suggest finding a different line of work. One that doesn't require such dedication.

After all, none of us have quite earned our rest until our job here is done. So see to it you find me some more bots and soon, unless you want both of us to be here for the next century."

Schloder could hear everything in the empty echo chamber of a hallway. Mandroids cold but rage fueled hiss, the sound of his mechanical parts whirring with every subtle movement he made. The way his heart beat so much harder hearing such ominous and confident words.

The seething hatred that flickered behind Mandroid's existence and the cold resolve that kept him from dying.

Schloder could hear everything.

But it was beyond his rank to think about what he heard.