#because it had magnus in it

[funboxsupreme]

Finding myself a bit frustrated with Ahriman as a character because I SEE his popularity and I think I like him - at least, the concept of him. But his novels don't really give me a lot to work with personality-wise and feel extremely vague and unfocused. Then again, I'm able to like him a lot more when he's being written by McNeill, so maybe the issue is just John French himself? Which is weird, because I'm pretty sure I've liked some of his novels, but the Ahriman series is such a fog. I sure remember scenes in the Ahriman novels but not why those scenes are happening.

[automatonwithautonomy]

man, what is it with queers and stabbing? we know there's other ways of expressing love right?

[cherrywhite]

every single time (template from @mhuyo)

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I think more media should work with the concept that you can still love someone you never forgave. You can still rebuild and create a new relationship with someone but also be "what you did to me was wrong and I trust you to not be like that again and want you in my life but I can't won't forgive that, won't forget the hurt you caused. I love you but there will be days I won't be able to see you because the trauma you gave me is back and I'm just so angry and sad and at least you never asked for forgiviness just to be here, just for friendship, because you know that this are things I can give you."

[nineraeix]

Started listening to tma, I am unwell.

[brother-emperors]

TRY AGAIN LATER

it's like. well. its several things.

(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)

and also this

(ibid.)

that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.

anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—

it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it

and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard

(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)

EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.

[podcast-hemocytoblast]

TMA season 1, except instead of coping with the feeling of being watched through stubbornly ignoring it altogether, Jon takes the route that he does with many of the Statements early on, where he denies anything supernatural, and instead comes up with a more mundane explanation for why he feels constantly watched and scrutinized: corporate surveillance.

Clearly, Elias must be watching him through the security cameras, waiting to see if he messes up, because he knows that Jon is underqualified for this job! Jon, of course, deals with this suspicion in a very normal way. Throughout work, he talks out loud, directly to Elias, under the assumption that he’s listening, and whenever Martin does anything at all ever, Jon looks directly into the security camera like he’s on The Office.

[checkadii]

morbing . gerry sketch ..

[its-your-mind]

JUST FOR THE RECORD.

the way Madam E talks is in fact Incredibly Extra (alex said somewhere that yeah duh that was the point) but also.

as a person who sits in a pretty diverse classroom of 12-14 year olds all day.

some of the Kids These Days do in fact talk like that. All the time. To everyone. No matter what. Front-facing camera not required.

The other day one of the individual-units-of-chaos-for-whom-I-am-responsible-for-8-hours-each-weekday asked if I had done anything fun over the weekend and I said "oh I just went for a short hike in the national park" and he straight up did this:

like. LIKE. madam E's tone. her inflection. her little trill on the end of words... some of the slang was a tad dated (though that does sort of make sense, if Madam E is ~5-10 years older than my gremlins-disguised-as-preteens) but I literally got whiplash every three minutes because all I could visualize for Madam E was a rotating cast of the like. Seven of my kiddos who talk EXACTLY like that.

which I WILL SAY. did make the horror hit home Just A Bit More Than Usual.

[notsurewhattocallmyselfyet]

Logging into Tumblr and playing my favourite game:

Who is this fanart of??

Where the options are:

Jon Sims from The Magnus Archives

Bruno from Encanto

Simon Petrikov

Loki

Carlos from Welcome to Nightvale

Edward Teach (Blackbeard) from Our Flag Means Death

[jouxlskaard]

me to myself: you get to draw tim stoker, as a treat

[izzys-trying]

S1 TMA Designs!!! Listen Jon is Average height but everyone else is A Giant so he just looks…, So small….,…

(Click for better quality!!!)

[fox-guardian]

personally 👀 if u would like to elaborate on the saw au 👀 i am listening 👀

hi <3 this ask is months old <3 but i am answering it now teehee

SO. TMA SAW AU (disclaimer: i have only seen the first two movies so idk if these are very like. film accurate style traps)

basically it's just. what if a saw movie happened to the archive gang. they're all in one big space that's like a big trap in the sense that they all have the same time limit but they all get their own little traps also <3 the breakdown is this:

Jon is gagged with a camera in his mouth that he cannot remove without a key, it's strapped to his face with horrible rusted metal, y'know. Once time runs out, the battery powering the camera will leak down his throat killing him so so painfully <3 He cannot speak and must find other ways to communicate with the others.

Sasha has what is essentially a VR headset strapped to her head and she can't remove that without a key either. The headset is showing her the live feed from Jon's camera, so she essentially has to see through his eyes the entire time. When time runs out, two big ol' spikes will stab her in the eyes and give her a good ol' fashioned impromptu lobotomy <3

Tim's trap is a bit different from the others'. Instead of a contraption, he was injected with a paralytic prior to the gang waking up, and is paralyzed from the waist down. He needs a key to obtain the antidote for the paralytic. Rather than having a specific time when he suddenly dies, he's essentially either relying on the others to help him move/get the key/antidote for him, or he needs to move himself despite his paralysis in order to live. So when time runs out, it's either find a way to move anyway or wait for the paralytic to travel further through his body and kill him slowly after experiencing many terribly side effects (hypotension, bronchospams, and renal failure)

Martin is even more different. His trap is less about his death and more about saving the others. He's placed in a big freezer where he basically needs to find the others' keys in blocks of ice (joshua gillespie core) and if he doesn't, they'll definitely die. He also has the option of finding the key to unlocking his own door and simply escaping without saving the others. He also also has the option of only taking some keys, but not all. He will know which will save who, and gets to choose. The trap itself isn't that difficult, but there's A Lot Of Ice, and it's Really Cold and he's Already Been There A While so there's a chance of dying of hypothermia if he can't find the keys fast enough (or if he spends the time finding the others' keys after he's found his own).

Jon, Tim, and Sasha all wake up in the same room together. Jon wakes up first and is able to watch a video tape explaining what's going on, but it can't be watched more than once, so he has to explain what's happening to the others without being able to speak. He can't speak, only play charades and listen.

Sasha isn't able to see except through Jon's eyes, so he has to rely on the two of them to make sure she's not walking into more danger. She also is unable to understand any of Jon's explanations since a lot of it is through body language and She Can't See That, so they have to work together so she can watch Tim translate. She can't see through her own eyes and is forced to watch through someone else's.

Tim either has to trust that the others will come back for him (and that they won't die somewhere in this building) or get them to carry him around, slowing them down but giving him more of a chance at survival. He either has to take action, or simply wait and trust.

Martin has to make a choice between risking what's left of his life for other people (some of which who don't care about him), or saving himself. Even if the others find the room he's in, it's locked from the inside so it is entirely on Martin to save both himself and everyone else. Not only do the others have to rely on each other, but they all have to rely on Martin. The door will lock behind him when he leaves, so if he doesn't get everyone's keys, then whoever is left without one will die.

idk if these traps are entirely fitting for all their character's and flaws and whatnot, but for the research trio i thought it'd be fun to do an audio/vigilo/opperior with them and then martin gets to play god suddenly lol.

[im-the-queen-of-stardust]

Inside you there are two wolves. One is saying "MAG200 was the perfect ending for the Magnus Archives. It was such a beautifully constructed and perfect tragedy. We will never know what happened to Jon and Martin and yes, that hurts but it's a bittersweet kind of hurt. Because it enables us to imagine what could've happened to them. Maybe their skeletons lie side by side on a flowery field. Or maybe they're Somewhere Else and get a chance to work through their trauma and built something beautiful together. Maybe they have a child. Maybe the horrors followed them and they have to fight all over again. We don't know. And we will never know. And that is beautiful."

And the other wolf is this image:

[v0idwraith]

Lena getting mad at Gwen for breaking a rule that she never even told her about is quite possibly the most realistic thing that’s happened in The Magnus Protocol

[shadow-the-crow]

Michael never really fit in anywhere. Maybe that's part of why i like him so much. Or maybe i'm just projecting lol – but hear me out.

Michael Shelley maybe really didn't have a purpose in life. Maybe doing research on his trauma was all he had. He was too good, too pure for his human life - a life that probably just wasn't great in general.

Now other people without other purpose in life than supernatural trauma reasearch become happy fulfilled avatars, like Mike Crew. But Mike Crew chose to serve his entity. Michael, on the other hand, was sacrificed to an entity that didn't fit him, that was the opposite of him. He was naive and kind and would never lie to anyone, and the Spiral is the incarnation of gaslighting and lies. Which means the Spiral wasn't good for him, but he also couldn't become a good Spiral avatar vessel. Helen seems to be able to coordinate humanity and inhumanity. Michael wasn't, because Michael Shelley wasn't made for becoming this.

In general - i'm still thinking about how Gertrude stopped the ritual by making Michael the Distortion. Maybe it was just because it disturbed the ritual and it needed to get used to its new identity. Or maybe it was because Michael just wasn't a good distortion. He wasn't strong or talented or spirally enough to complete the ritual. God, i made him tragic.

I gotta say: This seems to contradict what i’ve said before, but i’m only talking about Michael and Michael Shelley as one person to simplify this. What i really mean is the Distortion could never be good at being itself while having Michael’s mind.

Can you imagine? Not only being tied to the embodiment of your failure, but still being your failure. Thinking with a mind that represents the opposite of what you are, that contradicts your very essence. That stops you from living up to your full potential, that stops you from being good at being you.