#holy shit hi tma community

[sadberrystuff]

TMA S2 be like

"...another dead end. End Recording."

"....SUPPLEMENTAL: I HAVE COMMITTED 14 FELONIES, BROKEN AND ENTERED, STALKED MY COWORKERS, KICKED A BABY, AND I THINK MY BOSS IS WEIRD"

[mamahersh]

Right... right. MAG 192-194 thoughts. fuck.

Ok, so MAG 192-193 kinda felt like one bigger episode together, so I’m gonna lump them together. Starting off: 193 was really cool with how they set up the sound and the reveal in 194 about the difference in power levels between Jon and Elias in the ascendant Panopticon. Like, we are told in the Jonah room that nothing can really interrupt Jonah’s connection with the Eye as he is the focal point of the apocalypse all the terror is siphoned through and into the Eye. However, less than 5 minutes later we have Jon “taking a Statement” about Elias where Jonah is forced to participate in the Statement instead of Watching the apocalypse. So that was really cool, and actually even more cool for this being the first “collaborative” Statement we’ve ever had? Like, I think this is the first (and probably only) time in TMA that more than one person has participated in a Statement.

Also, I guess, to address Rosie: about all I can say is oof. No one deserves what happens to them in TMA, but Rosie definitely ended up pulling a “Jon” in that she was too close to Beholding and fed it it she could no longer escape even if she wanted. Not quite as literally as Jon, but she’s practically a Revenant or a Vampire’s slave at this point. She has thoughts of her own, but she exists only to serve the Pupil of the Eye at this point. Or just “Elias”? I don’t know if we ever get an answer about what happens to her during the events of MAG 200 from what little I’ve heard about the episode, but I’m definitely curious to find out. (And isn’t that the problem? Wanting to Know but never interfere, no matter how terrible it ends up being. And 100% that’s how Jon was Jonah’s perfect Archivist, because Jonah’s Archivist for Marking needed to fight the Watcher’s implicit tendency to Watch but never interfere just enough to get himself into situations where the other Powers had access to him, but not enough to try to escape the supernatural in any serious capacity. fuck, getting this “on paper” made it actually click holy shit.)

One last note about 193: I know the Statement is OG!Elias’s, but why do I have a very strong suspicion that Jon’s interview went very similarly to Elias’s, and that’s why Jonah/Elias played a part in the Statement recital? What are the odds that Jon pulled something similar in both the “What are you afraid of” and “Why are you here” sections of the interview? Even worse: do you think Jonah managed to give Jon a minor panic attack in his interview as well? Things to think about I guess.

And finally, 194: #1) that was rough. They needed that argument don’t get me wrong, because Jon still can’t actually communicate but he also still struggles with falling to his monstrous tendencies; and Martin is still trying to keep Jon on the straight and narrow. I will say, I thought the “sending all of humanity to it’s ultimate demise faster“ plan had been synthesized with this revelation about being able to control the apocalypse. I thought Jon had told Martin about this plan before the evil spider plan. He still might, and probably will, and it shouldn’t still surprise me that Jon is still incapable of making good plans, but this definitely recontextualizes some of the time travel fix it fics I’ve read in the last several months. (How on earth have I only been in this fandom for upwards of 4 months? It feels like years and my bookmarked fics hit over 120 recently.)

#2) It’s very amusing to me the Eye tries to communicate through Statements. It makes sense that a sapient fear god communicates through other’s trauma, and opens the floodgates to questions like: if the Stranger created it’s own version of Magnus’s apocalypse, how would it communicate with it’s designated linchpin? The Hunt? The Dark? ect.

#3) Ok Martin, I get it. Your BF is impossible and the spider lady who you seem to hate way more now than you used to has a plan, and by God you need literally anything all to convince your BF to not metaphysically kill himself in a bid to move the suffering around to people who “deserve” it. Because you don’t trust that he’ll come back from “thinking” without trying to convince you again that it’s a good idea.

It fucking kills me how terrible these two are at trusting each other. I know at the start of the season I was bemoaning their unhealthy dynamic, got excited mid-season that things were turning and they were making baby steps towards maybe being healthier towards each other.... But nooooooooo.

I think what gets me most though, is that all these problems are normally fine in long form slow burn relationship portrayals. Like, even in a healthy relationship these kinds of pressures would be sure to cause some strife. But we never get to see them have a functional relationship. The 3 weeks in the cabin we can presume they at best “honeymooned” at, was all off screen. We went from them having a moment to reconnect for the first time in months - over a year, to them sounding relatively happy together before Jon accidentally kicks off the apocalypse. I mean, we get snippets of Martin trying to help Jon cope in the cabin, but the moment they’re on their first domain they’re falling apart at the seams with little moments sprinkled throughout that almost feel forced because there’s just... no background to it? augh, I’m so terrible with words, but does any of this make sense?

In any case, I feel for both Jon and Martin in this, but due to my particular leanings towards Jon as Blorbo of my Show; I’m probably going to be more sympathetic to him even if Martin is generally speaking, the better person in every conceivable way possible.

[pitviperofdoom]

TMA Bright Spots: Night Night

Jon and Martin: still together? Still together.

"To whatever Dread Power it may concern." People like to say Jon and Martin have nothing in common but one's a funny bitch and the other is also a funny bitch, so there's one thing at least.

The other thing being they both care about children. Like holy shit, the Web was literally Jon's nightmare and he wasn't as vocally upset there as he was here. He cares so much, he just shows it differently than Martin.

No, seriously, even the snotnosed bullying avatar gets his compassion because he understands that Callum's lashing out comes from a place of fear and trauma rather than matured and genuine pleasure like Jude and Jared. I briefly entertained the question of whether Jon would have killed him if Martin asked him to before realizing it wasn't a question at all, because Martin would never have asked him to and Jon knows that. That's probably why he knocked on Callum's door in the first place. He was never going to lay a finger on that kid.

On that note, another avatar is spared the smiting!

Your mileage may vary on this one but I think Martin's gradual journey to taking his fingers out of his ears is a good thing even though he vehemently didn't want to when Jon's "vents" first started.

Hear me out. For every person who's turned their back on Jon, whether justified or not, the main catalyst was their refusal to hear about what he was going through. Tim and Melanie were too wrapped up in their own anger to have room to consider his struggle, Basira was laser focused on pragmatism to the point of trying to cut emotions out of her decisions entirely, and Georgie just didn't want to be dragged into the horror at all. Martin started out in a somewhat similar headspace to Georgie ("I can't be that for you.") but in spite of this he's still been asking questions, trying to learn more, trying to get a feel for where Jon's head is at. And Jon, as we all know, is terrible at communicating his feelings. He's trying but he's still bad at it, and I think this episode was a big step for Martin realizing, okay, telling isn't working, I need to bite the bullet and have him show me. He wants to empathize! He wants to understand, even when it's hard and the truth isn't pretty! And through it all he still checks on Jon and Jon still checks on him and ugh ugh they love each other so much even when they're scared.

Martin still won't give up hope that fixing things is possible! He seems to be moving past the idea that there's an easy or immediate solution, though. Let's see where this goes.

[nat-20s]

i woke up at 4:30 in the morning with this messy meta about the comparative horror styles of welcome to nightvale vs the magnus archives and how i like them both very much this is not a one is better than the other post because they’re DIFFERENT but also why, personally, nightvale has freaked me out more than TMA  (the magnus archives- im gonna use the abbreviation from now on and in scientific papers u gotta ESTABLISH the acronym and it’s actually kind of annoying bc they’ll establish it ONCE in the abstract and then never say what XJFEFJDOSM or whatever stands for again so if ur like wait WHAT was that again u gotta scroll all the way back up and it’s a whole thing but I digress)   and it has to do with WORLDBUILDING and FRAMING DEVICES and USE OF SECOND PERSON and only a little bit how if a character unironically says “innit” i automatically can’t take them seriously. Anyway it’s stuck in my head so you know I had to make it your problem. Also I’m putting this under a read more bc fjsdjlks holy shit this is gonna get LONG and RAMBLY and D E E P L Y nerdy 

WORLDBUILDING, FRAMING DEVICES, AND (THE USE OF) YOU IN MANGUS AND NIGHTVALE

Part A: whose universe is it anyway? Welcome to horror where the lore is made up and the logic doesnt matter

so I am not the first or last to compare (/maybe wanna crossover a little) the worlds of

wtnv (welcome to nightvale) and TMA and like for good reason bc in many ways they feel very similar but in TMA it’s like What the FUCK is going on with all of these horrors and nightmarish scenarios I am FREAKED out where as WTNV treats it’s horrors as typically mundane which

A: plays into why when WTNV is like “remember how we’re a horror :)” it’s like OH SHIT bc if Jon Archivist is scared you’re like well yeah it’s scary out there but if CECIL PALMER, general attitude of a peppy cheerleader when facing terrors beyond imagination, is scared, you KNOW shit is FUCKED

B: isn’t entirely accurate, because I don’t actually feel like they are set in the same world. here’s where things get sticky when it comes to realities and whatnot but I do wanna stress that yes I know WTNV and TMA are both works of fictions BUT I would personally say that

TMA is set in a parallel universe:  a reality that’s similar to our own but also distinctly separate from anything that we, the audience, can witness but never participate in

WTNV is set in a hidden universe: it is set in our (the listeners) own reality, and is done in such a way that it feels like if you looked hard enough for it or if you just had a bout of bad luck or if you happen to drive down a certain road in a long stretch of US desert (side note: if there’s any real life place nightvale would be set in it’s definitely new mexico have you ever been in new mexico it’s called land of ENCHANTMENT for a reason if I drove into new mexico and drove back out a few days later and like THIRTY YEARS had passed I’d be like yeah that tracks) that you could end up in the reality of nightvale. Who’s to say there’s not a faceless old woman secretly living in your house? Are you sure there’s nothing odd in your mirror? Who can ever be sure time is working correctly?

Which brings me to

Part B: You(yes, you!)’ve Been Framed!

Listen. I fucking love a good framing device. Every time a podcast is like “here’s why the events of the story are recorded in the world of the story” I go bonkers in yonkers that shit SLAPS. TMA and WTNV both do this, but (at least up to ep 176 of TMA, this whole fuckin essay could still be blown out the water) TMA’s framing device doesn’t account for an audience, where as WTNV’s the audience is a core component

the framing device of TMA is that these spooky stories are being recorded by an archivist in order to have an audio version of written statements. Cool! It tells the audience why these recordings exist, and why they’re episodic. Later in the story, the tapes begin to spontaneously show up because of Spooky Reasons that have yet to be Fully Revealed, but it still isn’t for an audience. When Jon Archivist records these tapes, they’re basically being recorded for a Void. Yes, the tapes are originally for a potential researcher to listen to, but that ain’t you chief. You are not part of the narrative (so far at least! Again, maybe the audience will be brought into the story when it’s revealed What’s Up with the spontaneous tapes, but so far nah), there’s no in universe explanation for why you personally are listening to these stories. You aren’t present in the story, in the framing device, so you are not a part of that world.

The framing device of WTNV is that you are tuning into the community radio of a small desert town, Nightvale, that you are a part of. After all, if you are tuning into something local, you’re strongly implied to be local. Thus, we have a framing device that explains both why it’s recorded AND why you’re listening. The audience is absolutely involved in the narrative rather than a simple spectator. Cecil Palmer is not recording into a Void, he’s talking to listeners of which you are a part of. (side note: this makes nightvale liveshows SUPER fun if u get an opportunity to go to one I HIGHLY recommend it bc while there’s not ‘audience participation’ in the classic sense of like magic or comedy acts the narrative IS constructed in a way that you feel less like a witness of a story and more of a participant like the one I went to most of us pulled our legs onto out chair bc oh SHIT maybe there IS an escaped librarian under your chair making a grab for your feet SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF IS FUN AS HELL YALL)

These framing devices are enforced and enhanced upon by who the “you” in a narrative is.

In TMA, when there’s a “you” being referred to, when there’s a listener, it’s usually an in universe character. When there’s lines like “i’m sorry, that’s not what you came here to listen to” it’s not referring to you personally, it’s talking to Jon Archivist or Gertrude Archivist or Insert Archival Assistant. When TMA does use a more general “you”, it’s still in universe rather than the external listening to audience. You can include yourself as part of that general you, but it’s not inherently built into the narrative. If you want to distance yourself, you can also do that. You are not automatically in this world, even if much of it feels repeatable and/or similar

WTNV sometimes uses you to refer to an in universe character, because conversations do happen, but in the episodes where it’s like LMAO THIS IS A HORROR, the “you” and general second person is actively both discussing a known character and the listener personally. One of the most recent episodes, ep 171 “Go to the Mirror?” is a BRILLIANT example of this, where Cecil is simultaneously discussing himself and his experiences AND you as well. There’s something he can only see in the mirror, something with such sharp claws, on his shoulders, but it’s also something you personally can only see in the mirror, something on your shoulder.  You are not exempt from the story, you can’t be exempt from the story, because you’ve always been a part of it. (Also side note go to the mirror is SO fuckign good it made my heart fuckin POUND the amount of times that despite knowing it was fiction I looked over my shoulder so many times. I know a shit ton of people listened to WTNV in like 2012/13 and dropped off and felt guilty and never caught up again but like. Catch up on nightvale it’s good for body and soul and also Cecilos just keep winning)

WAY too long; didn’t read: to me personally while I LOVE both TMA and WTNV, WTNV is scarier to be because TMA feels like a story that you’re bearing witness to (also thank god british people aren’t real and were made up for the Peppa Pig Cinematic Universe), WTNV feels not just like a story that you could be in but actively already are and that makes things SPOOKY

Also this isn’t related to the essay but shout out to whoever first decided that horror narrators should have nice even voices we really all be soothed by some grisly ass stories the amount of people that fall asleep to WTNV/TMA is WILD

[bare1ythere]

(1/2) gerry as janet? he's not a season one guy but he is magic book man who knows many things with a distinctive look. martin thinks he's should be in the bad place because he lied about his entire self his whole life, his Flaw is compulsive lying fed by insecurity, which sure matches up neat since he has to lie about his identity and past in the afterlife too;

(2/2) jon and sasha were both revered academics but they had the same Flaw: over curiosity. jon’s manifested in paranoia and over investment in others’ lives that drove most of his friends crazy and sasha’s manifested in a tendency to spy on people and invade privacy. tim was like. a community organizer or something. maybe the head of a town council or something. and his Flaw was always misplacing blame.

Yeah right after I thought of Leitner I considered Gerry!! I really love that idea GHKSDJFHKS Especially because in the show Janet becomes friends with the soul squad so there could be really fun dynamics with Gerry and the original archival crew!! 

Other than Martin I was really struggling to think of any flaws for the TMA cast that would land them in the bad place but DAMN those all work really well!! Jon and Sasha (as archivist and almost-archivist) having their flaws be their own curiousity works TOO well holy shit. 

Also Tim probably worked in publishing!! iirc that’s what he did before Danny got taken by the circus and he left to work at the magnus institute