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tmagpposting · 8 months

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Alice’s Attitude

and why I don’t think it’s going to save her.

I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about the implication of Alice's attitude towards the incidents and horror elements so far, so I’m going to. Someone else may have already made a post about this, but I haven’t found anything yet, and I couldn’t find a way to get this out of my mind without writing it down. Naturally, I’m also going to inflict this long-winded and potentially needless analysis on all of you, since I spent 2 hours typing it out (sorry in advance). TW for blatant overuse of parentheticals and politics towards the end. This draws on content from TMAGP episodes 1-3 and TMA overall, particularly the series finale.

I feel like a lot of us going into TMAGP and having listened to TMA already were probably pleasantly surprised by Alice’s attitude of “The Horrors? Just say no!” since a lot of TMA revolved around the idea that curiosity and investigation of the fears usually doomed people to be consumed by one of them, as we saw with a lot of the Archive staff, particularly Jon. I certainly was. Though her ideas about how to deal with the incident reports are definitely somewhat callous, in the context of TMA, they feel very pragmatic, and I found myself thinking, “finally, a character who knows what genre she’s in and refuses to surrender to it.” I’ve been seeing a couple people agree with this, and say that her approach might even help her stay afloat when things start to escalate as the conflicts of TMAGP develop in the coming episodes. I thought that too, at least for a while.

After thinking about it for several days, I don’t think this is the case. Given TMA’s themes and propensity for tragedy, and Jonny’s approach to tackling social issues, I don’t think Alice’s apathy is going to save her. In fact, I think it’s potentially going to be the character flaw that will doom her in the first place.

1. Alice already cares (not about the horrors, but about people)

To start with, I’d like to point out that Alice will only be able to maintain her apathy to a limited extent, and when people she cares about start being harmed, she is going to get involved. In fact, we can already see this happening. Ep 3 notably starts and ends with Alice making a plan to get Central IT involved in looking into their computers, when she tries to mention them to Colin in the first scene, and when she asks Sam to call them on her behalf in the final scene. I’d argue that the issue comes up because she’s concerned about Colin more than fixing the OIAR’s computers. She tells Sam it’s because Colin may not be able to handle FR3-D1 as well as he thinks he can since he’s been working on it forever with very little positive progress, but given the additional context of the starting scene, I think it’s reasonable to assume she also wants to meddle for Colin’s sake. In the first scene of ep 3, she seemingly talks more softly/slowly than usual (to me, it sounds like she’s trying to be soothing when compared to how she normally talks, even outside of the times she’s actually soothing FR3-D1), she doesn’t make too many digs at Colin as he sounds increasingly stressed, and she asks gently and subtly about calling Central IT for help when she is generally pretty direct when she seriously wants something (like all the times she repeatedly shuts down Sam’s questions because she wants him to stay out of danger). It sounds like she’s trying to slip it in as a half-joke, but Colin treats it as a genuine suggestion when he usually either brushes off her jokes or plays into them instead, so I think it was her actual intent to involve Central IT even at that point. Furthermore, Gwen tells Sam something along the lines of “Alice is the only one [Colin] tolerates” in a previous episode, they have good banter throughout so far, and Colin’s explosive reaction to Sam mentioning the app completely deflates when he learns it was Alice’s idea. All of this seemingly demonstrates a bond that goes pretty far beyond what I’d think of as a basic work relationship with no actual friendship involved. Colin is already pretty deep into investigating FR3-D1 to the point that it’s probably going to be detrimental for him based on him threatening/ranting at the computers in the first episode, and Alice is already trying to intervene on his behalf. Simply put, she is doing a pretty bad job of pretending not to care and staying out of it so far, and we’re only 3 episodes in.

With that in mind, I don’t even think Colin will be the primary reason she’ll get involved as the series goes on, and I actually think Sam is being set up to be the one to draw her into much of the conflict. She cares enough about Sam to find him a job when he’s having a rough time, based on their conversation in the bar, and she tells him not to care about the incidents precisely because she cares about him, and doesn’t want him to get sucked in and hurt by them. With Sam’s propensity for curiosity established and likely being set up to be one of his fatal flaws, Alice will probably get drawn into the conflict whether she likes it or not if/when Sam goes digging and actually stumbles on something dangerous later on. As a side note, I really do think Sam’s curiosity is being set up to be something big here, since he repeatedly wants to look into the Magnus Institute and says it’s a “blast from the past,” he wonders about how the code system works and how it could be improved, and he’s generally shown to ask a lot of questions about the OIAR, Gwen’s backstory, etc. He asks about things more often than I think he would if his questions were purely an expositional device for the audience and not actual characterization (I could make a post just about this, but I think other people have definitely already done that). Finally, our very first introduction to Alice as a character in TMAGP shows her trying and failing to be glib and uncaring about Teddy leaving, where she jokes with him casually before admitting, sincerely and somewhat hesitantly, “I’m gonna miss you.” If her failing to not care about something in the opening scene of the entire series isn’t going to turn out to be important, if not Jonny Sims style foreshadowing of some kind, I’ll eat my hat.

2. Apathy kind of sucks, actually (thematically and otherwise)

Alice being saved by her refusal to care, assuming she manages to maintain it, feels too much like an easy out for the kinds of stories TMA was trying to tell, and clashes with its sensibilities in my opinion. A lot of people fall into the trap of nihilistic apathy when thinking about the state of the world right now, and TMA even acknowledged this in the series with the Extinction beginning to emerge as a new entity/fear. Between worsening climate change, the gradual rise of bigotry and the increasing trend toward fascism in the western world (especially america, it sucks here), escalating international conflict, poverty and the worsening cost/standard of living, like the fact that a majority of people my age will probably never own a house and our college debt is going to eat us alive, etc., it feels like we’re all circling the drain and no one with the power to help is interested in doing anything other than making it worse to make themselves money. A lot of people think the only way to cope with that is to decide to not give a shit, which is a pretty natural response to being constantly confronted with worse and worse news every year that shows no sign of stopping. This has also naturally inspired a lot of doomerism and a rise in insincerity/irony poisoning and cynicism in popular culture that’s really hard to escape even if you avoid the news entirely.

However, the idea that not giving a shit about the problems in the world can somehow spare you from them is a) ludicrous, since they won’t go away if you decide to ignore them (a majority of the TMA statement givers didn’t previously know or care about the fears, and they got screwed over regardless), and b) definitely not supported by TMA’s cannon or themes. Surrendering to the idea of your own helplessness is precisely what TMA ends by specifically not doing. Jon sunk into a hopeless state of mind throughout S5, with the culmination of this process being his proposal to let the world end and allow the End to consume everything, including the rest of the fears. It wasn’t necessarily that Jon didn’t care or was apathetic, especially since one of his primary motivation was to avoid inflicting the fears on another universe, rather, he didn’t think anything could be done to stop the fears from destroying his world or whatever world they ended up in, which is the same deterministic mindset that Alice’s style of apathy stems from (“I can’t change or fix it, so I don’t care”). The other characters refusing this course of action and banishing the fears is what ultimately spares TMA’s universe from the sort of extinction it would’ve had if they’d accepted that it was hopeless and Jon had gone through with what he wanted. TMA ends with the central takeaway that you can’t give in to the idea you won’t be able to fix things because then you won’t try, and shows the characters subverting their helplessness and actually solving the problem of the fears by getting rid of it at the source (the ethics of sending the fears somewhere else are definitely debatable, but that’s a totally different post). The idea that Alice could be saved from the consequences of the problems in TMAGP’s world by choosing not to care flies in the face of the conclusion to the previous series. Alice’s refusal to care won’t save her from whatever TMAGP has in store, and judging by the events of TMA, fatalism and apathy might even seal her fate.

Some of these points of evidence might be a little bit basic “water is wet” types of statements and I probably could’ve explained this in half the time, but I really do think that Alice’s apathy isn’t going to turn out to be very useful to her and I wanted to include everything I could think of that led me to believe that.

TLDR, Alice is just as screwed as the rest of the cast, if not more so, and her attitude is not going to get her out of it.

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galaxy-parchment · 4 years

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Nepotism at its Finest

I’m back on my bullshit, fellas! This time we’ve got something fun. A fic that I wrote based on another TMA AU, ‘Timeline of Theseus’, by @creativitycache. All you need to know is Jon has been the Archivist since he was 8 because time-travel shenanigans and now Elias is his reluctant dad, I would highly suggest reading ToT if you enjoy this fic and even if you don’t. This also hasn’t been beta-read because this is spoiler-y and my usual beta-reader hasn’t listened to TMA and honestly this is pretty self-indulgent.

Jon, despite being an Archivist for as long as he could remember, only got the ‘official’ title of Head Archivist once Gertrude finally died. He knew Jonah was the one that did it, but honestly, Jon was just glad he didn’t call in someone else to do his dirty work for once. He always hated when a random avatar barged in and somehow always left some kind of damage in their wake.

Working as an archival assistant wasn’t so bad, other than that. After a while, just to justify him hanging around the Archives all day reading statements, Jonah had given him a position as Gertrude’s assistant. Not that she ever asked him to do anything. It was just a formality.

At this point he’d given up on only reading statements that included people that were already dead. He’d take one over the newer statements, certainly, but the problem was that there’s only a certain number of people that have had supernatural experiences, and if they survived the encounter, they don’t tend to die as quickly as the ones that didn’t make it.

He still occasionally got odd flashes of things he never actually did, but it wasn’t like they had a manual about how his powers worked. Jonah just half-explained that it was probably something to do with his omniscience filling his head up with blanks that didn’t exist. The fuzziness and lack of detail certainly matched up with that theory. Just one of the perks of suddenly gaining knowledge powers at the age of 8, he supposed. At least he’d finally managed to get a grip on what exactly he Knew at random intervals. The Eye still liked to give him the odd unwarranted insight or two, but he didn’t mind all that much.

Strangely, though, he did ‘remember’ all of the assistants Jonah had chosen for him on his first day as the Head Archivist. Sasha, Tim and Martin, although for some reason Sasha didn’t look like how his ‘memories’ picture her.

—

Jon was weird, to be honest. Tim knew it the moment he walked in and saw the guy. Looked like he’d been raised by wolves then taught how to act like he was a respectable academic. Sure, he looked the part, but you could tell he didn’t care about being a ‘scholar’, he only cared about the statements.

He also obviously had some weird tension with Elias. Whenever Tim mentioned him Jon would always change the topic and refuse to acknowledge the man’s existence. He’d worked here for a while, though, probably just a standard ‘gradual resent for your boss’ scenario.

At least Tim thought that was it until Monday.

They were all in the break room, Jon included, eating their lunch, when Elias wandered in and gave them all a polite smile.

“So, Jon,” He said pleasantly, “I was wondering how you were settling in as Head Archivist.”

Jon glanced back from the coffee pot, “Doing fine, thank you…” he grumbled.

“That’s great to hear,” Tim could hear the condescending tone dripping from his voice, “I know that you’re not used to such an active role in the Archives, is all,”

“What? You don’t think I’m capable of the job? You didn’t need to give me the position you know, I can do what I need to do here without it,”

“Oh, goodness, no, you were fully deserving of the promotion,” Elias said, raising his hands in defence, a knowing smile on his face.

“And as I told you when you promoted me, theres no need to worry about me,” the archival assistants stayed silent and glanced at each other awkwardly.

Elias grimaced, “Is it really so bad that I just wanted to see how you were? I have every right to worry,” Tim didn’t know what the relationship there was, but that was definitely a weird thing for your boss to say in his books.

“Elias, I am 24 and an adult who’s been working here for a while, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Jon said sternly, turning to face him with his arms crossed. Okay, that was definitely a weird thing to say. Sasha hid her face in her mug and Martin was fiddling with his hands and staring at them.

“Fine, but you know where to find me if you need anything,” Elias sighed. He turned and walked out the door.

Jon scowled for a moment, the tension in the air thick. He suddenly marched up to the door and yelled down the hall, “You’re not my father, you know!”

Tim was about to ask what the hell that was about before he heard Elias call back.

“I have paperwork that says otherwise!”

Well, that certainly explained a few things.

—

The ‘break room incident’ was still a talking point among the assistants, but at this point it was mostly just Tim complaining that Sasha just didn’t get the job because of nepotism. Jon didn’t even have a degree of any kind, he just got a position as an assistant and then got the Head Archivist promotion.

Martin tried to connect with Jon, though. He’d heard about how all of the old assistants just went missing over time. That must’ve been lonely for Jon. So he brought him tea every day. Sure, Jon didn’t always drink it, but hopefully it helped him feel more comfortable with them.

He did give Martin odd looks occasionally, though, as if they’d known each other and Jon was trying to place his face. He certainly would have remembered meeting someone like Jon, though.

When he wasn’t reading statements, Jon actually came out and spoke to all of the assistants directly when he needed something, which was a bit odd. Not spooky odd, but still odd.

Jon was instructing Martin on some follow-up he would need to do at his desk when Elias made his second appearance of the month. The others stayed quiet, knowing how things went last time.

“Jon, I have some good news!” Elias said, unusually chipper.

Jon seemed unimpressed, “Do tell.”

“Peter and I are getting married!” Martin was about to congratulate him when Jon beat him to it.

“I give it three months,” he deadpanned, not taking his eyes off Elias, who seemed far less offended than Martin would have been in his situation.

“Give me some credit, Jon”

“You’re right, he never even replaced the vase he broke before the last divorce did he? Make it two.” Wait, divorce? Last divorce?

“He’s changed, really, he even said he’d actually replace it once it was official,” Elias defended. Martin spotted Tim in his peripherals jamming his face into his elbow to stifle his own laughter. Sasha had a not-so-subtle smile creeping onto her face.

“Oh, and let me guess, he also promised you he’d ‘start trying to really connect with Jon’ like he does every time, as if he doesn’t literally feed off of doing the exact opposite.”

“No, but he did-“

“No, wait, I’ve got it this time, he said that this time, he’d keep his voyages short and make more time for you!” Jon guessed, intently waiting for Elias’s response

“Yes.” He said curtly. What on earth was happening? Martin wanted nothing more than to be anywhere but this exact position, right next to both of his bosses having a family squabble.

“Let me guess, you came down here to tell me right at this moment because you need me to drive you? Of course,” Jon ran his hand flat across his head to give his hair the gelled flatness Elias’s always flawlessly maintained, “I’m Elias, I’m going to ask Jon to drive me and my fiancee to the courthouse for our tenth marriage! I can’t drive myself, though, because then Peter is going to insult my driving and then I’ll tell him that he has no place to do so since he doesn’t even have a license! Then we’re going to cancel and try again the next week!” He ranted in a tone that was obviously meant to imitate Elias.

“We’re going next Wednesday.” Elias said.

“Fine.” Jon replied without a second thought, turning back to Martin, who hadn’t realised he was holding his breath. Elias silently turned and headed out of the Archives.

The room was silent for a moment. Sasha spoke up first.

“Did you say tenth time?” She asked incredulously.

“Yes, and that’s only the legal ones. I’ve seen them ‘get married’ one night and the next they’ll swear vengeance on each other. Peter gives excellent Christmas presents, though, what with the insurmountable wealth.”

Tim barked out the laugh he was suppressing, “Jon, I just really want you to know, that is the funniest thing I’ve witnessed in my life, thank you,"

For the record I’ve changed a few rules of how the whole Jon situation works and I mostly just took the concept of adult Jon and Elias father-son dynamic and sprinted with it.

#galaxywrites #the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #tma season 4 spoilers #timeline of theseus #elias bouchard #jonathan sims #sasha james #martin blackwood #timothy stoker #season 1 archives crew #slight comedic lonelyeyes #as it should be in every tma fic that mentions either of them #fanfiction

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notesofarichlycolorednight · 4 years

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it’s taken me a while but here we are!! listened to bloodwater ballad [TUMBLR | SOUNDCLOUD] by @gerrydelano so I’m gonna dive (ha, dive, get it?) into some analysis even tho I haven’t taken a proper English class since AP English Lit in high school and the god complex it gave me has never left (RIP to everyone else, but I’m different). But I do have a degree in Psychology and am a Researcher, so I know how to dissect things (this is probably why the god complex never left lmao)

disclaimer: I have only listened to TMA through one (1), read it ONE time, so if you read something that seems wrong it probably is because my memory is not The Best (the seasons are 40 eps long and 30 mins each, Jonny why) and I’m probably straight-up not remembering or misremembering some aspect or detail about either a character and/or their relationship

(and before you say it, i absolutely CANNOT just go relisten to an ep out of order. my nd brain Will Not Let Me until i have listened thru all 4 seasons, In Order, several times)

ALSO: i speak very definitively here, but it doesn’t mean i’m right abt my analysis

bold and italics are lyrics, regular font is analysis. if there’s a more accessible way to format this, lmk!

analysis under cut

honesty that's what she gave to me mary didn’t hide who she was; eric knew exactly what he was getting himself into

into the water i bleed into the sea sea motif/metaphor to describe how eric viewed his relationship with mary

truthfully even when she lied through her teeth it only meant she trusted me to lay at her feet rationalization from eric: he knows she’s lying, and she probably knows he knows. but she also knows that he won’t do anything about it

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i sink more of the sea metaphor in pieces in ribbons in tatters i'm thrown into the dark of the drink ribbons and tatters: reminiscent/hint of mary needing a piece of his skint to keep his ghost in the leitner

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i go blow the man down, he's a jewel for your crown (blow me down) and no one will ever know ”jewel for your crown”: suggestive of how mary used eric like an object. jewel and crown suggests that he was useful to her in an important way, tho, still an object ”no one will ever know”: suggestive that no one else, looking in on their relationship, would even see it for what it truly was, nor would they ever expect mary to throw him away so casually like she did

war, you see is somewhere you go just to bleed the end of a book you can’t read (books you cannot read) a legacy’s greed “book you can’t read”: suggestive of mary’s relationship with leitners ”a legacy’s greed”: commentary of leitner; bc this is eric telling his story tho, this could also be about how mary pulled eric into her plots regarding leitners, and then gerry

distantly, familiar hope came to me that even with blood in our teeth my son stayed asleep ”even with blood in our teeth”: eric knows what role he had to play in all this and is not absolving himself of blame ”my son stayed asleep”: often sleeping can be used as a metaphor for ignorance. in this case, eric is hoping that, despite what gerry’s mother is and what eric has been complicit in, will not affect his son i think it’s interesting to note here that the backup voices cut out for “my son stayed asleep” (put a pin in it)

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, i gave to my wife as the captain, the whip, and the brine, the shark lurking under the waves more of the sea metaphor; also a metaphor for how complicit eric was to mary’s will i think it’s super interesting that she’s the captain, whip, brine, and shark in this metaphor. all things that can hurt eric, as the ship. suggests that mary is in complete control of eric (as the captain). also adds to the notion that eric knew exactly who mary was and still loved her anyway (”i gave”).

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, she cracks the mast of my spine, spills my blood as her wine (lightning strikes and) i really like this line bc it makes me think of the marriage lines in corpse bride: “your cup will never empty, for i will be your wine.” and i love that it’s turned on its head here. cuts a flag from the skin off my back (takes all the skin off my back) a direct callback to the fact that mary has to take strips of eric’s skin to keep his ghost in the leitner book, while also staying with the metaphor that eric is a ship out at sea

way, ay, i wanted to say though blinded i still saw the light at the end of the hall, in a crib with his eyes almost grayer than mine in the night direct callback to eric blinding himself, twice! also represents how much he loves his son: “light of my life” is a common saying and gerry was that for eric

i gave up the sight of his face for his life and i would have lost more for the same i'd cut out my heart to save his from her bite and i almost don't know who to blame again, direct callback to him blinding himself so he could escape the institute a demonstration of how much love he holds for his son, willing to give up more and more of himself if it meant keeping his son safe heart motif! both for eric and gerry i really like the last line here bc he’s saying he doesn’t know who to blame for his blindness (aka cutting out his heart): himself or mary. bc, as i’ve stated before, eric knows who mary is. and he still loves her. still had a child with her. i also think it’s foreshadowing. and the reason i say this is bc, in the end, eric was unable to save gerry from mary. this song is representative of his statement to gertrude, so at this point, he’s a ghost. tho he may not know exactly what mary has done, he knows who she is enough to know that after he died, mary would raise gerry in her likeness, with her ideals

is it a murder if i made my bed by her side when i knew what she was? and here we have eric, most nearly explicitly, stating that he knew mary’s true colors. and loved her anyway. perhaps i'm complicit; i fell asleep first in the bloodcutting comfort of jaws this also solidifies his stance that he should shoulder some of the blame for allowing himself to love her when he knew what a truly terrible and deadly (literally) person she was ”bloodcutting comfort of jaws” is also really nice alliteration

forgive me, forgive me, i did try to swim with my hands and feet bound to my heart heart motif! okay so this one has so many layers for me: so, for all intents and purposes here, eric has effectively cut out his heart, which his hands and feet are bound to, and is now in the jaws of a shark (mary), who is dragging him down to kill him. he tried to save his son by getting away from the institute by blinding himself but it didn’t work weighted and anchored with love for my son who by birthright deserves more than scars legit, this confused me for a bit bc i always saw “with my hands and feet bound to my heart” as the anchor that pulled him down, as you’d weigh someone down with big rocks if you wanted them to drown. however, in the context of tma, i realized anchor could also mean the way martin is jon’s anchor. eric’s love for gerry was his reason--the person who he kept fighting for as best he could

additional note: these 4 verses are all sung without backup voices. i think it’s interesting that the lyrics/verses that revolve around wanting to save his son, and that are about his son, are sung with his singular voice. i wish i could articulate more what that means, but despite my best efforts, i’m not musically inclined even tho i’ll kinda be talking abt music composition for firesorrow girl lmao. link at the end

my eulogy the carpet red under my feet like standing on top of the sea (standing on the sea) the frenzy beneath don’t ask me why but i really like how this last part of the song starts with “my eulogy” bc you can tell the song is coming to a close now by that lyric. what’s really nice is i can “picture” eric closing his statement with gertrude with the request that she finds his son more sea and shark metaphors

infamy how do you remember me? that fool just so desperate to leave that he couldn't see? i also really loved these lines bc eric most likely knows how gertrude thought of him, and can probably sense how she feels of him now, after his story then i love how “couldn’t see” has a double-meaning here: 1) of course, he blinded himself but, 2) that he was also metaphorically blind to what kind of consequences his actions had, both on him and his son

oh, heave-ho a dead man has only one tale listen,,, i know i keep saying this, but i love how ron turns turn-of-phrases on their heads. bc “dead men tell no tales” right? eric has one tale, tho: his statement bc he’s a ghost who’s been bound this book and kept, for all intents and purpose, alive i knew she had hunger for blood in the water and that means it was no betrayal again, confirmation that eric knows that he has to shoulder some of the blame for the consequences of knowing who mary was (this bloodthirsty shark) and still loving her anyway

oh, heave-ho though, i have one request of you now if my son can be found and his own hands unbound (find my son) cut the rope - don't you dare let him drown (don’t you dare be the reason he drowns) so a throwback to “hands and feet bound to my heart” tho perhaps gerry’s heart isn’t what’s dragging him down, necessarily bc he was raised by mary, he didn’t have a choice. the moment he was born, he was tied to her. and the moment mary killed eric, there was no chance he could get away and then, of course, the gut-puncher: “don’t you dare let him drown”/“don’t your dare be the reason he drowns” are especially poignant, given gertrude uses gerry much in the same way mary did. gerry becomes bound to a different entity and is used for gertrude’s gain. so he drowns anyway.

alkjdlf i hope this is semi-coherent. i tried to do it more “professionally”--i even thought abt breaking it up and putting it back together, out of order, to address all the themes and motifs all in one spot--but then decided what would be best for my brain, was to listen to the song and just add my thoughts in as they came, stream of consciousness style *finger guns*

firesorrow girl analysis | meme i made for these analyses bc it’s funny and i wanted to share

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #(kinda. alkjldkf idk how to tag thissss)#eric delano #mary keay #gerard keay #chirp.meta

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