#tma blind listen

[taibhsearachd]

Still absolutely distraught about my shipwreck podcast getting canceled by their producer. I love disaster podcasts and there are very few as good as Ship Hits the Fan.

Legitimately having trouble falling asleep lately (because yes I like to listen to fresh episodes of familiar podcasts to go to sleep and sometimes they have to do with disasters, don’t judge me). I might have to rotate back to listening to audiobooks of Rolling In the Deep and Into the Drowning Deep until I can once more recite them in my sleep. They’re surprisingly soothing to me, but it does help my ADHD to consume new information but in familiar voices I know I can listen back to if I fall asleep midway through, and I am OUT OF REGULAR PODCASTS THAT SERVE THAT PURPOSE ATM.

So I guess I’m going back to murder mermaids for a while. Murder mermaids love me. Murder mermaids won’t let me down.

[insituend]

Here's my thing. You can design Jonathan Sims however you like, headcanon him any which way you like, he literally has no canon appearance yadda ya. But if you fix your mouth to start complaining about how the commonly accepted "fanon" version of him has dark skin, I'm going to assume that you're not actually complaining that Jon has a mostly homogenized design among fans 😒

[fandomfan315]

Began listening to The Magnus Archives in the past... month?🧍 am on episode 95 and I had all of the episodes pre-downloaded by the time I got to episode 20 like I knew this was my next big thing ANYWAYS

I made a slight mistake.

Got a biiit too comfy w the creepiness. Listened to the podcast without stopping for Multipe Hours as I was making a cardboard whale shark and. Suddenly it was 12 at night and now I'm stuck under my blanket convinced that if i leave the sanctuary of it ill die 💀 HELP

[little-fandom-dump]

Oh No™️… Jonny and Alex weren’t kidding about checking the content warnings for each episode of season 5 huh🫠

[raymond--fielding]

i’m laughing so hard i just remembered the first time i heard michael’s voice i thought to myself “oh jesus christ this guy is definitely a tumblr sexyman :/“

[its-arson-time]

My best friend just listened to 160

you who watch and know and understand none

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

UM???? TELL ME ABT THE PODCAST??? (kicks 98 episodes left of tma under the bed)

AHSHSJAK OK

so it’s called quiet part loud

and the main character is this guy, rick eagon (which is honestly the most perfect name). He has a podcast in the beginning that aims to make people angry, really. He uses 9/11 to alienate Muslim people and blames three missing boys (who went missing the night before I think?) and calls them spies or something. A day after 9/11 he plants anthrax in his mail to create more fear, but gets found out. he loses his podcast and his whole life (wife, daughter, following, etc). Eight years later he’s at a convention for the few listeners/followers he has left when he’s told there’s still more to learn about the missing boys. So he starts investing and recording all the while.

aaaaajsjfjfk but I don’t wanna say any more. all of the characters are amazingly voiced and noor (sister of one of the missing boys) is the BEST. Also I learned about Willowbrook State School which was fucked up in its own way?

and it’s just. oh my goodness. it’s just such a genius way of explaining xenophobia in a mythological (like using magic/the unexplainable to explain things and events) sort of way and OOOH i love it so much

WHICH REMINDS ME OF ANOTHER THING. ive grown obsessed with emily dickinson. she has a SHOW that is SO GOOD and she literally thinks the way i do like there’s no difference and it’s incredible. but anyway her dad runs for congress on election day he said something (in the show) that just makes me laugh so hard. he might lose to a new politcal party called the Know Nothings because they put blame on immigrants and he doesn’t blame on anyone (another case of people following anger over anything else!!). So when their maid, and Irish woman, tells him that her brothers were beaten sensless trying to vote he goes, “Well America opens her arms to all! Go and eat a hot dog!” which just misses the point in such a PERFECT way and omg it just SPEAKS to privilege and wokeness at an arms length and it’s SO GOOD. He didn’t say exactly that, it was more something to the affect of the future he hopes for in america or like. Denouncing the Know Nothings or something along those lines but UUGH I LOVE THIS SHOW.

[thevampireauthoress]

Something that really strikes me about TMAGP is that it has two listener inserts. The one coming into it completely blind (Sam) and the one coming into it from another universe with preconceived notions (Celia).

Jon was a useful protagonist/listener insert in TMA because all of us were discovering the lore with him, now for this side-quel they've split the difference, I'm looking forward to seeing how their story develops.

EDIT:

thank you @overlyegoistic for telling me the correct term is "audience surrogate" :)

[annabelle--cane]

People getting mad at Melanie for not being all goody-goody with Jon is so funny to me considering that out of all the main characters, including Georgie and Martin, she is the one who trusts him the most? The reason she keeps coming back to the Institute even though she always leaves there unsatisfied during S1-S3 is that even though Jon is horrible he at least listens (her own words) and she at no point in the show tries to stop or refuses to collaborate with Jon's plans out of pure tantrum. She has very strong comments about his leadership but she never stopped helping him when he needed it and vice versa. The only time she nope out of It was when she had just blinded herself and left the Institute, which is more than reasonable and neither parties holds any grudges about it.

YEAH this is actually such an interesting thing, cause there's a lot in tma about when a person consciously chooses to trust others and stay in consistent communication with them, and melanie almost never shuts that down with people. she's not really a secret keeper about anything big, it was a major deal when she didn't tell jon about her time in india because that isn't what she's usually like. she and jon are very similar people, but this is one of their major points of contrast: jon always has to slowly talk himself into trusting people, and even when he decides to there's often still major holes in the relationship, but melanie can really hate someone and still fundamentally be on their side and believe in their cause. she's the one who kept re-initiating their contact until jon knew she was reliable enough to serve as his spy in the archives, she really wanted to kill elias but trusted martin enough to back down when asked, and she was the one convincing georgie to help jon and martin get up the panopticon. ms king I am FREE on fridays.

[the-voldsoy]

Parallels/references/a couple theories about TMAGP EP1:

grouped in order of actual theories, vague things i noticed, and even vaguer comments! (using the same terminology as in TMA for ease)

HEAVY Spoilers !!

Stronger:

“Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here” +won't leave until they figure out the errors “Or they finally kill me” → couldn't quit the Archives because they thought they just wanted to understand and know (but later found out they could only get out by dying or blinding)

Lena talks about cake → Mr Spider doesn't like cake + Elias seemed to love the stuff

pub called The Seward -> Peter Lukas vibes?

“There has to be a way to do this online” → haha ! you wish. (AKA supernatural interferes with internet so it cant be dont online)

“There's this box for a "Response 121" on the form.” → MAG121 is the episode Jon is woken from his coma/brought back to life by Oliver Banks

Talk about how there used to be a separate “Response” department → Elias tells Jon its their job to watch, not interfere (iirc)

Old as shit computer → old as shit tape recorders

AKA: the computer seems to be the only thing that can handle the supernatural

“ "Dolls comma watching" or "Dolls comma human skin" “ → violently Stranger and possibly Eye, has me in mind of MAG24 (the one the Calliope is first mentioned in, where the boyfriend is turned into a doll iirc) 

Barely understandable, long as shit file names →barely understandable, long as shit files names by Gertrude 

[in response to where the files go] “some long dead database that no one will ever look at or care about” → the Archives were unmanaged, decrepit and barely used by anyone outside of them

Work during the night - no sun, cut off from outside world → worked in a basement - no sun, cut off from outside world

Martin (and later Jon) taking the statements → did the same in TMA but in reverse (although I’d love to know if there's any reason behind them being called Chester and Norris, besides what's stated?)

Haha Martin and Jon (and Jonah) are now part of the World Wide Web → shit now they're part of the Web (just like with the tape recorders !!)

Someone talks about how they're sorry, they should've listened, couldn't face not hearing him again → martin @ jon and vice versa

Stranger statement with hints of the Dark → first TMA statement was a Stranger in the dark, and it does put me in mind of the Anglerfish tbh

Sorting system for the statements (although there's is a Lot more detailed and v different) → Smirke’s Fourteen

Gwen openly does not like Lena → literally anyone @ Elias

Asked if they were tricked into working here → well, we know the Archives and Elias

“The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → most of the Archives (excluding Sasha and maybe Martin) had something that made them Marked, that mostly led to them working there

Someone who's into spelunking listed the Institute as “cleared” → who could that be (if we know them at all)? Buried avatar, i'd guess, but we don't really know any of them

Photos of the Institute don't show up → photos of the supernatural don't work

The Institute was “weird”, made the subject paranoid → lingering Eye

Fire twenty years ago that burned the Institute → Like the fire at Hilltop Road? Or like that time Gertrude tried to burn down the Institute?

Third floor was the most burned → assuming that's the top floor (and correct me if i'm wrong), wasn’t Jonah in (and later killed) on the top floor?

“offices like little cells” → employees were certainly trapped ! also Millbank Prison

Worried non-existent doors were going to slam shut → the Distortion

Weren’t any papers → left behind before the Institute came to this Somewhere Else (assuming it's the same Institute)? (we need an actual name for the original universe and this Somewhere Else)

Suspicious stains on some floors → my darling, that is blood ! or possibly squished worms, or ink. or possibly something Else

“an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on” → genuinely unsure what this could be

Strange symbols → For all the Fears, or just the Eye, i wonder? I think i remember them saying something about an Eye symbol at this point, but now i can't find where

“you get a job, I get a fresh victim. It’s all in your contract.” → Elias @ his employees

 “To new beginnings, with old friends” → to a new beginning, with our old friends Jon, Martin and Jimmy Magma :)

“You’re not as clever as you think you are. You think you've got us all fooled, that no-one knows you're listening, But I do. I know. I’m going to find you and then…” → hi what did he mean by this

They (jon, martin & jonah) are Watching and Listening and following through technology→ just like Elias (Panopticon vibes tbh) and Sergey Ushanka

Vaguer (idk if theres anyhting here, but wanted to include it anyway):

Alice loves coffee -> Martin loved tea

Meeting in a cemetery → Sasha with Michael pre-prentiss attack, Naomi Herne 

Not wanting to stay at home because it's full of memories → Jon moving with Georgie, Martin moving to the Archives

Gwen Bouchard wants Lena’s job → Bouchard (appeared to) climb the job ladder quicker than he should have

Heh bug list → corruption

 “You don’t seem like the usual hopeless wasters Lena hires” “The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → okayy no need to be rude. But anyways the OG Archives crew were actually pretty disconnected from the rest of the world +were barely there by choice?

“freight cars near Brighton” → hey where did Melanie get her first Slaughter mark ?

“it’s not too awkward working with an ex?” → Georgie and Jon?

FR3-d1 -> i feel like there's something there, but i cannot figure it out

Just words that made me irrationally scared:

Stranger(‘s)

Distortion

Opposites:

Starts with a party for someone leaving → couldn't quit the archives

“ …you are perfectly within your rights to resign. No one is forcing you to stay here.”

please put any opinions/additions in the tags !!

[vampirecave]

Oh great TMA fandom accept my offering please (Avatar oc)

(I know this may not at all work out with TMA canon lore but.. tbf I've yet to fully listen to TMA, my friend has been telling me a lot abt it and I've read up on many wikis tho! also I am cringe and free) (more below!!)

they're an avatar of The Spiral named Otto!! (Full name is Octavia). They had a father who worked at the Magnus institute. The father was so interested by the spiral and what it could do that, in a fit of blind madness, used his teenage (17 yr old) kid as a test subject by shoving them through a the yellow door when it one day appeared to him. They somehow managed to find the center of the Spiral and ended up becoming part of it.. but they managed to somehow cling onto more humanity than usual. Unlike Micheal who denied any sort of identity, Otto clings onto the identity of Otto, even if they are aware the Octavia that entered is not the Otto there now.

They have a habit of lying, but for them it's not fully on purpose. They ramble, and the more they ramble, the more lies accidentally slip into their sentences. Once the deceit it there, Otto will try their best to not go back on anything they say. They'll stay insistant. That or they'll... correct themself but completely gaslight you that they were ever wrong. All of their trickery is either accidental, self preservational, or survival based.

[8unknowndoee]

-- TMAGP SPOILER EPISODE 25 / Nothing big but still, very small implication of what happened in the new episode --

This has no logic behind it in any shape way or form, I just think it would be fascinating if not horribly ironic if Melanie turns out the be the new I.T. person. I've seen a few people say Sasha being the new I.T. person and I can 100% see the appeal to that but I would like to just point out that Melanie King has yet, in any form, to be mentioned.

Like I just think it's strange we haven't even heard her mentioned specifically by Celia as we have the other characters. Like, Jon and Martin being mentioned makes since, Jon was legit the antichrist and Martin was his plus one, they were attached to the hip so it would make sense to have them mentioned together and first because they are or related to the reason the world ended. As to the fact that Celia has met them before, even if for a little time.

Celia already sees Georgie in person often, already connected to her in this world. Celia looking for Helen is questionable because Helen tried to eat her when they met and I wasn't aware Celia knew Helen was someone before they met.

Celia looking for Basira before she looked for Melanie is also strange because, unless I'm remembering wrong, Melanie was the blind prophet of the people they saved, she was like their Jesus but more apocalyptic cult vibes, wouldn't Celia look for her before Basira and Helen? Then episode 25 came out and Lena looking for a new I.T. person and I think it would be a fascinating and tragically ironic if that new I.T. person to be Melanie.

Like it's not impossible, Basira is in a educational position rather than law enforcement and didn't seem to ever think about going into law enforcement. Melanie going from YouTube (God was she? I remember her going into scary places but I can't remember if she was a YouTuber or not) to being an I.T. person in this world wouldn't be an insane idea.

Yet the idea of Melanie being a normal I.T. person dragged into this horror story in the same way she was a horror explorer YouTuber dragged into the horror story is tragically ironic because she is going to work close to and with the Freddie system, Jon, Martin and Jonah, in some fucked up similar way she had in TMA. Except it would be the most fascinating thing in the world because what is Celia gonna do? How is she going to behave around Melanie? Melanie was her client as a therapist then became her savior, a literal blind prophet, when the world ended. Would she follow Melanie's words? Agree with anything she'll say? Or will she think that Melanie isn't yet a blind prophet because she isn't blind yet and, at the end of her line, snaps and tries to make her blind to allow her to gain prophetic visions and save the world before it ends? Like she's going to have a reaction. And to new listeners, Melanie being the new I.T. person wouldn't be strange at all, she hasn't been mentioned or even implied by Celia yet so no one would know of her but Celia's behavior towards her, the reaction and what she does afterwards would send more red flags like the ones she already has given.

Anyways, that's my random thought I had, New I.T. personnel Melanie at your service.

[senaridaes]

I would like to find that one person who listens to TMAGP without previously listening to TMA and ask what they think about all of (gestures) this. What if we're just being blinded by fanservice and they are building fifty theories at once.

[pmpknsoup]

got my best friend to listen to tma, we would've been tandem listening but theyre wayy more squeamish than me

they're just as blind as i was, because i somehow managed to stop myself from telling them EVERYTHING with the hope they'd actually listen to it

their favorite characters are sasha and martin, so far

[magpod-confessions]

Honestly i wanna hear opinions on season 4, cus im gonna confess i could NOT finish it (didnt move on to season 5 either lol). Got to like ep 135 & i just couldnt tell any of the episodes apart it felt like such a drag; just a slog of misery with some offhand Important 5 Minutes once in a blue moon. I hate repetition & i got the sparknotes from fandom/wiki stuff so yeahhh i just stopped listening; i still love TMA & it’s story & characters, it’s just the execution that got to me RIP

Everything felt kinda forced to me ig? Like there was some shoe-horned “humans are more monstrous than the actual monster” that snuffed S1 Jon’s fun cockiness/jackassery just to make him ? The best one in the archive ??? & all of his wrongdoings are either off-screen or justified by him being tricked into becoming a literal monster against his will (who would STARVE w/o his ‘evil-doings’, which didnt even kill ppl). Also felt like everyone got needlessly dumbed down except for Martin (the Love Interest ofc, who got 180’d from his pre-established incompetency to be some mastermind in a playing field he should have REALLY been inept in) just so they’d be blind to Jon’s situation & be mean to him LMAO

They started trying to make Jon accountable for “choosing this” & i couldnt handle it, held no fucking water to me—the guy being explicitly puppetted & manipulated as the entire plot? That guy is expected to take responsibility here? Felt like some after-thought theme they threw on top of it all. Anyways uhh feel free comment either on what i said and/or your personal thoughts on the season, or nothing if ya got nothing lol

🗣️

Ehh disagree. S4 isnt my fav but I dont think its bad. S1 Jon to s4 jon feels like natural character progression to me. He starts as acting all high and mighty to try hide the fact he has no idea what hes doing and is terrified, and then experiences a lot of ppl dying that he feels is due to him and is his responsibility. At that point his thought pattern is 'I keep messing up and making mistakes and getting myself and everyone around me hurt, so other ppl surely know better'. Hes got a lot of black and white thinking around him, which has been consistent throughout his entire characterization

I dont think any characters were dumbed down either

Melanie was always angry, she only go worse bc she had smth making her think everything she did was justified and when that stopped she became avoidant and stopped lashing out. She was still angry, just managing it better

Basira has always been Daisys no1, the person to justify all of Daisys actions. She knows what daisy did and why its bad but she holds onto the idea that daisy is right in doing so. She blames jon for what he does bc logically she knows its wrong, hurting ppl who havent done anything is wrong, but still excuses daisy bc she needs to. Bc that was a fact of her life and it cannot be wrong. In the unknowning she focuses on facts to keep her grounded and to her 'Daisy is a good person' 'Hurting ppl is wrong' and 'If you hurt ppl you are a bad person' are all facts she needs in her life to stay grounded. How she justifies Daisys actions is by saying that the ppl who daisy hurt were worse and it ultimately helps more ppl to have them gone. Not only can she not do that with Jon, as she believes those he hurts are entirely innocent, she also doesnt care to. Shes not close with Jon and she doesnt have 'Jon is a good person' as a fact in her mind, so she doesnt need to work to excuse his actions. Its all or nothing with her, if you hurt and continue hurting ppl, no matter your reason, you need to stop and the only way you will stop is if you are gone. She also has a lot of black and white thinking, gotta love the autism podcast

Martin being a mastermind in s4 also makes sense bc him being stupid is an act. If ppl think your stupid theyll underestimate you and ultimately leave you alone. They wont scrutinize you, they wont attack every part of you, they will brush it off as just a typical normal thing. It will get you ignored and you cannot be hurt if nobody knows who you are or how to hurt you. Its a lonely miserable existence but its one martins used to. Martin rarely drops the mask of 'Sweet but stupid' bc he needs that to survive and tbh he probably learnt that from needing to survive his mom LOL. Martin just knows and picks the best method of getting ppl to like him, which for him is doing exactly what they want and keeping their expectations low so they wont hurt him as much when they mess up. Honestly in s5 I see him as hes finally got to a place where he doesnt care if everyone hates him, bc he has someone who does and thats all he needs. Hes survived the worst of it and he doesnt care anymore

Part of the reason everyone blames Jon is bc he is there and he is the one who is currently causing the most problems. Also they dont actually see the extent that Jon is manipulated. Elias talks and interacts with Jon differently to how he interacts with others. All of them met Jon when he was already at the institute, they meet him when it does actually look like he made his choice, entirely of his own free will. It doesnt help that daisy is there, someone who completed their transformation like Jon did and turned back on it, and she looks like shes managing well enough. She is surviving without feeding so why cant Jon do the same? Also basira does trust elias on some level. She trusts he knows more than she does and can be an asset if used correctly, which definitely doesnt help things. Also the idea of Elias is locked up, he cant affect Jon anymore so why is Jon still acting this way. Elias has very effectively vilified and isolated jon and jon doesnt fight back against it bc he believes it as well. Other ppl are normally right so why wouldnt everyone be right abt him?

Oh my god that was an essay and I absolutely missed sooo much stuff but idk take that - rosette

i literally have nothing to add . rosette sincerely you are insane and i love that . i honestly don't have a lot of s4 opinions that i could really put down , but i also disagree anon . s4 may not have been the best , but it certainly wasn't Bad or not enjoyable to listen to . coming from someone who has listened to the podcast twice now [ and who is planning on a third relisten ] , i really do enjoy s4 as a whole . martin's buildup and his manipulation of peter lukas is honestly one of my favourite parts , because it has been said that martin was originally going to be apart of the mother of puppets ! this shows that part of martin we didn't get to see but has been there . i got distracted and don't remember what else i was gonna type um . whoops - deceit