#He also murders all of their characters in DnD but that's neither here nor there
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Eddie Saves Steve's Birthday
Part 2 of the "The Party Forgets Steve's Birthday" fic! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!
~*~*~*~
Eddie felt awful, in fact, he’d never felt worse. He would rather go back to the Upside Down and get torn into by bats again than have to hear Steve say that the Party only cared about him as the babysitter. He couldn’t think of anyone more deserving of a big birthday celebration than Steve and instead he was working a long shift at Family Video alone without any acknowledgement of his birthday from the kids. It wasn’t fair.
He used to think Steve had everything. He was the cool jock, rich kid with rich parents, huge house, and tons of friends. Eddie never could have imagined then that Steve was just another lonely kid with absent parents and friends that forgot about his birthday. Even now, they were both part of the same group that had literally risked their lives to save them from the creepy-crawlies in the Upside Down and no one paid enough attention to realize it was Steve’s birthday.
Just thinking about the defeated look on Steve’s face made Eddie’s heart stutter in grief. He didn’t care what it took, he was going to fix this. But to do that, he was going to need Wayne.
By the time Eddie got home from his talk with Steve and the minor freakout he had in the back of his van, Wayne was getting ready to leave for work. That just wouldn’t do. So Eddie did the one thing that always worked for him and threw his arms around his uncle in a restrictive embrace.
“Uncle Wayne, I need your help. It’s absolutely urgent, life-threatening, you could say. I need you and if you don’t help me, I will die.”
Wayne was far too used to his dramatics to fall for that. He patted Eddie’s back before trying to gently pry himself free. “Kid, my shift starts in an hour, I gotta get goin’.”
“No, I’m serious, I really need your help. Everyone forgot Steve’s birthday today! He’s devastated, I’m horrified, Robin is on a date, and the kids are unhelpful! I need you!” Eddie broke out his most potent puppy dog eyes and blinked up at his uncle.
Wayne sighed. “I’ll tell Craig I have a stomach bug. What do you need me to do?”
“Steve gets off work at ten tonight. I need you to distract him towards the end of his shift and get him to come back here. Kidnap him if you have to, that’s what the Chief does and it always seems to work.”
“Kidnap him? Eds-” Wayne started but Eddie cut him off.
“Please! I have to steal a camera from Jonathan, break into the Harrington house, and bribe the bakers into giving me a cake. I don’t have time to force Steve to come over too.”
“Now wait a minute, all of that sounds criminal. Eddie-” Wayne sounded the most alarmed that he ever has but Eddie took it in stride.
“Wayne. He said he hasn’t celebrated his birthday in years, literal years. And considering you have a birthday every year, that’s a lot of birthdays that he’s spent alone. So we have to get him here by any means necessary and show the pretty bastard that we love him. Okay?”
Wayne looked at him for a long time but eventually he gave a little nod. “What time should I head out?”
~*~*~*~
Steve wasn’t used to seeing Wayne around town and he had never once come into Family Video. So when the bell rang and swung open to reveal a stressed Wayne Munson, he didn’t really know what to think. Wayne looked around the store slightly before walking directly up to the counter.
Steve nodded at him and narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Um hey, Mr. Munson. Welcome to Family Video, how can I help you?”
Wayne scratched a hand through his beard before humming. “You, uh, you have any good recommendations?”
“You want to hear about my recommendations? Really?” Steve looked at him, flabbergasted. No one had ever cared to ask what he watched.
“‘Course, that’s why I asked. What do you like to watch? Anything good?”
“Have you seen Back to the Future? It was a little hard to understand because he actually goes back to the past and I think he wanted to bang his mom, it was really confusing. It’s a good one but I’m not sure if it’s really good or if I only liked it because I was super high.”
Wayne nodded at him, not even phased at his enthused rambling. “That does sound interestin’. Any other ones?”
“Oh my god, yes! Have you seen Clue? Tim Curry is in that one, he’s the guy from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that has the nice legs. He shows less leg in this one but oh, you should see Miss Scarlet. It’s truly the best of both worlds, Mr. Munson, let me tell you-”
If this was the best his night got on his birthday, Steve would be content. Wayne was listening to him rant about his current favorite movies with rapt attention and kept asking questions in the appropriate places to keep the conversation going. Steve couldn’t even remember the last time someone actually wanted to listen to him talk. The Munsons always managed to surprise him in the best way possible. What could get better than this?
~*~*~*~
With Wayne on Steve Duty, Eddie had more than enough time to coerce Jonathan into letting him borrow a camera, sneak through Loch Nora to collect some of Steve’s favorite tapes, and guilt-trip the bakery ladies into giving him a cake on short notice.
After assuring Jonathan that he wasn’t trying to record a sex tape with any of his equipment, he lent him a small Polaroid (he didn’t trust the odd request from Eddie so there was no way in hell he was letting him borrow a tape recorder). Eddie didn’t argue though. He just needed something to commemorate Steve’s first birthday in the family and a Polaroid would do just that.
The trip to the bakery though took longer than anticipated. Florence, the owner of Flo’s Baked Goods, was not in a generous mood at 4 PM on a Tuesday. Luckily, Eddie was known for being very persuasive which worked in his favor.
“Florence, come on. Do me a favor, please?” He asked with his most woeful puppy dog eyes.
“Edward, I told you already, you need to place an order ahead of time.”
“Florence, my dear, I didn’t anticipate my grandma to die! I didn’t have time to place an order and I need a cake for her funeral tonight. Please Flo? For me?” His lip wobbled slightly as if tears were close to follow. He needed to pull out all of his stops to get that cake.
She sighed in exasperation. “I can give you a small one, alright? And you’re not getting extras, I actually have orders to work on.”
“That’s okay! Thanks Flo, I appreciate it and so will St- my dead grandmother. May she rest in peace.”
That worked out great! Sure, Eddie had to make an extra stop at the grocery store for some red frosting to write Steve’s name on it but the smile on his face would be well worth it. Or rather a pitying grimace.
Unfortunately, Eddie was not a baker or a designer by any means. So the red lettering on the cake turned into a drippy mess that looked more like a crime scene than a birthday cake. He also didn’t have great space management. Instead of making the font smaller to fit on the cake, Eddie largely wrote “BIRTH STEVE” and couldn’t fit anything else. Eager to make the best of the situation, he threw some colorful sprinkles on there to liven things up. Ah, Steve would love it.
The situation only got more complicated when he went to pick up Steve’s favorite movies from his house. Eddie parked his van in the driveway and picked the lock to the front door. Steve was at work, his parents weren’t home (not that they would have let him in if they were), and the emergency key under the doormat wasn’t there so he had to take drastic measures.
He grabbed a few of the movies in Steve’s room that he knew were his favorite that he didn’t have at the trailer. Fast Times, Back to the Future, Clue, The Breakfast Club, Teen Wolf, basically everything that Eddie hated but he was willing to watch anything for Steve. He grabbed a few cassettes too in case they decided to listen to music instead. All of the tapes were disappointingly mediocre and Eddie made a mental note to introduce him to some real music. After that, Steve would never listen to fucking Tears for Fears ever again. Or Wham!, the bane of his existence.
What Eddie had neglected to consider was how the nosey neighbors would react to seeing a random van in the Harrington driveway and a random kid messing with the front door. He should’ve expected the cops to come. He opened the front door to the barrel of Hopper’s gun.
“Son of a bitch, Chief! What the hell are you waving that around for?!” Eddie exclaimed, dropping his small duffel bag and throwing his hands in the air.
“What the hell? Munson?” Admittedly, Hopper had shown up at a bad time. Eddie was lugging a duffel bag out of the Harrington house to his hastily parked van in a neighborhood he definitely didn’t belong in.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he told him quickly.
“It looks like you’re robbing the Harrington’s place,” Hopper said deadpan.
“Well, I’m not!”
“What are you doing then?” Hopper asked him sarcastically.
“I’m not robbing him! I’m trying to save Steve’s birthday. I was just getting some supplies.” Eddie explained hurriedly.
“It’s Steve’s birthday today?”
“Yep and he’s going to be pissed if he has to come bail me out of jail because you arrested me. Think about that,” Eddie said, pointing an accusing finger at him. Wayne and Steve would both be pissed if he got arrested again.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re stealing his stuff,” Hopper stated in confusion.
“I’m throwing him a little party back at my place, we’re having a movie night so I had to get his favorite movies. I don’t have this teen drama shit. But Steve does and I’m trying to give him a nice night.”
Hopper just looked at him blankly.
“So can I go? I know you don’t want to break Stevie’s heart by arresting me on his birthday and don’t you want to get home to your family this lovely Tuesday evening? Who needs the extra hassle of detaining little ole me?”
“Goddammit Munson, just get out of here. You’re making the neighbors antsy. And don’t do this again.” Hopper warned him before walking over to his cruiser.
“Copy that, Chief! Keep protecting the people or whatever the fuck your pledge is. Have a nice night!” And then he was off again.
~*~*~*~
Steve must’ve talked about his favorite movies for hours before he realized it was time to close and Wayne was still there. “Um, Mr. Munson? I’m sorry, you probably had things to do today and I wasted all your time ranting at you. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be, kid. It was nice hearing from you. Say, I’m sure Eddie would want to hear about some of those movies too. Could you come over tonight and tell us some more about ‘em?” Wayne offered.
Steve could tell a pity offer when he saw one though. “No, that’s okay. I can tell him another time. I have to start closing if you want me to check you out?”
Wayne sighed and made direct eye contact with him. “Listen kid, I know today’s your birthday and you aren’t spending it alone. So, you can either follow me back to the trailer or I’m gonna kidnap you and drag you there. You got me?”
Steve just looked at him in shock. What was up with older father figures trying to kidnap him? Was there something on his face that told them, ‘hey, I’m a good target for kidnapping, take me’? Was Wayne in kahoots with Hopper because this trend was getting a bit ridiculous.
“Wayne-”
“Nope, Eddie wants you there and I want you there. What are you going to do instead? If you have a good excuse, I’ll leave right now and break that boy’s heart.” Wayne looked at him expectantly. When it became apparent that Steve wasn’t going to say anything, he nodded. “Good, I’ll see you at the trailer. Drive safe.”
What the hell? Was that how age twenty was going to be? Confusing and full of ups and downs? Jesus Christ.
Steve finished closing the store quickly and made his way to Forest Hills. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on today but if they wanted to spend time with him, he wasn’t going to turn them down. The Munsons were some of his most favorite people and it’s not like there was a long list of people that wanted him around.
As soon as he opened the door to the trailer, everything made a little bit more sense. There were party streamers hanging from the walls, the most gruesome cake he had ever seen sitting on the table, and birthday hats on top of a beaming Eddie and an indifferent Wayne. Tears filled Steve’s eyes as he laughed. He couldn’t believe that they’d done all of that for him.
“Happy birthday, Stevie! I love you!” Eddie yelled, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips and pulling him into a bruising hug.
Wayne patted his shoulder a bit awkwardly and murmured, “I love you too kid but I ain’t kissin’ ya.”
Steve could hardly even speak through the rush of happiness he was feeling. Eddie had found a way to make his birthday special again. He’d cared enough to spend his day organizing a nice night for Steve to feel loved again, to feel happy on his special day. Sure, not everything was fixed and there was still a small amount of hurt that the kids and Robin hadn’t done anything. But he had Eddie and Wayne and they were all he really needed. He finally had a family and he couldn’t be any happier. Eddie was right, ‘86 truly was a great year.
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#The kids see a polaroid taped to Eddie’s fridge a few weeks later of them smiling in front of the cake#That's how they find out they missed Steve’s birthday.#Eddie holds a grudge against them and bars them from seeing Steve for awhile#He also murders all of their characters in DnD but that's neither here nor there#stranger things#steddie#steddie ish#fanfic#steve harrington#eddie munson#chief hopper#uncle wayne#wayne munson#jonathan byers
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The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois
It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality, which is exactly what Disco Elysium is doing with the RPG!
It goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.
One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.
ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID
The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.
But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.
Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.
Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.
It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!
By subverting our RPG expectations, it forces us to become more aware that these expectations even exist and how they fall short of reality. Yet, despite this subversion, the world of Disco Elysium feels so much realer to us.
ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID
Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.
A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.
The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.
Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.
If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.
It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.
As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”
In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control.
But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.
#disco elysium#metas#My thoughts#harry du bois#harrier du bois#human can-opener#jamrock shuffle#yeah so im reposting my meta because i worked really hard but i feel like it was too long for anybody to appreciate :')
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Please tell us about your DnD character when you make her (or him ig)!!! Desperate to hear
DnD is as you know going Badly and I'm considering hitting da bricks but I won't let that stop me from thinking constantly about Miri so here's the info!
Miriam is stolen from this short story I wrote because I needed to come up with a character quickly, but I have put So Much More Thought into her since I wrote the story. Basically as the story goes, her sister was the generation's Chosen One who had to go off and defeat the Great Evil, and the secret part of the prophecy was that Miri had to try to kill her sister and either succeed or her sister would overcome her and in doing so take on the hero's mantle fully by choosing lawful justice without attachments, the ultimate state of heroism (it is Purposefully a deeply flawed view of heroism. Neither I nor Miri have much time for whoever came up with this prophecy).
But wait there's MORE NOW. Miri refused to try to fight her sister, and never told anyone (except her husband we'll get to him later) about her destiny. As per usual in these situations, all the ghosts of previous generations' traitors took up residence in her mind and tried to convince her by any means possible to enact her fate, trying to convince her, trying to overwhelm her, trying to take her over almost. She kept fighting against them.
This was made worse by the fact Miri's sister didn't invite her to the wedding between her and the local Duke (it's a tradition the duke and the hero marry), and when Miri was in the crowds outside as the newlyweds rode through the streets, her sister looked straight at her and seemed not to recognise her at all. It would have been better if it were active ignoring, but it seemed that Salla truly just didn't notice Miri. And Miri went home and talked about how lovely a wedding it had been and almost blacked out from how loud the ghosts were getting.
The problem also is that Miri would usually have gone to her parents with something like this (she's only 16 at this point btw) but her parents are so proud of Salla and they love her so much and Miri knows that if she told them, they would hate her. So she has to live knowing that. Which sucks for her.
A few years pass and she and Mark, whom she always knew growing up (it's a small village), fall in love. He proposes to her, she tells him she can't marry him, and explains about the ghosts. He is the only person who will ever know about them. And she says he would have to constantly support her with them, they're always going to impair her in some way, and she can't be that kind of burden to him (I think of them as like if intrusive thoughts were chronic pain, but also evil and sentient? if that makes sense?). Anyway she has good and bad days and a few days later it's a village festival and she turns up because there's nothing outwardly wrong with her, but it's a bad day. So all she can really do without the voices taking control of her is sit there. Mark notices this and he spends the entire time she's there warding off people who are going to talk to her while not intruding in her space himself, and then walks her home and makes sure she's ok and going to eat something and rest and not hurt herself. So she's like ok I guess I'm going to marry this man then.
The thing is also, her ability to control the voices gets worse when she's less able to concentrate, when she's angry or sad or tired or destracted at all. So they have a baby boy, and a few months in she is more tired than she has Ever Been In Her Life, and she accidentally loses control. The ghosts are trying to get her to kill Salla primarily, obviously, but they're not always straightforward about it, and they reckon if she becomes a murderer generally, she'll be more inclined to try to kill Salla ultimately. So Miri loses it for a few seconds and when she grapples her control back she finds herself on the verge of murdering her son.
After that, she and Mark make sure she's not left alone with the baby until she's completely convinced she's in a place where it won't happen again, and they decide not to have any more children. They do accidentally have another, another boy, but after that they stop, which is actually really gutting because Miri wanted more, she really wanted kids but she doesn't think she can risk it. She's terrified of hurting the ones she already has.
So the years pass more and Miri reaches about 34, she's pretty much in control of the voices, she's doing alright, she helps carve the jade her husband mines and carves, but then she finds out Salla, from whom she's heard nothing in the almost two decades since the wedding, has gone missing, and her husband the duke, who's a twat, isn't bothering to look for her. So she talks about it a lot with Mark and eventually decides to go out looking. That's the quest we meet her on.
The big problem currently is that Mark has been a stabilising influence for years now, Miri hasn't spent significant time away from him in at least a decade, and she also has a very clear routine at home, which she's not lost. So she's feeling very unsteady, she's a very resentful person naturally, she's having to find a sister who abandoned her and whose existence low-key ruined her life (even though that's not Salla's fault) so she's not doing too good with that, and because of the ghosts she can be very impatient and sharp, because she's too distracted trying to suppress them to be able to be completely polite all the time. There's also permanant Guilt of the general kind. All of which leads to the problem that she's not necessarily the most likeable person? Like she's very complicated, she's trying so hard to be nice but she was literally born to be evil, it wouldn't come naturally to her even if she didn't have ghosts in her brain, so she really doesn't always come across well. Which can be a little bit of a problem.
I love her so much though.
#one of the girls in the party is writing up a story based on the game but like#more coherent and with fewer long debates and better dialogue#and with some plot points changed and it's fun and we're chill with it#but the thing is she makes Miri very nice#which is fine and good and I like her Miri a lot#but making Miri always nice I think cuts down on the fact in my mind she's a very complicated person#there's a lot going on with her at any moment#it's very hard for me to get inside her head and I wrote her#she's a lot#and I'm trying to make her nice because I can't antagonize the entire party#but it's not easy because she's just? not?#Grace plays dnd#also Mark the love of her life Mark the love of MY life we see basically nothing of him#but he is a Good Man and a Good Husband and I care very deeply for him#I rarely write straight-forward openly good people so he's lovelt#*lovely
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finished season two of the magnus archives! here is my s2 livetweet thread and here are my reflections/predictions from season one.
jon:
you are so fucking stupid. so incomprehensibly dumb. it is absolutely incredible how you lack any brain cells at all.
if jon was a dnd character he’d have a plus three to intelligence and a negative two to wisdom. i’m right.
[jon voice] people care about me? Must Be A Manipulation Tactic!
[jon voice, continued] literally everyone except for me is a) a murderer, b) using me, or c) hiding something. i, however, am totally fine and also sane and if you imply otherwise you are definitely Hiding Something and i need to stalk you.
seriously it’s a goddamn miracle he wasn’t fired or didn’t just like....explode on the spot
that awkward moment when you befriend a cop and get tapes that may lead to your successor’s cold murder case being solved but in the process you learn that you and your place of employment are actually owned by The Great, All-Powerful [REDACTED]
it’s so interesting listening to a man’s mental health and sanity decline in real time!
martin: do u want some tea? jon: you’re going to kill me huh?
[jon voice] it is a good idea for me to enter these dangerous tunnels alone on multiple occasions. i am fine.
his fatal flaw is still pursuit of knowledge. love that for him.
baby please you work for an entity that probably literally thrives off knowledge.......please grow some brain cells in season three before you literally die doing something stupid
i literally can’t say anything more about s2 jon that isn’t me just repeating “stupid dumb paranoid baby” over and over again
martin:
martin [shaking hands emoji] me
playing the mediator as our family loses their minds around us
martin blackwell recieves everything he has ever wanted and needed challenge!!!
baby i love you
HE CARES SO MUCH AND NOBODY CARES ABOUT HIM.......
martin’s job this season is literally the concerned husband but we’re not ready to talk about that yet
my dude really stepped up at the end! he was gonna fight michael in hand to hand combat for jon and sasha and i’m so proud of him!
martin went from baby to hold my flower
martin saw some shit in season one and now he’s a badass
his poetry.....i cried i literally love him so much
when he was talking to tim in the tunnels and he just breaks. and yells. and says he wants to get out of here and save jon and help sasha and be happy and you know what if everything DID turn out in the end that would be kind of nice actually!!!!
we didn’t see much of him this season but from what we did, especially at the end......the character development.......he’s so much braver now, so much more ready to confront the horrors of the world around him. martin is one of those special people that runs on love and uses love as a driving force to fight for the things he needs.
i hope someday martin gets to sit down in a nice little cottage in the middle of nowhere with someone who loves him and just. relax. it’s what he deserves.
tim
you are the only bitch in this house i ever respected
literally just trying his best
so incredibly valid
GIVE HIM A BREAK
as someone who is the least confrontational person on the planet i really respect and admire tim calling jon out on his bullshit
that scene was so cathartic.....god.....
@ THE ELDRICH BEING RUNNING THE ARCHIVES CAN YOU PLEASE LET HIM GO HE JUST WANTS TO LEAVE
tim at the beginning of s2: hey jon you okay? you’re acting weird and it’s kind of freaking us out
tim at the end of s2: fuck archivist lives and jon in particular,
and you know what? he’s right
i hope tim gets to go home. it won’t happen but i can dream.
are we just gonna brush over that part in the finale where michael just???? bamfed them to another dimension or something????? because neither tim nor martin seemed the least bit phased
honestly tim/jon has rights. i enjoy it.
he’s just so angry and hurt and done. he’s reached his limit. goodbye
get tim out of the archives s3!!! do it!!!
gertrude
wow i love you
every time i hear gertrude’s voice i just go [one thousand teary-eyes emojis]
there’s a lot we don’t know and there’s a lot that she knows. i wish we could like. raise her from the dead or something. altho honestly with a horror podcast who the hell knows
jon listening to/hyperfixating on gertrude is just a fancy way of him claiming her as his new mother figure
GOD I LOVE HER I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT HER CAN WE GET A SPINOFF PLEASE
basira and daisy
the only cops with rights
that part where tim thought basira was jon’s girlfriend and they both dissolved into gay panic.....priceless
daisy step on me challenge. i’ve met her twice and i love her.
honestly basira is such a badass. stealing from the cops while being a cop? that takes guts and i really respect her lack of respect toward cops while being one
not to mention that entire business with that sentient cult darkness shit. she killed it in there (no pun intended). give her like a purple heart or something idk how cops work
daisy.....please tell me your secrets. what have you seen. what do you know.
melanie
please work for the archives i am BEGGING you
my ghost hunter girlfriend
i love her and jon’s relationship. just pure loathing. tension between the hunter and the archivist. i live for that shit.
but under that it’s like Oh Shit I Actually Care A Lot???? like their loathing comes from their businesses being judgemental enemies, but personally they actually have a lot in common and care for each others’ wellbeing.
i really hope melanie sticks around so we can learn more about her and see her friendship with jon grow into....an actual friendship
shes also a total badass and both her research and deducing skills are so good. she’s just a great archive candidate overall.
michael
[REDACTED]
what the fuck are you
what the fuck do you want
why do i like you so much.
okay there’s a lot more going on here but i’m putting my predictions under the cut!
okay lets check out my predictions from last time.
okay this one was partially right! “entities” rule the world apparently, and the archive is run by one of them. sort of got that!
.....yeah that didn’t happen.
hell yeah! i’m proud of myself for this one, even though the time loop part wasn’t true. i thought “time loop” because her voice started echoing when she hit the table, but turns out that was just her crazy long copy taking over. oh well!
nope. gertrude was killed by elias, apparently. fucker.
WELL.........
okay. this one is complicated because i was sort of correct but there’s still a lot of information i don’t know. gonna give myself half credit for this one i think.
REMEMBER IN THE FINALE WHEN MARTIN THOUGHT HE SAW SASHA AND TIM HAD TO STOP HIM FROM RUNNING IN TO SAVE HER? YEAH.
okay, season three predictions. let's go.
(disclaimer: while i haven’t been actively looking up spoilers or engaging in the tma tag, i also haven’t muted the tag or anything associated with it. i have ideas of what’s to come but they’re vague and mostly come from fanart on my dash/timeline).
jon just gives up. he’s having to much of a crisis to do anything other than his job.
jonmartin endgame still
michael becomes a sort of??? constant presence??? at the archive. everyone just kind of accepts it.
the books and the entities make a lot more things make sense. that’s really vague i know but like.
predictions for the entities:
fire/destruction
knowledge (jon stans rise up)
empty/alone (these stories always get to me the most. the ones where you’re endlessly falling or trapped in a cave or can’t sleep or stuck in space. shit scares me more than anything else)
chaos (i think michael is with this one. the doors also fit into this category, and maybe that shipping company)
death/id (brings out the bareness of human instinct. the meat, the bloodlust, and the death. maybe even the bugs go here, but they’re confusing. i don’t know where they fit.)
each entity represents a deep-set human fear. they were created to either teach us lessons or keep us in line.
sometimes they have devoted followers. sometimes they have disciples or avatars. you can lose yourself to them if you aren’t careful. jane was probably an avatar, that girl with the heat powers on hilltop road was an avatar, that guy with the lightning powers was an avatar, etc.
the books can teach you how to connect with the entities, but you have to be actually insane to try it. (if you aren’t already, you certainly will by the time you finish the reading/ritual. if you even survive)
anyway back to actual plot.
jon learns more from gertrude’s tapes about elias and the archives. maybe even the entities. he doesn’t want to know, but as we’ve learned, he Just Can’t Not Know.
jon finally grows a brain cell and lets people (martin) take care of him. a little.
tim is just there. he hates it but he can’t leave. (someone please get him out this is so sad)
melanie and basira join up with the archive, but for different reasons. melanie because jon asks her to, basira because despite her best interest she couldn’t stay away.
at the end of the season we’ll either meet a powerful avatar person of one of the entities themselves. that will be.....interesting.
elias gets hit by a bus. won’t happen but i can dream.
what ever happened to that one man from season one who had the dreams about death? i loved his statement. is there anyone out there like him? will jon receive a message like gertrude did?
WHAT IS THE LIGHTER FOR. i completely forgot about it until i looked at my last predictions and saw it mentioned.
martin is more active in tapes (again unlikely but i can dream. i love him)
that’s about all i got! i’m going to post this and immediately start season three. wish me luck :)
#tma#the magnus archives#tma season 2#jonathan sims#i love any cryptic laughter but please no actual spoilers!
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dunking and danging: kings of all cosmos
ok my dnd game is pretty certifiably dead so im gonna post here the skeleton of the plot i had planned, if you were in my game and want to preserve your innocence then do not read further
PLAYERS
squamata, a reptilian mystic
glenjamin gogol, a elemental monk who is dwight from the office
tobi, a hobbit ranger with a giant toad friend named george
and clayface, a goblin who makes things out of clay
ACT 0: EXPOSITION
the four of them appear in the sky over throne, a weird city where the sun is chained to the ground and ultraviolence is everywhere. also, demon wasps are attacking them. they fall through the roof of a building and meet the wanderers guild: neptune, jupiter and venus. they explain that this world is ruled by an asshole named zosimos, and that he has fucked off but left four kings to rule in his absence, and that there is a prophecy about a rising star that will overthrew zosimos and rule the universe as the new king, and one of them is the rising star. they’re stuck here unless one of the kings opens a way back to their homeworlds so they agree that they might as well become kings themselves
ACT 1: THE BLEAK ACADEMY
(i originally called this the black academy and then started kicking myself halfway through when i realized i fucked up the color scheme) (this is the only arc we finished)
the first king is lord entropy, principal of the bleak academy and inventor of murder. he cannot be killed by murder, which is a problem cause thats basically how you take the title of king from someone. everyone takes a youth potion and goes undercover at the bleak academy. there were some fun classes and squamata vowed to fuck lord entropy (leading to the famous “it’s not breaking the windflower law if it’s just eating ass”). in the end they befriend his daughter desecration roseblack attaris ebrot appeka entropy (and she ends up briefly played by a guest pc) who tells them about a scroll containing entropy’s true name (i wrote kind of a cool backstory for this i may post eventually) that can compel him to do anything. so they break into the library, then break into the secret underlibrary, to get the name. then they go confront entropy in his office, have a bigass boss battle, and then one of them commands entropy to attack so he can be killed in self-defense. rejoicing! they solved the murder puzzle! a star flies from entropy’s head to rest on tobi’s brow but im sure that’s not important for now! as they’re celebrating some old drunkard comes up to tobi and asks what she thinks about death, and her response is basically “it’s not something to worry about”
ACT 2: KEEPER OF THE FLAME
They wake up with a hangover and get an invitation from lady enheduanna, who is coincidentally the next king they gotta tick off. she’s throwing a party for nemontemi, which is basically calibration/halloween/the purge, and wants them there. the wanderers suggest they go shopping to get ready, and they basically have a christmas episode shopping and having fun with each other. they get back, and as they’re falling asleep, tobi wishes that “every day could be like this” in a very imperial voice. oops! they wake up and find that they’re in a time loop. after discussing it for a while they decide to go break back into the bleak academy’s library and look for information about time shit, and find that the key to breaking a time loop is usually a person that has to change
(this is where we left off)
the plan was for them to go talk to enheduanna, who at this point has probably been through a couple loops of their time loop (only the players and the kings keep their memories through the loop) and is probably kind of pissed off. but she offers them their hearts desires if they will go and steal from hell for her: she wants the forbidden apple, the fruit of life, because her current method of immortality is fading. (i really wanted to deliver the mottom speech ok). so then its a fun montage where they have less than a day to break into the brass embassy, which is hell’s embassy in throne, and find the door that will let them into actual hell, kill the serpent guarding it, and get back. surprise! enheduanna double-crosses them and tries to kill them. presumably they kill her and one of them becomes imperator of hunger
INTERMISSION: WAY DOWN NADIR TOWN
(this is possibly where this goes but maybe not)
the wanderers get a contract from the crooked-crosses, a gang of dickensian orphan urchins. they had a special treasure: one of the sparks of divinity leftover from the dead gods. it was stolen by a thief named snuffer, who has fled to nadir, which is a mining town inside the skull of a long-dead god. its run by a mysterious guy known only as Bossman, and nobody ever comes back. so they traverse the spiral road down, pass through the stygian wall and the kerberoi, and get admitted as miners. bossman provides food, board and company scrip, so by the time you actually find anything worth selling you’re probably so deep in debt it doesnt matter. his enforcers are the vakes, vaguely batlike people who swoop overhead in darkness; and the longer you stay in nadir the more you forget, so that the oldest workers are zombies who have forgotten everything but work. theres a friendly old worker named bones who points them towards the Hole, a speakeasy run by a lady named lilac. at the hole you can buy back some memories: sunlight, fresh air, clean water, love. of course, lilac is secretly the bossman. anyways, they find snuffer, but hes forgotten who he is and where hes hidden the spark. he begs them not to kill him cause hes just a kid too, and promises to pay them off if they rescue him. hes in debt to bossman, but bossman can be tempted by a suitable wager. the spark is actually in bossman’s vault as well. im almost certain this intermission ends in a riot.
ACT 3: KASTLE KORPUSLES
(backstory: in our last campaign one of the players was herbst korpusles, a paladin who was also basically agnostic. he had a little homunculus he kept in his beard and was raising like a son, but he was kind of a bad parent, so the homunculus was growing evil and basically sucking all the evil out of him. as time went on he got smaller and the homunculus got bigger and at the end of it you could barely tell them apart. the homunculus was named squilliam but thats neither here nor there. at the end of the last campaign they slew a demon named the king in yellow who basically possessed the empress and then herbst got made king for it, cause he also had excalibur)
hadnt really hugely planned this part but basically throne is split into quarters, and one of the quarters would be like industrial england (as opposed to the rest of throne which is more like ksbd) and ruled by this multiversal warlord named king korpusles who is, surprise surprise, that old herbst. they go to confront him through his castle which is simultaneously in throne and in albion (the world of our last campaign). i was probably going to send them to go discuss with a couple of other old characters: the druid raven veaux and the warlock valentine bebe, who are probably living in a bog together. they go to confront korpusles who has turned all of albion into one big war machine but he throws the cape off his hunchback and its not a hunchback at all! its a tiny little man just sort of attached to him sucking on his blood. is he the homunculus or the original herbst? neither can remember! also the king in yellow was the previous imperator of war and thats how korpusles is zoss’ king now. big fight, big murders. someone becomes imperator of war
ACT 4: THE APOCALYPSE SERPENT
the fourth king is kind of a problem, cause whereas the other kings were old and/or magically powerful this one is old, magically powerful and a mile-long dragon. its name is kormis, the apocalypse serpent, and it has been sleeping for ages but recently awoken due to all the hubbub. but they have a plan! throne is dotted with giant statues that are the corpses of gods and are sort of incorporated into architecture, but the wanderers have got word of one they can sort of reanimate. unfortunately its being occupied by their rivals, the most illustrious guild of judicious violence. they have to clear out the main room in the skull, then keep it clear while they perform the ritual to reanimate the god-corpse into basically a giant mecha. then they call out kormis, and have a proper mecha/kaiju battle. someone becomes the imperator of conquest.
ACT 5: BIG ZOSS BATTLE
the sun is chained to the tower of the sun, zoss’ palace, which the angels previously refused to let them into aaaalll the way back in act 1. but now they’re kings so they can enter. they go in, and aside from angels just kinda hibernating in between missions, its... empty. no palace here! but there is some kind of teleporter pad or something. they pop up, and appear in a room looking out over a plain of fire which is otherwise very luxurious. zoss’ palace isn’t underneath the sun, it’s on the sun. also, zoss is there, lounging with some cocktails. it turns out hes been grooming them as kings to take over, cause the current batch kind of fucking suck and hes bored of doing it himself. then they fight the king of the universe on top of the sun
#dunking and danging#what could have been....#can you tell i was extremely on my ksbd kick when i planned all this
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