#especially the last two episodes! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year

Text

MAG 200 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: sitting in my hammock chair on the balcony

It's still that same Tuesday I started with MAG 195. But it's 6 pm now, so I was toying with the idea of saving this last episode for later. Since it was only one episode and no way to get anything done in just 25 minutes, I decided to listen to it right away. Back then I didn't know TMA was supposed a tragedy because I kept off everything TMA on the internet to avoid spoilers. And I was so used to mainstream fiction which for the most part was not daring enough to really get into mean endings. And I don't speak of just bad endings, I mean really, reaaaally mean ones. The Mist comes to my mind, I thought that was particularly unlucky. And, as I said last episode, I missed that Jon gave Georgie his lighter XD In these few hours since I listened to MAG 197 I didn't really have time to process what all of this meant. I just wanted to see Jon and Martin okay. So I went out on the balcony, got cozy in my hammock and thought to myself "Alright! Time so save the world!"... Oh boy xD

JON: "Jonah Magnus! …" [ARCHIVIST STATIC RISES] JON: "Ceaseless Watcher, you know why I am here. Release him." [STATIC CRESCENDOS AND THEN DIES DOWN AS CHANTING AND BACKGROUND STATIC DRONE CEASE] “Ceaseless Watcher, you know why I am here” is so anticlimactic XD What happened to theater kid Jon? Also yeah, at that point on my first listen I got a bit suspicious. We have only heard Jon until now. No Martin...

JONAH/ELIAS: "What’s – ? Wh-what’s going on? Where – ?" [METAL BLADE IS DRAWN] Hey uhh... Where did they have the knife from? XD I mean, there is so much weight put on that lighter, that they NEED it for the plan because they couldn't get fire elsewhere apparently? But they had a knife... Totally possible that Martin brought it from the cabin though back when he didn't know what to expect from the outside world.

JONAH/ELIAS: "Where’s Martin? I rather thought he’d be the one to do the deed. …" [METALLIC CLINK] JONAH/ELIAS: "Ah, I see. Going it alone, are we? Probably for the best. Empathy only holds you back in the end." Cue Surprised Pikachu Face me XD (Also fuck you, Elias. Even now he still mocks Jon.)

JONAH/ELIAS: "Uh, L-Look, John, a-as fun as all this melodrama is, enough is enough. We both know you that don’t have it in you –" [FOOTSTEPS, FOLLOWED BY SOLID CONNECTION] JON: "That was for Sasha." JONAH/ELIAS: "J-Jon, wait!" [ANOTHER BLOW, ACCOMPANIED BY WHEEZING] JON: "For Tim." JONAH/ELIAS: [Afraid] "P-Please Jon!" [AND AGAIN] JON: For Gertrude, and all the others." [WINDED, LABOURED BREATHING] This however is music to my ears xD Thinking back to MAG 162, Tim speculating that Jon wouldn't avenge them...

JONAH/ELIAS: [Wheezing, pitiful] "P-Please Jon… [coughs] I don’t want to die." JON: "Neither did they." JONAH/ELIAS: [Soft, terrified] "No, no… N–" JON: "But no-one escapes at the end." [WITH EFFORT, THE ARCHIVIST STABS DEEPLY] [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF CHOKING & GURGLING DEATH RATTLE] [BODY SLUMPS HEAVILY] Okay first, my reaction during my first listen: Shocked. Like "no, no, no, no, what is he doing" (still in denial) "Okay, how can we turn this around..." Second, thinking of MAG 82. Never underestimate your opponent. Elias saying that Jon doesn't have to stomach to kill a man in cold blood. And that's exactly what happens here. No Eye-magic, no "Ceaseless Watcher". Just a man killing another man. I do like that this is the last thing Jon does before you could argue he lost his connection to humanity.

JON: [Pained] "– the flaying of skin… burning, retching on the smog of… hide, hide, hide… it is not real but still it comes to… falling through the pitch black daa-aaaaaargh!" Oh man, that moment when it looks like he cannot control it and is just as hollow as Elias was when he was "in charge".

So the first Fear to exist was the Hunt. Was then already the Dark? Cause "because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes". But with the minds the Dark was mentioned after the End: "The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself."

"And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger" Eye already there at the beginning? Spiral then perhaps? And then the opposite of the Eye, the Stranger. Kind of surprised it was only birthed then. I also see mimicry in the Stranger. Was that still part of the Hunt? What about animals who lived in colonies, getting their leader switched out with a younger stranger who came to conquest the herd.

"and the silence when they were alone." Lonely.

"And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again." Desolation.

"And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them." But this is the Eye for sure, right?

"And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again." Hm... why?

"But within these forms were freedoms, new and wonderful dreads to push and explore, new muscles to flex." This already sounds fleshy, but I thought the Flesh only really formed after livestock got out of hand.

"The joy of oozing, crawling pestilence as minds distrusted their own corrupted bodies." Okay, Corruption.

"And as they grew to learn their place within the world, the pathetic meagreness of their own existence, they could not spin a story rich or grand enough to fully hide their own awful insignificance, lost and alone in the terrible greatness of the universe." Vast.

"And by the time these minds had reached a point of intricacy to lie and scheme and puppet one other, they had also learned to conceive of war." Web and Slaughter.

"And so it drew its plan to escape not only this ephemeral cage of non-existence, but even the very reality into which they might break, and it chose its fool: The Great Eye, the most unwise of all the fragments, forever seeking and consuming knowledge that it could not comprehend." Wow, I do not appreciate that XD What a diss...

I missed the Buried somewhere...?

MARTIN: "Oh thank god. Just, just, just stop what you’re about to do, okay? I know that you think that a– … What’s that?" A smoothie?

JON: "I did. I am." MARTIN: "Why?!" JON: "You know why. I can’t let them out. I can’t! Not again." MARTIN: "Oh, what have you done, Jon!" JON: "Go tell the others. It’s over." MARTIN: "N-No… you don’t understand!" JON: "What?" I like to think Jon's the same, but he sounds so free of emotion here. Only getting a bit harsher at "I can't let them out. I can't!". And that "What?", it's still flat but there is also an almost belittling tone to it...

MARTIN: "I didn’t think you’d go through with it! Not without me! I can’t believe you’d do this! That you’d leave me like this! You swore to me! You swore to me, you bastard!" T________T That reaction is so real.

JON: "Martin! I’m still here." MARTIN: "Are you!? How much of you is even left now?" JON: "It’s still me, Martin. I’m still here." MARTIN: "How would you even know?" JON: "… I’m sorry Martin, I am, but it’s done. You can hate me, you can scream at me, but it won’t change anything. I had to do this." What I find the most hurtful in this is Jon's apathy. He seems so content, even though his boyfriend is screaming at him.

JON: "And you promised." MARTIN: [Angry trembling] "Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you dare!" Jon thinks he kept his promise. For him it always meant that there is an option in which no one else would come to harm. For Martin it was literally anything that didn't require Jon to end up like this.

MARTIN: "You’re not listening! You never listen! They are down there fighting those things, and lighting it right now!" JON: "It’s fine, Martin, I’ll call off the servitors. They can’t light it, they don’t have… they don’t…" Okay, maybe... just maybe there after Martin's line there could have been room for a Girl(s) on Fire (see what I did there? xD) scene. But I feel like Jon's line would have had to be changed then for re-entering the Panopticon scene... I can't really see it working though, I think the whole thing in the Panopticon works as it is!

JON: [PATS CLOTHING] "Wait a – Oh… Oh, no." I was like "wait what???" xD

Only after the explosion hits Jon seems to regain a bit of emotions. Did becoming the Pupil of the Eye really strip him of humanity? Was the Eye taking so much space that Jon couldn't really get through with his emotions. With the Panopticon starting to crumble it would make sense that the Eye is losing power and so it also loses its grip on him.

JON: [Struggling] "No! I can feel the pull… The web, the tapes, it wants – No! I won’t let it!" Oh man, that monstrous tone to "No! I won't let it!". Even though we know that's him, especially this part it him and him alone. He’s fighting so hard.

JON: "Martin, get out of here! What’s going to be left of me after this, you can’t see that." That seems more like him. In tone and context.

JON: "Martin, please! I can’t lose you. Not like this…" MARTIN: "Tough! Okay? Where you go, I go!" JON: "That’s the deal…" I'm glad they agree on this.

JON: "Okay." MARTIN: "What?" Oh god, he knows this doesn't sound good...

JON: "Do it! The knife’s just there. Let them go." MARTIN: [Tearful] "I’m not going to kill you!" Aw man, when you think there’s no way this is gonna get any worse...

JON: "Cut the tether. Send them away." You coooould, technically, take this literally and Martin did not stab Jon but only cut him free from the Eye! And they go somewhere else and everything will be sunshine and rainbows, right?... Right???

JON: "Maybe we both die. Probably. But maybe not. Maybe, maybe everything works out, and we end up somewhere else." Gonna bring that up again in a bit! But also this and then the ending scene with the girls give us that beautiful ambiguous ending.

MARTIN: "Together?" JON: "One way or another. Together.” Throwback to MAG 154... Don’t know if it was intentional, but it’s beautiful.

MARTIN: "I don’t think I can…" JON: "It has to be you. The Eye won’t let me do it." What was it with Daisy? That it felt right, that the people we love are actually the only ones who can hurt us? It really has to be Martin. (It also works with Jon killing Elias. Elias liked Jon in a way, he was proud of Jon in that sick disgusting way. Jon was the reason he got what he wanted. And it only makes sense that Jon was the only one who could take it from him. So Jon could hurt him.)

MARTIN: [Sobbing] "Are you sure about this?" JON: "No. But I love you." MARTIN: "I love you too." [KISS] At that point on my first listen I was ugly-crying so hard I didn't even hear the kiss xD I read it online a few days later and was super confused like "I didn't hear anything!!", checked the transcripts and went back to listen to that part again - and get my heart crushed again :`) Do we know where that sound effect comes from? Because I remember Alex screaming when Anil suggested he and Jonny actually should make out: “We did it and it didn’t work!” xDDDD

[MARTIN STABS DEEPLY; THERE IS A SINGLE GASP] [PAINED SOB] That is so good... The gasp, Martin crying. Alex really knows how to cry XD I was already impressed by that back in MAG 118. Hm... I thiiink I could do it as well. I start crying very easily. Just channel some shit that happened. Hard part would be stopping to cry then xD Oh, since we have two stabbings in this episode I just wanted to raise some trivia about Christopher Lee correcting Peter Jackson on set of The Lord of The Rings. It was about the sound a person actually makes when they got stabbed in the back. Because Christopher Lee served in WW2 and he heard that sound first hand... And it actually is just a gasp, because the air is driven from your lungs. So very well done here!

And there we have it. Martin did the one thing he said he won't do under no circumstances... In MAG 129 he said he won't let Jon die again, and now he's even the one doing it. In MAG 186 he also said he won't do it, he can't. And in MAG 199 he admitted to think he can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that he knew meant losing him. But Jon gave him an out for this one. He said there's a chance that everything works out and that they end up somewhere else. So Martin does in fact not know if this truly means losing Jon.

[DISTORTED SCREECH, WITH SOUND LIKE TAPE RAPIDLY UNSPOOLING AMIDST A RISING CRESCENDO OF STATIC] [THEN… CLICK] Is that the spider web? I never pulled it through a spectograph myself.

GEORGIE: [Calling] "You found something?" BASIRA: "Just one of the old tape recorders." I don't think the Fears still linger in their world. I know this has been a theory since one of the tape recorders is still here. I personally wouldn't think to much into it aside from it simply being a narrative device here. And the recorder did stay off this time when Basira turned it off. Maybe after that the recorder fucked off to the rest of the tapes, reaching Jon and Martin Somewhere Else to let them know everyone is okay over there. I don't think Annabelle lied. Yes, the Web manipulates but I think it does it surprisingly often by presenting the truth, but in a way so people interpret it in the exact direction the Web wants them to.

GEORGIE: "No. Still no sign of them." BASIRA: "No bodies, though. That’s a good sign, maybe?" GEORGIE: "Maybe." Georgie and Basira, who were both very much friends with Jon at the end, still cling on to them.

MELANIE: "Maybe it’s time to accept that they’re gone." Of course Melanie is the first one to close this chapter.

MELANIE: "And, honestly, it’s probably for the best. I mean, I just don’t think people would exactly be understanding. You remember what happened when they found Simon Fairchild?" GEORGIE: "Yeah…" MELANIE: "And he’s not just some powerless left-behind avatar, you know? We’re talking about ‘The Archivist’." Melanie does have a point here. I love that everyone remembers what happened. This must be such a fucked up world right now. Not least because holy hell, the streets must be carnage, people openly performing vigilantism... Even when it comes to the case of Simon Fairchild I do like a bit of karma.

I do wonder how everyone was doing during the process of going back to the normal world. Did people magically reappear where they were before the Eyepocalypse? With all of them remembering what happened (because it did very well happen) I think this didn’t go so well. The Eyepocalypse happened, and then it just ended. People in Buried domains just stay exactly where they are... Buried and suffocating. People in Vast domains actually raining down to the ground... (Yeah, I know, I just made the post-change world even more fucked up.) Oh god, would those people in the Mortal Garden turn back or just stay the way they are and die instantly...

BASIRA: "Yeah okay, you’ve made your point. [sigh] Would just be nice to know for sure." GEORGIE: "All we can do is hope." BASIRA: "I suppose." Yeah, what Melanie said can give them at least some ease. But I can understand than knowing for sure can help them find closure.

GEORGIE: "We should go. It’ll be dark soon, and we still need batteries for the nightlights." For all the victims of Dark domains. This also sounds like they are not back to their normal infrastructure... No power yet. Preppers in the US must be so proud of themselves right now and I hate that thought.

MELANIE: "And I’m sure Rosie’s keen for us to take the Admiral back off her hands." GEORGIE: "She’s alright, he’s calmed down a lot." MELANIE: "Thank god for tinned tuna." Yay Admiral!!!

BASIRA: "If anyone’s listening… Goodbye. I’m sorry, and… Good luck." Yes, we! We are still listening! (I immediately got from this forth wall break that we're supposed to be one of the universes the Fears moved to and this is the reason we got to hear this story.)

I would have loved to have any indication that Georgie could feel fear again, just to twist the knife a bit more!

Okay, when the credits started I also caught myself thinking "The Magnus Archives WAS a podcast distributed..." xD My second thought was "Fuck, they could have saved Daisy!!!"

Okay, my headcanon for the ending/the boys! You know what? I think this was the only way for Jon and Martin having a shot of possibly making it out alright. Traveling with the Fear. We know the Web can repair damages to the human body that would be fatal. If it can repair a cracked skull, it surely can repair a stab wound. And since the Fears exist in this new world they ended up the Web can do exactly that. If the Eye can like people (Martin), I'm sure the Web can like them all the more. It already liked Martin, but I'd say it also likes Jon. Both of them were basically its tools to get what it wants. So the Web gave them a chance at life in the new world (also, can’t harvest fear from dead people, so better if they’re alive). Jon would be free from the Eye since Martin cut the tether. Martin however... I feel like killing Jon in the collapsing Panopticon is his metaphorical death. It would work both for the Lonely (killing his loved one) or the Web (carrying out its plan), so depending on what one likes better, there's possibility for Lonely!Martin and Web!Martin. Jon would probably need hell of a lot of therapy... Martin as well. I'm a bit of a sucker for the headcanon that Jon and Martin did break up Somewhere Else only to find each other again when they had time to work through their trauma. Took me a bit to come up with that headcanon though, after I finished TMA I thought there was no way they could have survived/maybe just Martin survived and is now alone in a new world.

So on my first listen when I was done with the episode I felt strangely... nothing? I texted my sister that I had finished TMA now and that I don't know what to think of the ending. I guess binging S5 in just 5 days was a bit heavy when it comes to breaks I would have needed to process.

Cause and effect of the "feel nothing" thing, but at first I also found the last episode kind of underwhelming. Like there's missing something. Don't actually know if I felt nothing because I found it underwhelming or if I found it underwhelming because I felt nothing. After I had time to process and think about it some more, I do think it's very good as it is. I mean, it's hard to top MAG 160, that was just my personal peak in fiction. And I do think if TMA ended after something like MAG 160, after something that was soooo utterly "OMFG", I'd just be mad that I don't see how it went afterwards. It's the same with endgame ships. I fucking hate it when they finally get together in the last few minutes of the entire thing. Inu Yasha, She-Ra (I'd say Life is Strange, but there's a comic, so yay!). I want to see the couple together, otherwise all the URST was just the worst possible tease and "ha ha, in your face" ever, like thanks for nothing! Really glad, TMA didn't do that and we got to see an entire season of Jonmartin.

When I listened with my spouse, so basically my first relisten, I pulled through till the end. But on my second relisten I stopped after MAG 199. I really didn't want to listen to MAG 200.

Aaaaand I’m gonna do the recap of story progression here, because we now finished the main thing. So s1-4 copy-paste and then s5! MAG 1 bis 19: Start of September 2020 - July 2021 (11 months) MAG 20 - MAG 40: July 31st 2021 - August 19th 2021 (20 days) MAG 41 - MAG 80: August 19th 2021 - September 2nd 2021 (15 days) MAG 81 - MAG 120: September 2nd - September 20th 2021 (19 days - with 7 days intermission) MAG 121 - MAG 160: September 20th 2021 - October 1st 2021 (12 days) MAG 161 - MAG 200: October 1st 2021 - October 5th 2021 (5 days)

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 200 #tma #I guess there are no spoilers anymore right?#thanks everyone who read my thoughts during this #and especially for reading wall of texts like these last two episodes #I can't believe that I actually did that every single fucking day #I did want to write down my thoughts on each episode anyway so this event was a nice push to do it

28 notes · View notes

maya-matlin · 4 months

Note

very UO but if they couldn’t bring back Jake, they should have stuck Peyton and Julian together as endgame over Leyton! Julian and Peyton had already supposedly been in love, they both like cities (LA, NYC etc) and it makes sense they’d live there due to their careers, and both Peyton and Julian for a lot of their time on the series seemed ambivalent about starting a family. Also, Julian is smart and on the introverted side like Lucas but a little goofy like Jake - a combination of the traits Payron goes for! Meanwhile, we saw so clearly in season 5 that Brooke and Lucas both loved being back in one tree hill, they both seem to have jobs they can do anywhere, they both very much prioritize settling down and having a family, they were already unofficially co-parenting Angie, they still have that seemingly effortless and magical connection, they balance each other out perfectly…I could go on!

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded that one bit. First of all, Peyton deserved a million times better than Lucas by the time he finally got around to choosing her. She was lacking any sort of spine or self respect when she ran to that airport. As irritating as I found her character for large stretches of season 5, ultimately she wasn't in the greatest place and only imagined that her happiness could be attainable if she won Lucas back. Now to get back to what you were saying. I definitely think Peyton was better off and would have thrived most living away from Tree Hill in a bigger city where her dreams could really take off. I mean, the show really said that because Peyton wasn't exactly where she wanted to be at age 22 that this made her a failure and retroactively meant her decision not to rush down the aisle at age 19 had been a terrible, awful, shameful mistake. Seasons 6 and 7 Julian would have made a lot of sense as a partner for the ambitious Peyton who had faced so much trauma and pain in her hometown. STRONGLY agreed about your points re: Peyton and Julian being ambivalent and sometimes even negative about settling down in Tree Hill compared to Brooke and Lucas who genuinely loved it there and couldn't imagine raising their families elsewhere. I'm aware every aspect of this was unintentional considering the possibility of a Brucas endgame post season 3 was basically taboo, but in terms of compatibility Brooke/Lucas and Peyton/Julian made the most sense. If we couldn't have Jake back for Peyton, obviously. In the end, Peyton still left Tree Hill, something Lucas never wanted. And Julian settled for staying in Tree Hill for Brooke even though he'd rather be in LA. Relationships are all about compromise, but it's interesting how their situations sort of parallel. You should go on, because I love reading your thoughts! I genuinely think if not for Peyton's continued interest in Lucas and Lucas having an unfortunate history of making the same mistakes over and over again, Lucas would have eventually ended up with Brooke. Season 5 Brucas had such an ease around each other. Their goals lined up perfectly. The chemistry was still there. Their communication was really solid and both went out of their way to emotionally support the other. Maybe it's because the pressure was off considering neither was expressing their feelings, but you see them taking care of Angie and the way Lucas considered proposing to Brooke and instinctively know that they could have had it all. It's really depressing.

#Anonymous #I know it was all for the sake of the cliffhanger but I'll never be over Lucas desperately wanting to marry someone and fantasizing about #his potential marriage to Brooke #Peyton and Lindsey make sense #Lucas literally almost married Lindsey and Peyton spent the entirety of season 5 chasing Lucas down expressing remorse over rejecting #his marriage proposal #Brooke was never technically his love interest at any point #They hadn't dated since the first episode of season 4 and the last time Lucas tried to make something happen in the flashback set between #seasons 4 and 5 Brooke turned him down #But they were taking care of Angie together and he was this emotional support for Brooke because it's exactly where he wanted to be #And I mean the airport scene where he shows up after Brooke said she could say goodbye to Angie on her own #Lucas clearly at least at the back of his mind was thinking about Brooke as a romantic prospect even if it was unspoken #I'll die on this hill especially since most fans decry the idea that Lucas was ever legitimately in love with someone besides Peyton #The fantasy was kind of bullshit because out of all of Lucas's possible wives Brooke is the only one who in reality would want to #live in Tree Hill permanently but it's like he needed to convince himself Brooke was all wrong for him as did Mark Schwahn #Like sorry you accidentally wrote them as perfect for each other for two seasons and then later had to walk it back with poor writing #And felt Peyton should give up any sort of independence and free thinking to be right for Lucas #Ignore this because these tags are a mess

4 notes · View notes