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radioactivepeasant · 4 years

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Statement of Radioactivepeasant, concerning episodes 7-12 of The Magnus Archives

(Under a cut, because of length and possible spoilers)

Episode 7, thoughts:

The theme really reminds me of Bedtime Stories ' end credits theme.

Oof, the trenches. And a fascinating allegory(?) for war.

Reminds me of Baltimore or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola.

Oh. Very big Baltimore vibes, here.

This seriously sounds exactly like something Mignola would write.

Beautiful in a very sad way.

I thought the name Joseph Rainer (Rayner?) sounded familiar, too.

Are all these stories connected? Do all these...things come from the same place, perhaps?

Gah! What does that remind me of?! That's gonna bug me all week!

Episode 8, thoughts:

Hilltop road makes me think of Hill House. Sounds ominous.

Ominous tree: definitely cursed.

Uh...dude. Why did you open the door?! There was absolutely no need for you to open that door!!

My dude. You didn't think about how weird things were until after the guy vanished with the smell of burning hair?

"All the bones are in his hands"? That's...peculiar. I know I've seen that reference in other people's posts before, so it's most likely significant. Don't know why though.

Agnes sounds...fishy. Ghost type fishy, or other creepy critter.

Oh Agnes is so very suspicious.

Oh. That's why he smelled like burnt hair. Yuck.

Oh dang, evil haunted tree.

....that weird box sounds like the same goobly pattern as the weird table in the episode with the stalker lady. Episode 3?

Oop. That box was not a very good Tupperware. Or maybe it was a very good Tupperware since the apple lasted that long.

Was the apple what held The Agnes's heart? Like the story of The Troll With No Heart In His Body?

Episode 9, thoughts:

Oop, disappeared parent trope: activate!

Um. A hand and eye pendant? Hm. Don't like that.

Hands. Eyes. This sounds like it's turning into a Running Theme.

Are all the Statements connected?

Oh heck, they're Connected, aren't they?

This is gonna turn out like Baltimore where everything is secretly caused by or a symptom of one event, right?

The hand and eye pendant seems important.

...what is the dad hunting?

I assume he's going after whatever was responsible for the mom's disappearance. Which means he'd probably know why she disappeared.

Excuse me

Excuse me-

Rayner?!

Oh no

These are connected, aren't they?!

I've just decided

I don't like Rayner.

The thing with the lights reminds me of the Critical Role Call of Cthulhu oneshot.

Y'know what, this makes me think: like, all those stories with brooding guys hunting down and killing people responsible for family members' deaths? Yeah those guys technically are serial killers, aren't they?

This series would be way creepier with sound effects accompanying the Statements. I'm kinda glad there aren't any.

SPOKE TOO SOON.

Is this Temple of Doom??

Um...so...were the mom's "friends" a cult or something?

Rayner Again.

Wait, what was the Thing? Was the cult responsible for its presence? Like, did it vanish because Robert killed the cult members?

Episode 9, addendum:

Something is important about the name Rayner.

Either there's a chain of Rayners who are All into Nasty Business, or there's one Rayner who is somehow cheating death and continuously ruining people's lives.

Anyone here ever read the book Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero? Reminds me of that.

Episode 10, thoughts:

Wait, there's vampires?

I don't know why that surprised me. I guess they just seem mundane next to whatever eldritch abominations everyone else is seeing.

Well, we can't all be unknowable patches of living darkness or whatever, I guess.

Eww. Interesting choice in depiction of a vampire, definitely not the European variety, but nonetheless a familiar one. I wanna say the tongue thing reminds me of Indonesian folklore, but I can't say for certain.

Oh nope nope nope

Ewww

Hhhhhh no thank you!

This Herbert guy reminds me of a Lore episode with a real-life guy in like, the 80s who called himself a vampire hunter.

Oh hey, Martin! I like Martin so far. If only to spite Jon

I have no idea why.

Episode 10, addendum:

I forgot I hate vampires

I've just remembered why, everyone

Mm. Hate that.

Episode 11, thoughts:

Oh look, Gertrude. This seems portentous.

I see a lot of talk about Gertrude online that I don't understand, so clearly she's more than a poor record keeper.

These goobly black tendril things remind of of something from a videogame. Not sure which one. Resident Evil? Evil Within? I dunno. Something Markiplier played once.

I'm thinking of Junji Ito right now, not 100% sure it matches, but he has that feel sometimes.

What the heck does this remind me of??

Hm. Well this seems particularly ominous. Perhaps Jon ought to consider a change in careers.

Something is getting glooped into the Archives, or the Archivist, from somewhere.

Fear, maybe?

Died in the line of duty?!

She's an archivist! What in the heck does that mean?!

Episode 12, thoughts:

Ok, we're back. Had to take a break, still not a fan of that vampire episode.

Ah, a hospital. A classic setting for Unfortunate Goings-on. I've been in enough of 'em to be sympathetic to the setting for horror, but my childhood experiences just leave hospitals as more of a "oh not here again" thing for me.

I was gonna suggest spontaneous human combustion for this guy, but the way this series is shaping up, "spontaneous" might be the wrong word for it...

Eyes again...

Why so many eyes?

Wha-

Gerald Key?!

Or is it Gerard? Gerald or Gerard, I can't tell. Gerry.

Well, his ma did say he drew that fancy eye thing. Guess he likes the motif.

But still.

This is not a coincidence.

Either the Key family just gets into Weird Weird Stuff and multiple people have subsequent encounters, or else something Else is going on.

This is another one with Mignola vibes.

So...whatever this guy was chanting, I'm guessing it caused both the silence and the weird heat, and Gerry's burns. What, is he possessed or something?

Nurse got warped right into the Twilight Zone there for a moment.

So..."Asag brands the lightless flame"?

Huh. That's probably bad.

Those dang eyes again!

#long post #the magnus archives #loud text #tma jon #tma martin #tma episodes 1-12 liveblog #shoutout to pomrania for providing me with much needed content warnings

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murple · 3 years

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liveblog-ish pt. 2

Once again, some of these are from while I was listening, some are in retrospect. I find that typing while listening takes away from the ~full experience~

Anyways here’s my thoughts from episodes 10 - 15. spoilers, obviously.

(I forget how I formatted it last time so you’re stuck with this)

Ep 10 • Darius? DARIUS!!!! • Dont worry jared I'm just as dense as you. My friend had a crush on me for a year and almost confessed like 3 times and I never noticed • "Not trying hard enough" I'm gonna fistfight this therapist • I'm falling in love with darius by proxy • Oh god oh god camera • HELL YEAH STATIC AND GLITCHES

Ep 11 • WHAT • CASTIO?????? • OH GOD WTF • THIS IS JARED'S LAB PARTNER? THE CREDITS LADY???? • OH GOD • "Some... thing" Aghhhhhhhh • Oh god oh no oh god oh no • "Its" fuck you • Ok I'm gonna shut up and listen • Note from relisten: fuck he's being observed so much • "Creatures like those" this rules out option 1 • NO STAY AWAY FROM GROVE!!! I'm scared of dog sounds but I love him so STAY AWAY • Mr Zimmer sounds like the classic evil podcast man, like cutter • Note from relisten (bc I was too shook and angry the first time): FUCK ZIMMER • Dr rahal????? No he can't be evil too!! • "Human shell"???? • Note from relisten: this puts all the 'curse this flesh prison' in a very different light • Ok I'm gonna listen now

Ep 12 • Yup I knew they were evil therapists • Jared run away with darius. Just. Elope. • Not many notes bc I'm still reeling from ep 11

Ep 13 • IM CRYING THIS IS SO SWEET • Half of the truth is out! Congrats!! • He took that really well, but,,, oh my,,,,, the classic 'staring in horror at your loved one's scars',,,,,,, I have Emotions

Ep 14 • "Pacification of various creatures" fuck • Tbh I forgot abt this guy but he has extreme Long Term Shadowy Big Bad vibes. I feel dread about him • Yes Jamie hacker

Ep 15 • Ace mood. Pls no more details • Oh fuck did past-Jared kill Jamie's friend • I feel like my observations are highly influenced by the fact that I'm listening to this after a year long tma obsession which made me very suspicious of anything that even resembles something nice for the main character. My brain just automatically prepares for the path of deepest tragedy. Anyways I'm still convinced that Jared's past holds some pretty terrible stuff that he'll be horrified by if/when he finds out about it, including but not limited to his involvement in Jamie's friend's death. This is due to both how the blue lady said he changed so much since they last met (which ig could be referring to lots considering the whole "human shell" thing but STILL) and my "we can't have nice things" mentality • (My tone in the previous point was far too stuffy, imagine me saying all that very emotionally and distressedly like the conspiracy theorist I am) • But other than the looming dread, I'm so happy abt jared and Jamie's friendship!! Going from him thinking that he couldn't call her bc they never really talk to inviting her over to his house. Progress!!!!

• I’m completely hooked on this podcast now. Jared sounds like a Friend and I care him so much. I need him and Darius to be okay but at the same time I eagerly await the spooky horror stuff that’s bound to come next

• YIKES after the ep 11 revelation I’m so excited for the next episode,,,,, that feeling of excitement and dread and anticipation and agggghhhhh

• that rec list that said ‘here’s podcasts to fill the tma shaped hole in your heart’ wasn’t lying,,, I daresay this is better than tma. completely different vibes, but more my style (THE PROTAGONIST ACTUALLY HAS FRIENDS!!! GOD I CARE THEM SO MUCH)

• also something I haven’t really mentioned but I’m absolutely LIVING FOR is the sheer amount of queerness....... like, a canon nb protagonist??? with other nb friends???? and they actually like. Talk about gender????? (and also the whole not changing name and pronouns makes me so happy bc I also like my given name and don’t wanna change it, obviously for different reasons than jared, but it’s still nice to relate to) God it just gives me so much good happy feels, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a podcast that has so much good rep, and that’s not even starting about all the other queer relationships and how normal it all is. oh, to live in a queer small town full of cryptids.......

(also just to clarify, jared IS still using he/him, right? bc I’ve seen some fanart descriptions using they/them but I don’t remember hearing him say that he was gonna try that. maybe I missed it. I can be quite oblivious. if so, apologies, my brain decided to blank out at the wrong time and I’ll correct this post)

#jar of rebuke #spoilers #I've decided that this is my new obsession #I downloaded all the episodes so I can relisten when I move out for my summer job #gotta love not having internet #(it's actually genuinely really nice but still inconvenient)#jared hel

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ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife · 3 years

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TMA: Episode 12, “First Aid”

Summary: Jonathan reads the statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding “a night shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London.”

And here we have the second appearance of Jared Key. As Jonathan said, there’s a lot to unpack in whatever the hell went down in that hospital that night, but I think it’s interesting that Jared comes into the hospital that night with second-degree burns covering almost his entire body, and only stayed for 4 days in the hospital. I have no real experience with severe burns like that, but google tells me that it takes 1-3 weeks for a second-degree burn to heal, and the sheer amount of his body that was burned makes me think that he should have been in the hospital for longer than just 4 days. And when Dominic Swain meets him in November of the next year (episode 4), Dominic doesn’t mention any kind of deformity or scarring, or the eye tattoos that Lesere mentions. Dominic describes him as having “the unshaven look of someone who hadn’t slept in a couple of days”, but it’s unclear if Dominic actually saw any of Jared’s skin besides his face. He was wearing a long, black leather coat (again), he could have been wearing gloves, and since his face was the only part of him that was unburned, it’s possible Dominic just couldn’t see any scars. But the paranoid part of me wonders if he had any scars at all, because that’s the kind of mysterious fuckery I’ve come to expect from this show.

Lesere notes how strange it is that their clothing appears untouched by whatever burned them. The fire department also reported several burn marks on the ground near where the two men were found unconscious. This is highly reminiscent of the - I have no better words for it, sorry - spontaneous human combustion we see in episode 8, when Ivo Lensik found a patch of smoldering wooden floor where Raymond Fielding had been standing moments earlier. (In that same episode, Ivo himself felt a “warmth that seemed to start in my bones and radiate out through me” that made him feel like he was “burning up”, which only stopped when Father Burroughs knocked on the door.) I would very much like to know who the second man they brought into the ER that night was, as well as the other people I’m presuming were the burn marks the FD found. I feel like that would shed some light on this whole thing.

I find it very interesting that Jared’s burns stop in a sharp line across his neck, “as though he’d been wearing a choker that the damage couldn’t get above”. There wasn’t anything on his neck when they brought him in, but he asks Lesere about a brass pendant he was wearing and seems...disquieted, or something, when she says the EMTs hadn’t brought it in. This is almost certainly one of the creepy cult pendants we saw in episode 9 (the serial killer episode). He also asks her about “a small book bound in red leather”, and of course any time I hear “book bound in leather” now I think of Leitner, though with no other clues it’s impossible to say anything definitively. Maybe Jared’s just a well-read Communist.

It is interesting that the pendant, as well as the eye tattoos all over Jared’s body, seem to have offered him some kind of protection from the fire. Whether that “protection” is deliberate, or whether the fire just wasn’t powerful enough to touch those eyes, is unclear at this point. The eyes are creepy as all hell, and my instinct is to say that creepy = evil, but I don’t know how strictly TMA is going to follow that convention. Did Jared get the tattoos and wear the pendant because he knew it protect him, or is he just some crazy cult member and the protection was just a nice perk?

Which brings me back to Jared himself. I can’t decide if he’s good or evil, and maybe I’m looking at it too much like a dichotomy, but that’s how I tend to see it. There are the “good guys” (the ones who are trying to fight for good, even when they make mistakes or do bad things), and the “bad guys” (who fight for evil/destruction/chaos/death/etc.). Jared burns the Leitner in episode 4, which...seems like a good thing? He seems to be doing it against his mother’s wishes, saying that she “doesn’t always know what’s best for our family.” Was he protecting them by destroying the Leitner? And in this episode, it seems like he prevents some kind of catastrophe (likely involving the loss of human life) by killing the man he was brought in with. And he stops Lesere from touching the other man when he was laying there chanting, implying that touching him would harm her somehow (possibly by burning her as well). And he seems to have knowledge beyond what he should - he knew the code to the supply cabinet without asking, and he saw something in the Leitner in episode 4 that Dominic certainly didn’t. I trust Jared Key about as far as I could throw him. But could he be, if not strictly “good”, at least...not-evil? I’m having a hard time pinning down his motivations so far.

And what about Lesere’s part in the whole thing? When she steps aside and allows Jared access to the other man in the hospital bed, he tells her, “Yes. For you, better beholding than the lightless flame.” “The lightless flame” is the last part of the mystery man’s chant that seems to generate heat to the point of boiling liquids, melting door handles, and burning bodies, but what exactly is this “beholding” and why does Jared single Lesere out in his statement? In fact, why does she witness and remember any of this, when all the people in the waiting room were so influenced by some external force that they left the area for 15 minutes during this incident’s climax, with no indication that any of them thought it was odd or noticed anything at all?

Other things that interest me but that I don’t have much to say about yet: The mystery man’s chanting included the name of a Sumerian demon that supposedly “was able to boil fish alive in their rivers”, as well as a Polish word meaning “to cauterize or brand”. This is the first instance (that I noticed) of Sumerian mythology or Polish (the language). All the creepy language stuff so far has been Latin and Sanskrit, so I honestly don’t know what to make of this. Also, I find it interesting that Dr. Katie Grice was the only person besides Jared Key and the narrator herself who was named in this episode, despite her having no obvious, notable involvement in the incident. Does this mean she’s going to show up in a future episode? I’ll certainly be keeping my “eye” out...

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims...thanks for listening!

#personal #liveblogging #is this liveblogging?#The Magnus Archives

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collgeruledzebra · 3 years

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tagged by @curiousserpent many thanks!!

1. why did you choose your url?

pun :) i had it picked out ages before i actually got this account

2. any sideblogs?

several-- @sousa-march-gone-demented is my tma blog (now mostly defunct), @cauldron-burn-and-fire-bubble is my art blog, @frankensteinthecollegedropout is where i liveblog gothic lit books, @draftsdump is where i used to put random drafts until I figured out the queue function, and @wtnv-comments is where I post comments on youtube wtnv episodes for the enrichment of those who listen on spotify

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

since june 2019

4. have a queue tag?

5. what did you join for?

mostly because i knew it was The fandom social media, also good omens since that was what i was particularly into at the time

6. why did you choose your icon?

i went to the farmer's market a day or two after i joined here and thought that bottle of Seasoning was funny and unique enough (I doubt I'll ever change it)

7. why did you choose your header?

i like birds a lot :) took the picture at a wildlife sanctuary in FL, they had so many vultures just hanging out and i thought that was cool. also it's a pretty striking image imo lots of contrast

8. how many mutuals?

uhh like... half a dozen? maybe? depends on your definition if it's just following each other definitely more but people I'm actually friends with is six or seven

9. how many followers?

266

10. how many following?

397

11. ever made a shitpost?

if this means a funny and somewhat nonsensical post yes :) if this means a post that blew up for no apparent reason also yes :/

12. how often do you use tumblr?

more often than i should

13. ever had a fight/argument with another blog?

nah

14. how do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?

don't like em.. i usually don't reblog because i don't want to pass on the guilt trip to my followers

15. how do you feel about tag games?

16. how do you feel about ask games?

very excellent

17. which mutuals do you think are tumblr famous?

um... idk i know a few are well known in certain circles but i don't think any are famous throughout tumblr

18. do you have a crush on any of your mutuals?

romantic? no. platonic? yeah. let's go to the creek and look for cool rocks. i'll bring pretzels.

tagging: @ghosttown-mp3 @kat-in-books @solareidolon @corvidayyy @chiiquitita @snookeroo @butttteeerrrrrr

#tag game #i think i have a lot of these i need to catch up with whoops sorry everyone

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zoanzon · 4 years

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TMA: Episodes watched so far (and my speculation)

So, by this point - when I've decided to start crossposting my liveblog of TMA to Tumblr - I've listened to the first 26 episodes of the podcast. While I could just start it from right there, I figured I could 'import' my liveblogs so far into one big post.

So...here it is! I'll be just posting them raw, no edits aside from covering up anything that might give away personal info of me or my friend.

Episodes 1-2

"On one hand: started listening to the Magnus Archives as og right now, so I should be in for a fun time.

On the other: doing so at 1am with my eyes closed is an Experience.

[...]

WHY DID I LISTEN TO A SECOND EPISODE???

Also, John the marrator and John the victim in ep1 and Jon the package-man in ep2? Yeah, that's a connection that's not ominous at all.

Also, fuck the angler fish."

Episodes 3-9

Had a 3.5 hr drive back to Portland, ended up listening to episodes 3-9 on the drive. (Funny enough, 9 hit John's post-transcript notes right as I pulled into the driveway.)

Thoughts:

- Intro of actual confirmed paranormal stuff (Lightner's books, Prentiss-associated-with-worms) is intriguing, and helps show that there is something to contrast the 'supposedly baseless' stuff in the archive

- Growing imagry on eyes, which - from what I've caugbt of later stuff - is one hell of a foreshadowing.

---> Has it ever been confirmed how early the meta arc stuff was planned, or if they just set a lot of stuff up for potential reuse and then had a lot to work with because of that?

- Two counts of the name 'Rainer' in two different episodes. Have a feeling that won't be the last time I hear it...

[...]

Also, this mysterious Eye of doom that'll later pop up; do we know if it has a square pupil or not? Cause the first true Eye thing I recall - the painting in Key's room of books, where he later saw it was made of patterns - reminds me of notebook dude's table with the weird patterns that congregated onto the square hole in the middle of the table, and that being an eye would go well with his notebooks all saying 'keep watching' or whatever it was.

Episodes 11-12, 15

Just listened to Dreamer/E11.

Oh dear, all of this is not good.

[...]

Oh dear, Jared Key and iconography of eyes...

[...]

Ok, Lost John's Cave is kinda creepy AF

[...]

TBH, maybe better than Arachnophobia?? But the audio recording in LJC was a bit hair-raising, as well as John's post-transcript notes for that Ep.

Finally found my DS charger, so played Pokemon and listened to TMA for 2.5 hrs last night, ep 11-15 :D

Episodes 18-23

Also, re: TMA. Fuck 'The Man Upstairs'. >.<

[...]

Oh god, E8 and E19's connection. 0.o

(And what the Father apparently did...)

[...]

God, poor - and lucky - Martin.

Also, terrifying to know Prentiss is sentient/sapient, even - especially - in the current form.

[...]

Goddamn Key family 0.o

Episode 25

Listened to Growing Dark on the way to work.

Not as freaky as some - the upstairs flat one, for example - but still ominous. And yeah, all that iconography of eyes, just a coincidence I'm guessing. /s

[...]

Also, a thought regarding last ep that i forgot to include: yet another thing relating to John's predessor, this time aligning with her deathdate. I'm curious how she got dragged into matters, whether she started digging into something she couldn't handle, whether something hunted her, or if being the institute's archivist puts you at the center of enough weirdness that it just leaves 'marks' on you that attracts other things...

Episode 26

Just listened to Distortion/Sasha's (first??) statement. That's...ominous.

So, thoughts/speculation.

The description of 'Michael' immediately brought to mind the Bone Tender and the crook who read the Tale.

Sasha has meet 'Michael' and Martin survived/was left alive by Prentiss/Flesh Engine. Institute staff gaining supernatural sponsors??

I know from a post I saw months back that there's 'The Eye' and 'The Desolation', all I remember of that post; no idea if they're distinct entities or faction names or something in the middle.

Importance? Speculating whether Prentiss is just a vessel for the Flesh Hive' will (and if its in the same category as the above two) and if Michael is THE Bone Tender.

Prentiss mentioned sometime back as being a witch; made contact with an Entity - Flesh Engine? - and 'succeeded' in gaining its favor, while others don't get the favor and just become mindless flesh hives? (Ie some keep their will, some are subsumed into the Hive?)

Also, there's the Lightless Flame from the ep where Jarod Key got burned. Also one of the entities?

Same grouping: Eye, Desolation, Lightless Flame, Bone Tender, Flesh Hive??

The Keys, the Church group...both seem to be Eye-oriented (iconography if nothing else) but without hearing of contact between them, am curious if they're at odds. Multiple figures able to have same alignment but oppose one another; or perhaps, fighting for the alignment's role?

[Further Thoughts, Speculation, and Knowledge]

Before I started listening, a few months back, I caught fragments of stuff from Tumblr.

Existance of 'The Eye' and 'The Desolation', as might be seen by some of my above comments/speculation.

Not really sure what they are (or, hadn't been...) so guess ossilates between 'distinct entity' and 'faction'

Something called 'The Fearpocalypse' before I outright filtered 'TMA' and 'The Magnus Archives', so no knowledge of what it encompasses

And last night, a housemate was far too loose talking about TMA with another housemate - "You don't have enough context for it to be spoilers", bah - and now know about The Desolation, Corruption, Web, and that they're somehow fear domains.

("You don't have enough context" my ass. I'm giving them shit for that when I get home.)

That's what I'm going into TMA knowing, and beyond this it'll be (mostly) up-to-date liveblogs.

Let's see where this adventure goes...

#the monkey speaks #tma: the monkey archives #tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #(maybe? the stuff spoiled around me was definately spoiler-level stuff)

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lyrebright · 1 year

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I posted 500 times in 2022

That's 187 more posts than 2021!

62 posts created (12%)

438 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lyrebright

@starcrossed-sky

@causalityparadoxes

@vaspider

@rinastray

I tagged 250 of my posts in 2022

Only 50% of my posts had no tags

#xbc3 - 34 posts

#lyre does tma - 31 posts

#lyre rambles - 19 posts

#niafic - 14 posts

#lyre writes - 11 posts

#laugh tag - 7 posts

#critically acclaimed mmorpg - 6 posts

#tma - 5 posts

#inspo - 5 posts

#lmao - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#first of all his almost breakdown centered in around having to read the ones that need the tape. thinking about what i observed in mag032

My Top Posts in 2022:

niafic wordcount progress

10k!

23 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

i am going to finish this noelfic chapter for pride month i swear on all that is good and gay

27 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

I think a lot of people online these days that consume media and participate in fandom completely misunderstand and disregard the value of tragedy

59 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

Season 2 of The Magnus Archives was an experience.

Season 1 was fun and atmospheric, but even as the plot outside of the statements became more and more prevalent, the vibes of it were still very anthology horror. From the start, S2 diverged from that with the addition of Jon's supplementals at the end of each statement--with the meta plot and the statements being far more tightly interwoven. The mystery is no longer whether or not what is going on is real, or Jane Prentiss: Prentiss is dead, and we know the supernatural is real for certain, and more to the point, so does Jon, and he always has.

Hearing that in MAG039 that Jon has always believed the "real" statements--the ones that would not record on modern equipment, only on tape--but had pretended not to because he felt watched was something of a reframing of everything for me.

Until then, I hadn't really thought about how, oh, yeah, they're still doing the bogus ones that record easy peasy as well as the ones we hear.

Maybe it would have been easier to keep it in mind if I was listening to the episodes as they aired (like one a week, I believe?) instead of binging them. Like...that would have really sold the toll you can hear them take on Jon. Once a week, you encounter a statement that won't record like the rest, and the dread creeps up on you as you know, you know, what is written down here on these pages is different to the vast majority of what fills the archive, and you desperately do not want to think that means it is real, but you sit down with your tape recorder and you do your job and as you recite those awful awful words you can Feel you are not alone. Something Is Seeing You.

It Really makes the accidents he makes re: dates and names in some statements more understandable, actually. And explains why he doesn't want to re record them to fix those mistakes--sounds exhausted at the very idea.

I was keeping this in mind as I went through S2, using it to inform my new understanding of Jon's character and the progression of his arc and development--

--and then the finale, and perhaps more pertinently, the first episode of S3, broke that understanding once more down to its foundations.

(Keep in mind that I have not seen past MAG081. I stopped myself from progressing further so as to not give myself even MORE backlog on my liveblog posts to finish, and to write out my thoughts on Jonathan Sims as he and they stand right now, before canon gives me more to work with.

I reiterate: I have only seen up to MAG081, 'A Guest For Mr. Spider;' please do not spoil me for anything further along in canon.)

The revelation that MAG081 gave me is both very layered and very simple (and, I'm sure, has been discussed to death already because I am very late to this party :P): Jon's character is best understood through the lens of his trauma.

Of course, it makes his hatred of Leitners make so much more sense, as well as his hatred of spiders--I think it personally even made some things click as to why he was so quick to believe Jane Prentiss as Real when he denied other events with similar amounts of evidence; while I have since come to the conclusion that whatever the spiders are, They ARE Their Own Thing, I was initially lumping them in with the other bugs, and Jon, encountering a worm woman, could very well have done the same--these are things he has survived, and thus fears all the more intently, because he knows them.

What's quite a bit more telling about Jon As A Person to me, though, is the things he says in his own statement that he seems not to think much of. Jonathan Sims was, by his own words, a "deeply annoying child," and I can't begin to explain how much that hurts me, as an ND adult who related to a lot of how he explained his reading habits, though in the other direction (I would fixate on only one thing and read it and only it for weeks).

It opened up my eyes to the fact that Jon definitely sees himself in a negative light. I'm not sure just yet how deep that self hatred runs, but there's no denying it's there. Somehow, he buried his pessimism under his mask of skepticism and snark, but it's almost more real than either of those things, and it's only aggravated by the survivor's guilt he carries even to this day.

It's a lot. This man--I don't yet know Jon's exact age, but from context clues of his personal timeline he has to be around thirty, I think? Maybe just before or past it?--underwent a severe trauma at the age of eight. It's very much understood that the first decade of life very much does inform a lot of who you'll grow up to be, and Jon didn't undergo anything so easy to explain as a car accident or physical abuse. No, on top of the already damaging record of being an orphan and being raised by a grandmother he knew resented having to do so, Jon's greatest childhood trauma came in the form of watching a bully twice his age getting taken by a giant spider that had initially been aiming for him.

That's...not something you can explain, and have believed, and Jon knew that. But it also means it's something he couldn't get support for; it means that even as he knew it was real and remembered it as real he was likely asking himself: Was That Real? and that sort of doubting of your reality is damaging for anyone, let alone a child under ten!

Is it any wonder, then, that he found himself drawn to puzzling out the paranormal? Is it any wonder, then, that when encountering more cases of true encounters, that his idea was equal to the childish and simple ideal of If I Can't See You, You Can't See Me?

And is it, then, any wonder, how spectacular a mental breakdown he has in the lead up to the S2 finale?

Going into TMA, I was told by almost all my friends who have listened to it that I was going to like Jon. "He's your type," they told me, "total blorbo material," and listening to the early episodes I could only think...surely not. What do they think of me?

But I first started to change my mind around the time of his first live statement; Naomi Herne. Maybe I read this differently than most, but for all his bluster and terrible bedside manner (which actually got him a complaint, which is still hysterical, I'll be more lovely, he says, like this is something he's been harped on at before, in those exact words), I sincerely do think that when he suggested she reach out and maybe speak to someone: he was being sincere. She just took it poorly, because Jon had spent the rest of their time together acting poorly.

This is a running theme as time goes on--even more so throughout S2, to be honest. But it doesn't just start after the trauma of the S1 finale; Martin is being menaced by Jane Prentiss, because he encountered her trying to prove himself to Jon's exacting standards, after Jon has spent the rest of the season thus far being hypercritical of him? With MAG081 in mind, it's easy to see how Jon's survivors guilt immediately kicks into gear and berates him for how he's been acting when he knows, he knows that the supernatural is out there and it's deadly.

He immediately tells Martin to stay in the archives, where he thinks it will be safe. And this compassion continues as a core part of his character, even if that's really all we get to see of it--the core, under the mask. He's gentle and concerned with Sasha in her live statement, too, and immediately goes to argue with Elias about better "defenses" for the archives with new knowledge in mind. And it doesn't end there! He's still a snarky little bitch about it, but each interaction with Melanie throughout S1 and S2 made me :D. And, one of perhaps the most standout moments in my mind, currently:

Helen Richardson. God, I'm still having so many feelings about that episode.

Imagine you're Jon. You've spent all this time thus far trying desperately not to see the things you are seeing so as to not be seen by the thing you are sure is seeing you, but then a worm woman attacks you, and you're badly scarred, and your predecessor was murdered, and there's an itching sense of Something Is Wrong, Someone Here Is Lying To Me that you cannot shake, and it is only aggravating your paranoia. On top of that, you can no longer hide your head away in the sand; you have admitted your skepticism was an act, you are throwing yourself headfirst into chasing after the spooky things you've only been reading about up to this point because you need answers, and even when you're not running around in creepy tunnels, you cannot escape the new reality that you have found yourself a part of because it is now choosing to intrude on you directly.

Jon's instant connection with Helen--and his recognition of Michael and, no doubt, his subtle, unconscious fear that Helen could have very well been Sasha--is currently one of the most tragic things that have happened in TMA, outside of Sasha herself (don't worry, ha, I am Bracing For Worse).

Jon's history with the live statement givers isn't the greatest; outside of Martin and Sasha, they all seemed to find him short or abrasive at best, even if they didn't all lead to a formal "knock it off" from Elias. But with Helen, he's sympathetic, he's empathetic, he's gentle, he believes her, and when she's taken once more by the very monster that she had managed to escape, right from his office--well, he attacks that monster. Give her back, he says, of a woman he's known for five minutes, and gets stabbed for his trouble.

I am not a brave man, Jon says of himself, but I think that's more of his negative self framing, because you can be brave and still afraid, brave and still a coward; the antithesis to bravery is not fear, it is antipathy, and if there is one thing Jon is firmly good at it is feeling things, deeply.

Helen, I think, is the real firestarter to the pinnacle of this part of Jon's development, that culminates in all that Sasha was. When he was a child, a monster snatched away a life right before his eyes, one he can't help but feel like should have been his own.

And when he was an adult, two monsters did the same to two women he felt a connection to--though he didn't realise the first one had happened til much, much later.

S2 had me riding a highwire of tension. I've mentioned in my liveblog posts that what happened to Sasha struck at a personal, deep-seated and fairly irrational fear of mine, so I was waiting, the entire season, for something to happen with Not!Sasha. Hearing Jon later muse that his paranoia was aggravated and worsened by the presence of Not!Sasha was honestly highly validating, because it was doing that to me, too.

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74 notes - Posted July 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

so! you want to rip a fic from fanfiction dot net?

I’m sure at this point we’ve all seen the posts about FFN’s inevitable demise. Not to downplay how much that would suck, for all we riff on FFN--but people have been saying that for literal years at this point, and while I do not doubt that FFN is dying, it’s probably not going to up and vanish on us in the next week. It’s got some good time of chugging and wheezing along left yet.

But among the panic there are people asking sincere questions about what can be done to save fics from FFN in the case of the site going down and taking literal decades of fandom history with it, and I’m seeing a surprising amount of people saying that the only way to do it is to either screenshot the fics or type them out yourself because copy/paste does not work on FFN. And that is just blatantly not true. There are many ways in which you can save fics from FFN. Here are just a few:

You can copy/paste directly from the mobile site. This is probably one of the easiest methods for anyone to do. Just click on the URL of the chapter you’re reading, and change the www. to m. Hit enter and the page will reload in mobile mode. You can now copy/paste the chapter right into a word document. You will have to go chapter by chapter.

CTRL+S. Go to the fic you want to save, and hit ctrl+s. Save the damn webpage. This will keep it in the exact format of the webpage, which you could see as a pro or a con, but it will also keep the ads, which does suck. You’ll also have to go chapter by chapter with this method but it does go a lot faster than manually copy/pasting the text.

HTML to PDF. This method I’m admittedly a little less sure about, since when I used it it was like, 2013 and I was in highschool so I’m not sure how viable it still is, but--just a quick google search should find you a website that will let you save a webpage as a PDF file. I have folders and folders of fics I saved back in highschool using this method. It will again have to go chapter by chapter and just like saving the webpage will keep the format of the site intact--down to keeping the ads.

Use a fanfiction downloader. Two I’ve been using for years are FF2eBook and FicHub. You put in the link of the fic you want to download and it converts the entire thing into a file for you. Yes, the entire thing--you don’t need to manually go through chapter by chapter. By default, both sites download in epub format, though FicHub does have a few other options. I’ve never really experimented with them though because I’m personally fine with epub, and there are a million epub to pdf (or other file type) converters out there.

And there you go: a handful of ways for you to save your favourite fics before FFN goes under. Again, I don’t think it’s something to be too worried about, but the best time to do your part for fandom preservation was yesterday. The second best time is to get started right now. There is no reason to wait for FFN to be on its death bed to start saving fics. I’ve been doing this for years just so I have fics to read offline.

I’m a little too young to have been around for livejournal, but I was one of those weirdos that posted their first fics on quizilla. I remember when quizilla just...changed. And so much was lost. Looking back, almost none of what was posted on quizilla was actually good, but it was still something that someone put time and effort and passion into creating, and it was important.

There is almost no way that when FFN inevitably goes down that its entire archive will be saved. But we can do our best to save as much as we can. Stop panicking and start saving.

1,129 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

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#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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