jon chester and martin norris: here's some information using sources that are more modern and that you might be more familiar with like reddit posts, emails, and online therapy sessions!

jonah augustus: 18th century letters only bitch. understand me or die. fuck you.

THEY AREN'T THE FEARS ANYMORE!! THEY'RE DESIRES

(SPOILERS for TMA, and all of TMAGP episodes so far)

Okay, here me out

Tmagp1: Darla wants to hear Arthur's voice again. She even says: "I just couldn’t face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again, I had to try" and later on she even says: "But I had to know, so I went to the cemetery."

Tmagp1: RedCanary wants to know about the Magnus Institute. They want to know why it's listed under 'cleared' when there's no evidence of it. Hence why they go and explore it.

Tmagp2: Daria wants that absolute perfection. She wants to change who she is and get out of that dark place. When she talks about the thing that she felt was missing, she says, "... and that’s when I decide I need a tattoo. I had a couple already – just little things on my shin and my wrist – but I decided I needed something big. Something that really changed my look." She also mentions when talking about Ink5oul that "they just kept pressing me about my life, about why I wanted the ink" instead of asking what design she wanted. And when she got the tattoo she describes herself as now being, "Someone I wanted to know more about." Afterwards she even says how "For the first time ever [she] wanted to attempt a self-portrait. Something real and physical, [she] wanted to feel the brushes in my hands and the oil on [her] fingertips." I think a lot of her statement is about her desire and impulsive need for that perfection and that wholeness that she has been aspiring to for her whole life.

Tmagp3: Samuel wants to stay hidden. He wants and he "need[s] to get up, get out of here for treatment." He wants to get better and most of his delirious thoughts are the things that he wants, or feels like he needs. E.g. "I so much want to see it [the sun] again. This night seems endless. I want to be warm again. I am terribly afraid. Thank god for Maddie. I need to treat her better."; "I just need to rest."; "I need to be careful or we’ll drift apart." And then obviously as the narrative continues, Samuel wants to grow and 'put down roots'.

Tmagp4: The narrator wants to be revered and accepted into the Royal Court Orchestra of the Palatinate. He wants to show off and impress. The violin "was a creature with needs and purpose of its own. The needs were simple enough. Blood. Flesh." It has these needs and desires.

So far, I'm interpreting it to be that everything so far can be interpreted as a desire of sorts, varying in the strength and intensity of it. Obviously, fear is still a big part of it all, because if you want something so badly, aren't you afraid of it being stolen from you? Of it being out of your grasp? Of it being unachievable or impossible in some capacity? Of it being a lie?

Even Sam wants to find out more. He wants to know the why and the reason for things. Gwen wants Lena's job. Collin wants to fix all these bugs and keep Freddie running. Alice wants to just get on with it because she found out that wanting to know the 'why' of things is dangerous.

I think that somehow when the Web took all the Fears into a different universe, they morphed into something else. Or they changed to fit what was the most prevalent thing in that universe, because after all, everyone wants something, even if it's something small and inconsequential. Life and aspects of it has always been characterised by that desire for something. Like people wanting food, shelter, safety, love, warmth, happiness, etc. And I think since the Web was so intwined with Jon and Martin, it absorbed some of their emotions when it found its way into this new world, because after all Jon and Martin wanted to stop Jonah/Elias, to stop the apocalypse, to destroy the Panopticon, to be safe, and they wanted each other. I think the wanting and fear of things are really entwined in it all, though this could be absolute bullshit haha

more Gwen art!

Ah yes, the TmagP avatars:

guy who got peer pressured into eye removal by a building (i assume)

Incredibly talented artist… what will they do? Hurt people probably

Killed his wife, now he’s the garden

Violin player (evil)

73 million needles in a trench coat/worlds worst acupuncturist

remember: if you’re hungry, it’s hungry!

give it your fingertips

“I wasn’t ‘lurking’…”

-

Is anyone else getting a slight ‘enemies to lovers’ vibe from these two???

“Sitting by the fire, he probed gently into how I came to be there, and I found myself disclosing, with a candor I did not intend, the unvarnished truth of not only the night just past, but my life up until that moment.”

isn’t that. isn’t that what the archivist could do. isn’t that the main archivist power

if you're hungry, it's hungry

feed it blood

ARG participants how are we feeling rn. Personally I am Going Insane

Yowza

Augustus: "I flatter myself to think that I might have imprinted upon you some part of myself in that time together, and perhaps in this way I seek to keep hold of my prized violin still."

Me: Gosh, Augustus. Tell us more about this letter writer from... let me check the case number here... oh, 1831, huh?

Augustus: "I often wonder if I might have intervened to save [Mr. Bardwell's] life. But I... simply watched in quiet awe."

Me, one eye twitching slightly: You don't say.

tmagp 4 being ye olde grifters bone is soooo funny to me

violin HUNGRY feed it YOUR FINGERS

Today’s episode in a nutshell

don't mind me, i'm still just relishing in how tmagp 4 describes the relationship between an avatar and their patron. as both an addiction and a toxic codependent dynamic. a relationship in which you give and give and give, until there's nothing left of you. until you're not yourself anymore. and for what? the promise that started all of this. power, belonging, purpose. these are things you know you deserve, but the world has denied you them. and where the world deprived you, you found something that fed you. and, in return, you fed it. you fed it yourself. you fed it the people around you. you fed it blood and pain and violence. and now you need someone else to feed it.