#I mean probably not the most original take

[hellfirenacht]

Meet Me At 4:20

Summary: It’s hard to be the new kid in a small town during senior year, and there’s only one person you actually want to be friends with. So you do the only logical thing, and set up a drug deal. 

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, SFW, drug deals, meet cute, one shot

Notes: Thank you, @jo-harrington for helping me title this <3 If you read the original version I posted last fall, no you didn't.

Word Count: 2.3k words

Master List

You sat at the old picnic table, far away from the school. It was a quiet and mild autumn day, leaves were clinging to the trees and there was a satisfying crunch to the ground when you made your way through the woods.

You counted each breath in and out in counts of four. It wasn’t the drugs that you were planning on buying that made you nervous, but the man selling them. It felt so stupid, this whole plan was completely ridiculous but at this time you didn’t have any better idea to go off of.

You didn’t even like weed.

Your eyes closed and you played a cassette tape at a low volume, muffled sounds of music pulsating through your ears. If you could focus on this, then you could relax. You could talk to Eddie. You were sure that you could do it this time. You hoped you could do it.

The faint crackling of leaves crunching under footsteps alerted you to his presence. You kept your eyes closed and your breathing steady, not daring to open your eyes yet. The last thing you wanted was for Eddie to see you a shaking mess, anxious and stuttering and probably tweaking.

“Hello?”

You opened your eyes slowly, looking up at the man in front of you. Eddie watched you with a look of mild confusion, his hand dropping to his side as if he had been waving it in an attempt to get your attention. You removed your headphones and gave a small smile.

“Hey, sorry. Long day.” you said, only stumbling over your words a little.

“I get it.” Eddie said, taking a seat across from you on the table. His black lunchbox thumped down in front of him, and he looked at you expectantly.

“So… how does this work here?” you asked. looking between him and the lunchbox. This was the most you had dared look at him since you moved to Hawkins a few weeks ago.. Having his attention, his eyes on yours, almost felt like too much. You couldn’t stop the nervous smile from spreading across your face, and you wished that you could just keep yourself normal for two minutes.

“The same way any normal transaction goes.” Eddie shrugged. “Except cash only, no returns, and for obvious reasons… no receipts.”

“I guess that means no demanding to speak to the manager then?” The words were out of your mouth before you could stop them. To your surprise, Eddie gave a small laugh and seemed to relax just a bit.

“Demand all you want, he’ll tell you all sales are final.” He opened the box and pulled out a bag. “I got a half ounce here. $25. Should last you a while.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” You said, pulling out your wallet and pulling out some cash to hand over.

“Want to smell it first?” Eddie looked at you with a head tilt. Fuck, had you already blown it? Was that something you were supposed to do? You froze, and Eddie let out a snort. “You’ve never done this have you?”

You shook your head. “Nope. Not even once.” You admitted. There was no use in pretending otherwise. The only reason you had even set this meeting up was just an elaborate (and expensive) way to meet the only person in Hawkins you had any interest in talking to.

Ever since moving here, you weren’t a fan of the town or the people around you. You were sure that your new school would be the same and you had planned on fading into the background for the few months that you had to be here for your senior year. Who was going to want to make friends with the new girl during senior year in a small town? Cliques had been formed and no one would be wanting to add to their numbers this late in the game. Not when everyone else was going to be leaving after high school. 

But Eddie had captured your attention the very first day when he’d been running around his lunch table and laughing with his friends. 

“It’s not a normal thing, it’s a me thing.” Eddie tossed you the bag, not taking the money yet. “Give it a smell.”

You didn’t want to smell the bag. You really did not want to, but Eddie’s was looking at you, and his eyes were so big and round and he ASKED you to do something so…

Your face scrunched up involuntarily and you pulled your head back at the stench. “Ah. Yes. That is certainly weed. Glad to have that established.” you deadpanned. 

“It’s not oregano.” Eddie confirmed, looking amused at your reaction.

“The fuck you mean it’s not?” You laughed. “Here I was thinking that I was going to be buying the best Italian seasoning on the market and here I am with a bag of weed. I feel ripped off!”

Satisfied, Eddie took the money that you had left on the table and pocketed it. “Sorry, like I said, no refunds.”

You followed suit and stuffed the bag into another bag, which was then shoved into yet another bag that had your gym clothes. Can’t be too careful.

You assumed that Eddie would turn tail and leave but instead he picked up a lighter and a cigarette from his lunchbox.

“You sit at my table at lunch.” It wasn’t a question, but a truth. Eddie had noticed you sitting there. Then again, after the roach incident…

“It’s easier to sit in the same place every day.” You said as you nervously picked at the wood on the table. “You learn what to expect.”

“And what do you expect from our table?” Eddie took a drag and offered you the cigarette. You hesitated for a moment before shaking your head in a polite no. “A freakshow?”

“More bugs, but less people bugging me.” you shrugged. 

Eddie snorted. “We still give Jeff shit about that.”

“Yeah well, I’d still rather sit there than anywhere else.” You swallowed. “This may come as a surprise to you, Eddie, but people here kind of suck and aren’t the most friendly.”

“So, you’d rather be seen near the freaks than associating with any other group? That’s brave.” Eddie looked you over. “I’m surprised someone like you eats in the cafeteria. I’ve never seen you talk to anyone else. Most people find a classroom to eat in if they don’t have friends.” 

You stared blankly at him. “Gee. Thanks for the reminder.”

Eddie’s eyes went wide as he realized what he just said. “Wait, shit, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You’re not wrong.” you sighed, now wishing that you could have a drag of his cigarette. Maybe then you’d look interesting and mysterious instead of how you actually felt, which was awkward and annoyed. You knew you didn’t have friends here, but that didn’t mean he needed to point that out. 

By a technicality, the Freak was more popular than you, and now you had spent $25 in an attempt to be his friend and he might not even be interested. You were starting to regret this whole stupid plan.

“You know you…. if you wanted to. You don’t have to sit near us.” Eddie looked up, and saw you deflate instantly. Eddie sat up straighter “No, not like that, I mean. You could sit with us instead. We can make room, and I swear we won’t throw anymore bugs at you.”

Eddie took another drag of the cigarette, shifting so that the second hand smoke didn’t hit you in the face. It was appreciated.

“Really? I mean, are you sure? Would the others be alright with that…?” You asked, perking up more excitedly than you meant to.

“They learned to live with Mike and Dustin, they’ll learn to like you.” Eddie gave a grin. “Besides, Hellfire needs more members if they’re gonna beat my campaign.”

“The Cult of Vecna.” You said and Eddie narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously. “Don’t give me that look, Eddie, you guys are loud. It’s not eavesdropping when you’re standing on the table with your shoes right next to my sandwich yelling about your game.”

“So you’ll join us then?” Eddie’s grin widened.

“How much for a shirt?” You shivered as the wind blew around you. “I… I might need help character creating as well. It’s been a while since I’ve played.”

Eddie slammed his hands on the table, laughing. “I knew it! I knew you were one of us. Gareth owes me $5.”

“You made a bet about this??”

“I’ve only known two other girls that play. Sinclair’s sister who’s still in middle school and Ronnie Ecker who graduated 2 years ago.” Eddie said. He was so energized now and his eyes were bright, the late afternoon sun reflecting warm caramel and gold back at you. “I saw you with that D&D book yesterday but they didn’t believe me.”

You looked at him, sighed and reached into your bag and pulled out the book that had given you away. You really had never meant to be seen with it, you’d just needed a refresher. You had played at your old school, but hadn’t had a chance to in about a year.

Eddie reached for the old module and flipped through the adventure. “Tomb of Horrors.” he said approvingly. “We played this one last year with a few tweaks, of course. What’s your level?”

“I… don’t really have much of one.” You admitted. “Back with my old group we would just make characters for whatever suited the campaign. I usually went with some flavor of half-elf bard or ranger though.”

“The others would call that cheating. Most everyone has played with the same character from level 1 for the past few years.” Eddie said. “You’d have to work to keep up with us.”

“So I’d have to start at level 1?” You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing. “Damn, you are a sadistic DM aren’t you?”

“I’m the mean and scary freak of Hawkins High,” Eddie took a final drag of his cigarette. “It’s my job.”

“You’ve been nicer to me than anyone here so far, Eddie.” You admitted

Eddie looked at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. You swallowed, unable to look away and wondering if you had said something wrong.

“What?” You finally said.

“You’ve never bought drugs before.” Eddie said.

“….Yes. We established this.” You replied.

“Have you ever even smoked before?”

You frowned. “….Hm, no comment. I don’t think I want to answer that.”

“So that’s a no.” Eddie looked at the bag where you had stored your goods. “So why are you buying?”

You had two reasons for buying, the main reason was to give yourself a reason- any reason- to talk to him. There was a second reason though, one that you hadn’t wanted to get into but…

“I… haven’t been doing a great job of adjusting here.” You said picking at the grain of the wood of the table. “I won’t bore you with the details but… I’ve been having trouble sleeping and everything I eat just tastes like sawdust and I can’t get hungry. I was hoping this would help.”

“Do you know how to roll?”

You slumped slightly, looking down. “Eddie, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette.”

“You’re really coming in blind, huh?” there was a laughter in his voice though that made you feel less judged. “You live in Happy Forest Trailer Park. Yeah, I’ve seen you down the street circling your trailer late at night.”

“Ah. Lovely. Nice to know my night walks have been witnessed.” You groaned.

“Don’t worry, you’re still the least sketchy person there.” Eddie waived his hand. “I don’t normally do this, but you clearly need help. If you want, I’ll come over and roll for you and teach you how to smoke.”

“I feel like if you were anyone else I’d tell you to fuck off.” You said. “But, like I said, you’re the only person who’s been actively nice to me and I really can’t afford to say no. I’m… too damn tired.”

“Tonight?” Eddie offered. “We can help you put together a character.”

Your heart was pounding in your chest now. He wanted to come over to your house tonight? This plan was already going wildly off the rails but there was no stopping it.

“Okay.”

Eddie handed over his cigarette to you and you stared at it. “Just take a drag and show me where you’re at.”

You flinched, holding the cigarette in your fingers. You’d seen people smoke your whole life and the smell of it filled your memories with car rides, and heavy talks and… screaming.

“I can’t.” You said after a moment handing it back. “Sorry. I know it’s stupid. Weed is one thing but-”

“Hey, no need to explain.” Eddie said, snuffing it out. “I don’t know what just happened but don’t worry about it.”

You nodded. “Thanks.”

Eddie looked at his watch. “I have to meet up with someone else. Go home, I’ll be there tonight.” He closed his lunchbox and stood up and you followed suit.

“I’ll be home all night.” You said. “Thank you, by the way. For all of this. I hope it helps.”

Eddie chuckled. “Not many people stick around and talk to me after, let alone thank me. They usually take what they bought and run.”

“Sit with us on Monday.” Eddie said. “I’ll come over tonight.” He was sparing you from saying what you wanted to say; that you wanted so badly to be friends with them.

“I wanted to talk to you.” You admitted, and Eddie looked surprised. “I mean, I don’t have anyone here in Hawkins. Like anyone. And, I don’t know, I like hearing you and your friends talk at lunch and you all seem to actually like each other so… I…”

“Tonight.” You nodded.

The two of you parted ways, Eddie taking a separate way out of the woods while you headed towards the parking lot.

Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad.

#nacht fic #eddie munson x reader

[blueskittlesart]

I've heard that while most people really really love BotW and TotK, some people hate those two for going open-world, and some people hate TotK specifically for something about the story. As the resident Zelda expert I know of, what do you think of those takes?

"something about the story" is a bit too vague for me to answer--if you look at my totk liveblog tag from back when the game was newly released or my general zelda analysis tag you may be able to find some of my in-depth thoughts about the story of totk, but in general i liked it.

the open world thing though is something i can and will talk about for hours. (I am obsessed with loz and game design and this is an essay now <3) breath of the wild is a game that was so well-received that a lot of the criticism from older fans who were expecting something closer to the classic zelda formula was just kind of immediately drowned out and ignored, and while i don't think it's a valid criticism to suggest that botw strayed too far from its origins in going open-world, i am more than willing to look into those criticisms, why they exist, and why i think going open-world was ultimately the best decision botw devs could have made. (totk is a slightly different story, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Loz is a franchise with a ton of history and a ton of really, REALLY dedicated fans. it's probably second only to mario in terms of recognizability and impact in nintendo's catalog. To us younger fans, the older games can sometimes seem, like, prehistoric when compared to what we're used to nowadays, but it's important to remember just how YOUNG the gaming industry is and how rapidly it's changed and grown. the first zelda game was released in 1986, which was 31 years before botw came out in 2017. What this means for nintendo and its developers is that they have to walk a very fine line between catering to older fans in their 30s and 40s now who would have been in nintendo's prime demographic when the first few games in the franchise were coming out AND making a game that's engaging to their MODERN target demographic and that age group's expectations for what a gaming experience should look like.

LOZ is in kind of a tough spot when it comes to modernizing, because a lot of its core gameplay elements are very much staples of early RPGs, and a lot of those gameplay elements have been phased out of modern RPGs for one reason or another. gathering collectibles, fighting one's way through multilevel, mapless dungeons, and especially classic zelda's relative lack of guidance through the story are all things that date games and which modern audiences tend to get frustrated with. for the last few releases before botw, the devs had kind of been playing with this -- skyward sword in particular is what i consider their big experiment and what (i think) became the driving force behind a lot of what happened with botw. Skyward sword attempted to solve the issues I listed by, basically, making the map small and the story much, much more blatantly linear. Skyward sword feels much more like other modern rpgs to me than most zelda games in terms of its playstyle, because the game is constantly pushing you to do specific things. this is a common storytelling style in modern RPGs--obviously, the player usually needs to take specific actions in order to progress the story, and so when there's downtime between story sections the supporting characters push the player towards the next goal. but this actually isn't what loz games usually do. in the standard loz formula, you as the player are generally directly given at most 4 objectives. these objectives will (roughly) be as follows: 1. go through some dungeons and defeat their bosses, 2. claim the master sword, 3. go through another set of dungeons and defeat their bosses, 4. defeat the final boss of the game. (not necessarily in that order, although that order is the standard formula.) the ONLY time the player will be expressly pushed by supporting characters towards a certain action (excluding guide characters) is when the game is first presenting them with those objectives. in-between dungeons and other gameplay segments, there's no sense of urgency, no one pushing you onto the next task. this method of storytelling encourages players to take their time and explore the world they're in, which in turn helps them find the collectibles and puzzles traditionally hidden around the map that will make it easier for them to continue on. Skyward sword, as previously mentioned, experimented with breaking this formula a bit--its overworld was small and unlocked sequentially, so you couldn't explore it fully without progressing the narrative, and it gave players a "home base" to return to in skyloft which housed many of the puzzles and collectibles rather than scattering them throughout the overworld. This method worked... to an extent, but it also meant that skyward sword felt drastically different in its storytelling and how its narrative was presented to the player than its predecessors. this isn't necessarily a BAD thing, but i am of the opinion that one of zelda's strongest elements has always been the level of immersion and relatability its stories have, and the constant push to continue the narrative has the potential to pull players out of your story a bit, making skyward sword slightly less engaging to the viewer than other games in the franchise. (to address the elephant in the room, there were also obviously some other major issues with the design of sksw that messed with player immersion, but imo even if the control scheme had been perfect on the first try, the hyperlinear method would STILL have been less engaging to a player than the standard exploration-based zeldas.)

So when people say that botw was the first open-world zelda, I'm not actually sure how true I personally believe that is. I think a lot of the initial hype surrounding botw's open map were tainted by what came before it--compared to the truly linear, intensely restricted map of skyward sword, botw's map feels INSANE. but strictly speaking, botw actually sticks pretty closely to the standard zelda gameplay experience, at least as far as the overworld map is concerned. from the beginning, one of the draws of loz is that there's a large, populated map that you as the player can explore (relatively) freely. it was UNUSUAL for the player to not have access to almost the entire map either immediately or very quickly after beginning a new zelda game. (the size and population of these maps was restricted by software and storage capabilities in earlier games, but pretty muhc every zelda game has what would have been considered a large & well populated map at the time of its release.) what truly made botw different was two things; the first being the sheer SIZE of the map and the second being the lack of dungeons and collectibles in a traditional sense. Everything that needs to be said about the size of the map already has been said: it's huge and it's crazy and it's executed PERFECTLY and it's never been done before and every game since has been trying to replicate it. nothing much else to say there. but I do want to talk about the percieved difference in gameplay as it relates to the open-world collectibles and dungeons, because, again, i don't think it's actually as big of a difference as people seem to think it is.

Once again, let's look at the classic formula. I'm going to start with the collectibles and lead into the dungeons. The main classic collectible that's a staple of every zelda game pre-botw is the heart piece. This is a quarter of a heart that will usually be sitting out somewhere in the open world or in a dungeon, and will require the player to either solve a puzzle or perform a specific action to get. botw is the first game to not include heart pieces... TECHNICALLY. but in practice, they're still there, just renamed. they're spirit orbs now, and rather than being hidden in puzzles within the overworld (with no explanation as to how or why they ended up there, mind you) they're hidden within shrines, and they're given a clear purpose for existing throughout hyrule and for requiring puzzle-solving skills to access. Functionally, these two items are exactly the same--it's an object that gives you an extra heart container once you collect four of them. no major difference beyond a reskin and renaming to make the object make sense within the greater world instead of just having a little ❤️ floating randomly in the middle of their otherwise hyperrealistic scenery. the heart piece vs spirit orb i think is a good microcosm of the "it's too different" criticisms of botw as a whole--is it ACTUALLY that different, or is it just repackaged in a way that doesn't make it immediately obvious what you're looking at anymore? I think it's worth noting that botw gives a narrative reason for that visual/linguistic disconnect from other games, too--it's set at minimum TEN THOUSAND YEARS after any other given game. while we don't have any concrete information about how much time passes between new-incarnation games, it's safe to assume that botw is significantly further removed from other incarnations of hyrule/link/zelda/etc than any other game on the timeline. It's not at all inconceivable within the context of the game that heart pieces may have changed form or come to be known by a different name. most of the changes between botw and other games can be reasoned away this way, because most of them have SOME obvious origins in a previous game mechanic, it's just been updated for botw's specific setting and narrative.

The dungeons ARE an actual departure from the classic formula, i will grant you. the usual way a zelda dungeon works is that link enters the dungeon, solves a few puzzles, fights a mini boss at about the halfway point, and after defeating the mini boss he gets a dungeon item which makes the second half of the dungeon accessible. He then uses that item in the dungeon's final boss fight, which is specifically engineered with that item in mind as the catalyst to win it. Botw's dungeons are the divine beasts. we've removed the presence of mini-bosses entirely, because the 'dungeon items' aren't something link needs to get within the dungeon itself--he alredy has them. they're the sheikah slate runes: magnesis, cryonis, stasis, and remote bombs. Each of the divine beast blight battles is actually built around using one of these runes to win it--cryonis to break waterblight's ice projectiles, magnesis to strike down thunderblight with its own lightning rods, remote bombs to take out fireblight's shield. (i ASSUME there's some way to use stasis effectively against windblight, mostly because it's obvious to me that that's how all the other fights were designed, but in practice it's the best strategy for that fight is to just slow down time via aerial archery, so i've never tried to win that way lol.) So even though we've removed traditional dungeon items and mini-boss fights, the bones of the franchise remain unchanged underneath. this is what makes botw such an ingenious move for this franchise imo; the fact that it manages to update itself into such a beautiful, engaging, MODERN game while still retaining the underlying structure that defines its franchise and the games that came before it. botw is an effective modern installment to this 30-year-old franchise because it takes what made the old games great and updates it in a way that still stays true to the core of the franchise.

I did mention totk in my opening paragraph and you mention it in your ask so i have to come back to it somehow. Do i think that totk did the gigantic-open-world thing as well as botw did? no. But i also don't really think there was any other direction to go with that game specifically. botw literally changed the landscape of game development when it was released. I KNOW you all remember how for a good year or two after botw's release, EVERY SINGLE GAME that came out HAD to have a massive open-world map, regardless of whether or not that actually made sense for that game. (pokemon is still suffering from the effects of that botw-driven open world craze to this day. rip scarlet/violet your gameplay was SUCH dogshit) I'm not sure to what degree nintendo and the botw devs anticipated that success, (I remember the open world and the versatility in terms of problem-solving being the two main advertising angles pre-release, but it's been 7 years. oh jesus christ it's been SEVEN YEARS. anyways) but in any case, there's basically NO WAY that they anticipated their specific gameplay style taking off to that degree. That's not something you can predict. When creating totk, they were once again walking that line between old and new, but because they were only 3ish years out from botw when totk went into development, they were REALLY under pressure to stay true to what it was that had made botw such an insane success. I think that's probably what led to the expanded map in the sky and depths as well as the fuse/build mechanics--they basically took their two big draws from botw, big map and versatility, and said ok BIGGER MAP and MORE VERSATILITY. Was this effective? yeah. do i think they maybe could have made a more engaging and well-rounded game if they'd been willing to diverge a little more from botw? also yeah. I won't say that I wanted totk to be skyward sword-style linear, because literally no one wanted that, but I do think that because of the insane wave of success that botw's huge open world brought in the developers were under pressure to stay very true to botw in their designing the gameplay of totk, and I think that both the gameplay and story might have been a bit more engaging if they had been allowed to experiment a little more in their delivery of the material.

#wow it's been a while since i've written a real homegrown organic legend of zelda essay. i missed this #hi everyone. when the fuck is the next game going into development i need to have something to wildly theorize about again #god. it's been. seven years since botw came out. im going to go chew on live electrical wires #zelda analysis #asks

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Gladys Cooper (Now, Voyager, My Fair Lady)— Best known for tyrannical mothers or put upon wives, she was a gorgeous early star too. Bette Davis thought exceptionally highly of her 'On the day following Cooper's death, her Now, Voyager co-star Bette Davis appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and called Cooper "Without a doubt, the most beautiful person as well as actress, and a professional ... never was she late one minute, never didn't she know every line."'

Joan Crawford (Dancing Lady, Mildred Pierce, The Women)— God, where do I start!!! Her face is so UNIQUE and compelling and stands out so much. I love her thick brows and high cheekbones. She has a school-marmy hardness too her that makes her a little scary and therefore sexy. Her low thick voice also does it for me. Despite being an unusual looking woman with an unusual face, she never loses her glamour. Just a gorgeous talented actress, AND she was some sort of gay!!!

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Gladys Cooper:

Joan Crawford:

I just love women that are very mean.

she was a smoke show in every decade, from the 20s to the 60s.

The classic matronly beauty with amazing eyebrows

of course there's a space for MILF joan but i want to just take a second and say she was so cute in her early movies (like grand hotel and the women)! those parts often get forgotten but her stardom shines in them just as much as in her older #queen #icon roles

Misremembered for wire hanger hatred, this original screen queen mastered the art of the comeback and refused to let Hollywood toss her aside as she aged. The term “auteur” is usually revered for directors or writer-directors, but most critics have one actor they’ll give that title to as well: Crawford—anyone who knows classic movies already has a “Crawford picture” in their head. She knew how to style herself and promote herself. She made herself a star and kept herself fixated in the Hollywood firmament. What’s hotter than knowing just how hot you are?

(don’t think about Mommie Dearest right now) Joan was known for being super nice to all the like crew of the movies she worked on and she’d get everyone gifts. Joan would hold movie nights at her house and knit at the back of her home theater. Joan was sooo obsessed with other women including Greta Garbo, whos dressing room she would obsessively and purposefully walk by. She said that while working on Grand Hotel, Garbo grabbed her face and “if there ever was a time in my life where I would’ve been a lesbian, that was it.” But like Joan also probably did sleep with women including Barbara Stanwyck. Joan was so obsessed with Bette Davis, screening multiple movies of hers in a day at her watch party, constantly trying to spend time with her or do a movie together, insisting on the dressing room next to hers at Warners and sending her daily gifts… etc. Once Bette said that sex was gods joke to humanity and Joan said “I think the joke is on her.” Joan fucked a lot. Joan got caught publicly fucking a man and sent a letter to the woman who saw them basically saying “I bet it excited you” and the woman was like you know what. It did. Joan was best friends with a gay man. Joan was an actually genuinely good actress even though people mocked her a lot for being like cheap and stupid (partially because she never finished school because her family was broke). Joan was so insane and so cool that’s all.

#joan crawford #gladys cooper #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 4

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Hi Kym! I apologize if you have answered an ask like this before, but I am curious for your opinion.

You've talked a lot about how intentional all the Buddie parallels are in terms of costuming for several seasons now, both with Buck and Eddie together, then with their respective girlfriends, and in comparison to Bathena. We are now even getting throwbacks to season 2 and Eddie's first episode with Buck's stonewash jeans! Tim is adamant in interviews that he never planned this bisexual awakening in advance (we know that Eddie was originally meant for Maddie ofc) and that he doesn't know where the characters are going yet, but even Oliver has said he intentionally leans into the Buddie of it all with his acting, or at least into Buck's then-presumed bisexuality.

My question is, with just how pointed and intentional the costume choices have always been, is Tim is lying? Or are the costume designers secret Buddie shippers and intentionally lean into this storyline too? How much of what we see in terms of costuming is the decision of the show runners/directors vs creative expression of the costume designers? Is there a point in the show for you where it became clear how intentional it was becoming with the costuming, where they may or may not have said, "we're going to commit to telling this story in subtext until we are allowed to tell it overtly"?

Thanks :)

Hey Cookie-Kat!!

How lovely to have you in my inbox, and what a great question!

putting my answer under the cut - because it got long!!!

The answer I give is going to have to be a bit vague I'm afraid because the reality is that as I don't work on the show and I'm not 100% sure on the set up of their various departments, I can't categorically state how they are going about things in 911 land! I can share my experience and knowledge of how things can be done and try to give you some sort of framework - but I can't definitively say that this is how they are doing things.

First up let's address the whole Tim lying thing.

Tim is all about subterfuge in interviews - its literally his job as a showrunner. I would take every thing he says in an interview with a giant grain of salt. the entire purpose of his interviews is to tease and hook people, without giving anything way becasue why would he spoil all the things he has planned that make people watch the show he is creating. If he came out in an interview at the start of the season and said

'yeah, we're going to do a cruise ship disaster and all these things are going to happen, and in episode 4 Buck is going to get kissed by a guy and figure out he's bi and Eddie is going to find out his girlfriend was a novice nun and its going to send him into a catholic guilt spiral, and maddie nad CHim are going to get married, but x, y and z are going to happen before they can get down the aisle'

Why would anyone tune in to watch the show? we'd already know what was going to happen so there wouldn't be any point - there would be no buzz and the viewing figures might be ok, but they wouldn't be remotely close to what they are. I know for a fact I probably wouldn't be tuning in - people like to be surprised, they like to speculate - we in fandom take it to a higher level, but even the general audience speculate - water cooler conversations about what you watched the previous evening and how you think it's going to play out are part of a show's appeal - part of how it keeps people watching - shared experiences are a powerful commodity, especially in network television and they cannot be shared if we all know what is going to happen.

I would also add that this season is the most explicit acknowledgement of buddie that we've had in interviews and that means something. The show - writers, actors etc have all been incredibly careful before no to ensure that they haven't crossed over into queerbaiting the audience - which is something I really appreciate them for. But this season, things have definitely changed. whether that is down to being on a new network, that actually has a marketing strategy and that actually seems to care about the show and the stories that they have wanted to tell, I don't know, but it is so refreshing and exciting to see.

Tim is a clever person - he knows exactly what he is doing and every single season, without fail we have him saying things in interviews that can be read in multiple ways - none of them have ever been lies - subterfuge is the name of the game - then if you reread them in the aftermath of the season, you can see what he said did in fact play out as he hinted at - he has the context that we didn't have at the time and that is why he can subvert and talk his way around things.

I genuinely don't think Tim planned to give Buck a bisexual awakening from the start - we know he never planned on the buddie of it all, but a good writer will go where the characters take them. As soon as you create something and put it into the hands of others (the actors, directors and crew) things can very quickly take on a whole new direction and a life of its own.

If you ask me, I genuinely don't think Buck could've had a bi awakening before this point - it wouldn't have made sense from a narrative perspective (and his death and rebirth actually make the perfect jumping off point to explore) until now because of the very nature of Buck.

There isn't a single show (by show I mean one that isn't a limited series which will by definition have a planned arc) on network television that knew where each and every character would end up at the end of the show or that characters journey (by this I mean when cast chose to leave a show). Yes they might have planned a few beats to hit along the way, but they wouldn't know the end point for the character. We have a perfect example on 911 - Michael - the show hadn't intended to end Michaels arc in the way it did - his journey as a queer man coming out later in life was an important part of the show - important for representation as much as anything - they had to adapt and change in light of what was going on with Rockmond and write out a character that they would've had other plans for.

The other thing I should mention is that When Tim says he hasn't decided or written the scripts for upcoming episodes, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a plan. He very much will have a plan. There would've been clear arcs for each character laid out at the start of the writing process for the season - they would want to get character a from one point to another by the end of the season. Its the how they get there that is the unknown - at this point we don't know the end points for any characters this season, but if we take season 5 Eddie as an example - at the start of the season he is post shooting and back at work, seemingly perfectly fine. By the end of the season he is genuinely in a good place having gone through his trauma arc. The arc they would've decided on for Eddie that season was to explore his trauma and how to get him from a 'seemingly' good place to a genuinely good place. From there they would've decided on various touchstones - so Ana being mistaken for Christophers mother and them being a family is his trigger to launch his arc. Chris being scared of loosing his father a major touch stone, pushing him into leaving the 118. His then feeling on the outside - left out and replaced by Lucy is his next one, followed by the fact all his army buddies are gone, another touchstone - coming in quick succession to build momentum and leading to his breakdown. Pushing him to actually get help - therapy is another touchstone - one that helps to get him to the end of the season in a vastly different place - healing but still working on things.

So you see - they generally plan an overall direction, but how they get there is the bit that is a bit fluid and can be determined to a certain extent by audience reaction (I don't mean that they would out and out rewrite the entire plan for the season for a character, but they might chose to lean into different aspects if the audience react in a certain way - we saw this with Lucy - planned for a bigger arc, but the audience reaction to her was pretty negative, so they changed direction with her character and cut her part down).

In terms of Bucks bi arc - they will have been waiting on how it was received before fully determining how to play it out for the rest of the season - I genuinely think we'll be seeing more of Lou as Tommy later in the season as a part of Bucks arc - The way Lou has spoken about it being initially a 4 episode arc, suggests to me that its always been intended to run it longer if reaction was good - which we know it was. My explectation remains the same - that Tommy will be around until either the end of episode 9, or the middle of episode 10, to get Buck to where he needs to be by the season end.

I am on the fence as to where exactly that is - Everything from set, costuming and the script is screaming at me that it's about Buck figuring out not only that he is bi, but that he is also in love with Eddie. That is his arc for the season. What I am unsure of is how they are going to leave things at the end of the season (and I think a part of that will have been determined by audience reaction), whether or not we'll leave him acknowledging his feelings to himself, to a third party (Tommy and or Maddie), or to Eddie himself. Of course part of it will be determined by Eddies arc and how far they plan on getting him in regards to dealing with his catholic guilt and what form and direction t hat is going to take, but I cannot see any reason to start exploring that aspect of his character if you weren't going to use it for a queer arc of some description.

In terms of costuming - which was the main point of your ask - sorry I get rambly in these replies some times - I always view it as the first 2-3 seasons at the very least will be about establishing a characters look and vibe within the wider show, and from then on you can start to play into themes and colour theory etc. Somethings you can establish earlier - especially if they are centric to a character more widely. Examples of this are Eddies army green tees and shirts - establishing him visually as ex military, or the black singlets that he wears when in an emotionally vulnerable place, or Buck wearing his white trainers as part of his search for self, or his white shirts as a signal of him being in danger. You can do this, because they aren't playing on anything in relation to other characters at this early point.

So the decision to take Buck out of jeans (stone wash jeans specifically - he's been wearing jeans they've just been black or dark navy) and have him in very obviously shorter trousers, creating a specific aesthetic for him - this smarter, fitted clean cut style that is different from his season 1 looks, has been about playing into his journey of searching for self - that is his big overarching arc - the one that spans multiple seasons.

The intent to do that, wasn't about Buddie (or bi Buck) when they started to use it as a visual marker for him. It was (and always has been) about Buck. about his search for meaning in his life and who he is, who he wants to be - about being his authentic self.

The reason I got so excited about seeing him in jeans once more, when the first stills dropped at the start of the season - was because I knew that it was a signal that this bigger arc was coming to fruition and moving into its next phase. The costume team have been sitting waiting for when the time was right to do this - its being done with such intention.

Of course I hoped that it would be buddie related - things were pointing in that direction from other costuming choices. And to me at least, I still think its very much buddie related - because to do this now - for this bi awakening arc - its too loud and too big for 'just' a bi awakening arc - its about something bigger for Buck - something long term (and I'm not saying Buck being bi is't long term, because obviously it very much is - bi rep is so important!) him figuring out he is bi is a smaller part of a bigger whole for his character. The implication of the jeans returning is that this part of himself he has unlocked plays into a bigger story. Bucks search for self has always been about finding love - about being wanted and seen and accepted for who he is. As a costume designer, I wouldn't personally be putting him into jeans at this point unless it was related to his endgame - being bi isn't enough on its own for them to decide to visually show that he has fully found what he has been looking for on his search throughout the seasons (the white trainers still being in used also play into this) because he is still looking for that lasting happiness - he's just taken a massive step forward to figuring out what it is and where it lies.

With regards to colour theory and the paralleling of Buddie with other ships such as Bathena or Madney. Colour theory alone it wouldn't be enough to convince me, it is in combination with other factors such as the paralleling of Bathena and Madney that it comes into play. The thing is, creating those parallels and colour theory combinations doesn't have to lead to something. I'm going to do a terrible job of trying to explain this, but I'll give it a go.

Various people, who work on the show in some capacity have all commented over the years that they weren't expecting the level of chemistry that Oliver and Ryan have. We also know that they have played into the buddie of it all with some of the scene choices they've made - sort of an acknowledgement of what we're seeing - the elf scene in s2 is a prime example - a nod to fandom and the fact that they are being shipped together - and an acknowledgement of the chemistry - without it necessarily needing to mean more (the same goes for things like the text comments on the botfly influencer livestream call etc).

Back then wardrobe are still very much in character establishment mode - creating and defining the looks of the characters, and playing into colour theory on an individual level, not necessarily on a partnership level (S2 Bathena would've been treated in this way as they were already intended to be an end game couple so you can play into colour theory much earlier), that comes later. I wouldn't have been able to write costume metas in season 2-3 in the way I do now, because the parallels didn't exist and the ground work hadn't been laid.

Once you get past that intial establishing phase, hat is when you can start to play into the colour theory much more in relation to specific characters and pairings. One of the clearest examples of this is Eddies black shirt green trousers combo that he wears at the loft when having serious conversations with Buck. He first wears it in season 3 at the end of the lawsuit/fightclub arc (3x09), and then we dont see it again until season 5 (5x04) at yet another scene in Bucks loft.

The meaning of the colours in that scene are important sure, it is playing into colour theory, but what is happening visually is that we're subconciously connecting dots and remembering that Eddie has worn this outfit before to talk to Buck - that means it must be a serious conversation, one very much focused on something Buck has done (or hasn't done depending on which way you look at things). Eddie has been in Bucks loft on multiple occasions between those two scenes, and Buck and Eddie have had multiple serious conversations in the intervening episodes as well. so why that scene if its not meant to make us connect dots?

Now on a fundamental level, those two scenes can be read as establishing the close friendship Buck and Eddie share - that they are following through on their s2 promise to have each others backs. its entirely correct to assume that - it is after all what those scenes are establishing. But what it is also doing is laying the ground work for if they want to take Buddie further. we know that the conversations about Buddie have been happening in the writers room and on set for a good long while, and even if you don't yet know if you're going to go in that direction, you would be foolish not to lay the ground work in a subtle way if you can, so that the option is there if you did decide to take that direction.

A show will use what ever tools are at its disposal to lay various foundations that it can then pick and choose to build on as it wants or needs to. It is why we see the pictures in Eddies house moving around, why things on the fridge change (fridge theory is not as out there as some people would have you believe - there is a whole thing coming up on Eddies fridge in reaction to guts and the digestive system - which will very much be playing into his catholic guilt arc!) in Christophers room move around and change - its not just about him being a growing (soon to be teenager) boy, its also about laying foundations for story arcs they might choose to develop down the line and the Buddie groundwork is no different.

Its not about the wardrobe team being shippers of Buddie - its much more about them knowing where a season is headed (in brad strokes, even if they don't have specifics) being really good at their job and now being able to bear the fruits of their labour from earlier seasons - they had been doing the same with buck and Taylor - now they're doing it with Buck and Tommy (and Eddie). It would've been super easy to spin the costuming for Taylor into more positive colours - especially on Buck - in season 5, but they had the bigger picture and knew she wasn't going to remotely be endgame, so they were able to play into that throughout the season. Establishing Tommy as a version of Eddie is building on the Eddie groundwork they laid and using it to make it very clear that we are supposed to see the similarities between them - its steering us as viewers towards thinking 'oh Buck has a type - He's dating someone like his best friend - he should just date his best friend' is all about subtly nudging the audience in the right direction - towards Buddie - its just most people won't pick up on it in a conscious way.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense or if it even answered your ask, but essentially the show is using everything at its disposal to tell the story its telling and they have been laying groundwork that can take things in various directions - they are just choosing to push the buddie agenda to an increasing degree (and I have said groundwork far too many times in this post!!)

Thaks for the great ask 💜💜💜

#kym answers things #cookie-kat777 asks #costume asks #costume things #911 costuming #this is such a rambly post!!! #does it make sense - who knows!!! #911 abc #buddie

[crispylilworm]

last i’m posting about this xoxo sorry about the watcher spam recently but i feel the need to put my 2 cents in since my opinion on this doesn’t align with the vocal majority on this site

gotta admit my first youtuber drama experience was a 0/10 not because of what the creators did but solely because of the insanity of the fandom. because…wow. i have never seen a group of people throw around demands and accusations of betrayal in such a dramatic way lol. maybe i’m in the minority here but i felt the majority of responses and criticism just were any lacking basis at all.

my first thoughts with the announcement were literally “oh good for them new streaming service, i won’t be going for it, but maybe after a few months i’ll consider paying for a 1-time sub to catch up on everything”. sure some disappointment i wouldn’t get regular updates but overall excited for the new content this pay structure would give them the flexibility to create.

maybe because i didn’t get into youtubers until the pandemic when watcher was already it’s own independent thing i don’t have that same (*cough cough* parasocial) level of connection, just really enjoy the videos they put out. maybe because i go through subscription-of-the-month stints of paying for a patreon or twitch or other creator channel and rotate what i watch, this didn’t feel outrageous to me. i hate the subscription world we live in so i go out of my way to never pay more than a strict budget limit per month because that’s my ability and that’s my mentality on this. i thought at best maybe i’d consider rotating this in when they put out more.

don’t like the idea of it? you don’t have to pay for it. can’t afford it? i understand the disappointment from this aspect but creators don’t actually owe you anything for free - even if it was free in the past. overall and for whatever reasoning you have: it wasn’t that deep.

if anything i am in a way thankful that they rescinded on their decision because that means me & others will continue to enjoy videos for free. but overall i’m disappointed that this means they’re sacrificing their own creative wants and financial needs of whatever they had planned. we won’t actually know the extent of what, if anything, this prevents them from creating because y’all wouldn’t even let them attempt to try this next phase out.

fans saying “well we don’t want high-budget content” well maybe they want to explore more than what they’re currently able to do? maybe they want to create more beyond their buzzfeed-format videos they know will rack in views from the nostalgia-obsessed side of the fans? i, too, personally love their humor and would just enjoy them chatting and being silly, but i do also think this holds them back. remember those hilarious self-made commercials from their most recent videos? that's probably just a glimpse of what new flavors of content they’re able to think up.

this whole fan response was just disappointing (and pretty scary ngl) to me, and i know saying that is like kicking a hornets nest but i really think if they continued with the plans from their original announcement it would have been ok. i actually think it would have been more than ok! but the response imploded so hard i’m sure we’ll never see them try something new again lol.

my personal thoughts are that if your opinion in any way revolved around something they “owe” to fans, feelings of “betrayal”, thinking they’re “sell outs” for wanting to transition to paid content - i think you really need to take a step back and reflect, and i mean that with zero malice. watcher is a business, not your friends, not “the boys”, not your guaranteed source of a specific type of content either. ultimately they made a business decision that they thought would help them grow that would have either succeeded or failed, that's it. for better or worse, we wont get to watch that play out.

i will continue my quiet enjoyment of their videos, and happily move on past what i frankly think was the most unnecessary internet drama i’ve seen in a minute lol. the takes overall were dumb but tame, i only blocked a handful of accounts for posting things i thought were totally out of line that i won't get into but i'm sure you've either seen or heard people discussing.

i didn't even get in to my hot takes lol like how this plays into the dangerous trend of the expectation of art to be free....and the overall devaluing of creatives and why AI is thriving in these areas...but ill defend that thesis another day lol. y'all aren't ready for that.

#watcher #my thoughts #long post #putting this in read more so yall dont jump me lmao #overall conclusion is #its not that deep

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 16

chapter 28:

1. james’ reaction to waking up from nightmares is so sad. especially cause now sirius can see from james’ perspective what seeing his freind leave the arena was like

2. 😧 shit only this far in and i’m SOBBING. wdym that james almost wished he died in the arena because he was looking forward to not having to go through the aftermath and recovery

3. istg every time the cane is brought up, i’m gonna be like ✨✨THE CANE! REPRESENTATION!!!✨✨ but also like, 😟the cane. he’s in pain. NOOOOO

4. sirius: don’t go to regulus

james: no shit, sherlock.

james: *goes straight to regulus*

5. james is being so angsty, and then in the middle of it, casually brings up his personal tutor

6. 🎶do you wanna build a snowman? elsa please i know you’re in there!🎶

7. the first thing they do when seeing each other again is sob and hug, then IMMEDIATELY go into bickering all like “YOU COULDA DIED BITCH”

8. james gets his glasses back after the interview!!!!

9. “"I don't want to be a great, big tragedy anymore," Regulus chokes out, looking at him almost desperately.”

10. 😑 they both freaking love each other so immensely, that they know they’ll never love anyone else. and reg is still like “no! 😊 i don’t want to break your heart again! take it back! stop loving me!”

11. 😀😀😀 what was that?? another fucking

PARTING GIFT????

12. “Regulus doesn't want to like Remus Lupin, but he likes Remus Lupin.” LMAOO story of my life

13. “"We broke up," Regulus murmurs.

"Oh," Remus repeats, still startled. "You were…together?"

Regulus frowns, gaze drifting to the side. "No."”

😭😭😭 sir that’s so funny

14. i wish so badly that regulus didn’t have fear of bathing, because i know for most people, bathing would be a comfort after escaping the arena

15. i love how reg originally planned to kill to survive, and james planned to die to help reg survive, both of them being gryffindor and slytherin, then the roles reverse, and james is willing to kill for reg and reg is willing to die for james. 💋mwah! perfection!

16. reg understanding and valuing privacy >>>>

17. (but also! background wolfstar my beloved!!)

18. i’m so mad that they have to go into the interview and pretend everything is fine. like, pissed off beyond belief

19. as sad as it is that they’re not gonna date, i’m glad they’re recognizing that they’re not ready for a relationship right now.

chapter 27:

1. DORCAS!!!! 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

2. “"We broke up? This is news to me. I wasn't aware we were together."

"We weren't," Regulus says, heaving a weary sigh.”

😭😭😭 babes, again with the breaking up

3. the discussion that love is more than romance >>>>>>>>>>>> Top Tier

4. 😀😀 rita, it is on site

5. “Rita's days are fucking numbered.” -reg THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING

6. “[Peter] betrayed them all. James would have never done that. He would have died first.” 🙂 yikes. yikes. yikes. canon callback. yikes

7. BWAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA LOSING MY SHIT! NOT REGULUS DECIDING TO GET SIRIUS TO SPEAK DURING THE FUCKING INTERVIEW

8. “”He and I—well, we broke up. That's what he said, in any case."

"You were together?" Sirius asks, startled as well as a little offended that he wasn't at least notified. When the fuck did this happen?

"No, not at all. This was news to me, too, don't feel bad."”

😭😭😭 this is my favorite running joke

9. THE GLASSES ARE BACK

10. “"Oh, it's my dream come true," James teases, playful, his eyes sparkling. "I mean, both Black brothers? You know—"” BWAHAHAHAHA

11. sirius thinking james is a total whore <3333

12. james giving sirius sex advice is the sweetest thing ever

13. “even just the knowledge that Sirius is probably having sex for the very first time because he wants to, because he's at a place that he's comfortable, because he trusts Remus enough to do it.”

awwww i’m so happy that sirius feels safe enough to have that intimate moment with someone

14. sirius and regulus getting to feel like brothers again is heartbreaking

15. “He's so small. He's five, he's fifteen, he's twenty-five and Sirius' little brother. Always his little brother.”

16. sirius being nervous and fumbley and so awkward about sex is the funniest thing to me. so reminiscent of my first time tbh

17. “"You shouldn't be embarrassed, you know. There's nothing embarrassing about pleasure."

"Fuck you, it's so embarrassing," Sirius counters.”

he’s so real for that 😭😭😭

18. remus lupin: be gay do crime

19. “It takes them a bit to recover, admittedly. Love tends to have that effect, especially when you're making it.”

that line is so beautiful. like, insanely beautiful

#AHHHHHHHHHHHH #marauders #regulus black #james potter #fanfic #jegulus #sirius black #remus lupin #wolfstar #remus x sirius #sunseeker #starchaser #crimson rivers

[douglysium]

Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(​What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 10. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 11 TMP Quick Thoughts).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 12 “Getting Off”

I think this episode is definitely one of the more straightforward Protocol episodes we have gotten so far, so hopefully this Quick Thoughts won’t br too long (but knowing me I probably just jinxed it).

We take in the scene through a CCTV in the breakroom of the OIAR at night. The transcripts clarify that Celia is very tired and searching through the cupboards for something and it is quickly made apparent that she is looking for tea and, since the break room has run out, Sam gives Celia a teabag from a secret stash that he apparently has. Sam then asks Celia out on a date and while she is busy at the moment she does show that she is willing to go out with Sam on “Saturday, 6? under the clock at Leicester Square. That work? We’ll go for dinner- well, breakfast- you know what I mean.” Once again, we see that the OIAR jobs appear to be very exhausting and have odd work hours. I also wonder what Celia’s end goal is. Does she genuinely like Sam or does she see him as means to an end. Is Celia here to help Sam and co or is she here to harm them?

As Celia leaves, Alice walks in and proceeds to make fun of Sam for clearly being extremely nervous as he asked out Celia. Alice says “(normal again) You know it’s rude to have absolutely no game? Christ, all these years and you still ask people out like a baby foal learning to tapdance.” A reference to the fact that she and Sam dated at some point, and how Sam probably acted very similarly when trying to ask her out. Sam does point out “Look it worked didn’t it?” which seems like it could be a sort of double meaning. Sam’s nervous approach got Celia to agree to a date but also Alice presumably agreed to go out with him in the past too.

Sam apologizes to Alice for dragging her to the ruins of the Institute only to fund nothing… well nothing Sam and Alice know about since something escaped the Institute. Sam says he’s done with Magnus stuff and Alice responds with “So you’re telling me that if I had a case full of emails with the title “Magnus Institute re: Samama Khalid – Massive Conspiracy” you wouldn’t be tempted?” to which Sam says no before asking “You don’t, though. Do you? That was just, like, a joke. Right?” Alice then says “Come on, for now let’s just focus on getting you as jaded and apathetic as possible.” Considering that Alice does appear to be pretty jaded about listening to the cases and piecing them together this could be related to her point about ignoring the talkers and not getting caught up in thinking too much about what’s happening. 

NORRIS starts expositing the next case

“Claim Review: EL-56920 

Policy Holder: Soho Jack’s Ltd. 

Policy Number: 548651-656 

Policy Type: Employers’ Liability 

Site Address: Soho Jack’s, 9 Carlisle St, London W1D 3BK 

Affected Employee: Ms. Jordan Bennett 

Date of Incident: 9 March 2024 

Incident Location: On site. 

Documentation: Crime Report – Submitted 

Medical Practitioner Report – Submitted 

Incident Book Entry – Submitted First Aider’s Report – Submitted 

Supervisor’s incident Report - Submitted 

HSE communications - Submitted 

Health-And-Safety policies - Submitted 

Employment Contract - Submitted 

Claim Valuation: £1,560,000 Assessment 

Conclusion: Claim Denied Reason: Fraudulent claim (see incident description and police report)”

This, along with some information Jordan mentions later, means Jordan is suing Soho Jack’s Ltd. They go on to say that their lawyer has advised them to cooperate with Soho Jack’s insurance claim as a show of good faith, even if they’re planning on “suing your asses to kingdom-come.” They start recounting an event that occurred on the company’s property and apologize for their terrible handwriting (which we later learn is probably because Mr. Bonzo bit off one of their hands).

They go over how they started working at Jack’s in the spring of 2021 after they had finished Flair Academy. After struggling to find a job they managed to get an interview and then job at the aforementioned Jack’s. The club seems to have a good reputation as Jordan refers to it as “the Soho Gentleman’s club.” The company’s building “...has dances on the bottom two floors with VIP suites for hire above with a dedicated bouncer keeping them separate. Really, it’s just a quieter box with a private bar, some comfy chairs and the option of private dancers.” Despite this being “THE” Soho Gentleman’s club Jordan says “It’s always booked up with swank dickheads trying to show off, but Stags are the worst: they’re cheap, they’re loud, they drink too much, tip too little and only ever hire one dance for the groom. Plus there’s always some “nice guy” that won’t shut up about exploitation without even bothering to stop staring.” 

Jordan begins to explain how the party the specific party that led to them wanting to sue Jack’s. They state that this specific party’s lot was not the worst and were “Just a bunch of heavyset, middle-aged lads with names like Ozzer, or Rozzer or whatever. ” and notes that “The groom was fine, acted embarrassed even though he was obviously keen and they were easily pleased. ”

“They started giving the groom gifts. Same old tat as always, cufflinks, poo gags, all the standard stuff. Then the groom spotted the last one on the table, this cheap yellow and purple kids lunch box. It looked old and shoddy and no one admitted to bringing it but the groom just squealed with glee and carefully opened it before pulling out a bunch old souvenir merch. Pencils, postcards, keyrings, all sorts of crap, all the same yellow and purple and last of all a cracked CD case. When they saw it the whole bunch gave this big laughing cheer.” I have talked about how I think Mr. Bonzo is probably tied to The Stranger if we view him through the lens of Smirke’s 14. I will retread some of those reasons later but right now I want to point out that no one admitted to bringing the Bonzo CD. It could simply be that it’s a prank and someone happened to grab an artifact or something tied to Bonzo, and maybe someone from the OIAR even planted it there, but it could also be connected to the idea of The Stranger and the fear of the unknown because it could be that no one actually knows who got that CD.

We also know that The Stranger is no… stranger to dropping off or delivering strange artifacts in order to feed on the fear of people interacting with unknown /mysterious objects. Breekon and Hope’s delivery service are a good example of this (strangers that show up and drop off never before seen or uncanny objects and artifacts).

“I could see which way the wind was turning and sure enough the bestman came over and asked if he could play it. The cover had this awful comic sans title: “Mr. Bonzo’s On His Way” and I wasn't exactly thrilled by this.” Jordan explains that “Mr. Bonzo was way before my time and from what I had seen online he had always looked pretty messed up. But hey, it was their night, if they wanted to spend it on some cringy nostalgia trip, who was I to say no?” Which could mean that Jordan doesn’t know a lot about Mr. Bonzo, and lack of familiarity with something is one of the things that we know entities like The Stranger love to prey on.

“This kind of thing happened often enough that we kept a battered old CD Player in the back that we could patch into the room's speakers, just in case. So, I ducked back there, put it on, turned the volume down as low as I could get away with, and prayed it wasn’t too obnoxious. Immediately the cheering children’s voices blared out the speakers accompanied by bouncy tubas loud enough to drown out the rest of the club’s music. It was awful but I could hear the lads stamping the floor in rhythm and as the kids started singing the men were singing along: “Mr. Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play! Mr. Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play!” If you want to listen to the song Jordan is referring to it is actually available on Youtube: Mr Bonzo (from 'The Magnus Protocol'). Maybe you can put yourself in the shoes of an annoyed Jordan or ecstatic old man at the club.

Jordan clearly finds the song annoying and after waiting a minute, in order to avoid being a “total killjoy,” they decide to turn off the song before “ Derek came down from the office to “have a word.” I assume Jordan meant Derek would complain about the music. However, when Jordan turns the CD player off it “...just grew louder, rattling the glassware in the bar: “Mr. Bonzo’s on his way, he wants to stay, he wants to play!” I even yanked the cables from the speakers, but it just kept getting louder.” Obviously, something supernatural is going on but Jordan reasonably assumes that the player just broke and begins to reach for their walkie talkie in order to call for some tech support. However, as they do so they are interrupted by a massive crash coming from another part of the room followed by a cheer. Jordan gets ready to reprimand the party goers for whatever mess they might have made but instead sees Mr. Bonzo. “It was hunched in the doorway, a bulbous figure with a purple hat that cast crazed shadows in all directions thanks to the club’s lighting effects. Then it doffed its hat and pushed itself into the room, foam catching on the doorframe with a squeak that set my teeth on edge. Its massive bulbous google-eyes seemed to roam all over the room before settling on the groom and it was almost as if the huge toothy grin grew wider when it saw him.” We know that Gwen delivered a name and address to Bonzo and in the previous episode Lena even tells Gwen “I’m sure you’ve already worked that out. But just in case you haven’t, keep an eye on the case loads over the next few days. It should become abundantly clear.” Implying that this could be the case Lena was alluding to or that the groom (or someone else in the room) is Bonzo’s target (but it’s almost definitely the groom).

Everyone in the room assumes the appearance of Bonzo is some sort of gift or prank and “The rugby boys were tripping over themselves to get in and hug it, laughing and pushing the groom to the front and so I figured at that point it was a prank. Again, none of them took credit for it and there was a moment of genuine hesitation, until one of them yelled out “It's ya lapdance, Baz!” and they all fell about laughing.” Jordan is furious that a coworker named Joey presumably let Bonzo in and the idea that Joey might have bailed on Jordan again by “ducking out for a smoke.” But as Jordan moves forward they notice something- “I began to stride over, readying for the inevitable complaints then hesitated as I saw something far more unnerving than the ugly costume that was capering with the groom in the middle of the group. There was a pair of heavy boots on their side, poking just inside the still open doorway. Joey’s boots, and they weren't moving. Just then the google eyes looked turned to me, and a puffy finger raised cheekily to its mouth.” So Joey was killed by Bonzo and all the while “the men had all started chanting “Bonzo! Bonzo! Bonzo”, stamping their feet and banging the tables in a circle around the pair in the center…” and the music kept getting louder. So loud that it began to sound distorted from the strain the song was putting on the speakers.

Out of all the Entities the Slaughter seems to have a pretty strong connection to music but The Stranger also has a strong precedent for music. For example, The Calliope in TMA is an artifact tied to The Stranger. In MAG 024 (Strange Music) it is mentioned that the instrument has "Be still, for there is strange music" carved into the cover of the keyboard. While The Slaughter’s connection to music is probably due to an association between rhythm and war (think the marching of an army or the phrase “drums of war”) as well as the fear of “violent” music, The Stranger’s connection to music seems to come from the idea of either strange unknown sounds or a song / sound that sounds really uncanny. It is noted by Jordan that Mr. Bonzo’s song grows louder and more distorted overtime which would mean that the song is becoming more and more incomprehensible as it would slowly change into a song with lyrics you couldn’t understand or identify as easily. It could also be that the song sounds uncanny in the sense that it is familiar in some ways but something is off about it.

Jordan tries to call for help on his walkie talkie but can only hear Mr. Bonzo’s theme blaring out of its tiny speaker. Jordan tries to warn everyone and get out but no one can hear him over the music. Bonzo takes the groom and begins to “dance” with him by spinning around faster and faster until Bonzo decides to rip his arms off and even as this act of gorey brutality took place the other party goers present continued to laugh and laugh until Jordan’s scream caused them to realize this wasn’t some sort of prank. Almost everyone begins to yell in terror but some yelled in rage and proceeded to attack Bonzo: “A few of the bigger guys picked up chairs or bottles and began to beat and slash at the thing. It didn’t seem to notice, its bulbous, bloodshot, eyes staying fixed on the groom’s body as it raised it overhead.” Bonzo then proceeds to continue pulverizing the body by smashing it against the ground over and over.

“For a split second, all was still but the music just pounded on, barely recognizable now over the distortion from the smoking speakers as those voices, no longer childlike, still chanted the words “He’s here to stay… He wants to play…”” “Then Mr. Bonzo turned towards us with its head bowed almost reverentially and everybody went silent. Slowly, awfully slowly, it raised its head, titling it coquettishly to one side. Then the seams across its face split revealing its gaping maw filled with even larger, sharper teeth.” Jordan admits that they don’t remember much about what happened after that but “I dream about it most nights. In the dream it digs through all those men to get to me, grabbing fistfuls of them and throwing them to smash against the wall. The strobe fires as its hands plunge into the pile of us and each flash shows a little less flesh between me and it, between me and all those teeth… finally everyone else is gone. I raise my arm to protect myself and it gently but inexorably lifts it into its mouth, smiles and bites… None of us was left whole but I was the luckiest. All I lost was a hand, it wasn’t even my dominant one.” The biting was set up previously in episode 10 when the transcripts mention “Gwen holds out the envelope and Mr Bonzo snatches it into his mouth, audibly chewing it. His teeth are not soft.”

Jordan says that they “told the investigators everything I know, doctors too. I don't know why nobody outside the room heard or saw anything, why the cameras weren't working, why it let me live. But I do know why there weren't any bodies. All I actually want is my hand back so I can tend bar but that isn’t going to happen is it? So I’ll have to settle for the next best thing and sue you for everything I can get, because I don’t know what happened that night but it was in your venue and no one came to help. Not Derek, not another doorman, no one. So yeah, you’d better have one hell of a settlement waiting for me, or I'll see you in court.”

While you could make an argument for themes of Entities like The Desolation, Flesh, Hunt, etc. I’m still going to primarily argue for Bonzo being tied to The Stranger or a similar Entity due to what we see in his previous appearances. For the sake of clarity, if there is any debate about what The Stranger embodies in MAG 200 it is stated “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” and in MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains) Jonah tells Jon “We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown.” while in MAG 111 (Family Business) Jon says “The Stranger is the unknown. The uncanny.” and Gerard doesn’t correct him.

However, a lot of Mr. Bonzo’s behaviours in previous episodes resembles The Stranger (and The Stranger has violently attacked or killed people in the past). Mr. Bonzo is also described as being a clown. Something we know The Stranger has a precedent for manifesting as, probably due to both the idea of the uncanny valley being achieved with a costume or makeup and the idea of a traveling circus full of strangers you don’t know from out of town in addition to a clown costume acting as a disguise that can obscure whoever is wearing it. Not to mention that Mr. Bonzo is described as a suit, which could very easily connect to an Entity like The Stranger. Firstly, The Stranger tends to have a big emphasis on wearing things like skins and suits. Additionally, Gwen mentions in episode 11 “That… abomination wasn’t a costume. That was skin. It was sagging, it was sweaty!” and we know The Stranger has a tendency for wearing skin, skinning things (such as with taxidermy), etc. as a form of disguise, in order to hide itself, or to metaphorically rob something of their identity.

This also applies to costumes in general since usually wearing costumes or disguises can actually obscure who is wearing them and thus their true identity is unknown. There’s also the fact that costumes themselves can easily fall into the uncanny valley. Ever since Five Nights at Freddy’s became popular there’s been an uptick in horror media focusing on how creepy and uncanny things like animatronic suits can be. Not that Mr. Bonzo is an animatronic but it is a suit. Also, Bonzo apparently has hard teeth and having solid teeth on a suit could look uncanny.

The surprise gift and sudden appearance of Bonzo that others assume is some sort of surprise or prank could also tie into The Stranger and the idea of something mysteriously appearing or not being expected. Bonzo was originally made to prank celebrities. As Nigel explains in episode 10 that his produce ““inviting a famous person on, someone really serious, and we tell them we’re going to have them do a segment with a popular children’s entertainer. Now, obviously these folks won’t have any idea about what kids are actually watching, so we could come up with the most horrendous thing, claim kids loved it and see how long it took for the guest to realize that they were the joke. That they’d been “berried”” and “The problem with a surprise prank is that doing it on Saturday night primetime means pretty soon everyone knows about it, and the guests knew it was coming. A couple even requested it. So the prank part of it sort of died, and he just became an SOS mascot. One of my many tormentors in the dungeon. By the end we’d even retired Mr. Six, and it was all Bonzo.” Once again, a focus on surprise and I think it’s interesting that Bonzo loses his punch the more people know about and understand him. Bonzo is a character that thrived specifically on the guests not knowing who he was and did. So a potential relationship with the unknown again.”

In episode 10 Nigel says to Gwen ““Try not to stare. He doesn’t like it when people stare.” Which could relate to The Stranger. While all the Entities are connected, overlap, and need each other for a ritual bringing them into the world to work, with even seemingly opposing Entities bleeding into each other or having overlapping fears, The Stranger can often have an antagonistic relationship with The Eye and forms of being known. The Stranger tends to thrive off the fear of being unknown so staring at something aligned with The Stranger might make it react negatively. In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains) Jonah tells Jon “We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown.” In MAG 165 (Revolutions) Not-Sasha says this in regards to The Eye’s Post-Change world “Do you know how it feels? To be – anonymous? And yet known! To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned Eye. I’ve suffered enough.” So if my theory that Bonzo is tied to something like The Stranger is correct, that could explain a potentially negative reaction to being looked at for too long since aspects of The Stranger often don’t like it when people try to figure out what they are. This could ring extra true if it does turn out that the OIAR is somehow connected to The Eye.

Bonzo’s eating and biting could potentially be linked to The Stranger’s tendency for odd uncanny behavior, like that time Breekon / Hope ate a butterfly. The fact that this monster looks like Bonzo could also be related to the idea of the uncanny, since he would resemble Bonzo but behave and look a bit off. Also, it seems hard to tell if Bonzo is a costume or a monster resembling a costume which makes it harder to know what he is for sure, and The Stranger loves playing up mystery (think how we never know which character is Breekon and which character is Hope from Breekon and Hope in TMA, and Jon describes one of them as “one half of Breekon and Hope”). Also, Bonzo can only say his name which means you never really know what he’s saying or talking about.

Bonzo killing everyone in the room but leaving someone alive is not a completely unheard of idea. The Entities in general often seem to leave witnesses if in doing so more fear is generated and we see creatures like the Not-Them kill and replace people while ensuring that at least one person remembers what the original persona actually looked like even if no one else does. The reason for this is because if the Not-Them’s disguise was perfect and changed every bit of memory and evidence then there wouldn’t be anyone to be afraid of the idea that someone they know has been replaced by a stranger.

Jordan mentions “I don't know why nobody outside the room heard or saw anything, why the cameras weren't working, why it let me live. But I do know why there weren't any bodies.” which emphasizes his confusion about what’s happening. While confusion is often tied to The Spiral, in this case it stems from a bunch of unknown factors and variables, like why there were no other witnesses and why the cameras weren’t working.” As far as there being no witnesses and the cameras failing to work, the Entities are known for usually being on the downlow and not common knowledge but Entities like The Stranger tend to thrive off the fear of mystery and have a precedent for things like mysterious disappearances or hiding people / things. The Calliope I mentioned earlier mysteriously disappeared from the Institute’s archives at some point in TMA and in MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains) Jonah tells Jon “We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown.” Jonah specifically mentions that The Stranger has a connection to “the hidden” among other things. In MAG 102 (Nesting Instinct) Jonah even says that The Stranger essentially hid Jon from him when saying “I was doing everything in my power to locate you. Everyone was working on finding the ritual site.” and “[Irritated] I am sorry, John, that my powers have not yet reached the level of omniscience.” Jordan does say that they know why there weren’t any bodies which implies that Mr. Bonzo probably ate them.

Jordan having trouble remembering exactly what happened actually does have a precedent with The Stranger since the Entity does have connections to memory loss or a loss of identity. In MAG 165 (Revolutions) we see Not-Sasha watch over a Domain that takes the form of a merry-go-round with people fighting over faces. People with no faces must fight over the faces of others to rip them off and regain some sense of identity. When they lose their face it is said “And soon enough they will forget they ever even had one, rest assured; it’s best to step the dance and keep your face secured as much as you are able. Just. Keep. Running.” Jon and co also face memory loss when they interrupt The Stranger’ ritual in TMA and forget who they are and what they are doing for a period of time.

Some other Entities this statement parallels are that of The Slaughter (with sudden brutal and gory violence), The Flesh (via bodily disfigurement by way of losing a hand, Bonzo being described as releasing “some vile mixture of putrid water, rotten foam and rancid meat.” when cut at some point, and Bonzo biting into people), The End (a lot of people brutally die), The Corruption (from the aforementioned vile mixture pouring out of Bonzo), and even The Eye (with the strange and horrifying dreams Jordan is forced to relive over and over resembling how people who give Jon live statements are forced to relive said moments in the form of nightmares over and over). Like always, I have to at least touch on the fact that The Eye doesn’t seem to just be the fear of being watched but also being a witness to something you don’t want to see. Jon can force people to recount and relive terrible moments, Jonah can force information into the heads of people like Melanie and Martin, and in MAG 200 The Eye is stated to have been born from the fear of one’s own eyes showing them too much.

All this being said, I still think the OIAR is somehow connected to The Eye. There’s the cases being like statements but also the fact that they supply sensitive information (such as names and locations) to things like Mr. Bonzo. People like Jonah could almost always know one’s location thanks to their Eye powers and The Eye is connected to the fear of someone / something knowing too much about you (such as knowing where and who you are). I wonder why Bonzo was sent to kill this particular groom when he was just partying? Did the groom know something or overstep some line or was the groom just some sort of offering to appease Mr. Bonzo? How was this person’s name and address obtained? Was it just mundane tracking or something closer to Jonah’s clairvoyance? Nigel acted like he was doing the OIAR a favor so right now it seems like this was a target decided by the OIAR and not necessarily Nigel. Unless you want to argue that the “favor” is aiding in keeping Bonzo pacified, under wraps, or something potentially more mutually beneficial. I wonder if Jordan’s dreams are somehow connected to being directly involved in a case or facing an External of the OIAR? It could also simply be that Jordan is traumatized.

We cut to Gwen and the transcripts say she “is sat at her desk, stunned by what she has just heard.” and she only says “Jesus Christ…” I wonder if this is because the case is unusually brutal or gorey when compared to most others or if she realized there’s a connection between the letter she delivered and what happens in this case. Considering what Lena said it's very possible that some of the cases the OIAR gets are connected to the activity of their own Externals (such as Mr. Bonzo).

ALICE CONT. 

“Gwen? Hello?”

GWEN 

“(dazed) What?”

Getting sucked into a statement like this and statements having a negative impact on one’s mental state are both things we have seen in TMA. Jon had a hard time stopping once he started a statement and at one point Jon expresses worry that Martin was listening to a bunch of statements for Peter Lukas and his plan in regards to The Extinction. Although, it could be that Gwen is merely shocked.

Gwen explains that she met one of the Externals but Alice seems to think Gwen is just referring to some annoying assholes as opposed to any supernatural monsters that takes the form of beloved childhood characters.

Gwen seems to finally wonder the question that I’ve been wondering for a while now:

GWEN 

“What do you think we’re actually doing, here at the O.I.A.R.?” 

ALICE 

“Apart from mortgaging our mental health for a wage packet?” 

GWEN 

“We’ve both been here long enough to know this place. We’re not doing good. We’re not just sifting random data. There’s something wrong here.”

ALICE 

“What are you getting at?”

GWEN 

“You never wonder what the point is? Who benefits from all this awfulness?”

ALICE 

“I don’t wonder. I know.”

GWEN 

(sitting up) “What? Really?”

ALICE 

“(portentous) Oh yeah. I’ve known for a while. What we’re doing here, it’s all part of a grand plan to satisfy one of the most unspeakable evils known to mankind... “

Gwen’s on the edge of her seat. 

ALICE 

“(almost a whisper) …the UK government.”

In TMA the point of the Institute sifting through statements and stuff was twofold. Firstly, to feed The Eye but also to set up the lynchpin for The Eye’s ritual with the position of the Archivist. I wonder if something similar is going on here but I can’t say since while you could argue that being an Externals Liaison is like the Archivist and shares the role as being a “living chronicle of fear” (especially since Lena remarked that Gwen should show fear via screaming because Externals tend to like that) Gwen had to blackmail her way into that position. I have no idea who was the Externals Liaison before her or if there are other Liaisons, if there even was one(s) before / with Gwen at all. Also, unlike the Institute, the OIAR is explicitly connected to the government and is meant to respond to things (not just watch). So it’s very likely that the OIAR has a role that is different from just “The Mass Ritual / Institute 2.0.” They could still be gathering fear related to the statements and being observed like the Institute in TMA though. However, even the Institute still wanted the Archival staff to do a good job following up statements and stuff. Jon tries to reorganize the Archives after Gertrude purposefully left them disorganized and Tim corrects Jon about some errors he made when reading some statements. The OIAR doesn’t really seem to care how well or poorly their workers categorize the cases and I don’t know if anyone checks.

Alice’s joke about the greatest evil known to mankind being the UK government feels like foreshadowing considering that the OIAR, and by extension all the Externals like Bonzo, are connected to the government.

Alice’s comment “Apart from mortgaging our mental health for a wage packet?” references how stressful this job seems to be.

Conclusion

Yeah, idk. This was a very simple episode overall and it mostly just seemed like it was following up Lena’s point about paying attention to the caseload.

Okay, hold on, before I end this I figured I should actually try to look at the voices in the computer system a bit more closely, since quite frankly, like with the alchemy symbols, I’ve admittedly been neglecting them and not focusing on them as much as I should have. This is because I actually couldn’t tell if there was any kind of correlation between the voices and the kinds of cases they read but a video by Maddie’s Maxis called “This Channel's First Video - The Magnus Protocol Analysis and Theories” (which you can view here This Channel's First Video - The Magnus Protocol Analysis and Theories) hypothesizes that there is actually a correlation. As we all know two of the computer voices sound like Martin and Jon and Maddie argues that the kinds of statements the voices read correspond to something that had to do with the character. For example, in theory NORRIS (Martin’s voice) tends to have statements relating to self-loathing and loneliness. I don’t know what they are feeding Maddie but Maddie is potentially cooking here. So I decided to glance over at some of the statements and see if there are any patterns.

I’m going to start with the theme that seems the most concrete in my opinion. The cases that NORRIS (Martin’s voice) reads seem to often be tied to themes of isolation, losing loved ones, or feeling abandoned. I should make it clear that while I know Martin in TMA is connected to The Lonely I am not saying all the cases NORRIS reads are connected to The Lonely. The mere presence of feeling alone or isolated doesn’t automatically make a statement Lonely related in the same way someone dying, getting attacked, or something taking place at night or in darkness automatically means End, Slaughter, or Dark respectively. Also, it’s important to remember that every Entity, even seemingly opposing ones, have overlap, shared fears, commonalities, etc..

But let’s look at the cases to see if this pattern is really there. The case NORRIS covers in episode 1 involves the Anglerfish, or something resembling it, killing and replacing their romantic partner. Harriet even says “And that voice I have loved for twenty years answered: “Some of him.”” So loss of a loved one.

In episode 3 NORRIS covers a case in which Dr. Samuel seems to feel immense guilt and sorrow about the death of Maddie. Once again, the loss of a close loved one.

In episode 8 NORRIS goes over a report Terrance submits about the effects of brutal liminalism. While no one dies or is replaced in the actual events of the case, Terrance does mention “originally took my role as a night janitor at Forton following a protracted divorce which cost me the majority of my friendships.” So while their partner isn’t dead they did lose a loved one, and if you read my thoughts on that episode you know that I actually think the case has a lot of similarities with The Lonely. The fog, the vaguely familiar but impossible to understand gibberish, people with repeating features, being isolated in a dark void, etc.. Even if you disagree that it’s The Lonely there is still a connection to themes of losing someone close and being alone.

If there was an episode to disprove this theory it would probably be episode 12 since it’s just Bonzo murdering a room full of people. Jordan does say “I don't know why nobody outside the room heard or saw anything” and earlier in the case they mention that they believed their coworker by the name of Joey the doorman might have ditched him again but this definitely feels a bit more like a stretch. Jordan does seem to blame the establishment for what happened and this is because from the perspective of Jordan no one came to help despite how obvious and loud the commotion was. Which could maybe tie into the idea of being abandoned or left alone but this is definitely pushin it and it’s clear that our understanding of what kinds of cases each voice reads might expand as the series goes on.

Maddie argues that CHESTER (Jonathon’s voice) seems to usually cover cases related directly to the Magnus Institute. Which is generally true, CHESTER covers the cases of RedCanary spelunking in the Institute’s ruins in episode 1, and the gambling dice being submitted to the Institute in episode 9 for example. But CHESTER also covers the case about Tom wanting to watch Voyeur in episode 5, the case regarding Hilltop Center in episode 7, Gordon’s encounter with the tattoos and Ink5 during construction in episode 11. It’s very possible that these are just related to the Institute in ways we don’t understand yet, for example some of the characters that appear could be members of the Institute or something, but in my opinion this definitely throws a wrench into some things.

CHESTER seems to have a stronger case for a theme of curiosity and a desire to know in general as opposed to just the Magnus Institute. RedCanary investigates the archives out of curiosity, Tom really wants to see the Voyeur movie for their blog, the narrator explains that they experimented with the gambling dice to figure out how they worked, and Gordon keeps talking about how they “just need to see it. I need to know what’s in the water.” As I’ve mentioned previously, The Eye also has a major emphasis on a desire to know and understand something even if it comes at the cost of yourself and / or other people. Hilltop Center still seems like a bit of an outlier here but while Dianne isn’t spelunking through ruins or anything she does mention that she was looking for people to help her work at the center. Which, while a bit of a stretch, could fit with a theme of curiosity or desire to know in the case of Chester. Or at least the idea of something being searched for as a theme at least. 

If you wanted to argue that CHESTER actually related to things being looked for you could say that the case about the gambling dice revolves around the narrator giving the Institute artifacts, and they even say “So yeah, I tell you all about them, how I got them, all that crap and you just… You take them away, right? You accept them? Good. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It’s how it worked for me, at least. Put them in whatever vault you like, bury them, drop them in the ocean, for all I care. All that matters is that they’re yours now.” So you could say that the Institute was looking for artifacts. You could also argue that the narrator was looking for people to roll the dice, looking for good luck, or started making their way towards Gary when they found him.

AUGUSTUS has a voice I am not familiar with (and we will get to the popular theory in a moment). I can only recall AUGUSTUS voicing one case, I might be forgetting one or something, so I don’t have a lot to go on. AUGUSTUS could be covering really old statements, as Sam notes the one in episode 4 is from the 18th century, or statements revolving around others climbing their way to their top and doing whatever it takes to do so. It’s kind of unclear until I can see some more AUGUSTUS statements.

There’s also some obvious character associations with this theory. Martin, someone connected to The Lonely, has statements reflecting some kind of isolation or abandonment, Jon, the Archivist with a strong tie to The Eye and someone who was strung along while trying to solve Jonah’s plan and learn the truth about the Entities, has statements involving extreme curiosity or people looking for things, and Jonah, someone who is really old and ruthless (so ruthless that they made the world a fear hellscape in an attempt to avoid death), has had a statement taking place in the 18th century involving someone giving a blood sacrifice to play violin super well.

There’s a popular theory going around that the three voices in the computers are actually Jonathon, Martin, and Jonah, and this definitely seems like one of the more credible theories floating around the community to a degree. AUGUSTUS’ unfamiliar voice could be the voice of Jonah’s original body. Jon, Martin, and Jonah were all in the panopticon when the Change ended which could be the event that got them tied to the computers. It could also have to do with being the pupil of the Eye somehow. Jonah and Jon were both the Eye’s pupil at some point and Jon got his position by killing Jonah to take his spot. It’s possible something weird happened like Martin was about to become the Eye’s pupil after removing Jon from the position, giving them this common link, but I can’t say for sure.

Maddie also points out another big thing to remember in the video. I have mentioned that Annabelle seems generally right about what happens to the Entities’ various Monsters and Avatars after the Entities get pulled into the next universe. Monsters, like potentially the Anglerfish, presumably get sucked into the new universe since they are part of the Entities. Other people may or may not get sucked into the universe depending on how attached they were to the Entity. It’s also possible that they will always just be left behind. However, Annabelle also mentions that it’s possible the Entities will take the aspects of a person that are connected to or are a part of the Entity. So, it’s possible that the parts of Jon, Martin, and Jonah in the computer are not them in their entirety but merely specific aspects of their personality or being. It could literally just be their voices taken by one or more Entities for all we know.

We also know that some Entities, like The End, seem capable of making copies or “memories” of people after / when they die. In MAG 154 (Bloody Mary) Eric states “I know that I’m not really Eric; I’m just a memory someone wrote down. It hurts, most of the time. I don’t like it.” So one could argue that the voices in the computers are not the fully sentient original versions of Jon, Martin, and Jonah but “memories” or copies created by one or more Entities. This could also explain why the third voice might be Jonah even though Jonah potentially died before the Entities jumped universes. This voice could simply be The Eye’s metaphorical recollection of Jonah or Jonah wasn’t completely dead when the Entities switched universes. This also means that the voices in the computers could be more malicious than we first assume if there’s a chance they are in actuality not Jon, Martin, and Jonah or are in truth aspects of The Eye or bits of their personalities trying to achieve a specific goal.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the cases the voices read out don’t seem to be completely random. The second Sam is about to give up his search for the Magnus Institute CHESTER spits out a case that is perfect for reigniting his curiosity with the addition of a new clue, and when Celia takes the job the first case she gets is about Hilltop Center (which could relate to Celia’s questions about multiversal and time travel). I still can’t say if the CHESTER or any other of the computers are trying to help Sam or use him for more nefarious purposes.

I’m not super confident about this being the patterns the computers follow at the moment because frankly there isn’t a lot of cases to go off of, and I need to see more AUGUSTUS. It’s also possible that the cases are more variable or context dependant. What the voices read could depend on the person at the computer, for example: it’s possible CHESTER reads a bunch of cases connected to the Institute because that’s what Sam was most interested in. There are also some cases we don’t have enough context behind yet, for example the mysterious figure in the Hilltop Road case could be connected to something like the Institute in some way, or that some of the voices focus on certain Externals Liaisons, people, etc..

If you want another TMAGP theory video to watch here’s one by Pinkelotje: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX51EHLy7BQ&ab_channel=pinkelotje.

#tmagp #tma #the magnus protocol #the magnus archives #theory

[flecks-of-stardust]

wholeheartedly and with as much gentleness as possible, i truly think there needs to be more discussion about downpour in the community as it is now. for a variety of reasons.

#not main tagging this right now but #some tag babbling. like #some of yall are unnecessarily cruel about downpour. seriously. #you don't have to like it but you can also stand not to tear down someone's work like this #if every word out of your mouth is just about how much you hate downpour. why are you still here? #and i mean that genuinely. it's unpleasant for you and for everyone else. and i say this as someone who still prefers vanilla's lore #at the same time i think it's a real issue where some people take downpour as gospel and assume things about other people's creative choice #even though downpour is a DLC and it's hard to make certain claims about canonicity because of that #it has been publicly acknowledged as being an official AU. multiple times. by the MSC devs themselves #downpour is a fan made passion project that was worked on for years and years before it got DLC status #it was never meant to be scrutinized in the way it is now. i think it's more appropriate to regard it as like #a really popular fanfic most of the fanbase has read #i just feel like. a lot of the community conflicts i've seen stem from downpour's messy existence as a DLC that was originally a mod #and i think it's valuable to have community discussions about that. but also this is tumblr. so. i'm probably asking for too much

[random-human-being2311]

there is just something so beautiful about songs about the joy you get from such mundane things.

like singing about how the weather's sunny or the weather's rainy but in a way so heartfelt and uplifting the song stays with you, close to your heart for years to come even if you don't know its name

like singing about how much you love your best friends. not because they recently did something that particularly amazes you but just appreciating them being there for you and just generally genuinely making you happy

the most mundane everyday things can become the most meaningful and heartfelt and it's probably just because I'm aroace but I feel that they're so much more genuine than songs about how happy you are because you and your romantic partner got back together or something

i remember seeing a youtube comment a short while back that was along the lines of "I know that usually it's only love songs that are meaningful but this song is the exception" and just thinking dear god how sad must this person's life be if they can't find beauty in anything other than something to do with love. Have you never just stared at a bird perched in a tree singing? Never seen a painting so full of colours that compliment each other in such a way that they each make the others look brighter but it never becomes a clashing over-the-top mess but a harmony of rainbows? Never just eaten a really good meal?

I would trade a thousand shallow, boring, generic songs about romance or heartbreak in exchange for one song about the beauty in the mundane things we take for granted.

#aroace #ace #aro #aromantic #asexual #yes this was originally about the beatles how could you tell #but don't think this was ever intended to be EXCLUSIVELY about them #I just first had this thought when listening to Here Comes The Sun and Mr Blue Sky and Friends Will Be Friends #that one commenter ALONE drove me to make this how the heck could you think that love songs are automatically the most meaningful like tf?? #I just don't understand it at all in any way #my whole life I've thought they're the most shallow and meaningless and repetitive #honestly though for my whole life I've been very obviously aroace even if I didn't know it so take that with a grain of salt #oh also shoutout to the beatles song Rain #it's a personal favourite of mine because I'm a weirdo (/affectionate) who likes rainy weather #so just hearing a song about rain where it's happy and the rain is a positive thing is just like damn this song was designed for me #I mean even if it weren't for that I'd probably still love Rain because it's a bop #dear god I need to stop putting so many tags on everything #the beatles #queen band #electric light orchestra #yes i know the irony of making a post about how there are things much better than love songs and then tagging the beatles #I may be autistic but I'm not THAT bad at picking up on social cues #ok that was a lie I AM that bad #but this one specific time I'm not #that one's ramblings

[front-facing-pokemon]

#taillow #i do believe this was the first “normal/flying route-1 bird” pokémon that i ever saw. probably. i still don't know which pokémon game was my #first one between colosseum‚ diamond‚ and sapphire. all of which i still have the physical copies of to this day‚ but none of which still #have their original save files remaining on them. so i can't check the dates‚ otherwise i would #but my first pokémon game was One of those three. maybe i could ask my mom. like‚ hey‚ which one did i get first. maybe she'll remember #‘cause we always played pokémon colosseum together. she ended up thinking that that was the core series and the ones on handheld were #spinoffs because she thought the core series would be on home console. oh how naïve she was…… #ok i've texted her and asked her. i'm gonna add this one to the queue and start writing the tags for swellow while i wait for her response #and i'll come back and edit this one with the results. see you then #hi! i'm back. final verdict is that i got the game boy much sooner than the gamecube. i didn't know that but now i do. she got it at #a yard sale‚ so it came with a bunch of games on it‚ which is how i ended up with pokémon sapphire. thus‚ i played that first #however‚ i didn't get very far in it because the game i liked playing the most as a kid was tony hawk underground‚ which i also had #from the yard sale. and thus i remember pokémon colosseum much better‚ because i probably didn't even get to the first gym in sapphire #so that means this IS the first normal/flying route-one bird pokémon i ever saw. we did it #now i will take my meds

[farolero-posting]

I think Cedric and Calamus should be friends and join the club of teenagers with way too much weight on their shoulders because holy shit they deserve good things.

I mean, one of those small details that I always felt were kind of sad was that line Cedric has about not knowing Calamus or Alula... which makes sense in a way, because it was the Author who knew them better. And yet both Cedric and Calamus feel close in age and have similar personalities I am genuinely surprised they weren't friends.

And now considering their circumstances... Both of them need to be the proactive sibling, ready to react to situations that are beyond what teens like them should be doing.

We... never get told what happened to Rachis, although context probably tells us he was one of the NPCs lost to the squares. But even if Calamus and Alula were not aware of that truth, they're both still functionally orphans, and Calamus has made it his responsibility to make sure Alula is okay because she is all he has left.

Cedric is one of the few people aware of being in a simulation, and this by itself is already really isolating. Cedric is also the one responsible for... pretty much ensuring that Niko made it to the city and fulfilled their mission, having to make up plans as he goes. Not to mention the knowledge that his father is gone for good now, and the grief that is tied to it.

And besides all of this, I just really think that these two are alike in personality. Both are really polite, hardworking and responsible. The only big differences are their sets of skills and that Cedric is more willing to take risks on the spot, while I feel like Calamus would be more cautious in his place.

But gosh they could be good friends.

#oneshot game #cedric #calamus #analysis #i am not the most skilled writer but boy do i wanna do something about this yknow #Something something i wonder if Rachis and the Author had a similar dynamic at some point #Oh. another aspect im considering too as a bit of a crack theory. or a way to get some conflict potential #like. we know the cedric we meet is technically a robot. #my personal take on that is that he is made from code and contains as many memories as the original cedric was able to transfer #but when it comes to have actually experienced those things... our cedric knows those are memories. but are not /his/ own. in a way. #calamus and alula have memories that were coded in them but without awareness of their situation they see all of that as real #but cedric knows he is code and thus. he has existed inside. but whatever came before was the memories he inherited but not his own actions #so he recognizes those names. but is actually not sure he really knows them the same way his memories know them #and cannot guarantee he can be the friend they have known him as. because he is who cedric was #but also his own thing #this is a mess to explain but do u see what i mean #like how real he sees himself and how real the future ahead is and who he is aaslkfja #ok im done with my break ignore this rambling. this probably makes no sense. #im just figuring out how i wanna write characters #fic: write your own path forward #< for personal organization

[skitskatdacat63]

Orb...

+ process kinda

#istg lineart is just a horrible terrible thing LOL #i sketch and it goes very well and i am very happy and i feel very creative!!! #i have to do lineart and it makes me want to give up the piece ..... #i get to paint and im like omg i could do this for hours !!! this is so fun !!!!!! #thus: orb #im very happy w it so thats why im posting #idk how long the actual piece is gonna take so might as well post a little sneak peak ig #lmfao i gave up on the crown bcs it was too complicated and then drew this. maybe the crown will come back. prob not #im surprised w the process of this. i usually struggle a lot w accurately referencing real life things #and i usually end up tracing them just to understand how the form works #and god ive drawn so many complicated things for this piece and havent had to trace at all???? okay????? #i mean ofc its not entirely accurate bcs the craftsmanship on the original orb is actually insane #but i think ive got it down p well :) #ill have to try to make the gold look a bit better at some point later on but for now its !!! #i like how half my art i post here is either chibis #or just the most brainrot intense historically detailed shit ever #yes no one i talk to probably knows what a globus cruciger is but GOD DAMN IT IM GONNA DRAW IT ACCURATELY #had this thought ^ when i looked at my top posts and my last post was those nando chibis #and then after a week of not drawing after that im like yeah let me draw several imperial relics #catie.art.

[arolesbianism]

Sits in shambles I didn't read maybe Jorge's id correctly in the mysterious hermit logs the first god knows how many times I read them and only just now realized that it's the same id as the scientist that speaks in the agricultural notes log why must I be so bad at reading

#rat rambles #oni posting #on the bright side thats one mystery id kind of solved #by kind of I mean its most likely jorge but theres no way to comfirm it #this does make me feel like there might be some other b363 thing I missed but Im not sure if I doubt myself enough to go check rn #they are another character seen in story trait logs alongside an in game lifeform origin log just with critters this time #Ive made baseless speculation on who b363 could be based on what named characters we have without ids but its nowhere near confirmed #at least from what I remember but again Im starting to doubt myself a lil so I might double check at some point #the only idless characters we have fully marked off is nikola Im pretty sure #although based on the characters we do know anything abt itd most likely be either ada or liam but thats not saying much #ada is a fairly high probability tho since we basically 100% know that shes a part of the bioengineering department #liam possibly is too but thats more of a educated guess then smth particularly implied #Im glad I've finally realized who our lovely plant guy is tho #alas even if I find some hidden b363 content that still leaves I believe 3 ids unidentified #well we do know that at least one of them is steve but we don't know which one #and while we can take shots in the dark at who the scientist is theres also a second guard #and out of everyone we know bits and pieces abt theres no one who fits that bill or at least not anyone Im remembering #every other mentioned character is some flavor of scientist or is implied to be #not counting quinn but they are also off the table on account of not being a gravitas employee #so basically unless I missed smth the only previously established character that we know for sure is in that log is steve and the other two #could easily be any of the currently unused guys #and the other guard basically has to be unless theres scientists here that also double as guards

[lacewise]

YouTube comments remain a cesspool.

#I deliberately sought out a comment that was adding on to the original nuanced perspective of the video #and then posted a reply giving my anecdotal experiences #and now multiple people are arguing with me about how they’re different or my anecdotal experiences are wrong #but YouTube only takes my comments down #and not theirs that get really close to implying harassment is okay if you just really don’t like someone and think they deserve it #and then when I respond to the actual meaning of their words they act like they never said that with the comment still up #how does YouTubr moderate comments? with a dartboard? Incredibly frustrating #anyway no harassing people is not okay #and if you feel the need to go into a comment section disagreeing with that you are probably the person who needs to hear that most #and if someone says they have anecdotal experience on a subject you can check that! #off topic #not fiber arts #why not just leave me who obviously disagrees with you alone?

[tvrningout]

don't get sleepy after an hour of social interaction challenge

#ASDFG ALL I DID WAS TAKE A TEST!!! #i did get something written earlier but dude i got so sleepy and i'm trying to bounce back now #i wanna chip away at my inbox and get the last of the starters i owe from my original starter call queued up #i know i said they could be one liners but i also don't wanna do one-liners #y'all i'm shaking my brain like a maraca and trying my best to get stuff queued i promise so thanks for being patient <3 #get ready to ramble | ooc #btw completely unrelated thought but i keep thinking of chiyo in a leather jacket and boots and nails painted black and i'm #lemme smooch?? pls?? oh my gosh #i feel like out of my muses chiyo probably would try out different styles the most #and she probably likes how she looks when dressed 'alternatively' if that's what you call it?? bc i mean she can look good while #feeling super comfy #she loves wearing jeans and ripped jeans look so dang cool to her #i won't ramble a ton bc these tags are already long but chiyo in a crop top leather jacket ripped jeans and boots or sneakers..... #messy hair and a lil eyeliner and glossy lips........ #i wish i could draw asdfg

[katnissgirlsmakedo]

utterly cannot stand the type of post thats like "what are the female characters you like" and i KNOW it's not the fault of the people who make those posts i know they only do it because 95% of this site's blorbos are men. but i hate it anyway. like really the only way you can get fandom people to talk about women is to explicitly tell them to talk about women. and it always comes off so disingenuous because i KNOW most people reblogging those posts would never say those characters on a generic "what are your favorite characters" post. like it's all just so bleak :/

#like. tumblr user on an average blorbo tag post: omg dean <3 #tumblr user on average Woman Blorbo post: well i really like woman 2 from netflix original bullshit show #and i don't mean to suggest these people DON'T really like woman 2 from that show. i just think like. #well i've seen ur posts and 80% of them are about a man. and you only ever even mention HER in relation to men or when specifically prompte #like. idk. i promise female characters are interesting when you take off the patriarchy goggles. i promise they are also usually much bette #written than whatever man you're obsessed with. i promise you. #like. clary gets almost no love from this site at large but she is probably one of cassie's most complex characters ever #meanwhile everyone here lovesssss will herondale. and i won't continue that thought lest i be blacklisted #so you see what i'm saying. #most tumblr users could not defend their love of a female character against their raw posting data #beth.txt #don't mean to suggest i never like male charaters we all know i have my guys #but i don't think i talk about men more than women. actually lets review the characters of the year #i'd start with danny obviously danny was huge in january #alina. alex. liv. i'd say call tamara and aaron all count #livvy ty dru and kit are a contant and don't need to be included in the data. but if they were it'd even out anyway #ok so that's 4 men and 3 women. not a bad ratio #didn't mean to make this post about me but well it is my post so yk. whatever #anyway. basically some of you could stand to get really weird about a female character sometime. sick of your deans and whatnot!