#on top of that i have also been bingeing the magnus archives

[nymfaes]

on god warren is lamer than this, in-game he’s on his highschool romance arc

#ts4 #the sims 4 #g:archer #nym:g #a1 #ts4 legacy #ts4 legacy gameplay #ts4 gameplay #apologies for the lack of content #been preoccupied with work #...and animal crossing.... #on top of that i have also been bingeing the magnus archives

[douglysium]

Episode 11 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 10 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 11 “Marked”

And we are back, baby. I’ve actually started writing this literally the second after I finished listening to the episode. I was originally planning to wait until the weekend to write this but I’ve become so excited I can’t help myself, and Rusty Quill has been on top of posting the transcripts when the episodes comes out.

As always, the episode is being told to us through some sort of device. In this case we cut to Celia via her phone. The transcripts make it clear what’s happening “A busy motorway nearby. CELIA is asleep on grass. She starts to make slightly distressed noises as she stirs. A lorry roars past nearby and she awakes with a start.” She obviously seems frustrated upon realizing something has happened again but she realizes something as she begins to pat herself down looking for her phone or some other (most likely communication) device.

CELIA 

“(to herself) Yes! Ok, phone in the pocket works. She starts tapping the screen.”

CELIA 

“(to herself) If it had signal. She sighs in helpless frustration.”

CELIA 

“Shit.” She stretches and starts trudging off towards the motorway. 

CELIA 

“Hold on, Jack, I’m on my way.” 

Celia probably comes from or has some relation to the TMA universe but what this entire situation has to do with it, if anything, is beyond me. I don’t know who Jack is and Celia implies that this entire situation has happened before. It is once again confirmed however that whatever is listening through all the electronic devices in TMP doesn’t need said devices to have wi-fi or internet connection to be able to do so. Which was further emphasized by the fact that it was capable of listening through a tape recorder last episode.

Now that I think about it, did Celia need the phone for communication or some other thing. It’s possible that she was trying to access something like a GPS or online map to figure out where she was or where to go but it’s unclear. I can’t say if Celia implying this has happened before means she has woken up at this exact spot or random areas in general. Considering her questions to Sam about multiversal and time travel I wonder if she attempted some sort of experiment which led to her appearing in this location. Is Celia trying to get somewhere in particular? Maybe she’s trying to get back to the TMA universe or maybe she’s trying to get somewhere new?

We cut to the OIAR offices via one of the computers. I consider the interaction we witness in this scene to be another enlightening one about some of the possible dynamics at play in the OIAR workplace. Alice clearly cares strongly about Sam and they like to tease each other a lot. Sam seems a bit down about finding no clues about the Magnus Institute and Alice tries to cheer Sam up. The two talk about where Celia and Gwen are but neither knows where they are. It makes sense that they would wonder since Gwen seems like a stickler for rules and it seems weird that about half the people working in this office have disappeared with no notice. Gwen brought Sam and Celia coffee while also mentioning “I’ve got a mocha for Celia and I was really looking forward to pretending I “accidentally” forgot to order Gwen anything.” Once again, highlighting how antagonistic their relationship is and how Alice can go beyond just simple teasing and towards just being outright hostile or mean toward Gwen.

Alice seems extremely nervous and mentions “ just… I dunno. When I left the coffee shop, it felt like someone was following me.” Sam jokes “Sounds like maybe you were more bothered by that “soggy ruin” than you admit.” but Alice asks him not to joke about it, which shows that she’s extremely rattled. This level of fear from being watched sort of parallels the Institute in TMA with how Jon was scared from a feeling of being watched in the Institute. In MAG 39 (Infestation) Jon says “Because I’m scared, Martin!. Because when I record these statements it feels… it feels like I’m being watched.” However, it’s clear that what Alice is probably feeling is related to whatever escaped from the Institute in the last episode. I wonder if that being is somehow connected to The Eye. It is an Entity connected to both the fear of being watched and even followed or stalked. Not to mention the creature came from the Institute, a faction that was at least aligned with The Eye in TMA.

However, there’s an argument that this could just as easily be something related to The Spiral, Stranger, Hunt, or some other Entity entirely. The Institute had dealings with all kinds of Entities, not just The Eye. The most obvious example of this is their Artifact Storage, which collected objects connected to various Entities. So it’s possible this is some other Entity’s Monster or Avatar that was being sealed and / or researched. Considering all the alchemical undertones I even have to wonder if it’s some sort of artificial creation like some kind of homunculus.

Sam offers to walk with Alice home, to which she appreciates, and they get to work categorizing their statements. We follow the statement that Sam is listening to as exposited by CHESTER.

This statement comes from emails being sent from Gordon J to Alison Leshi regarding “Padstow civil cemetery exhumations.” In case you don’t know, an exhumation is “the action of digging up something buried, especially a corpse.” Gordon starts off by explaining to Alison that everything is going as planned, despite the sudden cold snap, due to proper planning. He also says “We also did some load testing of the ground near the cliff edge, and it looks like there’s only a few graves where the erosion means we won’t be able to use the Bobcat, and that’s few enough that my boys can do that by hand.” The first few days of this project have gone smoothly and David, their medical examiner, seems happy with their precautions.

Gordon mentions “with all the precautions we’re taking, and while we’ve certainly had our fair share of lookie-loos, there’s not been any sign of the protestors you were so concerned about stirring up. I guess it helps that no-one’s been buried here for over a hundred years, so it’s not like we’re pulling up granddad. The sailors sleeping here haven’t seen mourners since Queen Vic.” I think Gordon raising the possibility that there could be protestors is interesting. I wonder if it’s simply the fact that people might be upset at the destruction of these graves or if there’s some other reason? For example, someone might see it as an important historical site or maybe they view this project as harming the environment in some way? If you want a more supernatural reason, it could be that someone is afraid that disturbing the site could anger someone / something?

Gordon gets more personal and talks about how this job means a lot to them. They say “I know we can’t have been the cheapest company to put in a bid, but as local lads we’ve been coming to this graveyard all our lives (even if just to sneak some booze as stupid teenagers), and now that the cliff’s finally giving up the ghost (if you’ll pardon the pun), it feels right for us to be the ones taking it apart.” I looked up the phrase “giving up the ghost” and it seems like it can refer to “to stop trying to do something because you know that you will not succeed.”

Gordon says they’ll get back to Alison when the job is done but they send an email earlier than expected due to some unforeseen circumstances, and apparently David told Gordon to update Alison on the circumstances despite the fact that Gordon thinks it shouldn’t throw off their current schedule. They encountered some human remains that seem like they are in quite good condition. “...for context, the containers they’re buried in are of really varied quality. I’d say just under half were buried in decent coffins that are still in good enough shape to remove and transport unopened. For others though, the wood has rotted to the point where it’s pretty much impossible to keep the boxes together and some were just wrapped in oil cloth. This means we’re seeing, touching and moving a lot of human remains directly. Don’t worry, this isn’t about a health and safety thing – we have all the right gear and David’s making sure we follow procedure. It’s just that one of the graves had a body in that was too well-preserved for the age it should have been. Or at least, most of the skin was in extremely good condition. The back was completely covered in this complicated tattoo of a ship sailing across an open sea towards an open horizon. It was really impressive.” Take note of the tattoo since this isn’t the first time we’ve encountered a complex and very visually impressive tattoo in TMP and it’s going to come up again in this very episode.

David says that they need a second opinion and some tests since if the bodies have been buried more recently than 1908 it would mean that the cemetery is technically a crime scene for legal reasons. Gordon also mentions that the graves have been getting to him with “I’ll be honest though, I’m glad of the break. Taking up all these graves is starting to get to me a bit. I almost feel sorry for doing it. The waves are so close and getting closer. If I were a sailor buried here, I’d take some comfort in that. As you can see I’m getting morbid. Short break will do us all some good I think. Will update you when I hear word.” These feelings seem like they could relate to either The Vast, The Buried, or The End with the themes of coffins and being buried in a grave potentially tying into The Buried or End but the vast ocean possibly connecting to The Vast. But let’s keep going.

David starts acting weird and Gordon asks Alison to give David a nudge for the sake of the project. “He’s still working on that body we found and he’s stopped responding to my emails. I got him on the phone, but to be honest he doesn’t sound like he’s in any real rush to complete the job and while he’s worrying about salt water and tattoos, we’re out here sat on our hands and I’m paying the lads by the day. It’s almost enough to make you dream of sailing away for real. Like that poor fella’s tattoo. Saying that, I had another look at the photos David attached and I’m starting to think I might have been wrong about it. When I first looked, I thought it was hopeful, a crew sailing towards the sunrise. But looking again, the sun is lower than I thought, and there’s a shape in the water behind the ship. I think they’re being chased by something. Creepy eh?” So Gordon’s dream of sailing away could potentially point to The Lonely, especially given that the Entity also has a connection to the ocean and ships with Peter Lukas and the Tundra, but the whole being chased could relate to The Hunt. While Entities do chase things all the time I could see the fear of sharks or some large sea creature attempting to chase you as potentially relating to The Hunt. However, it could also potentially relate to The Vast with the idea of something massive lurking in the water, like a kraken or whale. There’s also an argument for something like The Dark with something emerging in the night as the sun sets. Well, assuming that the sun in the tattoo is setting and not rising.

And here’s where the tattoo thing comes up again. Gordon says “Oh, and speaking of tattoos, you remember you wanted an update on local sentiment about the move? Well, I don’t know if this counts as resistance – hell, I don’t even know if they’re local – but there’s someone started poking around the site asking questions. Big snake tattoo up their arm and a bunch of other ink. Wouldn’t give their name, but claims to be a big deal “online”. Don’t really know what that means, but they’ve been asking questions about the body.” The person with the “big snake tattoo” up their arm has a description that almost perfectly matches Ink5 from episode 2 (Making Adjustments). When Daria describes Ink5oul (Pronounced Inksoul) she notes that they had “an absolutely gorgeous floral serpent design running up their arm and into their neck that was so vivid it looked ready to slither off their skin and onto the chair.” It’s clear that Ink5 probably has an interest in tattoos, like the one Gordon saw on the body. This person also mentions that they are a big deal online, which would be true if this is Ink5 since we know that Ink5 is a famous tattoo artist online and even does streams. This could even explain why the person in question didn’t give their name since if it was Ink5 we are only aware of their online username. Gordon even mentions that Ink5 said “...the tattoo is an “Oscar Jarrett”, and that’s a big deal to some folks in that community – something to with Sutherland Macdonald whoever that is. Dunno if that’s quite what you were worried about but thought you’d want to know.”

`I did some light research and Oscar Jarrett doesn’t seem like a style or type of tattoo. Which points to the idea that Oscar is a person. Considering all the tattoos we are saying Oscar might be comparable to Smirke in some ways. In the sense that in the same way there was special Smirkean architecture there could be special Jarettian tattoos if that makes any sense. Tattoos that are designed to have supernatural effects of some kind. It’s also possible that Oscar simply learned and taught some kind of supernatural technique, kind of like the techniques that The Boneturner’s Tale could grant someone in TMA or how Martin sort of ended up learning how to “disappear” by following Peter Lukas’ attempt to connect him to The Lonely. Oscar Jarrett and Ink5 are definitely people to look out for in the future. Sutherland Macdonald surprisingly did yield actual search results. He is apparently “a prominent English tattoo artist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and the first tattooist in Britain with an identifiable premises open to the public.” This makes Sutherland notable for the same reason someone like Smirke might have been in TMA. A historical figure who somehow learned and / or spread knowledge about the Entities. Again, it’s possible that there are Macdonald style tattoos in the same way there is Smirke style architecture. It could also be that the Oscar Ink5 is referring to is in fact the body with the tattoo that Gordon found and Gordon just doesn’t know what they are referring to. It could also be that there are multiple tattoo artists or Oscar is some student or follower of Sutherland in the same way people like Jonah, Maxwell Rayner, and Mordechai Lukas all had a connection to Smirke via being students or associates. In some characters even explicitly got the idea of possible rituals from Smirke and his research, despite the fact that most weren’t concerned with Smirke’s ideals of balancing the Powers.

Gordon considers calling the police on Ink5 due to how much the tattoo artist seems to be creeping Gordon and their team out but Gordon decides not to as to avoid potential backlash from the public. Gordon’s next email involves him giving condolences in regards to David, which implies that the reason he was taking so long with the reports was due to an untimely death at some point. I wonder if David’s death was related to something he came across on the bodies? It could be that there was some artifact or one of the bodies was actually alive? It could also be that if something is indeed up with the tattoos then the tattoos themselves may have had some sort of effect on David? Did Ink5 kill David? Was David the person Mr. Bonzo was sent to target in order to create some sort of opening for Ink5?

Gordon apologizes for the perceived unprofessionalism and says “My thoughts and opinions on maritime matters will no longer be included in my emails. In addition, I should be most grateful if you could see fit to provide myself with appropriate authorisations to contact the medical examiner’s offices to follow up with the cadaver that has been causing such consternation.” Based on Gordon’s next email it seems like Alison thought Gordon was making fun of them or acting condescending since Gordie states “Look, I was not “making fun of you” but I’m not sure what you want. I’m emailing an employer about my work and am getting accused of my emails being “unprofessional”. That’s the best I can manage. I haven’t been sleeping much recently. Weird dreams. Shapes in the water and that. And before you say that it’s “unprofessional” to tell you that I’m just giving an explanation, That’s all. I need you to contact the examiner again, he’s dragging his feet. Besides, I want to see the body again. I dug him up, he’s my responsibility. I just need to see it. I need to know what’s in the water.” Considering the possible change in behavior I wonder if Alison encountered something that made them scared and afraid of people not taking them seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alison and / or David get their own statements in the future.

Gordon also mentions a lack of sleep due to “Weird dreams. Shapes in the water and that.” and also mentions “Besides, I want to see the body again. I dug him up, he’s my responsibility. I just need to see it. I need to know what’s in the water.” This desire to know and see something actually parallels an Entity like The Eye. The Eye, as I end up saying in every article, isn’t merely the fear of being watched but also being the watcher or seeing something you don’t want to. In MAG 200 The Eye is mentioned as having been born from the fear of one’s eyes showing them too much, and Gertrude mentions that The Eye is connected to a desire to know and understand even if in trying to do so you get hurt in the process. These themes also explain why Jonah can force information into the heads of people like Melanie and Martin. It’s the idea of knowing too much or being forced to witness things. Due to this The Eye also has a connection to, and tendency for cultivating, curiosity. Jonah mentions doing so to Jon with certain statements and we know he purposefully left files and information out to stoke Rosie’s more “nosy” personality traits. The Institute itself also sort of acts like bait for The Eye by attracting people looking for answers or closure via the information in its Archives or statements. Jon can also force people to give statements and thus make them relive and recount terrible events so that he can listen to them.

I’m bringing this up now because while I don’t think that what Gordon is going through is connected to The Eye the themes I am talking about will come up later anyway. Entities like The Eye also like to try to prey on the curiosity of people. I’m not saying Gordon is unjustified in being curious (even if I do find some of the behavior obviously strange) but that certain Entities have a precedent for preying on certain emotions or behaviors (like the desire to chase for The Hunt or anger for The Slaughter. No matter how justified that behavior may or may not be doesn’t always matter). You could also potentially relate some other parts of the statement to themes of The Eye. Most notably, the fear that protestors or other people might be observing the dig site, and the fear of being judged by the public. You could even point to Gordon sharing “too much” info to Alison with all the weird thoughts he’s having. Well, Alison seems to not like it, I’m not trying to say Gordon is crossing any sort of technical line or is even unjustified.

Gordon’s next email is titled “Examiner’s office break in” and Gordon insists that it was not him who broke into the examiner’s office and that Ink5 did it. “I saw them hanging around the office when I was waiting. Waiting so long just to see it, just to know what’s in the water. And they took it. They think they’re smart, but I saw them I know where they’re staying and if they think they deserve it they’re wrong. It belongs to the deep. I’m going to go get it and I’m going to find it and if they try and stop me I swear the ocean will claim us all. I can taste the salt and spray. It’s waiting in the water.” Once again a desire to know what’s in the water and the fact that Gordon is defensive of the idea that they might have broken into the office shows that Gordon is afraid what they said earlier about wanting to obtain the bodies might paint them as a suspect. The statement ends with

To: Alison Leshi ([email protected]) 

From: Gordon J ([email protected]) 

Date: January 20th 2020. 

Subject: Re: Re: Examiner’s office 

break-in 

There was a problem delivering your 

message to “[email protected]”

This email address is no longer in 

service.

This statement is a little interesting because it feels like a lot of the stuff is more passive or in the background. For example, while Gordon is perturbed, Ink5 doesn’t attack or tattoo them directly. Gordon’s thoughts and feelings about the water could connect to various Entities. Most notably, all the water stuff could connect to the Vast, Buried, or Lonely. All 3 of these Entities have a notable connection to either water or the ocean. The Vast via the fear of large things with the immensity of the ocean as well as the things the could be in it, The Buried with the feeling of drowning or being trapped / crushed underwater, and The Lonely via boating and how isolated being alone on the open ocean can make you. Gordon’s desire to sail away could relate to The Lonely or The Vast while his comment about wanting to be Buried in the graveyard could be connected to well… The Buried. Not to mention his desire to put the supposed corpse back where it belongs, in the grave, could also relate to The Buried.

If I had to pick the most likely Entities here I would argue The Buried and Vast. If I had to chose between the two I would have to say the Buried. The Vast does have an emphasis on the depp ocean, and Simon Fairchild even attempted to perform a ritual using a submarine and the deep ocean, but Gordon’s desire to bury the bodies seems at least somewhat similar to Hezekiah Wakely in MAG 152 (A Gravedigger’s Entity) and his desire to make sure that people stay in their graves. In the statement Hezekiah mentions “To my mind there are far worse fates. But he has in his head an idea to begin fitting the graves I dig with these new “safety bells” that he has heard of, so that any as might be alive below ground might signal us above for rescue. I dread the idea. If it had been me in that coffin, destined for the peace below ground, I can think of little that I would hate more than the jarring, clanging of a bell pulling me from my rest.” and he also mentions weird dreams with “I had a dream, then. I dreamt a rain had come. A terrible bitter rain that chilled my bones and turned the soil around me dark and sodden. The walls grew damp and slippery, their firm shape lost as they began to slip and crumble. And then all at once they collapsed, the grave filling in a moment with a wave of mud and wet dirt. In a single terrible moment of utter terror, it was atop and around me, covering my face and filling my lungs with its awful choking sod.”

While the emphasis on the deep could easily relate to The Vast, one of The Buried’s nicknames is actually “Forever Deep Below.” So someone referring The Buried as “The Deep” or something similar would not be without precedent, especially given its connection to drowning, being trapped underwater, and deep water in general. Gordon also says “It belongs to the deep. I’m going to go get it and I’m going to find it and if they try and stop me I swear the ocean will claim us all. I can taste the salt and spray.” which could imply that in a way they believe the ocean will bury everything. You could easily relate some of this to The Vast with the idea that the ocean has existed longer and will outlast the erosion of the land.

One part I actually really liked in TMA, despite how little it came up overall, is all the different names people would use to refer to the same Entity(s). So I wonder if, assuming the existing Entities are around in some capacity, Entities like The Buried will be referred to with different names in the Protocol universe. It wouldn’t surprise me if people started referring to an Entity like The Buried as “The Deep” for example due to the idea of being trapped deep underground or in the ocean.

Like always, there are some overlapping themes that seem similar to other Entities. The tattoo possibly depicting sailors getting chased could relate to The Hunt, I already mentioned some possibilities with The Eye, and the emphasis on graves, and dead bodies could parallel The End.

Ink5's appearance in this statement is forcing me to consider some things. I maintain that the statement in episode 2 screams “This is The Flesh”, or at least something similar to that Entity, and I believed Ink5 to be connected to The Flesh. But I remember someone also raising the idea that the effects of Ink5 tattoos could vary, which I considered a very likely possibility since Ink5 doesn’t start tattooing until they are inspired by Daria mentioning that they are an artist. Implying that Ink5 was working off of inspiration and what they make and potentially even the effects of the tattoos could vary from person to person. If this is true that could mean Ink5 is more like Smirke and isn’t directly connected to (or loyal to) a single Entity, or Ink5 could be connected to multiple Entities somehow. Maybe the specific tattoo they gave Daria was connected to The Flesh in the same way Smirke’s architecture was connected to the Entities in a way Smirke himself wasn’t always. It’s still very possible that Ink5 somehow is connected to The Flesh but is also capable of interacting with aspects of other Entities somehow.

We cut back to the OIAR office and Sam also notices the topic of tattoos having come up again and asks Alice if there is a way to cross reference cases.

ALICE 

“And? You already know the page to check the scores.”

SAM 

“Yeah… but I just thought it might be worth noting somewhere that they might be linked. There’s this tattooist, and I think they might be”

ALICE 

“What have I told you about thinking?”

SAM 

“Don’t?” 

ALICE 

“That’s right.” Alice sighs.

ALICE 

“(cont.) I don’t think there’s any way to mark cases as connected. They all come in standalone, that’s just how it works.”

Once again Alice’s whole “don’t think about it” vibe. I would argue the whole idea of “ignorance is bliss” and how knowing too much can hurt or scare you often relates to The Eye. I would argue that the OIAR or the computers are probably connected to The Eye, given all the statements and other stuff I mentioned previously, but I’m not saying Alice or Sam are secret Eye Avatars or something. What I'm trying to say is that The Eye likes to prey on certain behaviors, such as curiosity or a desire for answers, and Alice and Sam might have these traits. We know, for example, that Jon and Tim both ended up at the Institute because they were looking for answers about an encounter they had previously. 

Alice sighing and then proceeding to honestly indulge Sam’s question is interesting and I think is another implication that Alice is probably more curious than she lets on. Realistically, she has probably been burned from having a similar mindset to Sam or seeing someone else asking too many questions but she consistently ends up indulging Sam’s curiosity or giving honest answers anyway, instead of simply shutting it down and moving on. There have also been times where Alice is noted as listening to something in the transcripts “despite herself.” Implying that sometimes she can’t help herself or her curiosity gets the better of her.

All the cases being sent in standalone sort of parallels the Institute in TMA and how disorganized the Archives were when Jon was using them (due to Gertrude). Even in TMA the statements would sometimes have recurring characters but they weren’t organized by topic or people involved in the case. The most we tend to get about the organization system of the statements is that it’s usually just sorted by date (which could be confusing if two statements have the same date) and sometimes follow-ups on cases were performed for more info and context. So obtuse organization systems that make it harder to connect various details or events aren’t unusual for TMA.

I also once again have to wonder if Sam is being shown certain events on purpose in order to stoke his curiosity or to get him to do certain things. I find the idea that literally every statement is random to be dubious but that doesn’t mean literally every statement is handpicked. Which makes me wonder, once again, what Sam and co’s jobs are meant to accomplish. Are they just supposed to be “an archive of fear” and witness terrible events or someone someone / something doing anything with the information or statements they are given or categorize?

Gwen enters the room and she seems to be in pretty bad shape since Alice says “Christ on a peddlebike, what happened to you?” and Gwen says “(setting up at her desk) Tube was delayed. Points failure.” Gwen also mentions that she had trouble sleeping, but Alice doesn’t seem to waste any time making fun of Gwen despite Gwen’s sorry state. Alice doesn’t seem to spare Gwen any of the concern she has shown characters like Sam and Colin. Sam tries to get Alice to ease up on Gwen but Alice doesn’t seem to let off the ribbing. Gwen eventually notices the third coffee Alice had gotten for Celia but mistakenly assumes that the third cup of coffee was for her.

GWEN 

“(cont’d) (surprised) Hang on, did you get me a coffee?” 

ALICE 

“Uhh… 

SAM 

“Yeah. You like mocha?” 

GWEN 

“Yes. She takes the coffee carefully.’ 

GWEN 

“Thank you, Alice.’ 

ALICE 

“I… Sure. Whatever. Don’t get used to it. A slightly awkward silence.’

This interaction makes me wonder about some of the aspects of their relationship. Celia bursts into the room and Gwen grills her for being late (despite the irony of Gwen herself running late).

CELIA

“Sorry, sorry! I know, I know – there was an emergency at home I had to I’m sorry I’m late!”

GWEN

“Do you have any idea what the time is?”

ALICE

“I’m sorry, are you joking right now?”

GWEN

“I have responsibilities now, Alice. I need more of an explanation than just a “home emergency”.”

ALICE

“You arrived literally one minute ago!”

GWEN

“And I gave a full explanation for my lateness. Which, I might add, I didn’t actually need to do for a subordinate.’

CELIA

“It’s fine really’

ALICE

“No, it’s not. You don’t owe her anything! In fact, you should take her coffee as reparation.’

CELIA

“One of my radiators sprung a leak and flooded the lounge.’

GWEN

“I see. Well that’s understandable but don’t let’s make a habit of it shall we?”

CELIA

“Of course.’

GWEN

“See, that wasn’t so painful, was it Alice?’

Alice takes a breath for a devastating putdown.

SAM

“Let it go.”

ALICE 

exhales and sips her coffee instead.

GWEN

“Luckily, I don’t think Lena’s noticed, so you should be ok. She’s not as laid back as I am.”

Alice chokes a little.

CELIA

“Good to know.”

GWEN

“Great, well if that’s everything you all really should get to work otherwise you’ll never get out of here. Don’t let me keep you.”

ALICE

“(muttered) I’d like to see you try…”

GWEN

“(already departing) I’ll be in Lena’s office if you need me. She walks off.”

CELIA

“You ok, Alice? It honestly doesn’t bother me.”

ALICE

“I can’t believe she drank your mocha!”

So it kind of seems like Gwen is immediately letting her new promotion go to her head a bit and has already taken the role of a stern boss. However, based on Gwen’s reaction when talking with Lena later and how shaken she is from Mr. Bonzo, it’s very likely that this is Gwen’s way of coping or trying to deal with stress and fear (not that it’s at all healthy). Gwen’s behavior seems to rub Alice the wrong way, especially since it easily comes off as hypocritical since Gwen was also running late. The only difference being that Gwen is now Celia’s superior. This whole situation makes me wonder if any particular person is specifically at fault for Gwen and Alice’s sour relationship. Sure, Alice does come off as extremely mean to Gwen but I wonder if Gwen did something in particular, tried to strong arm Alice, or something else.

Gwen does appreciate the hypothetical gesture of Alice buying her coffee and it’s weird that despite all their bickering Gwen seems to immediately assume that the fact the coffee is for her and from Alice is a likely possibility. I wonder if Gwen has a different view of their relationship or just doesn’t care? In a previous episode Gwen mentions that Alice left “talkers” on to mess with her but I wonder if Alice simply left the statements running so she wouldn’t have to listen to the voices talking and Gwen merely assumed it had to do with her. This could point to the possibility that Gwen has a bad habit of assuming things are about her sometimes or even being a bit self-centered but I’m not sure. It is still possible Alice did in fact leave talkers to mess with her. I wonder if they had a more amicable relationship in the past? I also if Gwen does genuinely think of herself as being more lenient or forgiving than Lena and, by extension, sees herself as tossing Celia a bone.

Gwen leaves the others to their work and goes to talk with Lena. Gwen is clearly upset by her encounter with Mr. Bonzo. Gwen insists that the thing she saw couldn’t have been Mr. Bonzo because Bonzo is just a character played by a guy in a suit. Not to mention that the Mr. Bonzo at Nigel’s house apparently had skin, and appeared both sagging and sweaty. Lena assures Gwen that this was in fact Mr. Bonzo by saying “...He is one of our Externals” and “I’ll grant you that Mr. Bonzo is one of our more… obviously grotesque Externals but I assure he is a valued asset.” This implies that not all the Externals the OIAR works with are as monstrous as Mr. Bonzo. Which could mean that the organization works with various Avatars and Monsters, or at least some of the Monsters they do work with are more humanoid (similar to how the Distortion took on the appearance and personalities of people like Michael and Helen).

GWEN

I thought he was going to kill me!

LENA

“But he didn’t, which means you’ve passed the first part of your probation. Congratulations. Did you scream?”

GWEN

“What? No!”

LENA

“You should. It really helps one cope with the more affronting aspects of the job. And they usually like it.”

GWEN

“What was in that envelope I gave him?”

LENA

“A name and an address.”

GWEN

“But for who?”

LENA

“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.”

GWEN

“I don’t understand.”

LENA

“Yes, you do.”

GWEN

“But… why?”

LENA

““Why” comes later. For now, it’s best you try to process the “what”. I’ll let you know when I have another liaison assignment for you.”

GWEN

“(defeated) I… Ok.”

Gwen opens the door.

LENA

“Oh, and Gwen?”

GWEN

“Yes?”

LENA

“Get some sleep. You look dreadful. Gwen closes the door.”

So here, Lena outright admits that Gwen could’ve died. Last episode I wondered if Nigel apologized to Gwen in case Gwen ended up hurt or killed. Lena’s comment about screaming confirms once again that the Entities are probably still feeding off of fear. We know from TMA that while a lack of fear can keep you safe, displaying fear only for it to wane overtime can cause the Entities followers or monsters to get bored or unsatisfied and just attack you directly if they know that doing so will make you scared.

The fact that Lena says that Gwen should know who’s address and name was in the letter given to Bonzo makes me wonder. It’s possible Lena knows that Gwen simply checked the letter out of curiosity or came across some statement with clues. It’s also possible that at least some of the statements the OIAR gets are somehow related to the organization’s Externals. Lena even says “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.” Which could imply that at least some of the statements Gwen and her coworkers (I mean subordinates) sift through could have to do with the OIAR’s externals. Maybe it’s the OIAR’s way of following up on their agents or checking the results of their assignments? Or maybe it’s how the OIAR decides where and when to send their Externals? It could also just be The Eye feeding off of the fear present in statements again (something we know it’s prone to do). It could be that the Externals do their job and The Eye or some other Entity squeezes some extra fear out of what they do by archiving things related to the job. Is the OIAR working with others to try to start another mass ritual, or is it trying to stop possible rituals? Maybe their goal has something to do with some of the alchemical symbols present in TMP (such as the logo)?

Lena comes off as extremely cold in this interaction and it’s clear that Lena’s earlier assessment of Gwen might be right, Gwen is not at all prepared for this and doesn’t exactly know what she’s getting into. But this also makes me wonder what happened to the previous Externals Liaison. Did they die? Did they get promoted / demoted? Are there other Liaisons Gwen hasn’t met yet? If there aren’t who was communicating with things like Mr. Bonzo before Gwen took the position? Was Lena just delivering the letters herself? As always, there’s a lot of questions.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of stuff up in the air but currently whatever is going on with the Externals has grabbed my curiosity the most. Mostly in regards to what they could be doing and why. Is Ink5 an External? Was Mr. Bonzo sent to take care of David to make an opening for Ink5 or was Mr. Bonzo sent somewhere else that will show up in a later statement? Most of the stuff I say are possibilities I’m raising but my current guesses about what’s going on are 1. Smirke’s 14 is still around in some capacity (The Extinction could be too, but there’s no evidence one way or the other for that Entity being around) and these Entities are probably the same ones from TMA (if not they are extraordinarily similar) 2. Celia is probably from the TMA universe or at least has some connection to it 3. The OIAR is probably connected to an Entity like The Eye 4. For whatever reason the OIAR (and potentially other parts of the government) are working with various factions tied to the Entities. Whether they are using these monsters and people to fight more dangerous threats or for some other reason I cannot say. Maybe they are trying to set up a new ritual where all the Entities hold equal power? Or maybe they are actually trying to stop future rituals / threats? Who knows.

#TMA #TMAGP #The Magnus Archives #The Magnus Protocol #Theory

[kirchefuchs]

School has been an Educated Pain™ (of course it has been) but the urge to binge watch the entirety of LMK just to traumatize everyone (COUGH COUGH you and possibly Merc included COUGH COUGH–) has been tormenting me while I've just been trying to peacefully study and do homework so yk what. I'll succumb to these thoughts. I'll finally fall into the madness purely just to cause Hurt and Pain (and maybe I'll accidentally end up mix it with a few of my other hyperfixations because aHEM. wh. why not)

anywho this is just me. hi. probably gonna squeal over all the characters and love them all in my own way (aka making them go through tremendous amounts of pain)

(motions to that one tsp×tristamp au I forgot to expand the lore on (I mean I already have ideas listed in my notes but it's been months since the last time I mentioned it so ahem. I just didn't really know if you'd still be interested aha–))

but god I'd be lying if I told you that The Magnus Archives hasn't been devouring my brain in a huge brainrot. these guys, man. my lovable traumatized blorbos (I'm making it worse)

ANYWHO BACK ON TOPIC (i forgot what the topic even was), screw it all, I'll add another brainrot to my evergrowing list

— 🅰️non CH🅰️Y || Oct. 7 2023

Broooo, please watch lmk at some point. If anything, it will heal your soul. It is not pain for the most part. Yes, in season 4, the main character is very much dealing with trauma from season 3, and then has to deal with an identity crisis, but all in all, not that bad all things considered. It's a kids' show, after all. It's silly and wholesome, and the animation is absolutely bonkers with how good it is.

I just, I just think (((o(*ﾟ∀ﾟ*)o)))

Also, the episodes are super short, only 10 minutes long. So the entire runtime of the show so far is about 9-10 hours tops. Just sayin :3

#ask #🅰️non #kirche rambles #lmk #lego monkie kid

[syntia13treeman]

TMA vs insomnia, go.

What a weird night I've had.

It was late Sunday evening, and I can be a responsible adult sometimes, so knowing I'll have to get up at 6:30 I turned off my computer shortly before mightnight and went to sleep. Or tried to. Now, I do sometimes get random bouts of insomnia, when I go trough weeks of maybe 4 hours of sleep on weekdays, because I'm to wired to go to bed at reasonable time; much rarer are individual nights when without warning I'm lying down and tired to the bone, but just can't fall asleep. Today was one of those days, but I made it stranger than usuall. There are two factors I'm going to 'blame' here.

One was the weather. After a month of pretty mild winter, yesterday the temperature rapidly dropped to 13oC below zero while air pressure skyrocketed. This is what I think caused me to spend post midnight hours tossing and turning.

The other is the fact that I've been binging Magnus Archives for the past week.

When at some point I checked the time and saw it was going on 2 am and I wasn't any closer to falling asleep than 2 hours prior, I decided, what the hell, I might as well listen to spooky bedtime stories and hope for the best. And so I grabbed my phone, turned volume as low as it would go and listned to a couple episodes before deciding it was enough, and putting the phone away. Half an hour later I realized that sleep still wasn't happening, so I grabbed the phone again. I repeated this process several times, and only once I suddenly got confused about what was happening, checked the phone, and saw that I was a few minutes into an episode with a title I didn't recognize. But I only had to go one episode back and found a familiar spot halfway through it, so I know I only nodded off for 15 minutes tops. And I was once again wide awake, and so I continued to listen.

And then, eventually, my alarm clock went of and I got up, dressed and put in my contacts and went into the winter morning/night and drove to work, watching in real time the fog of my breacth freazing on the windshield into the most beautiful tiny fractal flowers.

I'm there now, sitting at the computer, and when I look out the window, I see the first lines of dawn in the sky behind the line of leafless trees. A day of work lies ahead.

Wish me luck.

P.S. all through the drive I also felt strangly awake, and kept wondering if I'm actually clear headed and alert, or was I like that thing when drunk people would swear they are not drunk at all, and if I was, in fact, barely awake and about to drive right throug a shop window any second. I've never been so carefull navigating the iced-over turns as today, I can tell you that. :D

#Magnus Archives #what an amazing podcast #NOTE: #This was yesterday #I typed it all at work and mailed to myself #meaning to post in the afternoon #because I ONLY use tmblr on PC and obviously can't access it when at work #and then I forgot to post it #but today there's follow up #so here it goes

[pseudonemisis]

top 5 podcasts :000

I'm not entirely able to answer this as well as I wish cause I'm the type of person who finds something, binges it, and doesn't consume anything else until I'm finished. And since my first podcast was wtnv, well.. I feel like you can see where this is going.(that's about 83 hours btw)

1. The Magnus Archives. It holds a very special place in my heart for many reasons, but particularly because tma is the only story that has actually made me feel truly afraid. And I just got hooked. I've tried to find other stories that make me feel as viscerally horrified but I've yet to have any luck.

2. Welcome to nightvale, my beloved. I doubt I have to explain. I love every bit of this bizarre town, and everyone in it(except for you Steve carlesberg. He reminds me way too much of my mum)and it's always been my go to when I need a hug.

3. MALEVOLENT. its a amazing story that tugs on my emotions a confounding amount, and I will never stop thanking you, ghost, for dragging me into it.

4. This is where my knowledge stops, at least for Fiction podcasts. I have a few on my list that I've started but haven't found the time or energy to really get into. Also I find the American accents jarring after watching and listing to so much uk or occasionally Australian stuff

5. Honorary mention to the 17th shard. Not a fiction podcast, but I listend to it on a few nights when I couldn't fall asleep and I love me some good analysis, theory, and history of stories I love.

#not the best list #i know #but a fun one #ask<3

[raenparade]

weekly update #1 - 13/02/23

From now on I’ll be posting a weekly update to basically hold myself accountable and to also keep on top of my work!

This week I basically just wanted to storyboard, that’s mostly it. The more I do something, the better I’ll get, so I just wanted to do it!

On Twitter there’s an event called ‘Feboardary’, which has been organised by Storyboard Artist Abigail Lee, and I’ve tried to have a go myself.

I wanted to have a go at using one of the prompts, and picked ‘morning routine’, with the idea of spending a week doing Jamie’s and then JJ’s to both explore the characters through their routines and see what I do with a brief of sorts. 

Initially I did some boards on paper, to give myself a bit of a limit both in how much I could do, as well as be forced to commit to my art, without the safety blanket of an undo button.

They’re extremely loose, but get the job done well enough! I wasn’t thinking too much about exact camera angles or shot types, but I still wanted everything to flow well into each other. 

Afterwards I just dropped myself into Storyboard Pro! 

I started to use SBP’s perspective tools, which I found extremely helpful, although I’ll admit to being maybe a bit too neat with my drawings at the start. I also started to experiment with the built-in camera SBP provides, which I quickly became a huge fan of.

This took around 4 hours of work, for the most part. I tried to work in 45 min - 1 hour chunks as I felt like that was more sustainable than having a work binge. I really do like the end result, as it’s just something! While I don’t think Jamie’s character comes through too much as 99% of the ‘character’ is a faceless individual, (more facial expressions are something I immediately identified as a point to improve upon) I just like how this looks! 

This work didn’t take as long as I thought, so I wanted to go back and revisit my previous boards from episode 104 of The Magnus Archives

Comparing the two, this is a substantial improvement, and I need to remember this going forward. I’m already more comfortable with SBP and it’s features, even if I’m not there completely (which I won’t be! I’m basically just starting out!). This took me around 3 hours, but much of that was spent again, using the perspective tool and then trying to not be so reliant on it.

Not only that, but I took the transcript and instead of doing sketched boards on paper, I annotated my work:

This was a slightly different approach compared to boarding on paper, and I do think I would’ve saved myself a bit of time if I did also board on paper, but I did use my previous work as a reference. It felt nice to have a bit of experimentation between methodology, and I do want to work on this a little bit more when I get the time!

So I do think I had a rather successful week! I got what I wanted to do done, and I need to remember it’s not always going to turn out exactly, either in execution or final product. 

For this upcoming week I want to take a bit of a step back and try and familiarise myself with Jamie and JJ, to really feel like I can draw them and start putting them and their personalities in my subsequent boards. I want to be really loose in my sketches, and maybe board something else with them both? But familiarity is my priority here. 

#ma illustration #illustration major project #weekly updates #storyboards #jamie stallard #the sword that splits us

[hawkfurze]

Lets get more vague, Top 5 Podcasts.

Oh this is easy cause my podcast listening list is so short, lol.

1. The Magnus Archives: I haven’t ran into a podcast that got me so hooked and so ready for a relisten like this one did. Also the writing is so good and the horror was so refreshing to what I’ve only been seeing around the time I started listening to it.

2. The Penumbra Podcast: I binged through this one really quickly and am currently in the middle of a relisten through it but it’s really good! I love the Story telling in Junoverse and the characters and world building in Second Citadel is really nice!!!

3. Old Gods of Appalachia: I love the fact that this one is starting to get more well known but I adore this podcast. The narrator is amazing and the characters are great! The horror and the suspense this podcast builds is done so well, and it also has an absolute banger of an intro song.

4. The SCP Archives: I actually got into this one years ago back when it first came out and I was looking for a way to learn about different SCPs without having to read through the whole wiki. This podcast does such an amazing job at bringing each SCP to life and the actors are amazing! It also was my first horror podcast and one that I keep going back to to relisten to my favorite episodes.

5. The Stench of Adventure: I’m usually not a huge fan of sci-fi or fantasy stuff, mainly cause it doesn’t catch my attention as much as other things do, but this podcast is so weird and hysterical. I love the characters and I love how the setting is build off our world, considering Earth in this podcast was a simulation.

#damn it hawkfurze #the magnus archives #the penumbra podcast #old gods of appalachia #the scp archives #the stench of adventure

[razmerry]

WARNING: Blood, bones, death, spooky vibes

I made a Warrior cats horror comic! This was a ridiculously fun stylistic experiment, and it all came from when I had a passing thought about the phrase “creaking tendons”. It’s also pretty inspired by The Magnus Archives’ style of writing, since I’ve been binging it lately. I suppose this is sort of an AU - basically, what if the Three’s powers were more like curses? Dovewing is driven mad by the constant noise of everything. Lionblaze is strong enough that he breaks literally everything he touches. Jayfeather can’t control what emotions he feels, and therefore is overwhelmed by every whim and urge of all the cats. It was really more about the concept comic than hardcore worldbuilding, so you don’t have to pick it apart. Cats from top to bottom, left to right are Dovewing, Rosepetal, Lionblaze, Jayfeather, and a bunch of random cat paws.

#warriors #warrior cats #warriors au #dovewing #jayfeather #lionblaze #rosepetal #horror #horror comic #starclan #thunderclan #the three #omen of the stars

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Weekly Media Roundup

- Turning Red (Movie) - I don’t have much to say about this one, it was cute and wholesome, though a bit over the top, with some nice animation. I’m glad I watched it once, not really interested in seeing it again. Bonus points for featuring Red Pandas though, they’re some of the cutest animals.

- Teen Wolf (TV) - Finished the third season and took a possibly permanent break. While I did enjoy this mostly 60% attention show and was actually impressed by how compelling the second half of the 3rd season was, I can’t say I’m super invested in the story moving forward, especially as I hear it only goes downhill from here. I’m on the fence about whether to continue, it’s been a real mixed bag. On one hand, I like the lore (when they handle it well), the relationships between the cast and their parents is genuinely heartwarming for this kind of show, I do think the central characters have a pretty good comradery, Stiles, Lydia, and Kira are all pretty fun characters, and I appreciate the effort they put into the style of the show, even if the budget doesn’t always let them get away with a lot. On the other hand, a lot of characters (particularly women and POC ones) are written pretty flatly or just not given much to do or just plain written out the second they stop serving a narrative function for the main boys, the effects are still lacking with not a lot of interesting monster designs, the villains are mostly awful and keep getting written back in despite all logic, and it’s hard to stay invested in the danger when the writers keep making up new werewolf abilities on the fly. I did have fun though.

- Inside Job (TV) - Binged two new series this week, this Netflix conspiracy comedy being one of them. I really enjoyed this -Reagan was a great relatable protagonist, there were tons of fun/clever jokes, I like the secret world government setting and how over the top it is, and they canonically killed Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg so like, Good for them. That being said there were a few issues, I wasn’t fond of the “guy with many disorders is only stable when on tons of illegal drugs” bit, the characters could be a bit too mean spirited to really make their emotional moments work at times, and as much as I like Reagan, I do wish we got more screentime with any of the other characters so that I could say I liked them more.  We’ll see how the second season goes, but for now this was admittedly the funniest thing I’ve watched in awhile. 

-Deltarune Chapter 2 (Video Game) - Finally got around to this, it was definitely really cute with lots of great funny writing and characters, though we still have a lot of the story to go. The Queen was of course the highlight, I love everything about her and hope she still plays a part in the 3rd chapter. 

-The Magnus Archives (Podcast) - Yup.

-Pokemon Legends Arceus (Video Games) - Still appreciating the memes and fanart for this one. Loving all the Ingo memes, it is indeed very funny that there’s a random amnesiac 21st century New Yorker smack dab in the middle of Feudal Japan. I hope this never gets explained, I’d like to think this was God’s mistake that they will not acknowledge or fix.

-Moriarty The Patriot (Anime) - Wanted a background anime to watch so I decided to binge this randomly selected Sherlock Holmes adjacent one, managed to complete the whole thing. I do appreciate the concept of “Rich people suck actually and maybe the guy helping poor people get away with crimes of revenge is actually pretty cool”, though I do think the anime was a bit more concerned with making sure all the main characters were pretty, shippable anime boys than like. Actual class warfare. Clearly, I liked it enough to at least finish it, and I will say I enjoyed this version of Irene as a (genderfluid?) spy who received their own development and narrative outside of Holmes, though many of the individual stories didn’t hold my attention very well. Also the episode where the child protagonist and his brothers murder a whole family and their child then burn down their mansion and this was framed as a wholly good thing to do was. Surreal. To say the least. I’m glad I watched it but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone who isn’t interested in Holmes-esque stories or Pretty anime boys.

-Last Week Tonight (TV) - Don’t have anything to say but glad it’s back.

-Danganronpa (Video Game) - Still watching the playthrough.

Listening to: What I Need by Hayley Kiyoko, Karma by AJR, Can’t Feel My Face by The Weekend, Encanto Soundtrack, Better Days by The Goo Goo Dolls, A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel, Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett, Angel In Blue Jeans by Train, Hard Times by Paramore, Like Real People Do by Hozier

#weekly roundup #My posts

[aion-rsa]

Tumblr’s Top Fandoms of 2020

https://ift.tt/37LLRPI

It’s been a weird and often devastating year, and our social media has reflected that. Tumblr has just released its top fandoms of 2020 and it’s fascinating to see how a year of pandemic and quarantine has affected transformative fandom and broader cultural trends. In a year when almost everyone spent a lot more time at home, Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the most blogged about topic on the social media platform, followed by animated dramedy Steven Universe, Belgian SKAM adaptation WtFOCK, K-pop supergroup BTS, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. We talked to Tumblr’s Trend Expert Amanda Brennan about how she interpreted the biggest trends of the year, how this was a big year for animation and international media, and why 2020 was the year everyone stopped worrying about what was cool and just embraced what they love. But, first, some 2020 Tumblr statistics:

Top 20 of 2020 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Steven Universe

wtFOCK

BTS

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Artists on Tumblr

Critical Role

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Boku No Hero Academia

Black Lives Matter

Pokémon

COVID-19

The Witcher

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

The Magnus Archives

Reylo Rey & Kylo Ren, the Star Wars universe

RWBY

Sanders Sides

Catradora Catra & Adora, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Zuko | Avatar: The Last Airbender

Top 25 Ships 

Rey & Kylo Ren, the Star Wars universe (m/f)

Catra & Adora, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (f/f)

Richie Tozier & Eddie Kaspbrak, It (m/m)

Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier, The Witcher (m/m)

Aziraphale & Crowley, Good Omens (m/m)

Zuko & Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender (m/m)

Luz Noceda & Amity Blight, The Owl House (f/f)

Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Supergirl (f/f)

Park Jimin & Jeon Jungkook, BTS (m/m)

Dean Winchester & Castiel, Supernatural (m/m)

Live Action TV

Wtfock

The Witcher

The Mandalorian

Good Omens

Skam France

The Umbrella Academy

Doctor Who

Supernatural

The Untamed

Killing Eve

Animated TV

Steven Universe

Avatar: The Last Airbender

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

The Owl House

Invader Zim

Ducktales

The Dragon Prince

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Gravity Falls

TV Characters

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Zuko

Catra

Jaskier

Sokka

Adora | She-Ra

Geralt Of Rivia

Katara

Aang

Crowley

Aziraphale

Movies

Frozen

The Old Guard

Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker

Birds Of Prey

Twilight

Hamilton

Little Women

Parasite

Sonic Movie

Lord of the Rings

Movie Characters

Kylo Ren

Harley Quinn

Bucky Barnes

Batman

Steve Rogers

Tony Stark

Rey

Spinel

Peter Parker

Richie Tozier

Actors

Chris Evans

Henry Cavill

Sebastian Stan

Adam Driver

Tom Holland

Pedro Pascal

John Boyega

Robert Pattinson

Tom Hiddleston

Timothee Chalamet

Actresses

Katie Mcgrath

Jodie Comer

Daisy Ridley

Margot Robbie

Zendaya

Lili Reinhart

Naya Rivera

Brie Larson

Florence Pugh

Jodie Whittaker

Books

Harry Potter

Percy Jackson & the Olympians

Warrior Cats

The All for the Game series

Pride And Prejudice

Midnight Sun

The Secret History

The Raven Cycle series

Carry On

Six Of Crows

Authors of Books

J.K. Rowling

Rick Riordan

Erin Hunter

Nora Sakavic

Jane Austen

Stephenie Meyer

Donna Tartt

Maggie Stiefvater

Rainbow Rowell

Leigh Bardugo

Video Games

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Among Us

Pokemon Sword And Shield

Undertale

Minecraft

Sims 4

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Danganronpa

Overwatch

Persona 5

Video Games Characters

Obey Me Lucifer

Obey Me Mammon

Tom Nook

Link

Sans

Cloud Strife

Dandelion

Kirby

Raihan

Arthur Morgan

Animal Crossing Villagers

Raymond

Marshal

Poppy

Fauna

Julian

Claude

Marina

Stitches

Bob

Ankha

Anime & Manga

Boku no Hero Academia

Haikyuu!!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Beastars

Naruto

Mo Dao Zu Shi

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

One Piece

Fruits Basket

19 Days

Anime & Manga Characters

Midoriya Izuku

Bakugou Katsuki

Dabi

Wei Wuxian

Aizawa Shouta

Hawks

Todoroki Shouto

Kirishima Eijirou

Lan Wangji

Levi Ackerman

And, now, our chat with Brennan. (This Q&A has been edited for clarity and length.)

Den of Geek: I’ve heard you refer to the users as the Tumblr hive-mind or the orchid, whatever it is. I was just hoping you could generally talk about what the Tumblr hive-mind is to you? Which is the way of saying, who uses Tumblr generally? And how and why? If you can even extrapolate those things. Go!

Amanda Brennan: Most of our audiences is Gen Z; it’s at 48%. Our new user registration with Gen Z is even higher; I’m pretty sure it’s 60%. These are people who come to Tumblr because they love something so much they just want to share that love with people who love it as much as they do. I know that feels like a giant umbrella, but that’s the thing: Tumblr is what you make of it. If you love sports, sports Tumblr is intense hockey Tumblr, so good. If you love TV, you’ll have all of that. K-pop Tumblr, totally amazing. Furby Tumblr is off the hook and they make these incredible creations. I’ve recently gotten into Stained Glass Tumblr.

There’s layers upon layers. No matter what you love, there’s something on Tumblr for you. That’s both the easiest thing and the hardest thing about it. You have to go in being like, “Alright, I’m so into this thing, what does Tumblr have for me?” It’s not like the other social media networks, right? It’s really about what you love rather than who you know.

Yeah, I like that. I did want to ask you specifically about the process of how you track trends and how you make decisions about what to track?

We built the whole taxonomy that powers fandom metrics based on what Tumblr talks about. I’m a librarian, as you know, and I kind of reverse engineered it. My first year in review at Tumblr in 2013, they handed me a spreadsheet and they’re like, ‘OK, go to town.” So I was like, “Cool, let me pull out the threads that I see.” We really let the data tell us how to analyze it, if that makes sense. So when it comes to what we track, I have a running notebook that I’ve kept all year of the things that I’ve wanted to have in year in review.

The Witcher has been on my list since it came out. Animal Crossing has been another one. The Old Guard had a huge moment. I was just writing notes, like, “Oh, what is this thing? And we’ll keep an eye on it.” I have an amazing team. We all are into our own pieces of Tumblr. So we’ll all work together to just keep an eye on different fandoms. I don’t know if you know about Minecraft YouTuber fandom?

Yeah. I was actually listening to the latest Fansplaining last night and they mentioned it in that. I was just like, “OK, a new thing.” There’s always a new thing to learn about.

There’s always a new thing. That’s the beauty of Tumblr. It’s so fluid in fandom. You can go from one fandom to another and then you’ll see like, “Ooh, what is this thing?” I’ve got Supernatural on the brain, as who in the fandom doesn’t right now. [This interview was recorded on the day of the Supernatual series finale.] I was telling someone, the whole reason I got into Supernatural was because I saw a gif from the show on Tumblr and I was like, “What is happening? Let me go back and watch this entire series.” That’s the vibe of Tumblr, right? You see a thing and you’re like, “Oh, I need to know everything about that.”

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Hmm. Yeah, for sure. I was interested in talking to you or getting your insight into how trends you saw or data you saw that were maybe tied to the very unique experience of being in the middle of a pandemic.

Yeah. I was looking back at the predictions that I had made last year and like four of those things didn’t even come out. It was just so unexpected. There’s two things that we really saw tied to the pandemic. The first was “cottagecore” as an aesthetic. It kind of touched everything because it’s soothing, it feels comfortable. In March and April in the early days, when you didn’t know what to do, you’re stuck in a forest isolation. Cottagecore has got this vibe of chosen isolation. It was very fantasy-driven and something to reach out for.

That evolved also into nostalgia. I think this year’s really big theme is nostalgia and comfort. We saw huge returns to fandoms like Twilight and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar going on Netflix was such a world-breaking moment. Not only did it introduce a new, younger fandom to the show, there’s a lot of Avatar content once you get into it, but it brought people back to a younger time in their lives. Remembering and rewatching. The Avatar fandom, as you see, it’s all over all of the lists. Zuko is number 20 on all of the things on Tumblr this year. Avatar was able to redefine people’s year. Because you know what, we’re all at home, I’m going to binge Avatar. Reignite my love for this fandom.

A lot of TV too, because TV is episodic, you get lost in it. Movies had a really rough year. When we look at the movies, movies like Megamind were trending this year. That comfort movie that you go back and watch 17 times.

Yeah. I was curious about that too. The balance or proportions between older fandoms and newer fandoms, like the Avatar example. I was curious how much that changed this year? How much you thought it was tied to the pandemic? How much is tied to accessibility and things, like Avatar coming to Netflix? Do you think that is an interest in older fandoms? Or that it’s going to continue past the pandemic?

Yeah. I think another high-level theme of this year is the rejection of cringe culture. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I’ll tie it all back in. I think people are realizing what their values are and not being afraid to admit that they like a thing. Not caring what other people think of the things they like. Unabashedly loving the things they love. That’s why I think we do see a resurgence in these older fandoms.

Because people who may have loved them their whole lives, or may have been nervous to share that they liked it when they were younger they’re not afraid anymore. They’re like, “You know what? Twilight, it’s not that great, but I love it. This is my emotional support vampire.” Recognizing that you can be critical of something. You can see where its flaws are, but you can still love it. That duality of fandom is something that is going to persist into next year. That freedom to just like a thing, because you like it. Be able to see its flaws, but still be like, “You know what? Overall, this brings me joy and the world is melting down.”

I’m on board with that mission, that plan for 2021. I did want to ask about the role of non-English language media, especially live action stuff. Generally because I was someone who fell into The Untamed this year, but I saw that there were two SKAM remakes as well that are on the top 10. In general, have you seen over your time at Tumblr, and maybe especially in the past few years, an increase in non-English language content? Do you think that is mostly English speakers and Americans being more open to that or being able to find it easier? Or do you think it’s also an influx of people from outside the United States coming to Tumblr? Or both?

Interesting. The data that we work with is actually stripped of all user information. I don’t really have an insight into where these people are coming from. I do think that users in general are more open to content in any language. Tumblr is more interested in characters than where the story comes from. Thinking about The Untamed, it’s just such a compelling story, it doesn’t matter if you have to read subtitles.

To parallel it to something in major pop culture, Parasite. People are becoming more open to just watching content because it’s good. SKAM is really fascinating to me because the number one live action show is wtFOCK. Then, I think two years ago, 2018, the original SKAM was number one at some point. This show really transcends language barriers. It transcends geographical barriers. At the core, the story of the teenagers is just so relatable to anyone. We’ve seen lots of translation happening and not just into English. Translation of SKAM into other languages, just because people want more of these characters and their iterations, no matter what locale they’re based in. I’m waiting for some professor to have a class on it, because it’s so fascinating to me.

I also wanted to ask about how you thought the election cycle affected Tumblr this year, if there were any trends or data that you were like, “Yes, of course this is what people were doing on Tumblr this year.”

Tumblr has always had this backbone of social justice. This year, it came out stronger and in more force. No matter what fandom you were in or interests, everyone I know on Tumblr was participating in sharing social justice stuff. Even politics, if they weren’t from the US, those kinds of memes that were like, “I feel for you”. The way that fandoms do. I see your show is ending and I’m sorry.

The one thing that Tumblr really had leading up to the election was such an appreciation for the postal service. Especially Gen Z, their world is so much larger due to digital connection. Mail order, just as well as sending letters and keeping in touch with your digital friends is just as important as keeping in touch with your IRL friends. All of the artists on Tumblr, so many of them turn to mail order to replace cons. This is their livelihood. By the time the fall hit and the postal service was having all these issues, people are ready to jump in. There were the Transformers dressed like mail people.

https://morethanmeetstheass.tumblr.com/post/626466946047705088/i-completely-forgot-to-post-this-guy-here-this-is

There were all these comments like “support your postal workers,” “support the USPS.” It really boils down to the fact that we are all connected and the mail service is something in the US that connects everyone. Even overseas. Supporting these artists whose livelihood went from IRL to online and having to deal with all of this.

And the “Super Putin Election.” The confluence of those elements. I was just surfing on my personal computer and I was on Tumblr and I saw a post being like “Destiel’s canon.” I’m like, “Excuse me?” I immediately texted my team. I was like, “Open up your work computers, let’s go.”

It’s time.

We all signed on trying to figure out what’s going on and watching the numbers. That, to me, is thrilling. I said this to someone else, but it felt like the night of The Dress. To have that moment where everyone on the internet is feeling the energy. The things that kept getting layered on top of it. Putin and Sherlock and all the anime mysteries. It was breakneck speed, and it was really thrilling just to be in that moment, and so Tumblr.

I did want to ask you about an increase in animated fandom and potentially anime fandom. A lot of these things I’m anecdotally or just observing things in my own little corner of the internet. It just seems like animation and anime, probably at least partially because Netflix has accumulated a much larger anime collection and seems to be investing in these sorts of things. Have you seen that increase? Could you talk about it, if so?

It plays into what we were talking about earlier, twofold. That nostalgia vibe, the late nineties anime vibe, that art style. Also your comfort zone and being open to more stuff just because it’s good. Not worrying about reading subtitles and stuff like that. But anime in general had a huge year. Haikyū!! ending also transposed into other fandoms because that moment of the final panels, it brings people together. People being so excited to see this massive thing come to a close. You might not be familiar with Haikyū!! in general, but you’ll see the fanart and be like, “Oh, I feel that.” It’s the emotion of it.

The popularity of Avatar did also open people’s doors to like, “Oh, well, what else can I watch? What else do I want to learn about”? Boku No Hero was consistently on our Week In Review every week. BEASTARS is another Netflix anime that’s at the top. Then Mo Dao Zu Shi, thinking about The Untamed, the story of Mo Dao Zu Shi is so fascinating. I don’t think I can name another piece of content that has that storyline. People are just ready to take it all on.

I did want to ask you, I think you’ve probably talked about some of these already, but what were some of the biggest fandom moments for you on Tumblr this year?

Oh boy. So many things going canon. Catradora was a huge, huge moment. I cried watching that. The Witcher, Jaskier, introducing this whole new world to Henry Cavill. I saw a post yesterday that was like once Superman was goth, a lot more people realize that he’s hot. Repurposing and looking at things in a new way. Among Us, so huge. There is a user who is doing a comic about White and Pink being in love. She’s giving them lore. She’s giving them backstory, personalities. It is amazing.

Unus Annus, I am not very into streamers, but I’ve caught some of those videos. When they had their final stream, I was tuning in. I was like, “Are you really going to delete the channel?” Then they did. Just watching the fans have that moment, even though I am not in that fandom, it was wonderful so meaningful.

Harry Potter being taken by the fans. Fans own Harry Potter now, and that’s what matters. The Old Guard also came out of nowhere and really blew Tumblr away. The Immortal Husbands. I love that ship. I’ve got to touch on almost all of the places, MCR, My Chemical Romance. Those fans have woken up and they didn’t get their tour, but they will. They’re not going to sleep until they do.

Because we maybe all have Supernatural on the brain, to a certain extent. I’m just curious how you think, that show’s been on for 15 years. The fandom has gone through literal generations. How do you think the fandom is going to change?

There’s always going to be a supernatural gif for everything. People will continue gifing it. It’s going to surpass what it is and it’s going to become that comfort show. This is a personal anecdote, but when I go to the dentist, every single time supernatural is on. It’s just like, “Oh, I get to watch my boys while I’m getting my teeth cleaned. That’s good.” It’s always going to be there. It’s always going to be there for people when they need it the most. We’re going to see a lot more fan creations. People love these boys, men now they’re adults. People love these characters. I haven’t watched this season. I am going to watch the finale tonight. I’m going in almost cold. I know that a lot of fan favorites have returned. My prediction for Supernatural fandom going forward is seeing these side stories come through in fanfiction even more than they already do. Lots more Charlie. That’s personal of mine because I love her.

I don’t think you’re alone in this.

Yeah. Who doesn’t love Charlie? Seeing these smaller characters come out and just shine in their own fan works, more so than the world might’ve provided them in canon.

It feels dangerous to make fandom predictions based on what happened this year, but if you have any predictions and or hopes for the coming year in terms of Tumblr and fandom?

Where we’re at now and going forward, it’s all about true authenticity. Screw what people think. We’re rejecting our old ways of thinking. We’re about flipping perspectives and forgetting what you thought was important in exchange for what you truly love. 2020 has helped us all figure out what our values at our core are. It’s about choosing something that makes you happy, that supports you, and your people. Choosing the happiness of those around you and making sure that you’re fighting for the goodness in life. Which sounds really sugar sweet, but one of the things, again, that I love about Tumblr is it is about putting people first based on the things they love. That’s what I see happening.

Explore the rest of Tumblr’s Year in Review lists here, and let us know what your biggest 2020 fandoms were in the comments below.

The post Tumblr’s Top Fandoms of 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[douglysium]

Episode 10 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 9 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 10 “Saturday Night”

This starts off with a TV interview hosted by Geraldine Hardy featuring Nigel Dickerson about ““Mr. Bonzo’s On His Way” which topped charts for over 11 weeks.” Well, actually 12 weeks according to Nigel. To which Geraldine adds “12 weeks, smashing the record for TV tie-in music and launching a merchandise empire.” So Mr. Bonzo’s On His Way is a pretty big deal and I can see why Gwen might have been surprised Lena didn’t seem to know anything about Nigel or his work in the last episode.

It’s implied that Nigel hasn’t been on TV recently when we get

NIGEL 

“It’s an absolute pleasure to be here Geraldine. Nice to be on TV again.”

GERALDINE 

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

NIGEL 

“I’ve kept busy.”

We are also told that Mr. Bonzo first debuted 25 years ago. Nigel says, with what the transcripts call “odd energy”, “I mean, it started as a joke…” Long story short, Channel Six (which is apparently a part of the BBC’s(British Broadcasting Corporation)) took a gamble and offered Nigel a spot as the host of their Saturday night variety show. Still, ““Nigel Dickerson presents Saturdays on Six” or “Nigel’s SOS” as they started calling it, really took off. I mean, at the end of the day it was still the same sort of variety show that BBC and ITV were running on Saturday primetime: skits, music, interviews, some on-location features. What marked us out though was that we didn’t take ourselves nearly as seriously as them. The whole conceit was that the set was built like an enormous comedy dungeon, and I’d been imprisoned by “Mr. Six.”” 

Mr. Six was a character that acted as the “fictional head of Channel Six” and the joke around the character was that Nigel would have to do a “good show” in order to be released from the fictional dungeon within the show. One of the show’s beats was that Mr. Six would call Nigel and angrily explain that “he’d gotten a complaint from some busybody writing in with a name like Mrs. Sourpucker or Mr. Smallprick” and then Nigel would be told an outlandish rule he needed to follow to much comedic effect. “I’d be told I had to do the whole show without… I don’t know, using the words “up next” or standing on one leg or something and people loved it. They really loved it.”

Then Geraldine asks about Mr. Bonzo, which implies that this topic is what at least Geraldine seems to be most interested in. It could even be what this interview is supposed to be about. “Yes. Mr. Bonzo. Of course. Well, one of our big things was pranks. We had a whole section called “You Got Berried!” where we’d invite on some serious public figure and make them look a bit silly, like, uh, get a famous footballer to do a bunch of kick-ups but we’d weighted the ball, and at the end I’d come out, say “You Got Berried!” (Not to be confused with The Buried) and give them this big golden raspberry trophy. It was all in fun, of course. No guests were hurt.” So then Rich, Nigel’s producer, came up with the idea of “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”.” So Nigel designs a character that is “this awful clown character – this big bulbous, splotchy suit, running around, screaming his own name and generally being a nightmare.”

Geraldine asks Nigel who came up with this character’s name and Nigel replies “You know, I honestly don’t remember. I know it wasn’t me or Rich, but at some point someone said it and the name just stuck. I don’t really know what else to say about it. His name is Mr. Bonzo.” This is the part where I do what I always do and try to frame the statements or encounters through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus The Extinction) to note if there’s any parallels or evidence that these are / aren’t the same Entities from TMA. The fact that Nigel doesn’t remember who came up with the character's name is most likely just a throwaway line and who actually came up with the name doesn’t really matter. But I’m here to give you my thoughts even if they are a bit of a stretch.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous article The Stranger seems to be the Entity tied the most to forgetting things and memory loss. “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.” In case 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. Theoretically the fear of the unknown would probably often include the fear of forgetting something as you would no longer know it. The idea that there’s something you once knew but now you don’t, and so it is unknown. This obviously would overlap with The Spiral a lot with the fear of your senses being wrong but that’s a whole thing for another time, and plenty of Entities overlap with stuff all the time. All I’m saying is that there’s a strong precedent for The Stranger making people forget stuff or making things hard to remember.”

However, that alone isn’t very good evidence but Mr. Bonzo is described as being a clown. Which 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. 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. I think the idea behind this is usually that 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, as others much more well versed in British culture than me have pointed out, Mr. Bonzo is most likely inspired by Mr. Blobby (a real life fictional character). And yeah I could see how such a costume could be uncanny to some or quickly become creepy if you change around some features.

The wiki also says this about Mr. Blobby: “Mr Blobby first appeared in 1992 in the 'Gotcha' segment of the second series of Noel's House Party, in which celebrities were caught out in a Candid Camera style prank. Mr Blobby was presented to the celebrities as if he were a real and established children's television character, in order to record a feature about the guests' professions - in reality, the setup was completely fictitious, and the character of Mr Blobby portrayed by Noel Edmonds focused on acting childishly and unprofessionally, to irritate the celebrities taking part.” This all sounds way too similar to Mr. Bonzo and the role he played on Mr. Bonzo’s On His Way as a character that pranked or messed with celebrities.

Also, after looking through the ARG I found some pictures of Mr. Bonzo (https://rustyquill.com/2023/10/31/the-magnus-protocol-arg-full-summary/)

(There’s also a more distorted creepypasta style picture of Mr. Bonzo (that I imagine the suit we see later looks like), but you can check the link for that).

“I remember the first show we used him. We’d invited Gotard Rimbaeu – the chef. He was very big at the time. Lots of TV appearances, a cooking column in The Times. But I think he was looking to soften his public image after the Mirror ran a story on him, I don’t quite remember…” Once again, Nigel is having trouble recalling something even if Geraldine reminds him. I fully acknowledge I’ve gone full tinfoil and it’s probable that Nigel just genuinely forgot or is a normal human with an imperfect memory.

“...after that he agreed to do a segment on our show teaching children how to cook. He’s 

obviously never seen the show and was completely oblivious to kids’ culture. He was absolutely perfect.” It’s interesting that they are preying on the fact that this chef is oblivious to kids’ culture. Which is another way to say that they were taking advantage of the fact that Gotard didn't know something (which can be very Stranger-esque). 

“When Mr Bonzo emerged out of the pantry, the effect was… incredible. Rimbeau’s face went white and he looked like he was about to scream. I’ll be honest, I’d seen the suit already, but I hadn’t seen it moving, and it was even freaking me out a bit. Rimbeau tried to keep it together, as far as he knew all the kids did love Mr. Bonzo, but when that big rubbery clown started knocking over pans and smashing eggs all over the studio kitchen, “the snooty chef” actually tried to hide behind a shelving unit. And finally, when Mr Bonzo went in for a cuddle, Rimbeau genuinely attacked him with a frying pan. He actually broke the arm of the guy wearing him, which I took as my cue to enter with the Golden Berry. This was on live TV don’t forget.” Surprise is something that a lot of Entities like to use but you could argue it potentially relating to The Stranger here in the sense that Gotard didn’t know any of the stuff regarding Mr. Bonzo was going to happen when he joined the show, nor was he familiar with the character. Also Gotard Rimbeau sounds like a Gordan Ramsey reference. Especially with a title like “BRITAIN’S SNOOTIEST CHEF.”

While someone having his arm broken sounds like a disaster it apparently worked out for Nigel and his crew, since the audience ended up loving it and asking for Mr. Bonzo to return. Of course, “...there was a different man in the suit, of course. There were a few of them over the years. It was very physically demanding and that wasn’t the only injury we had with it. It actually became a sort of ritual: the newest member of the production crew wore Mr. Bonzo until someone else joined.” I mentioned last episode how The Desolation can relate to the fear of things like bad luck. So you could maybe argue some parallels with Entities such as The Desolation depending on how people wearing the suit got hurt, but my money is still currently on The Stranger.

Nigel explains, that the joke couldn’t last forever and the bit started losing its punch as more people became aware of Mr. Bonzo and his skits on Nigel’s show. “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. “The kids certainly liked him. It turned out they really did think he was hilarious. Well, the ones who didn’t wet themselves, anyway.” So Mr. Bonzo could have been creating fear that fed the Entities unintentionally.

I wonder about Geraldine since at this point they seem to laugh at the suffering or fear of people. When Nigel brings up how people wearing Bonzo’s costume often got hurt Geraldine says “Or until they got hit by a pan!” and laughs while Nigel doesn’t. When Nigel mentions kids wetting themselves Geraldine laughs, but you could argue this is just Geraldine reacting to the joke. If Geraldine was an Avatar, monster, or somehow connected to an Entity this behavior would make sense if she is trying to purposefully scare Nigel, or maybe she just has a different sense of humor. Honestly, Geraldine radiates returning character energy to me. 

Nigel explains that things were looking up for the Bonzo brand despite this dividing line amongst the reception of kids. “Soon it was Bonzomania: merch sales were through the roof; “underserving number one hit single” actually did become a number one hit single and we even started construction on a small Bonzoland theme park at one point. It was… It was a good time.” And then people stopped liking Bonzo after a serial killer named Terrance Menki was caught wearing a Mr. Bonzo costume after murdering 11 people. Nigel says “You know it was only the last one, right? The one where he was caught? The police said there were eleven bodies in total and his wardrobe was full of all sorts of homemade costumes. Who knows what he wore for the rest? But no, because he was caught dressed as Mr. Bonzo, that’s all people remember, the, uh, the-” “Bonzo Butcher” apparently. 

Obviously, Nigel has some strong feelings about this “The Bonzo Butcher! Ridiculous tabloid garbage. It didn’t even look like him! He got the colors backwards! But they still splashed the image all over the front page. Complete overreaction.” Terrance messing up Bonzo’s colors could just be a coincidence but it could relate to The Stranger and the idea of the uncanny. The idea that a character or person who would otherwise be familiar is off in some way. So we get an uncanny Bonzo that doesn’t look quite right.

When Geraldine asks “An overreaction?” Nigel replies with “No, I mean, uh, it was inappropriate. To show to the public I mean.” One could argue that this parallels The Eye thematically with the fear relating to the idea of something being made public or known. Not to mention that Nigel is in front of a live audience right now and is in the middle of an interview. Interviews are something The Eye loves and has a precedent for, the most obvious example of this are the various live statements people like Jon and Gertrude took in TMA as Archivists. After news of the “Bonzo Butcher” went public “Bonzoland halted construction shortly afterwards and the suits decided it was best to “temporarily” halt production on SOS.” and Nigel got death threats even though he felt he had nothing to do with the situation. Public perception of Mr. Bonzo took a turn for the worse but Bonzo did get “some fans. In the, uh, edgier parts of the internet. As a “meme”.” 

Geraldine asks about the Bonzo merchandise still available on Nigel's own website and if its presence makes him uneasy. “About what? The fact that a few sales might be from people trying to be edgy? A man’s got to make a living, Geraldine, and it’s not like I can tell if someone’s buying a t-shirt ironically. Besides, people think of Nigel Dickerson and Mr. Bonzo is never far behind so it’s not like its changing my reputation. In a lot of ways I’m more his prisoner now than I ever was on my show.” Then the interview takes a sharp turn when

GERALDINE 

“And how do you respond to the more recent rumours?”

NIGEL 

“(on guard) Excuse me? “

GERALDINE 

“The witness statements from three murders over the last five years”

NIGEL 

“(speaking over her) I told your producer this wasn’t going to be discussed.”

GERALDINE 

“-that claim a person in a Mr. Bonzo costume was at the scene? Do you think there could be a copycat?’ 

NIGEL 

“(Getting up) This interview is over. Don’t contact us again.”

GERALDINE 

“Us? “

NIGEL 

“(losing it) It was a joke alright!? Mr. Bonzo was meant to be funny, make people laugh! Is that so wrong? Why am I still trapped dealing with all this- this- Why won’t he let me go?! Why”

First off, considering that Gwen encounters Bonzo in Nigel’s house later, when Nigel says “us” he is probably referring to both himself and Mr. Bonzo. One could also argue that this part of the interview parallels The Eye due to Nigel reacting very negatively to prying questions and he refuses to be interviewed again. However, I think that at least Mr. Bonzo is somehow connected to The Stranger. The comment Geraldine makes about the rumors by saying “The witness statements from three murders over the last five years” and “-that claim a person in a Mr. Bonzo costume was at the scene? Do you think there could be a copycat?” implies that more murders have since occurred after the first 11. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that these three murders might be related to whatever we see Bonzo doing later after Gwen gives him the letter. Is Bonzo going off to kill more people, and why is the OIAR involved?

We cut to OIAR via one of the computers to find out that Celia is filling out the forms for this statement. Colin enters the room and makes it clear that he doesn’t want to interrupt Celia’s Job to which she respons “It’s fine, just stuck the kettle on. You want a cup?” Implying that Colin’s mental health leave might have ended. Colin asks where everyone is, as he seems to be looking for Alice, and Celia explains “Gwen’s on “assignment”, whatever that means. Alice and Sam are, uh, following up something from a case.” Unbeknownst to Celia, Gwen’s assignment is delivering a letter to Nigel, and Sam and Alice went to go investigate the ruins of the Magnus Institute. It’s a bit funny that Celia describes what Sam and Alice are doing as “following up something from a case” because that kind of phrase was used to describe what the assistant and other members of the Institute in TMA often did when investigating statements or checking their validity.

Colin talks about his experience with some therapists he talked to on his mental leave.

COLIN 

“(distracted) Right. Shame. Wanted Alice’s thoughts on something. You know anything about computers?” 

CELIA 

“Not really. Weren’t you on leave?’ 

COLIN 

“For my brain, yeah. Didn’t work. Talked to three therapists. None of them even knew what a logic gate is. What the hell use is that going to be?“ 

A logic gate is “a device that performs a Boolean function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output,” which would imply that Colin was asking his therapists about the computers. Colin also says “None. I was just sat their twiddling my thumbs. Best thing for me is figuring this out.”. Colin asks Celia once again if no one is present and then-

COLIN 

“Great. That’ll make things easier. He sits at a desk and starts booting it up.”

COLIN 

“(cont.) Maybe don’t tell them I’ve been on their terminals. They’ll only get the wrong idea.”

CELIA 

“Uh, sure.” 

Colin starts typing on the PC a little breathless. 

CELIA 

“Cool. Well, I think that was the kettle, so I’ll probably leave you to it.”

COLIN 

“Yeah. Oh, and, uh, Celia?”

CELIA 

“Mm?”

COLIN 

“If Lena asks, I wasn’t here.” 

He starts to pull open the active computer, muttering to himself while Celia walks off to the breakroom.

Okay… so maybe Colin’s mental health leave isn’t actually over, and he just wanted to sneak back in to see what was going on with the computers. Once again, I must beat the dead horse of saying that there may be Eye related themes present at the OIAR or the facility. The Eye doesn’t just relate to the fear of being watched but also the fear of knowledge in general, which includes the fear of “seeing too much”, horrible truths, etc.. In MAG 200 The Eye is stated to have been born from the fear of seeing too much, and it also thematically relates to Jonah’s ability to force information into the heads of people like Martin and Melanie. Gertrude at one point even mentions The Eye as relating to the desire to know and understand even if in doing so you get hurt.

I’m not saying Colin is unjustified or unreasonable in his paranoia. But what I am saying is that an Entity like The Eye might purposefully be trying to insight and prey on this behavior (and the OIAR has a lot of parallels with The Eye). Gertude’s comment about hurting yourself in a desire to obtain knowledge could relate to Colin’s increasing levels of stress and degrading mental health as he attempts to unravel the secrets of the computer. Additionally, Colin’s desire to understand what’s happening does technically mirror a character like Rosie, but specifically his desire to understand an outdated system of technology is very similar to an Eye related statement from TMA in MAG 148 (Extended Surveillance) involving a “Security Camera Instruction Manual.” Upon reading the Leitner the victim ends up metaphysically fusing with the camera system the manual is tied to, but that’s not the important part. The important part is what led to Samson Stiller reading the manual in the first place. Specifically, a desire to understand and fix the camera system. In that MAG we get “I remember the smell of dust when Dave went and cracked open the filing cabinet in the back room, before waving his arms in the direction of the drawer and shrugging. I mean, I’d have just left it, obviously, but I think Samson was taking the whole knowing how the system works thing as like – a point of pride? Something he could salvage from the whole situation. Just a way of getting some control over his life, you know?”

Alice has been at the job pretty long, and presumably the longest out of her coworkers with the possible exception of her boss Lena (that’s still up in the air). So I wonder what Colin thinks Alice might know or add. I also wonder if Colin warns Celia not to tell Lena because he just doesn’t want to be caught by his boss at the office during his mental health leave or because he is suspicious of Lena specifically.

We cut to Sam and Alice exploring the ruins of the Institute. The ruins are clearly rotting and decaying and Alice seems to think this situation is dangerous as implied by this later interaction.

ALICE 

“(cont.) Careful…”

SAM 

“(turning) Oh thank goodness you said that otherwise I would’ve jumped up and down the dangerous” 

The floor breaks.

Before all the floor stuff however, Sam rummages through a filing cabinet and manages to find a key.

Alice actually shows herself to be a lot more aware and insightful than I think some fans give her credit for. She correctly identifies that Sam doesn’t actually know what he’s looking for, which he eventually admits outright, and she does try to console him. Although, you could argue it was pretty obvious Sam didn’t know what he was looking for. The fact that Sam doesn’t know what he’s looking for really makes me wonder what caused him to become so interested in the Institute. Why did the Institute test him for their gifted kids program?

I also forgot to mention something very important. When we cut to Sam and Alice the for the second time, even though we were using Sam’s phone the first cut in, the transcripts say this “ EXT. THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE RUINS – NIGHT, THUNDERSTORM (TAPE RECORDER).” So we are hearing what’s happening via a Tape Recorder, just like TMA. It also shows that whatever is listening isn’t just limited to things connected to the internet or anything, but seemingly any form of technology with a microphone. Are the tapes from this Institute or was it one of the tapes that would have been dragged along with the Entities from TMA into this new universe? Also, is it The Web that has been listening this entire time again or is something / someone else also using the tapes? We know that, while rare, artifacts can be tied to one or more Powers (such as the Key of Solomon) so are the tapes still aligned with The Web while something else is using them or is The Web just stepping up its game and using all microphones now because it doesn’t need the tapes specifically for its new plan(s)?

In this scene it’s also clear that Alice really worries about Sam’s safety and you could even argue that she’s mothering him a bit.

ALICE 

“(picking something up) Who do you reckon Archie was?” 

SAM 

“Huh?”

ALICE 

“I found one of those old timey name block things.” 

SAM 

“Uh… Archipelago?’ 

ALICE 

“I’m sorry what?” 

SAM 

“What?” 

ALICE 

“You’re just going to skip straight to “Archipelago”? Not, I don’t know, architect? Archive?” 

The name Archie doesn’t ring familiar to me but the words “architect” and “archive” do. Specifically in relation to, of course, Smirke’s architecture and the Institute’s Archives. In fact in TMA the tunnels under the Institute are Smirkean architecture. Sam also picks up a book that immediately disintegrates in his hand which makes me wonder if there were leitners in the TMP Institute at some point, and if such artifacts will play a role similar to the one they played in TMA.

ALICE 

“Nice chair. I could look real ominous swiveling in that thing.” 

SAM 

“I wouldn’t risk it. Not unless you want woodworms up your butt.”

ALICE 

“Ew. That explains the pattern on the floor.“

SAM 

“Oh yeah… What is that?”

ALICE 

“Worm tracks. Or y’know symbols of ancient otherworldly power. One or the other.”

The comment about the worms seems like a cheeky nod to Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Institute's in TMA. At the moment I think this is just a reference for the audience as opposed to something alluding to the idea that a similar attack also occurred here. Some floor breaks under Sam and the key he tried to use to open a door falls down into the resulting hole. Alice expresses worry as she manages to catch Sam and says “What was that? Because it sounded a lot like, “I’m sorry Alice you were right. We should head back now before I get myself killed falling into a soggy pit. Gosh you’re sexy, here’s a twenty for your trouble.”” Once again, I would like to point to Gertrude’s whole “The Eye is the desire to search for knowledge even if you get hurt in doing so” thing. I think it’s clear Sam is at least kind of desperate for answers since he acknowledges that he doesn’t even really know what he’s looking for. I’m not saying Sam is secretly an Eye Avatar or anything but, like with Colin, I wonder if something like The Eye or someone similar to Jonah is purposefully trying to stoke Sam’s curiosity or take advantage of it.

As far as the Institute’s gifted kids program goes Sam also says this “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I have… I have memories of weird stuff I saw here, but no context. I want to know what was happening, why they chose us… why they didn’t choose me. Maybe find the bit where everything started to go wrong. But… it’s too late. And now… I’m the only one left who cares.” Which makes me wonder even more about the program. Why were these kids selected? Was it their personalities, their experiences, some supernatural factor? Were they looking for potential Avatars or something?  Wa the TMP Institute working with the government?

“The voices finally disappear, lost to the distance and the rain. There is a long silence as the tape keeps running. The water is gently disturbed below. Then there is a thud on the hidden wooden trapdoor and the rattle of a padlock. There is the distinct sound of a key being dragged across wood then being blindly fumbled in a lock which finally clicks. The trap door opens, the lock falling away and [ERROR] emerges and takes a shuddering breath.. Click.” So something or someone might have just escaped the ruins. Who or what it could be I don’t know. This Institute could have its own set of tunnels like the one in TMA but the Institute in TMA was located in London instead of Manchester after being moved so I can’t really say if this Institute would have a similar system. Was someone / something purposefully trying to get Sam to release whatever / whoever this is from the Institute? Does the being itself somehow have some way of influencing things from a distance?

I actually skipped over a portion of this episode because I felt like it flowed better but let’s rewind to check up on Gwen via a tv apparently. Gwen rings the door and as Nigel unlocks it: “He unbolts the door. There’s a lot of them. Then he opens the heavy wooden doors to find GWEN stood in the porch.”

Nigel is surprised to find someone at this time of night and Gwen explains that she was sent by the OIAR  (Office of Incident Assessment and Response). The name of the OIAR is something I haven’t really thought about but the fact that it has “Response” probably means it’s supposed to take a more active role in dealing with the supernatural than the Institute. In TMA the job of the Institute technically wasn’t to perform investigations or help people but just to note supernatural occurrences and verify / research them. The Institute itself isn’t actually supposed to really do anything to help. The Institute’s motto is literally “Audio. Opperior. Vigilo." which means” I listen. I wait. I watch." and in MAG 28 (Skintight) Jon says to Melanie “We are not ‘paranormal investigators’. We are researchers. Scholars.” They aren’t supposed to solve mysteries, stop monsters, etc. for the sake of closure or helping others. They are just supposed to note what happens and use it for their own research(even if characters like Jon and Gertrude obviously don’t abide by that).

Anyway, Nigel seems to realize what’s happening when Gwen mentions the OIAR and tries to give Nigel the envelope. But there’s a twist, Nigel says “It’s not for me.” and invites Gwen inside. Nigel apologizes before “There is a wet, lumbering step on the staircase. Something is dragging itself down the stairs to meet them.” That “something” is none other than Mr. Bonzo (who can only say his own name, or maybe just chooses to say his own name). Gwen obviously doesn’t die in this encounter but I wonder if Nigel was apologizing because he knew seeing Bonzo can be scary or in case Bonzo decided to kill / hurt Gwen.

Nigel also says “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 would 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.

Nigel introduces Gwen and Bonzo by saying “Mr Bonzo meet… I didn’t actually get your name. Probably for the best.” Which makes me wonder why it’s a good thing he didn’t get her name. Is one of the factors that determine who Bonzo attacks are whether it and / or Nigel knows their name or something? The transcripts go on to say-

NIGEL 

“(urgently) I said don’t stare!”

Gwen does not reply. It is clear she is trying not to hyperventilate.

So Gwen is definitely in shock. Mr. Bonzo begins to become agitated and Nigel says “The name, the address – tell him where to go.” Nigel begins to panic and after telling Gwen to give Bonzo the envelope again “Gwen holds out the envelope and Mr Bonzo snatches it into his 

mouth, audibly chewing it. His teeth are not soft.” and then “Mr. Bonzo excitedly lumbers away, violently throwing open the door and lumbering off into the night.” Nigel notes that this situation almost went very badly and says “Tell the people who sent you “you’re welcome. Again.””

Okay, so what is Mr, Bonzo? I know that sometimes Entities like The Stranger just do weird uncanny stuff but I wonder if the “suit” actually is Mr. Bonzo’s body or if there is something wearing the suit? Or is Mr. Bonzo literally a living suit that is wearing some poor sap and Bonzo needs to find a new wearer / host periodically to wear him or shove inside of him? That could explain why the murders Geraldine mentioned are 3 murders that occured over the course of 5 years. It’s possible that these murders were just the ones that were caught but I wonder if Bonzo is collecting body parts for the inside of his suit or something. Part of the reason I’m thinking about this is because it’s funny that Bonzo eats the letter in order to read it. Maybe Bonzo is just trying to be scary but you have to remember that he is a suit. So by consuming the letter who / whatever is wearing it might be able to then see the letter. Then again presumably Bonzo would have had eye holes in the original costume so this might just be Bonzo or The Stranger being weird again.

Nigel acts like whatever is being done is a favor for the OIAR. Did the government stick Nigel with Mr. Bonzo in an attempt to appease it as much as possible while also offering the occasional sacrifice to calm Mr. Bonzo or is whatever’s on the letter some sort of enemy or threat? Maybe, Mr. Bonzo is being sent to go deal with more problematic or harder to control Monsters / Avatars / threats? I don’t know much other than the fact that it’s probably a favor for the OIAR. Meaning that someone wants this to happen. I don’t know if it’s Lena or her mysterious higher ups. This all also sounds like it might be related to the three Bonzo murders Geraldine mentioned. Is Bonzo being used as a weapon or is he just a threat that the government doesn’t know how to kill? Maybe killing Bonzo would somehow release something worse?

The interaction between Gwen, Nigel and Bonzo in regards to her job leads me to suspect that the OIAR is working with various supernatural factions. I don’t know if they are doing so out of convenience or some other reason but it looks like Gwen’s job involves sending messages and contracts to various supernatural beings at least. I wonder if all the letters are being sent to Mr. Bonzo, a variety of monsters, or just a pool of “agents” connected to the supernatural. Gwen’s new job was stated to have something to do with contracts so did Nigel or even Bonzo himself sign some sort of contract? If we assume the OIAR is connected to some Entity like The Eye we know such beings have a precedent for magically binding contracts (like the one Jonah used). So is something similar happening here but on a larger scale?

It’s kind of funny that when Nigel tells Gwen to leave he says “Now get out of his house.” It’s pretty obvious that The Stranger has a connection to the loss of identity or being unable to identify either yourself or other people. So I wonder if this is supposed to be some weird metaphor for an artist having their identity overtaken by that of their creations? Like people not really knowing who Nigel is outside of “the guy who made Mr. Bonzo.” Nigel even said “Besides, people think of Nigel Dickerson and Mr. Bonzo is never far behind so it’s not like its changing my reputation. In a lot of ways I’m more his prisoner now than I ever was on my show.” Nigel views Bonzo as a core part of his identity which could mirror how sometimes artists stake to much of their value or identity on their own art and creations. The interview we just saw seemed to revolve entirely around Bonzo and it seems to be Nigel’s most famous creation. Bonzo has become the main character and quite literally taken on a life of its own while Nigel is stuck in the side-car as he sits in Bonzo’s shadow.

Conclusion

I’m only becoming more and more curious about the OIAR. Also, what was the thing escaping the Institute’s ruins. Is it somehow related to the gifted program kids?

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

[sesquipedalian-aficionado]

I was tagged by @fantasy-and-other-things. Thanks lovely! I’m flattered :)

Rules: tag 9 people you want to know get to know better and answer the following questions

Top 3 Ships:

Crowley/Aziraphale, Good Omens

Jon/Martin, The Magnus Archives

Juno/Peter, The Penumbra Podcast

(And one for flavor, because I can’t make decisions:) Taako/Kravitz, The Adventure Zone

(Can you tell I’ve been binging podcasts in my quarantine?)

Lipstick or Chapstick?

Most of the time, neither; but I have a weakness for dark lipstick

Last song?

For the Dancing and the Dreaming, a cover by Lizz Robinett

Last movie?

Onward

(And I highly recommend it, it’s adorable - my DnD loving self could NOT get enough of that sweet sweet Modern Fantasy content)

Reading?

I’m going to use this to rec two fantastic, multi-chapter fanfics I’ve read in the past month that have given me that good serotonin in these trying times.

Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce by imaginatory, which is an HP altered universe fic in which Gordon Ramsey becomes Potions teacher. Yes, I’m aware it sounds like a crack fic. It will also HOOK YOU IN! The characterizations are just... *chefs kiss* (yes that was a pun). It genuinely made me cry in more than one place and it writes in all the canon pairings while still giving some fantastic LGBTQ+ rep, and it has an adult character who actually gets mad at the other adults in HP for being awful to kids! (Look, I didn’t know how much I needed Gordon Ramsey to yell at Snape about how he treats Neville until it happened.) Holy cow please read this.

All The Things You Prayed For by @anonymousalchemist and @marywhale, which is a TAZ MCU AU, and it’s just. It’s just great. It has Blupjeans. It has Taakitz. It has phenomenal Taako-Lup sibling content. It has pining, it has hurt/comfort, it has whump, it has Merle being absolutely and completely hilarious - there’s good humor throughout, but Merle is, true to form, something else - it has Istus and the Raven Queen being loving moms to their maladjusted spy goth son, it’s just so good.

Three Random Things That Make Me Happy:

Deer

The color blue

Making bread

Tagging:

@give-roger-his-maracas-back @oldgeekwoman @alex-in-blunderland @a-mothier-kinda-man @porcelain-dionysus @mercuryhomophony @letsbegoblingods @aspiratinganxiety @justagirlbeingageek

#quip has things to say #quip’s life #i was tagged in a Thing #if you follow me and i didnt tag you #feel more than welcome to tag me and answer the questions as well! #i didnt have space to tag all my followers but I’d love to learn more about all of you <3 #this is me #quip’s perspective

[chanagun]

I got tagged by @howdydowdy in a “dangerously sexy hybrid the likes of which the world has never seen” of a tag game. She’s amazing and hilarious and I’m very excited!

Top 3 ships: It should surprise no one that I still have to say PremWad as number 1 even though sotus is irrelevant (it is and i know that but their dynamic guys come on). I just rewatched Trapped and Tang Yi/Shao Fei is definitely in the top three as well. If I could pull a wild card here and not name a drama ship, I just binge-listened to The Magnus Archives podcast at work and I would die for Jon/Martin.

Last song: I listen to a lot of music y’all so: -Korean: Answer by Ateez -Japanese: Stand Out Fit In by One Ok Rock -English: Halsey’s entire Manic album

Last movie: okay so... I have a lot of trouble watching movies. It’s like a running joke with my friends that I haven’t seen movies but it’s true. The last time I went to the movie theater was to see Avengers Endgame (I literally just had to scroll through movies released in 2019 to see if I saw any of them). For not recently released, I just watched Spiderman Into the Spiderverse for the first time and I watched Pacific Rim for the seventieth time. 

Reading: It’s terrible but I haven’t been reading any actual literature books recently but I have been working my way through The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service manga series.

Watching: fffffffffff too much. I’m currently watching Until We Meet Again, Why R U?, The Good Place, and Schitt’s Creek. I just finished He’s Coming to Me. And I am planning on watching The Untamed, Crash Landing on You, A Gift for Whom You Hate, and about a thousand other things.

What food are you craving right now?: I need to eat lunch, I could smash a salad right now.

Lipstick or chapstick: I, and i am not exaggerating, would literally die without chapstick or another form of lip balm. They also make tinted lip balms so don’t be a clown you can have BOTH

Totally Spies or the Powerpuff Girls: I grew up watching both and this is honestly the most thought provoking question so far. I think Powerpuff Girls because I watched it first and I was pretty emotionally invested in it as a child.

Tagging: i’m gonna tag @m34ns (my bb peanut), @kxrn7knxck (my bb bunny), and @muffin-me (my bb bean), as well as some other faves @piningbisexuals @andwebegin, @0ffgun and @weilongfu. Of course, no pressure to participate, only if you want to!

#annie has friends! #thank you howdydowdy youre the real mvp #tag game

[composeregg]

What is tma I keep seeing you post about it but idk what it is and it most certainly looks interesting but I have no idea what it is

It’s The Magnus Archives!!!! Thank you for asking this means I get to ramble!!! I binged it and caught up p quick, the episodes are almost all around 20-25 minutes. Between tuesday-friday last week I literally listened to 107 episodes.

It’s a horror fiction anthology podcast. Jonathan Sims is the new Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, an organization that investigates the esoteric and strange. He finds that the Archives are a mess, and decides to digitize and record all the statements, but some don’t work on his laptop, so he brings out the good ole’ tape recorder, and those record on that, and the taped statements are what we hear.

He gets three assistants too, to help with this project. Tim, Sasha, and Martin. All four of them dig in, and Jon often has the assistants do follow-up research so he can add more information and how credible it is to the end of each statement.

But as they do research, they notice threads that crop up time and time again. There’s a bigger picture here, something terrifying. And as they look into the depths of the archives, something starts to look back.

(Full disclosure I stole that last line from the website)

It has a lot of continuity. Some statement givers from very early on come back, and the overarching plot is bone-chillingly good. It also breaks from the case-episode format over time, with canonical reasons as to why you’re hearing what the recorders are picking up. Each season if 40 episodes, and episode 160, the end of s4, comes out tomorrow. There are going to be 5 seasons total, and s5 (161-200) will start in April 2020. 

There’s also a lot of good representation. I’m iffy with horror stuff sometimes due to how they treat mental health, but TMA gets an A+, and in fact they do charity livestreams sometimes during xmas to raise money for a mental health organization. They know how to acknowledge mental health without making it the villain.

On top of that, it’s like, super queer. The MC Jon is canonically confirmed to be asexual! (An ace!!! An ace!!!!! I got so excited!!!!) Martin has been pining for him since like, the very start of the podcast (this is literally canon they had a great moment in 159 that everyone went feral for). Tim is openly bi/pan. A lot of the statement givers are just… casually queer? There’s trans ppl, and gay married couples. And like, alright, it’s not happy-feely but they exist in this story, but it is a horror story so shit happens! 

The Rusty Quill info page is here

Additionally:

Here is an archive for transcripts

And Here is a content warning list for each episode

Full disclosure, it can get kinda hard at points in terms of SFX or some descriptions. But it’s really good! It’s my newest Special Interest and I am well and fully hooked! I infodumped for 5 hours about it today to a friend! I’m stopping now because I’m infodumping again and this is getting long hahaha

#ask #answered #egg answers #saltywerewolfrebel #tma #the magnus archives #if you listen to tma pls talk to me about it #if I get u into tma please yell at me #I love it so much

[hopeheartfilia]

I. may have literally taken someones phone for a minute but. I jistw nated to know, and only thing thats suprising me is that my top artist is apparently fall out boy (unexpected). i am apparently in their 0,5% of listeners? I havent been lsitening to them much this year

However my most binged artist was sleeping at last, which was expected

anyway really nice way to say that when i wasnt playing my preferred zuko playlist, i was playing the wwx playlist

anyway i think ive never had this many artists, also my top podcasts are The Magnus archives, Anime Game Vibes (for. uh.. binging rich boy x world is spinning for a week straight) and Tiny light tbhk ending - hanako version

To be fair, wrapped always hits me like Yes I see how this might be right for the summer but I cant conceptualise time and also I am never listening to the same music as i was the rest of the year

#spotify wrapped #i am pleased i ahve blue #but i have trully been called out with that angst #but also wtf #anyway Rude-a is my top song im happy enough with that #i played it everytime i went skating so it shows i actually kept up with it the entire spring and a large portion of the summer