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leviathiane · 1 year

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#2 for the fandom end of year ask?

2. Favorite fic of the year

DOES THIS MEAN MINE OR SOMEONE ELSES AHHH

I'll just answer both bc I'm that bitch:

mine was said unposted undertale fic sdajkbhjvgdhbask if posted, I would said probably... either deeply whelved, or dead man's handle. Leaning more towards Dead man's handle, it unexpectedly gripped me.

IN TERMS OF OTHER PEOPLES FICS BOY DO I GOT A LIST

no shame. none at all. fuck it. yall deserve to have good reads and the authors deserve to not have their works hidden away in shame and embarrassment. I also will NOT be choosing one fic, bc i am not that bitch. yall getting SEVERAL.

DSMP

Swallow the Tide(pods) - merfic and kidfic. dsmp has a lot of those. Also very feral, and non-sexual size difference. There is eating of humans. There is also a mafia au element. It is mostly intense brooding instinct.

Evermore - A royal hanahaki au. It ends badly. That is honestly enough, in my book. It is long, it is painful, and there is no recourse. I grieved over this one.

The Secret of Being Colorful - Another wingfic, with a ton of brooding instinct. Forced adoption and consent issues in a very, very non-sexual way. Think of it as the "feral kitten grabbed hissing from the rainy alley dumpster" type fic.

POKEMON (specifically P:LA)

Alpha - Ingo's learning curve to being trapped in the past, largely his duties with Sneasler and how to keep the Highlands safe.

We Will Always Have Each Other - Takes place directly after Avalugg, as Hisui becomes distorted entirely. Ingo was taken prisoner by Kamado for being a risk as Akari was, only for him to vanish back into the future.

Next Stop, the Place Once Called Home - Emmet doesn't believe Ingo is dead, but he had to move on. Until a strange sneasel is spotted deep in the subways abandoned tunnels.

UNDERTALE (cmon. u got past the dsmp, hang on just a bit longer)

Ain't This the Life - The entire. fucking. series. every single part bangs. fucks, even. Severely. I can't even explain it. its a clusterfuck and its wild and its like 400k collectively and i reread it maybe 7 times in two months. I sent so many snippets of it to my boggers that they now recognize the style of the author despite having never read this fic themselves or even been interested in it. The writing is absurdly good. The dialogue is charged, funny, and tense. The sex is the least vanilla shit ever somehow even if it was missionary. There is so goddamn much going on. The stakes are so high and also so small sometimes. If I ever met this author I think I would burst into tears. Yes its sanscest. It's also one of the most intricate pieces of borderline straight up PWP ive ever fucking read. I can't even be ashamed of it. It's that good.

TMA

Take a Sad Song and Make it Better - This is in fact an ABO fic series, and also a poly!archivist team fic, focusing on subvocals role in relationships and society/culture. It’s also an excuse for me to read about everyone wanting Martin.

Underdog - Another ABo fic series, this time involving a hysterical pregnancy and more brooding instinct social catastrophe ❤️ i have a type

#depths' ask #fic rec #i really went buck wild this year huh #this ask is vry exposing jdsakhjgvdahsbk #ive done my best not to really let dsmp or undertale bleed into my public life #bc like. its seen kind of lowly? esp if youre not like. 13 #but no im 22. i have nuance. there is beauty and complexity everywhere you look if you look hard enough.#incredibly skilled creators can be found in the strangest places #nilchance in undertale. wolfythewitch and SADist in dsmp.#yeah the fandoms and content may be considered cringey. a lot of it definitely is #i never even watched any dsmp actual content? just read fics and looked at fanart #but goddamn the sheer amount of it all? anything with such high density is bound to make some diamonds #and by god did i find quite a few diamonds #reminder that i build a literal personal library of all fandoms im in sdjkahjbahsd i have pages and pages of ao3 links #and yet i narrowed like 300 fics down to 3 #same with undertale and ive got WAY more than 300 #anyway sahdjbhdas ive been embarrassing enough i think bye bye #edited to add TMA bc i CANT believe i forgot tma oh my fucking god

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asteralien · 2 years

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fanfic writer asks

tagged by @abnerskrill, thank yoooou

How many works do you have on AO3?

26 but 10 of those are short writer's month prompt ficlets, so it's not as many as it sounds, especially if i actually do get to all 31 ficlets. so, like 16 with a ficlet series?

What’s your total AO3 word count?

108,920! i was kind of shocked. that's a not-bad amount of words for someone who is still somewhat uncomfortable being a fanfic writer.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

6-7 - the magnus archives has the most atm; adventures in odyssey; mcu in general and the loki tv show specifically; taz balance; spn; and merlin. no, i'm not a child of 2013 tumblr, what are you talking about. spn and merlin are only short gen character studies, though, nothing intense.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

by FAR the most popular is my first tma fic, will your system be all right, the michael-has-misophonia study. 105 kudos!

Steadfast In the Broken Binding, also a tma fic, jonmichael slowburn set in a tma-ified version of the binding by br*dget c*llins (it also has 18 subscribers!!)

Perhaps I Had a Wicked Childhood, the steveloki time travel-ish fic

Variation On an Enemy, mcu fic with steve and loki but nonshippy/pre-relationship, set in the tva

5th place is tied between the devil gave me a crooked start and I Am Not the Only Traveler, which are both richard maxwell-centric aio fics. i am, as always, in love with my aio fic readers and kissing them on the mouth/wherever they are comfortable with/blowing them air kisses/shaking their hands sincerely. imagine a fandom 0.5% the size of mcu's and still much smaller than tma's but there are so many generous readers that the fics are still some of the most-kudos'd fics i have. j'adore.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

hmmmmm possibly you cannot kill me in a way that matters? that's the taako&merle taz balance fic set on the mushroom planet. one of my favorite kinds of flashback fics, in which POV Character starts out unhappy, takes on step towards healing, then takes a hasty two steps back!

it's possible my Sad Michael-POV TMA Standalone Fics Trilogy (will your system be all right, The Monster In the Impossible Halls, and In the Sweet Spot of the Throat) are the angstiest, but i feel like angst is expected in tma fics so it doesn't count as much. Sweet Spot does end jon and michael dying in each other's arms, though, so ymmv.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I Am Not the Only Traveler! richason makeout session achieved <3

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

crossovers are my favorite thing to write. they generally get me excited to write the most, bc i am still largely uncomfortable writing fanfic, so there's a layer of protection, almost, in putting familiar characters in different-but-still-familiar situations. it frees me up to focus on character and plot rather than endlessly worrying about canon details. i do usually only do the kind of crossover where i use the chars from Property A in the world of Property B, with no actual character crossover. i'm not up to writing richard maxwell and michael shelley interacting......................... yet.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope! almost certainly never will. i've written 2 smutty ficlets for my own original fiction and while it was interesting and i liked how one of them turned out, it also made me sort of uncomfortable, as an ace person and as someone who's never experienced it anyway. i read it for some ships, and unfortunately it's impossible not to learn the language of smut fics even without reading them, but i get embarrassed even publishing works with kissing in them because i can never tell if the verisimilitude is there. it's very hard for me to judge the authenticity. i can see myself maybe one day writing a vaguer M-rated fic but it's just not something i have any interest in writing or frequently reading right now.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i try! it usually takes me a bit, as in anything requiring human communication, but i do appreciate comments so i try to thank ppl for them

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

nope!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

there's not a big audience for gen no-dialogue character studies and ficlets about two men from a conservative christian kid's radio show kissing, so no

Have you ever had a fic translated?

see above answer

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

nope~

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

all-time to write? richard/jason. they come very naturally to me since i've been listening to them speak since i was like, 12. steveloki is a close second <3

all-time in general? GOD idk, too many !!! steveloki, richason, jonmichael, morgwen, abed/jeff, comet (costis/kamet), dinluke............ i have lots and i'd probably give 50% of a different answer if you asked me tomorrow

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

in my darker moments i worry that i will never finish Steadfast In the Broken Binding because i just updated it for the first time in over a year. and by "just" i mean, like, two months ago. but i really really want to, and i have a lot of half-formed ideas for how it's going to go, along with a pretty firm ending.

i REALLY doubt i'll ever finish tuesdays in the park with steve. i thought it'd be easy! but it's not! it's not something i should be this worked up over making sure it makes sense, since i am in no hurry to return to this particular crossover after the "mystery spot" spoof is over! but here! we! are! the next chapter is just going to always be half-written in my fic folder i guess

What are your writing strengths?

fuck me if i know. the most consistent compliment i've been given is that my character voices are authentic, which is my favorite compliment because staying true to the characters i love is, at the end of the day, all i care about, so that's nice

What are your writing weaknesses?

plotting, especially clarity. devastating first comment on Perhaps I Had a Wicked Childhood was that they ended up liking it but still didn't really know what was going on. quelle horreur. pacing is sooooo important to me as a reader but it's not something i've mastered as a writer. sometimes i give into the temptation to force the plot to go where it needs to go, and that's not good!!! i just get impatient. :/

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

if you know the language well enough to demonstrate your character's actual fluency in it, go nuts!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

adventures in odyssey! tbh that's why the devil gave me a crooked start has so many kudos, it's been around several years longer than the others (2017).

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

it's hard to choose !!! will your system be all right is still really meaningful to me but it's sloppier than i would write it now (it was a vent fic and i published it without proofreading it really at all).

Perhaps I Had a Wicked Childhood, on the other hand, i always remember as sloppier than it actually was, and every time i actually reread a bit of it i'm really proud of it, at least stylistically.

you cannot kill me in a way that matters is, imho, one of my best works when taken as a whole and it kind of kills me that it barely cracked 100 hits. i know why it didn't, ofc, but still. i forget i wrote it sometimes but then i remember and my heart just goes <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

tagging @biromantic-nerd and any of my other moots who do fanfic !! only if you feel like it <3

#thank you again this was funnnn #i cannot BELIEVE i have over 100k words of fanfic that just doesnt sound real #i am not a real fanfic writer and yet here we are #also i just have to reiterate. once again. that us gay aio listeners? are more powerful than any us marine #we are bound in a pact stronger than the blood of the oath or the water of the womb #ask game answers #fic writing

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savrenim · 4 years

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okay so looking at tma fic in general and tma time-travel fic and the various ways they decide to resolve things has given me an idea for a time travel fix-it fic premise that, like, I almost certainly will never write because way too many writing projects but it is Haunting me so I need to blab about it somewhere

so clearly the way that the ‘time travel’ / ‘knowledge of the future’ bit works is that Jon stumbles across a book that he assumes is a Leitner but then there’s no name in the front cover so he opens it proper and oooh this is weird but it’s too late the compulsion has set hold and and reads it, oops

the experience of reading it is the experience of fuck-it-feels-like living the entire timeline of the show up through the end of episode 160

(actually all the way through When Jon Finally Dies if he ever does but the important bit is he gets that knowledge of the timeline)

(the book is channeling the power of the Ceaseless Watcher, it’s all about knowledge, although very specifically in my brain this book is something that future!Jon and future!Martin constructed and sent back, which still tracks because hey Archivist is an Avatar of the Watcher. it’s just important to me that this is active action as an attempt to prevent the apocalypse and not dumb luck)

so Jonathan Sims now knows his future and because I have strong opinions about memory/ personality/ what makes a person, has arguably just been replaced with his future self.

‘oh fuck’ Jon says

‘I ended the world so I gotta fix this’

but how does he fix this, because oops Elias is still stupidly powerful and is going to notice if anything is up so he can’t act weird

but he can’t bring anyone else in on this because he doesn’t want to Curse Them with such Angsty Knowledge

he is acting a little bit weird, Martin notices that he’s acting weird because he is now being nice to Martin

‘this cannot be how the universe exists, Jon is always mean to me,’ Martin goes. ‘like I want the universe to exist this way but Something Is Up With Jon and it would be selfish of me not to investigate just because Jon is actually being nice to me’

Martin stumbles across the book and reads it too

‘oh fuck’ Martin says and immediately goes and talks to Jon and Jon has terrible selfish mixed feelings because he missed his Martin but also didn’t want Martin to have to go through everything he went through but also now Jon is not alone in trying to figure out how to alter this timeline without Elias noticing

(’wait what gave me away,’ Jon goes)

(’you were being nice to me,’ Martin goes)

(’fuck I really do need to be meaner to everyone don’t I,’ Jon goes. ‘it’s just really hard I’ve had Character Growth and I don’t want to be an asshole again’)

(’well suck it up you’re going to blow our cover,’ Martin goes. ‘maybe you should have thought of that before Being An Asshole.’ he immediately feels bad at Jon’s Very Sad Face. ‘you weren’t actually that much of an asshole you were just under stress and prickly and didn’t realize that the people you weren’t appreciating could be people that you would lose and now you do and that’s fine but you gotta still treat them like you’re an Asshole.’)

(’fine,’ Jon goes.)

so now they’re trying to figure out how to stop Elias

but also their main priority is to stop Tim and Sasha from dying at this point and they kind of figure that Elias doesn’t know the timeline and as long as he’s getting what he wants which is naive Jon stumbling through interactions with Entities and getting marked but not killed, he won’t suspect anything, and he doesn’t know Tim and Sasha are going to die so that at least is something immediate they can fix

‘I want to murder Jonah,’ goes Martin

‘you are super valid but also Gertrude tried that and was 1000% more badass than any of us and she ended up dead so maybe we should concentrate on saving our friends like we’ve got a few years to figure out how to do that,’ goes Jon

‘fine,’ goes Martin

Tim and Sasha notice that something is up, OBVIOUSLY, because Jon was weird-nice for like a week and a half then is weird-mean like he’s actually trying to be mean and hates it, and has gone from brushing off Martin all the time to pretending to brush Martin off but obviously secretly pining

he also gives off feral apocalypse energy

Martin meanwhile is pulling this all off perfectly

he fooled Elias and Peter and everyone else back when he was faking out the Lonely, he can handle this

Elias does notice Jon acting weird and thinks this is a soap opera workplace romance gone wrong but because he hasn’t seen all of it as Jon and Martin have been very careful to be using Martin’s Lonely powers when they want to Actually Talk and make it look like they’ve just casually wandered off when Elias isn’t paying attention to them so Elias doesn’t actually look like anything is up, he calls Jon in for a ‘performance review’ to make sure

(Martin has Lonely powers and Jon has Archivist powers from the future and they can both feed off of the long terrible fears that they remember from the horrible horrible lives and deaths they and the entire world had in their own timeline, just give me this I need a plot device that can explain why they can Actually Talk to each other while not being able to use the tunnels)

anyways Elias starts his performance review and pokes about Martin

‘um yeah,’ Jon confesses. ‘I um had a very awkward conversation with Martin because it seemed like he was being nice to me and I asked him about his feelings and he Confessed to me that he Liked me and I was caught by surprise and was thinking about it for a few days because idk nobody ever Likes me but then came to my senses and um but also it’s totally inappropriate because I’m his boss and I told him and we’re trying to forget that the conversation ever happened and just go back to concentrating on the statements’

‘you seem very nervous right now,’ Elias goes

‘please do not report me to HR,’ Jon goes looking appropriately mortified and trying to remember everything Martin has been coaching him about lying by telling people what they want to hear. ‘I know I should have rejected him immediately it just caught my by surprise that he would actually Say It To My Face people have been saying a lot of honest things to my face it’s very weird and I know that I shouldn’t have run away from that conversation and acted Weird for a few days but I did come to the Correct Conclusion I am very devoted to this job and don’t want to do anything but this job and didn’t do anything with Martin we just had a conversation and I’m really trying to do a good job here and please don’t fire me’

‘nope you’re good that’s fine concentrate on your job,’ Elias says, quite satisfied that his Archivist is developing truth powers very quickly

Tim and Sasha are not so easy to fool

Tim and Sasha find the book

Sasha, who worked in Artifact Storage, is Actually Smart and goes ‘dON’T READ THAT’

Tim reads it anyways

‘oh fuck I die stopping the apocalypse’

Tim doesn’t seem to die from reading the book and doesn’t seem to change except for being given this foreknowledge but Sasha is Smart so she doesn’t read it. Tim does fill her in on her future.

‘oh fuck I die when a weird worm-lady attacks? and don’t even get to help with the apocalypse? that’s bullshit.’

they start their own little huddle conspiracy

which Martin immediately finds

‘nO YOU GUYS YOU GOTTA BE MORE CAREFUL TALKING ABOUT THIS STUFF’ Martin explains the future and methods of communicating without Elias watching, which is mostly him subtly hiding them in the Lonely

(’why do you and Jon have secret special powers that’s not fair,’ Tim goes)

(’because we went through literal hell??? and also didn’t die??? idk maybe if we keep you from dying you will also get special powers but seriously Tim they are very evil these are Evil Powers we don’t want them they just kind of happened to us in the process of trying to survive,’ Martin goes.)

‘so what is the plan,’ Sasha goes. ‘like besides us not dying how are you actually going to deal with the real apocalypse’

‘well we want to kill Elias but we haven’t figured that out yet because he’s watching our every move perfectly and if we’re not acting like he think we should act he’ll dispose of us and start again with a new Archivist,’ Martin goes.

‘okay but like in your story there is a part where Peter Lukas personally escorts you to the panopticon and tells you to kill Elias/Jonas and you go no and Elias wins the bet,’ Sasha says. ‘what if you just murder him then, he says he wasn’t going to stop you and if he tries you’ve got another Avatar backing you up’

‘huh we didn’t think of that,’ Martin goes. ‘why didn’t we think of that. I swear there is a Very Good Reason we didn’t think of that. um. uh. there’s also the problem anyone working in the Archives will die if he dies unless they are powerfully enough connected the Ceaseless Watcher which is like. MAYBE Jon.’

‘W H Y did you not lead with that,’ Tim goes

‘yeah I really agree you should have led with that,’ Sasha goes

‘this has been a very stressful time and we have been doing our best and right also everyone can quit they just need to blind themselves to do it,’ Martin goes. ‘or I guess pledge allegiance to a different evil god but that is really unpleasant you have to sacrifice fear to it or you starve’

(’okay why did you not lead with--’ Sasha goes. ‘I’m starting to really see some benefits for being an evil fear-monster,’ Tim goes. ‘Like we could be ethical evil fear-monsters. like ethical vampires. only scare really shitty terrible people who deserve it and, like, scare but not kill.’)

(Martin looks like he is about to cry.)

(’okay maybe not p l e a s e stop making that face I cannot stand your puppy-dog-but-also-on-the-verge-of-tears eyes,’ Tim goes)

(Sasha stops death-glaring at him as Martin looks slightly less like he is about to cry.)

‘so everyone loves rituals what if we, like. construct a secret ritual. that you’re saying Jon is dumb powerful chosen one Avatar right so let’s just, like. switch over being the ‘Heart of the Institute’ from Jonah to him. big proper paperwork ritual passing on of ownership claiming his position as Jonah’s heir or something,’ Sasha says

‘that seems like just the sort of bullshit that might actually work. Sasha you are the smartest person in the world and I’m pretty sure the apocalypse wouldn’t have happened if you had survived the Prentiss attack,’ Martin says

‘actually honestly Gertrude wanted you as her replacement that sounds very true and is probably why Elias didn’t choose you,’ Jon says. he has entered the room at this point as he was curious where literally all of his assistants had wandered off to. he does actually have work to get done the Archives are A Mess and Martin has been gone at this point for far longer than it takes to Make Tea so he figured something might be up and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s finding Martin in the Lonely

‘real rude to not let us in on this,’ Tim goes. ‘also are you SURE this is not a weird Leitner fucking with you’

‘we’ve obsessively kept track of the things that are supposed to be happening and they’re all happening on the right days and stuff,’ Jon goes.

‘okay so let’s stop like two apocalypses and not die,’ Sasha goes.

the rest of the fic is everyone subtly not-so-subtly trying to recreate the exact timeline while also making events Less Terrible while also trying to seem Not Too Competent

because this is a fic there’s gotta be adorable ridiculous fluff so everyone decides that the Cover Story in case Elias thinks people are acting weird has got to be Jon and Martin starting to secretly date

(Jon and Martin are in absolute h e l l over this and it is a hilarious comedy of errors because they didn’t tell everyone else that they got together they both decided that was too private so everyone else is aggressively trying to actually matchmake them through this all and they’re now too embarrassed to drop the act because Sasha has been giving them hell every time they have accidentally withheld information from her so it’s like. three layers of fake dating.)

(Elias decides all this drama is simultaneously the funniest thing he’s ever seen but also kind of a Bad Distraction and is subtly trying to break them up but doesn’t want to mess with things too much because he is Very Impressed with all the ‘progress’ Jon is making)

(Jon who is a complete badass and is mostly desperately attempting not to reveal all his powers)

(there are also a lot of different things that can go various ways. like do Basira and Melaine still join the Institute? I think they all read the book and make Informed Decisions about their futures but I have not decided yet what those Informed Decisions are. Daisy learns how to control Hunt powers without it overwhelming her, because Tim is totally right about it being possible to be an ethical fear-monster although as Jon and Martin can draw from the fear of the apocalypse-world they don’t really need it so it’s just a question of whether or not I want to give everyone else cool powers. we’re in a fix-it fic everyone gets cool powers without terrible consequences Because I Say So)

(Elias doesn’t give them trouble over this because he is delighted that he’s kind of collecting avatars of other Entities because it makes it really easy to make sure Jon has marks and he thinks this is his genius plan going even better than expected)

we get to episode 158

Martin really wants to dramatically kill Elias i m m e d i a t e l y but is waiting for a walkie-talkie signal that the ritual above is going as planned so he stumbles through all of the dialogue the same

“Then do it. Kill him and help me save the world.” Peter goes

Martin pauses in silence because oops there’s really not that much more Avoiding he can do

“No” Martin says.

Elias starts to laugh.

The Signal Comes Through

‘fUCK YEAH,’ Martin says. ‘F I N A L L Y. I am murdering him and I’m saving the world but this isn’t for you, asshole, and Imma deal with you next.’

stabbity stab

it’s very satisfying

‘okay but what do you mean it’s not for me, you’re supposed to sit in the chair and help me look for the Extinction?’ Peter goes

‘nah fuck that I’m from the future and I do what I want that was me stopping the Jonah Magnus’s final ritual,’ Martin goes. ‘you really think I fell for that Extinction bullshit you aren’t nearly as good a liar as you think you are, you stay right there and we’ll decide what to do with you when everyone gets down here it’s Jon’s Institute now and we’re both very pissed at you’

Peter tries to escape into the Lonely

it Does Not Work as Martin has More Angst than Peter to draw from so is Way More Powerful

everyone gets down there

ritual worked nobody died!

‘okay but why DON’T we try to look for the Extinction.’ Sasha says. ‘that seems to be a pretty important thing to stop.’

at this point everyone agrees Sasha has the best ideas

have I mentioned that every single female character is very gay for Sasha

quite frankly maybe Tim too

Sasha is a Badass and this fic portrays her as Gertrude Robinson’s Rightful Heir

she Deserves Good Things

and she is Gonna Stop All Future Apocalypses so actually going through with Peter’s plan is maybe not a terrible idea

they do the thing but in a careful way that traps no one in the chair and get the info

the Extinction is still very stoppable

there are lots of ways but honestly the best way to do it is to manipulate humanity into actually Being Better and not being on the brink of extinction

‘this is my Institute now let’s use it to fucking save the world,’ Jon goes

and they use all their knowledge and power to go from being a massive conspiracy about causing the apocalypse to being a massive conspiracy about bringing kindness and preventing wars and stopping the rise of fascism in politics and poking humanity from behind the scenes into something Better that can Rise Above its fears

and everyone lives happily ever after

but yeah this entire fic is around the premise of ‘what if the actual fix-it isn’t Change Everything To Stop Bad Things From Happening it’s Keep Everything The Same Until We’re Handed The Opportunity To Stab Jonah On A Silver Platter And Then Take It’ which I have yet to see a fic do and oops that kind of grew away from me there but anyways that’s it that’s the fic

#tma #the magnus archives #gods I have so many fics but I'm mildly tempted to write this one anyways #maybe if the ending of tma ends up being very sad I will write it #can I write a SINGLE fic without weird time travel bullshit happening?#no #no I cannot

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peachcitt · 3 years

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20 questions: writer's edition

@carpisuns tagged me in this a while ago and i kept on meaning to do it and then i didn't but now i am!! so!! there!!

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

2. what’s your total AO3 word count?

607,518 (jesus christ)

3. how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

11!

miraculous ladybug, percy jackson, yuri on ice, the magnus archives, avatar the last airbender, banana fish, supernatural, hannibal, tales of arcadia, v*ltron, lady audley's secret

the rest is under the cut<3

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

1. friendship bracelets (atla; zukka)

2. bloodsucker (atla; zukka)

3. messy advances (atla; zukka)

4. chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes (ml; adrinette)

5. about emma martin (atla; adrinette)

5. do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to be so good at it!!! i really want to and eventually i will!!! but i got behind a while ago (maybe right after i finished bt to be quite honest) and now my ao3 in box is. it's quite unruly. but i'll answer all of them eventually it'll just take a while :")

6. what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

it may be a tie between in the same sun (ml; adrinette) and bread and oranges (ml: emilie/nathalie)? i normally go for tidy, wrapped up fluffy endings because that's what i like to see, but these are the two fics that i just let myself. not wrap up? like. they end, but there's no ending and that's on purpose, and they could be hopeful but they could also be very sad. and maybe that's angst

7. what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

oh god i don't know. you could honestly take your pick from the majority of my one shots and 'happiest' is of course subjective but i'll go with: lucky to be yours (ml; adrinette), the shades of reassimilation (pjo; solangelo), and doomed from the start (tma; jonmartin)

8. do you write crossovers? If yes, what’s the craziest thing you’ve written?

not usually. a ml x undertale au.

9. have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really? i mean ive gotten annoying stuff like people giving me criticisms i didn't ask for or people saying "i normally don't like stuff like x and it's still weird but congrats for pulling it off!" but not hate which is pretty cool

10. do you write smut? If so what kind?

well . not . hm. i'll just say no here :)

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

a while ago someone asked if they could translate bone tea in russian i think and i said yes but i never heard from them again. so who knows!

13. have you ever co-written a fic?

no but i think it could be fun with the right person

14. what’s your all time favorite ship?

i think this is self explanatory from the Everything About Me but lovesquare. also percabeth<3

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

no one be mad but i have 2 pjo fics on wattpad that i don't know if i'll ever get back to. also the ml x undertale crossover. i never say never though so who knows

16. what’s your writing strengths?

one time maryssa said i write very nostalgic and i have since taken that to my head. i think if im in the right headspace i can do dialogue very well too

17. what’s your writing weaknesses?

i don't really like describing environments unless i think it's A Metaphor which means that most of the time my works take place in the bare abstract of places to someone who doesn't share the same brain as me. also: kisses. every time i write them i feel like im being very cliché and therefore try my best to write them as little as possible

18. what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

i don't really do it unless it's a specific term of endearment (ex. alya calling marinette mignonette which is a personal favorite of mine/the obligatory lovesquare chaton/ adrinette calling each other ma moité in bt) or a little signifier to show a character is speaking a language other than the main language of the fic (eiji saying moshi moshi in hes&osm) because i don't know other languages and therefore am terrified of sounding stupid in another language. also when fics write in prolonged periods of language-other-than-english for seemingly no reason it really breaks my immersion so i try not to do that

19. what was the first fandom you wrote for?

percy jackson. unless you count the harry potter au i wrote when i was 7

20. what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i have so many it's ridiculous. can you tell i hate making choices. here are some of my favorites: bone tea (ml; adrinette), happy endings, the sun, and other steps to madness (bf; asheiji), doomed from the start (tma; jonmartin), those benevolent stars (ml; ladrien), double dare (ml; ladrien), chat's hit list (ml; adrinette), guessing game (ml; ladynoir), a hypothesis, an experiment, and a coincidence (ml; adrinette), and her golden ghost (ml; adrinette)

thank you so much for tag maryssa!! and i tag anybody who read through this entire thing and would like to do it!! go ahead and say i tagged you i don't mind<3<3

#tag game #fic talk #i hate making choices so much wjbkjbgkfdljkghkj #it's even worse because im the type of person that takes 'write what you want to read' to heart so i reread a lot of my fics #which means that i like them all for their own reasons. all 62 of them<3 #also sorry im just now doing this. i didn't mean to push it off for so long this is so embarrassing #i literally sat down to do this before doing homework. i feel so ridiculous i have so many things to do but here i am and you know what?#maybe i deserve it. maybe that's okay

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feathered-serpents · 2 years

Text

Snippets from that second person "TMA listener gets sent to TMA world" fic I was writing

Not sure if I'll ever finish this fic so I thought I might as well post some of the snippets I have on the anniversary of the finale! I'll try and provide context as best I can per scene. Wasn't GOING to post all of it but like might as well right? This is probably long

Remember these snippets are UNFINISHED they are missing things like dialogue tags and such, might be a bit awkward, and end abruptly!

TW: Biggest UNREALITY warning you can imagine. Would also not read if the idea of the TMA characters being not the nicest to a POV character referred to as You would make you upset

You Go Somewhere Else Scene Context: This would be the opening scene when you go to the TMA world. It's very VERY rough

You are you, and there is a crack in your wall.

You aren't sure when it got there, maybe it had always been there. Cracks in walls are like that, not present until one day, they are. The paint cracked and dust gathered around the seams in a way that tells you they've been there a while, but you only see it then. Cobwebs are the same way.

Same scene, further up Context: Eventually you go through the crack. I'm thinking in your sleep, but I'm not sure

You are still You, and you are somewhere else.

Tim and Martin Intro Scene Context - You go to the institute after You arrive. You find it blocked off by caution tape and run into Tim and Martin as they leave

It isn’t the voices, they get your attention but they aren’t why you’re sure.

You recognize them.

They look like you thought. Not just close, the overall idea right but a few details off no, not a single detail is off, no matter how obscure you thought it was, it’s there. They look exactly like you thought, and you stare long enough to be sure.

They don’t see you staring, they’re too focused on arguing, and it’s then that finally, true surprise takes you and without any thought or control you say: “Martin? Tim?”

It isn’t quiet. They stop, and they look at you. You don’t move and you are, of all things, embarrassed. Like you’ve made a fool of yourself in front of someone you’d really have liked to impress.

Martin smiles at you. It isn’t a relaxed or friendly smile, you can see a strain behind it, though it stays polite. Very clearly well-practiced. It’s a smile that looks exactly like you’d have thought on his face.

Tim just scowls.

“O-oh!” said Martin. “Hello! Um, do I… can we help you with anything?”

Tim rolls his eyes at the pointed we. Something that perfectly resembles what you’ve pictured before.

“Um,” “What happened?”

“I’m sorry I don’t think we can-“

“Our insane boss killed someone.”

You make a terrible mistake: you snort.

It would’ve been fine, before, something like that would have been funny in the detached context you’re always in. But you aren’t detached, not like you were before.

The You Meet Jon Scene Context: After much searching, you find Georgie's apartment and manage to meet with Jon in the park, where you start to tell him everything you can.

You hear your name said in a voice you know very well, and you turn to see Jonathan Sims.

It isn’t like when you saw Martin, Tim, or Georgie. Jon still looks how you imagined, physically, the length of his hair, the color of his skin, even the clothes that hang off of him in an ill-fit are perfect. It’s only that no amount of words, no amount of your own imagination, strong as it is, could have prepared you to understand just how tired he looks. Not angry. Not sad. Not scary. Just tired. Not a drowsy tired, the way he carries himself has a hyper-aware anticipation in it like a startled deer. Deep, dark exhaustion that would need fa,r far more than a simple night of sleep to cure.

You see it for yourself, and you know he’s not even halfway through it all.

It breaks your heart. Truly it does. You must have made some sort of face because the next question he asks you is: “Are you alright?”

Same scene, further ahead

“So… we’re found footage? Some conspiracy theory?”

“…yes.” You lie. You don’t like doing it, lying is something that you, with all you know, cannot afford to do. But this moment is an exception, you figure that telling this man you’re currently sitting next to and staring in the eyes that his whole reality is not only disbelieved but an entire work of fiction in your world… would be unhelpful.

You can’t quite tell if he spots the lie, but he doesn’t press further.

“So…” “What do you know?”

Same scene, further ahead

“For three weeks, you’re in a cabin, just you and him.”

“A cabin?” “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” you say. He blinks. There’s worry in his eyes and so you add quickly. “That part’s only for you.”

That confuses him, his brows furrow, he stares into nothing, pondering. You see him sit back, still staring at that same fixed point in space, and slowly, he starts to relax. His face softens, he hums, you see the corner of his mouth tip upwards ever so slightly. His eyes glint, like the glint of a jewel, something rare and beautiful.

He sits for a moment like that, and then, finally, returning to reality he looks at you and says, “And after?”

There’s a bitter heat in your throat.

You don’t want to say it. You don’t have to say it. You look at him, doing everything you can to hide the grief in your eyes. There is no sign that he sees it, he just looks at you, patient and curious.

You wait. You hope. This could be where you say it ends.

“You…” you swallow. Jon just looks at you.

“You still need statements. After three weeks… you get a statement from Hazel Rutter.”

“It isn’t Hazel Rutter," you look away from him. Staring at your knees, you start to pick at the fabric of your shirt. "It's- Elias- he makes you read this... ritual. The Watcher's Crown, and when you do..."

You don't intend to pause for so long. You meant to just search for the words, but the minutes pass, Jon gives you time, more than most would. Eventually, he has to say:

“And then?”

“I-“ you swallow. You steady yourself. You look him in the eye. “I don’t know. That’s when it stops.”

“Yes. That follows my luck”

Paragraph when things start going south. This is just before the Unknowing

You’ve been right about everything, everything, thus far. Maybe that means… you could be right about the rest. Maybe because you’re here, and maybe because you know you’re right about how it could change. You’re right about the ending they deserve.

And it isn’t long after you have that thought, that you start to be wrong.

The Pre-Unknowing Scene Context: You tell the archives what happens with the Unknowing, mentioning that it will stop on its own if they do nothing. Tim is displeased with this

“Would it still hurt?”

“What?”

“If we still go there and blow that circus to hell, fuck saving the world, would it hurt?”

You blink. You stare at him. “I-it’s not worth it-“

“Don’t you start telling me what’s worth it.”

You step back. There’s no static now. Not when you’re here. The tunnels are so much louder without it.

You’re afraid of him.

That realization hits you. This voice you know like a good song, this man who’d comforted you, who you’ve seen smiling and happy more often than you haven’t. You are afraid of him.

“Y-you’re helping Elias,” you say with all the bravery you can scrape out of yourself.

“I. Don’t. Care.”

His voice is a growl. You imagined him strong, and he is, you can hear it in how his footsteps sound on the stone as he walks to you. He isn’t threatening you, he’s just walking towards you and you’re backing away. He’s cornering you. You are afraid of him.

You are terrified.

“Yes.” The word is coated in copper. “It would hurt.”

He smiles. It’s painted on and wide. He walks past you, and he leaves the tunnels in silence.

The Homoerotic Annabelle Scene Context: This would happen way WAY later in the story, after something went Right for You, and then it turns out it didn't actually change anything.

You go back to the crack, after it's over. It’s still there, which surprises you a bit. You run your fingers over it. It feels solid, like it might actually be strong enough to keep out what’s behind it.

“Hello hello,” says a voice in the shadows.

You think it says a lot about what you’ve gotten used to that you don’t jump. You just look over your shoulder, and you still aren’t afraid as your eyes land on Annabelle Cane.

Looking just as you thought, of course, Annabelle sits in a little armchair that looks like a chair in your basement. You never sit on it of course, it’s been there for awhile. There are always cobwebs on the back.

The shadow from the staircase falls over her in a perfect crisp edge of darkness that cuts her face into two sides. She’s smiling. It really is a scene out of a children’s cartoon, the first time really seeing the villain, the only thing that would make it perfect is if she were stroking a cat.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” she says.

Same scene, further on, after you and Annabelle have a long conversation

She gets close to you. So close you can feel the warmth of her cheek on yours, she whispers to you, your spine chills. “You think you’ve changed a thing?”

You had wondered what the moment the apocalypse began must have been like. You’ve imagined everyone in the world gawking at a sky as it splits and opens into one massive, impossible eye staring back at them. You’ve thought maybe one moment they were living their lives only for the next to be stuck, transformed into a flower by their bones, their face stolen by an impossible audience, drowned in a sea where the water is made of teeth, but it isn’t like that. The apocalypse begins like the moment in a dream when you realize it’s a nightmare. Yours begins when that crack closes like a stitch pulled taught through a wound.

Your Apocalypse Scene Context: You are trapped in Hilltop Road with no way out and no choice but to face the consequences of what you've done

You’re alone. Trapped. But not like the others. You remember the statements of the men dragging themselves through wet soil, their fear fueled by a promised sun. You feel for them when you look at that door at the end of a short, eternal staircase. Just as you feel for those forgetting themselves in that fog-filled house you know Martin will get lost in, but even so, you know better.

You know your entrapment, your loneliness, it isn’t like that. This wouldn’t be the way for the apocalypse to truly feed on you if it wanted to, it’s all incidental. You aren’t being tormented.

You’re being contained.

Same scene, further on

There is one thing. A filing cabinet. A metal filing cabinet. When the day comes that you finally open it, it’s full of tapes. You grab the first one you see and read what’s written on it.

MAG #001 - ANGLERFISH

Not a statement number, a title.

“You knew…” you say. Of all the things, why is it this that surprises you?

You listen to it.

You listen to all of it.

And you? Your voice isn’t in any of them. These are the tapes you remember.

This isn’t fair. You’re here. Why are you here if you weren’t meant to make things different?

Maybe you should have realized sooner that different never meant better. Maybe you were never brought here to make things better.

Same scene, further on

MAG #200 - LAST WORDS

You put it in the player, and as your finger hovers over that red play button when eventually, inevitably, the door at the top of the stairs opens.

There’s a harsh yellow light that spills down those stairs, shining on the wall in front of it, two black shapes standing in it. You know who they are.

“I have a surprise for you,” purrs Annabelle Cane.

Martin thinks she was speaking to him. “You think I’m going to go into your creepy spider-house basement cause you’ve got a ‘surprise?’”

“Yes,” she answers. “I very much do.”

There’s silence. And then an exacerbated sigh that could win an award, before heavy footsteps creek down those stairs.

You grab the player with the tape still inside, and you shove it under your jacket.

You know exactly what you’re going to see when you turn around.

Maybe Martin does too. Did he ever ask Jon to look for you?

The way he says his next words assures you, he did.

“Oh god,” he says. “It’s you.”

Post Hilltop Road Dialogue

“What happens?” Basira asks. “When we get back there?”

You’re quiet for a long while. "I don't know."

You aren't lying.

In the tunnels. Context: You came back with the others and they are discussing what to do next. You are refusing to speak.

“No!” Melanie says. “When you found us all you talked about was how you ‘knew how it ends’ Well this feels a lot like a fucking end and you don’t get to keep secrets now.”

You hold your arm tight to your side. You feel the recorder dig into your skin, you can’t let them see it. You can’t let them see it.

For the first time since you came here, you cry.

“Christ that’s enough!” Martin comes up to her, puts a hand on her shoulder. "They don't know."

The same scene, further on. This is part of the last conversation you have with Jon

“I suppose you know what happens after the tapes stop?”

"Yes."

“Do you know…” Jon begins. “What Martin and I did at Upton House?”

You shake your head.

“That’s for us?”

“That’s for you.”

“Then why don’t I remember?”

In terms of scenes, that's all I have, but here are some lines that I don't have context for but would be important.

You: "I see you"

You stare into the eyes of the Archivist, and you are afraid.

You pull out the tape. “I would listen to this first, Jon.” “Somewhere there’s less of an echo.”

Ending line: And your tape clicks off.

And that's it! I know this might be a weird thing to post, you can't post writing wips as easily as art wips, but I really DID like this idea I just... don't know how to turn it into a full fic and I don't know if I have the energy to dedicate to another fic that I know will be in the 20k-40k range, but I won't say never. We'll see. I wanted to get what tiny snippets I had out at least

#tma #the magnus archives #fic WIP #will i keep this up or will i delete it out of embarrassment in an hour #we'll find out

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dathen · 4 years

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(sorry for the double post, the tags didn’t work the first time)

I’ve seen a lot of people be sad that Martin didn’t say “you’re my reason, too” back to Jon in TMA 167, even not part of the “Martin is evil” crowd, and I can understand why you’d feel this way! But if you look at the actual context and dialogue, it would be trite at best and downright contradictory at worst.

Martin: So...what? Without assistants she’d be bad at the apocalypse?

Jon: W-Without trust. Without a reason.

Gertrude needed both the purpose her mission gave her and the control her position allowed. To be here, like us, without a, a reason, without someone to ground her? She - She’d have power, but...no control. No real purpose.

Perhaps she’d have dedicated herself to a d-doomed quest like us but... No. I think this would have broken her. And she’d have resigned herself to...ruling her domain.

...

Martin: (coy) So... If you say Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to go on without a reason--

Jon: (fond and longsuffering) Yes, Martin, you are my reason.

Here, the context is Gertrude, and her contrast with Jon. The Archivist who chose to distance and harden herself vs. the Archivist who chose to trust and care. Gertrude would have “power, but not control” on her own, and would have “resigned herself to ruling her domain.” This is 100% relevant to Jon, constantly fighting the battle not to lose himself, constantly resisting what Helen urged him to do in 164 to just give up and have fun.

For Martin, there is no issue of “power, but no control.” Including Martin in this Archivist contrast just...doesn’t make sense and would dilute the power of the Gertrude vs. Jon theme so constant in this episode.

But I’m gonna say something super daring: I don’t think it’s true for Martin! And that doesn’t mean he loves Jon any less!

We’ve seen Martin without Jon. We already know what he would do if he lost him; we don’t need a hypothetical, and injecting it here isn’t necessary. But it’s the reverse of what’s being discussed here! When he lost Jon, he coped by throwing himself into a doomed quest. Subconsciously he “thought it was a good way to get killed,” as he said in TMA 158, but at the time he excused it to himself as having a goal: protect the others from Peter Lukas, keep Peter from randomly vanishing the employees of the Institute, maybe even save the world from the Extinction. When Martin is at rock-bottom, he finds an impossible quest to throw himself into. Jon hasn’t reached rock-bottom because he has Martin, but here he says that the danger for him is to just give up and revel in his power.

If, somehow, the world ended and Martin was left alone in this world, but with the same level of freedom and agency he has now...I’m pretty sure he would still be on this “kill Elias and save the world” quest. That’s just who he is as a person. He doesn’t have the same weaknesses and dangers as Jon! They’re different people, with completely different character arcs! If Martin had parroted “you’re my reason, too” back at Jon here, I would have reared back with a what the fuck that doesn’t even make sense instead of enjoying the cute heartfelt moment.

Lastly, TMA’s writing is a big fan of parallels and echoes, but it spreads them out across seasons. Remember how much we lost our minds over Jon saying “I need him to be okay” in season 4, when Martin said it back in season 3? Remember waiting five months between Martin’s “I really loved you” in TMA 159 and Jon’s “I love you” a couple episodes later? Or most painful of all “We need you, I need you” from the season 4 trailer, vs. Jon trying to reach Martin with those very words in 159? If we play a “there are no feelings because the other doesn’t immediately say it back” game, the entire series falls apart.

“You are my reason” is just another in this series of echoes. Martin already said Jon was his reason back in TMA 158, but it wasn’t to tether him to his humanity, it was to give the hollow quest he had already chosen a purpose. 167 was a bookend to this, not something Martin purposefully left hanging.

ANYWAY THEY’RE IN LOVE AND BOTH LOVE EACH OTHER

P.S. We can already be sure that the tapes missed Jon’s first of many “I love you’s” based on how his was delivered in TMA 161; we can be just as sure Martin has said it just as many times. Please remember the tapes as a storytelling device here. Kisses are probably happening too and we know the tapes are allergic to that, so.

P.S.S. for the love of god don’t @ jonny on twitter demanding when Martin will say “I love you” back you’re killing me here

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #tma spoilers #TUMBLR STOP CENSORING ME HERE JUST PUT IT IN THE TAGS #will be deleting the other one now

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bubonickitten · 4 years

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Relistening to TMA yet again (new hyperfixation, what can I say), and I can’t emphasize enough how much these early episodes kill me.

Because for a long time, Jon doesn’t realize what he’s becoming. And yeah, that’s obvious -- but it’s even more heartbreaking on a relisten, because he senses that something is off, but from his perspective the changes are so incremental that he doesn’t realize how much he’s changing until he’s in too deep.

He finds himself getting attached to this tape recorder (even when he initially hated it), but tries not to think too hard about that. He’s becoming obsessed with recording everything, and tells himself that he’s doing it for posterity’s sake. Jon is adept at using outward denial to hide his inner, nonstop, overthinking doubt. (Eventually it escalates to full-blown paranoid information gathering, which I think is where the Eye’s influence really starts to show, but more on that later.)

At first, it’s a safe half-lie (or at least not full-truth) to tell himself. He’s an academic, a researcher. He no doubt has a deep appreciation for the preservation of history, for the documentation of human experience -- that part is probably true. It’s how he makes sense of the world (and that started when he was a child, when the main way he interacted with the world was through books). And let’s be honest, the man is a nerd, and (I say this lovingly and with a tendency to infodump myself) he was probably prone to infodumping long before he became the Archivist. (Giving a Wikipedia summary of emulsifiers at a coworker’s birthday party, anyone?)

But beneath all that, Jon is just... scared. And Jonathan Sims comes to fear a lot of things, but one of his first fears was being forgotten. So it’s no wonder he takes so well to the compulsion to record, document, archive.

Makes sense; he was, by his own admission, emotionally neglected as a child. And sometimes harassed. He chalked it up to being “a deeply annoying child,” which -- oof, no wonder he acts like an ass sometimes. Even if he was adept at social interaction (which he’s not), keeping people at arm’s length can feel a lot safer than letting them close and risking rejection when they decide you’re too much to handle.

Point is, being ignored or ostracized was already painful, but it became his normal. Being forgotten, though, would be a existentially terrifying step beyond that.

All of this is put into even starker relief after “A Guest For Mr. Spider.” At 8 years old he witnessed someone get snatched from the world without a trace – someone ten years his senior, who died because he made the choice to torment Jon and just did so at the exact wrong moment (or perhaps right? Maybe the Web decided that early that Jon was more useful alive). But despite the fact that it was his bully, Jon has survivor’s guilt over it. He feels responsible. He admits that it’s illogical for him to think he could have done anything differently—he was eight—but he still comes out of that experience with the fundamental belief that being forgotten would be a unique kind of punishment that he believes even his bully didn’t deserve.

It’s such a raw, vulnerable moment when he finally admits it out loud: “Because I’m scared, Martin!” All that denial was external, and so fragile that it took one panicked moment for him to drop the veneer. But internally? Jokes about his obliviousness aside -- and, yes, in a lot of ways, Jon is that smart dumbass -- he’s got some self-awareness. He’s put two and two together, realized that the “real” statements don’t record digitally. He’s seen the artifact storage. He’s had a Leitner-based trauma, like so many statement givers. He’s just scared and he Does. Not. Want. To. Talk. About. It.

He tries to hide it early on behind a cold, stoic academic demeanor, but that… doesn’t last long, and once that veneer drops, he absolutely spirals into open paranoia and fear. And going forward, he really doesn’t hide his terror much. When he’s threatened, we hear him beg for his life. Even when he thinks the world might be better off without him, he still doesn’t want to die. He’s afraid of death, and after S1, he doesn’t try to pretend otherwise. (I really appreciate a horror protagonist who shows fear even when they’re trying to be brave.)

So, by the end of S1, we get to see him start to admit that his new obsessive behavior is not just a detached academic interest, or his workaholic urge to do his job well. It’s because he’s scared. But beyond that, through S2 and into S3, he starts to admit that beneath that, there’s something else going on. His rapidly escalating paranoia spiral is due to trauma, as well as the realization that Gertrude was murdered, as well as the general sense of uneasiness and distrusts that permeates the Institute (the Eye loves that shit), but also, honestly?? I think this is where the Eye starts to really get a grip on him. The Ceaseless Watcher, the fear of, in Gerry’s words, “needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.”

Beyond the tape recorder obsession, Jon doesn’t seem to notice early on that when he reads statements, it’s almost like he’s in a trance. (I think one of the first episodes where he starts to notice this is actually in MAG 32, when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ statement. His introduction to the statement is shaky, stilted, like he’s dreading it; when he’s reading Jane Prentiss’ words, it’s like he’s channeling her tone and delivery in a far more extreme way than he has before; and when he’s done, he’s clearly unsettled by the experience.)

(Another thing that stands out to me on a relisten is his tone shift when talking to Elias in MAG 40 -- he has an almost dreamy, trancelike delivery of the line: “Tens of thousands of... things without mouths screaming as one.” Like he’s reliving a flashback, yes, but there’s something else in his delivery of that line that continues to show up in his later spooky-Archivist-powers moments. And Elias pauses, and I can only imagine him thinking in that moment, all smug and conniving, Good. Jon is starting to become The Archivist.)

And, of course, Jon also doesn’t notice when he starts being able to compel statements--which is kind of funny, because my first thought when listening to early statements was, “How are all these statements so detailed and coherent? Did all these statement givers take creative writing classes or something?” But Jon doesn’t really seem to question that at first. It becomes more clear when the archive assistants try to take statements -- the statement givers can’t stay on topic, can’t remember details, can’t relive the moment in the same way they can if they’re forced to through compulsion. Adelard Dekker mentions that in one of his letters to Gertrude, too. It’s also sad, though, because he kept getting accused of forcing people to answer questions when he didn’t realize he was doing it (e.g. his interviews with Basira, Daisy, and Jude).

It’s just... such a gradual downward spiral. And yeah, there’s something tragic about that--and it isn’t going to end well; this is a horror-tragedy story after all--but one of the things I like about Jon is that he works so, so hard to change and become a better person in spite of what the Beholding is trying to turn him into.

I’m getting way off-topic. Basically, Jonny Sims is... very good at character development, and it’s fun to relisten and start to pick out the moments when things start to go wrong, the little details that maybe didn’t stand out so much on my first listen. Admittedly I, much like Jon Sims, have my own little conspiracy corkboard flavor of overthinking, so some of this might just be me reading too far into it. But still, I like all the layers going on here.

#tma meta #the magnus archives #tma #jonathan sims #jon sims #tma spoilers #long post #also. in s2. jonathan sims has never had a paranoid episode before and IT SHOWS. he is Not Prepared #don't get me started on neurodivergent jon sims but like. dang. that paranoia spiral #big relatable mood

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greatshell-rider · 3 years

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now that ive got 2 seasons of the white vault under my belt ive got Thoughts

- i did not have thoughts after season one because i wasn’t super impressed with it? listen, all the horror ive consumed is just tma and now this and tma has spoopy bits but white vault thus far hasn’t. been. scary? and i think it’s supposed to be? but it has not for me.

- which honestly is fine cuz white vault’s got other stuff i appreciate muchly. the diverse cast is so great! it really is cool to listen to a podcast that isn’t just american or british voice actors. i also am v grateful for the repeat of information/events in each ep, like there’ll be the audio recording but then there’ll be casner’s action report or someone writing a note that rehashs what just happened WHICH IS VERY NICE AND HELPFUL FOR A SILLLY LITTLE ME WITH AUDITORY PROCESSING ISSUES slfjsdlfjslfjsdfldslfjs me: wow i love podcasts! what a great media format to engage in! also me: zones out and hears nothing but gray noise until a character starts screaming and i have to go back 15 seconds to find out what attacked them

- i told myself going into this podcast i would not get attached to the story nor the characters and really i didn’t. i didn’t! i was not attached to anyone! until! graham casner got pulled into the cave fish pond and i realized rosa and jónas wouldn’t be able to get him out so he was probably dead and then i panicked. as the dude died i realized he was my favorite and nooooooooooo my favorite character cannot dieeeeeee sure it’s fine if everyone else does but noooooooooooooooooooo not himmmmmmmm GIVE HIM BACK

- i was very sad until the end of the s2 and it’s last line of “we found one of them” AND HOPE RETURNED. IF ANYONE REALLY DID SURVIVE IT WOULD EITHER BE ROSA OR GRAHAM. rosa’s a doctor, she can patch herself up, she’s dealt with messy experiences like this, (”like this”) and graham’s like. i mean like. it’s his job. yknow the shooting stuff and the survive thing. it’s his job to survive the arctic! also i feel like their deaths were the least “confirmed” out of the bunch. like i think the documentarian’s team found jónas as a pile of decomposing meat in the auxiliary bunker?? did i hear that right?? so i mean. considering that and the rest of the characters’ deaths . . . pspspspspspspspsp either rosa or graham

- last thought. i think the reason why graham’s my favorite (rosa’s a close second i think) is cuz that dude’s neurodivergent. his speech pattern/how he asks and answers questions, getting kinda snappy/annoyed when others kept demanding answers when he wasn’t finished explaining, how he kept writing action reports despite not being required to just as way to keep up routine/familiarity, how he runs operations/makes decisions kinda based off the rule book, knowing he had the bunker doors locked because that’s what he does, etc etc.

- also yeah peter lewis’s voice is fantastic what else is there to say

- okay real real last thought. i absorbed maybe half of all that the documentarian talked about in the last s2 ep but yeaaaaaaaaaaaa i am now intrigued in season three, consider me Attached

#white vault #it took me like a week to listen to s1 and today i was reluctant to start s2 #but then i listened to all ten episodes straight through in one sitting lol #to be fair i was training and exalting fr dragons so i had a reason to sit still for 2-3 hours straight #but i find it amusing

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trashcreatyre · 3 years

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I'm gonna explain one of my TMA playlists bc I've been wanting to do that for several months, and how else am I supposed to procrastinate my animatic project at one in the morning?

(here's the link to the playlist bc I think its pretty slappin')

General:

Body Terror Song By AJJ-

I know that it could technically be a flesh song, but I feel like its a bit more vague than that? if that makes sense?

The Afternoon By Lemon Demon-

there's gonna be a lot of Lemon Demon songs in this lol- This one is also pretty vague, but for some reason it kinda reminds me of Michael specifically? I don't 100% know how to describe it.

thrifted youth By dalynn-

Most of the descriptions/reasonings in the general section are pretty simplistic and vague huh? I guess it just kinda fits the vibe? I might be saying that for a lot of the general ones-

Aurora Borealis By Lemon Demon-

this one reminds me of the season five, kinda feels like a jmart song. (also you'll probably notice that there's not much in the ship theme in this playlist. I like to keep my ship playlists separate from my more general ones, don't know why.)

Under My Skin By Jukebox The Ghost-

just kinda fits the vibe y'know? other than that I don't really know.

Turn the Lights Off By Tally Hall-

i can't actually remember why I put this one specifically- that's a bit unfortunate-

When He Died By Lemon Demon-

This one mostly just fits the vibe, makes me think about the really old Victorian era statements.

Ancient Aliens By Lemon Demon-

again, fits the vibe.

She Doesn't Sleep By Anthony Amorim-

Feels like a random statement tbh. also reminds me of Not!Sasha too.

Nightmare Fuel By Lemon Demon-

funky song- fits the vibe- I don't know what more I can say-

Everybody Loves Me by OneRepublic-

I don't remember actually???? I think It was an Elias one??? but thinking about it now that doesn't really make much sense???? I'm gonna keep it tho, fits the vibe, at least it does to me.

Bloody Nose By Jack Conte-

fits the vibe :)

Christmas Kids By Roar-

I think I saw an animatic to this one time? now I can only think of the season one archival staff,,,, my beloveds,,,,

La nuit en matin By OH MU-

imma be honest, I have no idea what this one's actually about, but It lowkey reminds me of the intro music during end of season three- y'know, the clown vibes :D

9 to 5 By Dolly Parton-

Archival staff moment

American Healthcare By Penelope Scott-

I guess it could technically be seen as an End themed one? but I put it on bc I felt like it fit the vibes (are you getting sick of reading vibes? i'm getting sick of typing it)

Butch 4 Butch By Rio Romeo-

mostly just the rat filled piano line,,,,,, and also it fits the vibes to me.

Oblivion By Grimes-

Kinda feels like a statement?? In a way?

Murders By Miracle Musical-

the vibes. hopefully thats the last time i type that for this-

oh yeah woo yeah, we're onto the specific Entities now B) lets start with the one that probably has the most, if not, it sure feels like it-

The Spiral:

Spiral Eyes By Rewenge-

yeahhhh,,,, I know it doesn't really fit the vibes all that well, But the title fits and I like it so-

The Distortionist By Ghost and Pals-

this one is SUPER obvious, but it fits REALLY well in my mind.

Out of Her Head (Outerlude) [From The Film Possibly in Michigan] By Korban Baxter-

I can literally picture this one- I lowkey wanna do an animatic of this one one day.

A Crow's Trial By Vane Lily-

OKAY- so this last one is because it's the song from an absolutely GORGEOUS animation/animatic by Akidachi on YouTube, I ADORE this animation. please watch it omg-

again, I'm like, 90% sure that The Spiral has the most songs on this playlist, definitely not a bias or anything. next up is the mf uhhhh-

The Corruption:

Spiral of Ants By Lemon Demon-

no explanation needed.

Maggot By Slutever-

Mostly just the name, but it's a good song too so-

Sick On Seventh Street By Sarah and the Safe Word-

fits the vibe title and actual song wise.

in retrospect under my skin probably could be here-

The Web:

Redesign Your Logo (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

Feels like a very web song,,,

Boris The Spider By The Who-

Spider,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Spider Dance By Toby Fox-

Yes,,, like from undertale,,,,,,,

i think thats it for the web (i swore there were more,,,,)

The Lonely:

Nobody By Mitski-

C'mon, you didn't think I WOULDN'T put this one on, did you?

This December By Ricky Montgomery-

idk what it is exactly about this one, just,,,, feels correct?

Blue Jay Way By The Beatles-

MANNNNNNN- i love this song, my mom hates it- that's unrelated- but I always just feel like there's fog or like, an eerie sea, or something- while listening to it. it feels very lonely-

I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew (1909) By Eddie Morton-

I have no idea why spotify suggested this song to me, but I will never not find it funny. Anyway- reminds me of the crew on Peter's ship :)

The Stranger:

Rattlesnake By Kabaret Sybarit-

Idk, feels like smth Nikola would sing at jon- idk how else to explain it-

A Mask of My Own Face By Lemon Demon-

pretty self explanatory lolll

The Slaughter:

War Pigs By Black Sabbath-

war.

The Hunt:

The Hunter By Slaves-

maybe this one is because it's because it's litterally called the hunter, and that they say hunter a bunch, but it is fun to listen to-

Teeth By 8 Graves-

I cannot remember my reasoning at this current moment-

The Flesh:

Body By Mother Mother-

the lyrics do be fittin doe

The Dark:

Everything Goes Dark By The Hoosiers-

i mean- everything goes dark- what more do you want me to say-

Dr.Sunshine Is Dead By Will Wood and the Tapeworms-

i think its mostly the song's vibe and the title.

The End:

The Trick to life By The Hoosiers-

the trick to life is not to get too attached to it.

Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world By Will Wood-

remember death.

YOOO OKAY NOW WE'RE ON THE ONES THAT I HAVE ACTUAL THINGS TO SAY ABOUT NOW- at least for the most part-

Characters:

i think i'm gonna go from least to most for this- (spoilers, Jon has the most ones because I care him)

Cryptid Hunt- Demo By Averno, Sushi Soucy-

this one makes me think of the WTGFs,,,,,

You're at the Party (Bonus Track) By Lemon Demon-

makes me think about Micheal Shelley,,,,,,,

Saint Bernard By Lincoln-

Alice "daisy" Toner moment-

Mary By The Happy Fits-

mary keay,,,,,,

there used to be a gerry one too, but the more I heard it in the context of the playlist and him, It just didn't fit,,,,,

Ew it's Elias/jonah time-

The Fine Print By The Stupendium-

capitalism- jk- kinda- Idk, just feels like it fits because he really just kinda,,, doesn't care about his employees-

How Bad Can I Be? from the lorax-

I had to-

Boss 3 from the terraria soundtrack-

Listen- I don't know why- but- it has elias/jonah vibes- the vibes are fowl, but the song is good.

Ruler of Everything By Tally Hill-

Panopticon/eyepocolypes time-

Ayooo it's jon time- I really hope I can write out my thoughts in a way that makes any kind of sense- /foreshadowing

A Sadness Runs Through Him By The Hoosiers-

Goddddd,,,,, he's just kinda filled with sadness and survivors guilt, just like, all the time huh?

Home By Cavetown-

the lyrics are just- very him- like- I just gjbdjgsflkjns-

Broken Crown By Mumford & Sons-

frick- the foreshadowing was accurate- the best I can describe it is that the lyrics just???? y'know??? hhh why am I like this sometimes-

Sweet HIbiscus Tea By Penelope Scott-

i'm willing to bet that he never wanted to be the main character-

Honey I'm Home By Ghost and Pals-

I saw a Jon centric animatic to this one time- I can't for the life of me remember who by, But everytime I hear the moth lines, my brain goes ":0" Because I remember there was a time when people kept drawing moth jon- I don't know where that came from but I thought it was very cool.

Who Are You, Really? By Mikky Ekko-

I'm like- actually starting to get frustrated with how poorly im articulating my thoughts right now- this just isn't funny anymore-

Sleep By My Chemical Romance-

I'm not actually sure why for this one- I just remeber putting on my black parade CD, hearing this, and being like, "damn, that do kinda be jon tho-"

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings- tbh, all this sounded and read out better in my head. My words might not make sense, but I do like how the playlist is. also im very tired, maybe this would've been written better if I wasn't struggling to keep my eyes open lol. I'm gonna fall asleep now- or maybe i'll post a spiral themed doodle dump again, who knows. I don't know.

#tma #oh god im literally too tired to put so many tags #i just cant #the magnus archives #playlist #spotify #spotify playlist #my brain actually hurts #im so tired

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years

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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 79 - Hide and Seek

Tim: Yeah, and then he said, “Sorry for everything”. Something’s up. Martin: You don’t think he’s going to… y’know… Tim: I don’t know. But he’s going to do something, and it’s going to be bad. And I don’t mean like ‘sneaking a cigarette’ bad. Like properly bad. Martin: So we need to help him? Tim: We need to stop him.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that what Martin is thinking here is that Jon might harm himself whereas Tim is much more focused on Jon potentially harming someone else (I mean, Tim is kinda right here, but only because Jon was being a complete and utter idiot!)

Martin: Court? Tim: Yeah. Er, tribunal if we’re lucky, inquest if we’re not.

I'm not sure if this is UK-specific terminology, but I sure as fuck didn't know what Tim was on about and kind of ignored it during my first listen, so now I've looked it up. For anyone as clueless as me "tribunal court" is the kind that you'd think of when someone says going to court whereas an inquest court is specifically about examining an unexplained death. Yikes, Tim.

Martin: You did use a new tape, didn’t you? Tim: Yeah, I took one off the pile. Martin: Was it blank or… Tim?

I'd say "Priorities, Martin!" but the fact of the matter is that I've got some shit I recorded on tapes as a child and teenager that I would also be pretty crushed if someone just went and taped over, so I can understand Martin's anxiety here.

Tim: Martin! What do you think is happening here? This isn’t office politics. It’s not like he’s had one too many at the Christmas party and started ranting about the Greeks.

That's ... really specific, but an oddly plausible group of people for a racist from the UK to rant about in an inebriated state.

Martin: So you really think the Institute is, what, haunted? Tim: I used to. Now I think it’s worse. Martin: Worse how? Not!Sasha (breaking through doors, screaming distortedly): JooooOoooOn!

Perfect comedic timing by the Not!Them!

Jon: At least it didn’t leave me trapped in some corridor hellmaze… a different corridor hellmaze, at least.

I was, at the time, wondering why Distortion!Michael kept being so fucking helpful? I mean, helpful in a terrifying, disturbing way, but still, helpful. I guess in hindsight some motivations have become a bit clearer.

Jon: God, I’m an idiot. Smash the table, kill the monster, stupid! Lazy, sloppy assumption. Of course the table was binding it. The table is webs and spiders. Spiders are something else. They don’t help each other, they oppose, they… they weaken. It was caught in a web, and I… All the pieces were there. And I just… I couldn’t see it.

YOU DON'T SAY!

Tim: I… I’m not just going to leave you down here. Martin: You were all about quitting. Tim: Oh, for God’s sake, this isn’t about you. Martin: It never is.

Oh. Oh, ouch. Yeah, maybe this counts as a bit manipulative on Martin's end, but I think it's also a genuine expression of abandonment issues tinged with self-loathing. The way I read Martin, I don't think he's standing there thinking "How do I get Tim to stay", I think that's just a side effect of his emotions bursting out of him, bypassing the brain-to-mouth filter.

Martin: No, no, okay, because there’s two of us and there’s one of you, okay. He’s not killing anyone! Tim: Martin, look at his hands! Martin: Oh.

Oh god, somehow this scene is so much creepier if Michael's NOT revealing his full distortion form from the start. You've just got the inhuman sounding voice and yeah, they must know he's not actually human but they don't yet know HOW not human he is and then he slowly distorts, so gradually that they don't even notice there's a change. Or maybe - maybe there was never a change at all... Oh, I like this version of the scene a lot. It's just become so much better in my head!

Jon: I just hope this tape works the same, that my voice remains intact. Even if I’m gone, even if it wears a face that people think is mine, pulls me apart, becomes me. Listen, it’s not me! Whoever hears this: it is not me.

Oh god, shivers all over. He's so desperate, so scared and yeah, dying and being replaced so that none of your loved ones ever knows it's not you (or that they're in horrible danger for that matter) would be so much worse than just dying. Even if you're not around to experience it either way, the thought alone...

Jon: I don’t even remember what she looks like. Even now that I know, now I’ve seen it twisted and… I still don’t remember her. The only face I can picture is…

And now you've gone and made me sad.

Not!Sasha: I’m going to wear you, Jon. I’m going to wear everything you are. Like you never existed. No-one will even know. And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha.

And back to being creeped the fuck out while also being a little sad.

Not!Sasha: So the monster got its friends to carry the table all around, and it still got to take faces and scare people.

Oh, okay, Breekon and Hope were specifically "hired" BY the Not!Them somehow.

Not!Sasha: Then one day it was sent to the house of its enemy, which had the biggest eyes you ever did see.

I'm loving the fairy-tale tone of this. Also, in hindsight the "biggest eyes you ever did see" is just so ... I'm not sure how to describe my emotion about this line but it does make me squee a bit at the writing.

Jon: I’m sorry. Martin, Tim… Sasha. I’m so sorry. I should have… I didn’t… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.

And back to being sad again at Jon's final words (or what he thinks will be his final words) being an apology, a cry for forgiveness at his inadequacy, that he should have been better, that he should have somehow prevented all this...

Not!Sasha: I wonder, if I wear you, will I really become the Archivist? Rob the eye of its pupil?

These lines are SO MUCH BETTER now that I know what they mean. I think I just sort of glossed over them on my first listen.

My impression of this episode

In one word: Woah! There's just a lot going on here. The magnificent horror that is Not!Sasha finally revealing herself. All the personality-revealing details of Tim and Martin's conversation. The emotional roller coaster that is Jon's absolute desperation. Michael being his usual self. And then that last minute rescue by a mysteeeerious figure, which made for a very nice cliffhanger at the time (I remember that I was very glad I'd come to TMA late so I could just go on to listen to the next episode without having to wait for a week.)

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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moth-song-archives · 3 years

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The Insatiable Flow of Time (1/8)

I remembered that I can make posts here too huh! Anyways, I wrote a post-MAG200 fic <3

I’ll reblog it again with the link to ao3 if you’d prefer reading it there :D

Rating: Teens and Up Archive Warnings: Choose Not To Use Categories: F/F Relationships: Georgie/Melanie, Georgie & Jon, Jonmartin (mentioned) Characters: Georgie Barker, Melanie King, Jonathan Sims, the Admiral, Basira Hussain (mentioned), Rosie Zampano (mentioned), Martin Blackwood (mentioned)

Additional tags: Diary/Journal × post mag200 × Post-Canon × Canon Compliant × Rated for swearing and me doing my best to write a fitting epilogue for my most fave story of all time × Bittersweet × Hurt/Comfort × Grief/Mourning × Gentle-Sad-Soft × Fluff × Non-Sexual Intimacy × Tenderness × Generally Hopeful Ending × Ambiguous/Open Ending × Catharsis × You know how TMA is a tragedy? ... yeah × Hope Punk × dealing with the fallout of surviving a literal apocalypse × Moving on and letting go × Trans Georgie Barker × Nonbinary Melanie King × Melanie uses any pronouns but needs to (re)discover this first × and is then mainly referred to with they/them pronouns for diary-simplicity × Melanie is ace in my heart ♡ × Jon is also enby but it only gets referred to in passing × Georgie has a Type™ × Character Study × i love them all so much × Nonbinary aspec author × it's very hope punk and somft BUT ALSO VERY SAD × in like a cathartic way × because i like causing pain :') × pre-written and updates every 2-3 days

I think I might use it to… rediscover myself. That’s what I liked about journaling in the first place, I think. Getting to think about things outside of my own head, putting it out there so I could move on? Maybe it’s time to return to old coping mechanisms and try again. Even if I haven’t really changed. Even if I should’ve changed. Right?

As the world tries to piece itself back together, Georgie grapples with her past, her present, and her future by keeping a diary. She also keeps having this strange, recurring dream that involves Jon. Post MAG200.

Finished at ~12k, will upload over the next couple of days <3

Day 3 - Evening

Melanie is sleeping. Basira is also sleeping, on the sofa in the living-room. She doesn’t really know what to do with herself, these days, so for now she’s staying with us.

I am not sleeping. I’m so far beyond tired that I can’t sleep anymore. It’s been... how long? More than a day, certainly. I’m at the kitchen table and the night outside is darker than any I’ve ever seen. There are no street lights and a million more stars than I could’ve ever imagined. I wish Melanie could see them too :(

Back before everything in my life went wrong, I used to be really good at this. I think I got my first diary when I was... seven, maybe eight? I used to be obsessed with it. I guess I stopped writing in college, after the incident, because it felt... wrong? Like I was lying to myself, trying to fabricate emotions that just weren’t there, keeping up with things that no longer seemed important or note-worthy. Mainly, I couldn’t make myself care about anyone or anything anymore.

I think I want to find that person again, now that it’s over. Try and… move on? And Melanie encouraged me :) I guess that’s the main reason. I found this notebook in one of the domains when we were rescuing people. I don’t know what I originally wanted to do with it, but I did end up forgetting about it until I went through my bag again today. It smells like fire and is a bit singed in places, but I kind of like that? I think I might use it to… rediscover myself. ...that sounds very pretentious, but this is just for me, so...

And I like that it’s just cheap paper scribbled on with a shitty biro. Maybe I’ll just burn it when all the thoughts are on the paper instead of in my head. When I can sleep again. And the prize for the most dramatic way of closure goes to Georgie Barker! But yeah. That’s what I liked about journaling in the first place, I think. Getting to think about things outside of my own head, putting it out there so I could move on? Maybe it’s time to return to old coping mechanisms and try again. Even if I haven’t really changed. Even if I should’ve changed. Right?

But I don’t feel any different. Shouldn’t I feel different, now that they’re gone? The entities, I mean, though Jon and Martin seem to be gone, too.

I keep remembering Martin’s expression when he told us to go early, how upset he was.

Honestly, I can’t say I’m surprised. As long as I’ve known Jon, he’s always done what he thought best. It used to drive me up the walls, but I also admired it, I think? I never would’ve told him that, but… Well. He’s gone now.

It’s over, all of it.

And I still can’t sleep.

And Melanie is still blind, and I still feel empty, and my fear still hasn’t come back. Everyone who died is still dead, and the trauma is still there. There were angry mobs in the streets, and people got killed.

I can’t quite believe that Jon and Martin went with them. I can’t believe they left us behind to explain the entire mess.

We’re back in our old flat. It’s so weird to be back home. Everything looks the same, as though no time passed at all. Nobody knows what date it is. How long were we caught in there?

Outside, it feels like spring. There are birds everywhere, singing their hearts out. Sounds like more birds than there used to be, too. The trees are leafless and dead-looking, but Basira pointed out that they’re getting there... and it feels like spring.

I haven’t slept properly in 3 days because the questions keep me awake. It’s not that I’m worrying, really, just… thinking? I think I could sleep better if the worry had come back, but it hasn’t.

As far as we can tell, all modern devices are broken, too. Computers and phones and such, digital cameras, generators... we don’t even know what the rest of the world looks like. I hadn’t realised how much gets controlled by computers these days, we don’t even have central heating or water access in our flat. Rumours and news are spreading person-to-person, like in the Olden Days. We only have emergency systems that were installed in case of nation-wide blackout. I guess I’m glad we don’t actually have a blackout, we just need to get the computers back to work. (If I understood it correctly.)

Melanie thinks it’ll all come back to life in a few more days. I certainly hope so. I also hope I’ll stop feeling like this. Or rather, not feeling like anything. It’s so strange. Like in the first days after the incident, when I just felt numb?

They’re gone! I want to feel like a person again! What if I never get myself back?

They’re actually gone.

What will we do with our lives now? Basira isn’t the only one who feels uprooted. I think the whole world feels like that right now.

I hope my computer comes back soon. I miss music, and making things. My photos, all those memories.

I don’t want to lose all of that. I want to start fresh, but not without records of the past.

…I’ve had a lot of time to think about that, specifically. Records, and futures.

What the Ghost is done, right? There’s no fun in creepy ghost stories if you’ve been through an actual, living nightmare.

I think I want to start new with that, too. When everything works again, that is.

New world, new future, new podcast. I like that. I think. Make a record of what happened through eyewitness accounts? Or is that too similar to the Statements… then again, it’ll be more like interviews. And I think we shouldn’t forget.

We owe them that much.

I’ll have to talk it over with Melanie tomorrow. Maybe.

We’ll see.

God, I think maybe… maybe I can actually try and sleep tonight. Writing does seem to help.

Note to self: thank Laverne for suggesting it. (Also for being there for Melanie. And listening to us. And stopping with that culty nonsense. She’s the only one we found so far, but she actually listened to us. Strange to think that in this world, I have to be grateful for someone not worshipping me for some dumb reason?!)

Day 4 - Morning

So. Three things.

1) I did manage to fall asleep after all! I’ve always been a bit of an insomniac, especially after the incident, so actually getting some proper rest felt really good.

2) I somehow woke up right as the sun went up! I think I’ve never seen a dawn this beautiful? I watched it from the bedroom window and I’ll definitely describe it to her in detail when she wakes up! The Admiral was sleeping on our pillow, right next to her head, snuggled up against the back of her neck and shoulder... it was so cute. I can’t believe my phone and camera still don’t work! Melanie has that old polaroid camera somewhere but we haven’t found it yet, and I wish my art skills were any better. I did draw a sketch of the two of them though. I’ll cherish it forever, no matter how shitty it is :’)

After everything that happened, the Admiral is still a bit weird around us. He started out really aggressive, calmed down a bit, and now… now he’s weirdly skittish? Meows a lot. Keeps walking around the flat. The only thing that even remotely returns him to how he used to be is tuna. It’s weird.

But seeing him like that, with Melanie? I love him so much.

I think he’ll be okay.

But before I forget, and why I actually got out the diary at this ungodly hour instead of trying to go back to sleep now that the sun is up…

3) I had a really nice dream. And... I don’t even know. I think I want to try and hold onto the feeling? I don’t think I’ve felt that… deeply… in a long while. Maybe the last time was before all this, when we decided to move in together. Before all of this happened.

For a moment, I felt like I was whole again :’)

It didn’t even have Melanie in it, which is very rude tbh. I think Jon was there? The Admiral, too. We were just chilling on the sofa, watching netflix I think... It felt so... mundane??? Casual, somehow??? Like it was normal to feel like that and I just... I want THAT. I want to feel like that again, instead of this weird… blank nothingness? I want that all the time, not just when I’m riding a high or feeling so terrible that it pierces through.

I don’t know if that makes sense but this is just for me anyway so I suppose it doesn’t have to.

I think I should feel bad about Jon being gone, but I still don’t even feel relief at it being over. Just this vague numbness.

I hate it so much, except I don’t, actually, I just know that I should?

Melanie keeps saying that I need a therapist but if we’re being honest here, I guess I need one the least? The whole goddamn world needs therapy right now. Including the therapists. And I’ve been dealing with this for a long time now.

I guess I keep hoping it’ll just go away somehow.

Anyways. Enough introspection, I’m going back to bed. I hope I don’t wake them! :)

Day 4 - Evening

It’s night now, the sun went down hours ago. We have a bunch of candles, but I’m trying to use them sparingly, so I just have one lit. I put a glass of water next to the candle so now the light gets magnified a bit more. It’s a weird atmosphere, but I kinda like it? Feels… cozy! :)

I’m still not over how everything looks the same, but nothing works like it did before, and there’s this… burden? This collective trauma everyone went through. It feels so surreal. So many things are still broken… it’s like we woke from a collective nightmare, but pieces of it still remain, floating around.

And we just sent it away with the tapes. I really hope those other worlds are doing better than us, but what else could we have done? I… try not to think about it. I know I should, but I still can’t really bring myself to care, or even feel overly guilty for that? …

Melanie fell asleep with her head in my lap half an hour ago. I was reading to her. She says she loves the sound of my voice, so I’ve started doing that in the evenings. (I still love that we had separate crushes from a distance on each other for ages because of youtube and WTG. We’ve been talking about that a lot, too.)

She still has nightmares, but apparently she’s also been having good dreams, and she looks so peaceful right now. The last few days have been a lot, but in comparison to before, and even before then…

It’s over. We made it out. We get to have a future together. I still can’t quite believe it. :)

I guess I’m writing again (despite already having done so in the morning) because it somehow helped yesterday and I’m hoping to replicate that. And I have a lot to think about. It’s been a long day.

Basira is still out there, helping out where she can. I think she feels guilty. Melanie says she doesn’t because there was no other choice, but I know her, and I know that she’s lying.

There’s always another choice. We just say that to make it easier to bear.

I hope she knows she can come talk to me when she feels ready to tackle it.

I hope I ever feel able to tackle it myself. No. I will talk to her when I’m ready.

We did talk a bit about things, of course. Melanie doesn’t really remember her dreams, most of the time, but apparently she’s been alternating between horrifying nightmares and a really nice, recurring one that sometimes happens after the nightmares. She doesn’t really remember much of it, but she mentioned it after I told her about the Jon dream. Not what it was about, just… in general.

From the way she talked about it, I think her dad might have been in it? I’m actually not sure, but the way she smiled…

She has that little smile on her lips again, even now, dreaming. The soft one she gets when she talks about good things. About him.

About me.

(I still can’t believe she chose me. How impossibly lucky? How did I ever deserve her? But then, it’s not about that, is it? She is mine, and I am hers, and… life will be good. I know it will be.)

She’s been smiling a lot more, these past few days.

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the-director · 3 years

Text

Author note: set before shit goes south in season 1 of tma, the second addition in the wtnv tma crossover featuring the man in the tan jacket.

Everett stayed in the magnus archives. No one really knows why. They start calling him the man in the tan jacket. Everybody always does, once they realize they can't remember a thing about him other than that. At first they try to make the effort. Martin especially. But it can't be helped. He is to be forgotten, and that's a simple fact of life. He might as well be a ghost, a specter haunting the archives. He stays in this place so far from his home. So far from his family. The family who doesn't remember him. One could assume that's why he stays. He isn't haunted by the past. The knowledge that they should remember him. The people who work here, his identity isn't any of their business. It eases the pain. Being a stranger to other strangers is easier than being a stranger to your loved ones. The troublesome thing is he's starting to care about these people. As he talks to them. See their struggle. He feels he must help them. Maybe being forgotten can be useful. After all, how would you fight against an enemy you can't remember? But even still, Elias, their boss. He remembers.

Archivist: so uh… sir

[There's a sad chuckle]

Archivist: why are you still here? You made your statement that's it

Man: I don't really know. This place, it's comfortable here

Archivist: oh?

Man: I can't expect you to remember me. You didn't know me before… this. So it's fine that I'm just the man in the tan jacket here.

Archivist: and I presume you have no idea why this is happening to you.

Man: no I don't. If I did I would have already fixed it. But it doesn't matter. No one can help me. And if they did they probably wouldn't.

Archivist: my you are very optimistic aren't you

[There's a laugh]

Man: that's rich coming from you.

[Tape stops]

Martin: Would you like some tea uhm…

Man: Elliott will do just fine for now

[There is a sound of pen scratching against paper. Martin grumbles in frustration. He tried to write but all that came up was king city over and over again]

Elliott: that won't work yknow. That's part of the deal you can't write my name. Besides that wasn't my real one.

Martin: I know I just thought that I-

Elliott: that you could change it? I admire your enthusiasm kid, you're a good one. But you can't fix it.

[There's a silence, not an awkward one. Just a silence that weighs on their shoulders and their minds]

Martin: are you sure there isn't anything we can do, I mean it can't just be the end for you can it?

Man: I. I don't know. Its not technically the end as I'm not, dead as it were. Well I might as well be dead for some people. Or Well worse than that like I never existed at all.

[There's a gulp, the identity of it doesn't matter as both feel the same uncertainty]

Man: I just prefer not to get my hopes up

Martin: … would you still like some tea?

Man: yes, though it'd be best if I go with you so you don't forget to give it to me.

[There's a smile to his voice. At least I think it's a smile]

[The tape ends]

#tma #wtnv #the man in the tan jacket #jon #martin #the magnus archives #simon's fanfictions

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ante--meridiem · 3 years

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Martin Blackwood for the ask game?

Oh boy. I have... a lot of feelings on this character, most neither particularly good nor particularly justified.

Why I like them: OK so I have to admit, the writing in the episodes that are actually centered on him goes hard. Also, he got the Lonely plotline, which is the entity I resonate with most. And he stands up for Jon, which God knows someone should. And he's a normal human person who is willing to take on any supernatural entity that crosses him, which is pretty brave of him, and characters taking advantage of people underestimating them is a trope I love. Also I just have to acknowledge that he's a complex, realistic and well written character, whatever my feelings about him may be on the whole. And he canonically writes poetry, which even if it's canonically "mediocre" still wins him some points in my book. Also his snark, his snark is very good (at least pre S5, post in season 5 his snarkier moments align too closely to the things I don't like about him).

Why I don't: He's petty, he's passive aggressive, he's got jealousy issues, and for the first half of season 5 at least he's deep in denial and displays the introspective abilities of a rock. He's prone to simplistic, black and white thinking and moral hypocrisy (season 5 at least - his "all avatars are irredeemably evil and deserve to die, except Jon and maybe Helen because I personally like them and know the specifics of their circumstances" shtick makes me so mad). And he doesn't add enough to the narrative for me to make up for it. Honestly though? The real reason I dislike him isn't so much all of that (all the characters are flawed and that's a good thing) as the fact that I feel like I'm supposed to like and relate to him more than I do, which built up into resentment and then... this. I... saw a post once that described him as the "most human" character tma and I have a lot of baggage and issues with that kind of usage of "human" but in a certain way I kind of agree actually, in that he is a type of person that has traits many people seem to see as "essence of humanity" in some sense but in a way that's always felt alienating and unattainable to me. And so I project the issues I have with that kind of rhetoric on a character that is objectively probably still the most innocent in his narrative despite his flaws and has done nothing to deserve my ire :).

Favourite Episode: I'm going to go with 180 (at least I think that's the number of the S5 episode featuring his domain? Ignore it if I got it wrong, but I'm referring to the episode in his domain) both because the writing is really damn good, and because it's the first ounce of introspection or self awareness he shows this entire season.

Favourite season: I actually liked him for a while in season 4. What does it say about me that I can only like him when he's depressed? Probably nothing good.

Favourite line: "and the suggestion was... fire!"

Favourite outfit: This is a podcast so we don't actually get to see what he wears, but I'm sure he has some excellent cosy sweaters.

OTP: Martin Blackwood/Introspection. I'm not a huge fan of jon/martin, but I don't hate it and I'd probably like it more if it didn't make up more than half the fandom content.

brotp: I just realised I don't have one, that's... kind of sad actually. Let Martin have close friends, he clearly needs and wants them.

Unpopular opinion: A negative unpopular opinion: while he's more supportive of Jon than any other character (which. the bar is underground there.), he's not actually very good at all at understanding him - not only does he ignore everything he doesn't want to see half the time, he doesn't even seem to see Jon's positive qualities early on - see: him being surprised that Basira found him funny - leaving me to wonder how on earth you can be that unobservant about someone you supposedly have a crush on.

A positive (as in, more in his favour) unpopular opinion: He did not owe Jon emotional support just because he had an (at the time believed to be unrequited) crush on him and I feel like some people act like he did, sometimes.

A wish: My main wishes for him were to become an avatar, develop some self awareness, and/or have a breakdown when reality hits him in the face and he's forced to confront that there will be no easy fix. Two out of three of these have actually happened at this point!

A please-god-don't-ever-happen: A lot of people in the fandom have commented on sharing his fantasy of killing Elias as an easy fix that resets everything and he and Jon get a happy ending as the ideal ending to the podcast and I just... you realise how narratively unsatisfying it would be to resolve a plotline that revolved around a lack of easy answers that simplistically, right? Right?

Five words to best describe them: underestimated, loyal, determined, petty, idealistic

Your nickname for them: Do people usually nickname characters? I don't have one, sorry.

#Ask game #*shields self from the martin fans* i'm so sorry i'm just bitter for no reason #Thank you for the ask!#(i've now gotten a second anon asking for Martin #Wonder if it's because lots of people like him or because they sense my salt towards him)#I hope it's the second but if it's the first: imsosorrypleasedontkillme #The Podcast #Edited because I realised I left out the answers to two of the questions #Even though I'm *sure* I typed them out before hitting post #This is a functional website

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the-cookie-of-doom · 3 years

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2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 22. Release the salt!!

Gladly >: )

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

That depends, how popular is Sciles? I could never ship them; Scott treats Stiles like shit throughout the entire show. The one, single time I wrote them being romantically involved was in a super fucked up fic where a very traumatized Stiles was taking advantage of Scott’s desire to help him recover. It wasn’t even a little bit happy; Stiles was seriously screwed up after everything that happened to him, and he knew Scott wasn’t into guys, he was just trying to make him uncomfortable.

Aside from that, I’m not really into Thiam. Nothing against it, but I prefer Steo xD

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

Hmmm not sure if there’s one I hated, but fandom has def gotten me into stuff I wasn’t interested in before. I can’t think of any specifics off the top of my head, though. All of my TW ships were pretty much there before I ever watched the show/got into the fandom. I read a ton of fics for like 2 years before finally giving in.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Scott. He’s the most useless, hypocritical “hero” I’ve ever seen, and a product of lazy writing through and through. And the sad thing is, I didn’t even care when I first watched the show. I didn’t actively hate him until the Delusional Squad kept trying to bludgeon people into worshiping him, and seeing the various counterarguments for how shitty Scott really is. Now I can’t fucking stand him.

Aside from him... Allison, maybe? Which sounds terrible. I promise I actually love her, but season 2 Allison?? Total bitch. And it was such a weird path for her character development to take. Like, okay, she’s pissed off, she just found out werewolves are real and one killed her mother, almost killed her best friend, and her boyfriend is one. But to immediately start trying to hunt down her classmates? No. That is totally sociopathic behavior, what the fuck. You don’t get to play Allison as this sensitive sweetheart, and then pull that shit. It’s the inconsistency that really gets me.

Coming back from the next question to say: fuck Monroe. She was a shitty fucking character with the most basic, shallow motivation. They needed a Big Bad for the final season and instead of taking the time to really build someone up, they just decided... what? “Oh, monsters are real, I almost died and this one guy didn’t save me because I was hidden under a pile of bodies, guess it’s time to kill everyone!” Really? And she’s supposed to be a psychologist.

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Oops, I basically answered this with the last one xD Allison’s arc infuriates me, and so does Scotts. He doesn’t make any character growth - which would be fine, if the writing reflected that. But it doesn’t. We’re still constantly told that Scott is the Very Best Werewolf Jesus, all the way up to the end, when in reality? He fucking sucks. And oh yeah, he finishes the show be recruiting child soldiers into a war he could’ve prevented, if he just killed Monroe. But no, Werewolf Jesus always has to let the bad guys go, because hey, who cares if they kill people so long as the blood isn’t on his hands.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Ohhh I’m sure I’ve got plenty. But actually, I’m going to answer this one for TMA because I have way more hot takes in that fandom. Like, I stopped actively participating last year because I was tired of the bulll shit, and didn’t go back into the tags until my spam yesterday.

Love the show, love the talented people in fandom, but god fuck there are so many cold takes and “Friendly Reminders UwU” and “We Really Need To Talk About This/Thing About Why You Headcanon This”. There’s a ton of purity wank for a horror-tragedy fandom, I stg. And the mob mentality? Fucking disgusting. I’ve never been more ashamed to be part of a fandom that when everyone mobbed Jonny over multiple episodes last year, but Locked In was the worst. He shouldn’t have to come out with his own trauma to justify the subject matter he writes about. That’s a trend that needs to stop across all fandoms; no one is entitled to someone else’s trauma.

22. Popular character you hate?

Actually, I should’ve answered all of these as TMA, my answers would be way more interesting and less predictable xD (except the character arc one, bc there’s not a single arc I didn’t like in TMA. They were all so well written)

Again, does Scott qualify as popular? I wouldn’t say so, given how much of fandom is Sterek, and how much of us can’t stand him for how he treats Stiles and Derek respectively xD But yeah, let’s go with that lmao.

And, just to be clear for anyone that may read: this is a salty ask game, not a debate. If you disagree with any of my answers that’s chill, I promise I won’t care, just don’t try to convince me otherwise.

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omnipah · 3 years

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dfhjk just looking at your tags on a post you rb'd - what's your reasoning behind tma not working as a tragedy? ive.. i havent even listened to it but im so curious about your thoughts now ~ soy

Okay well, far be it for me to get into Discourse on this humble blog of mine, but I’ll do my best to keep things neutral and spoiler-free.

I think that post really puts very well into words what works about tragedy (and horror, but that’s slightly different), and it all comes down to nuance. These kinds of situations are very delicate to portray with proper framing and responsibility, and the way to deal with that is to acknowledge how complicated things are. What that means, of course, depends on the story, but having three-dimensional characters, whose motivations are understandable but somehow result in bad outcomes, or having a situation where there’s no outcome that’s obviously better than the others, and it’s a matter of picking the consequences u can live with rather than obviously objectively moral ones, are very good starters. Personally, I think Jonny was trying to do both to a degree but kind of failed on both counts.

I should say at this point that I didn’t like where it was going ever since the end of actII of s5, but I can appreciate pretty much everything before that point. There are real criticisms to be made, and in retrospect some of the things I thought were harmless weren’t, but I can still appreciate the bulk of the story.

And I think it can get away with that because it was so heavily episodic for so long, that each individual statement works on its own as effective tragedy and/or horror, and I think in those cases he did a beautiful job of addressing things with enough nuance to make them both respectful and meaningful. But in those cases it’s a snapshot of a character in a self-contained and easily summarisable situation, so if you’re good with efficient and concise writing, adding nuance is actually easier; it’s when he’s contending with 200 episodes-worth of characterisation and mystery plot buildup that he starts to drop threads.

It was around ep190 that I personally think his characterisation of the main characters went down the drain, and the cult nonsense really didn’t help that because the way it was framed in the story itself did not present the characters involved as compassionate or at all likeable. I found that, at that point, basically the entirety of any character arc that had already happened (especially Martin and Melanie) was brushed off and forgotten about, and that meant that those characters didn’t come across as at all complex.

This all culminates in ep199, where they’re supposed to be discussing what to do but they all seem to have made up their minds and not really be conflicted at all, and that is where he fails on the front of ‘maybe it could have gone differently’; he presents us with a bunch of awful alternatives, gets them to pick one (which they do very easily), and doesn’t actually give any indication that there’s a better option. He doesn’t earnestly weigh up the pros and cons, instead having the characters convince themselves that they don’t ‘technically’ know that what they’re choosing would actually be as bad as it logically seems, and then doesn’t do anything with the fact that that’s a complete fallacy on their part. Their emotions, their drives and petty wants, their sense of responsibility, are entirely erased just so he can get the conversation to fit into 20mins.

I think after ~190 he also got very stuck in the nitty gritty of mechanically how to ‘solve’ the issue he’s presented us with, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since those mechanics can be part of the metaphor. But that’s the problem with only presenting bad options and not even having the characters try to figure out a better option. Not only is everything pointless because there’s no good possibility presented or even mentioned as a concept, and not only are the characters completely resigned to working within the solutions they were given by the villains, as if they couldn’t work the metaphor themselves at all, but what he’s actually saying about the world we live in with that ending is very very bad. Like, is the only viable solution to the corruption in the world just to make it someone else’s problem? I think that to assert that is a very dangerous game, and I think that the hopelessness of that sentiment is incredibly boring.

Like, people seem to be thinking that tma works as a tragedy just because it made them sad, but they’re sad specifically because there was no better option, no alternative, it doesn’t have that tantalisation that wants you to try again and see if it’ll be better this time. There’s no flaw in understanding, there’s no character quirk, there’s no miscommunication where you can pinpoint ‘well, maybe, just maybe if this wasn’t in the way then we could’ve had a happy ending’. It’s pointless, and now the only redeeming feature is that it took so long to get there that you can make an argument of the inherent worth of the journey being shown by the depiction of it. The ending is nonsense, and just doesn’t fit with the rest.

#ask me #tma #zero thoughts #tma s5 spoilers #tagging just in case #if anyone starts discourse on this post u are getting ~*~blockt~*~#anyway anon bless u for asking about this even tho u dont listen to the show. ur a honey #again if u wanna come off anon and talk some more feel free to shoot me a message but no pressure

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