#pu songling research centre

[annabelle--cane]

what do we reckon's up with the protocol 'verse usher foundation and pu songling research centre? did they also meet unfortunate fates or are they still chugging along, completely unbothered?

#cautiously adds a 'xiaoling with the steel chair' box to my bingo card #<- I don't actually have a bingo card yet but maybe I'll make one at the midseason break or something when we have more to go on #tmagp #marina marvels at life

[a-mag-a-day]

I wonder how much other avatars/institutions serving the Eye knew about Elias's plan. Obviously they're serving the Entities, and potentially know about attempts to carry out rituals, but given the Pu Songling Research Centre apparently suggested their own candidate for a new Archivist makes me wonder if they suspected Elias's plan to mark Jon with all the entities, or at least that the Archivist would have a key role.

Hmmm, that’s a good question. What do people think?

#a mag a day #tma #the magnus archives #episode asks #tma spoilers #mag 105 #lemon-natalia #mod elian

[themagnustournament]

Round One Part Six - Match 49

Gerry's here! And in Italy nonetheless. He's on vacation :]

MAG 137 - Nemesis | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Wallis Turner. Incident occurred at the North Point prisoner-of-war camp, then later the sunken ship “Nemesis” in late 1942. Statement taken 3rd July 1955 at the Pu Songling Research Centre, Beijing.

MAG 048 - Lost in the Crowd | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Andrea Nunis, regarding a series of encounters in the streets of Genoa, Italy.

#the magnus archives #the magnus tournament #tma #mag 137 #mag 137 nemesis #nemesis #slaughter #the slaughter #wallis turner #mag 048 #mag 48 #mag 048 lost in the crowd #mag 48 lost in the crowd #lost in the crowd #andrea nunis #the lonely #lonely #gerry keay #gerry delano #gerard delano #gerard keay #round one #round one part six

[go-to-the-mirror]

howdy howdy howdy, some good words, mostly rambling, one (1) reaction image bc I'm Sad About Jon Constantly All The Time. Content warnings for like, most things in the episode because I'm pulling quotes, and also existential fear (the state of the world rn) because I went on a little extinction ramble.

@a-mag-a-day

Case 9550307 – Wallis Turner. Incident occurred at the North Point prisoner of-war camp, then later the sunken ship Nemesis in late 1942. Statement taken 3rd July 1955 at the Pu Songling Research Centre, Beijing. Committed to tape 9th October 2014. Gertrude Robinson recording.

Jon, I love you, but Gertrude's way of introducing statements is way better. Although she did intentionally leave the archives in disarray so...

Like, I mean, in an ideal world, you'd be able to search for statements by people who appear in them and places and notable things that happen, and then... idk I just, alright like, I want to just, learn how to code so I can make myself a little website and organize the statements and then my little rat brain who just wants to sort things out will finally be appeased

Even if it’s just sleep, just a quiet nothing forever, it’s not like you know enough to be bored, is it?

Fun fact about yours truly, that's one of the parts of death that scares me the most! I cannot handle being bored, it's just... no, I can't do it. And boredom forever? No end in sight? I hope there is an afterlife so that I don't have to deal with that.

Worse than that is just... nothing, just an end, and I don't really like to think about that.

Sergeant once told me it’s no different from killing a chicken back home, but people aren’t chickens, and the idea that war strips us all down to just a body that moves and kills, or falls and dies, makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Fear soup! This is pretty Flesh.

I could feel my pulse quicken, like it wanted to match the tempo, though I’ve no idea why. I should have been confused, scared maybe, and I guess I was, but I could also feel my fingers tap-tap-tapping away to the beat.

Right, alright, The Slaughter and music thing makes sense to me now. It's about the... I called it group project violence? That but serious. I know The Hunt was the mob mentality episode, but like... idk, I'm not sure. Something about the music in these episodes, Jane's song of the Hive, luring you in, entrancing you. The song of the Web, making you dance to its tune. The song of the Slaughter, getting caught up in the rhythm of it all.

There's something there, I can't exactly articulate it.

[...] just before the trumpet began to drift over the waters just a few yards beyond the walls.

woodwinds against trumpets 2023

And when they were lying still and the music stopped and night was quiet again, that’s when I heard the sound that really chilled my blood. All my comrades, my fellow prisoners, cheered. And it wasn’t the cheer of those glad for freedom, it was the sound of bloodlust and cruelty.

the slaughter feels like the least... spooky of all the fears to me. like, of course, there's a lot of war ghosts, and uncontrollable urges to do violence among other things, but the thing about the slaughter really feels like human and stuff. like, all of them are, not necessarily human, but influenced by the fear of mortals -- and probably those weird jellyfish, too -- but the slaughter feels different.

also, may I just say a thing? a few of the entities aren't really made manifest by that thing happening. like, sure, the eye is the fear of being watched -- among many other things -- but you know what really breeds paranoia? not being sure if you're being watched or not. the end is the fear of death, and yet victims of the end are commonly just told when the end will come for them. the slaughter is the fear of violence in a slaughter-y way and not a hunt or desolation-y way, and a lot of the slaughter's fear comes from witnessing the violence, or dreading it.

thus the extinction manifesting wouldn't end the world, because it would be a world without fear -- like maybe it would replace humans with spooky inheritors -- but honestly I think it would be enough just to give us the knowledge, the constant dread that there are people more powerful than us who can end the world with a decision, or trash the environment knowing full well what the consequences are. I think it would be enough to look at the doomsday clock and see that we're 90 seconds to midnight. but make it spooky.

woo! existential fear! hopelessness and helplessness! i know, i know, don't give up, people can cause change, but also I am one (1) tiny little guy.

Leonard was the first to dance. Well, I think of it as a dance, though I don’t know why. He reached over and grabbed another one of the former prisoners, a scrawny guy, I think his name was Milton. He gave a cry of anger that I could never have imagined coming from his gentle, smiling lips even in the head of battle. There was nothing Milton could do. Even malnourished as he was, it was easy for Leonard to snap his arm like a twig, twist his neck until his leg spasmed and his skull started to crack. Even when his victim was clearly dead, he kept beating it, tossing the corpse across the deck with as much ferocity as if it were the most hated man alive. The bloody crew of the Nemesis watched, their eyes riveted and their feet tapping to the music.

First of all, I love the way Jonny writes violence, it feels so visceral, I don't know, just the way he describes it. It's good. 10/10.

Secondly, I've danced in like a group but like a community sort of group not a lot of times, but I have acted, and it feels similar. Like, I don't know. Something about being on stage, the lights almost blinding you, it feels invigorating, it feels like you're being swept up in something. Idk, like that scene in Mama Mia where Sophie meets all three of her dads in one dance, and then passes out.

Yeah idk.

Few wars in my lifetime have reached anywhere the near the heights of fear I suspect this ritual would need, though I did spend some time a while back looking over some details from the Cuban Missile Crisis to no avail.

Nah, mate, the cold war's a feast for the extinction! (however, soup)

Anyway, point is, you can probably discount The Slaughter. It had its chance.

I forgot these tapes were supposed to be for her successor.

oh... hmnr. and they didn't help... this one told them outright how to stop The Unknowing, there was probably one going into more detail about it. The tape she intended the Archivist to hear as soon as they got the job... well, we all know what happened to that.

That's just... sad to me.

I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out time, somehow. And I don’t even know where to go, what to look for, or—

THIS! THIS IS WHAT SEASON 4 FEELS LIKE! Weirdly stressful, despite not clearly having a... point, something to... do, it feels like that feeling you get when you're so... bored or understimulated that you're just pacing around trying to find something to do, and you can't find anything to do! And it's like, aaaaa.

That's season 4.

(oh, also, for the last time the watcher's crown was in the past, the mass ritual doesn't have a canon name and when asked, Jonny tentatively said "The Magnus Archives" however of course that's word of god and the author is dead so take it as you will, however please do know that it's not the watcher's crown)

Daisy’s got me listening to The Archers. I hate it. But it feels nice to hate something that can’t hurt me. I don’t know. That’s it, I, I guess. End recording.

[ID: A drawing of someone sitting at a computer crying.]

I'M JUST SAD. "It feels nice to hate something that can't hurt me." HHHHH HES REALLY BEEN THROUGH THE WRINGER HASN'T HE D:

right, uh,

this is over ig.

#tma #the magnus archives #mag 137 #the slaughter #the extinction #a mag a day #landscaping-your-mind-chapter-one

[desolationtimstoker]

Every Literary Reference in The Magnus Archives (I think)

These are just the ones I noticed. If you caught references I didn't, feel free to add on! Since this'll be pretty long, it's all under the cut.

Character Namesakes:

(One or two of these may be a coincidence)

Algernon Blackwood - Martin Blackwood, Dr. Algernon Moss (mag 98)

Braham Stoker - Tim Stoker

Stephen King - Melanie King

M.R. James - Sasha James

Mary Shelley - Michael Shelley

Lucy Leitner - Jurgen Leitner, "Leitners"

Clive Barker - Georgie Barker

James Herbert - Trevor Herbert

Jaimie Delano - Eric Delano

Institute Names

"Count Magnus" by M.R. James - The Magnus Institute, Jonah Magnus

"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe - The Usher Foundation

Pu Songling - The Pu Songling Research Centre

Direct References in Statements

Wilfred Owen, "Exposure" by Wilfred Owen - mag 7 (Wilfred Owen features in this episode and the statement giver, who served with him, references "Exposure".)

Misery by Stephen King -mag 17 (A passing mention of this book being shelved at the library.)

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer - mag 17, mag 70 (In mag 17, the statement giver finds The Boneturner's Tale which, though obviously modern, is kind of Canterbury Tales fanfiction, focusing on a character who is either traveling with or stalking Chaucer's pilgrims. In mag 70, a character can recognize Middle English due to having studied Chaucer in high school.)

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster - mag 31 (The statement giver references a line from the play to help describe an avatar of the Hunt.)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - mag 38 (The statement giver's favorite book, a signed copy is among the objects stolen by the homophobic vase.)

Needful Things by Stephen King - mag 46 (The statement giver owns a small shop which he claims is often compared to the shop in Needful Things.)

"Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns - mag 85 (The central figure of this poem, or something resembling it, gives a statement.)

Die Nachtstücke (The Night Pieces), "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffman - mag 98 (The statement giver recalls having read "The Sandman" as a child and, in his adulthood, is haunted by something resembling Hoffman's Sandman.)

Five Go Down to the Sea by Enid Blyton - mag 147 (Referenced in passing as the only book Annabelle Cain took with her when she ran away from home as a child.)

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - mag 147 (Referenced by Annabelle Cain as she waxes philosophic about free will.)

Leitners

(This list will, of course, only include real books referenced as Leitners. No Boneturner or Ex Altiora.)

The Dictionaire Infernal (Infernal Dictionary) by Jacques Collin de Plancy - mag 46

Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger - mag 46

The Tale of a Field Hospital by Sir Frederick Treves - mag 68

The Key of Solomon by Solomon the King (purportedly) - mag 65, mag 70

The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin - mag 80

Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe - mag 80, mag 91

Miscellaneous:

Dracula by Braham Stoker - mag 56 (The title of this episode, "Children of the Night" is taken from a line in Dracula, and is a pretty clever reference, if I do say so myself.)

Diana Wynn Jones - mag 81 (Referenced in passing as an author who Jon briefly liked as a child)

#the magnus archives #jon sims #jarchivist #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #melanie king #the library of jurgen leitner #michael shelley #annabelle cain #literary references #my post #long post

[inklingofadream]

Jonah ask anon again: thank you for your responses and for being so open to questions! Jonah is just such an uncomfortable vibe, I love your take on him. I assume Jon doesn't know about Jonah's working hypothesis yet; I imagine he'd be horrified. Last question: I assume all the other temple leaders have met Jon several times now considering Jonah's recent insensitive anniversary party. Has anyone tried to get Jonah to send Jon on tour?

Thanks, it's fun to have people engage! 💗Jon hardcore does not know what Jonah's thinking. Jon is thinking in terms of "this is the rest of my life" and that life will probably be long! Lotta resources to keep him alive and healthy-ish through any and all cancer/autoimmune disorder manifesting/dementia isn't actually on the list Beholding would Not allow it/horrible accident/Artefact Storage incident/etc! He's anticipating along the lines of 80, 90, maybe just past 100. A fair bit past the general UK life expectancy. If Jonah is right- the Eye is convinced that it's preferable to be proactive here lol- it's more along the lines of 500. Better hope that Extinction doesn't manifest catastrophically...

The Usher Foundation and Pu Songling Research Centre have both pitched this like. CONSTANTLY. To Jon, to Jonah, to Michael and Gerry, literally any point of contact they have is like 💗Jon can come visit us any time 😊he's always welcome 🥰wouldn't it be great if he came to broaden his horizons💗

It's mixed success, largely because Jon does have people there who he actually talks/writes to willingly, and he's a bit anxious about the idea. He lives here... when JONAH was in charge of where he ended up he got torn away from his home... what guarantee does he have that no one will try to keep him if he visits? Much as he'd love to see the Stokers, also, if he's out of Jonah's immediate supervision he (fairly accurately) suspects that Jonah would spend the Whole Time watching him, so would he even be able to hang with them? Unknown. But they have the best chance if Jon DOES ever feel like traveling given the relationships there.

Everyone else... The two immediately allied with the Institute are mostly fine, and the tone is "we'd love a visit!!1!!" But everyone else is Super passive aggressive about it. He's too skinny don't you feed him? That crown is not fancy enough what are you doing?! He'd benefit SO much from a bit of sunshine, he should come to our place it's sunny! etc etc

And Jonah is passive aggressive back. It's mentioned that some of the delegates are a bit handsy. Jonah does not care about this in the moment. He doesn't WANT Jon to like these people, so sexual harassment is like. whatever. Jonah cares IMMENSELY once everyone's gone home and the next time they say Jon should visit it's all about how they made Jon sooooooo uncomfortable, they don't understand what he Needs, don't they know he's DELICATE??? So while both avenues come up fairly frequently, for the moment nothing's likely to come of it

(also, for birdverse, Someday i will finish my Epic Honeymoon fic. bc they had their nice quiet honeymoon, but maybe they should visit other places! But if it's just Jon and Martin something could happen... final passenger list: Jon, Martin, Tim, Danny, Gerry, Michael, Sasha, Georgie, Melanie... possibly someone like Lesere to be the Emergency Adultier Adult, or Quincy and/or Xiaoling joining as they visit them, so there's extra Institute-aligned people to keep anyone from Keeping them. If I finish it it'll probably be little bitty snapshots of each location and STILL be mega long. Everywhere wants Jon to see both the Eye stuff and the general tourist stuff. There's definitely a point where they rent the biggest RV you've ever seen in your life and road trip to as many National Parks as possible bc 1) no fraught avatar interactions and 2) even in a verse where Tim and Danny aren't banished, those boys love them some outdoor recreation. Possibly Trevor and Julia show up to be weird for a bit, idk. I say honeymoon, but I more mean gap year. Possibly 2. Decent chance it takes place a While after the wedding, when those of them with Actual Jobs are kinda feeling like it's time to move on, so they can just resign bc it is just never going to be a thing they can take a bit of PTO and return after. Maybe What the Ghost? spends a bit as a feed highlighting smaller creators. Maybe they do a bunch of on the road episodes. Lotta haunted places you can see as a tourist)

#cult au #feedback #writing #birdverse #ink post #asks

[legendary-dumpster-fire]

the men of letters from Supernatural and The Magnus Institute + all of the sister locations (usher foundation, Pu Songling Research Centre, ect) are literally the same thing, just different fonts.

#supernatural #the magnus archives #juno's junkyard

[marxistgnome]

My predictions for what the magnus archives 2 will be

1. An arg based on the fears being in our universe. If its this all of u need to ve good at posting updates cos i don't know shit about decoding

2. A tma show focused on a new archive or organization just fibding out about the fears ive seen people making ocs for things like the magnolia Institute abd that so maybe something like that

3. A prequel detailing the adventures of gertrude robinson and her archival assistant to be honest ill leap up and down if adelard dekker is even mentioned

4. The og tma story from another perspective maybe following a different organisation like section 31 or the pu songling research centre.

5. Jon and Martin in somwhere else

6. Basira Melanie and Georgie in the post apocalypse world

7. The regency era tma so reiner Fairchild magnus and smirke

That's all I have there are a few i think are more likely than others but yeah definitely add more ideas in the notes

I AM VERY EXCITED

#tma #themagnusarchives2 #the main question is #will it still be an anthology style #or something else #mych to think about #its a bit nerve wracking cos as with anything with prequels and sequels id get upset if canon was altered #but i think i trust them

[evelyn-the-archivist]

Maybe you'll be able to find answers regarding the Stranger and the Unknowing outside of the Magnus Institute. Try seeing if Gertrude ever got her hands on any statements from places like, say, the Pu Songling Research Centre and giving them a read yourself if possible.

Maybe.

I was planning on taking some time away to do field work anyway, the Pu Songling Research Centre might be a good place to check.

Thank you for the advice.

I suppose I'll keep you all updated on my progress as well as answering questions.

#evelyn the archivist #tma #tma ask blog #the magnus archives

[maxine-kiy900]

I was chating with a friend about TMA and casually mentioned that the Magnus Institute had a sister institute in China called Pu Songling Research Centre/蒲松龄研究中心 (a great name because Pu Songling was a famous ghost story collecter). And I ended up searching the name online jokingly and apparently it’s an actual research centre focusing on the historic figure himself and his works. :O 

The news title was “the Founding Assembly and Conference of Pu Songling Research Centre”. XD

#not important or related but I was just pleasantly surprised by the fact that people actually came up with this exact name albeit in Chinese

[quasi-normalcy]

So the Fears are presented as being real in TMA, but their precise breakdown into Entities is portrayed as being kind of arbitrary and socially constructed, like the question of where one colour stops and the next begins.

Anyways, my headcanon is that the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing therefore has a slightly different set of Entities from the Smirke's Fourteen framework used in the West.

#the magnus archives #tma #fear entities #smirke's fourteen #pu songling research centre

[annabelle--cane]

I hope xiaoling from the pu songling research centre had a nice time in the eyepocalypse. she was probably fairly evil but she seemed pleasant. hope she enjoyed herself beholding it up.

#tma #marina marvels at life

[nonbinaryeye]

Do you think Jonah was first Eye avatar starting his own Institute or that he copied someone's else idea? I mean yes the classification of fears was put together by Smirke but the Entities and their avatars existed long time before.

We know that US version of Magnus instute is Usher Foundation in Washington DC founded some time after 1952.

And also that China version of Magnus instute is Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing.

We also know that Magnus instute has certain amount of connections with both of the institutions.

At first I wanted to speculate how much the institutions know or ate interested in his plans because of course it would be kinda funny if other servants of the Beholding were more interested in knowing for a sake of knowing and saw Jonah|Elias as that annoying self absorb british prick...

But upon closer examination of the little lore about other supernatural research organization we have there's also this part:

Jonah|Elias was discussing his Archivist with other servants of the Beholding which implies they are at least approving his plans for Watcher's Crown if not actively helping him.

However the question still stands. Was Jonah the first start an Institute and did he helped found the others? Did he copy the idea? Were these institutions created independently on each other and decide to cooperate because of having same patron and the same goal?

I haven't seen lately any discussion about this topic which is shame there is really quit a lot of potential...

#I know there were people creati get some lore around Usher Foundation but that was around season three which is quite long time ago #Anyway feel free add your thoughts on this topic #tma #magnus instute #usher foundation #pu songling research centre #the beholding #tma entities #elias bouchard #jonah magnus #mEye post

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round 2 - Match 22

One of our lowest of the high seeds, Breathing Room is in with 105 votes from Round Two! Nemesis, our only statement from the Beijing sister institution to the Magnus Institute, unfortunately earned only 41 votes in Round One.

MAG 113 - Breathing Room | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Adelard Dekker, regarding the near-death and subsequent activities of Justin Gough.

MAG 137 - Nemesis | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Wallis Turner. Incident occurred at the North Point prisoner-of-war camp, then later the sunken ship “Nemesis” in late 1942. Statement taken 3rd July 1955 at the Pu Songling Research Centre, Beijing.

#the magnus archives #the magnus tournament #tma #mag 113 #mag 113 breathing room #breathing room #adelard dekker #justin gough #the end #end #mag 137 #mag 137 nemesis #nemesis #wallis turner #the slaughter #slaughter #redemption round two

[tentativelyteal]

So, any of us remember in MAG105 Total War, the librarian at the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing, Zhang Xiaoling, called Jon '建築師'*?

*(or, '建筑师' in Simplified Chinese characters as given in the unofficial transcript)

So, erm, it's been lowkey bugging me ever since I listened to it, because I speak Cantonese and (Traditional) Chinese is my first language, and '建築師' DOES NOT mean 'Archivist', like, at all. It translates as 'Architect' actually. (I meannnn, it could maybe half-convey the meaning if you squint at it in The Distortion's hallways? Coz an archivist organises documents like how an architect organises space....? maybe? loosely and metaphorically speaking? But, ehhhh, nope.)

And it's been months, but it hit me today '尚書' would have been a surprisingly fitting translation.

(long-winded explanations under the cut! This is a rather petty post about like one teensy detail in one episode lol)

So I looked up the term '尚書', and this is what showed up in the dictionary:

This is a rather niche term so sorry guys, there isn't a neat page in English with the same information (I linked the dictionary above though, so if you want you can check it out and Google-translate the page even though Google Translate of Chinese is horrendous lol), but basically there are two definitions of '尚書':

a collection of historical documents known as the Book of Documents, believed to have first been compiled by Confucius (551-479 BCE). The content is mostly records of speeches by ancient kings and other important figures from the early years of the Zhou dynasty (c. 11th century BCE). This definition has a Wikipedia page, you can look it up if you're interested!

An office title. The office held varying degree of power and had different responsibilities in different dynasties, but basically the official would be in charge of keeping records, documents, and memorials for the Emperor. The post was created in the Warring States period (476-221 BCE), originally occupying quite a minor position, but gradually gained status from Han dynasty (202 BC-220 CE) onwards, and was still in use in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). (This definition does not have a Wikipedia page in English, sorry!)

I, erm, just think it's neat that '尚書' is BOTH a collection of historical documents AND an office title responsible for keeping records ::::)

...Especially since Jon is apparently both The Archivist and The Archive

(Thanks for coming to my TED talk nerdy ramblings)

(Did I write this instead of doing research for my dissertation? Maybe, maybe...)

#tma #the magnus archives #the title of #the archivist #and the translation thereof #tma 105 #mag 105 #total war #im sorry this post is so nerdy #it's just that the translation was just...wrong #and has been bugging me #im sorry #😂😂😂 #jonathan sims #the archive #translation #i love thinking about translation!!! it's fun!!! #also #tma 160 #mag 160 #the eye opens #i hate to quote elias bouchard/jonah magnus because i hate him so much but #'because the thing about the archivist is that well it's a bit of a misnomer' #'it might perhaps be better named: the archive' #尚書 #the book of documents #an office title that i can't find a direct english equivalent of #yep that's it i'm petty #but this is fun no? #the magnus archives is a podcast

[owlrageousjones]

You know I kind of want to see more about the Archives sister organisations.

Like the Usher Foundation or the Pu Songling Research Centre. Like the Head Librarian knew Elias and that just raises all sorts of funny ideas to me.

But also... I want to see other cultures impressions and ideas of the Entities and the Fears. Do they also try Rituals? Elias’ generation were inspired and shaped by Robert Smirke, but what about others? Did they ever try or care? Do they draw the same lines, the same associations?

(Although the Dark were trying something that let Rayner become a body hopping immortal in the 17th-18th century, and Simon was probably up to Shenanigans since he became an avatar as well)

#penkind rambles #tma #the magnus archives #anyone got any good fic recs for like #the Usher Foundation or something?