got a friend to listen to magnus and I'm having a blast

giving other people recommendations is so hard mainly because i will enjoy media if it fits two categories: 1. gay (either media with rep or media that’s makes me, an lgbt, go !!!!) and 2. i Liked it and thats it. i have no idea how to articulate this into understandable terms that could pique one’s interest

Saw this post and felt inspired to make THIS

Hope y'all enjoy it :)

@slingerapen said: 

#also martin as that guy in the barks ennui episode where he (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) bc he loves his girlfriend too much

god DAMMIT you’re right why did you have to point that out

That was the episode that made me so damn mad I literally quit WTNV over it and hasn’t listened to it since

And then in TMA I was like “Thank god for the healthy relationship and communication! I’m so glad to hear them openly say they’re not gonna do this specific thing I hate!”

Welp.

hi tma fandom, today I'd like to talk about season two jon:

as someone who has experimented what it's like to fall down a paranoid spiral thinking everyone wanted to hurt me, the suplemental jokes can come off as really ableis, as some people have already pointed out.

while his behavior may seem exaggerated or abnormal, there's something in your mind that doesn't allow you to see a clear picture as you think your life is at risk, but you still don't have enough evidence, so for getting a real case to get someone to believe/help you you become desperate and irrational.

his behavior can't be excused, but we must understand that mindset doesn't allowed him to make clear decisions.

i just made something truly terrible

can someone please helpppp i was reading a fic and i can’t find it

i think it was jon and martin going to a fear work conference? they bought pretty suits and jon brought a dress with him?

i want to finish reading it so much but i can’t find it please help out a tired gay

Redrew a vintage couples photo as jmart :))

hi yes i really love selkie!elias lonelyeyes so i drew it :))

I have a question

I see it a lot on fanfics that Jon Likes thai food but i don't remember where that came from?? Or is it just a very popular hc?

love how every letter sent to jonah magnus basically boils down to:

My dear Jonah (homoerotic),

this is a terrible idea and you need to stop.

[mitski faintly in the bg]

georgie tells martin that when she first got the admiral he was really shy and wouldn't jump up on beds so jon slept on the floor for six months in order to soothe him and fully sobbed the first time he fell asleep next to him so as revenge jon tells melanie about when georgie checked a bunch of books out of the library until they were absurdly overdue because she couldn't conceptualize the reality of there being a negative consequence for it and ended up having to pay several hundred pounds to replace them

Part 3: The Wheel of Fear

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

In the Architecture of Fear Smirke talks about a great wheel of fear. He talks of the fourteen powers, each with their opposites and their allies. I think Smirke believed the fourteen fears could be arranged in a circle, and that two fears on opposite sides of the circle are opposites. 

In Old Passages there is a circular room with fourteen corridors leading out of it and a datestone that says “Robert Smirke. 1835. Balance and Fear.” I think each corridor represents a fear, with opposing fears placed opposite each other. The building is supposed to balance and thereby neutralize the fears. I think it works to some extent. In End of the Tunnel there is a similar structure. This one was damaged by a bomb during World War 2. This ruined the balance, and the Dark got out.

In Family Business Gerard says some fears really clash with each other, while others can blend together.

I tried to work out how Smirke arranged his fears on the wheel. I looked for episodes where two fears seemed to blend together and put them next to each other. With some fears it is fairly obvious they are neighbors, if you look for the clues. Others connections are harder to spot. I tried a few versions of the wheel that didn’t feel completely right. But then I found a version where suddenly lots of things clicked. It explained why the web table could trap the Not-Then, why Robert Monthauk’s ritual banished the darkness monster and things like that. I think this is the correct wheel:  

Description of image: A circle with 14 spots similar to a clock. On each spot is a number and the name of a power: 1. Corruption. 2. Desolation. 3. Hunt. 4. Slaughter. 5. End. 6. Lonely. 7. Stranger. 8. Flesh. 9. Spiral. 10. Buried. 11. Dark. 12. Vast. 13. Eye. 14. Web.

Here is how powers overlap:

Corruption and Desolation 

Desolation deals with suffering and loss of loved ones, and disease can cause both of those things.

Asag is a god of both fire and disease.

John Amherst is an avatar of both powers. There is fire in every episode he appears. In Taken Ill the old folks home he managed burns. It appears it was burned by Trevor and Julia, but this is misdirection. Amherst burned it himself. In Pest Control Amherst is burned, yet survives. In the Tale of A Field Hospital Jonathan notices the statement is charred. He speculates this happened when Gertrude burned the book. But I think the book spontaneously combusted. In A Cozy Cabin we learn that Gertrude is very much against burning books in the archives, and would have been more careful and not ruined the statement. And in Rotten Core Adelard says he will sit on Amherst’s throne and burn himself and it. I think that was a very bad idea, more on that in a later post.

In Squirm the protagonist, after being infected by worms, burns his own apartment down. He is influenced by Corruption/Desolation.

Desolation and Hunt 

You can run from a hunter and you can run from fire.

Vampires are Hunt, Desolation and Corruption. In Vampire Killer we learn that vampires burn very easily. Because of the Desolation.

Why do vampires have a long bloodsucking tongue? Because the Corruption deals with mosquitoes.

There is a hint about the vampire-mosquito connection in Dead Horse; “That night the mosquitos were out in force, thick with fever, and hungry for our blood. I did my best to simply ignore them, safe as I was in my net. But over in Raleigh’s tent I kept hearing a sporadic thumping, or clapping sound, as if he were killing them with his bare hands. When I asked him about it the next day, he simply told me he had inside him a strong and enduring hatred of bloodsuckers.”

And then later: “Now, he and his crew were pinning the things that looked like men to trees, with long, iron spikes. They thrashed, and struggled, and a long, bulbous tongue hung from their throats, pinned by the iron of von Toll’s men. “I cannot stand bloodsuckers,” Raleigh said approvingly, as he conversed quietly with Baron von Toll in French.”

Also in Vampire Killer, the vampire offers rotten fruit to Trevor. Her house is dusty, a book Trevor picks up is damp and moldy and the bed is musty. 

Hunt and Slaughter 

The similarities are obvious.

Several of the Slaughter episodes have music that makes people go violent: The Piper, Strange Music, Grifter’s Bone, Civilian Casualties, Nemesis.  Total War had singing corpses. Two hunter episodes also had music connection. First Hunt has the werewolf whistling “A-hunting-we-shall go”. Thrill of the Chase had the protagonist tapping her foot as if to music right before the violence started.

Thrill of The Chase is a Hunt/Slaughter episode. The Man in the mask is like a serial killer from a movie, very Slaughter. But it is a wolf mask, very Hunt.

Slaughter and End

People die in war.

Absent Without Leave covers both fears. Slaughter obviously, but it is also about the inevitableness of death.

Many Slaughter episodes deal with the living dead. And they usually seem to have a horrible existence: The guy getting stabbed in the Smell of Blood. All the soldiers fused together that shot Melanie. The dead people in Grifter’s Bone that had to fight each other. The dead woman in Absent without a leave. The corpses in the tunnel in the same episode. This makes people fear death since they don’t wanna end up like that.

The End also has the skin book which similarly makes people live after death, and it is agony. And Oliver Banks was alive after death.

In Total War, a Slaughter episode, the statement giver says he could believe he was dead and in hell. 

End And Lonely 

You’re all alone when you’re dead I guess.

In the episode Alone, the statement giver is almost drawn into an empty grave. Very End. 

There is also a ghost in that episode. So life after death, like with the End and the Slaughter.

The Lucas family only meet for funerals.

From Boatswain’s call, regard Peter Lukas: “His eyes only moved a fraction of an inch to focus on me, but it felt as though the movement had the weight of a heavy stone door. Like a tomb. Don’t know why that’s what popped into my head, but there you go.”

Lonely and Stranger 

If everyone is a stranger to you, you are lonely.

Lost in the Crowd and Monologue are Lonely/Stranger episodes.

Stranger and Flesh 

Stranger deals with objects that behave like people. Flesh deals with thinking people are just flesh, an object.

Anatomy Class is a Stranger/Flesh episode.

Flesh and Spiral 

Thinking you are just meat is a kind of madness.

In Killing Floor the protagonist is lost in a slaughterhouse maze, very Flesh and Spiral. He also walks a spiral staircase at some point.

I think Jared Hopworth is both Flesh and Spiral. Many reasons for him being Spiral: First: He prays on people with mental problems, body dysmorphia, anorexia etc.

Second: In The Butcher’s Window he twists a bone into a spiral and inserts it in himself.

Third: The book The Boneturner's Tale makes nearby books bleed. I think objects that bleed, that should not have blood, is a sign of the Spiral. The door handle in a Sturdy Lock bled. The tree in Burned Out bled. I think the tree is Spiral, much more on that in another post. Books, door handles and trees that bleed are all impossible, madness. Some might object that blood also fits with the Flesh, but the Flesh is actually fairly into cleanliness. I’ll explain why below.  

Fourth: when Michael Crew is tormented by the Spiral he tries to escape by using the Boneturner’s Tale. “...but when I tried to shift the bits of myself I thought might set me free, the only shapes I could form with them were laced with that horrid, hunting fractal.” You can’t escape from the Spiral by using a book of the Spiral.

Mary Keay seems to think the book that drops bones is of the Flesh “Just a bit of viscera. Poems about dying animals...” The book is part Flesh, hence the dying animals, but is also Spiral. If you see a book producing bones you’d think you’d gone mad right? 

Also in Old Passages, the bone book is stored in the room corresponding to the Spiral. The floor of that room’s corridor apparently bleeds. “I put my hand onto the floor to push myself up, and it came away faintly tinged with red.” There is a mummified hand in the Spiral room, hands are often an element with the Spiral. Think of the Distortion’s hands, or the Worker-in-Clay’s weird hands, or the hands coming out of the pot in Lost and Found. After entering the room, the statement giver gets very confused. He says his memories start to blur, and he ends up apparently taking the wrong door several times. That’s the Spiral messing with his mind and making him lost.

The demon In Confession and Desecrated Host might be of Spiral/Flesh. Or it might be the two Fears working together. More on that in a later post.

Spiral and Buried 

Strong claustrophobia can be irrational, a mental problem.

The Distortion has a yellow door that is a portal to impossible places. The Coffin is yellow and is a portal to an impossible place.

Held in Customs is Buried/Spiral. Time behaved differently for the protagonist, typically Spiral. John says the protagonist got Alzheimer, but it is the Spiral messing with his memories.

Lost Johns’ Cave is Buried/Spiral/Dark. The protagonist's memories are all wrong, the Spiral has changed them. And the cave is a maze. Mazes are spiral. The statement giver is a big fan of darkness.

Buried and Dark 

Caves are dark and cramped. The ocean is dark and choking.

Lights Out is Buried/Dark. Quote: “I was in the Sandman’s sack. (...) The darkness pressed in, and seemed to fill my mouth, my nose.” Also the Sandman spills sand from his mouth, similar to how people chocked on sand in Dust to Dust and how the man spit out mud in We All Ignore The Pit.

Submerged is Buried/Dark. The protagonist is in danger of drowning but there are lots of references to darkness: The lights at the lawyer office don't work because the lightbulb is filled with water. There is thunder but no lightning, that is there are no lights in the sky. There are no street lights or lights on in the other houses. Water is described as dark and murky. The lights of the cars come on, to show dark shapes moving in the water. Quote about the water: "It would wrap itself around me, reach down my throat and fill me with its choking darkness." The water is murky. Dark water is also in several Dark episodes: a Father Love, Nightfall, Tucked In and the Movement of the Heavens. 

Dark and Vast 

The ocean is dark and vast. Space is dark and vast.

High Pressure is a Dark/Vast/Buried episode. The space the protagonist enters seems too dark. The vastness of the underwater space and the size of the creature is Vast. The enormous pressure is Buried.

In Big Picture we learned that Hailey, of the Dark, helped make the diving bell for the Vast ritual.

Vast and Eye 

From The Coming Storm, Mike Crew discussing the Vast and the Eye: “We have a lot in common, really. After all, what, what good’s the height, the terrifying draw of gravity, unless you, unless you really know the scale of what you’re facing?”

In The Architecture of Fear an enormous Eye fills the sky.

In Twice as Bright Jude says of Michael Crew “...he’s closer to your lot than mine.” Meaning the Vast is closer to the Eye than the Desolation.

Quote from Jurgen Leitner: “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?”

Jurgen is referencing four powers here, the eye is the Eye. The boot is the Vast and the Dark. The digging fingernail is the Buried. And these four powers are next to each other, so in a way they are the same.

When Jurgen said this he was compelled by John. John did not know that he was compelling Jurgen, but Jurgen did know. Jurgen seemed to not want to give too much information. He was perhaps worried John would learn that destroying the archives would kill John. That Leitner, indirectly, was planning to kill John. So Leitner talked in riddles. That way he could give into the compulsion without John getting wiser.

Eye and Web

Both powers can seem passive, waiting and watching. Spiders have eight eyes.

The Book A Guest for Mister Spider is part Eye. Mr. Spider has eight eyes of all shapes and sizes.

Archivists are Eye/Web. First, the way they compel people to speak is very Web. 

Second, the ancient archivist in Alexandria had long spindly fingers. Like spider legs. In Web Development Annabelle Cane is also described as having long spindly fingers. In Thought For The Day Annabelle moves her fingers along the wall, “...like a spider”.

Third, In Doomed Voyage, after John takes Floyd’s statement, Floyd seems confused. John tried to soothe him. Then John says “It’s alright, Floyd. You just need a break.” Floyd says “Yeah. Sure”. I think John was mind controlling Floyd. I think there is a little static when John speaks. Static on the tape often indicates that something magic is happening.  

In Heavy Goods John tells Breekon “Stop”. Breekon is upset. Then John extracts a statement from Breekon’s mind. I think John mind controlled Breekon to stand still. There’s definitely a lot of static.

In Infectious Doubts Gertrude tells Arthur that he can try to leave. It seems he tries but is unable to. I think Gertrude is mind controlling him to stay. 

Web and Corruption 

Insects and spiders are similar. Probably many people afraid of one of them are also afraid of the other.

In Hive Jane Prentiss talks about the song of the hive that affects her. She says webs has a song as well.

Each fear has an opposite:

The Corruption vs. The Flesh 

Because rot harms meat.

The Flesh tends to be very clean. The student in Anatomy Class cleaned up all the blood they spilled. The slaughterhouse maze in killing Floor was very clean. This is to combat the Corruption.

The Man Upstairs was about a Flesh avatar being attacked by the corruption.

I think Blood Bag was also about the Corruption versus the Flesh. More on than in a later post.

The Desolation vs. The Spiral

I’ll explain why they are opposed in a later post, when I get to Hill Top Road.

The Hunt vs. The Buried

The Hunt is a lot about running from a predator. Can’t run in a cramped space.

When Daisy was in the Buried she was freed from the Hunt. It could not reach her there, because it was an opposite force.

The Slaughter vs. The Dark

I’ll explain why they are opposites in the next post.

In The Piper the Slaughter kills Jonathan Rayner of the Dark.

In A Father’s Love the father performs a ritual that involves killing many people. The ritual destroys the darkness monster that is coming for his daughter. I think this worked because it was a ritual of the Slaughter, the opposite of the Dark. The father is chanting as he stabs the human heart. The Slaughter is often associated with music. 

The End vs. The Vast

From Dead Woman Walking, Georgie talking about the End: “The promise of a cold and lonely eternity in the grave would have been a mercy; at least it would be eternal. But everything ends, even the universe, even time. (...) ...the monumental realization of the scale we existed on. Not the meaningless vastness of the universe, but the… the smallness of it.” Sounds like the opposite of the Vast.

I think the Vast also deals with the fear of eternity. First: notice how Georgie said eternity would be a mercy. 

Second: notice how old Simon Fairchild was.

Third: In Submerged we learn that Gertrude threw Jan Kilbride’s body into the pit to disrupt the Buried ritual. John says “But Gertrude also realized that the body need not be alive. Or in one piece. She thought it was a mercy. It wasn’t.” I think this means she chopped up the body, but Jan was still alive. Jan was touched by the Vast. I think this had made him immortal, to make him fear eternity. 

Fourth: In Personal Space a door in password to the door is E109GHT8. Someone on the Magnus subreddit figured out what it means. It refers to the three fears that owned the space station, the Lonely, the Dark and the Vast. For the Lonely, the 10 should be read like lo, and the beginning of the nine as n, giving is elon, sounding like alone. For the Dark, the 9 sounds like ni, making 9GHT sound like night. For the Vast, the 8 sideways is an infinity symbol 

Fifth: in Freefall, when the guy is falling through infinite sky, his watch has stopped and he doesn’t know how long he has fallen. It feels like hours or days. But when he returns it has not been that long. The spiral messes with time to make people doubt their sanity. The Vast does it to make people fear eternity. 

Sixth, quote from A Matter of Perspective: “I don’t know how long I was floating for. I know it was less than a billion years, which is barely a heartbeat in the life of the universe, so how can it really be said to matter? The stars began to wink out, one by one, and I thought – perhaps for a second, perhaps for a hundred years…”

I believe the immortal gamblers from Cheating Death, Section 31 and Burial rites, were not of the End, like John thought, but of the Vast. They didn’t want to die at first, hence they gambled for life. That is the choice they made to embrace the Vast. But later they become afraid not of death, but the opposite, of not dying. The mummy in the pyramid tried to stab itself to death. The gambler in Section 31 tried to shoot himself. There is a symbol of infinity on the pyramid. 

In High Pressure, the statement begins and ends with the statement giver saying she should be dead. She didn’t die because she was touched by the Vast.

The Stranger vs The Web 

The Stranger makes dolls, puppets etc. into living things. The Web does the opposite, makes living people into puppets.

In Heavy Goods Breekon says of the Spider “It knows too much to truly be a stranger.” The Stranger has the Unknowing, a ritual based on not knowing things.  

The Web table trapped a creature of the Stranger. Quote from Jonathan after he smashed the table: “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.”

In Nightfall Officer Musterman tells John he doesn’t know who is listening to the tapes, but that he doesn’t like it. The tapes are Web and Mustermann is Stranger.

In Angler Fish, the Stranger targets smokers. Smokers, like other addicts, are weak to the Web. So the Stranger isn’t just getting victims, it is fighting the Web.

The Eye vs. The Lonely 

Because if you’re watched you’re not alone.

In Personal Space, there is a camera apparently recording the lonely astronaut. But then he finds out the wires of the camera were severed from the start. So it is scary for the astronaut that no-one was watching him, the opposite of the Eye.

But if every fear has an opposite, what about the Extinction? Find out next post.

new will wood song..dont think of jonmartin dont think of jonmartin dont th

In honor of the...baffling uptick of “Martin is canonically six feet tall” posts recently that cite “it flew six feet through the air at my face” to somehow mean “I am exactly six feet tall,” I am inspired to remind you all of the Pythagorean Theorem

So, you want to use that quote as a precise measuring stick for Martin’s height? Call it canon and say all other character designs are wrong? Let’s go! The worm jumped exactly six feet in length towards Martin’s face!

...Along the hypotenuse!

First, we can rule out the worm being exactly at Martin’s feet. He saw Prentiss a moment before and said the worms had started to come towards him, but hadn’t reached him. The worm jumped at him at an angle, not straight upwards from the floor. Time to dust off those old geometry equations!

Let’s be generous and say the worm was only two feet away when it jumped. Plugging the numbers in gets us:

Oops! Looks like Martin is exactly 5’8” now. Or what if the worm was three feet away?

Look at this canon height shrinking! He’s only 5’2” now!

...Or we can just say “when Martin said it jumped six feet through the air at him, he was estimating how far away it was, not calculating the equation factoring his height in while being chased by man eating worms” and stop badgering people about their character designs.

So when you get yet another person in your face insisting your headcanon is wrong and Martin is canonically six feet tall, feel free to link them my petty worm math post.

Listen I'm too out of it to elaborate but the fact that Jordan Kenny was made an avatar without choosing it makes me sad beyond comprehension

Ever burning