sofykyfos

Latest Posts by sofykyfos

Huevember 17-18 🌀👁

RENDERING THAT HAIR TOOK SO MUCH TIME FROM ME 😭 its worth it though it turned out okay. Still working on Michael Distortion's design. If i draw him in the future expect a lot of changes in his outfit :]

I fucking love antibiotics yesterday this time I felt like I was shoving a cheese grater down my throat and now I'm slightly uncomfortable??? Fucking amazing I love science

michael awareness poster

Ceaseless Watcher, did you pay for that train ticket?

An alternate universe where The Archivist forgets to top up his oyster card and misses the train

I think Jared Hopworth and Jane Prentiss would actually hit it off and then have wild freaky t4t hatesex tbh.

then they'd invent abt 12 new STIs together as like bonding + aftercare.

Guys im so lucky i dont have a skeleton this is crazy

every month is autism month if youre autistic

ok i'll bite. *just starts fucking biting you*

tmagp 25 moodboard

I swear Colin is just speed running Jon's arc from Magnus Archives. In less then a season he's gone from being the grouchy Co worker, to incredibly paranoid, to foolishy smashing haunted objects. If he hasn't become God by the end of this season I'm going to be very disappointed

I Lied to you. We aren’t having sex, put your clothes back on. It’s time for me to explain to you the entire plot the Magnus archives and tell you which fear entity you would serve.

Is this that archive guy yall are obsessed with?

(inspired very much by this lovely post)

i don't forgive you. but thank you for this

going up to a couple sitting in the hot tub of a public pool and starting to cut vegetables into the water and stirring with my big spoon

Oh no. Oh fuck. I am relistening to some of the earlier Protocol episodes, and I have a horrible, terrible, no good very bad suspicion about Gerry.

I could, I want to emphasize, be completely wrong! I could be wildly, hilariously, off the mark. But--hear me out. This is going to take some explaining about what I think is going on in the bigger picture worldbuilding stuff; hopefully it'll be coherent, but fair warning, it may get a bit long.

First: there have been a lot of cases that have boiled down to trying to keep only the "good"/desirable/etc aspects of things or events or people, and discard the "bad"/unwanted, right? We saw this happening very explicitly in episode 23 with Alesis Newman, and way back in episode 2 with Daria the painter, but a number of episodes have presented variations on a similar theme.

Two variations in particular that I've been thinking a lot about are the violinist in episode 4 and the gambler in episode 9. The violinist can play his violin beautifully, but he wants to be rid of the price in flesh and blood that it demands. Similarly, the gambler wants the rewards of rolling high on his magic dice, but wants to be rid of the misfortunes that come with rolling low. Crucially, both episodes make clear that in this type of balance--something unwanted for something wanted--you can't just make the unwanted piece vanish. It has to go somewhere, it has to happen. But you can make it happen to someone else, somewhere else. And when that's how the game works, one of the major questions for players who want to get ahead then becomes: "how do I make the bad stuff stay happening somewhere else, and keep reaping the benefits of the good stuff that balances it out?"

Here's where this gets wildly speculative and from here on I freely acknowledge that I may be talking out my ass:

I think the Magnus Institute was investigating that question. I suspect a great many alchemists before the Institute, probably going back to the times of Albertus Magnus, were investigating it as well. I think the Great Work they were attempting -- the "universal transmutation" alluded to in episode 21 as the Magnus Institute's aim -- was the exact opposite of Jonah Magnus's own "Great Work" in TMA. In other words, I think they were probably trying to make the world an eternal paradise, rather than an eternal hell.

But if you're getting rid of all the "bad" stuff, all the suffering and misfortune, it's got to go somewhere.

I think they were sending it through to other worlds.

I'm not going to get into all the reasons I think that right now, because that's a whole essay in itself, but basically--the Leitners in TMA? The artifacts? All the little bits and pieces of evil given physical form, that never had a clear origin point in the world where they caused so much suffering for so long? We've all been worried about them winding up here, post-Archives... but I think this is where they came from in the first place. I think they were sent away in the hopes that an increase in "bad" in other worlds would lead to an increase in "good" in this one. Remember all those books Albrecht von Closen found in the tomb in the Black Forest in TMA, that Jonah Magnus later stole and let loose on the world? Remember that Albrecht found a mysterious coin along with them dated 1279? Albertus Magnus died in 1280; I strongly suspect he sent those books from the world of Protocol to that of Archives shortly before his death, much as the world of Archives sent the tapes away centuries later. But I think Protocol's world kept sending things away, kept trying to export "bad" and import "good". Remember all those happy, laughing volunteers bringing strange and sinister items to the charity shop on Hill Top Road in episode 7? "All for a good cause."

Okay so. Now. With that bit of hypothetical framework for Protocol's worldbuilding in place, let's next go back to Alesis Newman of episode 23. Her expressed wish is to create a new her. "Someone better. Someone the pain can't touch." Someone who can be everything Alesis wishes she could have been. Someone "free of all (her) mistakes."

But increasingly it sounds like what she actually wants isn't to create someone new. It is to create someone who is only a part of her current self. Someone who, she says in one of her last few posts, will "just be the good parts of me."

And if that's the case, if what she's really trying to do is make someone who holds only the "good" parts of her, someone who can be happy and strong and perfect and loved by everyone forever... what happens to the bad parts of Alesis Newman, as she currently exists? What about the parts of her that feel pain and fear, the parts of her that make mistakes, the parts of her that she rejects?

One might assume, from the experience she narrates, that those pieces of her are simply being destroyed. But that doesn't line up with the suggestion we've seen from earlier episodes that there has to be some kind of balance maintained in these bargains. What she actually says is happening to her--and what the forum members have apparently told her will happen, through this process--is that she and this "new her" are "becoming one... and then two."

I don't think the "bad" parts of Alesis Newman are dying. I think they're also going to become a "new her"--they're just going to go somewhere else, somewhere the new, happy, strong, perfect version of Alesis Newman never has to see them.

Still with me?

Okay.

Now let's talk about Gerry. Let's talk about the smiling, laughing, irrepressibly happy Gerry Keay we meet early in Protocol. Gerry who seems to have everything that the Gerry Keay of Archives was denied.

Gerry who underwent tests at the Magnus Institute as a child, and who, per the static over his and "Gee Gee's" words, holds a few more secrets about what went on there than he let on to Sam and Celia.

Back when I first heard Gerry's appearance in episode 8, it sure felt like a narrative gut punch: This is who he could have been in Archives, if not for the presence of the Fears. This is what Jon and Martin's final decision threatens to destroy--for this safe, happy version of Gerry, and for everyone else in his world.

I'm now suspecting it might be significantly worse than that. I think the Magnus Institute might have done to Gerry Keay something similar to what Alesis Newman later did to herself: made him New. Kept only the good parts--ensured a happy, comfortable, good life for him. In which case, all the bad stuff--all the parts of Gerry Keay that would ever have to suffer from bad luck, to feel pain and fear and misery...

...well. They'd have had to go... somewhere else, wouldn't they.

Which would suggest I had the causality the wrong way around the first time I heard Gerry's appearance in Protocol: maybe it's not "Gerry has a happy life in this world because he didn't have to suffer everything that the Gerry Keay of Archives did."

Maybe it's "Gerry in Archives had to suffer everything he did because Gerry in Protocol was made to always be happy."

No takesies backsies

I wish gay people were real and not just made up for hit 2010s steampunk cabaret band The Mechanisms 😔

i lied, i dont actually like sex. put your clothes back on. have you ever been involved with the magnus institute

Michael distortion

I think a lot about how often people talk about 'humanity' in TMA and I feel like debating who is 'human' and why really misses the mark. Not one of these posts (as far as I've seen) definitively defines 'humanity' and I think to some degree that's because maybe people realize how hard it is to define without Diogenes figuratively breaking down the door to prove them wrong.

Like a huuuge part of the story delves into the edges between what we call "human" and what we call "monster." Some examples:

Gertrude is consistently referred to as "staying human" because of never becoming an avatar, yet she committed greater atrocities than most anyone else in the story.

Daisy's whole deal was hunting down 'monsters' and in the apocalypse, many of her victims were the 'watched' being tortured in domains. (She didn't kill Dr. David; she went for one of his victims. Iirc all of her kills in s5 were victims in domains.)

Basira never truly became an avatar, and yet admitted herself to the ways she enabled and egged Daisy on while turning a blind eye to her actions

As a foil to Gertrude, Jon became full on 'monster' and yet never lost sight of how much people were suffering. He made remarks about how nobody 'deserves' one fate or another, and constantly wrestled with the idea of making choices that would have sweeping consequences that victims couldn't have a say in.

Jonah's incredibly mundane and physical death despite his near godly status

Let's talk about how often avatars were victims of the fears they came to serve; Oliver Banks, Tova McHugh, Nathaniel Thorp, and so on

My point here is, 'human' and 'monster' are arbitrary categories and I've always read it as this being an intentional blurring. Whether Jon was human or not is irrelevant, for a few reasons that the story hit on not-so-subtly:

Humans (Gertrude) are capable of atrocities

"Monsters" are often defined differently depending on who you ask (Daisy)

People who do awful things are still capable of being victims of systems/institutions/circumstances (Helen, Callum Brodie, Jane Prentiss, arguably Annabelle)

Jonny has said before that he tries not to push a "moral" or a "message" in his work and instead prefers to ask a question and explore it. I think TMA was, at least in part, an examination of both humanity and dehumanization. The work truly never actually defined either and dug into whether one was right or wrong, recognizing that people tend to build their own rationalization for why a person should be in one of these boxes. Most people who talked like this within the story had very clear criteria for what they considered "monsters" and they varied drastically.

Idk I've read Thirteen Storeys and Family Business and one thing that I've always felt is present in Jonny's writing is that people are capable of both incredible good and incredible evil and a lot of people have done both. Trying to ignore that wholeness and define individuals as exclusively victims ('humans') or perpetrators ('monsters') is truly not possible without selectively judging people, and human judgment is notoriously flawed.

I don’t want a “realistic transition goal”, I want to be the type of thing you’d hear about on an episode of the Magnus Archives

i understand toddlers cuz if i was just born a couple years ago and someone tried to get me to understand and say words while i'm growing insane amounts of teeth very quickly and painfully i'd be having a temper tantrum on the floor of a department store too

ok au where after becoming archivist jon starts getting into the habit of making vent tiktoks in his car after work because tim showed him how and at first he was like “this is stupid” but then it genuinely started helping him decompress so he just kept doing it in secret. and he eventually he gains a minor following who are becoming increasingly concerned because it goes from “the most INSUFFERABLE statement giver came in today” to “i got fucking KIDNAPPED AGAIN!!!”

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

The worst part is I would 100% love the job with O.I.A.R. in The Magnus Protocol.

I enjoy monotonous data entry and the creepy factor would keep it interesting.

Seriously. I would take that job in a heart beat

This is the single most beautiful print I've ever bought and after two months I finally have a frame for it 💚💚💚

the antichrist to redditor pipeline