I Swear Colin Is Just Speed Running Jon's Arc From Magnus Archives. In Less Then A Season He's Gone From

All my current hyperfixations are by this man 😔

My muse ❤️❤️

Why the fuck does writing a 2.5k word fanfic chapter take a couple hours at most when the assignment I've been working on for a week straight is also around 2.5k words 😭 I was supposed to hand it in almost a week ago now, and I'm maybe halfway done I'm going to fail again fr fr

(I mean at this point I'm going to send it whatever state it's in tomorrow hoping for like, whatever the lowest passing grade is)

I made a very tiny sketchbook. Considering making an earring out of it because imagine having earrings you can write in???

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."

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

WHY IS THIS ALICE?

While we’re talking about the parallels between “you don’t sound Russian?” and “can he read?” I want to point out that Nikola Orsinov actually answered the question, but Bonzo didn’t answer shit.

Which means that it’s perfectly within my rights to assume that no, Mr. Bonzo cannot read.

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.

tmagp 25 moodboard

young artist posting your work online, heed my warning. im holding your face so gently in my hands, you have to stop caring about numbers right now and start caring about making the weirdest and most self-indulgent art you possibly can