GWEN: Oh Augustus we're really in it now

my name is whams | 20+ he/him aro lesbian | Magnus Protocol sideblog | I love Gwen Bouchard!!! | main is whamss

[anouchard]

If you would like things to get better for Gwendolyn Bouchard, then I have great news for you!

Apologies for the deception. They are about to get so much worse.

[dphws]

TMAGP 51 transcript leaked and it opens with Alice reading Gwen the Wikipedia page for AI psychosis

[yoki-loves-stars]

Gwen posting

[teaableu]

lime and orange colour palettes 👀

[awkwardosthe3rd]

I just think they're neat

and maybe they should kiss

[chillandoblivious]

I love Gwen as a plot device so fucking much. like yeeess girl you GO severe all connections, allies, and forms of support you have! make things worse babygirl! omg yes isolate yourself from any friends/human contact and listen to The Cursed Amulet (the strangely omnipotent old man voice in your computer), all you need is The Cursed Amulet (creepy old man voice).

[dphws]

> You disappear to Berlin for weeks

TMAGP Episode 40, Alice arrives in Berlin. June 10th, 2024

TMAGP Episode 49, Alice arrives back at the office. June 17th, 2024

Time Alice was "in Berlin": Approximately 7 days

Girl you are so pathetic it isn't even funny

[timstokerfan]

[vetchtibbles]

huge fan of whatever it is these two have going on every other thursday hope they figure it out. making them dance together for now. godbless

[femmefatalegoth]

Does anyone think Gwen’s arc may involve her letting go of her act? She’s deeply scared of losing control. Plus she probably has that class-ingrained idea that she needs to prove her worth. So she roleplays her personal idea of a cut-throat high flyer.

But she’s not that person at all, is she? She can’t plan ahead. She lacks the emotional intelligence to manage a team. She’s been given a job that requires cold detachment and absolute ruthlessness. Instead she’s impulsively shut down the murder pipeline, basically out of distaste.

So, I wonder. Will she, at some point, accept that this facade is not working for her?

[dphws]

Okay being serious for a second, an interesting thread for Gwen that I hope to see get tugged on more is the way that her character concerns class power structures. There's something to the way she views things like "who deserves power" and "who deserves respect" as a question of where someone sits on the class hierarchy. Respect isn't something that's earned through hard work, it's something you're entitled to.

You see starkly in the difference in how she talks to an external like Lady Mowbrey vs Ink5oul. Or, honestly, Lady Mowbrey vs most of the rest of the cast. This is why it stood out to me a lot when she went to visit Lena, and the first thing she thought to comment on was the state of her home;

We already know that Gwen has no respect for Lena, and I think that's why this part in the episode was very telling as an indictment of at least some part of that being how Gwen perceived her social class. Gwen identifies Lena as someone under her on the social ladder, perhaps even moreso than she actually is, and uses that as pretense for why she believes Lena is undeserving of the position that she's in.

This is a leading reason why I think on at least some level, Gwen's capacity for positive growth as a character hinges on her ability to recognize these biases and assumptions that she's making and to let go of them. We've only gotten glimpses of Gwen's family life, probably the most noteworthy (so far) in What-If 1, but you can make some inferences of your own. Families are a hierarchical structure in of themselves; children have a place, daughters have a place, and Gwen likely recognizes her position in that structure, and that's why she yearns to escape it.

So the question becomes whether or not she can recognize social class as something that similarly needs to be dismantled. If she recognizes the injustice of her place as someone at the bottom of the familial hierarchy, forced to be controlled by her father, does she similarly have the capacity to recognize how class doesn't beholden her to control others? Shower thoughts, but something I hope we can see more of.

[lonelyslutavatar]

local old man socializing after a long time, won't stop being cringe

[heartscrypt]

toxic workplace yuri ❤️ reblog if u agree

[tboylucifer]

My TMAGP hot take is that Sam will not be special in any way (other than how every person is special and unique) and his arc will be coming to terms with that.

In TMA Jon does not have a desire to be special, he just wants to know things. Not because of a desire for grandeur, but his own toxic personal curiosity. This leads him further and further into becoming a monster before he even realizes he's there.

Meanwhile, Sam wants to be special soooo bad, and it drives his every reasoning to find out the truth behind the Magnus Institute. Sam is exactly the kind of person who would want to be The Archivist, who would want to be the person who is too important to lose. But he's not pursuing the Institute to learn more about this world, but about himself. He's looking for a mirror to show him who he is. And the eye has no interest in looking inward.

Not to mention his encounter with TMA Alice, someone who is so obsessed with the past that she reenacts her worst fears every night just to see her love. Sam has been given a firsthand look into exactly the kind of person he could become. His fear of mediocrity causing him to chase after that encounter with the Institute again and again hoping it will somehow turn out different this time. That he will wake up and find out they made a mistake and he will be welcomed with open arms. Welcomed into a place that scared him.

If TMA is "What makes a man a monster?" and TMAGP is "What makes a man a man?" I think it only makes sense for Sam to have the choice between man and monster and choose an ordinary life instead. Even if that life ends up being much, much shorter than he would like.

[ceaselessims]

tiktok fandom culture is so wild bc why can't people ship things for fun anymore why's it gotta be a canon competition 😭😭😭

like to see someone in the tma/tmagp fan space say THIS ,,,

"just going to end up with sam and alice" JUST GOING ????

not to be the friend that is too woke but a story about a transwoman and a brown man being codependently linked across timelines is actually a very interesting story???? so what if alice and sam are hashtag forever in the end ???? would that be so awful ??????

like don't get me wrong i love dyhard but if you're not picking up that the relationship between sam and alice is driving the plot then i fear you need to turn up the podcast a little louder

[part-time-gendergoblin]

Worlds 2nd Worst Boss

[time-woods]

when is the alice/gwen yuri dropping?

TRUE

forgot to post this . . literally drew it when the ep came out