[redlobter]

Episode 155: Cost of Living. This one Haunts me.

[edettethegreat]

the magnus archives and its running theme of antagonistic forces being polite,,,

-"It Is Polite To Knock", first and foremost. and there's a running theme of antagonistic forces knocking. eg, Jane Prentiss never attempting to force her way in to Martin's house, but standing outside and knocking for days on end, Natalie knocking politely on Kathy's door when she tries to recruit her to the Dark cult and never barging in, etc etc

-the Distortion doesn't tend to force people to enter, it waits for people to come in on their own

-Mike Crew's "I was trying so hard to be polite"-- and his attempt was pretty solid! he was legitimately polite up until then, and would have probably continued being polite if Jon didn't keep doubling down

-Peter Lukas cares about proper workplace management and takes actual workplace suggestions from his employees. And agrees to do fewer murders.

-the ONE thing Jonah-Elias is famous for is apologizing. Imagine the most evil thing you do in your life is apologizing for the deception

meanwhile the archival staff are beating each other to death while calling each other 12 slurs per day. they've never tried to be polite for a single second of their lives.

[edettethegreat]

#Interestingly. martin is the major exception in the archives of trying to be notably polite in the early seasons#and jon gets suspicious of him for it!!! @horizon-penblade

THIS!! the association between politeness and danger!! the way that friendliness is a warning sign for intended harm!!

martin comes in to the archives and immediately starts smiling at everyone and making tea,,, of COURSE jon thinks he's got some nefarious ulterior motive

[inhonoredglory]

This is all extremely fascinating and the amount of “care” some villains have in TMA (especially Elias and Peter) remind me a lot of how abusive relationships work—offering just enough kindness to make you question whether or not they’re really all that bad (or to placate you after you’ve tried to call them out…) and maybe they might have your interests at heart after all.

This is particularly relevant since both Elias and Peter were actively grooming Jon and Martin and deceiving them.

I just want to add a note about doorways and knocking too: in a lot of traditional folklore, Fae or vampires or demons or other spirit creatures cannot cross a threshold without an invitation—they cannot break the barrier of a home’s sanctity or harm the humans within without the (perhaps unknowing or unwilling) consent of the human.

This folkloric idea of permission goes both ways too, with humans needing to acquire it before crossing the thresholds of things like faerie rings, or else inviting harm on themselves.

It definitely feeds into TMA’s folkloric horror feel that this concept is prevalent with a lot of avatars (especially trickster types like the Distortion).

(Copying op’s tags below because they cooked)

[edettethegreat]

ALL of this!!! YES!!!

wish I had something smart and clever to say about all this but I don't, so I'm just gesturing wildly at your whole commentary and forcing everyone to look at it. Yes to all of that. they. yeah. it's about how they have deniability. it's about how they make it hard for people to judge if they're overreacting to what's going on around them, because the people in positions of power are so calm and level headed and put together.

it's "don't be so dramatic jon". it's how when sasha came to elias about the worms, he was like 'oh? apologies, I thought jon was overreacting.'

it's about the antagonists being in a position where they can follow social protocols and present themselves as dignified, while everyone else is scrambling to survive and coming off as rude and irrational in the process.

it's. Ouuhhhh,. I mean. that's just how life goes. this isn't anything revolutionary. that's just how life is. but it's not very common to find antagonists who 1) don't get angry, 2) maintain politeness, and 3) aren't personally tormenting anyone (as in, it's not like they're maintaining politeness while torturing people. the antagonists in tma are maintaining politeness while taking a step back and letting people torment themselves. melanie stabs jon. daisy stabs jon. elias sits in his office and watches it all go down)

it's the class divide. Im absolutely losing it over the class divide. of course the lower class is turned against itself whilst the upper class doesn't have to lift a finger to keep the power imbalance the way it is. idk what I'm saying at this point.

and yeah about the folklore stuff. that's cool too. that's good commentary too. interesting.

[wonkyelk]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Project Hail Mary (2026) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Original Characters, Eva Stratt, Ryland Grace (mentioned) Additional Tags: Response to Hail Mary Mission, Humor Summary:

A very brief selection of excerpts from the critical backlash to the Hail Mary mission, post launch.

Succumbed to the PHM bug

[luluxa]

watch you sleep

[omilette1402]

MY BUOYS😖

[pigmentofimagination]

"He was All Eyes"

[wonkyelk]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Humor Summary:

“Ah, Martin? Do I … do I seem a little weird to you?”

Martin was halfway through a valiant denial, when he paused and reconsidered.

“Well. Actually, there is something a little, I don’t know … strangely summer-like, about you, at the moment? An impression of warmth and ripening fruit.”

Jon had been expecting anything from ‘yes, obviously’ to ‘more scary than weird’ to ‘you’re an eldritch abomination, Jon, what do you think?’; so this rather poetical terminology threw him entirely.

Which is possibly why he broke out in butterflies.

[dcartcorner]

PHM x TMA (3)

[dcartcorner]

PHM x TMA (2)

[dcartcorner]

PHM x TMA (1)

[wonkyelk]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood Additional Tags: Episode Related, Post-Episode: e171 The Gardener (The Magnus Archives), Short, Angst Summary:

Jon held a whole lot in his head, these days. Guilt. Love. Anger. Knowledge. The combined and horrific suffering of an entire planet, broadcast to him, live and in Technicolour, without rest or cease.

So it was rather surprising that he had any room left, around the edges, to think about Jared’s garden, after they’d left it.

[wonkyelk]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Sasha James, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Basira Hussain, Gertrude Robinson Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Supernatural Elements, Body Horror, POV Alternating, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Canonical Character Death Summary:

Most archaeologists, in Jon’s experience, would find themselves, sooner or later - and usually sooner - being walloped around the head by Indiana Jones references. Their mug collection would be slowly infested by smirking Harrison Fords. They would find themselves the weary owner of at least two ill-fitting costumes, complete with fake plastic bullwhip. And they would field a thousand tired variants on ‘Why did it have to be snakes?’

He, it seemed, was the sole exception. No one, on meeting Jonathan Sims, could ever remotely confuse him with Indiana Jones. When he mentioned his profession, the image that leapt immediately to mind, was, not a fedora and several films’ worth of thrillingly perilous adventures, but a man who did dull, meticulous research and spent hours getting moderately excited over pottery shards.

Jon really, really wished that this was the truth.

[toast-the-unknowing]

helpppp I love them to an absurd degree

[nohaijiachi]

I am consistently delighted by @justcakethanks eridian welcoming committee comics, and I *HAD* to do something with their template lmfao, I love these little guys!!!

[fortitudinis]

[animunitee]

He's lost his mind now. (or a bet, your choice)

[spades-of-ace--arts]

so i've recently gotten into project hail mary and saw people making some fucked up eridians, and in the dead of night the muses had struck me with some form of divine inspiration.

behold my beautiful and fucked up child; Wet Floor.