u/Creaturefeature01

If i had a nickel for every time i clocked an Oliver Banks cameo in a random ass episode i never noticed before, i'd have two nickels. Which is not much but it's weird that it happend twice.

That guy is in mag #32 as the new hire from the shop Jane used to work at, which literally reveals his name is Oliver two seasons before he says it himself. He is also the guy in mag #42 who stares at the statement giver and tells her to take care of her hearing before she meets Grifter's Bone.

Maybe those were obvious before but it took me multiple times listening to these episodes before i noticed him. I'll be on the look out for Oliver Motherfucking Banks like a Where's Waldo book from now on.

The ending of this show and the way the story leaves us is genuinely so fascinating to me. The more i think about it, the more i love it.

There is this detail, which is mentioned almost casually by Melanie in mag #200, that Simon Fairchild was killed by the people trapped in his domain once the world went back to normal. Of course, why wouldn't they? Simon is a genuinely awfull person who took pleasure from torturing his victmins and fully embraced the exploitative system established by the apocalypse. One could easily argue that he deserved it.

But then i stop to think and an awfull question crossed my mind: Did people treat every avatar similarly?

What happend to the guy from the ant domain? He couldn't have known the only way to be saved was by taking the mantle himself and inflicting that harm upon others. He had no wish to hurt anyone or exploit the people trapped in his domain, but i can't honestly blame him for choosing not to go back in that situation. I don't think anyone would choose to go back in that situation. But would the people trapped in his domain understand that?

What happend to little Callum Brodie?? He was a child. Of course, a child who also took part in the harm done to others and was completely unremorseful about it, but a child still. He was also a victmin of the fears just as anyone else there. Being kidnapped by a cult and almost possessed must be one of the most awfull, terryfing things i can imagine for a kid to go through. What happens to him after the world goes back?

The Magnus Archives is so deliciously morally ungiguous it makes me want to put it under a microscope and look at every single little detail.

I hate those cynical "This will ruin your childhood" posts about original/earlier versions of fairytales with a burning passion. They exagerate the hell out of those stories simply for the sake of being edgy, completely ignoring both the context in which those classics were written and what the story is actually trying to comunicate.

They also never mention the fact that although yes, the original tales can be more grafic or morbid, they have a generally positive messaging and most have a happy ending.

I think The Little Mermaid is one of the greatests victmins of this. It's a beautiful story and it irritates me a lot how people completely undermine everything about it but the parts that are "disturbing".

I've seen a few people doing the good old classic Assigning Tma Fears To Random Characters with phm and i wanted to give my two scents. I am not normal about either phm or tma, it's a hyperfixation nuke. Watch out because this contains HEAVY phm spoilers.

GRACE — First thing that came to mind was the Vast, but i don't really think that's the case. He's not afraid of space, as much as i think the general vibe of the movie is the vast in general. To me, he is either End or Web.

Grace was so terrified of dying that even when his own life was put on a scale against the lives of the entire fucking planet, including his students which he loves so much, he still wasn't willing to go.

I do preffer the web for him though. Being betrayed and used by someone he trusted and considered a friend. Months of working together, all of that to have your will and bodly autonomy violated, being sent to space even though you are terrified of it, his choice completely removed from that decision. It's a terrifying loss of control.

ROCKY — Rocky works really well with either the Lonely or the End, i can't decide on one.

Lonely because of course, he's been stuck in space, on his own for 46 years. 46 years completely isolated, light years from his own home and his own kind, from the love of his life.

Though once he meets Grace, Rocky is very afraid that his new alien, very soft, leaky and fragile friend will die. He watches over Grace as he sleeps, he is willing to take 6 years longer to return home just so Grace won't die, he is terrified of it. More for his friend than for himself.

EVA – I've seen some people give her the Extinction, but i don't think that fits the general scenario of phm. The Extinction isn't just the fear of the world ending, it is The Future Without Us. Some kind of catastrofic change, a man made change, that leads not to the end of life as a whole but the end of life as we know it. That's not what she's dealing with. The Petrova Line isn't a consequence to human kind's actions, it isn't something that will change the world, it will kill everything. It will leave earth a baren, lifeless wasteland.

What i'd give her is either the Eye or the Burried and Burried may be a bit of a stretch but HEAR ME OUT.

Eva is the one responsible for the hail mary project. She has no room for mistakes. Every government of every country has trusted her and her alone to find a way to save the whole entire planet. She has all eyes on her, anything that goes wrong is on her. That's the eye.

And that's is a whole lot of pressure. It's a massive weight that she has to fight not to let it crush her. And again, i know it might be a stretch but we know the Burried isn't just phisically suffocating. It can be in a metaphorical way.

I have noticed a little pattern in fics that involve Gertrude, specially the Michael/doorkey ones, where she is done so dirty. She'll sometimes be placed in an antagonist role or at the very least, become an obstacle to the main relationship. It irritates me deeply that s lot of people seem to believe she did not care at all for her assistants or their deaths, which is just not true.

Gertrude is cold and ruthless, undeniably, but she is not cruel. Above all else, what i'd say is her most important character trait is that she is extremely practical. If she had known the rituals were doomed to fail from the start, she would've never sacrificed a single soul. She would've punched Elias on the face and burn down the whole institute. She had no desire to hurt anyone but the Entities themselves.

One of the most important information to understand her as a character is that Gertrude genuinely trusted Emma. They had both stayed in the archives since the start, Gertrude trusted her so much she couldn't see Emma's actions. When she found out Emma had been manipulating her and treating her assistants like lab rats, she was far more upset that Emma had betrayed her and it had flied right under her nose than at the fact Emma had gotten two people killed. From then on, Gertrude did not hire any new assistants.

If she was as cruel as some people make her out to be and did not care about killing her assistants for her own goals (just like Jurgen Stinky Leitner), she would've gotten new ones. We know Elias wouldn't have hesitated to provide her wirh more people if that was the case, but she did not see them as expendable. After that, Gertrude worked mostly by herself and had no intentions to sacrifice any of the people she collaborated with, such as Gerry and Leitner.

Most of the Gertrude hate sounds to me like "This woman is evil because she hurt my favourite male character", which is just missing the point entirely.

I did not have the patience to come back here every episode to yap about this series so now that i'm done, might as well give my general review.

Recency bias aside, i really enjoyed it. It's a very unique show and though i will stand by my first impression which was not very good at all, i see why it is so special and why people like it so much. Seasons 1 and 2 are so repetitive and though i understand the way this show is made and why it is the way it is, the length of each episode still got exhausting to listen through a lot of times. But it does get better and i'm glad i pushed through.

Season 4 was my favourite but season 2 had my favourite finale.

Malevolent has one of the most fun roster of support characters and antagonists i've seen in a while, all of them were so much fun and had me genuinely so excited whenever i heard them. Shout out to Oscar, Kellin and the Butcher.

The characters are all very well writen, it has a lot of great emotional moments. The character development for John and Arthur is undeniably the best part of the show, seeing these two go from despising each other and trying to separate to being so close that they finally get that and still choose to be together trully is beautiful. Jon's arc, the themes of humanity and grief are some of my favourite parts of the show as well.

The themes/leassons are not revolutionary by any means but they work and tie up nicely at the end.

All of that said, I don't know if that's a controversial opinion, but i don't think Arthur has that strong of a personality for a protagonist? Not sure how to explain it, but that's part of the reason s4 is my favourite since it's when we get to see more of him actually interacting with people and it gets a lot better from that point as well.

This is more of a personal opinion/pet peeve than actual criticism of the show, but the characters (specially the eldritch horrors) cuss a bit too much for my liking. It gets kinda silly. And there is no running away from it, i find the writing to be incredibly corny sometimes. A few scenes had me literally rolling my eyes.

A personal 7/10 podcast in my honest opinion.

Guys, am i tripping or does the start s5 imply that the only reason our Arthur is a special anomaly is because of the fans deciding where the story goes and all the other universes either go badly or don't go anywhere at all because that factor specifically is not present...

(I just started s5, please no spoilers.)

Ok, seems like we've gone through most of the exposition in episode 1. I enjoyed the dialogue a bit more this time around, the action scenes were very cool as well. The idea of Arthur slowly loosing parts of himself is terrifying and it's got me vert curious.

Mistery-wise, what we know is the book was in the abandoned house, the missing girl took it and probably left it to the bookstore before being killed, it was intented for the guy who had the leace for the office before Arthur and was the father of a girl who similarly went missing 10 years ago. Arthur read the book, killed his partner and it bound him to the Voice-Entity-Thing that comes from the Dark World. I think it's pretty safe to assume the burgler from the last episode was after the book, probably a cultist, but now i don't remember if they mention leaving it at the office or if by the time Arthur came to his senses it was already gone. I'll have to skim through ep 1 again.

I was told the episodes are built in sections where the patreons decided what would happend next and listening to it through that lense, yeah i can see it. Still, this show has so much to process.

The soundscaping was kind of strange in the forest cabin scene, though. The baby started crying just as Voice-Entity-Thing said there was a baby and the fire starts crackling just as Arthur says he can feel the fire. I don't know how to explain it, but it comes across so weird. Maybe it would've been better if they were talking but are suddenly interrupted by baby noises, Arthur asks something like "Wait, was that a baby?" and then it starts crying. Or have the fire crackling already in the background but as really subtle ambiance and it becomes louder as Arthur comes closer to it.

Decided to go and share my thoughts as i listen to the show, so here we are.

Right off the bat, that's a VERY interesting premisse. The first scene is so good and really anxiety inducing, love it. The mistery is intriguing as well.

I think the idea of having the Voice-Entity-Thing seeing through Arthur's eyes and narrating everything is creative as hell, since it is so hard to convey certain things through audio alone... But the episode is 40 minutes long and it got pretty exhausting about the last third of the episode.

In general, i think this show would benefit a lot from having shorter episodes. It could've ended when Voice-Entity-Thing says the burgler from the book shop knows where Arthur works and can find the body, leave it a little hook for the next episode.

But at the same time, shit happens SO FAST and Arthur moves on from them so quickly. He's a cool protagonist but because 90% of the dialogue is description and exposition dump, i didn't get much of his personality.

Still, the show's got me interested so i will keep listening. I've got high hopes for it.

This is one of the few cases of a Protocol episode really getting stuck with me. Sam and Alice have to be one of the most tragic cases of right person wrong time i've seen lately.

Firstly, Alice's statement on her dream is very, very interesting. The way she describes being trapped within herself, feeling that there is something inside her deeply wrong, awful and painful just to try and reach it and find out *she* is that thing is a pretty gruesome alegory for being trans. It's beautifully writen and it's a kind of horror i wish was tapped into more in media as a whole.

But that's not all that that statement is about, because this episode is about her relationship with Sam. He comes in and Alice's body becomes *their* body, they come undone, melt into each other and loose themselves in one another. It doesn't make things better, it doesn't comfort them, but it's all they have and they have nothing else to do but cling onto each other. That's just the most sickening description of a co-dependent relationship i've ever seen – not being able to let go of each other and completely loosing sight of who you are in your partner.

And then what happens when you loose someone you were already so integrated with like that? You inevitably loose a part of yourself as well.

Tma is for the most part (at least until s4) an antology series first and an audio drama second, the meta plot is being developed but it takes some time and the statements are the main focus. Now, i understand that tmp is supposed to be an inversion of that. The characters and the plot are the main focus, not the cases.

And yes, the characters are great. The dialogue is very well writen, the plot is entertaining, i'm invested in what happens to them.

But to be quite frank, the majority of the tmp cases are so mid. Very few of them stuck out to me and even fewer were actually spooky. It's hard to explain but i feel like most of them don't stick the landing with what's meant to be scary at all. A lot of them fail to build tension or get me to be invested in what happens to the pov character, a lot ot them are very all over the place. Also, there is an element from Jonny's writing in tma missing in most of the cases that i believe is one of the reasons the statements are so good: Ambiguity; there are so many moments in tma where the horror is built by being very vague about what happens and leaving you with the implications.

Someone give Sam and Alice a vacation cause those guys must be so exhausted from carrying the entirety of s1 on their backs.

For me, it's Fix-it's. I think people like it because they find comfort in the idea of an au where everything worked out, specially because tma is such a devastating show and some of them have very cool ideas, such as using the open ending for timetraveling and other fun concepts.

But honestly? The best way i can explain it is that at least the ones i've read tend to be very conflictless? Tma is a show where a lot of bad things happen, and most of the time there is no backing out, work arounds or anyone to swoop in and save the characters from said bad things. That's part of the appeal to me, it's one of the reasons i find the show very well writen, it feels like decisions have very real stakes to them.

So yeah, tma Fix-it's are not my cup of tea.