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Melanie King - Blog Posts
He really said you have something I want
Rip king you would have loved the quarantine princess bride home movie
I can no longer go a day without getting hello Jon’d
Trying to picture Jon fucking around in America half crazy and paranoid with approximately .63 hours of sleep has me wheezing
Assorted s3 memes ✨
Me when TMA portrays pessimists and people who struggle with emotional unavailability as humans with feelings:
It’s ok Jon I was also a deeply annoying child
I’m sorry but this is the only way I can picture The End
Assorted s1-s2 memes pt. 2
Jon when someone brings him another statement about mummies:
He’s such a hater but I love him sm
Just some assorted s1-s2 memes
Uhh TMA character sketches (Jon and Martin are coming later)
These designs go crazy tbh
After slowly chipping away at this for a while, I'm finally done drawing the cast of The Magnus Archives!
Day 26!, found family!, its a messy sketch but its here
@emerald-emerlad is the creator of the list ive been using for the magnus archives prompts
Inkotober Day 1! TMA prompt list! Favorite character, alright it took me a while to pick, but i settled on melanie! So here is my rendition of her.. drawn while listening to nightvale..
I decided to give her a dakoda disk tipped caine as itd be more practical for her, i also forgot to shade irt..oops..
Also thank you @emerald-emerlad for the list!
georgie and melanie in the tunnels
“you are like a prophet to me” i’m just homosexual. And always saying shit
TMA Season 4!
What a CRIMINAL way to end the season, holy SHIT!
Now I understand why I’ve seen so many artists do scar maps of Jon, it really did all come together in the end. And the way Elias, or Jonah, really, orchestrated it all with the cherry on top of giving Jon a false statement that he couldn’t stop himself from reading; truly the master plan. The words for the Watcher’s Crown ritual itself were very cool, just the right amount of nonsensical almost-rhyming to make it flow nicely.
And the fact that three of the most iconic TMA quotes/moments happen so close together near/at the end of season four is WILD; I was not expecting all of that! First we got “Where are his eyes?” “Where they’ve always been, Martin. Watching over my institute.” THEN “Look at me Martin, what do you see?” “I see… I see you, Jon. I see you!” and to wrap it all up “Jon…?” “Look at the sky, Martin! It’s looking back!” *maniacal, distorted laughter.* Absolutely insane place to leave off. (Also the bonus of Jon using his named attack of “I see you!” on Peter Lukas).
I can’t forget Basira and Daisy, either. Their story is so good, I love me some tragic yuri. (Although for their sakes I hope it gets less tragic tbh; I want them to be happy 🥺). But I’m not that hopeful, considering we got ~2 minutes of Jon and Martin being content at the safe house before things really went to shit. At least Melanie got away, she’s been through so much. And I’m happy she got together with Georgie, that’s so sweet 🥹
The Extinction and the fact that new fears can emerge was an interesting plot thread for this season, both for how it fit with larger events and how it gave us a new kind of spook. I liked the hunger-world amusement park one the most, I kept thinking about it when I went to the fair myself the other day. I also noticed there were more episodes where it wasn’t 100% clear which fear entity was behind the statement, or even that there were multiple involved. Like with ‘A Gravedigger’s Envy’, it could be both The Buried and The End. It was fun to see how the fear entities could be mixed and matched, then of course to find out how that aspect, too, fits into the big-picture meta-plot. After having episodes with this type of spook, it makes more sense how no ritual can succeed if it tries to separate one fear entity from the others.
Season four tied up a lot of loose ends and got the official statements of big names that have been lurking around since season one, like Simon Fairchild, Annabelle Cane, Adelard Dekker, Peter Lukas, and of course Jonah Magnus himself. Personally, I’ve been wondering about the statement of Mr. Paul MacKenzie and which fear entity was responsible for his demise since season one, so I’m glad we got the statement of his son so far down the line to say ‘Spiral’ for certain.
I can’t believe I’m already about to start season five, this has gone too quick!!
TMA general update:
Okay so I’ve finished season 2 and now I’m almost done season 3, so we’ve got a lot to cover.
There have been so many death flags for Tim, even before he asked Elias to kill him :((( Finding out about Sasha really broke him, and then we find out The Stranger took his brother from him too. I have a feeling he will not survive the third season, rip. I’m putting off listening to the ‘Masquerade’ episode cause my guess is that’s when he’ll die, or something worse will happen to him while they’re trying to stop The Unknowing.
Jon’s character development has been truly masterful. He’s gone from a paranoid wreck to an avatar getting used to his burgeoning powers, I’m proud of him tbh, even though he’s literally becoming a monster. I like the new style in S3 where Jon travels around collecting statements and Martin reads more back at the Institute. The reappearing characters are great to see too! MAG111 was so interesting, we finally got an explanation and names for ‘The 14’ entities that have been behind all the spooks and abominations! And of course we met Gerry, another assistant Gertrude fed to the horrors without hesitation. Michael’s statement in MAG101 was also a big piece of lore, considering he’s a main antagonist/meddler. Finding out about the Impossible Altar, the Watcher’s Crown, (Eye-pocalypse?) and the other rituals was so exciting! I sense the overarching plot at work here…
Elias finally getting his hands dirty with some good old-fashioned pipe murder for the S2 finale was something else. He’s certainly been showing his true character in S3, snarky and devious but also has powers and knows how to use them. And ya’know, I thought it was fanon, but from the two Peter Lukas visits I’ve listened to so far, they really do act like an old married (for convenience) couple. Speaking of, the second time he showed up, Martin got transported to The Lonely when Peter Lukas talked to him!! Not his first time in an entity’s realm/domain, and luckily not his first time escaping from one. I’m so glad he got let go, I was really scared for him for a sec there.
Melanie and Basira have joined the team, (Elias’s prison), and it’s nice to have more pov characters to follow! I love how they made Basira a bookworm so much, it warms my nerdy heart! I was sad when Elias revealed Melanie’s father was a victim of The Corruption at that old folks home, (something-Ivy?), although I do appreciate her attempts at offing Elias, and I want to see where her research into war ghosts leads her. (We finally found out how she got shot by a ghost!)
This is the “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” point in the story and I am living for it! TMA is doing the mystery + horror balance very well; we’re learning some important lore in between getting scared by monsters. The darkness one from MAG86 still haunts me, its “the blanket never did anything” line was so cold, it would’ve terrified me particularly bad as a kid.
That’s all for now! I’ll do another one of these around season 4, probably.
Melanie King, my queen <3
is helen/melanie/georgie a thing people ship or is that specific polycule not a thing in this fandom
The tma fandom seems to have unlocked our psychic capabilities. Let me explain.
If you’re on the tma tag, or just have a lot of tma art on your dash, you see art of characters you have only heard the voices of. And you go “Oh, that’s Jon!” “Oh, that’s Melanie!” “Oh, that’s Tim!” And only a handful of these characters have distinctly described traits (like Gerry’s eye tattoos), and fewer still have recurring appearances, or that we hear the voices of. And yet we all agree, roughly, on what they look like. Even if someone has a different design, instead of going “who the hell is that”, you go “well, that’s not what I think Georgie looks like, but I know it’s Georgie without having to check the tags”.
This gets even more interesting when you look at Sasha. Because she gets *replaced*. And so many drawings of not!Sasha label her as Sasha for the bit/for spookiness, but we all somehow *know* when we’re looking at not!Sasha, even when the drawing has no other spookiness.
Ive seen this extend too far sometimes, with a lot of Malevolent art being inadvertently assigned to tma characters, but rarely have I looked at a piece of tma art and gone “who the hell is that??”
Some of this comes down to a collective agreement on designs that happened before I got to the fandom - by the time I got here, pretty much everyone’s designs were largely nailed down. Even so, art where the designs deviate from The Socially Agreed Design are still readily recognizable as the characters. I’m getting to see this with Alice, too - I can look at almost any Alice drawing and go “yep, that’s Alice” and she’s only existed in our collective consciousness for like three months and her design isn’t solidified yet.
I just noticed that at the beginning of mag 106, Melanie does a clap. I haven't confirmed if she does that in other episodes yet or not, but assuming she does, I love that little nod to her being a youtuber. I remember Tom Scott making a video about the little clap he does at the beginning of his videos, and anyways now I'm imagining the clap is a reflex from her time working with audiovisual medium rather than just audio. I also love the metalevel of a tma character doing a clap to sync audio, while the actor playing said character is surrounded by sound guys who (based on the bloopers) spend a lot of time clicking and clapping to get the audio balance right.
My epic comeback to socials with Melanie projecting her period cramps onto Elias cause deserved
hehe look at that loser
Some none-fanon Magnus Archives designs in the year 2024.
I was that special combo of being late to the party while having somehow seen no spoilers for it, just spent 200 episodes knowing nothing of what was to come while my friends who recommended it to me cackled in the background.
It was fantastic!
It however meant I had to avoid the fandom until I was finished, which hi everyone, how are we doing? Still feeling very normal about this podcast?
happy melanie king thursday
EVERYONE LOOK HERE, THIS DESERVES SO MANY LIKES AND VIEWS
Also, yeah, spoilers for mag200
TMA x Villain(빌런) feat. @worldformula
Okay we all talk about Martin being a Mechs fan but consider: Melanie’s the fan.
She adores their music. Angry lesbians, hell yeah. Goes to a bunch of their concerts. Really loves Natsya and Ashes, but has a secret glaringly obvious soft spot for Jonny D’Ville, asshole supreme. She decidedly doesn’t like a one Jonathan Sims.
Cue Georgie mentioning off-hand one night that hmm, is that a Mechs song? And Melanie is excited, because a gf who’s a fan? Double win. Then Georgie mentions that Jon was in the band in college, and Melanie just...bluescreens.
(courtesy of rudy @lesbianlotl!!)
So...I got a theory, that like any other theory, sprouted awfully, like a flesh flower in Jared Hopworth's garden:
Am I the only one that has the awful feeling that something like this is gonna happen: So, hypothetically...
Imagine Georgie and Melanie being in the middle of an orde of Archivists Monsters, or just in a dangerous situation in general, and Melanie gets hurt, or is close to dying, and like that... Georgie feels fear again.
Suddently she fears Melanie dying and her not being able to save her.
And by feeling fear she inevitably succumbs to whatever fear domain suits her best.
(Which is probably gonna be the End, because she'll fear Melanie's life ending? Maybe?)
Then imagine Melanie surviving whatever scared Georgie, aand while she hears the sounds of her beloved succumb to whatever horror awaits her, not able to do anything, she can't help but think its because of her.
Or even worse, not realizing at all and just calling out her name hopelessly....Feeling angrier and angrier at each and every monster, person or fear that took her away, but in the end, blaming herself because she wasn't able to do anything.
No? Just me? Okay, I'll go back to my corner.