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misterghostfrog · 4 years

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So I was reading someones post about what if Jon went back in time to save everyone, and he managed it. He kept Martin away from Prentiss, he Kept Sasha alive, Tim never even know the unknowing existed and he never had Jons paranioa to ruin him. But They never knew, there was never those moments of bonding between the terror. Martin never had that moment when he realized Jon wasn’t just his shitty boss. And sure the assistants were close, but there was no room for Jon. And it gave me thoughts.

Under the cut bc I started to Ramble and it got Long, warning; its Big Sad Hours down there. No happy endings here.

Jon solves all these problems before they start, he fixes it without anyone ever knowing. The assistants are blissfully unaware, maybe he stops sending them on ‘real’ statement followup. The archives are a normal, safe job for all of them. Sometimes it gets too much, pretending he doesn’t know them. So he’ll record, mostly for himself. Sometimes for them, though he’ll never share. He sticks them all in Gertrude's old storage locker, where he knows they’ll never be found.

And then something goes wrong. He knows the unknowing can’t work, of course it can’t. But Nikola doesn’t, none of the avatars know. And Nikola still wants her skin. She still wants his skin, actually. And she’s not afraid to play dirty to get it, she’s hands-on like that. Because why stop at the archivist when he’s got so many lovely ignorant assistants?

So he fixes the problem before she can make good on her threats, she can’t be killed that easily. He knows. But she died during the unknowing, and there are some pretty simple steps to follow to replicate that result. He knows the easiest way to make sure it works is also a death sentence for him. But that’s a simple choice to make. Alright no, it’s not. He’s terrified of death, of dying. He doesn’t want to die, but he can lie to himself. He can delude and say maybe he’ll get another chance. And just in case, he makes sure the assistants know they can quit now.

Tim, Sasha, and Martin don’t know what to make of the news that their boss died mysteriously in an explosion. They know even less what to make of the notes he left them.

Clearly the ramblings of a very unstable man. They all knew Jon was a bit off but this... Well, they all know there’s something weird about the job. But the apocalypse? Really?

Sasha believes some of it, she’s worked in artifact storage. She’s seen what this stuff can do. But, well. Jon’s never come off as the most stable person, and with no proper proof to back up any of this there’s no reason for them to follow suit. After all she’s known lots of people to quit the institute, she even knows for a fact that Eric Delano did it when she was rooting through employee records for perfectly rational legal reasons.

Then Martin gets called up to Elias’s office, and gets the news he’s the new head archivist.

He tries to turn it down, but he’s offered a pay-raise and a promise that he can step down anytime if he doesn’t feel suited to the position. Elias just sees so much potential in him.

Martin tries to feel flattered and not thoroughly terrified by the way Elias says potential. He takes the promotion, after all, he can always step down if it’s too much.

He offers as much when he finds out Sasha probably should have been given the position, but she turns him down. It’s not his fault their boss is a sexist old bastard, and at this rate he’d probably just turn around and give it to Tim.

Things are normal for a few months. Until slowly a strange noise starts to be heard around the archives, a weird sort-of squishing sound with no source. Along with a metallic scent of meat.

An infestation, of course. They’re getting the problem worked on, or so Elias says. But aside from the occasional exterminator coming in to ‘take a look’ nothing ever seems to change. Weird statements start showing up on Martins desk, surrounding meat and twisted up things, eaten alive and wrong. Suddenly he understands how Jon went off his rocker so easily.

It’s hard to believe all this supernatural stuff as it’s suddenly getting crammed down his throat, after so long of the archives being normal in almost every sense of the word it’s like missing a step on the staircase. The more awful statements he finds- that Tim and Sasha confirm -the more he realizes how much his boss was hiding from them.

He wants to quit, he thinks about it, he tries to think about it. But he just, can’t.

It’s another or two month before it happens. Meat and bone and gristle erupt from the floor, taking on horrible mangled shapes of almost-humans reaching out with hands full of teeth and hungry.

They all survive, though Tim gets eaten up a bit more than the rest of them. And they’ll all have nightmares for the rest of their lives. They’re alive.

And they find Gertrude’s body, though none of them know how to feel about it. They’ve realized by now there’s something to Jon’s nonsensical ramblings. And they’re long past regretting not quitting before this all happened.

There’s a section of document storage that got uncovered during the cleaning,an old cot that was shoved behind some of the shelves, and a box that had a few sets of clothes, an old teacup, and a key. The cleaners say they burned the clothes, but the cup and the Key are given to Martin for him to keep to return to whoever left their things in the archive.

Neither of those items belong to Tim or Sasha, so they all assume they belonged to Jon.

They start following Jons footsteps, they find out he was a suspect in an arson case surrounding Carlos Vittery’s old apartment. Nobody was there except one unidentified body. He was arrested for trespassing on a dock, though no charges were filed. There was an incident that ended in the near arrest of one Jude Perry, though no charges were filed and she soon fell off the grid. And then he exploded using C4 he had no way of getting, Nothing concrete, no proper genuine evidence except a series of weird encounters their dead boss had.

Martin Decides to try and hunt down Jude Perry, it takes some time. He has a very nice cup of tea with one Micheal Crew. Who points him in a general direction and is just a bit weird about tall buildings.

Martin finds Jude, and asks her about Jon. She laughs at him, of course. But she tells him anyway. Jon was trying to have her arrested- no, not arrested. Killed. Officer Tonner would have seen to that, he knew one of the Hunt could do her in, well. At least of Officer Tonner’s sort anyway. Jude resisted, naturally. He escaped her clutches only barely, by running. Like a coward. And she escaped the policewoman by playing innocent. She’s still on her tail though, damn dog. It’ll be a long time before she’d rid of her, but she knows better than to run. Oh, he doesn’t know what any of that means, does he? Oh he really doesn’t, how sweet. Just a little baby archivist- she was going to kill him after this. But watching him stumble into his own ruin will be so much more fun.

She sends him on his way with a burn.

Martin is terrified, he genuinely tries to quit. Almost manages it before his computer shuts off. The others try too, and then they all have a lovely freak-out together.

They decide to try and talk to Detective Tonner, which proves easy. She’s the partner of the one who’s been interviewing them. She comes to the institute, and they ask her about Jon. She tells them they believed he was responsible for killing Gertrude, seeing as he was next in line. Martin accidentally Compels her into a statement, and then into admitting she's mostly just saying he killed her because dead men don’t put up fights.

She threatens him right then and there, though Basira comes in and intervenes before anything happens. He files a dispute with the station, and avoids the police after that.

Basira brings him some of the tapes, she says it’s an apology. He’s pretty sure she’s just trying to get him to drop the dispute in the weirdest way possible. He does learn some about Gertrude though, and through her what he’s dealing with. And something about an ‘unknowing’

A man named peter Lukas visits the institute, one of the doners. Elias says he wants to see how the archive runs, Lukas says a few choice words about it. And Martin tells him in the most polite of terms to shove off. Lukas threatens him, and very briefly makes him forget everyone he’s ever loved. And then tells him he got off lucky, and that Elias should have picked a better archivist. You can hardly trust someone so childish to run something as important as this now can you.

Daisy visits him in his home, and threatens him in much more physical terms now. She tells him if he tries to do what he did to her again he’ll get more than a scar.

After that it’s a bit unclear how he gets marked by the next two (Curruption, Stranger.) but he does.

There’s a delivery, a few weeks after the stranger mark. It’s not supernatural in any sense, just a young woman dropping off a small box in the archivists office. She says her name is Georgie, and no, she doesn’t know what’s in the box. She just had an old friend tell her to deliver it if he didn’t check in after a bit. Then she found out he died on the news, and then she hadn’t wanted to deliver them- clearly whatever was in the box was going to get someone killed. And she wasn’t scared of it, she wasn’t one for fear, but the thought of putting anyone in danger made her skin crawl. But she didn’t want it in her house, and she refused to be haunted be this box forever. And there was no reason to defy the poor guys apparent final wishes- wait, why was she saying all this again?

In the box was tapes, a dozen or so of them. All addressed to ‘the next head archivist’

It’s Jon’s voice, on the tapes. Talking to who he apparently assumes to be an entire stranger, explaining the fears. And how Smirkes 14 wasn’t wrong, but wasn’t right either. It tells the next archivist to avoid eyes, paintings, doodles, abstract representations, and to keep playing dumb. There’s a lot out there, and the more you know the worse it gets. There’s no fighting, don’t struggle the nets already around you. There’s a way out, but you’re not going to like it.

It gives an odd image of Jon, the man who awkwardly tried to make small-talk int he break room, only to shuffle away after it fell flat. Carrying this world-ending secret on his shoulders. Stiff, awkward Jon. Grim, sad Jon. not so far apart but still so far outside of what Martin had known about him.

What had Martin known about him?

Tim decides to quit, Sasha stays. Elias hires Melanie. Who turns out to be another connection to Jon.

Melanie says he was kind of a prick, he belived her about her Sarah incident, but refused to give her library access. Probably because he was sexist, or maybe just a dickhead. She’d been trying to learn more about her encounter for ages. And this was finally her chance. They try to explain the way out but she won’t listen.

Martin starts following Gertrudes tapes, things about the unknowing have been popping up on his desk lately, and it sounds like Jon was right about an apocalypse. He goes to america, gets a bit kidnapped, and meets Gerry. He offers to help, and then asks about the unknowing. Gerry points him towards the storage locker. And when he gets back He and Sasha and Melanie check it out.

It’s mostly empty, apparently somewhat recently cleared out. Though in the corner there’s a large box of Tapes. There has to be dozens of them, and when they pres play it’s Jon. Talking to them. Except it’s not them, it’s another version of them, and something this version.

And there’s another Jon to add to the mystery of a man he was. The jon on these tapes isn’t stiffly awkward or forcedly professional. He’s open, sad. He cries, he laughs at memories they don’t have. He apologizes, a lot. Too much really. He talks about time travel, about forgetting faces and losing friends.

“Sometimes I-I think- I can’t help but be a bit... upset. At how unfair it all is. You’re all happy and laughing and together and i’m-

i’m alone.

I suppose it must be some sort of- cosmic Karma, I doomed the world so in this new one bright an new I pay my penance in isolation.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. I doom the world- suffer its horrors, and get a little bit of time to taste what humanity would be like.

Or maybe i’m just not that likable without an apocalypse.

Probably says a lot about me either way.

Is it bad that I- I sometimes consider letting things play their course? W-without any of you dying of course I just... I suppose it is bad, to want to end the world because you’re lonely. Just because i’m a bit sad doesn’t mean the planet should suffer, no... maybe i’ll try and reconnect with Georgie, it’s been... well. No. Perhaps best not.”

Sasha says that if she knew she would have at least brought him out for drinks or something.

But they did sort-of know didn’t they? Not about the apocalypse, but about the loneliness. After all, nobody chats so awkwardly in the break room because they have a thriving social life.

“I’m going to kill Nikola tonight- i’m not going to die. I’m not. I didn’t die last time, a-and there’s no reason for that to change. T-there isn’t. I’m going to try and be a safe distance from the blast this time, too. But... Well, it’s not like I have anyone to miss me if I do go.

I suppose... Martin, if you’re listening to this- I... I miss you. You always did say I should be more open with my feelings, and it’s weird. To miss someone who’s right there. T-to look at a face and see a friend and a stranger. To love someone you’ve known for years who doesn’t even really know who you are.

It’s all very stranger, ironic really. Considering what i’m about to do.

I love you, and I miss you. I know you’re not listening, even if I did die you’ve probably long since quit. I hope you’re happy, whatever you’re doing. Happy and safe. All of you.

And maybe you are listening, maybe... maybe we do become friends, maybe you actually choose to talk to me someday. Maybe I tell you about all of this and... And you don’t think i’m mad. Maybe you let me take you out to dinner and we’d be together again. We’d never be like before- not that that’s a bad thing what with the eldritch horrors. There’d be bits missing, memories we don’t share- but, it would still be you... It’s always been you, I think. And maybe I've decided to give this to you as some sort of silly romantic gesture.

A-and in that case. I love you, Martin Blackwood. More than you’ll ever know.

[HE SIGHS]

When I come back, i’m recording over this.”

[CLICK]

But he didn’t come back. He died that night. He died loving Martin, who never even really knew him beyond passing awkward conversation. Martin doesn’t know how to feel about it, besides guilty that is.

The tapes point them towards Georgie Barker, the woman who delivered the other set to the archives.

Georgie doesn’t really want anything to do with them, she knows whatever they’re stewing in got Jon killed. But she tells them about her encounter with The End, though she’s tetchy afterwards. Martins finally starting to understand this whole compelling business and is feeling pretty sorry about it. He redirects, he starts to ask about Jon. Who he was, really. What she knew he was like.

They talk, Martins curiosity is part Eye and part knowing that someone loved him, really, really loved him. And feeling like he missed out, like he skipped a train he hadn’t known was there. And wanting to know what kind of person would- could love him the way Jon did. And why that kind of person could end the world.

They talk, Georgie explains why they broke up (clashing ideals, he didn’t believe in the supernatural and her trauma was so inherently tied to it. He was a sleep-clinger and she kicked when she dreamed) And why it took so long for them to break up (Jon was funny once you learned to get his jokes, the Admiral loved him, he had a weird way of caring that was really sweet) they talk about things, Georgie lets him hang out with her as long as he promises to keep the supernatural out of their conversations. And how is Melanie doing by the way?

Sasha has a hard time splitting her time in the archive and helping Tim. He can manage himself of course but it’s hard knowing he’s sitting in her flat alone, he’s getting back into publishing though. Sleeping easier now he knows that not only is he free of the eye, but Jon very much killed the thing that killed Danny. He only wishes he could have been the one to pull the trigger. Sasha is getting more involved though, the eye has it’s own grip on her.

They finally confront Elias. They know it won’t do any good, Jons tapes explained what he was, who he was. But they’re frustrated. Low on options. Jon never really explained what the apocalypse was- if Martins learned anything from the other tapes it’s probably because he forgot, thought he did somewhere and didn’t.

Elias isn’t entirely surprised that they’ve figured it out, he knew something was going on. Though he wasn’t quite sure what. He claims he knows what oncoming apocalypse Jon was talking about, and that he was likely underestimating the amount.

He sends them to Ny-Ålesund. And Martin views the black sun. Gets briefly taken hostage by Manuela. And gets “saved” by a man who pops out of a door to stab her.

He says his name is Micheal, and he’s not there to help. He does his whole distortion bit, confuses them. Stabs Martin when he tries to take his statement. Says he was going to kill him, but what happens next might be much better than death. And leaves after stating that he’s very excited to watch how the rest of this plays out.

They go back to the institute, and Elias says he must have been wrong. Oopsie. Anyway the web is planning a ritual you should go check out the spooky house from all these statements.

They meet Annabelle in person, Martin gets marked by the web.

This continues on for the end the slaughter and the buried. They finally confront Elias again about these wild goose chases, he claims innocence but he’s done it enough times they don’t believe him. They stop trusting Elias. Not that they ever really did, but they stop listening to him.

Melanie isn’t as angry as she was. Though she is still angry. She didn’t go to india so no ghost bullet, but she’s still trapped. Though she knows how to quit, it’s been a scary idea. But the longer she stays the more she realizes how low she is on options. So she quits.

Martin is angry, he’s exhausted, he’s confused. Nothing makes sense. And another one of Elias’s goddamn doners is visiting. A weird old man who, when he shakes his hand, makes him feel like he just dropped off a rollercoaster at a million miles into empty nothingness. He laughs when Martins regained himself, and says that that tricks better than a buzzer every time.

He visits Georgie again, he’s thinking about quitting. But he can’t figure out what the apocalypse he’s supposed to stop is, because according to Jon it’s pretty bad. And he’s the one who can stop, or maybe start, it. But he doesn’t know what it is.

He talks to Georgie about Jon some more, it’s funny, to grieve a man you already knew. Except four years too late. There’s a sort-of helpless frustration to it, every time he talks about Jon he wishes he could be learning this first-hand. Not from someone who hadn’t spoken to him in years before this.

He also finds himself glued to the tapes, he can relate, in a way. To Jons loneliness. To have a person so, so close but so far away. He wishes he could meet the Jon on the tapes now. Then neither of them would have to be lonely. But Jon is dead. And Martin... Martin might love Jon. Jon, who died years ago. A dead man who apparently loved him enough to consider ending the world for the chance to have a real conversation with him.

He goes back to work, frustrated and so, so lost. A million questions that genuinely can’t be answered. There’s a fresh statement on his desk. It’s a statement of Jonah Magnus, regarding stopping the apocalypse.

Certainly a goddamn roundabout way of giving Martin information, but he’ll take it.

He reads the statement.

The world ends.

Sasha, Tim, Melanie, and Georgie all get their own domains. And wander free in the hills of suffering. Martin is alone, well and truly alone. He ended the world, because he was too stupid and sad to read a few extra paragraphs before starting the tape.

But Jon went back, didn’t he? He went back in time and stopped this once. Maybe Martin can too. Maybe he can stop the flesh from attacking, maybe he can stop Melanie from joining the institute. Maybe he can meet the real Jon.

He goes back, he does it. Nobody remembers but him.

Nobody remembers but him.

And things keep happening he can’t have predicted.

Worms, Sasha is gone, Gertrude. It’s all wrong. And Jon isn’t the Jon he knew, he doesn’t know Martin, he doesn’t even like Martin. Nobody is the person he knew before.

He is alone. And things keep happening he can’t have predicted, worms tables and paranoia. He starts recording. Trying to follow in Jon’s footsteps and leave information behind, easier to access this time of course. In his flat, and he’ll have the key sent to the archives if something goes wrong. He’ll record until Jon trusts him enough to believe him, Maybe he’ll even stop him before it’s too late and he’ll never need to find out what happened at all. Maybe he can't get close as he was to everyone, but he can keep them safe.

He doesn’t get to finish his recordings, he wasn’t careful enough. Jonah catches wind and half the tapes are destroyed when he dies in a mysterious housefire. But what’s left does get delivered to the archives.

And the cycle continues.

#jonmartin #the magnus archives #tma #angst #writing #ghostly scribbles #Tma is a tragedy and so is this #not a proper fic more like a really weird outline

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izziegs · 3 years

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Okay so TMA 187 analysis here, a bit more “Jon’s judgment of Helen was not entirely correct” from another Spiral fan

1. I think Jon’s analysis of Helen is (ha ha) distorted by A) his desire to justify her death despite her friendliness, and B) automatically made untrustworthy by the fact that Jon has never understood the Distortion. Helen has expressed before that him Knowing things about her is not the same as Understanding things, and he’s made it very clear before that he does not Understand (MD and HD are fusions, essentially. Combinations of the Spiral’s manifestation: the Distortion, and a human. In the same way Garnet is a combo of Ruby and Sapphire but not truly either of them, Helen Distortion has Helen Richardson in her, but is not actually Helen Richardson. She is both Helen and not, and was never Michael, though the Distortion was. Honestly, Jon, it’s not complicated)

2. We even saw this with Michael - I can’t forget that Jon assumed the Distortion was just a manifestation of the Spiral, not an avatar, and he seemed to take the revelation that Michael Shelley was an assistant as a sort of...betrayal, almost? Something that definitely threw off his idea of good-bad, where even though avatars could be bad their humanity kept them from becoming as monstrous as Michael, and the sudden shock of hearing otherwise, of seeing what he could become...I don’t think he ever bounced back from that.

3. Jon has always seen the worst in Helen. In 115, she came back to him for emotional help/venting/advice/connection and he lashed out at her, scared of seeing her become like Michael, still sore from betrayal from the Stranger, etc. From the get-go he decided this was just a Thing using Helen’s face, and even when she immediately told him otherwise, he rejected it. (“I don’t believe you” - “I have never told you a lie”) He chalked her vulnerability up to manipulation, and has never truly turned his view of her away from that initial assessment

4. 131 shows a lot of the same (“You’re still wearing her face” - “I’m not ‘wearing’ anything”) This episode Helen deliberately pushes against Jon’s desire to neatly separate them into bad and good, something Melanie pulls them away from to refocus on Jared

5. 143 doesn’t have them fight quite as much, though Jon does still seem very suspicious. Helen just shows up to eat Manuela and give Jon and Basira a door home

6. 157 - aka the day Jon uses as justification he was right Helen was never on his side even though it is One Thing. They’ve met four times prior to this and he’s been mean to her every time. I can understand her abstaining from helping him, especially when she thinks the end result will help her, and double especially when helping Jon would put her directly on the bad side of two very powerful avatars (Also, as Helen said, “If that makes it my fault, then surely this is Georgie’s fault as well, and Melanie’s-”. AFAIK, he’s not upholding that as proof those two are bad and against him)

7. Post-apocalypse, Helen tries to give Jon the advice he refused to give her. When she was fully accepting her avatar status, she just wanted someone she thought could help her, and now she’s trying to be that person for Jon. Hearing her later desire to keep the world as is, it would also make sense that she might’ve been trying to get him to agree with her, however, unlikely, so they could continue “helping” each other/wouldn’t have to have that inevitable fight. Something else notable about her in the Eye’s world: she forces Jon to stop withholding info from Martin. She forces them to talk about difficult topics (Smiting powers, where’s Basira/how is she, Martin’s domain) and had essentially become a more reliable source of info than Jon is. While her popping up was beneficial to Martin, it was annoying to Jon, and possibly also part of why he continued not liking her.

8. Now all of that, looking at 187: Again, Jon very quickly establishes that he doesn’t understand how Helen works (“I am not [Michael], and never have been. Surely you know all this by now”) and then explicitly says he is currently making judgments based on feeling instead of logic (which is not a new development, looking at his choices since The Eye Opens).

Here I’m going to go over a few of his specific lines from 187:

“Now you use her form, see her mind, but they’re just… tools.” - If that were true, there’d be no reason Helen would act completely differently than Michael did. If this were just a monster using a human’s mind for manipulation advice, why have a totally new personality? Helen is Helen, but Jon’s still stuck in his season 3 mindset

“Michael had nothing you could use but a razor-straight desire for vengeance, but you saw something in Helen that would work on me much more subtly. So you took her” - Bold of Jon to assume Helen taking over the Distortion was that influenced by him, lol. If the Distortion wanted you done for Jonathan, they’d have just kept Michael and let him eat you like he planned. Not everything’s about you.

“How long have you been working with Elias?” - This one is interesting because if he knows everything, he should’ve known whether or not Helen knew Elias (unless he assumed she could get into the Panopticon where he can’t see). Michael knew Elias, pre-Distortion, but Helen’s not talked to him. Jon didn’t think Jude Perry was working for Elias, despite her clear revelry in the new world. I think it’s weird he assumed that about Helen (unless he was also using that to justify her death)

Her commentary during his statement is funny, but interesting. The perfect time to attack him if she really wanted to, if she really had been building up to that like he thought she was, and she spends the time joking about him and Martin living in a Honeymoon Suite in her apocalypse hotel

“Is a friendship true, or is it reaching out with hands that cut you?” - Another interesting line to me because when Michael told Sasha he wanted to be her friend he deliberately manipulated his hand so that he could hold her hand without cutting her

“You worked to hurt us and help us, all with the same smile, until we can barely tell one from the other” - I think Jon is talking about Michael and Helen as one person in this part, but specifically with Helen she literally didn’t hurt you Jon she had one time she didn’t help

“Never quite crossing a line we could never forgive, but never putting yourself on the line either.” - Yeah, Jon, that’s what most people would do, tbh. It’s not unforgivable that she didn’t put her life on the line to help someone who has only ever been mean to her. Actually, she helped him more than most people would if treated that way

“It’s not me I’m worried about” - Another interesting line because even as he’s killing her, Helen’s final threat is to hold him in the halls until the End eventually gets his friends. She never threatens to harm any of them (because they’re her friends) - Edit: I can see how it could be interpreted as her threatening them buttt idk if she can kill them in the new world so I assumed it was End related. Still no empty threats, no real lies from her yet - Also, I think she genuinely does not want to kill Martin or Jon, she wants them to turn so they can all be friends without those messy ~moral hangups~

“If you do this, everyone inside me is dead!” - I wonder if this is true. I can’t tell if Jon was the only one that fell out of the halls in front of Martin. It’s not like the other domains, where taking the avatar in charge may usher in a new one. The Distortion was Helen. If this sentence is true, then Jon just murdered that mom and very possibly orphaned that five-year-old. Not just gonna brush that one off there

“Its hidden teeth and the ones it wears so proudly.” - Even in the end Jon still Doesn’t Get It. He still thinks the Distortion is pretending to be Helen. Was pretending to be Michael. As much as he should be an all-knowing being, he clearly still rejects what he doesn’t like

I don’t have a specific quote but Jon acting like the Distortion has had a constant motivation or like, consistent desire (outside of “cause problems for fun”) is wild because Michael explicitly told Jon he didn’t want the Watcher’s Crown to happen. Michael was going to kill Jon to stop it. He was on the exact side Jon is on right now. But I guess it’s easy for Jon to paint him as evil when the roles were revered, huh?

If you’re still reading this, uh. Hi. I really really like the Distortion (Michael and Helen) and I am Very Upset with Jon right now

Edit: This is not an argument on whether or not Helen was evil or if Jon was right to kill her too to save the world. She was absolutely evil and I can see why Jon felt her death was necessary I'm just saying he was wrong about her lying to him

#tma #the magnus archives #helen richardson #helen distortion #michael shelley #michael distortion #jon sims #tma 187 #tma spoilers #this is 1400 words of me analyzing every Helen appearance ever

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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr | Also on AO3

Chapter 58: Jon Prime

Eleven months. Eleven months since Jon had come back in time, since he’d knocked on Tim’s door, since he’d had Martin in his arms again. Eleven months of regrouping, of planning, of worrying and fearing and hoping in equal measures. Eleven months, almost to the day, to the minute. All of it leading to this.

It was worth it for the look on Elias’s face when he spun around to face him.

In the entire time Jon had worked for the Institute, and especially since taking the Archivist position, he had never once seen Elias anything but calmly, coolly, smugly in control. Occasionally angry, although he’d more heard that than seen it when he listened to the tapes much later, but still, whatever emotions he might have been feeling, his bearing had always suggested that he held the upper hand and knew it. Now, though, there was none of that in his expression. For the first time Jon had ever seen, Elias Bouchard looked as though the situation had got away from him somewhat. His eyes—Jonah’s eyes—were wide with alarm, his jaw was slack, and even if he didn’t look afraid—yet—he was definitely at the very least taken aback. It was a start.

“Jon? What are you doing here?” he demanded. “You should be—” He stopped and inhaled sharply as he scanned Jon’s face, probably noticing the worm scars if not how much more grey was in his hair than his counterpart’s. “You’re not Jon.”

“Oh, but I am,” Jon replied. He was keeping his powers in check, but barely; he could feel the static building in his veins, thrumming and crackling like electricity through a power grid, and while he wanted to unleash it on the man before him, he couldn’t just yet. It was too much of a risk with Martin so close. “Just not the Jon you think I am.”

“What—no.” Jonah—there was no doubt it was Jonah Magnus regarding him now—turned pale. “You’re not—no. How can this be? Tell me!”

Jon tsked. “That was never your gift, Jonah. Compelling people. The Eye gave you the ability to pry, to pluck secrets out of heads and put secrets in…but you don’t get to ask for them, do you? You are no Archivist.”

There was definitely a part of him that was enjoying this more than he should. It wasn’t the power over Jonah he thrilled to—he’d never been the megalomaniac sort—but he definitely relished not being the one at a disadvantage for once. He’d spent years as little more than a pawn in Jonah’s game, and it was refreshing to be, if not a queen, at the very least a knight. It was satisfying more than anything.

But satisfaction wasn’t the goal. Victory was.

Jonah pulled himself together and drew himself up. Jon had to give him some credit—it obviously cost him a good deal of effort, both mental and physical. Martin had thrown him for a loop, probably several times, and then Jon had appeared from behind and totally disorientated him. Beyond that, Jon had seen, when he crept up behind him, the large dark stain surrounding the tear on the back of his usually immaculate charcoal suit. Melanie may have only pretended to actually try and kill him, but she’d certainly done a number on him anyway.

“Jon, I do not have time for these games,” he began.

“On the contrary. We have all the time in the world.” Jon took a half-step back and to the side, away from both the soft part in the wall that led, more or less, to the Institute and the tunnel where Sasha and Melanie had secreted themselves.

As he’d hoped, Jonah took the bait, taking a full step towards him and away from Martin. He had two inches on Jon and obviously intended to use them to the utmost effect in an attempt to intimidate and cow Jon. It was the same thing he’d done after the Apocalypse, when he’d stood over Jon and belittled him, making him shrink in on himself and bow under the weight of his own folly and shortcomings, highlighted all the places where it had been Jon’s decisions that led to that point.

Things were different now. Jon knew himself, he knew what his capabilities were as well as his limitations. And just as importantly, he had the evidence of his own eyes when he looked at Past Jon. Yes, Jon had made choices that led to the Apocalypse, but they’d been made with the limited information he had—information that had been limited because of Jonah. When he had all the data, he made much better decisions. Knowing, as they said, was half the battle.

In this case, perhaps, Knowing was all the battle.

Jon spared a quick glance for Martin. His smirk was almost a match for Jon’s own, and his eyes sparkled in a way Jon hadn’t seen in a long time. He stood tall and confident, shoulders squared and chin raised, and he still had a tight grip on the knife Melanie had pressed into his hand. He was also still far too close to Jon and Jonah, and not near enough to where he needed to be.

“Martin, get back. I don’t want you getting hurt,” he told him.

“Really, Jon, I don’t know what you think is going to happen,” Jonah said stiffly. “Whatever the issue is, we can settle it like gentlemen.”

“Ha!” Melanie’s disgusted laugh floated from the side. Jon looked over quickly to see her and Sasha crouched right in the entrance of the tunnel they’d found him in, arms linked tightly. Melanie’s other hand had a death grip on the rough stone of the tunnel’s arch. Jon knew exactly why. He’d heard the near-ethereal music, too, followed it down the tunnel, and realized the stone was ringing faintly with the tune from Denikin’s Calliophone, as though it were one of the pipes of the organ. If Sasha and Melanie hadn’t tumbled into him and told him they were ready for him, there was no telling how far he might have gone. Or how lost he might have been.

Something flickered over Martin’s face, but he did as Jon requested, taking three careful steps backwards until his heels hit the edge of the tower at the center of the Panopticon. He reached out with his free hand and steadied himself against it, then nodded once.

Jon stole another half-pace backwards, luring Jonah a little farther away from the others. “Settle this like gentlemen? You must be joking. What exactly do you think is going to happen? That you’re going to convince me to—to walk away from this? To just let it go?”

“You walked away from the Unknowing,” Jonah said tartly. “You left Tim alone to it with two people who, I am sure, could not possibly care less whether he lives or dies. And despite this—” He ran his eye over Jon’s face disdainfully. “—this getup, we both know that you walked away from Jane Prentiss and left Martin alone to her.”

Oh. That was a low blow. Jon stiffened, his rage nearly choking him. Despite knowing that it wasn’t true—that it hadn’t been true in either timeline—just the fact that Jonah would look him in the eye and even imply that he was the sort to abandon his people was enough to leave him momentarily speechless. And the fact that Jonah believed, or pretended to believe, that Jon would abandon Martin of all people…

He was about to explode, to start yelling, to reach out and strangle Jonah Magnus with his bare hands, when Martin started laughing. It was somewhere between the way he’d laughed when Jon had floated the idea of gouging their eyes out and running away together and the way he’d laughed when they’d been playing I Spy in the tombs. He sounded both incredulous and amused.

“You still have no idea, do you?” he said. “You still think you know what’s going on. This must really be embarrassing for you. Having to wait for an explanation.”

It was the last word that did it for Jon, grounding him and enabling him to recenter himself. Even if Martin’s voice hadn’t been enough, the reminder was. Once upon a time that no longer was, Jonah Magnus had forced Jon to monologue for him, forced him to recite his deeds and his plan before using him as a tool to trigger the end of the world. He had manipulated Jon at every turn, and then manipulated him once more at the end. And that was exactly what he was trying to do here. He was trying to goad Jon into doing something rash, into lashing out at him and tipping his hand too far.

He still thought he could win.

Jon didn’t take a deep breath; he wouldn’t give Jonah the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled him. But he did square his shoulders and let his lips curl into a sneer. “I know you can’t look into my head, Jonah. But can’t you guess? Even if your master won’t give you the answers, can’t you even attempt to figure them out on your own?”

Anger flashed in Jonah’s cold grey eyes, and Jon knew he’d scored another point. There would be no grading of this exam—it was strictly pass/fail—but the more he could build things up on his side, the easier it would be. He hoped. “Don’t prevaricate, Jon. This is hardly the time. Either tell me what you think you are doing, or allow me to get back to watching the people you should be watching.”

“The Jonathan Sims you employ is at the Unknowing,” Jon told him coldly. “Along with the Martin Blackwood you employ. I was that Jonathan Sims, once, but not now. I am from the future, Jonah Magnus. A future that is not and will never be.”

“If you are trying to make a joke—”

Jon ran the backs of two fingers over his cheek, indicating the worm scars. “Jane Prentiss, twenty-sixth July, 2016.” He touched his side. “The Distortion, otherwise known as Michael, second October, 2016.” He held out his right hand, palm outward, and notched another point in his credit when Jonah flinched, almost imperceptibly. “Jude Perry, twenty-fourth April, 2017.”

Jonah’s eyes widened—and then, not entirely to Jon’s surprise, a slow smile crossed his face. “The Corruption, the Spiral, the Desolation. And that scar at your throat—yes, I saw that. The Slaughter?”

“The Hunt. Daisy Tonner, twenty-eighth April, 2017.” Jon pulled aside the collar of Martin’s sweater—not the green one he’d worn since Martin wrapped him in it for comfort after he ended the world or the soft blue one that Martin wore more often than any other because Jon had complimented him on it without thinking long before either of them knew they would end up together, but the slightly lopsided red one that was Jon’s new favorite, because it was the one Martin had patiently worked on while Jon read statements to feed himself, the one that was proof he didn’t really need to be able to see to knit. “This is the Slaughter. Melanie King, twenty-fifth February, 2018.” He let the collar fall back into place and smoothed it out carefully. “The others don’t show.”

“But you have them all.” Jonah’s smile broadened. “It worked. The ritual was a success, and you came back…thinking you could stop me.”

“Well done, Jonah,” Jon said, in the same voice one might otherwise use with a child who had successfully tied his own shoes for the first time. “That’s all absolutely correct.”

“Oh, Jon.” Jonah’s voice took on an almost pitying tone. “And you thought telling me that would mean…what, exactly? You think it won’t work now? That you’ve warned your—counterpart, and now he can escape it? He has three marks already, at least.”

Behind Jonah’s shoulder, Martin silently held up his free hand, displaying all five fingers. Jon swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat as he realized Martin was right. Apart from the two he’d had before they arrived—the Web and the Eye—and being stabbed by and later traveling through the halls of the Distortion, Past Jon had been kidnapped and essentially tortured by the Stranger, and his encounter with Julia and Trevor in America was probably enough to give him a mark from the Hunt.

“And even if he escapes,” Jonah continued, oblivious to what was going on behind him, “there are still the others. Even knowing, it’s unavoidable, Jon. Fear comes for us all, in whatever guise it wishes, and the Institute is a lure many of them cannot resist. They will be marked, and when they are—”

“No,” Jon interrupted, and this time he let the static crackle through his voice. “They may be marked, Jonah Magnus, but it will not be to your advantage. This ends here.”

Jonah sneered, but Jon had already seen the flash of fear in his eyes. “You think you’ve learned enough to stop me? I have two hundred years of experience and Knowledge. What do you bring to the table? A few tricks? This cheap attempt at intimidation? You cannot overpower me, Jon. Not now when I can see my triumph within my grasp. Thwart me, and I will simply find another.”

“Oh, no.” Jon took another diagonal step, turning his shoulders as he did so; as he expected, Jonah followed him. “There will be no one else. Not from you. Never again.”

“How, exactly, do you intend to stop me?” Jonah demanded, drawing himself up.

Jon snorted. “I had considered taking you out the way you took out one of the others. I considered shooting you. Like you did to Gertrude.” He swallowed hard. “And Martin.”

“I never—ah.” Jonah’s unpleasant smile smeared across his face again. “Yes, I suppose that would be quite effective in slowing you down, wouldn’t it? If I were to—take him out, shall we say?” He slipped one hand under his jacket.

“You don’t have it with you,” Jon said with contempt. “I don’t even need the Eye to know that. If you had brought your gun, you wouldn’t have bothered trying to get into Martin’s head. Not once you were down here. After all…” He waved one hand around the room. “Who would be here to witness? Only the Eye.”

“Perhaps I think he’s too useful to kill,” Jonah said.

Jon curled one hand into a fist and fought back the anger and nausea the way Jonah’s voice curled around the word useful brought up. He had to keep it together. Had to keep this going. “I could have beaten you to death, too. Like you did Jurgen Leitner. And framed me for.”

Again he took a half-step back, rotating slightly this time, and again Jonah followed. Jon glanced at Sasha, her eyes glittering with excitement and interest even from that distance, and raised his eyebrows in silent question. She nodded once. Jon blinked his acknowledgment and swiftly returned his gaze to Jonah. He’d managed it right. He now had the tunnel to the Institute at his back and the Panopticon at his front. He was directly between the two access points for the Beholder. He had Jonah exactly where he wanted him.

“Jurgen Leitner?” Jonah repeated. “That pompous ass?”

Martin and Melanie’s snorts were nearly identical. Jon didn’t bother to repress his smirk. “He’s living in those tunnels, you know. Has been for years. He used to help Gertrude out, too. He was going to tell me some of those details you thought my counterpart didn’t know, and I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to shield my thoughts enough that you didn’t know I was talking to someone. You slipped in while I was out of my office, tormented him the same way you did Gertrude, and beat him to death with a length of pipe. Left the body there. Of course Daisy thought I’d done it.”

“It would have been quite difficult for me to use you if you were in prison.”

“Oh, you made it clear that you didn’t actually think I’d done it. But you certainly brought me to Daisy’s attention. Dangled me in front of her. You knew she would come after me eventually, knew it would mark me. You used her as much as you used the rest of us, long before she joined the Institute.” Jon met Jonah’s eyes. It was far easier than it had ever been before. “Never again, Jonah. I will never allow you to use anyone for your evil purpose again. You don’t deserve the power you want to wield.”

“You could join me, you know,” Jonah offered.

Jon almost choked. “What?”

“Join me,” Jonah said again, and if Jon thought for a minute that Elias Bouchard was the type, he’d have expected the next sentence to be something along the lines of Together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. “You’ve seen the world, Jon. The world we created, in your time. You know how very beautiful it can be. Rulers together of a forsaken world. Overseers of all. Imagine it. You could choose who lived and died. Control how much suffering was inflicted on those who suffered. You know what that fear feels like when it flows through you…imagine controlling it, drinking the whole world. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had had that power. You would never have wanted to leave it.” He spread his hands out invitingly towards Jon. “We would live forever. Imagine it, Jon. It would be so easy, and so rewarding. All you need to do…is say the words.”

Martin’s face went white as a sheet. Those freckles that hadn’t been bleached to pale shadows by the Lonely stood out clearer than Jon had seen them in ages, and his lips parted slightly. The naked fear in his sightless eyes was almost physically painful. He was scared, worse than he’d been in a long time.

And something seemed to tighten around Jon’s wrist.

Martin knew Jon better than anybody in the universe, maybe better than Jon even knew himself. He knew how close to the edge Jon had been at times, how close he’d come to succumbing to the Eye and becoming its conduit. How hard Jon had fought to keep from becoming like Jude Perry, like Mike Crew, like Jared Hopworth. And he knew just how hard Jon was tempted at times to give in, how much Jon wanted to know what would happen if he did. How tired he got sometimes of the constant daily struggle. He alone, out of anybody, knew that there was a part of Jon that wanted to say yes.

But not enough of one. Not nearly enough of one. There was no temptation in the world strong enough to lure him away from Martin, nothing in the universe he wanted more than to spend whatever time he was granted with the man he loved. Martin had promised to kill him if he ever came close to agreeing to what Jonah was proposing, and Jon had sworn to himself then and there that he would never force Martin to make that call. He knew that Martin would never be able to live with himself if he did. And Jon loved him too much to hurt him that way if there was any other option.

But Martin couldn’t see his face. For all he knew, Jon was seriously considering the offer. Jon would have to reassure him.

“If you think,” he said, “for one moment that I would agree to that knowing what it would mean, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought you were. And that, Jonah Magnus, is saying something.”

Martin drew in a sharp breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, then seemed to relax. Jonah’s smile melted away. He opened his mouth to say something. Jon didn’t give him the chance. “I have seen your ‘forsaken world’, and I have seen what it cost everyone who lived in it. I have felt the pain and suffering of those within it, and I know that there is no one, Watched or Watcher, who escaped that pain and suffering. Even those who thought they wanted it, in the end, found they did not. Even you would have learned that, sooner or later.” He narrowed his eyes at Jonah. “And I would sooner gouge my own eyes out, here and now, than share any kind of power with you.”

Jon again saw the cold, pale fury in Jonah’s eyes that he had last seen when Martin defied him after the Apocalypse, but this time it didn’t go away. “That can be arranged.”

“I don’t think so.” Jon felt the static building up again, and this time, he didn’t try to hold it back. “Your time has come.”

Power thrummed through his veins. It was the way he’d felt when facing down the Not-Them both times, when he’d struck down Jared Hopworth, when he’d caught hold of Helen’s lie, but somehow it was stronger. Again he felt that tightening around his wrist, and he could feel a power flowing through that as well, fueling him, giving him strength and courage.

“For two hundred years, you have sat atop your ivory tower and pretended to rule,” he said. The words came easily, leading Jon to wonder if he was saying them or the Ceaseless Watcher was. “You have set yourself up as a god among men, and you have believed yourself to be untouchable. You have manipulated and pulled and lured, and through it all, you have believed yourself to be endearing yourself to your master. But It Knows You, and it Knows that it is not fear you have feasted on all these years, merely power over others. You have desired only your own ends and served no one but yourself.”

He was aware of an echo to his voice, as though someone else was speaking the words with him. At first he thought it was just that, an echo, or maybe the Beholder resonating through him, but he recognized the second voice for what it was at about the same moment Jonah’s eyes widened, and the fear in them wasn’t fleeting. It was Gertrude Robinson’s voice joining Jon’s, maybe prompting him, maybe lending her power to his. Maybe it was just a manifestation of his power after all, enhancing Jonah’s fear.

Jon could taste that fear. It was exhilarating and intoxicating. Whatever was around his wrist seemed to tighten further, reminding him that it was there, reminding him of what he was trying to do. Keeping him grounded. In that instant, Jon recognized it as a manifestation of his bond to Martin, the one Annabelle Cane had enhanced, and it gave him a renewed sense of conviction.

“Two hundred years of pain and death and misery,” he continued, “and all of it spent running from your own fears. Know now that Fear has come for you, Jonah Magnus. You cannot escape it and you cannot run from it.”

“No—no—no,” Jonah gasped, backing away from Jon, or trying to. “J-Jon, please—”

“For our Tim,” Jon snarled, and Gertrude Robinson’s voice and all their combined power joined in with him. “For our Sasha, and for Gertrude Robinson, and for all the others you have killed and trapped and harmed. For my Martin. For every life you took, every dream you destroyed, every ounce of pain and fear you inflicted on others—let it all be turned back on you tenfold. Feel it all, and for the first time in your life, Jonah Magnus, you will truly Know.”

“Jon—please—I don’t want to die,” Jonah begged.

“Neither did they.” Jon raised his voice and felt his hair stand on end. “Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this miserable, pathetic, wretched thing!”

The light in the room flashed as though struck by lightning, but a brilliant, blazing green, coming from both directions and centered directly on Jonah Magnus, who began to scream. Jon felt the fear slam into him, filling him near to bursting, thrumming through his veins and body like he’d simultaneously grabbed hold of a live electrical wire and tried to drink from a fire hose like a straw. Either Elias Bouchard’s body was shrinking or Jon had grown, or perhaps he was merely floating above the floor, but whatever the case, he was now looking down on the man from above.

In the exact same instant, Martin lunged forward and, with a roar of satisfaction and an accuracy that Jon Knew would not have been possible without their bond, drove the knife with both hands into the heart of Jonah Magnus’s body.

Elias’s scream rose to a fever pitch, joined by more voices—six, if Jon was any judge: the screams of the other five men Jonah Magnus murdered to extend his life, and the scream of the original Jonah Magnus himself, a dry, dusty sort of scream, desperate and frightened and pained. The green light flared up and filled the room in a blinding, soundless explosion—

—and then, suddenly, it was gone, leaving a vacuum of silence and the ruins of a prison guard tower.

Jon’s feet hit the ground—so he had been floating after all—and he stumbled slightly. Where Elias Bouchard had been, there was nothing but a scorch mark on the stone, and Martin was half-kneeling in the center of the guard tower, knife still in hand, but nothing remaining of Jonah Magnus’s original body but a scattering of dust.

Martin blinked twice, dropped the knife, and got to his feet, turning unerringly in Jon’s direction. “Jon?” he called.

“Martin,” Jon choked out. He reached out his hands desperately for Martin, wanting to hold him close, to tell him they’d done it, that they were safe, that it was over, that it had worked. That Jonah Magnus was dead and would never harm anyone else again. That they had won.

That he loved him, so very, very much.

He made it no more than a couple of steps before his strength failed him and he pitched forward, gasping. Two strong arms caught him and pulled him close. The last thing Jon heard was Martin desperately, frantically screaming his name.

And then everything went black.

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #smiting #intimidation tw #manipulation tw #belittling tw #stabbing tw #mention of murder (inc. brutal pipe murder)#we're so close to the end y'all #I can't believe it

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sleepymarmot · 3 years

Text

I think Martin’s stance in the argument in MAG 194 was consistent with the opinions he’d voiced before.

Long post with a lot of quotes under the cut.

Martin’s Mindset

1) Killing avatars is good even if they seem nice (the line Martin draws is at killing a child):

172: [Jon: I don’t think he’s evil.] Oh, yeah, sure; he’s probably a really kind, benevolent ruler of a hellish fear prison.

173: Wh, What about the Avatar? I know you said it didn’t change anything, th-the domain would still exist, but at this point I don’t care, alright? Anyone who’s chosen to spend their apocalypse tormenting children – God, you need to end them. Now.

174: Why not [kill Simon]? Because he was nice to you? Because he was charming, because he was fun?

174: You’re removing evil from the world.

2) Making new avatars is not good:

184: [Jordan: What is this?] [Thin-lipped] Yeah, I’m curious about that myself.

184: [Jordan: Why?] Good question. Jon? Care to enlighten us?

184: [Jon: Didn’t want to just watch you suffer.] It’s what you’ve been doing for everyone else. It’s what you’re expecting him to do.

3) Being at peace with one’s existence as an avatar is bad:

185: Would he enjoy it? (...) Leave him.

186: But I can’t keep existing like this at their expense. It’s not… it’s not right. Whatever happens with Elias, W-with the rest of the world… I can’t live on the misery of others.

186: I get it, okay? I can’t decide what happens to them. But… I just might be able to decide what happens to me. And… And if it comes down to it…I’ll get John to destroy me like the others.

4) Being the one to decide who benefits and who suffers is a terrible responsibility:

185: [Jon: I’m sorry I put you in that position.] No, you were right to. That’s… that’s a lot of power to have to deal with. Lot of responsibility.

“And what? Replace them with new avatars from the people who don’t want to?”

Martin was very enthusiastic about killing avatars, yes. But the reverse? Not really. Both times the idea of turning the Watched into Watchers came up, it was Jon’s initiative. 184 is self-evident, but even in 185, where Martin is the one to make the decision, it’s Jon who asks him:

Inspector: You’ve got to help me! Jon: Martin? What do you think? Martin: What? Jon: I decided about Jordan. This place is from your past.

“I saw the kick you got out of making them scream for once”

I think this part of the argument caught many of us off guard. We all remember how much Martin pushed Jon towards killing avatars despite Jon’s discomfort, ethical dubiousness and practical pointlessness of that endeavour. But Martin isn’t simply projecting his own feelings onto Jon -- he did enjoy that too, this did not come out of nowhere this week:

166:

Helen: Oh, hello! In a better mood, are we? Feeling more secure now you’ve learned how to kill? Jon: Something like that.

Martin: I don’t see why you were being so coy about it – Jon: Because I’m ashamed, Martin. Martin: Ashamed?! Jon: Yes! Ashamed of the fact that I just – destroyed the world and have been rewarded for it, the fact that – I can walk safe through all this horror I’ve created like a… fucking tourist, destroying whoever I please. The fact that I… enjoyed it, and… the fact that there are so many others that I want to revenge myself on!

169:

Martin: John, is there another way? Jon: I mean – sort of? Maybe? Martin: That turn. You – You took a hard turn after the roots back there; I knew that was a thing! Why are we here? Jon: It’s just – when you said – Martin: Jon, why have you taken us here? Jon: Jude Perry. This is where Jude Perry rules. Martin: That’s the one who burned your hand, isn’t it? Jon: Yes.

Jon: I want revenge on Jude Perry. I want to… smite her. Make her feel what – What all her victims felt.

Jon: I’m here for you, Jude. To end you. Jude: (...) You’re bluffing. Jon: You know I’m not. You’re already afraid. Jude: Oh, I see. I get it. You finally get a sniff of power, and the first thing you do is try to settle some old scores. Play the big man; get off on good old-fashioned petty revenge. Jon: I’d have thought that was a mindset you would appreciate. Now, feel it. All the terror and pain you’ve inflicted. Jude: Oh, piss off – Look, look. Wait. Right? I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have burned your hand. Jon: No. You shouldn’t have.

171:

Martin: Why didn’t we go after the landlord guy? In the tenement. (...) Jon: It didn’t seem worth it. I didn’t – hate him like I hated her. He never hurt me.

174:

Jon: I just – This whole… avenging angel thing, I, I’m not – It doesn’t feel right. Martin: It seemed to feel right when we were avenging all the wrongs done against you. Jon: I know. I, I, I know, alright? But well – That’s kind of the problem; I, I have all this – power, and, and I want to use it to try to help, but I – I don’t know – I mean, I do. I-I’ve done so much damage, and – and anything that might help to balance that is – But killing other Avatars is, is not – I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes me worse.

“You weren’t meant to enjoy [Kill Bill] this much!”

Initially, Martin enthusiastically suggested killing avatars because he thought it would improve the world:

166:

Martin: Th, This isn’t like it was before! We’re not talking about innocent bystanders in cafes here, Jon; these things are – th-they’re just evil, plain and simple, and right now they’re torturing and tormenting everyone! If you want to stop them and have the power to, then – then, then yeah, let’s do it, let’s go full Kill Bill!

169:

Martin: It’s not just your revenge though, is it? Destroying her… it would help all those people in there, wouldn’t it? Jon: Maybe? It’s… Like I said, I can’t see the future. It wouldn’t free them, if that’s what you’re asking. ‘Free’ doesn’t really exist in this place.

Jon: She’s gone. Martin: The fires are still here. Doesn’t look like much has changed. Jon: No. I suppose not. Martin: Let’s just get out of here.

171:

Martin: Why didn’t we go after the landlord guy? In the tenement. Jon: Arthur Nolan? Martin: Yeah. He’s still there, right? Jon: After Jude, th,the fires – I,I didn’t want to put you through anymore. Martin: Don’t do that. Jon: What? Martin: Don’t use me as an excuse. Jon: I-I’m not. I just – It didn’t seem worth it. I didn’t – hate him like I hated her. He never hurt me. Martin: But all the people inside. Jon: Killing Nolan wouldn’t have made it stop. It would just leave it – unsupervised. Martin: John – we are doing good, right? Making things better? Jon: I don’t know if that was ever an option.

173:

Martin: We’ve got to help them. Jon: How? Martin: I – I don’t know! I’m not the one who’s supposed to know everything, alright? There has to be something we can do!

Martin: Wh, What about the Avatar? I know you said it didn’t change anything, th-the domain would still exist, but at this point I don’t care, alright? Anyone who’s chosen to spend their apocalypse tormenting children – God, you need to end them. Now.

Jon: You see? Martin: See what, John; what am I supposed to see? That you don’t want to kill a – thirteen year old kid? Big revelation. Jon: I don’t know what you want me to do. Martin: I want you to use your power. I want you to help them; I want you to make things better! Jon: There is no better anymore. Martin: You keep – saying that, and I hate it! Jon: I keep saying it because it keeps being true; you know that! Martin: What I know, is that leaving children here is – (struggles for words) i-it’s inexcusable; it’s monstrous! Jon: Martin. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will do it!

Martin: Let’s get out of here. Jon: If you’re sure. Martin: The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just – They’ll just need to hang on a little longer.

174:

Martin: You’re removing evil from the world. Jon: I, I’m not though, am I? The tenement fire is still burning. The mortal garden is growing wild. The carousel –

Hypocrisy?

As we see in the quotes above, both Jon and Martin were swept up by the feeling of newfound power and the idea of revenge. For Jon, pessimistic about the state of the world and personally hurt by some of the avatars they encountered on the road, it was mostly about personal vengeance. Martin, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a painful history with the avatars whose domains they pass, and the lack of Beholding-sourced knowledge and despair allows him to hold onto a false hope, making this an ideologically driven crusade.

With this in mind, let’s go back to 194:

Martin: I know what it’s like to be powerless. A-And I know you do too. And I also know what it’s like when you get a taste of– wh-when you’re finally able to–

Jon: What happened to “Kill Bill”? Martin: You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!

These lines sound a lot like regret. Maybe I’m overestimating Martin’s level of self-awareness here, but it seems he has realized they both got drunk on power, and he pushed Jon in a direction he shouldn’t have. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment he puts all blame on Jon instead of taking responsibility for his own actions. Let’s hope that he apologizes later!

To be entirely clear, I think that the way Martin consistently treats Jon like a gun instead of a person in this subplot is in itself a problem. When Jon is ashamed of enjoying vengeance too much, Martin doesn’t like it; when he lets himself enjoy it, Martin disapproves too as we now know. Let’s look at three crucial points in the storyline side by side:

166:

Martin: Sure. Okay, that’s – I mean, that’s really not that complicated, John; I don’t see why you were being so coy about it – Jon: Because I’m ashamed, Martin. Martin: Ashamed?! Jon: Yes! Ashamed of the fact that I just – destroyed the world and have been rewarded for it, the fact that – I can walk safe through all this horror I’ve created like a… fucking tourist, destroying whoever I please. The fact that I… enjoyed it, and… the fact that there are so many others that I want to revenge myself on! Martin: …No; No, I actually think you’re good on that front. Jon: What? Martin: Yeah, I, I, I think we should go for it, get our murder on! Jon: Sorry, what? Helen: Yes, Martin! Martin: Th, This isn’t like it was before! We’re not talking about innocent bystanders in cafes here, Jon; these things are – th-they’re just evil, plain and simple, and right now they’re torturing and tormenting everyone! If you want to stop them and have the power to, then – then, then yeah, let’s do it, let’s go full Kill Bill!

174 (I left in some of the unofficial transcript’s stage directions to keep the picture clear):

Martin:That’s enough. John? Jon: Uh… yes? Martin: Do it. Simon: Uhh… Do what? Martin: Kill him. Jon: Uh – Simon: Hang on. Can he do that? Martin: (forceful) He can, and he’s going to! Simon: Oh! Right! Seems a bit rude, to be honest. Jon: Oh, oh… okay, um. Martin: Jon? Jon: J-Just give me a moment! I, uh, I – Simon: I-In fact, yes! You know what? I’ll, I’ll probably just be going, then – I, I – I’d prefer to keep existing, if it’s all the same to you, uhm – Martin: J-Jon! Jon: I – Simon: (fast) Been lovely chatting to you! Good to see you guys. Feel free to pop by again when you’re feeling less, um, murdery. Martin: (yelling) Jon! Simon: Byeee! Martin: You let him go. Jon: (weary) Yeah. Martin: Why? Jon: Because, uh… uh – Martin: (cutting him off) Why did you let him go, John?

194:

Martin: I know what it’s like to be powerless. A-And I know you do too. And I also know what it’s like when you get a taste of– wh-when you’re finally able to– Jon: That’s not what this is! Martin: I’ve been out there with you. I saw the kick you got out of making them scream for once. Jon: What happened to “Kill Bill”? Martin: You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!

Looks like Martin assumed Jon’s desire for vengeance to be righteous anger. And didn’t like the realization that Jon’s murderous urges -- or his own, in Oliver and Simon’s cases -- are something darker, more personal and irrational.

Conclusion

When Martin had pressured Jon to act, it was done out of hope and idealism (misguided or not, we’ll see). He didn’t simply want Jon to do something -- he wanted him to make the world better. Call it naive, wilfully blind, unfair to Jon -- I’ve had my own share of frustration with Martin this season -- but he has had a very specific and consistent agenda. Sometimes both Jon and Martin are motivated by a personal grudge -- Jon against Not!Them and Jude and Jared, Martin against Oliver and Simon -- but overall, Martin thinks that this quest removes evil from the world.

What Jon proposes in 194 goes against all of Martin’s beliefs and wishes:

The total amount of evil is not reduced

New avatars are created

Jon appoints himself the one and only ultimate judge

By giving in to the Eye:

Jon lets it have what it had wanted all along, lets it win

Jon abandons morality for power

Jon abandons humanity and Martin for the inhuman evil happiness he can’t help but crave

Accepting this is at least as bad as doing nothing at all -- and perhaps even worse.

So I don’t think Martin’s being particularly irrational during the argument. Some of the things he says may be unfair, harsh, even cruel. You can say it was hypocritical of him to accuse Jon of enjoying the killing spree too much, since he was the one who proposed it and kept pushing Jon towards it with great enthusiasm. His “I forbid it” may be naive and childishly petulant, and this mindset might lead him to making bad choices in the future. But I don’t think he was projecting his own feelings onto Jon, or pulling arguments out of nowhere.

#the magnus archives #tma spoilers #mag 194 #martin blackwood #blah blah blah #finished the post right by the time everyone has already moved on. typical

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creativitycache · 4 years

Note

I kind of want J&M to meet another Eye Avatar. The only other Eye Avatar On's met has been Elias, and he is vastly different due to his Failed Ritual powers. Would they be as untethered in the Apocalypse as Jon? Or would they have domains they're unable to leave? That would be interesting, considering the Eye oversees everything, everything is performed for its hunger and is its domain. Maybe, if other Eye Avatars are in domains, that would support your "This was the Web's Ritual" theory

-------

I NEED TO SEE OTHER EYE AVATARS.

Look, I think it’s no coincidence that Jon didn’t find many Eye statements. He had to actively force himself to pick up files that seemed to supernaturally slide out his attention.

Now that sounds very Web like to me, but pre my Web theories and just doodlebop listening around I wondered if the Eye had a consciousness and there was a reason it didn’t like to focus on Eye statements.

I thought it was because refeeding on Beholding trauma might be like eating leftovers, yeah it’ll do but if you’ve got a nice fresh meal it’s not as appetizing.

For laughs I’d tell myself the Eye wouldn’t direct Jon’s attention to Eye statements because it wanted Jon to like it.

Post realizing what the Web was, it seemed to me like the Web was intentionally avoiding allowing Jon to realize just how monstrous the Eye was. Out of all the Powers, the Eye has the second most “justifiable” entry level. You’re just looking. You’re just trying to find out the truth! How could you really be hurting anyone?

(The other Entity that traps people that was the Hunt, the justification there being “I’m making the world better! I’m killing monsters!” which then turns into “I’m killing the bad guys!” which then turns into “I’m killing people”)

We didn’t see any other Eye avatars. We saw the one woman in Beijing, but not if she even was an avatar. We heard about the Beijing and Washington organizations, but we never followed Jon inside.

Could it be that whatever is fueling the tape recorders considers that “boring”? It’s something the Eye already knows. But then again, the Eye knew lots about the Magnus Institute and the tape recorders still popped up when Jon interacted with those assistants.

Anyways going back to your point anon, the fact we haven’t seen ANY Eye Avatars in the real world means we won’t be able to do a full compare and contrast if we ever see them now.

And, do we know for a fact the Avatars are tied to their domains? Or do they just not have a particularly strong reason to leave? This is all pretty new, it makes sense they’d like to stay put and play around rather than wander over to the neighbors for a chat. Do they even want to see other Avatars or domains?

Ironically enough, Jude Perry was the most friendly of the Avatars to other alignments. She was friends with Nikola and Mike Crew.

Elias was a business partner with the Lonely and the Vast, and the Lonely and the Vast would often times have joint partnerships. But Jude was the only one who hung out with other Avatars, that we saw. She was straight chilling with Nikola when that poor plumber came back a second time. I bet that ease of networking helped her a great deal when she was a business woman.

Anyways ANYWAYS, all of this is to say:

-We have a history of something steering Jon away from Eye related statements

-We haven’t come across a single Eye domain, but we’ve passed multiple Corruption ones, and a few domains with tinges of Fleshliness

-Actually, we’ve hit EVERY single Entity, even the Extinction. Oh my god, I hadn’t realized until now.

-The ONLY one missing is the Eye

- We have 18 eps left.

-Jon stated he and Martin were traveling towards “his” domain, gesturing towards the Panopticon.

-We saw Martin almost get stuck in the Lonely domain.

-I doubt they’re going to have us go into an Eye domain, if only for the worry of Jon getting stuck. But it wouldn’t be “his” anyways.

-(Elias Jon is coming for your tower)

-Actually...with Elias in a blind spot, how do we even know he’s in the Panopticon?

-He could be trapped below it, in the twisted ruins of the Institute, in a blind spot possibly of his or the Web’s making

-LEAVING THE THRONE AT THE PANOPTICON EMPTY BUT FOR HIS SIGHTLESS HUSK

-JON DON’T SIT ON THAT. DO NOT PUSH JONAH MAGNUS’S CORPSE THE GROUND AND SIT ON IT, YOUR BOOT HEELS UPON HIS SIGHTLESS SKULL.

TL;DR: I think we’re going to be thwarted from more Eye domains to focus on the interpersonal drama at the Panopticon. OR I’m incredibly wrong and a majority of the domains going forward will be Eye domains...hmmmm....ok I’m hedging my bets and saying:

1. We will get a New Eye Domain, and it will be the only other spoken role. Either that means the woman from Beijing, or Basira.

2. We still need to deal with Helen, the Web, Basira, Georgie & Melanie, and the Panopticon. We will deal with all of the others, THEN we get to the Panopticon, THEN surprise surprise the last episode is a Web episode that explains the whole plot/trap and crushes our hearts

No I’m not hyperfixating because my boss is on vacation and gave me no work, why do you ask?

#tma #the magnus archives #the web #the eye #beholding #the mother of puppets #elias bouchard #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #Asks&Answers #long post #theories

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abduct-me-helen · 4 years

Text

Class 108's Apocalypse Field Trip | Chapter 7.

“Don’t touch that!” Klaus had yelled, stumbling towards Riko with grime on his face. Riko had held a bug in her hands, a beetle, and Klaus had always been fond of those. But she had just looked so angry, Sydney thought, and she didn’t want to intervene. She had been content to continue to climb the tree, observing from afar.

She didn’t know when the small fire had started, or how it had, but it did, and then the beetle was burnt. There was a look of satisfaction on Riko’s face that Sydney remembers she’d found off-putting at the time. Klaus had been angry, but he’d stomped away, leaving Riko alone with the ashes of the beetle. A lighter rested on the ground when they were finally called inside for their next class.

Sydney had never liked that look on Riko, but she’d be lying if she said it was the first time she’d seen it. That, though, was to her knowledge the very first.

“Syd?” Cypress tapped her shoulder, snapping her out of her reverie. Sydney started, leaping back before settling down again.

“Ah, sorry. I’m always a bit jumpy these days.” She said, rubbing her neck sheepishly before she cocked her head to the side in question. “Did you need something?”

“Not really, no, you just looked…” he gestured, trying to find a word, “out of it. You good?”

She nodded sparsely, looking over to the burning building in front of them in discomfort. The scene was an ashy sky full of a sadistic energy. There was screaming, she knew, though these days it didn’t bother her as much as it should’ve. The rest of the class, spare Tabitha and Riko, who had decided to go inside the burning building, were chatting amongst themselves. Well, except for Katie, who was characteristically silent. Sydney had chosen to stray a bit from the group, needing some space to think.

“Just…memories.” She said, and he seemed to understand. Cypress didn’t ask for her to specify; that was something she liked about him, he knew when to not pry.

After a short silence, she spoke again. “Do you remember how Riko used to burn Klaus’ bugs?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I always thought she was crazy since it didn’t really matter.” He shrugged, reminiscing.

“What?” Sydney looked up to him in question.

“Well, they were all gonna die at some point; I didn’t see the reason she was killing them off early.”

Sydney thought to herself, twisting one of her blonde braids that she’d done a few minutes before they entered the Desolation’s domain. “Huh, I’ve never thought of it that way. I guess you’re right, though.”

Cypress grinned. “I’m always right.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” She teased, before pausing. She had been meaning to ask him something that had been on her mind recently. “Do you think there’s…something off with Tabitha?”

Cypress tensed, barely, but it was still noticeable. “About the whole, ya know, listening in on statements thing?”

“Yeah. I just…” she trailed off.

There was a pause of silence, before Cypress spoke again. “Have you talked with anyone else about it?”

“Katie, but no one other than that. I think that Mr. Sims noticed, but I don’t know why he isn’t saying anything.” She shrugged lamely.

“Do you think…” he shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Hm?” she questioned, looking to him curiously.

“Do you think she’s becoming like…like him?” Cypress said, finally.

Sydney thought on it and shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you think it really matters?”

Cypress pondered. “In what way?”

“I mean, she’ll still be Tabitha even if she’s not…human. Or whatever.”

Cypress thought to himself. “You know, you may be right. I wonder how Riko and Tabitha are doing right now.”

“FUCK!” Tabitha screeched as she tripped over her untied shoelaces into some fire. She got out quickly enough that she didn’t burn terribly; it was barely even visible, but it still hurt.

“That’s what you get for coming into a burning building.” Riko shrugged, dusting her off. She seemed to be trying to play it cool, but there was a haunted look in her eyes. Tabitha was about to ask before deciding it would be best to leave it alone, however much it pained her.

“Hypocrite.” She grumbled.

“Sure.” Riko said, shrugging. “It’s just fire, you know.”

“Isn’t that enough?” Tabitha snorted, moving around another burning pillar of fallen wood.

“If it kills you, yeah. But pain is just pain.” Riko told her as she tugged at her turtleneck. That same odd expression came over her once again, before Tabitha broke it up as she spoke once more.

“Oooh, look at me, I’m Riko and I’m so tough! Pain is just-”

“Oh, shove it.”

“Fine. Vomit your horrors.” Martin said, before turning to the two students hesitantly. “And you’re sure about this? It can get graphic…”

When he said that last sentence, it almost seemed dull, and his eyes took on the same dullness as well. Tabitha had noticed that, but she’d decided to wait for more information to bring it up.

They both nodded, and Riko pushed her glasses up.

“We’ll be fine.” She said, looking him dead in the eye in a silent dare to try to stop them. Tabitha hadn’t the same aggression, but she didn’t exactly seem keen to leave either. Martin sighed, hesitating before walking away into another part of the flaming building.

“Limping and desperate, she turns to see her furniture in flames, the bookshelves full of memories that she can’t quite place but knows are precious to her curl and float away as ash. The photos on the wall of her family-”

Rikk was tense, a haunted look coming onto her eyes as she picked at her turtleneck. Tabitha noted this absently, but didn’t comment.

The two listened intently as he droned on, but then Riko seemed to snap up out of nowhere. Tabitha would’ve liked to turn to her questioningly, but she was so enraptured in the tale that she didn’t.

Static began to rise, and still Tabitha didn’t seem to make any note, but Riko certainly did. She turned, watching Martin avoid the flames and shout for them.

“Jon! Tabitha! Riko!” he called, and Riko started trying to shake Tabitha, who was still focused on Jon’s statement.

“-whose faces seem indistinct but she knows that-” Jon continued, and Tabitha still wasn’t reacting as Riko tried to shake her back to herself.

The static rose in volume. “Jon!” Martin called once more, trying to get his attention, now standing right new to Tabitha.

Riko and Martin exchanged looks of worry.

“-she loves, begin to blacken as the glass-” He still wasn’t stopping, and Martin grit his teeth, before coughing as he inhaled thick smoke.

“Come on Jon!” He began to shake the Archive harshly, and Riko tried to pinch Tabitha. Her leg caught on some fire but she paid it no mind, setting it out calmly as she continued to yell in Tabitha’s face.

“You idiot! Snap out of it!” she yelled, now pulling Tabitha’s hair in an attempt to get her free from whatever kept her listening. Tabitha was still unaware, enraptured by the Archive’s words.

“Jon, come on! Come back!” Martin yelled, shaking him even more frantically.

“-this devouring Desolation, and she-”

Then Martin slapped him, and Jon was sent stumbling before he looked up to Martin, whose eyes were wide, and body panting.

“Jon, she’s here!”

Tabitha groggily came back to herself since the statement had passed. She looked up, eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s going-”

A thunder like crackling noise engulfed their ears, and they heard a laughing noise. Jon rose up, stepping in front of Martin and the two students.

“Hello, Jude.”

The woman was short, and her expression was that of sadistic amusement. That was the first thing Riko noticed. Tabitha too, watched her, brows still furrowed as the grogginess seemed to dissipate.

“Fancy seeing you both here.” She spoke sarcastically. “To what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure-the honor-of being graced by the great and powerful Archivist, harbinger of this new world and his…valet? And not just that, two children? Archivist, are they gifts? Your really didn’t have to-”

“Stop. Naturally, we came to see you.” Jon said, and his tone was nearly conversational in its predatory nature.

“Why stop! I am amused. Though one of you more than the other.” She made her way over to Riko, who didn’t even flinch.

“Get away from her, or I will make you.” Jon threatened.

“No need! I won’t hurt her.” Jude lied, taking her wrist and burning it. Riko didn’t flinch as her flesh singed, and instead looked bored and annoyed.

“That was rude.” Riko said, yanking her hand away.

“I will smite you where you stand if you-”

“She really is interesting, this one. Say, where did you get those burns? They’re quite nice.” Jude asked, still focused on Riko.

“Stop it, just. Shut up!” Martin said, getting in between them. Jude scowled.

“Mr. Blackwood, it’s fine.” Riko said, coming out from behind him and approaching Jude. She narrowed her eyes.

“Was it you?” She asked, after a short pause. Jude grinned wickedly.

“Was what me?” she asked.

“My house burned down and it felt like this place does. Was it you?”

“Houses burn. Doesn’t need to be supernatural.” Jude answered conversationally, avoiding the question.

“But it was.” Riko said firmly. “So, I’m asking, was it you?”

Jude looked her up and down. “You seem familiar, but I’ve burned a lot of houses and killed a lot of people. It hardly matters to me.”

Riko nodded, examining her wrist and seemingly not noticing her calf being burned by a flame that had started it. She absently looked down after a few seconds and removed her leg from it.

“Good enough for me. You can kill her now, Mr. Sims.” Riko said, tiling her head. Her eyes gleamed with something akin to malice that Tabitha chose to not acknowledge.

Jude’s eyes widened in fear, and then anger. She grit her teeth, preparing to speak when Jon beat her to it.

“Not yet. Jude, I’m curious, did you know what you were doing?” Jon asked, and an odd sheen of dark amusement fell on his face. The face of a predator.

Martin and Tabitha coughed, smoke surrounding them. Riko seemed unaffected.

“Know about what?” Jude asked, raising an eyebrow boredly, putting on a brave face.

“That marking me would lead to this.”

“No. I had no idea.” She said, hesitating.

“So why did you do it?” Jon asked, putting only a slight bit of compulsion into his voice.

“Why d’you think? Because I wanted to hurt you.,” Martin coughed, “Because you were annoying and I didn’t like you, so I hurt you.”

Jon hummed.

“You’re an asshole.” Tabitha concluded. Riko stayed silent.

Jude grinned.

Martin scowled, gripping onto him protectively. “I’ve heard enough. Do it Jon.”

Jude took a shaky breath. “No need for that! I’m sure we can come to an-”

“No.”

“You’re bluffing, what would be the point-”

“You know I’m not. You’re already afraid.”

“Oh, I see. I get it. You finally get a sniff of power, and the first thing you do is try to settle some old scores. Play the big man; get off on good old-fashioned petty revenge.” She scowled, anger momentarily taking over her fear.

“I’d have thought that was a mindset you would appreciate. Now, feel it. All the terror and pain you’ve inflicted.” The static builds.

“Oh, piss off-”

The static increases, and for the first time, Jude’s fear shows on her face.

“Look, look. Wait. Right? I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have burned your hand.”

“No. You shouldn’t have.” Jon says unforgivingly.

“Please don’t kill me, I-sure, I-we all moan about the Eye; who doesn’t? But-we’ve won, both of us! And that’s great!” She says, breaths coming out harshly in a final plea.

“No.”

“If I’d known, would I still have marked you? Yes. I would. I’m…happy in this world. I belong here. And so do you.”

The static is almost blinding now, overtaking the cacophony of screams. Riko looks on boredly, but Tabitha sees the sadistic glint in her eye increase as Jude’s please begin to get smaller.

“Just die already!” Martin shouts, and Tabitha would cheer if she wasn’t so enraptured.

It takes another two minutes for Jude Perry to end.

No one truly regrets it.

#tma #teacher jon #teacher jonathan sims #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #class 108 #gen z vs the apocolypse

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soveryanon · 4 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG179! TTwwwwwTT

- That was such a short statement! As far as Desolation goes, this one really reminded me of MAG107 for the fear of losing what and who’s precious to you (“What part of his life would he have to burn then? What thing he loved would he have to hurl into the flames? The apprehension is as familiar to him as the scent of burning hair. He knows what it means to wait, and see what he has lost.”), having to contribute to that loss, and the loss being always followed by another loss. I really like how it managed to develop its own implacable rhythm through the cycles of repetition becoming shorter and shorter: the succession of losses, the litany of “I got you”, “he had Colin’s back”/“Derek has his back”, “The first time”/“The second time”/“The third time”… stopping with Daisy’s irruption. It really felt like she was breaking an implacable series of routines – though by inflicting worse. I like how Derek and Colin’s relationship managed to indeed feel so deep, intricate and complicated in such a few lines – with the fact that Colin had helped Derek on so many occasions, including to ensure the disappearance of his father’s body (killed in self-defence while he was being abusive?), and… that gratefulness slowly becoming a burden dragging Derek down (taking Colin’s defence, taking the blame for him, losing more and more, sinking and being pushed even deeper by the “bored cop” – Daisy? – who just made things worse because they could). Their relationship being an anchor in both senses: the help to get out of a situation, and the thing pulling you down. It was already evoking Daisy and Basira’s partnership, already reminding us of Daisy’s crimes, and already indirectly coming for Basira’s throat.

It’s interesting that in this domain, Derek never seemed to have the certainty of the identity of the corpses or items he was incinerating? He worried about Tilly when seeing the toys, but it was not stated whether they were hers, and, in the same way, the corpse was never said to be Colin’s (“Derek doesn’t know the man who lies in the cart, lifeless eyes staring at him from a head split in two by a careless shovel-blow”) although it triggered the memories. Given how concrete Derek’s (life)story sounded before getting trapped in this domain (… which seems to be: the furnace of the junkyard where Colin worked, where the body of Derek’s father disappeared), down to his brush with the police, I wonder if these memories were fabricated by the Domain, or if some bits were genuine bits from his past life? We’ve seen some doubt flickering about whether or not Mehreen really had a family in the Vast domain (MAG174), it could be another case of the Fears creating memories to squeeze the most of their victims… but with Derek, we do have the certainty that he had encountered Daisy before the Change and that she had felt that he had “got away”, since she was hunting him…

(I also got hit by the realisation that… this might be the last Desolation statement/story we ever get in the series; 14-15 Fears means that statistically, each would get 2 to 3 statements per season. We might still get another Something related to the Desolation before the end of the show, about Agnes and/or Hill Top Road and/or the Web lighter and/or the fact that Web seems weak to Desolation and/or about the recurring motif of burning down the Archives… but this could have been the last one. It’s even likelier that we won’t get any more Flesh statement/domain after MAG178’s, and I had not realised when that one aired. It’s weird to think “this might be the last time we hear about x”, since the end of the series is approaching?)

- I’m still wondering about the “death” status:

(MAG177) BASIRA: She’s been killing. MARTIN: What? No – no, that can’t be right. I–I thought people weren’t even allowed to die any more. ARCHIVIST: Not permanently, but, uh… Ah.

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: “… Another victim. Another hunt. The pain and terror courses through him. Derek is still aware as she toys with him, pulls bits from his torso and chews them with a hundred sharpened teeth. He is aware, though not, perhaps, alive.”

We’ve seen her butcher this corpse (and she had been awful with the previous ones, too) – are they meant to respawn? To remain stuck in this state, technically “aware” without being alive? (Though: “aware, though not, perhaps, alive” might be a definition which could apply to… everyone trapped in the domains.)

- Still that thing about the sounds, when Jon gives his statements! It’s naturally been growing stronger: he creates his own soundscape when giving a statement, illustrating the main’s victim surroundings… and that soundscape fades away as soon as Jon is done. Is that a new power developing…? Is it because of dream logic, an extension of his role as a sort of story-teller (he’s supposed to make his audience imagine the sounds, and yet the sounds come to illustrate what he’s saying)…? This one was especially curious because we heard Daisy, who was… currently tearing into a body nearby (but not in the same room as Jon), as if she was present.

- AHAHA.

(MAG179) BASIRA: She’s here, then? ARCHIVIST: [SURPRISED] Basira? I… I–I didn’t hear you, uh… BASIRA: No. I figured you wouldn’t when you were… busy.

It sure feels like something screaming “JON HAS A WEAKNESS, AND IT MIGHT BE USED AGAINST HIM SOON”, in the same way as Annabelle highlighting that Jon was now forced to read a statement until its end once he had begun was followed by Jonah using that trick for his ritual ;; We’ve already seen this at work, how Martin had trouble shaking Jon off from giving a statement, in Jude’s domain; since the episode ended with Jon and Martin going off on their own again… Big Fear that at some point, Jon will come back to his surroundings to discover that Martin is just… gone.

After MAG170 (Martin getting lost in the Lonely house), it looked like Jon and Martin were a bit more cautious about getting separated in domains: instead of leaving Jon completely alone, Martin had stayed quite close or right next to him in a few instances (MAG171, MAG176, and MAG172 although Martin ended up wandering off). In the last two episodes, Basira had initially stayed with Martin: was it an additional security for Jon? I wonder what they’ll go back to, starting next episode – if Martin will stay close, or if they’ll go back to Jon doing his thing in his corner.

- ;________; Basira and Jon’s bantering felt… so nice?

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: I thought you were keeping watch. BASIRA: I was. Watched you sneak away. ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. BASIRA: You apologise too much. ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLING] Martin says the same thing…! BASIRA: [CHUCKLING] Like he’s any better!

They felt like they genuinely liked each other again, were able to share things, even with dry teasing? It didn’t feel like Basira was trying to insult him, but rather that they shared the same sense of humour, here and there…

Jon’s FONDNESS when he explained that Martin tells him the same thing still kills me. AND TO BE FAIR, yeah, this season, Jon and Martin have the tendency to spontaneously say “sorry” for various things… a lot. And sometimes, it’s genuine and important “sorry”, or them apologising for something unpleasant they’re doing! But both Jon and Martin do say it a lot. (And displayed it in this episode, even! Martin apologising over Jon’s leg when performing first aid, Jon once again telling Basira that he couldn’t do anything for Daisy, and that he was “sorry” over what had to happen…)

- I really felt like Jon… wanted to spare Basira a bit, by not forcing her to face what Daisy had done to this victim. Is it because Basira had already agreed to look in the previous two cases, and was now ready to kill her? Because Jon’s point had come across, and that he didn’t want to kick Basira while she was already down and there was no need anymore? He had been way harsher towards her in the previous episode:

(MAG177) MARTIN: Wait. Wait, so… so, she’s hunting down criminals? People who she… thinks got away with stuff? BASIRA: … Sure. ARCHIVIST: Really? As simple as that? BASIRA: What’s your point? ARCHIVIST: What, you think he ended up in Wonderland House at random? We’re just going to ignore it, and write him off as a “nasty piece of work”? BASIRA: We don’t have time for this. ARCHIVIST: Then we should make time. You want to hear how he ended up blinding that man? Because it wasn’t a robbery. He was running away from Daisy, lashing out in a panic. The court believed it. But you believed her… BASIRA: [ANGRY] I told you not to look in my head! ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. And I won’t. But you can’t hunt a monster that you refuse to see.

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: Recognise her… BASIRA: … No… I don’t think I do. ARCHIVIST: That wasn’t a question. It was an instruction, we can’t… move on until you do. […] I told you before, we can’t hunt a monster you refuse to see.

(MAG179) BASIRA: … Why didn’t you want me to hear this one? ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: You weren’t this cagey about the other ones, meaning you wanted to keep this one secret. ARCHIVIST: U–uhh… Hum… BASIRA: Because this one was Daisy’s victim? ARCHIVIST: … Yes. BASIRA: … Didn’t think you knew what the statement was going to be before it happened? ARCHIVIST: I just had a sense of it. BASIRA: So… what? You thought I’d hear he was a murderer and I’d agree with her? Maybe I’d figure she was doing the apocalypse a favour by taking him out? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know what I thought. BASIRA: Sure. ARCHIVIST: I don’t know, alright! I was… I was worried that if you listened, it might feel like an accusation. A–after everything we’ve already talked about, I–I mean… What good would it do for you to hear? What’s in this one that you don’t already know? People have their reasons for doing wrong? The system hurts everyone? … Just seemed kind of… pointless. BASIRA: Yeah. I guess. ARCHIVIST: [SELF-DEPRECATIVE SCOFF] Honestly, I just wanted to avoid this conversation. […] So… You did hear it, then? BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: What, uh… What did you think? Did it… help? BASIRA: With what? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know…! BASIRA: … Me neither.

* So Jon is able to get a sense of what the domain’s statement will be about, before he even starts? Previously, he had known that they were in “Wonderland House” before beginning his statement, but I had the impression he mostly knew what the domain was about – not about… specific victims. It reminds me of what Annabelle had said about him regarding the written statements (MAG147: “I know the summaries have started to confuse you. Where did they come from, when you read a statement fresh? How do you just… sort of know what it’s about, before you even start to read it…?”), and how he had known about the overall subject of Floyd Matharu’s statement before hearing it. Martin only recently called what Jon has been doing in season 5 “make a statement”, and I really wonder if we’ll learn… what Jon is doing exactly, through those, when he overloads and needs to put the stories into words…

* Small things, here and there: in the previous episode, Basira had agreed to open up, had asked Jon for confirmations, had acknowledged that Jon knew the way towards Daisy and that she had to follow him. I like how nuanced it was, from Jon to want to hide this statement from Basira, that he didn’t want to feel like he was “accusing” her by insisting on things Basira had now understood? And how Basira still wants to know why he would do this – is it condescending, is it coming from a place of sympathy, from absolute awkwardness? (And there is something so fragile and precious in the fact that on the one hand, Jon might have wanted to protect Basira from this one; and on the other hand, Basira wanted to know why he would hide from her… but didn’t jump to his throat about it, and mostly wanted to know why?)

* Tiny progress on Jon’s part? Hearing him acknowledge that he didn’t really know his own reasons for wanting to hide this statement from Basira, and that not being treated like a big deal… seems like a tiny step, compared to his Web paranoia from season 4, when Jon was agonising over Beholding and The Web influencing his actions? Doing something and not knowing why, or rationalising afterwards, would usually be pinned on The Web, but it seems like Jon went back to treat it as something natural, that doesn’t need to be inspected further.

* I like how it really feels like Basira isn’t trying to flee anymore? Just… takes it all in, and accepts that Daisy had wronged someone else.

- Aouch, about the mention of the kidnappings ;_;

(MAG179) BASIRA: Should’ve been sneakier, then. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. … Never been my strong suit, has it? BASIRA: How many times have you been kidnapped at this point? ARCHIVIST: That depends if you– … Hm. BASIRA: … Say it. ARCHIVIST: Depends if you count Daisy. [TENSION & BREATHING]

… Because Basira already knew the answer, and used to be much more callous and mean about it in front of Jon:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: Look, I’ve… been where you are. BASIRA: Have you? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I have. Like you’re the only one responsible for everyone, the weight of all their lives on your shoulders: it leads to bad decisions. BASIRA: Yeah, well. When I get myself kidnapped three times in a row, maybe I’ll look to you for advice.

But this episode came after Jon explained how genuinely traumatising Daisy’s kidnapping had been… So it was a bittersweet example of light-hearted banter (Jon and Basira weren’t aggressive! They were joking with each other!) quickly turning sour, accidentally.

- Martin’s Life Is Hard And No One Understands:

(MAG179) [RUNNING FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, APPROACHING] MARTIN: [SLIGHTLY BREATHLESS] Hey-hey! Hey, she’s– she’s, she’s here! [PANTS] BASIRA: What, what? Now? MARTIN: Yeah–yeah, she just… she just tore into a guy, it was…! [SHAKEN] He was, oh, urgh… ARCHIVIST: Yes, we–we understand, Martin.

… Martin found ANOTHER corpse. Gertrude, Leitner, what’s-left-of-Jonah-though-not-technically-a-corpse-since-Martin-was-supposed-to-kill-him, Noah Thomson in MAG177, now this one… Martin, you corpse-magnet.

- Was it Derek’s, since Jon had just given the statement ending with Daisy tearing into him? Did Jon narrate it as it was happening? There is something very curious about the fact that Daisy could interact with both the domains’ victims and our little group – since she ended up injuring Jon, and was shot by Basira. We also got this with Trevor (who was “prey”, but still shot by Basira, who didn’t belong to that domain). Is it a characteristic of Hunters, able to go through the lines in the same way that they had the ability to kill avatars, before the Change? Martin did collide into people/projections last episode (and apologised for it), so it seems like they can interact with victims and not only avatars in the domains, and I wonder if Jon’s power might help them at some point…

- SOB that Daisy’s hunt was not solely about killing the people she labelled as “criminals who got away”. It was about desecrating them, making it as painful as possible (they’re “aware” of what is happening), and… consumption? (She had gotten thinner and had trouble eating towards the end of season 4, is that an echo of it, a way of trying to compensate…?)

- Second gigantic red flag of the episode:

(MAG179) BASIRA: You didn’t think this was worth mentioning!? ARCHIVIST: I didn’t notice, I was talking to you! BASIRA: Fine, whatever.

… The fact that Jon can get distracted and miss information about his surroundings when he’s focusing on something else. It’s extremely Elias-like (it’s how the Archives team had taken him down in season 3), and absolutely feels like something that could get used against Jon at some point…

- I missed Daisy so much, and the first time we hear her live again, she’s reintroduced through the sounds of her EATING THE CORPSE OF SOMEONE SHE JUST KILLED. Cries cries cries.

(Poor Martin: he was audibly upset by the carnage. Too close to Flesh? I remember how Jon had mentioned that he had trouble looking at pictures, in MAG072’s post-statement.)

- Martin’s small interruption made me wonder…

(MAG179) MARTIN: [SUDDEN GASP] [A WOODEN POLE FALLS OVER] [DAISY PAUSES, SNIFFS THE AIR, THEN RESUMES CONSUMPTION] BASIRA: [HUSHED, ANGRY] The hell was that!? MARTIN: Sorry! Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! ARCHIVIST: What happened? MARTIN: I–I thought you were about to fire! BASIRA: So you gasped just in case? MARTIN: Look, it’s a tense situation alright? I don’t know what I’m doing here, I’m not a sniper! BASIRA: Goddamnit!

… if this wasn’t him trying to sabotage the operation because he didn’t want Daisy to die ;_; Though I can absolutely believe that he really just… gasped in advance, because he was too tense. (Also, I LIVE for Martin’s rants about how he’s not equipped to face this kind of stuff.)

… However, meanwhile, Jon was… definitely trying to delay the inevitable:

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: [HUSHED] Is this a good enough angle? We can try and sneak round to the other side of the furnaces. But… then the smoke wouldn’t cover us– BASIRA: It’s fine. Shut up. I just need to focus. ARCHIVIST: … Alright. […] Basira, are you sure you’re up to this? It doesn’t need to be right now. W–we can always… back off, regroup, w–wait for a better situation, one where she isn’t… elbow deep in some poor sod’s corpse. BASIRA: Don’t do that. ARCHIVIST: … Sorry. MARTIN: What am I missing here? BASIRA: He knows, as well as I do, that the only reason we’re even able to get this close is because she’s busy with a kill. There isn’t going to be a better opportunity. MARTIN: … Now or never then. BASIRA: Yeah. I made her a promise. ARCHIVIST: You need to be certain. BASIRA: I am.

I didn’t feel like Jon thought that Basira wasn’t ready, or that the sight was too unsettling for him to bear… but more like it was Jon himself who wasn’t ready for Daisy to be killed, and didn’t want to admit it? While as for Basira, she clearly had progressed towards that resolution:

(MAG164) MARTIN: What’s Basira going to do? [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: She… thinks she’s going to kill Daisy. Like she promised. [STATIC DECREASES] But she’s conflicted. MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see.

(MAG178) BASIRA: [QUIET] … I really am going to have to kill her, aren’t I? ARCHIVIST: There’s no way to bring her back. Not any more. At this point, if I tried to take away her fear… it would destroy her anyway. BASIRA: Am I even going to be able to? ARCHIVIST: Yes. BASIRA: And she stays dead? ARCHIVIST: In this case… yes.

(MAG179) BASIRA: Yeah. I made her a promise. ARCHIVIST: You need to be certain. BASIRA: I am.

(I’m also proud of Martin for immediately asking for clarifications when he was lacking information! … Well, wasn’t exactly the moment to ask, but it’s good that he pointed out, right away, that he was out of the loop. Audience surrogate in action.)

- I lovelovelove TMA’s ability to give tension and also deliver the silliest scenes, while saying so much about its characters:

(MAG179) BASIRA: Would you stop staring at me like that?! ARCHIVIST: Like what? BASIRA: Like you’ve looked inside my head, and you don’t like what you see. ARCHIVIST: If that’s an accusation, then you’re wrong. I don’t do that. [FEASTING SOUNDS STOP] BASIRA: Right. Like you’re suddenly given infinite power and no consequences, and that’s when you decide to start respecting people’s privacy. ARCHIVIST: Is that really so hard to believe? MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Uh… BASIRA: Yeah, Jon. It is. MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys, guys… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] BASIRA: If you have something you want to say god-boy, just say it. MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys… ARCHIVIST: Look. I know it’s hard, and you have your reasons– MARTIN (BACKGROUND): Guys… ARCHIVIST: –but it is not my fault that you can’t bring yourself– MARTIN: [EXASPERATED, HUSHED] Shut up! Both of you! BASIRA: What? MARTIN: She’s gone! ARCHIVIST: Wait, what? … Oh. Oh no…

* It’s being hammered in pretty heavily that Jon is not looking in Basira’s or Martin’s heads.

* OUFT, Basira was absolutely on edge and it showed: she went back to one of her regular accusations regarding Jon’s powers, dating from season 4… with the same unfairness. Back then, Jon wasn’t really able to control his bits of Knowing; it’s not that he has “decided” to respect people’s privacy nowadays, it’s just that he couldn’t really do that back then, and is doing his best to do it now that he can.

* … And it says so much about Basira that she immediately assumes that someone with power would casually abuse it… given her own relationship with Daisy, and what Daisy used to do, who she used to be.

* I live for Basira’s pet names:

(MAG140) BASIRA: By this point, I just assume the Eyeball tells you.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: I told you, I know everything now, more or less. I can see her. With my, uh… BASIRA: … Magic horrorvision? ARCHIVIST: Sure.

(MAG179) BASIRA: If you have something you want to say god-boy, just say it.

* IT REMINDED ME OF ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SCENES!!!

(MAG113) ARCHIVIST: M–Martin! Stop trying to touch the plastic explosive! MARTIN: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. MELANIE: Guys… ARCHIVIST: Just put your hands in your pockets, or… something… MARTIN: Look, I said, I said I’m sorry… MELANIE: Guys! ARCHIVIST & MARTIN: What?

Team Archive, a bunch of adorable idiots.

* It was suuuuuch a cliché scene and I loved it to pieces, with special *chef kiss* to the sound of Daisy’s meal stopping, and Martin’s hushed outburst <3

- Overall, I really love how the scene was… almost underwhelming? It was messy and awkward, it wasn’t heroic and grand, it wasn't an iconic showdown with a mythical creature. It was mundane, didn’t even feel supernatural? Just… a big dog having grabbed Jon and not letting him go, and how it was affecting characters – Jon being in pain, Martin in absolute anguish over Jon, Basira still trying, a few last times, to pull Daisy back to reason.

- Oh, Martin… the fact that his reflex was still to worry for Jon and Jon’s safety:

(MAG179) MARTIN: Let him go! BASIRA: Get out the way! ARCHIVIST: Take the shot! MARTIN: No, you’ll hit Jon! ARCHIVIST: Uh, take the shot Basira! … Uh… [STRONGER GROWLS] Basira! Do it! MARTIN: Don’t!

… even though Jon is the least likely to get permanent damage from anything, and this was their only opportunity? Martin ;_;

- Crying a LOT all through it about… Basira’s attempts to bring Daisy back, although she had discussed the theory already (that Jon couldn’t do anything, that she would have to kill her, that Daisy was “happy” in her current state). But it was more difficult to apply in practice, and it’s heartbreaking that Basira couldn’t help but hope that a positive outcome was still possible:

(MAG179) BASIRA: Daisy, stop! Please. ARCHIVIST: [WHIMPER] [DAISY’S SPEECH IS LOW AND GUTTURAL, EXPRESSED WITH DIFFICULTY THROUGH A JAW UNFAMILIAR TO HUMAN WORDS – SOME CONSONANTS ELONGATED, SOME VOWELS SLURRED] DAISY: [AROUND A MOUTHFUL OF ARCHIVIST] … Basiraaa? BASIRA: Oh, god. Daisy… […] She knows who I am! She recognises me. MARTIN: B–Basira! BASIRA: Daisy, come back to us. You can come back. Please… […] Daisy, please… Jon, can you… Can you do anything? DAISY: Basiiira… ARCHIVIST: [BREATHLESS] I’m sorry, I told you, she’s… she’s too deep. I can’t do anything, not without killing her…! BASIRA: [PLEADINGLY] Daisy. It’s me. Come on, please…

And I HATE THAT I COULDN’T HELP BUT HOPE, TOO, GDI!!! Because Daisy was still listening (in a way) to what Basira was saying, since she released Jon, and since we had cases where it had been possible to bring someone back from the clutch of a Fear (Jon had managed to save Martin from The Lonely by making him “see” him, after all), so I couldn’t help but hope for something of the same kind… even though Daisy had been involved in The Hunt for almost her entire life, and had warned that returning to it would mean her end, and that Jon had explained in the previous episode that no, he couldn’t do anything to save her ;_;

- Crying about how even before Basira explained what Daisy was offering, there was a double-meaning in what she was saying:

(MAG179) DAISY: Basiraaa… C–come… Come on… BASIRA: … What? DAISY: Come. Got to… get them! […] DAISY: Partner. C–come. [STATIC RISES, FAINTLY] BASIRA: … Oh. I see. MARTIN: What? BASIRA: She… She wants me to join her. In the Hunt. MARTIN: What…? Could… Is that even possible? BASIRA: … Yes. I can… feel it. In the blood. ARCHIVIST: [WEAKLY] Basira…

Was it “Come on” as in “fulfil your promise and kill me”, or “come to me / kill them with me”? AND IT WAS THE SECOND ONE, GODSDAMNIT!!

- Extremely curious about Basira’s static: was it a trace of Beholding allowing her to know? Was it the call of The Hunt? Did it only happen because of Daisy and Basira’s connection? Did it only happen because they were each other’s “anchor”, in a very twisted and bittersweet way (just like Colin&Derek in the statement, the thing stabilising and saving you… and the think that can also drag you down and under)?

I’m not surprised that Basira had the potential in her to answer the call of The Hunt (down to hearing the Blood): she behaved like a Hunter in season 4 especially, and was on Daisy’s trail for all of this season, after all. But I’m sobbing about how instead of saving Daisy, the other possible outcome would have been for Basira to fall into The Hunt’s clutch, too – that until the end, there was still this echo of Basira and Daisy being “partners”, being identified as such by everyone:

(MAG082) MARTIN: I… I’m making a statement. Isn’t that what you want? My statement? DAISY: No. I just need you to answer the question. MARTIN: Oh. Okay. I mean, y–you wanted a statement last time. About… it was… when I found Gertrude. Or at least your partner did. […] ELIAS: And then they don’t ask any questions, as long as you keep it far away from official police channels. Except your partner leaving has made you sloppy. No notes, no proper interrogations, no back-up of any sort.

(MAG088) MARTIN: Well, I’m sure your partner will find him; I just hope she’s not as– BASIRA: No, I need to find him now! You’re sure you don’t know where she is?

(MAG092) ELIAS: She’s quite the killer, your partner. All in the public good, of course.

(MAG112) BASIRA: How about you? DAISY: Elias is… keeping me busy. Hunting. Takes a while. [FALTERS] I’m used to working… with a partner. … It’s fine. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: It’s fine. BASIRA: Right. … But it’s not, though, is it? […] DAISY: Fine. … Maybe you could ask Elias if you can join me on a case?

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I think Basira is the same, she’s coming along to back-up Daisy, or so she says. I–I, I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone. […] BASIRA: But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. We go in, we plant bombs, we leave we blow it all to hell. Or, we die. I don’t think I’ll ever have clarity like that. Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.

(MAG142) DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes.

… but in the negative way. When it comes to Basira&Daisy as a relationship, there is something extremely sad in the fact that they never managed to have the willingness to improve and “be better” at the same time: Daisy did it in season 4, when Basira was too obsessed with trying to compensate for her powerlessness and refused to hold Daisy accountable for her past actions; and Basira did it, early in her police career when she first thought about quitting, and in season 5 when she finally acknowledged the damage she had caused or allowed to be caused, when it was too late for Daisy.

I wonder if Daisy, as a beast, wasn’t a concentration of her most toxic traits? We know that she was punishing people whom she identified (pre-Coffin) as criminals that had gotten away. Her last attempt to drag Basira with her in this Hunt really feels… like a last attempt to get back the relationship they had as colleagues and partners? She had mentioned that she missed working with Basira, in season 3 (to the point of considering asking Elias to allow them to work on a case together)…

- ;_; Goodbye, Daisy…

(MAG179) BASIRA: I can’t leave her like this, she’s… always had my back. Always. MARTIN: Basira, don’t, please… DAISY: Partner… Come… [MORE FOOTSTEPS] BASIRA: … Not now. Not after everything. DAISY: [IMPATIENT] Basira, now! BASIRA: I… can’t…! DAISY: Basira! [GUNSHOT] [SNARLING] [TWO MORE GUNSHOTS] [DAISY COLLAPSES, DEAD] [THE DISTANT RUMBLE OF MACHINERY CONTINUES] [SILENCE BUT FOR BREATHS] MARTIN: … Basira, I– BASIRA: Shut up. MARTIN: … I’m sorry, I–I know– BASIRA: [DANGEROUSLY] Shut. Up.

* Same as with Daisy’s “Come on”, I got that doubt about whether was Basira’s “I can’t” meant “I can’t kill her”, or “I can’t join her in The Hunt”…

* Basira’s “she’s always had my back” HURT A LOT after Derek’s statement (“When the police came hassling them, he had Colin’s back. When some little dipshit didn’t show the proper respect, he had Colin’s back. When Colin needed someone by his side for a smash and grab, Derek had his back.”)… but it also demonstrated the difference, beautifully: the fact that Basira was now able to say Stop and No when it was going too far, the fact that she refused to keep being complicit.

* Basira rejecting The Hunt felt, to me, like Martin rejecting The Lonely in the house? They had the opportunity to take an “easier” path, less painful, allowing them to forget about the hurt they had suffered… and chose differently.

- Basira shot once, then twice.

So three shots in total.

Was it Alex’s audio revenge for the “Turns out Gertrude was too much of a badass to die from just a single gunshot” debacle. (=> Three bullets in total, but only one at first, and the other two happened, uh, at some point off-tape.)

- Martin exploding the Swear Budget and taking the lead this season if you don’t count per episode but per occurrences! /o/

(MAG179) BASIRA: I… Sure, just… let him go. [LOW SNARL FROM DAISY, THEN RELEASES THE ARCHIVIST] ARCHIVIST: [COLLAPSES WITH A GRUNT] MARTIN: Oh, Jon! Oh shit, shit–shit–shit! Okay, okay, okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. [MARTIN BEGINS FIRST AID] ARCHIVIST: Ah, ah, ah…! MARTIN: I’m sorry! Sorry! Sorry, you j–, you need to keep pressure on that leg while I, I sort this, hum…

(SOB ABOUT MARTIN’S “I got you”… also paralleling Colin&Derek (“I got you.” That’s what Colin had always said to him when they were kids. And he had always meant it. When Derek needed somewhere to stay when his dad was on the warpath: “I got you.” When Derek needed a little something to take the edge off: “I got you.” When the lifeless body of Derek’s father lay at the bottom of the stairs, limbs folded around the cricket bat he had hit him with: “I got you.”) On so many levels, it really feels like relationships can so easily become twisted and mutually toxic, or pushing people towards worse; the main difference we saw with Jon and Martin is that, meanwhile, they’ve actively communicated and tried to be better for each other, and navigate around principles, but it feels so easy to tip over the line…)

- Crying over Basira hours:

* It was a Desolation domain; the case that got her Sectioned (which stopped her from resigning when she had been thinking about it, and reinforced her ties with Daisy) had been a Desolation incident. (MAG043) Talking about loss, and Basira closing a chapter…

* … The event that directly led her to signing away her freedom to the Institute had been her saving Jon from Daisy (MAG091). When they reunited, out of anger, she said that she regretted having saved Jon back then (MAG177: “I should’ve known, I… I should’ve just let Daisy take you out at the start.”), and yet… she saved him from Daisy once again. This time by killing her.

- CRYING OVER JON HOURS:

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: Is it… Is it awful that I wish she’d recognised me? MARTIN: Daisy? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. I mean, she was… We were friends there, sort of, near the end. We went through so much and it just… I wish I could have actually said goodbye. MARTIN: Would it have made you feel any better about any of it? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know. Maybe? It’s hard to know how I feel about… anything these days. [SILENCE] MARTIN: We said our goodbyes to Daisy after the institute. This was just… This was just dealing with all the stuff she left behind. ARCHIVIST: … I suppose.

… I’m not so sure that she hadn’t recognised him. Amongst the three of them, it’s him that Daisy… so she might have been identifying him as “prey/criminal/monster who got away”… ;_;

I’m glad (AND SAD) that Jon acknowledged the fact that they had grown close in season 4, THAT THEY WERE “FRIENDS”, and heartbroken that he… is indeed hit by the lack of closure.

But what about Basira? True, Daisy “recognised” her, but it was… to try and drag her along into her monstrous life. As far as last words go, Basira did get a kind of goodbye, however:

(MAG158) DAISY: [PANTING] Mm, Basira… When this is over, you need to find me… and kill me. Promise me. BASIRA: No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out! NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] You can’t hide forever, Jon. DAISY: [PANTING] These last months, I… it was always borrowed time. Can’t outrun it forever. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: [PANTING] Promise me. BASIRA: … I promise. DAISY: Thanks. [BREATHLESS] Now, run…! BASIRA: Daisy…! DAISY: [GROWLING] Run!

Compared to Jon:

(MAG158) ARCHIVIST: What…? No! I– BASIRA: Don’t argue, just go. NOT!SASHA: [IN THE DISTANCE] Jooo–oooon~? ARCHIVIST: … Fine. Just don’t die. DAISY: Go.

… Or even worse, Martin:

(MAG144) MARTIN: Just leave. DAISY: Sorry? MARTIN: [INHALE] Get out. DAISY: Oh. Right. Sorry, I didn’t– MARTIN: It’s not difficult! Just get out! DAISY: Fine. … Fine. Just thought you– MARTIN: No! No, you didn’t! [DOOR OPENS] We’re not… we’re not friends, Daisy! None of us are! We’re all just trapped together, here, and–and kidding ourselves that we don’t hate it! Christ, there are more important things than, than “feelings”– DAISY: [INCREDULOUS EXHALE] MARTIN: –right now, all right, so just… leave me alone! For good! [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY AGGRESSIVE WRITING] DAISY: … Right. You got it.

I mean. Martin and Daisy only had One Good ConversationTM, but Martin. Martin, please. It was blatantly to protect Daisy from Peter, but your last words to her had basically been telling her to fork off.

- I feel like Martin might be trying to compartmentalise now but about to shatter soon, because… he had mentioned being happy at the prospect of “helping” their “friends” back in MAG175. I agree that in Daisy’s case, helping and leading Basira to fulfil her promise was the best they could hope for, but it’s still… absolutely grim. Since they left the cabin, they’ve not helped victims, not even children, they’ve discovered that Jon’s powers were incredibly powerful but also making him “worse”, they’ve helped Basira to kill Daisy and… that’s it. Jon had told Martin that there was no “better” in this world, and it’s hard to disagree, with how things are right now.

Is Martin still firmly believing that the Institute will be different, that they can do something to help? Or will he grow a bit more desperate? Susceptible to Annabelle’s call, or to try to contact her to accept her “help” because he feels like their options are dwindling…?

- Oh, about Jon getting patched up…

(MAG179) [A BAG IS UNZIPPED] MARTIN: Come on. I need to patch that leg up properly, the last thing we need is a limp slowing us down. ARCHIVIST: [GRUNTS AND GASPS] MARTIN: Of course, that’s assuming the bandages haven’t transformed into snakes or something. ARCHIVIST: [DISTRACTED] Hmm? No, they’re, they’re fine. MARTIN: I’d forgotten we had them to be honest. I packed them before I realised what a celebrity you were out here…! ARCHIVIST: [DRY CHUCKLE]

* ;_; Parallel to their first “heart-to-heart talk”, in MAG039: when Jon had been wormed, specifically in his leg, and Sasha and Martin took care of it…

* Martin remembers the not!tea from the trailer, uh. (He was also the only one to read a statement involving snakes-like spooky creatures!)

* … Martin, that’s a lot of thread-like things you’re carrying or mentioning this season:

(MAG162) MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps.

(MAG178) MARTIN: … Yeah. I guess. [INHALE, EXPLOSIVE EXHALE] God, I hate all of these… loose ends…! ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry. MARTIN: It’s, it’s fine. [INHALE] We’ll just have to tie them all up in one go! ARCHIVIST: Hm? MARTIN: [SIGH] Around Elias’s neck.

(MAG179) MARTIN: Of course, that’s assuming the bandages haven’t transformed into snakes or something. […] I’d forgotten we had them to be honest. I packed them before I realised what a celebrity you were out here…!

This is how Web!Martin can still w-

(Though, genuinely, I’m a bit… suspicious that Martin hadn’t mentioned them until now and had “forgotten” he had them, and that Jon was ~distracted~ when he was talking about them? Had Martin really packed them before they left the cabin, or is that something he packed later during the journey, without noticing, such as when he was in the Web domain…?)

- THIRD big red flag regarding Jon’s powers in the episode:

(MAG179) MARTIN: I, I was starting to think I’d never need them. I’m surprised she could hurt you at all…! ARCHIVIST: Yes, that… came as a bit of a shock to me as well, actually…! MARTIN: You didn’t know? ARCHIVIST: I didn’t think to check, just, sort of… assumed it was safe. MARTIN: That’s a pretty big assumption, Jon! ARCHIVIST: Hmm, apparently. I mean, I know it sounds strange but it… it… felt right for Daisy to be able to hurt me. MARTIN: Dream logic again? ARCHIVIST: Mmm. The… “resonances” from our relationship before the Change carried over and– Ah! Ah…! MARTIN: Hold still.

… A clear limitation in his pseudo-omniscience/all-knowledge is that he can… still assume (incorrect) things. That’s pretty big, as far as his knowledge goes: this means he has to actively think about checking things before they happen. What more may have gone under his radar already…?

* I’m not sure specifically why Daisy was able to hurt him. Jon had explained that:

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.

Was it because she had hurt him so deeply in the forest, reviving that pain? Was it because they used to be friends, and Jon knew he was going to lose her, and only people Jon cares about can hurt him? Was it because of the mix of trauma&friendship, specific to her, that Daisy was bring with her?

* SOB over the fact that Daisy hurt him AGAIN… and had given him his Hunt mark in the forest… It wasn’t the first time they had interacted, but…

* Given the amount of things that run on dream-logic, and given how the Fears interact with their victims, it really feels like humans are both subjected to the Fears and shaping the world, themselves? I wonder if they’ll get some agency back through “feels right” logic, or if even that would get denied since, well, the Dread Powers work through pain and suffering, not… to help in anything.

* … Martin, please, was it accidental or did you squeeze hard because Jon was mentioning having an Important Relationship with someone else. (MARTIN BLEASE…)

- ;_; I’m not extremely surprised by Basira closing up and needing to do her mourning/to find her closure on her own… but it still breaks my heart so much, in the way she alternated between trying to be firm and dry, and pleading:

(MAG179) BASIRA: I’m… going to stay here. Burn the body. ARCHIVIST: Of course, we can wait. I still need to, uh… BASIRA: No. You go on. I’ll make my own way to London. [A BAG IS ZIPPED] MARTIN: … What? N–no, don’t be daft, it’s not a problem for us to wait while you deal with this! BASIRA: Please. Just go. MARTIN: … Wait… Seriously? ARCHIVIST: Basira, if you travel on your own, if you’re not with us, I… can’t guarantee your safety. BASIRA: Good. MARTIN: Basira, getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help anyone. BASIRA: It’s just… something I have to do. … You said follow the tower, right? ARCHIVIST: Right. MARTIN: No, no, this is ridiculous, you could die! BASIRA: I’ll do my best not to. MARTIN: This isn’t a joke, Basira! ARCHIVIST: Martin, this is what she needs. MARTIN: No, no! I–it’s…! BASIRA: It’ll… MARTIN: It’s completely– BASIRA: It’ll help me. All going well, I’ll meet you both in London. He’ll know where to find me. […] [SOFTLY] Martin. Please. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … [SIGH] You’d better look after yourself. BASIRA: I will. ARCHIVIST: [GENTLY] Come on. [FOOTSTEPS] [INHALE] For what it’s worth… I’m sorry it had to work out like this. BASIRA: … I’m not.

* Confirmation that Jon seems to have been protecting Martin and her from the domains’ influence so far, as long as they stayed close to him?

* “Basira, getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help anyone.” => mix of “who’s talking.” and “MARTIN. HAS. LEARNED!” (It’s what he did all through season 4 ;w; He knows that from personal experience…)

* I’M HAVING FEELINGS over that tiny Martin-Basira soft moment… gosh… (I’m remembering how Basira had been very cautious and defensive of Martin when she had explained to Jon that Martin had had a bad time… because he had lost his mother, at the beginning of season 4, and how she had clearly seen that it had impacted him… She was often harsh towards him, but she wasn’t heartless…)

* So Panopstitute is now a shared goal AND the point where they will supposedly meet up.

* Overall: I want to believe that Basira will be okay on her own journey, aaaaaaaaaah ;_; Clearly in pain, but I want to hope that she’ll be fine on her own, and getting a bit better…

* Proud of Jon for explicitly asking Basira’s permission to watch/know about her ;_; Consent! (And he’s worried, too!)

* I wonder if Jon’s leg was truly healing, as he claimed, since we didn’t hear static that would suggest a supernatural healing speed? It is truly getting better, or is he hiding the pain and injury since they have to leave now? (… Given the overall dream logic, I would almost expect the injury to not heal as long as Jon doesn’t truly process Daisy’s death, but we’ll see.)

* Sob for how Basira&Jon joked about his apologising too much… and the episode ended with Jon apologising over what had happened.

- H… Hey… Daisy was officially an Archival Assistant since season 4, since she had signed the contract in order to get rid of the dreams… So the curse of “one Assistant dies every odd-numbered season” has already been fulfilled, right…? So there doesn’t need to be any more death in the team this season, right? So there won’t be another Assistant death ever, unless Jonny writes a season 7, RIGHT…?

- Goodbye Daisy ;_; You were amazing in season 4, I couldn’t help but still cross fingers that there was a sliver of hope to get you back once again, and I’m SAD for you (and for Basira), and I hope that you can finally “listen to the quiet” again ;___;

Time to relisten to season 4 and think about you making Jon listen to The Archers.

I’m TwwwwT super sad (in a good way) about Jon lamenting that he would have liked to be able to say his goodbyes to Daisy, and acknowledging that they had been close (“FRIENDS”!!!), kinda hoping that the page is not turned (and-then-we-never-talked-about-Daisy-ever-again) but that instead the loss will cling to them a bit and that there will be Sadness about it. It’s… still a death, it’s still a loss, it’s still something that hurt and stung! ;w;

- … I feel like there might have been some implication contained within the fact that they agreed to kill Daisy in the current circumstances…? Jon said that he couldn’t do anything for her anymore because she was “too deep” in; but they chose to do it now, meaning that… she couldn’t have got better when/if they manage to turn the world back and stop the apocalypse. So either they’ve slowly grown accustomed to thinking that the world can’t get better, either… Daisy wouldn’t have survived anyway if the world were to be “fixed” and freed from the clutch of the Fears. So what does that mean about Jon, who is absolutely deep into Beholding? What would happen to Jon, the Archivist, the Archive, if the world was to be saved? Could he survive a Change Back, or would he just disappear like the Fears?

(- For once, I’m actually a bit surprised at the title since… “Accomplice” worked for the statement, it worked for Basira&Daisy’s relationship as it used to be, but it wasn’t really applying to Basira anymore – this is precisely the episode where she definitely refused to go back to being an “accomplice”. “Partner(s)” had been the word characteristic of Daisy&Basira’s relationship and would have been the title I would have expected for this episode, given their dynamic.

… So instead, it makes me whimp out the red string, and consider that the “accomplice(s)” might not have been the obvious ones. Can’t help but *SQUINT* at Martin this episode, because:

* We know that Basira and Martin talked about something in MAG178 when Jon was giving his statement, and we don’t know the details of it.

(MAG178) MARTIN: –I know, I know you find it hard whe– … Done already? ARCHIVIST: Yes. […] MARTIN: I was just… giving Basira some advice. ARCHIVIST: [GOOD-NATURED] Avatars are from Mars and humans are from Venus, that sort of thing? MARTIN: [TINY CHUCKLE] I mean… yeah? Sort of? ARCHIVIST: [BRIEF CHUCKLE] MARTIN: Well, w–we were pretty much done anyway.

(And in the same way: we don’t know for sure what happened to Martin when he ended up wandering off into The Web’s domain in MAG172. Did he tell Jon the whole story about it? Or did something happen that he managed to hide?)

* Last few episodes have been extremely insistent in reminding us that Jon is making active efforts to not look into Basira’s and Martin’s heads at all:

(MAG177) BASIRA: … What’s it like? Being with someone who can see the inside of your head? MARTIN: Hm? Oh! Oh no, he doesn’t. I told him not to, and so he tries to… look away? BASIRA: And you trust him to do that. MARTIN: [DECISIVE] Yes. I do. […] BASIRA: [ANGRY] I told you not to look in my head! ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. And I won’t.

(MAG178) ARCHIVIST: Yes. [INHALE] Talking about me? BASIRA: … I assume that’s a rhetorical question. ARCHIVIST: I am trying to keep my powers to myself.

(MAG179) BASIRA: I am. [BASIRA TAKES AIM AGAIN, HESITATES AGAIN] Would you stop staring at me like that?! ARCHIVIST: Like what? BASIRA: Like you’ve looked inside my head, and you don’t like what you see. ARCHIVIST: If that’s an accusation, then you’re wrong. I don’t do that. [FEASTING SOUNDS STOP] BASIRA: Right. Like you’re suddenly given infinite power and no consequences, and that’s when you decide to start respecting people’s privacy. ARCHIVIST: Is that really so hard to believe? […] BASIRA: All going well, I’ll meet you both in London. He’ll know where to find me. ARCHIVIST: So, you won’t mind if I check up on you sometimes? BASIRA: If you must! But don’t overdo it. I don’t like being watched. ARCHIVIST: Understood.

* Martin was mostly fine about the concept of betraying the trust of someone you like and care for, as long as it’s in ~their best interest~:

(MAG176) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] I don’t like betraying someone’s trust like this. MARTIN: It’s not a betrayal if you’re doing it to help. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I’m not so sure…! MARTIN: Look, if it was me in her shoes, I’m sure I’d forgive you. It–it’s for the best!

* Jon’s joke about “Methinks the Spider doth protest too much…!” (MAG167) when Martin asked him not to look inside his head… reminds me of the way the gang managed to convince Elias that it was in his best interest for Martin not to come along to the Unknowing, in MAG116: Martin’s offense and protests were staged in order to make it pass as innocuous that he would stay behind at the Institute; Jon asked for Martin to stay, but they needed Elias to feel like it was partly his own decision, hence Martin’s protests. Back then, we didn’t know that Elias had made a bet with Peter (so it’s unclear whether he was factoring in Jon potentially dying and his need for a back-up, or if it was mostly motivated by the fact that Martin had to stay alive in order to set up Jon’s Lonely mark), but the situation still is very reminiscent of the end of MAG179: character A makes a decision, Martin protests and tries to argue, until character B steps in to validate A and Martin has to agree with the others… about something that was A’s and his plan from the start. It’s basically Martin’s modus operandi, that he also used to make Elias focus in him in MAG118 (spilling his frustrations and pains) and to keep Peter’s attention on him during season 4 (genuinely wanting to stop The Extinction, being susceptible to The Lonely, but not wanting to serve Peter’s plans). Always mixing his genuine feelings in with some deception, to hide his endgame intentions.

… So what if, in the same way, Basira&Martin’s little opposition here had been staged because they needed Basira to be out of Jon’s radar for a while, and for Jon to feel like that was natural…?

(Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t believe that Martin is secretly evil or working against Jon; if Martin is currently plotting something, I really think it would because he needs Jon to not know about it (because of Jon’s status as the lynchpin of the apocalypse and The Eye’s favourite), and/or because it will require Martin to take risks and he knows that Jon would protest that. Overall, it’s surprising that, for now, Martin doesn’t explicitly have a plan – he’s been following Jon and seems to be focusing all his hopes on the Panopticon – while he used to be planning and scheming so easily before. So what if there was actually something currently in progress, in the blind spot of Jon’s vision and near-omniscience…?))

- Anyway, the points that Jon is not looking into Basira’s nor Martin’s heads, that he is distracted when talking with someone or giving a statement (… really reminiscent of Basira in season 3 explaining how Elias wasn’t able to focus on anyone and anything else when using his powers to traumatise Melanie, uh…), and that he can assume things that end up working out differently (so can think erroneously as long as he hasn’t thought to Know about it and asked the good questions to his pool of knowledge)… definitely feel like something about this is going to come back to bite them in the ass later. ;;

I have HIGH HOPES for EMOTIONAL PAIN with MAG180’s title! =D I’m thinking about grief and mourning – could be the occasion to get an episode a bit like MAG167, Jon “giving the statement” of people from before the Change? Maybe not even solely about Daisy, but about all the assistants&friends (Sasha, Tim, Gerry, Daisy) they have lost since signing up for the Archives? Or Jon and Martin thinking about the kind of internal/emotional/psychological journey they have to accomplish in order to reach the Panopticon, whether or not there is something preventing them from reaching it, in the same way that Basira had to face Daisy’s crimes and “see the monster” to be able to catch up to her?

If there is a domain: Vast and Buried could work in a very physical sense, End could fit too…

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