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loan-hh · 2 years

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Ranking the Madrigals

I'm going to preface this by saying that if I could put everyone in the first place, I would. But then it wouldn't be a ranking so what would be the point. Obviously this is entirely subjective, if you disagree with anything feel free to comment I'll be happy to discuss since I'm not too sure of some of the places myself.

1. Mirabel 🦋

This is unusual since I always end up caring very little about the main character but she is genuinely so well done

Honestly I just relate to her a lot

Waiting on a Miracle has become one of my favourite songs and I don't think I'm able to listen to it without crying

Expresses the neurodivergent experience wonderfully, whether intentionally or not

The part when she sees herself in the vision breaks me :(

Love the fact that she decorated her whole dress

I'm constantly changing first place because I just can't decide between her and Bruno, this is technically illegal but they should share first I'm sorry

2. Bruno 🐀

Relatable AND funny AND well developed AND adorable AND has apparently neurodivergent traits? king

We all know why he is this high I just want to hug him

Love how he has nothing to do with the expectations built around him

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jonathan Sims but his stupidity makes him cute instead of messing up everyone's plans

I, also, want to disappear and become a cryptid that lives with animals and mumbles nonsense to his imaginary friends

Not meaning to make this personal but like, the fact that he thinks his family is better off without him is such a mood

Eye horror mmmmm

Also a creative mind

Green is my favourite color :)

And Bruno is one of my favourite names I literally would have named myself that if it wasn't for the fact that I already knew someone with that name in my social circle

The rats are a plus

3. Alma 🕯

Alright, I know this one will probably be a bit controversial

She's one of the most complex characters in the film and I appreciate that so much

I don't like when people villanize her. Yes she obviously made huge mistakes but the whole point of her arc is that she realizes this and changes for the better

She isn't evil, everything she does comes from a place of fear from past experiences

When I think of her I think of her younger version because during the whole first part of the movie her present version is made to look like an antagonist, which is fine, it's how stories work otherwise there would be no arc or it would be meaningless

The image of her screaming brings me to tears everytime, everything Mirabel says about her at the end is so true. She went through so much completely on her own

And everything she does is to protect her family, even if she had to realize that it was doing the opposite.

4. Antonio 🐆

Cute but competent

Has the best gift and the best room

Honestly I just envy him. So much.

Extra points for being the kid™ without being annoying or just a brainless prop and actually having a role

5. Camilo 🎭

Killer dance moves (like everyone in the family but he is just extra expressive)

Funny

Love his singing voice

Also got the best verse in the entire film, or he made it the vest verse

I just like his design ok

Reminds me of my actual cousins

His gift is cool but I would rank him higher if he had more development

sEVEN FOOT FRAME RRRRATS ALONG HIS BACK-

6. Luisa ⚖

Overwhelmed gifted team

She's only here because of how much I relate to her internal challenge bc until I saw her song I honestly didn't care much

I think the fact that every time she is upset it's portrayed mostly in a humorous way makes me feel a bit more distanced compared to other characters

7. Agustín 🎹

I have no arguments for this I just really really like him

Dumb (affectionate)

He's so genuinely supportive I love him. I think he's the first who actually tries to make Mirabel feel understood since he puts himself in her place through his own experience

Also I just love the fact that he is called Agustín? like that feels like such a common name here but at the same time I would have never expected to see it in a piece of media. Honestly I think if it wasn't for this film I would have thought it was just an Argentinean name

Sing me a song piano man aw yeah

8. Dolores 🔔

Love her voice and how she sort of whispers when she sings

Also has an awesome verse and I love her dance in the wood step thingy

Would have liked to see more of her arc as well, so much potential

I love me some pining

I just feel like she is super gentle and understanding yet it isn't her whole purpose so she isn't just reduced to an attempt of a perfectly kind character and is actually fun and flawed

9. Pepa 🌦

Again. Please give me more development

There is just so much implied struggle with how she has to constantly repress her emotions and I really wish that had been explored the same way it was with Isa and Luisa

So expressive. Star aunt potential

(Star aunt is what I call my favourite archetype for female characters, examples are Natiqa from The Arcana and Kyra from Our Life)

10. Isabela 🌺

I have to admit that I straight up disliked her, maybe hated her until What Else Can I Do, because she was mean to Mira and I felt super defensive over her the first time I saw the movie

Obviously I like her final version a lot more

I also didn't care for her power at first because it seemed to be focused only on the flowers but damn the carnivorous plants yes please

Reminds me a bit of Nadia from The Arcana but that is partially because a friend of mine is obsessed with both of them and it led me to make that connection

11. Julieta 🥟

(I know that's a dumpling just pretend it's an empanada ok)

So loving so caring so competent

Love the fond exasperation when helping Agustín

I just feel like she was made to be a perfectly caring protective figure and doesn't have space for complexity outside of that

12. Félix ☀

Sorry king someone had to be last

Definitely feels like an uncle I could have

Such a good husband his dynamic with Pepa seems so fun and real

Honestly I just don't have much to say, there's a reason I left him for last

#disney encanto #the madrigal family #La familia Madrigal #Ranking #Opinion #mirabel madrigal #bruno madrigal #alma madrigal #antonio madrigal #camilo madrigal #luisa madrigal #agustin madrigal #dolores madrigal #pepa madrigal #isabela madrigal #julieta madrigal #felix madrigal

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aerialflight · 3 years

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Fic Recs (cause it's always nice to give a shout out and get people into things I'm into rn)

[The Magnus Archives] (I recently finished the podcast and I fell into a hole for a while so here you go)

Sing a Song of Sixpence by Kaiel

Ship: Jon/Martin

In which Jonathan Sims is a Siren, and he fails to notice any new abilities granted to him by the position of Archivist. Or really anything about the Entities at all.

Takes place in season 1 featuring Jonah Magnus’s slow decent into madness

(The new mythology interwoven with tma's worldbuilding is so freaking good and I love how all the characters change and develop because of these changes. Also, f you Elias)

Along Came a Spider by Dribbledscribbles

Ship: implied Jon/Martin

Sasha James is the Archivist, as expected. Martin Blackwood is menaced by Jane Prentiss, as expected. Elias Bouchard weaves his web, as expected.

All goes as it should.

At least until something calling itself Jonathan Sims steps in.

(Web!Jon in this makes me want to weep, it's so freaking good. A pretty long, very excellent oneshot on what could've happened if Jon got taken by the web when he was a kid. And Sasha as the Archivist is ALWAYS so cool, we love her in this house.)

A Break in the Clouds by Ash_Rabbit

“I’m eight.” the kid sniffs as if eight was any different from four, maybe not an unspeakable horror then, just a regular horror. “And I heard that the Magnus Institute deals with-” his little nose scrunches, cute. “-spooky things.”

“Do you have a-” he cracks a grin, and then rethinks it as small hands tighten against their burden.”-spooky thing to deliver?” gods he hopes not, it’s bad enough when adults walk in and lay out all of their baggage, but for a child-

“There’s a spider in this book.” the kid says solemnly, raising his textbook sized parcel. “It ate Evan Pritchard.” a bloody fucking Leitner. Of course an eight year old would find a murder spider book. “This seemed like the best place to bring it.”

(I never thought about what the Original Elias could've been like AND NOW I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF THIS FIC. I LOVE HIM, HE'S COMPLEX AND HE CARES AND JON CARES AND THEY BOTH CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. THIS IS THE CONTENT I WANT, OMG. Also, Jon being even smaller than usual is adorable, so cute. No wonder Elias wants to hug him, a LOT.)

See the Line where the Sky meets the Sea by The_Floating_World

Ship: Jon/Martin, Jon/Oliver Banks

When Jon is a child he looks into the infinite abyss of space. The Vast looks back into him.

(One of my all time fave fics in this fandom, no questions asked. I have reread this three times and am open to doing it again, god. Vast!Jon, such a concept. It's written so beautifully and the relationships Jon develops, so good. ugh. My heart. Please please read.)

Sweet As Roses by Prim_the_Amazing

Ship: Jon/Martin

“Come in, Martin,” he says, not looking up from his notes.

“Hi, Jon,” he says, and Jon stops writing at the sound of his voice. “We’re out of the green tea, but we’ve got lemon?”

Jon looks at him. Martin smiles at him in his usual tentative way as he sets the mug of tea down on Jon’s desk. Heat spikes so sharply in his gut that he twitches with it.

“Thank you, Martin,” he says, mouth dry, and he stands up.

“Oh,” he says, sounding almost surprised. He smiles again. “No-- no problem-- um, what are you--”

Jon takes Martin by the shoulders, leans up on the tips of his toes, and kisses him.

(You have no idea how much I howled through this fic, my god. *buries face in hands* The number of times I wanted to cry from sheer hilarity and horror reading this good lord.)

Things Could Always Be Worse by theOestofOCs

Ship: Jon/Martin, Georgie/Melanie

Sometimes, the most horrifying thing of all is what might have been.

Somewhere, Jon could swear he heard a crowd laughing.

Or: in which Jonathan Sims is forced to swap places with his alternate self—a tall, chivalrous hero extraordinaire, who knows neither fear nor nuance—and is sent to the aggressively straight alternate universe the Magnus Archives was never meant to be.

“Whatever place this is,” Jon announced, “I just want to be sure it knows I hate it.”

(I will say this once, THIS IS THE MOST CURSED THING IVE EVER READ EVER. Like holy hell. I can't believe this thing exists. please read it oh please please please)

[Supernatural]

heard from your mother (she don't recognize you) by Schmuzz

Ship: Dean/Cas, Jessica/Sam

A man named Cas wakes up in 2003 with no memories, but he's able to piece together a few things:

1. Supernatural creatures exist, and most of them will hurt innocent civilians if he doesn't stop them; 2. He has abilities that no human hunter should have, but he knows enough about human hunters to keep that to himself, and finally; 3. He keeps running into another hunter named Dean Winchester, who seems to be about as lonely as he is if he's willing to put up with those former facts long enough to help Cas unravel the mystery of who (or what) he really is.

For his part, Dean's still (not) dealing with Sam's departure to Stanford, and figures distracting himself with a bit of mystery and intrigue is as harmless as it gets, right? Right.

(THE fic I'm most into right now, been following this from the very start and it's AMAZING. Cas has agency and is making friends and S1 Dean is growing out of John's influence and is becoming a Person and the both of them first being friends then more. The slow burn as their relationship develops, SO GOOD. SO SO DAMN GOOD. *screams* Seriously one of the best spn fics I've read in a long, long time.)

anamnesis by cenotaphy

Ships: Castiel/Dean, Sam/Eileen

Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, finally their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be.

* Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19.

(THIS IS THE FIC THAT GOT ME THROUGH THE FINALE OKAY. WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE BEEN CANON. It's Disturbing and honestly plot-wise this makes more sense. Why couldn't we have had this. *screams*)

[Avatar: The Last Airbender]

where the stars do not take sides by WitchofEndor

Ship: Sokka/Zuko

When Azula is nine, she becomes an only child. She hears the Fire Lord call for Zuko's life, and in the morning, her mother and brother are gone. Azula may be young, but she isn't naive. She knows what happened to them.

Which makes it all the more surprising when Azula tracks the Avatar down and fights his group of peasant friends, only to find herself staring into an eerily familiar face.

(The fact one of the tags in this fic is, "Sibling Dynamic: Fucked Up But Wholesome" should give you an idea what this fic is like. Chaotic as HELL and I just love Azula here, she loves Zuko so much in her messed up way and Zuko loves her back in the exact same way lol. It's batshit and I am Here For This.)

[Naruto]

Eclipse by AislingRoisin (JayBird345) for HybrisAnaideia

Ship: Nara Shikaku/OFC

"In life, it's easier to remain stagnant and wallow in your troubles. But life isn't merely about continued existence, nor is it meant to be gone through alone."

(This is a fic that's slept on and I NEED people to read this. A self-insert fic that I find really interesting in its approach and the worldbuilding for the post-third war shinobi world is fantastic. I feel like there's a certain pattern with self-insert fics, not that is a detriment in any way to how much I enjoy them, so this fic feels fresh to me in a way I haven't read in a while. I am waiting eagerly for this to get updated! Please read!)

On Freedom and Other Formalities by iaso

Ship: Kakashi/Genma/OFC

When push comes to shove, Hiwa Inuzuka doesn't go down easy. Reborn into a new, dangerous world? She puts her past life as a spy to work. Thrown into a war? Hiwa does her duty, for Konoha. And when she's forced into an arranged marriage? All there is to do is beat them to the punch and get married first. Thankfully, Genma Shiranui is willing to lend a hand. Literally. SI/OC

(Listen, LISTEN, it's about the slow burn, the longing, the communication (it both has and hasn't and isn't THAT great??), the messy way you fit three very different people together, it's so freaking good! Also, Kakashi is so Chaotic here this is my fave characterization of him, you can't change my mind. And Genma is a Good Boi who is Doing His Best, along with the Self-insert character who I LOVE SO MUCH, SHE'S FANTASTIC FNEIWOPAF. Sped past this fic in the speed of light, I could not stop reading!)(Honestly, read all of the author's fics, they're all really REALLY good!)

Building a Castle by WhisperingDarkness

Without needing anyone to tell her, Sakura knew that talking to someone no-one else could see or hear would make her weird. It would draw the bad kind of attention to her, something people could make fun of her for.

She didn’t like being weird, but she did like the voice. Her inner voice was helpful and it was a part of her that had always been there. The idea of it not being there would have been so much weirder than anything else.

It was during her first year at the Academy that Sakura realised the voice was not in her head at all, but that it came from a cloudy shape floating next to her.

(Basically a short-ish retelling of Hikaru no Go. Only with more Shogi and Nara and Ninja's)

(Sakura can see ghosts (I'm noticing this is a popular trope for her) and it's really cute haha! Her relationship with Tobirama is sweet and I just enjoyed reading this so much.)

[The Magicians]

So Long (And Thanks For All The Books) by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)

Ships: Quentin/Eliot, James/Julia, Quentin/Margo/Eliot

When Quentin is told Julia wasn't admitted to Brakebills, he realizes he has a drastic decision in front of him. If he tells Julia about magic, he'll have his mind wiped as well as hers. But he can't just leave her behind, either. He can't lose his best friend, and he can't let her life a life with her magical potential stolen away from her.

So he makes a third choice.

(Really, and I mean REALLY well-done canon divergent fic, this is the Quentin & Julia friendship fic I have been looking for forever. It explores so much of what could've happened and I just love Quentin here, I really really do. Characterization done so right. I also recommend the author's other works too. Been a follower of them for a long time, they're great.)

[Game of Thrones]

The Road to Victory by writing_as_tracey

Too late in preparing for the Night King and the Long Night, the last stand at Winterfell is close to falling. Bran takes desperate measures to ensure victory, and Jon, Sansa, and Arya pay the price for it in a time unfamiliar to them, on the cusp of another war. [GoT, time-travel fix it]

(I swear, this fic made me laugh so many times, all the Stark are BAMF and fantastic, and Rhaegar gets Wrecked lol. It's crack btw, and the plot goes in directions you'll never guess and it's amazing hahaha!)

[Haikyuu!!] (I am very very late to the fandom but here I am)

Ballare (To Dance) by MidnightSparks

Ship: Iwaizumi Hajime/Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru, and platonic Kageyama & Kentarou (really love their friendship)

Kageyama’s first love is volleyball. His second, however, is ballet.

In one world, Kageyama Tobio is left behind by his parents. In this world, the existence of soulbonds keeps Kageyama’s parents in Miyagi and leaves Kageyama in the care of his grandma and grandpa.

(In which soulmates exist and that changes everything and nothing at the same time.)

(*buries face in hands* I have fallen for this ship so hard and I can't get out fudge me. I understand now. Their DYNAMICS FIEWONPAF)

Kings of Tomorrow by bokubroya (liarielle)

Ship: Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru

On the eve of Tobio’s 16th birthday, he counts down the seconds to midnight, and emerges with Oikawa Tooru’s name on his wrist.

It’s been two years since then, and Tobio thought they had an understanding. A silent, never spoken about understanding that this thing between them is nothing, and they’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Of course, it’s just like Oikawa to change the game and leave Tobio wondering what comes next.

(I am WEAK for soulmate fics between these two, I don't even really like soulmate fics half the times what is WRONG WITH ME-)(Please suffer with me, I'm begging you. Its a good fic, thumbs up.)

[Crossover]

Honey and Magic by JustARatherVerySillyWriter, White_Squirrel for Super Carlin Brothers

Fandoms: Matilda (yeah you read that right), Harry Potter

Everyone knew Matilda was a rather extraordinary child, but even she didn't know she was a witch. Matilda Honey receives her Hogwarts letter in the year of the Triwizard Tournament, and soon, she will leave her unique mark on the magical world.

(Do I even need to explain how amazing it is to have Matilda in the wizarding world? And Matilda is a HUFFLEPUFF AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL THIS FIC IS GREAT PLEASE READ!!!)

An Eye for an Eye by DpsMercy

Fandoms: The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale

In which Jonathan Sims is not from the UK but instead, if you took his origins and turned them sideways twice then flipped them over, he technically would be from the US, the town of Night Vale specifically. Elias can’t do shit about it and gets a headache and slowly creeping madness instead.

(Look, I know probably everyone has read this because if they haven't, what have you been DOING with your lives??? Jon interning at Night Vale is Incredible, nothing phases this man, it's Delightful. I laughed so many times reading this, I'm not even kidding right now. Read or perish.)

The Favour by R_Cookie

Fandoms: Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Ship: Original Percival Graves/Harry Potter

Percival is ten years old when his grandfather tries to tell him that he's ensured the greatness of the Graves legacy for him, that he ought to be eternally grateful - but the explanation is hijacked by a stranger who manages to intimidate Chester Graves with an ease never seen before.

or: Hadrian (Harry) Potter is the Master of Death, who grants Graves a boon. Nobody could have known that the Deathly Hallows didn't turn you so much into the 'Master of Death' as into the anthropomorphic personification of Death. And so, Death becomes Percival's guardian angel, and Percival does not spit out his cereal.

(Look, I don't know how I stumbled back into the FBAWTFT fandom either, it just happened and I'm grateful for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have found this amazing fic. Their relationship is slow and strange and I just love how Percival is characterized here. Also, one of the tag promises that it deviates from canon so I am really, really excited for that! XD)

baby that's what i do by natanije

Fandoms: Naruto, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!

"Are you telling me," Hidan exclaims, incredulous, "that you collect money all this time to give to orphans?!"

Kakuzu pauses. He blinks a few times.

"Huh. I guess I do."

(Tsuna reincarnates as Kakuzu and it's HILARIOUS. HE'S SUCH A MOM HAHAHA)

#Fanfiction #AO3 #Fic Rec #Fic Rec List #Podcasts #The Magnus Archives #Supernatural #Avatar The Last Airbender #Naruto #The Magicians #Game of Thrones #Haikyuu!!#Crossover #Matilda #Welcome to Night Vale #Harry Potter #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #Katekyou Hitman Reborn

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hopecountyisforlovers · 3 years

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Case#0122208

rating: spooky stuff in here but otherwise general

pairing: none

words: 1727

summary: Statement of Roger Tao regarding his time lost at sea. Original statement given August 22nd, 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

( this was my go at writing a statement about my newest magnus archives s/i, alexei underwood ! i wont give away much more than that BUT i will say tumblr really fucked up the formatting on this one. it was set up to look like a transcript on word. oh well )

----------x----------

Archivist

Statement of Roger Tao regarding his time lost at sea. Original statement given August 22nd, 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Archivist

I've always loved the ocean. The crash of the waves against the shore, the cries of sea birds, the way the sun dyes the water orange and red, the reflection of the moon against the rippling water. The serenity of it.... on the beach at night, it almost feels like you could easily be the last person on earth.

I used to.....to find that a comfort, believe it or not. That it was just me- that I had no worries in regards to taking care of anyone else, no family, no job that I hated that I still had to get back to once my short respite was done. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife, and my kids, I just- a man needs his alone time, doesn't he? An escape from the... hectic pace, of everyday life.

It was like a routine- every Friday afternoon, after getting off work, I would make the hour-and-then-some drive to Whitstable Beach. I'd bring, you know- a folding chair, maybe a beer or two.. and stay just long enough to get my fill of what I was seeking all the way out there. Peace, I guess.

That night was like most others- I had had a few. Not enough to be proper drunk, mind you, just enough to put a buzz in my head and a tingle in my fingertips. The sun fell in the sky as it always did, and still does- the moon shone up off the water, full and fat and round, a distorted image that didn't quite match its partner in the sky.

I had just risen from my folding chair to stretch, having sobered up enough to consider making my way home, when... when I saw someone, standing a ways down the beach from where I was. It sent a shiver down my spine- how long had they been there? It's a scary thing, to suddenly realize one is not as alone as they previously thought they were. But even more frightening than that was... was their stillness. The water washed in over their trouser legs, soaking them, but... but they just. Stood there. Staring out over the ocean. Just like I had been, I guess, but. Something about looking at them... made me feel....cold, despite the balm of the summer night.

I didn't realize I was getting closer until I could start to make out their features. It was a man, albeit a feminine one- long, mist-and-water colored hair flowed down his back, blew in the sea breeze that didn't seem to bother him despite his wet clothing.

I stopped, dead in my tracks, making for the first time that night an audible shuffling sound as my feet planted in the damp sand. It was barely loud enough for me to hear, and...and yet...

He turned, slow, fluid- and looked right at me.

His face was soft and round, I could tell even from a distance. But his eyes... they glowed, bright blue-white, with all the force of a sunny sky. It hurt my eyes to look at, and I felt all at once vertigo, and that bone-chilling cold- as if I had been shoved off of a frozen mountaintop.

I could have sworn I saw him smile.

And... and then. Well, here's the part where you're going to start thinking I'm crazy. Or that I was drunk, I guess, but I swear to you that I wasn't. Even if I had been... No. No. I saw what I saw. What happened to me... what happened to me was real. It had to be. He has to be.

He turned away from me, and... and he walked onto the water. Not into it. On top of it. The man took a few steps, looking back at me expectantly- I wanted nothing more than to run, at that moment. To turn the other way and get back in my car and never come back to this beach again. Except that I didn't- that was what my rational brain was screaming at me of course, but.... but something much, much deeper, more ingrained, a part forgotten by modern society... it begged me to follow him.

So follow him I did.

I truly don't know what I thought I would accomplish. In a way, it almost didn't matter- when I took my first step on top of the water, he turned back to look at me. Up close, his smile was sweet and demure. He giggled, honest to God giggled, and although looking him directly in the eyes made my knees weak and my fingers cold and my stomach feel like it was about to evacuate it contents, I couldn't look away. But no- I didn't want to look away, anymore than I didn't not want to follow him.

It's embarrassing to say, but... that was all it took. I had forgotten my family, my life- all I wanted was to see that smile again. It dominated my mind so easily that I didn't even notice when he had begun walking forward again, away from the safety of the shore and into the deep, inky black of the ocean we were standing on.

I don't know how long we walked. It could have been minutes, hours, days... but the moon never moved from it's position in the sky, so I figured it couldn't have been too long. The ocean stretched on and on for miles and miles, and I watched him. I kept such a close eye on him, the new focal point of my universe, the only thing that mattered. Every so often, when my legs would go weak and I'd consider the traitorous thought of turning back, he would stop and turn around, eyes lighting up the night, smile making my heart race, and.. and I would be refreshed.

It went on like that....until he....disappeared.

There isn't a better word for it, really. He turned back towards me, smiled his incandecant smile, and....and it happened so instantly, like he had been swallowed up by the mist and fog that rested gently atop the water, that I thought for sure it must be a trick of the dark. Surely, he had to still be there. Surely.

But.. but he wasn't. He was gone. And I realized with a newfound panic when I spun around that the shore was gone, too. That I wasn't even sure what direction it was in, or if we had been walking in a straight line the whole time. It wasn't even a pinprick in the horizon.

That wasn't... wasn't the worst part of it, though. If it had been cold, to look at him, being without him now felt like...like whatever warmth lives inside us and makes us human had been all but extinguished. I fell to my knees on the water, but not through it, somehow, soaking my pant legs, clutching my chest where that flame had once lived so happily like it was the bloody hole it felt like as heaving sobs overtook my body.

They wouldn't stop, incensed by the pain that ripped and tore it's way through my chest. Tears fell to join the ocean water, the mist that covered it rising and swirling and wrapping around me like it was overjoyed by my pain. I know... I know I heard him giggle, again. The same way that he had when I had first started following him.

I don't know how long it was, how long I spent out there, pouring my anguish and grief into the unforgiving ocean, before the energy left my body so thoroughly that I collapsed onto the water. Only that when I awoke on the beach the next morning, waterlogged and with a sore throat but no worse for wear, families were just starting to gather on the sand, setting up blankets. One of the children even waved at me, although they were quickly chided by a protective parent for doing so.

I packed up, got back in my car, and drove home. Linda was speaking with the police, when I got there and was all but overjoyed- if not incensed, to see me in one piece. She told me... told me that I had been missing for almost 3 days. She hugged me, and I apologized, but..

I wish I could say I never went back to that beach. I wish I could say that I didn't see him in my dreams every time I manage to fall asleep, beckoning for me to follow him, smiling that angels smile. I wish I could say that I didn't still want to. I wish I could say I'm still a devoted husband and father of two.

But it would be a lie. I'm there every night, now. Watching. Waiting. I need... I need for him to come back. I need to see him again. The empty space in me that he created.. the light that he snuffed out. It hurts. It hurts. I can't.. laugh. Or smile. When I try, it... it just sounds. Looks.

People have stopped inviting me out. I think my wife might leave me.

I just have to see him again.

Archivist

Statement ends.

This one is rather easy to corroborate, but much harder to actually prove, if such a thing is possible. Police reports do indicate that Mr. Tao was reported missing by his wife Linda on the 10th of August 2012, stating that he had been gone without a trace for 48 hours, a missing persons inquest that was succinctly called off when he returned home the next day while the officers interviewed her.

I had Martin do some digging, and unfortunately, Mr. Tao was found dead shortly after a motion was filed for his divorce. Someone who lived in a home near Whitstable Beach reported seeing him simply walk into the ocean and never come back out. The police eventually did locate his body- cause of death was, unremarkably, drowning. On his person was what seemed to be a letter, although it had become soaked through to the point it was quite unreadable.

One can only hope it was not a love letter.

#my writing #s/i: alexei #im so proud of this wtf #i didnt even think id be able to finish it #much less that it would flow out like it did and actually be well #REALLY GOOD i think #i know its only tangentially selfship related but please read it and let me know what you think

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bondsmagii · 3 years

Note

statement regarding the sudden disappearance of all my childhood memories and subsequent photos, gradually, over the course of four years

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Jasmine Harper, regarding the disappearance of all childhood memories and photographs over the course of four years. Original statement given July 21, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

I can’t really remember when it was that I noticed. It was a gradual thing, but at the same time it felt so sudden… like I woke up one morning and they were all gone, or at least most of them were. But I know that isn’t what happened at all, is it? The more I think about it, the more I realise that I began to forget years and years before I realised something was truly wrong. I thought it was normal, you know? I thought it was just part of getting older. I mean, how many of us get out of university able to recall the full names of everyone in our first primary school class? I took Psychology for one of my A-Levels, actually, and when we did our module on memory that was one of the tests. I must have been able seventeen then, so it was before I noticed this happening. We had to take a sheet of paper and write down every full name we could remember from our first primary school class. I won by a landslide, and I had five names. Only five names! But that’s the thing – I used to have such a good memory when it came to my childhood. That’s why I can’t understand what’s happening.

I had a good childhood. This isn’t any childhood trauma or anything like that. I mean, there were some nasty moments in it, like any childhood is prone to have – I had a problem with bullies when I first started high school, nothing out of the ordinary but you know how cruel kids can be, and when you’re that age it sticks with you. My parents divorced when I was fourteen, but there was nothing specifically traumatic about that. It sucked, and I was sad to see them sad, but they remained civil through the whole thing and actually got on better afterwards, so it wasn’t like there were screaming matches or anything. They were careful to keep my brother and I updated on everything, which I was thankful for. It was nice, that they didn’t do what a lot of parents seem to do – treat us like small children, and not young adults who would also be affected by the situation. If I ever get a divorce, I hope to god it’s as pleasant as my parents’ was. There’s nothing in my childhood that I can pinpoint that might have caused this, and that seems to be a common cause of forgetting, at least – trauma, mental illness, something like that. I’ve… struggled with depression sometimes, but never anything that I didn’t get under control with the right combination of things. Really, I’m a completely normal, average person. There’s nothing that could have caused this at all. I’ve been to doctors, I’ve had brain scans, I was worried it was some kind of tumour or stroke, but no. Nothing. I’m perfectly healthy, but I don’t feel it.

As I said, it began gradually. I realised I was forgetting things; small things. The address of the house I lived in until I was five. Old phone numbers. The last names of childhood friends. Some of my teachers’ names. None of it was unusual. I’m pretty sure everyone forgets those things, so I wasn’t worried at all. A little annoyed sometimes, because it really felt like getting old, or I couldn’t randomly look somebody up on Facebook to see how they were doing or something, but really it wasn’t unusual at all. It was only when I started forgetting bigger things that I began to grow concerned. I mean, this was stuff that I shouldn’t forget at all, or that was relatively recent. I know for most people, childhood probably means when they were a smaller child; before they hit their teenage years, perhaps. Well, this seems to be taking the legal definition of child as its guide, because I found myself forgetting things that happened when I was sixteen, seventeen years old. I mean, that’s not that long ago! That’s not even ten years ago! I began to forget huge chunks of time; before I knew it I couldn’t recall my earliest memories, and then I couldn’t recall anything from primary school. It’s just blank, like trying to think about what was there before I was born. Still I told myself it wasn’t that much to worry about, but then it began creeping up and up, and back then I still had the photographs. I could look through photo albums or friends’ Facebook pages and see what I was forgetting: a birthday party at Alton Towers when we were eleven, the school ski trip to Italy when we were fourteen, our school’s knock-off idea of an American prom when we were seventeen. There I am, in all of the pictures, grinning and present and definitely there. But I can’t remember a thing about the day at all!

I finally accepted something was terribly wrong at my aunt’s wedding. She was getting married pretty later on in life because she was kind of wild as a young adult, didn’t want to settle down or anything. Everyone was fond of her – she always had the most interesting stories and she’s just a lot of fun to be around – and so the whole family was there to see her get married: all the surviving grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins, partners, friends, kids, even the dogs were invited. It was a beautiful summer day and everyone was having so much fun and I know this sounds stupid but I feel so mad that this had to happen on that day of all days, because nothing bad is supposed to happen at a wedding, right? Well, everything was fine until late into the reception, and we were all a little drunk but not overly so. I was sitting with my mum and brother at a table with some cousins and my aunt and her new wife, and we were all reminiscing about other crazy family parties and stuff. I was talking about my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, that happened when I was twelve or thirteen. I was telling some story – of course I can’t even remember what it was now, but it was something about me and my brother and the cousins that were at the table with us, and I was talking about it just fine and then, literally mid-sentence, I forgot it. Not just what we were doing, but the whole event. I didn’t even know I was talking about the anniversary until my brother prompted me, and then it was just blank. My brother and cousins all picked up the story and I laughed along and played it up like I’d had a little too much wine, you know, haha, but I mean it when I say it was gone. And not only that – it felt taken from me. It felt as though somebody had reached into my head and just… plucked the memory right out.

It bothered me so much that I went to visit my mum shortly afterwards. We sat down and had a few cups of tea and eventually I worked up the courage to ask if I could root around in the photo albums, saying that the wedding had reminded me of a few things I wanted to look at again – ironic, I know. Mum was of course down to get out all the albums – she never went digital, she doesn’t like not having physical albums to look through – so we dragged a bunch of them down and sat around the table to look. The first one was normal, just a family holiday to Florida when I was sixteen, but as we started going through the older albums I noticed there were pictures of me missing that I know for a fact existed. They were just gone, and then there were others where I knew I should be there but I wasn’t. And Mum didn’t think anything was strange! There was one picture, I remember it so clearly because we almost got into a big fight about it, and it was of my brother dressed as Spider Man on Halloween. I distinctly remember that night because I was dressed as the Pink Power Ranger and the costume was uncomfortable as hell, so I know I was there. I know I was in that picture, because it was such a ridiculous picture, the two of us in full bodied costumes like that, and I finally mentioned to my mum that I should be in there. Not aggressively or anything, just oh, I could have sworn I was in that one!, and she denied it and I insisted and she kept saying no, she was sure it was just George in that picture, but then I pointed out that George had his arm out in mid-air like it should be around someone. It was clearly around my shoulders. The height was right, his fingers were slightly curled like they were pressing in to my arm. Mum just looked for a moment, and I thought, briefly, that she might finally see it – but then she just said George was doing a Spider Man pose, like shooting a web from his wrist or something, and I just… I don’t even know. I just felt so hopeless, I almost cried. I was sure, so sure! Mum’s always taken photos, even now – every holiday, every event, even just going over for Sunday dinner. She’s told me several times I loved being in front of the camera as a kid, so I know there must have been way more pictures of me than that. Mum just didn’t get what I was on about, though, so I gave up in the end. There was no use fighting. What could I say?

Well, that was when I went to the doctor. I’ve already outlined how useless that was. Nothing wrong with me at all, apparently, but I’m sure most of them weren’t really taking me seriously. I was told it couldn’t be all my memories, and that photographs didn’t just vanish. I was seconds away from getting referred to a psychiatrist when I decided I would be better off shutting up about it. I’m not—I don’t think this is mental illness. I’ve looked it up so many times and I’ve read about people being delusional, you know, not believing they’re the ones in the picture, or that other people in the picture have been replaced, but that’s not what’s happening here. I haven’t read anything about like what’s happening to me. Nobody is out there saying they’re forgetting their entire childhood, birth to eighteen, and the pictures are vanishing along with it. There is something else going on here but I don’t know what. I’ve never done anything to deserve this, I’ve never messed around with anything I shouldn’t. If this is something like—like what you people investigate, I do not know when I would have come across it. I don’t even know what I mean by this. It seems ridiculous to even consider that it could be a ghost, or a curse, or—or God knows what.

A few weeks after this I went to Mum’s again, and one of the photo albums was still out. I looked through it and I was gone from every single picture. I was not there at all. Even the ones I saw only recently, I was gone from them. Just George on his own, and in the spaces where pictures of just me should be, other photos had replaced them. Just scenery shots, or views from the hotel balcony, or Christmas decorations and piles of presents, or spreads of holiday food. Nothing Mum would put in there herself. She likes to preserve the details, but her albums are for people. Her photos in the albums always have people or pets in them. I showed her, pretending it was just out of interest, but she seemed to not know what I meant. “I’ve always accessorised”, was what she said. Something about context, making it a pretty spread, keeping all the themes together. I don’t know. It was nothing that Mum would say, anyway. She was always so militant about it – at least up until recently.

I walked around the house a bit and of course I was gone from the rest of the pictures, too. My school photos were all gone, and all the framed pictures on bedside tables or shelves showed just my brother, or more scenery. There was one picture of the rose bush in the garden and I knew for a fact I was supposed to be standing in front of it, because it was my prom picture and I was wearing a dress the exact same shade of red as the roses, and Mum wanted to get a picture of me standing in front of it to show off the perfect colour match. There was just the rose bush, and even when I picked up the frame and looked closely at the picture, I could see no signs that it had ever been anything but. I wondered why it was still there, because pictures of just me usually vanished and got replaced by something else entirely, but then I saw in the corner, almost hidden by the frame, the faintest pink blur of part of my mother’s finger. Is that all it takes? Is one blurry finger worth more than my entire being? I don’t understand what’s going on!

I think… I think I could deal with it easier, if it wasn’t for the fact that everybody seems to think nothing is wrong. If it was just one of those weird things, I think I could live with it if my parents and brother were also with me on it, knowing it was weird, being concerned. I’ve looked everywhere and they’re all gone, all the photos, in every relative’s house and on Facebook. The earliest ones I can find are on my eighteenth birthday party. Everything before that is gone. I don’t remember anything. It’s like I materialised at age eighteen and there was nothing before that; I don’t even really know who I am anymore. I can’t know, because all the steps I took to get here are gone, and everything I learned about my family and friends as I grew up alongside them has vanished. I feel completely… completely detached, completely adrift, and I don’t know if I’m being paranoid but it just feels like there’s a little less of me every day. It’s like I spent eighteen years building up, and now I’m just… fading away.

I don’t know what to do.

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

This is a fairly straightforward one to follow up. There isn’t really much to say. On the surface it does very much seem like a case for a doctor rather than the Institute, but some things do seem to back up part of the story, at least. Attempts to get in contact with Ms Harper were unsuccessful, as it seems she does not exist. There are a couple of records here and there of a Ms Harper matching the age and occupation that she provided with her statement, but when Tim contacted the workplaces involved, nobody could recall her. As for anything else – records such as a birth or death certificate, a driver’s license – there is nothing. Of course, she could have provided a fake name, but Tim managed to get in touch with George Harper, Ms Harper’s younger brother, and confirmed it was the same George Harper by asking a few questions about his childhood. He recalled several holidays and weddings that Ms Harper mentioned, though he mentioned nothing about a sister. When questioned about siblings, he was adamant he had never had one, and had grown up an only child. I’m not entirely sure how he did it, and nor am I inclined to want to know, but Tim managed to persuade Mr Harper to give him the contact information for his parents. Both stated that they had only one child – a son. The only Jasmine in the family seems to be Mrs Harper’s pet pug dog; apparently, Mrs Harper “always liked the name”, but had never had the chance to use it.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much more we can do regarding this one.

End recording.

#tma #statement prompts #my writing #fakements #long post #anon #asks

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rosy-cheekx · 4 years

Text

Case #0162406: Fear Factor

Case #0162407. Statement of Katherine Brown, regarding her experience in a Fear Factory. Statement taken direct from subject by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. In your own time, Ms. Brown.

Please, it’s just Katherine. Did you have any trouble getting here? I’ve been told it’s quite hidden away. And I’m sorry again to ask you to come here but, as you can see, there’s really no chance of being able to pop down to London for a little day trip.

No, Ms. Katherine, it was no trouble. From what I’ve heard from the papers you have quite a story to tell.

Oh...you read about me? I was really hoping you wouldn’t. I didn’t want you to think I was crazy before hearing my story. I get why they think I am; I get why I’m here. But I know what happened, I know I’m not--

Ms. Katherine, please. I’m not here to pass judgement on your condition, just to take your statement. Now... In your own time.

Yes. Yes, of course...

I’ve always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie. When I was a kid, my friends and I would do anything we could. We were kids in the middle of nowhere, so it was mostly shoplifting and riding our bikes down big hills really fast, just to feel that heart-pounding rush of fear and success of survival. Our favorite thing to do, though, was go to haunted houses. From September through to Halloween, we would go to any haunted house attraction we could find and scream ourselves silly. As we got older, it became a more complex game. How long could we last, who would scream the least or the loudest, just kid stuff. Most of us grew out of it eventually, those sorts of attractions only get so scary. Rachel and I, though, we couldn’t get enough of it. We started finding weirder and weirder places to scratch that itch, that need to be terrified. As soon as she had turned 18, being a month and a half younger than me, we had signed up to go to our first touchable house. Typically, haunted houses have a no-touching-the-patrons rule, so the ones that don’t offer that safety were alluring to us.

It sort of escalated from there, really. In America, there was a guy who had haunted houses so terrifying that you had to sign waivers and take a psych exam to go through. I’ve read all sorts of stories about them locking people in cages, cutting their hair, feeding them all sorts of things. All completely consensual, of course, a whole new level of terror attractions. It was shut down, I think, but that was the kind of scare we wanted. To go through something like that, and come out alive? We wanted to feel invincible, immortal.

Three years ago, I think, Rachel was in this forum, looking for some attractions that would be open in September. The weirder they are, the more likely they were to be open year-round, because Halloween wasn't the point. She found a really buried ad for one called Fear Factory. I think the ad labeled it as “an immersive experience sure to scare the life out of you.” There weren't any reviews on it at first, which was initially a red flag, but with some digging, we saw it was new. Like, opened-its-doors-a-month-ago new. They seemed to be legit, their website boasted of other locations in America and Canada, but reviews seemed to be locked behind a password, so the experience wasn’t spoiled for first timers. Rachel put us on the waiting list. We were both freshly 21, feeling unstoppable, and weren’t really thinking about the risks.

A week or so later, we both got an email, claiming our application had been accepted and we were being offered an experience at the Fear Factory next Friday. We both eagerly accepted, and they sent us an address of where to go. We looked it up; an old office complex, rundown, but that fit the aesthetic of something like this pretty well. They had us fill out some detailed surveys, asking about fears, hard limits, and random things, like our relationship to each other, where we went to school, our interests.

We drove together to the complex, parking outside the building, and taking time to do our due diligence. We both texted Peter, a schoolmate of ours, gave him the address of the place, and a time to check in with us. Some of these more complicated scenarios take a while, and it was already 9 in the evening, so we told him to call us at 2 a.m. to check that we were okay.

As we were both on our phones, we heard a woman clear her throat. She was tall, wearing a black jacket and jeans, and her sunglasses reflected the streetlamps off the lenses. She introduced herself as Mara and said she would take us to the “beginning of the end.” We laughed at that, elbowing each other over being scared. She took us up a few flights of stairs, before rapping a fingerless-gloved hand on the door of the third floor’s landing. She told Rachel to go in and someone would meet her there. I squeezed her hand twice before she left. I wish I had something, told her that I loved her, that I’d see her later, something.

She brought me to the sixth floor and showed me into a small room. There was a small chair, but the room was completely empty other than that. It smelled sickly sweet, like something rotting. Mara let me in and handed me a strip of black cloth. A blindfold. I sat in the chair and tied it, knotting it carefully beneath my ponytail. She told me to count to 100, take the blindfold off, and the game would begin. As she closed the door, something I couldn’t quite call music began to play. It was high pitched and resonant, almost like an echo of laughter layered over itself.

I began to count, feeling like a kid as I added an unspoken “one hundred” underneath to make sure I wasn’t counting too fast or to slow. As I reached one hundred, the creeping music stopped. I took off the blindfold and blinked to adjust to what I now found myself in: oppressively cold darkness. I stood and extended my hand, slowly making my forward to where I knew the door to be. The intense feeling of fear began to creep over me, and I felt an irresistible smile spread across my face. I found what must be the handle to the door and twisted it. I shut my eyes tight against the harsh white light that filled my field of view. I blinked and adjusted to the light of the stairwell gradually, feeling a wave of nausea wash over me. My vision pitched suddenly, the frame of the door bulging impossibly, twisting into what seemed like a smile. I inhaled sharply, like filling my lungs would catch my balance.

The sharp descending of the stairs twisted in front of me, my vision still swirling; it would take too long to take the time to carefully step down each without falling. I had to get to the fourth floor. I could escape there. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I leapt, hand on the railing, clearing the full set of steps as my anchored hand guided me down safely. The door for the fifth floor was in front of me, a dull pale metal, but I knew it wouldn’t be safe there. I repeated the process again, using the rail as a track for my hand as I jumped from the fifth floor landing to the fourth, the door with the 4 emblazoned in in black paint rising before me like the pearly gates. I would be safe there. I would be safe there.

I thrust open the door and found myself in the middle of a hallway. The floor was a murky pink and brown laminate, and the white ceiling low. There were no windows. Both ends of the hallway seem to split into two passages. Panic rose in my chest; they were coming. I had to go. I picked blindly, turning left, and running full tilt down the hall. Almost as soon as I had started running, I saw figures turn the corner. Their forms shed no shadows, a part of me registered, but it carried no weight as the bald, rotting, decrepit bodies sprinted towards me, ragged nails and broken teeth glinting in the light of the hallway. They leapt at me, biting and scratching. I’m sure I cried out as one took a chunk of flesh from my hand, but the blood pumping in my ears drowned out most sounds. I don’t know how I fought them off, honestly, adrenaline was overpowering all other senses. I continued running down the hallway.

There was a door. It was identical to the doors that had been in the stairwell, the cold brushed metal distorting reflections. It was only then, seeing a vague version of myself staring back at me that I realized I was no longer feeling that swirling dizziness. Relieved, I opened the door. I wasn’t entirely sure what I am expecting but it certainly wasn’t my dormitory. The tall bedframe, the simple desk, the wardrobe with the mirror hanging over the front of it. It was the mirror, of all things, that beckoned me. I let the door fall shut behind me as I took the few steps to cross the room and stare at myself. There was blood streaked across my face, and it dripped from my hands, which I realized with a start were still curled into tight fists. I had been wearing overalls over a sweater, but the front hung off me like a wilted petal, a snap apparently broken off during my previous encounter. I was a mess. I was dirty. I needed to change.

As soon as that thought had entered my head, I was already peeling off the destroyed overalls, all other thoughts set aside. I should have known it wasn’t over, that fighting a couple zombie-like creatures wouldn’t have been enough. It was too warm in this room, too sterile to be my dorm. But none of those concerns crossed my mind as I opened the creaky wooden door to the wardrobe, where I knew a fresh pair of jeans would be. And there were, I suppose. But opening the door had seemed to interrupt the new occupants of my closet, a massive hive of wasps that had built a nest along the swinging corner of the door and the small magnet that held the door closed. I had effectively torn the nest in two, and my error was not easily forgiven. I did hear myself scream this time as furious insects swarmed me, sharp stings lighting up my body like a thousand electric shocks. I staggered and backed into the wall, hands pressed over my eyes, too instinctively concerned for my sight to try to swipe at the wasps that flooded my senses. My scream didn’t last long, as my open mouth encouraged some stings to my tongue as well, and I gritted my teeth shut, heaving panicked breaths. I wasn’t sure how long I was there, pressed into the corner opposite the wardrobe, until gradually I realized that the stinging over my body was the throbbing of the previous wounds, not the inflicting of new ones. Tentatively uncovering my eyes, I surveyed the room. I was grateful to discover I must have knocked the mirror off its supports in my struggle, unable to comprehend what I must look like now, more histamine than human. I crept forward, avoiding the broken glass, except for a brief pause to stoop and gingerly grab a hefty shard. If there more of those undead bodies, I wanted to be ready. I also saw that the wasp’s nest was gone somehow. The compartment was devoid of the rolls of papery hive and any evidence the wasps had existed besides my aching body was gone. I was relieved and quickly grabbed the first pair of jeans I could find, wincing all the while as I shook out the folds. I refused to be sore and naked for whatever was about to happen next.

As I shook out the dark denim, I watched a handful of tiny specks fall off the pants. I wish it were a lie to say I almost laughed when I saw that they were ants, marching fastidiously along the creases of, upon inspection, every pair of pants I owned. Lucky for me, I suppose, that ants had never bothered me. The bad joke, however? Brutal.

You know how they say that adrenaline and fear help you preserve memories? Flashbulb memories, they’re called. Of traumatic or significant events. Well I think that even the adrenaline that was pounding through me had its limits. I don’t remember what happened next. I must have run out into the hallway, must have tried to find my way out, but it’s all a bit of a blur. I remember something to do with my teeth and a pair of pliers, but I don’t think there’s anything there I want to remember anyways. The next thing I remember, however, is something I don’t think I can ever forget.

I was in another long hallway. Or it could have been the same hallway, I’m not sure how I would know. I saw shadows shift and contract, and a form emerged, completely enveloped in shadow. It looked like a person only in that had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. The hands were long, and the elbows crooked at wrong angles. The torso was slightly lopsided, like the head was too big to be supported properly. The legs were also impossibly long, and I couldn’t see feet. There was a sound, too, that was bothering me, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was like a low droning or buzzing, like it was trying to speak to me. We stood, frozen in a face-off before it lunged at me, moving at impossible speeds. I blinked and it was practically on top of me, swiping with its talons for fingers. I took some nasty swipes across my abdomen and stabbed at it with my shard of mirror. I missed once but the second time, I stabbed it where the neck and shoulder met. Shadows spilt from the wound, covering my hand in dark fog.

That was when I heard it. The buzzing sound sharpened and cleared up. I heard Rachel, crying, saying my name. I blinked and the shadow person was gone, and it was Rachel who I saw, Rachel whose blood was pooling around my hand, Rachel who I had stabbed. I dropped the mirror fragment and tried to apologize, but the words couldn’t quite leave my throat. I couldn’t bring myself to explain, apologize, or even comfort her, but the light had left her eyes soon enough and I knew I was ready to give up.

Police found me later. Apparently, we had been missing for two days. I don’t remember much of the trial, honestly, but there was never any evidence of either of us being drugged up or anything. They called it a temporary psychotic episode brought on by panic. I was put here instead, and I spend every night trying to avoid sleeping so I don’t see Rachel’s eyes, staring back at me, begging me to help. The...The wasps were real, though, I remember being treated for them in the hospital later.

Thank you, Ms. Katherine. Have... Have a good day.

Click.

This has been a frustrating one to research. One would think a story with an online internet ad would lead to something. But no, Sasha hasn’t been able to track down any sort of Fear Factory, except for some Salt Lake City haunted house, but further research didn’t lead to any connections. There’s also a band, but there’s also no connections to anyone with the name Mara. Sasha was also able to finagle her way into old text records between Rachel and Peter, and got the address, near Oxford. Martin took a trip down to take a look at it but didn’t find anything. There was, in fact, an abandoned building, and it was, the site of the homicide of Rachel Tillvale, by Katherine Brown, according to police records. The odd part, however, is that Katherine was certain that she was taken to the sixth floor of the building, and that the fourth floor was her escape. Unless Martin has become wholly incapable at his job, which...is probably not the case, there are only three floors of that building. The weird part was the basement. Ms. Brown had mentioned something but couldn’t recall it. I understand why. In the basement of the building, there was a handful of adult teeth in the utility sink.

#tma #tma fanfic #magpod #magpod fanfic #the magnus institute #the magnus archives #this was literally based on a dream

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peachiejamie · 4 years

Text

@marilyndraws Come get y’all juice!

In all seriousness, here it is! I hope you like it and I hope it’s as accurate as it could be. I know I took some creative liberties but I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it. There are a few places where I was unhappy with it while writing. The pacing is a bit off and the characterization isn’t great but I hope you like it!

Have a great days otherwise!💖 AjdnsjJANSJS god I hope you enjoy it. Your art is just wonderful and I scream every time!!

Here’s the piece!

Missing Persons

Statement of Amy Bassmaji regarding her time working in missing persons. Original statement given January 5, 2016. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Okay, listen.

I’m not... I’m not crazy. I promise you I’m not crazy. I haven’t had a history of mental illness, my family doesn’t have a line of any of that type of shit. I am, all things considered, perfectly sane. I’m- I’m sound off mind, I swear. You have to believe me. What I saw is absolutely fucking crazy but you have to believe me.

I’ve tried to tell people but all they do is look at me like I’m losing my mind and... and honestly, I think I might be...

I just... I can’t handle another look like that. I don’t think I can take another. But... you’ll believe me, won’t you? This is what your institute is for?

Lord, what am I doing? I didn’t even believe in your credibility a week ago and now?

Just... I’m not crazy. That’s all you need to know, I am not crazy. I saw what I saw. And what I saw couldn’t have been a lie.

See, I work in missing persons. Or... at least, I worked in missing persons. Some people were easier to locate than others, just as a few are more unsettling than some. Usually, the missing report could be some kid running away or a sloppy kidnapping. It isn’t normally too bad.

I never really dealt with the more heavy missing persons cases. I was still climbing the ladder until recently. I got a promotion, which I was ecstatic about. Finally, some progress, you know? All that hard work finally paying off, finally being able to look at the fruits of my labor. It was... thrilling. I hadn’t looked forward to something in a while.

It was normal at first. Maybe not as riveting as I had dreamed for it to be but it was good. Most of my coworkers were wonderful, though some of them had their moments. All things considered, they were normal. They didn’t stick out for being amazing but they didn’t stick out for being terrible either. They were just... average.

Now, here’s the thing. I said most for a reason. Nearly all of them were just... normal but there was one exception to that.

Her name was Marilyn. Marilyn Hightower. At first glance, she was just like everyone else. She blended in just like I did. Just like you do. Just like... well, most do. She helped find a good few. She was reliable, efficient, and well trusted by the staff. I shouldn’t have been bothered by her.

Yet despite all that... I hated being around her.

I don’t know how to describe it, the feeling she gave me. It was just wrong. It was like there was something crawling up my back, agonizingly slow and dangerous. Like I was an insect trapped in the web of an eight legged monster.

I don’t know if I’m just saying that because of what I know now but looking back, I should have known. The clues were all there I just... I just couldn’t have known what it all meant.

What am I saying? I don’t even know what it all means now. I came here hoping that maybe, just maybe, you could. Maybe you know about this shit with spiders and webs and missing people. Maybe you can make sense of what the hell is going on and what the hell happened to me.

I don’t... I don’t know why I was the only one who seemed unsettled by her. I didn’t say anything about my unease because everyone else loved her. My superiors, my coworkers, hell, even my friends. They all seemed fine with her and I... I didn’t. I wasn’t. And I didn’t want to ruin what I got so I... I just kept my mouth shut.

I thought that maybe it was just me. Probably just me being an asshole, I thought. Just forget about it, just let it go. Maybe she just rubs me the wrong way, maybe it’s just that our personalities don’t mesh. There wasn’t anything about her that warranted my displeasure. And the more I watched her interacting with my other coworkers, the more I grew sure of that.

She was just so... vibrant. She got on with everyone like a damn house on fire and I was sure that it was just me. It had to be just me even when she looked at me like I was... I don’t know, food? Prey? She looked at me as if she knew that I didn’t trust her and she was going to do something about it. Like my confusion was some cruel, amusing joke. Some game for her to control and enjoy.

Thinking about it, it probably was.

The thing that changed all that was when I was visiting work late one night. I forgot my laptop in the meeting room because I was in a bit of a rush. My girlfriend and I were heading out for a date and I didn’t want to be any later than I had to be. I guess I lost my mind a bit in the thick of things.

It was supposed to be an in and out sort of thing. I knew the building and it was just a laptop, for fuck sake. It should have been five minutes, tops.

Some of the lights were still on and there were a few people working late in their offices but those people were sparse and we were acquaintances at best. I was as good as alone but at the time it felt like a comfort, knowing that I wasn’t traipsing through a completely desolate police building.

When I got to the meeting room, I was surprised to find that there was a light still on. Not all the lights, just one. It was the overhead lamp that hung in front of the board, illuminating the red yarn that connected staples photos, letters, news clippings, and locations. You know, the like. The type of stuff you see on TV.

It was dim in the darkness but it spilled out into the room.

It shouldn’t have been unsettling but there was this gut feeling that something was wrong. It twisted and convulsed in my chest and I felt... delirious. I wondered if anyone was still here this late at night. It wouldn’t surprise me, the department we work in tends to keep all of us up.

You don’t realize how many people go missing but working in a place like I do...? It tends to give you perspective. You get multiple reports at least every other day of normal, breathing people disappearing off the face of the Earth. You have to see hundreds of pictures of smiling faces that, more often than not, never get found again. It’s soul crushing, in a way. Realizing that so many normal people disappear out of thin air.

Realizing that the people that you walk by on the street or the people that you love could be one of them. Or how many loved ones will never be able to see that missing person ever again, nor will they ever have the closure of knowing what happened to them.

It’s why I got into the field that I did. My brother disappeared when I was fifteen. I guess... I guess knowing the pain personally does that. I always thought that everyone joined for the same purpose, for genuinely trying to find people and bring them back. To make sure no one has to lose another person again.

I was wrong.

God, I was wrong.

Being in that room sent shivers down my spine. I don’t know what it was but the shadows that the yarn cast looked like webs, intricate and wrapping and waiting. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to snag me. Trap me. But trap me for what? Trap me for who? And I could have sworn there was something in my ear, this odd... scratching noise.

I ignored it. It would go away soon enough, I thought . And the sooner I was out the sooner I could escape the prickling in the nape of my neck. I wanted out of that room as soon as I could be.

I should have run then. I should left my stupid laptop and run then.

I crouched to grab it, which was propped in between two chairs right where I left it. I squinted in the dark, reaching forward, but when my hand wrapped around the handle it didn’t wrap around the plastic that it usually did.

No, it wrapped around hundreds of small, moving things.

I screamed. As embarrassing as that is, I screamed. I yanked my hand back and stumbled, tripping and stepping on those things with a terrible, disgusting squelch. my ears rung for god knows how long but I searched for whatever the hell I was surrounded by.

And that’s when I heard it.

And that’s when I realized it.

The scuttling.

The spiders.

The sounds of hundreds of thousands of millions of spiders moving and crawling and writhing where the light does not reach. I could see them now, their shapeless form shifting and climbing in the darkness, crawling up the walls and onto the table with their millions of legs and beady, malicious eyes.

They were hapless, moving as one and covering the room like a thick grime.

I was too terrified to scream, too terrified to move. It felt like there were cobwebs in my throat, clogged in my joints and tightening around my neck like a noose made by that suffocating ocean of spiders that surrounded me. I was drowning in it, drowning in the terror that consumed me.

I felt nauseous, I felt sick. I felt afraid. Would they kill me? Consume me like the insects that they trapped in their web?

Then I looked up.

Then I looked up and there she was. Marilyn. She stood in the light of that damned lamp and smiled at me, sneered at me. Her eyes glowed with the same malicious amusement of the monstrosity that filled my ears and choked my lungs. She held a piece of yarn in her hand, pinched in between her fingers as she smiled.

The spiders seemed to grow erratic with excitement and something else. Something like hunger. Something like desperation. Their scuttling and movement grew louder, grew faster. They pooled at my feet as if they were waiting for some barrier around me to break. And I knew that barrier of brief protection would break the second she let it. And in that moment, I realized that I wasn’t just some victim.

I was the insect in the web.

I was the insect trapped in her web. She was the spider and I was her prey and I was stuck in the trap she had created. And I realized that I wasn’t her only victim and I wouldn’t be her last.

She wasn’t here to bring people back. No, she was here to make sure they stayed missing.

She grinned then. I think she must have seen my dawning horror, the bombshell of that epiphany blooming on my face.

I ran. I left my laptop and I ran. I didn’t give her a chance to tell her damned spiders to trap me.

When I got back home, my girlfriend was there. Bless her heart. She helped me the best she could but the worry on her face as I tried to explain what happened made me shut up. She didn’t believe me. She would never believe me. No one would. Hell, I wouldn’t have believed me.

I quit my job the morning after.

I didn’t speak to Marilyn again but I could see her from the window of that room while I was walking back to my car, smiling with that same smile from that night.

I moved as soon as I could but the spiders follow me. Wherever I go, they follow me. Their scuttling fills my ears whenever I close my eyes and their cruel, amused stare glares back at me like a cruel joke.

I don’t like spiders anymore.

...I think I might get an exterminator.

Statement ends.

Ms. Bassmaji’s account of this encounter sounds like a few we’ve had before. The sea of the spiders, the scuttling. It seems Hightower is still terrorizing the innocent with the help of the Web. Unsurprisingly... we cannot make a follow up with Ms. Bassmaji.

However, Tim did some digging with records and found both Amy Bassmaji and Marilyn Hightower as employed. However, Marilyn still proves to be as slippery as a damn eel and disappeared before we could locate her.

Martin did some digging himself, finding out that Ms. Bassmaji was reported as missing by her girlfriend, Katelyn Palmer, in May of 2017.

Prior to her disappearance, there was a spider infestation in their flat. Oddly, only their flat was exclusively effected. No amount of pest control could have gotten rid of them. Odder yet, Ms. Palmer states that as soon as Ms. Bassmaji went missing, the spiders seemed to disappear with her.

I hope that she didn’t suffer too long, but knowing of the way Hightower kills, I sincerely doubt it. I can only pray that we apprehend her soon.

End recording.

#yes the episode title would be ‘missing persons’#fuck yeah #enjoy!!#jam writes

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initcne-arch · 4 years

Text

Statement of Darlene Alderson, formerly known as Dolores Haze, regarding the disappearance of the world. Statement taken directly from subject. Recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

You know, I had forgotten about this until my brother and I came here. Is this another one of your weird voodoo shit tricks?? Whatever, dude. I remember it now. You want a statement, I’ll give you a fucking statement.

I was a lonely kid. I had "friends” from school and from ballet, but no one I never really spent a significant amount of time with. I’d rather be hanging out with Elliot and Angela--Angela is--was our next door neighbor, and my best friend. But, they started getting older, started leading their own lives, and I was just a kid, so while they were off gallivanting around and doing whatever the fuck it is older teenagers do, I was alone. My mom was a royal bitch. I don’t blame Elliot for not wanting to be around her. For always being gone... She didn’t want much to do with me. She resented my existence. Liked to remind me of that every now and then, too. So, even when she was home, I was still alone. I fucking hated that house. I was gone as often as I could be. I had to come back eventually, though. I never wanted to come back. I ran away a few times, for days at a time. Mom didn’t hit me as often as she hit my brother, but she would smack me every time I came crawling back to her.

This happened the night Elliot and Angela went off to NYU. They were eighteen, I was only fourteen. I knew I couldn’t go with them but I chased the bus anyway. When Mom caught up to me, she grabbed my arm so hard it left bruises there for a week. She dragged me home. Didn’t say a word to me in the car. Then she left for work. Didn’t say a word to me then, either.

I was coding something on my computer. Working on malware, I think. The details are still fuzzy. Maybe this memory will become clearer. Is that why people remember the most minute detail in the statements they give?? Because of you??

Anyway, the point is, I was super invested in this code I was writing, and I kind of forgot about the outside world, so it was a few hours before I realized how...deafeningly silent it was. Even my computer was silent. No quiet whirring from the fan or that faint buzz from the monitor. We’re from New Jersey, and while it’s not the city, you could still hear distant traffic from outside our little suburb. I also realized it was still light outside, even though it was well after nine o'clock at night. It wasn’t bright outside. You know when its overcast and foggy, and the sun is only barely peeking through the clouds?? It was that sort of dull light. Still too bright outside for how late it was.

And when I looked outside I saw...absolutely fucking nothing. Just thick, gray fog. Again, New Jersey. Houses are built close together. I could always see the neighbor’s house across the street. Didn’t matter how overcast it was. I could always see it. That’s when I started to really panic. When I really started to realize that something is fucking wrong. I got up from my desk and just went from one room to the next in my house. There were no familiar sounds of the house settling, none of the appliances quietly clicking, even the old clock in our living room was silent. Ticking, but silent. I picked up the landline phone and there was no dial tone. I think I was crying at this point. The only thing I could think to do next was to go outside and try to find a neighbor.

Except, all my neighbors were gone. It was just my house surrounded by that thick, thick fog. Yeah, I was definitely fucking crying at this point. All the houses were gone and the gray fog traveled every direction. And it was completely silent outside. No chirping insects, no distant sound of traffic, no dogs barking from their houses, couldn’t even hear my feet on the ground, if you can call the gray fog beneath my feet the ground. It was absolutely and completely fucking silent.

So I started to run. I ran, and I ran, and I fucking ran, but no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escape from that fucking house. It didn’t get any further away or any closer, and I could run around it, but I couldn’t run away from it.

I must have run for an hour and I couldn’t get even an inch away from that house. I was out of breath and sweaty and my eyes were stinging and my chest was aching and my legs were screaming at me to fucking stop. I stood outside that house and I screamed at it. I sat on the ground for a while. Sat there and cried. I thought, is this what my life is going to be?? Am I going to be completely and utterly alone forever in this awful house?? At the time, I couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than being alone. And then I realized, I was alone. My brother was gone. My best friend was gone. It was just me and my mom now, and her energy made me feel more alone than anything else.

I finally went inside after sitting there for a while. When I looked at the clock in the living room, still ticking away silently, it said it was 10:56pm.

I didn’t go to my room. I couldn’t be alone in my room right now. Elliot took most of his things with him, but his bed was still in his room. Sheets and a pillow and all. We used to sleep in the same bed a lot when we were younger. I closed the blinds and curtains, hoped that if I blocked out that dull light I could at least pretend like something was out there. I just climbed into his bed and hugged his pillow. I didn’t sleep. I just lay there. Thought about him, and Angela, and how when I also turned eighteen, I could run away to NYU with them, and we could all be together again, and none of us would have to return to this house, and Elliot and I would never have to see our mom again. She could never hurt us or belittle us again.

Now, I’m a pretty logical person, always have been. Even when I was a kid. But it didn’t cross my mind for a second that this could be a horrible, awful, completely fucked up dream. But I think it was that thought that shook that crushing feeling of loneliness from me, because I heard my mom come home from work. Suddenly, there was sound again. I remember jumping up and running from Elliot’s room and calling for her. She didn’t respond to me, obviously, but I could hear her moving around downstairs. When I went down there, she was sitting in her old armchair with the TV on, smoking a cigarette. It was nearly midnight now. The clock on the wall, now audibly ticking, said so. I went back up the stairs and threw the curtains open. It was dark outside, the night sky lit by the moon and scattered porch lights. I could hear cars off in the distance. I think I started crying again. I’m not sure I ever stopped crying. I still didn’t go to my room, though. I went back to Elliot’s bed.

I called him and Angela the next morning. Elliot seemed a little annoyed to be hearing from me already, but I had to know he was there. I had to know he still existed. I had to know that I still existed.

I think as time passed, I told myself it was just an awful dream that I had, until I completely forgot it happened. I don’t really remember, well, forgetting the incident. Like I said, I had completely forgotten about it until we rolled into the institute. But in the moment, I knew it wasn’t just a dream. I could feel something sinister lurking in that fog, just out of my line of sight. I know I can’t keep saying I’m going to throw hands with every supernatural fuckwad that comes at us, but I like to think I fended one off once, and who’s to say I couldn’t do it again??

Statement ends.

#P H E W #i'm gonna go shower now #but here it is folks #TMA.vrs

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dathen · 5 years

Text

TMA 158 liveblog dump

this is gonna be incoherent and long as heck and idk how they didn’t ban my twitter from all the spam

ft. excessive yelling about how much I want to kill peter lukas and me being whipped around by the plot twists like a chew toy with a hyperactive dog

looks at cast list oh god oh fuck oh christ

UMMM THE SUMMARY WHAT THE FUCKKKKKK

skjdjd why did alex read BERT!! three times as loud as the rest of the names that was cute am I just frantically latching onto anything to calm me down?? yes

me yesterday: I hope they mention Tim! me now: PETER LUKAS GET THAT NAME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH I WILL KILL YOU

“what’s that in your hands” “it’s a leitner!” “and the blood on it?” “that’s leitner too!” WHY IS THIS SHOW SO FUCKING FUNNY when i’m about to pass out from suspense

LETTING THE CHANGELING FREE TO HUNT JON JUST TO KEEP HIM AWAY?? taunting martin with “oh you can still leave to help them :)” ?? MY BLOOD IS BOILING

this BASTARD i’m going to EVISCERATE HIM i’m going to INVENT NEW WAYS TO KILL HIM i am SHAKING

so much for protecting the institute!!!! bastard!!! motherfucker!!!!!

ELIAS GOT OUT????? WHAT THE FUCKKKK

also my heart is suddenly wrapped in warm cozy blankets to hear jon daisy and basira are reunited but I need to know how they got separated in the first place

jon’s little high-pitched “now?? I guess??” is so cute everything he does is cute uwu

I’m reveling in hearing martin talk but part of me is in “soon I may never hear from him again” mode and it’s making it ROUGH

OOOO WE KNEW YOU COULD SEE EVERYTHING FROM THE PANOPTICON I love being right *remembers I’m afraid martin will be lost forever* ..but not all the time

also peter freeing the changeling to hunt Jon shoots down my theory that all of this is to bait him down here, which also makes me certain that he didn’t leave the statement I’m also pretty certain martin didn’t either which means...

JONAH MAGNUS?????? (DOES THAT MEAN ELIAS -IS- BRAT STONER RICH KID ELIAS??? BIGGEST FUCKING TWIST OF ALL)

HEY HEY DONT MAKE MARTIN MURDER PEOPLE YOU ASSHOLE stab jonah magnus YOURSELF

“I brought a knife” has the same air as “I have a pipe” which means someone other than (though possibly including) jonah is gonna get stabbed HOPEFULLY PETER LET MARTIN STAB PETER

me: don’t make martin a murderer he’s so soft it would make him sad uwu :(( also me: LET 👏 MARTIN 👏 MURDER 👏 LUKAS

WAIT WAIT WHAT WHAT DID I SPEAK TOO SOON DOES ELIAS HAVE JONAH’S EYES

why was there static when jon says “we don’t have time for this” hmmmm

aaaaa daisy sticking up for jon’s idea I’m :’)

“””””Elias””””””” HHHHHHHGGHHHHHHH GLGLGLLGLG

I AM IN WHIPLASH elias really is possessed I AM SAD...... I wasn’t able to join in on all the jokes bc I KNEW I’d be sad if the theory turned out to be true GLLGHHGLL...

so gertrude planning to burn down the institute was a DISTRACTION?? for murdering jonah’s body in the panopticon??

“do you really care about any of them? or is that worry simply an old reflex?” there are so many old fuckers I need to eviscerate

Martin: “No” Me: [SCREAMS ALOUD FORGETTING MY WINDOWS ARE OPEN AND SOMEONE IS PROBABLY THINKING I GOT MURDERED]

MY ENTIRE LIFE. LED UP TO THAT MOMENT. OF MARTIN SAYING NO

jon gets his second fuck!!!!!

well jon gets no fucks but you know what I mean!!!

are julia and trevor just murdering their way through the institute??? jesus CHRIST

I’m about to straight up pass out I’m so glad I worked from home today so I didn’t have to listen while driving

jon: don’t I get a gun?? :( basira: you don’t know how to fire one! jon, whiny: you never taught me!! basira: you never asked!! HE’S SO PETULANT ITS SO CUTE fjdjjdjdj

jon not wanting to leave basira and daisy behind out of fear they’ll die holding the others off :((( jonathan “I’m not losing you too” sims always making me sad ALSO I AM TERRIFIED FOR DAISY AND BASIRA

DAAAAISSYYYYY IM SHAKING AND CRYING I AM GONNA DISSOLVE

“promise me” this is only the third time I’ve cried while listening but BOY IS THE CRYING HAPPENING

they’re gonna find her later and save her with the power of love right????

I can’t even properly appreciate how hot feral daisy is this is a crime

MARTIN SNARK ON PETER LUKAS TIME?? is our seasonly martin smackdown gonna be on PETER LUKAS is life REALLY THIS GOOD TO ME??

oh no the knife clattering to the floor I’ve seen return of the jedi I know how this goes

“oh I’m sure it is! but that’s not what it is about, is it?” oh no martin is being Hot again I didn’t ask for this

me @ me when daisy is feral and martin is being commanding and sarcastic

“honestly? I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear” JEJDSJNDJKDOEJFOSNCJKDNDKKDKSJFJDKKSNDJDKKSNNDJDJBEJSJJEJEJJDKJFNDND

THATS MY BOY!!!!!! MY BEAUTIFUL MAGIC BOY!!!!!!!!!!!

MARTIN’S SPEECH IS SO GOOD I CANT EVEN REACT TO IT IM JUST GONNA GET THE WHOLE THING TATTOOED ON MY BODY LOVE FOR MARTIN BLACKWOOD TRIPLED AGAIN HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE

OH GOD OH GOD PETER THREW MARTIN INTO THE LONELY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I SAW IT COMING in fact yesterday I predicted the last few eps would be saving martin from the Lonely but THAT DOESNT MEAN I AM ANY LESS DISTRESSED

KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS KILL PETER LUKAS

all of yesterday’s horny elias jokes were so on point elias is in maximum horny mode

“what is this place?” “that’s a complicated—“ “it’s the Panopticon” elias:

JON IS SO IN LOVE

“yeah you’ll 100% die if you go in to save mar—“ “how do I do it” NOT A FUCKING SECOND OF HESITATION I AM SCREAMING FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

“are you scared, Jon?” “..Yes.” “Perfect” this was maximum vulnerable Jon an maximum horny elias and I am having such whiplash and I’m pretty sure my heart forgot how to beat half an hour ago

OH WAIT FUCK THAT WAS THE END NOOOOOOOO HOW AM I GONNA SURVIVE ANOTHER WEEK? HOW?????

MARTIN REFUSING TO HELP LUKAS AND BEING CAST INTO THE LONELY AS PUNISHMENT AND JON FOLLOWING AFTER TO SAVE HIM WAS MY DREAM SCENARIO THAT WAS TOO IDEALISTIC FOR FICS TO EVEN DARE

#tma spoilers #the magnus archives #tma liveblog

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memoirsofafuneralhousemouse · 4 years

Text

Magnus 164 Live Blogging. Spoilers ahead, so tread carefully:

4 minutes in and I, a person with chronic eczema and (very mild, mind you) excoriation disorder, should probably NOT be listening to this.

I am absolutely going to keep listening to this.

I mean I'm not triggered yet and I survived Jane Prentiss and her worms so how bad can this be?

Besides I already trimmed my nails yesterday so no harm will be done today that wasn't done last week.

The flies are SENDING ME. I'm so mad I THOUGHT ANOTHER FLY HAD BARGED INTO MY ROOM BUT IT WAS THE SOUNDSCAPE.

I hate you, Alexander J. Newall.

The villagers are all xenophobic send post.

Jon: "Tiphoid Mary..."

Me: I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE! :D

Me: Oh wait I'm supposed to be serious this is a serious podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and liscenced under a Creative Commons attribution share-alike 4.0 international liscence

Jonny Sims really is out there saying fuck bigot and racist lives and commit arson huh.

Pick your fighter: The girl peeling herself alive with a razos vs. me scratching my itchy leg with my feel because I'm too busy typing this with my hands to free them.

Don't worry I cannot hurt myself it's already bandaged and I put jeans on :) but fuck that xenophobic asshole though.

This is gross and I want to puke thank God I did not eat anything before this.

Telling on your neighbours for being "infected" or not "pure enough"... Shoa vibes? Shoa vibes.

Seriously THE FLIES. I. Hate. The. Flies.

I understand why Martin yeets himself into the Lonely in order NOT to hear this. Damn you Jonathan.

Did Rotten Girl's pussy just POP out of her containment hazmat suit? Maybe so.

My hair tie just bursted as Jon ended the recording and the hair I so dutifully kept in my manbun covered my eyes and I SCREAMED because damnit this was a new hair tie but also fuck you Jonny.

God he brings the rest of us down.

Thank God is over.

"YOUR GUIDEBOOK" Martin I love you please don't die.

"It's infectious" this is so sad Beholding play Toxic by Britney Spears.

Martin: How much can you See?

Jon: They're taking the hobits to Isengard.

Jonapedia is my favourite thing out of this season I need to get the App on my phone for work.

JON BEING SO OFFENDED BY MARTIN LYING ABOUT HIS MIDDLE NAME BABY NO HE DOES HAVE ONE HIS NAME IS MARTIN POTASSIUM BLACKWOOD.

Martin Klaus Blackwood?

Martin Krispie Blackwood.

Martin Krystal Blackwood.

Martin Kahoots Blackwood.

Martin... I can't think of anything else.

Basira is HUNTING.

Basira is HUNTING?!?!

Jonapedia is being WILD this episode. GO OFF KING! 👏

Wait what do you mean you don't KNOW?!

Your only JOB is to KNOW things Jon that's what you DO.

You DRINK (not!tea) and you KNOW things what ELSE is your PURPOSE then you SOGGY SOCK.

"How is he?" Martin baby WHY.

Jon can't see inside of Sauron which I guess deserves a "sike"? I don't know I can't think of a meme for this I am brain dead right now.

My god these bitches married! Good for them. Good for them.

Jon can't See Anabelle Cane because her Big Dick Energy is really just that Big.

"What "was" London." Bro you don't have to pretend. We all know London is awful, Fearpocalypse or not.

Jon's wow I can't even he's cute (in a rat kind of way).

MARRIED.

"Well go slow for a while."

Me: *Insert Cat Crying meme*

So... y'all gonna use Helen's door as an Uber? Or...

Don't MISNAME HELEN YOU HEATHEN

"Crazy kids" he eats rum and raisin ice cream Helen he is 80.

"Brave New World" is a book that severely traumatised me in high school. Thank you Jonathan once again you are a beacon of fear in all the unexpected and ludicrous ways possible.

"All I did was refuse to help." In which I am an Avatar of the Distortion, apparently.

Helen being homophobic is really turning me on I'm sorry Imogen Harris I swear I'm a good person I swear–

Martin DON'T tell on Jon like this you traitor! You meanie! You little piece of gummy bear I can't be MEAN to Martin I physically CAN'T.

Jon is too OP to go into the Distortion. I have to laugh.

Helen really went both "I hate gay people" and "god I love these homo bitches" in this episode huh

Jon stop denying your adorableness you Know there's a lot of thirsty people out there who are incredibly turned on by crusty mediocre looking men who are prematurely graying and look like they haven't slept in a week.

Which is a good thing because I am one of those gremlin people who are prematurely graying and I think it's very sexy of me to be considered attractive or adorable by someone else.

I need a Martin in my life.

God I'm lonely.

My hair's in my eyes I can't take this anymore.

"Cruel, viscious monster"... sounds like Wife Material to me.

That's IT?! Is that ALL?! JONATHAN IS THAT ALL??? IS THAT ALL THERE IS FOR THIS WEEK??? JONATHAN I'M STARVING YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME?!?! J O N A T H A N

Very good episode. I like the gay people. 6/10 because the statement was absolutely disgusting but I can take it if it means I get to hear Martin.

#mine #spoilers #long post

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snarkysims · 4 years

Photo

Narrated by Shonice Armstrong

After class, I met Scarlett for some window shopping at the new baby boutique. Afterwards, we had dinner in the adjoining cafe. We discussed ideas for her baby shower as we ate. When our conversation came to a lull, I broached a subject that I had been wondering about for weeks. “Scarlett, have you and Andreas decided on Watcher-parents for the baby yet?”

Scarlett’s eyes opened wide like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. She paused eating, her fork frozen halfway to her mouth. She remained quiet for several seconds, then put her fork down and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Um, yes, we have actually. We nearly had a knock-down, drag-out fight over it.” She kept her eyes on her plate.

I leaned towards her eagerly. “Well?”

She picked her fork up again and poked at her prawns mindlessly. “Well, of course, I suggested you and Jin-Sang.”

“Of course!”

“But Andreas wanted Tessa and Ravi.”

“Oh.” I tried to hide my disappointment. “Well, I get that. He knows them better than he knows me and Jin-Sang.”

“Yeah, exactly!” She finally looked up at me, nodding enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. Scarlett was a terrible liar. She was worse than Jonathan.

I sighed. “Okay, that clearly wasn’t the reason. Spill it, sister.”

Scarlett squirmed in her chair. “Andreas wanted Tessa and Ravi because he felt they were a stable couple.”

I tensed up. “And Jin-Sang and I aren’t stable?”

“Come on, Shonice. Everyone knows about the thing with Jin-Sang and Ashanti.”

“Give me a break, Scar. It’s not like it was a big affair. All they did was kiss, which she initiated, not him. We’re past that and closer than we have ever been.”

“I know, honey, but you have to admit the Mark thing dragged out too.”

“Scarlett!” I looked around frantically. I had noticed Mark come into the cafe earlier. He had been dressed in his police uniform. A tall, muscular, blond guy also in a police uniform had been with him. I presumed that was his partner, and that they were on their dinner break.

I continued to scan the room until I located him and his partner at the table right behind us. I didn’t want him overhearing our conversation, so I leaned in closer to Scarlett and whispered, “Mark is so over and done with.”

Scarlett looked at me skeptically and whispered back, “If he’s so over and done with, why are you whispering?”

I sat up straight in my chair. Scarlett sat up too and arched a blond eyebrow at me in a challenge. So, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “MARK IS SO OVER AND DONE WITH!”

At my outburst, Mark’s and his partner’s heads shot up in our direction. Mark leaned back in his chair and smirked at me. “The feeling is mutual, sweetheart!” Mark said something to his partner while gesturing towards me. His partner looked at me again, and I could see him mouth a big “Oh!” in recognition.

I wanted to die. Thankfully, a crackling voice came over their walkie-talkies, so Mark and his buddy threw some cash down on their table and headed for the door. My eyes met Mark’s as he passed our table. He looked poised to say something to me but thought better of it. Instead, he just sighed and shook his head. His partner nudged him to keep moving towards the door.

I caught a twinkle in Scarlett’s dark blue eyes as she watched them leave. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. As soon as they exited the cafe, I asked her, “Are you satisfied?”

“Immensely.” Then, she started laughing hysterically. I glared at her, but could only hold it for a second before I started giggling too.

When we recovered, Scarlett grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you were looking forward to being the Watcher-mother, but Andreas won’t budge. He says there always seems to be a third party popping up in your relationship, and he figures that one of these days someone is going to break you up.”

“I see.” My voice was ice, and I pulled my hand away. I didn’t point out that Scarlett herself had been a third party in Andreas’s relationship with Sofia. If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black!

“I don’t feel that way, honey,” Scarlett said quickly. “I lived with you and Jin-Sang in Courtyard for nearly two years. I know you’re crazy about each other. But I couldn’t come up with any cons against Tessa and Ravi to counter Andreas. They’ve been together practically since the first day of freshman year, and a farm could be a wonderful place to raise a child.”

“I get it, Scar. Tessa and Ravi are a great choice.” I wrapped my arms around myself, I could feel tears stinging the back of my eyes, but the last thing I wanted was to start bawling in public.

I wasn’t fooling Scarlett, though. “Honey, don’t let this upset you. Jin-Sang and Jonathan are so close that I’m sure Jonathan and Jerilene will ask you two to be Watcher-parents for their kids.”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t take what Andreas said to heart. I’m sure you and Jin-Sang are fine.”

“Yeah, fine,” I echoed hollowly. “Listen, I’ve got some reading I need to do before class tomorrow, so I should get going soon.”

“Of course, honey.” I could tell from her demeanor, though, that she wasn’t buying my lie either.

***

You can see Mark in the background of the third picture, and Jack really did come to the lot in his uniform too. Tessa was also there, so I thought it was neat that three of my Family sims showed up at a baby store.

#ts2 gameplay #sapphire springs #fall 2003 #armstrong #quigley #xavier

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notquiteaghost · 5 years

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there isn't enough nonbinary jon sims content, here is... well i started writing this as headcanons but this is really a not!fic about nonbinary jon sims. it’s 3′300 words

it contains: nonbinary trans masc autistic jon, jongeorgie, lesbian georgie, trans guy martin & tim, trans woman sasha, team archives trans solidarity, and not-insignificant amount of internalised transphobia and references to misgendering & general cis people bullshit

(also ftr i am heavily basing jon's experiences here as a nonbinary autistic person on my own experiences as a nonbinary autistic person) (this is like 80% projection) (what else is fandom for!)

also on AO3 if you prefer your 3k of bullet points to have better spacing

tiny baby [jon] who knows she isn't very good at being a girl but doesn't have the words to articulate why

her grandmother thinks kids clothes should be durable and practical so even tho jon is not a kid who climbs trees or plays football, her wardrobe is exclusively straight jeans & 'boys' t-shirts & large jumpers

she keeps her hair roughly shoulder length because that's the length it's always been but strangers still 'mistake' her for a boy a lot. this makes her feel a way she again hasn't got the words for

when she starts secondary school she continues to dress 'masc', never starts wearing makeup, never gets any interest in dating, generally fills out the checklist for everyone else assuming she's a lesbian

she knows she's definitely not a straight girl, so she shrugs and decides sure, she's a lesbian. it's a moot point, mostly, seeing as even if she did have any interest in dating she's the only gay person her age she knows

but she does get involved in some community support stuff – she spends a lot of time in the library as a teenager, and one of the librarians is a lesbian who takes jon under her wing a bit

coffee mornings and book clubs and things like that. sixteen year old jon and a dozen queer women all in their late twenties at the youngest. they joke a lot how often they forget jon isn't also a thirty-something

(this is that autism feel of having no interest in your peers but getting on great with adults)

and then she goes to uni, and then she meets georgie

georgie is a Very Out lesbian. she goes to clubs, she's heavily involved in the lgbt society, she has a rainbow flag hanging in her bedroom window. yknow.

jon likes her a lot, and still isn't really sure if it's romantic or not, but assumes that's more due to being gay than anything else

(no one has told jon about asexuality yet)

so when, one night when they're meant to be studying in georgie's room but instead are mostly drinking shit cheap wine and complaining about their professors, georgie looks at jon with this soft look on her face and asks to kiss her, jon says yes

and then they date

they're both living in one of those massive student houses with a thousand bedrooms crammed everywhere and only a kitchen for a communal space. georgie has lived there since coming back to finish first year, and jon moved in halfway through second year after a somewhat disastrous flatmate situation

so after they graduate, moving in together seems like the natural progression of things even tho they’ve only been dating for two months

jon is still, when asked, identifying as a lesbian and using she/her, but is also still dressing what other people now call butch. she always feels kind of weird about that term, but again, just chalks it up to the mess of complicated feelings being a gnc lesbian does genuinely involve

and then, finally, jon meets some actual trans people

jon has, circumstantially, known trans people. thanks to georgie, jon goes to a lot of lgbt soc things, and is passingly familiar with most of the lgbt people on their campus

but there’s a big difference between nodding at someone when you see them in the library and having an actual, proper conversation about gender

so, jon goes to a lot of social events because georgie does. without georgie, jon would probably not leave the house except to go to work and to the library (jon is not doing postgrad. jon’s library habits do not particularly reflect this)

mostly at these events, jon sits in the corner and reads, and only talks to other quiet antisocial people, while georgie circles back periodically to report on her social butterfly escapades

and at one, one of the other quiet antisocial people is a trans guy

he’s called harry, and he asks about the book jon is reading, and after they’ve been talking a while he says, “sorry, you probably get this a lot, but what pronouns do you use?”

jon just blinks at him and says “what”

“well, i’m trans, so i’m always really cautious about assuming,” harry says, easily, and this does not answer the question jon was asking

jon.exe has crashed

she(?) eventually says, “uh. she? i’ve never– she”

and harry, who has spent the last forty minutes discussing dante with jon and is already sure they’re going to be friends, says “want the trans 101? you’re making a face like you need it”

three hours later georgie finally reappears with the intent to actually interrupt (she’s drifted past periodically, but jon was always deep in conversation with harry, so she left them alone) and get going, and jon gets harry’s email address and is then very quiet as they walk arm-in-arm back to their house

just as they turn onto their street, jon says, “i, ah. i think i might be trans?”

georgie, who has for the past couple months been having something of a crisis after realising she definitely loves jon but she isn’t in love and she can’t figure out why, says “oh thank god”

jon, very bemused, “that wasn’t the reaction i was expecting”

“i think we should break up,” georgie replies, and jon stops walking. they’re four feet from their front door, but it’s late, no one’s about, so georgie decides sure, they can have this conversation in the street

“you– because i’m trans?”

“i love you, i really do,” georgie steps closer, takes jon’s hands in hers, “but i’m not in love with you. and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out why, but if you’re not a girl–”

“i can’t tell if i should be offended by this or not,” jon says, somewhat dazed, “i’ve been trans for an hour, georgie, i don’t know if this is transphobic yet”

georgie laughs, and presses a kiss to jon’s cheek, and says “it’s nearly midnight, we both have work tomorrow, let’s table this for later. we can look up names and what word i should use when i complain to other people how you always leave your shoes in the middle of the floor when we aren’t both on the verge of passing out”

and that sounds reasonable, so jon nods, and kisses georgie on the mouth, and then they go inside

the next day jon stops by the library on the way home from work and checks out almost every baby names book they have. georgie comes home and he’s sat at the kitchen table making a spreadsheet

“you don’t have to make it this complicated, you know,” she says, hooking her chin over his shoulder to read what he’s already got. the spreadsheet has a lot of columns.

“it’s my name,” he retorts, and she hums agreeably, then points to ‘jonathan’, which has relatively few ticks in any pro columns (god, this nerd), and says, “isn’t that your grandfather’s name?”

it is. he doesn’t talk about his grandfather a lot – doesn’t talk about his family a lot full stop, but she knows, even though he died when jon was still a toddler, the stories his grandmother told had a significant impact

“my parents didn’t name me after anyone,” jon says, quietly

georgie nods. she doesn’t say they’re not here now to offer an opinion, because that’s far harsher than jon deserves to hear, and it’s not like she ever needs to remind him of it either. he’s definitely already beating himself up for taking so long to come to this realisation there’s no one left around to tell him how they’d have reacted

“i think it suits you,” she says instead, and jon nods, and then she moves away to make a pot of tea and some pasta (it’s technically jon’s night to cook, but she was anticipating coming home to find him already hyperfocused beyond the point of no return)

a week later, jon looks up from the spreadsheet to where georgie is curled up on the sofa reading and says “ugh, fine, you win, you were right”

(georgie hadn’t pressed her point any further, jon is just like that)

“jon?” she asks, and he makes an exasperated noise and nods, then closes his laptop dramatically and stands. most of his spine pops when he stretches

“this calls for celebration” georgie says, also standing, “franco’s or monsoon?”

“franco’s. i’m going to eat a pizza the size of a car”

so then jon is actually going by jon, and using he/him, and isn’t dating georgie anymore but is still living with her and spending most of his time with her and factoring her into all his major decisions

he talks to harry, and other (binary) trans people, and reads a lot of blogs, and after a few months gets a referral to charing cross gic

by the time he starts at the magnus institute, he’s had top surgery and has been on T for years, and passes as cis completely, and he doesn’t know how to articulate it but this is. bothering him.

he’s not exactly… he likes being stealth, he doesn’t need to flaunt his personal life. he can understand the impulse, but he doesn’t share it. his feelings about gender and romance are no one’s business but his own

but. everyone assuming he was a girl itched – being miss simms, georgie’s girlfriend, she, it felt like wearing a coarse knitted jumper. it was exhausting

and, for a while, everyone assuming he was a man was a relief. it didn’t make his skin crawl, it didn’t make him want to scream, it was nice. it felt good.

it didn’t feel right. but it didn’t feel bad, either, and jon has never been gendered in a way that felt right. he thought that was just part of being trans

except. he moves to london, and he starts at the magnus institute, and he wears shirts and slacks, and the long skirts and patterned dresses some of his colleagues wear keep catching his eye the way men in three-piece suits used to, and that terrifies him

he was lucky, in a way, having no family left to care when he transitioned – if anyone reacted negatively, he could just cut them out of his life, and his social circle was already queer enough that was hardly necessary

but that doesn’t mean he escaped internalising a whole swathe of shit about what being trans should mean and how he should act and what he should want and if he wants to wear skirts then is he even a man? was he making it up all along after all?

naturally, he deals with this by ignoring it. he’s a man, men don’t wear skirts, he doesn’t wear skirts, that’s that.

he manages to keep that up until he’s made head archivist, and he’s given three assistants who are all also trans

(he doesn’t know if elias did it on purpose. elias knows he’s trans, of course, because he’s never bothered to get the name on his diploma changed, but the way elias reacted lead jon to assume elias may also be trans. and if that’s true, then selecting only trans people for the archives staff feels like a kindness more than anything)

and, the thing about them all being trans, is even if jon and martin are both rather fond of being stealth, and sasha and tim aren’t used to being out at work, and none of them are exactly friends, they’re the only people who ever come in the archives, so the archives very quickly becomes the Safe Trans Zone

they all vent a lot about cis people. sasha will walk in and the first words out her mouth will be “the next person to ask me if i’d had the surgery is getting their own surgery when i cut their tongues out”, and tim will make a commiserating noise and offer her the pack of donuts martin brought in

so when, on one of the rare afternoons when jon leaves his office to lean against tim’s desk and brainstorm organisational system ideas, martin walks back from the break room upstairs with a scowl and says, bitterly, as he sits back down, “oh so when cis guys wear nail polish it’s inspiring and breaking down gender roles but when i wear nail polish, jenny from HR gets to side eye me and ask if that means i changed my mind, because surely i’m the one who’ll do that and not all the men who didn’t have to do hours of therapy to establish they are definitely, one hundred percent for sure a guy!”

tim and sasha both make the standard commiseration noises, and sasha says something about the supervisor at her last job trying to say it wasn’t appropriate for her to wear trousers, and jon stops listening and runs away moves back to his office

he hadn’t noticed martin is wearing nail polish, is the thing. or, he had noticed it, but he hadn’t thought about it, and now he’s thinking about it. he’s thinking about it a lot

martin had– martin is a guy. martin is definitely a guy, if something of a feminine-leaning gay guy, the kind of feminine-leaning no one ever questions in cis guys, and it hadn’t occurred to jon to question martin, either, even though he’s trans, and. and.

he’s still circling round a revelation he can’t quite make himself have an hour or so later, when martin sticks his head round the door

“you, uh. you alright?” martin asks, incredibly tentatively. it says a lot, jon thinks, about how nice martin is, that he’s asking even though there’s a 90% chance jon will tell him to fuck off “you kind of disappeared abruptly, earlier. i didn’t upset you, did i?”

jon stares at him for a long moment, then says, “can i see your nail polish?”

“oh!” martin’s cheeks flush, just slightly, as he steps inside the office and lets the door shut behind him “uh, yeah, of course. it’s a little chipped, now, but, yeah”

martin’s nail polish is a light, pastel blue. it’s neat, and even, though his nails aren’t that long, and jon thinks he remembers martin saying something about mostly painting his nails to try and get himself to stop biting them. jon’s never really gone for nail polish, but it’s. nice.

“it’s, uh. it’s a good colour, on you,” he says awkwardly. martin flushes even more

“oh, um, thanks? did– are you alright?”

if jon was a different kind of person, this is where he’d open up to martin, and this would be the beginning of them becoming actual friends

jon is jon, though, so he just shoves all his emotions back in the box they escaped from, nods, and says “i didn’t sleep that well, is all. not really up to socialising”

(an aside about s1 jonmartin dynamic: jon is very good at shittalking martin when martin isn’t around, but in the face of martin’s genuine care and concern, he defaults back to a far more friendlier tone than he’s aiming for. he knows, on a level, that he and martin could be good friends if he ever got his shit together, but that is something else he’s currently repressing. he doesn’t need friends! he isn’t desperate for social contact at all! what’s loneliness!)

martin says “ah, okay, i’ll just– i’ll leave you alone, then”, and then jon makes himself focus on work, and then when he gets home he opens the group chat he’s still, thankfully, in with the trans people who got him through his first gender crisis and sends ‘help i don’t know if i’m a guy after all’

three people immediately send back a link to nonbinary.org

and that’s the rest of jon’s evening

he reads through every article. he reads several articles multiple times. he opens several new tabs, and gets a notepad to make a list of books, and eventually remembers to reply in the group chat

a week later, he bites the bullet and writes an email to georgie

nothing long, just, they still tell each other about big life events

and then, another couple weeks after that, when martin brings him tea, he says, “ah, martin, could i– do you have a moment?”

“of course,” martin says, and lets the door swing closed again, “what do you need?”

“i, ah. this isn’t very professional, so, you don’t– you are perfectly welcome to say no, of course, but i. um. would you– come clothes shopping with me?”

(ideally, jon would have asked georgie, but as much as he loves her (still), they haven’t talked properly in years, and she is cis. the best cis person he knows, but still a cis person. and he’d just, rather have a trans person, for emotional support, and no one in the group chat lives particularly nearby anymore) (or, well, some of them are, but when he asked they all told him to get over himself and ask one of his ‘lovely’ coworkers)

(why does he ask martin and not sasha?) (well, dear reader, he is nursing the beginnings of a crush) (not that he knows it. but that’s absolutely what’s happening here. martin is sweet and lovely and jon definitely finds him annoying and overbearing. yes. nothing else. no other emotions.) (his chest feels all weird when martin smiles because he doesn’t like him. that always happens around people he dislikes.)

“oh!” martin says, surprised. “uh, yes, of course, is– is there an event or something…?”

jon takes a moment to stare at the wall above martin’s head before he makes himself say, “i. am non-binary, and i need– different clothes.”

“oh, god, have we been–”

“no, no, this is a, a very recent development. he is still fine,” jon says, quickly, then pauses, then adds, more haltingly, “i think. i might, if – they, as well, maybe? just, to see”

“of course. d’you want me to tell tim and sasha?”

martin, jon thinks, is maybe not all that bad “yes, please”

“cool,” martin smiles, “i’m free this weekend? for shopping?”

“this saturday would be good, yes”

and then jon and martin go shopping! it’s probably not that successful of a shopping trip, because it takes jon like four shops before they admit what exactly it is they’re looking for, but they go to several charity shops and have fun trying to one-up each other with the most ridiculous/inexplicable item of clothing, and at the end of the day jon has three skirts (a knee-length black a-line skirt, a full-length black skirt, and a full-length black skirt patterned with red flowers), two necklaces, and a skater dress they probably can’t get away with wearing to work, but they really liked the way the skirt moved when they spun

other things that happen include lunch at a cafe where the staff definitely think they’re on a date and only martin notices and also martin is dying, both of them only managing to walk past a secondhand bookshop twice before they cave and go inside, and then emerge half an hour later both holding three books (two poetry anthologies and a sci fi novel; a psychology book and two history books), and martin somehow talking jon into trying on skinny jeans and then, again, leaving this mortal coil

jon doesn’t buy the skinny jeans, which is for the best really

the first time jon wears one of the skirts to work, sasha does a victory lap around the archives because “hell yes skirts are so much more comfortable, and now you swish! tim you should get a skirt. skirts for archives uniform”

and jon is still a prickly antisocial bastard but now he’s an outly nonbinary prickly antisocial bastard, and sometimes they walk into the archives at 2PM smelling of tobacco and holding a bottle of vodka, and then the archives staff all do shots and dramatic readings of the most ridiculous fake statements, because sometimes that’s how you cope with cis people, and that’s! valid!

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #georgie barker #martin blackwood #jongeorgie #yelling at clouds #fic tag #draw jon sims in skirts. thank you.

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eliasbouchardisarobloxthot · 4 years

Text

chapter 1 of an au i am writing

this is jokingly titled “power of friendship au” in my doc, but that’s essentially it - tim, sasha, and jon (for now) team up while they’re all still interns to befriend all of the creatures they meet! the timeline is obviously a bit different from tma canon, but it will still be mostly non-spoiler. this chapter in particular has only mid-early season one spoilers, so you all should be fine! as usual, under the cut...

"We are not supposed to be doing this," Tim hissed, but he made no move to run.

Jon wasn’t listening. The box of cigarettes in his hand was nearly crushed, but he stood his ground as they made their way to Old Fishmarket Close.

"Do you really think we're gonna—" Sasha's voice wavered. "I mean, the file in Gertrude's office said it’s not—it isn’t always there, right?”

“We’re going to find it,” he said resolutely. The hills were high, higher than any of them had expected, but they managed to make their way up to the alleyway that was listed on the map.

It was dark out. Jon convinced them all earlier that day to come with him and help after they left for the night, and Tim was doing a very bad job of hiding the fact that it made him incredibly nervous to be out this late. The streets were nearly empty—at nine o’clock on a Tuesday evening, no one was going to be out and about.

A quiet voice echoed from in the alleyway—”Can I have a cigarette?”

Sasha screamed. In her haste to wrap herself around Tim for safety, she nearly hit him in the face. Somehow, though, Jon stood his ground.

“You can have a cigarette if you come out of the alleyway. We know what you are. We just want to talk.” He set the pack of cigarettes down just a bit out of reach, then sat down in front of the alley with his legs crossed. “We can wait here all night.”

“Wait, what? Maybe you can, but some of us have work tomorrow. Or have you forgotten about our literal job? The one we met at? Earth to Jon, but we do still have to work. In the twenty minutes it took us to get here, capitalism as an institution has not yet been overthrown.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.” Jon sat there staring at the alleyway. “Come out of the alley now, please.”

His stare was incredibly intense, seeming to cut through the darkness obscuring the figure and illuminate the alley. As they sat there in the alley, a voice that was most certainly not the one from before—and was also certainly not human—echoed out from the alley.

“Fine.”

“Come out where I can see you,” Jon said.

The vaguely human silhouette in the alley warped and twisted, changing from human to inhuman in barely a second. It skulked out of the alley, sitting down across from Jonathan.

He could see how from certain angles it could maybe look sort of human. If it tried. It reminded him of one of those optical illusion sculptures in museums—from one angle, it looked like a giraffe, from the other two elephants. Except from one angle, this thing was human, and from the other… well, most definitely not.

“Do you have a name?” Jon asked. Somewhere, quiet static hummed.

“No,” it said. “You call me the Anglerfish, though.”

“Do you want a name?”

“Maybe. If you pick a good one.”

“Louis,” Tim said.

“Felix,” Sasha said at the same time.

“No,” the Anglerfish said, decisively.

“You’re a fish, right? What if we just call you Ariel?” Sasha tilted her head to one side, thinking hard. “You look like an Ariel.”

“Ariel as in The Tempest?” Jon asked, looking confused. “I mean, sure, the water reference is there—”

“Ariel as in The Little Mermaid, you fucking idiot,” Tim said with a sigh that could have shaken the city down.

“Never seen it.”

“What’s a mermaid?” the Anglerfish asked, testing the word out in its human voice.

“Oh my god. Firstly, your name is Ariel now.” Tim pointed at the Anglerfish. “Secondly, you get a pass for not knowing because you’re a spooky monster thing. Thirdly, Jon, how have you not seen The Little Mermaid? Did you just straight-up not have a childhood?”

Jon didn’t reply.

“So we’re going to my apartment and renting it off Netflix and—I can’t believe I’m having a slumber party! I’m not a kid anymore… but it’s necessary. Objectively speaking.” Sasha looped her arm through Jon’s, pulling him to his feet.

“Are we sure this is necessary?”

“Yes,” Sasha said, glaring at Tim. “I think I actually have some microwave popcorn we can make, do a full movie night.”

Jon sighed, following Sasha as best he could.

“What’s a movie?” Ariel asked quickly. “What are those?”

“You have a lot to learn,” Sasha said, with a wide grin. “But if you like it here and want to talk about it more, then… well, you can just chill with us!”

—

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Patel? Amy Patel?”

“Alright, Amy, and do you think you can tell me some more about how this all happened? I know you gave your statement to Gertrude already, but—”

“Oh, no, it’s no trouble,” Amy said, gesturing into her flat. “I moved, but I still have my address down if you want me to give it to you. And, er, the flat that used to be Graham’s, I can get you that address too if you need it.”

Sasha shook her head. “You don’t have to give us all that. Just by letting us in you’re doing enough already.”

Amy smiled in that bemused sort of way that older adults tended to smile at younger ones, with a look in her eyes that said something like “who are these little children and why are they trying to be professional around me?”

“We should—I should have introduced myself.” Jon gestured to Tim and Sasha. “That’s Tim Stoker, this is Sasha James, and I’m Jonathan Sims—we work with the Magnus Institute, under the head archivist. We’re only interns, though.”

“I’d noticed,” she said. “Come on, sit down. I’ll put on some tea if you’d like?”

“Tea would be lovely,” Sasha said before the others could interject. “Now, can you tell us a bit more about your experience with Graham?”

“Oh, well, where to begin,” Amy said, pouring milk into a saucepan on the stove. “I mean, I’ve told you basically everything in my statement already. You contacted me saying there was an update a while back, but honestly I’d almost forgotten about it. The whole thing. It was a few years ago now, so… yeah.”

“Alright. Um. Do you—can you tell us anything about what you do now? Like, the sorts of jobs you’ve been doing, or—”

“Yeah, uh… yeah. Like I said in my statement, I do statistical analysis mostly. Been taking a few more classes sort of in the field of criminal studies—” she waved her hand— “all that sort of stuff. I actually did take a liking to it, might try working with that sort of stuff in the near future. I’m already looking for applications."

"That's very interesting, Amy," Jon said, fidgeting with the packet of cigarettes in his pocket.

"It really is," she said as she strained the chai, setting four mugs on the table and sitting down next to them.

Jonathan had taken the box of cigarettes out, and was now shaking them absentmindedly a few centimeters away from his face as he thought.

"Oh, can you not smoke in here?" Amy asked quickly. "It's just—my landlord hates when people smoke inside, we have an area over outside for it—"

"I don't smoke," Jon said, looking somewhat confused. Sasha took the cigarettes from,him and put them in her pocket.

"They're for our friend Ariel, Jon just carries them for it."

"It?" Amy looked more confused than ever.

"She eats them," Tim explained. "And she told us to call her 'she' in front of other people, Sasha."

By this point, Amy had taken a long drink of chai.

"You kids work with monsters. Right? All those things in the statements. Other people have to have given statements, there's got to be some others that are true."

Jon nodded solemnly. "We've been looking into other cases with provable aspects—yours does, by the way, we know yours is at least partially true."

"How comforting," Amy said with a wry smile.

“And… well, this is going to sound very bad, but I would prefer it if Tim stopped sleeping with people to get information.”

“Hey! That was one time!”

Amy laughed. “So you’re asking me to help you get information. Right?”

Jon nodded, having started to fidget with the cuffs of his shirt once Sasha had taken away the cigarette box.

“I mean, I do have access to quite a few databases. If you wanted my help, though, you’ll have to promise something.” It sounded like she was talking to some unruly teenagers.

“Certainly.” He tried to look as professional as possible.

“Please just take care of yourselves,” Amy said with a sigh. “You guys are just kids and you’re running yourselves into the ground, and you’re putting so much work into this—I’m scared you’re going to either get hurt by one of these things or hurt yourselves trying to befriend them.”

“I—” Jon tugged at the button on his sleeve for a moment. “I understand where you’re coming from here, I really do, but there’s, there’s just so many and I want to give them a chance. Because we still have to—if there’s any chance they’re a good person, deep down, I want to help them.”

Amy sighed, leaning back in her chair. “If you’re serious about this—”

“We are,” Sasha said quickly.

“Then I’ll help you.” She picked up a pad of paper sitting on the table and scribbled something on it in smooth, curling handwriting. “That’s my phone number for my work phone, just call it if you need anything. I usually have it on me.”

She thought for a moment. “Give me a sec. You’ll want this.”

Leaving Jon, Tim, and Martin alone at the table, she walked into her bedroom and returned carrying what appeared to be a very old, very worn-out three-ring notebook. There were dividers of various colors separating things, a bookmark that was just a piece of ribbon stapled into the spine, and a label on the front that read “MONSTERS”.

Jon flipped through it quickly, looking through the sections. The dividers were labeled with different numbers, and at the front was a table of contents with each number labeled with a small explanation of each different number.

“This is incredible, Amy,” he said, turning the pages reverently. “There’s so much detail here—this could be more than we have at the Institute, really.”

“Well, I have had a bit of help,” she said amusedly. Opening up the cover, she moved her hand over something inside and set it down on the table. As she did, the inside cover was revealed.

“Is that skin?” Tim asked, looking disgusted. “Ew.”

“What, am I too gross for you?” a voice suddenly said. Sitting on Amy’s sofa was a man who looked to be about Tim’s age, with his hair long and poorly dyed black. All of his joints were tattooed with tiny open eyes, and he wore dark eye makeup in circles around his eyes that trailed down his face. The clothes he wore were ripped and tattered, but it was obvious that they had at one point been a t-shirt for a band, a leather jacket, and a pair of dark jeans.

He was also hovering several feet in the air.

“Nice to meet you, everyone,” he said with a grin. “I’m Gerard Keay, and I used to work for your boss.”

Jon stood there open-mouthed for a few moments. “Sorry, what?”

“I used to work for Gertrude. That’s your boss, right? She still there?”

“Yeah, she’s still there. Uh, just—you’re a ghost, aren’t you.”

“Yep,” he said, leaning back to hover above the couch with his hands behind his head. “They taking the book with them, Amy?”

“I think so. Because, well, they’re—I think they’re more able to investigate these things than I am.”

“Shame,” Gerard said with a sigh, pushing off the wall and sighing. “You were cool. Plus you didn’t mind if I listened to music on your phone while you worked.”

“You can still see me sometimes,” Amy said with a laugh. “Not like I’m dead. And besides, that wouldn’t really be too much of a problem, would it?”

Gerard rolled his eyes. He very pointedly turned away from Amy and looked at the interns, hovering in a cross-legged position in the air. “Well. My life is in your hands now. I mean, not really life exactly, I’m still dead, but my existence is in your hands. Don’t fuck it up.”

“We won’t,” Tim said.

“Well. This has certainly been informative.” Amy moved closer to the door. “Thank you for giving me Graham’s old notebook, and for a very interesting discussion. I assume I’ll be hearing from you shortly?”

“Yes. I think we’ll start at the beginning? What’s the oldest entry you have in this book?”

“That’d be… the one right at the start of section three for distorted reality. He likes to hang out in graveyards, you’ll probably be able to find him pretty quickly. Blond hair that’s all long and frazzled-looking, tall, kind of thin—if you see him in a reflection or through glass he looks tall, unnaturally tall, and his hands look all gross and creepy.” She shuddered, moving to open the door. “You still have my number?”

“Yep.” Sasha held up the page.

“It’s really been lovely,” Jon said. “Thank you.”

“No problem at all,” Amy said. “I’ll see you all soon.”

thats all folks! thank you so much for reading it. i may upload chapter 2 soon, but that is it for now!!

#text #fanfiction #original work

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the-magnus-archives-archiver · 5 years

Text

Old Passages

Case: 0020406

Name: Harold Silvana Subject: Discoveries made during the renovation of the Reform Club, Pall Mall. Date: June 4th, 2002 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

I’m a builder. Sort of. I always find myself using the words ‘craftsman’ or ‘artisan’, but that’s mostly because of my client base. I specialise in renovation and alterations on listed buildings and those of historical or architectural significance. In simple terms it’s not much different to any other sort of construction work, except it takes about three times as long and costs ten times as much. That’s not to say I rip people off. You need to spend almost half the time just planning exactly how you’re going to tackle any given job, while preserving or recreating the original architecture as much as possible, and then you have to be incredibly careful when you’re doing the work. I’m quite serious when I say that if you’re not paying attention and keeping the alterations well-documented, you can get sued for millions over knocking out the wrong brick. Plus,the materials aren’t cheap. So yes, my services are expensive, but me and my team are worth every penny. And the sort of people I deal with, or should I say the sort of people whose personal assistants I deal with, can afford it.

I don’t have a company, per se. People hire me for me, and I have a small team I trust to help out with the work itself. They’re technically freelance contractors, but the pay’s good enough and, in London at least, there’s enough work that they’re happy to wait on my call.

I’ve found plenty of interesting things in this job. I suppose that’s not unexpected when you’re digging around old buildings. We got kicked off a job once when we found some bones under a very venerable country house that will remain nameless, as the owners contacted the British Museum, who couldn’t take over fast enough. There have also been a few jewellery pieces that found their way to other museums, and once we found a box of 17th century erotic poems that I think are currently languishing in the storerooms of the V&A museum. But I never found anything like what was under 100 Pall Mall.

We’d been called in to do some work on the basement and ground floor of the Reform Club. It wasn’t anything major. Some upkeep on a few of the historic pieces, replace a few of the earlier renovations.

The amount of actual work involved was minimal, but it was a Grade I listed building, so the amount of care we had to take stretched it into a week-long job. It didn’t help that we had to schedule around the fact that it’s still a very active social venue, so we could only actually come out of the basement when it wasn’t full of people too important to see builders. Grade I listing is a significant payday, though, so I certainly wasn’t going to rock the boat.

It was about two in the morning when the kid showed up. It was just me and Rachael Turley, who does most of our marble work, though we were mostly just doing surveying at that point. Alfred Bartlett was out getting coffee, though god knows where from at that time of night. We were mostly just kicking our heels really, since he’s the plumber and we needed his expertise. Now Alf has been in the business for nearly 40 years, and there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about water or sewage systems, but we often joke that it’s pushed everything else out of his head. I think he must have forgotten to lock the door when he headed out, and that’s how the kid got in. That said, this was still the first week in March and it was pretty cold, so I’m surprised we didn’t notice the draught.

In the end I suppose it doesn’t matter. The fact is that Rachel and me had been sat there chatting for maybe five minutes when we noticed we weren’t alone. In the doorway leading back to the stairwell stood a thin figure. He looked to be in his late teens, I’d guess. He was dressed all in black, with heavy looking boots and a T-shirt with the logo of some band emblazoned on it, Megadon or Mastodon, or something like that. His hair was long and greasy, almost down to his shoulders, and looked to be dyed almost the same black as his clothes. He did not look like he was supposed to be skulking round the Reform Club, but I’d encountered more than one member whose rich children were going through a ‘rebellious period’, so couldn’t be entirely sure. I decided to be gentle in my initial enquiries and asked him if he was lost, told him this part of the basement was off-limits due to renovations.

The kid shook his head and asked if we’d found anything yet. Any of “Leitner’s pages”. Now this took me aback a bit. I wondered how long he’d been standing there, because Rachel and I had just been talking about the man. Jurgen Leitner was a businessman from Norway, I believe, who used to have offices in the ground floor of the building next to the Reform Club, 100 Pall Mall. I don’t know what his business was, but when I was first getting started, back in ‘87, we got a call from Mr. Leitner, requesting a consultation in his Pall Mall office. Back then it was just me and Rachel, and we mostly did stone restoration and alteration, so we assumed Mr. Leitner wanted our opinion on a property outside of London. Our reputation back then was not sufficient to get us access to any of the sort of Central London buildings we now work on.

When we first met Jurgen Leitner, he looked very much like I had imagined him. Portly, middle-aged, short blond hair in the middle of going grey, well-tailored business suit. His office surprised me, though, as it was almost completely bare, save for a desk and two chairs in front of it. There were no tables or bookshelves or filing cabinets or anything like that. He asked us to sit down, and though he spoke with a very faint accent, his English was perfect. We made small talk, but he seemed impatient, eager to talk about whatever it was he wanted us to do.

I asked him what the job was, and he stopped and looked at us closely. Then he said he simply wanted us to dig a hole. An unusual request, but not an unreasonable one, so I asked him where it whereabouts this was going to be. He rose, walked over to the corner and pointed at the floor. He said he needed a hole put through the floor. I thought there would have been a basement under there, and he said no, the building’s basement didn’t go under these rooms. He smiled an odd little smile as he said it, which put me a bit on edge.

Now, there was no way we could do a job like that without the building owner’s permission and I told Leitner this. He began to get shifty, then, and tried to tell us that he already had that permission. When we told him we’d need to confirm it with the commercial landlord, he got very defensive, told us that it was fine and he’d need to discuss it with some other contractors first. When we told him we’d just need to have a quick phone call with the owner, he started screaming that we didn’t understand what we were talking about, that he didn’t need to explain himself to the likes of us, and there were some things that were too important, too powerful to be owned. Then he just started yelling at us in Norwegian until we left. We didn’t bother contacting the owners of 100 Pall Mall in the end.

It was without a doubt the weirdest interview with a prospective client that we’d ever had, and being so close to the site of it had Rachel and I reminiscing when this teenage burnout turned up. I asked him if he’d been eavesdropping, and he shrugged, and again asked what we had found. I was just about done with this kid, and started to tell him that he was going to have to leave, when Rachel interrupted me and asked what there was to find. The kid laughed, as though he and Rachel were in on some private joke. “Can you smell it?” he said, and for a brief moment, I could smell something. Damp old stone and musty paper, just a faint whiff. It took me off guard, and I think that was why I just stood there as he walked past me and picked up the hammer. He strode over to one of the walls and, with a swing stronger than I would have thought possible from his age and skinny frame, he buried it into the wall. I heard a scream, high-pitched, but it definitely didn’t come from any of us.

This was enough to break me out of my stupor and I ran over and wrestled the hammer from the kid. He struggled and flailed, though he didn’t say anything. As I tried to calm him down, Rachel called over me, and I looked at where he’d hit the wall. In the centre of it was a neat hole; the other side was darkness. There shouldn’t have been anything behind the wall except foundation, but it didn’t look like this was a real basement wall. I let the kid go and walked over to get a closer look. Rachel started to examine it with her tools, before she confirmed what I’d already guessed – that it was a fake. It looked like someone had blocked off a passage, and then very carefully disguised it.

It was at this point Alf returned, and we had some considerable explaining to do. Through it all the kid, who said his name was Gerard, just sat their sullenly, listening to his CD player and waiting. When we asked him how he knew what was behind that wall he just shrugged, and told us that his mother knows all about this stuff. He didn’t elaborate as to what “this stuff” might have been.

We should have waited until morning and told the Reform Club staff what we’d found. We should have handed Gerard over to the police, but Alf was always too curious for his own good, and he suggested we have a look inside. Rachel and I half-heartedly tried to argue against it, but I think deep down we wanted to know just as much as he did. So in we went.

Knocking through the rest of the wall didn’t take long. It had been built to look like the rest of the basement, but hadn’t been constructed with the same skill. Ten minutes later our coffees lay forgotten on the floor and we stood before a passageway leading off into the musty darkness. A gentle breeze blew from this entrance, which didn’t make any sense at all. We had plenty of torches, as you often need them during night work, so we each took one large one and a smaller back-up in case the first had any problems. We tried to tell Gerard to stay outside, but I could see immediately that, short of tying him up, there was no way we were going to keep him out of there. Tying him up did feel like a step too far, so we settled for keeping a close eye on him as we went inside.

The passageway was cold, and the air thick with mildew, but the stone walls were in very good condition. Rachel said it looked to be from the mid-19th century, probably remains of the basement of the Carlton Club, which used to be located in what was now 100 Pall Mall. It was with a start I realised that she was right, based on where the corridor was going, we must have been underneath the building. Almost exactly where Jurgen Leitner had wanted us to dig almost fifteen years ago.

We walked for some time, longer than I would have expected, given how big I remembered the building above us being. Alf kept asking Rachel if the corridor was getting narrower, and every time, she would dutifully measure the width and inform him that, no, it was exactly five feet wide. I couldn’t blame him, really, I’ve never had any sort of claustrophobia, but I was finding it hard, at points to catch my breath, to dismiss the feeling that the walls were pressing on me. Gerard walked on ahead, seemingly unbothered by the place.

We came to crossroads. Or, more precisely, a star. The chamber was small, round and featureless, but there were doorways leading out in a circle. I counted thirteen, not including the one we had come in from. Looking down some of them made me feel oddly queasy. There was one that, for all the world, it felt like I was going to fall into it. Another was so dark that our torches didn’t seem to reach more than a few feet inside. In the centre, there was a datestone. It read: “Robert Smirke, 1835. Balance and fear”.

I don’t know how much you know about famous London architects, but Robert Smirke was one of the foremost proponents of the Gothic Revival in the early 19th century. His work was some of the first to use concrete and cast iron, and often described as ‘theatrical’, a description that makes a lot of sense when you look at the grand columns of the British Museum – his most famous building. Later, I would look up a list of his buildings and discover that he had indeed built the Carlton Club building in that exact spot. It had been destroyed in the Second World War, during the Blitz, and the club itself had moved premises, but it looked like the underground foundations, or whatever this place was, had not been damaged.

We stood there for some time as I explained this to the others. It took some time to do so as, with the exception of Gerard, I got the impression that none of us were in any hurry to go down the other tunnels. A deep apprehension eemed to have settled itself in the pit of my stomach; everyone else also seemed to feel it. Then, without warning, Gerard started running full pelt into one of the passages. I’m not sure which one it was of the thirteen. I called for him to come back, but got no reply and Alf took off after him, running into the darkness and quickly turning a corner. Rachel and I looked at each other for a few seconds, but we both knew what we needed to be doing. I followed Alf into the passage, while she headed back down to the entrance to get help.

This tunnel wasn’t as dark as some of the others, but it was damper, and the walls seemed oddly slimy. After a few yards, the stone became so slick that I found it hard to keep my footing and I fell. I put my hand onto the floor to push myself up, and it came away faintly tinged with red. I heard Alf cry out from further down the corridor. He sounded utterly terrified, and I started on towards him again. I saw lights from up ahead, and was about to call out when Gerard came running back out of the darkness.

He was clutching a book in his hands, and clearly wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. He barrelled right into me, knocking me to the floor again. He was only a skinny kid, but he was so strong, and kept his footing, disappearing back into the darkness, towards the entrance. As he passed, I heard a small clattering sound, as though something were falling behind him. I reached out slowly, to try and raise myself off the ground, and felt something small and oddly smooth lying there. I shined my light on it, and saw a small bone. From a bird, I think, or maybe a rat. I looked around and there were a few more scattered about the corridor.

I’d fallen harder this time, and had managed to hurt my knee quite badly. I managed as just about able to limp to the end of the corridor, and there I found a small, round room. Against the walls were old bookshelves, decayed and empty, save for a few mouldering pages. They were stained and rotten, and one of them looked like it had a mummified hand laying on it. In front of it, in almost the centre of the room, lay Alf. He was dead. I couldn’t see any injuries on him. He didn’t even seem hurt. But looking at how still he lay there, the terrified, awful expression frozen on his face, there was no chance he was alive. On his motionless chest, and around the base of the bookshelf, I saw more of those tiny bones.

That’s where my memory begins to blur. I know I made it back to the basement of the Reform Club, where Rachel was waiting with the police. But I think I got some of the wrong passageways first. I have the vaguest memories: flashes of a pile of paper, completely covered in cobweb; a figure stood in the darkness, a stranger I didn’t know but was sure meant me harm; my skin burning, hot, choking on smoke down there in the dark.

When I was out, I was questioned by the police, who followed Rachel in to retrieve Alf’s body and were successful, though they came back out pale and shaking. There was no sign of Gerard, nor had Rachel seen him. I was then questioned again by the staff of the Reform Club, who instructed us in no uncertain terms to rebuild the wall and finish our original job. We were given to understand that the police were handling the matter, and if we pursued it closer then we would not be getting any further work from members of the club. As this covers almost everybody who can afford our services, we complied. It makes me feel sick, though, like we’re just abandoning Alf, dishonouring his memory. It’s not even like he had any family to miss him, it just feels wrong. I guess, maybe, that’s why I’m talking to you. Do try to keep my name out of it if you follow it up though, okay?

Archivist Notes:

On the one hand, this statement represents a complete dead end, as no-one involved is both able and willing to talk to us. Over the last three months Sasha has attempted to contact Mr. Silvana, Rachel Turley, the management of the Reform Club and any of the police officers involved. All of them flatly deny any of this ever took place. Alfred Bartlett’s death was listed as a heart attack suffered during routine maintenance work, and none of the coroner’s reports provide any details out of the ordinary. The “kid”, who I think it is reasonable to assume is none other than Gerard Keay, remains just as impossible to contact as he ever was. From an evidence standpoint, this case is a complete bust.

However, too many of the names and features match with other statements for me to dismiss it, not to mention the fact that business records do list Jurgen Leitner as having hired out an office on the ground floor of 100 Pall Mall between 1985 and 1994. He was apparently one of the premier worldwide dealers in rare and antique books at the time, with items selling for the sort of sums where an office in Pall Mall doesn’t raise any eyebrows. If this strange basement is really there, then perhaps his choice of location was not simply a display of status. Clearly some of his books were there, and I can’t help but wonder whether that was where they were found, or just where they were stored.

The other major point of interest is the fact that this complex appears to have been designed by Robert Smirke. You should have seen Tim’s face when I told him. Architecture is one of his specialist areas, and he has always talked of Smirke as one that fascinates him. How did he phrase it? “A master of subtle stability.” From a professional standpoint, it also interests him that Smirke’s buildings have higher percentages of reported paranormal sightings than any other architect of similar profile. He hasn’t been able to find much out about the Carlton Club specifically, at least not anything relevant to this statement. In his later years, following Smirke’s official retirement in 1845, there were all sorts of rumours about his interests and religious preferences. If there was a scandalous sect or bizarre cult, his name would always be seen mentioned among those meeting with them. He also started putting his name forward to design churches, despite his claimed retirement. He was never taken up on these offers. Interesting, but fundamentally not that useful for the case in hand, especially since we have been unable to get permission to physically investigate whether this place even exists. It seems we’ve reached something of a dead end. No pun intended.

[End recor— Urgh! Goddamn it!

[SOUND OF METAL CANISTER BEING KNOCKED]

Martin!

[DOOR OPENS]

Martin, where did you put the rest of the extinguishers? Martin!

[SOUND DISAPPEARS INTO DISTANCE] [SILENCE, FOLLOWED BY HEAVY FOOTFALLS]

Martin: John, did you call fo—

Breekon: ‘scuse us.

Hope: Looking for the Archivist.

Martin: I’m sorry, are you two meant—

Breekon: Won’t take up your time.

Hope: Just got a delivery.

Martin: Look, you really can’t actually—

Breekon: Package for Jonathan Sims.

Hope: Says right here.

Martin: Well, I don’t really know where he—

Hope: We’ll just leave it with you.

Breekon: Be sure he gets it.

Martin: Okay, I will, but you really have to actually—

Breekon: ‘course. Much obliged.

Hope: Stay safe.

Martin: ...I’ll try?

Breekon: Your recorder’s on, by the way.

Hope: Might want to change that.

Martin: Oh... so it is. Thanks.

Breekon: No problem.

Hope: At all.

[HEAVY FOOTSTEPS RECEDE] ]

#the magnus archives #magnus archives #MAG #MAG35 #MAG 35 #OldPassages #Old Passages #Statement #Robert Smirke #Gerard Keay

9 notes · View notes

iamalivenow · 5 years

Text

[Chapter 2]

Sasha: Still sick? Tim: wasn't to start?? Sasha: Not you, Martin! Tim: oh, yeah I guess. poor guy. Sasha: I could bring something over maybe? Tim: fever and a stomach bug. don't really think he'd be wild about it Sasha: Yikes ! Tim: very yikes. but hey he gets to sit home and we get to read all day Sasha: Spoken like a person who's only upset he can't read all day on his couch. Tim: my couch is very comfortable, i'll have you know

Sasha: Oh, sure. Tim: you should come over some time Sasha: To see how comfortable your couch is. Tim: unless, of course, you'd like to come over for another reason. Sasha: I can think of at least a few better then your couch. Tim: oh dare i say i'm being flirted with? and in the workplace! scandalized! Sasha: Going to faint? Tim: i just might, my suitor might be just to charming to bare Sasha: And me with out my smelling salts. Tim: i see we are all woefully underprepared to day Sasha: Solidarity.

🌩️: So. ⚰️: Mm 🌩️: Holding up? ⚰️: I can't feel anything 🌩️: Did she find you already? ⚰️: Annabelle is out of town 🌩️: Jude. ⚰️: Oh no just a nightmare 🌩️: Those are that bad for you? ⚰️: Its something like well

🌩️: Take your time. ⚰️: You don't like being restrained right 🌩️: I'd argue I'm diametrically opposed to it, yes. ⚰️: Imagine you're restrained by thousands of vines and every vine is covered in thorns and they're trying to crush you to the bed and some of them get in your mouth and press you down even harder from the inside until your lungs are bleeding and you're choking on your own blood 🌩️: Jesus. ⚰️: And imagine that even if you somehow manage to get away from them they follow you no matter where you go and you're an idiot for thinking the ones in your flat were bad because at least the ones in your flat were thin and small and not vines the size of buildings 🌩️: Christ ⚰️: So I'm not doing great. 🌩️: You get these a lot? ⚰️: Every day 🌩️: Oh. ⚰️: They've gotten worse lately probably because of her 🌩️: Jude? ⚰️: Annebelle

Martin: Sick. Jonathan Sims: When are you anything else. Martin: … … … Jonathan Sims: It's fine. I'll tell Elias. Martin: Thank you.

Jonathan Sims: He's sick again. Or still, rather. Elias Bouchard: I would assume as much, considering he is not here. Jonathan Sims: I don't suppose it's to early to start looking for someone else? Elias Bouchard: He has all his sick days Jon. It's not my fault he doesn't use them. Jonathan Sims: Right. Elias Bouchard: Anything else? Jonathan Sims: Actually- I was wondering if you knew if Robinson had any sort of organizational plan somewhere? Maybe she passed it on to you and you forgot? Elias Bouchard: Does that sound like something I would do? Jonathan Sims: I feel like the longer I look at the stacks of boxes the more I lose my mind. Elias Bouchard: Oh I'm sure that couldn't be further from the truth Jon.

🔥: wwhere is he 🌩️: Wouldn't know, actually. 🔥: then i'm findding you 🌩️: That's fine. 🔥: why would you go along with this? 🌩️: It's not like it was his idea. 🔥: oh?? who's idea was it to remind me of the one person I was in love wi 🔥: oh. 🌩️: I don't know how you didn't figure that one out yourself. 🔥: hey mike? 🌩️: Yeah?

🔥: go fuuck yourself.

: Back. 👁️: Welcome home. : Oh. 👁️: What. : You haven't said that to me in a while, that's all. 👁️: I can't begin to imagine what you mean.

🔥: give me her number. ⚰️: Whos 🔥: don't be stupid. ⚰️: I found it while I was cleaning a house out 🔥: why would you do that?? ⚰️: Didn't want any trace left 🔥: listen kid I know wee don't get along or talk or whatever but give me her number ⚰️: Uh no 🔥: are you serious ⚰️: She knows where I am 🔥: and ⚰️: And you don't 🔥: look ⚰️: I'd rather not

⚰️: She's mad 🕸️: oh great!!! 🕸️: did she cry? 🕸️: does it sound like she cried 🕸️: i really really really want to know that she cried ⚰️: She sounds very mad 🕸️: oh she defo cried !!! 🕸️: you're the greatest oli!!! ⚰️: She wants your number 🕸️: and you're being a very good boy 🕸️: and not giving it to her right ⚰️: Yeah 🕸️: you're a saint oli

⚰️: Can you do skin grafts 🥩: DO YOU WANT IT DONE WELL OR DO YOU WANT IT DONE ⚰️: Great options 🥩: IF YOU WANT IT DONE WELL BOTHER THE DOLL ⚰️: God my day just gets better and better 🥩: SHE USUALLY WANTS A BODY TO BORROW THE SKIN FROM TOO ⚰️: Fantastic

🔥: how long do you want to wait kid ⚰️: I need to find a body first 🔥: what ⚰️: For when you set me on fire 🔥: you're not fun to threaten you know that? i just feel kind of bad for you ⚰️: I'm not giving you her number 🔥: go find a body kid

🔥: hi elias 👁️: Hello Jude. 🔥: where is she elias 👁️: Who's that Jude? 🔥: annabelle, elias. 👁️: Not familiar, Jude. 🔥: is your ex on land elias? 👁️: I'm not his keeper Jude. 🔥: so yes? 👁️: Yesterday, yes.

🔥: you wouldn't bbelieve the amount of effort it took to find you. 🕸️: aww who squealed??? 🔥: you're friends with cowards. 🕸️: lmao 🕸️: you think they're my friends 🕸️: cute 🔥: look, i'm being nice. 🕸️: scary 🔥: i won't kill all your bugs 🕸️: cute 🔥: i'll even let you keep your fucked up face 🕸️: haha and then what 🔥: leave the dead kid alone 🕸️: aww 🕸️: he's my secret weapon 🕸️: everyone feels too bad for him to do anything 🕸️: but he's fine he's sturdy 🕸️: you can set him on fire and he'll just get back up again 🕸️: you should 🕸️: he screams real cute 🔥: is every conversation with you this ddisgusting? 🕸️: learn to live a little babe! 🕸️: but i mean 🕸️: ya 🕸️ it's kind of my job you know 🕸️: why don't you go do yours and set oli on fire 🔥 i mean i could, but where's the fun in that. Especially when i know where You are 🕸️: could have lead with that

🔥: yeah well. i learned to live a little

🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 📦: 💓 🚚: oi order's important hope 📦: apologies. 🚚: i'll just keep going then 📦: very right of you breakon 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓 🚚: 💗 📦: 💓

Martin: Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist's crimson fate arrives. Jonathan Sims: Thank you. For. that.

🌀: hEy Jonathan Sims: I blocked you. 🌀: new phone Jonathan Sims: What, no new joke this time? 🌀: yOu DoN't LiKe ThEm Jonathan Sims: You don't have to type like that.

🌀: mY bRaNd, ArChIvIsT

#the magnus archives #long post #full fic #writing #fanfic #chapter 2 of that last thing i posted

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