#quasarwrites

[pocketsizedquasar]

thoughts about jon, gender, n hair

aka i've literally wanted to write a fic centered around this concept for like over two years but. well. anyway. i still might write the fic at some point but lord knows when that'll happen so in the meantime here are my jon jarchivist headcanons centered around hair and gender, ft. my personal flavor of jon: persian, w/ a white grandmother, n amab nonbinary transneutral/transfemme

⁃ jon's hair was always kept short as a kid. short hair was for boys, his grandmother had said, and besides, she didn't have the desire nor energy to learn how to care for his thick persian curls; the shorter they were, the less tangled and unruly, the better.

⁃ jon explored some more fem/gnc presentation in college, some of which included growing out his hair. he attributed it back then more to just the fact that he was exploring his queerness (in a bi and ace sense) in general & that he spent a lot of time around georgie (also transfemme), and didn't really think about the actual gender accompanying it -- he wasn't actively thinking much about his own gender. questioning and coming to terms with his sexuality was already a lot.

⁃ but he liked the way his hair looked and felt long. he liked the quiet rebellion of it. he liked the way georgie ran her fingers through it. he liked how many different ways it could be worn long -- in ponytails and buns and braids and just loose down his back. he doesn't remember much of his mom, but he's seen in pictures her long, dark, curly hair, just like his now, and he likes the reminder.

⁃ he keeps it long after college, though upon getting hired as a researcher at the magnus institute, he has a bit of a crisis over whether or not to cut it, re: standards of white cishetero "professionalism" and decorum and masculinity, all of which he's doing his best to perform. maybe even early on in his research days he cuts it a bit and decides it makes him feel so bad (for some inexplicable reason) that he decides to just leave it long, though tidy and brushed and straightened and pulled high up into a tight bun so it looks neat and out of the way and functionally short anyway.

⁃ similar thing happens when he gets promoted to archivist. i personally like him deciding not to cut it here because i like him being allowed to keep one (1) thing, though i def understand other hc's where he does cut it short for S1 / being the archivist. he's still very much keeping it pulled up in a tight bun and out of the way, and removes anything else remotely feminine about his appearance -- earrings, more fem clothing, nailpolish, etc.

⁃ i read mossy's @coulson-is-an-avenger "shopping for gender in a british wal-mart" fic like 2.5 years ago and i still love it so much and it's still canon to me basically re: he tries a skirt Once to work at the sort of peak sweet point where he's settled in enough to feel comfortable trying to wear a skirt but not yet paranoid enough about Prentiss. sasha talks w him about gender and femininity and stuff, though he's not quite ready to confront it yet.

⁃ then prentiss/season 2 hits and he regresses again hard into self-defense mode; the performative masculinity goes Harder. his hair is still long but it's messy; thick curls and flyaway strands frizzing about his sleep deprived and paranoid face.

⁃ by the time s3 rolls around, everything else in his life has gone to shit, so mostly he's just like "fuck it" re: his presentation in general, including his gender presentation. there's also a sense of just.. "this it the one thing in my life I have control over," so he sort of starts just wearing whatever. even if he's not really acknowledging the actual gender feelings to himself. but his hair and his clothes are One thing he can control about himself, one thing the watcher can't really take away from him. so with s3-s4 it's like. yeah he feels like he's becoming less and less human and yeah he's being kidnapped once a month and yeah the world is going to end but at least he can wear a goddamn skirt.

⁃ i do think there's also an element of it too where, there's obvious anxiety and concern about him being a visibly brown and trans/gnc person in fucking London of all places, but as time goes on i do think there's a bit of like. even if i face violence for this what does it matter. i hardly leave the archives anyways, and even then, would that really be anything? in the face of everything else that's happened?

⁃ in the safehouse jon and martin (who to me is a trans man btw) talk about gender a bunch and Jon realizes they want to try using both he and they pronouns and maybe jon decides they want to do some more feminine things, want to try wearing skirts and maybe painting their nails again and martin braids flowers into their hair and things are good

⁃ and then season 5 and the apocalypse hits.

⁃ for the first little while in the safehouse jon's hair is still long. but before they leave, he cuts it, for several reasons -- first like, if keeping it long and presenting femininely was partially about control for Jon, this is them letting Go of that, of what he perceives to have just been an Illusion control. yeah it might make them a bit dysphoric but so what, my body was never mine tobegin with.

⁃ and i think he's also doing it as a mental preparation for leaving the cabin, after jon and martin have had the initial talk about eventually leaving. long hair is a liability; hair can get pulled on and tugged on when being kidnapped and grabbed at; hair can be drenched in shampoo and twisted by plastic hands; hair can be tangled and snag on the walls of a coffin; it can be full of dirt days and days later; hair is a hassle and a hazard and an illusion of control and above all it was a comfort to jon and this is no longer a world where you can trust comfort, martin.

⁃ martin walks in on jon in the bathroom staring at themself in the mirror with a pair of scissors. they ask martin to cut it for them. (martin gets a haircut too, in a show at solidarity and some levity. also undercut martin rights)

⁃ anyway, Somewhere Else Jon wears flowy dresses and grows his hair long and leaves lipstick stains on martin's face when they kiss and hikes his skirts up above his knees when they work in the garden and their hair is long and dark and thick and curly and he likes it; likes the way it looks and feels, the way martin runs his fingers through it, the way it reminds him of his mother and the way it makes him smile at the person they see standing in the mirror.

⁃ and it's good. it's really good.

#tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #jonathan sims #jonmartin #martin blackwood #georgie barker #magnuspod #magpod #tma headcanons #lgbtq #queer #trans #nonbinary #quasartalks #quasarwrites #literally literally have discord messages from two years ago of me yelling abt this and making a fic abt it #(from which i typed up a lot of this post) #and yet here we are #two years later #ficless #so have this instead. i care them

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 4/5 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Annabelle Cane & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, background Annabelle Cane & Martin Blackwood, Background Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Annabelle Cane, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, more to come as needed but they are the focus, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist's Grandmother Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Horror, Body Horror, Canon-Typical The Web Content (The Magnus Archives), canon-typical horror and spiders, Tags May Change, Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, Nonbinary Annabelle Cane

— 

chapter 4 is FINALLY FUCKING UP!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEA YEA YEA YEAAAA BOIII i know it took an entire year. shut up /lh. life happens. anyway read my silly little Jon & Annabelle childhood friends au

thank u to the besties @coulson-is-an-avenger and @landscaping-your-mind for betaing over this chapter for me <3 mwah mwah

anyway, it’s Unknowing time babye >:3

no idea when the next chapter will come. but it will be the last!

#tma #the magnus archives #annabelle cane #jon sims #jonathan sims #tma fic #the magnus archives fic #fic #writing #quasarwrites #quasartalks #i care them so much. annabelle my BELOVED #also to my original betas from fpbb for this: hi i love you im so sorry this took forever #i felt bad about asking y'all to beta since it's been so long #but i still love and appreciate u so so much

[pocketsizedquasar]

If you’re willing to share, what sorts of changes are you going to be making to Fedallah and the other Asian crew members? (I’m reading Moby Dick for class right now, and Melville’s racism blindspots are really interesting)

hello! this is an excellent question, and one which i’m constantly in the process of wondering how to address.

melville’s racism is rampant in moby dick. even as he tries to write consciously abt race & capitalism, he still perpetuates racist, orientalist, etc stereotypes and beliefs, with all his characters of color. queequeg hardly ever gets to speak for himself, and instead is spoken over by the white narrator. the three officers, all white men, get introduced with backstories and personalities and nuance, while the harpooners, all nonwhite, are introduced via reductive stereotypes and descriptions that center almost exclusively on their “exotic” bodies. the officers all get last words, final soliloquies, as they die, and the harpooners get no such respect. ahab & fedallah’s filipino crew are regularly described as demonic and referred to with pejorative anti-asian language. pip’s suffering as a Black character at the hands of a white supremacist is treated as some divine revelation, & pretty much exclusively is used to further the (ostensibly) white ahab’s anguish.

and fedallah himself — a textbook orientalist caricature of a ~spooky exotic persian man~, whose prophecies and ~satanic~ tendencies plague and doom the narrative.

(putting under a cut bc this got long)

i’ve tried to deal with much of melville’s racism through my comic by expanding on the gaps — like you said, the blind spots — that melville left. queequeg, tashtego, and daggoo all get to speak for themselves and to each other; they exist beyond their relationship to the white characters; i’ve tried my best to deliberately ensure the cast of the pequod is diverse and full of characters of color as whole & non caricatured & authentic as i can. this includes the filipino stowaways who we later discover are ahab & fedallah’s oarsmen.

i’ve mentioned this a bit in the past, but i’m trying to draw a line between moby dick’s watsonian or in-universe racism (stubb being a racist dickhead to, well, everyone, but especially pip & fedallah), vs it’s doylist or out-of-universe or authorial racism (melville calling queequeg a s*vage and referring to pip as “bright” in the way “blacks” are bright). so while i’ll keep the fact that stubb is a racist asshole, i’m not going to treat queequeg and pip the way melville did. characters in moby dick: or, the webcomic (henceforth MDOTW) are racist, but hopefully, if i’ve done my job right, the narrative itself is not. 

i’m not going to get this right every time, but i’m hoping i’m doing an okay job.

fedallah specifically is...difficult. he is also deeply personal to me as a persian person & someone w zoroastrian roots in my family. the stereotypes to which melville reduces him are ones that i’ve directly dealt with in my life.

some things i can do to fix fedallah are simple: design choices such as getting rid of melville’s stupid matted hair thing & giving him a proper & period-accurate hair covering, etc. some are more difficult — the things that make fedallah a racist caricature (ie the mysticism and prophetic bullshit) are also the things that mark his role in the plot: his prophecies are important foreshadowing, and they do come true.

some of the things i have done to mitigate this:

-- the design choices i mentioned earlier . no more fucken weird visual orientalist caricature. he is a person and will look like one jfc

-- fedallah is not the only middle eastern character in MDOTW. i have made a very deliberate and conscious choice to cast ahab as nonwhite, particularly a middle eastern man. (i’ve waffled back & forth abt the specific ethnicity, but). i read an essay ages back called ‘the question of race in moby dick’ by fred v. bernard which made the case for reading ahab (and ishmael, tho that’s not the point of this post) as mixed Black, and since then i’ve had trouble reading ahab as white. i’ve talked a lot about how the take of ahab as just “privileged dude leading everyone to their doom” is sort of the most boring one for me; it’s certainly a valid reading of the text, but not particularly interesting. what’s more interesting to me is how the world in which ahab lives is legitimately an awful one — violent and colonialist and capitalist — and how ahab tries in his own deeply flawed ways to fight that world. in what ways is ahab’s rally against the white whale a rally against whiteness itself, and capitalism and colonialism and all these systems that have caused his trauma etc etc? but i digress — my point here is that i personally get even more from this narrative by casting ahab as nonwhite. i’ve made him swana as a persian person myself — i don’t feel equipped as a nonBlack person to tell this specific story about ahab if he were Black — but also because there are a lot of things about ahab where him being arab or persian makes a lot of sense. one of them being his relationship with fedallah, certainly, but also the way he describes religion, his relationship with fire (slash the worship of fire) etc etc lend to this. this also means, back to the original point, that fedallah no longer has to bear the burden of sole representative for this group of people. it allows the two of them to feed off each other. it also allows another dimension to their relationship — how does ahab know fedallah? why does ahab trust fedallah so much? well, the solidarity of being two persian or two swana people in this hellscape of USian whaling certainly is a compelling reason

-- and along those lines, making fedallah more of a person than just a vessel for spooky cryptic nonsense. sure, stubb and flask might not-so-jokingly speculate on how he’s the devil in disguise and keeps his tail tucked into his pants, and sure he might make a weird comment about how ahab can only die by rope on a ship full of hempen rigging, but what else is he? does he care for ahab? are they friends? what does he think about the white whale (bc we know what starbuck and ahab and stubb and etc etc think about it)? what is he gaining or losing from this? can i put him up as a foil against starbuck — the voice of reason, begging ahab to turn back — vs him seemingly egging ahab on? almost baiting him to continue? who is fedallah beyond his prophecies? does he believe his own prophecies? is there a way i can depart from those prophecies even further, and not have to rely on them so much to push the narrative forward?

tl;dr to answer your question, what am i changing about fedallah? oh god. hopefully lots of things. hopefully enough.

#moby dick #melville #herman melville #whale weekly #captain ahab #ahab #fedallah #racism #mobydick #quasartalks #quasarwrites #ask #i-think-strange-things #long post #unsurprisingly this got very long #i like ishmelville do not know how to shut up #also the bolding is mostly just to make the readability easier since ik that can be an accessibility issue for some #when large blocks of text aren't broken up by any differentiation #lmk if this is readable and if there are more questions cause i'm happy to talk more about any and all of this

[pocketsizedquasar]

AO3 Stats Game

tagged by @fiercynn !! thank u for the tag! these are likely all going to be the tma fics of mine just bc it's a more popular fandom than mobydick lmao but. heeyaw

rules: give us the links to your wonderful works with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and least words.

most hits: my ongoing Jon&Annabelle childhood friends au the spider & the eye! WHICH BTW CHAPTER 4 IS IN FACT DONE AND HAS BEEN FOR A MONTH FINALLY. AFTER A YEAR. BUT IM WAITING ON A FRIEND TO BETA IT. BUT IT'S DONE. IT'S HERE. AAAA IT'S COMING I PROMISE

most kudos: post-script, my short little post-episode 200 epilogue!

most comments: my episodes 197-200 rewrite a kindling, of sorts that deals w/ the writing/character/worldbuilding/racism/etc issues i had w the TMA finale's ending. TMAR (tma rewrite) my FUCKING beloved

most bookmarks: my Jon and Persian language/culture study fic Gole Sangam!! so glad this one made it on here it's. one of my favorites it was. so healing to write a fic just projecting all my complicated feelings about my language & culture onto a beloved character

most words: back to the spider & the eye! makes sense since this is one of few multichaps i've written and def the longest. currently at 18.5k and counting!! beats out my next longest by almost 6k words

least words: oh hey a moby dick fic made it on here! snowstorm, a very short (400 ish words) blurb about queequeg and ishmael cuddling in the cold

tagging some besties i know who write incl @coulson-is-an-avenger @gentlemancrow @cinnamoniic @jewishjon @lucianinsanity @thevoidcannotbefilled @lucky-numberme @thekisforkeats @transmascsteveharrington ! no pressure to do this if you're tagged & if u see this and i didn't tag u consider urself tagged if you want!

#quasartalks #ask game #ask meme #writing #fic #quasarwrites #glad that these were mostly different fics! #that was nice to see #gole sangam treasure of my heart. i love that fic so fucking much

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 3/5 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Annabelle Cane & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, background Annabelle Cane & Martin Blackwood, Background Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Annabelle Cane, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, more to come as needed but they are the focus, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist's Grandmother Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Horror, Body Horror, Canon-Typical The Web Content (The Magnus Archives), canon-typical horror and spiders, Tags May Change, Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD, Nonbinary Annabelle Cane

---

chapter 3 is of my @podcastbigbang fic is here!! featuring paranoid s2 jon, jonnabelle reunion, martin jealousy, and tim getting to yell because He Deserves It

thanks again of course to ella @gh0stlymoth  and atlas @atlas-of-galaxies for their lovely art, and to my wonderful official betas @crowsong111 and @ebenrosetaylor and unofficial betas @coulson-is-an-avenger and @grayscaleskies . y’all are great <3

RB’s appreciated!

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #podcastbigbang #fpbb 2022 #fiction podcast big bang #fpbb #jonmartin #jon sims #jonathan sims #annabelle cane #martin blackwood #fic #writing #quasartalks #quasarwrites

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Elias Bouchard, Jonah Magnus, Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus, Peter Lukas Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe, Folklore, Fairy Tale Style, Persian Folklore, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist With a Cane, Nonbinary Character, He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Canon Asexual Character, Canon-Typical Horror, Canon-Typical The Web Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical spiders, Body Horror Summary:

You see, dear reader, all the best stories are laced with magic. When Jon was a child they heard stories of Wordsmiths, those brave and brilliant creatures who wove their words into witchcraft. True magic was hard to come by, true storytelling harder still, and their gifts were treasured and praised in the sunshine-colored memory of Jon’s youth. Jon has long known the tales of the Wordsmiths speaking reality to the shape of their throats, tuning the world to the key of their songs. And then King Magnus took the throne. The King coveted the Wordsmiths’ magic. Coveted the power they wielded. It was not long before Jon was summoned to the King’s court and found themself proffering up their fear like a feast for the King’s ravenous stare. And so we arrive here.

-- A (very loose) 1001 Arabian Nights retelling, featuring our beloved storyteller and our favorite sappy poet.

A fic for @seasons-in-the-archives Halloween event! A very loose 1001 Nights retelling in which Jon is forced to tell stories to keep himself alive. Thank you so much to my lovely betas @coulson-is-an-avenger and @grayscaleskies ily all !!!

Happy Halloween!

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #the magnus archives fic #jonmartin #jon sims #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jmart #jonah magnus #peter lukas #writing #quasarwrites #fic #quasartalks #halloween in the archives #fuckin uhhhh here she is!!!! i cut this So Close to the deadline aslkdfjlasjdf #anyway happy halloween! #read my spooky gay fic

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 1/1
 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
 Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply 
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, minor Jon/Georgie
 Characters: Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist’s Grandmother, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist’s Mother, mentions of Georgie Barker 
Additional Tags: Character Study, During Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon Asexual Character, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist With a Cane, Culture, Language and culture, canon-typical self loathing, Canon-Typical heavy topics, mild body horror, Persian Jon, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Author Projecting onto Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, rated for heavy topics and mild language, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5, welcome to me projecting my complicated language thoughts onto jon for 4k words


Summary: Jon spent the first few years of his life bathed in the rosewater-saffron scent of language. He does not remember his father, scarcely remembers his mother’s face, but he remembers her voice, dripping honeyed and sweet like warm tea and nabat and singing lullabies the color of roses, remembers not the words she said but the sounds they made, the shape of them in her voice, the weight of them in his ears. Jon spent the first few years of their life with twin languages on their tongue, twin voices in their ear, long before Beholding claimed them and gave them hundreds. Or, a look at Jonathan Sims, language, culture, and Beholding.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #jon sims #martin blackwood #magnuspod #rusty quill #tma fic #fic #writing #ao3 #archive of our own #quasarwrites #read my fic! i spent a long time on it and (i think) it is very good! #if u don't read my langauge and culture fic ur racist /j /lh #but also pls read it for real

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Annabelle Cane & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Melanie King & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Background melanie/georgie; background Jon & Georgie Characters: Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Martin Blackwood; Annabelle Cane; Melanie King; Georgie Barker; Basira Hussain; background Jonah/Elias; background Rosie Zampano

Summary: A consideration of endings.

Or, an alternate look at MAG 197 - MAG 200, in which Annabelle Cane makes a different choice.

AND! we are done! The final chapter!!!! AAA!!

Thanks to everyone for reading, and very very special thanks to @coulson-is-an-avenger @equalseleventhirds and @grayscaleskies for being the sweetest betas (and. listening to me yell. so fucking much about this fic)

Anyway. It’s all in one place now!! So ! Please read and let me know what you think! Kudos/reblogs/comments fuel my heart and soul <3

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #jon sims #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #annabelle cane #jonmartin #melanie king #georgie barker #basira hussain #fic #writing #ao3 #quasartalks #quasarwrites

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivis; tAnnabelle Cane & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist; Melanie King & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist; Background melanie/georgie; background Jon & Georgie Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist; Martin Blackwood; Annabelle Cane; Melanie King; Georgie Barker; Basira Hussain; background Jonah/Elias; background Rosie Zampano Additional Tags: Major Character Death; Alternate Universe; Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Alternate Ending; Fix-It of Sorts; Bittersweet Ending; Ambiguous/Open Ending; Canon-Typical Existentialism; Canon-Typical Horror; Canon-Typical spiders; Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist; He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist; Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist With a Cane; Occasional fluff; Angst; basically i had problems with how tma handled annabelle & the web and you are going to HEAR THEM; Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5; Canon-typical ambiguous ending; canon-typical jon is self loathing; Tags May Change

Summary: 

A consideration of endings. Or, an alternate look at MAG 197 - MAG 200, in which Annabelle Cane makes a different choice.

IT’S FINALLY HERE Y’ALL my rewrite of TMA 197-200!!! I have been working on this for!!! A goddamn month!! here is the first chapter!

anyway special thanks to @coulson-is-an-avenger @equalseleventhirds and @drawmeter for being absolutely lovely betas (and also thank u for putting up with me screaming about this for a MONTH)

But yeah! here it is!! if you think annabelle cane deserved better, go read! (and if you liked, leave some kudos/a reblog?)

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #annabelle cane #jon sims #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #basira hussain #the web #mag season 5 #magnuspod #fic #writing #ao3 #quasartalks #quasarwrites #not tagging the other characters here bc they don't show up until the next chapter #anyway... pls read and reblog? #i have been working on this for. months. uwu #much love anyway goodbye y'all

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 2/4 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Annabelle Cane & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Melanie King & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Background melanie/georgie; background Jon & Georgie Characters: Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Martin Blackwood; Annabelle Cane; Melanie King; Georgie Barker; Basira Hussain; background Jonah/Elias; background Rosie Zampano Additional Tags: Major Character Death; Alternate Universe; Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Alternate Ending; Fix-It of Sorts; Bittersweet Ending; Ambiguous/Open Ending; Canon-Typical Existentialism; Canon-Typical Horror; Canon-Typical spiders; Nonbinary Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist With a Cane; Occasional fluff; Angst; basically i had problems with how tma handled annabelle & the web and you are going to HEAR THEM; Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5; Canon-typical ambiguous ending; canon-typical jon is self loathing; Tags May Change

Summary: A consideration of endings.

Or, an alternate look at MAG 197 - MAG 200, in which Annabelle Cane makes a different choice.

CHAPTER TWO (198 - Precipice) IS UP!!! featuring jonmartin smooches, annabelle cane being hot, and spiderwebs. maybe not in that order. 

Reblogs/kudos/comments always are appreciated!

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #annabelle cane #jon sims #jonathan sims #jonmartin #jmart #the web #mag season 5 #magnuspod #fic #writing #ao3 #quasartalks #quasarwrites

[pocketsizedquasar]

Joint statement of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood, regarding everything after. Statement found on the kitchen table in Georgie Barker’s and Melanie King’s flat, with the handwritten label “for Georgie, Melanie, Basira. with love from Jon and Martin.”

Small thing I wrote last week, promptly forgot about, then found again and decided to fix up.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonathan sims #jon sims #martin blackwood #annabelle cane #magnuspod #writing #fic #quasartalks #quasarwrites #tma fic #i'm just going to. yeet this into the void

[pocketsizedquasar]

Chapters: 3/4 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Annabelle Cane & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Melanie King & Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Background melanie/georgie; background Jon & Georgie Characters: Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist; Martin Blackwood; Annabelle Cane; Melanie King; Georgie Barker; Basira Hussain; background Jonah/Elias; background Rosie Zampano

Summary: A consideration of endings.

Or, an alternate look at MAG 197 - MAG 200, in which Annabelle Cane makes a different choice.

AND third chapter of my 197-200 rewrite is up!!! we’re so close to the end aaa!!!! Featuring yelling, martin being brilliant, and me loving annabelle cane so goddamn much holy shit you guys she deserved so much better than canon. Not necessarily in that order

kudos/reblogs/comments always appreciated!! :) 

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #annabelle cane #jon sims #jonathan sims #basira hussain #melanie king #georgie barker #jonmartin #jmart #mag season 5 #magnuspod #fic #writing #ao3 #quasartalks #quasarwrites

[pocketsizedquasar]

spare talking abt jon’s asexuality for a few thousand words?? 👀👀

akdaksksk I just have a bunch of snippets I’ve written in my notes or in conversations with my friend gray where Jon talks abt his asexuality throughout the series (Martin asking them abt their ace ring while he’s staying in the archives, Jon reacting to Tim thinking he and basira are a thing, Jon reacting to being outed by Melanie, etc etc) and I was gonna put them all together in one thing !

*holds up asexual jon* I just think they’re neat

Here’s one of the snippets:

“(Sardonic) I— hmm. I wasn’t aware that Georgie had taken it upon herself to, ah, share details about my orientation with other people. Or that Melanie has apparently decided that that information is — free for the sharing. (A sigh, then he continues, voice softening) I—I don’t know if this is worth bringing up with them. Heh. It’s — strange. To be worried about something as — as inane as being /outed/, with everything else going on. I don’t—(sigh). I don’t think I’ll bring it up. End recording.”

#tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #jonathan sims #ask #ask game #coulson-is-an-avenger #quasartalks #quasarwrites #sort of #fic #writing

[pocketsizedquasar]

“It so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern.” - Epilogue Or, on the night before the Pequod is to sink, Ishmael makes a choice.

Ishmael/Queequeg; 1.8k words; lots of angst, lads!

#mobydick #moby dick #ishmael #queequeg #fic #fanfic #ao3 #writing #herman melville #melville #classic lit #classic literature #litblr #bookblr #quasarwrites #quasartalks #i don't know how to format these fic link posts #but anyways remember when i rambled about ishmael needing to make a choice at the end of moby dick #but a choice that the audience doesn't get to see #bc of the way the story is structured & the fact that ishmael is telling it in trauma-filtered hindsight #yeah this is that #i like making myself sad i guess. #uhhh #reblogs and kudos and comments and such are always appreciated #queequeg is nonbinary because i say so

[pocketsizedquasar]

day two was, of course, about hamlet.

again, all the ones i’ve done so far are on my instagram, so you can see them there if you don’t wanna wait for me to transfer them here since on tumblr i’m a few days behind.

transcript:

“escapril" day 2: growth/decay how long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot? - hamlet, act v, scene i 

tell me how it ends, sweet prince, tell me it is not this. if you ever did hold me in your heart --  but no, that's your line, isn't it? "draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story." i'm trying. how does this story end? how long can a man draw his breath in pain before he breaks how long can a man tell a story that isn't his before he forgets i am losing myself, my prince, i am losing myself, something's rotten in the state of denmark and i am losing myself in it so please, tell me how this ends. tell me it is not this. 

alas, poor prince, i knew him now rots a noble heart. i grow weary of telling thy story, my prince,  grow weary of this rotten ending. how long can i tell this story ere i rot? how long will you lie in the earth ere i break?

#escapril #escapril 2020 #hamlet #shakespeare #william shakespeare #horatio #hamratio #tragic danish boyfriends #writing #poetry #classic lit #classic literature #quasarwrites #most of these ended up being about storytelling in one way or another #which #is on brand #whoops i accidentally queued days 2 and 3 in the wrong order #oh well

[pocketsizedquasar]

god i guess it’s being sad about hamlet hours but can i get an uhhhhh interpretation of hamlet about intergenerational trauma? about family ghosts, hereditary nighmtares?

hamlet struggling with inherited trauma, struggling to exist as himself in a world of his father’s making and framing. hamlet being unable to divorce himself from someone else’s expectations. hamlet and dissonant revenge, hamlet and a vengeance that isn’t his for a crime he was never a part of.

just. hamlet. 

#quasartalks #hamlet #shakespeare #william shakespeare #classic lit #classic literature #litblr #bookblr #this is very incoherent but in my defense i am gay and tired #and sad about hamlet #also this is very much Me Projecting my Immigrant Struggles TM onto hamlet #but #it makes sense !! doesn't it? #generational ghosts #inherited trauma #the whole shebang #quasarwrites