#they needed jon to kill jonah cause it seems like only he could call him down | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

girlbossgertrude · 3 years

Text

10 REASONS AGNES MONTAGUE IS THE TAPES (formal long vers)

Through Gertrude and Agnes’s web bond, it is implied that the two both acquired traits of the other. We see this with Gertrude and her tendency towards fire and the Desolation. This would have to be mirrored in Agnes in some way, through beholding tendency and power. Though I do not think the tapes are of the Beholding, I think this fact is important to remember.

In MAG 162, the tapes that mysteriously came with the package that held the ritual statement both mention fire in the archives/burning down the archives. See here: “TIM: I mean it! We’ll burn this place to the ground!” and the whole scene with Gertrude getting angry at Gerry for burning cursed leighters in the archives. And, as I write this, I realize that fire is also mentioned in another extra tape in early season five (MAG 161); Jon yells at Tim for bringing a fire source in the archives in the Birthday Party scene! (ARCHIVIST: Alright, yes - thank you. I do hope you’re planning not to light those candles.) And, also in 161, Gertrude is literally planning down to burn down the archives and talks of fire, and her pyromaniac streak, caused by her bond to Agnes. (GERTRUDE: Paper burns well,...Petrol burns better. LEITNER: I always forget your pyromaniac streak. GERTRUDE: Mm. Remind me to tell you about Agnes sometime.)

In MAG 80, Leitner talks to the tapes like a specific person right before he gets killed. There is no one else in the room with him. “[SILENCE] LEITNER: I’m not sure you would have liked him, you know. He’s paranoid enough. But I don’t think he’s got the stomach for it [SILENCE].” Most assume he’s talking to Gertrude (I did), but that really doesn't make sense in the context of most tapes theories ™ . Gertrude is very much dead. Basically, it’s possible that he could be talking to Agnes here, especially in the context of the next point-

“REMIND ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT AGNES SOMETIME.” This line from MAG 161 has so much potential for foreshadowing. It could mean so very many things. But in this context, this implies Gertrude could have told him about Agnes listening behind the tapes? Though this doesn’t make sense in some possibilities of how Agnes is the tapes, it is important to note.

Agnes is very marked by the web and the tapes being associated with the web is highly, highly plausible. She has been affected and tied up in the web since birth! She burned spider webs in Jack Barnabus’s home, and obviously, she was anchored to Gertrude through the web’s ties for years, as well as living in Hill Top Road, AKA Web Supreme. Additionally, she’s killed multiple web avatars: Raymond Fielding, and Emma Harvey. Agnes is interconnected to Hill Top Road, and the crew is there right now, its incredibly plausible that she’s going to come up again. She already did, actually. It is mentioned in the 196 statement that Agnes was the one who opened up the dimensional rift incidentally- from burning down HTR, it caused the crack to open more. ([Raymond Fielding was] “immolated by the Chosen of the Ravening Burn. The house of the time was destroyed along with him, reduced to ashes, and with that the crack finally became… a gap. A hole around which time, dimension and reality began to bend, shudder and leak.”) This feels important.

Agnes Montague supposedly died in 2006, and then in MAG 139, which is taken sometime in 2006, Eugene Vanderstock tells Gertrude that Agnes has died, but- then in 2009-2011, Agnes and Gertrude met up, sometime after Sannikov Land to discuss the subsequent murder agaisnt Emma Harvey. So, she came back from the dead. Or, it’s a classic timeline mistake and I’m insane, of course. Two things that are important to note here: 1. It is important to remember that most desolation avatars had to “die” to become an avatar (I.E.: Jude setting herself on fire in front of her wife to become a avatar) while Agnes had been a true avatar from the get-go, so that could have been her “first death” like the others. 2. In some patreon extended version of the season 3 Q+A, Jonny Sims, when asked about timeline mistakes, says there is a “nexus of timeline discrepancies that is [a part of my] master plan.”

The recording of Gertrude’s death was one of, if not the first recorded times a tape turned on. That’s it, I just feel like that’s important.

The tapes are increasingly being confirmed as web, though so far it seems like web AND something else. “MARTIN: Wait. Wait… The tapes… ANNABELLE: A fine material to spin a web with, don't you think?” I think this confirms that the tapes are at least partly web, though what makes me think that they aren't fully web is what the two say after; Martin asks if it’s been Annabelle listening all along, and she says “Oh Martin. You have no idea who's listening, do you?” I know most choose to interpret this as wholly a fourth-wall break, and an implication that the tapes are us, the audience, but I am choosing to interpret it differently. I think, at times, there can be a character that acts as the audience, says what everyone's thinking and all that. I think that’s happened a lot in this podcast, and I think when Annabelle said that, I interpreted Martin as the audience here, and that Annabelle was telling us “Lol. You guys have NO idea who’s listening behind the tapes!” not that like. She was telling Martin you have no idea who's listening *points to us, the listeners, who are listening*. Also! I think it’s important to note that Annabelle said “who” and not “what”? I don’t know, I feel like that’s important for some reason, in a podcast of weird entities.

A new possibility: Agnes (or someone else but that's not what this post is about) communicating through previously recorded tapes, but being able to get her message across through them. What I mean is that at the end of 196, three different tapes click on, of Jon telling Martin specifically to listen. Someone could be manipulating the tapes to do this. I personally think Agnes doing this fits with her story well; as we’ve only ever heard her story told by other people, and additionally, the overarching theme of not choosing what she is, what she's becoming. Additionally, I feel like it is definitely a possibility that Gertrude could have bond Agnes to the tapes as she has a history of doing things like that, or their web bond could have caused it, as well.

The parallels between Jon and Agnes are incredibly obvious. One line parallel that stands out to me is Agnes to Jack Barnabus in MAG 67 Burning Desire: “She asked me if I had a destiny…[after he replies no] She looked at me, with the same sadness I’d seen on her face before. “That must be nice,” she said, and went back to staring into the sunset.” juxtaposed with Jon talking to Gerry in MAG 111 Family Business: “Sh-She never showed any...er, abilities, or talked about...I don’t know, destiny? Like she was...b-becoming something?” Truly, at the end of the day, Neither of them chose this life for themselves. Neither of them wanted to be Chosen, neither of them chose this life like other avatars did (ex: Jonah Magnus, Jude Perry). They could relate to each other, is what I’m saying. And Jon desperately needs someone to relate to right now. Additionally, the talk of burning down the archive throughout the seasons, specifically season five (see reason 2), and Jonah at one point calling the Archivist/Jon the “Archive” does not slip my mind.

#this is so long sorry i don’t know how to do the keep reading thing #sorry that i won’t shut up abt this theory on all platforms </3 #the magnus archives #magpod #tma #jonathan sims #agnes montague #tma spoilers #mag 196

164 notes · View notes

msfcatlover · 3 years

Text

Me: *rereads my old Portal fics*

Me: “Y’know, some of these are still pretty good! Maybe I should replay the games, and give writing these another shot...”

My brain, always ready with AUs and my latest hyperfixation: TMA crossover with Jon as Caroline, but he doesn’t lose himself in the upload process.

Me: “I... I don’t know if that would work...”

My brain, refusing to be derailed: His robot name could be “Self-aware Intelligent Machine Simulation.” SIMS for short.

Me: “That’s not a great robot name.”

My brain: No worse than “Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System.”

Me: “.......Fair.”

My brain: Testing is like statements; he doesn’t want to like it, but it’s addictive and eventually he kinda needs it to stay sane. He regularly gets in trouble for trying to make the tests less dangerous for the test subjects, because like... draining the acid out of the acid pit ruins the integrity or something.

My brain: It actually makes no difference, but obviously Jonah is Cave in this crossover. He’s researching immortality, and this is just one of the ways he keeps Jon under control.

Me: “Elias was his first attempt?”

My brain: Yeah, but it was just a brain transplant. Now he’s worried about the integrity of his brain itself, I mean, physically it’s getting pretty old. And it’s not like aging is fun anyway.

Me: “So, I assume Martin’s Chell then.”

My brain: Obviously.

Me: “Obviously. Where does everyone else fit?”

My brain: Daisy and Basira are trying to get the whole company shut down for horrible human rights violations, but are struggling to find evidence. They go undercover as test subjects, only to realize they’re in too deep and have to fight for survival.

My brain: Melanie’s a reporter, supposedly doing a profile on Jonah, but secretly investigating all the disappearances that keep happening amongst the staff. Georgie brought her in on the case when Jon stopped answering all calls.

Me: “Tim and Sasha?”

My brain: Scientists, were on the same team as Jon. Might get kicked down to test subjects for asking too many questions about his “transfer to the AI department.”

Me: “Wait. All of this is pre-fall-of-Aperture. Doesn’t that take a lot of the punch out of making Jon our GLaDOS equivalent?”

My brain: ..............................

My brain: Mid-fall-of-Aperture. Terribly understaffed, running out of money, the “AI department” is literally just Jon on the paperwork, Jonah’s desperately pushing the testing/experiments to figure out the limits of brain-uploading before he loses access to the equipment.

Me: “I don’t think that scans.”

My brain: Sure it does! What’s the testing in the games even for anyways? It’s all cognitive, the portal gun itself only gets used in a handful of different ways.

My brain: Now the testing is specifically there to stress Jon out and test the stability of his personality matrix; no point in uploading yourself if the first major issue you run into corrupts your code or causes a major error. It puts Jon through the wringer, even zapping him with viruses and stuff, to ensure the process works, because Jonah doesn’t have the time or supplies for more than one test subject.

Me: “......huh.”

My brain, getting more excited: Merge the Eye-pocalypse and Prentiss attacks! Some sort of biological agent gets loose in the facility, and Jon hacks the security system to try and stop it. Any hermetically sealed area of the facility gets locked down, and he gasses the rest of the facility to keep the contaminants from spreading.

My brain: But they’re underground and the ventilation system isn’t the best maintained, so he can’t risk letting anyone out for fear they’ll get poisoned too. Just has to wait for the gas to rise up out of the facility on its own.

Me: “OH! So from the perspective of everyone in the testing tracks, this AI has just gone completely rogue and taken over the facility, killing a whole bunch of people and trapping them inside!”

Me: “I bet Jonah’s office is basically a fortress, and he still has security access to cameras and intercom, so he just eggs them on. Because this is an insurance nightmare, he wants to upload himself ASAP, so Jonah tells them there’s a manual override procedure for SIMS, but he can’t do it alone. They need to get through the testing, reach the central control chamber, and help him deactivate SIMS before they’ll be able to leave the facility. But actually, he’s planning to delete Jon entirely and replace him in the mainframe!”

My brain: Like the bastard he is.

Me: “So now, everyone’s in this weird limbo of trying to figure out what to do and who to trust. I mean, obviously in the AI apocalypse you want to trust your fellow humans, and SIMS did just gas the whole facility and trapped them in the testing tracks, but on the other hand ‘Elias’ is a shady bastard and SIMS isn’t always that bad?”

Me: “Like, sure, it can be pushy about testing and you can’t expect a robot to be good at emotions, but sometimes it’ll do something like ask for a verbal check-in because they’ve been down there a while and that can be psychologically hard on most humans? Someone complains about food, and SIMS sounds almost genuine when apologizing for not having anything else that can be safely transported to the testing tracks at this time. Once, Martin found a corner away from the cameras to take a nap in, and he’d swear SIMS was actually panicking over not being able to find Martin when he woke up.”

My brain: Tim and Sasha make snide, tired jokes about Jon giving the damn thing all his social awkwardness, as well as his name and voice (for some god-awful, unknowable reason.) They don’t want to let SIMS endear itself to them, knowing it probably killed Jon.

Me: “No, no, knowing that it killed Jon. They absolutely ask at some point if Jon’s okay and are told that amongst the however-many living staff members that are left, Jonathan Sims is not amongst them. What else are they to assume, other than that Jon’s been gassed by his own creation?”

My brain: Oooh...

Me: “Martin’s the only one who actually feels endeared to SIMS by the time they meet up, partially because he’s the only one who was trapped alone. Tim and Sasha were together, and already have reason to hold a grudge. Daisy, Basira, and Melanie met up early and spend a lot of free time fantasizing about smashing the damn computer when they find it.”

Me: “Martin was alone and he hates it, so he tries talking to SIMS, and is a little surprised when SIMS talks back. They’re not always pleasant conversations, SIMS can be curt and doesn’t have much personal info to share (being a computer and all,) but Martin does start to get a grasp on the situation as it must have at least appeared to SIMS when he pulled the lockdown-tigger. And for a supposedly evil computer, SIMS can be surprisingly helpful and seems almost as upset by the situation as the humans are.”

My brain: And there was that odd moment after Martin convinced SIMS to stop calling him “Mr. Blackwood,” and SIMS seemed almost flustered before very softly responding, “...Martin, then.”

Me: “Awww... please tell me Jon’s not actually dead, I need them to take him with them at the end...”

My brain: Suspended animation. The brain is still a vital part of the machine, but it never ages or degrades thanks to whatever combo of chemicals and cryosleep Jonah used to preserve him. Part of Jonah’s “manual override” involves adding a high-powered hard drive or four to replace the need for an organic brain, making full digitization possible.

Me: “But where’s he stored? He can’t just be strung up in the middle of the machine, that’d be unsustainable and Jonah would never let anyone within a hundred yards of it lest they realize the truth! A cryotank in a fake computer bank? A stasis tube hidden amongst the wiring, which they could discover while clambering about installing the hard drives?”

My brain: A cold room disguised as a locked closet or something, with the upload chair still inside of it? Only Jonah has the passcode, technically, and he was planning to go in while everyone else had their own tasks to do, just shove Jon’s body out and plug himself in, leaving Jon to finally die on the floor just a short distance from his friends while Jonah replaced him in the machine, removed the safeties, and escaped into the internet?

Me: “Oh, and Jon gave them a universal override or something to get them out of a dangerous situation towards the end! It actually leaves half the group feeling pretty low, having the thing they’re trying to destroy just hand them the key to its destruction out of pure, innocent trust.”

Me: “Then while Jonah’s distracted giving out instructions, Martin (useless with computers,) wanders over and opens the door, letting out a gust of cold air with a hiss. Martin coughs on the escaping gasses, and Jonah rushes to say that the cold room is very delicate, and ought not to be tampered with by people who don’t know what they’re doing—“

My brain: —but Martin blinks back the stinging, shock-induced tears, eyes adjusting to the dark of the closet and gasps.

Me: “And Martin’s only ever seen Jon in passing, really, they never properly worked together. But he was a little sweet on him even back then, and he’s heard the stories from Tim and Sasha, and he’s spent the last several weeks getting to know SIMS...”

My brain: ...He quickly calls Tim and Sasha over to confirm, just in case he’s got it wrong somehow. They’re just as shocked that Jon’s in there, with all his notes tucked away behind him revealing what really happened. Jonah tries to talk his way out of it, but is quickly arrested by Basira and Daisy.

Me: “Sasha finishes the notes first and makes her way back out. She’s shaking, overwhelmed with rage and grief and horror, and punches ‘Elias’ so hard he falls to the floor.”

My brain: Jonah starts to say something about assault, but Melanie congratulates Sasha for stopping him and Basira, completely deadpan, adds, “We all saw him make a break for it.”

Me: “Jonah shuts the fuck up.”

My brain: Part of SIMS’ programming was not being allowed to answer to “Jon” anymore. He never outright denies being Jon, just corrects people that he is the Self-aware Intelligent Machine Simulation. Tim finishes the notes, makes it to the cold room door, looks into the nearest camera and shakily asks, “Jon?”

Me: “For the first time, there’s a solid three beat pause before the intercom answers, softly and less robotically than before, ‘...Yes, Tim?’”

My brain: Tim starts crying.

Me: “Of course he does! He’s been grieving Jon for weeks at this point, trying not to let it show just how sad and angry he was that it all ended like this, and now it turns out that not only is Jon alive, he never actually left them at all! All those months thinking Jon ghosted them, left them behind in R&D for greener pastures, and Jon was all-but-dead in a cold room the whole time, and none of them ever knew! The relief, the joy, the guilt, the lingering bitter grief and rage, it’s overwhelming. Who wouldn’t cry?”

My brain: It takes them a few days to figure out the download procedure to return Jon to his body, especially since Jonah can’t be trusted on this front. Tim and Sasha are the techies, and they recruit Melanie and Basira for extra hands. (Martin’s still terrible with machines, and Daisy needs to watch Jonah to make sure he doesn’t escape.)

My brain: Martin, feeling useless, stays by Jon’s side in the cold room.

Me: “When Jon wakes up, Martin’s the first thing he sees.”

My brain: Martin sees him moving, meets his eyes, and gasps, “Jon?” Jon nods and tries to say something, but his throat is dry and his voice won’t work. Martin scrambles to get him a glass of water and steadies Jon’s hands as he drinks it. When he lowers the glass, Martin cautiously asks if Jon’s feeling better.

Me: “Jon just smiles and answers, ‘You said my name.’”

My brain: Martin’s confused. “What else would I call you?”

Me: “Jon shakes his head. ‘I just... don’t think I’ve heard you say it before. Certainly not to me. It’s... nice.’”

My brain: Martin laughs helplessly and says it again. “Jon.” Jon’s smile brightens, and Martin can’t help stepping closer, repeating Jon’s name again. Jon laughs along.

Me: “It’s on instinct that Martin takes the empty glass and sets it to the side, leans over the chair, touches Jon’s shoulder, cups his cheek. He hesitates when they’re nose to nose, breathing the same air, shockingly warm even when Jon’s skin is still cold to the touch. He meets Jon’s eyes and swallows. ‘Is this okay?’”

My brain: Close enough to feel the small, inaudible gasp before Jon whispers, “Please.”

Me: “They only get one short kiss in before the door opens and Tim makes a scandalized noise before loudly declaring this unfair and blatant favoritism. Martin all but jumps away, but Jon just rolls his eyes and thanks Tim for saving him. As the others pile in —Sasha claiming she did all the work, Basira needing to know if Jon’s up for making an official statement, Melanie both needing to pass on a message from Georgie and wanting an exclusive interview for her expose— Martin can already feel himself fading into the background, even as he and Tim help Jon to his feet.”

My brain: At least until Jon lingers, fingers lightly resting against Martin’s arm, and looks up at him with hope in his eyes. “Later?”

Me: “Martin’s not entirely sure what Jon’s asking (Jon isn’t really either,) but he agrees anyway. He doesn’t even hesitate.”

My brain:

Me:

My brain:

Me:

My brain:

Me: “.....WELL FUCK.”

My brain, smug despite it being 4:30am: Told you it was a good idea.

Me: “I hate you so much.”

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #portal #jonathan sims #jarchavist #jon sims #tma jon #tma fic #portal fic #portal fanfic #my life #mine #my writing #tma: all about jon #tma: martin #tma s1 crew #tma expanded social circle #tma: the asshole in charge

27 notes · View notes

drmazel · 3 years

Text

certified maria tma speculation (TM) (lazy version)

this turned out way longer than i thought it would. it’s a collection of snippets from tma transcripts just barely hinting at a speculation i have so if you don’t care then scroll fast!

i don’t feel like spending a bunch of time coming up with some speculation and theory when 1) i could be wrong and 2) i just wanna have fun but! for no reason whatsoever here are just some fun and cute quotes from s5 that i haven’t been able to get out of my head that don’t seem to have really been addressed much if at all in the narrative yet and i definitely don’t think are just pressing at the edges to come back and smack us in the face as the finale approaches <3

not that i think they’re all necessarily tied together but mmm a few of these taste of Essence of Foreshadowing yummy! a.k.a. (jonny voice) martin is not going to be okay

MAG167

Jon: W-Without trust. W-Without a reason. Gertrude needed both the purpose her mission gave her and the control her position allowed. To be here, like us, without a – a reason, without someone to ground her? She – She’d have power, but – no control. No real purpose. Perhaps she’d have dedicated herself to a doomed quest like us but – No. I think this would have broken her. And she’d have resigned herself to – ruling her domain.

...

Martin: So. If you say Gertrude wouldn’t have been able to go on without a reason –

Jon: Yes, Martin, you are my reason.

MAG170

(sudden lucid moment amongst a cloud of forgetfulness) Martin: Why. The Eye has won. It can already see everything; it wouldn’t need a – w-wouldn’t need a –

MAG171

Martin: Don’t do that.

Jon: What?

Martin: Don’t use me as an excuse.

MAG172

Martin: If you look, and I was – influenced, then how can I trust anything else? How can I believe any of my thoughts and feelings are really mine?

MAG176

Jon: I don’t like betraying someone’s trust like this.

Martin: It’s not a betrayal if you’re doing it to help.

Jon: I’m not so sure.

Martin: Look, if it was me in her shoes, I’m sure I’d forgive you. It-It’s for the best!

MAG177

Basira: And if I killed you now?

Jon: You couldn’t. And even if you could, it wouldn’t be enough to undo what’s happened to the world.

MAG178

Jon: No-one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most. Even me. [personal note: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm bark snarl bark bark bark bite bite snarl grrrrr!!!!! bite!!!]

MAG179

Jon: Hmmm. Apparently. I mean, I know it sounds strange, but it… it felt right for Daisy to be able to hurt me.

Martin: Dream logic again?

Jon: Mmm. The… resonances from our relationship before the change carried over and –

MAG181

Annabelle: Don’t worry, Martin. We’ll meet again. Hopefully when you’re feeling a little bit more… open-minded. [personal note: SNARL GROWL BITE BITE GROWL SNARL wife GRRRR BITE!!!!!!!!!]

MAG183

Jon: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements. The Eye is… fond of you.

MAG184

Jon: What was I supposed to do? I owed you. Didn’t want to just watch you suffer.

Martin: It’s what you’ve been doing for everyone else. It’s what you’re expecting him to do.

MAG185

Jon: Either way, even if I wasn’t here, I don’t think you’d be in any danger. Not anymore. I wasn’t sure when we first started out, I hadn’t properly, er… looked into it, as it were. But now I’m certain.

...

Martin: Even though I didn’t ask for it? Did nothing to deserve it?

Jon: ‘Deserve’. Huh. Now there’s a word that always causes trouble.

Martin: Don’t be patronising.

Jon: I just mean that nobody here deserves the position they’ve found themselves in, not really. I suppose a few may have asked for it, sought it out even, but far more didn’t. They just made the wrong choices for the right reasons. Or even the right choices. But ones that still led them here in the end.

...

Martin: I guess we should get used to it. Knowing that all these awful things are happening for our benefit.

MAG186 (this is a big one that ties a lot of my scattered thoughts together)

Martin: So, this price. What do you think? Are we going to have to kill John?

Also Martin: I don’t know because you don’t know. But it seems like something we should at least consider.

Martin: I… have thought about it. And… I won’t. I don’t think I could. But anything else? Any other price? I’ll pay it.

Also Martin: Even dying?

Martin: Yeah!

Also Martin: Jon’s as bad as we are. He wouldn’t let it happen.

Martin: It’s not his decision.

Also Martin: Fine. So flip that round, then. What are you going to do when he tries to sacrifice himself, because you know he’s going to try?

Martin: I don’t know, all right? I don’t know.

Also Martin: And that’s okay for now, but I just want us to have thought about this stuff properly before it comes up. Because even if that’s not it, chances are it’ll be something else you don’t want to do, and we need to make a proper choice. We can’t just react out of shame or fear or whatever.

Martin: What, like with Peter and Elias?

Also Martin: Yes.

Martin: That was a proper choice?! I chose wrong!

Also Martin: But you made a decision. Your own decision. Regardless of the outcome.

...

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

Also Martin: They’ll suffer either way.

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

Also Martin: You don’t really believe he’d do it?

Martin: I don’t know. Maybe?

Also Martin: This took a dark turn.

Martin: Yeah. But… this time, it doesn’t feel like despair. It feels like resolve.

MAG188

Jon (statement): She looked at the eye, and the eye looked back. Carmen’s arm shot out, thrusting the tip of the blade right into the pupil. But it did not cut anything, for there was nothing but empty blackness. Carmen’s knife, then her hand, then her forearm passed into the void of that pupil, her skin bristling with the cold. And then the iris closed around her arm, the thin flesh of the tightening muscle clenching with astonishing strength as it held her in place. Then, inch by inch by inch, it began to pull her in. But her flatmate simply shushed her. Her terror was pointed and crimson, and tomorrow she will wake up hating London and worrying about how many characters there are.

MAG189

Jon: No, Martin, listen, what I’m saying is that whichever way you cut it, ultimately it just comes down to who The Eye chooses. [personal note: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM]

...

Jon (statement): They can all hear him now. Any words he speaks will ring out through the chamber. He wants to talk of the people outside, the bruised and abandoned ones that suffer and die to slake their appetites. He wants to cry for restitution, for justice, for a future, for anything. But all eyes are on him and he falters. He remembers the cold, the hunger, the ache of concrete beneath him. He is afraid. And his chair is so very comfortable. The minister coughs, once, uncomfortably, and sits down. [personal note: wow if only there was a character that had a thing about comfortable chairs this season? anyway,]

Act III trailer

please go read the rime of the ancient mariner or the wikipedia synopsis or something. for real. like for real for real oh my god i can’t believe i didn’t think of this of course jonny chose that shit on PURPOSE

MAG191 (of course)

Martin: And you have to promise me you’re going to do everything in your power to live. That you’re not going to sacrifice yourself at the first opportunity, just because you feel guilty about what happened. [personal note: see MAG186. Jon isn’t the only one that feels guilty that this happened, and I can’t stop thinking about how this promise did not go both ways.]

MAG193

Jonah: Enough. Tell me, why are you here?

Jon (statement): I… I don’t know.

Jonah: Were you drawn here?

Jon (statement): Yes. I was.

Jonah: Against your will?

Jon (statement):No.

Jonah: Then why did you heed the call?

Jon (statement): Because… this is the place I know I should be.

Jonah: Good. The job is yours.

[personal note: OBVIOUS parallels with jon and being promoted to archivist then being promoted to Archivist, but my “martin is not going to be okay” brain is very guilty of reaching for connections and i do see this parallel with the conversation between jon and martin in MAG039 about why martin hadn’t quit. inch resting.]

anyway i said i don’t have the mental energy to come up with some long speculation and i DEFINITELY don’t now after pulling all this out of the transcripts. i could be wrong i could be right i could be somewhere in the middle, but i think it’s very possible that jon tries to accept the eye’s “offer” to take jonah’s place, martin doesn’t let him, martin does it instead then something i don’t even want to think about happens because he does NOT want to feed off of people’s suffering as has been repeated over and over. i’m probably way off but i’ve just been thinking about it and needed to get it down somewhere. maybe i’ll reblog this on thursday after the release of 194 with an update, who knows! whether i’m right or wrong both martin and jon will be fine tho <3

#THAT 178 ONE REALLY GETS ME AHAHAHA MMMMMMMMMMMM #FORGOT ABOUT THAT UNTIL SCANNING THROUGH THE TRANSCRIPTS JUST NOW HEHEHE HOOHOO #tma speculation #the magnus archives #LONG post #sorryyyy

18 notes · View notes

ieattaperecorders · 4 years

Text

Something's Different About You Lately

Jonathan Sims has been head archivist for just a few months, but he has memories of holding the position for years. Somehow, he'll have to keep everyone safe from what's coming. Meanwhile, his assistants can't understand why their prickly jerk of a boss has gone sappy all of a sudden.

(I went ahead and started a fanfic inspired by that Jon-sends-his-memories-back-in-time comic by @questbedhead. Not sure whether I’ll add to it, but thought I’d post this much at least.)

Read on Ao3

Jon woke suddenly and bolted from his chair. He made it halfway to the door, stumbling in a blind panic before reality caught up with him and he remembered where he was. The room that was half his flat came into focus. Shadows pooled against the dim light coming from outside.

He breathed slowly as his heart rate returned to normal.

Jon’s dreams were his own now, and in them he was only himself. Mostly they were nightmares, and mostly the nightmares were bad. But he’d still take them any night over the pitiless, helpless consumption of secondhand terror that he knew was the alternative. Still. This one had been awful. He could still see images of it, lingering in his mind. In particular he remembered Martin’s face, twisted in an expression of pain and fear for just a moment before his grimace turned into an unnatural, too-wide smile . . . Jon shuddered as he tried to forget it.

His phone was on the table that served as both desk and eating space, and he checked the time. 8:15. He’d nodded off in his seat and slept for less than an hour.

Jon stared at the phone’s screen and wondered how Martin was doing. There were several months to go before Jane would attack the institute. The table that had held the thing that once took Sasha, the centerpiece of this particular nightmare, it hadn’t even arrived yet. Martin would be fine in the archive, Jon knew that. He’d sleep there without incident for months, unharmed. There was no need to worry about his safety just yet.

The image from his dream remained in Jon’s mind, unmoved by his own reassurance. He found himself wishing, not for the first time in recent days, that he could reach into the ocean of Knowing that had once pressed so forcefully against his mind. That he could just Know if Martin was all right, See what he was doing right now. But the door in his mind wasn’t just closed, it was gone. Not yet built. Never to be built if Jon could help it. There was nothing to reach for and nothing to give in to. It was just as well, he supposed, since he’d promised to give Martin privacy. Lacking the ability to check just removed the temptation to do so.

Without really thinking, Jon ran his thumb over his contacts and scrolled until he found Martin’s name. He tapped it, opening their history. The last message visible was still from Jane Prentis and Jon frowned at the sight of it. Martin had a new phone now, of course, but the number was the same.

Jon could call him if he wanted to. Just check in, make sure he was all right. Reassure himself that nothing terrible was happening.

Sighing, Jon set the phone down. Hadn’t harassing his staff been one of the things that caused so much trouble the first time around? Martin didn’t need Jon bothering him every hour of the day and night with all his worries. He’d have enough of his own after his encounter with Prentiss. No. Jon would go in to work tomorrow, see Martin there, and everything would be completely fine - or at least as close to fine as was possible, under the circumstances. It wouldn’t be that long until morning.

He checked the time again. 8:17.

Of course, if he happened to stop by the institute because he’d forgotten something there, he’d be sure to run into Martin. Then he could see for himself that he was safe. That would be perfectly all right, wouldn’t it? He nodded to himself as he got his coat.

On the train ride downtown, he thought about another Martin. The one in his memories - his new memories - who had tried so hard to keep Jon safe and present and whole. Who’d somehow kept a grip on hope even after everything fell apart, a hope so blind and powerful that it alternately seemed like foolish, sad denial and like a beacon that could rival the dread powers in its brilliance.

In another time, another life, another world, Jon had watched that light grow slowly dimmer as the cruel reality of the new world smothered it. The world he had brought into existence.

Jon had spent so long in despair and resignation by then. He’d even been frustrated at times by what seemed Martin’s unwillingness to face reality. It was really rather ironic how much he had panicked when he began to realize that Martin was giving up as well. The final blow had come after Jonah was destroyed. When they learned that killing him had accomplished nothing except binding Jon to the Panopticon completely. Jon had felt his body go limp, his edges softening, his body merging with with the flesh of the tower as a thousand eyes he hadn’t known he’d had opened at once. He was fairly sure he’d have have accepted his fate without a fight if it hadn’t been for the look on Martin’s face.

So he’d done the only thing he could. He’d drowned his mind in the Knowing that howled at the edge of his consciousness. Dove as deeply as he could, drinking it in, reaching for anything that might give them a chance. Perhaps it had been his regret, his childish desire to go back and undo all of his mistakes that had guided him to the answer. He’d already known that he could force knowledge into the minds of others, just as Jonah had. But Jon was more powerful than Jonah had been and he had now been placed permanently in the center of the Beholding. He could send his knowledge anywhere. Possibly across time itself. He could send all that he knew - his memories, his experiences - back to a time when he might still be able to do something with that knowledge.

It had been a long shot, an unlikely gamble. But as he explained his plan to Martin he’d seen light return to his eyes. Watched a tearful smile bloom in him as he held what remained of Jon’s hand.

If Jon did nothing else good with his life, if he truly couldn’t escape what he was and everything fell apart again this time, he’d still be proud of that moment. When he’d found a way to rekindle that precious spark of hope Martin had carried. If one day he found himself back at that tower, trapped in the knowledge that he could only repeat this horrific cycle over and over and over, he would still have that.

Of course . . . it hadn’t really been him who’d done that, had it?

Jon looked at the smooth, unbroken skin of his hand. His palm was soft, unblemished, and free of pain. His wrist lacked the twisted trails he’d memorized the locations of. He remembered the Carousel and Night Street more clearly than he could recall what must have been last week for him, but what felt like it had happened years ago. But he had never truly been to those places. He only had the memories of them.

What had happened to the man who’d be there? And what had happened to his Martin? Did they exist in some future that was still being unwritten? If Jon could stop this all from happening, would they blink out of existence along with the rest of their world? Or worse, would they continue on in their horrific timeline that could never be changed or erased? And if it became clear that nothing could save them, would that spark in Martin finally die, forever?

Jon shook his head. He couldn’t think about that. There was no way of finding out the answers to those questions, and he had to focus on the world he was in. On the people who were here, still alive, still with him. On the Martin that hadn’t given up. And even if he wasn’t truly the person in his own memories, if his skin was unmarked and his mind was distressingly quiet and still, he still felt like that person. It was one unbroken chain of events to him - from the institute to the safehouse to the tower and back here.

It was harmless, he decided, to keep thinking of himself as that Jon. He had enough on his mind without adding on another existential crisis.

It was 8:57 when he reached the front door of the Magnus Institute, walked in and headed for the archive. His neck still ached from the awkward position of his unexpected nap, and he rubbed it irritably as he walked. He’d gotten so disconnected from his body after the coma. Even pain, which had been his constant companion for a long time, had begun to feel abstract to him. Now every physical sensation was loud and demanded attention.

Maybe it was the distraction of that ache that kept him from noticing the noise coming from beyond the archive door. He barely had a moment to recognize the thing that was hurtling towards him before it came within inches of his face.

Jon’s reflexes were not enviable. He did not leap back gracefully so much as yelp and stumble into the desk behind him. A heavy wrench sailed through the air just inches away as his back hit the desk’s edge. He slid to the floor, arms splayed, trying to get his balance again. Things might have gone quite bad for him if his would-be attacker hadn’t stopped, frozen in horror, to stare at him wide-eyed.

“God! Jon! I’m - - I’m so sorry!” Martin dropped the wrench, hands shaking. “I didn’t hit you, did I? Please tell me I didn’t - -”

Jon’s brain took a moment to catch up with what he was seeing, adrenaline still flooding him as he connected Martin’s expression with the blow to the head he’d just avoided. He’d been defending himself? Had Jon’s fears been right, was there an attack on the archive ahead of schedule?

“I’m so sorry,” Martin looked more distressed by the moment, and Jon heard a crack in his voice. “I didn’t know it was you. Are you hurt? Tell me if you’re hurt, please - -”

“I’m fine, Martin.” Jon did his best to sound calming. “Really. You just . . . startled me.”

“Good. Thank God. Ah. . . sorry.”

Now assured that he hadn’t given Jon a concussion, Martin bent down to hesitantly offer a hand up. Jon took it, the shape of Martin’s palm around his own natural and familiar. He placed another hand on Jon’s back, pushing him gently upwards and holding there for just a moment. The difference in their height and size, the sheer physicality of Martin’s presence was immensely steadying and Jon felt some disappointment as he pulled away. If Martin noticed this he gave no sign, still nervously babbling apologies.

“Martin. Martin,” Jon cut him off. “It’s fine. I’m all right. What’s going on? Were you just . . . lurking behind the door, wielding a blunt object?”

“I just - - I heard - - I don’t know.” Martin rubbed the back of his neck, beginning to look more embarrassed than afraid. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here and it’s so quiet at night and I just - just heard something moving around and I thought maybe - - ”

Something finally clicked for Jon.

“Martin . . . .” he said. “Did you think that I was worms?”

Martin’s face flushed and he looked down, muttering. “I mean, you could have been worms.”

“Yes. I suppose I might have been worms.” Jon agreed, biting his cheek to hide an amused smile. “Perhaps a slim chance of that. But given everything you’ve been through I can’t bame you for being on edge about that.”

“I’m really sorry - -”

“No harm done. Let’s not worry about it anymore.”

Jon smiled fondly and reached up to pat Martin’s shoulder. Nothing lingering. Just a few, quick taps, a ‘there there’ motion. Surely that was all right, wasn’t it? That wasn’t too familar? Maybe it was - Martin looked uneasy and confused more than anything else. But he stopped apologizing and nodded, so that was something.

“Er . . . what are you doing here?” Martin asked. He fiddled with the hem of his shirt - presumably one he slept in, given the flannel pajama pants that he also wore. It had a cartoon bear on it that Jon was fairly sure was from a video game. “I thought you went home.”

“Ah. I did.” Jon remembered the excuse he’d come with. “Yes, I went home. But then I realized that I’d left something important in my office, and I had to come back for it. Which is why I’m here.”

Don’t ask what it is. Jon thought desperately as he went through the motions of walking towards his office door. Please don’t ask what it is.

“Oh. I see.”

Martin didn’t ask what it was, to Jon’s relief and gratitude. He made some pretense of rummaging around in his desk as Martin appeared in the doorway, hanging there hesitantly. Jon noticed he’d picked up the dropped wrench and was holding it at his side. He paused, looking at it.

“Sorry, but - -” Jon asked “- - were you planning to hit the worms with a wrench?”

“Oh - -” Martin looked at the tool in his hand, laughing nervously. “No, uh. I mean there’d be too many of them for that to do any good, right? I just . . . well, I could tell that it was a person moving around, or at least something person-sized. And I thought if it was Jane, I - - I didn’t want to get trapped again so I was going to make a run for it. But I wanted something in case she tried to grab at me, you know?”

“I see. Yes, that would make a bit more sense.”

It didn’t escape Jon’s notice how tightly Martin was gripping the wrench, or the way his eyes would occasionally dart to the corners of the floor. Or the fact that, despite his apparent embarassment over nearly bashing Jon’s head in while in his pajamas, he was lingering in the doorway rather than returning to the room that he’d been staying in.

He was right to be afraid. Jon knew he was right to be afraid. The worms were most likely already there. They wouldn’t attack for some time, true, but they were still present. Waiting. Martin would sleep safe and unharmed night after night, his worst fear writhing in the walls around him. The thought made something deep in Jon’s stomach squirm.

It was only when Martin shifted uneasily that Jon realized he’d been staring. He fixed his gaze on his desk again, moving some papers around.

“I know this place is unsettling at night,” he offered.

“Yeah . . .” Martin exhaled. “I do appreciate you letting me stay. I’d probably be a lot more jumpy if I was back at my flat right now. At least the archive’s sealed off.”

“Still, if you’d feel more comfortable I could - -”

Jon stopped himself mid-sentence, the offer halfway out of his mouth before he even realized what he’d been saying.

Could what, you damned fool? he thought. Stay here tonight? Sleep in the narrow cot with him? Hold his hand and stroke the crown of his head if he wakes up afraid, the way you used to when he had nightmares? Yes, surely that’s what he wants to hear from his prick of a boss that’s never been anything but unkind to him.

“. . . Could see if there’s some way to . . . enhance security around here,” he muttered after far, far too long a pause.

“I mean, if you think it’s worth looking into.” Martin chuckled nervously. “Not sure if there’s anything a burgler alarm could do about worms. But at least Jane could maybe be kept away?”

“I’ll look into it.” Jon said, insincerely.

“Could convince Elias it’s worth doing just for general security, right?” Martin asked hopefully.

Jon didn’t try to hide the contempt in his voice “I’m sure he’s very concerned about employee safety, yes.”

Martin went quiet at that. Jon had probably been pretending to rummage around in his desk for too long. He pulled a few papers out of his top drawer, tucked them in a file and stuck it under his arm. Then he hesitated. He really didn’t want to leave. These months in the archive had been hard for Martin, Jon knew that. He’d gone to sleep every night afraid that he’d wake up with worms boring into his skin. And more often than not the people around him - Jon especially - had treated his anxieties like an annoyance.

Jon wanted to stay, to give Martin the comfort of another person’s presence. He knew all too well how being alone with one’s thoughts sent them spinning into further extremes of fear and paranoia. He wanted to be there for him this time.

And it wasn’t just for Martin’s sake. It was perhaps absurd for Jon to think that he missed someone he saw daily, but it was true. He’d felt adrift in the week since he’d gained his knowledge of the future. This Martin - truly, the only Martin there was, the only one that was real - didn’t lean into him or laugh when he was annoyed. He was nervous around Jon. He flinched back awkwardly when their hands brushed accidentally, and seemed like he was always waiting for some admonishment.

There was nothing for it, though. He’d just have to stick to the plan. Soon enough Sasha would be approached, and though Jon wasn’t thrilled at the thought - - he knew how sharp those hands were - - he knew Michael wouldn’t harm her. Once the fire suppression system was replaced with CO2, he’d just have to wait until the others were gone, find some excuse to send Martin away, and take care of Jane on his own. Martin would just have to endure a few more bad nights in the meantime.

“Well,” Jon gestured to the file under his arm. “This is what I came back for.”

Don’t ask what it is, he thought. Please don’t ask what it is.

“Oh? What is it?” Martin asked.

I am being punished for my crimes against this world.

“Ah. Just. Hmm. Some things I’ve been working on at home. Statements.”

Martin seemed to accept that. It was probably best not to add any unnecessary details.

“It’s sort of a personal research project of mine,” Jon continued, mouth moving without the consent of his brain. “Trying to work out some patterns I’ve noticed between statements with similar themes.”

Stop, you fool. Jon thought.

“Really?” Martin seemed genuinely surprised. “Honestly, I kind of got the impression you thought the statements were mostly fake.”

“Well, I do. Of course.” Jon fumbled. “But ah, there can be some value in categorizing even the, uh, the ramblings of the delusional. It’s revealing. Teaches you about what people are afraid of.”

“Uh . . . right.” Martin raised an eyebrow.

“I should go.” Jon’s formerly pressing desire to stay was overruled by a need to flee before he started babbling about Smirke’s fourteen and made Martin’s nightmares even worse. He hurried towards the door.

Martin stepped aside to let Jon pass.

“Right. Er, good night.”

Just as Jon reached the archive door, a thought occurred to him. It wasn’t much, and he doubted Martin would take advantage of it. More than likely it would just confuse the poor man even more. But if he was destined to keep doing reckless and foolish things, at least one of them should have a chance of easing someone’s fears instead of feeding them.

“If you hear something again.” Jon said, “or perhaps just think you hear something, you should call me.”

Martin frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You said you were worried that Jane might come here. If you ever have reason to think she might be. . . .”

“I mean . . . thanks, but, shouldn’t I call 999 if that happens?” Martin tilted his head. “No offense, but I mean . . what are you going to do against the worms?”

Emergency services wouldn’t exactly do much against them, either. Jon thought, but did not say.

“You should certainly do that if you’re in danger.” Jon said. “But I imagine you’ll hesitate rather than phone them at every odd sound.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“As I said, I know this place is unsettling at night,” Jon shrugged. “A second perspective can be a breath of fresh air. Can . . . help make it easier to tell whether something is a true danger or just in your head.”

Martin stared at him, brow furrowed, looking like he was trying and failing to solve a particularly difficult math problem.

“And I keep odd hours,” Jon continued, waving his hand. He kept his tone stern and dismissive, as if that might disguise the fact that he’d essentially asked Martin to call him if he was feeling scared so he could talk him down. “So don’t worry if it’s late at night. Believe me, it won’t matter.”

“Um. All right,” Martin blinked, an uncertain smile that Jon considered a victory forming on his face. “Thanks.”

Jon nodded. “Sleep well, then.”

He hurried out before he could spoil this rare triumph with more reckless words, then ran to catch the late train home.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #tma fanfic #time travel au #mild body horror in a few spots #and some negative self talk because look at these characters

66 notes · View notes

hoardcloneheadcanons · 3 years

Text

The Season 1 Villain: Mr. Blackwood Part 2

Summary:[After Bullying Martin and Jon into getting together Mr. Blackwood takes down Elias Bouchard with the aid of allies from the sketchiest of places]

A loose structure of ides for an AU of the fanfic Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey

-Mr. Blackwood tries to wait for Mr. Sims, he really does. He’s done this before. When Jon was in a coma and he thought he was gone for good Blackwood threw himself in the Lonely and an alliance with Peter Lukas. He’s trying not to assume that Jon is dead. He’s trying not to make drastic decisions without him again.

-But Elias is noticing that Mr. Blackwood is preventing his archivist from reading statements. Elias proceeds to try and get rid of Mr. Blackwood, and influence the archive staff to not trust him.

-At a point where Elias tries to get Blackwood arrested (for either impersonating an employee or for some crime he pins on him) Martin vanishes.

-This is the first the Archive Staff of Mr. Blackwood’s spooky powers, and it doesn’t help the trust.

-Elias uses the opportunity to convince them that the rituals they should be worried about are the one of the Corruption and the Stranger. He also convinces them that Mr. Blackwood is allied with the Lonely and was simply trying to attempt his own ritual behind their backs. He adds that keeping the Archivist powerless was part of that plan, and that the Archivist’s job is to prevent rituals, citing Gertrude Robinson as evidence.

-In this circumstance Blackwood decides to take out Elias on his own. He’s not quite giving up on Mr. Sims coming back, but he’s not relying on him returning either. And he determined to stop the Watcher’s Crown before Elias can kill him.

-Knowing that the Archive Staff no longer trusts him, Blackwood starts using invisibility to grab old Gertrude tapes from the police station and Elias’s office and leave them in convienient places for the staff to find. Instil a healthy suspicion of Elias in them. He’s trying to find the Gertrude Tape for Sasha.

-They don’t suspect him because he’d made it clear to them before that he doesn’t trust the tapes. He hadn’t let Jon record on them.

-He’d actually thrown them out the window only for them to appear in a drawer a few minutes later. An action which helped the archival staff believe the tapes were supernatural. Jon remained skeptical only for Blackwood to repeat the action two more times only for the same effect.

-Meanwhile Blackwood starts transposing his knowledge of what his Mr. Sims couldn’t see to Elias’s blind spots. Assuming that what his Mr.Sims couldn’t see, Elias can’t either.

- He knows his Jon couldn’t see in the tunnels, the dark, or in the doors of the Spiral.

-So he talks to Michael and Leitner to get to the panopticon and puts C-4 in the tower.

-Then he makes a deal with Either Michael to remove Jonathan’s eyes

- Specifically he tells him that at 17:00 (when he’s planning to kill Jonah Magnus) that the Archivists and his assistants will probably start screaming in pain. If they don’t, leave them alone. If they do, stab Jon’s eye’s out. If they look like they’re still dying, stab out the eyes of the archival assistants. They’ll be blind but they’ll be alive, seperated from the beholder.

-Sometime around 14:00 or 15:00 Mr. Sims shows up [SEES ALL] and is confused that he can seem to find his Mr. Blackwood or the present day Archival assistants.(One is in the tunnels, the others are kidnapped by the Spiral) He is concerned.

-Luckily the Archival assistants, due to the machinations of both Elias and Mr. Blackwood are paranoid of everyone that is not eachother. Tim, Sasha, Jon and Martin trust eachother and no one else. Unbeknownst to Elias or Blackwood they raided artifact storage for things that might help them against supernatural threats, researching correlating statements in order to use them. Tim’s research on Smirke told them about places they could use around the city that would hide them from the eye, the tunnels included.

-His connection to the Lonely may be affecting him. He’s fully accepted they’ll hate him. He’ll even let Michael tell them Blackwood sent him.

-They manage to escape the spiral long enough for Mr. Sims to SEE them.

-Sims blackmails a taxi driver to get to their location, saying he’ll reveal his affair unless he gives him a ride.

-Mr. Sims gets to them in time to get Michael to go away. They’ve all escaped his doors by this point. He’s just there to make Michael stop trying to stab their eyes out.

(”You shouldn’t be attacking me here archivist. I’m here to help.”

“I fail to see how trying to kill my younger self and my friends helps me.

“I wasn’t here to kill them, just take their eyes. Your Blackwood was very specific on that point. But if you’re going to cause me this much trouble, I won’t do it. I’m happy as long as the Eye is stopped.”

“Martin?- Oh no.”

“But if you wish for them to die with your archive, go ahead, take them. Your funeral. Your Misfortune”)

- Being saved by an older, scarred version of Jon, with glowing green eyes smattered on his skin and hovering over his head like a crown was a plot twist that the archival staff was not ready for.

-They’re shouting questions at him left and right as he’s trying to drag them toward the Archive to Prevent Blackwood from killing them all.

-Sasha has to pay for the uber. The archival staff are crammed in the back while the scarred scarecrow that is Jonathan Sims tries to answer questions from the passenger seat. The driver stares straight ahead and pretends he doesn’t understand english while hoping these crazy people will get out of his car soon.

-(Sasha: Where should I tell him to go?

Sims: To the Archive, we need to prevent Martin from killing Elias.

Tim: Blackwood. This is Martin.

Sims: Excuse Me?

Martin: So is Elias the good guy? Was he right about the Archivist stopping the apocalypse-s?

Sims: No Elias is decidedly not the good guy, and he’s trying to start the apocalypse using the Archivist. He already did in my timeline, that’s why Martin and I came here. Speaking of which, younger me, you should really avoid recording the statements.

Tim: Blackwood!

Sims: Is this really the time, Tim?

Sasha: So why didn’t Blackwood just kill Jon when he got here?

Sims: Because Martin- Blackwood, wouldn’t enjoy killing a younger version of me, or any of you. That’s why he was trying to have your eyes removed. Removing your eyes would remove your connection to archive allowing him to kill Elias without killing you. Which I will still try to do if we don’t get there in time.

Jon: Why couldn’t he just tell us that?

Sims: I DON’T KNOW! I assume it’s because he thought Elias would find out his plans, which I understand. But after all the lectures he gave me about not being paranoid and trusting people this is rather hypocritical of him.

Sasha: Is it possible that Blackwood is attempting a ritual for the Lonely?

Sims: “What- no. Is he using his powers of the Lonely again? That’s- oh. Oh that explains some things.

Sims proceeds to put his face in his hands.

Tim: So do you really eat people’s trauma?)

-Mr. Blackwood goes to Mr. Bouchard’s office. Just to see the fear on his face. Just to see his reaction to soft little Martin being his killer. It’s an indulgence. Its his revenge for tricking Mr. Sims into the apocalypse.

He also came with a gun, just in case blowing up the panoptican doesn’t kill him.

It takes him a moment for Elias tries to talk him out of it, he even tries to use the image of Blackwood’s Mother against him.

(Mr. Blackwood winced, but it didn’t stop him from looking Elias directly in the eyes.

“I’ve already seen it, Jonah.”)

-It’s then that Elias tries to tell him that the archive staff escaped, that they’ll die. (small price for the survival of the world) That his Jon is back, that he can see them. That you don’t have to do a last desperate act for a man that is still alive. Martin at first thinks that Jonah is lying and is ready to set off the bomb.

-But Mr. Sims does dramatically burst in, archive staff nervously behind him.

-He then proceeds to snog Mr. Blackwood for an obnoxiously long time.

-Sasha is stuck standing there wondering if this is really the time. Elias is at first a combination of grateful and disgusted that ranges into incredulous as they just keep going. Tim is impressed.

-Jon and Martin are shocked that anyone could like Mr. Blackwood so intensely. They then realize they’ve been staring at a version of their future counterparts make out for a very long time and look pointedly at a corner of the wall and the carpet respectively.

-When Elias tries to talk to them, saying that he was glad Blackwood could see sense, Jon proceeds to threaten him using all of his spooky archivist powers, not only getting the company credit card, but also getting the archival staff a good two weeks off to cope with their trauma.

-(”And if you attempt the Watchers Crown again I’ll turn the Eye to look upon you so that you may feel every pain, every terror you ever caused and watch it shrivel you for the inside out. I will drink your fear of the end as you disintegrate into a half-forgotten memory.”)

-Things de-escalate from there. The archive staff attempt to go to their separate homes before they jump at the shadows and slowly congregate. Sasha calls Tim. Martin calls Sasha. Jon calls Martin. They end up congregating at Tim’s, Staying awake watching lifetime movies until they can’t keep their eyes open.

-Sims and Blackwood reorganize the power structure of the archive while the archive staff heals. They also eliminate Jane Prentiss as Blackwood catches Sims up on what happened.

-Sims does find it funny that Blackwood managed to bully their past counterparts into getting together. He also cannot help finding it hilarious that he got to be the Straightforward and trustworthy MR. SIMS while Blackwood was a cryptic bastard.

-It still hurts. Jon didn’t mean to die on Martin again. He didn’t want to hurt him like that ever again.

-When the archival staff return, Sims goes out to lunch with them and slowly builds up trust with them. He eventually takes Blackwood with him to a lunch with Tim and Sasha, where Blackwood apologizes and explain himself. Martin and Jon aren’t ready.

-Tim excitedly checks about 15 points off his list of “accurately guessed anti-Jon” list.

-Sasha insists he can’t include the one-sided relationship one, “I know he’s besotted Tim, but It’s clearly not one sided and that’s barely an anti-Jon trait anymore.”

-Tim also notices, that with Mr. Sims by his side, Blackwood is a lot more relaxed and friendly. He fusses over him and acts, well, a lot like Martin.

-Tim comes back from the meeting declaring to Martin and Jon that, for the safety of everyone, Jon cannot be separated from Martin.

(Sasha points out this is ridiculous.

“It’s classic transitive property Sasha. If Blackwood can become Martin with a Sims, Martin can become a Blackwood without one.

“It’s not just Sims, Tim. They also defeated their big evil, and according to both of them we died in their timeline. It’s more like... if we died and Jon and Martin end up being the only ones left, Jon is not allowed to leave him.

“You heard her Martin, none of us are allowed to leave you for fear of you turning into a scary. dark, evil-mirror version of yourself.”

“We’re not allowed to die or get replaced by evil clones. Speaking of which, I’m going to go put a spooky table in cement with our local apocalypse couple. Want to come with?”

-Things settle, Monsters are killed, trust is rebuilt And the future continues unstopped by an apocalypse.

#The Magnus Archives #Yesterday Is Here #Mr. Blackwood #Martin Comes First AU #Fanfiction #Archive Of Our Own #Fanfic of Yesterday is Here #Mr. Blackwood AU #weaponizing My own writer's block

5 notes · View notes

hibibun · 4 years

Text

i don’t want your crown

Series: The Magnus Archives Pairing: One-Sided Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims Summary: Jon and Martin reach the Panopticon. It doesn't have the answers they're looking for, and it doesn't go how Elias expects.

for days 6 & 7: beholding and dynamic shift Notes/Warnings: Possessive Behavior, Reluctant Relationship, Manipulation, Dynamic Shift, Body Horror, Eye Horror, Discussion of T erminal Illness, Jealousy AO3

The tower looms overhead, ostentatious and as daunting as it was when only a blip in the distance. A horrid beacon that Jon knows they’ll have to enter, however much he’s torn on it. He’s being called—has been presumably by both Elias and the Eye itself, but he doesn’t know what awaits them up there, nor if it will help anything.

He wants to know what’s up there.

He doesn’t want to know his place up there. Acknowledge the burning desire to see it all.

“So this is it,” Martin’s voice breaks his thoughts, and it’s grounding to hear against the stress of the impeding climb.

“Yes, this is it,” Jon reiterates a bit pointlessly. He’s done his best to avoid looking directly, but it’s obvious Martin has more questions for him. All he can focus on is trying to steel himself for whatever remaining trap Jonah might have for them, and what Martin might expect him to do once they’re up there. There are so many more people he owes it to, to fix things, but he can’t think of them right now either. If he even can do anything about Jonah, there’s no guarantee it would fix anything or mean anything beyond petty revenge.

Whatever he expects Martin to ask, he’s instead surprised to see his outstretched hand.

“Ready? Walked long enough to get here, couple of flights of stairs can’t be that much worse.”

Jon only offers an uneasy smile back, but accepts his hand as they enter.

It is a quiet climb. Stained glass surrounds the outer walls of the spiral staircase and the eyes painted in them watch as they ascend. Jon is long used to the gaze of eyes, but this time he is keeping a secret they want to feed on.

“So, can you see any better, now that we’re here?”

“No, but I can feel him still. He knows we’re here.”

“Great,” Martin mutters, unsurprised. It’s not like coming in with the advantage of surprise would be helpful anyway. As they round the corner, the glass gives way to cobbled walls and iron fixtures befitting the prison the old Panopticon was structured in.

“We’re close,” Jon warns, though there is little either of them could do to prepare. He thinks Martin might ask him once more, what their plan is, but either he’s tired of Jon’s ominous and unsatisfying answers or like him, knows there isn’t one. They climb a few more floors until there is only one large door left to open. Inside is a wide room that more closely resembles the top of a lighthouse, its windows giving the perfect view of countless domains, not that Elias needs them for a proper look considering anyone on the ground floor could give it if they still have eyes to spare.

Yet, there he is, as perfectly composed as always and staring down at the ruined world below them. He turns to greet Jon and Martin, and as he does, the cascading blinking eyes trailing down one side of his face and speckling his neck widen and stare.

“Have a nice trip? Breathtaking down there isn’t it? Of course, I only have the bird’s eye view, but from what I can tell it’s quite lovely.”

“Mhmm, people suffering over and over while a big eyeball in the sky watches. It was wonderful. Might have even seen a cow at one point,” Martin answers him with an eye roll. Despite his new monstrous form, Elias at least doesn’t seem to have changed much.

“Come now, Martin, it couldn’t have been that bad. You and Jon seem fine. If I’m not wrong, you even had a bit of fun on your way here. How does it feel, Jon? You can do so much more than just compel now, enthralling isn’t it?”

“I-It wasn’t fun. I only wanted to settle a score, nothing more. I didn’t enjoy doing it.”

Elias’s multitude of eyes settle on Jon and his skin crawls again. It was one thing when Helen insisted otherwise—the Spiral is centered on lies meant to hurt. They both know he didn’t find it fun, but to say he doesn’t enjoy it entirely…

“Mm, feels nice to not be so helpless, doesn’t it? Which reminds me, I’m supposed to be the last stop on your little hit list road trip, correct? Is there anything you’d like to discuss beforehand? I’m all ears,” he asks, his smile dancing on the edge of a joke that for once Jon understands and almost flinches at when he hears. Martin, however, doesn’t see.

“Do it,” he encourages, and while it’s something Jon hasn’t been pushed to do recently, he was waiting for it. Compared to Callum or Simon, this makes sense to do. Elias—Jonah—is the one who caused all of this. He’s caused so much suffering with his tugging of strings, but Jon is still shaking. It’s his fault too.

Beholding thrums between them, even nestled in the Eye’s blind spot, as Martin looks to Jon and Elias repeats Martin’s urging.

“Yes, Jon. Do it.”

The words feel like a compulsion even though they aren’t. Still, it’s the thing that draws the words from Jon’s lips.

“Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing!”

The static is loud and overbearing, but of course from where they are, how could the Eye twist itself in? Desperately it hears its Archivist calling, but the hunger it senses hardly comes from the one its stare is being directed towards. No, it is only Jon the Eye wants to devour right now. For when its heavy weight bears down on them, tries to bear down on Elias, he is absolutely thrilled. He’s watched Jon’s other ‘smitings’, and like all the other times Jon has tried to channel the power of Beholding against the man before him, he takes to it proud and rapturous.

“Oh, Jon,” Elias breaks the silence, softly. His skin prickles with shame, embarrassment and Martin’s heavy stare beside him.

“That was exhilarating. I wasn’t sure if you’d really go for it, but surely, you knew it wouldn’t work.”

“Wouldn’t work?” Martin asks, the words pointed and sharp. Their accusing tone isn’t directed at Jon, much too infuriated that Elias is still alive no doubt, but they punch the air out of him nonetheless.

“He’s too… it’s Beholding, of course…” Jon stammers, guilt clawing at his veins because he had a suspicion, if he could call it that by this point. He couldn’t tell Martin—perhaps maybe didn’t even want to, but as a result it only gave him false hope. Something Jon continuously felt awful trying to pry away from him.

A dry laugh cuts him off.

“No, no, of course. With the way everyone talks about you here, it makes sense. It’s just, of course.”

“M-Martin…”

“Yes, of course, Martin. Jon would never want to crush that precious optimism of yours, but it’s merely a wonder this place hasn’t managed to do so. Are you starting to get it now though?”

“Elias—”

“Aren’t you tired of it Jon? Had enough of the guilt? Plus, Martin really deserves to know doesn’t he? There’s so much you keep not telling him and that frustration must surely be wedging between you.”

“Know what Jon?”

It always came down to secrets and trust, didn’t it? And in the end, as much as he asked from Martin, Jon has never really been adept at sharing—giving back to make up for what he takes.

“He’s like me Martin, w-we… I can’t kill him. I know I told you I wouldn’t hesitate, and I thought maybe, I would still be able to do something but…”

“You can’t,” Martin finishes for him, soft and brittle. He isn’t angry. Jon, out of fear, breaks that respected boundary not to look, but the disappointment is crushing and painful. His attention snaps away when he hears the telltale click of Elias’s shoes on the floor.

“No, he can’t. And he wasn’t going to tell you, but really Jon what did you expect to happen when you got here? Were you hoping to be wrong?” He laughs at that considering just how much both of them know about the world and its inhabitants now. His hand reaches for Jon’s shoulder and Martin reaches out to try and stop him or put himself between them, but falters, pinned when Elias’s eyes glance towards him.

“Are you ready to join me now, my Archive? You may not be able to die, but it’s unpleasant to keep denying yourself from looking isn’t it?”

The possessive note in his tone makes his want to run because it only adds to the things he doesn’t know how to talk to Martin about. For as much as he loves him, there is a connection forged here and twined in spider’s silk that Jon hates and craves like the air he used to need to breathe. He is hungry, especially after that failed attempt to use the Watcher’s gaze, and Elias is trying to goad him not so subtly into doing something cruel, not realizing there is another option. One he does have the power for now.

He raises his scarred palm and cups Elias’s cheek. The voices and sights and pain and misery are a wafting miasma and while it serves to remind him he’s hungry, they are not the meal he is looking at. Jon tries not to think of Martin—not to dive into the desire to know just what this must look like and what he must be thinking as Jon reveals his intentions.

“Jonah Magnus, tell me about the first time you thought you were about to die.”

The pupils in Elias’s eyes shrink, and Jon feels ravenous as he drinks in for the first time fear evident in that normally arrogant expression. They may both be connected to the same power and share it’s horrible gifts, but its desire for terror is indiscriminate. There’s a crinkle in the line of Elias’s mouth and Jon watches his throat bob with a painful looking swallow as he tries to resist.

“Tell me. Tell me about the many days in that sick room. How the doctors said you wouldn’t make it.”

“A-Ah, but it was a chance recovery. Quite lucky, right?” Elias strains, still evidently in pain. Jon’s grip tightens, and he gasps.

“How did it feel to have them discuss your own funeral thinking you were asleep? Knowing you were so young and helpless. Your whole life falling to pieces right before your eyes and you could do nothing. How every cough, every wheeze, you thought might be your last. How sometimes you wondered if you would go to sleep to not wake again. Even long after you no longer felt that weak, your lungs never quite felt right, did they? And each mild cold after only served as a reminder it could happen again. That maybe it was already happening.”

Jon doesn’t want to think about how good this feels. To see the very man who’s driven him to this point crumple before him over centuries old memories. To watch him be the one full of fear for once.

Elias’s body can’t seem to make up its mind on whether it wants to flee or lean into this. He’s captivated by Jon using his power in this manner, but also it’s his own painful memories dragged to the surface.

“You may not be able to die now, but if you’re going to push me to it, you will remember how afraid of it you were—not even kings are exempt from fear. Now let me go.”

Jon moves to pull away and is more than grateful Elias doesn’t try to hold onto him or use him to help himself up. It’s uncomfortably satisfying to see him on the ground like this and Jon takes another shaky breath before turning to Martin.

“We’re done here. Whatever it is we could do to fix things, it isn’t here.”

Martin stares between Elias and Jon who’s steadily heading back towards the door, still unsure what to make of what just happened. Getting out of there and away from Elias isn’t something he’ll say no to though and follows. The jealousy is still stirring somewhere, but it’s clear that whatever weird claim Elias thinks he has over Jon, it isn’t reciprocated. At the very least, it’s something Jon is demonstrating he wants no part of, and that’s enough for Martin right now. However, Elias’s voice stops them before they leave.

“You’ve done well, Jon. When all’s said and done, I’ll be here. The Panopticon is partly yours too, after all. None of this would have been capable, if not for you.”

Jon lingers at the door for a moment listening, but doesn’t deign to answer him. Martin catches up and is happy to let the door close behind them. The silence lingers for a few minutes as they make their way back down before Martin breaks it, needing to ask the obvious.

“Where do we go now? Do we… try meeting up with the others again? Come up with a new plan?”

“I don’t know,” Jon doesn’t mean to sound dismissive; he’s just drained from the encounter. It’s easier to not think of the others and try to see where they are or what they’re doing right now.

“We’ll figure it out when we’re out. I just… I just need a minute.”

“Okay,” Martin accepts, and quietly repeats.

“Okay.”

#writing #writing: tma #pairing: jonelias #pairing: jonmartin #character: Jonathan Sims #character: Martin Blackwood #character: Elias Bouchard #character: Jonah Magnus #jonelias #jonmartin #joneliasweek2020 #it never ceases to make me laugh how arrogant elias instead of getting jealous #bc he's So sure jon will come back to him in the end #and i meant it ambiguously on jon's side but who knows

19 notes · View notes

literatehiss · 3 years

Text

Rendezvous

Read on AO3 here Day 1 MartinElias Week Martin goes home with Elias and judges him for his lack of basic necessities. Slight NSFW maybe? Their “relationship”, as much as it could be called that, was relatively new. A month or so of tense office meetings and brief breakroom rendezvous. Martin wasn’t an idiot, he knew Elias didn’t love him or anything like that. He didn’t think the man capable and to be honest, he wasn’t sure he wanted the man’s love even if he did have room for anything other than his own ambition in his heart. It wasn’t even Martin’s worst relationship and he felt that his ex-boyfriends’ should really feel bad about being worse than his serial killing, monster of a boss.

Elias was good enough to keep his sharper edges turned away from Martin, no ripping his secrets from his own memories and forcing him to face them, no smug hiding of knowledge, though it wasn’t like there was nothing wrong with the man. Of course, there was also the small issue of his co-workers, it was one thing if Tim or Melanie found out, Martin wasn’t exactly excited to have their anger pointed at him for once rather than Jon and Jon was his own problem. Despite their dalliances, neither Elias nor Martin could avoid the fact that they both were drawn to their fair Archivist and neither of them were prepared for the fallout of Jon finding out about it.

Anyway, their relationship was new and Martin didn’t expect the normal things he usually would because at the end of the day his boss was a fucking evil monster, more so than a normal boss too. That didn’t seem to stop Elias from inviting Martin around to his home one Friday afternoon. It was, on paper, for dinner and a drink. In reality, Martin knew there was little to no chance that he was going back to his dingy flat before Monday night from the look of Elias’ smirk as he had informed Martin of his offer.

Martin had clocked off work as early as he could but he still wouldn’t have time to go home and grab a bag, and realised as he stepped into Elias’ car that he was going to be entirely dependent on Elias’ mercy for the weekend.

The trip to Elias’ home wasn’t far, clearly the Head of the Institute paid well enough for a flat much closer to the Institute than the paycheck of his employees was capable of. Martin was pretty sure he had read erotic novels with very similar premises to this as he felt the warmth of Elias’ hand brush his thigh as the older man changed gears. A more inappropriate man might have placed his hand on Martin’s thigh but Elias was as proper as ever and his eyes never strayed from the road, or, at least, the eyes in his head were looking at the road, who knew where else the man was looking. A quick little grin on the man’s handsome face told Martin where at least part of the man’s immense vision was laying and he scowled at him which did nothing for Elias’ weaponised smugness.

The house was old, very old and Elias spoke up as he unlocked the front door.

“Another thing I inherited with the position I’m afraid, it turns out being the Head of the Institute has a few perks.”

“Something else funded with the Lukas’ money I suppose?” Martin scoffed, following Elias into the sitting room.

“I don’t know what you are suggesting Mr Blackwood. Is it me, your boss, or Jonah Magnus himself you are accusing of sleeping around with the Lukas’ for money?” Elias said with a smirk.

“Can it not be both?” That caused Elias to genuinely laugh this time but he gave no answer. He didn’t need to, Martin had seen the Institute’s finances. He trailed after Elias as the man stripped out of his outer layers, only his trousers and shirt left, top few buttons undone. Martin shucked off his coat but kept his jumper on over his shirt, a layer of armour that he knew did nothing versus Elias’ gaze but it made him feel better if nothing else.

He fiddled with the sleeve of his jumper while Elias ordered dinner, the man couldn’t cook for shit as Martin had found out when he had asked the man to make him toast in the breakroom once. He jumped as Elias addressed him while still flicking through his phone.

“Go make yourself some tea or something Martin, you are being delightfully distracting but I suppose you will want to eat first.”

Which meant that Martin was now free to snoop around in Elias’ kitchen. His cupboards were practically bare apart from a few essentials and Martin baulked at the price of the tea he found, the pricing sticker still stuck to the side. It was practically unused, the coffee that stood next to it clearly providing Elias with the caffeine he needed in the morning for a hard day traumatising his employees. He had a faint thought that he was being unfair before a second, more sensible, thought reminded him that he was very much not being unfair and this whole deal was a terrible idea. It was at this point Elias had finished whatever intricate menu he had been ordering in and came into the kitchen, his arms wrapping around Martin’s middle and slipping down into the top of his trousers as he watched Martin make his tea from over his shoulder and his grip didn’t falter as Martin picked up and drunk the gently steaming liquid.

“How do you have no cans in your entire kitchen?”

“I don’t cook, I much prefer to order in.”

“But what if you have no internet connection.”

“... I think you have forgotten who I am Martin, I Know their numbers and ring the restaurant directly.”

“No phone connection?”

“Then I just won’t eat, I can always pick something up on the way to the Institute.”

“I cannot believe you would rather not eat than learn to cook. I have never heard something so pointlessly posh in my life.”

“Really? It doesn’t seem that odd to me. No one has ever mentioned it before.”

“Elias. Please. Your last relationship was with Peter, let’s not pretend the Lukas’ have any idea what people normally do.”

Elias shrugged a vague agreement and his head turned to the door moments before the delivery driver actually knocked on the door.

It was alright.

That was a lie, it tasted delicious but Martin wasn’t going to tell Elias that, he had seen the tip of the receipt and felt a little nauseous at the total cost. It wasn’t even that much food, Elias just had high standards apparently. He picked at the remainder of the food on his plate, Elias already done and looking at him with obvious interest. The grin that lit up his face as Martin finally pushed away his plate caused an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies to flutter in his stomach.

I wasn’t like they hadn’t done this sort of thing before, but there was a vast difference between quickies in Elias’ office or in abandoned meeting rooms, and fucking in Elias’ home, in his bed.

It was weird, out of everything that should have caught his eye as he entered the bedroom, it was the fact that all the furniture actually matched that brought Martin out of his own thoughts. He had never owned an entire suite of furniture, neither did anybody he knew. It was normally random pieces of whatever he could find cheap in car-boot sales. It was this distraction that allowed Elias to get Martin’s jumper off as well as most of his shirt buttons before the younger man even noticed.

Martin found himself flat on the soft bed, Elias pinning his arms to the bed as he sucked a line of bruises down Martin’s chest. He tried to buck up and turn them over, so maybe Elias’ wouldn’t be in charge for once in his life. It turned out Elias was much stronger than he looked, the older man just grinning down at him before leaning down for a kiss.

Monday morning, Martin’s jumper collar was pulled high up his neck when Jon strolled into the Archives and past him, stopping for a moment, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What is it, Jon?”

“Nothing, you must have picked up the same fabric softener as Elias is all. You smell just like him.”

Martin kept a rictus grin on his face until Jon had entered his office, then it fell at the same time as he dropped his face into his hands.

#MartinEliasWeek

3 notes · View notes

haberdashing · 4 years

Text

Like Emptiness In Harmony

TMA AU of 160. When Jon wakes up after that statement, he finds that he’s changed just as the world around him has.

on AO3

Jon came back to himself... no, that wasn’t right; Jon’s self was far too nebulous a concept for that. How many weeks, months, years had passed since he’d truly been himself, free of influence by eldritch powers? Had he even truly been himself before he’d joined the Magnus Institute, or had he been controlled by the Web back then, too? Would he even recognize his true self, his human self, anymore? (Were his true self and his human self even the same thing these days?)

Jon came back to consciousness on the floor of the safehouse, with Martin standing over him, and for a brief second things seemed alright, seemed as normal as they ever were, before he saw the terror in Martin’s eyes and remembered what he’d read out loud before passing out and knew (lower-case) that something had gone terribly wrong.

The details were still fuzzy in Jon’s mind, though, and as Jon struggled to put the pieces together, to wake up more fully and figure out exactly what kind of trouble he was in this time, he was only able to say a single word.

“Martin.”

But... but it didn’t sound right, somehow. The word was clear enough, luckily, it wasn’t like he was trying to spit it out through a gagged mouth (which was a sensation Jon unfortunately knew all too well thanks to Nikola), but the tone was off. Jon was confused and curious and scared, but when he called out Martin’s name, none of that came through. Instead, his voice sounded... smug, smug and vaguely condescending, much closer to the sort of tone he would have used to dismiss Martin before Prentiss’ attack than the one he’d meant to adopt now.

“Jon?” Jon wasn’t sure how much of the uncertainty he heard in Martin’s voice just then was real and how much of it was just his mind projecting. Probably some of both there.

Jon cleared his throat and tried again.

“Martin.”

It came out the same as before--exactly the same as before, actually, his tone and enunciation both identical to when he’d said Martin’s name before, as much so as if he’d recorded it before and simply played it back again instead of actually speaking anew.

An analogy that, when Jon examined it more closely, seemed entirely too on the nose.

“My god.”

He said the words only partially because they were what he actually wanted to say; if Jon were free to speak his mind, his speech would probably be significantly less coherent right now, and filled with half-formed questions. But this would have to do at short notice, combining actual meaning with a way to test his current theory.

Sure enough, he was able to say those words just fine, just as he had... how long ago was it, now? Minutes, hours, an eternity ago? And with them came that same smug, self-congratulatory tone, one that almost made Jon want to punch himself in the face for sounding like that. But it wasn’t really himself that he wanted to punch in the face at the moment, just as it hadn’t been himself, exactly, who had first said those words. It was his voice, sure, but the words themselves, the mind behind them, were not his own.

Jon opened his mouth to say Fuck Jonah Magnus, but was far from surprised to find that the words refused to cross the gap between his mind and the world around him.

It was all starting to come together, now. It didn’t click, per se, just continued on the progression from lazy analogy to hunch to theory to something just shy of a dark certainty.

Why did nobody ever swear in the statements, goddammit?

Though that- that wasn’t quite true, was it, there were one or two instances in there where-

And then it clicked. Jon Knew, then, what he could and couldn’t say, the exact limits of his strange new vocabulary. (Or... not new, really. None of these words were new to him. Perhaps he would never say anything new again.)

“Jon, are you alright?”

Even Knowing what he could say didn’t mean controlling his speech was easy, though. It was a little like trying to conduct a conversation by flipping through a dictionary, having to find just the right word in its pages every time a new one was needed.

“No. No, of course not.” The words were right, or close enough at any rate, but the tone was all wrong, and it wasn’t even Jon’s own voice this time, the voice and words of a now-dead man leaving his lips instead.

Jon laughed, then, and that at least sounded normal enough... well, for a certain definition of normal, at any rate. It sounded sharp and cold and full of fear, without a hint of humor to be found, and that wasn’t normal for a laugh, no, but it was what Jon had intended at any rate, a sound that was still all his own.

“Jon, you’re, you’re scaring me a bit, something about your voice seems weird...” Oh, good, he noticed that much at least. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know... and it makes me very afraid.” At least it was his voice again, now, not that of... well. Jon wanted to call Mike Crew a killer, a monster, but those weren’t exactly distinguishing features, were they? Martin probably didn’t even recognize the voice that Jon had adopted a moment ago; it’s not as if he’d had the chance to chat up Mike before Daisy killed him.

“Right. Alright. Well then, er... is, is there anything I can do to help?”

Jon laughed, and this time there was humor to it, or at least levity, despite the world having gone wrong, despite his voice no longer being entirely his own, because no matter what Martin was still Martin, trying to help, putting Jon’s well-being above all else, even when the world was quite possibly falling to pieces around them.

“I am unsure if I will... be able to stand myself up again.” Between the words and the hand extended in Martin’s direction, Jon hoped that the instruction would be clear enough.

Evidently it was, as Martin took his hand, helping pull Jon off of the floor and back onto his feet. It took more effort than it should have, Jon thought, Martin grunting and breathing heavily by the end of it despite past jokes about how easy it was to pick Jon up, but it worked, though Martin’s whole body was shaking by the end of it. (Jon wasn’t sure whether said shaking was even entirely physical in nature, truth be told.)

Jon half-walked, half-stumbled his way forward.

“No, no, no--don’t, don’t go outside. It’s--it’s real bad.”

Outside had never been Jon’s destination, however, though Martin seemed to believe otherwise. Jon didn’t want to go outside, to experience the horrors that had now been unleashed upon the world outside their cabin. He simply wanted to... Jon had to suppress a bout of hysterical laughter as it occurred to him that he simply wanted to see what had happened, to watch the chaos unfold, and wasn’t that all too fitting...

The view outside the nearest window was enough to confirm all of Jon’s worst suspicions. The world had been torn apart, all the fears unleashed upon it to wreak havoc, all because of what he’d just read out loud (all because of him).

“My god.” It felt wrong, somehow, using the words of the man who had orchestrated this apocalypse to describe it, but Jon didn’t have much in the way of alternatives at his disposal.

“I don’t know if it’s just here, or-”

“No. No...” Between trying to put the world’s destruction into words and trying to translate what words he could come up with into something said in the statements, Jon struggled to speak, though it didn’t show in his voice when he did manage to string a few more words together. “...the populated world... edged with a strange, creeping fear... far, far away...”

“Is that Peter’s voice? Jon, don’t... just, please don’t.” Martin laughed briefly, though Jon could see that his eyes were filling with tears. “I, I think I’ve heard enough from him already, thanks.”

Jon nodded enthusiastically, went to apologize, realized that even a simple “I’m sorry” was beyond his reach now, settled for “I was an idiot.” instead.

“Don’t say that. You’re not an idiot for not thinking of it, it’s just...” Martin let out a long sigh. “Jon, I’m scared.”

“...fear can just become as routine as hunger... I felt every feeling... They overwhelmed me... my impact on the world... my failure...” Jon switched between different statements, different voices, desperate to find the words to explain what had happened, what the world had become and how it was all his own fault. The end result felt like almost as great a failure as what it was purporting to describe, but it was an attempt, at least. It would have to do.

Martin wrapped one arm around Jon’s shoulder; Jon briefly considered pushing it off because he was about the last person who deserved to be comforted now, when he was the one who had caused so much pain and suffering, but decided against it because that would hurt Martin’s feelings more than it would appease his own, and he couldn’t exactly explain his own thought process to Martin at the moment.

“You’re not a failure, Jon. No matter what this is, no matter what else happens, you’re not a failure.”

Jon laughed and shook his head and laughed some more, a laugh that kept threatening to turn into a sob as he looked out at the ruins of the world he had wrecked entirely.

“And with each act of glorious, hateful destruction, I felt my god’s love embrace me, consume me... ”

Jon pointed to the sky, to the giant eye that now engulfed it.

“It’s still there, still watching me.”

The laugh that kept threatening to turn into a sob finally did so after a long minute, and as it did the tears that had been building in Martin’s eyes began to flow, and the two men threw their arms around each other, holding one another for comfort as they cried over the loss of their world.

#tma #tma au #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

17 notes · View notes

soveryanon · 5 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG140! … abridged version because I want to be Caught Up with these before this week’s release and Time Is An Enemy and so is my ability to do things without a deadline.

- I have not much to say about the statement itself except that:

(MAG140, John Flamsteed) “You are familiar of course with my persecutor and tormentor Edmond Halley. The one so oft descending upon me as Nemesis with her sword to avenge upon my hubris. […] I will admit that in my heart, I nurtured such dreams of revenge that when they came to me the name of God felt hollow upon my lips. Another dignity stripped from me by mine enemy. […] No. If there was to be a confrontation or action taken against Raymer, it would be I, and I alone, that would have to take it. […] Again he traced his path under that dark and hidden wood, and again I followed, quiet in my manner, keen in my observance. […] It was that in his visit, he was accompanied by Edmond Halley. My dear Raymer, whose body had gone cold and still in my own cruel hands. […] they were the eyes of my Raymer, the one I couldn’t destroy.”

… insert here Kate Beaton’s “MY NEMESIS” comic, holy Mew John Flamsteed. In the same vain (warning for description of murder by drowning):

(MAG140, John Flamsteed) “I wasted no time, and drew my smallsword, and praised to God, who gifted me foresight to carry it. I struck Raymer a fierce blow to the leg. He fell, still clutching at me, and in a moment, cast my sword away into the trees and grabbed at my coat. With a fierce strength never before awakened within me, I gripped the head of my foul adversary, and forced it down, into the dark pool before us. There I held it, the water so cold upon my skin the marks have yet to fade. And Raymer trashed, and kicked, and made such sounds as I have never before heard of the dying. And he was still. I drew him up with the black water still thickly flowing from him. He was dead at my hand, and though I well knew it to be an act of defence and retribution, I felt within me a sudden terror of discovery.”

I wonder what Flamsteed would have said, if he had been discovered spontaneously stalking and stabbing and drowning Halley – wait, no, I know, he would have muttered “Self-defence”, probably. It just escalated so quickly, as a natural progression in the way that he told the story… but seriously. You were so very chill with murder, dude. (That was a strong grudge, wasn’t it.)

- Alright, so; the events were precisely dated:

(MAG140, John Flamsteed) “I know it was the second of May [1715] when this took place, for it was no doubt the crowning glory that he had stolen from me that occupied his mind that eve, and caused his steps to quicken and grow careless.”

He is referring to the date of ~Halley’s Eclipse~, which Halley correctly predicted would take place on May 3rd 1715 – except “Note: Great Britain did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752, so the date was at the time considered 22 April 1715.” (I know Nothing about dates of eclipses and Britain’s own calendars so I have to trust Wiki on this x”)), so oops, Jonny…? Flamsteed should not have referred to it as being in May...

So The Dark is once against tied to solar eclipses; Oliver had first seen Gertrude’s death as happening around the day of an eclipse in Ny-Ålesund in March 2015 (MAG011, MAG025), and Basira had pointed out the relation between Halley’s Comet and The Dark’s activities in MAG108. If so, that would give Jon&Basira some time to operate in the North pole, given that the next (partial) solar eclipse planned in Ny-Ålesund on August 11st. Given, however, that season 4 has constantly reminded us of the subjectivity of symbols appropriated by Fear cultists and all… I don’t think the dates will actually matter all that much, at the end of the day, and they’ll be screwed anyway.

- The way I understood it: Edmond Halley had discovered Dark cultists and was joining them, was meant to do… something, but got killed by Flamsteed before that could happen and something different happened? Did the cultists have no idea about how to free the being-that-became-Maxwell-Rayner in the water, and whatever they wanted to do around the time of the eclipse wouldn’t have worked because the thing trapped in there needed a corpse to get out?

(MAG140, John Flamsteed) “a strange and shrouded wood not a league from what might draw the interests of the pompous fool with whose whims I was now so well-acquainted. And in that quiet seclusion, while I looked on in silence and astonishment, he would meet with figures both man and woman alike, with dull clothing, and eyes that in the darkness of that wooded place seemed wholly black, and empty. Their words were soft and impenetrable to me from the spot wherein I was concealed, but they had much impact upon Raymer – who oft would stagger backwards as though struck. […] And as I waited there, the enormity of my actions settled upon me like lead, and Raymer’s dark-eyed compatriots arrived to attend him. Seeing him prostrate and lifeless upon the ground was clearly a shock, and their distress was marked upon them. And yet there seemed no sadness or horror within their passion, but surprise and confusion, and the question they cast between them was that of what was to be done, for it seemed Raymer was vital to a task as yet unfinished. […] he began to thank me. His gratitude was so plain and sincere that I could scarce understand it as he spoke, but he repeated it again and again, thanking me for his life. For his freedom. I stared into his eyes, and though they met mine, I saw spreading inside them the darkness, and mist.”

And what had trapped the creature in the water? Trapping is usually Web’s favourite activity but… here, in water…?

I was super-cautious about the idea that Rayner was body-hopping, but it seems I was wrong to be, that is what he was doing! Though I think it might not be a human-who-became-an-avatar but a full monster emanating from the power, if he was the water all along? (Aaaand it fits the fact that so many Dark-related activities involved that brackish water. We already had the connection to Svalbard, though, but it’s fitting that Rayner had been sealed in a lake or something.) Or was Rayner even older than the XVIIIth century and had been sealed in the forest for a long time, and only began to body-hop when it first came in contact with a corpse? Even Jon was unsure about a few bits:

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: So Edmond Halley was… Rayner. Or, at least… whatever was inside him. You said he was dead, though. BASIRA: I thought he was. We shot him to hell before he could, uh… “pour himself” into that kid. ARCHIVIST: Mm. BASIRA: But I mean, didn’t you say he got blown off in World War One as well? ARCHIVIST: Ah– uh, p–possibly, the, the details are, hum… It’s not exactly clear.

And indeed, back in MAG007 Jon had noticed the name “Rayner” rang some bells (that he later identified as Maxwell Rayner’s cult when it came up in MAG009), though according to Smirke’s categorisation… “Joseph Rayner” didn’t seem be related to The Dark after all, but rather to The Slaughter (potentially with a bit of The End)?

(MAG007, Clarence Berry) “The only thing they’d found nearby were the tags of the dead man among his remains. A man named Joseph Rayner. […] You know the phrase “to pay the piper”. I thought on it a lot through those many months – the debt of Hamelin, who for their greed had their children taken from them, never to be returned. […] It was a month later that I woke up to find [Wilfred Owen] sitting next to my bed. He stared at me, not unkindly, though there was something in his eye that put my ill at ease. “Almost over now, Clarence,” he said to me. I said yes, it did seem to be all coming to an end. He smiled and shook his head.”

I had understood it as… Wilfred Owen exchanging places with “Joseph Rayner” in order to not die, until he had paid his due, and/or the fact that he was allowed to live leading to the continuation of WW1 (as Clarence was hypothesising)? I’m surprised that Jon and Basira brought this up again as potentially being the same being as “Raymer” and “Maxwell Rayner”. What would have caused it to change names, from being called “Maxwell” during Smirke’s time, then “Joseph”, then going back to “Maxwell”?

And how come it took the name “Raymer” in the first place, given how it was John Flamsteed’s nickname to designate him? Unless Abraham Sharp betrayed Flasmsteed and told “Edmond Halley” everything he knew?

What about the thing about dark water pouring out of the mouths of avatars of The Dark, since we know it wasn’t just a Rayner thing – there had been the victim taken by Darvish, too, and we know that Darvish used to be… pretty high in the hierarchy apparently (MAG135, Manuela Dominguez: “I suppose there is also an element of provocation here as well; even with the loss of Darvish, we will still be victorious.”) before Trevor and Julia stabbed him and other followers to death, as they recalled in MAG109. The homeless man (Morris? Maurice?), who was already dead, had water pouring out from his mouth – was he meant to be a host for one of the cultists too…? Is that a regular thing some Dark avatars do, not only Rayner…?

- I’m still not sold on the Elias=Jonah Magnus theory (mostly because I don’t really feel like the way people have been describing Jonah so far… matches how people talk about Elias overall?), though I admit that it could make sense given that Smirke mentioned Jonah’s fear of dying, the fact that Rayner and Elias have ~history~ (and Rayner was around during Jonah’s time), and we now we have a Precedent of body-hopping confirmed – and not just Spooks serving a god to sustain themselves into old age like Simon Fairchild or the Lightless Flame.

(Not believing in what follows, but it did cross my mind that… in a way, Isaac Newton, as described in this statement, could kind of fit, given how he was getting closer to now-possessed-Halley at the end of the story…? (MAG140: “He is a blockish creature of vanity, concerned with his appearance only, and likely to fly into an indecent heat and knavish talk at any dispute. He has no reverence for God, and I pity him the fire that awaits. […] I was… astonished at how cordial his conduct seemed, his temper even and his head steady. But it was not the attitude of the president, that robbed my tongue of speech. It was that in his visit, he was accompanied by Edmond Halley.”))

But whatever Elias is or is not, we might get a few more things about that history between them at the North Pole… ;;

- I wonder how Martin will take the news of Basira&Jon leaving for the North Pole. Will he know before they leave? Or will he notice they’re… not around anymore and Peter will shrug it off because THEY decided to leave on a trip, it’s not his responsibility if they decide to go get butchered in a dangerous place! (Martin’s Life Is Hard and no one understands, especially not Peter.)

Will Basira&Jon keep their receipts to claim their expenses at the Institute. Will Martin process the reimbursement.

- Basira mentioned a boat:

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: […] So what’s the plan? BASIRA: I’m getting us passage on a boat heading up there. ARCHIVIST: … Right.

And I think she would have mentioned the Tundra if it was it, at least to prepare Jon psychologically? So it’s probably not it? But maybe Peter will be the one to take them back, given how his ship had a Precedent of travelling into very cold waters (Sannikov Land, described by “Michael” in MAG101). Well. “Them” if both Basira and Jon make it.

- It makes sense, and feels satisfying, that Basira is indeed heading towards Ny-Ålesund and was the one to gather clues about The Dark: as mentioned, her encounter “kinda stayed” with her.

(MAG140) BASIRA: You remember Maxwell Rayner? ARCHIVIST: Yes, of course, your… warehouse showdown? BASIRA: Yeah, well. The whole thing kinda stayed with me. ARCHIVIST: Mm, I can imagine.

Her encounter with Rayner between MAG072 and MAG073 was not another spooky story in her Section 31 career: it’s something that led to drastic changes in her life. It’s because she witnessed the cover-up of her colleague’s death, and his defaming, that she got pissed enough with the police and decided to quit (MAG075). And because she had given that statement to Jon, she was apparently pursued by the dreams until she signed her contract with the Institute in MAG092 (MAG120, Elias: “The Archivist wanders. He is searching, though, for what he does not know. He passes those places he can no longer watch: […] the empty warehouse of thick darkness and frightened children”). When she joined the Institute, her research brought her towards The Dark again:

(MAG108) BASIRA: I was reading through a bunch of stuff about the Church of the Divine Host. Did you look into that statement about the chapel in Hither Green? Because apparently, right around that time, there was a full solar eclipse going on in, guess where? MARTIN: I don’t know. BASIRA: Ny-Ålesund! And when Natalie Ennis talked about it being 300 years ago, well. How much do you know about the relationship between Edmond Halley and John Flamsteed? MARTIN: What, Halley like the comet? BASIRA: Exactly.

It’s her thing. Part of her story. So it feels satisfying that she would be the one to end up piecing things together, even without apparently consulting Manuela Dominguez’s statement from MAG135 (though Jon was thinking about sharing it with her), and to organise the journey:

(MAG140) BASIRA: You don’t know what the ritual for The Dark is, right? ARCHIVIST: Not really, no. Hum, based on this and everythi– Er, something to do with the Sun, I would guess? I– An eclipse, maybe. BASIRA: I don’t think so. ARCHIVIST: Mm. BASIRA: There’s not one due for a while, and I’ve been wondering for ages: why Ny-Ålesund? I mean, sure, that far North, it gets dark for a long time, but… there’s also really long days in the summer. […] I don’t think Ny-Ålesund is the ritual location. ARCHIVIST: Right. BASIRA: I think it’s a, er… a staging ground. ARCHIVIST: For what? BASIRA: The darkest place on the surface of the Earth: the North Pole, during the Winter Solstice. ARCHIVIST: They have an Eldritch ball of some sort of manifested dark matter, that’s going to be the focus of the ritual. BASIRA: … I thought you said you couldn’t know things about them! ARCHIVIST: I can still read. Actually, you should… probably see that sta– You know what, no. Later. [INHALE, EXHALE] So what’s the plan? BASIRA: I’m getting us passage on a boat heading up there. ARCHIVIST: … Right. BASIRA: I bring all the guns from Daisy’s old stash, you bring the spook you used to mess up that delivery guy. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Wh… at? That’s it? [PAUSE] Christ, I thought my plans were half-arsed. BASIRA: It’s all about when we go. ARCHIVIST: … I don’t follow. BASIRA: Summer solstice is the 21st of June. So we leave in a fortnight. […] And should arrive about a week before. No danger of sunset or darkness for a long time. Stands to reason that they will be at their weakest.

… Though it’s coming with its fair lot of Worrisome Things:

1°) Basira still hasn’t told Jon that her intel source is Elias which… would probably make Jon way more cautious about the whole thing. If Elias read her right, Basira’s weakness is her “pride” and if he knows it, he is already using it. Elias did say that he needed Jon to be more powerful, and if he wasn’t bullshitting about that, he had a hand in Breekon’s visit at the Institute (or at least knew it would happen soon); he knows how to use Jon’s concern for people to push him further and to get him in direct contact with more Spooks. Jon is still missing a Dark scar/direct experience… and then last one of the list would be The Lonely, if it’s not already happening with Martin – he completed The Buried and The Flesh in season 4 already.

2°) Basira, stern and unimpressed but hovering, giving Jon a drink, organising the trip to Svalbard, including him in, complaining that Jon doesn’t share enough information with her, concerns me a bit. The parallel with Gertrude taking Michael as a sacrifice to stop The Spiral (by boat, even!) is a bit too obvious, especially given how Jon had called her out about how “You’re starting to sound like Gertrude.” (MAG133) recently. I’m… not sure that’s she’s not planning to try and use Jon to stop The Dark and The Beholding at the same time – since she knew The Eye still “had a chance” at its ritual at this time, and she knows that Elias has been watching and scheming. I have no idea about what Basira is thinking, but more about that later.

3°) Having BASIRA head into THE DARK’s turf is an extremely bad idea, even worse than Jon, given how… she was There when Maxwell Rayner was officially killed. If he’s still around, he will remember her. If he’s not, then the surviving members of the cult (we know there were some survivors) will identify her as responsible for his death (and I REALLY wouldn’t put it past Elias to have leaked that information to them, possibly even making it sound like she was the one to pull the trigger).

4°) If… if that Section 31 operation didn’t manage to get rid of Rayner, that means we know which body he managed to parasite. Until now, I had assumed that whatever Rayner had been trying to do, he had been stopped and killed while accidentally vulnerable, back in the warehouse, and that Leo Altman had been collateral, since he was… dead – I thought that Natalie Ennis had probably killed him thoughtlessly, in revenge?

(MAG075) BASIRA: [Maxwell Rayner’s] robe twitched violently as he staggered backwards, and all the dark liquid suddenly washed down onto the floor in a single movement, leaving Callum untouched. It still gushed from his mouth, though, and as the shots tore through him he spun about and an arc of the dark substance flew through the air. Altman had started running towards them as soon as he had seen the kid, and was almost at the chair when the wave of it spewed out. A few droplets hit him on the cheek and he started to howl and claw at his face. Goodman fired again at Rayner, dropping him to the ground, and the horrendous noise stopped suddenly, leaving only Leo’s cries of pain. The lights came on all at once, and in the sudden painful brightness none of us had time to do anything as a woman who hadn’t been there a moment ago ran up to Leo. She wore a robe similar to the old man’s, and by the time any of us had seen the knife in her hand she had buried it in Altman’s throat. […] It was too late, of course, but as I looked at his still, cold face, I saw his eyes were a milky white.”

… but MAG140 showed that the thing taking the name of Rayner had managed to get free by invading Edmond Halley’s dead body, and that his eyes were becoming white when Flamsteed met him again (matching MAG098’s bit of Rayner having “white eyes”). So: did Natalie Ennis kill Leo because he had killed Rayner for good… or did she do it in order to allow Rayner to use his corpse? Was Rayner really killed-killed back then, or did he parasitise Leo Altman’s body – which was apparently dead, back then, but… could have come back alive. Because if so: then, Basira is going to see Leo Altman again, moving and seemingly alive, and it won’t be him, and it probably will be worse than The Unknowing for her, on the scale of emotional torture.

- I worry about Basira but, at the same time, I don’t think she’ll get killed soon-ish. The thing is: Basira is still… a plain mystery, for us listeners. We know what she did in the police but we barely know anything about her personal life or thoughts, or what drives her, or… things she likes (except for reading). And she’s been a recurring character for longer than Melanie and Daisy! She has been there a lot, she has been amazing and funny and deadpan, but… I still feel like it’s hard to understand her, because she tends to hide in plain sight. She snaps and makes dry comments and talks about the others, but rarely about herself outside of what she does?

And Jonny has proven that he’s aware of such things: Melanie and Daisy both revealed themselves in MAG131 and MAG133, and these episodes were necessary pieces to understand their current-day behaviour. But Basira is still… concealing and hiding herself. The only glint of her perspective was when she snapped about trusting:

(MAG128) BASIRA: Do you know how I survived the… The Unknowing? ARCHIVIST: I… No. No, I don’t. BASIRA: No powers, no… magic or… help. I was trapped in that place, and so I tried to figure it out. And I did. A little. So I kept doing it. I kept going through until I got out. I… reasoned my way out of that nightmare. ARCHIVIST: Good lord… BASIRA: Then everything ended, and Daisy was gone. And you were gone. And Tim. And then I got back to the Institute, and Martin sent me to meet the new boss. Then I stood alone in an empty office for more than one hour. I can trust me, Jon. That’s it.

(Honestly, on the list of people likely to die soon… I would bet more on Daisy. Because we know her more, she has a drive, she has people she wants to protect. Melanie is still in a vulnerable place and it would feel too much like kicking the puppy – I’m expecting her to get something around John Amherst before she can kick the bucket. Martin is… a likely contender, too, but MAG138 gave me the impression that no, he needs Something more for a potential death to feel satisfying: he needs his story without involving Jon, or not as a constant helper/sacrifice. Basira is facing Her story right now, but, as mentioned, her feelings are still a mystery to us.

Doesn’t mean that Jon&Basira will be safe in Svalbard, I’m fully expecting them to get hit very hard but… we would need Basira’s words and perspective and feelings, I feel, before she could die.)

- On the subject of Basira being secretive… it seems like Jon’s powers get out of control around her the most? He only slipped in front of Melanie when she was heading out to see her therapist (Melanie going out was an odd thing, he was curious and accidentally compelled her) but he… tends to Know a LOT around Basira, in a way that never happens with Daisy for instance. Is it because Basira is hiding herself too much, which kicks his Beholding side into relying on his powers to dig out truths about her? Because he doesn’t understand her and wants to know her, while Daisy just spontaneously agrees to talk and… Melanie has already poured her heart out? He managed to refrain from Knowing about Martin, though, until he consciously tried to use his powers.

I’m in the minority here, but I don’t feel like Basira has been… A New Beholding Avatar in the making overall. She makes me think more about what Gertrude was trying to achieve, actually – staying outside of the box, trying to not get used by the powers and to use them instead, intervening and doing things rather than contemplating and feeding from other people’s misery? She had managed to stay out of The Hunt despite signing a few Section 31 forms (and getting in contact with various spooks: The Desolation, The End, the aftereffects of The Corruption, The Dark…); we know that, unlike Jon, she had been able to stop and quit instead of trying to dig further into the events surrounding Leo Altman’s death: it’s exactly the opposite of what Michael Shelley and Tim did (joining the Institute in order to understand what had happened to a close one who was killed by the powers) and of how Jon himself had behaved back in season 2 and 3 (pushing for knowledge at all costs, including shaking Jude’s hand because it was the only way to get more information about what was happening around him and to him). Comparatively, I tend to see Basira more as unaligned – on a very fine and dangerous line, but… not Beholding yet? She has stopped recording statements and even refuses to witness Jon doing so (“You’re not staying?” “Watching you do your thing? No.”); she constantly scolds Jon for using his powers; she followed Elias’s leads to try and do something to rescue Daisy from the coffin…

(- Aaaaand the answer to “What happened at the end of MAG139?” was that Jon both succeeded and failed to Know at the same time, because he couldn’t process everything!

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Yesterday, I tried something I… [INHALE] I–I deliberately tried to… Know something, like I did in the coffin, but… there was a lot. Too much [SIGH], and I… BASIRA: What did you find out? ARCHIVIST: [SNORT] Nothing. There was “too much”. BASIRA: You don’t remember any of it? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] You drink the whole contents of a bar in three seconds, you don’t remember what the merlot tasted like. [SIGH] It just… hurt.

Sounds a lot like Jon personally knows about the feeling one gets when trying to “drink the whole contents of a bar in three seconds”.

Is all this information within him now, though, and will he be getting a few more coherent pieces later, or was it just a plain failure…?)

(- Even if Rayner turned out to be dead-dead, even if Manuela turned out to have been offed by Gertrude since her statement, you know what’s presumably still around and unkillable? THE DARK’S CREATURE.

I’m not super confident about Jon coming back from this with his two Actual Eyes. Not sure he would still need them to see anyway. But yeah, hum. If he needs a scar, there is a creature that is known for coming back again and again.)

(- I’m not holding out much hope but guuuuh, I wish Julia&Trevor could pop up to fight against The Dark too… given how it was Julia’s story… but she specifically said she wasn’t keen on a long boat trip (after her experience with Darvish&co told in MAG109), and their illegal status makes it hard to fly, so they’re stuck in America…

Wonder, though, if Jon will learn more things about what happened to Julia’s mother, and what Robert Montauk was trying to achieve…)

- Super small tipbits:

* Jon is a Disaster and I love him.

* I’m still Hysterical over Jon&Basira’s interactions, they’re just too damn funny… and heartbreaking at the same time. Because Basira used to find Jon funny! And it sounds like dry scolding, nowadays, with Jon being a bit more biting than joking with her.

* I friggin’ love Basira, holy heck. (“You know, we’ve actually got a group chat going, called “British Cops Who Love To Do Extrajudicial Spook-Killings On Foreign Soil”. I’ll just see if they’re free this Saturday.”)

* I also can’t believe that Jon is slowly filling up a Spook drawer next to his stationery drawer. He’s been hoarding the pens after his inability to find one in MAG123, uh? (AND HE’S KEEPING HIS RIB… I wonder if it will become useful as an anchor at some point, or never, and just be the joke that oh yeah, Jon has a rib hanging around, he has to find somewhere to store it.)

* MmMMMMMMMM, did Jon’s powers TMI about Daisy&Basira?

(MAG140) BASIRA: Coffee. Drink it. ARCHIVIST: I don’t really, er… [INHALE] Fine. [TAKING THE GLASS] BASIRA: You look awful. You tried drinking with Daisy again last night? ARCHIVIST: [CUTTING] She was here last night, as you know.

That final line sounded like JON knew too much about it.

* … That small moment of vulnerability when Basira mentioned that no, Daisy is not coming because they fear that it could make her join The Hunt again…………………. ;_;

* SVALBARD TRIP SVALBARD TRIP SVALBARD TRIP!!

Title for MAG141 is… absolutely NOT ominous at all, I can’t believe nothing bad will happen ahahahah (sob). It… really doesn’t bode well for Basira&Jon, uh… No clue about the entity involved statement-wise, though… Could it be about another journey of the Tundra? John Franklin’s expedition on the H.M.S. Terror – Rayner had been interested in that one back in MAG098, possibly because of Arctic Explorations (though according to MAG133, the crew ended up with The Hunt)?

Anyway: “Nice Boat.” I guess………………………………

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #the magnus archives #tma season 4 #mag140 #tma liveblog #long post/

10 notes · View notes

hypertagmaster · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

A few weeks ago, I recorded a podcast episode about Jonah Sachs’s book Winning the Story Wars. He had a particularly useful observation about three story elements that pull in audience attention. He calls them Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars.

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

As I was reading Story Wars, it struck me that there’s a well-known figure who illustrates all three of these elements in one person: legendary bodybuilder, action star, two-term California Governor, and crafter of potent analogies, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

Sachs’s freaks are story characters who compel our attention because they are different. They might be particularly tall or short, particularly handsome or ugly, or physically distinctive in some other way.

They also might be quite normal-looking people who stand out because they’re in a particular context. Normally we wouldn’t call Justin Trudeau a freak, but he’s almost bizarrely good-looking for a head of state. I’m a quite ordinary-looking person, but my pink hair stands out, particularly in a business context — and it becomes a freak element that people remember.

Schwarzenegger, of course, achieved freak status with his remarkable physique. To this day, he’s one of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history, with five Mr. Universe and seven Mr. Olympia wins.

But there are lots of bodybuilders. I’d argue that it’s Schwarzenegger’s strong Austrian accent that helps make him instantly memorable. That combination — the massive physique with the specific accent — creates a kind of “sketch” of him in our minds, even if we haven’t seen him often.

Freaks make great characters because they have good hooks to make them stick in our minds. A voice, a walk, a scar, a costume. Note that “freak” in this case isn’t pejorative and doesn’t imply that there’s something wrong with the person’s appearance.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

These are characters who cheat the system — who violate some social norm. They embody the trickster archetype and are notable in that they can be either a hero or a villain. (A few, like the Norse god Loki, manage to be both.)

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Cheats bring massive energy to a story. When we find out that someone is breaking the rules, we’re almost compelled to find out more … and to figure out if this is a brave visionary or a dangerous crook.

Schwarzenegger’s reputation as a trickster started with the documentary Pumping Iron, which showed him cleverly tricking his opponents into sabotaging themselves. His 2003 run for Governor of California revolved around breaking the “business as usual” political norms that voters found boring and unsatisfying.

Whether he was a “good” or a “bad” cheat in that context depended on your politics — but he did manage to win the governorship for two terms. (His opponent, Gray Davis, was a politician whose name perfectly described his political charisma.)

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

If Schwarzenegger hadn’t been a celebrity, it’s hard to envision him as a successful candidate. People knew his name, his accent, and his penchant for thumbing his nose at the establishment. The first person to mimic his famous “Terminator” accent did so about five minutes after the premiere of The Terminator. (Note: I made that up, but you know it has to be true.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger was widely known, so his oddness seemed fairly safe. He helped things along by being willing to play with his own image. He was widely called “The Governator,” by his fans and critics alike. A typical politician couldn’t call the California state assembly “girly men,” but Schwarzenegger, riffing off of the Saturday Night Live parody of characters like him, pulled it off … because everyone understood the reference.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

Familiar characters are relatable. They seem like “real people.” While they may have accomplished amazing things (they could even be freakish in their abilities), they also feel like someone we could know personally.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Schwarzenegger’s not the only one, though, by any means. Neo in The Matrix starts off as a mild-mannered Familiar, becomes an ultra-powerful Freak, and then evolves into the ultimate Cheat who sees through and disrupts the Matrix’s corrupt nature.

Tyrion in Game of Thrones is an obvious “Freak,” whose physical differences cause him untold pain. He’s a Cheat when he scoffs at the norms of his society and manages to talk his way out of situations that would kill off anyone else. And he plays the role of Familiar as one of the few characters who seems to show actual human feelings. (Game of Thrones makes extensive use of the three elements. Notice that two other triple-threat characters, Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, stand out among a cast of ultra-vivid characters as particularly memorable.)

Most comedians also pull all three elements together. Louis C.K., like many comedians, has a speaking voice that’s immediately recognizable (Freak). He gets laughs by poking at social norms, sometimes brutally (Cheat). And he does it as an average-looking guy — digging deep into the psyche of “regular people” (Familiar).

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

If you’re looking for ways to tell stories that resonate more deeply, that move your audience to action, and that are just plain interesting, give these a try. Don’t think you have to be a born storyteller. Storytelling is a craft, and it can be learned.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

via marketing http://ift.tt/2mdAlXJ

#IFTTT #marketing

0 notes

marie85marketing · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

0 notes

layralannister · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

from Local SEO http://ift.tt/2mdAlXJ via Local SEO

#Local SEO

0 notes

nathandgibsca · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

from SEO Tips http://feeds.copyblogger.com/~/276210774/0/copyblogger~How-to-Craft-Timelessly-Powerful-Stories-with-Freaks-Cheats-and-Familiars/

0 notes

soph28collins · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

from Copyblogger http://www.copyblogger.com/freaks-cheats-familiars/

0 notes

annegalliher · 7 years

Text

How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars

Sachs explains how these elements can be deployed, like the Hero’s Journey, to make stories much more memorable and engaging.

Here’s how it works:

Freaks

Remember when we talked about not being so damned boring?

Sameness is boring. Conformity is boring. You break the brutal cycle of boring by being different.

One way to determine if you have a freak: if you saw them drawn in a graphic novel, with minimal context, would you recognize them?

Other memorable freaks, from both stories and real life, include:

Darth Vader

Dennis Rodman

The Joker

Charlie Chaplin

Carrot Top

David Bowie

Gollum

Cheats

Sachs’s second engrossing element is the cheat.

Good cheats challenge corrupt social norms and undermine them. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a cheat in this sense. So are all those detectives in novels who just can’t seem to follow the rules.

Bad cheats are the ones who undermine the social rules we value. Liars, thieves, betrayers of trust.

Schwarzenegger continues to bend the political “rules,” as a prominent Republican voice urging action on climate change.

Other memorable cheats include:

Han Solo

Tim Ferriss

Richard Nixon

Bernie Madoff

Iron Man

Bugs Bunny

Ulysses

Familiars

So … freaks and cheats are inherently interesting and memorable, but they aren’t inherently trustworthy.

Stories that motivate us to action need another element: familiarity.

Stories that are populated only by freaks and cheats will feel unnerving. Familiars allow regular people — those who aren’t freaks and cheats — to feel at home in the story being told.

And sometimes, someone like Schwarzenegger with strong “freak and cheat” credentials becomes a familiar simply by virtue of being highly visible over a long period of time.

I’d argue that all of these folks have elements of the familiar:

Luke Skywalker

Oprah

Captain America

Peyton Manning

Frodo Baggins

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The Bush family

The trifecta

The strongest stories will often include all three of these elements, but they don’t always come wrapped in the same character.

Jonah Sachs didn’t make up “freaks, cheats, and familiars.” He just noticed how they worked to make many, many stories more memorable.

Ever use one (or all) of these elements in your content? Let us know in the comments!

Image source: reza shayestehpour via Unsplash.

The post How to Craft Timelessly Powerful Stories with Freaks, Cheats, and Familiars appeared first on Copyblogger.

0 notes