holdthosebees

[holdthosebees]

Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist Characters: Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Martin Blackwood, Georgie Barker, Basira Hussain, Melanie King Additional Tags: Grief, So Much Grief, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Panic Attacks, References to Depression, Friendship, Second Chances, spiritually a time travel fic but there’s no actual time travel, Minor Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Minor Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Angst with a Happy Ending, the ‘major character death’ is Tim btw, so: canon character death, but it feels emotionally important to include, Canon-Typical Violence, Pining Summary:

I don’t forgive you, Tim says, and then there’s a click.

-

Jon doesn’t die in the Unknowing. Instead, he wakes up a year after the season five finale, that final click still echoing in his ears.

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This has been living in my brain for a few days now so I finally gave in and made it.

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I’d like to propose to you my latest and most treasured Martin K Blackwood headcannon

He has chronic Just Some Guy Syndrome

He’s just… some guy

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There's meta out there about how part of the tragedy of the series is that Jon learns his lessons too late or applies them to the wrong situations, but the tragedy of the finale in that Jon is the only one who learned the lesson. He's the one who knows the full horror of the Entities. He's the one to know what it means to subject others to those horrors. He's the one to internalize that you can't harm others just to save yourself. He's the one who knows not to trust the Web because he knows exactly what it's capable of. He's the one to know what it's like to carry the guilt of something that monumental. He's the one who knows exactly how every single person is suffering, who can't just look away or brush it under a rug in another universe and go "not my problem."

And he's outvoted by people who haven't learned those lessons.

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Well. That... happened.

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knock knock

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"I was going to snatch you away. Lure you both into this web, and then take you. Drive him to despair, so that when you returned to him, bulging, and talking in a thousand tiny voices, it would drive him to a final push. "

Annabelle’s original plan was TERRIFYING... so naturally I had to draw the angst

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"a fine material to spin a web with, don't you think?"

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: )

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No idea what she’s planning but I know it ends with a crown on her head and a foot on Jonah Magnus’ windpipe

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(Saw a theory post about the tape recorders and decided to make my own post rather than add a ton of words onto someone else’s.)

I’ve been thinking “tapes are Web” for a while now and Season 5 has made that so solid for me that I would be really, really surprised if they aren’t at this point. Here’s my reasoning:

Tapes aren’t Beholding: They could record in Upton House, which was blocked from the Eye. (It’s also more or less said directly to the audience in MAG 170, when Martin points out that the Eye wouldn’t need them anymore.) This means -

Tapes aren’t Jon: Listen. I love the idea that the tape recorders are somehow Jon keeping Martin company in S4, or helping him hold on in MAG 170. But if they’re Jon, what’s he using to manifest them if not the Beholding? Even if you lean into the idea that the categories aren’t cut and dry, or that being the Archive of the fears has made Jon into a unique power himself, Upton House definitely blocked whatever powers he had, but the tape recorders still manifested. I can’t really see them being him.

Besides … listen. The supernatural is never nice in TMA. Even if they were Jon, they wouldn’t be anything good – they’d be something harmful he was doing against his will, or an attempt to help that ended up dooming them. The recorder may have helped Martin in 170, but that doesn’t mean it’s his friend. Any more than the Web is Jon’s friend for helping him discover Prentiss. On that note -

There is really strong evidence in S5 that the tapes are the Web -

Annabelle Cane must be as dependent on the Web as Jon is on the Eye – her head was bashed open and there was nothing but cobwebs inside. If the Web couldn’t get through to Upton House she’d have been as ill as Jon, but she was fine. Meaning the Web can exert influence inside Upton House, while at least two other powers cannot. (Eye and Spiral. Possibly all the others but we know those two for sure.)

There’s a very short list of things Jon can’t See now, and the Web is on it. What’s particularly telling about the tape recorders, though, is that he doesn’t seem interested in looking at them. They’re a strange, obviously supernatural object that’s always with him, that he should be suspicious of, but that he voluntarily keeps around and doesn’t question much. What does that remind you of? Shut up, I’ll tell you what it reminds you of, it reminds you of his stupid obviously Web-aligned lighter.

There’s a moment in MAG 187 where the recorders come up:

HELEN: The tape recorder feels more, um… awake.

ARCHIVIST: Oh. Oh, joy. Come on.

Jon’s “this may as well happen” response is understandable at this point, so one might miss how weird a reaction it is for him. This is the person who vibrated at a frequency that could shatter glass at the prospect of a mystery in MAG 180, and he barely even pauses here. It’s not just that he’s focused on Helen, because he doesn’t attempt to See what’s up with them after she’s gone. He doesn’t even sound interested. It’s almost identical to this moment in MAG 136:

DAISY: She’s Web. Spider’s sneaky like that. Like that lighter you’re always using; where’d you get that?

ARCHIVIST: Mm. Good point. We should keep our eyes open. Anyways - How’s Basira doing?

In both cases Jon has someone point out that the obviously sinister object is sinister. He acknowledges it, doesn’t argue it, then immediately moves on and changes the subject. Not because he isn’t interested, but because the Web is keeping him from thinking about it.

There’s plenty evidence that the tapes are connected to Jon, sure. But given that the Web was the first power that marked him, I imagine they’re just a manifestation of the strings being wound around him.

(Not a S5 thing, but there’s also an interesting connection in MAG 123, where Annabelle Cane is looking for people to tell stories of traumatic things that happened to them for reasons that aren’t really that fleshed out in the statement itself. Pretty noteworthy given what the tape recorders are used for.)

Also. I mean.

I mean.

Just.

Just look at the logo. Look. Look at the logo. Guys look at the logo its–

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Things are coming to a head, spiders-wise, so I figured I should finally type up the Definitive Web Theory I’ve had floating around for a while before it’s too late! I think I’ve written parts of it down before, but never in its entirety. Let’s goooooo. 

1. The Web is trying to unseat the Eye as the Head Bitch In Charge. This is the purpose of the heavy emphasis on arson that it seems to be pushing--the Web lighter, the references to fire in the statements left for Jon, etc. It’s going to manipulate someone, maybe Martin but also probably Melanie “little moth” King, into burning the Panopticon down, thinking that’ll save the world. It won’t. It’ll just create a power vacuum the Web can fill.  1b. This is what Annabelle is trying to convince Martin to do--she doesn’t even have to tell him any lies to convince him, just leave out a few pieces of important information. 

2. Once in charge, the next step is going to be to solve that little food source problem Oliver mentioned. The powers are going to slowly start starving; they need a renewable source of fear, or at least, one that won’t be used up as quickly. This is where the crack in reality in Hill Top Road comes in. The Web will lure victims in from across the multiverse while staying in its home dimension like uh, well, spider in a web.  2b. It’s possible that the aforementioned unseating of the Eye will create a larger crack in reality, since the original one was made through inter-power conflict with the Desolation. If true, this will help the Web bring in a larger number of victims, or potentially reach more worlds. After all--Mr. Spider Wants More.

3. Speaking of Mr. Spider--we have a precedent for the Web luring someone to enter through a door, presumably to be eaten, and doors are often used as metaphors for inter-dimensional portals in TMA. See, for example, the I OPEN THE DOOR in the invocation that started this whole mess. The description Anya Villette gives of being pulled through the crack in reality--spindly arms reaching out through a portal to pull her in--sounds a lot like what happened to the kid in AGFMS. The difference is that Anya stumbled across the crack in reality, while the kid was compelled. But if the Web needs a larger number of victims, it’s probably not going to wait around for more coincidences like that. 

4. Which is where the tapes come in. We have strong precedent of the Web using stories and media for its own nefarious ends. See AGFMS, but also Annabelle figuring out Jon’s weakness to getting stuck in statements and using that against him, the pseudo-archival message boards in Web Development, Creature Feature, etc. These were all experiments leading up to the Web using the tapes to build a complex lure--one that will evoke both fear and fascination, that will get people listening, get them invested in the Archivist, who also watched longer than he should have, not realizing that they’re in danger of sharing his fate... 5. ...Until it’s too late, and it’s pulled you in. The Web is already here, in this world--lurking on the other side of the thin membrane of reality, watching you through the cracks that wait in basements and abandoned warehouses and behind closed doors on otherwise unremarkable streets. It sent the tapes across, packaged as a podcast, and its threads are wrapped around you, now. It’s only a matter of time until it pulls. Or... well. I think that’s the plan, anyway. Who knows how the cast will interact with this--there’s still time for them to throw some wrenches into the Web’s plans, if they are very careful and very, very lucky. Of course, that also means there’s still time for the Web to make things even worse for them. We’ll have to see!

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SPIDER TIME

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anyway remember when Martin tried to pressure Jon into killing Oliver because he resented Oliver for bringing Jon back to life? Remember when he justified it by saying that Oliver isn’t human and killing him wouldn’t be murder, which was the exact same reasoning that people had used to justify trying to kill Jon? Remember how he spent the whole season actively pushing Jon towards the Eye, encouraging him to use his powers to pass judgement on everyone? Remember when he refused to admit that it was a lateral shift that wouldn’t make things better? Remember when he shut Jon down every time Jon expressed discomfort with this? Remember when all of the shit he’s calling Jon out on was literally his idea in the first place, but he was able to ignore the consequences until now because he refused to listen when Jon tried to explain them to him? 

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(i promise this isn’t becoming a Martin rantblog, I have just been sitting on this frustration all season and having it come to a head in such a very on the nose way is both very validating and also, on a personal level, even more frustrating. We will return to your regularly scheduled fanart and spiders shortly, don’t worry.)

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From a writing perspective, though, I do love that Martin is responding to Jon’s plan with so many complete reversals of what he was originally saying. Like he’s clearly afraid Jon will leave him and unable to handle the despair of an unsaveable world, but he can’t just say that because he has been incapable of facing his own fears and needs are, so he’s projecting wildly and trying to maneuver himself into a position in the relationship where he feels safe. Jon is presenting him with a pragmatic version of his own arguments--we should take out the monsters and use our power to make things better, even if it won’t solve everything--and he can’t hear it, so he starts turning the script and trying to use Jon’s own words against him. It’s good character work, it’s a great portrayal of someone with limited emotional tools trying to make sense of something that they are terrified of making sense of. Running in circles around your own argument because you can’t logically justify what you want or express the fear you’re experiencing? that’s cognitive dissonance baby 

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Alexandria