paranoiy

[paranoiy]

MAG 187 - Checking Out

[ID: a digital comic entirely drawn in shades of blue and orange on a black background. each panel features a close-up of time jonathan sims has been touched against his will. we see worms burying into jons skin, michaels giant hand slicing into his arm, judes hand buring his, daisy slicing into his throat, breakon or hope leading a tied up jon, nikola spreading lotion over his shoulder, melanie stabbing his shoulder with a scalpel, jared extracting his ribs and helens giant hand slicing into his throat. the last panel is jon, shouting "dont touch me" at the statement woman from mag 187. underneath helens comment is written: "not so easy is it? keeping up your humanity..." end ID.]

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Jon: Jellyfish have survived for 600 million years without a brain.

Jon: A ray of hope for some of my colleagues.

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jon muse where did u go . . .

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Marina Tsvetaeva, from “Poem Of The End”, Bride of Ice

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hold ur jarchivist: tim edition

(part of a gift for @hotjonrights >:)

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jonah mangos can’t read squad

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i am. gremlin. im so sorry

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a collection of archivists

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JON  IS  STILL  LEARNING  HOW  TO  BE  ARCHIVIST.       as a researcher, he is accustomed to data, and he has a learned organization that drives him here  ----  the spreadsheets, the filing, none of this is new.  it’s the stories that have struck him down into doubt.  those exhausting statements that he cannot immediately discredit, that won’t go on his laptop, that have him awake at night, his expression hard with unrelenting disbelief.  these have made the rest of it, that parts that he knows . . . difficult, to say the least.  he’d opened the spreadsheets emailed to him, and the numbers swum before his eyes, and he couldn’t make sense of much of it, even if it all made sense.  and though he’s not convinced that having a paper copy will make it any easier, still he nods.  “  thank you, that’s fine.  i’ll, uh . . .  get to it later.  ”  he glances over the paper levi has given to him.  “  some of these are in the discredited section already, i think.  ”

@paranoiy​ / jon

“I linked the spreadsheet to your work email.” No expression, no expression – if they didn’t know how to read someone, it was always best not to let anything show. Especially if the person in question was known to be volatile, and they’d heard that Jon had a tendency of snapping when work wasn’t going well. Whether or not that was true, they couldn’t say; maybe he was just as overwhelmed by the disorganization in the archives as Levi, in which case they could potentially bond over their mutual aggravation. But until they were certain Jon was the commiserating type, they would hold the mask. “The digital copy is getting filled out by Sasha and I, and you’ll be able to sort it by column, so we’re not just limited to dates. The paper copy is here. Is that okay?”

[paranoiy]

killmeorfuckoff​:

HE  NEVER  FEELS  RESTED  ANYMORE. there’s  only  so  much  horror he  can  swallow before  he  begins to  choke  on  it.  he lives  surrounded  by  the  rotting corpses  of  a  time  when  he  was  free  from a  prison  he  was  blissfully unaware  existed,  when life  was  normal and  no  shapeless terrors  grinned  at  him  from  the  corner of  his  eye  or  crept  at  the  heel  of  each  step.  he  didn’t know  jon  then.  sometimes  he  thinks  it  would  be  easier  if  they  were  never  close  at  all,  if  he  didn’t  have  that  memory to  taunt  him  and  spit  kerosene  onto  his  sparking anger,  subdued  as it  may  be  for  now.  it  would  be  awful enough  if  jon  had  ruined their  relationship  when  it  mostly existed  as  potential, but  how  much  more  visceral his  rage  when it  is  rooted in  intimate  wounds. even  after  their  conversation,  after  his  apology, tim  doesn’t  know  how  to  forgive  him.  he  doesn’t know  how  to  heal.  if what  it  takes  is  time, he  has  a  sneaking  feeling they  don’t  have  much  left.  

tim  is  awake, scarred  hand  enveloping scarred  hand.  he  cannot  see  jon’s  face  where  it  is  buried against  his  chest, only  unruly  dark  locks  that  instinct  desires to  touch  and  run  his  fingers  through, but  he  doesn’t. he’s  not  sure  why.  it  doesn’t  matter.  almost absently,  he  thumbs over  jon’s  hand,  feeling  the  splash  of  scarring  that  had  not  been  there  before,  and  then  the  divot  of  a  much  more  familiar marking.  he  hasn’t asked  yet  where  that  fresh  scar  came  from,  and  jon  hasn’t mentioned  it.  his  spare  hand  rests  between jon’s  shoulder  blades, gently  securing  him  against  his  chest.  it’s  nice,  and it’s  not.  he’s not  sure  how  that  could  be.  

HOW  IS  HE  MEANT  TO  SAVE  THEM  FROM  THIS  SILENCE?       once, the not - saying was easier.  the crevasse carved between them had meant that their not communicating could drift in the icy void, not harming, not so heavy.  not so close to them that jon could reached out and grasp it, and pull himself close, and fill his lungs with the scent of it.  tim’s anger is sulfiric.  it smells like gunpowder, and jon doesn’t want to be a fuse, but how is he supposed to quell the flame burning through him  ----  the want to know and know and know, to save and save, even when it will destroy them?  maybe it’s too late.  it’s all over, and everything is gone, and this isn’t a body against jon’s, but a pyre.  he pushes his face into tim’s chest, his nose still cold.  does he smell like smoke?

he can’t, jon wants to think.  he wants to hope.  he wants to not lose tim, not now, and not in the unknowing.  tim has been so . . . tender with him, so unbearably giving, and it’s not forgiveness, jon knows, but his heart wants to cling to it.  he doesn’t want to release the scarred hand that thumbs over his own.  it’s been a long time since someone touched him like that.  it’s been a long time since he’d needed it.  don’t let go, he doesn’t murmur.  don’t let me become a mosnter again.

[paranoiy]

obligatory 160 art from a Bit ago, kept forgetting to post it -o-

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

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𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚛𝚎𝚍, 𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚝. 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗’𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚏 𝚒𝚝’𝚜 ANGER 𝚘𝚛 𝚒𝚏 𝚒𝚝’𝚜 LOVE. (x)

PROMO BY @bookburnt

[paranoiy]

some of you haven’t gotten a book taken away in class because you just couldn’t stop reading and it SHOWS

[paranoiy]

@fogheaded said   :    “God- okay, I’m sick of dancing around this with other people. Everyone says I shouldn’t forget you because it would hurt you. Last time I checked, you hated me. Thought I was just- just a waste of space and energy. Am I wrong?”

WHAT  IS  MARTIN?  MIST,  OR  MEMORY,  OR  NOTHING  AT  ALL?      jon used to know.  he’d been unimpressed at his colleague, unwanting of his kindness, cruel, even.  but he’d known martin.  known his steadiness, and except in some moment of deception, in a way, needed it.  but something is different now, and it isn’t just the knowing  :  it’s where his knowing runs out.  its in the empty spaces he sees in martin that didn’t used to be there.

he who stands in front of him is not the martin jon remembers, and he is not the one he used to see.  jon stares and stares, and sees martin, but something is never right.  he cannot look away, but never learns anything.  it’s not the thing that has stolen sasha, it’s not a different form in front of him.  it’s something inside. 

it’s as unclear as staring head - long into heavy mist.  jon’s eyes are not the problem.  it’s a more fundamental sight  :  it’s the pieces of him that are becoming that have detected this newness.  he knows that he doesn’t know something, and the paradox of it makes his head ache as it had when he’d wandered within the distortion, or felt paranoia crawling as a cold sweat down his bony back.  he needed martin.  in a strange way, that he cannot understand, that is new to him, he’d needed him  ----  and it doesn’t feel good, when martin thinks he hates him.  had he been so cruel, or is his ignorance withholding something crucial?  does his anchor moor him, or does he grip him as they sink, drowning, toward the ocean floor?

“  of course . . .  martin, of course you’re wrong.  ”   jon uncertainty wavers in his voice, and he clears his throat, and a tape recorder is running in his pocket, unbeknowst to him.  “  you’re not a good assistant but you’re not a waste, you’re not worthless.  not to me.  ”  he’s never been one to convey emotion, but there’s a tension in his throat that he cannot ignore.

“  after what’s happened . . . you’re important to me.  i want to be better  ----  i know i wasn’t always good.  but i want you to want to remember me.  we need each other.  you, and i, and everyone else.  i can’t do this alone.  ”

[paranoiy]

HOW  IS  JON  SUPPOSED  TO  GO  BACK  TO  NORMAL  LIFE?      worms writhe in his dreams when he rests, and awake, new statements upon his desk haunt his hours.  and the murder . . .  he can see in his mind gertrude robinson’s form laid cold on those barren, cement floors, lost in damp halls.  someone could put him there.  someone  ----  jon’s head is in his hands, and he passes it off as weariness, which in a sense, it is.  tim should have gone home hours ago, but so should have jon.  he can’t say much, can he?  he can’t be the only one working away the memories that dive deeper than their matching scarred divets.

jon rubs a hand across his unshaven jaw, and glances at the file tim has placed down for him.  there’s a piece of him that wants to curl up in his cot, and not deal with any of this for a few hours.  he’d tried it, even.  that hadn’t worked.  he needs distractions, or that sense of being watched bears down harder, and he can’t think, and his head swims, and he can see eyes and blood and eyes, and he can’t ----  !!  his hand falls from his face, and he takes the file, and places it atop a few others.  “  it’s easier to sleep here sometimes.  it’s so . . . i don’t know.  ”  the archivist sighs, and sits back on his desk.  “  i don’t feel good at home any more.  ”

he raises his tired hues to tim.  his thigh, where martin’s corkscrew had plunged in, throbs, and his presses his palm over it.  “  shouldn’t you be at home too?  files can wait.  get some rest.  doctor’s orders, remember?  ”

@paranoiy said: i couldn’t sleep. 

“  WHAT,  IN  THE  BACKROOM? ”  chin  tilts, body  leaning  around jon  to  take  a  look  at  the  room.  from  this  angle  he  can’t  see  the  cot  he  knows  is  there,  the  one  martin had  bunked  in  prior  to  prentiss  that  he  never  takes  a  second  glance at  during  the  day,  if  he  even  has  any  reason  to  be  back  there  at  all.  somehow, it  doesn’t  surprise him  much  that  jon’s  obsession with  work  has  led  him  to  sleeping here  well  past  when  everyone else  should’ve  gone  home.  well,  doesn’t  surprise him  immediately,  three seconds  ago  his  heart  had  leaped  out  of  his  chest.  an  echoing  itch  creeps  beneath his  skin,  and  subconsciously  his  fingertips  reach  onto  the  back  of  his  hand  to  scratch at  a  hole  screwed  into  his  skin.  

“  didn’t  think  anyone  else  was  here,  you  gave  me  a  right  scare. thought  prentiss  had  a  friend. ”  he  laughs away  the  implications hanging  in  the  air,  still  rather  shaky despite  his  jovial demeanor  and  the  warm  smile  tucked  into  the  corners of  his  mouth. the  nightmares  aren’t enough  are  they,  he’s  got  to  be  deluding  himself during  the  day  too,  huh?  whatever.  he can  shake  it  off.  

he  crooks  a  brow,  setting the  manilla  file  clutched  in  his  other  hand  down  on  the  edge  of  jon’s  desk

“  why  are  you  sleeping  here, why  don’t  you  go  home?  ”

[paranoiy]

JON  WISHES  HIS  DREAMS  WERE  THAT  UNREALISITC.       sasha has been on his mind since he’d awoken, restless and no less weary than he’d been the evening before.  sleeping never helped much, and especially not when he had a statement on his mind.  sasha’s had shaken him more deeply than he lets on, but still, as he sits on the breakroom couch, there’s a hollow, worried look on his face that doesn’t seem quite right.

“  you were giving your statement, in a way.  it was weird, it was as though i was with you when it all happened.  ”  he pauses, then sips his coffee.  he’d started drinking the bitter stuff since he’d taken up this position as head archivist.  “  i think working late is getting to me.  ”

@paranoiy​ sent: “i had a dream about you.” 

        ‘ did you? ‘ she stood over the break room sink, carefully sponging the inside of the coffee pot with soap then filling it with water and pouring it out. how she’d ended up on dish washing duty so many weeks in a row was a mystery to her though she had a feeling someone who’s name rhymed with jim had been rigging the system somehow.

         ‘ what was i doing in it? getting stage fright? showing up to class in my underwear? ‘ sasha grabbed a nearby dishtowel, wiping off her wet hands.