#JONNY SIMS

[ibenology]

Jonny really said “yeah every AU is true. all of them. look here I just made one. all of them are canon now.”

[sombersaturn]

JONMARTIN IS THAT YOU??!?

Also is anyone else getting GwenAlice vibes here or is it just me?

(Idc about the shipping discourse just so long as Alice lives my guy)

[amb1vert]

Reminder that Jonathan Sims is missing a set of ribs, meaning he is canonically snatched

[strawberryisscrumptious]

Recently found a childhood relic

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten, MAG 15 Lost Johns' Cave

Top 10 Reasons to Never Go Spelunking (Number 8 Will Shock You!)

MAG 15 analysis, spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Laura Papham, regarding her experience in the Three Counties cave system with her sister Alena Sanderson. Statement given November 9, 2014.

Statement Notes: The "safe until you aren't" trope is a TMA staple and this episode is a great example. Nothing in the cave is particularly strange or frightening, until it all is. If you aren't already afraid of the dark or tight spaces--which neither Alena nor Laura are--than you have no reason to be afraid. The area's mapped out, the women have done explorations before, there entirely safe. Until Alena's missing. Until there's a thing reaching out for Luara. Until she's found by the cave rescue team. Until she's begging, "take her not me."

I really enjoy this horror trope/structure because I find it to be very true to life. Personally, most of the dangerous situations I've ended have started entirely normal, and it is only in hindsight that I am able to see how things became unsafe. It's fine for fans to mock the protagonists going into haunted basements or picking up befriending the creepy motel owner, but we need put ourselves in the characters' shoes. If the fun hobby you do every year with sister seemed a little weird, would you back out right away or would you wait it out?

This episode also utilizes another recurring TMA phenomenon; alternative reality. I know this is much more interesting in the context of TMAGP, but this episode demonstrates it on a smaller, more personal scale. In several episodes, the horrors seem to create an alternate specifically for their victim. In this episode specifically, Laura Papham seems to be experiencing the world in an entirely different way than her sister, husband, and cave rescue. The cave dive goes on for hours for her, but only lasts a few seconds for her sister. The malevolent light she sees morphs into an exit only after she turns away from it. Additionally, she is absolutely sure she burst out of the cave screaming, but cave rescue found her still inside. This power is seen in MAG 71, in which the victim is inside a crushed train car before finding herself back in the completely normal station, as well as many of the Lonely episodes in which people in crowded areas find themselves suddenly completely isolated even though nothing else strange is reported.

One thing that struck me as odd is the emphasis Alena Sanderson places on the fact that two people went missing in the original story of Lost Johns' Cave. This insinuates that the creature/horror within the cave intended to take both Sanderson and Popham, but it very clearly lets Laura go. She doesn't escape, she is simply found by someone else. Either the discovery of Popham broke her out before the creature could take her, or her begging work and Sanderson was taken in her place. Briefly I wondered if Alena could be stuck in an alternate world in which her sister had suddenly begun acting strangely on an exploration before going missing, but the entities canonically cannot access alternate dimensions on their own and they only seem to be able to alter reality on an individual or mass scale, all with the express purpose of frightening a single victim. Still, this would be an interesting concept and possibly could serve as the premise of another horror story. One which exists only in my mind.

Entity Alignment: While there's a case for the Dark in this episode, personally I feel it is much more strongly associated with the Buried. One of the Magnus Archives' central themes is the thing you are most comforted by becoming the thing that horrifies you. This shown so clearly in this episode as Papham plainly states "I knew that the stone I had always believed to be my friend and protector was going to entomb me here." This is often, though not always, how entity victims are created.

The flip side of this is that avatars are often created by turning the thing they are most afraid of into the thing that fuels them. This isn't always true, as avatars like Jude Perry and Jared Hopworth have no fear of the entity they serve, but this can be very clearly seen in other avatars, like Jon, Martin, and Oliver Banks. One could argue that the more powerful avatars are fueled not by their love of their entity, but their fear of it. Even Jonah Magnus, who became lord of the Panopticon, was fueled by his fear of death and powerlessness, both of which drove his endless pursuit of knowledge and eventual affiliation with the Eye.

Character Notes: Martin doesn't investigate this case because he's "a bit claustrophobic." When I first heard this, it sounded like a flimsy excuse. I thought this was possibly a lie to get out of work so he could attend to his mother. Jon would believe it because Martin has spent time establishing this weak and nervous personal.

However, I realized that the next episode is when Martin goes to investigate Carlos Vittery; when he goes missing. I will need to keep listening to establish a timeline and verify this, but it does seem entirely possible that Jon was given the excuse via text, and that Martin wasn't the one who sent it.

[swiffin]

Beholding—

Jon is my comfort drawing :7

[the-southern-cereal-king]

Sometimes I have to play a fun little game of “Is this fanart of Jesus Christ (bible), Odysseus(Greek), or Jonathon Sims(The Magnus Archives)?”

[susiephone]

Play "Slay the Princess" to hear Jonny Sims be very disappointed in you many, many times.

[spiral-man]

Love that the vast majority of people listening to the Magnus Protocol right now are coming already from the Magnus Archives and so we’re rocking up like it’s the hunger games or something like-

“alright guys, wallets out, who do we think is gonna be the first to die? I’ve got $20 on Colin”

We really are not beating the “listeners are servants of The Eye” allegations anytime soon. We really will never learn our lesson huh?

[ashes-in-a-jar]

This is how I picture Jonny and Alex when they react to Magnus stuff on twitter

[annabelle--cane]

they're being ominous again

[cult-of-the-eye]

Jonny and Alex are really just firing checkovs gun into the crowd and there are so many fucking casualties

[bottlecap-joe-spooky]

Alexander Newall and Jonny just KEPT COMPLAINING about how they made the most unfuckable monster, leading to the great Tma twink event of 2024, and then they put mr bonzo into a strip club. They are literally the funniest people ever I think.

[possiblyawesometmblr]

jonny sims, learning absolutely nothing from his past: surely i've done it. surely the fandom won't want to kiss a man made entirely out of needles

[sneesketch]

*Puts ur Jonathan Sims in a skirt* c:<

[thefandomlifechoseme]

me, when Jonny Sims appears in any piece of media he's been part of: oh hey. what's Jonny Sims doing in this piece of media I started consuming solely because Jonny Sims was in it.