#Jane Prentiss can literally leave

[coconut530]

hoooo boy this one was tough to get through

[cult-of-the-eye]

@melandrops tma restaurant AU? (Coming from someone who knows next to nothing about how restaurants work lol)

Ok so the Magnus Institute is like a prestigious but controversial like Michelin Star restaurant with millions of fancy little courses

The controversy comes from the idea that each dish is tailored to target a person's traumatic and/or paranormal event and people have protested about the ethics but each protest has been magically made to go away so all that's left is rumours and people leaving with a vaguely unsettled feeling

Still gets good business though, just...interesting...customers

Hold on let me actually Google how restaurants work

Ok so after a quick Google I have come to the conclusion that Elias is the kitchen manager

He only comes out to criticise someone's plating and the only time there has ever been a record of him saying something nice is when someone was served cake

(it was from a patron with a Lonely themed children's birthday party where nobody came and the house turned to fog)

Gertrude was Head Chef but she died under mysterious circumstances and they found her body stuffed into an old freezer in the tunnels under the restaurant

Jon gets promoted to Head Chef, despite Sasha clearly having more experience and then Sasha, Tim and Martin make up the main kitchen crew

Jon is stressed because Gertrude left behind very complicated, messy instructions on how to create the menus for the patrons, so he's literally making it up as he goes along but somehow it always seems to work out

Tim is usually on side dishes, Sasha on mains and Martin on desserts but they swap when needed

Martin meets Jon when he accidentally lets a dog into the restaurant

Martin lied about his work experience in another prestigious restaurant and it's honestly been a miracle why he hasn't been fired yet

(maybe his years cooking for his mum did come in handy)

The fears all still exist, each dish is personally tailored to the fear the patron has been touched by and during the course of the meal, they're compelled to explain how the dish was relevant to that experience like they're in some sort of trance

Michael is still Michael (until he's Helen)

The Jane Prentiss incident still happens (Martin's out getting some of the more sketchier ingredients when he stumbled upon her, i guess it's just a lot scarier that the worms are gonna get the restaurant shut down and then why Elias isn't more worried about that prospect)

The Leitners could still exist with the patrons having brushes with them

Ooh maybe he gets brutally kitchen utensil murdered

Tim flirts with as many of the patrons he possibly can

Melanie was part of a rival restaurant chain that had gained popularity for apparently being haunted until she joins the Institute

Daisy and Basira are still detectives that investigate some of the ethical protests

Canon is pretty much followed as much as it can be

Jmart still happens. Obviously. You can really get up close and personal in a busy kitchen, especially when your chef keeps abandoning his work to bring you cups of water. (It's hot in a kitchen I'm guessing)

Yeah ok if I can think of any more I'll add them!

[420technoblazeit]

I would like to hear about your timsasha timeloop au :D

LOVELY ok so here's hte sitch. i wrote i think 3 chapters of this on ao3. right after finding out that sasha was replaced from the not them, tim finds a leitner that pulls him back in time to the day it happened. yk the whole thing with the worms and jane prentiss and the not them? yeah that day. literally the WORST day to have to relive again and again as a time loop

also because this is season 2 ish tim, he still thinks jon murdered jurgen leitner and doesnt trust him enough to tell him anything. anyway classic time loop shenanigans tim knows something's going to happen to sasha so he goes into the tunnels and this time gets to actually watch her get overtaken by the not them. that's about all i wrote but the idea was that tim has to scramble to find a way to save sasha one way or another and isnt freed until he can find a way to do it

maybe in one loop he finds a way to get to leitner before jon or elias do only to find out that leitner doesnt know what's going on any more than he does. or he gets there just in time for brutal pipe murder and finds out who elias actually is. or he tries to face jane head on so they dont have to go to the tunnels and gets eaten by worms. i think eventually i was going to have tim leave the archives entirely during loops and seek out advice from some of the more reasonable avatars like oliver and find out that the weakness of the not!them was fire (they were originally described as being really slick and oily)

so the endgame i was planning was that in his desperation to keep sasha safe and escape the loop tim fully gave himself to the desolation. i felt like this lined up decently well with his personality and the desolation always aligned itself with earnest devotion to the point of self sacrifice, giving up a piece of yourself for someone else. so you end up with a bittersweet ending where tim after all this time is able to save sasha but it comes at the cost of his humanity and he has to become what he hated. it's a kind of sacrifice that sasha will never be able to truly understand and she can't really fathom him willingly choosing to become an avatar so it would have ended with tim leaving the archives permanently

[feathered-serpents]

So 

If episode 176 confirms anything for me its that Jon’s coy question dodging comes from an inherent want to protect Martin. He wants nothing more than to spare Martin from the horrors he’s created and make the apocalypse just a little bit easier on the man he loves. This is a noble purpose and makes sense when you think about how much self guilt Jon has. There’s fear there. Fear that Martin knowing all that’s wrong with the world, all that Jon made wrong with the world, will cause him to leave him, not love him anymore, and so Jon has built this wall where he tells Martin as little as possible to protect him from the horrors of the world, which by extension protects himself from the horrors of the world. 

And Martin is 100% in the right for being fucking SICK OF IT.

So much of Martin’s character comes from a desire to be involved. Think about Jane Prentiss, how the only reason Martin even got into that situation was so he would have more evidence for his asshole boss that never listened to him. Think about how in season 2 he snapped at Tim for not wanting to know what was going on in the institute, for not wanting to help, for not wanting to be involved. Finally, think about the moment at the end of season 3, when he finally chews out Elias, all of this desire to be involved ultimately stems from a greater desire to just be taken seriously 

(This also has very interesting implications for the entirety of his involvement in season 4 but that’s a meta for another day) 

The point is, Martin is so, so, sick of being the one (literally, the only one) left out of everything. The one that doesn’t get angry, only acts out. The one that is kind, innocent, and really cannot handle the truth of how horrifying everything is. The one that needs to be protected. 

My theory is: Martin’s desire to be involved, Jon’s response to it, and Martin’s growing frustration is going to have dire consequences come 177

In 177 Martin is finally going to lose it and snap in the middle of the Hunt domain. This is going to likely get him or those around him very badly hurt (either by some random hunter or, more likely, by Daisy herself) as Jon has said to stay unharmed in the Hunt, you have to remain calm. Jon will see that this is the consequence for his actions, he will understand that he cannot “protect” him forever, nor can he use him to hide from what he’s done. One way or another, 177 will be the episode that finally ends Martin’s not knowing what is going on. 

(Also you will not be able to convince me that Jon wasn’t screaming inside the entire time Trevor was holding Martin hostage, you just won’t.)

[ash-rabbit]

Reading Recs for Each Entity

When Magnus ended, I thought back on different media that I've enjoyed, some of them fit very neatly into the dread powers, unsettlingly so in some cases, others not so much. If you enjoyed the show for it's horror, and want more of that, then I've got a list for you.

Assume everything here is rated M and has some gore, death, and general dark themes.

Beneath the cut, because there's 15 of these fears. Feel free to add on if you like. By the way, I'm citing writers, not directors when there's a movie.

Beholding

1984 - by George Orwell: Classic surveillance society. Very boring to start off with classical lit, but it was and still is a relevant commentary on society.

Psycho-Pass - by Gen Urobuchi: Has anyone read Hobbes' 'Leviathan'? It's like if that met psychological horror. This anime engages in what it means to live in a world where crimes can be stopped before their ever committed due to the Psycho-Pass system. This system allows authorities to monitor ones emotional state and likelihood of turning violent. I think there's a brief mention of sexual violence, but it's been a hot minute since I've watched.

Panopticon Theory - by Michel Foucault: Yes, political theory. I've read it multiple times (not by choice) and it offers some interesting insights into the world of the Magnus Archives. It's greatly influenced how I regard the dread powers, that being that Smirke's 14 is incredibly limiting.

Buried

Nutty Putty Caving Incident - A real life news story. The only time I can say I've felt properly horrified and deeply unsettled. If 'Lost John's Cave' was the statement that gave you nightmares, avoid this. It's true and it's tragic.

Corruption

Fate/Zero - by Gen Urobuchi: Another anime by the Urobutcher. If you thought Jane Prentiss was excellent this is the show for you. It's excellent for all sorts of reasons, and engages with other avenues of horror but when I heard the Prentiss statement, I was brought back here. Living hives, magical evil wasp larvae writhing beneath someone's skin, it happens. Your warning is that anything bad that can happen to a child, will happen to children here. I mean it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - by Oscar Wilde: Moral decay, and it's just a damn good read. It's not conventional Corruption material, but the corruption of one's soul in the pursuit of beauty and pleasure is somewhat fitting I should think. I like it, so it's here. Also Jonah Magnus vibes.

Dark

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - by a bunch of people: it's a movie. Not an orthodox choice but I feel the dark deals better in ignorance then the literal. Err, no spoilers, but nothing particularly bad happens, it just sort of tugs.

The Flowers - Alice Walker: A short story about innocence and ignorance. Not particularly spooky, but it hits you at the end.

Allegory of the Cave - Plato: Just a good preliminary reading that provides an alternate lens. It's not spooky, I just like it.

Desolation

All is Quiet on the Western Front - by Erich Maria Remarque: The effects of war on the youth, child soldiers, and the death of innocence. It's bleak, and miserable, but it's honest and Remarque and his family were persecuted by Nazi-Germany because the book carried 'anti-german' (anti-war) sentiments. There's a movie as well.

Pan's Labyrinth - by Guillermo del Toro: Also anti-war, with bad things happening to good people and children. A bit heavy handed with it's symbolism, but hey it's a two hour movie. Also be prepared to read subtitles. It's very good, and if you haven't seen it, I don't want to say too much.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - by Ken Kesey: There's a more popular movie version as well. Corrupt systems, cutting people down until they fit into a socially appropriate mold. It's fairly dark, and has lobotomies since that was what, the 60s? I watched this in my catholic high schools film studies class, so I don't think there's anything overly egregious. But an interesting lens for the Desolation.

The Count of Monte Cristo - by Alexandre Dumas: For a fun revenge romp. The titular count gets his revenge after everything he's ever loved has been stolen from him and looks to do the same to his betrayers. Err sexual violence happens here as well. A bit of background that might inform the reader: Dumas' father was half black and affected by the 1802 discrimination laws, causing him- a high ranking military officer to be dismissed. The precursor to Monte Cristo, 'Georges' deals more heavily in themes of colonialism and racial discrimination.

End

Masque of the Red Death - by Edgar Allen Poe: You know why this is here. Warning for plague allegories and people not properly social distancing.

Nothing in the Dark - (Twilight Zone): No words needed, it's the Twilight Zone.

Death Parade - by Yuzuru Tachikawa: This is your fun suggestion. It's light for the most part, but there are scenes and moments that will absolutely hit you.

Extinction

Godzilla - A whole bunch of people: Atomic bomb fear during a time of censorship. Everything is an allegory.

Flesh

Tokyo Ghoul - by Sui Ishida: It's the most Magnus-y out of all my suggestions and I desperately want to see a crossover between them. The manga is better as the anime tends to brutalise plot points and water down the horror. Deals with becoming a cannibal, the nature of humanity, and other things. Warning for mentions of child abuse. Kaneki has a sort of - if Martin was the Archivist vibes. Not 1-1 of course, but if I had to make a comparison, that's the one.

Lamb to the Slaughter - by Roald Dahl: Arguably more slaughter, but hey I'm not giving you any warnings. I read this short story for ninth grade english, so I'm sure you can survive this one.

Hunt

Se7en - by Andrew Kevin Walker: A movie about a detective hunting serial killer. It's excellent, there's gruesome murder scenes. It's from the 90s go watch it.

Frankenstein - by Mary Shelley: From the perspective of Mr. Frankenstein it's the terror of being hunted, from the monster's perspective it's the horror of being alone. It's good, a pillar of sci-fi written by a teenager, don't snub this because it's classical lit.

The Bone Collector - by Jeremy Iacone: Another detective hunting a murderer. Also from the 90s and also excellent. Look, the 90s don't pull their punches, it's got blood and lots of it. A favourite film of mine.

Lonely

The Metamorphosis - by Franz Kafka: Turning into a big bug does not a corruption/flesh story make.

Passengers (2016)- by Jon Spaihts: I hate this movie, it's clearly a horror, but they try to pass it as a romance. Anyway, for psychological lonely horror and manipulation, this is a movie for you.

Slaughter

Go watch a classic slasher film. I don't care for senseless violence, so I don't like most of this sort of media.

Read up on a war or a riot. Learn how your nation's government discriminates and persecutes minorities historically and today.

Sweeney Todd - by Hugh Wheeler: The musical is the better known version. Some flesh horror here as well. It's not really senseless, as I think the Slaughter should be, but hey, we need substance here.

Spiral

The Giver - by Lois Lowry: A utopia that is not quite right. Read for school when I was nine, I'm sure you can all live without a warning list.

The Matrix - by the Wachowskis: Reality is an illusion, and the Universe is a hologram.

Truman Show - by Andrew Niccol: You know why this is here.

Stranger

Coraline - by Neil Gaiman: The scariest children's book. Other!Mother and all that jazz are so very Strange.

The Landlady - by Roald Dahl: Taxidermy.

Vast

Lovecraft: I'm sorry, I can only think of him. No one else is so ignorant as to be able to capture the horror of things beyond their ken.

Web

Medea - by Euripides: The God's suck, it's a Greek tragedy, bad things happen to everyone without discrimination. Children are harmed, Medea is dosed by Aphrodite, Jason is literally the worst.

Animal Farm - by George Orwell: It's anti-authoritarian and deals with the mutability of laws and how uneducated masses are sheep. . . literally. You will feel horrified, it's a short read.

There's also some children's story about a spider/snake(?) and gluttony that I've been looking for, for the past year. It's pretty similar to Mr. Spider, but the villain consumes so many victims that he becomes too large to leave his den and is blockaded in by those he terrorized, and it's heavily implied that he starves to death. For the life of me I can't remember a title, but then, it's been 15 or so years.

[jordankennedy]

every avatar i can think of and their relationship to recreational drugs and alcohol

jon sims: only drinks those fruity cocktails that don’t taste like alcohol. seems like someone who has never done drugs but has absolutely snorted speed in university and only georgie knows about it

martin blackwood: doesn’t drink. has smoked weed before but has justified concern for his own health and doesn’t make a habit of it

tim stoker: likes and hates drinking beer in equal measure. seems like someone who does drugs but never actually has

sasha james: academically enjoys edibles but prefers to just drink anything blue

not-sasha james: drinks straight tonic water or margarita mix and inhales the fumes off of sharpie markers

gertrude robinson: smokes menthols and puts whiskey in her coffee. doesn’t do drugs and if you ask she’ll just squint at you in that old lady way. has allowed gerard keay to smoke weed in her office before

elias bouchard: still smokes but it makes him cough a lot so he only does it in private. used to drink laudanum but can’t find it anywhere anymore so now he just makes do with weed and really expensive gin

melanie king: likes daiquiris but only if they’re a flavor other than strawberry. vapes exclusively blue raspberry and watermelon flavors

basira hussain: only ever drinks just enough to avoid getting drunk. has never been on drugs and doesn’t want to. would pick up a joint with her thumb and pointer fingers like it was toxic waste

daisy tonner: has only been drunk once and hated it. has never done drugs but kind of wants to just so she can say she has. hates vapes and stares at melanie directly in the eye until she leaves whenever she does it within six feet of her

georgie barker: hates the taste of all alcohol. owns many novelty souvenir bongs purchased from various tourist attractions around europe. her favorite is the one that looks like a bottle of honey shaped like a bear

peter lukas: likes a lot of weird craft beer and thinks he’s oppressed for it. vapes also but only gross old man flavors like mint and butterscotch

jane prentiss: likes red wine. would smoke weed if offered it but has no idea how to go about acquiring it herself

timothy hodge: drinks fucked up cocktails that would kill anyone over the age of thirty-five. will do molly at parties and then go home and sleep for fifteen straight hours and he does this every friday

raymond fielding: drinks brandy out of a crystal glass like people do in the movies. extremely catholic but was also twenty years old in the 1960s. tried lsd one time and the web told him to stop throwing away his bright future so he never did it again

agnes montague: doesn’t drink because diego molina told her when she was like eight that she would explode if she did. would vape if she had ever heard of it but tragically hasn’t

julia montauk: astronomical tolerance for everything so she usually doesn’t even bother. drinks a lot of whiskey bc she likes how it tastes

maxwell rayner: drinks laudanum

trevor herbert: canonically has done heroin. has since kicked his addiction and doesn’t do or drink anything anymore

oliver banks: does xanax but he technically has a prescription. says he smokes weed for his anxiety but it actually just makes it worse

jared hopworth: advocates for allowing safe steroid use but would rather die than do it himself. refuses to drink on principle but when he was still a normal human he drank natty light

gerard keay: drinks one shot of everclear every morning. also says he smokes for his anxiety but it actually just makes it worse. prefers regular cigarettes

simon fairchild: also drinks laudanum

natalie ennis: drinks one (1) glass of champagne every new year’s eve. calls all mind-altering substances “temptations from the mouth of the devil”

michael the stortion: never got the chance to do drugs before getting spiralized and now they don’t do anything to him so he’s super pissed off about it

sarah baldwin: likes fruity rum. smokes a lot of weed

daniel rawlings: smokes weed as well. makes sarah roll his joints for him

john amherst: refuses to exist within ten feet of people smoking anything. thinks penicillin is a mind-altering substance and is mildly scared of it. doesn’t bother with alcohol but would drink bong water if he knew what it was

callum brodie: has never drunk alcohol or done drugs due to being thirteen. has yet to grow out of his “smoking cigarettes is badass” phase

nikola orsinov: made of plastic and therefore can’t drink or do drugs but would be on acid literally constantly if she was able

helen the stortion: puts ketamine in her own drinks for flavor

jordan kennedy: went to liberal arts college and lived off of tequila and mdma for six months. has since stopped doing drugs altogether because his job involves driving and he doesn’t trust himself to do that while high but still holds alcohol like a monster

annabelle cane: drinks peach white claws and smokes her joints through a 1920s cigarette holder

karolina gorka: drinks stoli out of the bottle. too cool to do drugs but has eaten a weed brownie by accident before

jude perry: drinks fireball whiskey if she feels like being normal and unleaded gasoline if she doesn’t. canonically does coke but freaks out around needles

mike crew: doesn’t drink. forgoes weed in favor of doing coke in public bathrooms with jude. complains that adderall doesn’t do anything but he just has undiagnosed adhd

jan kilbride: doesn’t drink or do drugs anymore because astronauts aren’t supposed to but he did acid one time in college and it almost gave him an anxiety induced heart attack

eugene vanderstock: also does coke with jude but in a significantly less companionable manner. its more of a competition but nobody knows what they’re competing against each other for, least of all the two of them

manuela dominguez: will spit at you if you offer her anything but drinks a lot of wine and keeps a box of oxy in a drawer

hezekiah wakely: smokes opium

tova mchugh: somehow a facebook wine mom without having kids. outwardly condemns drugs of any kind in a very holier-than-thou way but has also done coke more than once

emma harvey: drinks vodka out of water bottles. rolls her own joints, puts just enough regular tobacco in them to mask the weed smell, and tells people they’re regular cigarettes

adelard dekker: has never done drugs in his life but is not morally opposed to the idea, he just doesn’t feel like it

[lyrebright]

Got through a good chunk of TMA episodes yesterday while at work but didn't really have an opportunity to share my thoughts on them as they came because while my job is conducive to listening to podcasts while I work, it is adamantly not conducive to posting on Tumblr while doing so.

Got through...I think MAG014 to MAG026? So. Thoughts on that block of episodes below!

still not super fond of MAG014 now that I've like actually finished it but I will say that the spooky methodology was Fucking Metal. Getting mailed your body parts before you lose them? High concept art.

MAG015 was probably low-key one of my like...favourite "closed" statements? Since it's clear now that a decent chunk are connected...I don't think this one is (I am prepared to eat my words) but it WAS very visceral, to me. As someone who had to leave a mine tour once from having a panic attack at being in the dark and small underground, this one Got To Me.

My initial reaction to MAG016 was holy shit. Man does not like spiders. And that was about it. Knowing some more things retroactively has made me like. See it from a different angle but I still think my overall takeaway is Man Does Not Like Spiders!

MAG017 was a case of me being Fucking Confused.

I had to check the transcripts WHILE ON THE CLOCK just to make things make sense.

Why The FUCK are they pronouncing Jared and Gerard exactly the same way.

MAG017 was clearly a fucked up books episode! So when I heard the name Jehred, which is apparently how both Gerard and Jared are just Pronounced Across The Pond, I was like oh! Gerard is here! Fucked up books are his thing! But then it was a Jared and I was lost.

Anyway! Good episode I liked it. I think I like the fucked up book episodes. Still would love to know why they get Jon so heated when he is such an asshole about being a skeptic. I can only imagine he has a fucked up book backstory.

Maybe a fucked up book ate his dog?

MAG018: meat

this one made me queasy I didn't like it

MAG019/020! Wasn't expecting a two parter but I definitely liked what we got. It feeding back into a previous statement was really cool and the actual story itself was gripping. Did have me fairly tense though because of the religious stuff mostly I think? I Don't Like Fucking With Demons.

Everytime I went in to do another coat on the room I'd been painting while listening to those episodes I just kept thinking about demons so those are just bad vibes rooms now.

BUT ALSO I called it I KNEW those delivery guys would be coming back into it somewhere. I know worldbuilding when I see it.

Speaking of: I think I'm just deep enough in now to start getting a grasp on the world building of TMA. Like, in a general sense; that one church has been mentioned a few times, something something the lightless flame, that one house on. A hill. Recurring elements are showing. I See Them. I Am Noting Them Down.

I Am Petrified Of Heights. MAG021 Is A No Thank You.

MAG022 MADE ME :D!!!!!!

Another live statement! But this time it is Martin who I am glad to finally properly meet. He seems so sweet Jon why are you so mean to him.

Did Martin kill Jon's dog?

Poor Martin though oh my god

I still feel like I'm missing something re: Jane Prentiss because they're acting like I should know who she is but I SWEAR she didn't pop up before the uh, worm sex statement so I have simply resigned myself to bafflement.

Clearly we're ramping up the plot that exists outside of the statements and I am so excited. Poor Martin though for real. Get some therapy.

Jon gets one (1) point for letting Martin stay in the archives at the end.

(Also: there is something both really funny and really scary about the worm hive lady just. Using Martin's phone to pretend to be him so people didn't like. Call a wellness check or something)

MAG023 Was An Old Timey Episode And That's Literally All I Have To Say About It.

MAG024: I Do Not Like Clowns. Or Dolls. Or Puppets.

Fuck Everything To Do With This Episode, Basically.

Except for Jon and Sasha♡

Jon and Sasha: arguing over the correct pronunciation of calliope. Me, a vtuber fan: (filled with knowledge)

MAG025 was just an exercise in me staring at the skirting I was painting and going But How Are You Not Immediately Cluing In That She Joined A Cult.

This cult has shown up a few times now I think? At least once before, I remember the mention of the closed eye symbol. I'll be keeping an, uh, eye out for more mentions in the future.

MAG026 was where I knocked off for the day and man. Very good. I loved it.

Another Michael?? I SWEAR that I've heard of at least two other Mikes already

I guess I did go to highschool with like eight Sarahs, though.

A Sasha statement! I love her.

I've now "met" both Martin and Sasha. When Do I Get Tim.

Jon is SO much nicer to Sasha than he is to Martin so I can only presume he and Martin do have some sort of torrid past. I'm choosing to believe a primary school Jon slipped Martin a note saying "do you like me" that Martin then promptly threw away because it's the absolutely funniest option.

Sasha Sweetie Your Sense Of Self Preservation Is Fucked.

You do have the gumption of a horror movie final girl though and I admire that.

I can feel the plot building up around me and I am so excited for the final worm showdown, whenever it hits.

Torn between taking a break for a few days and just charging on ahead because I'm so curious as to what happens next, lmao.

[r0sebutch]

au where all the entities love martin just as much as we do

-martin is super nice to spiders his whole life

-eventually the spiders start talking to each other about how adorable this kid is

-the web adopts martin

-the mother of puppets is a Proud Mama and she brags about martin to all the other entities

-”look at my new kid. look at him. LOOK AT HIM”

-the other entities see this adorable super kind lil kid and all of them go “oh shit can i be his new auntie/uncle”

-all the entities love martin. they take care of him and shit and its adorable

-when someone bullies martin at school? well, if their house gets a new door and then they aren’t seen again, who’s to say they were real in the first place?

-when martin applies to the institute, the eye is like “YES! I KNEW I WAS THE FAVORITE UNCLE!” and the dark/stranger/spiral are all like “rude. you better not ruin our boy.”

-jane prentiss doesnt scare martin like at all. she shows up all spooky and hes just like “oh! your worms are so cute!! do they have names?” and the corruption is like “THATS MY BOY!!”

-michael tries to talk to sasha but martin walks up and hes just like “oh! hey mikey!” and sasha is like “you two know each other?” and michael is like “mmmMMM IM UNKNOWABLE” and runs

-when the not!them try to take sasha the stranger is just like “hey! stop that!” *squirts them with a spray bottle* 

-no hurting my boy’s friends! ~literally every entity at their avatars at some point

-elias is pissed. the entities know that martin is crushing on jon so none of them mark him. elias is like “what the fuck why cant i get my new archivist marked?” and the eye is like “uhhh no one’s home right now leave a message at the beep” and elias is like “WHAT THE FUCK YOURE AN IMMORTAL FEAR ENTITY WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO ONE’S HOME”

-the web is so proud. her boy martin!! her little boy!! he fell for the other one she marked, oh isnt that just sweet!!

-all the entities just kinda nudge them together. “hey nikola you know how i wouldnt let you kidnap the archivist? how would you feel about kidnapping the archivist AND my favorite nephew so they can get some quality time together outside of work? no killing them or taking their skin though” “ughh fine take all the fun out of kidnapping. spoilsport.”

-many shenanigans as the entities try to set them up without martin figuring out what theyre doing. they think he would be upset with them if he knew they were meddling but they still wanna meddle

-jonalias tries to set up the end of the world and the entities are like “no wtf the ship has just started sailing why would we ruin it”

[thekisforkeats]

Okay so in the wake of my disastrous attempt to defend Jon on @dathen‘s post (and also evidently Alex and Jonny defending Jon’s actions, which, yes, thank you!) I feel the need to write up my own “in defense of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist” rant.

Because Jon makes mistakes, let me get that clear at the outset. Sometimes the mistakes he makes are even fairly obvious ones!

But.

He learns.

Every serious mistake Jon makes, he learns from. And that is his strength.

With Martin and Carlos Vittery, he was either too wrapped up in his own fear of being watched or too cavalier about potential dangers to his assistants. He responds by insisting on defending the Archives and his people in every way he can, including the CO2 system that ultimately saves both his and Tim’s lives.

He didn’t really entirely think a Jane Prentiss attack through, though (not the way Martin did at least), so when he has to deal with the Not-Sasha, he comes up with a plan, and he sends Martin and Tim away to protect them from the potential fallout of said plan.

When everything falls apart because he didn’t have any help (and walked out on Jurgen Leitner), he starts reaching out to people. Slowly, and painfully, but by the end of S3 he’s clearly working with and trying to trust other people. He even says he’s choosing to trust them, despite the paranoia that makes it nearly impossible to do naturally.

So by the time of the Unknowing, he has a plan and a backup plan, he has other people with him, there’s even another plan (get Elias arrested) going on!

In S4, he keeps listening to people, he keeps trying to reach out even when he’s rebuffed. He makes sure other people are around to keep an eye on him. He’s self-aware enough to admit that he likes taking direct statements, but again: he’s made sure he’s not alone, and he listens to Basira.

He realizes that the Eye is directing him to certain statements, and so he pushes past the bad feelings to find the way out. He goes to Martin, and when Martin refuses him he goes to Melanie, because he knows she’d take the way out. He’s not going to leave people trapped with him if they don’t have to be.

He learns to trust his own abilities by the end of S4; when he goes into the Lonely after Martin he’s scared but I read him as also confident in himself, and even if he may not be 100% sure he can save Martin he’s decided it’s worth the risk. And then when he manages to find Martin and get him to see, he’s completely confident: I know the way.

The Eyepocalypse understandably upsets him, but he works through his grief and his guilt, he trusts Martin, he winds up realizing that even Gertrude didn’t know everything, and he leaves the cabin to go try to fix things.

Along the way he tries out his new powers and then comes to realize he doesn’t really like smiting people, and so he stops. He comes to realize trusting Helen was a mistake. On and on, he learns and he grows and he keeps pressing forward.

He learns to be more open with Martin, and as an aside, as married person who’s gone through five kinds of hell with his spouse: how refreshing to hear a relationship that isn’t either 100% happy or 100% trauma and bad. To hear people needing space and disagreeing and still loving each other. To hear “I’m going to go apologise to my boyfriend” very shortly after the argument, because sometimes you really just do need to walk away and take a breath.

I don’t know who was right, in the end. Was it better to save the world and potentially doom others? Was it better to doom the only world they knew on the chance they were saving others? Maybe there’s somebody that listens to the podcast that ever holds those kind of huge decisions that affect literally billions of people in their hands, but I doubt it. So who are we to say who was right?

In the end, I think that Jon felt he made mistakes in trying to survive even at the cost of others, and decided that he couldn’t let this world and this reality do that at the expense of other potential realities.

And maybe Jon also thought that trusting the Web might be a Bad Idea, and like, he’s not wrong.

At the very, very end, he lets go, and lets Martin end it all, and it’s a damn tragedy, but it’s not Jon’s fault. He’s been trying, the whole time. He’s been learning, and growing, and that’s the real tragedy I think: in a better situation, where he wasn’t a tragic protagonist in a horror podcast, he might have succeeded in saving the world without all the death and pain.

Anyway. So. That’s it. That’s my “in defense of Jon the Archivist” rant. Because he’s great and I love him and I felt the need to redeem myself for not sufficiently making that clear earlier.

[phoebenavarro]

rest assured, the night will come

realized I haven’t posted this here! a continuation of my “Jon trusts Tim” s2 AU, but this is first chronologically so reading the other parts isn’t necessary

After the Prentiss attack, Jon finds himself exhausted, in pain, and dreading having to be alone, so that’s how he finds himself outside of Tim’s flat propping himself up on the cane the doctors gave him with two containers of curry takeaway in his free hand. Together, Jon and Tim grapple with the events of the day, and Jon makes a decision on who he can trust.

the magnus archives, jontim, 2500 words

on ao3 here

When Jon finally leaves the Institute, statements taken and pain meds all but worn off, exhausted and bone-weary, the last thing he wants to do is to be alone in his flat. He wants nothing more than to sleep, but even as tired as he is, the nightmares that are sure to come turn him off the concept. His stomach clenches, and he realizes that it’s from hunger, not fear or anxiety or disgust like he’d been assuming since he woke up. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to keep any food down, but he figures he’s got to  at least try. And he really doesn’t want to be alone, so that’s how he finds himself outside of Tim’s flat propping himself up on the cane the doctors gave him with two containers of curry takeaway in his free hand.

I should have texted, he thinks, rather belatedly, after he’s knocked on the door.

Tim answers the door after a few moments, and he looks slightly better than he did the last time Jon saw him. Maybe he took a nap. He looks surprised to see Jon.

“Sorry, I should’ve let you know I was coming,” Jon says before Tim gets a chance to say anything, “But I really didn’t want to be alone, so.” He holds up the food. “Curry?”

Tim smiles the first genuine smile Jon’s seen from him since they both woke up in the ECDC tent.

“God, yeah, you read my mind,” Tim says, “Come in.”

Jon’s been to Tim’s flat a few times, so he makes a bee line for the coffee table and sets the food down. A nature documentary of some sort is playing on the TV, volume low. He smiles a bit; Tim always needs his background noise. Jon carefully sits down on the sofa, wincing as the movement pulls on his wounds, and leans the cane against the armrest.  

Tim looks at him with concern. “Boss, did you just now leave the Institute?”

“Yes,” Jon sighs. The pain medication has now worn off entirely, he thinks, and his entire body aches. The worst is in his hip, where the worms dug particularly deep. The doctors gave him a prescription for more, but he didn’t think to go pick it up before the pharmacies closed, something he is now seriously regretting.

“Jon,” Tim says, exasperated.

“I know, I know…”

Tim turns on his heel and rummages around in the kitchen, returning with some napkins and a pill bottle, which he holds out to Jon.

“I’m assuming you didn’t get a chance to get these then,” he says, giving the bottle a shake, “Good thing I did, huh?” Jon wordlessly takes the bottle. “Food first, though.”

“Oh! Right,” Jon says, “Thank you, Tim. You’re a life saver.” Tim hums. “Quite literally.”

“Yeah. Guess there are some perks of getting eaten by worms together, huh? Sharing food and drugs.” He stands up. “Want something to drink? Alcohol is a big no no on the medication, otherwise I would be getting wasted.”

“Water’s fine,” Jon says. Tim goes back to the kitchen, and Jon starts unpacking the containers of food. Tim returns with two glasses of water, and they eat mostly in silence, too exhausted for the animated banter they usually share. Jon doesn’t mind, the quiet companionship is comforting, so they just sit and watch the documentary. Jon doesn’t really absorb any of it, but the soothing voice of the narrator is also comforting.

After they finish eating, Tim starts cleaning up, taking the empty containers to the kitchen. Jon takes a moment to read the directions on the pill bottle before taking one, very much looking forward to the pain easing up. Tim returns, settling next to Jon on the couch, sitting close enough that Jon can lean against him. They finish up the documentary, and Jon finally lets himself relax as the pain medication kicks in.

“What now?” Tim asks. Jon shrugs.

“I don’t care. Put on whatever you want.” “Alright,” Tim says, “A comfort movie then.” Jon nods, letting himself zone out while Tim scrolls through menus on the TV. Tim selects something, and Jon rouses himself from his thoughts.

“What are we watching?” Jon asks.

“Stand By Me.”

“Oh, I’ve never seen it.”

“Boss,” Tim sighs, shaking his head in disappointment, but he’s still grinning, “You’ve got to watch more movies. It’s a classic!”

Tim talks throughout the movie, but Jon doesn’t mind, because he has the subtitles on and everything he mentions is related to the movie, little tidbits and trivia. (“It’s based on a short story by Stephen King called The Body, and Stephen King actually saw a friend of his get killed by a train, but he doesn’t remember it because he repressed it so thoroughly,” Tim says. Jon admits he hasn’t read much Stephen King, and he is treated to a mini lecture about how “Stephen King is one of the most prolific authors of our time and you can’t discount him just because he is known for horror.”)

Tim is… remarkably normal, considering the day they had. Jon knows he copes with humor, so it’s not all that surprising, but Jon can’t muster up the energy to pretend to be annoyed by Tim’s quips. His mind keeps wandering back to Gertrude, murdered and then left in the tunnels for months, no one caring enough to truly look for her, not even the police.

That could happen to you, a horrible part of his mind whispers, and he shivers.

“Jon, what’s wrong?” Tim asks, gently, very sincerely, and he pauses the movie, turning to face Jon, “I mean, other than the obvious. I can practically hear you thinking.” Jon hesitates. It’s never been his nature to share his feelings with anyone, not even the people he’s closest with, but as he looks at Tim, at the bandages covering his skin that Jon can’t help but feel responsible for, he finds himself wanting to tell Tim. Tim suffered the worst right along him, he can trust Tim, especially when he’s looking at Jon like he is.

“You heard about Gertrude?” Jon asks quietly.

“Yeah, Martin told me, after I finally got him to stop apologizing for losing us in the tunnels.”

“Did he…” Jon swallows, “Did he tell you how she died?”

“No, but I’m guessing it wasn’t natural causes.”

“She ah, she was shot.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Tim breathes, “Seriously?” Jon nods. “Christ, who would want to kill Gertrude?”

“I don’t know, but it scares me,” Jon admits, “Even more than if she was killed by some… Monster. Because…”

“Because this was a person,” Tim finishes, “And they could do it again.” Jon nods again. “Yeah, I get it.” Tim cocks his head, makes the face he always makes when he’s about to make a joke to try to lighten the mood, “Although, it could have been a monster with a gun. We don’t know that they can’t use guns.” And Jon can’t help it, he does grin a little.

“Yes, well, somehow I don’t think that’s likely,” he says.

“No,” Tim sighs mournfully, “But that would be pretty cool. I mean, bad for us, Jane Prentiss managed to fuck us up pretty badly with just the worms, I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about being shot—“

“Tim,” Jon says, stopping him, because this topic of conversation is not good for his anxiety.

“Sorry,” Tim says, picking up on Jon’s discomfort, “Uh, do the police have any leads?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Jon says, “I’d imagine the trail is pretty cold by now. I mean, it was probably someone at the Institute, to be able to get into the tunnels, but we have no idea if there are other entrances outside the Institute… So it really could’ve been anyone.”

“But why would someone kill Gertrude?” Tim wonders, “I mean, other than for gross incompetence at actual archiving. Unless she was a secret badass or something.”

“At this point, I wouldn’t even be all that surprised,” Jon mutters, “I don’t want to believe that there’s a murderer at the Institute, but that’s what makes the most sense.”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees, “Probably.”

“I— It feels like I’m being watched, when I’m in the Archives. And with the tunnels— there’s more to the Institute than I thought. There’s something off. And I think Gertrude’s death has something to do with that. And…” Jon bites his lip.

“And?” Tim prompts.

“And what if whoever killed her comes after me as well?”

“Jon…”

“I know, I know, it’s stupid, but I can’t shake the feeling.”

“After the day we’ve had, I don’t think that’s stupid. A bit paranoid, maybe, but not stupid.”

“Oh,” Jon says. He hadn’t expected Tim to take him seriously.

“Considering the way Prentiss seemed to single you out, I mean, it kind of makes sense that people— or monsters might have it out for the archivist.” And that’s something Jon’s been trying not to think about, but he definitely agrees.

“And that is a whole other terrifying question,” Jon sighs, “What exactly I’ve gotten us into. But my more immediate concern is whether or not there is a murderer in our midst.”

“Bit more pressing,” Tim agrees, “You think the cops can handle it?”

Jon shrugs, “They weren’t particularly interested in finding her the first time, I don’t think finding her killer is going to be a priority.”

Tim snorts. “No, of course not.”

“It could have been anyone, even Martin, even Sasha. I really hope it wasn’t them, but I’m starting to think that we can’t afford to trust anyone. I know how paranoid that sounds, but—“

“But it makes sense,” Tim says. They lapse into silence for a moment. “What about me?

“What?”

“How can you be sure I didn’t kill Gertrude?”

Jon considers it. He probably shouldn’t trust Tim, if he’s being purely logical. But he does. He knows Tim; he saw Tim, when he first came to the Institute, deeply traumatized and clearly in a bad place (and he’d been curious about what happened, of course he was, but he’s known for a very long time that there are things you don’t ask about.) Jon helped coax him into a better place, watched as Tim found himself again. All that, and what they’d been through today was a hell of a bonding experience, and well, they were alone a lot during the attack. If Tim wanted him dead, he’d had plenty of opportunities.

But really, it all comes down to: Jon is scared, and he doesn’t want to do this alone, and Tim is the safest option. No, not just that, he wants to trust Tim.

“Because you’re my friend and I’m choosing to trust you,” Jon says.

Tim has a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look to him, like he wasn’t expecting Jon to be sincere.

“Yeah,” Tim says, and he looks away from Jon, and he sounds a bit strained, “Yeah boss, I trust you too.” Jon grins.

“I appreciate it,” Jon says, “Considering you’re allergic to sincerity.” He nudges Tim with his elbow, and Tim laughs, pulling Jon into a loose embrace, careful not to put too much pressure on their wounds. Tim sighs, and he starts gently brushing his fingers through Jon’s hair. Jon melts into the touch, and they settle back against the couch cushions in each other’s arms. It feels right.

“If you want to do your own investigation into Gertrude’s killer, I will help you,” Tim says, “One hundred percent. But right now we can’t really do anything. The Institute’s closed, we’re out on sick leave. The trail’s not gonna get any colder. First we need to focus on healing, okay?” Jon nods. “We can figure out all the suspects and make a murder board later, but I don’t think either of us are up to it right now.” As much as Jon’s skin is buzzing with the need to do something, or else he’s leaving himself open to attack, his more rational side knows that Tim is right. They’re safer together, anyway.

“Yeah,” Jon says, “Right. Let’s finish the movie.” They resume the movie, and Tim is a bit more subdued, content to watch the screen and idly run his fingers through Jon’s hair. As the film draws to a close, Tim starts to doze, breathing softly. Jon looks down at Tim’s peaceful face, covered in bandages, and his heart twists. This is his fault. If Tim hadn’t been helping Jon walk, he probably would’ve kept up with Martin, or if he’d left Jon to his fate, maybe he would have been able to outrun Prentiss and the worms.

This isn’t helpful, Jon chastises himself, but he can’t stop. If he can’t protect his employees, his friends, then what is the point? He tries not to spiral, and he directs his attention to the end of the movie. It’s not the kind of movie he would normally pick for himself, but he can see why Tim likes it. There are few things Tim values more than family, whether that be blood family or found family. Tim doesn’t talk much about his parents, but there are pictures of them and a brother around the place. Tim will talk more about his brother, but it’s always tinged with sadness, like he isn’t around anymore. Jon doesn’t ask; he feels like he hasn’t earned the right.

“I guess I should head back to my flat.” Jon says while the credits are rolling,  because he can feel himself starting to nod off next to Tim. That wakes Tim up, though.

“Jon,” he groans, “It’s midnight. You’re staying here.” He says it with finality, like it’s obvious. “I’m not letting you take the tube in the middle of the night when you can barely walk.” He gestures at Jon’s cane. Jon feels like he needs to object out of politeness, to make sure that it’s really alright, but he is, quite frankly, too tired, and he knows Tim wouldn’t offer if he didn’t mean it. But still, that part within him that won’t allow him to be a burden on anybody squirms. He pushes the feeling down.

Jon nods. “Thank you, Tim.”

“Come on,” Tim says, slowly getting to his feet, “The guest bed is made up, and we’re really gonna regret it in the morning if we sleep on the couch.” He offers a hand to help Jon up, but Jon waves him off, not wanting to hurt him. He uses his cane to help him get to his feet, and Tim leads him to the guest bedroom.

“Bathroom’s across the hall,” Tim says, “Let me know if you need anything.” And then Tim pulls him into a hug, resting his chin on Jon’s shoulder. “I’m really glad we’re alive,” he says into Jon’s hair, “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“Okay,” Jon replies, “Thanks Tim.”

That night, at least, they both sleep soundly, too exhausted for nightmares.

[equalseleventhirds]

ok lemme see if i can articulate my Jon Emotions for this episode, i am awake and fed but not fully caffeinated yet so it is EXTREMELY rambly i’m sorry

last week i said that jon was struggling to define his own boundaries around smiting or not-smiting to martin, obviously bcos he’s bad at communicating, but also bcos jon himself doesn’t know where those boundaries are. imo, this week just showed that even more, because i don’t think jon completely wanted to kill jude perry.

this is not to say she didn’t deserve it, she’s done horrible horrible things and was doing even more horrible things. but jon displayed hesitance and uncertainty about killing her, didn’t want to confirm he was planning to kill her until he had to, and in fact nearly backed out of killing her a couple of times (and, lbr, jon ‘survivor’s guilt’ sims has an INCREDIBLY difficult time feeling that his pain is worth even acknowledging, let alone acting to soothe or avenge it).

so: i’m not what u would call happy about jon not telling martin why they were going towards jude’s domain, or even that it was jude’s domain. that’s not good communication, jon! but also, why would he hide it? martin has been all about the smiting, has been on fucking board with revenge, and jon didn’t know before that martin was especially afraid of fire. so why? because he wasn’t sure he was going to go after her. he was going in that direction sure, and then maybe if they’d accidentally met her the way they accidentally met not-sasha, he could smite her without it feeling deliberate. it wouldn’t be premeditated, it wouldn’t be something he went out of his way for (even tho he did in fact go out of his way).

saying it out loud, speaking the words to martin (and martin has to coax those words out, has to make him say the thing bcos martin doesn’t know what’s going on, both in the ‘why are we here’ way and in that he doesn’t know what jon is, probably subconsciously, thinking wrt not wanting to say it), makes it real and set, in a way that i don’t think jon was really prepared for. he (eventually) says that he planned this and that he wants to smite jude, but his actions and tone and the way he circled around the idea for so long makes me think he wasn’t as sure about it as he wanted to sound.

then he gives the choice to martin. martin, who was on the smiting train absolutely, but was the one to actually balk at entering the fire. once jon knows that martin has a reason to avoid it, he immediately offers the choice to him, and yes absolutely that was because he cares about martin and doesn’t want to cause him pain, but also i think he was taking this chance at bailing on his tentative-not-really-a-plan plan. (also bcos martin is v much his moral compass, and sure he doesn’t always agree with him but in this particular case, jon is very confused and wants martin’s help.) martin ultimately decides this is not a choice he wants to make, which like, i respect, but it leaves jon feeling even more conflicted about it, bcos if even martin isn’t sure if he should be smiting jude, can jon be sure?

and then when they finally do get to jude, she doesn’t get it. she thinks jon is just another avatar, reveling in the apocalypse, coming here as a power play (she’s wrong, but that’s what she thinks). she doesn’t understand that jon is angry, and more than that doesn’t understand why he’s angry; not just over the pain she caused him by burning his hand, but because by marking him she helped jonah turn him into a vessel for the apocalypse. she doesn’t know that jon hates the world being like this, that he tried so desperately to escape his patron, to save the people he cared about, and that she is part of the reason he couldn’t.

(sidenote, unlike oliver, who unwillingly went to talk to jon and accidentally marked him for the end, jude purposefully and maliciously burned him. she didn’t know what she was marking him for, but she also left one of the most obvious marks, something large, visible, painful, and also something that probably had a significant impact on his day to day life, bcos even after it healed having a melted hand makes holding things difficult. in fact, jude’s mark was probably the most constant and obvious reminder he had of what jonah had done to him, besides POSSIBLY the worm marks, depending on how deep they go and what they might have hit. and jane prentiss is dead.) (nikola also is dead; we hear very little about the unknowing having a permanent effect on jon after the coma, but tbh it’s the next highest possibility of injuries that could have caused permanent disability.)

so jon walks through literal fire (bringing martin with him) to get to jude, asks her his question to try to learn more but also to try to make her understand why he’s doing this, but she doesn’t. she understands even less than not-sasha did (and doesn’t that sting); she fears, she suffers, she dies, and jon gets nothing from this, no catharsis, no relief. he's killing her, and she says ‘we’ve won’. nothing changes. it’s a hollow victory, and he can’t even say why.

tldr, i think jon was conflicted about killing jude, i think he couldn’t articulate that conflict to himself let alone to martin, and i think actually killing jude left him feeling disappointed and unhappy and even more conflicted, and i am VERY WORRIED ABOUT HIM.

[cloudyskywars]

The Magnus Archives, Season 2

Hello again. I’ve now finished listening to Season 2 of TMA and have lost my mind. @reese-haleth can confirm. After Season 1 I wrote my “statement” regarding my thoughts on the season. I’ve done it again, even though no one asked lol. Listen, I just love this podcast a lot, okay? Enjoy my 2,000 word report on Season 2 of The Magnus Archives. 

Statement below the cut.

Continued statement of CloudySkyWars and her experiences listening to the second season of The Magnus Archives. Statement originally given 28th April, 2021. 

I… don’t really know where to begin. It has now been a full day since I finished Season 2, and I still don’t quite know what to think. So many things were revealed in the season finale, and throughout the season in general. I don’t quite know what to do with all the new information I have now. In rereading my previous statement, I was right to be nervous for Jon. I didn’t think it was possible, but his situation got worse.

Let’s start with an easier- well, not easier- but more approachable topic I suppose? Sasha is gone. I think I’ve known that from the end of last season, when her voice changed abruptly and no one seemed to notice. Her scream as she was eaten, or taken, or whatever it was, was terrible. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected her to come back from something like that. Still, it hurts me to know that she’s truly gone. 

We now know more about the being that took Sasha. I’m still not sure what it is called exactly, but for now I shall refer to it as the Not Being. It has apparently been around for ages; hundreds, possibly thousands of years. As it said itself, it wears the person that it chooses as its victim. It transforms into them, for lack of better word, except it changes its appearance, yet somehow tricks everyone into believing that that is how the person has always appeared. Well, almost everyone. It is odd how there always appear to be one or two people that the being cannot fool. In the case of Graham, it was his neighbor across the street. In the case of Sasha, it was Melanie, the ghost hunter. As Gerturde Robinson said, it is strange that a being that has the power to assume someone’s identity and change pictures and hundreds of people’s memories somehow misses just a few people that remember who the person was at first. I do not know for sure, but perhaps those that it cannot fool are somehow protected by another one of the Beings. 

That’s another difficult topic. The Beings. I don’t know exactly what to call them yet. Jon has slowly been putting the pieces together, and with the statement of the now late Jurgen Leitner, the pieces form an almost complete puzzle. From my understanding, there are 10 Beings so far that we are aware of at this time.

Here is my understanding of the Beings so far. I don’t know how correct any of this is, but I know I still have much to learn.

Being 1: Darkness. The form of darkness incarnate, responsible for the founding of the cult The People’s Church of the Divine Host. It can dim lights, and also affect the water when it is near. The head of the cult in the 1990s was one Maxwell Reiner. 

Being 2: Michael, aka The Spiral. It lies. This Being appears to be a master of deception and trickery, and has no regard to others except to watch them in its tortured games. I will discuss Michael further, but right now we know the appearance it chooses to take at this time: a tall man with curly blonde hair and bulbous, swollen hands. 

Being 3: Meat. I do not know much about this being at this time. It appears to be vicious, and quite literally thirsts for blood and meat. 

Being 4: Fire. Again, my knowledge on this particular being is limited. I believe it to be closely tied to Agnes Montague, and perhaps be an enemy of the Not.

Being 5: Not. As I stated before, this being takes the identity of its victim and warps it, manipulating almost everyone’s minds to forget the original form of the person ever existed. It always seems to miss a few though. Its one weakness seems to be the wooden table that Jon has now destroyed. Jon was under the impression that the Not got its power from the table, but the opposite was true. The table was binding it, and for a bit it seemed as though the Not had almost unlimited power, taunting Jon in the tunnels. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Not can trick photos and people’s minds, but appears to be unable to alter voice recordings of the victim as long as it is recorded on magnetic tape. This is how Jon realized that Sasha was indeed Not Sasha, as he found the tapes from Season 1 where her voice was recorded. It also seems to be unable to alter polaroid photos.

Being 6: Abyss. We don’t know much about this one yet, either. It takes the form of some abyss or another, whether it be the sky or the deep blue ocean. I am not ashamed to say that this Being is one of the scariest for me.

Being 7: Giant- I feel this is a poor descriptor for this being, but it is the best I can come up with at the moment. It is exactly as it sounds; a giant. So far we have primarily seen it manifest as a giant hand. Perhaps that would be a better name for it. Hand. 

Being 8: Thin- This is, I fear, not an accurate description of this Being. It is described as being tall and thin, with limbs like knives. Not much is known about him at the moment, however we believe that his “brother” of sorts was the werewolf creature from a previous statement. 

Being 9: The End- The Being of death and disease. I strongly suspect that this is the being responsible for Jane Prentiss, as well as John Amehurst, who has shown up multiple times so far in the series. 

Being 10: Eye, aka the Beholder- This Being is in control of The Magnus Institute, and ‘owns’ all those who work there. The Eye watches people, as its name suggests. It also apparently protects those it owns from the other beings, and the protections are strongest in The Institute itself. 

I hope that the Darkness has mostly gone away, for now. Basira claims that Maxwell Reiner, the head of The People’s Church of the Divine Host, is now dead. Hopefully this means that the Darkness will have less influence over this world for the time being. At least until it can find another host.

And that’s another thing. Basira. We were just introduced to the character this season, and already I am very attached to her. It disappoints me that she has left the police force and will no longer be able to help Jon, but I do not believe we have seen the last of her. Her leaving the police opens the door for her to help Jon more in the future, especially now that he is on the run for murder. I will… discuss that more deeply later. Basira’s introduction also caused us to meet Daisy, who I quite like at the moment, but I feel that will change quickly as she is the one investigating Leitner’s murder and will most likely be leading the manhunt for Jon. For the moment though, she is in my good graces. 

Daisy’s first statement talked about her first encounter with a paranormal experience. It dealt with the coffin from the statement of Joshua Gillespe. The moving company, Breekon and Hope, is not gone. I don’t think it ever will be. I do not yet know which Being they are associated with, if any, but they have caused problems in the past and I have cause to believe they will continue to cause problems in the future.

Now for the difficult part: Jon. He is in quite the predicament right now, and I am scared to see what will happen to him. He is on the run for murder, because Elias Bouchard brutally murdered Jurgen Leitner and has now framed Jon for it. Elias had me fooled. I thought he cared about Jon, about all of them. But he is clearly dedicated to the Eye, and anything that threatens the Beholder and what it watches, holds, and owns- Elias will stop at nothing to protect it. I do not know if Elias is a paranormal being himself or is simply an instrument of the Eye. 

I desperately hope that Jon will be alright. I think, (though I could be wrong), that he will reach out to Basira and ask for her help. Season 2 has developed outside characters more so than Season 1, and I believe it is so that Jon has connections that he can reach out to. With Basira leaving the police force, it opens the possibility that he can go to her for help. The same is true with Melanie. She and Jon have something that could almost be considered a friendship, though most of their conversations end in a verbal sparring match or fight. Nonetheless, Melanie was heading to India, and Jon was aware of that. Perhaps he will go to her for assistance, or maybe he will wise up and realize that Martin actually cares about him and ask him for help. We shall see. 

Gerturde Robinson is another character we have learned more about this season. She is hardly the absent minded old woman we were led to believe she was. In the beginning, Jon complained about her lack of organization in the Archives, but now I think there was a reason for it. She put the pieces together, and was murdered for it. She was trying to separate the pieces, to make it safe for whoever took her place, as well as attempting to fool Elias into thinking she didn’t know what was going on. She failed at that, as he discovered her knowledge and murdered her in the tunnels beneath the Archives. It was also revealed that she was working with Jurgen Leitner.

Leitner has been mentioned since the beginning, though we heard from him for the first and last time in the final two episodes of Season 2. Contrary to my assumptions, he was not making his books evil, simply trying to harness the power they already possessed. I am thankful that he saved Jon from the Not Being, as Jon would have surely died had Leitner not interfered. He is very knowledgeable in paranormal matters, and did his best to explain it to Jon. However he was murdered by Elias before he had a chance to explain all he wished to. Leitner claims that the books are the Beings in their purest form, and I am certain we have not seen the last of the books from Leitner’s extensive library. 

Martin and Tim surely think that Jon murdered Leitner. I hope that Martin at least will continue to have faith in Jon, and that he will possibly find the supplemental tapes that Jon had been recording and realize what was actually happening. Only time will tell, though. 

Another Being that we learned more about this season was Michael. He was first introduced to us by Sasha (the real one), back in season 1. At the time, it was portrayed as either a passive or helpful Being, showing Sasha how to kill the worms that came from the thing once known as Jane Prentiss, but this season has proved that not to be the case. Michael has trapped people multiple times, (notably Helen Richardson), and has since shown more aggression than before. It stabbed Jon, who then proceeded to lie about his wound because he didn’t trust his coworkers. To its credit, in the second to last episode of Season 2, Michael helps Jon get a head start from the Not Being after Jon accidentally sets it free. However it then proceeds to trap Martin and Tim in one of its corridor labyrinths for days in some sort of sick game for its enjoyment, and comments that it may also kill them. Luckily it either failed or changed its mind. Time will tell whether or not the Being that calls itself Michael will be more of a friend or foe. 

I suppose that’s it, really. There are surely many things that I have forgotten, but I have done the best I can to document my thoughts and my knowledge of The Magnus Archives at this time. I don’t know all that is going on, I don’t know how things will be resolved. I don’t even know if the mystery will be fully solved. But I desperately hope that things will be explained, that we will receive answers, and that the mystery will be solved. It has to be. I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not.

Statement ends. 

[alexandenigtscreations]

Chapters: 1 of 2 Summary:

Takes place in the aftermath of Mag 92. Recently cleared of murder, Head Archivist, Jonathan Sims, takes a moment to decompress in the archives after a hellish week.

[CHAPTER 2 HERE]

It throbed

Ached

Burned

The events of the past few days came crashing down on Jon as soon as he left Elias’s office.  Lord, he hurt.  

Vagley, he wondered at the events that had led to working in a place where “not dying” was considered an accomplishment.  Yet alone one where a sociopathic boss allowed him to take the wrap for a murder Jon did not commit, and spend the preceding week being stalked by the circus, having unpleasant interviews with the lightless flame, being cast into the vast and hunted down by Detective Tonner.

A sense of being watched sent a jolt of fear through Jon.  He cast about for signs of Daisy.  Was she gone?  Was he safe?  He didn’t think he could deal with her now, not after-

Stop it.  

Jon sagged against the wall of the decidedly deserted corridor, the world shifting in swirling bursts.  Alone, at last and again; he was alone.  His good hand constricted around his wrist in a vain hope the pressure would alleviate the pain.  It didn’t.

A distraction, that’s what he needed.  

Perhaps he could get some work done.  It might be enough to take his mind off of things-  He recalled several articles on ADHD outlining how quickly they picked up on the presence of pain stimuli, especially when it was the most interesting thing happening at the moment.  There were a few other journals that indicated ADHD people had a higher pain tolerance than their peers.  Jon snorted.  He was still on his feet so there must be some truth to it.  

Good lord.  If he was supposed to have a high pain threshold, what must something like this be for a normal person?  Then again-he wasn’t exactly a person anymore, was he.  The way Daisy had- Stop it, now.  

The last thing he needed was to dwell on Detective Tonner and the events of the Past several hours. 

Jon all but collapsed into his chair, allowing the exhaustion leading his bones to pull him down.  He held his burned hand close.  Too close as the heat radiating off his body set his hand burning anew.  He hissed, forcing it as far away as physically allowed.  Practically prostrating himself across the marred surface of the desk.  Causing a small avalanche of paperwork and statements to slide to the floor.  

He cursed under his breath.  Why did he always have to make such a mess of things?  Why couldn’t he do anything right?  He’d driven Tim and Martin away, put Georgie in danger, couldn’t keep Melony or Basira from getting ensnared and...Sasha-  Jon swallowed past the lump in his throat, disgusted with himself.  He could barely think straight yet alone work.  His breath hitched sending a sharp jab of pain from his throbbing ribs.  Detective Tonner’s baton hadn’t...agreed with him.  Acrid saliva pooled in his mouth, for a moment Jon feared he was going to be sick.  

Jon forced himself to still and breathe.  It passed.  The insistent burning sliding back to the surface.  He did the only thing he could do, and turned attention to that all consuming pain.  Attempting to capture the feeling with objective detachment.  It was a technique perfected after the Jane Prentiss incident.  Cataloging the sensations as though they were happening to someone else, another statement for the archives.  That academic veneer had given him some modicum of control, of understanding.  

He desperately wanted that now-

Then again, that was the reason he was in this mess, wasn’t he?  Always having to know?  He sighed, sliding back into memory.

Once, while living with his grandmother, he had scalded his hand ladling out soup.  It had ached for a week and flared up if he touched anything so much as tepid.  This was so much worse.  

Unbidden, Elias’s words came floating back ‘The Archivist observes and experiences’.  Jon groaned.  Right, and what good would that do?  Distastefully, he eyed the improvised bandage of t-shirt strips.  He should change it, he knew but his stomach soured at the thought.  Recalling kneeling on the hard earth, frantically prying off the molten wax.  In his hast he hadn’t registered the blistering skin tearing away with it, leaving his palm raw and exposed.  Part of him didn’t want to face the grotesquery behind the bandage- to see what monstrous form it had taken.

It burned.

He knew it burned.  He knew it needed looking after and he begged his brain to stop sending the signals.  After all:

Message received.

End the bloody statement.

Burns were nothing at all like cuts.  Cuts were well behaved.  Delicately, Jon probed the ragged edges of the gash at his neck.  Cuts were predictable.  Pressing down till he felt the sickening twinge slice through.  For a moment there was this known experience, this expected outcome.  He forgot about the burn, replaced only by the sharp sting in his neck.  Then it all went sideways.  

Jon was looking back into the cold eyes of Detective Tonner as she pressed the blad to his throat.  She had wanted to cut him, to hurt him, to kill him.  She killed monsters, and she’d made it clear where he stood.  His pulse jumped and his chest started to restrict as he saw once more Michael Crew, prone on the forest floor.  The muzzle flash burned itself once more into his retina and Crew was dead.  Daisy had done that.  Daisy had done that right in front of him and Daisy had meant to do that to him and the fear threatening to spill over.  It was too much, just too much!

“Will you stop it!” he shouted out loud, pinching the burn with all his might, abruptly returning to the physical experience of pain in the here and now; the nausea coming back with vengeance.  He whimpered, pressing his face into the cool of his desk.  Breathe.  Just, breathe.  What good was it to be a monster if it hurt so badly?  

Once more he wraped fingers about a slim wrist, attempting to cut off the circulation.  Anything to dull that burning.  He longed to submerge it in ice.  If he couldn’t stop the pain, maybe he could numb it, a little at any rate.  

With heavy eyes, he calculated the distance between himself and the door.  Funny, it never seemed like it was that far away before.  Jon wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and rest for a few moments, but his body simply protested too much. 

Ice, right, ice would help.  

He pushed himself upright on elbows and forearms.  Jon’s legs felt heavy, as though he were borrowing someone else's.  It was hard to move, much harder than it had moments ago- he glanced at the clock, jared to see hours had slipped by.  How had that happened?  

He couldn’t understand why his body was having such a hard time moving when he’d been fine this morning.  He couldn’t understand why the world wouldn’t stop spinning.  The door to his office was closed, meaning he’d have to let go of the burn to open it.  For an insane moment, he considered surrendering and curling up under his desk.  But Jonathan Sims never knew how to give up, did he?  

Martin had had a bit of a day.  

Why wouldn’t he of?  It wasn’t every day that you find out your very life is tied to your place of employment, your coworker had been killed over a year ago replaced by a supernatural imposter and that your “double boss”, to use Tim’s turn of phrase, was a cold blooded killer.  

And Jon-

The man knew how to make an entrance, stumbling into the archives, covered in grime, flanked by Detective Tonner and Basira.  And core, he looked bad.  

After the, Martin had been whisked away by Basira and Daisy to...answer a few questions.  It had felt more like an interrogation than anything else.  He wondered why it had been so difficult for them to accept that he had been as much in the dark as the rest of them.  Tim hadn't helped matters by continuing to make a string of dark comments and Melony had started to genuinely unnerve him.  Which was saying something considering he literally worked among Eldritch horrors.  

After everything, he needed a moment to himself.  Away from angry coworkers and murderous bosses and prosecutorial police detectives.  He retreated back to the old cot in document storage, mulling things over late into the day.  For once he didn’t worry about wasting institute time.  If Elias was to be believed, Martin could no more be fired than he could quit.  Always, his thoughts returned back to Jon.  He hoped the man had good enough sense to go home and rest up.  

“I need a cup of tea-” he said to no one in particular, scrubbing a wery hand down his face.  As far as he could tell, the others had left hours ago.  Just as well, he didn’t feel up to peacekeeping at the moment.  

Martin froze at the door of the employee lounge.  Jon was there!  Standing with his forehead pressed against the fridge.  Looking for all the world like he was about to fold at any second.  Even from his vantage point across the room, Martin could tell he was trembling.  

“Jon?” he regretted speaking at once.  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jon lept like a spooked cat.  

“M-Martin-'' his voice was faint, frayed at the edges with exhaustion.  Concern gripped Martin’s chest as he took the man in properly.  

Even covered in ruddy mud; the bruises under his eyes were stark, stretching his gaunt features in agonized lines.  He had a death grip on a thin wrist of a badly bandaged hand.  It reminded Martin of the aftermath of Jane Prentiss and having to chase him away from the tunnels to ensure Jon had time to heal.  

Only this was worse, somehow.  Then, Jon had been angry, driven by the single minded purpose of finding out who had it in for the archivist position.  But now- the fight was gone, leaving him small, vulnerable and lord, he looked defeated.  

“Can I help you?” 

Jon made a complicated spazam of a movement Martin couldn’t make heads or tails of.  Muttering something about getting some ice as he listed to the side.

[CHAPTER 2 LINK]

[mimosaeyes]

“You could talk,” Jon says slowly. “Doesn’t matter what about, just as long as it’s distracting. That would... that would help, I think.”

Set during episode 39, when Martin and Jon are hiding from Jane Prentiss. 2.1k, pre-relationship.

For TMA hurt/comfort week organised by @themagnuswriters, prompt: “treating/distracting from injuries”

Content warnings: canon-typical worm imagery, blood, Martin’s Prentiss anxiety

Beta-ed by @emberidzae

Also available on AO3 here

Martin has triple-checked that the door is locked. He knows he has; he remembers jiggling the knob and scuffing his shoe on the seal over the crack at the bottom. Yet he keeps throwing nervous looks at the square of dirty glass through which he’d peered into the corridor. From where he’s sitting on the floor, knees hugged to his chest, he can’t tell where Jane Prentiss currently is, or what she’s doing. Not unless she were to press her wan face up against the window, the holes in her skin indistinguishable from her eye sockets, and raise one infested fist to knock.

He shudders and makes himself take a deep breath, subconsciously tightening his grip around the corkscrew. It’s still slick with Jon’s blood. His fingers slip a little, a sensation that makes his stomach turn. He takes another deep breath and glances to his right, where Jon is propped up against the wall with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. To Martin’s surprise, Jon’s attention is focused not on the door or his wound, but on him.

“What are you thinking about?” Jon asks — quietly, but the sound still startles Martin after a couple minutes of tense waiting. In the silence after Jon had paused the tape recorder, Martin has been left listening to his own, anxious thoughts. They’ve been running along the same well-worn tracks as during those thirteen days he spent trapped in his apartment: where is she, what do I do, is anyone coming, how long since I checked the door, where is she?

What do I do?

“I guess…” Martin hesitates, having a brief mental debate about how much is appropriate to say to your boss who’s just confided in you that he’s only dismissive because he’s afraid; helplessly so. “I felt safe, here. I didn’t think she could get in.” He pauses, glancing at the door. “Guess I was wrong.”

Jon surprises him for the umpteenth time today by saying, “I’m sorry.” He sounds genuinely sympathetic, and even leans forward as if to pat Martin’s arm, although he stops halfway, looking awkward. 

As he slumps back against the wall, he winces, hissing slightly.

Furrowing his brow, Martin scoots closer to him. “Does your leg hurt?” 

“I’m fine,” Jon says, literally lying through his teeth. A muscle in his jaw jumps as he clenches it. He sighs. “Nothing to be done anyway, while we’re stuck here.”

He’s right, to an extent; they don’t have any medical supplies or even water to wash out whatever secretions a worm might leave behind. Martin shudders at the thought while eyeing the small pool of blood that has trickled out of Jon’s wound. “We can at least put pressure on it,” he decides at last. 

After casting about the room for a moment and seeing only boxes and papers, he starts to remove his own jumper.

Jon blinks. “What are you doing?” 

“I don’t have any other cloth,” Martin explains, lowering his arms again.

“I’m hardly going to bleed out from this,” Jon scoffs, his voice returning to its usual prickly tones. “There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

A few weeks ago, Martin would have backed down at once, stung by Jon’s standoffishness and jumping straight to the conclusion that Jon wouldn’t trust him to perform even such basic first aid on him. In light of today’s revelations, though, he merely narrows his eyes. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what,” Jon says flatly, looking askance. Martin takes that as a good indication that he’s hit the nail on the head with his inference.

“Pretending you’re not scared, so you won’t have to deal with how crazy this whole situation is. Well, you’re not fooling me.”

He maintains a firm, steady tone but holds his breath once he’s done speaking, silently worrying he has crossed a line. Several beats pass before Jon mumbles something in response.

“What?”

“I said you can use my vest,” Jon repeats, over-enunciating. He sounds arch again, though rather more cowed than before. Deftly, he unbuttons his vest with one hand while waving the other vaguely in Martin’s direction. “That’s one of your favourite jumpers; don’t ruin it on my account.”

The motion of him shrugging out of the vest does something fascinating to his collarbones, the lines of which are visible through his white button-up. It takes Martin a moment to process Jon’s words and ask, “Wait, how do you know I like this jumper?”

“Well, you wear it on special occasions, like your birthday,” Jon says as Martin begins to fold the vest. “You didn’t make Tim any tea for two days after that time he spilled some pasta sauce on the sleeve. And before you lived here, you sometimes left a hoodie or cardigan at your desk overnight, but never this jumper…” He trails off. “I’ve said too much, haven’t I?”

“It’s alright,” Martin tells him, while a pleasant, dizzy feeling starts up in a corner of his mind. He had no idea Jon noticed anything about him at all, aside from his supposedly incompetent work. “We do investigate mysteries.”

Such as the mystery of why Martin is about to use a vest made of what feels like rather expensive fabric to staunch the bleeding, when his own, comfy but ratty jumper is on hand. He clears his throat, glancing at Jon’s leg. “May I?”

At Jon’s nod, he pushes his trousers up to mid-calf. Then he stops and just stares at the ragged wound for a moment. He’s never thought of himself as being particularly squeamish, but he gets a little lightheaded anyway at how far the worm had tunnelled before Sasha managed to extract it.

This is what he’d pictured in the initial days of waiting out Prentiss, when he was still weighing the possibility of making a break for it. The mental image had effectively deterred any attempts. Since he’s started living in the Archives, he’s also woken up several times gasping from nightmares about the parasites burrowing into his exposed flesh. He always gropes for his corkscrew and the fire extinguisher he keeps next to his cot, clutching them to him while staring blearily out into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the lamp he leaves on.

He shakes himself. There’s no point thinking about that now. His fears have come to pass after all, and Jon needs his help. Martin places the fabric over the injury and presses down. Immediately, Jon gives a quiet hiss.

“Too much?” Martin asks, easing up a little.

Jon’s already shaking his head. “No, it’s okay. Thank you.”

They both fall silent for a while. Martin’s thoughts inevitably wander back to whatever’s going on outside. Whether Tim and Sasha are alright, whether help is coming. Too soon, he lifts the vest to check on the bleeding. It has slowed a little, but there’s still a sluggish ooze from the wound. He resumes the pressure, then looks up to find Jon watching him again.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Jon asks.

“Um.” Martin shifts into a marginally more comfortable position while he tries to find a polite way of phrasing Because of basic human decency…? “Why wouldn’t I?”

He means it rhetorically, but Jon actually starts to answer. “Well, I haven’t exactly been lovely to you. Yet here you are, offering to sacrifice your favourite jumper and — and staying here with me, when you could run for it and escape a situation you’ve probably been dreading for the past couple of months.”

I wouldn’t just leave you, Martin thinks at once, with a resolve that surprises himself a little. The time he’s spent living in the Archives has been stressful, sure, but it’s also brought him closer to each of his co-workers. (Regularly dousing one another and the premises with fire extinguishers will do that.) He wouldn’t abandon any of them.

That seems too heavy to say to Jon, though. Especially since, if it needs saying, maybe that means Jon hasn’t felt the same sense of solidarity. So Martin deflects instead. “Should we be talking at all? It might give away where we are.”

“You checked the door. We’re fine.” Jon attempts a reassuring smile but breaks off and flinches, his leg twitching briefly under Martin’s hands.

“What’s wrong?”

Jon pulls a face. “There’s a weird… pulsating feeling. Like it’s still crawling about in there.”

A horrible thought occurs to Martin. “Sasha did get all of it, didn’t she?”

“I’m sure she did,” Jon says. “I’m just being paranoid. In any case, I... don’t exactly relish the prospect of digging around with the corkscrew some more.”

“Hmm.” Martin bites his lip. “Then I don’t really know what else I can do.”

His thoughts stray back to the door, to the taste of canned peaches, too sweet in the back of his throat. He hates all this waiting. He needs to be doing something.

Jon tilts his head at him as if puzzling something out. “You could talk,” he says slowly. “Doesn’t matter what about, just as long as it’s distracting. That would... that would help, I think.”

Martin perks up at this — though of course, his brain chooses this moment to forget just about everything he has ever heard of, read about, or thought. “Ah…” he flounders. “I, I watched a documentary last week. It was about sharks.”

Breath hitching slightly in pain, Jon settles himself against the wall. “Tell me about sharks,” he says, with a wry and strangely indulgent smile.

So Martin does. “Um. Okay. D-did you know,” he says, starting with his favourite fact, “sharks that lay eggs do it in leathery pouches called mermaid purses? I’m not making that up, they’re really called that...” Then he goes on to explain how scientists determine the age of a shark by counting the growth rings formed on its vertebra, much like the rings in the cross-sections of trees. (At this point, his spiel is interrupted as Jon mumbles, “That’s... dendrochronology, right?” Only he stumbles over the syllables, so Martin repeats the word correctly, and somehow it turns into a weird competition of who can say it five times fast. Martin wins, but all of his blood is where it should be, so he’s hardly gloating about the victory.) Finally, he moves on to trivia about specific species, like the epaulette shark, which can walk on land, or the bonnethead shark, which for some reason enjoys eating seagrass.

Martin saves the best for last. “But my favourite,” he says, fully chatty by now, “has got to be the cookie-cutter shark.”

“A great name,” Jon remarks. “Why do you like them?”

“Well, first of all, they’re tiny. They kind of look like large fishes, really. And they glow! They have the strongest known bioluminescence of any shark. They migrate every day — but not from place to place. Up and down, actually. They’re, uh.” At this point, probably extremely belatedly, Martin realises he has been going on about sharks for quite some time. His mother, for example, would have stopped him ages ago. “They’re pretty cool,” he finishes rather lamely.

Instead of berating him or yawning pointedly, Jon actually still looks interested. “You haven’t explained why they’re called cookie-cutter sharks,” he notes. There’s a gentle quality to his voice that Martin has never heard before. It makes him genuinely believe that Jon wants him to continue talking. After all, this is the man who rambled about emulsifiers during Martin’s birthday celebration, pausing only to tell him he was about to put his elbow (and thereby his jumper) in a bit of melted ice-cream on the table. It had been embarrassing for Martin, who may or may not have been fawning slightly and absently letting his vanilla-honeycomb dribble out of the cone — but perhaps Jon was actually trying to be considerate.

Still, Martin hesitates before diving into his explanation. “It’s a little gory,” he hedges.

“If we die today,” Jon deadpans, “for me, it’ll be out of curiosity.”

It takes Martin a moment to realise he’s joking. Then he laughs, startled and faintly delighted. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says. He pauses for dramatic effect. “Their signature feeding habit is to gouge round holes in their prey. Like… like a cookie cutter with dough.”

Jon groans, though not out of pain, and starts laughing. “Well, that’s certainly topical.”

“Not the best distraction, in retrospect,” Martin says apologetically.

“No, it’s alright. Touch of humour. I enjoyed it.”

More than enough time has passed by now, surely. Martin checks under the cloth again. “You’ve stopped bleeding,” he reports.

“That’s good,” Jon says softly. “Wouldn’t want the sharks to get me.”

It’s only then that Martin realises he’s entirely forgotten to fret about Jane Prentiss. For quite a while, too. Huh, he thinks, mentally replaying the way Jon had asked him for a distraction. That would help, I think.  

Help who?

[my TMA fic on AO3]

[my post-canon JonMartin + cat fluff AU]

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 26: Jon

When Jon’s grandmother passed away peacefully in her sleep, not long after his twenty-fourth birthday, he quickly discovered that her life insurance and savings weren’t enough to cover all the bills that needed to be covered and put the house he’d grown up in on the market. He only vaguely remembers the whole procedure, as he was in something of a state of shock at the time, but he does remember accepting the first offer presented to him despite the realtor’s comments that he could “probably hold out for a bit more” if he wanted. Thus, he’s the only one not really startled at the speed with which he, Martin, and Tim find out that they’ve got the house.

To be clear: He’s not startled at the speed. He is, however, startled that they got it. Surely someone must have been willing to pay more for it, been better qualified. But no. They learn their offer has been accepted less than a week after the Primes’ disastrous encounter with Basira’s partner and the closing is scheduled for the following Friday. Martin theorizes that their position at the Magnus Institute gave them some extra clout. Tim jokes that it’s his charismatic personality. Jon frets that Elias might have had something to do with it for nefarious purposes.

Sasha finally does some research and tells them that it’s being sold by a pair of siblings barely out of their teens whose parents died unexpectedly and probably just need the money fast.

Martin doesn’t have much, just the little he managed to bring with him to the Institute when first escaping Jane Prentiss and the few things he’s re-acquired since then, and Jon’s things are still packed up from when he declined to renew the lease on his flat in August, so it’s mostly just Tim who needs to decide what he’s keeping and what he’s ready to part with or needs to replace. It takes them the better part of two Saturdays, but they manage to get everything boxed and sorted in time to move out the last full weekend of September.

The moving-in process is surprisingly fun. Sasha and the Primes even come to help (Tim suggests the latter so that Martin Prime knows his way around the house from the get-go, which is actually really sensible) and they make a party of it. Tim insists on setting up the sound system first, then gets everyone to contribute a certain number of songs to a playlist on some app he has on his phone. He puts it on shuffle and lets it play while they work together on the various rooms.

“Oh, my God,” Sasha moans after the eighth song that she evidently didn’t pick comes on. “Do any of you listen to a single band that’s put out an album since 1984?”

“Yes,” Martin says indignantly, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“Remasters don’t count.”

Martin Prime grins. “None of mine have come up, either.”

“What did you put on?” Sasha asks suspiciously.

She gets her answer a few minutes later when, after shuffle coughs up a Spice Girls song they all tease her mercilessly about, an honest to God sea shanty comes on. Tim and Jon laugh at Sasha’s dramatic, despairing groan, but it’s hard not to respond to the Martins’ enthusiasm as they—surprisingly—harmonize along with the recording while they set up the living room.

They’re almost done assembling the new bed Tim bullied Jon into buying (“You’re not in uni anymore, you don’t need to be sleeping on a futon, and anyway, when was this made, the Thatcher premiership?” “Brown, and shut up, Tim.”), which is the last piece of furniture they need to put together, when there’s a sound from the front door—two firm, solid knocks, audible all the way upstairs. Jon nearly drops the screwdriver as his heart kicks against his ribs. It’s stupid, and he knows it’s stupid, but two knocks like that always makes him think of that book.

Tim makes a noise in the back of his throat. “God, hope the music isn’t too loud.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Martin says, but he sounds uncertain. “I-I mean, it’s been ages.”

Jon pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll check.”

He hurries out of the bedroom before anyone can comment on the clear break in his voice. He is, and there is no way to deny it to himself, legitimately afraid of what might be outside. The likelihood of it being a being of another entity is slim, but…well, there was Mr. Spider, and Jane Prentiss knocked on Martin’s door more than a few times to keep him off-balance, so there’s always the chance. It’s something he feels he can deal with, though, so he heads out to face it.

He does not, however, expect to open the door and be faced with what is either a small child or a casserole dish with tennis shoes.

“Hello,” a tiny voice says brightly from behind the dish. There’s a bit of shifting, and then two big brown eyes and a mass of curls appear over the rim. “I’ve brought you a cake.”

Jon will deny to his dying day that those words freeze his blood in his veins and make his heart stutter to a stop, but since this might actually be his dying day, he’ll be lying if he tries. His lips part, but no sound comes out.

“And a casserole, too,” the child continues, completely oblivious to Jon’s unwarranted panic attack. “That’s not as much fun, though, but Nan says it’s important to eat good, hearty food when you’ve been doing lots of work and that cake shouldn’t be a whole meal. I think there’s no point in being a grown-up if you can’t eat whatever you want, but…” The child heaves an enormous, dramatic sigh that seems too large for such a small body. “My Nan’s very, very old, and you don’t get to be old if you don’t do something right, so she must know what she’s talking about. Anyway, we made the casserole with lots and lots of cheese and she said that was okay, so at least it’s a little better.”

“Ah—thank you?” Jon manages. “H-here, let me…take that.”

He manages to extract the casserole dish, which certainly feels as if it’s laden with cheese; it weighs the proverbial ton. Quite possibly a literal one. It’s solid enough to anchor Jon to reality, though, and he studies his benefactor. The child can’t be more than seven or eight, at the most, with a round face and limbs hidden in an oversized, threadbare sweater that looks like it’s been handed down through more than a few generations. Dangling from one arm is a wicker basket that does indeed appear to contain a cake.

“It’s a chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting,” the child says. “I tried to write ‘Welcome to the neighborhood’ on it, but I didn’t put the tip on the piping bag right and it came off, so now it’s just a mess, but it’ll taste just as good, I promise. My Nan makes the best cakes.”

Jon smiles in spite of himself. “I don’t think I have enough hands to take it from you now. Would you mind bringing it into the kitchen for me?”

“Oh, sure!” The child practically hops over the threshold. “I always wanted to see what this house was like on the inside. Tibby used to babysit for me sometimes, but she always came over to our house, never me coming over here. Nan says it’s better that way, and Tibby always said it was laid out exactly like all the other houses, but it’s not the same as seeing it for yourself. Firsthand knowledge is best, that’s what I think. What do you think?”

“I—I think I agree with you,” Jon says. He also feels a bit like he’s staring at his younger self. “I assume you live in one of the other houses on the row?”

“Two doors down,” the child agrees cheerfully. “With the window boxes. My Nan likes to garden a bit, but she can’t bend over so much anymore, so Toby set up the window boxes for her a couple years ago.”

“And, uh, who is…Toby?”

“Oh, sorry, I thought you knew. Toby McGill. He and Tibby—that’s his sister Tabitha, but everyone calls her Tibby—they were the ones selling this house after their parents died. He’s at Surrey University now and he says he’s going to stay out there when it’s all said and done, and Tibby got a job on a boat.” The child sounds deeply impressed. “I want to be a sailor someday, too. Can you imagine getting to see the whole wide world by water and getting paid for it, too? I’d never want to leave. I told Tibby she has to save a spot on the crew for me and she laughed and promised, so I can’t wait. I’m going as soon as I grow up. I’m not going to university. You don’t need to go to university for everything, you know. I know Nan really wants me to go ‘cause Mum didn’t and neither did Dad and she doesn’t want me turning out like them, but you can turn out well even if you don’t go to university, can’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Jon says gravely. He casts an involuntary glance in the direction of the stairs, thinking of Martin. “One of my housemates didn’t go to university, and he’s one of the most brilliant people I know.”

“How many of you live here, anyway?”

“Just three of us.” Jon has no idea how much this child has seen and how many people he knows are in the house at the moment.

“Oh. There used to be three of us in my house, too.” The child scuffs a toe against the carpet just before they step into the kitchen. “And then there was going to be four, but Mum died and the baby did, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says softly, feeling a pang. “I grew up with my grandmother, too.”

The child looks up at Jon and smiles, in such a way that Jon can’t help but smile back. “And you turned out okay.”

“Debatable,” Jon says. He sets the casserole dish on the counter. “I’m Jon, by the way. Jonathan Sims.”

“I’m Charlie. Charlie Cane.” The child smiles up at him and hands over the basket. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. Tell your grandmother we said thank you. I don’t know that any of us will have the energy to cook tonight. We’ll bring back the dishes tomorrow.”

“There’s no hurry. Nan doesn’t go anywhere.” Charlie flashes Jon a grin that’s missing two teeth, then turns and waves to the doorway. Jon glances up to see Martin, looking somewhere between worried and amused. “Hi! I’m Charlie Cane. Welcome to the neighborhood. Do you live here, too?”

“Um…yes. I’m Martin Blackwood. It’s…nice to meet you?” Martin raises an eyebrow at Jon.

“Charlie and his grandmother made us a casserole,” Jon says, gesturing at the counter. “And a cake.”

“That’s very nice of you. Thank you.” Martin smiles at Charlie and winks, although Jon doesn’t quite understand why.

“Welcome.” Charlie’s beaming smile could probably light the house for a week. “I’d best go before Nan thinks I’m doing something stupid again. See you later!”

He’s out the front door before Jon can respond, or even blink. He looks back to Martin, who isn’t even trying to hide his amusement. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Jon. We were just wondering if you were okay. You were gone for a while.”

Jon gestures vaguely at the front door. “I don’t think that child has many people to talk to. Or at least not many people who will listen to him.”

Martin snorts. “I think you’ve got yourself a new best friend.”

Jon almost wants to say something flippant like Just what I need, but thinking on it, he actually doesn’t mind all that much. “Considering how much I would have given to have an adult pay that kind of attention to me when I was his age, I think I can handle that.”

Martin reaches over and pulls Jon into a hug. Jon lets himself be comforted for a moment, then extricates himself gently and smiles. “Come on. Let’s see if the others are ready to eat.”

As it turns out, the others finished putting together the bed and even made it while Jon talked to Charlie, so they’re all too happy to come into the kitchen for a hearty meal. It’s exactly as cheese-laden as Charlie promised. Jon recounts his conversation, to general amusement, although something flickers briefly across Martin Prime’s face and Jon Prime shoots Jon an understanding and slightly frightened look when he repeats Charlie’s opening words. If anyone else notices, they give no sign of it.

Tim lets the music keep playing while they eat. Jon mostly tunes it out, no pun intended, and he rather suspects the others do too. But just as they’re scraping their plates clean—the food is delicious, and Tim declares he’s going to try and charm Charlie’s grandmother out of the recipe—Martin Prime suddenly tilts his head to one side, as if trying to catch a sound. A smile twitches at his lips, and he stands up and holds out a hand to Jon Prime. “May I?”

Jon Prime looks startled for a split-second, then smiles—no, grins—and places his hand in Martin Prime’s. He lets Martin Prime pull him away from the table and into his arms, and the two of them start slow-dancing.

Jon pauses, fork suspended over his plate, and watches them. Jon Prime lets Martin Prime lead him in a simple box step, one arm draped casually over Martin Prime’s shoulder, while Martin Prime’s hand rests firmly at his waist; their other fingers are laced together in a way that would make it difficult to telegraph intended moves if they didn’t—probably—know each other so well. The space between them is so little it’s a wonder they don’t constantly trip over each other’s feet, and before long their foreheads touch. The song is gentle and plaintive, encouragement from one partner to the other to trust and relax and allow the first to take care of the second, a promise that the second person won’t be considered weak or lesser if they allow themselves to be comforted.

I promise you’ll be safe here in my arms…

Martin Prime lifts his arm and spins Jon Prime around gently, and when Jon Prime comes back into the closed frame, he leans his head against the shoulder where his hand isn’t resting and closes his eyes. Martin Prime pulls him closer and rests his cheek alongside Jon Prime’s as they continue dancing. It’s one of the most intimate and romantic things Jon has ever seen, and he almost has to look away from it.

Almost. Not quite. Something keeps him drawn, and there’s a tiny part of Jon’s brain that suggests it probably isn’t just the pleasure at seeing someone who’s basically him safe and happy and in love mixed with the vague sense of longing for something like that—maybe not that exactly, but something like it. It may also be that watching the Primes slow dancing means he doesn’t have to look at anyone else.

The song plays itself out. Martin Prime turns his head slightly; Jon Prime turns his at the same time, and their lips meet gently in the middle. This time Jon does look away. He’s never quite been able to figure out how he feels about kissing, to be honest; it’s one of the things that sent his and Georgie’s relationship down in flames, was the fact that he always acted like you think I’ve got poison in my lip gloss, according to her. But he finds himself wondering for a moment what Martin’s lips would feel like against his, if they’d be as soft and warm as the rest of him. If it might make a difference to kiss Martin instead of Georgie, or Meredith, or Kelly. And that’s not a question he’s comfortable asking himself just then, let alone trying to answer.

The scrape of a chair breaks his attention, and he looks up to see the Primes sitting down like nothing happened, although they’re still holding hands. Tim clears his throat. “Who wants cake?”

The cake is, as promised, a bit of a mess—it looks like someone tried to tease out the blob created by the icing tip popping off with a toothpick or something, but the resultant design looks like the pictures someone showed Jon once of a web woven by a spider that had been fed caffeine, and the fact that the icing is bright red doesn’t help—but it is absolutely delicious.

Afterward, Tim and Jon store the leftovers while Martin and Sasha start on the dishes. Jon Prime glances at the kitchen clock and touches Martin Prime on the shoulder. “We should probably go. The later it gets, the more likely that…someone might cruise by the Institute, and I’d rather not risk that.”

Martin Prime squeezes Jon Prime’s hand gently, and Jon swallows on the sudden surge of nausea. They haven’t seen anything of Detective Tonner, and Basira didn’t say anything about her when she showed up last week to switch out the tapes, but the memory of the Primes’ faces when they stumbled back to Tim’s place to change and return his car is a hard one to shake. Even though Jon Prime swears he and Daisy eventually became friends, it’s the eventually that sticks out, and Jon isn’t sure what he’ll do if Daisy turns up at the Institute. It’s also obvious that the Primes are more afraid of her than they’re letting on.

Tim opens his mouth, probably to invite them to spend the night or something, but Sasha beats him to it. “Can you wait a few minutes? I’d rather not walk to the tube station by myself, if it comes to that, and I think you said there’s an entrance to the tunnels near there.”

Jon Prime frowns slightly. “I…don’t think I did, but there is.”

“We’ll walk with you, Sasha,” Martin Prime assures her.

Tim sighs theatrically. “I feel a little better, which is a relative statement not to be taken as approval.”

“Your objection is duly noted.” Sasha hands Martin a plate to dry.

All too soon, everything is cleaned up, just as the playlist comes to an end, and there’s really no way of stalling them further. There’s a round of hugs and see-you-Mondays, and then Sasha and the Primes head out the door, leaving Jon, Martin, and Tim alone in their new house.

It’s not that late, comparatively, so Jon suggests a card game. They’ve played most nights since Sasha went back to sleeping in her own flat; they’ve played a couple of games of Rummy or Go Fish, and Tim once tried to teach Jon and Martin a game he learned from his grandparents that uses a forty-card deck (Martin picked it up quickly, Jon did not), but most of the time they play Crazy Eights. Tim declares that they’re going to keep playing until either he or Jon or both manage to overtake Martin’s score, which is clearly going to be an impossible task, as he’s up by nearly a thousand points and consistently wins at least three or four games a night. Still, they give it a valiant effort. After Martin manages to go out while both Tim and Jon still have an eight each in their hand, though, they decide to call it quits for one night.

“Someday I’ll figure out how you keep doing that,” Jon says, shuffling the deck lightly before putting it back in the box.

Martin shrugs. “Practice, I guess? I used to play with my granddad a lot when I was younger. We kept a running total, too, and I think I was up three thousand points or so when he died.”

Tim gives a low whistle. “How old were you?”

“Nine. We’d been playing pretty regularly since I was five. At least one game every time I went to visit.”

Jon thinks back to the conversation he and Martin had in Tim’s kitchen the morning after Prentiss’s attack. “Is this the grandfather who had the cherry trees?”

“You remembered.” Martin looks pleased. “Yeah, he was my mum’s dad. I never met my dad’s family, that I remember anyway.” He pauses. “You, uh, you told Charlie you were raised by your grandmother. Was that…?”

Jon didn’t know Martin was there, but he’s kind of glad he doesn’t have to figure out how to bring it up. “My father’s mother. She was…formidable. My father died when I was two, from an accidental fall, and my mother died a couple years later. Surgery complications.”

“I’m sorry,” Martin says softly. “That must have been hard on you.”

“Harder on my grandmother, I think. I was barely old enough to remember them.” All Jon remembers of his father is his laugh, and he’s fairly certain that most of his memories of his mother come from his aunt.

Tim leans forward, resting his arms on the table. “Is she still around? Your grandmother?”

Jon shakes his head. “She died just before I started working at the Institute. What about yours, Tim?”

“My dad’s dad is the only grandparent still around. I think.” Tim worries at his lower lip with his teeth for a moment. “I’d like to think someone would call me if something happened, but I don’t know.”

Martin hums sympathetically. “Is he…in a home?”

“Not as far as I know. Last I heard, he was still living with my parents. Moved in when Granny died, just after I left for university.” Tim sighs. “We’re not…close. After Danny…”

Jon reaches over and touches Tim’s arm gently. “It must be hard on them, losing a son. No parent expects to outlive their child.”

“That’s just it. Mum refuses to believe he’s dead.” Tim smiles weakly. “No body, you know? Dad isn’t sure, but he also thinks I know more than I’ve told them. Grandfather all but accused me of having a hand in Danny’s disappearance.”

“What?” Jon blinks, shocked. “How could anyone think you’d—you would never.”

“I know, but…well, Dad’s family was always a bit conservative, blue collar and all that, and I’m…well, me. I think that’s why Dad encouraged my hiking and camping and all that. Hoped it would knock some ‘sense’ into me,” Tim says with a wry twist of his lips. “Once I came out as bi, though, I think they decided there was no hope left for me. It just got worse after Danny died.”

Martin’s expressive face closes down, and Jon’s stomach lurches. This is the most they’ve talked about their families in…ever, he thinks, but from the little bits of information Martin—and Martin Prime, for that matter—have let slip, Jon has formed a very unfavorable impression of Martin’s mother. He’s always kind of had a hazy idea that Tim’s family situation was better, especially after he heard the pride in his voice when he talked about Danny when giving his statement, and finding out that it wasn’t much better than theirs…

“How old were you?” he asks, not sure why. “When you—told them.”

“Seventeen. There was a guy I’d been seeing—nothing serious, really, but we had fun together—and we went out for Valentine’s Day. My parents were confused because they knew my girlfriend and I had just broken up before Christmas and I hadn’t mentioned another girl, so I told them about Steve.” Tim gets quiet for a second. “Mum cried. Dad just…told me to stop upsetting my mother and never brought it up again. Not until Grandfather started in on me.”

Jon swallows. “You’ve a great deal more courage than I have. I—I never admitted to my grandmother that I ever had any interest in boys, let alone dated one.”

“Only one? You’re missing out.” Tim’s grin is a pale echo of his usual one, but it is at least genuine. “How ‘bout you, Martin?”

“A few.” Martin relaxes with a visible effort that makes Jon’s heart ache. “Been out since I was fourteen. Mum reacted…about as well as she reacted any other time I told her something she didn’t like or did something she wasn’t expecting. I never brought anyone home to meet her or…really talked to her about my dating, and she only ever brought it up in relation to herself. Like saying it was a good thing there wasn’t any risk of me passing on any of my numerous undesirable traits to a helpless child.”

“I don’t think your mum understands what ‘bisexual’ means,” Tim points out.

“Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. I’m gay.” Martin grimaces. “I’m also ace, so no risk there anyway, but…”

Jon wants to say any child would be fortunate to count you as a father or I can’t think of a single undesirable trait about you, but what actually comes out is, “Ace?”

“Uh, asexual. It’s—I don’t…get attracted like that. Romance, sure, aesthetic stuff and all that, but not…” Martin gestures vaguely. “Tried it anyway, for a couple of guys I was with, but i-it didn’t go well.”

Jon’s world view shifts abruptly on its axis. Tim, though, looks suddenly worried. “Are you okay? They didn’t—”

“No, no,” Martin says quickly. “It wasn’t—I just don’t like it. That’s all.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Never bothered telling Mum that part. She wouldn’t…I’ve done enough damage.”

Tim pulls Martin into a quick one-armed hug, and Jon reaches across the table to squeeze his hand as gently as he can, but they change the subject after that.

They end up sitting up for a while in their new living room, relaxing. Tim props his feet up in the recliner and works on a crossword; Jon curls up at one end of the sofa with a book he’s been meaning to read for years that Jon Prime assures him he’ll love; Martin sits at the other end and knits. It about bowled Jon over completely when he learned that Martin made most of the sweaters he wears, but the sight and sound of him working away has become increasingly familiar in the last few weeks, especially after the Primes and the rest of the crew collaborated to get him an array of needles and knitting wool in all colors of the rainbow for his birthday. Jon usually finds the gentle clicking of the needles soothing, but tonight it’s just a hair distracting, and he keeps glancing up from the page to watch Martin’s fingers as they expertly manipulate the yarn or Tim tap the eraser of his pencil thoughtfully against his jaw while he contemplates an answer. He’s not even quite sure what he’s looking at.

Finally, Tim lays down his puzzle with a sigh. “I think I’m gonna turn in,” he says, sounding oddly reluctant. “Long day and all that.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna—” Martin works a couple more stitches and folds up his project. “Probably a good stopping place for tonight.”

Jon considers saying he’s going to stay in the living room and finish the chapter he’s on, but if he’s being completely honest, he’s been on the same page for however long it’s been and hasn’t taken in a single word. Silently, he slides the scrap of paper he’s currently using as a bookmark back between the pages and closes the book. “Well. Good night, then.”

“’Night, Jon.”

The bedrooms are all upstairs, two on one side and one on the other with the bathroom handy, and the three of them wish each other goodnight again before disappearing into their rooms. Jon closes the door and looks around the room, his room.

There’s not much to it, to be honest. A nightstand, a dresser, a battered desk he’s had since he was a child, a lamp and the bed. He sets the book on top of the desk and changes into his comfortable sleep clothes, then crawls into the bed and pulls the covers up over his shoulders.

It’s…odd. No, not odd. Jon can’t quite think of the right word for it. But the sheets feel unfamiliar against his skin, and they don’t smell right, either, probably because they’re new. The mattress that felt perfectly comfortable when he tested it out in the store doesn’t seem to afford the same comfort now, and he wonders if the floor model has simply had much of the stiffness tested out of it over time. Even the pillows, which he did retain from his old bedroom setup, seem determined to thwart his attempts to find a comfortable position.

He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, arm draped over his midsection. He won’t fall asleep like this, he’s always been a side-sleeper, but his mind is a seething roil of emotions and he needs to get his thoughts under control before he can even have a hope of getting comfortable enough to sleep, he guesses.

Asexual. Jon probes at the word, at what it describes. I don’t get attracted like that. I just don’t like it. Honestly, until meeting Georgie, Jon had no idea that sort of attraction really existed; he thought it was just something out of the lurid romance novels his grandmother favored and he’d read once or twice in sheer desperation. It was something she’d wanted, though, so he’d tried a few times, but his efforts hadn’t satisfied her and he never really saw what all the fuss was about. He can take it or leave it, preferably the latter.

He never knew there was a word for it.

Suddenly, he wants to talk to Martin about it, about how he realized, how he knew. Where he found the word. If there are many more like—well, like them, he supposes. If that’s one of the reasons he was reluctant to tell Jon how he felt. He wants to ask about Martin’s experiences, if they were bad just because his body didn’t want them or for some other reason. A part of him also wants to cry from sheer relief. He isn’t broken. There’s nothing wrong with him. Well, not in that respect, anyway.

He sighs heavily and rolls onto his side again, plumping the pillows and curling one arm around them. They’re too flat, he thinks idly, too soft and yielding. Which is odd, because that’s never bothered him before. He can’t seem to get warm, either, which is also bizarre because it’s been an unusually mild day for late September and he’s under the duvet he’s had for years, which suddenly seems too light and insubstantial. The room is too quiet and still. It all feels…wrong, somehow.

Jon closes his eyes and stubbornly tries to force sleep, to no avail. The sense of wrongness pervades his being, curling through him and keeping him tethered to consciousness. He runs through the list of problems he seems to be having and tries to come up with which one might be keeping him awake. The only thing he can think of is the unfamiliar mattress. Everything else is exactly the way it was in his old flat.

And when was the last time you slept there? The thought hits him all of a sudden, and his eyes snap open. He forgot. The last time he slept in his apartment was the night before Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute. Ever since then, he’s been sleeping in Tim’s living room…or in Tim’s bed. With the others.

That’s all it is. He isn’t used to the silence of being alone. He’s not used to not knowing, right away, exactly where Tim and Martin are and if they’re safe. He’ll just go and check on them, see that they’re safe, and he’ll be able to get to sleep just fine.

He throws back the covers, slides his glasses back on, and heads into the hallway. Jon somehow ended up in the room by the bathroom, while Tim and Martin are on the other side of the hallway. Martin’s room is first, though, so Jon heads there. He’s as careful as he can be. Martin is probably asleep by now. He definitely seemed tired while they were still in the living room, and Jon wonders if he lingered because the other two were still sitting down there. It makes him feel slightly guilty, like he should have called it a night earlier so Martin can get some sleep. And after all, they did have a very emotionally draining conversation, which probably exhausted him as well. All that runs through Jon’s mind as he slowly, slowly eases the door open and peers around it to see into Martin’s room.

It’s sparsely furnished; nothing but a bed and one of those flimsy pop-up cloth jobs bisected into cubes, which is serving as his dresser. Martin’s laptop and phone sit on the floor, both connected to their chargers. The bed is mussed slightly and shows signs of having been occupied, but Jon’s heart rate accelerates when he looks at it. It’s empty.

There’s no sign of a struggle, he tells himself, and he heard nothing, so surely everything is fine. Martin’s probably just in the bathroom, or downstairs getting a glass of water or something. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Jon will just…go check on Tim and Tim will be fine and then he’ll go find Martin and make sure he’s fine and it…will…be…fine. He pulls the door closed and turns to Tim’s room.

The door is slightly ajar, and there’s a faint glow coming from the room. Jon hesitates, then taps lightly on the door three times before easing it open. Tim is sitting up on the bed, cross-legged and leaning forward slightly. And—Jon’s shoulders slump in relief—Martin is there, too, on the edge of the bed, one leg hanging off the side and the other tucked underneath him. They’re talking quietly, but both obviously exhausted. They look up at the sound of the door opening and watch Jon stand in the doorway. He opens his mouth, then realizes he doesn’t know what to say and closes it again.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Martin asks gently. The circles under his eyes are almost black.

“No,” Jon admits. “I—I just wanted to—” He breaks off, still not sure what to say.

Wordlessly, Tim holds out a hand. Jon lets the bedroom door shut behind him as he comes forward and takes it. Martin wraps an arm around him from behind, and the two of them pull Jon onto the bed and into a lying-down position. Tim rolls over and snaps off the lamp by his bed, then pulls the covers up over all three of them. Jon manages to reach down and snag the middle to help.

“Better,” Tim murmurs.

It’s not a question, but Jon hums in agreement anyway. Trying for levity, he says, “Shame to waste money on new beds, though.”

“We’ll be able to sleep there eventually,” Martin says. Jon only realizes how much stress was in his voice when it’s drastically lessened. “At some point we’ll probably want the space. But for now, there’s this.”

“For now, there’s this,” Jon agrees. He tilts his head back briefly to rest it against Martin’s shoulder, and Martin scoots in closer.

Tim does, too, the two of them sandwiching Jon securely between them. “Get some sleep,” he says. “It’ll be all right tomorrow.”

Jon yawns and closes his eyes, and it doesn’t really surprise him when he falls asleep straightaway. The nightmares are as present as ever, but in the morning, he can almost fool himself into believing they weren’t so bad.

Almost.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Tma relisten Episodes 6-10

(Still really long)

Alot of really important details that are going to be very relevant later on. Very facinating how early on you find these out. Relistens are good.

Episode 6 squirm

It's a good thing tma doesn't do much of sexual encounters and their connection to entities. While I'm sure that's a thing that in any realistic universe would exist avoiding it was a good choice. This statement was *shudder*

Interesting that she had no visible mark on her. Also being repulsed by police stations because the sectioned officers could have helped.

Naked in the streets after lighting his apartment on fire. What an image.

So technically the worms were in the archives 3 times: when Jane made her first statement, when Timothy hodge made his and when Jane attacked. The worms are very familiar with the magnus institute.

"This story is concerning. Not because of Mr. Hodge’s experience, although I’m sure it was very upsetting." ace Jon talking very technical about "experiences"

" though obviously it’s a tragic loss of life, etcetera, etcetera." Jon being Jon.

Ecdc are aware of Jane and corruption typical attacks which is off the bat interesting world building.

He's skeptic here because of lack of evidence but does admit the existence of a threat in Jane Prentiss

Also! He knows of her from before probably when he was a researcher. This confused me on first listen because I was trying to remember if she was ever mentioned before this. But she wasn't.

Episode 7 the piper

Wilfred kind of sounds like martin in some way but maybe it's just me assigning poetry to anyone like him.

But he hated apathy which might be very Martin like

Gentle sadness and creeping fear from the music. For violence of war... Is that what it means to immortalize it?

It's really cool that the concept of music in this podcast is associated specifically with war and unwarranted violence. There's a very strong statement in there somewhere that needs to be explored.

God this statement was intense. Lying for such a long time in that trench surrounded by violent death. But what's most interesting is that this statement doesn't feel like a supernatural one and yet... The piper was with Wilfred throughout the various battles and bouts of violence until the moment it was officially over. But in a very subtle way.

The description of the piper is really intense with the 3 faces. I think I missed it the first time but hearing that representation of war and fear is something I'm going to look for in artistic depictions now.

Wait. Who is Joseph Rayner? I know of Maxwell but never heard of Joseph.a victim instead of Wilfred? Collaborator with the Slaughter? Hmmm

I wonder how Accidental it was that the statement from 1922 was filed in the 2000s. Maybe to show that the piper never really leaves and the war never really ends. Ever.

Episode 8 burned out

Wow Hilltop Road already! I forgot how many of the first episodes were so important to the plot later on.

"That side of the road backed onto South Park with fences marking the bottom of each garden." this is wrong btw. Hilltop Road in Oxford does not run along Sount Park but is perpendicular to it, meeting it in the corner with Divinity Road which meets with Morrell Avenue which is the road running along South Park. Just FYI because I had to look this up to get a good picture. But I guess Morrell doesn't sound as exciting as Hilltop (which isn't even at the top of the hill smh)

Ivo lensik describes Raymond fielding as white which makes me automatically think he is not. Just a thought that popped in my mind.

Huh. His family had a history of schizophrenia. And his dad was obsessed with fractals. Being followed by The spiral (all the bones are in his hands) was also part of this story really interesting.

Agnes had mousy brown hair and looked like Raymond! Not red hair ( at least at first) like I pictured. Also she was a hell of a creepy child...

So did he time travel? Seeing the moments of Raymond's end? Seems like time doesn't work right in that place anyway.

Web person being devout church goer is also an interesting touch

Father Edwin Burroughs! I forgot he was here too! The knock reminded me of Mr Spider *shiver*

The priest explaining that the church exorcized demons but what not decisive if ghosts exist was hilarious. Jon dismisses paranormal but asks Martin if he's a ghost is opposite of the church.

Hmmm the web pushing him to cut the tree to uncover box from antique table...

Apple full of spiders ugh. Maybe something web was trapped in there by Desolation and ivo managed free it as Agnes was dying.

"We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree." wow that's an obscure thing to find well done Martin!

Jon still looks for credence for this story despite the schizophrenia that could leave him skeptical.

"while I trust Mr. Lensik’s testimony of his own experiences about as far as I can throw a bleeding tree," again Jon with his special brand of jokes.

Episode 9 a Father's love

The Montauk's story! I always thought their family had one of the most tragic ones. The hunt is a really cruel patron with its forced hunger and having other entities use them as tools.

Julia telling the truth of the story to the Magnus Institute instead of the police is also heartbreaking. How desperate and alone she must have felt drowned in that awful literally unbelievable story. The magnus institute feeds off of those people too.

So many of the hunt end up in police it's just... Such a strong statement against that establishment. What do we do to make that less of a horrible, unjust, all consuming system? That feeds on the hunger of some and the abject fear of others? And it doesn't have to be supernatural. It's interesting how season five, of all seasons, is the one that gave us that perspective. The non supernatural one on the subject while the world itself is so far away from the natural. God everything about this idea is so heavy and painful.

I kind of hate Julia's fate because of her background and how much alot of its beginning was out of her control. It's like Daisy. The hunt can never be forgiven no matter how compulsive it is.

The dark that took her mother turned her into part of it? Like the dark liquid?

A dark room to develop his photos of his victims huh? A play on words here.

Oooh they put a heartbeats in the soundscape really cool actually.

So Montauk killed other dark members that tried to leave? For the ritual? Like Julia's mother?

The hunt compelled him to keep the hearts as trophies? which is very self destructive of the hunt to do. Or is it part of the dark ritual with the sacrifices that the heart had to be kept?

I think Montauk was trying to slow down the ritual as revenge that night, rendering the sacrifices he helped create useless. Which is why pitch came after them that night and dissappeared once Montauk finished his ritual.

Sourcing the Serial killer enthusiast community. Love that the archives use whatever source of info they can access.

So Maxwell dissappeared in 1994 from public eye land yet the cult kept working towards a ritual. But now in secret? Their timeline always confused me.

Episode 10 vampire killer

I never noticed Trevor came right after Julia! Oooh this is so much connecting the dots so early on!

Vampires are so disturbing here makes you ever wonder how the hell media like twilight were ever created. But hehe the monster ****er community has always been a vibrant one. Not these vampires tho.

Trevor is so sassy I love his statements. Like Julia it really makes me sad how consumed he became at the end and how awful his death was. Once again the tragedy of the Hunt.

"I taught myself to read, I read as much on the subject as I could, and it isn’t covered often or clearly in those books I have found." can you imagine what kinds of books he might have found during the sexy vampire Era? This is a hilarious picture to paint.

So vampires feed off of blood and not fear which is an interesting creature to have in this kind of universe. Although hunters are also like that but there is still alot of fear and awareness involved with that while the vampires try to conceal themselves until the last moment.

There's alot of mosquito imagery in these vampires which is... Ugh

Also interesting how many time Trevor just uses the vampire's full name. Never shortened and never talked about in another title. Sylvia McDonald this Sylvia McDonald that. Also the other vampire. They always had a name that was psychicly imposed on the victims to be remembered fully. Very Stranger behavior.

Ahhhh the one vampire weakness... Drrrugs.

It's also very flammable which sets interesting precedence to setting unnatural things on fire to make them disappear.

Alard dupont comes in a later statement right? Yeah in 56

Martin was there when the statement was given which was 2010 and in 2016 he's 29 so he worked there for a while! At least since age 23 perhaps we'll find out even earlier. And he was still scared to be found under qualified after all this time! Oof...

I wonder how draining it is to give a statement that it kills someone who is sick.

The government is in on this! Looking for the teeth Trevor gave the institute... Somehow that strikes me as hilarious in the world building of this podcast. And it really leaves Jon no choice but to concede that there is something to the statement even if he refuses to use the term vampire like Trevor did so freely.