#s5 jon too eyes to give a fuck

[identityarchitect]

If you got stuck in a lift with any tma character, who would you want it to be?

jon or elias no question

[littleladymab]

Fic Authors Self-Rec!

Ahhhh thank you @fourteenfifteen for the tag! (You can find Hen's post over here!)

Rules: When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let's spread the self-love

Also I'm totally going to CHEAT, because I absolutely LOVE my two big series that are NOT popular at all LMAO

the scars that we're made of series! This is my "Star Wars Rebels S5" fic. This is my "did you hate the ahsoka show for yes girl giving us nothing??" this is my "do you also want to know what happens after rebels but don't want it to be EXCLUSIVELY thranto?" THIS IS MY FAVORITE SERIES I'VE WRITTEN like the whole thing top to bottom bangers imo It's not yet finished, I still have to write my Eli prequel but honestly, if you love Rebels, read this! Here's the tumblr post for main fic, far from the world that i made.

inside every open eye series! This is a fantasy Magnus Archives fic, in which Sasha steps in to take over the role of the Archivist after Jon goes missing during a ritual for the Beholding. I love a lot of the visuals from this, and I loved writing for Sasha -- plus there's a lot of fun side-stories. This one is complete! Here's tumblr post for the main fic, tiny cracks of light.

my place to land. What is UP SIGNET/ECHO NATION, ALL FIVE OF YOU! I wrote a novel for my rare pair because i am actually three bodyguard AUs in a trench coat captaining the good ship I made up. Twilight Mirage is still my favorite fatt season, because it is exactly my aesthetic and also, Signet is there. This is still one of my favorite fics, even though I can think of many things that i would change upon a rewrite. I got a lot of amazing gift art from friends when I was updating it, too, and I treasure everyone who came to read it!! It is currently still the longest fic in the fatt tag, but not for long it does look like there is someone rapidly catching up with 74k on a 6/14 chapter fic. It was fun while it lasted! Unfortunately, twitter moments went kaput so I will have to figure out some other way to put all the wonderful fanart everyone made for me!

'til my lungs burn bright. Affectionately called my "regency magic spies AU" for Ace Attorney, specifically this is for AA4/Klapollo!! This is a sequel to a fic I haven't finished yet! (Someone encourage me to finish the main fic! it's what i'm supposed to be working on this month!!) I love this setting SO much and I loved making all the little references to in-game moments. Here's the tumblr link to the fic ;) I had a hard time picking between this and my sleeping beauty klapollo au.... Also shout-outs to Joanie for doing the WONDERFUL art for it!!! (I should actually go put it in-line with the fic text too oops)

Theseus' Ship. The Anders Defender has LOGGED THE FUCK ON. That's it that's the post. No okay, it's an Anders character study and i think it absolutely slaps. Here's the tumblr link to the fic!

Bonus very short fic that I still enjoy, which you can also read even if you're not in the fandom, but Five Steps To Ensure Your Soulmate Becomes a Ghost from Rusty Quill Gaming.

Honestly I love everything I write because I am an audience of me first. The current version of my masterpost has links out to a lot of my fics from different fandoms -- like some of my other friends at the table content and my jgm labyrinth au and my lockwood fic! That's my best piece of advice: love what you write, and write for yourself first! And then the two little freaks in your group chat second 💞 I wouldn't have been able to do most of these fics without the besties, so thank you to everyone who has read my novel-length fics.

Tags: Scrambling to think of any of my fic writing friends let's goooo @luukeskywalker, @mariusperkins, @lesbianahsokatano, @redtailedhawk90, @bardicspiration, @krisseycrystal , @strangeharpy and there's so many of you i love you all, please go flaunt your writing and talk about your five favorite fics!! and tag me!!

[alittlecrumbplz]

mag 177. the previous episodes had the sounds of the suffering in the distance. But here, it’s up close and uncomfortably personal. We hear the rattle of the pills and the patient thumping against his restraints. This is individual, particularized suffering. For a few minutes I thought that Jon was the one actually harming the patient. He assumed the role of Dr. David too well. At what point does Jon “losing himself” to the statements mean that Jon might actually become the role? After all, all these fears now work under the purview of the Eye’s power. IIRC, the previous statements of S5 have been in an observational narrator's pov, while here, it’s first person. Jon is Dr. David. Jon is causing the fear. It’s the difference between, “behind him, he saw the...” and “Hmm, I see. Violence then, is it?”

At no point in 177 does he distinguish himself from Dr. David in any way. No 3rd person pronouns. No descriptions of the room. Nothing but pure dialogue that an actual person would say.

We’ve seen him struggle with not taking victims in S4, but with his nihilism? the apocalypse? What is he supposed to do? Martin tells him at one moment to be a murder-hobo exacting revenge and in the next moment telling him to save humanity. Jon needs to know if Martin is in danger, but he can’t invade his privacy. The lines are blurred and so are the lines between statement and archivist. He is melding into the “Archive” itself, which is exactly what Elias wants.

I feel like this season is beautifully executing the feeling of being adrift. Each previous season focused on Jon having a set goal, or at least feeling like he did. S1 was to organize the archives. S2, who murdered Gertrude. S3 the unknowing. S4 maintaining his humanity. 

The goal of S5 is obviously undo the apocalypse, but how. Jon is literally a quasi-omniscient being, and he knows that he might not be able to. At this point, all we know is that we’re heading to the panopticon like it’s fucking wizard of oz. 

this season really hits different lol. I had midterms to study for, so after 160, I forced myself to wait for 2 weeks before continuing. I gorged myself on statements the weekend after the last exam. But now, I feel myself hesitating. I know I’m nearing the end, and I don’t want these characters to go. In an old draft, I talked about how I usually don’t care for horror because it’s focus on “scary stuff” normally comes at the expense of any meaningful characters. The characters of horror movies are mere plates for creators to serve horror on. But Jonny Sims. sheesshh. The arcs, the faults, the growth, and no wimping out by giving us finality of death! These characters are real; they’re smart, dumb, selfish, and humanly heroic. 

[tma-ficrec]

Five All Time Mod Recs

To start off this blog, we decided to submit ourselves to the mortifying ordeal of being known and show y’all our TMA top fic recs!

These are fics of very different premises and categories that stayed with us and soothed our souls. Feel free to ask for more recs (or more specific stuff) because we’re definitely not done. Enjoy!

Mod Ami:

Statement Ends  by @martivist 4k words. Jonmartin. Angst. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. S5 AU.

"Final statement of Jonathan Sims. The Archivist. Statement given… I think it’s June? We haven’t done very well counting time since the days stopped. Summer 2019, call it that. Statement begins.

We’ve found a way to send them back where they came from. All of them."

Forty-some years after the apocalypse abruptly ends, the final acts of Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood come to light.

Mod note: This fic... goddamit this fic. I read it halfway through s5 and I genuinely think this is one of the best endings the show could have had. It hit all the points Jonny made and then some. This fic is pain, yes, but the best kind.

Ninety Feet To Home by @judesstfrancis 33k words. Jonmartin. No Powers AU. Baseball Players AU. Fluff. Pining.

Jon isn’t really Martin Blackwood’s biggest fan. And he knows it’s a him problem, because it’s not like Blackwood is a terrible person or like he loses on purposes just to ruin Jon’s life, but he can’t help it. In his defense, if you were on a hot streak and the same person kept coming in and ruining it for you every single time, you'd harbor a bit of resentment towards them, too.

Mod note: I’m so obsessed with this AU that I broke my vow of not making fanart for TMA and made fanart of it. Yeah. Sue me. It’s the perfect levels of pining, ridiculousness and it brought me (an argentinian whose only baseball reference is the HSM musical number) tremendous joy. As the us-statians would say: home fucking run. ALSO, MARTIN BLACKWOOD IS LATINOOOOO.

Maybe not the stuff of legend by imperfectcircle. 14k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. S5 AU. Ending Speculation. Lore speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending.

Martin forgets slowly at first, and then all at once. One moment he's grasping at memories, desperate without knowing why to retain even a single image of an angry, scarred stranger saying incomprehensible things about eyes, and the next, nothing. He can't even remember what had him so anxious just now. A car alarm, probably, or a dog barking in the distance. He's always startled easily.

Mod note: I still quote it to myself from time to time. ‘’Martin, you ate the megalodon’’ makes me giggle and also terribly sad. This is an excellent way of exploring entities lore, as well as grief and hope. 

the garden of forking paths by @bibliocratic. 49k words. Jonmartin. Post-canon AU. Ending Speculation. Angst with a Happy Ending. Use of Spiral Doors.

Whatever he had predicted might happen, Jon wasn't expecting to survive upon demolishing the Panopticon. He certainly wasn't expecting to be rescued.

Instead, he wakes up in an alternative universe where he's never been the Archivist, and Martin Blackwood doesn't exist.

Martin Blackwood wakes up somewhere else entirely.

Mod note: I’m argentinian and the major element in this story is a Borgues book. OF COURSE IT’S HERE. This fic is an absolute ride and so so so beautiful - multiple universes and Jon and Martin doing the same thing over and over and over again, with hope of finding each other.

Family, Found  by Dribbledscribbles. Gen fic. 9k words. S4 Divergent. Canon Divergence. 

It’s Basira who catches onto it.

The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.

The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.

Mod note: Do you want to hit the Eye? Do you want all the Entities’s plans to be twarted by the power of found family? Do you want everyone who blamed Jon for everything in S4 to sit down and apologise? This is your fic.

Mod Ebby:

the apple of the eye by  gocrazygostupid. 2.8k words. Fluff. Lore speculation.

TELL ME, ARCHIVIST

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG?

i'm not sure. i don't really get the chance to listen to music

if i told you, what would you do with it?

Mod note: I am absolutely weak towards any fic that gives the Entities some form of sentience, no matter what canon said. Especially when these interactions are so surprisingly soft. 

I WOULD PLAY IT

I WOULD LISTEN

in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by  imperfectcircle and raven (singlecrow). 19k words. S4 Divergent. Canon divergence, in the space between 159-160

Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.

or; hope is a thing with feathers.

Mod note: Everytime I read this fic, I end up at least a little teary eyed. It’s not exactly happy, more bittersweet, considering, but I still love it.

Come Love This World (Come Hate It, Too) by cedarbranch. 3.3k words. Character Study, fluff and angst, spans s1-5. Canon Compliant. 

Jon never liked poetry, until Martin.

Mod note: Yes I am picking fics that personally came for my heart one way or another, not much else to say, besides that “it feels like loving you” haunts me still to this day, in a good way.

i love you, i'm glad i exist by kissyourlocalmoth. 1.7k words. Scottish safehouse period. Fluff.  Established relationship.

Martin was thinking of a poem. It’s name sat on the tip of his tongue, aching to get out. It was a lovely one, too: something about how life felt easy now, at peace; how the small things felt like everything, a poem about… the importance of the little moments. These last few days had been like that, he thought. He couldn’t stop smiling to himself recently, and even Jon teased him about it sometimes, though he was hardly less giddy. He thought of the immense joy the little things brought him now, the mugs of tea they made for each other, how he would lay in their bed late at night staring at the ceiling, his love nestled against his chest, overflowing with so much contentment and fondness he did not know what to make of himself.

Mod note: Short and sweet, it was the first time I read that particular poem, and now it’s forever intertwined in my head with little scenes of jon and martin in the scottish safehouse before 160 happens.

exit wound by autoclaves. 3.1k words. Post-canon AU. Ending speculation.

Suppose there is a house on a hilltop. Suppose there is a story. There is always a story, and every universe is always expanding.

Mod note: I would’ve liked to tag this more, but it would probably spoil the twist it has. Reading back on it, the narration reminds me of the statement from 196, which I find fitting and a funny coincidence, considering. 

[voiceless-terror]

Hi ily and I love bothering people with prompts, so I'm requesting "a character who’s so exhausted his hands are trembling, his eyes are dull/unfocused, he’s starting to hallucinate… and his team needs him to stay awake" with Jon and literally anyone at any time (except s5 because it's too emotionally taxing for me to keep up with oop-)

Hello there, Shannon! Here you go! This takes place in Season Two, when all is not great with the Archives team. Hope you like! <3

“And you’re sure this requires all four of us?”

“Yes, Jon,” Elias sighed, his annoyance clear even through the phone. “Believe it or not, I am trying to help you. You’ve managed to alienate almost all of your staff, so perhaps this will do you some good. You seem to enjoy ‘following-up’ these days, unlike in your first months in the position.”

That stung a bit.

It wasn’t his fault someone had died in the Archives, and that someone happened to be his predecessor. It was a natural reaction to feel some paranoia, though he will admit he might have gone a little...overboard, in some of his investigations. Tim certainly thought so. Sasha was her usual cool, aloof self avoiding him as much as possible. Martin was the only one that treated him the same, probably better than he deserved after accusing the man of being a possible murderer. He dragged him out to lunches and hovered in the evenings when Jon stayed late. He was the one who accompanied him to the clinic after his incident with Michael. Jon couldn’t help the ache that went through his chest when he saw Martin still in the lobby, waiting to take him home and fussing over his bandages. 

Walking him to his door.

And now Elias, of all people, was deciding to be more ‘hands-on’ after the intervention. The intervention where even Martin held him at arm's length, though he was still the friendliest face in the room. If this meant keeping his job, he would do it. 

Though he wasn’t so sure he even liked his job anymore. But Jon kept pushing forward. He needed answers. 

Telling his assistants was another story. 

He stood in front of them, knowing he looked a mess. He’d seen himself in the mirror this morning after another failed attempt at rest. His hair was a mess, the dark circles under his eyes were turning a lurid purple. He looked waxy and gaunt and nothing he could do now would fix it. So he kept drinking his tepid black coffee and cheap energy drinks; frankly, they were the only thing keeping him going.

Nevertheless, he didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“Seriously, Jon?” Tim wasn’t fond of using ‘boss’ anymore, not unless he was feeling particularly vicious. “It would be fine with two of us. Me and Martin can go and take shifts. You look like the living dead.”

“Tim,” Martin admonished, shooting him a look. “He’s right, though. You don’t look well, and I don’t think an all-night stake out is what you need right now. I mean, why are we even following up on this? It’s just some ‘vampire’ sighting that’s not going to pan out. Don’t we have more important things to be focusing on?”

“Elias insisted,” Jon tried for apologetic but must have missed the mark, judging by Tim’s narrowing eyes. “I’m- I wouldn’t make you do this, but I’m afraid-”

“Why does Elias even care about this?” Tim interrupted, slamming his drawer shut dramatically. The sound made Jon flinch- that wasn’t hard to do these days. “Did you even try to get out of it?”

“Of course I did,” Jon bristled. “I know- I know the last thing anyone wants to do is spend time with me. This wasn’t my idea-”

“That’s a bit hard to believe, Jon,” Sasha’s voice was mocking, though it remained light and easy. Sasha was always ready with a barb or a joke, mostly at Jon’s expense. “I’d think you’d enjoy this sort of thing- stalking, investigating. Or is that just with your co-workers?”

Tim snickered. Even Martin had a bit of a smile on his face, though he tried to hide it. Jon felt his face flush red. 

“That’s not,” Jon began a defense but quickly backtracked, knowing it would be futile. “Elias wanted us to go tomorrow night. It’s about thirty minutes away, so if you don’t mind driving, Tim-”

“Anything for you, boss,” Tim muttered. “If you could try sleeping before then, that would be great. I filled my quota on catching you collapsing on the job.” The words were unnecessarily sharp and hurt Jon more than he cared to admit. He remembered a time when Tim was always around to lend him a hand, conscientious and kind. But he’d gone and ruined that now, hadn't he?

“I’ll be fine,” Jon straightened his back, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. Tim snorted and turned back to his desk, Sasha did the same. Martin just stood there, giving Jon an appraising eye. It made him feel like he failed an exam or came up short on an examination.

This should be fun.

_______

Sleep eluded him for all but an hour that night. The face that greeted him in the morning looked even more horrific than the day before; Tim wasn’t far off in his assessment. He said as much as Jon entered the office.

“Christ, this is going to be fun,” Tim rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair as Jon hunched in on himself, defensively clutching his extra-large coffee.

“I did sleep,” he bit out, avoiding the man’s eyes. It was true.

“Sure. Just try taking a fucking nap this afternoon, okay?” The words sounded almost concerned, but Jon knew better. “I’m not listening to you snore in the backseat all night.”

“I’ll try,” Jon grumbled as he exited the room. A sudden sting hit his hand and he hissed; coffee had spilled from the lid of his to-go cup and was now running a scalding stream down his arm. His hand was shaking, a steady and insistent tremor that refused to calm despite his best efforts. 

I’ll sleep this afternoon, he promised himself. Something’s gotta give eventually, right?

_______

Jon was wrong. Just my luck.

After two fruitless hours of tossing and turning, he finally gave up, leaving the office to grab a couple of energy drinks that he could hide in his bag. And now he was loaded in the backseat of Tim’s car, his heartbeat erratic and his chest tight. Martin had provided them all with coffee, though he handed Jon his with some reluctance.

“Are you sure you’re okay-”

“For the last time, yes, Martin!” The words came out harsher than he intended and Martin flinched back, avoiding Jon’s eyes as he got into the passenger seat beside Tim. “Don’t yell, Jon,” Tim commanded as he started the car. “God, you always were a right bastard when you’re sleep-deprived.”

“M’ sorry, Martin,” he mumbled to the ground. It was easier to focus on something stationary- whenever he looked out the window, his vision blurred and nausea churned in his stomach. And that’s why you don’t have energy drinks on an empty stomach. Stupid, stupid.

“It’s fine, Jon.” It didn’t feel fine.

By the time they arrived at the park where the supposed sightings took place, it was already dark. Tim had the radio playing softly in the background as he and Martin murmured in the front seats, a low sound Jon couldn’t hear. He wondered if they were talking about him.

Not everything’s about you. He shivered in his seat, drawing his coat tighter around his body. Sasha shot him a glance; she always had the hint of a smile on her lips, cold and calculating. As if Jon’s situation was amusing to her. Maybe it is.

He wished Martin was back here with him. Martin was warm, solid, and steady; Jon craved that, embarrassing as it was. But Martin likely didn’t want to be around him; unsurprising, with how Jon’s behaved.

The steady drone of sound was pleasant, a nice background hum that relaxed him incrementally. The occasional heart palpitations were starting to slow, and Jon felt himself relaxing for the first time in days. It was a sweet, blissful relief- surely a small nap wouldn’t be terrible, just enough to keep him going through the night-

A sharp jab in his side jolted him awake. He shot up with a yelp to find Sasha smirking, her face unreadable. “Don’t sleep on the job, boss.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispered, rubbing at his eyes and wishing for just a short reprieve. But the blurriness was worse now and his heart was back to its erratic rhythm- Sasha’s rude awakening had done its job.

“Maybe try looking out the window,” Tim suggested sarcastically. “We are here to do a job, you know. Not so you can zone out and sleep.”

“R-Right.” Jon didn’t mention that nobody else seemed to be doing the same. Still, he focused on the dim light emanating from the one streetlamp in the park. It was just an empty field at the edge of the woods. It would be hard to miss anything.

This went on for an hour, Sasha continually nudging him awake whenever he started to drift off. She was probably doing him a favor- who knows what horrors lurked in his nightmares, and the last thing he needed was to wake up screaming like a lunatic. He imagined word getting round to Elias that he was falling apart, even more unstable than previously thought. 

And then something moved out of the corner of his eye- a small, dark shadow was standing in the middle of the park, barely visible by the light of the streetlamp. Jon let out a choked gasp as he leaned forward, hitting the back of Tim’s seat.

“L-Look!” he whispered urgently, pointing ahead. “Someone- someone’s there?”

“Where, Jon?” Sasha’s voice beside him was amused, playful. “I don’t see a thing.”

“Right there!” He insisted, and as if on cue the figure began moving forward, edging closer to the light. “It’s moving!” 

“Jon,” Tim started, looking back at him with an inquisitive gaze. His voice was slow and measured. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing there.”

“There is!” He was aware he was begging now, a pathetic plea to just look, it’s right there, can’t you see?

Martin reached a hand to his shoulder, all concern and worry. “Jon, I promise you there’s-”

And that’s when the figure revealed itself, standing clear under the light. It was a woman, tall and sad. Her long hair was pulled back from her face with a headband, and she had round glasses and looked so, so familiar-

Sasha, his mind supplied. That’s not right. Sasha’s right beside him.

Sasha. It was insistent this time. Jon put a shaking hand to the door handle and wrenched it open, practically falling out of the car as the others protested behind him. But he paid them no mind and stumbled forward on weak legs. There were footsteps behind him but it didn’t matter because Sasha’s there Sasha’s there-

And then she was gone.

The park was silent and still, almost serene. And Jon stood under the lamp, his chest heaving and his heart racing until he collapsed in the soft, dewy grass. Sasha was in the car. Sasha wasn’t here. But it doesn’t make sense. He gagged, hands and knees digging into the earth as nothing came up but a small amount of bile and coffee. A hand went to his shoulder but he wrenched it off, a frustrated moan bubbling out of his throat as his eyes filled with tears.

“Sasha was here,” he wailed, no longer caring if he made a scene. “Sasha was here!”

“Jon? Oh fuck, oh God what do we do, something’s wrong-”

“Just pick him up, Martin, get him back in the car!”

Jon was hauled to his feet but his legs were shaky and useless; Martin cursed and scooped him up instead, unbearably gentle. He tugged at Martin’s shirt, desperate for someone to listen. “Sasha,” he hiccupped but Martin just hushed him, squeezing him tighter to his chest. 

“Sasha’s in the car, Jon,” He whispered soothingly as Tim opened the car door. “See? Right there!” Sasha, with her wrong smile and her wrong face and her cold, cold hands-

Jon let out a shriek, thrashing and kicking as Martin tried to place him in the backseat by that thing. “No no no,” he cried and tugged at Martin’s jumper. “I don’t want to I don’t want to-”

“Get in the front, Sash,” Tim commanded, something unreadable in his eyes. “He’s not going to stop freaking out until you do. Martin can sit in the back.”

“So fussy,” she said mildly as she opened the door and did as Tim said. “Is he going to be okay?”

Jon could barely follow the conversation as Martin awkwardly crawled into the backseat and tried to maneuver him into his seatbelt. But Jon couldn’t let go because Martin was real and there and the only thing holding him together at the moment. 

“Just drive,” Martin’s voice was hard and unlike him, but he squeezed Jon tighter to his chest and that was all he needed to finally give into the darkness at the edge of his vision.

_____

When he next woke he was tucked into a bed- his own, strangely. Light filtered gently into the room and Jon felt like he’d been run over by a truck several times over; every part of him aching and groaning as he attempted to sit up. 

“Jon?”

Martin stood in the doorway, the picture of anxiety and worry. “God, I thought you’d never wake!” He hurried over to the side of the bed and placed a hand to his forehead that Jon leaned into. “You don’t feel warm. You’ve been asleep for almost sixteen hours. Are you okay?”

“Define ‘okay,’” Jon croaked, leaning back into the pillows. Sixteen hours but he still felt like hammered shit. “What- what happened? Why am I here?”

“You don’t remember?” Martin’s voice somehow managed to sound more worried. “God, you were- you were really out of it, Jon. Ranting about Sasha- you wouldn’t get near her. I thought we should take you to the hospital but Tim insisted you wouldn’t like that.” Tim was always the one who knew him best. “He had a key so we dropped you off, but I thought someone should stay behind- I mean, is that okay? I don’t want to overstep or anything, but you were really bad and I couldn’t-”

“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon cut him off gently. It was touching, in a way, that Martin would want to look out for him after the fit he apparently threw. “I, uh- thank you, I guess.”

“Really, it’s no problem,” Martin said, leaning back on his heels and fiddling with his hands. “I-I didn’t want to leave you alone, and I didn’t think you’d want to wake up to Tim or Sasha-”

“God,” Jon groaned and slumped over in bed, shame coursing through his veins. ‘“I’ll have to apologize to her tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Martin agreed, though not unkindly. “But I think she’ll understand. You were exhausted, it’s not like you meant it.” I suppose that’s true, he thought. Just my paranoia out of control.

“I’ll make us some tea. You stay in bed, okay?” 

“A-Alright.” Martin turned to leave the room but a thought logged itself in Jon’s brain and he reached a hand out to stop him. “Did you stop anywhere beforehand?” he asked. “Like the institute, o-or maybe Tim’s place?”

“No,” Martin replied, a puzzled look on his face. “Why?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jon closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillows, feeling utterly drained. “It’s nothing.”

Martin exited the room and Jon tried not to think about the key he gave Tim ages ago, back when they visited each other with some regularity. 

And the idea that it was still on his keychain, waiting to be used.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457939

[nat-20s]

this is a Wild™ prompt so no pressure to actually do it, but i’ve had the scenario of “somehow s5 martin ends up in s1-s2, has to figure out how to deal with that” and if u want a narrower thing, maybe how he reacts to seeing someone again/for the first time? (Sasha, Juergen Leitner, Prentiss, etc)

Please have fun with Whatever this is:

“Don’t go wandering off in the middle of the apocalypse” seems like a pretty simple rule to follow. “Especially don’t go through any weird doors, Christ, Martin, how can that possibly be a good idea on any level, do you remember nothing from the last five years of your existence?” also seems like a generally easy thing to keep in mind. And yet, Martin is guilty of the same sin that appears to be intrinsic of all of those who find themselves under the influence of the eye, his need to know something overriding his common sense. In his defense, the door was only like 2 meters away and he wasn’t planning on going through it or even touching it at all. He just wanted to look, because it appeared to be made of a liquid version of frosted glass, and it was translucent enough that he could sort of make out the other side of it. As he got closer, he confirmed that the other side of the door a: definitely didn’t match the rest of their own little hell-scape, and b: seemed familiar in a way he couldn’t quite make sense of.  

Of course, in the dream logic of their reality, you don’t have to place your hand on the door knob in order for you to enter some place new. All it takes is getting within a foot of the door, squinting to futilely try and bring the scene across from him into better focus, and a blink and suddenly he is not where he’s supposed to be. Instead, he is staring down the hallway of his former apartment complex, watching as a familiar woman attired in a red dress and countless words is steadily knocking at his door. There’s a weight in his hands that wasn’t there before, and he looks down to find a fire extinguisher in prime position to be fired. Huh. How serendipitous.

Martin’s surprised to find that he doesn’t feel afraid, not in this moment. It appears that for all the two weeks spent hiding from her still frequent more often than not in his nightmares, for all that the sight of canned peaches still makes him nauseous, in his (probably) waking hours, she is far less intimidating than the myriad of horrors he has faced since. Or, perhaps, it’s simply that he is actually equipped to face her, and that takes away some of the teeth of his fear. Any semblance of preparation, of a plan, has given him comfort when he had little else, and that continues on now. Admittedly, though, while he does have preparation for this encounter, his plan is little more than “get Prentiss off of my fucking lawn and then see where we go from there” before he’s striding towards her.

He’s able to get close to her, about as close as he’s willing to get, before she takes any notice of him. Once he’s about five feet away, she turns her head, and briefly pauses that incessant, infuriating knocking. She gets as far as saying, “Oh, aren’t you inter-” before he sends a spray of foam directly to her face. It’s far from enough to kill her, but it’s enough to kill off some of the worms, so there’s no way that it doesn’t at least sting quite a bit. The CO2 makes her stutter and take several steps back, swatting at the foam at an attempt to get it off.

He considers pulling the handle once again, but he’s really more concerned with getting her to leave than hurting her further, and he doesn’t to run out of ammo this early should she recover and decide to go on the attack. However, he likes to think he’s not too much of a fool, so he keeps the nozzle trained on her as she becomes less frantic.

Finally she stills her swatting, breathing heavily and glaring at him, as much as she can make any sort of facial expression with what’s left of her face. “That was rather rude of you, little one. And we are trying to offer you an escape from being so tragically singular.”

Martin raises the nozzle slightly higher, just enough to bring focus to the motion as he replies, “Yeah, well, it was rude of you to stalk my apartment for two weeks and try to kill me and my coworkers, so forgive me if I don’t feel all that grateful for your oh so generous offer.”

“Hmm. So you are his future. That’s a shame. We are made so loneliness is impossible, it would not wrap itself so throughly into your form. Our love could still be given to you, in this time.”

“I have no interest in your hollow version of love. He has no interest in it. Now, leave.”

Prentiss give an airy wave of her hand, and the worms that had been trying to find any crack in the sealed door come crawling back to their home. “Fine, fine. This was just a bit of fun, anyway. I’ll be seeing him soon enough anyway.”

Martin makes a hum of acknowledgement, though he response makes little difference to her taking her leave. There’s a few silver-grey disgusting stragglers that be promptly and throughly kills with a combination of the fire extinguisher and some well placed stomps. It’s only after he finishes this that the hesitation hits him, the trepidation curling low in his stomach until it solidifies into something akin to fear. He’ll take a worm monster over facing himself any time of any day.

What would he even say to himself? Good luck, the next years of your life are completely fucked? Hey, congratulations, you actually made it to your 30s, so that’s a bit of surprise, but you’re almost certainly not going to get to 35? Don’t talk to a man named Peter Lukas, or maybe just avoid any Lukases in general? Maybe he should lie, tell him things are going to turn out okay when they’re definitely not?

Wait, okay, maybe he has something with the Peter tip. If there’s an opportunity to give this version of him some advice that could prevent future grief, he might as well go for it. It’s like, how badly could he actually mess up the time line with his interference? The world could end again? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Upon the realization that basically no matter what he does right now there’s basically no where to go up but up, he makes an executive decision to go in there and confront himself head on. Hell, maybe that’s the Thing that’s needed to get him back to Jon.

As he goes to turn the door handle he also, briefly, thinks that he should bring up that he’s madly in love with someone who feels the same. It’s not immediately relevant for trying to prevent some of the mistakes he’s made, but Martin remembers being 28, utterly convinced both that love was real and something that was completely unattainable for something like him. Being wrong on the second part of that conviction is one of the few true comforting things he can provide.

The door is, of course, locked, so he goes with plan B. Turns out fire extinguishers are rather handy for smashing things, and he brings it down several times in rapid succession until the knob breaks. There’s one step down, but he had forgotten about the furniture barricade that had been put in place. He can get the door open about 7 centimeters before it refuses to budge, and he begins to wonder if all of this is an exercise in futility. At least his voice won’t be muffled when he calls out, “Martin? You in there?”

There’s nothing but silence, and he sighs and leans his head against the apartment door. “Seriously, Martin, could you respond? And maybe move some of this furniture? If you’re dead that means things are way more messed up than I expected.”

After a beat, a strained voice calls out, “Oh, so a bad impersonation of me is part of your dumb monster powers now? Piss off!”

After a groan and an eyeroll, Martin calls back “I’m not-!” before cutting himself off. He meant to say “I’m not a monster, I’m you” but both of those things are only about 60-70% true. Instead he goes with, “I’m not an impersonation. If I was something pretending to be someone else to get inside, wouldn’t I pick one of your coworkers coming to get you? Like Tim or Jon or Sa- you know, um, one of them?”

Silence.

“You have a peephole, right? You could look through it, confirm that I’m not worm-infested?”

He doesn’t hear a response with words, but he does hear the sounds of motion coming from inside. After a few minutes, the furniture is pushed aside, and the door is opened for him. Jesus, the guy on the other side of the door looks like shit. He probably doesn’t look much better, apocalypse grime covering every inch of him, but still. The man in front of him has deep bags under his eyes and a gauntness to his face that will take a while to ease. Worst of all, he looks painfully young and painfully afraid, and while Martin can recognize himself on a logical level, there’s a forced disconnect that makes him feel like he’s looking at a stranger. The knife that’s being held between them probably doesn’t help matters.

His former self’s voice shakes with a mix of adrenaline and exhaustion. “You got the hair color wrong. And the age.”

“That’s because I’m 32. Also, still not an impersonation.”

“My hair goes white in 5 years?”

“Not in the natural way. You know those hokey stories where people are so scared their hair turns white? That’s...sort of what happened. And it’s not going to happen to you, if I can help it.”

That’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, as the younger Martin’s face twists up. It’s a lot, Martin thinks it’s a lot and he’s far more experienced in the reality of the esoteric, but sometimes things being a lot is unavoidable, and he’s pretty sure time travel is one of those cases. He shrugs in response to the younger’s confusion, and says, “Can I come in? I think I’m here to dole out some advice, and I’d honestly prefer to do while not standing in worm corpses.”

He’s studied for a few brief moments, before he’s told, “You broke my doorknob.”

“You’re never gonna live here again, and it’s not like you were getting the security deposit back anyway. Does it matter?”

The younger one’s face collapses, despondent when he replies, “But. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Martin’s been experiencing a nauseating mixture of anger, pity, and compassion while seeing his past self, but that’s enough to kick in his care-taking instincts, and he really just wants to wrap the guy in a blanket. That’s not going to help either of them, but what he says next might. With a frankly ridiculous wave of fondness for that uncomfortable cot (or, more accurately, for the memory of a certain someone offering said cot), “You will. After you go back to the institute, you, um, you won’t have to stay here again.”

Martin, junior edition, only looks more lost, but he does step aside to let Martin inside the apartment even if he doesn’t lose his death grip on the knife. Martin pulls the door behind him, and as he does so, it transforms into the door that got him in this mess, so looks like he made the right choice. It doesn’t immediately take him (hopefully) back to his own time, but Martin’s gut is telling him that he won’t be spending much longer here. “Okay, so, you have a notebook around here, right? Because I’m about to dump quite a bit of information on you all at once, and I happen to know that our memory for things of this sort is not fantastic.”

The younger one glances over to the table where a notebook and pen are laying and while he moves towards it, he’s clearly hesitant to occupy both his hands with writing. The precaution makes sense, but Martin’s getting tired of it nonetheless due to a combination of running out of time and generally being tired of people seeing him as a threat. With a sigh, he tries his best to evenly say, “The next few years are going to be, um, messed up, to say the least, but hopefully if you have more information than I did, they’ll be less messed up.”

Younger Martin finally concedes, putting the knife down to pick up the pen, and flips the notebook open. Primed to start writing, he gives slight nod of his head to tell Martin to keep talking. Martin takes a breath, lets it out, and spills everything he can think of. “Okay, most immediately, CO2 kills Prentiss’s worms, and enough of it will kill her. A fire suppressant system will do the trick, but make sure there’s a way to actually trigger it inside of the archives. Makes sure the weird spooky table doesn’t get destroyed, it seems like it should be destroyed, this instinct is wrong. Generally speaking, you should get a buddy system set up, as it’s usually when people go off on their own that particularly bad things start to happen, whether it’s on an investigation or going to America. Speaking of, don’t let Jon go to America. Don’t let Tim go to stop the Unknowing. The Unknowing won’t work anyway, but you’ll probably still want to have the circus blown up, just make sure everyone is doing it from a distance. Don’t let yourself work for Peter Lukas, actually don’t interact with Peter Lukas, except maybe to, I don’t know, hit him with a shovel. And most importantly, kill Elias Bouchard as soon as possible-”

“-What?!-”

“-and in particular make sure you destroy the eyes, that’s vital to this whole thing. Turns out he’s actually a 200 year old scumbag named Jonah Magnus, you know, the founder of the institute, and by getting rid of him, you’ll save yourself a quite literal world of pain.”

“I don’t, what, I don’t think I could kill somebody-”

Martin felt a sharp tug towards the door, and he knew his time here was up. “Oh, wow, I really have changed, huh. Anyway, uh, final notes: you’re not going to end up alone and unloved and forgotten before you’re even fully gone, so feel free to lay that fear that occupies a disconcertingly large amount of your mental space to rest. Good luck, and try not to die!”

Before he can hear his other self’s response, he’s back in the wastelands he currently calls a twisted version of home, and Jon’s arms are wrapped around his neck in a fierce hug. As far as he can tell, nothing’s changed from his little literal trip down memory lane. There’s a few explanations for it, but since Martin’s not going to go out of his way trying to prove any of them, he choses to believe in the one that’s the most hopeful; that somewhere, out there, with some well timed words, there’s a universe that has turned out kinder than their own.

[janiedean]

Hope this is okay to ask but I was wondering what your thoughts are on the way Tyrion is treated by some of the fandom, especially Cersei stans? I feel he is held to a different standard to other male characters and as someone with an invisible disibility irl it makes me a bit uncomfortable. I’ve seen many “Lannister stans” who either hate him or want to ignore he exists.

sure it’s okay to ask don’t worry ;)

that said: when it comes to tyrion’s fandom treatment especially on tumblr there’s like a whole bunch of like... WE’RE ABLEIST BUT MASKING IT BEHIND FAKE WOKE ARGUMENTS crap going on because not counting the fact that show!tyrion has been what he was since S5 bc dnd can’t obviously write him and stopped giving peter decent material after then and it shows, but like... show!tyrion being nowhere near as complex as the book version is a problem that 99% of the show characters had so I don’t think it’s like a valid argument:

the premise is that tyrion is outside like TUMBLR and the likes circles a clear fan favorite when it comes to the general audience if not the fan favorite - like there’s more tyrion merch than idk jon snow merch and maybe maybe he was 50/50 with dany but like... I think that if we did a general poll tyrion would come out as the most liked character, which... I mean fair tyrion is an a+ character and he’s extremely relatable on a whole shitload of levels and let me tell you if a disabled character is for once the main fan favorite I won’t complain:

problem is beyond the fact that he’s disabled he’s... about everything tumblr hates in the sense that a) man, b) (presumably) straight man who has a lot of sex to deal with his issues, c) his issues are not exactly pleasant to deal with, d) not Standard Attractive, e) basically his one trump card is outsmarting people so it’s really easy to attach the whole AH MANIPULATING SCHEMING ASSHOLE argument to him, f) an abuse victim from at least his father and cersei but we all know men can’t be abused on this website *rolleyes* plus he hates the shit out of cers/ei which like.. is apparently the cardinal sin and the key to being labeled a misogynist always, which automatically means that when it comes to tumblr asoiaf fandom nine times on ten people will ignore the fact that his disability is a reason people discriminate him and that the treatment he received because of it gave him TRAUMA and start going like AH BUT HE’S A MAN AH BUT HE’S RICH which... doesn’t mean he can’t be traumatized even if he has male and money privilege;

for what it’s worth anyway bc as stated okay being a lannister did mean that he had a better upbringing/situation economically than a commoner with dwarfism but that doesn’t make his abuse any less damaging, but people on here just... don’t seem to get it;

but yeah like the point is that male chars on tumblr are already held at different standards than female ones (again theon gets more shit than cersei ever had for doing a lot less horrid stuff) but tyrion as... the mega fan favorite especially in within the male fanbase (reddit/w-org and the likes) is held to an extra standard in the sense that if the dudebro faction likes him then he’s BAD NEWS, which means that the fact that he’s disabled and that it affects his life is thoroughly ignored because they have to cry about how he has male privilege over c. and so she can’t abuse him (which... lmao the day I read that shit in S2 I was so out, but whatever);

anyway thing is: ‘lannister stans’ in my experience is a thing that like... is weird in this fandom because actually I never met a supposed lannister stan who likes all of them or who doesn’t ignore some exist, like.. usually most lannister stans who pretend tyrion doesn’t exist are either c. stans or tywin stans or both and don’t get me started on how this fandom has a weirdass tywin worship thing going on for which they think tyrion killing him is an unforgivable crime when it was basically what that asshole deserved and the narrative is having tyrion go in the downward spiral for shae not for tywin. c. stans usually say they also stan jaime but like... they stan whichever version of jaime they think exist that is compatible for a book ending that has the murder suicide thing happening that doesn’t exist in the books and they ignore tyrion exists same as their fave, but then again here we fall back in the pit where everything c. specifically does is seen as either fight against the patriarchy or feminist rebellion or trauma justification on account of c. being a woman and if a man does it it’s horrid or if she does it to a man then it doesn’t matter, so like... it’s a lost cause;

anyway like if someone say they’re a lannister stan and ignore tyrion when whether they like it or not tyrion is the only lannister in the main five povs (which i’d like to remind everyone are jon dany tyrion arya and bran regardless of whoever is everyone’s fave) and the one that has most narrative weight then like... just say you like c. or tywin and go;

tldr: while I think that the show did tyrion a lot of dirt in order to make him more... idk cleaned up when the book character is good as it is, tumblr fandom is swimming deep in ableism and denying that men can be abused and affected by that when it comes to tyrion’s treatment, never mind in the neverending absolutely shallow argument that’s everywhere in asoiaf fandom which is that no one outside specific group of people has understood that one of the key messages of these books is ‘how you look outside doesn’t mean shit about your personality and people who aren’t standard attractive are people with needs and personality who also deserve love and have a lot to give and will meet someone who’ll give it to them’, because the race is basically shipping beautiful ppl together even if it makes sense and negating at all turns that brienne/arya/tyrion/sandor/anyone else who’s not standard attractive are like... viable romantic partners on an even level with whoever so there’s that too, but like I think that on tumblr it shows that ppl are extremely hypocritical when it comes to tyrion and that it shows that their wokeness stops at the surface bc if you read those books and miss The Fucking Point when it comes to tyrion’s disability... text comprehension where have you gone ;)

also when it comes from c. stans** I just sigh and roll my eyes but then again c. stans generally think c. is the only person in these books with justified issues and trauma reaction and downplay not only how she abuses others but also the effects on the ppl she abuses whether they’re men or women so like... they don’t even admit how she is with jaime do we think they’d admit it for tyrion? doubt that.

**before everyone else jumps on me: with c. stans I mean the vocal side of c. standom where almost everyone is like that and from whom I never saw once an acknowledgment that she actually did abuse him (or anyone kllkjkgdj), not whichever c. stan around who likes her because she’s terrible/recognizes that she’s bad etc, I mean no ill will, if you didn’t feel called out reading it it wasn’t about you, peace and love.

[histeetharenotsoft]

what up thots I'm scoring the tma merch designs

I know y'all are probably sick of hearing about it at this point but I'm still super frustrated because this is my comfort media and I want to give them money! so here we go

also yes I know my scoring is kinda wack I just didnt want to give them all 0-2/10

(cw trypophobia, scopophobia, body horror, gore, general horror)

the buried

I've already made a post about my feeling on this one but I will summarise: why is he jacked. why does he look like a fnaf reject. why is the focus of the horror on him and not the claustrophobia part

2/10 this man Does Not eat enough dirt

the corruption

ew. this one looks more flesh than corruption. why are there eyes in its mouth?? at least it makes me say ew, which means it conveys the corruption vibes at least a tiny bit

3/10 needs more bugs

the dark

looks like something out of Alien. this is one of the designs I prefer, just still not as merch. if you said to me "fear of the dark", this is Not a design I'd come up with. give us some lightbulb or moon imagery, at the very least! and apparently they gave the artist detailed descriptions of the fears? this is why you get artists who've listened to your show

3/10 skulls and tentacles look too end

the desolation

I mean. that sure is a representation of death. this looks like edgy fanart of a cartoon villain. wish it was more actually end-themed though

what the fuck is this.

0/10 no

the end

4/10 oliver would be disappointed

the extinction

now this one is the fnaf reject. like I'm absolutely sure I saw the whole "wires coming out of headlight eyes" thing on one of their robots. and ugh the extinction had so much potential! like does anyone remember that seagull from the recent s5 episode? you could go for that kind of vibe, with something familiar thats warped and twisted by Something We Caused. idk. also with the skulls and tentacle-looking wires, it looks kinda end

5/10 I get motorbike vibes?

the eye

ok so I like this as horror art. it feels like a bloodborne creature, and i say that in a nice way. but for the eye, the ceaseless watcher, the beholding? absolutely not. this one looks like the corruption design; tell me it doesn't look like the flesh hive.

3/10 my boy jon did not go through Everything for this shit

the flesh

okay! we've got a design that conveys the base concept of the fear! that sure is some body horror right there. still wouldn't wear it on a t-shirt Ever. and you can put this on baby clothing!

6/10 why is it slimy though

the hunt

look. i don't care about the hunt. I just don't vibe with it. so I'm almost indifferent about this one. it doesn't feel very hunt, but I mean, could be worse?

3/10 needs more wolves maybe idk

the lonely

no!! the people are melting into each other thats the exact Opposite of being alone!!!

1/10 looks too stranger as well

the rest will go in a reblog because we've hit the picture limit

[dragimal]

now that s5 is over and I’m starting to wind down from the high of the finale, I think I can finally grasp *exactly* why I have mixed feelings on s5. to be clear, I absolutely ADORE TMA as a whole, and still consider it one of the best pieces of horror media I’ve consumed. but s5 left me feeling... not bad, but off, even when there’s plenty I still rly like abt s5

it mainly comes down to 2 things for me: 1) the severe tone shift, and 2) Martin being Fucking Weird for a lot of the season

a lot of ppl have talked abt how s5 just wasn’t as scary as the previous seasons for various reasons. one kinda inevitable reason was simply that a lot of the mystery of the horror had been revealed at that point, and a monster is never as scary once you can see it clearly. but I think the bigger reason is that the format shifted from horror anthology to.... sociology anthology. like, every statement of s5 felt like a sociology paper on fear and systemic abuse, rather than something meant to chill the reader

this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, honestly-- like I said, much of the mystery had been revealed, so I think it was an understandable move to try to shift the narrative somehow. also, I love sociology papers! I think they’re interesting to read, and s5 gave us some rly creative frameworks for some of them (the poetic carousel, Oliver’s professional assessment, Jared’s garden--)

however, I do think the tone shift was still a bit jarring, esp considering what the audience was used to up to that point. perhaps that’s an appropriate move, to match a plot point as game-changing as the literal apocalypse. BUT that doesn’t mean the tone shift still wasn’t a bit of a let-down, in terms of horror and tension

like, yeah a lot of the mystery was gone, but Hill Top Road ended up being the big mystery of s5... and we weren’t even fully aware of it til almost the end of the season? sure, there was plenty of fan speculation, but we were also considering SO many other possibilities, Hill Top was never rly a core theory until VERY late in the game. like, the mystery seemed to take a backseat to the sociology papers, if that makes sense, lmao

literally the ONE episode to give me chills down my spine like the good ol’ days pre-s5 was MAG196: This Old House. Annabelle vaguely threatening Martin, and ending on, “You have no idea who’s listening, do you?” fucking SUPERB, I was absolutely DELIGHTED by the possibilities of that one line! like, what did it mean? were we gonna go full meta??

but the last few eps after that were... frankly kind of a letdown from that spike of tension? I think those last eps are what rly cinched this idea for me-- that s5 was literally like reading a sociology paper. it rly all was just, arguing about the possibilities, considering the consequences, and making decisions. which, again, isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s not horror-- it’s a thought exercise with an apocalyptic garnish

EDIT-- I forgot to say, I think this is part of why MAG200 simply didn’t hit me the same way it hit others. it was intellectually satisfying-- it tied up loose ends, closed character arcs/relationships, left some delicious ambiguity-- but not emotionally cathartic, if that makes sense? like, I was expecting to cry, but I didn’t even rly get teary? I was grinning and delighted by all the satisfying conclusions, but I didn’t feel that emotional RELEASE that I was expecting and hoping for

as for jonmartin, I want to be clear here. I am NOT one of those ppl that thinks jonmartin came out of nowhere in s4-- I think the buildup pre-s5 was excellent, and their finally being together at the end of s4 was so so earned and rewarding. I’m also NOT one of those ppl that thinks arguments = abuse. I think when I briefly criticized jonmartin in s5 in the past, ppl got this impression that like, I think that jonmartin miscommunicating and having bad coping mechanisms... means that they’re bad for each other and abusing each other? and that’s just not the case?? 

I admit that my initial response to some of the jonmartin weirdness may have been a bit harsh, but even at the time I still loved jonmartin and was simply looking at their relationship with a critical but loving lens

what I have a problem with is that Martin pulls just as much bullshit as Jon in s5, and NEVER gets called out for it

this post I made a while back gets more into the details that bother me, but essentially, there’s always been this rly uneven “accountability scale” (idk what else to call it) for Jon vs. a lot of other characters-- in that, Jon always gets called out for his bullshit, while a lot of other characters don’t. now a lot of this is perfectly explainable as Jon being the main character, so we simply see his fuck-ups AND the subsequent consequences more often than any other character. and there are plenty of characters that I absolutely do NOT blame for going a bit overboard (I give Melanie and Tim in particular a ton of leeway here, given their respective situations. they more or less have full rights to bully Jon imo)

but, the problem is, there are also a LOT of moments where other characters say something absolutely horrific to Jon (namely Basira and Georgie in s4), like imply that he’s responsible for problems he had absolutely no control over, or fucking blame him for literally being groomed into an Archivist by people/powers he couldn’t even grasp... and those accusations are just left to sit and fester in Jon, completely uncontested

the nice thing abt s5 is that most of this is addressed-- like Basira’s completely unfair double-standards for “monsters”, and Georgie unknowingly blaming Jon for his trauma, etc.-- in very satisfying ways.

.... except for Martin.

without rehashing that linked post too much, Martin’s main problem in s5 is that his go-to response to trauma is denial. he denies the fact that he wants to kill avatars for his own satisfaction (which is a completely reasonable desire on its own tbqh!), and instead continues to lie to himself (for quite a long time) that killing avatars is actually helping anyone but Jon and Martin. he denies that Jon’s become a real full-fledged “monster”, and refuses to acknowledge all the baggage that comes with that

this denial unintentionally projects a lot of rly fucked-up messages at Jon, like: Jon is now a freaky horrorshow (even when he’s doing something completely innocuous, like talking casually about his powers); Jon’s fears over losing his autonomy/identity to the Eye, and his fears over his proven abilities to hurt others, are invalid; monsters inherently deserve to die, despite Jon technically being one; Jon not being able to use his powers “well enough” is some failure on his part

now, none of this is to say Martin’s characterization on its own is a bad thing-- I actually think it could’ve been interesting! it’s a perfectly reasonable trauma response, it tracks for Martin’s character pre-s5, and could have been a rly interesting perspective to explore.... if it was ever actually challenged by the narrative or other characters

I think the closest we got was Martin’s conversation with himself in his own domain, when his double calls him out for fantasizing a happy ending where Jonah is dead and Jon and Martin kiss (OUGH.... JONNY YOU HURT ME..), but that still never rly addresses the hurt that Martin’s denial causes Jon

and god, I was rly holding out-- Martin seemed to chill out on the denial a lot after the first third of the season, and I was hoping it might go a similar route as Basira, where it would just take a while to rly address Martin’s issues. but then Jon and Martin have their argument in MAG194, and I was fully on Martin’s side of it, UNTIL he said, “You weren’t meant to enjoy it this much!” (in reference to Jon killing avatars), and when Jon calls him out, Martin just brushes over it! 

BOY when I tell you I went BALLISTIC.... FUCK YOU Martin, YOU’RE the one that went all Kill Bill and PUSHED Jon to feel the same way!! JESUS. like I get that that wasn’t the core of the argument there, but oh my god that one bit...

and once again, to make myself perfectly fucking crystal clear here, this is coming from someone who relates heavily to both Jon and Martin. I can see exactly where Martin is coming from for many of his decisions, and the trauma that’s led him to mentally protect himself like this. so it only makes me more frustrated to see him refuse to face his own issues, while still (understandably) expecting Jon to face his issues. yes, Jon pulls a LOT of bullshit in s5 that he deserves to be called out for (and called out he is!), but accountability goes both ways, Martin! you can’t demand responsible behavior from others if you’re not willing to extend the same courtesy!

[yaboyspodcastpalace]

📓!!!!!!!

[send me a 📓 and I'll explain the plot of a fic i daydream about!!]

:D!!! i was originally gonna write down a petermart im writing but ive talked enough abt that one so Here:

au where peter doesnt die at the end of seaosn 4 but instead loses 1. one of his eyes (fr some reason idk) 2. his connection to the lonely and 3. his entire inheritance and finding himself godless and penniless he goes to the few people that actually like him (taddeas??? eh, simon? bit of his money problem is solved but not on the long run, mikaele... Well.) and ends up crashing at mikaele's place

(there was originally a reason why he knew mikaele was alive but i cannot remember rn)

i dont particularly have a plot beyond:

1. hey wouldnt it be funny if peter went to live w/ mikaele somewhere lovely and like neighbors like mikaele bc hes nice but they're So Very Curious abt his... friend.... boyfriend...? house mate....? who looks like a shitty vampire... also peter like needs Actual Food and sleep and all those pesky human things to live that he never thought abt since he was a kid??? mikaele?? how do you live like this??? how do you live w/o the lull of a god and breaking the fabric of reality for yur own purposes and also how do you cook? also potentially mikaele being like my dear old friend im gonna get you a fucking hobby

2. so, the apocalypse happens, and between the long drive from where they lived to that mansion he has in s5 there's a LOT of peter seeing the different domains in the distance and being SO annoyed bc those were supposed to be his, mikaele, he was supposed to have a place there (if not THE central role if gertrude hasn't ruined his ritual)

2.1. mikaele and annabelle and peter shenanigans. annabelle and peter hate each other but they both like mikaele and so sometimes he'd be playing the piano and they'd both appear at different entrance of the room and just hover there waiting for the other to get out so they can sit somewhere close. This amuses mikaele to no end, and also hes glad hes got more ppl to care abt (he misses his crew)

2.2. mikaele and peter and Martin shenanigans once he and jon arrive. and by shenanigans i mean once martin realises peters not only Alive and There but also doesnt have any power whatsoever he decks him, and mikaele just calmly sits at the side like "@ to peter you probably deserved that, but @ martin please dont hurt him too bad, im quite fond of him, you'd understand".

2.2.1. obsessed with the idea of peter learning that martin has a domain and being so conflicted about it... both of them... hhh petermart lonely moments at the end of the world, imagine(!!!!!!!!!!!)

3. uuuuuuuuuuuh honestly i think a lot about the painting of mikaele's personality and the ghosts that haunt him via statements and the man we finally see in s5 and i KNOW in s5 he lies about stuff n puts on part of an act I KNOW it... maybe i want to see how their relationship changes once peter cant feed of such and mikaele cant bask on the cold etc etc!! when all the benefits of his monsterhood are gone and all thats left is two lonely men and their complicated love!

4. it has an open yet hopeful ending bc im a cheesy motherfucker and i love Love :') peter doesnt want to die Again despite the less than ideal ways of living and he doesnt want mikaele to die, also again, so like.......... i dont know, annabelle is smart, she's got ways to do a dramatic reveal w/o the camera, maybe not as glamorous but whatever! when she leaves she wants to leave quietly so they dont notice but mikaele does and gives her a big ol hug bc literally all his friendships ended with a flash, he has no idea if annabelle is going to die or what so just, hug. Annabelle hugs back kinda awkwardly due to not being used to it but still appreciates it. Fambly.......... (peter stays inside bc he doesnt care abt her, plus mikaele has enough warmth for the both of them)

4.1. i think a lot abt mikaele going to rescue his former crew from the domains bc he CARES ABT THEM... GDI... maybe thats what they do at the end... who knows not me...

[bibliocratic]

@f0xesand0wls​

prompt: cruelty

pairings: jonmartin

notes: ok, disclosure, this is more in line with the S5 that some folks were imagining before 161 aired, so this is absolutely canon non-compliant.  This one got a bit away from me - so much for a drabble xD. There are content warnings for this one. Please see the tags.  -

Two men stagger towards them, traversing the cold in the days after the end of the world. One trudging with a laboured limp, coat adorned with dirt and blood, their walking mired in the sort of eroding exhaustion that masquerades as a drunken stagger, an under-breath babbling. There's another man too. Bigger, a deadweight, half-slumped over his shoulder like a leaking backpack. He doesn't pick up his feet, but it's too far away to see if it's a corpse. The guard at the entrance of the shelter is decisive, fast and takes to the immediacy of this world – she gestures to the other guard sharing her shift, and the call goes back, an alert that is spiced with the very real possibility of ambush, trickery, of things being not as they seem. They move in tandem towards the newcomers, shouting warning and offering and peace inquiry. The travellers must have come from the rotting fields of what used to be north, charted through the bone gardens and the endless carousel and the ever-dark. The younger guard watches the slipping trudge of the only one really doing the walking, how his steps falter and slip, the the groan and cry catching in his throat as he almost buckles. His limbs quaking from the effort of holding the both of them up. It's not until he looks up through a curtain of matted hair that she sees how wrong he looks. 

Whatever it is doesn't have a face. There is an oval void, curved inwards into itself and the space where skin and flesh and muscle should be is broken up with twitching, bubbling gobbets of eyes that lump and spawn and meld and flex. Some of the eyes are blood-crusted, burst from some clawed violence. 

  Its eyes do not blink in unison, do not follow each other's trajectory. They dart and pulse like the inside of lava lamps, refract like insect lenses, inner eyelids sliding across with a milky cataract. When they all focus directly at her, she raises her knife. Shouts a threat, angry at her momentary pity. The creature stops. Sways. “Please,” it croaks out. “Please, help.” It sounds more human than expected. It's throat smoke-ruined. An accent there, English, she thinks, being so close to the border. Its hands, where streaks of what might have once been its skin peak through, is smirched with gristle and blood, the pond-weed straggle of its hair gone dark with the hues of it. “Please,” it repeats. “I'm not going to – help him, please.” “What the fuck are you?” she says. She does not lower her weapon. The guard to her left has raised her own. All of its eyes blink out of rhythm as its unseen mouth moves with that croaking, piteous whisper. “He's, he's human, he's hurt and he needs – he'll die, please.” The man it is carrying looks human. Painted with dirt and filth, the slick of insects broken over his skin. His breathing is starting to rattle. She pauses. Raises her knife again, indicates her partner to follow suit. “Put him down,” she instructs. “Then back away. OK?” It nods dazedly, pathetically grateful. Its bulging eyes swim and merge and split in its cavernous face. It unloads its burden with gentler motions than it looks capable of, lowering its reed-breath burden to the ground. “Shshshsh,” it murmurs. “I know, I know it hurts. 'Little longer, you can do it, stay with me.” It attempts to straighten, move back as commanded. The man grips harder and won't let go. “Jon,” exhales the wounded man. “Jon.” The creature looks up at them. She shakes her head. “We'll take him. Not you.” “Jon.” “I-I'll be right outside, alright, Martin? I'll wait – I'll be, I won't leave.” It pulls their hold apart, cups its gruesome hand against the man's cheek, and steps back. She gestures and it shuffles further. Its rolling, throbbing eyes watch the stretcher being bought, the man   manoeuvred onto it – he gives a ripped-up cry as something broken is jostled and it starts forward as if to help, to soothe, but she raises her knife in warning and snaps a threat and it retreats with its fluttering, wringing hands. “Can you – please, I'll stay out here, I won't, I won't come anywhere nearer.” She considers. “We see you any closer to the camp, I can't promise he'll be safe,” she says. Its eyes pulse and flicker, but a human-like neck shakes whatever classes as its face in a nod. “Take care of him?” it murmurs. She nods shortly. That is the only thing she will offer it. Her eyes still trained on its inhuman form, she leaves it a mournful sentinel in the wastelands as she retreats back to the shelter.

[gerrydelano]

disability ask dump!

so, after my post about needing more disability representation, i received a lot of really great asks! headcanons, general input, some questions. answering them individually would kill me, so i’m putting them all here! i started this hours ago and was almost done when the page crashed, so take two :’-)

TW for ED discussion at one point!

@tiinykaiju: your disability meta!!! your brain is huge. may I add to the pile, I hc Martin as having adhd and arthritis (or similarly fucked-up joints) bc I love to project! and also holding a warm mug of tea is nice for days when your hands are especially grouchy

(another sent later): oop also don’t feel obligated to answer this (I know you got a bunch of disability asks so literally don’t stress abt this one) but I also wanted to add that I fucking love how you & ren write Tim’s bpd? I don’t know if I have that (was self dx’d for a while & my shrink agreed it was a maybe but nothing solid) but he is a Whole Entire Mood, which is hugely ironic bc my ex (also named Tim, hilariously) was a dick specifically about the concept of me having bpd

I HC HIM WITH ADHD TOO. autism, ADHD, c-PTSD, (also BPD hoohoo), and disordered eating due to that nifty lifetime of poverty, neglect, and abuse. the arthritis is a good touch! somebody hold he hand!

also HEH. thank you!!!! i’m really glad that people vibe with a portrayal of this disorder that quite frankly has been making my life a living hell for Quite Some Time, like. i want to dismantle and write around the stigma and just write a character who reads this way without demonizing him for g-d’s sake. if you ever want to chat BPD things, my DMs are always open for you! and that NotTim motherfucker WILL die by my blade personality disorder bet your ass!!!!

@feral-piano-rat: Tma disability headcanons are my comfort food at this point! Somewhere around S4 of my listen (during the pre S5 break in real time) was when my chronic pain and joint issues got worse and I started to use a cane as a stabilizer... LITERALLY at the same time I started to see cane-user Jon headcanons and various fibro headcanons. It ended up being something I really took to heart and helped me vibe shame-free. I'm glad to see other people take something similar emotionally from it!

ME TOO it makes me so happy to see them!!!! oh gosh wow the timing, that’s lovely! i’m so glad that something was able to help you feel more comfortable and skip some of the shame stage. there’s no shame in a cane! my mom sort of took mine because she started needing it more often than me but my legs are very 8) unhappy with that so i might need a new one LOL. ahhhh though like! exactly! this is WHY we need to see more of this!

anon: Projecting on tma characters be like; Sasha doesn’t have the correct prescription on her glasses and constantly has a low grade eye strain headache. Georgie has asthma and has to spend so long editing the sound of her breath / wheezing out of WTG. Jon had burning shoulder pain as a kid and the physio he went to told him he was faking so it took him years to actually go to the doctor for his joint pain. Tim has a lazy eye that’s super noticeable when he’s tired.

FUCK yeah, anon. CHASE your BLISS. i don’t have too much to add to some of these but BIG high five on the jon one in particular, i write his Health Backstory as being that he had a rough time getting his EDS diagnosis because doctors are Useless and no one EVER wants to fucking diagnose that, and it’s even harder for an Autistic Kid Of Colour to be taken seriously which 8)))) BOY! get him to a doctor who will help him! give him some useful PT!

anon: Duude your recent post made me realize me going "jon probably isn't schizo spec that's just me projecting" was rlly bullshit like. The man had delusions most of season 2 my delusional ass just didn't connect that there could be a. Reason for those outside canon stressors

oh my g-d no WAY he’s got canon paranoid delusions, you’re TOTALLY fine to be HCing that! he’s so loudly sz-spec!!!! the canon stressors obviously exacerbated it like hell but the speed at which he got swept up in it definitely implies predisposition. i think we’ve been leaning schizoaffective for him? that mania, man. the cross there with bipolar symptoms resonates big jdshfkghds.

anon: So much of what you said was just like Oh Shit Yeah!!! really made me think about a Lot of things. the timing is a little funny because recently i've been thinking a lot about mike crew and abt how if he got struck by lightning bad enough to Burn His Skin he'd probably have nerve damage of some form, esp. with the quote "the doctors told me there would be no long-term damage from the accident. they were wrong of course, but the damage wasn't something they could see, so how could they know?"

DING DING DING there it is! that’s the ticket! you would not BELIEVE how much i’ve been talking about this angle on mike for the past week or so with seraf, he’d have a HELL OF A LOT MORE GOING ON THAN JUST NERVE DAMAGE. especially being directly struck, at that age, and like???? it’d damage his hearing, his skin, his muscles, he’d have neurological symptoms, i’m honestly forgetting a lot of what we’ve discussed but like.

mike crew is disabled, my dudes. there’s such a slim chance that it would Actually be No Damage like yeah some people get by with minimal shit but most people aren’t directly struck like that and so young and extra vulnerable, like. lightning does devastating damage. just write disabled mike! 

@pollylittlehigher-littlelower: Please consider autistic Melanie because the way she tends to feel everything so intensely is A Mood

I AM CONSIDERING! I AM HEAVILY CONSIDERING IT!!!! i don’t have any thoughts on it specifically right now because i am brain soup and been going through some Shit to get this post done but know that i am cheering loudly!

anon: sometimes a bitch projects very hard onto martin with eating disorders and how wrationing out food because of a lack of it lead to weight loss which lead to more confidence and more starvation. until he either got an intervention or (more likely) hospitalized and the pendulum swung back so hard he had significant weight gain, leading to insecurity despite being/looking healthier than he has in a very long time? m a y h a p s

look. sometimes a bitch is just vibing with a guy who is very easy to project disregulation of eating on. and it happens.

i actually have a fucking Lot of thoughts about martin re: food in connection to his poverty and his abuse. i was originally going to put this ask into that 3 parter that brought up those things first, but i think it’s slightly better separated because even as someone with all those issues myself, i don’t feel super confident portraying it through this angle as much as i absolutely support you exploring it because you know what it’s like.

let martin gain weight and be healthier and have support and resources and love himself! i love the idea of martin being confidently fat and everything but there’s no way that he didn’t struggle with it growing up at the very least, because kids are cruel and society is cruel and fatphobia is so deeply ingrained into our culture that it’s Going to impact your formative years even if you unlearn a lot of it later. 

i’m just. g-d, he’d probably feel guilty gaining weight while he’s struggling to make ends meet money wise because society just tells you “oh, you must eat So Much if you’re this big” and he’s like Am I Eating Too Much? Am I Wasting Money? Am I Being Selfish And Gross? and it’s like. no that’s just how your body retains things and it’s okay please martin i’m begging you i promise it’s okay to be fat and also to eat because you need to eat to live please

anwyay i havve . feelings. and am going to stop now so i don’t get swallowed up in them because i could go ON jgvhbknm HOO

anon: It's really neat to see another system into magnus archives!

putting this one with these, too, just to keep it contained. multiple high five!!!! i know at least six other systems in this fandom, it’s really great to not be alone (not that we’re ever alone ;D haha zing ;D) 

EDIT: another came in!

@bisexual-evanhansen​: you just did a tma disability hc ask dump but. sasha dyslexic and you CANNOT change my mind because I have had her calliope discussion almost verbatim on four different occasions. martin also dyslexic and I have no backup I'm just right. 

adding this because it’s a good HC that people should see!!!! i fully support you!!!!!!!! she’s also wrong about how to pronounce it and i die!!!!!!!!

both of them handshake on this it’s so good. also someone needs dyscalculia who the hell here is the worst at math

and there we have it. that took me. so long. i’m so sorry. but, yes, the only one i have left from that night now is a 3 part martin one about his poverty experience and i’m gonna make a meta from it some other time, i Really need to recover spoons now HAHA. thank you everybody, and i hope the anons who sent these get to see this!

[fakecrfan]

:DDD my friend I’m so glad you reblogged this I would love your director’s commentary on Domain of the Unseen, as that fic has living in my head since I read it.

(Domain of the Unseen for the Director’s commentary ask!)

Ohhhh this fic! This one was fun to write. The whole reason this fic became a thing was because I was in the RQ discord server at the time it was revealed that Martin had his own domain. I went “hey!! Probably not possible but wouldn’t it be cool if JON was in Martin’s domain? :DDD”

“Wow what a cool idea tell us more!” said absolutely nobody.

So, thus starved for people to talk about angst with, I had to run off and write fic about it.

She’s in both places at once,’’ Martin finishes. “Both in the burning building, and being eaten alive by insects. Wonderful.’’

“Bi-location isn’t any trouble in this world,’’ Jon says, and there is a bit of a grimace to it. “Not if it means the Eye can squeeze more terror out of you.’’

I had to come up with an excuse to have Jon both be walking the world, empowered, while also being tormented forever in Martin’s domain. Luckily for me, s5 canon runs on nightmare logic, (aka “whatever hurts the most is true”) so I decided that bi-location was a reasonable enough thing to happen in the apocalypse.

“If the Eye can extract terror from you, it will. As you should know,’’ he says. “You have your own domain too, Martin, but you also are—you still suffered in that Lonely realm.’’ (emphasis added after the fact.)

Next is my quick justification for that logic. This world wants to extract more suffering from people. So no one gets out of it completely. 

And then, of course, I imply that this applies to Martin as well. That part of him will always be in the Lonely, suffering. He’s just blocked it out, for a time. :)

But wait! If people can bi-locate, and avatars can be trapped in domains, and that probably applies to Martin, then does it...?

“Wait.’’ Martin knows it’s going to hurt, but he feels like it’s his responsibility to know who he’s hurting. “’Who are they?’’

Who indeed, Martin? Who is someone who you’ve hurt? :D

Martin looks to the figure’s hand. They are holding a tape recorder.

“Jon?’’ Martin asks, afraid.

:)

And then, of course, Jon can’t help but reveal his own unseen hurt.

He thought that he’d wake up to some kind of welcome. Stupid. As though anyone would care. As though he would deserve their care. He wishes they’d go back to yelling at him. He wishes they’d look at him, at least, instead of turning their eyes away.

So, obviously, this is Jon’s... fear of social exclusion based on his experiences waking up from the coma. Now, the thing is--this is the apocalypse. Do I think it’s true that none of the Archives crew cared about him and that he deserves that?

No, and no.

Everyone is cold and sometimes cruel to Jon after he wakes up from the coma, yes. But that’s not the sum total of their actions to him, and it doesn’t mean they totally hate him as much as he fears.

Basira, in canon, brings him coffee, makes sure he eats and drinks, and gets him new, better clothes. Georgie tells Martin that it’s not that she thinks Jon doesn’t deserve saving, just that she’s going to get hurt and exhausted if she tries and she doesn’t believe anything she does will make a difference to him, anyway. Daisy, who clearly isn’t used to being soft, reaches out and makes sure he has emotional support.

All of them care about him. But also? All of them are--emotionally-- at the equivalent of where Jon was in s2. Their allies have died in an explosion. They’re tired. They’re paranoid. They’ve just fought off a siege from a monster who tried to kill them all. They can’t leave the Institute because they get attacked, so they’re trapped living there. And they can’t be any more sure Jon is really Jon than Jon could be sure Tim wasn’t a murderer.

Just like Jon couldn’t be there for Tim and Martin in the midst of his breakdown, Melanie, Basira, Martin, and Georgie can’t be there for Jon in the midst of theirs. It’s just--a sad reality of people, that they have limits and fail each other in the midst of massive stress.

But Jon just--can’t see that?

Jon is still in a bad place and he catastrophizes like a motherfucker. So he sees all of this and he can’t step back and go “Okay, everyone’s really been through it. It’s not entirely about me.” No, instead he goes: “Everyone 100% HATES me, and also it’s my fault! I did ALL of this! I deserve anything bad that happens to me, any pain I feel.”

And of course, the apocalypse latches onto that subjective fear and turns it into its own reality. 

But for all he puts on his kindest, nicest voice, the One He Loves turns away.

And Martin! Of all the rejections that Jon received in s4, Martin’s hurt the worst (or at least, so I posit in this fic.) Because Martin was the closest, because he loved Martin, because he was used to receiving emotional support from Martin and then it was abruptly withdrawn. Of course that is going to sting like nothing else.

But we know, objectively, that everything Martin did at this point was for Jon. That Martin didn’t stop loving him at all! That he was willing to give everything for Jon, even to a suicidal degree.

But even though that’s the truth, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that for a moment, Jon believed that he was entirely unloved, forgotten, his pain unseen--and he deserved it.

“It’s not true,’’ Martin says.“I know,’’

Jon manages. “Subjective reality, and all that.”

Jon is wiser now, honestly. He has a lot more knowledge and perspective, so he knows that his fears about Martin abandoning him aren’t true. But again--the the apocalypse makes it so that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Jon fears it. It can turn that fear into very real pain, and make him feel that pain at all times.

That’s what it’s like to deal with insecurities IRL too.

Part of Jonathan Sims will always be here. Knowing this has happened before. Knowing it can happen in the ever uncertain future. Fearing what series of mistakes he might make that could cause him to be abandoned again.

Psychological pain, fear, can hound you at all moments, even over things that are done or aren’t entirely true. It’s true that it is quite possible that Jon will lose more people’s love in the future! It’s possible that Martin will get pissed off and leave him, or that Jon himself will fuck up in a way that ruins everything. These are all real possibilities that can happen to anyone.

And as long as you know it’s possible, your mind can use that possibility to torment you.

That’s what I was using the apocalypse/the fearscapes here to represent, actually. The... continuity of psychological pain. How some fears, even ones that seem fairly normal like “what if my partner leaves me” or “what if all my friends hate me” can live with us every moment for all of our lives, unseen and unknown to those around us.

But the whole thing is making Martin upset, and so instead of saying all of that, Jon puts on his softest smile. It hurts on his face, a pain that sears down into his chest.

“I love you too, Martin.’‘

I’m a bit torn on this. Is it a failure of the relationship, that Jon doesn’t feel like he can be honest with Martin here? Perhaps. But I personally don’t think so.

If Jon told Martin here that he’s afraid of him, that he will always be afraid of him, that loving Martin means that Martin will always give Martin the unique ability to hurt him--would that help? Would it take Jon’s pain away? Or would it just put more stress on Maritn.

So Jon bites his tongue on this one. It’s not Martin’s fault, of course. Martin is doing his best to comfort him here, saying all the right things.

Some things really do have to be dealt with alone. Some pains really do have to remain unseen. Or at least, that’s the conclusion Jon comes to here.

[pronouncingitwang]

s5 wtgfs and jonmartin | 700 words | this is literally just a joke fic

[EXT.? INT.? SOMEWHERE]

[TAPE CLICKS ON]

[FOOTSTEPS. SMALL THUDS AND SQUEAKS, RUSTLING: THE SOUND OF A WALKING CANE AND A WHITE CANE ON CARPET. ODD ECHOES.]

[THIS IS THE TERRITORY OF THE SPIRAL.]

GEORGIE

How much longer do you think we’ll need to walk before we find Helen?

MELANIE

Dunno, really. She was always unpredictable, but I think she’ll turn up eventually.

GEORGIE

What’s the probability that she still remembers being your friend? Were you two that close?

MELANIE

(teasing) What, jealous?

GEORGIE

Well... (audible smile) only a little.

MELANIE

She came to visit me a few times after I quit.

GEORGIE

Oh? You never said.

MELANIE

Not in your flat, though, I don’t think she liked the “vibes.” (heh) You’re right that she might not be any help, but I think it’s pretty likely that she still has a soft spot for me.

[TWO MORE SETS OF FOOTSTEPS GROW AUDIBLE, AS WELL AS THE SOFT THUD/SQUEAKS INDICATING ANOTHER WALKING CANE. INDISTINCT VOICES.]

GEORGIE

Is that...?

MELANIE

No. (voice picking up speed, growing panicked) No, Helen doesn’t sound like that. Shit, Georgie, get behind me, can you—

[FASTER FOOTSTEPS]

ARCHIVIST

(from a distance, shouting) Georgie! Melanie! It’s us!

GEORGIE

(under her breath) Holy shit.

[FOOTSTEPS GROWING LOUDER]

ARCHIVIST (CONT’D)

(losing breath) Georgie, Melanie! You’re safe; it’s Jon and Martin!

MARTIN

(whispering) I mean, (pant) are we sure it’s them? The Spiral does—

ARCHIVIST

(quiet, growing closer) Yes, I’m sure.

GEORGIE

(warily) Melanie... it’s okay. Maybe. It’s... well, it’s Jon. And Martin. Or, at least, things that look like them.

MELANIE

Are their fingers all long and pointy?

GEORGIE

Not that I can tell.

MELANIE

Works for me. (raising her voice) Martin? Martin, my fellow Chinese-in-arms, are you there?

[POWER-WALKING SOUNDS STOP.]

MARTIN

(normal volume) Yeah! (pant) Jon’s here too, we’re—hi, Georgie!

GEORGIE

(somewhat stiff) Hello.

ARCHIVIST

(overlapping) Georgie—

MELANIE

(overlapping) Oh, thank god.

ARCHIVIST

Melanie! I’m glad to see the both of you safe, too; I couldn’t quite see—

MELANIE

No, not that—well, yes that, but also! (clap-clap) Martin!

MARTIN

(confused) What?

MELANIE

Martin, I’ve been waiting months to say this to someone who’ll appreciate it properly—

MARTIN

Say…?

MELANIE (CONT'D)

—and don’t you dare spoil this for me, Eye Boy.

ARCHIVIST

Well, I can’t actually read your—

MELANIE

We’ll talk about that later! That, and also why the fuck you’re here and what the fuck’s going on—but later! Just give me this first!

GEORGIE

Oh, wait, I remember her mentioning this a few times, but she was really vague about it—

MELANIE

Georgie, I love you, but shush! (exhale) Okay. (serious voice) Martin. This is for you. Are you looking at me? I’m pointing at my face. Look at me pointing at my face.

MARTIN

(confused) Alright...

MELANIE

Are you ready?

MARTIN

I-I dunno, I guess?

MELANIE

Okay. (inhale, exhale) (in an almost painfully put-on corny voice) Dang, look at those empty sockets! I guess they were right about us Asians having no eyes!

MARTIN and GEORGIE

(simultaneously) ... Oh my god.

MARTIN

(beginning to giggle) Christ, that’s—

GEORGIE

(overlapping) This is what you’ve been sitting on for six months?

MELANIE

You wouldn’t have appreciated it! Martin’s the only one of our friends who’s allowed to laugh at it! Well, I guess Jon too...?

ARCHIVIST

(laughing too) Technically, though I suppose the stereotype doesn’t quite apply…

GEORGIE

(undeterred) Six months, Melanie!

MELANIE

Exactly! Six months! Imagine what that felt like! Having to keep my genius hemmed up and silent, never to hear the glory of applause, of unrepressed laughter, of recognition—

GEORGIE

(starting to giggle) Melanie, that’s not—

MELANIE

Don’t care what the end of that sentence is!

ARCHIVIST

I’m- (laughing) I’m with Melanie on this one.

GEORGIE

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we’re all with Melanie on this one, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a dreadful person—

MELANIE

Excuse me! I am a delight, a visionary, a prophet—

MARTIN

(still wheezing, almost crying) I can’t (gasp) believe (gasp) you—

[A LOUD THUD]

MARTIN

What was—

ARCHIVIST

... Good lord.

[TAPE CLICKS OFF]

-

[INT.? EXT.? EITHER WAY, SPIRAL.]

[TAPE CLICKS ON]

[SHOUTING IN THE BACKGROUND, A SKIRMISH? RUNNING FOOTSTEPS]

MELANIE

(whispering) Fucking worth it.

[TAPE CLICKS OFF]

[spiralesbian]

ALRIGHT

here’s my full Stranger Avatar Sasha Archivist timeline:

(also, thanks to @artbyblastweave for being so interested in my lil au!)

SEASON ONE

sasha james is hired as the head archivist of the magnus institute!

her assistants are jon, tim, and martin

tim takes the thematic role of martin (aka getting tormented by my worm wife jane, and stays in the archives)

sasha reads thru statements and is a skeptic! she really does not believe it’s real until jane comes along.

“tim……………………..did you die here?”

“no, but every time i come to work i die a little more inside.”

cute timsha moment in the supply closet tho.

until martin kool-aid-mans through the door and gets them out of there

jon used to work in artefact storage so he hides in there. he’ll be fine

i actually can’t remember how they all get out but they do it KKJSDGFJHD

sasha takes everyone’s statements. tim is fucked up, martin is also fucked up, jon is actually fine though he seems pretty normal about this whole situation most definitely.

sasha realizes this is a bit more than a regular archivist job.

SEASON TWO

sasha gets paranoid of course. she learns more about gertrude because she never got the chance to meet her

she takes a statement from a guy named michael shelley. weird dude. then helen shows up :)

jon is most definitely himself he is just a normal regular grumpy jon i swear :)

sasha starts to manifest her powers a little bit. she doesn’t know it, but she is an avatar of the stranger, and a prisoner of the eye.

she starts to notice more things about jon? similar to this comic but with jon

eventually she + tim + martin help get jon out of the grip of the NotJon. this is my au and i get to choose who dies (it’s no one because i miss the s1 archival assistants too much).

jon is pretty fucked up from this though and at like a season-3-tim mindset already.

fucking goddamn leitner avatar of the fucking whore shows up to trap the NotJon in one of his shitty fucking novels. fuck this guy tho

he’s like Sasha We Must Talk and shes like okay but stay 8 ft away from me at all times you bitch

she leaves the room for 10 minutes and pipe murder occurs. good riddance

wait are the cops in the season i genuinely can’t remember. if they are, their roles don’t change very much. melanie and sasha feud, battle of the bi queens

SEASON THREE:

uh oh! girlie’s be framed for murder! she crashes at her ex gf georgie’s flat. also the admiral is there don’t think i would EVER cut him out of this story

(also jon is georgie’s ex too because i think that would be fun JDHBFHS)

sasha learns abt an upcoming web ritual (mirroring the unknowing), all that shit. gets kidnapped a ton of times, as usual.

helen is like “i am going to kill you because i hate gertrude <3 i was that dumb bitch’s assistant for too long” but michael busts out of the door like Hi Guys and traps her in the hallway.

sasha also gives her statement about a leitner she found as a child that marked her. its a stranger book and we learn her edgy orphan origin story how her parents were both murked by the stranger. fucked up if true!

back at the archives jon is like so fucking tired of this shit honestly and now martin is also pretty paranoid. also jm romance subplot is still very present!

tim is just trying to protect sasha at all times and he’s pissed she keeps leaving the country and getting fucking kidnapped

(remember when jon persuades the traffic cop?) sasha starts to fill her archivist role in a different way. she can shapeshift into the subject of a statement and uses her affiliation with the eye to coerce statements or info out of people. (example: if she needed a live statement from the guy in #90 Body Builder, she could temporarily make herself look like jared hopworth to the guy and ask “what happened to me?” or “what did i do?” and the guy would be like well he built some fucken bodies i guess let me tell you all about it) while reading the statements in america that refuel her, she fully shapeshifts into the statement giver while reading out loud.

once again i truly can’t remember daisy + basira’s roles until the end of the season. also melanie get shot by the ghost at some point

anyways sasha gets kidnapped by trevor and julia and they gerry lays out all the shit for her and she’s like ah! i’m fucked

tim offhand mentions the web ritual to martin and he loses his shit cause he’s marked by the web blah blah this isn’t a web!martin thing i swear i just need someone to fill tim’s role in the ritual and a lonely ritual would be fucking boring as hell as we learned from ass man peter lukas. i hate that man

so they make the plan to stop the web ritual (which is fucking hard when the offense knows your every move) so sasha, basira, daisy, jon, and martin go.

tim stays back at the institute to burn shit and distract elias. elias does some fucked up shit as usual and it makes me sad

the ritual starts! they have a plan to blow it up and run but like. u know how it goes

instead of the unknowing-stranger-dream-sequence, we get everyone kinda mixed up in a huge spider’s web on the big stage and its still quite confusing because this ritual not only manipulates the prey, but also the prey’s perceived reality. the web is also in current control of the buried coffin cause they think that shit is kinda fun. they yeet daisy into it.

hard to describe what happens, but basira keeps her cool, jon is a bit lost in his own mind, sasha tries to use her powers to escape but fails. she manages to get through to martin through the strings and mounds of spiders and she tosses him the detonator.

[squishing spider noises]

SEASON FOUR:

martin doesn't die, i told you i can't kill the og archival assistants! he does lose most of one leg though, he took the blunt of the explosion.

sasha in da hospital in da coma. tim is mad he can’t wake her up and then my man ollie says “ur fucked up mate” and she wakes up

(and because coma jon has such wild hair controversy, i’m establishing that her head was shaved when she was in the coma. it grows back thru s4. it she keeps one side shaved cause she’s cool)

meanwhile tim is recruited by that dumbass man you know who i don’t even wanna say his stupid fucking name

sasha gets daisy out of the buried. they become avatar pals!

(there is the biggest blank in my memory where all of season four should be. at this point i should just relisten to the entire fucking show but i would literally just forget it all again)

melanie says hm. fuck this! and blinds herself. she goes to live with georgie (and that’s the moment jon and sasha realize they are both georgie’s exes FHFHDJD)

tim continues to fight the lonely pull. he thinks that since p*ter l*kas is tied to the institute, he can blind himself out cause melanie was successful. he is wrong. he is also interrupted by elias midway, and only blinds one eye, and loses most of his sight in the other. elias’s hold on him is weak, but this just drives him way farther into the lonely.

gotta be honest i remember the end of season four but like i couldn’t visualize what was happening at the end so i like don’t understand what happened JGDKFJGD but sasha intervenes (???) and peter yeets tim into the lonely (???) and sasha jumps in (??????) after him. elias is just there i guess?

instead of “look at me martin,” sasha finds tim and at this point her form is warped and hard to recognize because of stranger powers, and tim is almost 100% blind, so she says “don’t look at me, see me. see me tim, it’s me.” and finally creates a clear image of herself. “it’s...it’s you. you’re my sasha.”

they break free and go to scotland i guess KHSDDKDSF

idk what happens with jon and martin im losing continuity at this point. fuck it, they smooch <3

“ah these are the statements.”

“yes. basira said last week she’d send some up as soon as the archives weren’t a crime scene. and she wasn’t sure which ones you’ve read already, so she, she just said she’d send a bunch.”

“.........Hello Sasha.”

(alternate ending: personally i think sasha would read through each statement before speaking them aloud cause that’s what i would fucking do, so she would get this statement and be like “lmao tim come look at this elias trying to prank me dumb bitch think i’ll start the apocalypse for him. fucking little puny bitch boy. anyways what do you want for dinner?”)

SEASON FIVE:

“just. listen.”

“...i’m dead. and you have been chosen to be my replacement as head archivist. hopefully, this means you, jon, but if someone else is hearing this, and elias has made a different choice for some reason, then these words are still very much intended for you.”

sasha in full stranger avatar mode and is like 8ft tall and her faces shift a lot as they go through the realms. except the stranger is the second to last one (the panopticon is last obviously).

helen and michael actually talk shit out in the spiral hallway and now they are mlm wlw solidarity and both like tim and sasha are such bi and trans icons <3 this is so fun don’t you love the fearpocalypse <3

oh daisy n basira trapped in the hunt, and jon and martin are trapped in the stranger. wtgfs + the admiral are like in space or some shit idk but they are ok :)

not much to report other than she is my monster wife <3

i really don’t have many theories to how everything in s5 is gonna pan out, and i would like to closely mirror the actual show, so maybe as we get closer to the end i’ll build more on to this! thanks a lot for all the notes on my first sarchivist post!! also if u wanna make art this specific au DEF tag me in it i’d love to see!!

[phoebehalliwell]

!!!! Piper finding out she's pregnant with Kyle's baby!!!!

okay no but see i’ve been thinking about an au where like we go like balls to the fall canon with piper and kyle still a slowburn obvi but. season six still remains pretty much intact expect for the fact that, while chris knows he’s piper’s son, he has no idea who his father is bc, in the dark future variant of the piper/kyle timeline kyle would definitely end up sacrificing himself to save piper fully not knowing that she was pregnant (odds are she didn’t even know) which would probably be a breaking point for piper okay let’s go into detail.

chris (khris? lmao? wait should i remain him after kyle’s dad? jon hamm? jack. shure we’ll call him jack to differentiate even tho u gotta admit. kyle!chris would basically be the same as canon!chris bc like. look at him. like he is very much Not like leo. but like. could ever easily be kyle’s son. but, to differentiate, here’s jack halliwell, the bastard of the charmed line.) bc wyatt is the son of a piper halliwell and leo wyatt this is a known fact especially because leo remains one of the last pillars of the elders in said dark future and everyone begs him to do some grand act to stop wyatt but he never does that’s his son that is his son he can’t he cannot kill him he still believes there’s some good in wyatt there has to be some good in wyatt we’ll say jack even had an opportunity to kill wyatt after killed piper and leo intervened and saved wyatt’s life which is why, if chris hates leo, it’s nothing compared to jack’s beef. and like. quite frankly. okay here me out this timeline is about to get real weird. leo becomes and elder at the end of s5, jack’s doing as he steps into his place as the charmed ones whitelighter, seeing as he’s still a witchlighter. kyle takes the place of sheridan in the sense that he enters the narrative in s6. jack, for the record, has no idea this is his father. kyle works kinda parallel to the story, jack is trying to find out exactly what’s going on with wyatt becoming evil to no avail, kyle’s like idk doing something they have interacted a couple times they don’t like each other. we push forward the avatars narrative, giving gideon pause. evil wyatt isn’t possible in utopia, the avatars would neutralize him before he became a threat. gideon actively advocates for the avatars. kyle becomes more integrated as the avatars become more relevant, jack continues his digging on the wyatt situation, somehow finds out that gideon was the one who turned wyatt evil by attempting to murder him, which immediately brings into question the avatars, since gideon is such a big fan of theirs. does a bit more digging, finds out that utopia comes at the cost of free will, anyone who isn’t perfect is eliminated. he’s about to blow the cover on the whole thing when either gideon or the avatars kill him. piper is devastated bc like we’ll say she still knew that was her son. like he’s been there a while phoebe’s a psychic and at some point he’s kinda gotta fess up as to how and why he knows so much about the family. and his death has been pinned on somebody else in a play to get piper’s support behind the avatars. kyle becomes more integral here as, up until this point, he’s assisted on a couple cases (i.e. a styx feet under situation, but his main focus has always been the avatars) but piper’s like listen they just killed my son i need everything in my arsenal to get revenge and i mean if there’s one language he speaks it’s revenge. kyle and piper together are actually amazing at deciphering jack’s notes because it like walks immediately down the middle road of how their brains works which for the record they literally never piece together the part where jack’s their son, but, in all fairness, jack didn’t know that either. issue being jack had multiple theories so there are a lot of one off demon adventures to further strengthen their bond and like. piper still doesn’t fully trust kyle. also jack was her son, so there’s a personal element here too, but the main reason piper has the most interaction with kyle is because she’s protecting her sisters from him because she still does not trust him for shit, and she wants to keep him distant from her family which is undeniably her vulnerabile spot. and like, kyle is 100% aware she’s doing this, but he doesn’t really care because, again, his primary motivation is stopping the avatars. everything he does is just to get him closer to that goal. he just has to get piper to trust him because he’s feeling like the power of three is crucial to that goal. catch-22 tho, because it is the feeling that he needs the power of three that makes piper so untrusting of him. the jack cases are their bonding era where they start to steer away from their previous mindsets. we see kyle do something entirely selfless, without ulterior motive. we knows he did this, piper does not. blah blah blah, they get to the meat of the matter with jack’s notes and find out the whole avatars/gideon thing just in time to stop utopia, kyle dies in the process. as he saved the world, they make him a whitelighter, and, as an act of good faith because after learning gideon’s plans for evil wyatt, piper is very very against the elder, and then also because the charmed ones have been without whitelighter since jack, they assign kyle as their new whitelighter. blah blah blah something something something again. slowburn. this time added, because piper has done the forbidden love thing once before and she’s not gonna do it again. and kyle’s like that’s my coworker. whatever respect i have for piper is professional. and paige and phoebe are also there like. like piper and kyle are drift compatible (in a sense, piper hates his moral compass and yells at him a lot, but they understand how the other thinks) phoebe thinks kyle is weird and paige thinks kyle has a major stick up his ass (which he does!!) also. fuck it. kyle keeps his job at the fbi like how are they gonna know he died. and sinces he’s a newly minted whitelighter it’s not like he’s got other charges. it’s just the charmed ones and then working at his job. so blah blah blah piper will bring cases to him he will bring cases to piper so on and so forth again. slowburn. he’s literally their whitelighter piper’s still like. don’t trust him. sometimes kyle says this is how you should do that and piper chews him out because like. fuck you!! and then maybe ends up doing it that way anyways which kyle will be really smug about he’ll never bring it up in conversation but again piper and kyle’s communication is unspoken so she knows when he’s invoking it and he knows that she knows. and phoebe and paige both have two insanely different views to their relationship piper and kyle are talking strategy while paige scrys (scries?) and piper’s brewing potion and her and kyle are like. they’re in disagreement meaning it’s a lot of silence a long of prolonged, bitter stares, stubbornness, speaking in low and controlled voices in an attempt to sound like the more rational one when it’s very obvious both of them wanna be yelling their points but they’re not it’s all in a very low register it ends with kyle yielding grabbing the final potion ingredient getting unnecessarily close to piper and saying i guess you know best dropping the ingredient in and orbing out in the puff of smoke from the potion and piper just keeping her gaze level even after he’s gone with just steel in her eyes like you’re goddamn right i do  like the energy doesn’t dissipate she’s still buzzing from it and paige just over in the corner of the attic like ...............................so um. have you guys fucked about it yet? and piper’s like have we what (yes.) and paige is like yeah there’s a lot of unresolved tension there it’s getting pretty weird to be in a room with the two of you so you should probably um. fuck about it. Versus. piper phoebe and kyle being all out on some excursion kinda akin to the things w the guardian angels where there’s press everywhere and they’ve saved the day and are trying to get the hell out of dodge and there are press cameras and kyle sees them first and immediately positions himself in between them and piper piper notices the cameras and tenses up kyle puts his hand on piper’s lower back to steer the two of them out of the maze of a media frenzy and phoebe’s like Oh. you two are In Love in love. which piper is absolutely against like absolutely not no and phoebe’s like oh come on you told him about your fear of the press after the prue thing i can tell the way he moved to get you out of that situation and piper’s like i’ve literally never told him that and phoebe like okay well. he knows regardless, which actually speaks volumes more than if you had told him. so congrats!! and piper’s like no. absolutely not. paige and phoebe compared notes after they find out they have bold made bold statements about piper and kyle and then realize that not only have they definitely slept together they are also definitely in love and Do Not Realize It